And moving on

[zervziel]

With the aid of Primeval's newly glowing eyes designating who was who as she followed Riptide, the going was much easier. What changelings that hadn't attacked her had slowly been knocked out of the fight between Primeval's enhanced attacks, the Torchwhoof ponies and whatever it was Sharp Wit was doing.

So it was remarkably easy to get closer to Sharp Wit as he wrestled with the changeling Riptide recognized as the one that had shot her. As she approached them, the changeling launched the inspector off himself. The move turned out to be costly as the weapon they had been wrestling over tumbled to the ground, sliding away from them.

As both pegasus and changeling launched themselves towards it, Riptide swept the weapon off the ground. The weapon out both of their reaches, the two fighters resumed their battled weaponless as the kelpie stood to the side. Upon inspecting the device it was obvious even to her eyes the weapon was damaged as the elaborate striking mechanism on the side had snapped off sometime in the fight. Probably when it fell to the stone street.

Curious, though wary of the weapon's barrel, the kelpie wrapped her tentacle around the tiny lever and squeezed. Nothing. Apparently that tiny part breaking off was enough to render the weapon useless. Shame that. Riptide had hoped she could have turned it against the changeling in return for shooting her in the tentacle earlier.

Eventually she tossed the weapon in the vague direction of it's owner, unknowingly beaning the pony Black Ops in the back of the head.

Favoring her wounded wing and tentacle, Riptide sat down heavily to watch Sharp Wit and the changeling fight. She could intervene, but she felt she'd be interrupting. Plus the Inspector's stunt of getting all the changelings to transform was still fresh in her mind. Idly she wondered if either of the combats would give her a turn with their opponent.

Yes, it was a flintlock. I've always wondered why it's been assumed that ponies would have semi-automatic firearms. Having firearms is enough of a stretch, having multi-shot semi-auto weapons is bordering on preposterous

Hungry for Something

[anarchyarcher]

 The swordgryphon shrugged, opening a menu but not really reading it as she looked through the different options. 

"I'll have some juice... if you have it...any kind 'll do..." She sighed, setting the menu down and resting her head on the table, not looking too good. 
 

Movin' on up

[sharpwit]

Sharp roared in triumph as he was able to take down multiple changelings in succession as he soared ever closer to the changeling shooter, relishing every blow he landed on his dopplegangers. Finally, years of self-loathing can finally have some use! he grinned to himself as he kicked a changeling minion square in the jaw.
Meanwhile, the shooter was having an extremely difficult time differentiating friend from foe. Between Sharp's already hard-to-track flying patterns and the seemingly endless amounts of his brethren that had taken on the grey pegasus' form, the changeling had no choice but to cling onto his weapon and point it threateningly at anything that got too close.
Sharp saw his opportunity and zeroed in on the shooter, pumping his wings harder than he had ever before. The changeling only had enough time to hold out his gun in front of him before the grey pegasus hit him with the force of a train.
The changeling shooter gained his bearings fairly quickly and quickly began trying to force Sharp Wit off, shaking the gun and attempting to stab the stallion with his horn. It was only when the changeling shot a non-lethal blast of green energy, however, that the shooter managed to get Sharp off of him- unintentionally sending the gun falling down to the earth.
The changeling and Sharp looked at each other for a split second before the insect-like creature dove to retrieve his weapon. Sharp, realizing what had happened, quickly shot down to beat him to it.

Shedding a little light on the subject

[multaekappae]

 "... now it's getting really hard to tell who's who, even for me. Do you have any ideas on how to get the changelings to drop Sharp Wit's form?" the kelpie [ref: Riptide] grumbled.
[beginning query of possible detransmogrification triggers]

Primeval made and held eye contact for a moment, though there was barely a twitch in her already economical routine.
[querying neurogenic triggers, chemical agents, gene-sequence, and psycho-morphic inhibition fields]

The kelpie did notice the cyborg twitch each time one of Sharp's doppelgangers cried out in pain using his voice.
[posit: less effort may be required to render Sharp Wit singular]
[acknowledged]

The proto pony turned to face Riptide during a lull in the fight, "I believe I have an idea, one moment."
[re-aligning psionic amplifier for psychogenetic lumination]
[posit: that is not a real word, you just made that up]
[irrelevant]

Riptide swept the remaining changelings away when the cyborg suddenly stopped moving and closed her eyes. It was not her imagination, the little cretins really were trying to stay out of her way... and that discovery left a nagging doubt in the back of her mind.

The kelpie was about to ask what was going on when Primeval opened her eyes again, a bright lavender light suffused them, seeming to flicker away, and then a moment later one of the gray changelings was limned in brilliant lavender light.

"I believe this will provide sufficient differentiation." The proto pony commented.

Exasperation in battle

[zervziel]

"HEY BUG BRAINS!!" Sharp Wit roared in a mocking tone. "BET YOU CAN'T COPY ME!"

Riptide tried to look toward the pegasus but stopped as all the changelings in the nearby vicinity transformed into the Inspector.

"And now he's made it to where he's the only one who can fight effectively." The kelpie thought with a sneer, sinking her teeth even further in to a changeling's throat. Enraged by the death of one of his comrades,one of the changelings disguised as Sharp Wit smashed his front hooves into her wounded wing forcing her to drop the changeling. The warrior paid for his attack however as electricity arced over his twitching form. Disguise gone, he stumbled back only to have Riptide's tail smash into his chest, collapsing it. Scanning around the battlefield it appeared she had finally taken care of the group that had exclusively come after her.

Resolving to...talk to Sharp Wit if he survived, the kelpie decided she was going to continue to rip apart anything Sharp Wit-like in form foolish enough to come close.

Surprisingly there turned out to be a lot less takers than Riptide anticipated which was very odd considering the ferocity of that first group's assault. Maybe it was the several dozen corpses of their hive mates surrounding her or maybe it was the fact she now resembled a pony/sea urchin hybrid from the amount of spines radiating out from her.

Spines rattling as she moved, Riptide trotted towards Primeval, watching as the protopony fought almost....mechanically. No more movement than necessary, seemingly minimum effort and what effort was made was used to its full potential. What surprised Riptide the most was Primeval seemed to disregard her ability to blast things from afar and instead chose to fight in close quarters utilizing her armor's abilities.

Ducking one screaming changeling as he flew past from a blow from the armored pony's hooves, Riptide reached a hoof forward to tap her on the shoulder only to rear back to avoid a blow from the startled Primeval.

Smiling a bit sheepishly, Riptide apologized. "Sorry, about scaring you, but I need to ask you something. That idiot thought it was a good idea to taunt them into assuming his form and now it's getting really hard to tell who's who, even for me. Do you have any ideas on how to get the changelings to drop Sharp Wit's form?"

Riptide waited for Primeval's response, occasionally stopping to fend off changelings before they could interrupt.