Collisionby Covert TaleChaptersContaction 1Contaction 2Contaction 3Contaction 4Contaction 5Contaction 1Joan was standing outside the Silver Maple bureau. The building was two stories tall, surrounded on all sides by grass, and had a big fence going around the back. The first thing anybody who looked at it would tell you was that it just seemed happy, somehow. Which is what you needed, at a time like this. The architecture was decidedly premodern, she decided as she went in the door, past the front walls that were trying very hard to pretend to be a natural material. The whole place was in stark contrast to the boxy and stiff buildings that made up the rest of the city, this place flowed, somehow. There weren't a lot of hard edges on the outside, as if the architect had gone at the model with a power-sander. Inside was similar, faux-wood tiles intermixed with fauxer-marble. In the center of the room was a unicorn pony with a light blue coat, and greenish-blue mane done up in a bun in the back, and draped long and loose in the front. She was doing her hooves, and sitting at a desk that was trying very hard to be wood-grain. "Oh hey," said the unicorn, dropping her hoof-file on the desk and sitting back up, "you here to go pony?" "That I am," she replied, resting the elbows of her crossed arms on the desk. "Okay hon, my name is Morning Frost, and I just have to ask you a few questions, won't take but a moment." "No forms? I think I like ponies already." "Nah, we phased that out ages ago, after people wouldn't stop filling in made up information." "Oh?" "After two or three forms claiming the person who filled it in was Zap Scattergun, hero of the cosmos, we started to realize that people don't care about forms when they're not thinking about coming back. Anyhow, name?" "Joan Feldton." "Emergency contact?" "Don't have one." "Allergies?" "Nope." "Reason for leaving?" "Ah, personal." "Favorite kind of pie?" Joan stared at Frost. Frost laughed, which was one of the things Joan liked about ponies. They had an infectious kind of laugh, that worked its way inside your head and made you think everything was going to be just fine. Frost's was well rounded and hearty, kind of like the pony herself. "We make desserts every few days, just want to make sure you get the kind you want." "Blackberry, then." Frost clicked that into the computer and then handed her a card. "This'll let you into your room, which is just down that hallway, and to the left." As she entered the hallway, she noticed a white pony with a short dark red mane sneak behind the desk and drape herself on Morning Frost shoulder. “Hey, Bedside. Steady doesn’t have you working right now? Not that I mind, of course!” “Nah, conversions are fast, and usually clean! Say, you don’t suppose you can sign up to go pony if you’re already a pony, do you?” “I’m quite sure you can’t. I like you the way you are, though!” “You’ll just have to be my second pony, then!” she said, and kissed Frost on the cheek. She opened the door to find the room was a double bedroom, with two beds. The rightmost of which had a pegasus stallion who was the brightest green she thought a pony could be sat on it, wearing eye scarringly bright pink and white polka-dotted socks, and an equally pink neckband. "Hey, you're my new roomie?" he asked cheerily, and his voice buzzed with the same sort of glowing energy and buzz his socks did, and he liberally applied vocal fry to random words like someone might tell him it was out of style and he should stop doing it before the vocal fashion police came to get him. "That's me, I just got here. My name is Joan, and-" "Name’s Sour Kiss, and you absolutely have to let me show you around. Please?" "I've only been a here a few minutes-" "Even better!" he said giddily, and nabbed her hand with a wing, then led her out of the room. They strolled down the hallway, past the stairs to the second floor (there weren't any bedrooms on the second floor, since newfoals had a habit of accidentally falling down them), into the lobby ("Hey Frost!" "Hey hon!") and over into the cafeteria. "This," he said, pausing dramatically, "is the cafeteria." "It's okay, I guess?" Undaunted, he led her over to the window at the end of the cafeteria. "And out here, is the yard," he said, rearing up and holding his hooves out to the side, as if he had just opened the winning game-show door and revealed a car being driven by a goat. "It's very green." "I know! Isn't it the best? That's also the end of the tour unfortunately, they won't let me into the conversion room again, or the janitor's room, security room, or the storage area. I only ran into Ray once, and that puddle he landed in was not my fault." She rolled her eyes and looked over at the cafeteria that seemed to have opened recently. "What's the best thing to eat, here?" "Oh man, they have the absolute best oat burger..." The yard, as it turned out, was indeed nice, as she found out the next day. Sour Kiss was sitting next to her, since Raspberry seemed to be off doing something. She spotted an earth pony watering some of the vines growing up the gazebo, who her roommate said was Steady Hoof, the doctor at the bureau, but liked to unwind by taking care of the plants sometimes. Given the trees and bushes arranged around the outside of the yard, he'd done a good job of it. Steady waved to her, and came over. "You're next on the conversion list today after lunch, just head to the right from the lobby, goes straight there." "Thanks." "You're next?” asked Sour Kiss, grinning, “It's so much more fun having hooves, I have to say." "A little biased there, huh?" she said, and grabbed one of Sour's forehooves and tickled the bottom of it, causing him to laugh and nearly fall off the bench they were sitting on. "N- no!" Sour said, getting his breath back, "They're really awesome, I swear! Can I come with you? I want to see what it looks like on the other side of the potion." "The Bureau rules do allow you to bring one person with you," Steady said. "If you like, I hear it's kinda weird to watch," she said, then tickled Sour again. Lunch had ended, and Joan and Sour had started heading the the conversion room, taking the scenic route - around the yard, through the cafeteria, upstairs, back downstairs after getting chased by Ray back downstairs - until they wound up where they were supposed to be. Joan hopped up onto the table in the conversion room, and Sour made an attempt to sit on the chair beside it normally and failed. Steady Hoof and Bedside Manner followed her in. "Are you ready?" asked Steady. "Ready enough," she said, feigning confidence. She wasn't sure there was ever a good time to change species and leave your planet behind. "All you have to do is drink this potion, lie down, and after the potion gets warmed up you'll wake up with hooves." "And you're statistically unlikely to die!" Bedside Manner chimed in, cheerfully. She looked over at Sour Kiss and he grinned. "You're so ready for this." She slammed back the potion, and doomed herself to miss Frost's lecture about 'professional conduct' entirely. It turned out that the potion didn't actually melt you down and sculpt you back up again, because that would be incredibly wasteful, since humans and ponies had most of the same bones and muscles in most of the same places anyway. The result was Joan got to see her stomach, legs and arms start changing - the potion was painless since by the time you noticed anything was happening you didn't have any nerves to notice it with - before the potion got through with her brain and knocked her out. "I've always been fascinated," said Bedside, totally ignoring Steady Hoof’s speech about the legal and biological ramifications of lack of politeness in a doctor's office, "with the sounds the bones make during a conversion. You think anybody has ever recorded those?" Sour Kiss made some grossed out faces at Bedside, making her grin even more than usual. Joan opened her eyes to find herself in a field that seemed to go on for miles in every direction, and empty. She felt totally and completely calm, and supranaturally steady, as if her hooves had been made for this, and were offering her an unshakable foundation, if she wanted it. She woke, and sat up. "How do you feel?" asked Steady Hoof. "Good. Like nothing could knock me over. I thought the Princesses took care of conversion dreams, though?" "Well, they can't be everywhere. They tend to focus on those who really need it. You must be holding it together pretty well!" said Bedside, "Yeah, if I had to wake up with human hands, I'd be freaking out! Those are crazy weird." "Be careful with your first step, a lot of newfoals are a little shaky at first." "I know I was! Total faceplant," said Sour Kiss. Joan slid off the side, and her back hooves hit the ground, and stayed there, followed by her other two. There it was again, she thought, the feeling of being unshakable, but- She slipped as she took a step, and ended up in a bit of a pile on the floor. "That happens to everypony," said Bedside, "it doesn't mean you're broken! Which is good because ponies don't come with warranties or anything." She worked her way back up standing again, and caught a glimpse of herself in the large mirror they had on the wall. She was an earth pony, rugged and strong, with a grape colored coat and a dirty orange mane. She looked herself in the eyes, and felt steady again. Joan was sitting on a bench in the yard again, watching the other newfoals. Weird how close pairs of newfoals ended up, she thought. On the other side of the yard, near a bush in bloom, a pink unicorn and her roommate were making out, and she could see a beige unicorn mare and a grey earth pony stallion cuddling on a bench. "Not into the mushy stuff?" asked Ray, in a ragged cap and caretaker's overalls, and sat next to her on the bench. "What? No. I mean, I could be, but the newfoals here don't seem to be terribly picky about who they decide to be mushy with." "Ah. Combination of conversion high, and the natural pony disposition to love harmony and kissy stuff." "That's not a thing." "Is too! All the Equestrian pamphlets talk about how loving everypony there is." "Not that loving. I best most of them break up in a month" "You're a bit of a cynic for a pony, you know that?" the man said, laughing. "What can I say, I haven't changed too much. I also don't see myself making out with whoever I happen to meet first, that's just silly." "Well, never say never, your special somepony could be just around the corner!" "Man, those ponyisms sound ridiculous." "You'll get used to them. Everypony does." "They're ridiculous, and I totally won't." Contaction 2Joan was in a darkened classroom on the bottom floor, and was sitting next to Sour Kiss and his boyfriend, who Sour had introduced as Raspberry Delight. The beige unicorn, and a violet pegasus she didn't recognize had also showed up, as well as some ponies sitting a few rows back she couldn't quite figure out how to turn to see yet. A somewhat stuffy and faded looking dark teal unicorn stallion was at the front of the classroom. He turned on an old projector, and floated a picture into it. A picture of a large castle, with the caption 'Canterlot, capital of Equestria' appeared. "All of you will be traveling, by boat, to Canterlot. From there, you will figure out where you wish to travel, whether that's one of the recently created newfoal cities and towns that have started up, an established pony settlement like Manehatten or Ponyville, or, for the more adventurous, you might want to try joining some of the settlers outside Equestria entirely." "Not that last one!" said Raspberry. "Nothing to worry about, you won't be forced to live somewhere you don't want to." He swapped the picture in the projector with two more, and a picture of the boat they'd be taking, alongside their route appeared. "This is the Endymion, the boat you'll be taking. It sails through the barrier, and near the coast, past the Griffon Empire, and eventually lands near Las Pegasus, where you'll be flown to Canterlot. The whole journey is safe, fairly fast, and has been completed many, many times. Any questions?" "What if I have a hard time finding a place to live or a job?" asked the violet pegasus. "In the unlikely case that you cannot find employment, any employee of the Equestrian government will be happy to help, and many ordinary citizens!" "So I won't end up homeless?" "No, no, of course not. Equestrians look after each-other." Joan was on her way to Equestria, aboard the Endymion. They'd passed through the border between their universes, and could see the continent Equestria was on. Their route took them past the Griffon Kingdom, and thanks to an agreement between their ruler and Princess Celestia, they didn't have to deal with much harassment on the journey. Most days, that is. Today they were under attack by changelings. "Get the newfoals below deck!" yelled Captain Sharp Turn, and First Mate Clear Signal herded the terrified ponies where it was slightly safer. "The heck are those?" Joan said, heart about to jump out of her chest. When they told you about Equestria they certainly managed to leave a few things out, she thought. "Changeling drones," said Signal, "they're love stealers. Shapeshifters. Don't normally see them out here much, they must be trying to invade the Griffon Kingdom." "Then why are they here," asked the violet pegasus across the table from Joan, "are they gonna eat us?" "We're certainly not going to let them. I'll be back in a bit, gotta help fight these things off!" he said, and tromped back upstairs, lighting and charging his horn as he went. "Are-are we safe down here?" asked Raspberry, who didn't look like he was able to stop shaking, and was currently holding on as tightly to the slightly less scared looking yellow unicorn next to him. "Hey, they said they'd take care of it, so we're probably good-" A giant cracking sound filled the air, and the ship slanted sharply to the side, sending the newfoals sliding across the floor. "We're going to die!" "They're gonna eat us all!" Joan landed on the boat wall with a thump, landing next to