The rain fell in saturating sheets, hammering the forest’s canopy with all the untamed fury that nature could muster. Every raindrop hit the ground with a quiet pop, each one singing in a choir with its siblings. With a thunderous crack, part of the canopy gave way to a black missile which struck the freshly watered ground with a dull thud and a sickening splat. Leaves settled slowly from the trees’ wounds onto the forest floor, blanketing the crash site. The faint rattle of the rain returned as the reverberations from the crash died down.
A low, painful moan came from the crater, and the leaves rustled as Echo staggered to her hooves. She was covered in dried, caked on mud from head to toe, and bits of foliage had lodged themselves in the holes of her hooves and mane. She shook her head as she recovered from the shock of the fall. What happened? She wondered to herself. The last thing I remember, I was chasing some brown pony through Canterlot. She remembered feeling like she had gotten hit by a train, followed by the sight of clouds whizzing by her. Well, she mused, I guess the invasion didn’t go as planned.
She knew that she needed to get her bearings, and figure out where she was. She buzzed her wings and jumped up in an attempt to fly above the canopy, but fell back to the ground with a shout as pain shot through her right wing into her back. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that her right wing had been torn slightly at the spot where it connected to her back. It would heal eventually, but she wasn’t going to be flying any time soon. Great. She looked around, and her eyes caught a tall tree nearby. I hate climbing.
The tree’s leaves parted as the mud-soaked, flightless changeling drone worked her way to the top. She hugged the branch with all the strength her legs could muster as she looked around nervously for some signs of population. If I want to have any chance of survival, I need to find some ponies. I won’t last long without any food. As she scanned the horizon, smoke caught her eyes, and she could just make out some rooftops and chimneys in the distance. That’ll do.
There was a loud crack as the branch Echo was hugging gave way under her weight. With a shout of surprise, the changeling once again found herself colliding with the ground. The branch landed heavily a short distance from her. I really hate climbing.
She slowly got back onto her hooves, shaking off what foliage she could, and began her trek toward the town she had spotted from above. Her hunger gnawed at her stomach, telling her that she had probably been unconscious for at least a day or two. As she walked, her horn glowed with a faint green magic. She was trying to see if there were any other changelings nearby, but the spell also had the effect of giving her some light by which to walk. She couldn’t find any signs of changeling activity near her. After a few hours of walking, she found an untrimmed path, at the end of which she could just make out the silhouettes of the town’s buildings. She considered heading into town tonight, but quickly realized that she was far too tired to trust herself with a disguise. Looking around, she saw a bough in a tree on the edge of the forest that seemed just the right size to hold her in relative comfort through the night. Great. More climbing.
A few minutes later, and Echo hung helplessly from a branch about 20 feet off the ground, her face radiating pure frustration. A gnarled branch had become lodged in one of the larger holes in her hooves, and now she was stuck, helpless, only a stone’s throw from the bough she thought would be her lodging for the night. I swear, I’m the butt of some cosmic joke.
As she pondered the existential implications of her predicament, her ears caught the sound of voices. Listening in, she could make out what sounded like three fillies.
“Scoot, I don’t think this is such a good idea.” one of them said.
“Applebloom’s right, Scoot. It’s getting dark, and the Everfree is dangerous enough during the day.” another said.
“Come on you guys, don’t be such scaredy-cats. ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders Monster Hunters’ is a great idea.”
The voices were getting closer. Echo knew that she was in trouble, since she didn’t have much energy to change. There was no time to debate it, though, as she enveloped herself in green flame, choosing the first form that came to her mind, a unicorn pony from Canterlot called “Candlelight”. As the flames died down, three fillies came through the brush into the clearing below her. This could work. She thought. As the fillies nervously walked through the clearing, Echo cleared her throat.
“Excuse me, help?” she said, before clasping her free hoof over her mouth. Her voice had come out with a dull buzz under the words, characteristic of a changeling’s natural speaking voice. All three of the fillies whipped around to look at her, and she watched as expressions of terror crossed all of their faces before they screamed at the top of their lungs. The surprise caused her muscles to tense up, and the sudden shift in weight caused the branch to break. She crashed face first into the ground for the third time today, the screams of the fillies still stabbing at her ears. She looked up in time to see them run out of the forest screaming.
