At the crack of dawn, Shining Armor got us all out of bed and gathered us in his room. Night Hawk was the only who seemed happy that I was here again. Shooting Star said nothing and kept a straight face while Glimmer said something like “Celestia with these idiots.”

Shining Armor asked me to recount what had happened to me, and so I told everyone about my encounter with the changeling.

“It was really strange. According to Twilight’s description, they don’t even have fur.” Glimmer nodded in agreement.

“I have to agree with him for once. They also only have just a little bit of blood. I would like to take a look at this changeling since it would give us an idea of what’s going on here.”

"I concur. Here’s the plan then. Glimmer, you will go with Light and Trixie to that cave and examine the remains," Armor said to us and then turned towards Star and Hawk. "And we three will go to the mines as planned. Whatever is going on here, when the citizens notice that we suspect something, they will be more wary."

“Can’t we have breakfast first? I still have so much sand in my mouth,” complained Hawk and got support from her stomach in the form of rumbling.

“We’re going to make a stop at the Lunar before we separate. We should inform the crew about the current situation in any case.” With that said, Shining Armor lowered the shield in front of the door, and we went downstairs into the saloon. Big Joe, who was the owner as I learned, stood behind the bar and looked on as we slowly walked through the room. There were no glasses on any of the tables, much less any customers even at the current hour. As Armor passed him, he nodded at Joe once before we passed through the door.

“Shouldn’t we take the boys from the vanguard with us to the ship?” Hawk asked and looked into the direction of a larger house where a sign with a red cross was hung.

“No, they’re too suspicious,” Glimmer interjected immediately. “No soldier should be a week out of combat when he only flew one day straight. I mean, you were trained to fly for days, weren’t you?” Hawk nodded and began to follow the group.

“What’s with the vanguard?” I turned to Trixie, who walked besides me.

“Allegedly knocked out because they’re exhausted,” she said abruptly and yawned loudly. I needed to concentrate on the way again, and the first thing I noticed was that I noticed nothing. The streets were empty. Only sand and hassock were blown across the ground by the wind.

“Where is everyone?” I asked no one in particular. Even though it was early, even in Ponyville the first workers would be up by now.
“Probably in the mines,” Glimmer said. “It’s a mining city after all. No pain, no gain.” Somehow I had the feeling that the last part was directed towards me.

“If you don’t like something about me, feel free to say it to my face.” She was about to take my offer, but Shining Armor threw her a look that caused her jaw to snap shut. The rest of the way, neither she nor I said anything, not even to one of the others. I knew that the last thing we needed was a fight in the group, and I went on the assumption that Glimmer, no matter what her problem was, knew that too.

We needed about fifteen minutes to get to the ship but couldn’t board since the gangplank wasn’t let down. Without waiting for an order from Armor, Hawk and Star flew up to the deck and let it down.

“Why was it even up?” Hawk asked as we walked past them on board.

“More important, where’s the crew?” asked Armor and immediately split us up to search for the captain and the two sailors. However, no one was found. I came back up from below deck with Trixie in time to see Shining send the two pegasi to scout the surroundings.

“They should be back soon. Like I’ve already said to Trixie, we have no time to lose looking for the soldiers that disappeared. The construction work at the rails is coming along and they will be here in a day’s time. Since there are definitely changelings here, I don’t want to give them an entrance card to Canterlot.” Glimmer now came out of the captain’s cabin and floated something next to her.

“I found the logbook. There hasn’t been an entry since we arrived in the city.” She stowed the book away in one of her saddlebags which she always carried with her.

“Okay, nothing will happen with us just standing around. Go ahead and examine that cave. If there really were changelings out here, then we need to know where they are.” Glimmer saluted curtly in front of Shining Armor and left without waiting for us.

“Don’t hold it against her,” he said and signalled us to follow. We left him alone back on the ship.

That was when I wished for the cold of the night again. Even though it was long before afternoon, the sun burned my back. To my surprise, I seemed to be the only one who was disturbed by the heat. Glimmer was wearing leather armor, covered in a blanket, and loaded with the saddlebags, but didn’t sweat in the least. Trixie wore the golden armor of the Royal Guard, had her cape on her back, and she as well didn’t show any sign of exhaustion.

We went on for what seemed like hours. Even though Trixie and I had walked through it already, the journey seemed much longer this time. I would have complained if I hadn’t been so busy with sweating so much.

“We’re almost there. I found Light by this rock.” Trixie pointed at a large rock that took up the sight of the landscape behind. As we finally went around it, I noticed the little slope I had to climb yesterday, and in the distance, there was the little mountain to be seen, which represented the entrance to the mine. Glimmer didn’t go any closer but headed towards a nearby bush and pulled out a telescope out of her bag. Trixie and I hid ourselves next to her, and I immediately collapsed in the shadow of the grass. It wasn’t much cooler but a lot better than being directly in the sun.

“Are you alright?” Trixie asked as she noticed that I was completed at the end of my strength. Glimmer eyeballed me quickly but said nothing.

