Hannah’s Story.

“You don’t belong here, freak!” a voice chirped from the back of my mind, becoming clear almost as quickly as I heard it.

“Why are you even down here? The treaty may be over, but you have no right to come down here! We can still feed on you!”

“You don’t understand, do you? My queen will punish you if you do anything to me!” a timid voice spoke, with a slightly deep tone, but feelings of absolute fear.

“You think our queen is your queen, pony? You do not deserve to have that honor, you are not even a changeling!”

I approached the scene cautiously, to see two large changelings standing over a quivering colt, who was lying on the ground, covering his eyes with his hooves. I wanted to intervene, but my body was forced to watch as the changelings began to open fire on the poor colt.

He was in agony, suffering and fear. And it made me feel weak. While the changelings only laughed.

But then something odd happened. As the changelings barged him with painful attacks; his eye snapped open with a haunting blue.

“Where’s your queen to save you, pony? Why are you crying? Do you want to see your mummy and daddy?” one of them mocked, and the other joined him in bullying laughter.

“You’re wrong… Insects,” the pony now said with a frighteningly smooth voice. The two changelings stirred, but kept blasting him with magical energy. “When I said ‘my queen,’ I was not referring to Chrysalis!”

His eye now flashed with the blue colour. As a fire emerged from his coat.

“FUCK! IT’S NIGHTMARE MOON!” one of them yelled as the fire engulfed the little colt, and from the fire emerged the demonic form of Nightmare Moon, armor and everything.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE YOU IDIOT- RUN!” one of them yelled, beginning to run away. Nightmare Moon only took this as a challenge, levitating them into the air and bringing them towards her.

“Changelings, darlings. You must have known about my current residence in your hive. Such ignorance should be punished. I think that DEATH is a suitable punishment!” she slithered with an almost poetry to her pronounciation. The two changelings broke down and started wailing in fear.

One of them begged and cried; “Please! Oh great moon empress! We are sorry, we apologise for not knowing of you! Have mercy upon us! Please, spare us!”

She only relished in their fear, taking up a magical sword and bringing it to both of their necks. “I’m tired of petty changelings and their petty crimes. And I am tired of the blood that has not been spilt. I crave for murder, and your insolence has solved my cravings!”

They cried out and writhed under her grasp. And then she sharply turned her gaze to me. “I know you’re there, Princess. You can come out now!” she mocked, and I stepped forward and made myself presentable to her.

“Release my subjects, Chronos, and I shall deal with them myself,” I ordered, with a stern, cold tone to my voice. This only made Nightmare Moon scrunch her face, before reluctantly throwing the two changelings to the ground with a crunch. “LEAVE!” I ordered, now to the two changelings. They fled with much haste, leaving me to approach Nightmare Moon.

“Must you be so dull, Chrysalis? I was just going to have some fun by murdering those two.”

My rage blossomed forth in a frightening display of green fire, revealing my true form upon the dark queen. From a dark, insect hide to the streaky green hair that flowed down to a black, chitinous saddle.

She looked down for a moment. “Those idiotic mortals, after everything, they cannot truly accept us. Why must they test us… Why do they hate… me…”

She began to look down and slumped to the floor, slowly dispelling the spell that gave her a physical body. Slowly shrinking her in size, reverting her back to the form of the small colt, who collapsed into my own hooves pathetically as soon as he reverted back to his normal size.

“What am I, Chryssi? Why am I so different? Why must I have Nightmare Moon in control of me?” he whimpered, burying his muzzle into my arms with tears. I had no answer, but I held him close to be friendly, I doubt that he would ever take consideration of that.

“I don’t know, Chronos. I ask myself that every single day I see you suffering in my hive,” I said, comforting him as he sobbed in my hooves.

He coughed and spluttered, becoming more heavy with every cough he made through heavy sobs. “I can’t… Control her. She’s so angry. And she yells in my head to do horrible things. Why can’t I stop myself from doing those things?!”

I held him close, as I would do to the changelings I loved so dear in my hive. There was a distinct, almost river-like, force coming from him. It was seeming directly into my head, making me feel warm, buzzy and stronger. I realised that I was draining him of love, and stopped immediately. He looked up with a teary smile and green saliva from his lips.

“It’s ok,” he spluttered, coughing loudly immediately afterwards. “You don’t need to stop.”

He began to cough loudly, having his body seize as some green, sticky substance was thrown up from the body.

“It’s been years now since you came into my care, Chronos. And yet, your body still rejects the royal jelly from the hive,” I said with a laugh, as Chronos looked sickly upon me.

He flinched, possibly hearing something Nightmare Moon said in his head. He looked down, pressing my hooves away from him. I could not bare to see him suffer more, and looked upon his pain with anger. Not anger towards the Nightmare within him, but the Nightmare he currently was.

“Chronos, do you know why we do those training exercises?” I asked him, squinting my eyes. “Since the day you could talk and walk, I started to do them with you- every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year. And yet, I have never told you why we do them. Do you know what they were for?”

He looked around, drooling a little with the green goop. He scowled at me. “Was it to integrate myself better with the changelings? Was it just to stall time to drive myself further from society? Was it going to be a so-called replacement to actual time with a mother?” he sighed and lowered his head.

“Chronos, I do this because I love you. Ever since I saw you, I knew of the horrible truth you have to live with,” I walked up to him and pressed against his forehead, just below his horn. “So I used my best techniques to help you block. her. out.”

He burst into sad rage, horn glowing ablaze and eyes streaming with tears. “What’s that done then? All it’s done is bottle her up until she bursts through even stronger than before. And there’s nothing I can do about it!”

I looked back at him with malice. "Chronos, I should punish you for saying something so stupid."

He sighed as I held his cheeks with my two front hooves, feeling slightly imbalanced, but still kept my posture. "There is ALWAYS something ponies can do. And it is your duty to never give up finding what is necessary to do."

"Remember, Chronos; no matter what happens in your life, no matter how powerful she seems to you, no matter how she uses you to wreck havoc, as long as you have one thing. you will always be better than her. I've raised you to be strong, Solar Flare has done nothing for you. Do you know what that makes you in my eyes?"

I held him close once more, flinching as he coughed directly onto my back. He returned the favor with his own front hooves.

"You are the closest thing I have to a son than any other changeling." I spoke directly into his ear.

I released him, having felt him fidget slightly, but now I saw something that I had not seen in a while.

He looked around a bit, thinking to himself and soaking in what I had just said. His lip quivered, forming the basis for a smile that actually mattered, until the smile blossomed into a full grin.

Then his eyes shot open, as if in agony. And it was.

He writhed around on the ground in front of me, extinguishing the little flame as he rolled around in pain, screaming as he did so.

I rushed to his attention, but I stopped when I noticed the small shreds of both black fur and shredded red skin, as if it were torn off his body by the very ground he was seizing on.

I wanted to help him, to stop whatever was happening and preventing him from hurting himself any further! But I stood in place, motionless.

I couldn't decide whether it was a state of catatonic disbelief, or simply observing. But, I remained in place.

He turned to me with a jolt, his eyes red and painful cries distorted horribly escaped his lips. "Help me," he cried, staring at the skin shredded on the ground and vomiting up more of the green liquid onto the ground around him.

"Chronos, don't fight it! You've been having royal jelly for years! Isn't it obvious that your integration is nigh?"

He looked upon me, skin and body contorting as he spoke with venom and fury. “STOP IT, FOR MY SISTER’S SAKE, STOP IT!” he charged up a magical attack, possibly a healing spell, except with a slightly darker shade of red.

“Nononononono!” I screamed, trying to stop him from what he was about to do.

“CHAOS

CONTROL”

There was a sudden flash of bright light from his position, and a strong blast of wind nearly blew me off my hooves! I kept my eyes fixed upon that point, seeing it bend and contort around that area. And through the light, I saw my vision become angry red, the light becoming harsher.

I heard voices, strong voices, that cut through my hearing range. With an angry voice lashing out, Chronos' voice, screaming with the same sadness he used just then, “SCAR OF TIME, SEPARATE THE WORLDS AND DESTROY!” he exasperated.

And then there was another scream… A scream of a child.

And suddenly, the rift turned dark. And then that rift suddenly blasted out an even stronger wind, as every sense in my body was overloaded by a single object in time and space, causing my vision to black out to deal with it. It was then I heard a new voice, a voice I had not heard before.

