"The mindset?"

Twilight nodded, her almost ever-present paper and quill levitating nearby, already prepared to take notes on anything and everything relevant to the topic.

"The mindset for using a disguise...it's actually not that complicated, just picturing the individual in question and bringing to the fore as many examples of their personality as possible. The thing is, it can be dangerous to have too much information. A good infiltrator has to strike a balance."

Twilight nodded, scribbling down the information before tapping a hoof against the ground.
"I would think that the more complete the knowledge of the target the better the disguise."

"Oh, the disguise isn't the problem. It's uh...taking it off again that becomes the problem."

Seeing her lost expression, he sighs.
"Most of my disguises that I use on the daily are, for lack of a better word, me. I know it's a disguise and don't even try to replicate someone. Verbal ticks, accent, posture, they all stay relatively similar regardless of the form. When things were...shaky with the other hives I would leave something of a reminder, like a mole I had before. Something that can pull me back."

"But that would make it easier to find you." Twilight said with a frown.

The changeling shivered.
"It's better than the alternative."

He dodged into an alleyway, shifting his form nearly as soon as he broke line of sight from the pursuing drones. They were NOT happy to have him in the area. Competition was, shall we say, unwelcome amongst the hives that claimed the territory. Not that any would actually give him a map of the claimed territories, no, that would be too easy.

'Can't just claim a random form either, need a different personality this time, they're looking for me and have seen enough of my shapes to build a profile. Rotten luck doesn't even begin to describe this.'

Sliding into a turn, he went on autopilot, grabbing the first mental image of a pony he could and assigning as much detail into the transformation as he could. Before his next step connected with the ground, Pinkie Pie was running down the alleyway, with a vague sense of something having been after her and a need to reach a destination.

---

The pony slowed down to a canter as she slipped into the crowds, a sense of unfamiliarity with the situation keeping her usual jovial mood at bay and leaving her with a vague sense of confusion. She was here to do something, she could feel it, but aside from the need to pick something up from an apartment, she just felt...strange. She'd not greeted ponies on the train, she was running out of a dirty alleyway in a city far from home, and now she-

Pinkie spun out, barely keeping her hooves as a bunch of meanie- well, meanie pants wasn't really the right term for them, as they weren't wearing any. Giggling as they tore down the road in a hurry, she wondered why that was a thing. Maybe it was a minotaur that started that saying? But didn't Iron Will not wear pants either? So who came up with it?

Shrugging it off as another one of life's great mysteries, along with how magnets work and why some ponies thought oatmeal was an acceptable cookie flavor, she proceeded to continue on her route. Maybe the answer would be in apartment 204 on Cherry street?

It took almost no time for her to find the door, and after knocking and waiting she moved the mat, finding the key easily in spite of the fact that it was hidden nearly inside the material of the mat. It felt like she'd done this before, too, which was really strange because she was pretty sure she'd never been to Detrot. She couldn't think of any ponies who lived here off the top of her head anyway. Actually, she hadn't even introduced herself to anypony on the way, as she was just so lost in her own head that it didn't occur to her.

"Hello? Anypony home?"
Wakling into the dingy apartment, she sniffed curiously. No stale food from the smell of it, and not a lot of Bee Oh either, which was also strange considering the state of the place. It wasn't particularly messy, mind you, just...
'Sad. Like it's not a home.'
She poked around a little, not certain what she was looking for until finding the mirror. That was when things broke.

'I don't have a-Pinkie doesn't...'

A single streak of yellow mane caught her eye, confusing her. She'd not dyed it or anything, so when- if that was-

"It's...no, I didn't dye it, it was-

Finally, her eyes landed on a small zipper on the desk, and she shivered.

"Find the break, pull it back."

In a flash of green fire, Pinkie was gone, and in her place was Max. Max, a changeling, not a pony. Max, who did not live on a rock farm, did not know the names of every single pony in town, like Fluttershy, Daisy, Rose, Lyra, Old Mare Hooferson, and-and didn't know that Rose's birthday was next week and she REALLY needed to get her something nice-

"Separate it. Push them aside. Not facts, you're digging too deep."

He took a deep breath, humming an old tune from a game he hadn't played in years. The memories responded well, as they always did when he lost hold. He was him. Not her. He just needed to remind himself of that.

He most certainly did NOT freak out when he accidentally pulled his key from his mane.

Twilight gaped at the changeling across from her.