“The sun… hot…” I only said and laid myself onto the relatively cool ground. Trixie gave me an unbelieving look as though I was crazy. Then it suddenly hit me like lightning. There was nothing wrong with them but with me. Nightmare was sensitive against the sun and that seemed to have an effect on me. It was the last thing I needed. Trixie, who hadn’t let me out of her eyes, noticed that I realised something and bowed down to me.

“What’s up? You look like you figured something out.” I nodded and checked to see if Glimmer was still occupied with observing the mountain. She was writing something on a piece of paper and looked through her floating telescope every now and then.

“It’s Nightmare. It’s sensitive towards the sun and that seems to have an effect on me. I’m assuming that since it’s doesn’t have the control and is too weak to block the sun.” Or that it just couldn’t. Even with a body, the sun seemed to cause those beings a lot of problems, which would explain why it would want eternal night. Trixie nodded that she understanding and turned to Glimmer.

“How does it look?” She just put her telescope away and with another shimmer of her horn burned the paper in front of her.

“I just sent Armor the first report. No movement in the immediate area or in the air space. We’re going to move forward and look at the entire thing up close.” She frowned at me. “Can the good sir walk a little again?” she asked snarkily. I simply stood up.

“Ladies first….” And so we started to move. The mountain slowly but surely came closer. Glimmer looked behind us and up into the sky every now and then to be sure that we weren’t followed or that enemies weren’t close by. Trixie, however, relied on the fact that she could feel the auras of creatures. I asked myself which of the two would have more to show for themselves. Trixie didn’t have any strong magic, but she made the best out of what she had, but Glimmer was a trained soldier and scout. Naturally I didn’t want to fight, but it would happen, and for some reason I was looking forward to seeing the two in action. I used to watch my best friend Robin do his stunts on the trampoline when we were little. His parents had bought him one from the States, one where there had been enough space for five people. Many hours had been wasted on it, but no one learned as many tricks as he did. The most amazing part was that he taught it all himself. When he then started doing martial arts, the stunts became a means of choreography. We had often sat around the trampoline and watched him in amazement as he did diverse somersaults. In general, it was fun to watch people who enjoyed what they did.

We reached the mountain a little later and I saw the cove under which I had found the cocoons. “Back there,” I said and pointed to the spot. We walked a small bit and reached the soothing shadow of the semi-dome of the mountain. Trixie and Glimmer immediately looked up to the ceiling and both let out a sound of surprise. Glimmer promptly pulled out another piece of paper and scribbled a sentence at most on it before lighting it on fire.

“And you said that in the cave there were none?” I nodded.

“I was down there for about one day. Nothing but a deserted mine and an underground lake. Of course, I couldn’t have checked every single corridor, but I think I was in the largest of them.” I noticed that she wanted to tell me something but must have noticed something.

“And where is the changeling that fell from the ceiling?” I looked around but didn’t find anything. I saw the rocks I had used as pillars and the place where he should be laying.

“Here, here is the corpse.” But there was nothing: no changeling, no strange yellow liquid, and no blood. Glimmer promptly pulled another paper out, wrote a little on it, and sent it to Shining Armor. Trixie seemed to understand and lit her horn up. After the note was gone, Glimmer did the same. “What’s going on?”

“Are you that dull? If the corpse is gone, someone else was here. It was either the changelings or those villagers. No matter who it was, they count as enemies now,” she hissed at me. I have to admit that I should have reached that conclusion myself, but I was weak enough from the sun alone.

We all started to check the surrounding for more details, but it was Trixie who was the first to find something. “Didn’t you say that all cocoons were open?” Glimmer and I followed her sight to a dark corner under the ceiling where there were three closed cocoons. Without hesitation, Glimmer pulled out her crossbow and put in an arrow.

“We have to get them down no matter what. That way, they can’t defend themselves.” Trixie did as she was told and fired a magical salve, but it just bounced off. Glimmer took a short aim and fired an arrow that shot through the air and stuck in the shell of the first cocoon. Just like my touch back then, the cocoon seemed to open on contact and out came a changeling. It was just like the first one but was mostly covered in fur and looked a little bit like a pony if there wasn’t the black horn that came through the cream coloured fur. Suddenly, it started to scream loudly, just like with my first encounter, which opened up the other two cocoons. Out of them came similar looking beings as well, and now I noticed something that almost made me want to throw up.

“That’s the captain and the two sailors!” I yelled, which caused the two mares at my side to look at me in confusion. Slowly, they turned their gaze back to the screeching changelings at the ceiling and saw the similarities.

“What the…? Fire! No matter what they are now, they’re hostiles!” she yelled as the three got free of the cocoons and sailed above our heads. Their insect-like wings made a humming tone, which was made more intense through the echo. The three made a turn in flight and fired green magical missiles at us. We barely jumped out of the way of them so that the missiles struck the hard ground. Glimmer unbuckled her bags and let another arrow float over her. Trixie, however, used the narrow room, at least for our flying enemies, and created a cloud that immediately started to shoot lightning bolts at our enemies. They quickly evaded the attack with their agile flight without any effort. I took hold of some stones with my magic and fired them at changelings, but I had no chance of hitting them, for they were just too quick and my projectiles too slow. Glimmer fired the next arrow at one of the incoming enemies and hit his right front leg, but he just shrugged the blow off. He left behind a mixture of blood and yellow secretion as he shot over our heads and fired the green magical missiles at us again. To our luck, they had horrible aim and the stuff, which mainly hit me, was gravel that was stirred up by the explosions. It was hard to make out things through the dust, but it didn’t only hinder us but our opponents as well. As it started to settle again, I saw one of the changelings hanging under the ceiling and this time I reacted without thinking. I formed the stone above him into a spear and flicked it at him. The changeling reacted in time but couldn’t prevent being hit, and the stony spear pierced one of his wings which caused him to fall to the ground immediately. With a muffled thump, he struck the hard stony floor and remained laying there. Trixie decided to get rid of the dust summoned water which covered the dry stone.

“One down!” I yelled to the others, but they were both too distracted with the other two changelings. Glimmer stood a little further in the cave and was busy evading from the one which once seemed to be Captain Finder. Trixie stayed with her lightning bolts but only got it so that the changeling couldn’t fire back. I looked around, but both remaining changelings were too far away from the walls for me to hit them with a similar trick. Glimmer still had priority since Trixie seemed to be okay on her own. I sprang past Trixie and again fired rocks at the changeling above Glimmer, who had to interrupt his attacks to evade my rocks.

“My bag!” she yelled towards me, and in passing, I grabbed it with my mouth and threw it over to her. She quickly opened it with her magic, and her arrows started to gather around her. She put the first one into her crossbow and fired it at the changeling who just lunged for another attack. The arrow flew past him as he evaded with a roll, but the next arrow followed instantly and hit him in the chest. One arrow after another flew through the air, practically in one second intervals, as Glimmer reloaded and fired her crossbow faster than I thought would be possible. Injured by multiple arrows, he crashed against the wall of the cave and fell motionless on the ground. A screech was heard, and immediately our heads turned towards Trixie. The remaining changeling had hit her and her cloak was burning in a green fire. I reacted instantly and pulled it off of her and threw it away. Overcome with pain, she dropped to the ground and started to whimper.

“Light, you take care of that changeling. I’m going to help Trixie!” I nodded and blocked another attack from the creature with a stone I threw at his missiles. I gathered some gravel with my magic and turned them into metallic balls like I did in my fight against Shining Armor.

“Take this, you freak!” I screamed angrily as one ball after another, like out of a pistol, shot towards it. They hit their goal, which encouraged him to retreat quickly. A quick glance over my shoulder showed me that Glimmer was using a spell on Trixie’s burns. A screech told me that the changeling had recovered, but to my surprise, it wasn’t in the air anymore but on the ground and was headed straight for me. It was too late before I realised what it had in mind and so it rammed its head into my side and I flew a few meters across the ground. Immediately, it jumped after me, ready to ram it’s fangs into my flesh, but out of reflex, I lowered my head.

The next thing I noticed was a weight on my head and that a viscous substance was flowing over my face. I opened my eyes and saw that something lifeless was lying on me and that its blood and secretions were all over me. Quickly, I freed myself from the changeling by pushing it away with my two front hooves and then taking a step aside. The changeling wasn’t breathing anymore, and there was a big hole in his chest. It had pierced itself on my horn. Heavily breathing and exhausted, I went back over to Glimmer who still was busy taking care of Trixie. She quickly glanced over to me but said nothing. Trixie’s armour had a hole on her back where the projectile impacted and the fur and skin under it was burned. I observed as Glimmer’s magic slowly but steadily treated the wound and renewed the skin along with the fur.

“She’s going to be fine, just a flesh wound,” she said shortly. It was the first time I had seen her use her magic not to levitate something or use her crossbow.

“Can I ask you why you don’t fight with magic?” She didn’t look to me as she answered.

“Magic is a gift that should make life easier and not easier to kill. I would never harm a living being directly with magic.” She stood up and the aura around the wound went out. “Good as new.” Trixie, who without a word had endured the treatment, stood up and stretched her back.

“Thanks, Glimmer.” She turned to her cloak. It was burned for the most part, so there wasn’t much left of it.

“We’ve got time for that later. We need to warn the others. If the changelings can turn ponies into creatures like them, then—” She stopped in the middle of the sentence. “How does that identification spell work?” she practically yelled at Trixie.

Trixie was slightly startled. “Uhm... It checks if the appearance belongs to the aura of a pony. If the appearance isn’t the own then it will be restored to it.” Glimmer nodded.

“Then I know where the changelings are. Think about it! Their original appearance was that of a pony. So if they’re changelings, they could turn back into their original pony form and the spell would recognize them, right?” I instantly understood what she meant. Fillyburg was an entire changeling city.

A shrill screech went through the cave. The changeling I had taken down first from the ceiling woke up again and stood on all four at the exit of the cave, horn glowing green.

“What the—?” I interrupted myself as it fired one large projectile at the cave entrance, and it immediately started to rain rocks. The mountain practically trembled above us as one stone after another started to bury us.

Author's Notes:

Well, it seemed this story was a little forgotten. So I kicked JBL until he started editing and here is the result ^^

Thanks to Tripl3M for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

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