Prologue Part 1.
7 years ago.
Coastal Gale roughly coughed himself back into the world of consciousness. His hacking caused his brother on the other side of the room to stir in his sleep. Struggling to clear his throat, gaging on whatever foreign object slipped between his lips, he leaned over the side of his bed, and gave a strong thrust with his diaphragm. Out from his mouth dripped a dead fly soaked in saliva. The bug decided it wanted a drink and, sensing moisture in the colt’s mouth, decided to take a pit stop. “Damn bugs.” He half coughed half mumbled.
Coastal rubbed the crust from his eyes, glancing through the window at Celestia’s morning sun as it grew over the naked horizon. Yawning, he crawled out of bed, hooves getting caught momentarily in the tangled sheets. “Get up Tide,” he called to his brother. “Mom will be in here soon anyways to wake us. Since we’re awake already anyways, we might as well go to school early for a change.” The thud from Coastal’s hooves slipping off the bed and hitting the wooden floor caused Tide to flinch slightly under his sheet, but the tired foal continued to pretend he wasn’t awake.
Just a moment later a tall tan mare entered through the colt’s doorway. “Wake- Oh.” She cut off her wake up call, noticing her son already combing his teal mane in the cracked mirror above his empty dresser. “Coast? What are you doing up so early?” She paused, locks of hair from her unkempt mane falling in front of her eyes. A frown formed on her face, “You stayed up all night again didn’t you? You know I don’t like when you do that; it’s not good for you.” Her voice had a small unhealthy wheeze, a sign of age and stress.
“Gosh! Mom. I know!” Coast groaned, he pulled an all-nighter the other day and his mom hadn’t been very happy about it. “I didn't stay up all night, I just woke up early today. I guess my body wants to get the last day of school over with.” He half lied, trying to make himself sound like he actually wanted to go to school. Then Coast thought to himself grumpily, mind still hampered by fatigue, What’s the big deal anyways? I’m fourteen, I’m old enough to go to sleep when I want to.
“Okay, if you say so.” His mother sighed warily, as she magically tugged the sheets off of her lazier child. She was still somewhat skeptical of Coast, she knew her son could be an exceptional liar, but she had no solid proof against him here. “I cooked omelets today. I know how much you like them Coasty. Now, Your food is on the table. Hurry up and go eat before it gets cold.”
This news Caused Tide to break his sleeping charade, “Mom,” he wined drawing out the vowel. “I hate omelets. Everypony hates omelets, they are disgusting!” He jumped out of his bed in a small fit.
“Calm down, I made you grilled cheese. just like i always do” The mother scolded her son. “Now hurry up and get ready for school. Anyways it isn’t often we cooks such fine foods, you should appreciate an omelet when you get one.”
It was blistering outside on the way to Dodge City Middle School, especially hot for it being so early in the morning. Small gnat swarms tangled themselves in the little pony’s manes. Their mother flicked her tail as she trotted to keep the bugs off of her flank.
As they approached the school they were greeted by the principal. He had decided it would only be right of himself to wait by the door, and greet all of the young ponies on the last day before summer break. “Good morning Sea Breeze.” He welcomed their mother. ”So, very, nice too see you again!” Then, addressing the colts, he continued, “And you too Tide Trotter, Costal Gale.” He nodded to them respectfully as he said their names. “I bet you two are exited for your final day of middle school!” he then chuckled to himself. The colts only nodded in response. To Coast, the principal was a little… ok, way too eccentric for his liking.
