Chapter 12: A New Foe
As Darkhorn approched the Everfree forest, he felt very cold, much colder then he had ever felt before in his entire life. He was wearing his disguise and had put his recently cleaned armor back on. He wished he could have left Fluttershy a note, but he still was not good enough at writing to even attempt it. He was hoping he was wrong, but he wanted to find the disturbance he had felt earlier. It had been bothering him to no end; it did not only feel cold, but also it felt evil. Darkhorn had heard the term used before many times, usually towards his own kind, but this felt different. It felt like there was nothing beating in his chest, just a hollow empty shell. He gulped and began his search for the source of the feeling. He had hoped to do this alone, but Fluttershy's pet bunny Angel had decided to come along. He oddly felt safer with the small mammal. Angel was already regretting coming with the changeling, but for whatever reason he felt compelled to travel with the creature.
They had been looking for a good while. It was getting dark and Darkhorn did not want to continue looking in the pitch black of night. There was a sudden rustling in a tree. Both rabbit and changeling looked in the direction of the sound but saw nothing. Very odd, Darkhorn thought to himself. They both turned around to go home, and yelped at what they saw.
"Boo!"
A frightened Angel jumped into a nearby bush. The alicorn could not believe what he saw. The creature before him was wearing a tattered grey cloak with scattered holes in it; the hood was up so he could not see its face or head. It had no legs, just a loose spine that hovered off the ground. Its body was just ribs, no skin, just off-white bone. Its limb where the most frightening, long thin skeletal arms. At the end of each arm were five long sharp claws, also made of bone. The creature let out a low chuckle. The sound went straight through Darkhorn; it made the empty feeling in his heart ten times bigger. When some of his courage returned Darkhorn went into a pose he thought could possibly be intimidating and asked in a shaky voice,
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
The creature floated around Darkhorn, giving him a once over. When it was in front of him again, it began to speak in a deep, cool but scratchy voice.
"Who I am and what I want is of no consequence to you." It paused. "Changeling."
Darkhorn became slack jawed, how did this creature know he was a changeling? He was still in his disguise. The creature continued,
"Before you ask a stupid question, I can tell just by looking at you, I mean come on, your coloring has no imagination. And besides I could smell you from the other side of the forest." The creature began to circle Darkhorn again. "You see I am just like you changeling, I feed of emotions as well. But unlike you, I don't have the luxury of transformation." The creature lifted itself into the air and outstretched its arms. "But with that; you shall aid me."
Darkhorn defiantly stated, "And why do you think I would ever help you?"
"Why? Oh, my dear changeling. You have no choice in the matter."
Before Darkhorn could do anything, the creature lunged at the changeling and grabbed him by the throat. The creature slammed Darkhorn onto his back, and placed its left claw above his face. Darkhorn suddenly felt like he was being drained; something being taken from him. What was it? Soon he realized what this monster was doing; it must be casting some kind of spell, taking the love he felt for his new life; but more then that it was stealing the emotions he felt for Fluttershy and her friends. In the bushes, a terrified Angel wanted to help the changeling, but knew he would not make a difference in this struggle. He decided the best way to help was to try and get it from the pony town. He hopped away as fast as he could. The creature saw the little white rabbit hop away, but the small creature was of no consequence to its plans. It needed to concentrate on stealing the disgusting emotions from this changeling's heart. While it absorbed the emotions of the changeling, it was also looked at his memories, and living them as if they where its own. This creature had done this to many others before, but he had never experienced such a dramatic change in any creature before, especially in such a short time. It was mildly intriguing to the creature, but it put those thoughts in the back of its mind. It needed to have a ruthless changeling at its command, not a sniveling love-struck alicorn.
Fluttershy was walking back and fourth through her cottage. She was very worried about Darkhorn and Angel. If only he had left a note for her, then she would not have to worry so much. Pinkie had told her earlier that she had a surprise for her, and of course a surprise from Pinkie Pie meant a party. She wanted to go to the party with Darkhorn so they could explain early on, but it seemed she would have to go on ahead without him. Just in case he came back, she wrote a note for him.
Darkhorn,
Head to Twilight's Library for the party.
Fluttershy
She posted the note to her front door and trotted off to the party.
The creature looked at what it had done to the changeling. He was sprawled on his side, skinnier then ever. During the feeding the changeling had reverted to its natural form, which the creature found much more appealing, at least for its purposes. The most notable part of the transformation was instead of the changeling's ice blue eyes; white, empty eyes had replaced them. He was completely devoid of expression. The creature did not enjoy feasting on positive emotions, they tasted too sweet, and they had no taste compared to that of fear. In this case, it was necessary to steal those particular emotions out of the changeling. The creature interlaced its claws together.
"Excellent. Now this is the love-sucking monster I need to grip that pony town in total terror."
Now the changeling was just another hungry monster that would do anything for a meal. A monster that would spread fear; fear that the creature would dine on. The creature let out wicked cackle that once again shook the trees. It enjoyed when a plan worked like it wanted.
Angel had been hopping full speed the whole time; he finally got to Fluttershy's cottage, out of breath. He looked up on her door, and there was a note. He jumped up and snatched it. When he realized he could not read pony writing he threw the note away. He thought to himself where would Fluttershy go at this time of night. Maybe the big tree in the middle of town, she seemed to go there quite often. He sighed and once again began running towards town.
Fluttershy knocked on Twilight's door, and prepared herself for the big yell of surprise that usually came with one of Pinkie's parties, but it was Spike who opened the door.
"Oh, hi Fluttershy."
"Hello. Spike?" She said, with some uncertainty.
The baby dragon chuckled, "Everypony's already here Fluttershy, we're all dieing to know what the news is about."
"Oh, you don't know?" She raised one brow.
"Nope, Rarity and Pinkie just told everypony to come. She said that you and Darkhorn had some news you wanted to share."
He began to stare at her like a little school-colt who wanted a treat.
Fluttershy had to giggle at the little dragon, "Ok Spike, is Darkhorn here?"
Spike looked confused, "He's not with you? Weird, I thought you two would come together."
"So did I." she said this to herself more then to him. She went inside to mingle with her friends.
Meanwhile, just outside the Everfree forest, two figures exited the tree line and began making their way towards Ponyville. Another storm was about to hit the town, a storm of fear.
About thirty minuets into the party, everypony present was beginning to get restless. Rainbow Dash was flying back and forth; Applejack was balancing a cup on her nose; Twilight was pulling books off the shelves and putting them back; Pinkie was doing a stand-in-place shuffle-walk; Rarity was watching Spike sleep. Fluttershy was looking out the window; it looked like it was going to rain again; she exhaled a loud sigh. Rainbow Dash could no longer stand it, she had to do something other then waiting. She let out a loud cry of frustration that drew all eyes toward her.
"Sorry everypony. It's just this waiting for Darkhorn is killing me. I mean its not like we don't already know why we are here. Right? Am I wrong?"
The rainbow-haired pegasus looked around at all everypony in the room. When it seemed like nopony was going to give an answer, she just let out another frustrated harrumph. Fluttershy began looking out the window again. About ten minuets later, Rainbow began repeatedly hitting her head on a bookshelf. Applejack was the first to comment,
"Now hold on there, sugar cube. Everypony here is anxious about this here shindig. But you don't need to go around causin' a ruckus, messing up Twilight's nice bookshelves."
Twilight came over to her and said with a bit of a chuckle, "Actually A.J., I was going to reorganize that bookshelf later anyway, so Rainbow is actually doing me a favor."
The orange pony looked at her purple friend and let out a harrumph of her own, then walked back to her punch cup. Rainbow looked at Twilight and tried her best to smile, but she was too annoyed at the situation to even start. Another five minuets passed, and this time Dash could not contain her frustration, she flew up to Fluttershy; who was still looking out the window, it had began to drizzle. The blue pegasus grabbed the yellow one, and yelled in her face,
"Ok Fluttershy, I've had enough of this waiting, tell us what you want to tell us, or by Equestria, I will leave right now!"
The timid pegasus was dumbfounded, so was everypony present. Rarity decided to stand up for her friend.
"Rainbow Dash! There is no reason for such an outburst! You need to apologize to Fluttershy right now! She brought us all here to share some wonderful news, and you feel the need to yell at her because you are bored! Not very loyal if you ask me." The unicorn huffed away.
"Woof." This was Spike. He liked seeing Rarity defend her friend with such valiant grace.
Rainbow sighed, she knew Rarity was right, "I'm sorry Fluttershy, it's just this waiting is slowly driving me loco in the coco."
This pricked up Pinkie Pie's ears, "Hey, that's my thing!"
Everypony laughed at Pinkie's outburst. After the laughter subsided, Fluttershy sighed, now was as good a time as any to tell everypony the secret.
"Alright, girls."
"Eh-hem!"
"And Spike. Could we all sit down? I have a story for you all."
"Finally."
All the mares sat in a semi-circle around Fluttershy; Spike sat in front of Twilight. The yellow pegasus began to tell her story. She started with the first time she met Darkhorn. She went into great detail about how she felt comfortable around him, as if she had met him before. Then she went over the fight with the wolf again, this part was familiar, as they had heard it all before. The talk of his bravery during the fight, and his kindness after the fact affected all present, even Rainbow Dash, who had to admit the waiting was worth this story. Then she talked about him helping her out with the honey harvest, and all the chores around the cottage. She slowed down her speech when she began to talk about how she asked him to help look for the changeling that attacked her.
"You asked him to help look for the monster who attacked you? Why would you do that?" Rainbow interrupted.
"Please Rainbow, let me finish." Fluttershy said this louder then she wanted, but it quieted the other pegasus down, so she continued,
"We looked in the forest for a long while, until I found the changeling's armor. I had recognized it from the attack. I started to get more and more worried at the poor thing. It got to a point where I couldn't control myself and I started to cry. He said he could no longer stand it, he didn't want me to cry at his expense."
Everypony was confused. Twilight was the first to ask,
"What did he mean at his expense?"
Fluttershy continued with caution in her voice, "Well, he showed me that…"
Suddenly there was a quiet knock at the door. Spike got up and answered it; it was a very tired and wet Angel. He fell on his face. Fluttershy saw and immediately went to attend to her little pet.
"Angel! Are you ok? What happened? Where is Darkhorn?"
A cold singsong voice echoed from outside, "He's out here."
The six mares ran outside in the light rain and saw a frightening cloaked figure standing next to a snarling changeling. Fluttershy's eyes opened wide in terror.
"Darkhorn?"
