A Shadow of Myself

"So, are you going to dance?" Sapphire asked.

Josie opened one eye and looked at her. "Why would I dance?"

"I heard that The Marshmallow dances when using her powers. I thought it was part of the process," Sapphire answered, sounding completely sincere.

"Rebecca recently had a press conference and, confusing everyone, even the other Dreamwardens, played the kazoo for thirty minutes straight before leaving the baffled press without a word said– they're still trying to dig hidden meanings out of her song selection. She wanders around in her projected form as a white blob with an emote for a face. She has somehow convinced thirteen countries to ban skim milk because she said it was an affront to public decency. She also insists she has stripes and spots, and she can't knowingly lie, so she really believes that. If she ever offers you a cookie, politely refuse. You don't want to know where she hides the cookies she always carries around. Rebecca is a strange pony, and she does strange things. She's not crazy, but trying to figure her out could drive you crazy."

"So…I'm not going to get to see you dance?" Sapphire concluded.

"No, you aren't," Josie said flatly. "Now, be quiet. I need peace and tranquility. It would probably be best if you just left and kept everyone away from me until I was done."

The blue pegasus smiled. "You know I was just teasing, right? I have a friend who does the projection thing, too, even if he doesn't have much range with it. I know dancing isn't required."

"Good for your friend. Now, please leave me in peace," Josie growled.

Sapphire seemed a little put out about it. "Alright. You understand where I told you she was, right?"

"I understand how to read a map, yes," Josie replied. "I know you are anxious to have the first word of it when I find her. Your loyalty to your friend, even if she is a new friend, is commendable, but I need you to be patient and leave me be."

"Try to be quick. I feel like we've left her alone for too long already," Sapphire said, but she did step out of the tent. Josie heard her ordering back some intuits who had gathered near the tent to watch the weird alien pony do strange alien magic.

Josie sighed and refocused on her peace. She let memories drift over her.

She remembers screaming in terror at night as a child and her parents rushing in to comfort her. They would check under the hed, in the closet, behind the curtain, and behind the door, but there was no monster. They spent upwards of an hour each time comforting her and calming her so she could sleep. She saw psychologists for this– night terrors are what they said it was.

Josie had heard the story from Charlotte about the monster pony outside Charlotte's window when she was a kid. She had chosen not to share her own tale. Her parents would always spend so much time comforting her, but whenever they left, pulling the door partly shut behind them, that same red-headed girl was there again, waiting, even if she hadn't been there when her parents checked, and the terror would begin once more. It would be years later that she would have it finally confirmed to her that the monster in her room had been real.

Not the best memory to think of to bring her peace. No thinking of things from her youth, whether it be Sunset Shimmer, Sha'am Maut, or whatever else, it was all bad. She focused on something else, something happier.

"I don't know if I will ever get this right," a young Rebecca whined as she failed in another drill Josie had been putting her through. The blonde white pegasus filly, not yet chubby, collapsed on the floor and sulked.

Josie considered the filly. The Dreamwardens had begged her to instruct Rebecca about projecting after the filly had a fright, thinking she died and became a ghost, when Rebecca suddenly displayed projection power with no control on her most recent birthday, days after receiving her cutie mark. The ability was exceedingly rare, manifesting only in a blip of a decimal percentage among Josie's only tribe, so small that everyone who could do it could be counted on a human's fingers. None of the others, aside from Josie, were ever strong enough to make any actual use of it and never like what Rebecca was doing. None of the Dreamwardens even had the ability. Now, this pegasus suddenly showed she could do it and might be the strongest at it other than Josie herself. Rebecca was a kid struggling to understand powers that seemingly no one understood or had seen before. Josie was the only pony qualified to help her.

She thought about what to do. They had gone through half-a-dozen sessions, and Rebecca still showed zero ability to control when she would project herself. Questions about what she had been doing when she had accidentally done so in Josie's absence hadn't yielded many results either.

