Part II, Chapter 10 - A Plot for Revenge
Captain Shining Armor looked over the ponies before him. There were five guards all looking straight ahead, each one of them with stoic expressions that belied the intense nervousness that lay behind them.
Two of the guards were the ones escorting the changeling Thorax at the time of the assault against him.
One was a member of the mage corps that specialized in research of changeling magic, and had crafted a spell that allowed ponies to shapeshift into another form.
Another two were on leave until a few hours ago, the magic signature on the armor reclaimed from a nearby bathroom belonging to the both of them.
The captain of the guard rubbed his hoof against his head. The quintet of guards had all taken part in the attack against the changeling, as well as placing enchantments against his friend Ouium to make him open the case for the weapons that Feather Duster and Elbow Grease used. He placed his hoof back down as he glared daggers at the guards before him.
"Let me just go on record as saying that I am EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED IN ALL OF YOU!" Shining reprimanded them. The loud voice caused all of the guards to flinch, with some more pronounced than others.
Shining walked down the line as he examined each and every one of them. Most dared not look the stallion in the eye, the shame apparent on their faces.
"My wife and I strive to lead the Crystal Empire in a manner that promotes peace and friendship", he continued,"and your actions here today have spat all over that sentiment. Moreover, those actions also reflect poorly on me, and while I cannot say that I have a favorable viewpoint on certain individuals residing here in the empire, I know well enough not to take such drastic and despicable actions against them."
Shining paused as he looked over to the side at a smelting forge. Lighting his horn, he shot a spell at the fire pit, bringing the coals to life. He also grabbed a bellows from a nearby hook on the wall and began bringing the heat up.
"For your disgrace of the armor of the royal guard, I hereby dismiss all of you from your duty with unfavorable letter. You are to remove all of your armor and place it into the forge so it can be smelted down into armor for new, and far more worthy recruits than yourselves."
All of the guards knew what was coming, but to hear it was something altogether different. They were no longer guards, and they couldn't even travel to mainland Equestria to try and join a guard post there; unfavorable letter meant that the guard posts would immediately exclude a candidate upon receiving application to join. Worse yet, the unfavorable letter wouldn't sit well with future employers, so any of the former guards looking for jobs in the future would have to explain what they did to get that unfavorable letter.
One by one, each guard approached the forge and removed the armor, setting each piece in the hot coals and watching them begin to glow red as the metal reached a temperature to become malleable. Afterwards, each guard received their dismissal papers and were sent out.
One guard, the mage, wept as they watched their armor glow red and lose shape. The let the tears fall down their cheeks as they collected their paperwork and left the palace.
Inside the prisoner hold of the Crystal Guard barracks, Feather Duster and Elbow Grease sat in separate cells. Upon being brought in, both ponies were read off their list of crimes; Committing a violent act in the Crystal Palace, committing a violent act in the Crystal Empire, theft of property, and conspiracy to commit crimes. Feather had been slapped with use of mind manipulation spells against an unwilling individual for what she did to Ouium.
Elbow sat in his cell as he thought over the events that led to him ending up here. Hearing that he would be assigned to train and watch the changeling that swore it wanted to be friends had irked him, but he thought that he could rein it in. "Be the better pony", he'd thought.
Then he had a conversation with Feather. The mare showed a clear displeasure with having a changeling suddenly put into their group, even more so than Elbow did. She noticed his displeasure with the situation, and convinced him to side with her and find a way to get rid of this changeling.
Their early attempts were to simply make him uncomfortable and want to leave, but then he had to get buddy-buddy with Brass and Sunburst. With those two giving him the friendship he supposedly desired, the changeling saw no reason to leave. Even after it had been kept up for months, the desire to stay remained.
Of course, their earlier transgressions had caught up with them, and they were fired. Well, Elbow was; Feather resigned rather abruptly. As he was leaving, Feather stopped him and convinced him that if 'the bug' wouldn't leave on his own, then they would make absolutely sure that he couldn't try and cause harm to anypony here.
So, they donned costumes to look like changelings, grabbed some weapons, and ambushed him when the guards gave the OK with an impromptu bathroom break in a hall with a faulty light set. Feather had even went the extra mile and concocted some stage trickery with pink-dyed water to make it look like she was actually draining love from the guard, helping to sell the idea of a changeling attack.
