Chapter 28
Amie watched in silence as her brother transformed. The process was not as quick as she’d come to be, nor did it proceed as easily. For a moment she wondered if the magic would ever finish, or if he would just burn away everything in his stomach. Did it even work that way for him?
But then the light faded, and another creature stood before her. Or technically—an exact duplicate stood in front of her. The fake pegasus, right down to the familiar creamy feathers on her wings. For a few seconds Amie stared into an identical set of purple eyes, sniffing an exact copy of her own scent. Then she grinned. “You’re… me! I thought you said you didn’t want to be a girl.”
“I don’t,” said her duplicate, in her exact voice. Except that she radiated powerful embarrassment, in a way that neither she nor any other bug could possibly manifest. She had Wes’s familiar, halting speech too. “But Pachu'a didn’t stay long enough for me to copy him. I figured it would be easy to just copy someone right in front of me. Look, I did it!”
She opened her wings to either side, holding one up towards her face, then pulling it back quickly. “This is weird. The feathers and… the other stuff.”
Amie dismissed her own pegasus disguise, returning to her usual bug self. She half expected Wes to lose the form as soon as she did, but of course her powers didn’t work that way. Why should his? “I like being a pony a lot better than looking like this. They’re mammals too, so… everything is kinda where you expect it. No second eyelids, no goo instead of blood, and all the other gross stuff—ponies are better. If you don’t want the feathers, don’t be a pegasus.”
Wes circled the table with halting, exploratory steps. Occasionally she looked up into whatever reflective surface happened to be nearby, then got a little more embarrassed. “We just learned… several things. Transformation doesn’t care about sex, and I have the same powers as you do. Which means… we probably are the same species. Whatever that actually means.” She finally stopped, both wings snapping back against her sides. “I wonder if this is easier the second time… can I memorize this, or does a pony have to be there for me to copy?”
Amie watched her, grinning with her brother’s infectious energy. But after weeks of trying and failing to do something, she would probably be just as excited to have it finally work out. “It’s much easier the second time. Once I figure something out, going back to it is simple. And now that I think about it… copying another creature was easier for me.”
She had tried not to think about it, considering her first transformation came at the moment of death. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so sad for a pony who had murdered two camp staff without even trying to talk to them—but they had been trying to kill her at the time.
“Okay, okay. This is good, but I don’t want to be her. I need someone else. A guy, about your age, and a unicorn. Someone who would make for a good student, who could spend all his days in the library studying lost knowledge. Give me someone like that, and I’ll copy him!”
Amie rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a Burger King, Wes. You don’t get to make some silly order and have it your way.” She stopped, grinning weakly. “Was that Subway?”
“What do you care? You can’t eat food anymore.”
“Oh, yeah.” Her wings flattened, and she looked away from him. “I’m getting a lot better at my powers, but I don’t know if I’m that good. Usually I need to come up with a character first, figure out what they’re like, why they do what they do. Really get into my role, you know?”
“No,” she said. “There’s no way you can’t do it. You’re out at the navy base every day. You must see tons of ponies there. Just think of someone who’s close, and change them up a little.”
“If it’s so easy, you do it!” But that was too far. The pegasus slouched, her wings dragging suddenly on the floor. Her brother did not need reminding that he couldn’t do any of this stuff on his own.
“Sorry, sorry. You’ve done great. I should probably be getting ready for work, though. Inventing new bodies isn’t…”
“Just a little delay!” she said, perking up again. “You won’t be late. A few minutes, and I’ll get to spend a whole day at the library. There’s no telling what I might figure out!”
She would’ve said no, if her brother hadn’t spent the last nearly two weeks living in this tiny apartment. She’d saved his life by getting him out of camp, but if he lost hope to keep going, then had she really succeeded?
“Fine, let me just… think for a second.”
What did a smart library pony look like? There was a whole princess of being smart, that probably meant being purple was smart. Unicorn was obvious, so he could practice and experiment with any magic he was studying. Maybe a book for his cutie mark, so no one would ask questions about him spending time in a library. The guy part didn’t bother her so much as her brother, it was just another costume. Amie knew how unicorns looked, so the horn was simple. She spent most of her time with one anyway.