the window. Outside, she saw the changelings in retreat, flying back towards the mainland. She hadn't been giving the crew enough credit, she thought. Then she saw a large chunk of the ship fall past the window, and everything went orange for a second. "Change of plans!" yelled the first mate running down the stairs. "Up the stairs! The boat is sinking! We need to get you all on the lifeboats ten minutes ago!" "We're still gonna die!" said the gray stallion, burying his head in his hooves. "No, we're going to proceed in an orderly manner up the steps," said the first mate. "Follow me." They followed him up top, and filed into the boats one at a time, until everybody was in once of the two bright orange inflatable boats. Then the boat cracked again. The lifeboats broke free from their rigging with a whip like snap, and fell. Joan screamed. Everypony else in the boat also screamed. The boats and the ponies in them fell the ten feet down to the water, and landed hard, knocking the air out of her. She coughed, and looked up at the boat that was continuing to sink, pelting them with waves, until it finally broke in two, plunging the tiny boats under the water. Joan woke on the beach, rough pebbles and rocks digging into her stomach and face. "Hkf," she said, and sputtered, spitting out the dirt sand and water that had made their way into her mouth. She could hear some ponies crying somewhere, but all she felt at the moment was cold and numb. "Hey!" said someone she thought was the first mate, "how are you doing? Does anything hurt?" "Ugh." "Listen, I'm going to roll you over, and make sure you haven't broken anything." Her wet hair dripped onto the stones, as she stretched out her legs. "Right, good. You're good. Captain! That's everypony, we're good!" She sat up, grumpily. "We're quite sure the Griffon Kingdom will have seen the flare we set off, so all we have to do now is wait for a rescue team. Thank god for that treaty we made ages ago, or we'd be stuck here." It took a while for everyone to recover, and Joan spent the time waiting talking to the other ponies, in an attempt to distract them and herself from what had just happened. She learned Raspberry and Sour Kiss had known each-other before conversion, but never realized they felt that way about each-other until now. Sour Kiss had wrapped his wing around Raspberry, pulling him as close as it was possible to get to him. "What are you two planning on doing when you get there?" "Well, I think it'd be fun to open a pub or tavern or something," said Raspberry, who had managed to stop shivering and finally seemed to be smiling again. "And I'm going to help, I did a bit of bar-tending as a human years ago, and I think doing almost anything with Raspberry would be lovely," said Sour, kissing him firmly on the muzzle, making him blush. Joan wasn't quite sure about how blushing worked with ponies, but 'magic' seemed to be as good an answer as any. "How about you? What are you going to do when you get there?" "Not quite sure yet. Though, I'm an earth pony, so I'm sure I can do some sort of physical work, right?" "Got a name picked yet?" "Not yet. Maybe when I figure out what sort of job I can get, since ponies seem to pick names that way. Don't they?" "Well, usually based on what they're good at or like, or something related to who they are. We actually picked ours based on our favorite drinks!" "Close enough, suppose." The trees on the the edge of the beach started shaking, and everyone was on guard again. "Relax," called an armored griffon, walking out of the forest, "we're friendlies." "Oh thank Celestia," said one of the newfoals, quietly. "Do you slumber quietly in a quiet field?" said the captain, not letting his guard down. "With my sword laid aside." "Then we may be friends." "What's that about?" Joan asked Raspberry, quietly. "Well, I asked the first mate about it earlier and he said Canterlot got attacked by changelings a while ago, and they had to introduce code phrases to make sure they weren't going to get ambushed every time the went anywhere." "No spells for that?" "Well, I hear there are, but most unicorns can't actually use them, so they're not very helpful..." "I'm sure you'll be able to someday, since you're the best unicorn ever," Sour Kiss said, nuzzling his cheek. Two more armored griffons followed the first out of the forest. "I'm Captain Gwyn, of the Griffon Kingdom. We saw your flare, thought you could use a hand." "We're very happy you came, our ship was destroyed by changelings, on the way here." "Are all you ponies able to walk? We've got an outpost fairly close by." "We should be good. Please lead on!" They trekked through the forest for a while, until some of the newfoals got tired and had to rest. "This forest! Why is it so hot? And long?" said a beige unicorn. "Because it hates you, mostly," said Gwyn, grinning. "It does not!" "We named this place the Forest of Spite. It's always like this, except when it's worse." The unicorn squeaked. The forest did seem pretty inhospitable in places, with its incredibly tall trees, spiked bushes and ferns, and occasional fifty foot drop into the rivers below. "Just stay close to me though, and you'll be safe enough-" Gwyn was tackled from the side by a black blur, and slammed into a nearby tree. Twenty or so changelings slipped out of the trees and circled them. The captain, first mate, and the two griffon warriors surrounded the newfoals. The griffons brandished their short spears (winged creatures avoided bladed weapons for a reason), and the ponies braced themselves. "Why do you guys always have to play so rough?" Gwyn choked out, as he tossed the changeling pinning him off. He dashed over to the outer ring outside the newfoals, and braced himself. "What are you waiting for? An invitation?" The surrounding changelings leapt at once, four engaging each person in the outer circle. They were locked in combat for a few minutes, each of them managing to knock out a few changelings apiece, until they were knocked out, the changelings having finally broke out their stun spells. All but Gwyn, that is. He seemed to be holding his own, and had dealt with the changelings that had been focused on him, and they lay where they'd been tossed. The newfoals were all trying to hide behind him now, except for Joan. "Hey, Pony! You gonna help?" "Hey," she said, trying to keep how scared she was out of her voice, "the worst that can happen is that they kill us anyway, right?" "I'm not sure about that, but okay! You take the ones on the right, I've got the ones on the left!" They charged, and Joan felt her shoulder impact a changeling, flinging it backwards. She felt steady again, and Instinctually flung out her forehooves, smashing the noses of the two changelings nearest her, and they fell backwards, clutching their muzzles. The two that were left charged their horns, and green light blasted her backwards. Blood dripped down her side from where the combined beam had hit her, and the pain made it hard for her to get up again, and the changelings laughed, growling and unkind. But she did, and charged them again, spinning at the last minute and bucking her legs out, contacting the changelings and flipping them into the bush behind. Then she collapsed, spent. "Hey, not bad for a pony," said Gwyn, offering her a clawed hand. "Maybe it's my special talent," she gasped, sides heaving. "Hey, you! Green and pink ponies! Give me a hand waking these guys up again..." The trip back was uneventful, aside from the occasional break after those who had been injured had to take a second or two. The griffon camp was small and spartan, but still had a certain something thanks to the griffon habit of using traditional patterns for camouflage. Gwyn and Joan were sitting outside his combined office and sleeping area. "You did good out there. You ought to give yourself more credit. Hey, next time I get into a fight, I want you on the front lines." "Hey, I did what I had to. Defending people is a pony thing, I hear." "Not like that it isn't. You deserve a damn pat on the back for that." "Well, thanks," she said, smiling. "I'm going to get some sleep, and we'll figure out what to do to get you ponies to where you're supposed to be in the morning. I've got soldiers watching the walls, so we shouldn't have much to worry about." Joan headed to the building the ponies had temporarily taken over, and Gwyn grinned to himself as he closed the door to his room, then smiled larger as his body was replaced with shiny black. Contaction 3"We've sent a messenger to the Griffon Capital telling them you're here. We should know what to do with you in a day or so. Plus, they might even send us a transport unit! That'd speed things up." "So we're stuck here, in the middle of a scary forest, while a changeling hive attacks the Griffon Kingdom?" "Sounds about right." Joan sighed. "Why didn't I stay on Earth again?" The Griffon Camp was small, eight or so slightly raised simple wood buildings which had been made of the trees near it, and patched up with a rough canvas fabric where needed. Around the whole thing was a fence, with points that had been roughly sharpened. The day passed fairly quickly, and the ponies mostly sat around making small talk. She'd talked to the beige unicorn who it turned out was named Card Stock - ponies liked puns, she'd decided - and she was hoping to work in the art-related industry. Assuming ponies had something like that. And a craft place if not. Craft was inevitable, Card insisted. Joan was pretty sure she hasn't seen anybody get that worked up about arts and crafts before, but after she slammed her hooves on the table, she assured Card that she would take her word for it. The griffons went about their business as usual, guarding the perimeter, talking, using the mess-hall, occasionally going on patrols in the forest. Gwyn stuck his head in the mess-hall every few hours, and Joan got the feeling he just did it so he could see her. At lunch, Gwyn called her over to his building. "Yeah?" "I was wondering if you might... want to have lunch with me." "Like, a date? Really?" "Well, you don't have to say yes. I would never force anyone under my protection to do something like that if they did't want to." "I will, if you give me the latest news." He laughed. "Alright. I know you ponies aren't too fond of the meat, right?" "Haven't been able to even think of eating the stuff since my conversion." "Thought as much. Had the chef send over some of the salad he makes. Bit of a strange one, but it works out, huh?" "I suppose it does," she said, then scooped up the bowl in her front hooves. "I don't think I'm going to be a terribly neat eater, with these hooves of mine." He picked up his own bowl. "I don't think that'll be much of a problem. I'm used to eating with griffons." The two of them ate their way through a few bowls of salad (Gwyn made a show of not using his claws, which Joan thought was both touching and hilarious). "What the deal with the changeling attacks?" Joan asked between mouthfuls. "Well, the running theory is that they're running low on food, since they attacked Canterlot. Since they failed there, they must be running pretty low by now. Infiltration takes lots of time, and a couple thousand drones must take a lot of emotion to feed, y'know?" "What emotions do they eat, anyway?" "This hive? I hear love, mostly. I think they're capable of eating most of them, but they're not all as useful." "Must be weird, eating something intangible," she said, crunching a leaf for emphasis. "I've seen them eat regular food, too," he said, "but they don't really seem to be terribly fond of most of it." "You see that in-between tossing them around?" she said, with a lopsided smile. "You could say that." "Speaking of invading monsters, when's the lift supposed to show up to get us out of here?" "The return message won't make it here until sundown at the earliest, so not soon. I'm sorry about that, I know a battlefield isn't really much of a hot vacation spot." "No, it really isn't." The griffon messenger returned at sundown as Gwyn had expected, and came bearing bad news. The Griffon War Council had decided that all griffon air transports needed to be used to aid the anti-changeling effort, but that the newfoals could stay as long as they liked, and if the changelings were defeated or left, they would gladly send them a transport. "So what, I'm stuck here?" "Well, the nearest pony settlement is about a day or two's fast walk from here. It's not safe on the roads, either." "Holed up in a griffon camp isn't how I'm going to be spending my first month as a pony. You have a map that shows it?" "Yes, I do. Are you going to traipse out there alone if I do?" "Hey, other newfoals? Who wants to come with me on a long, hot, life threatening journey?" No hooves went up. "So, yeah, I will." Gwyn sighed. "I'll come with you, then. Can't have you getting yourself killed, that'd be one heck of a diplomatic disaster." "Great." "Plus, I think I like you." She rolled her eyes. "We just met." They stood at the edge of the griffon camp, with the camping and survival equipment they'd packed. She was carrying food and water rations in a makeshift pair of saddlebags, and he had the tend and sleeping bags. Just before they set out, they heard a call. "Hey, wait! We're coming with you," said Raspberry. He was followed by Sour and Card, and the three of them trotted over. "It's not safe where we're going, ponies." "It's not safe here either!" "He's got you there, the changelings could show up here any minute..." "You don't have any gear." "Oh, hey, there you are," said a female griffon, rolling out what looked like three-ponies worth of supplies, "I brought the stuff you wanted." "Ugh." They took a less established path, since Gwyn said the changelings were likely watching the ones they normally used. The newfoals kept up with Gwyn reasonably well, and pretty soon the five of them had fallen into a routine. They passed by a few ponds (which Gwyn said were full of carnivorous fish) and various trees that Joan insisted were almost identical, and that she was an earth pony and would know. The