"You're right; this isn't working," Josie said at last.

Rebecca started to cry.

"But maybe it's because I'm trying to make you find peace my way," Josie continued with a smile. "You aren't me. You are a special little filly who goes to the beat of a different drum. Tell me, what makes you able to zone the world out and let your mind drift?"

Rebecca sat up and sniffled. "I don't know…music, dancing, drawing, that kind of stuff."

Josie nodded. "So, go ahead and put on some music and focus on that instead."

The filly got up and walked over to her computer before hitting a few keys. A moment later, Mr. Tambourine Man started to play.

"That's an old one," Josie observed as the filly returned.

Rebecca gave a little flap of wings. "When I lived in a car with my mom a few years ago, there was an oldie station, and we listened to it all the time. Older music is just comforting now, you know?"

Josie blinked. "You were homeless?"

"For a little while, a few years when I was little. It was just Mom and me. She went to work as a dancer to earn money, and I stayed in the car or went to school. Sometimes we could afford a hotel room, but I liked the car better– the hotel rooms smelled bad, and people were always yelling and fighting nearby. It wasn't so bad overall, although Mom never let me see her dance," Rebecca answered.

She wanted to say some comforting words about that, but the filly didn't seem so shaken by her past. She could only imagine what kind of dancing her mother did to earn money if they were that bad off, but she wasn't going to dig into it and dispel the filly's fantasies. This bit of doldrums aside, Rebecca seemed to be a happy kid overall and well taken care of. There was no reason to make her feel bad about the past if she didn't.

Josie took an unnecessary breath. "Well, I'm thrilled to see that you aren't homeless anymore. Focus on your music, and let's see if that helps."

Rebecca nodded and started swaying with the words of Bob Dylan. Her swaying turned into a little clumsy dance. Josie would have laughed at how bad it was, but the filly seemed to be enjoying herself, and that was what dancing was supposed to be for. She couldn't imagine being able to project while doing that, but that was her. This wasn't about doing things her way; it was finding Rebecca's way.

A moment later, Rebecca proved conclusively that she was cut from a different cloth than Josie, as her projected form appeared next to her dancing body. It took the filly several seconds to fully register that she was floating in the air, and her body passed partially through her for an instant before retreating away. She would need to ensure she had a clear area in the future to prevent any accidents with the dancing body that didn't have a mind to notice its surroundings.

"I did it!" Rebecca's projection shouted with joy, and the filly cartwheeled in the air as Josie kept her own projection motionless.

"Yeah, you did. Good job, kid," Josie congratulated the filly as Bob Dylan's song continued to talk about dreaming and evening's empire, unknowing that she may have just set the path for that happy little filly to someday command authority as a Dreamwarden, but that was for another day. That day, it was about celebrating helping another kid with their troubles, and seeing the smile on their face.

Josie stared at herself, free of her physical body. She took one last look at the unfurled map beside her body and made sure she had committed all crucial details to memory. She turned invisible and went straight up, out of the tent, and into the ceiling of the base. There were a few slightly disorienting seconds where she couldn't see anything while encased in rock, but she was moving at incredible speed, and it didn't take long to break the surface.

The base was below a string of tall rocky hills, perhaps the remnants of some long worn-away mountain chain or the infancy of one. There were rocks, boulders, and desecrated tree stumps everywhere. She knew she was on the east side of the range thanks to the map, and Bursa's last location was roughly thirty miles east to northeast. There was also a Decepticon Energon processing plant nearby Bursa that should stand out. Sapphire and Bursa had spotted it right before they had been spotted. Although it hadn't been confirmed to her, she suspected that scouting that plant was why their rescuers had been in the area.

