Forever a Changeling-The lord of shadows

by Shade0

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure
Length: 4008

Rainbow thought it was all over when Recarn was locked up. Fat chance. Now she has been dragged into another adventure. Well when you're an element of harmony, a changeling proto-queen and an adoptive mom/big sister, it's NEVER all over.

A sequel to Scootaloo-009's amazing story "Forever a Changeling" (read it first or this won't make ANY sense)

Rainbow's life was just getting back to being awesome after adopting Scootalo, when she receives a summons to canterlot to help investigate a spree of kidnappings and disappearances, which the royal guards believe to be changeling-related.

But soon Dash discovers that it's not just her friends at risk, or even the changelings, but all of Equestria.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-02 15:35:12 UTC

Prolouge:Meeting in the Rain

Ponyvile- Side Alley

It was raining. Well in ponyville rain never came without the ponies knowing it would. Which was particularly handy for two individuals because no-pony would think of standing around in the rain and noticing something like two changelings meeting in an alley way.

"This is stupid"said the first one, sounding female, under the hooded coat she was wearing she resembled Rainbow Dash but with reflective silver on her mane,tail,eyes,wing cases and stomach."I'm freezing my exoskeleton off!"

"Would you rather continue  this conversation inside a jail cell?"said the second ,male sounding, changeling. He had the same silver belly and wing case but his mane consisted of slicked back black and white spikes with no holes in them, unlike his tail which, like most changeling body bits ,was riddled with holes,his horn resembled Sombras but was black towards the tip and had a large hole in the side."Anyway we only have to find the next target."

"And then?"

"We strike."

Your worst nightmare

"So why are we here?"

Dash asked for the hundreth time.She had been summoned to canertelot, along with Scootaloo with out any warning, when a platoon of Guards turned up at her doorstep..

"I already told you"sighed Shining Armour "Recentley there have been a spree of kidnappings which we discovered to be Changeling related..."

"I know that, I mean why are me and Scoots here" Interuppted Dash " This is just another of your "I hate Changelings" things" She added"for all we know, it could be a griffon kidnapping everypony"

"Not when we have eveidence" Grinned Shining, His horn glowed and suddenly a moving picture was projected onto a nearby wall."We found this in a Unicorn guards memories"

An earth pony salesman walked across the street towards a house, Glanceing at the guard, Just as he was about to knock a hodded pony lept out of a side ally and pinned him down!

"Get off the colt right now!" bellowed the pegasus guard who was partnered with the memorys owner, and swung a hoof at the hooded figure.

Suddenly there was a flash of silver fire and his Hoof connected with a pure black shell, Yellow eyes glare up at him."Holy Buck! It's a Changeling! Mana Burst Hit Him!"

The unicorns horn flashed but with no visible affect on the Target."What the Hey!" Yelled Mana burst "that spell was ment to knock out all changelings in The whole city!"

Back in reality Rainbow Glared at Shining "Another one of your inventions I see" She growled.

In the Memory The Pegasus guard was knocked out and Mana was pinned to a wall by his neck.

"What are you?" asked the terrified Guard.

"your worst Nightmare" replied the Changeling

And then the sucker was Punched

"So"Continued Shining "your job is to help us find out why that sales colt was targeted, as you are the only allied g=changeling available".

"And Scoots?"

"Will stay here in case you get any ideas."

"I hate you"

"So do I"

Some introductions

"Ok!" declared Shade "well that didn't go well at all"

"I guessed" Mirra (the other changeling from ch1) said "the fact that your prisoner is NOT one of Mecahz hive is a big clue."

"Sweet Embrious Shade!" groaned a nearby albino (white with pink eyes) changeling who was cleaning two crossbows with his magic "that's two times you've failed!"

"For the record" said a female-sounding changeling with a short purple mane, purple eyes and a double helix horn "both times it was the moron patrol who made him lose the target."

"Yes" added another changeling, this one with red eyes, a white mane and white at the end of his fore hoofs. He stood on the back of another MASSIVE changeling who's only other distinguishing feature was that he appered to have diamonds growing out of his back.

"And even then you can't blame them, they were just doing their job."

"HEY!!! HEY!!!! HEY!!!!!!!!!! why's she tied up?" asked a yellow maned and green eyed changeling who would NOT STOP TWITCHING OR TALKING! It was his high-piched voice that woke Rainbow up.

