Only One Constant

Chapters

From the Forest to the City to the Shack in the Woods
The Natural Elite
The Psychologist
The Beautiful Guard
Physical Training
Denial
Acceptance
Jail Break
The Ancient
Raven's Day Off
Hivemind Destruction
Coming Home
Eliminating the Competition
The Second Escape
The Hive

From the Forest to the City to the Shack in the Woods

Steel unload, fire blow, filthy animals, beat them low
Skin and bone, black and blue
No more this sun shall beat unto you

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The forest is dark, evil, and mysterious. The forest floor is dappled with the mid-day light peaking through the trees, and you can see something move. Blinking a few times, you can now see the life of the area around you. Everything looks the same, except for now anything that has a pulse is surrounded by a golden glow. A large rabbit is hiding in the bushes directly in front of you. Your mouth waters at the idea of fresh life to consume, and in the moment you find it funny that such a jumpy creature can't notice quite a large animal like you. Without warning you pounce and the rabbit never saw anything, even as it died. It got crushed under your clawed foot. Three inch serrated claws on each of your four toes. Spearing the dead rabbit on one of your them, you throw it into the air and catch it in your mouth.

Your head itself should be qualified as a wonder of nature. A massive lump of skin and teeth with rounded corners and, like the rest of your body, covered with short velvety fur, and has a maw filled with teeth as strong as tungsten. Your mouth can open wide enough that your bottom jaw almost touches your neck, and has fangs on both the upper and lower jaw that protrude from your mouth by several inches and sport horrifying serrations. The real horror comes when you look inside the maw though, your inner gums are lined with small teeth that curve inward. A long serpent-like tongue that can wrap around things and pull them deeper into your bear trap of a mouth. The poor rabbit gets shredded in a few seconds, and is sent down your throat in a few bite-sized chunks.

As you walk back home you use tongue to lick the blood off of your teeth, and jump into a pile of leaves. The pile of leaves is suspended by a web of roots, and after you break through it without problem you start falling down a dark hole. The rest of your body is muscle under overly stretched skin, all of the muscles are defined clearly, and now your skin starts to change. The soft velvet fur that covered your body a few seconds ago has turned into thick scales that engulf your body like a suit of armor. You land on a pile of skeletons, stand up, walk off the pile and look back at it to see what the clan had been eating lately. As your skin goes back to the short fur, you see that the pile is mostly made of deer bones along with a few various other animals thrown in.

Most of the others look like you, but are smaller and have different colors on their bodies. Your body for instance, has a black and white pattern much like that of a tiger, while others have solid colors or different patterns. In this place, you are king and no one disrespects you. The females almost immediately start to rub against your sides looking for attention, but by now you would think they would have learned to stop trying. The single most powerful female will be yours, and only that one. Being the strongest member of the clan you have the right to choose who you want, and you don't want someone worthless to bear your child.

"Back away from me, or you won't have any hope of staying in this clan." You growl with a deep and primal voice.

This message gets them to leave your sight and scatter for the other males. Your species is just barely surviving, and you will not let something like this ruin it. It is truly sad, the way that your species develops. Sixty percent of the time the female dies after child birth, the ten or so runts that are produced will get eaten by their brothers and sisters, and by the time the creatures reach adulthood, only about two of the new generation remain. There are safety precautions of course, all of the females are taken away from danger to be taken care of properly, and the adults get banished for eating the children. But other than that, there isn't much you can do. The cavern itself is carved out of simple rock, with various tunnels leading to different rooms. As you start to lie down on the massive rock podium in the center of the cave you hear a voice.

"I challenge you for the position of king!" It snarl echoes throughout the rock network.

"What are the terms?" You yawn as if you're bored.

"The first to get pushed into the main entrance tunnel, gets banished!" It yells again.

As everyone clears out, you can see your opponent. Dark black coat, with cracked teeth. He looks small compared to everyone else, almost the size of the females.

"Bring it then, short stuff!" You bellow into his face.

You leap off of the rock and almost land on top of him, but he was to fast. Instead of getting crushed he gets claws to his side. He rushes around and gets under you, but you try to sink your teeth into his back. When your teeth bounce off, you realize that he has already had time to armor himself. As he starts to carry you over to the main entrance you switch from fur to thorns that dig into the spaces between his scales. Kicking him out from under you, he starts to disappear. Another one like you then? You start to blink and try to recall the hunting sense, but by the time you see him you can't dodge. He hits you like a truck, and sends your body flying through the tunnel entrance.

Just like that, your entire world comes crumbling down. You are banished from the clan, never to set foot into the tunnel system again. As you walk out with your head down, and your heart filled with shame, you see something strange. A side tunnel that you hadn't noticed before, maybe you could escape through here without getting caught. You start the long walk through the pitch black tunnel and after a long time you see an exit. You didn't know how long it took to finally see some kind of light, but you knew it had been at least six hours considering that you could see moonlight peeking through the rubble at end of the cave.

After you move away the fallen rocks, you gasp. The mouth of the side tunnel ended on a platform looking out on a massive settlement of creatures. You think it's called a city but you don't care at the moment. You see lights brightening the windows of small residences, massive towers built high into the sky, and, blinking a few more times, food. Live food. You had never seen these things in the forest. They were smaller than you by quite a bit, but were still large in their own right. You got a bit worried and blinked a few more times, now you can see everything that makes them a threat. Mainly just the hooves and some kind of weak armor, You can also see exactly where to bite to kill them.

You leap the hundred or so feet, land on top of what ever creature this is, and shred its armor with your claws. It yells loudly so you rip its throat out and eat it, but it is too late. More of these creatures come running up the steps, but you don't notice. You start tearing out chunks of flesh and piling them into your maw, while pulling apart the creatures spine to get the meat off of it. Blood pumps out of everywhere and the surrounding guards just stare in shock at the sight. This massive monster they have never seen before is ripping apart a pony and eating him. Blood and organs make a squishing noise as they hit the stone steps of the bridge, and soon their friend is nothing but a pile of white bones on the floor, not even red bones, the monster cleaned the blood off. As it finishes licking the blood off of the floor it looks up, and starts to jump. It is instantly shocked with enough magic to kill a pony, but somehow doesn't die. They should probably take it to see the princesses.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

You start to come to, and you hear muffled voices.

"I haven't seen one of these in a long time." Says a gentle voice

"Nor have I sister." Says another slightly less gentle voice.

"What are we going to do Luna?"

"I say we kill it."

Hearing this you bolt upright, open your mouth to show all of your teeth, and hiss. You have heard of these creatures before, but only in stories. Alicorns, ponies, pegasi, unicorns, It shocks you, but not enough to impair you. You knew that there had to be others out there but you didn't do anything because you had a clan to protect. You can still smell the blood and you start to lick it off of your fur, for the taste more than anything else.

"See sister! We should kill it, it has already killed one of the guard!" Luna seemed very afraid of you, but calmed down quickly.

"We can't just kill it, we have to fix it. I wasn't even aware that this species existed any more, and if it is almost extinct then we can't let them die Luna." The white alicorn said.

"But what if Crysalis hears? What then?"

"She won't hear about it. We'll send him to Fluttershy, and she will teach him to get along with the ponies."

"And if she fails, we will have lost an element, let loose a murderous creature, and Crysalis will have our hides." You are surprised by how calm this discussion is.

"I say we try it." The white one says implying that she is done arguing.

"Fine." Luna sighs.

You are shocked by whatever that force is again, and you black out.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

When you wake again it is morning, and you close your eyes due to the sun streaming through the window. When you finally adjust you look around, a small cottage with a few small touches that just make the place look comfortable, then you smell something, a rabbit. You blink few times and once again you can see the golden glow. Only now there are a lot more than one, there is a chicken's nest outside, along with a few other tasty things, but you also notice the pegasus and decide not to try anything. You see it walk into the room that you are sitting in.

"Oh you're awake. Would you like something to eat?" She says in a small voice.

Creamy yellow coat, pink flowing mane, shy voice, lives on the ground, and takes care of animals. This will be fun.

"My name is Fluttershy." She says trying to spark a conversation.

You start changing into something different, growing smaller, large round head morphing into something more like that of a pony, legs becoming long and slender, torso shrinking, a tail growing made of hair, and a mane growing out of your neck. You stand up as a large pony that retains the same black and white pattern. As she gasps you say,

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Winter Knight."

Author's Note

Tell me what you think guys. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

The Natural Elite

Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

"How-how did you do that?" Fluttershy squeaked.

"I have been this way for a while." You lie.

The words rattle around in her head and start to push away any doubts. Then she gets a grip of herself.

"No you haven't, you just turned into that-that-whatever that is." Fluttershy said nervously.

"Well, I guess I need to work on that." You say in a deep voice.

"The princess didn't tell me that you are intelligent." Fluttershy says, getting more curious about her new supposed friend.

"Well I am, what is your point here?"

"How did you get a pattern like that?" She asks as she walks around you, studying your body.

"How did you get those colors? It is essentially the same question. In fact I have questions to, where am I, where was I found, who brought me here, when do I get to leave?"

"On the outskirts of Ponyville, Canterlot, the royal guard, when you learn how to get along with ponies. And judging from your rudeness I would say you have a while to stay mister. Sorry." She squeaks at the last minute.

"You aren't really consistent are you? I'm going to take a guess and say that you don't have many friends."

"You're right." She sighs.

"I don't have any friends either, now I'm gonna go make some."

You walk to the door, but when you try to open it, you get launched across the room, your skin turns to scales instinctively, and you crush the table into wood chips.

"What was that!" You bellow as your head turns back into its original sate for a second.

Flutter shy squeaks in terror as she sees the teeth that are everywhere in your mouth.

"It was a spell that the princess put up to keep you here." She says so quietly that even you, with your acute hearing, could barely hear.

"It must come down." You order the yellow mare.

"But I don't know how." She squeaked again.

"It must come down!" You order again.

"I can't" She says again.

With that you start to change to your true form again. When the change is finished you are a few heads taller than the cowering pony. You lash out with your claws, your arm is knocked back, and you start spinning. In a blind fury, you turn into a whirlwind of eight inch fangs, three inch claws, and thick scales. In a few moment the forcefield was shredded into bits along with the wall.

"Goodbye sweetheart." You growl through your rage, and bound through the wall.

Remembering the bear outside the door, you look to it and leap. Your claws sink through the fur and flesh of the big black bear and he woke with a start. Before he could react though, you sink your teeth completely through his neck. The bear is dead within seconds and you start to rip chunks away from it and savor it as it slides down your throat. The fur is a bit nasty but other than that it is delicious. You start to realize that you lost control of yourself due to hunger as you start to wallow in the dead bear's blood. You stand up, look around, and pounce on a chicken, which is then eaten in a single bite. As you start looking for another meal, you see the same yellow pony giving you a strange stare. It makes you feel uncomfortable, but other than that it doesn't do much.

"What?" You say around the chicken in your mouth.

"WHY! Why would you do that! What is wrong with you! They didn't do anything to you! I could have you arrested!" She rampages.

"You and what army?" You say, still trying to swallow the chicken.

She jumped at you and twisted your neck. You are out cold for all of a second, and then you get back up. It is as if you don't have control of your own body as instinct kicks in. You unhinge your jaw all the way and let out an ear splitting roar. A tail starts to grow out from your spine and as it tapers off a massive bone blade grows out of the end, the scales that cover your body twist and morph into massive thorns, and your teeth start to drip with an acidic substance. Your tail cuts down a tree and uses it to take off the top layer of the small cottage. The hen house gets shredded by your claws and Fluttershy runs into what is left of her house. You bust the doorway into chunks of plaster and grab her by the tail. You start to spin her around, throw her into the air, and knock her, as luck would have it, in the direction of town with the flat of your new tail. It lashes back and forth, and the house turns into rubble around you. As you come to your senses, control comes back to your body, and the red retreats from the corners of your eyes.

"Well, I done screwed up." You say in a mock southern accent for no reason.

You gather together the pieces of rubble, make a small nest, start to take a nap, and wait for the guards to come and get you.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Fluttershy hurtled through the sky, and she could feel the boundaries of the air pushing on her from all sides. She knew what would happen now. She stopped suddenly and was flung, as misfortune would have it, straight through the door of the library. Twilight came rushing downstairs.

"What was that! Fluttershy are you okay?" She asked hurriedly as she helped her friend up.

"It was a horrible monster!" She sobbed, "It changed and messed with my head, then it killed some of the animals, I think it even destroyed my poor house!" The yellow mare bawled her eyes out.

"That's terrible! Spike, send a letter to the princesses and tell them to come here as soon as possible! Now why don't you tell me what it looked like."

Twilight began pulling books off of shelves, some old some new, others very ancient.

"It had really long fangs and *sniff* big claws. Its mouth was filled with teeth and, oh Twilight, it made the most horrible sound!" Fluttershy was having a hard time dealing with this. All of her shyness disappeared and she explained everything Twilight needed to know.

Twilight skimmed books as they floated in circles, and when she finally found a picture, she asked for confirmation. She got it and found out the horrors they were dealing with.

"It is called an... Wait that can't be right. I think it is called an elite changeling. It says here that they were bred in the hundreds during the ancient wars, and their natural instinct was to consume and destroy by any means. It also says that while they can change form they mainly use their changeling abilities to adapt to new situations on the battlefield. But apparently they have been extinct for about a thousand years."

"That explains why the princesses asked for my help then." The pink maned pegasus choked out.

"What! The princesses asked you to deal with it! I'll have to talk to them!"

Author's Note

All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

The Psychologist

No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The nap was torture. All you could think about was your old clan. Half way through your life and you were banished from the only clan of a race of sentient creatures that were bred for warfare. You knew your species history well, in fact you were smart enough to rival most normal ponies in the field of intellect. The only problem was that the civilization that your race had built for the changelings had crumbled at the hands of the princesses. Crumbled to the extent that your clan had almost no trace of civility other than speech. The extreme measures that you had to take to survive had bred strange customs, and behaviors among your people. Where you came from, it was normal to rip something apart and eat it, it was also normal to mount any female you found pleasing. Where you came from, you would be looked upon as strange because you were too tame. But here you were punished to the fullest extent of the law because you wanted to eat. It got on your nerves. When you finally woke up, you found yourself in quite a few pairs of shackles, under the effects of whatever calming drugs they could get their hands on, and sitting in a chair bolted to the floor in front of what you could only guess was an expert in some field of science. You may be animalistic, but you aren't stupid.

"Who are you?" You growl maliciously.

"I am doctor Brilliant Mind. Equestria's top psychologist. No pony has ever gotten the chance to study a personality such as yours, and the princesses chose me to do it." He said in a very professional voice.

The unicorn had a light blue coat with a green mane. He was also wearing a long black coat and holding several papers. The colors didn't match at all, so you could tell he didn't care about how he looked. You study him for a while, and start to change. Your coat changes, your size morphs, and after all is said and done you look and sound exactly like him.

"Well then doctor, what do you want to start with?"

His eyes widened as he heard his own voice. But after a moment he regained his composure. The fun is over, and you doubt the guards circling the room will put up with it. As you change back the doctor says something.

"We will start with ink blots. You seem smart, do you know what those are?"

"You're going to show me a bunch of random pictures and ask what I see aren't you?"

"More or less." He writes something on his note pad.

"What do you see?"

"A blood splatter." You say honestly.

"And now?"

"A weapon."

"Birds talons."

"An axe blade."

"Organs."

"I feel like I've seen that one somewhere."

"What do you see?" He asks patiently.

"A severed head."

"Last one."

"That guard over there sprawled out on the floor."

"Well thats certainly... interesting. If you could have one wish, what would you want most?" He asks with a tone that says he is trying not to offend you.

"Power." You growl happily.

"Do you ever feel lonely?"

"Yes."

"Do you think yourself better than others?"

"If I wasn't restrained I would tenderize all of you before I eat you. Does that answer your question?"

"That is all I need to know for now. I will request to see you every other day, to discuss your problems." He says with a final scratch o the quill.

After he walks out the door, you hear the guards close it. You also hear mumbling between the doctor, and most likely Celestia. The door opens again, and all the guards bow. The sun goddess herself sits down in front of you.

"As law would have it, I should kill you. But since you were thought to be extinct and are a medical miracle, I won't. All I'm going to ask is why you had to kill Fluttershy's animals, and destroy her house." The goddess spoke with a soft voice.

"I wanted to leave, your spell wouldn't let me, I tore it down to leave, got hungry, served myself, and went into a rage as she tried to knock me out with a weird neck twist move."

"Well, thanks to that whole incident you will be kept here under maximum guard for however long it takes you to adapt to this society. Hopefully that won't be long though, from what I can remember about your species, you were made to adapt quickly. "

"And from what my species can remember about you, I should take your head off. But I won't seeing that you would blast me to bits with your magic." You snarl, you voice dripping with malice.

"Have a nice day." She says as she stands.

All the guards bow again and after she leaves they knock you out with chloroform. You awake a few minutes later in a bed with a purple alicorn standing over you.

"Who are you?" You demand sleepily.

"Why would you do that to her?" She interrogates back.

You change to her form while she yells at you. It is so much fun to mock these simple ponies.

"Why do you stand here and yell at yourself?" You ask in a mocking tone.

She blinks a few times and stares.

"How did you do that?" The purple alicorn asked.

"Do what? Morph into you to turn you into a stuttering idiot? Ask some other changeling." You say in her voice.

"You even talk in my voice!" Her anger is now extinguished by her curiosity.

"Okay enough of this." You growl as you change back. "What are you here to do?"

"I was going to yell at you, but now I want to do some tests. Oh... Why would you do that to her!" She gets back on track.

"Go talk to Celestia, and when you come back can you bring me a rabbit. I'm starving."

She stares at you in shock for a few moments, then she turns around and walks away stiffly. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

Author's Note

All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

The Beautiful Guard

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

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Waking up, you smell food, this causes you to leap towards the smell. The first thing you got was a previously unbent metal tray. The second thing made you puke. The tray was piled high with vegetables. Were they trying to kill you? Or were they actually stupid enough to think you ate this crap. Between seeing that glorified therapist every other day, and the physical tests that doctors ran on you everyday you didn't see the shrink, you could feel yourself getting more and more tired, and fairly soon you would go into hibernation. It was a last chance defense mechanism to make death as peaceful as a fading dream. But that wasn't the death you wanted. you wanted to die one of two ways, one would be happy, the other would be trying to rip the throats out of these accursed guards. You look up and see a new guard staring at you trough the magically manufactured shatterproof glass door. In fact, she was the first female guard you had seen.

"Can I get something to eat?" You ask with venom in your voice.

"You just destroyed what you got to eat." Her voice was soft but somehow held authority.

"Does it look like I eat plants?" Sarcasm dripping off of every word.

"Yes." she replied equally as sarcastically.

"Hahaha," You say bluntly, "very funny. But I am literally starving over here, and to make it worse for you ponies, I will go into hibernation in a few days and you won't be able to move me anywhere. So get me some food!"

With the last words you slam into the door, hoping for a crack or something, but getting nothing. You studied the guard. She had all the features you found attractive back in what used to be your clan. Sleek and strong figure, spoke with authority, and a unique color scheme. She had a dark grey, almost black, coat, a white mane, and the feathers on her pegasus wings were tipped with violet. It gave the effect of a dark bird, like a crow or raven.

"What's your name?" You ask for no reason.

"Raven Heart." She says, unsure if she should have been talking to you in the first place.

"That's nice, wake me up when the psychoanalyst needs me."

With that you went back to sleep, and had a short dream about chasing deer in a massive field before it got cut off abruptly by the new guard.

"Brilliant Mind needs you." She says as the shackles go on.

You can tell she already injected you before you woke up, and in a minute or two, you were of to see the doctor.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Raven Heart had been briefed before taking on the challenge of guarding the supposedly horrible creature from the rest of the world. She was told that it was incredibly violent, and murderous. She was also told it was sentient, and had the power to compel creatures into doing things, but she knows she wasn't compelled to do anything. She just genuinely felt bad for the creature. So here she was, in the middle of the royal garden, open to visitors of course, trying to hunt down a small bird or rabbit. She had served as one of the guards to the ambassador in the griffon nations, so she was perfectly capable of doing this, in fact, the sight of dead animals didn't offend her at all since that was mainly what the griffons ate. Seeing the tall grass move, she stomps down on the area and hears a crunch. She flinches. She wasn't offended by the sight of dead animals, but killing them herself was something new. She had contemplated just capturing the rabbit she now tucked under her wing, but she had seen the inside of the creatures mouth, if the eight inch serrated fangs that formed a sort of cage around its head weren't bad enough, the inside of his mouth was lined with similar shorter teeth, and she wanted to spare the rabbit that pain.

"Well, here goes."

There were three reasons she went through this whole ordeal. One was that she felt bad for the creature, if she had been penned up for a week and a half without decent food and forced to see a psychologist she would be cranky too. Second was that if the creature ever did escape, she wanted to be on its good side. And the third was that she could visibly see the effects of starvation on the poor thing. She stopped at the barracks, and wrote down a note.

Hope you like the meal, it was the best I could find on short notice. I'm sorry you're kept penned up like this.
Sincerely,
Raven Heart

She knew full well the possibility that this could ruin her career as a guard, but staying with the griffons for so long gave her a large amount of respect for creatures of power like the one she was guarding. She placed the dead rabbit slightly under its bed, so that the creature would be able to grab the it with its claws, but the small animal itself was obscured from view. She sat on its bed and waited for five thirty. The bed itself was lumpy and uncomfortable. At first she was slightly jealous that the supposedly violent creature got such a nice room, but, as she found out, the room wasn't as comfortable as it seemed. The bed was lumpy, the carpet was dirty, the chair had a flat seat and no cushion, even the books for it to read were all children's books. She supposed that was okay though, since she had never seen him read. She sat there until five thirty, which was when the session ended, and everything she noticed somehow made her feel worse for the creature.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

As you walked back in shackles, you smelled something. Could it be? You keep a straight face and comply, until the shackles come off, the door closes, and the guard looks away. After all that happens you sweep your foot under the bed and see a holy grail for you. A rabbit with a piece of paper stuck to it. Sadly you could only half read, and therefore couldn't understand most of the words. Mainly you saw, meal, sorry, penned up, and Raven Heart. You understood what she meant by the note, and decided to thank her later. You shred the rabbit inside your mouth and swallow the pieces of meat. You could feel your strength start to return to you almost immediately, and walk over to the door.

"I would hug you, but I'm afraid I would crush you." You say quietly.

You weren't used to thanking things, and weren't even sure she heard it, but it was good enough for you. And as you walked over to your bed to take a nap, a small smile crept across the guards lips knowing that she did something that truly helped the poor creature.

Author's Note

Sorry if the relationship went too fast, I wanted to get the reason why it happened out of the way. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Physical Training

If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Out of all the mindless things they put you through, the stupid ponies finally let you do something fun. After about two weeks of sessions the psychologist thinks your making progress thanks to some mild pushing, and he is now in agreement with the the physical examiners that he would like to see how you act when fighting. It is an amazing feeling to have again, even though they had to put wood caps on your claws, and a muzzle on your head to keep you from biting. It doesn't stop you from mutating to break the restraints, but Luna was always in attendance to your matches. In fact, it has become a bit of a tourist attraction. Every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, you were pit against anyone who wanted to try and fight you. After, of course, they signed mounds of paperwork. Most of the time it was guards but every now and then you would get a martial arts master of some sort. Even the unicorns couldn't seem to defeat you for some reason. They had even approved a massive stadium to be built, much like the cloudiseum in whatever city it was that was floating. Today was yet another day for a fight, but for some reason your usual guard, Raven Heart, wasn't there. At first you thought that her contract for the job had run out, but then you remembered the guards in the other side of the ring last week calling her insane for guarding me for more than one contract. You stopped thinking about it when the guard beside you started to poke you with his hoof. Well, not poke you per say, more like punching you in the side with as much strength as he could muster. He must have thought he could make you angry and get a better performance.

"If you do not stop, I will paint the walls with your shredded entrails." You growl maliciously.

He stopped immediately, and led you to the stadium. You stepped through the doors and were deafened by the roar of the crowd. It was filled with the less liked population of Equestria. The gamblers, the martial arts fanatics, etc. It was a typical nation, just that these activities were more or less frowned upon. In fact, the only reason this was accepted in the first place was because Princess Luna enjoyed it. This one would be interesting, you could tell by the smell of armor. Multiple sets when you looked to find life. Six ponies. Three unicorns, two earth ponies, and one pegasus sitting in the bleachers. When you leaped on to the stage you froze. What you saw explained the reason Raven Heart wasn't at your cell earlier. She was sitting right there in the bleachers. A bell sounded and you were instantly coated in magic. As a response your skin was covered in shining plates. The magic around you dissipated, and before the earth ponies could land on top of you, a tail grew out and whipped them into the wall behind you, the wall was padded of course.

"You will not use magic." You compel them.

The words bounce around in the unicorns' heads. All it took was that second of hesitation for you to sprout mighty wings and leap off the ground. Your tail extends itself and wraps around the horned creatures. You lift them off the ground, grow spines in your tail, and pry their wooden armor off as they land on top of the dazed stallions that had made the mistake of fighting only a few moments before. Your tail shrunk away, the armor clattered to the ground and you started to walk away. You heard the air whistling before she hit you. Scales grew as you walked, and when she hit, her leg buckled.

"I don't want to hurt you." You say quietly as you turn around.

"And I want to test you." She replies so that no one else can hear.

"Very well."

Your hand lashed out, but she was fast enough to dodge, and you received a hoof to the face for your efforts. You see the red start to creep into the corners of your peripheral vision. Your wings and tail come back, but this time they are razor sharp. The tail swings out beside you as the air gets moved under you with incredible force. The downdraft sent Raven Heart into the ground, and your tail shaved off a small piece of her mane. The dark pegasus rushes upwards and slams into your gut. It takes the breath out of you, and all of the sudden stiff appendages grow out of your stomach and trap her against you. You flip in the air, release your grip, and toss her towards the wall. She recovers and sends another hoof into your face. How was she so fast? Your tail whipped out and caught the bottom of one of her hooves. She grabbed it in pain, and you stopped. Why did you just do that? The only person who had been remotely caring since you got here, and you cut her. In that moment you get blasted with a godly bolt of energy, and are crushed into the ground. Medical staff rush out, put about twelve massive needles into you, and check on Raven Heart. There is a rush of something foreign to you. What is it? Why is it making your eyes wet?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

Then you snap out of it. The feeling fades, your voice doesn't come out again, and you fade into blackness.

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The cut Raven Heart received was nothing more than the equivalent of a paper cut, but that didn't stop it form stinging like Tartarus. It was true that she wanted to test Winter, her new name for the creature since saying Winter Knight over and over was unnecessary, but now she feared that she had gotten him into more trouble than needed. She knew that Winter would now be required to be buried under a few hundred pounds of metal restraints, and calmed by twice as many sedatives. It wasn't quite fair that he had to be punished for this, but it was understandable since he showed much more power than expected. She knew something was off here though, Winter had stopped his rampage a split second before Luna's power hit him. And she thought she had heard something, maybe even seen tears before he blacked out. The most likely possibility was that he had rage issues. At least she knows that she is on his good side, or maybe something more. After that she sat and thought for a while.

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What was that sudden rush after she got cut? It wasn't something you had ever felt before. You didn't even feel hungry when earlier you were starving. In fact, as of the moment you felt quite full. Why did you tear up and say that? You would have to investigate this farther. Maybe learn how to read, so that you could read more about your kind and find out what is going wrong.

Author's Note

This chapter felt off for some reason, any input would be appreciated. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Denial

We live in a world of denial, and we don't know what the truth is anymore.

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You couldn't sort it out in your head. Three days ago you hesitated in a fight where, if it was anything else, you would have ripped into chunks and ate it. But for a reason unknown to you, you hesitated, and even felt a rush of... what? A rush of what? You didn't know at all. It wasn't adrenaline, you have felt adrenaline before. The best way to describe it was that something really strong kicked you in the chest. Of course that might have been Luna nearly giving you a heart attack with enough electricity to give someone a seizure. No, you were sure it happened when you accidentally cut her. Not after, not before, but exactly when you realized what happened. She was fine afterwards, and that gave you another rush of something. Something completely the opposite of the first rush. Almost as if they had taken the three hundred pound steel plates off of you, but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Especially since they had just started trusting you and the trust was betrayed. What surprised you the most was that Raven Heart decided to stay. After that undoubtably frightening display of power, she had decided to stay as your guard. You must learn what happened to you that day. It doesn't feel right. It defies all natural instinct, everything you were taught as a child, and everything you understood the world to be. It didn't fit with the way you saw this world. You survive because you are stronger, smarter, or faster. You take the chance to spread genes when you can. You don't protect anyone other than yourself. Disobeying this breeds weakness, you were told. But then why did you feel the need to help when she started bleeding? Why does she help find food for you? Why do you want to act on something you aren't even sure you understand yet? Why? It was the only possible question you could ask, and you needed to find the answer. So you decide to find the answer in the only way you can think of at the moment.

"Hey Raven Heart?"

"Yes?" She asks in her usual soft voice.

"Do you know how to read?"

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That was a strange question. Obviously she had thought about it before, but this confirmed it. Winter didn't know how to read, and while it was not unexpected it still surprised her to a degree. She had listened in on some of his therapy sessions, which she could tell he was cheating his way through, if one could do such a thing. Raven found that, one, they weren't really helping all that much, and two, he was shockingly smart for something that was supposedly extinct. He had never shown indication of being able to read or write, but he knew what was involved in the process and was extremely adaptive. She guessed she could teach him. Judging by the current level of his intelligence, an IQ of 143 on the Stanford-Binet test, she doubted it would take him more than a few hours. He was unbelievably smart compared to pony standards, but had shared that they had a similar test in his old, what was it that he called it? Clan? Yes, clan. Anyway, he had shared with her that in his old clan, they had a similar test and that he actually scored only slightly above average. If 143 was only slightly above average she wondered what the gifted creatures were like.

"Raven Heart?" He growled again. He was constantly growling, but it was not hostile, nor was it seductive. It was as if someone had an extremely low voice and was speaking normally, which is essentially what was happening.

"Oh sorry, I got lost in thought for a second. I'll teach you if you want me to."

"How did you know I wanted you to teach me?" Although the tone of his voice suggested that he knew perfectly how she found out.

"Just grab a book off of that shelf and we can get started."

He chose one of several childrens' books on the shelf, and brought it over to the bed. Normally she would be suspicious of any creature beckoning her to a bed, but Winter didn't show any indication of having emotion at all, and would probably be very straight forward about it. That and he would have to try very hard to get through the specially issued armor made just for the ponies who guarded him on a regular basis. So basically just her, since no one else wanted to do it. Raven Heart pointed at one of the letters on the page.

"This is an A, say ah for me."

"Ah" He growled.

"Good, that's what it sounds like."

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Over then next few hours in the day, the almost black pegasus taught you the sounds of each word in the alphabet, shown you some normal words, went to get some slightly more complex books, taught you some grammar, brought you a grammar textbook, hid a small bird amongst the normal salad that you got for dinner, and went to recommend to the princesses that you should get access to the library. You sat there under the candle light and read a dictionary. You had learned how to read fluently in five hours and seventeen minutes. You're sure that it breaks some kind of record. Maybe that's what you would look for, a record book. No, you must stay on task, you must find the meanings of these rushes shat you always seem to get around your guard pony.

"Hey Winter, I'm going to need you to turn the light out. Ponies are complaining, and you need some sleep anyway." Said Raven's unmistakable voice from outside the door.

You blow out the candle with a fanned tail that has just grown from your spine, and is now receding. You didn't care that ponies were complaining, they didn't deserve the comfortable lives that they had anyway. You also were unaware of any need to sleep, but if you didn't then you would be punished and so on. All you could do was blink a few times, look through the complete blackness with clear sight, and continue to read.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

She had convinced the princesses to let Winter have some time in the library tomorrow instead of taking the tests that doctors liked to put him through. It was easy enough despite the disapproval from Luna. Cadance had flown in yesterday, to take a look at this new creature they had found, and Raven saw on her face that she had suspicions of something between her and Winter. The fact that it was Cadance startled her though. The princess of love suspecting something between the black pegasus and the so called monster suggested something that she didn't think she was ready for. Was she really in love with a monster that probably didn't even know the meaning of emotion? No, he just needed help. He was stuck in a cage made of uncomfortable furniture, medical testing equipment, and a stuck-up psychologist. He had even killed a pony apparently. Love didn't happen between creatures like that under those circumstances, did it?

"No, it doesn't." Raven Heart says to herself, with a nagging doubt in her head.

Author's Note

I'm still not sure about the idea of me, a writer notorious for violent stories, writing a romance. But hey, you never know. Also, say thanks to John Hammond and his accursed park for making me listen to this,

All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Acceptance

Happiness can only exist in acceptance.

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Three days later, and you finally get to take your trip to the library. You were accompanied by princess Cadance who, while not as powerful, could take care of any problems that would happen to arise. She was also still curious of your behavior, which everything in this world seemed to find blasphemous, and unholy. Even the griffin representatives, who ate meat all the time, found your behavior somewhat shameful. Of course the dragon that lived in the nearby mountain supported you to the fullest extent, it even offered you a chance to escape yesterday, but you declined. It was tempting, but as long as you knew how to read and you were in the proximity to the most extensive library in the world, you needed to find out what you felt around Raven. Yes, first name basis, it came to that during the teaching session. You wanted to distance yourself until you found out what was happening, but something inside you kept yelling at you to get closer to her. At least you would find out today. Cadance walked beside you, straining herself to walk at you speed. She was not trying to go faster though, she was struggling to walk at a constant pace without having to stop and wait every ten steps. As was predicted by your lovely guard, she was ordered to cover you in more restraints than usual, due to the fact that you were going out in public and that your destination was filled with valuables. You were buried under roughly half a ton of metal, two hundred pounds of leather binding to keep the metal on, wearing custom forged metal sleeves ending in a hoof-like foot, and engulfed in a magical field being held in force by Cadance to prevent any possibility of you changing to help break your bonds.

"So what are you planning to look for in the library?" Cadance asked politely.

"I'm looking for a book that can explain something for me." You growl under the burden.

You decided that it is probably better to be as honest as possible when talking to a princess.

"What do you want explained? Maybe I can help."

"I don't know what it is, but everytime something happens pertaining to someone I get a rush of... I don't know."

"I think I might know whats going on. I hear that you're supposedly a carnivore living off of greens, is this true?" Her curiosity growing.

"Yes." You growl with disdain.

"You're a variant of changeling, correct?"

"Correct." You confirm.

"Since you are a carnivore, you should be starving from lack of food, but you aren't, am I right?"

"Right."

"You are aware that changelings get most of their sustenance from emotion, yes?"

"No. What is emotion? Does it taste good? Where are the hunting grounds for it?" You ask excitedly. You would find it once you got out of here, and taste it first hand.

"It is not something you can find or eat, it is something you experience. I am surprised you don't know, even your old home must have some form of love."

"Love? Food that you can't eat? What kind of magic is this?"

"It is natural magic." The princess said simply.

"There is nothing natural about something that can keep you fed without eating something. Magic isn't natural anyway." You say with stubbornness. You can't believe that a princess could be so insane. Emotion? Food that isn't physical? Natural magic? You were surprised she wasn't in an asylum.

"I know that you are feeding on some kind of emotion, I don't know which one though. If you would stop moving please."

You obey, knowing that it was pointless not to. She walks up and places her hooves on the armor covering your back. There is a shock that takes your breath out of your lungs.

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Raven Heart was stretching her wings. The deep violet outer feathers of her nearly black wings were carrying her through the clouds above Canterlot as she looked down on the scene unfolding before her. It saddened her to see the poor creature under so much weight, but the princesses had agreed that it was necessary. She was thinking about what was going on with her life at the moment. The fact that she could see Cadance questioning the creature that was an odd figure in her life made it all the more urgent that she must sort things out.

She was still unsure as to her feelings for the creature. He was polite for the most part, but he was also violent, unstable, and probably emotionless. She had gotten to know him better and had even gotten him to tell her more about his old clan. He used to live in a darwinian environment. If you weren't good enough you were killed, if you got sick they exiled you, if you were disabled they ate you, and females were used purely for breeding. It made her shudder and almost lose her balance. She wouldn't be able to put up with that, and she told him. He said that he thought it was strange that everyone thought this way, but he was stuck with it.

As it turns out, he was actually the top of the clan until he got cocky and was exiled after a fight for the position. He was also blinded to any emotion. She suspected it, but he confirmed it when she asked if anyone in his clan loved each other and he just gave her a confused look. He was not innocent by a long shot, but as far as she cared he could have been stealing diamonds from fashion designers, and she would feel the same. She didn't know what it was about the obviously dangerous creature that she liked. She was always a fan of dangerous things, but that wasn't it. It might be that his view point of the world was more like hers, than all the civilians and royal guards who didn't know anything besides comfort. Or, it could be that she just simply enjoyed being around him, but whatever it was, the doubt she originally had about this matter was growing into a serious possibility and now she had to face facts, now she had to decide, now she had to- and right in that moment her breath was knocked out of her chest.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The princess of love saw everything. She saw the old life of the poor creature, she saw the torture he had been through, she saw the hunger that came over him after a long walk through a dark tunnel, she felt the lightening go through her body as Winter Knight was shocked into submission, she felt his rage at the princesses of the sun and moon, she saw the rude guards, she saw the one nice guard, she tasted that first rabbit after days of starvation, she saw the fights, she felt the grief that had flooded his mind after he gave the guard a small cut, she contemplated the rush of something the creature couldn't describe, she felt his frustration about feeling something that went against everything he had ever known without knowing what it was, she remembered the countless books that the wonderful guard had brought to him, and she experienced the doubt of the guard over the matter. The two creatures were connected through love, and she could feel the doubt and the self convincing of the guard, and Cadance, being the god of love, decided to set her straight. She helped her realize in a second what the guard would have taken years to realize herself. It was a strange relationship obviously, but it was probably the one that made her the happiest. A frustrated being, knowing nothing of what was happening, and an emotionally guarded sentry. It was something you only found in books, but it was right here in front of her. She left Winter with the knowledge he sought, and as she pulled away the last thing she felt from him was the burden of a literal ton of restraining material, and it took her breath away.

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You regained your stance quickly, and realize as you hear a gasp from the princess, that you know what she was talking about. You knew the definition of emotion now (You had only gotten to C in the dictionary), and the feeling of every emotion you could experience. It felt like you had known them all your life, but you knew this wasn't true. It perplexed you, and you decided that you were going to have a very interesting talk with the princess on the rest of the way to the library.

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Raven Heart recovered from her plunge. She knew that Cadance had done something, because know all the thoughts and feelings in her head were sorted out, plain as day, for her to see. She knew who her feelings were directed towards and all resistance was gone. As she hovered there shocked, she could swear she remembered a voice in her head saying,

"Go, live a happy life."

Author's Note

I was getting impatient with how slow it was going, so I did this. I hope it doesn't feel rushed or anything. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Jail Break

Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.

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Your day at the library was wonderful compared to what you were put through most of the time. Spending time with a princess who gave you the answers you had sought for in frustration, reading about ancient wars, sleeping in a massive puffy bean bag, and the best part was that the princess took off your restraints. She said that she had, "felt your burden", or something to that effect. But she took off the near ton of restraining material, and stopped upholding the suppression field so that you could change your hand to keep the books undamaged. Unfortunately, the information you wanted scared you. You knew you were in love with the guard, there was no denying that, but it scared you. Love, as far as you knew, caused strange patterns in behavior and gave a cause to protect something other than yourself, which, in your personal experience, severely decreases your chance of survival. Early death is something you will not accept. You decide to take the dragon up on its offer. The vocal cords and lungs inside your body start to morph.

"Break me out tomorrow night, take down the wall facing the cliff." You pipe out in a hypersonic frequency that only the dragon can hear.

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The massive purple scaled dragon was lying down in his hoard of gold in the mountain opposite to the Canterlot mountain, and was woken up by the message.

"Break me out tomorrow night night, take down the wall facing the cliff." It sounded extremely high pitched.

"Dully noted." He said to himself, and went back to sleep.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Raven Heart was having trouble sleeping. It wasn't her contemplating her feelings for Winter that was keeping her awake, but what she was going to do about them. The thing was, she was perfectly awake, not tired whatsoever. All she could think of was making the relationship work. She didn't know how she was going to do it, but she guessed it was best to start small. She would just let him out to take a walk in the garden, with her supervision as always, and find out what he thought about her.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Celestia's sun hit your face early that morning. Another day of physical testing. Hopefully you would survive today without too many problems. As you wake up the smell of a small bird hidden under the lettuce in your salad reaches you nostrils, and you leap to the tray. You bite down on the tray and the metal crumples while the dead bird slides into your mouth. The funny thing about the variant of changeling that you happen to be, is that you can adapt certain traits from the things you consume. You had eaten birds before, that's how you got the ability to morph wings, but then you ate a lizard, and thats how you got the ability to change your fur into scales, it wasn't that hard to understand, and the physical doctors were always excited when you had something new to show them. You had so many different colors of feathers that you could be a spectacle all by yourself.

"It's 12:30 Winter, time to go." Raven Heart said in her soft voice.

"Okay, what is the restraint load today?" You ask with slight depression.

"None." She said with surprise as she looked at the note on the small notification board next to your room.

"None? That can't be right." You growl with suspicion.

"It says here, By order of princess Cadance, 'Winter Knight is to have no burden of restraint today', and it is signed by the princess herself." She said with even more surprise.

"Well, if she ordered it." You say conclusively.

"Well come on out then, she didn't say anything about supervision though so I am going to stay with you."

"That's fine."

You really wanted to distance yourself from her before you left, it would stop you from convincing yourself to come back. Luckily though, she didn't try to start her usual conversation, she just kept re-reading the note over and over trying to make sense of it. It took a full thirty minutes to walk to the examination room. Raven Heart knocked on the door and you could hear everyone inside the room. Machines being wheeled about, ponies ordering each other around quietly.

"Quick! Someone get the machine that goes beep!" A pony whispered urgently in a royal accent.

The door opened quickly, and you bared your teeth at the pony opening it.

"AHHHH!" The brown coated red maned pony yelled before someone cut him off.

"Winter stop it." Raven admonished with a sigh.

"Fine. What tests are you doing today?" You ask with a mock shudder.

"How long you can keep a steadily increasing pace." The lead doctor said matter-of-factly after calming himself down.

"Easy enough." You say as you walk into the room.

Raven walks in behind you and closes the door. She liked to take part in the exercise tests because she felt the need to keep her already beautiful figure, even though she really didn't. You get on the tread mill, and the doctor turns it on. It was slow enough for walking speed, but that changed quickly. You had done a few of these tests and the doctor kept needing to get faster tread mills. He was confident that this would be the time he beat you. Raven was on a normal tread mill since no pony was able to match the speeds you ran except for the wonderbolts flying.

The speed quickly ramped up to 156 miles per hour, which was where you left off last time. It started to steadily increase after that just like the doctor said. The thing was, you had to change to reach these speeds. Your true form could withstand a speed of 180 miles per hour for thirty seconds, thankfully, it was a tread mill and could only increase speed instead of instantly changing speed giving you time to change your muscle groups. You were running at 230 now, and your legs were like tree trunks, with lungs that took up half of your chest which was now proportional to the size of your legs. You were a hulking beast, but you moved faster than almost anything on this planet without breaking a sweat.

It had taken all day to perform the full test, but here you were, 8:47 at night with Luna's moon high overhead, running at 674 miles per hour. You barely fit on the tread mill and the room shook with each foot fall. Basically it sounded like someone had gotten the best speaker system money could buy and they were playing a bass heavy song. You decided to end the stupid test, and you put all the power you could into the next stomp. The tread mill bent and ground to a halt with a terrible screeching noise.

"Sweet Celestia." Muttered the lead doctor as he saw yet another demonstration of your power.

"Thank you." You bellow with conceit, your lungs still shrinking back to normal size with the rest of you.

"Looks like we're done here, follow me Winter." Raven Heart said with the strange authority that was always present in her soft voice, as she stepped off of her own tread mill.

You walk outside the door, now in your true form again, and you scan the sky. The dragon should be here any minute now. You subconsciously follow Raven as you continue to scan the sky, and when your vision is blocked by the cliff-side wall, you look down and notice that you are in the middle of the royal garden.

"Winter, I want ask you something."

That's when you heard the beat of wings.

"We should probably move away from the wall." You growl quietly. She didn't here you.

"What do you think of me?" She asked seeming almost embarrassed.

"I think you are wonderful." Careful in choosing your words. You knew what she meant.

The sound was getting louder, and you could smell the metallic scent of the dragon's hoard.

"Is that it?" She sounded sad.

Flames lit the sky. Raven shrieked, and you knocked her off of the ground and into a hedge. The wall burst into rubble right in front of you. Raven quieted in shock, and you leapt through the breach. The wind swept past you as you fell, but your wings grew and extended. You glided to the ground at extreme speeds, but took the same form that you were running in moments before. When you hit the ground the trees shook and you bounded of into the forest at near sonic speeds. Trees cracked and splintered all around you as you ran deeper into the everfree, shrinking steadily until you tripped and fell into a small lake. Scales covered your form as you sank and gills sprouted from your sides. After recovering, you swam to the bottom of the lake, curled up, and slept.

Author's Note

All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

The Ancient

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

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The water around you shimmered with light. Your new gills were pumping air effectively, and over night you had grown a tail with a large fin on the end. It was fascinating to you and everything else, that whatever form you took, you always had a white coat with black tiger stripes. Even the fin was white with black bones holding it at full size. As you looked at the new tail, something blocked the light slowly coming through the surface of the lake. You look up fearing the worst, but find a sail on your back with the exact colors of the fin on your new tail. You must be terrifying. A large creature with a long tail, a surprisingly sharp sail, white scales, and black tiger stripes. You still had feet and the three inch serrated claws were still there, along with the cage of eight inch serrated fangs that were as tough as steel. Other than the tail, fin, and gills nothing seemed different. You had grown a tail and a sharp fin in the middle of the night, you expected a bit more.

"What are you doing here?" Asked an old voice distorted by water.

You jumped at the quiet sound in the silence. You bear your teeth and whirl around to face whatever it was. Your jaw shuts tightly a you study the ancient thing. A massive crab was resting where the lake floor had been moments ago. You were trying to figure out how a thing large enough to fill a chasm in a lake, was able to rise without disturbing anything. The massive crustacean was around forty feet tall and was wide enough to qualify as a very small island. It shook itself and caused a great commotion. Pieces of rock peeled away from a murky green shell, fish swam away as fast as they could, urchins went flying. You would think that you were in a tropical place with all the sea life down here, but no one really knows what wonders are in the everfree.

"I've not seen your kind in centuries. Aren't you supposed to be extinct?" The deep raspy voice wavered in the water.

"I've only just found out that I am supposed to be extinct. Would you like that to happen?" Your growl was made much less threatening by the water.

"I for one think it would be a shame. You pose no threat to an ancient creature like me, and I don't like not being able to see things again."

"When was the last time you saw one of my kind?"

"About four hundred years ago, I would assume. It tried to eat me. Not even the nearly indestructible scales could save it."

The massive claw that was as big as you snapped shut and the water rippled with a deafening snap.

"Well I will not make the same mistake."

"I sense that you are stronger than him, feeding on emotions are we?"

"I'm far away from her."

"Oh, is that correct? I was alive before the alicorns took up their thrones, but I don't think I've ever seen a changeling in love." It chuckled at that.

"It goes against everything I have ever learned, therefore, I ran. Do you have any advice wise old crab?" You ask with sarcasm.

The claw flew over your sail as a reminder.

"I wouldn't be smart with something more powerful than you, didn't your half dead clan tell you that?" Its words were like venom, "As for advice, return to your rightful place as the elite of the changelings. Get out of this lake, go over the mountain to the south, and find the Elder Ent. Return to the hive friend, that is all I can say."

The massive crab began to root itself again, but you spoke up quickly.

"What do they call you?" The water distorted it into jibberish.

"Most call me the ancient one." He said before becoming one with the rocks yet again.

You decide that, since you don't plan on going back to Canterlot, seeing what a regular changeling was like would be a good experience. The light blinds you as your head breaches the surface. The surface was a lot smaller than the floor, due to the underwater caverns and such. As you climbed out, the gills folded over seamlessly, the sail shrank down to just your spine, the tail grew in again, and the scales were replaced by short fur. You immediately start walking, for you have nothing else to do, and within three hours you break through the southern tree line and the mountain looms overhead. There is about five miles of plains between you and the mountain, but they are filled with deer and other animals. You weren't starving, but there was such a thing as comfort food wasn't there?

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The Ancient was prepared to send a message to the Elder Ent. Sure, Queen Chrysalis wouldn't be happy when she found that her enslaved tree was awake, and she also wouldn't be happy when she found out that there was something extremely dangerous headed her way, but the Ancient never liked that old insect anyway. The magical pearl rolled through a tunnel and into the path of a geyser. It shot out of the forest, through miles of air, over the mountain, and landed in a hollow of the Elder Ent.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The massive tree groaned. It was surprising that almost all creatures could forget about a ninety story tree.

"What am I awake for now?" Its groan echoed throughout the valley.

A new branch sprouted from the hollow holding the pearl, and carried it up to its face. The rotting bark flaked off as it started to stand, and fell off nearly completely when it lost its balance and fell back to the ground. The green tree flesh was rotting in some places due to the changeling hive inside. Why did it agree to that contract so long ago? It couldn't rightfully remember. The pearl shattered as the message sprawled out in a magical aura.

Chrysalis is under threat by an extinct changeling, be sure to sneak him in for me.

Have fun dear old friend,

Ancient

The tree chuckled to itself. This would be fun if Chrysalis didn't burn him to cinders.

Author's Note

Constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Raven's Day Off

Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness.

Warning: Clop

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If you were to follow a royal guard around all day, you wouldn't find anything particularly exciting. In fact, the royal guard is more of a tradition than anything else. The guards act as a glorified police force most of the time. Drunken brawl? Call the guard. Vandalism? Call the guard. Somepony hounding you for a debt? Call the guard, get arrested, and be thrown in debter's prison. We, as guards, have more use for the dungeon under the castle than you would think. We hold training sessions, meetings, councils, parties, and other things farther back in the old complex. Fortunately though, Raven Heart has a few of the more interesting jobs a guard could have. She teaches the newbies, is always selected for the most dangerous jobs, and is on the war council, which is her favorite part. The reason for this is not that she is required to attend stuffy meetings, but that she gets to test experimental weapons, and has access to powerful poisons, salves that heal in an instant, and drugs that can cause insane lust. All useful for torture, two useful for other reasons. Raven Heart didn't get out much but when she did, she had fun.

"Mail!" Yelled a voice after a knock on the door.

"One minute!" Raven Heart yelled back.

She may have been in her room across the mansion, but she could still hear it. Equestria may be low-tech but it wasn't without modern technology whatsoever. Another perk of being on the war council was the advanced gadgets. Over the last few years portals have been popping up all over Equestria and leaving behind strange items. Most of them were some kind of communication device. Equestria had telephones, but they were only between the important people, and because Raven is considered to be an important person, she gets to have a few of these pieces of technology too. Raven Heart walked down the stairs, and across the main hall way. The thick carpet charged her hooves with static, and white light, which originated from magical beams powered by runes engraved into the ceiling, shined on the marble walls and expensive paintings. The solid oak door opened without a sound.

"So how's your day been?" The mail pegasus asked as he dug through his bag.

"It's my day off, so I've been sleeping all day. What time is it?" Raven asked.

"2:45, or around that. Left at one, been to thirty houses, around five minutes a house." He answered through the mail between his teeth.

"Wow, I didn't think it was that late. I should probably get to the track, and exercise a little today."

"You know you don't need to exercise right, there isn't an ounce of fat on you."

Raven blinked. What did he just say? Did he just compliment her? Sure, she got that all the time, but never from the mail pony. The brown Pegasus was strictly business, and would never say anything like that to anyone.

"Are you okay Raven Heart?" The mail pony gave her a confused look.

"I'm fine, but what did you mean?" She asked, fearing the worst.

"I was just giving you a compliment. If you wanted someone to help you train I would go to the track with you."

Raven stayed quiet for another moment. Was this really happening to her? She had just been helped to see her feelings for a creature of another species, and here was the brown pegasus that delivered her mail every day, asking her out. Or was he really just being friendly? This situation was the last thing she needed.

"Meet me there in an hour." Raven said plainly.

"Okay, bye." The mail Pegasus said happily, and flew away.

Why did she just do that? She couldn't explain it herself. Well, thats not true, she had half of an explanation. Whenever somepony left her she wouldn't be able to say no to anything that she liked doing. This included fighting, exercise, sex, planning tactics, and experimenting with new things developed in the weapons labs. She thought about just not showing up, but her excuse was that she would be changing her daily routine. Raven combed back her mane, preened her nearly perfect wings, and found her flying armor. It wasn't the heaviest armor they had, but it allowed for speed and she liked speed. She had even raced the famous Rainbow Dash, and got to the finish ten minutes after the cyan pony. It didn't sound impressive, but when it came to flying top speed over two miles against the fastest pegasus in Equestria, ten minutes was the closest race the cyan pegasus ever had.

Raven Heart never had any trouble putting on armor, and it was always stylized for her. She had an image to keep, and who was she to go against fashion in Canterlot. The scalemail covered every inch of fur and even a few feathers. Each scale was pitch black with a silver trim, and was made of an experimental alloy of tungsten, titanium, and depleted uranium named ravensteel due to the black pegasus's insistence on all of her armor being made from it. Her wings were fitted into a harness that ensured they would never break from a collision, but still had full range of motion. She looked like a metallic pony-shaped dragon, but it gave her a challenge and eliminated risk, so she was fine with that. It had been fifty five minutes, meaning that she had to fly two and a half miles in five minutes, no problem.

She stepped out of her house after grabbing two red vials and bolted above the clouds as the massive doors closed with a thud. The clouds were demolished as she rushed through them, and in about four minutes the flight training complex came into view. The word "track" had different meanings depending on who it came from. From a pegasus it meant the local obstacle course, from an earth pony it meant an actual running track, and from a unicorn it meant the library's trial system. The mail pony was there and waiting for her to show up. Brown coat, black mane that he never seemed to straighten, muscular wings, and a cutie mark of an envelope. Not too bad for a pegasus, and if the reason for this was what she suspected, she'd get some kind of distraction from it.

"Hello Raven, what course do you fly?"

"Whatever you want to try."

He walked straight for her favorite course. Iron hoops, isolated tornados, and dark tunnels where it is almost impossible to see where you are flying. She walked up to the booth flashed the red card that allowed her to fly on the course and waited. As she suspected, the mail pony was signing the waver and receiving his new card. He had a blue card, which signified that he had spent enough time flying to upgrade to red. It also confirmed that he was trying to impress her, as trotted over looking nervous.

"Be honest, are you trying to impress me?" Raven asked with a small smile.

"Yes, but there's no backing out now." He gulped when he got a closer look at the isolated class two tornado.

"If you survive this, I'll be waiting at the gate, have fun." She giggled as she flew off into the chaos of the training course.

She was going to have fun with this if it killed her.

"Wait for me!" She just barely heard the call before the tornado drowned it out.

She flew straight into it, and wasn't even moved by the winds. The sun disappeared from the sky as the dark vortex consumed her, and she fought it with all her strength. The whipping wind was no match for her, and she tore through the artificial disaster with ease. She folded her wings and dropped like a stone into an iron hoop, after that her wings extended with a whooshing sound, and she was plunged into darkness yet again. She had memorized the exact path of the tunnel. The black pegasus banked right, shot up, sped down, swerved left, and burst around the curve, into the light.

"Where in Tartarus am I?" The black maned pony called out behind her.

She hurtled through a mass of storm clouds, and dodged around twenty bolts of lightening. She welcomed the light as it burned her eyes. Several other pegasi congratulated her when she landed. Apparently she had broken some kind of record, and there was clapping as she walked towards the gate. She seemed to break a record every other time she went to the track, and tried to remember the record she had just broken as she waited for the mail pony. He showed up a few minutes later with nothing more than an even more disheveled mane.

"So what are we going to do now?" He asked, out of breath.

"You are going to tell me your name, and you are going to drink this, it'll help." Raven said in a raspy voice.

In her hoof were two red vials.

"Name is Clayton Mail." The brown pegasus said before he downed the liquid in the vial.

Raven drank hers, and immediately felt the heat in her nether regions.

"What did you give me?" Clayton asked, panting for a reason other than lack of breath.

"Now I am going to take you home and make you even more tired. Isn't that what you wanted?" Raven was now feeling the full effect of the drug. Luckily, her armor was stopping her from soaking the ground.

"Yes, can we go now please, this is torture." The sad thing was that he was being completely honest, no one ever lied when they needed something as bad as the drug demanded.

"Follow." Raven said simply and she took off.

She didn't have time to appreciate the scenery as she flew, and landed on her doorstep in a few minutes. She had to wait a full fifteen seconds for the mail pony to land next to her. It was torturous. The door burst open when she kicked it, and she pulled him in for a kiss. Their tongues explored each others mouths as Clayton kicked the doors closed. The armor had a simple zipper, and in a moment the brown pegasus found it. He embraced her passionately and Raven moaned as the armor tugged at her. The kiss ended as he pulled away and the metal dropped to the floor.

"I want you now." Raven said hungrily.

As an answer, the pegasus grabbed her and kissed her again. She slowly guided him to the bedroom, and they knocked over several expensive things in the process. The drug worked so well that Raven was leaving a trail of juices throughout the house. The two stopped at the stairs, and decided it wasn't worth the effort of climbing them.

"Give it to me now." Raven pleaded as she presented herself.

She squealed as the brown pony entered her. She was so slick from her arousal that he slid in with almost no resistance, and he was big. The drugged stupor had left him with little sense, and it felt as if she was being ripped apart as he slid to his base. At least he had enough control to go slowly. The large shaft slid in and out with ease, and it sent shock waves through her body. Raven shrieked as she came. The drug worked wonders by decreasing female stamina and increasing male stamina while nearly tripling the amount of pleasure. It had only been five minutes and she yelled again. The floor was soaked, and her forelegs gave out as the onslaught of pleasure overrode her functions. She could feel the pressure building up yet again, and the release was wondrous. Clayton grunted with exertion as he pumped into her faster and faster. Raven's hind legs slipped in the puddle of her own juices and she collapsed onto the stairs. She clambered back up and decided that the bed would be a better place. Raven dashed up the stairs, and the mail pegasus followed close behind. Raven leaped onto the bed and lay down on her back, mane sprawled out in a halo, and wings to her side. The bed bounced as Clayton landed in his position over her. He entered again and Raven shouted her pleasure. She could feel his rapid thrusts getting more erratic, he was close too. The twitch gave it away and she rode out the intense feeling. Her walls clamped down and milked him for all he had. He pulled out, and flopped over next to her on the soaked bed. It took several minutes for Raven to come down from her high.

"I want more." She said plainly.

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Thousands of miles away from her, sitting in a nest, in a hive of evolutionary dead ends, inside a tree, is you. And you are still trying to convince yourself not to go back.

Author's Note

Please for the love of god tell me what you think of this chapter. First time ever writing clop, and I don't know if it turned out well. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Hivemind Destruction

This place was terrible. Why on earth an ancient crab would tell you to come here, you don't know. You don't know much about this place, but it was stuffy, had a lack of food, a greater lack of water, and a queen that seemed to want something. There was something about the hive though, something that made you more aware. There was no physical food, but there was emotional food. It wasn't as good, and the changelings were starving, but it was there. Where was it coming from? You get up and your claws puncture the rotting wood as you put your weight on them. You blink a few times, and suddenly you can see the life force of everything in the ent. The golden flames danced with something unfamiliar to you. It had been a few days, and you seemed to be evolving new traits already. Evolution speed was a side effect of the mass breeding that the changeling queens of old used to manufacture your race. Evolution was common in your race, and you evolved based on the conditions around you. The advanced sensors in your brain that allowed you to change into anything that you could see or consume were amplified, and the tips of the living flames danced with different colors depending on the emotions of the creature. There were also different colors of flame all together. Most were gold, but some were black and you had yet to find out what that meant.

"You there." You growl to the nearest changeling.

"Yes?" The shrill voice hurt your ears.

"Come here."

The small creature was half your size and approached cautiously.

"I'm hungry." The words rumbled from your chest.

Your claw lashed out, and sailed through the tendons in the changelings leg. Murky blood sprayed on to the bark and the small piece of living swiss cheese cried out in pain. Another hand flew hand flew out and ripped the black insectoid's throat out of its neck cavity before it fell. The jugular vein severed, its head hung limp, the legs buckled, and its blood stained the rotting bark. The tree shook with a booming laughter, and your jaw unhinged. The eight inch serrated fangs that formed a cage around your head were truly terrifying when they were cutting meat into chunks and crushing bones into shards. The head tore off easily when half of the creature's neck was gone and covered in blood. It was macerated inside your mouth with audible crunching, and slid down your throat with ease as the blood and saliva acted as a lubricant.

"Much better." You belch, and begin to tear the rest of the corpse apart with ripping noises.

"Winter Knight!" An outraged voice yells from the very top of the tree.

You guess that the hive mind let her know. Chrysalis payed a lot more attention than most, and whenever you looked, her flame was black.

"We were planning to march on Canterlot and now you are eating my soldiers! Why must you force my hand?" You cock your head to the side when you hear this.

"You never said anything about Canterlot." You say quietly.

"It doesn't matter to you now. I'll have to kill you. Nothing can eat my loyal soldiers and get away with it easily." Nothing in her voice faltered as she said it, and she doesn't seem to notice the fact that your face is covered in blood.

"You will not march on Canterlot." You growl through your dripping teeth.

"And who are you to stop me?" She laughed maniacally.

A tail started growing from your spine. Bones cracked, splintered, and shot through the flesh. The tail has a large bone mace on the end of it is covered in sharpened scales. You rear on to your hind legs as more bones meet the air and the muscle of your body drags the rest of your impressive form up the protruding shards. Now standing on two massive legs ending in five inch claws, your ribs send tufts of blood stained fur into the air. The cracking is horribly painful and you let out a roar that deepens farther from the extremely low sound of your normal voice. The skin is dragged along your ribs, and your spine dislocates and relocates. You wail into the air more as your skull cracks and becomes larger. Your teeth grow, and an acidic substance starts to drip from them. Your arms readjust themselves with a lot of shattered bone, and the claws on your hands end up being around six inches. The final act of this desperate transformation is the thorn like scales that are growing into a perfect suit of armor.

"You are not the only god of change! I am one of you that was turned into your end! You cannot stop me!"

Everything suddenly burst into flame. Golden boiling blood flowing through the veins of everything. Black fire creeps through the queens blood, and as you look to yourself the gold bursts into shadow.

"You have birthed his horse, and with its help the fourth harbinger shall end it all." The words flow out of your mouth but as soon as they leave you can't remember them.

"Enough of this foolishness!" Chrysalis yells in a panicked voice.

A searing column of magic melts the scales on your arm only to have them regrow.

"I don't understand, why didn't it reverse you?" She asks herself worriedly, and tries again with the same effect.

"You use magic against a natural creature!" You bellow into the suddenly empty hive, "My body will adapt to changes, all you can do is use magic! I will evolve, you will decay!"

You swipe and a claw carves into her body. The blood pours out on to the bark, and the rot is cured. The tree lets out a noise of surprise as it can finally feel that part of itself again. Another swipe and the same happens. The queen is to slow to dodge any of your attacks, so she channels the last of her energy into a single spell. You take another step forward to end the blood caked queen of change, but are knocked through the tree by a brilliant flash of light. You fall ninety stories but at the rate he spell is propelling you, there is no time to grow wings. All of your bones crack, as you indent the dirt with an unearthly thud. It didn't kill you on impact, but the only thing you can remember is the gold flaring into darkness. You get one last vision, and it is of Raven with a pony that wants her just as bad as you. It is the last thing you see as the world around you fades to black.

Author's Note

I don't know how I feel about this chapter, let me know if you like please. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Coming Home

Twilight Sparkle was relaxing in her library and reading a book on the theories of how certain spells can permanently alter physics. It was interesting enough, and now that she was the god of magic, she could confirm most of these theories to be true. She was reading through the details on a theory of why certain places in the everfree had reversed gravity when she heard knocking on the door.

"Come on in." She called cheerfully.

The door slammed open and a wave of shadow swept through. She could sense the extreme amount of magical power, surpassing even her own. It somehow seemed evil or malicious, some might even say murderous. The shadows slowed, stopped, and melted into the floor in less than minute, leaving something behind. It looked like a zebra, only the stripe pattern was off, and it had black and white snake's eyes when they shot open.

"I hope your good at keeping secrets, Twilight god of magic, I'm giving you a free one here if you can convince him. But if you try you might just go mad!" A growling voice laughed.

The strange pony's head hit the floor with a thud and its eyes clamped shut. The poor pony started shaking and passed out.

"Oh sweet Celestia!" She panicked.

The purple alicorn scanned the snake-eyed pony with magic, and found that he had only fallen asleep. She calmed down and teleported him into her bed. After that she sat down and created a sound shield around her. She couldn't hear anything but her heartbeat. Twilight relaxed further and started to picture a hallway filled with doors. Something had stirred in her memories, and she wanted to find out what it was. She saw the first hallway, filled with six doors. One was framed in gems, it was her memories of anything luxurious. The second was framed in books, all of her knowledge. The third's frame was made of hearts, anything she ever loved. The fourth was a regular door, everything ordinary. Number five was framed in marble with a large solar seal painted on it, anything involving the gods. The fifth was new enough, but number six wasn't there before. A door made of flame and framed by a solid shadow that seemed to suck in light. Twilight was scared by the appearance of the new door, but her curiosity got the best of her. As she approached the flames died down, so that the god could see behind them. What she saw scared away her concentration. A flaming room locked up in thousands of shadowy chains faded into the colors of the world around her.

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The dreams were terrifying. Fear was a new emotion, but you were introduced to it fully now. The cloaked figure himself carried you in his shadow, all the way to Ponyville. He gave you visions of the end, but you couldn't remember any of them. He made you a prophet, and gave you a choice. Praise the dark and destroy the shrines, praise the light and give them a chance, or do nothing and watch it all end. Your eyes open slowly, but you can't remember any of it.

"Is anyone there?" You call.

You realize that you are in a bed, and the tree's walls aren't rotting. There are papers all over the floor, and some are stained. What did you do last night?

"You're awake!" A happy voice exclaimed, "I was so worried after you passed out. You were speaking weirdly though, can you remember that?"

A purple pony was standing in the doorway, smiling at you. You tried to think back to the night before as you sat up, but your vision flashed black and you cringed in pain.

"I can't remember a single thing from last night. Did we do anything?" You said in a Canterlot accent, and a deep voice.

The purple pony gave you a confused look, and looked around the room. Her eyes widened in embarrassment a she realized what you were thinking of.

"No, no, no, no, no. We didn't do anything, let me clean up." Her smile turned sheepish as she magically sorted all the papers into stack to be filed later.

"Sorry for assuming, but strange things have been happening to me recently, and it wouldn't have come as a surprise. I suppose I should get out of the bed now though." You said jumping onto the floor.

You tripped and hit your face on the bark. Hooves are extremely impractical compared to hands and claws, and much harder to keep balance with.

"Are you okay? Maybe you shouldn't have gotten out of the bed." The winged pony asked with concern.

"I'm fine, just a little unsteady. Time for introductions?"

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, princess of magic. You really can't remember anything can you?"

"I'm Winter Knight, and no I can't. Can we talk about something else, you said you were a princess, right?"

"Correct." She answered suspiciously.

"Can you take me to Canterlot? I know someone there that I can't stay away from any longer." you said longingly.

"Yes I can, who is it?" Twilight answered excitedly, sensing the emotion behind the words.

"A guard named Raven Heart."

"Why her? She doesn't let anyone one near her. I spend all day in here studying, and I get out more than her." She started in her lecturing voice.

"Why not her?" You ask confused.

"Well first of all...." Twilight caught herself, she could be so rude when she was curious, "I'm sorry for being so rude! Please don't tell her! She'd have put back in magic kindergarten!"

"Relax!" You yell, "I won't tell her, if you take me to Canterlot so that I can see her."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! We can go now, let's go!" She exclaimed gratefully.

There was a flash of light and suddenly you were in front of a massive marble building. The single door was dwarfed by the rest of the house, and is rather plain compared to the columns standing next to it.

"This is her house, can I leave you here?" The magical princess asked.

"Go ahead." You answer briefly.

"Have a good day!" She said happily, and then disappeared in another flash of light.

You walk up and knock on the door. Three thuds echo on the inside of the house, and you can hear hooves moving on a hard floor. You can smell the mare you love, but you can also smell another pony, a stallion. It hit you like a battering ram when you realized that the vision was true, and you close your eyes in rage. The door swung open, and the smell of stale sex filled your nose.

"Who are you?" Asked the soft voice that belonged to Raven.

The beautiful black pegasus gasped when your eye opened. She saw the change start to take place. Your head rounding out, claws piercing the hooves, the teeth lengthening.

"I will swallow his heart."

Author's Note

Sorry if Twilight was out of character, schoolwork, late nights, and caffeine shortages don't mix well with fanfiction. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

Eliminating the Competition

Thud thud thud

Raven Heart heard as she woke up. I took her all of five seconds to get up and start walking. She was sore all over, and could only half remember what happened last night, as she walked down the spell lit hallway. Her hooves sounded like the muffled knocking as they fell on the thick carpet. She walked up to the massive oak door and made sure to hide most of herself before opening it. She saw a black and white striped pony, which she almost mistook for a zebra before she saw that the stripes curved in an odd pattern.

"Who are you?" The black pegasus asked in a slightly more tired parody of her normal voice.

"I will swallow his heart." Rumbled out of the strange pony's throat.

Raven inhaled sharply when she saw the strange creature start to change shape. His eyes turned into those of a snakes wreathed in flame. The body started stretching and thickening, as the disturbingly accurate facade of a pony quickly dissolved into something that was too familiar to the normally armored guard. The thing's hooves were shredded as three-inch serrated claws decided that they could no longer be contained. And the blocky head of this dangerous mockery grew and rounded out, as the molars in its mouth sharpened and lengthened to the point where some were eight inches long.

"Move." Winter Knight growled at her.

Raven Heart was too shocked to think, let alone move, and before she knew it a tail came out of nowhere and slammed her into the marble wall of her hallway. The roar her would be partner made was deafening, and it shook the uncommon rock that made up the house. It also knocked one of the paintings off of the wall, and it fell on the raven winged pony under it. Before she blacked out the only thing she could think of was, Why did he come back?

_________________________________________________________________________________________

You didn't see the painting fall on her, and consequently, you didn't care. The stairs posed little challenge as your claws split the expensive stone of the wall, and you ran sideways to the second floor.

"There you are, you tiny, brain-dead, unimportant, waste of flesh. You're so tainted by fear that you are hardly fit for a meal." You roared as you licked your lips.

Clayton Mail was sitting in the center of the stained bed, curled in a fetal position.

"You're right. I'm not fit for a meal. Don't eat me Mr. whatever your name is!" He cried as he begged for his life.

"But I went through all the trouble of coming here, and isn't it a common custom that a host to feed his guests?"

Your jaw unhinged and hit your neck, as you flew through the air. The bed collapsed at the same moment that your claws sank into the stringy horse meat of the mail pony's legs. He shrieked like a mare as his dark blood sprayed onto the black sheets. His bones shattered, and his legs bent side-ways when you stood up. Your tail grew a small pitchfork of bone, and you started to spin it to tangle the hair in the brown pony's tail. You pulled all the hair out simultaneously and his squealing increased in pitch as more blood spouted from where his former tail took up residence. You lower your fangs into the coward's chest and savor the sickening crack of ribs shattering as you bite with all available force. You search his chest cavity with your snake-like tongue, and gulp down his blood until you draw his still-beating heart down your tooth-lined throat. When you look up half the room is painted red, and there is shouting outside.

Author's Note

Hey everyone, I realize that it's been a while since i've written anything, so if I could get feedback it would be wonderful. Other than that, I know that it's a short chapter but I figured I'd start again the way I started the first time. A bloodbath. I don't know if you can expect more, but it's nice to be writing again. All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.

The Second Escape

Love is insanity. It is the enslavement of a rational and lucid mind, to delusion, and self-destruction.

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Crimson liquid was every where, and the room reeked of metal. The shredded, unidentifiable corpse of the mail pony lay in ribbons under your feet, and the shouting outside didn't sound good. The royal guard were the peace keepers in Canterlot, and the well trained fighters were certainly something to behold as you wiped the blood from the window. Plates of golden armor shone like the sun, as they reflected the light from the blazing ball in the sky. You step back from the blinding light outside, glance at your meal, and calm down as you realize the smell of sex is no longer in the room. Instead you smell blood and smoke. But there was no fire anywhere, and once again you could smell fear. Fear with an oddly familiar tint, one you hadn't had the pleasure of sensing for too long. And then the problem struck you like boulder to the face. You turned and sprinted down the stair well with almost indecent haste. You hadn't noticed at the time, but your previous rampage through the house had knocked over what little candles there were in your path, and the carpet of an entire room was ablaze as you sped past it. Cracks erupted from the walls, because of the added weight your footfalls carried, now that your body was adapting to the area. These cracks ruptured the magical seals and runes giving the odd light in the hallways, sending gouts of fire and magical energy into the paintings hung on the walls.

