Well, That Changes Things A Bit
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To Change For The Better

Well, That Changes Things A Bit

I open my eyes slowly once again as I take a moment to find my bearings as I start to remember where we are 'Right, on the train to, Ponyville....'

'Though I guess that does begs the question when are we? Cause, if I remember correctly, Thorax didn't show up until the wedding, though he was already 'grown' when the invasion happened so we must be around S1 then right? Unless.....'

My eyes widen as I realize something 'Unless we're before the show, but maybe lucks on my side today and we are in the shows original timeline, hopefully, maybe.'

I sigh as I look to my right with Thorax leaning on my arm slumbering away to the occasional rocking of the train and Pharnyx leaning back on the seat with his mouth open snoring away. Trying to stifle my chuckles I quietly disengage myself from the sleep pile as I get up on another seat to look at where were at, and as I start to move I feel the train start to slow down as Thorax and Pharynx fall on top of eachother jolting them awake.

"What, Where? oh, right, the train."

As Pharynx starts to calm down Thorax starts rubbing his eyes trying to wake up "Are *yawn* there yet?"

I nodded "Yeah we just stopped, make sure to grab your 'thing' since we're gonna need somewhere to hide these, and remember, different names."

Pharnyx rolls his eyes "Yeah,yeah we get it come on Thorax let's get outside."

"Ok."

As we step out if the train still carrying our weapons, I look around with barely contained wonder at the town I now find myself in as Pharynx says something "So, this is Ponyville huh, doesn't look to shabby though it seems like that isn't saying that much."

Thorax gives him a slight wap at the back of the head "Hey! Be nice, I think it looks very pleasant."

Pharynx rubs the back of his head "Didn't need to hit me."

Shaking my head, I look over the town still trying to grasp the bizarre circumstances that has somehow led me to this very town 'My god....I mean I knew I was in the show, but still, the fact that I'm able to stand right here, right now, in the place that served as the beginning and the end is still surreal to me, like a book you've enjoyed your entire life now able to be viewed and experienced instead of imaging how it could've or would've been forever imaging and not knowing for sure.'

Pulling me out of my thoughts i see a hand waving in front of my face as I hear Pharynx speaking "Helloooooo, Hive to Joseph?"

I stumble back a bit "Uhhh, sorry what happened?"

"I was discussing with Tho- I mean Shining what we should look for, remember we still need something revolutionary for the hive, also we still need to find somewhere to hide these." As he motions to the Hellsbreath in his hand.

'Right, but the question is should I try and convince them to leave the Hive or let things flow naturally?'

"Well maybe we'll be able to find something that will provide us with information about something like that, though for our weapons?" I take the time to consider what to do with them.

"If we can find somewhere to sleep we might be able to leave our stuff there."

He nods "OK, not my preferred option but we don't have many of those out here, although, where should we go first?"

Thorax then pipes up "Why don't we just drop off the weapons so that way we can walk around to familiarize ourselves with the area and not have to worry about them."

I nod "Yeah, thats not a bad idea."

Pharynx nods at Thorax "Good Job, Shining."

Thorax looks away happy at the praise from Pharynx "T-Thanks."

Now having come to a decision we start walking around as we try to find somewhere that can give us information about our assignment from the Hive.
_____________________________________________

As were making our way down we cut through the market as Thorax and Pharnyx look on in wonder to the stuff being sold, though looking disappointed when being denied from trying any of it out.

As we continue making our way through the market I can hear Pharnyx grumbling "We need whatever these bites are."

"Bits."

"Whatever, point is we need them if we're gonna be stuck here for a couple of moons."

"Ok but how are we gonna get any?"

Thorax looks around before going to a pony selling string "Excuse me sir?"

The pony looks down with a kind smile "Yes? What do you need little one?"

"Do you know where we can get bits, oh and do you also know where we can find somewhere to sleep?"

The pony looks at him confused and a little concerned "Uhh, sure but what about your parents?"

Thorax tilts his head "P-arents?"

"Yeah, your Dam or Sire?"

I step In to cover for Thorax "Well, we wanted to try and be independent so we're trying to find a place that we can kinda claim as our own."

The pony nods, 'understanding' the situation "Oh, ok well I guess colts will try and make it on their own, especially ones that recently gotten their Revelation Marks."

'Their it is again, are Revelation Marks just a more advanced name for cutie marks?'

The pony scratches his head before answering. " Well if I'm not mistaking you can go to town hall to take care of sleeping arrangements, and i think there might also be...... if I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure i remember those Apple folks handing out some papers looking for help so you can go ask them."

"Oh, Thank you, though can you tell us how to get there?"

He nods "Sure, just keeping going straight out of the market,go pass town hall, thats the tall building in the middle, then take a right, keep going straight across the bridge until you see the farm up ahead, and for town hall just keep going straight out the market until you see the first tall building on your way, And then just go inside."

Thorax nods as he smiles "Thanks again Sir."

He smiles back "No problem colt."

As Thorax starts making his way back to us repeating what the pony said to him getting a nod of approval form Pharnyx "Good job, Shining, not bad for your first time extracting information."

Thorax mumbles a thanks as we start making our way following the directions until we see the massive building infront of us.

"So, I'm guessing this must be town hall huh." Pharynx looks it up and down "Well the pony wasn't lying it is pretty tall."

"Well hopefully we can find somewhere to sleep." Thorax says

Pushing open the doors we see a lone desk as a Earth mare with pink hair and a faint white strip bairly visible go down her the middle of a hair wearing a white buttoned shirt with a vest covering it and Black pants complete with a violet bowtie.

'Wait thats not what she usually wears where's her gray ha-'

As I start to realize something I try to think of something else. 'No, no don't jump to conclusions and besides who knows maybe she just felt nostalgic today.'

As I try to convince myself not to panic like always Thorax goes up and introduces himself "Hello, nice to meet you."

Mayor Mare goes up and shakes his hand "And hello to you too, what can I help you with today?"

"Well we heard that we might be able to find somewhere to sleep if we came here."

"Oh, well you certainly heard right."

She turns ands starts rummaging through her desk in search of something "Its a new program where we try to provide assistance to either ponies with nowhere to go or filles an colts that have just left their home in order to be more independent until their prepared to move on their own."

As she finishes she finally finds what she's looking for as she pulls out some papers and puts them on the desk for us to see "Thankfully, we still have a few spots still open so all you need to do is sign and then you can go on your way."

"Oh thank you, this is really he-"

"And how exactly does this work?"

Pharynx cuts him off as he looks at the paper with visible doubt causing Mayor to be confused "What exactly do you mean?"

"Well, not to be rude but I don't believe you."

"Shiny!"

"What? I said I'm not trying to be rude but come on Shining even you should be able to see how suspicious this is."

Thorax looks away with a conflicting look on his face as Pharynx continues "I mean it just sounds a little suspicious that if we sign whatever this is we just get a free place to live no strings attached."

"I actually was about to explain that."
.
.
.
.
.
.
"You were?"

She puts her hands on her hips "Yes I was going to explain what exactly this program would have entailed before he signed."

Pharnyx deflates a bit after hearing her "oh..... sorry then."

She sighs "Its ok, but next time you need to let others explain themselves before you start jumping to conclusions."

Pharynx looks at the desk, embarrassed, avoiding eye contact with her. "Ok"

*Ahem*

"Now as I was going to say before you sign this program does allow you to sleep somewhere yes but it's an apartment like building. You'll still be able to get your own rooms, but every three months you will have to pay a tax of Three hundred bits and if you fail to pay the first time you will be granted an additional two weeks to pay it, but if you fail to pay the second time then your contract will be void with us and you will no longer be allowed inside the building."

"Keep in mind everything will already be paid for including Gas, Electricity, Heat, all your paying for is the three months you have been living their. Now you can either each sign a paper an have separate rooms or you can put all your names on one contract and have a room big enough to yourselves, it won't be fancy but it should be good enough, though keep in mind your payment will go up to three hundred and fifty bits to count for the fact that your living together instead of separately."

"So would you like to be seperate or together?"

Thorax raises a finger "Can we discuss this for a second?"

Mayor Mare nods "Of course,I understand this is a big decision."

"Thank you."

As Thorax finishes talking we walk outside to discuss our options as I speak first "So what do you guys thinks?"

Pharynx thinks for a second before thinking "I think its best if we stay together."

Thorax nods "I also agree."

I'm a bit taken aback by Thorax's decision "Huh, I mean I kinda expected it from Dusty but I'm a bit surprised that you also want to stick together, if anything I thought you might want a room to yourself."

Thorax shakes his head in response "I thought about it, I did really, but I've lived my whole life with Dusty, so it would've just felt kinda weird for me to be separated from him, especially since we're just starting to reconnect again."

Pharnyx eyes soften a bit as he smiles "Thanks bro but remember I'm not forcing you to do anything so you c-"

"I'm sure, don't worry your not forcing me to do anything I don't already want to.

Although he nods its obvious he's not totally convinced as Thorax walks up and hugs him as he whispers to him. "Its ok Pharynx, your not forcing me to do anything, I do want this, so I would really appreciate if you let me do it."

Pharnyx hugs back as they take a moment before separating as he adopts a serious look on his face "Just let me know if I ever to start to go back how I used to be because believe I don't want to so I need you to keep me in check ok."

"Ok."

"Good." He then looks at me "that goes for you too, just in case Thorax isn't able to be with us for some reason I'm gonna be counting on you to take his place."

I put my hand on his shoulder "I will make sure that you never go back to the way you were before, that I promise you."

He nods "Thank you, jeez such a stupid place to get emotional at."

I frown "Hey, none of that, there is no wrong time to feel emotional its not and will never be your fault if you need to get something off of your chest. Besides keeping how you feel inside and never expressing it is how you alienated yourself from Thorax in the first place."

".....Right."

He sighs "OK, let's go and teel that pony our decision so we can go to this 'farm'."

Now having taken care and remaining worries we go inside to let Mayor Mare know of our decision and sign the paper together as we make our way towards the building.
_____________________________________________
As we arrive near the building i can start to see pillars next to a path that has an overhang above a couple of steps going into the building.

Though as we enter the inside looks ridiculously nice with shiny wooden floors, white recliners, and steps leading up to different floors with tons of ponies hanging out in the lobby, waiting for someone or just hanging out.

Making our way to the front we see the pony at the desk writing something until she stops and look at us with a practiced smile. "Hello, how may I help you today?"

Mayor Mare gives the contract over to the pony as they check it over nodding in satisfaction. "OK, i see everything's already set up so I'll just give you the key and you can get set up in one of our available rooms."

She gets up as she grabs one of the keys hanging on a rack behind her before making her way to us "Here you go, room 141."

Thorax grabs the key as he looks it over, curious about the object before looking up and smiling back at the pony."

"Have a nice day."

"You too."

Before we fully make it to the stairs Mayor Mare stops us "OK, now that you have everything set up now, I will be taking my leave do have a good day." She finishes as she starts to walk away as Thorax says bye "She was nice, well let's see what this room is all about."

As we make our way up the stairs and to the right hallway we count the numbers on the door as we try to find ours "139, 140, oh here we go 141."

All three of us stand outside as Thorax looks confused before turning around to us "Isn't it supposed to open?"

I'm trying to contain my laughter as Pharynx scratches his head trying to think of a solution "I don't know, maybe we insert what your carrying into the barrier and then it'll open."

"Oh good idea."

He then presses the key onto the door and backs up letting it fall. "Try to open it now."

Thorax then pushes against the door with no success "No, hmmm I'm lost at how we open this, Joseph you got any ideas."

Shaking in barely contained laughter i decide to finally get us into the room "Y-yeah, let me try something."

I pick up the key as I insert it into the lock twisting and unlocking it as I push open the door. "Tada."

Thorax looks on in wonder while Pharnyx looks impressed that I figured it out and we make our way inside."

Surprisingly as we step in our room it looks decent, not anything amazing but the living room is spacious enough to not feel cramped as right next to it is a dining table near the kitchen. Meanwhile as we make our way down the hallway i see two bedrooms with one bathroom at the end of the hall.

I turn to them "I'm gonna put my weapon in my room, Pharynx you should do the same since we still have to go to the farm."

He nods as Thorax starts whining "Awwwww, but i wanted to see what this place has to offer."

I shake my head amused by his endless curiosity "Later, we still need to go to the farm and hope they'll be able to give us some bits."

Thorax starts pouting "fine, but tomorrow i want to explore here."

I chuckle "Of course, now let's go and make our way to the farm, you still remember the ponies directions right?"

He nods "Yeah, don't worry."

"Alright let's go then."
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"Well I'm gonna guess that this the place that pony was talking about."
Pharnyx states as we see a sign posted on the front of the entrance with an apple etched into it as only name comes to my mind.

'Sweet Apple Acres'

Just like Ponyville its still a surreal experience to be able to walk up to a place you've seen in a show you always watched for the past 8 or so years.

"Well let's go inside." As we push open the fence we start walking in as I take my time walking and looking around at what I can see at the front of the farm .

As I'm deep in my thoughts Thorax spots someone as he waves one of his arms on greeting.

"Hello."

"Well hello there back to you too." Says a voice says sweetly back.

I pause '.......Thats not Applejack.'

Slowly looking up, I take in the mare that responded back to Thorax with her cream fur and orange hair flowing down halfway her back with a sunflower planted In her hair wearing overalls over an yellow shirt with blue jeans as she extends her hand out introducing herself.

"Names Pear Butter, nice to meet you."

Unaware of my internal crisis Thorax goes up to greet her as he shakes her hand "Hi! Nice to meet you too, my names Shining Star and over their is my brother Dusty Diamond and our friend Midnight Shimmer."

Smiling, Pear goes up to Pharnyx to greet him as they exchange pleasantries until she comes up to me as extending her hand towards me as I do my best to calm my nerves and shake her hand as she pulls back and looks over all of us.

"Im guessing since your here you must of saw our flyer, usually we manage fine on our own but it seems like a bit of help nowadays wouldn't go amiss."

She claps her hands "So, I'll show you around, tell you what you need to do and then you can get to work tomorrow, got it?"

We all nod "Good, come on let me show you around."

As we followed her i was still reeling in the fact that I was indeed before the show 'So I'm before the show huh.'

I sigh 'Fine, its not that big of a deal, just gotta wait a couple of more years until stuff actually starts happening, and besides, I can still make changes that actually might matter down the line. So you know what, this actually works out for me since now I have the opportunity to make more changes for the better like this.

I look up at the back of Pears head as we still follow her 'Starting with you.'

Pear starts to slow down as she starts to show us around the farm. "So this is the chicken coop sometimes we'll assign you here though its not too hard of an job to do, since all you gotta do is wake the chickens up, throw out some feed though make sure its outside of the coop, don't want any pests getting in their and their such a hassle to deal with once they are."

She shakes her head before moving "Over there you can see our other crops like carrots, corn, we also have grapes we gather up for events only usually though sometimes we gather them for ourselves too."

She then starts grinning "Though this right here is the real pride of the farm."

She says as when we pass the house we see acres of apple trees going into the distance with the sun shining down on them like a perfectly painted peaceful picture.

I look over at Thorax and Pharynx as I swear I see their eyes filled with stars at the scene."

"Woahhhhh, there so many trees!"

Pharnyx still shocked nods slowly "Yeah, its weirdly, nice in a way."

"Thats where we'll do most of our work from time to time."

She then turns around "Alright, thats basically it for today, usually I'd introduce you to the others but there out doing something so tomorrow you'll meet, well, almost, the rest of the family." She finishes with a somber smile.

We all notice her emotion changing for a second but I cut in before anyone can say anything "Well thank you for letting us work here Miss Pear, i look forward for working here tomorrow though we'll probably be heading out now."

She nods "Alright then, ya'll take care now."

We all start to make our way down the road back into town as Thorax speaks "I wonder why she felt sad all of a sudden?"

Pharnyx shrugged "Don't know, think its best not to mention it to the her though."

Thorax frowns "I guess, it just fe-Woahhhh."

Just then the ground started shaking making us fall to the ground as I look to the sky seeing a rainbow go streaking across leaving behind a circle of rainbow expand off in the distance.. 'Well I guess that confirms it if anything, good going Rainbow.'

"What Was That!?"

As I look down from the sky I see that Thorax and Pharynx also seemed to have saw the Rainboom going off in the sky as well.

Pharnyx has no words as he looks up into the sky in shock and a little bit of fear until he starts calming himself down to think more rationally "I don't know, but whatever it is I think its best of we stay far away from it if it can cause whatever that was."

Thorax slightly shaking a bit nods "Yeah, I think that might be for the best."

Pharnyx grabs both of his shoulder as he looks in his eyes "Hey, its ok just take deep breaths innnn and outtttt."

Following his instructions Thorax closes his eyes as he slowly starts to calm down again opening his eyes."

Thorax smiles gratefully at Pharnyx "Thanks again for that."

He returns the smile "Its alright, just doing what I'm supposed to."

Thorax giggles at that "Alright, enough if that, let's just get back to the building so we can relax."

Pharynx snorts "your just saying that because you want to see everything in our what did they call it again rooms? Yeah rooms."

Thorax looks away sheepishly "Mayyyybe."

As we continue walking down to the building we just talk with eachother the rest of the way.

'This is nice, just spending time with people you care about and pretty soon."

I look up into the sky where Rainbow did her first Rainbow a couple of minutes ago "A few ponies are going to go on a journey that will change their lives forever."

Turning back around I enter the building with my friends as we officially end our first day being here in Ponyville.

Feeding
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To Change For The Better

Feeding

As I was starting to wake up I felt my body being lightly shaken. Opening my eyes and yawning or I guess I would be hissing?

Anyway, as I was waking up I was let down gently by the changeling carrying me next to a hole that opened up when I was near it. Although, now that I was fully up I noticed someone was missing' where's Thorax?' As I was looking around trying to spot him the changeling that carried me here seemed amused at my worried state.

Chuckling, they said. "If you're looking for the other one you had wrapped next to you he was put in a separate hole with his brother."

I guess that made sense even if I cared about him we weren't exactly, close enough. Satisfied with the explanation I decided to waddle over to the hole and crawl on. Upon entering the hole I saw what I expected was my room, although seeing it for the first time I was very disappointed.

Seeing as what I could assume was my bed I slowly tried walking over to it. As I reached my bed I tried feeling it by pressing down on it, yep, definitely rock hard, I guess all the good stuff is for 'Queen Chrysalis'.

Disappointed with the state of my bed I looked around as much as I could but since it was so tightly packed together there wasn't much space to look at,disappointed with the state of my room altogether I just decided to go back to sleep since there wasn't much else to do.

I was abruptly woken up to a voice inside my head stating. "Make your way to the Feeding chambers if you don't want to suffer from Lunger".

'Lunger?, What the hell is that? Pretty sure whoever said that apparently doesn't know how to speak properly.'

Seeing as I also didn't want to go hungry I decided to get up from my bed and walked 'huh I guess changeling's motor functions take very little effort to develop, well works all the better for me.' Happy with how easily my body was developing I made my way outside my hole.

Upon exiting my hole I felt something in the air almost tasting it 'I guess this is what love feels and tastes like, let's just hope there's enough of it when I get there.' I started following the feeling in the air closer to the source and as I got closer the feeling got stronger and my mouth started watering as it started tasting better too.

After finally making it to what I assume is the feeding chambers I see that there were already changelings fighting over the limited supply that was left behind. It seems like that some love was contained in small egg like containers faintly lighting up as a pinkish color.

As I saw the black Friday sale like stampede happening I tried to see if there were any spare containers off to the side and thankfully my luck wasn't dead yet as I saw one knocked over off to the side of the ruckus going on.

As I picked it up I realized a fatal flaw of mine. 'How do I eat love? I mean I know in the show they just opened their mouths and it kinda flowed to them but did their biology play a part of it or was it something they learned?'

I try opening my mouth facing the egg and as I do a slight trickle of love starts flowing towards into me, and let me tell you, it tasted really good kinda like the taste of your favorite food and the feeling of your favorite memory combined together making me feel warm and kinda giddy.

'Well that was easy, let's try to save some of this.' Though as I was starting to walk towards the exit I saw a changeling going over to others as they tried to get some of the love from the containers only to be ignored and hissed at. 'Ah, God dammit i really wanted this for myself,' feeling bad for them I went up to them and offered the rest of the love In my container.

At first they regarded me with suspicion although the closer they got the more relieved they seemed to get, as they finally took and sucked the rest of the love from the container. Looking relieved they faced me. "Thank you." they said.

My eyes widened in shock as I started to feel stupid and annoyed with myself. 'I Could've talked this entire time?' I ask myself before I cleared my throat as I tried to speak for the first time. "Don't worry about It, what's your name".

"Thorax." They said looking shy about it.

My eyes widened in shock once again. "Hello Thorax, my name is Joseph" I said.

"Joseph? That's a weird name." Thorax says only for his eyes to widen as he stepped back panicking. "Not that its a bad name, I'm sorry. " Thorax says while looking a bit scared.

"Hey, hey, hey its ok, no need to get worked up over it, besides I agree with you my name is a bit weird compared to yours."

Thorax looked relieved as he breathed out some air. "O-ok thanks again for giving me some of your love".

"No problem I couldn't help but see that you weren't getting any anywhere else".

He looked a bit sad as I said that. "I was hoping that I could get one of my own but I saw that they were already gone, so I tried seeing if I could get some otherlings love hoping they wouldn't mind giving me some and I guess you saw how that went".

I frowned 'I guess that's only reasonable seeing as how this could be their first taste of love' shaking my head i wrapped my hand around his shoulder and pulled him to me. "Well don't worry, If you can't get some I'll try and see if I can give you some." I said

Thorax's eyes lit up, shocked at what I was offering him. "Really!?" He asks in disbelief

"Yes, but." I booped him on the nose before continuing. "Don't expect me to do all the work you should still try to get your own, just because you missed your chance this time doesn't mean you won't get another".

Thorax nodded his head "I will although I don't know if I'll be able to do it all the time." He says looking apologetic

"And that's ok thats why I'll be here to help you out just in case you need me." I say reassuring him

Thorax looked me dead in the eyes before proceeding to hug me."Thank you for doing this for me" I was shocked as I was caught off guard by the hug before slowly hugging him back.

"You're welcome." As the hug ended so did our time together as we both went back to our respectable holes, as I entered my hole I crawled onto my rock bed and slowly went to sleep.

Making My Way
View Online

To Change For The Better

Making My Way

Author's Note

I'm going to do a time skip so we can things moving a bit.

Making My Way

(10 years later)

"Another day, another migraine". I chuckle to myself as I prepare to go through another day of nothing much really.

When I became a changeling and came to terms of my situation I was a little worried if I was going to be forced to do some kind of impossible task to test my worth but for better or for worse It never came it was just the same thing, get up, sleep, eat love/give some to Thorax, talk to Thorax, say bye, sleep and repeat for, I don't know how long now.

So now as I prepare to go through another day of almost meaningless tasks as I reach the feeding chambers I notice everyone standing straight side-by-side to each other in a line as someone is standing in front of them with their back to them.

'Oook seems like something new for a change.' As I go to stand next to a random changeling thats when the bigger changeling turns around and the first thing I notice Is. 'Breasts, am I- nope im seeing correctly those are just breasts out, and, about.' As my brain is rebooting from the reminder of the lack of clothing and nude creatures in this world I was reminded of something.

'Wait a minute if I'm not wrong no one else I've met had breasts so far,' and as I looked down the line I was able to confirm that every other ling had chest areas looking like pecs instead. 'So If that's the case then what why does this on-' my eyes widened 'unless, no, no maybe It's just a random female changeling that is 8ft tall and has a bigger more crooked horn than every other ling here.'

As I was trying to calm myself down the female ling finally spoke "Now that ilIt seems like everyling is here I can stop wasting my time here. Listen, for I will not repeat myself again, if your underdeveloped minds were not able to come to the one and only conclusion you should have been able to come to I am your one and only Queen Chrysalis and you WILL serve me with the respect, devotion, and loyalty I expect out of any of you, any less and I will drain you of the love that had been wasted on you for the past ten years myself, am I clear?"
.
.
"I SAID AM I CLEAR"!
The whole line including me chorused
"YES QUEEN CHRYSALIS"! Chrysalis looked down at us with a toothy grin.

"Good, now as to what I wasted my time with down here in the first place, today all of you will be tested on whether you become a valuable member of the hive or another worker focused on improving the hive, now, come I haven't all day to be wasting my precious time here."

As we followed Chrysalis through a series of holes and corridors I was busy trying to figure out what we were being tested on. 'It can't be simple if this is apparently going to determine our roles in the hive for the rest of our lives, unless we're going to fight eachother.' That made me a little nervous. 'I haven't been in a fight since my last life and I doubt its gonna be a simple street fight, oh well nothing to do but just hope for the best.'

After a couple of minutes we finally made our way towards an arena looking area that unlike most arenas had a roof and walls made with the same rock material of my room and bed. As I looked around I saw a simple looking throne that overlooked the whole area with seats galore to the left and right side of it. Seeing as how there wasn't much to look at I just focused on walking to our destination.

After we reached the center Chrysalis turned around to address us "Here's how this test will work, you will pick a ling you want to be paired up with and upon picking that ling you will have made a team since their are sixteen of you that should be fair enough when each ling has picked a teammate I will tell you to start, now some of you may be wondering how do you know if you completed the test and the answer is very simple."

She slowly leans down and towards us, "You'll be the last lings standing". As she finishes her sentence she turns around and flys to her throne making a buzzing sound as she does, 'huh so it does sound like bee flying'.

I shake my head 'Ok focus Joseph seeing as how she barely discussed how the test works this will very likely be a duo version of a free-for-all just gotta find the toughest looking individual.'