"She's stronger than she looks" answered Shade "It took thirty Noobs just to stop her from flying away!"

"And the gag?" Shade chuckled before answering "lets just say that she knows language more colourful than her mane."

Shade walked over to Dash "Now, lets see what you know"

He placed his horn to Dash's and suddentley she was reliving the days when he discovered she was a changeling.

There was her being hit by twilight's spell, meeting queen Oiv in a brothel, being captured by changelings loyal to queen Capas along with twilight, befriending Capras, Discovering her own Queen Recarn, finding out that she had been transfered to the body of a changeling nymph after a near-fatal accident as a Foal, Fighting Recarn To save her friends, Swapping ionto the body of a proto-queen to save her life, Bringing Recarn back to Canterlot and finaly converting and adopting scootaloo.

All this went through her mind in under a second.

She opened her eyes "mmmphh!" nope still gagged.

She was in wagon being pulled by Two royal guards, however they seemed to be slightley transparent.

"I believe you want our names." declared a voice "I am Nightshade, but every one calls me Shade, Double-helix horn is Psi, Mr albino is Arris, The guy with the white forehooves is Vax and the Big guy is Bez."

Slowley Shade advanced out of the shadows "We are the elite guards of Daggor, Queen of shadow mountain. And this" He Gestured to the silver maned changeling "Is my charge, Princess Mirra"

Twitchy!

As soon as Shade was done his stupidly over-dramatic speech he fell over laughing.

"That was just AWFUL!" Laughed Shade

"I Know!" Laughed Mirra "You know I hate you calling me "Princess"! "

"I Know! But it sounds better than Proto-Queen Mirra!" replied Shade

"You forgot me!" yelled the twitchy changeling from earlier, who was standing with his forehooves folded. This attempt to look imposing failed epically due to the fact that he was standing upside-down on the ceiling.

"Hi!" he bellowed into Rainbow's face "I'm Twitchy!" Rainbow rolled her eyes, It fitted.

"Twitchy!" Mirra and Shade Yelled in union "There's a reason why she's gagged! You've Just gone and alerted ALL the guards at this Checkpoint!"

"Hey!" Yelled a Guard outside "Did I just hear a voice coming from that Supply wagon?"  "NO!" yelled one of the "Guards" pulling the wagon "Just your imagination!"

"So" Asked Arris "Do we attack now or wait for them to discover us?" Shade Grinned in responce "I've already had mu daily dose of combat so you go ahead"

What followed was utter chaos, Through the door of the wagon Rainbow caught gimpses of the fight. She saw Arris shooting his dual crossbows with deadly accuracy, being relieved when Shade pointed out that he was using knockout bolts.

She saw Mirra somehow convincing several guards to run headfirst into the nearest wall.  She saw Bez scattering Guards like bowling pins with Vax riding on his back, whenever a Guard got close enough to succeed in hurting Bez, Vax's Hooves would glow and the wound would vanish.

Twitchy shot around at impossible speeds leaving a trail of unconscious guards in his wake, while Psi used spell after spell to devastating effect.

After 2 minutes of this the Changelings returned to the wagon. "How many?" asked Shade "Around 2,3,4 Hundred" Replied Arris casually "Half of them ran off after a minute"

As the wagon started to move again, Rainbow trembled. Whatever her Captors were, they were NOT normal.

Planning

"Ok" Declared Shade after the wagon was a good distance away from the last town "I have an idea, but we can't let Miss Dash in on our plan, so everyling into the back!" "This is my chance!" Thought Rainbow as her captors vanished behind the sheet of fabric that served as a 'door' between the two halves of the wagon. "While they're distracted I can escape!"

She waited a few seconds then started some planning of her own. "Maybe I can get this gag off and call for help" Thought Dash "I could change into my pony form so whoever rescues me wont think it's a trick." Dash shuffled over to a mirror that was propped up on the far wall of the wagon to get a better look at how she was gagged. Rainbow sighed in frustration, not only did the gag perfectley cover the entire lower half of her face, the knot was also concealed behind her mane.

"Well there goes that Idea" She mentally moaned. She considered banging her hind hooves against the walls of the wagon to attract attention, but she had been forced to kneel on her hind hooves. Then she thought about a trick she had read about in a Daring Do book: Twisting her bound forehooves over her head so she could bite them off. Unfortunately the ropes around her waist made this impossible. "Besides" She realised "I cant chew these off with this gag on, I guess I could cut it on my horn but........ wait". Rainbow groaned as she realised what Twilight would have realised in  under ten seconds had she been in her place: she could use magic!

Dash sighed as she prepared to use telekinesis to unbind her self when.............. nothing.

Nothing happened. Dash, confused tried again and again but with the same results. Suddenley a horrible thought hit her, she tried to disguise, still nothing. Rainbow let out a long annoyed moan as she realised what had happened, they had cut off her magic! She remembered Twilight telling her that it was a rare form of magic, but seeing as her horn looked ok, it had to be a blocking spell.

Still, she could at least find out what the other changelings were going to do to her, so she shuffled over to the 'door' and leaned up close. She only caught the end of the plan: "And once we have all of the elements of harmony in our grasp, the royal guards will follow us to the ends of Equestria to rescue them!"

Before Rainbow could process what she had heard, she was knocked to the floor by a yellow-eyed changeling who had forgot to look where he was going.

Hunting for trouble

'Well this is awkward' Shade said, blushing,as his face was centimeters away from Dash's.'Did anyling- i mean anypony ever tell you that your mane is really soft?' Rainbow groaned, lifted her hind hooves (which were bound together) and kicked Shade off her. He let out a short cry of pain and looked down, seeing the source of the pain instantley: a reasonable-sized crack in his exoskeleton.

'VAX!' bellowed the shadow-controling changeling 'I need some help here!'. 'Not again' moaned Vax entering thorugh the curtain and examining the damage to Shade's shell. 'It's just a fractured outer exoskeleton, you big hatchling!' 'It burns!' retorted Shade 'heal me!' 'Fine' sighed Vax 'But first I think our little captive needs some sleep'

Rainbow closed her eyes bracing for a knockout blow to her head, but instead felt a hoof stroking her face. However before she could open her eyes she suddenly felt very sleepy.....

Muffled snores and the sound of a rapidly healing crack filled the wagon.

'Are y'all sure that you can smell Rainbow nearby?' Applejack asked Scootaloo as they rushed through the halls of a theatre in downtown fillydelpia, which was closed for the night. 'This seems like an awful strange place to hide a hostage'. 'That's the reason they chose it!' Replied Twilight 'It's reverse psychology! The changelings hid Rainbow in the least likely place we would look!'  'Twilight's right darling.' added Rarity 'Without her tracking spell to lead us here, and Scootaloo's ability to track Rainbow through her changeling pherenome, we would have never looked here!'

'Wait!' Yelled Scootaloo, stopping in front of a door labelled 'Janitor' 'Dash must be in here'. 'The janitor's closet?' said pinkie unimpressed 'How unoriginal can you get?'  'Get out of the way.' declared Twilight using an unlocking spell on the door and flinging it open.

'Oh my' said Fluttershy, seeing Rainbow bound and gagged, staring at them in shock. Fluttershy flew over and ungagged her. Rainbow proceeded to yell the most unoriginal thing possible: 'It's a trap!'

'How right you are my little Dashie' chuckled a familiar voice from the door way. The assembled  mares (sans Rainbow) spun around  to see seven dark figures standing it the corridor the had just came through, while their faces were concealed in shadows, the group could see enough to know that they were all changelings. 'If you mares are hunting for trouble, then you found it!' Yelled one of them, brandishing a large scythe.

'That's it' Yelled Rainbow in anger, as Applejack untied her bonds 'You may have gotten the drop on me last time, but now that my friends are here, you changelings are going down!' 'Harsh words for your own species!' Joked the figure that she recognised as Mirra. 'For the record, I consider myself and Scoots to be more pony than changeling!' retorted Dash. 'Well now that's out of the way, let the fun begin!' declared Mirra. And with that, both sides charged

Meet the Team

The two charging groups met in the middle of the hallway and somehow each of the combatants wound up in one-on-one fights. Shade and Rainbow had both shape-shifted their fore hooves into blades and were dueling above the brawl. "What happened to being more pegasus than changeling?" asked Shade, dodging a slash from Rainbow. "I needed a good comeback ok?!" replied a ticked-off Dash "Now stop talking and get back to fighting!" She yelled, charging at her opponent.

Meanwhile Arris was fighting Applejack. "Confound it!" Yelled Applejack "Quit flyin' 'round tryin' ta hit me with them little toothpick-shooters an' fight me face-to-face!" She demanded. "Make me!" replied a smug Arris, however the smugness vanished from his face when a lasso, which Applejack always kept under her hat, wrapped around his left forehoof and pulled him to the floor. "There" Chuckled the apple farmer "I made ya'". Arris reached behind his back and grinned "Do you really think that i'll got down just like that?"

Arris chuckled as he rummaged around behind his back. "What in tarnation do y'all think you're do......." Applejack was cut off when the albino changeling produced a hammer twice his size from behind his back. "Hammer time" Chuckled Arris, lifting the weapon with inpony strength. Applejack let out a strangled whinny of terror and ran, Arris hot on her heels, promising not to break every bone in her body.

Pinkie Pie and Twitchy stared at each other, then Pinkie asked the critical question "Do you like parties?" and Twitchy gave the standard response:"YES!!!". Of course most sentient creatures do net yell it loud enough to blast the pink party pony halfway across the room and into a wall. Before Pinkie could recover Twitchy had shoot across the room and started to bombard her with questions "WhydidyouaskmeifIlikedparties? Doyouplanparties? Whatsyourfavouritecolour? Doyoulikesuger? Canyoureadthis? DidIjustbreakthefourthwall? ShouldInotbreakthefourthwall?"etc. For once in her life Pinkie couldn't respond. (Halfway across Equestria a griphon named Gilda had a strange feeling that an annoying pink pony was getting a taste of her own medicine)

Twilight and Psi were having a magic duel in the middle of the hall. "How are you so powerful?" asked a shocked Twilight as Psi created a shield to counter a magic blast "According to my studies, a changeling drone shouldn't be capable of such advanced magic!" "It's all thanks to this beauty" responded Psi, tapping her double helix shaped horn. "Shouldn't two horns create conflicting magic auras?" asked a confused Twilight "Not when they are connected like mine" replied Psi, pointing out the DNA-style struts connecting her horns. "You know a lot about magic" noted Twilight, teleporting to dodge a beam of raw mana. "I know more than you think" Replied Psi, smirking "Including sleep spells" she casually added spraying a silver mist fro m her dual-tipped horn. "Uh ohhhhhh....." Moaned Twilight as she dropped off after inhaling the mist.

Rarity ,thanks to her special talent, had located the nearest crystals in the ground. She used her magic to pull them through the floor and faced her opponent:Mirra. "I take it that you are the ringleader of this plot" Said Rarity, sounding calm "I warn you, just because I'm a lady does not mean that I cannot defend myself" "I was about to say the same thing" Replied Mirra. With that Rarity hurled a gem at the proto-queen. A large Mirror shaped shield blocked the gem and sent it flying back at Rarity, who gave a yelp of shock and ducked. Without wasting a second, Mirra cast an illusion of the most ugly dress ever in front of Rarity, who fainted in shock. "Well that was easy" said Mirra, bored.

Fluttershy was staring down Bez,terrified to take her eyes off him for even a second, in the corner of her eye, she saw Arris dragging a knocked-out  Applejack with a lump on her head and Shade dealing a knockout blow to Rainbow (their arial swordfight had become an arial boxing match) Vax approched from behind "Bez, don't tell me that you're scared of an animal caretaker!" "I am not." Replied Bez, finally breaking his silence "She is just to small and cute to smash" Vax sighed "Alow me" he groaned walking over to Fluttershy and putting a hoof to her forehead. Just like what had happened to Rainbow, she was snoring in seconds.

"Flawless victory!" yelled Twitchy, standing over Pinkie Pie, who had fainted from question-overload.

Phase 2

Shade paced back and forth, listing off steps of his plan: "Step one: acquire ponies." "Check!", declared Twitchy, marking off a checklist that he had pulled out of his hole-ridden mane. "Step two: allow somepony to alert the guards." "Checkers!" , Declared Twitchy, being random as usual. "Step three" continued Shade, pausing to glue a  scroll to the wall with his gooey spit "Leave a map for the guards to find." "Checkerboard!" Laughed Twitchy.

Shade spun around to face the gathered changelings "It appears that Phase 1 is complete, now we must return home and prepare for Phase 2." He declared, and with that, he jumped into the wagon.

A few hours later, Twilight was doing what she did best: explaining magic. "So let me get this straight" said Rainbow "Our magic isn't being blocked?" "Not at all" replied Twilight "It seems that one of the changelings (probably that Psi one) used a magic-syphon spell on us, diverting our magic to keep the materialization spell that created this cage stable." Explained Twilight, gesturing to the cage that the six ponies were trapped in. "I assume they must have created your bindings through the same method." added Twi.

"Whatever" replied Dash "all I care about right now is bucking that Shade guy in the ribs and getting Scootaloo back." "It's odd though" Continued Twilight "It doesn't fell like all of the magic is being diverted, half of it fells like it's being...... consumed" Twilight gasped and turned to face her friends. "Girls, I think the silver-winged changelings are magic-eaters, like Tirek!"

Back in the theatre

"Sir!" declared a Guard, saluting "I found a note with your name on it!" Shining unfolded the scroll and read the note, his anger rising with each word. The note had a crude drawing of a smiley face, a map of equestria with a mountain circled and a scribbled message: "Smooth move Shining moron! We got your sis LOL! See that circle? You wanna save her? Go there stupid! Signed: NightShade" Shining fumed, steam literally coming out of his ears. "Gather the guards and march to Shadow Mountain." He ordered "Tomorrow we wage war on the changelings."

Things go wrong

"Well that Escalated quickly!" Declared Shade as he kicked a unicorn guard in the gut.

Things had gone from bad to worse in a matter of hours. Sure, he could live with that pair of morons ruining his job, but a whole platoon was pushing it!

Judging from the proto queen they had with them, they had been tracking him by his pheramone."Damn got to keep that under control" He sighed as he flung a guard at a nearby fruit stand (said guard was mortaly terrified of fruit for 3 months after)

"Well no more mister nice Changeling!" He Yelled as he tapped into the surrounding shadows, Reaching into each one with his magic.

Slowly Pure black clones of Shade Rose out of the darkness. Ok Monologue time. "Gentlecolts these are Noobs" Boasted Shade putting on his best cartoon Villian Monologue voice"They only have a few Brain cells each , but i'm sure you'll find them, How should i say this, Challenging"

Challenging did not do them justice, They demolished the Guards, only one got through to Shade.

"Shining Armour I presume?"

"I see you know me"

"You're infamous amongst our people"

"I can say the same about you, only I don't know your name, still you wouldn't have one...."

"Shade"

"What?"

"My name is Shade, and while we were talking I came up with a plan"

With that Shade shot off the ground, in midair a pitch-black Scythe materialised next to his head.

Shining redied a shield but he wasn't the scythes target. Instead Shade used to to cut a robe suspending a box of Gemstones above the Guard captain.

Ten seconds later the smoke cleared reveling One unconscious Shining, a platoon of dazed guards and ZERO Changelings.

Dash was gone too.

The attack

"WHAT DO MEAN "NO WAY!"" yelled Shining, shocked by the captains response.

In order to launch an attack on the Hive, Shining had decided to enlist the help of the guards stationed in the nearby town of Darkside. However, he did not get the response that he had hoped for. "WHY NOT?!" demanded Shining "Can you keep a secret?" asked the Captain, Bladewing. Shining, wanting answers, nodded. "Every year one of you top brass guys come along and force my platoon to march on that Faust-dammed hive. Every year the changelings stop and stare at us, and every year, they start laughing and make mincemeat out of us!"

"You will help me or I will report you to the princesses for treason!" Yelled Shining. "I hate acting like this." thought Shining, as Bladewing gasped and nodded in fear "But who knows what those monsters are doing to Twiley?"

Twilight was scanning every nook and cranney of the hive for a possible escape route, a task made easier by the fact that their captors had swapped their cage for an armed escort. Of course she had no doubt that if she made one false move, then the whole hive would come crashing down on her. Speaking of changelings, she noticed that two individual hives appeared to be present: silver shelled changelings, who acted more like ponies than other hives, and orange shelled ones, who appeared to be just, like most other hives, completely devoid of any individuality.

She was brought back to reality when she noticed that they had stopped in some form of hall, at the end of which lay a large throne and two smaller, more temporary thrones at either side of it. Sitting on the large throne was a queen who resembled Mirra, and had a belt of knives around her waist. In one of the small thrones sat a queen who in a word was: orange, spiky orange hair,orange eyes that seemed to vibrate, and last but not least, an orange shell. However in the final throne sat....... "NO!" gasped Twilight "Thats impossible! It must be a disguise!"

Before anypony or anyling could say something, an alarm blared out from nowhere. "Well not moment to soon!", declared the silver queen, turning to Shade "Now Nightshade, let us see if you plan is successful!"