Once she had the body held in mind, the rest came simply—a brief flash, and suddenly she was much taller, and more angular. She opened her eyes, grinning down at her now-smaller younger brother. “This is the best I can do.”
Wes bounced her way over, grinning eagerly. “Yes! That’s perfect! Just stay that way while I try and… take in all the details.”
Amie backed away from their table, then posed, pretending to adjust a pair of invisible glasses. Maybe she should get some real ones, her eyes were actually having some trouble focusing.
Probably not a good idea to make a body with an inherent weakness. Even so, removing a single detail like that would take a great deal of concentration—she’d basically need to come up with a whole new pony, one who specifically didn’t have a trait she had subconsciously associated with someone in this role.
Before she could manage it, the pegasus vanished from in front of her, replaced with another identical twin. She could’ve sworn it went faster this time, too. Now that her brother knew what it felt like, getting any part of his new powers to repeat would be much easier for him
“Perfect!” he exclaimed, wrapping one foreleg around her shoulder with a sudden, grateful squeeze. She felt the usual flood of emotion, more than making up for a brief expenditure of magic to get here. “This is exactly what I imagined. Even the voice is… smarter, somehow. Am I actually smarter this way?”
“Unclear,” Amie replied. She focused on Rain Fly, then changed in another flash of magic. Using so much magic so fast was enough to make her pant from the effort—but at least switching from one unicorn to another very similar one was an extremely minor strain. “I feel like every body I make has its own… instructions, I guess. Instincts. I move different, think a little different. Just don’t get lost in it.”
She had to reach up to pat his shoulder, which she did anyway. “Looking like that, ponies shouldn’t even suspect you’re a bug underneath. But if you don’t act the way they expect, then they might figure you out. If they see you change, they won’t care that you look different from a normal changeling. They’ll still see you, and might kill you.”
Wes deflated. His ears folded, and he retreated from her. “O-oh. Are they really like that? All that friendship talk—I thought maybe they were nicer than that. Gentler. They’re horses, would they really just kill us on sight?”
“I don’t know,” Amie admitted. “I know they got invaded by changelings a few years ago, and lots of ponies died. I know they attacked bugs just for trying to get out of camp. And I know this is a military town, with royal guards all over the place. I’m not trying to convince you not to go out there—you should. Anything you can learn from the library is going to help us. I’m just saying, be careful. You’re not invincible.”
Outside, a high-pitched whistle echoed through the streets, the first call of a shift beginning. That was usually her cue to get going, to meet Ivy for morning PT. “I won’t blame you if you decide to wait until I get back,” she said. “I could make the first trip with you. I’m building up a reputation for this unicorn in town. You could finally get to play the older brother.”
He pawed at the ground, nervous. “There is some… simplicity in that. The less we have to lie about, the less I need to remember. I’m your brother.”
He followed her through the apartment door. “And that’s why I’m going. You don’t have to do everything yourself, Amie. We’re trapped here together. We’ll escape together, too.”
She stopped in the hall for an awkward sibling hug. “Sure. But while we look like this, you should probably call me Rain Fly. And… come up with something I should call you, in case I have to bring you up.”
“Oh, that’s easy. I’m… Bookish.”
She giggled, letting go. “That’s a little on the nose. Try again.”
“Indigo… Wordsmith.”
“There is no way the same pony named me ‘Rain Fly’ and you that whole mess. How about Sunny Stylus?” Was that a good pony name? Amie couldn’t actually put together concrete rules for how their names worked. But nopony gave her trouble about hers.
“Fine. It’s got that weather theme going with yours, it’ll do.”
Amie grinned back at him. “Good luck at the library, Sunny Stylus! Just remember, if anything weird happens, head home. If we need to tackle something together, we can.”
She darted down the stairs, then out onto the street, breaking into a trot for her usual trip across town. Part of her wanted to linger behind to make sure her brother didn’t get himself into too much trouble. Fortunately her job prevented that from happening—she couldn’t be late, not when her client meant so much to the Rent-a-Friend.
It wasn’t the best environment to be sprinting across town. With shifts just beginning, there were dozens of ponies passing through the town, mostly from the housing tenements to the factories. So began another day of refining the ore arriving from Motherlode and elsewhere into metal ingots to be shipped off for manufacturing across Equestria.
