You're not fooling anyone, paper, I know you're alive and evil
Applejack 18 is Chrysalis' top informer and seduction specialist (after herself, of course). Originally sent to impersonate Princess Cadence and seduce Shining Armor, her repeated failures left her bored and feeling sorry for the Prince. She now receives a respectable dose of appreciation for her efforts to stem the endless tide of paperwork in the Crystal Empire.
Story[]
At the start[]
18 was Chrysalis's top infiltration expert. As such, she specialized in getting in, getting a feel for the area, finding weak points in their guard lineup, potential allies and turncoats, blackmail material, anything she could use to bring a kingdom low. So, when Chrysalis gave her the mission of going after the prince of the Crystal Empire, seducing him and stealing his 'love' to power their hive enough to claim Canterlot, she was not exactly thrilled. Still, loyal as she was, she went off and 'infiltrated' the Empire....By walking through the front door, completely undisguised.
To her surprise, she was not accosted in any fashion despite being, well, a changeling. She even got a free cheese danish. Still, that confusing number aside, she had a mission. A mission she struck out to accomplish with all the gusto she would normally use planting bombs or the like, and disguised herself as Cadence and tried to gain that love.
On the mission[]
Needless to say, it never worked. At all. She might as well have been offering the ebola virus for all the chances she had, and she was none too happy she had to try it at all. Still, Chrysalis ordered her to return again and again, despite her very vocal protests, and so she did. Failure after failure, humiliation after humiliation, she kept trying. Strangely, Shining Armor grew to be slightly less... 'forceful' with making her exit as time grew on. And she found that, despite her obviously ill intent, the Crystal Empire was nothing but kind to her. She thought it strange, but never questioned it.
As Shining Armor took a more active role in leading his Empire, she found he had less and less energy to deal with her on a more regular basis. He would often be tired, weary, fall asleep at random times and have trouble staying awake. He was running himself to exhaustion, and she could only stare and watch, and occasionally make another failed attempt.
Shifting roles[]
The biggest change to their relationship happened completely on a whim. One night, while trying to make another attempt that would surely end in failure, she walked into his office to find him totally passed out, unable to stay awake at all. This was not a surprise, but what she did find surprising was the plate of cookies he had left out... specifically for her, with a little note attached. He had made other gestures of kindness to her before, but it seemed this act was the final straw upon the pile. Grumbling “Stupid nice pony” under her breath, she picked up one of the forms, and got to work.
Slowly, over time, she took on more and more of the workload. Guard positions that needed to be reset after Cadence had them doing inane tasks like defending a vase at the end of the hall, re-ordering armor that was actually useful and not 'pretty', working on readjusting the funding for schools, hospitals, pretty much everything. She, of course, told herself this was all just to get close to Shining Armor, to learn the exact strengths and weaknesses of the Empire and compile all of that data to be used in an invasion, to show up Cadence... she told herself a lot of things. Eventually, she was the only one who believed them.
Tournament Arc[]
During the tournament arc, both Cadence and Shining Armor had, completely unknown to the other, run off to compete to gain some funding for the hospital that Cadence had, on a whim, spent on beauty products. This, unfortunately, meant that neither of them realized they were leaving the Empire completely unmanned. Except... for 18. In a strange show of faith, to her at least, the guards asked if she could run things for the few hours they were out. Stunned they would want her, of all creatures, to do so, and would also allow her to walk around undisguised, she agreed, and the Empire ran just as smoothly, if not better, than it ever had. The acts of appreciation and acceptance that the Empire showed her had started to leave it's mark, and it was a deep mark indeed. Eventually, when it seemed that 42 was going to reassign her to Canterlot, she admitted that having to leave would destroy her. She loved that city, she loved being accepted, she loved being free. She couldn't go back. Reluctantly, 42 let her stay.
Hearts and Hooves day[]
During Hearts and Hooves day, she reveled in the joy of being able to walk around, completely undisguised and in the open, and feel accepted by all of the Empire. The guards had given her free reign of all of the Crystal Castle, Shining Armor had been showing her more caring and attention than she had felt in her entire life, and everything was going just... perfect...
Robot Invasion![]
When the robots invaded, she was missing for most of the action. Why was revealed when Chrysalis began her plot to gain the Crystal Heart's power. She found competition on the way. 18 had beaten her to the door leading to the Heart, but despite her best efforts could not make it in. Tearfully, 18 admitted that she knew full well she might die from the act, but that she had come to realize she couldn't live without the Empire, and would rather die than let it be destroyed. Annoyed that her 'sane' soldier had fallen so far, Chrysalis knocked her unconscious, and made her way to the heart. 18 showed up later to chew her out for slamming her head into the wall, and was present when the Heart was restored.
