Just when you thought things couldn’t get ANY worse… fate just smirks at you. It’s official, Fate is a douche. Getting hit by a car was either a serious case of bad karma, or the fates just hating my guts and love watching me suffer. Have I mentioned that I hate my life? Because I really do. But just getting hit by a car was among the many things the fates made me face in my life. If I ever meet them, I’m going to tear out their tongues and use them as whips, and then smile down upon them as I force them to eat their own hands raw.
Yeah… I have a BIT of a twisted mind… but that mind also comes from being lonely… staying alone for a long time, cursing the fates can give a man a lot of time to think about how many ways I can torture the fates for making my life so miserable. Yesterday I almost got hit by a bus… thankfully someone pushed me out of the way at the last second… I never saw who pushed me but I owe him or her my life. And earlier today I was walking down the street, minding my own business when I start to cross a road… care to guess what happens next? A car rounded the curb and drove over my leg making me collapse. The driver just kept on driving, I doubt the driver even felt the bump. Now my leg is shattered and my life sucks.
Oh I should introduce myself shouldn’t I? I guess I probably should. My name is Stanley. Stanley Myers. I recently turned forty years old. I live in upstate Washington in the United States. I lived in a small rundown apartment by myself… I was once married, but my wife and I divorced about 5 years into our marriage. I was thirty-two when I got married to my beautiful ex-wife Jasmine. We had two kids together. The most obnoxious duo you’d ever meet. They never left each other’s side and they played together. We had to build a giant crib for the two rascals because we used to put them in separate cribs but they’d cry up a storm when we did that… oh my god it was SOO annoying and VERY loud.
Getting a bit off track here. The hospital food sucks. My leg was in a gauze cast. I tried moving my leg but got no response out of it. I felt the muscles move as if it was trying to move my leg but it didn’t even twitch.
Great, it looks like I’d be lucky if I’d ever be able to walk again… suddenly my leg spasms out of control, twitching and jerking… the heartbeat monitor beside me starts to beep faster as I start to panic over my jerking limb. I soon realize that there’s nothing I can do to stop it. My leg seemed to have a mind of its own. I can’t control my leg so it’s gotta be muscle spasms.
I just lay still until it stops. A doctor comes in and sees my jerking limb and he sighs. “Mr. Myers, we’ve gone over your analysis. You are stable at the moment, but unfortunately your leg has too many fractures… you will never walk again.” He says with a pitiful scowl.
“Part of me wants to yell and scream that this is happening, while the other part wants to just wallow in self-pity. To be honest… seeing as though I can’t even move my own leg by myself, it already occurred to me that I’d never walk again… but it pains me to hear it from you doc.”
“It’s okay Mr. Myers. I-“
“NO! Just leave me alone. Can you turn on the TV and give me the remote before you leave?” I bet the TV channels are much better here instead of being forced to watch old black and white movies without being able to actually hear what the actors say.
He smiles and does what I asked. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check on you. Farewell.” He turns off the lights and closes the door. I turn my attention to the television and see animated ponies on the screen… fuck this. I’m not watching ponies. I press the button to continue to the next channel… ‘click’ nothing happens. ‘click, click, click.’
“Come on! Work already!” ‘click click clickCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK’ “GAH! For fucks sake. The batteries are dead. Fuck you too fate.” I turn to the side to look away from the TV. But in my right ear I hear the ponies talking. I can’t make out what they are saying but it seems… intriguing... wait, am I seriously even attempting to listen to the show? It’s for little girls!
Weirdly enough, I can’t stop myself from tuning into the show. I saw many colors… too much color for my old eyes. I saw a yellow… Pegasus? Is that what those things are? Yeah I think so. I could easily tell by the voices of the actors, that the ponies were female. Anyway, the yellow Pegasus peered out from behind a bush, looking at five other brightly colored ponies. The purple one seemed to be a unicorn, judging from the horn on her head. I didn’t see any wings nor horn on the orange one so I’m going to assume she would be a ground pony? No… that doesn’t seem to sound right… earth… pony? Yeah that’s it.
