//------------------------------//
// In Defense 
// Story: Changing Ways 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

Ocean Flow sat—or, rather, floated—at her table inside her home. Outside her house, the same water and the same kelp and the same seaweed and the same bubbles and the same seaponies swimming around, carrying spears and bows and arrows as they helped each other get to the surface.
She contemplated the picture before her, that family picture framed in seashells. That family, her family, playing together on the beach in the middle of a sunny day, smiles on their faces. To her mind returned the laughter, the cries, the hugs, the kisses.
The mother picked up the spear lying down on the floor and rushed out of the house.



By the beach, one could see the “Basalt” part of Basalt Beach: gray rocks and gray cliffs, craggy and jagged, providing lots of cover for the hippogriffs hiding there with their weapons. Behind one of the bigger ones were Terramar and Silverstream, standing on the sand not so far from the sea.
What they heard was the waves crashing onto the sand, the wingbeats of late and lagging soldiers. Nothing else.
“Psst!”
Silverstream poked her head out of the rock.
“Psst!”
She looked about, looked around at her front. No figures on the cliffs yet, no buzzes from the changelings yet. Just more hippogriffs like her, armed with whatever passed as a good enough weapon.
“Psst!”
Silverstream turned around to see Terramar there, holding his spear. “Are you sure you want to stay here? It’s dangerous; they can hit you first.”
“That’s why I make sure I don’t make them hit me,” she whispered back, opening her wings. “They’ll get me out, they’ll get you out...they’ll get us out.”
“Don’t be so reckless!” Terramar whispered, uneasy, looking at the field of sand before them. “If you die like that, you’re going to make Mom grieve for a long time! Losing Dad and then you in a single week...I don’t know what that’s gonna do to her...I don't know what that's gonna do to me!”
“It’s gonna do horribly,” Silverstream murmured, “but it's for Daddy." She held the spear up in the air. "I’ll make them pay!”
Terramar stayed her claw, lowered the spear down to the ground*. “Sis', you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Revenge...it’s not pretty. I know they’re the bad guys, but what if I’m right? What’s gonna happen if there’s a good changeling there and he begs us to forgive him and let him into our land?”
Silverstream jabbed his nose. “Don’t talk to me like that!”
“But, what if I’m right?!” Terramar repeated, this time sounding less angry and more scared. “I’m ready to kill them, but not the good guys, not the good guys!”
“Why didn’t they speak up?” Silverstream argued. “Why didn’t they stop their friends? If they’re so good, why didn’t they risk everything to save us?”
“Because they keep executing the traitors!” Terramar said. “Have a cool head! If you murder one of the good changelings just because he’s a changeling, then who’re we to say we’re the heroes? We’re just as evil as them!”
“A changeling tricked Seaspray into killing my Dad!” Silverstream cried out, tears threatening to spill over from her eyes. “Why should I show him any mercy?!”
“Because most changelings don’t. If we show mercy to them, we’re miles better than they are.”
Silverstream balled up her claw into a fist. “But...but—“
“That’s enough.”
The siblings looked away from the rock to see Skystar, her three blades on her mane and her spear holstered on her torso.
“Sorry,” Skystar continued with sunk head, “but I can’t let you talk like that, not without attracting enemy attention.” She paused, looking upon them, then at Silverstream. “I know we all lost a very good father, but, sad to say, this is not the perfect time to mourn.”
Silverstream tried to say something. Couldn’t say anything.
“Your Dad was an avid fighter,” Skystar began, softening her voice. “It wouldn’t do him good if you sulk here.”
Feeling the tears finally well up in her eyes, Silverstream sniffed, wiped them away.
“Make your Dad proud,” said Skystar, faintly smiling and holding out a blade. “Make him as proud as you can and protect this land and sea from the changelings.”
Silverstream kept looking at her, dumbfounded.
“And...please send the prisoners to me. I don’t want to see them dead.”
With that, Skystar flew away to the blue sky, leaving her cousins alone.
As they heard a faint rumbling sound.



