Meet The Change Gang

Pharynx browsed through the photos he had been keeping since a few days before that fateful accident; Thorax had somehow come across these and immediately showed these to Pharynx as soon as he got them. Given the focused-on-being-a-warrior-type of changeling he was, Pharynx didn’t feel much emotion, like Thorax did, the first time the two brothers went through these memories together. But that was when his brother was actually with him. And whenever he looked at them now, he couldn’t help but feel at least a tad bit of melancholy.

The first photo showed Thorax with Starlight, Trixie, and Discord, who were smiling at the camera after having earned the “Equestrian Pink Hearts Of Courage.” Pharynx wanted to burst into laughter when he wondered how anyone could take the name of the medals so seriously, but he didn’t have the will to do so at this time. He may not have been there in person, but thinking about how Starlight actually saved his brother’s life by telling him to share his love, plus the many times Thorax told him this story of how he and his friends achieved these “medals,” he deeply wished he was there to at least... Well, be there.

Pharynx only forced a chuckle before moving on.

The next few following photos Pharynx was able to handle with ease; Thorax and Pharynx visiting Ocellus at the School of Friendship, the swarm celebrating Hearth’s Warming, Thorax playing with the nymphs, Pharynx getting attacked by nymphs. The list went on, and as it did, the prince changeling struggled harder and harder from letting his own emotions take control of him.

Pharynx held his breath when he came across the last photo, however.

In that last photo, Thorax was tightly hugging the dark cyan changeling as the two of them sat in a field. Both the beaming smile on his face and his sparkling dark magenta eyes greatly contrasted with his brother’s unamused scowl and rolling lavender eyes.

Pharynx’s throat went dry the longer he stared at this particular memory. He wasn’t even able to notice the tears creeping their way to the surface and pooling up in his now-quivering eyes. It even took a few droplets to fall onto the photo for him to actually notice.

No. He told himself, wiping the warm, wet moisture in his eyes. Don’t do it. Don’t you dare.

“Pharynx?”

The dark cyan changeling jumped as soon as his name was called. He at first assumed it was his younger brother, but he knew better than that. Thorax in question was lying silently in the bed next to Pharynx as the elder changeling waited to see if he showed any signs of responsiveness.

Pharynx turned to the real source of the voice; a unicorn with a pristine white coat and sapphire blue mane. His light blue eyes showed concern for the prince changeling. Shining Armor, he remembered.

“Is Thorax awake yet?” The unicorn asked the changeling.

“No. He’s still been coughing in his sleep and his fever hasn’t gotten any better since we put him in bed.”

Shining walked over and gently put a hoof over Thorax’s forehead. “Poor thing... He’s burning up.”

“He’s been like that ever since we got off the train.” Pharynx mumbled in reply, not taking his eyes off the photo of him and Thorax that he still held.

Shining Armor noticed both his expression as well as said photo. He got a good glimpse of it as he sat next to the changeling, putting a foreleg around him. “I’m so sorry,” He said sympathetically.

Pharynx looked perplexed for a minute due to the unicorn’s apology.

“You miss him, don’t you?” Shining clarified.

Pharynx let out a heavy sigh and admitted, “Yeah... Yeah I do.”

“Princess Celestia contacted my sister about this. She’ll see what she can do. Trust me.” The white unicorn got up and headed for the doorway. “I think some of the changelings wanted to ask you about—“

“My brother?”

“..Yeah,” Shining Armor said as he looked down the hallway. “I can ask them that they can wait if you want to stay with Thorax a little longer,” he offered.

“I’ll think about it,” Pharynx answered. “Thanks.”

Shining only gave a simple smile before he left, leaving a crack in the doorway that allowed a sliver of light to seep its way into the room.

After a few minutes of nuzzling his ailing little brother in the darkness, Pharynx carefully got up and slowly made his way into the hallway, wanting to check on the changelings who were crying about their king’s fate. What stopped him in his tracks was the faint, but heavy coughing of Thorax, as if he heard his older brother attempting to leave. As if he were having a nightmare...

As if that nightmare was about mother.

Still, somehow, successfully fighting back the tears in his eyes, Pharynx made his way back to him.

“You want me to stay a little longer?” He sighed as he caressed his brother’s head. “Alright then.”

“Venom, will you slow down?! Please?!” Spiny tried to catch up with the blue-schemed changeling.

The Change Gang was now making their way through Equestria, steadily fluttering through the close-to-midnight night sky as Venom was trying to boost himself ahead of his siblings.

“Pfft. Relax, man,” Venom sputtered. “You really think I’m gonna leave you hangin’ with the full moon because of your slow speed, huh?”

“Actually, yes—I-I mean no, but-“

“What Spiny is saying,” Cricket butted in, trying to prevent the incoming sibling argument. “Is that he’s trying to keep you from... Crashing!”

Venom only cracked a smirk, trying to hold in his laughter. “Crashing?”

“Yeah, crashing,” Cricket went on, still trying to change the subject. “I can’t even count how many times you attempted to fly as fast as uh, as a certain rainbow-maned pegasus. Or how many times you hit a building when doing so. What do you have to say about that?” That part was met with silence from the blue-schemed changeling. “Venom?”

Venom turned to the green-schemed changeling, another grin taking form on his face. “Cricket, I have to say that you are a genius.”

Scorch turned to his brother with an unamused expression. “Bad move, Cricket,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Venom, don’t start—“ Flutterwings tried to stop her big brother.

“Oh I’m starting. I’m starting to build up speed!”

“Venom, don’t you dare-“ Spiny tried to grab the blue-schemed drone.

“I’m gonna!”

“Venom-“

“I’m gonna do it!”

“Venom-“

“I’m gonna do it!”

“Venom Stinger!”

“I’m doing it!”

“Venom!”

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY—” the blue-schemed changeling went darting through the shimmering, purple night sky...

SMACK!

“—AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

“...He did it,” Flutterwings said flatly, before she and the others flew down to Ponyville to see where their brother landed.

The rest of the Change Gang came across what appeared to be a clothes shop. Upon investigating the exterior, they spotted a changeling-sized hole in the roof. This was obviously where Venom crash-landed.

“Venom, I just told you this would happen!” Spiny scolded his brother as he yelled down the hole. He assumed Venom was either unable to hear his shouting, or he half-heard him but just ignored him. Either way, he was unable to actually see him in the pitch black darkness, which was the only thing visibly seen through the hole. “You crashed through a clothes store, man! You could’ve alerted those dang ponies!”

“For your information, Spiny,” Venom’s voice upwardly bounced its way through the hole, “I did not crash. I just simply decided to drop in here and do some more stealing!”

“The only thing we need to be stealing is-“

“Juicy information, I know,” the voice from the building sassed back.

“Well can you at least come outta there?” Cricket called down the hole.

“...”

“Venom?”

“...”

“Venom?!”

“Wha-? Oh! Uh..”

“What is it now?!” Scorch banged a hoof on the roof.

“Nothing! Just a big giant spider on the wall!”

The Change Gang looked at Cricket Cluster, who slowly shrank down, not really willing to deal with this mess, despite being capable of handling both insects and arachnids rather well.

“Venom,” Cricket shouted down the hole again, this time hissing in a threatening tone, “do not make me come down there.”

“No need! This thing’s probably dead anyway!” Before Cricket was able say anything else, Venom’s attempt to keep a settled, relaxed tone failed as he quickly exploded into fits of yelps and screams. ”Ah! AHH! IT’S NOT DEAD! IT’S NOT DEAD! AAAAAUGH!” The Change Gang shared unamused glances, as well as a few facepalms all around. ”Get it away! Get it away!”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” With that, Cricket illuminated his curved horn with a deep lime green light, before he dove into the hole, being followed by his siblings.

It eventually didn’t take them long to find the blue-schemed drone, who was cowering before an immensely sized spider that clung to a net of cobwebs.

“Gee, he wasn’t kidding,” Flutterwings said, gazing at the large arachnid in front of her. “This thing’s as big as... as...” The purple-schemed nymph tried to think of a simile before shrugging it off. “Well, it’s just big.”

Unfazed by the size of the spider, Cricket confidently walked over next to his brother. Soon enough, the spider was contained by his lime green aura and levitated away from the cowering Venom Stinger.

“Come on, guys,” Cricket teased, “I’ve handled bigger than this.”

“What do you know?” Venom snapped back fiercely, his blue eyes now shooting daggers at his brother’s smug green ones. “That insect could’ve been—“

“Venom, it’s not an insect and you know it,” Cricket’s aura around the creature vanished as soon as he put it down on a nearby table. The room went dark once the only source of light was nonexistent. “It’s an arachnid.”

In the once again pitch black darkness, only 5 pairs of eyes, each in blue, green, purple, red, and teal, were visible as they gave off a faint glow of their own. Suddenly, there was a flash of transformation as a pair of pink eyes abruptly joined them. “Yeah, what he said, I’m an arachnid,” a snide, feminine voice said with a sarcastic tone. This quickly elicited a scream from the Change Gang as they all lit their horns at the stranger. Or, who they thought was a stranger.

Venom immediately recognized the light pink eyes and deep pink mane, which was done in a braid. This was the changeling that had brought the Change Gang to Queen Chrysalis when she had the task of spying for them. This was Thistle Thorn.

“Wha- Where did you come from?!” Venom astonishingly uttered out.

“The depths of the hive. Ya know, where you came from,” Thistle smirked, flipping her hole-filled braid.

“Nonono, I meant-“ Venom struggled to salvage any words he could find. “Why are you here?! Were you following us?!”

“Heck no. Unless your definition of ‘following’ is ‘disguising as a giant spider, watching you while in the form of a giant spider, and watching your brother having to teach you insect biology...” The pink-schemed changeling droned, until finally answering “Yeah, I was following you.”

“B-But Chrysalis sent us as spies!”
Venom Stinger argued.

“Yeah, and not as shoplifters.”

Silence occurred before Thistle spoke again.
“Okay, okay you wanna know the real reason I followed you guys?”

“Go on, I’m listening,” Venom said with a roll of his eyes.

“Every morning, I get up, in the dark, and ask someone if the Queen has any tasks for me. And you know what those tasks are? Nothing! Not a dang thing! The only task I get once in a while is saying ‘Queen Chrysalis wants to see you,’ and THAT’S IT! How is that supposed to contribute to anything?!” Thistle sighed as her anger finally died down. “How is that supposed to save our kind?”

A moment of silence occurred between all of them, before Scorch slowly formed a smirk on his face. “At least we have something in common.”

Venom only sighed defeatedly. “Fine, you’re coming with us. But just this once.”

Thistle grinned, before whispering a “yes” to herself, quietly celebrating her victory, before kicking a hole in the window before jumping out. “Well, no time to waste in here!”

“At least the front of the store matches the roof. How surprising,” Flutterwings chuckled as she and the others followed the pink-schemed drone.

“What are you trying to say, little sis?” Venom Stinger grumbled.

“Oh it’s nothing.” The purple-schemed drone chuckled along with the other 3 brothers as Venom rolled his eyes.

Pharynx didn’t know how long he kept his brother company. Though, the prince wondered if Thorax could see his sibling’s worried expression. He wondered if he could feel his sibling lightly clenching his front hoof.

Pharynx especially wondered if Thorax could sense the tears he was still trying to hold in.

There was, however, a few questions that he kept tossing around in his mind ever since the swarm arrived at Canterlot...

Would Thorax still be here if those changelings were actually able to save themselves? Did Pharynx blame those changelings, who had to be rescued by their king, for all this?

There was one answer for both of them: yes.

The cyan changeling didn’t want to blame them for what happened to his brother. But Thorax was his only family. The only one Pharynx considered his family, at least. He just didn’t understand what was stopping them from escaping. He didn’t understand the real cause of the incident.

He didn’t understand why anyone would even try to take the life of his brother away.

Pharynx only got up and made his way out of the room, glancing at his brother every few steps he took, and left a crack in the door, allowing the faint light from the hallway to once again seep its way in.

Thorax hates sleeping in the dark, He thought to himself as he walked to the main room of Canterlot.

There, he noticed a few nymphs calling out to Pharynx, their tear-stained faces asking about their king. He even saw both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna trying to provide as much comfort as possible to those who mourned heavily around them. Above all of that, a group of ponies rushed up to him, asking him what happened and apologizing for his “loss.”

What loss? Thorax will be alright... Won’t he?

Some ponies didn’t take it hard when they were being apologized to for their loss, even though they didn’t know whether it was a loss or not. For Pharynx however, having apologies thrown at him by multiple ponies, ones he didn’t even know, was like being pelted by stones that were being hurled from every direction. No matter how much he hated it, he kept his trap shut the entire time. At least, until...

“Uhm.. Mr. Pharynx?” A little white nymph gazed up at the cyan changeling, her pink eyes filled with tears. “I-Is Thorax dead?”

That was when Pharynx finally snapped.

“I DON’T KNOW!”

This was enough for a hush to suddenly fall over the entire room.

“I don’t know!” He bellowed in repeat, before immediately rushing back into his brother’s room, leaving the door open.

Upon calming down, Pharynx went back to nuzzling his younger brother. He didn’t know whether or not Thorax was dead now. He didn’t know why this all had to suddenly unfold onto him. He didn’t even know why was trying to keep his tear ducts from functioning. He didn’t know whether or not someone was watching him through the open door right now.

He didn’t know...

He just wanted his little brother back.