Patchwork

I decided I will not worry about Night Light and Bright Sparkle. There is still plenty of time for the actual relationship to happen. Me interfering will only make things worse.

Right now, I was leaping over the rocks and debris behind the academy. I wanted to find a secluded place where I can practice transformation in peace and far away from prying eyes. Sleeping would probably be a better option but I didn’t feel sleepy at all. Probably tomorrow.

“I think I’m far enough now.” Looking over my shoulder I noted where the academy is, spotting it a fair distance away. Using my Night Front disguise I flew for a bit, scouting out the area and trying to memorize it.

Landing behind an outcropping, I nodded to myself, satisfied with the chosen location.

What I wanted to do today was something I wasn’t able to do during my ‘incarceration’; I wanted to practice larger and more dangerous transformations: Pokémon, Tyranids, Zerg, dinosaurs, etcetera. My mind was full of ideas, and I wanted to try all of them at once.

But first…

I took a deep breath and transformed into a human. As close as I could get with my memory.

Looking over my hands and feet I felt very naked and uncomfortable. I had visible muscle and I felt fairly strong, but there is so much more I wanted to try.

Shifting back into Patchwork I sighed, feeling better about my form.

Taking another deeper breath, I shifted to a wider stance and focused… four legs, two pairs of massive tusks, a horned head with pincers, and a large, wide carapace with ridges. Keeping the form of the ultralisk in my mind I decided to go for a smaller version first.

In a flash of fire, I felt my body expand slightly, and before I knew it I looked like an ultralisk.

At first it was a bit confusing, moving appendages that were completely different from my own, but then I noticed that my body is visibly weaker than a standard ultralisk. The carapace was thinner, the tusks were hollow, and the musculature was far sleeker than the mammoth I remember it being in the opening cinematic.

I scratched my head with one of the smaller tusks. I need to figure this out. Maybe if I pour more of the resin into it.

Another flash and I was again disappointed at my abilities. I got a bit more bulk, but nothing more. Flashing back into myself I sat down and got to thinking.

…

Pokémon are out of the picture. None of their natural abilities translated into the transformation, making the shape essentially another colorful animal I can just replace with something more efficient. I can replicate some abilities with magic, but that relies on my magical knowledge which is currently lacking.

I spat a small lightning bolt out of sheer frustration, but at the very least testing out Pokémon gave me an idea of what I was lacking for the ultralisk.

What I missed is that, since I’m transforming out of memory I need to replace the things I need with something that’s fairly similar. I essentially needed to build an ultralisk from the ground up; muscle, bones, organs, shape, all needed to be replicated with the knowledge I had at my disposal.

Looking up at the sky I quickly gauged how much of the night I had left over, and then I sat down. I had everything I need, for the carapace I can simply use my own, it just needs to be restructured into something more powerful. Bones, I can use dragon bones. Organs? Have those, just need to reshape them. Muscle, dragon again, or a hydra.

Standing up I focused on shaping an ultralisk in my mind again, but this time I added the details necessary. A part of me noted that I have even saturated the surrounding area with mana as well, but right now I did not care why that happened.

Shifting my stance again and bracing myself I poured a fair amount of mana into this and then I felt the ground under me shift under my new weight. Looking down I noted that I was standing in a decently sized crater, the stone seemed to just be shaved off smoothly. But the form felt powerful. So powerful in fact that it felt like I could even harm Shield Strike easily. And the size wasn’t half bad either, as I have gained at least two bodies in height.

Swinging my new talons around and testing them I could easily smash and slash the nearby rocks. Which made me very excited.

Looking up, I saw that the moon is two-thirds done which made me decide to finish for tonight. Using my magic, I buried the crater and covered up the scratches, so they aren’t visible from the sky, and, flashing into Night Front, I made my way back to the academy.

I was happy with my current progress.

-----------------------------

‘Where the fuck did three months go.’ I asked myself, crossing off another day from the calendar.

The training, the studies, practicing the same thing for days, all helped to make the days blur together into long three months.

I am happy to report that I have caught up with others and their studies. I have also been paired up with Night Light and Bright Sheath when we go on our practice patrols or when we are practicing in teams.

I am, however, sad to report that Night Light and Bright Sparkle are incredibly happy together. And while I am glad and happy for Night, I am very worried about the future of Equestria. Which made me rethink telling Celestia about the show itself.

I had to remind myself that telling Celestia will put the country in even more danger as it increased the percentage for a worse outcome, and I could not risk that. Even if that percentage is low, I had to treat it as absolute certainty. I already changed things too much as it is with the introduction of alien technology among other things.

On another note, I am glad to say that I have significantly improved my ability to shapeshift even further. I even discovered why my first ultralisk transformation took a good chunk of the ground with it.

You see, I found out that if I pour mana into the surrounding area while transforming I could take that chunk with me to add into the overall mass. If I'm near enough material I can, essentially rip and use said material to further improve the shape. Which made me finally look into my transformation and how it operates.

What I found out shocked me, and I had to talk to White Light the next time I saw him.

During transformation, I am essentially turning my body into silly putty. Everything but the cores is shifted and morphed into the shape I want. The flash wasn’t there to hide the change, it was the by-product of it. I should have found out about this months ago, but I never cared back then about how it works. I could even, in the heat of battle, kill my opponent if I cannot control my transformation while on top of him.

’I think ‘m gonna be sick.’ No messing up my transformations, no thank you.

“Why are you studying magic?” Asked Night Light while polishing his armor.

‘I was lost in thought, but whatever.’ “What?”

“I asked: why are you studying magic?” He repeated himself, looking up to where I was chilling on my bed. “I thought you said you weren’t any good at it, so why bother?”

“Are you… Did you tell me I suck so much I shouldn’t even bother?” I asked incredulously looking at him over the edge of the bed.

“What?! No, no. I meant, why are you studying something you aren’t good at… Oh dear, that didn’t sound good either.” He gently facehooved (hooves are hard).

I chuckled, “Don’t worry, I got what you meant.” I closed the book as I couldn’t focus on it and put it on top of the dresser. “To answer your question: I am studying it because I want to be able to understand it. Just because I’m not that good with magic does not mean that I am limited by it.” I punctuated this by teleporting in front of him. His slack jaw was funny enough that I got a good laugh out of it.

Huffing, he continued polishing his armor. “If you can teleport like that, why are you saying you aren’t good with magic? Teleporting is complex.”

I joined him, grabbing a piece of his armor, and sitting down next to him. “Complex does not mean impossible. It’s not heavy on magic, just complicated to perform and I’m a natural multitasker.”

He blinked his eyes a couple of times before looking at me astonished, “That makes a surprising amount of sense.”

“Also, what most of you seem hard to grasp, I like learning for the sake of learning.” I shrugged, polishing the cannon guards. “I do not need a cutie mark to tell me I am good at something, or to tell me what I need to do, I like doing something for the sake of doing it. I have a drive to improve.”

“A drive to improve…” He whispered. Looking at him I could feel something click in place in his head, and suddenly he had a look of determination, all but throwing himself at polishing the breastplate.

We worked in silence for a few minutes. It was a nice, companionable silence until he decided to break it.

“You wanna meet her sister?” The question completely threw me off and I actually had to stop for a moment to get my bearings in order to look at him astonished for even asking me.

“I’m bucking sorry, what?”

“I asked, do you want to meet Bright’s sister? You sounded interested a couple of months ago and I heard that she is looking for friends.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “You are my good friend, so I thought you could be a good friend to her too.”

“Night, did you forget the fact that I am a bug-pony that needs to be in hiding for fear of what others might do to me if they find out?” I liked Night Light, he was indeed what ponies would call a ‘good friend’, but this felt like a bad idea. I would be tampering with the future of this world, and I wasn’t comfortable about it.

“You are a shapeshifter, and Night Front or Patchwork you are a good pony. I just hoped you could make somepony’s life better too.” I could see and sense that he was upset at my response, but not upset enough to dwell on it.

Thinking about it, he asked if I could be her friend. Which, in reality, didn’t mean I had to date her. For all I knew she wouldn't even consider me date material in the first place (‘that actually hurt my feelings a bit’).

“Fine,” I sighed, “I never said no, Light. I’m just worried…”

He looked at me with a beaming smile, “Nonsense. Both Bright and Velvet are fantastic mares, even if they find out, I'm one hundred percent sure they would keep their mouths shut. Come to think of it,” he scratched his chin with a hoof, “Sparkle did say that she hates gossipers, so I at least know that she won’t blab about it.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better, to be honest,” I grumbled putting the, now polished, cannon guard on the done pile. “But I will give it a try. So long as you aren’t setting me up for a date.”

“No,” he waved his hooves exaggeratingly in my direction while I gave him a deadpan look. “Look just, just give it a shot. If nothing else, you can be good friends.”

“Tell that mare of yours that you are breaking up, she obviously has you whipped if she talked you into this.” I quipped.

He gaped at me in shock, and I again laughed my ass off at his expression.

-

“So, are you going on that date?” Asked my sparring partner, a gray unicorn with a wavy mane and tail by the name of Star Fall.

“How do you know about that?” I asked him incredulously. We were waiting on our turn for the sparring ring, no magic, no striking, only shoves and takedowns.

“The whole group knows about it since you and Light were overheard talking about it.” He answered. In another ring, Light was sparring against another unicorn by the name of Golden Tail. He was winning.

“I haven’t decided. Kind of feels wrong to go on a setup date with someone I don’t know anything about.” I ground through grit teeth. I did not like when ponies gossip like this.

“Hey, relax my ‘tal. Nopony meant anything bad with it, we just heard the two of you talk about it when you were passin’ by.” He said placatingly, tapping me gently on the shoulder. “Besides, nothing wrong with going on a surprise date. It either works and you have a nice filly to spend time with, or it doesn’t, and you go your separate ways.”

He was right, of course. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it in the first place, but I had to consider the timeline as well. Night Light, however, already arranged everything, and the date would be in a week. He even showed me the location where the date would be held; a nice little place called Garden Nibble. A smallish, casual restaurant that offers seating in a very nicely decorated garden, with various bushes a pony can nibble on while they wait for their meal. He reserved a seat next to a velvet rose bush, a little bit on the nose if you ask me.

Anyway, while I haven’t decided yet, the thought on my mind right for the last week was to just go and get it over with and just act out to get her to leave, or something similar. I would feel like a heel for a while, but for the sake of the timeline, I would have to persevere.

Before I managed to tell him that I would probably go, we got called into the ring. He won, but it was close.

…

My clawed hoof flashed between my claws, a hoof, a talon, and then into pure claws from elbow to the tips, then lastly into a massive tusk before changing back into my clawed hoof.

My body was still sore from the exercise and the sparring, so I decided to practice on a small scale today.

Namely, I was trying to shift only parts of my body, while leaving the other parts on their own. Night Light was on the side doing homework (I did mine the moment we were done for today).

I raised my other clawed hoof… cloof… meh and started fiddling with its size. Every change in shape was followed by a swift flash of fire. From tiny to huge, the largest I could make my claws was the size of my head which wasn’t that large. I could, however, make them sharper easily, surprising me with the level of sharpness I could get.

“Just don’t hurt yourself with those.” Said Night Light from the side.

I turned to notice that he was looking at the large blades I essentially made my claws into with some trepidation.

“Don’t worry, Night,” I assured him, changing my claws back to their normal size and shape, “I got this.” He visibly relaxed and I chuckled and how sensitive these ponies were sometimes about things like this. This is why I prefer practicing on my own.

Lifting my claws to eye level I started studying them intently, but my mind was somewhere else.

I wasn’t sure about the whole date thing. It honestly feels like Night forgot what I was and is just doing this because he forgot that I am not a pony. Tartarus I have been out of that room for less than four months and I already have a date set up with a mare I know nothing about except what was shown on the show… Which wasn’t much.

I suddenly and violently shook my head, ‘What am I thinking, dating Twilight Velvet! THE Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle’s mother.’

I turned to Night Light to tell him to cancel the date, but he preempted me.

“You know, Velvet is really looking forward to the date.” I closed my mouth with an audible click. “Both Sparkle and Velvet have been talking about it non-stop since the last time I went there. I do hope you hit it off, she is a genuinely nice mare as well, and you both deserve to be happy.”

“Well… I’m kind of looking forward to it too.” I lied. I am in so much trouble.

Next Chapter: CH 18 (the date) Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 6 Minutes