• Published 30th Nov 2012
  • 22,345 Views, 1,783 Comments

The Winds of Change - AgentSnail



A man named Jason wakes up in Equestria as a changeling, and must quickly adapt to blend in and survive. Making use of unlikely allies, can he forge a usable existence into this strange and surprisingly hostile new world?

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The Escape

The Escape

BANG!!!!

Jason burnt the rope off of his fore arms, and fell to the ground. He landed hard on his injured fore leg, and crumpled on the ground. The ponies in front of Jason were stumbling around, dazed. Celestia was saying something, but Jason couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears. He was just glad he had had the foresight to shut his eyes.

POP! PIFF!

Smoke quickly enveloped the ponies as Jason got up off the ground, balancing on his three, uninjured legs. Something tapped Jason on the shoulder, and he looked over to see the worried face of Dash. She pointed to the broken window, and tugged on his arm. He winced, but took off with her nonetheless. As he flew through the window, emerging into Canterlot proper, he transformed into his Alternis form, assuming that there would not be posters of the previous form of a captured changeling, and that in the pre dawn hours he would not easily be seen. His hearing began to return, and he was able to hear the general noise from the few townsfolk below. Dash banked, turing towards Ponyville. Jason followed, subtly changing the color scheme and stature of his form.

A few minutes of hurried flying later, the duo arrived at Dash's cloud house, unnoticed by the townsfolk far below, most of them still asleep. Jason hissed when he landed on his injured foreleg.

"What happened to you in there?"

"I'll tell you when we're safe. We have to use this time to prepare." They both ran inside Dash's house.

"So what's the plan?"

"Why did you save me? You weren't going to be accused of anything, I kept all the secrets about you." He paused. "I'll leave, you stay. Chances are, no one saw you, you can just continue your life, like all of this was a bad dream."

"I'm not abandoning you! You didn't let me lose my wings at the hospital, even though that led to you being captured, and you knew it!. I couldn't let you rot in jail if you went through all that just to save my wings. I wasn't even going to die, but you revealed yourself nonetheless. It's not like it was even a bad dream anyway." She sighed. "Now let's get ready and leave."

"Fine." He dropped his disguise. "We need the explosives, and survival equipment. What tools do you have?"

"I have an axe, but that was just for a previous Nightmare Night festival."

"Grab that, grab blankets, grab food. See if you can find nails. I'll go get other stuff." He noticed the belt around Dash that still had some explosive inside some of rope loops. It looked home made. He pointed to the belt. "Make another one of those while I'm getting that other stuff." Jason ran upstairs, and into Dash's room, and threw open the closet. A huge selection of dresses greeted him. Most from Rarity, probably. He grabbed some dark green and brown dresses, along with a small sewing kit with some thread and a needle, probably for simple clothes repairs. He towed them downstairs, grabbing a picture of Dash with her friends and a signed poster of the Wonderbolts on his way out.

As he arrived downstairs, Dash looked up from her ration production to give him a strange look. "How much do you care about these dresses?"

"Not that much, Rarity gave them to me but I only wore them once."

"Cool, toss me those scissors." She tossed them over, and he spread out the dresses on the table. He attacked them with the scissors, making them into several hundred small strips. He levitated the strips into the air, and pulled out the thread and the needle. He arranged the pieces in random patterns, and started sewing them together. He levitated a long piece of unused fabric over to Dash, and wrapped it around her midsection, cutting off the extra. She looked at him with another strange look.

"Don't ask questions, I'll show you later." He made a few more measurements, and went back to connecting the fabric strips. He pulled the last string taught, and stood back from his handiwork. He was fairly impressed, and sewed a few buttons primitively into the bottom with corresponding loops. Dash looked like she had finished the food packing, and had set off looking for blankets and the axe. Jason trotted over to the kitchen counter, and pulled out two of the heavy duty knives. He shoved them into the out-ward sides of his hooves, and took a test slash at a candle. After he had managed to dislodge the candle from the knife, he trotted back out of the room. Dash ran back in with the Axe and some nails in her teeth and the blankets over her back. Jason took the blankets and started shoving them into a nearby saddlebag, along with his newest clothing attempt, the picture, and the poster. She started making a new explosives belt, and Jason levitated some string over, and tied the belt to his side. He noticed his guitar against the wall in a corner. "You brought that back here?" He noticed the overdrive unit next to it.