I start looking around considering my options. 'ok let's see.' I see a group of Changelings discussing something with each other as I try to look for a good teammate. 'To small, to thin, he seems like a good pick kinda bigger and taller than me but let's make sure there no better options first.' I turn looking at a more smaller group of 4 Changelings. 'Looks like one of theirs wings are broken won't be useful for this test, too full of himself and I can tell just from standing here, too Thorax- wait Thorax!?'

As I start to walk closer i see and hear Thorax begging to be on a lings team. "-ease, isn't there anything that will let me join you." As he continues to ask the ling just ignores him and walks over to a different group. "Ohh what am I going to do now." He says hopelessly

"Hey, Thorax you doing ok, sorry dumb question of course you aren't" Thorax looked over at me morosely. "Hey Joseph, wait-" his eyes lit up with hope as he walked over to me. "Um, are you on a team yet?" He asks twiddling his fingers. I put a finger on my chin, acting like I'm thinking about his question.

"Hmmmmm, no I don't think so, why do you ask."

Thorax was quiet for a minute before he looked up to me looking shy "Well I was just wondering if you aren't on a team right now if you wouldn't mind making one with me" he finished looking up at me with hopeful eyes. 'Oh that is just precious.' "Sure I wouldn't mind making one with you." Thorax widens his eyes shocked and relieved at my answer. "Really!?" I gave him a reassuring smile. "Why not, I don't mind making a team with you." I said

Next thing I know I'm wrapped up in a hug, courtesy of Thorax "Oh Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!," he says as he looks up at me with a big smile on his face. "I promise you won't regret it." As he says that he let's go and rubs his arm sheepishly. "At least I'll try not to make you regret it."

As he says that Chrysalis announces that its time to start the test, I grab Thorax's arm and drag him off to an empty area as far away as we can go while all the other changeling go to there own corners I turn to Thorax and start discussing a half baked plan that I came up with "Ok Thorax here's what's gonna happen".

As a couple of minutes go by i hear Chrysalis start to count down,
"5"

'Well,'

"4"

'Here goes nothing'

"3"

'Alright Thorax I'm counting on you to be able to pull your weight too on this.'

"2"

'Huh, never thought I would actually be in a position where I'm hoping a tv show character would be able to help me.'

"1"

'Well, nothing to do now but just push through and make our own way, heh, this is where the fun begins.'

"BEGIN!"

This Is Fine
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To Change For The Better

This Is Fine

Author's Note

This is my first time making a fight scene so bash the hell out of but setting that aside i just want to say thank you for showing this abomination of a story support. I'm not going to lie when I started this story I had fully expected this to flop but instead I had actual people somehow liking it so again thank you it means alot to me ok enough of that as always bash me as hard as you can so I can get better peace.

This Is Fine

As the fighting began me and Thorax stood off to the sidelines watching as the other lings fought eachother with punches being thrown, spells being attempted and failing to be cast, meanwhile me and Thorax waited for the right moment.

"Alright so here's whats gonna happen, me and you, are gonna stand here and do nothing".

"Nothing?" Thorax questioned.

"Nothing at first, but, I have a solution to that." I said

"And that is?" Thorax questioned still confused

"For this to work you'll have to be on the floor pretending to be in pain before anyone notices us and then." I whispered the rest of the plan to him.

"WHAT!? That's never going to work". Thorax exclaimed

"It will trust me." I say reassuring

"No!" Thorax hissed out. "I may know I have no good ideas but that sounds even worse than anything I could come up with".

"Well I mean If you can miraculously come with an idea that is better than mine, that which I would like to point out, you yourself said wasn't very likely then by all means, Im all ears." I held out my hand next to my ears as I bent down a bit towards him.
.
.
.
"I just want to say that I do not like this plan at all" Thorax said as he pouted while laying down facing away from the fighting.

"Ehh you'll forgive me when it works." I said as I dismissed him with my hand. "Besides this will at least allow us to get the jump on an unsuspecting pair."

Thorax only grumbled as an response. As we were making small talk with him I would occasionally look back to see if any of the other Changelings around would notice us away from the fight going on.

Though it seems that one of the last times I glanced back I noticed that there were only about six pairs left with one starting to approach us. I grinned turning back to Thorax as I prepared to enact my plan, 'I always wanted to try this.'

I patted Thorax's side. "Showtime." I say with a grin splitting my face as Thorax looks up at me before sighing seeming resigned to what was about to happen.

Thorax nods as he starts to fake in pain, giving off an convincing groan as i start to pick him up and carry him, putting his arm over my shoulder.

As I turn back around to the pair approaching us I put on my best panicked act as I tried to sell my best worried panicking act.

"Please, help me! My brother is hurt!" As the pair approached us they started to slow down for a second appearing confused to my plea for help. 'Its now or never.' "Please get help! I Beg, HELP HIM!"

Caught off guard by my yelling and panicking I threw Thorax at the pair catching them by surprise, sending to the floor.

As they fell I circled around one of them to get a running start as I then came running back, kicking them as hard as I could In head as possible, thankfully, knocking one of them out.

As I turn around preparing to go help Thorax out I found out that he was more capable then I thought as I see the other changeling knocked out and Thorax panting out of breath.

"Wow, Thorax nice shit!" I say as I give him a slap on the back. Thorax blushed at the praise being directed towards him "T-thanks." His blush died down and adopted a more serious expression. "Were not done yet unfortunately." I nodded back at him as I turned around. "We got lucky not being noticed this far in but now we actually have to fight." As I say that the last pair started making their way over to us.

"Sooooo quick question how good are you at fighting?" I ask
.
.
"Thorax?"
I shift a bit to look at him and I see his black face somehow paling while his eyes were widened in fear towards the pair approaching us. Following where he eyes were looking I saw one of the Changelings approaching us was about as tall as me, maybe a bit taller with violet eyes and with red fin like appendages and tail glaring at Thorax like he wanted to kill him.. 'Wait violet eyes, a glare pointed at Thorax AND Thorax's afraid of him? That almost sounds li-' my eyes widened as I came to the conclusion of who this person could only be.

Pharynx

"Ohhh shiiit." I say as Thorax starts to panic

"I ca-, I cant beat my brother, oh what am I supposed to do, Joseph I don't know if I can do this." I grab him by his shoulders and shake him a bit "THORAX, Thorax, calm down."

" Joseph you don't understa-."
"Calm down, take a deep breath, and exhale ok just do that for right now, ok? Can you do that for me bud" Thorax albeit shakingly nods and starts to repeat the steps I told him to as he starts to calm down a bit. "Good, do you feel better?"

Thorax nodded "a bit, thank you."
I gave him a reassuring smile "Its ok, now since you seem really scared of that guy here's whats gonna happen I will fight him instead while you do your best against the other guy ok?" I say trying my best to reassure him

"OK, thank you for doing this for me, again" Thorax looking almost relieved and embarrased as this is another time I had helped him out.

I smiled "Of course what are friends for?" Thorax eyes widened as he opens his mouth only for whatever he was about to say to be cut off by a throat clearing near us.

Turning, we both face the noise as we see Pharynx and his partner with lime green eyes and mismatched color wings and a lime green fin looking tail.

Pharynx sneers at Thorax before looking both of us over. "So are we fighting or are we going to stand here like idiots in front of Queen Chrysalis twiddling our thumbs."

I pushed Thorax lightly towards the right in front of the other changeling " Yeah, we should so you'll be fighting me." Pharynx scowls at me for a moment before turning to Thorax then finally settling on me.

"Fine, doesn't make much of a difference to me, In fact, maybe I'll actually be able to have a real fight compared to your partner over there." I frown at the blatant disrespect towards Thorax meanwhile Thorax looked a bit upset at the comment.

"Well we should probably start since, like you said, don't want to look like idiots in front of 'Queen Chrysalis' right? So shut up, and let's fight." I say with a little anger directed to him

Pharynx eyes widened before narrowing them back at me looking even more pissed off. 'Probably shouldn't of pissed him off before were going to fight'.

As we got into position away from our partner we squared into half-assed fighting stances as we got ready to fight "Alright, are you ready?" Pharnyx just nodded to show he was. "OK on three one, two, THRE-JESUS."

Before I even finished counting to three Pharynx had already began to move sprinting at me at full force attempting to throw a left hook as I dodge only to get elbowed in the gut then punched in the face with his right.

Stumbling, I'm able to reorient myself as I'm able to catch his right leg only for him to kick me with his other leg causing my ears to ring a bit giving him enough time to get back up. 'Where the fuck did he even learn how to fight like this!?'

As he rushes me again I decide to stop defending and try to go on the offensive as I rush him too throwing a punch only for him to feint his punch as he shifts Into a side step kicking me in the stomach causing me to step back a couple of steps holding my stomach in pain.

I start to back up trying to make some distance as he slowly approaches me with a grin on his face, like a predator taking satisfaction in toying with his prey. I keep backing up as I feel back up against the wall taking a glance behind me to confirm I was indeed out of room, even more unfortunate as soon as it looked like my eye wasn't on him Pharynx sprinted at me closing the distance between us as he then throws a right hook aimed at my face.

Even though his punch hasnt landed yet something told me that if I got hit by this It would've been over but as I watched his fist approaching closer to my face in slow motion I started to get a really dumb idea 'But if it works than I'm taking full advantage of all it can offer me.'

Before Pharynx could land his punch I stepped as far right as I possibly could to get out of his range only knowing I succeeded by his cry of pain at punching the arena wall at full force.

'NOW!' Quickly taking advantage of the situation I grabbed his right arm with mine and the back of his head with my left one as I slammed his face into the arena wall as hard as I could forming a small crack within the wall. Then, not taking any chances I proceeded to make sure he was knocked out as I kicked his leg out from under him and without wasting anytime brought my hoof up and slammed it down on his face at full force.

I stood there for a good couple of seconds before I slowly brought my foot up and look down at his face as it was caked in green looking blood as he was clearly knocked out with his nose looking a bit caved in, shivering in disgust at how much i had managed to hurt him I only had one last thought on my mind. 'Thank God that worked.' as I finally passed out.

Learning
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To Change For The Better

Learning

Author's Note

This one's a talking chapter so I'll understand if you don't want to read it but if you do like i always say remember to bash me on it so I can get better and as always thanks.

Learning

'Almost done just gotta-,' "Heyyyy, Joseph"
'Goddammit,' I turn to my boss Marson as he approaches me with his carefree demeanor. I sigh as I resign myself to another long day "what is it boss?" Marson puts his arm around my shoulder "Aww don't be like that Jo-Jo I just need to ask you a teeny eeny favor"

I raise an eyebrow "And that is?"

"All I need you to do is just check over some work that I didnt feel like dealing with today see a small favor."

"What if I don't want to, like you said, 'its a favor' right?"

"Mmh, true, but I mean I could also dock your pay since kinda like you said I don't have to pay you right?"

I scowled at him, me and him both know that this isn't the first time he's threatened my pay knowing damn well I'm barely scraping by as is, 'whatever its not like I have a choice.' "Fine, I'll do it."

Marson gives me a big grin and slaps my back "thanks again Jo-Jo I knew i could count on you, catch you later" He starts walking away acting like he just won the lottery meanwhile I'm stuck here acting like his personal assistant. Whatever, one day I'm gonna leave this place and then we'll see how his precious business does without me.

As I slowly start to come to I notice that I'm in some sort of murky liquid as I could barely make out my surroundings. 'What is- where am I.' As I'm busy figuring out where I am I start to hear two muffled voices right in front of me, then, next thing I know I'm falling out out of the liquid onto the floor.

"Joseph, are you ok!?" I look up at the figure talking although I can't make him out at first until my eyes focus and I realize who it is "Thor-*cough* *cough*Thorax?"

Thorax gave me a small wave as he greets me. "Hey," I look around noticing a huge amount of pod looking containers.

"Where are we?" I ask

"Oh were in the recovery chamber" Thorax said

"Recoverey chamber?" I ask confused

Thorax nodded "Whenever a changeling gets badly hurt their brought here so that way most of their injuries can be healed up."

'Interesting.' "Wait, if thats the case then, who brought me here?" I ask

"Oh I did." My eyes widens. "Really? Well In that case, thank you Thorax."

He smiled sheepishly "O-oh its no problem."

I froze for a second as I remembered the fight. "Hey Thorax did we uuh, did we win?" I ask

Thorax smiles as he looks at me "We did, and it was thanks to you that we did."

I was a bit confused "What do you mean?"

Thorax figeted a bit "well I mean if it wasn't for you beating Pharynx I don't think we would have won that match at all."

I frowned at that "just because I managed to beat Pharnyx doesn't mean it was all because of me we won in fact I should probably be thanking you."

Thorax looked a bit suprised "Me?, what did I do?"

"Well I don't know if you remember but there were TWO of them we had to fight and while I did take care of Pharynx I also passed out afterwards and If we won thats means it was cause of you not me." I explained

Thorax seemed surprised at me trying to include him in our victory. "I-" he shook his head "thank you Joseph, that means alot to me"

He opened and closed his mouth again seeming like he wanted to say something.
"Is something wrong?"
Thorax shook his head "No, nothings wrong but, umm, I wanted to ask you something."

"Yes?" I ask

Thorax fidgeted "back during the test you called me your friend di-did you really mean that?" As he asked that he looked up to me with the biggest puppy eyes I've ever seen in my life.

'Oh, you precious thing.' I walked up and put my hand on his shoulder "Yes Thorax, I did, and I do consider you my friend, I hope you do too."

Thorax looked up at me shocked at what I had said and then next thing I'm know he's wrapped me up in a hug.
"Thank you, for wanting to be my friend."

I smiled as I hugged him back "no need to thank me Thorax, like I said before what are friends for?"

We stood there for a while letting Thorax bask in his first official friendship though it had to end as he begins to pulI away. " I almost forgot, Queen Chrysalis has requested for us to meet her In the throne room."

Confused, I asked "Us? what for?"

Thorax looked at me like I was dumb "Um about what Queen Chrysalis said earlier remember? About our roles in the hive?"

"Oh, oh yeah my bad I completely forget about all that."

Thorax reassured me "Well Its ok since, you know, you did just wake up after passing out."

I chuckled "Alright lets start moving i think we wasted enough time here already don't want to make the Queen mad do we?"

Thorax eyes widened "Oh gosh, your right we should get a move on."

I decided to follow Thorax out the recovery room since he apparently had been to Chrysalis's 'Throne room' a couple of minutes earlier before coming to check on me. Since we haven't really had much time to just hang out I then decided to start some small talk.

"Sooo what role would you want to pick" I ask

"Learner" Thorax replied without any hesitation

"Oh, well, that was quick" I say surprised

Thorax shrugged " I think out of all of them Learner would be the one I think suits me the most."

"Hmm, well if you don't mind tell me,what does a 'Learner' do?" I ask

Thorax adopted a thoughtful look on his face. "Well as far as I know a Learner's role in the hive is to learn everything about the Hives and Changelings history and then if deemed ready, they are then to go with an trusted escort to the outside world to then observe how different creatures techniques and contraptions work, take note of them and come back to find ways to incorporate it into the Hive."

"And what if they can't incorporate it into the Hive?" I ask

"Then if I remember correctly if all the knowledge they've gained isn't at all substantial enough they're banished from the hive until they find something that they know the hive is either in dire need of or something that can generally improve the hive that has not already been found." Thorax explains

"Yeesh, sounds rough, and your sure this is the role you want?" I ask a bit worried

"I'm not worried about getting banished from the hive, I hope I never do, but if dealing with the possibility that may happen means I get to have the chance to be able to see what outside the hive has to offer then I think to me thats worth the risk." Thorax responds back

I was pleasantly surprised on how ambitious Thorax was turning out to be. 'Well I mean he did leave his own kind behind to try and co-exist with others on the show so I guess it shouldn't be too surprising.' I thought

"What about you?" Thorax asks

I look down at Thorax."Me?" I ask

"Yeah which role are you going to pick?" Thorax questions

"Umm I don't know, I didnt know anything about roles until Queen Chrysalis said anything about it." I say honestly

Thorax looked sheepish "O-oh yeah, right, I um forgot that wasn't exactly common knowledge to the regular ling."

"You know, now that you mention it how do you know about roles?" I ask

"Well before our test Pharynx would sometimes tell me about some of the stuff certain roles had to deal with when he talked to other lings working in those roles."

"He would mostly talk about roles that dealt with fighting but I never liked them that much so I always payed more attention to the roles that dealt with leaving the hive, though he always got mad at me when I didn't pay attention to the more fighting focused roles." Thorax explains

As Thorax finished talking we came up to two 10 ft tall doors with two of the most toughest changelings I've seen so far standing at each far side of the door with dark purple armor covering most of their body with a beetle like trail covering the armors outside area, while their helmets had tusk like spikes sticking out of the front with a hole at the top for their horns to fit through.

Finished looking at their armor we had approached the doors causing the guards to go and open them for us allowing us to walk in as they closed the doors behind us.

Starting
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To Change For The Better

Starting

Author's Note

Like I said before thanks for all the support and also this is my first time writing Pharynx so its probably going to be very bad so again sorry about that but I still hope you all enjoy and remember bash the hell out of me ok see ya..

Starting

A few days passed by after we had picked our roles in the hive, sadly as Thorax wanted to be a Learner he had to get a headstart at learning everything the hive has learned and invented on their own not leaving much time for us to chat with eachother.

'Well he has his role now and so do I, so might as well get started on it' as I looked over my bed I went to go pick up my new set of 'clothes' which consisted of a suspiciously looking skirt in all black with a set of metal bands that had some rock looking shard forged into it.

Still surprised that changelings had any kind of clothes I had asked Chrysalis about it. She told us that apparently clothes were only given to those that had a role in the hive so of you were a drone or a worker you'd be naked for the rest of your life which thankfully I didn't have to deal with, I mean still missing proper clothes, but the fact I could cover up at all gave me a sort of relief.

I shook my head "alright no more stalling today's the day." I grabbed everything I had put it on and went to go the changeling that was supposed to be training me.

After wandering around for a bit I had finally managed to find the changeling that was going to train me as he seemed to be wandering around looking for something "Uh..hello? Are you the one thats supposed to be training me?"

Said changeling turned and faced me looked me up and down before responding "I am, and I'm gonna take a guess that your the ling that I'm looking for and the one that im stuck with huh.. well no time like the present let's get a move on."

He turned back the way he came and gestured me to follow. As I was following him I noticed that he was definitely one of the more buffer looking changelings here, while he wasn't shredded he was still packing quite a bit of muscle. 'Definitely enough to snap me in half like a fortune cookie.'

As I was busy not being intimidated by his muscular build he opened the door to the training room as he entered telling me to close it behind him, he then told me that their was gonna be an extra ling since and I quote "Chrysalis seemed interested enough in him that even though he failed the trial she gave him another chance at a role in the hive."

'That was, uncharacteristically nice of her but I mean I guess thats good for the changeling and who knows maybe will even be able to be good friends.'

As we reached the training room I looked at the changeling in the middle waiting for us. I was going to wave and greet them but any attempt at being nice died on my lips as I saw who my training buddy was.

As the changeling guiding me turned around he introduced me to the other changeling in the room "alright youngling this is the extra I was talking about Joseph meet Pharynx." This will be your training partner until I deem both of you fit to guard this hive with your life for our Queen Chrysalis understand?"

"SIR YES SIR!"
"SIR YES SIR!"

He nodded his head "Good now you will refer to me as Sir and only Sir when we are training together. Behind these closed doors you will treat eachother and me with respect. If you have any problems with eachother I advise setting them aside and dealing with them outside this room and if you can't then you can put that effort into focusing on your training am I clear?"

We both nodded "Good, now before we start anything I want you two to spar against me one at a time so I can't get a feel for what you need to improve and what I have to work with."
He clapped his hands together loudly."SO, whose first?"

Without any hesitation Pharnyx stepped forward "Me Sir."

He nodded his head " Alright, Joseph you wait somewhere over there on the side, you can watch if you want i won't force you."

As those two went to spar I spent the time I had to explore the area. Looking around i notice that as soon as you come in on the right side it looks like what to be a sort of firing range except there are no separators and instead of an armless and legless silhouette of a person on a sheet for you to shoot instead there was a piece of rock that was implanted into the middle of the floor that was black, almost 6ft tall.

The in the left side if the room was where Pharnyx and the buff changeling was sparring- 'You know its gonna get real annoying just calling him the buff changeling forever so im just gonna call him Buffy.'

Though it seems like from the looks of it Pharnyx was keeping up with Buffy but only barely as it looked like every punch and kick that Buffy threw Pharnyx barely dodged it before another came and everyone Pharnyx tried to attack Buffy would either block it or just counter-attack everyone Pharnyx tried to hit him. It was honestly kinda nerve-wracking, I mean if I was barely able to beat Pharnyx and he himself was having a hard time then I was definitely going to get my ass kicked.

As I resigned myself to the ass-kicking I was fated to get Buffy went to throw a punch at Pharnyx only to stop midway and instead sweeped him off his feet causing Pharynx to fall on his back thus ending the spar.

Buffy went to offer a hand which Pharnyx took. "Well to give you some advice, while you can fight good you keep trying to go for direct shots even though you had no opportunity to you. Next time try doing something unexpected to catch me off guard, your not always going to be able to land concise blows on an experienced fighter, especially if their willing to do anything to win a fight."

Buffy then turned to me "Alright Joseph, your turn show me what you got."

I sighed as I made my way towards Buffy as Pharynx passed by me with a condescending grin on his face 'OK jackass.'

As I made my way across of Buffy I raised my hand to ask him something.

Confused Buffy decided to answer me "Yes?"

'Alright bullshit powers activate' "Well, I was just wondering if it would be ok if I was to try to attempt to hit you without you moving at first if thats ok with you."

Interested in seeing where this was going Buffy agreed to my proposal "Ok but just to make it clear I will still defend myself is that clear?"

Satisfied I nodded "Yes Sir."

Buffy nodded "OK, show me what you got youngling."

'OK only got one shot at this let's hope this works.'

As I ran up to him I went to go throw a punch 'pleasefallforitpleasefallforitpleasefallforit' As I was busy hoping this stupid idea would work I saw that Buffy went to go block my punch 'Holy shit thi-this might actually work now just don't fuck it up.

Determined, I faked my punch to go for a jab at the side of his head landing a punch I then went to go for an uppercut but Buffy noticed as he went to block it but then I managed to find an open spot between his arms as I gave him another jab to the face between the open spot.

Not wasting anytime I then punched him in the stomach and while he was still disoriented I aimed a punch to the side of his head aiming for his ear, then to finish it off I went to go kick him at his leg noticing this Buffy tried to block my leg from hitting only for me to fake it again and aim for his head kicking as hard as I could.

'OK, I managed to do it, question is did that do anything to him?'

As I stood catching my breath Buffy started to laugh as he snorted out some green blood "well you definitely know how to trip someone up" he paused as he cracked his knuckles and gave me grin displaying his fangs "now the question is, now that I'm allowed to move, do you think you'll be able to trip me now?"

As he said those words i could think of one thing.
'Haha, I'm in danger'

1 minute later I'm on the floor as I have bruises all over me. Buffy said that tomorrow we would actually start training and that we were free to do whatever till then.

I tried, really I did but everytime I went to try and hit him he was already blocking that area before I thought of hitting it, I even tried to him him with the same thing I did when he was standing still only this time when I went to fake my punch he blocked the actual one I was going for and punched me In the gut almost causing to fall over.

But as I was laying their on the cold hard floor Pharnyx, who i thought had left already, walked up to me.

"That was surprisingly impressive."

I looked up at him "What was?"

"The fact that you were able to land a hit on him"

"Well I was only able to do that when he wasn't moving so its not that impressive."

"Well even so, I want to ask you something."

'Pharynx, asking Me, for something, interesting.' Intrigued I got up as I brushed off my legs "Well that depends, what exactly do you need?"

Pharnyx's gaze gaze hardened "Since the changeling that is training us told me I need to be able to 'catch my opponents off guard' I came to the conclusion that you were the best option unfortunately."

Eyebrow raised i asked "And that is because?"

Pharynx frowned "As much as I hate to admit you catched me by surprise during the test when I, Lost." Pharnyx spat out

"I dont waste time talking much to other changelings and my sorry excuse of a brother barely pays attention to anything fighting related so, with my options limited I need you to train with me."

"Hmm... sure under one condition."

Pharynx looked at me suspiciously "And that is?"

"Be nicer to Thorax."

"Why?"

I looked at him like he was an idiot. "Wh-what do you mean why?"

"Being 'nicer' to him doesn't get help me with anything except wasting my time that could have been spent on training. He should be thankful that I put up with him at all, the fact that I have to step in every 'fight', if you can even call it that, every time I see him is annoying as is."

"If he stopped being stupid and actually learnt how to fight instead of wasting his time trying to be a Learner he wouldn't have to rely on me saving him everytime to begin with."

"And how do you think he feels? Should Thorax learn how to defend himself, yes, but maybe if you showed him that you actually care about him, that is if you actually care about him, instead of acting like an asshole and talking shit everytime you meet eachother."

"Of course i care about him."

"Bullshit, if that test was anything to go by you slinging insults at him and making him feel like shit every time seems like its a regular Tuesday."

"I Have To, if anyling else saw i was being nice to a weakling like him then both of us would be targeted and I can't help Thorax if thats the case."

'Right I forgot that Pharynx does actually care about Thorax'

My eyes softening a bit I nodded "I guess thats understandable but even so Thorax looks up to you he wants you to acknowledge him instead of treating him like he's a waste of you time."

"And what do you think would happen if I did, if all of a sudden I started acting nice to Thorax, let's say I did would he even accept it? 'Oh hey Thorax I'm sorry fo all the years I tormented you lets be brothers forever,' not to mention that like I said if word gets out that I'm being buddy-buddy with what everyling considers the weakest one how do you think thats gonna go? You wanna know what I think?

The way I see it is before when their was only a target on Thorax's back i could watch out for him and take step in if needed but of theres a target on both of our backs then I can't be there to help him if I'm too busy trying to protect myself too."

"You know you could always be his brother in private, instead of showing affection for him in private you could always just show to him when noling else is looking and for the denial thing I could be there for Thorax while you explain it to him and if he still doesn't want anything to do with you then thats all you can do.

You cant intimidate him, you can't force him, you can only only explain yourself to him and hope that he is willing to start over with you. If he does then great you can start treating him with the respect he deserves and if he doesn't then there's nothing you can do except say that you tried."

Pharynx stood there with a thoughtful look on his face "I need to think about it" as he turned and walked over to exit the room I called out to him when he reached the handle "Pharynx." He paused "I'm pretty sure that if you care enough Thorax will want to try."

He stood there for a second before opening and closing the door behind him.

That's Good
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To Change For The Better

That's Good

Author's Note

Sorry I've been gone for a while felt kinda lazy so yeah sorry about that also this is my first time trying to make anything emotion related and I know I did that whole sequence terrible so I need a bunch of bashing on that part so I can improve it and not have sound stupid so yeah once again bash and enjoy.

That's Good

A few days went by doing the same thing over and over again with Pharynx and I would try to beat Buffy, he beats our ass, and then we train until we go back to our room, but today turned out differently than I expected.

Pharnyx and I was shocked, though I managed to answer first "Wait seriously?"

Buffy nodded "Yep, I say you two lings are ready to actually do some training instrad of just sparing, starting with your magic."

Pharynx was shaking his head back and forth "But, we never beat you, me and Joseph might have been lucky to get glancing hits on you." 'Although it hurt to admit, I have to agree with Pharynx, me and him could barely ever hit the guy even when we teamed up on him he would barely break a sweat.'

Buffy chuckled "I never said you had to beat me youngling, I just said to improve how you fight and these past few days you have. For example, now you actually try to take any opportunities instead of just trying to land 'precise blows' when we spar or when you and Joseph spar.

Buffy then turns to me. "To be honest Joseph, your fighting was ok but you never watched out for anything you were always focused on landing and seeing your attacks through which always left you open but now you actually look keep an eye out for something to happen.

Buffy clapped his hands "SO, today were gonna learn how to control and use your magic"

We were then led over to the incomplete firing range as Buffy explained the basics to us. "So, when you use your magic for the first time it's a bit difficult, close your eyes and try to picture when you consume love but instead of consuming try to imagine rejecting it. As he finished his statement me and Pharynx closed our eyes as we tried.

'OK, reject instead of consume.' As I tried imagining it i could feel like something was squirming in my horn trying to break free of it. "I-It feels like I-Its s-squirming."

"Good, then your able to summon it but now you need to release it, now for this part imagine what you want to do with the squirming, you can either do nothing with the squirming the entire time, you can try to picture 'pushing' said squirming out, or you can 'get rid' of said squirming.".

Confused I tried to clarify with him "Isn't that just the same thing as 'pushing' it out?"

"No, when trying to 'push' the squirming out it still exists when you do but when you 'get rid' of it you are erasing its existence, any choice you make will determine how you magic will be able to be used and act."

Satisfied with the explanation 'So I guess that's like me killing it then, ok, hopefully this works out for me then.'
Set on my decision I imagined erasing the squirming almost like how you would erase words with an eraser or use Whiteout to make it seem like it never existed.

As I managed to erase the squirming it was kinda relieving when before it felt like a constant faint headache now, it felt like my mind was perfectly clear and I could relax.

As I opened my eyes I could see Buffy looking at the both of us and nodding his head with approval "Well it certainly seems like you dealt with the squirming one way or another now on to the actual training. He pointed towards the rock shaped dummy in the middle.

"Now I want you to focus and picture how you want to take the target out, same way you got the squirming to appear is how you summon your magic although it will be up to you to perfect and shape how you use it whether to help or harm you will only be able to use it in ways that suit you. How will it suit you? That's what you have to figure out by yourself, well anyways enough talk whos up first?"

Pharnyx stood forward "I am."

"Alright then, remember its up to you and only you how you deal with it."

As Pharnyx walked forward he stopped a couple of feet from the rock as he closed his eyes and focused causing his horn to faintly grow an indigo color as he started to faintly summon a half formed bolt crackling with energy as he lets it hit the rock causing it to form a spiderweb crack.

Buffy nods in acceptance "Good now how do you feel?"

Pharynx is breathing heavily as tries to respond " *huff* *huff* I feel like *huff* I just ran around thr whole hive."

"Exactly, whenever changelings cast magic
They are always exhausted afterwards.
Now, there are two ways you can get rid of this exhaustion, option one: you can keep practicing until the exhaustion is not noticeable and option two: this isn't recommended but if you have enough of it you can use any love you have consumed to enhance your magic although afterwards if you don't have any love to consume you go into the worst stage of Lunger their is and let me tell its the worst.

When it happens it'll start to feel like your body is burning while also freezing at the same time, anytime you try to move your body starts to spasm locking you in place, any call for help is met with your throat tightening up preventing you from making any attempt to try and ask for help and don't forget the absolute gnawing hunger thats been amplified even more but instead of being just a feeling now...now it actually starts to consume the inside of your body to try and make up for the missing energy you used to enhance your magic.

So, yeah unless you got a willing participant(heh, yeah right) or some kind of storage full of love then I suggest not attempting to do it at all, Understand?"

"Yes Sir"
Yes Sir"

"Good, now Joseph your turn"

As I went up to the Rock I started to think of Buffy words 'its up to me and only me with how I deal with it' as I picture trying to reject instead of consume love I can feel like there's something slithering through my body up to my horn as I try to picture something to destroy the rock with 'well as long as its up to me he didn't say that adding a little bit of love would do anything' as I start trying to form a weapon I try to imagine taking love from my body though when I do I start to immediately feel immense discomfort. 'Ok so it seems like it doesn't immediately make you go into any Lunger state so let's see how far we can push this, and if this works I might be able to make something really interesting.' As I continue to keep adding love to it I start to imagine forming a simple firearm that has a grip and a cylinder similar to a revolver but instead of a long slim round barrel it has a short large round one kinda like a mini single sawed off barrel.

"What in the?"
"What is he doing?"

If the surprised remarks are anything to go by then it seems to be working although as it feels like I'm about to finish I feel a sharp stab all round my body like I've been impaled all over "AAGH!" I stop trying to use my magic as I fall to the ground shaking and breathing heavily as Buffy comes over to check up on me "Joseph, Joseph are you ok!?"

I slowly start to stand up with Buffy's assistance before I answer "Y-yeah I-Im o-ok."

"Good" before anyone can do anything Buffy slaps he hard across the face "AGH"

"Now unless your deaf or just a dumbass i specifically remember telling you not to use love to enhance your magic with or did you just conviently forget the whole speech I seemingly wasted my time telling you about."

"SIR I'm sorry SIR"

Buffy sighs "seeing as how you didn't have any lasting effects thankfully you managed to avoid the worst of it but for the next few days you are to not use your magic for the next few days to rest and recover."

"B-but Sir!"

He raised a hand and I went quiet " as much as I like your eagerness to train you also have to be careful of the repercussions that come when you try something you aren't prepared for understood?"

I nodded my head looking down "understood."

Buffy nodded "Now, with all that out of the way would you mind showing us what you made, if it is something you can defend yourself with?"

My eyes widen as I turn around and low and behold there on the floor Is the firearm on the floor. I rush over to pick it up and look it over, 'huh,'it seems like I was able to barely finish the design I was imagining as I swing it to the left the cylinder pops open there are no bullets in the chamber sadly 'well I guess I took care of the hard part now I just need to find the components to make ammo... unlessss.'

As I aim the gun towards the rock I pull the trigger as the gun produces a bluish flame as I see a shockwave travels through the air towards the rock impacting it making the already formed spiderweb crack spread more over the rock.

'Woah' as I turn around i see the shocked expressions on both Buffy's and Pharynx's face for a second before my vision starts to blur and I start swaying from side to side as I pass out.

.
.
"Ugh...-agh!" First thing I feel when I wake up is my head feeling like its about to be crushed and ripped apart at the same time.

"First time?"
As I look over towards my right I see Buffy leaning on the wall near the entrance to my room. "sir?"

"Who else? It seems like you are going to be a handful to deal with in the future seeing as how you not only used love in your first attempt at using magic but also with whatever you made somehow made you magically exhausted to the point you passed out where me and Pharynx had to carry you to your hole."

"Sorry for making you have to do that for me sir."

Buffy waved me off "ehh, I have a feeling its gonna be a reoccurring thing with you so no sweat, though you do understand that now you are not allowed to use your magic for a couple of more days now right?

I sighed "Yes Sir"

He nodded "Good, now I'm going to go i left your doohickey with you on your bed, sadly we don't have anything to deal with the pain in your head so your just gonna have to suck it up, OH, before I forget Pharnyx is waiting outside said he wants to talk with you about something."
'Pharynx? About what?'

As Buffy leaves the room i pick up and inspect the gun as I pop open the chamber and look inside it 'seems like it Can use bullets but also if its necessary my magic as well, interesting.'

"Well there's always time later to think more about it lets see what Pharynx wants."

As I exit out of my hole i see Pharynx standing there fidgeting "Hey Pharynx, I heard you wanted to talk about something?"

Pharnyx stares at me for a few seconds taking a deep breath before he answers me " I kept thinking about what you said about making up with Thorax in private and I wanted to tell you that am going to try and talk with him.

My eyes widen as I'm pleasantly surprised that he is actually going to try and make amends with Thorax. I smiled "Oh thats good Pharynx I'm happy for y-

"BUT i-i wanna ask you a favor."

"Depends on what it issss?"

" I want you to be there when I talk with him"

I stare confused at him "me?" He nods "well no offense im flattered that you trust me enough but I feel like I'd be intruding on a personal matter."

"Look Thorax trusts you and I feel like if you were there It would go more smoothly without any problems, so im asking, can you come with me. Please?"

As I'm standing there listening to him finish I can see how desperate he is to make this work even pleading with me to be there to have a better chance at reconnecting with his brother.

"OK, I'll be there"

Pharynx sighs with relief "thank you Joseph you have no idea how much this means to me."

"No problem, now when do you plan on talking with him."

"Now" he grabs my hand dragging me along with him. "Wait what? I thought you were going to do this a couple of days from now or tomorrow at least."

Pharynx shakes his head "No, I've waited long enough and besides today he doesn't have to spend time learning about the hive which means he'll be studying what he does know in our hole.
_____________________________________________

As we approach his hole Pharynx starts to fidget nervously when we stop infront of the entrance "Remember what i said, you can't force him and you can't intimate him you can only try."

Pharynx nods nervously "Y-yeah right."

As we enter the entrance I see Thorax look up at us surrounded by journals and books looking older than a grandfather clock left to collect dust in attic O-oh hey Pharynx and J-Joseph!?"

I give him a small wave "hey"

He looks confused "Well as good as it is to see you what are you doing here?"

I look over at Pharynx "Well I'm here for support since it seems like Pharynx has something he wants to tell you."

Thorax looks over to Pharynx nervously as he stands up "y-yes Pharnyx?"

Pharynx looks so vulnerable right as he tries to speak but always seem to lose his voice everytime, finally he manages to find it.

"Thorax I want to ask you a question."

"S-sure g-go ahead."

Pharynx looks away from Thorax "What do you think of me?"

Thorax eyes widened a bit "Oh well I think your the toug-"

"Not what you think I want to hear, what you actually think of me. I won't be mad, I won't intimidate you I.. I want to know what you really think of me."

Thorax looks down at the floor as he takes a second to respond to Pharynx " I.. I do think your the toughest changeling in the hive Pharynx even if you think I'm the weakest, but.. I also like to think you care about me even if you don't want to or think so, I still think of you as my family."

"im sorry"

Thorax eyes widened in shock "what?"

Pharnyx turned back to Thorax "I'm sorry, for, everything I made you had to deal with."

Thorax starts waving his hands frantically "P-Pharnyx its ok."

"NO ITS NOT! You've had to deal with shit from me for years all because I didn't stop to think on how this could of affected you and instead focused on the fact that since you were safe there was nothing to worry about."

Pharynx sighs "Look, What I'm trying to say is as much as I tried to protect you i could have found a way to make time for you and I'm sorry for not being the brother you needed."

"But... if, and only if, you want me to, I would like to try be the brother you needed back then now, I won't promise it'll be perfect and I might make some mistakes but I would like to actually be your brother instead of just being considered as one."

Thorax seems to be heavy in thought as he looks over to me "What do you think Joseph? Do you think he's telling the truth?"

I answer without hesitancy "Yeah, I think he is."

Thorax nods looking back towards Pharynx as he walks up to him looking upwards at him stopping just a couple of inches infront of him, for a couple of seconds theres a tense feeling in the room as they stare at eachother not saying a word until finally, Thorax smiles. "Then yes, if you don't mind, I would love to be able to spend time with my brother."

And for the first time since I've met him Pharnyx smiles back "Thank you, for giving me another chance Thorax."

Thorax starts tapping his fingers together nervously "w-well since I'm giving you another chance can I ask for a favor?"

Pharynx nods "Sure what do you need?"

Thorax seems to shrink in on himself " w-well I was wondering i-i-if you don't mind I was wondering if Icouldhugyou."

"What?"

"I was wondering if I could hug you."

Pharynx widened his eyes shocked making Thorax panic at his suggestion "I-I-I mean you d-don't have to do that if you don't have to it was just a dumb idea I dont know i was thinking sorry that was a du-"

Thorax gets cut off as Pharynx wraps his arms around him making him freeze in place before he slowly starts wrapping his arms back around him, hestating, almost like he's convinced that its a dream that's about to end from any sudden movements.

As he wraps his arms around Pharnyx finally he starts leaning in to the hug tearing up while smiling " I've always dreamed of this moment for so long... thank you."

Satisfied with the result I excuse myself outside the room as I let them have their moment.

Two brothers once divided against eachother, can now begin to reconnect with eachother, together.

2 Steps Foward Thankfully
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To Change For The Better

2 Steps Foward Thankfully

A couple of weeks went by after Thorax and Pharynx reconnected with eachother and it seemed like things were going great for them.

As days went by, based on what i heard and saw when I hung out with them in private, they seemed to be enjoying this new enjoyable albeit sometimes tense bond between them now. They talk with eachother now to get to connect with eachother and get to know eachother, they also talk about what they don't and will mind from the other.

For example Pharynx said he doesn't mind hugs from Thorax as long as their not all the time and if he's not in a bad mood and Thorax said that he's ok with that since he doesn't want to push him to do things that might make him uncomfortable and that he'll understand if its not the time for a hug.

Though, immediately after they discussed that Thorax asked if he could get a hug which Pharnyx gave and I swear I heard the sound Pinkie makes come from Thorax during that hug, it was very adorable.

They also talked to eachother about the importance of their roles to eachother so the other could understand why they chose that role and why it was important for them.

Now, Thorax sometimes has private lessons with Pharnyx in order to know how to defend himself in a fight if needed, meanwhile Thorax is also teaching Pharynx how to read a bit from the documents and scrolls he was assigned to study from because of his Learner role.

I was a little bit worried about that since they weren't exactly everyday information you could access so I asked him if it was ok if Pharynx was allowed to read those and he assured me that as since he was family it was ok to share it with him as long as he did nothing with the information.

They also agreed with my idea of keeping up appearances out in public so that way the otherlings wouldn't think Pharynx changed. So when Thorax was confronted from time to time by the other changeling there'd be times where Pharnyx acted like he hated him but he always made sure to ask him in private if he was doing ok and made sure to always ask him if he was going too far. Based on the fact that they seemed to still to be enjoying their time around eachother I'd say that their doing fine.

Wanting to give them more time to bond with eachother I started to do stuff on my own and thankfully Buffy said that I was to use my magic as long as i didnt try infusing love into it and that if I was caught doing it again he would have one of his buddy's to constantly monitor me and I certainly didn't want that to happen.

Starting with inspecting the weapon I barely managed to summon in . Specifically the Stealth revolver from AC Syndicate, 'With no ammo either.' I kinda thought it would've disappeared by now by surprisingly it was still here which confirmed on thing so far. A: Whatever i summon seems to be permanent and B: i can summon stuff using my magic.

A bit excited at the possibilities I immediately tried summoning the Elder Wand, yeah I'm Harry Potter fan, shoot me. Anyways, I couldn't exactly remember what it looked like but that wasn't important right?

Wrong, it seems like if i didn't have a clear enough picture in my head on what its supposed to be like, or what it looks like then all that would come out of my horn is tiny sparks making me waste my magic, 'Damn, I knew i should've watched the movies more than once, Oh well one step at a time.'

After that failed experiment I looked back at the revolver 'hmmm..' wanting to try something I started to use my magic again to try and summon ammo for the gun 'what was the ammo for it called again?442? 322? 422? 422, thats right.'

Thankfully as I was able to successfully remember what the bullet looked like I then tried to imagine forming the bullet making sure it was bigger and more wider than a regular revolver bullet but one that still kept a somewhat piercing look at the end of it. Immediately after making it I dropped to the floor breathing heavily and extremely tired.

Looking up I saw that I successfully made the bullet, but still "Thats it? All i can make is one bullet before I get exausted!?"

Slowly making my way over to the bullet I picked it to look it over. 'Well, it certainly seems like a 422 round but still has that piercing form at the end of it.'

Satisfied I grabbed my revolver and loaded it into the gun. 'Unfortunately with only one bullet i can't really see If this works or not, oh well i don't care right now, me need bed.' Satisfied enough with the bullet I put the gun under my bed and went to sleep.

After I woke up I immediately tried summoning another bullet and this time I felt less tired, make no mistake it still felt like I was back at my old job with how tired I felt after but it wasn't sleep inducing exhaustion. 'Still going back to bed though.' As I fall asleep.

For the next few days I tried summoning random stuff that wouldn't seem weird and suspicious if for some reason someling decided to come In my hole, stuff like sticks,rocks and what not and after a few days I came to a few conclusions.

'So it seems like depending on how much magic I use and how big the thing I'm trying to summon is I can only summon one thing before I get completely exuasted, two if both things are small enough.'

After I was satisfied enough with figuring out my summon magic a bit I then went over what I knew about my revolver. 'It
still seemed to be able to fire using my
magic for one powerful shot, but it always drains all of my magic causing me to pass out, good for emergencies but not exactly combat useful and I don't exactly have the resources to make any ammo for it.'

Shaking my head I decided to leave the 'experiments' for another day and decided to meet up with Pharnyx. Now.you maybe asking specifically Pharnyx? well apparently Buffy started training us to fight together a bit after Thorax and Pharnyx made up with eachother.

"Ok, since these past few weeks I've saw how both of you have improved how you fight and how you think when you fight and I am proud of the progress you've made separately, so now you two will be working, and, learning on how to fight together and make progress together.

That is what you two will be working on until I deem you capable of exactly that, how fight together doesn't matter to me all that matters is you find a way that works for you two. Now, show me what you got!"

Just to make sure there are no misunderstandings, we had are asses handed to us. I foolishly thought 'Oh surely well be able to stand more of a chance together against Buffy.

Nope.

Not only was Buffy still somehow kicking our asses but Pharnyx and I kept tripping over eachother giving Buffy a free hit against us 'not like he needs it.' After that Buffy told us to talk with eachother In order to figure out where we can improve, so somedays when Pharnyx and Thorax weren't trying to sibling, me and Pharnyx discussed ways how not to screw eachother up.

Sometimes we were able to land one or two hits on him other times we would be on the floor with brusies covering us from our faces to our chest. Anyways, back to what I was saying I was meeting with Pharnyx in order to discuss another way to try and fight Buffy and all I could hope was that maybe we'll actually do something to him today.

As I reached the guys hole I banged on it a bit until Thorax answered "Oh! hi Joseph, its good to see you." I chuckled "Thorax its only been like two days."

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly "oh right, sorry." I went up to him and hugged him "There's nothing to apologize for don't worry, I was just teasing you."

Thorax leaned into the hug "Sorry, its just you are my first and only friend and I really want it to stay that way." I was about to say something but Thorax kept going "And yeah I know you've been my friend for a good while now but I'm still a bit worried you know, that one day you might think I'm not interesting enough to hang out with anymore or that you might prefer to hang out with Pharnyx more instead of me because he's much cooler than I am."

I put my hands on Thorax's shoulders pulling him away from the hug in order to look him in the eyes "Thorax listen close and carefully I will never abandon you and I certainly will not ditch you for anyling else, don't get me wrong Pharnyx has been a pretty cool ling recently but that doesn't me I'll hang out with him only, I'd chose you over him anytime."

"B-But he knows how to fight a-and he's strong."

"And you aren't?" You don't have to be strong to not be weak and besides you think I care if your weak or strong. To me, your one of the best lings I've met and you wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because You're You, and thats good enough for me." I say trying to reassure him

"Besides, unless you forgot, you were my first friend too so it'd be pretty stupid of me to abandon you for someone else." I say reminding him

Thorax started to chuckle while wiping tears that were starting to form in his eyes
"I guess thats true, thanks Joseph, I guess that was silly of me to think like that."

I smiled "No problem Thorax."

"I-I also wanted to say thank you for helping me and Pharnyx."

Confused I asked "With what?"

Thorax smiled "with helping us reconnect with eachother. "

"Oh right, you don't have to thank me I didn't rea-"

Thorax scoffed and rolled his eyes "Please, I love my brother but even i know he would've never tried something like that on his own in a million moons. So like I said thank You."

'Wow, sassy Thorax, didn't think I'd see that anytime soon kinda weird but not bad, just a bit weirdly appealing.'

I shook my head erasing the questionable thoughts I came up with. "Well, i guess you aren't entirely wrong so no problem, I guess? Anyways is Pharynx here? We need to start discussing our training plans."

"Oh he's inside, he's trying to learn how to read on his own so I left him alone to answer your knock. Do you want me to call him?"

"That would be nice, thank you."

"No problem."

Thorax went back into the hole and a couple of seconds of later he returned with Pharnyx.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah, let's go get our asses handed to us again, see ya later Thorax."

"Bye guys!"

As we started walking away Pharynx asked me a question" So whats this plan of yours called again?"

Puffing my chest out a bit I tell him "its called D-B and Y-0"

Pharnyx rolled his eyes "Wow, how creative."

"Uh-huh, well I've to see you come up with something better mister 'Punch and Kick until he gets tired'."

Pharynx playfully glared at me "And it would've worked if you didn't trip me."

"Yeah, uh-huh, sure, yeah, ok, whatever."

"I hope he knocks you out again."

"Shut it."
_____________________________________________

After we entered the training room Buffy was there waiting for us "Alright lings let's not waste anytime and get straight to it."

"Yes sir"
"Yes sir"

After we got to the center Buffy followed by Pharynx and I immediately got into fighting positions.

Buffy had a grin on his face while me and Pharnyx schooled our faces into looking as serious as we could.

"Ready and...GO!"
As soon as he finished me and Pharnyx rushed in to attack him and It wasn't going well since every punch and hit was either deflected or dodged and we were starting to get exausted meanwhile Buffy as always looked like he was enjoying the fight itself.

He then tried sweeping both us but only managed to get Pharynx while I hopped over his leg only to get gut punched by him. Now I don't know why but Buffy always gut punched us if anytime he decided we made a big enough of a mistake, but what he didn't know is that this time the mistake was on purpose this time.

When me and Pharnyx realized this we decided to take advantage of it, so when Buffy gut punched me I grabbed his arm and held him as hard as I could.

Confused on why I was holding him he tried to pull his arm out as quick as possible but thankfully I was still able to hold him in place, he then tried pulling with all his might slightly running out of patience but with his mind occupied on trying to free himself from me ended up momentarily forgetting about Pharnyx as he was able to run up and elbow him in his face as hard as he could.

Caught off guard at the surprise attack Buffy started stumbling backwards which me and Pharynx took advantage of as we rushed him and punched him in the face again as hard as we could together causing Buffy to sway a bit and when me and Pharynx noticed we looked at eachother and started to smile until we heard him beginning to chuckle as he righted himself, snapping his nose back in place as he proceeded to snort out some green blood and look back at us.

When he did he was grinning, flashing his fangs at us as green blood proceeded to drip down his face. 'Haha, were in danger.' I thought to myself

Buffy whistled impressed. "I'm not gonna lie younglings that was an impressive move you two pulled off and you actually hurt me, now question is, can you do it again?" He says as he gets back into position

Me and Pharynx looked at eachother and nodded as we prepared ourselves standing a bit away from eachother."Now get ready cause I'm not defending this time." Buffy said

As soon as he said that he rushed at us but me and Pharnyx was prepared as we let him get as close as possible until I turned around and bent over as Pharnyx proceeded to run over to me, rolling over my back as he hit Buffy as hard as he could with the tip of his hoof while I kicked him as hard as I could in the stomach, but when I went to pull my foot out I couldn't as I realized I was stuck. 'What!? Why I am stu-"

My face then drained as I noticed Buffy had grabbed my leg with both of his hands and next thing I know I'm flying in the air as the last thing I see is the floor approaching my face as everything goes black.

(Pharynx POV)

As I saw Joseph's face hit the hard rock floor I was too shocked to move. When Joseph told me his plan I thought we would get our ass handed to us like always but we actually managed to make him bleed.

Though, even after all of that he started chuckling like it was just a joke to him but were still had another move we could've done and we did but thats when I saw Joseph's body go flying face first into the floor making me realize that we still had a far way to go.

'But I won't go down easily.' I thought to myself determined to make some sort of difference

In the early days when I was training with Joseph he used a move on me that I thought was completely idiotic but now I thought to myself that 'it might hopefully just be enough.'

Running over as fast as I could I punched Sir as hard as I could. Since I was able to catch him by surprise he turned just in time for my fist sending him to the floor on his side and as he tried to get up I jumped at him cocking my arm back as I aimed for his face and punched as hard as I could sending me flying over him on my back as all the air left my lungs.

'Please let that be enough.' As I spent a minute trying to catch my breath I looked over at sir only to see him already on his feet looking down at me.
"shit"

Resigned to my fate i just let my head fall back down as Sir walked and stood over me "I have to say youngling you and Joseph might be my most impressive apprentices yet."

"Thank you *gasp* Sir."

He nodded and the last thing I saw was his fist flying at me at me before everything went dark.

Author's Note

I tried to write Pharynx a bit and I don't think I did a good job so yeah like usual bash and enjoy thanks again for reading!

Progress
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To Change For The Better

Progress

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay my power went out and I wasn't able to charge my phone until today. Anyways like always bash and enjoy.

Progress

The next day me and Pharynx came up with another strategy to try and 'beat' Buffy. So during our next sparring session we immediately went into action as I charged Buffy with Pharnyx circling around him to attack him from the behind as we tried to do a sort of pincer attack but that ultimately failed as Buffy without turning around kicked Pharynx in the stomach sending him on his knees for a second as I tried to punch him in the face as I hoped he was distracted.

Sadly fate was not in my favor at the moment as he effortlessly deflected my punch with his left elbow making me go way off target leaving myself wide open as he hit the back of my head with his other elbow causing me to stumble forward in pain right as he lifted his left hoof backwards up towards my face causing me to grab my nose in pain as he then hit the back of my knee causing my leg to collapse on itself as my body hit the floor back first.

Now you might be wondering why we immediately are sparring again after we just had our asses handed to us. Well,
After we were brought to the recovery chamber, again.

Buffy told us that he was impressed at how well me and Pharnyx were getting along in our sparring sessions so he told us, if we were up to it, that if we managed to beat him when he then he would move on to something a little more calmer and interesting, but it was only if we did right then and there and if not then we would have went back to regular sparring, which explains the situation were in right now.

As I fell on my back I saw Buffy pull up his hoof as he tried to stomp my face in. Thankfully I was able to react quick enough to be able to barely dodge his hoof landing inches away from my face. Swinging my legs around I tried kicking him with my hooves.

He unfortunately blocked my right hoof but I was able to kick him a bit in the face with my right one. As he stumbled back Pharynx, having recovered enough from the kick he received ran up to him as fast as he could, alerting Buffy of his presence again as he turned around just in time for Pharynx to jump up grabbing both of Buffy's arms as he headbutt him as hard as he could sending both of them to the floor.

Disoriented, Pharnyx started swaying a little as he rolled off of Buffy trying to get back on his hooves as fast as possible. We waited for a couple of seconds as nothing happened and were starting to feel like we finally did it until Buffy albeit very slowly got back on his feet wasting no time me and Pharynx rushed in as I punched Buffy in the upwards in the jaw leaving Pharynx to pick him up using his right arm to pick him up between the legs and his left arm to hold him behind the head as he spun around once throwing him to the floor as we both then rushed in once again to strike him down together until Buffy shot his head up and caught both of our fists.

As me and Pharynx's faces paled what happened next shocked both of us as Buffy said "I yield younglings, good work."
.
.
.
Unsure if what was happening is what was happening i took a chance and asked "Wait, we won?"

Buffy chuckled "Yeah youngling, you did."

As me and Pharynx processed what we heard we were beyond happy, we had finally done something to Buffy and that was no easy feat in my opinion.

"Now, let's go get recovered and then we move on to the next lesson."

Now for this lesson you two are going to learn how to change forms as this can be either a useful tool or a way to defend yourself. Though this time I won't be the one instructing you. No, for this you too are going to be going to be attending the classes that all the other roles in the hive attend for when they need to learn how to fit in the outside communities.

Buffy then clapped his hands loudly. "SO, I will see you two in about a month maybe more." He then put a hand on Pharnyx and I shoulders "I just want to say that I am very proud on how far you two have come ever since you first came here keep this up and i can definitely you two with future's of being Sentinels."

"Thank you sir"
"Thank you sir"

"Now off you go, well move on to something a little more advanced when you master how to do what changeling do best.

Buffy gave us directions as to where the lessons were taking place so we didn't waste time getting lost. When we did get there I noticed that it looked somewhat like a spacious classroom with a wall serving as a sort of whiteboard. Although it seemed like the seats were just spots you picked on the floor. There were also plenty of changelings here as well, around 50 of them to be exact.

As we were deciding where to sit I saw Thorax waving me over as I nudged Pharynx and discreetly signaled over at Thorax as he gave me a nod and went to find somewhere else to sit. I then made my way over to Thorax to sit next to him, "Hey Joseph, I'm glad to see you here."

"Thanks Thorax, how's your studying going?"

Thorax smiled "Its going great, the stuff I've learned so far is so interesting and I haven't even gotten half way did you kn-"

I quickly covered his mouth as I looked to see if anyling was paying attention, thankfully they weren't "Not in public remember?"

Thorax rubbed his head sheepishly "Heh sorry, but really there's alot of interesting stuff we've learned and acquired over the years."

Before I could respond a changeling taller than anyling else in the room cleared his throat quieting the room down.

"I am Tenna, the ling who will be instructing those with a role to fulfill here in the hive. Although to be clear there will no silly antics or foolish magic wasting in these lessons, as such i don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle magic used and exact process that is part of what makes a changeling a changeling."

"However for those, select, few who possess, the predisposition. I can teach you how to bewitch and fool the outside creatures minds and turn yourself into a weapon with only the knowledge of what you know as the limit."

"I can tell you how to be a creature, shape your mind, and even break the boundaries of what can be done when all of you have to do is think of it."

Tenna then gazed over to a pair of excited changelings trying to but failing to quietly discuss what they're gonna try to turn into first. "Then again, maybe some of you have come to these lessons with abilities so formidable that you feel confident enough to not. Pay. Attention.

Another changeling to the left of them elbowed one of them lightly and gestured towards Tenna. "Piracle and Circus, two of our, new, Surveyors. Tell me what does one thing a changeling needs to start the process to change forms?"

They looked down embarrassed "You don't know?" Well let's try again how, Surveyor Circus, would you know when to change forms in the outside world to protect yourself instead of blending in with other creatures?"

"I, I don't know sir." Circus said looking away embarrassed

Tenna narrowed his eyes as he shifted over to Piracle "And what, Surveyor Piracle, is the limit a changeling is able to shift forms if the form they choose is one that is beyond their standard their body mass and height?"

A changeling next to them raised their hand only to be ignored as Tenna was focused on Piracles answer.

Piracle looked annoyed at being called out" I also don't know, sir."

"Pity. Clearly you both, know, nothing."

Piracle trying to regain some of their bruised pride responded "Well it seems like the ling next to me knows, so how about you ask them instead of me as I clearly don't have your answer's."

The whole room was filled with giggle like chirping "Silence." Tenna and Piracle had a staredown until Tenna started to stride towards where they were seated passing the changeling with their hand still up as he quickly told them"put your hand down silly ling." They put their hand down dissapointed.

As Tenna approached them he stopped right in front of them as he proceeded to squat until he was face to face with them."For your information Surveyors the experience of seeing and remembering said creature is the first step a changeling is required to know in order to begin the process of changing forms."

"You would know when to change forms to protect yourself instead of blend in when you know that other creatures know you aren't apart of their normal environment and to catch them by surprise by acting that you are none the wiser of their discovery, too early and that makes way for stupid mistakes, too late and you'd already be dead or captured by time you do anything."

"As for the limits on forms that are beyond a normal changelings stature and weight is 5 minutes, less if you are constantly switching in and out for reasons that might be explained in the situation you find yourself in." Piracle was glaring at the floor while Circus was just shrinking in on himself.

"WELL? Haven't I given you the answers to the Oh so hard questions I asked?"

Piracle was still glaring at the floor as he gritted his teeth before he responded "Yes. Sir."

Tenna stood up satisfied "Good, now then as I've said before these lessons will give you the knowledge required to fully embrace your changeling nature, as is required in order to fully fulfill your roles for most of you, although for some of you it can be used as a means to fight against the toughest of foes, and for the select few of you it can be used to make others tremble at what your mind can conceive of. Now, let us get on with the lessons."

As the day went on we were taught on what gives the changeling the ability to transform as Tennan
went on to explain it "Now all changelings have something inside them called a Morphos. Now this particular organ is what allows a changeling to morph into a different form whether it be a different race like a minotaur or Griffin or it be something a bit more dangerous like a dragon or hydra."

"But do not forget, even If this is something only changelings can do you still need to practice with the ability and before you try to even think of it I assure It is much more then just 'seeing and memorizing' as that is only just one part of the process."

"First you have to be able to summon the Corsucate that hides your body from the world allowing your form to be switched out for the form that you desire In that very moment, which you can only do If your body has enough excess mass to allow the Corsucate to fully develop the form that you are trying to conceive."

"Then If all the past requirements have been met they have to get used to the form they have conceived of before they are capable of fighting or infiltrating with it. Every single form Is a new experience that must be treated with care, if not the results could be disastrous" For example, If love is used during morphing into a different form If you are not experienced on using love effectively or just don't have enough of it."

"You could be left in a state of nothingness as without the proper amount of control and capacity for love that was attempted to be added on to the transformation could erase you as the Corsucate has already begun switching out your form for the one you were trying to conceive and without a form being available to switch into it will leave you... as nothing."

"The entire room as we digested the meaning of what that statement meant for us. Tenna seemed to be lost in thought before he shook his head."

"Anyways, now you know how serious this process Is and I will have no fooling around in this class this is supposed to be a monumental moment to be able to fully have access to your changeling nature and, besides that will only happen if you try to use love without experience or just don't have enough of it."

"If done regularly it will simply not work or just leave you with an incomplete form of what you were thinking of although I've been told that sometimes they can be quite uncomfortable so don't try to do that without enough mass available to change into said thought."

A changeling raised their hand "Yes?"
"How would we know if we have enough mass to attempt morphing into said form?"

Tenna grabbed his chin as thought for a moment before putting up a paper like material on the wall that showed a diagram showing the anatomy of a Changeling. "Well when our stomachs have enough or is full of mass whether it be from what other creatures call 'food' or stuff like rocks or branches, anything that you can consume without any restrictions it then travels through a tube connected to your stomach that is lined with acids in order to make consuming mass simple."

"A signal then travels from the brain to test if whatever form comes to mind is available at the moment if not, then nothing will happen but if is then the body will use whatever mass is necessary to complete the form that is being thought of. I hope that answered your question."

"Yes, thank you sir."

'Interesting, it seems that alot goes into making a form, although it also seems like all you need is to know what form your trying to morph into looks like and then you can turn into it and if thats the case...'I grinned 'I think I'm gonna enjoy this new ability but I can't get too trigger happy with how Tenna described what happens with love this isn't just pain that I have to deal with, so this time I have to be very careful with what I try.'

"Now if that is all we shall move to a different part of the hive to allow everyling to try and make use of their Morphos's."

As we arrived in a different part of the hive I noticed that this place looked familiar to me and then thats when it hit me 'Oh were back in the arena looking place.'

Tenna then stopped in the middle and faced us "As some of you may recognize we are in the part of the Hive used to test younglings such as yourselves. This is where we will be for the rest of the time as you get used to trying to make use of your Morphos."

"Now like I said you need extra mass in order to try and change forms, so when you next come here their will be stuff for you to consume in order to get enough. Though for today you will simply be trying to change to look like me, since as long as what you are trying to change is what you look like normally takes little to no mass at all, but you won't be able to do it at all if you can't summon the Corsucate in the first place. "Now I want all of you to close your eyes."

I closed my eyes seeing only darkness "Now I want you to use your magic but dont imagine like your trying to rejecting love, instead imagine your trying to spread it everywhere inside of your whole body and then hold it there."

As I followed what he said I started to feel like I was about to leave my body. "Now if done properly you should feel like your o. The edge of losing your body and thats good thats exactly is what you should feel since that's your Morphos and Corsucate getting ready to switch your form for a new one, now I want you to think of what I look like and the rest should take care of itself."

I started to try and imagine what Tenna looked like 'ok I think at least 5'7, kinda wide but not fat, I think his horn was crooked with spirals to a tiny bit to the left and his fangs were on the far side of his face.'

"As I finished my thought I suddenly felt like I was ripped out of my body only to be forcefully returned back too where I was as I took a minute to settle myself as I opened my eyes and immediately I realized that I was as tall as Tenna. I looked around and noticed that there verying types of Tenna that were also catching their bearings.

"Good, it seems you lot are at least capable of being able to change. Although just being able to change doesn't suddenly make you an expert on this, no now you need to be able to perfect this form until I think I'm looking at a living mirror."

"This Is one of the most important parts of morphing into a different form needed to blend in. You need to be able to perfect any form you try to come up with to not alert the outside creatures of an fake, one mistake and that could be enough as to let them know you don't belong with them."

"So you lings are going to keep practicing until you are capable of perfecting this form of me at the snap of your fingers before we move on to the more advanced stuff. So, let's see how fast you can reach your perfect forms."

I sighed 'Something tells me this isn't going to be a quick checkup.'

Now We're Getting Somewhere
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To Change For The Better

Now We're Getting Somewhere

4 weeks later

As the weeks went by we continued to show up and practice morphing into a picture perfect version of Tenna. Sometimes if he was satisfied with our attempts he would transform into a species he's encountered when he left the hive and have us try to morph into the race he morphed into and let me tell you it is WAY different then just changing how you look.

First off, when you first change into a different race it feels like some of your body parts were either switched out, moved, or removed entirely. For example, Tenna turned into a Pegasus and had us try to do the same, but when I did try immediately noticed something something was added but also that something was missing, then I looked behind and I saw that instead of my elytra now I had wings and when I went to feel it it felt like I had real wings now which was very interesting.

Though apparently Tenna said that today we would be doing something very different so I was curious as what to that would be. As Tennant finished his last inspection on our attempts of making a form similar to him he seemed satisfied as he nodded to us.

"Good, it seems like you lings aren't incapable after all ,but, now that you've had time to practice these forms I've showed you, this time we're are going to move on to something a little bit more, advanced."

"As you know a changelings nature is to be able to morph into a form that helps us blend in or helps us defend ourselves, and since it seems like everyling here has been able to successfully morph into a form that would help you blend in with the outside creatures."

"So, i think its safe to say that you all can move on to trying to defend yourselves, some advice on a way to do that is morphing a few features on a form you've used to blend with the outside creatures into a disfigured monster that still has the same figure of the original creature you used in order to frighten those around you. So, in that case were going to be doing a little experiment today."

As Tenna finished saying that a good 50 changelings flew in as they landed side by side of eachother infront of us. "Now, these lings will serve as your opponent during this experiment how effectively you can use any forms you have seen me morph into these past few weeks, but if your feeling risky then feel free to try and make your form more threatening, it may or may not help but it all comes down to what you do with your form."

After he finished he allowed us to consume some more stuff to fill up our mass before he started to assign each of us to one of the changelings that flew in, though we weren't all going to fight at once we were apparently going to wait for a pair to go first before the next one went.

So while I waited I watched all the others go first and it was interesting to watch as the other pairs shifted into different creatures to fight eachother with. Minotaurs, Pegasus's, Unicorns, Timberwolves, one of them mophed onto a Diamond Dog 'i dont even know how they mangaged to see one.'

One of them turned into an Earth pony and that one was terrifying to experience since when one of the changelings who flew in morphed into an Earth pony during their fight they gutshotted one of my fellow lings into the wall making it crack a bit. 'Note to self don't mess with Earth ponies.' One of them even shifted into a HYDRA. Yeah, a fucking Hydra, that just caused the other ling in that pair to put both if his hands up and walk back to the line we formed. 'I don't blame ya dude.'

One of my fellow lings tried to make use of Tenna's advice by morphing into a Pegasus but with Timberwolf like features as them made a form that looked like a Pegasus but with bark like skin, glowing green eyes, and fangs that looked crooked and rotting just like the rest of their body as every thing they did produced a creaking like sound that originated from their body but like everyling else it wasnt enough and they lost the fight.

"Joseph, your up."

I breathed in and out as I tried to settle my nerves. I walked out of the line as I went up to the ling I was fighting they grinned at me before morphing into a dragon. My eyes widened as I was caught off guard, thankfully it didn't seem like a fully grown one as it seemed like it was a young dragon kinda like Garble or Ember. As I was busy trying to figure out what to morph into I could hear whispers coming from behind me.

"Woah, a dragon?"
"He's not gonna last long"
"Hopefully they go easy on him"

'Ok, think, Joseph, think! Yes its a dragon but its not indestructible but I still need something thats fast enough to deal with him and strong enough to actual hurt him but what cou-'

My eyes widened as I grinned to myself 'well Tenna did say to experiment, but how am I gonna explain this to everyone here...? Unless, yeahhh that could work.' Satisfied with my plan I started to think of the creature I wanted to morph into as my Corsucate started to hide my form from the world and switch it out for the one I was currently thinking of.

As it passed my body started to change starting with my legs as it was now replaced with slighter darker double jointed legs, moving upwards adding a tail that was about 5 meters long with an sharpened edge at the end of it.

As the Corsucate continued so did the changes to my body as my 4'8 self started getting taller to better suit the form being made as it continued to my upper middle section as my chitin like chest was replaced with a rib like structure sticking on the outside of my chest and 4 tube like vents was added to my back as it took on a more crooked look to it adding two near my waist and two near my head.

As it continued it started to change my arms to where before they were short with 5 thin like fingers now it was replaced with long arms sporting 4 sharp like fingers with 2 of them sticking next to eachother in the middle while the other two were situated at each end of my hands. Finally as it made its way towards my head my blue eyes, ears, horn, and fin like parts were removed as an elongated banana like head was made its replacment and my teeth were replaced as it took on a much sharper edge.

As I my Corsucate was finally done I was now 7 feet tall dwarfing the 6 foot dragon in front of me by a bit as he looked at my form shocked, confused and a bit terrified. Turning around I saw that the effect was more obvious on the other changelings as they looked more terrified than confused.

All of them except my two friends as I looked at Thorax i could've sworn I saw stars in his eyes as he looked at me like I was the coolest thing in the world meanwhile Pharynx proceeded to nod in respect from my form looked over at Tenna and he seemed morbidly curious of my form. I ignored him as I went to face my opponent again as he was still a bit scared before he shook his head probably trying to focus as he got ready.
"Ready?"
I nodded

As soon as finished he took to the sky as he proceeded to shoot fireballs at me from above caught off guard a bit I panicked as I barely dodged some of the fireballs shot at me, getting singed on some of my skin. I proceeded to get on all fours as I tried my best to scurry away from the fireballs as fast as I could thankfully outrunning the fireballs due to my speed, 'I cant do this forever though I need to catch him by surprise.'

As I tried to think of something I noticed that he stopped shooting, I looked over to what he was doing and my eyes widened as it looked like he was inhaling as much as he could for a more powerful fireball but it was still taking him a while to get it ready.

'Ok Ok think what can i do to stop this' as i racked my brain for an answer I heard a dripping noise below me, as I looked down I noticed that the rock below me was starting to become to turn white. 'But that only happens if ac-' I quickly realized something as I proceeded to spit on the floor, and sure enough the rock like floor went from a dark like green to a more whitish color.

'Of course I forgot that this thing produces acid and if remember correctly then.' I turned to face the dragon still breathing in air 'I might be able to do something, hopefully.' Hoping that my plan worked I got as close as I could to the dragon as I proceeded to build up acid in my mouth.

A couple of second later and he seemed like he was done as he prepared to shoot me with his now fully powered up fireball 'Here goes nothing' but before it could start to get near me I spit a concentrated amount of acid directly towards the fireball causing it explode sending me backwards a bit as everyling else tried to stay in place.

As the black cloud was starting to disappear my heart sinked as I saw that he was a bit singed but other than that he didn't look any worse except a bit annoyed that his fireball blew up in his face. Trying to think of something he suddenly started to fly towards me with his claws out though I was able to scurry away from him but every time I tried to get away I he was already on me again leaving me barely anytime to think 'this guy just doesn't quit, I cant do anything with him always flying towards me, but maybe I can take care of that.'

Coming up with a new plan I proceeded to stop abruptly turning and tried to spit acid at him. Luckily he was unprepared for me to stop so he panicked before he tried dodging towards the left, but he wasn't quick enough as some acid caught onto his right wing rendering it useless as he proceeded to crash into the ground.

Trying to seize the opportunity I ran up to him trying to get a lucky hit in but he threw a piece of the floor at me forcing me to stop and scurry away giving him time to rush towards me as he tried to tackle me but my tail instinctively lashed at him stopping him from making any sudden moves.

As we stayed their staring at eachother i tried to make the first move spitting acid at him making him dive to the side as scurried as fast as I could over to him but as he got up he had dugg his fingers into the floor pulling up a piece of it to smack it against my head causing me to stumble back shrieking in pain as he then tackled me to the floor pinning me as he got a couple of punches in before I was able to use my tail to impale him through the shoulder making him scream in pain before I then there him as far as I could away from me causing him to tumble a bit before he righted himself, we then stared at eachother a bit longer as we got ready to rush at eachother again.

"That will be enough" we looked over at Tenna as he continued "I think that we can its safe to say that Joseph has proven themselves with their rather, intriguing, form to say the least, no need for anymore violence." I looked back towards my opponent and he had already morphed back to a changeling, I shrugged also morphing back as my Corsucate proceeded to remove my form and turn me back to normal.

As the 'experimental' test ended I was told to stay behind as Tenna said he wanted to speak with me. "You asked to speak with me sir?" He nodded "Yes, I was curious as to what kinda form you morphed into during our little test since I don't think I've experienced a creature quite like that." Thankfully I had an excuse that would hopefully fool him. "Well sir I just kinda took the minotaur body and proceeded to make the tail a bit more sharper while making it more taller and darker." Tenna raised an eyebrow "and the head?" I shrugged "I thought it looked cool."

As he stared into my eyes my heart started to beat faster and faster due to how terrified I was to be stuck in this situation. "Interesting, very well you may leave to join your fellow lings."

"Thank you sir." I then proceeded to walk as fast as I could out of the room and meet up with Thorax and Pharynx.

Author's Note

A bit of a shorter one for today. So sorry if it feels half-assed I didnt really know what to do for this chapter but I will try to make the next one longer so like always bash and enjoy hopefully.

How.... Interesting.
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To Change For The Better

How.... Interesting.

Author's Note

Remember to bash and enjoy :trixieshiftleft:

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,

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.
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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.

New Developments
View Online

To Change For The Better

New Developments

I blearily open my eyes as I start to wake up and the first thing that greets me is an black hand on my face. I go to move it but my right arm is stuck, seeing what is blocking it first thing I see is a another Changelings face specifically Thorax's. "Huh" trying not to disrupt his slumber i slowly pull my arm from under him successfully not waking him up.

As I start to gather my surroundings I notice Pharnyx also still asleep over on his side. Not wanting to bother them I exit out of their hole to go back to mine.
_____________________________________________
Upon reaching my hole I look at the Stealth revolver that I still haven't provided more bullets for 'Eh why not.'

Seeing as how their was nothing to do today I decided to make another bullet for it 'besides if anything I could just go back to the others if I'm feeling lonely.' As I shook myself out my musings I noticed that after I made another bullet I didn't feel tired at all, in fact I felt like I was brimming with energy.

'I wonderrr' curious i decide to push my self as far as I could by making enough bullets to fill the cylinder but I still felt very energized 'looks like that vial Thorax found wasn't completely full of shit.' "Now the question is can I make use of this in another way."

Fully curious on how much I could make use of this new increase of magic I made my way towards the training room.
_____________________________________________

As I arrived I made my way over towards the rock dummy as I tried to summon my magic. 'Reject instead of consume, reject instead of consume.' I repeated this thought over on my head as I felt the familiar feeling of something slithering in my body towards my horn, I then tried to picture positive and negative charged fields separating, but not to fast as to be able to prevent the lightning from hitting the ground and wasting time and magic.

After a couple of seconds I start to feel some heat drain from the already damp like atmosphere, realizing what's happening I then infused a bit of love to try and compress the area around the formed lightning to force it into a spherical shape.

A little bit out of breath I look at the bright orb now in the air as lightning constantly jumps around inside of it.

"Wow, It's beautiful." I trail off as I approach the orb, entranced by the amount of deadly energy now turned into a beautiful display. But as I try to approach the orb It moves slightly away from me, confused I tried again as it moved away again, I then looked at my hands 'no way.' Excited I move my right hand slightly to the right as the orb slightly moves right "no way," I then try to move both of my hands up as it shoots up. Trying to contain my excitement I then try my best to aim at one of the rock dummies as I shout as loud as I can "PK THUNDER!" pushing my hands straight as the orb goes flying towards slightly past the dummy causing the orb to collapse on itself and release a small but still effective blast that causes the right side of the rock to become chipped. "Woah....." I then grinned "This is gonna be fun."
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Seeing as how I was able to successfully produce something with my magic without being exausted I then returned to my hole to try and make another weapon that could be very useful for more dangerous situations, as I closed my eyes I focused on forming the weapon and infusing a bit of love into it again constantly, making six magnetic like rails two on each side connected to a horizontal wooden barrel with a magnetic coil wrapped around the top of the gun and around a stump like stub near the butt of the gun with two wires connecting to the inside of an gun and a plier like tool attached to the side of the gun.

Completing the image I drop to a knee slightly out of breath as I take a minute to catch my breath 'Ok, so it seems like i can use more of my magic to substitute some of the love I originally used when making the revolver.'