"If you're not careful, if you don't leave...something for your mind to latch onto, it's possible to get lost in it. I'd wager there's at least a couple dozen changelings that don't even realize they're changelings anymore. Breaking them out at this point may be...bad. Queens don't bother them, they're just kind of referred to as 'lost to their masks'. It's...scary."

Writing down a few follow-up questions, Twilight looked out the window at the town, idly wondering if anyone she knew was lost to their masks. Even her parents could be, if his off-hoof comments about genetic compatibility were true. A changeling could have put on a form years ago, lost themselves in it, and eventually made it to-

She sighed. It didn't really matter now, and from what the changeling told her they were for all intents and purposes a pony at this point. Pursuing the question would undoubtedly cause more trouble than it was worth, even if she was curious...and it would probably eat at her for a while.
'He's right, the worst questions are those you can't ask without the risk of hurting others. And the hardest thing to learn is when you come across those questions.'
"So you have to leave something wrong."

"It's like the zipper to a costume." Max answered shakily, staring at nothing in particular. "If the zipper is obvious, everyone sees it and knows its fake. If you hide it too well, you can't reach it. You can't find it, and you-"

"You can't take it off." She finished for him.

The stallion nodded his eyes flickering with something she couldn't quite read. She sighed. It made sense too and would even explain why some changeling disguises were...off. Why they never copied the original perfectly even though it was obviously within their abilities. Max would even copy her or her friends from time to time, but aside from acting like them-
"So, acting is different?"

"You mean copying mannerisms or tones? I mean, I can do it if I know the pony, and as long as I do that afterwards, and not part of the transformation, it's not as bad."

Shifting into the form of Pinkie Pie, he twitched slightly before brightening.
"Hiya Twilight, how's it goin'?"

She was about to wonder what he was trying to do when the pony suddenly shifted their weight, leaning as the changeling did with his body slightly curled to the right. It was something that just screamed to her senses that the pony was not Pinkie.
"You're just pretending. Acting like her."

"Yea, it's easy if you know the pony." 'Pinkie' explained, her tone nothing like the party mare's even as the voice was a perfect replication. "It's not perfect though, and you won't react like they would in the event of a surprise. But it's safer. It's less...complete."

Looking between her notes and the uncomfortable looking pony before her, she couldn't help herself.
"Have you ever..."

The changeling shivered, his mind returning to his earliest memories of the world of magic. Back before he had learned the tricks. Before he'd learned how the body worked, before he'd found his way to the relative safety of Equestria. You never forgot what you became. It never really left you, even after you took off the mask; he still remembered most of the birthdays of the ponies in town.

He remembered Her. Her love, her hope, her belief in the strength that people possessed. The power to survive any trial.

One eye seemed to take on an unnatural blue glow.
"...They are my meaning and my purpose. My love."

The alicorn scooted back. There was something about the glow coming from his eye. It reminded her of Celestia in a way, but in a form that set every nerve to high alert.

"It was the first true mask." he whispered. "The first one where I didn't bother making an imperfection. Because it needed to be perfect; She needed to be real. They decided the town would be removed. By overwhelming force. It wasn't even aimed at me, I was just collateral."
"They marched on that little town, and in the depths of that pit, surrounded by death, I reached towards the stories of home. Power, love, someone who embodied everything I needed at that point. And I found her. And when I was safe, when the battle was over...She called me back. She...knew it wasn't her. She always knew. That she was a shield called by a terrified and desperate soul."

"But that kind of love doesn't care about circumstance. She gave me back to myself. She said that if ever I felt it was needed, that she'd answer time and again. Even if it was just one more chance to protect. To protect me, to protect others, to protect life itself. It was gift enough. It was her calling. What she loved more than anything else."

"B-but that's not, that's wonderful! Even if the um, loss of self is scary, you have an ability that is so powerful you could be any hero from fantasy. Why would you fear that?"

The changeling shifted back to his base form with his face slightly altered to seemingly be wearing a colorful, spiked mask.
"Because not all masks will let you take them off."

The hair on the back of the alicorn's neck stood on end as the changelings head twitched, shaking every few seconds in an unnatural shiver while the eyes of the mask seemed to pierce her soul.

"Her words taught me that some masks have a will of their own, and I'm terrified I'll pick the wrong one."

Next Chapter: Finding your way forward, in the Darkness Estimated time remaining: 7 Minutes