She had to duck and weave her way between crowds, and sometimes got stuck behind ponies who insisted on trudging with agonizing slowness across the street. Maybe one day she would learn how to fly, just so she could skip this dull part of her commute.
Then something caught her eye—a pony heading opposite the way she came. There was so much coal dust on his wings and body that she almost missed that familiar cutie mark.
Tailslide, from those bright green eyes to the streak in his mane.
Amie stopped in her tracks, staring as the pony approached. This was far from the stallion she remembered—instead of eager curiosity, this one felt not one drop of anything positive. He trudged along on a thin layer of grim resolve, feeling helpless and defeated.
His wings were a disheveled mess, dragging on the ground behind him as he walked. There were bags under his eyes from little sleep, and his mouth hung open in a daze. He barely even seemed to notice as he walked past Amie.
Which… shouldn’t surprise her. She looked like a completely different pony than any he’d met before. He didn’t see her in the same way he didn’t see any of his surroundings. What the hell happened to you?
“Tailslide?” she called after him, turning to follow. She didn’t have to go far, he wasn’t exactly running.
The stallion stopped, glancing over his shoulder. “Whoever sent you—I told Commander Path I quit. Not one bucking more day.”
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I wonder what happened to Tailslide. I really hope Amie can help him since he deserves that.
Poor Tailslide. I hope things turn around for him.
Pony 1: "What did he say?"
Pony 2: "He said, 'The changelings ain't so bad.' "
Pony 1: " 'The Changelings ain't so bad?' Huh, your lucky he's still alive!"
Internet points to whoever gets that reference.
So this is how their future friendship continues. I wonder if you're going down the romance path...
Good to see him back! But wow, it looks like he's been through the wringer.
Covered in coal dust? It WAS a mining town. Run by Flim & Flam... Why do I get the feeling the guard were doing some real unethical things there? He has to have come straight from a mine, surely...
An interesting development, was not expecting him to do that
You motherhumper! You drop THAT and expect us to wait until next week?
Big milestone for Wes, though the consequences of discovery are still very real. He should go when he is actually ready and not a moment sooner. The books in the library can wait and food is hopefully going to the camp. Wes has time to practice and find his limits. As for Tailslide, Amie
will have to find out what's wrong.
Even Wes can't avoid the Starscribe switch. At least it's temporary.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are changelings that do get lost and end up becoming their mask.
The ponies might show mercy if you try to reason with them but they're not magically bounded by friendship or tolerance. Do not assume you are not in any danger just because the people look so inviting. Remember, you are an intruder in this land.
Guess Tailslide needs a friend right now. Things really went bad for him.
What the heck happened to him?!
So what are the odds Amie starts to get hungry after Wes has been travelling with the other changllings for a while (since he can’t feed her)? Even if neither think he is feeding her now.
Also, will Tailslide be feeling anger at Amie over losing his job, (since he might have quit due to pressure from other ponies over suspicions of being “compromised” or otherwise by the changelings)? Or will he want to stay away from her (ie: “I did the right thing, but don’t want to drag nyself deeper or have to have a constant remeinder of quiitting his job), or will he accept the help? looking forward to more!
No where to hide from hungry buggos.
Battery-class buggo for soldiers to recharge while you sit there and eat. The bright colors mean Wes is fully charged; his color slowly drains as he runs out of love.
Can she make up a species with the optimal instincts for a specific scenario then transform into it?
11347504
Sounds to me like when he said he quit, it was his own choice, he wasn’t fired.
Tailslide need hug. Amie is bug. Bug give good hug? #HugABug
Go on Amie, be the friend you say you are and give Tails a big hug. If I had to guess, he quitted for befriending Amie and he can't hurt the changelings on the mountain anymore, and the other guards didn't listen to him that all changelings aren't bad.
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I'm guessing he had an attack on his conscience, now that he knows the (surprisingly well-intentioned) propaganda isn't as true as most of them think.
I mean, if it's good enough for an author...
Hmm. The coal dust on Tailslide is especially interesting. We've seen how Motherlode is very much a company town. Flimflam-owned, if I recall correctly. I wonder how much of what drove him out of the service was related to changelings and how much was just equine rights violations.
Oofmageddon. He's seen better times
What happened?! The suspense is killing me! Good chapter though!
She promised Rain didn't have siblings! 😫