When she recovered, she mumbled something about hating trees and burning the whole forest down before limping slowly over to a large puddle at the base of the tree. When she saw her reflection, she almost screamed herself. Staring back at her was a pony with a normal alabaster Equestrian coat, a normal half-changeling and red half-pony mane, one changeling foreleg, changeling fangs, and her natural changeling eyes, one of which was blue like every other changeling, and the other a deep shade of red.
“Way to go, Echo.” she said aloud as she reverted to her true form with a flash. “What else could go wrong?” she knew that she would have to leave this area, since those fillies might bring back somepony to investigate. First, though, she should fix her disguise. She focused with all of her might, and her head and foreleg were again enveloped in green flames. When they cleared, the puddle reflected a normal unicorn mare, though she kept one of her eyes blue and one of them red. She had always prized her red eye, since it made her stand out from her siblings, and she just couldn’t bring herself to change that unless she had to.
She began to walk along the edge of the forest as the moon slowly peeked over the horizon. After some time, she discovered a tree that was about two ponies thick which had a knothole in it low enough to the ground that she could step in with little trouble. Casting a simple spell, an orb of dim green light stuck to the roof of the tiny cavern. “It’ll do.” Echo muttered. Stepping outside, she grabbed a large strip of bark from the side of the tree. As she entered the hole again, she used her magic to pull the bark against the entrance, making a door of sorts that would conceal her location should anyone wander by, although she doubted if it would stand up to any real scrutiny. With a flash of green flame, she returned to her natural state and curled up for the night.
* * *
“Squad 58, move to the north end of the courtyard. I need you to head off the group of guards amassing in that area, and distract them while squad 38 moves in from behind.” Echo stood on top of a spire in Canterlot, handing out orders through the short-range telepathic network that was one of the changelings’ natural abilities. “Squad 87 is in need of assistance. I need squad 62 to rendezvous with them. Medical team, there’s a collection of wounded in the southwest corner of the courtyard, I need you to retrieve them after squad 49 eliminates the guards covering them.”
As a changeling of superior intelligence, she had been hoof-picked by Queen Chrysalis from the time that she was a hatchling to become a leader in the swarm. In actuality, she was a mutant. Her red eye possessed uncanny visual acuity, which meant that she would be able to make out fine details at a much greater distance than her siblings. When this was coupled with her affinity for combat strategy, her teachers did not hesitate to recommend her for special duty. The queen, as it turned out, agreed with their recommendation, and placed her in direct command over the 8th battalion of the changeling strike brigade. It was an honor to say the least, and Echo had every intention of living up to her queen’s expectations.
From her right, Echo caught a flash of magic just in time to dodge it. In just a thought, the unicorn stallion who had attacked her was engulfed by changelings. Everything was going according to plan. The Elements of Harmony had been defeated by her battalion, and when all was said and done, she was sure to receive a personal commendation from the queen herself. Through her red eye, she saw a brown mare dive into one of the shops. Things seem well in hoof, she considered. I might as well enjoy myself a little. “Colonel Shift,” she called out. “Take command for a moment. I’m going to go have a little fun.” The Colonel laughed as he saluted and took her place. She fluttered over to the building where the mare had disappeared, and with a blast from her horn threw the door from its hinges. Stepping inside, she made eye contact with a white mare who quickly dealt out a blast of yellow magic to Echo’s chest. She shrugged it off quickly and blasted the unicorn with a stun spell.
“CANDLELIGHT!” A voice came from the back of the building. The brown mare spent just enough time to shoot Echo an expression of absolute terror before turning tail and running out the back into an alley. As Echo gave chase, she found her dream slowly dissolving around her, and she returned to consciousness.
* * *
Sunlight crept around the edges of Echo’s makeshift door like a snake. A ray caught her in the eye, rousing her from her rest. As she awoke, she was made immediately aware of her growing hunger. If she didn’t eat today, she wouldn’t have enough strength to transform by the time tomorrow came around. There was no choice; she had to go into the town. Changing into Candlelight with considerable effort, she walked toward town, resolving to find a suitable model as quickly as possible.