But it spoke in a deep and wise voice, overpowering every single other motion in my body.

“Scar Of Time… Connect the worlds… Heal thyself.”
There was now a bright light once more, looking like the light you would get from a well-coordinated sword slash, creating a small, diagonal ray of light in pure darkness.

My vision corrected, and Chronos faded back into view with the white tear mixing into him, turning into a physical feature upon his countenance. The scars on the rest of his body healed slowly, the changeling integration halting. He looked grief-stricken, and looked at me blankly with horror.

“Chronos? Speak to me- What’s going on?” I stumbled, trying to piece together what had just happened to me and my surroundings.

His pupils shrank, as he began to bleed from… Everywhere.

His mouth, eyes, hooves and fur began seeping with the shiny crimson liquid as his mouth choked out one more word; “Time.”

As if on cue, he screamed loudly as his body became a fountain of blood, no, a fountain would downplay the display that went on. His body erupted from horn to hoof with the tainted healing spell.

I tried to help him now; I wanted to make him weak enough so that I could heal him, but who was to say that Nightmare Moon wouldn't take the opportunity of his pain to take him over again. So I cast a shield around him to stop the blood, just blood-

and more

and more

and more

Pouring out from the small colt, no child should ever have to go through that kind of pain. And yet, he did, because of my own impatience and his ignorance.

The blood settled slightly, now only pouring like crimson streams from open wounds. And oddly, I saw no sign of Nightmare Moon taking control through his pain, despite seeing him earlier demonstrate this rare curse, I saw no angry moon goddess rise up from the blood. Only a small, wheezing colt lying in a sea of his own blood.

I rushed to him, holding him tightly again. "Help! My children," I called through the hive mind, "He is in grave pain and wounding! I require the help of the hivemind!"

I looked upon his barely breathing corpse to see that his cries were not all in vain, he was neither fully alicorn or fully changeling. But he had instead just become a strange combination of both Pony and Changeling.

Although his skin was intact, it felt hard to touch and shone with a chitinous feel to it. He had a shiny black saddle atop his back, which I doubt he would have been able to see. The rest of him remained relatively unchanged, his mane was still black and blue and his cutie mark was still present and his eyes still had the definitions of a pony, except for the fact his sclera had slightly diluted red.

And then the scar.

There was a large scar jutting across his right eye menacingly, and despite not showing actual damage to the eye itself, the scar seemed to burn the flesh around it. And the closer I looked at it, the stranger a sensation became at the back of my head.

He quivered and cowered as I brought a hoof to the scar, feeling the energy become greater the closer I brought my hoof to it. Until, even though I knew it was wrong, I placed my hoof on the surface of the scar.

Immediately, a vision flowed into my head, dark visions.

An older me, taking the body of a princess to infiltrate the royal guard, using my manipulation of him to allow my changelings to attack the stupid city of Canterlot. Although, my plan was flawed, I did not see a younger unicorn freeing the princess, who then used her magic to banish me to a far away place… Where I plotted my next step.

I snapped back to reality, to find myself lying on the smooth ground of the hive with Chronos nowhere to be seen. I was left alone in the dark, with a throbbing head and wondering what the hell was going on.

"What the hell was that?" I spoke aloud to myself, wondering how a newly formed scar could do that sort of thing.

I scouted the horizons of my current situation, to find myself in the same position I was when I held Chronos just a moment ago (at least to me). Yet I did not see any Changelings either roaming around or coming to the aid of their princess.

There was still a pool of blood on the ground around me, and I found that the blood had not stuck to my chitinous body, but remained dry on the waxy floor that I now stood up upon.

I was scared, and confused at the events over such a short time. But my fears were spiked when I heard the harsh clopping of hooves behind me.

"You have meddled with the rules of Nature, Chrysalis," Boomed my father, King Harvest, with his teeth bared slightly in anger.

I turned helplessly up to the King, who looked down with bitter distaste upon me.

I had a rough idea of what he meant, yet I did not know exactly. He read this idea like an open book and spoke with frustration, "The biological code of Pony and Changeling has become distant, connecting them again after so little time is not somepony should go through, yet alone a small colt."

I thought for but a moment, thinking about what my father had done to him upon seeing his changeling-like chitin lining his normal fur. Would he have killed him? What did he do?

He sighed, and dulled his rage towards me, only to be replaced with annoyance. "My Daughter, do not fret; I have not harmed the abomination, since as we BOTH know he is crucial to the survival of our species at this point. If he or Nightmare Moon failed, I know of something terrible that may emerge. It is YOU who I am angry with, forcing this upon all of us."

He came up close to me, making him seem even taller than me than he already was. "Your mother and I did not raise you to so freely take away something so valuable to ponies. We feast off their love, yet we do not try to integrate them into our society. He is valuable to the hive, and it is written that his integration was inevitable, but it was not meant to happen that day," He narrowed his eyes, "But the actions he took should not have been needed. His fear has caused his true alicorn powers to awaken. Your impatience might have doomed us all."

I raised an eyebrow before looking around panicking; my father was talking nonsense, what did Chronos do that doomed us? Was it the spell? Was it the fact he halted the transformation? Or was it-

"That... Scar... Is no scar at all, my daughter. Frankly, it is one of the most dangerous things known in the universe, it is a sign that the shackles that bound the great one are breaking..." he instructed forcefully, standing up tall to show his broad posture. I couldn’t believe my father could believe such mad theories.

"I don't understand, Father. How is that scar so dangerous?"

My father sat down with his two back legs, and spoke in his 'sciency' voice. "Each alicorn has a different Element to control, whether it be Sun, Moon, Love or Chaos. Due to this pony's strange existence, he controls something that is even a mystery to ourselves, he controls Paradoxes."

“Here, his powers are only just awakening, he is unaware of how his powers can work. He does not know about paradoxes and the damage it can do in a universe like our own. And you caused him to resent his own existence.”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“It has to do with everything! The boy’s fear and shock caused him to travel in time… And end his life in the past!”

I was taken aback, stumbling simply on the suggestion of what he said, and he could sense my confusion. He simply couldn’t care less about my shock. A realisation dawned on me; I had heard a scream when that light had shown… He killed himself when he was but an infant! But that begged the question; how did he survive?

“He did not live… Chrysalis!” he snarled. Narrowing his eyes. “It is the damage he has made in those actions that have caused him to survive!”

He beckoned me to sit down, so I would listen better to him. “Chrysalis, when I was but a nymph, even I was told the tales of the Risen One... The Original. The creator of the Prophet Sword, a sword to save the universe, only to damage it in the process. It is said that when a pony travels to a land of time dispersed, and changes the actions that have once been made, the effects ripple to all time and all places. The prophet sword cuts through the fabric of space and time, separating the anomaly from damaging time around it. It tries to revert other occurrences to a state of healed form, which may be the reason that he became this hybrid form. But this scars reality with a mark that can never be healed.”

“A Scar of Time is dark magic. One of the most dangerous in our time, and even in the stories of the original, they are now aware of him. And if they return, then I fear for us all, my Daughter. The actions you made have caused a prophecy to unfold, as the child now bares the same scar of time as the original himself; a scar of time marked onto flesh.”

I thought and feared, letting my thoughts delve only deeper into our collective consciousness. Remembering the strange images that appeared to me when I touched the scar while being easily distracted by both dread and fear.

My father picked up on this, and continued. “A scar of time connects to other worlds, worlds of similar purpose, but different possibilities. The Original is said that the scars he created were so large, to the point that you could see through the scars without needing to touch them. His world was so central that the scars nearly destroyed it… There was no place to open to, so the two possibilities had to co-exist.”

“As the boy already has to live with two consciousnesses in his head, the world crammed in an alternate dimension that could even be travelled to through the tear! You simply received a backlash glimmer of another world! Your mind left your body through the scar, allowing you to see the world of other possibilities!”

My heart stopped for a moment, causing me to blankly look at my father. “I dimension jumped?” I asked him. He only shook his head.

“No, my daughter, like I said; only mentally. I have not heard of anyone who can open these dark devices. The Original is rumored to help those of the other dimensions by cutting through the scar and jumping through.”

“Father, sometimes your strong belief on the tales of the neverending wars tire me,” I groaned like a stroppy teenager. Causing the eyes of my father to begin to turn red.