I hear a mighty roar from the TV, the ground below the characters in the show trembles, causing the yellow one to bolt away in fear, while the others simply lose their balance, which they quickly recover.
The screen cuts to a scene where the six ponies are walking along a ridge, the blue-ish cyan pony flies through a low-hanging tree making a single leaf fall down. The leaf falls onto the yellow one’s rump and she suddenly screams. “AAAVVVAALAAAAAA-”She is cut off, and the sound echoes. After a second of calm. The ponies look up in fear as giant boulders start to fall. I can’t help but facepalm at their idiocy.
I watch the rest of the episode to the credits. I then realize something bizarre… I was smiling with genuine happiness. How the hell does a children’s show make me happy like this one did? This has to be a trick or something. No television show, especially a children’s show, can make me happy. I’m too bold to admit to myself that I liked the show. The credits finish rolling and Hasbro’s© logo appears on screen.
Hasbro huh… that’s who made the show? Interesting… I glance back at the TV and a particular episode begins to play. The canterlot wedding episode… wait… how did I know that? I’ve never seen this before. How the fuck did I know that?!
I intensely watch the episode. Not taking my eyes off of it for a millisecond. I only blink through the commercial breaks. The episode finishes as Cadence summons a ring of fire around twilight and walks away laughing maniacally. Then the ending theme plays.
I think over the episode remembering everything that happened in perfect detail… infact… I seem to remember more than what was seen in the episode… the images looked so real I could see every detail in cadence’s mane in the image I saw. The image was so life-like.
The next episode begins to play and I rip myself from my thoughts and back to the TV. The show started with twilight in a dark cave filled with some sort of crystal. The face of cadence appearing on some of the crystals, taunting twilight.
I watch as twilight destroys a wall revealing a broken and beaten cadence, laying on the floor. Another image appears in my head. I can finely see the bruises on cadence’s body. Whatever attacked her, sure put up a fight it seems.
My eyes go back to the screen and my ears tune in again. I see Twilight and Cadence start to move, looking for a way out of the cave. I continue watching, I’m listening to the song that are being played between the two Cadences. Another image forms in my mind. This one doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s just a wall of green flame… I gasp green flame why is that so familiar?
Why, why, WHY?! I hit my head trying to think… nothing comes to me… I look back at the screen to see the tattered and broken Cadence walk into the wedding room. “Because it’s not your special day! It’s mine!” All of the ponies in the room gasp loudly. “She’s a changeling!-” Another image comes to mind, this one causing my brain to ache... like literally, my brain is aching “They feed on the emotions of your loved ones and they use it to make themselves stronger.”
WHAT IS GOING ON?! Why am I getting all of these images? They hurt and they seem so vivid. So… real. What are changelings?!
“How did you get past my brides maids?” the fake cadence asks. The real cadence smirks and a flashback appears on screen. It shows a bunch of flowers being tossed to the side, the three mares dive after it, all shouting ‘I want it!’ The screen goes back to cadence in the wedding room. “Smart.” The fake cadence states.
In the same instant, two things happen. First, the fake cadence erupts in green flames, revealing a sleek, black, insect-like bug… thing in her wake. Second, hundreds of images instantly pass through my head, making me light headed and extremely exhausted. Several of the things I saw were not images at all, they were instead… sounds and voices. The one that stands out the most is a motherly voice calling out to me.
“Stan?! Come here. I have a mission for you.”
“Yes my queen?” THAT. IS. IMPOSSIBLE. That’s MY voice! And I sound like a 10 year old at least.
“You are going to be sent on a highly dangerous mission. To another world. Discover all that you can… the fates will determine when it is time to return here. Until then, just know that I love you.” The voices end.
What the fuck… Is going on here?!?!
