Sorry guys, that there was no chapter yesterday. I answered all my PMs and responded to all the reviews and then a friend called me over to their house. Hope you all understand and aren't too sore that I missed a day. Anyway, enjoy chapter thirty-six!

-TammoWoodsorel

A Great Change: Chapter Thirty Six-Sticky Situation

By: TammoWoodsorel

Dragonshy woke up and took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust before he noticed the mare that was holding on to him in her sleep. The last thing that Dragonshy wanted to do was wake her up. She had looked so sad last night when he had told her that it felt like he was just meeting her. Dragonshy hated making anypony sad, so he just laid there and waited for her to wake up on her own.

Eventually, she did wake up and she said to him very softly, "Good morning, Draco."

She ended her greeting with a kiss on the nose. Dragonshy blushed and jumped out of bed.

He turned and saw that Knight Mare was a little surprised by the reaction so he said, "Oh... I um... was just going to go see if Renegade and Terror Tooth were awake yet. We should get going to Ponyville as soon as we can."

Knight Mare accepted the excuse and responded as she changed into her disguise, "Oh, well then I will meet you three at the train station."

She teleported from the room without another word. Dragonshy sighed in relief that she left without any argument. It's not that he didn't like her. Dragonshy actually felt very attracted to her. But he felt so guilty about Rainbowdash and Fluttershy that he was willing to refuse any advance from anypony.

Dragonshy left the room and began to head down the hallway to the rooms that had been designated to Renegade and Terror Tooth. Dragonshy knocked on Terror Tooth's door and there was no answer.

He knocked on Renegade's door and hear a response almost immediately, "I'll be right there!"

After a moment or two, Renegade was standing before Dragonshy, in his disguise, and he said, "Oh, Commander... Hey there."

Dragonshy could feel the immensity of the awkwardness that had developed with such few words.

He figured that he should be polite, "Good morning, Renegade. I hope you..."

He was cut off by Renegade bursting into laughter.

Dragonshy managed an awkward chuckle and asked, "Did I say something funny?"

Renegade wiped a tear from his eye as his laughing subsided and said, "No, sir. It's just so weird to see you like this."

Dragonshy was intrigued by this statement and asked, "How would you expect me to act?"

Renegade's response came after a couple of chuckles, "Well you're my commanding officer. If you wanted me to wake up, then you would have barged in and yelled at me until I stood in front of you at attention. And then there was the 'good morning' thing," he paused as he laughed a little more and then continued, "I'm not going to lie to you. When you were the Commander, you were known for being harsh and strict. I think that I might be the first changeling to hear you say good morning."

Dragonshy was slightly taken aback by this. He had wanted to know a little bit more about himself before he had lost his memory, but he never expected that he was a stern military commander. He was starting to question whether or not he actually wanted his memory back.

Renegade slapped Dragonshy on the back and said, "He was cruel and demanding, but I loved the old Commander Draco like a father. You're different now, not that different is necessarily bad. There are a few things that you've got now that I wish you had when you were a commander. But I can't help but hope that we find some way of getting your memory back. I want the old, loyal, dependable, strong, intelligent, quizzical Changeling that i knew back then. By the way, what did you wake me up for?"

Dragonshy blinked, finally remembering why he had been there in the first place, and said, "Oh, Knight Mare is waiting for us at the train station right now. We just need to get Terror Tooth and we'll be on our way to Ponyville."

Renegade said, Well then let's go get him."

Dragonshy was confused and stated, "Renegade, his room is this way."

Renegade gave a short laugh and said, "You're not going to find him in his room, sir. Whenever Terror Tooth spends the night somewhere that has the right drinks, your best bet is to check the bar and look for a passed out pegasus with a mane that's way too long."

The two made their way to the bar and, sure enough, Terror Tooth was passed out on top of the counter.

The bartender took notice of them and said, "We don't usually let ponies sleep on this here counter. But, I figure he earned the right."

Renegade began to walk over as he asked, "Oh yeah? How'd he do that?"

The bartender smiled and said, "Well, not only did he drain the whole dang barrel of club soda, but he also dun went and started spoutin' poetry. Or, at least that's what he dun called it. I thought it was a hoot. Well, the topics were always killin' this or shreddin' that. He was so descriptive with dem scenes that I could almost see it in front of me. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that he actually dun went and did this stuff."

Renegade slapped his friend on the back and shook him awake as he said, "Come on man, you'd better wake up or the Commander will have your hide."

Instantly, Terror Tooth woke up and jumped to attention from the stool. Dragonshy just stared at him for a moment as Terror Tooth remembered that Dragonshy didn't know what was going on.

He turned to talk to Renegade, but the bartender said, "Well I'll be a timber wolf's uncle, I hadn't realized that ya'll was military. drinks is suppose to be on the house to ya."

Renegade just waved the comment off and said, "Don't worry about it. We would have insisted anyway."

The bartender said as he walked toward the back door that was behind the counter, "Well that's mighty kind of ya, partner. I'd better go and check on the boys out back."

After he left, Terror Tooth looked at a smiling Renegade and said, "I didn't..."

Renegade playfully ruffled his mane and said, "You did, my friend."

Terror Tooth began to pout as the three of them left the tavern, "I hate poetry, Why do I always gotta do poetry when I'm drunk when I can't stand the stuff when I'm sober? Just doesn't make sense if ya ask me."

Renegade smiled and said teasingly, "Well that certainly is strange. I mean, it's almost like you have a hidden intelligence or something."

Terror Tooth just stayed silent. He didn't like sounding smart. Terror Tooth was a master strategist. He always did his best to appear dim-witted, so that he always had the advantage in a fight. He knew that being underestimated was one of the best advantages that a pony could have. However, when he gets drunk, he can't control himself and he starts acting as smart as he is. He didn't need to hide it in front of Renegade or Draco, since they already knew that he was a closet egg-head.

They got to the train station after a short walk. Appaloosa was such a small village that nothing was really that far away. When they found Knight Mare, she was arguing with a train conductor. When she noticed them, she ended her conversation and walked over to them.

Obviously annoyed, she said, "Well there are no trains leaving the station right now. Apparently there have been some weird stuff happening lately. Tracks are coming to life and acting as snakes, train engines are overloading and speeding down the tracks uncontrollably, and there are some weird weather conditions in Ponyville that everypony is too scared to go anywhere near."

Dragonshy asked, "Well then how do we get to Ponyville?"

Knight Mare looked at him and said, "Well, if we triple-time it, we can make it there by sundown. You guys up for it?"

Terror Tooth knew that it was a rhetorical question, but he objected anyway, "Well, I've got dis terrible hangover 'n..."

Knight Mare interrupted him, "Good, then let's get a move on."

Without another word, she resumed her quick teleports. Dragonshy had to fly as fast as he could in order to keep up with her. He was happy to finally be headed back to Ponyville after being imprisoned for so long.

Viñyl was all sticky and Captain Fear was very upset about it.

He started to reprimand her, "I told you that you shouldn't have been fooling around with those three. We needed to stay on the move."

Viñyl just groaned and said, "You still on that? I don't see what the big deal is. So I got a lil' sticky, it's yo fault that they all dumped their load on me."

Captain Fear was furious about the accusation and said, "How is it my fault."

She said with a smile, "This code red is fo' you, not me."

Captain Fear responded quickly, "That's why I said that we should keep moving, not stop and give in to your desires. I don't know how you even like the taste of that stuff... Are you licking it off your fur?!"

Viñyl had indeed been licking her fore leg but stopped to answer, "What? Don't want it goin' ta waste. They put a lot of effort into this."

Captain Fear was convinced that he would have vomited if he had control of the body, but he said, "Stop licking it! I can taste it too and it's disgusting! And what do you mean 'put in a lot of effort' they just stood there and you did all the work."

Viñyl enjoyed causing Captain Fear anguish, so she continued to lick herself clean as she said, "How can ya not like it. I just can't get enough of it."

Captain Fear sighed and said, "It's not so much how it tastes. It's the thing that it comes from that grosses me out."

Viñyl asked, "Why?"

Captain Fear responded as if she should already know, "It's a cloud! And a cotton candy cloud at that. That's just not natural. I'm sure that whatever magic is making those clouds rain chocolate milk is in the chocolate milk and you're drinking it."

Viñyl just shrugged, kept on licking the chocolate milk off her fur and said, "Well chocolate is chocolate no matter where it comes from. 'N those three did put in effort. All I did was hold the cloud there with my magic, their the ones that had ta try 'n carry the 'eavy buckets full of chocolate milk. It's no wonder why they dropped it on me by mistake."

Captain Fear tried to control his anger and chose his next words carefully, "Alright well, there are plenty of cotton candy clouds out and about. Just fill the buckets as we pass. If we stop, we'll get the headache again. Are you even worried about why there are cotton candy clouds raining chocolate milk?"

Viñyl responded as if it had been a silly question, "Na', why would I? Life gives ya chocolate milk, ya drink it. Ya don't ask questions."

They continued on in silence and, with the help of her three stallions, she was eventually all clean. Captain Fear hated the feeling of getting licked clean by her servants, but bit his tongue. He decided that he was no longer going to give her the satisfaction of knowing he was in pain.

Viñyl giggled and said, "Ya don't have ta say nothin'. I can hear yo thoughts 'n get all the satisfaction I need."

Captain Fear was about to say something in response but stopped when he and Viñyl noticed something coming towards them from far away. It did not take long for the incoming objects to meet up with the four ponies.

Knight Mare stopped when she made it to them, as did everypony else, and Dragonshy stepped forward to ask, "Viñyl? Is that you?"

Viñyl began to say, "Dragon! I'm so glad ta..."

She fell to the floor, mid-sentence.

Dragonshy looked up at the stallions that had been standing behind her and asked, "What's going on? What's wrong with her?"

Hugo looked at Viñyl to get her approval. She nodded to him and he told Dragonshy and his companions everything that he knew about what was going on with Viñyl.

When he finished, Knight Mare stepped forward and said, "I have an idea..."

He horn glowed and she shot a bolt of magic at Viñyl. When it hit her, Viñyl's aura came to life. Knight Mare instantly saw what she was looking for. There was a beam of energy coming off of her aura and leading to the Changeling Capital. Knight Mare charged her horn again and sliced at the beam. It broke and disappeared. Then, Knight Mare connected Viñyl's aura to her own. Viñyl could feel the head ache disappear as soon as Knight Mare had done this.

Knight Mare, looking very pleased to have figured out a solution, said, "Well that worked. The Queen was fluxing her beam of energy in order to make the code red alert. She sends in a huge amount of energy and then a little. That's what causes the headache. All I had to do was cut you off from her energy and connect you to mine, which I am getting from Draco."

Viñyl began to ask, "Who's Dr..."

Before she could finish, all of them collapsed at once. Knight Mare, Renegade, Terror Tooth, Dragonshy, and Viñyl were all on the floor. They were not there because of pain necessarily. They did not have the energy to stand.

Dragonshy could barely get out, "What's happening now?"

Knight Mare answered slowly so that she could say all she wanted, "This is deterioration. The energy source that you had is failing. Something must have happened."

At this Dragonshy became worried. He was not worried about his own safety. He was worried that something was happening to Fluttershy and Rainbowdash. Something was making them lose their connection with their elements of harmony. Dragonshy laid there and prayed to Celestia that it was not death that broke the connection.