Why Twilight? Why Couldn't You Leave Well Enough Alone?!?
Max stared at the notice that had been stuck to his window by a swiftly retreating Rainbow Dash. Today was apparently the day that Twilight had decided upon to go ahead with her experiment. Giving a light chuckle, the changeling donned one of his favorite disguises, a white-maned, grey haired pegasus with three playing-card jacks for a cutie-mark. The joke still wasn't caught by Twilight and her friends and until at least one of them caught on he'd keep his gag-mark. Taking a coin out of a drawer and licking it, he tossed the coin back onto the desk before darting out the window and spreading his wings. Sometimes it just paid to be able to fly.
While the note said to head straight to the library, Max knew he had a few minutes to kill before Twilight would get too upset. Instead he went over to Sugarcube Corner, landing a few feet away from the door so as not to cut any ground pounders making their way to the door. Walking in, he stared solemnly at the pink mare across from him. Placing a hoof on the offered bag of treats, an order of special cookies he and the party pony had created that substituted changeling honey for actual honey, Max leaned closer.
"The time is near. Loki has been signaled and she is none the wiser. Are you prepared to do your part?"
"The White Mage is on standby. I'll notify her as soon as you leave," was Pinkie's equally serious response, though her mouth twitched into a grin momentarily.
The disguised changeling quirked an eyebrow at her before speaking again.
"You're giving yourself away. Loki would be disappointed if he were to hear about this."
Looking about to make certain no one was looking, Pinkie bagged four more chocolate chip cookies and pushed them forward.
"It never happened."
"Miss Pie, are you attempting to bribe me?"
Pinkie gave an indignant gasp.
"Bribe! Such a filthy word. I prefer persuade with gifts...they're for Twilight and Spike anyway."
The two broke into laughter and the changeling took the bag, leaving the payment on the counter as he darted back outside on his way to the large crystal tree just on the edge of town. The stallion was a bit upset at the loss of the library, as it was always something interesting to see (that and as a public location it was easy to slip in and out without being watched). Landing a few steps away from the doors once more, the changeling made his way to the door and knocked.
"You're late. She's already planning on hunting you down, you know," Spike said as he opened the door.
"I told her I had other things planned today. My milk run can't wait," Max shot back as he stepped in. Tossing the smaller bag to the dragon, he grinned. "Gift from the living sugar rush."
"So you actually did set that hive thing up in White Tail?" Spike asked as the two walked into the castle, Spike soon taking the lead to show the way.
"Yea," Max nodded. "After the invasion, the local changelings were kinda' sunk. They don't really trust anyone, not even other changelings now. Chrysalis promised big things, but it was a reward for after the work. I managed to get a few to agree by showing them the finished product, then promising to teach them how to do it. Until relations improve though, they kinda' need the supplies. How goes the research on dragons? I know they're in changeling wingdings, but you must have found something interesting by now."
Spike nodded.
"It's kind of weird reading about dragons in such a...mean way, but you were right. The changelings have some of the better descriptions of dragon life-cycles I've been able to find. Translating's a pain, but it's worth it. Didact's Dialects was a great help in translating the script as well!"
"What scri-There you are! Do you have any idea how late you are?" Twilight began shouting as her eyes fell on the changeling-slash-pegasus. "Five! Minutes! That's-"
"Well within the realm of possibilities I warned you of when you asked for my help with this. I have things I need to do on Wednesdays, Twilight. I told you that," Max interrupted while scowling at the twitching alicorn.
"Here, Twilight. I know you skipped lunch again and I think Pinkie knows it too, since she sent you a snack," Spike said, offering the mare a few cookies.
Twilight looked from the dragon to Max, matching his expression.
"You couldn't be here on time, but you could stop by Sugarcube Corner?"
"Even I can use a pick-me-up after a long day, Twilight," the changeling countered. "You know what happens if I don't eat well."
"You don't need to eat at all, you subsist on the emotions of those around you." The mare countered his counter.
"These are emo-bombs. Changeling honey substituted for bee honey. I can live off of these," Max explained, drawing a cookie from the bag and tossing it into his mouth. As if to emphasize his point, his eyes flashed with the baked-in emotions as his body extracted it.