Time to move. With speeds that would have made Rainbow Dash die of envy, she zoomed formlessly in the appropriate direction. It could be easy to miss her target, all she would need to be is a slight degree of in her heading, and she could end up miles away from it, but she was an old pro at moving in this manner, and although she wasn't the best at perfectly judging her direction, she had gotten excellent at judging distance traveled. The Dreamwardens hadn't banned her from using this ability back home. Her ban was on communicating to others anything she learned about anyone else without that person's permission while projecting or anything that could be used against others, even villains, while projecting– a rule she was now blatantly going to break, but the only Dreamwarden on this world was a primordial that held to no rules and didn't give a damn as long as you didn't annoy it.

Back home, Rebecca had told her horror stories about primordials. If a primordial noticed you, four things could happen. First, it observes and does nothing– that was ideal. Second, it could kill you. There would be no fight or warning; you'd just be dead as soon as it decided to snuff you out. Three, it could choose to kill every dreamer because you annoyed it, and this happened far more often than was comfortable to think about, even though the primordial would kill itself in the process. This again would occur in an instant without warning. Primordials were beings of the most basic of self-aware thought and emotion that form from the collective mass of magical dreams like single cells massing and fusing to form multicellular life and then given godlike power over their cells. It was foolish to expect reason or logic from them. Finally, it could be tired and amenable to passing its mantle so it could lock itself in eternal dream. If that happened, congratulations, you're the new Dreamwarden with all the power and responsibility that entailed.

Don't think about that thing. It will sense it, and you'll attract its attention, and that's the last thing you want, she scolded herself and then forced herself not to have a follow-up thought about it out of fear of the primordial.

It took her less than a minute to travel the thirty miles she needed. However, she must have been slightly off in her heading. She knew she had gone in the general right direction, but it was like trying to fly to a city in the Midwest or Canada. If your heading is off by a small degree, you end up in the wilderness. Luckily, she could move fast enough to scout miles around her till she figured out where to go. She had to be within a few miles of where she needed to be. Worst case scenario, she could find the road again and get her bearings from there.

It didn't take her long while crisscrossing the area to find the factory. It was an enormous domed building, about four stories high, with neon lights and smokestacks pumping vast amounts of smog into the air. There were at least a dozen vehicles on patrol around it. They looked like World War 2 aircraft but moved much faster and had far too much maneuverability to be the types of planes employed back then. There was also a bot that looked exactly like an oversized panzer tank near the large sealed entrance. Her best guess was they were imitating the forms of what they had seen in those movies Shrieky mentioned. They were almost certainly better armed than the things they depicted, especially given how the planes were moving. It was odd that the transports had looked space age while these looked so antiquated. Perhaps the transport bots didn't need to imitate anything, but why did the fighters feel the need to? There had to be some psychology to it, but it was beyond her understanding.

These probably weren't here earlier. Otherwise, they would have been the ones giving chase. The one that got away must have alerted them that the factory had been scouted. There were no signs of the transports. They must be on lockdown until they were sure it was safe.

Bursa was nearby, according to the map. She should be in sight of the factory, and if she used her head, she was still disguised as a boulder. The problem was that Josie had to figure out what boulder, and she had to do it while invisible, which would make it hard for Bursa to notice her. She could search around calling out to Bursa, but she didn't know how well the Decepticons could hear, so that could be a bad idea. However, it seemed the only way. She'd keep it to a loud whisper and keep an eye towards the skies. She was in no danger, but she didn't want them carpet bombing the area she was searching and killing Bursa.

The rocky area was just west of the factory. She began her search, moving much more slowly than before.

"Bursa!" she called out as loudly as she dared. "Bursa, where are you?"

She didn't expect an immediate response, but she kept searching. Bursa had to be in sight of the factory.

"Bursa, if you hear me, just call out. Don't undisguise. I can find you!" she called out again after a moment or two more.

She still didn't get a response. She looked back at the factory. The patrols didn't seem to notice her voice. Could she risk getting a little louder?

After a few more moments, she centered herself in the area—time to take a risk.

"Bursa!" she yelled. Not as loud as she could. She was still worried about attracting attention, but loud enough any pony in the immediate vicinity of five-hundred or so feet should be able to hear her. She immediately looked back at the factory. None of the planes deviated from their patrol paths. The Decepticons must not have super hearing.