I grinned "But, *pant* In the end *pant* I still managed to do it again." Now sitting on the floor was an Gun capable of firing lightning itself and it definitely looked functional "but to say if it actually does work is a whole different story."

"Well it still feels like I'm not exausted yet so I guess I can try and make the ammo for it."

Trying to catch my breath I started to summon my magic again as I started to form small mettalic balls contained in a dispenser like holder as they dropped to the floor. 'OK, I think thats enough for now.' Satisfied with what I was able to do with my new found increase in magic I decided to go to sleep.
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As I woke up I went to the feeding chamber to fill up on the low amount of love that they provide. After I'm done I return to my room to grab the ball like ammo and put It into a sort of slot on the side of the Hellbreath as I make my way back towards the training room.

After coming face to face with the rock dummy again I start to press down on the switch repeatedly under the side of the trigger repeatedly as I charge it up to the middle point of the meter, 'Ok now for the moment of truth,' as I bring the gun up and aim down the sights I pressed the trigger and out came a powerful electric blast that completely destroyed the upper right side of the rock "Holy, Shit..." looking back at the weapon I decided to test something, interested into seeing how much damage this weapon could do I started to press down on the switch until the meter could filled up no more.

Now slightly shaking as the weapon was fully charged I started to position the weapon as I aimed down the sights finger on the tri-

"Hi Joseph!"

I yelp not expecting any other ling to be here as I reflexively pull the trigger releasing the electric blast knocking me to the ground as it soared in the air towards the already damaged rock as a powerful blast erupts completely shattering the entire right side of the rock.

"Woah"
"Woah"

I turn around as I spot Pharynx and Thorax standing by the entrance completely fixated on the damage done to the rock. "What are you two doing here?"

They started to walk towards me as Pharynx answered "Well Thory over here wanted to hang out with you and since we both had nothing going on at the moment I decided to join."

"Oh o- wait a minute, Thory?"

Pharynx snorted and pointed to Thorax "Don't look at me he's the one who decided we have nicknames in private."

I look at Thorax, eyeridge raised as he looked away sheepishly "I thought it would be nice if we had something personal that we could call eachother when with friends, if you don't mind that is."

I shook my head "Hey don't worry I think thats nice, though im curious, what do you call Pharynx?"

"Don't. You. Da-."

"Pharny."

Pharnyx just sighed "I never should've agreed to this."

I laughed for a minute before trying to catch my breath "I'm *hah* sorry but Pharny."

Pharnyx glared at me "Don't."

Chuckling for a bit longer I finally catched my breath. "Well back to the topic at hand what is it that you guys wanted to do?"

Thorax looked at the floor embarrassed "W-well I was wondering if you don't mind, that is if, um youwanttojusthangout

"What?"

Pharynx groaned "What this grub is trying to ask if you would be willing to just sit somewhere and hang out so he can talk about how he looooooooves you so much and wants to express his dying love to you."

"PHARNYX!"

Pharynx started bursting out laughing as Thorax looked like he was about to explode.

"I'm joking, I'm joking, obviously he wants to just hang out and talk about whatever comes to mind.

I chuckled "yeah sure I dont mind, where do you want to hang out?"

Thorax sighed "Well if its really alright with you I kinda wanted to go back to where we first teamed up."

"The place where our test took place?"

Thorax nodded "Sure, that can work let me just put this back in my hole."

They both nodded as they walked away but not before Pharynx told me they were going to wait at the testing ground for me.
_____________________________________________

As I enter the arena like area again I spot Thorax sitting crisscrossed and Pharynx sitting with his legs out talking to eachother.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?"

"Hey Joseph, we were just talking about the first time we went against Pharnyx and that other ling, actual now that I think of it I never got the name of that ling, Pharynx, do you know what his name was?"

Pharynx shrugged "Tarturas if I know, he was just a random ling that I paired up with that looked strong enough."

He then slightly nudged Thorax "But hey, looks like you were tougher than him,congrats."

Thorax blushed, embarrassed over the praise from Pharynx "Thanks Pharynx."

Pharnyx then looked at me "I also want to thank you."

"Me?"

Pharnyx rolled his eyes "No Queen Chrysalis, yes you. I, I want to thank you for proving me wrong and helping me with problem that I wasn't aware of."

Confused, I asked "I think I know what your talking about with the problem, but, what do you mean by 'proving you wrong.'"

Pharynx then frowned, though it didn't seem to be aimed at me "When I was still thinking differently about how to deal the situation between me and Thorax I saw you paired up with him and I was upset because I thought you were trying to use,
Like everyling else had before, so I decide to insult him to try and see if you really cared about him at all or if you were just using him as I thought."

He chuckled "Imagine my surprise that not only did you actually defend him but insulted me back, to me that was a blessing in disguise, someling who cared about Thorax but also could stand up for themselves."

He then frowned "But, i still thought that of people saw me with you they would start connecting things back to Thorax so thats why when we met again I was so hesitant to work together until I reluctantly asked you for help, so yeah like I said thanks for that."

I put a hand on Pharynx's shoulder "I don't really know what to say to that, but I want to let know Pharynx that you don't have to worry about me faking anything with Thorax."

I looked over at Thorax as he was paying rapt attention to our conversation "I will never abandon him, because he's important to me too."

I looked back at Pharynx as he smiled at me and we nodded at eachother. "You know" We then both looked over at Thorax as he had a slightly serious look on his face."I know that I've said this before but Joseph you've truly changed our lives for the better, and I honestly can't imagine what our lives would have been like had you not have been here to support both of us,"

'Much worse for you' I thought

"So thank you, truly."

Before I could say anything Thorax pulled me and Pharynx into a hug as we were surprised for a moment before wrapping our arms around him, enjoying this nice moment to ourselves.

As we were enjoying the moment I heard a noise as something sounded like it was shining. Confused and slightly on edge we all quickly stepped away from the hug as we all started looking around the area rapidly for any indication of the noise.

"Do you guys see anything?"

"No nothing!"

"I hope it wasn't someling spying on us."

As we continued looking around I spotted something out the corner of my eyes as I looked for a split second until I focu-.

Wait.

What?

Doing a double take i look behind me as I spot shining, glistening wings, specifically Thorax's wings. They shimmered and shined as bright as the stars you would see in the night sky.

"Hey guyyyys, I think I found what made the noise."

They both turned around looking at me for an answer "Look at his wings" as I point to Thorax's wings leading to both of them looking at it in shock.

"Woahhh, what happened to my wings?"

"Or Better yet, why is it shining?"

Meanwhile I stood their dumbfounded 'But, but how? This wasn't supposed to happen for a while, so why is i-"

"I swear My Queen that these two have been very promising so far."
I also agree my Queen the new learner has gone through almost all of everything the Hive has recorded over the moons."

I paused 'ohshitohshitohshit' "Thorax!"

They both looked at me "Joseph? Whats wro-"

"No time, disguise your wings."

What, wait wh-"

"Quickly, just do it!"

Concerned and confused he seemed to still do what I said as I saw his Corsucate at work until his wings were back to the dull looking green color i was more familiar with.

"There now will you tell me whats wro-"

He paused as his eyes widened in shock "M-my Queen"

I turned around as I saw Buffy, a random changeling I didn't know and Queen Chrysalis herself making their way towards us. All three of us got on one knee as Pharynx spoke "My Queen, what have we done for you to grace us with your presence."

"Rise."

We all got up and saw her smiling at us. "I have decided that because of how much your mentors have been singing your praises to put you through a test of sorts to see if your truly worthy of those praise.

'Yeah because that isn't ominous at all.'

"So in my brilliance I decided that the best way to test you, to see if your truly ready for these roles, is to have you go through the real thing."

My eyes widened in disbelief as I couldn't believe the situation that she was forcing us in and as I looked around i saw that I wasn't the only as everyling looked on in disbelief or shock as we all stood frozen until Buffy tried to say something "M-My Queen surely thats a bit of a hasty decision to make with three lings that haven't completed their trai-"

His plead was cut off as I swore the atmosphere got heavier as Chrysalis turned her head slightly towards Buffy as she gave him a cold glare "Surely you aren't questioning my decision, right, Sentinel?"

Buffy's eyes widened as he immediately dropped to one knee "Of Course not my Queen I would never question your excellence!"

"Good."

As the atmosphere started to feel lighter she then turned towards us "My decision is final and will not be changed, but I am a, if anything, merciful Queen as I will allow you two young Sentinels to escort this here young Learner." I scoffed in my head 'Yeah right, throwing three young changelings out into an unknown environment is certainly merciful.'

She then leaned in close to Thorax "You should be grateful, after all, other Learners don't usually get two Sentinels to escort them all the time."

Thorax rapidly nodded his head "T-thank you my Queen I will remember this boon you have granted m-me."

She smiled in response "Now, seeing as how everything has been taking care I suggest you lings start preparing for your trip to the outside world."

She then suddenly looked at us coldly "I expect something useful when you return." She then paused as she looked at each one of us "But you are young and inexperienced so I guess I can be lenient, I'll give you lets say 3 moons to bring back something that is not only revolutionary to the Hive but something that we also don't already have." Her cold look then returned "You will leave in 30 minutes, so i suggest you find anything of use before you leave and you also don't need to wait all three moons to return, BUT, if you do return early, without ANYTHING of use you can consider yourself banished and forgotten from the hive."

We just stood shocked and frozen in place until she gave a cruel grin "Well then good luck."

As she walked away and out of the arena like room with Buffy and that changeling following her Thorax suddenly collapsed on the floor as Pharynx immediately went to comfort him, and through it all I could only think of one thing.

'What

The

Fuck.
_____________________________________________
(Pharynx POV)

"Were going to die."

I sighed "Thorax."

"I ca-I, I just don't understand."

"Thorax."

"What did we do wrong? Are we being punished and if so for what?"

"THorax."

"WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO US."

"THORAX!"

"WHAT!"

I approached him as I put my hands on his shoulders "Calm down."

Thorax looked at me like I was crazy "Calm down? CALM DOWN!? You want me to calm down after I just heard that we are being sent to the outside world, WAY before mind you, any of us have completed their training that would have helped prepared Us for This.

But no, Now because our instructors praised us for our hard work and commitment to our roles Our Queen decided that the best way to prove that we are really 'worthy' of those praises was to send us out on a mission that relies solely on ME finding something out there that Is both revolutionary and never before seen in the hive, and you want me to CALM DOWN!?"

"YES! yes, I do because as bad it is we need to be able to think rationally and be able to plan out our situation, I know how you feel but we're only going to be able to get through this if we calm down, put our heads together and come up with a plan on how we're going to get through this, ok?"

Thorax stopped to breathe in and out a few times until he calmed down a little "Yeah, your right, I'm.. sorry I yelled at you."

I pulled my brother in for a hug "Its ok."

Thorax hugged me back and almost silently replied ""I'm just really scared Pharynx."

"I am too but, we Are going to get through this, ok?"

Thorax nodded back

"Good, and besides were not alone we still have Joseph coming with us too."

Thorax smiled a little bit at that "Yeah I guess your right about that, and who knows maybe with how he is he's already have come up with a plan."

(Joseph POV)

"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO."

'Now I may be a dumbass but even I could've sworn that Changelings with roles were only eligible to leave the hive after they completed their training so what in the hell possessed Chrysalis to just send us off outside as just to see if we were worthy of praise from our instructors?'

I sighed as I looked at my 'bed,' placing the weapons i was able to summon on it. 'So we have a a Stealth revolver with six shots and the Hellsbreath with thirteen, sadly not much to defend ourselves with since someone is still going to be unarmed.'.

I shook my head "Later, right now we need to plan our next course of action."

Decision made i met up with Thorax and Pharynx as they were looking over a map of Equestria in their room.

Thorax and Pharynx lifted their heads as the former replied first "Hey, Joseph"

"Hey Thorax wished we were meeting on better terms."

Thorax looked slightly upset "Yeah me too, but we aren't so we gotta focus."

I nodded "Right, so any ideas of where were going?"

"Well Pharynx decided that we'd make our way from the Hive up to this city called Dodge junction and take a device they call a train towards a town called Ponyville, gather information and see what we can do from there."

"Sounds like a good plan." ' Yeah, if we just ignore the part about heading towards Ponyville but other than that it sounds like a sound plan.'

"Actually, Pharynx I have something to give you, its in my room if you don't coming with me."

Pharynx looked back at Thorax who gave him a small smile "Don't worry, I'll be ok on my own for a bit, you can go on."

Pharynx gave him a nod as we both stand up and leave the hole. As we're walking towards my hole Pharynx speaks up "Hey Joseph?"

I stop and turn to face him "Yeah?"

Pharynx looks into my eyes with the most serious look in his eyes I've ever seen from him "Whatever happens out there promise you'll be there for Thorax."

"Pharynx I-"

"JUST promise me please, I'm not gonna pretend that everything that happens outside is gonna be all happy and fun but, I need to know that if something does happen you'll be there for him. Please."

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"Ok... I promise"

Pharynx gave me a grateful smile "Thank you Joseph, I really appreciate everything you've done for me and Thorax. I know I haven't said that but I really do."

"No problem Pharynx."

"So, what is it you want to give me?"

"Something that'll help you keep me from making that promise."

As we enter my hole I go to grab the Hellbreath and hold it out for Pharynx to take. He looks at confused "What is it?'

"Remember that weapon I summoned during our first time with magic?"

He starts to nod until his eyes widen "You did it again."

I nodded "Yeah, I did and I'm pretty sure I can do it again but I need time, speaking of time how much time do we have?"

Pharynx scrunched his face up in thought "i think around ten minutes."

"OK then that should be enough time to give you a rundown of the basics." As I start walking with him to the training area and as we get their we find it empty, good for us since their won't be any distractions. As we walk over to the Rock dummies I start to instruct him on how to use it "OK first, put the foot looking thing on your shoulder, right hand around the half circle looking thing inside of the grip, and left hand carrying the underside of the brown looking part."

As I finish with the instructions I see Pharynx follow them to a tee "Like this?"

I nod "Yeah just like that l, now when you go to use the weapon pull back on the half circle to release the shot and don't forget to press this little grip here to charge it up to do more damage with it since you'll see this little meter here fill up though I recommend to get it halfway as thats already capable of doing serious and also be prepared for the amount of kickback that's gonna hit your shoulder, because if you aren't prepared it will dislocated your shoulder ok? Ok. Go ahead and try a shot."

As I step back i see Pharynx repeat my steps albeit slowly buts that to be expected as he starts to charge up the gun, aims, fires, and falls on his ass, as the gun drops and the blast hits the ride of the rock dummy.

"Told you to be prepared."

Pharynx rubs his shoulder as he gets up "Yeah I know but I wasn't expecting anything like That."

"Well we can try ag-"

Before I can finish a sentence I feel a voice in my head as it says "Sentinels Joseph and Pharynx and Learner Thorax, prepare to leave the hive at once."

I sigh "Well I guess we can try again out there."

Pharynx nods distraced "Yeah..."

I go over to him and put a hand on his shoulder "We got this."

Pharynx nods this time with more certainty to it "Yeah, yeah we do."

He gets up and stretches his legs "Well let's get Thorax and, leave."

I nod as we head back.

After getting Thorax we arrived to the entrance of the hive waiting, and as we do a hole finally opens up. Looking at eachother we nod and finally leave the hive together.

First thing I notice is the wasteland infront of me as the sky looks to be polluted and the environment looks to be wasting away as the trees are dying and the grass is black.

As we stand there processing this new environment I decide to break the silence. "Well are we ready crew?"

After a few deep breaths from both changeling I get an answer.

"Yeah"
"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Then, Autobots roll out!"

They both looked at me confused and I looked away embarrassed as I tried to recover from the failed attempt at trying to be cool "*Ahem* we should probably get a move on."

And so we took our first steps, with no idea of what awaited us. But one we thing we did know is that we had eachother. And that, was good enough..

Making Our Way
View Online

To Change For The Better

Making Our Way

"Are we there yet?"

"No."
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"Are we there yet?"

"No."
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"Are we the-"

"Joseph, if you ask again I will knock you, take Thorax and leave you behind."

"Finnne."

"Um please don't."
_____________________________________________

"You know we should do something to pass the time."

"And what exactly should we do?"

"Well we could sing some songs."

They both looked confused at me as they asked simultaneously "Whats that?"

Ah. Right.

I wrapped my arms around both of their shoulders "We have much to discuss."
_____________________________________________

🎵Who knows when the sun will rise again?

Seems we've got too much time to spend.

Feels like this night will never end,

I guess it just depends,

Who knows when the sun will rise again?
.
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The world should sleeep tooday,

Think I deserve a breeak,

You'll see this way its better,

We'll all just nap together.

We then all then shouted at the top of lungs.

🎵THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER!🎵

We all stop to catch our breaths until Thorax speaks first "That was so much fun! What do you think Pharynx?"

Pharynx looks away embarrassed "....It wasn't, that, bad."

He then looks up "We should find somewhere to sleep soon, Its getting dark."

I look up at the sky and notice the sun beginning to set " Oh yeah, wow, I didnt that much time had passed."

Thorax turned his head a bit in my direction " Well we did spend all that time trying to remember the, what did you call it again?"

"A song."

"Song! That's what it was and it was really fun once we learned it, though I wonder where did you get the idea from?"
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'Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.'

"Oh I just kinda thought about the concept but I didnt really think about the song bit until a couple of days before we left, Why?" I said

'Take it, take it, take it.'

"Oh ok, just curious is all."

"Oh alright."

'THANK GOD, ok next time,if i ever introduce something not heard of i need a reason to have known about it first.'

"Here should be good." Pharynx said

I pause as I look around as I see nothing but darkness "You sure?"

Pharynx shrugs "Don't really have many options right now."

I just nod as he continues "Ok, well I guess
We'll take turns keeping an eye out for anything that might be out here, I'll go and try to find something that can burn, can't be too hard."

I look at him a bit confused "You think something is going to be out here?"

"We are."
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"Fair enough."

As Pharynx went off to find something to burn me and Thorax just sat in comfortable silence until Thorax spoke
"Hey Joseph."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we'll be ok?"

I stay quiet until I pull Thorax closer to me, feeling how tense he is as I try convery as much firmness as I can in my answer.

"Yes, yes I do."

I then look down at him "And we'll be there for eachother when it gets too hard on our own."

He then looks up at me before snuggling closer. "Thank you."

After that little talk we just sit there in silence in eachothers company until we fall asleep.
_____________________________________________

"Joooseph, Jooooooooooseph, can you hear me Joseph?"

I open my eyes slowly as I see Pharynx with his arms crossed staring down at me with an impatient look. "I see you and Thorax had a nice nap, but now its your turn for watching."

I look over at Thorax and see him still sleeping away on my shoulder "mmh, yeah, ok. Just give me a second."

After waking up I slowly start to give up as Pharynx switches places with me as I go off a little bit in the distance to keep watch incase there's something out here. Though I eventually start to get lost in my thoughts.

'.....I don't know how were gonna get out of this, I mean already stuff isn't like the show with how advanced the changelings are compared to the show, not to mention the supposed 'Desperate Era' that said that the Changelings worked TOGETHER with different species at one point to fight an enemy they couldn't handle on their own.'

I sigh 'I mean I don't even know what I'm doing here. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful I get a second chance at life, in my one of my favorite worlds no less. But, what am I supposed to do with it?

Just spend the rest of my life in the 'comfort' of the Hive? But then what about the others? Especially Thorax, if he's anything like from the show then he's also not going to want to spend the rest of his life in the Hive, but should I let nature run its course, or?'

I look over at Pharynx and Thorax while their asleep leaned against one another 'Should I try to change things a little earlier for the better?'

I shake my head to clear my mind 'That'll be a question for future Joseph to handle, for now, we do what we can to survive and then, we'll see what happens.'
_____________________________________________

Afterwards we all took turns keeping watch until the sun came up, we then started moving again as I 'came' up with more songs to sing to pass the time until finally.

"We made it, Dodge junction."

As we reached the town is was like the show only more realistic as the town had a certain wild west feel to it but not to the point of it being rundown as you saw mostly Earth ponies going by doing their everyday things.

Before Pharynx and Thorax walked in I pulled them back, causing them to look at me confusined in the process. "Uhhh guys you forgetting something?"

They both looked lost before seeming to light up in recognition, looking away embarrassed.

"Oh, right almost forgot"

"I was just testing you to see if you remember."

I gave him a flat stare causing to get flustered. "Oh shut up."

After that little exchange we all then morphed into a random pony, with Thorax morphing into the form he used on the show. Meanwhile, Pharnyx changes his form into a Pegasus with light blue fur, white hair, while keeping his purple irises. Finally I change my form into an Earth pony with blue fur and black hair, while also keeping my original eye color.

"OK now while we're out here were gonna need names to fit in so from now on Thorax, your going to be Shining Star Pharnyx, your going to be Dusty Diamond,
And I will be Midnight Shimmer."

"Oh I like that name, it sounds nice."

"Well I don't, why am I Dusty? Makes me feel dirty."

Thorax tried reassuring him "Dont worry Pharynx, I think your name is nice."

Pharynx sighs "thanks bro, ok lets go."

They then try moving again before I grab them back. At this point Pharynx looks a bit annoyed "What."

I point to the ponies walking around "Tell me what do you see when you look at the ponies walking around?"

At my question they both pause and look until Thorax responds "Uhhh, some sort of clothing?"

"Exactly, now I don't know about you but if I were a pony and saw my kind walking around without clothes on I would think that they're kinda weird."

Pharnyx then turns back to me "So what do you propose we do then?"

I think for a second "Well there's gotta be a place where they're getting their clothes from so we just gotta sneakily get some."

Thorax eyes widened in shock "You want to steal from them!?"

"I don't want to but if we're gonna do blend in then we have no choice Thorax."

Thorax was quiet for a bit until he answered "Fine. But I don't like this one bit."

I nod "I understand"

As we get closer to the town we stay to the outskirts as much as possible hiding behind buildings as to not draw attention to ourselves.

Pharnyx then looks across from the building were at "Is that it?"

I peek around the corner and see a store Called Dodgy Clothes "Huh i guess it is."

I turn around to face them "Ok so here's the plan: First, we cause a fight outside."

I tap on a random pony "excuse me sir."

He turns around stopping what he was doing "Yes?"

I point at a random pony sleeping in a chair "He said that your momma should die."

His eyes widen as he now looks pissed "HE SAID WHAT!"

He then rolls up his imaginary sleeves as he holds his arms out to his right and walks over to the guy tapping him awake "Hey you."

The other guy wakes up "mmh?"
Then gets socked in the face sending him falling backwards on the floor.

"Then: we get the store owners attention to get them to break up the fight."

I start banging on the door rapidly "SIR, SIR!"

A gruff looking pony steps out "What, what do you want?"

I point over to the fight "Those two started fighting and we need your help."

He drags a hand down his face "Oh Celestia, this the third time this week, don't you boys worry I'll take care if this."

He then walks over to them shouting "HEY BOFFERS, BRANDYBUCKS, THIS THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK DAMMIT!"

"Finally: We enter the store, get some clothes, ride the train, get something for the hive, go back and be celebrated for being the best their is, now is everyling ready!"
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"....Guys?"

I turn around and notice their gone "Where?"

*Ahem*

I turn around and notice Thorax and Pharynx with three pairs of clothes in hand "How did you?"

"Well while you were busy blabbering on about some sort of plan me and Thorax went over to the building, knocked on the door, asked for extra clothes, and came back."

"Oh..... well ok then, I guess."

As I finally look at what they got i see that they got three pairs of underwear, a red,blue, and black plaid shirt, with tan pants. "Hmm, daring today are we?"

"What?"

"Nothing, let's just get these on and try to get to the train."

After we get dressed we make our way over to the train station and as we get there we were stopped by the conducter
"Where are you heading?"

Thorax answered first "Uh, Ponyville?"

He starts writing something on his stand "Reason?"

"Uhhhhh, to go to the next town?

He then looks up "Yeah, yeah I know but are you going for personal or business reasons?"

Thorax scrunches up his face while Pharnyx answers for him "Whats the difference?"

The conducter sighs ""kids these days, ok look BUISNESS means your going to work, out of town since this one doesn't have much work to offer anyway. Now, PERSONAL means your going for reasons that are your own, understand?"

We nod "Now reasons for travel?"

"Per-"

I cover Thorax's mouth "Buisness, please."

He writes for a few minutes before asking us "Names?"

"Midnight Shimmer, Dusty Diamond, and Shining Star."

"And last but not least have you received your Revelation Marks?"

"Yes" 'dontquestiondontquestionfontquesti-'

"Alright then." He then tears off three pieces of paper "Here you go."

"Huh, you know I thought that we would have to pay for these."

"Well, like I said their isn't much work going around here so if your telling the truth about your Revelation Marks?" He says as he leans in closer.

We all rapidly nod our heads as he leans back "Then, your deemed responsible enough to look for work to provide for yourself or others if you have any."

"Also may I ask what that is supposed to be?" He points to Pharynx's weapon as I try to say something.

"Oh, its something I made, a sort of a trinket between us you could way."

Seemingly satisfied he nods. "Anyways, hop on we'll be leaving in a minute." When he finished, we made our way on the train and found a couch that was empty allowing us to occupy it with Thorax on the left, me In the middle and Pharynx on the right.

While we're waiting for the train to move i motion for Pharynx to give me the gun to hide it under the seat. Meanwhile, Thorax gets on his knees to look outside the window as I finish hiding our weapons and the sometime to look at the piece of paper handed to me looking at the sand like color of the paper as I see my aliais in big bold letters.

As I'm looking over the paper Thorax starts talking. "So how do you think this 'train' thing works?"

Pharynx shrugs "I don't know for all I know this could be a waste of time and were just sitting here to take a br-."