All of it was for naught anyways. By the middle of the next morning, the guards had figured out what really happened and came after them. Now the two sat in jail cells waiting to find out their fate.
Feather sat in her own cell, brooding. The mare had thought she had planned everything out properly, but mentally punched herself for being so stupid. She should've left the Crystal Empire that very night, but she was so full of herself that she insisted they would be okay until the next morning and chose to down several bottles of top shelf booze in celebration.
That was all a moot point now. Here she was, locked behind bars and awaiting a decision on what would happen with her. In truth, she already knew her fate: prison. She also knew that there was no way out of it. All she could think of in her mind was revenge, but not against who you would think.
"I want to get even" Feather said quietly to herself.
Thorax laid in the hospital bed infirmary. Doctor Caduceus had examined him with what limited knowledge he had on changelings and deduced that Thorax could probably be able to return to his daily routine tomorrow, though he would make the recommendation to both the Princess and Madam Ammonia that he be limited to four hours per day for the next two weeks instead of the usual eight. Though, if Thorax knew Ammonia like he did, she would simply have him perform lighter duties for the full eight instead of reducing how long he worked.
A knock at the door got his attention. He looked up and was greeted by a pleasant, yet rather unexpected surprise.
"Heartfelt?!"
The stallion gave a nod as he walked into the room. "Somepony told me you got a walloping from some ponies, so I figured I'd come by and see how you are doing."
Thorax smiled. "I'm already doing a lot better" he told Heartfelt, then frowned. "Of course, that's because my body started taking love from ponies around me when I was unconscious."
Heartfelt rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeah, I heard about that", he told the changeling,"but I don't think you should really blame yourself for that."
"But that's exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to avoid when I came here!" Thorax exclaimed, his hooves falling to his sides in exasperation.
"Well, if it helps, you can apologize to all the ponies you did it to when you were out cold" Heartfelt offered.
"I suppose" Thorax relented, but then changed subject. "I haven't seen you for a while. What happened to you."
"Well", Heartfelt started out awkwardly,"A few different things. I had to serve the community service for not reporting you, which was spending several hours a day cleaning the storm drains and streets of refuse. Then, the princess and captain informed me that, while I wouldn't be fired, I was suspended from having use of an office in the palace for six months. All in all, not as bad as I thought it would be, but still a bit frustrating overall. Honestly, my patients were more perturbed about it than I was."
Thorax looked at the stallion with confusion. "Your patients?"
Heartfelt nodded. "In addition to being on call for the princess, captain and palace staff, I was also permitted to run a practice inside the palace for ponies to come and see me for treatment as well. Ever since my punishment began, however, I've had to lease a space in the empire for six months so I could continue seeing my patients outside the palace."
"All because of me" Thorax said hanging his head.
"Not because of you", Heartfelt reaffirmed,"Because I didn't fess up to knowing where you were so the guard could arrest you. If they had, you'd be in a jail cell now."
"I also wouldn't have gotten beaten up so bad" Thorax tried to counter.
"There's no guarantee about that", Heartfelt countered back,"From what I understand, the guards in the palace dungeons can be a rather rough bunch, and a good many of them were present in Canterlot during the wedding, so I think it's safe to assume they probably have a great deal of prejudice against changelings because of that."
Thorax wanted to protest, but couldn't. He knew that there were more than a few guards that would've loved nothing more than to see him either taken to the dungeons, or booted from the empire entirely. It really wasn't that big of a stretch to think that some of them might want to turn him into a living piñata if they had the chance. "I suppose you're right" he finally conceded.
"Anyhow", Heartfelt said, electing to change topics,"One of the reasons I came down here besides seeing if you're okay is to see how you have been doing. To that end, how have you been doing?"
"It was rough to start with", Thorax began,"My first day here, and the cleaning crew they put me with were rather harsh with me, except for Brass. The other two, Feather and Elbow, they seemed to want to treat me as poorly as possible."
"I'll say", Heartfelt interrupted,"They're the two that attacked you I presume?"