“AUGH!” the stallion suddenly yelled, and started to shake his head vigorously. Causing the colts to flinch a bit. A second later a June bug flew from his twitching back turned ears. “Gosh, I say! The amount of insects around here is absolutely ridiculous!” the
Tide was failing to suppress a chortle towards the embarrassed principal, but Coast nodded in agreement. Unlike his dear brother who is a bug fanatic, Coast felt same way as the principal, bugs are annoying, and Coast himself experienced something similar just this morning with his rude awakening. However it want until now that he began to realize how many bugs there were around the dry city. It was unusual, especially considering the drought; I mean bugs need water to live right? This was an interesting discovery, before he would follow his brother to class Coast decided to take a look around the outside of the school. Everywhere he searched he found a bug or two. No exceptions. Ants farmed in the sandbox, wasps and hornets nested in almost every corner of the building, a few praying mantises could be found crawling above the windows. Finally he stopped by the manhole out front, a whole assortment of bug swarmed by the rim.
“Huh.” Coast thought out load, “This is strange.” Reaching into his saddlebags to extract a notebook, a sharp sting caught him just above the hoof. “OW OW OW OW…” He whimpered loudly, turning his ears back. Out of his now dust covered fallen bags, crawled a small brown scorpion. Relaxing, having been stung by this common bug many times before, he knew that the sting would only cause temporary pain in his heel. He flicked the scorpion into a fat spiders nest with his small glowing horn, and limped to history class, grunting every time he put weight on his stung leg.
Everypony looked at him as he opened the class door, but nopony said anything. The teacher’s flank was facing the students as he worked on the black board, and the door was in the back of the room. While quietly limping over to his seat next to his twin brother he made eye contact. “Hey, where ya been? And why are you limping?” Tide questioned the tardy pony in a low voice.
Coast gave his brother the sit-rep on the strange bug invasion the town seemed to be experiencing, and warned him to check his bag for bugs. He glanced at the teacher every so often to make sure his quiet conversation wasn’t being picked up by the old mares ears; she was known to pick on foals that didn’t seem to be paying attention to answer the daily board questions. Tide seemed surprised by the news. “I haven’t noticed anything… other than the June bug… and the gnats… and the nasty, dead, fly on the floor this morning.” Tide glanced suspiciously at Coast as he said that,” And I guess the scorpion now." *gasp* "Wow, you’re right! That is a lot of bugs.” Tide was spontaneously flabbergasted, “Why didn’t I realize this? This is awesome! I need to pay more attention! I mean the information is directly in front of my eyes! This will help me become a bugologist! Wait… That’s a thing right? I hope that’s a thing. It’s defiantly a thing!” His eyes weren’t focusing anymore; he was so caught up in his daydream of the future to pay any attention to the real world. “My cutie mark isn’t the diagram of a rhinoceros beetle for nothing! Or at least I hope it isn’t. That would suck. But this, this is amazing!”
By the time the disruptive, bug loving, foal finally came back down to earth, the entire class seemed to be staring at him. More than a few chuckles could be heard from all around the room, even his brother was giggling at him a little; a giggle that turned into a one-pony uproar when his Tides normally violet mussel turned a shade of dark pink. Tide slouched into his chair awkwardly to hide his embarrassed face.
Swiftly, and out of the blue, the class’s small amount of laughter cut itself short, taking Coast by the surprise. It was hilarious, why did Everypony just stop chuckling? This was extremely unusual for the friendly, normally rowdy group of foals. As he himself calmed down, he realized the class that seemed to be looking at Tide wasn’t, and they weren’t looking at him either, also the classroom seemed to be quickly dimming. The light reflecting off of the metal legs of the old desks began to fade.
rather horrified. When Tide turned to look back at his brother he acquired the same scared and shocked expression as the others. What is wrong with Everypony? Coast wondered. Then a more important question dawned on him. “Wait! What is wrong with the sun?” The answer instantly revealed its self as Coast flipped his body around so see could see what the others could.
The sky was filling with glowing bugs! Insects of all kinds were lifting themselves to the skies forming a massive swarm, partially blocking out the light form the sun. If anypony doubted the loyalty of Princess Luna, without looking to the sky, they might assume she had transformed back into Nightmare Moon, and was once again plunging the world into darkness before the sun was scheduled to descend. Soon the sky, as far as the eye could see, looked like a lime green version of white noise on a TV screen.