“We’re not getting anything, are we?” Cornicle asked.
Cornicle, along with Ocellus and Delilah and hundreds of other changelings, flew over the final stretches of grass fields with their dirt trails, swarming themselves with the sounds of buzzes flooding the air and drowning out almost everything else. Whichever way he looked, he could not see far for his allies choked his vision of the otherwise beautiful pastures. He strained his ears to listen to the rolling waves of the ocean not too far ahead.
“We will be getting something,” Ocellus shouted above the din. “A reward, a great reward for bringing the hive this far. When we crush their resistance once and for all, it’ll only be the dragons across the Celestial Sea who’ll be left.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Cornicle yelled back. “I was wondering if we were getting any snacks!”
Ocellus gave him a dirty look. "At a time like this?! Haven’t you eaten from your slave already?”
“Yeah, but even my mints aren’t doing well for me! I could only pack so many and I left them back at base!”
“Why are we even talking about mints?!” shouted Delilah, upset at the mundane topic. “We’re about to win and you’re worried about bad breath?”
“I need the sugar!” Cornicle yelled. “The extra sugar! I can’t go that far without my fix!”
“You will go far without it!” Ocellus said with a slap on his face. “Pay attention, stay focus, and don’t lose your sight on them!”
Cornicle sighed as he flew, resigning himself back into the noisy swarm. “Whatever you say, Ocellus!”



Ocean Flow stayed by the entrance to Seaquestria which was a rocky cavern of seaweed and kelp filled with plenty of guards and soldiers decked out in full armor and sharp weaponry as they floated by tall columns of stone strutting out from above and below. Behind, they heard nothing but the whispers of bored yet tense citizens, equipped with everything from military-grade spears to homemade kitchen knives.
Some fish passed by, not knowing the situation as they swam.
She put on her bronze helmet and took out her spear, bow and arrow attached to her back.
The nearest guard looked at her. “Ocean Flow? I thought you’d be with your children on the surface!”
She shook her head, raised the pointed tip of the spear. “As much as I want to be with my family, I’m going to take my stand here. They’ll run to me when the going gets tough, I’m sure of it.”
The guard grumbled, then turned his head towards the ocean's surface. “If that’s what you want, ma’am….”



The buzzes grew, the ground quaked. The little pebbles in the sand bounced around.
The hippogriffs by the rocks pushed their spears and swords forward, grabbed the arrows from their quivers to ready their bows. The seaponies by the ocean sunk themselves back into the water, concealing themselves from the incoming enemy.
Silverstream and Terramar crouched behind the rock. Silverstream poked her head out one last time.
Still nothing beyond the cliffs.
She looked at the archers on top of their tall rocks. They were setting their arrows, stretching bowstrings out.
A tap on the shoulder. She whirled around and saw her brother again.
He gave a weak yet sincere smile. “If we don’t see each other again….”
And hugged her.
Silverstream’s eyes shot open. She was paralyzed for a moment. Then, she returned the hug.
Those embracing siblings, hugging brother and hugging sister.
As the rumbles grew, the pebbles bouncing higher and higher.



“I see it!” Ocellus yelled, grass darting by in her vision.
Delilah pointed ahead. “We’re almost there! Everyone, let’s get ready!”
Ocellus rolled her eyes. “We were ready two hours ago!”
She smiled. “Doesn’t hurt!”
As they flew on, seeing the last bit of grass and seeing the sea’s horizon ahead of them, their buzzes silencing everything else.



Terramar and Silverstream released themselves from their hug.
“Ready!” an officer ordered in a shrill.
Everyone looked ahead, weapons ready. Spears were raised, bows had their arrows in place. Excited yet nervous whispers abounded.
The officer, donning a silver helmet, looked ahead and pointed a sharp digit at the rising black mass forming ahead.



Cornicle felt the rush of the wind, the sweat cooling and drying on his chitin, his wings strained, yet he pushed on, seeing the landscape zoom by in a blur as his friends flew with him. He felt around his fin but could not find any mints at all.



“Hold!”
And they fired their arrows straight at them, picking off a few changelings here and there from the approaching army, but the swarm advanced unabated, still going at its hastening speed, kicking up dust behind themselves.
Silverstream poked her head out of the rock again and saw the many changelings approaching. She furrowed her brows, snorted through her nose, gritted her teeth, even grr'd at them.
Terramar poked his head out of the rock on the other side. He, too, saw the changelings flying by.
The buzzes, the rumblings—they grew.



Ocean Flow floated past the guards by the rocky entrance. Through it, she could see the distant seaponies by the beach as they raised their heads above the water and drew their bows to fire.
She gasped and covered her mouth.
“I hope they’re alright, ma’am,” said the guard from before, facing her and having chilled out.
Ocean Flow sighed. She looked up to the surface of the ocean. “I know they’ll be alright.” Tightened the grip on her spear.



Terramar shivered, loosing the grip on his spear, seeing the tremendous sight of so many changelings. His confident face gave way to one of terror, one whose beak drooped at the sight of them.
Silverstream sighed, seeing them coming. “And when they’re here, we’ll make sure they’ll never want to fight us again!"



“Cornicle!” Ocellus yelled, a mere dozen seconds away from the cliff’s edge. “What’re you doing with your fins?!”
“What if I fall asleep during battle?!” