“How are we even going to find Ocellus Pharynx?”
“I don’t know”, Pharynx answered. “But I’m betting the alicorns will.”
The group made their way to Canterlot, where ponies hid and screamed as Pharynx and his men marched through the streets toward the castle. Even the guards abandoned their post at the sight of such a powerful changeling… mostly out of fear of being eaten.
By the time they walked inside, Celestia had been made aware of their presence and was eagerly awaiting what buisness the newly restored black guard had with her.
The court doors swung open, and Pharynx strode forward with determination in his eyes.
“Pharynx, is that you?”, Celestia hardly recognized him due to the transformation. “I was expecting your brother.”
“My brother is dead”
Celestia gasped, “What happened?!”
“Ocellus she… she ate him.”
“Ocellus? Her and Thorax were friends. Why would she do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but he’s gone, and Ocellus has become some sort of monster.”
Celestia had a judgmental look on her face as she came down from her throne. “And what about you? I take it your new look isn’t the result of hitting the gym?”
“I ate the old queen because I needed her power, and now I need your help to find Ocellus so I can kill her”, Thorax gritted his teeth and stomped his hoof, cratering in the solid marble floor beneath him. “Where is she?”
“If what your telling me is the truth then Ocellus is likely on her way back to school”
“School?”
“Yes, Twilight’s school of friendship in Ponyville”, Celestia used her magic to summon an image of the school. “You didn’t hear about her ‘incident’ there did you?”
“No, I didn’t”
“She consumed one of her fellow students, and from what I gather, Starlight didn’t plan on letting her come back.”
“Why do I care?”
“You asked where she was, thought you might care to know why.”
“I don’t”, Thorax turned, and motioned for his men to follow, but as they walked away Celestia called to him.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“If you can stop her without killing her, do it. I need her alive to make an example.”
“She ate my brother… she’s dead.”
Celestia sighed and lowered her head. “Very well, then you shall be made an example, once she’s gone”
Pharynx huffed and walked out with his men. “So be it.”
{At The School}
Yona’s pained screams sounded from Ocellus’s horrible gut, as the large girl pinned Starlight to the ground with her hoof.
“Why Ocellus, she’s your friend!”
“WAS, my friend”, Ocellus corrected, pressing down on the struggling mare’s chest. “Now she’s food”, Just like Sandbar.
“You’re a monster!”, Starlight screamed and fired a magical blast at Ocellus’s gut. The attack didn’t even scratch her, but it did have the effect of making Ocellus angry.
“I always was a monster! I just look the part now!”
“No, you wern’t. You were the nicest girl in this school, good to the core, but now…”, Starlight ignited her horn and teleported outside her office, behind Ocellus. “Now your worse than Nightmare Moon.”
Starlight slammed the doors shut and sealed them with magic, foolishly thinking that Ocellus would be trapped behind them. She screamed like a little filly when the adjacent wall was smashed open, and shivered in terror as Ocellus stepped out into the hall with her mouth open.
“Get away!”, Starlight teleported again, this time much, MUCH further away.
As Starlight stood in the field outside the school, she saw Pharynx and his black guard approaching. Having to choose between running back in to Ocellus and inevitably the inside of her stomach, or going over to Pharynx and hoping that he wasn’t also hungry; she chose the latter.
Pharynx held a hoof up, ordering his guards to halt as the panicked pony approached. “I’m guessing Ocellus is here?”
Starlight panted as she stopped and caught her breath. “That thing, is not Ocellus.”
Pharynx stepped forward and took a long lick up the side of Starlight’s face. “The afraid ones always did taste better.”
Starlight’s pupils shrunk to the size of pin-pricks as Pharynx opened his mouth wide. “Just kidding”, Pharynx joked closing his gaping pony chute. “For the first time in my life… I’m not hungry.”
“Phew”, Starlight breathed before stepping around and behind the imposing Changeling. Pharynx watched the mare cower behind him before turning to face the school. “But I am angry. Let’s go men!”
They charged toward the school, but as they approached the front gate it was knocked from its moorings, and launched clear over their heads into the field behind them. Standing there on the bridge the men watched as the dust settled and Ocellus stepped into view.
“What do you want Pharynx? I’m not going back!”
Pharynx cracked his neck and stared down Ocellus. “No… you’re not.”
Ocellus noticed Pharynx’s body had changed as well, and that the black guard weren’t moving on her. But when her eyes returned to Pharynx he was gone.
“Hope this hurts”, Pharynx said from behind.
As Ocellus turned around Pharynx drop kicked her in the side, sending the large girl flying through the air before skidding to a stop on the bridge. Ouickly getting to her hooves, Ocellus looked just in time to dodge another blow from the lightning fast changeling.
Pharynx spun around and took another swing, hitting her in the leg. The punch had enough force to knock down a tree, but all it did to Ocellus was make her bend over onto her front hooves. A result Pharynx quickly took advantage of by making an uppercut into her jaw.
Ocellus was dazed, and the pain she felt had her worried about the situation, so she extended her wings and took to the sky, but Pharynx was right behind her. Ocellus fought better in the air than he did.
The two took turns swinging and dodging as they flew eastward. They battered and bruised each-other while the two continued to gain altitude.
They were both getting tired and Pharynx didn’t want her using this as an opportunity to escape. So he flew to her back and locked one of her wings in place with his incredible strength.
The two began to plummet from the sky.
“What are you doing Pharynx?! Well both die!”
“Fine by me!”
Ocellus started hitting Pharynx, trying to get the suicidal idiot off her wing.
Pharynx grunted and winced with each blow as the rapidly approaching ground drew closer and closer.
“Please Pharynx. I don’t wanna die!”
“Should’ve thought of that before you ate my brother!”
In a last desperate attempt to save herself Ocellus craned her neck back and bit down on Pharynx’s midsection.
“GAAAHHH!”, Pharynx screamed as his arms went slack and Ocellus tossed him from her body, but it was too late.
Before she could generate any lift, she slammed into the ground, creating a massive crater upon impact.
While Ocellus lay in the dirt, coughing blood onto herself, a gigantic shadow blotted out the sun above her. Letting her eyes adjust, she saw what it was.
It was a dragon.
A big one. A gigantic one. It looked to be 800 feet tall.
Riding atop the massive creature were two other dragons, but Ocellus couldn’t tell who they were.
Their identities were made clear once the enormous dragon landed at the edge of the crater and they hopped down.
It was Smolder and princess Ember.
“That’s her, she looks different but that’s the one!”, Smolder yelled, pointing at Ocellus.
Ocellus tried to crawl away as princess Ember closed in on her, but her broken body could do little more than wiggle in place due to the pain.
Pain that was only made worse when Ember stamped her royal scepter against her chest.
“So, Smolder tells me you ate her lover?”
* cough cough *, Ocellus wiped the blood fro her mouth before facing away from the dragon princess and closing her eyes. “I ate all my friends.”
Ember removed her staff from Ocellus’s chest. “Well, at least you’ll be with them soon. Ok Tiny, DO YOUR THING!”
Ocellus layed her head back as the enormous dragon scooped her out of the dirt. She weakly squirmed as it hoisted her above it’s gaping maw. Looking down into the mouth, she seen her death rising up at the back of the dragon’s throat.
She closed her eyes as she was dropped.
I’m sorry
That was the last thing she thought before a searing inferno washed over her, and her lifeless body fell into the abyss of the dragon’s stomach.
As Ember and Smolder watched Tiny swallow her ex-friend, they looked at each other, both wondering what the other was thinking.
“You happy now?”, Ember asked the heartbroken dragon.
“No! I won’t be happy until every one of those bug monsters gets what they deserve!”
* cough *, “Don’t do that”, someone weezed behind them.
The two turned to see Pharynx a few yards away, laying in a pool of his own blood.
Smolder walked over to him and leaned over his body. “And why not? All you bugs do is take”, Smolder went on. “Take love, take lives, take friends… you should all die!”
Pharynx was struggling to breath with blood pooling in his lungs, but he managed to respond to the upset dragon. “It’s not their fault.”
“What do you mean ‘it’s not their fault?! I watched her eat Gallus”, Smolder cried. “He’s gone now, how is that not her fault?!”
“They can’t help themselves…”, Pharynx wheezed, “but maybe you can”
Pharynx couldn’t think straight anymore, he’d lost too much blood. So he layed back and put a hoof over his wound as his once impressive vision faded.
“I’m coming little bro”, Pharynx breathed his last, closed his eyes… and he was gone…
Taking the power of queen Chrysalis and the last remnants of the old ways with him.
As Smolder and Ember stood over his dead body, they decided to start digging a grave. A shallow grave at the edge of the Dragon Lands was the least they could give the changeling who had stopped a massacre.
Once Pharynx was buried, the two hopped on Tiny’s back and headed for the dragon lands. One series of deaths seemed like enough pain to inflict on the world. Smolder decided to let well enough alone and… just walk away.
Life returned to normal more or less in the weeks that followed. The changelings were re-integrated into society, the School of Friendship was repaired and re-opened, and not a single pony or other had been eaten. The changelings still had a bad reputation, but were quickly shedding it with the impressive turn-around they made in their homeland.
The wasteland that the changelings once called home was now a thriving oasis, and all who went there spoke nothing but kind words of the place when they returned home.
They never established a new king after Pharynx. The changelings had decided it better that no-one command the entire hive anymore. The overwhelming consensus among the changelings was that ponies were not food, and any changeling who disagreed was quickly pressured into ‘seeing the light’ as it were.
Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Gallus, Silverstream, Bon-Bon, Sandbar, Thorax, Queen Chrysalis, Yona, Ocellus, and Pharynx had all lost their lives because the changelings couldn’t control themselves. That stopped the day their king died fighting one of their own.
No changeling wanted anything but love anymore, and they made acquiring the love of every creature in Equestria their mission as a species… willingly of course.