“You have different beliefs to me, Chrysalis. I doubt the belief of the existence of the Original one, but since the existence of Discord, I have become fearful of the existence of his enemies… And now the scars of time exist; I have little to NO doubts.”

Harvest’s eyes turned blood red in rage. “The Original One… Is on the move.”

His eyes returned back to normal, and he began to move away from me, leaving me in a state of shock and fear. Mostly from the sheer information, from my father’s supposed madness, but the other: the fact that his tone on the original one changed from one of reverence, to one of fear.

I wasn’t sure about it, what was it? The way he said it? The fact that I never remembered him preaching about this strange being? Who the hell was he, or she?

My father did not pick up my asking thoughts. But instead, stopped and looked at me with full posture.

“Chronos has been waiting for you for the time you have been unconscious. His health has been restored, yet I do not wish to tell him the nature of his scar. But I do hope you realise that you have been asleep for two months.”

“TWO MONTHS? I’ve been asleep for two FUCKING MONTHS?”

“Language, my daughter. Do not tempt me to punish you… Luckily, he has been waiting patiently with your absence, and has been keeping with his studies well, although his Changeling parts cause him great distress,” he said, almost proud of Chronos had been doing.

“However,” he began again, speaking in a tone similar to that of earlier. “In order for you to continue your teaching to him; to must promise me four things. Do you understand?”

He did not leave me time to respond, as I was still digesting information, but his voice spoke with such force; he KNEW I was going to remember it!

“One; under no circumstances will you try to convert him! We have caused enough damage as it is, I doubt he will want that again. We rattled the creature's cage, let's not try to shatter it so soon."
Two; when he is of age to control his magic you will teach him how to use more temporal abilities. It’s evident he has them now- so he must learn how to master them.
Three; hone Chronos and Nightmare's skills in mental blockades, they will need to learn how to control and prevent being controlled by each other. They are useful assets to Equestria, and they will both be needed to stop the original one. If we lose him to her or vice versa, true Time Travel will become lost once more... And a Darker fate will await the world.
And then… Four.”

He closed his eyes, and took out a book from thin air, a book that struck fear into my heart once more. My lips quivered as I stared at the patchwork hardback, covered with transmutation symbols. It was a book I had heard about, feared, and yet lusted to use.

“The Oghma Infinium.”

My father slithered, as I saw visible shaking moving down his body while he nodded, “This shall be your new textbook.”

“Wait- what?”

“Chronos will now learn from this book. And I want you to help him master the art of dark magic, and particularly, the Universal Code.”

I blinked twice, confused once more. “The Five Score curse?”

He sighed, “If our enemy is to find him, then this shall be his last resort as a means of escape, to flee to the Central Six. If not that, then he will use it as a weapon against our numerous enemies. Only I know of its existence, Chrysalis. If you manage to get him to use it, it must be ONLY him who knows what it does. And how to use it properly.”

“Wh-where can he learn this?”

He smiled, as he used his magic to open up the book in front of me, flooding the room with even more green light. It was but a moment that I could see another strange transmutation symbol. With Chronos' cutie mark in the centre.

“He won’t learn it, Chrysalis. He shall be the one to finish and master it.”

My eyes opened with a ‘pling’ as the light completed my awakening. Rising me from my bed with a long yawn, stretching my hands out as far as I could go so my muscles were freshly exercised for the day of doing fuck-all.

I checked my phone, seeing nothing at all popping up on facebook or my messages. Just the date of May the First, a little message from me reading ‘Happy Birthday Hannah!’ and the background changed to a picture of the words ‘ring no-one!’ making me a tad confused... Until I suddenly remembered something.

"Shit! Last night!" I blurted to myself, disturbing no-one. The memories of last night flooded back to me like a bolt of lightning that calls you names.

It was unnerving, seeing Patrick cut out his eye, Elizabeth's ridiculous behaviour, HIS ridiculous behavior! It was strange, confusing, and terrifying. I couldn't even move with the thoughts flowing through my head like an out of control river.

Come on brain! Now's not the time to be making metaphors!

I tried to piece it together, coming to no results. Last thing I remember was the rest of us passing out. Did Patrick pass out too? Evidently, I had been brought back home as I had woken up in my own bed, thankfully with only my shoes taken off.

I wanted to find Patrick, yet I felt slightly compelled to not follow him wherever he was.

I then thought of the dream I just had. That was so unnerving! Usually in my dreams, especially recently, I felt like I was in the body of another being, simply an observer, usually Queen Chrysalis from My Little Pony.

But that dream... It felt like I WAS her. Every movement she made I felt as if it were made by my own muscles. Every word she spoke, I felt the tongue, jaw and air move through my body. It boggled me right to my core, causing me to grip my head in mental strain.

And then, something else happened.

I felt my hair on the other side of my hands.

It wasn't the feeling when some hair comes over your fingers and touches your hand; it felt like my hair was originating from out of the centre of my hand and travelling downwards. In fact, the hair seemed to be INSIDE my hand.

I lifted my hands, to feel my hair travelling through smoothly and allowing me to see my hands completely.

And that was where I started to freak out.

Holes.

Holes in the middle of my hands.

I thought this was from last night, but I definitely don't remember going through my hands with would would have had to have been a gigantic hole-puncher!

I just stared at my hands for a while, wanting to vomit at the sight of seeing right through my hands, but I knew that the vomit would just pass through them! That would happen if I wasn't just dreaming again.

*BAM* No, not dreaming... Ow.

The holes were weird, as they had no scientific explanation for their existence. Some might say it's something to do with stigmata; a genetic disease named after the holes on the Christ's hands after his crucifixion. Yet I had never heard any stories of this disease going THROUGH someone's hands, let alone near perfect circles (I have to give them credit though; they were pretty good circles).

I looked inside the holes to see that the area that I would expect to be invisible due to blood pouring out, to be instead coated with a strange, shiny surface. It was black in colour, so I would have imagined it would be hard in texture. This was not the case. When I clenched my fists, I was surprised to find no trouble in the compression of my palms. The waxy skin however bulged from the other side as my fists, which would have given me a better look at the inside of the hole, but I closed my eyes immediately.

I needed medical attention, whatever this was, I couldn’t afford to risk it.

I pulled my hair back with a headband and got dressed without even bothering to shower. I didn’t want to risk finding out what heat and/or soap could do to the hole and skin. But I washed my hands with cold water anyway after throwing on some clothes laid out for me near my bed (mostly, to prevent any possible infection.)

I rushed out to the car, realised I had forgotten my phone and ran back to grab it.

And then I simply broke down. Full. Blown. Panic attack. My heart was racing, eyes pouring out with tears, and choking breath fast with hyperventilation. I needed to go to the hospital, but I wanted to call them instead. I hoped if I did, they wouldn’t find me in this state sobbing on the floor of my house.

I banged my head with my hands and then my wall with my head. I had only one person I could possibly blame for this. Elizabeth. She must have drugged us last night, Patrick must have gone loopy because of it, that whole ‘Explosion’ and the eye thing were simply hallucinations!

But if that was the case, then it must have done wonders to Patrick afterwards… What if that was the case? What if he got mental damage from drugs? That could be possible! If that’s what happened, I would make Elizabeth pay!

Wait, I had arranged to meet her at Costa! I would personally bollock her there!

I clenched my fists, then cringed as I felt my fingers go straight through my hand painlessly. I had priorities at the moment, but if I were to carry them out, I would need to keep myself as inconspicuous as possible. And what's more conspicuous than someone with holes in their hands? It would be like walking around with an eyepatch on, unanswerable questions would be asked.

In a moment of mild genius, I had an idea. I rummaged through my kitchen draws, finding some Ketchup and a small first-aid kit. I tore open the first aid kit and, much to my relief, found a full roll of bandages and medical tape.

I unrolled the bandage and wrapped it tightly around both hands. Neither being too loose or hindering hand movement. I then fastened them in place with medical tape.

In order for my idea to work, I used a bit of watered down ketchup to stain the bandage on my palm. This gave the look of actual stigmata under the bandages. It certainly wasn't inconspicuous, but it was, at least, less conspicuous than holes.

I walked hastily through the doors of the hospital, making some effort to not draw attention to myself.

