Solitary Locust

by nodamnbrakes

Rating: teen
Tags: Thriller, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 106592

Twilight casts a spell that leaves her in an alien body, facing a mob of angry ponies...

After the changelings' failed invasion of Canterlot, Twilight tries to soothe some of Ponyville's rampant paranoia by casting a spell to prove there are no imposters hiding in the town. But her spell leaves her in an alien body, facing a mob of angry ponies who just don't believe her when she says she is Twilight Sparkle.

Or, at least, she was Twilight Sparkle, anyway...

Featured on Equestria Daily, 2/17/13
Cover art is by the awesome and amazing Conicer

Published 2012-10-24 19:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-04-30 15:16:29 UTC

II. Fugitive

Proofreading props for this chapter go to Garbo802, Scrocket, and anongladje.

Solitary Locust

Chapter 2

A white-hot bolt of pain shot through the root of Twilight’s horn, interrupting the pleasantly disconnected sleep in which she had been relaxing. It was a deep, permeating sort of discomfort that radiated from the very inner core, like a lightning strike being channeled through her body. The unicorn let out a raw gasp and instinctively tried to put her hoof up to her head, but another searing pain erupted in her foreleg when she moved it. Confused and frightened, she bucked her hind legs, trying to beat away whatever was hurting her. Her hooves struck only empty air, and the exertion left her with a burning sensation in her muscles.

She opened her eyes and was immediately confronted with a large, indistinct, gnarled object not two inches away from her face. This was so unexpected it set off her fight-or-flight reaction, causing her to roll her body away from the tree—right onto her injured foreleg. Twilight screeched, turned her head to the side, and retched from the sheer pain. Though her body spasmed several times, the only thing that came out of her mouth was bile.

Still not awake enough to apply sense or rationality to her situation, Twilight propped herself up on her intact left foreleg while her hind legs scuffed the ground, trying to achieve enough balance to hold her body upright. After several failed attempts, her shaking legs managed to lift her into a normal standing position, from which she took off at a run. But she was in no shape to exert herself that way, especially on only three legs, and made it only a very short distance before her lone front hoof caught on a root and tripped her.

As she tried to get up again, bleeding a greenish-yellowish substance from her bad leg, Twilight got a good look at the hoof on which she was leaning. The blind, senseless panic that had consumed her just moments before was rapidly forgotten in favor of feeling her chest and back, and then the wings on her back, and then her strangely-textured, twisted horn. The changeling gasped again as the events that had led her into the forest grove finally came back to her.

A dry, raspy sob left her throat and she let herself slide back down onto the ground, too overwhelmed to get up again. Twilight’s new body wasn’t actually able to cry, as she no longer had tear ducts, but knowing this previously irrelevant fact about changeling anatomy didn’t change what her brain was conditioned to do when she was upset. The result was a grotesque parody of the way real ponies sounded when they cried. She curled up on the ground, unconsciously searching with her good hoof for her tail so she could stroke it and comfort herself—until she remembered she didn’t have one anymore. At that point, her ultimately purposeless sniffling turned into pitiful whimpers.

Everything Twilight hadn’t had time to think about before she passed out was now catching up to her. She didn’t even know where to begin; whether to try getting up and going somewhere, or to just sit there and let the full horror of nearly having her horn ripped off her head sink in while she cried. A sense of helplessness started to creep over her as she lay there. How was she going to get herself out of this when she didn’t even know where to start?

She was alone, traumatized and completely bewildered; badly injured and unable to run if she had to; and worst of all, attempting to use magic was completely out of the question. There was no book Twilight knew of that talked about ponies suddenly transforming into changelings, so there were no reference materials available to help her determine what, exactly, had happened to her up there on the podium. Already, she could feel terror beginning to sink its claws into her.

Inevitably, somepony would find her and she would be powerless to resist capture. They would then take her to the town and cut off her horn. Her friends would interrogate her for the location of the ‘real’ Twilight Sparkle, which she would be unable to give because she was the real Twilight Sparkle.

"Oh, Celestia, please help me..." she whispered, looking pleadingly upward, and then she gasped in horror. It was the first time she had actually, really listened to the way she spoke since the transformation. Twilight's new voice sounded, for lack of something close in nature to compare it to, as if she had gargled broken glass before talking. Speaking Equestrian was also obviously not something changelings were predisposed towards, as she had to work hard to get her tongue around the long fangs at times and her mouth tried replace the s sound with a z every time she said it.

It brought her right back to the dread she had felt the moment before, coupled with a surreal feeling of alienation from herself. An overwhelming need to move took hold of her. She needed to do something, to go somewhere else, to get out of the forest before something bad happened. It didn’t matter where she ended up so long as she wasn’t sitting around waiting to be found (and de-horned!).

Twilight uncurled herself and made an effort to sit up. It took several tries to accomplish this task, as her available limbs were so weak they could barely support her weight. After a bit of very painful trial-and-error practice, she learned to walk—very carefully—without tripping every other step; but her wobbly legs still felt as if they would give out beneath her at any second.

The weakness was yet another problem—she had almost no physical strength to speak of anymore, and she didn’t know why. In fact, her entire body seemed to have been drained of energy, and although her brain told her she should be moving, every other part of her wanted to go back to sleep. She was going to have to be careful about how much energy she expended, lest she collapse from exhaustion in the middle of an open field or on a road. Fortunately, though she still had difficulty getting her unfamiliar limbs to work together with any kind of grace, she could afford to move more slowly and get a feel for it now that she was no longer in immediate danger.

Not actually having any particular destination in mind, Twilight followed a trail of crushed plants and snapped branches in the foliage, which led her to the edge of the treeline. Ponyville was just barely visible in the distant landscape. The lights of Ponyville, anyhow; beyond that, she could barely see anything, as it was nighttime and there was only a sliver of moon hanging in the sky.

She was able to make out enough detail in her surroundings to see that this was the same meadow she had teleported herself into. There was a road somewhere nearby—if she was remembering correctly; it was hard to think through the thick soup of exhaustion, pain, and tension that her brain was currently marinating in.

After staring blankly at the town for some time, Twilight slid down the embankment and set off down the barely-visible dirt road in the direction opposite that of Ponyville proper. She still didn’t know where she wanted to go; was still too disoriented to think about what she was doing.

This time she managed to stay on her hooves in spite of the uneven ground; her balance had improved slightly now that the world wasn’t rolling back and forth in front of her eyes and there wasn’t a carpet of roots, branches, and plants trying to trip her with every step she took. Her three-legged success came at the cost of speed, however. Though Twilight didn’t know exactly how long it was that she spent travelling that little dirt path, it had to be an hour at the least.

The path eventually widened, though the density of the branches overhead increased at about the same rate and covered the moon until it was almost impossible to see at all beyond vague shapes in the dark. Twilight worried at first that she might have been heading into the Everfree Forest, but what she could see of the trees remained gently curved and unintimidating, as opposed to the leering, skeleton-like branches of the Everfree.

As she neared a somewhat acutely angled bend in the road, something alien stirred within her. It took a moment for Twilight to identify—more through the process of elimination than anything else—this strange feeling as being the sixth sense possessed only by changelings: empathy.

The things she was feeling, of course, made little sense to her beyond that basic fact. A pony who had just acquired the ability to see after a lifetime of blindness might have understood her situation, but Twilight had no such experience. She had only a theoretical knowledge of magical empathy until that point, her bizarre experience in the town square notwithstanding.

What she did know, and what did get through to her muddled brain, was that there was something alive and sentient just up the road—and based on how the feeling was steadily growing stronger, whatever or whoever it was was moving toward her.

‘Thinking quickly’ wasn’t a concept that could be applied to Twilight in her current state, but she did think as fast as her distracted, exhausted brain would allow. The first thing she came up with was a question directed at herself: ‘Why did you walk up the middle of the path everypony else walks on like everything was normal? Stupid, stupid, stupid!’.

Immediately thereafter, as her understanding of the situation became more complete, her brain spat out another significant thought. This time it was less of a coherent statement, and more the presence of a simple idea, because of her rising desperation, but it went somewhere along the lines of ‘I can’t take any chances! I need to hide right away!’.

As quietly as she could, she hobbled over to some dark shapes on the side of the road that she assumed were bushes and plunged into them. They scratched at her exoskeleton and, in particular it seemed, at her broken foreleg—but Twilight managed to get far enough in that she was hidden from view before a softly glowing light rounded the corner.

Twilight managed to sneak a look at the newcomers from her hiding place. They were indeed ponies: one, greenish unicorn stallion, was lighting the path with his horn, while the other was a drably colored earth pony—also a stallion—walking on his right, his eyes darting nervously around.

As their hoofsteps drew nearer, she heard them talking quietly to each other. She was too far away to make out what they were actually saying, however, save for a few scattered fragments.

“...up to our ears in... probably run into it...”

“...to think that... don’t know why...”

“...we’d be ten thousand bits richer...”

“...not going to... makes you think...”

“...you never know...”

“...probably long gone, you...”

“...so negative all the...”

“...to fight a changeling anyway... one of the search parties...”

“...can’t be that tough...”

She fought the urge to hyperventilate with every ounce of self-control she had as they passed by. The unicorn actually brushed against the leaves on the front of the bush, and if he had looked to his left at that moment he would surely have seen a pair of terrified blue eyes staring back at him. But he didn’t look, as he was too engrossed in his conversation with the earth pony, and the two continued on down the road, oblivious to the fact that they had just come within half a meter of the changeling they were talking about.

Still holding her breath, Twilight waited for their hoofsteps to fade into the distance. It wasn’t until the sound of their conversation had also vanished that she unfroze and started gulping air in deep breaths that made her chest heave. Even then, she didn’t dare leave the safety of the bush yet; she peered out after them, bending her neck in a position that, while it was very uncomfortable, didn’t cause her horn to jut out into the road when she looked.

Once the unicorn’s light had been completely swallowed up by the dark night, she finally began to untangle herself from the bushes. Her broken foreleg, in particular, caused her a lot of trouble, since she could now use only one hoof to move the bushes aside and she kept getting caught on their branches.

After some struggling, she managed to crawl out onto the road again, where she lay, panting heavily. Getting herself out, combined with her brief moment of terror, had taxed her already exhausted body beyond what it could take. She was still shaking, an aftereffect of having her system infused with the changeling equivalent of adrenaline.

It seemed like those two had been on their way to somewhere in particular—but from what she’d gathered, there were groups of ponies that were actively looking for her. If one of them came across her, she was done for; she had no strength to run or fight, and trying to perform an advanced spell like teleportation again would most likely burn out her horn completely.

A loud, rumblingcrack suddenly split the air. Startled, Twilight scrambled to her hooves as fast as she could with her three remaining legs, eyes darting wildly around at the silhouettes of the trees lining the road. When she was unable to identify the source of the noise, she spun around to look in the other direction, and found nothing.

The spaces between the tree branches lit up with a bright flash, scaring the high-strung black creature so badly that she almost jumped out of her hackles. Twilight could still find nothing, which wound the tension inside her even tighter. She heard another boom and started once again, this time so badly that she lost her balance and had to fall back onto her haunches so that she didn’t go crashing face-first into the dirt. For a second time, the sky lit up briefly.

She flinched when she felt something hit her smashed muzzle. But it didn’t hurt; it just felt wet, and harmlessly slid down the side of her face to drip off one of her fangs. Twilight stuck her tongue out and tasted it: it was just water. Not a second later, a faint pattering noise filled her ears, and a sheet of water began to fall both on and around her.

“Just rain,” Twilight murmured to herself, staring distantly at a puddle that was forming in the road as her terror evaporated and left her feeling strangely empty. “Just a thunderstorm...”

How could she have been so afraid of a phenomenon she’d watched Rainbow Dash put together time after time in Ponyville? She knew what thunder and lightning were. Not only was it humiliating, but it drove home the fact that Twilight Sparkle wasn’t cut out for this kind of situation.

She had never actually broken a bone before that day; Rainbow Dash said it was painful, but Twilight hadn’t understood just what that meant until her leg snapped in half in the town square. The worst pain she had ever encountered before that morning was a headache from a spell she’d miscast as a filly. Princess Celestia had had her stay in bed for a day while her magic recharged itself, and by the next day she had felt fine.

It was a recurring theme throughout her life, in fact. There was always somepony Twilight could turn to when she needed help: friends, the Princess, her parents, Shining Armor, Cadence... But she had just been attacked by an entire town, and everypony she cared about thought she was a changeling imposter. Twilight was truly on her own.

Shivering, she sat in the middle of the road, which was quickly transforming into a swamp thanks to all the mud, and hung her head sadly. There were very few times in her life when she could remember feeling as utterly alone and forlorn as she did now. One was when Discord had corrupted all her friends and turned Equestria into a carnival of insanity, when she herself had been corrupted and thought she didn’t need friendship.

And another was the time she had been rejected and banned from attending her own brother’s wedding when she tried to warn the Princess, her brother, and her friends that ‘Princess Cadance’ was actually a...

...was actually an imposter. A fake. A changeling.

Just like she was now.

More cacophonous thunder filled the air as Twilight stood wearily up again. Instead of continuing down the path, she simply walked into the trees on the right-hoof side of the road, not reacting particularly strongly when she bumped into things or got scratched. She blundered through the woods, tripping on roots and getting herself snagged by branches. She didn’t actually have a destination in mind; she was just moving because something in the depths of her mind told her that if she stopped, the panic would catch up to her.

Twilight wondered, very distantly, if she was still in shock over what had happened earlier that day; if the anxiety would hit suddenly and overwhelm her later on. There was no sense of dread or urgency tugging at her mind anymore. Instead she felt strangely numb and detached from her surroundings, as though everything was happening in a dream. Given her sordid record when it came to managing stress, she should have had a panic attack long ago. In fact, by that point she really should have been starting to develop psychotic symptoms, as had happened during some of her most severe experiences in the past.

Her aimless journey through the wild forest eventually led her to another path. It was crude, and it was overgrown, like it hadn’t been used in years, but it was still clear that a course of direction had been delineated there at some point. Lacking anywhere better to go, Twilight lurched down the path. Had she been more lucid, she might have realized that following old roads without knowing where they led was not the best idea, but her brain was too clouded to analyze the situation properly.

Fortunately, it led her not into the claws of a rogue manticore or the gaping maw of a quarray eel, but to a large clearing. On one side, there were more trees, and on the other, a solid wall of black; wherever it went, Twilight couldn’t see where the forest began again. The only thing of note in the clearing itself was a hill which, Twilight noticed, had a tree the size of the oak her library was built into growing on it.

The tree started to gain more and more features with each step she took toward it. Little boxes hanging from the branches became birdhouses; solid lines became a wooden rail; and dark spots in the front of the tree itself proved to be windows and a door. Twilight stopped, trying to process this development. The ‘tree’ was now easily recognizable as Fluttershy’s cottage. The overgrown path she’d walked must have been another, older way to get to the cottage; maybe one Fluttershy herself had used for a while and then abandoned.

For a moment, Twilight felt a surge of terror shoot through her. She was right in front of the house—close enough that Fluttershy would have seen her if she happened to turn on the light and look out the window. But thinking about the lights dredged up an old memory of a conversation she’d had with Fluttershy once; specifically, the part where Fluttershy mentioned she almost never turned off her lights when she was at home, because she was scared of the dark. Unless her power had coincidentally been cut tonight, it was very likely that no lights also meant no Fluttershy.

Of course. It made sense: Fluttershy probably would have been terrified of going home by herself after what had happened in the town square, for fear of being attacked and replaced herself. She had probably stopped by with Rainbow Dash to feed her animals and then gone to spend the night with one of her friends; either Dash or Rarity, most likely.

With a raspy exclamation that sounded more like a hiss than a sigh, Twilight turned around and limped back into the woods, almost zombie-like in her movements because of her lack of energy. Some of the shock was beginning to wear off at last, making her feel anxious and fidgety. The pain in her foreleg was beginning to seep through the protective haze of dissociation she had built up.

Twilight stopped after just a few steps and looked back, an awful idea forming in her head.

Fluttershy was a licensed veterinary clinician. Having been in the yellow pegasus’s home a few times in the past—usually when Spike managed to hurt himself in one of his harebrained schemes to impress Rarity—Twilight knew she kept a store of medical supplies on hoof for treating animals. Surely she would have some antibiotics and something to use as a splint, wouldn’t she?

Slowly, the squeaky wheels of Twilight’s brain started to turn, for the first time since she woke up.

She had gone without medical attention for several hours at the least, as it had been late in the morning when she escaped from the town. After lying in the dirt for most of that time with an open fracture, there was a strong possibility the wound could get infected. Very little was actually known about changelings’ immune systems; it wasn’t a topic that had been extensively studied.

There was no creature in Equestria—not even alicorns—that had complete immunity against every disease that ever existed, however, and she knew she was probably still just as susceptible to illness as a changeling as she had been when she was a unicorn. Even worse, her magic wasn’t working properly. A unicorn’s ability to fight infection was closely tied to how well their magic was functioning, and for all Twilight knew, the same was true of changelings.

Getting her hooves on something to splint her leg with was the most important thing on Twilight’s list as of that moment. There were also a number of drugs she would probably be better off with than without—namely, painkillers and an antiseptic; and if at all possible she also wanted to find some medical-grade horn salve to help soothe and repair the damage done by both her own botched magic and whatever spell had grabbed her in the town square.

She knew there weren’t many places in Equestria where she could find those kinds of medicines that weren’t locked up tight and under guard. Without the ability to use her horn, Twilight had as much chance of successfully breaking into the Ponyville pharmacy as the average earth pony, and trying to get something from the hospital was also a bad idea.

There were medical supplies inside Fluttershy’s cottage, but Fluttershy wasn’t around to give them to her—nor would she be likely to willingly give Twilight anything at all if she were around, save for ‘Take anything you want! Just don’t hurt the animals, please! Or me! Um... that is, if you don’t mind...’

...And besides, it would be wrong for Twilight to break into the cottage and take them herself. Wouldn’t it...? Even when she was hurt and alone and absolutely needed them as soon as possible, it would be wrong.

...Wouldn’t it?

Twilight sat down and reached for her tail so she could stroke it the way her mother used to when she had a breakdown at home, back when she was a filly. She giggled nervously and humorlessly when, for the second time that night, she was reminded that she no longer had her long, silky tail; only a sort of sail-like fin that served as another empathy sensor, just like the one that had replaced her mane. The tension inside her rose rapidly as she argued with herself, coming up with reason after reason both to steal Fluttershy’s things and to not steal them.

What would Fluttershy think of her if she burglarized the pegasus’s house? Even more importantly, what would Princess Celestia think of her? Being late with a friendship report and making a fool of herself in front of an audience weren’t criminal actions, but robbery was! And having screwed up a spell didn’t exempt her from the law! Twilight’s breathing hitched and started to become irregular. How could she have even thought of doing something like—

Another bolt of pain seared through the root of her horn, reminding her exactly why she had even thought about breaking into Fluttershy’s house. Frustrated, Twilight found herself unable to move forward or backward: she couldn’t go into the house because Celestia would banish her to the moon for being such an embarrassment if she did, and she couldn’t leave either because where else could she go that offered anything resembling medical care for her wounds?

Who knew what kind of illnesses she could get if she didn’t do something about the fact that her bones were sticking out of her skin! There was no way Twilight could possibly manage another long journey up the road in her current state, and she would surely end up dying of endomagical cornomacralysis or some other horrible infection if she left her leg the way it was for much longer!

It all came down to whether Twilight would rather lose Fluttershy’s trust or die of an infection; disappoint the Princess or let herself go doing the right thing. And if she died, she would never be able to gain her friend’s trust back at all, and she would never see Princess Celestia again at all! And if she didn’t die...

It was a lose-lose situation.

Twilight imagined that regal white face looking down on her with a look of the utmost sadness, and the Princess’s voice telling her she was a bad student who should have known better than to do what she did.

“I’m disappointed in your choice of actions, Twilight,” said Princess Celestiaas she stood over Twilight, who was trapped halfway between unicorn and changeling. “Not only did you break the law, you lost the trust of your friend as you did.”

“I’m sorry!” Twilight pleaded, cowering in the most humble and submissive position she could manage. “Please Princess Celestia, please forgive me—I didn’t want to die!”

Princess Celestiastomped her hoof on the ground, making the mutant freak before her whimper pathetically. “It does not matter, Twilight! The fact that you did something so abhorrible is proof that you don’t deserve to use magic, much less learn its secrets!”

“I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...” she repeated mindlessly. “Princess, I’ll make it right—tell me how to make it right—”

“The time for making right has long passed,” said the Princess coldly. “This is a time for punishment.”

Her horn glowed like the sun peeking over the horizon, momentarily awing Twilight into silence; the pathetic pile of black and lavender forgot everything for that moment to gaze in wonder at the sheer perfection before her. Then Princess Celestiastruck, and with one clean swipe she cleaved Twilight’s horn from her head at the base. Blood cascaded down the mutated face as she screamed in agony. A shower of sparks burst from her head—the result of her ability to use magic leaking out of her forever.

A pure white glow surrounded Twilight, and the mutated thing vanished. Next thing she knew, she was on the moon—and the ghosts of other ponies who’d been shot up there were wandering around, telling her she would join them when she was dead, and a hideous face was staring up at her from below, saying you’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?—just like in those End is Neigh horror novels Rainbow Dash liked to read—

“Oh, Celestia! Oh, Celestia...”

Twilight started to cry again, at last, as she tried to extract herself from her own imagination. By then, she was breathing far faster than she usually did, and her attempts to control it only made the hyperventilation worse.

Surely Princess Celestia would banish her to the moon when all was righted; or worse, right into the sun itself! And they would take her horn anyway, and she would never be able to use magic again!

She felt dizzy and confused, and was glad she wasn’t standing up. It was already difficult enough to stay upright without all the new ailments—and she felt like she was going to throw up, too. A moment later she dry-heaved onto the ground beside her. It helped settle her stomach a little, but what it did not help was the crushing tension inside her.

And these were all things that, once she found the mental focus to put them together and make sense of them, told her what was going on. If she could, she would have taken her pulse, but there weren’t any known places on the legs where it could be felt, and her heart was situated behind a thick exoskeleton.

“Okay,” she said to herself, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. “I’m hyperventilating... I feel dizzy and ill... I’m experiencing a sensation of impending doom... I feel as though things are out of my control... and I’m having intrusive thoughts that revolve around being punished by Princess Celestia.”

She took a deep breath and counted to ten, ignoring her body’s demands that she exhale immediately. Then she let it out as slowly and steadily as she could.

“...I’m having a panic attack.”

Twilight took another deep breath, counted to ten, and let it out slowly, letting her body take over and letting her mind go blank on its own. When she finished exhaling, she breathed in again, just as slowly.

“Now that I know I’m having a panic attack, I also know that all of this is an overreaction,” she continued, closing her eyes and willing her body’s tense muscles to relax. “The things I’ve been thinking are not an objective analysis of my situation. They are the result of a disproportionate response to stress by my nervous system, which does not think rationally as I am capable of doing. I am an intelligent, competent unicorn, and I can solve this problem satisfactorily if I regain control over my faculties and organize myself...”

For the next few minutes, Twilight just sat out in the rain, doing the breathing exercises she’d taught herself and diffusing the feelings of helplessness and urgency that had pervaded her mind. When she finally opened her eyes again and looked up, the anxiety had mostly ebbed away and left a much calmer unicorn behind.

To solve the problem at hoof, she needed to look at it logically, rather than emotionally. This was difficult to do with her mind so clouded, but she had time to sort things out now that she had her panic at bay.

The problem was that she had an injury and no way to treat it, unless she broke into her friend’s house and stole things. Twilight tried to force herself not to think about the long-term consequences this time, because they were irrelevant.

Think about now, Twilight. It won’t matter what Princess Celestia does to you if you’re dead...

It really did come down to disappointing Princess Celestia with her behavior or letting her leg get infected. And, her irrational thoughts aside, that was an easy decision. Twilight knew the Princess would be upset if she broke into Fluttershy’s house, but she would be more upset if Twilight died.

Because Princess Celestia loves me and cares about my well-being.

This thought warmed Twilight even under the torrents of cold rain. She suddenly felt energized; as energized as she could be given the circumstances, anyhow. Now she knew what to choose, and she could do it without feeling terrible about it. Or, at least, she could feel just a bit less terrible about it than she had before.

After a few failed tries, she managed to stand up, and limped toward the cottage again. She stumbled into the door when she reached it, as she’d miscalculated her steps, and ended up banging her head against it. Everything was unbalanced and spinning after that, and she didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or anxiety, the relatively mild blow, or all three in combination.

After she’d leaned against the wall for a moment to recover, she took a few steps to the side and turned the doorknob with her good hoof. It turned, but the door itself didn’t budge when she tried to push it in.

By that point, the pain in her horn had died down from the sharp, stabbing pain she'd felt earlier into a dull throbbing. She was reasonably certain her magic had recovered enough to allow for the use of some very minor spells again. It would probably hurt and be very unpleasant, but it would be worth it...

A sickly green glow swirled around the tip of Twilight’s horn as she summoned up a tiny amount of magic and focused it in the direction of the cottage’s front door. It was barely even within her control; rather like a limb that had been almost completely paralyzed and could only make the most basic of motions. Needles jabbed at her horn, making her wince, but it was at least a little less painful than it had been earlier that day when she teleported into the meadow.

The coil of magic crept across the space between her and the door, and then it passed straight through the heavy wood. After a moment of searching, she found the curved bell of the doorknob, and above it the bolt that kept both halves of the door locked shut. It took some effort to manipulate the weak tendril so that it could grasp the lock, but following a long trial-and-error process Twilight was rewarded with a firm grip on it. She slid the bolt back and gave the door a push outward with her magical ‘hoof’. With a soft creak, it swung outward, revealing the darkened sitting room of Fluttershy’s cottage.

Twilight could hardly see inside, even with her improved night vision, and the leakage of green sparks dribbling down from her horn ended before she passed through the doorway. Fortunately, there was a lamp near the door—within reach of her real hoof, in fact; probably so that Fluttershy could turn it on as soon as she stepped inside without having to look around in the scary darkness. Because she was short one foreleg and using the other to support herself, Twilight had to pull the little beaded chain hanging off the side with her mouth instead.

Light flooded the cottage, eliciting loud screeches and flapping from the many birdhouses attached to the walls and ceiling as their occupants awoke. At first, Twilight shied away from the loud noise, but once the shock had drained from her overworked nervous system, she took a couple of tentative steps through the doorway.

She found her empathy sense—Twilight instinctively knew what those strange feelings were, as before—flooded with the crude, primitive emotions of the animals. It was strange to be able to sense the emotions of another pony, as she hazily remembered having done in the town square, and even stranger by far to ‘feel’ those of creatures that weren’t even sentient. In spite of her instinctive understanding of the nature of what she was experiencing, her understanding didn’t extend to cover what, exactly, the emotions were. It wasn’t like feeling her own emotions at all; it was an altogether new sensation that made little sense to her.

After she’d gone about two steps or so, something very suddenly struck her left flank. It wasn’t actually a very powerful blow, but it was unexpected and so it scared her so badly she screamed and tried to backpedal. Because she was still so off-balance, she stumbled a little and ended up sitting on the floor in a bit of a daze. She immediately pushed herself backward, away from her attacker. A second attack made her yelp again and fall on her back, holding her good foreleg out to shield herself.

“Who’s there?” Twilight whimpered, curling up because there was little else she could do to defend herself. “Don’t hurt me! Please, I’m not really a changeling! You have to believe me! I don’t know what went wrong with that spell, but it turned me into this!”

There was no answer.

“Fluttershy? Is that you? Ask me anything! I’ll answer it! Ask me how we met! Ask about when we went up against the manticore! Or the dragon! Anything! I—I—I...”

She trailed off into a stunned silence, having gotten a good look at her assailant. It was Fluttershy’s pet rabbit, Angel. Angel thumped his large foot against the floor a couple of times, then jabbed one paw at it and mimed drop-kicking something out it. It was clear that he wanted her to leave the cottage immediately.

Before that night, Twilight had never really paid much mind to Spike’s horror stories about Angel being the spawn of Discord. Now, however, she felt rather intimidated by the little white rabbit, who was not only unafraid of her but capable of injuring her even further if he happened to kick her broken foreleg.

“Um, Angel? I’m Fluttershy’s friend—Twilight Sparkle...?” she rasped as she rose again, feeling as if she was managing to channel the pegasus’s personality for just a moment. “Can you let me borrow some things from Fluttershy... please...?”

Angel delivered another kick to her flank by way of response and glared at her. Twilight winced and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Of course not. You’re a rabbit. You can’t even understand a word I’m saying.”

Resigning herself to the idea that Angel wasn’t going to stop being a hinderance, she rose slowly to her hooves and started trying to get away from the rabbit. Yet more thumps against her flank told her that Angel was following her, kicking her repeatedly. Twilight was able to put up with this for the most part until he tried to trip her, at which point she began looking around for some way to restrain him.

Her eyes fell upon an empty birdcage hanging from a peg on the wall near the kitchen doorway. The door was halfway open and an unlocked lock dangled from the bars—perhaps Fluttershy used it for particularly uncooperative birds who needed to stay and heal.

Ignoring another kick, Twilight summoned up what little of her magic she had control over. A faint, feeble green light glowed at the tip of her horn, then snaked out and enveloped Angel. The rabbit struggled against it and made obscene gestures at Twilight, but he couldn’t break the hold she had on him, in spite of the fact that Twilight’s magic started to fail after only a few seconds and she nearly dropped him. After placing him in the cage, she telekinetically closed the door and levitated the lock onto it. Angel glared at her with his front paws crossed in anger as it clicked shut.

The exertion left her with the same familiar, stabbing pain shooting through her horn, which ached for a long time even after the throbbing stopped. Twilight had to sit down for a couple of minutes while she recovered from the exertion of using so much magic in such a short time. Once the dizziness, the nausea, and the worst of the fatigue had faded, she stood back up and made her way over to the chest not far from Fluttershy’s front door—which she had ended up quite a ways past in her attempts to get away from Angel—that held the pegasus’s veterinary supplies. She searched around for a set of saddlebags—there was a set leaning against the wall on the other side of the doorway. Twilight put the saddlebags in front of the cabinet, then opened the door.

There was a basic first aid kit in a box on the bottom shelf; two if some of the items elsewhere on the shelf were added up. Some real, hospital-grade bandages and splints were on the second shelf, as well as some rather intimidating tools Fluttershy probably used when she had to perform minor surgeries on animals and some electrical equipment Twilight was certain she’d obtained secondhand from Ponyville General.

The third shelf was taken up entirely by bottles of medications, both over-the-counter and prescription. Twilight couldn’t find any unicorn horn salve—not that she really expected to—but she was surprised to find a salve for dragon horns, which would still help her somewhat since they both contained several similar key ingredients.

In spite of her discomfort over the fact that she was burglarizing her friend’s home and her desire to be done with it as quickly as she could, Twilight took the time to look at each one of the medicine bottles and see if its contents were applicable to her in any way. It was bad enough taking things that weren’t hers; she didn’t want to make herself an even worse friend by stealing medicine she wouldn’t even need.

The unicorn opened the first bottle of painkillers she could find and swallowed several of them dry. Twilight wasn’t sure if pony painkillers would work on changelings, but there was no way she could go a moment longer without at least trying. As well as the painkillers, Fluttershy kept a number of fairly strong antibiotics on hoof, of which Twilight took several bottles, not wanting to stay there while she figured out the dosages. She also swallowed some ibuprofen to help with the swelling in her broken foreleg. Angel continued to glare sullenly at her back the entire time she was going through the cabinet.

She closed the saddlebags and, after some trial-and-error effort, managed to get them over her back. Then she hobbled across the room and opened the door of Fluttershy’s bathroom. Once she’d turned on the light, she shut the door and breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that Angel could no longer stare at her. Twilight took the saddlebags off again and put them on the floor near the sink.

As she moved in front of the sink to run the water, she saw movement. It was something pony-sized, ugly, and pitch-black—and it took her a moment before she realized that she was looking at her own reflection in Fluttershy’s bathroom mirror.

Two large blue eyes stared back at her. The pupils were less that and more like white spaces where the pupils ought to have been in a real pony’s eyes. It gave her a painfully insentient appearance: there was no trace of the intelligence that Twilight was so proud of, or even that she was capable of higher thought at all.

Her muzzle, which in changelings usually came to a sharp, upward-turned end, was twisted grotesquely and had already swelled up significantly. A crust of dried blood clung to her nostrils. Swollen yellow semicircles had formed under and around her eyes, and a part of her the exoskeleton on her cheek had actually chipped or broken somehow, though it didn't hurt very much. The two fangs on either side of her mouth also had yellowish-green stains on them, though it was probably just blood from her nose.

More blood had dried on her horn and formed a circle around the base. Twilight winced when she saw it. She hadn’t even realized she’d been bleeding from her horn until then. The horn itself was so ugly and wrong she could hardly stand to look at it—where she had once had a stubby lavender thing that grew in spirals, she now had a sharply-pointed black horn with a texture like very fine tree bark.

It was also the only part of Twilight that seemed unique at all compared to real changelings: it was as if her horn had tried to resist the change, and the resulting growth twisted repeatedly between being straight and being very slightly curved, in spite of being only slightly longer than her unicorn horn.

Beyond this one anomaly, she was nothing more than an ordinary changeling drone in terms of her appearance. A feeling of depression started to infiltrate Twilight’s previously determined attitude: she had never been very appearance-oriented—not in the way Rarity, and to a lesser degree many of her old classmates, had been—but seeing this monster looking back at her from the mirror made her feel strangely disconnected from herself and her own being.

As much as she hated it, Twilight wished she could use the changelings’ transformation magic. At the very least, there would be a much smaller chance of somepony trying to hurt her if she looked like Twilight Sparkle and not a changeling. But she had never used the transformation spell before. That spell was so innately changeling—it was the source of their name, after all—that no unicorn was powerful enough to cast it; not even Twilight. The Princesses might have been, but as far as she knew neither of them ever tried. Even though Twilight was in the body of a changeling, that didn’t mean she could transform like they could. She didn’t even know if the botched spell’s effects extended to include altering her innate magic.

Research suggested that changelings learned how to mimic the appearances of others over time, rather like unicorns learned to do magic and pegasi learned to fly. That meant even if Twilight could transform, she couldn't just clop her hooves together and change into another pony. And even if she could learn it in the span of a few hours, she didn't even have a working horn with which to do magic. The most useful power possessed by the changeling race was completely unavailable to her, no matter what angle she approached it from.

She turned on the tap, still half-mesmerized by her reflection, and wet one of Fluttershy’s washcloths so she could get the dirt and blood off herself. While she did the calculations for the correct dosages of the antibiotics, she noticed that the painkillers she’d taken earlier were indeed working; if the pleasant haze creeping over her was any indication, anyway. The throbbing pain in her horn ebbed away until it was a comfortably distant ache, and her leg at least hurt less than it had before. It even eased her headache somewhat, allowing her to think more clearly.

Once she’d figured out the dosages of and taken the antibiotic pills, Twilight sat down against the wall. Carefully, she stretched her foreleg out as far as she could and examined it. The wound had, at least, stopped bleeding, and a large mass of greenish clotted blood had formed over the injury. Everything below it felt numb and muted; like the feeling was only being partially received.

It was the yellowish-white objects jutting out about an inch and a half through the skin on either side of the break that held her attention, though. With a wave of horrified nausea, she realized those were the two halves of the bone. Having studied changeling anatomy only the night before, Twilight recognized it as her first —both halves of it, now. A bit lower down, there was a large bruise that was agonizingly painful to the touch. She guessed she had fractured the sesamoid bone as well, either during the jump or one of the times she fell on it earlier. It was a very intimidating injury given her current resources.

Twilight carefully began cleaning her smaller wounds with rubbing alcohol. She knew she was avoiding sterilizing the broken bone, but the idea of putting alcohol on that injury was enough to horrify her. When she ran out of cuts and scrapes, she put it off further by looking for an object to use as a bit. Eventually, she found a mane brush with a wooden handle that was shaped in the perfect dimensions for a bit, and she had nothing left to waste her time on.

The alcohol was every bit as agonizing as she had imagined, and then some. It felt like her leg had caught fire the moment the sterilizing liquid came in contact with it. Twilight swallowed her first scream, but she had no such luck with the rest; even muffled slightly by the bit, she still screamed as loudly as she could. Her foreleg shook so badly she could barely hold the cloth to wipe the alcohol around. It seemed a torturous eternity before she finally put the cloth down again and relax a little.

Taking the bit from her mouth, Twilight removed a roll of bandages from the saddlebags, as well as the splint she’d stuck between the straps. The next step was going to be the worst of all—even after taking the painkillers, Twilight wasn’t going to delude herself into thinking what she was about to do wouldn’t hurt at least as badly as it had when she had broken it. She glanced at the mangled part of her broken foreleg and whimpered softly. Then she sat there, nervously scuffing the floor with her good hoof and staring intently at her bad one. Finally, after an age of inaction, she took the roll of bandages in her mouth and tried to prepare herself for the coming pain.

“Uhkay, Hwihighh,” she murmured to herself. That she wasn’t speaking with her own voice anymore no longer mattered; she was too distracted by her anxiety to really care very much. “Yugh’cahn do ihf...”

She touched her foreleg with her hoof. It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would, so she pressed on it a little. Immediately, Twilight jerked her hoof back again, letting out a pained cry. Her bottom lip trembled between her fangs. Oh, dear Celestia, this really was going to hurt, wasn’t it...

“Ih’ll huht eeh fhor a heconhdh... d’hen ih’ll eeh okhay.” Twilight took a deep breath. Then she let it out. Then she took another deep breath. And let it out. “Yugh’cahn do idf... howh—”

And then she pressed down on the protruding bone. It was a good thing she had the roll of bandages between her teeth or she would probably have broken them from biting down so hard. As soon as she pushed the bone back into its proper place, the numb feeling vanished—which, although it meant whatever nerves, and possibly blood vessels, had been compressed were now free, it also brought a whole new level of pain as Twilight's hoof started to wake up.

Having done most things with magic all her life meant that Twilight wasn't very well-prepared for bandaging her own leg by mouth, especially while using her other hoof to hold the bones in place and gnashing her teeth together as she screamed. She gave it, perhaps, thirty seconds of effort, and then let the pressure off her leg and spat out the roll of bandages. The changeling then lay on her side for some time, panting and whimpering fearfully because she knew she was going to have to do it again.

This time, she put the makeshift bit in her mouth instead and tried lifting the bandages with magic. Her control faltered a bit when she set the bone again and the pain hit her, but she managed to shakily unwind them and start covering the spot on her leg where the broken bones had stabbed through the skin. The bandages kept the bones together temporarily while she used her good hoof to splint the injury. All she needed to do after that was wrap the wound in some more bandages and she was finished.

Twilight then lay down on the floor, curled up as best she could, and sobbed dryly. For some reason, she wished she could actually cry—it would have allowed her to feel some level of catharsis, perhaps, if she could; and if not that, it would have at least made her feel more like a pony and less like an oversized wasp.

Her thoughts eventually turned to her situation. What was she to do now? She couldn’t stay at Fluttershy’s house; not after having broken into it and stolen Fluttershy’s things like that. Even if Fluttershy wasn’t scared away by her (disgusting, Celestia-hating) actions, she simply didn’t think she could face the pegasus at the moment without feeling terribly guilty about what she’d done. That wasn’t something Twilight wanted to have to sort out in her current state.

She considered the rest of her friends. Which of them, after Fluttershy, was the most likely to listen to her? The opiates she’d taken earlier had done a good job of suppressing the pain, to a point the former unicorn could think more clearly despite the cloudy haze the drugs had brought into her mind.

Rainbow Dash was the embodiment of loyalty, and wouldn’t let anypony hurt Twilight Sparkle if she was in danger. But Rainbow’s loyalty obviously didn’t apply if she didn’t realize it was her friend. She could be hotheaded and stubborn, too; in fact, Twilight was certain she would be the most difficult of her friends to convince.

Pinkie almost always seemed to know what was going on, but she rarely reacted to it with anything approaching maturity. Though it would probably be easy to convince the pink pony, her opinion rarely held any weight with most of the other townsponies, and Twilight wasn’t even sure she would fully grasp how serious the situation was at all.

Rarity was out solely because she was a unicorn and Twilight didn’t want to risk being incapacitated before she could even explain what was going on. And if Fluttershy was staying with Rarity, then there was no chance of going for her, either.

Twilight remembered how Applejack had remained relatively calm when she was being mobbed by the otherwise-hysterical ponies of Ponyville. And as the Element of Honesty, Applejack had an uncanny ability to tell whether somepony was telling the truth or not.

On the other hoof, Applejack wasn’t a living lie detector, and she could be as hotheaded as anypony else sometimes, given the right motivation. And it wasn’t as if Twilight could simply trot up to her bedroom window and throw rocks at it until she came out; Applejack lived with her family, so there was no guarantee she’d even meet the earth pony first.

She racked her brain, trying to think of another pony she could go to. Maybe Lyra Heartstrings would take her in—Lyra was known for sympathizing with odd causes, and also for her interest in alien or long-dead cultures. But humans, as strange-looking as the illustrations in the fantasy books about them often were, had little in common with the frightening visage of a changeling.

Seeing her mutated reflection in the mirror had driven home that she was no longer Twilight Sparkle The Unicorn. To everypony but herself, she was no longer Twilight Sparkle at all. She was a monster to them. A fanged, pitch-black demon that hid under your bed at night. It was naive, in fact, to think that anypony would listen to a word she said in her current form. She couldn't even change herself into a more pony-like form, because she had neither the magic nor the knowledge necessary to do so—something she had never experienced before, and something which frightened her almost beyond reason again.

It was then that Twilight realized what she had to do.

She had to run. Hide. Lay low. Conceal herself. Go to a place ponies wouldn’t find her until she had fixed herself, or at least figured out what to do.

The list of potential hiding places wasn’t very long. Twilight knew she couldn’t keep hiding in the small groves of trees in the surrounding area; there would probably be Royal Guards looking for her by the next morning, and they would almost certainly bring with them a unicorn who knew how to perform scrying spells. She was the only changeling in Ponyville, as she had revealed, and so if one of those spells found a changeling, there would be no doubt as to whether it was the right one.

Worse yet, she actually knew spells that would protect her against scrying—but they all required a significant amount of magic to perform. Since, as she had discovered earlier, even casting a simple telekinesis spell was barely within Twilight’s ability to perform at that moment, there was simply no way she would be able to put an anti-scrying spell on herself at the moment.

Escaping Ponyville wasn’t an option, either. Aside from the fact that Twilight didn’t want to spend the rest of her life as a fugitive hiding in the shadows, all her information on changelings was still at the library, and there was a chance she would need to consult it when she was reverting what the changeling spell had done.

She wasn’t naive enough to think that news of the supposed abduction of Princess Celestia’s protege wouldn’t find its way into other towns, and perhaps even Equestrian newspapers. In fact, there would probably be missing/wanted posters with her face on them—both the unicorn one and the changeling one—plastered all over the place within days.

There was only one other option: she had to hide in the Everfree Forest.

Scrying spells didn’t work there, for reasons still unknown, and most ponies avoided it as much as they could on a normal day. She herself didn’t plan on staying for a long time; just until she either corrected her mistake or recovered enough that she could cast an anti-scrying spell. And one thing of particular significance that the Everfree also had that Twilight couldn’t get anywhere else was a safe place to sleep. It would be something of a long journey to get to the old building, but if she was smart and didn’t do anything foolish, she would probably be safe the whole way.

Now that her broken leg was splinted, Twilight made a crude sling out of some more of the bandages so that it would stay against her chest when she got up. She carefully put everything back in the saddlebags and put them back on again, then stood shakily. One thing the painkillers hadn’t fixed, and had in fact made worse, was her poor balance and coordination. The world spun nauseatingly every time she turned her head and she wanted nothing more than to be able to lie down and go to sleep.

She stopped at the front door, remembering Angel. A small frown crossed her face, but she turned back and unlocked the cage door with her magic before stepping out into the night again. The door shut behind her with a soft clack, and she began to slowly make her way toward the Everfree.

There was little sound in Carousel Boutique beyond the ticking of a clock and some quiet breathing. The clock said it was a quarter after one, but only because the Cutie Mark Crusaders had tried to get their cutie marks in clockmaking several days before and Rarity hadn’t had a chance to fix the damage they had done just yet. In reality, it was around two-thirty in the morning.

A half-finished dress adorned a manequin in Rarity’s workroom on the first floor. She had intended to work on it throughout the day, but events had conspired to push the dress out of her mind entirely. She, like most of the other ponies in Ponyville who hadn’t holed themselves up in their houses, had spent most of that day searching for the rogue changeling that had taken the place of Twilight Sparkle.

Upstairs, Rarity’s sister Sweetie Belle was asleep in her bed, worn out from half a day’s worth of ‘Cutie Mark Crusader Changeling Finders!’, which, naturally, had ended the moment an adult got wind of it. The sofa in the sitting room was occupied by Spike the dragon, who was also fast asleep after Rarity had slipped him some of the sleep aid she occasionally used when she couldn’t get her mind off her work at night. Before that, Spike had been rather out of sorts, which was understandable given what had happened to Twilight.

Rarity herself was sitting at the kitchen table. In front of her there were several books about changelings that Spike had brought from the library, and that she and the others had been looking through earlier. She wasn’t looking at them just then, though; rather, she was staring distantly at the parchment scroll pinned under a glass in the center of the table.

A cup of tea, with steam rising from its surface, was placed by her right hoof. Rarity glanced in that direction with a small ‘hmm’ noise.

“Thank you, darling,” she said to Fluttershy as the latter pony sat down. With a mixture of fondness and slight aggravation, she added, “You’re the only pony I know who would ever make tea for their host, instead of the other way round.”

“Oh, it was no trouble at all,” Fluttershy assured her. “You’ve done so much, and I... feel kind of...”

“Don’t say it,” the unicorn commanded. “You aren’t useless, and we both know it.”

“I guess.” Fluttershy didn’t sound particularly convinced, but didn’t push the matter any. Instead, she said, “I really hope Twilight’s all right, Rarity. I can’t stand to think of her being imprisoned by that... thing.”

“I can assure you, you’re not the only one. Oh, if I ever get my hooves on that monstrosity... But it’s quite unladylike to fantasize about such violent revenge, much less to take it, so I suppose I’ll settle for letting the Princesses deal with it once it’s captured.”

They drank their tea in silence for a while. Eventually, Fluttershy said, “I’m going to ask all my other friends to keep their eyes open for it when I go home tomorrow.”

“That’s an excellent idea, darling. You see? You aren’t useless at all,” replied Rarity with a smile.

“But I talked to her... it... this morning,” murmured the pegasus, staring blankly at her tea. “Why didn’t I...?”

“It had Applejack fooled, too,” said Rarity. “And Pinkie Pie. For all we know, it could have been impersonating her for weeks. You don’t have anything to feel sorry for, Fluttershy. None of us even suspected Twilight wasn’t herself. That one was a good actor.”

Fluttershy nodded to herself. “I still wish I had noticed something.”

“As do I.”

“Do you think she’ll be... mad that we didn’t...”

“No. No, I don’t. Twilight isn’t the type to blame her friends for things they can’t control. She has a very rational mind, when she’s not under a lot of stress. She’ll understand.”

“I hope so...”

There was a sudden, rather loud, banging on the window of Rarity’s sitting room. Rarity hissed in annoyance, knowing exactly what was causing it, and got up. Fortunately, the noise hadn’t woken Spike from his drugged sleep, although the dragon rolled over and mumbled something about rearranging the apple trees in Shining Armor’s apartment.

“Most ponies prefer it when their guests use the door,” Rarity commented once she’d opened the window. “And don’t you dare shake your feathers off in here. You can do it in the bathroom.”

Rainbow Dash said nothing—which, coming from the normally talkative pegasus, was not a good sign. Nor was the fact that she practically stomped after Rarity to the bathroom. Once she’d dried herself, she thumped loudly into the kitchen, and would have slammed the door behind her if Rarity hadn’t foreseen the action and caught the door with magic. She thumped down in front of the table and, without asking, downed the entire remainder of Rarity’s tea.

“Rainbow Dash, I can tolerate your uncouth behavior to a degree, but—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Rainbow cut in, scowling. “I’m goin’ back out when I leave. I need something with caffeine in it.”

“You could have asked me to make you a cup of your own,” insisted Rarity as she sat down herself.

“Whatever.” The blue pegasus stared intently at the wall until Rarity coughed.

“No luck, I take it?” asked Rarity. This earned her an annoyed glance from Rainbow.

“What do you think? I’ve been flyin’ around all bucking day and all bucking night, and I haven’t seen any sign of that stupid little... ugh. It’s probably hiding in somepony’s basement or something. Make me some more tea.”

“I’ll make you tea if you can find it within yourself to ask like a civilized pony.”

Rainbow’s annoyance quickly turned into anger. “How about you go find it within yourself to—go buck a manticore, you—you stuck-up... frou-frou—pile’a ponyfeathers—?”

She sighed, wilting slightly beneath the glare Rarity aimed at her and Fluttershy’s startled look.

“Sorry, okay?” she groaned. “I’m just worried about Twilight...”

Rarity’s glare softened slightly. “We’re all worried about her, Rainbow Dash.”

“But I’m the one that’s actually looking for her, or that stupid changeling, or whatever!” Rainbow complained. She let out a frustrated growl. “The only other pegasus that even bothered staying out late to keep looking was Raindrops! Well, and Derpy, but she’s so useless she practically doesn’t count as a—”

For the second time, Rainbow’s ears flattened back; she was now receiving glares from both Rarity and Fluttershy. Eventually, she hid her face in her hooves.

“Sorry,” the pegasus repeated. “It’s late, okay? Or early. Or whatever the buck time it is right now. I don’t know. It’s night time and I haven’t had a nap since yesterday. I’m sayin’ stuff and not thinkin’ about it first.”

The other two mares continued to send her disapproving looks for a moment, but soon forgave her, since both were aware of Rainbow’s long-running struggle with impulse control.

“Did Celestia send any letters back?” Rainbow asked as Fluttershy went to go make her a cup of tea, as well as a new cup for Rarity, who hadn’t had very much of hers.

“As a matter of fact, she did,” said Rarity. She took the parchment scroll and offered it to Rainbow, who rubbed her eyes and didn’t take it.

“I c’n barely make you guys out right now. My eyesight is worse than...” She waved her hooves around for a moment, searching for an inoffensive way to describe Derpy. “...you-know-who’s... when I’m tired. You’re gonna have to read it to me, cuz it’ll just be a bunch’a fuzzy crap if I look at it.”

Rarity, deciding that questioning Rainbow’s claim wasn’t worth the effort, cleared her throat and read:

‘My little ponies,

I am deeply disturbed by the news of Twilight Sparkle’s abduction. Regrettably, Luna and I are unable to deal with the situation personally, since we are not in or anywhere near Canterlot at the moment. However, I have dispatched a number of Royal Guards, as well as members of the RAW and one of the Inquisitors currently involved in searching Canterlot for remaining changelings, to Ponyville and the neighboring towns to search for both my student and her captor.

I will not lie to you: Twilight is in a situation that could easily prove perilous. That said, do not despair, my little ponies. My faithful student is a clever mare, and as such I expect she will be able to survive much longer than most ordinary ponies in the same situation.

—Princess Celestia’

Predictably, the first thing out of Rainbow’s mouth was “She’s sending the Wonderbolts?”

“It would seem that way, darling.”

“Woah.” The pegasus looked positively giddy for a moment, and then her sullen demeanor slowly returned. “Not gonna matter if Twilight’s dead, though. Ugh... Who’s the inquisitor guy?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Rarity. “I do recall seeing the term in recent news, of course. Apparently, the number of criminals attempting to use the possibility of changeling imposters as a way to have their sentences overturned has been so high that the Princess formed an inquisition to deal with it. I suppose he’ll be some sort of expert when it comes to hunting down changelings.”

“Oh, yeah. Probably.” Rainbow frowned as Fluttershy came back with their tea. “Thanks, Fluttershy.”

Rarity watched disapprovingly, and then with a bit of surprise, face as Rainbow chose to drink all her tea at once, in despite it still being scalding hot when the cup touched her lips. The pegasus’s eyes bugged out a little when she first felt the heat, but it did little to deter her.

“I should get going,” she said once her mouth had cooled enough to allow her to speak normally again. “I shouldn’t even have taken a break, but I gotta check up on everypony. Make sure you’re all okay, y’know? Maybe Pinkie’ll have coffee or something.”

“Perhaps you should rest,” Rarity suggested. “You won’t be able to find anything if you’re too tired to pay attention to your surroundings.”

“That’s what caffeine’s for,” Rainbow told her, grimacing. “Look... I can’t just sit around while one of my friends is in danger. Not if I can do something about it.”

She got up and stretched her wings until the joints popped, then did the same with each leg.

“It kinda pisses me off that you’re not doing more to help,” she added suddenly. “I mean, I don’t get why I’m the only one out there. I mean, I sorta get it, but it just feels wrong.”

“Most ponies can’t keep going full-throttle, day and night, the way you can,” said Rarity, as inoffensively as possible. “We’re not you, Rainbow.”

Rainbow sighed. “I know, I know... It’s just, I’m the Element of Loyalty, y’know? And I kinda expect other ponies to be as loyal to my friends as I am. I guess I forget other ponies aren’t like me. A lot.”

“That was quite introspective,” the unicorn observed.

“Yeah. I’ve been working on it for a while. ‘Putting myself in the horseshoes of others’, and all. Remembering my way isn’t always the best way. Talking about how I feel. That stuff.”

“That’s... actually very mature of you, darling,” said Rarity. “What prompted you to start thinking about it?”

“Dunno, really. Stuff. A buncha stuff,” Rainbow said, shrugging again. “I dunno. Maybe I’ll talk with you girls about it when this is over. Twilight needs help right now. I should be focusing on that. Thanks for the tea.”

“I really think you would do better by Twilight if you had a nap before you start looking again.”

Another tired shrug. “I gotta be out there, or else... I feel like a bad friend. It’s not something you can fix. Comes with being the Element of Loyalty, and stuff.”

“In that case, good luck, I suppose.” Rarity didn’t bother trying to argue further, since another part of her friend’s personality was stubbornness, and she knew it.

“Bye Rarity. See ya, Fluttershy.”

With that, Rainbow clomped out of the kitchen, energized by the caffeine in her tea. The fading hoofsteps stopped abruptly after a second or two and started getting louder again, and then her head poked back in, followed by her body.

“Hey, uh, can I ask you guys something?” she questioned apprehensively.

“Of course, darling.”

“Um, okay,” added Fluttershy.

Rainbow bit her lip and said nothing for a while, until she blurted out, “Do you think Twilight’s still alive?”

There was a short pause following this. Then both of the other ponies spoke at the same time.

“Of course!” Rarity exclaimed, in unison with Fluttershy’s ‘I, um, hope so...’. “What ever possessed you to think she might not be?”

Once again, the beginning of Rainbow’s answer was a shrug. “I don’t know... I just hope she’s okay.”

Fluttershy looked like she half wanted to get up and go hug Rainbow, but settled for giving her a sympathetic look instead since the younger pegasus wasn’t a fan of physical contact. Rarity, meanwhile, looked down into her teacup to hide her troubled face.

“So do the rest of us, darling,” she said.

A pitch-black pony-like creature hobbled down a crude, overgrown path, surrounded by gnarled, skeletal trees that almost completely blocked out the moon. Twilight wasn’t sure how long she had been walking for, but she knew it had been a while. It was at least long enough that she had to stop and take more painkillers, since the initial dose she’d taken in Fluttershy’s bathroom had worn off.

With each step she took, the forest around her became ever denser. It was becoming more and more difficult to see the moon through the branches above, and accordingly Twilight was bumping into more and more obstacles—but Twilight paid little attention to it, or the fact that the bandages on her leg were soaked, either. Her body was on autopilot, only aware enough to avoid straying from the narrow, crude path between the trees. The rest of her was half asleep, as the exhaustion was beginning to catch up with her again.

Eyes peered out of the darkness at her. Eerie noises filled her ears. Once or twice, Twilight knew something had moved nearby, but infuriatingly, everything remained hidden from sight. Her empathy sense was flooded with crude, primitive emotions; most of them malicious ones.

Early on, she had done the only thing she could do to keep predators away with her magic so weakened: she used a very small amount of the magic she could access to generate an extremely offensive vapor that followed her like a cloud. It wasn’t so much offensive-smelling as physically painful—it was actually roughly equal to inhaling mace for everyone but its creator.

One of her hind legs suddenly lost its footing and slipped, leaving her on only two legs for a moment. The natural result of this was that she tumbled over sideways and slid down one of the little streams in the ground that had formed in the rain. Twilight ended up on her side near the bottom of the embankment, half-coated in disgusting muck and bits of plants.

She didn’t get up for a moment; just lay there in the mud, too tired and in too much pain to move. Eventually, the changeling planted her good hoof into the ground and pushed herself up. The muscles gave out halfway, though, and she collapsed again, eyes half closed and very near sleep.

But she couldn’t give up now. She had to be almost there, after walking for so long. Twilight rose up again, and this time managed to stay on her hooves and resume walking, though it was beginning to physically hurt to do so. This was a familiar place—she was so very close to her destination...

Up ahead, the thick trees parted into a small clearing. At the center of this clearing was a decaying stone building whose architecture was identical to that of some of the very oldest Celestian churches in Equestria proper. It wasn’t really a very large building at all, with only two floors and a bell tower. The stones were crumbling in places, and in others they had slipped out altogether.

This building was, in fact, a church at one point—but it was far older than any of the Celestian ones, and had been devoted to the worship of a fabled alicorn called Origin. Origin was the creature who (it was said) created all living things, even the Princesses and Discord. His religion had long since died away, save for a few minor sects among earth ponies that tended to keep to themselves—Pinkie had once mentioned that her family were Originists—but the building itself, which had been erected around the same time as the old castle, had remained in its decaying state for over a thousand years. It was one of the few relics of the old city that was still intact.

Twilight knew all of this because she had taken part in a small equinological expedition into the Everfree about a year after she had first come to Ponyville. She had even slept in the building overnight, as it was one of the few places in the Everfree Forest where it was even remotely safe to close one’s eyes.

A pair of iron-lined doors greeted her when she made her way around to the front side. They were old and rickety, and creaked loudly when she pushed them open, but the wood itself had not decayed at all; one of Twilight’s tasks in the original expedition was to discover what kinds of substances had been put on that wood to preserve it for a thousand years. The same was true of the floors, which creaked and shook when she walked on them but held her weight all the same.

She actually had a bit of trouble getting through the empty space the doors opened up to. It was like trying to walk through a very thick layer of jello in that it gave against her determined but weak pushing, while at the same time attempting to push back. Twilight collapsed onto the floor, panting, as soon as she was inside and the resistance ceased.

That resistance was the reason Twilight didn’t have to worry about running into any animals inside: before leaving, her expedition party had placed spells on the church to prevent non-pony creatures from entering—there had been plans to return there, originally, but a sudden explosion of interest in Discordian-era equinology following his escape turned the funding elsewhere. Apparently changelings had enough pony in them to make the spell relent, eventually.

The inside of the church was filled with rows of dusty benches, leading up to an altar at the other end. All the remotely valuable—scientifically and otherwise—objects had already been removed for study at museums, so everything else was somewhat bare. The overall feeling of the church was a bit cramped, as ponies one thousand years ago were an inch or two smaller than they were now, but it was cramped in an inviting way, like a very old library.

Hobbling past the benches, the worn-out changeling checked behind the altar to see if any of the things they’d left behind were still there. Having so much to bring back with them, and intending to return after a few months, they had left a fair amount of nonessential gear behind. This included a pair of somewhat moth-eaten sleeping bags, which were the only thing Twilight was really interested in.

She spread it out right there, behind the pulpit, and placed her saddlebags at the top as a pillow. Before slipping into the sleeping bag, she remembered to take another dose of painkillers to last through her sleep. The combined power of her physical exhaustion and the drugs’ effects quickly made her eyelids droop down.

The last, very addled, thought Twilight had before she fell asleep was that after everything that had happened to her since that morning, a simple sleeping bag on the floor of an abandoned thousand-year-old church felt absolutely exquisite.

