Chapter 1

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Disclaimer: My Little Pony and all its characters are the property of Hasbro and are used without permission for this non-profit endeavor.

Chapter 1: I Become A Changeling

It all began on a rainy Tuesday night. The satellite dish was having it’s usual fit whenever the signal was cut off by thunderclouds, was covered in snow, got wet, or had even the tiniest piece of junk touching it. So, more than half my channels were showing complete or partial signal loss (but still giving me that damn error message even with partial) and the day was nowhere near the end of my work week. I had no plans or wish to risk going through the pouring rain to go to a bar and meet up with the type of people that hung out in such locations for a slim chance of a one night hook up that would probably come back to bite me in the ass later.

With nothing better to do, I was looking through the various suggestions on Youtube, most of which relating to MLP or video games…or MLP characters playing video games. Yeah, I’ll admit it, I was going through a brony overload at this point in my life. But you should see what else was on American television.

Another lightning strike illuminated the sky halfway through a video in which Pinkie Pie was making a pie in a parody of another youtube channel, which was soon followed by a boom of thunder that left my windows rattling.

The whole situation made a disgruntled moan escape from lips. With the storm being as close as it was, I didn’t like the idea of a power surge knocking out my computer. I didn’t have enough money to replace either it or the monitor if something should happen. So as the video had apparently drawn to a close, I reluctantly got out of my chair to unplug my surge protector from the wall socket.

“WHICH ONE OF YOU CALLED ME A BITCH?” Rarity’s voice resounded through my ears as I had my hand on the plug.

The line interrupted my action and I looked up to my monitor at the unexpected twist in the video. Honestly, I thought the only thing left were the credits. But it made my stop in mid action and well…die.

Okay, that’s a little on the unelaborated side. Hell, I’m not even sure if I’m really dead. All I can guess is that there really was a power surge while I was holding the surge protector’s plug with my hand above an empty socket. There was a sharp pain and then…nothing.

Darkness.

The empty void.

And then…whispers.

Whispers that grew louder, and Louder, and LOUDER until it sounded like a hundred people at a party all talking into my ear at the same time. I couldn’t stop it or cover my ears, or anything. I couldn’t tune them out, and in my panicked rage of wanting them all to just shut up, I didn’t try to focus on particular words. I just let out a soundless scream, trying to tell them to make it stop!

Then, they did.

When I came to, I opened my eyes and breathed in a panicked breath. At least, I tried to. My mouth was full of a strange liquid with an odd texture. If I had to compare it to something, it would be like that one time as a kid I tried to fill my mouth with pancake syrup. Only this time it wasn’t my mouth, my whole body was covered in some weird greenish goo that seemed to be providing its own illumination. I turned and thrashed around, but I couldn't tell up from down.

Desperate for oxygen, I swam through the substance towards a source of slightly different colored light in front of me (above me? Below me? I couldn‘t really tell) and met a barrier. Undeterred, I pushed forward, pressing against the obstruction that gave like cheap plastic wrap as I clawed my way through.

The first thing I did upon oozing out of my confinement was cough up the gel that had surrounded me. The panic of nearly drowning still had me firmly in its grip as I looked around in confusion, and it only grew worse when I glanced at my surroundings.

It was a large cavern made of molded dark black…I honestly have no idea. Whatever the stuff was, it looked almost organic, like the roof of a person’s mouth. Only it was black, with globes of glowing green stuff that had a likeness to what I had just come out of littered along the walls and ceiling to provide illumination. Off to the side and throughout the cavern above me, I could see dozens upon dozens of other pod-like containers like the one I had just come from filled with blurry shapes that remained motionless. I think there were about fifty of them in all.

Before I go on, I should probably mention the first big movie that caught my attention as a child was Aliens; a movie with architecture very much like that of where I had woken up in. While I had been a bit too young to be creeped out by it in lieu of all the action that happened, it did stick with my subconscious through the years.

So when I came to in what looked like a pretty damn good rendition of an alien hive, I conducted myself in a very dignified manner. Instead of screaming, I started hyperventilating. Instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I back pedaled right into the cocoon goo that leaked out from my birthing chamber. When I felt what I thought were my hands in aforementioned goo, I lifted them to my face to see what kind of gory horror I had touched.

Then things got really freaky.

Instead of seeing what I should have seen, a regular pair of hands, my eyes fell on a pair of inhuman appendages full of holes that went all the way through, with a flexible chitin covering the forelegs. Lost somewhere between confusion, panic, and revulsion at the strange green stuff that was on the things in front of me, I shook off what looked like a giant glob of snot from the left appendage.

That’s when the revelation it me: the things in front of me, despite their lack of fingers, were my hands.

THAT'S when I finally lost it and screamed.

My mind still in a panic, I looked around at my body. Like my hands, the rest of it was covered in a black coating that seemed to move despite an apparent lack of joints that the outer skeleton I had surrounding me hid quite well. My neck was odd and long, and my hair was so silky I knew it wasn’t made of the same stuff a normal person’s was. An unsettled feeling on my back made me jump forward to hand on whatever had replaced my hands. Then a buzzing made me look on my back to see a pair of wings waving around wildly on reflex, and I felt the muscles on my back twitch every time they moved.

Wings? I opened my mouth and spoke, but my question of ‘what the hell?’ came out, “wrght rck hhheeek?”

The unnatural vibration of my vocal cords made me reach up to try and grab my throat with both of my hand-things, causing me to fall flat on my face. What…what’s going on?

If my eyes had tear ducts, I’m pretty sure I would have cried. Instead, I picked myself out of the muck and called out for help despite the fact my mouth did not move the way I wanted, nor did my vocal cords want to make the right sounds. “hreeek reeek!”

Then, I heard a buzzing from further down the cave, and could only stand there in horror as a pair of creatures flew through the air on their insect wings toward me. When they approached, one screeched at me, and my senses were overcome by a powerful smell before it cried at me again.

But by then my flight or fight instinct had taken over, and I tried to bolt. I got maybe two feet before I tripped over my own legs, and the aliens jumped on my back. I don’t want to die, what all I could think before a sharp pain exploded in my skull.

Then…darkness.

And the voices found me again.

With unconsciousness came the voices. This time they were whispers, words, screams. A dozen, a thousand, a million. All of them, talking over the other. I think I tried to scream, but found myself unable to. My own voice was drowned out by the thousands of others.

The process continued.

Seconds.

Minutes....

Hours...

My eyes snapped open, and I picked myself off the hard ground of the hive. The embryonic fluid of my birthing chamber slowed the process down, having become solidified in the open air. It took me a moment to kick my way free of it. Despite just coming to, I felt as if I’d just run a marathon. My head ached, and the joints of my body protested as I got to my feet. After shaking off the last of the solidified fluid, I looked around again.

Unlike my first awakening, I didn’t find myself as panicked as I was before and had to actually strain to remember why my first moments were filled with such fear. Even then, the reason for such a thing was confusing. Despite its looks, I knew the hive was the safest place for us. All of the hive-mates emerge into the world from here. It is where we stored and harvested the food we captured. Made from our resin, the hive was resistant to most forms of magic and worked as both a fortress and incubator.

I knew other things as well that have removed the confusion from earlier.

I was a changeling.

I was born 7901 of the 3rd hive, and adapted to the monarch class one day after being laid, and quickly grown to maturity.

As soon as enough of us were properly matured, we would take Canterlot and make Equestria our new feeding ground. Once their ruler was properly subdued, we would be able to spread throughout all of the land unopposed.

Wait…WHAT?

The new information in my mind ran into conflicting information and I just stood there on all four of my newly acquired legs.

I knew for a fact that My Little Pony was a cartoon. It was created, or recreated really, by Hasbro as a way to help market some really awful toys. Then someone in the company actually had the brains to hire Lauren Faust to help retool the series. She refused to make some crappy cartoon, and took what was probably the third worst idea of a television show ever and turned it into the second coming of the great Disney musicals. But I knew that it was just that: a cartoon. It was an entertaining story grounded in moral messages with compelling characters that presented an ideal to strive towards, but it wasn’t real.

On the other hand, I also knew that without a shadow of a doubt that I was a changeling. I was standing in a hive. If I flapped my wings a certain way an gathered the magic in my body properly, I would be able to fly. If I got really angry and concentrated my negative emotions properly, then I could create destructive magic and blow shit up, or influence people’s minds by channeling the energy through my horn and eyes. With a proper blueprint, I could take on the forms of other creatures, and using their emotions as a catalyst, feed off their innate magical energy.

I knew Celestia was real. I knew the basic layout of Equestria. I knew that within the year, we would be cocooning little ponies inside our new hive to use as a new food source in order to grow and spread. The ponies were going to be our food and- “Whoa hold on time out just a second,” I clicked and screeched in the changeling language, which now made perfect sense to me.

I pushed through the ache in my head and forced down the images of ponies that had already been abducted and placed within chambers meant to keep them sedated as we-the changelings harvested their emotions like some kind of crop. Not only that, but ponies were next to defenseless, kind and trusting. It was almost too easy for a changeling to just snatch one of those ripe, juicy little- AHHH CUT THAT OUT! I told my subconscious.

Once again, I tried to push the changeling in me aside and clear my head of predatory thoughts as I tried to figure out just what the hell was going on here. A dozen questions came to mind, and I was thankful for something else to focus on rather than the changeling knowledge that just shoved itself into my brain upon awakening.

Was I dead? Was this what happened when someone dies? They just wake up in a whole cartoon-ish world and start over? The whole theory of reincarnation seemed to play into that since I did remember I was on a completely different planet yesterday, but…getting killed off and waking up in what should have been a cartoon didn’t really appeal to me as a good way for the universe to work.

The thought that this was Heaven came to mind thanks to watching that one Supernatural episode where everyone in Heaven makes their own paradise. But if that were the case, then I should have awoken in the middle of Ponyville as a badass alicorn that hung out with Rainbow Dash and had a cordial relationship with Luna.

Not that I was ever into the physical attraction to ponies thing, it’s just the whole princess Luna crying on her own holiday really got to me and I just wanted to give her a hug on Nightmare Night and go ‘there there Luna, you’ll always be best princess to me’.

Okay…umm…other explanations, I asked myself. Coma fantasy? It seemed to fit…sort of. Maybe I had just been electrocuted and knocked out, and now I was laying in a hospital bed somewhere. Although I had to wonder why I ended up on the wrong side of the tracks in the Good VS Evil battle and not the alicorn god of awesomeness like what should have happened if this was all in my head.

I wracked my brain for another explanation, but before one was forthcoming, the telltale buzzing of wings informed me that more of my hivema-more changelings were coming. But they weren’t my ‘hive-spawn’ they weren’t a weird stand-in term that changelings used for family. They. Were. Changelings. Period!

They were them, and I was me. I mentally grabbed onto that truth and held it like it was the only thing that kept me from falling into a dark abyss.

When the three changelings approached, I did my best to stay calm. Two of them looked like normal changelings, while the third member of the trio that was leading the group had on some strange armor that looked to be made of the same material as the hive walls. Seeing them wasn’t like watching a bright little cartoon on a screen. No, seeing them in person (in pony? In changeling? In per-ling? Oh screw it!) was just downright freaky.

Changelings are insects that look like ponies. I’m not talking about when they change shape or anything, I’m talking about their base form that was crafted after the hive established itself in Equestria. I already didn’t like bugs, but bugs that have been twisted into a shape that is just so…unnatural sends a thousand shivers down my spine. These things creeped me out.

As soon as he landed, I noticed the one in front was a tiny bit shorter than me. The oddity stuck with me as I knew changelings basically rolled off a genetic assembly line. All of our base forms were the same, yet mine was slightly different. Then the leader barked something at me in the changeling language. “Designation!”

After my body jumped in startlement, it took me a few seconds to calm myself down enough to even understand what the question meant. “7901,” I replied in our mutual bug talk. It was rather disturbing how easily how I was able to form them in my…mandibles?

No, I had a mouth, with teeth and fangs and everything. So, there was that at least…

That realization brought another shudder through my body. With everything going on, I was actually glad for the fact I still had a normal mouth. Okay, it was a mouth with fangs, but that was still better than mandibles! That was the highlight of my existence, a mouth!

“Follow me for food,” the armored changeling told me before flapping his wings some more and taking flight.

I did my best not to think about what the cantina was going to be serving today and looked to the wings on my back. The new information in my head told me how my wings were going to work, and I spend a few seconds playing with the muscles on my back to make them move. Then I increased the speed of their movements and channeled my magic as I ‘knew’ how to do to enable a body too large to be lifted up by an insect’s wings to leave the ground.

Unfortunately, the joy of flight was easily overshadowed by my location. Although even the epic creepiness of the place didn’t manage to stop me from being in awe of the changeling hive. It was unlike any human structure ever built. I suppose if I was a biologist that specialized in insects, I might have been able to draw comparisons to some earth species like ants or bees. But I wasn’t. My chosen subjects were history, economics, government and psychology of humans, not…whatever the hell changelings were.

As soon as I exited the cavern where I had awoken, all semblance to human architecture disappeared. There was room after room of an endless chain of tiny spaces. In some of them I saw glowing green moss growing on the wall, providing enough illumination for a changeling's eyes to work just fine. Others held indentations in the ground and walls where water trickling down from the upper floors was collected before the overflow ran down to the next floor. Entry and exits for the rooms were placed every which way, with changelings coming and going through holes in the roofs and floors just as much as through normal doorways.

If not for the knowledge in my head, I would have been completely lost. Even then, it was as if I had read a book about Niagara Falls, and then went to experience the thing in real life. Knowing what I would experience and actually being there in person were two very different things.

We came to the changeling’s version of a cafeteria. Like the incubation chamber, the place where changelings stored their food was a large open cavern that had to be over one hundred feet high, and I knew it was just one of several. Unlike the first chamber, the area was dotted with stalactites and stalagmites, some of which formed pillars that connected the ceiling to the floor thanks to the changeling hive material joining them together. It would have been an impressive sight if the place wasn’t littered with creatures floating in translucent pods of green muck just waiting to be fed upon.

Well, those that didn’t already have a changeling latched onto their pod, sucking them emotionally dry.

“Go. Feed,” the captain commanded.

I hesitated for a moment, looking around the chamber. I saw over a dozen different species. All the pony tribes had at least two representatives, although pegasi numbered as much as the other two tribes combined. There was also a griffon, some buffalo and a minotaur. I even caught sight of a zebra as I buzzed around.

Oh man, this is just wrong, I told myself before looking back to the changeling in armor.

“Feed!” it commanded more forcefully than last time.

I mentally gulped. I knew from the show how changelings fed, but the new knowledge in my head was much more descriptive in how it all worked. It was something akin to an emotional vampire, and the aftereffects of feeding too much on a single creature were more like extreme blood loss than an emotionless daze Shining Armor had during the wedding. That had been the queen's overdose of mind control which turned him into a zombie.

The idea that I had to do that to another being probably would have made me physically ill, if I still had a proper stomach to hold food. As it was, it just made me pretty disgusted and unable to do anything about it.

But then, what were my other options? Not feed and…what? I had no idea what the hive would do to a changeling that didn’t eat; and something told me a bitch like Chrissie would let me last long enough to starve to death. Even if she did, that was my other option. Feed, or starve to death!

It was a little disturbing how fast I made the choice once that realization hit me. But hey, self-preservation and all that.

Well, not much choice I guess, I told myself as I wearily flew up to the pillars that held the cocoons and hovered near frozen that held a frozen pegasus with dark red fur and a simple black mane.

No choice, I told my conscience again as I looked around to try and find someone to eat. Another pony caught my eye. It was a male unicorn with a heart for his cutie mark. Maybe I should put the poor guy out of his misery.

That thought caused another wave of nausea to roll through my consciousness, and I shook my head. Come on, I know it won’t be good if I don’t do what they want.

Even if it meant I would hurt another person…or whatever the hell I was about to feed off of.

Shut up conscience, this is me, not some nameless background pony! I told myself as I looked around the cavern. Still, just sucking another pony dry of the love they radiated from their mystic coma just made me shudder.

So…yeah, eating a pony was out of the question. Even if I didn’t know them, the only pony I could probably ever bring myself to harm was Diamond Tiara, and she probably didn’t have that much love to go around anyway. From what I could remember about Gilda, griffons were douche bags, so they probably didn’t have that much love to feed off of no matter how doped up they were. Which meant I either had to eat a bull-man or a buffalo.

I looked back and forth between the two before settling on one. You know what? Screw the Injun stand-in species, they messed with the Apple family, I told myself before latching onto the buffalo’s pod and doing what came naturally.

Changeling feeding habits are in a word: weird. We don’t eat and digest physical food, but when it comes to the love energy, we do inhale it through the mouth. There’s like a second, psychic mouth that we open to drag in the essence of another creature. There’s also a psychic nose that can smell (for a lack of a better term) emotions, but I didn’t need it at the moment as I knew all the creatures in their pods were being forced to radiate love.

Actually feeding as a changeling was…different. The ‘taste’ was the emotion I consumed. I experienced it as I drank it in. It also made me realize just why changelings needed to feed on love, or at least some sort of positive emotion. If we experienced the emotion as we fed, then an emotion like fear would cause us to recoil instead of continuing on, and I’m not sure what anger or hatred would do. I didn’t want to know.

Still, since I was feeding on the buffalo in its magically induced love coma, a feeling of euphoria washed over me. I stopped caring about the well-being of my meal and inhaled deeply, bringing on an emotional high that probably came close to drug overdose levels of joy.

Something pulled on my foreleg, and I ignored it in favor of my meal.

Another pull came. This one harder and from both arms, or forelegs I guess. But I wanted the food too much to care. I knocked the attempt to get between me and my buffalo burger and continued to eat. Then the captain changeling’s feet connected with my face and sent me to the ground.

When I got back up and looked at where I had been eating, I saw the three changelings hovering where I had been surrounding my meal. Where the buffalo had been what I was guessing a respectability fit member of his species when I first saw him, the creature floating in the pod looked shriveled to the point of emaciation and several years older. He was obviously on the verge of death thanks to the experience.

The sight was a bit disturbing…but I was way too high on love to give a damn.

I’m not too sure about what happened next. After my meal, I could have been smacked in the face all day without giving the slightest care. The bugs just led me through about a dozen more rooms that seemed to serve little purpose other than being places to grow moss and collect water.

The next thing I knew, I was in an empty chamber about the size of your average bedroom, if you lived on the set for Aliens. Unlike the other rooms though, these actually had doors made of the same chitin covering that it looked like the changelings outer shells were constructed from. A few minutes after my love high started to wear off, those doors opened, and in stepped the queen bitch herself.

Chrysalis. Was. Creepy. But in a scary type of way that made you want to cringe in terror and run screaming just to make sure she never touched you with those holy hooves of hers. What stood in front of me was not some cute little pony-bug monster that looked like a black, scraggly version of an alicorn with insect wings. The creature that towered over me radiated a level of menace that you get when finding a wild animal big enough to kill you coming your way for its next meal. While the other bugs gave me a bad vibe, Chrysalis made me pretty sure I would have been crapping myself if I had anything to let go.

“Do not worry my child,” the monster crooned in her vibrating voice as she circled me, examined me, weighed me with her eyes as if she were judging a piece of meat or something. I think I even saw her lick her lips once or twice.

“Do you know why you are here?” she asked after coming back to the point where she started her examination.

Because I died and God has a sick sense of humor, I told myself before gulping. “N-No.” Please don’t say sex. Please don’t say sex. Please don’t say sex.

The bug queen looked me up and down again, then frowned. “Twice I have found my plans for Equestria thwarted by a single pony,” she said before beginning to pace back and forth. “It is not Celestia, Luna, or Princess Cadence that halts victory for the hive, but their newly risen princess.”

Chrysalis turned her attention back to me, and I was on the receiving end of a grin that only intensified the sheer level of bad vibes I was getting from her. “So I have created you for this singular purpose…”

Wait, she’s not actually saying what I think she’s saying…is she?

“You my child, will kill Twilight Sparkle.”

Well fuck…I was afraid of that.

And so began my tale of immersion into the world of MLP, not with friendship and magic, romance and heroics, awesome godlike power and awkward meetings, but a perilous plot to pacify a particular pretty purple pony princess. Considering my shape shifting nature and my target, I figured I needed to brush up on my alliteration skills.

Chapter 2

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Chapter 2: I Become A Spy in Her Majesty’s Royal Service

You know, I was pretty happy with my life. Good job, okay friends, healthy amounts of entertainment, a really nice car that existed to help compensate for my nonexistent ego…nothing about it was super exciting, but it was really a good life.

Then I blacked out, or died, or…something, and woke up as a changeling and…oh God, I qualify as a princess, but as the whole changeling gender thing is a little iffy and Mommy Dearest showed me I could be a guy or girl, I’m just going to hold onto what is left of my man card until I start laying eggs or something. Then I can start having an existential crisis, thank you.

As to what I was doing in Equestria? That would be a conspiracy to commit train robbery, kidnapping, espionage & regicide. I think there’s some other minor stuff in there like fraud, but when the whole idea revolves around killing a princess…I don’t think you can get more than one death sentence.

As to how I got here…that’s a bit of a story in and of itself…

I’d just like to start out by saying: Chrysalis is a moron.

Yeah I know, she was a cartoon villain and all that, but think about this for a second. The Bitch Queen has an entire race of creatures with varying intelligence that can take the shape of any pony they can lay their eyes on long enough to get a good read. The intelligence agencies we (or should I say humans now?) have today would sell what’s left of their collective souls to get their hands on something that could do a tenth of what your most bare bottom changeling could do.

I’m not talking about some stupid cosmetic change that’s only skin deep either. When a changeling becomes a pegasus, they physically turn into that pony minus the memories and talents; which we in turn make up for with the hundreds of bits of information floating around in the hive mind. There is a bit of a mass problem involved when a changeling tries to change into something too big, which is why only Chrysalis could replace someone like Celestia. I’m more along the lines of Princess Twilight’s size when it comes to height and weight. But the average changeling can pretty much replace any pony at will, provided they can talk.

And that’s another thing that kind of gets to me. Changeling intelligence is determined solely by how much magic Mom pumps into the eggs during gestation. Most of the changelings in the hive can’t even speak beyond a few simple phrases. They all follow commands of course, but that’s more mind control and that hive mind crap than anything like a high IQ score. The actual number of changelings that can think for themselves is around 2500 out of an even 10,000.

But hell, with 2500 shape shifting monsters that could share a consciousness when they needed to, I could take over any government in existence! I wouldn’t even need to knock out Celestia and Luna, I’d send my guys to replace their pencil pushers. Doesn’t matter how powerful the uber-god-queens are if they don’t know what’s going on.

But what does Chrysalis do with this kind of advantage? The last time she tangled with Twilight, after the wedding, she snuck several unintelligent changelings into Ponyville, managed to pod about ½ the town without being detected, and then kidnapped the CMC to lure Twilight into a trap. All while Twilight was still a damn unicorn. Hell, she even managed to lure Twilight into some weird castle with kittens (I think they were the previous owners) for a one on one duel, and STILL managed to fuck it up.

Unfortunately, Chrysalis doesn’t seem to like reliving her mistakes, so I’m a little iffy on the details of just how that happened since the ending was apparently removed from the hive mind.

So plan C for taking over Equestria was apparently making a new changeling monarch and sending it to infiltrate Ponyville to get close to Twilight and take her down. Then invade Canterlot again with Shinning Armor and Cadence still away in the Crystal Empire. From there, she would rule Equestria.

That was the plan IN ITS ENTIRETY!

It took me about five seconds to figure out that wasn’t going to work. Five minutes to actually explain this to the queen, five days to recover from the beating she gave me for telling her no, and five weeks to put a better plan in place that actually had a chance of working while I learned how to use magic, do more than just fly forward with my wings, learn a little history about Equestria, the changelings, and get over the fact that I was a FOUR LEGGED TAKING MAGICAL COCKROACH PRINCE…SS.

As for what the plan actually was… I won’t bore you with the details, but Chrysalis sent a team of intelligent changelings to Canterlot and replaced a few nobles, as well as one of Celestia’s advisers to stir up a fuss about Princess Twilight not having a royal guard in Ponyville. We also had them throw in some concerns for the life of the rest of the Element Bearers. Yeah, sure they were heroes and could take care of themselves most of the time, but what if a changeling was to come along and strike when they weren’t looking, or asleep? Sure they couldn’t use the elements anymore…or they couldn’t by the time our rabble rousers were done complaining, but that just meant they were all the more vulnerable! Hell, what if something killed Fluttershy and Discord went nuts from grief?

Eventually, panicking ponies won out, and even Princess Twilight herself signed off on allowing a small group of guards in the town and around her friends to deal with unexpected events. Just three guards, and their squad captain.

Which brings me back to the story, you see…

The guards we talked Twilight into taking, they were the ponies on the train we were fixing to hijack. It was a special military transport, which meant nobody else was on it except the four poor soldier saps, the conductor, and a few other guys to shovel coal, all of whom were fixing to be replaced by myself and the thirty odd changelings I brought with me that were all waiting in that nice dark tunnel that the Friendship Express has to go through to exit Canterlot Mountain.

The train came into view, and as it drew closer, I could feel the rumbling of the tracks beneath me and I placed my hoof on the large empty crate would need to transport some food in when the operation was over. The rest of the changelings were flying up as close to the ceiling as possible, waiting for their moment to strike. It kind of annoyed me that my part in the plan didn’t have me doing anything but actually stopping the train, but that was life. I was out to succeed, not have fun.

As soon as the Express went into the tunnel, I channeled as much magic as I could manage through my horn and surrounded the entirety of the engine with a telekinetic field. The whole thing came to a dead stop a second later.

I got to tell you. Magic really is crazy. While there are several rules surrounding it, the whole thing is a giant middle finger to physics, the absolute laws of the universe that once controlled everything I knew. When I stopped the train, there was no screeching of wheels or a need to make a giant push, it was just field on and movement off. No excess inertia pushing from the back cars, no displaced rush of air, or anything like that you’d expect to see. It just stopped.

Then the changelings attacked. One third went into the engine, but the other twenty flew into the two other cars on the train. There was some shouting and a little light-show, but the fight didn’t last all that long. Judging by the quick wave of panic I smelled that replaced the confusion coming from the train in front of me, the guards had been caught with their pants down and paid for it. Or the sudden stop had sent them flying forward out of their seats harder than a car crash, but I tend the think the worst of the royal guard.

But, that was what happened when you have a military that didn’t participate in a war for at least a generation. Sure there was the odd monster or crises, but the ability of Celestia’s guards was pretty low considering the sun princess handled most of the major threats against her country personally. The EUP was mostly there to find problems for Celestia to deal with and act a cannon fodder when it came down to it. They weren't nearly as well trained as say, a race of beings that shared 92% of the memories containing the totality of their very existence since the first changeling queen was born.

Once I got the signal that all the ponies were restrained and the train’s brakes had been put on, I dropped my TK and headed inside the engine. The conductor and his ponies needed to be dealt with first. If the guards pulled some last second resistance out of their asses, I didn’t want them to just jump into the engine and drive off.

There were three of them in all, the conductor, the coal shoveler, and another pony that probably supported one or the other when it came to doing their jobs. I placed my horn to each of them in turn and channeled a bit of magic into their minds.

Even for changelings, mental manipulation is a dangerous thing. Too much turns your subject into a vegetable, or a green-eyed zombie that can’t even think for himself. The little stuff is usually best, a mental command to have a princess chalk up a few minor errors the thing that looks like her niece makes as nerves about a wedding, or an aura to induce a feeling of trust from a pony when they first meet; of course that only really works if they don’t already have an opinion of the pseudo-pony they’re talking to.

But what I was using on the ponies in front of me had nothing to do with that kind of stuff. No, the magic I used was a basic amnesia spell that would have them forgetting everything between now and when they woke up this morning. Then the changelings could take the train back to Canterlot, dump the dupes off, and head on up north to join Chrysalis in the Crystal Empire with the rest of the more active changelings as they did their job in our revenge scheme against Cadence and Equestria as a whole.

“They’re done,” I told my evil minions. “Three of you stay here and take their forms, then shove them in the first car after we’ve cocooned the guards. The rest can come with me.”

When I got into the first car, I found all four of the royal guards pinned to the ground in various stages of having the crap beaten out of them. It was a pair of pegasi and two unicorns. I don’t know if no earth ponies tried signing up for the detail, or Celestia just didn’t think they’d be able to run away fast enough when the real shit only heroes could deal with went down. Seriously, despite their lack of formal training, AJ, Rainbow, and Twi stood head and shoulders above more than 95% of their respective tribes when it came to what they could do.

I’ll admit, the part of my plans involving the guards had me feeling sorry for them, and a little sick with myself. I mean, the conductors we were just knocking out and sending home. The guards on the other hand, well…we couldn’t just let them wander off since their orders said ‘Go to Ponyville’. If they came back to the castle going ‘Gee Princess Celestia, I just don't know why we can’t remember getting out of bed this morning’ things would become problematic.

Plus, with the semi-long term timeline that our operation would become, I needed to ensure there was something for us to eat on a regular basis that didn’t rely on the three other changelings I was stuck with draining it from the ponies around town. These guys were going to be our food. Well, guys and girl, one of them was female.

Then I actually saw the pegasus who was in charge of the detail, and all thoughts of feeling sorry for any of these pieces of shit went right out the window.

He looked a bit odd for you normal background pony, and REALLY odd for your average guard pony. He didn’t have that white coat and gold armor, or a dark brown coat that the animators probably threw in when some guy somewhere accused MLP of being racist with its pure white military and goddess overlord. No, he had a nice orange coat that really clashed with his stupid golden armor and a blue mane that matched the top of his helmet which had been knocked off.

“Flash Sentry,” I growled.

Yeah, it was Flash Sentry.

Flash FUCKING Sentry.

The worst creation in all of MLP history, the one pony that needed to die a horrible, screaming death that involved being drawn and quartered, or some other ironic death for a talking horse.

I grit my teeth and literally shook with rage as I looked down on He Who Should Not Exist as if the creature was some demon from outside the perfection that was Equestria.

“H-Hello, have we met?” he asked between groans while one of my minions stepped down on his wing, getting a wince from the orange abomination.

I couldn’t help it. My rage kept me from controlling myself. I wanted to play the part of a cool, aloof evil mastermind, get a real Darth Vader thing going in front of my minions, but…this insult to the bronies of the world made me lose control. “WHAT THE HAY ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I demanded as I leaned down in the pegasus’s face.

Seriously though, even IF Flash Sentry was (dare I say it?)…cannon (ugh now I feel dirty) he should have been in the Crystal Empire! The stupid movie clearly showed his out of place ass standing around in the frozen north! The fact that he was ANYWHERE other than fulfilling his role as some glorified background pony with a couple of speaking lines was just…the greatest sin imaginable!

“I-I…there was a call for volunteers for Princess Twilight’s new guard-”

And that was about as far as he got before I smashed face in with a nice cry of “BUCK YOU!”

Then I said some other stuff too as I continued to hammer away at him. “There’s…no…way…you’re…getting…near…Twilight…you…cock…sucking…ass,” I told the equine as I wildly struck him over and over again, punctuating each word with a strike.

“P-Princess!”

I froze, and looked over to the changeling who dared address me by my ‘official’ title. Everything in the hive knew that I was to be called Boss, Master, Overlord, Great One, and Highness. The changelings who called me Princess ended up carrying the targets during my magic training when I practiced blowing shit up. Most of them didn't survive the experience.

“What?” I asked changeling #619. Yeah, we can tell each other apart. It as to do with our olfactory senses and glands that produce certain smells. Hell, half the changeling language is conveyed through the nose.

“If you kill him your highness, then we won’t be able to infiltrate Ponyville,” the changeling managed to stammer out under my gaze.

I looked back down to the half beaten to death pony and frowned mostly due to the fact he was still alive. For all our abilities, changelings actually didn’t have much in the way of natural physical strength. If I had been a real alicorn or something, Flash Sentry would have probably been little more than a carpet stain, even with his armor and pegasus magic that seems to protect them from blunt trauma.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “One of you check their stuff for identification. See if they have badges or something. If Celestia was even half as competent as Chrysalis, then Twilight at least knew the names of the guards that were coming to see her.

“All of you need to head out now, except for…”

I took a moment to select three changelings who would be coming along with me for the mission. There were plenty to choose from, since most of the changelings with me had normal IQ and speaking abilities. I still snagged one of the stupider ones to use as Flash’s stand-in though.

If Flash was cannon, then going by the movie, Twilight thought he was hot. I had to dissuade her from going after him by any way possible. So turning him from somepony she found slightly charming thanks to a couple of stupid lines and his inability to keep out of her way into a mute, dumb as shit buffoon who couldn’t put on his own armor should work. And if not, I can always out him as a changeling and get that accomplishment under my belt.

The other two changelings I selected were #619, and #666. I’d been using The Beast for my personal slave since well...since I learned his number, and #619 actually had enough balls to point something I was doing wrong out while I was pretty pissed off as second ago, so…it/she/he/whatever might actually be more useful than a yes man.

By the time #619 had found all the guards ID, the rest of the changelings had taken off and I was left glaring at the identification she (as #619 took the appearance of a dark female unicorn) floated over to me.

After failing to ignite the thing with my eyes alone, I looked back up at #619. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“Highness?” the dark unicorn asked.

“Never mind,” I grumbled before snatching the thing away with my magic and sampling my doppelganger-to-be’s aura in disgust. I was really going to miss being able to use magic.

The trip to Ponyville was uneventful, from where we started it anyway. After we slimed and packaged the guard squad, we just sat down and waited for the train to pull into the station. Thankfully, there wasn’t a crowd. This train was running on its own schedule, so nobody was there thinking to go to Canterlot. Only one pony was there to meet us, and she had brought along her…whatever the hell Spike was to Twilight. There’s some real arguments about the relation of his position to assistant/son/brother. After five plus weeks of living with emotional vampires, I’m going to have to go with slave.

I stepped off the train and motioned for the goons to start hauling all our cargo out. The less time it was around, the less chance Pinkie had to just show up and start messing with everything. Even my ability to turn ponies into mind slaves, I seriously doubted it would stop her from just doing something weird to fuck up my whole plan.

As for Twilight, she didn’t waste any time in trotting up towards me to introduce herself.

Twilicorn was, well, an alicorn of course. Thanks to all the weeks of preparation and living with monsters as well as taking my place as the number two on the totem pole, I wasn’t completely fangasming over meeting her, but…she still looked pretty impressive. Especially considering the ponies I was used to seeing were haggard, scruffy things covered in goo that hadn’t moved since we nabbed them.

Like everything else in this technicolor world, she looked brighter than natural, as if someone really had colored her fur with a marker or something. A purple marker, with other shades of purple to take care of her mane, eyes, and horn. Also, like all her species, she didn’t really look all that much like a pony.

Okay, she had four legs, a mane, and all that other stuff, but that was where the similarities ended. Her hooves were so lacquered and purple it was hard to tell where her coat ended and her hoof began. The alicorn’s face wasn’t all that much like a horse’s either. Trust me, I’ve owned, ridden, brushed, and done all that other stuff with race horses and they look nothing like a pony from the top of the neck up (and everything from the neck down wasn’t all that close either). Compared to a horse, Twilight’s eyes were way too close together, her muzzle did not just look like an extension of her head as a whole, her nostrils were too small, and the range of motion she had with her lips and mouth were far too controlled for anything a horse was capable of doing.

Speaking of which, the first thing she said to me was, “Hello, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and this is Spike.”

I noted a lack of a princess in her introduction, and was glad for it. The mystery as to why she didn’t introduce herself formally helped me choke down the bile that threatened to force its way out of my throat thanks to my own words. “Greetings Princess Twilight,” I said with a respectful bow I hoped looked right. Learning how to do that kind of stuff wasn’t really in the instruction manual for changeling royalty.

“I am Lt. Flash Sentry, the commanding officer of your royal guard.”

And I hated myself more than you could possibly imagine at that moment.

Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: I Become A Magical Mad Scientist’s ~~Monster Bodyguard~~ Friend

So…yeah, I ended up as the faux Flash Sentry because the jackass managed to get a low command position and ended up in the ass end of nowhere for some posting that only existed to please some politicians that were in fact my subordinates. Stupid karma and its ability to come back and bite vampiric monsters in the ass. If this was the way Equestria worked, my future as its lord and master was really going to suck.

That’s when I got a very disturbing thought. What if this really IS the way Equestria works?

I wasn’t going to buy the whole ‘I am stuck in a kid’s cartoon’ thing, because I’ve killed plenty of stuff back during my training at the hive. Here, things do bleed, bones can break, and shit can die. But, considering things like cutie marks existed, there might have been a very real possibility that there was some kind of guiding force to make sure the good guys always came out on top.

Although to be totally honest, I had those thoughts way back on the train when I was sitting around with nothing to do, messing with my enchanted armor. Yeah, the guards armor is magic, the stuff is pretty thick but also light as a feather. How do you think pegasi can fly when weighed down with gold?

My thoughts when I met Twilight were more like: DON’T SCREW THIS UP YOU FUCKING MORON!

I mean, plenty of things could go wrong. Take for instance the question of whether I needed to swear a personal oath of loyalty to her when we first met. It’s actually more common throughout history than one might think, and since the ponies were still a pretty archaic society when it came to social customs, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that each princess’s personal guard had their own loyalty oath.

And judging by the frown Princess Twilight was giving me two seconds after I opened my mouth, I had already messed up. When she just glared at me for a few moments, I looked over to the dragon for help. Of course Spike was his usual worthless self on these sorts of things and just asked. “Seriously dude?”

“W-What?” I stammered before looking back to the princess. “What’d I do? Princess?” I asked, which only seemed to make her even angrier.

Twilight’s wings fidgeted for a moment, then she pulled out a notepad and quill before writing something down and tearing it off. A second later, it was floating in front of me to grab.

I looked at the piece of paper in confusion. It was…a ticket? Not the kind of lottery or raffle, it looked more like an antiquated version of a traffic ticket. Princess Twilight Sparkle had just written me a ticket for…calling her a princess. I just looked back up at her with an open mouth. “Is this a joke?”

“No,” she told me seriously. “”I could have overlooked it the first time since it might have been a slip, but you just had to keep going at it. By royal decree, it is against the law to call me a princess within the town limits.”

I couldn’t help it. I just gawked at the purple alicorn. “Seriously?”

Twilight frowned at me a little more, then looked away. I could smell the slight embarrassment radiating off her, but it was still mostly anger that came from the alicorn. “I don’t like it when other ponies put me above themselves.”

“So…you take away their right to say what they want to show them that you’re not above them?” I asked, a little confused over the oddity of such an order. “That seems a little convoluted Princess.” And pretty damn hypocritical, but I was trying to be nice to Twilight. Yeah, I could have just nodded and sucked up to her, but I was also supposed to be playing the part of a soldier, and do tend to tell people what I think about stuff.

Of course my little comment got me another ticket. After it was scratched out, Twilight went back to glaring at me. “Okay fine, then I order you not to call me princess from now on,” she told me before looking to the other guards. “And that goes for all of you as well!”

I sucked in some air through my teeth, and then let it out through my nose. “Sorry…” I did manage to stop myself from saying princess that time, “but that’s just too disrespectful. Not to mention impossible.”

“I’m the one telling you to do it!” she replied with a frown before her expression became one of aggravated confusion. “And what do you mean impossible? It’s just a title.”

Crap, this really is getting out of hand, I realized before switching to a less lecturing tone and something more gentle. I even threw in some widening of the eyes to look more understanding. “In the first one, it’s disrespectful. Not just to you, but to every pony who has ever been a princess of Equestria. It’s something you earned, and yes, it does set you above us. We’re not your friends Highness, we’re your servants and subjects. We stand so far below you on the social totem pole, you’d have to dig down three levels just to proverbially step on us. Friends stand as equals, and there’s only three ponies in the world that are at your level these days.”

Yeah, I screwed up royal on that one. But hey, can you blame me? I mean, how many friendships end when one guy starts working for another? It’s why officers are discouraged from socializing with the enlisted men. The added power the guy on top has becomes a weight when he needs to choose someone to do something for him, it messes with the decision making.

With royalty, it’s ten times worse. I may not know the way things work in Equestria, but back home, a king could laugh and slap a guy on the back over a drink, but the second that guy got out of line, it was off with his head. Hell, it was that way in Equestria too, just look at me and Chrysalis.

Sure I was doing the exact same thing as Twilight in regards to my…(ugh) princess title, but I was a tyrannical bastard that didn’t like it over the added gender that had been dropped on me. The fact that Twilight was doing the same thing with just nicer reasoning being it, it was kind of disturbing.

Okay, it was very disturbing. I didn’t like it one damn bit and wanted to call her on it. Twilight my have not of been my favorite pony, but she sure as hell was all around best pony, and seeing her becoming even slightly tyrannical in her reign as princess was borderline pissing me off.

And yeah, the whole plan to kill Twilight Sparkle, that was probably out the door five minutes into my train ride. I might have fallen far enough to not give a damn about the 200 pegasi we snatched for Mom’s flight up north so she could cause problems in the Crystal Empire, but knocking off best pony? That level of evil just wasn’t in me.

Well, not yet anyway.

Okay, so long story short, we all got introduced to Twilight.

#616 was taking the place of a private Dawn Star, who was apparently a unicorn who specialized in stunning spells. I was just glad she wasn’t a medic or anything, changeling magic revolved around hurting and killing stuff. I’m pretty sure Dawn could cause enough pain to something so it would collapse or pass out, but even I couldn’t throw up a magical shield to defend somepony or heal them. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if healing magic existed at all at the time.

I gave Beast the other unicorn position, a stallion named Pathfinder who was a registered tracker. I really didn’t have any idea if we could copy that magical effect or not. Changeling’s were a predatory species after all, so it did kind of fall within our purview. If not, we would have had to fake it with our above average sense of smell.

#32 was the mute member of our group, and got to be the big white pegasus that could have passed for any royal guard named White Knight. Yes, even his name was that generic. I gave some BS story about a manticore ripping out his throat and ruining his vocal cords despite a great deal of emergency treatment that did save his life. There was also some side comment about brain damage, which I think Twilight took as a bad joke like I made it out to be. But at least it would help explain any odd behavior from the stupidest of the group.

Still don’t know why I didn’t replace his sorry ass as soon as I could. With Chrysalis up in the north, my telepathic signal with the main hive was stronger, so I got to be the one calling the shots. I was kind of hoping that Mom would do something stupid and get herself caught, thus making me the de facto leader of the changelings but…no such luck.

It really blew up in my face actually…but, that’s a different part of the story all together.

So after we made introductions and got everything taken over to the small house that would serve as the barracks for Twilight’s guard, I left my goons to unload everything and magically dig a secret room in the cellar for food storage before Twilight half-heartedly invited us for lunch.

I was the only one that went. I ditched the no fraternization with superiors excuse for one that said they needed to get settled in and buy some curtains and other things to block out the windows. But since I was Twilight’s head guard, I would be the one following her around all the time.

“So I was thinking I would be your personal guard during the daylight hours while Dawn Star and Pathfinder simply take up positions on the opposite ends of town and White Knight handles your protection after the sun goes down,” I told her while we walked through the grass streets of Ponyville while doing my best not to gawk Oooo and Ahhh at everything around me.

Five weeks of having to keep a respectful tone and demeanor when dealing with my mother helped a lot with that. I also made a personal note to give some bullshit excuse to go patrol the town once Twilight started studying or reading in her library. But on the other hand, I told myself as I imagined all the books she had access to. While the changeling hive mind had some nice 1st hand accounts of things like our history, it was lacking when it came to anything else. The chance to find out about the history, culture, economics, and everything else about Equestria… Oh sweet Celestia the possibilities!