Although I got a few looks from the people that were there, I didn't have much trouble getting to the reception without someone trying to spark up a conversation. When I got there, I noticed the receptionist had red eyes, evidently from tears. I just tried to sound as pain-filled as possible to hopefully get into A&E.

"Hello! Can you help me, please!" I blurted, causing the woman's eyes to notice me fully now.

"What the fuck do you want?" she mumbled, choking slightly on tears.

"I've had a massive accident! I need to get to A&E now! Can you please get me in there as soon as possible!"

"From what it looks like, miss, you've just had a little booboo with your hands, and just want to dose up on the painkiller drugs! You're not going to fool anyone!"

I was taken back by this woman's sudden and rude remark. I don't think anyone in customer service should speak like that! She settled down and sighed due to my external signs of being insulted.

I looked around to see some people looking at us and rolling their eyes.

My attention was quickly drawn back to the receptionist as she made a small comment again. "I'm... Sorry. I've had a rough day, I just got dumped by the man of my dreams. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that... My apologies."

I pursed my lips and lowered my eyebrows but kept a calm demeanor around this woman's lack of self-control. "No offense taken," I mumbled back.

She rubbed her eyes and then turned her attention to the computer. “Name?” she asked, a bit more assertive now.

“Hannah. Hannah Biddle,” I replied, to have her type it into the computer. A message popped up, that I could not see, that made her frown and move her entire mouth to the side of her jaw.

“I’m afraid, Hannah, that I can’t allow you into A&E anyway,” she said with a monotone. Causing my own anger to bloom like a pissed off flower.

“What now? Are you just making up excuses so I can’t go in? What sort of game are you playing, woman? I have fucking HOLES IN MY HANDS, and I don’t know what to do-”

She shook her hand for a split second in the air, trying to stop me, before blurting, “Miss Biddle! I’m sorry you got the wrong idea there, but don’t shout foul language so loudly, there might be children. And besides, you can’t go to A&E because you already have an appointment booked!”

Everyone waiting in the lobby was now glaring at me with both confusion and anger. I was boggled, by what she just said, “I have… An APPOINTMENT, with A&E?”

She nodded, “Yes, a paid booking in A&E was made in your name. Funny, how you booked one before you got these… Holes… Are you sure those aren’t just self-inflicted, Hannah?”

It was evident she couldn't see the wounds, but her ignorance annoyed me greatly, "Just... When is my appointment?" I groaned, tired of talking to this woman already.

"Well-" she started, before a figure moving into the lobby caught my eye.

"Miss Hannah Biddle, coming to see Dr. Wilson for A&E?" he asked, as I made myself visible to him. At first, I was shocked that I seemed to have booked an appointment for, essentially, my time of arrival. But seeing as I had woken up with holes, I was willing to believe anything was possible today!

I raised my hand, and he gestured with his own to follow him. I did so quietly, while being watched by the rest of the people in the lobby.

I followed the man to a large room, full of medical instruments, bottles full of tablets, beakers full of medicine and enough lights for a J. J. Abrams wet dream. I wasn't kidding, if all of these were on, you'd be blinded.

I saw a middle-aged doctor sitting at a desk with a computer. As I approached him, the other man slammed the door behind me, leaving me and the doctor in the room.

"So you must be Hannah then?" he asked, turning to face me after a few moments of awkward silence. This allowed me to see his face. He wasn't exactly the most handsome man on earth, but he at least looked decent.

I smirked and nodded slowly. He adjusted his chair and wheeled towards me, now noticing the bandages on my hands. "It's uncommon for someone to BOOK A&E, but I can see why you came; may I see your hands?"

I lifted my hands to him, he looked at the ketchup marks and sniffed them. He could tell it was ketchup from the way he raised his brow. "Hannah, may I remove these bandages?" He asked, I suppose he expected me to say no on this occasion, guessing that I just needed to get into A&E. You could have imagined his subtle surprise when I nodded and presented my hands out to him further.

He removed the medical tape from the bandage, and began to unravel them slowly. It was interesting watching his face throughout the removal of the bandage, his expression moved from pensive, to interested, to confused, and when the bandage had been completely removed, horrified.

"Oh, my god," he spoke with wide eyes, seeing my torso through the large holes. "You definitely needed to come here, sorry if any doubts have been made against you. How the fuck did that happen?"

I shrugged and gave a pained look to him. "I don't know! That's the reason why I came here. But since I'm here, could you actually do your job and find out what's wrong with me?"

He blinked and tilted his head downwards slightly, "Sorry Madam. I'll have a look for you," he said with a cautious smile.

He proceeded to get out a few medical instruments as I sat down. These included a Bioreader, a stethoscope, a weird pokey-thing, a microscope and several other things that weren't visible at the time.

He rolled over to me with the pokey thing, and before he probably had a good poke; he looked up to me. "Before I do anything- on a scale of one to ten how much does it hurt? With one being so painless it's numb and ten being it's so painful you're practically dead."

"I'd say around 3. It's a bit odd, but doesn't really hurt," I replied.

He prodded the inside of the hole with the thing. Although it took me a while to realise this, I had to be looking at it before I realised it was even there. "You can't even feel it there, can you?" he asked.

I nodded. He retreated the thing and scrunched his mouth tight. "That's very odd, in order for that hole to have been created, it would have gone through several of your nerves. That needle would have given some form of response to them. I would guess either by some miracle the nerves have gone around it... Or whatever's lining the inside is blocking off the nerve endings."

I touched the inside of the holes, feeling no sensation. It was probably the latter, I don't think that even the best surgeons in the world could rearrange the positioning of individual nerve cells, let alone actually accomplishing it in less than 8 hours.

The doctor, after I gave my permission, started to touch the skin with a gloved hand, trying to find its texture or consistency. He pressed down hard on some areas, to find that they wouldn't even depress to his finger.

"From what it seems the layer of skin that has grown over the hole isn't skin at all. I would say that it's metal or another element that has been grafted into your skin, but look at this."

He drew my attention to one of the holes, where I was shown the edge, separating my skin from the black skin. And that's when I noticed something else. The Doctor said it as I thought it. "The skin seems to be fading into the substance with a steady gradient. If this hole has appeared overnight, then there is no scientific reason for how this could have happened. If you had my honest opinion for what I think it is, you'd think I were mad!"

He was right, my skin and the other skin faded seamlessly between each other. He then took a small swab of cotton wool and applied it to an area of the skin and rubbed it a bit to pick up a little of what was there.

"What are you doing, Doctor?" I asked, as he took it to a large machine in the corner of the room. He answered me while booting up the device.

"One of the only explanations I could think of to explain this phenomenon is accelerated mutation in a nuclear environment. I'm using this device to check a sample of that skin for background radiation on a subatomic level."

I would have said that I had not handled anything radioactive, but Patrick and I had STUDIED these machines. This was a cool reason to see one actually being used!

He machine lit up a screen, which quickly changed from blank, to showing a closeup of the sample, to zooming in on a subatomic level. A small loading bar filled up as the chemical bonds came into view...

And what then came on the screen startled both of us.

"It can't be," the doctor mumbled to himself as the compound appeared on the screen.

Poly(N-acetylglucosamine) or in layman's terms... Chitin.

"That's not normal at all," the doctor spoke again. "That area of your skin has grown into chitin. Even the strongest of Tumor mutation couldn't become this specific of a polymer. Any scientist would pay millions to get their hands on your hands!"

"I don't understand doctor, are you going to help me find out what's wrong, or are you planning on selling me?"

He shook his head with a smile. "Goodness no, Hannah. Patient-Doctor confidentiality. What happens in here will stay in here," He said with a friendly voice.

He looked back at the compound on the screen and then spoke in a voice similar to when I had just walked in. "I've seen chitin before though, Hannah," he began, "But this is one of the finest examples I've ever seen. I don't think this level of molecular bonding exists! It's the first time I've seen something like this."

Then I thought of something, something that had been stuck in my mind since he mentioned the word 'chitin'. A small lump I discovered in my pocket confirmed that I still had it on me. "Doctor," I asked, taking the object out of my pocket.

"Do the molecular bonds happen to look anything like this?" I said, showing the Doctor the small, black, chitin crown.

He raised his eyebrow and took it into his own hands, before placing it in the machine alongside the sample. And after he pressed a few more buttons, a comparison screen lit up.

