My Little Changeling: Friendship is Survival

--Canterlot Intruder--

--Part VI--

I was too weak to move, but it was fine; I didn't need to. Her black eyes watched over all of us, keeping us safe. We were loved, and we were a family. We were all strangers before, but she brought us together.

She saw how unhappy we had been, how we needed a mother who genuinely cared about us.

We sat at a massive rectangular table. It never seemed to end; it's length ran off into the empty red horizon. I couldn't count how many of us were sitting at it. We each sat perfectly still, eyes locked with mother's.

A plate sat in front of each of us, but it had no food; I didn't need it of course.

I could feel her love radiating out into each of us; a rush of energy threatened to overpower the weakness I felt.

All eyes were on me, each one unblinking.

She spoke for the first time. “Won't you stay with us?”

Murmurs rose from the surrounding crowd, all asking me to stay.

The alarm woke me up again.

I felt incredible. My body was brimming with energy.

I had spent the entire previous night going through the textbook for my magic class again. I failed to cast any of the spells in the book; hopefully I would figure it out before I had to display any magic in class.

I hadn't been any more productive earlier that day either. Sky Wing tailed me from up in the sky while I walked around Canterlot trying to find Gale Force. We stayed out for as long as we could, but Sky was eventually stopped mid-air by one of the pegasus guards and sent home. Evidently, they didn't even notice me.

I swear, it's like those guards can't even see me.

I skipped breakfast that day; I was still kind of avoiding the club I had been muscled into. I knew the effort was largely futile of course, seeing as how I had three classes with Radiant.

Her constantly trying to chat with me was growing very annoying considering that I had pretty much been transplanted into this school mid-semester. I was struggling to catch up with the class, and the last thing I needed was to be chatting in class and spending hours outside looking for random students.

Well, I had already committed to helping them by this point; I pretty much had to see it through.

Mirror Eclipse was taking attendance.

“Solar?” She asked, glancing around. “Where is everypony? That's the sixth one.”

Radiant's ears perked up immediately. I gave her a curious look.

Mirror set her attendance sheet down as she scanned the class. “Half the class is gone? Is there something going on today I don't know about?” she asked, looking through her school calender.

Students began to stir, looking around at the class, as if they only just now realized how empty it looked.

I leaned closer to Radiant. “What's happening?”

She mulled my question over before responding, “I'm not sure.”

Nopony in the room had a real answer to give her, so Mirror simply continued on. I assumed that she planned to check out what was going on after class was over.

Things didn't get better as the day went on; teachers continued to notice the missing students. School was canceled altogether just a couple of classes later.

...Which freed us up to search for the missing students.

I waited next to the front gate for Radiant to show up with the others. She had no idea why the missing ponies were suddenly noticed; I wasn't so sure we were going to find any of them if the city went on the high alert to look for them.

That wasn't such a bad thing though, all the guards in the city working together would be more effective than the four of us. It was a bit of a relief really.

I recoiled back when Sky landed next to me with a hard impact.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“Sorry, sorry... sort of.” He smirked at me.

I can already tell I'm not gonna like you.

“I'm sorry about him,” Triumphant said, as she trotted up to us with Radiant.

“Are you ready?” Radiant asked.

I nodded to her and walked out the gate.

Canterlot had gone on high alert, big time. Ponies were freaking out.

Various high ranking members of the guard were addressing the public on different streets, attempting to calm everyone down.

“We assure you, Celestia herself is leading the charge on this- We will find out what is happening!”

Some of the ponies were crying; I think they were the parents of those kids.

I ducked back into an alley, motioning for the others to follow. “I don't think they're going to let us walk around much longer.”

“Why don't we just sneak around them?” Sky asked.

“In broad daylight?” Radiant asked sarcastically.

That's not such a bad idea... For me anyways.

A quick glance into the street revealed a couple of students being escorted back to the school.

“I have an idea,” I pointed at Sky Wing, “fly up there,” I said, pointing up towards the sky.

“...Why?” He raised an eyebrow skeptically at me.

“Trust me.” I struggled to suppress my growing smirk.

He looked at the others briefly before hesitantly flying straight up. I was on edge, waiting for them to show up. Which they did.

A couple of pegasus guards flew next to him and I instantly bolted.

“What are you doing!?” Radiant yelled after me.

I twisted around while sprinting just in time to see the same guard land next to them. He looked towards me before I rounded the corner into another back alley.

After rapidly scanning the alley and sky I shape shifted into an adult earth pony.

I casually walked towards the street.

“Hey, you!”

I nearly leapt out of my skin.

“Did you see a kid run by here?” The pegasus had caught up with me.

I pointed towards the street. “That way.”

He took off immediately. “Thanks!”

I smirked at my deception while walking towards the castle; if Celestia was going to make an announcement, it would probably be there.

There was no need to rush to get there; I hadn't heard anything about her making an announcement just yet. I listened intently to everypony I passed, trying to pick up on any recent developments.

Rumors about what was really happening were rampant, most of them ridiculous; my favorite was that a traveling circus had brainwashed all of the missing foals.

My least favorite was that changelings had kidnapped all of them to drain their emotions.

A large crowd was waiting outside of the castle; I didn't like being stuck in large crowds, so I stayed away form it until Celestia allowed them inside after about half an hour of waiting. I was a little excited, since I had never seen her in person. The thought that she could detect what I really was still lingered though.

Stain glass windows were placed all over the lobby, it took my breath away to see the works of art built into them. One of the windows contained the image of a white alicorn flying beside the sun with a black one on the opposite side, accompanied by the moon.

I raised an eyebrow at the image, the sun side was probably supposed to be Celestia. I didn't know who the other one was supposed to be.

Nightmare moon?

There was nothing malicious about the lunar side of the stain glass. Both alicorns were depicted exactly the same.

I shrugged at it as I joined the crowd. It was weird being the same height as the adults.

A voice boomed out over the ruckus of the crowd. “Everypony, please listen!” It was a royal guard shouting from up above us. The crowd slowly died down.

Celestia herself walked ahead of him, now in clear view of the crowd atop a balcony.

“A tragedy has befallen this city,” her regal voice boomed. “Well over two hundred foals have vanished from this city, and nopony was aware of it until today.”

Her numbers didn't immediately check out until I remembered that there was another school that was probably missing students too.

Her voice only seemed to get louder as she spoke. “How we all could have been unaware of this is uncertain, but I promise all of you, here and now; we will recover our missing foals, we will find out who did this, and they will face justice for what they have done!”

The crowd exploded in reaction to her passion, I couldn't help but join them. They- We wanted justice for this.

I should make sure to never make an enemy of the princess.

My blood was boiling along with the crowds, we wanted to go out and start kicking doors down. The more rational part of my brain kicked in a few moments later; I was letting myself get too caught up with the crowd. I had a way to help, and it wasn't by shouting angrily at an unknown threat with a bunch of other ponies.

I departed immediately.

It didn't seem likely that she had anything substantial to say anyways, they only knew about the missing foals for a few hours.

My desire to return Gale Force to his family returned ten fold, but it was more than that. I wanted to return all of the missing foals to their families. My mind wandered back to my own mother briefly, there was a hint of doubt. I quashed it immediately.

Frustration built up upon realizing the town actively searching for the missing students would prevent me from finding one. I bitterly thought back to my previous relief that the guards would do the work for us. Regardless, there had to be some hope that I could make a difference here.

First thing first, I was going to have to apologize for-quite frankly-screwing over the others. Hopefully telling them about my first hand account of Celestia's announcement would make up for it, if only because it proved I seemingly had a reason for what I did.

Technically I did have a reason, it just had more to do with Sky Wing than our goal.

My only chance was to search at night, it was the only time the missing students would wander around with the town like this. This was assuming they would even show up again.

I trotted towards the academy until my attention was caught by an odd looking pony.

She seemed to be an earth pony but... her fur was just, wrong. It was shiny, like she was wearing a porcelain shell around her body; I couldn't see her face.

Nopony around paid her any mind; they continued to walk to their respective destinations. I took a few tentative steps in towards her.

Her head craned in my direction, revealing her pitch black eyes.

They froze me in my tracks. Seeing them brought out vague memories from my sleep.

Time slowed down in that instant, the crowd seemed to all blur together; none of them noticed me or her.

She took slow, trembling steps in my direction. I couldn't react in any way, instead allowing her to keep approaching me.

When she stood face to face with me she finally spoke up, her voice distorted. “I'vE foUnD yoU... You DoN't hAve tO hiDe wHat yOu arE fRoM mE.”

I stared at her.

“ComE wiTh mE.”

Her features barely sunk in; her coat was smooth, like it was made from hard material. Her mouth failed to move when she spoke.

...What are you?