ponies tried to talk a few times, but Gwyn shushed them almost immediately. Which made sense, Joan supposed, since there were probably changelings close by. Possibly even a hive, if they were fighting with the griffons, an invasion was hard to maintain without a place to camp, she supposed. "I need to make a stop," Gwyn said, as they came into view of a large pyramid-like ruin. The ponies stared at him. "What could you possibly need to get from a ruin?" "Is there gold in there? Other treasure?" "Ah, no. We set a changeling trap in there a while ago, and I need to check to see if any of them triggered it. Just wait here and try not to look too vulnerable. Back in a second." Gwyn ducked inside the ruin. The ponies waited. "How long was this supposed to take?" "Maybe a changeling ate him?" "Unlikely," said a voice from behind them, "since we're out here eating you." Joan felt all of the muscles in her body try to tense up all at the same time, and the largest shot of adrenaline she had ever felt. She knew when humans felt it they could lift cars. She figured she could probably toss one all the way across this clearing as an earth pony. "Hey!" she shouted, "how about you brutes pick on somepony your own size?" "You are our size-" The changeling got a face full of hoof as Joan flung herself forward. She felt jaw crunch under her hoof, and mentally noted there were more where that came from. She pirouetted on her front hooves, and caught another two in the neck with her shin. Which is when the changelings caught on, and rushed her all at once. She felt her not-quite-healed side sting as a changeling head-butted her in the side, sharp horn making the cut even worse. The changeling smirked as she fell, licked the blood dripping down his face. "It's not often you get a second chance at a fight. You ponies fight like cowards." Gwyn looked out from the ruins, watching the fight. Or rather, watched Joan getting kicked by the changelings, having already lost. The other three seemed to scared to move, and the changelings were ignoring them, for now. What the love collectors said was true, he decided. Letting a mark get hurt was tough. He had his order, though, straight from the Queen. He could almost feel the pain himself as she got kicked again, and felt what little love he'd been taking from her nearly stop. Orders could go take a swim in the nearest bog, he decided. He marched outside, over to the changelings. "Squad leader! We were wondering where you'd gone-" Gwyn pointed at the cowering ponies. "We were going to finish them off later." Gwyn charged his horn, and the eyes of the three ponies flashed. "Does the Queen know you're wasting resources?" "Well-" "Leave the mare to me. I have plans for her." "As you wish. Make her suffer, squad leader." "Go back to the hive." Joan hurt, everywhere. Her working theory was that one of the changelings had decided to eat her whole. "Wake up. You're safe. C'mon, wake up." She groaned at the touch on her shoulder. "Go away. I'm digesting." "Look, wake up. It's not safe out here." Gwyn stuck his hoof under hers, and pulled her into a sitting position. Joan's eyes shot open once she had a good view of things. "Gwyn! Where's the others?" she asked, frantically. "Turns out the changelings knew we were coming. They must have found the trap and knew we'd be here eventually." "We have go save them," she said, putting her hoof on his chest, "or get some reinforcements and come back!" "We can't do that. The treaty only provides common courtesies, the Griffon Kingdom would never send soldiers into a doomed fight, when they're needed elsewhere." "So what, you're going to leave them to get killed, or eaten, or worse?" "We don't know where the hive is, and it's getting late. We need to keep moving." "Fine. I'm not going to talk to you then." The hive loomed in the forest as the changelings carried the three ponies through the air. They stirred as they approached, stunning spell wearing off. The top of the hive was sharp looking, skinny spires coming off the sides. "Ungh," said Raspberry Delight, and opened his eyes, then immediately shut them as he noticed where he was. "Hey, you bugs!" shouted Sour Kiss, "Take us back!" The changelings ignored them as the struggled, and flew down through an opening in the hive, which led down to the chrysalis room, far at the bottom They flew over to the far end of the room, and landed in front of three pods. "C'mon, you don't have to do this! I'm sure we can just, y'know, hang out or something!" The changelings shoved them into the pods. They'd walked a fair ways farther in the forest, until the sun had gone near all the way down, and it was getting hard to see. "We need to stop, and make camp." Joan grunted a reply. They'd soon got the tent together, and the forest had begun to get cold, almost as if to ask those unlucky enough to be caught in it if they preferred the hot better. "While we have two bag, I was wondering if I could-" "Take the first watch awake? Good idea." Gwyn was sitting in the tent, looking out the small window in the end. He could hear Joan's quiet sleeping breaths. He decided he didn't really understand ponies very well. He must be missing something obvious. He'd complimented her, fought beside her in battle, and rescued her when it seemed all was lost. The love collectors made this sound much easier than it was. Over the hive link, he could hear the Queen sending new strategy messages, but he ignored them, since they weren't being sent to his squad. He had more important things to think about anyway. What hadn't he done, though? Maybe he wasn't heroic enough. She seemed to like the heroic type, so he'd play that up the next time he got a chance, and see if that worked any better. He stared off into the darkness. Joan was running the past few years of memories back in her head. A few years back, before all this Equestria and conversion business had happened, she had been in a relationship. His name was Phil Hendes, and he was, frankly, an incurable charmer. They'd done the usual thing, gone to restaurants and movies, and had, at once point, kissed. She'd introduced him to her best friend of the time Tissa Milland, and they'd got along splendidly. She'd gone to his place to surprise him, to find the front door open and unlocked, and strained grunts coming from upstairs through the thin screen door. She'd snuck up the stairs, and peeked in the room, to find him and her best friend in bed together. "It's not what it looks like," he said, as she stood in the door, feeling her heart get ripped in two. Tissa said nothing, under the blanket the two of them had hastily pulled over them, as if they could pretend it hadn't happened if Joan couldn't see it. "Goodbye, Phil," she said, and left, door open and screen door slowly, squeakily closing. Contaction 4They'd alternated watch most of the night, though Gwyn had to fight himself not to tell her there wasn't any point, since the changelings weren't going to be back, and the animals had learned a long time ago to leave changelings alone. He'd had the last watch, and shook Joan awake as the sun had just started peeking over the forest. "Time to wake up. We've got a lot of ground to cover." "Ugh. Fine." They got up and packed the tent. "There's a really nice waterfall we might end up seeing on the way there. It's enormous, and there's always a ton of birds nearby." Joan grunted, and tossed a bag his way, which he pulled on. "Plus, once we get to the pony settlement, I could show you around, since I've been there a few times myself." Another grunt, and Joan started off without him. "Not a morning pony, huh? Well, that's fine." Gwyn was sure ponies enjoyed smalltalk.They always had when he'd impersonated them, and that hadn't been too long ago. He didn't think newfoals could be that different from regular ponies about something as simple as small talk, so he tried again. "What was your life back on earth? Anything like Equestria?" "Oh, of course, my friends got kidnapped by crazy monsters every day back home," she said, flatly. "Not so different from here then, huh?" She grunted, and kept walking, and ignored him the rest of the way there. They emerged from the forest into a clearing a few hours later, and found the pony settlement they had been looking for. Unfortunately, it was on fire, burnt mostly to the ground, and there didn't seem to be any ponies left. "Gwyn!" Joan shouted, "you said there'd be ponies here!" "There were! The changelings must have got here before we did." She jabbed him with a hoof. "Changelings burn towns to the ground?" "Not normally, no, but if there was a fight it could have been an accident-" "An accident? Really?" she said, and then pointed to her side. "You think this was an accident? You think burning a whole town to the ground was an accident?" "We don't know what happened, yet, I'm sure there's a-" "The changelings burned the town and kidnapped all the ponies. I think that's pretty obvious." "Perceptive, isn't she?" said a tall changeling, stepping from behind some burnt wreckage, and twenty or so changelings followed her, "Shame she's not perceptive enough to not argue in the middle of a battlefield." "Still not dead, pony?" shouted once of the changelings, who managed to look bruised up despite being totally black and covered in a hard shell, "we can fix that." "You wish, hard-haunch!" "Joan, run." "We can take these guys. We did last time!" "Still haven't told her, Squad Leader? A tragedy, really. Kill her." "I'll explain later! Run!" The group of changelings charged at her, and she ran into the forest, changelings in close pursuit. She had just made it back to the waterfall they had passed on the way in, when a few of the changelings caught up to her. "End of the line, pony." She climbed up a few of the rocks leading up the waterfall, and stuck her tongue out at them. They flew into the air, and she jumped, landing on them and smashing them against the ground with a thump. She got up and kicked the one who'd hurt her the most last time they'd fought in the head for good measure. "Not bad, for a pony," said the Queen, stepping into the clearing around the waterfall, dragging Gwyn her magic. "Bucking do something, Gwyn! They're going to kill us!" "Going to kill you, darling," said the Queen, grinning sharply. She tossed Gwyn in front of her. "Because he's a changeling." She stared at him for a second, and then glared. "And that's why you let them get away with my friends." He nodded. "Enough of this. You're going to drain her of her love, and I'm going to make you do it." The remaining changelings leapt on her, and held her down, and Gwyn felt his body walk over to them, against his will. The green glow of his magic filled the clearing as he stood over Joan, and he lowered his head. "I'm sorry." His magic sparked across the gap, forming a connection across which his spell sucked her emotions, and she screamed, then fell silent, and lost consciousness. "Well done, even if I had to force you to do it," said the Queen, and touched her horn to his, sucking away Joan's emotions. "You lot, get back to patrolling. And you," she said, looking at Gwyn, "best have learned a lesson from this. Next time I kill you." He nodded, quietly, and the changelings left him sitting in the clearing, with Joan's unmoving body. The other changelings were gone, and had stayed gone. Joan hadn't woken up. He knew most creatures who were drained rarely lived, and those that did had their emotions returned, or had been converted into changelings. Joan's emotions were long gone, he knew that, and almost impossible to get back. Either the Queen had them, which was impossible, or she'd given them to the emotion workers to be processed, which was harder than impossible, since they'd be split up and distributed among thousands of other changelings. There weren't really many choices at this point. Either he got himself killed attempting to get them back, Joan died of emotion-loss, or he converted her back at the hive. At this point, that was the only thing he could see working. He lifted her onto his back with his magic, and flew off towards the hive. His trip there was uninterrupted, since the hive had heard all about what he had just done, thanks to a hive-wide broadcast by the Queen. He sighed, the sound swept away by the wind past his face. The hive came into view, a cobbled together thing, that they'd set up after they'd been forced out into the forest far outside Equestria. The Queen was reluctant to fix it up, and said they'd be living in the Griffon Kingdom as soon as they defeated them. He landed in front of one of the entrances, and it slid open, reacting to his magic. He walked down the hallway, his hooves and the black chitinous surface of the hallway clicking on contact. No changelings were passed on his way there, most either working in the deeper recesses of the hive, or on combat duty. He followed the twists and turns down the to chrysalis section, which had been recently expanded enough to hold an entire town, and found an empty one. Things had not gone well, he thought. He should have forced her to stay at the griffon camp, or maybe even have taken her in the other direction of the pony settlement entirely. Of course, he didn't think for a second that would have worked. Some ponies had spirit, and there wasn't any telling them what to do. Not that there was much he could do about that, now. He placed her still body into the chrysalis, and its shiny green surface sealed around her, and the pod filled itself. He stared at her face, through the translucent cover, closed, and unmoving, and knelt his head to hers, then left the room. In the dimmed light of the conversion and love draining room, Joan opened her eyes. On the pod in front of her, she could see glowing lights, that flashed rhythmically, like heartbeats. A year ago. A hospital room, cold and sterile, with only a vase of flowers to remind people that the room wasn't totally hopeless. On the bed, her father, unmoving, lights on a nearby diagnostic machine the only clue that there was still life in him. She picked the old, dry flowers out of the vase and