Two images appeared, before combining to see the differences and/or similarities. Finding that there was literally no difference in the molecular compounds.

That's impossible.

"Doctor-"

"Yes. Your suspicion is correct, Hannah. The element on your hand and on this crown are exactly the same... In all my years as being a doctor, I don't think I've ever seen this level of... Genetic corruption."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm thinking that whatever that crown is, it seems to be assimilating itself into your body. Those holes must be a result of this!"

"That's just mad," I said, shaking my head at him in disbelief.

"You're going to need to start believing some really crazy stuff, otherwise what I'm about to tell you is going to, to put it bluntly, fuck you up."

He pointed to my mouth.

"You've grown fangs."

I slammed my mouth shut, before looking around quickly for a mirror. I found one in the corner of the room, next to the big black Atomic Microscope. When I opened my mouth next to the mirror, what I saw in my reflection, to put it bluntly, fucked me up.

In place of my incisors and premolars; there were small, pointed teeth. They were roughly the size of my normal teeth, but there was no doubting it, those were fangs.

"Hannah," the Doctor interrupted, startling me and causing me to jump. "I'm starting to think that your appointment here was no coincidence."

He handed the crown back to me, and without thinking, I put it on my head. By the time I noticed that I had done that, he spoke again.

"Did you mean to do that?"

"No. I'm sorry-"

"No need to be sorry Hannah- Did you have a good sleep?"

I stopped, glaring at him, to see what he meant. But I felt compelled to tell him what he wanted, mostly due to the fact that he seemed to have a completely different expression than before. It was almost as if he was telling me he knew exactly what he was doing.

"I had... Weird dreams."

His eyes widened, "Were those dreams from the eyes of... Queen Chrysalis?"

I stopped. Either he was a brony and I didn't know it, or he had done some stupidly good deduction. There was no response to the obvious Queen Chrysalis crown, not even subtle reactions. But how did he know?

"Yes," I responded, with a voice at a bare whisper.

"Have you been in contact with this man?" he asked, while taking out a picture... A picture of Patrick to be exact.

"Yes, Patrick... He's my best friend. Why the hell do you have a picture of him?"

He did not answer my question, but instead came back to me with a statement. "Two words..."

My lips quivered, as a memory was forced from my unconscious mind, directly into my mouth.

"Blissful... Love..."

He smiled, but not in a nice way. It was a smile that goes directly to your soul. Then he clapped his hands in joy, and practically started bouncing around on the spot.

“Hallelujah! The lord, the original, has sent his prophet, and now his followers will defeat the false prophet!” he exclaimed, with such gusto I was nearly knocked off my feet.

“Doctor?” I began, stepping cautiously away from him… Whatever he was thinking, I didn’t like the sound of what he was saying.

“The prophet of the Original one has returned! And now, his servant Elizabeth has brought back his guard- Chrysalis!”

I stepped back, bumping into a machine. The doctor saw my backing and quickly walked towards me, seizing my hand. “I should have known from the start- how the girl has woven fate for us to be united… MY QUEEN!”

His body started to glow with a strange green glow, that was my cue to scream. I needed to alert someone, I didn’t know what was going on- but I really, REALLY didn’t like it.

Just as I began to scream, an object pressed against my mouth hard, silencing it. But it wasn’t the Doctor’s hand…

It was a hoof.

A physical hoof, touching my lips. But as I crossed my eyes to look at it, I saw the same material attached to the inside of my hand; chitin.

“Look upon usssss, my queen. You are ssssafe in my pressssence!” said a voice, similar to that of the doctor himself; but sounded… Different. More raspy, more chirpy and more…

Insectoid.

Insect.

Changeling.

“That is our speciesssss, my queen. And I am proud that you will be joining usssss once more,” said the being in front of me. WIth eyes ablaze with a blue tint- and a greenish-black chitin to cover the entire body of the being.

It was a living, and breathing… Changeling! A creature that in no means could ever exist in the physical world. I couldn’t say anything, I just stared at this creature. I just thought and thought. And as I thought, I could see him quenching and flustering at the thought, releasing his hoof from my mouth with a moan.

“Thisss is the proof, my queen. The hivemind glistens with the return of your thoughtssss. It’sssss only now that I can hear them. In my true form.”

"You... You can hear my thoughts?" I asked, baffled by the sudden invasion of privacy I had now noticed.

"Oh yes," he took note of my pained expression and stare. "If you are disturbed by this, my Queen- we would not look into your thoughtssss; you have the hivemind under your command.”

He backed down, and then bowed before me… It wasn’t in a mocking way… It was almost a worshipping bow. And I did not like that.

"Why are you bowing? It's not really appropriate, stop that," I blurted fast, and he stood up immediately. I saw his actions, and began to think to myself.

"Sit!" I commanded, with a small aspect of fear. He lowered his back and sat down on the ground, making him roughly one third smaller than me.

"Stand!" I said, with more confidence, getting the idea of what was going on.

"Run," he ran in a circle,
"Stop," he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Turn to me," he did so.
"Transform into Bruce Lee," he did instructed and Bruce Lee appeared in front of me.

I laughed to myself, he smiled back. But I couldn't help but think of what I had just done. I thought it was odd that something could be so obedient, not to mention, obedient to me!

"Why are you listening to my commands Changeling? I've just met you!"

He shook his head and returned to his form of the insect-like pony.

"To you, in your mind, we have only jusssst met. But we have known you for our entire livessssss. For we have already ssssaid to you... You are our Queen!" he bowed again, but this time, what he said stuck in deep.

"Queen... As in... Like Chrysalis?"

He grinned a toothy smile. "Not like Chrysssalisss. Exactly like Chrysssalisss!"

His eyes narrowed to drive the point in, making me feel like a human pincushion with the amount of points he'd embedded in me!

"I... Can't be, there has to be some kind of mistake, I'm not a-" I looked now at my hands I had raised in making my point. Remembering now the existence of the holes I had woken up with and the chitin that now grew on them. "Changeling," I finished with a whimper.

"You possessss the crown of our Queen, you know of the prophet, you can control ussss and you now become like ussss. That issss good evidence to suggesssst you are her!"

"But how could this have happened to me? I never knew about this! I didn't even know Changelings existed until now! Now you're saying I'm one of you? There's nothing I know of that could-"

I suddenly remembered something else from the night before... When Elizabeth did that... Thing Patrick, the wave travelled across the room, going into me among others!

That must have been it! The wave she created, must somehow have caused Patrick to think he was Nightmare Moon and started to turn me into... Queen Chrysalis!

I now knew what to do. I needed to talk to her, luckily we had booked that lunch in Costa. She was up to something, from the getting me to buy the Armor, to the strange books, to the alcohol, to the explosion and to everything else! I needed to find out what she was up to and what she had done!

I looked up to the Changeling, who had his head tilted to the side. I quickly stood up and took the crown from the machine and placed it back in my pocket from which I had taken it out of. "My Queen, where are you going?" he asked with remorse.

I had to think of something, "I'm going to see the... er..."

"You wish to commerce with the Servant of the Prophet. You believe that she is responsible for your destiny. If this is the case- I must be the one to guard you until your transformation is complete, until then... The hivemind won't like it if you left here!"

I didn't like the sound of anything he said after 'destiny', I could get the idea of what he meant by transformation, in that the holes were only the start. But I didn't like the sound of staying here until that transformation is complete!

"No!" I blurted, "I need to see Elizabeth, despite what you say. I'm kinda freaked out by what you've just said and done... No offense."

He closed his eyes and nodded gently, "None taken, my Queen. We have been given orderssss and we must follow them through."

I frowned, "Who gave you these orders?"

"The Original one..." he exclaimed in praise, with a head held up high.

I had an idea, "Tell me, Changeling- I am, according to you, your Queen. Am I not?”

He nodded, and bowed down again to express that fact. I couldn’t care less about it and continued. “Who is it that commands you? Your Queen, or the Original one?”

“My Queen, we are honored to have wordssss from the Original One himssssself. But do not missstake that as dissssloyalty to you. We forever ssserve our queen!”

“Who has more authority over the Changelings? The Original One or Me?”

He was baffled that I would question his loyalty to either me, or this so called, "Original One." He became nervous quickly and his body movements became slightly jumpy.

