Chrysalis stared around the train car, her eyes studying every pony, her brain evaluating them for weaknesses she could exploit. She was on a mission, and it would be an even more important one than when she met her Shining Armor.

The thought of her darling stallion drew a deep sigh from Chrysalis, and she thumped her head against the window, staring out at the rolling countryside passing her by. "Why are you so far away?"

"Sounds like a filly missing her colt." Granny Smith had chosen the seat beside the depressed-looking mare. "If'n you ask me, nopony should end up like that. Either he comes back to ya, or ya gotta chase 'im!"

In her earth pony disguise, Chrysalis turned to face the green-furred ancient pony. Barbs and slurs came easily to her thoughts, but so too did Shining Armor. She gave a soft whine. "He can't come back to me…" It was completely true. She knew Cadance had her hooks so far into Chrysalis' intended that he would never escape her without help.

"Well Ah'm thinkin' you have just two choices then." Granny Smith wavered a little and closed her eyes. She wasn't asleep, she was just resting her eyes.

"What are my choices?" Chrysalis practically screamed the words, but when everypony in the train car looked at her, she froze. This was not the way to avoid suspicion like a top-class infiltrator. "What choices?" She gently poked Granny Smith to wake her up from her eyelid-resting.

"Huh? What's'at?" Jumping nearly two inches into the air, Granny Smith looked around wildly. "Are we under attack?" She squinted at the mare beside her. "What're we talkin' about again?"

Chrysalis was surprised by the antics, but figured it was still more entertaining than just staring out the window, plus she really needed to know the venerable mare's suggestions. "I am having colt problems, he can't get to me, and you said there were only two choices."

"Well you actually got three, but one o' 'em we don't talk about in polite company." Granny waggled her eyebrows at Chrysalis, which only made Granny's eyes wobble around in their sockets. "But if'n you don't have any of the rubber hose for that'un, you only have two choices. Either you hunt down that stallion and show him what he means t' ya, or you move on to another that can goose yer clock just as good."

"Another stallion? But Sh…" Chrysalis mentally slapped herself. "But Bright… Shield is the only stallion for me…" Focusing so much on the topic had her despondent again and Chrysalis slumped down. "And now my family need me in Ponyville, and I can't even go to him…"

While waiting for Chrysalis' stilted speech to finish, Granny almost nodded off—totally rested her eyelids—again. "What's yer name, anywho? Ah'm Granny Smith."

Chrysalis knew of the Apple family, there were some in Appleloosa, and one of Twilight Sparkle's friends was in the widely-sown family. "Granny Smith? From the Apple family?" The surprise on the old mare's face was enough for Chrysalis to glean the truth of it. "I'm Cinnamon Stick! My family moved out of Appaloosa a few years ago, I wanted to visit the place and… we used to be good friends with the Apples there!"

"Cinnamon Stick? Well, good t'meetcha!" Granny Smith reached out with a hoof to shake one of Chrysalis'. "So where ya headed, Cinnamon?"

Chrysalis saw much potential in cultivating the mare's friendship, and so she figured it was worth the risk of telling her. "Ponyville. I was—"

"Hot dang, ya just gotta come and stay with us Apples then. No," Granny shook her head when Chrysalis tried to interrupt, "arguin' now. It's already settled." Lifting her wiry old leg up, Granny spat on her frog and held it out to Chrysalis. "And while yer there we can get all this colt business sorted out. Nopony leaves a friend of the Apple family in the lurch!"

Knowing the custom, Chrysalis couldn't stop a slight shudder at exchanging fluids in such a manner, but she dutifully spat on her hoof and clopped it—wetly—against Granny Smith's.

Dismounting the train, Chrysalis looked around Ponyville in a bit of a daze. She suddenly realized why sending a dispatch of changelings that apparently numbered about one tenth of the town's population was a bad idea. "So, any new ponies around? Apart from me that is!"

"Oh ponies come 'n go, ya know? There is that new family of farmin' folk. Not sure about their rutabagas, but heck, anypony who works a farm is a good pony!" Stretching her legs, Granny Smith hobbled from the train. "Ah hate them trains, get yer limbs all stiff."

"Any juicy rumors about them?" Chrysalis knew the game of rumors, but importantly she knew that in a town this small, everypony would know something about a new family.

"Well, Ah heard from my little Applejack that they might be crazythings." Granny Smith's eyes narrowed. "Crazythings though? Ah never heard about it. They said they was Turnip kin, but ah ain't never heard of 'em!"

"Somepony new in town? How interesting." Trixie insinuated herself (and her body) into the conversation between Chrysalis and Granny Smith. "Anypony Trixie knows? She has been all over Equestria." Inwardly, the unicorn wished she had a spell she could cast that would only blast changelings, but nopony she knew had been willing to teach her one.

Chrysalis' heart sped up, and she felt panic begin to rise. Considering dropping her disguise and blasting her way past the nosy unicorn, she was shocked when a spindly old leg thumped her on the back.

"This 'ere is Cinnamon. She isn't an Apple, but Ah know her kind, and they go great with Apples. She's just visitin' our farm for a while, aren't you deary?" Granny Smith looked at Chrysalis with a gap-toothed grin.

Trixie narrowed her eyes at the brown-pelted Chrysalis, and then switched her gaze to Granny Smith. "Well, somepony said there might be some changelings about. Trixie wonders if you know anything about that?"

"She ain't one of them crazythings, or whatever you called 'em." Granny Smith stomped closer to Trixie; it wasn't that the old Apple didn't have any respect, she just didn't have much time for it when a friend was being accused of something. "An' how do we know you ain't one? You just arrived in town too!"

Blinking in surprise, Chrysalis realized just how lucky she was to have met the old war horse on the train. "They told me Ponyville was a nice town…" The waterworks were easy, all Chrysalis had to do was think of her little nymphs all being squished. Anger colored her sorrow, and she glared at Trixie. "Why don't you just leave us alone!"

Taking a step back, Trixie kept her snout closed while the two earth ponies marched off. When Granny Smith and Chrysalis were well out of earshot, she turned away from them. "Trixie is going to have to come up with a better way of doing this."

"We could help if you want?!" Scootaloo was standing right behind the blue unicorn, and swore later that the mare actually teleported a one-eighty degree turn. "Can't we, girls?" Beside her, flanking Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom cheered and exclaimed in the affirmative. "Right! So… what are you doing?"

"The Great and Powerful Trixie has no…" She was about to blow the fillies off, but then Trixie had her best plan ever. "The Sneaky and Loyal Trixie actually is a secret agent!" She held a hoof up, faking muffling her voice. Nearby, two ponies who heard her secret rolled their eyes at somepony stringing the Cutie Mark Crusaders along. "And she is in town to uncover all the monsters that are hiding as ponies!"

Three little shocked gasps echoed after Trixie's words. "What are you gonna do about it?" Apple Bloom recovered first, and got agreeing nods from her fellow Crusaders. She squared up a little more. "And what can the Cutie Mark Crusaders do to help?"

Trixie smiled. "Well, there are a lot of new ponies in town lately, and Trixie would bet Twilight's crown on a bunch of them being changelings. Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance sent Trixie in, secretly," Trixie tapped the side of her snout, "to find out about them."

"And kick their flanks?!" Scootaloo reared up on her back legs and threw a quick one-two punch with her forehooves.

"Shh!" Trixie pressed her hoof to Scootaloo's muzzle. "Do you remember Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's wedding, with the changelings that disguised as ponies?" Three solemn nods affirmed the Crusaders' memories of the wedding. "There are twenty of them somewhere in town."

Sweetie Belle gasped in shock. "What are we going to do about them?" She rubbed one foreleg against the other, suddenly nervous once she found out they were outnumbered over four to one.

"Trixie has been charged, by the Prince and Princess themselves, as well as by Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight, to find them and keep an eye on them." Narrowing her eyes, Trixie looked between the three fillies, fake suspicion painted liberally on her face—once she had spent time in show business, overacting ceased to be a thing to Trixie. "How does Trixie know you aren't changelings?"

"We aren't!" Scootaloo was obliged to yell it, and defend her best friends.