How was that me? I sounded like a ten year old…
As much as I would love to debate this, there is something else of equal importance. I look back at the screen to see the black bug and Celestia shooting magic beams at each other. The magic beams collide and the green one overpowers the golden one. The green beam gathers at Celestia’s horn and explodes, knocking Celestia unconscious.
“The love I’ve gathered from shining armor has made me stronger than Celestia! HAHAHAHA!”
“You won’t get away with this Chrysalis.”
Chrysalis? Now THAT’s a familiar name indeed. But she is a bug lady from a TV show… but why is it so familiar? I was born before this show was even made, yet I knew of the name.
Too many unknowns… I’m getting more questions than actual answers… oh wait… I’ve gotten no answers and hundreds of questions…
I think back to my early teenage years. Back when I was eleven years old I remember seeing something in the dark. It terrified me. Whatever it was had piercing blue eyes, and sharp fangs… that’s all I could make out before I turned around and booked it as fast as I could. I didn’t know where I was going but I somehow made it back home… I ran inside, went into the kitchen and hugged my adoptive mother and father out of fear of the unknown. I told them what had happened and they all wrote it off as an overactive imagination. And now, that same creature I saw all those years ago is on the Television screen before me… the only difference? The one on the television was significantly more animated than the one I saw when I was eleven.
Now about my ‘adoptive’ parents? Yeah. I wasn’t actually their flesh and blood. According to them, I was found on the doorstep inside of a carrier, my real parents nowhere to be seen. I still had umbilical cord still attached to the afterbirth. Thinking back to that… I don’t know if I believe them… because I don’t remember much of my life before I turned ten years old.
Weird. I sounded like I was ten years old when I was answering to… Chrysalis? Could that be possible? I’d assume so… so many unlikely things are happening so it could be that I, myself was on another world talking to the queen. Wait Chrysalis is a queen? I guess that explains the crown.
It finally seems that more of my life makes sense… just simply seeing the queen on TV jumpstarted my memories. Figures… So there I’ve come up with two solutions. One of which is crazier than the other.
Either I was somehow a changeling in disguise and I never found out, after forty years I never discovered this supposed hidden power that I may poses, or I am just extremely crazy and just hallucinating all of the revelations I was getting. To be honest… I think me being a changeling is crazier than actually being crazy.
Ripping myself out of my thoughts I push the call button on a remote that was given to me… sadly it wasn’t the TV remote. A minute later a nurse opens my door and looks at me with a questioning glance.
“Am I going to be okay if I were to get up and go to a computer? I’d like to do some research on a topic for personal reasons.” The nurse looks at her chart for a moment before looking back at me.
“I’ll have to go ask the doctor if you can use the computer. Stay here I’ll be back in a minute.” I nod as she leaves, closing the door behind her. A few minutes later she returns.
“Yes you would be fine, but he would like someone to be there with you just in case something happens.” I nod and I slowly sit up. The nurse walks over to me and gently helps me to my feet. She takes the clamp off of my finger which causes the heartbeat monitor to flat line, making an annoying beeeeeeeeeeep.
The nurse grabs a crutch for me to use. I put it under my arm and I substitute it for my leg which is incapable of moving. She guides me to the door and into the hallway. She then directs me to the opposite side of the hospital where she sits me down at a computer. She enters the password to bypass the login and I boot up the internet.
I cover my eyes from the brightness of the screen and I wait for my eyes to adjust. Once they do I go to my default search engine and search for “My Little Pony Changelings” and I press the enter key and wait for the page to load. I load up the first wiki result and start reading… Changelings feed off of love for the dual purpose of staying alive and getting stronger. The more love a changeling acquires, the stronger, and healthier it gets. A changeling can disguise itself as any living creature in existence, so long as they know what they look like and how their inside’s function. Like a dragon for example, changelings cannot transform into them without a lot of sustenance. The larger the mass, the more love the changeling would need to make the transformation. The same goes for reducing in size. Changelings are highly deceitful. They will take every possible precaution to prevent their cover from being blown.
There are four types of changelings. Breeder, soldier, infiltrators and the queen.
