I’m so tired of being hated. I’m tired of ponies blaming me for something my species did, when I never did anything. I want to be friends with the ponies and I want to be loved in return, but they don’t trust me. They run away screaming bloody murder and don't even give me a chance. All I want is a chance...and I know how I can get a chance, but I will have to change my destiny.
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Some know me as Dark Shadow, I am known to my queen as #32145, a warrior, I am a changeling, and I am going to change my destiny anyway I can.
It’s time I explained. I never wanted to attack Canterlot, I am not one of those changelings who wished to get love by force. Sadly, my queen thought it would be the only way, so I was forced to go. She made all of us go. When we got to the outskirts of Equestria though, I silently flew away and disguised myself. I changed into a light black stallion pegasus with a dark purple mane and tail, and my cutie mark was the image of a shadow. I created that disguise myself, I never saw a pony that looked like it.
I knew that ponies didn't have number names, our queen told us that much, so I thought of a name, and came up with Dark Shadow, it seemed to go well with my coat. After doing that I flew to Manehatten, where I started observing the ponies, to understand how they behave.
I bet you're surprised the first thing I did didn't involve sucking love out of the ponies, but I was going to change my future, so I would have to see how the ponies did things, and not have a feast first, in fact, I won't even have a feast at all when I am done.
I learned from the ponies that they don’t hatch eggs and their children don’t grow up from a chrysalis. The foals are allowed to roam free and have fun, and discover their special abilities, or as the ponies say, their special talents. I understood that the princesses were not tyrants like my queen had told us, but loving rulers. I learned all of this while hiding on a cloud and listening to the ponies of Manehatten.
I learned that my hive got thrown away from Canterlot by a love spell. Being thrown away by an emotion they use as food, isn't that something interesting? I no longer thought of myself as a changeling, in my heart I left like a pony. A normal pony like everypony else.
I knew being disguised wouldn't be enough for me to be accepted, everypony would be on high alert now that the changeling queen had been defeated. The ponies would be worried about changelings in disguise. I wouldn't be able to hold the disguise forever, I would lose control and be unable to keep it up, giving myself away in the process, and making me unable to change my destiny.
This is the start of my story, and I am going to tell you everything, from the beginning, in hopes that somepony will see this someday, and understand why I did what I did.
I opened my eyes to be greeted by darkness, which is normal in the changeling hive. There isn't any light in any of the rooms except the command room, where Queen Chrysalis strategizes with us. I smiled in the darkness of my room, knowing it would be a good day, or just assuming it would be.
When I flew to the command room with the other five hundred thousand warriors, our Queen told us to get in disguise and go to Ponyville, Discord was back and this was the best time to spy on the ponies. We all saluted her and left on our way, we disguised ourselves as random ponies once we got their.
We watched the town of Ponyville change into a chaotic new land, and we loved it. The ponies were going insane with the chaos Discord had caused. He even made love literally be in the air, oddly enough that gave a loopy looking pony the ability to fly. It gave us the food we needed to spy without being found out as well.
One of the ponies mistook me for the local drunkard, I had to act quickly and bite her, assuming drunk ponies must hurt others, and she ran away screaming. I had to watch where I went and make sure I wasn’t seen by any other pony, including the pony I was impersonating, or I would screw it up for the whole hive. I spotted one of the elements of harmony, all my queen told me about them was what they looked like and their elements, not their actual names, supposedly the element of kindness, terrifying a few of the younger pony kind with a hoof.
Queen Chrysalis never told us about Discord’s ability to change your personality, so I was confused as to why the element of kindness was going against her element. I noticed how she seemed to have turned a light shade of gray and started following her, along the way seeing the element of generosity and laughter yelling at each other over a rock. Well generosity was yelling over a rock, laughter was asking what generosity was laughing at, which I didn't understand at all.
I was questioning this whole situation about why generosity would be hoarding a rock and laughter being angry about laughter when a bucket fell over my head and soaked my disguise, almost making me drop it. The element of kindness had seen me and decided to make me soaked to the bone, after that she called me a drunky and flew away laughing, with laughter running after her.
The only place that seemed to actually be calm and not insane in the town was a giant tree at the other end of the town. I ran there as quickly as I could and hid in a bush beside one of the windows so I could still do my job but stay safe. Odd that a tree had windows and a door though...
I let go of my disguise and watched the insanity from the safety of my bush before I saw the element of magic, gray just like laughter and kindness. I crouched down and hid in the bush as magic walked through the trees door and slowly came out of the bush as I retook my disguise and looked through the window to watch what magic was doing. She was packing a suitcase, with a baby dragon puking up scrolls by her bed. A dragon spewing scrolls instead of fire, horrible body guard if I do say so myself.
