Illuminating Aegis: Tales of the Changeling King

Phillip would have let out a groan if it was possible. Wherever he was though, it didn't give him any sort of physical body to be worried about. He could have been floating in this mass-less energy-like state for centuries and for some odd reason... he couldn't have possibly cared...

Sure, if he focused enough he was able to make a swirling mass similar to a hand appear so fortunately with concentration he could be 'real' in a sense. Though he still couldn't give himself a true form here...

Phillip shifted his attention around until he noticed something in the formless ocean that he floated in. "Wait... what... Another being! SOCIAL INTERACTION!" He thought to himself as he tried to will himself over to the new entity.

As if the area was reacting to his thoughts he quickly found himself floating over to this new presence that seemed to look directly at him. It was a tad strange as he began to make the figure out clearer. It was a pony, not quite of the four-legged variety, more so of the furry community variety he had come to know due to his long years of scanning the internet and finding promising bits of research that could help his friends. The pony-creature stood about the same height as him while still having quite the emotive face for an equine.

"Who might you be?" The... stallion... asked.

Phillip tried as much as he could to speak, not having a physical body kinda made that more than a little difficult though, he wanted to explain to the strange unicorn-horse-man-thing that he was supposed to be with his friends at a gaming convention but no matter how hard he tried the pure energy form that he seemed to be just refused to speak so he simply floated down a little with a feeling of frustration.

"Hmm... such frustration, can you not speak?" The dark grey stallion asked rhetorically before stroking his long beard. "To shine so brightly within The Force while still being alive... not an easy feat nowadays..."

At the mention of one of his particularly favorite pieces of sci-fi lore Phillip's attention turned immediately to the unicorn stallion, curiosity overriding his earlier frustration. The stallion let out a small chuckle. "Such a quick emotional change, may I perhaps be viewing the first force-sensitive changeling in history?" As the feeling shifted to confusion the stallion let out another chuckle. "It may be best if this old spirit helped to refine your control of the force... you can sense it quite well, now you must learn the control aspect, perhaps when you know control you shall be able to speak and understand yourself within the Force."

With that little interaction the stallion, who introduced himself properly as Starswirl the Bearded, began helping Phillip understand and control the force within himself. Through trial and error, and a monumental amount of effort, Phillip finally had a humanoid shape to work with in the vast expanse that Starswirl had explained was The Force.

It was also no small amount of relief that Phillip received when he finally managed to get his voice back. "Starswirl... You spoke about a creature called a Changeling... what exactly is that?" He asked as he sat across from the venerable unicorn.

The Unicorn smiled at the inquisitive force conscious. "Do forgive me youngling... I had been under the impression that you were one because you were trying to communicate with emotion. I would be happy to explain; Changelings themselves are a race similar to ponies like me... but they are almost entirely a physical manifestation of force entities. Many of them haven't been able to be detected by the force simply because of how well they blend in with it on an unconscious level, as such it has been debatable whether they've ever had force sensitive members of their species."

"I see... It would certainly be interesting to be a changeling then..."

"It would definitely be nice to speak with an intelligent changeling... the last time I had encountered one he was of the royal caste and was able to drain anyone he came across of the force... leaving them a withered husk of what they used to be." Starswirl explained with slight melancholy, "If you do turn out to be a changeling I would like to request that you at least attempt peace with the rulers of Equestria..."

"And who are they?" Phillip asked.

"Two beings much like yourself... They've come to be known in this world as Luna and Celestia, they'll understand your plight and you can help usher in a coexistence of peace between the ponies and changelings..."

"If I happen to be a changeling..." Phillip added.

"Of course, of course... IF you happen to be a changeling." Starswirl amended before stroking his beard. "But it is entirely possible... considering the more you seem to think about them the more your astral form is starting to resemble them."

Phillip quickly looked down in surprise, noticing that his once-ethereal form had begun to solidify. He could feel his skin, but on top of that he started noticing armor that resembled an ant's or beetle's chitin, his breathing was actually another new feature he noticed as he looked at his swiftly changing form.

"You know, despite not being naturally born a changeling, you're taking this surprisingly well..." Starswirl observed.

"Well... A long time ago I came to grips with the quote 'go with the flow'... I took it as 'you might as well deal with what you have'. Its been working for me so far so I just work with what I get." Phillip replied as he started to stand. "Humans are actually surprisingly adaptable like that..."

"Yes, Celestia and Luna proved similar when they changed... Both are such kind girls, I do hope you get the chance to meet them." Starswirl replied.

"And the looks on their faces when I tell them that I had some personal training under their mentor... that ought to be funny."

"Quite right... well, it seems that you had better go, I get the feeling that you are to be roused from your slumber by your new race."

Phillip found the sea fading away as his body seemed to flex into a semi-fetal position. He was still floating, so that wasn't anything too different. The more he felt his new ears twitch, a feeling he was slowly getting used to as his mind was rationalizing all of the crazy stuff that was going down, the more he could hear the sounds of people approaching while deep in somewhat muffled conversation.

|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|

A humanoid pony swiftly made her way down towards where the food stores for her subjects were held, her generous curves only moved a little as she picked up her pace, a confused frown threatened to mar her otherwise fairly beautiful face. She slowed only as she got within viewing distance of the chamber where her changeling drones kept the creatures that they stored for harvesting love from. One particular creature had been an oddity ever since it arrived in their storage so it wasn't hard to point out the pod as several harvesters came up to her and started grovelling and pleading for their lives. She let out a small sigh as she thought back to how her mother used to treat her drones, it wasn't something she truly wanted to revisit.

But this damned creature was so infuriating, first it refused so adamantly to provide love despite being in one of their suspension dreams and now one of the workers had reported noticing it change... The damn thing wasn't a changeling! It certainly wasn't when her scouts had brought it in, unconscious and vulnerable, so how could it have possibly changed?

Queen Patina's serpentine tail swished irately back and forth, the needle-like tip swinging dangerously close to a few drones as she walked up to the pod that held the creature her scouts had found. With a slight snarl she brought her tail up and used the tip to pierce the thin film of the pod before sliding it downward and letting its contents spill out onto the floor...

...Only to step back in surprise as a very well-built and solid changeling slid out onto the floor in front of her, spluttering and coughing just a bit before he started to turn his gaze upward. Patina felt heat rush to her face as her eyes scanned over the very similar, yet very male-oriented, form before her. Her astonishment and surprise returned two-fold when she noticed the serpentine tail that only the royal caste of the changelings had, she could tell just by looking over him that there was something special there... then he decided to speak...

He slowly brought up a hand and waved it a little. "...Yo" before one of her drones seemed to act out of reflexive defense of the queen and quickly punched him across the jaw, managing to knock him out with the single hit despite her changelings' weakened state. Patina brought her hand to her face and slowly dragged down in irritation before noticing the changeling that had punched the royal at least had the decency to look embarrassed for what it had done.

She looked to one of the other drones. "Pick him up... I have some questions for him..." She commanded before turning on her hooves and pointedly making her way out of the storage area. "Why did I have to be the one saddled with this crap?" she thought with irritation as her tail began to lash back and forth once again. "And why a Proto-King? Why not a Queen? At least that way I could have a bit of help!" Nothing she tried seemed to improve her mood at all as she continued along the dimly-lit corridors with several changelings following her. Once she arrived in what appeared to be a throne room she had the changelings carrying the proto-king place him on the floor several meters away from her throne. "Warriors, prepare yourselves..." She said calmly as the drones with thicker chitin drew swords, made from the same material as their armor, out of leather sheathes that hung at their sides.

And so they waited for the new Changeling King to awaken from the assault-induced slumber he had been subjected to.

|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|

Phillip let out a groan as he slowly managed to bring himself back into consciousness. "Jeez... How long was I out?" he thought with a similar groan before looking around and partially regretting the action as his eyes scanned across several other humanoid ponies that looked a lot like him. The main difference though was that their arms and legs had holes in them, while his were definitely solid. He also noticed that only one of the changelings had a thick tail like he could feel himself having. His ears instinctually folded back as the definitely-female looking changeling spoke to him.

"Who are you?" She started, her entire posture radiated power... to a normal person anyway... Something about his new form though was able to see through the powerful facade, he could actually tell in the back of his mind that all of the changelings around him were brittle enough that just the wrong gust of wind could blow them to dust. Each of the changelings in the room seemed to be stunned as they sensed the concern emanating from the Proto-King before them.

Patina's eyes widened as she felt the flood of emotion simply radiating from him, she had to resist the urge to get closer the way her drones were trying to do. She could already sense that more of the nearby changelings were making their way to the throne room because they could practically taste this new well of food, her mental link to the rest of the hive was already buzzing with questions as the not-so-essential changelings had to actively keep from dropping what they were doing so that they could feed. Even the ones on vital duties in the hive were taking notice of the strange source of emotional energy. Faster than the Proto-King could react Patina had risen to her hooves and crossed the distance between them in order to lift him up by the lip of his chest chitin, displaying much more strength than the King could have estimated as she bodily lifted him off the floor with a scowl.

"What kind of creature are you!?" She snarled. "No changeling would give emotion that freely... How could you not be starving with such frivolity!? Answer me you enigma!"

Startled by the Changeling Royal's sudden mood shift Phillip found himself floundering in his speech as he tried to find the words to use, even with the anger that he knew she was feeling he couldn't sense a drop of it. He did, however, notice that the Queen's eyes were searching over his body and looking for any sign of deception. "I... I am a tool of The Force..." His mind finally had his mouth form the words, they sounded so alien and familiar at the same time as it seemed he was talking on autopilot. "My name is King Namiro, I have been sent by The Force to aid your people..." It seemed to do the trick as the Queen gently began to put him back down, eyeing him warily as he took a few steps back.

"Why have you not tried to take control of my hive?" She asks hesitantly.

"It is not mine to control... only to help." Phillip replied as he let his senses waft around him like a breeze, flowing outward in waves as he tried to get a feel for what exactly he was supposed to be 'protecting'. To say he was stunned was actually an overstatement, it was quite underwhelming to know that he could easily have fit the changelings in his old rented house and still have room to move between bodies. It actually made him a bit sad as several of them seemed to recoil in fear, only the queen throwing up a bastion-like wall around her hive-mind kept him from getting a better count of how many there were. It was also that exact moment when he realized that scanning the hive was probably a bad idea as the Queen's scowl came back.

He idly realized that he could faintly hear the sound of an order being given but the Queen hadn't spoken to give the soldiers an order to do anything, they still pointed their weapons as one of the soldiers began to escort him to what seemed to be a holding cell quite a distance away from the Queen.

It wasn't all that bad... the cell itself was fairly comfortable... from the design it could hardly be called a cell anyway, it actually looked like she just gave him his own room... with a door made out of thick, green sludge but he could deal with that... Hopefully...

|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|

The more time Phillip spent examining his new body the more he felt that urge to have a mental breakdown, that he was completely expecting to happen sooner or later by the way, continued to fade and was replaced by more of a serene calm. The first thing he had studied when he realized that he was alone was the chitin that covered his body; It was definitely durable, a tad flexible but only to a small extent, and completely by accident he realized that he could peel it off like he used to do to sticker pages as a kid. The skin underneath was fairly sensitive to touch though so he quickly had put the thigh chitin back on, letting the covering meld with his skin once again.

The second thing he started to examine was the slightly-transparent stomach area he had. After gingerly removing the chitin covering his abdomen he revealed three green bands that started just past his sides and crossed over his stomach. He pinched the top of the ribbed bands across his abdomen and slowly started to pull, carefully extending outward to see how far it could stretch before causing any sort of discomfort. His eyes widened in surprise as it easily was pliable enough to stretch out to arm's length without hurting so he tried another little experiment, letting his free hand get a pinch of one of the bands on his lower stomach to repeat the process while still having his first hand extended. Once the rubbery flesh stretched to accommodate his experiment he let both pinches of skin go and they quickly melded back into place without even leaving a single mark. "Woah..." He practically whispered. "I could probably eat a pig whole and not feel a thing..." He took a few quiet moments to think about his new biology. "Voreaphiles the internet over would have a field day if I ever went back home... at least... if I still looked like this." He mused as he started to chuckle, his entire body shivering in delight as the chuckles quickly evolved into amused laughter.

Once the laughing started to die down he let out a few more tiny chuckles as he began to examine his serpentine tail. Along the top it was covered with thick chitin plates that were spaced far enough apart to let him mimic a scorpion if he wanted to. It was so... strange... to be looking at his tail, he was able to move it idly as if it were a very flexible arm, he could make his tail curl around his leg like a snake too. "I look like a pony version of Cell..." he mused as he examined more of his tail's flexibility, taking particular interest in the tip of his tail that felt a bit different from the rest of his tail. With a bit of concentration he was able to get the needle-like point to take on a thicker, rounded shape to make his tail actually look like the tail of a snake and back again to the needle point.

"Is it bad that I'm using the opportunity to examine my body to stave off a panic attack?" He wondered aloud as he had the tip of his tail flex and shift from the needle like tip to an opening like his favorite villain had when he was absorbing the androids. "Yep... definitely weird... but... not bad..." He answered himself as he let his tail relax into the needle shape again.

He sat against the back wall and closed his eyes as he reached out with his mind once more for the sea of power that he had met Starswirl in however long ago that was.