"We aren't?" Sweetie Belle looked at her friend. "That would have been exciting. What if we were really changelings our whole lives, and our sisters just never told us?"

Apple Bloom stared at her friend. "We aren't changelings, Sweetie Belle." She rolled her eyes hard enough to dislodge them—figuratively speaking. "But we aren't changelings. How would we prove that we aren't?"

"We need to know!" Scootaloo clung to Sweetie Belle. "I don't want to be a changeling my whole life!" She paused as her friends stared at her. "What? I would have to be mean and stuff…"

"You could be mean to Diamond Tiara. She kinda deserves it." Sweetie Belle covered her mouth quickly. Pulling a hoof away, she looked at the accusing stare of Apple Bloom. "She does!"

Trixie was amazed at the three fillies. Their ability to take a topic and just derail it on tangents so quickly that the original thread was lost to time was amazing. She didn't dare interrupt, just in case anypony realized that what the three adorable fillies were talking about was real. Well, the original conversation was.

"Diamond Tiara does not deserve to be stuffed in a changeling pod!" Apple Bloom looked between her abashed friends. "She is just a filly like us." Lifting her voice, Apple Bloom felt the world start to align just right.

"No songs!" Trixie finally cut in. "We don't have time for a song, and it might give away what we are doing."

"What were we doing?" Scootaloo looked between her friends, and then up to Trixie.

"We are finding out if we are changelings." Sweetie Belle looked up at Trixie. "You… You said you had a way to be sure?"

Apple Bloom interrupted Trixie. "Well of course there is a way to be sure." She gave gave a firm nod, and paused a while until everypony started glaring at her. "Oh, well it isn't easy, but we have to foalnap them, and take them to the Crystal Empire, and get Princess Cadance to do that big love-magic-blasty thing!"

"Wait here." Trixie gestured at the Crusaders to not move, and marched over to an apple cart, complete with a big red Apple behind the counter. "A bag of apples, post-haste."

"Eeyup." Big Mac had heard every word his little sister and her friends had shared with the unicorn and loved that the performer was keeping the "terrible trio" occupied. "Here y'are." He plucked up a dozen-apple bag and passed it over. Trixie floated some bits towards the stallion, but he shook his head. "Yer a good pony, eeyup." He knew full well that Applejack would be mad at him, but he liked Trixie's magic shows.

"Oh!" Trixie blushed at the stallion, the attention enough to cause her to stumble in her plan. "Well… uh… if you would like to come to Trixie's next performance, she might just invite a certain stallion on stage to help." Her eyes traced down and up all she could see, and though he seemed slow, Trixie knew that looks were always deceiving.

As the unicorn turned and walked away, Big McIntosh was immensely thankful for the cart he was standing behind. Watching the mare's tail and plot sway from side to side put a grin on his face that made him want to buck a thousand trees.

"Now, this is quite an easy way to prove somepony isn't a changeling." Trixie passed an apple to each of the fillies, and took one for herself. Lighting her horn, she cast a simple trigger-based illusion spell. "Changelings cannot eat normal food without being violently sick. The little spell Trixie cast will light up if it detects any sneaky teleportation magic." And with that, Trixie bit into her apple, and chewed the wonderfully juicy fruit repeatedly, before swallowing.

Each filly dutifully took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. "Is it meant to make us feel sick?" Sweetie Belle screwed her face up.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. "Sweetie Belle, all this week you have had the green-apple sp—"

"She is sick. But it won't come up. That is what you meant by 'violently sick,' right?" Scootaloo looked up to Trixie, and got a nod back. "Well, we definitely aren't changelings, although I would get Sweetie Belle to wash her hooves and horn before handling any more apples."

Author's Notes:

To Gleaming: how will you explain that in the formal report?

"Look, it might only be my fifth year on the force, but I am not stupid enough to write a report about creatures with wings from another dimension that came here to get their crown back and oh, they will solve another case for me with a bag of diamonds." Sergeant Gleaming rolled her eyes significantly. "Not when there is all this crazy stuff going on at the school. Reports of strange singing at night..."

~~~~~+++++~~~~~

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter.

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