Only a few short minutes of walking later she found herself crossing a bridge into the town. A sign read “Ponyville”. That name sounds familiar. After a moment, she remembered. Ponyville. Home of the Elements of Harmony. This is not the best place for a changeling to find herself. She quickly composed herself and decided to get down to business. Now, any stallion here have a loving mare? A quick survey of her surroundings showed mostly mares, but a few were standing in close proximity to some stallion or another. Two particularly loving ponies were standing next to an apple cart. The stallion was robust, a bright red color with a large green half-apple for a cutie mark. The mare was a purple-ish pink color and had hair that reminded Echo of salt water taffy. Her cutie mark was a set of three flowers. The couple positively reeked of love. She sat on a bench and waited for the big one to go on his way. Eventually, he hitched himself up to the cart and began to pull it toward the market. Echo glanced around and made sure that nopony was able to see before she surrounded herself again in green flames and became the mare of this pony’s affections. Recalling the conversation she had eavesdropped on, she called out to him in a sing-song voice. “Oh cutie-patootie lovie-dovie honey-bunny!” She fought the urge to retch. The stallion turned around.
“Shmoopy-doo?” he said quizzically. Immediately, Echo absorbed the love which poured forth from the stallion.
“What the hay?” a shocked voice said from behind her. Echo whipped her head around. Oh, for the love of Chrysalis. The mare she was impersonating stood dumbstruck, staring right at her. Turning around again, she found the red stallion equally flabbergasted. Only one thing to do now. Echo thought with grim determination. With that, she turned toward the nearest alleyway and ran as fast as her hooves could carry her. As she turned a corner, she used her freshly acquired energy to quickly change back into Candlelight and assume a prone position on the ground. After a few seconds, the stallion came rushing around the corner. She tried her best to look stunned.
“Did anyone get the license off of that train?” she tried to sound as disoriented as possible.
“Are you alright, miss...?” the stallion said.
“Candlelight.” she pretended to regain her ground. “Yes, thank you, mister...?”
“McIntosh. Most call me Big Mac.”
“Mister McIntosh. Thank you.”
The stallion looked around and, satisfied that his lover’s doppelganger was nowhere to be seen, nodded in acknowledgment before heading back up the alleyway. That was much too close, Echo thought. and much too careless. Hunger affects my judgment more than I thought. At least I’m full, now. Echo turned around to head back to her tree, and found herself immediately face-to-face with a smiling pink pony.
“You’re new around here, aren’t you?” Pinkie Pie said. Echo could only stutter. An Element of Harmony. Could this get any worse? “I know you’re new because I haven’t seen you around before, and I know everyone in Ponyville.”
“Okay? Well, I need to get going, so I’ll just -”
“NO!” the Element of Laughter interrupted. “I have to throw you a party first.”
“Now?” Echo groaned. “Really?”
“Well duh, otherwise it wouldn’t be a welcome party, it’d be a welcome-back party!”
Echo stared on in horror as the pink party pony pulled a full sized cannon out of thin air. “How did you -” she was cut off by a sudden explosion of streamers and miniature fireworks. Terrified and unsure of what to do next, she did the only thing she could, she ran. Her escape took her around the corner of the building and through the street. She glanced behind her and saw nopony chasing her. She turned another corner into an alleyway, where she collapsed against the side of a building. “I hate that pony,” she muttered as she caught her breath. A quick bit of magic flared on her horn as she pulled a streamer out from behind her ear. “and I hate parties.”
“That’s silly!”
“Oh, sweet merciful -”
“Nopony hates parties, and especially not a Pinkie Pie party!”
Echo turned her head, and painfully asked, “What in Equestria is a Pinkie Pie party?”
“Well, I’m a Pinkie Pie,” a Cheshire grin consumed her visage as she continued. “and I’m Ponyville’s Pink Party Pony, so any parties I throw are Pinkie Pie parties! Since you’re new, I have to throw you a welcoming party, but you ran away so I didn’t get to ask your name, and I really need to know your name if I’m going to throw you a party, because otherwise nopony will be able to greet you, and you’d have to spend the whole night saying your name over and over and over and that wouldn’t be any fun for you!” Pinkie Pie said in one breath.
“Well, I appreciate the offer, but I really don’t think that’s nece -”
“So, what’s your name?”
Echo sighed. “I’m Candlelight.”