Thorax nodded. "They would go out of their way to treat me as poorly as possible. The first day was the worst, but the days after that weren't much better."
"But you at least were able to be on better terms with Brass" Heartfelt pointed out.
"Oh, most definitely", Thorax said rather excitedly,"I can actually call her a friend."
Heartfelt gave a small grin. "You actually made friends with one of the ponies here, huh? Not that I should be too surprised. After all, you made friends with Princess Twilight, her student, Spike and me."
"And with Sunburst" Thorax added.
"The crystaller?", Heartfelt said with a raised brow,"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to weasel your way into the royal family." Thorax's eyes went wide and he began to try and deny the claim, but the stallion's hoof stopped him. "Just kidding" he assured the changeling.
A knock at the door caused both Heartfelt and Thorax to look up. Standing there was a mare all too familiar to the changeling.
"Brass!" he said with excitement.
"Hey Thorax" she said as she walked over and gave the changeling a hug. "Feeling better?"
"A lot, actually" he answered,"Of course, that's because my body just started taking love like everypony around me was just another dish on a buffet."
"You weren't conscious and able to control your body", Brass countered in a somewhat scolding tone,"That would be like getting upset at a young colt or filly when they have an accident in the bed."
"Other ponies won't see it like that" he responded weakly.
"As I said before, tough cookies to them!" Brass stated confidently. "Anyways, I came to give you some good news."
Thorax perked up upon hearing that. "What good news?"
"Feather and Elbow were arrested a few hours ago", Brass informed the changeling,"The princess is deciding what to do with them now."
"What do you think is gonna happen to them?" Thorax asked.
"The safe money is they'll be in jail for a long time", Brass answered,"but I wouldn't rule out having the two of them sent to Canterlot for even worse punishment."
"Even worse?", Thorax questioned,"What could be worse than going to jail?"
"Going to Tartarus" Heartfelt chimed in.
Thorax went wide eyed upon hearing that. To changelings, Tartarus was something akin to the boogeymare for ponies, but the difference was that Tartarus was real. According to the stories, only the worst of the worst ended up in that place. It was enchanted to remove any and all magic that entered that place. If a changeling was ever sent there, they would probably never come back alive.
"I hope it's just prison, then" Thorax said.
"Really?!" Brass exclaimed in disbelief,"Those two try to kill you and you don't want the Greater Manehattan Address book thrown at them?!"
"I'm not one for harsh punishments", Thorax admitted,"I've been on the end of more than I care to recall. That kind of treatment tends to make you have something of a softer stance on how one is punished."
"Well, you might not want them to get that strong a punishment", she said,"but I hope they get everything they deserve coming to them!"
The room went silent for a minute before Heartfelt elected to change the subject. "I wanted to mention it earlier, but I actually received a letter from Princess Twilight and Spike the other day."
Thorax looked at him with surprise. "Really? What did they say?"
Heartfelt retrieved the letter and paraphrased from it. "Basically, they asked how I was doing and how you yourself were doing. They're on a trip to Yakyakistan to try and smooth out some issues with the yaks there, and two of the other element bearers were sent to Dodge Junction for a 'friendship problem', whatever that is."
Thorax let what he was hearing sink in. Yakyakistan was not terribly far away from the Crystal Empire. Perhaps Princess Twilight and Spike might visit him on their way back? He hoped so.
"I really am glad that you're getting better", Brass reiterated,"I wasn't sure what was gonna happen if I hadn't acted when I did."
Thorax looked at her with confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Well", Brass looked at him sheepishly,"I kinda locked myself in here with you while you were out cold and let you feed on me."
"What?!" Thorax blurted out in shock, causing a guard standing outside to burst in and see what was happening.
Heartfelt intervened. "There's no trouble", he assured the guard,"Just told the changeling some surprising news, that's all."
The guard eyed the group wearily, but backed out and closed the door.
Thorax looked at Brass disapprovingly. "That was not a good idea Brass", he scolded,"I didn't have any control of myself. I could've drained you to the point of being catatonic, or worse maybe."
"I know that!", Brass retorted,"I knew the risks, but I wanted to help you get better. That was the only way I knew how."