"Quiet! Do you want to get caught!" a hushed voice called out. She immediately focused on the area it came from and got closer.

"Bursa, can you hear me? It's Josie," she said in a much lower tone, barely above a whisper.

"I hear you but can't spot you. You hide better than me," Bursa replied. Now Josie could center on exactly which rock was the changeling queen. It didn't stand out at first from amongst the others, but on closer inspection, it lacked some of the signs of weathering that its immediate neighbors lacked. That…and this rock suddenly gained a very toothy mouth.

"I'm not physically here. I'm projecting. I'm also invisible," Josie explained.

"Ah, I understand. I met a fat pegasus in the Hallowed Shades that could do that. I didn't know others could," Bursa responded, still keeping her voice down. "She was troublesome and would have made a good meal, but she was friends with Wild Growth."

"Wild Growth intimidates you?" Josie asked in curiosity. She was surprised Bursa had met Rebecca. Rebecca had never mentioned meeting the changeling queen and had only gone to Equestria once for a brief visit a month or so before becoming Dreamwarden. Then again, if Rebecca had met Bursa while projecting, perhaps she didn't feel she could talk about it. Luna supposedly had a more relaxed view of such things than Earth's Dreamwardens, who were notorious for being very strict in their interpretations of mind magic abuse, but Rebecca was of Earth, not Equestria.

"No!" Bursa protested. "I just don't hurt Wild Growth and those connected to her. She was kind to me."

The bug had a sense of loyalty to someone. Who'd have thought?

"Well, we're all safe, except for you. We found allies and a place to stay. We are trying to figure out how to get you to us safely. I'm out here making sure you are still where you were before," Josie explained.

"Planes make it hard for me to move. I was waiting for them to go away and then sneak closer to find out what's in the factory," Bursa replied.

If Josie had eyes at the moment, they would have gone wide. "No! That is a horrible idea! You need to sit still. Since I found you, we can find a way to rescue you."

"Humans are in that factory," Bursa hissed.

Josie looked back at the factory again. "How do you know?"

"I saw them. Being unloaded from the transport. Same transport that chased Sapphire," Bursa explained in short sentences, getting more agitated as she went. "They did not look good. Sickly and boney, barely aware of surroundings. Struggled to walk. We need to find out what they are doing to the humans. They must be using them for science experiments. They have to be stopped!"

The changeling's passion seemed real. She cared about the humans. Combined with her loyalty to Wild Growth, it appeared she wasn't as much a monster as she was made out to be.

"It isn't safe for you," Josie reasserted. "But I'll go look. I can't be hurt or seen. I agree; we need to know what's going on, but not by sacrificing you. Sapphire and Apple Bloom have both been very worried about you, and I know they'd kill me if I let you get hurt."

"They don't care about me," Bursa muttered.

"Wild Growth cared about you. Why is it hard for you to think others could too?" Josie asked. "She's hard to read sometimes, but even Sunset Blessing seemed to care about you from what I could tell back in Equestria. You're part of the team, and we're all in this together. Cadence even said she couldn't negotiate with our allies till you were safe. We are all worried about you. We care."

"They need to be stopped. No one should suffer like I did," Bursa said, sounding mournful.

Josie took an unnecessary breath. "I'm right there in agreement with you. I don't know what you've been through, but I understand being helpless and at the mercy of others who maliciously hurt. I've been through some crap myself that shaped me into who I am in a very literal sense. Let me do this. I will take a look, come back here, then go back to the others to report. After that, we can rescue you and figure out how to save the humans together."

The rock hesitated, staying silent for a few seconds while thinking about this.

"Be quick. I will stay here," Bursa finally answered.

"I will be. I promise," Josie assured the changeling. "Going now. Just sit tight."

With that said, Josie turned and headed to the factory to find out exactly what went on in there.