Author's Note

Remember to bash and enjoy

How.... Interesting.

After I made my way out of the arena like area I decided to visit Thorax and Pharynx, which is what brings me here at their hole. As I raised my hand and knocked i waited for a couple of seconds until the hole opens and Thorax steps outside to greet me.

"Oh, hey Joseph."

"Hey Thorax, I was wondering if you still wanted to talk about that thing you mentioned on the first day of our lessons?"

He looked confused until he seem to light up in recognition "Oh yeah! Come in there's something I want to show you."

As we entered his hole i take my time to actually look around. It looks like their hole is bigger on the inside than mine probaly to accommodate the space for two instead of two. On Thorax's side I see a bunch of scrolls, tomes, and random stuff. On Pharynx's side I see him trying to read figure out how to read what's on them also some scrolls and a few tomes 'seems like he's taking the reading thing seriously still,' but other than that there's not much else on his side except his 'bed.

As I finished looking around the room I sat next to Thorax as he was busy looking through the mess looking for something. "Soooo, what is it you wanted to show me?"

"Its something that I found when I was reading over the Hives history, here it is " He proceeded to grab a tome that looked like it weighed 500 pounds as he dragged it over to where I was sitting, flipping through it until he landed on a certain page. "Here!" I looked at the image and was confused at what it was "Whaat is it?"

Thorax looked over at me "This is the 'Agartha,' its a device used to power Changelings when they were low on magic or during emergencies would expend all the magic they have built up to enact a protective barrier around the Hive."

"Thats pretty cool" 'and useful, a way to provide more magic when you run out.'

"Yeah thats cool and all but thats not what concerned me." he points to a sentence after the description of the device. "This is, 'during the Desperate Era this was always used for Changelings to protect the hive from relentless attacks against the Unknowns.'

'Desperate Era? Wait, Unknowns?"

"Thats exactly what I thought, so I tried searching around the Annals and I found more stuff talking about the Desperate Era." Thorax got up as he went to look for something sitting over on Pharynx's side. During his search Pharnyx stopped what he was doing and seemed to say something at Thorax which Thorax responded leading into a quick conversation between them. As he came back Pharynx stood up and followed him back over as he sat next to me. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged "Thorax asked if I wanted to join you guys and since I already overheard some of your conversation I decided why not."

"Thanks for joining us Pharynx, I know you could be doing more impor-"

"No, none of that there is nothing I could be doing that is more important than you."

"Aww, thank y-"

"Unless its training, at that point your the second most important until its done."

Thorax deadpanned "Aww, thanks."

Pharynx gave him a smirk in return "No problem."

Thorax shook his head as he regained somewhat of a serious look "Anyways like I said I went to try and find more stuff about the Desperate Era and this." He pulled over what looked like a tome "Is what I could find."

As I looked it over it seemed to have a purplish color as a green like flame was the insignia serving as the cover of the tome "Oook what is it.?"

"Apparently someling by the name of Exel had written down mostly everything that happened during the Desperate Era." Thorax then opened it as he quickly flipped through multiple pages until he stopped at a certain one "Right here it says 'As The Moon Pony disappeared, creatures deemed the Unknown started appearing near the borders of the Badlands.'

'When Changelings were sent to scout and report on the creatures they returned describing them as Dark grey two legged creatures with their bodies seemingly deteriorating causing their bodies to be extremely thin allowing their ribs to be visible from the outside, their faces completley devoid of any facial features moving in a direction towards the hive.'

'Deeming them as non-threatening a small horde containing ten Surveyors them were sent out to deal with them.'

'Only 1 returned.'

'The Changeling that survived had come back and told The Sentinels about how the creatures faces split open releasing a terrifying shriek rushing towards the Changelings on the ground, as they tore through the changelings team the airborne ones tried to attack using their magic in the air only for the creatures jump up, grabbing the airborne lings and and dragged them to the ground as they tore their bodies apart.'

'Sensing something amiss our benevolent Queen sent out a team Of Sentinels to take care of the now deemed Unknown.'

'Almost all of them came back exausted and out of breath as they retold the events of what happened.' 'According to what the Sentinels said they had been in a tough fight against the creatures as they proved to be very agile and surprisingly strong.'

