And I thought we were normal. How wrong I was.

      As per Berry's instructions, I made my way into what I somewhat call my sanctuary in the forest at 9:00 a.m. on the dot. However, I soon find myself sitting around for the next hour until she finally strolls in with a drunken smile on her face and her casual pink t-shirt and skinny jeans. Funny; she usually isn't tipsy until 12.

"About time you got here." I reprimand her, but she just blows it off.

"Nopony said I had to be here on time. Besides all good things come with time." She turns to a scowl before slipping a hand into her back pocket.

"What are you getting?"

"Nothing, nothing." She waves me off and reveals a small vial of an eerie green fluid.

"What's that?" I cycle to a bored expression. Why do I even ask? This mare moves at her own pace, no faster.

"Just a little study aid. Now tell me, what do you know about changelings; biologically speaking?"

"They're covered in a hard carapace, they feed on love to gain strength and they're somewhat similar to insects."

"So what any hack on the streets knows."

"Pretty much." I shy away.

"Well I guess I need to educate you a little then. You see your lowest class drone is mostly a hollow husk, created from the decayed body of the changeling before it. The empty shell is filled with magic from the queen and operated like a puppet so that freshly bred changelings can focus on higher service. These newborns however are not entirely flesh and blood as well. Certain portions are missing at birth and usually lead to a dead body being born." She refreshes her breath. "After being filled in the some magic artificial organs they live with a free will, but rely on the queen to continue their life. This effectively forms the hive mind ponies refer to."

"Ok, but what does this have to do with me?"

"I'm getting to it. You see, while everypony knows about the hive mind; the actuality of the fake organs and corpse puppets isn't known at all, even to the upper echelon. Changeling bodies are rigged to 'forcefully deconstruct' into dust if captured or if they defect to prevent this knowledge from leaving the hive."

"Then how do you know this?" I raise my brow, a slight suspicion she's feeding me shit itching at me.

"I'm part changeling and I work for a thieves' organization idiot. We work with the hive now and again and the queen was willing to teach me a thing or two since the old man recommended me. Being that as it may, I also have permission to teach those of a similar affliction as long as they're working in the organization."

"Ok then, continue."

"Gladly, now you must understand that the hive mind is only one side of the coin. The other reason is this; the raw energies form a better breed of assassin. By having body parts replaced with magic you can gain certain abilities unattainable to flesh and blood bodies." I interrupt again.

"Abilities like what?"

"Disguising is the most basic example. The changeling's carapace modifiers draw on a spell from the queen to form a perfect disguise."

"So you're going to teach me perfect impersonation?"

"No,no,no; that spell is something that usually only the queen knows. Her subjects can draw on it because of their link to her." She laughs.

"Usually?"

"Every now and again when a part changeling reaches royal level the queen may bequeath the knowledge of that spell to him or her. In short it's probably nothing I'll ever earn. What I'm going to teach you is something a little bit more basic." She blinks quickly and I take a half step back. What the hell?

   Her usual purple irises are completely gone now and have been replaced by a set of pale pink irises with multiple streaks of dark purple throughout. The regular large pupils have thinned into a set of thin black slits that just scream at me predatorily, almost as if they're uploading the very instincts of the prey into my subconscious.

"Well, what do you think?" She smirks.

"What the hell happened to your eyes?"

"I ditched the originals things when the old man was teaching me about changelings. These are genetically modified with magic, essentially a genuine pair of changeling eyes."

"I thought their eyes were mostly all blue?"

"That's mostly just the corpse puppets; they don't make their own decisions so the queen just lets them go blind instead."

"Then what happened to your real eyes?"

"All gone at this point, the usual look is just a simple illusion modifier, the queen did teach me how to hide the visual effects."

"I thought only unicorns could use magic?"

"All changelings have a natural affinity for it; so as the genetic barriers faded I became able to tap into a small amount of magic."

"Just how much of you is genetically modified anyways?"

"56%, mostly internal."

"Doesn't that bother you at all?" I ask.

"At first it did, the idea of giving away pony flesh and blood for changeling chitin and magic seemed terrible. It had to do with that old pony pride of mine. I'm still proud of being a pony mind you, but I'm not some elitist."

"So this is what you planned to teach me?"

"Not teach so much as activate, but yes. If you'd rather not embrace your blood now I understand, I wrestled with the question for a month before I decided to augment."

Interesting prospect though. On one hand I lose my original eyes, but on the other I get a newer set with magic as an actual part of them. I contemplate before another idea hits me. How are these eyes my original eyes? Technically they're just part of this new body.

"Well, what's it gonna be Sonata?"

"I'll take that offer." I say confidently.

"Alright then, I'll administer the treatment." She smiles deviously which is onto amplified by the foreign eyes. "Sit down."

   Not wanting to dilly dally, I comply and sit down on the plush grass as another hand drifts behind her back.

"Ok, now what?"

"This!" She exclaims before lunging on top of me, pushing me down into a position where both of her knees are weighing down on my shoulders, effectively keeping me from resisting besides kicking.

"What the hell Berry?"

"Don't move too much." She giggles as her hand reveals itself, holding two small, empty syringes. She uses her mouth to undo the cap on the green vial before sticking a syringe in and filling it, the other soon after. "Now don't move, this may sting a little." She tosses the empty vial away and grabs my neck to immobilize my falling head.

   The first one came like lightning and the pain was fleeting but excruciating as the tip penetrated the membrane of my left eye. I clutch my eyelids shut instinctively for protection, but the second needle just glides through it and into my right eye, my awareness to the pain making each tenth of a second feel like a year as I feel the liquid that now seeps through the entirety of my optical receptors.

   What follows is more than excruciating, it is like hell.

"First step; deconstruction." I can hear Berry say, but I don't really care at this point.

    I cry in agony as the serum begins to take effect. I can feel the cores of my eyes begin to dissolve slowly and the searing pain of the acidic formula only intensifies by the moment as my eyes are burned from the insides out. I can feel it the moment my optical cords snap away from my eyes and the pain intensifies.

   It becomes apparent to me in almost a split second that the outer membrane of my eyes feels like they're bubbling from the heat. It's actually only one or two seconds into it, but I finally notice that I cannot see anymore and at this point I can't tell of its been years or decades or if I still have eyes at all and what I'm feeling is just my bones deconstructing.

   After what I think is about 90 years of this torture, the pain slowly subsides and I stop screaming, that is until I start to feel something else.

"Step two; reconstruction."

   Contradictory to the inferno of losing my eyes, it almost feels as if the air in my empty eye sockets is at absolute zero and the rest of my head trapped in a growing chunk of ice.

   The feeling of the center expands until the lowest chill encases the entirety of both of empty holes. Then the ice begins to form. I feel thin ring of solid cold ice around my eye sockets and soon after something, I'm not sure what, begins to tingle inside of my skull. The feeling of ice and cold subsides to an average temperature and feeling of my eyes, but I still have no vision.

"Final step; activation."

   The tingling in my skull climaxes as I feel what I think are my old optical chords reattaching to the new membranes as one final surge of otherworldly pain shoots through my skull as if a chisel was driven from my neck, through some teeth and finally through and out my brain.

   Slowly after the pain ends I begin to notice something, or rather many things, the tree branches overhead, Berry standing over me with a proud smile on her face and the solitary squirrel hanging from a stray branch nibbling at a chestnut; my vision.

"Glad to see you made it." I blink. What an odd feeling, blinking.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, adjusting to the odd feeling if skin over new eyes.

"There was an eight or nine percent chance that you'd die." She turns sheepish as I stand back up.

"And you just happened to neglect that fact?" I raise a brow and I notice something, her eyes no longer phase me at all in fact they feel... comforting, like a mother.

"Nope, I just didn't mention it so you wouldn't back out." She smiles again, making no attempt to lie.

"What was in that stuff anyways?" I rub my forehead which is still aching.

"Nothing too much. A drop or two of water and the rest was my blood."

"Your what?"

"My blood. To force mutation it requires a certain amount of injection of changeling blood to activate the dormant cells."

"First of all, disgusting. Second, who came up with that idea in the first place?" I shiver. I might've gone with the death risk. Drinking her blood? No.

"It's an old way; whoever figured it out has been dead on gone for at least a couple hundred years."

"I'm gonna have to talk with you about this later, but tell me; what did this accomplish? As far as I can see this changed nothing."

"Well are you scared of my eyes anymore?"

"Not really, but how many changelings am I going to run into?"

"Not many and you won't feel anything towards them, but since my blood induced the modification you'll feel naturally at ease around me."

"I felt at ease around you before. I was hoping for some practical use."

"Ok, ok. Go over to the pool." She waves over at the water.

   I walk over to the water's edge and look down at my new pair of peepers. Well, no more super spooky eyes. My eyes are not unlike Berry's save for that the general iris colour might be a half a shade darker than hers are.

"What happened to my black eyes?"

"Side effect, since it was my blood your cells used as a base some of the attributes carried over."

"Ok, now what do I do?" I ask, slightly annoyed I've learned nothing about the two things I just went through hell to get.

"Think of a square with an inscribed circle that has an inscribed triangle, channel magic and blink." She directs and I construct the seal.

   After a small magical surge to the seal, I blink quickly and the predator's eyes change into a set of normal looking, pale pink eyes, once again a similar colour to Berry's changeling eyes rather than the pure black of my old ones.

"I see I lost my old colours too."

"Sorry about that." I hear her say and I repeat the spell to bring back the changeling look.

"It's fine. What else can I do?"

"You can reuse the seal to change the look back, but for the rest I'd be better if we had a different venue. You'll also want to avoid anything that'll disable your magic, every now and again that'll cause the optical illusion to wear off."

"What kind of venue?" I raise a brow, a gesture quickly put on hold as another sting shoots down my spine as a stray portion of optical chord latches back onto my new eyes.

"I'll meet you in the living room at eight sharp. I'll explain the rest to you then." She shrugs. "Other than that, take the rest of today to adjust to them."

"Always the cryptic one aren't you?" I curl my lips back into a smile.

"You'll learn to deal with me." She begins to walk off and I begin to follow, but I'm cut short when my legs give way from under me and my vision fades to black. "You'll have to learn with those two too."

~\o/~

   I rub my forehead in agony as conscious returns to me along with a peculiar pain just below my horn.

"You think I hit him too hard?"

"No, he should be fine." I try to lean forward but I feel a heel pressing down on my chest I choose not to fight it.

"You two again?" I half question as open my eyes to see a rather annoyed looking blue Phoenix standing over me with the heel of her high healed shoe digging into my chest and a rather happy looking part changeling next to her. "I don't hear from either of you in five months and this is how you greet me?"

"We started giving each other the silent treatment for awhile after you got those hand wraps, it obviously put most of our plans on a standstill." The scarlet looking one says and I groan. To hell with it, I'm just calling her Scarlet; I can't remember that other name for the life of me. Same to the Sapphire coloured one.

"Why'd you give each the silent treatment?"

"She got angry that I took the entirety of the hand wraps which piled on top of the anger from you having no Phoenix alliance at all."

"Let me guess; the new eyes thing pushed her over the edge." I take a deep breath as Sapphire finally takes her hoofer off of my chest. How do ponies even walk in high heels?

"Pretty much," she finally speaks up, "so I figured I'd collect on what I'm owed." She holds up her index and middle fingers which soon become alight with a sickly blue flame.

   Before a protest can leave my mouth, both fingers plunge into my new eyes and incineration rocks my sense of touch. Within the same second the orbs are completely dissolved and soon I can feel two new one forming in the once again empty sockets. Of course none of this stops me from screaming out in agony and profanity.

   About a third of a second later the pain subsides while my vision returns again. Doesn't anypony know what painkillers are? I think as I glare back at the assailant.

"Mind telling me what that was about?"

"I reintroduced my DNA into your system." She states with no emotion before taking the same fingers from her right hand and plunging through the back of my right hand, pulling it out before I can even realize.

   Different from my eyes however, I don't feel burning, or cold, or even pain for that matter, just... discomfort. I just watch the blue flame burn out and the hand wraps gradually regenerate to fill the hole as I close my eyes again for the void.

~\o/~

   An annoyed groan erupts from my mouth as I wake back up in the forest, a bug quickly flying off of my forehead. I force myself up to my hooves with the grace of a pheasant in a thunderstorm and give my eyes an experimental tap. I've still got them and my hand is fine. I flex my right hand.

They still don't feel right though; my eyes that is. They feel kinda... Hot? I glance to my left where the pool of water is and walk over in no particular hurry. Taking a knee, I peer over the water's edge to make sure my eyes still look alright.

"God damn eye poachers." I curse into my reflection.

   The subtle pink eyes seem to be gone along with the changeling pair and what replaces them isn't any more subtle. A perfect circle of light-blue encompasses my pupils with eight different streaks of pale green in each one. The streaks are like a compass, placed pointing towards the pupil at forty~five degree intervals. The pupils themselves are what really catch me though. A perfect square of semi-thick black pupil sits around the center of each eye. Each square is bisected twice by two equally thick black lines, forming four smaller squares within each one, like a coordinate plane.

"Can't I get a pair of eyes that are normal?" I clutch the dirt in annoyance.

   I hear a small crack from behind me and I turn back to see the same squirrel from before sitting on the branch, looking at me whilst eating a small nut. I sigh before something a bit more intriguing catches my eye, or rather eyes.

   My vision tunnels a little bit to focus on the squirrel and slowly I can feel a trickle of information leek into me. Body temperature: 310.38 degrees Kelvin. Preferable cooking temperature: 442.04 degrees kelvin. A rather monotonous voice comes through my head, only reading off those two facts.

"Now just how is this useful?" I mutter, still trying to think of how to get rid of these things. "That might work."

   I quickly toss up the seal Berry told me about and in a blink I feel a small twitch in my eyes. I turn back to the pool of water and see that the changeling eyes are back and still the same as before. Another blink later and I'm back to the pale pink set.

   After straightening my vest and resetting my watch, I turn around and start the slow stroll back into town. I do wonder though; what exactly happened to my hand and why did they do this to me?

~\o/~

   With the scent of oranges annoying the bloody hell out of me, I slip into the library. Uefi and Mac weren't very big on conversation about anything but my eyes at the farm and I wasn't scheduled to meet Berry until night time; so I figured it might be a good idea to check up on enchanting.

"You in here Twilight?" I call out; I'm pretty much the only pony who frequents this place.

"Over here." She calls back from the back left corner.

   I walk over to her, but the scent of oranges and the lack of ashes in the air keeps on irking me the wrong way. I chuckle as I turn the corner to see the purple unicorn in a pile of books and papers up to her neck.

"Need some help?"

"If you would be so kind." She blows a paper away from her face and I start pulling books off of her with magic and replacing them into the empty shelves. "Thanks."

"No problem." I've seen her make bigger messes of this place.

"Well I doubt you came by just to clean up with me." She brushes herself off and grabs the bottle of disinfectant next to her. "What did you come for this time?"

"I figured I'd pick your brain about enchanting."

"Well I guess I can help you wi- oh my." She finally turns around to see my face. "What happened to your eyes?"

"Oh these? It's just uh..." Crap, I forgot to make up a cover story. Mac and Uefi already knew about the changeling thing, but this is different. "Coloured contact lenses?"

"Yeah right. Now how about you tell me what it really is. Don't think I can't see the magic." Damnit, I hate it when ponies read into things too deeply.

"I'm not really sure what you mean."

"Take it off before I take it off for you."

"Alright, alright. Can you keep a secret?"

"Do I look like a gossip?"

"Fair enough, just... Don't freak out." I blink into what I think are the changeling eyes and she takes a half are back.

"What the hell happened to you?" She purposely looks away.

"That's not all." I blink again and her body temperature is read off to be in the same voice as before. Like a mix of Morgan Freeman and Hank Hill.

"What happened to you?"

"A little bit of magical training went awry out in the everfree this morning. The spell backfired and my eyes kinda got screwed up. I'm not too sure when they'll switch back to black though."

"Strange, what kind of spell were you working with?" She asks as a magically held pen cap begins to poke my eye softly but I do my best to ignore it.

"Nothing special, just throwing magic at the metaphorical wall to see what sticks." I push the pen cap out of my eye and switch back to the pony eyes.

"Fascinating, each one is different from the last. But why did they turn out like that is the question." The pen cap reemerges with new vigor.

"I'd rather not discuss this now Twilight. Besides, I don't think it'll last more than a week." I lie.

"Then I'd sleep with one eye open I if was you." She smirks and puts the pen cap away. "So you wanted to learn some enchanting?"

"Yeah." I toss 'my' ring to her. "What could I do with that?"

"Let's see... Refined corundum material, probably rubies, high quality, silver band, sizes ranging from minor to large... Well isn't this a surprise." She tosses the ring back.

"What?"

"The internal structure of the gems in enchanting will determine what magical frequencies they can use and be imprinted with. Different types of spells ahead to certain frequencies, for example a fire ball spell will have a similar frequency to a fire breath spell. These gems have a structure meant to adhere to illusions, and quite well at that." She forms a scowl. "I thought you were going to go light your criminal talents."

"I just bought the thing at random; the enchantment idea was just for the sake of learning more magic." I defend myself.

"Yeah, and you still haven't explained where you got that cloth on your hands."

"A flee market if you want the truth. When I picked up my brother a few months back I had a rather heated discussion with an old stallion about the worth of the cloth." My castle of lies is so beautiful and well made.

"I'll believe when I see it. Regardless, I suppose I can give you some knowledge for enchanting." She opens the doorway behind her. "Follow me back down to the spell room."

   A minute later we're both back down in the same white room as before with my ring siting on a thin metal pole and my horn barely touching the center gem.

"So now what?" I raise a brow.

"Do you have a spell in mind that you could use for it?" I nod. "Then imagine the ring with that seal somewhere on it."

"Alright." I follow the steps.

"Now I need you to start using the spell and keep it up for as long as possible."

   I keep my eyes fixated on the ring even as it slowly fades out of vision and I cough. This is definitely taking more magic than it did before, but I guess the modification might be responsible for that.

"I should've known you'd choose that one. Now how long can you hold that for?" Twilight chimes in after about seven minutes.

"Usually fifteen minutes, but like this; only ten minutes."

"The enchantment will only last about six seconds before needing to be recharged then."

"Six seconds?" I keep my anger down as much as I can even a gash opens on my left leg.

"This is the most basic setup for enchanting so it will only last 1/100th of the amount of time it's casted. If it was a different spell like a fireball it would have to be hit with the spell one hundred times just to have a single shot."

"Then how is enchanting even useful?" I question. After all, even if I could hold this spell for an hour, it would only last about a half minute.

"That's because this is the basic setup. If I bought specially made stands that are actually made for certain enchantment types it might last just as long as you can cast it for."

"And how much would one of those cost?"

"They cost about a hundred thousand bits or so each. Why; do you plan on buying one?"

"Not at that price." I mutter. "How long as it been?"

"Almost ten minutes." She checks her watch, and I cringe as more cuts join the first one.

"Then I'm done with it." I disconnect from the ring, slipping out my supply of bandages as well.

"Want some help with those?" She asks but I shake my head.

"No, it's fine. I'm a fast healer." I opt away from the smaller bandages and just tie some tight bands of cloth around both of my bloodied legs. It might be worth it to learn some medical magic.

   She tosses the ring back to me, and I examine it rather idly. The gems don't glow with energy like the other items I've seen, but rather they've become darker. Each on has an almost pure black center and only a thin ring of red around the outside. They're barely recognizable as rubies anymore. The metal itself almost looks like it's covered in a heavy layer of ashes. The only bright part about it is right in the center of the largest gem, adorned with a stark white version of the magical seal.

"It looked prettier before." I complain, but slip on the ring regardless. "But thanks Twilight."