Nightmare In Minequestria: Book 3 of a Mlp/TC Trilogy

Chapter 12: Wall Decor

Twilight

The room was silent with shock and understanding as Bonks held up the fake amulet, looking at everyone meaningfully.
"I don't understand..." Jerome trailed off, but he did understand. We all understood. We just didn't want to believe the fact that Rarity, Adam and Ty were most likely working with Herobrine and Nightmare Notch.
"What do we do?" I asked.
Celestia looked over at me. "About what? The amulet? Adam, Ty and Rarity?"
I looked around the room. "Everything. The amulet, we need to recover as soon as possible. Who knows where it is, or who has it? Or what they could do with it? And we obviously need to be suspicious of Ty, Adam and Rarity."
Celestia tilted her head, obviously thinking. Shining Armor and Cadance shared worried glances. Bonks stared at the fake amulet in her claws. Mitch and Jerome looked unsettled.
"We should go now," Shining declared.
"Go where? And why now?" Bonks asked.
"To question Rarity, Adam, and Ty. If they really are a threat, we'd need to remove it as soon as possible."
"But, they're our friends!" Mitch interjected. "I know," Shining replied. "That's why I said if."
"You, Mitch and Jerome can go and get the three," Celestia said to me. I nodded, and the three of us exited the room, walking down the stone hall lit with colored torches, with doors lined up with dormitories inside. Mitch and Jerome went into doors across the hall from each other, one where Adam slept and one Ty. I noticed Button pacing nervously outside one of the doors as I walked farther down the hall, and approached him.
"Button? What's wrong?" I asked.
"I-I...Something's wrong with Sweetie Belle!" He exclaimed. The poor stallion was trembling.
My eyes widened. "Like what? Is she sick?"
Button shook his head, then paused, then shrugged. "I don't know!"
"Can I see her?"
"Y-yeah...she's inside. She's the only one in the room right now, besides Rainbow Dash, but she's a really heavy sleeper," Button explained and pushed the door open.
Sweetie Belle looked fine from here, laying on her bed.
I illuminated my horn, not worrying about waking Rainbow. (She was a heavy sleeper. I know that for a fact.) The room lit up magenta, and I could get a clearer view of Sweetie Belle now, and gave a small gasp.
Sweetie Belle's eyes were half-open, unfocused, staring at the ceiling. The whites of her eyes were light green, and her irises were a darker green than her normal green eye color.
Alarmed, I glanced at her chest, and felt a wave of relief to see it rising and falling slowly.
"D-do you have any idea what's wrong?" Button asked.
I took a step closer to Sweetie Belle and looked at her eyes.
"I...I think so," I reported, turning to Button slowly. "This is the work of a changeling."
Button's eyes widened. "Changeling?!"
"Yes," I explained. "Changelings disguise themselves as other ponies, and feed off of the love that others have towards the pony they disguised as." I took a step back.
Button frowned, then suddenly understood why I was so tense.
"No-I'm not the changeling! I swear! I've never even seen a changeling before!"
I narrowed my eyes. "Then prove it. Pick up that pillow with your magic," I ordered, glancing at a pillow on a vacant bed.
Button looked confused, but obeyed, and the propeller on his cap started glowing. He lifted the pillow in a pale yellow aura.
I relaxed. "You're fine."
Button sighed with relief and let go of the pillow, it landing on the floor with a thump. "How did you know?"
"Changelings have bright green magic, even when disguised."
His eyes widened. "Sweetie's magic is green."
"No, some ponies have green magic. But not all green magic is changeling magic. Hers is light green, not neon green."
"Ty's magic is neon green."
"Is the aura wavy and sparkly?"
"Yeah."
"That's not changeling magic either," I told him. "It's bright green, it doesn't move or sparkle."
Button nodded hesitantly. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted
as the door swung open and Jerome hobbled in. He was limping, and in the magenta magic light I could see he had a black eye. "We have a problem," he announced. "Ty attacked me."
"What do you mean, 'Attacked?!'" I demanded.
"I mean I woke him up, told him that Celestia wanted to see him, he started to freak out, panicked, beat me up and ran out the door."
Button and I stared at him with our jaws gaping open. "What about Mitch and Adam?" I asked.
"Uh-oh," Jerome said, and we all ran to the room Mitch and Adam were in.
Inside, everyone was awake and alert. Mitch was on the wall, with his wings splayed out behind them, each covered in green goo that stuck and hung him to the wall. Bash and Vinyl were each on one side of him, trying to pull the goo off of him. Octavia was giving them light by illuminating her bowtie lavender, and glanced fearfully around the room, which was cluttered and messed up.
"What happened?" I demanded.
"M-Mitch came in to get Adam, and he just instantly panicked and attacked him!" Octavia exclaimed.
"This stuff isn't coming off," Bash called. Mitch was tugging on his wings. "What is this stuff?!" Vinyl exclaimed.
"Adam shot magic at my wings, and this green goo appeared where he shot..." Mitch replied.
"Ohgodohgodohgodohgod," Button paced in circles.
I stepped closer to Mitch and inspected the green goo. "This is definitely the works of a changeling," I announced. Octavia and Vinyl's eyes widened, while Bash, Jerome and Mitch looked lost.
"A changeling takes the form of someone you know and feeds off love for them," I explained quickly.
"This is bad news bears," Jerome said fearfully.
"Where did Ty go after he attacked you?" I asked him.
"Uhh, out the door and down the hall," Jerome explained.
"And you didn't think to follow him?!"
"No, I totally followed him-after he punched me in the face and pushed me over, twisting my ankle therefore making it hard to run after him," Jerome assured me sarcastically.
"We need to inform Celestia," I told everyone. "Someone should go after Adam and Ty!" Button exclaimed worriedly. "Tavi and I can go," Vinyl offered, and the two ran out the door. "Bash, go wake everyone up and tell them to meet in the training hall," I ordered the melon, who nodded and dashed after the two mares.
"Button, you go stay with Sweetie Belle, we'll have Shining Armor check her out-he's been in that situation before." Button nodded shakily and hurried back to their room.
"Let's get Celestia," I told Jerome, and we started to leave too.
"Oh yeah, that's great, I'll just keep the wall warm for you guys. It's all just working out for everyone today!" Mitch exclaimed.
"We'll have Cadance see what she can do about that...changeling stuff," I assured Mitch.
"Yeah, you know, I woke up today, and I realized that I wanted to be a wall decoration, and so this happened, and now everything's alright, you know?" Mitch explained, unamused.
Jerome snorted, and the two of us quickly went down to Celestia's room, where her, Shining, Cadance and Bonks were waiting.
"We've got trouble!" I exclaimed, and they all instantly got up and followed us.
"Shining-meet with Button and Sweetie Belle in their room- Button will explain everything!" I ordered my older brother. He looked confused at my directions for a second, but ran down the hall to the room.
"Princess Celestia-You and Bonks should go and organize everyone who's gathering in the training hall." The two nodded and instantly obeyed my request, to my surprise, heading off towards the room.
"Cadance-we need you to help Mitch get unstuck from some changeling goo stuff!"
"Right," she said, and we headed back to the room Mitch was in.
What was going on here?