“We fear the Original One, we fear hisss wrath! Yet, we mussst follow our Queen to her endssss!” he slithered, shaking slightly on the ground.

“If you were to listen to what I want you to do, what would this ‘Original One’ do to you?”

He looked like he was about to talk again, but I interrupted. “I don’t know him, but seeing as he hasn’t ordered you to kill me, it seems that his intentions are in my favor… Or… Chrysalis.”

I started pacing up and down the room at a good pace.

“But here’s what I want to do, Changeling. I want to leave this place, and not be followed by you or any of your kin! Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

He stood up and nodded. I, for a moment, admired the spectacle of seeing this thing in real life, but any form of comprehension went through the window when I first saw it.

Either I was going mad, or what he was actually saying was true. What if I was becoming Chrysalis? What would that do? Would I still be me? What was so good about this ‘Original One’?

The last of my questions left a bad taste in my mouth and an upset stomach, the feeling I got was nearly nauseating! It was evident this Changeling was some kind of expert on the subject, so I took the chance in trying to ask him for any information.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

“Hannah Biddle? We know you’re in there!” boomed a voice from outside, startling me and the Changeling, leaving me unable to ask any more questions.

The Changeling assumed a half-human form, and spoke quickly and quietly- “Don’t talk, I’ll read your thoughts through the hivemind-”

I pinned myself up against the wall as I felt a little panic attack coming on. Thinking about the men at the door, whether they knew anything, had heard anything, or who they were working for.

No matter what it was, I didn’t like the sound of their talking through the door, and I felt it would end up with me in handcuffs, or worse; without hands.

‘What should I do?’ I thought, almost in a direct force towards the changeling. He seemed to pick it up, and responded verbally.

“My queen, I believe that these men wish you harm… I will do whatever I can to make sure that you leave this place unharmed.”

“Open this door right now!” said the voices outside loudly, startling me even more.

‘Just do something! I don’t like the sound of their voices.’

The changeling sighed. And then it smiled. “We would do anything for the safety of our queen.”

There was a bright flash for a split second, and the changeling was engulfed in a green fire once more… As I now stood in front of me.

The changeling grabbed a large medical blanket from a nearby bed, throwing it over my head to hide me from whoever was to come into the room.

“Stay down my Queen,” said the changeling in my voice, disturbing me to no end. “I hope that you find the answers you need from the prophet.”

I made myself small, by crouching into the fetal position, before throwing the blanket over my head. I, however, left a small gap between the blanket and the wall, allowing me to look at the doorway.

The changeling approached the door as the thundering banging upon it continued. “I’m here!” it yelled, getting my tone of voice near identical to my own.

BOOM!

Shards of glass shattered to the ground, giving rain of tiny fragments of silicon. The changeling stuttered, but remained in form… While a hole had been carved through their head. There was no blood at first, only an obscene fatality as it came crashing down to the ground.

I held back a scream, trying to keep as silent as possible, lest I were to suffer the same fate as the creature I had encountered. I couldn’t even move as blood pooled out from the now fresh corpse that lay there.

“Is she dead?” a new voice asked from outside, shortly followed by an arm forcing through the broken glass to open the door from the inside.

Two men walked into the room, keeping a tall posture and guns raised to a safe position. They were tall, but would be nearly unrecognizable if I were to look for them in a crowd.

The one in front lowered his gun to have the nozzle pointing to the corpse, before putting two more bullets into the head. There was no movement from the body, so the gun was lowered and put inside his jacket he had on. He nodded to his associate, and pressed his ear.

“The target’s been taken care of,” he spoke in a cold tone as they both started to walk out of the room. “I expect my payment as soon as I return. I believe that the Changelings will no longer be a threat.”

He slammed the door behind him, causing some other shards of glass to fall out of the broken window due to the shock of the slamming door, the polymer becoming a little instrument on the hard ground.

I was petrified, left to uncomfortable silence in a state that left me unable to move. Lest the two men returned to give me a treatment similar to the Changeling. I lost track of time, as no-one ever came in. It seemed that I was there for about an hour or so. Sight irked me, since my position meant that every time I would open my eyes, I would see the sight of blood and violence. Thus reminding me of the information I was just given. The Changelings existing, the fact I was to become a Queen… And SOMEONE just made an attempt on my life.

I had to warn someone, the Doctor mentioned particular interest in Patrick… And Elizabeth. I could only guess that they were next on some kind of kill list. And I thought by now, the men could have left.

I peered back, opening my eyes and pulling down the blanket that was hiding me from my killers.

The kill was gruesome, leaving a perfectly symmetrical corpse lying in a pool of blood. But this corpse was my own; even the clothing and glasses were a mirror image, created by a creature that my mind prevented me from believing existed. Its death mask was that of shock and horror, I shuddered thinking that might have been the face I would have had fixed on my face if it were me in its place.

But, it luckily kept up the disguise as it fell to the ground, dead.

I left the room hastily, lest the images stained my mind any longer than they should've. I checked to make sure I had the crown, but before I completely left the room, there was something there that bothered me to the point where I was restraining myself from screaming.

Silence.

There wasn't a sound to be heard in the hospital, not machinery, not even the casual chatter or ambient noise. It was probably just on this floor, but the level of eerie silence under the unnaturally bright light left me in a bit of a state of dismay.

My fears of the silence was confirmed as I came to the reception through closed doors. The weather was murky and overcast; creating a grey saturation to the large, empty room.

Those two men must have created some racket discharging guns, but I assume that they might not have wanted to be caught. Either the people who were here before we're moved from location, or...

I remembered something quickly. The receptions desk in these sorts of buildings have CCTV! I ran over to the desk and cycled back the footage, to several minutes before my rude interruption.

The two men walked into the hospital, it was moderately difficult to distinguish them, but they were definitely the same two men.

Before I could notice, the two men had already taken out what looked like gas canisters and thrown them all over the place. The camera misted up, but when it was clear, the two men started to drag the bodies away from sight.

I checked the other monitors, all cameras in all rooms; except for the one I was in thankfully. But it was a similar sight, more men appeared, gunning down any man, woman and child, whether they were doctor or patient. My breath increased to inhuman rates as I covered my mouth.

Evidently someone was willing to go that far to kill me... And that caused such a surge of panic that I threw up what little nourishment I had inside me directly onto the computer screen. My life felt more valuable than ever at that moment, but at the same time, made me regret having it in the first place.

I saw the glimmer of something under the sickly colour of my internal fluids on one of the monitors. The footage was on fast forward, by this time on the recording, the footage had already come to the present time… So what I saw was a small shock-

Elliott…

All I had heard about Elliott recently was that he had had a terrible accident regarding a stupid chemical explosion. According to Patrick, one of his best friends, he had third-degree burns across the side of his face, leaving him bandaged and practically cromatose. He was weird, but evidently smarter than those who were sent to kill me.

He scrambled out of his bed and landed on the floor of his room. The quality did not allow me to see any features, but this was clear. If I had learn’t anything from My Little Pony, other than how to tell if someone’s a Changeling, is that you shouldn’t leave someone in this kind of situation. Even if you’re in dire need of answers for ridiculous questions.

The lifts would be too slow in this kind of situation- I found the nearest staircase and sprinted with dear might to reach the seventh floor. I bet I must’ve looked like the bloody Flash in looking around the floor for the room that he was resting in.

I burst through the door in a hot sweat, heavy breathing startling him, but he did not scream.

“Hannah?” he whispered, barely speaking, as if he was trying not to wake a sleeping wolf. I’m guessing that he saw glimmers of what was going on- or, at least, heard it.

“No time to talk in detail right now-” I spoke with haste. “We need to get you out of here.”

He blinked with his one eye, but I felt after the ordeal, he had as much need to get out of the hospital as I had. But I doubt that he could have walked out with me as he was… I could tell; he seemed to struggle at every action his muscles would make.

I saw that he was on a drip, on a strong concentration of morphine. Judging by the quality of the room he was in, it wasn’t long before I found the conveniently close stash of medical supplies and drugs.

I had now an opportunity to get a friend out mostly unscathed, and keep him and others drugged up to avoid any pain in the coming days, yet I had no idea how to get them out of the building.

Thankfully, a corpse riding on a medical trolley scrolled by the door just in the corner of my eye- Elliott watched patiently with a wide-eyed stare as I shoved the bloody corpse, with my hands and a wince, off the trolley and then wheeled it into the room for him to be placed upon it.