“That sounds fine,” Twilight said in the same depressed tone I’d heard from her since we left the station. With the other guards gone, she wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore. Spike was also giving me a dirty glare for getting his owner upset.

I was about to asked her what I’d done, when the building we were headed towards caught my eye. That’s not Sugarcube Corner, my mind told me as I looked at what my inner critic screamed was a crime against the continuity.

Okay, one hundred-percent honest here: it looked like a McDonalds. A FUCKING McDonalds in Equestria! Oh, the sign said Hay Burger, but it was sure as hell a fast food monstrosity from the pits of Hades! Or maybe Tartarus. The appearance of such a thing made me look around in fear for a moment while I silently prayed to myself. Dear God, I know I’m basically a cartoon version of the Legion, or maybe the Leviathan…some kind of biblical demon anyway, I haven’t gone to church in about twenty years, but please don’t let there be a Starbucks here too. The innocence of Equestria can’t take it.

“Something wrong?”

Spike’s annoyed tone snapped me out of my daze, and I looked back up to the depressed alicorn and her pet dragon. This time I had the intelligence not to just go ‘Hay Burger, seriously?’ at the poor purple pony. Her psychic smell of depression, as sweet as it was, already had me feeling pretty down. “Nothing,” I assured them. “It’s just…I’m coming.”

The inside of the building was at least a little…pony-ish. By that I mean ponies worked behind the counters, the serving trays were made to be held without hooves like the cameras I’d seen previously that just strapped around a pony‘s neck, and the tables were made from untreated wood to give a rustic appearance. But they still had cash registers and all that other stuff a human would expect to see back home.

Ordering food turned out to be…tricky. Changelings obviously don’t eat for sustenance aside from a little water to keep hydrated. The material we take in gets digested in a way, but we use it to make our cocoons and other things after vomiting it back up as green sludge. And being the evil mastermind that I was, I didn’t participate in the cocooning of our four hostages.

In short, I was full, and would be that way until I yakked up some material. Note to self, keep gunk sacks half empty in case of emergencies. Considering Pinkie Pie’s penchant for parties, it was a prudent precaution.

“I’ll just have an order of hay fries,” I told the cashier before reaching back under my right wing where my wallet was stored.

Twilight stopped me. “No, that’s okay, I’ll pay for it,” she assured me, still next to lifeless as ever. “I had planned to when I got the letter you all were coming.”

Out of habit, I just stood aside with a nod of thanks. Then Twilight placed her order for three of the larger burgers and an order of fries, then asked what Spike wanted, and I had to fight from gaping. The whole alicorination thing had to have upped her apatite or something, because Twi was on the skinny side of the dork weight range.

After that, I led Twilight to a table in the back while her slave waited on the food to be made. I didn’t want to stick around the front counter as I could have sworn I heard a deep fryer or something going off in the back where everything was cooked. I really didn’t want to know how the hell that shit worked with hay.

I mean come on, the fries are made of hay, and so are the burgers! Didn’t that strike any of the ponies as odd? Their entire food supply is made from one material! And it’s not like it was something like bacon, ham, pork chops and sausage!

But I managed to shift my mind to more important matters once we were alone, or as alone as a princess could get in a fast food joint. I was just grateful we didn’t have a repeat of King Ralph going to Burger King. But then, Twilight may actually throw ponies in prison for asking for her autograph or thanking her for saving the world so…yeah.

Once we were alone, I focused on the depressed alicorn and hung my head in regret. “Okay, what’d I do?” asked in a soft tone.

“Hm? Oh, you…no, it’s nothing, I just…” Twilight trailed off.

“You’ve been depressed ever since we talked at the train station,” I told her, forcing myself to give a little smile. Truth be told, I was still a little pissed off she was giving me fines for that crap I said. All I had on me was Flash Sentry’s wallet, and knew next to nothing about his finances. That information would have to wait till we soundproofed the basement and tortured the information out of him along with getting him to sign his name so we could learn to forge it and the million other things I needed to know to fake being him. There was always the mind control option, but for that I would have to get him to drop his guard by taking the form of a pony her trusted thanks to my current operating power and…yeah, the only option I had for that would make things incredibly weird the next day I ran into Twilight.

“Is that really the way things are?” she asked without looking up from her table. I tilted my head in confusion at the question before she finished. “Is it really impossible to stay friends with ponies when you…outrank them?”

The translation from those words to what she was really saying didn’t take to long.

Oh shit. Oh fucking shit. You moron. You FUCKING MORON! YOU JUST TOLD TWILIGHT SPARKLE SHE CAN’T STAY FRIENDS WITH THE OTHER ELEMENTS AND GAVE HER SERIOUSLY GOOD REASONS WHY! I screamed at myself.

Hell, from the way she was reacting, it was obvious she’d been having some of these thoughts herself. My little speech about where ponies stood in comparison with the princess must have just been the extra little push she needed to make up her mind and jump into a pit of despair over it.

The poor girl could probably already see herself as the new Luna. Even Celestia wasn’t that much of a good model. Twilight was the closest thing she had to a daughter, and even the nerd didn’t know about that douche of a bird Fluttershy got tortured over! Note to self: kill Philomena for putting the pegasus through all that crap.

Okay, need to fix this…need to fix this NOW, I told myself as I got my mind back on task.

“Prin…Twilight,” I said, catching myself. The fact I actually called her by her name got the mare’s attention, and she looked up at me. “I said some things that were pretty stupid…probably because of those tickets you gave me.”

I paused for a second to reign in my anger over that again. It was pretty hard considering I had just spent the last five weeks proving to the changeling hive I just didn’t strap on my boots and act like the baddest thing on two worlds, but actually came to believe it on several levels as well. You had to when dealing with empathy capable monsters.

“You’re worried you and the other Element Bearers can’t be friends anymore because of your title, aren’t you?” I asked before reaching out for her hooves.

She looked up at me with worry in her eyes. “Is it that obvious?”

Yes. “No,” I lied. “I’ve just read your psychological profile as part of my assignment.” Or that’s what I’m going to say when all your other friends ask how the hell I know them so well, I told myself.

I took a deep breath again and organized my thoughts as best as I could. “Look, you may be a princess,” I told her, hoping that didn’t count a naming her Princess, “but its not like you have any governing duties yet.”

“A-Actually, when I came back to Ponyville, the next morning the mayor was asking me if I was going to take over running the town. And I do have to meet with her every now and then to give…permission for certain projects,” Twilight admitted.

Well, guess that makes sense. Maybe Celestia was trying to ease her into a leadership role or something. “But the mayor isn’t Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, or Rarity, is she? Those are the ones you’re really torn up about. What happened?”

“No, but…the last two times we went into the Everfree…my friends sent me away the first time because they thought I was too important to be put in danger along side them…and the second time, they all went to the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters with…w-w-without me.”

God damn it, you mean I missed a magical pony adventure? I mentally screamed. Maybe I should have just flown off to Ponyville when Mom told me to. Then, I gulped as her eyes and emotions told me Twilight was two seconds away from a breakdown. My stupid mouth with about to make Twilight Sparkle cry! Unfortunately, my options at this point were pretty limited.

I could…

A: Let it happen. Be labeled as a complete douche-bag by Spike. Get the same treatment from the rest of the Mane 6. Then get Flash Sentry reassigned to somewhere even a pegasus would freeze his balls off by Princess Celestia herself. That is if Luna didn’t kill me for breaking the heart of her first friend since she came back from the moon.

B: Try and talk her out of it. Fail completely since we’re not really close friends and still get badmouthed by Spike, hated on my the mane 6, beaten up by Rainbow Dash, get ousted as a changeling when Pinkie showed up at the barracks to continue ragging on me, have to kill Pinkie before she could tell anypony with an anvil to the back of the head, then take her place and spend the rest of my life as a pink pony on a constant sugar high.

C: Use mind control to ease Twilight back into a state of rationality.

Since I didn’t want to die and couldn’t fake Pinkie powers, I went with option C.

Luckily for me, changeling mind control isn’t 100% dependent on having a horn. It helps (a LOT) but subtle influences are still possible without one. It depends mostly on two things: pheromones and eyes.

Even with our shape shifting, the chemicals a changeling gives off are almost constant. The strength goes down quite a ways and we can turn it off completely if we concentrate, but it's still there most of the time. How else would we be able to tell who else was a changeling during an infiltration? Although I will admit that if you get about thirty of us in a closed space and put in one normal pony that we all look like, it gets hard to tell who's who.

Then there’s the eyes. Horns aren’t the only magical thing on ponies after all. Pegasi don’t just use their wings to fly, they also make the weather with them. Their hooves have a magic to make them lighter than clouds, and enable them to survive touching lightning. As for the eyes, well…remember that whole Stare thing? It’s pretty much mind control via emotions.

I reached over to lift Twilight’s head up while releasing enough chemicals in the air she would have had to of been dead not to notice me. Then I locked eyes with the princess and focused my will. Thankfully, what I was attempting was a lot easier than the domination Fluttershy did to that dragon. I didn’t even know if an alicorn could be affected that way without a full mental attack from a changeling monarch, and I really didn’t want to find out.

Instead of trying to force her to obey, I focused my will on conveying a sense of understanding and belief in her abilities. “Twilight, listen…forget all that junk I said earlier,” I told her. “Just because Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna, and Princess Mi Armoire Cadenza do things like that, doesn’t mean you have to. Look at how all your other friends buck tradition. Rainbow Dash flies faster than most pegasi think is scientifically possible, Applejack is the only member of her family to allow other ponies to work on an Apple farm, Rarity is making inroads to high society while living in this rustic town, Pinkie violates the laws of physics on a daily basis, and Fluttershy has made friends with Discord of all…whatever the hay he is. I’d bet anything you’re going to do just like them, and be a princess that other ponies can approach without having to put on nervous smiles and bowing every five seconds. I’m sorry, and if what I said scares you…then prove me wrong like your friends have done everywhere else.”

Twilight just stared at me for a moment, and I was starting to think I had overdone it and my subtle, unnoticeable pick-me-up of a mental push had been spotted. Then she smiled and let out a tiny laugh. “Wow, whatever world we’re in, you know just the right thing do to make me feel better.”

…

I think the fact that I actually picked up on the Equestria Girls reference made me even more confused than if I would have just been able to wonder what the hell Twilight was talking about. The only good thing about that movie was…um…

Anyway, so…yeah, confusion. I was confused at how something like Equestria Girls was supposed to exist when it wasn’t supposed to be cannon at all.

But then again, neither is Flash Sentry, I told myself while suppressing a shudder.

I swore then and there, if I ended up in an Equestria where Pinkie was making pony cupcakes, Scoots was destined for the Rainbow Factory, Fluttershy was a cult leader, or Molestia was the ruler of Equestria, I really was going to kill every single pony out there and replace them with mindless changelings so I could put it all right.

“So Flash,” Twilight said as she smiled at me, “what do you say to bucking tradition, and becoming my friend?”

Well it’s not like I can tell her no now, I thought. Of course, I was going to try and use this situation for all it was worth. So I pulled out my citations and presented them to Twilight. “As long as you’re willing to start with a clean slate, Twilight.”

The alicorn giggled. “Sure thing,” she said before the tickets were ripped apart by her magic.

So, yeah, I became friends with Twilight. Probably shouldn’t have used the pheromones so strongly though, that started something it is better left not mentioned for now. Then Spike came back and we made nice, but…well who really cares how that happened? It’s Spike.

Twilight gave me a scroll with her itinerary for the whole damn week. It wasn’t just a fucking checklist either, it had everything she planned on doing, broken down hour by hour. Turns out not being Princess Celestia’s student didn’t seem to stop her studies either, more than half the things she had planned involved magic books. I made some plans of my own to grab those for a quick look.

Changelings might have had a hive mind that could cram knowledge into a guy’s head within seconds and leave him with a splitting migraine when he woke up, but aside from the bare essentials, there really wasn’t that much in the way of useable knowledge. I wanted to learn teleportation damn it!

After watching the grotesque display of Twilight’s eating habits that put more ketchup on her coat than in her mouth, she went to library for a shower while I went back to my goon squad to start prepping for some other side activities that would come in useful down the line. It was nothing really major at the time. I just gave orders to a few changelings to fly to Appleloosa and a few other southern towns that were still out of Mom’s control range to find out what was going on their. Nobody was hurt since the trip there and back could be made by a fast pegasus. I also had our spies in Canterlot give me a rundown of Celestia and Luna’s schedules so I knew what they were up to as well. Celestia wasted a lot of her time on public relation events for the be all and end all voice of the realm.

Of course I met Twilight’s friends less than two hours later, me and the other changelings that could talk that is. It went…okay. I’ll admit, I gushed over meeting Rainbow Dash kind of hard, but managed to say it was just because she was the Youngest Flier winner instead of calling her favorite pony. White Knight was, okay the changeling who stood in for White Knight was able to stay in the barracks thanks to an excuse we wanted him being put on a night shift sleeping schedule. Luckily, we had time to empty our stomach so we could eat the food. I stress just eating, not enjoying. Even after taking on another pony’s form, changeling taste buds don’t quite work right. And by that I mean not at all. Everything tastes like cardboard to us.

For awhile I thought about faking an allergy to bread to avoid 90% of the food provided. However, I really had no idea if that was even possible with ponies, and I didn’t want to risk it when I was next to a walking encyclopedia for every waking hour of my day.

The week passed and we (me and Twilight) fell into a routine. I showed up at her place, said hello, hugged Derpy when she dropped off the mail, and either followed her around at a respectable distance or just read a book at the library. We didn't really talk all that much insofar as being friendly. Although, she did explain a few things about magic to me and seemed to like the fact most of the stuff a read at the library revolved around Equestrian history.

Everything was great until I discovered the horrible, awful, mind numbing truth.

I was in a fan fiction.

…

No I’m serious, this is a fan fiction.

Written by Rainbow Dash.

That was the only fucking way I could come to possibly believe that Daring Do is actually real.

Chapter 4

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Chapter 4: I Become A Cutie Mark Analyzing Detective

Okay…so, where was I?

Oh right, Daring Do is real. Look, don’t even get me started on how wrong that is. Yes, when I actually got to talk to her, it ended up making a kind of sense but… Listen, when Dash first read Daring Do, the character she imagined, okay she was on the cover, but still, when somepony reads a work of fiction they tend to throw their own spin on things and the fact that Daring Do had a grayed out mane and everything just like Dash was a brilliant piece of artistry pointing this out. If it actually turns out she’s Dash’s grandmother or something to explain how they look so much alike, I’m done. That’s it, game over. I will be up and out of here, right now.

Please don’t tell me she’s Rainbow Dash’s grandmother.

…

Okay, the day when all of this began like any other.

On second thought, no…it didn’t. There was one little thing I wanted to try out, and I needed about of week of observing Ponyville after dark to make sure I wasn’t caught. Plus, it took that long to get the house set up so that nopony would be peeking in.

I pushed the covers off of my body and stretched my wings out before I popped a crick out of my neck and yawned. That’s when an oddity made me stop. I didn’t sound like some little wannabe ladies man who only existed to be a cheap romantic interest for Twilight, who if she had tried to engage in a relationship with would have been borderline bestiality.

Sure Flash could talk, but that didn’t make him an intelligent creature like Twilight was! The poor mare’s reputation would have been ruined. Oh, and I’m pretty sure it’s a sin or something, so she would have been damned on top of it!

But long story short, I didn’t sound like Flash Sentry. In fact, I sounded like a girl! A very familiar-sounding girl with wings…and lavender fur. Oh right, I snagged Twilight’s form so I could sing Twilightlicious in the mirror, I reminded myself before jumping off the bed and looking at said mirror.

Thanks to the fact the house where us changelings were living in was an actual house instead of just some shack that was thrown up at the last minute. We all had our own rooms too. However, due to a changeling’s nature, Dawn Star and Pathfinder didn’t really bother to decorate their rooms with anything aside from the writing desk, bookshelf and bed Twilight had equipped each of them with. I, on the other hand, had a nice bed, a writing desk, and a mirror!

What were you expecting? I follow Twilight around all the time, it’s not like I had any reason to hang out at my house aside from when I was making my evil plans for Equestria. Which I still kind of was. Sure, I wasn't got to kill, maim of hurt any of the ponies, but I sure as hell didn't want them wiping with the changelings either, I was one of them after all. So if shit went down, I wanted to be ready.

Speaking of which, from what I could tell, the plan involving the Crystal Empire seemed to be going aling pretty well. Chrysalis and one thousand thinking changelings using the forms of some two-hundred pegasi (although I’m sure she grabbed more to eat on the way up there judging by all the missing pony reports in the papers I was getting) were protesting the Crystal Empire’s use of magic to control their weather. After all, that’s what the pegasi did, and now it wasn’t just Canterlot where magic was taking their jobs away, but a city that might as well of been a country in and of itself for its size. The place was bigger than any other city in Equestria by at least a factor of three, with the population to match.

Thanks to the god forsaken speed at which news traveled in Equestria when you didn’t have a pet dragon to burp letters, Cloudsdale was just now asking things like how long would it be until every city in Equestria had crystal towers to control the weather and destroyed the purpose for the pegasi in general. Even if not every pegasus’s actual talent was in weather management, nearly one in three of the tribe worked clouds once in their life for some reason or another.

Of course not all the towns felt this way. Most of the papers in Manehatten said this was just some flash in the pan rabble rousers. I was still a little torn between just replacing the editors of the newspapers and have them print what I wanted them to, or just start up another group of protesters in Canterlot to make them think this wasn't going away. Hell, I could even have changelings take up the opposition and start brewing my own little pony race war, given enough time. With a pony’s group mentality and the tendency to follow shiny new things, a few changelings in every city could bring their whole society to the brink of civil war within a year.

The funny thing was, starting a pony tribal war wasn’t even the reason I managed to talk Chrysalis into going north; the idea of it was just an unfortunate side effect. See, there’s something magical about the main city of the Crystal Empire. It’s able to project emotions throughout all of Equestria. When feelings of peace and love are projected, every pony around is dancing around happy as can be. But when fear and envy were the special words of the day…well, I wanted to see what would happen.

As for Cadence, sure she was the Alicorn of Love and all that, but any attempt to spread her emotional mojo would just feed us changelings. That’s how I got Chrysalis to agree to go. She would get to watch the woman responsible for her biggest defeat fall into a pit of despair as her talent became useless and her kingdom crumbled around her.

Luckily, I had things to distract me from the mental images of a creature as gentle and loving as Cadence, broken and crying as she watched her people give into hatred before they went at each others throats. I’m pretty sure I would have been having guilt filled nightmares if changelings dreamed instead of entering the hive mind.

But I had learned to tone the Borg Collective of dreamland down and was having plenty of rest when I got my shuteye every night while I poked and prodded it for info. I also had to give and receive updates from Chrysalis, but that was no biggie as long as I had something to entertain me every morning.

Speaking of which…

“Put your ass in the air, put your ass up in the air, put your ass in the air and shake it like you don’t care!” I said in a Twilight Sparkle manner as I performed the end of the ladybug dance over and over again in front of my mirror.

Don’t judge me!

About five minutes later, I was down in the secret room of our basement with Dawn and Pathfinder getting breakfast and fixing to change back to the abomination of a royal guardsman. Although, I wanted to stay in my natural form for as long as possible, so I started with the small talk. “You know, sometimes I wonder if I should just go on a killing spree in Canterlot, then let Flash out in the countryside somewhere to laugh when the guards snatch him up,” I told my minions in a melancholy tone.

“Why don’t you?” Pathfinder asked.

I shrugged. “Waste of food.” Plus I didn’t know for sure, but there was probably a spell or two out there to make sure ponies were telling the truth when they testified in court. All Flash would have to do was say it wasn’t him, and he would be off the hook. But I couldn’t appear ignorant in front of my goons.

Part of me did want to take the colt out of his cocoon and give him another beating though. To preserve our food for as long as possible, the goo we sealed our prey in was practically a Star Wars bacta tank. All those nutrients and junk flooded the body and made it heal quicker than any human medicine. It needed to since we were basically sucking the life force out of the imprisoned ponies.

Not for the first time since becoming a changeling, I wished we could have just grabbed mana around us like normal ponies. That was our big problem. We couldn’t draw energy from the environment like everything else in this reality, we needed to suck it out of living creatures that had already processed it to a certain amount.

“So what’s on Twilight’s schedule for today?”

“The princess dropped off an amendment to her list yesterday while I was filling in for you,” the changeling who was currently a mare said evenly. “Pinkie is throwing a National Random Holiday Party Day party at the library.”

The news didn’t sit too well with my meal. Pinkie was nice and all, but I still tried to avoid her like the plague. I didn’t know how much of her just dropping random insights was cannon or fannon, but anyone who knew about the show in my position would have been wise to avoid her on Pinkie Sense alone. I was just lucky she didn’t have a ‘new pony in town’ signal or ‘invasion of the body snatchers’ twitch.

Of course there was also a question of why a random party day party had been planned out, but…(yes I’m actually going to say it) that’s just Pinkie being Pinkie.

“We’ve also got mail,” the beast told me before a letter floated over to my face and I frowned at it. The damn thing was addressed to Flash Sentry, from his parents. God damn it.

I knew what was going to happen if I read it, but I couldn’t not do that. With my luck, the stupid horses were coming for a visit. So I grabbed the letter out of the air with my TK and ripped it open to read what was inside.

Dear Flash, we hope this letter finds you well.

HA!

We are so proud to hear of your transfer into the personal guard of the new Princess of Equestria. After you wrote us about your first meeting with the princess we could tell that fate had something special in store for the two of you.

And then I wanted to gag. So they’re those kind of parents, I told myself. It always creeped me out when my mother stuck her nose into my sex life with a demand for grandchildren.

Just remember to be on your best behavior, and give Princess Twilight your winning smile every morning. As for us, everything is going well in the city. Your father’s new job as the district weather manager keeps him out more than I’d like, but with the bits he’s making we can finally afford the down payment on that home in the suburbs that we’ve always dreamed of, years before retirement even.

Please write back to us soon, bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla.

I finished reading the letter and turned it over with my magic to see that was nothing written on the back, then looked back up at the imprisoned pony with a frown. “Why the buck couldn’t you have been a friendless orphan you piece of crap?”

It wasn’t the problem that having to write back to Flash’s parents that bothered me, I had already planned to take him out and work the pegasus over a bit until he gave us a complete sample of his writing so I could have #666 copy it. I knew the little bastard would be getting some kind of correspondence and I had planned for it accordingly.

The problem was that it helped humanize, or pony-ize the little turd. Hell, look at Discord and how he could routinely torture an entire species until one of them made friends with the maniac. Still raises the question of what’s going to happen when Fluttershy dies.

Okay, getting off track…

So yeah, the Flash Sentry that had just been in the movie? I could cripple his sorry ass and throw him into the Rainbow Factory, no problem. He was a one dimensional character that needed to be put out to pasture, preferably the kind where you hide dead bodies.

A Flash Sentry with a loving family and friends to add to his personality? One dimensional characters weren’t supposed to have that shit! I’ll admit it, the letter from his mom probably did save the idiot from becoming a ‘wingless pegasus’ experiment to see what happens when one of them really do lose their wings.

…

Hey, it’s a perfectly logical question! Can they even still walk on clouds? Or can they just not fly anymore and still mess with the weather? Can they even survive without them? If they can, do they go into some sort of weird depression? And it’s not like I could ask Rainbow Dash & Fluttershy about it, that would just make me look mean and creepy.

You can see how hanging around Twilight all day has made me more curious about this stuff.

But as to what happened next, I got the rest of my spy reports and went through them as fast as I could. I think the biggest news was some hoedown in Appleloosa that was due in about six weeks when their big apple harvest was due. For some reason AJ’s started like a week or two earlier.

Maybe it was scheduled for the end of their first harvest…

So once I was done with the whole spy report things, I went over to Pinkie’s party and…I’ll admit, I had fun. It didn’t have as many games as usual, but hell, I had already been in Ponyville long enough to attend two of her other parties and actually got a question that’s been bugging me answered. I had no idea ponies actually paid her for the damn things.

I always thought she just threw them at random or something, but one of her jobs is to literally be a party pony. She had free parties too, but that was mostly a potluck thing where everypony brings something and she supplies the games and reusable décor. This was one of the free ones for just her and her friends at the library.

Maybe she thought Twilight needed some cheering up or something. She wasn’t really over her ‘I’m a princess’ depression, but our little talk did help her out. Pinkie’s party was like the icing on the ‘you’re still one of us’ cake.

See why I was worried about her insightfulness? Nobody else seemed to give a damn about the princess.

Then Rainbow Dash showed up, and everything kind of went downhill from there.

As the party went on, I just found myself standing away from all the ponies while wondering if all of their dances were crazy. I mean, I’ve seen Twilight go into her spastic fit, but Applejack’s…whatever the hell she was doing looked pretty weird as well. But I guess that’s the way it was when you’re dancing alone. I sure as hell couldn’t point fingers. (Oh God, I think I just made a hoof pun.)

Thankfully, Twilight had long since made me ditch my armor as not to stand out too much on the street. As if the alicorn who had saved the world twice before achieving godhood wasn’t a big enough draw. However, I still had a bit of clothes on me. The lopsided party hat that adorned my head was thanks to Pinkie Pie just sticking it on…from above me…without any means of support.

Twilight also had on a party hat, but Applejack was wearing a cute cowboy hat with an apple design on it, Rarity was wearing her princess envy tiara, and Fluttershy had on a flowered monstrosity of a hat that belonged on the Mad Hatter. Oh, and Pinkie had a fez…it was kind of adorable really.

I was still trying to repress the memory of how Pinkie put my hat on from above when Rainbow Dash crashed through the door.

Well, not literally. I think the fandom managed to blow her bad landing skills out of proportion thanks to a few high profile drops. The times I went up in the clouds for Twilight’s flying lessons, she always landed just fine and managed to catch Twilight the one time the alicorn clipped her wing on a cloud to spin out of control. Gave me a whole new meaning to the term weather hazard.

So Rainbow showed up, and managed to go, “Hey Twilight, aren’t you excited?” before Pinkie hung down from a chandelier I hadn’t noticed beforehand to blow a noisemaker in her face.

“Rainbow! So glad you finally made it!” the princess exclaimed while the pegasus just looked around in confusion about what the hell was going on. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she hadn’t gotten the invite.

Oh god, please don’t let this be some ‘you guys were dicks to me again’ thing like Mare Do Well or have Rainbow break down like Pinkie did that one time she wasn’t invited to a party, I begged to whatever power was listening. I swore, main cast or no, if somepony made Rainbow cry, I would eat their souls!

Because I was a fucking changeling princess, AND THAT'S HOW I ROLL!

But as it turned out, she had been invited and just didn’t hear as she was too wrapped up in the Daring Do book series. So, crisis averted.

With Rainbow’s entrance, I had an excuse to fly closer to the others and grab some more punch that Twilight was passing out. I may not have had telekinesis at the moment, but I could at least hold stuff with my hooves and get around with my wings. Still needed to keep the flying to a minimum in order to conserve as much magic as I could. My storage capacity might as well of been unlimited, but I could only 'bank' 1/3 normal pegasus’s amount of mana per day since I didn't want to kill my food. Because of that, I moved about conservatively for the days when I would need to do a lot of flying.

As I got closer to the group, I finally picked up on what Rainbow was so excited about. “In three months and twenty-six more days, I’ll be able to read the next one!” she said before Twilight sent her into panic mode with a comment about how it had been delayed.

It was actually pretty funny to see a real spit take when Rainbow soaked Twilight’s face in her drink. What was even cooler what how Twilight just kind of waved the whole thing off like it was nothing. Seriously, monarchs aren’t supposed to do that.

Then Rainbow started going on about how we needed to find the author, who was named A.K. Yearling of all things. If I hadn’t nearly poked my eye out with a facehoof back at the hive, I would have done it then and there. The twisted name of JK Rowling also made me wonder if this writer was also such a crotchety old bitch that made little girls cry because they made a Harry Potter fan-site.

As I listened to Rainbow Dash start to freak out, argue with Twilight about who was the bigger fan, and Twilight go on about her stalker-level knowledge of the author, I had to feel a bit of sympathy for Rainbow Dash on a personal level. I had been waiting forever for them to publish a new Ice and Fire book.

Considering the last epic series I got involved with was the Wheel of Time, I actually had a great fear that Martin was going to kick the bucket like Jordan did before he finished his masterpiece and hand it to some half-assed hack who couldn’t even read between the foreshadowing lines! Judging by the amount of books on the shelves and going by the estimation that Rowling…okay, Yearling got out one book a year max, she had to be pretty damn old.

As Rainbow continued on in her plan about how she and all her friends, and me since I had to follow Twilight around, would be cooking, cleaning, doing Yearling’s shopping, and basically become the pony version of Spike…who was back in Canterlot of course, apparently he needed some kind of magical treatment from Celestia every now and then to…well, Twilight wasn’t very specific, but whatever it’s supposed to do, she gets real sad and nervous whenever the topic comes up. My money’s on it being some kind of anti-dragon greed magic so he doesn’t transform again and try to kill everypony in the town.

Anyway... Since I didn’t want to go traipsing around some stupid pony city looking for an author with six other girls, and Twilight probably wouldn’t like all the attention her being a princess would cause, I raised my hoof. “Excuse me, Ms Dash?” I was using formal stuff with the rest of the Bearers. I might have been on friendly terms with Twilight because she kind of ordered me to, but I was still pretty much an outsider with the rest of the group.

“Umm, there is one little flaw in your plan.”

Thankfully, she didn’t give me a glare or anything. All I got was a confused look. “What’s that?”

“Well…” Sorry Rainbow, much as I like you, housework sucks. Plus, I’d actually have to find food while we were being an author’s personal slaves. “You may be able to take some time off from work, and Twilight can pretty much set her own schedule these days, but don’t the rest of your friends have work and other responsibilities?”

I should have known trying to stop Rainbow Dash with logic wouldn’t work. Her exposure to Twilight had pretty much made her immune to it. My question did allow the others to bow out though with excuses like foals, little sisters, animals, and orchards. Twilight actually went along with her. Don’t know why it surprised me, I mean she was a Daring Do freak too.

I never got into the books myself. They were exciting and fast paced enough to grab Rainbow’s attention with action opener before they explained just what the hell Daring was doing in that jungle via flashbacks, but well…they were fiction (stop laughing damn it!) compared to the real history of Equestria! What the hell do you think I would pick?

So despite my attempts to dissuade RD and the princess from going Celestia only knew where at the time, we were planning to leave by the end of the day. I’m guessing Twilight used some sort of princess authority to find out where Yearling lived because looking back, I seriously doubt its common knowledge.

There were some serious advantages and disadvantages to the trip though.

With Twilight gone, the royal guard didn’t really have to stick around, and I had been making plans for some of the stuff just laying around the Everfree Forest. Since the goons would have some free time, I ordered them to go find a few things for me.

The downside? I would be spending days with nothing to eat except Twilight and Rainbow Dash!

…

You know what I mean!

Of course once she found out where we were going, Rainbow wanted us to all fly straight there, but Twi and I managed to talk her out of it. The princess was still in need of training to fly for longer than a few minutes without problems, and flying takes magic, which I couldn’t recover on my own. So I loaded up as much as I could the day before. I drained our food stores as much as I dared without damaging them, but there were limits to what even four ponies could give me compared to the most powerful pegasus of her generation.

And yes, I could feed off either of them. Pheromones, proximity, discussions on Equestrian history and cheering her up on that first day we met had forged a connection between me and Twilight that put some calories on her life force. Rainbow’s was quite a bit weaker, as all I had going with her was some fanning over her awesomeness and my presence when Twilight got her flying lessons that I also took care to listen to. Changelings might have wings, but its not the same as a pegasus, and I only had the bare minimum of experience with the feathered variety.

And quit mumbling about that’s not love. Friendship and Love are the same damn thing, its just varying degrees of affection and willingness to give oneself to another.

Which brings me to another problem this trip brought up pretty quickly…

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were going to be spending days traveling together. You have no idea how tempting it was to just put a mind whammy on them both and have them start kissing each other.

Yes, I truly believe the two of them belong together! It’s not just some opposites attract crap either. Through every major step of Rainbow Dash’s life, Twilight Sparkle has been there to help and cheer her along! The one and only time she fucked up, it was still done with the best of intentions to try and make her a better mare. If that isn’t love, then you need to go get your head examined.

So…anyway…since I didn’t want to suck Rainbow and Twi dry, and the princess was still pretty new to flying, we managed to talk Rainbow into taking a train. Because Twilight was with us, we ended up taking her personal train car that Celestia had given her once she was no longer needed ground travel. It was as big as a regular car, but meant for only a handful of ponies which probably numbered around six to travel in comfort.

The princess apparently had some spell that made ponies who didn’t know her overlook the fact she had wings; long as she didn’t up and use them that is. Of course I didn’t find that out until after our little adventure, but that’s neither here nor there.

As for that train ride, we kind of had a bit of time to talk about nothing.

“So…nice cutie mark,” Rainbow Dash said as the world went by through the window. “How’d you get it?”

I looked down to the lightning bolt over the shield on my flank and sighed. I can’t believe I forgot to come up with a lie for this, I told myself while looking at the fake cutie mark. It was probably the number one ice breaker question in Equestria! “Oh, it’s not really that special…I just ummm…”

Okay think idiot, think. Lightning bolt and a shield. Okay… Thankfully, I actually knew a bit about symbolism from when I was human, and that translated over to MLP pretty well. Not the actual symbolism for what stuff meant…although the smiling flowers did connect to the faces of smiling children in Japanese pop culture…

But thanks to that odd skill, I could put two and two together for the symbolism present in Equestria to figure out what a few of the symbols meant. For example, a lightning bolt mostly related to flight speed, not some kind of weather talent. Every single one of the Wonderbolts that I’d seen have a yellow strike on the sides of their butts. The shield was pretty self explanatory.

So all I had to do was come up with a lie that involved those kinds of things. “I got it during my time at flight camp,” I began slowly, trying to stall for time while I put the story together in my head. “I was up on one of the higher clouds when I saw some bullies messing with another colt. I think they may have messed up one of his wings, because when they pushed him off the cloud, he didn’t fly back up. So I flew down as fast as I could and caught him. And that’s why my cutie mark is a lightning bolt and a shield, for being able to react quickly to protect other ponies.”

It was pretty much a rip-off of Dash’s story with Fluttershy falling and some of the details changed, but…hey, it was the best I could come up with in ten seconds.

Of course the mention of being able to fly fast got Rainbow Dash’s attention. “So you think you’re fast huh?” she asked with a smile.

“Well I don’t hold a candle to you Miss Dash,” I told her while holding up my hooves. “I think it has more to do with like…a rush of adrenaline when I see another pony in danger, my speed and reaction time go up. Otherwise, I’m pretty average.” Then, just to make absolutely sure she wouldn’t try to make be back up speed skills I didn’t have… “You on the other hand…you’re probably the fastest pegasus that’s even been when you need to be.”

Twilight groaned and hid her face with her hooves. “Please don’t feed the ego Flash.”

On the other side of the seat the were sharing, Rainbow Dash sat up a little straighter. “Hey Twilight, let the guy tell it like it is,” she said with a smile before looking back to me. “So you think I’m the fastest pegasus ever, huh?”

“That’s what your cutie mark says,” I told her while pointing at it with a hoof.

Much to my confusion, that remark did get Twilight’s attention and wipe away the mare’s previous annoyance. “Her cutie mark?”

I raised an eyebrow at the two of them. “The rainbow lightning bolt.”

After sharing a look that told both the mares they were equally lost, Twilight looked back at me with a frown. “What about it?” she asked while Rainbow just looked down at her own ass.

Oh crap. “You girls have no idea what the symbolism behind your cutie marks actually means, do you?”

For some reason, Twilight seemed to take that as a challenge. “Sure I do, it’s magic.”

“And the five sparkling points around it?” I asked while raising an eyebrow.

“Um…well, I never really thought about them, to be honest,” Twilight mumbled before she rubbed her chin with her hoof. “I just saw the bright glowing star and figured it would be magic. I never really paid attention to the smaller details.” The statement did make me wonder how the star tied to magic. Although with Celestia standing around when she got the thing, the goddess just could have up and told her.

I shrugged. To be honest, I was just guessing to but, if I had to place money on it… “Well, considering their configuration, I thought it might have to do with the Elements, but since you can only use one, I’ve been observing you all week, I’m guessing that it has to do more with the connection you share with your five closest friends. It’s like you were destined to be with them since the day you got your cutie mark,” I added with a smile.

Twilight just stared at me with a gobsmacked expression before Rainbow practically stuck her rear in my face. “Oh! Do me!” she said before the alicorn grabbed the mare and sat her back down.

“Rainbow!”

“What?”

Thankfully, by that time I had recovered and let out a chuckle. “Okay well, there’s your lightning bolt, which obviously means speed. But the fact its colored a little like a rainbow probably points to the fact that you can either push your limits beyond their norms for the sake of your friends, or it relates to the Magic of Harmony itself, pretty much saying you’re the fastest pegasus ever. Then there’s your cloud, which points to a talent in weather. All you’d really need is a pair of wings that link with something like precision flying to classify as the most talented pegasus in history.”

The explanation seemed to strike a chord with Rainbow, as I could smell her excitement suddenly disappear, to be replaced by an unnerving calm. Twilight on the other hand raised an eyebrow at my explanation. “That’s an interesting theory Flash…where’d you find it? I’d love to read the book and see the reasoning behind it.”

And so we come to the impasse, I thought to myself. “It’s not really an…official theory that’s been scientifically tested or anything, I just sort of came up with it myself over the years. I mean, there’s some holes in it since the filly or colt has to kind of figure out their talent, and my idea kind of accounts for hidden skills, but you’ve got to admit that there are plenty of ponies that have more than one skill related to something outside their talents.”

“Still, it might just merit looking into,” the princess mumbled. “What do you think Rainbow? …Rainbow Dash?”

The pegasus looked up at Twilight with what I could only describe as fear in her eyes. She smelled of it too, sweet and succulent fear. It may have tasted like crap, but that didn’t mean changelings could enjoy bringing it to others. “Is that why Rarity was working the weather in Ponyville, Twilight?”

“You mean when our cutie marks were…um…” she looked over to me for a minute. “Flash, would you mind leaving the room for a second?”

Rainbow looked over to me, then back to Twilight. “No!” We both blinked at Rainbow’s reply, then she looked at me for a moment. “Uh…” Her gaze drifted back to Twilight. “It’s his idea so…I might need help getting an explanation.”

Twilight looked me up and down for a moment, then hesitantly told me the story about how she had swapped the Elements cutie marks with a botched spell, explaining how Rarity had gotten Rainbow Dash’s. I didn’t ask any questions about why Twilight didn’t want me to hear the news.

Hell, it could have been as simple as she just didn’t want someone else to see her friend so nervous, to the cutie mark swap being some big state secret. If there was a pony who could just switch someone’s destiny at will…not that I think Twilight could do that with her magic or else every pony in town would have been sporting a new tramp stamp… but I could see how even the hint of that possibility could undermine all of Equestrian society.

God forbid freedom of choice and the ability to reevaluate one's path in life finds its way into the pony monarchy. What’s next, democracy?

So after I got the rundown of the cutie mark swap, Rainbow shifted her gaze between us. “So is that why Rarity was working the weather instead of trying to race? Or is that my real destiny, to just sit around Ponyville...kicking clouds?” she asked nervously.

Oh crap…that’s…Rainbow has a good point. I thought to myself. Hell, Rarity’s little musical number hadn’t said anything about wanting to be a Wonderbolt, it was all about her being a weathermare! And if ponies believed their destiny was written on their flanks, then Rainbow’s hopes would have been thoroughly crushed. Good work idiot, why don’t you just clip her wings while you’re at it!

I looked over to Twilight and tried to convey my thoughts of, you’re the magic expert, SAY SOMETHING!

She gave me a look back as if to go, “It’s YOUR theory, NOW FIX IT!”

“Rainbow, have you been feeling this way since I became a princess?” Twilight asked tentatively.

Dash cleared her throat and looked away from Twilight, but she didn’t stop the purple alicorn from putting her wing around the pegasus and pulling her into a wing-hug…or whatever the hell it was. As much as it pained me, I had to look away from the heartfelt moment of TwiDash before I just jumped up to shout ‘see! You belong together, NOW KISS’ and clear my head.

I’ve had to give advice to confused kids plenty of times before in my life, so the situation wasn’t that out of my comfort zone. However, none of those kids had tattoos that said what they were good at in life.

Ironically, it was something I remembered from another old cartoon show that helped me put my answer together. “Every pony is born with a gift, and in that gift, lies the path to their destiny,” I began at a somewhat soft tone. “However, its what that pony does with that gift that determines just where that path goes. Just because you’ve got a lightning bolt doesn’t mean you have to become a Wonderbolt, just like because you have a cloud doesn’t mean you have to be a weathermare. If anything, it means you have options.”

Twilight was quick to pick up on the explanation and looked over to Rainbow Dash. “That’s right! Rarity wasn’t trying to race when she had your cutie mark because she could fulfill the weather part of it much easier!” she said before giving the pegasus a reassuring smile.

For her part, the pegasus just blushed and fought Twilight’s wing off of her before she looked out of the corner of her eye at me for a second, then back to the princess. “Figures you’d get an egghead for a guard Twilight.”

So, the rest of the train ride went pretty good. It took us two days to get to the stop that we needed to go to, then we had to fly over the Unicorn Range Mountains. I’m pretty sure we ended up somewhere near Vanhoover, but with the way Twilight got blown around by the wind so much, it was impossible for me to keep track of our direction. The alicorn really was a hopeless flier.

After our little talk, we went to the dining car where all the plebeians on the train ate and I had to make room to process more cocoon goo. By the time I got back Rainbow was telling me to call her Rainbow, not Miss Dash. Unfortunately, the scent they were giving off had changed somewhat drastically from what I had been getting from Twilight all week. Since infatuation didn’t really exist in the changeling hive and I had stopped the hive mind from cramming knowledge into my skull when I slept, I had no fucking clue about the vipers nest I had just stuck my foot in. Stupid Flash Sentry body and its apparent attractiveness!

You know, now that I think about it, it’s pretty pathetic that even with empathic abilities I can’t tell what’s on a girl’s mind.

But I will admit it did help a bit when it came time to feed on the girls. I was a bit wrong when it came to my first assumption about how changeling feeding works too. Emotion didn’t just affect the taste of our food, but its nutritional value as well. Energy transfer for changeling doesn’t work on a 1 to 1 ratio. The stronger the affection the more the magic we eat is worth.

I left them with plenty for the trip of course, Rainbow’s got enough power to equal at least three Flash Sentries, and Twilight’s a fucking alicorn princess. A few days of sucking on them even at just growing affection and friendship levels, and I probably could have KO’d Celestia!

Too bad I actually needed all that energy over the next couple of days.

Stupid Daring Do and her messed up Mesoamerican mythological crap!

After leaving the train station and an hour of flying where Twilight would have crashed three times if not for me and Rainbow, we found the house of A.K. Yearling in the middle of nowhere. It was set up in a forest on the edge of a rather large valley. Despite the fact we were in the northern parts of Equestria, the place was pretty damn hot. I don’t know if the weather factory messed up with a heat wave, or if Celestia just felt like dicking around with Twilight, but I was glad for the fact I was walking around butt naked again instead of having to cook inside my armor. The stuff may have been lightweight, but it still trapped heat and was made of metal.

As for the house, it was…well, it looked like something out of an old Disney movie with its thatch roof and red brick chimney. However, it appeared as if someone had taken a baseball bat to the thing, knocked the door off its hinges, smashed out the windows, and thrown a pretty cushy chair out on the lawn.

“Well…either you got the wrong address, or somepony really didn’t like Yearling’s first draft,” I mumbled to the princess.

