Meet The Change Gang

“Why did you do that?”

Pharynx’s eyes widened once he saw the blue changeling sitting and gazing up at him. “Do what?” he asked as he sat down on his haunches right next to him.

“That… that-that…” Venom struggled with his words for a few moments. “That thing you pulled off back there with Thorax. You had your chance to tell him that we ran off from the hive on our own, so… why’d you blow it?”

The changeling prince merely chuckled. “Well, for one, your siblings did hold off that beast from slicing me up like a fish back there… I mean, sure you guys aren’t that capable of actually taking down a maulwurf all by yourselves,” Pharynx admitted, smirking at Venom’s annoyed expression, “but… you still have a chance. A very small one, but still a chance.”

“Hmph. Barely,” the blue changeling remarked, folding his forelegs. After a moment, however, he looked up at Pharynx again. “So… you still got chewed out by that Thorax dude, right?”

“Indeed I did. I’d describe how intense the verbal smackdown was, but it actually needed to be seen to be believed. I’m so proud of my little bro.”

Venom’s eyes widened. “Proud?” he uttered.

“Well, yeah. For a long time, I never thought he could do it.”

“Do what? Toughen up and put his hoof down for once?”

“Exactly.”

“Big whoop. Usually changelings are taught how to suck everything up at age five. Then again, maybe your brother is five.”

“Very funny, kid.” Pharynx rolled his eyes before leaning in and muttering, “though, I won’t actually doubt that theory.”

The two laughed a bit.

“Heheh…” Venom looked off to the side. “So… he’s a ruler of this whole changeling kingdom now.”

“He has been for a while.”

“Time flies, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does. Never knew my brother had such a long road ahead of him until recently…”

The blue changeling glanced back at Pharynx again. “What do you mean?”

“Well kid, you know that old story about the changeling who was considered an outcast by the other changelings running away from the hive to seek love and acceptance from others?”

Venom furrowed his brow. “Which one?”

Pharynx opened his mouth to answer, only to dismissively wave a foreleg. “Okay, fair point. What I’m trying to say is that my brother was actually that one type of changeling ever since he came out of his egg. No one could really answer why, but he just was… apparently.”

“Yeah, yeah, pretty sure everyone is aware of that… by now,” Venom said dryly.

Nonetheless, Pharynx continued. “He told me the entire story; how he ended up in the Crystal Empire, how he met Spike, how he was nearly thrown in prison by that Shining Armor guy for being a changeling, yadda yadda yadda… Believe it or not, I was still filled with holes when everyone else in this hive had already transformed. Did you know that?”

Now, the younger changeling was interested. “Actually, no I didn’t…”

“...You didn’t?” Pharynx parroted. “How?”

Venom stared like a deer in headlights for a moment. “Uhhh… I’ll um… tell you in the morning.”

“Morning? How do you know it’s night right no—”

“Goodnight!” Venom shouted as he dashed off as quickly as possible.

Pharynx sighed heavily as he watched the blue changeling disappear from his sight. Hmph. Hopefully that will at least get him thinking about what he said to my brother. It better. He turned around to face the limp horde of snoozing changelings, right in the middle of which laid Thorax.

The older changeling slowly walked past the pile and went up the stone staircase that led to the second floor. He walked inside one of the bedrooms and began climbing into the slightly shabby bed before laying his head into the pillow.

With that, shut his eyes and drifted off to sleep…

Or, at least, he tried to.

“So uh… where are we sleeping again?”

Pharynx opened his eyes, blinking back the haze of sleep. He looked up to see the blue raspberry bug himself gazing down at him. “...You’re all sleeping in the other room, Venom. It’s either that or you’ll be sleeping down there with everyone else.”

“But it’s so dirty in there and there’s only one stinkin’ bed!” Venom complained. “A literal! Stinkin’! Bed! Actually, I wouldn’t even call it a bed. It’s… it’s a brick with a bedsheet!”

“Tell me, which one you’d rather then,” Pharynx spoke, getting up to directly match the changeling’s eye level. “Sleeping on a brick, or slumbering with my brother?”

Venom suddenly looked at Pharynx as if he had committed mass genocide. “What?! Are you crazy?!”

“That’s what I thought, kid. Now come on. Let’s just get your five siblings and—”

“Dude, I have four siblings.”

“Right, right. What, is the fifth one your girlfriend or something?”

“No!”

“Jeez… I see they haven’t really cleaned up this place in a while,” Pharynx admitted, turning on a nearby lantern as he and the six changelings looked around the bedroom.

It, indeed, had only one bed with two flimsy mattresses stacked on top of each other. The bedsheet was also quite a mess; it had become completely detached from the mattresses and was now dangling lopsidedly off the edge of the bed, not to mention the pillows were completely stripped from their cases.

“I don’t like this, Pharynx,” Cricket muttered dejectedly, accompanied by the agreeing nods of his peers.

“Come on, guys, it’s not that terrible,” the changeling said as he dusted the bed off. “Just needs a bit of rearranging, really. Clean sheets, better pillows, not to mention—”

“Since when did the queen ever give you the role of ‘interior decorator’?” Venom cut the changeling prince off. “I mean, they could’ve given you that instead of—”

“Save it, kid,” Pharynx snapped. He then climbed up onto the bed’s mattress, testing its flexibility and texture. “See guys? It’s absolutely nothing like a brick.”

“I’m pretty sure we’d all still rather sleep on two bricks than one, Pharynx,” Thistle quipped.

“...Noted,” he murmured flatly, getting back up to his hooves, before grabbing hold of the bedsheet that enveloped the two mattresses. “Just give me a second, guys.”

After a long series of tugs and pulls, Pharynx pulled the sheet off the mattresses and tossed it off to the side; he wasn’t gonna need it. He then lifted the top mattress off of the bottom one and maneuvered it onto the bedroom floor. He proceeded to do the exact same with the second mattress, laying it down right next to the first one. To finish the process off, Pharynx laid out the pillows and spread out the blankets as evenly as possible across the mattresses.

“And that should do it,” he finally said, turning to the Change Gang. “So, what do you guys think?”

The six changelings walked up to the makeshift beds, gazing down upon them. “Hmmm…” Spiny hummed monotonously, carefully stepping onto the mattresses and walking around on them for a bit. He then laid down onto one of them. “Seems good enough,” he said. The others nodded in agreement as they sat onto the makeshift beds.

Pharynx breathed a sigh of relief at that notion. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he said, making his way out the doorway. “Do whatever. Just don’t do anything stupid, now. You hear me?”

“Uh… okay,” Thistle answered.

“Good.”

Upon finally reaching the other bedroom, Pharynx climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over him, albeit in a much more tight manner than usual. He let out a heavy sigh as he turned to the opposite side of the bed, curling in a fetal position. When did it get so cold in here? he thought bitterly as he gritted his teeth and wrapped his legs around himself. I can practically see my own breath!

CRASH!

The changeling nearly jumped out of his chitin as soon as he heard that deafening sound. What the?! he thought as he jolted upwards and began galloping towards the next door room…

…He was lucky enough to swiftly dodge a flying pillow upon entering.

Pharynx glared at the sight in front of him; there were at least a million of those downy white feathers floating and lingering around in the room, and the undefined number of them just kept increasing with every smack of the pillow that was courtesy of Scorch, Venom, or Flutterwings as the three of them continued to engage in their pillow fight.

Unsurprisingly or not, the other three weren’t behaving any better; Thistle and Cricket were squashed and sandwiched between the two mattresses as Spiny kept climbing on top of them, squishing them even more.

“Hey, HEY!” Pharynx screamed at the top of his lungs, prying Spiny off, allowing Cricket and Thistle to climb out and sigh in relief. “What do you numbskulls think you’re doing?!”

Everyone immediately froze upon hearing his bellowing voice, and for a good moment there wasn’t any movement in the room save for the drifting pillow feathers.

Venom took the time to appraise his messy surroundings. “Eheheh… the results seemed a lot better in my head.”

“Why aren’t any of you attempting to sleep?!”

“We couldn’t!” Flutterwings responded.

Pharynx rolled his eyes, picking up the nymph and firmly laying her down on the mattress, before turning to the others. “I don’t have time for any of this, now get to bed.”

Everyone sighed and grumbled in defeat, lying down on the mattresses and pulling the covers up.

“Thank you,” the general said firmly, turning to trot back to the other bedroom. He was just about halfway into bed upon hearing yet another loud crash, making him jump out of his chitin yet again. Seriously?! he thought as he galloped back inside the room to see them all pillow-fighting to the very death.

“Guys, quit it!” Pharynx bellowed as he tried to separate them, Thistle and Scorch seemed to obey upon hearing his annoyance, but Venom and Flutterwings kept on going as if they didn’t hear. “Come on, stop it! Stop it right now, get to bed!” he shoved the brother-and-sister opponents, making them both fall backwards onto the mattress. He turned, noticing Cricket and Spiny curled up to one another. At least these guys are cooperating… he thought as he grabbed hold of the nearest bedsheet and laid it over the two of them.