“EEEEK!” Fillies could be heard shrieking in the classroom adjacent to Coast’s; which brought up similar screams both male and female in his own. The seemingly organized bugs had begun to dive towards the city streets. “THUD, THUNK THUNK THUNK!” The glowing green bugs of various sizes smacked against the windows and brick walls of the school. Through the dirt and grime covered glass of the window, one could see the larger of the insects eating holes in the wooden doors and walls of the once lovely homes across the dirt road.
Well-painted shutters munched off their hinges fell to the dry dirt in front of every building. “What’s going on?” one pony yelled angrily from outside, above the buzzing wings. “Why are these filthy bugs attacking us? What pony is behind this?” The now visible, furious, grey stallion was stomping on as many grounded bugs as he could, with the massive hooves of a farm pony. But his yelling was soon silenced by a wave of glowing moths intruding his gaping mouth and clogging his trachea. Chocking he stumbled over into the guts of the smashed bugs, cracking his skull on the rocky ground, he was soon engulfed by the stampede of creepy crawlies on the ground. The fidgeting pony soon stilled. His chest cavity collapsed, some bugs moved away leaving behind a half eaten corpse with an open ribcage and egg-covered organs.
The other young ponies cowered away form the window, some retching and vomiting at the grotesque sight, but Tide and Coast just stood there appalled at the scene. The swarm of moths forced their way down the dead stallions throat and out of the stomach that had been chewed open. More moths fluttered in to join the swarm, and they started forming into a somewhat pony-ish shape. With a loud crack accompanying a flash of emerald light that momentarily blinded the foals still looking on from the school window, the moths vanished, in their place was a tall, black and green, vicious looking figure, with a single bent horn, and opaque wing,s glaring at them from road. Flashes of light could be seen in the monsters backdrop, and it was soon joined by many more of its kind, all with the same threatening glare.
"What are they?" Coast softly asked out loud to nopony in particular.
Suddenly the tall creature in the middle charged horn first at the glass that kept him out.
Prologue Part 2.
SMASH! Coast didn’t have time to move more than a flinch before the strange form came barreling through the window. It knocked him back, underneath Tides desk, shards of glass showering his pelt. The beast moved faster than the teacher could react, dashing, agilely between desks, to avoid any obstacles on its way to its target.
“HEL-!” The teacher’s distress call was silenced and replaced by a low gurgling noise. The beast removed its jagged horn from the pony’s throat and turned back to the class with no readable emotion on its dark-furred face. The teacher’s body slowly slumped into the armchair behind the desk, a soft thud, cushioned by the cotton padding could be heard, almost echoing in the now scared silent classroom.
“Puh.” The teacher let out her final noise, forcing herself to finish her last word before her eyelids closed to rest upon her tearstained cheeks. It was just like her really, she finished her students sentences for them all the time; it was only correct of her to finish her own.
The foreign creature by the desk bellowed out a high pitch roar, reminiscent of a thousand crickets chirping as one. Most of the foals snapped out of their state of shock and ran towards the door as more beasts and bugs slowly crawled their way through the broken window called by their leader.
Coast struggled back to his hoofs, just as a warm liquid splashing onto his face blinded him. Jumping out of reflex in the opposite direction he shook the liquid off of him. Opening his eyes again, his vision was stained red.
In front of him was the most frightening and confusing scenario he had ever witness. At his hooves was a body, the body of the cute filly that had sat in front of him all year. She was lying on her side; staring at him with her large blue eyes, fur soaking up a pool of fresh blood. But, Looking up from the girl on the floor, standing in front of him over the body, was the same young mare! The same cute filly! Her blue eyes, her mane, her coat, all the same. Even the same blood was soaking into her coat.
Coast, backing away towards the classroom door, couldn’t comprehend what had happened. At least until he heard the familiar voice of his brother shoat to him, “Coast, they’re changelings! Run!” Quickly understanding the situation, they had just learned about Chrysalis’s attempt at dethroning Celestia in class the week before, he surveyed the situation while running to the only exit.
Every other pony in the room had glowing eyes, was cornered, or was motionless. He couldn’t, and didn’t, want to know rather or not the immobile ones were breathing, and most of all he knew he did not want to cross paths with the ponies with glowing eyes.
The thirty or so feet to his brother, waiting almost loyally to a fault for him just outside of the doorway, was longer than he could imagine. The adrenaline pumping through his veins seemed to slow down time as he hobbled as fast as he could on his three strong hoofs towards safety.
Taxon’s senses ignited as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, an easy target. The young changeling thanked the Queen for blessing him with such a simple task; it was not the squad’s goal to maim the young, in fact that actually went against their orders, he was just to join he herd and that was the only direction he, personally, was given, and he was commanded in person by the Queen herself. Seeing all the wounded and dead ponies around the room he felt a notion of shame for his enlisted partners.
His target was moving slowly on three legs; as if another changeling injured it to make sure all of the squad had a subject to swap places with. Regardless, Taxon approached cautiously, making sure not to further startle his target, for doing so might result in further injury. But he had to make his move soon; all the other foals were ether targets of the other many young changelings in his squad, or had fled the room already.
Just as the colt he was following got to the door Taxon leapt, taking carful aim to land in a way to block the doorway. Suddenly a voice blurted from behind him, “COAST, WATCH OUT!” he flipped around just in time to see a sand colored shape barreling towards him from outside the room. With a thud he was knocked onto his side. Whatever, or whoever, bumped into him was sprawled out on top of him. Taxon closed his eyes, ignited his horn and slammed the door shut with his magic.
He was too late, when he opened his eyes back up his leader, the changeling in charge that murdered the teacher, was standing by the door, holding it shut with his magic. Damn it, he thought to himself, He got away! But then he Taxon saw him; through the small window in the middle of the door was the colt he was stalking through the class. The pony had an extremely frightened look on his face and was staring at him yelling something franticly. Wait a minute; the colt wasn’t looking at him, it was looking at what was on his back.
It was moving! Taxon bucked and tossed the creature on his back to the floor, causing various insects to scurry out of the way of the falling body. Perfect, another colt put himself at risk to save a friend. Using his magic to hold the pony still against the ground, Taxon asked it, “What’s your name?” The only reply he received was a glare that failed to hide how scared the colt actually was.
He took his time examining the incompliant colt’s body. Taxon had never transformed into a pony before, he never had a reference in his colony and he needed to make sure that everything was correct when he completed the process.
First he got the light purple mane that slowly darkened as it neared its roots. Then the shape of the face, the width of the hooves, the sandy fur and blue eyes, and last, and he was told most important, the mark on the colt’s hip.
Coast watched in horror as the changeling that his brother saved him from slowly morphed into its new shape. He began to buck wildly at the door to break it open but it was no use, all he could do was crack the wood, he wasn’t strong enough to break the door or the changeling’s magic.
“Coast!” a familiar voice came from far over his shoulder. He glanced away from the door for just a moment to see the principal trotting swiftly in his direction. “The school is under attack!” the principle panted on his way over, “We need to leave quickly, me and some of the other staff have rounded up as many students as we can, where is your brother? Grab him and we’ll head to the others in the cafeteria.”
Crack! The door burst open and Tides body flew out of the room to smack against the hallway wall along with many large slinters of wood. “Coast?” his brother yelled, looking at him with an almost confused look upon his face. “We need to run!” Tide struggled to his hooved unsteadily as he spoke.
“Tide, so glad you are ok, we must leave now!” the principal voiced as he leapt behind the two boys and pushed them in the cafeteria’s direction.
The sound of their hooves echoed off the walls as they sped through the hallways. It was dead silent in every classroom they passed, giving an eerie feeling to the whole learning center. Not a single classroom they pass had lights on inside and a few door windows were broken out. One window had what look with a glance like a pony’s limp bleeding hoof sticking through.
The tiled floor was littered with ants and millipedes in front of the cafeteria doors. Various flying bugs tried to flew around the doorway’s cracks trying to find a way in. the principal knocked on the door seven times before another teacher slowly cracked it open. “Oh, you’ve returned.” A soft female voice sounded from behind the door. She stepped back from the door on the other side, and could be heard shoving objects out of the way to let the door swing open.
The three males pushed their way through the open door and slammed it closed when on the other side. Teachers and students already in the cafeteria started to barricade the door with items like bags of flour and shelving units stolen from the kitchens.
“Yes of course I have returned. And I stumbled, just my amazing luck, upon these two brothers!” the principal replied to the mare that let them in.
“Good, good.” She paused with a sigh, “We can’t imagine why they are attacking, or why they seem to be targeting the school no less, but we found a way to escape safely… we think. And we decided it would be safest for those we have collected to not go out to search for more survivors.”
“Mrs. Petal, hush, don’t say survivors, you make it sound like some ponies have died!”
“Some have! And you know it!” She snapped back.
The principal made a growling noise in his throat. “Yes I know… but we don’t want to frighten the foals more, now do we?”
“No, but I’m just telling it as it is.” She then continued with the plans she promised earlier, “We will, as a whole group, leave through the kitchens emergency exits, a pair of double door in the back room. Opening these doors will set off the fire alarm and hopefully distract the changelings. From there, we will head strait out to the next town over, the emergency exits face the edge of Dodge City, and away from the approaching swarm. We will move to the newly formed village at Rambling Rock Ridge and settle there for a while.”
“Why would the fire alarm possible cause a distraction? It’s just a noise! If anything they’ll look for the source, which is, in this case, the doors!”
“Cause, we have nothing else going for us!” Mrs. Petal snarled back, “And it sounds believable if you don’t think into it! Just trying to sound a bit more positive, as you just told me too ten seconds ago!”
“Fine, then lets just get going.” The principal stepped up on a table and cleared his throat. “PONIES, PONIES, I NEED YOUR ATTTENTION!” His piercing voice rang out across the tables. “We have a plan! Please follow Mrs. Petal and me through the emergency exits in the kitchen, we will move wounded out first. Mr. Cord,” he called to a stallion at a back table, “Stay in the back and make sure everypony follows please. Now, there are about a hundred and a half of us here so please try to be orderly and compliant when the alarm starts, we should be in the next town over by dusk.”
Finally outside again, Taxon inhaled a large breath of clean air. He did not expect to be put in this situation; he was to receive the briefing on the second part of the mission directly after his squad had all transformed, but instead, his target bucked him in the chest and directly through the solid wood door behind him.
In all cases, he was stuck. If he revealed his true form now he would be in an even more dangerous situation. Sure he could potentially fly away, but he was too scared to risk it.
He had a few things going for him however. He knew his new name, he would go by Tide from now on, it wasn’t a hard name to remember, and he kind of liked it. Second, he had someone to potentially rely on for information, and a direct way to help him fit in, his new brother Coast. However, Coast could also be a liability; Coast could be suspicious of him, after all, Coast watched him transform; it was only his quick thinking that kept him out of harm from the colt and the principal when he burst through the classroom door. Also he knew almost nothing of his new body or Tide’s past, which will probably, eventually, put him in a sticky situation, but that’s future Taxon’s problem. Third, the male adult in the group seemed to know Tide, perhaps Taxon could sneak some information about who he now was out of him, and fourth he was about the same age as his new body, as expected of course, that was one reason they hit a school, but still, it will defiantly help him appear to act his age.
Coast stared at the figure walking beside him. “Hey Trotter.” He called his brothers second name, just like his teacher would in class.
Tide didn’t respond.
He called again, “Hey Trotter!” And he waited for a second.
Still no response…
He gave it one final effort, "Trotter?"
Nothing.
Coast released a wavering sigh, trying not to choke up as he confirmed his fears.
I will get my brother back from you monsters.