Rainbow didn’t take the fact her favorite author might have been hurt, and zoomed over to the door faster than I could close my eyes and avoid having to watch. Prismatic blurs might have been cool in the cartoon, but seeing something move that fast in real life was just freaky and wrong. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t the only one taking a daily dump on physics.

“Wait up Rainbow!” Twilight called out before we both trotted after her to follow the blue mare while the pegasus busted down the door.

In Rainbows defense, all she did was tap it.

The inside of the house was even worse than the outside. Everywhere I looked, there were broke pieces of furniture, dishes laying on the floor, a bale of hay that I didn’t know if it was for sitting or eating, a pile of junk that even bothered to include the kitchen sink, and books. Everywhere I looked, there were books stern throughout the area.

“W-What in the world happened?” Rainbow asked as she looked at the mass of devastation in front of us.

Okay, I’ve seen enough cop shows to at least get step one of crime scene investigations down, I told myself while Twilight and Rainbow Dash started looking around and calling out for Yearling. “Hey! Nopony touch nothing! If this isn’t a crime scene, then I don’t know what is, and that means we can’t have any of the evidence disturbed. If you’re going to move around in the house, do it from the air.”

“Darn it,” I heard Twilight mumbled before she backed into a corner and sat down. “Flash, do you think something might have happened to her?”

What was apparently Rainbow Dash’s third greatest fear got a scream of terror from the pegasus. “Oh no! There might be no more books!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the pegasus as if to say “really?” and I just rolled my eyes. Not that I gave much of a damn about ponies I’ve never met, but… Actually, no, I’m siding with Dash on this one. The whole purpose of that pony’s life is to write fiction to entertain my favorite ponies! Yearling needed to be chaired to her typewriter and forced to churn out fiction at an impossible rate to keep Dash and Twi happy!

I looked over the place for about ten minutes while Dash nervously followed me around and Twilight managed to sit still. It wouldn’t have taken as long if I didn’t need to keep slapping Rainbow’s hoof away from touching everything, but that was the downside to having Dash around.

When I finished a quick sweep of the whole house, I landed in front of Twilight to give my report. “Well, everything’s trashed, but I don’t see any signs of a struggle.”

“No signs? What do you call all this?” Rainbow Dash demanded as she waved her front legs at the mess.

I shrugged. “Like I said, trashed. But there’s no blood, or feathers just laying around indicating there was some kind of fight,” I explained. “More than likely, an obsessed fan tracked A.K. Yearling down and rooted through her place looking for the unfinished copy of her book. Kind of like we just did.”

Rainbow Dash scoffed at the idea. “Yeah right, what’s the point of being able to read the thing if there’s no ending?”

“Oh my gosh!” Twilight exclaimed. “If somepony’s stolen her manuscript, then it’ll take her months to recreate her work. No wonder the release was delayed!”

“WHAT?” Dash yelled in anger. “You mean that’s why I’ve got to wait longer for more Daring Do?”

I nodded. “Makes sense. She probably doesn’t even live here anymore.”

Of course the universe just decided to go ‘fuck you changeling princess’ right at that moment and make me look like I didn’t know shit.

“What are you three doing in my house?”

All three of us gave little jump at the slightly crotchety voice, with Dash actually saying in the air. When I turned to see who had managed to sneak up on us, I blinked.

A.K. Yearling looked like her voice made her out to be. An old looking mare complete with an old lady’s hat, giant glasses for eyes that probably barely even functioned, and a dark purple-ish cloak that had an elderly vibe to it.

“A…K…Yearling,” Rainbow Dash managed to get out before becoming completely speechless.

Twilight went right into defensive mode. “We didn’t do this, we swear!”

“What are you all doing in my house?” the writer asked again in confusion.

With Twi and Dash apparently mute, I stepped up. “Ms Yearling, I’m Flash Sentry,” I told her while hiding my urge to retch. Sweet Celestia, a week and a half and I still want to throw up just from saying that. “The commander of Princess Twilight’s royal guard.”

To make that fact obvious, I pulled out one of Twilight’s wings until it was fully extended, getting a wide eye-look from her, as well as Yearling, than a slap upside the head from said princess.

“Ow! Well look, the princess is such a huge fan of your work,” I said while rubbing my head with my hoof on instinct. It didn’t really help at all, those things are hard. “And after Rainbow Dash heard your book was delayed, we came down here to see if there was anything to be done to help get the thing back on track.”

A.K. Yearling stared at our little group for a moment before apparently shaking off a visit from divinity and nodded. “I’m…fine…princess,” she said before trotting over to her writing desk.

While Twilight seemed to take just being blown off by this self-important peon like it was nothing, and Rainbow was still kind of gaga over her favorite author being in the same room, I scowled at the mare while holding in my anger. How about you show some respect you fucking piece of crap and BOW DOWN TO YOUR NEW GOD!

Seriously, I had KILLED changelings for less, and they were by biological family!

Then this Yearling bitch just shows up and disrespects Twilight like she was just some pony from off the street because she sold a few lousy BOOKS? Unless you were a member of the Element Necklace Club, you did NOT get a pass on something like that! I had half a mind to grab the little cunt and beat her half to death with her own fucking typewriter! I may have not of known how things worked with lesser royalty in Equestria, but when you disrespected 18th century princesses and below, they chop off your head!

But what does Miss “I write Daring Do’ go and do?

She just trots over to her desk, grabs some book with a horseshoe on the cover, puts in a…combination or something that’s part of the binding, and opens the book to reveal a giant pony version of the One Ring!

…

Wait, what? I blinked at the obviously mystical doohickey that A.K. Yearling just pulled out from a book that was not a book. In fact, it looked to be some kind of hidden container. Then she tucked it away into her cape after muttering gladly that it was safe.

“Great!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she finally got over her fangasm and flew over to where Yearling was standing. “So, tell us, how can we help move the new book along?”

Yearling just let out a groan. “You can get out.”

While Dash didn’t take the rejection well, Twilight simply wrapped the pegasus in her magic and carried the irate fan toward the door. “Rainbow Dash! If she wants privacy, then we should respect her wishes.”

“Respect?” I yelled at Twilight before making a wing assisted leap towards the author to point at the pony right in her face. “I’ll start giving her some respect when she starts doing the same to you Princess!”

“Flash-”

I didn’t even let the purple nerd finish before I reached over and snatched the old coot’s cape away from her to get at the One Ring, sending her careering around so fast her hat flew off. “And another thing! Is nopony else wondering what a book author is going with a giant glowing magic ring?”

“What’s the deal with this thing-huh?” I asked, looking back to her on the last word, only to be completely dumbfounded by what I saw. Despite the clothes from earlier, what stood in front of me was not a pony at the edge of old age.

She was wearing a light green outfit with a pit helmet, and a pair of wings that matched the dark tan color of her coat. The varying degrees of gray to black in her mane kind of made who she was supposed to be pretty obvious.

“A.K. Yearling is Daring Do!” both Twilight and Rainbow exclaimed at the same time.

I, however, was a little put off by the reveal. With the One Ring still in my hooves, I jumped away from the pegasus and flapped my wings while holding out my hooves towards the plot hole bigger than the one Celestia had on her rear end! “Oh come on! THAT DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE!”

Of course before I could get any kind of explanation, we got attacked by evil goons coming in from the floor above.

Stupid evil goons.

Chapter 5

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Chapter 5: I Become A Tomb Raider

So, I found out that not only is Daring Do real, she’s also a prick. I don’t care what species you are, when nobility that also happens to be divinity walks into the room, you get down on your knees and touch your nose to the fucking floor until said goddess allows you to look at her! It’s called respect!

Okay, Shining Armor may not have done that kind of stuff, but he was probably banging Cadence! When you’re having sex with the goddess, it gives you a bit of leeway in how to act towards her and her family. And when she gets it into her head to marry said boyfriend, that helps even the playing field for the rest of the family.

So unless Daring Do was fucking Celestia Herself, she needed to get her disrespectful ass beaten for not begging for Twilight’s forgiveness after I kind of spilled the beans on the whole alicorn thing. Twilight would have forgiven her, she’s awesome like that, but it doesn’t mean the Rainbow Dash wannabe shouldn’t have kissed major ass to get it!

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, the guys with cutie marks that looked like comic book sound effects showed up to take the One Ring back to Mordor…and in all honesty, I think the ringwraiths appearing would have made more sense than what really happened.

There were three of them, all earth ponies. There was a white one with shades, a tan one with a fedora and a gray stallion that had these ridiculously overgrown sideburns all started coming down the stairs. Their sudden appearance surprised the hell out of me, because me and Dash had been up there, and it was just more torn apart furniture. Nobody had been in the house until (dammit I have to say it) Daring Do came home.

“He’s got the final ring! Get him!” Muttonchops said before they all leaped at me.

I got halfway to willing them to be blown to dust before I realized that any attempted use of my horn would raise some real odd questions if I actually managed to turn the trio of intruders to ash, and then let out a cry of manly pain when three earth pony bodies collided with my frail pegasus bone structure and sent me plummeting to the ground.

Thanks to my pseudo-pegasus magic, the kind that keeps Rainbow Dash from turning into a smear on the ground whenever she crashes and why Flash Sentry only ended up with a few dozen broken bones when I tried to beat him to death, the impact didn’t do much damage. However, the crushing weight of three earth ponies did force the breath out of my lungs when we hit the ground.

Luckily, my half-dead body seemed to break Twilight and Rainbow out of their fangasm, and the fight was on. Since I had just gotten the wind knocked out of me and had to concentrate from keeping my natural defense mechanism of turning me back to my more powerful true form from activating, I just crawled over to the nearest corner to keep out of the way.

“Flash!” Twilight screamed before her horn lit up and a purple energy beam the size of a pony punched through the wall behind the goon squad. All in all, I was surprised Twilight didn’t just carpet bomb the whole house with her magic and undo any unintentional transmogrification spells or petrifaction misfires when everything was done.

Daring Do seemed to be handling herself well enough against Shades and Fedora, while Muttonchops was throwing everything he could find on the ground at Dash, who was just zipping about in the air, pausing every few seconds to razz the stallion below her.

As I got my breath back, I noticed a strange lack of purple energy beams turning ponies into pumpkins and looked over to the princess. “Uh, Twilight, you might want to zap one of the bad guys,” I called out.

“Hm? Oh! Right, sorry,” Twilight apologized as she shook herself out of her frozen state. “It’s just…Daring Do is fighting a pair of treasure stealing villains right in front of my eyes!”

Oh god, she’s talking in squeals now, I thought while Twilight danced in excitement. Then I let out a groan at the idiocy of the situation and tried to collect what was left of my sanity before what was going on turned my brain to mush and it leaked out my ears.

“I know, right!” Rainbow Dash said before she ducked and dodged a broken chair and a kitchen sink that the earth pony she was fighting threw without even looking at them. How the hell is she doing that?

While I was somewhat happy over the fact they didn’t seem to give a damn about Flash Sentry being possibly crippled (okay, I didn’t look that bad) I was kind of angry over the fact Twilight could pretty much squash these idiots under her hoof if she so chose to do so. “Twilight!” I yelled. “Would you please use your godlike magical alicorn powers and turn these idiots into shrubbery or something?”

As the goons stopped fighting for a moment to look over at Twilight, Daring smacked the two earth ponies she was up against in the face with her hoof to knock them out while Twilight glared at me. “Flash, cut it out with the A-word!”

Muttonchops just stared for a moment at Twilight, then took off through the hole she had blasted in the furthest wall. “I didn’t sign up for this!”

With two out of three goons out of it and the third one gone, the fight was apparently over. All in all, I was a little disturbed by the whole thing. Sure, I was a homicidal soul-sucking monster, but I had just fought what amounted to evil ponies. Changelings I could understand, buffalo I’m willing to paint as the bad guys for trying to destroy a town because they planted trees, dragons and griffons were pretty much a gimme, but PONIES?

Trixie and Diamond Tiara might have been complete douche bags, but even they had some redeeming qualities like the ability to feel regret and a friend in Silver Spoon. These guys were out to hurt others without a magical necklace to drive them bat shit crazy.

Twilight pulled me up and brought me back to reality, while Daring Do dug through the rubble of her cottage in a frantic state. “Where, where is it? Where’d it go?”

“Ms Do, I just want to say how unbelievably awesome it is to meet you and find out you’re real,” Rainbow Dash said as she flew up to hover next to the other pegasus. I’m pretty sure if her mouth were open, drool would have been falling. I really hoped I didn’t look the same way when I first met Rainbow Dash.

“How the hay is that even possible anyway?” I finally asked. “You’re a fictional character!” The irony of my statement hit me about five seconds later, and I had to repress the urge to hit myself.

The accusation apparently got Daring’s attention, and she just looked at me with a deadpan expression. I’m guessing she’d had this conversation before. “The Daring Do series of books are based off my life. I send my research notes and journals to a friend in Canterlot, and she turns them into novels. Then we just fudge some of the details to make sure nopony just stumbles on any of the dangerous places I go.”

“So you’ve written yourself in as the hero to your own book series? How conceded is that?” I asked rhetorically. It was like the idiocy of self-insert fan fiction, where some loser author puts himself in a story to hang around with his favorite characters. God did I hate those things. They were the worst kinds of fiction in existence.

Daring Do didn’t even deem my denouncement of her book series worthy of a rebuttal, and just went back to looking around her destroyed, dilapidated dormitory. “Ugh, where the hay is that ring?”

“Ohmygosh!” Dash exclaimed as she landed just to jump up and down on her hooves. “I know! I know! I can help you Daring Do!” The display of seeing my favorite pony act like…this, just made me want to cry. If Daring Do had been a guy, I’m pretty sure Dash would have been offering free rides…or paying for them even.

“WHAT?” the other pegasus shrieked before she turned her attention to Rainbow Dash. “What happened? Where is it?”

A second later, Dash told the other pegasus that another earth pony grabbed the artifact when it rolled over to the door, and then took off with it. She even had a quick description of the guy and his cutie mark. At that point, I was pretty sure Dash had a 360 degree field of vision and was wanting to call shenanigans.

Unfortunately, Daring Do beat me to the punch with a single word that started another fangasm. “Caballeron? You saw Caballeron take the ring for the Fortress of Talacon?”

I’m not even sure what happened, but the next thing I knew Twilight literally squeed, and so many Aztec names were being thrown around as the girls tried to out-nerd the other that I couldn’t keep track of them all. Daring Do managed to get away while Twi and Dash were having their…I guess it was a conversation. My mind kind of went off kilter when Dash got the last word in and actually managed to out-nerd Twilight.

It was the most disturbing thing I had ever seen in my life, and I had spent five weeks with Chrysalis.

Dash tried to chase after Daring, but Twilight finally remembered she could juggle houses with her telekinesis and grabbed Rainbow before she could get out the door while I reminded the blue pegasus we had no idea where Daring Do was going, or the ability to track stuff through the forest.

Okay well that’s not exactly true, I could probably follow a horse’s trail if I really bothered to try, but night was fast approaching and we had two of Caballeron’s henchmen to interrogate. Plus Daring Do could fly, so I really would have been following Caballeron.

I managed to get Twi and Dash to go through the downstairs in hopes of finding and looking through Daring Do’s real journals to keep them out of the way while I interrogated the goons.

I didn’t torture them or anything. I didn’t have to. A few words like ‘banishment to the moon’ and ‘potted plants’ along with a mention of how all those statues in Celestia’s garden used to be real ponies made them talk about where Caballeron was supposed to be meeting his buyer. Then I knocked them out and sucked as much energy out of them as I could stomach. I don’t think I even got enough to make up for knocking them out.

Anyway, with some actual directions to where Indiana Jones rip-off villain #3 was meeting with some other loser, the three of us were actually able to head out shortly after dark. What can I say? Pegasi have pretty good eyesight, even in low light conditions, and alicorns have it all, so we were good with the help of Luna’s moon. With that and Dash’s speed, we were able to search the general area and find what we needed to pretty fast.

While under the cover of the underbrush, we crept closer to the clearing where Caballeron and his one remaining henchmen were sitting next to some tents, eating hay. I still didn’t understand how ponies ate hay, but didn’t touch grass. I would have asked but…it probably would have been one of those question that screamed I wasn’t really a pony.

“Where’s Daring Do?” Rainbow asked as she peeked over the bushes to look at Muttonchops and a pony I didn’t recognize who had stubble on his face and a golden skull cutie mark. It really make me wonder if that guy’s special talent was stealing priceless artifacts. How the hell would that even work? I wondered. Did he just break into houses when he was little, or just take other kids lunch money and worked his way up as the years went by?

A second later, Twilight poked her out of the bush to look around too. “I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Do you think we beat her here?”

Oh for crying out loud, I mentally mumbled before looking over to the two of them with a frown. “Who the buck cares! Seriously, the two of you are acting like Daring Do is the be all and end all of everything! Rainbow Dash, you’re a graduate of the Wonderbolt Academy and have how many lives saved under your wings already? And Twilight, YOU’RE A BUCKING ALICORN PRINCESS! ENOUGH WITH THE MODESTY ALREADY!”

“Hey! I’m not better than anypony else!” said Goddess of freaking Magic quickly replied as she backed out of the bush to stand at her full height, making me take to the air so I could still have a height advantage in this argument.

I let out an exasperated groan and rolled my eyes. “I’m not saying you don’t believe in equality, but at least recognize your own self worth! You’re the most amazing magic user I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a ton of them!” Technically it was true, as the entirety of the changeling hive could use horns.

The sound of somepony else clearing his throat made us look over to the camp, and we both shared an embarrassed look while the head treasure thief gave us a tired expression. “Would you two like some privacy?” Caballeron asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Princess would you please zap them this time. I really don’t mind the whole stealing my bodyguard thunder if that’s what you’re worried about,” I told her a second before Twi lowered her horn.

“No problem Flash,” the alicorn replied before I had to look away from the flash to conserve my night vision. When I looked back, Caballeron and Muttonchops and been replaced by…babies? Okay, foals would probably be more accurate with the pony thing and all, but they had lost about thirty plus years.

With the fight apparently over, both me and Rainbow moved into the clearing to stare at the infant horses before they started crying. “Uh, Twilight…I thought you couldn’t do magic like that,” the pegasus mumbled.

Of course Twilight blushed at the observation on her skills and cleared her throat before she looked away. “Well…that’s the difference between an alicorn and a unicorn.”

All in all I found it a little creepy. Changelings were pretty much the be all and end all of metamorphic magic, so I wasn‘t worried about the alicorn making me need diapers again or anything, but seeing Twilight just casually zap a pair of ponies back to their pre-verbal years was a little disturbing. At least when I killed stuff, it died like it was supposed to, not regress to infancy.

For a moment, I found myself remembering back to the Magic Duel episode, and before the whole thing replayed itself in my head, I wondered if I should just go snag the damn Alicorn Amulet and see what it could do for something that could go toe to toe with a real alicorn under the right conditions.

“Flash? You okay?”

I snapped back to reality, and looked over to Twilight. “Sorry, just…having bad babysitting flashbacks,” I lied. I never babysat a damn day in my life and I never would, thank you.

A second later, Dash came flying over towards us with the ring of Tenoct-whatever around her neck. “Alright, we got the ring! Now what? Give it back to Daring Do when she shows up?”

“Oh, she’s over there,” I said as I pointed towards a bush on the far end of the clearing. Me and Dash hadn’t been the only one to be awestruck by Twilight’s one-shoting the bad guys, and I could smell emotions when I wanted to after all.

Admittedly I had opened my psychic nose when Dash started mumbling about Twi’s magic out of fear there might have been some jealously brewing, a smell I was well familiar with in the hive. Surprisingly, there wasn’t, no fear either. The pegasus trusted and supported the alicorn completely. A second later, Daring Do poked her head out of the bush and frowned at me. “How did you know I was here?”

Oh come on no one questions Pinkie’s shit, how come I get stuck in the hot seat all the time? I mentally asked. “I could see your hat from the air after Twi pacified the bad guys.” What can I say? Living around pastel ponies made making puns pretty easy.

Daring Do just let out a groan and marched over to where Rainbow Dash held the One Ring. “Fine. Thanks for the help. Now hand me the ring and leave before Ahuizotl shows up, and you can get out of my way.”

And that was when my suspension of disbelief died.

I’ll admit, Daring Do being real, it stretches the realms of possibility, but when it comes down to it, she’s just a damn pony with an ego who writes self-insert fiction! Ahuizotl was a whole new species! Not to mention the connection to Mesoamerican myth it supposedly represents!

“OH COME ON! Do you honestly expect us to believe some kind of three-handed, monkey-dog…thing is going to come to come just waltzing in here and-”

The sound of trees being pushed over cut my rant short, and I looked over to the direction of the racket to see the Aztec monster of myth charge through the forest. “DARING DO!”

I didn’t have the brainpower to keep flying, and was only vaguely aware of my ass hitting the ground while I just gaped at the impossible sight before me. Okay…screw the whole Supernatural Heaven thing. This is Hell. I’m in some sort of cartoon fantasy Hell where everything sacred about My Little Pony is being torn to shreds. At that point, I was ready for Tlatoc to just come down and get into a fight with the pegasi and Zeus over who’s supposed to be controlling the weather!

I didn’t even give much of a shit that the monkey-tri-hand-dog was trying to kill Daring Do. It was the lesser evil fighting the greater one. They could duke it out for the rest of time for all I cared.

Hell, even Rainbow went back into fan girl observation mode. I’m guessing it was her way of dealing with the bat shit craziness of the whole situation involving fictional characters being real too. Took me a week to get over the whole ‘Welcome to MLP’ back home, so it was pretty understandable.

Twilight on the other hand, she had her head on straight and pointed her horn at He Who Also Did Not Belong to send a purple death ray at him; at least that‘s what I think it was. The beam struck the creature directly in the chest and there was a bright flash.

A second later when the light subsided, all three of us just stared at the completely unharmed Ahuizotl, while his Mesoamerican jewelry gave off a faint glow. What the hell? I asked myself, while Twilight mouthed the pony equivalent.

“Twilight! Did you forget in book two, Ahuizotl got the Harness of Huitzilopochtli, that protects him from magic as long as he’s in the Valley of the Sun?” Rainbow asked from her place on the sidelines.

Who the hell names this crap anyway? I swear, it was like listening to an old Dr Strange comic written by Stan Lee. After I recovered, I flapped my wings and got back into the air. “Oh for crying out loud, it’s only one…Ahuizotl,” I said. It kind of threw me off that his species was the same as his name. “We’ve got him outnumbered four to one, let’s just buck him!”

Then the dog-monkey-creature-thing let out the most annoying laugh I’ve ever heard before looking up at me. “Oh you think that, do you?” he asked before snapping his third paw-hand-thingy.

A second later, four shapes emerged from the forest, and I groaned as four predatory felines: a tiger, a leopard, a panther and a lynx, emerged from the jungle along with a fifth little feline figure belonging to a fluffy white kitty. If Angel Bunny was any indication, the smallest and whitest creature would be the most dangerous.

I’ve really got to learn to shut up, I told myself before the tiger jumped at me.

Sheer panic had me flying backwards and up until the giant kitty cat reached the apex of its jump, and I was left out of range. Then it leapt at me again, and I put a few more feet between me and it just to be safe. “Quick, every pony into the air! They can’t fly!”

A second later, I was joined by both of the mares I’m pretty sure were well established friends at this point, and the formally fictitious flying douche, Daring Do.

Secure in my position, with absolute maturity and grace, I stuck my tongue out at the offending creature. “Nah, nah nah, nah nah!” I taunted before looking over to Ahuizotl and doing my best to wave my body at him in a taunt. “Ha-HA! We’ve all got wings, plus that ring, and you can’t get us!”

“Maybe so, but I do have this!” While the Bearers let out a gasp when Ahuizotl held up foal Cavalaron in his tail-hand, I just rolled my eyes. “Surrender, or the foal goes from making messing, to being one!”

Yeah right, like we’re going to-

“Okay we give up, just don’t hurt him!”

God damn it Twilight!

So I had to live through the old being captured by the bad guy who threatens his hostage cliché. And since the three handed monkey-dog held onto the kid the whole way there, we didn’t have much of a choice but to follow.

Okay, I had a choice between following as I was supposed to, or changing into my real form, jamming my horn into Ahuizotl’s skull, ripping off his oversized necklace with my holy hooves and then firing a concussion beam from my horn to spread his gray matter halfway across Equestria. But I chose the path that kept Twi and Dash from finding out I as a soul-sucking, shape shifting insect.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ashamed of what I am…really! It’s just, disappointing Twilight is like waving a steak in front of a starving dog before you eat it yourself while standing in front of Pooch’s cage. It’s an evil only the most dastardly of men would do!

Well anyway…because Mr. Mesoamerican Myth had two foals as hostages and Twilight could only create one teleportation field at a time, we actually walked willingly into the bad guy’s Temple of Doom to be shackled to four walls in a death trap that involved a big room being flooded with water.

Added to this predicament was the fact that the shackles Twi had on were etched with some weird runes, and something told me our Alicorn Goddess of Magic and Princess of Friendship wasn’t going to be turning anything into potted plants for awhile.

The first thing I can remember thinking was…

Well, at least he’s trying to drown us…that fits with the Ahuizotl myth, I told myself as water started to pour in from above. I did wonder what the hell a room like this was supposed to actually be since the mismatched stones in correlation to the wall we were all chained to had been installed while we watched.

Rainbow Dash didn’t seem the least bit deterred by our impending death. “Ha! You think a little water, is going to stop Daring Do? We’ll just wait until it rises up to our level, then she’ll slip her hooves out and free the rest of us.”

“That’s why were added piranhas to the lake that feeds this room,” Ahuizotl told us. Then, to demonstrate this fact, he tossed the foals into the water. I think one of them was half eaten before it even made a splash.

My jaw dropped and my mind went blank for a few moments as I tried to process what I’d just seen. …that’s not how My Little Pony is supposed to work!

I think Twilight hyperventilated for a good half a minute before she found enough air to scream.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes went wide, and she actually vomited a few seconds later. I absently noted that was another difference between them and real horses, aside from the talking and human society I mean.

Daring Do Nothing just hung there as the water continued to creep up on us.

Then, as Ahuizotl turned to leave, I looked up at the dog freak and frowned. I’m going to murder you for killing Twilight’s innocence you peace of shit, I thought at the creature while the purple princess ran out of breath. I was able to ignore the grisly scene thanks largely in part to the fact I had seen, and caused, worse back at the hive. Also, they were both bad ponies, and horses; I’d put horses down before back home and seen them be put down by others. The whole 'they are animals' idea in my head really helped me deal.

So, with both of the Elements in a bit of shock I looked over to Daring Do with a frown. “Well if you’ve got some kind of magical escape trick or something, this would be a good time to use it.” I figured we had maybe thirty seconds before the piranha reached us.

“Just a second, and I’ll get out of here.” The pegasus struggled with her bonds for a moment. The stone started to give, but when one of the blocks actually slid from out of the wall, the weight dragged her down so much I could see her plan of trying to fly with about 500 lbs of extra weight wasn’t the brightest of ideas.

Rainbow Dash might have been able to pull of the extra weight, she had carried several ponies at once after all, and Twilight had earth pony strength going for her, but DD and I were in real trouble.

Oh who am I kidding? They’re still off in WTF Was That Land, I told myself. Neither of the other ponies would snap out of it before the piranha were nipping at their legs.

As Daring tried smashing one of the blocks she was shackled to against the wall, I saw it start to break all too slowly. “Yeah, something tells me your method isn’t going fast enough.”

“Well excuse me!” she yelled. “I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas!”

The accusation made me wince. The truth was, I had a way out, and it would be simple. All I needed to do was resume my princess form and I could use my magic to levitate us all to safety, blast off our shackles, blow away Ahuizotl’s Aztec-pony goons we had seen on the way in, and then use my TK to lift a five-ton rock I could use to beat the damn monster to death with. Just because he was immune to magic didn’t mean shit if I crushed his bones with falling debris.

But that would mean revealing who I was to Twilight, the end of my days in Ponyville, and probably cause some other problems down the line if the ponies manage to figure out we set the whole bodyguard thing up. Plus, it meant Twilight would probably meet the real Flash Sentry. Not an option.

I frowned and looked down at the water below us. “Hey, you’re an archaeologist. So…if this room has something to add water, it must have a drainage system too, right?”

Daring looked up and over to me, pausing in her escape attempt for a moment. “Yeah, I saw the draining release when they started filling the room. It’s in the middle of the floor.”

Looking down at the water, I frowned at the level of murkiness two pony bodies had added to it. Even with the eyes of a pegasus, I couldn’t see the bottom. “Okay, I’ll go down, slip out of these things, and open it. You…keep breaking out then pull the lever on the sluice before helping the other girls.”

“But…the piranha,” Daring mumbled. “They’ll eat you alive! You’ll die!”

That got Twilight’s attention. “What?” she asked, her head rising to meet my face from across the room.

I chuckled at the pronouncement. “Better me than them,” I replied before looking over to Twilight with a smile. “Really wish I had some cool last words. Ah well, that’s life.” Then I pressed my wings up against the wall and extended them to push my whole body forward before I pulled the blocks from their place in the wall all at the same time.

“FLASH!”

“Ahhhh!” I sung in a crappy manner before playing the other half of the crappy rock song from the 1980s movie in my head, complete with music. He’ll save every one of us!

As soon as I hit the water, the piranhas swarmed me, and I let the stone drag me down quickly before turning back into a changeling princess. The stupid fish broke their teeth of my natural armor, my legs slipped out of their bonds thanks to the holes, and I sent a destructive beam of magic through my horn to blow a hole in the ground beneath me.

…

What? You were expecting me to just kill myself or something? How the hell would I even be here telling you the story then?

But it was the end of my Daring Do adventure, and a HUGE pain in the ass to set things up so I was found alive. See, I did find the drain and started to be washed away to safety, but to make sure Rainbow and Twilight didn’t follow me down or something, I had to blast a whole new underground tunnel and have it collapse behind me before I tunneled through miles of rock and came up in a safe location when I started running out of air.

Then, because I didn’t have Flash Fucking Sentry’s body nearby to copy, I couldn’t resume my cover. So I had to fly BACK to Ponyville after copying the form of some twit I saw flying around the edge of Vanhoover, change back into Flash Sentry, grab as much as I could to eat from our stored food, THEN fly all the way BACK to the Vanhoover area as Flash to wander around for about a day before I got spotted by a patrol of royal guards that had been searching the area.

The whole thing took about three days, with my 24 hours as Flash being constant activity of nothing but flying. All of that action burned up most of my stored magic reserves that I had accumulated in my seven weeks of life.

Of course Twilight didn’t take the whole ‘Flash died to save me’ very well when it happened. From what I hear, she apparently went all alicorn god-mode and turned the pyramid to sand, then melted or transmuted it (not sure which) all into glass, with most of Ahuizotl and his goons still half-buried. I still don’t know if she actually killed any of them, Twi and Dash aren’t really talking about the whole thing.

What makes it even worse is Daring Dickwad is apparently making us all characters in her next book. So its either going to have a bunch of new characters show up out of the blue at the end to ruin the story, or take liberties and have us there from the very beginning.

…I wonder if I can get her to write the thing with Rainbow secretly in love with Twilight, and the two of them getting together when its done? I might actually read something like that.

Okay so, where was I?

So the royal guard picked me up, and guided me to this emergency command post in the Valley of the Sun that Twilight had set up. Apparently, she had stopped being so reluctant with her princess authority and called out all the stops to find me, sending Rainbow to Canterlot with a personal message to Celestia… The guys who said they were looking for my body got to spend a few minutes as potted plants, or so Rainbow says.

Then, I actually finished up with my medical exam…

After my exam, it became a proven fact that doctors can make even a species that walks around naked most of the time feel uncomfortable. I was just glad my metamorphosis had been able to hold up under examination, because I did not have enough power to pull another hypnosis trick out of my ass.

Or maybe my uncomfortably had stemmed from the fact Rainbow Dash had been in the room the whole damn time, going on about what happened. “And then Twi was all ‘you monsters’ Bam! Zap! And three of those tribal ponies got turned into palm trees! I took out two of them that tried to sneak up on her! It was awesome.”

I was just lucky that Twilight was still out in the field searching, or she would have probably been the one doing the exam.

“That’s cool and all, but how did that happen?” I asked before pointing to the jar on the desk that Daring Do was rolling back and forth while giggling.

Inside, a three-inch tall Ahuizotl was running around to keep from being tossed around by his prison’s movements. “I’ll get you for this Daring Do!”

Rainbow Dash giggled. “Oh, after Ahuizotl started to break out from where we kind of buried him, I swooped down and took his anti-magic necklace, and then Twi put him under glass permanently.”

“I think I’m going to make him my new pet!” the pegasus archeologist exclaimed with a bright smile that made her look like Rainbow Dash’s long lost sister.

“So what happened to the neckla-”

“FLASH!”

I looked up at the call of my not-name and blinked when I saw Twilight standing at the entrance to the medical tent. Her hair was slightly ruffled, and the bloodshot condition of her eyes told me she hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. I found myself more than a little put off over the fact it had all been because of me.

“Twilight, are you okay?” I asked the disheveled mare.

The alicorn stared at me for several seconds, and I saw Daring Do motion to Dash they needed to leave. As soon as they were gone, Twilight stomped her hoof down. “AM I OKAY?” she shouted. “Am I…WHAT WERE YOU THINKING YOU IDIOT?”

“Twi-gah!” I managed to get out before the alicorn tackled and I found her forelegs wrapped around my body. A few seconds later, I could make out her sobs. “Uh…Twilight?”

“Stupid…why did you…stupid stallion.”

A blinked and tried to fight her off of me as gently as I could, not the best of ideas when dealing with alicorn strength, I’ll admit. I think her rising up to meet me face to face had more to do more with the fact she moved than I moved her. “Twilight, I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

Hell, I was okay and everything, she shouldn’t have been freaking out the way she was. I had enough trouble understanding human women, pony girls were something I would never even begin to decode.

“You don’t…you…fine!” she exclaimed before yanking me up while moving her head down to lock her lips with mine.

It wasn’t that great a kiss, or even super sexy since there was no tongue, but the amount of suction alone drew me into the moment, and I took a few seconds to form a coherent thought. Ah shit. This is not going to end well.

Chapter 6

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Chapter 6: I Become A Vampire Cliché

So, Twilight kissed me.

Yeah…problems with that on so many levels.

Looking back at everything, I can kind of get where it all was coming from. An apparently handsome guy that she thinks she already has a bit of a connection with shows up, talks about stuff like history, takes an interest in her magic, some freak box project thing she was working on and the Tree of Harmony? Hell, what nerdy little shut-in wouldn’t fall for a guy on one of those alone?

But I go and fuck it up even worse, connecting with Rainbow Dash and apparently getting her to give a seal of approval on my character. Then I go and get myself killed for a few days, making Twilight super emotional.

Hell, I knew at the time it was going to end badly. But just for the hell of it, let’s just go down the list of why anyone could see this whole thing was a bad idea from that very moment…

1. I was a fucking changeling. Biology alone said this could not, should not, and would not happen. We eat pony emotions, we don’t act as the means of production. Hell, I was pretty much an asexual creature in my natural state and I already knew taste buds didn’t transfer over because changelings didn’t have any, the same was probably true for other parts as well.

2. Family issues. My mom had tried to ruin her brother’s wedding and turn him into what amounted to an all you can eat buffet. And that was just with Shining Armor, never mind when the hive nearly took over Ponyville and kidnapped the CMC. Twilight would not be coming to any family dinner unless she was on the menu.

3. A lack of sexual attraction to ponies. I had barriers both biological and mental there. Okay, the facial expression make for some pretty damn close human features, but…they’re still ponies! Not to mention the lack of interaction with our pheromones. Sure, I could produce shit that would leave a dripping trial behind any of the Elements while they ran home to fulfill a need, but the scents ponies gave off weren’t arousing to me.

4. It was TWILIGHT! That’s not the character you look for a relationship with. Twilight is the nerdy little sister that makes you smile every time she acts in her adorkable fashion. You smile at her, you pat her on the head when she figures out something cool, you hug her when she cries, and you murder anyone who tries to mess with her. In no way, shape, or form, does that amount to a physical relationship with the girl.

And that’s not even getting into the whole “she was hurt, and vulnerable and bla, bla bla bla” stuff. God do I hate my new life on so many levels.

Of course, I probably don’t need to tell you what happened next, but…

Twilight broke the kiss and raised back up to look down on me. Her body tensed, her eyes widened, and she visibly gulped. I probably would have rolled my eyes if I hadn’t adapted to the level of cliché Equestria threw at me on a daily basis a week ago. As it was, I just saw a young woman who might have accidentally put her heart on the line after several days of worry. A young woman who was also starting to shake with what I could smell was fear as her mind probably started working on everything that could possibly go wrong.

If this had all been done as a human…and Twilight was hot (what can I say, I’m shallow) then I’d have gotten a second lip lock, pulled her up onto the bed, and made the medial tent’s somewhat sterile environment a little less clean. But, she wasn't, and that presented a pretty big problem.

But what was even more problematic was that Twilight was a wonderful pony, and I didn't want to hurt her in any way.

While I prided myself on being able to take in information around me and process it quickly for form a solution to life’s everyday problems, what my mind told me right now was that there was no easy way out of this. I could either reject the girl who was already in a fragile emotional state, or lead her on and probably feel like a complete fucking asshole while doing it for a few weeks before I broke it off…somehow.

Deal with it then and there, or down the line.

Break Twilight’s heart, or do the ‘noble’ thing and suffer silently.

Thinking about it that way (or lying to myself at any rate) made the decision pretty damn easy actually.

So I wracked my brain for five whole seconds to come up with a good line. All I got was, “So, first kiss?”

Twilight froze, then blushed and looked away from me. “Y-Yes.”

“Um…can you get off me now?” I asked, glad my fake horsey hormones didn’t turn it into ‘can you get me off now’ or something even worse. I really didn’t need to be dropping some sexual puns at that moment.

As the alicorn backed off and looked away, I could tell from what I could see of her facial expression alone that she was still nervous as hell. The poor girl had just put her heart on the line and I still hadn’t given her anything beyond stupid small talk as to what I thought of her. So, just to reassure Twilight, I stepped forward and put my hoof under her chin to guide it back to me, then leaned in closer.

“Let me show you a better example of how to do these things,” I told her before licking my lips and tilting my head slightly on instinct as my mouth met with hers. With me leading, it went a bit further as we touched tongues.

Pony lips and tongues were…surprisingly human. I was even able to close my eyes on our third kiss when I reared up on my hind legs to wrap my forelegs around Twilight’s neck to imagine I wasn‘t making out with a bright alien equine. Then she pushed me backwards and we fell the small medical bed that was behind us. Before I could hit the thing, I heard the alicorn extend her wings, and lifted me up with her to position us properly on the bed and continue with the make out session; which Twilight was improving at with leaps and bounds by the way.

My empathic senses filled with the filly’s psychic scent, and I absently noted how it changed from the sweet smell of fear (which may taste like crap but smells pretty good), the somewhat tangy taste of confusion, and the rush of excitement to the burning zing of…well, I’d have to call it infatuation at this point. Just throwing around the L-word being developed from a make-out session kind of demeans the whole concept; not that they really smell any different mind you.

So, yeah. I smelled an overwhelming amount of infatuation coming from Twilight Sparkle. It was so delectably juicy that it sent my mouth to watering…or maybe it was just her tongue having its way with my tonsils. With such a delectable morsel just giving me its pseudo-love, and me having gone more than a day without a single bite, I did what any self-respecting monster would do and ate my fill.

The sweet taste that ran through my mind was greater than anything I had ever tasted from a cocooned pony. The emotions we forced on ponies was nothing compared to the feeling of what came from them naturally, and the sheer amount of it nearly made me gasp. It wasn’t just the amount of energy Twilight Sparkle had, the ratio of conversion had to have surpassed the even numbers of 1:1 and tilted to at least 5:1 in my favor. Even the amount of power I had stolen from Twilight and Dash just a few days ago paled in comparison. In just a matter of seconds I recovered everything I had spent over the last several days and more!

I took in one breath of the emotion, and then another. I couldn’t contain myself, I wanted it all! I would drain my glass dry and leave her an empty…husk…

A vision of what I had done to my first meal flashed through my mind, and I broke another kiss with Twilight, rather forcefully by turning my head away. The experience left me gasping for air, and trying to fight off the high that came with overfeeding. It was a losing battle.

“That…that was amazing,” the alicorn said between pants, making me wonder if I’d had sex with her without even realizing it. Considering what happened whenever I got doped up on live my first few weeks in the hive while I was still coming to terms with being a changeling princess…it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. I had plenty of gaps in my memory from that first week.

What was left of my conscience quickly kicked me in the balls, and I looked over at Twilight as she rolled both of us around in the small bed so we were laying on our shoulders, one of her extended wings lay under me, and the other one quickly draped itself over the rest of me before she snuggled closer, managed to make a yawn sound cute, and closed her eyes.

Before feeding on Twilight’s emotions and the full stomach it gave took me under as well, I had to wonder if she was so devoid of physical contact just a few kisses could bring her close to orgasmic levels of bliss, or if it had to do with the feeding. Then I just stopped caring about anything and fell asleep.

…

And of course with sleep, came my connection with the changeling hive mind.

When I had first touched the hive mind, I hadn’t been able to comprehend what it truly was, or how it worked. It was just a raw mass of emotions, desires, information, and primal urges. It had no real language or means of communication besides pressing those thoughts onto another. Without a proper sense of self and an understanding of how to back away from that mass of thoughts, the hive mind would devour whomever touched it. This was how it was for all changelings, even a monarch with their more defined telepathic abilities.

To say that Chrysalis was the ruler of the changelings was a misnomer. While she could give orders to drones, the hive mind gave her overall direction. As the only two desires the hive had were live and eat, that gave her a lot of leeway in what she could to do in her spare time.

I felt her presence within the hive mind, and a moment later my consciousness willed a bit of scenery around us into being. It was very…homey, according to my life as a changeling anyway. The room was a large mass of black, slightly darker than a changeling’s chitin armor and done in the style of the hive. Although there was no source of illumination, a dark green glow filled the room as I sat erect on my throne like a biped while resting my forelegs on its armrests.

A moment later, the image of my mother appeared as a wavering image that was a simple disembodied head the size of half the room. The changeling motif might have been out of habit, but I still had a soft spot for the classics, and I was the number two villain in an evil Empire, dressed in black armor. “What do you wish of me, my Master?”

Chrysalis couldn’t see any of it of course, it was my mental construct after all. We could communicate through the hive mind that involved actual thought, but that was a long way from reading each others minds.

“Omnifarious,” she addressed me. “I feel you are much closer to me than you should be.”

“Twilight went up north to deal with something in the Valley of the Sun,” I told her. The big problem with telepathic communication was that you couldn’t really lie. Omission was okay, and a twist of words was doable, but pure deceit was impossible.

“Did you not have a chance to slay her during this incident?”

“I’ve had three, and twenty eight in total since coming to Ponyville. As you know,” I told her honestly. “However, the reprisals that we would face from the other alicorns if I were to do away with Twilight would be too problematic. I explained it before, the best way to deal with Equestria as a whole is to disrupt its harmony, divide the tribes and create a dozen smaller problems across the nation to distract the sisters so that we may position ourselves for a crippling opening blow.” After that, we would need to figure out a way to either keep on the pressure, or continue to work on keeping Equestria too divided to martial a real counteroffensive. I wasn’t stupid enough to think we could actually beat the sisters with a single strike like the Canterlot Wedding.

