A Ghost of What Might Have Been

Twilight was beginning to wonder where all the changeling were. Could they be objects, tables, chairs and such? She glanced sideways at Rainbow, who was brashly as always sticking her head into doors and yelling ‘Come out!’ Well. Sometimes, othertimes she stuck oddly close to Twilight. Down the crew compartment they went…until they reached the crew’s messhall. Stopping dead in their tracks, Twilight could not help herself before a gasp escaped her.

Several ponies lay about the mess hall, some dragged there, some fallen as if in struggle…all of them seemed to be in the same state the other ponies were in before, either fallen in heated struggle, or just…drained. A shudder ran down Twilight’s flanks as she turned to look at Rainbow. “Dash we need….we need to keep going.” There was a strange glint in Rainbow’s eyes that Twilight had never seen before, of…satisfaction? It was gone before she could name it, Rainbow Dash’s eyes hardening. “They’ll pay for this.” Twilight said with a soft huff of air.

They continued along the corridor leading from the mess hall. “So, twilight, what exactly are we looking for?” Twilight began to slow. “This.” She said indicating with a hoof the captain’s own room. “If we look in here we should find records as to where this thing stopped and ended up with a cargohold full of changelings.”

Rainbow Dash seemed to roll her eyes. “Yup. That’s Twilight. Strongest magic user in Queen Rarity’s hands and she wants to run to th’ books for help.” She said teasing Twilight with a bap of her wing to Twilight’s head. “I’ll just stand guard out here.” Twilight rolled her eyes as she shouldered open the door. Inside was a ward room that spoke of a pony who simply wanted a quiet life on the air. Upon a large table was a map with different colored pins stuck in it, it looked, to twilight like a map of where the ship had been, each pin a different location, but without a frame of reference, the map was just another map of equestria with pins in it.

Using her magic, twilight began to pull and replace books as she hunted down the captain’s logs. She finally found them near the top, large, embossed tombs which pages were covered in a neat, flowing hand writing. She began to read the one with the closed date line towards today…and that’s when she found it, eyebrows rising higher and higher until she thought they would rise right off her head! “Oh by the Three Oracles….Rainbow Dash, come in here quick!” Rainbow dash popped into the room, looking around, ready for a fight before she rolled her eyes at Twilight.

“Really, Twilight? You have me all amped up and keyed for a fight and you have…..a book. Book horse.” She teased before she settled down on her rump. “Well what’d you find?” She’d. But..inside, she knew, the changeling she was knew, though the persona of Rainbow Dash did not. Twilight had found what the changeling had hoped, had prayed she’d find. Twilight cleared her throat obliviously. “Well..according to this, this ship was commissioned to fly over the forests of Equestria with a royal surveying crew aboard who was trying to map out the forests from the air. Apparently every now and again, they’d land, take samples and make sure the lines on their maps matched up with what they were doing from the air. Well at one stop, the head of the researchers came across a cave full of crystals and being the curious research ponies they are, they took samples. While they were hunting around, One of the researchers came across eggs that they had never seen before.”

Rainbow dash pressed a hoof to her muzzle. “Let me guess. Being the curious research ponies they are, they picked all of them up.” Twilight shook her head. “No, only Ten of them…Which means, that ten changelings managed to wipe out a half dozen crew and a dozen researchers…” She said “Apparently, they stored them all in boxes in the cargo hold, which according to some of his earlier logs had been at a higher temperature than the others, so the researchers could store cold-sensitive equipment in there. Well…About four days ago, they noticed one of the boxes had split open, though the egg was broken and smashed, they thought that one of their own, thinking it was a bad idea, had smashed the crate and the egg inside, and proceeded to question crew and researcher alike. That same day, a pair of crew members reported to the ship’s infirmary complaining of feeling drained and ill..” She pursed her lips. “Later it says that more of the cargo crates were open. Two of them by crew, destroying the eggs inside, so that leaves eight changelings, minus the one that I killed on the bridge, so seven…”
The blue ponies eyes had watered up, and she looked away with a Hrmph. “They killed innocent eggs?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“Innocent? Look what they’ve been doing to these crew members! I can only imagine what’s going on in the passenger hold with AJ and her group.” Twilight said as she looked around before exiting the cargo compartment. "Let's go, there's always more to explore, Flygirl."