Pharynx shot a firm glare of annoyance at the others as soon as he walked back out.

He made it back into the other room and cocooned himself in the thin bedsheet, shivering and gritting his teeth with a heavy sigh. He couldn’t help but feel a bit… lonely up here, and he didn’t feel like counting those six rambunctious colorbugs as proper company.

He turned on his side, mumbling to himself; the heavy downpour outside the gaping window didn’t really keep him company either, especially as it only added onto the chilling room temperatures.

“Laaaaaamp…”

“VENOM, GET TO BED!” Pharynx screamed, before burying his head in his pillow and groaning loudly in annoyance as he heard even more noise coming from the other bedroom.

He couldn't do it anymore; he stormed down the hall and back down the stairs to the first floor, stopping upon seeing the mass of dozing changeling subjects.

He began silently questioning as to how they were still asleep with all the racket going on upstairs. Though, Pharynx also began to notice how warm they all looked. And given how freezing cold it was in that vague and empty room upstairs…

Mm… buck it. Pharynx thought as he carefully crept over to where his younger brother was safely snoozing, curling up to his side and closing his eyes in silent content as he felt Thorax put a comforting foreleg around him. Usually Pharynx wouldn’t be found in these snuggly positions with the other reformed changelings, but hey, at least they were quiet.

He cringed in his incoming slumber as he heard a loud THUD! coming from the upstairs room. Those dang gremlins…

In a way, it was almost like they were sent to torment him.

The changeling twitched as he felt tiny droplets constantly hitting his body. He groaned as he finally regained control of his eyelids, slowly forcing them halfway open to gaze at his blurry surroundings.

“Netwing? Netwing?” a familiar voice said to him. “Dude, can you hear me?”

“Nnngh… don’t wanna get up,” he mumbled as he felt his body threatening to shut back down into unconsciousness again.

“...Get up.”

Netwing gritted his teeth as he rolled onto his carapace, before opening his eyes back up again to stare up at a very familiar face. “Sawfly…” he uttered groggily as he slowly and shakily got up to his hooves. “Where are we?”

“How should I know? Those rainbow bug brats pushed us all off the train! We just found you lyin’ down here like roadkill!”

Netwing carefully studied the environment they were in; he and his comrades were next to what appeared to be a deep trench at the very bottom of a towering hill.

The same hill that he was thrown off…

That… little…

He sighed and turned to face Sawfly again. “Where’s Termite and Pincer?”

“They’re trying to set up camp nearby.”

“Camp? Camp?!” Netwing uttered. “We can’t rest now! What about—”

“Calm down. We’re obviously not going to make any progress in catching that lot. Not in weather like this,” he said, reaching a hoof out to gesture the rainfall.

“But… but…” Netwing groaned loudly. “Fine, we’ll just lay down for the night… even if it’s probably bucking daytime behind all these dang rainclouds.” He trotted threateningly towards Termite and Pincer, who had finished setting up a small shelter made of various wood and stones. “You two better not even think about snuggling up to me while I’m sleeping, got it?”

“Er… yeah, of course! We promise, right Termite?”

“Yeah! Promise!” Termite piped, before suddenly doing an alien motion with his left forehoof.

Netwing stared awkwardly. “Wait, what are you—”

“Cross my heart, hope to cry, stick a cupcake in my eye!”

...Oh, brother. Netwing thought sourly. He was just about to tell his comrade off for using such a dopey little rhyme, when Pincer suddenly butted in. “It’s ‘hope to fly,’ Termite.”

Termite blinked. “...I said ‘fly’.”

“No, you said ‘cry’.”

“I said ‘fly’.”

“You said ‘cry’.”

“I said ‘fly’.”

“You said ‘cry’.”

“I said ‘fly’!”

“...You said ‘cry’.”

“I SAID ‘FLY’!”

Netwing growled through teeth as the two continued their childish argument. The shelter that they had just built caught his attention, however, and he slowly trotted towards it. Hm… seems big enough for only one changeling, he thought as he squeezed himself inside. Eh, who cares? Every bug for himself.

He could just about hear Sawfly’s voice over the heavy drumming of the rain outside. “Netwing, what are you—”

“G’night,” was his only response before he slammed the makeshift door shut.

“NETWING!”