Transference

It was a quiet and peaceful day for the students of the School of Friendship. An ideal environment for learning one would think.

And like almost every other day, the students were learning about the importance of friendship. Who would have guessed?

In one of the more colorful rooms, on the upper floor, Ocellus had asked the class in front of her what they thought was the most important thing in a sincere friendship.

A young griffon in the front row held up his left arm in confidence.

"Yes, Gael, what do you think?" Ocellus asked him, a warm smile on her face.

"Trust! The most important thing is to trust and believe in one another!" Gael exclaimed with his arms crossed, nodding in approval of his own given answer.

Ocellus stared at him as if she had seen a terrifying monster.

"Oh... was... was that the wrong answer?" Gael asked unsure of himself, as he looked to the student sitting next to him, but only receiving a shrug in return.

Ocellus stepped forward slowly, still having the griffon in view. Her eyelids started fluttering nervously as she approached close to the student.

Gael shifted in his seat at the strange sudden motions of the changeling.

Without saying anything, Ocellus put one of her hooves forward and held the griffon's head by the feathers. Her magic made sure the rest of his body could not move away.

Gael looked up at her as she was holding him. "Is... is this a test of trust or something?" Nervousness started showing on his face at the lack of a response from his teacher.

The other students were quietly observing, expecting some sort of lesson to follow before them.

And they would be proven right.

In one quick motion, Ocellus slammed the griffon's head on the little desk in front of him, shattering his beak. The desk was now sprinkled in red.

She brought the head of the griffon back up immediately. Small pieces of the beak continued to fall down on the desk, creating a contrast with the red.

Gael and the rest of the students all needed a moment to process what had happened. Silence filled the room.

Then Gael started wailing in pain, blood flowing down from the wounds the splinters had left on his face. One of his eyes was swollen up. It looked really bad.

Panic seized the classroom. Students were screaming and trying to leave the room as fast as they could, shoving away the others that tried to do the same. In the end, it all came down to instinct at that very moment.

Multiple calls for help could be heard shortly after from the aisle.

Ocellus looked down at her student, almost as if she had realized something, and whispered, "This... isn't me. I... I don't want this... We don't want this!"

The changeling stepped back, shaking her head and repeating what she had said before.

"WE don't want this!"

"We DON'T want this!"

"WE DON'T WANT THIS!"

"GET OUT OF OUR MINDS!"

And then they all knew in unison, what needed to be done. To protect them, to protect their friends.

It was the only way to escape. They all decided at the same time as they were one.

Ocellus teared up, looking at the young griffon before her. "I'm... sorry." She turned her head to the front, the hard metallic surface of the blackboard on the wall in focus.

A pony teleported to the entrance of the room with a bright flash that briefly illuminated the room like a picture had been taken.

"What is going on? The students all came crying for help in panic!" Starlight Glimmer asked troubled. "They said you hurt Gael?"

The changeling slowly looked away from the blackboard to her. "I... I'm sorry." Ocellus started to slowly walk over to the other side of the classroom, sobbing all the time while she did. "We don't want to hurt our friends any further."

Starlight walked up to the sobbing griffon, who had his head covered in his arms, trying to evaluate the damage that had been done.

"Ocellus, what is the meaning of this? What are you saying?" Starlight asked, still confused about what was transpiring.

Something like that had never happened before in the school.

The changeling smiled. "Tell our friends that we love them..." Ocellus stood there for a moment looking at her, crying openly, and then she started galloping as fast as her hooves allowed her to.

Starlight just sat there next to the griffon as she watched one of her friends run headfirst into the wall, a bloodcurdling sound of cracking chitin accompanying it.

The blackboard was splattered with changeling fluids, almost as if it had been the topic of the day.

"OCELLUS!" Starlight ran up to the lying changeling, who had her head split open and was breathing her last breaths. "Why, why did you do that...?" Starlight asked her, holding her in her hooves in tears. "Why?"

And then she felt something familiar.

Knowing that time was of the essence, she put her horn to the head of the dying changeling and used her magic to confirm it.

Someone had been in control of Ocellus. She could feel the source it all came from. A picture formed in her mind.

The connection broke off. Ocellus and the rest of her reformed kind had ensured their freedom until the end.

"What the actual..." I exaggerated annoyed. "They... they all decided to bucking kill themself in unison? I couldn't stop them. Holy crap!"

I was sitting there next to Thorax, who had a puffed-up belly from all the eggs Chrysalis had pumped into him. I knew the feeling, not a cool way to die. I decided to leave his mind before I had to relive a certain event.

"You were too full of yourself," Chrysalis said matter-of-factly. "The hive mind is more than just one single mind, it was to be expected that they wouldn't comply for long. Still impressive that you made them desperate enough to do that. It saves me the time to hunt them down later."

I sighed. "This wasn't the plan, I hoped I could use them for longer. Guess the friendship thing was more to them than just becoming a moose..."

Crysalis looked at Thorax's swollen body. "Don't worry, my little degenerate. This new generation of changelings will have a refined taste. There will be no need to tell them what you want. They will seek it on their own."

We both looked at each other and started laughing evilly.

I was becoming a lot better at this laughing thing.