Remember, the chance of a Safe-Tec Stable failing is approximately 145 million to 1. Please enjoy your stay at Safe-Tec Stable 12, and remember you are the hope of ponykind.

“-grey walls, bright lights, knowing everypony, and, of course, at the end of it all, is the sweet sleep of incineration… This is a terrible poem,” I said to myself. Damn that Beauty Pose, her and her Celestia damned poems. That mare insisted on giving me one every single birthday! Ever since I was old enough to have a Pip-Buck she had been giving me these things.

I guess I should introduce myself, beginning with the appearances and such. Well, I’m a changeling, my name is Cloudy Skies, and in my natural form I look like every other changeling, my colors being Green randomly due to my lack of connection to a Queen, whatever those are. Due to the way we changelings are built, I am neither a mare nor a stallion, although I’d prefer female pronouns to be used when speaking about me, especially considering I prefer to use Mare disguises. My normal pony form, which I use occasionally for no real reason, is that of a green Pegasus mare, with a black mane and tail. Cutie Mark? I decided that on what I got when I took the Cutie Mark Assessment Test (CMAT). It told me that I had the potential to be an actor or some sorts which makes sense considering what I am, and so I chose a smiling and sad mask cutie mark to signify that and above those was the symbol of a Changeling hive of the past, which was in one of the books in the class library. I’m one of many changelings here in the Stable, our eldest is a Pip-Buck programmer, whose colors are those of a vibrant purple. The CMAT is usually only taken by ponies who are scared about never getting their cutie marks, but we changelings have our own uses for those tests, usually to help us who use pony disguises, for whatever amount a reasons one would, to pick an appropriate mark .

In the old days, before the Great War, Changelings were once vilified, but once the Griffons became the rivals of Equestria, things got better between Ponies and Changelings. My teacher, Miss Cheery Hills, always told me that, at least. That’s what’s been taught to us down here in the stable that Equestria failed in the final moments before the War because it had forgotten Friendship and Harmony.

Back to now, it’s my birthday. I don’t know what they did before the war, it was probably better than what we do now, but they definitely had more fun than we do now. There’s minimal decoration, mediocre flavored cake, dull small talk, and nothing new really happening. It could be worse though, I could be one of those poor souls outside of the vault, one of those cannibals or bandits that Miss Hills and the PA system occasionally talks about.

“Happy 18th, Cloudy,” Green Painter, a blue-green Unicorn stallion with a painting cutie mark, said with a smile, “Your final year of freedom, correct?”

Ah yes, THAT whole thing. You see, a changeling has to feed on emotion, and with the identity of every changeling down here being known to everypony in the Vault, the methods of deception and such have, of course, gone out of touch. Of course, coincidentally, with ponies very rarely being attracted to changelings enough for long-lasting relationships and with the teaching of how every changeling is precious, and of course the lack of wanting an inbred changeling populace, a decree was made by the first Overmare that every fertile changeling, which was all of them at the time, is to be able to be “used” by any stallion in the vault. Of course this only applies once a changeling meets the Pony age of consent which is 18, and so every fertile above-18 years of age changeling, instead of locking ourselves up during heat, which occurs in every mare and changeling, even to those that prefer male forms, are out and about with the stallions, and of course that can lead to some obvious results. Every other heat I’ve been able to lock in due to my age but next heat I’ll be in that fray.

“Final weeks, actually,” I replied to Green, “And if you’re planning anything, please don’t tell me, I’d rather not think about what’ll happen at that time.” I’d rather let it happen than freak out over it.

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on anything, if anything happens then it’ll be natural,” Green replied.

“Don’t worry? Green, you’re not the one who’s gonna have stallions running over themselves just to get to you. Everypony seems intent on telling me to not worry, but how could I not when I’m basically just waiting for some random stallion to just come up to me and stick ‘it’ in when the time comes?” I said trying to get the gravity of the situation to him.

“I-I… well, I can’t quite argue against that,” Green said averting his eyes.

“Look, Green. I need to get my worrying out now, because if I let out my worries now, then I, hopefully, won’t freak out when the time comes,” I said hoping to get him to understand.

Green understood my qualms, thankfully, and soon we parted ways. After that, I decided to get a piece of cake, and, thankfully, a perfectly cut cake stood next to the Stable’s own Sir Hoofy robot, which had affectionately been named Lunar. “Happy Birthday, Miss Cloudy Skies. Would you like some cake?” Lunar said to me as I approached.

“Gladly, Lunar. Two pieces please, I’m gonna need as much sweet as I can get before salty flavors take over in a few weeks,” I replied smiling at my stupid joke.

“Certainly madam, here you are,” Lunar said as he gave me the plate.

I said my thanks and took the plate. “Do you have any jokes today, Lunar?” I asked hoping for something new.

“One day three ponies, each of the three pony races, walked into a bar. The Unicorn asked the Earth Pony what his plans for the next day were, and the Earth Pony replied, ‘Just more working on the farm.’ The Earth Pony asked the same question to the Unicorn who replied, ‘I’m just planning on a day of studying.’ The two then asked the Pegasus what her plans were and she answered, ‘I’m not sure, I’ll probably just wing it.” Lunar replied.

I kept my composure for a total of five seconds before I started chuckling which soon turned into a full on laugh. That laugh lasted for a full minute before I wiped my eyes and said, “Oh Lunar, I’m sure that I’m the only one who laughs at your jokes anymore, do you have another one?”

“I’m sorry ma’am but my humor emitter arrays need time to recharge,” Lunar replied.

“Alright then, I’m going to return to my room, Lunar, the party is over anyways,” I said before turning towards the door out of the dining area with cake in my levitation field.

When I arrived at my room, I pulled open a drawer and took out a holotape. I opened the holotape receptacle and inserted the holotape. It was the game, Battle Ponies, with some nice visuals, as nice as a Pip-Buck could make at least. It took me a good while, and a whole week’s worth of food rations to get Button Masher to give me the holotape but I was certainly glad that I did. Basically, the game was a beat ‘em up set in Pre-war Manehatten, and my job, as vigilante Thug Beater, was to rid Manehatten of all the criminal scum in the city. How they got some nice controls for something that has as few buttons and knobs as a Pip-Buck I'll never know but it certainly works for me.

I spent hours playing the game, with no distractions before nature called. After a quick time in the bathroom I resumed the game, and so I beat up lowly Earth Pony thugs, Unicorn sharpshooters, and Pegasus air support. I reached a level where I beat the Unicorn head-honcho and I thought I had won the game. But, as the triumphant music played, suddenly a crash was heard and suddenly in big letters the words “The real boss is a spy!” showed up. And suddenly the image of a Griffon showed up. Under that Griffon was a caption, “Silver Claw, the head of the Griffonian Intelligence Agency.”

Suddenly the normal game world reappeared and on the other side of the screen was Silver Claw, who began shooting me and killed me pretty quickly. “Dammit!” I cursed. So this game apparently wanted to ratchet up the difficulty, eh? I looked back at the game screen and it gave me the options to either fully restart, restart at last fight, or to train. Being the curious changeling that I am, I picked the train icon and the game started on a boxing ring and suddenly enemies began showing up on the other side of the ring.

After spending an hour or so on that training ring, learning tricks that I didn’t even know, I decided to leave that screen and go back to that boss fight. When Silver Claw showed up again I was entirely confident that I could beat him. And after a long fight, one restart, and another long fight I finally defeated the Griffon who said in text, “You have bested me! Here’s the deed showing so!” Immediately after that the text changed to say, “You have beat Silver Claw, look in the notes sub-section of your Pip-Buck’s data storage section once you have left the game.” After that a picture of sunny Manehatten showed up with text super-imposed saying “You have saved Manehatten from the Griffon scum!” with an 8-bit version of the old Equestrian anthem playing in the background.

Feeling triumphant, I pulled out the holotape and put it back into my drawer. I then switched my Pip-Buck to the data section and checked the notes sub-section, and lo and behold there was a new note, named, “Battle Ponies Victory Deed.” After selecting the note I was treated to some text.

“This deed signifies that the owner of this Pip-Buck 3000 Mark IV, one Cloudy Skies, has beaten Game-Co’s Battle Ponies and has earned the right to brag to her friends and family, as well as, the Battle Ponies bonus survival level, Battle Ponies exclusive merchandise, and tons of other prizes! For a full list, please contact a Game-Co representative and tell them the code IWINBP001. If there are any problems with your code or any other part of this deed, please contact a Game-Co representative.”

I was glad that that the programming of the note was able to generate the proper pronoun but that didn’t help the hurt that I would never be able to see that full list. Another note showed up soon afterward with my final high-score which I hoped to compare to Button Masher’s. When I looked at the clock on my Pip-Buck I noticed that it said that it was 23:30, which is 11:30 PM if course. I yawned as I realized how late it was, I didn’t even notice the room’s lights turning off, and so I decided that it was time for me to sleep. The next day was going to be the start of the preparation for the next Stable play and with it being the last one pre-heat it was going to be short with only a few weeks separating now and then.

Author's Note

I hope you guys enjoyed this new story of mine. I'll be alternating between working on this and Sky's Changing Secret. I hope to be able to work on both and juggle the needs of the two. I thank you guys for reading and please like and comment. Give me all that love ye guys can give to this changeling.