III. Einsatz

Solitary Locust

III. The Inquisitor

Normally, Rainbow Dash liked rainstorms. She liked to fly in them; not to the degree that her coworker Raindrops did, but enough that it was fun to do sometimes. Specifically, she liked to fly in storms that weren’t shooting lightning at her and dropping hail on her. Besides, thunderstorms were a lot more fun to wait out now that she’d started reading on a regular basis. So, logically, she should have been at home, safely anchored in the sky and reading Daring Do by the low light of her rainbow lamps, catching only the periphery of the gale as it swiped Ponyville—but she was in the dead center of it instead, laying flat against the ground, shivering and coated with mud, facing lightning strikes that could fry her to a crisp and winds even her unusually powerful wings couldn't fight against forever.

More thunder cracked directly overhead, accompanied by a flash that made Rainbow cringe. It was because of the lightning that she had to crawl through the field—she'd almost been fried while flying over it, and only the fact that she had been flying lower than the nearest tree at the time had kept her alive.  Little pieces of hail pelted her head, back, and wings, stinging her skin and making her groan miserably. The icy rain had left her shivering and chilled to the point where she could hardly feel her extremities. She wanted nothing more than to find somewhere warm and dry to hide for a little while.

Rainbow resumed crawling through the muddy field she’d landed in, keeping herself as low to the ground as possible. It took her almost half an hour to slog through the mud to the other side of the open field. The soaked pegasus took a moment and made a halfhearted attempt to preen her filth-crusted feathers—with all the cold slime stuck to her, there was little chance that she would fly anyway—before heading off into the woods. Because the rain was so torrential, even the forest floor had been reduced to mud puddles in some places, despite the cover of trees.

She had some idea of where she was, having practiced stunts in the field she'd just come from in the past. The mare also had a very good idea of her orientation, since all pegasi possessed an innate internal compass that helped them navigate the often identical skies (the exception to this being Derpy, who, for some reason, couldn't tell north from south). If she headed to the east, she would end up in the Everfree. If she went west, she would walk right back into the open fields and probably get hit by lightning. South would lead her through an invading patch of the Everfree, and then into Sweet Apple Acres' orchards. North led to Fluttershy's cottage.

A frown crossed her face.

Of all the negative qualities Rainbow possessed (lazy, stubborn, insensitive, impulsive, and so on), flaky was not one of them. If she said she would do something, it would be done, no matter what it took. As much as she wanted to go somewhere warm and dry, like Applejack’s incredibly cozy guest room, she couldn’t just lay down and sleep like that knowing somepony she cared about was in danger. Twilight was her friend, and that meant Rainbow would go to whatever lengths were necessary in order to ensure that she came out safe and unharmed by her captor.

And that made her think... that stupid bucking changeling was responsible for all this. It, and the mayor. The whole storm could easily have been avoided if the weather team had been given adequate time to get rid of the clouds. Mayor Mare, however, seemed to think that pegasi were capable of dismantling storms as quickly as they put them together, and then re-assembling them all over again. Consequently, the weather team had been given no warning whatsoever about the need for a clear sky until about ten in the morning that day, when the mayor held a meeting with Ponyville’s weather committee.

The day before, Rainbow and the rest of the weather pegasi had hastily moved every cloud in the sky over next to the border of the Everfree Forest to prepare for the changeling's presentation. Bucking clouds out of the sky was one thing, and perhaps they could done something less dangerous with the clouds if they’ had more time to work, or at least some better options to choose from. Putting clouds full of pegasus magic on the edge of the Everfree, where they could be affected by the Everfree’s own strange magical interference, was a recipe for trouble that had cooked up a rather ugly result.

The sky lit up for a split second as more lightning flashed across it, followed almost instantaneously by a rumbling boom. Rainbow wasn't particularly startled by it, since being a weather pegasus meant working around thunder on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it distracted her from watching where she was going, so she was taken completely by surprise when her hoof suddenly sank through the sodden ground and ended up bearing all of her weight at an awkward angle. Although Rainbow was a lot lighter than most ponies, she also had the thin, fragile frame of a pegasus whose line had never once interbred with those of the more physically durable tribes, so it hurt nonetheless.

"Damn it!" the blue mare spat out, shuddering. "Oh, Faust Creator, I hate this stupid storm... and I hate stupid bureaucratic earth pony committees... and I hate changelings! Twilight, where the hell are you?"

Once she’d calmed down somewhat, though she was still swearing to herself under her breath, Rainbow gingerly extracted her hoof from the flooded burrow (or whatever it was... Oh, damn; Fluttershy was going to be so worried about her animals) and sat down heavily in the mud to examine her injured foreleg. After the initial burst when she had stepped in the hole, the pain had died down to a more manageable level, and there was no sign that anything had been twisted or broken.

Testing her leg resulted in a bit of pain, but she was able to take a step and stay upright. Encouraged, she took a few more. After limping a bit, Rainbow managed to get back into a relatively normal rhythm of steps through the forest, relieved that she hadn’t seriously damaged her leg beyond the mild pain she still felt. The cerulean pegasus didn’t like walking nearly as much as flying, but there was very little room to fly in the forest, and if she couldn’t walk, she was stuck in the rain and—

She suddenly slipped in the mud and landed on her back with a loud thunk, all the air knocked out of her. Her dazed magenta eyes remained fixed on the sky for a moment, blinking rapidly when big raindrops and the occasional chunk of hail fell on her face. Coughing and brushing the foul-smelling mud off herself with her wings, Rainbow finally struggled back to her hooves.

Could a changeling even survive in conditions like these? Rainbow was starting to doubt whether searching the storm wasn't just a complete waste of her time. Maybe it would be a better idea to get inside before she put herself out of commission by getting pneumonia or seriously hurting herself. Maybe Applejack would lend her a spare bed for the rest of the night.

Half of Rainbow practically demanded that she keep looking, while another part produced increasingly scary images of what could potentially happen to her if she stayed outside in the storm. Burns, crashes, body parts mangled, head split open, wings torn right off... the possibilities were endless. If Rainbow ended up crashing and knocking herself unconscious, who was to say the changeling couldn’t come upon her and take her prisoner as well, assuming she wasn’t already dead? Then her friends would have two friends to save, and a changeling wearing her skin hiding among them.

"Ughhh..." Rainbow mumbled to herself, almost drowned out by distant thunder. There was no way she was going to let a changeling put her friends in danger by pretending to be her—especially not a changeling that had already had the gall to hurt one of them.

She was now faced with the challenge of finding a way out of the storm that wouldn’t lead her through an electrical death trap. If she kept going in the direction she was going, she would end up in the Everfree, which was a whole other bottle of thunder that Rainbow knew she wasn’t prepared to deal with. If she turned to the south, she’d eventually reach Sweet Apple Acres, but Rainbow didn’t fancy having to crawl through more mud and trek through the uneven woods in between.

The other option was going to Fluttershy’s house. Rainbow knew it wasn’t far from where she was at the moment; maybe a ten or fifteen minute walk at her current pace. There, she could wait out the worst of the storm in comfort, instead of shivering on the ground, sopping wet and her feathers weighed down by disgusting, smelly mud. She was certain Fluttershy would be all right with her borrowing the cottage for a few hours—it was Fluttershy, for Hurricane’s sake; she regularly used her house as a hotel for stray animals.

The cerulean pegasus trudged slowly through the muddy forest, fighting more than a bit of guilt. Though the rationalization of keeping her friends back in Ponyville safe helped, Rainbow still felt as though she ought to be out there, searching for her the friend who wasn't in Ponyville. She was still wrestling with this feeling when she came upon Fluttershy's cottage, the old house barely visible behind all the rain and beneath the moon-blocking storm clouds.

It had rained so much that the brook ringing the hill like a moat had overflowed, turning the dirt beside it into a small quagmire. Trying to muck through it was such a struggle that Rainbow impulsively decided to use her wings again, which in turn resulted in her light body being blown off-course before she could get herself oriented to fight against the wind. Fortunately, Rainbow was experienced when it came to riding out strong winds, and was able to make a wobbly landing in the water overflowing out of the brook.

Tucking her wings against her sides again, she got back onto her hooves, resigned to making her way one step at a time toward the cottage. To her surprise, it actually didn’t take as long as she had thought it would for her to reach the front door; mostly because there wasn’t half as much mud on the other side of the little bridge.

Not really expecting to get in easily due to Fluttershy’s fortifications of her cottage—not many ponies tried to dragon-proof their homes, after all, unless they were yellow and pink and had three butterflies for a cutie mark—Rainbow idly jiggled the doorknob with her wing while she considered how she might get through. She was surprised to find that the door was unlocked, as were the latches on the other side.

Really gotta talk to Fluttershy about home safety... not that I’m complaining, she thought as she pushed the door open.

Inside, Rainbow set about making a fire in Fluttershy’s fireplace as she listened to the howling wind outside and fought Angel Bunny off. Angel seemed to want her to do something for him, but the she wasn’t going to do anything more until she'd wiped some of the mud off her body and dried herself.

The small fire's warmth was unbelievably refreshing after slogging through freezing rain for who knew how long. Rainbow sat down on the floor in front of it, unwilling to abuse Fluttershy’s furniture despite (or, rather, because of) her knowledge that the kind mare would forgive her for it and offer about a dozen reasons why it was all right. Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay in the warmth very long, because she had to get some of the mud off herself before it dried.

“Ugh. I’m gonna hafta preen for weeks to get all this out,” Rainbow mumbled disgustedly as she examined her spread wings, which were coated with mud. Some of it had already started to harden into a shell around her feathers, sticking them together. “Hey Angel, go get me some paper towels or somethin’.”

The rabbit shook his head and pointed at the bathroom with both paws. Rainbow Dash sighed resignedly.

“Some help you are.”

She stood up and trotted over to the bathroom door, assuming he meant there were paper towels in the bathroom. Come to think of it, it would actually be better for her to clean herself in the bathroom—Rainbow wasn’t exactly on the cutting edge of order and cleanliness most of the time, but she wasn’t a total slob. Maybe she could borrow Fluttershy’s bathtub for fifteen minutes.

Rainbow got about three steps through the doorway, and then she stopped, frowning deeply. There was something all over Fluttershy’s floor that she was pretty sure ought not to have been there in the first place. It was a pool of bright green that looked to have once been liquid, though now it was dried and clotted into a stain on the floorboards. Discarded items lay near the stain: some tangled, green-smeared bandages, some plastic wrapping, and a cloth, also smeared with green.

Hey, she thought to herself suddenly, don’t changelings have green blood?

Whatever her grade school report cards had implied, and occasionally stated outright through rather unflattering comments from her teachers, Rainbow Dash wasn't a stupid mare. She quickly put two and two together: there was changeling blood all over the floor, and that meant the changeling had been in Fluttershy’s house.

Oh. That’’s why the door was unlocked. Huh. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that bef—

Rainbow spun around as the implications caught up with her, half-expecting there to be a pitch-black alien shape sneaking up on her. She went over to the towel rack and removed both the towel and the bar from it. The bar was just a cheap piece of plastic, but it was a better weapon than nothing at all. Rainbow proceeded to (figuratively) tear Fluttershy’s cottage apart from top to bottom in search of the changeling; an activity made somewhat difficult by Angel’s incessant harassment. In the end, Rainbow found nothing except a lot of animals in the cottage, and managed to ruin Fluttershy’s towel by wiping herself down with it as she searched. It wasn’t that she’d normally use her friends’ things so carelessly, but she didn’t want to flood any of the rooms by making a raincloud and washing herself with it, and promised herself that she’d buy Fluttershy a new towel when she got the chance.

The prismatic pegasus shuddered as she thought about what might have happened if her friend had been home when the changeling broke in. Fluttershy’s animals would have defended her to the last, but even with Angel leading the charge, and the attacker injured, they wouldn’t have been a match for a monster that could use magic and had a hardened exoskeleton instead of skin. Then again, it had looked pretty banged-up when it finally teleported out of the town square...

For the first time, Rainbow actually thought about what the blood on the floor meant beyond that she wasn’t alone. There wasn’t really that much of it, but for the changeling to still be bleeding after such a long time meant it must have been hurt badly when it made its escape. It must have been headed for the Everfree Forest when it passed by the cottage and decided to take a chance to patch itself up.

If the changeling was hurt, it would probably be moving slowly. Maybe the storm had made travel impossible for a seriously injured animal. And that meant if Rainbow hurried, there was a chance she might be able to head it off before it got too far into the forest, or even in at all, since she had a reasonably good knowledge of the land and was (after all) the fastest pony in Equestria.

Quickly, she finished cleaning herself off and put out the fire. Then she stepped outside and turned to, once again, face the howling storm. Her earlier dejection had been replaced with excitement and enthusiasm, and she felt like she was brimming with energy again. She figured it must have been one of those thrill-of-the-hunt things, like some of her action novels talked about. With a cocky grin momentarily illuminated by a well-timed lightning flash, Rainbow plunged back into the rain, ready to kick some ass.

Twilight would be safe again in no time.

It was a sodden, sullen, exhausted, and thoroughly disgruntled pegasus that made her way out of the Everfree forest later that morning. The storm had not taken kindly to her reappearance, although it had been just decent enough not to break her wings in half. The rain had lightened until it was the equivalent of a normal storm, rather than the near-waterfall it had been during the night, and the hail had stopped entirely. Though the clouds remained, blocking much of the light, they no longer formed a thick black blanket across the sky.

None of this was much comfort to Rainbow. Finding the blood had given her hope that she might come upon the changeling, injured and too weak to fight back, and of course her mind had conjured up fantastic scenarios of violent interrogation to pass the time while she wove her way through the dangerous storm. But by morning, it was clear that she’d missed her chance, and the changeling had escaped into the forest.

She felt... frustrated. Being unable to protect her friends made Rainbow hurt in a way no physical injury ever could. It was bad enough when somepony she cared about was injured and she there to help; now she couldn't even find the friend who needed protecting, and that triggered the old internal monologue that came up whenever she failed: You're not good enough; you're pathetic; you're so weak you can't even help other ponies; you should be grounded forever for being such a failure; why can't you be a better fr—

"Stop," she told herself sharply. "Stop it."

This wasn't the time for self-pity—Twilight was counting on her to do something to help, and sitting around calling herself names in her head wasn't helpful. Rainbow took a deep breath and let it out again, and then she spread her wings. She was even dirtier and more disheveled than she'd been the first time around, caked with so much mud that the individual feathers were hardly discernible anymore. One wing at a time, she tried flaring her feathers, and suppressed a little gasp of discomfort as some of them strained a bit before popping free. After hastily preening herself as best she could, she took off.

Her dark thoughts and memories were unable to keep up with her now that she had the freedom of the air again. The pegasus passed through some thick pegasus-made rainclouds that had broken off from the main storm near the outskirts of Ponyville, soaking her entire body and washing most of the remaining mud off. Feeling a bit better, Rainbow headed into town, having decided around the time she went through her fifth cloud that the best thing to do would be to go find her friends and tell them what she saw in the cottage—starting with Fluttershy.

This plan was almost immediately derailed by her inability to stay focused after going so long without eating or sleeping. As she flew over the town square, she spotted a large carriage and several even larger tents set up in a field not far from the town hall. Rainbow’s curiosity got the better of her and she circled around it a few times. She had to fly low to make out the shapes moving around on the ground, since even she would’ve reluctantly agreed that she had poor eyesight.

They were mostly bulky, muscular white unicorns wearing golden armor; unmistakably Royal Guards from Canterlot. Rainbow guessed that they’d arrived shortly after she left Carousel Boutique the night before, and made a mental note to herself to go back and talk to them after she spoke to her friends.

There had been a tree between a jewelry store and a small restaurant along the path of the wide semicircle Rainbow made to turn back toward Carousel Boutique. Casually looking down, she saw it had fallen into the street, probably blown over by the storm. A couple of ponies were attempting to remove it from the window of the hardware store across the street. Rainbow cringed when she saw that Derpy was one of them. In spite of the feeling tugging her towards Carousel Boutique, she still felt obligated to stop and help, since she knew most of the ponies there as well as Derpy.

“You guys want any help?” she asked, fluttering down beside the earth pony who looked like he was in charge.

“Yeah, that would be great,” replied the earth pony wearily. He aimed a very brief glare at the oblivious Derpy. “All we’ve managed to do is get it further into the store. We asked the guards to help, but they haven’t shown up yet.”

With Rainbow’s help, and in spite of Derpy’s, they got the tree out of the window and turned it sideways along the street so ponies could still pass through. While the other ponies started stripping the branches off, Rainbow ducked between two stores so she could quickly straighten a couple of feathers that were starting to irritate her.

She suddenly got a strong feeling somepony was watching her, and froze with her tongue still pressed against her wing. Upon looking to the right, she discovered two white, golden-armored unicorn stallions not three meters away from her, both looking right at her. Rainbow’s face flushed red, and her wings instantly snapped tightly closed against her sides.

“Hey!” she shouted. “What the hay are you lookin’ at, you creepy featherheads?”

“We were looking for you, actually,” one of the guards said, sounding moderately irritated by her reaction. “Some ponies saw you fly into town from the west.”

Still feeling extremely self-conscious about being watched while she preened—one of the first things she ever learned in flight kindergarten was how to preen, and with that she’d also learned that it was a private activity that you shouldn't watch another pony do—Rainbow stepped back out into the road. “Yeah, I got stuck out in the storm all night.”

One of the guards levitated a large tome and pen out of his saddlebag. “We’re going to need your name.”

“Rainbow Dash,” replied the pegasus. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard of me. Listen, when I was out by the Everfree border, I fou—Hey, hey, hey! Quit checkin’ out my flank!”

“Hold still,” the guard ordered as the pen magically scratched away at the page in front of him. “I’m sketching your cutie mark.”

“The hay do you need that for? Look, there's no way you guys don't know who I am! Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria, Element of Loyalty, triple-sonic-rainboom—ring any bells?”

“We're doing this for our records, not for your ego,” replied the other, scowling a bit at Rainbow. “We’re keeping track of everypony going in or out of Ponyville from today on. In the future, if you want to leave town, you’ll have to clear it with the guard station first. When you come back, you check in. Anypony we can’t find when we need them is considered missing and will be subject to extra scrutiny.”

“What? That’s stupid. How’re ya gonna keep ponies from leaving?” asked Rainbow. She fluttered her wings, then snapped them shut again, when she remembered that the two had just watched her preen herself. “Forget it. I found ch—”

“You’ll be issued identification by the end of the day. If you go to another town without it or without checking in first, or if somepony reports you missing and you’re found elsewhere with no evidence of abduction, you’ll be arrested and charged with fleeing the Royal Guard of Equestria. Do you understand?”

Rainbow just nodded dumbly, too tired and too overwhelmed to put in the thought required to form an objection. “Whatever... Just... Is that all?”

“So, what kept you out so late in such weather?” asked the guard with the book in a casual tone, like Rainbow hadn't spoken at all. “I’d have been inside if it were me.”

“I was out looking for the changeling, over by the Everfree border. The stup... Uh, some ponies made some bad decisions and some stormclouds ended up near the border, and they started shooting lightning everywhere, and I got caught in it. So I stopped at my friend Fluttershy’s cottage for a sec, and I f—”

“And you’ve been doing that since last night. Why didn’t you just come back and wait until the storm died down?”

The question struck a very sensitive nerve for the Element of Loyalty. “‘Cause my friend is out there, and she’s in danger, and apparently I’m the only pony who cares about her enough to go out of my way to look for her! Why are you asking me this crap instead of looking for Twilight, huh? Are you done wasting my time? I know where the changeling went, so will you let me tell you so I can go do something useful?”

“Look, calm down, kid,” said one guard in a voice that suggested he thought Rainbow Dash was insane and dangerous to society. “We’ll be done when we’re done. Now, if you were in—”

“No, screw this,” Rainbow cut in angrily. She opened her wings. “I’m not dealing with you guys right now. What I’m gonna do is go tell my friends that I found changeling blood near the Everfree, and we’ll go find Twilight together, since you obviously don’t give a sack of horseapples about what happens to her.”

She took off without waiting for a response. The liberating feeling of flight filled her again as the world started to rush by—but she only made it a few meters before she was surrounded by an orange glow that stopped her with a sharp jerk and began reeling her back in. Rainbow was pulled right into the mud, and and when she got up again, her wings were forced shut by the unicorn’s magic. She frantically tried to open them again, but the guard had a strong grip—too strong, in fact; his magic was crushing her feathers together in a way that might have been enjoyable under very different circumstances, but was just overloading her senses at the moment.

“H-hey, quit it!” she stammered, panicking. “Let me go! What are you doing?”

“I’ll go get Aurus and an Inquisitor,” said the guard who had been writing in the tome, sounding detached and indifferent. “Are you sure you’ve got this one secured? She’s pretty feisty.”

“Yeah. I got her. Go on. And get a real Inquisitor, not the attache.”

“Dude, let me go!” Rainbow yelled at her assailant as the other unicorn headed off. She stumbled sideways, straining with all her might to open her wings. But they were locked at her sides by his painfully tight grip. “What the buck is the matter with you! Get off my wings, you freakin’ psychopony!”

In older days, and, in fact, until only recently, pegasi lived almost exclusively in the clouds, coming down only occasionally for things like food. Because clouds often moved and broke apart, and because areas of pegasus settlements tended to have large spaces of empty air between them, a pegasus who was unable to open his or her wings was more or less already dead where they stood. Thus, pegasi were genetically programmed to avoid having their wings forced shut at all costs.

Rainbow’s reaction was exceptionally defensive; to a point where her captor had to stick her hooves to the ground to prevent her from bucking him in the chest, and her mouth shut when she began yelling for help. The cerulean mare ended up completely immobile, glaring fearfully at the guard. Driven by her uncomfortable anxiety, her mind began to put together terrifying scenarios in which she was accused of being a changeling and thrown in prison for the rest of her life—or worse, tortured and executed!

“Don’t touch the wings!” Rainbow yelled at the guard who was holding her captive. He had released her muzzle at some point while she was distracted. “I have rights!”

The unicorn looked at her with such bewilderment that she began to feel rather self-conscious about her outburst. “Nopony is going to do anything to your wings.”

“Well, then what are you gonna do?” she pressed, half-trying to cover up her embarrassment over having reacted the way she did.

“You really need to calm down.”

This statement seemed a bit contradictory to Rainbow, because immediately afterward he stuck her mouth shut again. The pegasus continued her futile struggle in silence until she heard hoofsteps coming toward them. Straining, she managed to turn her neck enough to see the newcomers.

Two were Royal Guards, the first being the unicorn who had taken down Rainbow’s information and the second being an almost identical clone—Rainbow had, on occasion, wondered if they actually were clones—who was distinguished by the rank insignias on his armor identifying him as a captain.

Behind them, almost like a dog following its master, there trailed a third unicorn. She was a white-coated, redheaded mare of about Rainbow’s age, wearing a black cloak with a hood on it and the symbol of Celestia's sun across the back. Small and kind of pudgy-looking, she was struggling to keep up with the guards. It was clear from her out-of-breath panting that she was unused to such physical exertion.

“What’s she doing here?” asked the guard binding Rainbow. “I thought we were going to get a real one to do the spell.”

“Inquisitor Leere has the other two in the meeting,” the third stallion explained as his female companion stopped beside him to catch her breath. “Moondancer was the only one available at the camp.”

The other two looked slightly exasperated as they waited for Moondancer to recover. In spite of her discomfort with the current situation, Rainbow would have snickered at this if she could. Moondancer was really out of shape if running that short distance had winded her so badly. She was obviously one of those prissy upper-class Canterlot unicorns who did everything by magic... kind of like Twilight, except that Twilight was an awesome egghead and a good friend as well.

And Twilight was still in danger, and Rainbow needed to help her, and these ponies were getting in her way...

“You... you want me to cast... the spell on her?” puffed Moondancer, jabbing a hoof at Rainbow.

“Do you see any other pegasi around?”

“Well, um, no,” she replied, looking mildly embarrassed with herself. “I just... thought...”

Moondancer trailed away into an awkward silence, then turned and she addressed Rainbow: “Just stand still and... Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Um, just... uh...”

“Can you get on with it?” one of the guards prodded. “We have other duties we need to perform, you know.”

“I know! I’m new at this! Oh, whatever...” Moondancer’s horn lit up and glowed with magical energy. A sickly-green ball of light formed at the tip and grew to the size of a golf ball, then detached. It floated into Rainbow’s side and vanished.

Rainbow felt a peculiar tingle run through her entire body; the same sensation she’d felt when Twilight cast the changeling-revealing spell on her. She glowed green for a moment, and then returned to normal as the magic faded away and the tingling subsided. Moondancer looked expectantly at the guards.

“You can, ah... you can... let her go now...?” she said uncertainly.

“Is she a changeling or a pony?” demanded one of the guards. “Confirmation would be nice.”

“Right... procedure...” mumbled the white mare. When she next spoke, it was in a droning, almost inaudible monotone. “No, this is not a changeling. This is a pony. You can let her go.”

The magic binding Rainbow’s muzzle and hooves unwound, allowing her to open her mouth and speak at last. “Y’know, if you guys had just told me you all you wanted was to cast that stupid spell on me, I woulda sat and waited, no prob! “And get this crap off my wings!” the incensed pegasus added as she strained against the magical bindings still holding her wings shut.

“We’ll let you go when we’re done,” the magic-doing guard repeated slowly.

Rainbow took a long, deep breath and pressed her hooves against her closed eyes until little stars popped in the darkness. “And what else needs to be done?”

“We need to know about the changeling blood you mentioned.”

“Oh, yeah, the stuff I tried to tell you about, like, ten times,” Rainbow snapped, more irritated than ever. She breathed in and counted to ten; something she’d picked up from Twilight a while back. It would be better to just get the whole thing over with than to keep arguing with these ponies and wasting Twilight’s time. In spite of all this, she couldn’t help glowering at the three guards.

“Like I was trying to tell you before you started acting like total jerks, I went to my friend Fluttershy’s cottage to get out of the storm, and there was green blood all over the floor. An’ I know changelings have green blood. They do have green blood, right? I think it got hurt and went there for I-don’t-know-what.”

The guards looked at each other. “And where is this Buttershy pony?”

“Fluttershy,” Rainbow corrected, darkening even further. “She hasn’t been home since yesterday morning, ‘cuz she was too freaked out to go back there by herself. It didn’t get her. I think it went to her house ‘cause it was hurt, and then it went into the forest to hide.”

“We’ll find out when we speak to her, then,” one of them said.

“Look, dude, if you scare Fluttershy, I’m gonna make you wish you’d never signed up for the Royal Guard.”

“Are you threatening a Royal Guard?” asked the unicorn who’d gone to get the two newer participants in the conversation, leaning in very close and looking quite intimidating all of a sudden. Not one to take being menaced, Rainbow matched this by leaning just as close, until their noses were almost touching.

“Yeah, maybe I—” she began.

“Uh, why don’t I take Rainbow Dash to see Leere, like we’re supposed to do if we find a pony with useful information,” interrupted Moondancer. Her voice was somewhat higher and her words coming out faster than they had been the other times she’d spoken. “Wouldn’t that be better than beating the feathers out of each other over something trivial and irrelevant to the reason we’re here?”

"Be quiet."

“All of you stop acting like foals,” the captain-unicorn added. “Moondancer is right. Inquisitor Leere will want to see her if she found evidence of its escape. You two go back to your rounds. I’ll take her to the command tent.”

Both guards shot Rainbow a disapproving look, clearly annoyed at her earlier rudeness and disrespect and wanting to continue telling her off, but they stepped back and nodded. The orange bindings finally vanished from around Rainbow's wings, but she waited until they were out of sight before she stretched them.

“This Leere guy, he’s gonna help find Twilight, right?” Rainbow Dash asked—with a small but perfectly reasonable (in her opinion) amount of suspicion—as she followed Moondancer and the captain, whose name was apparently Aurus, toward the tents on the edge of town.

“That’s correct,” Moondancer replied. “He’s—well, I suppose you could call him the overseer of the Canterlot Inquisition. It’s his job to find changelings.”

“Oh. And you’re part of the Inquisition, too?”

She nodded; a weak, noncommittal gesture. “Yes. Well, no. Not normally. I’m here on orders... from Princess Celestia. She wanted a fourth unicorn who could cast the changeling spell to come to Ponyville.”

“Oh,” repeated Rainbow. Her questions now answered, she fell silent.

“I’m sorry about how the guards treated you,” said Moondancer suddenly; lamely.

Rainbow just grunted, not looking back at her. She was pretty sure she'd hurt something in her left wing while straining against the guard's magical hold, as it was now very sore and didn't want to be flapped very much.

“They’re not supposed to do that to you unless you’re, uh, a threat to other ponies... I, uh, I can try and get them to apologize later, if you want an apology...” the unicorn offered.

“Just keep them away from me. I don’t want to talk to them again.”

“Okay, I won’t get them to apologize,” she backtracked. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

After grunting again, Rainbow muttered, “I’m fine.”

“Oh, okay. That’s a relief. I’ve read that having your wings bound is a really scary experience for a pegasus. But, obviously, I’ve never actually had it happen to me. Because, uh, I don’t have any wings. But still, I can kind of relate. I had to have my magic suppressed with a limiter once, when I was sick and in the hospital, and it was awful. Oh, but Rainstorm had to have his wings bound after that fight in Cloudsdale. Did you hear about that? I wasn't there, but I read about it in the National Equinerer. Probably nothing like what you went through, though, since I—Oh, I’m rambling, aren’t I...”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow irritably as they came passed the carriage. “Stop it.”

Moondancer was beginning to remind her of Twilight. But there was something about her that made Rainbow dislike her—the pegasus couldn’t really put her hoof on it, but it was definitely there. Maybe it was that she lacked the endearing, friendly quality that Twilight possessed, and though her words sounded sincerely friendly, she just came off as annoying to Rainbow. She couldn’t seem to keep her mouth shut for more than five seconds, constantly blabbing about this and that and periodically giggling at her own comments.

By the time they reached the entrance of the largest tent, her Twilight-like rambling had faded into tentative relations of Canterlot gossip. Though she had no doubt that Rarity would have gotten along splendidly with Moondancer, Rainbow couldn’t wait to get away from her, all the irrelevant information she was giving about a society to which the pegasus neither belonged nor wished to belong, and the discomfiting aura of out-of-place-ness that surrounded her.

The guard in front of the command tent saluted Aurus. He was a large pegasus with a body that looked like it was made of solid brass, which made for an imposing figure. This, combined with the dark gold of his mane and tail, brought to mind images of lions and griffons and such creatures—more the former than the latter, especially after Rainbow caught a glimpse of his lion's-head cutie mark. Aurus spoke to this guard for a moment, and then he stepped aside to allow them to enter the tent.

The inside of the tent was about the same size as the main room of Twilight’s library. There were several long tables holding devices Rainbow knew neither the name or purpose of, as well as maps and a big machine that looked like it was still being set up. A group of ponies was gathered around a table on the other side, looking over some documents that Rainbow guessed were probably maps.

Two unicorns, dressed in the same dark, embroidered cloak worn by Moondancer, were clearly aristocrats. They had the haughty, arrogant expressions characteristic of Canterlot nobles, their noses turned up in disgust at the rugged, dirt-floored setting they were in. Rainbow was almost surprised she didn’t recognize either of them as Prince Blueblood, so similar were their demeanors.

Also present was an almost-middle-aged pegasus mare with a mane like a plume of orange fire, dressed in a blue-and-gold flightsuit that was very, very familiar to Rainbow Dash. The younger pegasus could hardly hold in a squeal of ‘Ohmygosh!’ when her brain finally processed that she was in the presence of her lifelong idol, Spitfire.

Though she was able to avoid embarrassing herself in such a way, an excited squeak did escape the hooves she clapped over her mouth. All the attention in the room turned to her, and for once Rainbow felt slightly uncomfortable being in the spotlight. It wasn’t just Spitfire’s presence that was causing her discomfort, but that of the fourth and last unicorn as well. His intense gaze made her feel as if she were being x-rayed; as if he were looking straight through her and staring into her soul.

This unicorn, a stallion who was dusky-maned and white-coated, could only be described as enormous. He was the biggest unicorn—no, the biggest pony Rainbow Dash had ever laid eyes on save for the princesses. Though he lacked wings, he was clearly more than a mere unicorn: the wiry strength and massive size of an undiluted earth pony and a long, sharp spiral horn testified to that. The sheer sense of military discipline in his poise made him seem less a noble and more a legendary general of old. He, too, wore a cloak—having seen the symbol several times now, Rainbow realized it was actually the sun with an iris in the center of it, like a flaming eyeball.

“Good morning, Aurus,” said the huge unicorn to the smaller stallion. His voice was even and almost friendly, and yet it also contained a hint of something not as pleasant, as though he were trying very hard to cover it up and falling just short of his goal. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“This pegasus claims to know where the changeling escaped to,” Aurus replied, gesturing at Rainbow with his hoof. Like his apparent superior, his demeanor contained a hint of some unpleasant feelings, although in Aurus's case it was much more obvious and mingled with what seemed like uneasiness.

“I see…" The unicorn looked to Rainbow. "And your name would be…?”

“Uh, I-I’m Rainbow Dash,” the prismatic pegasus blurted out, feeling a bit self-conscious with him staring through her. He just seemed off, somehow. If she had to guess, Rainbow would have said Aurus's attitude toward him was born from the same discomfort. However, the unicorn himself was nothing but cordial.

“It’s exceedingly delightful to make your acquaintance, Rainbow Dash,” he told her, and bowed slightly. Rainbow was thankful he at least wasn’t ‘polite’ enough to come kiss her hoof, or anything weird like that. “I am Inquisitor Leere. The two gentlecolts beside me are Thistle and Flaveus. And, assuming you’re the same Rainbow Dash from the Best Young Flyers Competition—the one who performed a sonic rainboom—you’ve already met Spitfire.”

Spitfire made a little gesture of greeting with her wing, and Rainbow said, “O-oh, yes. We’ve, uh, met before. Wait, how’d you know about that spend-a-day-with-the-Wonderbolts thing at the competition? You’re not a pegasus.”

“As one of Her Majesty’s most dedicated servants, and as the pony charged with overseeing her kingdom’s defense in time of war, I feel it obligatory to know what sort of treachery goes on in Equestria,” Leere replied. “That includes knowing of those who stop said treachery... such as the Elements of Harmony. Defeaters of Nightmare Moon and Discord, yes? Ah, and of course, Queen Chrysalis...”

“Oh... y-yeah... that’s right...” Rainbow shook off her anxiety, telling herself Leere was one of the good guys. A very big, intimidating, scary good guy, but a good guy nonetheless.

“What, exactly, did you three wish to speak to me about?” the Inquisitor asked.

Before Rainbow could reply, Aurus said, “She claims to have found changeling blood in the Everfree Forest.”

“Near,” corrected Rainbow, annoyed at having her words spoken for her. “Near the Everfree Forest. I got caught in the storm over by the Everfree and hid in my friend Fluttershy’s house, ‘cause she was stayin’ with my other friend Rarity for the night. There was a buncha green blood on the floor in her bathroom—you know, and they have green blood, and stuff. I tried looking for it outside, but I think it went into the forest.”

“It’s the logical place to hide,” Leere commented thoughtfully. “Dark creatures seek out dark places. But are you sure it couldn’t have simply come back after hiding there?”

“I dunno why else it would go all the way out to Fluttershy’s cottage, ‘cause she lives alone near the border. There’s not much else out there.”

“And she wasn’t at home any time during the day, is that correct?”

“Uh, yeah. I just said that,” the cerulean pegasus said as Leere levitated a map off the table to read.

“We know it’s injured, at least,” he mused. “How much blood was there?”

“Uh... like... it wasn’t everywhere... but there was a lot of it.” Rainbow Dash rubbed her head with her hoof as she thought about the scene. “There were some bandages under the sink, though. Fluttershy takes care of animals, so she has that kind of stuff on hoof all the time. That’s why I think it stopped there to, y’know, patch itself up.”

“Let’s assume it hasn’t gone far into the forest, then,” Leere said, still looking at the map. “If it has, we’ve little chance of capturing it no matter what we do. We’d do well to search, say, the first thirty miles deep and wide, starting at the cottage—which you’ll have to show us, since there are no cottages near the Everfree marked on these maps.

“We’ll send in a couple of ground-based search parties—Flaveus, you’ll lead this time, and I may send Wheatgem as well—and use half the pegasi for support and half for an aerial search team.”

“Woah, woah, woah, hold up.” Spitfire held up a hoof in a ‘time-out’ gesture. “I’ve only got two other Wonderbolts with me. There’s no way we can cover that kind of range, with only three of us. And I’ve heard a little about the Everfree—sending in ponies on the ground without proper air support would just feed the monsters living there.”

“I’ll help,” said Rainbow quickly. “I’ll join the search party, or whatever.”

“So, two Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire amended, still frowning at Leere.

“So get volunteers. You and Soarin and Fleetfoot go around the town and find pegasi willing to assist in the search. In fact, there are three settlements near this one; go to them all and get yourself more pegasus ponies. I’m sure there are some here and there that would jump at the chance to fly with the Wonderbolts.”

At the words ‘fly with the Wonderbolts’, Rainbow’s ears perked up—a reaction that had become all but instinctive after a lifetime of obsession with the team. They flattened back, however, as she mentally berated herself for getting distracted again. She couldn’t afford to do that anymore; not with Twilight’s life on the line.

“You,” said Leere, and Rainbow jumped slightly.

“Yeah?”

“You’re a close friend of Sparkle’s, and you were present when the changeling revealed itself. I want to know exactly what happened that day; I’ve already spoken to your friend Applejack—”

“You talked to Applejack already?” Rainbow blurted out, eyebrows rising.

“—but I want to get more than one reliable perspective. And I also want you to tell me everything about what you saw in the cottage. It’ll be useful in determining how badly the creature was injured.”

She frowned. “What about the search?”

“When we’re done with you, you and the other Elements will go around the town and help find ponies to help you look in the woods until we have dedicated air support. I also know Sparkle has a dragon that can deliver letters instantly; I want him here so I can communicate with the Princess.”

“And take Moondancer with you,” added one of the other Inquisitors; the Flaveus one. “She’s been getting in the way. Maybe you can find something useful for her to do.”

Rainbow groaned at the prospect of having Moondancer as a tagalong, but she didn’t dare complain as Aurus led her to another tent to question her about the changeling’s injury. At least they were finally doing something to help find Twilight, even if it did involve saddling her with an airheaded Canterlot unicorn.

Although the area Rainbow Dash had become trapped in the previous night was now being subjected to little more than a drizzle, it wasn't because the storm had lost momentum. The entire system had simply moved away, drawn further into the Everfree by one of the currents of mutated magic that flowed throughout it.

Animals were driven from their homes as the endless downpour of magically-replenished rain flooded the ground and turned acres of land into a temporary marsh. Streaks of electricity split the clouded sky in two, on rare occasions striking particularly tall trees and starting fires that were almost immediately extinguished again by the torrential rain. Even then, the storm continued to grow, expanding the storm further, and creeping closer to the point where it would finally collapse under its own size.

The old, run-down church was not spared the relentless assault. Hail and rain rattled off the ancient, decrepit roof, as well as the more recent but still several-year-old spells that had been cast to patch up the many places in it where the wood had rotted through. Thunder boomed and crackled overhead, and lightning flashes outside the windows lit every room up from time to time.

Safe, warm, and dry in her sleeping bag, Twilight Sparkle slept through it all. Even after the storm finally broke and began to disperse, she hardly stirred, too exhausted by her ordeal and her new body's recuperation to do so much as crack an eyelid open.

IV. Twilight in Solitude

After so much time in between updates, I finally got SL back on track after season 3. I now have a detailed outline for the rest of the story, dedicated editors, and time to work with now that I don't have band practice for a bit. So, keep your eyes open for more updates. As stated, I’ve let go of all but one of my old editors, since they’ve all died. The new lineup is as follows:

Garbo802 (you’ve probably seen him around, he proofreads for a lot of people)

DPV111 (you know, that guy with the RD avatar who proofreads every featured story ever)

Alpha151 (apparently, he’s one of the proofreaders for Her Own Pony, which is a great story and you ought to read it)

If anyone has done/is interested in doing some fan/design artwork for Solitary Locust, please do contact me. I’ll write you a story with your favorite pairing in exchange, or something. It’ll give me incentive to actually work on something new for once.

Solitary Locust

IV. Twilight in Solitude

Twilight awoke sometime early the next morning to a marginally less horrifying situation than she had the night before: the gloomy, lonely hall of the old church, the itching of dust on her muzzle, and the light drumming of rain against the roof. The last was a minor irritation to her hypersensitive hearing, but not overwhelming the way it had been during the first few moments of her transformation. It was much more peaceful here than outside had been, with no animals to confuse what was, to the best of her knowledge, her newfound empathy sense.

As soon as she woke up enough to realize where she was, she also realized that she didn’t want to get up. It was actually quite comfortable inside her cocoon-like sleeping bag, save for the throbbing pain in her leg and and the slightly less severe but no less debilitating pain in her horn. Twilight could feel the cold outside biting at the aching process, and in response to this she burrowed deeper, careful to avoid putting pressure on her broken leg.

The dense haze of sleep still hung around her, and this time there were no horrible revelations to recharacterize it into a living nightmare. It took a long time for her to actually wake up, so the changeling was able to spend a few minutes more in the pleasant state of limbo before she was forced to deal with her waking reality. As the pain grew more intense, corresponding to her increasing level of awareness, Twilight groaned out loud and finally found the will to leave the warm, safe comfort of the sleeping bag.

Though the cold wasn’t bad enough to create a frost, she still shivered as she limped over to her saddlebags. Opening them, she dug out the bottles of painkillers and antibiotics she’d gotten (stolen) from Fluttershy’s so she could measure out and take the appropriate doses for the morning time. Then she hobbled outside to relieve herself—changelings might have been different from ponies, but they weren’t that different.

The sky above was dark, grey, and obscured by clouds and rain. Twilight could just make out the faintest patches of light here and there in the distance where the clouds thinned. She guessed it was probably around six or seven in the morning, though she couldn’t tell because of the clouds blocking out the sky. It hadn’t stopped raining, but the torrential downpour of the previous night had been replaced by something reminiscent of an ordinary pegasus-made rainstorm.

She had some trouble passing through the species barrier at the door again, but managed to push her way inside after some effort. Shivering, Twilight set about limping up and down the aisle between the rows of pews to warm herself. Since it seemed she had inherited the full body of a changeling, minor physiological quirks included, her core body temperature would likely have dropped by several degrees, which could easily cause problems if she wasn’t careful.

Her body ached terribly, as if she’d just galloped through the Running of the Leaves course three times over without stopping. An overwhelming sense of lethargy took over once the last traces of sleep left her, weighing each step down and making her stiff legs buckle beneath her. Knowing what she did about changeling physiology, and equine physiology in general, Twilight was aware that this was probably because of her horn injury more than anything else. Until her horn was back to normal, the healing process would likely continue to drain her of energy. Twilight grimaced at the thought of feeling this way for any extended length of time—she wasn’t exactly the most active unicorn in Ponyville, but she was used to feeling somewhat energetic when she was awake. Either way, she had to keep warm, and she also had to keep what little muscle there was in her legs (which there didn’t seem to be much of) from degenerating further.

Trying to think while she paced up and down the aisle was like slogging through the swamp the storm had created outside. Twilight’s brain simply didn’t want to function, period. No, it wanted her to go back into hibernation in the warmth and safety of her sleeping bag instead of limping around on wobbling legs that could hardly even keep her upright. It certainly didn’t want to tackle the enormous problem of how she was going to fix everything that had happened to her.

Very little seemed to make sense to her at the moment. She herself felt alien, out of place, and incomprehensibly confused; her new body more a frustrating maze with no exits than anything else. Magic was her special talent, and here she was, unable to solve or cure* this very magical mystery afflicting her. Was magic even her special talent anymore? Could changelings even have special talents? There were so many questions spinning around in her head all at once.

What had happened to her up on the podium?

What was she going to do to revert it?

Could she revert it?

How would she survive with only three good legs and almost no magic for however long it took for them to heal?

How was she going to convince her friends beyond a doubt that she was who she said she was?

Immediately before turning into a changeling, Twilight had made a speech demonstrating that she knew how changelings tended to give themselves away. What if they thought she was just a really wily changeling and didn’t believe her even after she returned to her normal form and had the revealing spell recast on herself to prove who she was? Just about any kind of magic could be blocked from working if you knew how to do it, so in theory it would be possible to form a shield that would protect her against the revealing spell. Certainly there were ponies in Ponyville who would never truly accept her back into their society, always looking for signs she might be a changeling...

“...which is a fallacious method of research, as it assumes the answer and attempts to support it with evidence, instead of attempting to determine the truth after the data has been gathered in full...” she mumbled to herself.

As she walked, Twilight looked idly around at the ageing church. It had gathered some dust in the time since her last visit, but she didn’t seem to have the same allergies as she did when she was a unicorn, so the floating particles didn’t bother her much. Small creatures (spiders, insects, and the like) had penetrated the species barrier over time, probably in places where it had been weakened. Twilight saw what she was positive was a bird’s nest in the corner of one of the rafters. She hoped there wasn’t anything living amongst the abandoned supplies near the pulpit.

The windows were covered by downward-pointing diagonal wooden shutters with magic in between, rather than decorated with the intricate stained glass of the old cathedrals in Canterlot. The point of this, according to what Twilight had learned in her studies, was to focus shafts of magically unheated light from the sun onto the congregation. Maybe she would open them when the sun came out again. It would do a lot to raise her spirits; the expedition team had repaired the shutters to simulate a ceremony during their time there, and Twilight had found it extremely inspiring.

Princess Celestia inspires me.

Most of the feeling had returned to Twilight’s hooves by the time she sat down amidst the pews again to rest, following a half an hour of mostly mindless pacing. She was no better off, however, since the numbness in her hooves had been replaced by an ever deepening sense of inner dysphoria. The cold wasn’t just around her anymore; it was beginning to seep inside her, permeating her body. Part of her brain wanted to go back to sleep, a sentiment with which all of her body agreed. But sleeping wasn’t an option at the moment—she knew she needed to get as much done as she could while she was physically able to stay active.

She dug into the supplies—it turned out there wasn’t anything living in there, or else she had scared off what had been there the night before—to find paper, a quill pen, and a bottle of ink. With great care, she used her good forehoof to smooth out the parchment on one of the pews, and placed the quill and inkwell above it.

Her horn flickered again as she tested her magic. It was still very sore, but she grit her teeth and forced herself to see it through. Once, Twilight remembered, she had read through a book on unicorn magical rehabilitation, and it had mentioned that one of the of the most important things to remember when healing from a horn injury was to use very small amounts of magic from time to time, to reduce the risk of damage from magical atrophy.

Trying to summon magic up from within proved to be a laborious process that made Twilight feel as though she were a filly again, still learning to open books and levitate quills as she grew accustomed to the feeling of communicating with her horn. It also caused a prickling sensation around the base of her horn that slowly traveled upward; a similar feeling to that of a limb that had fallen asleep and was just waking up. Still, the soft greenish glow of the very small amount of magic flowing through it remained steady.

As much as she wanted to think the absence of any sharp, stabbing pain through her horn was because she was recovering rapidly, Twilight knew it was probably because she was channeling so little magic through it. The current charge was hardly enough to cast light on the pews around her; certainly not enough to perform a full spell. Slowly, Twilight increased the amount of magic flowing through her horn by increments, until she started to feel pressure in the root of her horn. She then stopped and let herself rest. The magic she’d managed to channel before running into a problem was very little, but it was enough that she could perform some basic spells to manipulate the ambient magic around her; a sort of cheat Princess Celestia had taught her for saving magic and energy.

Casting a spell on the quill infused it with a sickly green glow; the changeling color. That prickly feeling returned, but Twilight avoided causing herself any more pain by slowing down the rate at which the spell was cast, which channeled less magic at once; and so, although it took twice as long, it didn’t overload the damaged magical channels within.

The spell she cast was a self-contained one that made the pen twitch and jump up so that it rested on its tip. Self-contained spells, like this one, differed from other kinds of magic in that they could be assigned to an object or task, and the magic would remain there until it was either exhausted or called back. The major advantage of this, of course, was that the caster didn’t have to keep the channel open in order to maintain it, which meant that ponies with limited magical abilities could carry out manipulations that would have otherwise exceeded their casting power. In fact, the very first spell Twilight had ever learned (a simple instruction to turn the page of a book) was self-contained.

“Please test dictation,” she rasped at the still faintly glowing quill.

It didn’t move. She frowned as much as she could in her current form—which, with the enormous fangs in the way, wasn’t very much. The particular spell she had cast was a variant of one typically used for transcribing speeches, meetings, and interviews. It was supposed to remember certain voices so that it could differentiate between speakers. Twilight had further modified it to remember each speaker even after the magic dispersed and returned to her, so that she wouldn’t have to create new records every time she wanted to use it.

Contrary to what many earth and pegasus ponies tended to believe, spellcasting—particularly automated spells with preset behaviors—was a very complicated and potentially error-laden process. The most probable explanation for the spell not recognizing her voice was that it was, for some reason, under the impression that Twilight wasn’t among the parties whose words were to be transcribed, which had happened from time to time.

“Please tune to dictation vocal record A: Twilight Sparkle; and test dictation.” She waited for what she was reasonably sure was at least thirty seconds, but the pen remained still.

Of course it’s not working, Twilight thought with a discomfiting jolt of realization. It’s still looking for my voice, not... what I sound like now...

“Plea... Please add new vocal dictation record H... Twilight Sparkle in temporary changeling form... and t-tes... and test dic... No. Cancel that command...” Twilight took a couple of deep breaths, and waited until she was sure she was calm enough that she wouldn’t stammer and mess up the command. “Please add new vocal dictation record H: Twilight Sparkle in temporary changeling form, and test dictation.”

The moment she finished speaking, the quill snapped to attention and wrote, in the top right corner of the parchment, ‘This is a test of the automated writing spell, dictated by Twilight Sparkle in temporary changeling form.’

Any satisfaction Twilight gained from getting the spell to work properly was almost immediately overridden by the unpleasantness of having to confront and acknowledge her change directly. Her wasp-like wings buzzed a little on her back, involuntarily reacting to her stress and anxiety as she began to work her way around the large room in a slow circle again.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she said aloud, and she heard the pen begin to scratch away at the parchment again. “I’m twenty-two years old. For the last fourteen years, I’ve been the personal protege of Princess Celestia de Sol, as well as the caretaker and librarian of the Golden Oaks Library in Ponyville for the last three.

“Due to an as-yet unknown error in the casting of a non-unicorn spell designed to interfere with the inherent magic of changelings, I have taken on the physical, and possibly magical, characteristics of a changeling drone. As of this writing, I am hiding in the Originist-Celestian church ruins located approximately two miles inside the Everfree Forest. I have suffered injuries to my leg and horn due to an... an extremely negative reaction... from the local populace...”

She shuddered, remembering the boiling mass of angry colours that had surrounded her in the town square. The memory itself was strangely abstract and empty of detail now, and if it weren’t for the fact that she could see the dilapidated wooden floor through the holes in her legs, Twilight might have thought she was remembering a particularly bizarre dream. She reasoned that it was probably because her panic and confusion at the time had prevented her mind from fully assimilating the experience.

Shaking off the intruding memory, Twilight resumed pacing. Though it had only been a few minutes, she could tell that she was going to need to sit down and rest soon. “After performing a test of my current magical abilities, I have determined that I am still able to utilize a small amount of energy in spite of the damage done to both my horn and my reserves. Keeping the severity of my situation in mind, my goals are as follows: First, to restore my physical body and magical connections to their natural state. Second, to clear my name of any suspicion and reintegrate myself into pony society without further incident. Third, to determine the root cause of my sudden transformation, so as to prevent further incidents of this nature among those who use the revealing spell.”

The changeling’s voice went silent for a while as she paced, slowly putting together a plan for the unknown length of time stretching ahead. It was difficult to consider all the variables in her potential courses of action, since the painkillers made her head spin and her thoughts spilled out through her ears when she had too many of them, but Twilight was able to come to some basic conclusions after working hard to keep her concentration steady.

“For the time being, I am essentially imprisoned here by the unreliability of my magic and the crippling injury to my leg. That I managed to get so far into the Everfree at night is nothing short of miraculous. If I’m going to make another journey through the forest, I want to have enough magic available to me that I can defend myself against attacking predators... or ponies, if need be...”

Though the thought of having to fight somepony chilled her, she wasn’t the sort who would deny the possibility of being found by ponies who would try to capture her again. Twilight knew it was foolish to let everything she had left rest on the ability of her conjured chemical shield to ward off everything that came near her, or the power of reason to talk down anypony she ran into. Not after what had happened to her two days before.

Having assessed her situation, the changeling moved on to the next problem: she needed to figure out how to use the next few days. It was likely that reversing the transformation would require a great deal of powerful spellcasting. Her horn was in no state to facilitate such a feat, so she wouldn’t be able to do anything about her current state until she’d regained control of her magic. However, now that she was able to think more clearly than she had in the town square or in the fields or woods, she realized that she might not have to spend all of that time alone.

In the haze of her escape from Ponyville—which, like her memory of the events in the town square, was somewhat fuzzy and detached from the rest of her consciousness—Twilight had completely forgotten that there was a pony who was relatively removed from the changeling hysteria. Zecora was near enough that she wouldn’t have to risk going near Ponyville, and the zebra knew just what it was like to be persecuted by suspicious ponies and might be more receptive to the idea of helping her.

Just as importantly, Zecora had various potions that could potentially help Twilight’s body heal faster. They might even be able to come up with a solution and a cure to the mystery of her transformation together. Twilight knew that Zecora was well-versed in the magic of zebra shamanism, which was purportedly able to do things that ordinary pony magic couldn’t do.

Of course, that was assuming Zecora did give her a chance. It was possible that she would give Twilight the benefit of the doubt and allow her to explain, but it was equally possible that she wouldn’t think twice about bucking Twilight’s head off her shoulders. There were supposed to have been changeling hives in ancient Zebrica—Who knew what kinds of legends the zebra had passed down regarding them? For all she knew, Zecora could have just as much against changelings as the rest of Ponyville, or even more.

But if there was one thing Twilight had learned from her adventures with the Elements of Harmony, one thing which she still held onto despite her ordeal, it was that there was always a friend somewhere you could count on. She wasn’t about to just discard every lesson she’d learned about friendship. Twilight had to trust that Zecora would help her, or all her time in Ponyville would have been for nothing.

Getting to Zecora was another matter anyway. Her tree house might have been a good distance from Ponyville, but Twilight’s current location was still far enough away that she ran the risk of being attacked by something in the forest anyway if she tried to get there. Running blindly through the forest again wasn’t a particularly bright idea at all.

“Within the next few days,” she finally summarized to the pen, which began writing again, “I hope to have recovered well enough to relocate myself to the dwelling of my friend Zecora, a zebra shamaness and healer who lives approximately one mile into the forest. It is my hope that she will receive me more positively than the townsponies of Ponyville proper. In the meantime, I will attempt to determine the exact nature and cause of my transformation.

“New page; title: ‘Observations during self-examination’.” Twilight rubbed her forehead absent-mindedly with her hoof, trying to get rid of the growing pressure behind her left eye. Next on her list of things to do was assessing how severe the injury to her horn and magical reserves were. After that, she decided, she would analyze exactly what kind of magical residue had been left behind by the spell and see if she could determine anything from it. Very powerful spells often left behind impressions of their unique magic, rather like hoofprints on a beach, and the spell she had used had been very overpowered in order to achieve the blanket effect.

“In order to determine what happened in the town square, I’m going to have to determine how deeply the change has permeated my form,” said Twilight. She looked down at the blackened chitin on her hoof as she spoke, then raised this hoof to press against her forehead again. “I appear to have taken on the... aura of a changeling when casting normal spells. This indicates... that it may have... a-altered... the way I express m-magical p-power... a-ah!”

A growing headache behind her eyes had joined the dull ache in her horn and leg, in spite of the fact that it hadn’t been very long since she’d taken the pain medication. It was a very unpleasant feeling indeed, akin to what she imagined being stabbed through the eye with an ice pick might be like. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed her other hoof hoof against her forehead as well, momentarily forgetting that she was no longer capable of experiencing tension or sinus headaches, but it did nothing to help.

“...the c-continuing pain in my horn... and now in my head... suggests a potentially serious internal injury. I will have to face the possibility of... a permanent reduction... in my ability to use magic... thanks to this ordeal...” continued Twilight, still with her eyes shut and her hoof pressed against her head. She shivered and paused as what she had just said fully sank in.

She didn’t expect to have much trouble casting spells once her horn was healed, regardless of whether there was permanent damage or not—Twilight’s magical reserves were practically unlimited, and she didn’t expect it to diminish even with an injury unless it was a very serious one indeed. But magic was everything to Twilight Sparkle. To lose even a fraction of her ability to connect to that energy would have been like having a piece of her soul stolen away from her. Even now, unable to engage her special talent as she pleased, she felt as though some part of her had been physically paralyzed. Twilight wondered if this was what had been like for Rainbow Dash when she’d had to wear a cast on her wing the time she’d broken it, or what Pinkie had felt like the week she’d been sick with pneumonia and couldn’t hold any parties.

One of the very first things she had ever learned from Princess Celestia, back when she was a little filly who still had a lot of trouble managing her newfound well of magical power, was how to let her magic out when it wanted out. Actually, it was only a small fraction of her magic that she’d actually let out, but the Princess had taught her that it was always a good idea to moderate such things. It was only unicorns and alicorns that had enough control to do this, and only the most powerful of them all could manifest their magic physically.

Lowering her head slightly, Twilight let her magic’s aura run free. It hurt, but it was a cathartic sort of pain; nothing like the angry stabbing from before. A shimmering stream of green magic poured out of her horn and swirled around her as though it were alive. It wound around her body like it was trying to wrap her up, until she was completely enveloped in it. This magic twitched and undulated about her, dancing like sickly green flames in the half-darkened hall. Something about it just wasn’t right; it felt unnatural and unwieldy, as though it weren’t truly a part of her, and as though something inside her wanted her to stop using it.

More to Twilight’s delight, the green changeling-like aura was joined by a familiar lavender ribbon that stirred the first real feelings of comfort or relaxation she’d experienced since her speech. Sighing, the changeling leaned back and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensations it triggered—it reminded her of the smells of parchment paper, ink, and books, and of looking at printed words and Princess Celestia’s smile, and the soothing voice of her mentor in her ear, and—more than anything else—home.

In spite of how unpleasant it was to have that unwanted changeling magic mingling with her own, Twilight could have likened releasing her magic this way to sinking into a hot bath. Having her magic outside in the physical world instead of in the noncorporeal core where it was usually contained also significantly reduced the pressure on her horn, which in turn made it a little bit less sore. It did nothing for her migraine, but the burst of delirious happiness that accompanied the release took some of her attention off it.

Something struck her as odd about her native magic, and she absent-mindedly noted it to the automatic pen: “It’s... shinier than it used to be. More colourful. How odd...”

With her magic keeping her warm and making her much more comfortable than before, she moved on to the next step of her examination: the horn diagnostic spell. This was a basic spell for medical students, and one Twilight had learned in order to keep an eye on her horn because of the potential for injury when she was performing more complex spells.

It had no actual physical effect on her horn; instead, it used a very tiny magical charge to project a synesthetic illusion into her mind’s eye that corresponded to the different ‘connections’ through which magic could emerge. With this spell, the ‘inside’ of her horn was represented as a series of colored lines, like a very poorly organized rainbow. Each line represented a connection between the well of magic that was her inner core and the outside world, since, in order to form a connection, there had to be a point where the magic entered her horn and a point where it exited. She could test these in the same way one might pluck the strings of a harp or a lyre in order to find out how well they were functioning.

Many of the connections caused a burning sensation inside her horn when she tried them. It wasn’t the same as the throbbing spike that seemed to regularly attack her, and it actually made her feel a lot better because she knew that feeling, even though she didn’t know what was causing it this time. The pain was of the type that came from magical overexertion; of having too much magic forced through at once.

There didn’t seem to be any permanent damage to these, only a very severe case of burnout. There were only two lines that weren’t burned out, and the rest were completely useless until they had healed up. The input from the two that did work was so little it was practically negligible, and would probably power little more than tiny self-contained spells for the time being. Still, it was good that she at least had some magic available to her.