"It was still not a good idea, Brass!" the changeling said sternly as he continued to scold his friend.
"I don't care!", she shot back, her voice showing her clear frustration with the lack of appreciation for her actions. "I did it so you would get better, and nothing bad happened to me! I didn't even feel any of the symptoms!"
That caught Heartfelt's attention. "Hold up a minute", he said to the mare,"You didn't feel the symptoms?"
"Yeah, that's what I said" she told the stallion.
"No headaches or weakness?" he pressed.
"No, none of that" she reiterated.
"How?", he asked in confusion,"Anypony that's had love drained from them for any extended period of time has suffered at least a little bit of mild fatigue and a headache."
The mare shrugged. "I don't know", she answered him,"Maybe I could just deal with the effects better than other ponies."
Heartfelt sat there trying to figure out how a pony could be fed on by a changeling and not suffer any ill effects. He wanted to question it further, but another knock came upon the door, which cracked open slightly.
"Doctor Caduceus said you two need to leave now", came the voice of the guard,"He needs to check on the changeling."
Heartfelt and Brass both acknowledged what the guard said and turned back to Thorax. "I'll be back to visit you after my shift is over" Brass told him as she left the room.
"I'll be back later on too", added Heartfelt,"I definitely want to investigate how Brass could be fed on and not feel any adverse effects." With that, the stallion left.
Feather sat in her cell, awaiting Princess Cadance to come and decide her fate. Of course, she already knew she was going to jail. The real question was what else was in store for her.
The unicorn mare blamed the princess for her current predicament, and was thinking of ways to get revenge. Some of her ideas were impossible, such as finding a way to get laxative into one of her meals, but others were a little more practical, like a smear campaign by a tabloid. Celestia knows there was plenty of goings on in the Crystal Palace that could cause quite a scandal.
In that moment, a light bulb went off inside Feather's mind.
On the first day she had to work with the changeling, she was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement where she would not talk about the changeling in the palace for fear of starting a panic. All of the staff did, and the local newspapers put out a story saying that the changeling had been run off and that the danger posed several months ago was now gone.
Feather realized quickly what was going on.
"She wants to keep the changeling under wraps, but why?"
The truth of the matter about that question was that Feather didn't actually want an answer. Instead, her mind formulated the perfect revenge given her current situation. The mare rose to her hooves and walked over to the cell door where a guard stood nearby.
"Guard!", she said loud enough to catch his attention,"I'd like to send my correspondence now!"
The Crystal Empire Babbler was a tabloid newspaper just like any other. Besides celebrity gossip columns, they often published sensationalized stories with either no truth whatsoever, or very little truth that couldn't be confirmed or denied by any sources. Most of the ponies didn't bother with it, but a few bought the paper as either a novelty or kindling for a campfire.
One of the most prominent "reporters" for the paper was a unicorn mare named Juicy Scoop. With a soft pink mane pulled back in a bun, and fuchsia coat, she was fairly attractive to most ponies, so no surprise when the colt from the mail room repeatedly tried hitting on her.
"Hey there Juicy!" came the voice of the colt.
Juicy just looked up at him with a smile that was meant to convey the message "Fat chance, buddy."
"Hello Manila", she greeted back.
"Still gonna say no to a drink after work?" he asked her.
"Come on, Manila", she teased him,"Why should we ruin the good thing we have going?"
The stallion looked a little miffed. "Because we don't have anything going."
"And why should we spoil that?" she answered back with a bigger smile.
"Fine", he said as he floated a letter onto her desk,"but don't come crawling to me when you become an old spinster mare, or a mare that has twenty or so cats covering your apartment in urine stains." With that quip, the stallion walked on with his cart.
Juicy let the smile fall from her face and replaced it with an annoyed frown. "When will that colt get it through his thick skull?" she asked to no one in particular.
Redirecting her attention to the envelope, she opened it with her magic and took out the contents. Strangely, as she was opening it, she noted it was addressed from a guard station here in the Crystal Empire.
"Huh, that's weird" she thought as she opened and read the letter. After a few lines of writing, her eyes went wide. Immediately, she shot up from her desk and grabbed her saddlebags full of blank notebooks and writing pencils as she hurried out of the building.