tucked the new ones into it, temporarily brightening the room again. She held his hand for a second, then slipped out of the room, down the quiet hallways, footsteps and the occasional cricket chirp of machines echoing in the air that felt thick, and still. She nodded to the secretary on her way out, and the automatic doors slid shut behind her. Joan wasn't dead. That was the important part, she decided. The less important part was that Gwyn absolutely sucked at draining ponies of all their love and leaving them for dead. And, she thought, he'd been a changeling this whole time. Led them right into a trap, and probably planned the whole thing himself. He'd what, wanted to keep her for himself? Suffered some sort of attack of conscience after he'd nearly got her killed, twice, and her friends kidnapped? The chrysalis was full of something gooey she didn't want to think about, and outside she could see what looked like hundreds of other chrysalises. Most full. She was not panicking. She had to keep reminding herself not to panic, but she wasn't, Yet. Friends. She had to concentrate ton them, getting them out of this. She pushed on the outside of the chrysalis, and felt it move a little bit. She kicked, and it bent. She put all her legs on the edge, and pushed as hard as she could, and tore a hole in the side, and the goop leaked out onto the floor, taking her along with it. She heaved, sending gunk everywhere, and again, and she kept coughing until her lungs were empty and sore. She lay on the floor a moment, just resting for a moment. She was pretty sure the Princesses owed her an apology or a medal or something after a first week after conversion this bad. She peered around the corner, and saw that, thankfully, there didn't seem to be any guards watching. She looked in the pod closest to her, and saw a tall unicorn. He didn't look like he'd been there long, so she figured he'd been part of the town. She looked on the other side, and saw Sour Kiss, Raspberry Delight, and Card Stock." Joan took a deciding breath. She'd have to come back for everyone later, but she'd bust her friends out now. She jabbed a hoof through each of the pods, and watched as each of them went through the same coughing routine, albeit after taking slightly more time to become aware. "What..." "What happened?" "Why is everything green? I mean, I like green, but..." Joan squeezed some leftover changeling goop from her mane, and gestured around her. "Changeling attack. They brought us here to turn us into changelings, or steal our love, or both. Probably both." They looked terrified. She wasn't sure she was feeling anything anymore. "But I'm busting you out, and soon we'll be home free." "How do we get out?" Joan dumped the body of the changeling guard in the hallway they had just come from, and came face to face with a small drone. She had the usual changeling spiked ridge and blue eyes, but her fangs were smaller than the ones she'd seen on the others. "Tell me how to get out of here, or do the same thing I just did to that guy. And don't call anybody on the hive mind, we know about that." "I am a tiny part of the hive mind. I h-have no fear. I am not an in... individual. D-d-d- your worst, pony," said the changeling who was doing her best to control the shaking in her knees and failing completely. "Right. Way out, please?" "I-I'll show you, follow me." Contaction 5The small changeling led them down a series of twisty corridors, that looked reasonably similar to each-other, save for the combinations of glowing light on the sides. "I hav...have to tell the guards when you leave," the small drone said as the traced their way back towards the exit. "Give them a head start, then. A very long head start." "I-I can do that." The drone opened the door to the outside, and Joan sighed. "I am about to do something incredibly stupid, and I hope you'll understand. I need you," she said, pointing at the changeling, "to help me find a changeling who was pretending to be a griffon named Gwyn." "W-why?" "I need some answers, and he's going to help me." The three newfoals ran for the forest. Joan and the small drone were tracing their way through the tunnels, again, looking for Gwyn. The drone said she was certain he was there, since she could sense his signature on the hive mind, but not his exact location without asking. They were currently in a side access tunnel, which the changeling had said was for periodic maintenance of the hive walls. "What's your name, anyway?" "I am a t-tiny part of the hive mind. I have n-no name." "So, what is it?" "G-Grapheme." "Nice name, I think it suits you." "T-thanks." The path got smaller, and they dropped into a large room with connections leading off in every direction. "Which way?" "D-down." Joan stood over the hole in the center of the room, and peered down. It glowed, and seemed to curve gently back and forth. Grapheme jumped, and slid down the tunnel, quickly disappearing from sight. "Here goes," Joan whispered to herself, and jumped. Glowing rings flashed before her eyes as she slid down, and she was quickly ejected from the end of the tunnel, landing on a part of the hive wall that was softer and more squishy than the rest of the hive. "What is this?" "Scout rooms, o-over there, is the room you want." "Wait here. And don't call the hive." "O-okay." She entered the room, and found Gwyn in his changeling form, staring at a wall. He was about the same size as her but his muzzle was more squared off than Grapheme's, and his fangs were much larger, and he seemed muscular, if that was even possible for a changeling. Her heart was pounding, and she was pretty sure her instincts were tellIng her to run. She ignored them. "You tried to convert me." Gwyn spun around and stared. "Joan! You're not- you're not dead. You were dying from- from me draining you of emotion! I had to do something, how did-" She thwacked him on the shoulder. "Maybe I like you too." He looked back at the wall. "You shouldn't." "You're terrible at being a monster, but you need more practice being a pony," she said, and pointed at the door. "Do you want a second chance or what, whoever you are?" He sighed and looked back at the wall. "Valence. My name is Valence." Sour, Raspberry and Card were hiding in the forest. "What if a changeling saw us?" "Well, they would have sent a guard after us if they did, right? Or maybe they thought we were changelings." "I'm pretty sure they can tell." "Show yourselves!" shouted a voice from the clearing. "Yeah, they can tell," said Raspberry. "Maybe we can knock him out... hey! Over here!" Sour said loudly, drawing disbelieving stares from the other two. "I have a plan." The changeling walked into the forest, immediately spotting them. "Surrender!" "Okay!" said Sour Kiss, walking over to him. "Er," said the changeling. "You know," Sour said, "you guys aren't bad looking up close, you know?" He grabbed one of the changelings forehooves, and pointed to it with a wing. "This color? Perfect for adding some accessories to. And so smooth," he said, rubbing his face on the changelings leg. "Sour!" "Hey, I haven't kissed him or anything. Yet." "You can't seduce your way out of a problem! What about me?" "I'm sure we could compromise, in bed! All three of us, maybe!" "What was... that about kissing?" "Oh," Sour said, and kissed him straight on the muzzle. The changeling had agreed not to turn them in, had insisted on kissing Raspberry too, to make sure there were no hard feelings, and was currently trying to talk Card Stock into hugging him. "And you thought that wouldn't work." "You totally owe me, you know." "Yeah, I know. You get one anything card, redeemable at the next bed." “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” "Hey," Card said to the changeling, "you wouldn't happen to be able to distract the hive at all, would you? There's a hug in it for you." Joan, Grapheme and Valence were standing on a balcony overlooking the pod bay. Grapheme seemed to have decided Joan wasn't about to attack her, and had stopped shaking so much. "You have a plan?" "Wake up the ponies, attack or distract the guards, and run." "That plan has significant chance for failure." "It's the only plan we have, unless you want to make a bid for Queen of the hive?" "M-me? Queen?" "Anyway. Can we disable all the pods at once?" "The pods on their own don't have a hive connection, and will drain if they lose it. There's a hive mind connection and regulator in the center, just there," Grapheme said, pointing at a lumpy bit in the center of the room that all the pods seemed connected to by tubes. "Right, new plan, Valence, you keep track of where the guards are, and take them out if they notice. Grapheme, you're with me. We're taking that regulator down." Joan jumped and slid down a curving piece of architecture between the balcony and the pod bay, and waved Grapheme down, who chose to fly instead. Once on the ground the ran over to the regulator, and Joan began pounding on it. "Get the bit just there, in the center!" Grapheme said, taking more glee in the destruction than Joan would have expected. She concentrated her stamping there, and it soon started to crack. "Aren't you supposed to be loyal to the hive?" "Well, the Queen isn't really very nice to drones, or anyling, really." She sighed. "This whole 'drones aren't individuals, just part of a hive' deal wasn't a thing until the new Queen took over." "Mmph," she managed, as she stamped on it a few last times, cracking the surface, and jamming her hooves deep into the soft bits on the inside, which were promptly splattered everywhere as she pulled her hooves free and scraped them on the floor. "We have about twenty minutes until someling notices the regulator is down and sends a bioengineer to fix it. We need to move!" Valence ran back into the room. "I had to take out a few guards, I think they're going to start getting suspicious when the guards don't come back, and even more suspicious since the guards were broadcasting something about a free hugs party outside the hive." "Right, how long will it take for them to wake up?" "Longer than you have," said the Queen, looking down from the balcony. "Run!" Valence shouted, firing off a shot with his horn that doused the entire room in a thick cloud of green. The three of them bolted for the exit. "Grapheme," Joan hissed, "which way out of here? We need to go up, up, up!" "That way! The stairs go up, all the way to the top floor!" "We need the ground floor!" "You can go back down from there!" Joan harrumphed, and lead the charge, up the spiraling slick black steps, until they came to the top, and found themselves in a windowed room with no visible exits. Each of the windows was covered in something shiny, semi-translucent, and a hoof thick. "Where's the way down?" "I don't know," Grapheme said frantically, "it was here when I was up here last! They must have closed it or something!" "Look, tell her I threatened you. You'll get away with it!" "No, I won't! This is the second time I've crossed her, the first time you get punished for it, the second you die!" "A pity, really," said the Queen, floating up the stairs and landing on the floor, "you were a slightly above average efficiency drone. Rules are rules, though." Grapheme cowered behind Joan and Valence, as the Queen stepped towards them. "I'm not sure how you survived, pony, but I promise you it won't happen again." The Queen charged her horn, and Valence was engulfed in green light. "Drain her emotions. All of them. Don't mess it up, this time." Valence tuned to Joan, his horn lit. "I don't want to do this," he said, and a green light jumped between them. "Then don't," she said through gritted teeth, and placed a hoof on his shoulder. He looked into her eyes and the light stopped. "You cannot disobey a direct order!" the Queen raged, and leapt into the air, horn glowing, as Valence's horn reversed, and the room was bathed in pink, and the Queen was thrown through the window, shattering it, and farther, out past the edge of the forest, and farther than that. Valence slumped, and fell onto the ground. Grapheme had her head between her hooves behind them, and Joan sat down, suddenly tired. They could hear birds chirping outside the hive, and the quiet thrum of cicadas. Raspberry Delight, Sour Kiss, and Card Stock peeked out from behind the trees they'd been hiding behind, as a procession of slightly gooed ponies left the hive, and began the walk back to the wreckage of the pony town they'd lost in the fight. In the other direction, a swarm of battle scarred ponies left, never to be seen again, leaving their kinder and gentler brethren alone in the hive. "What happened?" Raspberry gaped. "It's a long story, but I'll tell you while we walk." Three months later, the pony town of East Friendvale (sister city to West Friendvale, which the changelings had christened their hive, after apologizing profusely to the ponies, and had helped them rebuild, despite initial pony doubts that they were trying to be helpful and not just trying to drain them all of love somehow) opened its figurative doors again. Joan and the other newfoals had set up houses of their own, after having stayed just to help rebuild, and then just to help them get settled, then having decided to stay at least long enough to make friends with the locals. Raspberry and Sour had opened their own pub, since the town didn't seem to have one, and unusual beverages were easy to come by this close to the Griffon Kingdom and a changeling hive. Card Stock spent her time trying to teach the locals the value of good art. Grapheme had been named 'Elected Official of West Friendvale', and had happily accepted. Joan had changed her last name to Fieldstone. She thought it was appropriate. She was sitting on a deck with Valence, overlooking what had eventually returned to being a happy, bustling town. "Mind if I stay at your place? The Griffon Camp was fairly upset about the fact that we'd kidnapped their commanding officer." "That and you know I only have one bed." "Well, that too. Plus, I got a pie from the baker down the road. It's... blackberry, I think?" Joan kissed him, and he quickly found himself kissing back.