“The transformation appears not to have affected my established magical abilities beyond the temporary damage done by casting while the change was occurring,” she noted as she combed through the synesthetic diagram. “However, there is significant burnout present in most connections. The input from the two that are still working properly is enough to power little more than the standard range of self-contained spells, though I am very thankful that I still have this, at least.”

The next phenomenon of note was the massive damage to the ‘rainbow web’ that had once crisscrossed Twilight’s connections. There had always been a large part of Twilight’s diagnostic visualization that had the synesthetic sensation of looking at a rainbow. It was woven from one intangible side to the other, as though a huge spider had come along and spun a web inside her horn itself. Until recently, neither Twilight nor Celestia had been able to identify the source of this magic, but upon finding out that Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom had been the event that unleashed her power that day in Canterlot, Twilight had formulated a theory that it was some sort of residue from the rainboom’s enormous magical output.

Now that rainbow web, as it were, was completely shredded; the crystallized colors shattered into pieces; the veil torn away, and this formerly static magic was now bloating her own inherent magic. In the web’s place was a new spiderweb of lines crossing through each other with no particular sense of order about them. Trying to find a logical pattern in them was too complex a task for Twilight’s aching brain to carry out, and it just ended up making her dizzier than she already had been

Judging by their similarity to the lines she had used to tap the changelings’ inherent magic in the past, Twilight could draw a reasonably accurate conclusion as to their nature, and she related this to her record-keeper. “It may be that actively channeling magic through my horn at the time of the transformation prevented the standard changeling magics from integrating, resulting in this mess of exclusively changeling-based lines at random... Such a massive alteration of a pony’s magical structure without the involvement of an event like the sonic rainboom or an artifact like the Elements of Harmony is all but unheard of, but as I have already broken the rule about ponies becoming changelings, I have chosen to disregard that for the time being, as this is clearly not an ordinary case...”

She stopped the spell to rest, and leaned over to the side a bit in case she had to get sick. Her headache had grown so severe it was making her stomach churn, the way she sometimes felt when she went on long chariot rides for school field trips when she was still a filly back in Canterlot. Twilight decided she needed to finish her examination up as soon as she could, before she became too ill to continue, so her break didn’t last long.

Testing one of the changeling connections caused a sharp pain in her horn and made her ears pop. Twilight had also had this happen to her a few times before, when she was younger, and also to a lesser degree in recent times when she had experimented with particularly powerful new spells. It was the feeling of her body trying to force more magic through a single channel than could possibly fit; a phenomenon that, according to Princess Celestia, sometimes happened to very strong unicorns who had established connections to new types of magic and were unused to managing the power they were channeling.

Twilight was so used to being able to channel almost any amount of power she needed through her horn that she’d forgotten what it was like to have to limit her casting. Now, however, she needed to be very careful not to put any strain on her burned-out older connections or the weak newer ones. She began to analyze some the new connections individually by sending little pulses of magical energy through them, to determine how much they would accept. As she had guessed, they weren’t actually defective; just unfamiliar and undeveloped.

“Further experimentation may be necessary, but at the moment it appears that these new lines are foreign and poorly defined enough that they’ll need a great deal of exercise and practice if I hope to make them work at all. My magical makeup also may not be fully suited to accept magical connections based in changeling magic at both ends. It may be necessary to drastically redistribute the inherent-ambient ratio in my casting for the time being, to adjust for these changes if I want to utilize the magic I now possess.”

Though there were many, many more things she would have liked to explore within her rearranged magical layout, but her headache, and the irritation in her horn, had progressed to the point where she could no longer stand to poke around any further. Feeling unsatisfied, Twilight canceled the spell and paused a moment to collect her thoughts so she could come up with a conclusive summary of her findings.

“All things considered, after viewing the state of my horn I feel I’m lucky to be able to do magic at all. I doubt I’ll be able to reverse the transformation, or even begin to determine the cause, until my injuries have healed. I also don’t know how long I’ll have to wait before that happens. Perhaps Zecora will be able to help me there.

“A side note: I think I’ll also have to watch out for my health in the meantime. My physical body is in very poor shape as of right now. In addition to my broken leg, my muscles seem insufficient to carry me for extended periods of time. ...It may be that the transformation redistributed certain nutrients within my body, and there was an insufficient level of one or more to form an adequate changeling muscular system...”

Twilight stopped there, feeling rather anxious as she considered just what that implied. If it really was the case, then there was a good chance other systems in her body might also be weakened. For all she knew, she could stop breathing or have a seizure at any moment, or even simply drop dead as her malformed body spontaneously shut down.

At that point, she judged (rather wisely, in her opinion) that it would probably be a good idea for the magic swirling around her to go back inside before she overexerted herself. This was both painful and enjoyable; the latter because it left a warm, fuzzy feeling on the interior of her horn. Twilight was sad to see the lavender magic leave her side again, as it was the only familiarity she had at that moment.

There was a very soft whistling noise in her ears after the last of the ribbons had returned to her horn. She looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from, but no matter where she looked, it always seemed to be coming from all around her. In the end, she decided it was probably the wind whistling through a hole in the wall, or something of that nature.

Eventually, Twilight managed to distract herself from the odd noise by doing some of the calculations to retune her spellcasting to better fit what she knew about changelings. If she learned to adjust how much magic she used to compensate for the change, she would most likely be able to use most or even all of the spells a real changeling would be able to use (which included her own unicorn magic) once she built up her ability to cast again.

Tuning spells was something Twilight Sparkle not only enjoyed and was good at, but found relaxing. Changing the way a spell was cast to fit a particular type of caster required a great deal of numerological and magiologial calculation—both of which were fields in which she was adept. This was one of the reasons she was able to do magic even more powerful unicorns couldn’t.

At first, Twilight experienced a sort of war in her head between the numbers she was trying to crunch and the fears she was trying to ward off. Her current state made it easy for her attention to wander, so she repeatedly found herself going silent in her dictation for long periods of time. Half her brain was trying to stick with her notes and calculations, while the other was in another place entirely, filled with images of her own body’s sudden failure; of her heart stopping, and of her brain spontaneously ceasing to function.

As time wore on, however, all of these things, whether she was trying to concentrate on them or not, faded out of focus and were replaced by a single, constant, universal presence within her mind: that unholy whistling noise. It hadn’t gone away as Twilight had hoped it would. Rather, it had grown ever more intense as she worked, and had gradually been joined by a churning of her stomach and (more worryingly) an increasing pressure at the base of her horn.

She tried to ignore it for a while, pretending nothing was wrong even though she knew something was, but it was a siren inside her head; like her body was trying to warn her that she was in danger. Inevitably, it got to the point where she couldn’t ignore it—but in her hazy confusion she also didn’t know what was causing it or what to do about it. In the claws of this frightening phenomenon, which had graduated to an ear-piercing wailing coming from within, she could only panic and whimper.

“Shut up...” she moaned, pressing her hoof against the side of her head. “P-please... stop...”

But it didn’t stop. It got louder and louder, until it had eclipsed everything else with its shrieking wail. Twilight let out a low moan, then turned her head to the side and threw up onto the floor beside the pulpit. It felt like she was the sole support for ten thousand tons of bricks balanced on the tip of the jagged spike she could see when she turned her eyes upward.

The pressure built until it made her vision swim and her ears ring, the latter of which she somehow heard through the whistling. Then, very suddenly, it all seemed to release itself at once in a violent burst. She was given little warning before the pain hit, except for a shower of white-hot green colored sparks falling out of her horn and cascading down her face. And then all the pressure was released at once.

Twilight’s horn set off a deafening blast like a cannon, nearly giving her whiplash from its force and shooting gouts of magic everywhere as she screamed, lost her balance, and toppled over onto her side. The agony it brought with it was comparable only to that of what she’d felt in her time in the town square, and even then only just barely. It felt like her head and her horn were being split apart and white-hot knives driven into the open spaces.

A long, multipronged tongue of sickly green electricity emerged from the tip of her horn and whipped around wildly for a split second, crackling and popping loudly as it burned everything it touched. When it vanished, it left behind a series of black marks all over the floor in front of Twilight where it had made contact. Little pockets of air near where the explosion had gone off flared briefly, then were extinguished just as quickly as they had lit up.

And then Twilight was left alone in silence again, with only her terror, her shock, and the almost completely paralyzing agony to keep her company. Still laying on the floor, she slowly curled up into a foetal position—though with her bad leg sticking out—and started to shake, her body only just reacting to what had happened. She stayed like that for a long time, trying her best not to break the mild dissociation that had come with the trauma.

What brought her back to her senses was a peculiar fizzing sound, which reminded her of Pinkie Pie’s soda pop for some reason. It sent a brand-new jolt of fear through her: what if her horn was going to explode again? Twilight didn’t think she could handle that kind of pain twice in a row. She would lose her mind.

Still dazed, she did the first thing that came to mind: she reached up with her good hoof to touch her horn and see if it was warmer than it should have been. Before she even came in contact with it, she let out a raspy yelp and withdrew her hoof again. A large portion of the inside of her hoof had been burned, and the greenish residue pulsating all over it told her that it was a magical burn. It wasn’t too bad, but she would have to clean and bandage it as soon as she could.

The changeling finally had the sense to look up at the tip of her horn, which she discovered was glowing green. The glow wasn’t the normal halo of a spell, either, but a tiny flame burning a few millimeters from the tip, like a flame from a lighter. Twilight’s eyes followed a little green spark as it popped out of the fire, bounced twice across the floor, and winked out.

Still reeling as though she’d taken a sonic rainboom to the head, she absent-mindedly dictated her scattered thoughts to the enchanted pen, in a quavering, broken whimper of a voice: “I am e-experiencing... violent and painful regurgitation of magic. My horn appears to be leaking after the fact... it’s making a strange noise. I think the... the a-alteration might have i-injured my conversion chamber in some way...? I don’t know... I don’t know... I’m scared... I want Princess Celestia...”

If indeed she was suffering from a perforated conversion chamber—a hole in one of the parts of her horn where the summoned magic gathered to be shaped into a spell and cast—then it had probably been leaking intermittently in this way ever since she’d escaped the town square. Such an injury was certainly a plausibility after having her magical connections altered while they were still open, and would explain why her successfully cast teleportation spell was interrupted mid-way.

She had been wrong: exercising her magic and waiting wouldn’t help her heal. A perforated conversion chamber was the kind of thing that required magical surgery to repair. As much as Twilight liked to think she was well-versed in medical knowledge, she had absolutely no idea how to perform surgery on herself and would probably make things even worse if she tried.

“It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it?” she said quietly to herself as she stared the floor in front of her, having righted herself to huddle against the pulpit again. “Just... one thing... after...”

Twilight fell silent, deprived of the ability to speak by the shock as she slowly dug up what she knew about horn perforations from the recesses of her mind. She didn’t know much about them, especially since they were rare injuries only seen in the most extreme of cases, but her excellent memory allowed her to retain a basic knowledge from what she’d seen in medical books.

The injury would limit how much magic she could channel at one time. Casting spells of any significance, or even releasing her aura, ran the risk of having excess magic painfully regurgitated through her horn again, and there was a chance that whatever magic she tried to do might mutate or backfire on her if there was too much pressure in her horn. Any spells she did cast successfully that weren’t self-contained would most likely be severely underpowered, no matter what she did.

And, she added silently, the damage is going to get worse the longer it’s untreated, until one day I try to cast a spell and my horn will just fizzle and pop uselessly like it did when I was a foal...

It wasn’t even the physical pain that truly hurt her, but the idea of a life without magic. It absolutely terrified her. If for Twilight Sparkle losing a bit of her magic would have been like having a piece of her soul stolen from her, losing all her magic all would have been like having it gouged out in huge chunks. Like cutting off Rainbow Dash’s wings or Applejack’s legs. Like removing the part of Pinkie Pie’s brain that made her able to laugh and smile. Unbearable.

And once a unicorn lost his or her ability to manipulate magic, there were very few ways to get it back short of extremely complicated rituals or powerful ancient artifacts, most of which were so legendary they’d become more the subjects of Daring Do adventures than of serious scholarly interest.

Even the reports Twilight had read of the ‘remarkable ability’ of changelings to heal quickly from debilitating injuries were of no use to her anymore. Perhaps her leg would get better more quickly, but it was specifically mentioned in one of the Inquisition’s documents that not even changelings could heal conversion chamber perforations on their own. She didn’t know how they knew that, as it wasn’t a common injury, and a very small, very uneasy part of her said that she might not want to find out, either. The bottom line, in any case, was that her new physiology was of no use in this matter. Nothing she had available to her could heal it.

The only other thing to be done was to completely block her magic. Twilight shuddered, and hung her head sadly at the very thought of having to do something so awful to herself, but she knew it was necessary. The sooner she got something to suppress her magic, the less permanent damage would be added to what had probably already been caused. Better to lose her magic for a little while than to lose it forever. Maybe when the last of the storm had cleared, she would go see Zecora anyway. It wasn’t really a matter of waiting for her horn to repair itself anymore, since the injury would only get worse with time, so there wasn’t much point putting off the journey now.

Though she dearly wanted to sit behind the pulpit for an indefinite length of time and just wallow in self-pity, Twilight had an injury that needed to be tended to and dressed, and once the pain in her horn died down enough, her hoof took precedence. Slowly and sluggishly, the former unicorn wobbled her way across the few meters between the pulpit and the place she’d left the bag from Fluttershy’s.

She didn’t trust the Everfree rainwater, so she sacrificed one of Fluttershy’s little plastic bottles of Ponyland Springs water she’d put in the bag to clean the wound. Since magical injuries tended to be more sensitive than normal ones, it was an unpleasant task scrubbing the flickering green dust off her hoof; it got bad enough that near the end she had to clench her teeth to prevent herself from making noise. Compared to the previous night’s task of setting her leg, though, it wasn’t much of a challenge.

With her hoof bandaged, Twilight sat down on her sleeping bag to rest and wait for her horn to stop leaking. She was absolutely exhausted, but the full extent of her weariness had only just hit her. All she wanted was to go to sleep; to return to the empty bliss where she didn’t have to deal with exploding horns and changeling magic and pain. Unfortunately, she had to wait until her horn stopped leaking magic, to avoid setting anything on fire in her sleep. This proved to be a disturbingly long wait, spanning what felt like hours and hours in which she just sat motionless, listening to her horn fizz and pop atop her head.

Growing anxious and bored, Twilight started to fidget nervously. This was going on for far longer than it should have. Something was keeping the connection open and allowing magic to spill out of her horn like a fountain. It was getting to the point where she could feel the heat being conducted down from the top into the base, a sign that it was in serious danger of melting shut, which would lead to very, very bad things.

Just when she was starting to panic again, there was a little slurp, and the fizzing finally stopped. Twilight looked up at the tip of her deformed horn and was indescribably relieved to see that it was no longer projecting a green flame, although wisps of steam were still rising off it. The pain was still awful, and still enough to make her shake and shiver, but it was gradually getting better. The very moment she was sure she wouldn’t accidentally set anything on fire, she let herself fall back onto the sleeping bag, crawled halfway in, and started tossing around, trying to find a comfortable position to lay in.

She ended up on her side, running her hoof across the silky material that made up the insulation of the sleeping bag since she didn’t have a tail anymore, as she distantly thought about what had happened. Today had been a nightmare. It wasn’t even afternoon yet, and already Twilight wished she could fall back into the emptiness of sleep. She should have been getting ready to go have tea with Rarity at noon, then attend Pinkie’s birthday party for Winona, if she remembered her schedule for the week correctly (and she knew she did); not laying in a dusty old church with her leg shattered and her horn ruined, inhaling the stench of burnt enamel, and wondering she would ever see Rarity and Pinkie and her other friends again.

Almost as great as her fear of losing her magic was her fear of having to suffer through it alone. Though as a filly she’d spent long hours isolated in the library, reading book after book instead of making friends as she should have been making at that age, Twilight wasn’t used to being truly alone. There was always Princess Celestia to teach her magic, her parents and Shining Armor to visit, and Cadence to play with. Even in the library, and even on field trips, and even when she went on that expedition without her newfound friends, she’d at least had Spike to keep her company.

She wondered if Princess Celestia had told Shining and Cadence what had happened (or what she probably thought had happened, rather) yet. Shining might never trust her again, even after she came back, and Cadence would most likely be afraid of being alone with her. Twilight certainly could understand why they, of all ponies, might have trouble trusting somepony who’d been transformed into a changeling, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to think about it. And then there were her friends. What if Twilight never saw them again?

It was entirely irrational, but she had a horrible feeling that she would never go to another overwhelming after-after-after-party held by Pinkie Pie; never make her legs sore bucking apples with Applejack again; never again cringe as Rainbow Dash burst through the library window and ruined her well-organized bookshelves; never be fussed over by Rarity for a dress she’d only wear once; never watch Fluttershy scold chickens for pecking at her hooves.

Oddly, some of the things she normally found most annoying about her friends seemed terribly important to her all of a sudden, and she felt rather disgusted and angry with herself now for not taking the time to appreciate them when she had the chance. What were a few sore hooves and unwanted makeovers compared to the magic of friendship? She wasn’t a solitary pony, for all her introversion and love of quiet corners in old libraries. For all of Rainbow Dash’s joking about Twilight’s supposed conversations with her books, reading old, dusty books about old, dead ponies wasn’t the same as having a living friend who could talk back.

More than anything, she wanted somepony—anypony, really—to come and hold her; to remind her that she was a pony on the inside, and not the hideous... thing she’d transformed into. She wanted to feel the hooves and wings of her friends around her, and know that somepony still cared about her.

“It would be wonderful beyond words if I had somepony here to hug me right now,” Twilight said rather wistfully to herself. Although she heard the magic pen scratching away, still dutifully notating every word she said, she wasn’t entirely sure whether she was talking to anypony or anything in particular anymore, or just voicing her pain to make herself feel better. “I don’t like being a changeling. I want to be a unicorn again. I want to wake up and h-have this all b-be a horrible, horrible nightmare... ”

Twilight trailed off and shut her eyes very tightly. She could almost feel that awful spell from the town square stabbing at her horn like it was happening all over again, except now it was mixed with the explosive release of pressure she’d felt when her horn started vomiting magic. She sniffled and tried to push the horrible sensory imprints away. But they didn’t want to leave; they wanted to stay in the forefront of her mind, replaying themselves until she went insane. In particular, the ghostly sensation of having her horn stabbed and clawed at wouldn’t go away, nor would the urge to reach up and cover her horn, even though she knew there was nothing on it. Twilight swatted at the space around her horn, for a moment not caring if she touched it, then hit herself several times in the forehead with her hoof, trying to rattle herself back into reality.

“...I’m scared. I’m very alone.” She rolled over and faced the empty church, shaking her sore hoof. “I’m not a pony anymore, but I know I’m not a changeling, either. It’s... it’s awful. It’s so awful. Part of me wants to just go back and turn myself in, because it would be easier in the long run... but I can’t do that. They’ll take my horn away from me if I go back like this.”

And they can’t have that. I’ll never let them have it. Never.

“I just wish I had somepony to talk to besides myself... I hope Zecora will help me. I’m lonely.” With nothing else coherent to say, the next few minutes were filled with half-formed exclamations and statements as she fumed and fretted over the unfairness of her situation, and worried about the future. It was all so wrong; she hadn’t done anything to deserve this, and yet here she was, having her friends, her life, her dignity, her health, and now her special talent, magic, and horn systematically stripped away from her.

Her eyes, though tired, flickered back and forth, the only part of her still animated, until they caught on a particular point at the edge of the nearest window. Then they widened, and she sat up again and squinted curiously at that spot. At first, she was unsure if she was seeing something real—little blobs of colour had been popping in the corners of her vision ever since her horn blew up—but it stayed where it was, unmoving and unchanging. It was really there.

A single ray of reddish-golden sunlight timidly peeked through a crack between the window and the wall, casting a soft patch of light on one of the pews. It was the first encouraging sight she’d witnessed in two days, and it probably would have showed on her face if she’d been capable of doing anything more than widening her vacant eyes and letting her mouth fall open as she got up, drawn to to it like an insect toward an open flame.

“I’m... I’m going to go look at the sun...” said Twilight dreamily as she passed by the enchanted pen and parchment. “End transcription...”

It was the sun. Twilight had seen it every day of her life since she was a filly, and yet at that moment it seemed more significant to her than it ever had before. There was a definite symbolism in the fact that it had chosen to come out in her darkest moment, when she was at her lowest. To think that Princess Celestia raised and lowered the sun for her alone was beyond absurd and self-absorbed, but she couldn’t help romanticizing the events just a bit in her head as she thought about them.

When I had no other friends, she thought, though it seemed muted and distant like everything else except that light, Princess Celestia gave me the sun to keep me company...

There was a rod hanging from the top of the windowframe that was supposed to be turned to open the slats, but Twilight didn’t bother with it. Not even thinking about what she was doing, she powered up her horn and used it to unlock the shutters, completely ignoring the pain it caused her in her rapidly growing mania.

“Thank you, Princess Celestia! Everything’s going to be all right!”

Sunlight flooded into the church, driving out the dark gloom that had inhabited its corners. Twilight, sitting on her haunches beneath the window, spread her forelegs wide and closed her eyes, allowing the light to wash over her. For just a moment, she imagined that she was safe again; that Princess Celestia had swept her up in her wings; that the Princess was going to protect her faithful student from the wicked world outside and make everything better again.

But her emotional illusion didn’t last long. Soon, she was desperately grasping at anything to keep it alive; to make there be warmth around her, to hear soothing words being spoken, and to feel the Princess’s bright aura of safety to hide inside. The light was faint and dull, and had only looked bright because she had been in the dark for so long. Inevitably, she had to open her eyes.

When Twilight opened her eyes, she saw a great burst of red and purple, like a massive bruise, surrounded on either side by angry stormclouds that seemed to have parted right down the middle to show her what they had been concealing. And in the center of all this, there was a tired, slowly sinking orange ball heading downward toward the horizon. It was not morning, as Twilight had believed. It was not even afternoon. The sun had long since risen, and now it was on its way back down.

Celestia was leaving her.

It was like the last thirty or forty seconds had grown a great big bubble inside her, and seeing the setting sun made it burst. Everything came crashing down in a wreck of unrealistic expectations and strange collisions between her objective and subjective mind. Twilight unbalanced and fell back onto her rear, staring at the glowing sphere with an open mouth full of fangs.

She didn’t even understand why it was affecting her so badly, or why watching it set caused such a melancholy feeling within her and gnawed on her with the ferocity of a swarm of parasprites. She hadn’t expected Celestia to actually be there—at least, not consciously. But where she had hoped to find reassurance in that reminder of her mentor’s omnipresence within the sky, there was only more lonely twilight.

“Heh...” she half-snorted, half-sniffled to herself as she lay down in the sun’s last rays and watched it with glazed eyes. “It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it.”

The silence that followed was deafening, and broken only by Twilight’s sniffling—which was entirely unnecessary, of course, as she wasn’t a unicorn anymore. Her eyes started to itch and burn, so she put her bandaged hoof up and rubbed at them a little. It came away wet. Startled, she touched her cheek and found more wetness.

“...B-but I couldn’t cry before...”

V. Hunted

This is a pretty eventful chapter, and it was a lot of fun to write... except for the fact that it was way longer than I expected it to be (over 22,000 words... what the hell, man?), so I had to rewrite it into two chapters to make it even remotely readable for you guys. Warning: this chapter contains best pony. You may be irradiated by the sheer awesomeness. Enjoy.

Solitary Locust

V. Hunted

As the morning sun began to rise, Twilight Sparkle sat beneath the church’s single open window in a shaft of gentle yellow light, fumbling with the wrappings around her broken leg. Her movements were lethargic and sluggish, as she hadn’t slept well the night before, and her actions often felt disconnected from her brain as though her body had started running by itself without really knowing what to do. The former unicorn’s hooves frequently bumped against things and she kept dropping the roll of bandages because they had begun shaking at some point.

Peeling her several-day-old bandages off was a slow and nauseating process as she had to do it with her mouth instead of her magic, and with her clumsiness and inexperience handling things by mouth she had to be very careful not to disrupt whatever healing had occurred so far. Underneath, her broken leg already looked somewhat further along in its healing than a real pony’s would have been in such a short length of time. The place where the chitin had cracked had sealed itself up, leaving behind a jagged line. Twilight didn’t dare put weight on that leg yet, knowing it would be a long while yet before she had healed enough to walk properly, but she felt just a little better upon finding out that something, at least, was going the way she had hoped it would.

Once she’d wrapped up her foreleg with fresh bandages and taken more of the pain pills—there were only a few left now—she went and rolled up her sleeping bag so she could tie it to the saddlebags—it wasn’t heavy either, and it would be better than sleeping on the ground if she couldn’t make it to Zecora’s... or was turned away. She also dug out one of the rain ponchos from the abandoned supplies, randomly struck by inspiration, and put it on. Although it was a silly looking thing that didn’t fit well, and wearing it was kind of physically uncomfortable, it would keep her a little bit warmer if it got cold again, and the drab-green colour would help her stay unnoticed if she had to hide.

She was still cold, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been before the storm had broken. Though she by no means felt better, she at least didn’t have to pace back and forth to stave off hypothermia now. More than anything else, she felt drained and empty. A part of her felt like she was only trying to run from her seemingly inevitable doom because it was better than sitting still and doing nothing at all. Everything she did had a strangely surreal feeling about it, as though she had one hoof in real life and one in a dream. In fact, the last week (with a start, Twilight realized it actually had been almost a week that she’d spent in the wretched changeling body now, give or take a few days’ worth of time muddled by her delirium) really could have been something right out of The Metamarephosis, or one of the cheap science-fiction novels she ordered at the beginning of every month for Rainbow Dash.

The changeling limped around the side of the huge room and pressed her shoulder against one of the great wooden doors at the church’s entrance. She pushed on it with all the strength she could still find, and it slowly swung open with a rusty creaking noise, flooding the rest of the church with the light and heat of the daytime. Twilight held up her hoof in front of her face, momentarily blinded by having the sun shining directly into her oversensitive changeling eyes. She pulled the rain poncho’s hood up and bent her neck down a bit, finally finding relief from the sun’s rays.

She slipped through the species barrier and sat down on the top step of the little staircase, taking in the wild smell of the Everfree and shivering slightly now that she was exposed to the wind, which made the loose ends of the poncho whip around her sides a little bit. Gazing out over the grass, Twilight ran down a mental checklist of everything she had in her bag: the remaining drugs and antiseptic, the roll of bandages, the two water bottles she hadn’t finished off, the parchment with her notes on it (now rolled up inside an empty bottle to keep them safe), and writing supplies (which were never a bad idea to have on hoof, regardless of the situation).

When this was done, she racked her brain, looking for something else to do, instead of venturing out of the physical and emotional safety of the pony-made church into the unknown wilderness of the Everfree. Twilight was no Daring Do; she could only take so much adventure before she started pining for her warm, soft bed back in the library. Certainly, she wasn’t the kind of pony who found any kind of ‘thrill’ in trekking through miles of wilderness with one leg broken and a horn full of holes.

If she’d had her way, the ex-unicorn would have stayed in the church and given her exhausted body some rest, but that wasn’t an option anymore. Fluttershy had almost certainly discovered the mess in her house by then, and it didn’t take much deduction to figure out where an injured changeling with limited mobility would try to escape to once magical scrying found nothing nearby. If there weren’t already guardsponies or concerned citizens (or both) combing through the forest in search of her, there would be very soon, and Twilight wanted to get somewhere truly safe before they got in far enough to find her current hiding place.

Unfortunately, Twilight couldn’t find anything more to help her procrastinate and put off her upcoming journey. She steeled herself, and then slowly struggled to her hooves and descended the steps into the little overgrown clearing around the church. She didn’t climb so much as clatter down them, lacking the energy and the focus to coordinate her steps properly, so it was a genuine surprise when she stumbled off the last one without falling down.

The long grass in the clearing waved slightly in the wind and tickled her legs a little as she shuffled through it, heading to the southwest; toward Zecora’s home. Although she didn’t know the Everfree particularly well, Twilight had made enough trips into it to know the more prominent landmarks that would tell her where she was, and if she couldn’t find any of those, there was always the sun to help her determine her relative location.

Travelling in the Everfree during the day was different from travelling in it at night, most prominently in that there weren’t nearly as many scary monsters lurking in the shadows; and in fact, that there weren’t as many shadows at all. Twilight caught glimpses of the occasional squirrel, but the larger creatures foals were warned about by their concerned parents were absent. There were still manticores and cockatrices to be wary of, of course, but even those usually didn’t come so close to the edge of the forest by day, and timberwolves were almost exclusively nocturnal creatures as well. The things that could truly be called monsters hid much deeper in the Everfree; deeper than Twilight had ever gone (or would go willingly, regardless of the circumstances).

But here, towards the edge, and in the beautiful rays of Celestia’s rising sun, it was almost inviting—nothing like how it had been the night Twilight and her friends had rushed to find the Elements of Harmony and stop Nightmare Moon. Fallen leaves crinkled pleasantly beneath her hooves as the changeling passed under soft rays of sunlight peering in between the branches above her. If she hadn’t been in such a sorry state, and if she hadn’t been under such pressure, she might actually have enjoyed the journey somewhat. She could almost forget the context under which she was making it.

The thick trees eventually gave way to the bank of a river Twilight had crossed over the night she entered the forest. It was a beautiful sight from where she stood, which was an unusually high point in the terrain. Though she would have loved to sit and admire the view, she trekked down the perimeter of the riverbank until she was on more level ground and began searching for the fallen tree she’d used as a bridge. She ran into a bit of a snag when limping up and down about a quarter mile of land twice yielded no results. The rain had probably swept the log away shortly after she’d walked over it, she guessed, which left her with no way across.

It was lucky that the river twisted in the way it did, because the angle allowed Twilight to see the company of white-and-gold-clad Royal Guards moving up the other side before she actually left the cover of the trees. She reared back in alarm, her frazzled nervous system mistaking the colour scheme for an immediate threat, and lost her balance. All the air was knocked out of her when she fell on her back.

She quickly struggled back to her hooves and glanced around. The danger wasn’t quite as immediate as she’d thought, upon secondary analysis, but it still made her insides twist up nonetheless to know that she’d so narrowly missed being spotted.

About thirty yards up the opposite side of the river, a group of nearly identical white ponies clad in golden armor were moving up the bank. They were unmistakably Royal Guards of the Unicorn Division, except for their leader; a slightly overweight older unicorn wearing a black cloak and sporting a pointed grey beard whom Twilight recognized as a noblepony from Canterlot. Either they were doing some kind of patrol of the other side, which she doubted, or they were looking for a suitable place to cross the river. If somepony had remembered and mentioned the old church, they might even have been making their way to the place where she’d just been hiding.

Twilight only just caught the incoming formation of pegasi in the periphery of her vision in time to flatten herself against the ground in the bushes again and avoid being seen. This group of six or seven ponies, traveling along the river, was heading in the direction opposite that of the unicorns, their leader lazily flying backwards the way Rainbow Dash sometimes did when when she was bored and wanted to show off.

She stayed low in the bushes until both the pegasi and the unicorns were gone around the riverbends, and then she slunk out and looked around for a way to get across without having to go too far in either direction. Surely there had to be a fallen tree or a natural bridge where she could cross the river. But there was nothing. The water had risen because of the rain, probably dislodging any other natural bridges as well as the one she’d used.

It wouldn’t be long before unicorns simply cut down a tree to bridge the gap, but Twilight couldn’t do the same. None of the ones she could see near the bank were tall enough to go all the way over when they fell, and dragging something that heavy with magic was absolutely out of the question. She gazed at the fast-flowing water, and immediately crossed the idea of swimming off her mental list. Were she to try that, she would drown the moment she got far enough out for the water to overpower her weak three-legged paddling.

As though in answer to her plea for a quick fix to her predicament, the changeling felt something pushing the poncho up off her back. She turned awkwardly and reached behind her back with her hoof to feel around, and found that this could be attributed to the one of her two wings that wasn’t trapped beneath the strap of her saddlebag. Quietly, Twilight moved further back into the woods, away from the riverbank, until she reached a small clearing.

She unstrapped her saddlebag and put the poncho inside it, and then let her newly freed insectoid wings open up. Then she refastened the saddlebags under her now open wings, which had taken her a moment to learn how to open and close. Her wings had buzzed frequently and loudly when she was particularly anxious or nervous, but she had never actually devoted much time to studying them. Though now wasn’t the time to give them an in-depth examination, Twilight couldn’t help taking a moment to sit down and look at the appendages a little bit before she tried using them.

When they weren’t buzzing, they were concealed snugly beneath a pair of black outer wings that blended well into her back. The inner wings themselves were transparent and light blue, like jagged sheets of glass. Unlike pegasus wings, they didn’t seem to have any muscles in them; only at the joints. In fact, they seemed less like the wings of a pegasus or a gryphon and more like those  of an oversized insect. They were made of the same hard chitinous material that the flexible shell around Twilight’s body was, and when she touched them, they produced a strange, muted feeling, like touching a limb that had fallen asleep.

Flight for changelings apparently worked similarly to that of insects as well. Twilight’s wings didn’t flap; they rotated. This in itself was a strangely relaxing activity for her, as though she were exercising a muscle she hadn’t used in ages—which, of course, she essentially was, but it was somehow more than that as well. She wondered if this was how a pegasus felt when they stretched their wings in the morning.

She could buzz them individually, and experimented with this a little, but hovering was a different process altogether that already seemed to be wired into her brain. Commanding them to lift her off the ground was like pressing down a trigger that caused both wings to go off much faster than she ever could have done consciously, much less in a synchronized manner. Her hooves lifted off the ground, though she tried to do it as slowly as she could and keep control through the unfamiliar sensation of flying. While she’d used the butterfly wings spell once, she’d never actually cast it on herself, and floating around slowly in her hot air balloon had very little in common with what she was doing now. And the more range she allowed herself in trying new things, the more she realized this was absolutely nothing like how pegasi flew.

There was some kind of subconscious mastery of flight that had been planted in her mind by the transformation; an understanding of how to go up, down, faster, slower, and so on, like an insect that knew how to fly the moment it came out of its cocoon. It wasn’t that she was actually good at flying by any means, though—she wasn’t used to it, after all. The first time she tried flying around the little clearing, she managed to crash face-first into a tree and fell half a meter to the ground, flailing wildly.

For some time, she lay where she fell, panting, limbs splayed out to the sides, and then she carefully felt her aching body over to make sure she was still in one piece. Thankful that she hadn’t been going fast enough to break her nose and hadn’t fallen far enough to hurt her already broken leg, the changeling got back on her hooves for another go.

This time around, she made a concentrated effort to avoid hitting things or crashing. Doing this, Twilight soon discovered just how different this really was from ordinary types of flight available to equines: whereas only the most talented of pegasi could fly sideways—not even Dash could do it—she was able to slide side to side, and even diagonally, through the air with ease.

Twilight returned to the riverbank and peered out from the treeline to look around. On the left, she saw no unicorns. On the right, though, she saw a couple of tiny dots in the distance that were probably pegasi. She didn’t know if they were the group from before or a different one, but she felt it was a good idea to not stick around and find out.

“Okay, Twilight. You can do this,” she murmured, trying to talk some confidence into herself. It didn’t work particularly well. “All you have to do is fly across a raging river that will drown you in an instant if you fall in, using wings you’ve never even tried to utilize in any way, shape, or form until less than two minutes ago, after only even having them for less than a week, on the third attempt you’ve ever made at becoming airborne with them (keeping in mind that your first was a miserable failure and almost broke your nose) and there are pegasi coming toward you who might spot you at any moment...”

Shuddering, she reluctantly opened her wings and lifted herself slowly into the air, then moved equally slowly toward the other side of the river, zigzagging erratically from her fear-induced inability to control her flying properly. She wasn’t unused to mortal terror—being chased by manticores, hydras, and angry mobs had given her that experience far too many times—but having felt it before didn’t make it any less debilitating.

It actually took Twilight quite a long time to realize how foolish her nerves were making her act: the river wasn’t particularly wide, so there wasn’t any reason to go slowly other than that she was too afraid to fly fast. She didn’t even realize she’d had her eyes shut since she began the flight until then, and was appropriately embarrassed by her inability to face her fear.

Against the will of her subconscious mind, she compelled herself to look ahead, and discovered—to her complete surprise—that she was already on the other side of the river. It had hardly even taken a moment for her to cross it, and where she had expected to be exhausted after that small amount of exertion, her wings didn’t feel tired at all when she landed on the riverbank. A small, relieved smile crossed her fanged face as she looked back at the river, which suddenly seemed a lot smaller and less threatening than it had before.

The changeling opened her wings back up almost immediately after closing them and took off again into the forest, doing her best to avoid tree branches and other flora. Twilight wasn’t normally an impulsive mare, but from time to time she, like anypony, could make decisions on a whim, and this was too good a whim to pass up: with the power of flight, she could pass over every bit of terrain she’d have had to go around on hoof, saving her both time and effort.

It turned out that she was very fortunate to have the option of passing through quickly available to her: the general state on the other side of the river was very different from that of where she’d started out. The ground on this side was slightly lower, and consequently a lot of the rainwater had collected there and stayed there, leaving the ground sodden and swampy.

She flew over numerous spots of it that had turned into small ponds literally filled to the brim with insects, all of them breeding madly. Some had already hatched in the short time since the storm—the air was thick with mosquitoes that bounced off Twilight’s armored body as she flew through their swarms. They couldn’t bite her, of course, but even at the speed she was going, Twilight could hear their high-pitched buzzing with her oversensitive hearing. She was certain she’d go mad if she had to walk through them and listen to that noise for hours without end.

Mosquitoes aside, though, this almost would have been fun under other circumstances, she thought. Her top speed wasn’t anywhere near as fast as Rainbow Dash insisted on going when the pegasus carried her friends somewhere—something she deeply appreciated. Twilight was certain even Fluttershy could have outstripped her with ease.

This new body seemed to be geared toward maneuverability over speed, the wings designed to be used in close quarters and narrow spaces instead of in the open sky. She found it easy to navigate the twists and turns of the denser parts of the forest with hardly any thought at all. It was almost as though she had yet another sense helping her make her way through, though it seemed to be more of a collaboration between her normal senses creating a sort of mental diagram of the landscape through which she had to maneuver.

Unfortunately, Twilight’s inexperience with flight eventually caught up with her. Her wings began to get tired after a while, but she didn’t realize just how tired she was until she felt a sharp pain in one of the bases, and suddenly she could hardly move one of them anymore. It was lucky she was already so near to the ground, or she would never have been able to land before her wing gave out completely.

As it was, she ended up smashing through some branches, sliding through some mud, and slamming into a tree. The changeling ended her little adventure upside-down on the ground, curled up into a passable imitation of the basic crash damage prevention position taught to pegasi in flight school, with pain flaring through her entire body; particularly her broken leg.

For some time, she lay on her back, unmoving, and just stared up, not actually looking at anything. Twilight was afraid to move at all, as she feared she might discover that what felt like a horrible bruise—her entire body felt like one, really—was actually another broken bone. Finally, and with a heavy groan, the changeling turned onto her side and levered herself back onto her hooves so she could check for any serious damage.

To her surprise, there were no new breaks (although there were several spots where her armor had been battered, and she was bleeding green blood from nicks and scratches) and her already broken leg hadn’t snapped in half, despite feeling like it had. She sat down against a massive tree—or, rather, against its roots, which were almost big enough to be trees themselves—and went about cleaning and bandaging her more severe lacerations.

Her left wing was throbbing agonizingly at the joint, and it wouldn’t close all the way without causing her even more pain. She concluded that the muscles that rotated it had cramped from overuse toward the end of her flight. Twilight tried massaging it a bit, but she wasn’t exactly spa-quality material, especially with only one hoof, so she just ended up making herself more uncomfortable until she stopped.

The pain in her leg bothered her a lot; it didn’t feel like it had broken again, but she’d probably set her healing back significantly by bashing it around so much. A lump formed in her throat as she thought about Rainbow Dash’s cheesy science-fiction novels again. In those stories, the protagonists always solved their problems and ended the ordeal with no lingering ill effects. Unlike them, however, Twilight’s life would not go back to normal when everything was over.

Even if she did get herself back to her old form without further incident, it was likely that her injuries would carry over. There would be painful, life-changing surgeries to repair the massive trauma to her horn, and that was assuming she even had any magic left by the end of the ordeal, or a horn to cast it with. The inadequate medical care she’d received and the abuse she’d taken over the last couple of days would probably leave her with a permanent limp, regardless; she’d likely never be able to move faster than a canter ever again.

And that was just the physical aspect. Twilight could already imagine the endless, expensive, painful psychotherapy she’d have to undergo before she ever felt safe casting a spell more powerful than basic levitation again. She was afraid of herself, somewhat; her talent had betrayed her and put her into this awful situation, and she didn’t know what else she might do to herself. And there were the ponies who had attacked her and wanted to cut off her horn... how could she ever really trust another pony again after an experience like that?

With nothing better to do for the moment, Twilight occupied her time by attempting to massage the wing muscle again while she waited for the drugs to work. Once again, she wasn’t very successful; all she did was make it spasm painfully until she finally gave up and pushed it back down and closed the outer shell. In the end, she took two more of Fluttershy’s painkillers and resolved to keep limping along once they kicked in.

She was twisting the cap off her last water bottle to wash the pills down when she realized the distant ‘bird’ in the corner of her eye was rapidly getting bigger and bigger. The realization hit hard, and she began to panic, knowing there was no way she could possibly outrun a pegasus pony, even with four good legs. Desperate, Twilight did the first thing that came to mind: she threw herself between the tree’s massive roots, where there turned out to be a dip in the earth.

It was awful down there—several inches of warm, putrid water housed the eggs of what had to be a million mosquitoes and Celestia only knew what else. The smell alone made Twilight gag and want to throw up, but she pressed the unsoiled saddlebag over her mouth and nose and breathed through the material as a filter, which helped with the smell a little bit. She dragged herself upright against the tree itself, putting herself in as much shadow as she could, and pulled the rain camouflaged poncho over her body. The action almost negated what she had done with her bags, as it prevented fresh air from reaching her, but she managed to keep from vomiting.

She would have felt silly, and quite relieved, if it had turned out to be a false alarm. But she had hardly pulled the discoloured poncho out of her saddlebags and thrown it over herself when she picked up emotions that could only be equine, and heard a loud whump noise like the one Rainbow Dash often made when she landed.

“I know you’re in there somewhere...” a tomboyish mare’s voice said, making Twilight’s whole body straighten up with alarm. Twilight could feel her grinning as she moved around nearby, probably looking behind trees.

When she heard the hoofsteps moving toward her, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to move as little as possible, willing whoever it was to just go away and leave her alone so she could fix her life. To her utter surprise, it worked. Twilight heard the mare stalking away again to check elsewhere. The changeling guessed she must have overlooked her shadowed, half-submerged, camouflaged form when she peered down, probably expecting to see either just a changeling or nothing.

A series of several more pegasus landing noises almost made her jump out of her exoskeleton. There were at least five or six of them there now, and Twilight knew without a doubt that she was going to be caught—one of them would have to notice her if they looked again—until they started talking.

“What the hay was that about, Lightning?” Twilight was certain she recognized this voice as belonging to Rime, Scootaloo’s uncle who took care of her along with her aunt, Drizzledrop. “You need to stop dropping out of the formation, okay? You’re supposed to be leading us!”

“I saw the changeling,” replied the tomboyish mare. “It was hiding here. I think it probably teleported away, or some other magic horseapples like that.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you saw it?”

“Kinda assumed you guys weren’t completely blind. Sorry, I’ll remember to yell my head off and get its attention next time. Now come on—it’s gotta be around here somewhere. We can still catch up to it if we hurry.”

“Lightning... enough is enough.” That sounded like Raindrops, who didn’t have the same Cloudsdale accent as most of Ponyville’s other pegasi, and who tended to speak more slowly and measuredly than they did. “We all want to help out, but we’re not supposed to actually try to capture it ourselves. We’re supposed to go tell the Guard.”

“So we should just let it run back to—wherever it is they live?” argued Lightning. This was accompanied by a noise that sounded like a hoof stamping on the ground. “Come on, guys! What’s the matter with you? This is our chance!”

“More like your chance,” a stallion’s voice spoke up. He had a posh, upper-crust Canterlot drawl that Rarity would probably have appreciated, but Twilight didn’t actually recognize him. “I’m absolutely loathe to be the one to point this out, but she often disappears right after altering our course in a seemingly random direction.”

Lightning was silent for a while. She eventually blurted out, “So what if I do?” in a slightly smaller voice than before.

“You’re clearly sending us away from wherever you’re headed. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that whenever you find a place you think our wayward impersonator may be hiding, you try to send the rest of us away so you can go capture it yourself.”

“I—I-I do not send y-you in the wrong—what?”

Twilight could literally feel Lightning’s aggravation, as well as her nervous desire to change the subject, but to her surprise there was no outburst after that indignant statement; only silence for a while. Then she heard agitated, impatient hoofsteps pacing back and forth nearby. Silently, she lifted herself out of the disgusting, dirty water, thankful that she no longer had to lay in it to hide herself.

Through a tiny space between the tree’s roots, she was able to see the group of pegasi that had landed amidst the trees. Rime and Drizzledrop were indeed there: a big, somewhat rough-looking tan stallion and an opposingly dainty and frail little sky blue mare sitting together in the grass to the left side of the clearing. Also present were Raindrops and the wall-eyed Derpy Hooves, the latter of whom was the only member of the group who didn’t look thoroughly frustrated. There was a bluish stallion near Derpy and a similarly coloured mare toward the back, neither of whom Twilight recognized.

The last pegasus, Lightning Dust, was pacing back and forth between Twilight and the rest of the group. Sleek and athletic, with big, powerful wings, Lightning had that roguish look Rainbow Dash was so good at pulling off—although in the former’s case there was something very artificial and vain about the way her amber-streaked mane was pushed back, like she’d styled it to look that way on purpose instead of letting the wind do it. The shining gleam of her coat, which was an opal colour, reminded Twilight of Rarity’s when she came out of the spa, lending even more credibility to the theory that Lightning’s look was engineered by a combination of product, expensive conditioning, and acting. Overall, the effect was that she seemed very fake and unrealistic; like a model showing a dress nopony in their right mind would ever wear off the runway.

“Look,” Lightning Dust finally said acidly, taking to the air and jabbing a hoof at the posh blue pegasus, “I don’t know what the hay your problem is, but Spitfire said I’m in charge here. I know what I’m doing, okay? Is it really so hard for you guys to just respect that?”

“Yes, it is,” said Raindrops softly. “You aren’t acting like a leader right now. You keep talking about teamwork when you’re giving orders, but then you keep sabotaging the rest of us—your team—whenever you think you could benefit more from doing something alone.”

“I am not sabotaging you guys! I’m going at a reasonable pace. You should be able to keep up with me!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t just magically make my wings stronger,” said Drizzledrop.

“Then you shouldn’t have volunteered,” Lightning shot back.

Twilight saw Raindrops put a hoof to her forehead and shake her head slowly. The Canterlot stallion sighed a dramatic, Rarity-esque sigh.

“So we shouldn’t help our friend, is that what you’re saying?”

“No, I’m saying you guys should... should make yourselves useful... where you can actually be useful, instead... of slowing down ponies who can... do more useful... stuff... than you can!” The opal mare was starting to sound a bit less sure of herself, probably finally coming to the realization that she was crossing lines she shouldn’t cross.

“Buck this. I say we make Raindrops the new group leader,” said the stallion whose name Twilight didn’t know. “Rain Runner and I went to flight school with Lightning Dust in Pegosea, you know. She’s a spoiled, manipulative rich filly who thinks she can do whatever she wants and get away with it.”

“Nopony cares what you say, Wrong Time! Spitfire said I’m—” started Lightning angrily.

“I’ll second that,” Rime interrupted, glaring at the opal pegasus. “Anypony’s better than the one running my wife out of the sky.”

Lightning started to say something to him, but stopped midway through the first syllable. Twilight got the impression that hearing ponies agree to have her demoted had finally made it clear what a hole she’d dug for herself; that she was turning the entire group against herself with her own behavior.

“Wait, wait, wait! Waitwaitwaitwait, okay, okay!” she exclaimed before anypony else could voice their opinion, waving her hooves in front of her in surrender. “You win!”

“What do we win, exactly?” Raindrops asked, folding her own forelegs skeptically.

“I guess... I can... slow down a little.” The opal mare spat the words out like they were cyanide, rolling her eyes as she spoke them. “And... not leave as much... and let you guys take breaks once in awhile... and all that.”

At least two of the ponies that Twilight could see rolled their own eyes right back at Lightning’s melodramatic reluctance to give even a single centimeter on such a simple issue.

“So, uh, you guys can, uh, take a break now,” Lightning added awkwardly. The way she said it was almost offensively apologetic; a transparent attempt to get back into the good graces of the ponies she’d wronged. Sensing this, she tugged her flight goggles down over her eyes (she was the only one of the seven wearing them). “I’m going to, uh... I’m going. To do stuff. I’ll come back. In a bit.”

“Take your time... Lots of it,” said the blue mare, making some of the others—namely, Derpy—giggle.

Lightning glowered at her with a mixture of anger and disgust. Then she opened her wings and took off, sparing only a glance back at the team of ponies she was leaving behind, yet again failing noticing Twilight despite flying right over her. Behind her, she left a trail of residual pegasus magic that looked like a streak of lightning.

“Five bits says she won’t come back at all,” Right Time added to the group once Lightning’s trail had dissipated. “Coward.”

The stallion snorted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she went to look for it herself.”

“I think maybe she’s just trying too hard to help out,” said Drizzledrop, smiling a very strained smile. “Catching the changeling that took Twilight, I mean... although I can’t see how sending us in the wrong direction would help much...”

“Oh, trust me, she couldn’t have cared less about changelings until the Wonderbolts showed up looking for volunteers. Apparently, she was going to go to some exclusive boot camp they run later this month, and when it got canceled she threw a fit and decided the next best thing to do would be treating this as her opportunity to show off her ‘awesome leadership skills.’ Ha... ”

“No more about Lightning Dust’s social life, please,” groaned Raindrops. “The less of her there is in my world, the better. Let’s focus on how we’re going to manage without her for now.”

“I second that motion,” said Rime with a nod.

“I think that for the sake of everypony here,” Raindrops continued, “we should finish today without her, and then deal with everything when we get back, instead of having her fight us every wingbeat of the way. She’s smart enough to make her way back on her own. We’ll deal with her attitude then, and see Spitfire about it if we have to.”

The other pegasi voiced their agreement, save for Drizzledrop, who said, “I’m still winded from flying for so long. I’m sorry, but I think she was right when she said I shouldn’t have volunteered—my wings aren’t up for this kind of duty. I just wanted to help Twilight, though...”

“I understand. We all do.” Raindrops, having apparently taken on the role of acting leader for the moment, paused to consider this. “There’s not much to do without Lightning Dust giving us random zigzag directions to follow, so if you don’t think you can make it through the rest of the search, I don’t see anything wrong with you going back to Ponyville. Just catch up to us and tell us first, so we know where you’re going.”

“We’ll come after you when she’s feeling up to it,” Rime told them. “It shouldn’t be too long.”

“I’m starting to get better already,” agreed Drizzledrop cheerfully.

“Alright. Just don’t stay on the ground too long if you can help it. It is the Everfree, after all,” said Raindrops, spreading her wings as she spoke.

The blue stallion added, with a snicker, “If You-Know-Who comes back here, tell her we all got eaten by a pack of manticores.”

Twilight flattened herself against the tree as Raindrops, Derpy, and the other two pegasi she didn’t know took off, though to her relief they flew in a different direction than Lightning Dust had and so didn’t pass directly over her. The concentration of emotion drained away, for the most part; the remainder was just a blip on her radar.

Peeking out through the space between the roots again, the changeling saw only Rime and Drizzledrop remaining. Now that the others were gone, Drizzledrop had abandoned the act of pretending to be all right, and was leaning on Rime for support, breathing heavily.

“I’m going to carry you back home as soon as you can handle the movement,” said Rime softly, draping his wing over her side. “No more of this, Drizzy. I told you, you should be taking it easy now. You’re almost four months in.”

“I guess you’re right,” Drizzledrop murmured. She brushed her own wing over her belly. “Lightning Dust is right, too. I’m just slowing the rest of you down. I’m sorry, Rime. I just wanted to help...”

“Don’t listen to any of that garbage Dust was saying about being useless if you can’t help, or whatever it was. I’m going to have a few words with that aqua-feathered turkey later. You’re just going to go home and sleep until you feel better, ‘kay?”

“Mmh... sleep sounds nice... You don’t have to carry me, you know... but it would be very romantic of you, and also I think you ought to get out of the way, because I’m about to get sick... That water smells awful. It’s making everything even wor—”

For the sake of the frail pegasus’s dignity, Twilight looked away. Listening to Drizzledrop vomit made her wince—but somehow, listening to Rime talking to her softly to soothe her was much, much worse, especially because it made her feel so good inside to overhear something so intimate. She suddenly felt like she was spying on some of the couple’s most personal moments together; a voyeur listening in on things she was never meant to witness. It put a tight knot of shame in Twilight’s stomach to know that she, just like a real changeling, was now intruding on the lives of other ponies in such a crude manner.

Even from where she was, she could feel the love they shared between them. It was like feeling the sun’s rays as the weather pegasi cleared the clouds away after a snowstorm during the winter—a bright beacon of hope to which she was inexorably attracted. The mere shadow of what Rime and Drizzledrop felt for each other was enough to warm Twilight inside and chase away some of the dreariness that had resided within her for days. Even the guilt she had for eavesdropping on them couldn’t overshadow the feeling it brought her.

But merely sensing it wasn’t enough. She needed to have some of it for herself. Somewhere deep inside, and soon less deep inside, she felt an overpowering desire to taste the emotion—for science, she rationalized. Nopony else would ever have a chance to tell firsthoof what eating love was like, now, would they? It would contribute so much to the understanding of something or other, and the way ponies thought of something, and how something something something, and if there were any other excuses to try it, Twilight spontaneously decided that she agreed with all of them as well.

Therefore I have conclusively proven, she thought to herself, almost hysterically, that there are numerous reasons why casting the love-eating spell right now would be beneficial to ponykind. I am not doing this for myself, but for the advancement of knowledge!

Unfortunately, she didn’t even know what it was that she was doing, exactly. Her body and magic seemed to be running on automatic now, drawing on magic she wasn’t even consciously looking for. Eating love was a bizarre experience in itself, and like the hunger it would have been inexplicable in pony terms—but it was also one of the most amazing things Twilight had ever felt, even in that tiny amount from her friends. Twilight could easily have categorized the experience as one of the most amazing moments of her life, right up with the day Princess Celestia had asked her to be her student.

It seemed to fill a void that Twilight hadn’t even noticed until then; made her feel comfortable for the first time in days. She closed her eyes and sat back with a silent sigh, letting the glow wash over her body and relax her.

It was then that Twilight finally identified the source of the chronic coldness within her: it was hunger. Twilight hadn’t eaten anything since the day before her transformation, unless guzzling caffeinated pegasus energy drinks to keep herself awake while she worked counted. She had never fed as a changeling at all, nor did she want to, but after three or four or five or however many days it had been—she didn’t even know anymore; everything seemed to have blurred into a timeless mess—she could identify the gnawing emptiness she’d felt before for the first time.

Changeling hunger didn’t feel like pony hunger, and it wasn’t the sort of thing Twilight thought she would ever be able to put down into notes. It was a vacuum; a heart-shaped hole in her chest that seemed to eat up every positive feeling she experienced as though her own emotions were trying to cannibalize themselves. She hadn’t even known it was there until she looked for it specifically, but now she knew that her depression and dysphoria had covered a hunger she hadn’t understood. Even if there were some way to feed herself, she would never have had enough. If this was how Chrysalis and her changelings had felt every day when they hadn’t fed, Twilight could, at that moment, completely understand why they would invade a city to make it stop.

And siphoning small amounts of love from the air wasn’t much of a fix for that—if anything, it just made it worse, like eating some hay fries after a week of starvation. A part of her wanted to simply jump out and take it all for herself; to bind the unsuspecting pegasi with magic and forcibly feed on them until they were cold and empty and she had all their love. It would be so easy to ambush them now, when they were distracted and would never see it coming, and then Twilight could stop feeling so empty and lost, and everything would be perfect, and she would never be alone again, and—

At that point, Twilight stopped herself and choked back a sob, horrified by what she was imagining. She had just been plotting to murder two ponies so she could steal their emotions from them. Equally horrifying was the realization that she was eating love. She wasn’t just eating ordinary food; she was stealing the very essence of devotion away from ponies who had gone out of their way to come help her.

Not waiting for her body to catch up with her brain and shut down the spell, she put a hoof up against the base of her horn and pressed down. It was painful enough to make her whimper, but it did what it was meant to: put out the glowing green light atop her head and prevent her from absorbing any more of their love. In spite of how uncomfortable it was, Twilight held that spot until she was sure the spell had ended completely.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to placate the two pegasi, who had certainly realized there was something else there with them, manipulating their feelings, by that point. The tender emotions on the other side of the tree suddenly gave way to fear and protectiveness, a sure sign that she’d been noticed. Remembering the colour of fear brought back memories of the town square and her own terror, and she panicked. She suddenly couldn’t see the sense in hiding anymore; it just seemed to vanish, all replaced by a desire to get as far away from that place as she possibly could.

Without thinking through her next course of action, Twilight darted out from her hiding place and tried to make a break for the next large tree as fast as she could. But she was running in a blind panic, and so she completely forgot that she had a broken leg until it gave out under her and she crashed to the ground. She scrabbled back onto her hooves and started back toward the second-best option, which was the safety of her previous hiding place.

She heard somepony say the word changeling behind her. That single, awful word, and the frightened, somewhat hostile tone in which it was said, triggered a landslide of memories Twilight didn’t want to relive; an immersion into the past, where she was surrounded by mile-high ponies made of red and black, unable to escape their calls for her horn to be ripped from her head and the magic bled out of her until she was nothing more than an earth pony in an insect’s body.

Every word, every inflection was burned into her brain: “Look at its horn! Do you think you could get a limiter on that thing? We’ll have to break it off if we want to keep it from escaping or hurting somepony!”

“Stay away from me!” Twilight screamed, spinning around wildly to try and keep up with the world, which was also spinning nauseatingly. “Don’t you dare touch me! I ha-haven’t done anything wrong, so don’t you... don’t you... don’t come near... Just... stay away!”

The tip of her horn flared up into a fiery green glow that burned atop her head like a three-meter-high mushroom-shaped torch. It was the most effective weapon she could think of against two unarmed, untrained pegasi: fear. A changeling with a swirling green cloud of hellfire above it, just waiting to strike, would certainly drive most rational ponies away in an instant.

But Rime and Drizzledrop—and indeed, most ponies—weren’t capable of being particularly rational when confronted with such a sight. As terrified of her as she was of them, they cowered on the ground and tried to protect one another instead of taking to the air. Seeing them in such a state before her, and hearing their pleas not to be harmed, jarred Twilight badly enough to snap her out of her altered state.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to them, backing away again. She cancelled the fire illusion and just let herself tumble back behind the tree, into the putrid water, where she lay for a moment before sitting up and pressing herself against the roots, shaking badly and trying to control her breathing, which had started to get out of hoof again. “I’m so, so sorry... I should never have done any of that...”

A stream of green sparks dribbled out of her horn and bounced off her thigh. Part of her was absolutely terrified that she was going to go through another explosion again, but the short burst of very simple illusion magic she’d used to create something very uncomplicated didn’t seem to have triggered one. There were only a few moderately painful pops from the tip, accompanied by more sparks and that peculiar fizzing sound that rapidly wound down into nothing.

Twilight would have run, but even if she’d had the energy left to do so, she knew she had nowhere to go now; nowhere that she couldn’t be taken down with ease. Even the frail Drizzledrop could have overpowered her in the state she was in at the moment. At least here she had the tree in between herself and the two pegasi.

For what seemed like hours, the changeling sat there, sniffling a little and wiping at her face with the less filthy of her two forelegs. Rime and Drizzledrop didn’t go anywhere or say anything, either, and after some time the uneventfulness began to make Twilight very uncomfortable.

“What are you waiting for? Aren’t... aren’t you going to... do something...? A-attack me... hurt me...” Twilight choked back a sob. “Or run away... or talk to yourselves... Make friends with the mosquitoes! I-I don’t c-care! Just please, do something!”