"No, the guy at the venue that you played at brought them back late last night. He said you were pretty good, apparently. You're going to have to show me sometime."

"Well I'm happy he brought them back." Jason strapped the equipment to himself, and levitated a saddlebag onto his back. This was heavy, to say the least.

"Here." Dash had finished her explosives belt, and Jason levitated it his chest and shoulder, while at the same time bringing several explosives over, and placed them through the loops.

"Maybe some of my ingenuity is rubbing off on you." She punched him, and he stuck out his tongue.

"We'll have plenty of time for this later, Jason, just hurry up and let's leave." He levitated the rest of the supplies to her back, namely the axe, the rations, and the rest of the explosive ingredients.

"Ready?"

"Sure. Where to?"

"The Everfree." She gasped. "Really? It's just a forest. It's a lot like my old world, but without the manticores. We'll be fine." He paused. "The ponies won't follow us in there either, so we have a safe base of operations."

"The forest isn't safe!"

"You haven't seen what I'm going to do yet. Now let's go before royal guards arrive. This would be the first place they would expect us to go." She nodded, and they quickly exited and took off, wobbling a little under the added weight. They flew directly over to the forest, touching down just outside.

"I dunno, Jason, it doesn't look that friendly."

"Come on, I'll watch your back. It'll be fine." They took off again, flying low over a path that led into the forest. The path started to climb, and after a few thousand feet of mountain, Jason decided to take a break. "These supplies are really starting to get heavy."

"Why did you bring the guitar anyway? Seems like a lot of dead weight."

"One of the things people always forget about surviving is that boredom is always an issue, almost as much as food or shelter. When people get bored, they make stupid decisions. That's why I brought this baby. Maybe I can even teach you to play some." She nodded tiredly, and looked around.

"Where are we headed, anyway?"

"Well, seeing as this forest is between Canterlot and Ponyville, I'd like to situate home base somewhere in between, just so that I can keep tabs on what's going on. Also, going up this mountain gives us the high ground." Dash pulled out an apple and took a bite.

"You want one?"

"Huh, nah. I don't want to eat any of the food we do have. It's not like I need it anyway. Not as long as I have you around."

"Really, you don't need any food?"

"I don't think so. I'll tell you what, if I get hungry later, I'll ask for some, but I feel like I just ate a buffet, but without the discomfort."

"Sounds pretty nice."

"You were worried about me."

"Huh, well yeah."

"Like, really worried. Is there something you want to tell me?" he smiled, teasing her. She punched him.

"Not now, we'll have plenty of time for you to bother me later."

"God dammit, you're right." He sighed. "We should probably get moving again." She nodded, taking a deep breath and shifting the saddlebag on her back. They moved further up the hill, flying at a faster pace, until it came to a cliff. Dash flew over and frowned.

"We may have overshot the midpoint just a little." Jason joined her at the cliff, and shared her frown.

"How the fuck did we get all the way to the cliffs over Canterlot? Whatever. It doesn't matter." He turned back to the forest. "Come on. We need to find a tree a little way in."

"Why?"

"Because, we're going to build something in the branches." There were a few minutes of silence as they backtracked, before Jason found a suitable tree to use. "See that one there? Where all those branches come out at the same level?"

"You want to build a platform there I'm guessing?"

"Yup. Pretty much." He levitated the axe off of Dash's side, and looked for a good lumber tree. He found a young oak, and started chopping at it. The tree came down after extended chopping, and Jason turned his efforts to making plank like chunks of wood. He grabbed the nails and his clothing masterpiece, which he presented to Dash.

"What the hell is that?"

"Well, you aren't really that camouflaged right now, so instead of covering you in mud or something, I made you this suit. Snipers in my world wear it. It's called a gillie suit." She grabbed the clothing and tried to put it on after removing her saddle bag and explosives. After she managed to somehow not tear the suit in any way, she buttoned it up and looked herself over. Jason moved the hood over her head. "So how do you like it?"

"How do I use my wings?"

"I made slits in the gillie suit, just move them around until you find them. When you're not flying, though, try to put them back in. They're not exactly the hardest things to spot." She pushed her wings out and took off, hovering off the ground.

