Got Your Back

by Candy Twinkle

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Drama, Changelings, Original Character
Length: 13585

A post-apocalyptic wasteland where mere survival hinges on trust and cooperation. Not the best setting to disover that your teammate has been replaced by a changeling.

Equestria has become a post-apocalyptic wasteland terrorized by roving bands of irradiated mutants. The princesses were vaporized years ago, the sanity scourge has turned unicorns into mad raiders, and the dead don't remain peaceful for long. Even the environment fights against ponykind as rivers dry up and ashen clouds block the sun. If anypony is to survive, they stand a better chance with friends, ponies who you can trust to keep you alive when your back is turned.
Which makes it all the more horrifying when Summer Breeze discovers her comrade-in-arms has been replaced by a changeling. Desperate not to lose the one pony she trusts absolutely, she must confront his replacement in order to pinpoint his location before time runs out, but how can she trust the word of a deceiver?

Published 2017-01-29 18:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-06 05:30:35 UTC

Trust Fall

Mimic nodded nervously and Summer Breeze stepped back, satisfied. She then silently uncocked her brace pistol and began to untie the ropes with her teeth.

"No, I got it. Here." A flash of his horn, and a few seconds later the rope was neatly coiling itself on the ground. Mimic stretched happily and patted his bandaged head gingerly. "Thanks Summer. I guess I owe ya."

She nodded tersely. "You do." She then trotted outside, followed by the changeling, and began loading the cart back up. "The mutants'll probably be back here any minute, so we'd best get going and head on back to the camp.

"Hold on just a sec." Mimic quickly shimmied out of his brown vest and experimentally buzzed his now-freed wings. "Ah, it's been a while since I used these." he sighed, and before Summer could understand what was happening, a flash of green fire enveloped him. When it disappeared, the black chitin-covered pony look-alike was replaced with a sandy brown pegasus stallion with a darker mud-brown mane and a cutie mark depicting a lone palm tree with a pool of water poking out from behind it. He made a beeline for the first aid kit kept in the cart and began to apply a healing spellkit to his forehead.

"What the-" Summer blinked rapidly in... confusion? surprise? She was not sure what she felt at the moment.

Fortunately, Mimic seemed to pick up on that. "Lighter colors don't absorb as much heat. I was roasting as Dusty, and I know from experience that staying undisguised isn't better at all. It's like being a foil-wrapped potato over a fire, although it is nice not having your sweat mat up your fur." He chuckled. "Plus, the brown helps with camouflage with all the rocks and dust." Making sure the pre-enchanted rune was wedged firmly under his bandage, Mimic began hooking himself up to the cart. “Okay, ready!”

Summer hesitantly hitched herself next to him and the two trotted off, the changeling limping slightly from his injured hoof, but otherwise much better than he had been a few minutes earlier. Summer felt odd moving alongside the disguised changeling. When she would occasionally bump into his side, he felt like actual flesh and blood, when just a few moments ago he had been smooth and hard. It was disconcerting to say the least. She tried to force her mind away from how uncomfortable she felt and instead she blurted out what was foremost on her mind.

"So, you can be a pegasus too?"

"Mhm. Pegasus, earth pony, or if things got fishy, I could morph into a unicorn. Or mutant. Or Turned. Actually, pretty much anything, really."

"And you could have always been a pegasus?"

"Well, yeah."

"So we could have had a cloud fort with Buttercream! Back when it was just us three!

He nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right, but I wasn’t about to break character anytime soon back when he mentioned it.”

“But if you had changed, he might still be alive right now!”

“Hey, don’t try to pin his death on me, Dusty couldn’t fly! I was Dusty! End of story. If it makes you feel any better, you could always make your cloud fort right now.” He opened his right wing to punctuate the statement.

Summer sighed. “Let’s just get our stuff and get to the ruins. We can plan that later.”

"About that," Mimic remarked, "Are you sure you wanna go all the way back there? It's a good couple'a days away if we take the direct route through the dead zone. I thought we were gonna head south and try to meet up with that caravan?"

"That can wait. We're going to Sparklestone first."

There was a brief silence as they worked their way up a rocky outcropping, hoofsteps sounding in sync. When their path evened out again Summer glanced at Mimic.

“So, if you eat emotions, why do you eat actual food too? ‘Cause I don’t recall seeing Dusty, er, you skipping meals.”

“Yeah, I can eat, but only so nopony gets suspicious. I don’t need to, so I guess that means there’re more provisions for you now- it’ll help stretch them farther if they’re being consumed at half the rate they were. Another bonus of working with me.” He chuckled, then flicked his ears nervously. “Not that I wasted the food, I mean, I did try to eat as little as possible, hard to find or grow the stuff out here. I mean, I don’t even like pony food- it gets all over your mouth and sits there in your stomach like a lump of, of something, I mean…”

Summer watched him awkwardly attempt to blunder his way out of trouble with an inscrutable expression, absently wondering how somepony this dense had fooled her for a matter of months, then suddenly interrupted his ramblings. “You don’t act like Dusty.”

He blinked at her in confusion. “Huh? What does that have to do with canned beans?”

“It doesn’t. It was just an observation.”

He blinked again. “Well, ‘cuz I’m not Dusty. Personally, I mean. Like, when I’m undercover, it’s better if I force myself to think that I am that pony, so that I don’t slip up. Act like they would act, that kind of thing. But I’m not them, and I’d rather act like myself than somepony else if I’m not trying to fool anypony. Plus, I’m pretty relieved I don’t have to keep up the charade after months and months, so I’m a little giddy at the moment.” To himself, Mimic noted it was mostly nervousness- he definitely did not want to have Summer poking around Sparklestone, and on top of it, he did not know how drastically she would react to the events of the past day. Being able to sense her emotions had always helped him to predict her thoughts in the past, but at the moment they were swirling so chaotically that any reaction would be a viable one.

He took a deep breath and continued on with the topic. Best to convince her there was no reason to perceive him as a threat. “We are two different ponies, after all. I’m not gonna try to ask you to close your eyes and pretend I’m him, either, because that won’t keep anypony happy. Or possibly mentally stable. Have you noticed how many things can tip a pony over the edge? It’s disturbing how likely that is.”

Summer was not entirely sure what to think of Mimic. She was expecting him to continue acting like Dusty, to be Dusty except filled with lies and trickery, but that was not the case and she was unsure what to think now that her expectations had not been met. She studied his new face as he babbled on about the various threats of the eternal badlands. He looked like a complete stranger now- he was not even an earth pony anymore- and it chilled her when she thought that here was somepony that she just realized she did not even know, somepony who most likely knew everything Dusty knew about her. He had been observing her, traveling with her, and just in general living with her, and all from behind a mask. A skin. She shivered despite the heat.

And fighting alongside her.

Summer thought back to everything that had happened the past few months. True, she did not know Mimic, the real Mimic, but even if he had stifled his personality and claimed his actions were simply the actions Dusty would have done in his stead, the fact remained that he had saved her on numerous occasions, helped her get through situations she could not have on her own, and even just been a shoulder to lean on, especially in the tough days after her brother Buttercream’s death. After Pot Shot and Berry Blossom's deaths. He had said and done a lot of things that he did not need to in order to keep her going, give her hope in a tomorrow. True, he might consider himself bound to her as his food source, but Summer believed in actions speaking loudest for anypony, and Dusty Canyon had gone above and beyond the call of duty in keeping her alive. And he had never left her hanging.

She just hoped Mimic would do the same.

She knew it was a two way thing though, Sure, he could be counted on to protect her, but what was really needed was teamwork, not a one-sided protection. That was what had gotten the duo through thick and through thin, and now…

Could Summer trust herself to cooperate with him? Work together with him? With Not-Dusty? She steeled her eyes. She may be a cold killer, but she never abandoned a friend. Like it or not, she had already been working alongside him for a while and had rescued him from certain doom almost as often as he had repaid the favor (but really, who was counting?). When Mimic needed saving, she hoped she had what it took to step up and save him right back. She owed him at least one chance to prove himself, and she would force herself to think of him as her friend if need be.

As long as he was not lying to her anymore.

After scouting for intruders, the two pulled up into their campsite exhausted from the strenuous day. It was little more than a sheltered alcove tucked in the corner of some rocks, but it was easily defensible, and as such, the two had stayed there almost half a week. Summer immediately began moving their belongings from their stash hidden there to the cart, while Mimic repaired the damages it sustained and organized its contents. He then treated his head wound with their medicinal kits again, and after a brief meal on Summer's part she volunteered to take first watch for the night. The disguised changeling curled up in the small overhang and was quickly out cold, leaving Summer alone with her thoughts. She had had enough moping about Dusty for the day, she decided, so as she cleaned her gun she tried turning her mind towards different subjects.

She looked up at the sky, the sun visible for once from behind the dull grey clouds. She had once heard a legend long ago of an evil pony who wanted to plunge the world into eternal night. She wondered if that would be much worse than this perpetual day which had dawned the morning the princesses sacrificed themselves for ponykind, and had yet to end. It was years ago; she recalled Buttercream remarking that he could no longer remember what the night was like- all of his memories of a time before the apocalypse were jumbled up into a confusing blur. He had been still a colt when it had happened, but she had been older and could remember the face of the mare in the moon. Summer wondered where she was now. Maybe she was looking down on eternal night somewhere and was happy.

The long day had done nothing to help the land stabilize after the magic rip and subsequent reality bomb had ravaged it, mutating any creature that had caught the full blast and opening the floodgates for innumerable afflictions and maladies, the Turning being only one example. If nothing else, the day's constant heat had slowly seared the earth and prevented soil gone infertile from the blast from recuperating. The terms day and night now had a completely different connotation nowadays, referring to waking hours versus sleeping hours rather than environmental changes. A very thin blanket of ugly light grey clouds floated almost too high for a pegasus to reach and never seemed to dissipate despite the constant blistering heat. Summer suspected that they provided a greenhouse effect, keeping more heat trapped below than what would have been normally with the eternal day.

Whether that was true or not, the heat had destroyed what was left of Equestria, transforming it into deserts and badlands as far as anypony she had come across had gone. Plants especially suffered as the heat withered whatever had survived the initial magic wave, making food hard to come by and the air scarce. Long ago, she had come across a group of earth ponies who had set up a sort of biodome, channeling their magic to keep their small patch of vegetation lush. The thing that struck her most was the fact that it was situated at the border of a dead forest, it’s leafless tree trunks so dry and brittle that she could have splintered one with a good kick.

Food was scarce. So scarce, in fact, that she had heard rumors that unicorns had begun to eat meat. She had not noticed any signs of that when she and Du- Mimic had raided the unicorn camp, but she would not put it past them. If that were true, they would not last much longer- the only meat not horrendously infected in some way or another was… the surviving ponies.

She shuddered and pried her thoughts from the grisly topic- she really needed to stop spooking herself like that. She glanced at Mimic to discover he had shifted back into his natural form while she had been lost in her thoughts. She mentally kicked herself; if she had not noticed the bright flash of green fire, she might not have noticed an ambush approaching from the same direction either, and so with a sigh and a grumble, she packed away her gun cleaning kit and focused on her guard duty.

“Looked like you could’a used a helping hoof there, miss.”

“As if, we had it under control, thanks.”

“Oho, lookit that, too proud to offer a ‘thankee kindly for saving our lives, kind sirs.’ Them turned woulda ripped youse lot apart iffin we haddn’t showed up.”

“I said, we had it under control.”

“Don’t be such a grump, Summer. Thanks for the assist. I’m Buttercream, and this ray of sunshine is my sis, Summer Breeze.”

“Don’t go introducing yourself to random ponies, bro!”

“Ah, but if we was to be introducin’ ourselves, we wouldn’t be such strangers anymore, now would we? ‘Dey callz me Pot Shot, an’ all who hear mah name tremble at mah fierce-like reputation!”

“Well, I’ve never heard of you.”

“Ah, well ifin news got around in dese parts, you’d know Ah’m dah terror of dah Turned ‘n’ masher of mutants evvrywhere, li’l lady! And di ‘ere is mah sidekick-”

“Friend. Not sidekick. To hear you go on, you’d think you were destined to save the-”

“Burn it. Cleanse the pom-pom vinaigrette!”

“Er…”

“And this is Berry Blossom. Say hello, Berry.”

“Parakeet feathers. Everywhere the feathers spill across the sea. The kingdom waits, but the hoofball never comes. Foul!”

“Is she…”

“She’s perfectly harmless. And rarely bites. She’s real kindhearted when she’s coherent.”

“I see. Well, I’m Dusty Canyon- a pleasure to meet you all.”

“So, where’s you lot headed?”

“We’re aiming-”

“Nowhere. Nowhere at all.”

“Sis…”

“Well, issint that a happy coinkidink, we’re not going anywhere in partikkular either! Whaddaya say we team up and wander aimlessly together! As me dear mum used tah say, the more ponies ya gots, the more foes ya squash!”

“She never said that! She s-”

“Ey, I think Ah know what me own mum said, Dusty!”

“Thanks, but we’re perfectly capab-”

“We’d love to! To travel with you, that is. If you promise to keep our best interests at heart, we’ll promise to do the same. All three of us will.”

“Saw this morning morning’s minion. Dappled falcons rolling on air, to through toward, under up with.”

“Sure will, ‘specially if I get tah spend quality time with this angel ovah here. ‘Cmere darlin’, no need tah chew on dat. ‘Ere, I’ve got a lovely radish in ‘ere somewhere, much tastier den- no, ‘dat’s me machete, sweet’eart, don’t- Come back ‘ere! Yer gonna hurt yerself iffin you don’t- Oh sweet Celestia!”

“Ahem. Don’t worry, Pot Shot’s dealt with unicorns at this stage before; he knows how to keep them happy. At this point they're actually pretty simple to control.”

“Sorry, excuse us, I just need a moment to discuss this with my brother… What are you thinking, Buttercream?”

“It’s like Pot shot said, safety in numbers, sis.”

“But we don’t even know them. They look like they’d swipe our gear the first chance they get!”

“Summer, if you never trust anypony, you’re going to have a miserable life. Well, more miserable than it is already. You have to learn to give ponies the benefit of the doubt!”

“I think the sun’s getting to your head. We don’t need friends.”

“What about Berry Blossom?”

“She’s different-”

“We don’t know as much about the sanity scourge as other ponies- for all we know, the spacey stage only lasts a week before they go full on mental. We don’t know when she’d be about to turn on us. We need help to give her proper care, and knowledge that other ponies have. We can’t do this alone.”

“...I still don’t want any friends, Buttercream.”

“You won’t regret this, I promise.”

Summer Breeze was jolted awake and by the sound of a crash and leapt to her hooves, wingblades at the ready. A quick survey of the campsite revealed that Mimic had been fiddling with the cart again and merely knocked one of the burlap sacks over the side. She sighed and carefully folded her wings again. False alarm.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to wake you up.”

Summer shook her head. “I’m fine. Might as well get going though.”

“You’re good then? You sure you don’t want another hour or so?”

“No, I’m good.” She looked at Mimic, who was in the shape of the tan pegasus once again. “You’re really gonna wear that dumb hat?”

He adjusted the brim of the dented cowpony hat. “I was thinking of it- I mean, it’s pretty good for keeping sun outta your eyes, and I’ve gotten used to having something on my head. Feel kinda naked without it.”

“Suit yourself.” She tossed the sleeping mat into the cart with a snap of her head. “That everything?”

“Yup.”

“Alright then, we’d best get going. We’ve been here too long anyway.”

The two cantered of, weapons within easy grabbing distance should anything impede their progress. The first few hours passed uneventfully, neither pony sighting another living being besides themselves. They crossed a dry lakebed, stopped for Summer’s brunch atop a low mesa, and passed the remains of what might have been a town decades ago.

As they passed a stone platform half buried under sand, they came across two warped metal rods which stretched in the direction they were headed farther than the eye could see. “Train tracks.” Summer noted disinterestedly. They continued alongside them for a few minutes in silence before Mimic spoke up.

“What was it like?”

“Huh?” Summer had been calculating the distance remaining until they hit the dead zone, and was caught unawares by his question. “What was what like?”

“Equestria. Before the Apocalypse.”

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head. “My egg was laid after it had already happened. This is everything I’ve ever known. But what was it like before? I assume it was nicer.”

Summer gave a dry laugh. “Nicer? That’s an understatement. It was… peaceful. And beautiful. Nopony had to fight to survive from one day to the next. There was more food and water than you could ever imagine, and you could just buy it, with money. Bits, they were called. And everypony was so friendly. You could smile at a stranger and they would smile back. And there were so many ponies… Everypony lived in towns, all close together, a few feet between houses, that’s how close they were. And you could have a permanent home that you could always return to at the end of the day without fear that somepony else had claimed it as their own.”

She looked around at the wasteland around her, so different from the picture she was describing. A bead of sweat rolled down her face, causing her to scowl at the sun. “Even the land was different- the sky was blue instead of grey, and it wasn’t half as hot as this, probably even in the hottest parts of the world. And there was green and color everywhere. So much color…” She trailed off, thinking of the dry lakebed they had passed and wondering what it might have looked like years ago.

“And what about trains?”

She blinked. “Trains?”

Mimic nodded. “Yeah, trains. You said these were train tracks. What were those like?”

Summer thought for a moment. “I think I’ve been in one before. They were machines, big enough to hold lots of ponies, and they would take them all over Equestria, wherever the ponies wanted to go. They only could travel where their tracks were, and they went so fast… Faster than I could have flown. I remember looking out the window and seeing trees and houses passing in a blur.”

There was another brief silence. “Thanks.” Mimic solemnly bowed his head to her.

Summer nodded absently. “Yup.”

“It’s just, I know a lot of ponies don’t want to talk about it because it’s too painful or something, so I really appreci- Yargh!”

He stopped short as Summer jabbed him in the side with her wing. “Wait,” she hissed, “something’s not right.”

Mimic quickly looked around as the pair unbuckled themselves from the cart. “Nopony’s nearby- I’d be able to feel them if they were. Unless it’s the Turned.”

Ignoring him, Summer launched herself into the air and flew straight up before hovering and peering intently off into the distance. Slowly she turned in a complete circle, scanning the landscape before diving back to the ground. While she had been occupied, Mimic had taken their weapons from their spot near the front and had mounted one of their newly… acquired ones on his side. He would have tossed her her mouth-firing semi-automatic, but she waved it away.

“Two things.” she announced tersely. “First, we’re in the dead zone. We have been for at least an hour.”

Mimic’s ears stood straight up. “What? If that’s true, we should be under attack by now! Fighting for our lives and stuff.”

“Yeah, well, I remember the landmarks from when we came through before. There’s no mistaking it.”

“Well that’s… weird.” Mimic mused, then glanced up at her. “What’s the second thing?”

“There’s a group of ponies off in the distance coming this direction. I’m pretty sure they saw me.”

“Ponies or…”

“No, they were ponies. Couldn’t tell if they were unicorns or not from that far away, but they sure weren’t acting like them.” She gave the changeling a funny look. “What did you just say? You can sense nearby ponies?”

Mimic sighed and kicked at a river stone, sending it skidding across the uneven rocks in a puff of dust. “Yeah, emotions.”

This took her by surprise. “You can feel emotions?” He nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she snorted.

He looked at her in surprise. “Umm, maybe it’s because it never crossed my mind? Come on, are you really going to grill me on every facet of my being? Right in the middle of the dead zone?”

Summer Breeze narrowed her eyes and glowered at nothing in particular. “It would have been nice to know…”

“Yeah, that’s why I just told you. We haven’t exactly been bumping into any other ponies left and right, so it’s not like there’s anything else to sense.” There was a pause as Summer tried to wrap her head about the new tidbit of information. Mimic scowled. “What, not even a ‘thank you Mimic for sharing your early warning system with me’? Yikes, all you do is care about how hurt you feel and how mean it is for me to not to immediately spill everything to you whenever you feel like it. Have you ever stopped to think about what I feel? That maybe this is sort of traumatizing for me too, to be found out and ordered around as if my say no longer mattered?” He glared at her and snapped his tail angrily, ears pinned back. “What, you think that I don’t deserve respect anymore?”

“That is not what I meant- if we’re going to go over this again,I-”

Summer took a deep breath and let it out. ‘No anger’, she told herself. Yes, she might have been thinking of him as ‘the bad guy’, but she reminded herself that he had a personality and motives and opinions and feelings like anypony else, even if he was a bug-like pony pretender. “Sorry. I just, it takes me a long time to bring myself to trust ponies. I’m paranoid and not naturally… yeah. I’d been travelling with Dusty Canyon for a few years and it took me all of that time, well, not all, but a lot of it to get to where I am now. And when I do trust somepony, I take it very seriously.” She sighed. “ When Buttercream died, I… I promised him that I would at least try to be more open, to make more friends, but it’s hard. So I feel that you’ve betrayed my trust, and it’s difficult to think of you in any other light. So I’m sorry if I’m snapping at you, but I’m just trying to… to convince myself to trust you after you’ve been, oh, I don’t know, lying to me this whole time.”

“Well, I’ll just say it again: don’t expect me to apo-”

A spine-chilling screech echoed across the plain, causing the two to instantly snap their heads around, looking for the source.

“Mutants.” Summer breathed.

“They’re pretty far away, we could avoid them easily if we don’t stay here.” Despite his confident words, Mimic’s eyes were darting around scanning the landscape intently.

“Any distance is too close. Let’s get moving.”

A few moments of tense silence passed as Summer fiddled with the cart’s straps before Mimic spoke up again. “So how about we investigate those other ponies? I mean, you already said they were coming towards us. Now might be a good opportunity to trade some of the goods the unicorns ‘donated’ to us. Or maybe see if there’s any news.”

Summer hesitated, weighing the pros and cons of interacting with potential highwayponies before sighing. ”Might as well, I guess. It’s not like we can’t handle them if everything goes sour.”

The changeling nodded as he hitched himself back to the cart, but kept his side-mounted weapon on under the harness.

In the distance the moan sounded out again.

The gap between the two small groups of ponies closed quickly and silently, and soon enough Summer could make out the individual ponies in the group. Two of them were pegasi stallions- a pale purple one leading the group while the other limped along in the rear. Between them, a pink earth pony mare with a frazzled blue mane helped a small colt along, his head swathed in bandages. All three of the older ponies were loaded down with burgeoning saddlebags and there was a cautious weariness to their walk. Once they were within hailing distance it was the leading pegasus who called out first.

“We don’t want any trouble, ‘k? There’s nothing here you would want. We just have some questions.”

“Well, I can’t say we’ll know the answers.” Summer shot back. “Too bad though- we were hoping to trade some stuff.”

The two groups pulled up to each other and now that they were face to face, Summer was quite surprised by their appearances. The leader’s wings were almost completely devoid of feathers, and the wings themselves were shriveled away, pressing feebly against his stained-looking sides. The other stallion looked to be in an even worse condition: a sickly brown reached from his hooftips all the way up to his hocks and forearms before fading into his pale yellow coat. His tail was suspiciously thinned and a swath of the same brown was spread along his underbelly, but despite the obvious pain in his hoofsteps, there was still fire in his eyes. The mare was covered in long scars, but that was nothing unusual given the circumstances.

“Hmph. Trade, huh?” The lavender pegasus eyed the cart with a raised eyebrow. “You got any seeds or magic artifacts?”

“We have some spellkits, would those be okay?”

“I guess it depends on which spells they are.” the pegasus admitted. At that, Mimic detached himself and slowly made his way to the back of the cart.

Summer hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t need firepower? We’ve got more than enough weapons to offer.”

The pegasus shook his head. “Nah, we’re all set for that. Just anything that might help out with plant care.” He stuck out his hoof. “Name’s Lavender Crisp.”

“Summer eyed the proffered appendage warily before shaking it. “Summer Breeze.” she replied tersely. “Are you from one of the farm projects?”

Lavender chuckled darkly. “Well, I guess you can say that. We’re from Cloudstone City, or at least we were. Now we’re just helping out the earth pony half of it.”

Mimic poked his head out from behind the cart. “From where?”

The purple pegasus sighed. “Ah. That would explain it. Cloudstone City was something a bunch of pegasi had started years back. A place like the old Cloudsdale where-”

“We don’t need to tell them every detail of our lives, Crisp.” Summer started at the unfamiliar voice before realizing that it came from the mare who was sheltering the bandaged green colt as if a stiff breeze would knock him over. She was glaring at Summer with mistrust- a sentiment the younger mare could understand.

Lavender, however, did not seem phased by the interruption. “They should know for safety’s sake.” He turned back to Summer. “We lived in the clouds where very few mutants could reach us. There was an earth pony farm immediately below us, and in exchange for food, we’d protect them since we were in good health from the lack of threats.”

“I knew it!” Summer exclaimed in triumph. “That strategy-”

“Was a failure. Don’t ever attempt it.” Lavender cut in. “It was fine for a few years and we lasted this long with few casualties but… The clouds are poisoned.”

“What? Poisoned?”

“With no spare water, we couldn’t make any on our own, so we pulled some down from the higher layers and worked the grey out of them. We thought it would be good enough, but now the entire city is dying.” He spread one of his shriveled wings with a grimace. “It manifests itself in a bunch of different ways. My wings are useless now.” He gestured to the yellow and brown pegasus behind him. “Sun Showers’ legs are being corroded away. We’ve already lost so many, and dozens more are too weak to move. Now we’re outta the clouds just trying to help out the earth ponies since they’ve got no more protection.” He blinked as if just realizing something. “Hey! If you don’t have any other obligations, Cloudstone could use a few able bodies around! It’s a few days journey west northwest of here, in the lee of a rock formation that looks a bit like a sleeping dragon. You’d have free food in exchange for the extra firepower, which it looks like you’re in no shortage of.” He chuckled.

Summer hesitated but was spared an answer by the disguised changeling emerging from behind the cart. He had one of the smaller burlap bags with him, which he set on the ground by Summer’s hooves. “Alright, we’ve got a poison antidote, frost blast, a stack of thunderstorms and something labelled ‘starbeam’.” He picked up a gemstone shimmering with captured magic. “I have no idea what it does though.”

Summer looked at him in confusion. “We have an antidote spellkit?”

“Yeah, it’s new.”

“We’ll take them! All of that stuff there” Lavender exclaimed and reached a hoof out.

“In exchange for what?” Summer pulled the sack closer to her and narrowed her eyes at the stallion.

Lavender flicked his ears and snorted before turning to Sun Showers. “I’m just gonna take a few things outta your pack, okay?” The yellow pegasus stiffened and glared at his traveling companion, but ultimately said nothing as Lavender rifled through his saddlebag, the latter laying a small pile of goods in front of Summer.

Mimic looked it over, but as nothing caught his eye he turned his attention to the mare and the colt, leaving Summer to haggle with Lavender. He was unsure as to whether or not he should bring up the bandages bundling the colt’s head, but the mare caught his gaze before he could look away and held it challengingly.

“What are you looking at, bub?”

He hesitated once more before nodding at the colt. “Did you do that to him?”

The mare continued to hold his gaze. “So what if we did? He’s safer this way.”

“He’s really not,” Mimic protested. “Once he reaches adolescence the magic buildup will terminally-”

“Don’t you tell me what will or won’t happen!” she snapped so suddenly both Summer and Lavender glanced over in surprise. “You don’t know a thing on this subject! We’ve got doctors over at Cloudstone- actual doctors- who say there ain’t nothin’ wrong with him! Nothin’!”

“Ms. Floss,” the colt looked up at her in concern. “What did he say about the magic?”

The mare draped her foreleg around the colt’s barrel and hugged him against her. “Nothin’, sweetie. He doesn’t know anything.”

The answer apparently did not satisfy the colt, but he didn’t say anything else as Summer finished up the trade, tossing a bag into the cart before Mimic could see what they had gotten.

“Before you head off,” Lavender Crisp spoke up again, “I mentioned earlier we had some questions...”

“Well go on then.”

If the stallion was offput by Summer’s tone, he didn’t show it. “Do you know if the rumors about the Princesses are true? Are they really still alive?”

Summer let out a bitter laugh before she could stop herself. “Still alive? Still alive? Buddy if they were alive, why would the sun still be frozen in the same spot it’s been for decades? Why wouldn’t they be helping us get through this with leadership and aid and… and advice?” She scoffed. “No they’re dead, dead and gone, ‘cuz otherwise they’ve been abandoning us for all these years, which would really ruin my opinion of them.”

“Ah. Well, according to the rumors-”

“Crisp!” the mare snapped again. “We don’t need to take an hour jawing with them!”

“Oh hush, Fairy.” Lavender snorted and turned back to the duo. “Some are saying they’ve actually been dormant in some sort of suspended animation, like a hibernation down by the southern stormfront.” His eyes glimmered with something Summer hadn’t seen for a long time. “They’re saying all it’ll take is a pony to find where they’re hidden and they’ll awaken and save us!”

Summer flicked her ears, dubious. “Why wouldn’t they be at their capitol where the rift opened? Isn’t that where they were seen last, trying to stop it? ‘Cept for the fourth one, of course.”

Lavender sighed. “I’m not sure- that’s what I was hoping you could answer.”

“Oh, Well, I’m not sure about the… validity of that rumor, but would you be able to answer a question for us?” He nodded and Summer gestured around them. “Isn’t this supposed to be the middle of the dead zone? What happened?”

The stallion looked at her quizzically. “The what?”

“The dead zone! You know, this whole region we’re in right now should be a mutant hotspot. You normally can’t go a day’s travel without being jumped by a dozen of ‘em, but we haven’t seen a single one and we’ve been in it for hours.”

“Oh, you mean the swarmer nest! Well that’s an easy enough one to solve. They’ve all been migrating north these past few months. Nopony’s quite sure why.”

“Nopony’s sure? That’s a pretty vague explanation.”

Lavender shrugged. “Never said it was an explanation.”

The colt looked up with bright eyes. “Maybe they’re running from the princesses!”

“I don’t think that’s it, sweetie.” the mare cooed.

“Hm, alright then, thanks anyway.” Summer dipped her head politely towards the group, but gritted her teeth in frustration. At least half an answer was better than nothing.

And with that, the two groups of ponies began preparations to part ways. As the larger one took off, Lavender turned once more towards Summer.

“Our offer to stop by Cloudstone still stands. Just in case.”

Summer nodded slowly. “We’ll think about it.”

And with that their chance encounter was over, and the two were alone in the desert once more.

“What did you trade them for?” Mimic piped up as soon as they were out of earshot.

Summer shrugged. “Food and ammo. They didn’t have anything else worth taking.”

Mimic looked at her in confusion. “Don’t we already have a ton of that?”

Summer shrugged again. “You can never have enough. Who knows, it might be months before we see another pony again. We gotta make sure we can last that long.”

There was a pause before Summer spoke up again, deliberately changing the subject. “What was the deal with you and the mare? I didn’t catch what started your shouting competition.”

Mimic was silent for a few moments, his face unreadable, before answering. “He was a unicorn. They broke his horn off thinking that it would help slow the sanity scourge, but it won’t. It’ll just speed it up, but they love him enough that they’ve convinced themselves that he’ll be fine.”

Summer nodded- she already knew about the dangers of destroying a unicorn's horn- it was the reason she had left Mimic’s alone when she had first realized what he was. Thinking any unicorn could be saved was foalishness; the madness always claimed them in the end no matter what anypony did.

Mimic didn’t offer any additional information, so Summer found her mind wandering, thinking about the group of refugees. It was interesting, seeing them talk about the princesses. They had something that she almost couldn’t remember experiencing, something rarer than seeds or healthy foals.

Yes, it had been a long while since she last saw anypony with hope.

Author's Note

Phew! Lotta new characters in this chapter. In case there was any confusion Pot Shot was Dusty Canyon's earth pony friend, Fairy Floss miiight be related to the pies somehow, and Berry Blossom was a unicorn who had been traveling with SB and her bro. After she finally went mad, she ended up attacking everyone in a frenzy and throwing herself off a cliff, and is sort of the reason Summer is so against magic. Well, besides the obvious, I mean. But yeah, her backstory isn't gonna show up in the future, so I might as well add it in here. Hope you liked ch 2- the last one is coming up soon!

Suspicion in the Wasteland

“Wooo-Hooo!”

Two ponies thundered across the hard, dry earth, both hitched to a dilapidated wooden cart piled high with swaying crates and burlap bags stuffed with oddly-shaped items. The stallion who had just shouted was a navy blue earth pony with the round scope symbol as a cutie mark and had both a tattered stetson jammed onto his head and a brown vest covering his barrel. The female, a teal pegasus by the name of Summer Breeze, turned her head to grin at him, but her eyes widened at something behind him.

“Incoming! Another group on the right!” She shouted. As one, the pair swerved to the left as a small herd of unicorns crested a ridge, galloping after them at full tilt and shouting intelligible war cries. Two of them stopped at the hilltop and unslung rifles from their back, firing magic slugs at the retreating cart. Most ricocheted off the ground, but one hit the back corner of the cart, the decay spell woven into the pellet creeping over the already fragile wood and turning it to dust.

A clatter caused the earth pony to glance behind him and gasp. “We’re losing supplies!”

“Well then, fix that, Dusty!" Summer shouted over the noise of the protesting cart and furious mob.

Dusty Canyon nodded, and after jerking his head around and gripping his harness in his teeth, he detached himself from the cart, let it pass him, and leaped through the hole in the back. Summer grunted at the increased weight, but hardly slowed as Dusty began shifting crates to block the hole. Once satisfied with his work, he risked a glance back at the angry mob.

"Argh, they're setting up a beacon!"

A small group had splintered from the rest of the unicorns and stopped in their pursuit while sickly-looking tendrils of magic began to pulse from their crusted horns, lacing together to form a bubble of light around them. Dusty pulled an automatic from the small pile of munitions clattering around in the cart, and without checking to make sure it was loaded, he leveled it at the group by resting it on the wall of the jerking cart. The gun was designed for use mounted on a pony's side and fired by a pegasus’ wings, so while steadying it with his muzzle and one hoof, he used the other to depress the trigger. Not quite the sniper gun he needed for the situation, but it would do. After squinting down the barrel for a moment, he fired, and one of the unicorns collapsed with a cry, the sphere wavering before disappearing in the smoke kicked up by the bullet’s spell. Not taking any chances, Dusty emptied the rest of the clip into the spot where they had been standing before checking the status of their pursuers.

It was not looking good for the duo- the cart was traveling at a slower pace now that Summer was pulling it alone, and the mob was gaining on them. A few at the head of the herd were in range for their magic bolts, and Dusty could spot the telltale rust-colored gleam of spells being prepped in the billows of dust trailing the cart.

Suddenly, the cart jerked sideways, cracking Dusty’s head against the side. “What the- Summer, watch out!” he shouted. A lone unicorn, mane cropped close to its scalp and decked out in more piercings and war paint than was ever necessary had teleported directly into their path, and the pegasus swerving to avoid it was what had jerked the cart. However, in doing so, she had set their course directly towards the edge of a gorge.

“Turn right!”

She veered again, but Dusty was distracted by an ominous thump, followed by a scrabbling noise coming from the side of the cart. He grabbed a hatchet in his teeth right before the same unicorn pulled itself over the edge of the cart, brandishing a wicked-looking knife in its patchy copper magic. The cart was much too small for any kind of hoof-to-hoof combat, so before the grinning unicorn could gather itself, Dusty pivoted around and slammed a buck right in its face, sending it tumbling off its perch. Pain exploded in his head, and he fell to his knees with a cry. Through his blurring vision, he could vaguely make out the bloodied knife lying at his hooves as more and more crimson spots sprayed the wood around him. Summer was shouting something that he could not make out, and when he heaved his head over the railing, the pack of bloodthirsty unicorns seemed almost close enough to touch.

It was at that moment that one of the weapons sliding back and forth across the cart bottom caught his eye. Struggling to concentrate, he dumped an ammo bag and scrabbled through its contents until he found a bright orange bullet, which he promptly smashed against the fuses of the dynamite pack. Instantly, the fire spell ignited them, scorching his hoof in the process, but at this point, additional pain hardly made a difference. He felt the cart change course yet again, but ignored it, hefting the whole pack and eying the angry herd. Timing was critical. He ignored the concussive blasts that were peppering the swaying cart and flicked his eyes back and forth from the fuse to the unicorns. At the last possible second, he chucked it where the bodies were thickest (which, unfortunately, was directly behind the cart) and it immediately exploded. He felt a thrill of exhilaration, followed by a massive jolt, a crunching noise, and then darkness.

One minute earlier...

Summer Breeze swerved past the teleported unicorn and thundered on, parallel to the gorge. She threw her head, flicking her dull yellow mane out of her eyes and tried to focus her jumpy thoughts on the rhythmic thumping of her necklace bouncing against her chest. She would never admit it, but she did not know how much longer she could keep this up without help. Her legs felt like they were on fire, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. She was beginning to regret not having Dusty pull the cart instead- those blasted earth ponies had what it took for mad dashes like this.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she heard a smack followed by her friend’s voice crying out in pain. “Hold on, we’re- Augh!” A unicorn mare had pulled up alongside her, and after flashing her a wicked-looking smile, had rammed her side. Summer gritted her teeth and glanced around, desperately trying to think of something. She trusted Dusty to keep their pursuers off her back, but if they were this close, there was not much he could do that would stack the odds in their favor. There was nothing though. Before her was still a solid five miles to their camp, to her left was the gorge, the unicorn to the right, no doubt trying to push her into the aforementioned gorge to retrieve their supplies after her expiration, and behind her…

Summer glanced to her left. The gorge! It was risky, but not half as risky as what they had done earlier that day. And it was better than being run down by crazed raiders by far.

“Dusty!” she shouted, while giving the unicorn a shove back, and a headbutt for good measure. “I’m jumping the cliff! Sit tight!” If he screeched something about the insanity of her plan she did not hear it, and she angled their path dead at the gorge. She stretched out her wings and began pumping them in beat with her stride, straining to pick up speed as all her muscles screamed at her to stop. The seconds ticked by slowly as she drew nearer and nearer, and then finally threw herself into the air with all her strength. At that very moment, an explosion erupted immediately behind the cart, propelling it even further than it would have flown under her strength alone.

“Whooooooo!” She whooped, pumping her wings as hard as they would go, and straining against the load. She aimed up at a steep angle, and managed to keep the cart airborne for a solid few seconds, but gravity eventually took over and dragged them down. She panicked, but refused to give up. Flapping furiously, she fought for every inch of progress, but ultimately felt the inevitable jolt of the cart making contact with the ground… on the far side of the gorge.

She risked a glance behind her without breaking her stride, and despite the cart blocking most of her vision, she could make out the unicorn’s side crumbling down in a rockslide, no doubt due to the explosion. The unicorns not caught in the blast were crying out in panic as the ground beneath their hooves crumbled and carried them down into the abyss. One tried to teleport out, but his magic backfired on him, the implosion further adding to the rockslide. Well, that would certainly take care of their unicorn problem.

“Yeah! I think we’re… Dusty?” She checked again; he was not in the cart! “Dusty!” She started to loop back towards the gorge, but a groan from the back stopped her. He must have crouched behind one of the crates, out of her field of vision.

“You okay?” No answer. Summer put two and two together and figured the close proximity of the explosion must have knocked him out. She rolled her eyes. Wimp.

Laugh as she might, she knew how dangerous any sort of injury was to survival, and altered her course towards a rocky outcropping squatting in the distance. Mutants tended to avoid flat land, but she figured all the ones that might have claimed the rocks as their own would be drawn towards the action by the gorge, especially if the unicorns had succeeded in setting up the summoning beacon. She snorted; one problem at a time. Cautiously, she circled around to the rock formations furthest from the gorge and made her way through the cover until she found a cave. This would do for now.

She unhitched herself from the cart and stretched, panting. She was covered in a lather of sweat and dust, but at the moment, she was just relieved they had pulled it off without dying. The duo had found the unicorn raiders' encampment, and after scouting it out for a day, they blitzed in and swiped as many supplies as they could. It had started out as just food, munitions, spellkits, first aid sets, clothing and/or blankets; the usual, that is, until Dusty Canyon had caught sight of the leader. Or rather, his hat. Still sore after the last Turned had mistaken his battered fedora for his cranium and had chewed it beyond all recognition, Dusty refused to leave without the cowpony hat that was perched atop the lead raider’s horn. Consequently, nicking the hat clean off the boss had cost them their stealth and alerted the entire band to their presence, and the two were forced to shoot their way out of the ramshackle base and begin their mad dash for freedom. Hopefully the raiders would forget about them in a day or two- unicorns tended to have short memory spans. Summer remembered hearing that before the sanity scourge, unicorns were known for being the most intelligent of the three pony races. Looking at one now, she could not see it; the magic plague had affected them too deeply to give any inkling of what they had once been. As far as the survivors were concerned, there were two pony races: the earth ponies and pegasi. The unicorns were lumped together in the giant category of wasteland threats which could not be receptive to reasoning.

Summer grinned. At any rate, they had enough supplies to last them for months, which might as well be an eternity in these parts. Now all that was left was to patch up the earth pony and head back to their own camp with their new loot. A rusted brace-pistol clattered from the cart and immediately snapped in half. Well, relatively new loot, anyway.

Summer Breeze hopped up into the cart and took stock of their situation. Surprisingly, it looked like not much was lost in the explosion. She pushed a large crate out of her way and instantly jumped to the air with a cry of surprise. She hovered for a few seconds, heart racing before she realized that she was not, in fact, looking at a Turned. Cautiously, she landed, grabbing the broken brace-pistol and slipping it onto her forelimb before flying back above the cart. The whatever-it-was was wearing Dusty's vest, and a quick check confirmed that it was the only creature in the cart. Was it... Dusty? She peered closer. Had the unicorns cursed him somehow? He was completely black, with holes in all four of his legs, two traits which had caused her to think he was a Turned, but there the similarities ended. He was not decaying, and under the grime he looked almost shiny, as if he had no fur. His mane and tail were not made of hair, but as far as she could tell, they were some sort of... fin. Most startling of all was the appearance of a horn smack in the middle of his forehead. She would have to be cautious- if this really was Dusty, she would have to grill him on what had happened as soon as he woke up, and they would have to break the curse as soon as possible before the sanity scourge set in- she did not want to risk losing her friend to the madness.

Cautiously, she landed next to him and shook him gently. She stiffened- his skin was hard, as if he were made of metal instead of flesh and bone. "Dusty?" She asked quietly- if there really were mutants around, she did not want unnecessary noise to attract them. "Dusty, are you okay?"

He did not respond, but her shifting him had tilted his head towards her, and she inhaled sharply at the long gash that ran from his left ear down to his eye. It looked like it had cracked the outer... shell, and what she assumed was strangely colored blood was covering the side of his face.

She sighed, pulled his head and forelimbs over her back, and carried him over to the small cave. He was extremely light- yet another factor which added a few extra butterflies to her stomach. She gingerly laid him onto the stone floor and tried to brush away a piece of trash that had wedged itself under the back of his vest, but it would not come out. And then it twitched.

Summer blinked and shuffled around Dusty to get a better view. Were those... wings? She flicked them with her hoof and they twitched again- they felt papery and thin, too thin to support a pony in the air, unless they flapped them as fast as an insect. Come to think of it, they did look remarkably like bug wings... Bug... Bug pony...

Suddenly everything clicked together. A black carapace, hole-filled legs, both horn and wings... Summer remembered an old legend she overheard Berry Blossom rambling about in her final days before the old nag snapped- the myth of the changelings.

Summer jumped away and began pacing outside the entrance to the cave, nervously fiddling with her polished stone necklace. She did not blame herself for not realizing it sooner- in all her years adrift, she had never had to face a changeling, and so they had taken a low priority to much bigger, very real threats of insane unicorns or the wandering dead. She struggled to remember as much as possible about them. They could look like anypony, that much was the main nugget of lore that always came with the legend, but there was something else about them- did they not eat? No, they ate an emotion or something. The exact one was eluding her grasp at the moment. No matter, the important issue was that a changeling had replaced Dusty Canyon.

Summer Breeze grabbed a coil of rope from the wagon and immediately hog-tied the changeling's legs and wings. She eyed the horn warily before deciding that breaking it would be too risky and left it as it was. Once satisfied that the changeling could not escape, she returned to the cart and proceeded to arm herself. She swapped the broken brace-pistol for a working one, and adjusted the grip. Brace-pistols had a opening at one end which slid over a pony's foreleg like a gauntlet. Once the safety was disengaged by the presence of the hoof, all that was needed was for the pony to bend their leg and the pistol would discharge. This made walking extremely difficult, and as a result, they were not almost never used by earth ponies. Summer preferred them to wing or mouth-triggered guns, however, and slung a few packs of ammunition toward the cave to load once she was finished. While making preparations, she took the opportunity to adjust the harness for her wing blades- a set of daggers carefully concealed behind her feathers and arranged so they moved in sync with her wings without harming her. They were highly effective in any close combat situation, although she usually emerged from fights with a few feathers sliced off.

A roll of gauze fell from a crate as she rummaged through it in search of more firepower, causing her to pause. Should she bandage up the changeling? He would not last long without medical treatment, that much was sure, but why should she help him? He most likely attacked Dusty Canyon, maybe one night while he was keeping guard, and impersonated him, playing her for a fool, betraying her trust, most likely aiming to stab her in the back the moment she dropped her guard, making her think all was well while her best friend- well, at this point her only friend- was lying out there, injured or dead for all she knew. Come to think of it, how recently could he have been replaced? Maybe it was just now, when they raided the raiders. Maybe he had thrown Dusty to the unicorns from the back of the cart, but had been overpowered before he could don his disguise. If so, should she head back to the gorge right now and look for him? She would have to do it sooner rather than later if he did get caught in the rockslide and needed help: the canyon would be swarming with mutants soon. However, she could not leave the changeling unguarded; best to wait until he woke up and steered her in the right direction first.

Maybe it had been yesterday when they were scouting the encampment, or maybe she had never known Dusty Canyon in the first place. What if the Dusty she had met with Pot Shot and Buttercream had already been a changeling?

She entered the cave and stood across from the unconscious form of the changeling, examining him while she loaded her weapon. His wound did look pretty bad... With a growl, she kicked the roll of gauze over towards him. He could treat himself, preferably after she pried Dusty's location out of him. There was no way she would lift a hoof to help the betrayer. Pistol primed, she aimed it at him and waited for him to awaken, steeling herself for the confrontation that was to come.

Dusty awoke slowly, floating in and out of sleep until he eventually moved his head and a sharp throb of pain woke him for real. He groaned and tried to pull himself to a sitting position, but something felt off. He was vaguely aware of Summer's nervousness and anger nearby and he groggily cracked open his eyes to find himself muzzle to muzzle with a gun, a gun pointed at him by Summer Breeze.

He blinked slowly, not comprehending. "Huh? W'appened?"

"Alright changeling, game's up" she snapped tensely. "What did you do with Dusty Canyon."

Instantly, 'Dusty' sat up straight, his eyes wide, fully awake now. A quick glance down at his front hooves confirmed that his disguise was indeed compromised, and he could feel the adrenaline kicking in as his heart started racing. 'Stay calm,' he told himself, 'you knew this might happen, just don't lose your cool'.

He tugged at the ropes binding his hooves together and winced. "Can we go through this later?" he sighed in his real voice instead of Dusty's. "My head's pounding and I don't want to say the wrong thing on accident 'cause I can't think straight."

"NO." Summer narrowed her eyes. "We're going through this now. Now where is Dusty Canyon, changeling? And don't even think of lying to me." she growled, flaring her wings enough for the light to catch her blades.

Cliché. So much for dodging the subject. 'Dusty' tried to settle into a relatively comfortable position. "How much do you know about changelings?" he opened the explanation with a probing question. Best to see what could be glossed over.

"Enough. I know that you kill ponies so you can shapeshift into them and trick everypony they know into thinking that you're them."

"Is that it?"

"And that after lying to everypony, you backstab them when they least expect it."

"Ah." Mimic's face fell "Not much then. With nothing to back up my claims, I guess there's nothing I can do that'll convince you that I'm telling the truth. I'll just leave it up to your best judgement then." He sighed, his words inadvertently mirroring Summers own thoughts. He closed his pupiless blue eyes halfway and imperceptibly lowered his head. "You want the truth? Let's just say there's nothing either of us can do to help Dusty Canyon right now and leave it at that."

Summer shoved the gun closer to his face. "Where. Is. He?"

The changeling sighed and looked away. "He's dead. He has been for almost four months."

"Lies!" Summer barked.

"Denial isn't gonna help you any" he began, but he was interrupted. The tidbit of trivia Summer was trying to recall had suddenly popped into her head.

"Changelings eat love, don't they? Don't they? And you can't go four months without eating, nopony can." She smirked. "Joke's on you- I'm not in love with Dusty. Never was. So you better quit trying to trick me and 'fess up, 'cause I'm getting real tired of repeating myself." She cocked her brace-pistol with her free hoof, keeping her balance with a flap of her wings. "So last time. What did you do with him?"

"That is the truth, and I can prove it. Sort of." He raised his head indignantly. "You're right, I do feed on love, but it doesn't have to be romantic love. Although that kind is the most filling and delicious." He chuckled nervously before Summer's glare caused him to continue. "Um, but in a pinch any kind will do, but it'll take more to fill me up. So with you, well, you don't like being alone- you need to have somepony with you."

"I think I'd manage just fine if I killed you off right now" Summer snarled.

"No, I don't mean you won't be able to fight off the Turned single-hoofed or something like that. You're a very capable pony, and you've lasted this long for a reason. But what I mean is you'd go crazy without anypony with you." He shifted his legs and winced. "I've been keeping tabs on the way your mind works- it's part of my job- and without somepony else keeping you company, you'd eventually give in to despair and lose the will to live, or you'd just go stark raving mad. You need companionship, somepony to give you something else worth living for when everything looks bleakest. I mean, how many times have you been glad you don't have to roam the wasteland alone?"

"Don't try to tell me how my own mind works and just get to the point." Summer was beginning to suspect he was just rambling, trying to lull her into a false sense of security before he struck. She would not fall for it though- she would be ready for him when he attacked.

"The point is I've been feeding off your love of companionship for those four months. Sometimes it's not enough, which is why I try to get us into worse scrapes than we usually do- because you're always most grateful to have somepony else with you when you're fighting for your life. You appreciate your allies more when they're covering you. That's why I stole the hat," he nodded in the direction of the cart which could be seen from the cave entrance. "The unicorns would never have noticed us otherwise and it wouldn't have been as spicy."

"So you've been putting us in danger just so you can feel full?"

"I did what I had to do to survive, and look, we're still alive! That's what matters in the end, isn't it?"

"Dusty isn't." Summer hissed. "Do you think killing him was just another thing that was necessary for your personal survival?" She could feel tears welling up, but she refused to let them fall: there was no chance she was going to show a shred of weakness before the imposter.

"I didn't kill him!" the changeling burst out, then broke eye contact, his ears flattening against his head. "At least, not intentionally."

There was a brief silence. "Well?" Summer prompted impatiently.

The changeling glared at her before staring at the wall. "It was at the Sparklestone Ruins. I had found a small water reservoir and was figuring out my next move when Dusty sniped at me. I guess he mistook me for a mutant and was trying to get rid of me so he could fill his canteen or something. Well, anyway, we started fighting, but I promise the whole time I was trying to tell him to stop. I managed to fly in close to him and keep him off balance with some magic blasts, but then this huge mutant popped up out of blinkin' nowhere and just ripped off his hind leg." Summer inhaled sharply. "Must'ave been a minotaur or something before. I killed it, but by then it was too late for Dusty. He was dying, and there wasn't much I could do to save him, so... So I got information from him about who he was traveling with and where they were and such and I copied him. He died, and I buried him after... making sure he wouldn't Turn."

Summer thought for a few moments, then slowly replied. "The Sparklestone Ruins? I think I might remember that. Dusty mentioned he'd been ambushed by mutants, but I didn't notice anything different about the way he was acting. If the only interaction you had with him was the fight, you wouldn't have been able to mirror his personality and mannerisms to the point where nopony noticed you'd replaced him. I'm not buying it."

"That's because when I said I copied him, I didn't just mean his appearance." 'Dusty' felt he was just digging himself a deeper hole, but he was not sure how else to avoid getting filled with bullets other than explaining himself to Summer as best she could understand. "I copied his personality as well by looking into his mind to get additional information. I couldn't mimic his cutie mark though, which is why I practiced sniping so much. I'm not as good a shot as he was, but I've fudged it as best as I could."

"You broke into his mind?" Summer pulled a face. "How sick are you?"

"Well, he was the first actual pony I'd seen in weeks! I was starving! Of course I'm gonna jump at the first opportunity to join a group of ponies! And why just amble up to them and risk my life if they mistake me for the mutant who killed their buddy when I could become the guy who obviously wasn't going to survive the night? It's not like I chose him; heck, if I had my way, I would have rather replaced you."

"What? Are you trying to be funny? I'm dead serious here!"

The changeling grinned, drawing attention to his sharp fangs. "Well, I'm serious too. You probably didn't even notice, but Dusty Canyon had a massive crush on you. I'd have been much better off as you with that actual love than feeding off somepony's love of companionship."

"W-what?" Summer spluttered and flicked her ears backwards self-consciously, her thoughts screeching to a halt. She never suspected... But that was four months ago... No, the changeling was just messing with her, trying to throw her off, that was it. Why should she believe him? She tried to focus on something else. "What, you'd just become a mare?"

"Well, whatever it takes to not starve to death." The changeling shrugged.

Summer's jaw dropped. "But you're a guy. wouldn't that be weird?"

"All changelings are trained to imitate both males and females from an early age so that they could be assigned to any mission, so no, not really. You can't always pick and choose who to replace, and I'm sure death would be a lot more awkward."

'Dusty' winced. The throbbing in his head was slowly inching higher and higher up the scale from 'unbearably head-splitting' to 'just let me pass out already please'. He glanced past Summer's flabbergasted expression to the roll of gauze he had noticed lying on the cave floor earlier. "Hey, um, do you mind if... He nodded gingerly to the roll.

"Whatever." Summer kicked it toward him but did not move otherwise. 'Dusty' sighed and picked it up in his magic, unwinding it a foot or two before, without warning, his head exploded with pain. A whimper slipped past his defenses as he fought to clear the spots swimming in his vision. "I-" he began, but Summer interrupted him.

"Are you crazy?" She screeched. "Don't do that!"

"Wha-?" he blinked in confusion. Her hoof not encased in the pistol looked like it had his blood smeared on it- that was not there before, was it? Did she just hit his horn? "Don't do magic?" he hazarded a guess.

"Whaddaya think, you moron? Do you want to go crazy?"

He stared at her, blinking slowly through the haze of pain before he understood what she meant. "Oh, you mean the sanity scourge? No, look, my magic's green!" He levitated the roll back over from where it had been flung and set it by his hooves.

"So it hasn't infected you yet, but the more you use magic, the worse it gets until bam! Bonkers."

"No, changeling magic works differently from unicorn magic." He carefully lifted up the gauze in his magic again and started wrapping it around his head while keeping a cautious eye on Summer. "Like, think about it, I have a horn and wings, but I don't consider myself an alicorn. I have magic that's just similar enough to pony magic that I can pass myself off as a pony when I'm disguised, but I can't do any of the fine or advanced stuff. For unicorn magic, the most I can do is levitation and kinetic blasts, I can't do anything fancier than that. Or for an earth pony, I have more endurance than a pegasus or unicorn, but not as much as a real earth pony. Changeling magic's different, so the scourge affects us differently. We're actually a lot less susceptible than a unicorn." He tied off the end of the gauze roll, satisfied with his work as the pain began to subside, and he began working on his burned hoof, careful not to layer it over his bindings. "In fact, I don't think I've heard of a single changeling ever being fully, um, corrupted. They all Turned before it could get rooted."

"What killed them?" Summer asked curiously.

'Dusty' laughed bitterly. "Nothing. Just as the sanity scourge doesn't affect me, I'm super susceptible to Turning. I don't even need to be dead first, if I linger around the Turned, even if I'm still alive, I'll slowly and irreversibly Turn. I'm that fragile. It's what killed off the big hives of changelings years and years ago. The dead we had buried down in the hive crypts rose, and those who spent the longest battling them were the quickest to join them. By the time the queens realized what was happening, it was too late, and most of the hive couldn't be saved. The only reason I survived was because I jumped ship before the infestation reached the upper levels."

"Turning isn't some airborne disease though," Summer cut in. "It doesn't just spread like that, it's the corrupted magic that's triggered when a de-"

"I KNOW it's magic," the changeling burst out angrily. "Everything wrong with the world is magic! Ever since the reality bomb and the magic blight and the... the apocalypse, that's all it's ever been! Infected magic this, tainted magic that, magic saturation, magic putrification, magic magic magic magic!" He closed his eyes after the outburst and continued in a much more subdued voice afterwards. "You might not have noticed, but almost half of the Turned we've come across are changelings. When you're looking out for these things, you notice more. I think... I genuinely think that I'm the last changeling left. Staying in pony form might fend it off for a while or something. I don't know, but when I left there was hardly any of us left, and it has been a good long while... If I wasn't the last before, I'm pretty positive I am now."

He trailed off. An insect outside the cave began to buzz. Summer pricked her ears, but there were still no signs of the mutants returning from the gorge. She'd better get moving soon- they'd been in the cave too long already.

The pegasus looked down at the bound creature. When Summer first realized what he was, she was fully prepared to kill the changeling in her anger at what he had caused her, but now... This guy could be feeding her outright lies for all she knew, but there was always the off chance that he could be telling the truth. She snorted. As if. He knew he was inches from death- literally- and was buttering her up to save his own skin. Er- carapace. Even so, she couldn't help but feel pity for him. After all, if his tale was true, that meant he was just trying to survive, same as she was, and if she were a changeling, she most likely would have done the same herself. Although, she admitted privately, judging by her past actions, if she were in his horseshoes, she probably would have killed Dusty long before the mutant had the chance.

A minute passed. In the silence the changeling had closed his eyes again and was breathing heavily. She sighed. "Look, changeling, do you have a name?"

He looked up at her in surprise. "Oh, uh, Mimic."

Summer grimaced. "Mimic? Really? As in mimic mimic?"

A ghost of a smile fluttered across Mimic's face. "Yes, mimic mimic. I'm afraid my queen was a little preoccupied with the Turned when I hatched and figured naming my clutch after mutant varieties would be good luck." He chuckled wryly. "In her defense, I've never been caught unawares by a mimic."

"Oh, well, Mimic, I'm not gonna pretend that you've convinced me with your emotional excuses, but if you value your measly scrap of a life, you'll listen to what I say." She brandished the gun to drive home the fact that she meant business. To his credit, Mimic focused his attention on her with a serious grimace. "I've decided to be merciful to you, which is really more than you deserve for everything you've done. So here's the deal: you walk away from here alive and disappear. I don't care what happens to you provided I never see your ugly mug again, but if we do cross paths again, I swear on my mother's feathers I will kill you so brutally you'd wish that you'd Turned instead. Got it?"

Mimic felt his heart sink to his stomach. He could tell Summer was not simply bluffing in an attempt to scare him- her anger was too intense. He could feel it filling his senses similar to a thick unpleasant odor drowning out all else. Well, this was it. Time to play his last card. "Well, if you're going to do that, you might as well just kill me now and save yourself the trouble later on." he mumbled and rested his head on the rough stone floor.

"What?" As expected, Summer was visibly confused and frustrated at his vague statement, and in turn, Mimic was all too happy to clarify.

"When was the last time we've come across a group of actual ponies?" he offered.

Summer narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Like, a few weeks ago?"

"Lemme rephrase that. When was the last time we've come across a group of ponies who didn't look like they'd rob each other at gunpoint at the drop of a hat? There's so much negativity everywhere! And I know that sounds like something a loser would spew, but I feed on love! For pony's sake! Forget water or ammo- that's pretty much the rarest resource nowadays. Ponies don't care about making friends, ponies care about survival. About whether they'll live another ten hours. Your group was the only one I've seen these past four months that had even a shred of love between you. Don't you see? I don't have anywhere else to go. You're my last hope! You're the only pony with any sort of love for anypony we've seen in a long while, and I wouldn't have the time to either build up a relationship with anypony else or seek out somepony who does and replace them seamlessly. If you send me away now, I'll have no hope of survival. I can guarantee that I'll starve before I can find a meal, no matter how pitiful, even if I drai-"

Mimic hissed in pain and squeezed his eyes shut as his head began to protest again. He could feel Summer's anger begin to give way to frustration, which at the moment might be all he needed to turn the tables.

"You forget," she growled, "I didn't love Dusty, and I certainly don't love you."

Mimic shook his head. "I already said, you love companionship and the feeling of... comradery in trial. And it might not be much, but it's enough for what I need."

Summer glared at him yet again. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your brains out right now." she demanded. "You don't even know if you'll inexplicably Turn overnight!"

"Well first, would you really want to risk genocide?"

"Do I look like I care about whether your pitiful race survives or not?" she snapped.

"Good point. But besides that, I have nothing to lose. Like I said, at this point I don't even care if I die or not- I might as well give up and keel over if you're bent and determined on this. But we could work together." He continued doggedly, desperate not to fail at this point. "It's not like I'm asking you to fall in love with me, or to pretend that I'm Dusty Canyon when I'm not. Listen, you'll go crazy alone; I'll die alone. I know how to fight well- I've pretty much proved it just by lasting this long, plus I've saved your life and almost everyone else's a bajillion times since I joined you. So you can trust me to watch your back- it's in my best interest after all. If you die, I die. I'm gonna want to keep you alive as long as I possibly can, right? Even if it's only selfish motives, according to Pot Shot, those are the best ones. Or was it most transparent ones? Whatever. The point is ditching me is a bad idea, and I promise that you can trust me to protect you. Maybe even until the day I die. Who knows."

"Trust you? After you-"

"Yes! I get it! You're not happy I replaced Dusty Canyon and spared your posse's feelings after he was so brutally murdered by a mutant. I'd apologize at this point, but like I said, I'm not sorry I did it. The point is I'm not lying to you anymore, and I won't from now on if you just let me stay with you a little longer." Mimic grimaced. "Please."

Summer looked at him for a long minute, neither breaking eye contact. At last she spoke up.

"You promise? That this is the truth? And that you won't turn around and betray me either?"

Mimic nodded furiously, then winced. "I promise."

Summer looked at him for a while longer, then made up her mind. "Fine. I'll tolerate your presence under one condition." She leaned in close and glared menacingly at him. "We're going to Sparklestone Ruins and you're gonna show me Dusty's grave."

Author's Note

I still can't believe "for pony's sake" is an actual thing actual ponies actually say. I mean, c'mon.

So, notes! Yes, I realize Turned is not supposed to be capitalized, but when I put it in lowercase, it just made everything that much more confusing, so I figured I had to specify that it was not the usual meaning of the word. Sorry if it grated on your nerves. :twilightblush:

Also, I've never read Fallout: Equestria or played Fallout, so if this happens to be similar in any respect, it's purely coincidental.

I plan to have three chapters in this fic, all about the same length. Lemme know how much you loved/hated/were apathetic to this!! :rainbowwild: Super de-duper yays to you lot!!