Thorax had just finished with his examination with Doctor Caduceus. According to the assessment, he would be able to return to full duty in a week's time. After the doctor left, the guard outside delivered a letter to him. Looking at it, he saw that it was addressed from both Princess Twilight and Spike. He quickly opened up the envelope and found two pieces of paper inside. He opened the first and read it.
Dear Thorax,
I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you recently, and I'm also very happy to hear that you will recover just fine from it. I've also heard that the two ponies responsible for what happened to you were arrested. It honestly makes me sick to hear that any of the ponies in Equestria would stoop so low as to carry out such violence.
Anyways, I wanted to let you know that Spike and I will make a stop on the way back from Yakyakistan to see how you're doing. We can't stay for very long, but we will spend a little bit of time with you.
I've talked with Cadance and she's agreed that if you want to move from the Crystal Empire to Ponyville, then she would help facilitate that. She also told me about what your first few months in the Crystal Empire have been like, and the fact you've made friends with a couple of ponies there. I'm still offering you the chance to come here and live with us, but I won't make you leave your new friends if you don't want to. We can discuss it more when Spike and I get there.
Hoping you feel all better soon,
Twilight
Thorax smiled as he read the note. It was nice to know that if he chose, he could go live with Spike and Twilight in Ponyville, but did he want to leave his new friends in the Crystal Empire behind? He put the question aside as he read the next piece of paper, which was a letter from Spike:
Dear Thorax,
Hope you're doing okay after what happened. I'm glad I wasn't there when they arrested the two who did that to you. I just might have burned them to a crisp if I had been.
Anyhow, Twilight and I are gonna be by after we finish with some stuff here in Yakyakistan, so you'll get to see our smiling faces real soon.
Twilight also told me that she was gonna offer to have you come live with us back in Ponyville. She has been talking to some of the ponies, and while there are plenty that are nervous about the idea of a changeling coming to live in Ponyville, there's at least a few that are open to the idea. The other girls would be in favor of it, I think. It might take Rainbow Dash a little longer to come around to the idea, but she usually takes longer than most ponies.
Anyways, I hope to see you good and healthy real soon!
Yours truly,
Spike
Thorax sat back as he looked at the letters with a big smile. He could feel a warm feeling pooling in his chest, and he knew that it was love and appreciation for the concern being showed by his friends. While changelings could feel those feelings for themselves, it was unknown as to why exactly they couldn't use it to sustain themselves.
Juicy Scoop entered the guard station where the letter she received told her to come. Upon entering, a guard sitting at a desk looked up at the mare. "May I help you?" the guard asked her.
"Yes", she answered,"I received a letter asking for me to come see a pony being held here."
The guard floated a clipboard over to the mare. "Sign in and the guard over there will take you back to the visiting area" they informed Juicy. The mare signed the paper with a nearby quill and walked towards the indicated guard, who led her back to a room with a pair of chairs and a table.
"Wait here for the pony you're visiting to be brought in", he instructed her,"And no conjugal visits. I personally have to clean this room after it's used." He then left and closed the door behind him.
As Juicy sat down, she took out the correspondence that she received. Reading it over, she hoped that what she was being told was actually true. Even if it weren't, it would still make for quite a story.
A moment later, and the guard opened the door again, leading in a unicorn mare with manacles on her hooves and a magic-suppressing ring on her horn. Juicy stood up to face the mare. "Feather Duster?" she asked, getting a confirming nod from the mare in question.
The guard cleared his throat to get the two mare's attention. "You have one hour of visitation", he informed the two,"No funny business and no escape attempts." With that, he left out the door again, leaving the two mares to talk.
"Well", began Juicy,"I guess we should have a seat and talk about what you wrote me for."
Feather agreed and took her seat across from the fuchsia mare. Juicy took out a blank writing tablet and a pencil and wrote a few brief notes before looking back at Feather.
"So", she continued,"You wrote that you have some really big story for me, and you swear that all of it is true?"
"Oh yes", Feather replied with an unsettling smile,"and it'll be quite the scandal when you break it to everypony."
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Oh boy, Feather no! Bad pony! Bad pony!