The fact that only thoughts, and not emotions were conveyed in this long range telepathy had its good sides and downsides. It all came down to the fact it was just a transfer of focused information expressed as language, there was no real emotions given to the words, or facial expressions. Mom couldn’t read anything beyond what I wanted her to, but that was true for the ‘words’ I received as well.

However, emotions just needed words to get the emotion across when a changeling want others to know how she was feeling. “I’ve grown tired of this waiting around,” Chrysalis told me. “So I have come up with a much better plan to conquer Equestria in one swoop.”

“The last time you tried something like that, you took the place of Cadence-.”

“And I would gotten away with it too, if not for that meddlesome unicorn and her friends!”

On the other hand, sometimes it was a good thing that only what I wanted conveyed was sent across the connection. Chrysalis didn’t take to kindly to being laughed at, and I couldn’t help but picture the Mane Six in Scooby-Doo clothes taking the mask off a captured Cadence to reveal it was in fact old lady Chrysalis.

“So what is your plan exactly?” I asked. If I was lucky, it was something stupid to get her killed despite the problems it would cause Equestria. It was a foolish hope, but it was still here.

Not that the ponies would actually do something like kill Chrysalis…or even imprison her for that matter. Being the Changeling Queen meant she had an entire race at her call should things go out of hand. If they were to imprison Chrysalis, the Hive would retaliate in ways that would involve loss of life. It was like there was a weird unspoken agreement between the two powers of Equestria and the Hive that stuff like that just didn’t happen. Of course we didn’t go around killing ponies en masse either, so the unwritten rules of our conflict said.

If not for that stipulation, I doubt things would be as cold war as they were between us.

“There exists an artifact in the Crystal Empire known as the Crystal Heart, that is powered by the love of the crystal ponies,” she began.

…

I awoke with a jerk…

Okay, that’s being a little harsh on Twilight, she’s one of the sweetest ponies around. So it’s probably better to say that I awoke with an involuntary muscle movement over hearing Chrysalis’s plan to snag the Crystal Heart, which wasn’t all that bad. Unfortunately also involved me heading up to the Empire in order to make sure things ran smoothly.

The only flaw in the plan that I could see was if the Crystal Heart was somehow bound to Cadence, or its love magic wasn’t compatible with what we needed. If that wasn’t the case and changelings really could eat the magic of the heart, it did open up several possibilities…

For one, it would pretty much insure ultimate victory for the Changeling Hive. Chrysalis was able to floor Celestia with the love of a single unicorn, with the love of an entire country behind her, the bitch could probably melt continents with a thought and still have enough power left to feed the hive for a few centuries.

Hell, I wanted the damn thing for the same reason. With that, I wouldn’t need to worry about feeding the hive at all. I could just have the changelings say put for the foreseeable future while I went off to play with ponies for the rest of their lives.

Yes, despite my love of all things pony, I did have a duty to the bugs. After all, once I got rid of Chrysalis and took over the hive, I would still need to provide them with food if I didn’t want my mind devoured by a swarm of psychic parasites for failing them while I slept.

Self-preservation was a good motivator. It was also why I didn’t just abandon ship altogether. No changeling could turn its back on the hive and live thanks to the mental connection.

At least I bought myself three weeks, I told myself. In that amount of time, I might be able to come up with a solution to the puzzle presented to me. Of course it would have to remove Chrysalis permanently, ensure the Hive’s control of an unlimited food source, and not involve the death or capture of any more ponies. Without all three, Mom would either kill me, the hive would eat me, or my own morals would beat me to death when I was awake.

Oh, and I suppose Celestia might get angry at me if I kidnapped ponies under my own initiative, so I couldn't just eat a lot of ponies for a quick jump in power then kill Mom. Everything I had done thus far had been under Chrysalis’s orders, so I could just point my hoof at her for being evil and me seeing the error of my ways and all that once the dust settled, but until then...and especially afterwards, I would need to limit pony snack snatches.

The alicorn whose embrace I was in stirred, and my body tensed for the oncoming freak-out that would accompany Twilight regaining consensus. Her eyes slowly opened and…she smiled before moving her lips close enough to my muzzle for a light peck?

“Good morning,” she said with a smile that made me really wonder if kiss was all we did last night.

“Morning,” I mumbled in confusion. “Umm…Twilight, about last night.”

The alicorn smiled and let out a moan of pleasure that set the red alert alarm off in my head. Oh God! I really did have sex with her! I screamed inside my head before Twilight spoke, “That was simply amazing, wasn’t it? I mean, I’ve read some of Rarity’s romance novels and heard about kisses that are supposed to make a mare’s tail curl, despite how impossible its supposed to be, but…wow, I think I finally get what it all means!”

My mind screeched to a halt before I could mentally throw myself off a cliff for raping Twilight in a love drugged craze while she was too weak to know what was going on. I blinked, then cleared my throat. “Um…you’re just talking about the kissing, right?”

Twilight gave me a confused look, then nodded. “Yes… The tongue was nice, but I really enjoyed that last one!”

The last? Wait! Is she talking about when I fed on her? I asked myself. So…apparently being fed on by a changeling feels as good as sex; at least from how Twilight was reacting.

Really needing to change the subject before Twilight decided to get even more amorous, I cleared my throat and looked out the light of the sun streaming through the tent flaps. “You know Princess Twilight,” I said, hoping the use of her title would put her off and kill the mood she was trying to set, “I think we should probably get up. It’s already past sunrise, and the guards are probably waiting on you.”

The alicorn let out a moan of disappointment and she let me go so I could roll off her wing and get to my feet, hooves…whatever. A second later, she was standing next to me, and we shared a look of uncertainty. “So…um…does this mean we’re dating now?” she asked. “I mean…I’ve read some romance novels where a couple becomes a couple just based on shared experiences and a night of passion, but others say you’re only dating when you’ve been on a date so…”

For a moment, I thought about just saying no. I could have easily come up with some bullshit excuse about what we had shared was special, but just brought on by seeing each other after such a traumatizing experience…which really wasn’t that far from the truth on her part. But…the plan where I just go out on a date or two seemed to make more sense, and push this whole thing back a few days at least.

“So let’s just go on a date,” I told her. “Umm…how’s…” I wracked my brain for a moment as I tried to figure out a good time to take Twilight out. “Oh! How’s two nights from now sound?”

Twilight’s face lit up. “That’s perfect! I can do all the proper research, and…”

I let Twilight’s words fade to the back of my mind as I patted myself on the back while telling myself, not to mention give me time to get some real work done.

As Twilight finished talking, I braced myself for another one of her peck kisses, then she trotted out the door while calling for the name of a guard captain I had made a report to where I had been while MIA for the past few days before my visit to the doctor.

The scent at the edge of the door told me what to expect before I even got outside, and I found both #619 and #666 flanking the entrance to the medical tent. Apparently guarding Twilight's makeshift bedroom. “Is White Knight here?”

“No Commander,” #619 spoke softly, “I thought it best he remain in Ponyville when we were summoned by the princess due to his speech problem.”

Smart girl, I thought to myself. “How did the…scouting mission fare?” I asked while looking around to make sure nopony was eavesdropping on us. Since the tent only blocked sight and not sound, it was safer to just talk out in the open where we could see someone trying to listen in.

#666 made sure to keep a lookout, leaving #619 the one to lead the conversation. A part of me figured the fake female unicorn might have been considered my second for this…operation and consider it strange that #666 wasn’t despite his longer relationship with me. But the beast had been a servant, the changeling calling herself Dawn Star was much more independent. Intelligence and ingenuity beat familiarity.

“We were able to locate the castle and found several ancient books on spellcraft as well as several tomes relating to mysterious locations throughout Equestria.”

I nodded to myself as I mentally did an evil cackle of victory. My time with Twilight hadn’t done much to increase my understanding of arcane knowledge beyond a handful of spells. The only one of which I had learned to do myself being her trademark teleportation after getting a very in-depth lecture on the subject.

Learning new magic wasn’t exactly hard…but…I was starting to really understand why ponies could only use spellcraft connected to their talents. Magic wasn’t just math used to measure the effects of what you wanted, but it also required an investment of one's self. Everything I knew about magic had been downloaded directly into my brain and most changeling magic involved me just pointing my horn at something and magically shouting DIE or MOVE.

From what I figured in relation to how pony’s understood magic, it seemed that our pony base form did have a talent related to hunting. Anything that didn’t involve hiding, stalking, neutralizing, avoiding, tricking, controlling, our killing prey was quite difficult to learn. I suppose things like transmutation or transmogrification might also fall under a changeling’s purview, but I had no desire to learn how to change frogs into jumping oranges.

“And the mirror pool?” I asked.

“Two days of searching through the library found the compartment with the book you mentioned,” #619 replied while I rolled my eyes. It figured Twilight would put the thing right back where it had been before. “Following its instructions, we located the cave in the forest with a lake that did radiate magic.”

I nodded and checked my mental time table. “Good, we’ll test it the night after we get back. Now, I need to go catch up with Twilight and try to look like I'm doing my job.”

Chapter 7

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Chapter 7: I Become A Musical Centerpiece

Now, before you start trying to crucify me for toying with Twilight’s emotions, or worse, just think to yourself that I really did fall in love with her or something, let me stop you there. On the first, I point back to how broken she would have been if I had just been honest with her from the get go. On the second…sorry to burst your bubble, but love really doesn’t work like that.

Think about this, some stupid little child deliberately does something to make you angry. Your first natural urge is to beat the shit out of them, it’s a primal response ingrained into all living creatures when a younger being challenges its elders in certain ways. But, we don’t. So how can this not work for the opposite end of the emotional spectrum as well?

Sure its harder to resist because giving into such emotions not only gives oneself pleasure, but makes the object of affection happy as well when such emotions are reciprocated and increases the amount of happiness produce since making the object of one's desire is the end goal of seeing that pony happy.

…What?

I read a book on this shit okay? I spend most of my time in a library, what do you think I’m going to read, Daring Do?

…Yes, I plan on reading Daring Do too since it’s technically historical fiction now and not a rip-off of about half a dozen other adventure series. Okay, it kind of is, but…hell, ponies have cities like Fillidelphia and Manehattan, so…why not?

Anyway…while heading back on the train to Ponyville, I managed to get an update on what else was going on in the world that I had missed. The PU (Pegasus Union) was apparently gaining a lot of support around Equestria, with several young pegasi who were just entering the workforce afraid of not getting even a temporary job, they had gone up to the Crystal Empire to protest their use of magic to control the weather. This in turn spread throughout the rest of Equestria practically overnight.

From what I could figure, the emotions didn’t spread when the changelings were the ones protesting because they weren’t really genuine. But with a few hundred more pegasi grumbling about this ‘fake tribe’ and protesting their unnatural means of controlling the weather…there was plenty of animosity brewing. And that soon spread to the rest of Equestria.

Hell, we weren’t even behind the movement that sprung up in Canterlot the day I got back to Ponyville. That came about all on its own. Should have seen it coming with how many pegasi were in the royal guard and all.

Thankfully, whatever the effect was, it hadn’t hit Ponyville yet.

No, what I found when I got there was much worse…soooooooooo much worse…

“Something wrong Flash?”

I looked up from the paper I was reading that we had snagged during the train’s last stop and shook my head at the alicorn‘s question. “No…it’s just…I didn’t think this whole Pegasus Union thing would actually catch on,” I lied. Okay, half-lied. I did think it had a chance, but I was certain that Chrysalis would have done something to mess it up by now. The problem was, she did have another plan to mess it up and it was actually a pretty good one that would cause more damage to Equestria than I wanted.

The fact I hadn’t heard from her last night did have me a little curious as to what she was doing though. Even if it isn’t a full report, we usually give the telepathic version of a hi when we connect to the hive mind. I would have looked into the mind itself to find my answer, but it had been strangely active when I had gone to sleep, and thought better of peering into its experiences.

It wasn’t as if Chrysalis was going to do anything the day after we decided to sit around and wait.

Twilight sighed and shook her head. “I know…I read the front page. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Well…weather is important to the pegasi, I mean…how many talents revolve around it? One in three?” I asked rhetorically. “It’s like when those brothers Applejack told me about came around with their cider machine.” Which was a boldfaced lie, I had just watched the episode. Me and AJ didn’t talk much thanks to her being Honesty and all. I didn’t want to know if she really could detect lies.

The comparison didn’t seem to sit well with Twilight. She frowned at…well, not me directly, but there was still a frown on her face. Probably because her sister-in-law was the one running the cider machine this time. “I wouldn’t say that,” she countered. “I mean…the Flim Flam brothers cider was awful.”

“Really?” I pressed her, knowing for a fact that was complete bullshit. “Applejack said they didn’t take the time to make it with care, but then she said they had enough cider for everypony in Ponyville. That means you had to have used some of the product they produced to meet the demand, so it couldn’t have been that much worse.

“All the PU is really asking is for Cadence to do the same thing for them that you did for the Apple family. Sure it would be easier, but how many centuries of tradition would it kill, not to mention livelihoods ruined. If every city in Equestria switched to non-pegasus weather control, then they’d all be out of a job and I doubt Cloudsdale would even be able to support itself since its entire economy runs on weather production.”

By the end of my speech, Twilight sat there with her mouth hanging open. Ten seconds after I stopped talking, she finally closed it. “That’s um…I really didn’t think about it like that,” she mumbled before her head drooped. It didn’t surprise me. Cadence was a genuinely good pony, so I doubt Twilight would have even bothered to entertain the other side of an argument that came up against her.

Then she raised her head and let out a small chuckle. “You really are smart, you know that? Coming up with all that just from a paper.”

No, I’ve just had five weeks to find the linchpins of Equestria and figure out how to pull at them, I thought to myself. There was a reason I choose this one in particular, it was a legitimate concern and would becoming self-sustaining if allowed to grow a few weeks. Even if Chrysalis was found out, the problem wouldn’t just go away, and I could focus on other matters. And while I hardly wanted the pony country to fall apart, being its biggest enemy meant I didn't want it at 100% either in case we did come to blows.

“Guess it’s my hidden talent,” I replied with a smirk. “Quick reaction calls for quick thinking after all.” Then my face turned serious and I cleared my throat. “But frankly, you really do need to start paying attention to these things in greater detail. I mean, if you are a princess, shouldn’t you be getting a kingdom of your own some day?”

Twilight let out a loud groan and actually managed to slump in her seat, going from doggie sitting position to Lyra style. “Please don’t remind me about that, I managed to beg off any official duties during the Princess Summit at the Crystal Empire because I need to stay connected with my friends, but now that the Elements have been put back in the Tree of Harmony…that excuse isn’t going to cut it anymore.”

The mention of the Tree of Harmony got my ears twitching. From what Twilight had said when I asked her about some box diagram in the library on the first day in Ponyville, it was apparently the source of the Elements of Harmony, and also had the sisters’ cutie marks emblazoned on its crystal trunk. It had also produced some magical box that required six keys to unlock it. I didn’t need three guesses to figure out where that was leading to.

“Well, since Rainbow Dash is trying to get into the Wonderbolts section of the military, you can always have her transferred to your personal guard, and since you’ll probably be getting a castle of your own in the near future, you’ll need your own seamstress, pastry chef, a pegasus to manage your menagerie…I’m sure you could find a reason to rope in Applejack too.”

Twilight held up a hoof to stop me before I could work in the rest of the population of Ponyville. “Okay, first off, that is a total abuse of power. It would kill Rainbow Dash for me to take her out of the Wonderbolts when she eventually makes it in, and Applejack has a farm to run, Rarity…well, I suppose she wouldn’t mind where she lived as long as…no!” the alicorn told herself with a shake of her head. “I’d be happy to have them visit, and if they wanted to…I guess finding Pinkie a place in the kitchens wouldn’t be such a bad idea…but…ugh. Please, I don’t want to think about things like that right now."

I shrugged at the pony’s reluctance to use her authority to keep herself happy. “Well, you do want to stay with your friends, so I just thought-”

“And it’s sweet Flash,” she said with a smile. “But I won’t do something like that to my friends just so I can feel more comfortable.” Then, the smile dropped, and she looked away from me for a moment. “No matter how much I want to.”

The look on Twilight’s face made me grit my teeth and cross my forelegs. “It’s not fair. Celestia practically keeps you in a box your whole life, just sends you to Ponyville to make friends, then barely a year goes by and you're supposed to just say goodbye to them because you’ve got some wings?”

Twilight shook her head and met me eye to eye. “I choose not to make friends in Canterlot, and…Flash, you really shouldn’t talk about Princess Celestia like that.” The emphasis making me realize that I had forgot to include the sun tyrant’s title.

“I’m your royal guard Highness. Which means my first and foremost concern is to you, not her,” I replied, matching her stare for stare before my expression softened considerably. “And even if I weren’t in the guard at all, I see a mare I care for hurting and I just want to wrap my wings around her and make the pain stop.” I also added in some soothing changeling hypnosis magic via my eyes to try and defuse the situation before Twilight started defending Celestia again. Apparently changeling emotional magic was good for making our prey become lax, and soothing irate females.

The final half of comment got a gulp from Twilight, followed by a blush before she broke eye contact. “Um…right…so, you know what happened to Rainbow Dash? I haven’t seen here since I woke up at the last station.”

I couldn’t stop from chuckling, remembering that while also feeling a pang of guilt. The two day trip by train that we were taking back to Ponyville wasn’t much different than the trip up to Vanhoover, with one little difference, I was feasting on Twilight every night before bed during a passionate bout of kissing in her private royal car. It wasn’t as much as the night in the camp, but it still had her taking a nap in the afternoon. Aside from that, I didn’t see anything in the way of side effects and since I had no intentions of mind raping her, Twilight wouldn’t be turning into a green-eyed zombie like Mom had made of her brother.

Although the chuckle was more for the bit of drool she left on my coat than any villainous mirth from draining the poor girl’s energy like some cheesy vampire feeding on his lover’s blood. Because we weren’t in that type of relationship in any way, shape or form.

“Um, Dash woke up and decided flying to Ponyville was faster than waiting on the train to do it for her,” I told her. “Also wanted to tell everypony there that I wasn’t dead.”

Twilight’s face became absolutely serious. “We never thought you were, not for a second.”

“Yeah, that’s why Rainbow said you caused an earthquake, lifted a pyramid with your magic, turned those Sun Valley earth ponies into shrubbery, melted all that sand into glass, and turned that Ali-guy into a glorified cockroach,” I said with a smile.

“Please don’t mention that to anypony,” Twilight begged, killing my mood. The look in her eyes was pained. Apparently, the memory of being a badass wasn’t a pleasant one for her.

The smile dropped from my face, and I leaned in closer to the princess. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”

“I…I lost control,” she mumbled hesitantly. “The first lesson Celestia taught me when I was a child is that a unicorn must always be in control of herself and her magic. I…I knew about the second ever since I got my cutie mark, but…the first…I never understood what she meant until I thought I saw you die! I was just so angry. I wanted to kill those ponies Flash! I wanted to make them hurt a much as I was hurting, I wanted to make Ahuizotl suffer for what he did to you and those foals ten times worse than anything I did to the rest of his henchponies! That’s why I kept him around like I did, for when we…if we found your body…I was going to feed him to piranha and use my magic to keep him alive until every last bite was eaten and digested!”

By the time she was finished, Twilight was trembling and I reached forward to pull her into an embrace before she rested her head on my shoulder and nearly sent us tumbling backwards. Then I kissed her on the cheek and waited for the princess to get the memory and all the emotions associated with it out of her system.

It was a good five minutes before Twilight was able to speak again. “I’m such a horrible pony.”

A part of me wanted to tell her yes. It was the part that identified this as a moment I could easily back out of our faux-relationship before we got in too deep, transfer out, get rid of this Flash Sentry disguise, then replace her next bodyguard and be able to keep Twilight at arms length. But that would also involve breaking her heart, so I quickly shut that little voice up with a boot to the head.

“You’re not anything of the kind Twilight,” I assured her. “You’re kind and loyal, honest, and brave. If anything…what happened, it just shows how much you care about…other ponies.” Barely avoided saying me there. I really didn’t need to add any fuel to an already out of control fire. “And if you feel bad about something, then use it as motivation to make sure nothing like that happens again.”

I broke the hug a few moments later and stepped back to sit down while moving my hooves down to hold hers. I still had no idea how that worked by the way, I just touched something and wanted it to stick, and it did, only I could loose my grip on things too if my mind wandered too much. “Feeling better?”

Twilight looked down at me and cracked a smile. “Maybe a little,” she told me. “You know, when I first got pressured into getting a personal guard, I thought it would just be a huge headache, and I’ll admit it has a few drawbacks, but…I like you…being around.”

“Well I am an expert on all our duties, from saving the princess, defending her honor…okay, I guess I need a little more practice in keeping her eyes from getting too puffy from crying but…nopony’s perfect. Except you, of course.”

Another blush started to creep its way onto Twilight’s face, and it was then that the cartoony kind of fate that Equestria ran on decided to rear its ugly and unexplainable head again. The train came to an abrupt stop, making Twilight stumble and collapse right on top of me.

I moved my forelegs around to help support her and keep the princess from ending with her head resting on the seat to find my hooves grabbing her flank a little bit past the area where her cutie mark showed and more than a little into the territory that said we should be doing more than just a bit of innocent kissing.

Twilight moved down to look at my hooves on her butt, then back up to my face before she smiled. “I’m not sure, but I think we should wait until after the first date before we get that grabby Flash.”

“Ummm…” Was all I managed to get out before Twilight shifted to theoretical mode.

“Unless we do follow the long-established companion romance model, in which case our physical relationship would be on a much faster track than the three date testing phase to see if we’re compatible,” she reasoned.

I resisted the urge to groan. “Uh, Twilight?”

“Which we are, compatible I mean,” she continued. “I mean, we have so many discussions about history and magic. I can’t believe you’re so interested in magic! I've never met a pegasus so interested in unicorn magic as you.”

“Twilight?” I repeated as my arms started to feel strained.

“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “Does that mean you were attempting to show an interest in me from the third day we met? It makes sense…although I wonder why you didn’t just ask me about my astronomy studies since it might actually be something we could share.”

Because Equestrian astronomy makes no sense to the point that it’s scary! I mentally shouted. If Luna made the stars every night, then that mean…what? She created whole worlds? The hell with Celestia’s talent of moving the sun, if there was even the tiniest bit of human science in this stupid place then Luna made God himself look like a slow amateur. It took him thirteen billion years to make our night sky, she did it every night in about five minutes.

It was then that I realized she was actually taking the time to wait for a reply from me, and I cleared my throat. “Oh…um…well, it just seemed like you were into magic more, and read so many books on the subject, and um…were more excited about it is all. Now can you please stand up so I can take my hooves off your plot? I think I’m starting to loose my grip.”

Twilight glanced back down to where my hooves were still on her ass, then braced herself on the bench I was sitting on and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s a royal guard’s duty to support his princess.” Even if that support was from down below.

A second later, we had managed to get out of get out of Twilight private car…which was a bit of a misnomer since we shared it with Rainbow Dash for most of the ride over. Considering what I think was a growing fear of isolation within Twilight, I doubted she’d ever make a private or personal anything actually live up to its name.

Unfortunately, the second I dropped my guard while imagining Twilight and her friends using her private airship (if she had one) to go on a much needed vacation, the cosmic horror attacked.

In my defense, none of the doors to the outside had been opened, and it came at us from behind. As in from the car we just came from. Twilight’s personal train car. The magically protected box, with walkways built around the outside so ponies could go to and fro without having to disturb the princess. The thing with half a dozen magical enchantments to stop things from levitating it, taking it apart magically, or just teleporting in. THAT TRAIN CAR!

So when Pinkie Pie just shows up and screams “HEY FLASHY YOU’RE OKAY!” in my ear from behind me, screaming like a little girl and jumping into Twilight’s arms WAS A PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE REACTION!

GOT IT?

And I just trembled a little bit in those forelegs because…my magical pegasus protection from the cold somehow went on the fritz!

Twilight was just a merciful angel and let out a small chuckle before kissing me on the forehead instead of commenting on my Pinkie phobia. “Yes Pinkie, he’s okay,” she said before looking down at me. “So, he’s ready to let go of my neck now, right?”

“Um…yes,” I told the princess before she put me down. “Good work princess, I was just uh…okay, I have nothing to say that will save my image from what it just went through.” The pinkie pony just scared the shit out of me, and that was that.

Thankfully, nopony called attention to that little spectacle…which disturbed me for some reason actually. Although they were friends, the Mane Six always did like to laugh at each others embarrassing moments…and Spike’s. I couldn’t forget about the little dragon, slave labor and comic relief was all his life consisted of.

“So Dashie showed up a little early and told everypony that Flashy was alive,” Pinkie informed Twilight. “Then Princess Celestia decided we should have a-” was about as far as I got before a chill running down my spine caused a loss of hearing for a few seconds. Princess Celestia? What the hell is Princess Celestia doing here?

“-so you need to get in place!” Pinkie finished.

I looked over to Twilight with wide eyes and panic in my voice. “Princess Celestia? What is she talking about Princess Celestia for? What did Princes Celestia decided about having?”

Twilight cleared her throat nervously. “Well, um…the correspondence I’ve been having with the princess since you went missing. You were going to be awarded a medal and promotion for your actions…posthu-”

“But now you’re not dead so we’re going to have a big parade instead!” Pinkie said before Twilight could finish. “Now come on!”

Earth pony strength and…Pinkieness seemed to make the world zip by, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on some pillows on top of a…palanquin?

Yes, I was on a palanquin being supported by four royal guards. “Okay…what just happened?”

“It’s Pinkie,” Twilight told me as she flapped her wings to float in the air alongside me. “Just don’t question it, and you’ll avoid the brain aneurism.” I couldn’t stop the terror on my face from hearing that. “Okay, have fun!” she finished before disappearing in a flash of purple light that filled my vision and made me wish I was wearing sun glasses.

By the time I could finally see again, there was a somewhat large group of royal guards in front of me, spread out in a square marching formation…with Pinkie at the lead. I felt a weird tingle in the air, and there was the sound of a flugelhorn before the soldiers started marching and ponies started just hanging out their windows to see what was going on, as if they could have missed the large group of royal guards assembling in front of their town.

“Make way! Make way we say!” the leader of the guards cried out before they started marching, bells started ringing, and a few instruments I wasn’t aware were even around started playing. “Make way for Flash Sentry.”

For some reason, this feels disturbingly familiar… I thought to myself while Pinkie danced in front of all the guards on her hind legs for an impossible amount of time for a pony.

And then the singing began.

With Pinkie singing the lead.

Hey clear the way I know it’s kinda bazaar

Hey you let us through it’s our bright new star

Oh come be the first on the block to meet his eye

Make way here he comes

Ring Bells bang the drums

OH YOU’RE GONNA LOVE THIS GUY

Flash Sentry Fabulous he, just Flashy to me! (Wait a minute)

Gentle mares, enough with the stares listen and see

Do your best to stay calm, get out of that salon

Come and meet this spectacular friend in deed (Is this a Disney song?)

Flash Sentry, Mighty is he, just look and see!

HOW THE HELL IS SHE SINGING A DISNEY SONG? I asked myself before Pinkie somehow tossed six barrels of apples at me that I managed to catch and balance into two stacks of three on each hoof. Don’t ask me how it happened, I just reacted.

Strong as ten unicorn horns definitely!

A second later, I saw #666 and #619 come up from behind a group of Earth ponies to switch off singing one line apiece, starting with the male of the duo.

He’s faced galloping hordes!

A hundred bad guys with swords!

Who sent to goons to their lords?

Our Flash Sentry! (They have to be lying)

Then again, I probably have killed about one hundred changelings. As the parade and the (ugh) song, continued, the guards that made up the majority of the parade took up the chorus.

He’s raced seventy five golden camels (How would that even work?)

Purple peacocks he’s saved fifty three (Is that even a real species on this planet?)

Then the two changelings disguised as guards jumped over to another group to continue the song.

When it comes to exotic type mammals

The things he’s seen could fill a zoo

I’m telling you! A world-class menagerie!

The next singer to trot by made my draw drop as Rarity took a place behind the flower ponies as if she was spreading gossip. Seriously, what the fuck is going on?

Flash Sentry handsome is he Flashy indeed!

That physique!

How can speak?

Just so unique! Oh!

Now go on down to town square

Adjust your manes and prepare

To gawk and whistle and stare

At Flash Sentry!

I mean, Pinkie I’ll buy busting out into song…but the WHOLE TOWN? I mentally screamed as Rarity hurried Rose, Lilly and the other flower pony off and over the hill while the guards took up the song.

He’s caught ninety-five white purring monkeys

And after some fun he just set them all free!

He’s freed slaves, fought minions and flunkies!

(We’re proud to serve with him)

A second later, the Cakes popped out of Sugarcube Corner to join in the singing.

He may cry on a whim (NO I DON'T!)

But we love feeding him

All different kinds of cookies

Almost in slow motion, the group I was with crested the hill, and the sight of the ponies on the stage in the middle of town chilled me to the bone. Hell, I didn’t even react when the platform I was on was tilted so violently, it practically turned into a catapult and set me flying through the air as Pinkie took up the song again.

Flash Sentry, amorous he, Flashy to me!

I landed on my belly and stared up at the three princesses standing in front of me. The purple one, I was expecting of course, the big white one was unnerving…but my nervousness of being around Celestia paled in comparison to the terror that the presence of the pink pony princess and her husband would mean.

“P-Princess Cadence?” I squeaked as I gazed at the pretty pink pony princess.

The pink mare, and I think every other pony in the town as well as the guards gave me a confused look and the music that was coming from nowhere just died. “Um…yes, Lt Flash?” she said before looking over to Princess Celestia. “That is still his proper rank, right? We haven’t promoted him yet af-”

“W-What‘re you doing here?” I whimpered out in terror while finding my way to my feet…hooves, whatever. “You and Shining Armor should be in the Crystal Empire!”

A second later, Pinkie just came up behind me and whispered into my ear. “Uh, Flashy, I know this is your first musical number and all, but your line is: Princess what a sight, lovely to see. And then you bow and kiss Celestia’s hoof so she can blush,” she said before looking back behind me. “Fluttershy, get ready for those birds to warble on key!”

I looked over to glare at Pinkie. “Look, just stop with the song!” I said before looking back at Cadence. “And answer the question!”

All in all, I think it was just her surprise that kept me from getting smacked down for addressing royalty in such a manner; or the fact they were ponies and probably didn’t do that sort of stuff. “Well, we got a letter from Princess Celestia saying that a stallion Twilight cared for was missing, most likely dead, and then Rainbow Dash showed up a few hours ago.”

Twilight frowned and looked over to Cadence. “What? But, I sent a message to Princess Celestia the morning after we found Flash Sentry! Stormy Weather isn’t nearly as fast as Rainbow, but he should have made it to Canterlot at least a day before we did!”

“I never received such a letter,” Celestia told the other princesses.

Oh no nonononononononono!

I didn’t waste time with the question of what happened to Twilight’s messages. We had changelings in the castle after all, it could have been snatched up before making it to Celestia, if something hadn’t happened to the pegasus who was carrying the missive before that.

My mind raced to connect just how bad this all was. If Shining Armor and Cadence were here, then Chrysalis was in the Crystal Empire, alone. Although I doubted the ability of a bunch of sparkling earth ponies would be able to stop her from just taking the heart, she could have just snagged Cadence’s form before the princess left, and walked right up to the damn thing in the middle of the day after her train took off!

Hell, I half expected Chrysalis to just show up right then and there to put the three alicorns standing around me in traction. Did the fact that the sky wasn’t turning blood red mean her plan had failed? That we couldn’t use the Crystal Heart? How long would it take her to subdue a country anyway? How long had she been at it already?

I hadn’t talked to her since the night I slept with Twilight, and that was two days ago. Although the Crystal Empire was further away, they actually had a rail line straight to Ponyville, while the one we used at Vanhoover wasn’t as direct so with that and the possibility Cadence’s freaking crystal train might be faster than the normal model made it fall within the realm of possibility they hadn’t been gone any longer than what it took for us to get back.

But, then I realized everyone was just stood around looking at me in confusion because I had broken up their magical musical number.

“Sorry…um…I’m just a little nervous, you know…meeting the princesses and all,” I apologized with a gulp while trying to keep my knees from shaking.

What’s really kind of weird about the song was, Flash really had been stationed in Equestria’s Saddle Arabian embassy before his transfer to the Crystal Empire…go figure.

But, as for more important matters…well…

You know those times when you see a horrible accident about to happen, but you just can’t bring yourself to look away? Or you see a way to stop it, but just sit there paralyzed with indecision, because if you do, you might end up a part of the whole thing? That was pretty much my life at that very moment.

For a moment I even thought that maybe I had lucked out and Chrysalis had been blown to smithereens when she tried to use the damn thing, or actually was sitting around waiting for me to show up for some big flag presentation that had to do with the Equestria Games that we could use as a distraction to nab what we needed.

But my Daring Do escapade had pretty much guaranteed my place as the unluckiest bastard in Equestria that fate just LOVED to kick in my now nonexistent balls. So, I’m pretty sure just by thinking to myself ‘nothing bad is really going to happen’ I started the countdown to the pony apocalypse.

In the end, I decided to do the smart thing and I kept my damn mouth shut. It wasn’t like telling them Chrysalis might very well have access to an ultimate power-up would have done anything at the time, right? No reason for me to unmask myself and pretty much guarantee that Celestia would throw a bug barbecue.

After the ceremony, Pinkie had a party set up, and Celestia left to check on the correspondence problem. Apparently, all her letters went through her multiple of advisers to organize them and investigate any requests fully before bringing them to the princess. The fact one of those advisers was now a changeling meant we could snag any bit of information we wanted and control how much the Sun Goddess heard.

If my nerves weren’t shot enough with the fact that this whole Daring Do thing might have brought about the end of the Crystal Empire, I had another big problem. Since Cadence and Shining were there, Twilight decided that we should all have dinner together.

You know…like a date…with her brother sitting across from me at the table…and the Alicorn of Love there to examine and meddle in a relationship that was pretty much a pile of lies, deceit, and…well, you get the point.

Yeah, really should have just come clean with Celestia and begged for mercy. It would have been less nerve-racking.

Chapter 8

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Chapter 8: I Become A Dating Show Contestant

So how did I get into a date with a neurotic alicorn that usually needs three days to plan and prepare for anything?

One Word: Cadence.

Since the princess was only in town for the day, and she wanted to get to know the stallion her little sister was so enamored with, Twilight decided to push up our dating time table since we’d have an expert on scene to consult with if anything went wrong.

Of course she also had to point out that the town only had one classy restaurant, and Twilight had been living in Ponyville long enough that she knew all the fun places to go. So planning a date was a little moot when only one option for dinner existed. Never mind the fact that we had just been to a party thrown by Pinkie Pie, and that could have easily counted as our fun activity.

Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Mom might have taken over the Crystal Empire while everypony’s back was turned and this was all just giving her time to cement her position and all that. So why the hell did I go along with this whole farce in the first place?

Well the world was going to fucking end tomorrow, so having one last day of Ponyville normalcy (my God there’s an oxymoronic term if I’ve never heard one) before everything hit the fan was better than better than cowering in my fucking house with the other changelings. Plus, I had a very powerful survival instinct, and keeping Twilight happy meant keeping Shining Armor off my back.

So, I had to get ready for my date…

“GIVE ME EVERY BUCKING DETAIL OF YOUR SERVICE RECORD YOU PIECE OF TRASH!”

Flash Sentry struggled in the grip of my horn as I pieced through his mind to bend it to my will. It wasn’t the best way of mind control, but it worked fast enough for what I needed. A few seconds later, I dropped him to the ground as the pegasus started mumbling out several details on his life and I began jotting them down on a piece of paper with my magic as fast as possible.

“Boss?” #666 spoke from behind me, “You seem a little…agitated.”

“Shut up, and see if Chrysalis has connected her conscious mind to the hive yet,” I told my minion. “I need an update about what’s going on in the Crystal Empire.”

As Beast turned to leave, #619 cleared her throat. “Highness…why are you attempting to garner unimportant details like this? We have had plenty of time to extract everything we need from the squad commander.”

“Because Shining Armor is going to be there,” I grumbled after Flash finished reciting all his accomplishments in Saddle Arabia. “Which means he’s going to do his best to make me look stupid in front of Twilight like any elder sibling would. He’s going to ask me questions about his area of expertise, being the military, and I need to show that I at least know something about how it works.” Ugh, why didn’t I focus on cementing my cover before jumping into magic?

Never mind the fact that magic was cool, and flashy, I really did learn how to teleport because of it…which I needed to learn in case my cover was blown like it was going to be tonight. So, I had made the right decision on in the end after all.

Two and a half hours later, I found myself sitting in my room studying parchment with every detail of Flash Sentry’s life, from his time in the royal guard at Canterlot until he spent a few months in Saddle Arabia, and then was transferred to the Crystal Empire.

I also remembered a simple fact from my college days: I sucked at last minute memorization. If I ever had to learn something, it took at least two days of reviewing and rewriting my notes to allow the repetition of information to sink in. Since that wasn’t an option, I hastily considered what else could be done to solve my information dilemma.

Two solutions came to mind. I could…

A: Kill Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, then replace them with my changeling minions and pretty much control every conversation during said date. I think I knew enough about them to pass the information to #666 and #619 without Twilight being aware of it if she asked a question that involved personal info. But, without proper preparation time, even my minions would have the personality of cardboard cutouts, making Twilight suspicious and eventually lead to our cover being blown.

B: Have my changeling minions come along in disguise as another couple and sit close enough to relay information to me. And, if they needed to, the changelings could cause a scene in the restaurant to divert attention away from me if Shinning managed to pin me with a question. If it really came down to it, some spilled food could even end the date that would turn into an interrogation.

“Dawn, Pathfinder,” I called out, “meet me downstairs, I have a job for the two of you.

“What about contacting the Queen?” the currently male changeling called out as I headed past his room towards the stairs.

I stopped and frowned at the question, then looked over to the changeling who currently looked like a unicorn. “You haven’t done it already?”

“No.”

Okay, so that makes it…what? Forty-eight hours without any contact plus today? I usually gave her an update on what was going on every two days. For Chrysalis to be out of contact that long it meant she was either embroiled in something that was taking all her attention, or…she was dead.

Hell, maybe I had finally caught a break and the Crystal Heart really did kill her when she tried to use it. …And maybe Sombrero was just a little misunderstood. There was no way in hell I was that lucky.

“We’ll try later again tonight then,” I assured the changeling. “Right now, I need both of you to give me your assistance.”

Thankfully, changelings were kind of brought up not to ask questions, and even more so around me because of the high body count associated with pissing me off. So the two of them followed me out the door without any fuss. Pushing my thoughts on the Crystal Empire aside, I set about the task of walking through the town as most of the shops were getting ready to close.

I was looking for a pair of ponies. The problem was…I had no idea just which particular pair of ponies I was looking for. The rumor mill in Ponyville was as strong as in any small human town, if not more so since ponies didn’t have the option to just log onto the internet for social interaction. Because of this, I couldn’t just have my minions copy any two ponies and bring them into a fancy restaurant that was a dating location. Ponies would talk about it, word would get around, and eventually, somepony would figure out that two ponies had been in two places at once.

The bigger problem was, I had very little information on just which ponies were together beyond the couples that dominated the fannon, which I’ll admit I spent a bit of time looking into by getting a tear, some holes, and a bit of burn damage on Flash’s dress uniform during my first few days in Ponyville, then asking Rarity for an emergency replacement. While she measured me, I had gained quite a bit of information from the town gossip that was later looked into.

Vinyl and Octavia were apparently, a couple, but it was a semi-long-distance relationship with Tavi living in Canterlot for most of the week, then coming down to Ponyville on weekends. Of course with only one of them being out of town tonight, that meant they were out of the running for a suitable cover.

Big Mac and Cheerilee where an option…sort of. Apparently the big stallion had been seen with the school marm from time to time, but not even Rarity knew if there was anything beyond simple friendship there. Unfortunately, my plan needed their presence at the restaurant to not make waves, which those two certainly would.

Cloud Kicker and…well… (insert pony name here since she was the town slut, as much as you could be in a community of just around 600 anyway), was kind of an option, but I had no idea if she actually dates, or just went around looking for sex. The one time she had tried hitting on me, I told her to buck off. Mares that slept around were not my thing. …because they were mares. As in not human.

Dr Whooves…didn’t exist. Or maybe he’d stored his Time Lord conciseness in one of his pocket watch things and was just going by Time Turner. Either way, the stallion wasn’t together with Derpy, so that couple wasn’t really an option either.

A mare closing up her stall for the coming night caught my eye, and I trotted over to her to strike up a friendly conversation. “Hey Bon-Bon!” I greeted the earth pony.

Of course Bon-Bon and Lyra were a couple, and one of the few I just had to get to know. After all, with half the fanfics out there focusing on Lyra’s human obsession to varying levels, it couldn’t just be some whimsical fancy or some strange way that a mare with a back condition sat, could it?

As it turned out, Lyra was the town crackpot. But her human obsession hadn’t started until after Twilight came back from the mirror and ending up giving a lecture at the library on the creatures there because of some comments made by both Twilight and her friends. Then, Lyra had become obsessed with the strange creatures, finding some ‘evidence’ of their existence in Equestria as bipeds despite the fact that made no sense whatsoever.

“Hello Flash,” she greeted in kind. “Sorry, but I just closed. Congratulations on the promotion by the way.”

I gave a nervous laugh. “Thanks,” I said before meeting her eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my minions responding to an unspoken command carried by my pheromones to make the mare in front of me become much more open to mental suggestions while I handled the visual and olfactory side of things. “Say Bon-Bon, is Lyra seeing anypony?”

The mare gave me a confused stare and cocked her head. “Um, yes. We’re together. I thought you’d have realized that by now. Why’d you ask?”

Faking a dejected groan, I gave my best mockery of disappointment. “I should have known, I mean considering how hot she is. Most unicorn’s are kind of scrawny, but she keeps in great shape. Just think about all her curves. Now I see why she does it, you’ve got to have a fit body if you want to keep up with an earth pony in the bedroom. I think it’s wonderful you two are so in love.”

For her part, Bon-Bon blinked, as if fighting off sleep while the pheromones I was pumping into her nostrils was starting to take effect. “Well, I…yes, she is very athletic.”

“And you’re quite a catch yourself,” I continued before looking over the mare’s shoulder at her well-developed flank. It had taken me a few days to realize that the equivalent to a human’s cup size in Equestria was the amount of padding a mare had on their plot. “Lyra must have some fun nights, burying her hooves in that flank of yours and her tongue in…well, you know.”

The earth pony wobbled, and let out a tiny moan…or maybe it was just a wordless conformation, I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure.

“So is it true what they say about unicorn horns?” I asked in a quiet tone. “Do they really get off on it when another pony plays with their horn?”

Bon-Bon continued to sway, her eyes barely open at all as she replied. “Y-Yes, at the base especially, when magic is flowing through it. Lyra loves it when I lick-”

“And that earth pony stamina of yours…how many hours can you keep her in bed for? All night?” I continued.

“Y-Yes,” she replied, fully in the sway of a changeling’s mind control.

“Do you love her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want her? Do you want to take her in your legs and show her your inexhaustible love?”

“Yes!”

I leaned over to whisper in the mare’s ear. “Then do it. Tonight, when Lyra comes home, show her how much you love her. Be kind and sweet. Be romantic and loving, and then…take her and be as passionate as you can be with her. Make love to her all night long. Now go and let her feel the endless depths of your love tonight and don’t let her go until morning.”

A second later, I watched the mare whose mind was clouded with love and lust charged towards the small house she shared with the lime-green unicorn right behind her stand before knocking the door open and pointing a hoof at the quadruped sitting at the kitchen table in the back of their small cottage with a tray of sweets in the center. “YOU!”

“Ummm…hey Bonnie, listen, I know these are the candies you left to cool, but-”

“I am going to make you the most wonderful dinner of your life, then we’re going to have a night of such hot and passionate sex that Luna herself will hear and turn green with envy!”

Not needing to see or hear anymore, I ordered my minions to get a read on their auras before ordering Dawn to close the door, while Lyra drawled out a long “Ooooookay?”

Then we headed back so that I could get ready for my date and brief my minions on their parts before getting changed into my dress uniform. After all, tonight wasn’t about impressing Twilight, I didn’t need to do that more than I had. It was about getting on Cadence’s good side. Doing that with Shinning Armor was an impossibility.

When my currently unicorn minions finished dressing me, as I had no idea how to get some of the fancier buttons on my pony clothes done without telekinesis, I found myself staring the mirror. What the hell am I doing this for again? I wondered to myself. With night fallen, I should have been headed to the Everfree to visit the Tree of Harmony and then see if the Mirror Pool would suit my purposes. Instead, I was going to spend the night being grilled by Twilight’s brother! I had more important things to do than put effort into a fake relationship that had no impact on my long-term goals.

Hell, if Chrysalis really had made a move in the Crystal Empire, conquest or death, it didn’t matter. Either result made everything I was doing right now completely pointless!

But, there was always the chance that she had just decided to sit back as I had suggested. Which meant I would still be in Ponyville for three more weeks. I could spend three more weeks with Twilight and the others. But if I didn’t want those three weeks to be the most awkward weeks of my life, then I needed to go on this date and make a good impression.

So with my emergency plan in place and my worries shoved to the side, I headed to Hesperides Garden. It was the one fancy restaurant in Ponyville. However, the place specialized in (you guessed it) apple dishes, so I didn’t see how this was going to be much different than any other restaurant that served Ponyville’s staple crop. The fact I had no taste buds killed the attraction of eating anything expensive, no matter what it tasted like.

The place was your classic romantic/high-society restaurant. It had the fancy cloth napkins, actual silverware that was expected to be used instead of just the basic open mouth and insert food methods ponies usually went for. There was even a trio of live musicians that played romantic music to help the low lighting with the atmosphere.

I arrived at the place a good fifteen minutes early…and found the group I was with had been waiting at the table for a good five minutes before I even showed up. Another thing I noticed was what they were all wearing: which was absolutely nothing. Then there was me, in a dress uniform.

So now I not only looked like an idiot for showing up later than my date and keeping her waiting, but coming overdressed as well. Current score: 2-0 in favor of Shining Armor.

Twilight giggled. “Flash, what are you wearing?”

I cleared my throat and tried to hide my discomfort. Sure I had worn clothes for years, but going around naked for the better part of seven weeks had kind of made me get out of the swing of things. “Dress uniform,” I told her while adjusting my collar to allow at least a little airflow. “After I just got dumped in front of the princesses naked, I figured it would be better to try and make a good impression when I actually have some warning of what’s coming instead of…well, Pinkie Pie.”

“That’s cute,” Cadence said with a smirk that bordered on a smile. “Isn’t it dear?”

“Yeah,” Shining Armor said before his magic picked up his glass of water and he took a sip from the goblet styled cup.

The awkward silence stretched on for a moment, and I realized that the others were actually waiting for me to order. After I managed to get the damn menu open using nothing by my hooves, I looked over the prices and suppressed a wince. Even the most basic food cost three times what it would down the street, and I didn’t care how fresh the ingredients were, a simple salad should never cost the equivalent to twenty dollars in bits.

A few seconds after I just started looking, a tan unicorn with a pointy horn and tiny mustache walked over to our table. “Ah, the last of the guests, would you care to see our list of wines sir?”

“Just water for me, thanks,” I told the guy before ordering the aforementioned salad, whose smile disappeared a few fractions of a second too soon before he turned around to leave. Although the big clue to his assholeness was his anal attitude my extrasensory perception was picking up.

Once we were alone again, the interrogation began. I make no mistake, because that’s what it was. I was in a dark room, my seat positioned directly under the light, and I was surrounded by enemies.

“So Flash, how has Ponyville been treating you?” Shining Armor asked, trying to act all friendly with a smile that might have won me over if I were a girl. Okay, well I was a girl…sort of. But since I was a former guy who got turned into a girl, who turned herself back into a male of yet another species, his smiling guy power had no effect on me!

Current score: 2-0, I held the line! HA!

“Well, it’s…okay,” I said, trying to downplay the most awesome place in all of Equestria. I mean sure, I’d seen pictures of places that certainly looked cooler like a small town that had waterfalls made of fucking rainbows, but nothing had the quaint, homey, insanity that Ponyville possessed. “I’ve only really spent one day looking around for myself. All the others I’m just following Twilight around.”

I think I nailed it because, you know…that doesn’t sound like a stalker at all. Nope!

But since I knew playing defense all night was just going to get me gutted, as soon as I had answered Shining Armor’s question, I posed one of my own. “And how are things in the Crystal Empire?” I knew the answer…sort of, but it was a perfectly innocent question that any idiot with a tenth of a brain like Flash Sentry would act. I had to keep in character after all.

However, I instantly regretted it when I saw Cadence’s ever cheerful expression become a little down to only party hide the distress I could practically taste coming off her. “As well as can be expected,” she said. “Stormy Skies is just so stubborn and isn‘t listening to reason. What I don’t understand is, the weather spires of the Crystal Empire are powered by the innate magic of the crystal ponies, which comes from the Crystal Heart. They can’t be used anywhere else! But nopony seems to be able to understand that even when I tell it to them.”

Well of course not, you’re fighting sensational journalism with things like truth and honesty, I thought to myself. There was no way that crap could beat good old fashioned fear. Plus, I had noticed that ponies had a tendency to get a kind of mob-okay, herd mentality when it came to pretty much everything, and now that my herd was running wild, the chances of Cadence stopping it any time soon by herself was slim to none.

“Wait, you mean nopony can use the crystal spire’s magic anywhere else?” Twilight suddenly asked.

Cadence shook her head. “I’ve explained that to them, but…Stormy just says that its only that way for the moment. She whips herds into a frenzy with talk about soon as other unicorns start studying the magic of the empire, they’ll be able to figure everything out and duplicate it. But even if they do, that doesn’t mean they’ll have any way to power them. Every bit of the city’s magic revolves around the Crystal Heart.”

“That’s it!” Twilight exclaimed, making me jump a bit and all the ponies in the restaurant to look at our table. After she blushed from the attention gained by her outburst, the alicorn looked over to her sister with an excited smile. “What you need is an outsiders opinion! An outsider who’s an expert in magic, and has the best credentials. She could study the weather control system of the empire, and publish her findings. Then, you would have proof that this whole thing is just one big misunderstanding and everypony will be just fine.”

It took me all of two seconds once Twi said research and outsider to figure out she was talking about herself. My thoughts on the subject were something along the lines of, No, oh no, oh dear god no!

Shining Armor nodded at his sister’s idea with a knowing smirk. “And I suppose you have an idea for who this expert is?”

“Me of course,” Twilight proclaimed happily.

Okay, really need to stop this now, I told myself while doing my best to keep my expression neural despite the fact it felt like a horse had just kicked me in the gut. There was no way in hell I wanted Twi going anywhere near the Crystal Empire until I knew what was going on up there! “Twi-”

Before I could really start talking, our waiter decided to return with our food, and my drink of water, making me realize that we’d been talking about something other than me for the majority of our time, and the dickhead of a unicorn hadn’t bothered to bring me my drink until all the food was done.

At that point I was going to classify the guy as a unicorn supremacist. I knew they probably didn’t really exist, but it made wanting to beat him half to death easier, and anger was a nice go to emotion for changelings. We liked anger, it was a good, powerful emotion that let us kill shit. It also kept the whole panic of Twilight possibly going off to her death in check so that I could think about how to stop all of this.

“Can we get a straw?” Twilight asked, making the waiter reach into his pocketed apron and pulled one out before she placed in it my drink with her telekinesis.

“What?” I asked as innocently as I could when the waiter looked at me. I never did get used to drinking without my TK. Despite their gripping ability, hooves just weren’t as good as hands.

Thankfully, the time it had taken No Tip the waiter unicorn to pass out our food, I had thought of a good reason to keep Twilight from going to the Crystal Empire for her research project.

Unfortunately, Cadence took the opening my silence gave her. “So, you two must eat together all the time.”

Twilight let out a tiny musical laugh. “Every day, lunch and dinner,” she told the other alicorn before shifting her attention over to me out of the corner of her eyes. “It’s…nice.” I really didn’t know what was worse, that Cadence just implied we spent every day for the past week on a date, or Twilight describing it as nice.

As I looked down at my salad, with its greenery and tomatoes I wondered if I was expected to use the silverware in front of me, or just bend down to eat when I noticed something wrong, my sacs were full from Pinkie Pie’s party.

Of course before I could leave and empty them, something else had to go wrong. My backup finally arrived as I caught a whiff of changeling identification pheromones. While I was at first a little thankful for the two pseudo-ponies, that quickly turned to worry when Cadence opened her mouth again.

“Lyra! It’s been such a long time!”

Ummm…what? I asked myself before turning around.

As expected, #619 was standing there in Lyra’s from next to #666 in her Bon-Bon disguise with a blank expression on her face. “Yes.”

Oh come on, you can at least put some emotion into it! I shouted in my head. While changelings could usually mimic ponies to pass under light inspection, that took weeks of observation and sometimes even a little feeding to get their emotional responses right. Spur of the moment impersonations for most of us were like a bad actor who was reading directly from a script.

There was also another problem…

“You two know each other?” I squeaked. Why god, oh why couldn’t I have just gone with the Dr Whooves and Derpy pairing? There was no way in hell Derpy would have been able to afford a night on the town, so running into her double wouldn’t have been a problem, and the ditzy mare probably would have never even paid attention to the rumors about her and Time Turner.

Since ‘Lyra’ was the most intelligent of the half-wits I brought with me, she managed to keep her mouth shut as Cadence explained everything. “Yes, we met at Canterlot University and became good friends. She was…a bridesmaid at my wedding.”

That figures, I thought to myself before sending a signal to #619 as to put words in her mouth. “I’m on a date and would rather not discuss that little bit of trauma, thank you,” ‘Lyra’ told Cadence in a tone that pretty much translated to ‘FUCK OFF’ before she took her seat behind me.

The pink alicorn’s eyes widened at the actions of the changeling who she thought was a friend, then looked down to the plate of dressed up chopped apples in front of her. “Well, guess that explains why I haven’t seen her or the others since the wedding.”

“Nopony should act that way towards-”

“No Twilight, it’s alright,” Cadence told her. “I…”

I let out a sigh and shook my head. “Well it probably was a pretty traumatic experience,” I told her. Hell, I knew what a changeling would have to do to gain that kind of control over a pony, and it was quite invasive. “I mean…what the queen did to them and Prince Shining Armor, she was probably wearing your face the whole time it happened. How long did it take the Captain of the Royal Guard to get over it?”

Shining Armor cleared his throat and looked away from me. “Let’s just say we didn’t have the best of honeymoons.”

“And we’re supposed to deal with stuff like this,” I told her. I didn’t want to start just blabbing out specifics like ’we have training’ and crap since I didn’t actually know anything about that off the top of my head. “Lyra’s just a musician.”

With that, the conversation died off pretty quickly, although Twilight’s budding anger over her sister-in-law being snubbed was quickly put out. Then a few more moments passed in an awkward silence before I remembered what I was needing to do before the changeling’s came around.

But with them here, I had a bit of a better idea. ‘619 set up a sensory link with me’ I ordered through nonverbal communication before standing up. “Excuse me for a moment Highnesses.”

After getting a nod from the others, I took my leave and headed for the bathroom before finding an empty stall and taking a seat. Once I was alone, I closed my eyes and dipped back into a semi-conscious state to let the information the other changeling was sending me come to the forefront.

Although not as powerful as a true connection to the hive-mind, or as powerful as the connection monarch’s could share, the mental link I shared with #619 for the moment was useful for quick transfers of information when one drone needed to send information in real time.

So, I sat back and indulged my paranoia for a bit while watching what the other ponies were saying behind my back…

“So…what do you think?” Twilight asked as her wings fluttered a little.

I gulped as Cadence opened her mouth to begin. “He seems a little…”

“High strung,” Shining Armor finished.

Twilight slumped in her seat and sighed. “That’s because I think you’re making him nervous.”

The married couple looked at each other in confusion for a moment, then back to Twilight. Cadence was the one to speak what was probably on both their minds. “Really? Well, I guess he is acting a little differently than from what I remember of him in the Crystal Empire, but…I don’t see how we’re making him nervous. Shining?”

“Well don’t look at me, I’m not sending him any secret guy symbols for stay away from my sister,” he said as Twilight turned her attention to him with a raised eyebrow. “Hey, I know how hard it is to try and date a mare that’s next to untouchable. Twilight, I had to go and meet Celestia when Cadence brought me to her home. If anypony is going to give a stallion a break, it’s me! Especially after reading that letter you sent.”

As Twilight’s gaze shifted to the other alicorn, Cadence shrugged. “Sorry Twilight, but…he is my husband. That kind of beats-best-friend-sister-in-law. Plus, you were in pain. I would have come even if Celestia hadn’t sent me her message.”

Twilight let out a sigh and shook her head. “I know, it’s just…after I thought Flash was dead. Cadence, when we met in Ponyville, the things he said…it was like then I just knew he was special, and when he nearly drowned trying to save me…I just…I couldn’t breathe or anything! For days, it felt like my whole world just turned gray and lifeless. Just thinking about it makes me…me…”

“It’s okay Twily,” Shining assured her as he offered her a look of sympathy.

A few seconds later, the purple alicorn looked over to the pink one. “Cadence…am I in love?”

“Well, do you think you’re in love?” Cadence asked the mare in return. “What do you feel when you’re around him?”

Twilight took a moment to think, tapping her chin with her hoof. “Well…it’s hard to explain. The week we’ve been together…it’s just been amazing. Flash, he’s insightful and witty, he can talk about any subject like he knows all the related information. I’ve even discussed magical theory with him when it comes to teleportation, and he managed to keep up! We both love Equestrian History, and my friends all like him…especially Rainbow. And he…he has this…gift. It’s like he can look at a pony, and knows just what to say to make them not just feel better, but maybe even fix whatever they’ve got on their minds.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, or cushion with its back support I should say. “When he first came to Ponyville, I was having trouble, wrestling with what being a princess meant and, he helped me get over my biggest fear, that having these wings would isolate me from my friends. When that happened, it was like…I just looked into his eyes and just…knew. That’s why I was wondering if you had…detected anything between us.”

If she’d what? I wondered, getting a sinking feeling about what was coming. Cadence’s title wasn’t the Alicorn of Love for nothing. For awhile I had been half expecting her to just try and zap me and Twilight, then send us off to bed. Hell, considering how weird some things in Equestria worked, I had to wonder if she hadn’t done the same to Shining Armor when they first met.

I remembered that one scene with the fighting couple that she just hit with her love beam and turned them sappy again, but that kind of reeked of mind control. I mean, what the hell was the difference between that and getting a chick so drunk she didn’t know how to say no?

Cadence giggled. “It’s not like I have some kind of a love dowsing rod Twilight,” she told the other mare. “But…from what you’ve said and I’ve seen…he does care about you Twilight.”

“But does that mean he loves me back?” she asked.

The question made Cadence take in a deep breath. “Well…from what you said about your last outing, when you were in danger, Flash performed an action that could have very well ended his life without hesitation,” she said. “Then, when he escaped from that pyramid, instead of reporting to the nearest guard outpost or city as protocol dictates, he went looking for you. That’s pretty telling.”

I cut the link and moaned. What the hell was up with these ponies? Or hell, women in general? Just because I was nice to some chick and had an interest in the same things didn’t mean I was interested in them in that way.

Still, the bit of good news that came my way from that little invasion of privacy was enough to lighten the weight on my back.

So I went back to the dining room and got on with the date. After finding out Cadence and Shining weren’t there to grill me, they were ACTUALLY there to support Twilight, like she had pretty much told me they would be.

It was…okay, it was weird, for human terms anyway.

But then, I wasn’t dealing with humans, I was dealing with ponies; and I think that was the first time that little fact got through to me.

Humans, we’re idiots. We like to carry around our baggage for years and be all duplicitous. Ponies deal with their shit and shoot straight for the most part. Every now and then you’ll get an abnormality that does turn into a total douche, just bitches about life in general, or is a pathological liar. But for the most part, they’re better than us.

That’s why I’ve never seen Scootaloo being emo over her wings, and all the ponies I talked to about the stuff they’ve been carrying around since the coronation cheered up with just a single talking to. They deal with the possibility of a disability, or whatever is bothering them, and move on. It’s kind of odd to see that a population of mostly mares having more balls than a good percentage of male humans out there when it comes to really facing their problems.

Maybe it’s something biological. I know for damn sure changeling brain chemistry has affected the way I think about some things. That and the five fucking weeks I spent in the hive trying not to lose myself too much.

Now, as I was saying, the rest of the night went off pretty good and I think I made a nice impression with the elder siblings, getting their mark of approval. Because of that, I became a total dumbass and completely dropped my guard in regards to that karmic pendulum thing that my life in Equestria seems to run on.

Since things were going so well from the get go, there was no way in hell it could end on a high note.

Twilight stopped at the door to her library and turned to face me with that gentle smile on her face. “So…here we are.”

I cleared my throat and looked up at a firefly lamp hanging from one of the trees branches. Twilight’s nervousness was obviously spreading. “Yep.”

“So you want to…come inside?” she asked.

Not really thinking about it, I nodded. It would have been good not to be standing around in the middle of the grass street like a couple of idiots. “Okay.”

As we entered the library, I noticed a complete lack of light until Twilight used her magic to illuminate the place and she opened the door to her room before conjuring some candles to let us see in there as well. There was also a complete lack of reptiles, talking or snoring.

“Where’s Spike?”

“He’s looking after the Crusaders tonight,” Twilight told me before her gaze focused on my clothes. I honestly didn’t know who to pity more.

A second later, I could feel a tingle on my skin, and I looked over to the purple alicorn. “Uh, Twilight, what’re you doing?”

The alicorn didn’t respond for several seconds, then there was a flash of light, and I felt an odd draft. “Sorry, I had to concentrate and thought this would be quicker,” she said as my dress uniform floated over to the table in the middle of the main room.

“Oh…thanks,” I replied. It would have been a pain in the ass to get everything off without my horn, and changeling transformations tended to burn what we were wearing to ash in a bust of magical fire.

There was another awkward pause, as if Twilight was thinking about something. “So…you ready to go, then?”

I licked my lips. “Yeah, that’s um…yeah,” I said before moving closer to kiss the mare on the lips. She had been a good date, and deserved at least that much.

The next thing I knew, I was overtaken by a wave of vertigo that accompanied teleportation, and by the time my head had cleared, I found myself laying on Twilight’s bed, the princess covering me with her body.

I looked up to her in confusion, which apparently went unnoticed by the alicorn thanks to the fact candles were the only thing lighting her bedroom at the moment. “Twilight?”

Then, upon hearing the mare’s next words, everything fell into place.

“My research says the first time kind of hurts, so…be gentle. Please?”

And that place was a special kind of Hell where godlike purple ponies persisted in pursuing acts of procreation for pleasurable purposes.

Chapter 9

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Chapter 9: I Become Backstabbing Loser

So…sex with Twilight…

I’m not going to lie, it was pretty awesome, especially for her first time…and mine…technically. Definitely…different than what I was used to as well. But I’ve been stuck here for…seven weeks? I think it’s time to start adapting. It also helped the room was kind of dark what with only candles for light.

…

Okay, fine, celibacy was an option too…but I’m…mostly male, and originally from a species that puts sex on a pretty high pedestal, then turned into a creature that was meant to breed. It’s not going to happen.

All in all I’m just glad my plumbing worked right, or at least was able to create a reasonable imitation. Don’t know why I was so worried about that though, I’m pretty sure some of the nobles we replaced were married, and their wives/husbands would have gotten kind of suspicious if their special somepony couldn’t put out.

Oh, right, taste buds. Because changelings don’t have taste buds, we can’t reproduce them in our pony form. But, we do have the reproductive system so…yeah.

And speaking of reproduction, after being introduced to the act apparently awakened some kind of…I dunno, triple pony tribe alicorn sex drive or something, or maybe its that ‘always the quiet ones’ stuff, because Twilight wanted a repeat performance when we woke up later that morning.

Then she decided to take a hammer and shatter my ego with the first words out of her mouth that weren’t loud cries of passion…

“I think last night was definitely better.”

I couldn’t stop from wincing at Twilight’s declaration while we cuddled in the afterglow of morning sex, our muzzles centimeters away from touching. She didn’t have that awful morning breath humans sometimes get, so I just moved my head forward and kissed her on the nose. “Well that’s-” I managed to stop myself before I went on to say ‘I ate your love during that last orgasm’ and just went with, “because first time is always a little more special…or something. Don‘t ask for sage wisdom after sex.”

Twilight smirked and returned my peck on the nose. “Instinct and intelligence are on the opposite ends of the mental spectrum,” she reasoned.

We just laid there for a moment, looking at each other, I’m sure Twilight was having some lovely fantasy about her and Flash Sentry getting married, having kids, or foals-whatever, and all that junk.

I on the other hand was a little weirded out about the fact I had basically just had sex with a horse and…wasn’t freaking out about it. I mean, I could write off the night before as being cornered by an aroused…mare and not having a…okay, I had a choice in the whole thing, Twilight may have come on strong but no matter how I played it back in my mind, there was no way in hell the alicorn would have gone as far as something like rape. Especially since Twilight had been on her belly and we had done it ‘traditional style’ as she says. But it had at least been pretty dark.

This morning sex, not so much. I had been able to see every purple hair on her body and feather on her wing. There had been no denying what had happened, or some kind of mental trick to make it seem like I was really doing a different species.

I had sex with Twilight Sparkle, and it had been awesome. So my whole ‘no touching the ponies’ thing was truly fucked.

With the silence stretching a bit too long for my taste. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“No.”

“Why last night?” I asked. “I mean…that was our first real date.”

Twilight’s eyes rolled back a bit, as if she was looking at the top of her eyelids for a cheat sheet, then the purple alicorn looked back down to me. “Well, I count it as our third.”

Unable to follow her logic, I shuffled around a bit until the alicorn let me go so I could sit up. “How do you figure it’s our third? And what’s so special about that anyway?”

“Well,” Twilight began as she also moved around to prop herself up against the headboard of her bed, “I count the first day as our first date since it was our post introductory meeting, as we met in the Crystal Empire. We had the traditional cheap meal as we introduced ourselves and basically sized each-other up. The second was our outing to find Daring Do, when we had an activity of hunting down AK Yearling and…well, I realized that my feelings for you may have been a bit deeper than just friends. Then our third was at the restaurant. There, I talked with Cadence about us, and I came to realize that what I feel isn’t brought on by the pain of loss or some need to find companionship.”

I gulped. I knew what was probably coming, and needed an escape route before she opened her mouth and I either found myself wrapped around her little finger, or ripping her heart out. “Twilight, umm…it’s just…a little sudden, I mean. We’ve only known each other a week.”

My conscience was also quick to remind me that this was a little late to be saying things since we both had a mess between our legs and the whole damn bedroom smelled like sex, but…better late than never. Right?

“No Flash…I…I’ve known you a bit longer than that…in a way,” Twilight said, making my conscience turn from a whisper into a full on shout about how I was officially a piece of crap since Twilight was about to spill the beans on the whole Equestria Girls thing.

But since I wasn’t 100% sure of that, I was able to fight off my ulcer inducing little shoulder angel.

“You see, there’s a mirror in the Crystal Empire that leads to,” Twilight began. Then she went into her a slightly altered story of what happened during Equestria Girls. I noticed that the alicorn downplayed just how much Sunset had done, just making it sound as if she swiped the crown and caused a minor bit of mischief while blaming it on Twilight. There as no mention of the demonic transformation either. It had me wondering just what the hell she had told Princess Celestia when she had asked about her first student.

Still, it didn’t help ease my gut to find out that she was also covering for Sunset’s darker actions for the day when the unicorn could possibly return to Equestria. Then, Twilight took a final turn on the guilt trip. “I know you’re not really him, but…I kind of associated you with that Flash at first. I think that’s why I was so…enamored with you, even after we just bumped into each other in the Crystal Empire,” the alicorn said. “But I know you’re not him.”

Oh you have no idea, I told her mentally told the alicorn.

“You’re better.”

No I’m not.

“You’re honest.”

Deceitful.

“Kind.”

Cruel.

“Intelligent.”

Foolish.

“And so very brave.”

I’m a coward, if I wasn’t such a coward I would have told you… “Twilight,” I said.

“And that’s why I fell in love with you,” she said before leaning in to kiss me.

Somehow, I found the strength to pull away. “Twilight I…need to tell you something. I…”

I’m a monster that parades around in the coat of a pony. I came here for duplicitous reasons, lying not only to you and your friends, but to my own people as well. I sit here with you, knowing the end is coming, and all I can think about is how to try and lie to everyone and make it all last longer, I mentally said.

What came out of my mouth was, “I love you too.”

It was a lie, an empty platitude I told the purple alicorn to try and keep things going for just a few more seconds, minutes, or hours. The truth was, love takes courage, and that was just something I didn’t have.

The expression on Twilight’s face became one of pure joy that stabbed into my heart as she wrapped her forelegs around me and took me down for another kiss.

Eventually, we had to get up. We never even cleaned ourselves off after last night’s sex, Twilight kind of passed out after I fed you see, and it’s pretty hard getting that stuff out of a coat.

As soon as both of us got done showering, scrubbing, and washing, Equestrian timing hit and Twilight’s elder siblings showed up to take her to the Crystal Empire. If they noticed anything…oh who am I kidding, it’s Cadence! I would have been surprised if she didn’t have some kind of virgin alarm for Twilight.

Or maybe I was thinking of the wrong pink pony, I mean, Pinkie was also in town.

Okay getting off track…

My whole idea to keep Twilight from going to the Crystal Empire was a simple one. I just asked her if she thought ponies would accept an explanation from the princess who was basically Cadence’s sister because that did not sound like an impartial party to me. Twilight just gave me a look that said the idea confused the hell out of her. After all, she was gathering scientific data, not…lying to everyone she met like me.

I didn’t even bother to bring my Flash Sentry in case I needed to change forms and resume his later. After all, If Chrysalis was alive and making do without the Crystal Heart, then I could back out of helping her by saying I had no way to resume my disguise. I also left the rest of my guard back in Ponyville with the excuse they also existed to watch the other Bearers and it was doubtful more guards would be needed inside the Crystal Empire.

But for the most part, I pinned all my hopes on Chrysalis just being dead. I hadn’t heard from her last night either, so my ability to delude myself with that possibility kept me silent. After all, I had two more days left with Twilight, and I spent them for all they were worth.

We had so much sex.

We did other stuff too of course. We talked, we joked, I got to know Shining Armor and Cadence a little better, heard the story of how they met. It was kind of disturbing to find out that ponies played polo as a school sport, although Shining Armor being a former nerd made a little sense. The smarter guys that think ahead always get the best positions come adulthood, the jocks…not so much.

The two days passed much too quickly, and I found myself looking out the window while we drew nearer to the Crystal Empire.

“Okay, so…why is it snowing so much up here?” I asked as I looked out the window into the whiteness. I mean seriously, pegasi control the weather, so how can there be a constant snowstorm without pegasi messing with everything.

Sitting in the seat across from the one Twilight and I were occupying, Cadence sighed and hung her head. “We really don’t know. Some ponies believe that after the windigos were removed from Equestria, they flew north and still roam these lands. I have to admit, the snowstorms have been getting a little bit more…fierce these past few days.”

The news didn’t seem to go over well with Twilight. “Are we in any danger? What if too much ice builds up on the track and the train derails? What if the windigos attack?” she asked before pausing to frown. “Wait? Do windigos attack ponies? From what I understood, they just fed off the animosity of ponies, eventually starving them to death.”

Shining Armor chuckled beside his wife. “Don’t worry Twily, we should be passing into the range of the crystal spires any minute now,” he said while looking up at the clock at the wall across from all of us.

A minute passed.

Then two.

It wasn’t until we were five minutes behind that I was getting that chill down my spine that said something bad was probably about to happen and was perhaps Celestia had simply invented daylight saving time or something, and forgotten to tell everypony about it.

Ten minutes after Shining made his declaration, the deafening screech of the brakes filled my ears a second before there was a loud crash, and the entire room spun when the train derailed.

With Twilight right next to me, I grabbed onto the princess and unfurled my wings to try and…I wasn’t quite sure, get into the air so we weren’t tossed about like sardines in a can I guess. But the second I moved her, Twilight snapped into action, and I felt the familiar sensation of being teleported…

…and was a little confused when the flash of purple in my vision cleared to reveal we were exactly where we had been just a second ago, and now completely out of control. Both of us grunted in pain as the car that might as well of been our whole world spun and slammed around, taking us into the sides of the train car.

We gripped each other tightly, and could do nothing but roll with it while I spent what little bit of concentration I had to keep from reverting back to my normal form each time we hit something. I think there was a total of five impacts.

When it was over, I picked myself up, and looked around in a panic to try and find Twilight, calling out her name until a groan at my feet made realize we hadn’t been separated at all. Still, she was pretty banged up for a pony. There was a bruise on the side of her head, and her wings looked like they were in need of a severe preening.

In contrast, Shining and Cadence looked completely immaculate. This was probably due to the shield that had been thrown around the couple by the prince in which they were floating in the middle of. But I really couldn’t have cared less if they had both their necks broken at the moment. Twilight was on the ground and groaning in pain.

“Twilight, are you okay?” I asked before bending down to look her over.

Thankfully, I knew quite a bit about the anatomy of all three tribes. All changelings did thanks to the shared unconsciousness. It made us better killers. But it also gave me the knowledge I needed to look over the pony and check her for any major injuries.

A second later, Shining Armor was standing next to me, and the purple princess was getting to her feet. “I should be asking you that Flash,” Twilight mumbled as she stood up and unfurled her wings to check them. “I’ve got earth pony durability and pegasi defenses. It takes a little more than that to hurt me.”

“I’m fine…must have gotten lucky,” I assured her, trying to sound as good as I could.

“I’ll say, not a feather out of place,” Shining mumbled as he eyed me up and down.

I gave my best shrug, then went to helping Twilight pick at her feathers, something I had learned to do during her and Rainbow Dash’s flight training. As for my feathers and fur, they were fake and would repair cosmetic damage so instantaneously that no one would be able to notice anything had been out of place unless they were looking right at me in the half a second it took to fix things. The bruises underneath my coat were another matter.

“Just what the hay happened anyway?” I demanded to no one in particular as I looked around the room that was standing on its side.

Twilight hung her head. “I don’t know! When the train went out of control, I tried to teleport us out, but the spell just deposited us where I tried to move. “It’s like somepony’s set up a dimensional lock.”

As I helped Twilight preen, Cadence finished getting the door to the cars open and then we started moving through the train, looking for survivors. Since I was the only guard stupid enough not to be wearing his armor when the crash happened, none of the ten crystal guards the royal couple brought with them were injured thanks to the defensive enchantments the shining earth pony’s had on. Me and Twilight were the only ones that needed looking at for cuts and bruises.

“What about the engineer and his staff?” Cadence asked while she checked me over at Twilight’s instance. The alicorn frowned as she inspected my wings, but other than frowning at them for a moment, she didn’t seem to find anything wrong.

Shining Armor was the one to answer the question. “The guards found them in the snow, they managed to see the other train and jump clear in time.”

“THE WHAT?” Twilight shrieked. “Are you telling me we just got hit by a train?”

“Technically…no, we’re the ones that hit it,” Shining replied. “It’ll make sense when I show you.”

The prince led us out of the destroyed train car and into the snow. A moment after we set hoof into the cold, he surrounded us all with a light shield that killed the wind and kept the snow from falling on us. Then he brought us to where the rest of the guards were waiting, and I couldn’t help but stating the obvious when I saw we were standing at the edge of Crystal Station, at the edge of the Crystal Empire, well within the weather boundary…where it was still snowing so much I could barely make out the Crystal Palace in the distance.

“Well…that isn’t good.”

Cadence looked at the snow covered area in astonishment, then lifted herself up into the air for a few feet so she could search the city from a higher vantage point. “The city it’s…it’s all covered in snow! But how could this have happened?”

“You!” the nearest crystal pony shouted as he pointed a hoof at me. The stallion was an odd shade of purple and if Twilight hadn’t been next to me, I might have actually been a smartass and tried calling him Sparkles. “You pegasi did something, didn’t you? You cloud farmers finally snapped and did something to the crystal spires!”

Twilight was quick to jump to my defense. “Just what do you think you’re saying guardsman?”

I raised an eyebrow and put on my best snaky voice. “Okay I admit it. I secretly created and directed the entire PU from within the shadows of Ponyville and set up this whole thing, waiting for just the right moment when everypony dropped their guard…to…” Oh bucking hell, that’s exactly what she did.

I could practically hear Chrysalis’s laughter off in the distance somewhere.

“So you confess!”

I ignored the idiot and looked over to Twilight. “Princess,” I spoke to make sure I got her attention, she hated it when I called her that. “We need to get under cover and get away from that smoke, now!”

“Flash-”

I grabbed onto Twilight with strength born of desperation and unfurled my wings to help me drag her along. “JUST RUN DAMN IT!” I shouted while trying my best NOT to think how long we had been in the train while a giant smoke signal was being sent into the air to announce our presence.

Thankfully, Twilight’s wings were a little sore or something because she didn’t try to fight me, and the snow gave poor traction for her hooves. A few seconds later, Shining and Cadence took off after me, the brother’s face marked with a frown. “Guardsman Sentry, just what do you think you are-” was as far as he got before the area behind us where the crystal ponies had been standing near was bathed in a bright green light before they all screamed and fell like puppets with their strings cut.

It was a psychic attack that overloaded their pain nerves and caused their bodies to shut down in response. The whole thing had Shining Armor stop mid-stride and turn around. “That’s changeling magic!”

And where the hell did it come from? I asked myself as I looked around. The amount of energy in that blast had been massive. I looked up at the Crystal Palace with wide eyes. Could she had really put that much power into a concentrated blast and sniped at us from all the way up there? I had been expecting a group of changelings to charge at us, not…THAT. But it was the only structure tall enough to hit us at a wide dispersion to take out the whole train.

“Then I would suggest we get to cover before a group of drones show up to just harvest their new catches, Sir,” I added at the last moment, although my tone was anything but respectful. Should have said sire, hell I think I even missed a pony-ism or two a few seconds ago as well. Although trying to speak with a horse mouth usually mangled the english word I was trying to say. Fear of impending death was making me slip. Well, Twilight’s impending death anyway, my side was about to win.

Shining Armor smirked. “If it is the changelings, we don’t have anything to worry about. I thought I told everypony about what happened last time they tried to take a city I was in. This isn’t going to be a problem.”

“Umm, guys,” I heard Twilight say, obviously trying to place peacekeeper.

I stepped forward. “Yeah, I saw what happened. Chrysalis made you her love slave, stuck Cadence in the Canterlot catacombs with Twilight, beat Celestia in a power struggle of magic, and pretty much took over Canterlot in a single afternoon before she got cocky and let you near your wife! Did I miss anything? Oh right, she also captured the Element Bearers. Almost forgot that one.”

Shining kept his frown, but it lessened to one of confusion. “Who?”

Of course, that was when Equestria's 'let's answer that question in the worst way possible' laws decided to kick in. You know, the ones that have the bad guys show up as if they are literally waiting for a que.

“Chrysalis,” A sickeningly familiar voice spoke from above us, making me turn around and look up. There she stood, on top of the train platform with half a dozen changeling drones just buzzing behind her. “It’s my name, you see. Unlike most of us, the monarch class of changelings possesses a name rather than a number, the first queen decided on it since we’re really the only ones of any real importance.”

As the three horny ponies looked up at Mom with a frown on their faces, I just gulped. Oh good god, her hair is glowing…why the fuck is her hair glowing? I asked myself as I watched the physical signs of a barely contained mana pool whip around too slow for it to be caused by the wind every which way like some sick sea anemone.

Then there was the rest of her, although I doubted any of the others noticed. The outer covering of her caprice had grown thicker, the fangs more pronounced, and her insect wings had a visible amount of mana running through them. The bitch had managed to take so much power from the heart that it caused physical growth!

“We’re giving you one chance to surrender Chrysalis,” Cadence said as she stepped forward. “I know you don’t harm your…food. So if you turn yourself in, I can promise imprisonment-”

Chrysalis threw back her head and laughed. “Really Cadence? You think I would have done all this, just to surrender? You’re an even bigger fool than my daughter.”

Oh, that doesn’t sound ominous at all, I told myself before backing away from the ponies.

While Twilight frowned in confusion over the comment, Shining stepped forward to take his place beside his wife. “Have it your way then!”

“Flash get back, we’ll deal with her!” Twilight told me a second before Shining and Cadence touched horns and I had time to wonder if Shining’s stupid shield spell only worked on revealed changelings, or all of us before the spell was cast and Chrysalis reared up and leaped at the expanding dome of pink energy while her horn began to glow and the changeling’s queen’s hooves became covered in green fire.

“HAHAHAHAHA LET’S SEE WHAT YOU’VE GOT!”

After that, everything quickly went to hell.

Honestly, I’m not even sure if the damn magical shield did hit me or not. One moment I was flying back and trying to gain altitude, and the next, there was a deafening explosion as Mom connected with Shining’s magic. I found myself getting knocked back into the turned over train car while being serenaded by Shining Armor screaming out in pain as his magic was overloaded.

“SHINEY!” Twilight screamed before the air was filled with the sound of multiple magical beams meant to mangle their targets being flung.

Mom‘s voice reached my ears after I heard a rather loud explosion. “That tickles little girl! Let me show you really use combat spells.”

I managed to force some air back into my lungs, and looked up to see Twilight go down in a heap from a bolt that erupted into a explosion of green fire. When the blast cleared, it left her wings and coat heavily singed before she dropped from the sky. Not far away, Cadence lay in the snow, hopefully unconscious.

“Oh come now you foal, quit acting like you’re dead, that wasn’t enough to finish you off,” Chrysalis said as she walked towards the purple alicorn. “Now get up, I’m not through playing with you yet.”

Slowly, I managed to get to my feet as Twilight struggled to rise.

“Get up or I’ll PUT YOU DOWN PERMANENTLY!” Chrysalis shouted as her face twisted into rage and her horn glowed with power.

Twilight managed to make it halfway to her feet before the bug queen nailed her with a concussion blast that struck Twilight’s wing and sent her rolling in the snow towards me. After stopping, the alicorn tried to rise again, and collapsed halfway back into the snow.

I on the other hand, had managed to get to my feet and walked over to the injured alicorn. “That’s enough,” I growled to the larger changeling.

“Flash…run…you’ve…got to run,” Twilight told me as she started to rise once again, much to my horror. As close as we were, I could see just how an amazing feat that was. The mare’s body was covered with burns and cuts, and I could make out half a dozen welts that showed even through her coat.

Chrysalis laughed. “Oh, now why would she do something like that? After all, my darling Flash is the reason we’re all here.”

I felt as if I had been kicked in the gut. “Shut your mouth Chrysalis.”

“W…what?” Twilight managed to choke out between gasps for air. I guessed the last attack had knocked the wind out of her lungs.

“I truly must commend your plan my daughter,” Chrysalis continued as she spread her wings to hover a few inches off the ground and took a more bipedal stance to use her forelegs like arms. “None of this could have happened without you. And even then, you have your own devious little ideas on top of them that you never told me about. You send me to the Crystal Empire, while you stay in Ponyville and feed off the love of an alicorn princess.

“Then you get it into your head that you might be able to rule better than me? You actually think that by tricking this poor mare into loving you, you might have been strong enough to take my crown.”

Twilight gulped and looked over to me with wide eyes. “Flash, what’s she talking about?”

“Shut up Chrysalis,” I mumbled as I tried to think of my options. If we had been able to make it into the city and hide, or even gotten to the throne room or wherever the hell the hag was stashing the heart, I might have been able to drain its power to match the witch. But as things, stood, she had me cold in the snow.

Then, I saw Twilight looking at me out of the corner of my eyes, and backed away from her. While I wilted under the alicorn’s gaze, the changeling queen moved forward to clip Twilight across the jaw with her hoof.

“STOP IT” I shouted at the monster before Twilight was wrapped in a green aura hand hauled into the air. As I watched her just float there, my whole body shook with a strange combination of anger and fear. Anger for what she was doing, and fear because there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop her.

“Oh come now Twilight, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here,” Chrysalis continued. “A dashing knight that just comes along and takes interest in you, and all the things you do? Don’t you think there’s a reason somepony such as your darling colt friend would take interest in a mare whose never been able to attract the attention of a single stallion before? That this particular stallion would come calling? That-”

“GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH!” I shouted before leaping at the giant bug queen.

Chrysalis actually laughed. “Are you actually challenging me? Now of all times? Why would you-”

My action seemed to snap Twilight out of her daze, and she looked up to call out. “Flash!”

“Oh…Oh I see! Oh my dear, this is just too perfect!” the changeling queen said before looking at Twilight.

Flash Sentry

yes it is he

but not as you know him

I missed connecting my hoof to the changeling’s face as she floated away with Twilight in tow while breaking out into a disturbingly familiar musical. Oh dear god no, I told myself while trying to recover from missing a full tilt attack.

Up above me, Chrysalis pulled Twilight in closer to her, and raised the alicorn’s chin to look her in the face.

Read my lips

And come to grips

With reality!

Regaining my balance, I spread my wings and flew up to meet Chrysalis as fast as I could. All I needed to do was nail her horn to make her drop Twilight, and then…well, that was the extent of my planning.

He’s not some blast from your past

That lie was too good to last

So say hello to your precious

Flash Sentry!

Oh shit, I thought when I got in too close to dodge and Chrysalis dropped the TK holding Twilight to focus her magic in a magical blast that engulfed me completely, burning my skin to the extent that I had no choice but to revert to my natural form and let my protective caprice take soak up the damage.

What I landed in was thankfully, a giant puddle of melted snow. After getting back to my feet, I heard a startled gasp and grit my teeth.

“F-Flash?” Twilight stuttered.

I didn’t look at the purple alicorn…I didn’t want to see what I could already detect with my other senses. Confusion, pain, despair…heartbreak. Even if Twilight had some magic left in her, I didn’t think she was in any shape to fight emotionally. As stupid as it is, all I could say was… “I’m sorry.”

Returned to my natural form, I found nearly all my injuries quickly mended by my magic and my body reacting better than it had been before. Even thought we were shape shifters and I had stayed with Flash’s look for over a week, it was still a foreign shape when compared to my rightful body.

So Sentry turns out to be

Merely this lack wit

I grit my teeth and looked back up where Chrysalis was floating above me in the air, nowhere near Twilight. And with the teleportation locks in place, I didn’t have to worry about her just jumping over to nab the alicorn or escape. “Oh shut up already!” I shouted before launching myself at her.

Just a pawn

Need I go on?

Take it from me

With only one real chance at victory, I started by doing what I had been while in the body of a pegasus, I flew right at her as if I expected to shatter her body with my hooves. Then, when Chrysalis dodged, I charged the magic of my horn with everything I had, all my hatred for the creature in front of me, and the anger at being put in this situation. On top of that, I piled the disgust I felt towards myself at letting it get this far. Twilight was in pain, and I could have avoided it all because of…what?

Fear of rejection?

Fear of what would happen between me and the others when they found out the truth?

Like a selfish, shortsighted jackass, I selfishly clung to a false sense of belonging and desire to be welcomed.

So, I gathered up every bit of energy I could muster. I took all of that self hated and threw it at the monster in front of me with the intent to kill. The attack slammed into the changing queen, with the full force of an alicorn’s love. I thought I heard a sickening crunch as the blast struck the ground, then just kept going straight down.

As the light faded, as the magic in my wings burnt out and I fell back into the snow. A moment later, I made my way over to the edge of the hole and peered over the side of the pit that just been blown into the earth. Even with my eyes meant to see in dark places… Good God, there’s no bottom to this thing, I told myself as I looked down into the abyss.

“Did that actually work?” I asked myself in disbelief. Chrysalis was an overpowered monster, but she was an overconfident one as well, and I had no way to gauge just how powerful the love of an alicorn was.

When a pissed off changeling queen didn’t come rising out of the pit with a bruised eye and some burn marks like some OP Dragonball Z villain, I almost made a stupid comment about her never defeating the power of weaponized love, but then my brain reminded me of something much more important. I turned and galloped over to the purple princess’s downed form and put my hoof on her shoulder. “Twilight,” I managed to gasp out before turning her over. “Twilight, please tell me you're okay.”

The alicorn looked up at me with confusion, then her eyes widened in fear before she tried to move away from me. The expression drove me away from her, and the next thing I knew my nose detected the scent of changeling pheromones before a long and jagged horn erupted from my lower neck when Chrysalis pierced me from behind.

My world went white with pain, and I’m not even sure if I had the ability to scream. Then I felt Chrysalis lift me into the air on her horn before tossing me to the side and I impacted the snow. My body wouldn’t move, and I found myself gasping for breath despite the fact that Chrysalis had actually missed my throat.

“Oh, now where do you think you’re going?” the monster said before I heard Twilight let out another cry of pain. A few seconds later, and Chrysalis was standing over me with the injured alicorn back in her magical grip.

There was a crushing sensation all over my body, and the next thing I knew, I was looking Chrysalis in the face as she held me up to look her in the eye. “So, was that it?” she asked while I floated there, unable to do much more than struggle.

Since I didn’t have some witty comment and my vision was starting to go out, I kept my mouth shut. So Chrysalis turned her attentions to Twilight. “I must say my daughter, you have made my revenge more sweet than I could have ever hoped it to be alone,” she told me before reaching up to caress Twilight’s foreleg. “I could have hurt her friends, her family, ruined her kingdom…but you…you gave me everything I needed to show Twilight true despair. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

Next to her, Twilight let out a shudder, followed by a choked sob.

“But then you just had to ruin it by being so greedy,” Chrysalis began again. “Foolishly changeling me for my crown because…what? You managed to trick a single alicorn into loving you? I must say…

Such personality flaws

Give me adequate cause

Chrysalis lowered her horn and pointed it at me.

To send you packing on a one-way trip

So your prospects take a terminal dip

For a moment I thought about struggling, but what was the point? I was so low on magic the most I could do is glide for a few minutes before even that gave out.

In a wasteland frozen

The punishment chosen

The queen’s horn lit up and I absently noted it was a concussion blast.

Is no less than death for Ye!

Then there was a brought flash, and I felt my caprice crack as the beam swept me into the sky.

So long ex-Flash, Seeeeeen~treeeeeeeeee

The strange light from the cauldron continued to give the hut an eerie green glow as I finished the last bits of my explanation as to why a changeling princess was standing in front of a rather confused zebra. “Well, that’s my story.

“The attack didn’t kill me of course, Chrysalis doesn’t actually need to waste power on all the magic it would take to do that much damage. I went up against her in combat and lost, basically translating as to betraying the hive. The next time I go to sleep…I won’t be waking up.

“I pretty much road Chrysalis’s magic back over the Crystal Mountains and most of the way here. Then I landed at the edge of the forest, realized where I was and found you to patch me up.

“If Twilight and Cadence aren’t dead, they’re already in cocoons, just waiting to be fed upon. I have to admit, I’m curious to just how much power Chrysalis is going to be able to suck out of the Alicorn of Love.

“As for me, I’ve been up for…what? I'm not even sure, too long. I can barely keep my eyes open, and when I do fall into my recovery trance to heal, the hive mind will turn me into an empty vegetable. Coming here, telling you this was pretty much the only move I could make. Everypony else I know wouldn’t stick around long enough to listen, or be powerful enough to kill me on the spot.

“So just run into town and tell Rainbow or someone to get one of the princesses, or have Spike send a letter to Celestia with the proper warning. Tell them not to send Discord…trust me, it won’t end well if he runs into the changelings again. There’s a very distinct weakness to his brand of magic that we can exploit.

“I have no idea what the sisters are supposed to do, some last minute heroic rescue, or hell, maybe this is all some big harmonious thing and it really is the end of the pony race. Everything has to come to an end sometime, right?

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lay down somewhere and die. It’s what I deserve.”

Across from me, the zebra continued to sip her tea. “An interesting tale it is you tell,” she said. “Stranger, who from another world fell. Although all of it does not make sense, I shall render to you assist.”

I groaned and did my best not to fall over where I stood. “Zecora, the only thing you can do is go to town and have the girls warn Celestia. That was the whole reason I’ve been sitting here for three hours yakking!”

“But according to your own twisted tail, such action will only fail,” she replied with a raised eyebrow. “Instead, come up with new insight, to create a future much more bright.”

“And how am I supposed to do that when I can barely stand?” I demanded.

She slid the drink at her hooves over to me. “This contains the alertness you seek, to keep you awake for at least a week,” she said before resting her hooves on the wooden table we sat at. “Now tell true, if the crown did fall to you, with it…what would you do?”

Once again, I groaned at the fact I was talking to a creature that only spoke in rhyme. The singing was bad enough, but this was just torture!

“Honestly? It all goes back to the mirror pool,” I began before explaining my idea to the zebra. By the time I was done, her eyes were wide, and there was a smile on her face that she could not…conceal.

Zecora nodded. “Chrysalis is truly such a dope, to see such in a limited scope. For your people to thrive, should you not share this with the hive? To your mistress they have not spoken since, you control their cognizance.”

I groaned while translating the damn zebra’s words. “Look, I already told you. It doesn’t work that way. The hive mind will…wait, you’re saying I should…what? Paint my little betrayal as the right thing for the hive to do? Even if I can manage to pull that off to get enough support not to have my brain eaten. I still don’t have enough power to take her on in one on one combat, which is how this will all come down to if I can’t get the full support of the hive!”

“Then look to others and gather support, from those with whom you wish to report,” she countered before reaching under the table to retrieve something and pass it along to me. “And if the changeling mind will not easily bend, then this can help you make amends.”

I frowned at the Alicorn Amulet on the table, then back up at her with a frown. “You know, even if that doesn’t turn me into a megalomaniacal maniac, which is a big if, there’s no way a fancy necklace is going to let me match Chrysalis blow for blow.”

Once again, Zecora had one of her damn rhymes to reply with. “Trixie wore this amulet for days, limited exposure may not change your ways. Her mind was weak, and while your courage is too, it is not revenge that gives fuel to you.

“Now hurry up and decide, whether to fight or run and hide,” she continued. “To find your friends and make amends or let them all meet their ends, to take your place as a queen, or to never again be seen.”

The drawn out rhyme had me groaning as I picked up the amulet. “Okay fine, but even if I don’t turn psychotic…even if Rainbow Dash doesn’t pound my face in when I tell her what’s going on, how the hell am I to convince thousands of creatures whose only drive is to eat to hold off on the one directive that governs our entire lives?”

“In this land, there is a way to debate that gives an argument a greater weight-”

“Oh god, please tell me you’re not suggesting I sing a song," I moaned.

Chapter 10

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Chapter 10: I Become An Evil Insect Overlord

The biggest problem with being a changeling was that we are unable to draw mana from the surrounding area to fuel our magic, hunger, and growth. For me, the Alicorn Amulet changed that. It could draw on the natural magic of the world by itself and feed me on top of offering a larger mana pool that could be used to use as an extra power source should I ever find my limit like Chrysalis had with the heart. The extra power allowed me to heal my damage almost instantly and reinforce my natural armor by both increasing its thickness and density as I closed the wound my mother had made.

There was also the internal spell library. I always wondered how Trixie had been able to cast so many spells outside her venue. I mean, if the age spell had only been usable by the highest level of unicorns, then how the hell had she even known how to cast it? With the amulet, spells relating to my predatory nature were no longer a limitation. Hundreds of new spells entered my mind and I perused them all in an instant.

With the kind of power I now held, I felt a surge of confidence and pride that had been missing moments ago. I didn’t need to go get the others for help, I could kill Chrysalis myself! It would be safer for them in Ponyville anyway.

“It would seem that I might have been mistaken,” Zecora mumbled to herself for some reason while I laughed at the mental image of a broken Chrysalis at my feet…hooves…whatever. Then, before Zecora could complete her stupid rhyme, I looked over and took away her mouth.

“Do you have any idea how annoying the way you speak is?”

“Mmmmummmpth,” she replied calmly with a raised eyebrow.

I rolled my eyes. “Umm yeah, I have no idea what you’re saying.”

The zebra replied with an exasperated sigh, despite her mouth handicap, and walked over to a nearby table, pulled out a pen and quill as well as some parchment, then jotted something down on a piece of paper before handing it to me.

Do not be such a fool, I need my speech for the mirror pool.

I looked back up at the Zebra, my mouth agape. “You even write in rhyme?” I yelled. Still, I couldn’t argue the fact that she kind of had me slightly over a barrel…just a tad. Plus, I did kind of owe her for enabling me to stay awake long enough to kill that undeserving bitch that birthed me.

The thought of Chrysalis made me remember her stupid gloating. She would have still been stuck down in her wasteland hole if not for me! I came up with the plan, I kept the majority of the hive under wraps while she ran of to do god knows what, hell I even provided the distraction she needed to get the damn Crystal Heart! Then she just goes and snags the stupid thing without thinking two steps ahead!

So what if she had the heart? It only worked on the love of the crystal ponies! It only offered a limited amount of growth and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the damn thing needed to be in the Crystal Empire to work! The damn cockroach gave away our biggest advantage to rule over a frozen popsicle of a kingdom!

So, after restoring Zecora’s mouth and leaving her to get things ready, I built up the magic in my horn and headed to the next destination on my to do list. The comparison with how Twilight did things reminded me of the state Chrysalis had put her in, and helped build the anger I needed.

A second later, I was standing in the Ponyville town square and looked around at all the astonished ponies just gaping at my sudden appearance. Since that was all they were doing, I rolled my eyes and decided to help them make up their minds on which course of action to take.

“Oh for crying out loud. Yes! I am a big evil changeling monster! RAAAAWR! NOW GO AND ALERT THE GUARDS!” I shouted before firing a few blast of magic around to overturn carts, break some glass, and conjure a dress onto Big Macintosh. With as little action as that guy got, he might as well have been a girl.

Hmmm…you know I wonder if I actually could turn him into a girl, I thought to myself. Hell, if I had to be a semi-female equine-xenomorphic-hybrid, I didn’t see why he got to stay a member of the gentleman's club.

“Hey Flashy…say, why are you wearing that meanie necklace?”

The sugary sweet voice from behind made me groan. “Oh dear god why?” I mumbled before turning around. As my genius intellect had expected, there stood a pink party pony pattering on about things she had no business knowing. “Pinkie?”

“Yeah Flashy?”

“How do you know it’s me?” I asked.

The pink pony blinked, as if were the stupidest question in the world. “Because all the other changelings are still in your house.”

I had to resist the urge to shove my hove into Pinkie’s skull and let whatever passed for grey matter inside that thing leak out. “And how do you know we were changelings?”

“Oh! Well there’s tons of reasons!” Pinkie began. “None of you and the other changelings eat more than one cupcake at any of my parties, you’re the only one that ever eats anything at all because Twilight‘s with you all day, the White Knight changeling won’t talk to me no matter I say to him, I never see any of your feathers out of place, oh! And I saw you turn into Twilight a few nights ago!”

The…normalcy of the reasons left me stunned. “Wait…so you didn’t get some kind of Pinkie Sense warning?”

“Nope!”

“Just some magical, unreasonable surge of knowledge to explain everything?”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow, her confusion evident. “How would I do something like that?”

“…read the script?”

“What script?” she asked before a worried look overtook her. “Now you’re just talking crazy Flashy. Is the necklace making you crazy?”

Finally, I touched on the last little thing that was bugging me. "Okay so, if you found out I was a changeling, then...how come you never went and told the others?"

"Well I was going to, but the night after I found out, you and Twilight and Rainbow went of to go do something with Do, and then Twilight sent this really wet letter saying you might have gotten hurt saving her," she explained. "Then everypony got really sad, and I realized that you were a nice changeling, and Twilight's friend, and if you're Twilight's friend then that makes you my friend, and friends don't tell other ponies their secrets!"

Although I was getting a little agitated by Pinkie Pie’s voice going on and on, the fact she wasn’t suddenly divulging impossible information and had several logical reasons for her realizations made me a least a little happy. “Pinkie, I think I like you again.”

“Aww thanks Fla-”

“GET AWAY FROM HER YOU MONSTER!”

And here she comes to wreck the day, I thought to myself as I turned around and catching sight of Rainbow Dash flying right at me with a rainbow trail coming from behind her. A few seconds before impact, I grabbed the flier in my TK and smirked. “Hey Dash. Next time, try not shouting at me before attacking from behind.”

Rainbow Dash struggled against the magical field for a few moments before she glared at me. “Yeah right, that’s what a sneaky, backstabbing, underhanded changeling would do!”

“Hmm…okay, you’re brave, I’ll give you that,” I admitted before snagging Pinkie in my TK field as well and hauling her up to alongside Rainbow. “Now come on, I may need hostages on my next stop and you two will do nicely.”

Pinkie let out an excited cheer while Dash continued to struggle in vain. “Alright, road trip!”

There were some more shrieks of terror as I made my way through the town until I finally came to the house that was serving as the guard barracks. I was going to bust the door down, but decided to go for a better shock and awe factor by just removing the whole thing from existence and leaving a hole where the basement had been. Down in that hole, the three changelings still in their disguises stood next to the cocoons with the ponies we had been feeding off of for the past few days.

“Hey guys, you didn’t want to come and save the town, and all that?” I asked. “I mean, what kind of fake guards are you exactly?”

#666 gulped. “Hey boss, umm…how’s it going?”

#619 just giggled nervously and backed away until she ran into the cocoons.

“Ummm…why are there two of everypony down there?” Rainbow asked, proving that wings weren't the only thing she had in common with birds, but also brain size. “And…Flash? Hey! You let him go you creeps! I swear when I get out of here-mmph!”

Mouth off, I thought as Rainbow Dash’s lips disappeared. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see she looked over to glare at me. Honestly, the little twerp was lucky I didn’t snap her wings off or something. It would have been an interesting sight to observe how she got along without them, or if Twilight could grow them back, but I didn’t have time for weeks of psycho analysis of a crippled mare at the moment.

...Plus, if I got rid of Dash’s wings, we probably wouldn’t be hanging out anymore. So as tempting as the prospect was of quelling her with fear, I decided to exchange a little annoyance now for increased pleasure down the line.

“You know, it occurs to me that Chrysalis knew an awful lot about what I was doing despite me telling her nothing whatsoever,” I told the three changelings in front of me as I narrowed my eyes at the three of them. “Meaning, one or more of you idiots must have been informing her directly." It was the only explanation I could think of when it came to how she knew about me and Twilight. Whenever we had exchanged information, I never once told the queen I had been feeding off the alicorn, or anything aside from I had managed to place myself close to her inner circle of friends.

“So the one who points to the changeling, or changelings responsible gets to die painlessly and I’ll torture the other two of you during my free time for the next several years, how’s that sound?”

Below me, the three changelings flinched, then all three of them turned to point at the other two. “S/He did it!”

“Flashy you can’t do that!”

“Mmmph?” Rainbow asked Pinkie.

I looked back at the two ponies still held in my magic. “Oh, right, you guys are still a little too innocent for this stuff…umm…” I paused to think to myself for a moment, quickly putting an energy dome over the hole before the changelings could escape while I was just a little distracted.

“Okay, no need for you guys to watch or anything,” I told the two ponies before looking over to Rainbow Dash.

The mouthless mare glared at me for another minute, and I resisted the urge to laugh. She really was adorable when she was angry and helpless. After my time with Twilight, I didn’t really have any reservations about certain interaction with the Equestrians, and my fan fueled curiosity demanded to certain things to be done.

“But first, I really should take this opportunity to get something I‘ve been wanting.” A second later, she had her mouth back, and I drew her in for a kiss while keeping the rest of her body frozen so she couldn't struggle.

“Mmmmph!” Rainbow replied that had more to do with my lips against hers than any magic.

The mare didn’t struggle too much against my tongue, and why not? I was the most awesome thing around, and if I wasn’t going to get to see what a wingless Rainbow would be like, then I was at least going to get some lip service from her. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to taste anything since changelings didn’t have anything in the way of taste buds and I knew the red kryptonite was the only thing that gave me the balls I needed to do it but hell, it was still awesome. I was kissing Rainbow Dash! After my tongue had managed to get a good feel for the layout of the ponies mouth, I broke the kiss and stepped back.

Dash spent a good ten seconds gagging and spitting. “H-Hey! That was my first kiss you jerk!”

“Seriously?” I asked. That seemed kind of…pathetic actually. “Well, thanks to me, you’ll be getting plenty of time to improve in the future. Now go to sleep.”

A second later, both her and Pinkie went limp in my magical grip, and I turned my attention back to the three changelings. “And as for you guys, I said the first one of you to point out the others would get off easy, but since you tied…well, that means nobody wins. Looks like you’re all going to be having extreme amounts of pain and suffering in your futures!”

I dispelled the barrier around the hole that had been my home, then accessed some conjuration magic before building what I wanted in my mind and making it materialize. A few seconds later, each of them were wearing a golden collar that held an enchantment that produced electricity.

“Now, you three are going to fly back to the hive and awaken all the drones from their stasis, or this is going to happen,” I explained before clapping my hooves to turn the collars on.

A second later, I was treated to the wonderful sight of the three changelings writhing in agony while screaming in our very inhuman language various profanities and begging me to make it stop. The sight was so exquisite, I would have let it go on for a few minutes as I just sat there watching the idiots writhe in agony, but I was a little pressed for time.

Another clap of hooves deactivated the enchantment, and I watched them drop to the ground while groaning in pain. I leaned down into the hole and grinned. “Now hurry it up and get going,” I told them in a cheery tone before my mood darkened considerably, “and if you don’t want to do this little favor for me, then I’ll turn those things back on and leave you like that till you starve to death!”

With that, I snagged the unconscious guards and brought them in close for what would be my next teleport. On my next stop, it would probably be a good idea to have some hostages I was willing to kill in case someone tried to call my bluff when I demanded to see Celestia or ponies would die.

“Let our friends go you beast!”

The high class accent of a marshmallow unicorn made me roll my eyes before I looked over and saw the other three Bearers standing in the street. Apparently Rarity had enough intelligence to grab the rest of her friends before confronting me unlike Rainbow Dash. Unfortunately, it also meant I had to deal with the other members of the Mane Six before heading out. I hated needless distractions.

“Ugh…seriously?” I asked.

“What?” she replied, apparently thrown off by the question.

I groaned and decided to ask the obvious question. “You see me wearing this, right?” I asked while pointing to my ancient artifact of awesome power. “You saw it enabled a no talent hack like Trixie to take on Twilight Sparkle herself in a contest of magical ability, and now you’re actually challenging a changeling monarch that’s sporting one? Are you girls suicidal or something? You all know I could kill you just by thinking about it too hard, right?”

With the reality of the situation thrown in her face, Rarity faltered…but only for a moment. “Yes…well, be that as it may, I will not simply abandon my friends!”

As the other two of the mane six voiced their agreements, I found myself a little impressed on how they were facing certain death and weren’t batting an eye. “Hmm, no wonder I like you girls so much,” I mumbled before sending out a wave of magic to nab them all in my grip.

Rarity tried to use her horn to resist as I brought them all closer to me, but it was overpowered easily enough by my magic.

“Umm…excuse me, Mr. Changeling sir?” Fluttershy asked, drawing my attention. “Would-”

“Wait,” I interrupted her before looking to the ponies. “Why’d you just call me sir?” I was quite female in my current form after all. It seemed a little odd that Fluttershy of all ponies would throw a gender-bender insult at me.

As Fluttershy seemed to just wilt under my attention for no good reason apart from the fact I had her trapped in my magic, Applejack took up the question. “Ummm…because you look like a stallion.”

I blinked at the explanation. “Really?” To be honest, I hadn’t noticed that much difference between stallions and mares apart from the size, which was kind of negated by the fact Chrysalis stood head and shoulders above me.

“Plus your voice is quite masculine darling,” Rarity added.

“Oh…thanks, I guess,” I mumbled. “But changelings are asexual…or both, it’s really confusing to be honest.” My need for some kind of sanity actually kept me from asking Mother just how we did breed, but I didn’t see her sleeping with any of the drones and every changeling looked the same, it may have been complete autonomous reproduction.

Banishing that disturbing thought, I looked back to the cute little pegasus. Not the sexy kind of cute like Twilight, but more like pet cute that I wanted to put a collar on and leave to roam around in the back yard. “Now what were you saying?”

“Umm, well…I was just wondering…would you mind letting us go?”

“Tempting…but…no,” I told her as I looked away and thought to myself what would be the best way to proceed next.

With just Rainbow, Pinkie, and the guards in tow, I could have just teleported to the castle in one or two jumps, but talking with the six Elements had given me time to reconsider my plans. Although I was an invincible being of godlike power and infinite strength, blowing my way through Canterlot would end up taking too much time, and just trying to walk into a alicorn’s place of power was probably not the best of ideas.

I really didn’t want to have to fight Princess Luna.

Okay so, new plan, I told myself before clearing my throat and casting a quick spell to amplify my voice for the next few seconds.

“Hey Spike! Get your scaly little butt out here or Rarity’s going to regret it!”

While the talking marshmallow called me several pony profanities for using Spike’s crush against him like that, it only took Sparkle’s little slave a few minutes to make his way out of the library and confront me. I could see the fear in his eyes, but there he was, standing in front of me. Once again, I found myself a little impressed. The ponies and dragon stood no chance of winning against me, but here they were, trying anyway.

“Okay I’m here, just don’t-”

“Yeah, yeah whatever, now take a letter,” I told him before conjuring some paper, a quill and ink. The quill and ink took two tries since I attempted to make a pen, but…nothing came of it, so I apparently couldn’t just make anything appear out of thin air. But nearly cosmic power was more than enough for me. It wasn’t like I was overly prideful, or greedy after all.

“Dear…holy cow,” I mumbled to myself. “I’m actually going to get to do a dear Princess Celestia…hehe…hehehaha…HAHAHAHAHAHA!” Overcome by the joy of the moment, I jumped up on my hind legs and clapped my hooves in excitement.

“AAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Then I frowned at the distant sound of screams before clapping my hooves again to turn the collars off. “Opps, kind of forgot about those collars. Now…where was I? Oh right…

“Dear Princess Celestia,” I began, making sure Spike was jotting the message down. Let’s see, need a good moral. “Last night I learned that when stabbing somepony in the back, be sure to guard your own! Or maybe a better pay attention to your surroundings would be a better lesson…anyway, long story short, Chrysalis took over the Crystal Empire and captured Shining Armor, Cadence, and Twilight."

While there was a collective gasp behind me, I motioned for the dragon to continue writing. “New paragraph. Now before you go rushing off to save them, you should know that I currently have Twilight’s friends as my hostages and want to meet with you in the next five minutes, come alone. If you do not show up here by…let’s go with ten-thirty-eight Spike, I’ll…oh I don’t know…tear off Rainbow Dash’s wings, clip Rarity’s horn and…um burn Applejack’s Stetson. No wait, go with her farm, that’s more threatening.

“Now go to the closing and say, Your future lord and master Omnifarious,” I concluded before looking back down to the dragon. “Did you get all that?”

Without waiting for a reply, I snatched the letter away from Spike and checked it over. The handwriting was a little messy, but I gave him a break since the guy was currently shaking in terror. Then I rolled the little thing up and gave it back to him. “Okay, send it.”

As I watched the smoke rise and float off into the distance, I conjured some clouds and formed them into a semblance of a recliner before jumping back to rest on them . Then I snagged Spike so he could join his friends in the air, and looked over to the Mane Six. “Hey, you mind if I ask you guys a couple of things?”

“Mind if Ah ask you something if we answer em?” Applejack replied in a dry tone.

Considering the way things worked in Equestria, the opportunity for a villainous monologue that would probably come from her question was too good an opportunity to pass up. “Sure!”

I took a moment to think, then brought both Rainbow and Pinkie out of their magically induced slumbers. After Rainbow had realized the situation they were in and stopped struggling against my magic, I lined her up with the others. “ Now tell me, how come I never see any of you or any pony ever eating grass?”

“GRASS?” Rarity cried in indignation. “I know you’re evil sir, but that’s just disgusting!”

“Yeah dude, that’s just…eww.”

“Them greens fer walkin, not chewin,” Applejack said, as if repeating some old sage advice.

“But…it…that doesn’t make any sense!” I exclaimed while sitting up in my chair. “You eat hay for crying out loud! I’ve seen cows and sheep eating the stuff, so…no, wait, two questions…not going to waste time on this. You find grass disgusting, I get it.” It made no sense, since I knew animals preferred fresh grass over hay if given a choice, but it might have been some cultural thing. “Okay, fine, second question…

“I’ve been here for over a week, and I haven’t seen Spike send a single letter to Princess Celestia,” I told them. “And I know I’ve given you guys and Twilight at least two revelations! But I haven’t seen Spike send a single smoke signal up to Canterlot!”

Rainbow Dash frowned at me. “What do you mean you’ve been here for over a week?”

Before I could respond, Pinkie Pie spoke up. “Yeah, the changelings took the place of all the guards from Canterlot,” she explained. “That one’s the Flashy doppelganger.”

“When the hay did this happen?” the pegasus demanded.

“We hijacked the train before it got here and replaced the guards before they even met Twilight,” I answered before realizing what was going on. “Look, that’s not important! I’m wondering why the hay Twilight or any of you haven’t been sending letters to Celestia!”

After the group shared a look of confusion with each other, they turned their heads back to me and asked with one voice, “Why?”

“BECAUSE THAT’S THE WHOLE REASON FOR YOU ALL AND TWILIGHT BEING HERE!” I yelled while waving my forelegs up in the air. “You don’t have the Elements anymore, so Celestia’s got no real reason to keep your bond intact! The day after you put the things back in the stupid tree, Twilight should have been shipped back to Canterlot for princess training or something if she‘s got nothing more to learn! And don’t give me some junk about all of you learning everything there is to know about this stuff, or I’d be looking at five alicorns right now! For that matter, how is the shut-in who’s only had about a year of social interaction risen to the state of princess based on her understanding of friendship, magic and harmony when she’s had next to no time at all to learn this junk? IT MAKES NO SENSE!”

As I panted in an attempt to get my breath back, Pinkie broke the wide-eyed silence of the other ponies. “Wow Flashy…you um, you feel really strongly about this, huh?”

“You have no idea Pinkie,” I deadpanned. “And don’t call me that! Flash Sentry’s over there.” To emphasize the point, I directed my hoof over to the captured pegasus.

Surprisingly, it was Fluttershy who spoke up. “Oh umm…well, Mr. Changeling Queen sir…we have a shared diary now,” she mumbled before explaining how it all worked. “That’s where we put down our epiphanies.”

I gave them all a deadpan expression. They had been downgraded from corresponding with divinity to…writing in a diary like a bunch of grade school children? “That’s stupid.” Not to mention they just ruined the one thing Spike could actually do with any competency. But, I wasn’t going to say that. The Alicorn Amulet may have made me a little more ballsy, but I was hardly a monster.

With our conversation apparently over, Equestria Timing started to kick in again, and I felt a tingle of magic before turning to the spot a second before Celestia appeared in the center of the town. When she appeared, I actually blinked at how she looked. She was wearing golden armor that looked very similar to the type her royal guard usually sported. It covered her hooves along with a good amount of her legs, her chest, and the helmet allowed even allowed her horn to come through. I was honestly surprised she showed up at all.

“YOU WILL RELEASE MY LITTLE PONIES AT ONCE!”

Just seeing sun butt’s presence got the adrenaline flowing, and I dispelled my cloud to land on all fours and gave her an evil grin. “Ohoh-ho! Celestia! I’ve been waiting for this!” I told her while gathering power from the amulet while focusing the magic I already had and preparing to go a few rounds for the fun of it. I needed to test my limits after all, and once I’d knocked the princess down a few pegs…

“Hey! We had a deal and Ah still have a question Ah get to ask,” Applejack yelled from behind me.

I paused, then let out a groan. Not taking my eyes off Celestia, I pulled the farm pony over in front of me. “Fine, just make it quick.” Deities had to keep our word after all, it was probably in some old rulebook on one of Twilight’s shelves.

Applejack frowned down at me and crossed her forelegs. “You been here a week watchin us, helped out a little on my farm, saved Twilight and yer…um…you know, with her,” she said before clearing her throat. “Now you slap on that necklace thing and show up causing a ruckus, puttin my brother in a dress, and talkin big…but Ah ain’t actually seen you hurt nopony...and I don’t think you will.”

“…this is why I don’t hang out with you,” I told the orange mare.

Although the vast majority of Equestria was a place that consisted of endless green, be it forests, hills, or just lots and lots of grass, there were a few patches of desolation in its usually unblemished landscape that the majority of living creatures avoided. One of these areas was a huge tract of dry land and red sand referred to as the Badlands. A range of little food and water, dotted with small mesas and the occasional cactus. Such a place was where the changelings made their home.

Five teleports through the wasteland, and I landed at the foot of plateau that housed the changeling hive with everything I needed. Dealing with Celestia had been…disappointing, but I supposed beating Rainbow Dash’s goddess into the ground would have wasted valuable time. Twilight needed me to move as fast as possible…if she was still alive that is.

The thought made me pause for a moment. “She wouldn’t actually do that, would she?” I mumbled.

“What is that I hear? Come now, tell me your fear.”

I didn’t bother to look back, and Zecora trotted up next to me before I started to lead my entourage into the lower entrance of the hive. “Twilight…I’m worried that Chrysalis may have already killed her.”

The zebra nodded. “A dark thought indeed, however, you should pay it no heed.”

Resisting the urge to snap the zebra’s neck for such a stupid suggestion, I bared my fangs at her and spoke. “If you’re telling me that Twilight’s life isn’t worth worrying about, yours will end right here.”

“Be assured, a mistake is what you heard,” Zecora quickly said while holding up her hooves in defense. “The meaning of my words, are something not so absurd. Worrying now will do no good, put your attention where you should.”

I turned back to talk along the hall until we came to the bottom floor of the hive. Zecora followed me in, and I signaled to the others to wait.

The bottom floor of the hive was a graveyard in every sense of the word. When our food eventually died from draining, age, or the occasional accident, it was tossed down to the bottom level. Pits of green gooey chitin, kept in liquid form with heat bubbled and cast the large cavern in an eerie light.

Behind me, Zecora gasped. “How can this be? These are not the bones of a pony!”

I didn’t bother looking up as I dipped my hooves in one of the green pools, then used magic to shape the gunk that came out with my hoof into protective footwear. “Yeah, surprised the hell out of me too when I saw them,” I told her before turning around to look at the elephant skeletons. “But, come on, a species called changelings only being able to turn into one type of creature? Where’s the sense in that?”

“Your words give me cause for rumination, but I’d much prefer an explanation,” Zecora rhymed.

“Well I do like to brag,” I admitted as my horn took a glob of the pool’s material with my telekinesis, then I began shaping into what I needed. “You remember when I said I was of the third hive? It’s not because there’s two other hives out there, or they got killed off somewhere earlier on in history, it’s because they ate everything that they looked like at the time.

“Back in the old days, the base form we had was something akin to a buffalo, until we nearly exterminated them. In fact, the hive thought they were all dead until we found a few around Appleloosa a few years ago. So the first hive ate buffalo and chased them south except for the one tribe that apparently went north towards Equestria, hunting and eating all we could find.”

Still in a malleable form, I brought the chitin closer and wrapped it around my body before making the final adjustments to form the extra layer of armor. For a moment I considered crafting a helmet, but discarded that idea. When it came down to it, the armor was mostly symbolic. The increase in my power had made my natural carapace much more resistant to damage, but when gods went to war, they needed to do it in style.

“We ate them all in fact, or captured them, I should say,” I corrected myself after a moment. “The problem is, all things eventually die, and we had to find another food source. While our prey does produce an artificial kind of love while it is entrapped, it kind of becomes hard for them to have children while floating alone in their little bubbles. So they just grow old and die without making replacements for themselves.

“But the changelings adaptive nature allows us to tweak certain things, and before the last of the buffalo in captivity died, we created a new type of changeling based off these big things,” I said while tapping the tusk of the dead elephant. "And once again, we infiltrated their herds, cut down their numbers one by one, and eventually got them all! Although there are some reported sightings of an elephant every now and then south of here…well a few dozen survivors isn’t going to save a species. They’ll be dead in five generations, maximum.

“So then we encountered the ponies! Creatures bred and living in a land of harmony! Something much more magically potent than the buffalo could ever be. The changelings snagged a few ponies, created a new queen based on Celestia and the cycle continues.

“The predator empire. I think that’s what we are, you see?” I asked rhetorically.

“Ponies, and I guess zebras are the herbivore society, while sheep, goats and cows don’t seem to have enough of a drive to exist as anything more than they are. Griffons are well…griffins, and dragons don’t really have a society beyond their tribe-flock things. Well, while you’ve also got the hydras, the manticores, and the chimeras that are content to just live in caves and shit, changelings actually build things. Then we grow our numbers and spread. We devour everything we can find, then move on to find a new thing to eat and begin the cycle over again.

“I’m hoping to change that. The mirror pool will provide an infinite food source, and the Everfree with its predators to help keep our numbers in check will make sure we don‘t go insane trying to fit into a society of peace and love by giving us an outlet by hunting the creatures that live there. Well, maybe fitting in is too harsh a word, but it's better than killing everything in a dozen centuries or so and getting replaced.

“But Chrysalis! The stupid fool wants to do things the way we’re supposed to. Take power, wipe out a species and move on like we’re this world’s version of natural selection. Makes me wonder what will happen when we’ve eaten everything,” I mumbled more to myself than my witch doctor accomplice.

For her part, Zecora nodded and was actually quiet for a moment before speaking. “An interesting solution to your problem indeed, but how to quell the changelings greed? To eat and breed is your only desire, there is no purpose you can claim as higher.”

I shrugged. “Yeah but I’m the only one laying the eggs, and we only have about two-thousand changelings awake at any one time, barring special emergencies. The rest stay in stasis to preserve the hive mind and keep the need for food down. Least until we want to invade a city or something.”

Zecora looked behind for a minute, then up above as I charged my teleportation spell. “Ten thousand await above? Their lips salivating for my love,” she said before the world disappeared.

As the light from my teleportation faded I found myself in the grand hall of the hive. Like everything else in the changeling home, the place was lit by glowing moss, and a few pits down into the basement allowed for the illumination to come up from the level below.

Like the floor below it, the area was one gigantic room, although the horn-crafted roof had been coated in a thick layer of chitin to allow it to still support the weight of the mesa that hid our home while giving the hive what served as a giant meeting place.

I was also greeted quite enthusiastically by my future minions.

“Die traitor!” about a dozen changelings that could talk screeched as one as they came at me.

I threw up a shield done and expended it with enough speed that the insects that crashed into it died like bugs on a windshield before I dispelled the magic and took potshots at several more changelings coming in from the holes in the ceiling above. As the bodies dropped, I looked around to get my bearings and find the fixed balcony that Chrysalis used on the extremely rare occasions when she gathered and spoke to her conscious subjects.

With my destination located, I teleported myself and Zecora up to the platform, then surrounded myself in a shield bubble before conjuring a tornado in the center of the great hall that sucked every changeling currently heading for the area into it at breakneck pace.

From my safe little perch, I watched as hundreds of the insects were sucked in, thrown around, and didn’t bat an eye when several of them ended up as splatter on the walls. After a good ten minutes, I dispelled the sucking hurricane, and looked at the several thousands changelings that lay about the room.

“Is that really all you can do?” I shouted to the mass of insects. “No wonder you were left behind, barely getting by on the scraps that Chrysalis left while she took all the changelings with half a brain up north and left you all here to rot! You can‘t even fight off a single intruder!”

I notched a changeling with a collar around his neck come forward from the mass. Judging by the fact it was actually speaking to me I guessed it was #619. “Hey now, that’s a little harsh. I spent a lot of magic getting here you know.”

“Awwww, is the whiney little bug hungry?” I asked before focusing my magic and releasing a blast to open a path to the floor below, then conjured some stairs. “Fine then, I’ll give you some takeout.”

Without even thinking about it, I put my hoof to my mouth and whistled. Then, after realizing that I was doing, I pulled it away and frowned. How the hell did I even do that? I asked myself while the sound of several hooves made their way up the stairs I had just created.

A second later, a zebra walked in.

“Ah here is a new room”

“Why does it feel we’ve come to our doom?” the second Zecora asked the first.

I watched as the hundreds of Zecoras made their way into the grate antechamber of the hive, all saying some stupid line that either rhymed with an earlier comment a different clone said, or they actually managed to speak two sentences; quite the feat for a mirror clone.

The changeling horde fell on them in an instant and I watched as several of the walking happy meals were drained of their essence while reminding myself of just how much of a genius I was to come up with such a plan.

I didn't feel bad for the stupid things as they walked to their deaths. The mirror pool clones were just that, a reflection of the pony that walked into the water at a certain point in time. They were nothing more than a copy of an instant. They couldn’t grow more beyond the few thoughts that dominated their mind when they were made, or feel anything else.

When Pinkie had used the pool, she had probably been thinking of all the fun she was going to have, so that was what all her clones had wanted to do. It was all they could do. Their brains couldn’t think beyond the scope of ‘let’s have fun’ and so, they ran amuck, not caring about anything else.

So if a pony who had a focused mind like Zecora used the pool while thinking about an old boyfriend, her family, or friends, then they were an easily edible meal for changelings.

A loud pop, like the sound of a balloon being punctured drew my attention out congratulating me on my own genius, and I looked down in time to see one of the zebras the changelings were feeding off of disappear in a loud flash of light. “What was that?” I mumbled to the real Zecora.

“It would seem that once the magic inside them is at an end, my clones disappear like dust in the wind.”

I nodded. “We can always make more.” All in all, it wasn’t that much of a problem, I had already planned to relocate to the Everfree anyway. They had a castle nobody was using these days and just leaving what was probably the most powerful magical artifact in the world unattended was just stupid.

“As long as you hold to what we agreed, your children will always be able to feed.”

I told the damn zebra in no uncertain terms that the hive wasn’t full of my kids and I had not laid a single egg, or would be any time soon, then looked back to the mass of changelings as they finished off the zebras.

With their food gone and still more mouths to feed, the changelings started to grumble and even fight amongst themselves when the number of striped equines started hitting the single digits. A few flew up to try and take the Zecora I had next to me, only to be turned to ash, which dissuaded any others from trying.

As more changelings flew into the room, increasing the volume of the bickering and amount of fighting, I cleared my throat and added the voice enhancing enchantment to get their attention.

“Silence!”

Once that had gotten all the changelings attention, I turned down the volume and continued in disgust. “Is this all you are now? Filthy mongrels fighting over a few scraps?”

“Hey Chrysalis ordered us to-”

“DO NOTHING!” I shouted the changeling who I think was #6754 down. “Since she left, I have been the one giving the orders, I have been the one telling you where to go! It was my idea to infiltrate Canterlot! My idea to replace Twilight Sparkle’s royal guard! I was the one who told Chrysalis to go to the Crystal Empire. Through my efforts, we captured over two hundred pegasi from all over Equestria, young and stupid little things that were just heading out on their own, who would have gone unnoticed for weeks if not for Chrysalis becoming greedy taking a few extra on her way north! I was the one who devised the plan to bring Equestra to its knees, and when it finally starts to show fruit, SHE RUINS IT!”

Another changeling started to speak, and I cut him off. “What that you want to say? But she has the Crystal Empire now? We have the Crystal Heart? Big whoop! She has revealed us to our enemies for nothing but ice, snow, and a food source that will one day dwindle to nothing!

“Wait. Did I say us?” I asked. Although my amazing powers of public speaking were incredible, even they were not infinitely as infallible. But, I quickly recovered and even turned the slip to my advantage. “She and her chosen thousand feast while the rest of you sit here, so far away you can barely hear her orders. So far away, she can ignore you in favor of those close to her. You fools say you blindly follow Queen Chrysalis, when in fact she’s left you behind ages ago.”

Although I was too far away to make out any scents, the rumbling of thousands of changelings filled the hall. Down at the front of the floor, where my three other infiltrators stood, #619 looked up to me with the closest thing a changeling had to a snaky expression. “And what’re we supposed to do? Kill her?”

In response, I grinned at the little bug. “Precisely,” I mumbled before sending out a burst of magic to cause a drum beat in the surrounding cave before I jumped down to meet the greater mass of changelings that were still on the floor.

I know that your powers of retention

Are lacking with a skull empty inside

But when I speak, pay attention!

My words are a matter of pride!

I crept along and grabbed one of the mute bugs in my TK and dragged him along as I made my way around the large gathering in a prowling manner.

It’s clear from your vacant expressions

That the lights aren’t all on upstairs

But we’re talking queens and successions,

Even you can’t be caught unawares

A second later, the insect flew into the others, and I leaped over the mass, my wings assisted me in getting enough height and length before gently landing next to the three cronies that had been mine in Ponyville.

So prepare for the chance of a lifetime

Be prepared for sensational news!

A shining new era, is tiptoeing nearer

“But where do we feature?” #616 asked.

I turned back and smacked the changeling in the face for interrupting me. “Just listen to teacher.”

I know it sounds sordid

But you’ll be rewarded

When at last I am given my dues!

An injustice deliciously squared

Be prepared!

As I ascended back into the sky, #666 asked “Umm…prepared for what?”

“For the death of the queen!” I told it.

“Why, is she sick?” the changeling asked.

The idiocy of #666 made me growl and I snatched him up to talk to him face to face. “No you idiot, I’m going to kill her,” I told him before throwing the cretin back down to the floor.

#666 and #619 shared a confused look for a moment before #619 looked back to me. “But then, who’ll be the queen?”

“There will be a king!” I yelled back at them. I was putting a stop this this gender confusion before it could get any worse.

“Ummm, who’s that?” the beast asked, now completely confused.

“You idiots,” I yelled before my wings too me higher into the air and I slowly rose towards the platform where Zecora waited.

“I WILL BE KING!”

Landing on dais that was attached to the wall, I spread my arms out and addressed the mob as more and more changelings came into the chamber. “JOIN WITH ME, AND YOU’LL NEVER KNOW HUNGER AGAIN!” I shouted before demolishing a good amount of the floor below us so the insects could march down and prepare for war.

As thefirstt lines began to form and goose-step in motion towards the lower level where the chitin pools awaited, the changelings floating in the air let out a cheer before the changelings on the ground took up the song. “LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE KING!”

It’s great that we'll soon be connected

To a king that we’ve oh so adored!

“Of course quid pro quo, you’re expected, to take certain duties on board,” Zecora reminded me from behind.

I grinned and watched as my minions began equipping themselves and prepared a spell.

The future is littered with prizes

To curb problems that may come to be

A point that I must emphasize is...