She heard somepony shifting around over there, and she felt their nervousness in addition to her own. Rime spoke up, nervous but determined nonetheless.

“L-listen... we don’t want to hurt you. We—that is, the two of us—don’t have anything against changelings. But Twilight Sparkle’s one of the best ponies I’ve ever met. We all just want her back safe and sound.”

The ‘changeling’ couldn’t hold back her sob this time. “I’m Twilight Sparkle! I tried to tell you all that in the town square, but you just wanted to rip my horn off!”

“Please don’t treat us like we’re dumb,” he said. “We’re not here to hurt you, I promise. We just want to help our friend. Just tell us what happened to her, and we’ll leave you alone and tell them to call off the search.”

“I am her! I am!” insisted Twilight hysterically. “The first time we met, it was because Scootaloo and her two friends tried to get their cutie marks in ‘garbage disposal’ and decided the mathematics section in the library was the largest concentration of garbage in Ponyville. You offered to pay for new books, but I made them do algebra study sessions with Snips and Snails and Twist every weekend for a year so they’d appreciate math. I had my mane cropped short and I was wearing an eyepatch that month. Do you remember? The first thing I said to you was ‘Congratulations, your daughter is on her way to getting a cutie mark in being a weapon of mass destruction’. Do you remember? Please remember!”

The two pegasi were silent for a long time. Twilight held her breath, growing more and more anxious, as she heard them whispering—but she couldn’t make out exactly what it was they were saying to each other. After some time, she breathed in deeply, and explained:

“I miscast the revealing spell when I was up on the podium, and it did something it shouldn’t have, and now I look like this, and everypony thinks I’m a real changeling, and I’m injured, and I can’t do magic without my horn blowing up, and I made a foal out of myself in front of all of Ponyville, and I’m being hunted by the Royal Guard, and I’ve hardly made any lists at all in the last few days... and my last friendship report was due on Monday, so now I’m tardy!”

She fell silent, shuddering and running her hooves over the tree’s bark as she attempted to return to a normal breathing rate after bringing all of that to the forefront of her mind. Of course, Twilight knew Princess Celestia wouldn’t penalize her outright for being late with a friendship report, but she could just imagine her mentor sitting in her study, waiting for a scroll that would never come.

The very thought of the Princess feeling so completely alone hurt her in an almost physical way; prompted a voice in the back of her head to begin wailing that she needed to prevent it from happening. Princess Celestia deserved better than a student who couldn’t keep up with her studies, and she certainly deserved better than a student who couldn’t provide a simple distraction from the court games of the squabbling, petty nobles in the form of a weekly letter...

Twilight was jarred out of her gloomy scenario by the realization that somepony was talking. She blinked a few times, confused, and tried to catch what had just gone in one of her ears and out the other; but it was too late for that.

“I-I’m sorry... could y-you repeat that?” she stammered. “I got a little d-distracted...”

“I said, if you come with us, we can get all of this figured out,” said Rime. “And if you really are Twilight, nopony will hurt you.”

“No. No, I’m not going b-back to town like this. Did you hear what they s-said? They said they were going to break my horn off,” Twilight replied, fidgeting anxiously and rubbing her hoof in circles against her side. “I’m not going to let them do that. Nopony has the right to do anything to my horn without my consent. I learned that in magic kindergarten. Didn’t anypony from Ponyville ever go to magic kindergarten? I’m not going back there right now. I need to fix this...”

“That’s a problem for us, because... well... I don’t know whether I can believe you or not, but I don’t want you or Twilight to get hurt. I don’t know what to do...”

“Just let me go... Please let me go...” she begged, realizing she actually might have a shot at getting away again.

“Twilight is our friend,” added Drizzledrop bravely. “It’s just, if it turns out you’re not her, and we let you walk away, then we’ll have let our friend down, and we just can’t do that.”

“I’m not going back to Ponyville like this. I’m not going.”

“We... we can’t just let you go, either,” the pegasus mare told her in a faint voice.

Twilight hung her head sadly, overwhelmed by the situation. “I guess w-we’re just stuck where we are, then...”

“...I guess we are.”

They fell silent again. Twilight could feel the tension and discomfort coming from Rime and Drizzledrop, adding to her own, while she struggled to hold herself together. She didn’t know whether to be angry at the two of them for not believing her, or to want to thank them for being so concerned about their friend. It was too confusing—they wanted to help her, but by helping her they were just hindering her own attempts to help herself.

Her broken leg was starting to throb again, in spite of the fact that she’d just taken painkillers less than fifteen minutes before. Though she knew it was probably psychosomatic stress-induced pain—all in her head—Twilight wasn’t in much of a state to resist the urge to unbuckle her saddlebags from her sides and open one of them, rationalizing that she’d probably miscalculated the dosage for changelings and would need to take a bit more.

The bags were soaked with the same fetid-smelling swamp water that the first inch or two of her flanks were submerged in. Twilight shook out two of the four remaining pain pills onto her hoof and swallowed them dry, then screwed the cap back onto the bottle with her mouth. As she dropped it back in, she noticed the empty water bottle with her magically dictated notes inside it laying at the bottom of the bag.

And she had an idea.

“Rime? Drizzledrop?” she called, voice still shaking. As expected, they were still there, and they answered in the affirmative. “W-what if I... what if I gave you... something... that would prove it’s me... if you showed it to Princess Celestia...?”

“What... would that be?” asked Rime neutrally.

Twilight dumped the contents of the saddlebags onto the ground and awkwardly picked up her message-in-a-bottle between her fangs. It tasted horrid, being covered with the disgusting water that had soaked through the bag, but she didn’t care at the moment. Carefully, she stuck her good foreleg up around the side of the tree roots and waved a little to get their attention.

“Ah’m commin’ uf,” she said. “Pleaf don’t huwt me.”

She deposited the saddlebags on the higher ground and clumsily tried to swing one of her hind legs up onto it. It didn’t work particularly well and ended in her sliding back down into the water again, as the muddy earth had given out under her other one when it suddenly bore all her weight.

Her second try was marginally more successful: she made it halfway over before the mud slid out from under her again, her chest striking the upper edge with a low oof. Winded and panting, Twilight rolled over onto her back, still clutching the bottle firmly between her teeth, and then she struggled back up onto her hooves. Very slowly and cautiously, she advanced toward Rime and Drizzledrop, keeping low against the ground to show her submission.

Up close, the two pegasi seemed like extreme opposites. The former was as big as Big Macintosh, and as strong everywhere but in his rather ordinary wings, and his dark colours and gruff temperament made him very intimidating at times—like now. Drizzledrop was small, frail, and wispy, like a leaf that might blow away at any moment; and pale as a ghost. Both looked as afraid of Twilight as she was of them, and yet they neither ran from her nor attacked her as she came closer to them.

When she was about two meters away, Twilight dropped the water bottle on the ground and rolled it toward them with her hoof, then skittered back to where she’d left her saddlebag, never taking her eyes off the couple. She did take her eyes off them for a split second to reach down and retrieve her poncho, which she put on again despite how it was soaked with water and smelled awful.

Rime opened the bottle and slid one of his primaries inside to retrieve the changeling’s notes. Twilight watched as he and Drizzledrop read through them slowly, and she could tell in only moments that they were lost the moment the technical language about magic began.

“They’re my notes,” she explained feverishly. “I made notes on my condition yesterday... last night... sometime. Please, if you can get those to Spike and have him send them to Princess Celestia, she’ll know it’s me. And she’ll know I was only tardy on my friendship report because I didn’t have a chance to write one before I was... changed... and then she won’t feel abandoned by her faithful student, and she won’t become so depressed that she can’t raise the sun anymore, and I’ll be able to drink cider with her and Luna and the girls next cider season because Applejack’s trees won’t die from the lack of sunlight... and... and... and...”

Twilight exhaled sharply, realizing belatedly how utterly psychotic that entire comment had probably sounded. Indeed, both pegasi were looking at her with expressions that suggested they didn’t know what to think of her anymore.

“Just please have Spike send it to her. Spike is the dragon I live with in the library; he’s small and purple with green scales, if you—if you didn’t... know... H-he might be staying with my friend Rarity right now...”

Nodding dumbly, Rime said, “Okay... but we still can’t... let you...”

“Rime... what if we let her... it... leave, and wait five minutes, and then we go and tell the Guards up the river,” Drizzledrop blurted out. “I... want to believe... but I don’t know...”

“Oh, thank you so much,” Twilight sobbed, almost rocking back and forth on her haunches with relief. “Thank you, thank you so much... Oh, thank you...”

The stallion looked from his wife to Twilight and back several times, and then stammered, “I-I guess that... would b-be... I guess that’s... o-okay...”

“Thank you... thank you... thank you...”

Hoof shaking badly, Twilight frantically strapped on her saddlebags again and, after a final ‘Thank you’ to the pegasus couple, took off through the forest at the closest thing to a gallop she could manage on three legs, not looking back. The idea of just going until she was far, far away from Ponyville occurred to her, but she enthusiastically banished it from her mind. By then, the painkillers, and the associated clouding of her thinking, had kicked in, leaving her a little bit loopy and euphoric. She wasn’t sure how much of it was the drugs and how much was her own glee.

Ponies had listened to her, and helped her.

For the first time since her ordeal in the town square—her brief outburst the evening before aside—she felt genuinely hopeful. In particular, she was hopeful about Zecora being able to help her, or even mediate the whole disaster so that nopony would harm her. With everything that had happened over the last couple of days, she had forgotten something fundamental; perhaps not in her mind, but in her heart: that while there were indeed ponies in the world who wanted to hurt others for little or no reason, there were also ponies who didn’t. The incident with Rime and Drizzledrop had served as an excellent reminder of that.

By the sound of the conversation that had taken place between some of the other pegasi, they weren’t even the only Ponyvillians who’d come to look for her, and the realization of just how many ponies seemed to have put their lives on hold for her, and not for their fear of changelings, reminded her just how powerful the magic of friendship could be. Some of these ponies hardly knew her, and each other, and yet they had come together to find her and make sure she was safe. It was true that they were also unwittingly hunting her as well, but she did her best not to dwell on that fact. Those ponies had come into the forest to search for her not out of malice, but out of a desire to help Twilight Sparkle.

Soon, Princess Celestia would know the truth, and she would be able to put a stop to what was going on, even if it was through a simple letter calling off the Guard. Then Twilight would have time to figure out what to do at her leisure. Perhaps Zecora could tell her when it was safe to return to the town and see her friends again. In any case, the unicorn-turned-changeling was a lot more optimistic about her chances at convincing Zecora now than she had been before.

She wasn’t completely on her own. That thought alone brought a mangled but genuinely joyful smile to Twilight’s inequine face.

Eventually, she had to slow down again. Her cramped wing still ached the entire time she fled, despite the painkillers, and by that point so did her legs. Though both the encounter’s outcome and the fact that she’d fed seemed to have strengthened her a little overall—she felt more energetic and much less stiff than before—Twilight got the feeling that the amount of love she’d absorbed from the air around the two pegasi wasn’t very much, at least compared to what her new body required in order to function.

The trees were less thick where she was now. In fact, Twilight actually thought she recognized it as a place she’d passed through with her friends that first night when they’d all come together to find the Elements of Harmony; or, at least, somewhere near it. The ground was a mess of fallen leaves and branches, and shafts of sunlight broke through the canopy above to illuminate parts of trees that vaguely resembled scary faces if she looked at them right.

“Giggle at the ghostly,” she recited under her breath. “Guffaw at the grossly.”

For some reason, humming Pinkie’s silly song actually helped relieve some of her stress a little. Twilight wondered if Pinkie had some kind of earth pony magic in her that let her infuse calming magic into her showtunes. It was only tangentially related to party-throwing, but then again so were her Pinkie Sense and the ability to appear out of spaces far too small to reasonably contain the rest of her body.

“Crack up at the creepy...”

When everything was back to normal, Twilight decided, she would ask Pinkie about that. She doubted she’d get a straight answer, but it was better to get an incomprehensible wad of unfiltered thought than to never ask the question in the first place.

“Whoop it up with th—”

Twilight heard a funny twanging sound just as she pressed her hoof against the leaf-strewn earth. Before she could react, a circular line about a meter around suddenly burst into a brilliant display of golden magic, and then the ground exploded beneath her hooves, propelling her upwards in a flurry of dirt, leaves, and stunned changeling. She stopped moving just as abruptly, and was showered by much of the displaced dirt as she crashed against something curved.

Bruised and dizzy, she scrabbled around on the surface of the golden bubble that had formed to contain her, until she managed to balance herself so that she could stand upright. The bubble was suspended in the air about half a meter off the ground, bobbing up and down with every movement she made. Pushing on the bubble did nothing more than produce some ripples in the soft golden aura.

The terrified changeling panicked and threw herself against the side as hard as she could, to no effect on anything but her own body. She did this a second time after picking herself up, and this time she left a greenish smear behind. Panting heavily, Twilight fell back onto her haunches and powered up her horn, prepared to run through whatever spells were necessary to get rid of the shield—magical traps like these always had some weakness if you looked hard enough.

But this attempt was cut off before it ever began: the green on Twilight’s horn attracted a bolt of gold electricity that came out of the inside of the shield itself and struck the base, where it connected to her skull. Immediately, her horn went numb—no tingle of magic, no pain, no anything at all. No amount of effort could bring it back to life; whatever the bolt had done seemed to have paralyzed or cut off her connection to her magic—temporarily, she desperately hoped.

There was no way out of this bubble except being let out by whoever created it, Twilight realized as half of her partially formed spell dribbled down her face in a river of green sparks, accompanied by that familiar fizzing noise.

She was trapped.

Notes

—From now on, I’m going to cheaply inflate my wordcount by 300 words or so because lol I’m lazy make shit a little more organized by putting notes that have to do with the actual story content at the end of the chapter, and meta/credits stuff in the A/N box, because I have such a shitload of them every chapter. Also, it should get rid of some of the needless exposition people have occasionally complained about. It saves me the trouble of working it into the narrative, so lol I’m not complaining.

1) The part about Twilight’s wings being ‘triggered’ works like this: You want to fire two handguns repeatedly at 200000 rounds per .000001 seconds or whatever at the exact same time every time (for some ungodly reason). Do you try to do it by hand? Do you get some ugly urban crip gangsta to do it with his epic motherfucking dual-wielding skillz? No, you get a motherfucking computer to trigger it. Except the guns are Twilight’s wings and the motherfucking computer is her brain sending an impulse to tell both wings to rotate at the same motherfucking time instead of two motherfucking consecutive ones telling each one to do so individually. You get me?

1a) Alpha151 says I should just compare them to hummingbird wings, but the gun analogy is 20% funnier because I read it in Sam Jackson’s voice.

2) Four of the primary feathers on each of a pegasus’s wings also function as fingers in this universe. Each one has joints, muscles, and bones at the center of the ‘feather’, allowing it to bend in four places (and thus have about the same range of grasp as a human finger, except for the one closest to the body. Three of these are on the outside group, and one is on the inside. The inside one functions as a thumb, and only bends in three places (one more than a human thumb).

VI. To Return Home

I really like how this chapter came out. So that was a long wait. No excuses available. Read muh story plx <3 If you find any errors in this chapter, you should check yourself into Broadhoof immediately, because you’re probably hallucinating.

Solitary Locust

Chapter Six: To Return Home

Barely visible through all the trees and foliage was the top of the dying sun, which was headed once again toward the horizon to sleep. A soft yellow and orange scheme had replaced the bright sunlight beating down through the spaces between the Everfree’s branches. There was very little noise now except for the distant buzzing of mosquitoes, the chirping of crickets, and the other nocturnal animals that were beginning to come out. Almost unnoticeably quiet in spite of the near silence was the shallow breathing of the battered black-and-green insect-like creature lying in a shimmering golden sphere suspended between some particularly deformed old trees.

The painkillers had worn off some time ago, so the feeling of weightlessness and relaxation that had previously been filling Twilight’s entire body had given way to a miserable ache. She had lain down as best she could (which meant tucking her legs up and resting uncomfortably on her side) to try to quell the leftover nausea from the drugs. There was still an unpleasant emptiness atop her head since her horn still hadn’t fully regained feeling after the violent magical shock it had been subjected to.

Every so often she tried bumping her hoof listlessly against the bubble, but she’d all but given up any hope of escaping long ago. It had simply become too much effort to fight against what she’d known deep down would be the inevitable end of her situation since the ordeal began: that she wouldn’t be able to run and hide forever; that somepony would eventually catch her.

A part of her wanted to believe that Princess Celestia had received her notes, but the majority of her exhausted mind could no longer find the energy to commit to thinking about the matter. Trying to dwell on it only redirected her focus to vague images of her time as the Princess’s student as she slowly slipped more and more into another realm; a fantasy world of memories and what-ifs. She remembered the examination for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. That had been the start of what she knew was the most wonderful life a unicorn could ever have lived. It was a strangely distorted memory, as though worn down by time, but the overwhelming joy she’d felt when Princess Celestia stood there in the examination room and told her she wanted to make Twilight her personal student was still imprinted on the unicorn’s mind, even after so many years.

Unlike the previous evening, this sunset was not maddening or heartbreaking for Twilight to watch—it was simply the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She didn’t know why, as it was no different from any other sunset she’d ever witnessed; the emotion was probably coming from the realization that it could very well be the last glimpse of Celestia she would ever see, like her mentor was bidding her a melancholic farewell. Twilight didn’t mind—she felt at peace. It was a terrible and cowardly thing of her to just give up, but she just didn’t have the will to fight anymore. All Twilight wanted to do now was rest. She was so, so tired, and it felt good to just lay down and stop caring.

Abnormally, so.

The realization finally wormed its way into her sluggish, fog-clouded brain: that it wasn’t just her body that seemed like it was shutting down, but her brain as well. Twilight’s extremities buzzed and tingled, while her head felt far too light and was spinning around in circles. Something in her subconscious screamed at her not to fall asleep, because if she did, she wouldn’t wake up again. Clumsily staggering onto her back hooves, Twilight pressed her good foreleg against the side of the bubble and leaned the side of her head on it. The world was spinning and blurring together before her eyes, like it sometimes did when she celebrated a little too much with her friends during cider season.

Twilight’s breathing had devolved into weak, feeble gasps by then. She collapsed onto her haunches, her head lolling stupidly around, momentarily confused about what to do next. Then she put her hoof against her chest and listened to her heart rate. It was very irregular, and she probably couldn’t have kept up with it clapping her hooves together as fast as she could, even without a broken leg.

Putting all her physical symptoms together was a chore with her brain running so sluggishly, since each individual thought had to be fished out of the ocean of tar in her head and cleaned off before she could make sense of it. After what seemed like forever (though she couldn’t really be sure, as she was beginning to lose her sense of time), Twilight finally came to the conclusion that she was suffering from some form of hypoxia. This led her to rather idly wonder why she was suffocating, and what she could do about it, which took some time to produce a conclusion worth the effort taken to find it: that the magical bubble around her was airtight, and that Twilight had been breathing the same recycled air for hours until there was simply no oxygen left.

Instead of being alarmed by the developing situation, Twilight felt a surge of irritation sweep over her. Who in their right mind would go through the trouble of setting up such a magically complex trap, only to have it accidentally kill the creature it caught because it had no airholes? It was a waste of time and magic! After everything she’d survived—angry mobs, living in the Everfree, exploding horns, desperately trying to convince ponies of her identity—she would be ended by the sheer incompetence of somepony who likely knew magical theory as well as she did.

“You... pliohippus... Let me... out...” she croaked, not really talking to anypony in particular. It just felt so very good to refer to the trap’s creator with such a terribly degrading term. “There are... no... airholes... in... here...”

Twilight rose up again and bumped her body weakly against the rounded wall. Leaning on it, she used her uninjured hoof to punch the shimmering gold with about the same force that a fly might have been able to exert by buzzing into a solid brick wall. Each time her hoof came in contact with the magic barrier, she mumbled to herself.

“Open... up... open up... open... I want... some air...”

After a few more half-hearted strikes, she dropped it back to her side, gasping ever more heavily with each breath. Because it was getting so hard to stay balanced, Twilight soon thudded back heavily onto her rump with a soft oof that cost her quite a bit of air. Unfortunately, she was so dizzy that she ended up keeling over onto her side, horn scraping viciously against the side of the bubble as she slid down it.

She didn’t bother getting up this time beyond turning to get her face out of the small pile of dirt at the bottom, as she’d completely run out of both the energy and the willpower to fight her fate. Instead, the asphyxiating changeling just stared up at the sky, aimlessly jerking her limbs on occasion. Strangely, the fact that she was going to die seemed of surprisingly little importance at the moment—Twilight felt absolutely fine. In fact, she had never felt better in her entire life.

The lack of oxygen was making her feel giddy and euphoric inside, removing all her doubts, and eventually replacing her frown with a contented—if confused—smile as she simply stopped worrying about the fact that she couldn’t breathe anymore. There was an oddly warm tingling sensation spreading all over her body, setting off the nerves wherever it touched in a pleasant but very alien way.

It was actually kind of funny that she was going to die as a changeling, she realized.

Without all her panic and fear clouding her mind, Twilight could objectively see the irony in her situation. After all, she had helped defeat the changeling army in Canterlot. Moreover, she was the Element of Magic! She’d helped defeat Nightmare Moon and Discord! And yet they were going to take her and dump her body in a ditch. Desecrate it. Destroy it. Her friends and family would never know what happened to her and would spend their lives wondering whether or not she was being tortured in some underground cavern. She was going to be thrown in a ditch when she was found dead in a few weeks, if at all; or simply left to rot in her floating tomb. Would she rot? Were there enough bacteria trapped with her to carry out a significant part of the putrefaction process?

The trees above her were spinning around and around like she was a passenger on a toy top, making her stomach churn nauseatingly. Her breathing had been reduced to pitiful gasps as her lungs tried to extract oxygen that simply wasn’t present. The initially underwhelming euphoria had become a furnace which now lit her entire body from within, and it just felt so very good that she couldn’t bring herself to worry about the future anymore.

What does it matter if I’m dying? thought Twilight lightly, closing her eyes. It’s not so bad.

As the simple tingling within her grew into a hot, churning glow, her world began to melt into a palette of brilliant colours. Her shuddering body was filled with an overwhelming sense of weightlessness and formlessness independent of the sleep that had just taken her. A sudden, sharp jolt of pain shot through her chest and through one of her forelegs; pain so severe she felt it even in unconsciousness.

And then Twilight was no longer an entity, but a mass of blissful sensations—and then just a collection of electrical impulses being swallowed up into the most fantastic new world she could have ever imagined. It was endless, infinitely warm, and brighter than a thousand suns. Disconnected from any need for a physical body, Twilight could embrace all ideas and know all things at once; be everywhere and nowhere without being at all.

Out of all the white and the rainbows, the stars eventually settled and she landed in a puff of golden dust a short distance outside Ponyville, which was the last of her world not covered by darkness.

The unicorn sat on a blanket with Rarity and Fluttershy, watching Dash and Applejack race from one end of the field to the other while they shared Pinkie’s baked goods from a picnic basket (Twilight was splitting her attention between the food, her friends, and the open book floating in front of her face). Behind them, Pinkie was doing an all-out cheerleading routine, throwing pom-poms and shouting encouragements to the pegasus and earth pony. Spike wasn’t far away from Twilight, and he was gazing—lovestruck as always—at Rarity instead of at the two competing ponies. The sun watched over them from up above with a faint hint of a familiar, caring smile hiding behind it. It was such a very simplistic scene, and yet at the same time it was also everything that truly mattered to Twilight Sparkle gathered together.

It was perfect.

Twilight wasn’t immediately aware that she was feeling anything. The stabbing bolt in her chest grew rapidly in its intensity, however, until she was sucked back up to the surface and violently jolted back to consciousness. Gasping desperately, she gulped down breath after breath of badly needed fresh air. Her limbs were already moving spastically on their own when she woke up from her bout of stupification, her body shaking and shivering in the cool evening chill. Trying to remember where she was and what was going on, she shook her head clumsily back and forth, setting off an explosion of twisted empathy colours as the sensors on one side of her head dragged against something rough.

Everything was melted together inside, preventing her from sorting out her thoughts or her memories from the confusing mess that was all the sensory input coming from her body. She let out a ragged gasp the moment her brain had finally rebooted enough for her to realize that she was in terrible pain all over her body. Burning stripes blazed up and down from head to hoof, as though she’d been doused in kerosene and set alight. A terrible soreness inhabited the left side of her chest beneath the burning; flaring with each beat of her heart and bursting each time she inhaled or exhaled.

She was so confused and overwhelmed that she didn’t even think to open her eyes until then; when she did, she opened them wide in her agony to accompany the aborted, choking remains of a scream scraping the back of her throat. A dizzying blur of shapes similar to the effect of vertigo spun in front of her, as her vision had not yet coalesced enough that she could make out very much in detail.

Whimpering softly, Twilight tried to crawl to her hooves, but she was simply in too much pain to do so and remained spread out on her back. The changeling blindly felt around with the hoof she could still move instead, attempting to figure out where she was. She felt something earthy; something hard and rough—dirt, rocks. She was on the ground, on a slight incline.

The blurry remains of the magical sphere Twilight had been imprisoned within lay in two separate halves not far away, still sparking and fizzing at the edges. She didn’t know how she’d gotten out of it, but it looked like it had been sawed all the way around until it just fell apart. She squinted down at her own chest, rubbing at her eyes, as her vision resolved a bit more, and found a complete mess below. Mulberry-coloured blotches of hair and skin marked where her body had deformed and twisted into a more familiar shape; the muscles, and even the bones, were warped in places into mismatched combinations of changeling and unicorn anatomy. Also present in many of these places were lacerations around the edges, which were oozing a sick-looking grey-green fluid.

The absolute horror of seeing her body so ruined drove Twilight’s mind straight out of her stupor and into Analytical Scientist Unicorn Mode. Everything became detached, impersonal data, incapable of hurting her because it was just information without emotion.

Subject A shows distinct signs of an partially aborted transformation from changeling into unicorn. Experiences extreme physical pain as a result of conflicting systems attempting to interact. Previously demonstrated dissatisfaction with the changeling form. Subject A is unable to consciously control transformation. Spontaneous minor transformation has occurred on occasion, usually during times of severe emotional stress. Injuries to horn and environmental factors may affect transformation. Subject A does not remember transforming. Memory loss present. Conclusion: Subject A most likely experienced an aborted transformation as a result of emotional stress over body-related dysphoria, but was unable to complete or fully reverse transformation for undetermined reasons.

Subject A may possibly have been slowly suffocating to death in an airtight magical bubble in the middle of the Everfree Forest due to her lack of vigilance and not giving a flying feather about how she was about to lose her life at the time of transformation...

Above her, the majestic colours of the sunset were still blazing in the sky, not much changed from the last time Twilight had seen them. Now that her sight was no longer vibrating like a struck tuning fork, she was able to more clearly make out the mesh of branches and leaves overhead.

And, with the improved clarity of her vision, Twilight was also able to make out the dark shape moving around near her.

“...made her wait for hours before you finally pass out, and then you go and die! You’re lucky she’s talented enough with magic to restart your shriveled cockroach heart, or you would still be stone-cold dead!”

Twilight instinctively shifted away from the threatening, aggressive voice’s ranting, then jerked her foreleg up in a feeble attempt to block the object that had suddenly been thrown at her. It hit with surprisingly little impact—nothing more than a soft pfump and—and fell in the dirt beside her. Without thinking, Twilight reached over and felt around until her hoof felt something very familiar: the smooth plastic of one of the empty water bottles she had carefully made sure to hold onto in order to avoid littering and polluting the environment.

A creature in an ugly brownish cloak slid into the center of Twilight’s vision, oozing triumph and narcissistic delight from its aura like sap from a tree. It held something small up in a faintly reddish aura; an aura identical to the three burning lights set in its powder-blue face and the fourth burning around the base of Twilight’s horn. Moments later, Twilight was hit by another object, which she thought might be her pen.

“You foolish creature—you just don’t know what to take with you when you travel, do you?” Twilight’s poncho, bunched up, landed by her hind leg. “Let me see... Oh, you have a prescription. Is your name ‘Poe the Raven’? The Great and Powerful Trixie sincerely doubts it.”

“Trkkzzy?” repeated Twilight, voice slurring. The name, and the obnoxious, arrogant female voice that accompanied it, triggered a fuzzy memory—one that seemed distant and fleeting at the moment, like it was from another life entirely—of a haughty showmare in a star-spangled cape and hat who boasted of having defeated an Ursa Major, only to run herself out of town over the embarrassment of being proven a liar later on.

“That’s ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’ to you, changeling!”

Upon hearing the word changeling, Twilight’s brain kicked into the highest gear it was physically capable of—which, at that moment, wasn’t much, but nevertheless it was enough to drag her back into the town square on that awful day once again. The forest exploded into a wild blaze of angry colours and voices that wanted to harm her, and those ponies who now haunted her day and night with hatred like she’d never known before. They simply wouldn’t leave her alone, even when she was beaten and torn and couldn’t fight back; even when she couldn’t even get up and run away.

With nowhere to go, and no more strength to carry her even if there had been a place to flee, she did the only thing left in her pathetic inventory of reactions and curled into an awkward ball of agonizingly mismatched body parts welded into one another; leaking green blood everywhere. Her empathy sense still hadn’t resolved on one side, leaving her half blinded by a mess of colours that reminded her of the time she’d heard a couple of colts press about a dozen keys at once on a pipe organ in Canterlot.

“Changeling! The Great and Powerful Trixie commands you to stop your pitiful sniveling!” Trixie’s voice reverberated strangely through Twilight’s head; like her memories and thoughts, it seemed to come from so very far away from her. “Stop it, I said!”

Trixie kicked her in the side; right in one of the lines bisecting two changeling and unicorn parts of her body. Reflexively uncurling from her protective position, Twilight rolled onto her back, holding her hoof against her side as she whimpered inequinely. The unicorn tried to shove something into her mouth, but she spat it right back out and turned her head away, clamping her jaw firmly shut.

“Have it your way, changeling,” Trixie muttered. “Trixie will just enjoy ‘Mr. Poe’s’ pills for herself, if you’d rather sit there in agony than accept kindness from a stranger!”

“No... Please. It hurts. Please give me the pills. I’m sorry,” whimpered Twilight. “Sorry. Please, it hurts.”

Though she sighed and huffed in obvious irritation, Trixie did eventually fulfill Twilight’s request by forcing her mouth open with magic and jamming the last of the painkiller pills into it. Twilight choked them down them, then curled up again around the saddlebag, clutching it tightly against her chest with her good leg like it was her friends, family, mentor, and number one assistant all rolled into a single object. The swamp’s fetid stench still clung to it, but the smell hardly registered in her mind as she cried. Trixie had apparently been fairly neutral toward her—as neutral as ponies were capable of being towards changelings; neutral enough to help her when she was in pain—but Twilight had already taken a step towards souring a potential good relationship with the unicorn by being so oppositional.

Ever since that day she’d given her changeling lecture, everything good she touched seemed to shrink away from her.

Still glowering darkly and snorting derisively at the pathetic creature shivering before her, Trixie trotted slowly in a circle around Twilight. She looked quite haggard and worn, as though she’d been living rough for quite some time. Her mane and tail were in utter disarray, her coat mangy, and her horn in need of a good filing. Rather more sinisterly, her eyes, which were baggy and bloodshot from sleeplessness, were burning with crimson red fire—the aura of the most basic tier of dark magic. The same colour surrounded her horn and the amulet around her throat, rippling eerily like fire. Something about her—something unidentifiable—seemed much more unpleasant now than the first time Twilight had met her.

Trixie was speaking to her, Twilight realized. With some effort, she managed to tune herself away from her own thoughts and back in to the world around her.

“...been wasting her valuable time and her equally valuable power scouring this Celestia-forsaken forest for the last two and a half days, so you had better tell her where Twilight Sparkle is!”

“Twilight Zparkle?” Twilight buzzed. She was struggling to stay focused; her brain wanted her to go back to sleep and rest, having just gone through a thoroughly traumatic experience.

“Yes! Where is she being kept!” demanded Trixie, leaning over to glare at Twilight. “The Great and Powerful Trixie commands that you answer her immediately!”

Twilight cringed and drew back into her protective ball, frightened by Trixie’s aggressiveness. Her exclamation of “I’m Twilight Sparkle!” was reduced to a mumbly, almost inaudible squeak.

“What was that?”

“Please... please... I can prove...” She desperately searched her memories for something—anything at all—that might convince Trixie that it actually was her.

“Prove what, changeling?”

Rime and Drizzledrop had given her a chance before, when they had no reason to do so. A previously muted voice within Twilight spoke up just then, reminding her that others—others like Trixie, however mean she may have been—might do the same for her as well if she trusted in them.

That, after all, was what making a friend was all about: reaching out to others and taking the risk of trusting them. Sometimes you might get a flake or a fraud for a friend, like Rainbow Dash’s old griffon classmate Gilda—but you could just as easily get a lifesaver, a listening ear, or an inseparable compliment to yourself.

“Talk to Trixie! Talk, will you! She has places to be and things to do!”

A sudden blow to her thigh dragged Twilight out of her musings and back into reality. This time, it didn’t hurt quite as much, as that leg had been largely unaffected by her transformation—the other had a half-formed cutie mark on it, among other things—but it was still jarring and unpleasant nonetheless.

“I-I r-remember you, y-you know!” she stammered, holding her good foreleg in front of her to ward off further abuse. “You’re a showmare! Y-your shows were very—very... um... sp-p-pectacular?”

Trixie narrowed her eyes. “Of course Trixie’s shows were spectacular! They could be nothing less, being the work of her own magnificent horn and incredibly powerful magic! How dare you even think to imply otherwise, changeling? No, wait—Don’t you change the subject, you filthy equine insect! Tell Trixie all about Twilight Sparkle!”

“I-I think y-you were very b-brave, when you s-stood up to the Ursa Minor—It was v-very brave of you! I was right there—I saw—I saw it—I saw how brave y-you were—”

“Of course Trixie was brave!” Trixie cut in very sharply, sounding both furious and self-satisfied at the same time; as though Twilight had inadvertently dealt a grievous blow to her narcissistic pride by complimenting her in such a way. “The Great and Powerful Trixie never runs from danger, changeling!”

“I’m s-sorry! I didn’t mea—”

But Twilight’s apology was sliced right in half as Trixie continued ranting. “Trixie is sick of ponies calling her a coward and a loser—and laughing at her, and heckling her when she’s trying to make a living—and making her work under the hot sun at rock farms to support herself—and pranking the comeback performance she put together with the bits she’s spent months and months of hard work earning! And when she gets her hooves on Twilight Sparkle, she’s going to teach her a few lessons about who’s really the most powerful unicorn in Equestria! And no changeling is going to stand in her way! The Great and Powerful Trixie bows to no pony—and no non-pony, either!”

Breathing heavily, she leaned over and glared down at Twilight, who shrank back as much as she could. The changeling could smell her breath, at such a close distance, and unfortunately it was quite clear that Trixie hadn’t had a chance to brush her teeth in the last few days.

“Trixie will not ask you again...” said Trixie, blazing red eyes boring holes in Twilight’s own fearful blue ones. “Where is Twilight Sparkle? Come on! Fast! Fast! Trixie’s time is very valuable!”

At that moment, as she cowered beneath the showmare’s hateful gaze, Twilight came to the frightening conclusion that Trixie was not at all right in the head: she seemed to blame Ponyville, and Twilight in particular, for her misfortune following the Ursa Minor attack, and also for the ill will some ponies had exhibited toward her. Worse, she apparently had some insane, delusional revenge fantasy fueling her current actions—a revenge fantasy that would probably be carried out if the showmare learned her real identity and actually believed it to be true. Twilight could feel what was left of her hope breaking apart inside her as she realized the only pony who might listen to her about being a unicorn was out for that unicorn’s blood.

“I’m... not... Sh-she’s in the—the old r-ruins—The Castle of the Two Sisters,” she mumbled. Maybe, if she gave the right answers, Trixie would go away and leave her to crawl into a ditch and die in peace.

“That’s the crumbling old duskheap not far from here, isn’t it?”

Twilight nodded as best she could. “Mmhm...”

“And if I look around inside it, I’ll find Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yes...”

“How many changelings are there?” demanded Trixie. “Are there hordes of them? Is there a queen in the highest tower?”

“N-none...? No?” Twilight ventured.

A contemptuous sneer crossed Trixie’s face. “You may think The Great and Powerful Trixie is as stupid as all the mundane ponies you’ve fooled—but she sees past your trickery, changeling!”

“O-okay, I lied! I lied, then! Lots of changelings! There are lots... And there’s a—a queen, too—”

“Ha! Your pathetic ruse wouldn’t have worked even if Trixie hadn’t already spent the afternoon searching the completely empty castle. There are neither changelings nor Twilight Sparkles hiding there!” Trixie gave Twilight another rather rough shove with her hoof as she barked these words out.

“M-maybe you just didn’t look ha-hard enough...?” the changeling squeaked, her voice trailing off uncertainly into a mumble. She would have curled up on herself a second time over if she’d been able. “Don’t hurt me, p-please...”

She was abruptly dragged right into the air by a vise of red magic that locked tightly around her left hind leg—the one with the poorly formed cutie mark on it—and jolted to a stop several feet above the earth, dangling upside down and feeling like she was going to be sick as she swung back and forth slightly. Trixie pressed her nose up against Twilight’s smashed one, turning the changeling’s head to the side with her hoof so that their eyes met.

“Trixie will ask you once again... where is Twilight Sparkle? Tell the truth this time!”

“I don’t know!” sobbed Twilight as she tried to pull her head away. “I-I c-can’t tell you what I don’t know!”

Grinding her teeth together angrily, Trixie said, “You do know! Tell Trixie what she wants to know or she’ll—she’ll—she’ll put you back in the trap again! She can easily repair what she’s broken!”

“I can’t... I-I can’t answer your question any differently...” Twilight whimpered. “I can’t! Please, I can’t!”

“Stop lying!” There was a muffled thump as Trixie stomped on the ground.

“I c-can’t g-give you a d-different answer...I’m s-sorry... Don’t hurt me anymore. I’m sick of b-b-being hurt...”

Trixie stared at Twilight for some time without saying anything, eyes burning furiously, then suddenly released her without any warning at all. Throwing her good foreleg out in front of her to direct the impact away from her head, neck, and injured other leg, Twilight crashed heavily back to the ground in a heap. Meanwhile, the powder-blue unicorn had already turned away from her to pace around in circles, muttering to herself.

“Probably long-gone anyway,” she said, stepping over Twilight as though she were nothing more than an inanimate obstacle in her path. “No sense in Trixie wasting her time looking for such a pathetic unicorn just to challenge her to a duel she knows she would win... No, no, she’s a practical pony; she can make something better of this situation.”

Whirling around, Trixie dramatically rose up onto her hind legs and jabbed a hoof at Twilight. “You, changeling!”

“Yeah?” asked Twilight in a tiny, anxious voice, afraid Trixie was going to ask her another impossible question or hurt her again.

“You’re going to come back to Ponyville with Trixie and tell everypony how you easily defeated the weak and pathetic Twilight Sparkle. Tell them you abducted her to be taken away to your dank little nest in the ground, or—or wherever it is your kind live. Tell them how you were going to get away with it until you ran into The Brave and Heroic Trixie.”

“But—No—But if I do that, th-they’ll nev-ver—”

Twilight shut her eyes, put her hoof over one ear and pressed the other against the dirt, hoping to block out as much of the world as she could. She began to hyperventilate again as she thought out the logical progression of events that would follow a declaration like that. Nopony would ever believe her story if she did something like that, even if she did get an opportunity to tell it. Any chance she might have had of convincing somepony to let her explain herself would be gone forever.

It’s not fair, she thought miserably, blinking tears out of her eyes. I deserve a chance... Just a chance.

“Once Ponyville sees that The Great and Powerful Trixie is the superior unicorn, they’ll praise her instead of praising that wretched Twilight Sparkle!” Trixie hadn’t stopped rambling yet. “They’ll know Trixie defeated a foe Sparkle couldn’t, and Trixie will have proven herself! Even if Sparkle returns someday, Trixie can just duel her then! Ha! Trixie will show that fraud one way or another!”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Twilight mumbled.

Trixie, either not hearing or not paying attention to her, surrounded her neck and the base of her aching, still sparking horn with magic. There was only a moment for Twilight to panic and try to prepare for what was about to happen to her before she was half-dragged onto her hooves.

The exhausted changeling was hardly able to remain standing on her own with her legs wobbling the way they were. Resistance to Trixie’s plan was absolutely out of the question at that point in time—Twilight simply had no strength left; and her horn, damaged and still slightly numb, was as likely to create some bizarrely mutated spell as it was to successfully cast whatever she put through it.

A sharp jerk on the leads connected to her horn and throat forced her to stagger sideways as Trixie purposefully turned her back on that part of the forest, hauling Twilight along after her.

“Come on, changeling! The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t have all day!”

Twilight remained silent as she followed Trixie through the forest, stumbling over whatever obstacles the other mare didn’t allow her to wander around or slow down for. Her body was operating more on automatic than by her own will, following the same set of directions and hardly reacting to changes in her surroundings. Not caring what injuries she sustained in her daze, the changeling allowed herself to step on sharp rocks and inclines without moderating the force of her steps in the slightest until a small trail of greenish blood marked each place where one of her hind hooves had fallen. Even the occasional tumble as her terribly balanced, weak legs gave out under her elicited little more than a confused grunt, as she was locked too far away in her own mind and too well-protected by a shield of endorphins to really acknowledge the pain.

It was the end for her, and she knew it. She felt a pervading sense of dread at the knowledge of what was coming, but somehow she was unable to bridge the gap between her mind and her body to actually show it. The terror just built and built inside, like the pressure within her horn had done before her bombastic explosion in the church. Even if she had been able to do something, she thought dismally, what was left to do? There was no running, no hiding, no pleading with them, because Trixie was about to ruin what miniscule chance Twilight had left of getting anypony to hear her out. Her body was all but broken, and it wasn’t going to matter if her horn was torn from her head if her magic had already fled from her, as it seemed on the verge of doing.

Eventually, the two mares reached the outskirts of the Everfree; near where it met the perimeter of Sweet Apple Acres. Trixie seemed to have followed some invisible compass, perhaps generated by an orientation spell, to find her way back to Ponyville as it took less than an hour for them to get there. Nevertheless by the time they got out into the open, Luna had completely taken over for Celestia, and the moon and stars were shining down upon them. The amulet around Trixie’s neck, as well as the incandescent auras blazing around her eyes and horn, shone red in the night, while the mare herself was given an eerie bluish-white shine by the moonlight.

In the distance, Twilight could make out the glowing lights of Ponyville, which she imagined was probably at the height of its evening activity boom. She would have given anything to be on the other side of the situation; to be able to walk up and down the streets outside her house with her friends, bite into another apple from Sweet Apple Acres, argue with Spike about reshelving, and all the other things she’d taken for granted again. The changeling shuddered and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to control her trembling lip and the tears threatening to fall from her eyes again.

For some reason, she felt like she was marching to her death—and it was not the same kind of feeling as her near suffocation in the magic trap, where the impact had been so cushioned by her oxygen deprivation. It was a deep, dark, and terrifying feeling; facing the empty void that lay at the end of life, and the darkness that came after. Or, rather, whatever it was that was going to happen to her when they reached Ponyville. The unknown was just as horrid, if not more so, than what she could imagine. It was the kind of fear she hadn’t felt since she’d lain curled up in bed as a filly, afraid to peek out above the piled up bedcovers for fear of seeing some unearthly monstrosity lurking in the dark shadows.

She was afraid.

But, at the same time, seeing the lights of the place that, until only a few days earlier, had been her home stirred something inside her, too. The lights were coming from civilization—civilization that she, Twilight Sparkle, had lived in it. She, Twilight Sparkle, was not a changeling; she, Twilight Sparkle, was a unicorn. A pony. A civilized being.

It didn’t matter what kind of a body she was wearing. What mattered was the kind of pony she was, and that she remembered to keep being that pony no matter what happened.

Whatever her fate was, Twilight decided, she would accept it with dignity instead of fighting the inevitable like a pathetic, mindless animal. Like the proud unicorn she was on the inside, she would go with her head held high and her eyes dry of tears. She had fought monsters, battled gods, defeated alicorns, and saved Equestria time after time—with all that to her name, Twilight thought, she had a right to hold onto the last of her equestrianity, even after everything else had been stripped from her.

Thus motivated, she lifted her head and held it high, and her defeated, aimless stagger turned into a simple but determined limp. She put all her willpower into not letting herself slouch and did her best to carry herself like what she was: a proud unicorn, Princess Celestia’s handpicked personal student, the most powerful magician in centuries, and the Element of Magic herself—not some monster in chains.

I’m Twilight Sparkle, and I know it’s true! Even if nopony ever believes me, I still know it’s true!

Twilight was still holding herself tall—probably more so than she ever had in her life—when they reached the bridge and stream that marked the edge of the town. On the other side, she saw ponies coming out to meet them—ponies wearing the dark armor of the Night Guard. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment all she could hear was her own thumping heartbeat as a thousand horrible scenarios jammed themselves into her mind’s eye at once. She felt like she was going to be sick. But, in spite of her fear, she forced herself to go onward before Trixie could tug on the lead, unwilling to let herself falter in what felt like her last steps.

Appearance-wise, the Night Guard were quite different from the regular Royal Guard. Leathery-winged and dark in their colour schemes, they seemed rather sinister and intimidating, but Twilight knew they were really just ordinary pegasi enchanted to look a bit like the vamponies of legend. There were at least six of them coming now; moving swiftly to head off Twilight and Trixie halfway across the bridge. Twilight guessed, although she couldn’t really find it in herself to care one way or another, that she and her captor had probably tripped some kind of alarm spell cast around the perimeter of the forest or the town; perhaps one set to respond to changelings.

When they saw Twilight, the six guards immediately bristled—Twilight felt the aggression and excitement coming off them through her empathy sense as clearly as she were the one feeling it to begin with.

“Whoa, where do you think you’re going with that?” said the one Twilight assumed to be the leader—she was, after all, wearing the appropriate rank insignias on her armor—as she moved in their direction with two of her comrades in tow. The other three took flight, vanishing for a moment, and then reappeared when they landed behind Twilight and Trixie.

“Trixie does not have time for this,” Trixie huffed back, sticking her nose in the air. “She’ll go where she pleases, and she’ll take whatever she wants with her, thank you very much.”

“Turn the changeling around and put it down on the ground, and move away from it.”

“Just who do you think you’re talking to?” the red-eyed unicorn demanded. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not take orders from anypony—most certainly not from Clopula impersonators! She’s going to take what remains of this fallen horde of changelings that she heroically defeated and show the ponies of Ponyville—”

“Get back, you stupid mare! This is your last warning!”

“—that she is indeed The Great and Heroic Trixie! Have you no sympathy for the dead? It was the last wish of The Tragically Expired Twilight Sparkle that her tale be told to the unwashed masses in Ponyville—”

For a moment, the changeling turned and gawked at her, as much as a changeling could gawk; more for her absurd abuse of the Equestrian language than anything else, until it sank in that Trixie actually was claiming she was dead. Then she closed her mouth very tightly and looked away, focusing on the ground and trying to tune out Trixie’s rambling. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much success.

“Are you for real, lady?” said the Night Guard captain. “Fine—Both of you turn around and get down on the ground. Right now! Keep those horns facing away!”

Twilight backed up a little bit in alarm as two of the guards each unfolded a short but clearly razor-sharp spring-loaded blade that was mounted on one wing. Though she refused to throw herself into the dirt on her own just to survive another five minutes, she didn’t want to die if she didn’t have to, and had no plans to resist the guards if they pushed her down.

On the other hoof, Trixie continued to sneer arrogantly at the guards, her nose turned up in disgust. “Oh, please. The Great and Powerful Trixie has more important things to do than deal with a couple of stupid little pegasi playing Commander Hurricane. Your little plastic swords don’t scare her.”

“She’s probably a changeling, too—Bet she was trying to sneak in by hoofing over the other,” said one of the guards with the blades. “I heard they’ll stab each other in the back if it gets them what they want. Guess it’s true...”

“Either move out of Trixie’s way or she’ll move you out of her w—”

A sudden whump announced the arrival of a ninth party from above in a blur of fire-coloured mane, coat, and feathers. Twilight was scared so badly by it that she stumbled backward, slipped, and fell onto her haunches, where she sat for a moment to catch her breath, hoping Trixie wouldn’t decide to leave before she was able to stand up again. The other ponies present were also startled, though to a lesser degree than the repeatedly traumatized changeling: Trixie backed up against the side of the bridge beside Twilight, eyes flicking back and forth, while the guards whipped their heads to look in between their two groups and their leader saluted her apparent superior once she saw who it was.

“Captain Spitfire, ma’am!” she said.

Spitfire, the pegasus mare Twilight recognized from the gala, the flying competition, and the many Wonderbolts posters plastered on Rainbow Dash’s walls, glanced rapidly over the situation in front of her and frowned deeply. Her gaze lingered on Twilight for some time before she snapped back to the guards again. “What, exactly, is going on here, Milky Way?”

“Trixie w—” started Trixie, but the female guard talked over her.

“She thinks it killed Twilight Sparkle, and she wants to tell everypony about it.”

“You shut up!” the powder-blue unicorn snapped as Spitfire’s gaze returned to her again. “Trixie merely wishes to receive the appropriate recognition for her heroic contribution to this town’s safety in destroying the horde of changelings planning to viciously annihilate the inhabitants, and for personally bringing the changeling responsible for the tragic death of Twilight Sparkle.”

The look that came over Spitfire’s face in response to this was a very strange one indeed; a combination of surprise, excitement, and panic. “You don’t say?”

“Does Trixie look like the kind of mare who would say something untrue? You can hear all about it when Trixie tells her tale. Now, move. She’s starting to get annoyed!”

“I’ll give you five hundred bits for the changeling,” said Spitfire. “A reward of sorts.”

“This changeling is very important in Trixie’s upcoming performance,” Trixie snorted. “It also fought ferociously and cost Trixie a great deal of pain, suffering, and misery to capture. Trixie will accept nothing less than five hundred thousand.”

“What?” Spitfire imitated a goldfish for a second, eyes growing wider and wider, then exclaimed, “I don’t have that kind of money! What do you think I am, the First Bank of Equestria?”

“Then Trixie will be on her way, miss not-the-Bank-of-Equestria.” But Trixie didn’t move, and Twilight could almost see the green glow in her eyes—and in the amulet around her neck—as the unicorn seemed to realize that she was still in a position to exploit a mare who probably could write her a good check for five hundred thousand bits. “You’re that one Wonderbolt, aren’t you? Typical of you rich ponies to pretend you have less than you really do. Well, if you want the changeling so badly, Trixie will take her reward in equivalent gold bars, thank you very much.”

“Pack Rat, go get Moondancer,” said Spitfire to one of the other guards, not taking her eyes off Trixie and Twilight.

“But Moondancer is w—”

“I know!” she hissed. “This is more important!”

“‘Moondancer’ had better be a euphemism for ‘a lot of bits’,” Trixie snarked.

“You’ll be a euphemism by the time I’m through with you,” muttered Spitfire. Other ponies were starting to gather near the Ponyville end of the bridge, attracted by the argument taking place on it, and the more ponies there were, the more annoyed Spitfire seemed to get. “Fine, I’ll give you a thousand, then.”

“Not good enough, you cheap skan—”

“Will you just take the damn bits? I’m offering you a way to keep from embarrassing yourself and come out of this a few hundred bits richer, lady!”

“Ha! Trixie can see how badly you want this creature, and she’s not going to give it to you without some compensation for all her hard work!”

Twilight hoofed the ground anxiously, not really sure what was safe to do and what wasn’t. She felt like a workhorse in the ancient slave era; tethered to Trixie by a leash around her neck, simply waiting to be sold for a couple of pieces of metal. Still, the changeling—No, the unicorn held her head up as best she could, even though every muscle in her body screamed for her to let them sleep.

“Fine—five thousand. That’s all I have.” Spitfire almost snarled at Trixie when she said this. “Is that enough for you?”

Smirking in a very supercilious manner, Trixie said, “You have more than that. Trixie knows better than to trust the words of greedy ponies like you. She knows you’ll say anything to hold onto your wealth.”

“Fine, you can come into town with me and I’ll write you a check for ten thousand bits, if that’s what you want!” Spitfire seemed on the verge of desperation, and Twilight didn’t understand why. Her team of Night Guards seemed anxious as well, shifting back and forth and flexing their wings. “You can have every single damn bit in Equestria when we get into the town! Just give me that changeling!”

“Ten thousand bits?” repeated Trixie, sounding as though she were trying to seem disinterested and failing badly. “Hmm... Trixie will take your ten thousand bits... and she’ll take a public announcement that she’s a better magician than Twilight Sparkle.”

A couple of regular Royal Guards pushed their way through the crowd gathered at the end of the bridge. Like with the Night Guards, their auras inevitably turned to excitement and fear when they saw Twilight, and she heard the word changeling spoken at least once. Twilight knew she could have made out exactly what they were saying if she’d tried, because her hearing was so much more sensitive now—but she chose to block it out instead. It didn’t matter.

But it did seem to matter to Spitfire.

“Yes, okay!” the pegasus mare blurted out, looking completely panicked as she glanced between Trixie and the guards. “Okay, deal! Give me the changeling now!”

“You misunderstand Trixie,” Trixie told her with the air of somepony who had just won a game of chess and felt that rubbing it in was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. “She will give you the changeling after she’s done with her show. The Great and Powerful Trixie, you see, is far too clever to allow herself to be cheated by the likes of you. She knows you just want to steal her rightfully earned glory in addition to whatever you want this insignificant insect f—”

“You dumb bag of horseapples!”

With a frustrated snarl, Spitfire lurched forward towards Twilight, forelegs outstretched and wings snapping open with blinding speed in preparation to seize the changeling and take off. But Trixie, reacting with equally unnatural speed—it could only have come from some spell she was using to enhance her normal abilities—threw her hooves around the unresisting Twilight’s barrel and lit up a blindingly bright light on top of her horn that enveloped both is caster and her prisoner.

Twilight’s ears were filled with a terrible roar, like a canon going off, and all the other noise around her was swept up into it. Similarly, the lights of Ponyville, the Night Guards, Spitfire’s wide and panicked eyes, and the starry night sky, all whirled into a tornado and disappeared; all except for Trixie herself. For a brief moment, she passed through what felt like an empty void with Trixie, and then she felt solid earth under her hooves again. She didn’t have much of a chance to look around, as her tired legs gave out as soon as the light died away. Falling onto her front knees, Twilight emptied what little there was in her stomach—which amounted to a bit of fluid—onto the ground in front of her.

Few unicorns had both the skill and the raw power necessary to teleport, so Twilight had rarely been teleported as a passenger by another pony before. She had never been teleported without warning at all, making the experience an unpleasantly novel one as well.

“Trixie has not put on a real show in years,” Trixie was muttering as she feverishly cast a spell over the area around herself and Twilight. “She’s not about to let some pompous cloudstuffer ruin this one. Let’s see her try to ruin it now! And if she comes here, Trixie will give the tabloids some things to write about her anyway...”

Twilight finally raised her head, having finished being sick, and took stock of her surroundings for the first time. Not two meters away there was a stone fountain with a statue of a pony atop it; one she knew very well, as she saw it every time she stepped out through her front door each day. The buildings behind it were instantly recognizable as well, each one impressed upon her after seeing them over and over again for years. Alarmed, Twilight looked wildly around from left to right, and then scuffled about in the dirt until she could look behind her. There was the circular, multi-tiered town hall, and the empty space where her audience had gathered to listen to her speak about changelings. Everything in the town square was exactly as it had been when she had fled, except that it was night time now and the podium was gone.

Before she could do, say, or even think anything beyond oh dear Celestia please let it be over quickly, Twilight was yanked upward by the magic still leashing her to Trixie. She gagged and thrashed around, desperately struggling to get back to her hooves before the line wrapped around her throat choked her to death. She didn’t even make it all the way up before Trixie threw her down on the ground so that she lay in front of the unicorn like a defeated foe on a battlefield. Refusing to let Trixie humiliate her in such a way, the battered Twilight struggled up until she was resting on her good foreleg and not sprawled out pathetically in the dirt. By then, Trixie had turned her attention elsewhere.

“Citizens of Ponyville! Fillies and gentlecolts!” Trixie shouted, ignoring Twilight. Red magic dripped from her mouth along with her booming, magically amplified words, which had taken on an almost parodic imitation of the self-indulgent tone she’d announced herself in the first time she’d come to the town. “Come one! Come all! Learn the tragic fate of Twilight Sparkle, and learn how your very lives hung by a thread before The Great and Powerful Trixie came and vanquished the changeling threat!”

She reared up onto her hind legs and spread her front ones in a grand gesture of invitation as the water in the fountain began to glow on it own, soon casting a dancing red light over the whole town square. Other lights appeared around the perimeter soon after, where doors had been opened by ponies curious about the nature of all the noise. They congregated around Trixie, but seemed unable to pass closer than a few meters around her. Twilight concluded that was what she had been casting before she made everypony aware of her presence—a spell to keep hecklers away from her and her prize.

Soon, Trixie’s shouting had attracted a number of Ponyvillians, including several Twilight recognized; though she could see none she actually knew well. Just like her very first moments in the alien body she now inhabited, the changeling was surrounded by a terrifying mess of hostile emotions: anger, fear, hatred, disgust, and even pity; the last somehow worse than all the rest because of how insulting it was. Twilight did not want to die being pitied by the same mob that was tearing her to pieces—No, she would go out like a real pony when Trixie inevitably finished her show and had no more use for her; when the unicorn dropped the shield and teleported away, leaving Twilight at their mercy.

All her struggling finally paid off as she managed to lever herself back onto her three useable hooves and stood, shaking violently, to face her judgement. She was absolutely terrified, and she wanted Princess Celestia; but as the Princess’s personal student, she had to hold herself to a higher standard before these ponies, even when they didn’t know her real identity.

Twilight was ready to be judged.

“Aren’t you that crazy showmare that came through here a couple of years ago?” said one stallion to Trixie. He was looking her over with an unamused expression that didn’t seem to fit his laid back appearance—dark coat, blonde mane, and a smiley face for a cutie mark.“‘Cause if you are, you owe me about eight hundred bits, lady. You and your ursa smashed half my stuff.”

“Does keeping your town safe from a horde of murderous changelings not make up for Trixie’s supposed ‘crimes’?” Trixie shot back with a sneer. Not getting the contrite reaction she seemed to be hoping for, she added, “Fine! She’ll just let the next one overrun you if false accusations are how you’re going to thank her!”

“All I see is one beat-up changeling, not a horde of them!” another stallion yelled. Some of the other Ponyvillians expressed their concurrence with his statement, and he added, “And you shouldn’t have even brought it here to begin with! We’re supposed to let the guards handle them so we don’t get replaced!”

“Somepony get the Royal Guards!” a mare’s voice in the back called. “Y’know... if you haven’t already.”

“Every one of you shut up! The Underappreciated and Often-Heckled Trixie has not yet been given her rightful chance to tell her tale of heroism and bravery in the Everfree forest! All of you shut up and let her tell it!”

Several ponies started to snap back at her, but Trixie preempted them by setting off a huge bang from her horn. Startled off her hooves, Twilight fell back onto her haunches, but this time Trixie didn’t force her to get back up again—a good thing, too, because she didn’t think her body could handle getting up again at the moment. She settled instead for straightening her back and holding her head up high as she faced the showmare’s agitated audience.

The sudden, unnatural quietness from the collected ponies following the blast quickly made it clear to her that Trixie had cast some kind of blanket silencing spell on them. It was an impressive feat for a pony of any level of magical power at all, as there were very few books that told how to take away a pony’s voice and none at all that told how to do it on a large scale. Twilight figured—not that it really mattered to any part of her but the one that always needed to come up with explanations for such things—that Trixie must have had a background in spellcrafting, or at least made a very dedicated hobby of it at some point.

“Many of you, of course, remember Trixie... and the disaster she was unjustly accused of!” boomed Trixie, whose voice was still amplified, though to a lesser degree. She glared around as though daring somepony to disagree with her—but, of course, her spell prohibited such a thing. “You remember the damage done, and how it was unfairly blamed on the newcomer to spare a couple of wretched worms the punishment that was due! All that, in spite of her attempts to save everypony!”