"This doesn't look like that great of camouflage."

"Well you have to be on the ground obviously, and around bushes, but it's better than you think." He sighed. "Help me build this thing."

"What do you want me to do?" He sent her the axe after he was done chopping the wood.

"Basically pound in some nails, and I'll levitate stuff up to you and put it into place. Try to be careful, these are the only nails we've got." Dash took off the gillie suit, and draped it over the rest of the supplies, then took off towards the tree. They worked at manipulating the planks and placing them onto the tree for a few hours, by which time the sun had heightened considerably. Dash pounded in the last nail with the blunt side of the axe, and peeked over the side, a few nails in her mouth.

"How does it look from there?"

"Pretty good, we'll need to cover the bottom of it up with some foliage so ponies can't see it from the ground. How much can you see of the sky?"

"Not too much, there's about twenty more feet of leaves before the edge of the canopy."

"Good, I'll bring the stuff up. Can you go get a few clouds?"

"Sure?" She looked confused, but took off nonetheless. Jason moved up the supplies in a series of trips, marveling at how easily they had built the small platform. Dash landed, towing a few clouds behind her. "What're these for?"

"Furniture. Can you craft a bed over there, maybe a sofa if we have space? Any excess we can use for water."

"Geez, I haven't made furniture in a while, but I guess I'll do my best." Jason smiled. This was coming together far better than he had hoped. "Dash?"

"Yeah?" She had already finished most of the bed.

"Thanks for sticking with me. I still have no idea why you still do, I mean, you gave up everything to save me, but thanks anyway."

"Jason," she sighed "there are a few reasons I don't leave, and the most obvious would be due to my element. Part of loyalty is being able to stick with those who still have a reason to control your trust, and after I saw the state you were in in the castle, I knew that I couldn't take their side and turn on you, not that I would have really done that before, but it would have been harder. The other reason is that I couldn't bear to lose you. You're one of the few people I've ever met that actually understands me, doesn't just see me for the tough attitude I put on, and yet doesn't care that I'm not exactly like the guise I put on. I guess it's just that--" Her voice cracked, and she started to cry, tears leaking down her face. Jason wrapped his arms around her, careful not to poke her with either of the knives. which he realized he should have taken out.

"You don't need to say anymore. No one deserves what you had to go through. I know how hard it is." He patted her on the back. "Besides, it's not as bad as it could be, after all, we have shelter, food, water. Each other..." She continued to sob into his shoulder.

"I know, but everything I used to have is gone, and I can't get it back. I wouldn't change what I did, but it's just hard to know that, and I just feel like it's hopeless. Like everything we've gone through was for nothing."

"I'll find a way to get it all back, put you back where you belong."

"How?!?! We're just two ponies? What can we possibly do against an entire nation of ponies, let alone Celestia and my friends?"

"Calm down, and I'll tell you what our options are." She nodded and sat on the cloud bed, wiping her eyes. Jason sat beside her and put a hoof around her neck. He sighed, he'd never wanted her to go through anything for him. "So listen, there was an attack on Canterlot by the changelings. Now, Celestia made it blatantly obvious that the invasion occurred, and even that she and Luna were defeated. There may have not been many casualties, but the more noticeable information is that Equestria was almost conquered by a small army of changelings, insinuating that your country is weak. Although it is weak, realistically, the attack made it seem particularly vulnerable, and when a country seems vulnerable, other countries tend to take advantage. Get my drift?"

"You're saying you think somepony is going to attack Equestria?"

"Not somepony," He took a deep breath. "The Griffins."

Author's Note:

Soooooooo...

This chapter came out late. Sorry about that, but in my defense, this site was down for a couple hours before I actually managed to get on here and finish, and it was kind of a long chapter. But those are just excuses, and I really don't want to piss off my readers, although an update a day does seem a little extravagant... Anyway, hopefully the story should progress fairly well from here on out, considering that I got past a wall in my plot, even though that part shouldn't occur until around at least ten chapters from now. Just figured I'd say that I'm not running out of ideas anytime soon.

I wish that the first few chapters were more eye catching, so to speak, and I may go back and edit those one day, meaning that there would be a day gap in updates. Seriously though, every single down-vote besides one came from the first three chapters.