I grabbed some of the medicine, being enough morphine to topple an elephant. I thought to myself again about the possibility of actually becoming something other than a human. So I grabbed everything else in sight as if it were a sweet counter at an olde toffee shoppe.

Putting the weight down into my legs, I lifted Elliott up onto the tray with the pharmaceutical rainbow underneath. He seemed surprised, but he was just about insane enough to ignore my crazed behavior completely and just go with what I was doing.

I remembered that the medical lifts here can lead directly into the car park in case a patient is required to be taken in directly from the ambulance. I scouted ahead, leaving him alone for a moment, by running around like an obsessive-compulsive cheetah. Before finding the door with great big ignorable warning signs that I had been looking for.

I remembered the route as I found my way back to Elliott’s room. I pulled a blanket over his body, which lopped over hiding the drugs to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I thought myself like a starving man- let loose on a buffet.

I sprinted out, keeping Elliott in front of me at all times, if he had any energy in him and wasn’t drugged up to Sovngarde, he would probably be screaming from my sudden burst in speed.

It was very possible that whomever was trying to kill me were still in the building, and the loud noises from the cart smashing into walls as I turned corners badly would probably alert them to my location, but there was no sound of bullets passing over my head or alerted people standing up. So then I made it to the lift again with myself unscathed, and Elliott in a wide-eyed panic.

The lift descended in its course, landing on the ground floor with a squeaky halt. And the doors opened to a slightly dull light from the outside world. A sigh of relief escaped my lips to see no black cars or snipers targeting every limb of my body. Elliott was silent, perhaps slightly catatonic as I went the short distance I had put between the hospital and my own car.

The Rolls was filled to the brim with the multi-coloured drugs, as significant effort was required in closing the boot without bursting any of the liquid-filled packets.

As I opened the back doors of the V-16 Phantom, Elliott moaned slightly. Even with all the painkillers he had had, it must have still hurt.

Using the same maneuver I did putting him into the trolley to get him strapped into the back seat. I, safely, put the seatbelt on him, lest I suddenly grow hooves and cause an accident.

I memorised the route I would have to take to get from here to the café. And resisted from hesitation as I engaged the engine with as much power I could jam into it. The car revved up, exploding forward-

Then my foot came down on the brake almost as hard as the realisation that had just dawned upon me.

It was my birthday…

I’d forgotten… And yet today I had woken up with holes in my hands, told I was to become the Queen of the fucking REAL LIFE CHANGELINGS, and then an… attempt on my life was made…

I was lucky I still had my mind, and even better; my life… But this was too difficult to compensate even happening! I yelled out from within the car; half across one of the driveways and nearly tailgating a poxy Fiat. I screamed and yelled as much as I possibly could, not in a way of a ‘hissy fit’... This was a maddened rage.

I smashed my head against the wheel- over and over and over and over. Gripping my hands tight until I felt like they could bleed, thrashing my feet to a point where the car leapt and bounded due to the sudden movements of the pedals, smashing into the Fiat and swerving slightly. All the time I was screaming. I was screaming like a Banshee, even Elliott was suffering.

*SMASH*

I calmed my screaming to a shrill whimper, while the volume of the car horn made up for the drop in my own output. My head was turned to the side without my mind compelling it… And I observed a completely destroyed window.

Correction- a completely destroyed Palladium glass window. It was the most expensive glass that I could have possibly installed in this car. I think, if you blew up a nuke next to the car- you’d only have the windows left! And I’d just punched it to pieces… With one punch.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck?” I heard behind me, as the one eye Elliott had was nearly flying out of his socket.

He knew what was in this thing, and he had also seen what I had done…

It scared me as much as him… But one thing was certain…

I was turning into a Changeling.

I wasn’t shot at on my way to the Costa. This instilled a sense of calm, but at the same time, terror. Either they still believed I was dead, or they were waiting for me to be completely vulnerable before killing me properly. But this was no time for fear or fun and games. I needed answers from a crazy bitch… And nothing was in my way now.

I looked back at Elliott, who was about awake enough to move his body at a semi-normal rate. “Are you going to be alright? I’m going to be a bit,” I asked, he shrugged.

“As long as I’m still alive… Take your time.”

I turned on the radio and tuned it to a station I believed Elliott would enjoy. I then noticed some discomfort that he was having in regards to his bandages.

“You alright?”

“Mostly… When you’ve done what you need to do, could you get me some more bandages? These are getting incredibly loose.”

I swallowed quickly and made a mental reminder of that fact. And in case those things did fall off, I checked quickly that the windows were tinted… Luckily they were, lest anyone was to peer in and see the hospital patient with half his face missing.

“I’ll do that,” I said, shortly before slamming the door shut and walking up to the entrance of the café.

A thought quickly crossed my mind, thinking that holes in my hands would not be the best thing to have when walking in a crowded place. Luckily, I still had the bandages from earlier. I reapplied them before I walked in.

There was a decent sized crowd, much to my dismay… However, it seemed to only be late-teenagers and veteran pensioners. They looked at me in perfect synchronisation- as if they were expecting me. But there was only one person that caught my attention.

Elizabeth.

“Hannah! You’ve arrived! And just on time too!” she was smoking a cigarette as she said this, which would be illegal in normal situations.

“Isn’t it illegal to smoke here?” I asked, and she only smiled.

“A friendly deed can do a lot of things.”

After she said this, I felt a small tug on my jacket. When I turned around, a little old grannie greeted me with a friendly smile.

She pointed at Elizabeth, “That lovely young lady helped get me to the hospital when I collapsed in public. She was kind enough to pay for the best room in the hospital in excess.”

A voice behind the main counter perked up. “She helped me get off my drug dependence and turn my whole life around! I have a family again because of her!”

“She gave me the will to not jump off a building- I owe my life to her!”

“She helped me stop my ex-wife’s wedding! We’re back together and we’ve never been happier!” “She got me into acting again!” “She finally showed me what the true meaning of Christmas was!” “She helped me overcome my depression!”

“I see you’ve helped all these people,” I said in a monotonous voice, which broke the racket of people talking at once.

“Has this lovely woman made a contribution to your life, dearie?” said the old woman again, with an unintentional condescending tone in her voice.

I noticed Elizabeth standing behind me, “You could say that,” I murmured, “In a way that I’d like to give my ‘thanks’ right now.”

I turned around sharply with my fist out and smacked her clean in the face- a collective gasp from the crowd was followed by a sharp crash as Elizabeth landed on a table, smashing some glasses that were on it at the time.

“YOU caused panic last night and today! YOU caused all this shit to happen! YOU’ve been weaving this entire week together for some twisted, made-up shit! And YOU MADE MY FRIEND CUT OUT HIS OWN FUCKING EYE!”

A tall waiter charged towards me with a large tray and a fierce look on his face. “Don’t you fucking dare hit Miss Comstock!”

Before I could be hit by the human equivalent of a speeding train- Elizabeth perked up from being on the table. “Micheal! Would you kindly stop?”

Like clockwork, the man stopped and put the tray down, causing some cakes to fall off of it.

“She’s had a rough day today… I think she needed to take her anger out on me,” she adjusted her jaw slightly and moved over to sit down on the bench next to the table. “Get me and Hannah here a spot of tea, we’ll be expecting guests soon.”

My eye twitched to see that she had no actual physical injury from a punch that, when last used, went through one of the strongest types of glass known to man.

“Well, are you going to sit down?” she asked. I felt now obliged to sit down to prevent myself from taking it out further on the woman.

There was a short pause in audible dialogue, which was broken when two cups of tea and other items arrived at the table.

“I guess you’re pretty angry at me for-”

“Who are you?” I interrupted in an explosive burst.

"Straight to business are we?"

"No! Don't change the subject!"

She leaned back in her chair and sipped a bit of her tea. "Fine, I'm listening."

"You waltz in like some psychological genius, you scare both myself and Patrick with your fucked up behaviour. You do some deranged and non-explained 'hypnosis' to get me to waste millions of pounds in buying 'pony armor'. You flood us with strange, and quite frankly, stupid presents. You act like a mad woman and call Patrick's best friend a madman- You do nothing when Joshua cut his hand on one of your 'gifts'. And after one strange outburst, you hold me back as Patrick went mad... And started believing he was... Nightmare Moon.