Magic gathered the puked up scrolls to herself and started to read them. I listened silently as she read about the magic of her friendship and was surprised to see her color coming back slowly as she read about her friends and adventures she had with them. I also learned the elements names. Magic was actually Named Twilight, Laughter Pinkie Pie, Honesty Applejack, kindness Fluttershy, loyalty Rainbow dash, and generosity Rarity.
I thought that their friendship couldn't be that great so I followed discreetly behind Twilight as she somehow fixed whatever was wrong with her best friends, sometimes tying them up to do so. Only one that was left was Rainbow dash, and I had a hard time following them when Fluttershy...snapped, for lack of a better word. I flew down as they caught Rainbow and watched from a distance as she was fixed and the other elements embraced her.
I thought that they might be giving up, would have helped the swarm later on if they did, but instead they put on their elements and ran to Discord. I wasn't entirely convinced that friendship could stop anything and I hid behind Discord’s throne as I listened to them talking. It didn't help that a bomb went off really close to me as Discord threw something brown behind him.
I don’t see how friendship is worth fighting for if you can’t trust someling who isn't mentally linked to you, but ponies are a bit stupid. I watched the elements charge and put the god of chaos into a rainbow as well as in stone.
I guess friendship could be worth fighting for if it can help fix your friends, defeat a bad guy, and help save your home, but how is friendship a weapon? They have nothing to help defeat enemies but a feeling they have for each other.
I started to think about the letters I listened to Twilight read and how she defeated the god of chaos with just the feeling of friendship, maybe...just maybe, the ponies have the right idea and us changelings are doing it wrong. Maybe we should be making friends instead of hurting others...Of course I would be killed by my Queen if she found out.
I was a changed changeling, and I needed a disguise that nopony looked like. I had a great love for the color purple, i stayed black and added fur and soft flesh. I then turned my mane and tail into a soft lighter shade of purple. I kept my eye color, because it would be hard for me to change it, all I could do with my eyes was make them a lighter shade of purple, but I changed them to look less bug, and more pony.
I then had to think about what to have as a cutie mark, because all grown ponies had one. I decided an image of a dark black shadow, I was almost done, now I just needed to think of a name. Ponies cutie marks usually say what their names or occupation are, so I decided my name would be Dark Shadow, it sounded nice enough.
Of course when the time arrived for the takeover of Canterlot, I flew away from the changeling group, cut off my mental connection with them and changed into my disguise mid flight, hoping beyond hope nopony saw me change as I flew towards Manehatten.
I watched the ponies of Manehatten talk to each other, become friends, eat with each other, let their foals play and find love. I watched everything they did from the comfort of a cloud, I even got a weather patrol job so I could understand the pegasi better. I read magic books and history books and biology books from the Manehatten library, much to the confusion of the librarian. I had to learn a certain spell and I found it in the last magic book I read. It came at a price, but I wanted it.
That price: If you used the spell, you wouldn't be able to rev
erse it. You could never revert back to your original form, you were stuck the way you were forever. Most ponies would hate a change species/gender spell, but that was exactly what I wanted, and the best part was, I wouldn't have to feed on love anymore. I didn't want to be a changeling anymore if all we did was forcefully feed on others while the ponies had all that anypony could ever want. I wanted to do what I saw the ponies do for the whole month I was there.
Over the month I only ate a little bit of love from the ponies who gave it willingly to Dark Shadow, so I was lucky enough not to starve. I figured that the changeling paranoia was gone by this time and during the night I read the spell on a cloud while in my changeling form, for the last time.
My horn glowed green and I started to change starting with my legs. My legs slowly got covered with light black fur and flesh as it covered the holes of my legs, the spell soon reached my tail and it quickly got long and puffy as the hard exterior changed to fur. It soon got to my exoskeleton body, and I felt the hard skeleton change into a soft coat of short fur as my shadow cutie mark appeared as well as feathers sprouting on my wings along with different muscles and flesh. the spell traveled up my neck and reached my head.
My mane changed into the same dark purple color as my tail as the spell traveled up my neck and fur soon sprouted on my face and the exoskeleton changed into skin. I felt the teeth in my mouth change into herbivore teeth as my fangs disappeared and shrank away. My eyes turned from compound eyes, into the normal pony eyes and the last thing to change was my horn. I felt my horn shrink and disappear into my head as the magical glow disappeared from it entirely.
I smiled, I had changed my destiny and I could be who I wanted to be. I was no longer hated, no longer despised, and no longer feared.
I was normal.
I changed my life with just a spell and I was happy I took the chance. I slept on the cloud and in the morning I knew where my destination would be. I flew to Ponyville with nothing but the bits I earned. No magic, no changing, nothing but my wings and bits. I landed outside of Ponyville and looked around, knowing it would be the perfect place to live, and I stepped into the town.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! What's your name?” Pinkie asked the light black pegasus stallion.
The pegasus smiled. “My name is Dark Shadow, its nice to meet you Pinkie.” Yep, it was going to be a great life.
