The train was slowing and, with a sense of fullness he had never felt before, Gel got up and walked to the colts room. "Applechaser, I am going to leave you here, you will wait all the way until your stop and then get off and go about your life." Gel began the careful process of withdrawing from the stallion, of flowing off of him and forming into his own self again.

"Are you going to hurt anypony?" Applechaser looked serious about the question.

Focusing and flowing back into the shape of Pattern, Gel was about to lie to him when it hit the changeling. "Pattern…" He whimpered and stumbled from the room and out into the train car. He was all over the place with his shape and coloring.

The memory of the queen's eyes, burning holes into his head and forcing him to think how she demanded he think, they held less and less strength.

"Will you?" Applechaser stuck his head out of the water closet.

"Not… not unless I have to." Gel wobbled as he walked, resemblance to a pony shattered by the fluid way his limbs moved. He opened the door at the back of the carriage and stepped out, landing on the ground as the train was still moving. His world was shaking and trembling, but he still had the mission planted firmly, he would find these six mares.

"Are you okay?" The voice was young, Gel looking up at a yellow-furred filly with a vivid red mane. "You don't look so good, let me get mah sister. Applejack!"

The name she called rang in Gel's head. It was one of the six and this little filly was calling her. But it wasn't just a single pony who approached the confused changeling. Six mares, two fillies and a baby dragon. "What's all the hollarin?" One tipped their hat to the filly.

Gel had to get up, he had to… all six of them at once, if he was lucky he would only manage to bring one down. "I'm alright, just… tripped." Gel almost messed up the voice but remembered he was looking like Pattern, a mare.

"Are you sure?" The purple alicorn stepped forward, the prime target of this group. Gel felt the urge to attack and couldn't stop himself. Reaching up a hoof, he held it gingerly out to the mare. To Princess Twilight Sparkle. "What's the mat-"

Twilight got no further as she reached out to help the strange pony up her hoof sank into the injured mare's. There was a tugging sensation and, with only three legs to balance Twilight was pulled off balance and forward. "Got you…" Gel beamed and reached up, pulling the struggling mare against himself and flowing over her. Her head was easiest, he reached up and pressed his fluid-self over her, blocking out sight and sound. He flowed down her body, covering legs and wings. Her poured more of himself out and covered her rump and back legs.

The pony thrashed and Gel felt strikes from the other ponies, hitting him and also the pony within him. "I have you, Twilight Sparkle, I have you and it is time to end you."

There was a sudden burst, Gel was just settling in and pushing into the mare's body when suddenly she wasn't there anymore.

"What are you?" Twilight's voice was dim, a purple sheen covering Gel's world. He had failed, she had him trapped in a bubble of force.

The changeling slumped and flowed into the drone-self he used when in the hive. "Son of Chrysalis. She sent me here to carry out her revenge!" He spoke the words, but they rang hollow to Gel. He shook his head and blinked. The last vestiges of his mother's magic flowed from him and he remembered.

He remembered everything.

"What did you do to it darling?" Rarity looked between Twilight and the suddenly formless changeling in the force bubble. A screaming, keening sound came from with in the muffled interior.

"I didn't do anything…" Twilight looked perplexed, but wasn't shocked enough to lower her guard. Or her bubble.

Fluttershy surprised them and stepped up to the bubble. "It is hurt, can't you hear the pain?" Her hoof lifted, poking at the round sphere. "Twilight, let it go. Uh, please?"

"No Fluttershy, I won't let them go until I have answers." Twilight was resolute and started carrying the trapped creature back to her castle. New as the building was, she had test equipment in there and she could probably rig something to hold this very strange changeling.

"So our trip to Canterlot is canceled?" Rainbow Dash sounded upset and a little petulant.

"You can still go, if you want." Twilight smiled to her friend. "Surely you don't need a princess escort everywhere?"

Rainbow laughed. "Of course not, and I already have my ticket!" She swooped up to the station.

"Are you sure you will be okay darling?" Rarity gestured to the bubble. "I mean, it did seem quite aggressive before."

"It looks much more subdued now. I promise, I will be careful with it." Twilight gave her friend a hug. "You go and have fun at the carnival." Her day with her friends might be canceled, but Twilight had work to do. She turned and set off for the castle.

"What do you think it is, Twilight?" Spike trotted along at her side.

"It spoke like it was one of Chrysalis' changelings, but if it is one, it is something very different." Twilight wasn't looking at the bubble but a voice came from inside it, from the pool of goop.

"She made me… made me…" What sounded like sobbing could be heard. "She loved me, why couldn't I stop myself?"

"Uh, hello?" Spike stepped up to the bubble as it bobbed along, knocking on it. "Are you a changeling?"

Twilight grinned at her number one apprentice but it seemed the thing had gone quiet again. Entering her castle, Twilight followed the rarely used stairs down into the depths, finding the little lab she had begun to set up. "Lets get a proper look at you. Okay, what was that containment field spell…" A few books floated over and she worked through them quickly.

"Gel." Gel slowly made the effort to form himself into a changeling but, halfway, thought better of it and simply settled for a copy of the stallion from the train. "Gel… Pattern." The name galvanized him.

"Oh, you can speak? Are you hurt?" Twilight had found the spell and was already working it. Half the room flashed suddenly and the alicorn forced her bubble into that half and then dispelled it. "There, you will forgive me for not letting you all the way free, I just don't trust you."

"Can you… can you cast a spell that will block changeling magic?" Gel looked up at the mare, he had flopped on the ground where she had decanted him. A sudden flash hit him. "Like the thing they used in Dodge! That must have weakened the magic."

"What are you talking about?" Twilight manifested a scroll and quill, passing both to Spike to take notes.

Gel grinned now, if nothing else he could be free of his queen. "I wasn't fitting in at the hive, not really. Chrysalis did something, made me…" Grief and anger flushed through the stallion. "Can you break any enchantments that might still be lingering… please?"

The last word was what got Twilight's attention. No changeling had ever asked that and been sincere. Truth was, a general dispel was her next planned action anyway. "Okay, but you have to do things for me, that is how we build trust."

Nodding, Gel agreed. "Okay, that is fair. What do you want?"

This was very reassuring to Twilight that she was doing the right thing, the creature offered her to go first. "You are Chrysalis', from her hive. She made you?"

"She… did. I pupated from my larval stage and rather than a solid body, delicate wings and sharp fangs I was…" Gel demonstrated, pouring himself down into a puddle. He held that way a moment before reforming. "She told me I was to be her vengeance, her revenge on all the ponies that wronged her. You were the first target." Gel didn't really care for her game of trading, but instead figured he would offer more.

Twilight nodded to this, checking that Spike was keeping up a good transcript. "Very well, hold still." The alicorn channeled her magic, working one of the grandest of magic-nulling spells. She was about to let it loose, wholesale, when she realized that this Gel might themselves be a construct of magic. Holding the spell, Twilight worked a minor spell to inspect the changeling. What she found was not magical, not in the spell-sense. She let the held spell flow out.

Gel's form quivered and shook and he felt more flashes of green eyes fade from his mind, his queen had used her trick more than once on him and now he saw all the little things that she had done or made him do, saw them revealed in the blinding flash of purple magic.

"Thank you…" Gel was on his knees at the front of the energy field holding him in. He felt whole, if a little wonky. She had made him kill and kill, telling him each time that he had wanted to do it. The odd stallion that had spent a glorious week wrapped around a mare named Pattern looked up, smiling to his benefactor. "Thank you… thank you…" His world faded to black and for the first time, truly, Gel slept.

Gel wasn't sure he liked waking up, but as things came back into focus, he pulled his puddle-self together and formed a pony out of his body.

Twilight was working on a bench, her magic working in bright flashes that almost blinded the changeling as he watched on. She eventually took off a pair of goggles and held up a jeweled collar.
"What is that?" Gel watched the mare jump a little.

"It is for you. You need to wear this, it will keep your form stable and-" Twilight was cut off.

"And keep me from doing something that I will regret, right?" Gel had both a fear and desire for the collar. If it worked as the mare said, then it would mean they could both relax. "Okay, want me to put it on?"

"No, I have to do it." Twilight drew back some of her power and the wall between then flickered and dropped. "Please hold still."

Gel did so, although he felt like he wanted to tremble. The princess' magic was tender and carefully fastened the thin collar around his neck. When the clasp was fastened it activated and latched. Gel fell to the floor as his form trembled, beyond his control. Features warped and changed and, in moments, a white furred, green maned stallion lay.

"I took the liberty of choosing a shape for you, will this be okay?" Twilight just finished gesturing to Gel when the changeling bounded up and hugged her. She had been ready for nearly anything, nearly. "Oof, hay, what's the matter?" The stallion was crying, clinging tight to Twilight. "There there, what is in the past is in the past. You didn't hurt me…" Twilight suddenly blushed, he had been in the process of doing something else, however.

The two just hugged close for a while, neither moving until Spike called out down the stairs. "Twi, lunch is ready!"

"Come on Gel, lets get some food and we can talk more. Although we might need to go see Princess Celestia." Twilight broke from the hug slowly, letting the stallion draw back as well.

"Princess… you need to warn Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, they were next in the target list!" Gel looked shocked.

"What do you mean, you aren't going to go after… oh, of course!" Twilight bopped herself on the forehead. "Spike, take a letter..."

Author's Note

Gel, you silly stallion, you should have slunk away, caught them one by one and subdued them. Now you have science-pony to deal with, and she is holding all the cards.

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