Changeling Theory

White specks of snow fell from a black sky, the whistling wind sweeping the fine powder over tracks as if casting a mist. From the train, the lights of Ponyville could be seen. Few in number, but what was there beckoned them to come back and relish in the safety of their own homes.

A strange calmness could be felt. A macabre calmness. The sort of calmness where staying still felt like the best possible option, even if it would help no one.

In the middle of calmness, a loud hiss pierced the night.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Steam shot out of the locomotive in thick plumes that were quickly swept away. The ditch light flicked on, a long yellow beam casting along the tracks. Through the elements, through the night, and through the light haze of steam, the train appeared as an interdimensional being.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

From her seat next to the window, Starlight watched steam and snow drift by, her mind racing to every corner of worry. She braced herself for that inevitable lurch forward. She didn’t realize it back at the school, and she didn’t realize it upon boarding, but as soon as she heard that hiss, the thought finally crossed her mind.

This is seriously happening.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

From the front of the same car, Trixie’s eyes shifted between Ocellus and Mr. Black. Ocellus, because she was still confused as to how one of the most harmless students that she had the privilege of counseling suddenly had an evil entity residing within her and had murdered a classmate. Mr. Black, because he had seemingly arrived out of nowhere, and now she was on a train fixing to depart for Canterlot.

It was starting to feel as if Trixie would always find a way to get tied into everything Starlight did.

She continued flipping through her craft book, playing with ideas that only infuriated her more and more.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Smolder held the strange rock up toward the sconce hovering over her seat and examined it closely. Its surface glistened, almost see-through upon close inspection. She could make out the faint silhouette of her claw from the other side, the only obstruction being a strange cloudy resin on the inside.

Suddenly, a thought echoed in her head. Smolder didn’t know why she thought it, but it was the sort of thought that came without question. An intuition. That intuition was to heat the rock up and see what happens.

She brought it up to her mouth, faint tendrils of smoke funneling from her snout, and she allowed a small tongue of flames to lick its surface. Immediately, the dark green became more of a dull lime green, and the rock emitted a strange hum.

More, her thoughts beckoned.

The small tongue narrowed into a jet. The rock brightened, and she noticed how wispy webs of ethereal matter swirled around the inside.

You know what to do next.

It was an intuition followed by another intuition. That intuition was to throw it against the floor to see what would happen. But then a third intuition replaced that. An intuition that felt more natural than the last. That intuition was to lick it again.

“Nope, still tastes like shit.”

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The hissing stopped. The wind carried away the tufts of thick vapor surrounding the locomotive. For only a moment longer, it remained idle.

The wheel's pistons lifted upward.

Clack… Clack… Clack…

Silverstream nearly jolted out of her seat when the train lurched forward, her feathers standing on end. Realizing that they were only moving, she calmed down and leaned back into the cushions.

I hope Ocellus is okay… she thought.

Something cold splattered against her beak and she looked up. From the overhead compartment above, water dripped.

Drip-drip… Drip-drip… Drip-drip…

“Coffee’s ready,” Charcoal said.

Spring Heat crawled out of the firebox, covered in flames, and hovered the coffee pot towards her. Tilting her head back, she chugged it so that brown rivulets of the holy liquid trailed down her chin, dripping onto the floor.

After thirty seconds—record time, Charcoal liked to keep count—Spring Heat pulled the pot away from her lips and wiped them with the back of her hoof.

Floating the pot back toward the coffee maker, she couldn’t help but notice her mom giggling. “What?” she bit.

“Nothing,” Charcoal said. “Just, I think you can survive without that much caffeine.”

Spring Heat slowly shook her head before crawling back into the firebox. “It’s my life’s blood, mom.”

With the added pep, the kirin erupted into a ball of fire, giving the train its own kind of pep.

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

Sandbar felt the vibrations of the train trail through him. A warm, buzzy feeling danced throughout his head, every noise around him suddenly louder by tenfold. Yona crunching potato chips beside him—almost metallic—Smolder scratching her head while examining a weird rock, the clacking the wheels as they went clack-clack clack-clack clack-clack.

His whole body shook, head whipping around at every little noise. Staying still was an entirely absent concept.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he blurted.

“Okay,” Yona replied.

He regretted standing almost immediately. It felt as if ten-ton weights held his hooves to the ground. Trudging slowly down the aisle, he was sure that if he didn’t watch his every step, the momentum of the train would fling him face-first into the floor.

Every step was a baby step, and this garnered an odd look from Gallus as he was passing by. “Hey Sandbar,” he said. The pony jerked his head in the griffon’s direction. “You good?”

“I had too many marshmallow twizzlers.”

“Ah, too much sugar.”

“Too much good stuff.”

Gallus looked surprised for a moment, then laughed. “Dude, try not to throw up if you get motion sickness. It might tip you off to Headmare Starlight.”

“I’ll try not to, thanks.”

Barging into the restroom, the first thing he did was throw the toilet lid up and allowed the contents of his stomach to flow out like a broken spigot. His head hovered over the bowl as he waited for more to come out. More did. Repeat. After a few minutes, he sat next to the bowl with bile oozing down his chin.

His scratchy throat yearned for the splash of water against its palette. His stomach felt queasy, and he wanted to do nothing more than to go back to his dorm and sleep off the high.

A heavy wave washed over him, and he slumped back against the wall, resting his head against the septic tank. He groaned and shut his eyes, hoping that a small nap would help him feel better.

And it did. His entire body entered a state of bliss as the queasy feeling went away, and he forgot all about the scratch in his throat. The clacking of the train’s wheels sounded both close and far away—like there was an in-between state where the sound was present, but he was so far gone into his own head that they became another sound altogether. Something more soothing. This, accompanied by the vibrations, made him feel more relaxed as he drifted off…

There was a bang at the door.

Sandbar jolted, practically flying onto his hooves, heart ready to explode.

“Yeah?” he said, hoping the nervous quiver in his voice wasn’t that noticeable.

No response.

“Hello?”

No response again.

Opening the door, Sandbar peered outside the restroom. Everyone was at the front of the car, minding their own business.

I’m hallucinating… he thought as he shut the door. Okay, okay, breathe… that’s normal. Calm down Sandbar, you’re not possessed. You just had enough weed to tranquilize Yona. You’ve had this much before, you know what it entails.

But the paranoid feeling didn’t leave. It stayed like an intruder in search of something. In this case, a reason. A reason to stay sane. Sandbar racked his brain, coming up with every excuse, every explanation he could think of to calm himself down.

