Spike was put in charge of finding the rogue Changeling in the Crystal Empire, and met Thorax in one of the arctic caves. Thorax revealed that he wasn’t like Chrysalis and wanted to share love, instead of feasting on it. As a result, Spike offered to help by having him disguise as a crystal Pony to gain their respect in time.
However, Thorax’s cover was blown when Cadence introduced him to Flurry Heart, making everyone shun him. This left Spike with the most powerful decision: To tell the whole empire that the Changeling is his friend, by singing a song about how everyone...even enemies can change.
But, what if something else happened?
What if instead of meeting Flurry Heart (which led to Thorax’s cover being blown), Spike and Thorax both ran away to save face, and themselves? How different would it have been? How would Twilight and Starlight react? How would Cadence and Shining Armor react? How would the empire react?
What would happen next would be the empire, Shining, Cadence, Twilight and Starlight having to go search for the missing dragon and Changeling, and they would also learn a different way that there is such a thing as a nice Changeling. What if that happened instead of a song?
An alternate ending to The Times They Are A Changeling, and the fifth in my alternate ending series.
For what?!
Hahahahahahahahahaha Starlight’s pissed now.
Well uh-
I understood nothing
I love this reference.
Oh no! Not itchy!
So I really like the idea behind this fic...but its execution leaves a lot to be desired. It constantly jumped abruptly from point to point, making it feel chaotic in pacing and occasionally difficult to follow, it'd shift from comedic to gravely serious without warning that it was often jarring, and above all, the motivations for Spike running away in the first place are painfully forced and with no real given justification--the way the story portrays it, it was as if Spike was all feeling confident about introducing Thorax via his disguise as Crystal Hoof, but then hears Cadance call for him and immediately looses all confidence in that plan and decides to bail and run away so suddenly, you get metaphorical whiplash from it. All that talk about Spike fearing he would be beaten if caught with Thorax also felt needlessly dark, or least there was no given reason why Spike should fear such a thing--get in trouble, yes, maybe even detained...but beaten? If the story gave some sort of clue that this could be a possibility (even if misconstrued from something more innocent), then that could've flown a bit better, but it doesn't. Spike just automatically assumed the worst case without any apparent reason or justification, and it makes it a hard sell for the reader and thus not very believable.
It seemed like an odd spot in the episode to divert from the canon plot at anyway--personally, I think you would've been better served either having Spike decide to runaway without ever resorting to the Crystal Hoof disguise in the first place (deciding to flee instead of trying the disguise at all), or better still at the moment Thorax is revealed as a changeling when seeing Flurry Heart, but instead Spike comes to Thorax's defense instead of chickening out, and they flee then.
Still, it was a good idea...just in need of a bit more refining, I think.
References to Toy Story 2, Freakazoid, and Return to Neverland, love it!
When did Thorax become a celebrity in the Crystal Empire, and how did he risk it?
Wait, so Spike and Thorax ran away...because he over reacted when someone called his name? Makes him kinda stupid, doesn't it?