Contaction 1Joan was standing outside the Silver Maple bureau. The building was two stories tall, surrounded on all sides by grass, and had a big fence going around the back. The first thing anybody who looked at it would tell you was that it just seemed happy, somehow. Which is what you needed, at a time like this. The architecture was decidedly premodern, she decided as she went in the door, past the front walls that were trying very hard to pretend to be a natural material. The whole place was in stark contrast to the boxy and stiff buildings that made up the rest of the city, this place flowed, somehow. There weren't a lot of hard edges on the outside, as if the architect had gone at the model with a power-sander. Inside was similar, faux-wood tiles intermixed with fauxer-marble. In the center of the room was a unicorn pony with a light blue coat, and greenish-blue mane done up in a bun in the back, and draped long and loose in the front. She was doing her hooves, and sitting at a desk that was trying very hard to be wood-grain. "Oh hey," said the unicorn, dropping her hoof-file on the desk and sitting back up, "you here to go pony?" "That I am," she replied, resting the elbows of her crossed arms on the desk. "Okay hon, my name is Morning Frost, and I just have to ask you a few questions, won't take but a moment." "No forms? I think I like ponies already." "Nah, we phased that out ages ago, after people wouldn't stop filling in made up information." "Oh?" "After two or three forms claiming the person who filled it in was Zap Scattergun, hero of the cosmos, we started to realize that people don't care about forms when they're not thinking about coming back. Anyhow, name?" "Joan Feldton." "Emergency contact?" "Don't have one." "Allergies?" "Nope." "Reason for leaving?" "Ah, personal." "Favorite kind of pie?" Joan stared at Frost. Frost laughed, which was one of the things Joan liked about ponies. They had an infectious kind of laugh, that worked its way inside your head and made you think everything was going to be just fine. Frost's was well rounded and hearty, kind of like the pony herself. "We make desserts every few days, just want to make sure you get the kind you want." "Blackberry, then." Frost clicked that into the computer and then handed her a card. "This'll let you into your room, which is just down that hallway, and to the left." As she entered the hallway, she noticed a white pony with a short dark red mane sneak behind the desk and drape herself on Morning Frost shoulder. “Hey, Bedside. Steady doesn’t have you working right now? Not that I mind, of course!” “Nah, conversions are fast, and usually clean! Say, you don’t suppose you can sign up to go pony if you’re already a pony, do you?” “I’m quite sure you can’t. I like you the way you are, though!” “You’ll just have to be my second pony, then!” she said, and kissed Frost on the cheek. She opened the door to find the room was a double bedroom, with two beds. The rightmost of which had a pegasus stallion who was the brightest green she thought a pony could be sat on it, wearing eye scarringly bright pink and white polka-dotted socks, and an equally pink neckband. "Hey, you're my new roomie?" he asked cheerily, and his voice buzzed with the same sort of glowing energy and buzz his socks did, and he liberally applied vocal fry to random words like someone might tell him it was out of style and he should stop doing it before the vocal fashion police came to get him. "That's me, I just got here. My name is Joan, and-" "Name’s Sour Kiss, and you absolutely have to let me show you around. Please?" "I've only been a here a few minutes-" "Even better!" he said giddily, and nabbed her hand with a wing, then led her out of the room. They strolled down the hallway, past the stairs to the second floor (there weren't any bedrooms on the second floor, since newfoals had a habit of accidentally falling down them), into the lobby ("Hey Frost!" "Hey hon!") and over into the cafeteria. "This," he said, pausing dramatically, "is the cafeteria." "It's okay, I guess?" Undaunted, he led her over to the window at the end of the cafeteria. "And out here, is the yard," he said, rearing up and holding his hooves out to the side, as if he had just opened the winning game-show door and revealed a car being driven by a goat. "It's very green." "I know! Isn't it the best? That's also the end of the tour unfortunately, they won't let me into the conversion room again, or the janitor's room, security room, or the storage area. I only ran into Ray once, and that puddle he landed in was not my fault." She rolled her eyes and looked over at the cafeteria that seemed to have opened recently. "What's the best thing to eat, here?" "Oh man, they have the absolute best oat burger..." The yard, as it turned out, was indeed nice, as she found out the next day. Sour Kiss was sitting next to her, since Raspberry seemed to be off doing something. She spotted an earth pony watering some of the vines growing up the gazebo, who her roommate said was Steady Hoof, the doctor at the bureau, but liked to unwind by taking care of the plants sometimes. Given the trees and bushes arranged around the outside of the yard, he'd done a good job of it. Steady waved to her, and came over. "You're next on the conversion list today after lunch, just head to the right from the lobby, goes straight there." "Thanks." "You're next?” asked Sour Kiss, grinning, “It's so much more fun having hooves, I have to say." "A little biased there, huh?" she said, and grabbed one of Sour's forehooves and tickled the bottom of it, causing him to laugh and nearly fall off the bench they were sitting on. "N- no!" Sour said, getting his breath back, "They're really awesome, I swear! Can I come with you? I want to see what it looks like on the other side of the potion." "The Bureau rules do allow you to bring one person with you," Steady said. "If you like, I hear it's kinda weird to watch," she said, then tickled Sour again. Lunch had ended, and Joan and Sour had started heading the the conversion room, taking the scenic route - around the yard, through the cafeteria, upstairs, back downstairs after getting chased by Ray back downstairs - until they wound up where they were supposed to be. Joan hopped up onto the table in the conversion room, and Sour made an attempt to sit on the chair beside it normally and failed. Steady Hoof and Bedside Manner followed her in. "Are you ready?" asked Steady. "Ready enough," she said, feigning confidence. She wasn't sure there was ever a good time to change species and leave your planet behind. "All you have to do is drink this potion, lie down, and after the potion gets warmed up you'll wake up with hooves." "And you're statistically unlikely to die!" Bedside Manner chimed in, cheerfully. She looked over at Sour Kiss and he grinned. "You're so ready for this." She slammed back the potion, and doomed herself to miss Frost's lecture about 'professional conduct' entirely. It turned out that the potion didn't actually melt you down and sculpt you back up again, because that would be incredibly wasteful, since humans and ponies had most of the same bones and muscles in most of the same places anyway. The result was Joan got to see her stomach, legs and arms start changing - the potion was painless since by the time you noticed anything was happening you didn't have any nerves to notice it with - before the potion got through with her brain and knocked her out. "I've always been fascinated," said Bedside, totally ignoring Steady Hoof’s speech about the legal and biological ramifications of lack of politeness in a doctor's office, "with the sounds the bones make during a conversion. You think anybody has ever recorded those?" Sour Kiss made some grossed out faces at Bedside, making her grin even more than usual. Joan opened her eyes to find herself in a field that seemed to go on for miles in every direction, and empty. She felt totally and completely calm, and supranaturally steady, as if her hooves had been made for this, and were offering her an unshakable foundation, if she wanted it. She woke, and sat up. "How do you feel?" asked Steady Hoof. "Good. Like nothing could knock me over. I thought the Princesses took care of conversion dreams, though?" "Well, they can't be everywhere. They tend to focus on those who really need it. You must be holding it together pretty well!" said Bedside, "Yeah, if I had to wake up with human hands, I'd be freaking out! Those are crazy weird." "Be careful with your first step, a lot of newfoals are a little shaky at first." "I know I was! Total faceplant," said Sour Kiss. Joan slid off the side, and her back hooves hit the ground, and stayed there, followed by her other two. There it was again, she thought, the feeling of being unshakable, but- She slipped as she took a step, and ended up in a bit of a pile on the floor. "That happens to everypony," said Bedside, "it doesn't mean you're broken! Which is good because ponies don't come with warranties or anything." She worked her way back up standing again, and caught a glimpse of herself in the large mirror they had on the wall. She was an earth pony, rugged and strong, with a grape colored coat and a dirty orange mane. She looked herself in the eyes, and felt steady again. Joan was sitting on a bench in the yard again, watching the other newfoals. Weird how close pairs of newfoals ended up, she thought. On the other side of the yard, near a bush in bloom, a pink unicorn and her roommate were making out, and she could see a beige unicorn mare and a grey earth pony stallion cuddling on a bench. "Not into the mushy stuff?" asked Ray, in a ragged cap and caretaker's overalls, and sat next to her on the bench. "What? No. I mean, I could be, but the newfoals here don't seem to be terribly picky about who they decide to be mushy with." "Ah. Combination of conversion high, and the natural pony disposition to love harmony and kissy stuff." "That's not a thing." "Is too! All the Equestrian pamphlets talk about how loving everypony there is." "Not that loving. I best most of them break up in a month" "You're a bit of a cynic for a pony, you know that?" the man said, laughing. "What can I say, I haven't changed too much. I also don't see myself making out with whoever I happen to meet first, that's just silly." "Well, never say never, your special somepony could be just around the corner!" "Man, those ponyisms sound ridiculous." "You'll get used to them. Everypony does." "They're ridiculous, and I totally won't."
Contaction 2Joan was in a darkened classroom on the bottom floor, and was sitting next to Sour Kiss and his boyfriend, who Sour had introduced as Raspberry Delight. The beige unicorn, and a violet pegasus she didn't recognize had also showed up, as well as some ponies sitting a few rows back she couldn't quite figure out how to turn to see yet. A somewhat stuffy and faded looking dark teal unicorn stallion was at the front of the classroom. He turned on an old projector, and floated a picture into it. A picture of a large castle, with the caption 'Canterlot, capital of Equestria' appeared. "All of you will be traveling, by boat, to Canterlot. From there, you will figure out where you wish to travel, whether that's one of the recently created newfoal cities and towns that have started up, an established pony settlement like Manehatten or Ponyville, or, for the more adventurous, you might want to try joining some of the settlers outside Equestria entirely." "Not that last one!" said Raspberry. "Nothing to worry about, you won't be forced to live somewhere you don't want to." He swapped the picture in the projector with two more, and a picture of the boat they'd be taking, alongside their route appeared. "This is the Endymion, the boat you'll be taking. It sails through the barrier, and near the coast, past the Griffon Empire, and eventually lands near Las Pegasus, where you'll be flown to Canterlot. The whole journey is safe, fairly fast, and has been completed many, many times. Any questions?" "What if I have a hard time finding a place to live or a job?" asked the violet pegasus. "In the unlikely case that you cannot find employment, any employee of the Equestrian government will be happy to help, and many ordinary citizens!" "So I won't end up homeless?" "No, no, of course not. Equestrians look after each-other." Joan was on her way to Equestria, aboard the Endymion. They'd passed through the border between their universes, and could see the continent Equestria was on. Their route took them past the Griffon Kingdom, and thanks to an agreement between their ruler and Princess Celestia, they didn't have to deal with much harassment on the journey. Most days, that is. Today they were under attack by changelings. "Get the newfoals below deck!" yelled Captain Sharp Turn, and First Mate Clear Signal herded the terrified ponies where it was slightly safer. "The heck are those?" Joan said, heart about to jump out of her chest. When they told you about Equestria they certainly managed to leave a few things out, she thought. "Changeling drones," said Signal, "they're love stealers. Shapeshifters. Don't normally see them out here much, they must be trying to invade the Griffon Kingdom." "Then why are they here," asked the violet pegasus across the table from Joan, "are they gonna eat us?" "We're certainly not going to let them. I'll be back in a bit, gotta help fight these things off!" he said, and tromped back upstairs, lighting and charging his horn as he went. "Are-are we safe down here?" asked Raspberry, who didn't look like he was able to stop shaking, and was currently holding on as tightly to the slightly less scared looking yellow unicorn next to him. "Hey, they said they'd take care of it, so we're probably good-" A giant cracking sound filled the air, and the ship slanted sharply to the side, sending the newfoals sliding across the floor. "We're going to die!" "They're gonna eat us all!" Joan landed on the boat wall with a thump, landing next to the window. Outside, she saw the changelings in