'Killing one of the Sentinels by opening and wrapping their face around the lone Sentinel ripping their head off, but they still managed to win the fight. After they won they started to celebrate their easy victory until one of them pointed a noise out, then according to them they felt and heard a slight rumbling as they looked around until they spotted an entire army of Unknown in the far distance running towards the group.'

'Panicking they decided to return to warn the Hove of the impnding danger that was to arrive. After finishing their warning our ever benevolent Queen decided that against her best wishes we needed the help of those ,Ponies, so she sent some of her best Surveyors to hopefully convince the Ponies for assistance.'

Pharnyx waved his hands "Wait, wait, so let me get this straight one of the creature's that Changelings are supposed to hate the most are the ones we decided to try and get help from first?"

Thorax stopped reading to think "Well they probably were the fastest option for reinforcements."

"Still, It feels contradictory to just label these ponies as our 'enemy' just to say that they were our first choice."

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

Thorax and Pharynx looked at me confused "*cough* sorry, random quote I thought of."

Thorax shook his hands rapidly "No no, Its a good one, even if a bit confusing but I think I get, you know when and who to when its needed right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Yeah this is nice and all but can we get back to the tome."

"O-oh yeah sorry anyways." 'It took about three days for the Ponies to arrive and four for the Unknown to arrive.'

'These three days were known as the Altered Change because of how every role in the hive from the lowest drone to the highest Provider had to train in order to prepare every ling in the hive to be capable of fighting the threat that was about to arrive.'

'When the ponies arrived it was a very tense as neither side trusted eachother as they stuck to their own areas on the Badlands, but any resentment and distrust disappeared when the Unknown army appeared in numbers reaching around a hundred thousand. The most that the Hive had was forty-thousand including the roles that hadn't had much experience in battles while the Ponies brought around fifty thousand soldiers.'

'The battle after that had been one of, but not the last, of the bloodiest, and most brutal wars that would ever take place in the Badlands, as limbs were lost, bodies torn apart, and lives lost we somehow were able to push the enemy back as they started to retreat to the borders of the Badlands beyond the Hive.'

'Ten thousand Changelings and twenty thousand Ponies died that day during that first battle now known as the Opposites Turmoil.' 'After the battle was over our Queen and the Sun Pony decided to send one of each of their best soldiers to gather reinforcements from the Dragons, Minotaurs, and Griffins to aid in the upcoming battles.'

'It took around three months to be able to fully convince all three races to assist in the battles, and during the first month the battles in the Badlands were getting more and more desperate as our Changelings and the Ponies were barely able to hold the enemy back until the twenty thousand Griffins that had arrived had finally gave us the power to finally push the enemy back.'

'After the battle was over one of them known as King Grover had requested an audience with the Sun Pony and our Queen to discuss what to do about the creatures that had appealed.' 'A few weeks had passed without any Unknown appearing allowing every creature to relax from the constant battles. During those few weeks one of the Ponies had made a device that would of apparently rendered every Unknown immobile and useless.'

'So when the Unknown returned again the device was used, sending an almost invisible Shockwave out as it passed through the Unknown making them all fall down, and as they went to investigate their bodies were still almost dead like.'

'But even that had failed seeming to only enrage the Unknowns in being more aggressive as they now started becoming more barbaric killing creatures only to steal their arms and legs to use it as replacements for their own deteriorating body.'

"Oh sweet maker" Thorax stopped reading as he looked like he was going to be sick.

"Fuckkk, these things really didn't hold back."

'I was disturbed to say the least, the amount of cruelty that these Unknown had possessed was truly frightening, but something was bothering me.'

"Wait, but where were they trying to go?"
Pharynx looked at me confused "What are you talking about?"

"It says in the time that the Surveyors that had spotted them said that they were heading in a certain direction so where were they heading?"

Thorax and Pharynx seemed to pause at that looking to be deep in thought until Pharnyx spoke first "I'm not sure, but to be honest was it really that important?" Cause I don't know about you but I think the fact that Changelings, our species mind you that are known for being secret and hiding from plain sight decided to work together with other creatures in order to defend themselves from these Monsters."

