Author's Note

I know that this one is super short but I've been addicted to Judgement and my dads nephew came over meaning I have next to no privacy but I promise that the next one will be longer again sorry to make you guys wait for nothing but for now just bash this one.

New Faces

As we make our way back through the Everfree Forest we constantly have to stop and hide from the patrols that are still covering near the outskirts.

We all wait as Pharynx checks around the area for any ponies that might be nearby until he speaks loud enough for us to hear.

"Looks like we're good for now but I don't know how long we have until we need to move again." He says

We all sigh as we drop to the floor me and Thorax excluded as I have to be lowered slowly due to my bleeding leg. As he finishes lowering me to the floor he looks over the group of Changelings that joined us.

Pharnyx then walks to where I'm sitting before handing me my gun back. I look up to him confused but thankful as I take back from him.

"How did you get this?" I ask

"After you dragged that pony out the window I grabbed it before I joined the others." Pharnyx explains

I nod as I try to ignore the pain from my leg though it seems Thorax notices as he then turns to the Changelings that joined us.

"Do any of you know how to heal up wounds?" Thorax asks

They look at eachother before one of the female ones comes closer.

"We can but until we get these cursed things off of us." she says as she grips the collar. "Then were useless."

Thorax sighs "Well looks like we don't have a choice then."

He proceeds to start hacking up something as he turns to my leg and spit some sort of sticky mass over where I was bleeding.

He grimaced as he looks at the wound "Its not really meant to be used for this but until we can properly get these off." Thorax puts a hand on his collar. "Our options are limited right now."

Pharnyx then rushes over to us as he begins whispering "Unicorns approaching be quiet."

We all stay quiet as we begin to hear hooves passing by us. We then wait for a couple of minutes before Pharnyx looks up and tells us we're ok.

Thorax proceeds to slowly but surely help me up as I hold on to his shoulder with my right arm and carry my gun with my left before we move put again.

We managed to get out of the forest and avoid any patrols as we make our way to the building and make our way inside before anyone spots us as we rush upstairs and get to our room as I grab the keys and open the door.

We all rush inside closing the door behind us as Thorax sets me down on the couch while Pharnyx keeps watch out the window.

"OK, well we made it but we still aren't able to do anything to help Joseph." Thorax says

I look at Thorax as my head feels like its killing me " I....may, h-have an idea."

Thorax looks at me with hope in his eyes "What is it?"

"All, you need to know is to get rid of them when I'm done." I tell him

He looks confused for a second before nodding his head before I start to slowly start to get up and and stand as I try to not put much effort on my leg as I begin to focus on using my Corsucate to morph back into the form I used during my mock fight at the hive.

Now fully morphed I look over at the other Changelings as they look at me with a mixture of awe and fear, though I don't take long to focus on it as I immediately start feeling dizzy so I move over to Thorax and motion the others to join us as I bring a hand up to my mouth and wipe the acid from it and bring it to the collar as it starts quickly dissolving.

Remembering my words as soon as its loose enough Thorax grabs the collar and throws it across the room before the acid could reach him. I then repeat the same steps for the others finally finishing with Pharnyx's collar before I stumble backwards onto the couch as I feel my form forcefully shift back to my Changeling form as I pass out onto the couch.

As I begin to wake up the first thing I'm met with is feeling like I just ran a marathon after I'd just thrown up from overeating. Point was I wasn't feeling to good and remembering what happened last night I wasn't too surprised. Though as I try to get up I'm met with alot more resistance then I expected, like something was weighing on me.

I look down as I see Thorax snoozing and drooling all over my chest as his entire body is on me.

I sigh 'Goddammit Thorax if you weren't adorable I would kicked you off already."
I pat my hand on his head before laying back down. 'Your lucky your my favorite out of everyone I know.'

I try to look to see if my leg was still bleeding from being stabbed but fail as Thorax's body is blocking me from seeing as I resume laying down.

'At least its not hurting thankfully.'

Sitting there for what felt like a millennium I come to a conclusion that I have recently realized.

'I'm bored and I don't know what to do. I want to get up and speak to the others but if I disturb Thorax out of his sleep then thats the equivalent of kicking a dog in my opinion and I will not have that on my mind.'

'So the question is what can I do to entertain my self while in my current situation.'

As I look over Thorax I shoft back to looking at my hand and him, grinning as an idea starts to form. 'I wonder......'

Curious, I move my hand behind his ear, lightly scritching it as he begins to make purring like chittering noises kinda like from a katydid but less panicky.

"He is absolutely adorable like this."

"Um,"

I freeze In place, slowly turning my head to the right as I see one of the female Changelings from earlier staring at me confused.

"Hello there."

She looks between me and Thorax still clearly confused "Uhhh, what are you doing?"

I look at her blankly as i try to come up with an answer to her question."Taking care if a friend?"

Her confused expression grew, seemingly lost at my supposed answer before shaking her head.

"Well, I just wanted to say thank you for saving us, if it wasn't for you, I dont think we would've survived that night."

I softly smile at her "Your welcome."

We stay quiet for a couple of minutes as she sits next to the couch while I'm still stuck waiting for Thorax to wake up.

I then remembered something "Oh that reminds me, I never got your name."

She turns to me as her eyes widened before looking back at the floor. "Sorry, its um Ocellus."
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What.

"What,"

She looks at me now with a embarrassed smile as she answers again. "My name its Ocellus."

"....oh ok, cool....cool." I look around the room now noticing its completely empty. "Um, where is everyling."

Her cheeks blush in embarrassment as she answers. "Well, after you got those things off of us and passed out the aggressive one told us we could take your room since you weren't using it at the time."

'Nice my room has been confiscated from me thats nice.' "Wait if that's the case, then why are you out here instead with the others?"

"Well I felt like that wouldn't have been right to just take something from you after you helped us escape, I know it stupid but-"

"Hey, no, How you think of things is perfectly acceptable, like I've told this ling here." I pause for a second before I point to Thorax. "How you think of something is perfectly acceptable, no matter what."

"I, ok thanks uhh-" she pauses as she realizes she doesn't know my name.

"Joseph,"

She nods "Thanks, Joseph."

"Alright well as much as I would like to do nothing I feel like we need to discuss what happens from here on out, and in order to do that I need to take care of something."

I look down as I lightly shake Thorax awake. "Wakey, wakey, time to go to school."

Thorax slowly opens his eyes as he struggles to wake up. "rrrmm, I'm not here go away."

I deadpan "Thorax you've been laying on me for hours now I think I deserve to be able to move."

He shoots up suddenly as his shocked expression morphs into a more relieved one. "Joseph thank the Maker your ok."
His face then shifts into a more worried expression as he quickly gets off me and begins to check my leg before his attention goes back to me. "You are ok right? You feel ok?"

"Woah, woah, hey It's ok, I'm ok." I sit up as I offer a hug to Thorax, one that he doesn't hesitate to accept as he grips on to me like I'm about to dissappear. "I'm ok alright?"

We sit there for a good minute before he lets go as he wipes his eyes. "I'm sorry, I know I'm being stupid, it's just I was really worried about you when you passed out, it was pretty frightening to just see you kinda be reduced to that state you know?"

He shakes his head "Sorry, that's not important right now and since your up we can finally talk about what to do next."

He gets up and walks out of the living room and into the hallway disappearing from sight for a minute before walking back in with Pharnyx and the other Changelings as they all sit back in the living room with the guys sitting next to me on the couch while the Older Male sits in one of the chairs leaving the rest of them to sit on the floor.

"Soooo, how about we introduce ourselves since we now have the time. I'll go first, my name is Joseph." I then gesture to Thorax to continue. "Oh! my name is Thorax."

He then gestures to Pharnyx who looks at him with a blank stare causing Thorax to narrow his eyes at him. Sighing, he proceeds to play along.

"My name is Pharnyx, whats yours?" He asks in a monotone voice as to which Thorax rolls his eyes to.

The older Male changeling proceed to goes next "My name is Etle." He then looks over to the others as they proceed to introduce themselves.

"My name is Rass" She says as she starts glaring at us for some reason, what reasoning? I have no idea.
"The names Ardinal,"
"Lectul,"
"And I'm Ocellus. "

"Great, now that we got that out of the way, first things first, does anyling here know who those ponies were and why they tried to kill us?"

"If I may?" Etle questioned

"Go ahead." Pharnyx said

He nodded "From what I've heard, they are a group of Unicorns that have banded together under another Unicorn that we saw last night around two years ago."

"Two years?" Pharynx asked

Etle nodded "Yes, although they weren't as big as they are now as to where two years ago the one your fellow ling fought with the other night had only 10 other Unicorns that actually believed In whatever nonsense he was spewing."

"Though now, not only have their numbers quadrupled but they seem to now know how to eliminate a Changelings ability to use their Corsucate and magic."

My eyes widen a bit as I remember something "That reminds me." I look at Pharynx and Thorax. "How did you guys get caught?"

Thorax looked away ashamed while Pharynx started to scowl.

"It, was my fault" Thorax said

I looked at him a bit surprised and confused. "Wait what, how?"

Pharynx bumps his shoulder as he gives him a reassuring smile to which Thorax responds with one of his own as he turns back to me.

"When we went to go look for a spot to practice we asked all around but no one really gave us any helpful tips as to any 'private' setting, until three Unicorns came up to us saying that they knew of a spot and all we had to so was follow them."

He pauses as he trys to get his words out before resuming.

"When they came up to us I was ready to agree and go but Pharynx pulled me to the side tellign me that he didn't trust them, but I decided that he was just being mean, and so I told him to stop acting paranoid and decided to drag him along as we entered the forest with them."

"They then locked those things around our necks which instantly took away our disguises and when we tried using magic it wasn't working, we tried fighting back but they overpowered us instantly."

Thorax chuckles "I'm a Bucking idiot."
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"Yes, you were." I said

They both look shocked at me as I continued.

"I'm not going to lie to you Thorax that was pretty idiotic of you." I put a hand on his shoulder. "But it's not completely your fault, did you go somewhere with strangers? Yes, but you can't fully blame yourself for that."

"Were In a completely different environment compared to the Hive, an environment that has been nothing but amazing and kind to us, right?"

He nods "Right,"

"But, now we know that not even this place is completely perfect and besides we weren't really prepared for these type of situations anyways, so like I said its not completely your fault."

Thorax sighs before smiling "Thanks Joseph, you somehow always know what to say."

I smile back "No need to thank me."

"Yeah, this is nice and all but we still need to address another topic at hand here."
He turns to face the other Changelings in the room.

"Look, I'm going to be upfront here, Joseph saved you yes but If I know him and I'm pretty sure I do then he isn't going to be wanting any of you to owe any debts to him, so with that out of the way I only have one thing to ask."

"Who's leaving and who's staying?"