"Ah, the Wasteland. A large landscape full of sand, dead plants and predators trying to find fresh meat for themselves. I can't believe, that Hellhole is going to be my new home," said a young Changeling looking outside from his cell.
"What was I even thinking back then? Assassinating the Queen herself!? Huh, I really am crazy," he kept thinking to himself.
Changeling suddenly heard hoofsteps coming towards his jail-cell. It was one of the guards, coming to get the Changeling.
But wait, he wasn't alone! There were two tall Changelings, dressed in red, following the guard behind him. They were Chrysalis' personal bodyguards.
"I guess, holding the knife against Queen's throat is dangerous enough to have both of her bodyguards follow me everywhere," the young Changeling sarcastically said to the guard, who was opening his cell-door.
"You're lucky to still be alive, kid. Not too many have lived longer than few hours after hurting our Queen," the guard answered him back.
The young Changeling really was lucky. After roughly beating up few of his comrades, and almost successfully killing the Queen, it was a miracle, how his head wasn't lying inside a garbage bin yet.
However, this was the last time, our little Changeling would see his home, friends, family and the others. When the bodyguards, young changeling and the guard came to the main entrance, He saw Chrysalis looking at him with her deadly look, which could even kill the "Slender Mane" himself. Changeling also saw his "best friend" with few of her friends laughing at him.
And then there was the large, black metallic door. It was the only way to both outside and inside of the hive. And it made a terrible noise, when opened. The noise was so terrible, that even Chrysalis herself had to hold her ears, when the door was opened.
after a slow opening of the door, it showed a quiet desert, shining as the sun hit the sand, so bright, you could actually think, it was gold, when you'd first see it.
Before Changeling could say anything, he was grabbed by the bodyguards and thrown outside. He turned to look at his folks, as the metallic door slowly came between them, now fully closed again.
AND HOLY CRAP, was it quiet outside. The young Changeling got up and sighed.
"Great, what do I do now?!" he said out loud.
The sun was lowering behind the faraway mountains, and it'd get really cold during the night, So if the Changeling would not find shelter soon, he'd freeze to death.
After couple of miles, he looked back and still saw his hive's entrance.
There wasn't much for him to do anymore. He could walk and struggle as long as possible against death, Or he could just give up and die there.
But no! Changeling was known to be really brave and emotionally tough at his hive. Giving up now was the last thing he would do. So he kept walking....and walking, unless you could no longer see anything but mountains ,made of dust, and sand.
After, what seemed like days of walking, Changeling could not walk any further. As he fell down, panting and sweating more, than a pig inside a Sauna, he actually thought of giving up.
Changeling started closing his eyes, slowly seeing the world getting darker around him, but at his last blink, he saw something moving towards him. It seemed to be his size, and it stopped right in front of him, until he fell unconscious.
The mysterious character kept looking at his dried body. Suddenly it poured water all over him and lifted the wet Changeling up to its back with magic, starting to carry him away.
Next morning Changeling woke up inside a small library of some sort. He kept looking around, until a burning feeling caught him off.
He remembered yesterday, and wanted to drink water so bad. Luckily there were few mugs filled with some sort of liquid. Changeling couldn't care less and poured it all down.
"Aaah, much better," he thought.
Changeling noticed a small bed next to the big one. There was a bookcase full of some sort of notes at the right corner of the room. Taking a closer look at the dark left corner showed a staircase leading downstairs.
Changeling got up, a bit weak yet, and tried to walk downstairs, but fell halfway down, hitting his head. After getting up again, there were about 40 shelves all full of books. and few ladders leading to different balconies. There were also a couple of doors leading to kitchen, cellar and WC. at the middle of the Circular room, there was a desk, three sofas, an empty glass bottle, pens and a piece of paper with something written in it.
Changeling couldn't be more than amazed, how clean the library was. Back at his hive, not too many took care of the dirt around the place. There was also a small clock ticking at the wall, next to a window. The whole place was also made of wood. Golden Oak wood, it seems.
As the young Changeling was sitting there and looking around, he heard the front door's knob moving. He panicked, when he couldn't find any good hiding places, so the Changeling just jumped behind one of the sofas.
The door opened, and two characters came inside. They kept talking quite a long time at the door, before the other one came inside and closed the door. Changeling peaked at the person from behind the sofa.
She seemed to be an Alicorn, kinda like High-Tier-Changelings (HTC). Her flank had a tattoo of some sort. It was a purple star, just like the pony's skin color, with sparkling around it. The character was not a Changeling. SHE WAS A PONY!
Since the first class of school, Changelings are taught to watch out for ponies, as they are the most dangerous race, you could meet.
The Alicorn pony had a crown on its head, referring it to be a Princess or a Queen, which means, messing with her would not be the best thing to do.
As the Changeling tried to come up with an escape plan, he saw this purple pony walking upstairs. He was so screwed right now. Before anything could have been done, the purple pony suddenly came downstairs and started walking towards the Changeling's direction.
"I should first go check out the chemical, I'm working on," the purple pony mumbled to herself.
Just before Changeling was noticed by the pony, he suddenly got up from behind the sofa. It was like time would have stopped for a minute. Both, the pony and the Changeling looked at each other, until suddenly starting to scream their lungs out. Pony stepped back to cast a magic of some sort, and Changeling raised his hooves in front of his face.
"Don't hurt me!" he shouted.
The pony didn't listen, but instead shot a freezing magic spell at him with her horn. As the Changeling desperately tried to move, he was greeted by the pony, standing in front of him, smiling.
"Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle. Sorry for freezing you, but until we get to know each other a bit better, I have to keep you like this," the pony comforted him.
"Please, let me go. I'll be nice," the Changeling answered her with a buzzing noise.
"I will later. But now, I want you to answer few questions. First off, what's your name?" twilight asked.
"My name is Shadow. I'm 19 and I come far from the eastern section of the Wasteland," shadow told her.
"Why were you lying in middle of the Wasteland?"
"I was kicked out of my hive for trying to assassinate the Queen."
"The Queen herself?!"
Shadow was almost released from the freezing spell, with his limbs still being held by the spell. he nodded to Twilight.
"Why'd you do that for?," Twilight asked curiously.
"Because the Queen is a greedy tyrant, only thinking about herself. The problem is, that I seem to be the only one noticing the darn thing," Shadow explained to her.
The freezing spell was no longer holding Shadow. He landed in front of Twilight, giving her a thank you.
"So umm, you're not going to kill me, or hurt me in any way?" Shadow asked Twilight with a confused face.
"What? OF COURSE NOT! I'm going to study you, and make notes about your body, its ways to function and so on.
"Oh, but we were taught, you only want to hurt our species."
"Well, some of us do, but I'm not one of those ponies. I just want to do some research on you."
"oh well...erm, thanks...Twilight."
"You know what Shadow. I think, we're going to be really good friends."
Author's Note
So this is the first thing, I'm ever writing here. As I already said, sorry for grammatical mistakes, since I'm Finnish.
Oh, and please leave some feedback, if there's something, you want me to improve etc. Thanks.
Chapter 1: Making Friends and Foes PT. 1
Shadow's Diary: 7-15-1422
It has been one full week, since I was forced to leave my people.
The purple pony has taken a good care of me for the past 3 days. Our Friendship gets better every day.
Yesterday she introduced her two another sidekicks to me. Other one was an Owl, and the other one was a Dragon.
Surprisingly they accepted me nearly instantly. Not sure, if it was because of my look, or the way, I acted towards them.
Anyway, the purple pony, or what was her name, Twilight, has recently done some kind of tests on me.
She has written notes about me, investigated my body, and even let me feed love from her, so she could write down, how us Changelings eat. I just hope, nothing bad is gonna happen.
~Shadow, the Third-Tier Necromancer Changeling.
Shadow put his pen down, and hovered the diary on one of the bookshelves.
He had a worried face. It would be only a matter of time, when he would have to tell Twilight about his job back at the hive.
Raising your comrades back from the dead wasn't exactly something, everyone would do. The worst part was the smell of the rotting bodies.
As Shadow was thinking deeply about his job, he hadn't noticed, how Twilight and Spike had come inside. They were arguing about something again. Suddenly Spike left Twilight and went upstairs. Twilight sighed and noticed Shadow thinking about something.
She walked right behind him and shouted:
"HI!"
"GAAAAH!" shadow screamed and quickly turned to look at Twilight.
"Oh sorry, did I scare you?" twilight giggled. "I thought, you noticed me and Spike coming inside."
"Sorry, I was just thinking about my life back at the hive," Shadow said with a red face.
"oh, well erm... are you busy right now?"
"Not really."
"That's great. See, I was thinking this and that, while out and I thought to ask you, would you like to go outside with me."
"Twilight, you know I-- WAIT WHAT?!" Shadow now had the most amazed face, any living creature could make.
"Twilight... You know I can't go outside! Plus, what would I even do out there?!"
"woah, calm down! I'd just want to introduce few of my friends to you. You know, to help you 'rebuild' your life."
"But, I want to do it myself!"
"Oh please Shadow. You haven't come outside for the last three days. Don't you think, it is about time to get some fresh air?"
"ugh, fine... who do you want me to meet?" shadow asked Twilight with a mildly annoyed face.
"Well there's five of them. The first one, we're going to meet, is another unicorn. Her name is Rarity. She knows EVERYTHING about fashion. You can buy clothes from her shop,"
"How well can she handle a Changeling?" Shadow asked with a sarcastic tone.
"I guess, she's gonna panic a little first, but once we explain everything to her, She'll probably want to know more about you."
"Great. She can make me a dual-pair of socks, so I won't have to us your doormat to keep my hooves warm at night."
Twilight and Shadow stepped outside the library after couple of minutes. Twilight informed spike about their leaving, and she closed the door. The pair instantly started walking towards Rarity's bouquet shop.
Shadow's disguise was quite simple. He was disguised as a black male pony, who had an average sized horn. The cutiemark represented a blueberry cupcake, with a cherry on top of it. Hair and tail were greenish brown, without anything too fancy in them.
As Shadow was walking down the street with Twilight, he looked around the sides of the road. There were countless shops next to another and another. There was a flower shop, with a Hardware store next to it, and even a Supermarket!
Finally, they made a turn to right. In front of them, was now Ponyville's park and right before it, Rarity's bouquet.
So the couple went inside, ringing the bell, informing to whoever was inside, that somepony had come inside.
"HELLOOO, RARITYYYY?! You in here?!" Twilight shouted.
"Miss Rarity's not here! BUT WE ARE! three loud and bright voices shouted back from upstairs.
Nearly a mere second later, three little fillies ran down the stairs each one saying their own name.
"APPLEBLOOM!" said the yellow one.
"SWEETIE BELLE!" said the white one.
"SCOOTALOO!" said the last and orange one.
"AND TOGETHER, WE ARE THE CUTIEMARK CRUSADERS!" they finally screamed.
Twilight giggled and was about to say something, until she was suddenly group-hugged by the fillies.
"Well hello girls," Twilight greeted them. "Where's Rarity?"
"She went to meet MOST AWESOME PONY EVER, Rainbow Dash!" scootaloo was the first one to say something without screaming it louder than Luna does, when she uses the "Royal Tone".
"Such a shame. I would have wanted to introduce my new friend, Shadow to her," twilight looked at Shadow.
"Hello Mister," Applebloom greeted Shadow with her bright, friendly eyes.
"Erm... Hi," Shadow greeted her back.
"Now girls, Shadow's a bit... Shy, that's all. So, be nice to him, okay?" Twilight stepped into the conversation.
"Are you sure he's not your BOYFRIEND?" scootaloo asked Twilight and gave her a teasing look.
Twilight and Shadow blushed on Scootaloo's question.
"Anyway, since Rarity isn't here, I guess we're going to have to meet somepony else then," twilight gave Shadow a nod.
"Can we come with you?" three fillies asked the couple.
"I dunno, what do you say Shadow?" twilight was questioning shadow again.
"mmph, why not. Three kids aren't gonna to be a big trouble. Especially when they're so cute," shadow laughed.
And so all five left the bouquet, with Twilight locking the door.She also made sure to check each part of the shop to make sure, there weren't any windows left unlocked.
They started walking through the park. Shadow looked at the ponies swinging their hooves towards Twilight. She really did have lots of might around her.
The park itself was quite lark. It steered down a little from the middle, and had few bird pools and a sand road going through it. At the right side of the park, there was a restaurant, with ponies coming out and going in all the time. Each one with a different cutiemark, or mane.
"So, who are we going to meet next," shadow broke the group's silence.
"We're going to meet a shy animal caretaker called Fluttershy," twilight answered him and suddenly whispered:
"And I am quite sure, you're going to like her, REALLY MUCH!"
The group of five kept going through the Ponyville. As Twilight and Shadow were both quiet and just kept walking, three little fillies talked the whole trip.
Soon the group were knocking at Fluttershy's cottage's door hearing quiet hoofsteps coming from the other side.
Fluttershy opened the door after about a full minute of knocking.
"H-Hi," she quietly greeted the party of five.
Before anypony could say anything, crusaders instantly rushed inside the cottage, running upstairs.
Twilight, Fluttershy and Shadow all tried to make out, what just happened.
"Come in," fluttershy said with a quiet voice.
As Shadow, Fluttershy and Twilight sat down onto the one of the sofas, all sorts of rambling noises could be heard above them.
"I'll go make us some tea," twilight stood up and walked into the kitchen.
Shadow and Fluttershy were now alone. For a while, they didn't say anything to each other. Both just sat on the other side of the sofa and kept looking outside the window, until...
"So, you must be Fluttershy," shadow said.
"I-- I think so," fluttershy admitted.
"Nice to meet you. My name is Shadow and-- Wait are those fangs, you have on the side of your teeth?"
"Oh they're just... They.... Please don't think me as a monster. See-- There was an accident and--"
"They're actually kinda cute," shadow tried to calm Fluttershy down.
It took a while for Fluttershy to catch, what Shadow said, until she blushed.
"You-- You think, these monstrous fangs are--- cute?" fluttershy rubbed her left fang.
"Yeah! Well, it sounds crazy, but I think, they actually fit for you,"
"But-- Yesterday a mean shop's keeper called me UGLY!"
"You're not ugly at all, Fluttershy! I can't believe, someone actually called you like that. Whoever said that,deserves a punch to the face!"
Fluttershy was now smiling a bit. She didn't want to admit, but this guy was actually quite nice to her. And good looking...
"T-- Thanks Shadow," she had now raised her tone to normal.
"Tea Is Ready!" Twilight shouted from the kitchen.
Shadow and Fluttershy stood up from the blue sofa.
"So umm, Twilight told me, you're an animal caretaker. But I haven't seen any animals around your place."
"Oh, I have lots of pets. They're just spending some time at my backyard."
Twilight had made normal lemon tea for everybody. When Fluttershy and Shadow came into the kitchen, she was already placing the tea into their mugs. They all sat down around a round table. They started drinking the tea and talking about, how each one's day had been going. But that conversation soon turned into something much more else, when Twilight asked Shadow:
"So, when are you going to reveal Fluttershy your 'little secret'?"
"What secre-- oh, that one. Listen, do I really have to reveal it?"
"Now now, you know, its the only reason, we came here."
"OKAY OKAY, I'll tell her. Fluttershy, there's something, I need to show you. Hello? Fluttershy?"
Fluttershy wasn't paying any attention to her surrounding. She was thinking about something. Something very dark and deep. Something, so bad, that it could melt every other pony's brain, when thought about by them. That was, until she was thumped at her shoulder by Twilight.
"Huh-- Oh, I'm really sorry for not paying attention. I was just thinking about my animals and myself"
"Fluttershy. there's something, I need to show you... Twilight knows it, and she wants you to know it too. See, the thing is--"
Shadow slowly started to change his form back into a Changeling. His hooves started burning with green flame, making holes appear in them. The horn started to twist from a straight one towards his ears, which made it look like a sharp end to a sword. Ears themselves turned from small tots into long and sharp ones. His hair dissolved nearly completely, only leaving a long piece of black attached fabric. Three grey lines were drew around Shadow's body by the green flames, and a some kind blue armor attached itself to them. The long tail burned its lower half and left a broken piece of itself from the between of shadow's flanks. Two wings, which seemed to be transparent, formed at his back. Shadow's Muzzle turned into a short spike, and fangs came out from the mouth, with eyes losing every detail in them, showing a blue mist inside his eye sockets.
"--That I... am a Changeling," shadow quietly said.
"Oh... Oh my. But... aren't Changelings evil creatures who suck love out of ponies?" fluttershy's brains were trying to process, what had just happened.
"Yes, some Changelings are evil but then there's Changelings like me, who tend to suck minimal amount of love from you ponies, and even that is given love," shadow explained her.
"So umm... You're not going to hurt me or anything?" fluttershy was still a little conserned about Shadow being really a Changeling.
"WHAT, of course not! I mean, do you know, what your purple friend would do to me?!"
"I-- I'm sorry for asking."
"Oh no, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings... It's just that I get easily angered and such."
As Fluttershy and Shadow were keeping the conversation up and chit-chatting, Fluttershy couldn't take her eyes off from Shadow's fangs. She noted, how identical they were to hers with the exception of them being all dirty. She started rubbing her left fang again and interrupted Shadow by suddenly asking him "Do... Do you like my fangs, because you have them too?"
"And as I was saying-- Wait, what about my fangs?" shadow asked Fluttershy with a mildly annoyed face because of interruption.
"Our fangs. Do you like mine, because you have fangs too?" fluttershy was blushing lightly.
"Oh, hehe... I-- I have a fetish for fangs," shadow tried to cover the word 'fetish'.
"That--" fluttershy's blush became extremely deep.
"Yeah, my 'pet dog' reacted the same way, when I told 'him' about my fetish. But hey, where is Twilight?"
As Fluttershy and Shadow had been talking to each others for fifty minutes in-row, they had completely forgotten about everything else around them. Twilight had noticed this, so she had left to look out for CutieMarkCrusaders. When Shadow finally was ready to leave, he gave a cheering goodbye hug to Fluttershy, thanking her for being friendly and understanding to him. But when Shadow as hugging Fluttershy, a giant wave of love pulsated from her into Shadow's body, nearly making him unconscious.
"OH GOD SHADOW, are you okay?" fluttershy shouted as rushing to Shadow, who was moaning of pain on her doorstep.
"Yeah, just go a little love rush there," shadow chuckled.
"You coming Shadow?" Twilight popped out of nowhere.
"Yeah yeah, just gimme a sec!" shadow grabbed Fluttershy's hoof and got up.
As Three little fillies, Shadow and Twilight Sparkle were leaving, Shadow looked behind him to see Fluttershy waving her hoof at the group.
"I'll see you around, Fluttershy!" shadow shouted at Fluttershy but got no response.
Author's Note
Updated the first chapter of Changeling I am. I hope, you like the new ending, because the old one got negative feedback.
PS. reply to twilightneedshugs: I don't take hard feelings from fair feedback, so no worry :P