"Help me!"

The sound of Raven Heart shouting was a whisper compared to the now magically fed inferno blazing throughout the once opulent mansion, but you heard it all the same. It came from under one of the larger paintings, and one of the corners was dangerously close to the flames. Your rushed over and the canvas was cut into streamers under your claws. Smoke burst from the tears in the previously masterful work of art, and there she was. A beautiful black ball, her fur shining from the light of the fire. The moment would have been perfect were it not for the creaking of metal and stone, and the halo of smoke over her head. You grabbed her with a now blunted tail, and began to form a protective blanket by increrasing the width of your tail, and flattening it until only her head stuck out of one side. Now that you had a firm grasp on the now unconscious mare, you started preparing for combat. As you trudged through the flames, keeping Raven well out of reach, you grew nearly three times your original size. Standing now as a giant among ponies, your razor sharp, serrated claws grew in length until stopping at nearly a foot and a half of bone. More and more bones were formed, and mutated, and by the time you reached the doors you were a true monster.

"Move or I will tear this miserable town to pieces!" Your voice echoing through the streets, as the heavy wooden doors come down in shards around you.

The guard do nothing but stare at you in shocked silence, for their steely facade had shattered as much as the door. You had unknowingly moved your mare into a pouch on your underside, much like a kangaroo, and the old, blanket-like, tail had split into more than ten thin whipping appendages, each and every one of them lined with blades of bone as sharp as your claws. your head had grown to match the size of your body, and you massive cage of fangs now dripped with an acidic toxin, of an unholy shade of green.

"Out of my way!" You roar.

This last feat of vocal intimidation had been so loud as to cause parts of the now hellish building behind you to crumble, and emphasize your point. The guards almost tripped over each other in a desperate attempt to move away, although a few seemed to have found their resolve.

"Your mistake." The growl resonates with a few more of them, causing them to bolt away.

These last defiant few, their horns wreathed with magic, and weapons shining, were promptly slaughtered. Three were killed in your first step, one cut into slabs by the claws on your foot, and the two others cut down where they stood by your tails. The blood soaked the cracked cobblestone road, and spray painted a few suits of armor crimson. In this display of power the rest the defiant guard fled, except one. A comparatively old member whose armor was dull, had a white light around his horn, and suddenly you couldn't move. Your feet held to the ground, and your tails suspended in place. The only part of you that was able to move was your head. This may have been because he wanted to talk to you, or some other nonsense, but you quickly took advantage in his lack of judgement. The unholy poison was released in a torrent, and the force of it would have shoved the old guard over, if he wasn't being reduced to a murky puddle by the liquid. As the last of the resistance died, so did his magic, and with a final roar of triumph, you bound through houses and streets alike searching for the route that brought you here in the first place.

"Where is it!" You bellow.

Climbing to the top of a building you can see the outskirts of Canterlot, and as you leap from house to house, turning the rooves to rubble, you see the path that you walked on your first trip into town. You waste no time in jumping from the top of the structure, and changing course to once again travel the mountain path. It takes you about two minutes to find the entrance to the dark tunnel that you escaped from, and at the sight of it, your monstrous physicality vanishes. You shrink down to normal size, your claws shrink, and your tails rejoin. You are careful to step away from Raven as your pouch recedes, and you lift her, spread eagle, onto your back, after you tear away the rebuilt blockade of stone. The days events have turned your limbs to lead, but you still have more than enough energy to carry your mare to safety.

Author's Note

So its been a few months, I know, but hopefully you all like this chapter as much as the rest of them.

Sorry for the delay ~ Winter

The Hive

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

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The field around you is red, white, and green. There is no life to be found here except for you, and even your fur is stained. Bones have been bleached white under the blazing sun. The weather pegasi must not patrol this part of the nation. Maybe it crosses some sort of political line. Intestines and chunks of flesh that you missed are lying around and flies should be above them. The shining crimson is slowly drying and turning into a rusty brown. The smell of death still hangs in the air, along with the sound of silence. Every living thing in the valley is in your stomach. Fifteen dear, thirty rabbits, five large birds, twenty-two small birds, thirteen mice, seven hundred forty seven ants, three hundred fifty six flies, and six snakes. As it turns out, comfort food works. It is only minutes after the blood bath, but you don't remember anything about that guard. What was its name again? You decide to stop thinking before you remember, and it spoils the fun. The cold shadow of the mountain comes down after a few hours and blots out the sun.

"Time to start moving." You say out loud.

It echoes through the valley, and you start on your way. The mountain itself is massive. It towers over everything in a radius of many miles, with small rocks falling from various positions on it. When you start the climb, you find out why. The mountain is vibrating. Not consistently like a machine would, but with tremors about a second apart. Almost as if something huge was walking. Then it occurs to you that, if you had wings, you could fly over the mountain instead of walk around it. You can feel the wing bones growing from your spine and grow larger every second. You feel them lengthen, extend, and you flap them a few times to check if they work properly. The wings are so large that the test movements take you off the ground. You bring one down to your face to look at it. The most efficient design was that of a bird, but this was something you didn't expect. Around a sixty-foot wingspan, with feathers that had that managed to change into different colors of the rainbow every few seconds. You launch yourself off the ground, and the feathers reflect the light of the sun into beautiful colors. Normally your wings were black and white, and your heart sinks when you start to think of why they might be this colorful.

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Raven Heart was one of the few ponies that wore clothes. In the griffon kingdoms she had worn her armor day and night, because she never trusted the forceful birds, now she just felt weird without something covering her body. It also discouraged ponies from staring most of the time. She had always been told that she was beautiful, but like all pretty girls, never believed it. But here she was walking around naked in her house. In all reality her coat was completely black, but it was thin and exposed the not quite black skin under the fur when under the sun. She could grow it out so that it was a complete cover, but that got too hot under armor. The violet tipped primary feathers certainly lent to the name raven, but another reason she wore clothes was that, amazingly, she hadn't gotten her cutie mark yet. It was just an expanse of black fur, that she had convinced herself would never be covered. She knew that her job was her only passion, but she had never really tried anything else. Her grandfather was the first stallion to ever be guard captain, her father died in battle weeks before she was born, and her mother was the best fighter in the guard until she retired. She was destined for this job, she knew it was what would her cutie mark would be from if she ever got one, but something was missing. She guessed she could sympathize with the poor creature that she had guarded before he escaped in a hole created by a dragon, that she knew wasn't an accident. She had never really felt love. She had felt grief, sorrow, fear, etc, but never love. Her mother took care of her until she was fourteen, and then kicked her out with a large sum of money. Celestia heard of this and immediately hired her as a guard, she trained endlessly with no love for herself, no pony ever dared approach the prodigy of the best fighter in the guard, and no one ever showed interest in her except the so-called monster. There was a knocking sound. She walked over to the door of her rather expensive house, hid her flank behind the frame, and opened it.

"Hello." She said to the mail pony. Her soft voice had always annoyed her. She could have been a model with her body and voice, but the voice didn't fit someone in the royal guard.

"Mail." The brown pony said back.

He was used to seeing her like she was. One time she even forget to hide her flank, so he knew about that too. He was always nice enough though. No advances, no small talk, just business. She wasn't sure she liked it that way anymore.

"Have a nice day." The mail pony said after he fished out the letters and handed them to Raven.

After that he flew away. Raven closed the door, walked through about five rooms in the mansion she had saved up to buy for herself, and deposited the envelopes in her study. She walked up two flights of stairs and into her room. Princess sized bed with white velvet sheets. She was one of the richest ponies in Equestria but no one really cared. The room was one of the smallest in the house but was still the size of a standard family room. Floor to ceiling one-way glass windows were on one wall, and the rest of the room was made of marble like the rest of the building. She sat on the sheets, and as she looked out the window, she realized how alone she really was.

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The mountain was tall. So tall in fact, that you had to change your lungs just to get enough oxygen for you to breath, but you finally reached the top. Sure you could have gone around the mountain half-way down, but you like to see what you are going up against. The massive tree was walking, rotting, and complaining. To most, this probably would have been quite a sight, but it was normal for you. You had met a massive crab living in a small lake, and the moving trees were certainly something you had seen before. Sure they were a lot smaller than this, and they weren't rotting with a hive of creatures inside them, but it wasn't much different. The others always complained just like this one. Not enough water, not enough sun, not enough space. Just a few of the many complaints they filed into the sky. A cloud of black dots surrounded this one though. You force your body to become transparent. Now all you did was cast a distorted half-shadow. You launch yourself off the peak and rush towards the ground. The air streams past you, and soon you feel it pressing down all around you. You tried to remember what this meant as you dodged rocks at slightly sub-sonic speeds. When you finally remember what it means, you speed up. This will give them a distraction so that you can sneak into the tree. As you reach the bottom of the mountain and curve into the valley, a deafening crack sounds behind you and everything seems to slow. You look behind you and see nothing but a rainbow colored distortion blazing through the air.

"Ahahahahahaha!" The tree chuckled.

Within a second you slam into the pile of rotting bark, and smash a hole through it.

Random panicking.

You stand up, your wings shrink back into your spine, and your fur hardens into scales. You look at the panicking creatures around you. Black with small fangs, all with different colored eyes, and filled with holes. If these were changelings, than a synonym would be worthless waste of flesh. That's when you saw them changing. Nothing anywhere near as advanced as you, but still impressive. The only problem you could see, was that they used magic to change judging by the horns on their heads. You see no threat, and will your colors to come back.

"What is that?" Ten of them ask at the exact same time.

Either they all knew each other way too much, or they shared something. This new development gave you reason to look closer. You to a step forward, and several took steps back at the same time. You make eye contact with one, and a few of them flinch, including ones that are in your peripheral vision. It seemed that they had a hive mind. An interesting trait for a species built on change. A much larger changeling wearing a crown approached you through the crowd.

"Give me a single reason why I shouldn't have them kill you." She demanded.

"I would win." You growl.

"I doubt that." She laughed.

A tail grew out of the end of your spine. You wave it in front of her face, and blades grow out of various places.

"Getting better." She said.

Your tail swung in a large arc, and grew while it sliced through more than air. Five rows of heads and bodies fell to the wood in a semicircle with a sickening thud. Blue blood poured onto the ancient bark along with severed vertebrae, and organs. The entire tree shook as it laughed, and the queen flinched.

"Is there anything else you would like to test?" Your voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Welcome to the hive." She said, impressed.

Author's Note

Writing fanfiction, when I'm supposed to be writing an essay. Isn't it wonderful? All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.