Those guards sure had that one coming, shame Shinning couldn't join them! At the very least I hope him & Cadence get reamed when Twilight/Spike come visit!
And speaking of slime I see Feather still causing trouble with that scum move, hope there's a place in Tartarus waiting for her!
I was wondering where Heartfelt disappeared to... Nice to see him again, and I wonder how long it'll take them to realize that sharing love with a changeling is perfectly safe (hopefully not long so Thorax can get his long-overdue hugs
). Feather, though... 
she can feel free to eat all the laxatives she can get her hooves on. I'll even send her some, she obviously needs it
Because hungry slaves who don't know better are more useful to Chrysalis than someone who has a choice, of course
who in their right mind would want to side with her?
With Spike just nearby, and might come by to visit. That 'scandal' will be fixed no time. Then again Spike and Twi will be accused of being changelings too... but there had to be a way to prove that they're not
Looks like Feather wants to go to Tartarus.
I mean, if the crimes committed weren't bad enough, she intends to violate a document that requires non-disclosere of info on her part.
So Feather actually is dumb enough to go after Cadance. That mare is digging herself into a deeper and deeper hole.
And Thorax should definitely accept the offer to go to Ponyville because it is more than clear that he’ll be better off there.
What, no attempted murder charge?
Don't worry, if they meet a yeti, Rainbow Dash promised to turn it to confetti.
Amazingly...I'm actually okay with this. Sure, the immediate road ahead will now be quite rough up ahead because of this...but publicizing Thorax's existence is eventually only going to help to further normalize the idea of a changeling being amongst their ranks without causing harm. So ultimately this is going to backfire on Feather in the end too.
You just have to get to that end first. And like I said, that bit's going to be...rough.
But doable. Or so history would suggest.
But of all the things Feather could've done, this is actually mostly harmless (at least by comparison--I mean, she did just try to kill somebody not so long ago. She totally could've tried that again somehow. I was half expecting her to, so this is definitely tame by comparison.)
Oh, and she's going to do it for a tabloid even? That's even better--there's inevitably going to be part of the audience that just won't take it seriously, since tabloids have a reputation for that and all, and more still that just won't even bother. I expect you plan for it to find a significant enough audience anyway (I mean, why else would you go this route?) but already that's going to hurt Feather's credibility simply through the medium she's choosing to broadcast it in. If she wanted to try and do some real damage with this, she should've tried getting a more mainstream newspaper to pick up her story than just some tabloid.
Of course, I say all of this despite knowing perfectly well the state of (mis)information in our day and age right here in the real world...but part of that is social media fanning the flames--thankfully, ponies won't have that until G5.
The fact this is already the case for said tabloid just reaffirms my stance on this--Feather's not going to get as expansive an audience as she could've through that tabloid.
But then again, she's already made plenty of dumb choices up to this point, so...what's a few more anyway?
And if its a move that's only going to shoot her in the hoof and keep her from doing as much damage as she could've...who am I to complain, really?
I know I've already said this plenty of times in past chapters, but I seriously would be down for that. And, logically, it probably would be the smarter move for all parties at this point if we really want to be honest with ourselves here.
And that's why I think it'd be a good idea. Ponyville's already used to this sort of thing, the idea of a former enemy coming to live among them. So long as the Mane 6 are there to supervise (and why wouldn't they be?), they're going to be at least willing to give the benefit of a doubt, unlike most here at the Crystal Empire.
Further, no more overkill on the restraints for Thorax, so that'd be an additional plus, which can also be spun as just yet another way for Thorax to prove he's being honest about his intentions. Really, it'd be win-win.
But I get part of this story's whole point is to explore Thorax dealing with the anti-changeling sentiment, and you'd probably loose some of that going to Ponyville, admittedly, so...
Sooo, was Twilight charged after releasing the Want It, Need It spell on the unwilling inhabitants of Ponyville? 😉
10970211
Granted it does accomplish the same effect, the Want It Need It was placed on an object. What Feather did was a direct attack on a pony. Also, Twilight had no malicious intent, whereas Feather did.
Twilight would get something along the lines of reckless endangerment, versus what Feather got, at least by my logic that's how it would go.