Before Pharynx can finish the train shifts fowards causing Pharynx to fall over and Thorax to fall onto of me as he starts panicking "Whats happening!?"

I grab his shoulders "Shining, look at me."

He looks down at me "Calm down, its just the train."

"O-oh sorry for overreacting then."

"Its ok we've never heard of this before so thats understandable, though can you get off of me please."

His eyes widen as he crawls off of me "oh yeah, my bad"

As we try to get up I see Pharynx on the floor with his arms on the seat as he looks at us with a shit-eating grin "Having fun?"

"Shut up Pharynx."
"Shut up Pharynx."
He snickers as he climbs back on the seat while Thorax looks embarrassed with how he reacted before glancing out the window only to look back as he sees the land passing us by in a blur "Woahhhh, guys come look at this."

As we get on our knees to look out the window with him Pharnyx also looks amazed "Wow, that is cool."

"I know right! What about you Jo-i mean Midnight, isn't it cool?"

I look out the window with a smile "Yeah its pretty amazing."

We then all just spend the rest of the trip staring out the window as they were enraptured by this new discovery they got to experience while I looked out the window simply content to be in the company with people I care about.

Author's Note

A bit of a shorter one today so sorry about that but like always bash and enjoy.

Just A Nice Calm Normal Day In PonyVille
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To Change For The Better

Just A Nice Calm Normal Day In PonyVille

Author's Note

I have no idea how to write characters, oh well you guys can tell me what I did wrong.
Anyways like always bash and enjoy. :twilightsheepish:

Just A Nice Calm Normal Day In PonyVille

As we went inside we immediately went to our rooms since we just wanted to relax for the rest of the day until we started working tomorrow.

Thorax and Pharynx went to their bedroom to relax while I headed to my room as well 'You know, now that we're out here we should probaly practice and figure out stuff on our own so that way we aren't completely useless If there comes a time where we need to defend ourselves, eh I'll ask them about the idea tomorrow, today though I need to start working on improving myself even more.'

I close the door as I enter my room and take a minute to look around a bit more now since I didnt really have the chance to before. It is kinda small only able to fit a bed and desk but in my opinion its still ten times better then what I had at the Hive so I think I can manage.

'I've been able to do a bunch of stuff but I hadn't really had time to actually practice when I was In the Hive, Now though I have three 'moons' to try out and practice new stuff. So since we have the rest of the day off why not start preparingf for when i do?'

I sit on my bed testing out the comfiness ' A bit bouncy, firm and I don't hear any squeaks as well, I'll rate the rest after I sleep tonight.

'Ok now time for actually trying something new but what exactly should I try to do.'

I then thought of something 'Wait If I'm truly before the show then that means.'

I get off my bed leaving the room as I knock on the guys room until Pharynx opens the door " I'm gonna go explore a bit."

He nods "OK well start getting ready."

I put my hand on the door before he can close it "No, I, I mean by myself."

Pharnyx narrows his eyes "By yourself?"

"Yes."

"So let me get this straight, you want to go wandering around in an environment we haven't fully gotten used to yet, let alone fully explored by yourself?"

"Yes."

He looks back into the room then looks back at me before sighing "Get back before the sky turns dark, or Thorax will get worried about you and then I'll get pissed at you for making him worry."

I gave him two thumbs up "You got it."

Before I'm able to leave Pharynx grabs my shoulder causing me to turn to him "Seriously be careful."

I give him a reassuring smile "I will."
Before I make my way outside.

As I make my way out I start making my way over to my destination, asking ponies around for directions until I finally arrive.

"Golden Oak Library, Its certainly been a while old friend."

I rest a hand on the side of the tree "Who knows how many more adventures that could've been had here?"

"Heh, look at me getting sentimental over a tree."

"But frankly I don't care because"

I step back as I look upwards to see the whole tree in my whole view "This is where their friendships with eachother began, their adventures, their hardships with eachother, it all started here."

"Who knows how far that could've gone if it wasn't for Tirek, though maybe I can fix that, and then even if its stupid at least she'll get to keep the home she'll make here."

I shake my head "Alright, enough distractions, let's go."

Entering the tree I look around reveling in the homey feeling that the library emits as I look around revealing that its a bit bigger in here then what was shown on the show, with multiple bookcases surrounding the room and a table with a couple of chairs over by one of the windows on the right side.

Making my way to the bookcases I start to look for anything that might be magic related 'Now, as cool as it is to be an unstoppable force thats just not realistic just yet, so i still need something that I can protect myself with or if its possible something that I can use to heal myself.'

'Makers Bakery Recipes, Me, Myself and I,
Ah, here we go Modern Spellcasting.'

As I go to leave I spot another book at the end, as I get a closer look at it I see that its named Principles of Magic 'Yeah thays probably gonna be useful.'

Grabbing it I look around one last time as I leave the library and head back to the building 'Wonder where the librarian is?'

As I'm walking down the road I note that its starting to get dark and I pick up the pace getting to the building without any trouble "I'm Back."

As I enter i see Thorax sitting on a couch while Pharynx sits in a recliner like chair in the living room talking about something before I interrupted them as Thorax waves at me "Welcome back Joseph, did you get what you needed outside?"

"Yep, was able to snag a couple of books."

Thorax tilts his head at me confused "Books?"

I'm confused for a second before I realize the confusion "Yeah, I think thats what their version of tomes are called here."

He ohhs in understanding "I see thats really cool actually, anything that can help our mission?"

"No, sorry."

His smile drops a little "Thats alright, besides I'd figured that would be the case but it doesn't hurt to see if you get lucky."

"Actually there is something I was concerned with that I wanted to talk about with you guys too."

They both focused their attention on me "What is it?"

"Well seeing as how we're probably gonna be out here for a while we should probably find somewhere to practice our abilities so we're capable of protecting ourselves."

Pharynx nods "That seems like a smart idea, though where are we gonna find a place like that?"

Thorax raises his hand "Um I actually have a question."

"What is it?"

Thorax starts rubbing his arm "W-well i know were gonna be out here for a while but um how are we supposed to get love?"

Me and Pharnyx stared at him blankly before I answered " I dont know, I had honestly forgotten about that."

"If anything we might have to you know take it."

Thorax frowns looking at the floor "Isn't their a different way we can get love?"

Pharynx crosses his arms "Well if you got a better idea then let's here it."

Thorax looks up "Well maybe we don't have to take live from ponies m-maybe we can just take love from objects or something, you know."

Pharnyx sighs "Look Thorax, I, I guess we can try and see if it works, but if it doesn't then sooner or later were gonna have to so what's necessary."

"I know, I just I don't want to hurt anycreature you know."

Pharynx gives a slight smile "Yeah I do and I'm glad you dont."

He then frowns slightly "But there will come a time when you need to, because even if you don't want to hurt that won't always be the same case for the other party, understand?"

"Yeahhhh."

Pharnyx nods "Good."

He then turns for me "Now that were back on topic, like I said do you have an idea of where we can go to practice that others won't show up and spot us at?"

I shake my head "No, not really i was thinking that after we're done working tomorrow we can look around Ponyville for a bit and maybe find an area where we can find an area to practice and train out abilities at."

He nods "Alright, sound good."

He then yawns revealing his sharp fangs and forked tounge going up and down for a second before closing his mouth "Well I think its time turn in for the day so I'm heading to sleep."

He then turns to Thorax "You coming?"

"In a bit."

He shrugs "Alright."

As we hear Pharnyx enters his room Thorax then turns to me while patting the seat next to him.

As I sit down next to him we just sit there in comfortable silence until he speaks "How was the rest of your day today?"

"It was nice and relaxing, not much else to say except that really."

"Thats fine, I just wanted to hear how you faired while you were out."

He then turns to me "Hey Joseph, can I ask you a question?"

"Shoot."

"What?"

"Oh right, my bad I just meant go ahead."

He becomes quiet for a couple of seconds until he speaks again "I-is it, bad that I kinda like where we are a bit better then the Hive?"

He cuts me off before incan answer him "Not that I want to abandon It! I still love the Hive and Our Queen Chrysalis and I sw-"

I put a finger over his mouth cutting him off "Thorax, I'm your friend right?"

He nods

"Good, now, as your friend you know you can talk to me about anything right? You don't have to come up with something to try and make sure I don't get angry with you just for sharing your thoughts and opinions on something."

He shakily nods "Y-yeah sorry Joseph, it's just well, I don't know, I kinda like it here compared to the Hive where you constantly have to watch your back just in case you have to defend yourself against one of your own."

"But out here, it just feels so much nicer than the Hive, and i can't help but feel like I'm doing something wrong for thinking that."

He looks up at me for reassurance "Do you think its wrong for me to think about the Hive like that."

I answer with no hesitation "No."

He looks surprised at my answer "Really?"

"Yeah, there nothing wrong feeling like that and besides who knows maybe this place is better."

"Yeah, But you do want to go back right?"

"...."

"...Joseph?"

I sigh "Look Thorax If I'm gonna be honest, not really."

He looks shocked at my confession "W-what but I-its the Hive we have to go back."

"Why?"

Thorax spluttered at my question "Why?" What do you mean why? Because its the Hive and Changelings always have to go back to serve Our Queen no matter what."

"But do you want to?"

He paused for a second "O-of course i want to."

"Didn't sound so sure."

"I was just trying to answer you quickly."

"Look Thorax I'm not gonna force you to agree with me, even if I'm still your first friend you don't have to agree with everything I say or try and appease me, it's ok not to agree with me."

"Its..... not that I don't like what I saw here, I do, but I know that eventually we will have to return to the Hive when our mission is done so if thats the case then I feel like It would be a waste of time to do anything else except what we need to do."

I nod "I get it, you don't want to waste time on anything but the mission."
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"But, hypothetically would you?"

"What?"

"If you could, would you want to stay outside the Hive and see whats out here, going at Your pace, doing You want to do instead of doing something someling else wants? Hypothetically of course."

He sits their, quiet for a good minute before finally answering "I feel like that would be amazing, exploring everything that outside the Hive has to offer."

He starts getting more excited at the idea "A-and not having to worry about what someling else wants for once, being able to do what I want to do and when I want to do it."

He then turns to me, smiling as he continues"And that would be the best part I could choose how I want things to be, not having to always listen to someling else, always doing something that had to be for the Hive."

He then shoots towards me getting all up in my face "But put here there would no Hive, I could do things for Me and me only, so yeah I would stay outside the Hive."

As his excitement dies down he blinks registering whats infront of him before putting space between us, looking as red a tomato " *ahem* Hypothetically of course, please don't tell Pharynx what I said."

I give him a reassuring smile before turning looking in the direction of my bed "Don't worry my lips are sealed."

Thorax sags with relief "Thanks."
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"But imagine, Thorax, if it wasn't hypothetical."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if we didn't go back to Hive?"

".......Let's talk about this *yawn* tomorrow, ok?"

"Yeah, *yawn* thats fine, sorry if i was upseting you It's just, I just don't want you to throw away something that could make you happier you know?"
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"Thora-"

As I turn back to him I see him knocked out, slumbering away on my shoulder.
Weighing my options, I decide on what I feel like doing."

Chuckling as Iook over him i resign myself to this fate "Oh what the hell, I'm to lazy to get up anyways."

Set on my decision I grab Thorax and lay him on top of me as I lay down trying to get comfortable, until I do.

"Guess this will have to do."

As I start to close my eyes I think of one last thing.

"Should've brought a pillow before." As I finally go to sleep."

Feeling like I'm starting to wake up I try and will myself back to sleep until I start to feel Thorax start to stir.

Sighing I reluctantly start to wake myself up as I wait for Thorax to get off as he continues to wake himself up. Though as he finally opens his eyes he looks straight into mine before sleepily looking down and then back up
"mmhey"

"Hey."

He drops his head back down on me "Just give me like a few more minutes."

Chuckling I tell him "No can do, we start working today at the farm remember?"

He groans "Do we have to?"

"Well if we want 'Bits' then yes."

"Do we really need Bits?"

"Well I think that were eventually gonna need some if we want stuff."

Groaning Thorax rolls off on to the floor making a resounding thump. "ow."

I lean a bit off the couch "you good?"

Still laying on the floor face down I get a muffled reply "yeah"

As me and Thorax start to actually get up I hear Pharnyx's door open as he comes in the living room "Hey Joseph do you know where Thorax went? He didn't come to bed last....night."

He stands still for a few seconds looking back and forth between me and Thorax "Huh, ok"

"Anyywaysss, I'm pretty sure we need to go back to the farm today so we should start heading out."

"And Thorax get off the floor, your not a grub anymore."

After leaving the building and making our way to the farm we said hi to Pear and she came over with the biggest grin on her face as she came over and wrapped us in a bear hug.

"M-m-miss Pear c-ant breath."

Realizing that were being crushed she lets go out us as we take a minute to breath
'Well that's Earth Pony strength for you.'

"Sorry ya'll, just happened to be in a good mood today."

Thorax coughs for a bit before asking "W-well Miss Pear what happened."

Her smile grows bigger as she answers "Well you wouldn't believe it but my little filly came back to us today, a bit before ya'll came, plus, she got her Revelation Mark too, one of the best days of my life so far, so yeah you can see why I'm in such a good mood."

We all smile at the nice event that happened before Thorax speaks up "Wow Miss Pear I'm happy for you."

"Thank you Shining, and now that she's here I can introduce you to the whole family now, come on there inside."

As we walk inside I'm instantly hit by the smell of food as I start breathing in the delightful smell.

"What is that?"

And it seems like I'm not the only one as when I turn to the guys they have their eyes closed breathing in an unfamiliar smell.

"Don't know, but, it feels nice to breath in."

"Um Momma, whose that?"

Turning to the source of the voice I see a young mare with orange fur and blonde hair also wearing blue overalls over a white shirt.

"These are some of the young colts who will be helping around the farm for a bit."

An old mare with light green fur and white hair wearing a colorful looking button up shirt raises an eyebrow at Pear "And you didn't think to mention that when I was making breakfast?"

Pear stutters "u-uh maybe."

She shakes her head "Well can't be helped i guess with all that happened earlier, but don't think that you'll be excused next time you hear."

"Yes ma'am."

"Good."

She then turns to us "Sorry that there's no leftovers left youngins, if I had known we were getting visitors I'd made extra."

"Oh, well thank you miss?"

She widens her eyes a bit before shaking her head "Heh, where my manners, names Granny Smith."

She then points to a Stallion with buttery fur with red hair wearing a stetson and a tan vest on top of a red and kinda white plaid shirt "This big oaf right here is my son Bright Mac."

I looked over to him and I could tell different form or not he could rip me apart with much effort with the amount of muscle I can see coming from just his arms

"Hello there."

"Hi."
"Hello."
"Nice to meet you."

She then pointed towards the young colt with red fur and orange hair wearing just a black and white plaid shirt. "This here's my grandson Big Mac."

"Hey."

We greeted him in return

"That little filly right there is Applebloom."

As she pointed to one of the cutest things I've ever seen as she was wearing that oversized bow tie and apple themed baby clothes

Thorax was gushing quietly as to not interrupt "Awwwww, she's so tiny."

"And last but not least, our reunited family member is my granddaughter Applejack."

"Howdy."

'There she is, god its still surreal to see one of them for real even after everything.'

"And I'm pretty sure already know my daughter-in-law Pear Butter."

"Wow, well it was nice meeting all of you."

Pear then walked outside while telling us to follow " Alright colts, now that you've met the rest of the family Its time to show you what you'll be doing today."

She then turned around and started walking off while beckoning us to follow, thus starting our first day at Sweet Apple Acres.

Concerning Developments
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To Change For The Better

Concerning Developments

As we were making our way off the farm we decided to walk and talk until we decided walhat to do next.

"Wowwww, that, um, what was it called again?" Thorax asked

Pharynx responded back "Food"

"Food! Right that 'food tasted amazing, I didnt even know things could taste that good." Thorax said

"I'm honestly surprised at the taste of it as well." Pharnyx said

As we continued walking Thorax stepped infront of Pharynx all while he had a big grin on his face.

"Annnnnnd what else was surprising Pharynx?"

Pharnyx looked away muttering ""you already know what."

"What was that?"

"I said you already know what."

"What do you mean Pharnyx? What do I already know?" He asked with faux innocence.

Pharnyx sighed "That we can also get love from it."

"Yes we can!" Thorax exclaimed
"Now we know for a fact that as long as love is trapped in certain objects we don't need to forcefully consume it."

"I, guess so."

"Now that we're done for the day though what should we do first?"

"Maybe we should try to find somewhere where we can practice?" I asked

"Thats probably a good idea." Pharnyx agreed

Well where should we go then?" Thorax asked

We all slowed down as to think for a minute before I thought of something.

"What of we ask the ponies for somewhere like that?"

Pharnyx nodded "That could work."

"Alright I'll go get some of the books I got yesterday while you two ask around and we'll meet up here, sounds good?"

Pharnyx nodded while Thorax gave me a thumbs up.

"Alright see you guys in a little bit."

After getting the books I had borrowed from the library I proceeded to wait over by the farm doing whatever by myself to pass time.

'Actually this is a good time to get started.'

As I sat down i looked over my options and what I should start with. "Can't go wrong with the principles."

Set on my decision I decided to open the Principles of Magic and see what it had to offer.

As I opened and read it for a bit I realized that it just went over what magic was and was not capable of like, for example not being able to take lower spells and putting magic into it to try and boost the effect of the spell when the higher tier of said spell can already do what your trying to attempt with a low tier one.

'Interesting but not very useful.'

As I close the book I notice that the guys aren't back yet. 'What is taking them so long?'

I waited a little longer before getting worried after they still hadn't showed up 'Ok somethings wrong here they wouldn't be late for something like this.'

Fed up with waiting and also worried I decided to go back to the building to put the books back and ask around the market for them.

As I make my way there I go up to each vendor as I ask if they seen where they were, giving them descriptions so they know what to look for.

"Excuse me sir?"

"Yes?"

"Have you seen my friends? Their an Earth Pony and Pegasus, the Pegasus has light blue fur and white hair while the Earth Pony has turquoise like fur and hair."

After a second his eyes light up in recognition "Oh yeah, I saw them go with a group of ponies into the Everfree Forest though the young colts didn't look very comfortable with them so I told one of our rangers about it and they followed them, but, they haven't returned as well so I'm a bit worried."

I nod "Thank you sir."

"No problem and hey I'm sure they'll be back soon so don't worry."

As I walk away I start mentally panicking
'Oh shit, ohshitohshitohshit, they got kidnapped!? What the fuck, i thought that this was a family friendly town, so how the fuck did this happen!?'

I shakily make my way towards the building as I try to calm down 'breathe in and breathe out, in and out, in and out.'

I take my time to try and calm myself down with it being somewhat half effective as I'm still shaking but not by much 'Ok first things first, I need to get my gun, best to not leave anything up to chance.'

As I enter our part of the building I immediately enter my room and grab the gun popping the cylinder out to check my ammo 'six bullets, gotta make it count.'

As I'm making my way out I stop by Pharnyx's room '....Yeah he'll need it.'

I walk into their room looking for the weapon I gave Pharynx as I spot it sitting upright in the far right corner.

I make my way over to it grabbing it as I make my way outside before pausing 'This isn't gonna be very practical carrying these two weapons by myself, gonna have to make something to hold this.'

Pausing, I quickly close the entrance door. as I morph back into my original form to create something simple to carry my weapon as I picture the leather needed to make a holster for a pistol but change the actual holding part of it to better fit my revolver instead of a regular pistol.

Finished, it drops to the floor as I pick it up and hurriedly put it on inserting my pistol, pick up Pharnyx's weapon and morphing back into my Earth Pony form as I get ready to leave I get to the door before I stop as I take a minute to fully understand the situation I'm In.

'God, this was supposed to be an peaceful town yet here I am about to go out and maybe have to Kill someone, I've never killed before, and what about the guys? How are they gonna react to it? God how would Thorax react to that?'

I shake my head as I grip the handle "doesn't matter right now, what matter Is getting them back here safely." And with that I open the door and make my way out of the building.

As I leave the building i feel something wet drop on me as I look up and see Pegasus moving storm cloud in as it begins to rain. "Scheduled rain huh."

I make my way to the Everfee Forest and I enter morphing back into my changeling form once I'm hidden from sight. Moving deeper in the forest I slowly start to feel the emotions from Ponyville start to slowly die off as I feel it sort of break off, "So it only goes so far before it stops, good to know."

I continue making my way through the Forest jumping at when I hear a bunch rustle or when I think I hear something move.

"Stop being jumpy Joseph, your getting scared of nothing, so just be a man a-"

"Did you hear that?"

I freeze as I hear a voice in the distance ahead of me.

"You sure you aren't drunk again?"

"I'm being serious, asshole."

"No didnt your probaly hearing things. "

".... I'll just check it out to be safe."

"Go ahead I don't care I'm not the one wasting my time. "

'Shit, shit,shit.'

I look around frantically as I try to decide whether I should try sneaking around or confronting him as I hear him slowly start to get close 'gotta conserve ammo.' I move as quickly and quietly as I can to walk around the approaching figure by moving behind the enormous trees as I stop once I spot a Unicorn carrying a wooden crossbow walk by and I continue sneaking past.

'What the hell is a Unicorn doing out here in the Everfree? Whatever doesn't matter just gotta keep going.'

I repeat this process a good amount more with some close calls as the amount of ponies starts to increase the farther I go and a somewhat weird occurring factor is that they were all unicorns.

'Ok seriously what is going on here there's no way there's this many Unicorns in Ponyville so why are they all put here.'

As I slowly try to rack my head for an answer my thought process on that subject slowly dissappears since as I continue walking I start to notice something massive past the trees and as I finally get a clear view I pause as I see a mansion like building infront of me.

'What the fuck is this doing out here, I thought ponies hated going into the Everfree!?'

I get pulled from my thoughts as I see something that makes me confused and worried as I see Unicorns bringing in multiple changelings with chains around their hands, some young and some old, and
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'Huh, didn't know that their were other female Changelings beside the Queen, wait nnno f-fucking f-focus, why are they all in chains? More importantly why are they allowing themselves to be in chains it can't be that hard to transform right? There's no way Changelings would be this lenient, not a chance in hell, so what I-'

I pause as I notice that they all have one reoccuring item on their body which is a collar like object thats around their neck. 'What is that?' A collar? Why a coll-'

As I'm busy thinking of a reason one of the older looking Changelings Corsucate start to pass over them before it reaches the collar, instantly dispelling it causing the Changeling to drop to their knees shaking uncontrollably.

One of the ponies that was their picked them up "Now I could've swore we told you creatures that your sorcery wouldn't work we these on." As he taps the collar like object "Our Brother Piercing knew of your shape-shifting abilities, he was told from the Divine Maker themselves, but don't worry soon we shall make things right. Now, come on get up, we dont want to be late for the Correction."

As they continue forward I was frozen In fear at what I just witnessed 'h-how, w-when, t-that shouldn't be possible, how do they even, ponies never knew about.'

'Ok, ok, just focus, I need to find the others and get them the fuck out of, whatever the Correction is. So first thing first if stealth has taught me anything their should at least be an open entry way somewhere, just gotta find it.'

I look around the front entrance from afar to no avail 'Kay so none here lets see if there's any on the side.'

As I circle around to the side I try to be as quiet as possible not wanting to attract attention finally making my way to the side I see an open window at what looks to be the third floor, 'Ok, g-good now just gotta get in.'

Thankfully there was a ladder that led to the roof allowing me to be able to climb up. I look around trying to see if there are any ponies around before quietly making my way to the ladder as I begin to climb.

'Ok almost there, almost there, almo-'

"I swear this better work Patience Brother Lake, Brother Piercing has heard from the Maker itself, it will work."

'FasterFasterFaster!'

I climb the ladder as fast as I can not pausing for a second until I get closer to the window as I pause for a second i try reach over and grab the window seal.

'COME ON'

as I grab the window seal I hear voices somewhat to the left below me as I pull myself in "What the-"

I don't hear the rest of what he says as I pull myself in, as I fall to the floor trying to calm myself down and catch my breath.

"Brother Sear did you hear that?"

"Hear what Brother Lake?"

"Sounded like something came from up on the ladder."

"Really? Out in the rain?"

"I know what I heard."

*sigh* "I will cast a light spell if your so sure."

'Oh shit' I get as close to the floor as I can as a bright flash goes off outside.

"As you can see there's nothing out here Brother."

".....guess not."

"Now let us return inside the Correction is about to begin."

"Yes lets."

I wait a couple of minutes as I keep an ear out for them and only when I'm pretty sure their gone I let a breath I didn't realize I was holding but something about what they said was weird 'What the hell is the Correction? And what does It have to do with all these Changelings? Whatever, doesn't matter, only one goal Joseph, one goal.'

I take a minute to look around trying to figure out where exactly I am 'seems to be an attic, an unused one at that.'

Its pitch black with only the light peeking through the panels allowing me to barely navigate my way through as I feel along the floor for an entrance of some kind I finally find a loose panel as I slowly pull it up and put it to the side as I lower my head down to peek at the surroundings as I turn back and forth not seeing anyone in the fancy looking hallway.

'Ok, here goes nothing, find Thorax and Pharynx, if I can free the other Changelings and if not then well, I'll take what I can get.'

As I confirm there's no one else in the hallway I drop down while hanging on as to lower the noise I make. 'Ok, now which way do I go forwards or backwards?'

'Uhhh, let's go forward first I guess.' Moving forward I pass by multiple doors on my left and right which looks like their supposed to be rooms. 'Though, if thats the case why out here? In the Everfree Forest? Is there something here they need? No, if that was the case they wouldn't be looking for Changelings? *sigh* This makes no fucking sense whatsoever.'

As I make it to the end of the hallway I find a balcony at which I back up a bit as to not get spotted only coming forward to lookover the sea of Ponies that the entrance is filled up with, 'Specifically Unicorns.'