The breeder changeling is unlikely to leave the hive at all and will care for the larvae.
There are two different types of soldier changelings. There is the sentient and the sapient.
The sentient drones connect to the hive mind and will follow orders as given by the queen or by a sapient drone. Sentient drones are not capable of speech, instead, they use the hive mind to communicate.
The sapient drones are able to think for themselves and can act without needing orders. Sapient drones are very rare and are usually trained by the queen to be her army’s supervisor and lieutenant in war. Sapient drones are capable of speech. These drones are capable of using disguises as their combat advantage. These drones have unique names
the name ‘infiltrator’ should speak for itself these changelings are sapient drones that are trained to act like the enemy. And not just ponies in particular. They are trained to be caretakers, follow any order that comes from a higher authority than themselves. They have the ability to use any disguise to their advantage. These changelings have pony related names. They report directly to the queen. This changeling is also capable is connecting and disconnecting themselves to the hive mind at will.
The Queen is the center of the hive mind. If she falls, all sentient changelings will look for new orders to follow. They act like slaves if they are not in a hive mind. The Queen has the ability to reproduce and is extremely fertile.
Rumors:
There has been speculation about other queens with their own hives around the world but they are usually in a state of hiding.
I close the computer. Strange wiki article… not sure what to think of it. Rising from the chair, I take the crutch and I inform the nurse I’d like to return to my room.
I sit on the bed, placing the crutch on the side of the bed. “I suppose it’s as good of a time to get sleep as any.” I said, closing my eyes.
“Good night Mr. Myers.” She leaves and closes the door. I turn to my side and I fall asleep.
I appear in a gloomy greyish world. Looking around I see different shades of grey. I glance around looking for anything that is out of place. I look forward and find myself face to face with a chunky pony. Not chunky as in fat, but chunky as in extremely buff. He looks at me with a stoic expression. I try to back away from him but he begins to speak. “Stan. The fates have proclaimed your return to our home world. But the fates have issued a challenge. Beat me in a one on one match and I will allow you to pass through into Equestria to serve her highness, Queen Chrysalis.” He steps aside as a portal opens and the queen of the changelings steps through. She looks… very realistic.
“Just trying to get this clear… is this real? Or am I hallucinating all of this and going absolutely crazy?”
The queen smirked at my comment. “This is indeed real. I did not want you to have to fight him because he will beat you to a pulp… instead, you will fight me.” She stands tall and proud.
“Great… may I ask a question… why is everything so dull and grey?”
“That is because you are in the dream world. Your self-pity and depression has turned this world grey.”
“Huh… whose dream is this? Mine I am going to assume?” She nods. The stoic guard steps to the side to watch the fight that will start. “So why do I have to fight?”
“The fates are jerks. They decided to test you to see if you really are prepared to make the journey back to our world. And they wanted to test you to see how good you can faire in a fight. And since you have to fight, why not myself? Your very own mother…” My eyes widen.
“You’re my mom?” She nods smiling at me.
“Are you ready?”
“About as ready as I’ll ever be I suppose, I’ve never had any real fighting experience… so I have no idea what to do.”
“You’ll do fine, trust your instincts. You are my brood after all, regardless of how inexperienced you are, the instincts will always be there… now attack me, and do not worry, we are in the dream world, you cannot harm my physical form.”
“That’s very reassuring, I assure you.” I leap forward at her and I throw a fist at her… only to get a hoof to the face… I land a foot away, the stoic guard on the sidelines struggling to not laugh at my horrid display of terrible fighting skills.
“The way of the changeling is an interesting one. You use disguises to confuse your target. You can use magic to attack and you can fly.”
“You say that as if I currently possess those abilities.”
“You do… you’ve been in that form for thirty years. It’s hard to remember how to change back after keeping up a disguise for so long… I had to do something like that once… I had to completely relearn how to shape shift.” She said with a laugh. “Give it a try, focus on what you want to look like, then imagine yourself transforming into that creature.”
She advances on me her horn tipped towards me. “Dodge!” a beam of green energy flies toward me and I roll out of the way barely in time. I close my eyes and I focus hard. Thinking of something that would help in this situation. I think back to when I was 12 years old, visiting an old museum.
Careful Stan! A tyrannosaurus rex! It’s going to eat you!” My adoptive dad says, pointing up at the skeleton of a T-Rex in its exhibit.
Of course I know it won’t hurt me, but for amusements sake, I wince in pretend fear, getting a laugh out of my dad.
“Come on Stan, let’s go see another exhibit!” He picks me up and carries me into another room. Ambient animal sounds play from hidden speakers around the room. Hanging above us on a string, is a stuffed pterodactyl. Below it, is a plaque. ‘This prehistoric bird was the scavenger of the world. It hunted down its prey and often traveled in groups of two or more. While this is all based on speculation by zoologists and geologists, a bird of this size would be assumed to hunt in groups of more than one to ensure its meal. The Pterodactyl has a wingspan of around eight feet from wingtip to wingtip. The bird has hollow bones to compensate for its large size.’
Another plaque read ‘cloned from the bone marrow of the pterodactyl, the prehistoric bird has been reborn in a genetic laboratory.’ Beside the plaque is a diagram of the insides of a pterodactyl. I stared at the sign.
Recalling the events, I take the form of a Pterodactyl, and I sloppily launch myself upwards, screeching loudly. I flap my new wings in desperation, I quickly find out that flying was a whole lot easier than I thought… It’s just a simple flap to increase speed, angle my wings to a direct vertical to decrease speed, bending the wing tips lets me change direction.
Quickly getting the hang of how to fly… now I have to learn how to fight and also fly at the same time… fantastic.
My head jerks upward as chrysalis catches up to me and punches my chin. Making me lose my concentration and I fall to the ground in a daze, my disguise drops and I revert into a human, but I find a black horn on my head
I hit the ground and I lay there for a moment. Chrysalis lands nearby, slowly approaching me. I lay still, groaning to make it sound believable.
“Pitiful… you are disgrace.” She angles her head to point her horn at me. I take my chance and I lunge forward grabbing the horn and breaking off the tip of the horn. Chrysalis screams in pain. I jump onto her back and I start throwing punches.
“How pitiful am I now? The element of surprise is your greatest ally.” I said with a smirk. I throw a few more punches and I hop off of her back. “I wasn’t 100% clear on the rules… I got the whole, ‘beat you’ thing down, but how far am I supposed to go to win this competition? How do I know if I won?”
“I suppose I wasn’t clear enough about that. We go until one of us wakes up. The one who wakes up first loses. Heavy load will remain here to keep the dream open because if you wake up first, it will disconnect us both at the same time, there won’t be any way of knowing who won. Now let’s continue this.” She launches at me, with her hoof out. I let her approach. I time it perfectly. Just as she is about to strike, I grab her extended hoof and I duck to dodge the rest of her body. Her body flips over and she lands on her back. I run over to her. I can’t let her get the drop on me. I want answers to my questions. I don’t want to sit in a rundown apartment for the rest of my life wondering the answers to the questions.
I get an image in my head. “Let’s have a bit of fun shall we? Let’s see how far I can take things here in the dream realm.” I grin crazily. My body erupts in flames, and out comes an armored badass.
“You weren’t expecting this now were you?” I said. My voice sounding highly feminine. I am Eleanor right now aren’t I?
“Nope… but we shall continue this fight.” She launches and attack. Regrowing her horn and shooting a bolt of magic at me which I easily dodged, being extremely agile in the armored suit.
“You regrew your horn? You do realize I’ll just snap it off again right?” she growled but didn’t respond. I threw a fireball at her, catching her carapace on fire. While she was distracted, I leaped towards her and tackled her to the ground… “I win.” I smiled from under the suit and I drove the needle attached to my arm through her skull… her body vanished as the lethal blow made contact. I look back at Heavy Load, the chunky stallion from before, who was smiling proudly at me. “Did I win?” He nods.
“Yes. That was quite tactical I must say. Very resourceful.”
“Thanks.” I said, dropping the disguise my voice becomes much more masculine, I look around cautiously not lowering my guard. “Where’s the portal?”
“It will be there for you when you wake up. Until we meet again.” He bows and my vision does dark for a second before turning white.
I open my eyes to see a bright green portal. Beside me, is a piece of paper and a pencil. I pick up the pencil and I start writing.
Dear Friends and Family.
Do not come looking for me. You will most likely never find me. I am following my destiny, as decided by the fates. In the event that we never see each other again, know that I love you all and I will miss you. Good bye! I leave whatever belongings I have to my adoptive parents.
Sometimes you have to travel where the heart lies to discover what the meaning of life is to you. ~Anonymous
I’ll miss you,
Stanley Myers.
I place the paper on the pillow and I grab the crutch, using it to walk me to the portal. I look back at the empty room and I salute with the hand that isn’t holding the crutch. “Farewell.” I walk through the portal. The first thing I feel is intense winds that seem to be ripping away at my body. Flakes of skin tear off and disappear. OH, I see what it’s doing. It is ripping away the disguise of Stanley Myers to reveal what is truly underneath. I trek forward, battling against the harsh winds. The further I go, the stronger the wind gets. The wind tears off a massive chunk of my skin, revealing the hardened chitin underneath. I turn around to let the wind tear at my back. Which it almost immediately tears off a piece about the size of a toaster. (Height and length. Not width.) Instantly, spines appear on my back. My hair falls out too as the wind rushes at me at full force, stripping everything else away, leaving myself with black chitin covering my entire body. I count the number of three holes in each of my arms. One right above the elbow, one next to the wrist, and the other directly between those two. The wind dies down to a gentle breeze. And I look around the landscape and I see a portal at the far end of the plain I was standing in. I don’t see the crutch anymore… but it doesn’t seem like I’ll need it. Aside from a slight limp, I can walk.
I stare down at my body, unable to accept that I was hiding this without knowing for thirty years. I go to bite my lower lip when I find that the canines on the roof of my mouth had actually grown in size and length quite a bit. I open my mouth to gently feel the new canines with my front hooves. I bump my hoof against the pointy end of the fang to see how sharp it is... I don’t know what I expected really. But they were sharp, they didn’t even tear up the inside of my mouth when I had them on the inside instead of out.
Focusing back to the task at hand, I transform into the pterodactyl to fly forward but instantly, the wind picks up again, blowing away the disguise. Okay… so it looks like I gotta walk to the portal. Fun.
It took a good thirty minutes in the little pocket dimension I was in to reach the portal… the realm was rather boring… I mean it looked like a grassy field with flowers and stuff, but there was next to no color at all. I placed my hoof on the portal and stepped through. Darkness came to my vision. Suddenly color returned and I could see. Strangely enough, everything has a brighter feel to it… as if someone turned up the contrast on my eyes… the color white hurts my eyes from the sheer light reflecting off of it.
I look around and I notice I am next to a cave inside of a mountain, inside of a large forest. I look off, through the trees, I see a town in the distance. Behind me I hear a throat clear. “Halt! Who are you?”
I turn around to see a pony guard holding a spear. Wait… something isn’t right… he is emitting some sort of pheromone that I can detect. The pheromone is telling me that this guy’s a changeling as well… good disguise I must admit. “I am a changeling. My name is Stanley. Just ‘Stan’ for short though. And I request to see my mother.”
The changeling raises an eyebrow, still disguised as a guard. “The queen does not have any royal children.”
“That is because I left here when I was 10 years old… sent off by her highness to another planet for reasons I still don’t understand.” The changeling glares at me.
“I can see that you are obviously a changeling, but if you are lying to me, I’ll gut you myself.”
“Fair enough I suppose.” I walk past him, and into the cave. My eyes allow me to see in the dark. This is so cool. There are two passageways. One that leads to the left, and one to the right. Hoping to get it right the first time, I walk forward and take a left.
“WRONG WAY!” I instantly spin 180 degrees and start walking to the other door. The changeling laughs at me when I come marching back through the door. “That technical is the right way but taking the right path is a much direct route to the queen’s bedchambers.”
“Thank you.” The changeling bowed and returned to watch the entrance of the cave. I trek down the corridor, eager to see where it goes when I slam into another changeling. She screams and we both go down. I look at who I managed to tackle… Queen Chrysalis herself. Not caring anymore I wrap my hooves around her and I pull her into a hug.
“After thirty years… it is so nice to see you again.” She sits up and leans forward, hugging me in return.
Hooves can be heard coming down the corridor. The guard from earlier came into view. “My queen?! I heard a scream and I came running.”
She waved him off. “I’m fine, we both were surprised when we ran into each other. And no, before you ask, he did not hurt me.”
The guard sighed in relief. “I must get back to my station. Farewell Stanley.”
I salute the guard as he runs back to his post. “That guard is so caring.” Chrysalis says. “Does everything I ask him no questions asked… I decided to test his devotion one day and I asked him to fly though the hive making noises and make an embarrassment to himself and he did it!” She stifles a laugh. “The other sapient guards were laughing at him for months and their laughing never affected him in the slightest.”
“There has been a question that has been bothering me since I discovered this whole ordeal.” I said, not caring about her comment. “Why? Why was I sent to earth for so long and given replacement memories of the ten years that I spent here?”
“The memories were not of my doing. I do believe discord intervened to make that happen.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me would you? I need to know the absolute truth about this.”
“I will tell the whole truth, but first I need to explain a few things first before I tell you why you were sent to another planet.” She looked at me. “Let’s discuss in my bedchambers.” We make it to her bed chambers within a minute. “Close the doors would you?” I close the doors and I move to sit on her bed.
“Now that we’re here, can we begin?”
“Yes, it started back at the reign of discord. Before Celestia and Luna used the elements against him. While he ruled, my hive suffered. For two hundred years he ruled Equestria before Celestia and Luna found the Tree of harmony which contained the elements of harmony. The six powerful gemstones that contain the most powerful magic in the known galaxy. I tried to help Celestia and Luna but they rejected my help. I pleaded and begged for me to help. I wanted to assist because at the time, I believed that if I helped them, I’d earn their favor and when Equestria went back to normal, they’d let me feed my hive. But I was foolish, I realize that now. So I began looking for a new place to infiltrate. The diamond dogs hate us after our attempts to get inside. The griffins despise us, and will attack on sight, regardless of if the changeling is a hero among the griffins. The zebras don’t mind us, but when we ponynap somepony they love, they tend to get physical. Then I had heard what happened to the legendary wizard and astronomer Starswirl the bearded, and I started looking up at the sky thinking of if there were other places for us to call home. We needed a place we could go to incase we were ‘run out of town’ so to speak.” She gazed lovingly at me. I could tell it wasn’t a sensual interest, but an ‘I haven’t seen my son in thirty years’ thing. “Are you starting to understand now?”
“Sorta, but one question… why me? Why not pick another changeling to do it for you instead of me?”
“Well, that is because you are bipedal. You are my first bipedal changeling. You were originally bred for infiltrating the diamond dogs but we were discovered was faster than I had anticipated. We sent two other changelings with you. You met one of them, unfortunately the other didn’t last long. He died. To this day, we still don’t know where his body is.”
“Okay. That does answer my question… but I have another. Do you know why I wasn’t aware of my shape shifting abilities until very recently? I mean, how is it possible to not know that I am an alien for 30 years… seems a bit iffy if you ask me.”
“As much as I’d like to answer that question, I do not know the answer to it.” She shakes her head solemnly. I approach her and I wrap a hoof around her back.
“Is it alright if I call you ‘my mother’ instead of saying ‘my queen’?” She smiles at my question.
“Of course sweetie. There is a blanket in the closet you can use if you’re cold.”
“I think I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, suit yourself then.” She lights her horn and levitates a thick wool blanket from the closet.
“Wow that is a big blanket.”
“Yes it is.” She says matter of factly. She puts it on and I realize that it is actually a robe.
I was about to correct myself when a question pops into my head… “How come I’m not part of the hive mind?” This question makes her stop in her tracks…
“Uh… we’ll discuss that later. You don’t need to be in the hive mind right now…especially if you aren’t trained for it.”
“‘Trained’? There’s training for the hive mind?” I ask with mock interest before I deadpan. “For the record, you are a terrible liar. But you’re my mother so I’ll assume you’re doing it for a good reason.” She sighs in relief. “But I will ask again in the future… you’d better formulate a response to that question.”
“After dinner tonight, you will embark to the nearby town. I will accompany you there. You know how to use your disguise?”
“Yes.” I say, erupting in green flames taking on my human form. “What? Did you think I’d go as a pony? No way. Thirty years of being a human has made me grow attached to this form.”
The Queen smirks. “I thought you’d say that. It’s dinner time. I’m going to teach you feed on ponies.”
“The way you just said that reminds me of vamponies.” She rolls her eyes with an amused smile on her face.
“Follow me to where we hold the pods that keep my hive fed.”
“Lead the way.” She exits the room and leads me down a long corridor, branching off of the one I ran down to get to her bed chambers. Not sure why, but there are push-bar doors here in Equestria… however she still lights her horn to push on the bar instead of her hooves.
I step into the room and look around… The room is rather large. On the walls are ponies and a few griffins there are quadruped changelings walking around, making sure everything is okay and to ensure that the captured ponies and griffins stay asleep.
I walk up to a pod. Inside is a pink mare with a purple mane. Her eyes are closed and her chest slowly rises and falls. Her entire body is encased inside of some sort of green liquid. From what I understand about this. The liquid fills everything up. Every nook and cranny is filled with the green stuff… no innuendo intended.
“Okay… how do I force the love out of somepony?”
“Just light your horn and focus on the positive emotions of the pony you are feeding from. The warm feeling you get it the love filling you up. Doing that is very dangerous if you do it a lot of times on a single pony. However you can eat the emotions by simply being around the pony when the emotions are being expressed. Now try it on this pony.”
I light my horn, surprised that the magic comes so easily to me, and I focus on the positive emotions coming from the mare. I feel love and joy coming off of the mare. Wait…
“Emotions have flavor? Why does joy taste like a jolly rancher? And… ooh my, love tastes like lemon-drops.” I look at chrysalis who is giving me the most bizarre look. “What?! They are candies back on earth.” She rolls her eyes before leading me to a capsule where a pony had woken up. I lit my horn and focused on the negative emotions coming from the trembling pony.
“Sadness tastes like… eewww… it tastes like lint.” I hang my tongue out of my mouth in disgust. “I get the idea, each emotion tastes different… what else is there to it?”
“Not much else… what is left you will discover on your own. You still need a lot of training. But I have confidence in you that you will do fine… and that these words I speak will come back to haunt me for the rest of my days.” She says with a grim expression before putting on an overwhelmingly fake smile. “You will do fine! Your mission is to scout the nearby town. Its name is ponyville. You will infiltrate as a human.”
“Well duh. I’ve already established that I’m keeping my human disguise.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I decide against answering that.
“Alright I think I am ready.”
“I certainly hope so.” She whispers to herself. “Keep in mind. You will be tested, don’t get cocky-” I Stifle a laugh. “-now wipe that smile off your face!”
A few changeling guards escort me and the queen to the cave entrance. “Alright, this is it! Until we meet again mother!” I pull a quick salute before flying out of the cave and towards the town, transforming midair into a random Pegasus.