“That’s a super-awesome name! What’s your special talent?” Pinkie Pie gestured to Candlelight’s cutie mark.
“Umm...” I should have thought this through... what can I do well? “Sight. Metaphorically. The candle flame represents my artistic vision. I can organize things very well, and I have a remarkable ability to bring order to chaos.” This wasn’t actually a lie. If anything came up that required Echo to demonstrate Candlelight’s talent, there would be no need to fake it. Chrysalis had chosen her to be a leader for a reason, after all.
“That’s so cool! So do you, like, paint or something?”
Damn. A vocation... “No, I … make … clothes.” Clothes, really? Echo, what are you doing? “I can work miracles with fabric!” Outwardly, she smiled brightly while she kicked herself mentally.
“Oh, boy do I have a friend for you, you’re going to LOVE Rarity and she’s going to love you and OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO PLAN THE PARTY! It’ll be tomorrow at 6, okay? Bye!” With this, the pony disappeared in a puff of smoke and streamers.
“What?” Echo stood in the middle of the street, struggling to catch her breath. A few minutes went by, and she remained firmly rooted to the spot.
“Hi there,” a voice came from behind. Oh, Chrysalis, another one? “You’re new, right?” Echo didn’t turn to look at the new pony, and didn’t say a word. “So, I guess you’ve already met Pinkie Pie, huh?” Echo only nodded slightly. “Are you okay?” Echo finally managed to turn her head, and found herself face to face with the Element of Magic and Princess Celestia’s personal student, Twilight Sparkle. Echo tried to say something, but the stress of the day was too much, and as she opened her mouth, all that came out was a scream before the edges of her vision began to fade to black, and she fainted.
You should accent somehow that she was blackout for quite some time.
Amazing.
Fav and upvote.
Phew, up until the AN, I thought you were a mind reader.
Seriously, I started reading and my only negative was the formatting. Then I went away for a few minutes, came back, and IT WAS FIXED.
Apart from that, I liked it. I award you cuddles. Looking forward to more!
2094396 Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Explain?
2094428 Thank you kindly, sir or ma'am.
2094434 Terribly sorry about the formatting bit. I'm new to this FiMFiction nonsense, and having to type the brackets is not something that I'm used to.
Thanks for the compliments!
2094442 uh yea sorry exams time etc my brain is dead
I mean you writed that like it was just after failed invasion, there is no information how long she was out (or i missed it).
2094443 Or genderless component of the Swarm.
fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/161/c/2/changeling_wallpaper_1024x768_by_grumbeerkopp-d52xxuu.jpg
2094471 It's cool, I get it. Exams do that to people.
My idea is that she wasn't really out for much time at all. In fact, when I wrote this initially, it was my thought that she had not been unconscious whatsoever. The trees kinda broke her fall a little.
2094481 You.
I like you already.
Keeping an eye on this
2094511 Thank you very much. I'll try my best not to disappoint.
2094449
Um... you didn't go through and manually add all the italics tags, did you?
You do know there's a big ol' 'italics' button at the top of the edit pane?
Please tell me that's not what you meant - I'll feel so sorry for you!
2094554 Hahaha, I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid, thankfully.
I'll admit that posting this thing has put me a little on edge. I rarely share my work with others at all.
So... when I posted this and then saw that the formatting hadn't translated, I kind of lost my *buysomeapples* and tried to edit it as quickly as I could.
In doing so, I edited it poorly about 4 times before I gave up and unpublished to fix it.
I'll be a little less ... spastic in the future.
2094612
Phew, crisis averted.
As for being on edge... heh, join the club. Post an update, then spend the next few hours too anxious to walk away, too nervous to read feedback.
Congrats on posting. The cover image is gorgeous and intriguing. I am happy this has been so well recieved.
2094645 Indeed, crisis averted.
I've got another 20K words lined up and ready to be posted as time progresses.
I'll be refining my chapters nicely before posting them, and also giving all you nice watchers time to squirm.
Yeah, the feedback makes me nervous, but it's also fun ... in the same way that a roller coaster is fun. It makes you feel like you're going to die, to give you respect for being alive.
2094649 I know, right? I love that cover image, and the guy's a miracle worker to get it done from scratch in just about a day or two.
I'm happy it's being so well received, too. Thanks for the comment!
Not bad, action went forward a little to fast, but story seems ok.
A very nice start to things...
Can't wait for more
And give the artist of the story cover my compliments!
2095026 I was worried if that might be the case.
I'll pad the future action a little bit before posting it. Thanks!
2096040 Thank you very much! There will be more coming, I promise.
Congratulations on your first MLP:FiM story. The fact that your first story here got on the feature box is something to be proud of .
I like your story so far. I like changelings and Scootaloo, and you have both of them on the cover. I'm interested in seeing how you combine the two. It's also nice to see a story get featured that isn't a trollfic or clop.
I also think your story has a lot of room for improvement.
Your spelling and grammar is decent, and your writing is a bit above average for this site. On the other hand, sometimes your descriptions could use a bit of work. I found the scene where Echo was ordering around the other changelings to be particularly weak because of lack of detail. I also picked up at least three grammatical mistakes in this chapter, so you might want to consider a proofreader / second pre-reader in addition to the one you already have.
Really, though, that's a minor issue. The thing that needs the most improvement is characterization.
Sometimes Echo does things that don't make sense. After the Cutie Mark Crusaders ran away, Echo fixed his disguise and then immediately took it off before going to sleep. Maybe he was just practising his disguise, but you need to say that lest his actions seem random.
Another example of Echo not making sense is when he gets caught impersonating Big Mac's marefriend. If Echo were as smart and observant as he thinks he is, he wouldn't have been caught that easily.
Also, people don't go from running to fainting just because they bump into a main character and things get awkward.
When you're showing us a character for the first time, you need to do two things: make him interesting and make him likeable. You make Echo interesting right away. He was a leader in the invasion of Canterlot, and he's good at what he does. He was hoof-picked by Chrysalis herself to be a leader. And here we see him in dire straits. Instead of giving up, he immediately starts problem solving and making a plan to save himself from starvation.
Unfortunately, you fell into several traps that him less likeable.
Nobody likes someone who thinks they're smarter than everyone else. What we like to see is competence, humility, and a little bit of cleverness. Cleverness is like Daring Do, able to find lost treasures and escape the most devilish of traps. But it's not okay when you have Echo come out and say that he was made a leader because he's smarter than everyone else.
You have Echo repeatedly complain about climbing. It would have been better if you hadn't shown him complaining. We like to see characters who can accept a setback with grace and a bit of good humour. Instead of emphasizing his distaste for the task, you could have shown his determination and perseverance in the face of a series of humiliating experiences. The worse things get, the more impressed we are when a character maintains their composure.
The biggest issue for me was Echo's eyes. Coolness must be earned. When I learned that Echo was born with a wicked cool red eye, and it gave him special powers, and Queen Chrysalis personally rewarded him for being so awesome by making him a leader, I became very tempted to label him as a Mary Sue / Gary Stu. If you want to have a character who has special powers, you need to either make him work for it, or have him suffer for being different.
There are many ways to make a character interesting besides giving him/her a unique appearance or special skills and abilities. Reputation, exaggeration, responsibilities, and assertiveness are all characterization techniques you should explore.
Your story has enough going for it that these mistakes aren't enough to make me stop reading at the first chapter. As you said, this is your first story here, so it's not surprising to see a few problems. The way to improve is to keep writing and keep paying attention to your feedback. Keep up the good work
2094612 Amazing work my friend. This story looks very good, I can't wait to read the next chapter!
I really did enjoy this first chapter. I will gladly continue reading.
I'm not much of an editor, so I can't say that I saw any glaring grammatical errors, but I did see something that stood out as an error to me.
I'm almost certain that Big Mac's full name is "Macintosh" rather than your spelling of "mcintosh".
Other than that, everything looked great to me, keep it up!
Just the first paragraph made me feel like I was right there watching the whole thing be presented right before my eyes. (In short I love it so far.)
Awsome first chapter!
Keep it up!
The only thing I really have to point out is how it is impossible for our protagonist here to be in that particular time frame.You made it sound as if she was up almost immediately after the crash. Okay, but how in the wide world could she meet CMC? Last I checked they were at Canterlot, dancing and having good time. This is the very same day after all.Now, Twi and her friends... I could assume they were quickly sent back home after the wedding and had some sleep. I also do not know what time it is precisely, so maybe they are all up and about after partying hard because it's, say, late afternoon?Oh, hey, look, someone actually pointed that out in the next chapter... derpAside from that I like it. Definitely will read more.
