Author's Note

If you're squeamish about sex stuff, then you may want to skip a part of this chapter. Shortly before it begins, I have put a few words in bold. If you wish to skip, scroll down at that point until you see more bold in the form of "Ahem". You will miss a thing or two that has relevance to the story, but it's nothing too big, and I'm sure I have the important stuff mentioned again later.

The Best Laid Plans

It was the morning after my mother had seen my decaying corpse while the changelings wrapped her in a cocoon like a person would wrap up a half eaten sandwich. Chrysalis had gone back through the black mirror and brought my mother and the other prisoners with her. The changelings had been quick to capture every resident of the apartments and replace them with their own people. Every one of them had been taken back to Equestria to feed the hive, and there were whispers of expanding beyond the building and into the rest of the city soon.

Since my apartment was being used as a base of operations for the changeling infiltrators and they didn’t want me anywhere near the mirror lest I do something rash like try to destroy it, Drymanid and I had been shoved out of the way into one of the recently vacated apartments in the building. I was informed that I would not be allowed to leave the building until I knew how to transform into a human and that Drymanid would have to harvest love for me until then. I was in no rush to rebel against this order, either. If I had been kicked out onto the streets I had little doubt that I’d be discovered as an equine monstrosity, captured, experimented on and summarily killed. Or maybe I was just projecting my experiences in Equestria onto my home, I wasn’t really sure.

To say I was distraught by the events that had just transpired would be putting it mildly, but unlike when I was in that basement beneath the Everfree Forest, I didn’t feel truly helpless. I was at home. I knew how this world worked. I could actually do something, and if I didn’t, then things would get much worse.

I stood in front of a phone that I had levitated to the floor so that I could actually see what I was doing as I used it. With the receiver held to my ear in my magical grasp, I punched in my parents’ home phone number using a pencil that I held in my mouth. For once I was thankful that I couldn’t taste anything.

“Hello?”

I froze at the sound of my father’s voice. It had been so long since I had heard it.

“Hello?” He repeated, annoyed. Realizing I still held the pencil in my mouth, I spit it out.

“Dad!” I blurted into the receiver. There was a pause.

“Who is this?” His voice was laced with suspicion.

“It’s me, Victor!”

“Whoever you are miss, this isn’t funny.”

“It’s really me, Dad! I don’t have time to explain how, but it really is me!”

“What kind of person would use my feelings for my missing son to pull a prank? What is wrong with you?”

“Please, Dad-“

“Fuck off!”

“-listen, shape shifting monsters are invading! They’ve taken Mom!” The only response I received was that of the dial tone.

“He hung up on me.” I stated to myself in disbelief. Drymanid, who had been sitting off to the side and watching me with curiosity trotted up beside me and gave my back a comforting rub. I pushed his hoof off of me and glared at him.

Determined not to give up so easily, I picked up the pencil again and redialed my parents’ number. I waited nervously as the phone rang once. Twice. Three times. I heard the sound of breathing as it was answered.

“Don’t hang up! Please, you’ve got to believe me! Mom has been captured by-“

“Visage!” That one word warning hissed through the phone halted me in my tracks. It was my mother’s voice. “Listen closely. If you ever try to contact your family again, they will suffer the same fate as your mother. This is your only warning.” I was hung up on for the second time in mere seconds. I let the receiver fall to the floor as my eyes went wide and blood drained from my face.

“What’s wrong?” Dryma asked with a worried frown.

“If I try to talk to my family again, then they’re going to take all of them prisoner.”

Dryma nodded solemnly at my explanation. “I’m surprised that they haven’t done it already.”

“If they’re so worried about me convincing people, then why don’t they just kill me?” I snapped back as rage flashed in my eyes.

“We don’t kill changelings.”

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that you guys have never killed other changelings?”

Dryma’s face twisted with displeasure. “We don’t kill changelings if we can avoid it.”

“Whatever.” I dismissed the issue and trotted past him into the bedroom of the apartment where the previous owner had kept their computer. I had discovered earlier that he hadn’t set a password, so I was free to use it as I saw fit. Drymanid followed me into the room and stood at attention like the loyal little changeling soldier that he was.

My magical dexterity wasn’t so great as to effectively type so I settled for the same trick I used to dial the phone, a pencil held between my teeth. It was slow going, but I eventually had an email message ready to be sent to my friend, Ricky. I was hoping that he would be more receptive to my plight than my father. If nothing else he didn’t have a changeling living with him to intercept my message.

I looked over to Dryma. He was standing near the doorway watching me, but from his angle there was no way he could tell what I had typed on the screen. Without further hesitation I sent the email. Now all I had to do was wait for his response.

For good measure I tried to contact government officials to give them warning as well. I honestly didn’t know how to contact them, nor did I expect any of them to take me seriously after I found out, a suspicion that was later confirmed for me when not a single one of them responded. I also posted about the invasion on as many forums as I could find. Most ignored me as some nut job or troll, some threads quickly devolved into flame wars against bronies, while others turned into role playing threads for those who had mistaken me for one of them. The best I could manage was to convince a couple of crazies on a conspiracy centered website, and I didn't expect that to get any traction at all. I quickly learned that the internet was just too filled with trolls and oddities for anything I could say to have any lasting effect. At least my subscriber count on Youtube would have a significant spike over the next few weeks from people who admired my abilities with ‘special effects’. Yay.

I was in the middle of arguing on one of the forums when a knock on the door startled me into falling off my seat. Dryma was immediately by my side to help me to my hooves.

“Are you okay?” He asked me.

“Yeah....I’m fine.” I replied as I rubbed a sore spot with my magic.

The knock came again, more insistent than before. I cautiously approached the door. No human would be allowed to reach this room, so it had to be a changeling and I was not looking forward to any more interactions with my adopted species.

Swallowing a lump that developed in my throat, I opened the door. Behind it were two burly looking changelings staring at me with rather stern faces.

“Come with us, Visage.” The one nearest the door ordered. I looked behind me at Dryma who had on a purposely neutral expression. He gave a little nod, indicating I should probably do as they say. With a nervous gait, I followed after the two while Dryma brought up the rear.

The journey was a silent one. No explanation was forthcoming about what was going on, and I was too nervous to ask. I was brought to my old apartment and told to stay among the throng of changelings going about their business. I don’t know how, but they had gotten rid of the stench of my rotting corpse, but I still felt sick as I watched some human prisoners in their cocoons hauled through the black mirror. Some of the changelings gave me hostile looks, but Dryma made sure that none of them got too close to me. Having my own personal guard had been proving to be annoying more than anything else, but at that moment I was glad to have him.

After an uncertain measure of time, a changeling entered the room and warned all present that they were to be quiet. The buzz of activity that had previously filled my ears swiftly disappeared. Before I could wonder why for long, I heard voices approaching.

“Are you sure he’s here?” It was Ricky. What in the world was Ricky doing here?

“You said he wasn’t here yesterday.” Now it was my father who spoke. Realization of just what was happening struck me like a bolt of lightning.

“He phoned earlier today and told me he was back.” It was my mother’s voice, urging the others forward.

“It’s a trap!” I shouted as loudly as I could. I darted for the door, hoping I could get out and help lead them to safety, or get rid of my mother’s impostor or something. It was not to be, though, as I was tackled to the floor by multiple changelings. Dryma knocked the first few off with a blast of magic, but was soon overpowered himself. Both of us were swiftly immobilized and gagged.

“What was that?” I heard my father ask, his alarm radiating off of him strongly enough for me to feel clearly.

“He must have his TV on.” My mother’s voice tried to convince him.

“That didn’t sound like the TV.” It was David, my brother. Oh god, they even brought my baby brother!

“Maybe we should leave.” Ricky suggested. I could hear the sound of another door in the hallway opening. “The hell? Is that a changeling?!”

My heart sank as several changelings rushed out of the door and the sounds of struggle reached my ears. Within seconds they were dragging my father, brother and friend back inside to where I could see them. They had been roughed up a bit and they looked both terrified and confused. The changelings forced them to their knees in front of me and, after ensuring that I was watching, the one that seemed to be in charge punched my father’s face, knocking him to the floor.

Tears streamed down my face as my loved ones shouted a variety of threats, pleas and questions. I wanted to apologize for bringing this fate onto them, but the gag in my mouth and the soldiers holding me down prevented me from communicating. I was forced to watch the few remaining loved ones I had get forced through the black mirror where they would be used as cattle. The changelings were quick and efficient about sending me the message that I shouldn’t disobey them.

Drymanid and I were carried back to our room and unceremoniously dumped to the floor. I forced the gag out of my mouth now that I was no longer being held back and....and just sat there. How could they have known I contacted Ricky?

Drymanid walked up next to me and put a comforting hoof on my shoulder. I lifted my eyes from the spot on the floor I had been staring at and looked at the only other person that had been nearby when I sent that email.

“You....” I sputtered.

“Pardon?” Dryma asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“You....you told them!” I forced through gritted teeth as I recoiled from his hoof.

“What?!” He asked, more confused than ever.

“I thought you were my friend! You...fucking traitor!” I raged.

Alarm flashed on his face. “I didn’t-" I interrupted him by striking him in the face with my hoof, knocking him to the floor where I towered over him. I didn’t want to hear excuses. My family was wrapped up in cocoons and being drained of love because of him.

“You’ve done your duty to your Queen, why don’t you go back to her and stop spying on me.”

Dryma lifted his head to look at me, a dribble of blood coming from his snout. “You are my Queen.”

I blinked in surprise. “I am not a queen.” I hissed.

“You are my Queen.” He restated evenly while remaining on the floor, whether as a signal of submission to his ‘queen’ or in an effort to appear non-threatening, I did not know. Then I sensed Dryma lowering his emotional shielding. Waves of sympathy and caring washed over me.

“I would never betray you.” With the emotions pouring out of him, I couldn’t help but believe him. I collapsed to the floor as my anger gave way to sorrow.

“Stop calling me Queen.”

“Yes, Princess.” He responded, an uncertain smile creeping onto his face, somewhat marred by the rivulets of blood passing his lips. I did not appreciate his little joke, even if I suspected he was just trying to cheer me up.

“Seriously, don’t call me that. I’m not a Queen. I’m not Princess Visage. I’m Victor Mills, a human bank teller from a different world trespassing in her body. I’m a nobody, and right now I just want to go to sleep.” I dragged myself through the hall towards the bedroom, but Dryma stopped me with a hoof.

“When I volunteered to follow you into exile, Queen Chrysalis gave me one last order. She commanded that I keep you safe and to treat you with the respect I have always given her daughter. You may not think of yourself as royalty, but you still have a queen’s blood in your veins.”

Part of me wanted to argue with him, but an even larger part just wanted to rest. Shoving his hoof off of me, I trudged into the bedroom and crawled into bed. Sleep, however, eluded me as I tossed and turned. My mind was filled with far too much to grant me any rest.

The fate of my family was why I wanted to rest, yet paradoxically it was also what prevented my slumber. Images of their terrified faces as the green, swirling love energy was sucked out of them flashed behind my lidded eyes.

Had I not disobeyed the changelings....had I not helped Chrysalis get to Earth....had I not helped rescue Cadance...had I just let Nutcase kill me....had I not told Twilight I wasn’t a changeling...had I not tried to get home...there were innumerable things I could have done differently that would have averted this disaster.

And there was Drymanid, my loyal, little soldier, my one subject in a hive of two where I am the Queen, just like my ‘mother’, Chrysalis. No matter how many of the things I did contributed to the mess I was in, it was ultimately her fault that my family was in peril. I wanted nothing to do with her anymore. That I was of her blood was bad enough. At least I looked nothing like her. As far as I could tell, I looked like any other changeling and not the bug pony equivalent of an alicorn that Chrysalis seemed to be. Then again, maybe if I were one I could have the power to stop her.

I finally drifted off to sleep while wondering how to become a changeling alicorn and imagining myself beating the smug grin off of Chrysalis’ face.

___________________________

I was sitting on a checkered blanket amidst a grassy field, itself surrounded by a featureless void, while a cool breeze caressed my smooth chitin. On the blanket with me was another changeling and a...picnic basket? I giggled at that. I couldn’t taste anything, why would there be a picnic basket? He was probably just trying to set the mood.

I turned my attention to the changeling instead. It was Pupa. I traced my tongue over my lips as I placed a hoof on his chest. I pushed him onto his back and crawled on top of him, staring into his eyes.

“Are you sure about this? Your mother wouldn’t approve.” Pupa admonished me in a teasing tone.

“Are you questioning me?” I whispered breathily into his ear. Pupa trembled with anticipation as I nibbled on his neck. The swollen evidence of his arousal pressed up against my belly. Languorously, I slid down his body, dragging my tongue across his form as I went. Though taste was a foreign concept I could only imagine, the smoothness of his chitin and the warmth of his body were both pleasing to the senses my tongue did have.

My meandering mouth finally reached my lover’s cock, which twitched beneath my gaze. I turned my eyes to Pupa’s face while my tongue still hung out of my mouth on display for him to see. A quick flash of transformative magic, and my tongue doubled in length.

“Oh, holy hive mother.” He exclaimed with eager approval.

Not wanting to hold him in suspense any longer, I gave a long lick starting at his base and working my way all the way up to the top. I kissed the tip of his cock and swirled my tongue around the head for a bit, enjoying his moans of pleasure. A wave of his love washed over me, and though it was incapable of providing me with sustenance, I treasured every drop.

I spiralled my tongue down around his shaft like a snake wraps around its prey. Then, just like the snake, I engulfed him. I bobbed my head up and down his cock, working my tongue upon his sensitive member. He began thrusting into my muzzle in time with my movements, and his moans told me he was getting close. With a sly smile, I released him from my mouth and held him down with my magic, ensuring that he couldn’t work to finish himself off. With some gentle stimulation from my hoof, I ensured that he would remain on, but not go over, the edge.

“Don’t...stop.” He begged of me, struggling against his bonds.

“Only if you do something for me first. You know what I mean, riiiight?”

“You want that now?!” He hissed, his face contorted with the pain of his denied pleasure.

“If you don’t want to....” I trailed off, taking my hoof from his member. “Maybe I should find Dryma, I’m sure he’d do it.” I repositioned myself as if preparing to get up and leave.

“No!” Pupa shouted.

“Then you know what to do.”

He nodded. “Yes, my Queen.”

Pupa closed his eyes as his horn began to glow a brilliant, emerald green with wisps of purple swirling around within. A tendril of that green and purple energy snaked its way from his horn to mine, the stimulation eliciting a sudden gasp from my lips, which I quickly muffled by returning my attention to his eager member. The dual sensations of the spell Pupa was channeling and his warm dick sliding past my lips and along the length of my tongue had me moaning in ecstasy. My motions became jerky and undisciplined, but Pupa soon teetered on the edge of orgasm once again. The magical tendrils faded to a barely sustained trickle as he was finally pushed over the edge, filling my mouth with his seed. I swallowed eagerly as I continued suckling, draining him of all he would give me and stopping only when the spell connecting us finally failed.

I rolled over onto the ground and wriggled my way to his side, nuzzling him as we both gasped for breath. He returned my nuzzling and followed through with a kiss, in which I used my still enlarged tongue to play with his own.

“Thank you for that, love bug.” I whispered as we broke our kiss. He scrunched his face up in annoyance.

“I wish you’d stop calling me that.” He complained. I chuckled at his childish aversion to the nick name.

“Ahem.”

I leaped at the sound of another interrupting our snuggling session. To my great alarm, Princess Luna was standing in a black void, watching us. How long had she been there? Didn’t she know it was rude to peep on people during such intimate moments?

“Good evening, Queen Visage.” Luna continued. I scowled and marched towards her.

“Luna, you bitch!” I stood glaring at her, eye to eye. “How dare you trespass on my time with Pupa! Do you always go about interrupting ponies when they’re with their loved ones!?”

Luna, remaining completely nonplussed by my rage, merely smirked at me and raised an amused eyebrow. Slowly, what I said dawned on me.

“This isn’t right. Pupa hates me, he isn’t my lover. And since when am I as tall as you?”

“We merely assumed that all changeling queens were as tall as my sister and I.”

I examined myself, and sure enough, I appeared to be have grown considerably sometime in the last few minutes. I even had a proper mane, the same shade of greenish blue that Chrysalis sported. After a few moments of confusion more, it clicked.

“I’m dreaming again, aren’t I?”

A smile broke out on Luna’s face. “We had wondered how long it would take you to figure it out.”

My surroundings vanished into a black void, leaving Luna and I alone standing on nothingness with a light coming from nowhere in particular providing illumination. I lightly pulled at the mane I had sprouted only to find that it actually hurt to do so. I remembered the dream that started this all with Discord and how I had felt physical sensations then, too. I wondered if such tactile dreams were a side effect of them being magical in nature for the inhabitants of Equestria. Then I wondered what the hell I was doing questioning the nature of dreams when I had one of the rulers of Equestria in front of me.

“Princess! You have to help me! Queen Chrysalis-”

“Has opened up a portal to your home world of Earth, abducted your friends and family, and is expanding further into the human world with every passing moment with the intention of using humanity as a source of love to power her war against all of ponykind.”

I blinked dumbly at what she had just done. Seriously, that was some Pinkie Pie in Equestria Girls level stuff she just pulled off.

“How did you...?”

“The same way I knew your name was Visage.”

“You...can read my mind?

Luna face-hoofed. “No, you moron, I am your mind, or at least part of it anyway. I’m just a figment of your imagination. I’m a dream, dummy.”

“I didn’t realize I was so keen on insulting myself.” My face twisted with distaste.

“You obviously haven’t been paying much attention to your inner dialogue lately,” The Luna faced representation of my inner psyche said sourly, “and if you just let Chrysalis win now, you’ll have earned everything we’ve said.”

“What am I-“ Luna shushed me by shoving a hoof into my mouth.

“Just shut up, and think before you say something for once.”

I did not appreciate how abusive my inner psyche was to me, but I did as she said. I didn’t know what it was going to accomplish, but I sat there thinking as I stared at the dark, blue alicorn. Then I realized just what she was getting at.

My Luna self grinned in response to my revelation.

____________________________________

I woke up very suddenly, vaulting into a sitting position on the bed. I knew what I had to do. Well, not exactly, but I had a general idea about what I had to do. My mind raced as I tried to fill in the details of my plan, but it was suddenly snagged by one small realization.

I had just had a sex dream about giving a blowjob to a changeling that hated me and I had enjoyed it. A quick inspection under the covers and I confirmed that it was definitely enjoyed. I really didn’t need my body reminding me about my altered sexuality when I had more important things to deal with. I decided that a quick, cold shower to cool me off would be in order before I continued.

As I stepped out of the shower, which had been only partly successful in distracting me from the awkward feelings my dream had instilled in me, I ran nearly face first into Dryma. Apparently he spent his spare time just standing on the other side of shower curtains while girls were washing themselves.

“Jesus Christ!” I shouted as I fell back into the tub with a loud crash.

“Chance! Are you okay?”

Dryma reached over the tub’s edge to help me up, but I waved him off irritably. I realized that in my position lying on my back that a rather intimate area was very much exposed to him. I momentarily imagined him following me into the tub and taking advantage of my prone position and felt a growing burning sensation in my loins. With a blush warming my cheeks, I hastily repositioned myself. I’d read enough bad clop fics to guess why I was suddenly so preoccupied with sex. I hoped to any deity willing to listen that I was wrong, but I suspected I was going into heat.

“I’d have been fine if you didn’t surprise me like that.” I growled in multi-faceted frustration as I crawled out of the tub, deliberately avoiding looking at the suddenly rather appealing changeling stallion in front of me.

“Sorry, Princess.” He said stiffly, as if he were nervous over offending royalty. Or maybe I was emitting pheromones that caused said stiffness. I really needed to stop thinking about stiffness in association with Dryma.

“I told you to stop calling me that.” I continued leveling my death glare at him, then I briefly wondered if that was actually a thing I could learn with my magic. I’d probably end up guilty of genocide and feel terrible afterwards, but it would be really satisfying in the moment. Almost as satisfying as....No! Bad Chance! Stop thinking about it!

“Sorry, it’s a habit.”

I let out a frustrated sigh and turned to face him. “It’s okay, I’m just a little worked up. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. Anyway, I’m here to give you some love.” A slight bit of nervousness was still present in his voice.

“Pardon?” My voice cracked at his phrasing. Dryma fidgeted somewhat nervously and was quick to elaborate.

“The others won’t let you leave to feed until you can disguise yourself as a human, so I went out last night and collected love for you.” He explained. It made sense, I supposed, but I felt uneasy about the arrangement.

“You didn’t hurt anyone, did you?” I waited until Dryma shook his head in answer. “Well, okay then. I’m not really feeling hungry right now, though.”

“You are my...you are important to me.” He stumbled a moment, no doubt having been about to call me Princess or Queen again. At least he was learning. “I think it only proper to ensure you eat well.”

I thought back to how much I had enjoyed my times feeding off of Nutcase. I couldn’t do that now, but here was a changeling offering to give it to me himself. It was very tempting, even if I hadn’t begun to feel the coldness I could now associate with hunger yet.

“Okay. How do we do this?”

“Just relax, I’ll do everything.”

I watched with curiosity as Dryma bowed his head and closed his eyes in concentration. His horn lit up as he began channeling his magic and a twisting tendril of green and purple energy arced from his horn to mine. My mind exploded with the pleasing sensation of having love channeled directly into it. My body began to twitch from the power I was being pumped with, and I found myself suppressing the urge to moan with pleasure.

As quickly as it had begun, Dryma cut off the spell and I was left panting heavily. I felt tremendous. I was left feeling very powerful with all that excess love swirling within me, and a little embarrassed at the nearly perverse pleasure I had gained from it that left me aching for more. It took way more effort than I like admitting to not drag that hunk of a stallion into the tub with me and ravish him.

“That was intense.” I said through gasps for breath. “It reminds me of what Pupa did in my dream last night.” I clamped my mouth shut and blushed furiously when I realized what I had just said. Dryma tilted his head at me curiously, but said nothing. I was incredibly thankful for his tact.

I cleared my throat, deciding that the best way to distract from the current awkwardness was to change the subject.

“Can you teach me how to transform into a human?”

“Of course, that’s one of the duties I was assigned.”

“I’d like to start right now.”

___________________________________

It had taken four days for me to learn how to transform properly into a human. Dryma was very willing to praise me for accomplishing it in such a short time frame. The training had been rather intensive at my own insistence and at his included some basic magical combat training. I had worked myself into near exhaustion each day, at least in part hopeful of distracting myself from the swirling mass of hormones and the frustratingly reoccurring dreams I’d been having of Pupa.

I had burned through a lot of love in the process of my strenuous training. Fortunately, Dryma seemed very effective at gathering love for me and managed to keep me very well fed. Unfortunately, the process still felt very awkward. While the pleasure that came with it wasn’t technically sexual since it involved a completely different part of my body, or so I kept telling myself, it was certainly comparable. I had taken to referring to them as my mind-gasms, mostly because love-gasm sounded too much like the thing I was trying to differentiate it from.

My current disguise was that of a male human. I was taller, thinner and more muscular than my human self had been, and I had completely changed my hair, eyes, and pretty well every other major bodily feature. The best part was that being transformed into a man somewhat lessened my heat related urges, though not nearly as much as I would have hoped. I couldn’t always stay in human form either, and having spent the last several days steadfastly denying my urges had left me rather irritable regardless of my form.

I was a damned attractive man in my opinion. I told myself that I chose this form because it was only natural for a person to make themselves look better than they actually were if they could shape shift. The reality, I knew, was because I could only ever think about my rotting corpse if I looked like my original self.

I was a human among humans for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. It was an oddly foreign feeling. I was as close to being normal as I could have asked and yet I felt like an impostor among my own people. I had probably spent too much time as a changeling to ever feel normal again.

I was standing outside of a police station in a jacket I had borrowed from the apartment building to ward against the chilly fall weather. Drymanid was disguised as a pretty, young girl that spent much of the time latched to my arm, a very enjoyable, if embarrassing, experience. He had refused to let me go anywhere without him around to protect me.

The plan was to go in and make a fuss about the changelings invading the city and see where that took me. I glanced about and searched for the spies that I had learned were following me at all times. It was how they had known about the email I sent to Ricky. I couldn’t see them, but that didn’t mean anything, even the most insignificant fly could be one of them if they were really good at transformation. I had been sorely tempted to carry around a flyswatter when I had learned of it, though I had decided that murdering them wouldn’t be such a good idea.

With a deep breath, I walked into the station.

“Excuse me! I have an announcement to make!” I shouted over the throng of people.

Dryma looked at me oddly. He didn’t know what my plan was, I hadn’t told him anything because I didn’t want the other changelings to overhear. A few of the officers inside looked my way, but I was mostly ignored. That wouldn’t do, so I channeled a bit of magic into my voice.

“HEY, LISTEN UP!” I gave a magically amplified shout. It did the job of finally getting the attention of all those present, and about damn time too. “Earth is being invaded by a race of love sucking, insect like, equine shapeshifters!”

Reactions were mixed. Some stared at me as if I were a madman, some looked worried, others were annoyed, while a few chuckled at my declaration. While a part of me couldn’t blame them considering how ridiculous it felt to actually say that aloud, most of me just felt annoyed. I bet Chrysalis never had to worry about being taken seriously. One of the chucklers approached me, his mirth radiating off of him.

“That’s a good one. The changelings are invading! Is Sombra going to pop out and start ranting about crystals too?” He put an arm around my shoulders in an effort to lead me away. Dryma made a move to get him away from me, but I waved my loyal soldier off. If anybody was going to toss this personal space infringing idiot about like a rag doll it was me. Err... what I meant was that we couldn’t afford to get in trouble right now by assaulting him. Unfortunately.

“I’m serious. The changelings are taking humans prisoner and using them as a source of love so they can fight a war against Equestria.” The officer raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, you’ve got the joke across, you can stop now. It isn’t that funny.” He tried harder to lead me away, but I refused to move.

“I can prove it.” Oh how I wanted to prove it by dangling him off the side of a bridge, a thread of magic all that’s between him and a long fall, that’d teach him to treat me so lightly. But I couldn’t do that, so I swallowed my anger and attempted to maintain a neutral expression.

The officer looked at me like I had gone insane. “And how do you-“

“Jenkins! Get back to work, I’ll handle this.” Another officer, presumably somebody with some measure of authority, interrupted him.

“Yes, sir.” Jenkins hurried off and I was left facing a tall, robust man with graying hair. Notably, I could not detect any emotions from him whatsoever.

“Let’s go to my office and we can discuss this evidence of yours.”

I nodded and obediently followed. Dryma started coming with me, but he was halted by the officer. “Not you. Just him.” Dryma glared at both of us, but stayed behind with his arms crossed and eyebrows set in irritation. The officer I followed barely waited for the office door to close before dropping his facade.

“You really need to do something about your heat, princess. It’s making you do stupid things. Why don’t you take your pet home and have him deal with it? Or are you here because you want a real stallion instead?” He leered at me with a smug grin.

He mocked me! How dare he mock me? Forget that fool, Jenkins, I wanted to drop this man off a cliff, preferably after tearing off his wings.

“Touch me and I’ll toss you through that wall.”

He let out a deep, belly laugh at my threat. “You talk big, princess, but you can’t do anything. We control two thirds of the police in this building. If you did attack you wouldn’t get very far, and the rest of the humans here would be taken for harvesting.”

I frowned at this bit of news. I had expected some infiltration, but not this much. I didn’t doubt that he would follow through on his threat too by removing the few human police left if I did cause a scene here. I probably should have gone to a station further away from the apartment building.

“Fine,” I growled, “you win. I’ll go.”

“Just keep in mind that we can always find more of your friends and family, so don't try this again.”

I deliberately paled at his threat. Acting was so much easier when you could force bodily reactions with a little bit of magic. I hunched over in mock defeat and gave a sigh.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll see myself out.”

Upon achieving a relatively safe distance from the police station, a furious Drymanid confronted me. “What were you thinking!? Are you insane?!”

The way he shouted at me in his disguise reminded me of my last girlfriend. Admittedly, the shouting was the reason I eventually left her, among other things, but right now this display of power was having a rather different effect than usual. Perhaps I really should take him back to the apartment and....no! Bad hormone addled brain! With lust beaten back into submission, smouldering rage took its place again.

“Don’t. Question. Me.” I demanded. A quizzical look flashed on Dryma’s face, but was gone as quickly as it had come.

“Yes, Princess.”

I shut my eyes tight and rubbed my temples. I shouldn’t have been so angry at Dryma, he was my ally and the only friend I wasn’t forbidden to see.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been frustrated lately because of...” I indicated my body. “You know.”

“Yes.” He confirmed. He was always so understanding....maybe I should tell him what I’m trying to do, at least some of it.

“I can’t just let them invade my home. I have to do something. What I tried didn’t work, but that’s because they’d already replaced most of the police there. They didn’t really feel threatened. I need something bigger.”

“If you say so, Princess.” He responded with a neutral expression.

A young man wearing a hockey jersey walked by us and suddenly I had a pretty good idea of where I could find something bigger.

____________________________________

Several hours later found Dryma and I at the city’s hockey arena. People milled about around us in droves, their combined emotions washed over us like the ocean tide. There was no way that the changelings had taken over this many people, they’d have had to have a full scale invasion to even come close.

“Are you sure about this?” Dryma, still in his human form, asked me nervously. There was no way he didn’t know what I was going to do this time, and he had periodically tried to talk me out of it since I told him we’d be coming to such a big event.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Before I could even take another step, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see who it was and was faced with a police officer whose emotions I could not read.

“You’re a little early.” I stated evenly.

“Did you really think we’d let you try that twice? The changeling cop asked as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

“I had hoped.” I waved off Drymanid before he had the opportunity to earn a charge of assaulting a police officer.

That’s what I wanted to do.

Without warning, I let loose a week’s worth of bottled aggression by blasting the officer with a very loud, flashy magical burst. His eyes widened to the size of saucers just as he was struck and sent flying several meters back, knocking over a few people along the way. I reveled in the sudden burst of fear he gave out as his emotional barriers failed just before he fell unconscious and turned back into a changeling.

Fear. So much fear. The mishmash of emotions that the crowd had emanated before became a concentrated mass of shock and terror. Screams filled the air as panic descended on them, many of those not close enough to have seen what happened likely feared that a bomb had gone off. A couple of the braver witnesses brought out their phone cameras to record what was happening and I could see a news crew nearby turning from their report on the upcoming hockey game to us. Perfect. It was time to give the world something to watch.

“Turn back.” I ordered Drymanid.

In rapid succession, we both went up in geysers of green flame. Some of the people with the camera phones began to run as well. That wouldn’t do at all. I snatched one of them, a young man with a Mohawk, with my magic and held him immobile in the air above the crowds where all would be able to see. I glanced at the news crew to ensure they were still recording me.

“Hear this, humans! Your days as the dominant species are numbered! The changelings have arrived and you will bow before your new masters!”

“Princess!” My attention turned to Drymanid as I dropped the Mohawk man. “We have company!”

Several police officers had surrounded us during my little speech. All those that had remained behind with a camera were being carted off by a few of their numbers, including the news crew. Mister Mohawk was snatched from the air and taken too. I should have expected that they wouldn’t send only one changeling to stop me. Hopefully some of the guys who ran away had enough footage to convince people.

“Stand down, Visage!” One of the changeling officers demanded. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

There were at least ten of them, and no doubt they were all combat trained. I wouldn’t stand a chance if I tried to fight them. Then again, I was the Queen’s daughter. Even if I was banished, I doubted they would be willing to cause me permanent harm, and I still had a lot of frustration to work out.

With that conclusion made, I rushed straight for one of their number, horn glowing and my fangs bared menacingly. Before my foe could react, I had blasted him off his feet, leaped over him and kept running away from them. The longer I could delay being captured, the more people that would see me and the greater chance that people would actually believe that changelings had invaded.

Within moments of breaking past that one officer, I found myself facing another a short distance behind him. Unlike the first, he had considerably more time to react. His forehead glowed green and I was suddenly levitated into the air. I tried to use the counter spell that Drymanid had been teaching me, but he had a very solid grip on me, and I hadn’t exactly mastered the spell yet.

He sneered at me as he stepped closer, but that sneer mutated into panic as his attention was drawn by a loud buzzing above and behind me. Drymanid, straightened out like a javelin, dive bombed into the officer hooves first from the air above me. The magical field holding me in place died as the man was sent hurtling several meters and turned back into a changeling.

“Run!” Drymanid shrieked at me.

I did as he demanded and bolted. The crowds of people had thinned dramatically. It made sense, I supposed, why would people stay at the location of what may very well be a terrorist attack? I ran through the doors of the arena building, ignoring the shouts of surprise from the crowds of people who apparently either hadn’t heard what was going on outside, or were hiding inside from said goings on. I rushed into the nearest bathroom where I disguised myself as a human. I slipped out of the bathroom, pretending to be chased out by the creature that had just gone in, and tried to blend in with the people around me. This plan wasn’t going as well as I had hoped, and it was about to get worse.

“Visage!"

My name was accentuated with a gunshot, causing screams to fill the air. Warnings not to run were shouted over the throng of noise. I dropped my emotional shielding so as to not give myself away too easily and turned with several others in the crowd to face the one who had shouted.

Standing by the entrance were several people who were definitely not cops. They were dressed as offensively stereotypical Middle Eastern types, the sort of thing you’d imagine were you to think of Muslim extremist terrorists. The news crew was also there and was recording the entire thing, or at least they appeared to be. The telltale lack of emotions informed me very clearly that they had been replaced by changelings.

A couple of them waved their guns, presumably the same ones they would have had as police officers, at the assembled people. Another was pointing a gun directly at the head of a man they had tied up.

“We have your friend, Visage! Come with us peacefully, or we will kill him!" The one pointing the gun at who I could only assume was Drymanid shouted.

They were bluffing. They had to be. Changelings don’t kill changelings. Changelings don’t kill anybody if they could avoid it. Chrysalis and everybody else had drilled it into my head that they banished their criminals and didn’t execute them. Then a terrifying thought came to me.

But what if the changeling had already been banished?

“This is your last warning! Surrender now or his brains paint the floor!”

And what if the changeling didn't have the immunity of being the Queen's daughter?

He scanned the crowd where I stood, sweating nervously. After a few seconds, he turned his attention back to Drymanid and pushed the gun right up against his head.

“Stop! I surrender!” I stepped forward. “Just don’t hurt him!”

"Wise choice."

The one who had been speaking for them motioned for another to tie me up, and within moments I was being carted off.

_____________________________________

“You really are a fool, Princess. Did you really think that would work? With the help of your world’s official news sources, this’ll just be dismissed as human infighting.”

Drymanid and I sat undisguised in my apartment building while a burly changeling, the one who had led the group that captured us, lectured me. He was probably right too, I begrudgingly admitted to myself . A few unofficial videos cropping up may lead to a few more conspiracy nuts believing the truth, but with an official news outlet having recorded the ‘terrorists’, the world at large would just believe it was another of the sadly all too frequent terrorist attacks.

The first part of my plan may have failed, but that didn’t mean the second half of it had to.

“You stopped me this time, but I’m not going to stop until the united forces of the entire world are bearing down upon you.”

“You won’t be able to do much of anything if I have you trapped in a cocoon.” The changeling threatened.

I merely gave a mocking smile, grateful that he couldn’t actually detect my true emotions. I was nervous as all hell, this had the potential to end very badly if I had misjudged my ability to manipulate him.

“Oh? I somehow doubt that your Queen would appreciate you doing that to her daughter. If you do anything to me then Mother is going to skin you alive and feed you to whatever predators live in the desert you guys call home.”

He remained motionless for a moment, scowling at me. I didn’t need to read his emotions to see that the threat of his Queen’s wrath was affecting him. It wasn’t long before his scowl was replaced with a grin of triumph.

“Well then, we’ll just have to give you to the Queen so she can discipline you herself.”

Drymanid blanched at this, but I inwardly grinned. Soon I’d be back in Equestria where I wouldn’t have to worry about convincing people that changelings even exist. I could just walk up to any pony and warn them that the changelings are attacking my home and are planning to invade Equestria again. He was playing right into my hooves, just as I planned.

_________________________________

As I withered under the unsurprisingly furious gaze of my mother—I mean Queen Chrysalis, I came to realize that this was a dumb plan.

A really, really dumb plan.

Did I actually think that she would just let me go free to wander about and warn the princesses about the imminent invasion? Maybe I really should have taken Drymanid back to the apartment and jumped him so that I could make plans with a clear head. That my estrus was the cause of my poor planning was certainly preferable to the idea that I was just really, really stupid.

“You continue to disappoint me, almost as much as I disappoint myself.” Chrysalis pronounced after my escort finished explaining the situation. The fire left her eyes and weariness entered. She looked away from the gathering in front of her couch like throne and sighed.

“What would you have us do, your highness?”

Chrysalis waved a hoof absently. “Take her to the dungeons.” She ordered in barely more than a whisper.

“You can’t do this!” Drymanid shouted.

His words broke mother out of her rumination. She turned to face my personal guard and smiled sadly.

“You’re loyalty to my daughter is admirable. Perhaps in different circumstances...” She trailed off in thought, and then continued after shaking her head. “But no, it doesn’t matter now. For your loyal service, you are released from your duties. She has no need of a guard or teacher while she remains in my dungeons. You are free to go.”

Drymanid’s mouth hung agape, his hooves rooted to where he stood. A pair of guards trotted up to me and prodded me, no doubt intending to lead me towards my new home in a cell. Most of the changelings, however, stood in nervous anticipation of further orders from the unusually morose Queen.

“As for the rest of you, leave me. I wish to be alone.”