A visual narration of Trixie’s story large enough to fill up the side of Applejack’s barn sprang up behind her, depicting a two colts—one fat and guffawing, the other skinny and vacant—leading an Ursa Minor into Ponyville. The image was soon replaced with one of destruction and carnage that far outstripped the real event, while a battered and bruised Trixie battled the Ursa with all her might. The rest of the story was told in a similarly exaggerated and edited manner, with a chubby, greasy, unattractive caricature of Twilight eventually taking credit for Trixie’s defeat of the creature. Truthfully, Twilight was rather glad for Trixie’s bias—seeing a real image of how she used to look would have hurt beyond words.

“Thanks to the lies that were told about her,” the increasingly angry unicorn continued, “she became a laughingstock! A joke! She couldn’t make a living by any means you’d want to talk about at your dinner table! Everywhere she went, she was persecuted and ostracized! She even had to take a job on a rock farm just to earn a decent living! A rock farm!”

Panting furiously, she paused and sat back to catch her breath, the amulet around her neck glowing brighter than ever. It seemed to actually pulsate with a faint heartbeat of its own, as though it were feeding off her anger.

The image of Trixie laboring beneath the sweltering sun on a rock farm to illustrate her plight—which had been preceded by images of her staring at herself in a lake, wandering around in the rain, having trash thrown at her, and so on—turned to a shadowy, foreboding sequence in which an indistinct mare who resembled Trixie’s caricature of Twilight was set upon by equally indistinct shadows that looked a lot like changelings.

“When she learned of the terrible, tragic fate of poor Twilight Sparkle—abducted and tortured at the hooves of changelings—” Trixie gave Twilight a violent shake for emphasis, whipping the changeling’s head back and forth. “—Trixie knew that she had to do something, in spite of her completely reasonable aversion to all things associated with the town that unjustly destroyed her life and livelihood. So, leaving her only source of food and income behind, she plunged into the Everfree forest to save the helpless, innocent pony!”

Now in full showmare mode, Trixie started animating her adventures with increasingly vivid displays of magic: a miniature Trixie fought her way through various mythical monsters said to live in the Everfree Forest—among them, a manticore, a hydra, a basilisk, Nightmare Moon, a suspiciously Discord-like draconequus, and a pack of timberwolves. Many of the ponies watching were rolling their eyes or otherwise expressing disbelief, but a few here and there seemed mildly interested. Something seemed to prevent them from leaving or turning away; perhaps Trixie had cast a spell on herself to make everypony pay attention to her, like many of Twilight’s professors had when she was at the Academy.

“At last, Trixie tracked the missing unicorn to the old fortress of Nightmare Moon, where she found a hive of changelings preparing to invade Equestria! She could not afford to take the time to go to the Guard, so she plunged in by herself, with only her wits and magic to keep her alive! Though she was set upon by the entire hive, she threw them off using arcane spells she learned in the far corners of the unexplored, uninhabited world!”

Little see-through changelings poured onto the illusory Trixie from all directions like a black and green flood. Many of the ponies in her audience opened their mouths in silent exclamations of surprise as the show suddenly became three-dimensional. Behind the army of insects, Twilight saw real soldiers—the Royal Guard—coming into the town square, but they, too, were stopped by Trixie’s barrier, and Trixie seemed utterly indifferent to them.

“Knowing that defeating the queen would stop the seemingly endless tide of changelings that threatened to pour into Equestria,” Trixie went on, surrounding Twilight with a faint red glow as she spoke, “she fought her way up to the highest tower of the castle, where she found the queen of the changelings herself...”

At first, Twilight’s tired brain didn’t fully understand that her legs were moving without her consent. Once it actually sank in, she panicked and tried to stop herself, but all the muscles that weren’t being manipulated by Trixie’s magic were being held in place. She could only watch, trapped as a prisoner inside her own body, as she rose to her hooves and became the queen in Trixie’s performance, exchanging senselessly cliched lines with the miniature Trixie as they ‘battled’. The only solace she could find in the incredibly humiliating role was that the spells being cast on her weren’t real, and didn’t actually hurt her.

“At last, after hours of fighting, Trixie and her forgotten arcane magic defeated the evil changeling queen!” shouted Trixie. As she said this, Twilight was allowed to slump against the fountain, where she struggled to keep from dry-heaving after the harrowing dance she’d been put through. “And as the queen lay there with her crown broken, Trixie demanded to know: Where is Twilight Sparkle?”

A sick, cold feeling entirely unrelated to her nausea spread through Twilight’s body, because she could already guess what was coming.

“And she said to Trixie...”

The ‘changeling queen’ struggled to keep her mouth shut when the magic surrounded her again, but it was a futile battle. Her mouth opened, and she said, “I killed Twilight Sparkle.”

Whatever Trixie said after that was lost on her, because everything that was Twilight was busy crashing down into an endless pit of hopelessness. As soon as she was able to move again, she lay down on her side and curled up, and began to cry silently.

How dare you, Twilight thought. How dare you do that to me. How dare you make me say that.

She repeated this out loud, though it was muffled by her jaws trying to clench together in anger: “How dare you...”

To her outrage, Trixie didn’t even pay attention to her; just continued rambling on about some absurdity only she could possibly dream up. Twilight was beginning to see red, but her body just seemed too sluggish and too disconnected from her mind to react; nor could she come up with a plan for how to proceed—though that really should have been her first option, she belatedly noted.

“...alas, Trixie was too late,” Trixie was saying. “She had found the dying mare, but poor Twilight Sparkle was beyond saving.  The evil changelings... had coldly and cruelly murdered her! Trixie held her as the very life drained from her mortal body!”

Trixie then paused dramatically, shedding a theatrical tear as she stepped back and conjured up an image on the ground before the now solitary Twilight.

Twilight peeked out around her hoof, her interest drawn more by the sudden flash of light than by real curiosity about what was going on. She quickly averted her eyes from the sight of her own dead body, with its empty, staring gaze, and broken limbs, and snapped horn. Beside it, she discovered, was an image of Trixie kneeling beside it and weeping—the ultimate picture being Trixie sobbing over the body of her friend while the murderer lay dead nearby, killed in a furious battle for the dying mare’s life.

Without even having to glance at the audience, Twilight could feel their anger and their disgust. They wanted to hurt her so badly that she could feel it driving into her brain, flowing into her own body. Everypony wanted to hurt her. At least, they all wanted to hurt her on one side—she was still blind on the other.

“...and she told Trixie as she died, that she wished for The Great and Powerful Trixie to take her noble place as Princess Celestia’s student,” said Trixie. “She said that Trixie was the only unicorn in Equestria great enough to fill such a role; that Trixie is, perhaps, a greater unicorn than Sparkle ever was...”

“How dare you...” Twilight whispered again, trembling with combined fury and hurt. A couple of tears slid down her cheeks. “How dare you use me like this... How dare you... How dare you...”

And thus would end Twilight Sparkle. Former unicorn, personal student of Princess Celestia, Element of Magic, the most powerful unicorn in centuries, and so on; now a changeling, a parody of herself, a broken and helpless shell too weak and timid to lift a hoof or say a word in her own defense, only able to look on and cry as another mare used her as a stepping stone towards fame and power.

After everything she had done, her studies in friendship should not have culminated in her own murder. She had never felt hate towards another pony before, but she did now—for the first time in her life, Twilight was angry in a way that made her want to hurt somepony; to inflict pain on them and make them hurt the way she had. Images of burning, dead, and dying ponies filled her head, and though she was absolutely terrified by her own thoughts, a part of her enjoyed it—let them feel what it was like to be afraid, and to be abused, and to be alone, and to be scared, and to suffer, and to know that everypony wanted them dead.

Sickened by the contents of her own mind, she pushed the disturbing thoughts as far away as she could. The feelings, however, kept coming, bombarding her from all sides, as though she were wrapped very tightly in a blanket of undiluted anger that was squeezing her mercilessly, trying to crush all the love out of her.

“...it was then that Twilight Sparkle died in Trixie’s very hooves,” said Trixie, who had now spent quite a while rambling in absurd detail about her attending to Twilight in her last moments. “Trixie buried her in the secret place she asked to be buried, which she will never reveal to any of you, and she is now fulfilling her last promise: to tell Twilight Sparkle’s story to Ponyville.”

The illusion of Trixie, which had been sitting by a translucent grave bearing Twilight’s name, disappeared, and the real showmare looked around for a moment in silence.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie thanks you for your attentiveness.”

Then her horn glowed scarlet, and another loud bang suddenly echoed around the town square. It was followed by a strange revving sound as everypony present had their voice returned to them. Those who had been mouthing silently at Trixie were suddenly given full volume with the breaking of the spell, causing a sudden cacophony of noise to bombard Twilight’s sensitive ears. She automatically pressed down on them to stop the unholy , causing another blast of random, painful empathy input to erupt from the one that wasn’t fused to her half-formed mane.

“You lying fraud!” was the first intelligible thing Twilight was able to make out from the noise. It seemed to be the first thing Trixie was able to make out, too, because her eyes widened and an expression of disbelief crossed her face.

“W-what?” the unicorn said. The gut-punched tone in which she said it wouldn’t have been out of place coming from a filly who had just been told their cutie marks were just identical and conveniently placed blotches of paint after having invited everypony in town to their cute-ceañera. “What did you say?”

“That story was completely made up,” the blonde stallion from earlier, the one with the smiley face for a cutie mark, said. “We’re not stupid.”

An angry-looking mare added, “Twilight Sparkle came back here this afternoon! I guess you missed the memo about that, though! Or maybe you just don’t care!”

Though Trixie didn’t appear to catch that one, Twilight did. She stopped breathing altogether and began desperately struggling to control her oversensitive hearing so that she could pick out more individual statements that weren’t just insults directed at the increasingly shaken Trixie.

“Stop it, all of you! The Tormented and Persecuted Trixie won’t stand for this! Stop heckling her!” Trixie shouted. “Stop it!”

“You’re a terrible pony, trying to exploit something like what Twilight went through!”

“First she brings a changeling into Ponyville, and then she makes up a story like that just to—I don’t even know...”

An empty bottle sailed through the air and clinked against the barrier Trixie had erected, though it didn’t break when it hit. At that moment, Twilight realized that the hostility she had sensed from Trixie’s onlookers had never been directed at her at all; it had been for Trixie. They were angry at the showmare for what she had been saying, not Twilight for her role in the insane performance.

“Cut the horseapples!” yelled a pony. “Twilight Sparkle’s not dead, and you know it, you psychotic fraud!”

“Then where is she, hmm? This changeling here told me she’s dead! It killed her! Where is she?” Trixie demanded.

Nopony appeared to buy it. “Get out of Ponyville, liar! Get out before you destroy the town again! Take your changeling with you!”

“Could everypony calm—oh, whew—calm down, please!” puffed a voice that seemed faintly familiar to Twilight. “Regardless of what she said or did, nopony should be throwing bottles at each other, for any reason at all! Oh, and I’m, um, not dead... Just to clarify.”

A frazzled, sleepy-looking unicorn mare wearing a bandage around her head slipped out from between some of the others gathered around Twilight and Trixie. She was panting heavily, having apparently galloped very fast for some distance to get there using a body that wasn’t exactly in the best physical shape.

This body was also quite familiar to Twilight; more so than the voice, which sounded a bit higher than she remembered, oddly. She knew that body better than anypony else alive, because she’d grown up wearing it, and looked at it in the mirror every morning when she got up. The mulberry coat, the violet-streaked mane, the carefully maintained horn, the starburst cutie mark that she herself was wearing a piece of on one flank—they all belonged to her.

Twilight was staring at a perfect replica of her true self.

VII. Psalm of Locusts

Just to clarify, there will not be any romance involving Spike in this story. o_o

Solitary Locust

Chapter seven: Psalm of Locusts

Twilight knew to some vague degree what she was looking at, but there was a disconnect between the part of her mind that was acknowledging it and the part that was supposed to figure out what to do next. One moment, the unicorn-shaped smudge was something she recognized, and then suddenly the unassembled pieces of her thoughts were running into a wall on either side, unable to connect and form solid ideas. The end result was rather like seeing a pony out of the corner of one’s eye or through a cloud of fog; in that the details were blurred and indistinct, and didn’t add up to anything recognizable despite the feeling of familiarity they evoked.

Everything began to slow down around her as she focused on that one spot, and her ears filled up with a noxious buzzing sound that drowned out all the noise of the gathered ponies. It drowned out even the words coming from that mare’s mouth, which was opening and closing at a crawling rate.

Her eyes fell upon the stars that adorned the mulberry mare’s visible flank. Like her own cutie mark—her real one—it showed a six-pointed star with five smaller stars orbiting around it. When she looked at where her own mark should be, she only saw a badly inflamed patch of bare skin with the remains of a solitary star.

She watched its mouth move as it spoke, and although she also heard the words it was saying, the way her senses had suddenly been sectioned from each other did not allow them to connect into a whole. The voice was certainly familiar, but it sounded higher and more nasal than Twilight’s own—much like it did on the water recordings she’d experimented with in her basement laboratory several years ago. There was a barely noticeable hint of a New Canterlot dialect in her speech, just like there had been in Twilight’s for her entire life.

Then the reality finally began to truly sink in, and with it came an accompanying sense of a sort of existential horror that few had ever felt. Like an old friend coming home after a long time apart, all the pieces of her briefly shattered mind slid back into their proper places. She was now able to understand what she had been trying with the utmost desperation not to: that somepony had stolen her very identity from her; that the last thing she had left to hold onto with the tips of her hooves as uniquely and exclusively hers had been ripped away from her and was now being worn like a second coat by a creature she’d never met in her life.

Beyond feeling like she’d had nails driven into her heart and her blood frozen until it burst from her veins, there was no real feeling to accompany that horror. Twilight was simply past the point where she was able to react to such developments anymore; where the fragments of emotions and sensations could coalesce into anything substantial. Even with the icy grip of reality holding her tightly, she felt oddly disconnected from the whole situation, like she was merely observing a series of events from outside her body. Everything—from the star cutie marks to the words coming from Not-Twilight’s mouth—seemed more appropriate for a surreal dream than anything.

It was Trixie who finally brought her out of her stupor. The showmare, having exhausted whatever well of impulsive vitriol she’d initially been spewing at Not-Twilight, seized her captive with magic and roughly dragged her to her hooves.

“Tell them again!” she urged the real Twilight, who was swaying on her hooves. “Tell them how—Tell them it’s a fake! It’s one of your kind! Say you killed the real one!”

A long tendril of red magic burst from Trixie’s horn, coiling on the ground before slithering up Twilight's leg and wrapping itself around her neck/throat. Once again, she found herself struggling to keep her mouth from opening and the words from pouring out of it. It was a completely futile battle that she could hardly begin to fight, much less hope to turn the tide of: “I killed the real Twilight Sparkle! That one is an imposter! I know my own kind! It escaped when The Great and Powerful Trixie mercifully spared—”

“Stop that!” Not-Twilight exclaimed; not at Twilight, but at Trixie. Her expression was one of genuine disgust. “Stop making it do that!”

Trixie’s smirk was full of narcissistic self-satisfaction and triumph as she said, “Are you afraid now because they know the truth?”

“Cut it out, you lying bully!” A familiar rainbow mane poked out of the crowd of ponies, which was beginning to be infused with Royal Guards on all sides. “D’you seriously think we’re gonna believe that thing? You’re using it like a... a... what’s that thing? Not a puppet. The one with strings.”

“Marionette...” Twilight croaked without thinking, at almost exactly the same time that Not-Twilight supplied the same thing.

“Marionette! That’s it. And, uh, it’s not gonna work. ‘Cause we’re not gonna take that.”

“And it’s against the law,” added Not-Twilight, rather self-righteously.

“Against the law?” Trixie repeated furiously. “Against the law? What law does The Great and Powerful Trixie have to follow? What law is it that she must bow to? What higher power is there in the land than The Great and Powerful Trixie? Tell her now!”

The magic around Twilight’s neck and hooves disappeared, allowing her to fall back over again while the imposter—looking rather startled by Trixie’s vehement and incredibly arrogant response—stammered a bit before blurting out an explanation. She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration for a moment, then recited in a stilted, nervous voice:

“That... that spell is illegal... when used... on sapient beings. Section four of the Regulation of Dangerous Magical Spells act prohibits the use of magic to mentally, physically, or emotionally take control of a sentient creature—one determined to possess both self-awareness, higher intelligence, and free will as per the Neighfilly test—without their explicit consent being given befor—”

“Shut up!” shouted Trixie, stamping her hoof on the ground. “You sound like an encyclopedia!”

“You still used an illegal spell, Tr... Trixie. That was the point I wanted to ma—”

“Trixie does as she pleases!”

“Not when she breaks Equestrian law, she doesn’t,” said one of the stallions wearing Inquisitor’s cloaks.

“Miss Sparkle is correct: that is in fact against the law for any reason other than self-defense,” a Royal Guard, whom Twilight guessed was the captain of the group stationed in Ponyville, added, “and attempting to incite mob violence doesn’t qualify as self-defense.”

“Yes,” Not-Twilight agreed rather timidly.

“All of you are completely insane to believe you can order The Great and Powerful Trixie to do anything! Trixie has more magical ability in her hoof than any of you will ever have in your entire bodies! Sparkle, you’ve humiliated Trixie enough to last her a lifetime! She demands that you answer for this grievous crime here and now!”

“Me?” squeaked the fake unicorn.

Doubling her aggression in the face of Not-Twilight’s apparent capitulation, Trixie spat, “Yes, you! Trixie challenges you to a magic duel, Sparkle!”

“Trixie, a magic duel isn’t... it’s not the proper way to solve this!”

The real Twilight watched the scene before her unfold with a sense that she was witnessing a dramatization of something from a book she’d read. It wasn’t everyday that one confronted an insane, vindictive showpony with a flair for the dramatic, and even less often that one was able to see oneself do it in third pony. She almost couldn’t remember which body she was supposed to be in: was she the unicorn who looked like Twilight Sparkle, or the maimed changeling with unicorn parts and memories that lay on the ground in front of the fountain?

“Are you scared, Sparkle?” sneered Trixie at Not-Twilight. “Afraid because you know Trixie is the superior unicorn?”

“I-I just don’t want to fight with you, that’s all. I’m n-not that kind of pony... mostly.”

“Is that a yes?”

“If you want to have a contest with me, we can do it in a lot of other ways. Having a potentially deadly showdown in a public place where a lot of ponies can get hurt is a terrible way to—”

“You arrogant little brat!” Trixie slammed her front hoof down on the ground. “Stop acting as if you care what happens! Trixie knows what ponies like you are really like! Ponies likeyou don’t give two horseapples about anypony but themselves! You had everything given to you as soon as you asked, just because you were lucky enough to have Celestia there to see you show off when you got your cutie mark! Trixie had to work for everything she has, and you took it away from her anyway! Twilight Sparkle, protégé of Princess Celestia! Why Celestia chose you is beyond Trixie; she must be going senile after so many years of raising the sun every morning.”

“Trixie,” said the fake Twilight sharply. “I understand that you’re angry at me, and I d-do understand why—somewhat—but please be respectful and leave Princess Celestia out of this.”

Trixie just laughed at her. “Trixie’s rival is one of those unicorns, is she?”

Reddish-green magic collected around the tip of Trixie’s horn, creating a bizarre kind of light that looked like a glowing ball of mud. Before Twilight could even comprehend what was about to happen to her, the insane unicorn struck her in the chest with the spell. A confusing mess of pain, fire, and numbness crashed down upon Twilight as her magic went haywire. Stripes of agony erupted up and down her body, and she let out a hoarse screech as her bones all began to morph and change shape. A vortex of emerald fire erupted out of her horn’s tip and surrounded the writhing changeling for a split second.

As if in slow motion, Twilight watched her black legs turn the purest white she’d ever seen, leaving behind a feeling like she’d just been skinned alive. Traveling down her thighs, the white coat became gold, eventually revealing an image of a beaming sun. On her back she could feel her wings bulging and then bursting as feathers pushed through, and they became large and white and swan-like, full of nerves that fired random bursts of pain into her body.

And then it was over. Dizzier than ever, Twilight remained where she had fallen, panting sharply. Twilight’s eyes flicked wildly back and forth, and she saw cascading down from either side of her head a mane like a wild, flowing rainbow. It was still sizzling with electricity, and each shock made her body jerk and twitch spastically. Somehow, she had the presence of mind to avert her eyes from looking at her her lower body and reposition her legs in more modest pose, still determined to respect the Princess no matter what the circumstances. It made her uncomfortable, being in the Princess’s body—Twilight was not worthy of such a thing, and she knew it. Princess Celestia was a goddess, the queen of the day, the guardian of the light; and she, Twilight Sparkle, was a mere mortal unicorn, or changeling, or whatever she was now. Wearing such a divine form felt so painfully wrong.

Through all the confusion, Twilight came to a crude understanding of what had happened to her: she had just transformed into Princess Celestia. Or, rather, a miniaturized version of the Princess—like a tiny, changeling-sized alicorn. Otherwise, as far as she could tell, she was a perfect replica of her mentor; right up to the elongated horn on top of her head.

“Look! Look, Sparkle! It’s Celestia!” Trixie shouted, pointing a the emaciated parody of the goddess her spell had generated and clapping her hooves together obnoxiously. It must have been Trixie’s demented idea of a joke—like a revealing spell cast in reverse. “Are you angry? Are you offended? Does it sicken you to see your goddess brought so low?”

“Stop it!” cried Not-Twilight. Her face was a portrait of horror and disgust, like Trixie was actually tearing apart the real Princess Celestia in front of her. “Change it back! Can’t you see you’re hurting it! How can you be so cruel?”

Many of the ponies watching them were voicing similar sentiments of outrage, though whether at Trixie’s words or the fact that she’d turned a changeling into Princess Celestia was unknown to Twilight. Either way, Trixie seemed to have passed the point where they were affecting her, and she was only getting more and more arrogant with each word that came out of her mouth.

“The Magnificent and All-Powerful Trixie can do whatever she pleases! She is Trixie! She doesn’t have to answer to your pitiful little Celestia!” she proclaimed. Once again, she pointed gleefully at Twilight, who’d sat back on her haunches, unable to remain standing but unwilling to lie down, either. “Celestia is pathetic! Celestia is weak! Celestia can’t stop Trixie from doing what she wants! Trixie is more of a creator than Celestia will ever be!”

She cast the same spell on Twilight again. From far away, Twilight experienced a horrifically familiar sensation: that of her body having its skin peeled off all over again. The transformation was quicker and less painful this time, but she could still feel her bones shifting under her skin, distorting again to take on their previous shapes. Though wasn’t anywhere near as terrible as it had been the first time around, even a shadow of that experience was positively hellish in its own right.

Even as the irregular circular holes in her legs opened up and widened, Twilight noticed patches of mulberry opening up, all of them in exactly the same places as before. Trixie had not simply turned her back into a changeling; she had deliberately turned her back into the demented hybrid between a changeling and herself that she had become in the bubble. Green blood seeped out from the reopened wounds, which had briefly faded into reddish marks on Celestia’s body.

“Stop that! You’re torturing it! How dare you do such a cruel thing!”

The familiar voice belonged to an equally familiar yellow pegasus who pushed past everypony else and stormed right up to Trixie to glare at her. Fluttershy had that very rare expression of anger on her face; the one that tended to accompany her use of The Stare.

“What’s it to you?” Trixie spat. “It’s just a cockroach.”

“It has feelings! It’s obviously in pain! It doesn’t want to be here! You’re torturing an innocent creature—”

There was no malice in the word creature, but Twilight cringed inside anyway, knowing that even Fluttershy thought of her as subequine now.

“—and there’s absolutely no excuse for doing that! You turn right around and go back to your rock farm, and you sit and think about how you would feel if you were the one being treated like this!”

Apparently, the magic turning Trixie’s eyes red offered her some protection from whatever arcane force was behind The Stare, because she initially failed to react to it beyond taking a few steps backward and looking bewildered. Then she started nodding slowly, a completely terrified expression crossing her face as The Stare began to affect her.

Fluttershy was abruptly bumped out of the way by Not-Twilight, who looked quite panicked indeed. As soon as her eye contact with Trixie was broken, the blue unicorn began to snap out of her trance, shaking her head and looking increasingly angry about what had just happened to her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” said the fake to Fluttershy, waving her hooves around and gesticulating anxiously as she spoke. “I think you should stay back for now—No, all of you should stay back. Really! I don’t want any of you to get hurt!”

“Twi?” That voice belonged to Applejack, who had started out of the crowd of ponies toward Not-Twilight as well.

The other mare continued, now becoming somewhat out of breath in her frenzy, “Because, because, you’re my friends, s-so you getting hurt would be very upsetting to me, so I think, I think you should all—”

She let out a panicked scream when Trixie cast a spell in her direction that tore up the ground and left a sizzling black line in its wake where it touched. Fortunately for Not-Twilight, Trixie was still disoriented from the aftereffects of The Stare, so her spell went quite wide and ended up doing nothing more than harmlessly burning an empty stretch of dirt; even if she had been focused enough to aim properly, she would have missed anyway because the imposter skittered out of the spell’s path.

Trixie spun around and struck at the Royal Guards who were moving to neutralize her, throwing up a wall of fire between them and herself that extended from one side of the town square to the other. A third spell shattered half the stone fountain, causing water to gush out all over the real Twilight, and a fourth blew up a spot on the ground and showered dirt everywhere. Trixie had very little actual finesse with her spells and clearly hadn’t cast combat magic before, but her apparent determination, anger, and raw power more than made up for it at the moment.

“Trixie can’t believe you were the one to ruin her life!” she sneered at Not-Twilight, who was cowering pitifully on the ground where she’d fallen in shock after the most recent explosion. “She’s happy to take you down to where you belong: whimpering like an animal before h—”

The ground beneath Trixie suddenly erupted into a shower of yet more dirt and filth as the insane showmare was lifted up into the air inside a shimmering golden bubble. Caught off guard, she failed to adjust to the sudden change in footing and landed heavily on the bottom, her mouth open in a silent cry of outrage. She spent a moment flailing about, then climbed back to her hooves and began banging on the wall of the sphere—but it was a futile exercise, and it wasn’t long before she stopped in favor of glaring murderously at everypony. A rather pudgy white mare with a red-and-blue mane and a three-starred cutie mark slipped into the light cast by Trixie’s still active self-contained spell that made the partially destroyed fountain shine. Her horn was glowing with an almost blindingly bright gold aura; the same one given off by the spell holding Trixie captive.

Ever since Trixie’s last spell had blown up the ground, the imposter Twilight had lain flat against the dirt with her forelegs over her head, clearly expecting another burst of magic. She remained cowering like this until Applejack’s hoof gently touched her shoulder, at which point she finally uncurled and peeked out at the farmpony from behind her shaking hooves.

“Ya okay there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked her gently. The other mare nodded after a moment of tense silence, allowing herself to be helped back to her hooves by the other mare.

“I-I’m sorry... I just froze up...” she squeaked. She was still trembling and jumping at every little noise. “J-just didn’t know what to do... It w-was... it was scary...”

From a distance away, Twilight Sparkle watched her friends comfort the pony pretending to be her, and it finally sank in just how painful the situation was. There was an imposter pretending to be her. The realization struck Twilight hard: there was a pony who had taken her place; was living her life. It wasn’t fair. She was Twilight Sparkle, not the ‘unicorn’! That was her body being used! Someone was using her body, living her life, sitting in her library, leafing through her books, alone with her Spike for hours at a time, putting her friends in danger, writing letters to her princess—

Sparks fell from Twilight’s horn as she began to lose what little control of her magic she still had left. A searing pain shot up her hind leg, and she turned to watch a stripe of blue coat bubble up through a ring of sickly green fire that reached up to her thigh. One of her wings snapped open on its own as it twisted and deformed, the chitin first sharpening into long knives and then softening to become feathers. The wing stopped there, with only two functioning primaries and patches that were still completely see-through. Her body itself was changing on its own, perhaps as a final, primitive attempt to keep her alive in the face of so much hostility.

“I don’t think you should be out here right now, though.”

The other Twilight was protesting to thereal Elements of Harmony, all of whom were now with her. There was still a nervous quaver to her voice, and her eyes were flicking back and forth between the other five ponies and the imprisoned Trixie as she tugged anxiously at her tail. “Although I distinctly remember Trixie being a mediocre magician the first time we met, she seems to have improved significantly...”

“‘More like ‘terrible’,” muttered Rainbow Dash. “And a bully, to boot.”

“All the more reason for you to s-stay back! I don’t know what she’s capable of, e-especially with her improved magical abilities.”

“Ooh! Ear flick... itchy belly button... tingly that-one-tooth-that-tingles-when-it-tingles...” muttered Pinkie, utterly ignoring the others.

“Nu-uh. You just got back, and I’m not just gonna stand back and let this maniac threaten my friend,” Dash shot back at Not-Twilight.

“But you might get hurt. Please go. I can handle this on my own.”

Pinkie Pie’s tail twitched, then contorted into a strange zigzag that resembled a lightning bolt.

“Twilight, darling, you’ve just had a traumatic experience. You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“Yes, that would make sense. But you should still go! It would be bad if you got hurt, Rari—”

“My Pinkie Sense says we’re about to have a spinning blade of death shot at our heads!” announced Pinkie. “That means we should get down on the ground so we can still talk to each other afterward, ‘cause it’s hard to talk when you don’t have a head!”

She seized Fluttershy, who was nearest, and dragged her down into the dirt. Three of the other four ponies followed her, leaving only a panicked, frazzled, and confused looking mulberry unicorn to put her hoof to her head and glance ever more rapidly back and forth between them.

“Pinkie Sense? Oh, that—Right—”

At that moment, Applejack bit the Twilight-like mare’s tail and jerked her out of the way; just in time to prevent a whirling pinwheel of many colours from decapitating her. The spell spun into the side of a house instead of into Not-Twilight's neck and dissipated, leaving behind only an ominous red glow that flickered like it was a pile of coals stuck to the wall—a sign that it had been powerful dark magic.

Trixie was still inside the bubble, but her horn was glowing red in spite of the golden electricity connected to it—to which she seemed to be immune. The showmare had a look of twisted, triumphant amusement plastered across her face, darkening her features to make her look almost demonic.

Instead of casting her unknown dark spell through the bubble again, which might have afforded her some protection against counter-magic, she chose to begin cutting into the bottom of the bubble with the red tip, quickly cutting out the floor beneath her hooves before anypony could even react to what she was doing. Falling in a heap on the ground, she became tangled in her cloak for a second, but a reddish shield erupted around her to ward off the guards that rushed to subdue her. When she’d finally freed herself and gotten back on her hooves, Trixie looked to Not-Twilight, eyes suddenly burning with intense and passionate hatred, as she tore the cloak from her body altogether and levitated it aside into the mud beside the real Twilight.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie will not be so easily subdued!” she snarled. A three-meter-long whip made of fire burst out of her horn as she shouted and lashed through the air, ending in a terrifying snapping noise as it narrowly missed its star-flanked target. Twilight Not-Sparkle, rather predictably, backed up and fell over in terror, struggling to get as far away from the madmare as she could.

Almost immediately after that, Trixie had to turn and block a spell from the huge white unicorn leading the Inquisitors; a spell so powerful its brilliance left spots in Twilight’s eyes. For the first time, Twilight witnessed real battle magic in use: a blur of devastation exchanged between Trixie and what seemed to be the whole of the Canterlot Inquisition that far outstripped what few things Princess Celestia had ever taught her about magical combat.

The gathered townsponies, who’d only just begun to creep back up after Trixie had first been imprisoned, fled for shelter with the full blessings of the Royal Guard. The latter seemed more interested in preventing anypony from getting hurt than in engaging Trixie, preferring to allow the Inquisition to take care of her. Because so many ponies had gathered there, however, there was an uncontrollable stampede of frightened Ponyvillians all trying to escape the danger zone at the same time. There were so many ponies looking at her as they rushed past in a single moment, their feelings all jumbled up into a wide range of emotions. Many were displaying fear or hostility, just as before—even the most sympathetic of their emotions were tainted by some form of negativity or other.

One leg at a time, Twilight crawled to her hooves, desperate to get away from the barrage of psychic negativity—terror, anger, hurt, pain; too much bad go away leave me alone oh please leave me alone—flowing freely from her surroundings. She fixed her wide eyes on a single, almost random, point in the distant shadowed streets that fed into the town square and moved in whatever ways her ruined body was still capable of to get from the open into the darkness. It called to her; invited her to lie in its comforting arms and hide from the burning lights that wanted to destroy her again and again and again.

Nopony seemed to notice her slow plodding towards the welcoming safety of the dark, as they were all too focused on their own escape to pay her any mind. Even if they had, Twilight could hardly separate one from the many anyway. She was crushed beneath the sheer flood of fear coming from all around; like a little black-and-lavender marble wrapped in a thick shroud of increasingly ugly feelings and no way out...

Even lifting her head a fraction of an inch to make sure she wasn’t going to walk into somepony else cost her a terrible effort. And when she did finally look around with her tired eyes, Twilight was almost startled to find that not only had she almost reached the shadows, but they were already occupied. A couple of earth ponies had taken cover behind a cart at the end of the street, probably hoping to watch the battle going on in the square without getting hurt. Their stupidity would have annoyed Twilight had she not been more concerned with remembering how to back away from them, as she was less than a pony’s length away and staring into their coagulated fear...

...and staring into their love.

It hit her like a moving mountain that there were lovers among the hiding ponies. Young lovers, the kind whose love burned bright and fast and was so utterly physical that Twilight couldn’t help but feel as if she’d had the emotion injected straight into her bloodstream. Their fear of her, and the resulting concern they felt for one another, only amplified it still more.

And at that moment she was racked with something bizarre she’d never felt before. All capacity for higher thought seemed to vanish from the changeling’s mind, leaving her struggling to remember where she was, what was going on, and why all of it was happening. The closest Twilight was able to come to fully identifying it was a sense that she’d just stepped into a horrible nightmare where she no longer had control over any of her body’s functions. Twilight’s good foreleg gave way under her, as for some reason she lacked the ability to make its muscles do anything but twitch uselessly all of a sudden.

There were only a hooffull of very strong, very well-defined thoughts still floating around in her head, and she latched onto them and didn’t let go. The next part of her life passed in a blur of these thoughts and a few overly vivid images.

Twilight is hungry

Twilight sees food

Twilight applies the changeling process for feeding

Twilight’s body alters appropriately to reflect the form her target desires

Twilight is in pain but not really in pain

Twilight casts a spell now

Twilight casts a spell now

Twilight casts a spell now

Her brain seemed to have stopped, repeating the same command over and over without response; like a broken record skipping back to the same words every few seconds. The changeling took a few steps toward her food, horn glowing with a nebulous green energy that might or might not have evolved into a spell to steal their love if she’d been able to complete the order. As it was, she suddenly ran face-first into a hoof belonging to one of the stallions and reeled back, her already broken nose smarting badly from the attack.

Twilight did not actually fall, though she swayed dangerously and sagged back into the dirt, sitting on her haunches, her already limited movement further restricted by the way some of her muscles were contorting by themselves—continuing to take steps forward even after she’d been pushed out of the appropriate posture to utilize such movements. Tears and green blood now streamed down her already filthy face, but she felt no real pain. Instead, Twilight just looked at her attacker with glazed eyes.

“S-sorry,” the stallion who’d hit her stammered when she looked up at him. He was very familiar, but not enough that Twilight was able to place him through the haze before giving up. “I didn’t want to! You w-were just coming real close... and you look like m-my neighbor...”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Twilight slurred back in a near monotone, shaking her head rhythmically from one side to the other for some reason she’d forgotten long before she started doing it. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I th-think I’m late for something. Might be—”

“What?”

Might be... Spike is eating all the ice cream, and I need’ta go write a friendship report. I’m sorry. Can I get back t’ya in a... back t’ya in a second. I’m sorry. Might be tardy if I don’t—when Spike eats all the—I’m sorry... I don't think I'm okay... Sorry...”

With a sickening lurch, all of Twilight’s muscles relaxed at once, causing her to slump forward slightly. Her thoughts rushed back in a sudden, dizzying blur. Even her blinking eyelids were momentarily paralyzed by the pain of having her stolen skin ripped away yet again. A tingling sensation began to travel up her forelegs. Looking dumbly down, Twilight saw green fire whirling around them, just as each of her other transformations had featured.

This time, though, there was also a strange sense of relief along with her torture: this transformation wasn’t just reverting her back to her previous mutated form. When the fire died away, Twilight was able to look straight through one of the holes in her foreleg again for the first time since getting out of the bubble, the horrid lavender membrane that had covered it now absent. She was a simple changeling again, and for some reason she found this preferable to being a disgusting hybrid of two races.

Better one without pain than two in agony.

Looking up, she discovered that she was alone in the shadows now. Sometime during her rambling attempt to remember how to apologize, she’d been abandoned by her fearful near-hostage audience—and she hadn’t even noticed. Nowhere in her memories did she have any recollection of the ponies she had been talking to leaving her. When she touched the ground in front of where she had been sitting for the last who-knew-how-long, she found it wet—and that was when the acrid stench truly hit her partially smashed nose.

A combination of disgust and fear bubbled up inside Twilight. She stumbled to her hooves and ran—or did the best she could to run—away from that place. It was an absurd thing to be afraid of the logical consequence of losing control of most of her muscles, but her less rational subconscious brain was screaming at her that this place was evil; that it represented the culmination of all the hell she had been through, all the shame and humiliation she’d suffered, and the new life that had been forced upon her to replace what that one moment in time had stolen.

Step by painful step, Twilight Sparkle shambled through the shadows in the street leading away from the town square. Her broken leg was no longer held up at an angle, but dragging along the ground since she had neither the will nor the strength to carry it properly.

The street was completely and eerily deserted. To her relief, the maelstrom of negativity had finally broken while she was disconnected from reality. Whatever had happened between Trixie and the Canterlot Inquisition had likely happened some time ago, and her presence had somehow been overlooked by the ponies who had passed her by. It was a mystery how that had happened—perhaps she had held the transformation well enough to fool passersby into thinking she was just another pony; albeit one staring into space and blankly reciting meaningless strings of words at a cart.

Yet again, she’d narrowly missed having her horn pulled off...

“Hey, it’s still trying to use magic... What if it attacks somepony?”

“Aren’t there things you can put over a unicorn's horn to make it not work?”

“D’you mean a limiter? Don’t the police use—”

“Look at its horn! Do you think you could get a limiter on that thing? We’ll have to break it off if we want to keep it from escaping or hurting somepony!”

Twilight shuddered as the terrible memory invaded her thoughts. It was such a vivid recollection that she felt as if she’d been dragged straight back through time to join her past self in that ocean of evil once again. With a soft sob, she huddled into a ball on the ground, her good hoof still outstretched in protest against a group of silent assailants which had long since parted ways with her.

“Twilight... stop, stop, stop,” she gasped to herself. “It’s a flashback. I had a flashback. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine... Shh... don’t overreact to this. I’ve been through a severe traumatic experience. It’s a-a natural reaction to stress. N-nothing’s wrong.”

With a soft thump, she rocked forward and planted her forehoof on the ground, then raised herself up to her usual height, looked around, and sat back down again. The motion was accompanied by a heavier thumping sound.

“Okay... List. Lists are good. Need to make a list... Need to organize. I don’t know, I don’t know... I need Princess Celestia! Oh, what am I going to—Stop. Stop, Twilight...” Twilight paused deliberately and took a long, deep breath, putting her forehoof up against her head. “Okay... okay... Shh... Calm down...”

I am h-having a panic attack,” Twilight recited, still breathlessly. “Now that I know I am having a panic attack, I also... also know that all of this is an overreaction. The things I am thinking are n-not an objective analysis of my situation. They are the result of a d-disp-p-proportionate r-response to stress by my nervous system... which does not... th-think rationally... as I am capable of doing...”

She sniffled slightly.

“...I am an intelligent, competent u-unic-c-c...unicorn... and I can solve this problem s-satisfactorily... if I regain control over my faculties... and organize myself...”

Slowly, she continued onward, quietly repeating the last portion of her mantra to herself every so often:

“I am an intelligent, competent unicorn, and I can solve this problem satisfactorily if I regain c-control over my faculties and organize myself... I am an intelligent, competent unicorn, and I can solve this problem satisfactorily if I regain control over my faculties and organize myself... I am an intelligent, competent unicorn, and I can solve this problem satisfactorily if I regain control over my faculties and organize myself...”

After wandering aimlessly for house after house with her head lowered, too tired to keep it up, Twilight literally bumped into the endpoint of her journey: a wooden door set in the trunk of a tree. The door had a little brass slot at about knee height with Book Return engraved in it.

“Oh,” she said to herself in mild surprise.

And when she staggered back, there too was the familiar house it belonged to: the Golden Oaks Library. That her seemingly random steps had subconsciously led her back to her library-in-a-tree felt oddly natural and right to Twilight, as did the sight of her favorite place in Equestria after such an endlessly long time away from it. When one had nowhere left to go, one went home.

On one hoof, she knew there was a good chance her double had already returned there after such a long time had passed, but on the other, she didn’t care very much at that very moment. The library was home, and home offered a chance for her to rest at last; to find relief from the endless abuse she’d been put through for the last few days. After only a moment of consideration, Twilight decided it was more than worth the risk to enter—she had neither time nor energy left to waste debating the matter with herself as it was.

She dug around into the bushes behind the library sign, slowly leaning in until only her hindquarters were still visible outside. After quite a bit of clumsy, almost aimless fumbling with her hooves through the leaves, rocks, and dirt, Twilight finally found an object that was shaped and textured like a stone but quite a bit warmer and lighter in weight. Triumphant, she flipped the fake plastic rock upside down and pried the little plastic cover off the bottom. Her spare housekey clinked out into the dirt, and she gingerly picked it up between her teeth.

Twilight tumbled into the Golden Oaks Library once she got the key into the lock and turned it, having leaned on the door both for support and to push it open because she had so little strength left. Luckily, she managed to catch herself before that happened, and ended up stumbling into the library without falling—though she very nearly swallowed the key still in her mouth, which slipped back into her throat for a second when she parted her jaws in surprise. She coughed and choked on the metal object, frightened for a moment that she would actually swallow it, but it dislodged itself again after that and tumbled out of her mouth onto the floor.

The inside of the library was quiet save for the rhythmic ticking of the large, book-shaped ‘Reading Is Fun!’ clock that hung on the wall on the other side opposite the doorway, and the hardly noticeable hum of the power generator that kept the library supplied with (environment-friendly) electricity even when the rest of Ponyville had power outages. A soothing smell of old books, crisp parchment, and ink permeated the air; something that Twilight almost rushed to huff into her lungs as fast as possible after that first breath she took inside. A distinct lack of magic being cast at her, or indeed any movement at all beyond her own, made it quite clear that Twilight’s double was either asleep or not home at all. Either one was quite good enough for Twilight, who only wanted to be left alone now.

Once she’d replaced the housekey in its hiding spot outside—order and organization meant everything; even, and especially, when her life was being systematically torn apart—Twilight shuffled back in and shut the door. Then she finally allowed herself to sink down onto the floor, gasping. The understanding that she was finally somewhere both familiar and (almost) safe and was nearly overwhelming, quickly bringing tears to her eyes.

Nothing truly mattered just then except for the joy that flooded Twilight as she looked around and realized that she was finally home. Finally back in her favorite place in Equestria, with her books, quills, laboratory, and the general tools ponies used to keep themselves civilized. This was where she belonged; not the rotting ruins of the Everfree church, or some stinking changeling hive deep beneath the earth. This was Twilight Sparkle’s homeland: a room full of books and knowledge.

In the time she’d been away, nothing had really changed around the library—at all. With a conditioned pang of annoyance, Twilight noted that the pile of books Spike was to have reshelved during and following her short presentation in the square remained untouched. She immediately felt very guilty for getting even slightly irritated at Spike’s unproductive behavior: her number one assistant had probably been very upset after what happened; of course he wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Still, a part of Twilight wanted very badly to go and put those books away where they belonged—it was a strong enough want that she probably would have done it if she’d had the energy. But she didn’t have anything approaching the energy or focus to reshelve almost a week’s worth of library books, and it was a completely impractical thing to do at that time anyway, so she averted her eyes from the pile and turned her attention elsewhere.

It was quite dark throughout the room, the only light coming from a candle next to Twilight’s reading desk—which caught her gaze by reminding her that she had been studying a huge collection of very technical information about changelings the night before her ordeal began. The logical outcome of recalling this was that Twilight realized she now had a chance to give herself that one badly needed hint that would allow her to solve the mystery of her transformation.

But, when her eyes fell upon the actual desk, the ex-unicorn discovered that it was  the only part of the library that had changed significantly since she’d last been inside. The work she had been reading over was stacked on the floor beside the desk, but by the time she fully registered it, she was already distracted by what had replaced it in its previous spot. Squinting curiously, Twilight lurched back to her hooves and gravitated toward the desk to look more closely at the small pile of letters that had replaced her changeling research from the night before the presentation.

Upon more minute inspection, the letters were not, in fact, letters, but cards made from construction paper. They were arranged in a way that looked as though they had originally been stacked up, but had then pushed over at some point, so only the top one was fully visible. It had a very crude picture of a purple pony with a horn on its head on the front.

With a hoof that trembled slightly from her combined exhaustion and the emotional impact of seeing such a thing, Twilight nudged the top card off the toppled pile and slid it over to open it. Inside, in foal-like hoofwriting that was equally as scribbly as the picture on the front, was a message:

Dear Miss Twilight Sparkle, my name is Silver Spoon and my teacher’s name is Miss Cheerilee. I hope that you are okay and we are thinking of you and when you get back this card is also a gift card to buy whatever you want at my daddy’s store free of charge it doesn’t matter what it is you can have it for free.

Twilight closed the card over again, breathing somewhat raggedly, and opened the next one without sliding it off the pile. It was from Applejack’s sister, Applebloom, and had an invitation to take as many apples as she wanted from Sweet Apple Acres the next time she came around, as well as a similar statement that everypony was thinking of her and hoped she was alright.

Each of the cards she opened shared that basic formula: they were gift cards and get-well cards rolled into one. Twilight guessed that Cheerilee must have had her class write cards to soothe their distress over the town librarian’s apparent abduction and make them feel like they were doing something to help—lest one or three of them go off alone into the forest to search for her on their own...

Strangely, she didn’t actually know what she was supposed to feel at that moment. She wasn’t even sure whether the confusing mess that used to be her emotions was currently capable of producing the appropriate response. There were tears rolling down her cheeks, but Twilight couldn’t understand why seeing the cards was making her cry—it made no sense; nothing made sense. Unsettled and unnerved by her own disjointed reaction to them, she slowly backed away from the desk, though it took her until she bumped against the wall to actually tear her eyes away from it. She looked to her right, and found herself looking up the stairs that led to her small apartment above the library.

The noxious smell of her urine and accumulated days without a proper shower was especially overpowering just then, as Twilight thought of the bathroom upstairs—in particular, the bathtub. Even the dull, gnawing emptiness of her hunger couldn’t steal her attention away from the sense of filthiness anymore. What she needed wasn’t about hiding anymore, or getting back to her friends, or even eating love to keep herself alive. It was far more simple: Twilight wanted to go take a bath and clean the physical and metaphorical filth from herself. Perhaps, if she scrubbed hard enough, she would uncover a genuine spot of mulberry beneath all the ugly chitin. And if not, maybe she could clean herself so thoroughly her nerves wouldn’t feel anything anymore.

Most of all, she was reminded as a spike of pain stabbed through her horn, there was something upstairs she needed badly.

It took her some time and effort to get up the steps, but she was rewarded with a sense of relief and safety when she finally limped past the Please do not enter—Private property! sign on the ‘front door’ of the second floor. It was quiet upstairs; devoid of life as it had been downstairs save for Twilight herself. The former unicorn caught a faint hint of jasmine through her smashed nose when she shuffled past the kitchen—she guessed her double had probably had some recently.

On the right side of the end of the short hallway, there was a door leading to Twilight’s bedroom and study. A few steps past this was another door; one that opened into the bathroom. The natural wooden floor ended at the doorframe here. On the other side it abruptly transitioned into the cheap ceramic tiles Twilight had bought a year ago and installed with the help of Applejack and Fluttershy, both of whom had far more experience with home installation than she did. Twilight’s three-hooved walk went from muffled wooden thumps to grinding clicks that, for some reason, irritated her more sensitive ears greatly. She tried to cross the bathroom without making any more of the unbearable sounds, but it didn’t work very well since she could still pick up the clicking as though it were happening right next to her ears no matter how softly she tread across the tiles.

At last, she finished her walk of agony and sat down beside the bathtub to try and clear her buzzing mind. This, too, wasn’t a particularly successful endeavor, because every little thing—from the little spot on the bottom of the tub to the way the light reflected off one of the tiles near her—seemed to drag her attention away from what she was trying to consider before she even realized it was being tugged on.

“List,” Twilight mumbled after a while. “Need to make a list. Lists’re good. Need to check over... get clean... relax...”

She glanced dumbly around the bathroom and did her best to size up what she had available to her, deliberately avoiding looking at her own reflection in the mirror above her sink. The relatively short periods of productive thinking were repeatedly interrupted by longer stretches of confusedly staring at the wall.

Then, quite suddenly, she lurched over to the toilet and tried to bump the seat up as a particularly strong wave of nausea hit her. Luckily, though she just banged her leg, chin, and chest on it instead of getting it open, Twilight’s stomach had nothing to vomit up during the series of spasms that followed except for a vile-tasting belch of air. She spent the next minute or two breathing heavily over the open toilet, unsure if her body was going to try and eject something from her stomach again. It turned out that it apparently didn’t plan on doing so, if only after a lot of awful churning.

Somehow, the episode of dry-heaving had actually made her feel a bit more focused, having relieved a feeling of general malaise she hadn’t even been aware she’d been under the influence of. Now Twilight was able to look up and glance around, just a bit more collected and just a bit more coherent, and put two thoughts together to form an intention; a plan to do something that wasn’t just reactionary.

“Right... right... the list. The list... The list?”

There was no list to consult, Twilight realized, because there was simply nothing left to do.

To think that she would get lucky again and manage to escape was preposterous to Twilight—a mare whose life and thoughts revolved around logic and measurement. The chances of another fortunate escape were already lower than dirt when Trixie brought her back to Ponyville on a leash, and after what had taken place that evening, she knew her luck wasn’t going to hold for another encounter. It was simply absurd to think anypony could keep getting random lucky breaks forever.

So instead of making some futile, halfhearted attempt to run or hide, Twilight Sparkle decided that she was going to live it up as best she could for what remained of her freedom. And of all the things she could have wanted to do with her time at that very moment, Twilight yearned to do that which was truly symbolic of civilized life, more than anything else.

She wanted to have a proper bath.

Almost as soon as she turned on the tap and touched the warming water coming out of the faucet, Twilight sighed. Simply being able to wash herself like a real pony was a luxury she had taken for granted all her life—but now, after she’d spent days in the filth and mud, covered with her own gore and bodily fluids, she truly appreciated how amazing it was. Right there, Twilight decided that every bath she took from that point on, whether she had only this final one or a hundred thousand, would be treated as something unequivocally priceless and special.

Sitting on the edge of the tub as steam from the hot water began to fill up the bathroom (and, oddly, mist up the shinier parts of her chitin armor a little), she held up her broken foreleg and examined it to see just how dirty the bandages had gotten.

To her surprise and slight bewilderment, the bandaged part of her leg was one of the few places not caked with mud and filth from her trek through the forest. Twilight distinctly remembered being concerned about infection after slogging twice through the Everfree’s swampy lowerlands, and yet there were only a few smears of dirt on the otherwise pristine white bandages from lying in the town square. Still, she decided to change the bandages if she had time after her bath now that she had access to her laboratory downstairs (which stocked a small hospital’s worth of medical supplies).

A particularly vicious jolt ran through Twilight’s horn, reminding her that she also had something else of great importance to take care of. It was something that wasn’t necessarily going to wait for her to finish her relaxing bath before it became an even more serious issue. Twilight glanced at the half-filled bathtub and decided she had enough time to get the supplies she needed before she had to shuffle over and turn off the water.

She went to her medicine cabinet and got herself some soap and horn salve, and then went to her cramped towel cabinet. The important item in question resided in an innocuous-looking wooden box on top of the cabinet. Twilight had a bit of trouble sliding the box down with only one workable foreleg, but with great care she eventually succeeded in balancing it on the upturned pad of her hoof and quickly brought it down to rest on the floor. After retrieving the key from an empty soap bottle in her cabinet, she sat down and opened it.

The box's contents were the sort of thing that deserved to be locked away in boxes; far away from impressionable young dragons and the occasional filly or colt Twilight let in to use the bathroom during Cheerilee’s class field trips to the library. At the moment, Twilight had eyes for none of them save for a little black cloth bag partially buried under everything else. She opened it and shook the single item it contained onto the floor: a heavy silver ring made from two smaller rings stuck together. One of them was smooth all over, and the other was ridged on the outside. Both had gold runes inscribed on them. It was a rather frightening device for any unicorn; one Twilight had only ever found the courage to experiment with a couple of times, but was immeasurably thankful that she owned.

Carefully placing it on the edge of the tub with her soaps and horn salve, Twilight packed the box back up and returned it to its proper spot on top of the cabinet.

A moment later, she sat back so she could reach out and test the water with her uninjured hoof. It was a bit too hot, so she swirled her hoof around in it a little bit before dumping a large amount of lavender bubble soap into the bath. Twilight dipped her foreleg in all the way up to the shoulder; slowly, almost lazily, stirring the water around and around and watching the mass of bubbles rise up with glazed eyes. Even though she no longer had a pony’s hoof, the warm water still felt just as exquisite against Twilight’s new chitin-riddled changeling one.

The process of actually getting into the tub amounted to a difficult and unsteady series of contortions, as Twilight had to navigate around the soap bottles she’d unconsciously lined up on the edge on only three legs without getting the bandage-wrapped fourth wet. Her patience in seeing the tedious acrobatics exercise to its completion, however, was well-rewarded when she was finally able to slip into the heavenly warm water. A soft sigh of combined relief, approval, and outright ecstasy hummed in the back of her throat as she sat, then half-laid down in the water with her broken foreleg resting lightly on a pile of folded towels beside her.

In all her life, Twilight had never felt so utterly rewarded as she did now. She was the personal student of the mare who raised the sun to illuminate all the world. She had defeated gods and demons. She was the Element of Magic. She had the five best friends and the best little dragon assistant she could ever ask for. She had gone from living in a castle to living in her own personal library... and yet being able to lie back in warm, bubbly, lavender-scented bathwater up to her chest after a few days away from home instantly outmatched them all.

Turning gingerly onto her side, she lifted some of the lavender bubbles up on her hoof and blew at them, watching them float around before popping. For the first time that day, a genuine smile turned Twilight’s fanged mouth upwards, fueled by a sense of fillyish delight as she played with the bubbles. Even the aches and pains of a body that had been mercilessly abused for days began to fade into a relaxed soreness, save for the constant stabs that assaulted her horn’s root.

Twilight flopped her good foreleg over her chest and felt around on the side of the tub until it came in contact with the bottle of horn salve. It was about half full until she uncapped it, reached up—her foreleg felt stiff and cramped, but she managed it—and squirted some of it onto her ruined horn. A wonderfully cool feeling spread from everywhere the salve touched, finally snuffing out the unnatural heat that had been radiating from it since she woke up in the grove.

When she touched her horn to rub the salve in, she winced slightly, startled by how sensitive it had become. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant to massage her horn at any time, but she had little interest in physical pleasure of that sort at the moment; and more importantly, each stroke she made to spread the salve around made it ache deeply. Still, Twilight continued to smear the soothing lotion around, and after some time, her horn finally stopped hurting.

Green streaked her hoof, along with the cloudy white horn salve, after she took it away—but Twilight was too relaxed to care. Whatever the green substance was—her horn was probably discharging horn oil in protest against the irritation—could wait until she was done with her bath.

All that was left was the silver ring. Twilight scooped it up in her hoof—after she’d wiped the horn oil and salve off—and carefully slipped it onto the tip of her gnarled changeling horn. To her relief, the now ill-fitting limiter ring still slid more than halfway onto her horn before it was unable to go any further. All she had to do now was push on the ridged side of the top ring to tighten it.

Having her magic shut off and forcibly contained within her body wasn’t entirely alien to Twilight, as she’d had to wear a limiter for several weeks after she got her cutie mark, until Celestia had given her a satisfactory education on how to control her newfound power. However, Twilight didn’t have a military-grade prison limiter like that one lying around the house. What she had available was little more than a toy: unlike the big, heavy black iron ring she’d had to wear day and night, the silver limiter wouldn’t suppress Twilight’s magic completely. While it was powerful enough to eliminate a normal unicorn’s abilities, Twilight had enough magic that she could simply break through it if she needed to. She’d made sure of that.

Regardless of its origin and purpose, the magic limiter would do what Twilight needed it to: it would cut her off from her magic and reduce the pain in her horn to a dull ache, and—more importantly still—it would ensure that no more of her energy would burst through the tip of her horn and risk taking the very power to carry out her special talent with it. If (and it was an if so big Twilight didn’t want to think about it) she ever turned her world back to normal, there was a chance she could have the internal horn damage repaired by a particularly skilled unicorn surgeon in Canterlot. In fact, as far as Twilight could tell, she had gotten a lucky break in that she likely wouldn’t suffer much permanent damage to her magic from the ordeal.

Most importantly, it would ensure that Twilight would still have a horn when it was all over, no matter what awful outcome would eventually befall her. The changeling, however menacing she might still have been to ponies who feared the theft of their love and friendship, was utterly powerless now, already stripped of any ability to do magic. Removing her horn would be a waste of time, energy, and ponypower on the part of anyone who came across her; it was an illogical, irrational act that would gain nothing and cause only pain. And ponies, Twilight firmly believed, were inherently logical, rational creatures, in spite of all their many flaws.

Thus disarmed, the ex-unicorn leaned back and shut her eyes, resting her head lazily against the back of the bathtub. A rippling feeling passed through her body—the very beginnings of the transition from awake and alert to genuine relaxation. She sighed in the closest thing to ecstasy she could manage.

“All earth ponies have no wings and no horn,” she hummed to herself, sinking even further down into the bubbles. “A pony is an earth pony if and only if they have no wings and no horn. Princess Celestia has two wings and a horn. Therefore, Princess Celestia is not an earth pony...”

It was a silly little thing Twilight recited sometimes when she was a little filly, not understanding why she enjoyed it so much. She still didn’t get it, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was logic. And more than anything, logic made Twilight feel comfortable, safe, and calm.

“All pegasi have two wings and no horn. A pony is a pegasus if and only if they have two wings and no horn. There are no ponies with two wings and no horn who are not pegasi. Princess Celestia has two wings and a horn. Therefore, Princess Celestia is not a pegasus.”

Though she already felt much better after getting in the bath, she was still nauseous and was beginning to feel oddly cold. Twilight wondered if she was getting sick. It wouldn’t have been much of a surprise to her if she was—she’d been walking around in the forest with a severely injured leg for days, in an unfamiliar, magically altered body which might or might not have a weakened immune system, and had recently rolled around in a swamp several times over. But it didn’t matter, Twilight decided, because she didn’t want to deal with anything else. She had reached her limit in coping with the bad things that had happened to her and couldn’t take anything further.

Twilight was actually one hundred percent fine.

“All unicorns have no wings and a horn... A pony is a unicorn if and only if they have no wings and a horn... Hmm... mmm...”

She was completely fine—she was fine even when the bottom of the bathtub dropped out from under her and she fell through into the darkness. And she kept falling, until she landed in a pit of ponies without faces and was drowned in their anonymity. Like Twilight, they had lost themselves; were forever doomed to carry a burden of not knowing who they were.

“Princess Celestia has two wings and a horn... Therefore... Princcccessss Celesssstia’s... not a unicorn...”

There were hands on her. Cold hands, fingers like razors, crushing her neck and putting out what light still remained within her, while she sat and smiled in the boiling hot water.

“All alicornssss... have two wingssss... and a horn... A pony... isssss... an alicorn... if... and only if... they have two wingssss and a horn...”