"Yeah, I guess your right, anyways Thorax does it say how they beat the Unknown?"

"Uh let me seeeee...oh here we go, it says that 'after losing most of their forces even with the Dragons and Minotaur assisting them. Each leader of their respecting species decided to come up with a plan to follow the Unknown after the next battle that happened.' 'So after the next brutal battle that took place the leaders let the Unknown flee after pushing them back again until they had found a scar in the ground that had looked like a mutated fresh cut that had been pulsating.'

'After finding what seemed to be the thing responsible for making these creatures the leaders came together to come up with a plan to destroy the scar like mutation on the land until King Grover had proposed to make a device that would be capable of wiping out anything in the area.'

'So with the plan set in motion the leaders of each species had used their talents to develop and create their own solution to the problem.'

'The intelligence of a Griffin, the Forging Expertise of a Minotaur, the Flames of a Dragon, and the Magic of a Pony and Changeling combined.'

'After five days of nonstop blood,sweat and tears put into this project they had created the Unknown Expungitator. They then went to go and deploy the device on the scar like mutation and retreated as fast as to get out of the range as they then detonated the device creating a magic enhanced pillar of fire that broke into the skies, sending a Shockwave throughout the area.'

'Not wanting to celebrate prematurely Our Queen decided to wait to see if the Unknown would returned so we waited,

And waited,

And waited,

Until a year passed by and no Unknowns had returned it was surreal but we had done it. Though after we confirmed we had successfully defeated the enemy Our Queen had ordered us to return to the hive as soon as the others were distracted and for everyling to attend the Throne room. I wonder what Our Queen still requires of us?'

We all were quiet for a minute until Thorax spoke first

"Well that was.... something."

Pharnyx snorted "Yeah, that was something alright we just learned that Changelings teamed up with other species even though we apparently are never supposed to reveal ourselves to them to fight creatures that were capable of taking down a Sentinel, speaking of which where did you even find this?"

Thorax shrugged "I actually stumbled upon it on accident I put my hand on the wall to rest and it was a fake piece of rock shaped to be apart of the wall and it had this tome plus this vial that was at the end." Thorax then proceeded to flip to the end of the tome as it had a small vial with a cork sticking out,filled with bluish liquid that seemed to produce lightning every now and then "What is it?"

"Apparently the same stuff that the 'Agartha' was providing changelings but according to Exel he had found a way to produce a small amount of liquid to enhance a Changelings magical capacity by twice the amount permanently, but for some reason his writing ended around the same time he said when the Queen had told every long in the hive to attend the Throne room after they confirmed the Unknowns weren't returning."

"Woahhhh."

Thorax then handed me the vial "You can have it Joseph."

Shocked i tried to refuse "Wait, hold on Thorax i can't take this."

"Why not?"

"What do you mean 'why not'?" Didn't you listen to what you just said?"

"Of course I did."

"So then why would you pass up on this golden opportunity?"

"Because I want to repay you."

I looked at Thorax confused as he had a somewhat serious look on his face "Thorax you don't ne-"

"I know I don't need to but, I still want to repay you for everything you've done for me and Pharynx."

"Joseph you, you basically changed my life, I honestly don't know what would have happened if you weren't here."

"But you are here and my life has improved so much ever since you became my friend and I wanna repay that debt, so please take it, I'm not asking you to settle my debt im asking to receive a gift from your friend."

I looked him in the eyes for minute before sighing "Well if it's a gift then I'd guess it would be wrong of me not to take it."

Thorax seemed to be filled with relief as I said that "Thank you, Joseph, truly."

"No need to thank me, after all, what are friends for."

As I reached over and grabbed the vial I unplugged the cork and paused "Well bottoms up."

Drinking the crackling fluid it tasted kind of like an off brand soda. "So do you feel anything?"

I waited a couple of seconds for something to happen "Not really, I guess that Exel guy was talking out of his a-"

Was all i was able to say hearing a voice call out my name as I passed out.
_____________________________________________
Far on the outskirts of the badlands a crater filled with ash contained a scar in the ground seemingly lifeless and dead

until it pulsed with life.