//------------------------------//
// Incalzando 
// Story: Changing Ways 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

“Wake up!”
Tracker moaned, turned around on his bed.
“Wake up!”
He turned around again, upsetting his pillow with his hooves and a yawn. “Y-Yes, mother Chrysalis...I’ll go get you the pony you want.”
Slapped on the face.
Tracker shot up on his bed, hyperventilating and clutching his chest. He looked to his left and saw Press with an outstretched foreleg about to budge him on the shoulder. “What is it? What’s going on?”
She pointed up to the ceiling.
Tracker turned his head up and saw nothing in the darkness. What he heard, however, was something: shouts, arguments, those familiar growls and hisses.
“I have a feeling the changeling faked his death,” Press said, nervous with a doubtful accent.  “I don’t know how he did it, but I can think of a few ways.”
Tracker covered his mouth, hiding a smile. “This is...not amazing! What are we going to do?”
Press smiled back. “I don’t think we have much else to do.”
She looked up.
Tracker kept looking up with her, still hearing those sounds above. “What do you mean?”
She brought herself closer to his ear.
In a hushed voice: “They’re coming.”



In the early morning, under a pink, sunless sky, a circle of ponies and one griffon surrounded the rope-bound changeling, holding on to their ropes. The changeling himself lied down on the hot and dusty ground, enclosed and unable to wriggle his way out.
“We’re not doin’ this again!” the sheriff yelled. “If you escape from us, you’re not comin’ back here!”
The changeling snarled. “Yes I am!”
Gallus pulled his rope, constricting the changeling. “They’re not supposed to be this strong with our ropes, right?”
Sandbar's wide open eyes darted towards him, holding on to his rope wrapped around his foreleg. “Let’s hope it’s true!”
Braeburn held up a flaming torch, and trotted his way to the changeling. “Any last words?”
The changeling closed his eyes, choking, almost into tears.
“Don’t be fooled!” Braeburn shouted to everyone else, casting a dark glance upon them all with the fire reflected in his eyes. “He’s goin’ to try his best to say he wants to be accepted ‘ere and that he’s gonna be with us, but I for a second don’t believe ‘im! Why should you trust a lyin’, cheatin’ scoundrel?”
“Yeah!” cried out several of the ponies there.
“We’re not backing down from whatever performance he’s gonna set up! We'll burn 'im! We will burn 'im!”
“Yeah!” was their repeated shout.
The changeling shook with sweat on his cheeks, ears flayed. Felt something like heartburn in his chest and grunted, trying to force his way out.
He stopped.
Heard the crack of fire.
The changeling opened his mouth, unwilling to turn his head round to see the torch. Nothing more than bleats came out of his throat. Cheers came around, blended with scoffs and sneers, with taunts and mocks, all mixing up together to form gibberish in his head.
Feeling the heat approach his body, the torch about to light him up.
Then, a smile on his face.
He said one word:
"No."
Several changelings blasted out of the doors and on to the open, coming in swarms and with boxes flying over.
Ponies and griffon yelped and released the ropes, panicking and also releasing the changeling who then glowed and revealed himself to be none other than purple-eyed Pharynx. He growled and stomped on the ground before him. “No prisoners!”
As fighting ensued, with changelings battling ponies with more changelings coming in from the buildings, one of them landed beside Pharynx and blathered, “Aren’t we supposed to be having prisoners so we can get their love?”
“That’s an expression!” Pharynx shouted and then slapped his underling in the face. “Don’t delay and don’t you stand there! Find as many ponies as you can carry.” Pointed at a group of changelings restraining Braeburn and tying him to a wooden wall with his own ropes. “Half of you stay there! Other half, follow me and we’ll be seeing the rest!”
Those changelings hissed in excitement and left Braeburn with their vigilant co-workers.
Braeburn felt the sweat and tears go together down his face, a witness to his fellow frontierponies. He saw them knocked out, their currents of love rushing into their captors' mouths. “No!”
The changeling beside Braeburn hissed with an unfolded tongue and took the love out of him, dried up that pink love river.



Tracker and Press sat in the room before the sleeping quarters, helping themselves to cups of coffee.
Then, wingflaps and wingbeats. Down the tunnel came Flash Sentry with a mug of cider in his hoof.
“I got a glimpse of what’s going on above,” Flash said. “Any moment now!” Faced a Tracker ruffling his mane unkempt. “Oh, your brother’s here! Don’t know how he got here, but he’s here now.”
“Where were you?” Press asked, sounding a little irritated.
“Upstairs, duh,” Flash said.
“Tsk!” Press shook her head.
“Oh, right.” Flash said. “You’re not dumb.”
Press smacked her face with a hoof.
“So,” Flash went on, raising his free hoof as he flapped his wings and floated, “when you hear the doors crack, we go to the quarters and take their love as fast as we can. No time for them to react.”
The two of them blinked at him.
“That’s my plan, but I want to hear yours.”
Press tapped her chin. “It’s a good enough idea. Besides, we may not have much time to make another plan before the cue—“
Crack!
The swarm of hisses and buzzes flooded the room, the whole underground.
“Go!” Flash cried out.
He and Press glowed, reverting to their changeling forms and flying towards the sleeping quarters.
Tracker stood there, watching it all unfold as the changelings hissed and took out little rivers of love from the sleeping ponies. Some woke up, and he could hear:
“What’s happening?!”
“Changelings!”
“Spare me! Have mercy on us!”
Tracker stood still.
He could see ponies falling limp, ponies struggling with those two changelings in hooffights but ultimately falling down to the ground as they had their love sapped, their friends crying out for their fallen ones before being taken up as the next love target.
Tracker's eyes came upon Swift lying down on his hay bed.	
Staring at Tracker with those aghast eyes, that petrified look.
“You, too?!” yelled Swift, empty.
Tracker felt his lips tremble, something coming up—a lump in his throat. His eyes were getting wet.
He took a step forward.
Swift gasped, staying in his place yet opening his wings. He shook his head. “This must be a bad dream. You...you were a good pony! You listened to me and everything!”
Tracker nodded, phasing out the screams and the hisses around him. “I know, Swift.”
Swift’s eyes darted left and right, seeing those hideous figures taking ponies' love away. “I’m not the stallion I used to be. I...I don’t know if they already got what they want from me, but they’re...they’re….”
Tracker placed a hoof to his own lips.
As a tear fell to the floor.
“I’m...sorry, sir.”
Breathing in.
Swift grabbed him by the neck, pulled him to his level. Mad eyes. “You betrayed me! I was so trusting! I wanted to give Mister Nice Guy a chance, and this is what I get?! I should’ve stayed the old self I was! It was a mistake to be nice to any of you at all!”
Tracker saw those eyes, saw the loose grip Swift was having on his neck.
“But, what else?! What else?! I can’t fight back…if I get you, your friends will get me. It’s...it’s death either way.”
He let go of Tracker, saw him stand up. 
Swift cried.
Tracker gritted his teeth, covered an ear to block the howls of his heart.
Then, this Earth pony glowed, turning back to his changeling self.
Thorax stood there, watching this stallion break down, convulse himself in his fit.
Then, Thorax opened his mouth. A pink torrent was coming out of Swift's body.



Swift gasped, breathing, cold sweat on his head and neck.
He looked up, saw the rafters of his sleeping quarters.
Looked at his yellow hooves, spread open his yellow wings on his hay bed.
He stared up. “A dream...it was a dream….” clutched his chest, feeling an ache there. “I shouldn’t be worrying too much...none of them heard a scream from me, right?”
“Uh, they did, Swift,” was Thorax’s reply.
Swift nodded. “OK, Star Tracker.”
He closed his eyes and tried to drift back to sleep.
Opened his eyes. “Wait a minute...that doesn’t sound like the Star Tracker I know!”
“Because it’s not.”
Swift jolted out of his bed and whirled his head about.
He saw his fellow ponies chained to the floor by the hooves, watched by individual changelings. Some had their streams of love taken out for a fast snack.
Swift tried to hold on to his head. His leg was detained by his own chain.
He looked to his left and saw Thorax standing there in his original changeling form, back with those razor fangs and those damaged legs.
“I know I shouldn’t be apologizing,” Thorax said. He bent his legs and leaned down to face him. “But...I apologize for what happened.”
Swift gritted his teeth. Spat on his face.
Thorax sighed, wiped the spit off.
“You think you’re gonna get off easy because you said the magic word?!" Swift screamed. "This was what I tried to fly away from, and I’m stuck here with you and your nasty kind! You shouldn’t even be a kind!”
Thorax held up his hoof. “Swift, I know it’s hard for you—“
“Oh, so you think it’s hard?!” Swift shouted, pointed at him—or did his best to point at him, for he felt his leg yanked back to the bed by his chain. “You’re the one who’s living it up! I don’t know what rank you are, but seeing you pretending to be sympathetic...it’s just a ploy to get me to show some love for a special someone, and then you’ll steal it!”
“Sir, please stay quiet and let me explain—“
“What is there to explain?!” Swift yelled.
Several changelings stopped their feeding, noticing the mad stallion on the hay bed.
“I’m here against my will, subjected to having my emotions fed off me for some kind of evil nourishment! Like, why can’t you just eat hay and flowers?!”
“We’re not like that—“
“What about something else? Do you love?! You love your queen and your queen loves you!" He picked up some hay from the bed and threw it at Thorax. "There, feed on that love!”
Thorax spat out the hay that did get in his mouth. “We can’t do that!”
“Why is that?!" persisted Swift. "What excuse are you going to use this time, liar?!”
Thorax gritted his teeth. “We can’t love! It’s only an emotional instinct for us! We have gratitude for our queen and we stick together, but it’s not love!”
“Do you love life?!” Swift shouted.
“I...I just see it as more beneficial than being dead!”
Swift spat on him. “You think you can try to make me smile! Well, you’re not getting a smile out of me!”
Thorax sighed. He wiped the spit off.
Ocellus came by from her slave pony and kicked Swift on the head. 
He was back to sleep.
“You should treat your overlords better," said Ocellus to her unconscious and neglectful listener, "unless you want to die early!”



Thorax and Pharynx sat on the train station’s wooden platform. Under the sunset piercing the red sky, they took in a good view of Appleloosa, its windows shining bright under the sun’s harsh reflection, the wagons holding lots of good food and good cider, and ponies either in cages or in chains—if they weren’t bound, they were watched by changelings as they did manual labor like carry boxes or clean a street made out of dirt. Some changelings cheered to mugs of apple cider, others pursued more sober ways of celebrating like talking to each other beside their sapient dinner of love.
Pharynx placed a hoof on Thorax’s shoulder. “One step closer, Thorax. Pretty soon, it’ll be over. You don’t have to worry about being hungry all the time." He patted a nearby floorboard. "I’m pretty sure you had a good time.” Almost leaned back and relaxed, though he would have fallen over instead. “When was the last time you went hungry? I went hungry a month ago—a long time ago, Thorax!”
Thorax kept quiet, hearing the steps and the shouts. There, a changeling lashed a pony with a blunt pike, saying, “Faster!”
The pony complied with a grunt and she put some bags of coffee beans on to her back.
“Imagine what it’d be like,” Pharynx said. “It’s all going to be about us. We’d have a whole world of love under our hooves, and we’ll be at the top. I would overlook all your flaws and you...being shy or something." He pulled his brother closer by the neck, putting on a giddy smile. "You don’t have to be shy! We're the winners!”
Thorax let his attention drop off. He became occupied with the sky where, surprisingly, there were no changelings flying and buzzing around.
"You’d be so full of love," Pharynx continued, his voice rising to a fervor, "you’d be able to destroy anyone who gets in your way, and those ponies should learn where they are! Don’t be afraid to smack them and hurt them ‘till they can’t take it—or take it further!”
Thorax shuddered, almost burred.
He stood up, opened his wings.
“I’ll just…go see my pony," said Thorax, quieter than before. "See how he’s doing.”
As he flew away and passed by his changeling friends on the road, he could hear Pharynx yelling at him: “Beat him up for me, will ya’?!”