Something fearful was coming closer and closer to her. The emotion registered evoked no fear from Twilight; she was safe in her little hellhole of writhing legs and fields of faceless. It penetrated further and further, and then it was there, and yet Twilight still didn’t care. The sound of hooves—or claws, rather—scraping on the floor gave her only indifference in the depths of darkness.

“There are... no poniessss... with two wingsssss... and a horn... who are not alicornssss.... Princessss Celestia has two wings and a horn... Therefore, Princess Celestia is an alicorn... All earth ponies have no wings and no horn... A pony is an earth pony if and only if they have no wings and no horn. Princess Celestia has two wings and a horn. Therefore, Princess Celestia is not an earth pony...”

Twilight’s eyes cracked open, while her mouth continued to recite the syllogism she’d been repeating over and over and over to herself. The very short amount of time she’d spent asleep before being disturbed wasn’t nearly enough that she’d regained any significant cognitive ability, and so it was like waking up straight into a dream.

“All pegasi have two wings and no horn. A pony is a pegasus if and only if they have two wings and no horn. There are noh, no—”

Quite abruptly, the soothing haze surrounding her was replaced by a whirlwind of disorientation as her brain truly registered at last that she was no longer alone in the bathroom: that there was another pair of eyes looking right at her own. Twilight made a strangled, terrified screeching sound, all her muscles contracting in one violent jolt, and then gasped in pain when her injured leg banged on the outside of the tub. The sudden burst of movement caused her to slip down further into the water. By the time she’d even regained enough control over her body to object, she was already inhaling a mouthful of something that certainly wasn’t air.

She kicked at the other end of the bathtub with her hind hooves to push herself back up, which produced a muffled thump and splashed a lot of water onto the tile floor. Finally able to scoot up onto her plot and spitting out the liquid in her mouth, Twilight continued to flail for a while anyway, simply too frazzled to realize that there was little chance of her drowning in about a foot or so of water. Her temporary inability to analyze anything negated her concern for an intruder at her doorway.

And then, at last, she was in the moment again, taking in a such a flood of sensory input her overtaxed brain froze over while she tried to process it all. The water she was currently sitting in was no longer pleasantly hot but lukewarm; and quite a bit of the bubbly froth on top of it had already vanished except for a thin foam still clinging to the highest parts of the inside of the tub. Twilight was shivering when she sat up. Her stomach roiled about in such severe turbulence that she actually let out a pitiful little sob as she put her hoof on it.

At that point,Twilight’s wildly unfocused attention returned to that which had originally jarred her out of her delirious fever sleep in the first place: the two wide green eyes peering around the doorframe. Their pupils were slitted, like all dragon eyes were—though this didn’t do much in the way of giving their small, chubby owner a malevolent appearance, as his expression was one of mingled childlike curiosity, surprise, and a bit of fear.

“Spike!” Twilight uttered in an unnaturally high voice. The way she choked on her words almost made her sound like a pony; albeit one who’d been bucked in the throat recently. “Spike, don’t hurt—Spike—No, no, I’m not one of... Please... Oh... Oh, Spike... no... Oh, no...”

Seeing how he cowered even further behind the doorframe when she spoke—it was quite a lot like the way she herself was now cowering in a ball at the far end of the bathtub, except without the shivering and the whimpering and the general defeatedness of her demeanor—broke Twilight’s ability to speak coherent words for a moment. The nihilism that had pervaded her world after her second escape from the square returned with all the force of a rampaging hydra. Even Spike, who had been her only friend for more than a decade of her life, was afraid of her in this form—Her adopted brother was afraid of her.

Again and again, Twilight had fought for her own survival and health in the hope that she would come out victorious; that, perhaps, Princess Celestia would come out of the sun and rescue her after getting her notes, or some other equally absurd idea. But the world didn’t work like that, and it had done a very, very good job of pounding the fact into Twilight’s head each time she expended effort and energy working to save herself. Nothing she had done had even amounted to anything. She was still trapped in an oversized insect’s body and had no idea why; she was still being hunted like a monster; she was still hungry and tired; in fact, all she’d done was run into the woods and get dragged out again.

So, after days of struggling and giving everything she had to give, she finally chose to simply give up. She deflated somewhat from her insistent pose, upraised forehoof lowering down into the water and face transforming from a look of desperation into a hollow mockery of indifference, even as her eyes tingled with a tiny hint of changeling magic and tears began to form in them.

“Go on,” she mumbled around her fangs. Her tone was one of bitter hopelessness. “Go find a real pony and tell them I’m right here. I’m not going to go anywhere.”

“Y-you’re the ch-ch-changeling,”stammered Spike. Then he added, with a little bit of uncertainty that further betrayed how nervous he was, “Right?”

“If that’s what you want to think, I can’t stop you. It took me awhile to figure that out, or I would have just... oh... never mind...”

“Well, you stay right there,” Spike said, puffing himself up slightly. “I’m not gonna let you get away.”

“I already said I’m not going anywhere.” Twilight sank back down into the water and looked away from Spike. “I want to relax. Please leave me alone. Tell them I’ve put a limiter on my horn and I’ll go quietly if they don’t hurt me...”

“You’re not gonna fool me,” the dragon informed her.

“I’m not trying to, Spike.”

“You’re not gonna get away with this—Whatever it is. Whatever it is you’re up to.”

“I’m not up to anything, Spike,” Twilight murmured. “I don’t care anymore.”

“I’m not falling for that,” Spike told her haughtily. “Twilight taught me to think critically, y’know... you’re gonna wait until I leave, and then you’re gonna get up and magic yourself away.”

“I did teach you that... didn’t I... I did. You’re a very smart dragon for your age, Spike. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m too tired. Please let me relax.”

Spike snorted a little, probably frustrated that Twilight wasn’t adhering to the typical hero/villain interaction. “Why’re you taking a bath anyway? And why are you doing it here? Aren’t you supposed to be back at your changeling cave thingy? And why were you saying that thing Twilight used to say a lot? And why do you have on that magic limiter thing Twilight keeps with her dildos? And wh—”

“Spike!” Years of being on the lookout to keep Spike from being exposed to anything unsavory steamrolled Twilight’s indifference for a moment. “We do not use that kind of language in this library, no matter what’s going—”

She choked on her words and fell silent as the context of what they were talking about caught up to her. It was only after seeing Spike’s bewildered expression that Twilight opened her mouth again, and an ending to the chastisement tumbled out.

“...no matter what’s going on.”

Though Twilight wasn’t actually looking at Spike, she felt the emotion he was giving off grow slightly stronger and heard his claws click against the floor, and from this she knew that he must have moved out from behind the doorframe. She could feel him looking her over, but refused to turn and meet his eyes.

“Y-yeah, I guess you’re not really gonna go anywhere...” said Spike at last, a slight quiver in his voice.

Twilight said nothing in response. Had she possessed the energy to do so she would have nodded, but that would have entailed moving, and at the moment moving was not something she was capable of without sufficient motivation. More deafening silence passed, and still the emotion coming from the doorway stayed put.

Until the ability to experience others’ feelings in a tangible form had been forced on her, she had never truly comprehended just how much power could be found in the raw emotions of her friends. Even the two stallions who had passed her by on the way to Fluttershy’s cottage without noticing her had filled Twilight’s empathy sense with a range of complicated affects. Spike, who Twilight had always thought of as relatively simple and easy to understand emotionally, was feeling things she could hardly even guess at the significance of. Though for the most part she knew instinctively how to comprehend many of those metaphorical colours, that comprehension covered only the most solid and uncomplicated of them; certainly not the less concrete little veins of other things that were contained within fear, anger, sadness, happiness. Either Twilight’s sense had been packaged with an incomplete instruction manual, so to speak, or else interpreting those nuances was a skill changelings learned through experience.

“Hey, quit ignoring me.”

Wrapped up in her thoughts, Twilight hadn’t even noticed that Spike was talking to her. She turned her head a little, uncurling from her near-fetal position, but still didn’t actually look at him. “I told you to go. Please do what I’m asking of you, Spike. J-just let me relax, or... I don’t know. Just... please... please leave me alone and stop making me wait for everything to fall apart again and... and... just—”

“Yeah. Uh-huh. Got it.” Of all the times for Spike to take that infuriating attitude of flippant opposition, it had to be when she trulyneeded him to listen to her. “But you’re that one changeling that went up in front of the town a couple of days ago, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight almost growled, squeezing her eyes shut in aggravation. “You could say that, yes. Now go away.”

“So, you’d know where Twilight is, right?" he asked, a tendril of optimism worming its way into his voice. "So where is she? ‘Cause if you don’t tell me, I’m gonna be mad. And you won’t like me when I’m—”

He was cut off by a dark, bitter laugh. “Stop it, Spike. I’m not going to... I’ve wasted enough time hoping. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t make me... don’t make me... hallucinate... delusionate... delusionalize... that you’d... believe me. Stop it. Just stop it. Don’t even...”

“Okay... um... whatever...” Another thirty seconds or so of blissful silence went by before Spike spoke again. “But... I know that pony that showed up today isn’t Twilight, okay? I know it’s a changeling disguised as her.”

“That’s completely illogical. If anyone was going to believe you, you would already ha--" Twilight blinked. "Wait. You... you don't think she's Twilight?"

“She took, like, eighteen million years to recognize me when I visited her in the hospital!” the dragon complained in a voice that Twilight was certain had to be accompanied by him throwing his claws up in the air in exasperation. “So—so if you don’t tell me where the real Twilight is, I’ll tell on both of you! And then you’ll both go to jail. How’s that sound?”

Against all her attempts to quash it, a small, but very real, glimmer of light ignited within Twilight’s chest. It was something she did not want at all—she knew letting it flourish would only lead to her getting hurt even more terribly than before—but it lived on nonetheless, feeding off of her inborn tendency to want to think the best of everything and everypony whenever she could. Within moments, there was a blaze burning inside her; a firestorm of hope in the center of a torrential downpour.

“Spike...” she said, almost in a whisper. Her voice cracked slightly when she said his name, so she cleared her throat and repeated it. “I’m the real Twilight, Spike...”

There was no reply; only the clicking of claws as Spike shifted around in the doorway, and the addition of still more confusion to his emotions. To Twilight’s relief, her words didn’t provoke any hostility from him. Perhaps it was because he was simply too young and naive to get angry over something like that the way an adult would, or maybe just because that part of his reaction hadn’t come to pass yet.

“I don’t believe you,” Spike said. Twilight heard him scratch the side of his head. “Cuz it’s kinda obvious you’re a changeling... B-but if you really are her, why didn’t you just say s—”

“I did!” interrupted Twilight, almost hysterical. “Hardly anypony will listen to me, and the ones that did just told me to go... I gave them notes on my—I don’t know how it happened, Spike! I don’t! I just... and then... and then I was like this... a-and everypony wanted to rip off my h-h-horn—”

With a loud splash, she scrabbled back onto her hooves and turned to look at him, leaning her foreleg against the side of the tub while she peeked over it. Spike was about a foot inside the bathroom, with one of his clawed hands resting upon the door handle behind him as though prepared to back up and slam it shut if she attacked.

“Please... Changelings can’t steal memories, Spike! I remember the time... Do you remember when I told Mom and Dad to adopt you so we could be brother and sister? I’ve never told anypony else about that! Spike, please.. please remember... please believe me... I’m not a changeling. I’m a unicorn. M-my name is Twilight Sparkle and I’m a unicorn, not a changeling! I’m your... your sister..."

She paused, straightening up. “Spike, ask me something only the real Twilight Sparkle would know!”

As he stared at her, she sensed a surge of suspicion and confusion in his feelings. “Why d’you want me to do that?”

“Please, Spike. Anything! I’m begging you!”

“Why?” repeated Spike, sounding utterly bewildered. “Fine... Um, right after the sixth year graduation party... like, a couple of days; whatever... you, um, wrote somepony a letter—”

“Yes,” Twilight blurted out, now shaking not only from her shivers but from growing excitement and a little bit of embarrassment over the memory as well. “Yes, yes, yes... I wrote a letter to Princess Celestia and told her that I... I cheated... on a question on my homework by asking for the answer from an upperclasspony. I wrote it because I was too afraid to tell her in person. And you read it before you sent it and I yelled at you for that and hid in my room until Princess Celestia came and told me it was okay...”

“How did you know that?” demanded the little dragon.

A quiet, partially stifled sob left Twilight’s mouth, piercing the silence at last.

“Please believe me...” she concluded desperately—almost in a whisper—before sinking back down, resting her chin on the side of the tub, breathing heavily. Though she wanted to keep looking at him now, Twilight just didn’t have the energy to even stay upright. The world was spinning around in a haze of combined adrenaline exhaustion and near somnia.

The next few minutes passed in torturous silence. The ex-unicorn dared not say anything, and at times found herself literally holding her breath without even realizing it. A faint rippling sound came every time her shaking body forced her to find a more comfortable position.

Never in her life had she felt more nerve-racked. It was very lucky indeed that she had no energy to spare having yet another panic attack, or she would surely have pitched forward into the the bathwater and drowned, too dizzy to stay upright. The last of Twilight’s battered faith was now on the line. If she found herself defeated yet again, she concluded, she would never recover and would spend the rest of her life insane.

Her anxiety was so overpowering that she almost didn’t hear his response:

“But then why are you a changeling?”

“I don’t know!” Twilight wailed. “One second, I was casting the revealing spell on everypony, and then I lost control of my magic and I started turning into a changeling! I don't know what happened. But Spike... please... don't leave me too. They’re going to come for me eventually and I’m afraid... I’m so afraid!”

“Um...” was all Spike said at first, nervously rubbing his claws together. Then he added, “O-okay... so... you’re Twilight?”

Twilight nodded frantically. “Yes, yes, I’m Twilight.”

“You’re Twilight?”

“Yes!”

And then Spike relaxed just a little. Twilight could see his acceptance both in his emotions and his posture, and warmth flooded her chest as she realized that her little brother had listened to her; that he believed in her. Slowly, one clicking step at a time, Spike moved across the tiles to peer into the bathtub.

“Promise?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“I promise. I swear I’m Twilight! Twilight Sparkle, sister of Spike Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia, Element of Magic, Ponyville librarian. I’ll swear on anything you want,” the former unicorn declared in an equally quiet, but far more quavering, voice; nodding fervently as she spoke. She started when Spike’s claw touched her hoof, which was resting on the edge of the bathtub.

“Okay.”

Twilight stared at him, not fully willing to consciously believe what she was hearing for fear that it might be a nonentity. A tiny voice in the back of her head was buzzing incessantly about how there had to be some catch, and how she would only get hurt if she put her faith in Spike now.

“S-so you believe me?” Twilight whispered.

Spike nodded.

“I know Twilight,” he told her, “and there’s no way you’re not her.”

She hardly felt the tears streaming down her cheeks, although she did feel her mouth turning up into a watery, wavery smile. Then she rocked forward and nuzzled Spike—even though it hurt her mutilated nose to do so—who did not recoil from her embrace but instead returned it with enthusiasm. The knowledge that her assistant and brother not only believed in her but was willing to touch her disgusting new body was simply more than Twilight could handle, and she subsequently began to cry loudly to accompany her already present tears.

“Oh, Spike... Oh, thank you... thank you...” Twilight choked out. “You don’t know how much this means to me...”

“Nopony could mistake you, could they?” said Spike, also beginning to tear up a little. “Oh, heh. Think I got something in my eye.”

“Me too...”

Twilight hooked her broken leg around him and sniffled into his shoulder while Spike awkwardly patted her on the back. For the first time in her life, Spike was the one comforting her, rather than the other way around. It was a bizarre and slightly humiliating experience, in some ways, but Twilight couldn’t have cared less. The only thing that mattered to her was that she was back home and had somepony there who cared about what happened to her.

She could smell the love Spike felt for her, and before she even knew what she was doing, she had broken past the limiter’s block on her magic and begun to consume it eagerly. This time, she felt no shame at all for what she was doing: it was love that was meant for her. Twilight was not stealing love; she was being given it freely by her very first friend.

That love, Spike’s love, was yet another thing entirely compared to the romantic feelings she’d smelled and fed on. These were brotherly feelings, probably the same as what Shining had for her, except that Spike also depended on her to keep him safe and give him a home. Just like there were so very many complex emotions, Twilight realized, there were also so very many kinds of love, and each one of them had a different, unique flavor.

And all of them tasted so good...

“Twilight, why is your horn glowing?” asked Spike suddenly.

“I c-can’t help it,”  Twilight squeaked, only now realizing she might have alienated Spike by feeding on him. “My body doesn’t run on normal f-food, so I have to eat love like a changeling, and I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—but I was so hungry because I haven’t eaten anything since I was a pony, and I’m s-s-sorry, Spike...”

Though she expected Spike to argue with her, the dragon simply butted in with, “It’s okay, Twilight. I get it. It’s like when I got really greedy and started taking whatever I wanted from ponies, right?”

Nodding frantically, Twilight said, “Yes, yes, that’s exactly it... that’s exactly it...”

“So, um, what now? I’m cool with the changeling stuff, I guess, but it’s kinda hard to hold you up like this,” he said. Indeed, Spike’s knees were beginning to buckle from Twilight leaning such a large portion of her weight on him for so long.

“I’unno. Just wanna relax, please...”

“But how are you gonna get everypony to listen to you? ‘Cause I dunno if you met that changeling that’s pretending to be you, but it did a good enough job that everypony else believed it.”

Staring at the tiles behind her assistant and sighing slightly, Twilight said, “I don’t know anymore, Spike... I'll work on it in the morning. I just want to sleep.”

“But Twilight, you have to... Well, if you’re too tired, I’ll send a letter to the Princess... I'll protect you when the guar—”

“No, Spike,” said Twilight wearily. “No more. Please. I’ve spent days running and hiding and trying to convince ponies, and—and—I just c-can’t anymore. I’m too tired. I just want to let what’s going to happen happen, and I’ll figure it out from there. Please don’t force me to keep going. And don’t put yourself in danger for no reason. Please. I’m asking you as your family, please...”

Again, a part of her expected Spike to continue arguing with her, but to her surprise, he didn’t. “Okay... Then what do you want to do?”

“Sleep,” she repeated. For some reason, she was shivering worse than ever. “I think I might have picked up a virus in the forest. I need to sleep... I’d like to get out of the bathtub, too...”

It took some work, but Spike was able to help her climb out of the tub, and she stood dripping onto the floor until he got her a towel from the cabinet. Twilight began gingerly toweling the remaining water off her chitin, being careful not to further irritate her injuries as she did.

“I can make some tea if you want,” said Spike, tapping his claws together idly.

“That would be nice...”

 “I made some before, but that other Twilight—the changeling—didn’t want it. It was jasmine tea, too; your favorite. I mean, you’d probably like it, but it’s cold now. We have some more, though. ‘Cause you had me get some more tea from the store last week, ‘member?”

“Did you throw it out?” Twilight asked, knowing Spike had a habit of leaving things where they were instead of disposing of them. Even under the current circumstances, she was determined to keep things orderly if possible.

“Nuh-uh... I’ll make some new tea for you.”

“Well, don’t forget... to throw the old tea out,” mumbled Twilight. “And that would be lovely, Spike... Thank you.”

Once Twilight had finished drying herself, Spike helped her limp out of the bathroom and up the staircase adjacent to it. Her bedroom was just as she’d left it: completely neat and orderly, save for Spike’s bed-basket, which she would have told him to make if she hadn’t been so utterly thankful for his believing in her. Instead, she simply avoided looking at it on the way up to her own perfectly made bed.

Spike went downstairs to make the tea he’d promised, leaving her by herself. Twilight barely had the presence of mind to turn on her window fan and put her folded towel in the laundry basket before she simply fell into bed and dragged the sheets up to her chin. Eventually, her assistant returned, carrying a steaming hot cup of jasmine tea. It was just a little too hot for her to drink, so she just leaned over it and inhaled the relaxing scent, then leaned back.

“Spike,” she said, looking at him with a small smile.

“Yeah, Twilight?”

“I love you. Even if Mom and Dad wouldn’t adopt you, you’re still the best little brother I could ever ask for, and I love you... Thank you for believing in me.”

“Hey, what kind of brother would I be if I couldn’t even recognize my own sister?” Spike replied. He leaned over and allowed Twilight to nuzzle him.

The ex-unicorn had never felt so loved in her entire life. Though she was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep, absorbing Spike’s brotherly affection had energized her emotions all over again, altogether reigniting her hope for a positive outcome. There would probably be Royal Guards looming over her when she woke up, and she knew it. Whatever was going to happen, though, it could happen after she’d had tea and a very well-earned nap in her own bed for a little while.

She gave a contented smile, her heart bursting with affection, and allowed Spike to help her have a drink from the teacup, since she had no means of picking it up anymore.

It was delicious.

VIII. Life is Beautiful

Solitary Locust

Chapter VIII: Life is Beautiful

For the first time in days, Twilight awoke in a soft, clean bed. For the first time in days, she was warm and comfortable, and not in great pain. For the first time in days, she was able to turn away from the bright sunlight streaming in through the window, mumble a poorly worded request for five more minutes, and drift halfway back to sleep without diving into a terrible nightmare about being chased up and down the streets of Equestria by a mob of her best friends. For the first time in days, she felt like she didn't have to worry about anything.

She blinked rapidly, struggling to adjust to the light that was shining in shafts through the blinds over her bedroom window. A forehoof went up to shield her face as she sat up, for the light was much more overwhelming now without her bedsheets blocking it out. After a few moments, she opened her eyes fully and saw a black, chitinous object surrounded by a bright halo of light—except where the light happily poured in through a cylindrical opening in her upper leg.

Having dared to allow herself the weak hope that she might see a mulberry-coated and slightly overgrown hoof there, she ought to have been crushed by the sight of the changeling's limb in its place. But, for some reason, there was nothing; perhaps because she was still not awake enough for the part of her brain that dealt with emotions to process the loss, or perhaps because she was simply too numb to care anymore.

The closest thing she could think of to liken to the way she felt now was a hangover. It was, in fact, quite similar to the way she felt after some of Applejack's cider get-togethers: her head seemed to have been stuffed full of cotton after being hit hard with a big, heavy sledgehammer. Trying to retrieve a coherent thought from the tarry depths of her brain was about as easy as trekking through a mire of congealed sludge while hooked to a cart loaded with rocks.

But somehow, Twilight felt at peace nonetheless. The little worries that had tormented her since she'd been changed did not come clawing out of the darkness, leaving her to feel... nothing, really, except for a mild sense of contentment.

And it was good. More than good; it was perfect.

Sitting up in bed for the first time in days drove home how lucky she was to be alive. Never before had she truly found pleasure in being able to look through her own window at the birds outside, or gaze straight ahead and see the awful macaroni picture Spike had made of himself and Twilight several years ago that she'd pinned to her wall. Or, rather, what enjoyment she had previously gotten from it had been completely redefined. To do those things brought her joy, certainly, but just to be able to do it was more precious to her now than anything in Equestria. It had been such a terribly mundane experience until she'd been forced to repeatedly prepare herself to never do anything of the sort again. There was, it seemed, nothing like a near-death ordeal to make one appreciate the very smallest joys life had to offer.

Yawning sleepily, she pulled the covers up over her head and turned back over onto her side so she didn't have to look at the light in a last-ditch attempt to evade the morning and go back to sleep. With the sheets bunched up over her head and wrapped around her to form a sort of cocoon, Twilight felt safe and protected; untouchable by the world around her. She imagined, in her sleepy half-awareness of the surrounding stimuli, that the sun-warmed sheets were her friends, all hugging her tightly and nuzzling her, full of love and friendship and all those other things she'd come to value above all else. The very memory of the affection, of the love, that they shared between them was almost as tangible as the real love she'd eaten the day before.

After some time—she honestly didn't know how long; it could just as easily have been hours as minutes—a soft and uncertain male voice spoke from somewhere outside Twilight's blanket cocoon. It took on a distorted, reverberating quality in her head, blending into the almost-dream she was having.

But Twilight knew that it wasn't a product of her imagination. She could also feel the presence of a being nearby through her empathy sense, which was still too new for her to mistake its input as part of a dream. She dug herself out of the sheets just enough to peer over them and find out what was going on.

“Whud?” she asked blearily, yawning and glancing around. “Whoozare...? Wudjasay?”

Once again, the bright light from her window shone directly in her eyes, which made her turn away and look in the other direction. There, she found, was the doorway, and in the doorway was the source of the empathetic presence: a small, chubby green-and-violet creature with lizard-like scales who walked on his hind legs.

“I said, uh, it's like, almost noon,” said Spike, still sounding unsure of himself. He scratched his head with a claw. “I think, uh, maybe it's not such a good idea to lay around and sleep when, uh, you know…”

Spike jabbed one finger against the scales of his other arm a couple of times, and then did the same to his leg. Quite a while passed while Twilight tried to figure out what he was referring to; a difficult task indeed when her brain was still mostly asleep.

Finally, she gave up trying to find an answer on her own. “What're you talking about?”

“Well, uh... uh... you just... uh…” Spike floundered around for a while, saying nothing of any real value. Then he said, “You're, uh, black, and you have holes in your legs, and, uh, your face is pretty messed up, and some other stuff, and—o-oh, yeah... you, uh... you look like a changeling—”

He said this last part very fast and in a lower voice than usual, and continued speaking loudly almost immediately afterward, as though to drown out the very fact that he'd even said it. “—so maybe it's not such a good idea to sleep all day right now...?”

With a miserable groan, Twilight rolled over and pulled the sheets back up over her head. They brushed over the little sails on either side, triggering small bursts of undefinable colours to pop around inside her brain. In the end, this proved to be detrimental to her ultimate goal of going back to sleep, as the abrupt abuse of her senses jarred her further awake.

“Twilight?” Spike's voice came again.

The word rattled loudly inside her skull once it had entered her ears. She opened her eyes again, and this time she made an effort to keep them open, even as she tried to clear her head by shaking it. It wasn't long before they closed again, shut tightly in discomfort: the ache in her leg had finally registered.

“Gimme five more minutes,” she eventually mumbled, only vaguely recalling that she might have said something similar to the window when she'd first awoken.

“Well, uh, okay…” he replied. “I'll just, you know, be downstairs... making breakfast, and stuff... Whenever you're hungry, I guess. Y'know?”

“Mhmm... thankz a bunch…”

Twilight heard Spike's thumping footsteps on the floor as he turned around and left the room, taking his emotional presence with him. As soon as the noise faded away, the ex-unicorn yawned and pulled the sheets even further up. It was unlikely that she'd get back to sleep with her leg hurting the way it was, but she really wanted to procrastinate getting up for as long as she possibly could.

In the past, she had been the sort of pony who had operated well by routine. But with her routine all but irrelevant now, it was difficult to get anything done at all when she wasn't being pressed by a direct threat to her life. She wanted to stay in bed and lounge about all day, thinking nothing but thoughts of happiness and joy, and perhaps drifting off and dreaming every so often.

It was what she deserved, wasn't it? In the novels, the plays, the radio shows, the heroine always got to relax after the danger had passed, didn't she? There was always a handsome stallion by her side, perhaps a medal being pinned to her chest, and that overall feeling that all was well with the world at last.

But all was not.

Not for Twilight, whose world was still turned upside-down and pulled inside-out. She had reached a temporary safe-house, it was true, but she couldn't rest just yet; there were still untold trials to be faced. There was still danger outside, and her body was nearly broken. Unless she was ready to give up right then and there, lying in bed would do nothing to help her. This was not the time to be lazy.

She finally rolled over, disentangled herself from the sheets, and crawled headfirst out of bed, still fighting against the fuzzy cotton-like veil of sleepiness that hung between her and her thoughts. Because she failed to think ahead in her current state, she unthinkingly put her two forelegs on the floor and shifted her body's weight onto them both. Her broken leg promptly failed, and she lost her balance with a sharp grunt and crashed onto the floor in a heap; face-first, her body sliding off the bed entirely. For a few moments, she just lay there, struggling to gather her thoughts up and come up with a proper response to what had happened—the sudden fall, as well as the pain radiating up her foreleg and from her nose, had temporarily disrupted her ability to form coherent ideas.

Almost dragging herself back onto her hooves, she stumbled obliviously through the room in the general direction of the door. Her hooves stepped on a few things she didn't mean to step on, including her mane brush after she bumped into a bookshelf and knocked the brush and some other things to the floor, but she was still too woozy to really care all that much about what she might damage.

The indifference and unconcern with which she plodded across the room, eyelids continuously drooping shut and snapping back open again, might have been mildly comical had there been anypony around to watch—but, of course, there was nopony else, and the once-pony herself was barely able to stay upright at the moment, much less observe her own actions from the viewpoint of another.

Twilight eventually made her way out into the stairwell, which was also deserted save for herself. She descended the stairs slowly and carefully, over a period of several minutes, hindered severely by the stiffness and the ache that flared whenever she put any weight on her injured foreleg. Each step meant having to lower one leg at a time until she'd made it down a little further to prevent herself from either losing her balance or leaning too much of her body on the broken one. Moving around caused the general physical malaise she'd been feeling since she woke up to evolve into actual queasiness. Around this time, she sort-of noticed that her teeth were chattering and it wasn't just her limbs that were shaking, but her whole body.

Was she sick? The symptoms were those of an infection, but too much time had passed for them to logically have been caused by her broken leg—hadn't it? Something inhabiting the wound would have shown itself sooner. Furthermore, the injury had been almost completely unblemished when she rebandaged it the night before. Surely even in a changeling there would have been outward physical signs of an infection, wouldn't there? Had that been covered in the reports she read from the Royal Guard? She couldn't remember.

Her broken leg was far from the only possible source of infection she had acquired over the last couple of days, anyway. Just the memory of that disgusting, filthy, stinking, unclean sludge that she'd concealed herself in when she ran into Lightning Dust's search party made her stomach churn horribly. What terrible parasites could she have accidentally ingested when she was wallowing about in that mire, Twilight wondered. She suddenly felt like she absolutely needed to prove to herself, by any means necessary, that there were no tiny worms in her belly eating her from the inside out.

Thankfully, as she ran down a hazy mental list of her symptoms—nausea, chills, headache, fatigue, stiffness, general malaise, dizziness—she realized that they didn't really fit a specific disease or a parasitic infection. There were too many different systems being affected for that, unless she had contracted some kind of superbug that was attacking every organ in her body at once—in which case she was probably going to drop dead in a day or two no matter what she did and so worrying about it would have been fruitless either way.

What seemed more likely was that her body was finally responding to everything that had happened to her. The last few days, especially the night before, had been a nightmarish experience, and would certainly have taxed her to the point of literal physical exhaustion. Perhaps her fear and the constant jolts of adrenaline had kept her from completely falling apart until the end; perhaps she'd just reached the end of her line and wasn't aware of it until the morning came because she wasn't paying attention to her already pain-racked body. In any case, to think that just feeding and getting a few hours of sleep would somehow cure her and completely regenerate her health was foolish at best.

The second floor was deserted as far as Twilight could see, although the light in the hall had been turned on and there were noises coming from the kitchen. Because doing otherwise would have required more mental energy than she was currently willing or able to dedicate, she assumed the noisemaker was Spike and not somepony who'd come in to hurt her. After all, why would somepony else be in her kitchen of all places, where there was really nowhere to hide, and who else but Spike would have that particular combination of naive obliviousness and grown-up concern so prominent in their emotions? Satisfied as much as she felt she could be, she turned away from that end of the house and pushed open the bathroom door, which was only a foreleg's length away.

It seemed as though Spike had taken it upon himself to clean the bathroom up a bit after she had fallen asleep. There was no sign that anypony had taken a bath there the night before; it was as clean and spotless as when she'd first dragged herself in. Even the sickly greenish-yellow spots where she'd bled onto the floor had, for the most part, been scrubbed away from the tiles, leaving only the occasional ghost of a stain as a reminder that they'd ever been there in the first place. Twilight made a mental note to thank Spike for cleaning up, but as a relatively low-priority item on her nebulous to-do list for the day, it was quickly lost to the haze.

Closing the door softly behind her, Twilight headed for the toilet. After she'd relieved herself and washed her hooves thoroughly, she put the seat down and sat on it for a moment, so she could massage her pounding skull with her good hoof in the hope that it would ease some of the pain. But rubbing her head did nothing to diminish the feeling of being stabbed through the eye with a railroad spike. In fact, it seemed to make her headache worse, somehow. Soon, she gave up and stood again, and went over to the bathtub.

She had decided, at some point that morning—though she couldn't actually remember when that point had been—that it would be best for her to follow as much of her normal routine as she could. After all, routines and lists and organization were the absolute, undeniable key to succeeding in any given endeavor. Twilight was also aware that she herself tended to operate most optimally when doing things by the book—to have control over her environment was quite important to her emotional functioning, something she'd only recently come to realize.

The first part of this routine was to take a shower, and Twilight was certainly going to do that. She had, of course, just had a bath the night before, but hot water was another one of those little things that she was determined to never take for granted again.

When she went to turn the tap, nothing happened. It took a moment for her to realize that she was trying to turn it on with her magic, not her hooves. The familiarity of the activity was such that Twilight hadn't even had to make a conscious decision to cast the spell that manipulated objects. She sighed, sat back, and squeezed her eyes so tightly shut that stars burst across the insides of her eyelids, and then she reached out and bumped the tap a few times with her good hoof.

Some fifteen or twenty minutes later, Twilight finally turned off the water again. She'd showered until the hot water was literally exhausted, and was now as clean as was physically possible of the remaining dirt, grime, sweat, and blood that had continued to cling to her after the previous night's bath. The heat had relaxed her considerably and lessened the terrible pounding in her head by just a little, and most of all it had helped to wake her up at last.

It wasn't really possible for her to actually be awake in her current state; this was as close to wakefulness as she was going to get. Were her situation less dire, Twilight would have elected to go back to bed and rest for the next week or so—it was probably the healthiest option for her in the long run, given how utterly exhausted she was on every level. A body healing from the level of damage she'd sustained needed more than a couple of sporadic hours of sleep. But Twilight could ill afford to waste time relaxing at the moment, and she knew it well.

She moved on to the next item on her mental to-do list, which was brushing her teeth. And it was here, when she moved in front of the sink, that she simply lost herself for a moment. Though not normally one to get distracted easily, Twilight was unable to resist the sudden urge to gaze at her reflection in the mirror once she saw it.

Strangely, seeing that alien body mimicking all her movements in reverse wasn't as jarring an experience as it had been when she first saw herself in Fluttershy's cottage. A sense of blankness and slight confusion was the the only substantial thing the sight really produced within Twilight. With that blank feeling numbing her, the ex-unicorn looked her reflection over a bit. Injuries still marred her body, but she was, for perhaps the first time in her ordeal, able to look at them without a pang of terror or anxiety shooting through her stomach.

The hot water had caused her body to flush strangely in the places where large numbers of her peripheral blood vessels were not covered by armor-like chitin. Her face, neck, and empathy sensors, in particular, had taken on an odd greenish hue, giving her an appearance that would have looked distressing and sickly on a real pony. The rest of her body, though it had for the most part reverted to the insect-like, black-armored form recognizable as that of a changeling drone, still had patches of mulberry and white on it where the forced transformations of the night before had failed or gone awry. A mangled half of a cutie mark decorated one flank; it seemed a combination of her own, Celestia's, and several other nebulous designs as well.

Most noticeably, her broken nose was still twisted and smashed as it had been that first night, if not more so. It was also extremely swollen, to the point of looking almost comical. This, Twilight theorized, was probably a result of getting punched in the face the evening before. The amount of abuse inflicted on her nose made it almost a given that she'd have to have multiple surgeries to make it anything near normal again—if even that minium was possible.

Sickly yellow bruises covered quite a bit of her body where the armor didn't provide protection, particularly her torso. There, the discolouration outlined two of her ribs well enough to make them out in one spot. Some of those bruises were starting to turn brownish as they began to fade away, but others were quite new and still ached when Twilight touched them. More likely than not, the latter were products of the day before, particularly the abusive treatment she'd received at Trixie's hooves.

After a long, careful session of self-examination, Twilight determined that she had probably cracked a rib at some point, since her chest hurt almost as badly as her leg had the other day. Though she couldn't actually remember when she'd received that particular injury—the whole of the previous day seemed to have run together into a blurry mush now that it was over—she wasn't at all surprised that it had happened. If anything, it was surprising, given all that she had been through, that she hadn't been hurt worse, or even killed.

Rather less unpleasantly, though, she could also see that the missing chip of chitin from her cheek had partially filled in since she'd last looked and was beginning to heal over, as had some of her other injuries. This, as well as the significant decrease in pain from her foreleg, had to be at least partially due to the fact that she'd inadvertently gorged herself on Spike's affection the night before. It seemed that changelings were able to metabolize their 'food' very quickly indeed.

Twilight finally tore herself away from the morbid visage, as she'd been staring at it for quite some time. Deliberately avoiding giving herself a chance to look again, she hunched over the running sink and started rinsing out the disgusting film of mucus and saliva that had been coating the inside of her mouth for the last couple of days.

It was only then, when the cool, sweet water had filled her mouth, that Twilight realized just how thirsty she was. Almost immediately after she'd swallowed the first mouthful of water, she impulsively guzzled half a dozen or so more from the tap. Then she sat back and let out a small burp, feeling much better.

A small, satisfied smile crossed her face as she took her toothbrush from behind the sink and squeezed some toothpaste onto it, half-listening to the cold water in her belly slosh about audibly whenever she moved. Then she inserted the toothbrush into her mouth and started gently brushing her teeth. At first, it was uncomfortable—the fangs in particular got in the way, and one of them ached terribly—but Twilight kept up her efforts despite the discomfort. Soon, she was rewarded by a fresh, minty taste overpowering the nauseating one of changeling blood and mucus.

She went through the long, laborious process of disinfecting the many cuts and scrapes all over her body and dressing the more serious ones appropriately, and then took some ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet to help with the swelling in her leg. Then she stepped away from the sink and towards the door, still limping a little bit.

As she trundled down the hall again, she smelled something familiar through her twisted nose: the smell of tempeh bacon cooking. It must have been quite strong if she could make it out so clearly even with her nose broken. Unfortunately, it didn't make her mouth water the way it should have. Twilight wasn't sure if that was because she was a changeling and now had different 'culinary preferences', or if it was simply because her stomach was so upset.

Stepping into the kitchen, Twilight found that Spike was indeed hard at work making breakfast. The tempeh bacon wasn't actually cooking but sitting on a plate next to the still warm stove, while Spike himself was making what looked and smelled like a mushroom-and-cheese omelette. Even though the food didn't seem appealing at all, Twilight couldn't help but take note of just how good of a cook Spike was—still one more thing she'd always overlooked and failed to appreciate.

He started violently when he turned around and saw her, his feet leaving the floor for a second and his eyes bugging out slightly. Equally startled by his response, Twilight instinctively backed up a few paces, banged into the table, knocked over one of the stools beside it, tripped, and ended up in an awkward heap on the floor with her legs splayed out on either side of her.

“Twilight!” Spike said in a slightly higher-than-usual voice. He dropped what he had been doing, literally, and waddled over to help the dazed librarian. “Are you okay?”

Twilight sighed, feeling something heavy settle into her chest as she replayed the last ten seconds in her mind. It was obvious why Spike had reacted that way: her appearance had frightened him, as he wasn't used to having scary, deformed changelings walk in on him while he was making food. She couldn't really blame him, having seen what she looked like in the mirror just a short while before.

After shooing Spike away with assurances that she was fine, she got back to her hooves, righted the stool she'd tripped over, and sat down on it, resting her good hoof on the table and letting her injured one hang down at her side. There were two painted ceramic plates on the table; one across from her, where Spike usually sat, and the other slightly to her left. Rather than drag the plate over to her, she took the time to painstakingly relocate the stool itself—everything had to be exactly in its usual spot, or else it would become yet another environmental imperfection needling her psyche.

“Hey, Twi... your horn's glowing again,” said Spike suddenly. He sounded rather uncomfortable with the fact.

Looking up, Twilight could just barely see a soft light glowing above her head, between her eyes. Her horn was indeed shining dimly on its own again, and she could feel the faint current of incoming love magic it was picking up. The energy sent ripples of calm throughout her body, acting as a sort of painkiller, in a way, for both her physical trauma and emotional strain. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the calm wash over her.

“Yes,” she finally said to Spike, somewhat absently. “Yes... It seems to be doing that. Glowing, I mean.”

He frowned just a little more. “Isn't that thing supposed to keep you from doing magic?”

“I-it's supposed to,” agreed Twilight. Pressing her hoovess against her closed eyes, she considered the matter a bit. “But I think the... the range of frequencies it covers clearly isn't inclusive enough to effectively, ah, completely impede the entirety of certain reflexively activated changeling spells.”

“Huh?” he said, clearly not following at all. “What?”

Twilight experienced a familiar twinge of irritation; the kind she felt when somepony didn't 'get' a concept she was presenting in what she felt were very understandable terms and forced her to grasp at analogies that failed to properly convey most of what she was talking about. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to come up with a fairly simple alternative way of explaining this particular idea.

“It's, um, it's like a—a radio, sort of. A bit like that.” Twilight waved vaguely at the little radio sitting by the window. “A radio has different frequencies, uh, that you can tune into to get different stations, right?”

“Right,” agreed Spike as he got some orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured it into a glass.

“Well, magic is the same. Kind of. Different spells are on different frequencies—and usually in similar groups of frequencies according to what kind of creature is using them, since all magical creatures have easier access to one or two groups—and... well, it doesn't exactly work this way... but if you want to block a pony's magic, you have to tune the—the device you're blocking it with so that it's able to intercept those particular magical frequencies.”

“Okay,” Spike said, nodding and still looking confused. “But why does the magic ring thing not work on you?”

“It does work on me, but it doesn't work completely, because my body is tuned to use changeling magic as its default now,” she told him. She amended this quickly: “Well... s-sort of. I also have my magical connections—the ones I had as a unicorn—so I'm... I'm not actually sure what's going on with... my magic…”

Pausing for a moment, Twilight rubbed her head without considering what she was doing first. To her surprise, it did help her headache a bit this time.

“...Just that it's very out-of-control and I don't think I should try to use it right now,” she said at last, and waited for a while more before speaking again. “The, um, the changeling magic that powers the love absorption spell is on a different frequency than the unicorn magic that this limiter was made to block, so it seems to be leaking through... and since the command to cast the spell is apparently generated primarily by something I have yet to gain proper control over, I don't think I can stop it from working at the moment.”

“Oh,” Spike said. “Okay then. I guess that makes sense…”

Twilight let out what was left of her most recent breath in a shaky sigh. Without saying anything, or really even thinking anything, at all, she watched Spike start to move all the food he'd cooked over to the table.

“Want some?” he asked her, clearly prepared to pile food onto her plate at a single word so that she didn't have to exert herself.

“Spike, I can't eat normal f…” Twilight began. It felt like quite an awkward thing to say, for some reason, so she couldn't quite find the right words to say it. “I mean... changelings... Well, they can't... Well, I mean, they can, but they can't... um…”

She paused thoughtfully, having realized that although eating pony food wouldn't yield any energy, it probably wouldn't hurt, either. Changelings, after all, were well-adapted to the task of blending in with countless species and cultures, and that included the presence of a false digestive system to process normal food when pretending to eat with 'real' creatures. Eating with Spike would do little for her body either way—but she found that it appealed to her because it could help bring back a bit of normalcy and order to her life; something she desperately needed. She moved the plate back in front of her.

“Yes, Spike,” she amended. “I would love to have some of the food you made. Thank you very much.”

The ex-unicorn sat patiently and allowed Spike to heap a large portion of just about everything onto her plate. He sat down on the other side of the table and put about twice that amount of food onto his plate, while Twilight tapped her hoof idly against the tabletop and stared at the fork and knife he'd put out next to the plate.

It took some effort for her to figure out how to pick up the fork and knife. She hadn't had to eat that way since she was around five years old, before she'd learned to handle things with her magic. Worse yet, she only had one hoof to work with. Once she finally got it, barring how the fork kept dropping from her hoof, she began eating—slowly. Even if her ability to manipulate things hadn't been so limited, she wasn't rude enough to eat right off the plate, even in this state.

Although she could taste the food, it lacked something or other that had made it so appetizing when she was a pony. Twilight ventured a guess that since her body didn't actually need it, she wasn't going to enjoy it as much. At the same time, her horn was still shimmering slightly, bringing in a small but steady stream of familial love from Spike. This time, she didn't feel bad for consuming that love—it was hers, after all. Hers to do with as she pleased, to sustain her in her hours of need, to keep her alive, and to keep her hope from dying away.

“Twilight?”

Twilight started at the suddenness of the voice and dropped her fork onto the floor. After unsuccessfully fishing around for it with her hoof, she looked back up at the dragon on the other side of the table, half-imagining that her cheeks had probably turned slightly green with embarassment.

“Yes, Spike?” she asked, still trying to reign in the shudders that were passing through her body.

A pause followed this, during which Spike twiddled his claws anxiously, occasionally opening his mouth and then closing it again. It got to the point where Twilight was considering giving him a prompt, but before she could say anything, he finally spoke himself.

“What do we do now? I mean, after we eat, and stuff.”

For quite some time, she said nothing, merely staring blankly at Spike as though he'd spoken to her in an alien language. Birds chirped in the distance, and somewhere even more distant, a pony declared, in a rather distraught tone of voice, that they were glad they had insurance against magical damage.

The pause was due less to Twilight considering the matter than to her trying to avoid considering it. Just thinking about the future was a terrifying matter, something that loomed over her like a great shadow and threatened to bring back those worries she'd just fought off. But, soon, despite all her attempts to keep her attention focused elsewhere, her mind did turn to that all-important question.

What would she do next?

There were a thousand possibilities as to what Twilight could do, all vying for superiority within her head. Should she run again; go somewhere else, keep hiding until she found a solution on her own? Or should she go to the basement, carry all the information she could find about changelings down with her, and barricade herself in?

Or, perhaps, she could just curl up and wait for the end to come—that seemed like the most straightforward response.

The ex-unicorn put her hooves against her skull and pressed, wishing she could literally squeeze some of the thoughts out and focus on just a few at a time. But, since she couldn't do that, she decided to go for the next best alternative: she would make lists.

She would make order out of chaos.

She would organize.

Organization was good, organization was useful, organization was the answer to all problems and dilemmas.

“Before I even consider deciding on any definite course of action…” Twilight poked thoughtfully at her mostly untouched omelette with her knife as she spoke. “...I'm going to need to get as full an understanding of the situation as possible.”

Her words caused Spike to look up at her with an expression of confusion that was probably rooted in the abruptness of her statement. It had been quite some time since he'd asked his question, after all. Eventually, he appeared to connect the two points in his mind, and his confused look settled into a neutral one; the kind he used to communicate that Twilight is being Twilight, and I know it.

“Okay then,” he said.

“Spike, please tell me all you know about what happened in my absence.”

“Okay,” repeated Spike, biting into a piece of toast.

He scratched his head for a bit, still nibbling on his toast, then began. “Well, uh... Everything was pretty hectic after, you know... Uh, Rarity and Fluttershy came and got me from the library, and we sent Princess Celestia a letter saying you'd been kidnapped by changelings.”

“So the Princess knows?” There was a sinking feeling in Twilight's stomach. She'd known on some level that the Princess would inevitably find out, but that didn't soften the blow at all. “She knows about what happened in the town square?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

”Pretty much?” She couldn't believe Spike could be so indifferent about something like upsetting Princess Celestia. “What does 'pretty much' mean? How much did you tell her about what happened? What was her response? Is she worried? Is she angry? Is she angry at me?”

“I don't know!” said Spike, sounding exasperated. “Rarity wrote the letter, and I just sent it. The Princess said something like, uh, she's sending the Royal Guard, and then she was like, Twilight's smart and we shouldn't be too worried because you'll show up safe and everything, and then, uh, I spent the night at Rarity's boutique.”

Pausing, Spike puffed himself up slightly, as though this were some sort of major accomplishment. Twilight, however, had more pressing matters to focus on than Spike's imagined conquest of Rarity's sofa; namely, a particular combination of words that he'd said.

“I did show up,” she said, more to herself than to Spike, as the realization sank in. “I did show up, didn't I?”

A sense of panic started to take hold of Twilight as she recalled the pony—no, the changeling who had been posing as her. She couldn't believe that she'd forgotten that very important piece of information, even with her thoughts so muddled. That changeling was the biggest danger to her at the moment, because if it saw Twilight as a threat to its social camoflauge, it was going to want to get her out of the way as quickly as possible. Who knew where she would end up if it got to her: the basement, dead, imprisoned in a cocoon for the rest of eternity?

Worst of all, it was impersonating the pony who lived in the very place she was taking shelter: her. It wasn't until that moment that she had actually considered that the imposter might come back to the library as a process of maintaining its act. For all Twilight knew, it could come through the door at any moment, see her, and everything would be over—

“...the Royal Guard showed up, and they pretty much took over the town—I dunno if you noticed that, but they're kinda everywhere, so I guess you probably did.” Spike rambled on, oblivious to Twilight's exponentially growing alarm. “Uh, I was kinda not really in the loop much, but I guess Rainbow Dash and some other pegasi were in the forest looking for you, 'cause they thought the changeling might'a... er, if there was a... you know…”

“Spike, Spike... wait…” interrupted Twilight, fidgeting nervously. “Spike, the imposter... It could come here—I need to—I need to hide somewhere—”

There was a lump in her throat that threatened to turn into... something, she wasn't quite sure what yet, but it was probably bad and probably related to her anxiety issues. It just wasn't fair: she'd expended so much effort just surviving, and here somepony else had taken everything she'd hoped to return to, and now it was going to undo everything just by walking through a door, and she'd never—

Twilight forcibly stopped herself from continuing that line of thought the moment her brain produced the word never. Words like that signaled that she was thinking out of control, that she was fearful and her mind was racing beyond the limits of logical reasoning. This was not the time to panic; this was a time when rationality and calmness were of the utmost importance.

“Spike,” she tried again, in a more level tone. “There's a... a good chance that the changeling posing as me is going to come back here, to this library, at some point quite soon. I believe it w... It would be prudent to assume that it's going to be back sooner than later, and to plan accordingly with that in mind…”

“Well, it already did come back,” Spike told her, sounding like he didn't think it was that big of a deal.

“I-It came back? When? Where is It? Did it see me? Why didn't you tell me before? What if it's preparing to come back and drag me away to a changeling hive—” She leaned forward at Spike, almost vibrating with anxiety. “Why didn't you tell me? Spike, tell me what happened! I need to know. Tell me, Spike. Spike. Tell me.”

He recoiled away from her. “O-okay! Calm down, Twilight. You're freaking me out!”

“I am calm!”

“You’re n… Yeah, well... It came back, like, an hour after you went to sleep,” said Spike, apparently deciding it would be best to just answer the question. “It was all banged up and stuff, and it said Trixie was back, and it got beat up by her, and stuff, and everypony was looking for her and you…”

As she was tapping her hoof nervously on the table, waiting for him to go on further—for he had stopped, looking at her—Twilight suddenly realized Spike had attached an implied question to the last part of his statement. “Yes, yes, she's back, and she... I would venture a guess that the changeling was probably defeated by her, as she had quite a bit of magic at her disposal... but that means Trixie is still on the loose…”

Memories of the psychotic showmare invaded Twilight's conscious mind, and she shivered a bit. It was hard to feel bad for Trixie in spite of how she'd obviously been infiltrated by dark magic. The sheer madness she had displayed was disturbing on a grand scale, and made Twilight wonder just how far this Trixie was willing to go for revenge. But, the ex-unicorn reminded herself, this wasn't the time to think about Trixie; she had more pressing matters to deal with right now.

“...Where is it now?” she asked Spike. “The changeling, where is it?”

Spike puffed himself up again, looking quite proud indeed. “Well, I just told it I saw you go past the house toward the forest, and it went away again. Like, real fast. It was pretty crazy about catching up with you, y'know?”

Still deflating from her bout of hypervigilance, Twilight nodded and said, “Yes. Yes, I suppose it would be. And that's the last time you saw It?”

“Yeah,” he told her. “It hasn't been around since then. It didn't spend that much time around here when it first came to town, anyway. When it was leaving, it said it probably wouldn't be back until later tonight, so I should just make dinner for myself.”

Under any other circumstances, Twilight would have chastised Spike for lying like that—but at that moment, she could think of nothing but how wonderful and lifesaving his sudden craftiness was. Without it, she would surely have been discovered already by her double, and so she couldn't possibly fault him for protecting her. In fact, it made her want to hug him, though she didn't really have the energy to move over and do it.

Instead, she asked, “Spike, how did that changeling even get into the town? Didn't somepony cast the revealing spell on it?”

“Uh... Well, uh, I was at Rarity's place, and this stallion from the Royal Guard came to the door and said they found, uh, you, in the forest. So we went over to the hospital where they took you, 'cause they said you were acting funny, and—”

“Wait, wait, wait…” Twilight cut in. “Did they check to make sure she wasn't a changeling? Did somepony cast the spell on her—It?”

“Well, I dunno if they did it earlier, but there was a big thing going on up at the hospital 'cause they needed a... Oh, hey, you remember Moondancer from school?”

“Spike, please stay on topic!”

“I am on topic!” said Spike defensively, waving his claws around like he tended to do when he was upset or exasperated. “‘Cause it was her that came with the guards to check that you were really a pony. She came with the guards as an att... attash…”

“Attaché?” suggested Twilight, and Spike nodded.

“Yeah, that! Because none of them could cast the spell that reveals changelings. Anyway, uh, Moondancer cast that spell on the other you and it didn't do anything, so they said you—I mean, the changeling that was pretending to be you—It—was actually you. That's what they said, anyway. But, uh, after we were allowed to see her—I mean, it—we went and saw her, and she was acting all weird. Like, it took her ages to remember who any of us were, and she was kinda just weird. The doctor said she had a construction and that made her forget stuff.”

“I think you mean a concussion.”

“Yeah, one of those. But I said to her... I mean, It. I said that I didn't think it was Twilight, and it got all upset and Rarity kinda yelled at me for making it cry, and then they took us back to the library. And then I told her I knew she was lying, and she said to go to my room, and then I told her I don't have a room,” Spike rambled. “And she got all crazy and told me to just do chores all day, but I didn't because I knew it wasn't you and chores suck.”

“Spike, language,” Twilight chastised firmly.

Though he rolled his eyes and was clearly reluctant to apologize for being 'cool', Spike said, “Sorry, Twilight. Anyway, you know, then Trixie came to town yelling in the middle of the night, and it went out to go see what was going on, and there was a lot of explosions and then you came in, and then... yeah…”

For a moment, Twilight said nothing, only nodding slowly to show that she was taking it all in and considering it.

“Well, it's good that you got it to go away from the house. Thank you for that,” she murmured after some time. “But I don't think I ought to assume it's going to be out all day, or else I might be caught off-guard.”

“So what do we do now?” repeated Spike.

“Spike, please. I'm trying to think.”

On a macro level, she had two choices: she could either attempt to prove to somepony else that she was the real Twilight Sparkle, or she could keep running from her problems. The answer to that was very simple—Twilight didn't think she'd be able to survive much more 'running', based on the experience she'd already had over the past few days.

“I can either turn myself in or choose some other method of proving my identity,” she mused aloud. “Based on my previous experiences, I am likely to find myself severely injured or worse if I attempt to deal with the easily-panicked average pony. So, I'll have to find an alternative method of bringing myself to the attention of trained, professional authorities that does not involve immediate, unannounced direct confrontation.”

“Well, I sent a letter to Princess Celestia last night, so…”

Twilight stopped moving entirely, feeling as if freezing cold water had been poured down the back of her neck. Eventually, she spluttered, “Y-you what?”

“Sent a letter to Princess Celestia,” said Spike, who did not appear to share in Twilight's rapidly growing concern.

“But I told you not to!” the changeling blurted out, gazing at Spike with eyes that begged him to say it was a joke. “I told you I'd figure it out in the morning!”

Yet again, Spike threw his claws up in exasperation. “It's not like you were making sense half the time! She can help, Twilight! She always fixes this stuff.”

“Spike, when I tell you to do something, you do it! And when I tell you to not do som—to not d-do s-something... don't do it!” Her breathing started to pick up in pace as a whirlwind of jarring, jostling thoughts tore through her head, and the kitchen started to blur and shake wildly. “Do you understand me?”

“Okay, okay! Jeez!” said Spike. “Calm down, Twilight!”

“Don't you tell me to calm down. I'm very calm!” she choked. The kitchen was going around and around like a carousel, and she couldn't seem to make it stop. “Why won't anything work the way I want it to anymore? Everything was perfect until I cast that spell, and now everything is so messed up and I just want something to work the way I want it to!”

She fell silent and just sat there, breathing heavily from the exertion of her outburst. For some reason, she was suddenly very acutely aware of the way her hooves and horn were tingling; a feeling similar to the one she got if she held her breath for too long. During the silence, Spike said something to her that her brain didn't quite manage to process—maybe it was all just gibberish; she couldn't tell.

Somehow, Twilight was able to reign in her intense desire to run around the house smashing everything she could reach with her hooves, and after a while she straightened up, feeling a little bit better. Maybe it had been a bit cathartic to get angry, but Spike hadn't done anything wrong and didn't deserve to be subjected to ranting about something he didn't have any control over.

“I'm sorry,” she finally said to Spike. “That... that was rude of me. I'm so sorry.”

Spike shrugged awkwardly. “It's cool... I guess…”

“Thank you.” More silence passed while the ex-unicorn tried to reorganize her thoughts and pick up from where she'd left off. “...so you sent a letter to Princess Celestia.”

“Yeah.”

Twilight fidgeted with her hoof, rubbing it rather hard against the table. “What did you say? In, uh, the letter.”

“Well, uh, I said you were in the library and you got turned into a changeling,” said the dragon. “And I said I know it's you 'cause you know stuff that only Twilight would, and you didn't try to attack me or anything.”

“I see,” Twilight murmured, still tracing her hoof over the lines in the wooden surface. “Did she reply?”

“No, not yet,” said Spike with another shrug.

“Well, I suppose that makes sense. She's a very busy mare, and I expect she has more important things to do than clean up my mistakes, like running the entire nation of Equestria.” There was a tiny gouge in the wood about the diameter of a coin turned on its side that looked like it'd been there for quite some time, as it had been covered over by varnish. Had it been like that when she bought the table? “I suppose she probably sent one of the Regional Inquisitors like Hornbeam or Leere to sort it out.”

“Yeah, that's the name of the guy in charge. Lee-are, or whatever you said.”

“Oh, I see. Well, he knows what he's doing. I think he used to be an appellate judge for the Canterlot Region. Sometimes he writes periodicals for the Journal of Equestrian Law.” The table couldn't have been gouged out like that when Twilight bought it, because she'd inspected it and made absolutely certain that there was no damage before she gave the bits to the salespony. “He might have been a Royal Guard, too, though. I can't remember.”

Spike, clearly knowing less than Twilight did about the subject, just shrugged again. Twilight continued to examine the table in silence, trying to figure out when it had recieved that chip, and why it was covered over with varnish. She had no recollection of having either damaged or repaired it, and she was reasonably certain she would have remembered one or the other, if not both.

“But, uh, what are we gonna do now?” repeated Spike.

“Spike, did you do something to this table and then try to cover it up?” Twilight asked, completely ignoring his question. “Because it looks like something gouged out a bit of the wood, and then somepony tried to... uh…”

She trailed off, suddenly trying very hard to remember why she had just cared so much about the little chip missing from the surface of her table when her horn was useless and she looked like a gigantic insect, and everypony wanted to grab her and beat her breathless. The table had seemed so important just a moment ago, and now, suddenly, it wasn't anymore. With a slow exhale, Twilight leaned back and looked up at the ceiling for a while.

“It would be best to work under the assumption that somepony is going to come to the library eventually, whether it be The Changeling or the Royal Guard,” she said, mostly to herself. “Therefore, I'll have to be out of here by, say, three. Maybe three-thirty. Of course, I need a place to hide, and my body wouldn't be able to handle going all the way back to the church in the Everfree.”

“There's a clubhouse-fort-thing in the trees at Sweet Apple Acres,” suggested Spike. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders—you know, um, Rarity's and Applejack's sisters, and the filly that tags along with Rainbow Dash—they use it a lot. Sometimes they have sleepovers there.”

“Then I should stay away from it, Spike. I can just imagine those three trying to get their cutie marks in catching changelings.”

Scratching the side of his head, he said, “Uh, they kinda already did try that... Well, they got in trouble for it, too. I heard Rarity talking about it when I was at the boutique. Uh, Applebloom got sent to Manehattan, Sweetie Belle is with her parents in I-don't-remember-where, and Scootaloo got grounded and she's not allowed to leave the house for three weeks without supervision, except for school.”

He looked pleased with himself for having been able to supply this information, and Twilight just couldn't bring herself to tell him otherwise. It wasn't a bad suggestion, really, now that she knew the old treehouse would more than likely be deserted—the Guard had probably already checked it as one of the most obvious hiding places early on; maybe again the night before, when Trixie had brought Twilight into town. There was a chance she could relocate herself to it for a night or two without being caught, and plan from there.

And in the course of considering the benefits of this move, she realized the solution to the problem of where she would go: after staying in the treehouse for a night, she could then sneak back into the forest and make her way to Zecora's home. Though Twilight supposed Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie would probably be just as willing to give her the benefit of the doubt as Zecora, the zebra was still the best choice because at least the place she lived wasn't crawling with Royal Guards and concerned townsponies anymore.

In fact, if she left the area, they probably wouldn't pursue her into the forest again, even if that potential alarm surrounding the town caught her on her way out. Twilight was ostensibly safe, and the real Twilight doubted she would be pursued with the same vigor after it was decided that she was heading away from the town. The more she thought about it, the more excited she became—it was actually a very good plan.

“Alright. Alright, I'll go to the treehouse, then. Could make my way over to Zecora's from there,” muttered Twilight. “I could even sneak right back into the forest if I make good time getting there.”

She paused again, having hit upon a rather significant issue. “But how will I get there without being seen by anypony?”

“Can't you just... I dunno. Can't you, like, change?” Spike asked, making quotation marks with his claws as he spoke the last word. “I, well, isn't that what being a changeling is about? Like, you can, uh, you can turn into ponies, right? Disguise yourself so nopony knows it's you.”

“I can't.” Anxiously, Twilight ran her hoof up and down the side of the table again, this time pointedly refusing to touch, look at, or acknowledge the gouged-out spot. “The limiter covers that frequency. Even if I did have sufficient access to my magic, I still don't know how to physically control that change. It works by itself when I lose... when my emotions are extremely strong... although that tends to happen with any branch of magic where the caster isn't appropriately trained to keep it under control.”

A shudder passed through Twilight at the thought of there being a kind of magic—one that was currently inside her, no less—that she didn't have complete control over. She had grown comfortable with her overpowered unicorn magic thanks to Princess Celestia teaching her to reign it in and keep herself under control, and it was not pleasant to have this control taken away from her. Having a changeling's magic was different, but memories of that explosion of energy during her test were prickling unpleasantly at the corners of Twilight's mind nonetheless.

“List... need to make a list…” she muttered automatically, and then realized that she wasn't even at that stage in her planning session at the moment.

Though idea of going into something and winging it, so to speak, was loathesome to Twilight, she decided after an eternity of trying to slog through her mental sludge that she was just going to have to make up her escape from the library as she went along. The best she would be able to do for the time being was minimize certain risks.

“Spike, I'm going to have to travel all the way to Sweet Apple Acres like this and avoid being seen when I do. I'll need your help for it.”

He nodded. “What do you need me to do, Twilight?”

Twilight hummed thoughtfully. “I need you to go look around the town and find out which parts are most heavily patrolled by the Royal Guard, so that we know to avoid them. While you're doing that, I'll get some supplies, and—Ah. Spike, what happened to all the changeling research I collected for my presentation? It'd be very useful to bring that as well.”

“Well, the other you, you know, well…” Spike started. He stopped, took a breath, and began again in a somewhat calmer manner. “I bundled all that stuff up 'cause you got a bunch of mail while you were gone and we needed the space. And then the other, the changeling you—I mean, the you that's actually a changeling but looks like you but isn't... It came here, and I got worried it would destroy everything to keep from having anypony learn about changelings, so I hid it all in the closet upstairs.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Twilight's mouth. Finally, she was going to get her hooves on some information that would be useful in finding a way to reverse the transformation.

"Good. I'll get that from upstairs, and I'll get the things I need, and then I'll meet you again when you're done going around the town. Take something with you to write down what you see—or, actually, I'll write a list of some things and you can draw on the back of it. Just, if anypony asks you what you're doing outside, running all over the place, just tell them I sent you out on errands."

Feeling very excited with her own ingenuity, she looked around for something to write her fake list with. Spike helpfully got her some parchment, a pen, and ink from the little bookshelf under the window. She remembered not to try using her magic this time, and ended up writing an extremely messy list of some generic things for him to pretend to be doing—mostly checking on the experiments that were contained at specific places around the town instead of the library.

“Here,” she finally said, and passed the list to Spike. There was a giddying bubble of smugness in her chest now, the kind Twilight only experienced when she'd done something she knew was particularly clever. “I know you don't typically go to the general store on Thursdays unless there's an emerg—”

“It's Saturday,” Spike interrupted awkwardly. Twilight stared at him in half-comprehension for a bit, then managed to convince her mind to adapt to this information.

“...you don't go to the general store on Saturdays, either, but nopony knows that routine unless they've paid very close attention to your habits as well as mine for a very long time. Even if The Changeling comes across you and asks what you're doing, it won't know that you're acting abnormally if you tell it you're doing your usual errands, because it doesn't have my memories. It'll assume you're telling the truth, and why would it risk its cover questioning something so mundane? With the way it was acting in the town square, I expect it's been manipulating ponies into disclosing information it doesn't know under the guise of having a head injury that's causing it to forget things.”

She paused, and promptly filed this realization away in a corner of her brain for possible future use. That sort of thing could provide invaluable revelations if she took the time to analyze it properly. An understanding of the changeling's role in her transformation, perhaps, or some way to trick or trap the creature and set everything right...

“A-anyway... please make some notes on anything else that might impede our journey,” Twilight finished distractedly. “Places where there might be obstacles: particularly busy routes, unusually observant ponies, Pinkie Pie. That sort of thing. I'll meet you back here when you're done, and we'll get going then, alright?”

Spike nodded. He got up from his seat and hugged Twilight. “I'll go in a minute. Just gotta put away all the dishes and stuff first, 'cause I don't think you could do that with just one hoof.”

“Alright. Thank you, Spike.”

Twilight allowed him to take her plate away—not much of her food had been eaten—and silently watched him clean it and put it away, along with his own. Then he left, bidding her goodbye as he did, and the ex-unicorn went upstairs to look for the books he'd hidden. They were indeed hidden in a tote bag in the back of the closet; all the books, and the notes that had been mailed to her from Canterlot. Twilight pulled them out and laid them on her bed.

After all, there was no reason why she couldn't have a quick look at them while she waited for Spike to come back.

“...and then we'll go and give out invitations and we'll get everypony in town including the Royal Guards and they'll stop being so grouchy-wouchy and we can invite Spitfire too and do you know where Trixie went because I need to plan her party too. Oh, oh, and we can have a piñata that looks like a changeling so when you hit it you get little candies that look like hearts, geddit? 'Cause they eat looove…”

Not far away from the library, Pinkie Pie was prancing around the back kitchen of Sugarcube Corner with a tray of cupcakes balanced on her nose. Piled around her were the building blocks of a Pinkie Pie Party: streamers, confetti, banners, candy, punch mix, and so on. Setting up a party might have been a simple task with the party cannon to help, but like any great campaign, throwing a good party required a lot of preparation beforehoof.

To this end, the pink mare had taken on an indentured servant for the day. Lyra Heartstrings, who wasn't too big on parties, had, about a month before, swapped a planned Pinkie Pie Birthday Party for a promise to help out at Sugarcube Corner. Thus, she was now trapped in the bakery, trying to retain what little was left of her sanity in the face of extended exposure to Pinkie Pie.

“...without enough confetti, so I had to go to another store to make sure I had enough! This is a big important vee-eye-pee party so it has to be perfect and oh my cupcakes I've never been so excited for a party except for that one time…”

“Okay,” said Lyra, who was leaning idly on her hoof behind some cake mix boxes, in a bland voice. Helping Pinkie had amounted to little more than listening to her seemingly endless rambling, and it was starting to really grate on the unicorn's nerves.

“And, oh, oh. Oh!” Pinkie almost tripped over a large barrel of confetti, but did a sort of awkward dance on the spot and managed to keep the tray balanced. “And also, also, also, we need to find out if Spike will let us into the library early, y'know? 'Cause I want it to be a big surprise, but, uh, I don't want to spend the night in jail for breaking and entering again. It was really nice of Cheerilee not to press charges, but I think the town police are starting to get kinda annoyed with me about it, and it's never nice to upset anypony by breaking the law.”

Lyra snorted grimly. “It's... relieving that you understand that, Pinkie Pie.”

“Yepperz,” Pinkie agreed, still cheerful. Then her ears perked up, and she said, in a voice so high with excitement that it was hardly more than a wavy squeak, “Oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh! Hold on, Lyra. I'm going to go give Spike his invitation now, 'cause he's passing by! And I can give him Twilight's, too!”

“Isn't this party for Twilight? And isn't it a surprise party?”

“Yep,” repeated the pink mare, “but that doesn't mean we can't also invite Twilight to the surprise party!”

This did not make sense to Lyra, but she nodded as though she understood anyway and said, “Absolutely true.”

“Don't go anywhere; Auntie Pinkie Pie will be back in a jiffy!” Pinkie said, and promptly scooted out through the door.

“As if anypony could ever escape you,” muttered Lyra.

Idly, she poked at the folded banner while she waited for Pinkie to return. This brought to her attention that she didn't even know who the party was going to be thrown for, having been unable to decipher that information from Pinkie's rambling. Lyra was aware that Spike was the name of Twilight Sparkle's pet dragon, though, so it didn't take long for her to figure out that it was probably a welcome back party for Twilight. She flipped back the corner of one of the smaller banners, the ones meant to be hung from every possible part of the walls.

WELCOME TO PONYVILLE, TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!! was the message it bore. Pinkie had even designed patterns on the edges that looked like the mulberry pony's star cutie mark. From this, Lyra concluded with reasonable certainty that the fruits of her misery would indeed be going to Twilight.

“How do you manage to sew these so quickly?” she asked curiously, holding up the banner, as Pinkie Pie came back into the kitchen. “There must be, what, a dozen of them? Do you just make them beforehoof and then store—Wait, you even sewed today's date on this one…”

Pinkie giggled and waved her hoof, as if to dismiss the whole thing as insignificant. “Silly, I couldn't make them in advance. How could I know who's going to come to Ponyville before they actually come? Even my Pinkie Sense isn't that good. I just make them real fast with my super-duper Pinkie Party Planning Skills. Sometimes I outsource to Rarity, because she makes better designs than I do. Anyway, I only put today's date on it 'cause I didn't have time to throw a party yesterday. I kinda feel bad about that, y'know? Everypony deserves a Very Special Pinkie Pie Friendship Party when they come to Ponyville for the first time ever.” She hung her head for a second, looking ashamed of herself. “I was just... too busy to fit it into my schedule…”

Lyra actually did feel rather bad for Pinkie. Throwing parties was, after all, her special talent, and the unicorn's experience learning how to play the lyre had taught her quite well how distressing it was to fail at one's special talent, even once.

“I'm sure Twilight won't be that upset,” she said in a consoling tone. “She's usually pretty forgiving if you're late with something, as long as you're sorry for it and it isn't a library book.”

“That's the spirit,” Pinkie agreed, as though she thought she were the one consoling Lyra. Her sadness had already evaporated, and she was back to baking more cupcakes for the party. “I wonder if Twilight will like hot sauce cupcakes. I should make an extra batch, just in case.”

“I don't think she likes hot sauce much. Didn't she almost burn her taste buds off at her first welcome party? Rarity told me Twilight's been deathly afraid of hot sauce ever since that thing happened.”

With a confident shake of her head, Pinkie said, “Nuh-uh. Twilight wasn't at that party, silly. That party was for Twilight, and Twilight is Twilight. And Twilight is Twilight, but Twilight is Twilight, so Twilight isn't Twilight and so could not possibly have been at that party because I would remember it.”

“Okay then,” Lyra mindlessly agreed, nodding, as she wondered if there were any good mental health clinics where she could make an appointment for counseling when her period of servitude was over. “That... makes sense...?”

“Of course it makes sense, silly.” Pinkie shut the door of the oven, having just put in one last batch of her infamous hot sauce cupcakes. “I'll just make the extra batch, and if Twilighty doesn't like them, oh well. More for me!”

“Good thinking.”

“Yep!”

Lyra suddenly found that half a town's worth of invitations were being stuffed into her hooves, and Pinkie was looking at her with a rather manic glint in her eye.

“Let's go give out the rest of the invitations!” Pinkie said.

Some time passed, which Twilight spent the majority of skimming through her collected research on the hunt for something relevant to her current predicament. Sitting on her bed, the ex-unicorn had piled everything into two stacks; that which she'd gone through already and that which she had yet to look through.

It proved to be one of the few study sessions she'd ever had where the joy of reading was outweighed by her irritation that she couldn't immediately find what she was looking for. Part of the annoyance came from how it was suddenly very difficult to turn the pages without magic, just as it had been when she was a filly. Unlike when she was a filly, however, Twilight didn't have the patience to go through the laborious process of using her mouth and hooves to go through entire books. As for those, there was little of use in determining how one could sponaneously become a changeling. Most of it was rehashed facts that Twilight had already committed to memory the first time she looked through, or else just restatements confirming things that she knew: changelings reproduced without the direct help of ponies, it was impossible for their magic to steal memories... and so on.

The first remotely useful thing she got out of it was a chance to check whether there was any further evidence of experiments performed on captured changelings, once the idea came to mind. There wasn't any overt evidence of it that Twilight could find, thankfully, but many of the documents that had been sent to her were full of redacted sections, and sometimes seemed to be obfuscating things—though she didn't know what those things were, precisely.

Though it had not been apparent to her before, nearly every document was brimming with what could have been equated to tribalist rhetoric. Changelings were described as racial parasites; as cockroaches that sucked ponies dry without a hint of remorse; as subequine creatures that gave nothing and took all.

And all of these things Twilight did not doubt were true, having dealt personally with their queen, but it bothered her now that this sort of biased propaganda had ended up in scientific documents without proof to support it. It was science, and science was meant to appeal to logic—not raw, primitive emotion. Eventually, she became sick of reading what increasingly seemed to be vehicles for exactly the kind of hysterical thinking she'd wanted to prevent when she agreed to make that presentation. How she'd failed to notice it was beyond her; how opinionated, how biased, how racist the notes were; and it made her ill to her stomach.

Seeing that it had been over an hour since Spike had left, Twilight went downstairs and got a couple of her most complex volumes on the nature of magical interactions from the basement. It seemed she was going to have to take those with her and try to figure out the answer using theory. She placed all of the books and supplementary documents into her saddlebags, and then went about getting supplies for her trip. She didn't have any prescription painkillers, but she at least had ibuprofen that she could take with her. Just in case, Twilight put some more bandages, disinfectant, and a first-aid kit in the bag, as well as her traveling canteen, which she filled with water first.

Then she sat, waiting with as much patience as she could muster and occasionally glancing over at the clock again. The numbers slowly climbed, and as they did, so too did Twilight's anxiety over when Spike was going to get back. He'd been out far too long, she thought; what if he'd been detained, or something else bad had happened to him? Growing ever more nervous, the ex-unicorn kneaded her good hoof against the bedspread, wishing that she could simply will Spike to come back.

A sudden, muffled thumping noise elsewhere in the house made her jump slightly, having brought her out of a tense stupor that was really nothing like being distracted or half-asleep at all. Twilight's ears twitched as she looked around and tried to determine where, exactly, the sound had come from, but she'd been too out-of-it to pick up on that when she first heard it happen.

She slid off the bed and limped over to the door, straining all her senses to pick up even the slightest sound or movement. Perhaps she had just imagined that there was something downstairs. As anxious as she was, it wasn't completely out of the question. But to dismiss it would have been a mistake, because if Twilight really had heard something, it could have come from some hostile invader as easily as from her number one assistant's return.

As silently as she could, Twilight crept down the stairs, still listening intently for some sign of movement. The whole trip was a laborious activity, as she had to accommodate for the awkwardness of her broken leg. Each step made the stairs creak—how had she not realized how loud going up and down them was until then?

Just as she stepped out into the hallway, a blob of emotions registered on her empathy sensor's radar. It was distinctly not Spike's, who had generally (as far as Twilight understood the input, which wasn't much) exuded a combination of concern, confusion, caring, and mild irritation whenever Twilight had interacted with him once she'd been transformed. The most powerful feelings that came from this visitor were fear, uncertainty, and a deep and crushing anxiety; something so terrible that Twilight herself could have easily relived her traumatizing experience with the Want-It-Need-It spell through it.

And though she knew that she ought to have hidden, Twilight was unable to do anything but stare down the hall as it drew closer; as, she deduced, it ascended the stairs. The wriggling ball of emotion paralyzed her somehow, because she half-knew that she recognized it from the night before; and yet again, her mind simply refused to accept the truth, to accept that things were the way they were.

Not until it was visible to her eyes did Twilight dare believe what her sixth sense was saying to her. Not until that very moment, when two hooves shined with cheap lavender polish stepped into the hall, was she able to accept that the mulberry coat, the well-cared-for horn, the cutie mark, and everything else had come back to her as the skin of that stranger-but-not-stranger from the town square; that it was there, that it was coming for her; coming to eat her, to ingest her and complete its mimicry of her, so that nopony would ever realize that she was missing, and her complete erasure from the world would then be as true and unquestionable as the ringing noise echoing through her head and the way her entire body suddenly felt like it was made of rubber so her bones were wobbling and she might fall but it wouldn't matter because she couldn't run anyway and she was about to meet her end forever and ever—

“Oh.”

It was the thing's voice that brought Twilight out of her emotional hiding place in the back of head. She looked at it, subconsciously disgusted by how it was a perfect match for her old form, and saw a look of surprise on its face; as though it hadn't the faintest idea what to do. But there was a violet-mulberry spell forming on its horn; growing, swirling, until it launched at Twilight.

The crash of whatever the errant spell had hit being blown to pieces broke the strange tension between them. A surge of adrenaline shot through Twilight as she realized, fully, that her life was currently at stake and if she didn't do something quickly, she wouldn't have much of a chance at all. Her lookalike was powering up another spell, but it seemed more hesitant and unsure of itself, and Twilight took advantage of that.

With her broken leg numbed by the adrenaline, she crossed most of the distance between them before the spell just fizzled out, and the 'unicorn' looked up at its horn in disbelief and fear. Then Twilight reached it and slammed her entire (admittedly almost negligible) bodyweight into the other creature. Though not entirely thrown off by the attack, it rocked back, and soon lost its balance and fell onto its haunches.

Twilight jumped on it, thinking not with rational logic but with the most primative parts of her brain; the ones that dealt with fear. There was only a passing note made in the coldest regions of her frontal lobes that such aggressive behavior under stress was not normal for equines, and that the changeling she was wearing was clearly affecting the way she reacted to the situation, somehow. Or, perhaps, she was too cornered and too desperate to do anything else, having spent the last few days running, or maybe she just hated herself and hadn't realized it yet.

Either way, the information failed to reach the important parts of her mind as she began to beat the imposter with her good hoof. But her strikes were exceedingly weak, and she had no training in hoof-to-hoof combat at all, and worst of all, the imposter was starting to recover and utilize its superior physical condition.

At first, it tried to shove Twilight off itself, but she hung on as best she could. Then it managed to draw its legs up under her and buck her in the stomach, which made a sickly cracking sound as the chitin protecting it buckled under the force. Twilight screamed in agony, but she held onto the fake pony all the same and began using her head as a weapon, trying to stab it in the neck with her horn as she babbled, “You can't take me, I won't let you take me, I'm Twilight Sparkle, the real Twilight Sparkle, and you can't just take my life, how dare you, how dare you—”

There was another crack as the panicking 'pony' beneath her struck her in her broken leg. As Twilight screamed and reflexively drew her leg up against her chest, the imposter shrank back, as though afraid of the power it possessed to inflict injuries on her. But Twilight wasn't going to back down: she drew back her hoof and slammed it into the mulberry creature's throat, and then into its nose while it choked, and then she just went wild and started hitting it wherever she could land blows.

“You deserve this!” she gasped as she rammed her hoof into its face again and again. “You stole my life, you stole my freedom, you stole my safety, you stole my friends, you stole me—”

Under her hoof, there was a distinct crunch. Warm red blood splashed from the unicorn-shaped-creature's crushed nose, covering Twilight's own hoof. Twilight held her hoof up and gazed at it, suddenly acutely aware of the fact that she'd hurt a living thing—and worse, that she'd enjoyed it. The rage was still there; the desire to take out her days of suffering on something that was helpless to defend itself against her...

She felt dizzy, now looking down at the gurgling red-spattered thing. Part of her wished that she could use magic, because she wanted to break its neck right there. Another part was terrified that such thoughts could ever pass through her head, violating the first rule Celestia had ever taught her: to never harm another creature with magic, no matter what the circumstances.

That dizziness got progressively worse, until she was swaying back and forth atop the unicorn-like imposter. A glowing lavender aura surrounded its horn, but Twilight was too confused to remember what to do about it. There was just so much red everywhere, and she felt so guilty it actually hurt, and she just wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep even though that was exactly what she knew she shouldn't be doing.

“Shorry 'bout the nose,” Twilight slurred. “Jus'... angry... but Celeshtia shayd it'sh bad t' hurt other poniesh…”

She keeled over onto the not-unicorn's chest, and the world spun down into a spiral that led to the darkness of sleep. For some time after this, there was silence except for Twilight's soft snoring; a side-effect of having been hit with the very simplest of sleep spells instead of a true knockout spell. This was broken briefly when the unicorn-like thing under her reached up and rolled her to the side, causing her to mumble something nonsensical. The general silence went on, with the only indication of life besides the snoring now being the other pony's occasional blinking and coughing as it stared pensively at the ceiling.

Eventually, it ground out, in a voice that was identical to Twilight Sparkle's, “Celestia also said it's good to forgive ponies. Maybe I could forgive you.”

IX. This Enemy Ground

Hey guys! I finally finished the next chapter. I'm so sorry, by the way, that I took so long to get this fixed up. I've been struggling with writer's block and depression for a long time, and in the last few months I've had some things going on irl that have made it difficult for me to get much writing done anyway. The other reason this chapter took a while is that it has some stuff in it that I wanted to do just right. Still not totally satisfied I don't think my perfectionism can get any more redundant. Either way, it's done and I'm back now! Thank you so much for putting up with my impressively slow working rate and psychotic perfectionism. You're wonderful readers.  Please give my prereaders and editors your thanks, too! There's a list of them at the bottom that still needs to be completed =3. Also, don't forget to check out the response prompt!

Solitary Locust

Chapter IX. This Enemy Ground

Twilight swam through a thick, tarry ocean in search of some sort of awareness, some kind of comprehension, but there was little to be found except for a vague hint that she existed within a physical body and that some of her experiences were nonphysical thoughts.

Bizarre hallucinations jumped out at her every so often. Sometimes, she could look around and see every detail of the room she was in, only to realize that her eyelids had drooped shut and she couldn't see the faint light at all. When this happened, she would quickly open her eyes again and resolve to keep them open, and they would eventually close and the process would start all over again. Lights flittered around in the corners of her vision when she did have her eyes open. Once, an earsplitting bang jolted her upright, but there didn't seem to be any source for it.

She had awoken an indeterminable length of time earlier, although she had vague fragments of memories of feeling extremely uncomfortable before that, and wasn't certain if she'd been dreaming or just so stupefied that she'd fallen asleep again immediately after. There was ample evidence to suggest the latter—namely, that even after what felt like hours, Twilight was still yawning and catching herself on the verge of nodding off again.

Her head, which was lolling around weakly from left to right and back again, felt stuffed with cotton, and her mind seemed to be trying to work more quickly than it was capable of at the moment. Consequently, she kept losing her fleeting thoughts even as she attempted to hang onto them. It took some time before she was able to finally latch onto something concrete, and even then, she quickly lost it again.

Amidst the jumble inside her head, Twilight wondered briefly where she was, what was going on, and whether Spike and her friends were alright. None of these things received a great deal of dedicated consideration; rather, Twilight jumped around between these things and a few other irrelevancies—like what had happened to her notes about her condition. They would have been useful at the moment, as she could hardly remember what was going on.

The only concrete thing she could spare the energy to cling to for an extended period of time was the knowledge that she had to stay awake. It was very important that she not fall asleep again, and she reminded herself of it by mumbling 'I need to stay awake' under her breath from time to time. This mantra even seemed to pervade her dreams, in which she heard those words while she slipped out of her bonds and made her escape, only to awaken again and realize that she was still chained to the wall and ceiling.

Very slowly, bit by bit, her awareness increased, although the intense fatigue remained, and Twilight was still torn between obeying the inner voice shouting that she needed to stay awake or giving in to the other voice insisting that it was time to sleep. At some point, she was able to retrieve a few fragments of memories and knowledge, and put them together to conclude that she was being affected by a hypersomnia spell which had tricked her central nervous system into believing that it was deprived of sleep. In her altered state of consciousness, Twilight found it worthy of a dumb, confused giggle that she was able to recognize the mechanism of action the spell used when she could hardly remember what the thing on her head was called.

Her thoughts finally started to coagulate a little bit amidst the mud and gunk, allowing her to remember some of them for longer than a few seconds after having them. The soreness in her horn soon became apparent and increasingly distracting, as did the throbbing pain radiating up her leg. But at the same time, the pain helped her to focus herself further, cutting through the dimness of her mental fog like a sharp knife, dragging her away from the blissful ignorance her sleepiness offered.

Her forelegs were pulled above her head, and she'd been forced into an upright sitting position by the foreleg restraints and another set of restraints on her hind legs, as well as one around her neck that bound her to the wall. As best she could tell, she was seated on some kind of wooden bench, and the floor under her hooves was filthy enough that it felt more like dirt. Twilight tried pulling herself free of the restraints, but moving around only produced a loud clanking noise of chains knocking together.

There was a light, but it was muffled by what Twilight eventually realized was a cloth blindfold covering her eyes. With no way to clearly see the room in which she was trapped, she had no way of knowing how big it was or where she might be—but she was certain that there could not be another sentient creature inside with her, because surely not even a changeling would wait in the shadows for as long as she seemed to have been there; not without doingsomething that would reveal itself.

From here, from the vague image of an oversized insect with glowing pale blue eyes hiding in the darkness, waiting to strike, Twilight started to recall the events that had led up to her imprisonment—namely that she was currently wearing the skin of an inborn enemy of her entire race. This realization came back before the memory of how it had happened or what had happened after the transformation; and so for a moment it seemed to be a concept suspended by itself, with nothing concrete to precede or follow it.

The full memory hit only a second later in a torrent of pain, horror, green fire, ponies looking at her horn and suggesting that it be broken off, running through the woods, the stones and gravel cutting at her hooves, a sun setting and leaving her to suffer and cry by herself... And then the rest of it: the two pegasi, the bubble, Trixie, the town, Spike, the thing that was calling itself Twilight Sparkle and that had attacked her…

Twilight took a deep breath. She counted off in her head:One,two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... and let it out again. Then she took several more breaths for good measure, dutifully counting to ten before letting each one out. The initial panic soon ebbed away and was replaced by the safe and familiar need to exercise control over the situation; to plan out every detail, to make order out of chaos, to organize everything into neat little categories and boxes and things that were safe and sensible.

“Step one of any coherent crisis management plan,” she croaked—entirely to herself, and so barely audible she might as well have mouthed the words. “Assess the situation and form as complete an understanding as possible of the context in which any future decisions are made.”

She tugged on the chains again, shaking from the residual terror as she did. This could not possibly be a changeling hive, she concluded, as changelings didn't use chains or forged steel or anything of that nature. Wherever she was, it had been created by ponies. The most likely place Twilight could immediately come up with was her own basement. Unless she'd missed out on something very important, her imprisonment was the direct result of her confrontation with the imposter in the library. She could have been dragged down there and tied her up.

But Twilight didn't keep any large, heavy chains in the basement, nor did she have a bench with a neck brace over it attached to the wall. She doubted the fake Twilight could have put something like that together in the time that she was asleep unless it had professional welding skills, which it most likely did not. That, and the room she was in seemed smaller. Twilight could tell because her overly sensitive hearing now allowed her to determine, roughly, how big the space she was confined in was based on the acoustics.

“Alright, alright... Other places nearby that might fit the description, then.”

The first thing that came to mind was a jail cell, although she didn't think Ponyville's single jail cell was as small as this room felt and sounded. It was definitely made by ponies, though, and not the changelings, who didn't use metal or artificial materials to build their hives. That meant Twilight was somewhere in Ponyville, probably in a place that was populated, and that in turn meant changelings were moving around the town.

And the implications of this were even more frightening once they became clearer. If there were changelings walking around town and using it if it were their own, then there was a good chance that they had taken control of the town completely. Perhaps they weren't being completely open about their presence, not yet, but it was likely that by then they had gnawed away at enough of the infrastructure to leave Ponyville hanging precariously on the edge of total chaos.

Irritatingly, there was no hard evidence of what she'd theorized; only inferences and implications and leaps of faith. Twilight was not the kind of pony who found faith an appealing reason to believe something—she was a scientist, and she needed evidence. But it was all she had at the moment.

She devised a crude test to soothe her inner skeptic:

“Hypothesis: the creatures that come through the door will be undisguised changelings or will identify themselves as changelings,” she whispered to herself, so quiet that she was practically mouthing the words. “Reasoning: their bold use of Ponyville's municipal structures for their own ends indicates that if changelings are indeed present in Ponyville, they have infiltrated far enough into the power structure that they either feel they no longer have to maintain disguises, or else their hand has been forced by the discovery of their network.”

As she thoughtfully licked the one of her fangs that didn't ache—it still felt like a lollipop stick or some other foreign object, rather than part of her body—and prepared to add other stipulations to her hypothesis, she remembered that they were holding her captive, and that there were implications to this that concerned her specifically.

“...If this is the case... if my test is successful... then I expect I'll either be killed very shortly after their entry into this room, or else they have some terrible fate in store for me. They can't possibly consider me one of their own if they've replaced me and the imposter has imprisoned me.”

Twilight thought back to the group of lunar guardsponies that had come to meet Trixie on the outskirts of Ponyville, and for the first time, she began to consider how bizarre Spitfire had been acting. It hadn't seemed to stand out at the time—compared to the rest of the events that were taking place, anyway—but it suddenly seemed to make quite a bit more sense. Those had not been real guards, Twilight realized, but imposters. Spitfire, too, was likely a changeling—she had not come out to protect the town, as Twilight had believed, but had been trying to stop Twilight from reaching it.

She suddenly felt an intense rush of gratitude for Trixie's belligerence and her unwillingness to accept anything but what she wanted. In a way, though it had caused her a great deal of pain and misery, it had probably saved her life. Had she been taken by the false Spitfire, she would probably have been taken somewhere quiet and disposed of, and nopony would have been any the wiser until the changelings were already too entrenched to weed out.

But theywere entrenched now. They had come in somehow; like a deadly virus into an open wound, they had infiltrated Ponyville, and the disease had already begun to spread. Perhaps they had come with the Royal Guard, perhaps after, and perhaps they had been there for ages—but it mattered little at the moment. What did matter was that Twilight was at the mercy of creatures who would as soon kill her as make love to her.

That they hadn't killed her already seemed, at first, a light in the darkness—but upon a second examination, it was very likely that they intended to either keep her alive to torture for information, or perhaps as a bargaining chip. Perhaps they hadn't decided what to do with her yet, but thought she was valuable enough to keep around until they did come up with something. Maybe they were just more bureaucratic about kidnapping and murder than Chrysalis's chaotic hive had been.

Although, when she thought of Chrysalis, Twilight couldn't help but remember Cadance's weeks-long imprisonment in the catacombs under Canterlot. She'd never asked Cadance what had happened there, and it wasn't until she was chained to the wall and blindfolded during a changeling invasion that she really began to wonder if they had just left her down there to fend for herself, or if they had done more than that.

Twilight had, of course, read about the practice of murder and torture for information when she was creating the presentation that had ultimately turned her life inside-out. She had said the words out loud in front of Ponyville, and they had even carried a sense of gravity appropriate for the situation, in her opinion. But it hadn't completely sunk in until just then that changelings had probably tortured Cadance and they were probably going to torture Twilight too.

A new wave of panic flooded her as she began to imagine what methods of torture a changeling might utilize. Magic, knives, electricity, maybe psychological torture—Surely, a race of creatures that subsisted on identity theft would have invested significant time and effort into developing methods of information extraction.

And worse, Twilight thought, was what they would likely do with that information. The imposter had ingratiated itself with her friends—and by now, it had probably killed or replaced half of them.

Seized by a sudden rush of anger that overrode her fear, she thrashed around wildly, making the chains clank and bucking the air with such force that sometimes she was merely hanging by her upper hooves. The pain in her foreleg failed to register as relevant, as did the sensation of her other hoof nearly dislocating from all the violence. It was a completely silent activity save for her gasping intake and exhalation of breath.

It didn't take long for the adrenaline rush to die away, but even after it deteriorated, Twilight continued to move around weakly. Though her brain kept screeching to her that she needed to get somewhere safe. But she was too tired, and too weak, and too feeble, and too sick of running from friends and illusory enemies that could steal her skin and wear it like a coat.

To her left, Twilight heard muffledclop-clop-clop noises of hooves on the ground.

The panic surged up yet again and her already overtaxed nervous system went mad. She wanted to use magic, or run, or just vanish from existence—but she was once again paralyzed by that odd little instinct in the back of her head that believed if she didn't move, maybe the problem would just go away and leave her alone. She held her breath in spite of the urge to hyperventilate, only letting it out again when she was in danger of passing out.

Something rattled the chains that her hooves were tied to, and she instinctively tried to get away from them. All it did was make the chains clank more, and make the throbbing pain in Twilight's foreleg flare into something worse for a moment before dying back down. She gulped down another breath, still refusing to actively acknowledge that there were other things in the room.

“Can you hear me?” asked a male voice. “We know you're awake, so don't pretend otherwise. Can you hear what I'm saying?”

She didn't say anything for a while. Inside, she weighed the possibilities of responding or continuing to ignore them—there seemed to be equal reason to do either one, although she soon found, after some prodding of her own thoughts, that the latter was supported more by fear than logical reasoning. And, of course, logic always trumped emotion.

“...Y-yeah,” Twilight rasped, her voice still almost inaudibly small. “Yeah. Yes. I can hear you.”

“We're going to unchain you so that you can walk,” said the voice. “Apologies for the chains, by the way. They're required when dealing with changelings.”

“But you're changelings,” she said. “Not me.”

As she said this, the chains rattled some more, and then slackened a bit, allowing her to lower her hooves. Her forelegs were stiff and ached from being confined in such a position for so long, so she moved them around to get the blood flowing properly again.

Growing bolder, Twilight asked, “C-can you tell me where I'm being held?”

“Here,” her captor said, “I'll take off the blindfold. Sorry about that, too.”

The blindfold was loosened until it slid down around Twilight's neck, allowing light to flood into her world. She winced and turned away from the shockingly bright light shining down from the ceiling, shutting her eyes tightly. While she did this, somepony removed the shackles from her lower legs and unchained her neck from the wall.

When she opened her eyes, which were watering heavily, long enough to look around, she found that she had been rather off the mark about her location. She was actually in what seemed to be a tent, and furthermore she was chained to a metal frame near the center of it, close to the pole supporting the top, instead of to a wall.

Her captors were not changelings. They were stallions. Stallions wearing the golden armor of the Equestrian Royal Guard, their heads held high and proud. There were four of them in total; two carrying spears, one dressed in an officer’s armor, and one holding a scroll with a heavy, ornamental seal on it.

“Thank you,” was all she could think to say, and this was in reference to the removal of her blindfold; and for some time afterward, Twilight found herself completely tongue-tied, trying to compute how the changes in her settings would affect her understanding of the rest of the situation, and respond accordingly.

Eventually she added, “But you're not changelings,” her tone lost and confused.

“I don't know about the others,” said the guard who had removed her blindfold, “but I've been a pony all my life. If I were a changeling, I'd have gotten caught by the revealing spell a long time ago. They do regular random testing on us in the Royal Guard.”

These words took a moment to sink in. Then Twilight's stomach turned over, and she felt, for some reason, an intense sense of annoyance; the same feeling she experienced as a filly when she was unable to perform a spell she wanted to learn. The feeling was so strong that it overrode her fear for a moment, and she even tried to purse her lips, though it was difficult to do this with fangs.

When she spoke, it was no longer in a half-whisper, but a confident—if scratchy thanks to her dehydration—tone similar to what she used to lecture Spike about responsibility from time to time. “My hypothesis predicted overt admissions of changeling infiltration. The logical solution to this entire puzzle is that you're all changelings.”

The guard just made a little shrugging motion. “I don't know anything about that. We've come here for you; to take you to Canterlot to see Princess Celestia, as Her Highness has commanded of us.”

Twilight forgot everything else for a moment. Where there had been a clear road ahead, there was now an immense concrete wall blocking her: surely they would not bother to deceive her like this, would they? She was at their mercy—why would they need to trick her? Why would they lie just to get her to their hive, and if that wasn't the case, why would they send her to Princess Celestia?

“But...” she said, feeling both lost and rather upset, “my hypothesis... predicted... admissions... of infiltration...”

“I don't know anything about infiltration, changeling. Alright, that's it. Nothing else is coming off—the limiter is standard procedure. We have to keep your magic bound.”

Twilight nodded stupidly. “Yes, yes, I understand. Procedure is important... Rules are important...”

They helped her up. Twilight reluctantly stretched her legs, which were aching and sore from being restrained in the same position for an indefinite period of time.

“This way,” one of them said, gesturing towards the tent's entrance flap. “There's a chariot waiting outside to take you to Canterlot. There, you'll be given a chance to speak to the Princess, and explain yourself, given the unusual circumstances of your situation.”

She nodded again.

Princess Celestia had called her home at last, it seemed; had put a stop to the madness, apparently, and made everything sane again. It hardly mattered whether they thought of her as a changeling or a pony, because Celestia would know the truth. She was older than Equestria itself, and she was the wisest of all the ponies Twilight had ever met. Celestia would know.

But it didn't make Twilight feel any safer, for some reason. There was something so dreadfully wrong with the scenario that was playing out, and it was making Twilight increasingly anxious that she couldn't figure out what it was, other than the impossible idea of her being so completely wrong.

Outside, it was raining. Thunder rumbled in the distance, although now Twilight could see that she had been confined in silence because there was a spell on the tent to mute sound. Raindrops fell on Twilight's head. She guessed that the weather was getting out-of-control, since the Royal Guard had probably restricted the weather team's movements since their arrival.

“Taking it to Canterlot,” said the first guard to another that they came across, and the one with the scroll showed it to him. “Leere already approved it. We're supposed to move it as quickly as possible to prevent the changeling hive from trying to take it back, just in case it knows something important.”

“My hypothesis, my scientific hypothesis, cannot be so wrong,” Twilight mumbled. “It can't be... No, no, of course you're lying to me, aren't you? But there's no proof. Why would you need to hide? I have nothing, I can't fight...”

Something was definitely very out of place; something small, something at once insignificant and mortally important. It was nagging at her like an out-of-tune violin, playing higher and higher, screeching painfully into her ears, screaming to be noticed.

“Did she get the letter? Or my notes?” she asked the nearest Royal Guard. “Princess Celestia, I mean.”

“I have no idea,” he replied.

“Oh.”

They stopped again, and Twilight half-listened to them talking to the guards, repeating the same information to another sentry: Princess Celestia ordered her to be taken to Canterlot for a special trial, everypony approved, and so on. She was more lost in her own thoughts than paying attention to that—Already, a thread of doubt was beginning to seep into her mind.

She knew that she was right; that she was a pony and had been all her life. But the idea of a conspiracy planned and executed by changelings, seemed less likely by the second. They had no reason to lie to her; she was helpless and couldn't tell anypony anything. If changelings had taken over Ponyville, why would they go through such an elaborate ruse just to fool her?

Princess Celestia might have received Spike's letter, and her notes had made it there, too. Twilight wanted to believe this was true, and yet it went against what she knew—that there were changelings running Ponyville now. But the only real proof she had was the fact that something bad had happened to her, there was at least one changeling in Ponyville, and members of Equestria's military forces had acted oddly.

It could have been an opportunistic rogue changeling that took her place for all she knew. Not a concerted effort by an entire army, but a random lone wolf taking advantage of a random event—a simple mistake she'd made, perhaps.

And yet, the screeching in her head wouldn't go away. Something was wrong, very wrong, and it was terrifying, and she didn't understand why. Maybe it was coming from within—maybe it was an alarm telling her that she had miscalculated, that she had hallucinated, that she was, perhaps, utterly insane and locked away in a mental hospital, babbling about schizophrenic delusions while the doctors tried to fix her.

It was gagging her, choking her, strangling her with its wrongness, but she couldn't understand what it was that was so wrong. Or why it was so familiar—she had seen this wrongness before, but it hadn't had the same uncanny valley effect that it was now.

Then they entered the main street of Ponyville, which was full of ponies who stopped what they were doing to watch her go by with her escort. And when she saw them, Twilight suddenly understood what was wrong, and it was so amazingly simple that her body locked up briefly in bewilderment and she nearly tripped over her own hooves.

There were no colours in her little entourage.

Changelingsconsumed emotion, so they were incapable of sensing each others' empathetic magic the way they could detect the emotions of other life forms. They hoarded feelings, quite literally, and did not show them to each other. And these guardsponies did not exude the colours. They were like empty shells, utterly incapable of emotional expression.

It brought about an intense rush of glee when she figured it out. Her hypothesis had been facially incorrect, but the ultimate outcome was the same: there were changelings in Ponyville, posing as regular ponies. They were posing as Royal Guards or Wonderbolts, not just walking around openly.

All along, Twilight realized, she had assumed that whatever spell had been cast on her had been done with the intent of bringing a new Twilight into Ponyville, to pretend to be her. But there were so many holes in this theory; namely, why they hadn't simply replaced her in the dead of night, choosing instead to do it in such a public manner that would only worsen the paranoia.

Now she understood—The guards, she realized, were actually changelings. All of them had to be changelings. Maybe even Leere was a changeling. They had not just invaded the town by any route possible, but had exploited the fact that having guards around made ponies feel better. They promised to mitigate the paranoia, the fear, the terror... but in reality, Twilight now understood, the goal had been to use her very public transformation as an excuse for what were ostensibly Royal Guards to come into Ponyville and take over.

Looking back on the moments she'd spent staring at Spitfire and her gang of Night Guards, Twilight realized that not once had she sensed any emotion from them at all. She hadn't even noticed the void because the empathetic colours were invasive and unwanted, and interacting with somepony without their presence still felt like it was the normal state of things. But there should have been emotion.

The relief was so powerful that she had to fight the urge to start laughing madly right then and there. It was undeniable proof that she was right, and that there were changelings hiding in Ponyville, and they were trying to keep her quiet, and that everything she had dreamed up, her little conspiracy theory, was indeed correct.

But a moment later, when she saw the pegasus-drawn carriage waiting in the street, she realized something else: being changelings, they certainly did not intend to take her to Princess Celestia. Leaving with them would surely lead to her dying a painful, unpleasant death one way or another. If she'd been taken by Spitfire the night Trixie brought her back, she knew she would have been killed, and this was no different—they were going to take her somewhere and either torture her or execute her.

She concluded, then, that she had to escape within the next ten or fifteen seconds, or else there was a good chance she'd be dead within two minutes. And the only way out was by magic—how easy it would be to escape, if only she had her magic, but she did not. There was still the cold numbness in her horn that came with having a limiter on it.

“Wait a minute...” She shook her head a few times.

The coldness in her horn was definitely there, which meant that she was still wearing the silver ring from her bathroom or some other cheap magic limiter designed for recreational use. Serious limiters didn't have the cooling effect; it was just a gimmick found in the commercial ones to make the experience more thrilling, since most unicorns expected an uncomfortable coldness when their magic was blocked.

For some reason, they hadn't bothered to put a real limiter on her. Maybe they'd thought Twilight's mail-order toy was the real thing. It didn't matter, really; the only important thing was the fact that she could get through this limiter even with her magic as demented as it was. Unloading the energy needed to punch through it in such a manner would leave many of the changelings around her injured, but she hardly even considered it beyond that point—either she gave them some contact burns or they'd kill her.

The more important fact was that using her magic like that would also ensure that she wouldn't be able to stop her horn from leaking magic ever again, and it would most likely explode a day or two later. Without her magic to complement her immune system, Twilight would have little protection against germs. She would survive, at most, a week by herself, and then she would succumb to illness, if the sheer agony didn't kill her first.

She would die, one way or another.

But her friends were in danger; all of Equestria was in danger. She herself was in more immediate danger than a disease could ever threaten her with. And for the first time since the ordeal began, Twilight had a definite, clear enemy to which she could assign blame for the immediate danger. That meant a way to escape the immediate danger, and that was what mattered.

Twilight reached deep into her magic and started pulling as much energy as she could into a single, very rapidly growing spell. She knew already what spells she would use to break through the limiter—they couldn't be anything different, not with so many ponies around.

Atop her head she could feel a charge building, the small area of her horn between the ring and her skull growing hot with unspent energy, and for once she was almost glad she didn't have a mane anymore, because it would have been scorched or even set on fire by the heat. A sickly green glow shone from that small space.

Blue glows formed on the disguised changelings' horns, too, but none of them had a chance to use their magic because another one, the closest one, tried to physically seize Twilight and stop her from building up the spell any further by slamming its hoof against her horn. The pain was almost unbearable, and she couldfeel her horn straining under the force of the blow, but Twilight held onto the spell anyway.

The hoof came down a second time and she turned her head just in time to spare her already searing horn from more abuse. It struck her face instead, probably breaking her nose for the third time in a week if the pain and the crackling were any indication. But it didn't matter very much, because for a moment, Twilight had so much magic crammed into one tiny spot in her body that she could feel nothing else besides the incredible pressure it was generating. She hardly felt another blow, even though this one was on her broken leg.

The moment the limiter finally gave out was something she could both feel and hear: it made a defeated hissing noise, and at the same time the pressure behind her horn began to decrease rapidly. The cold was progressively replaced by an intense heat as compressed magic perfused her horn, leaking through the cracks, until it burst out of the tip as a fountain of shimmering energy.

This energy—not truly a spell, but rather a full tenth of her magic imbibed with the simple command to keep other magic out—wrapped itself tightly around her like a bodysuit, protecting her from the second spell that emerged not a fraction of a second later. It was difficult to maintain the first and cast another at the same time, but Twilight just kept digging into the pent-up magical discharge that had been waiting behind the limiter for close to a day.

Unlike her previous usage of the changeling detection spell, which had been carefully calculated and controlled, the large-scale version didn't flow from her horn this time. Rather, it exploded out of it in a torrent, the rushing green flames shooting higher than the buildings around her before fanning out and splashing back down to onto the ground.  The air around her, compressed almost to nothing by the sheer volume of magic her horn was expelling, burst into flame, and the changeling that had seized hold of her—already pushed away by the shield—was violently swept aside.

By then, Twilight was so saturated with the sheer thrill of using that much magic at once that she hardly even thought of the changelings. She ignored the pain, too. What should have been intense agony shooting through her horn's root was reduced to a distant annoyance in the haze. Never in her life had she used so much magic at once.

For a brief moment, she felt omnipotent, endless, and eternal; able to rise into the sky and see a thousand miles in every direction in a single moment, and she wanted it to never, ever go away, because there was nothing here that hurt. There was no regenerative identity, no stippling of lavender amidst black, not even the faintest concept of a name; that she was anything but power. She'd passed the point at which she needed to consciously control the storm. She had merged with it, been taken into it, become it, risen into the sky with eyes and ears and empathy and all else.

In the haze, she knew herself—She knew every single second of her past and present, and why she was in the situation she was. It was a stream of momentary understanding; magical comprehension on a level only ever attained by a few ponies. But none of it was committed to memory as it passed through her mind—it was such clarity that it left her as soon as it touched her.

And then Twilight reached the end. She couldn't keep holding that kind of magic, and it collapsed in on itself. The huge bubble she'd created burst inward.

Her magic started to rush violently back into her horn at a hundred times the speed it had come out, bending the light where the energy entered the tip. Twilight herself was lifted right off her hooves by the force of the backlash and reared back up. When the last of it funneled in, it did so with a slurping noise that was then followed by an immense pressure behind Twilight's skull. It was so heavy, so unbearable, that she felt her eyes would be pushed out through her skull.

She could hear that ominous whistling noise for a few seconds, but it abruptly jumped up about half an octave and stopped. There was silence. Some green sparks dribbled down onto her face, which made her forehead itch.

Then her horn let off a single, extraordinarily violent pulse of energy, accompanied by the loudestboom she had ever heard in her entire life; a thousand times louder than one of Rainbow Dash's sonic rainbooms. Windows up and down the block shattered instantly, and most of the ponies still out in the street instinctively clapped their hooves over their ears.

Twilight herself swayed from side to side, struggling against the explosive jumble of colours her disrupted empathy sense was emitting. In one ear she could hear nothing except a sharp ringing; in the other, the distressed cries of the ponies behind the overturned carts and inside the blown-out stores were lost in the intense tinnitus as well. She could barely even hear her own moans of mingled confusion and pain.

With one hoof pressed over her ear, she staggered aimlessly forward, but her clumsy legs tripped over each other and she fell in the mud. Everything around her felt distorted and distant, and she couldn't seem to focus on any one thing long enough to take it in properly. Her head spun around and around dizzyingly, while her drained body desperately wanted to go to sleep and regenerate.

The worst part of all was her horn, which felt like it had just had nails driven through every single inch of it. Twilight looked up at it, crossing her eyes as she did, and found a green burning on the end of it. Raindrops sizzled whenever they came in contact with the magic. When she tried to shut off whatever was leaking, she was rewarded with an intense spike of pain straight into her skull and down her spine.

It was, Twilight realized through the haze,leaking magic. It wasn't just discharging excess buildup or dribbling a few sparks—her horn was leaking magic uncontrollably into the air. The severity of this new horror was unknown to her as of that moment, but she had a fleeting glimpse in her imagination of a horn blown to pieces, never to use magic again.

For some reason, she felt only numb acceptance instead of abject terror—perhaps it was because her brain was already occupied trying to plan her survival, or perhaps she had just been through so much that it just didn't matter anymore. Twilight crawled back to her hooves instead and glanced around to get her bearings.

The ground was marred by a circular black ring that went all the way around her; a testament to how out-of-control her initial spell had been. She caught the sickening odor of burnt flesh and chitin before she actually saw the changeling on the edge of this ring. Though she stared dumbly at it, trying to understand what she was looking at, she couldn't find in herself the awareness necessary to process the sight fully.

She turned, her three legs trembling under her body, and saw, in a blur, the other three changelings in a heap in the center of the road not far from her, ripping the now ill-fitting golden armor and uniforms from their bodies. Like her, they seemed to have suffered some sort of trauma from the blast: one had green blood on its face, and all three seemed very disoriented, their movements uncertain and confused. As she watched, a fourth changeling wearing a Night Guard's uniform tumbled out of the wagon and fell on its face.

Twilight's first instinct was to cast a sleeping spell on them, but her horn merely spluttered out a few sparks and sent another horrible jolt down into her skull. Reeling, she turned and limped up the street, head turning wildly from side to side as she tried to figure out how she could possibly get out of this situation alive. She didn't make it very far before she was overcome by a powerful, unnameable feeling that something dangerous was about to jump on her from behind.

Again she was possessed by an instinctive reaction; this time to spin around and shield herself with the most powerful shield spell she knew. A faint silver shield made of magic formed in front of her, connected to her horn by a long, shimmering string of the same colour. It was fantastically painful to cast it, but it proved to be a somewhat worthy choice because a flying changeling—the one in the lunar uniform—slammed face-first into the shield, having been only two meters from her when she turned.

To Twilight's horror, her severely weakened magic didn't have anywhere near the strength to hold up against that kind of momentum anymore. The changeling just punched right through and crashed into her, knocking her right off her hooves. She landed on her back with the monstrous creature on top of her, its forelegs wrapped around her middle and its body compressing her broken leg against her chest until it bent the wrong way again.

“Get off! Get off! Please! You're hurting me!” she begged, but she couldn't even hear herself, and she doubted the changeling could hear her, either. Its mouth was moving, like a snarl, but she could only hear faint mumbling in her single working ear.

Trapped and in unbearable pain, she lashed out wildly with as much magic as she could muster. It wasn't a real spell, just a burst of unfocused energy, and she didn't even bother to aim it as she'd had her eyes squeezed shut since they'd landed. But it did what it had been made to do: Twilight felt the changeling reel back, its grip slackening, and it slumped over. Something sickeningly warm dripped onto her face and chest as it began to twitch.

Twilight kept her eyes shut until she'd shoved the seizing thing off herself and rolled over. Holding her now destroyed leg against her chest, she rose to her three hooves with some effort, and found herself facing the other three changelings, all of which were now free of their clunky armor and were closing in on her.

Searing hot green plasma—castoff from a powerful magical spell—spattered against Twilight's side and dissipated, leaving a set of what had to be at least first- or second-degree burns where it touched. In the span of a second and a half, the whole right side of her stomach erupted into agonizing pain. The scream that came out of her mouth was all but inaudible to her, but it tore her throat raw anyway as she stumbled back and collapsed onto her haunches.

Her hoof immediately went to the wound—which, to her horror, had somethingawful slipping out of it; something that probably should notever have been outside of her body for any reason. She carefully pushed whatever it was back into the still smoking incision, whimpering, and held it there. Another incarnation of the same spell silenced a good third of the empathetic colours on her left, leaving behind only an empty echo.

Twilight heard and felt something approaching her very fast from behind and teetered to the right to avoid getting hit by it. It went over her head instead, though, and she felt it with what remained of her empathy sense: it was big and self-righteous and so angry on her behalf—and then she watched a rainbow-hued pegasus slam heavily into a changeling with her hooves outstretched, and the two of them rolled into the mud and fog and heavy rain.

But the fact that Rainbow Dash was beating up a changeling—for her, too—was driven right out of Twilight's mind again when one of the other two changelings, now turned halfway towards Dash, lit up a lit up a brilliant green spell atop its horn.

She saw this as if in slow motion, as if it had been slowed to half the speed it should have been going, and she made a choice and acted on it. Her spell, while weaker and probably more painful by far to cast, was much simpler than whatever the changeling was charging up. It took far less time for Twilight to channel her crude, unfocused magic and release it, which proved to be a winning move for her.

A whirling green disc with crude teeth gouged out of the sides clove the changeling's head into two unevenly sized pieces and dissipated half a meter later. The changeling's body simply collapsed into the mud without so much as a twitch or a jerk. It just lay there, dead, and she stared blankly at it until a flash of lightning reminded her that she herself, as well as Rainbow Dash, could meet the same end at any moment.

Twilight scanned the street for Dash and the other two changelings. She knew Dash was doing something, because there were bursts of light coming out of a nearby alleyway—but Twilight couldn't actually see what was going on. She felt quite stupid, hardly able to keep up with what was going on around her, but she knew that she had to help Dash.

“Dash, Dash, I'm coming to help you!” she shouted as she struggled to get back to her hooves. To her surprise, she could hear it more clearly than before. Though the hearing in one ear was still gone, her other one seemed to be recovering slightly.

It was, strangely, no more difficult to get up with her new injuries than it had been all the other times she'd lain in the dirt and cried. The real difference was in her actual mobility: until just moments before, she hadn't had to cope being cut open in addition to everything else. Even the most insignificant movement of her torso produced a sensation like hot knives were being driven deep into her belly.

She tried to walk, to take a few tiny steps—and it quickly became clear that she wasn't going to get very far. Removing her hoof from her side left the wound open and letwhatever that was oh Celestia I'm going to be sick if I have to look at it again slide out andhang down my side like a no no I can't compare it to anything or I'll be ill and oh no I think it's bleeding—and she just couldn't coordinate herself well enough to walk on two legs.

Resting on her haunches instead, she resolved to come up with a method of going to her friend's aid that didn't involve actually moving her body. The first and only viable thing that came to mind was teleportation—which was not going to work because she couldn't use proper magic anymore, but she didn't have the presence of mind to care anymore. Rather than transport her, the failed teleportation spell made the world bend and turn inside-out and generally melt an awful visual acid trip. She aborted it, not wanting to find out horrible things what would happen to her if she got it to work.

A huge jolt shot through her horn, and the flame atop it burned brighter still.

Royal Guards—or more changelings disguised as them, rather—were now moving around down the street, Twilight observed through the stupefying haze. Surely the guards, the changelings, would recognize her from the night before, even if they weren't directly in on the plan to execute her. Nothing good would come of having any sort of contact with them, for either her or Dash. She had to get to Dash and help her.

It's not like I'd be much help, seeing as I'm crippled and going to die soon, she thought, and immediately pushed the negativity out of her head.No, Twilight, no—that's the beginning of panicky thinking, and panicky thinking leads to panic attacks...

With a deep, heavy sigh, she tried to struggle back up onto her hooves. She eventually let go of her stomach and the pain intensified andoh Celestia don't look at it—but she was able to walk now. If she held herself the right way, she reasoned, perhaps she could walk without all the rest of her insides falling out.

It was raining harder than ever as she stumbled into the alleyway where Dash and the changelings had disappeared into. The water droplets were large enough to hurt; unnaturally large, in fact, and the rain heavy enough to obscure both ends of the street and the other end of the alleyway. Twilight wondered if, perhaps, all the excess magic she'd put through the clouds had caused them to mutate and work overtime.

But when she came back to her senses and looked around, there was no Dash there, nor were there any changelings. There was blood—both green and red—and feathers and half a chitinous wing, but neither Twilight's adversaries nor her champion were around. They had moved on. Around then, Twilight began to realize just how short the entire event had been: perhaps a minute at most since she'd broken through the limiter, although it had seemed like forever.

She made it about halfway down the alley, and then she collapsed onto her side, breathing heavily. Her body just couldn't take any more—she'd reached the end of her line; physically couldn't go any further, friends in need or not. Worst of all, she had a rapidly growing headache and an awful feeling that she was going to throw up soon, and she could do nothing aboutany of it.

“Twilight.”

She turned her head sluggishly in the direction of the feminine voice, but stopped to stare curiously at how the water around her was turning green. Her stomach was churning.

“Stay away,” she finally warned the figure in the rain. “Stay away from me... please... I don't want any trouble.”

“I'm going to come over to you, Twilight. I'm a friend. I won't try to hurt you.”

Twilight lifted her head to look. Princess Celestia stood not a meter away, beside the green trail Twilight had left as she stumbled into the alleyway. Even in the rain, the alicorn princess seemed to glow, to shine brightly—too brightly for Twilight's tastes.

“Oh,” she said, voice blank. “Oh, hello.”

“Hello, Twilight,” Celestia said as she came closer.  Her voice was seemed far away and muted, almost lost in the distance. “You're hurt badly.”

Twilight said nothing.

“Twilight,” Celestia said again. “You need to go to a doctor.”

Silence. Celestia moved forward, then stopped when Twilight's horn let off a few sparks into the puddle by her head.

“I'm going to take you to a doctor, Twilight. Your friends have been worried. We've all been very worried about you. I want to help you.”

“I think you're a hallucination...” admitted Twilight. Then, because she felt that was rude, she added, “Sorry, Princess. It's the most logical explanation for me seeing you right now... I'm likely dying, you see... and it's common for ponies to have hallucinatory experiences during the process... If you were a changeling, you'd already have killed me by now... Ow, that hurts.”

She winced and dry-heaved a little as her hallucination cast an unknown spell on her. Some kind of magical paste formed over the wound in her side, holding it shut. Then the Celestia-like figure said something. Twilight turned her head slightly.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” she asked. “I'm having trouble hearing.”

“I said I'm no changeling,” said the hallucination of Celestia as she cast another spell whose effects Twilight couldn't see. “I'm also no hallucination. I'm Princess Celestia. The real one. I'm here to help you, Twilight.”

“Oh. Hmm... I really need to go help Rainbow Dash... She's in need. A friend in need...”

“Rainbow Dash is alright,” Celestia told her. “Right now, we're going to make sure you're alright. That's what's important, Twilight.”

Twilight felt relief and something else growing inside her, another powerful and complex emotion, but she was simply too exhausted to comprehend it. Instead she said, “Thank you, Pricna... Princess... I apologize for the earlier accusation that you weren't actually there... I'm not feeling very well.”

“Understandable.”

“…and anyway, it's hard to think clearly when you're dying. I think I should be reacting more strongly than this, too, but I'm just so tired—Oh, I'm slurring my words together... That's bad... Can you still understand me...?”

Celestia, having finished her spell, picked up the babbling unicorn with magic. “Yes, I can still understand you, Twilight. You're actually shouting at the top of your lungs. You aren't going to die, but you're badly hurt and you need to see a doctor. We're going to fly now, Twilight. Keep talking and don't go to sleep. You can shout as much as you need to.”

“Yes, Princess Celestia. I—Oh no, I'm gonna be sick—I'm gonna be s—”

The world turned into a jumble of unidentifiable shapes and colours as Celestia spread her enormous white alicorn wings and took off, holding Twilight close to her in a bubble of magic. Twilight violently dry-heaved as soon as this happened, but quickly began talking through the empty spasms, feeling strangely compelled to speak every thought that went through her mind.

“I'm sorry for using your name as an expletive!” she rasped. “I'm sorry for shouting, too! I feel awful, Princess! I've been on the verge of despair of the last couple of days! I don't want to have my horn cut off and I don't want to die! I want to learn some more friendship lessons and grow old and get silver streaks in my mane before I die or stop doing magic! My head feels like it's full of cotton! I can't think! I'm—I'm afraid! I'm afraid...”

They landed again. Twilight blearily made out some ponies nearby. They made indistinct noises that she couldn't properly hear, but they seemed upset, and that made Twilight remember that a lot of ponies wanted to hurt her—'We'll have to cut it off', they had said a long time ago.

“No, don't cut it off!” she sobbed. She struggled feebly, with limbs that were sluggish and confused—but even if she'd gotten away, she wouldn't have been able to stand on her own. All she had left was her voice: “I'm the Element of Magic! I need my horn to do magic! If you cut off my horn, I won't be able to be the Element of Magic, Princess! Don't you still need me? I feel so sick! I'm going to die! I'm going to die—I want to learn more friendship lessons, I wanna learn about friendship—I don't want to lose my horn—”

“Shh, Twilight. Calm down. You aren't going to die, nor are you going to lose your horn.” Somehow, Celestia managed to be just as loud as Twilight while also keeping the usual gentle quality in her voice. “I won't let them take your horn away and I won't let you die.”

“You won't?”

“I won't.”

“Oh, thank you, Princess Celestia!” Twilight mumbled. “A-are we done flying yet? I'm very sleepy. Yes, we must be done flying, as we're on the ground and there are no insurmountable obstanc—obselesc—obstacles—in the way. May I go to sleep now? My head feels like it's full of cotton—”

“No,” said Celestia, her tone sharp. “No, you may not go to sleep, Twilight. I will be very angry with you if you go to sleep right now. You cannot go to sleep until I say you can. Do you understand me? Twilight, answer.”

Twilight nodded her head stupidly. “Yes, Princess Celestia. No sleeping. I understand. I will not go to sleep until you say I can. I promise.”

“Thank you, Twilight.”

“Mmh. You're welcome, Princess.”

Notes:

Each of Solitary Locust's chapters has dealt somewhat with a different idea: rejection, fear, guilt, loss, friendship, judgment, trust... and this one is about death. I would like to take a moment to note that this is only the second time in my published stories that I have ever depicted death, and the first time I ever showed it seriously. Make of that what you will, I guess.

Editors:

Abcron

Selbi

Kaidan

Skeets

Kalash93

Happy

Garbo802

Regidar

Smiles

-TGM-

Somebadauthor

Ephraim Blue

Diarch the Almost Neurotypical

As usual, I can't remember all the people I gave the chapter to. I definitely emailed it to some people, but as of the moment that I'm writing this note, I don't really have time to go back and collect all of them. I'll do it later. However, it would help me immensely if those of you that I sent a draft to at some point would hit me up so I can add your name to that list. You shouldn't be forgotten! :fluttershysad:

Also, the image halfway through the story was drawn by MisterMech as a response to a random request I made in a blog without the expectation of a serious response. Therefore, MisterMech is a superior being who is godlike and deserves your eternal love. Go look him up on Deviantart and give him commission requests and compliments and stuff! He's one of the most amazing artists in the entire fandom, hands down--I'm not even exaggerating.

Questions I hope you'll take a second to answer after reading the chapter:

1) Twilight killed three changelings! What's going to happen when she's able to really think about that fact?

1b) Assuming she survives, that is!

2) What's "Celestia" up to? Is it the real Celestia, or is it really a changeling?

3) What do you think of Twilight's conspiracy theories about the Royal Guard?

Thanks for reading!

I. Changeling Magic

Special thanks to Garbo802and Lunardfor helping out with this.

Also thanks to unicorn9927on Deviantart for letting me use revenge of the changelingsas cover art.

Solitary Locust

I. Changeling Magic

Ponyville’s town square hadn’t been so packed since the day after Nightmare Moon’s return, when the mayor had given a speech thanking the Elements of Harmony for saving all of Equestria. Almost every pony who lived in or near the town put down or put off what they were doing that afternoon to go listen to the announcement that was about to be made, which was apparently very important. Cheerilee had even let her class out early in order to attend.

The subject of the meeting was of little doubt to those who attended. Only two weeks earlier, the usually static life of the average Equestrian pony had taken a sudden twist when a changeling hive tried to invade Canterlot. The only thing that had spread through the land faster than word of the near-successful attack on the princesses’ capital city itself was the news that Queen Chrysalis and her army of changelings had disappeared without a trace after being expelled from Canterlot. Wild rumors that she was plotting an even more insidious new invasion were rampant throughout Equestria, mixed with wild stories of entire towns being kidnapped and secretly replaced with changelings in preparation for the next attack.

The very idea that the pony one trusted most—be it a partner, a friend, or a family member—could well be a changeling in disguise had brought about a mild hysteria in Ponyille. Suspicious glances, paranoid gossip, and veiled accusations had filled the town almost since the news of the original foiled Canterlot invasion broke. Several incidents had already occurred in which ponies had harmed each other over accusations that one or both were changelings.

There had originally been a small downpour scheduled for that morning, but Rainbow Dash had rescheduled it for the next day and ordered the other weather ponies to move the clouds out into some open fields for the time being. By the time the meeting was about to begin, Celestia’s sun was high enough in the sky that many of the ponies making their way through the packed dirt roads of the town toward the center were sweating beneath its rays.

One particular, somewhat frazzled, lavender unicorn had the good sense to come to leave home early and wait patiently and calmly for everypony else to show up so she could avoid being trampled by them. As it turned out, a significant portion of the rest of Ponyville’s citizens had had the same idea, so by the time Twilight and her two companions got out of the library there was already a large crowd of ponies milling about, murmuring to themselves as they waited.

This proved to be something of a danger zone because of the stack of papers floating in front of Twilight’s face as she walked. It was only sheer luck that kept her from bumping into anypony for as long as she did, and when she finally did hit somepony it disrupted her concentration and sent her notes everywhere.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” exclaimed the yellow pegasus mare she had just run down. “I would have moved out of your way, but I just didn’t see you c—Oh, Twilight! Are you all right?”

“It’s not your fault, Fluttershy. I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Twilight said as she helped Fluttershy back to her hooves. “I’m fine, thanks. Just a little dusty. Are you okay?” Fluttershy replied with a silent nod of her head and a contented smile that spoke volumes about how okay she was now that she knew her friend wasn’t hurt.

“Howdy there, Twilight,” said an orange mare wearing a stetson hat.

“Hey, Applejack.” A lavender glow surrounded Twilight's notes, which had scattered when she ran into Fluttershy, and they began to collect themselves into a pile of their own accord.

“Ah heard you had a hoof in this, but nopony can tell me much more ‘cept it’s about somethin’ to do with changelings. Mind explainin’ what’s goin’ on? Ah’m missin’ out on good work hours and Ah’d like to know what for, if ya don’t mind. Suspense ain’t mah thing.”

“I’m sort of curious, too,” Fluttershy agreed timidly. “If you’re all right with talking about it...”

“Oh, yes, it’s fine,” Twilight replied, looking around to make sure she had gotten all her papers. “Mayor Mare asked me to give the town a quick rundown of safety precautions that should be followed when dealing with changelings. The pamphlets are good and all, but apparently they’re not doing much to help with the paranoia.”

“Ah see,” said Applejack. “Well, Ah’d rather lose a couple hours than miss out on somethin’ important and get somepony hurt ‘cause of it. What kinda ‘safety precautions’ are we talkin’ about here?”

The unicorn consulted one of the sheets from her stack of notes. “I’m going to explain the basic facts about changelings, some ways to spot them without being too invasive or putting anypony in danger, and then the mayor wants me to demonstrate a few spells that are effective against them. After that I’ll go into more detail about keeping yourself from getting replaced in the first place, and after that I’ll explain how the changelings themselves work so ponies have a better understanding of what they’re up against. I just hope I didn’t leave out anything important when I was cutting down the physical anatomy portion to fit into the allotted time bl—”

Her rambling ended; Applejack had pressed a hoof to her mouth.

“Ah’m sure ya did just fine, sugarcube,” said Applejack, chuckling a little. Fluttershy nodded silently beside her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell any of you until now,” Twilight apologized. “The mayor came by the library in the middle of the night and offered me a chance to do it because the changeling researcher she booked from Canterlot got delayed. I was up all night preparing and I just didn’t have time to explain it to anypony.”

“So that’s what ya’ll were workin’ on when RD and Pinkie—”

“When me and Rainbow Dash what?” The previously mentioned pink earth pony immediately popped out of the crowd and glanced expectantly from Twilight to Applejack to Fluttershy and back again a few times.

“Waitwaitwait, don’t tell me, Applejack!” she blurted out as the farmer opened her mouth. “Let me guess! Is it when we were swimming together? Or when we were making cupcakes the other day? Or when we went to see The Dark Mare Rises and I said Batmare kinda looked like her and she was like ‘Yeah, you’re right!’ and then we started talking about fighting crime together and got kicked out of the theater for being too loud but Dashie flew us up to the roof and we snuck back into our seats using suction cup shoes to walk on the ceiling so we were watching the movie upside-down and Dashie said it was like being a bat and I laughed and we got kicked out again but then—”

“It was when y’all were tryin’ ta get Twilight at the library!” Applejack almost had to yell to make herself heard over Pinkie’s rambling.

“Oh! Yes! Twilight Twilight Twilight! Can you give me wings?” Pinkie asked, sticking her face in Twilight’s. “‘Cause I really need them to help Dashie make pink cotton candy clouds that rain chocolate milk so everypony will think Discord is back for like five minutes but then they’ll realize he’s not and they’ll laugh because it was a pretty good prank and then they’ll go drink up the chocolate milk and have fun and it’ll be the bestest thing ever!”

“Uh, we should talk about that later,” said Twilight, frowning a concerned little frown. “You, me, and Dash. We should all talk about how making the town think Discord came back isn’t a good idea, and why. Okay?”

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” She bounced away through the crowd in very precise, measured leaps that landed her in empty spots between ponies every time, singing out her pet name for Rainbow Dash.

“Sometimes Ah think those two’re more like overgrown foals than mares,” Applejack mused. “Y’know Ah caught RD paintin’ a gigantic plot on the side’a mah barn the other day? ‘Good thing for her, it washed right off when Ah made her buck a raincloud over it—else Ah reckon Ah’da had her paint over the damn thing herself. Twice.”

“I’ll have a word with them when I’m done with this,” promised Twilight. She glanced between Applejack and Fluttershy a few times. “Listen, uh, I need to be up on the stage with the mayor right now. You two say hi to the others for me, okay?”

“Will do, Twi.”

Fluttershy just nodded.

The unicorn started weaving through the crowd of ponies again. It had swelled significantly in the short time she’d stopped to chat with Fluttershy and Applejack. Upon reaching her destination, she galloped up the short staircase to the podium two steps at a time.

“I’m here!” she panted after she skidded to a halt in front of Mayor Mare, who was near the microphone with one of her aides.

“Thank Celestia,” said the mayor, visibly relieved. “Did you finish the changeling presentation in time?”

“Of course!” Twilight exclaimed with a mixture of pride and mild apprehension as Ponyville’s clock tower bell started to ring in the distance. “Uh, let’s see: introduction to changelings and how to spot them, effective revealing spells and an analysis of the magic they use—I would have put that last but I figured, well, you want me to cast that spell I might as well make it part of the lesson—basic changeling anatomy, psychology, hive structure—”

“I see,” Mayor Mare said, rubbing her temples with her hoof and suddenly looking rather distressed. She sighed and gestured vaguely at one side of the podium. “Just wait over there until it’s time for you to speak.”

The earth pony politician turned to the microphone and tapped it to ensure that it was working properly. The resulting amplified thumps quieted most of the talking throughout the crowd and turned their attention to Mayor Mare.

“Citizens of Ponyville,” she began, voice echoing slightly. “As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, Canterlot was recently threatened by a changeling hive. Fortunately, the changelings’ plot was uncovered and foiled by some of our own townsfolk—”

There were a few cheers from the crowd at this, including a particularly loud one in Pinkie Pie’s voice, and some light applause from other ponies.

“However, it has come to our attention that many of you are still worried about the possibility of changeling agents impersonating your loved ones,” the mayor said, her tone turning grave. “The changelings have been thrown out of Canterlot, and we’re all aware of their presence by now. But until they’re located by the Royal Guard, we must remain diligent. We will all have to do our duty and protect each other against these parasites.

“They’re powerful, mindless, and practically impossible to detect; they want to steal your love from you to feed themselves. It may be unlikely that one of us is a changeling in disguise—indeed, I, for one, like to hope we’re all who we say we are—but it’s also not impossible. That’s why we need to stay vigilant and keep an eye on each other.

“Right now, you are probably asking yourselves: ‘What can I, an ordinary, everyday pony, do to keep my loved ones safe from the changelings?’. Those were my own thoughts after I heard what nearly happened in Canterlot. I was very anxious to learn as much as I could about the creatures threatening the ponies I’m responsible for, so naturally I went to see our local librarian—the Element of Magic, defender of Equestria, personal protégé of Princess Celestia, and the first pony to identify the changeling threat in Canterlot... Twilight Sparkle.

“Once I had heard what she had to say, I felt it was my duty to inform the ponies of Ponyville of the same things I had just learned. Miss Sparkle and I worked together to prepare a presentation that would answer a lot of questions for you for all of you and help to improve our town’s security. Miss Sparkle?”

Here, Mayor Mare stepped down from the microphone and motioned for the lavender-coated unicorn to take her place. Feeling rather like she’d swallowed a parasprite or three, Twilight edged across the podium until she was in the very center. A mild sense of claustrophobia washed over the unicorn as she shuffled her floating notes a little. Everything except her suddenly seemed about ten times bigger than it had been just moments before.

It was one sort of thing to make a short speech about the achievements of one of her friends, or to organize a Winter Wrap-Up group, or to assume the role of leader to restore order when things weren’t going so well. But this time it wasn’t Twilight’s leadership or friendship ponies were scrutinizing; it was her ability to convey knowledge on a particular subject to an audience.

A test of her lecturing abilities.

Already uncertain about how well she had put together her presentation, she now found herself frantically rechecking to see whether she had forgotten to put anything in her notes the night before. The long hours without sleep caught up with her all at once and made her head spin wildly when she tried to form coherent thoughts. That an uneasy flutter of panic had begun to grow in her stomach only made things worse.

Horrifying scenes played through Twilight’s head; scenes in which she was laughed off the podium for having put together a stupid, useless mess that didn’t tell anypony anything; in which some respected modern scientist happened to be passing through Ponyville and saw her make a fool of herself; of receiving rejection letters based on her screw-ups when she tried to teach at Canterlot University years in the future:

‘Miss Sparkle,

We regret to inform you that your application for a professorship at Canterlot University has been denied. This is a very prestigious school and we do not employ ponies who have a history of being laughed at by their students because they didn’t prepare the necessary notes/said stupid things/are terrible teachers in general. Though we strongly advise you to never consider teaching again, there is an opening teaching magic kindergarten if you’re truly set on a career in education.

Her name would become a verb within the intellectual community. To sparkle would be synonymous with making oneself look like an imbecile. Worst of all, it would reflect poorly on Princess Celestia’s own teaching methods! She’d never even be able to look at her mentor again without feeling ashamed of herself.

Twilight’s right eye twitched just a little. She shuffled her notes a little and coughed, feeling the gaze of every pony in front of the podium boring into her. Oh, no, they were staring at her, waiting for her to say something. How were you supposed to address your first class ever? They weren’t really a class, but they were there to learn from Twilight so the difference wasn’t that great.

Would she be blamed if one of them got replaced by a changeling after hearing everything she had to say about preventing just that? Would she awake in the night to find a mob of ponies demanding her severed head because she failed to explain what they needed to know? How disappointed would Princess Celestia be? Would she be banishment-level disappointed or just you-are-no-longer-my-student disappointed?

The lavender unicorn took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. At least she wasn’t accidentally levitating things when she got nervous anymore. Lifting her entire class off the floor while giving a presentation on the history of earth pony society had been one of the most embarrassing—No, best not to start thinking about that again... Taking another deep breath, Twilight sized up either end of the podium, trying to how quickly she could make an escape back to the safety of her library, as well as whether running away like a coward would be less unpleasant than getting herself blacklisted from any major university on grounds of complete incompetence.

“Don’t let stage fright beat ‘ya down, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie’s voice broke through the otherwise painful silence. “Imagine we’re all wearing silly clown costumes! Or tons and tons of really bad makeup! Or embarrassing lingerie! Or cupcake hats! Or party hats! Or cupcake party hats! Party cupcake hats! Hats party cupcake! Party hats cupc—” Rainbow Dash stuffed her hoof in Pinkie’s mouth to quiet her.

A few ponies chuckled at Pinkie. Twilight felt a weak smile tugging at the corners of her mouth in spite of her anxiety.

Leave it to Pinkie Pie to take the deadly serious out of a deadly serious town meeting.

The momentary distraction allowed her to take a mental step back and look at her situation more clearly, even as her face fell back into an apprehensive grimace.

It had only recently come to Twilight’s attention that she had a tendency toward irrational hysteria when she under stress. She was still learning to recognize when thoughts were becoming irrational, but fearing that Princess Celestia banishing her to the moon if she didn’t do a good job lecturing the town about changelings became a huge red flag once she had snapped out of her runaway train of thought. Princess Celestia didn’t banish ponies to the moon for giving a bad lecture any more than she banished them back to kindergarten for forgetting to send a letter about friendship.

Twilight had worked hard and done her best in the time she had been given to work with, and though the end result might not have been perfect it was at least adequate enough that Spike had understood it when she used him as a test audience earlier that morning. It wasn’t even to put Ponyville’s citizens on further guard so much as to educate them and put a stop to all the paranoia and strife that had broken out. Personally, she was quite sure there were no changelings hiding among the townsfolk of Ponyville anyway given how tactically unimportant the town was to any invasion the changelings might mount. The chances of somepony being replaced because she hadn’t made herself clear enough were minimal.

She took a deep breath and counted to ten, willing herself to calm down. There was nothing to worry about. Everything would be fine. Some of the anxiety eased up a little bit, letting Twilight crawl out from beneath its crushing weight. She looked around the increasingly restless crowd and turned her mouth up into a stronger but still nervous smile.

Okay, Twilight, she thought firmly to herself, straightening her back. You can do this...

As she opened her mouth, Twilight realized something else. Her notes were all out of order because she’d been shuffling them around for who knew how long!

Stupid, stupid, stupid—

“Ah, hi,” the unicorn said apprehensively into the microphone as she rapidly sorted through the stack of papers with her magic. “Some of you, ah, know me from around—but for those of you who don’t—” Where was the first page? “...I’m... uh... Twilight Sparkle...”

Another pause followed this. Somepony coughed. Twilight started to sweat a little.

“Mayor Mare asked me to, ah... I... Aha!” The first page of her notes after her checklist now sat on top of the stack. Now she was prepared. “Mayor Mare recently came to me and requested that I help clear up some of the rumors surrounding the changeling threat. To that end, I put together a brief presentation for all of you.

“I’m going to assume you know nothing about changelings and start right from the top. There’s a lot of misinformation flying around out there, so you’ll probably be surprised. First things first: This,” she said as her horn lit up brighter than the soft purple glow that was holding her notes aloft, “is what a changeling drone looks like in its base form.”

An enlarged, translucent image of a changeling drone materialized in the air near Twilight, surrounded and connected to the tip of her horn by the same purple magical glow. The changeling looked around and shifted on its chitin-like hooves every so often, and its wings buzzed sporadically. A few ponies in the crowd vocalized expressions of distaste or outright revulsion upon seeing the insectoid emotional parasite.

“The majority of the changeling army consists of drones like that one,” said Twilight once the murmurs had quieted down. “Like all changelings, they have the ability to mimic the physical appearance of any other sentient being they come across—within reason, of course. A changeling can’t carry out a transformation that consumes more energy than they possess. But assuming they have sufficient energy to make the change, there’s almost no limit on what they can mimic.”

The conjured drone began to cycle slowly through various combinations of pony traits. Twilight had carefully prepared that particular effect in advance so she could avoid accidentally making it look like anypony from Ponyville. She didn’t want to seem like she was hinting at anything. Once the changeling had returned to its base form, she continued with her lecture.

“In spite of rumors to the contrary, changelings do not reproduce by abducting normal ponies and transforming them into more changelings. They’re spawned by a queen,” (the drone transformed into Chrysalis for a moment), “who leads their hive. A changeling’s ultimate purpose, regardless of their designation or rank within the hive, is to serve the queen and carry out her will.

“Though they consistently show blind obedience and devotion to their queen, to the point of fanaticism, they’re actually quite intelligent. That’s part of the problem with identifying them—they’re able to not only impersonate their victim, but also manipulate ponies who get suspicious of them.”

“So how do we tell who’s real and who isn’t?” a big grey-green stallion near the front asked, looking at Twilight as though he thought learning anything about changelings besides how to find them and squash them under your hoof was a waste of time.

“There are several ways of identifying possible changelings,” said Twilight. “Despite taking on their victim’s appearance, they can’t absorb memories or personality. If they can they’ll interrogate the pony they intend to replace to learn the key facts about their lives, but there’s almost always going to be something or other that they’ve missed, and they don’t always have an opportunity to get more answers when they’re in need of them.

“Sometimes they don’t have a chance to pay their captive a visit without attracting suspicion, and sometimes... well... after studying the appearance of their victim, changelings typically either lock them up somewhere safe or—” She swallowed thickly. “—kill them.”

Twilight had to pause after this because of the murmuring that was going around her audience. There were sounds of fear and outrage, as well as disgust. She couldn’t help shuddering a little herself; the conjured-up changeling seemed just a tiny bit more nightmarish after that reminder of what could have happened to Cadance—and, potentially, her brother, her mentor, and every one of her friends. Maybe even her.

“As... I was saying...” the unicorn spoke up hesitantly when the noise had died away. “Changelings often don’t even know their victim very well unless they’ve been watching them for a long time. They rely on the ignorance of ponies to keep themselves hidden until they learn how they’re expected to behave. If somepony starts acting very abnormally—by which I mean they suddenly seem nothing like themselves at all, not just a few small changes like a dyed mane or a new hobby—that’s a sign that there’s something going on, whether changelings are involved or not.

“As you’ve likely heard by now, changelings feed on love and other affectionate feelings. They have a tendency to gravitate toward ponies who show others a lot of love, for this reason; typically, they abduct somepony their target is close to and replace them in order to absorb the love that would normally be shown to the pony they’ve replaced. They can also ‘feed’ by... um... bodily contact...”

She blushed, her face twisting into a grimace as she thought about what Chrysalis had probably done with Shining Armor at some point.

“...or by using a spell that forces a pony to believe they love them unconditionally. All changeling magic has a green aura, but they have the ability to crudely mimic unicorn and alicorn casting when in disguise. The spell they use to steal love, however, is always green, regardless of their form. This is because certain spells are innately tied to their species, much like the bonds earth ponies and pegasi have with the earth and the clouds.”

To illustrate the spell she had mentioned, Twilight’s drone illusion charged up its horn and cast a sickly green spell at the crowd. It dissipated before reaching them, but Twilight belatedly realized she had probably startleded a lot of the ponies in the crowd more than she had meant to, if the startled cries and leaps backward were any indication. She laughed nervously and managed an apology that would have been inaudible if it wasn’t for the microphone amplifying her voice before getting back to her planned lecture.

“Um... right... yes... Hu-hungry changelings can... become really, ah, desperate if they haven’t fed for a while, especially if they’re not able to use their own magic to get what they want without, uh, revealing themselves. Instead, they might try to manipulate other ponies into showing them... uh...” She faltered again. “...physical love.”

“What if they’re just a regular pony trying to get laid?” one stallion said, rather irritably. “Just because we want to do it doesn’t mean we’re changelings.”

Twilight, shook her head. Her purple curls bounced about as she did. “It’s not about... sex... It’s about how they go about... getting it... Changelings just don’t understand that it’s not right to force another pony to love you in any sense of the word. Besides, anypony who gets to the point of using threats, magic, or blackmail to make other ponies do what they want is a danger to those around them, regardless of their motivations. It isn’t only changelings that do... those sorts of things.”

“But,” the big earth pony stallion from earlier began, “you’re not saying how to tell if they’re a changeling or not. All you’re telling us is how to notice ponies who are acting weird, and those of us with common sense already know how to do that.”

“There is no completely reliable way to pick a changeling out in a crowd, which is why it’s more important to watch out for each other so they don’t have opportunities to replace ponies in the first place,” said Twilight.

“However,” she went on, “there is a spell that, if cast properly, strips away the changeling’s disguise.”

“Why didn’t you just mention that first?” demanded a unicorn colt who looked like he was barely old enough to have gotten his cutie mark (a hammer with three nails crossing it).

“Because it’s not practical, and I don’t want to make any of you think it’s the answer to all your problems.” Twilight shuffled her notes a little, leaving a deliberate pause to let this statement sink in before she went on. “This spell, it’s not something most unicorns will be able to cast. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m the only pony in Ponyville who’s able to cast it.

“As I said, changelings have their own brand of magic. Tapping the magic of another race or species is extraordinarily difficult; very few ponies have the magical skill and power necessary to do so. The spell I mentioned is based on changeling magic, not unicorn magic, so for most ponies, casting it would have the same effect as an earth pony trying to teleport or a unicorn trying to summon lightning. It’s very, very difficult. I’m able to cast it because, ah, I’m a little bit more, uh, adept at magic than most ponies.”

She blushed slightly, feeling a mixture of discomfort at having said, in so many words, that she was better than the other unicorns in ponyville, and pride at being able to cast such a spell with ease.

Before the invasion of Canterlot, the existence of changelings had been known to only a few equinologist ponies in the corners of Equestria’s universities and thought of as an insignificant remnant of a dead civilization. The study of their magic was even more limited; it was so difficult to pick up that only a few unicorns were able to cast reliable spells with it at all, and even then only after years of practice.

After the invasion, attempts to cast the changeling-revealing spell were suddenly widespread. Twilight had discovered that, with the exception of the alicorn Princesses, she was one of the only ponies in all of Canterlot who didn’t have any trouble tapping the alien energy.

It wasn’t that much of a surprise, of course. One of Twilight’s greatest strengths was her ability to easily pick up the magics of other equine (and non-equine) races. The same reason she could make non-pegasi able to walk on clouds was the same one she could cast changeling spells like they were basic foalhood levitation exercises—except that there were thousands and thousands of unicorns, as well as a few ponies of the other two races, that had mastered the cloud-walking spell, and only about a dozen in all of Equestria who could competently cast a changeling-revealing spell.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t try it,” Twilight informed the townsponies, some of whom looked put-out after hearing that they probably wouldn’t be able to cast the spell. “Most of the ponies who can cast it had to practice for years to make it work, so it requires a lot of dedication—but if you want to stick around after I’m done speaking, I made some copies of the—”

She was interrupted by a bony green pegasus filly with a cutie mark of a pinwheel. “Why would the changelings have a spell to destroy their own disguises?”

“Excellent question!” The unicorn almost clopped her hooves together in appreciation for somepony showing that they were thinking about what they were hearing.

“This spell works by disrupting a changeling’s innate magic and making it impossible for them to maintain a transformation. The ponies searching Canterlot with the Royal Guard discovered that it also prevents them from casting spells for a brief time after being hit by it. If I had to guess, I’d say they probably use it as some sort of non-lethal battle spell for inter- and intra-hive conflicts. It’s probably cast when they want to identify and disable spies or criminals within their ranks.

“Now, I know a lot of ponies are still anxious about the possibility of changelings hiding in Ponyville, so with your permission I’d like to cast the revealing spell on all of you at once. I doubt there are any impostors here, and I know you’re all hoping that’s true, but I think many of you would feel better once you see there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

Her words prompted some murmuring from the crowd. Twilight paused, hoping they wouldn’t get mad at her for suggesting such a thing. She knew using the revealing spell could easily be interpreted as a different way of saying ‘I don't trust you’, and casting it on a whole crowd of ponies could easily become ‘I don’t trust any of you’.

It didn’t help that she felt like she was half-lying to the whole town by leaving out how the mayor and her aides had insisted that she cast the revealing spell. It wasn’t that she objected to casting a spell that revealed changelings, but the idea of those in power forcing ponies to undergo a ‘changeling test’ regardless of whether there was evidence that they were pretenders bothered Twilight somewhat.

On the other hoof, she completely understood the logic behind the mayor’s order, as well as her insistence that the truth be hidden. Twilight herself didn’t believe there were changelings about, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. After all, Princess Celestia had been wrong about there being an impostor at the wedding, as horrifying as the thought was. It was better to be safe than sorry in the situation Equestria was in. As for the cover-up... there were probably a few ponies who were reluctant to let ‘the state’ cast a spell on them as opposed to their local librarian; ponies who didn’t see the other side of the bit, as it were. In the end it was probably for the best that she hadn’t mentioned it.

Still, Twilight wasn’t the kind of pony to compel others to do things against their will. It was reasonable for Mayor Mare to stipulate that she use the revealing spell if she wanted to give a lecture to the town, but there was no way Twilight was going to order everypony to let her test them.

“I’m not going to make anypony stay here if you don’t want to,” she clarified over the murmuring that was still going around the crowd. “If you’re not comfortable with having it cast on you, you’re free to leave; it doesn’t mean anypony's going to accuse you of being a changeling. I for one think it’s perfectly reasonable to have some reservations about another pony casting a strange spell on you—”

Apparently she’d said the wrong thing, because this was subsequently met with total silence. Twilight began to feel increasingly awkward, wilting under the intense stares of hundreds of ponies. Were they angry at her? Had she said something to upset them? The unicorn  ended up voicing her insecurities regarding the subject in a torrent of fragmented sentences:

“...I mean, um, if I cast that spell it kind of i-implies that I don’t trust any of you, and I really do! I mean, I don’t want to seem like, ah, like I’m this, uh, paranoid, ah—look, it’s not mandatory for anyone to stay and have it—Y-you know what, if nopony wants me to cast it, then I won’t, it’s up to—”

“Just cast the friggin’ spell already!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “None of us are leaving! Right?” She looked around as if daring anypony to do just that.

“Okay, just tell me—do any of you have any objections to having this spell cast on you?" asked Twilight. Some small part of her kept insisting that there should be outrage over the fact that she was going to cast alien spells on hundreds of ponies. “Anypony at all? None of you want to leave?”

A few ponies shuffled nervously, like they wanted to say something, but no actual objections were voiced. There was a general chorus of affirmatives and a cry of ‘Get on with it!’ from the crowd. Twilight smiled weakly, relieved that she hadn't upset anypony or been accused of invading their privacy. It didn’t really make her feel much better.

She wondered suddenly if any of them actually understood why she was surprised they weren’t protesting. It really was a small series of steps from casting spells in the hope of finding a spy, to assembling ponies and casting spells that identified criminals, to going into the homes of innocent ponies and casting truth spells to find political dissidents, to an Equestria that feared speaking up when they saw something amiss. Not that Twilight believed Princess Celestia would do anything of the kind, but there were a lot of ponies with political power who would become tyrants in a heartbeat.

But that was neither here nor there at the moment, she reminded herself. She had agreed to cast the spell as part of her presentation, and the ponies in front of her had indicated that they were comfortable with her doing so. As much as Twilight would have liked to educate the town on the dangers of appeasement, her job at that moment was to show them that there were no changelings in their town, not to try and change their minds.

“Okay, then,” the unicorn finally said. She canceled the translucent image of the drone and prepared to cast the spell. “You should feel a tingling sensation when the magic touches you, but there aren’t any other side effects if you’re a pony.”

The spell began as a sickly greenish glow of energy swirling around the tip of Twilight’s horn. As she poured more of her magic into it, the glow became a brilliant, shining light. A green bubble emerged from that spot, slowly expanding outward to encompass Twilight, the podium, and eventually ponies in the crowd.

Normally, the revealing spell produced a thin beam that could be cast at individual ponies, but it was easy enough for Twilight to cast (after a lot of practice on her friends) that by her calculations she would be able to affect an entire area with it if she put the right amount of magic into it. She knew she was powerful enough that she could create a blanket effect without running the risk of overtaxing her magic.

The light became blindingly bright and her horn heated up from the strain of putting such powerful magic through it, but Twilight kept going, feeding it still more power. The sphere of energy she had created moved slowly through the crowd of ponies, making them temporarily light up like green light bulbs.

Though she wasn’t looking down, she could also see the glow coming from her own body as the spell affected her too. Her body began to tingle slightly, something she had never experienced before because it had been impossible to cast the revealing spell on herself until then. It wasn’t a bad feeling, really; just very odd. A little thrill ran through Twilight’s midsection; rather like she had butterflies in her stomach except it was accompanied by a wave of nausea as well.

She started to feel very dizzy all of a sudden. Her horn was still heating up, despite having already passed the point where it should have adjusted to the enormous input of magical energy. The tip spat out a stream of green and yellow sparks in a manner rather like a rogue sparkler, accompanied by small popping noises, and then it began to vibrate with such force that it made her teeth rattle.

Nothing like this had happened to her when she cast the revealing spell on any of her friends; not even when she doubled the energy input to cast it on both Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash at the same time. Twilight cancelled the spell immediately—or tried to. That the bright green light kept flowing out of her horn like a broken pipe made it clear that something was very, very wrong.

Losing the ability to control one’s magic was one of the worst things that could possibly happen to a pony of any kind. Depending on what was going on at the time it happened, the connection either stayed closed forever, meaning the pony in question could never use it again, or else it stayed open until their power was exhausted or they were torn apart by the excess energy. Since Twilight was far more powerful than the average unicorn, and her horn was most certainly connected to her magic, it was likely that she would die a painful death unless the situation changed very soon.

This, if anything, was worthy of panic.

I shouldn’t have put that much magic into the spell! I forgot I have limitations! I’m not a goddess! Now I’m going to die and I can’t do anything about it! Oh Celestia, please don’t let me die! I should never have done something so stupid—

A steady stream of energy swirled around the unicorn’s body and materialized into a cyclone of bright green flames revolving around and around her. The tingling grew into a raw tearing sensation that quickly spread downward over her head and neck. The closest thing Twilight could think of to compare it to was having her skin slowly peeled off. She tried to scream; to let everypony else know there was something very wrong; but her body was as paralyzed as her magic was.

Everything in front of her eyes seemed to split apart as her vision fragmented, leaving behind a confusing array of blurry shapes that didn’t match up into anything recognizable. The only thing that remained constant was the color green. Twilight was surrounded by a storm of bright green.

Her legs gave out beneath her, weakened by a combination of the sheer agony and shock of what was happening to her and the trauma of having so much magic forced through her horn in such a short time. She collapsed limply onto the podium floor, still wreathed in flames and her horn still spewing a stream of green magic out its tip. The furious tearing sensation burrowed deeper into her body, steadily permeating every organ and bone in it until Twilight Sparkle was a twitching, burning mass of pain and nothing else.

Even as she lay there, the flow of magic from her horn began to slow down. Within a short time it had halted entirely—and then it reversed itself, sucking the same magic back in like a vacuum. The shimmering green bubble—which had still been expanding the entire time—burst violently, and for a moment the air was full of green and white magical residue before that, too, was drawn in.

All the magic Twilight had expelled through her body funneled back into the tip of her horn in just a few brief seconds. The unicorn, who had only moments before felt as if she had been squeezed dry, suddenly felt like her insides were being jostled aside and stretched to their limits to accommodate all the extra power she had accidentally channeled and was now absorbing. The green flames, also caught by the pull, evaporated around her.

Twilight’s horn didn’t stop sucking in magic until the last remainders of the revealing spell and the unfocused energy she had channeled were gone. The blinding green glow around it finally died away at last, although a little bit of magic continued to trickle out of the tip even after the light was gone.

It could have been ten seconds, ten minutes, or ten hours that Twilight lay motionless on the floor before she was even aware of herself again, and when she did it was under a thick veil of confusion as her brain slowly rebooted itself. The first thing she registered was that she was in pain. Every single nerve in her body screamed at her that she was on fire, inside and out. Twilight had never felt such pain before until just moments earlier. A blinding migraine took hold of her head as soon as she opened her eyes, distorting everything in her vision with overly bright lights.

Regaining her sense of proprioception, she had a strange impression that her body didn’t quite fit right anymore—though what, exactly, that meant was beyond her current ability to comprehend. Twilight was very familiar with the normal proportions of her limbs and body, having used them all her life; and so she instinctively knew there was something different now. Every little movement felt clumsy, alien, and uncoordinated, like she had been ripped from herself and placed in a crude manequin slapped together by someone who didn’t know much about the size and shape of a normal pony.

The unicorn made an effort to sit up, slowly and carefully. It took several tries to actually accomplish this, as there seemed to be two conflicting destinations for her hooves when she moved them: the places she thought they were going to go, and the places they actually went. Twilight had difficulty even holding herself upright; every muscle in her body felt impossibly weak and tired. Turning her neck to look around felt like running a marathon, and furthermore it only led her to more confusion.

Her previously coherent surroundings had undergone an intimate fusion with the very mind of Discord himself since the last time she examined them. The harder Twilight tried to pull her thoughts together and focus, the more garbled and incomprehensible the world around her turned. The overall effect was terrifying, as if she’d stepped out of the real world and straight into a nightmare.

All her senses had been drastically altered to the point where it was almost impossible to process any of the input she was receiving through them. Her vision had become a mess of fuzzy colors that bled into each other from partitioned hexagonal sections, all of which showed different versions of the same sight. It was like trying to look through a tunnel made of so many broken kaleidoscopes and make some kind of sense out of it.

The crowd of ponies had turned into a frightening blur that resembled a mass of equine-shaped colored lights. Each figure had its own unique blend of glowing shades that lit it up and made it stick out from the others, and yet at the same time they all exuded similarly colored auras. The whole thing was so confusing to Twilight that she would surely have developed a migraine if she didn’t already have one strangling the life out of every coherent thought that tried to form in her brain.

Every sound came to her as a blast so loud it felt like a thunderclap. The incomprehensible things the ponies below were saying in louder and louder voices made her head rattle and spin even worse than before, further foiling her attempts to collect herself. Even her own heartbeat echoed in her ears. Sounds Twilight had never even noticed before pounded against her brain and made her migraine worse by the second. As if from very far away, she heard a raspy voice yell for everypony to please be quiet because it hurt when they shouted so loudly at her.

Almost as overwhelming were the smells coming from all around her. Her brain had somehow developed a sort of olfactory compass that told her exactly which smells came from where, and there were things associated with all of them that were too complex for her to fathom just then. They didn’t even smell like anything she had ever smelled before, except for one or two that triggered blurry, fleeting memories of things she knew she should have recognized but didn’t.

A solid wall of emotion sprang up around Twilight, one so powerful she barely tell where it ended and her own feelings began. None of it was pleasant, either; it was all rolling waves of fear and rapidly growing anger, both of which were almost physically repulsive to the unicorn. Every part of her brain that wasn’t still swimming in tar began screaming for her to get away from it before it swallowed her up. There was something evil about it, something that hurt her on a level she had never even consciously known existed. Twilight was afraid of the wall; of the way it seemed to loom over her, waiting to crush her with its negativity.

Still dizzy and still in pain, the unicorn tried to stand up on her shaking, poorly coordinated legs. The sudden burst of movement made gravity abruptly turn itself sideways. Twilight stumbled to the right, trying to regain her balance, but she failed and toppled over. A new wave of nausea washed over her as she lay on the floor; seconds later, she threw up some a small amount of yellowish-green bile onto the podium.

At that moment she saw—though it took a moment to focus her eyes enough for it to make sense—that the hooves and forelegs trying to push her body back upright were not her own. Twilight’s lavender coat had vanished completely and her legs were now sheathed in a chitinous black armor-like material reminiscent of an insect’s exoskeleton.

She lifted one foreleg and stared incredulously at it, then rotated it from side to side, trying to make sense of the gnarled appendage, which reminded her more of a hoof-shaped branch from a burnt, dead tree than an actual hoof. Her side and stomach were encased in a sort of shell with the same texture as her forelegs, although the latter part was a bit softer and a bit more yielding when she put pressure on it than the former.

Moving her hoof up to her face, Twilight felt a pair of long, sharp processes on either side of her mouth that could only be fangs. The length, shape, and texture of her horn had changed; from the short, stubby spire typical of Canterlot unicorns to a jagged and sharp thing that had a texture similar to that of driftwood. Her ears had become smaller and thinner in spite of their increased sensitivity, and each had two short, flat antennae-like protrusions atop them.

When she felt the rest of her head, and then her neck, she found another shocking anomaly: her mane had also disappeared entirely. In its place was a thin membrane like a little sail, held up by a series of sharp spines, that started at the base of her skull and stopped halfway down her neck. Touching these with her hoof momentarily doubled her headache and thrust a spike of something resembling static interference into her brain. Twilight’s sight swam like a poorly projected magical image and a sonic boom seemed to go off inside her head.

Even more disorienting was the way the wall of emotion around her exploded, suddenly filled with hundreds of confusing feelings with no source at all. She whimpered and immediately took her hoof away from her neck, and the emotional bombardment immediately ceased and everything slowly returned to the still-confusing state it had been in before.

There was something on Twilight’s back that shouldn’t have been there as well. At first she couldn’t figure out what it was her hoof was touching there, so she forced herself up onto her forelegs to look over her shoulder, fighting a wave of both pain and nausea, and also the shaking of her weakened limbs threatening to give out beneath her. Though it was difficult to turn her head far enough to look properly—like the rest of her body, her neck was incredibly sore—Twilight could see what were unmistakably two sets of thin, translucent, insectoid wings jutting out of either side of her back, fluttering agitatedly with muscles she only just then realized she was even using.

Twilight’s thoughts caught up with her senses at last as she stared at her wings. Her body was that of an insect, protected by an exoskeleton; she had wings that looked like they had been taken from a gigantic dragonfly and attached to her. Yet she was still undeniably an equine shape under all the armor, and she had a twisted parody of a unicorn’s horn that was, even then, still dribbling sickly green magic from its tip. Fangs protruded from her mouth and her hooves were perfectly adapted not only for manipulating objects but for use as weapons—a single blow could easily knock a pony unconscious, or worse...

Despite her confusion, and the pain, and her nearly blinding headache, Twilight was still able to carry out some semblance of intelligent thought, albeit at a torturously slow pace. After what seemed like an eternity, her hazy mind finally put together the pieces and she realized she had gone from a unicorn...

...to a changeling...?

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...” she mumbled to herself. “No, that’s not right...”

It wasn’t possible that she could be a changeling, despite the fact that she was currently a changeling. Therefore the only explanation was that her senses were lying to her; she was dreaming, or she was insane—or something else rational like that.

The confused unicorn(?) staggered to her hooves, swaying to and fro as her ataxic brain tried to learn how to use the limbs it was suddenly connected to. Though she wasn’t floored by vertigo this time, the world spun dizzyingly around her as if she had just finished attending one of Pinkie Pie’s particularly outrageous parties. Twilight took a few steps without really knowing where she was trying to head. She didn’t make it very far before her shaking body gave out and she collapsed onto her rump, legs splayed out in an awkward sitting position, fighting a terrible urge to be sick again.

Changeling. She was wearing the body of a changeling.

How did that happen? One moment she was a unicorn, and the next she was a changeling.

It didn’t make any sense at all.

Wasn’t it impossible to turn a pony into a changeling?

No, no, not impossible; the changelings just didn’t do it. That didn’t make it impossible. Improbable?

No, that wasn’t the right word.

Maybe it was?

Unicorn to changeling was improbable. That made sense, didn’t it?

How had she gone from a unicorn to a changeling? Magic. So what magic made her turn into a changeling?

She’d been an ordinary unicorn until she somehow botched a changeling-revealing spell and lost control of her magic. Therefore, there was a very high probability that her transformation had something to do with the changeling-revealing spell she had cast using changeling magic—

Twilight’s disjointed attempt to analyze the situation was interrupted by a growing feeling of claustrophobia. A great many blurry colored shapes that resembled ponies were moving toward her from all directions at the same time, and as they got nearer the distance between her and the intangible emotional mass surrounding her shrank accordingly.

“Look at its horn,” a worried voice thundered. “I think it’s trying to do magic.”

A few of the glowing pony-shaped things backed up a little.

“What’s it magicking?”

“I don’t know. It looks kinda woozy. Maybe it’s too confused to do anything else,” said the first speaker.

Twilight's eyes rolled upward near the end of this exchange. She could just barely see a couple of green sparks shoot out of the tip of the misshapen thing on her head that had once been her horn. A brief jet of raw energy followed the discharge, but it never materialized into a spell and quickly dissolved in the air. The only response she received from her horn when she tried to stop the random outbursts was a strange prickling sensation, as if it had been paralyzed and was just starting to regain feeling.

But at that moment, figuring out what had happened to her was less important to Twilight than fixing it, and she was still in too much of a panic to see how illogical her priorities were. Stripped of her ability to use magic properly and surrounded by a moving wall of sensory overload, the unicorn—former unicorn—was consumed by blind terror. In desperation, Twilight tried to back away from the advancing mob of ponies. Her atrophic wings buzzed frantically, instinctively trying to carry her away to safety, but she had neither the strength not the knowledge necessary to fly.

“Stay—stay away f-from me—!” she babbled. Her voice sounded nothing like it usually did; it was scratchy and raspy, like that of a pony with a very sore throat. “Please, just—stay—No, no! Don’t—”

A pair of hooves seized each of her forelegs and dragged her upright. Two more ponies held onto each pair of her wings, pinning them to her sides. Twilight tried to squirm out of their grasp, but she was in no state to do so; not with her weakened body and blinding headache.

“Let me go,” the ex-unicorn begged. She knew she could figure everything out if she had a chance to think about it. “L-listen, I’m, I’m not—I don’t know wh-a-at’s g-going on, please let m—”

“Hey, it’s still trying to use magic,” exclaimed one of the ponies suddenly. “What if it, I dunno, what if it attacks somepony?”

“Aren’t there things you can put over a unicorn's horn to make it, uh, not work?” Twilight could barely differentiate the second pony from the first in her hazy state, much less put an identity to it—they all seemed featureless save for the differences in color, and Twilight’s vision was swimming so badly she wasn’t even sure if she was really seeing the colors she thought she was.

“D’you mean a limiter?” another asked. “Oh, I think—don’t the police use—”

“Look at its horn!” interrupted a fourth. “Do you think you could get a limiter on that thing? We’ll have to break it off if we want to keep it from escaping or hurting somepony.”

“Break—break it—What?” Twilight cried, horrified, as several other voices chorused their general agreement to the suggestion. “Nononono, don’t break it off!”

A ghostly white aura grew in one of the fragmented pieces of Twilight’s vision—the one most like what her old eyes saw—and her natural self-preservation instincts kicked in. Barely comprehending what she was doing in her stupified haze, she lowered her head and blasted the source of the growing spell with a burst of sickly green magic before it could harm her precious horn.

The two energies met in midair and fought with each other, each trying to push the other back toward its caster. For a short time, it could have gone either way: Twilight's own fluctuating magic was still barely within her control and she was still too overwhelmed to think clearly. What she cast didn’t even qualify as a real spell—it was just a jet of raw magic, rather like water spraying out of a fire hose.

In the end it was her spell and her desperation that won out. Both spells rocketed toward the other caster at lightning speed. A small explosion parted the crowd and left a pony slumped against the wall behind him, his horn cracked in half. Shocked by the sudden outburst from their captive, the ponies restraining Twilight had fled when she first used magic, leaving her to stand by herself on her four wobbly legs. Ordinarily she would have been horrified at what she had just done, self-defense or not, but her combined confusion and the terror of nearly having her horn sheared off left Twilight in such a panic she could only think about escaping the immediate danger.

Seeing that she had some measure of control over her magic again, Twilight focused and tried to teleport herself away from the town square. Instead of making her disappear, the tip of her horn exploded in a flash of green and emitted a bang loud enough to rival a sonic rainboom. A couple of ponies hastily dove out of the way of the shower of sparks and the discharge of green lightning that accompanied the blast.

Twilight herself skittered clumsily backwards, terrified that she might hurt somepony else by accident. Even her fear couldn’t override that concern, though it did a lot to further cloud her ability to think rationally. Seeing an opening, and thus a potential route for escape, she lunged through the gap the frightened ponies had left and launched herself off the back of the podium.

It was a disastrous move at best. Twilight’s right foreleg hit the ground the wrong way and made a sick cracking sound, causing her to lurch forward and slam face-first into the road. Blood erupted from her broken nose and left both the dirt and her muzzle spattered with bright green fluid. As though from far away, Twilight heard her own raspy screams ringing through the air.

The screaming soon died down to a shaky, distracted whimper as she struggled back to her hooves tried to stumble onward—but her injured foreleg wouldn’t support her weight anymore and she tripped over herself. By the time Twilight had completed yet another painstaking journey back to her hooves, her only escape route was blocked off by the mass of ponies and feelings and noise and other things she just couldn’t deal with.

She tried to teleport to safety again as they closed in around her, but the only result she got was a flurry of sparks and a crackling fizz of sickly green electricity. A few of the ponies recoiled at the unexpected action, but no openings appeared in their ranks this time. Magical auras began to glow in the midst of the undulating mass as other unicorns started charging up their own spells.

“Stay away from me!” Twilight sobbed, stumbling wildly around and pointing her glowing, sparking horn at parts of the mass that came too close or lit up too brightly. “You can’t take my horn! I haven't d-done anything wrong!”

“The hell you didn’t!” A particularly rainbowy thing removed itself from the mass. “You took our friend! Where’s Twilight?”

“I-I’m Twilight! I'm not a changeling! I’m Twilight Sparkle!” She was shaking from the effort of holding herself up for so long. “Don’t c-come near me! Just let me—let me th-thi-ink! And stop making so m-much noise! It hurts!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever!” said the rainbowy thing, very loudly. “I’ll make as much noise as I want until you tell—”

“Shut up! I need to think! Can't you just shut up?”

“Best just turn yerself in, sugarcube,” an orange pony wearing a stetson hat said. “Looks like you ain’t goin’ anywhere on yer own anytime soon. Not on that leg.”

“Just stay away from me!” Twilight repeated, with no small amount of hysteria beginning to creep into her voice. She jabbed her horn warningly at the orange pony and almost overbalanced, unused to both her body and moving on only three legs. “I-I’ll use magic on you if you try to—if you try—I-I-I can fix this, just let me—let me think, let me figure this—”

There was a sudden, terrific tug on Twilight’s horn like something had latched firmly on and was trying to rip it out of her head. It was so forceful that her hooves left the ground entirely, and her legs gave out under her when they touched down again. A sharp bolt of pain shot through her spigafigural core—the center of her horn; easily the most sensitive part of a unicorn’s body. Twilight let out another scream, this one somewhat gurgly due to the blood that had collected in her mouth.

Her assailant tugged on her horn again. A panicked squeal left Twilight’s mouth as she was dragged a short distance through the street on her stomach, limbs flailing uselessly. It wouldn’t be long before her horn either snapped or was pulled right out of her skull if the abuse kept up the way it was going. Whatever magic the other unicorn was using to grab her was obviously not made for safely holding onto unicorn horns, or indeed any part of of any living creature, because Twilight felt like hot nails were being driven through her horn each time it was enveloped by the spell’s grayish aura.

If she’d been able to, she would have been bawling her eyes out in terror. They were going to take her horn away from her, and of course there was no way to regrow a severed horn. Twilight could hardly imagine living life without ever using magic again. It would have been hard enough to adapt to living like an earth pony, but magic was also her special talent, her passion, and a sizable part of her very identity. Without magic, her cutie mark would be nothing more than a fancy but meaningless bit of decoration on her flank. She couldn’t be the Element of Magic anymore if she didn’t even have magic.

Desperate, she gathered what little of her magic she could control and lashed out at her attacker. Though her horn sparked and seared with pain, Twilight was able to conjure a long, thin green whip, which she directed at the source of the offending spell. It coiled around the other unicorn’s throat like a serpent and tightened until it became a strangling noose. The pressure on her horn eased up immediately as the choking unicorn’s spell flickered out. In its wake it left a throbbing, white-hot residual pain almost as debilitating as the initial attack itself.

Other spell auras appeared elsewhere in the mob almost immediately, coming from ponies clearly prepared to take over where the other had left off and fight her into submission—but Twilight was not a warrior; she had neither the strength nor the knowledge nor the desire to battle the mob that was after her. With her world turned upside-down and inside-out, a wall of anger and contempt bearing down upon her, and half a dozen different kinds of pain tearing her nerves to shreds, she could think only of escape and the solitude it would bring.

Twilight’s magical whip let go of its victim, who collapsed onto the ground, and vanished back into the tip of her horn. Now knowing she had a small amount of magic to work with, she focused and made one more attempt to teleport herself out of danger. It was a risk, since teleportation required a significant amount of energy and concentration, but having to think on her hooves was something fairly new to her. Twilight was used to having the time and mental capacity to weigh her choices before making a decision, and the ultimate result was that she impulsively chose the first option she thought of in her panic.

A sickly green aura flowed out of her horn and wrapped around her body. Jolts of excruciating pain shot through her horn as she fed all the magic she could muster into the teleportation spell. Twilight felt like it was splintering into pieces atop her head, and for one short moment she could only think how she had just destroyed her most treasured possession with her frenzied casting.

The ocean of noise around her suddenly coagulated into a howling sound; her surroundings bent in bizarre ways and vanished into the distance; Twilight felt as though every piece of her was being simultaneously torn apart and rebuilt into a new body. For one moment, she found herself teetering halfway between the physical world and the intangible magical one, unable to move backward or forward.

Having never experienced the interstitial in slow motion before, this bizarre gap in her teleportation routine was not only confusing but horrifying. Twilight felt like she was trying to swim toward the other side through an ocean of molasses, including a feeling that she was rapidly running out of air. Her magic proved just strong enough to get her all the way through, however, and she burst through the interstitial into the magical world.

Thankfully, the singularly uncomfortable experience of having her body magically deconstructed, molecule by molecule, and then put back together again did not happen in slow motion; rather, it took less than a fraction of a second. Her vision filled with darkness as she passed through the interstitial again, this time at the normal pace, before becoming a mix of two blue and green halves.

At that moment, everything returned to normal, though the welcome return was accompanied by pain, confusion, and a violent lurching of her stomach. Twilight rolled over where she lay and retched onto the grass beside her, then frantically ran her uninjured hoof over the sharp, twisted spike on her head make sure it was still there. Though it was still hot to the touch and the action sent a painful electric jolt through her skull, her horn didn’t seem to be damaged—on the outside, at least. However, the relief that came with this discovery was quickly overshadowed by the dismal realization that it wasn’t really her horn sitting on top of her head.

After letting her exhausted, abused body rest for a short time, Twilight rolled over and made a halfhearted effort to stand up. She sank back down onto her stomach before she even rose all the way, having lost the will halfway through the act. The transition from sensory overload to next to nothing at all was so overwhelming that she needed a few minutes to adjust to it. When she did, it wasn’t as pleasing as she had hoped it would be: her headache remained, she hurt all over, and all the adrenaline in her kept pushing her to get up and do something, regardless of what it was.

Twilight’s eyes flicked nervously back and forth, taking in her new surroundings. In her panic, she had teleported without first choosing a destination—a very dangerous thing to do, as she could have ended up anywhere, or nowhere at all—and it seemed she had materialized in a meadow filled with tall grass, as well as the occasional wildflower blooming here and there. There were some gentle hills spread around the landscape, through which a dirt road lined with groves of trees led toward the distant silhouettes of Ponyville’s homes and buildings. A butterfly landed near her face, stared at her, and then took off again when she stirred.

More than anything, Twilight wanted to close her eyes and let herself slip into the gentle, waiting arms of unconsciousness, where she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the pain or the shock of what had just happened to her. But after several minutes of lying in the grass, the ex-unicorn came to the realization that it wouldn’t be long before there were pegasi looking for her from the skies, and she would almost certainly be spotted if she remained where she was. Then they would take her back to town and break her horn off and she would never be able to use magic ever again.

Thoughts like those should have had adrenaline pumping through her system again, but somehow she couldn’t find the strength to panic anymore. A feeling of emotional numbness had settled over her sometime while she was laying there in the field, making every thought Twilight had seem as if it were being thought by another pony and related to her without the slightest sense of connection.

She rose sluggishly to her hooves, trembling with the effort of holding herself upright. Merely standing was a laborious feat, but walking was even more difficult—the fastest she could manage without risking falling on her face again was a slow three-legged limp. The entire process of moving herself from Point A to Point B rapidly became a single smear in time which neither began nor ended, broken only for brief moments to look back and check for other ponies coming after her from Ponyville, or when Twilight’s wobbly legs gave out and she had to rest for a bit before trying to get back up again, or she stepped in a hole and lost her carefully-maintained balance. By the time she returned to her senses, she had left the tall grass and her hooves were crossing the dirt on the path.

The earth on the other side was raised slightly; a foot and a half, maybe two feet at most. Twilight stared intently at the embankment, knowing she wasn’t strong enough to lift herself onto it. Part of her wanted to damn the consequences and lay down right where she was, but another part was still singularly fixed on survival and refused to let her do that.

Twilight cast another tired look back at Ponyville—and she was thankful she did. A rainbow trail was rapidly making its way out of the town by way of the skies. Although it wasn't heading directly for her, it was moving on a path that would certainly bring it very close to where she was if it kept going in the same direction. The sight of her pursuer forced one last burst of adrenaline out of her body, allowing her to scrabble halfway up the embankment and then dive into the bushes before her body could give out.

From there, she struggled back onto her hooves and limped further into the grove. Its foliage was thick enough that the clear blue sky was blotted out for the most part, leaving only shafts of light where there were spaces between the clusters of leaves. Twilight found the darkest spot she possibly could, then finally allowed herself to collapse and crawled into a small space between a tree and a large boulder.

Her wounds still throbbed and her head still pounded, and her system was full of adrenaline again, but now that she was finally somewhat safe, Twilight allowed herself to uncoil just a little. Curling up between the tree’s roots, she closed her eyes and fell asleep almost instantly, so exhausted she didn’t even have time to think before passing out.

This story works on the pretext that all magic is available to all the pony races, but certain types of it come more easily to certain races. In this universe, a pegasus with a strong connection to the pegasus race’s magic and a lot of dedication could theoretically levitate objects, cast cloud-walking spells, make butterfly wings for other ponies, etc., and an earth pony could (theoretically) walk on clouds without casting a spell or become invisible if they worked enough at it. And so on.

I predict that this will be a very long story. There are countless X-is-a-changeling fanfics, so I must write things that aren’t just ‘hur dur imma cause dramatics’, and that will take a lot of work to pull off decently.

The next chapter or something will involve Royal Guards. I suck at coming up with names and I’m lazy as hell so I’m going to offer anybody who’s interested a chance to have your OC namedropped once or thrice. PM me if you are (interested), don’t give me your character’s tragic sob story in a comment you could be using to praise/despise me. I’ll give you credit for the character and everything.