Persona: Equestria

by scriptshatter

Prelude

A building is collapsing from many years of strain, bits of concrete falling one after another. A small squad of royal guards protect the exits and entrances, guiding a few creatures out. They’ve gotten one of the one’s they’re looking for, a despicable creature called a changeling. The strange wings are peculiar about his one, though the guard doesn’t care. All they care about is catching the other bug invading their home…

“Ardent, Ardent! Come in, Ardent!” A voice over the hive mind calls for me, as I rush through the thin underground. These elongated limbs make it really hard to walk around. I mean, being a ‘Royal Changeling’ has its benefits, such as the whole hive mind thing. That’s made communicating with the team over long distances a whole lot easier, and less risky to boot.

“I’m here, what’s up?”

“There’s a bunch of Royal guards out here! They don’t care about most of us, they seem to think we’re victims if anything. But you’re brother, they’ve got him! They think he’s some sort of threat just cause he’s a changeling!” Bloody hell… This just got a whole lot worse. I make my way out of the underground portions of the massive, collapsing wrestling arena. I ran forward before coming across a large gap.

“Good thing I’ve got these!” I buzz my wings a little and fly across in a jiffy. I feel sick for a short bit after, but that’s the price of using flight in this place. I doubt I would’ve even been able to cross that before turning full royal. I quickly rush ahead, two blind pounders come in, their writhing limbs nearly closing in on me. Though, with one fell sweep of my machete, their hands have fallen off, and they’ve dissipated into a thin purple mist that quickly goes away.

Quickly running ahead, I come across a locked door, one that I don’t have time to pick, so I simply take my machete and cut the lock off. Slamming the door open I rush forward, only for a hoard of The Blind to ambush me from both sides, with the hallway ending. I can’t take on this many, but just as it looks like the ending is near for me, good ol lockpick comes in to save the day!

Pained screams come out of the blind as the gray mare tears through them with her pickaxe.

“Ay, guid tae see ye, lockpick!” I said with a large grin as I ran beside her.

“Ugh, quit it with the nickname, Ardent! Just call me m-” The entire building rumbles as it starts to cave in.

“Forget about that, just GO! I’ll hold them off for as long as I can! Listen, I know you’re gonna get caught by the royal guard, but dealing with them is a whole lot better then- Gah! Dealing with these things!” I nod and quickly head off.

“And don’t you DARE forget about the double date!” She said, right before she left earshot. Goodness, lockpick, I’m about to be arrested for doing nothing wrong! Well basically nothing wrong. Nothing serious at least. And besides, even if I did, it was for the greater good of pony kind, so who cares??

A bunch of The Blind had coagulated in the hallway I needed to go into, so I took my trusty Machete and pogoed off of it to reach the rafters, where I carefully, and quickly, ran across. I gathered some of the leftover valuables on top before jumping back down. The door to… well, not my freedom, really more my safety is only a few feet away now. I quickly jumped out of the door, rolling… right beside Shining armors hooves. Well, I suppose I was gonna get captured anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

“Uh… meow?” He just scoffed at me with a look of disgust. I don’t know what I expected from Equestrias biggest changeling hater. He doused me with something, and then everything went black…

---

I woke up in a black room with two guards. I tried to use my magic… nope, horn suppressor. Great. Both the guards were looking with disgust.

“Please wait for Captain shining armor, Changeling. You’re lucky he’s even tolerating talking to you.” I’d call them bigots, but after what the Tyrant did their anger is a little understandable, especially if the only changelings they’ve ever seen are the ones from her hive.

After sitting for a short while, the stallion of the hour came in. Before I could do anything, he shoved a bottle into my mouth and made me drink a potion. I’m tasting hearts desire, mirror's edge, and leaf of a Discovertree as the main ingredients. Probably some sort of truth potion then. A couple more guards drag a table in and he restrains me to a chair, before sitting in the opposite one.

“Talk, you despicable bug.” Shining said, glaring daggers at me. I could be a smartass later, right now there was something that I needed to know.

“Is my brother okay?” I asked. It took shining off guard a little, but he decided to answer anyway.

“Yes. He’s being interrogated by my sister. Now, tell me what you’ve been up to. How in the world have you been making bad ponies good? Is it mind control, or… What kind of changeling magic are you using??”

“It’s not changeling magic, you were in the place where we restore sight to those who have lost it.”

“Restore sight?? What are you talking about?? Talk clearly, insect! Before I have Celestia banish you to the moon!”

“Make them see truth or fact, remove the veil of muddled information from their eyes. Or, in layman's terms, I give them a metaphorical slap in the face and tell them what their doing is evil, as well as why it’s evil.” Shining nodded to that, before letting out a huff.

“This isn’t getting me anywhere. Give me a briefing on how you ended up in Ponyville. Then tell me what you were doing there. Every last detail, spare nothing. I want the truth, you disgusting thing. I’m only giving you a chance because apparently you're some sort of changeling prince, and on top of that you look the least like her out of any Changeling I’ve seen. So speak up.” I let out a long story.

“Well, it all started after I had just taken down a gentle madman with a friend who I can no longer see…”

Author's Note:

If you've never played P5R, then don't worry about the gentle madman thing. If you do wanna know what he's talking about there, then play P5R.

---

A taste of what's to come...

Comments

[ShadowHell]

Now that just ruins part of the story for me. Too much spoilers.
Plus the fact that is was poster AFTER some chapters are already out

[emperer]

Wait... Is Lockpick Derpy? I believe so