A Blight on Equestria

I stretch over the table on my front and take a few deep breaths.  A Changeling comes into my cone of vision and with simple deliberate motions he places a length of wood in my mouth.  My breathing becomes more focused as he moves behind me.  I focus on what I came here for and how farther I need to go.  I think about the pain I’m in.  I think about the rocks I landed on after I was expelled from Canterlot.

I bite down on the piece of wood and refuse to scream.  A familiar pain hits my lower back near the spine.  A large syringe presses deeper into my body sending a shockwave of agony through my small frame.  Powerful drugs are pumped into my body and for a brief moment it feels like I’m on fire.

To my credit I don’t scream anymore.  It’s been several treatments since I yelled out; and for the first two I had to be restrained.  I think about my goal as the pain gets worse.  The large needle is leaving my back as slowly as it had entered.  I didn’t even realize that I had shed a few tears in my agony.  I lay there still for a while and let the wooden bit hit the floor.  The Changeling leaves without a word; or perhaps I didn’t hear him.  I remain still as the pain starts to subside.

I change my body to resemble an Earth Pony just to prove to myself that I still can.  It takes a toll on my body to retain a Pony’s form.  One of the side effects of straining myself is that I start to bleed from behind my eyes; and it comes out the only way it can.  My body just isn’t built for magic.

I groan as I get off the table and pace around it.  I compile my more recent thoughts to take my mind off the slowly numbing pain.

I have the first of two spider statues done; I’m quite proud of the detail.  Pop was a carpenter by trade and Mom was an artist.  I wanted to entertain my people with magic but my condition prevented me from using any real power.

So I improvised.

Go to a magic show.  See some illusions.  Watch as the trickster performs feats of wonder.  I used to envy magicians in my youth until I learned what it was all about.

Showmanship.

I learned how to act, how to misdirect, deceive and outright lie to a crowd and perform ‘magic’ with no sparks of power.  Ever see a teleportation spell?  I’ve got something similar.  I have two doors set up on the stage and open one.  I stand in the blind spot created by the visual obstacle and a trapdoor drops me into a crawlspace under the floor.  On the other side is a lever system that opens the other door and in the second blind spot I ascend through another trap door.  I step out disoriented as if something went wrong with the ‘spell’ and skepticism from the crowd becomes relief that I’m OK.

Ever see sparks fly out of someone’s hooves?  I can do that too.  I wrap my hooves in a durable burn resistant material and coat them with flammable powders and put an abrasive surface on the bottoms of them.  I strike them together like a match against its box and point them away from my face and colored sparks fly like a small fireworks display.  The material is reduced to a layer of fine ash which I just dust off.

Ever watch a magician make their assistant disappear?  That’s an easy one.  A pressure sensitive smoke bomb hits the floor and the assistant quickly darts straight backwards through the wall behind me; specifically through a set of boards that double as a door triggered by a pressure plate.

Ever watch a giant obsidian spider appear out of nowhere with starved corpses hanging from it?

That reminds me.  A lone Unicorn actually saw through my Earth Pony disguise.  I can use her to move the completed statues to their destinations.  I had methods for moving them in mind but this would drastically minimize being intercepted.

The pain in my back subsides and I’m not taking any more labored breaths.  I think about my parents again.

I miss them dearly.  We were hiding in Canterlot living under the radar.  We never hurt anypony in our lives.  Ponies were so infatuated with their projects that we actually were fed by it.  You’d never guess that we weren’t really like them.

Of course we didn’t stay there as long as my parents would have wanted.  The three of us had gone out to breakfast to celebrate my Dad getting a real important job for the palace.  We got to see some real important parts of the city that day.  We even stopped to look at one of the more impressive schools.

I feel a degree of rage rising over me as my mind keeps going.  A stray bolt of magic jolts out from a window of the school and nails us.  We were teleported far away from Canterlot; I’m not really sure where to be honest.  I woke up and my Dad wasn’t moving.  My Mom was banged up too.  I got off lucky.  Next thing I know I swear that I can see in the face of the Princess Celestia in the sun.  I thought we were going to get rescued and brought back.

I was wrong.  If he had kept our Pony disguises maybe it would have been different.  Instead my Mom and I were found by our own kind a day later.  They took care of us until she died and watched over me up until I could fend for myself.  I started wondering why my parents even left the Changelings in the first place.

I sigh as I start towards the exit of the room.  When I heard that we were going to invade Canterlot I dropped my career and enlisted.  I was one of the first Changelings in the streets once the barrier fell.  I took canon fire at point blank range and I don’t know where the heck it even came from!  I guess that blow weakened my back a great deal and landing on that rock didn’t help me either.

The pain fully subsides and I exit the room.  The building had been long forgotten along with the rest of the town.  With the exception of that Unicorn not a single soul seemed to remember the place existed.

I see a few Changelings adapting to their Pony disguises.  I’m only going to have about half of them wearing the masks of Ponykind.  I want this to look like a rebellion with Changeling allies rather than round two of the invasion.

My Queen is counting on me.

At least I tell myself that.  Her injuries didn’t leave her in any position to give orders, so I put on my best ‘Alpha’ act and assumed command.  I had years learning to emulate an aura of command and the high captains were banged up a lot worse than me.  I sent the most wounded home and kept the healthy and plotted since.  This war would be finished the only way I knew how to really fight.

Showmanship.

I enter the abandoned mine the previous inhabitants had turned into a good sized manufacturing plant.  Learning about the bearers of the Elements of Harmony was easy.  Their seen as heroes; it would be hard to find a pony who didn’t know who they were.  I singled out Twilight Sparkle because she’s somewhat seen as their leader.

Plus I still Hate her for what she did to my family.  My father died.  My mother lingered for awhile after that.  The aftereffect of the freak spell weakened my shape shifting abilities.  She took away our home…

And she’s…a bucking hero…

I’ll give the statue a distorted reproduction of her cutie mark and hang Unicorns from its body.  I’ll hang a few ‘volunteers’ from my division to make me look like more of a monster.  I’ll visit her in Canterlot next time I hear that she’s there and give her a little teaser trailer of what’s to come.

I reach the part of the old mine where I keep the statues.  I guess I got my knack for fine details from my parents.  They almost look like they might be real.  One of them is for Canterlot and the other is for Cloudsdale.  The Canterlot one is done except for the broken cutie mark.  The Cloudsdale one is different.  This one has more obvious fangs and its body is positioned as if it is about to start spinning a web.

It’s also built to hold just one body from its underside rather than eight from the leg joints.  I prop a ladder against the back of the Canterlot spider and start to carve the new adjustment when a Changeling enters the chamber.  I look down at him and he speaks plainly.

“We’ve met the quota.  Four Unicorns are now in custody.”

I smile to myself and promptly reply.

“I’ll see to them shortly.”

The Changeling turns to leave and I get back to work.  The Unicorns will send quite the message to Equestria soon.  A thought comes to my mind and I address the soldier.

“The Changeling bodies?”

“Still in good condition.  We have at least four months before the enchantments fade.”

I nod and get back to carving.  A few Changelings who didn’t survive the fall I’ve kept preserved.  Part of me does feel a bit remorseful for desecrating the bodies of my fallen brothers and sisters but it doesn’t last.

I have a war to finish.

This is going to be my greatest performance.

She is going to pay.