Through the walls of the restroom, he could hear voices. Voices without distinction. Typical auditory hallucination voices.

It’s just the weed… he thought.

He listened to the clacking of wheels, using them as a metronome to clear his head.

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

Ponyville slowly faded away into obscurity. The world around Starlight became a passing glimpse, every tree and railway sign a blur. Her mind was on one thing and one thing only: whatever they were going to do when they got to Canterlot.

What were they going to do? Mr. Black said that there was a device that could cleanse the spirit from them, but her knowledge of the hippogriff was so vague that she wasn’t sure if she could even trust that notion. She tried to convince herself that he was one-hundred percent confident that it would work, and the fact that he sounded confident reinforced that sentiment. Still, something irked Starlight’s mind. It was a little voice that whispered sweet lies and bad omens to come.

Wanting to busy her mind with something else, Starlight looked around the car. Trixie sat on the bench opposite her, wearing her glasses and scribbling something into her craft book with a pencil. Turning around, she spotted Ocellus staring solemnly out the window.

She wanted to hug the changeling, although instinctually she knew it’d be safe to remain distant. Starlight didn’t want to be anywhere near biting range if Ocellus’s personality suddenly shifted again.

She opened her mouth, ready to ask, “How are you doing?” but then realized how dumb a question that was.

Instead, her gaze carried over to Mr. Black, who was sitting in the back of the car reading a hardback. Getting up, she walked over to him.

“What are you reading?” she asked the hippogriff.

Mr. Black didn’t respond right away, as if he was finishing a paragraph. After a few admittedly uncomfortable seconds, he responded, “Are you bored already?”

Starlight flinched. “Uhh…”

He chuckled and closed the book, sitting it beside him and looking down at her. “It’s alright. I should have warned you to bring some reading material. Why don’t you sit?”

Mr. Black’s generosity caught her off-guard, but she kept her tongue. They had only just met, and she didn’t know much about him, but this sudden openness was something she couldn’t comprehend. She sat beside him, glancing down at the book’s cover.

Changeling Theory: An Analysis on the Origin and Influence of the Equestrian Changeling.

“That title is a mouthful,” she said. Well, it was no different from the pretentious titles of many other books she’d read, but all conversations had to start somewhere.

“Maybe, but methinks it’s a good read. I snagged it from the library when your librarian wasn’t looking.” After seeing the frown appear on Starlight’s face, he added, “ I’ll happily pay the full price of the book;, I just needed it for some research.”

Starlight raised a brow. “What kind of research?”

“While Ocellus was on my list of suspects, she was not whom I expected to catch. Still, I didn’t rule her out, and that’s because of this book. Tell me, how familiar are you with changeling history?”

“It’s not really something I’ve dabbled in.”

“You should. It’s embedded into Equestria’s own history, plagued by wars and corrupt kings and queens. Thorax’s hive might be the first in generations to have a monarch as generous as him. However, it runs deeper than just corruption. I’m talking about diet.”

Starlight frowned quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“Some hives partook in carnivorism. Not all, but many thought it more… fulfilling. Do you understand what I mean?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“A changeling can eat food, but that merely gives it energy for the day, and maybe heightens its receptors. It can feed off the emotions of those around them, which powers their magic, and they can convert that magic into energy for their bodies. However, the ability to create nourishment for themselves leaves them weak, thus they’re limited in what they’re capable of. Truly, the changeling is a unique specimen. It can last a lifetime without proper food just by relying on the companionship of others. Now, what if I were to tell you that the changeling derives more energy by eating certain parts of the body? Certain parts where thoughts and memory are located. Certain parts filled with complex emotion; a driving force we can’t live without?”

“The brain?” Starlight said.

Mr. Black nodded, tapping a talon against the book’s cover. “I remember reading Changeling Theory back in university. It covers the basics of changeling history and why it’s relevant to the ideas present within. Some of it I would say is… rambly. But it makes sense when you consider that Aster Blackwillow was a schizophrenic trying to convince himself he wasn’t crazy. These are the lucid ramblings of someone mad.”

Starlight hovered the book in front of her and carefully flipped through the stale, yellowed pages. “It’s very dense. Is it a good read?”

“Very. It’s actually what embedded the idea that young Ocellus could be on the list of killers. However, that was mainly because it jogged my memory. To tell you the honest truth, I picked it up just so I could read it again. The prose is dry, difficult to sift through at times. Even I have to stop to reread a paragraph on occasion just to comprehend the thoughts being conveyed.” He smiled down at her. “I’ll lend it to you if you like.”

Starlight looked at the stamp that read Property of SoF and dryly said, “Gee, glad I have permission to borrow a stolen book.” She closed the book and placed it back on the seat between them. “But I think I’ll pass. I don’t think I can read anything right now, not with everything that’s happening.”

Mr. Blacked tsked. “Such shame. I think it’s a required read. I personally relate to the themes present.”

“Which are?”

“Tell me, Starlight, have you ever reached a point in your life where you no longer felt like the same person you were before?”

She thought about it. There were several instances, the catalyst of it all being when Sunburst got his cutie mark. However, she was still a child at that time. Mr. Black’s question clearly ran deeper than that. At some point between childhood and adulthood, Starlight lost a part of herself. A part of herself that she couldn’t remember. It had an innocent connotation. It’s what kept all of her dreams and ambitions in check. It was what kept her motivated every day. Then, well… then she grew out of it. Now, she was the headmare of a school. A fine job that she enjoyed, but it wasn’t what she wanted to be. She wanted to be an important political figure. That dream was thwarted when she realized how childish her views were… but she couldn’t help but daydream about it sometimes.

Dreams fade away. Priorities take over passions. Responsibility becomes a struggle.

These were things that Starlight understood—but trying to put them into perspective? Her mouth hung open, the words ready to drip from her tongue. But the moment they did, all comprehension of herself balled up and rolled out in the form of, “Yeah, I suppose so… I can’t place when that happened, exactly, but I know what you’re talking about.”

Mr. Black’s smile shifted into a playful smirk. “Then, you’re a changeling.”

Starlight looked up at the hippogriff, her face a mixture of befuddled and bemused, and let out a pathetic, “Ha ha.”

“In the metaphorical sense, of course. Aster used that as an analogy to describe the change in his life. The stages of his progression. The trauma. The faults. The choices that led him to who he was by the end of his life. Until he was so distinguishable from his childhood self that he might as well have been switched with a changeling at birth. That’s Changeling Theory.”

Starlight stared up at the hippogriff, trying to comprehend everything he just said. It was a feeling Starlight had been sitting on for a while. At what point did everything go wrong—if even that’s what can be said? Was she always meant to walk a perpetual cycle of opening the future for students that would more than likely follow her path of routine day after day, never truly understanding what goals they should be aiming for to keep everything together?

“You said you have experience in psychology?” Starlight asked.

“Criminal psychology, mostly, albeit I dabble in other areas here and there. Have something you need to get off your chest?”

Part of Starlight wanted to tell Mr. Black everything. Not just the stuff now, but everything in general. How she arrived at school day by day, fulfilling the same routine of meetings and planning future events for the students. She thought about how much she’d like to quit on the spot and find a job elsewhere and how the only thing stopping her was simply knowing it wasn’t the right thing to do.

When she opened her mouth, at first, nothing came out. Everything she wanted to talk about suddenly vanished, obscured into the deepest trenches of her memories. But something had to be said, so she started with what felt most natural. “The night all of this started, I had to get a lot of important work done,” she started. “Before I started working, I took a nap and had a weird dream. I got out of bed to start my day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened until I made it into the school. The first thing I noticed was that none of the students had any faces, yet the hallways were full of chatter. Usually, the talking in the halls are loud, and I sometimes have to yell for the students to quiet down, but here it sounded like a distant echo. I carried on with my day as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Trixie came in at one point to deliver some papers. She also didn’t have a face, but she could still speak. It was echoey and mumbled-up, but she left shortly after. The weirdest part of the dream was that I’d age every minute or so. The corners of my office grew cotton webs. The top of my desk was coated in a thick layer of dust. I went on throughout the day, the students gradually becoming unfamiliar, as if they were stand-ins for the old ones. Yet I still worked.”

For a moment, Mr. Black didn’t say anything, and all that could be heard throughout the car was the clacking of wheels. Finally, he said, “You don’t need advice. At least, not from me. You need a therapist. What you have going on is long-term. Sorry, I can’t help with that.”

She gave a pathetic chuckle. “Well, it was worth a shot, I guess. Thanks.”

“Any time.”

Starlight looked over at Ocellus to see how she was doing. The changeling stared longingly out the window, watching the passing silhouettes of trees. She sighed and made her way over, sitting next to her. Mr. Black hummed something quietly, a clear indication that that wasn’t such a great idea, but she didn’t want the poor creature to feel alone.

“Headmare Starlight,” Ocellus asked in a trembling whisper without taking her face away from the window. “Is everything going to be okay?”

Starlight responded simply by placing a hoof on her back and saying, “Yes, Ocellus. Yes, it is.”

Yet she wasn’t sure.

Thoughts continued to invade her. The clacking continued.

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

Silverstream’s talons tapped against the metal frame of the seat in front of her, the rhythm the only thing keeping her at ease. She had moved back one seat and watched as water dripped from the overhead compartment, onto the cushions.

“Checkmate again!” Yona chirped.

Silverstream jerked her head toward the yak and Gallus playing a game of chess in the middle of the aisle. The griffon frowned, and she provided him with a mocking smile.

He picked up the board carefully and examined it closely in search of signs of tampering. “Four times in a row, how is that possible?”

With a clever smile, Yona modestly ran a hoof through the fur on her chest. “Yona thought Gallus go easy at first, but Yona put it together that bird just stupid.”

Gallus brought both talons up and air-choked her. Seeming to realize how big her neck was, he held them wider apart.

Silverstream rested her chin against the back of the chair, continuing to watch the water drip onto the seat. At the back of the car, she could hear a door being opened.

Sandbar walked by, looking pale and wobbly. She lifted her head and said, “Sandbar, are you okay?”

The pony turned to her. “Y-yeah… I’m just not good with trains, I guess.”

Gallus groaned, putting down the chessboard. “Did you puke your brains out?”

Sandbar nodded at him sheepishly. “I’m feeling better, I promise! I just need a nap.”

Silverstream gently placed a talon on his shoulder. “We’re not supposed to sleep, remember?”

He sighed. “Oh, that’s right.”

“You see, this is why you make sure you can handle your weed,” Gallus said. “I had some too and I feel fine. A little hyperaware, but fine.”

The pony scowled. “I had way more than you.”

“Pff, couldn’t have been that much.”

“I had three marshmallow twizzlers.”

Gallus scratched his head. “I sometimes forget you like to go hard.”

“I think I just need some milk.”

“If you want, I can go to the kitchen car and find you some?”

Sandbar rolled his eyes. “Whatever, dude. You just want to steal a bunch of food.”

“HEY, I’m high too! Only a little bit, but I still have the munchies, and I’m starving. Do you want me to starve?”

“Why do you need to go to the kitchen car for milk? That’s what Yona’s for,” Smolder said, who wasn’t in the conversation but still close enough to hear every word.

“Shut the fuck up, Smolder!” Sandbar bit. Yona giggled.

Gallus began making his way toward the back of the car, but Silverstream brushed her talon through his wing just as he was walking by. “Can you get me some paper towels while you’re there?”

Gallus quirked a brow. “You’re not seriously still on that, are you?”

“Well look!” she pointed at the dark blotch on the cushion of the seat in front of her. “It’s leaking! I think some snow got in my bag and melted!”

He glanced over at the seat and then back at her. “It looks okay to me.”

“No—well, let’s have a look.”

She got up and stood on the wet seat, reaching for the overhead compartment. Placing her talon on the knob, she slid the compartment door open and jerked back.

Water poured out. Not leaked, poured. It came down in rivulets, a puddle already forming and rapidly expanding on the floorboards.

“Everything good?” Gallus asked.

A fish thumped against her chest and fell onto the seat. She whelped.

Now, all eyes were on her, the hippogriff backing away from the puddle.

This time, a little bit of concern seeped into Gallus’s voice. “Silverstream?”

Another fish flopped out, bouncing off its writhing comrade and hitting the floor, scurrying her way. Silverstream fell into the seat behind her, pulling her rear legs up.

The bag fell out next, landing on the seat. It bulged as if something was trying to tear its way out.

“Get Starlight!” she screamed, throwing both talons to either side of her head. “Go get Headmare Starlight!”

Gallus stood there for a moment, watching her in confusion. Realization dawned on him, and he ran for the door.

The bag landed on the seat and fell to the floor with a hard thump. The feathers along the back of Silverstream’s neck stood out as cold water splashed against her hooves, and she pulled them up over the seat; pressing her back against the window pane.

The bag squirmed in place, sloshing around in the puddle, the puddle soaking through the floorboards and carpeted floor.

“Please stop…” she was saying, grasping tufts of feathers along her head. “Please stop… please stop… please stop…”

“Silverstream!” someone screamed.

Her head bolted upward, eyes wide with hope to see someone familiar. Her heart stopped. Breathing no longer felt like second nature. A weird, buzzy feeling rose up in her chest.

She was no longer on the train.

Slowly, she lowered a talon and brushed it through coarse sand, lifting and watching as it poured between her claws. The sky bled a red of the most otherworldly kind, the sun in the distant horizon like an explosion, its death beam cutting across an ocean of deep crimson.

Directly ahead of her, the silhouette of a short hippogriff stood.

“Silverstream!” a voice echoed across the beach, reverberating across the barren landscape as if she were in a cave. It was followed by the distant screaming of a crowd that gradually quieted.

“Where are you!?” it screamed again.

Sliverstream stood immediately, realizing what the voice was.

“Mom?” she called.

The sound of an explosion. More screaming crowds. Glass shattering. Crying.

She approached the silhouette slowly, the chaotic cacophony coming more into focus as she did.

Another explosion. More screaming. Someone calling her name. Violent sobbing.

The silhouette turned, and Silverstream halted. Green irises stared back at her. The cacophony cut out, replaced by the wind’s raspy breath.

“Hi!” Silverstream said. Only, it wasn’t her voice. Only, it was, but squickier. “I’m Silverstream! What’s your name?”

The silhouette blinked at her.

“That’s a great name!” she chirped. “Listen, our volleyball bounced somewhere over these rocks. Have you seen them?”

There were no rocks in sight.

The silhouette blinked.

“Tell you what, if you help me find it, you can play too! How does that sound?”

The wind rasped.

The ocean stilled.

The silhouette’s head fell off.

Silverstream screamed. It was both her own and not her own. It was also the horrible cacophony of the crowd. Images flashed before her. The beach glossy with blood. Burnt corpses laying everywhere, many still giving off a red glow. Others fell out of the sky, some impaled, some appearing as a flaming blossom. The one distinctive quality they all shared is they hit the ground with a loud, bone-crackling splat.

Buildings collapsed before her. Airships raided the sky. Fireballs arced through the air.

She fell into the sand, thrashing, kicking up waves. The fine grains getting between her feathers. The taste of copper fresh in her mouth. Bodies falling over her. Nudging. Someone nudging hard. A voice calling, sounding as another distant echo.

SILVERSTREAM!

It sounded across the beach as if it was a noise all on its own.

SILVERSTREAM!

Sirens. Her mother’s voice calling. The bubbly sound of someone’s dying scream.

SILVERSTREAM!

“...snap out of it!” Smolder screamed.

Both claws on either shoulder, she shook the hippogriff gently. Silverstream stopped wailing and blinked. Her eyes were red, but recognition dawned in them. She stared at Smolder, beak agape, placing a talon on her friend’s wrist. “Smolder?”

“The fuck happened?”

“I-I don’t know,” Silverstream stuttered. “I don’t know.” She leaned to the side, trying to look past Smolder as if to inspect something on the ground. She breathed a sigh of relief. “I think it passed over.”

“Was it a hallucination?”

Silverstream nodded. “I think so.”

“Hallucination, you say?” Mr. Black’s voice called. Smolder turned to see him standing at the other end of the car, Gallus and Headmare Starlight tailing him. “What did you see?”

Silverstream opened her beak, hesitated, and said, “I was on a beach. There were a bunch of weird noises, then…” She shivered. “Do I have to talk about it?”

“No. You don’t. But you need to come with me. You’re even more at risk of coming to full possession. I’d like to keep a close eye on you in case another hallucination occurs so that I can make she you don’t cause any harm to yourself or others. In fact…” He scanned the car. “All of you, come with me. I’ve decided it’s too dangerous to leave you all alone. Grab whatever you want to bring, and we’ll go to the next car.”

Smolder turned back to Silverstream. “You gonna be okay?”

The hippogriff whimpered but nodded slowly.

“Good. Want me to grab your bag?”

Her eyes widened. “No!” she shouted.

Smolder jerked her head back in surprise, some of the other students including Starlight doing the same.

“No,” she said calmly this time. “Thank you.”

“Well, okay.”

Smolder went back to her seat to gather her things. She was stuffing the strange rock back into her backpack when there suddenly came a whispering. It wasn’t in just one place—it was throughout the cart. Like a dozen or so creatures were quietly talking over her. Occasionally, a sentence would break through the barricade of words and make themselves apparent.

“It’s under Canterlot.”

“Keep digging the tunnels.”

“Throw it to the ground.”

“It’s under Ponyville.”

“Keep digging the tunnels.”

“Throw it to the ground.”

Smolder zipped the backpack shut, and the whispering stopped.

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

“Just breathe, Silverstream,” Starlight said, patting the quivering hippogriff on the back.

Silverstream swallowed a great gulp of air, then let it all out. She did it again, and again, and again. The feeling of terror still remained. Her heart still hammered in her chest, and the feathers on her face were still damp with adrenaline’s sweat.

“Star… Starlight…” she managed to croak out. “Am I going to die?”

“Of course not, Silverstream.”

“Am I going to get possessed like Ocellus?”

“You won’t get possessed, no. At least, I don’t think you will. Mr. Black seems very confident, so I am too.”

Silverstream rubbed her talons together. “But what if he’s wrong?”

“I’m sure he’s not. He hasn’t shown any doubt so far. If you’d like, you can talk to him yourself. Will that make you feel better?”

Silverstream wasn’t sure. For one, it’d be relieving to hear some uplifting news from someone who knew what was going on; but then again, Mr. Black was a complete stranger.

She gulped, tongue feeling dry in her mouth, and rubbed her eye. “I want to talk to Ocellus.”

Starlight hesitated. “I’m sorry, but—”

“Please,” Silverstream begged. She took hold of Starlight’s hoof and cupped her other talon over it. “Please, I want to talk to her. I want to know if it’s not as bad as I think it is.”

Starlight stared at her for a long moment, then glanced over at Mr. Black sitting a few rows behind them. “Well?” she said.

Mr. Black got out of his seat and walked over to where the two were sitting. It was only now that Silverstream realized how towering he was compared to her.

“You’ll sit behind her. Not next to her. And I will be sitting directly across from the two of you the entire time.”

Silverstream nodded, got up, and followed him.

Ocellus was resting her head against the window, watching the cascading snow and faint silhouettes of passing trees when Silverstream sat down. Almost immediately, the changeling’s head perked up, and she peaked behind her to see who it was.

“Silverstream!” she chirped the moment she saw her friend.

She twisted in her seat and placed her forehooves on the brim. Silverstream did the same, placing her talons over her hooves.

“I missed you!” the hippogriff nearly shouted.

Ocellus giggled. “It’s only been a couple of hours.”

“And the longest couple of hours of my life! Do you know how hard it is waiting for things to die down when you know your friend is possessed by a ravenous spirit that tried to murder us not that long ago? It’s pretty hard!”

Ocellus rubbed the back of her head nervously. “Sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.”

Silverstream waved her off. “Oh, psh! It’s all good, fam. I just want you to get better.”

“Aww, thank you!”

“No problem!”

The two grew silent, their smiles remaining, but Silverstream felt like they were a facade. She wanted to tell Ocellus everything right there. She wanted to scream about how terrified she was for the both of them. Part of her wanted a hug, but another part of her recognized that this was a situation that hugging couldn’t fix. It was something a plastic smile wouldn’t be able to hide.

That thought was confirmed when Ocellus said, “Silverstream… have you been crying?”

Oh, she thought. My eyes must still be red.

Silverstream dug her claws into the seat, nearly tearing the fabric. “I’m scared, Ocellus. That wasn’t you back there. Just a few moments ago I had a hallucination. I was on a beach and there was someone there, but I didn’t recognize them… but there were all sorts of loud noises and—” she clenched her eyes shut, trying to stave off tears. “I just want to know. How are you?”

Ocellus tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“That tall guy said this specific type of possession is based on our mental health.” She cleared her throat. “Have anything you need to get off your chest?”

“Nothing I haven’t told you before. I still have nightmares sometimes, and my anxiety has been through the roof as of late, but that’s nothing new.”

“I just… I saw everything leading up to this, you know?” It was true, sort of. Ocellus’s anxiety had on-and-off periods. There would be times when the changeling would be joyous and partake in social activities like there was no tomorrow. Then, tomorrow would come, and she’d be distant and nervous.

Ocellus didn’t talk about what happened during Queen Chrysalis’s reign that much. She was open about it and didn’t mince information, but Silverstream could tell that she thought it wasn’t information worthy of bringing up. That gave Silverstream the idea that there was a lot still being held down. A certain trauma that she refused to talk about out of fear that she’d relive the experience. The sort of trauma that activated her stress receptors and left her hyperventilating.

It happened before. Ocellus was telling her about Detention. It was nothing like after-school detention, where the teachers make you stay an hour late and enforce boredom as punishment. Detention in the hive was far more creative, and the punishment changed depending on whatever crime was committed.

Ocellus had explained this to her one time while they were in the library and had a panic attack on the spot, supposedly from a flashback. After that, Ocellus never talked about Detention again, and Silverstream never budged.

Something had been different the last few days. Ocellus’s anxiety was at its peak. She was tired a lot. She hadn’t eaten in days, yet was never hungry. She punctured the seat’s fabric and dug her nails into the stuffing.

“I could have done something to prevent all of this,” Silverstream continued. “I noticed you were anxious but didn’t say anything because it was nothing new, and I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it in case it stressed you out too much. I ignored it and now we’re here. Ocellus, I’m sorry.”

Ocellus placed her hooves over her claws comfortingly. “Aww, Silverstream, it’s fine. I don’t think anyone knew what was coming. This was all kinda out of the blue.”

“I guess that’s true.” She glanced over at Mr. Black, who was reading a book. Silverstream got the eerie feeling that although he wasn’t watching them, he was ready to pounce upon the slightest twitch from Ocellus. “Are you going to be okay?”

Ocellus smiled. “I will be!”

Then, came the harder question. She gulped, having to force the saliva down her dry throat. “Will I?

Ocellus’s eyes widened, but they resettled quickly and she giggled. “You’ll be fine! Silverstream, I don’t know anyone happier than you.”

“I’m usually in a great mood, yeah, but lately I’ve been feeling really anxious. Like everything is coming apart at the seams. I can’t explain it, but it started when I heard about Lemongrass, then… you happened, and… now we’re here. I have this eerie feeling in my belly that none of this is going to end well.” Her claws dug even further into the seat, the muscles in her talons aching. “I’m really scared.”

“Hey, everything’s going to be okay,” Ocellus said, rubbing the hippogriff’s leg. “I have an idea! Why don’t you go talk to Counselor Trixie. She’s at the front of the car. She’s given me all sorts of helpful advice, I’m sure she can help you!”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay alone?”

“I’ll be fine.” She blinked with a certain calmness. “I just need to collect my thoughts.”

“Well, okay,” Silverstream got up and began making her way toward Trixie, but before she did, she turned back to Ocellus. “Let me know if you need anything. You know I’m here.”

Ocellus smiled. “Anytime, Silverstein!”

Silverstream gave a soft chuckle at the cute nickname.

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

Trixie gritted her teeth and pressed the pencil against the page with her magic so that crumbs of lead were left in the wake of the line that she drew.

Breathe, Trixie, she thought. You’re just experiencing a creative block. Just keep at it and ideas will be flowing in no time.

Except she told herself that a week ago, and the week before that. Developing her ideas was so much easier when she was doing it day by day because it meant she could take a careful approach to her process. However, once she started her job at the school, that all changed.

For three years, she struggled to get everything right. She had always been prone to procrastination, but after starting her job it all became worse. She still put on magic shows, but they were less frequent. In some ways, Trixie also thought they were lacking more and more. Her last show was full of the lamest ideas and clichés a magician could perform, garnished with hacky jokes and a subpar presentation that’d make any stage director weep.

“And for my next trick, I’ll pull a rabbit out of this hat!” She winced just thinking about that line, especially partial to the use of “for my next trick.” Hacky. And the rabbit trick! Really? Was that the best she could come up with? But the part that made her wince the most was the joke that came after.

“They don’t call me Trixie for nothing!”

Ugh… she was starting to think she should run some one-liners past Maud.

Part of her considered that it’d be easier to stop; to set aside the star-studded hat, sell her wagon, and make a living counseling students. But a thought always scratched the back of her brain. It was that same thought that always reminded her how long she’d been performing. That same thought that made her look forward to becoming prolific once again. It’s the thought that reminded her to never quit, and it kept bringing her down everytime her day would be taken over by something work-related. That thought was blind determination… and she still believed it had merit.

“Hey, Counselor Trixie?” came a soft voice.

Trixie gritted her teeth and pressed the pencil down so hard that it snapped. She breathed. “Yes, Silverstream?”

“Is it okay if I talk to you for a bit?”

She thought about telling the hippogriff no, leave Trixie to her work! Then, she reminded herself that that would be irresponsible. Shutting the book, she set it down and patted the empty spot next to her.

Silverstream sat down and began by saying, “So I had a hallucination in the other car, and I don’t know what was going on in it, but it all felt vaguely familiar. Like I had lived it all before.”

She could feel a nail piercing through her skull. She tried to ignore it, but something about the squeakiness of the hippogriff’s voice hammered that nail in further. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, I was on a beach. It looked an awful like the beach back home at Mount Aris. There was lots of screaming and sirens, and I could hear what sounded like explosions and my mom calling for me.”

This got Trixie intrigued. She shuffled in her seat so that she was facing Silverstream and curled a brow. “Silverstream, tell me dear… are there any memories you can recall from your childhood?”

Silverstream scratched below her beak and thought. “Nope. None.”

“What else can you tell Trixie?”

“There was a weird shadow-looking thing on the beach. I could tell it was a cub, but I couldn’t tell who it was. When I walked up to it, its uhh…” she twiddled her talons together, struggling to say the next part but managed to squeak out, “Its head fell off.”

Trixie wasn’t a super smart pony. Sometimes she felt as if her knowledge of the world was very little, less than the average pony’s in fact. But, being a student counselor provided her with a certain set of skills that she honed over the years. That set of skills was an ability to connect the dots.

Starlight and Mr. Black explained everything that was going on to her. These students were in danger of being possessed, and that the type of spirit possessing them gradually took over by affecting their mental wellbeing. What if it did so through psychological means? What if the spirit reached down far enough into Silverstream’s past that it found memories that were obscure, memories that were so traumatizing that they had to be blocked off so that she could cope?

“Anything else?” she asked.

“My voice wasn’t my own. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t.” She looked up at the mare. “Does that make any sense?”

“Specify.”

“It sounded like me when I was a cub. That was a long time ago, and I don’t remember how I sounded at that time, but I swear it was my voice!”

It clicked. Trixie placed a hoof on her shoulder and said, “Silverstream… There were explosions? Sirens going off? Screaming?”

Silverstream nodded quickly.

“How old were you during the raid on Mount Aris?”

The hippogriff's voice got caught in her throat, the silence blocked off by the clacking of the train’s wheels…

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

Silverstream thought. She thought long and hard, and when she didn’t come up with an answer, she thought harder. She recalled her first memory (How old was she, five?), or something close to the first memory that led her into the stream of consciousness that she was now living.

Her mom was swimming frantically through the ocean, hugging her and Terramar tightly against her chest. The ocean’s surface was tinged with red, crimson sunlight shining down over their quivering forms. She remembered the way her mom’s heart beat in her chest, as if in some sort of fight or flight state.

After that, nothing. Her memory was shoddy after. Silverstream didn’t know what came before, and she didn’t know what came after, but she supposed they were on their way to Seaquestria for the first time since she could still recall how its construction came shortly after that memory.

But there was more, and Silverstream knew it. Everything that happened in the hallucination felt familiar, as if she had lived it all before.

The sky tinged with red.

The ocean’s surface tinged with red.

Her mom screaming her name.

Her mom’s heart beating in her chest.

The blood beach.

A bang.

Another bang.

Silverstream perked up, realizing that she could actually hear something banging against the window. She turned to Trixie, who was staring at her with the utmost concern through her reading glasses, and looked past her.

Resting against the window pane from the outside was a talon. It pulled back and banged against the window again.

BANG BANG BANG

“Let me in!” someone shouted.

Silverstream’s feathers stood on end. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped in her chest.

“Silverstream?” Trixie inquired. “Is everything alright?”

Next came the face. The terrified face of an adult hippogriff, banging frantically against the window. “Let me in!”

Silverstream screamed and stood immediately, nearly tripping as she backed out into the aisle.

“Silverstream!?” Trixie nearly shouted, worry spreading across her face. “What’s going on?”

Another hippogriff came into view, practically shoving the other aside to also bang on the window. Silverstream looked around the car in horror as talons banged on every window throughout the car, like a kettledrum, like a furious rainstorm, like dozens of hippogriffs trying desperately to stay alive.

“Stop it!” she shouted.

Just like that, everyone was standing and running over to her. She barely noticed them, too distracted by what was going on just outside.

Voices clambered over each other.

“Let me in!”

“Help!”

“I’m bleeding!”

“Let me in!”

“Don’t let us die!”

“My baby is dead!”

She threw both talons to her head, grabbing locks of feathers and bowing her head toward the ground. “Make it stop!”

Everyone around her was saying something, nudging her, trying to comfort her, but their words of encouragement were drowned out by the screaming.

“Silverstream, where are you!?”

Silverstream’s head shot up, and she realized that she was no longer on the train. In place of all of her friends was a forest of legs. Looking up, she realized they all belonged to hippogriffs three times her size.

“I want my mommy! I want my mommy!” she was sobbing, but her voice got drowned out by the dozen other voices inside the building.

No one seemed to notice her, many nearly tripping over her. The little cub had to weave her way through the crowd as she tried desperately to find her mom’s familiar face.

At the front of the crowd, muffled banging could be heard. She heard several of the adults shouting.

“Go away!”

“You’re going to lead them here!”

“Will someone please let them in!?”

Silverstream managed to cut her way to the front of the crowd and saw that dozens upon dozens of hippogriffs were banging on a display window. A tall white mannequin was knocked over, fallen off its pedestal from the shaking of the storefront. They were all screaming.

“Let us in!” someone shouted.

Silverstream continued to sob, saliva dribbling down her beak in blubbery waves. “Mommy, I want my mommy!”

There was a blood-curdling scream, and the crowd outside suddenly became more panicked, pushing against each other, shouting, trying to find a way out.

Red streaks splattered against the display window, and the crowd became mixed with pained caterwauls. A spear stabbed through the back of one hippogriff mare. Her body slammed through the glass, shattering it. She dangled there over the broken pane, its jagged end impaling her corpse.

Silverstream shrieked, voice hurting in her throat.

Colossal bipedal monsters towered over the crowds, bringing down wicked sticks of death that annihilated all in their path. One impaled a screaming mare in the chest, forcing her back against the pane and sliding her upward, smearing oozy blood against the glass.

Her body slammed forward, the glass shattered, and the monsters stepped in. Their thick white manes were coated with blood. They had arms and legs with the girth of trees, dark gray fur, and skull-like faces. By now the screams were a cacophony, mixing together so that they were a single shrill sound that grated against her ears.

Everything turned to chaos. Hippogriffs stumbled over her, tripped over her, even kicked her. Some managed to escape through the broken window, only to be absorbed by the wall of death that awaited them outside. Hippogriffs dropped one by one as the monsters funneled in.

All Silverstream could do was crawl. She crawled and hoped that none of the monsters would see her, and she nearly lurched out of her skin when someone slammed to the linoleum floor in front of her. A monster brought its bi-pronged spear down to a mare’s chest, but she caught it in the nick of time, using all of her strength to keep it from puncturing her skin. The monster stamped on her stomach, forcing the mare to let out a huff, and it stabbed her again, again, and again.

Silverstream was frozen stiff, her wings splayed out. The mare’s blood trickled down her face.

She backed away, hoping the monster wouldn’t notice her as it continued to stab the corpse. And just like that, she was swept away in the cyclone, various legs kicking her around. She heard another gut-wrenching scream, and something warm leaked onto her face, and before she could look up one of the hippogriffs towering over fell down on top of her, forcing the cub to the floor.

“Mommy!” she screamed.

Another body fell over on top of her. “Mommy, where are you!?”

Another. Soon it was a pile.

“Moooommy!”

“Silverstream!”

Suddenly, it all stopped. In place of the screams was the clacking of train tracks. People were standing around her, although she could tell who they were instantly. Even through blurry vision, she knew who they were.

“Silverstream!” Starlight said to her. Silverstream couldn’t respond because she was hyperventilating. “Breathe! It’s alright!”

It took a couple of minutes, but eventually, her breathing died down, and she was able to form words with some kind of order. “Headmare… Starlight… blood… Storm King…”

Starlight brought both hooves to the hippogriff's face and stared into her eyes. “It’s okay. You’re here. You’re fine.”

The hyperventilating stopped. Silverstream sat there, simply shaking in place.

Then came the cackling.

At once, everyone turned toward Ocellus, standing on the other end of the car. The way she laughed… wasn’t normal. It sounded like her throat had been grated, and she was struggling to push out the last wisps of air in the loudest way possible.

Finally, she stopped and said, “Did you really think I was that dumb, Blacky?”

Mr. Black stepped forward, standing between the group and the changeling. “Your use of the past tense implies I still don’t think it.”

Her eye twitched. “Oh, you thought I was a fool. You thought I wasn’t something to worry about, even, and for a while there, you were winning! But you underestimated me.” She grinned evilly, her teeth razor sharp.

“So, why did you feel the need to announce this?” Mr. Black asked. “If I underestimated you, then I would have expected you to find a way off this train by now, or at least take off running through the other cars. But you’re here. Wasting my time with false promises.”

Her eye twitched again. “You have a mouth on you. It pisses me off. It doesn’t matter though, because you’re about to all be dead.”

Mr. Black took another step forward. “And how do you think you’re going to kill us?”

Ocellus’s twisted grin returned. “Silly, I’ve been hiding things from you!”

Just like that, her horn ignited. Everyone flinched back as it went off like a sparkler, a green sparkler that shone brightly. Although a lot of energy was clearly being put into it, the inhibitor around her horn prevented it from becoming any brighter.

Pop!

The car filled with an acrid stench, and the inhibitor around her horn began to smoke.

“She’s trying to cook it!” Starlight shouted.

Mr. Black leaped forth.

Ocellus responded immediately, practically ramming into the door behind her. She forced it open and ran into the next car.

“Stay here!” Mr. Black shouted without looking back. “Don’t leave this car!”

Clack-clack Clack-clack Clack-clack

Wind whipped through Mr. Black’s feather’s as he transitioned between cars and zoomed down the aisles. Each car filled with an acrid stench, and by the time he’d reach the next Ocellus would already be on the other side, the smoke cloud thicker than before.

In some ways, he was actually impressed. Simply using magic was difficult with the inhibitor around her horn, so the fact that she was managing some output meant she had power in reserve. Such power must be extremely painful to use. If he was lucky, she would pass out before she had the chance to fry the thing off.

Or, he would chase her all the way to the caboose, where she would have nowhere to go.

His stream of focus was thwarted when he entered the next car and something hit his face. The world turned to spinning lights, his head feeling as if a piece of his skull had just been broken off. He caught himself against a seat.

The changeling leapt on him immediately, throwing her forehooves around his neck and embracing him in a tight bearhug. It was like a vice around his throat, cutting off all airway.

He rolled over, slamming her against the floor and forcing all of the air out of her. Ocellus let go, and at the same time a loud pop could be heard.

With her pinned beneath his talon, Mr. Black looked down and realized that the magic inhibitor was now destroyed and lying on the plush carpet beneath the seat in two burnt pieces.

A green light filled the room, and Mr. Black was suddenly floating through the air as the changeling grew beneath him. He fluttered his wings, hovering over the brim of the seats—practically hopping from one to the next—in an effort to get away.

Ocellus, now in the form of a grizzly bear, squirmed to get on to her paws, clumsily swiping her claws out, fabric and flinging stuffing in the process.

Mr. Black landed in the aisle on the other end of the car, and at the same time Ocellus managed to stand back up.

I’ll have to give her a full dose, he thought. But he stayed still. He could reach for his satchel, yes, but he would have to sift through the various equipment before finding the tranquilizer. By then, she could have him pinned.

He knew exactly what he had to do.

He chuckled darkly. “You chose a bear form to fight me in? I should have guessed that the only way you could beat me in a fight was to do so unfairly. Why, even your changeling form is next to pathetic.”

Even in bear form, he could see her eyebrow quiver. Ocellus gritted her teeth and snarled. Then, it twisted into a smile. A lovely, demonic smile that told him everything he needed to know. It said, “I’m going to make you a nine-course meal and have your brains for dessert.”

“Your cockiness is annoying,” she said. “But it won’t work anymore. I didn’t win wars by playing fair.”

His smirk remained. “Queen Tiran, I suppose?”

If a bear could look refined, she managed to pull it off. “Know of my work?” she asked smugly.

“Barley. You’re just a blur in Equestria’s history.”

Her brow quivered again. “So, how did you put it together?”

“It’s simple. Ocellus told us about you, which I’m sure was your intention. You wanted to make your presence known. Why is that?”

“For reasons you’ll never find out,” she stated simply. “Now, shut up and die, Blacky.”

Tiran charged forward. Her body was far too big to fit in the aisle, so she climbed over the seats with surprising agility. When they were just a few feet away, she lashed her claws out; simultaneously, Mr. Black sprawled out his wings and fluttered over her, stepping on her heading and doing a tip-toe dance along her back before landing behind her.

Reaching for his satchel, he removed the flap and scrumaged through his equipment. Displaying another surprising feat of agility, Tiran kicked her hindpaw into the square of his back, knocking him to the floor.

Things like hypodermic needles, vials of naloxone, and other odd trinkets spilled out and rolled across the floor. His sunglasses landed a foot away, the vibrations sending them skittering.

Before he could do anything else, a green light filled the car again, and the changeling was on top of him. Both forehooves wrapped around his head, she banged it against the floor boards as hard as possible and screamed, “Die! Die! Die! Die!”

Ignoring what felt like twenty nails being driven into his skull, the hippogriff forced himself to stand, and in a daze he lashed out his left wing so that the changeling would lose its grip and practically catapult it off him.

He didn’t account for his strength, and she slammed into the windows; her head shattering one and her rear-end cracking the other.

Still dizzy, he made his way over to his sunglasses. The moment he picked them up, another light filled the room. He glanced her way, and in a fascinating display of adrenaline he dropped them back onto the floor in a ready stance.

A rhinoceros tore through the car, ripping seats out by their bolts, tearing them, stuffing flying through the air, denting their metal frames, tearing carpet, cracking the floorboards beneath, and destroying some of the windows. Mr. Black sprawled his wings out and fluttered over her again, this time banging his head against a ceiling fan.

It sauntered in place, the light on one side of the car flickering, dust raining over them. He landed on his stomach, more equipment falling out of his bag. He heard a clacking and saw his needle gun sliding across the floor.

There was a crash, the sound of more glass shattering. He looked up in time to see the door swing outward in the wrong direction, the wood along its frame splintering.

A flash, and Tiran was back to her changeling form, although Mr. Black knew that it was just so she could turn around. A flash, and she was back in her rhinoceros form.

They both charged forward. Once a few feet away, Mr. Black fluttered his wings out. Tiran expected this and brought her head up, but Mr. Black was also expecting this. Clamping both wings to his side, he slid beneath her.

Tiran’s horn pierced through the roof, showering the car with splinters and sending some into her eyes. She screamed. A flash, and she reverted back to her changeling form, rubbing at them with her hooves.

Now was his chance. Reaching for his bag, he—a flash. A screech.

In a feat that could only be achieved through the reliability of fight or flight, Mr. Black threw his entire body to the floor. At the same time, something large and fast zoomed overhead. Tiran crashed into the door on the other end, and even through all of the wind being sucked into the car he could hear chunks of wood being ripped from the frame.

Looking up, he saw the beast Tiran had turned into. And beast was a very apt way of describing it. It was like a large bat, a foot or two higher than an adult hippogriff. It had big, leathery wings, and it stood on two legs. Its fur tousled in the wind, and when it turned around Mr. Black saw that it didn’t have any eyes. Its snout was small, wrinkly and pig-like; its ears tall with deep canals. It opened its mouth and screeched.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee!!!

It zoomed toward him, and Mr. Black barely rolled aside in the knick of time before it buried its claws into the floorboard. Assuming that it detected him using echolocation, he held still, hoping that he was still in Celestia’s good graces enough that it wouldn’t brush up against him.

It stalked through the aisle, ripping up the floorboard with its talons as it did.

Across from Mr. Black, laid a metallic syringe. He reached for it.

Another screech. He was on his feet immediately, and instead of dodging, this time he ran after the beast. It tackled him, carrying him across the car. Mr. Black wrapped an arm around the creature’s neck and stabbed the syringe into its shoulder. It screamed, and before he could press down on the plunger it gnashed its teeth at his face.

He let go, falling to the floor. It brought its feet down, raking in search of him as he shimmied away. One-two, one-two, one-two they went up the aisle, spraying him with chunks of particle board that caught in his feathers.

He rolled aside, narrowly avoiding its claws, and clenched his eyes shut to protect them from the onslaught of sawdust. By the time he got back to his feet, it was on the other side. It halted its rampage, breathing heavily.

He didn’t move a muscle, eyes searching the floor for anything resourceful. If he backed up only a little, he could grab the needle gun with his tail. Or, he could take his chance and tango with the beast for the syringe. Either move was risky.

The beast glowed before him, shrinking down in size. When the green light faded out, the changeling was back. Breathing heavily.

Tiran turned laboriously around. Her head lolled to the side. Horn glowing, she plucked the metallic syringe from her shoulder and stared at it.

“What’s wrong?” Mr. Black asked. “Energy running low?”

“Shut up,” she bit.

“I told you, trying to use your magic while using the inhibitor would be a bad idea.” Adding mockingly, “Tell me, are you seeing stars?”

“I said, shut up!”

“Come with me,” Mr. Black pressed on. “You’re clearly incapable of fighting much longer. If you keep this up, you’ll overexert yourself. And I’m sure you still need a vessel.”

Tiran stepped back. Her horn glowed, and the cracks around the door’s frame expanded. “I… won’t… go!”

The door tore from its hinges. It banged against the outside of the train, then got swept away by the wind. “I’ll deal with you later,” she said, before stepping out onto the porch. She flashed green one last time and then jumped.

An eerie calmness fell over Mr. Black. The harsh wind seeping through broken windows acted as a grating violin. Almost like the unearthly scream of a banshee.

He began picking up the equipment that fell out of his bag, having to sweep aside stuffing torn from its seats and broken glass. Cherry red splotches dripped onto the floor. He swiped his talon across his forward and pulled it back to see blood.

He could only see a ghost of his reflection from the surface of one of the few intact windows, but he could still make out the small laceration a little above his right eye.

He arrived at his sunglasses. Picking them up, he sighed at the revelation that one of the lenses had been crushed.

Those were prescription, he thought.

His blood dripped onto the floor.

Outside the creature screeched.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeee!!!