Changes

chapter 5

sticks and stones

Why do these briefing sessions always have to be so early? *Quiet man, you might miss something important.*If they didn’t want me to miss anything then why did they make these meetings so early in the morning? *Just listen. You are so close to catching Apex and you’re phasing out now?* well.... Ok, but this doesn’t mean you won. *Sure it doesn’t. Whatever you have to tell yourself to get up in the morning.

“According to pierce’s information, the entrance to Apex’s HQ should be somewhere in the lower left quadrant of Diamond dog territory.” As he said this Luke pointed towards the edge of diamond dog territory closest to ponyville.

You were sitting in the back of the briefing room in the canterlot castle. Luke was presenting the information you had collected to the twenty- something Guards. They were a collection of several ponies, two gryphons, and one changeling (not counting you and Luke). They were all taking notes and listening attentively, preparing themselves as best they could for this mission.

Luke continued, “We will set up five sniper nests across the everfree forest, here, here, here, here, and here.” he said, pointing to the locations on the map hung across the wall. “We will split into two squadrons. Alpha, will be me,” He said pointing to himself, “Johnson,” this time pointing to a changeling sitting in the front row.

He was a little bit taller than you, about lukes height, had brown hair, and looked to be about your age (so in his mid- twenties). “and my good friend Pierce.”

Several of the guards complained, one of the gryphons spoke up. “He isn’t even a Guard! He has no right to be here!”

Luke calmed everyone down, “Technically he isn’t recognized as a member of the royal guard, yes. But he is one of us. He works as one of the kingdoms best undercover operatives.” At this, many of the guards quieted down and decided to continue listening.

“Omega squad, will be...” ‘Blah Blah Blah. You didn’t know these guys anyway and couldn’t tell who he was addressing. *come on man, this is important. You should really listem* STFU. I don’t have to if I don’t wanna. *you don’t have to a baby about it. Sheesh* Yeah. That’s what I thought....

Once Luke finished choosing people for squads and who would be in the snipers nests he dismissed the men to their rooms.

“We are getting on the train in one hour, so don’t be late.”

Everyone got up and filed out of the room at this. As, uh, what was his name? *You really need to work on learning names man.* Didn’t I tell you to STFU!!? Oh! I remember! It was Jackson! Ok, let’s try this again. Ahem. As Jackson got up Luke told him to stay and flashed you a look that told you to do the same. *Not that you have anything to do anyway.* SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!

Once everyone else left the room Luke closed the door behind them and started speaking again.

“Pierce you know Johnson yes?”

What I thought it was Jackson!? *I told you so...* How many times do I have to tell you to shut up?

You answer, “No, I don’t think we’ve met.” You reach out your hand to Johnson and he returned the handshake firmly.

“Nice to meet you sir.” He said. You chuckled a bit, making him feel a bit self- conscious. “What did I say?” he asks.

You reply in a joking tone, “Nothing, don’t worry. I’m just not used to being called sir is all.” You both smile and sit down to listen to Luke.

“Ok, now you may have noticed that I chose every changeling for Alpha team. This was on purpose, we will have a different job than Omega’s.” He said this as you moved closer to the front, next to the other changeling. Luke continued, “While Omega team is in the middle of their frontal assault, we’ll morph into the two thugs Pierce put in the hospital.” He pointed to himself and the other member of your party. as he said this, “and sneak through the back entrance those thugs informed us of.”

You speak up, “I hope you aren’t expecting me to just walk in there? If so we might as well buy a giant cake for me to jump out of while we’re at it.”

Luke smiled, “Sorry Pierce, but that is pretty much the plan....”

-five hours later-

You were walking through diamond dog territory, the cold night air hitting your face. You aren’t sure what made you shiver more, the cold or your mission. You were accompanied by two fully armed thugs, or should you say, Luke and Johnson. (apparently his first name is Reid) They had absorbed enough energy to last a six hour transformation, though they could change whenever they chose. The E-cans, or energy canisters, were a miracle of magic. After the mass- magical- transition, or MMT, that affected the changeling race every changelings’ ability to mutate was severely affected. A changeling could still transform, just not using love and for not nearly as long as before. The E-cans held a form of magic easily absorbed by changelings, making it possible to transform again. Changelings never could transform permanently until the MMT. They were now hyper-locked in the one human state they had. This is the only permanent change a changeling could undertake.

You were battered, bruised, and bloody, or at least that was how you looked. In actuality, you were completely fine. Oh, the joys of shapeshifting! There were a pair of ‘handcuffs’ around your hand and you were truthfully unarmed.

“How much longer?” You asked, growing anxious.

“We are here.” said Luke. There was one solitary tree in the middle of this barren, wasteland-esque land, and you were standing in front of it. Reid walked up to the tree and tapped an intricate rhythm into the trunk of it. After he had finished there was a silence which was quickly interupted by a ‘SSCCCCCCCRRRRRREEEEEEEECCCHHHHH’ followed by a secret door in the tree being opened by a diamond dog guard. This guard eyed each of you respectively, smiling when he saw you.

“I see that you brought Apex gift. He be pleased, yes.” This guard ushered you inside with a wave of his hand and a slap to the face for you.

The dog lead you down a long, winding cave which ended in a glorious room filled with gold, diamonds, and other precious materials. There were five guards in the room, two by the large throne in the wall straight ahead and three by the entrance that is now behind you. There was treasure and other expensive-looking things piled up throughout the room. The throne was on top of a small raise of about five steps. The throne itself was beautiful, but the expression of the Dog sitting in it was not. Apex was a Diamond dog with an exponentially advanced intellect compared to the rest of his species. This may have been a result of the MMT or may have been lucky DNA, but whatever the reason Apex had a normal intellect for any other species. He had several scars scattered over his face body, each a testament to the pain he endured to reach where he was today. He made most of his money from drug running and protection money, him being the most powerful drug dealer in the surrounding kingdoms and all.

He spoke in that scratchy, deep voice of his once he saw you.

“Well well well, look who it is. If it isn’t the little rat. Looks like you finally stepped into the trap.”

You reply, “Nice place you’ve got here Apex. Looks like you’ve made back that money pretty quickly. Hey, I heard about this plastic surgeon that could probably fix your face man. Maybe he can get rid of those scars too.”

Apex looked towards the guards behind you and before you know it you are on the ground being beaten by every guard in the room. They are kicking you and punching you all over. You felt a rib break and cringed from the pain. no matter how many times that happens, you never get used to it.

Apex raised his hand to signal them to stop and they backed up a little. You got up, or rather, were dragged up violently and held still. Apex motioned for you to come closer and so you were dragged towards his throne until you were within arms distance of him.

*Let’s hope Omega squad arrives on cue.* Yeah, let’s. Apex stared into your eyes, puffy and swollen. Your face, covered with blood, and your battered body. (part of this was shapeshifting, most of it was real though) He brought a hand up and gave you a solid punch in the face. The room spun, and you lost your footing for a second. Blood ran down your face from your newly broken nose.

“Somebody get me a gun.” Apex said, reaching out his hand. one of the thugs extracted a large revolver from his holster and handed it to Apex. Apex reached out and received it gladly.

He begins to toy with the gun, taking his time.

“Do you know how hard it is to maintain an empire? How hard it is to keep everyone in line, to make sure things run smoothly, to ensure that your men are all well taken care of?” He was still messing with the gun. “Let me tell you something. The only ways to rise to the top in this world is to destroy everything above you, and to ensure that everything below you is secure and safe to climb. Now, when bottom rungs of the chain, like you, try to move out of place the only thing to do is secure that rung. And in some cases, the only way to secure a rung is to make sure it is still. Permanently.” He aims the gun at your head, continuing, “You have been a pain in my side for far too long Pierce. You see, when one rung becomes unstable it knocks all of the other pieces out of place. And so, you left me with an unstable foundation, which left me fixing the lower sections while my enemies grew. You almost destroyed my foundation. But then, my scientists created ‘flip’, a new super-drug. It instantly addicts the user, throwing them violently into a life of need. A need of the drug, the drug I own. I want you to take a look, Pierce, at what the world will look like after you are gone.”

He snaps his fingers, causing two thugs to walk out of the room. Soon, they re-entered with a pegasus in their hands. You look as they throw this pony to the ground, as the pegasus hits the ground with a hard slam and cringes. The pony looks around, and then you get your first good look at him.

He was grey, not naturally, but, instead looks as if the color had been sucked out of him. He was shivering, looking around with his blood-red eyes. His lips were dry and his wings were devoid of any feathers. He looked.... poisoned.

Apex spoke, “Just wait until the drug does it’s work.”

A thug came in carrying a small pill-bottle. He set it down behind the addict and slowly stepped away. Once he was at a safe distance he told the addicted pegasus to turn. The second the grey pony saw the bottle he smashed it with his hoof, causing glass to fly everywhere, though he seemed unaware. You see that instead of pills, the drug is a powder. The pony licks at the glass-drug mixture and feels it’s affects. He begins violently licking, snorting, and eating the powder, ignoring the glass. Soon after he began, the pony froze, rigid and stiff. Unmoving. You believe that he is dead. After several tense minutes you see a sign of movement in the pegasus, and soon the pegasus is the same as he was when he was brought in. Minus the blood coming from his eyes, mouth, and nose, he looked to be the same as before. You were shocked. Horrified. Disgusted. How could someone do this to someone else?

Apex spoke up, “That was a small doseage. The drug leaves the user in living rigormortis, locking up their bodies, but still leaving them fully aware. Once you are gone I can begin mass production on this drug. I will put it in the water supplies, have my men in cloudsdale put it in the rain and snow. I will be in complete control of everything and everyone. I knew that with you still alive my men would believe I was weak, that I was unfit to lead, that I should be ‘removed’ from power. But now that I have you, I can make you an example to the world. Don’t cross Apex.”

You haven’t taken your eyes off of the grey pegasus, imagining what would happen if your mission failed. You were hit again by Apex, this time in the right side. You are turned by the two men holding you to stare into the barrel of his gun again.

“Goodbye Pierce. Good ridda-”

An explosion, screams of panic, and sounds of gunfire erupt from behind you. Omega team had arrived, a little late, sure, but they had still arrived.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUXvTIIPClc

The sounds threw off Apex just long enough for you to swing your head away from the gun. The bullet barely misses your face and enters the shoulder of the thug to your right. He screams out in pain and lets go of your arm. You dissolve the morph-made handcuffs into your wrists and smack the gun out of Apex’s hand in a matter of seconds, taking advantage of your element of surprise. The guard holding your left arm takes a swing toward your head, but you block it with your free arm return the punch to sender. He begins to stumble back but you grab him by the shoulders and push yourself up while swinging your legs back, kicking Apex in the face and causing the thug to fall. You raise your arm and begin to slam your fist into the face of the man underneath you until you felt him go limp. You could hear Luke and Reid struggling with the other guards, leaving you with Apex. You reach for the holster of the guard you ‘pacified’ and retrieved his pistol.

You turn to see Apex aiming his gun at you and roll, bringing the guard underneath you in between Apex and yourself. Several bullets fly into the guard, two passing through him into your right side and left leg respectively. You wait until all six bullets had been shot from Apex’s gun and jumped up, lifting the now-dead guard with you. You ignore your damaged leg and run towards Apex, throwing the body once Apex began to reload his gun. He moved quickly but the guard nicked him before he could move, sending Apex flying backwards. You sprint towards him now, not letting him recover from the hit. You brandish your gun and jump on top of Apex, attempting to hold him down. You smack his gun from his hand and attempt to get your gun in his face. He grabs the barrel and tries to push it away from himself, towards you. You accidentally let two bullets fly, one hitting Apex in the left shoulder. He yells and pushes your gun away completely. Your arms fly back and you fall onto the ground, your gun landing just within arms reach next to you. Soon, Apex is upon you. He grabs a knife from his belt and begins to push it towards your neck, you pushing his arms away. You push each others hands towards each other. You reach out your left hand to grab the gun, pushing with your right hand.

You feel the grip on the guns handle and try to grasp it, failing several times. Apex has the advantage, using both of his arms to push the knife down to you. It is inches away from your neck as you reach for the gun. You finally grab hold of the gun and swing it towards apex. He moves his head but is hit across the face with a bullet. A large gash begins pouring blood from Apex’s face, but does not deter him from his assault. He pushes down the knife with everything he has, emitting a loud,

“RAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!”

The knife presses up against your throat and slides across, leaving a gap in the places it touched you. You push Apex off of you and grasp at your throat. You can’t breathe and blood rushes out of your neck. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it still cut through. You force yourself to crawl towards your gun, one hand on your throat, the other being used to crawl.

Apex was still on the ground, holding his wounded face. You crawl for the gun that is now only feet away. Apex sees you and grabs at your leg. You kick forcefully and his hand comes off. You fall, but get back onto your hands and knees again. You reach out for the gun, falling forward. Your hand lands on top of the pistol and attempts to grasp it. You feel your leg once again in the grasp of Apex. He drags you towards himself, attempting to finish the job he started. You could hear your friends. They were still fighting off the thugs, and Omega could be heard still fighting, still alive.

You are out of energy to kick Apex away and attempt to hold onto the gun. Apex stands over you, holding his knife in his right hand and his bloody face in his left.

“Goodbye Pierce.” You panic and swing the gun at Apex. You pull the trigger and Apex is hit in the chest. You continue to squeeze and bullets continue to pierce Apex’s body. Five shells slam into Apex’s chest but he continues standing. Smiling. You don’t stop firing until the clip is emptied and still then, Apex is standing. Smiling. His eyes are phased and clouded. Blood is dripping from his mouth. You use whatever energy you have left to kick Apex, knocking him backwards. He hits the ground with a loud ‘Thump!’ and is still.

All you see is darkness. All you feel is pain.