"You did nothing as he took up the knife that YOU gave him. He plunged it into his head and forced his eye out! And now, whatever you did to him is now effecting ME! And you act as if I'm your best friend! But I'll tell you what, Bitch- You're not my friend, YOU'RE turning me into a Changeling!"

She lifted her eyebrow, "What makes you so sure that I'm turning you?"

I took out the crown again and placed it on the table. “Another one of your presents, or it had something to do with that… Thing that happened to Patrick.”

“You met the head of the Changeling guard, I assume.”

I fell silent as she said this. Yet she continued, “I see he was willing to let you go… I hope he didn’t cause you too much trouble. Where is he now?”

“He’s dead.”

In all my time seeing Elizabeth, she now pulled a face that I hadn’t seen on her… Surprise.

It was for but a moment, any normal person wouldn’t be able to see it. For about one fifth of a second; her eyebrows raised, eyes widened and mouth hung open for more than usual. And then, her eyelids rose to accommodate her tensed up lower eyelids.

Fear… She was actually afraid.

“Who by?” I asked, trying to get something out of her.

“Honestly, Hannah. That’s something I don’t know,” she said, holding the same tone as before. “Oh! Hold on!” she took out her phone and began to start typing into the device quickly.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Texting a friend… He’ll be joining us soon. Then we’ll begin the discussion.”

“Can you please make SOME SENSE in what you’re saying?”

The front door opened from behind me.

“Oh he’s here!” Elizabeth said, causing me to turn around.

And then Patrick was there.

Several things went through my mind as I saw him. The sheer happiness of seeing him alive and well instead of being hospitalised or worse from the injury he received. Then my mind was distracted with the memory itself… I was confused on how he could’ve survived that. Such a violent injury, and possibly… BECOMING Nightmare Moon.

The image crossed my mind once more, of the violent situation that caused him to tear his own eye out with a rusty-looking knife.

The last thing I noticed was what was in place of his eye. Usually, someone would expect a bandage, or an eyepatch… or even a gaping hole for lazy people!

But he had none of these. Instead, he had an eye…

Except his eye wasn’t natural. It was as red as blood, and seemed to glare with absolute abhorrent evil even at a glance. It scared me to think that the eye belonged to my friend at all…

If Nightmare Moon had frightening blue eyes, and Nightmare Moon took control of him…

I would wonder what was in control of him now.

I walked towards him as another followed him in, I payed no real attention to the follower for the moment and just spoke to Patrick, keeping a fixed stare at the red eye and the scar surrounding it.

“You’re here! Elizabeth was just about to explain some things-” suddenly the identity of the following individual made itself aware, and it was just as unbelievable as most other things today. “Is that David Tennant?” I asked with a higher tone of voice.

The person I didn’t expect expect to speak next was the tenth doctor himself, “You have mysterious tattoos too?” he said with a golden scottish accent and a friendly wave.

I died a little inside by the fact such a wonderful situation would lead to something like this… But something caught my attention specifically again. “Tattoos? What tattoos?” I felt completely obliged to now start a friendly conversation. “Oh, and nice to meet you Mr. Tennant.”

Patrick piped up before I could start declaring my love for the Scottish actor in this situation. “We both woke up with ‘Tattoos’ on our flanks,” I came to the conclusion that this was the situation in their case. “We believe Elizabeth has something to do with it. And as by the way you said, ‘explain some things’ I guess you’ve woken up with something.”

I had a similar idea, but he needed clarification of what was my case. I directed him to the re-bandaged hands. “It’s nothing compared to your eye, but it’s bad. I’m terrified and confused, and apparently Elizabeth is the only one who knows the full details of what’s happening to me.”

David spoke up. “Eye? Is that scar what she was talking about?”

It now occurred to me that Patrick had not gone over what he had done last night; this particularly irked me. I knew that Patrick was out of his mind, perhaps even possessed with an eldritch force that I could only now understand, due to the fact there was something maybe even MORE ridiculous happening to me. Patrick looked as if he was about to stop me from saying what I was about to say. But even that red eye wasn’t going to stop me.

“He cut out his eye last night! I saw him do it with a knife, last night! He was saying he was Nightmare Moon! I thought he’d gone mad! But for some reason it’s grown back overnight… RED! I was so scared.” I addressed him with as much anger as I could muster, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

David furrowed his brow in a way I had not seen since he was ‘10’. “You cut out your eye?” he said in an unbelieving manor to Patrick himself.

“HE CUT OUT HIS EYE!” Yelled everyone else in the café, much to Patrick and David’s surprise. The old lady from earlier turned to Patrick.

“I know you cut out your eye dear. But this lovely girl here wouldn’t stop until she’d given us every detail! Delightful girl, but I doubt she’d be a very good spy… I do like your scar by the way. It gives a very ‘renegade’ look to you, dear,”

Seeing the calm manner that old woman spoke about my outbursts made me realise my complete unreasonableness. For all I knew, Nightmare Moon could’ve still been in control. But the human eye Patrick had did not have the same harsh glare that I saw in him last night. I worried that Nightmare Moon could be triggered. So when I spoke again, I leaned in to whisper to him.

When I placed my hand on his shoulder, I winced with a small amount of pain, despite the diverted nerve endings. I could feel it almost… Growing… By about half a centimetre.

“Sorry, it’s just… I think I’m turning into a Changeling.”

I could see a twitch in his eye, and almost a grin trying to make its way out.

She was still there, it was clear. Patrick must have been holding her back.

"Would you kindly come over here, please?" Said Elizabeth from behind me. Getting the attention of all three of us.

I felt that discussion between us would get us more rowdy, knowing Nightmare Moon. I wouldn’t risk setting her off… Even if she wasn’t even real. I went back to the table Elizabeth and I were at, and the two men followed.

Michael, the tall waiter passed by the table again. “Michael dear,” said Elizabeth, "Another round of drinks and delicacies on me. And make sure that no one else enters."

The café made a small cheer at the suggestion of being given free food and drinks, and Michael and the other waiters/servers started flipping signs around and closing window blinds.

"Nice to see you again, Patrick. Good night's sleep?"

That made me want to punch her with how smug she said it, but Patrick did nothing. But I think Elizabeth got her appropriate super-powered punch to the face already.

"The sleep was fine, Elizabeth,” Patrick replied with a dark tone. “I believe it was the morning that was not good. Although I believe you know all about my morning, his morning, and everything else that's going on right now."

Burn, I had to admit it was quite satisfying the way he said that.

Elizabeth, who at the time was sipping tea, put down the cup and smiled with an Unbridgeesque giggle.

"I can tell you're all a little confused,” No shit. “-and a tad angry at the moment.” No fucking shit. “But here we are, as I am ready to supply what you need, for the time being, and you have come to me." She put particular emphasis on ‘need’ and ‘time being’.

David Tennant, who was setting down to a cup of tea that he was just handed, spoke again. “I'm beginning to suspect that this isn't just some weirdo with a tattoo needle and a drill.”

He’s a good actor, but he can be a little ignorant… But I guess that he didn’t have a Changeling General, or possibly Nightmare Moon.

Elizabeth leant over the table as Patrick refused a small cake… Shit… That’s serious. “That is exactly what I want you to stop believing as I impart this vital information to you.

She now pointed a sharp finger at all three of us sitting at the table. “You must rule out every logical and scientific theory that your minds can think of, the facts I reveal will be so difficult to believe you will have to force yourself not to think otherwise."

I knew this, and I had already thought that through. I think if I tried to put any rhyme or reason into the transformation I was possibly about to go through, I would go insane.

“I can only impart so much, as the information I do not impart is for you, and you alone to find out. Do you accept this?”

Great, fucking riddles. But if she was going to get us started, I would have to agree to this.

The others and I nodded and then something creepy happened.

The café’s ambient noise became freakishly quiet. Every person in the café stopped speaking, and didn’t even look at us. Almost as if they wanted us to know this as well.

“Then let us begin.”

Author's Note

I'm back with a long chapter again! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. But I've established a new character in this chapter, Which will link this story to the Combat Eternal Universe and added some backstory to Chronos and Chrysalis (but not all of it)

Thank you to Dusk Writer for editing again.

Until next time. -Zeydaan