Gala[]
She was one of the guests with Shining Armor at the Gala, joined in several of the group dances, including getting her own with Shining Armor, and was one of those captured by the Marchmalley ball.
Chitania Rises![]
...”WHAT THE HELL DID I MISS!?”
Presently[]
Presently, she is still in the Crystal Empire and practically running the entire operation solo by this point. Shiny is appreciative, and for her... that's enough.
Thread 257[]
- [OOCO] Much to Shining Armor's dismay, Chrysalis starts musing about how changelings can "do a lot of funky things with minds" that she never went into. For example, she could implant false memories to make a pony think she's their mother or switch her and Celestia in said pony's memories "so they’d love and obey me as much as her!" Before she can bring up another example, Changeling 18 shows up and *ZOTZ* her, erasing her train of thought. Instead, she talks about how sexy Shining is before wondering what she was doing. Shining thanks Eighteen and she says she'll one day stop Chrysalis from being attracted to him. Chrysalis declares that'll never happen, saying she'll "fuck this horse someday", before asking them why she's here. The three share a laugh, but Chrysalis really wants to know what she was doing.
Thread 261[]
- Shining Armor asks Spitfire and Changeling 18 if they’re closer now. They confirm they are and that it took a super big thing to do. He wants them to recreate it.
- Spitfire claims changing diapers isn’t hard since she’s done it for her cousin and Changeling 42 claims to have trained in five hundred diaper changing styles in preparation for this. Changeling 18 points out that they have magic, which makes diaper changing super easy and instant. The two mares just call her a cheater.
- Once Cadence leads Shining away after telling Sunburst to look after Two and Flurry Heart, Changeling 18, Spitfire, Chrysalis, and Changeling 42 follow close by.
- Shining Armor asks Cadence what she, Chrysalis, Spitfire, Changeling 18 and Changeling 42 wanted to talk to him about. Cadence starts off by telling him how they bonded during the time they couldn’t remember him, saying that they all wanted to know where things were going between themselves and that they were a little scared (her especially). But she realized they can’t keep stagnating and, with a smile, admits that it’s ironic how they all understood love more than she did and that it’s time to take things further. With that said, she reaches out and holds his hoof before declaring that they should all get married. Shining gladly accepts.
- Chrysalis, Cadence, Spitfire, Changeling 42, and 18 are celebrating the fact that they’re all getting married since Shining Armor accepted the proposal. However, he tells them they absolutely cannot tell anyone until Twilight comes out of her lab. The girls are confused, except Chrysalis, which prompts Shining to explain that he didn’t tell Twilight about his first wedding until the day before it happened because of reasons he’s long since gotten over. Chrysalis shuffles her feet at this statement, but he continues by saying Twilight’s never forgiven him for this and sends him notes every anniversary., so he wants to tell her first. Cadence agrees, to the disappointment of the other mares, and Chrysalis quickly follows her lead. With that, any dissent disappears and they all get excited over the fact that “it’s finally happening”. Until Sombra appears and asks what “it” is, which prompts them all to clam up. A little irked, he leaves and they go back to being giddy.
Relationships[]
Trivia[]
- Unlike most infiltrators, 18 was not seduction based. Instead, she mostly relied on her mind-control, which is why she originally entered the Crystal Empire undisguised.
- In an earlier thread, after she had begun taking on the role of assiting with the paperwork, she revealed that unlike some of the other Changelings, such as 42 or 2, she did not wear a wig that resemebled Applejack's hair. She wore one that looked like Cadence's.
- She goes from sassy to ranty at the drop of a hat.
- In a much later thread, she admitted she had tried moving on from Shining Armor, realizing she could never be with him in that way, but couldn't.
- Her desk is bigger than Cadence's.
- Despite not being a princess, she was present for most of the 'princess meetings' recurring stories, and often proved more useful than Cadence.
- Applejack once offered her a job, she turned it down.
- Like 56 or 2, she too has gotten the 'invincibility bump' from the massive amounts of love she's passively been recieving, as she has not been present in any combat scenarios, this has rarely come up.
- She was the first one to suffer from "Love overdose", which causes a massive nosebleed when it happens, despite the fact this running gag is more associated with 42 currently.
- She got her own, very large, personal mini-arc from threads 45-46. If you want to see it in it's entirety, go here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vlyt4UA8Q2LrYs-r1zuAhtJohfxFJLRXtSKVuhtD9_8