Keep up the good work!
2101077 According to the MLP Wiki, I have it right. Thank you for the note, though. Such a thing would have been an oversight for sure!
Hope you enjoy the rest of the story as it comes out.
So I told my friend I was reading about Changelings, and he mentioned that it seemed like a dead empire.
I immediately thought of,
Your beginning made me think of this.
...this is your first MLPFIM fiction? Really? That... doesn't seem possible.
Right now the only problem I see the lack of italics for the thoughts in some places. No real buggy, but fix it please.
I'm a nub writer too, and i keep getting ideas that are begining to cut off the thought processes for my main story >_<
2129618 Yeah, these first few chapters were tough for me. I wasn't used to FiMFiction's way of formatting things.
Just came back to read through Adaptation and saw some of those errors. Fixed them now, I think.
well, Pinkie certainly knows how to bring the best in some pony
Wow, this is pretty good, and that's just from the first chapter!!
I can feel the frustration in this chapter.....it makes me wanna
Macintosh, not McIntosh
This looks interesting. I do believe I shall continue to read this and enjoy it!
I bet Twilight's response to Echo's fainting was. "Yup defiantly met Pinkie."
Two things.
1) Space the speakers 1 line.
2)Apple Bloom is a two word name.
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mylittleponyccg/images/8/85/CrystalGames_019.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141122070049
_________________
5904734 Have to correct you. It can be spelled either way. some credits have had it Applebloom not Apple Bloom. So it's up for interpretation
I like Echo already, even if she has Charlie Brown levels of bad luck.
Cya
Raziel-chan
Well, a good introduction for your OC Changeling. This is of course coming well after this story has been completed, but the first few paragraphs are riddled with purple prose. Like, really? "Every raindrop hit the ground with a quiet pop, each one singing in a choir with its siblings." It gets a lot better after that, but the very beginning is pretty egregious in that manner.
Wow, what a beginning! You have my attention!
ironically, i recently read a different story where a changeling was banished from the hive because her eyes were always two different colors-even in disguise!
This is an interesting start though I had some issues.
1) Unconscious for a day or two in the Everfree forest yet not eaten by a manticore, timberwolves etc. Yeah I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that one.
2) Doesn't trust herself to do a disguise yet is able to do a perfect one after an extra night of no food. If anything sleeping instead of getting herself fed immediately should have made it harder not easier.
3) OMG she's so smart she gets hand picked and made a leader immediately instead of having to earn her intelligence and rank through hard work and experience. Throw the "super red eye" and being powerful enough to shrug off a spell to the chest on top of it and it makes it very hard to root for this character. Her arrogance and justified intolerance of Pinkie might save her from becoming a total Mary Sue but it's not looking good right now.
4) Big Mac and Cheerilee only did the cheesy speak because of the love poison then again just to screw with the CMC. I'd find it extremely doubtful they'd say shit like that normally, at the very least not in public.
5) Pinkie has already went through the whole Cranky fiasco, I'd like to think (much as it pains me to defend a character I despise) she knows well enough now to give space to ponies who are as openly hostile as Echo here. Also the hate parties line would probably make her gasp, think a bit then say "that's because you've never had a Pinkie Pie party". She's not just gonna laugh off the notion all together is what I'm saying.
Phew that's a lot for the first chapter, can't wait to see how you improved as it went.
5904734
Same error as last time.
5932090
Actually just got this. And nope. It's Apple Bloom. Both in the cartoon credits, all of her CCG, and her Toys.
The spelling is Apple Bloom. That and it makes no sense for it to be one word since it isn't a word (Applebloom isn't a word, nor a proper / makes sense portmanteau.) Apple's Bloom, much like Granny Smith is a type of apple, and Big MkIntosh / Big Mac is another type of Apple. The only one word Apple pony in that family. Is Applejack which is a type of alcoholic drink / way of making hard cider.
This looked a bit weird, but reading it a second time I feel a bit more open for what is going to happen or not.
I was reading the first half a few hours seperated from the second half because of someone interrupting me so this is maybe why it looks odd.
8981712
I love they photo