Twilight's frown deepened as she scanned the cookie with a spell, her time with the changeling allowing her to detect the emotion-laden honey baked into the treat. With a huff she slumped, turning around and beckoning the disguised male to follow her.
Starting after the alicorn, Max gave a quick one-hoofed salute before taking off down the hallway.
"See ya, Spike. Let me know if you need anything else."
"Will do!" the drake called back, walking back to his room with the rest of his cookies.
<-(0)->
The changeling was soon led into a large room that housed a smaller crystal chamber. The outer room was rife with technology, many of them lending the room a mad scientist's lair feel while the center room was completely empty. In fact from the one way glass facing him, he could only see one door and it didn't even have a visible handle.
'Just as we'd figured,' he mentally congratulated himself. It was almost time.
They'd all been subjected to Twilight's tendency to go overboard, this was just the latest in a long line of incidents. Pinkie had been strapped to a chair, something that upon closer questioning had been extremely uncomfortable for her both because it stopped her from moving and she really didn't know what Twilight was doing.
That was something else that bothered Max. Twilight had a tendency to do things first then warn everyone what the fallout could be never. For his own testing, she'd subjected him to focused hatred, which had made him vomit uncontrollably until she turned the array off, and had tried using another array to pull the emotions he'd gathered. The second array he'd blown up as soon as he felt it activating, but that thing could have killed him. Still, as no harm was recorded, the purple alicorn had happily continued as if nothing was wrong. Well it was time to fix that.
'Let's see what she thinks when she sees some actual damage done from her experiments.'
"So you ever going to tell me what we're doing, or am I supposed to guess?"
"Patience, it will all make sense in a moment! I just need to make certain the scanning spells are active, then double check the cameras. Oh, and I need to triple-check the seal on the test chamber!" Twilight said with a smile, her horn blazing with enough power to make Merlin jealous.
"Ok, step inside the test chamber. I'll be in there with you, so don't worry. I'm just going to be testing the effects of Invoking specific circumstances when no viable entries or unseen locations exist in the specified area. I tried doing it myself, but the invocation requires at least two individuals to pull off."
The changeling dropped his disguise, taking on his changeling form as the alicorn ushered him into the secured chamber. Time to have some fun.
Twilight Sparkle was many things these days. A princess, a friend of several crazy mares, the first pony to study a live and willing changeling, the one who defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Tirek. But nowhere among the list of titles was there any comment about her patience. She was a mare of action; if not directly, then by studying and running experiments to expand her knowledge.
It was for this very reason she'd nabbed the changeling for this test. While he'd usually complain the most vocally about any and all experiments she tried to run, usually about something silly like how a hydrogen tank shouldn't be kept near an open flame even with enchantments (seriously, what were the chances that the shielding would fail?), he was also more scientifically inclined than most of her friends. Nowhere near her level, mind, but he knew about quarks which was more than she could say about most ponies. He also had a different perspective on everything, as he was learning magic after learning science while Twilight was introduced to the topics in the reverse order. It made for plenty of strange ideas and thoughts on how to use magic to alter the environment or even in everyday spells. Adding a feather-weight charm to her magical grip? It was difficult to retrain herself, but after doing it for a week straight the alicorn was doing it subconsciously now.
"Okay, the machines are set up and we're ready to begin. Starting video recording...now. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you upfront what I wanted to do, Max, but I was worried you wouldn't trust me..."
The changelings eyes widened in horror.
"Twilight, don't!"
"...and losing a friends trust is the fastest way to lose a friend," the alicorn finished, smiling brightly.
The stallion stared at her in horror, only managing to utter a single phrase.
"What have you done?"
"Forever!" Pinkie shouted on cue, exploding from the changeling's chest and showering the alicorn in red and flecks of shattered chitin. Twilight screamed at the sight, the party pony's head and neck seeming to emerge from the stallion's barrel like some macabre Jackel-in-the-box. There was red, oh Celestia there was so much red, and it was all over her, all over the room, all over Pinkie!
Pinkie blinked at her for a moment before looking eye to eye at the changeling she'd emerged from. Gasping loudly, the bubblegum pony turned back to Twilight, red good dripping from her mane
"Twilight, what did you do? Oh no, help, I'm stuck! Twilight you need to-"
Max and Pinkie watched as the purple alicorn's eyes rolled back into her skull and she fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
"Well that was amusing," Discord said as he walked into the room. "Pinkie, do us all a favor and pull your head back through."
Pinkie pouted.
"But I heard the fastest way to a stallion's heart was through his stomach. I figured since I was already here..."
"Ha ha. It is to laugh," Max droned, using his hooves to push the mare back into his chest and back through the portal the group had set up earlier.
"It went well, but shifting a section of chitin to break easily still hurts," he griped, rubbing at the breaks in his shell. The moment Pinkie walked into the room Discord dispelled the portal and the changeling reverted to his normal form, though he noted the chitin was a bit discolored.
"Well, what's up, doc?" Discord asked Redheart, the nurse having followed Pinkie in and checked on Twilight.
"She's just suffering from a bit of mental overload. I likely would as well in her situation, but she'll be fine. Won't even have a bump from where she hit the ground from what I can tell," the nurse said. Facing the changeling she gave a long-suffering sigh "While I won't condone such pranks, at least you take into account the possibility that somepony could be hurt. I wish I could say the same for Rainbow Dash. She threw itching powder in Flitter's bed, and the poor mare had just gotten over her fleas from a cross-country trip. She was in tears thinking they'd come back."
"Dashie really doesn't plan out her pranks. They're kind of spur of the moment things for her," Pinkie said as she bounced over the two pile of princess. Drawing a stick from her mane she gave a poke to the purple pony.
"There's nothing about that mare that isn't impulsive. Hopefully Twilight learns from this," Max said, shaking his head. "I'm tired of almost getting hurt because she keeps trying new ideas 'because science' and doesn't think of asking anyone first. It's going to end badly one of these days. She nearly killed me with one of those experiments."
"I remember that one, she came in with a few burns but wouldn't put down her notes while we treated her," Nurse Redheart said with a slight scowl. "We had to sedate her to take the notes from her, as her horn was one of the areas that had been burned. Did you really have to blow everything up?"
"That machine was sucking my magic out!" the changeling barked, bristling slightly. "For a changeling that's like our blood. I die without it. What would you do if something was sucking all of your blood out of your body for no other reason than to find out what happens?"
"It's okay, Maxxie, I'm sure Twilight won't try something like that ever again," Pinkie Pie said, patting the changeling on the back. She then used the hoof to wipe some of the red off of his neck and licked it.
"Mmmm, cherry!"
Discord tapped his chin in thought.
"I'm surprised she didn't remember changelings don't bleed red. Seems like something she'd remember."
"I'm going to go write a letter. I'm sure Luna would love to see this once we get that recording. That and I'm now worried Twilight will try that magic extraction thing again. I had nightmares about that," Max growled as he towards the door.
A good thing about helping out Spike was the drake was more than willing to send his messages as well. Maybe Max could take Spike to the Badlands later to see some adult dragons? He was certain he could find a hive over there that would be willing to host the pair as long as he paid up front in changeling honey.
<-(0)->
To The Alicorn Sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,
Your likely going to get an earful from Twilight when she wakes up, but something needed to be done. Her experimentation is going to end up hurting someone if she doesn't learn a bit of restraint. She made me sick and nearly killed me with her experiments, stating "Asking you for the information is not scientific. I need proof, and the best proof is in experiments." I ask that you stop her before this goes to far if my scare tactic didn't work, as I will be busy setting up a possible excursion into the Badlands for myself and Spike. Yes, he will be safe. I'm not going to leave him wandering the deserts by himself. Of course, you can nix the idea if you like. Just let us know. Otherwise I'll have our schedule written up in about three weeks.
I'd like to let him see a few adult dragons instead of those snobs he told me he ran into before. I don't know what he expected walking into a group of teenagers like that, but I'm going to be teaching him a bit about carrying yourself properly and avoiding making a fool of yourself in front of strangers in more aggressive societies. He doesn't seem to get out often enough to have learned this on his own. We're going to start simple though, just watching from a distance. Likely won't even get without shouting distance of another dragon for our first trip.
On a side note, Twilight had a few video recorders set up so we didn't have to really do anything besides choose which shots were the best. Discord said he'll drop by with a copy for you to enjoy later. Have fun, and be sure to send a copy to Princess Love-butt, Shiny Bottom and Twi's parents.
Your favorite not-really-but-still-counted-as-a-subject,
Max