I look over the whole room as I try to figure out where exactly they would be held at as I spot a line of changeling being led by the same ponies outside behind a door 'Well I found it, question is how am I gonna get in there?'

I kept looking at the door, trying to find an entrance on the side but to no avail. 'Gotta keep looking.'

I go back down the hallway now going opposite continuing pass where I dropped from until I come to another choice of whether to go right or left, at which I pick left which leads me to some double doors. Opening them reveals some stairs that seems to lead straight into the Main entrance area.

I stay back trying not to get spotted as I try to see another way inside. 'I'm not really seeing another way in how am i-'

BANG

Every head turns toward the door including me as a changeling gets thrown out with bruises all over his exoskeleton as he is then picked up and brought over to the steps followed by a couple of more Changelings, even-

'Oh thank God their ok' I see Thorax and Pharynx with collars around their necks as well as their brought up to the top of the stairs and forcefully held down along with the three other male and two female Changelings.

A couple of seconds later a robed pony comes up the stairs slowly taking off his robe as he reaches the top of the stairs revealing light blue fur and surprisingly no shirt, his bare chest exposed while still wearing black pants with two pockets seemingly on both sides giving it a commando like look, carrying two daggers on each side, and as the cherry on top a horn on top revealing him to be another Unicorn.

But on the front of his body revealed a huge scar like tear that looked to be pulsing and glowing every now and then, reaching up to the bottom of his neck and to the top of his waist.

He then turned around and faced the rest of the Unicorns

"Brothers, I thank you for coming since tonight we take the first step to SAVING OUR WORLD."

The room erupted in cheers as he brought up his hands to quiet the room

"When I was but a simple Unicorn I desired nothing but adventure and so I decided to explore everything that this continent had to offer."

"But when I had arrived in the badlands I had seen an abnormal tear in the ground, far in the badlands, and as I approached it I had passed out, but when I was unconscious I had been contacted by the Maker themself as they had shown me a future in where our world would be In total chaos and catastrophe."

"Distraught and Afraid I asked them what we could have done to prevent this and they told me that in order to prevent ruin to our world we needed to exterminate the creatures that have plagued this world with their existence."

"I told them that I would do what is necessary in order to save my world, now you all may ask why didnt you ask for the assistance of our Princess Celestia and believe me I tried, but she has long since fallen to the poison that these creatures have brought to our world as she denied doing what was necessary."

The entire room started yelling voicing their disagreements at the statement.

"I know, trust me I know I was as frustrated as you how could our own Princess not see the problem right infront of their face. But worry not friends, as the Maker stepped in again to provide me with the first steps into ridding our world with this blight that threatens it as they provided me with the necessary information at being able to recognize these abominations feeble attempts at hiding within our peaceful society."

"And now I have gathered you here today-

'Ok, ok, ok, seems like his speech is dying down think what would be the best way to get them out? Morphing? No I don't know how powerful these Unicorns all and with how many there are they'll probably overwhelm me before I can do much. '

'Maybe if I charge the ones holding them down?'

"To witness our first steps into-"

'Definitely not. Maybe if I distract them? Question is how? C'mon think,think,think, wait ok maybe, maybe if I just make-'

"AND NOW WE TAKE OUR FIRST STEPS INTO SAVING OUR WORLD!"

The room erupted into cheers as he drew his daggers, but before he could attempt anything a small ball like pellet hits the floor next to him as it starts to spin releasing smoke like gas.

"What in the *cough* *cough* what is-"

BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG

Just then four bodies hit the floor as everyone looks confused

"OVER HERE" I shout trying to grab their attention as they get up from the ground and run over to my direction.

"ERADICATE THEM!"

I shut the doors close as I rip some cloth off of some curtains by a window nearby and tie it around the door handles.

"That should by us some time."

"Joseph! Your here!" Thorax cried out in relief

"Yeah I'm glad to see you too but we need to get out of here.

"And where exactly are we supposed to go? Unless you forgot the entrance was back that way." Pharnyx questioned

"Don't worry there's another way just follow me, oh also her you go."

I pass him the weapon I gave him back.
"Thanks."

The other four Changelings looked on in bewilderment "What is-"

"Look save the questions for when we get out of here please."

"O-oh yeah let's go please."

We then start running back down the hallway I came from to get back to where I entered from.

After a few minutes of running we finally reach the whole in the roof as I turn to everyone else.

"OK I'll boost everyone up first and then you can pick me up after ok?"

They all nodded as I start to boost everyone of them up and they then helped eachother up as well. After finally getting the last one up I was about to jump up when I feel searing pain suddenly impact the side of my arm and I'm sent flying to the floor writhing in pain.

"JOSEPH!"

Trying to catch my breath I roll to my side as I see another blast incoming as I look down the hall where the Unicorn from early is charging down the hall with his daggers out.

I pull out my revolver as I try to shoot him but he throws one if his daggers at me causing me to roll out of the way again as I try to get up, only to see him suddenly appear infront of me attempting to stab me only for me to barely dodge to his left side, as he jumps back and picks up his dagger in the floor.

I try to back up only to run into a window blocking me from retreating any further. I try to shoot him again as I go to pull the trigger only for him to throw his dagger again knocking the gun out of my hand as he punches me with so much force that I get knocked out the window through the window behind me as I'm barely able to grab the ledge as it continues to pour outside.

I see him come into view as he's looking at me with murderous rage "YOU, the maker warned me of your kind, I would've began at taking the necessary steps into saving this world but just had to MESS IT ALL UP, why it would've been so much simpler eradicating them here and now."

He starts to bring his dagger up as prepares to kill me "But this must be a sign that not everything will be easy, but by Maker I will save my world by doing what is necessary."

"Starting with you."

As he gets ready to thrust his daggers into my skull I see a blast impact his arm from behind him, causing him to scream in pain.

"JOSEPH, NOW"

"WHY YOU-"

I grab his arm while he's distracted bringing his attention back to me at the same time a thunderstruck goes off in the distance.

"IT IS SIMPLE, IM GONNA KILL YOU!"

Pulling him with all my strength I drag him out the window with me causing both of us to fall as I punch him in the face with all my might before we both fall to the floor as I land on him using him to break most of the impact from the fall.

As we both take a minute to try and recover I thankfully was able to faster as I spot a decently shaped rock near him. As I reach over and grab it I bring it down as hard as i can across his horn snapping in two causing him to cry out In pain again.

He then looks up at me seeing my face full of rage as his face start to shift back into his own murderous rage but before he can say anything I pull him up by his fur punching him as hard as I can.

"YOU TRIED TO FUCKING KILL SOME OF MY OWN, YOU FAILED!"

"YOU. DONT. KNOW. ANYTHING!"

Another rage filled punch sends him to the ground as I pick him back up by the fur.

"YOU TRIED TO CONVINCE YOUR OWN KIND TO HUNT DOWN OTHER CREATURES LIKE THEY WERE ANIMALS!"

I punch him again sending him back to the floor as he crashes into a puddle that's formed under him.

"YOU TRIED TO CONVINCE THEM THAT OTHER CREATURES WERE POISONING THIS WORLD!"

He then looked up at me smiling a bloody shit eating grin.

"Tried? No I revealed to them what the Maker themselves revealed to me, they showed me what will be the cause of this worlds ruin in the end, and it is up to me to rid the planet of those causes, Starting. With. YOU."

He then stabs me with something thats able to pierce my exoskeleton causing me to cry out in pain as he then punches me knocking me off him down to the ground. As I try to ignore the ringing in my head and the pain in my leg I suddenly see him with a dagger as he tries to impale me as I grab his hands holding him back with all my strength to stop him from killing me.

"THIS WORLD NEEDS TO BE CURED OF DISEASES LIKE YOU AND IT FALLS TO ME TO BE THE ANTIDOTE IT NEEDS!"

As the dagger gets closer I start to summon my magic as quickly as I can as I feel the familiar feeling of it slithering towards my horn and I use all my magic in order to try and use the first thing I can think to be able to stop him.

"PK THUNDER!"

As the words leave my mouth I see the clouds begin to light up, knowing whats about to happen I direct his blade to the left, barely missing my shoulder as his dagger momentarily gets stuck in the ground while i try to scramble out of the way as fast as i can right before a massive thunder strike comes down on atop him as freezes in place for a second before falling to the floor.

I look over to him as I see his skin visibly smoke from the thunder. As I try to catch my breath I suddenly hear a voice shout to me.

"JOSEPH!"

I turn as im suddenly engulfed in a hug by a certain Changeling before he lets go and looks over me in worry before spotting my leg.

"Joseph, your bleeding!

"Agh! Yeah I know, I know be careful please."

"We need to get back to the building now and try to heal this."

Pharnyx looks over to the other Changelings that have been standing around near us "And what about them?"

Thorax glances at them before responding "They'll just have to join us."

He then looks to me "if that's ok with you?"

"Yeah, yeah thats fine."

I turn to them as I take Thorax's shoulder, balancing on one foot "Do you guys have somewhere to go, because if not you can join us."

They all looked pensive before one of them an older looking one speaks "I think its beat if we stay together for now until we make sure it's safe to continue on our own."

I nod "Alright, let's move, quickly."

With more Changelings coming back with us we began making our way back to the building, finally ending the craziest and most life threatening night of my life so far.

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As the rain continued to pour in the Everfree Forest a single Unicorn laid on the floor deceased, free from the prison that was his mind in his final moments, until the scar on his back pulsed with life In tune with another far into the Badlands, still scorned with ash and laid to waste in a crater, but the two scar like tears still pulsed with life showing the world that they would return with life again.

Author's Note

Will this chapter seem ass to people? Yes. Do I think its ok enough to publish?.....also yes but thats not up to me that's up to you guys to decide and before anyone says anything about what PK Thunder works I just used what I found from here https://wikibound.info/wiki/PK_Thunder. But anyways like always tell me what you hate about this or if you somehow can, what you like about this pile of filth :facehoof:

New Faces
View Online

To Change For The Better

New Faces

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. :fluttershyouch:

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?"

What To Do Next?
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To Change For The Better

What To Do Next?

Author's Note

Sorry again for the short chapter I just don't feel to enthusiastic when my Dads nephew is here but that is no excuse so once again I'm sorry, also some people might not like this chapter but idk like I said before thats up to you guys, not me. SO anyway bash and enjoy this heap of filth. :twilightsheepish:

What To Do Next?

The room was silent for a few minutes as they seemed to think about how to answer before one if them answered.

"I...I want to stay with you guys, if thats ok?" Ocellus asked

We looked on shocked at her answer but before we could respond the others proceeded to answer.

Rass huffed "I guess It'd be better if I stayed with other changelings seeing as how I was caught by surprise on my own."

Lectul nodded "I agree, it would be beneficial for us to remain together as to increase our chances of survival since Joseph here." He then gestured to me. "Seems to somewhat have some experience in those type of situations like the one we were in last night."

Ardinal rapidly nodded his head up and down "Right! I didnt think he would actually be useful but he managed to surprise me."

I narrow my eyes at him "Thanks for the compliment." I say sarcastically

He proceeds to give me a thumbs up "No problem."

I shake my head as I turn towards to the last one who hasn't spoken yet. "What about you Eetle? Are you staying or leaving?"

Eetle looks around the room before sighing. "I suppose that it would be all in our best interest if like Ross said to stick together."

"Can I ask everyling here a question?" We all direct our attention to Thorax. "I'm just a bit confused on something."

Lectul nods "What do you need clarification on?"

"Well you all say that your joining our 'group and I have no problem with that, I actually think it's nice to have so many changelings with us, but its just, don't you have to go back to the Hive? To, you know report back on whatever you were assigned to?"

As soon as Thorax finishes asking his question their mood instantly shifts as now they looked upset, even Ocellus which is surprising while Eetle grimaced.

"Did, did I say something wrong?" Thorax asked

Eetle shakes his head "No, no you didn't its just were not going back to the Hive Thorax."

Thorax and Pharynx looked shocked at that(myself included) there was a whole group of Changelings that didn't want to return to the Hive.

"B-but why would you do that? Why would you abandon our Hive? Our Queen?" Thorax questioned

"The same reason why you should." Rass said

Pharnyx narrowed his eyes at Rass "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Let me ask you three something, did the Queen assign you to a specific mission?" Eetle asked

"Where you were assigned to out of nowhere and unprepared for?" Ardinal asked

"Where she told you that the time limit for said mission was about three moons?" Lectul asked

"Where she told you to bring something revolutionary and never before seen back to the hive? Ocellus asked

"And that if you do return before you do to consider yourself banished?" Rass asked

We looked on in shock as they basically told us word for word what Chrysalis had demanded of us.

"Y-yes thats what she assigned us to do b-but how do you what she said?" Thorax asked hesitantly

Rass scoffed "Uh, hello why do you think we know. Obviously she told us the same thing."

Pharynx crosses his arms "Thats ridiculous, why would she tell multiple Changelings the same statement?"

Rass rolled her eyes "She wanted to get rid of us." She then gestured to the others. "And obviously it doesn't seem like she minds how many she gets rid of."

"Y-your wrong our Queen wouldn't do that. I mean y-yeah she may be cruel sometimes but it's because she expects the best of us a-and besides how would you know if she's really trying to get rid of us?"

"Because of me" Eetle said

We looked at Eetle confused. "You? How would you know?" Thorax asked

"Because I've been somewhat of a outside influence." Eetle said

"Outside influence? What do you mean by that?' I asked

Eetle grimaced "Just like you I was also tasked with finding something revolutionary and never before seen, but I had actually managed to find it, around two moons in the limit she gave me."

"So with the new discovery I had managed to make my way back to the Hive. I remember being so excited for her approval. Though, when I got there, I could see her waiting by the entrance with two Sentinels by her side, but I didn't think anything of it at the time, instead I was just more excited at the idea that the Queen came out the Hive just for me."

"I went up to her as she was smiling down at me with sick fake smile of hers." He says with some venom in the last part. "I told her all about what I went through, the dangers, the hardships, the friends I made and abandoned all for her."

"I then gave her what she was looking for, a tome filled with knowledge that was locked away in the Ponies Royal Library."

He chuckles "Then I had said everything I had to say and you know what she did?"

"What?" Thorax asked

"She told me that I was no longer needed. When I heard her say that I assumed that it meant that I could come back and work on being a better Surveyor, but then the Sentinels pushed me back while pointing their weapons at me."

"She then walked off into the Hive as they followed her, I was so confused as to what was happening, so I tried calling for her just for her to ignore me."

"So I then tried following her inside after they entered but I couldn't."

"What do you mean you couldn't?" Pharynx asked

"I mean I couldn't, the Hive wouldn't open up to me no matter how close I came to it no holes would be made for me to enter I was-"

"Banished" I finished as I fall back onto the cushion

I tried for days to find a hole that a Changeling would come out of but no matter how fast I was It would always close just in time preventing me from entering."

"But why, why would the Queen do that?" Thorax asked

"I don't know, what I do know is that I wasn't the last as you can clearly see here." He gestures to the rest of them. "I had met Lectul when I was returning back to the Hive to try attempt again to get back in."

"When we had first met I had asked what he was doing."

"Since I didn't mind sharing my mission with him I told him exactly what It was, seeing as he is a fellow Changeling." Lectul says

"And I remember i could remember being in disbelief as it looked like I was looking at my memories happening in real time as he repeated his mission to me."

"I tried to warn him and tell him what would happen If he completed his mission." Eetle said

"Naturally, I ignored him after that since at the time I thought he was a deranged changeling living off of scraps of love trying to brand our Queen as something else."

"Though, like he said when I did return and my mission was done like him I was discarded, used for a tool and nothing more." Lectul said

"And as you see thats what happened to the rest of us." Rass said

I look over at Ocellus as she nods sadly. Sighing I sit there for a few minutes with Thorax and Pharynx as we try to process what we've just been told.

"I'm gonna go so I can process what I've just learned today, thank you." Thorax says with a thousand yard stare as he walks out the living room and into their room as we hear the door open and close.

"I'm, gonna join him." Pharnyx said

I nod as he exits the room and we hear the door to their room open and close again. I stay as I am still going over what we've learned. 'So she's been, what selecting certain Changelings to go out into the world, get her items that might be considered useful to her, and then just banishes them when they return anyways? My God, and everyone that does remain In the Hive have no idea that this is happening. Has she been doing this for long or has she just started this?'
_____________________________________________

(Pharynx POV)

I enter our room closing the door behind me as I turn around and see Thorax wrapped In the fabric material that came with the sleeping platform facing the wall.

"Thorax?" I call out to him.

No response. "Thorax?" I call out again as I begin to slowly make my way next to him. Though he still remains silent as I appear next to him. Not knowing what to do I decide to just sit next to him on the bed as we stare at the wall together.

Though eventually I feel a weight set on my shoulder as I turn my head slightly to see Thorax laying on my shoulder. We sit like that for a couple of minutes In somewhat comfortable and tense silence.
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"Pharynx?" He asks

I jump a bit as he speaks but quickly get my nerves under control as I answer him "Yes?"

He looks up at me still on my shoulder as he takes a minuteto find his words. "Do, do you want to go back to the Hive?"

"W-well I, I'm not sure. Why?" I ask him

He looks back down as he answers "I don't think we should return back to the Hive."

I looked at him shocked, not expecting him to genuinely not want to go to the Hive.

"Really?" I ask

He nods "If what those Lings are saying really true and that really did happen to them." He gets off of my shoulder as he then proceeds to face me. "Then whats the point of trying to work our flanks off, where we possibly have to risk our lives in situations like what happened last night if all thats going to happen is we get banished as soon as we show our faces anyway?"

"I don't know," I answer lost at the situation as well.

He then proceeds to get up and start pacing. "I mean I don't want to believe it really i don't, but I mean its hard to just, ignore the fact that we have Five Changelings who are living proof that our Magnificent Queen that we've been taught to live and Die for just uses Changelings like their the love containers we used to consume."

"You know something thats funny? Joseph was actually talking to me about not returning to the Hive as well."

My eyes widen at his statement. "Wait you guys talked about not coming back to the Hive?"

He stops as he processes what he said before blushing in embarrassment "Oh i-i may have forgot to tell you about that."

I raise my eyeridge at him. "Noooooo really?"

"I had meant to tell you about it eventually, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time since I didn't really think that not going back to the Hive was an option to consider."

My eyes soften "But now?"

He looks down as he lays against the wall "Now, I think no, now we Know that we don't have a choice in that unless we wanna decide to get formally banished or just not return ourselves."

He slides down to the floor as he hugs his knees close to him. "Its just, I lived my whole life thinking on how I would do my best to make Our Queen proud no matter what. No matter how many times I was picked on, no matter how long it took me to learn something." He then smirks as he looks at me. "No matter how many times you belittled me." I winced at the reminder of my less then perfect self back then. "I'm sorry again about putting you through that."

He smiles "Dont worry Pharynx, I know you meant well, even if your methods were a little much."

We share a chuckle before he drops his smile and looks back at the floor.

"Anyways, as i was saying no matter what, in the end it would all be worth It to me as long as, In the end she would be proud of me and then I could tell myself that it was all worth it in the end."

"I thought that when we were picked for this I could use this opportunity to finally show her what I was capable of. I was terrified that we were going to die before we even managed to get anywhere or-"
He paused as he begins chuckling. "You know I was about to say that her being disappointed would have been worse to me then actually dying isn't that interesting?"

"Thorax...."

"Do you remember last night when we almost died Pharynx? I do, and I remember it vividly." He looks at his hands as continues. "I remember how..helpless I felt when everything that allowed to me defend myself was stripped away, all the while I was at the mercy of another creature who wanted us dead because they believed that it was their duty to exterminate us like we were pests."

"I still remember how terrified I was at that moment, at how I was going to die not accomplishing much of my life on my own, reflecting on how, just like my life in the Hive my life was once again going to be in the hands of someling else while all I could do was just wait until it was over."

"Then when we had gotten together in the living room I was told that not only the Queen I had devoted my life to not only had used and banished other Changelings before us not caring about how young they were and how as long as they brought back something useful then it was worth the effort to her, but that if we returned, she was probably going to do the same thing to us."

"The fact that everything we went through and probably might go would mean nothing to her in her grand scheme of things. Its just, I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around how much if my life I've wasted for her and for what? Clearly nothing from the looks of it."
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I walk over and sit next to him by the wall as I wrap my arms around him bringing him into a hug as I have no clue what I could possibly say to make him feel better. He then hugs me back tightly as he tries to hold back his tears.

"I j-just d-dont know what t-to do n-now Pharnyx. W-what am I, w-what are We s-supposed to do now?"

"Now? Well, If what they said is true." I pull him from the hugs as I grab by the shoulders bringing him face to face to me. "Then from now on we start for living for ourselves. Not the Hive, Not Chrysalis, For Ourselves."

"For Ourselves?" He asks

I nod "For Ourselves."

He remains quiet as he goes over what I said before he looks at me with a slight smile on his face causing me to slightly smile with him.

"For....Ourselves. I think I, would like that."
He tells me

I nod. "Then thats what we'll live by for the rest of our lives."

He then hugs me as I'm caught off guard before wrapping my arms back around him as we repeat the statement one last time.

"For Ourselves."
"For Ourselves."

Moving On
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To Change For The Better

Moving On

After waiting for a couple of minutes in silence we all perk up as we hear the door to the guys door open as I see both Pharynx and Thorax come out.

"Are.. you doing better?" I ask cautiously

"Yeah, I say that we've reached an understanding of sorts." Pharnyx said

Thorax just nods as he makes his way back to the couch, leaning on me as he sits down.

"Remember what we talked about a couple of nights ago?" Thorax asked

I look at him confused for a second before remembering what he was asking. "I do, though, why are you asking?"

He's quiet for a minute before responding "I think that I would like to go along with that idea of yours, seeing as how with what we've learned we don't really have a choice in the matter."

My eyes widen as I slowly nod. "O-ok yeah we can do that." I pull him closer to me. "A-and your sure that this is what you want?"

He chuckles mirthlessly "Don't know about 'what I want' but, who knows." He shrugs. "I might grow to be comfortable here, I already think It's ok so far, well except for last night." He says with a cringe.

Rass then stands up "Well now that we got that out of the way, we're gonna need someone to be in charge of this new group so I guess I'll have to take up that role."

Pharnyx stands up suddenly as he gets in Rass's face "Unless I'm mistaken I don't remember agreeing to that arrangement."

Rass doesn't seem impressed as she raises an eye ridge at him in response. "Was that supposed to intimidate me? Cause If It was, then thats a perfect example of why you aren't fit for the role."

Pharynx scowls in response "Now you listen to me, before you came along we already had a leader who was already perfectly fit for the role already."

I nod backing up his statement "Exactly, and no offense, but he's already done pretty well all things considered."

Thorax nods as well "I also agree that we don't need another leader, since I think the one we have is all ready pretty amazing so far."

"Reallllllly, and do tell who this leader is of your little group."

"Joseph"
"Pharnyx"
"Joseph"

I look at them confused while they also return the expression to me. "Me?" I ask them.

"Yeah you, why would you think I was the leader?" Pharnyx questioned

"Yeah, I'm also a hard time seeing how you came to that conclusion." His eyes widen for a split second as he turns to Pharynx. "Sorry Pharynx, I didn't mean to insult you or anything." He says while slightly panicking

Pharnyx waves him off "Don't worry about it Thory-" he slaps his hand over his hand as Thorax begins to light up like a firefly.

"You used it! Oh I cant believe you used it." Thorax says as he jumps up and wraps Pharynx in a hug all with a big grin on his face.

Pharnyx proceeds to hold an arm out to keep Thorax's face away from his. "Yeah, yeah, love you too, point is." He directs his attention back to Rass. "We don't need a new leader because Joseph is already doing fine in that role."

"I am?" I cant help but question

"Clearly not, if you two were able to get lingnapped while he was none the wiser." Rass said

"Need i remind you who was responsible for getting us out alive last night? If not for Joseph you wouldn't be here right now." Thorax responds calmly

"H-hey guys, I appreciate what your doing for me, really I do, but let's not argue with eachother ok?" I say as I try to deescalate the situation before It get worse.

Rass then turns to me "Prove It then, prove to me that you actually are somewhat feasible of being our leader."

I pinch the bridge of my noise 'I've seen this enough times to know that I'm going to be ignored.' "And how exactly am I supposed to do that Rass?" I question

Rass proceeds to look at me like I'm an idiot "You stupid? With a Form Clash, obviously."

"Form Clash?" I ask confused

Thorax snaps fingers as he seems to remembers something "Oh right, Form Clashes I remember reading about them in the Hive during my time trying to be a Learner."

"So then, what exactly is a 'Form Clash'?" I ask still confused

"Allow me to explain." Lectul says after being quiet for a awhile. " A Form Clash was an ancient method used by our Ancestors back during the Solar Eclipse Era when Hives weren't a common environment for us to thrive in."

"This basically meant that the whole Changeling race of that time was defenseless to everything and anything, so in order to survive multiple Changelings would search keep searching for other Changelings expanding their group until It got to the amount where they would feel that It was enough for them to feel safe."

"Then, when the group felt the limit was reached a Form Clash would be initiated to determine which ling would be best suited to be able to protect and basically take care of the group."

"OK, so what would these 'Form Clashes' entail exactly?" I ask

"Well, the first part is determining two Changelings who would best fit the leader role and then having them, well, Form Clash." Lectul said

"The second part is a knowledge sort of part where the two Changelings would each pick three forms they've learned and show them off to the other side to display the 'knowledge' they've learned."

"Then for the third and final part they would pick one form they showed and battle eachother until either the other side gave up or died."

"Died!? That seems a bit extreme don't you think?" I say shocked

Lecture nods "Indeed Is a bit extreme, but you have to understand that back then we couldn't risk appointing a leader that wouldn't be capable of the role thus putting the rest of the group at risk."

"Now, come on were having a Form Clash." Rass says as she starts making her way towards the door. "And where exactly are we going to do this? Unless you forgot there isn't really anywhere we can go to privately do this." I point out

Rass stops walking as she turns back around with a frown on her face. "Well if you got a better idea 'leader's then let's hear it." Rass said

"Look, let me ask you something, are we in the Hive?" I question

Rass looks at me like I'm stupid "Of course were not in the Hive fucking idiot, you get kicked in the head when you were a grub?"

I ignore her insults as I continue on with my point "Point is, we don't have to follow how the Hive works anymore, we can decide how WE want to do things as a group, not as prt of the Hive." I explain

The room goes quiet for a minute until someone speaks up "I think that would be nice, all things considered having your voice heard." Thorax said

"Right? We can just discuss things instead of having to take orders from one ling, we can talk about how we feel about certain situations, instead of having to ignore it because of what the 'leader' wants at the time." I said

"So if there are no objections, let's raise our hands in agreement." I say as I raise my hand

Thankfully, albeit slowly they all start raising their hands in the air leaving only
"Rass?" I ask

Everyone turns to her as she glares at everyone before reluctantly raising her hand with everyone else.

"Fine, now what do we do?" Rass asked

"Well, seeing as how thise Unicorns were able to overwhelm us last time, I feel like we should work on improving ourselves." I explain

"And how exactly are we supposed to 'improve ourselves'?" Ardinal asked

I frown "I'm not entirely sure, without the Hives resources were kinda on our own here, so we'll just have to improve our own way." I quickly exit the living room as I enter my room to grab thr books I had gotten from the library the other day as I reenter the living room dropping the books on the couch. "And we'll start with this." I said

Thorax picks up one of the books as he turns it over to read the front. "Modern Spellcasting?" He asks

I nod "Since we no longer have the assistance of the Hive to help us learn, we'll just have to learn our own way."

Ocellus grabs the Magical Compendium book as she turns to me "Well, as much as I like the idea of that, w-where exactly are we supposed to learn?" She asks

I sigh "Yeah, that part I'm still not sure of, if anything well just have to keep anything magic related here though it'll have to be pretty contained to not risk anything happening and then we can just practice sparring with eachother while in our disguises." I said

"Well, I may not look it but I think I remember a few tricks when it comes to fighting so I might be able to help in that area." Eetle said

I nod "OK thank you Eetle, now for practicing our magic were gonna need to know everything we can so we should probably get started on these books."

"Wait! I just remembered, what about the farm?" Thorax asked

"Oh don't worry about that, I'm pretty sure we're not needed for a few days." I say reassuring Thorax.

"Oh ok thank goodness, though I do wonder how there doing right now?" Thorax wondered

"Gosh darnit, Applebloom get back here!"

"I'm sure they're doing great without us, anyway let's put it up to a vote on what we should decide to focus on right now." I said

"A vote?" Ardnial asked

'Oh right, not a thing in the Hive.' "Y-Yeah, its a thing I came up, as a group thing. How it works is, I give the group as whole a choice between two options and we decide on what option we want to pick, then whatever side has the most votes Is the option we go with first." I explain

"Ohhhhhhh ok, weird but I kinda like it." Ardinal said

"Agreed, it definitely provides a fresh perspective considering this whole 'group' thing you've told us so far." Lectul said

I nod "Thanks, now raise your hand if you want to focus on our magic?" I ask

Ocellus, Thorax, Pharynx, and Lectul raised their hands. "OK and raise your hand if you want to focus on fighting?"

Only Rass, Ardinal, and Eetle were the only ones who raised their hands.

"Alright, well it seems like we've made our decision, so in that case let's get reading." I said

45 minutes later

"OK, it's official reading about magic sucks." I say as I flop back into the couch

"Agreed." Ardinal says laying on the floor

Thorax chuckles "Speak for yourselves, this is so interesting, look here." He says pointing to a somewhere in the Magical Compendium. "Did you know that according to this book Unicorns that have abnormal magic would be able to manipulate lower tier spells to act like their high tier versions all while having the low cost of the low tier one." Thorax said

"Wait what but that doesn't make any sense, when I read a bit of the Principles of Magic book it said that it wasn't possible." I pointed out

Thorax nodded "Yeah I also read that part too but it says here that while that would normally. be correct, Unicorns with abnormal amounts of magic are special exceptions that the whole Equestrian nation has a system to keep track of those Unicorn exceptions, look they even have their faces here." Thorax says as he points to their pictures.

"Huh, would you look at that." I say as I quickly look over the pictures

"Ughhhh, Joseph can't you just use that special magic of yours? Its already good in my opinion." Pharynx asks, sliding down the couch

"I could but as much as good as it is its not exactly going to protect me from much until I make something capable of protecting me." I explain

"Wait you can make stuff with your magic?" Ardinal asks with stars in his eyes

"I know right!" Thorax exclaims, agreeing with Ardinal

"Sounds fake." Rass says dismissively

"Nope, their telling the truth, I specifically remember him trying to make something during our first magic lesson in the Hive and almost dying because if it." Pharynx said

"Do it then JoSePh, make something." Rass challenges

"Why do you feel like I have to prove myself to you everything one of my friends says something positive about me?" I questioned

"Friends?" Rass asks ignoring my question

"Yes, Friends." I say grabbing both Pharynx and Thorax in a one armed hug each pulling them close to me causing Thorax to chirp in embarrassment and Pharnyx to just sigh.

Rass rolls her eyes in response "Cause In my opinion your not much to talk about so I want you to prove it." She said

"And last night? That wasn't good enough?" I ask

"You just got lucky, thats all." Rass says in response

I sigh as I cant really refute the fact that I had gotten lucky, extremely lucky in fact. "Fine, might as well make something worthwhile since I'm doing this." I said

I close my eyes as I start to feel my magic slither up through my body up to my horn as I start to imagine something to create.

'Now what Is something that would be really helpful to have right now? I guess I could make something for these gu-"

I pause as I realize how much of a asshole I am. 'THORAX, oh my God I had totally forgot to make something for him this entire time,but what exactly what he want? Something knowledge related? I mean he does like learning new things, but he also needs something to defend himself wi- actually hang on why don't I just ask him?' I think to myself

Without opening my eyes I turn towards Thorax "Hey Thorax, would you like anything?" I ask

Even though I can't see him I'm pretty confident that his eyes widened not expecting me to ask him that.

"O-oh no you don't have to make me anything." Thorax said

"Don't be like that bro." Pharynx said

"W-what do you mean?" Thorax asks

"If I were you I would take up his offer, Maker knows that whatever he makes works well enough, with what happened last night." Pharynx explains

Its quiet for a couple of seconds until I hear Thorax speak again "W-well in that case, I think that I would like something that would let me up close and personal."

"Really?" I asked surprised. "You don't want something that you can attack with, like far away?"

"No, I, I-I'm done being scared of everything, if anything is going to happen then I want to be there alongside you to help, not wait off in the distance as I wait for you to take care of it." Thorax says with such conviction that I've never heard before.

"O-ok sure, I can do that." I said

"R-Really?" Thorax asks

"Yeah, if thats what you want then who am I to stop you." I said

"...Thank you Joseph." Thorax says sincerely

"No problem, buttttt as your friend I have the right to add my own twist to it so why don't we do that." I said

'And I know exactly how to do that,' I think to myself as I start to infuse love into what I'm making as usual as I then start to imagine a black grip with a hole at the butt of the grip while the other end starts to form a shiny gray curved like blade extending up to 3 inches long.

Finished forming i hear it drop to the floor. "Hold up I'm not done just yet." I say as I move on the second part of my gift to Thorax as I then start infusing love again this time as I imagine a gun of sorts but not one that shoots bullets exactly as I start to imagine a pistol like frame but one that doesn't have a normal trigger since the trigger is sort of in the grip as it continues to form the rest of the frame with a circular imprint on the side of it near the grip continuing onto the barrel forming a sort of square like barrel with a claw like hook inside the barrel.

Dropping to the ground i finally opne my eyes as I start to stumble a bit before regaining my balance.

"Tsk, whatever I guess you weren't just lying after all." Rass says with her arms crossed as she looks at what I made. "Whatever is it?" She asks

"This is my gift to Thorax, your welcome buddy." I say smiling at him

He smiles back "Thanks Joseph, though as much as I would like to test these out i think we should get back to learning more from the ponies versions of tomes, dont you think?" Thorax asks

I sigh hoping he would forget about that "Yeah, alright, you can take the learning away from the ling but not the ling away from learning." I say as I pick up Magical Compendium preparing for a day filled with reading.

Author's Note

Enjoy this if you can and bash as usual. :twilightsmile:

Training? Yeah, Guess So
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To Change For The Better

Training? Yeah, Guess So

"Thorax, please, I beg, can we do something else? We've been reading these books for 3 hours now." I pleaded

"Mmmh, fiiiiiinnnnne, i guess we've read enough, though even if we know how to do most of these spells we still need to be able to perform them." Thorax said

"Sure that's easy, we just gotta find a place that not only the Ponies of this town won't go to but also somewhere that's private enough where we can practice and train our abilities without having to worry about being caught and outcasted for being Changelings." Pharnyx said

"Well you didn't have to be a jerk about it." Thorax said

Pharynx shrugged "Someone has to outweigh your constant positivity." He then starts pointing at everyling In the room. "Joseph won't do It because he's afraid to say no to you, Ocellus Isn't comfortable enough to deny you, Eetle Is fine with whatever we do, Ardinal couldn't care less.....nevermind he's just asleep, Lectul probably thinks Its a waste of his time and Rass." She raises an eyeridge at him in response. "She would probably say something that would cause me to punch her."

She rolls her eyes as she goes back to reading.

"Wait, what if I did?" I asked

"If you said no to Thorax?" Pharynx questioned

"Ye- wait what? No, I meant what If I had a place where we could practice and train at?" I asked

"Well I would ask where Is it and why haven't you said something before?" Rass asked

"I might, have forgotten about It until now." I say embarrassed

"Well I don't know about you but I could go for actually doing something seeing as how we aren't going back to the farm for a couple of days." Pharynx said

"Alright let's go, oh also Thorax bring the 'tools' I made you, you wanted to be able to help? Well It would probably be best to bring those along so I can show you how to use it." I said

"Oh ok, so are we going now?" Thorax asked

I nod "Yeah, I say we should probably start trying to improve ourselves as much as we can, don't want to be caught by surprise like last time."

"Precisely, It would be idiotic to not make the most of the opportunities we have In our possession." Lectul said

"Well then what are we waiting for? Lets go and actuallydo something." Rass says as she changes her form into a Earth Pony with black fur as she opens the door and walks out closing it behind her.

We all stare at the door quiet for a couple of seconds. "Should we tell her that she was naked?' I as

"Naw, let her walk out It'll be funny." Pharnyx said

"Pharnyx!" Thorax exclaimed

Pharynx groaned "Finnnnne, but I'm just saying It would've been funny."

Walking out of the building now with a fully clothed Rass in a regular white shirt with black sweatpants we begin to make our way towards the place to practice in mind with me in the front since I'm the only one who actually knows where It Is.

"So remind me again, where exactly is this 'secret' place of yours that you so coincidentally just remembered?" Rass asked

"Well Its somewhere out past the Everfr-"

"WHAT!?" Rass exclaimed as her outburst drew some attention around us

"Sorry, she just didn't like my answer as to which cake Is better." I say hoping they would buy It

Thankfully, they did since most of them shrugged before walking away to do whatever It Is they were going to.

"So what cake do you think is better?" A voice asked

"AHH! Fucking, don't. Do. That." I say as I turn towards the source of the voice only to freeze In place at the familiar figure.

She giggles "Sorry, didn't mean to scare ya, but I couldn't help but hear what you said and start to wonder for myself which cake you think Is better? Is it Vanilla? Chocolate? Strawberry? Ooooooo, maybe Its Mint? Nononono, obviously not, silly willy, oh, I know Its probably Ice cream flavored, right? I know I like that one, so which one Is It?"

We all stare at her with a blank stare before I reorient myself "Uhhh, well If I had to pick i guess Vanilla." I said

"Vanilla huh? Interestiiiiiinnnnng." She said

"Well as interesting as this is misssss?" Rass trails off leaving the mare to introduce herself

"Pinkamena Diane Pie, at your service" Pinkie says bowing with one leg crossed over the other in an exaggerated manner wearing an red skirt and a shirt mixed with blue and white with the blue part on the upper half of her shirt and the white part on the lower half.

'Well she definitely looks nice in that outfit.' I think to myself

"Yes, well, we are in a bit of a hurry so If you could leave us alone then that would be lovely." Rass said

"Awwwwww, but I want to talk more about your guys favorite flavors." Pinkie says appearing behind Rass startling everyone else in the process

"Ahh! What the? How did you-" Rass sputtered out confused

Pinkie giggles "It's a secret." She then looks at her down at her watch before her eyes widen. "Oh my golly gumdrops, I'm gonna be late for work, sorryguysbutwe'llhavetopickthis conversationuplaterokbyenicemeetingyou." She says as she speeds off in the distance leaving a smoke trail behind her

"What, just happened?" Rass asked confused

I chuckled "We probably shouldn't ask, anyways shall we continue?"

"Yes, let's, I dont trust that Pink enigma for one second and dont think I forgot about our earlier conversation, you must be insane If you want us to go back In the Everfree after we almost just died trying ti get out." Rass said

"Were not going the same way as before, plus Its deeper past the everfree anyways." I said

"Oh good, so when we get cornered by those Unicorns we'll also have nowhere else to go real genius of you." Rass said sarcastically

Thorax abruptly stops and turns to her "Look, unless you have a better idea or something to add to the situation, either say it or shut up, I am tired of hearing you being an asshole to Joseph for no reason so just keep your mouth closed unless you have a reason to open It."

I stare on gobsmacked until Pharnyx shoulder bumps me "look at him go, I'm so proud of him." He says with on of the biggest grins I've seen on his face

Thorax then walks off up to me before Rass could say anything "Lead the way, please." He said

"Y-yeah sure uh let's keep going." I said

After taking our time through the Everfree to keep an eye and ear out for anything that might try to jump us we finally make
It out the other side as we look on towards the broken down castle.

"Well, here it Is my secret place." I said

"Woah, Its so big." Thorax said

"How did you find this place?" Pharnyx asked

"Oh, well while I was at the library a couple of days earlier I uh read It somewhere In one of their tomes about this place." I say lying

"Huh, well how about that." Pharynx said

"So, if you read about this place then what exactly makes It secret?" Rass asked

"The Ponies all believe that this place is haunted so they don't come here as to avoid getting spooked." I say lying

"Well what are we waiting for let's go." Pharnyx says before starting to walk off towards the castle as we all follow.

We all stop as we come across a rickety bridge that looks about one step away from collapsing. "You know what this is far enough." Rass says before morphing back into her original form as she then flys over the gap onto the other side.

"Oh, yeah could've just done that huh." I say before we all drop our disguises and join her as we continue walking until we finally make it towards the castle.

"Alright, finally were here." Pharnyx says before turning and pointing to me. "Joseph, me and you right now." He declared

"Uh Pharnyx can, I ask you a question?" Thorax asked

"Sure, what do you need?" Pharnyx asked back

"W-well do you think maybe I could go against Joseph?" Thorax asked

Pharynx eyes widened causing Thorax to panic "I-I mean you don't have to-"

"No no thats fine, you can go against him If you want Its just, I'm a bit surprised is all." Pharnyx says trying to calm him down

"R-Really?" Thorax questioned

"Of course, as long as that's fine by Joseph." Pharnyx says as he then turns to look towards me.

"Uhh y-yeah sure we can do that If you want but I feel like we should start helping you get a feel on those tools I gave you." I say gesturing to what's In his hands.

"O-oh right, we probably should." Thorax said

"Uh hello, what exactly are we going to do then?" Rass asked

"Um, oh I know, why don't you, Lectul Ocellus, and Eetle start to work on those spells we read in those tomes." I offered

"I think that would be an efficient use of our time, come Rass let us get started." Lectul says as he walks into the off to the side near some trees.

"Yeah, yeah, hold your hooves." Rass says as her, Eetle, and Ocellus follows, walking off with him

"Well, now with them out of the way, explain what you gave Thorax, I've got a feeling that If It's anything like what you made me Its definitely gonna be a treat to have." Pharynx said

"Well in that case I will, that small thing with the blade and hole Is something of a mini knife that you can get up and personal with, like you asked." I explained

"Well thank you for giving me that but I still don't understand this other thing you made." Thorax questioned

I grin in response "Well that my adorable little friend,"

"adorable?"

"Is designed to help you get up close and personal and that is also what were going to try and work on today." I explain

"Now, when you shoot this thing Its going to fire something that will attach to something and then proceed to pull you and I mean really pull you so your going to need to brace yourself ok?" I ask

He nods back "Yeah, I understand." He said

"Good, now for our test try firing It at me." I say standing with my arms out

"WHAT, but i don't want to hurt you." Thorax says distressed

"Its fine, when you shoot it at me it'll only be able to grip onto me since our exoskeletons our pretty thick."

"You sure?" Thorax asks obviously unconvinced

"Of course." 'Not really but If It does then that will be pretty useful to know.' I think to myself.

"OK here goes." Thorax says as he proceeds to back up a bit away from me until he starts to aim the gun.

As he fires I see the hook suddenly shoot out as It then attacks itself to my exoskeleton thankfully not damaging anything but digging itself pretty deep into me as I see Thorax flying towards me with a terrified look on his face as we proceed to crash into eachother tumbling for a good couple of seconds until we finally manage to stop as we're brought face to face with eachother with me on top of him.

We pause for s second catching our breaths before shakingly laughing in adrenaline, as we try to calm ourselves.

"So are we going to keep practicing or are you lovebirds gonna stay like that for the rest of the day?" Pharynx asks sarcastically causing us to quickly get up from eachother slightly blushing in embarrassment.

"A-anyways we should probably work on your landing." I say still embarrassed

"R-right that could definitely use some improvement." Thorax says clearly feeling the same way

After that little accident we spend a good while working on how Thorax reacts after colliding with someone while also trying to help out with dealing with his fear when he goes rocketing towards someone in high speeds.

"OK well while we're no where near to being finished we concuring your fear In this I feel like we've practiced enough with that where we should move on to another subject concerning the 'tool.' I said

"Like what?" Thorax asked

"Well, let's say that you do manage to hook somecreature or something with the gun but they react quick enough at seing you coming that manage to maneuver past you being launched at them, you gotta be able to recover fast enough to be able to keep the pressure on them, so thats what we'll be working on for the rest of today." I explain

Thorax sighs before getting into position and firing once more as the hook attached and he comes flying towards me, only this time I grab the metal like string as I turn sideways just In time as I see Thorax fly past by me as he lets go of the gun to protect himself as he proceeds to roll a it in the floor before coming to a stop and running up to me albeit a bit slow.

"Yeah, its a good thing I thought of this since this might be a problem against certain creatures." I said

"C-*pant* Can we take a break?" Thorax asks putting his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath

I put my hand on his back as I gently rub it in circles. "Sure buddy, you've pretty much earned It for today." I say before we start making our way towards the others

"Hey guys." I say waving at them

"Greetings, how did your training go?" Lectul asked

"It went well, I was able to get a bit of a handle on the thing that Joseph made me." Thorax says holding up the gun like tool

"Yeah, yeah whatever that's nice and all but check out what we accomplished." Rass says before seeming to strain a bit as an indigo glow starts to surround a rock that was near her hooves.

Our eyes widen a bit at the display while Eetle and Lectul seemed amused at the effort she was putting in to lift It. "Wow, you managed to do telekinesis, that's actually impressive." Thorax said

Rass drops the rock as she catches her breath. "Yeah, *pant* I know. " she says grinning

"Ocellus also managed use telekinesis three rocks without getting tired as well."
Lecture added

"Oh well it wasn't that big of a deal I just really pushed myself ever since we read those books." Ocellus said looking abashed

"Wait but if that's the case then how come we didn't notice?" Pharynx asked

"Well I was just doing It every now and again while we were reading those tomes before we left." Ocellus explained

"In addition to telekinesis we've also managed to be able to conjure up other spells from the Ponies tomes but It would definitely be In our best interest to return to be able to practice our abilities more." Lectul said

Eetle nods "Agreed, we managed to get very lucky with this spot that Joseph managed to find, It would be foolish not to come back and use this opportunity to the fullest." He said

"Yeah, and next time I want my sparring match Joseph." He says as he narrows his eyes at me

"Sure Pharnyx, whatever you want." I say slightly amused

We stay there for a good couple of minutes catching our breaths as we relax, talk, and enjoy eachothers company, well I don't know about Rass but the rest of us did.

"Hey Joseph?" Thorax asked

"Yeah?"

"Um, well If you don't mind, do you think we can still spar before we continue with training?" Thorax asked

"Oh, I totally forgot about that, sure If your up for It." I said

"Really? Oh thank you Joseph, In that case can we do It now?" Thorax asked

"Nowwwww?" I whined not wanting to move from my spot

"Yes now, cmon pleaseeeeee?" Thorax asked with the most lethal puppy eyes I've ever seen him make.

I sigh "Fineeeee, can't really say no to a face that cute." I say with a grin as I get up causing Thorax to sputter before getting up to catch up with me before punching me in the shoulder

"You Jerk I already get that from Pharnyx, your supposed to be the nice one." Thorax says pouting

"But don't you see? The difference Is when Pharnyx calls you cute he says that to mess around with you, when I call you cute Its because I mean It, we are not the same." I said

Thorax blushes in embarrassment "You know what before I was gonna beat you up but now I'm really gonna beat you up." He says

"See even your threats are adorable." I say while petting him

Thorax sighs in response "You know I'm starting to regret having you as a friend." Thorax says sarcastically

I pretend to be hurt by his comment "How could you, and after all I've done for you too."

Thorax giggles at my antics, It has a nice sound to It. "Alright lets stop fooling around and actually get to the sparring part." He says as we walks infront of the castle entrance before getting into position

I proceed to do the same a couple of feet from him while the others watch from a distance. "I'm surprised to see you here Rass, didnt think this wouldn't be of any interest to you." I said

"I'm only here to see someone get their flank handed to them doesn't matter who It is as long as its entertaining." Rass said

I sigh "Of course shouldn't have expected anything else." I said to myself

Pharynx then proceeds to step forward. "This will be a regular spar between Joseph and Thorax, that means no going too far, no magic, and no tricks, no form changing, just pure fighting prowess understood?"

"Yes"
"Yes"

He nods as he steps back with the others. "Good, on the count of three you shall begin, ready?"

"One,

"Two,

"THREE!" Pharynx yells outs me and Thorax start charging at eachother as he jumps In the air with his right fist cocked back ready to strike me but I manage to dodge out if the way as I proceed to try and counterattack only to get hit In the face as Thorax whips his left arm backwards seemingly prepared just incase his first punch didn't connect.

He then proceeds to try and hit me again with his right fist after the successful attack but I manage to catch my bearings before he can hit me as I deflect his punch with my left arm and gut punch him as hard as I can with my right causing him to stagger backwards a bit.

I take this opportunity to try and rush him but It seems like he tries to push through the pain as he's able to barely dodge my punches until he catches me off guard by grabbing my right arm with his left and then uppercutting me with his right causing me to stagger backwards a bit.

Trying not to get rushed I push through the pain as I rush back In throwing a right hook only for Thorax to dodge to his left ducking under my punch as he throws a left hook at my side causing me to gasp in pain only for him to punch the back if my head downwards as he then proceeds to uppercut me again.

Pharnyx nudges Eetle as he looks at Thorax with a proud smile "I taught him that one."

I start staggering backwards until I fall over onto the floor trying to catch my breath as I see Thorax walk over with a worried look on his face. "You ok?" He asks

Still trying to catch my breath i give him a thumbs up in response causing his worried look to dissappear into a shit eating grin. "I told you that I was gonna really beat you up." He says as he offers me an arm.

I take It as he pulls me up causing me to fall on him before getting off and re-balacing myself. I turn to him dumbfounded as I wonder to myself where he fought like that.

"Where did you fight like that Its kinda like something-"

"You would do?" Thorax asks cutting me off

"Well, yeah." I admit

"Well remember when Pharynx started to teach me how to fight with those private lessons of his?" Thorax asks

"Yeah I remember." I said

"Well, In those lessons he also made sure to teach me some of the moves you showed him." Thorax explained

My eyes widen as I look over to Pharynx. "What The Hell Pharynx!? I questioned

"Look I learnt by watching you alright? Plus It would have beena waste not to teach him so If anything you should be thanking me." Pharynx responded

"Yeah, yeah whatever." I turn back to Thorax. "Though, I gotta say that was pretty impressive what you did." I tell him

"R-Really?" he says blushing in embarrassment at the praise

"Really, I mean you knocked my flank to the ground I was pretty surprised by that." I admited

He looks up at me with a simple smile on his face. "Thanks for the compliment" Thorax says with sincere honesty

"No problem, but now that your spar Is done Its time to get back to your training ok?" I question

"Yeahhhh ok." Thorax groans out

"Thats the spirit." I say hooking an arm around him before turning to the others. "Alright everyone back to what you were doing." I say as I turn my attention back to Thorax

Pharynx POV

"You know that I think about It, are we missing someling?" I pause as I think to myself for a couple of seconds before shrugging It off. "Ehh oh well not my problem." I say as I continue to watch Joseph and Thorax practice.

Author's Note

Not sure about how I wrote about Pinkies character so put on the grill and roast me alive If I wrote her In a way that offended you, but other then that like always either bash this or somehow enjoy the trash heap. :moustache: