"Caballeron!" The doctor halted and looked at the rainbow-maned mare. "Scoots, run back to the castle and get Muffins!" The blue pegasus called on the storm, an otherwise clear day suddenly flooded with the thunderclouds that answered Dash's call.

"Wait!" Caballeron lifted his hooves to ward off the attack, as if they would help him against the slightly familiar mare. "I am not here to cause trouble, I was seeking your Princess." He tried to hold his ground, trust the first time he is actually helping to be when one of the craziest weather ponies he had ever seen would attack him.

Rainbow halted, lightning crashing from the previously clear sky and singing through her fur and feathers. "What?" She squinted at the arch-enemy of Daring Do. "This is some kind of scam, right?"

"No, no scam." The name of the mare came to mind with a little work. "And it is Doctor Caballeron. I found a most curious family living in your town and I think your Princess needs to know about them, could you take me to her, by chance?"

Scootaloo returned, her wings pumping hard. She was a little worried about the storm, but she had all the backup she needed. Behind the filly, Muffins and Fleur came, flying fast and galloping respectively. Both halted when they saw just a simple earth pony being faced off by Rainbow. "There he is! Attack!" Scootaloo pointed with a hoof, froze, then turned to look back at the mares who weren't attacking. "Uh…"

A princess. A princess had come for him and Caballeron knew it wasn't 'the' princess he was after. "Princess Twilight, is she nearby?"

"Uh," Muffins lifted a hoof and tapped her jaw, "she and Gel have been helping at AJ's farm. They are probably there." She then trotted over beside her wife, presenting a unified front to the potentially dangerous—harmless-looking stallion.

"I suggest we make haste, I am unaware if this is time sensitive, but it may be." Caballeron looked around, unable to see a farm.

"This way." Rainbow Dash lifted herself effortlessly into the air again, soon joined by Muffins as the two led the way. To her wife, Dash spoke just loud enough to be heard, "Can your friend keep an eye on him?"

Muffins giggled. "If he so much as looks to be doing the wrong thing, Fleur could stop him. Don't worry, I trust her." The words got a slightly wide-eyed gaze from Rainbow Dash. "Boop!" Of course Rainbow almost flew into a tree when her wife distracted her with the poke on the nose.

Please struggled and squirmed, she managed to get her plot down and out, but doing so pulled the rest of her back a little, making her form no longer line up with the joints of the shell, rendering her unable to turn her head and look. Following through, she felt her head drag a little as it pulled down and free. But she was out.

The world was still tinted blue, but not quite so much anymore. "Ugh, I feel terrible…" She tried to move a leg—while it wasn't stiff, she couldn't get it to move quite right.

"You need a little time for your carapace to harden. Until then, your muscles are just pulling on soft flesh." Slice was of two minds. Normally he would keep his victim only until the town got wise to someling drinking from them, but he liked her.

"Harden? What, like that shell?" Please tried to squirm a little more, but soon gave up. She did manage to lift a hoof up far enough to see it. Pitch black, sporting a few holes through it. "I am a changeling now?" It felt complete, there was no shell over her anymore.

Slice walked around the mare. "Of course, you thought I was lying? Congratulations on becoming one of the enemies of ponies. A predator among the weak." He flashed his big fangs, grinning wide.

Already Please could feel her body stiffening around her, and as each moment passed she could move more and more easily. Slice seemed to get bored and wander back upstairs, leaving her once more in the dark. But it wasn't really the dark. Her eyes had a slight glow to them, letting her see not only by that soft blue illumination, but also they seemed just naturally better at seeing in darkness.

Working one leg after another, Please slowly started to feel the final hardness begin. There were slight clicks and clacks as she worked newly formed joints but, at last, she rolled to her hooves and stood on them. Everything felt wrong, from how her muscles worked to how she could feel the world around her. She looked at the stairs leading up, then swept her gaze around the basement.

"I was careful, I didn't show Slice, but I did show the stallion." Please's eyes focused on the source of the voice, two blue spheres appearing in the darkness. Cuddle trotted forward, much more sure of how her body moved. "I hope he gets somepony who can help."

Please stepped forward, her legs more solid by the moment, wrapping her forelegs around the filly and hugging her. "I told you not to do that, did he get out?" The filly nodded and Please hugged her a little tighter. "Then we just have to wait, I hope."

"He was a much better liar than Slice. I don't think that mean drone even knew he was." Cuddle snuggled against the mare, happy to have someling to hug her, like her mommy did.

Anger. Pure, unbridled anger. It pulsed and washed over the pair who looked at each other in fear. "What… what is that?'

"I don't think they are happy…" Cuddle snuggled in tighter. The sound of hooves came along the floor above them.

The trapdoor burst open and light outlined Slice. "You little monster, I promised your mother I would take care of you and you do this?" He started to advance down the stairs then halted, turned, and buzzed away as quick as his wings would carry him.

"Is somepony down there?" A new head appeared at the hole and Please practically melted in relief. "Changelings? Are you the ponies that Caballeron saw?"

Cuddle nodded up, then was shocked as Please rushed up the steps on her back hooves and threw herself and the filly against the strange pony. "Muffins! Oh thank Celestia you are here."

Now in the light, Cuddle could see the mare properly. "Are you an alicorn? Please, that is the mare you described!" A great gray wing circled the two freed changelings.

"It is her, she is the nicest mare ever. Her name is Muffins." Please felt tears in her eyes, sobbing softly against the bigger mare.

"Not one of Twisty's kin then." Fleur laughed happily as she spoke. "I was afraid it was going to be, but you don't have a clue, do you?" Her hooves barely touched the ground, her form sailing gracefully above the ground. "Where are you running? You should probably stop before Rainbow Dash catches up with you."

"No! No no no!" Slice looked around, the anger her had felt directed at him before had set every nerve tingling in terror. He glanced back and saw that the white unicorn was the only pony close, the rest were back at the house. "Just leave me alone!"

"Leave you alone? You are a monster." Fleur was gaining, chasing the drone and inching up all the while. She was surprised when he took a turn, angling right for Twilight's castle.

Castles were full of servants, Slice reasoned that he could disguise as one, wrap them up somewhere, then scatter in a few days. Looking around as he galloped in the open front doors, he was shocked to see the place seemed rather empty of ponies. Spotting an open door, he flew for it, hearing speaking coming from… below?

Fleur felt the air-pressure suddenly drop and a tingle of sensation over her mane, as Rainbow Dash, flanked by two barely-seen ghost-like ponies, entered the castle beside her. "Where did it go?"

"Downstairs. Don't your… uh, vampony friends live down there?" Fleur had slowed to a trot. "The kind that tend to bite?"

The blue mare's anger wavered as she started to laugh. "This is going to be hilarious. Come on!" A purple flash revealed Twilight and Gel appearing nearby. "Twi! Gel! He ran into the basement!"

Gel snorted in surprise. "This is going to be fun to explain." He looked to Fleur and grinned. "The only exit is there," he pointed at the door, "so Dash, guard that. Anypony who comes up, try to stop 'em until you can be sure they aren't him."

Rainbow Dash saluted, her snout pulled back into a teeth-flashing grin. Fleur really hoped the pegasus wasn't quite as wild as her reputation. "Let's go!" She trotted forward, heading down the stairs.

"Did… did she just lead the charge? This isn't the Fleur I remember…" Twilight lifted a hoof up to rub her head.

"Muffins said to trust her, I trust Muffins to know." Gel started trotting after the mare, his wife soon coming after him. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he spotted a drone, at full gallop, leaving the suite that Sunset and Mademoiselle were in. Fleur Dis Lee took off after him. "Wait, that way is full of… monsters." Gel shook his head as both changeling and unicorn rushed into the special dungeon.

"Monsters?" Twilight came down and took Gel's side. "What is in there, Gel?" The look was withering, it was the irresistible force, it was a mare who wanted an answer from her stallion.

"Uh, well. You know those vines in the Everfree, that grab ponies and climb into them?" As Gel explained, Twilight nodded. "And you know those crazy enchantment things, that grab a pony with their strings, and make them dance?" Another nod. "And you know-"

"You filled it with non-lethal but slightly kinky things, then dared each other to go through it?" Twilight stared at her husband, delivering a look every bit the match of her earlier one. "Gel, if that is all, you should have told me. It sounds like fun. Is there a way to see inside?"

It took a few seconds for the stallion to establish what his wife had said, but he finally got his thoughts in order and nodded. "A room to watch, come on. It also links the finish back up to the start."

"What just happened?" Sunset stomped from her suite. "I had a changeling come rushing in, I was so shocked I think I scared him, gave him the 'rar angry' face…"

"Come with us." Twilight had given up feeling shock by this stage, and followed Gel toward a blank wall. A blank wall that took two pokes from the stallion to open into a secret room. "Okay, this is really cool. Can we get some of these doors upstairs too?"

As Fleur gave chase, she realized that this was not a normal basement, not even a normal castle dungeon. "What the…" Her horn flared and she dodged aside as a mass of tentacles tried to grab at her. "Come back here!"

Not daring to look back, Slice had to keep his hooves pumping, even blasting a few of the strange things living in the dungeon, things that looked friendly in all the wrong sorts of ways.

"You little… stop stirring them all up!" Fleur's heart was pumping, she could identify nearly half of the things she was avoiding, winging it for the rest. Coming out of a room and rounding a corner, she saw herself staring back at her. "Drop the disguise!"

The wall behind Slice opened and she risked a look behind herself. Not the best position to be in, but she had been in worse… she hoped. "Stop him! That's the changeling!" She pointed at the real mare with her hoof.

Author's Note

Fleur, you are letting your awesome show. Maybe the reason Dash does so badly in there is because she wants to be caught?

[youtube=ZnHmskwqCCQ]

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