Chapter 5

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“Answer me!” I growl, taking a step forward.

Suddenly I lose all feeling in my legs and drop, hitting the floor, hard.

a buzzing sound reaches my ears, before I can feel somepony nuzzling the top of my head.

I flinch away from the nuzzle as much as I can, though I pause when I hear the pain in the Changeling Queen’s voice and feel it coming from her.

Still, I want nothing more than to rip her to shreds for doing this to me, but it seems she’s right. My body is too weak at the moment.

I glare at her. “Use... use your mouth, you... you bug,” I pant, realizing just how exhausted I feel.

She looks and feels hurt for a moment, before she composes herself, closing her eyes. “Trying using some of the love you’ve stored,” she says, leaning in to nuzzle me, but stopping at my glare, and looks away. “You... you have plenty of reserves. It should be well more than enough.” Huh. She doesn't have any distortion in her voice either. Weird.

I’m about to ask her what the hell she means and why her voice doesn't sound like it did at the wedding, when I feel something nick at the back of my mind.

I turn my attention to it. It sounds like a small voice, really young, like that of a foal.

Frowning in confusion now, I close my eyes and look into try to think of what I’m looking for.

Suddenly I see it, a large mass of pink energy, deep within me. I reach out, pulling some of it with me. As I do, I instantly start feeling stronger, the energy in my legs returning.

I manage to push myself up. Once standing, I inwardly thank that smaller voice... and can swear I hear a squeal of joy in the back of my mind in response.

I look to the Changeling Queen and glare at her. “I said: Talk. With. Your. Mouth!”

She gives me a sad, firm expression, before sighing. “As you wish, Flare.”

My glare hardens. “Oh, funny. Since I’m a rule sixty-three Flash Sentry, you’re gonna call me Flare now?”

She blinks and I feel her confusion, to which I simply roll my eyes. However, her response takes me off-guard.

“No. I have called you Flare as it is your new name, now that you are not a pony, but my wife.”

My glare returns as soon as it vanished. “Oh, fine. So, what now? Since I’m a changeling you’re gonna fuck my brains out and pump me full of your eggs til I can’t move?”

She takes a step back and I feel her... horror and disgust(?) mixed with more confusion. “What by the First Mother would make you think I’d perform such a horrid and despicable act?!”

I blink, shocked by her response, before glowering. “Oh, so former ponies aren’t good enough for a Changeling Queen to fuck now, huh?” I grate my teeth, noticing I have K9 teeth again, only they're bigger than they were back when I was a human.

She shakes her head, her disgust, confusion and horror coming off of her in waves. “Why would you think I would fill you with my children?!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I retort sarcastically, looking up in mock contemplation, “maybe because you’ve forced me to be your wife and that’s what a forced wife is used for!”

Her horror and disgust just seem to amplify. “I have no idea where you’re getting your information, child, but I have never, in all my years, heard of a Queen doing that to her heir!”

I stomp a hoof, annoyed at this prolonged discussion. “Well, what did you expect when... you...?” I blink, my anger fading to confusion. “Wait. Heir? Like, as in offspring?”

“Naturally,” she replies in an almost deadpan, still looking and feeling very unnerved. “Why? Would did you think I was making you?”

I cock an eyebrow. “I thought I was now your wife?”

She gives me a full deadpan expression this time. “You are.”

I shake my head, putting a hoof to my face. “Okay, I am thoroughly confused now. Which am I, your wife or your heir?”

She’s the one that cocks an eyebrow this time. “Is there a difference?”

I can feel a headache coming on. I shake my head. “So, let me get this straight. To you, the word wife means heir, correct?”

She nods, looking slightly bored now. “Yes. Is there a reason for this pointless questioning when you can learn all this from the Hive Mind?”

Oh, like I needed that unnerving idea in the back of my brain right now. I shake it off and continue. I’m starting to get the picture, but need confirmation.

“So, when you impersonated Princess Cadance,” I ignore the snarl she emits at the name, “you saw yourself pretending to be becoming Shining Armour’s heir?”

She rolls her eyes, her bored attitude now coming off of her. “Yes! Honestly, I was never this vocal when I became a changeling.”

I blink, but sort that little tidbit of info away for later.

I chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

I shake my head, still chuckling. “Wow. That is one hell of a cultural gap. We were way off on what you wanted me for.”

She frowns. “What do you mean, Flare?”

I flinch at the name, having gotten so used to being called Flash that being called the name of his rule sixty-three self is somehow harder to take than when I’d had to get used to the male name, but sigh.

“Wife means something very different in pony culture, Chrysalis. Well, almost every culture, as far as I know, anyway.”

She blinks, her eyes widening a little. “It does?”

I frown slightly. Didn’t she just say she’d been turned into a changeling? Doesn’t that imply she was a pony, or at least equine, before that, so shouldn’t she know the difference?

I shake my head, putting that aside and chuckle again. “In pony culture, actually in pretty much every culture, wife means life partner, the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.” At her blank stare, I roll my eyes. “I guess you would call them a clutchmate, or something like that.”

She blinks, still seeming confused.

I sigh. “So, you’ve never heard of that term before? Ever?”

She looks down, frowning. “I... think I have... maybe?”

I cock an eyebrow, before blinking.

I’ve only just now realized I’ve been having a simplish conversation with the Changeling Queen who invaded Canterlot, tried to pretty much kill Shining Armour by draining him of emotions and finally ponynapped me, twice and turned me into one of her own kind to, as my understanding of it now is, make me her... daughter.

That thought suddenly slams into my brain like a freight train.

“You’ve made me your DAUGHTER?!” I cry, my eyes wide. “That’s why you captured me?!”

She blinks, looking confused again. “Didn’t we just agree on that?”

I shake my head. “No. No-no-no-no-no. I’ve barely gotten used to my pony parents thanks to the amnesia your first, and might I remind you, failed, attempt to capture me before. Now I’m supposed to see you as my mother, too?”

She glares at that. “Too? What are you implying?”

I scowl. “What? You think I’m going to just forget about the mare who gave birth to me; originally gave birth to me?” I add, seeing her opening her mouth to argue the matter. “What? Is that how you felt when you became a changeling?!”

She hesitates, frowning in confusion again, looking down. “I... never thought about it like that. I can’t remember my pony mother. I didn’t expect you would, either.”

My anger again quells at this odd news. “Seriously?”

a voice says in my head. The suddenness, having gotten used to a verbal conversation with the Changeling Queen, startles me.

Chrysalis’ voice answers, in what I now realize is the Hive Mind, still recovering from our back and forth. <What is it??

My heart leaps into my throat, my eyes widening in horror at the implications of what I just heard. I scream at the voice over the Hive Mind, feeling it shudder under the voice of my demand.

it replies, it sounds male, I think.

I demand, though I already know I am right.

he replies, sounding nervous.

I bellow, rage returning to my system.

I feel a shudder through the Hive Mind, as well as the voice faintly shouting at others to help it move something.

I turn back to Chrysalis, my eyes narrowed once more. “If she is harmed in any way, his head will not be the only one that rolls... mother!” I finish, the last one spoke like an insult.

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Shining Armour stood near the edge of the trees, looking out into the late afternoon sky.

A few moments later, a Pegasus appeared on the horizon, soon reaching him and landing.

“Anything to report?” the unicorn asked.

The Wonderbolt saluted. “Nothing, sir. The area is clear. No sign of any changelings within the vicinity.”

Shining cursed under his breath.

Less than an hour after Flash’s second abduction, the whole castle had been shrouded in a spell that would unmask any disguised changelings, to see how many others might be hiding, possibly to hinder their search.

What none of them had expected was for Scootaloo she be revealed as a changeling nymph. It was honestly the first time he’d felt sympathy for a changeling.

Right after it changed back, the changeling had stared down at itself in horror, before its eyes had widened and it had burst into tears, before running over to the gates, flying up and impaling itself on one of the spires at the top of the gate.

Twilight was still being consoled after seeing the changeling attempt to commit suicide so suddenly. Last he heard before they left Canterlot, the nymph was in intensive care in the hospital wing. He was torn on whether or not he hoped the poor thing would make it.

When Spitfire and Soarin learned that both of their children had been taken by the changelings, and one left to replace Scootaloo, seeming to even think it was her itself, they’d pulled all Wonderbolts away from performances and had them assigned to assist in the search.

Misty Fly and Blaze had to take over temporary command, as the distraught parents were in no state to properly lead in the search.

Shining sighed, nodding. “Alright. Search Area X. That space is still yet unsearched.”

The Wonderbolt saluted again, “Sir!” before flying off the direction he was now assigned.

Shining groaned, rubbing between his eyes with a hoof. He feared what was happening to Flash and Scootaloo. Just what horrors did those monsters have planned for them?

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I leap forward as a pod similar to the one I was held it, but with a softer look to it, is carefully placed in front of me.

The changelings who brought it in immediately cowers, scurrying away in terror.

I look inside the pod. Suspended within the green liquid is an unconscious filly Pegasus I know all too well.

I thrust my horn forward, piercing the covering of the egg-shaped pod, breaking through as if it was cling wrap, then pull my head down, making a horizontal tare through it. The liquid within spills out, the filly being dragged out with it. I quickly catch the filly in my forelegs. She’s covered in splotches of the gunk that was holding her in that pod.

She retches, green liquid spilling from her mouth and onto the floor. I wait patiently as she expels it all from her body, ignoring the confused and annoyed stare of the Changeling Queen.

Once she’s ride her lungs of all the goop, she coughs several times, before looking up at me with blearily eyes. She blinks a few times. “Flash...?” she asks, her voice weak.

A warm, relieved smile plays over my muzzle. “Yeah, Scoots. It’s me.”

She blinks again, still looking dazed. “Why’s do I feel... weird?”

I glare over my shoulder at the other occupant in the room. “You can thank that bitch for that.”

I get a shocked look from the bug in return, which only makes me grin a little.

Scootaloo blinks a few more times, before lifting a hoof (lucky one without any goop on it) and rubs her eyes. When she looks at me again, her eyes widen in horror as she looks from me to the one I’m glaring at.

Her expression darkens. “How dare you?!” she yells, trying to break free from my grasp and go attack the Changeling, though she’s still so weak from just getting out of her pod that I barely have to do much to hold her in place.

Chrysalis, naturally, doesn’t seem to like a pony addressing her in such a way. “You little whelp! How dare you speak to me in such a way! It is only because of Flare that you are not being drained for food right at this moment!” she snarls, before glancing at me. “Though why she is not feeding even a little off of you right now when I sensed the amount of love you were giving her, is beyond my knowledge!”

“You turned my sister into a monster, like you!” Scootaloo screeched, and if looks could kill, Chrysalis would’ve burned to ash multiple times already.

The changeling blinks, before glancing at me in confusion. “Sister?”

Now I’m glaring just as hard as Scootaloo. “Yes, Chrysalis. Didn’t you know I already had a family before you did this to me? Or did you simply not care? Scootaloo is my little sister and whether I’m a changeling now or not, that won’t change. Either deal with it, or fuck off!”

She blinks for several moments, looking from one of us to the other, before scratching her head. “Fine. Fine. If you want to keep that pony as you pet and call it your sister, be my guest.” I’m about to feel insulted before I hear her mutter over the Hive Mind.