retreat, flying back towards the mainland. She hadn't been giving the crew enough credit, she thought. Then she saw a large chunk of the ship fall past the window, and everything went orange for a second. "Change of plans!" yelled the first mate running down the stairs. "Up the stairs! The boat is sinking! We need to get you all on the lifeboats ten minutes ago!" "We're still gonna die!" said the gray stallion, burying his head in his hooves. "No, we're going to proceed in an orderly manner up the steps," said the first mate. "Follow me." They followed him up top, and filed into the boats one at a time, until everybody was in once of the two bright orange inflatable boats. Then the boat cracked again. The lifeboats broke free from their rigging with a whip like snap, and fell. Joan screamed. Everypony else in the boat also screamed. The boats and the ponies in them fell the ten feet down to the water, and landed hard, knocking the air out of her. She coughed, and looked up at the boat that was continuing to sink, pelting them with waves, until it finally broke in two, plunging the tiny boats under the water. Joan woke on the beach, rough pebbles and rocks digging into her stomach and face. "Hkf," she said, and sputtered, spitting out the dirt sand and water that had made their way into her mouth. She could hear some ponies crying somewhere, but all she felt at the moment was cold and numb. "Hey!" said someone she thought was the first mate, "how are you doing? Does anything hurt?" "Ugh." "Listen, I'm going to roll you over, and make sure you haven't broken anything." Her wet hair dripped onto the stones, as she stretched out her legs. "Right, good. You're good. Captain! That's everypony, we're good!" She sat up, grumpily. "We're quite sure the Griffon Kingdom will have seen the flare we set off, so all we have to do now is wait for a rescue team. Thank god for that treaty we made ages ago, or we'd be stuck here." It took a while for everyone to recover, and Joan spent the time waiting talking to the other ponies, in an attempt to distract them and herself from what had just happened. She learned Raspberry and Sour Kiss had known each-other before conversion, but never realized they felt that way about each-other until now. Sour Kiss had wrapped his wing around Raspberry, pulling him as close as it was possible to get to him. "What are you two planning on doing when you get there?" "Well, I think it'd be fun to open a pub or tavern or something," said Raspberry, who had managed to stop shivering and finally seemed to be smiling again. "And I'm going to help, I did a bit of bar-tending as a human years ago, and I think doing almost anything with Raspberry would be lovely," said Sour, kissing him firmly on the muzzle, making him blush. Joan wasn't quite sure about how blushing worked with ponies, but 'magic' seemed to be as good an answer as any. "How about you? What are you going to do when you get there?" "Not quite sure yet. Though, I'm an earth pony, so I'm sure I can do some sort of physical work, right?" "Got a name picked yet?" "Not yet. Maybe when I figure out what sort of job I can get, since ponies seem to pick names that way. Don't they?" "Well, usually based on what they're good at or like, or something related to who they are. We actually picked ours based on our favorite drinks!" "Close enough, suppose." The trees on the the edge of the beach started shaking, and everyone was on guard again. "Relax," called an armored griffon, walking out of the forest, "we're friendlies." "Oh thank Celestia," said one of the newfoals, quietly. "Do you slumber quietly in a quiet field?" said the captain, not letting his guard down. "With my sword laid aside." "Then we may be friends." "What's that about?" Joan asked Raspberry, quietly. "Well, I asked the first mate about it earlier and he said Canterlot got attacked by changelings a while ago, and they had to introduce code phrases to make sure they weren't going to get ambushed every time the went anywhere." "No spells for that?" "Well, I hear there are, but most unicorns can't actually use them, so they're not very helpful..." "I'm sure you'll be able to someday, since you're the best unicorn ever," Sour Kiss said, nuzzling his cheek. Two more armored griffons followed the first out of the forest. "I'm Captain Gwyn, of the Griffon Kingdom. We saw your flare, thought you could use a hand." "We're very happy you came, our ship was destroyed by changelings, on the way here." "Are all you ponies able to walk? We've got an outpost fairly close by." "We should be good. Please lead on!" They trekked through the forest for a while, until some of the newfoals got tired and had to rest. "This forest! Why is it so hot? And long?" said a beige unicorn. "Because it hates you, mostly," said Gwyn, grinning. "It does not!" "We named this place the Forest of Spite. It's always like this, except when it's worse." The unicorn squeaked. The forest did seem pretty inhospitable in places, with its incredibly tall trees, spiked bushes and ferns, and occasional fifty foot drop into the rivers below. "Just stay close to me though, and you'll be safe enough-" Gwyn was tackled from the side by a black blur, and slammed into a nearby tree. Twenty or so changelings slipped out of the trees and circled them. The captain, first mate, and the two griffon warriors surrounded the newfoals. The griffons brandished their short spears (winged creatures avoided bladed weapons for a reason), and the ponies braced themselves. "Why do you guys always have to play so rough?" Gwyn choked out, as he tossed the changeling pinning him off. He dashed over to the outer ring outside the newfoals, and braced himself. "What are you waiting for? An invitation?" The surrounding changelings leapt at once, four engaging each person in the outer circle. They were locked in combat for a few minutes, each of them managing to knock out a few changelings apiece, until they were knocked out, the changelings having finally broke out their stun spells. All but Gwyn, that is. He seemed to be holding his own, and had dealt with the changelings that had been focused on him, and they lay where they'd been tossed. The newfoals were all trying to hide behind him now, except for Joan. "Hey, Pony! You gonna help?" "Hey," she said, trying to keep how scared she was out of her voice, "the worst that can happen is that they kill us anyway, right?" "I'm not sure about that, but okay! You take the ones on the right, I've got the ones on the left!" They charged, and Joan felt her shoulder impact a changeling, flinging it backwards. She felt steady again, and Instinctually flung out her forehooves, smashing the noses of the two changelings nearest her, and they fell backwards, clutching their muzzles. The two that were left charged their horns, and green light blasted her backwards. Blood dripped down her side from where the combined beam had hit her, and the pain made it hard for her to get up again, and the changelings laughed, growling and unkind. But she did, and charged them again, spinning at the last minute and bucking her legs out, contacting the changelings and flipping them into the bush behind. Then she collapsed, spent. "Hey, not bad for a pony," said Gwyn, offering her a clawed hand. "Maybe it's my special talent," she gasped, sides heaving. "Hey, you! Green and pink ponies! Give me a hand waking these guys up again..." The trip back was uneventful, aside from the occasional break after those who had been injured had to take a second or two. The griffon camp was small and spartan, but still had a certain something thanks to the griffon habit of using traditional patterns for camouflage. Gwyn and Joan were sitting outside his combined office and sleeping area. "You did good out there. You ought to give yourself more credit. Hey, next time I get into a fight, I want you on the front lines." "Hey, I did what I had to. Defending people is a pony thing, I hear." "Not like that it isn't. You deserve a damn pat on the back for that." "Well, thanks," she said, smiling. "I'm going to get some sleep, and we'll figure out what to do to get you ponies to where you're supposed to be in the morning. I've got soldiers watching the walls, so we shouldn't have much to worry about." Joan headed to the building the ponies had temporarily taken over, and Gwyn grinned to himself as he closed the door to his room, then smiled larger as his body was replaced with shiny black.
Contaction 3"We've sent a messenger to the Griffon Capital telling them you're here. We should know what to do with you in a day or so. Plus, they might even send us a transport unit! That'd speed things up." "So we're stuck here, in the middle of a scary forest, while a changeling hive attacks the Griffon Kingdom?" "Sounds about right." Joan sighed. "Why didn't I stay on Earth again?" The Griffon Camp was small, eight or so slightly raised simple wood buildings which had been made of the trees near it, and patched up with a rough canvas fabric where needed. Around the whole thing was a fence, with points that had been roughly sharpened. The day passed fairly quickly, and the ponies mostly sat around making small talk. She'd talked to the beige unicorn who it turned out was named Card Stock - ponies liked puns, she'd decided - and she was hoping to work in the art-related industry. Assuming ponies had something like that. And a craft place if not. Craft was inevitable, Card insisted. Joan was pretty sure she hasn't seen anybody get that worked up about arts and crafts before, but after she slammed her hooves on the table, she assured Card that she would take her word for it. The griffons went about their business as usual, guarding the perimeter, talking, using the mess-hall, occasionally going on patrols in the forest. Gwyn stuck his head in the mess-hall every few hours, and Joan got the feeling he just did it so he could see her. At lunch, Gwyn called her over to his building. "Yeah?" "I was wondering if you might... want to have lunch with me." "Like, a date? Really?" "Well, you don't have to say yes. I would never force anyone under my protection to do something like that if they did't want to." "I will, if you give me the latest news." He laughed. "Alright. I know you ponies aren't too fond of the meat, right?" "Haven't been able to even think of eating the stuff since my conversion." "Thought as much. Had the chef send over some of the salad he makes. Bit of a strange one, but it works out, huh?" "I suppose it does," she said, then scooped up the bowl in her front hooves. "I don't think I'm going to be a terribly neat eater, with these hooves of mine." He picked up his own bowl. "I don't think that'll be much of a problem. I'm used to eating with griffons." The two of them ate their way through a few bowls of salad (Gwyn made a show of not using his claws, which Joan thought was both touching and hilarious). "What the deal with the changeling attacks?" Joan asked between mouthfuls. "Well, the running theory is that they're running low on food, since they attacked Canterlot. Since they failed there, they must be running pretty low by now. Infiltration takes lots of time, and a couple thousand drones must take a lot of emotion to feed, y'know?" "What emotions do they eat, anyway?" "This hive? I hear love, mostly. I think they're capable of eating most of them, but they're not all as useful." "Must be weird, eating something intangible," she said, crunching a leaf for emphasis. "I've seen them eat regular food, too," he said, "but they don't really seem to be terribly fond of most of it." "You see that in-between tossing them around?" she said, with a lopsided smile. "You could say that." "Speaking of invading monsters, when's the lift supposed to show up to get us out of here?" "The return message won't make it here until sundown at the earliest, so not soon. I'm sorry about that, I know a battlefield isn't really much of a hot vacation spot." "No, it really isn't." The griffon messenger returned at sundown as Gwyn had expected, and came bearing bad news. The Griffon War Council had decided that all griffon air transports needed to be used to aid the anti-changeling effort, but that the newfoals could stay as long as they liked, and if the changelings were defeated or left, they would gladly send them a transport. "So what, I'm stuck here?" "Well, the nearest pony settlement is about a day or two's fast walk from here. It's not safe on the roads, either." "Holed up in a griffon camp isn't how I'm going to be spending my first month as a pony. You have a map that shows it?" "Yes, I do. Are you going to traipse out there alone if I do?" "Hey, other newfoals? Who wants to come with me on a long, hot, life threatening journey?" No hooves went up. "So, yeah, I will." Gwyn sighed. "I'll come with you, then. Can't have you getting yourself killed, that'd be one heck of a diplomatic disaster." "Great." "Plus, I think I like you." She rolled her eyes. "We just met." They stood at the edge of the griffon camp, with the camping and survival equipment they'd packed. She was carrying food and water rations in a makeshift pair of saddlebags, and he had the tend and sleeping bags. Just before they set out, they heard a call. "Hey, wait! We're coming with you," said Raspberry. He was followed by Sour and Card, and the three of them trotted over. "It's not safe where we're going, ponies." "It's not safe here either!" "He's got you there, the changelings could show up here any minute..." "You don't have any gear." "Oh, hey, there you are," said a female griffon, rolling out what looked like three-ponies worth of supplies, "I brought the stuff you wanted." "Ugh." They took a less established path, since Gwyn said the changelings were likely watching the ones they normally used. The newfoals kept up with Gwyn reasonably well, and pretty soon the five of them had fallen into a routine. They passed by a few ponds (which Gwyn said were full of carnivorous fish) and various trees that Joan insisted were almost identical, and that she was an earth pony and would know. The ponies tried to talk a few times, but Gwyn shushed them almost immediately. Which made sense, Joan supposed, since there were probably changelings close by. Possibly even a hive, if they were fighting with the griffons, an invasion was hard to maintain without a place to camp, she supposed. "I need to make a stop," Gwyn said, as they came into view of a large pyramid-like ruin. The ponies stared at him. "What could you possibly need to get from a ruin?" "Is there gold in there? Other treasure?" "Ah, no. We set a changeling trap in there a while ago, and I need to check to see if any of them triggered it. Just wait here and try not to look too vulnerable. Back in a second." Gwyn ducked inside the ruin. The ponies waited. "How long was this supposed to take?" "Maybe a changeling ate him?" "Unlikely," said a voice from behind them, "since we're out here eating you." Joan felt all of the muscles in her body try to tense up all at the same time, and the largest shot of adrenaline she had ever felt. She knew when humans felt it they could lift cars. She figured she could probably toss one all the way across this clearing as an earth pony. "Hey!" she shouted, "how about you brutes pick on somepony your own size?" "You are our size-" The changeling got a face full of hoof as Joan flung herself forward. She felt jaw crunch under her hoof, and mentally noted there were more where that came from. She pirouetted on her front hooves, and caught another two in the neck with her shin. Which is when the changelings caught on, and rushed her all at once. She felt her not-quite-healed side sting as a changeling head-butted her in the side, sharp horn making the cut even worse. The changeling smirked as she fell, licked the blood dripping down his face. "It's not often you get a second chance at a fight. You ponies fight like cowards." Gwyn looked out from the ruins, watching the fight. Or rather, watched Joan getting kicked by the changelings, having already lost. The other three seemed to scared to move, and the changelings were ignoring them, for now. What the love collectors said was true, he decided. Letting a mark get hurt was tough. He had his order, though, straight from the Queen. He could almost feel the pain himself as she got kicked again, and felt what little love he'd been taking from her nearly stop. Orders could go take a swim in the nearest bog, he decided. He marched outside, over to the changelings. "Squad leader! We were wondering where you'd gone-" Gwyn pointed at the cowering ponies. "We were going to finish them off later." Gwyn charged his horn, and the eyes of the three ponies flashed. "Does the Queen know you're wasting resources?" "Well-" "Leave the mare to me. I have plans for her." "As you wish. Make her suffer, squad leader." "Go back to the hive." Joan hurt, everywhere. Her working theory was that one of the changelings had decided to eat her whole. "Wake up. You're safe. C'mon, wake up." She groaned at the touch on her shoulder. "Go away. I'm digesting." "Look, wake up. It's not safe out here." Gwyn stuck his hoof under hers, and pulled her into a sitting position. Joan's eyes shot open once she had a good view of things. "Gwyn! Where's the others?" she asked, frantically. "Turns out the changelings knew we were coming. They must have found the trap and knew we'd be here eventually." "We have go save them," she said, putting her hoof on his chest, "or get some reinforcements and come back!" "We can't do that. The treaty only provides common courtesies, the Griffon Kingdom would never send soldiers into a doomed fight, when they're needed elsewhere." "So what, you're going to leave them to get killed, or eaten, or worse?" "We don't know where the hive is, and it's getting late. We need to keep moving." "Fine. I'm not going to talk to you then." The hive loomed in the forest as the changelings carried the three ponies through the air. They stirred as they approached, stunning spell wearing off. The top of the hive was sharp looking, skinny spires coming off the sides. "Ungh," said Raspberry Delight, and opened his eyes, then immediately shut them as he noticed where he was. "Hey, you bugs!" shouted Sour Kiss, "Take us back!" The changelings ignored them as the struggled, and flew down through an opening in the hive, which led down to the chrysalis room, far at the bottom They flew over to the far end of the room, and landed in front of three pods. "C'mon, you don't have to do this! I'm sure we can just, y'know, hang out or something!" The changelings shoved them into the pods. They'd walked a fair ways farther in the forest, until the sun had gone near all the way down, and it was getting hard to see. "We need to stop, and make camp." Joan grunted a reply. They'd soon got the tent together, and the forest had begun to get cold, almost as if to ask those unlucky enough to be caught in it if they preferred the hot better. "While we have two bag, I was wondering if I could-" "Take the first watch awake? Good idea." Gwyn was sitting in the tent, looking out the small window in the end. He could hear Joan's quiet sleeping breaths. He decided he didn't really understand ponies very well. He must be missing something obvious. He'd complimented her, fought beside her in battle, and rescued her when it seemed all was lost. The love collectors made this sound much easier than it was. Over the hive link, he could hear the Queen sending new strategy messages, but he ignored them, since they weren't being sent to his squad. He had more important things to think about anyway. What hadn't he done, though? Maybe he wasn't heroic enough. She seemed to like the heroic type, so he'd play that up the next time he got a chance, and see if that worked any better. He stared off into the darkness. Joan was running the past few years of memories back in her head. A few years back, before all this Equestria and conversion business had happened, she had been in a relationship. His name was Phil Hendes, and he was, frankly, an incurable charmer. They'd done the usual thing, gone to restaurants and movies, and had, at once point, kissed. She'd introduced him to her best friend of the time Tissa Milland, and they'd got along splendidly. She'd gone to his place to surprise him, to find the front door open and unlocked, and strained grunts coming from upstairs through the thin screen door. She'd snuck up the stairs, and peeked in the room, to find him and her best friend in bed together. "It's not what it looks like," he said, as she stood in the door, feeling her heart get ripped in two. Tissa said nothing, under the blanket the two of them had hastily pulled over them, as if they could pretend it hadn't happened if Joan couldn't see it. "Goodbye, Phil," she said, and left, door open and screen door slowly, squeakily closing.
Contaction 4They'd alternated watch most of the night, though Gwyn had to fight himself not to tell her there wasn't any point, since the changelings weren't going to be back, and the animals had learned a long time ago to leave changelings alone. He'd had the last watch, and shook Joan awake as the sun had just started peeking over the forest. "Time to wake up. We've got a lot of ground to cover." "Ugh. Fine." They got up and packed the tent. "There's a really nice waterfall we might end up seeing on the way there. It's enormous, and there's always a ton of birds nearby." Joan grunted, and tossed a bag his way, which he pulled on. "Plus, once we get to the pony settlement, I could show you around, since I've been there a few times myself." Another grunt, and Joan started off without him. "Not a morning pony, huh? Well, that's fine." Gwyn was sure ponies enjoyed smalltalk.They always had when he'd impersonated them, and that hadn't been too long ago. He didn't think newfoals could be that different from regular ponies about something as simple as small talk, so he tried again. "What was your life back on earth? Anything like Equestria?" "Oh, of course, my friends got kidnapped by crazy monsters every day back home," she said, flatly. "Not so different from here then, huh?" She grunted, and kept walking, and ignored him the rest of the way there. They emerged from the forest into a clearing a few hours later, and found the pony settlement they had been looking for. Unfortunately, it was on fire, burnt mostly to the ground, and there didn't seem to be any ponies left. "Gwyn!" Joan shouted, "you said there'd be ponies here!" "There were! The changelings must have got here before we did." She jabbed him with a hoof. "Changelings burn towns to the ground?" "Not normally, no, but if there was a fight it could have been an accident-" "An accident? Really?" she said, and then pointed to her side. "You think this was an accident? You think burning a whole town to the ground was an accident?" "We don't know what happened, yet, I'm sure there's a-" "The changelings burned the town and kidnapped all the ponies. I think that's pretty obvious." "Perceptive, isn't she?" said a tall changeling, stepping from behind some burnt wreckage, and twenty or so changelings followed her, "Shame she's not perceptive enough to not argue in the middle of a battlefield." "Still not dead, pony?" shouted once of the changelings, who managed to look bruised up despite being totally black and covered in a hard shell, "we can fix that." "You wish, hard-haunch!" "Joan, run." "We can take these guys. We did last time!" "Still haven't told her, Squad Leader? A tragedy, really. Kill her." "I'll explain later! Run!" The group of changelings charged at her, and she ran into the forest, changelings in close pursuit. She had just made it back to the waterfall they had passed on the way in, when a few of the changelings caught up to her. "End of the line, pony." She climbed up a few of the rocks leading up the waterfall, and stuck her tongue out at them. They flew into the air, and she jumped, landing on them and smashing them against the ground with a thump. She got up and kicked the one who'd hurt her the most last time they'd fought in the head for good measure. "Not bad, for a pony," said the Queen, stepping into the clearing around the waterfall, dragging Gwyn her magic. "Bucking do something, Gwyn! They're going to kill us!" "Going to kill you, darling," said the Queen, grinning sharply. She tossed Gwyn in front of her. "Because he's a changeling." She stared at him for a second, and then glared. "And that's why you let them get away with my friends." He nodded. "Enough of this. You're going to drain her of her love, and I'm going to make you do it." The remaining changelings leapt on her, and held her down, and Gwyn felt his body walk over to them, against his will. The green glow of his magic filled the clearing as he stood over Joan, and he lowered his head. "I'm sorry." His magic sparked across the gap, forming a connection across which his spell sucked her emotions, and she screamed, then fell silent, and lost consciousness. "Well done, even if I had to force you to do it," said the Queen, and touched her horn to his, sucking away Joan's emotions. "You lot, get back to patrolling. And you," she said, looking at Gwyn, "best have learned a lesson from this. Next time I kill you." He nodded, quietly, and the changelings left him sitting in the clearing, with Joan's unmoving body. The other changelings were gone, and had stayed gone. Joan hadn't woken up. He knew most creatures who were drained rarely lived, and those that did had their emotions returned, or had been converted into changelings. Joan's emotions were long gone, he knew that, and almost impossible to get back. Either the Queen had them, which was impossible, or she'd given them to the emotion workers to be processed, which was harder than impossible, since they'd be split up and distributed among thousands of other changelings. There weren't really many choices at this point. Either he got himself killed attempting to get them back, Joan died of emotion-loss, or he converted her back at the hive. At this point, that was the only thing he could see working. He lifted her onto his back with his magic, and flew off towards the hive. His trip there was uninterrupted, since the hive had heard all about what he had just done, thanks to a hive-wide broadcast by the Queen. He sighed, the sound swept away by the wind past his face. The hive came into view, a cobbled together thing, that they'd set up after they'd been forced out into the forest far outside Equestria. The Queen was reluctant to fix it up, and said they'd be living in the Griffon Kingdom as soon as they defeated them. He landed in front of one of the entrances, and it slid open, reacting to his magic. He walked down the hallway, his hooves and the black chitinous surface of the hallway clicking on contact. No changelings were passed on his way there, most either working in the deeper recesses of the hive, or on combat duty. He followed the twists and turns down the to chrysalis section, which had been recently expanded enough to hold an entire town, and found an empty one. Things had not gone well, he thought. He should have forced her to stay at the griffon camp, or maybe even have taken her in the other direction of the pony settlement entirely. Of course, he didn't think for a second that would have worked. Some ponies had spirit, and there wasn't any telling them what to do. Not that there was much he could do about that, now. He placed her still body into the chrysalis, and its shiny green surface sealed around her, and the pod filled itself. He stared at her face, through the translucent cover, closed, and unmoving, and knelt his head to hers, then left the room. In the dimmed light of the conversion and love draining room, Joan opened her eyes. On the pod in front of her, she could see glowing lights, that flashed rhythmically, like heartbeats. A year ago. A hospital room, cold and sterile, with only a vase of flowers to remind people that the room wasn't totally hopeless. On the bed, her father, unmoving, lights on a nearby diagnostic machine the only clue that there was still life in him. She picked the old, dry flowers out of the vase and tucked the new ones into it, temporarily brightening the room again. She held his hand for a second, then slipped out of the room, down the quiet hallways, footsteps and the occasional cricket chirp of machines echoing in the air that felt thick, and still. She nodded to the secretary on her way out, and the automatic doors slid shut behind her. Joan wasn't dead. That was the important part, she decided. The less important part was that Gwyn absolutely sucked at draining ponies of all their love and leaving them for dead. And, she thought, he'd been a changeling this whole time. Led them right into a trap, and probably planned the whole thing himself. He'd what, wanted to keep her for himself? Suffered some sort of attack of conscience after he'd nearly got her killed, twice, and her friends kidnapped? The chrysalis was full of something gooey she didn't want to think about, and outside she could see what looked like hundreds of other chrysalises. Most full. She was not panicking. She had to keep reminding herself not to panic, but she wasn't, Yet. Friends. She had to concentrate ton them, getting them out of this. She pushed on the outside of the chrysalis, and felt it move a little bit. She kicked, and it bent. She put all her legs on the edge, and pushed as hard as she could, and tore a hole in the side, and the goop leaked out onto the floor, taking her along with it. She heaved, sending gunk everywhere, and again, and she kept coughing until her lungs were empty and sore. She lay on the floor a moment, just resting for a moment. She was pretty sure the Princesses owed her an apology or a medal or something after a first week after conversion this bad. She peered around the corner, and saw that, thankfully, there didn't seem to be any guards watching. She looked in the pod closest to her, and saw a tall unicorn. He didn't look like he'd been there long, so she figured he'd been part of the town. She looked on the other side, and saw Sour Kiss, Raspberry Delight, and Card Stock." Joan took a deciding breath. She'd have to come back for everyone later, but she'd bust her friends out now. She jabbed a hoof through each of the pods, and watched as each of them went through the same coughing routine, albeit after taking slightly more time to become aware. "What..." "What happened?" "Why is everything green? I mean, I like green, but..." Joan squeezed some leftover changeling goop from her mane, and gestured around her. "Changeling attack. They brought us here to turn us into changelings, or steal our love, or both. Probably both." They looked terrified. She wasn't sure she was feeling anything anymore. "But I'm busting you out, and soon we'll be home free." "How do we get out?" Joan dumped the body of the changeling guard in the hallway they had just come from, and came face to face with a small drone. She had the usual changeling spiked ridge and blue eyes, but her fangs were smaller than the ones she'd seen on the others. "Tell me how to get out of here, or do the same thing I just did to that guy. And don't call anybody on the hive mind, we know about that." "I am a tiny part of the hive mind. I h-have no fear. I am not an in... individual. D-d-d- your worst, pony," said the changeling who was doing her best to control the shaking in her knees and failing completely. "Right. Way out, please?" "I-I'll show you, follow me."
Contaction 5The small changeling led them down a series of twisty corridors, that looked reasonably similar to each-other, save for the combinations of glowing light on the sides. "I hav...have to tell the guards when you leave," the small drone said as the traced their way back towards the exit. "Give them a head start, then. A very long head start." "I-I can do that." The drone opened the door to the outside, and Joan sighed. "I am about to do something incredibly stupid, and I hope you'll understand. I need you," she said, pointing at the changeling, "to help me find a changeling who was pretending to be a griffon named Gwyn." "W-why?" "I need some answers, and he's going to help me." The three newfoals ran for the forest. Joan and the small drone were tracing their way through the tunnels, again, looking for Gwyn. The drone said she was certain he was there, since she could sense his signature on the hive mind, but not his exact location without asking. They were currently in a side access tunnel, which the changeling had said was for periodic maintenance of the hive walls. "What's your name, anyway?" "I am a t-tiny part of the hive mind. I have n-no name." "So, what is it?" "G-Grapheme." "Nice name, I think it suits you." "T-thanks." The path got smaller, and they dropped into a large room with connections leading off in every direction. "Which way?" "D-down." Joan stood over the hole in the center of the room, and peered down. It glowed, and seemed to curve gently back and forth. Grapheme jumped, and slid down the tunnel, quickly disappearing from sight. "Here goes," Joan whispered to herself, and jumped. Glowing rings flashed before her eyes as she slid down, and she was quickly ejected from the end of the tunnel, landing on a part of the hive wall that was softer and more squishy than the rest of the hive. "What is this?" "Scout rooms, o-over there, is the room you want." "Wait here. And don't call the hive." "O-okay." She entered the room, and found Gwyn in his changeling form, staring at a wall. He was about the same size as her but his muzzle was more squared off than Grapheme's, and his fangs were much larger, and he seemed muscular, if that was even possible for a changeling. Her heart was pounding, and she was pretty sure her instincts were tellIng her to run. She ignored them. "You tried to convert me." Gwyn spun around and stared. "Joan! You're not- you're not dead. You were dying from- from me draining you of emotion! I had to do something, how did-" She thwacked him on the shoulder. "Maybe I like you too." He looked back at the wall. "You shouldn't." "You're terrible at being a monster, but you need more practice being a pony," she said, and pointed at the door. "Do you want a second chance or what, whoever you are?" He sighed and looked back at the wall. "Valence. My name is Valence." Sour, Raspberry and Card were hiding in the forest. "What if a changeling saw us?" "Well, they would have sent a guard after us if they did, right? Or maybe they thought we were changelings." "I'm pretty sure they can tell." "Show yourselves!" shouted a voice from the clearing. "Yeah, they can tell," said Raspberry. "Maybe we can knock him out... hey! Over here!" Sour said loudly, drawing disbelieving stares from the other two. "I have a plan." The changeling walked into the forest, immediately spotting them. "Surrender!" "Okay!" said Sour Kiss, walking over to him. "Er," said the changeling. "You know," Sour said, "you guys aren't bad looking up close, you know?" He grabbed one of the changelings forehooves, and pointed to it with a wing. "This color? Perfect for adding some accessories to. And so smooth," he said, rubbing his face on the changelings leg. "Sour!" "Hey, I haven't kissed him or anything. Yet." "You can't seduce your way out of a problem! What about me?" "I'm sure we could compromise, in bed! All three of us, maybe!" "What was... that about kissing?" "Oh," Sour said, and kissed him straight on the muzzle. The changeling had agreed not to turn them in, had insisted on kissing Raspberry too, to make sure there were no hard feelings, and was currently trying to talk Card Stock into hugging him. "And you thought that wouldn't work." "You totally owe me, you know." "Yeah, I know. You get one anything card, redeemable at the next bed." “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” "Hey," Card said to the changeling, "you wouldn't happen to be able to distract the hive at all, would you? There's a hug in it for you." Joan, Grapheme and Valence were standing on a balcony overlooking the pod bay. Grapheme seemed to have decided Joan wasn't about to attack her, and had stopped shaking so much. "You have a plan?" "Wake up the ponies, attack or distract the guards, and run." "That plan has significant chance for failure." "It's the only plan we have, unless you want to make a bid for Queen of the hive?" "M-me? Queen?" "Anyway. Can we disable all the pods at once?" "The pods on their own don't have a hive connection, and will drain if they lose it. There's a hive mind connection and regulator in the center, just there," Grapheme said, pointing at a lumpy bit in the center of the room that all the pods seemed connected to by tubes. "Right, new plan, Valence, you keep track of where the guards are, and take them out if they notice. Grapheme, you're with me. We're taking that regulator down." Joan jumped and slid down a curving piece of architecture between the balcony and the pod bay, and waved Grapheme down, who chose to fly instead. Once on the ground the ran over to the regulator, and Joan began pounding on it. "Get the bit just there, in the center!" Grapheme said, taking more glee in the destruction than Joan would have expected. She concentrated her stamping there, and it soon started to crack. "Aren't you supposed to be loyal to the hive?" "Well, the Queen isn't really very nice to drones, or anyling, really." She sighed. "This whole 'drones aren't individuals, just part of a hive' deal wasn't a thing until the new Queen took over." "Mmph," she managed, as she stamped on it a few last times, cracking the surface, and jamming her hooves deep into the soft bits on the inside, which were promptly splattered everywhere as she pulled her hooves free and scraped them on the floor. "We have about twenty minutes until someling notices the regulator is down and sends a bioengineer to fix it. We need to move!" Valence ran back into the room. "I had to take out a few guards, I think they're going to start getting suspicious when the guards don't come back, and even more suspicious since the guards were broadcasting something about a free hugs party outside the hive." "Right, how long will it take for them to wake up?" "Longer than you have," said the Queen, looking down from the balcony. "Run!" Valence shouted, firing off a shot with his horn that doused the entire room in a thick cloud of green. The three of them bolted for the exit. "Grapheme," Joan hissed, "which way out of here? We need to go up, up, up!" "That way! The stairs go up, all the way to the top floor!" "We need the ground floor!" "You can go back down from there!" Joan harrumphed, and lead the charge, up the spiraling slick black steps, until they came to the top, and found themselves in a windowed room with no visible exits. Each of the windows was covered in something shiny, semi-translucent, and a hoof thick. "Where's the way down?" "I don't know," Grapheme said frantically, "it was here when I was up here last! They must have closed it or something!" "Look, tell her I threatened you. You'll get away with it!" "No, I won't! This is the second time I've crossed her, the first time you get punished for it, the second you die!" "A pity, really," said the Queen, floating up the stairs and landing on the floor, "you were a slightly above average efficiency drone. Rules are rules, though." Grapheme cowered behind Joan and Valence, as the Queen stepped towards them. "I'm not sure how you survived, pony, but I promise you it won't happen again." The Queen charged her horn, and Valence was engulfed in green light. "Drain her emotions. All of them. Don't mess it up, this time." Valence tuned to Joan, his horn lit. "I don't want to do this," he said, and a green light jumped between them. "Then don't," she said through gritted teeth, and placed a hoof on his shoulder. He looked into her eyes and the light stopped. "You cannot disobey a direct order!" the Queen raged, and leapt into the air, horn glowing, as Valence's horn reversed, and the room was bathed in pink, and the Queen was thrown through the window, shattering it, and farther, out past the edge of the forest, and farther than that. Valence slumped, and fell onto the ground. Grapheme had her head between her hooves behind them, and Joan sat down, suddenly tired. They could hear birds chirping outside the hive, and the quiet thrum of cicadas. Raspberry Delight, Sour Kiss, and Card Stock peeked out from behind the trees they'd been hiding behind, as a procession of slightly gooed ponies left the hive, and began the walk back to the wreckage of the pony town they'd lost in the fight. In the other direction, a swarm of battle scarred ponies left, never to be seen again, leaving their kinder and gentler brethren alone in the hive. "What happened?" Raspberry gaped. "It's a long story, but I'll tell you while we walk." Three months later, the pony town of East Friendvale (sister city to West Friendvale, which the changelings had christened their hive, after apologizing profusely to the ponies, and had helped them rebuild, despite initial pony doubts that they were trying to be helpful and not just trying to drain them all of love somehow) opened its figurative doors again. Joan and the other newfoals had set up houses of their own, after having stayed just to help rebuild, and then just to help them get settled, then having decided to stay at least long enough to make friends with the locals. Raspberry and Sour had opened their own pub, since the town didn't seem to have one, and unusual beverages were easy to come by this close to the Griffon Kingdom and a changeling hive. Card Stock spent her time trying to teach the locals the value of good art. Grapheme had been named 'Elected Official of West Friendvale', and had happily accepted. Joan had changed her last name to Fieldstone. She thought it was appropriate. She was sitting on a deck with Valence, overlooking what had eventually returned to being a happy, bustling town. "Mind if I stay at your place? The Griffon Camp was fairly upset about the fact that we'd kidnapped their commanding officer." "That and you know I only have one bed." "Well, that too. Plus, I got a pie from the baker down the road. It's... blackberry, I think?" Joan kissed him, and he quickly found himself kissing back.