I teleported down to the pools and overtook the green glow wit that of the magic from my amulet, turning the area red as I stomped the ground with a magically charged blow that shook the room and got everything’s attention.

“YOU WON'T GET A SNIFF WITHOUT ME!”

So be prepared for the coup of the century!

Be prepared for my glorious scheme

Still wrapped in my amulets power, I began to slowly rise up into the air while continuing to proclaim my glory to the masses.

Meticulous planning

Tenacity Spanning

Unwanted revile

It’s simply why I’ll

Be king undisputed

Respected, saluted

AND SEEN FOR THE WONDER I AM!

So with my teeth and ambitions lay bare

BEPREPARED!

Ten minutes after my little song and dance number ended, I watched my army prepare for war as I sat upon a newly conjured throne. “Well, that went rather…well,” I said, a little disappointed in my inability to say anything really eloquent. When I didn’t hear the zebra make any stupid comments, I looked over to her with a frown. “Zecora?”

“Apologies future king, my mind is a little disturbed,” she mumbled with a frown. “When I saw your army marching, I became somewhat perturbed. However, now matter how hard I try, I can not fathom the reason why.”

“Hmmm…weird,” I mumbled. I knew the imagery in the Lion King movie of the hyenas marching in goose-step was meant to drum up Nazi imagery, and it did kind of fit with the changeling’s position of a superior species wiping out the lesser ones.

I frowned for a moment at the thought, then looked down to the Alicorn Amulet around my neck. Nah, it’s probably nothing… I was much too smart and powerful to be affected by the amulet’s corrupting influence.

Chapter 11

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Chapter 11: I Become A Backstabbing Winner

Having to move with an army sucked.

Sure, it was an army of stealthy insects that could fly, and since they were all made in the same image their attributes were more or less the same with the exception of the handful of changelings that had been raised to be field commanders. But, the fact they flew slower than me was what made me gnash my teeth. I wanted to be in the Crystal Empire in minutes, not hours!

It was only after I crossed the Crystal Mountains that I had an idea to solve my problem, but by then, it was already too late to kidnap Rainbow Dash and use her as something my changelings could copy in the hopes of increasing their flight speed. Not a single one of them would have been able to do a Rainboom as I was probably the only one that could hold enough mana to pull the move off…although if the ability had anything to do with the whole Elements thing, even I would…well, I could probably still do it.

I was a god after all.

Realizing I had gotten a little off track, I shook my head to discard the wasted thought and focused on the matter at hand. Would have been cool to show off in front of her though. Then she would have been even more into me. And if she had a problem with it? Well, that was what mind control was for!

That was my last thought before I spotted a tower in the far distance and signaled for the changelings to descend. Having an army that could blot out the sun was cool and all, but I needed them at least close to the ground to get things started. Plus, it was nighttime, and I couldn’t even see the moon for all the clouds dropping a foot of snow on me a minute anyway.

Once on the ground, I sent out a pulse of magic to locate the edge of Chrysalis anti-teleportation field and frowned while trying to examine it. Changelings knew three ways of entrapping our prey in such magic, and unfortunately, Chrysalis was using the most painful one to deal with. It was centered around the caster herself and also detected meddling because she had to concentrate to maintain it. Which that meant she knew someone had gone and poked it with a stick.

I walked through what once had been the weather controlling circle of magic that was supposed to keep the cold out of the Crystal Empire, and flew forward until we reached the train station. The snow had long since built up and halfway covered the train that Twilight and I had ridden in on together just last night. Or was it two nights ago? The constant activity made it hard to tell.

I gritted my teeth at my own bumbling idiocy for that incident. If only I had taken up the Alicorn Amulet and killed Chrysalis sooner, none of this would have been happening! Then we could have stayed in Ponyville…or gotten around to getting Twilight the kingdom she deserved. With a castle instead of a stupid tree house! Titles of nobility for her friends and estates worthy for the heroes they were! The fact that none of them had been given ANYTHING AFTER SAVING THE WORLD MULTIPLE…

Doing my best to get all that junk out of my head, I checked my reserves. The stopover in Ponyville hadn’t been too draining to the mana pool I had to draw from, and the amulet had managed to refill a good third of the way on the flight over. It gave me a good estimate of how fast its reserves filled up, but I didn’t need to wait a whole ten hours for a full recharge, what I had was good enough.

“Well, time to get this over with, shall we?” I mumbled to no one in particular before clearing my throat and speaking up.

“Let the unworthy Queen of the Changeling’s come forth! Let justice be done upon her!”

A stolen line, but fitting all things considered.

It had the desired effect as well, as did the presence of my army. This time, there were no mental magic attacks from fifteen miles away with a squadron of goons to carry the food for her, this time, hundreds of little black dots came flying out of the Crystal Palace, if not the entirety of the group that Chrysalis had brought with her. At first, they didn’t look like much. But as the seconds passed and the swarm came closer, it began to fill my vision. However, the only one I had eyes on was the insect with the glowing hairdo.

Chrysalis floated over and landed in front of me while the rest of her part of the swarm stayed in the air. “How are you still alive?”

“Luck mostly,” I lied. It wasn’t as if the bug could ever hope to kill me. “The hive has decided that I would make a better leader Mother. Step down and I’ll end your life quickly.”

The monster glowered at me. “Do you honestly think I will stand for this?” Chrysalis demanded. “Who are you to challenge me, child?” She turned her attention to the other insects. “I am the one who has brought victory to the hive. With the power I possess, Celestia and Luna will be crushed AND EQUESTRIA WILL BE OURS!”

“Are you even listening to yourself now?” I yelled back. “While the unicorns could still raise the sun should Celestia disappear, the day they go extinct is the day everything on this planet dies! Look around fool, continuing on our path of hunting creatures to extinction will lead to our own fall if the ponies die out!”

Chrysalis laughed. “You are the one who is short-sighted, child,” the insect replied. “Once I have taken down the sisters and gained control of the sun and moon, all the other races of this world will offer sacrifice unto us in order to keep the day and night going. No longer will we have to hunt for our prey, but they shall be freely offered.”

Oh crap. …I hated to admit it, but…her idea wasn’t half bad. Hell, wouldn’t be the first time an archaic culture sacrificed things to try and affect the stars. Her idea may not nearly as good as mine of course, but still…not half bad. Although, it was still half baked, and I could use that to keep my army from deciding to turn on me. “You actually think you can control the sun and the moon?” I laughed. “You expect the hive to believe that? You really are a moron!”

“Observe,” Chrysalis replied before looking up to the air. First, she fired a ball of condensed kinetic energy into the clouds that detonated and blew an open hole in the sky large enough to remove the snow around the Crystal Empire and reveal the stars and moon above.

For a moment, I was struck by indecision. If Chrysalis actually could move the moon, it would probably take a good chunk of her energy reserves, but meant I would lose my army. While wearing her down would have helped me, there was no way I was up to fighting her and the ninety-five hundred changelings that surrounded us if they turned on me.

Even I would have been hard pressed to take care of that many of them.

So while the bitch queen had her attention on the skies, I quickly circled around to her side and leaped towards with my hooves extended while flying at full speed. “In that case, I challenge you for leadership of the hive in trial by combat!” I yelled.

Chrysalis noticed the motion a bit too soon for my liking, telling me I should have kept my mouth shut. But when she only brought down her horn to counter mine like I was hoping, my hooves reached up and took her in the lower neck where it met the barrel and I grabbed on for all it was worth while pushing her eastward as fast as I was able to fly before she could get her wings working properly or figure to how to knock me off.

Even in Equestria some laws of physics still held. In this case, when a changeling slams into another of comparable size going at a few hundred miles an hour, that changeling has to move.

Of course the idiot didn’t try to use her own hooves against me. Like everything on this planet with a telekinetic horn, they just used it for everything and neglected a good old pair of hooves. Unlike me, who had the foresight to be a pegasus for a week so I could get used to using them... Well, it hadn’t really been my choice, it was more like destiny had thought I needed a little extra practice with them and stuck me with the Flash Sentry role so I could brush up on them.

So with destiny’s foresight helping me out, I was able to get Chrysalis a good half mile away from the city before an eruption of magic from her horn caused a blast of kentic energy that managed to force even me away from her.

I slid along the ground and recovered before taking back up into the air and flying right back at her again while casting a tiny bit of magic on myself while Chrysalis began pumping magic into her horn for a spell.

“Insolent-”

“SHUT UP”

Judging from how the changeling monarch wobbled in flight, the amplified voice I used at least disrupted her concentration. Although I wouldn’t have been too angry if the magic had blown out her eardrums and maybe killed her equilibrium. Still, I moved in for the kill by channeling a great deal of magic in my twisted horn to increase its tensile strength in the hopes of piercing her armor.

Then my head felt like it exploded when Chrysalis’s hoof became wrapped in green fire to strike my horn as a counter attack, and the next thing I knew the changeling queen struck me dead center in the chest with a spell that shattered the chitin armor I had been wearing and sent me careening into the ground.

Ugh, where the super anti-magic armor when I really need it? I asked myself. Stupid Aztec storm god mantel, I was even willing to accept the existence of Daring Do if I could have taken that thing into combat with me.

Not that I needed it of course, but it sure as hell would cut down on the headaches.

“Did you honestly think you could challenge me?” Chrysalis shouted.

“Can you honestly hear what I’m saying?” I asked before conjuring a good ton of snow right above the queen’s head to buy me time for a takeoff. The stuff melted a two seconds later, and she was on me in three.

Still, it did give me enough time to pump half my mana into my horn and focus it into a single shot that struck the changeling queen dead center. It was a concentrated, focused burst that hit with the force of…well, something really forceful that knocked the changeling queen back several hundred feet until she slammed into the ground and bounced a few times. After a good minute of travel, she finally came skidding to a stop.

Above her I mentally congratulated myself on my victory…then she got back up and seemed to pop a crick out of her neck before looking up at me with a frown. The scene was quite depressing on two levels. The first being that Chrysalis was apparently unharmed in the slightest, and the second being that if she had managed to roll with a forceful blast that took half of the energy I had left.

Which meant there was no way in hell I would be breaking through her exoskeleton.

“You know for an uber god amulet of awesomeness, you’re starting to really suck red kryptonite,” I mumbled to the Alicorn Amulet.

Down below, Chrysalis let out a laugh and slowly rose to my level in the sky. Whatever minor damage I had done, she had probably already healed on her way up. “I can sense your fear child.”

“Oh, please don’t tell me we can rule Equestria as mother and son,” I deadpanned.

Apparently, Chrysalis didn’t get the reference and her mouth twisted into a snarl. “Now you wish to beg for forgiveness child?” she demanded.

That’s right get a dialogue started, I told myself. Since she was cheating and the whole ‘hit her really hard’ plan didn’t seem to work, I needed time to formulate another one. Stupid chatter would give me that.

“Oh come on, do you honestly think your plan has any chance of working out in the long term? You couldn‘t even come up with a decent idea for killing Twilight Sparkle, and now you think controlling the movements of the heavens is going to help you? I‘m the one who thought up everything Chrysalis, and I can think of plenty of reasons why yours is going to fail.” I asked her while going over the facts I knew. Changelings didn’t need defensive spells because we were always wrapped in our natural armor, which was reinforced by our magic. In essence, we always had a protective shield in place. But, that shield wasn’t without flaws.

Chrysalis scoffed. “Now you’re stalling for time?”

I frowned at the changeling. Since when had see gotten an IQ upgrade? Did love double as brain food or something? “No,” I assured her with a fake smirk while I circled her slowly until Chrysalis was between me and the city of crystal. “But since this will all be remembered by the hive mind, I really need to say something cool before I kill you. So, you can you give me a minute to think of a nice one liner?”

Not even a second later, the changeling’s horn lit faster than I could ever hope to charge mine, and she added her less than original catchphrase to give the magical beam a little extra kick. “DIE!”

Too close to dodge, I pumped as much magic into my hooves as I could and blocked the beam with my armored hooves before there was a bright flash. The next moment I found myself flying through the air absent my own will. For a minute I wondered why I could no longer feel my fingers. Then I hit the snow and slid until the ground was kind enough to put a rather large rock in my way that cracked when I hit it.

Okay, keep it together, I told myself while black spots danced across my vision. I was pretty sure that was a bad sign.

One of the black spots started to radiate with power, and I barely realized it was Chrysalis before she shot at me again with a green magical energy bolt from a hundred feet up.

I accessed the amulet’s library of spells and conjured a few tons of solid granite in midair for Chrysalis’s attack to strike and blow into little chunks, then I scrambled to my feet as fast as possible when I couldn’t feel half my body and got into the air fast enough to avoid a trio of quick bursts Chrysalis sent through the cloud of debris towards my general location.

Options ran through my mind as I sped away from the queen. Think, think, think…our outer shell reduces magical and physical damage, and I can’t break through it with one shot, and I can’t hit her enough times repeatedly to eventually crack it.

With the queen still above me, I dodged and weaved to avoid potshot after potshot thanks to our distance giving me more than enough room to get away from the attacks. If Chrysalis was trying to kill me, she was starting to get stupid again. So I was pretty sure the bitch was just playing with me. I made a mental note to do some gloating before I killed her. But the chase was serving its purpose. Unfortunately, I had long ago crossed into the area that the snow was falling on and it was getting somewhat annoying.

Mental magic is out against changelings…so…I don’t really have some tricky trick to pull out and smack her with here, do I? I needed to penetrate her defenses or go for a weak point. Unfortunately, the only real holes in the defense of a changeling’s armor were their mouth and eyes. And to hit her with a killing blow, I’d probably have to stab my horn into one of them before releasing a concussion blast strong enough to pulp her brain.

Well…it’s…doable, I thought to myself. All I would have to do is out horn fight a being that was confident enough to go at it against Celestia and stab my much shorter appendage into a small vital point that was quite literally half her field of vision. No…biggie.

After another energy beam struck the ground beside me I twisted and fired a magical blast of my own. Just like with pretty much everything else I threw, Chrysalis didn’t even bother dodging the attack and it struck her. A second later, the conjuration magic changed the air around her into a cloud of black smoke, obscuring her view as I flew upwards as fast as I cloud.

A blast of hurricane force winds blew away the smoke before I could reach its edge, and then Chrysalis met my charge with another eruption of magical force that expanded outwards from her in a sphere that made me feel as if I had gotten hit by a semi-truck going seventy.

Between the sound of…something breaking and the air rushing out of my lungs, I managed to tell myself, right outward shockwave forgot she could do that, before crashing into the snow below hard enough I’m pretty sure my left arm, or whatever the hell it was, became dislocated when I landed on it.

Pain was pushed back by whatever changeling’s used to pass for adrenaline, and I rolled onto my back in time to see Chrysalis slam into my stomach hard enough to crack my outer shell. I would have let out a manly cry of pain, but air had yet to be reacquainted with my lungs.

Then I got punched, or kicked in the nose as the parent to child abuse continued. After the fourth blow, I learned that a changeling’s natural armor might have been a bit weak around that area, because I heard a wet crunch and blood started dripping into my mouth from the thing that had once been my nasal cavity.

Once I was thoroughly beaten within an inch of my life, Chrysalis finally seemed to lay off a little, then looked down at my chest. “What’s this little one?” she asked while grabbing hold of the Alicorn Amulet. “I can feel a twinge of power within it. Is it the reason for the change in your magic?”

“Well you’ve got your mystical do-dad, and I’ve got mine,” I replied after taking some effort to suck in some breath.

Chrysalis smiled at me. “I think I’ll take it then. With the Crystal Heart empty and those crystal ponies not feeling very generous, I need a new toy to play with.”

Oh god, you mean she ate the whole thing? I asked myself while the changeling yanked on my jewelry. Of course, with her stupid make sacrifices to the changelings to keep the sun in the sky plan, Chrysalis really didn’t need the love battery to keep the hive fed for the next few decades. With the entire population of the world to give tithes, she could expand her influence across the whole thing as long as she didn’t get too greedy and eat everything…which she would. That was her problem with your cliche villains like Chrysalis and Hitler, they always wanted more.

She reached down and pulled at the amulet for a few moments while I lay motionless. I couldn’t help but think back to one of the older Wolverine VS Hulk comics where the Hulk ripped Wolverine in half while the mutant was thinking to himself, ‘stupid adamantium, unbreakable metal my ass’ before the Hulk tossed him off a mountain. I was really hoping that wasn’t the case with the amulet.

“Ugh!” Chrysalis grunted as she went to tugging on the jewelry with her magic. “Why won’t this thing come off!”

I chuckled at her attempts. “Sorry, but…the necklace can only be removed from my body by the one who wears it,” I told her before giving the monster standing on top of me a snaky grin. “Even after I die, the magic of the amulet will still be bound to me since I’m never taking it off. Tough luck.” It was a lie…far as I knew, but hey…getting to spit one last time in the bad guy’s eye was well worth it.

After seeing me snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat…sort of, Chrysalis let out a cry of rage and slammed her hoof down onto my chest where said magical artifact was, and I grunted while trying not to cough up too much blood from the damage. I also noticed that blowing bubbles with a mixture of blood and whatever passed for snot in my nose felt weird. But the mind notices those sorts of things when the body is in trouble.

Then Chrysalis reared up in an all too ‘this is the end for you’ in of way before her hooves burst into green fire. She brought them both down on the Alicorn Amulet which rested atop what would have been my collarbone had I been human.

For the fourth or fifth time that night…to be honest I didn’t know and didn’t really like the idea of keeping score of how badly I was getting my ass kicked, the world exploded in pain. I felt my external skeleton shatter and my internal one not fare much better before the green fire washed over my body. It seemed to seep into the many cracks my armor had developed as it surrounded my body in a conflagration for several seconds.

When it was over, I felt a new rush of pain and panic overtake me as I realized just how seriously screwed I was. I still had about half the amount of magical energy I started this fight with, but there was no way Chrysalis was going down from that level of attack. I was going to die, and what was worse, the fact that this only increased my heart rate sent new waves of pain throughout my body all the faster with every beat.

Chrysalis on the other hand, seemed to have found something uproariously funny, because she threw back her head and gave one of those diabolical evil laughs that villains just love to do before the bad guy’s about to win.

I had to wonder what all had changed between the moment that I was hopelessly outmatched a few seconds ago, to when I was hopelessly outmatched at this very moment. Then she showed me, after reaching down to grab a piece of my chest and rip off some of my exoskeleton with a sickening tearing sound, she raised the Alicorn Amulet up into my field of vision.

For an ancient artifact of ultimate power, it looked pretty…totaled. The gemstone in the center had been shattered, and turned from a bright red to dull maroon. Although I was a little more disturbed that the wings had been dented around the piece of my outer layer that she had just peeled off. Even through the pain, I managed to get a thought in my head. She broke the damn thing, I told myself while thinking I’d been gypped on my super magic artifact. It was no wonder I felt like crap. Whatever false sense of confidence the amulet had provided went up in smoke, and I found myself being smacked with a cold, hard reality: I was so royally screwed.

“Any last words?” Chrysalis asked me as I struggled just to breathe. Surprisingly, she actually waited around for a minute while I got my mind in order and air into my lungs.

It was a strange thing, looking up and seeing I was going to die. I didn’t reflect on my regrets or past mistakes, what was the point? Kicking myself for being an idiot on so many things wouldn’t have changed the past. So, I thought of something to say that would really piss the changeling Queen off, send her into a frenzy and maybe have her use so much power blowing me to pieces that it would have cost her a long-term victory.

As least I tried to. In the middle of trying to come up with an explication of how Chrysalis was going to lose in the long run, my changeling eyes that were used to extremely low light conditions caught sight of something rather large coming through the clouds and filling the sky with the image of a giant rock.

It actually took me a moment to realize that was I was seeing was a huge meteorite descending on us at a somewhat less than possible speed.

So with a giant meteor that was about to crack the earth in two headed towards us. All I could do is smirk and say, “Luna is best princess.” Then I laughed at our impending death, and pointed to the rock descending towards us. I didn’t care how hard her armor was, the sheer weight of how many tons of rock I was looking at would juice her organs.

Chrysalis turned and looked behind her, and I continued to laugh like a madman while her horn lit up and…a meteor big enough to kill everything in a thousand-plus miles just stopped in midair. A moment later, Chrysalis lowered her horn and fired a single blast at the rock held in her telekinetic grip, and the entire meteor just up and vanished.

I gapped at the sight while my brain tried to form a coherent thought other than: That’s just not fair. So what if unicorn horns were the middle finger ponies gave to physics? Seeing something that big just get removed from existence like it was nothing had been pretty discouraging.

The four alicorns I saw hovering in the air above us were also a sight that made me wince. Celestia and Luna were flanked by Cadence and Twilight as they descended from above what had been the cloud-bank to just a few hundred feet off the ground.

“All this time…you were drawing me away from my palace!” Chrysalis said through gritted teeth.

With the slight possibility of me not dying in the next several minutes becoming a possibility, my survival instinct kicked in and I gulped down all the HA-HAs and every smarmy comment that came to mind…and there were a lot of them.

“That’s my palace,” Cadence shouted from her place next to Celestia. “And yes! While…your former companion drew you away from the palace, Luna and Celestia were able to free me and Twilight as well as all of my subjects and the pegasi you tricked into coming north!”

I ignored the fact the pause probably meant Cadence had no idea what my real name was, and frowned. Well guess that explains the meteor. Although, even at this distance, I don’t think the city would have avoided… wait…that means they were trying to kill me and my entire army! Fuck you…whoever put Luna up to it. My money was on Celestia.

I was actually surprised to see them at all. But, I supposed with the changeling army just sitting around waiting for me or Chrysalis to win like I had told my numerically superior forces to do before this whole thing started, attacking us now was a better option than just going home, building their own army, and attempting to retake the Crystal Empire after it had been properly fortified.

Chrysalis apparently thought the whole thing was rather funny by her chuckles. Apparently forgetting about me for the moment, she walked up and out of the small crater that her beating had pounded us into, and looked to the four alicorns glaring down at her.

“Two of you couldn’t even hope to harm me, and you think four is going to make a difference?”

What the hell are they doing here anyway? This wasn’t part of the plan…

-Ponyville 10 hours ago-

“…this is why I don’t hang out with you,” I told the orange mare.

Still hopped up on red kryptonite as I had been at the time, I was pissed off enough to magic AJ’s hat a few sizes larger, then let it drop over her head before the thing clapped shut and muffled her complaints.

“I have come as agreed,” Celestia growled. “Now release them!”

With AJ basically muzzled and the rest of the girls just looking at me in confusion for the farm pony’s too soon announcement showing my awesome righteousness and all that, I turned to Celesta and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I never said anything about releasing them. Besides…” I looked over to Rainbow Dash as she glared right back at me. “Half of them would buck my teeth in the second I did,” I replied before turning back to Celestia. “Eh, quite frankly, I’m surprised you showed. Nice to know you care for them even a little. After you gave Twilight that cutie mark swapping spell that ruined their lives with no way to change them back unless she did what the so-called greatest unicorn ever couldn’t help but wonder if you just think of them as…oh let’s just go with every pony in Equestria while we’re at it, they’re your pets in your little toy kingdom.”

While Celestia glowered at me, Rarity asked the obvious question. “H-How do you know about that?”

“Oh um…me and Twilight might have mentioned it while we were looking for Daring Do,” Rainbow told her.

Before the anypony could jump on Rainbow for blabbing, I stepped in and saved her. “Actually, I knew about that long before you voiced your doubts Rainbow, not to mention the fact you left out the part where Fluttershy’s animals had tied you up in a kettle and were fixing to cook you alive,” I told her. And the real scary thing was that those animals still lived with Fluttershy. I did not understand ponies at all!

“I also know about the Iron Pony competition the Running of the Leaves and the horseshoe game that basically caused it, what Rarity was really doing for that week she was in Canterlot with her ‘sick’ cat, the kind of party Pinkie throws when nopony is friendly to her for too long, the fact Big Mac has Twilight’s old doll somewhere tucked away in his house, and to just skip to the end of this little song and dance and show you all something to prove I’m not a normal changeling that just used mind control magic to learn your darkest secrets,” I said before accessing the amulet’s library of spells and creating a projection of light and sound that played out the part of Magical Mystery Cure that only Twilight and Celestia had been present for, complete with musical accompaniment from my memories as a human.

By the time it was over, most of the mane six were staring opened mouthed, and even a few of the hidden residents of the town had come out to watch the show until their goddess waved them all back inside. Celestia looked only a little impressed. “The imagery of your thought projection needs work, that whole sequence was far too flat and lacking in detail,” she told me.

Well of course it does, it’s a cartoon you idiot, I mentally told the horse. Although it was kind of creepy how their colors matched up, but were just…really detailed 3D. A week in Ponyville and I still hadn’t gotten used to that.

“Just how do you know of this?” the sun goddess asked.

“Well I’ll put it into words your tiny little brain can comprehend,” I replied. “I belong to a race of beings who have learned to use a magic that allows us to view other worlds through…well, a mirror. It’s not really a mirror, but it’s the closest thing you are going to understand. One day while I was feeling bored out of my mind and a little depressed, a spark of magic caught my scrying spell’s attention and I ended up seeing the whole Nightmare Moon debacle when she was cleansed by the Elements of Harmony. It kind of caught my interest, and so I had my spell latch onto an important event and record it for later perusal after it cut off a lot of the boring stuff. So you don’t have to worry about otherworldly strangers watching you sleep or anything too personal. And the…visual change was a side effect of seeing things through a looking glass.” Ooo I like that, okay from now on human voyeurs use looking glasses.

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Boredom mostly. My race has pretty much explored all we can where we come from, learned all we can, perfect society and so forth. There’s not that much left to do besides escapism. We have sports and games and such, but there’s no real excitement or mystery to it. Even interpersonal relationships get stale after awhile when we all do as expected,” I told her before smirking. “But to see a story unfold, watch beings actually discover things about life for the first time and the joy they experience from it. It revitalizes us, lets us look at things from a new angle or perspective.”

Celestia let out a long, knowing sigh and nodded her head. “I suppose I can understand that sentiment,” she admitted before meeting my eyes. “And if everything you said is true, what are you doing here? Or perhaps I should ask, why are there not more creatures that are like you here?”

“Because coming here was a complete…well, I don’t know,” I admitted. Even I had lapses in my genius level of creativity sometimes. “One minute I was at my home in front of a looking glass, then there was a…surge of power, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in the changeling hive as the newest member of their royalty. Then I got tasked with the mission of getting rid of Twilight Sparkle and infiltrated her royal guard unit by striking them while they were on their way to Ponyville and replacing them. After that, I threw away the queen’s orders and decided to just wait and see what happened. I had no intention of actually following my orders, but I had to at least hang around the area.”

Applejack, who had been silent up until a moment ago, said something beneath her hat, and I was forced to let her out to see if she was at least talking sense. “That still don’t excuse what you did!” she told me.

“And what exactly did I do?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

A loud humph came from Celestia before she spoke. “You stand there with five mares and a hatchling in your grip next to three guards in a cocoon and say you have no knowledge of wrongdoing?”

“Really? You’re really going to start this whole moral high ground thing with me Tia?”

Celestia blinked. “Tia?”

I frowned at the complete lack of recognition from the alicorn. “You’ve never been called that?”

“…not once,” Celestia replied, thoroughly killing SO much in the way of fannon with those two simple words. It made me a little…disappointed actually.

“Hey, Fairy’s right, Princess Tia totally sounds more friendly than a full on Celestia!” Pinkie explained.

I turned and gaped at the little pony, taking a moment to work what she had just said through my head. “W-what did you just call me?”

“Fairy,” Pinkie said before launching into one of her light speed explanations. “Because you’ve got those clear wings, and magic, and you’re a changeling, and your name is Omnifarious, but Omni just sounds too silly and Ious isn’t much of a nickname, so your Fari, but since it sounds like Fairy when you say Omnifarious! So you’re new nickname should be Fairy!”

Unfortunately, she was done before I had the time to take away her mouth, so I just groaned and looked back to Celestia. “Look, long story short, I knew Chrysalis would try something eventually, I just didn’t think it would actually work! If she had tried for the Crystal Heart while Shining Armor and Cadence had been there, they probably could have handled her the way they did at the wedding, but since they came down for my stupid promotion celebration…which they probably wouldn’t have if they thought Twilight’s emotional state was just fine instead of about to attend Flash Sentry’s funeral…and I got distracted by…well, Twilight to see where everything was headed in time.”

With my story finished, I glared across the way at Celestia, daring her to challenge my claims with her stupid wannabe all-knowing crap. But she showed a modicum of intelligence by simply nodding and giving me two words. “I see.”

Then she deferred to my superior intelligence. “Then given everything you’ve said and done to bring me here…I take it you have some sort of proposal? A plan of attack? Being a changeling, you would know the Queen’s capabilities better than anypony. And considering you claims, I take it you know Equestria’s capabilities if you truly can…well, I have seen the proof, so I suppose you do have a magic to peer through the veil between worlds.”

I frowned at her, but this time only in confusion. “Actually, I really don’t know much at all about Equestria’s military potential. And the stuff I’ve gone over since coming here just involves unicorn magic and a lot of history that nopony ever talks about. Why would you think I know anything about that?”

“You just said your scrying follows important ponies,” Celestia challenged.

Oh…I get it… I repressed a smile while thinking of a way to break this to her in the most cruel way possible. “Yes, the Elements of Harmony, and Princess Luna. From time to time, there are also snippets of the Cutie Mark Crusaders as well as Spike, but those are the only focuses.” Translation: You’re not important and SPIKE is more interesting than you!

If Celestia had been affected by the news, she didn’t show it. “I see,” she said while clearly hiding her tears.

“And we don’t need an army,” I told her.

“Yeah! We’ll take care of that overgrown bug ourselves!”

For the first time since obtaining ultimate power with the amulet, a shiver of fear ran down my spine at Rainbow Dash’s words. I whirled on her in a fury. “You will not be doing anything of the kind! You ALL will be staying right here where it is safe even if I have to put this stupid town under another giant magical fish bowl to make sure that you do!”

Before the others could protest, I whiled on Celestia. “And if my plan does work, you can take care of all of this without losing a single pony in battle!” I told her. “I draw out the queen and engage her in one on one combat, having the changelings under my control,” when I take control of them that is, but she doesn’t need to know that, “sideline hers until the duel is complete. That will leave you the time you need to rescue Twilight and the others.”

“Why would you be willing to take all the risk?” Celestia asked, ignoring the cries of MOTHER from the ponies floating behind me.

“Oh, I have no intentions of doing things this way for free,” I assured Celestia. “What I want is…”

I groaned as I looked up at the sight above me, with the four alicorns floating in the sky while Celestia and Chrysalis bantered back in forth like all big shots did before the big showdown. I didn’t really care to listen, using a good portion of my remaining magic to heal my body was more important.

Regenerating my exoskeleton was out of the question, but I was able to pop my foreleg back into place and get some feeling in my hooves again. Movement also become possible as the sun and cockroach queens babbled, although it was just a delay of the inevitable.

I had been acting with my own little super weapon, and had gotten my ass handed to me rather thoroughly when Chrysalis was barely even trying. If sun butt was able to pierce the grand bitch’s defenses, I’d turn into a mare and play out a fucking clop scene with Flash Sentry himself!

And just why were they here? It didn’t make any sense!

Okay, just stop focusing on that and think, I told myself. I still had about thirty-five percent of the mana reserves had had since the start of the fight, there must have been something I could do!

A petrifaction spell…was transformation magic, and thus no use against changelings.

A want-it-need spell cast on a rock for a distraction…was mind magic, and therefore also useless on changelings.

A conjuration of an electric collar or something similar…wasn’t in the purview of my changeling magic without the alicorn amulet.

I resisted the urge to groan as to keep my apparently forgotten presence out of Chrysalis’s mind for a few more seconds. She had forgotten about me with the appearance of Celestia since I was no longer a threat, and that was the only chance I had of surviving until…she had put the alicorns in comas and turned around to finish me off.

GOD DAMN IT THINK YOU IDIOT! I shouted at myself. The only hope I have is striking at a weak spot in her armor. That means the left eye, the right eye, or the mouth. Those are the only real holes in a changeling’s defenses!

I glared up at the changeling queen with hatred in my eyes. All of which I’ll never hit! Stupid changeling queen and her stupid invincible…wait a minute…she’s a queen…that means she has to have some kind of…oh god, I’m not actually considering this…am I?

Chrysalis threw her head back in laughter.

Yeah, okay…I am, I thought to myself as I rolled over onto my stomach as quietly as I could and took aim.

Despite my weeks of not wanting to think about it, I did know my own changeling anatomy…including the opening where the eggs came from. A part of changeling anatomy that wasn’t protected by our outer covering all that well.

So that’s where I jammed my horn. Chrysalis’s laugher came to an end, and I released 99% of my remaining magical energy as a blast of destructive power meant to fry her organs in one giant burst.

The laughter stopped.

We both fell over.

And I managed to just finish removing my horn from Chrysalis's feminine weak spot before the alicorns landed.

“Thou hadst hope this is removed from final cut, young changeling queen,” Luna spoke, making me extremely confused. When the hell did she go back to Shakespeare in the Park talk?

Twilight was beside me a moment later. I expected to be chewed out but all that I could see in her eyes was worry. “Flash! Flash, are you alright?” However, her emotions told a different story. She was angry, confused, panicked, glad, relieved and-

“Fear not, young Princess Sparkle, for the evil of Queen Chrysalis has been undone!” the Princess of the Night said as lightning flashed in the background and she…struck a dramatic pose?

Forcing myself to get enough air to talk, I asked the question that needed to be. “W…Why?”

“Flash, save your strength,” Twilight told me, confusing the hell out of me even more when all my logic said she should be crying over me be a changeling or…something. “And umm…I think you have some…stuff on your…horn.”

But, even with Twilight pleading with me, I couldn’t stop myself. “Why…is Luna…acting crazy?”

“Umm…I really don’t know,” Twilight replied. “She’s been like this since I was released.”

“You’re the one who told me she has the most fans and why,” Celestia deadpanned. “And I hide nothing from my sister.”

“Indeed! If Our supporters through the looking glass do prefer Our speech to be in the royal We, then it shall be so!” Luna proclaimed dramatically while Celestia rolled her eyes and Cadence raised an eyebrow at the mare’s antics.

After taking a step away from Luna, who was striking another pose, the Princess of Love looked over to her aunt. “Okay, crisis is over. Would somepony please explain to me what’s going on?”

Chapter 12

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Chapter 12: I Become an Overlord of Evil Insects

Laying on the cold ground in the snow, I realized that having a conscience without the balls to do what it wanted all the time sucked worse than a high-powered vacuum cleaner. With neither, I probably would have been the second in command of a changeling dominated planet, probably taking Luna’s place as the boss of the moon and owning a nice little harem of six certain mares to satisfy me morning, noon and night. With both, I would have probably been the big hero of Equestria taking down Chrysalis with some plan that made me out to be either totally awesome, or kept all the ponies in the dark while I continued to fulfill some background role and not get a target painted on my back. As it stood, I had barely managed to get my act together in time to pull a victory out of my ass.

With everything over, I was quickly given a reminder that I wasn't in much better condition than the corpse laying next to me. Moving so quickly after healing my body was like a martial artist trying to break bricks ten seconds after the doctor had taken off the cast. The wounds I had stitched closed had torn open again, while the glue holding my internal bones together had come undone, leaving me in an even worse shape than before.

Then Celestia came to stand over me and frowned. From my position on the ground, she looked even more imposing than the first time I had saw her in Ponyville, where before there had been an over-sized horse, now stood a massive giant with pillars for legs. “Are you alright?” she asked gently.

I quickly gave a snappy comment that made sun butt look like the idiot she was for asking such a stupid question and I hadn't been thinking she was just about to smash my head in with her golden horseshoe armored feet. It’s sounded something like, “Uggggghhhhmmmgh.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” she said with a smile before her horn lit up and some of the feeling in my body returned. Unfortunately, most of that feeling was pain and several burning sensations.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation beyond ‘Twilight you friend is in danger and we need to go help her’,” Cadence said as the pain started to dissipate and I found it easier to breath.

I really wish these ponies would make up their minds about my gender. As long as they settled on male, I mean. Being thought of as a girl was really starting to get to me. At least Pinkie and the others had managed to get things right.

Celestia chuckled as she continued to look me over, going so far as to pick me up in her magic to turn me around and look at what passed for my mangled chest, where the Alicorn Amulet had once been. She didn’t bother hiding the look of…disgust at the wound. I didn't blame her. What passed for actual skin among changelings was not meant to be exposed to the air. It was more like a thin cover to keep our organs from spilling out.

“Well, considering how Luna reacted…I think it’s best to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth,” Celestia said as she continued to patch me up.

The moon shone bright on the crystal kingdom at night as I sat on the palace's largest balcony with the royalty of Equestria. Although to be honest, I was laying down on the ground as Celestia did her best to repair the extensive amount of damage that Mom had done to my body. Thanks to my breathing difficulties, the third explanation (or halfway bullshit story) I had given about why I was a changeling, yet not obsessed with draining the life out of ponies based on their emotional state had taken the entirety of the trip back to the city. The reactions to me finishing my tale were...mixed.

“I see you’ve learned to curb your lashing tongue this time around,” Celestia commented as I finished telling Twilight I was some inter-dimensional traveler.

“Hey, I put the blame for all that on the amulet,” I replied a little too defensively for my taste when it came to the princess. She had saved my life and all, but I still didn’t like her all that much. “And what is the deal with that thing, anyway? I would have thought some ancient artifact would have had more kick to it.”

Celestia looked at me for a moment before she sighed and shook her head. “I wouldn’t call that thing ancient, being only three hundred years old,” the princess told me before moving on with a quick explanation. “One of my former students who was risen to princess-hood crafted the artifact when she was approaching the end of her life. She had been hoping to give Equestria the means to protect itself because Luna was still gone, and I would have been left alone again. It gave a unicorn the power of an alicorn, but…well, they say power corrupts, and there is your proof.”

The explanation of the amulet’s origins made me frown. “Are you saying you let me run off and fight something that took down a love filled changeling queen, two alicorns and a unicorn of Shining Armor’s caliber with only the power of a single ascended alicorn?”

“You teleported away from Ponyville before I could say anything,” Celestia reminded me.

Before I could counter that with the point she was supposed to be some all-knowing god empress of pony-kind and should have predicted that, Twilight slammed her hooves on the ground. The action brought an end to our conversation, and all of our attention turned to the youngest princess. “AM I THE ONLY ONE JUST A LITTLE DISTURBED BY THE FACT THERE ARE MILLIONS OF THESE HUMAN CREATURES WATCHING EVERY MINUTE OF OUR LIVES?”

Wait, she doesn’t know what a human is? I asked myself. Although…I didn’t remember Twilight asking that ‘what am I’ question to any of the counterparts of her friends when she went through that mirror. So, her not knowing what a human was without the information to connect the word to her experience kind of made sense.

“Because such a thing is so unknown to princesses with our own subjects,” Cadence told her sarcastically with a smirk.

“We for one welcome the adulation and promise to live up to the title of Best Princess,” Luna commented while seeming to stand a little taller before she looked away to grumble. “Besides, considering all the plays that depict me as some foal-eating monster for the past thousand years, it’s good to see something is telling things like they are.”

“Please stop rubbing it in Luna, I know how you feel now, okay?” Celestia told her sister before turning to Twilight. “And Queen Fairy said they can only observe events of historical or personal importance. If anything, Fairy has been watching you more these past two weeks than he has before. Correct Fairy?”

Fuck you too Celestia, I thought as the sun princess used my new nickname so many times. But she had managed to calm Twilight down, so I didn’t actually say it out loud. “Yes Tia, if you were combine all the observation in the past year, I doubt it would total more than forty-eight hours. Not to mention there’s a hell of a lot missing, I didn’t even think you ponies had premarital sex before Twilight zapped me into her bedroom and-”

“OKAY MOVING ON!” Twilight shouted before shooting me an angry glare while her cheeks glowed red while Cadence frowned in confusion at me.

“Why would two ponies wait until marriage to express their deepest love for each other?”

I wisely shut my mouth, and looked over to the sisters. There was no way I was going to talk about sex for fun in front of Cadence, she might have actually killed me for it. “And what was the deal with dropping a meteorite on me?”

Luna smirked. “With so many observers, We had to make an entrance worthy of-”

Celestia cut her sister off. “My idea was to make Chrysalis drop her anti-teleportation field so she would escape the impact, then come down to rescue you before it hit. Shining Armor was left back in the city to protect it from the damage. I didn’t expect Chrysalis to simply…remove the threat the way she did. I am not some all knowing ruler that can see how everything will play out before it even begins,” she said with a smarmy smirk as she looked at me.

I had to wonder how long it took immortal beings to let something go. You make one little comment about how opinions of Celestia swig between all-knowing sun tyrant who puts her subjects in danger on a whim, or incompetent ruler who can’t take care of her own dirty laundry, and she goes on about it for the rest of time. “Why did you bother saving me at all anyway? The plan was for Tia and Lu-na,” I said, catching myself before I went with Lulu, “to get the ponies out, not…chase me down and…put yourselves at risk.”

That question confused the hell out of the alicorns. Even Celestia was unable to stop from scrunching up her face in puzzlement. “Why wouldn’t we?” she asked. “Chrysalis would have killed you otherwise.”

Right…ponies, I told myself. Apparently, letting all their troubles just disappear in a giant explosion caused by dropping a rock on me from orbit and letting the ensuing explosion wipe out a dangerous race of monsters wasn‘t in their playbook, but never abandoning even a sort-of ally was. I was never going to get use to their lack of cynicism. “And how come you’re not screaming my head off?” I asked Twilight. “I’m empathic, so I know you’re angry. I can feel it."

“Trust me, I’ll have plenty to say to you when your bones are healed,” Twilight grumbled before she looked down at the ground and let out a sigh. “Right now I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“But…I lied to you…about who I was, what I was, everything!” I replied.

Twilight took a deep breath, and I could practically feel the anger churning inside of her as she let it out. “Yes…and I am very upset with you about that,” she told me with gritted teeth. “But…” She paused and looked over to the other three alicorns. “Could we have some privacy?”

“Oh, there is no way I am missing your first fight with your colt-slash-fillyfriend Twilight,” Cadence told her with an almost childish glee.

Luna cleared her throat and looked away. “Apologies, but We believe that this historic event would detract from Our audience and wish to give them the best of shows,” the newly made reality TV star explained.

“Watched you from the very first day, remember?” Celestia reminded her with a small smile. “I really don’t see why you’d have a problem with it now.”

The three alicorns got a glare from Twilight in turn, then she spun around and headed inside the palace. “Never mind, I’m going to bed,” she said before looking back at me with a glare. “When you wake up tomorrow, expect one hay of a lecture.”

Celestia sighed as Twilight started to depart and called out to her in a slightly cheerier than usual tone. “If it helps, try to think of it like a play!”

“Or a magical biography!” Cadence suggested.

After the door slammed shut from Twilight’s magic, I looked over to Celestia. “Look, I know rescuing me wasn’t part of the deal…but…I’m not going back on what we agreed to.” With Twilight safe, I needed Celestia to uphold our deal or...well, to be honest, I would have to move back to the Badlands; red wastes where the changelings made their home at the moment. Even then, I'd have to scratch out a meager existence for the tribe, hunting buffalo and whatever other sapient creatures we could find other than ponies.

Celestia’s face was stoic once again when she looked back to me. The alicorn raised an eyebrow as she spoke. “Do you honestly believe that I shall break my vow? My actions may have been hidden from your view, but I thought there would have at least been enough talk about me to know I am a mare of my word,” she told me with a half- smile. “You shall be given stewardship of the Everfree Forest and its surrounding areas until Princess Twilight Sparkle is agrees to take on full royal responsibilities, even if that day should never come to pass.”

The last bit of words surprised me a little. That stipulation hadn’t been said outright when we had worked things out in Ponyville, but she had figured it out. Ruin all my fun why don’t you. I tried to give the pony an unnerving smile, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. “What, got me all figured out now, do you?”

“Please, I had you figured out ten minutes into our conversation in Ponyville,” Celestia told me before I was wrapped in her telekinesis again and brought down the hall behind her. “If anything, I have to wonder why changelings aren’t more like you…or ponies in general, I suppose.”

Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I figured I might as well answer her. “Well, after living as one for seven weeks, I can probably give you some insight on that one Tia,” I told her. “Changelings aren’t born evil or anything like that, but the second we fall asleep, the hive mind gives us several bit of information like: ponies are food, water is wet, fire is hot, changelings are better than everything else, and how to work stuff like magic as well as fly and perform certain other tasks to fake a talent when we need to later on in life, but it’s the absolute information that is always the first thing we need to know. The thing is, it’s presented as one-hundred-percent factual information, and without anything to contradict it like what I had, it becomes a changeling's philosophical truth.

“Then there’s other things that reinforce darker behaviors, like our empathic abilities. We kind of…smell the emotions of others, and they cause a sensation within us as well. Things like fear and pain actually give off a pleasant aroma, conditioning young changelings to cause such emotions in others and enjoy doing it. Then there’s our lifestyle. Food restrictions limit our numbers to several hibernating drones that don’t have the ability to speak and barely think for themselves, and around twenty-five-hundred changelings that can think and speak when they need to. But to insure that none of them grow too lazy and insure the hive remains strong, Chrysalis kept breeding changelings. Still a limited food supply means we had to limit numbers to ten-thousand, meaning every day was a fight for survival. Unless you could gain enough knowledge or strength to pull ahead of the herd, that is.” The commander type changelings that were able to get a lion’s share of food for awhile thanks to their intelligence and build up energy reserves had to work to keep their position a little less thanks to that fact.

Instead of being unnerved like I thought she’d be, Celestia wore a downcast expression. “It pains me to hear that you had to go through such an existence…and I’m even more sorry to be thankful for it,” she admitted after a moment. The goddess looked up and gave me a sympathetic smile. “I hate to think what would have happened if a real changeling princess would have come to Ponyville that day instead of you.”

For a minute I thought about telling her it probably would have ended with Twilight easily seeing through the creatures disguise and never come to this, but…what the hell did they have to know something like that for? I had no desire to tell Tia convincing the pegasi to practically rebel against the Empire was my idea.

I was also a little miffed about being called princess by something I couldn't just smack down. “…You know I’m a guy Tia,” I grumbled at the annoying alicorn without much in the way of anger behind it. Stupid overly gentle ponies and their fluffy natures. “The title is prince.”

Celestia let out a tiny laugh as we came into what I assumed was the guest bedroom I’d be staying in and put me in the bed. “Prince’s don’t lay eggs my dear Fairy,” she said with a smirk. “Good night my friend. Get some rest, I think Twilight will have quite the rant for you come sunrise.”

I should have went with her other nickname instead when we were back in Ponyville, I told myself before closing my eyes and entering the hive mind. After putting most of the changelings in the Crystal Empire into hibernation upon my return, I knew it was going to be one headache of a night.

I awoke a few minutes before sunrise the next morning to the sound of loud pacing outside my door. After it didn’t go away once five minutes had passed, and seemed to only grow more frantic, I made the mistake of calling out to whomever was in the hall to knock it off. Then Twilight stuck her head in my room and frowned at me.

She held her expression for a few seconds, then it became a little more neutral. “Sorry,” she told me. “But um…if you’re awake, can I talk to you now?”

Might as well get this over with, I told myself. “Okay, come on in.”

The alicorn walked into the room, then sat on her haunches. “I,” she paused and took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking and…I…well…how much do you know about me?”

I frowned. That…was not the way I had expected this to start. “Um…enough, I guess. Why?” I asked tentatively.

“Because I can’t form a proper conclusion without proper data,” the alicorn told me before a notepad floated out from where she had tucked it under her wing when I hadn't been able to see it. She had a quill too, and ink as well. “So…just tell me everything you’ve seen. Of me and my friends I mean.”

A second later, her eyes widened for a moment. “Not anything super personal! Unless…well, it’s me, that much I need to know, but…”

I couldn’t repress the tiny laugh, and my ribs made me regret it. Still, I was able to raise a hoof. “Okay, I get it Twilight. “Well, umm…everything…that’s going to take some time,” I mumbled. Still, I took a deep breath, and began. I told her about how it all started with the first episode, and went from there. Surprisingly, it didn’t take nearly as long as I figured it would, and what ate up the most time was having to answer Twilight’s questions about certain events I had no idea about, like the time she apparently turned the whole town upside down with one of her experiments, or something called a Summer Wrap-Up Festival.

Hell, an offhand comment about Nightmare Rarity from the purple princess had me gasping and demanding more details on that incident and the whole affair became a trade of information on what I knew and what I’d apparently missed. On the other hand, some of Twilight’s questions made me a little disturbed in how she thought I had been able to look into their minds or something. By the time it was over, I had realized the bronies had gotten jipped out of the cool adventures, and Twilight was looking...rather annoyed.

“So, me becoming a princess, the Smarty Pants incident, the Elements,” Twilight mumbled before she looked over to me with a frown. It wasn’t angry this time, but one I had seen on her plenty of times in the past week, the frown of a pony trying to figure something out.

As for me, I was sitting up in my bed, with my back resting against the headboard to prop me up, feeling more like a human than I had in a long time thanks to the similar position offered by the Lyra-style way of doing things.

The sun was already well into the sky despite it being only fifteen minutes past sunrise, a fact of Equestria I would never get used to, and I had spent every second explaining the basics of what I remembered from FiM.

When that was done, simply watched while Twilight had paced back and forth from my place in the bed while she finished going over an incident list she had brought with her, checking off various things. Although since she only made one check on a few pages, it was obvious what she considered important events didn’t correspond to everything I knew. The again, for all knew, her boring experiments counted as events, and no kid would ever watch something like that!

What disturbed me even more than my missing Ponyville events though, was her physical state. Twilight’s mane was frazzled, her eyes were a bit bloodshot, and her whole body had the jitters. It wasn’t quite Lesson Zero bad, but…I made a mental note to keep her away from any stuffed dolls for the next few hours.

Everything stressful in my room aside, the sight outside the window also had me a little edgy. With the return of the Crystal Heart and the freedom of the crystal ponies, the weather shield had been put back in place last night, banishing the winter weather and restoring the Crystal Empire’s permanent Spring. But, sometime when I was talking with Twilight, a purple energy dome had surrounded the city, and I couldn’t understand why.

Twilight had only taken one look out the window and gone ‘Oh yeah, that makes sense’ before going back to her notes for another ten minutes. When the alicorn finally stopped walking around and started trying to glare a hole in the notepad in front of her, I decided to risk setting myself in the cross-hairs. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”

“Wrong?" mildly perturbed. "You were supposed to know me as well as some of my friends, some of my deepest, darkest secrets! I spent the entire night awake, afraid you had a window into my soul or something! But no! You don’t know anything more than somepony who collected the Ponyville Gazette gossip column for the past year!”

I sighed and shook my head. “I told you, that’s not how it works,” I lied. Of course there was no way I was going to tell her the truth. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what that was anymore. “Only two…episodes had it where there was snow on the ground, and one of them involved Winter Wrap Up! So unless Equestria just shuts down for Winter, or the season only lasts five seconds, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of stuff you’ve done that that I’ve never seen.” Then there was the inconsistency of Fall Weather Friends coming AFTER Winter Wrap Up, but I wasn’t even going to try and sort that chronological problem out. My head would either explode, or I’d come to a dark conclusion that I didn’t like and go crazy.

The thoughts made me shake my head. After a week of being able to think clearly without thousands of voices whispering into my dreams, or encounters with what should have been fictional characters even in Equestria, I was really starting to give up on the whole ‘this is all a dream/delusion’ thing and just roll with it. After all, I had suffered way too much pain for this all to be some kind of hallucination the other night.

“Then if its not so bad, maybe you should get some sleep,” I suggested to the ragged mare.

Twilight went back to glaring at me. Having the purple princess mad at me hurt like crazy, but it was better than her freaking out about nothing. I knew how all this was going to end anyway. Still, knowing what was coming didn’t help me deal with it any better. The fact I knew I deserved it did though.

“Not until I figure this out!” Twilight shouted.

“What this?”

“US!”

I took in another breath, and swallowed my feelings. Thankfully, changeling’s couldn’t cry unless we were in pony form and had near perfect control of our voices. “Fine, let me help you,” I said, then kept going before she could tell me to stop. “I lied to you and your friends. I betrayed your trust when I didn’t warn you about Chrysalis. I was cruel and selfish when I accepted your kisses and affections, knowing that what we had couldn’t last…knowing a day would come when it would crush your happiness Twilight, and I still did it. I’m surprised you're even taking this long to make up your mind. Just dump me and get it over with. We both know you’re way too good for me.”

As I finished my quick rant, I sucked in breath, and let it out just as quickly. That hadn't been as painful as I thought it was going to be. But then, knowing something is coming always did help me prepare for it mentally. I was one of those kids in the doctors office that was better with seeing the needle.

The alicorn looked at me across the bed with unshed tears in her eyes. “I-Is that what you want?” she asked between breaths. I didn’t need to empathic senses to tell me she was in pain.

Anger bubbled inside of me. Why in the hell did she have to make this so hard? “It’s not about what I want, it’s about what you deserve!” I nearly shouted. When Twilight flinched like I had just smacked her, I looked away from the alicorn. “Sorry.”

It was almost three minutes before she spoke. “What I can’t understand is…why?”

I sighed and shook my downfallen head. “Twilight, I just said-”

“No! Why did you save me from Chrysalis!” she nearly shouted. “The pyramid, I understand. With your abilities, I doubt you were in any real danger…but…you almost died! You…the changelings had won! A few days in one of those cocoons, and you could have just-just mind controlled me however you wanted!”

That actually got me to look up at her, and a bit of anger gave me courage. “I’m a coward, not evil Twilight! I’d never do something like that to you or any…pony,” I mumbled, remembering my ponyism at the last second.

Her eyes widened for a minute, then she looked away a second before I could apologize. “Sorry.”

“No, I'm the one who should apologize,” Twilight replied. “I know you’d have never done something like that, it’s just…you started saying all those things, and it made me so angry. And…did you ever really love me?”

The question stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t because I didn’t know the answer. However much I might have wanted to deny it. It was because the answer was the wrong thing to tell her. But I couldn’t stop myself from saying it. I couldn't lie to her about this. “Yes,” I told her in a whisper…although it seemed Twilight heard it just find when she sucked in her breath and looked up at me with hopeful eyes.

Before Twilight could say or even think something that could potentially wreck her life, I kept going. “But sometimes love isn’t enough!”

Then, one of those damn alicorn’s decided to come trotting in with a tray of food with an assortment of strange crystal vegetables and fruits floating behind her left side. There was also a giant heart made out of crystal that matched her tramp stamp on her right. Cadence took one look around and shook her head before putting the try of food down on a table next to Twilight, before turning to glare at me. “Are all hugh-manes as stupid as you?” she asked with a frown.

I frowned and opened my mouth to try and correct her, but Twilight spoke first. “Cadence? What’re you doing here?” she asked, a look of complete befuddlement written across her face.

The pink alicorn sighed and shook her head. “When you didn’t come for breakfast, I thought you might be in your room…thinking about things,” she said in a way even I could tell thanking was a stand-in for ’freaking out’ before looking over to me with a frown. “Although to be honest, I’m not sure this is much better.”

“Maybe you should mind your own business,” I mumbled. I hated it when people got involved with my social life. What was it with married people and them trying to make everyone as miserable as they were anyway?

The strength of the glare Cadence gave me wondered if she could use the Stare, and I found myself gulping as the ferocious pink Alicorn of Love nearly got nose to nose with me. “Love is my business!” she said before throwing out a hoof towards Twilight. “My family is my business!” Then she practically threw the crystal heart to the space it came to rest above my bed after saying, “and love is always enough! It is the most powerful force in Equestria! With it you can overcome anything! Hay! You’re a changeling! Love is quite literally all you need!”

Despite the terrifying look the pretty pink pony princess was giving me, I could only stare at her dumbfound. Those words… Those stupid, inane…silly words… I couldn’t help but crack a smile.

Then came a chuckle.

“Heh.”

And another.

Hehe…”

And yet another before it erupted into a small bout of laughter. While Twilight and Cadence just tilted their heads and stared at me like I had gone crazy.

“Hehehe hahaha-oah ow!”

…and of course the pain that followed put the worry back on Twilight’s face. “Flash!”

I groaned in emotional agony. “Twilight…you know that’s not my name,” I mumbled while Cadence’s horn lit up in what I could feel to be some kind of probing spell.

The purple alicorn cleared her throat and looked away. “Sorry,” she said. “Although it’s pretty obvious you hate your real one.”

“Yeah, but it technically fits,” I grumbled, getting odd looks from both the ponies. Looks like it was time for another 15% BS explanation. “Changelings do fit the definition of what a fairy is…if one of the nastier versions of them. Where I come from, they’re thought of monster that shows up and take the place of a foal for various reasons. Although I suppose Equestrian changelings could also be considered a parallel to a modern succubus, another type of fae that can take the form of another creature and feeds off the life force of those close to whomever it replaced.”

Cadence let out a ‘humph’. “If creatures like changelings are so common where you come from, no wonder you left,” she mumbled. “And just what was with that laughter earlier?”

I had to repress another chuckle. “Sorry, it’s just…that love stuff you’re spouting it…well it sounds unbelievably corny,” I apologized. “I think if you kept going I think you’d have kept going with lines like ‘you can never defeat the power of love’ and ‘love is the most powerful force in the universe’ or…well, okay that’s all I got.” Cadence had already used the love is all you need line and I couldn't think of any others off the top of my head.

Apparently the Alicorn of Love didn’t like me saying such things about her little deific portfolio, because her friendly curiosity turned right back into scorn. “That’s because you can’t, and it is,” she said before her expression softened into one filled with pity after she frowned at me for a good ten seconds. “But you really don’t believe that, don’t you? How could you not possibly believe something like that?”

Cadence stared at me with wide eyes and her mouth slightly, slowly turning her head without taking her eyes off me, as if I were some kind of horrible car accident or something that she couldn’t look at directly. Then, she looked over to Twilight, who had been struck silent since I talked about fairy lore. To be honest, I half-expected the purple alicorn to start asking about other realms or something, meaning I’d have to be lying through my teeth for the next ten years just to get out all the myths and legends I knew in order to satisfy her. But, she just stood there was a strange look in her eyes. If anything, I would have had to of called it…empty.

“Okay then, why not?”

I blinked and looked back to Cadence. “What?”

“If you love my little sister, then tell me, why do you think my can’t be together with her?” Cadence demanded.

The alicorn’s glare held me stiff, and a found myself answering after I let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding. “Okay…for starters, she’s a pony, and I’m a changeling. Even though we have an emotional connection, we’re physically incompatible. Even if I made myself look like a normal pony, we couldn’t have children. I mean, foals. We can smile at each other all we want but she can’t build a family-”

“A-Actually,” Twilight spoke up, cutting me off, “Alicorns are sterile. I couldn’t have foals with anypony if I wanted to.”

Her words floored me, and I could only think to myself for a second before Cadence kept going. Twilight and Cadence can’t have kids? But what about their family line?

“You can adopt, next problem!”

I gulped. “Umm…I…like I said, as things are, we’re physically incompatible…I mean, I could…use my mouth to…you know…have sex with her that way…but…”

“You’re a shape shifter!” Cadence exclaimed as her frowned deepened and she somehow seemed to tower over me without even moving. “Meaning that Twilight can have sex with any stallion or mare she wants! You didn’t seem to have a problem with it when you were bucking her three times a day in the body of a pegasus on our way to the Crystal Empire! Next problem!”

Part of me winced at the ‘or mare’ part of Cadence’s…solution. I hated to think about it, admit it, or even halfway consider the possibility but…I was just a little…tiny bit curious to know to know what it would have been like as a girl. With another girl! Just once! OUT OF CURIOSITY!

I had been living with Twilight after all…for Science!..and all that other crap.

That was the only reason.

As my mind settled back onto the moment, I tried to think of something else to apprise the angry alicorn, or make the purple one see sense. But…I just couldn’t think of anything.

So I did the cowardly thing and put it all on Twilight’s shoulders. “And when it really comes down to it,” I said before taking in a breath. “I know Twilight would be happier without me.”

“No…I wouldn’t,” she said, making me look up at the mare, “I…I’ve had so long to think about it and…these past few days…well, the ones where I haven’t been captured by a changeling queen, fighting for my life, or thinking you were dead…I was happy. And if you honestly think I’d be better off without you…then you have got to be the stupidest pony in all of Equestria!”

The pink alicorn let out a sigh and shook her head. “All I came here was to give you breakfast,” she mumbled before offering me the heart. “Here, its been partly filled, but just take as much as you need to get back on your hooves. I need to get it back to its proper place before Shining runs out of energy. Crystal crops can survive the cold well enough, but not if the temperature keeps shifting back and forth in the blink of an eye."

Guess that explains the force field, I thought to myself as I looked out the window at the purple dome of energy covering the empire and keeping out the cold.

With a sigh, I leaned forward and drew on the magic of the Crystal Heart. It wasn’t the best love I had tasted, but the energy that came along with it did go a long way to restoring my power. After reaching about 20% of what I’d had in my first confrontation with Chrysalis, I drew myself back. Too much love would have put me in a stupor, and I still needed to talk to Twilight.

Cadence trotted towards the door and took one last look at us before leaving. “I do not know how things work where you come from, but here, we do not run from our hearts desire because of foolish notions of guilt. Just like you decide who is worthy of your heart, Twilight is the one who decides who is worthy of hers.”

And with that, she left.

And also left me wondering just how long she had been standing outside my door. Damn snoopy alicorns.

But I couldn’t deny that she had a point, a ton of points in fact. Still…well… The thought of being together with Twilight after all I had done… It just didn’t sit well with me. The guilt ate at my stomach. Just hearing it from a pink pony of love was one thing, accepting it was another. “Twilight…”

“I want to stay with you.”

The statement made me look up at her with wide eyes.

“Now, what do you want to do?” she asked with a steady gaze.

I took in a deep breath, and swallowed. I did, but… But what?

The guilt of what I had done was still with me, but… “Why don’t you hate me for what I did?” I asked in a whisper.

“If you really have to ask me that, then I’m wondering how much attention you paid to me the past year,” she told me before walking up and smiling at me. “Now, your turn to answer a question. Do you want to stay together?”

I took in another deep breath and gulped down the saliva forming in my throat. Did I want to stay with Twilight? Was that the cause of my reluctance? I reminded myself that first and foremost, I was a Rainbow Dash fan, but… For some reason, I just couldn’t picture myself breaking Twilight’s heart…or getting into a relationship with…well… any other mare for that matter.

Half a dozen mental images of attempted romances faded from my mind, and I rolled my eyes at my thoughts. How long ago was it that I had been telling myself that I wouldn’t be getting together with a pony? A week?

Well, I suppose my thoughts still ran along those lines. I certainly didn’t think any of them were super hot, or sexy or anything, but…

I shook my head to help clear my thoughts, then looked back over to Twilight and smiled. “Yes,” I told her with a smile. “I do want to be with you Twilight.”

The mare smiled back then propped herself up on the bed and leaned in for a kiss. Two seconds after our lips met, Twilight’s eyes widened and she pulled away, spitting as if she had tasted pure ass. “Belch! Yeah…okay, we really need to find you a pony to copy. No wonder Rainbow hated it when you kissed her. Ugh!”

I let out a groan and sunk low into the bed. “Gee thanks for the ego boost Twilight,” I grumbled.

After a good thirty seconds of spitting the taste of me out of her mouth, the alicorn looked back up with a raised eyebrow. “By the way…just what is a human?”

"Well...you remember how Sunset Shimmer looked on the other side of the mirror?"

Neither of us got much rest after that.

So it's been three days since the princesses left the Crystal Empire, and things have gone back to normal across Equestria as Cadence was able to start broadcasting love in the Crystal Empire. The whole Pegasus Union ended up dismantling itself with the exception of its Canterlot branch, which I had nothing to do with. But that turned out to be a good thing in the end, as Celestia actually found herself agreeing with their position and hiring five pegasi to handle the weather above the capital. Apparently, the only places that get ton of flying ponies are farming communities that actually need the rain…go figure.

As for the changeling infiltrators, I had them reveal themselves and release their hostages. Ironically, the Celestia decided to keep the changeling adviser. He had been more agreeable than her old one, and it allowed the two of us a semi-direct connection in case of emergencies. The rest of the nobility that we had replaced made a fuss for a few days, but were mostly ignored over the cheers of Celestia defeating the changeling menace.

Officially, the changelings surrendered to Equestrian rule in an agreement between me and Celestia in which I agreed to have the Badlands where the Changelings currently held sway to be annexed back into Equestria in return for land and a title of nobility, making me the Lady Regent of the Everfree Forest and Steward of the territory until Princess Twilight Sparkle decides to take the throne. I’m not holding my breath.

As for the rest of the Mane Six aka the Element Bearers, I managed to get back into their lukewarm graces after a groveling apology that had most of them rolling their eyes before accepting it with an favor or two thrown in. Rainbow Dash took a little extra work but…well, let’s just say if there’s trouble in town between the months of August and September, then don’t ask the pony with the rainbow mane who’s out bucking clouds. The real hero's probably off napping.

Although I’ve taken ownership of the Everfree, I probably wont be moving there for a month. At least, that’s how long Twilight said it will take for some fifteen hundred changelings to repair the castle thanks in part to magic, so I’m crashing at the library. We’re also adding on space to my new home in the forest to make room for the some eight thousand other changelings that need to go back into hibernation, but until then they’re staying at the old hive. As per our separate deal, Zecora has nearly a dozen changelings to fetch herbs for her and accompany the zebra on her trips through the woods, and a good five hundred bugs guard the mirror pool where our food is manufactured.

Thankfully, we managed to get rid of the Twilight Guard. Apparently, failing to do their job before it even started and letting an enemy get close to the princess for two weeks didn’t look good on the whole job performance record. Of course there was also the fact that its entire creation was due to changeling manipulation, but Tia is wanting to sweep that little fact that I controlled her kingdom from the shadows if only for an instant under the rug.

But, maybe I’m being a bit too hard on old Tia. She did point Twilight out to a spell to solve a little problem we’ve been having. Although I could change into a pony to sleep with her…I just don’t feel it would be right. And physical interaction with a creature who has an exoskeleton is hardly comfortable on any level. Plus, going around in my natural form is apparently scaring the tourists away; something that had been on the rise since Twilight got wings. So, Celestia mentioned an old spell she remembered from her time in the castle, and even helped us find it. Apparently changelings aren’t the only ones to know something about changing species.

“Fae, are you done yet?”

Twilight calling out my nickname that I was able to compromise with Pinkie into accepting (as I'd never be going by Fairy) to make up for just ditching her in Ponyville when I went to the Crystal Empire made me look up from the over-sized diary and over to the two alicorns standing in the center of the library.

I put down the quill and walked over to the center of the room while Celestia finished reading through the book. I found it strange that she needed to actually read through the spell, but when you’re older than dirt… I shook my head to kill that line of thought.

Celestia really wasn’t all that bad, or bad at all really. Sure she let stuff happen to a few of her subjects, but no pony was perfect. And, if the supreme sun goddess took care of everypony’s problems, how would anyone grow?

After all, though overcoming adversity does one grow stronger. It’s not an easy road, or a pleasant one, and beginning the journey down it is one of the most terrifying things a person can do since we all know change is both hard and involves risks. Some people want to take a simpler path, and that's fine too, but it's also limited. But if one chooses that harder path and perseveres, the rewards are limited only by your desires.

Hmmm, I should write that one down, I thought to myself before glancing at the diary for a moment, then shrugging it off. I could take care if it in a minute.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

I popped my neck and checked everything, but nothing was out of order. Although… “Okay one question,” I began. “If this spell changes species, then…couldn’t we theoretically use it to say…turn the other girls into alicorns?”

A frown crossed Twilight’s face. “Why would they want that?”

“You mean aside from the godlike power and guaranteed safety of Equestria?” I asked in a deadpan tone.

Celestia chuckled. “The change is purely physical,” she explained after a moment. “Your magic and…other needs won’t be affected, just your looks. Although, I suppose any increase in mass might offer additional physical strength, adding wings and horns to the others wouldn’t actually give them the related magic.”

“Okay fine,” I mumbled. Just don’t come crying to me when all the girls are old and gray and Twilight’s getting pissed at you making her outlive them. Well, if she’s immortal anyway…I really do need to find out about that.

“Twilight, if you would,” Celestia nodded, gesturing for the younger alicorn to stand next to me with her horn. As soon as the purple princess was in position, Celestia’s horn lit up and zapped Twilight. She was covered in a sphere of bright light, then the light came to envelop me as well.

The next thing I experienced was a wave of vertigo, and then the feeling of my insect wings turned to feathers. A second later, I regained my balance and looked over to Twilight. I felt something a little…odd, but shrugged it off as strange but new transformation magic.

Unfortunately, when the spell washed over me and I experienced it, my natural understand of shape shifting magic told me Celestia was correct. So there wouldn't be an alicorn mane six anytime soon. Still, the spell was a little interesting and I made a mental note to learn it myself some time in the future in case I would need it for something.

“Uh…Fae?” Twilight asked.

I looked over to the alicorn and frowned at her expression. She looked…afraid was to strong a word…Twilight’s wide eyes and somewhat toothy smile gave her more of a nervous air, which agreed with her scent.

“Wait, I didn’t turn on my empathic abilities,” I reached up and felt my throat. “What the…is that my voice?” It was…kind of…deep, and…naturally sultry? A very cold shiver ran across my spine. “Twilight? Why do I sound sexy?”

A second later, Twilight conjured a mirror for me, and I was looking at myself. I was indeed the spitting image of an alicorn, with a long spiral horn, thicker than normal wings, and a light blackish-brown coat. However, my hair and eye color remained unchanged. Then I noticed the oddities of the physical nature. While my natural changeling form was on par with Twilight’s height, I did have a few inches on her. As I looked at her now, we were of perfectly equal height. On top of that, a few inches wasn’t the only thing I was missing…I didn't even need to look to feel a lack of certain equipment.

I looked at the princess responsible for my predicament and practically growled. “Tia…why am I a mare?” I asked through gritted teeth.

Celestia cleared her throat and looked out the window. “Oh look at the time, the sun’s not going to set itself! I’ll just leave this here with you to see if you can get the kinks worked out. Bye!” she said before vanishing in a flash of light.

Before even another second passed, I felt Twilight nuzzle my neck, and looked over to see the alicorn giving me the most terrifying look I’d ever received from her: a sensual one. I gulped. Right…how long has it been since we’ve…oh boy… “You know, it’s not so bad being a mare,” she told me. “In fact, now I can even give exemplars of proper…techniques.”

The images that brought to mind made my whole body shudder but, as it also counted as lesbian intercourse so…I unfortunately discovered that wingboners did indeed exist thanks to the confused sex drive that I currently possessed.

“Uh…one second Twi,” I apologized before snatching the shared diary.

Okay so, the moral of my story?

NEVER TRUST TROLLESTIA!

I looked over to the summoned mirror one last time, and sighed at the alicorn that kind of resembled Chrysalis who stared back. This better be fixable, I told myself. I could use my own magic to undo the transformation any time of course, but...I really wanted a male alicorn body so I could one day reclaim my man card that had been burnt to a crisp just now by Celestia.

“Oh student, class is in session and the teacher is waiting,” Twilight called out to me from the bedroom.

Then I learned that a pony’s dejected whines sounded like a whinny, and called out to the princess. "Yeah, okay I'm coming, but you are NOT showing me how it's done!"

Epilogue

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Epilogue

Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Magic or Friendship…she really wasn’t quite sure what as Celestia had yet to appoint her to either an arch-magus role or make her head ambassador of Equestria, sat in her beloved library. At the moment, she was alone in her bedroom partaking of her most enjoyable activity that could be done by herself as her fillyfriend’s 'clopping' ideas usually entitled more pain than pleasure, what with hooves not really being made for that sort of stuff. In other words, she was reading.

Unfortunately, before she could get more than three chapters into it, a knock at the door drew her attention and pulled her out of the newest edition of Daring Do that Dash had lent her.

Surprising herself, Twilight found that she was somewhat glad for the interruption. She knew from personal experience that the story was going to get a little dark in the middle. So the alicorn put the public record of her adventure in The Valley of the Sun back on her desk with a bookmark inside to tell her where she left off. When the book did come to Flash Sentry’s death, Twilight made a mental note to have Fae and Dash there to.... Oh my gosh, that would be perfect! We could each read our parts like we were acting it out or something!

A little giddy over the idea, Twilight forgot about the visitor waiting for her at the moment. Her eyes fell on the picture behind her book. In it, the Twilight was trying to pose neatly for the photographer while the dark pseudo-alicorn sported a mischievous grin and had her forelegs wrapped around Twilight’s neck in a hug she had leapt into at the last second when the camera flashed.

The real alicorn found herself smiling at the picture, or more precisely, the memories that it brought up. In the past month that Fae had lived in Ponyville, she had apparently ended what Twilight could only be called an introverted period that classified her actions as Flash Sentry, just following others around. Instead, she was now actively trying to make friends with nearly every pony in town she could find.

At least in the case of the mares that is. Thanks to the complications involving the mixing of two different transformation magic, the poor girl found it next to impossible for stallions to be around her for any long length of time. Fae explained in vague terms regarding some kind of chemical she was unconsciously giving off that Twilight only understood to mean even scent was incredibly arousing to stallions on a subconscious level. It didn't help that a royal decree from Celestia stated that in order to avoid a panic, all changelings had to be in disguise while in pony population centers.

Fae had been having to deal with a lot of attention from stallions since then, all of it extremely unwanted.

A series of much harder knocks reminded Twilight there was somepony waiting on her, and she hurried over to the door and out into the main room of the town’s small library. “Sorry, I was just taking care of-Mayor Mare?” she asked, her half hearted excuse ending at the unexpected visitor. “Is something wrong?”

The elected representative of Ponyville lowered her hoof before she could knock at a door that was no longer there. “Princess Twilight!” she exclaimed. “Ummm, I’m afraid I need to voice some concerns that the citizens of Ponyville have had over past the few weeks.”

Twilight blinked in surprise both at the mayor’s presence, and her request. Ever since Fae had taken up the title of regent, she had handled all of the mayor’s complaints and done a fair job as far as the alicorn could tell. If anything, Ponyville had even grown a bit more prosperous over the past month thanks to a few ideas the transfigured human had in regards to how things should be run.

“Shouldn’t you be seeing my representative about this?” Twilight asked. It was what the position was for after all. The alicorn knew she would need a few more years of studying politics and about half a dozen other subjects before she would be ready to rule even a tiny kingdom.

A nervous cough came from the earth pony and she looked back at the empty library for a few moments before turning her attention back to Twilight. “Well, that’s just it Princess, the complaints are about your representative and some of her recent…projects.”

And so you waited until Celestia called her away to Canterlot, Twilight reasoned before she shook her head. “Okay, come in and sit down. I’ll hear any grievances you have of course.”

After heading out into the main room of the library, Twilight hung a closed sign on the door and locked it before grabbing a pair of chairs from the corner with her magic and setting them on opposite ends of the library’s central desk. Once she had cleared a space on it so the two mares could look at each other without the clutter in the way, the princess took a seat and motioned for the mayor to do the same. “So what seems to be the problem?” Twilight asked nicely.

“Well, let me just start out by saying that your…friend has done a fine job in making the Everfree Forest a less threatening place,” she began. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this Princess, but before you moved here, nopony ever went into those woods and came out again! And while I doubt anypony besides your friends and their sisters is…brave enough to venture into those woods, I do sleep better at night knowing a pack of hungry timber wolves isn’t going to come roaming into town.”

Twilight nodded at the mare’s words. Fae hadn’t actually tamed the forest or anything, but after she moved her creatures into the newly rebuilt castle, she had carved out a territory for the changelings that included a good chunk of the Ponyville sector of the Everfree as well as the castle itself. Even the green dragon that had nearly hurt Spike had been dealt with. Although…Twilight was very disturbed that the creature’s head now adorned the wall above the changeling’s throne. That had taken the princess a good week to get over, and a promise from her fillyfriend to never do something like take another creature’s life again.

The old changeling queen's death at her hooves had been a combination of self-defense, and protecting Equestrian royalty. But the slaying of the dragon had been...well, Fae’s exact words on the subject had been, “Swag for one thing, but when it came down to it, I just wanted to slay a dragon.” Of course it had also been the biggest monster in the forest and killing it showed all the other creatures not to mess with the changelings, cutting down on the future number of conflicts, which was probably her real reason, but Twilight still didn’t feel right about it.

A few seconds passed, and Twilight motioned for the mayor to continue. “I sense a but coming,” she said.

“Yes well, these are simply the complaints that have come my way you understand,” she quickly said. “Now, one of our more…aspirational citizens has brought his concerns to my office about some of the recent changes that your regent might be affecting Ponyville commerce in a negative way.”

Twilight frowned at the mare. She hadn’t heard any such news, or seen anything of the sort either. “What do you mean? Fae hasn’t made any decrees concerning the commerce except for cutting down on the number of forms needed to acquire a business license for operating in the town limits.”

“No, this is about her involvement with the Apple family…um…”

The frown on Twilight’s face cut the mayor off. “And I take it the citizen who’s had a problem with this is Filthy Rich?” she grumbled. After seeing the mayor nod, Twilight leaned back and groaned. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told him, the Apple family is receiving no assistance from the crown, and is simply taking advantage of the new distribution system offered by Legion Incorporated to sell their product direct to the consumer.”

It was quite an interesting idea, Twilight mused. Although the vast majority of changelings, even the talking ones, weren’t fit to be among ponies long-term, the 1% that were could serve a variety of functions: instant transmission of messages, certain…physical diversions, or even do things like personal airmail hoof delivery. The Apples used a combination of the first and last to sell cider to the bigger cities at a much higher profit than they were used to in Ponyville thanks to…well, Fae called it mail order, but the process involved the changeling’s communicating via the hive-mind, so Twilight supposed it was more like mind order. Since those messages went much faster than the normal lines of communication, food and cider could easily be delivered by pegasi or changeling before it went bad. In payment, Applejack spent a few hours a week volunteering the use of her template at the mirror pool because her levels of mystical energy were higher than most ponies and changelings needed a constant supply of clones for food. Some days the mare came home also looking like Granny Smith from all the pruning.

The changeling queen had also tried to talk the Apple family into buying the rights to Flim and Flam’s old cider machine and offered her minion's pseudo-unicorn magic to power it to help with the growing backlog of orders, but that idea had fallen on deaf ears. The Apples were traditionalists after all.

“I know he’s losing money, as the Apple family is his number one supplier, but the changelings can just offer a better deal,” Twilight continued. “And before you ask, even Princess Celestia is finding this situation not only within the law, but agreeable to her as well. Is there anything else?”

The mayor just sighed, and nodded her head. “Some of the parents in our community have expressed…concerns about Red Lantern Grove in the Everfree Forest,” she went on. “Do you know-”

“I know what goes on in the tree houses within that area of the Everfree,” Twilight deadpanned as the mayor brought up that section of the forest located near the castle. “All ponies who get involved with the changelings there are consenting adults at least twenty years of age, and the area is nowhere near Ponyville, so foals cannot just stumble across it. Also, Fae has ordered that M&R, as well as rape fantasies are not allowed to be performed and anypony suggesting them are cast out as well as set to be monitored by the authorities.”

After hearing that, the mayor frowned. “Well, I for one don’t see the problem with Mount and Rider as long as the pony wearing the halter and saddle is willing, but…what’s rape?” She tripped over the odd word, as if it wasn’t made for pony mouths.

Twilight could only shrug. “No idea.” When she had asked Fae that same question, the changeling had just stared at her for a good minute, laughed, and said ponies in that way Twilight understood meant there was some huge discrepancy between their culture the alicorn was better off not knowing about. “But whatever it is, it’s not allowed.”

“Well then…I suppose Club 63 is also something I can’t get you to intervene on?” she asked.

That time, Twilight had to force herself to keep an eye from twitching as she figured out why that little place got its own special mention. The aforementioned brothel was in Red Lantern Grove, but…instead of copying the form of a stallion or mare, the changelings there changed into the opposite gender of whomever they were trying to copy. The place was a bit of an embarrassment to Twilight, as all the changelings in it were failed attempts to give her fillyfriend’s disguise the gender she wanted it to be. “Two consenting adults, not really any of our business,” she repeated in verbal short-hoof.

Of course, out of curiosity Twilight had gotten one of the changelings working there to show her how Prince Twilight would have looked and…male alicorns looked to be extremely…virile. Or Shiny and Dad are just bad examples of our family’s physical traits.

When another problem didn’t get presented. Twilight spoke to the mayor. “Is that everything ma’am?”

“What?” the mare asked as she jumped out of whatever daydream she was having. “Oh um…yes, I suppose so. Thank you for your time Princess Twilight.”

As the mare got up to leave, Twilight raised a hoof to stop her. “Mayor, would you please tell the ponies who brought up these concerns, well…except Filthy Rich,” Twilight added after a moment. When she really thought about it, Twilight suspected Fae had gotten the Apple family involved with selling cider long-distance because Diamond Tiara had called her a blank flank during her first week as a fake alicorn, when the CMC dragged her out to go play…and try to get her to join their little group.

It had worked of course. Twilight had learned her fillyfriend's iron will crumpled like paper whenever a mare or foal gave her a watery-eyed look.

“Tell them that while there are some changes going on, it’s nothing to be concerned about. After all, remember the big fuss everypony in town raised when I became an alicorn? All everypony needed was some time to adjust to the change, and everything has worked out just fine.”

Although the EUP had been in existence since Luna became Nightmare Moon, when Canterlot had last come under siege by non-metamorphic creatures, the Equestrian military had been unable to hold off the assault even with the help of the princess. It had only been when the citizenry of the city joined in its defense, lending their magic to Celestia and helping her push back their attackers was the capital was saved. So that day, Celestia ordered a special school be built within Canterlot that would both bear her name and have the goddess’s direct involvement in its running. Unlike the others schools that existed out of a necessity to teach unicorns how to use their magic, the sole purpose of this school lay in teaching unicorns how to help protect Equestria from whatever should come to threaten it.

Of course the pegasi who were involved in the defense just got a pat on the head and were told to apply to some stupid stunt team that only had about six or nine members for their role in saving Equestrian society...or something. Why should they have gotten recognized for anything? It wasn’t like the pigeon ponies ever did anything important anyway.

As for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, it truly deserved its reputation for being the premiere magic school in Equestria. Although there were a few academies also taught magical studies in Manehattan and Baltimare, those institutions also included earth ponies and pegasi among their ranks and thus had to diversify. Celestia’s school was able to pull ahead because it specialized…and offered a better salary, as well as the chance to cozy up to a student that might one day become divinity.

Within those halls on a late summer’s day, the leaders of the two most powerful races in Equestria conversed about matters few ponies could even comprehend. So important was their discussion, that the entire school had been emptied out months in advance under the pretext of something called graduation.

As for what this conversation entailed…

“So your human name was Clear Field?” Celestia asked as she walked alongside the short changeling queen in her pony disguise as they moved through the school’s hallway.

Fae rolled her eyes at the question. “No it meant clear field…I can’t actually pronounce it without the proper vocal cords,” she said before shaking her head. “It’s weird, we have the same alphabet…or a variation of it anyway, you have no idea how much time I spent brushing up on my cursive when I came here, but the spoken word sounds so different even though it all means the same. Hell, you can even understand when I use a damn stand-in human word and shit sometimes, even though its all Equish...or whatever.”

Beside the shorter alicorn, the sun goddess rolled her eyes at the nonsensical words her counterpart spoke. “Indeed.”

The two of them walked into Celestia’s office, and she took her place behind the desk while Fae continued to stand in front of it. Sitting on her haunches never did feel that relaxing. “So, what did you want me here for anyway?”

After flashing the guarded queen one of her gentle, disarming smiled, Celestia began the conversation. “Yes, about that. Twilight says you used be a teacher of history.”

“Calling it history is a misnomer,” Fae replied with a frown. “History implies I just told a bunch of foals what happened in the past. What I taught was a study of society, giving the historical information in the olden as well as current context, why things happened, and the implications of those actions. I also gave lessons on governmental structures and economic models while providing basic psychology lessons.”

Celestia couldn’t help but giggle. “My, that seemed…rehearsed.”

Finally, the pseudo-alicorn cracked a tiny smirk. “It was, I’ve been to plenty of job interviews,” she said before her face turned back to its seriousness. “But if Twilight talked you into some sort of inter-dimensional studies program or something so she could fulfill her teacher fetish-uh, I probably shouldn‘t have mentioned that last part.”

“I assure you, that’s not why you’re here,” the alicorn told her while holding up a hoof to stop any further words on the changeling‘s part for the moment. Twilight had sent several letters of correspondence on the subject, but Celestia had thought it better to conceal the truth about such things from her little ponies. Luna’s short-lived but harmless insanity was proof it was better left unknown. “Well, to teach that particular subject I mean. I do have a new optional class I would like for you to instruct. If you accept, it wouldn’t be more than one day a week and the class is only available to the senior students with high enough marks.”

Fae raised one of her eyebrows at the baiting explanation. “Don’t tell me you want me to try and teach the changeling magic,” she mumbled. “There’s a reason its called dark magic, it’s all fueled by anger and a desire to hurt stuff. If it wasn’t for having some time to buck stuff in the Everfree…and me being a girl that turns heads when I go out in public, I’d probably make Rarity look like an alicorn when it comes to my magical power.”

“How is that working out for you anyway? The gender swap I mean. I know mixing magic could have had unforeseen side effects, but I would have thought Twilight had discovered a solution by now.”

The changeling rolled her eyes. “I can’t turn off my empathy or my pheromone production, how do you think I feel?” she grumbled. That was all Celestia was getting about the subject too, even in the case of Twilight’s progress for a gender swapping spell that was controllable.

“And no, I don’t think teaching black magic to any unicorn is a good idea,” Celestia assured her. “But allowing them to experience it is. I want you to give them a taste of it? No….well, I guess the better way to say this is I want you to show them how to prepare for it so they might one day be able to defend Equestria against such magic if need be. Although I suspect many of your students will be military hopefuls, all ponies with the correct credentials shall be offered the chance to enroll.”

After a moment of summarizing what she had just heard, Fae’s expression became one of hesitation. “So…what you’re saying is…you want me to be The School for Gifted Unicorns newest teacher in…Oh sweet Celestia,” she groaned before letting her head drop.

*THUMP*

“…Fairy, are you alright?” she asked as the changeling queen slammed her head into the desk between them…repeatedly.

“…yes,” Fae mumbled when she came to a stop, her horn stuck in the thick wood of the small table.

After a moment, Celestia picked the changeling out of the desk with her magic, and mended the wood that had been damaged by Fae‘s horn. “If you don’t want the job, I could always…”

The changeling queen didn‘t let Celestia finish. “If it’s not this, then it’s going to be something else, so…I might as well know what’s coming,” she said with a long sigh. “But I’m demanding complete health coverage before I sign anything. Oh, and I want a huge life insurance policy too." The odds were, she would be dead inside a year so it was best to get her bases covered while she could.

After all, Fae knew what happened to magic users who got signed up to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.

My Secret Life as an Evil Insect Overlord

by LordBrony2040

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue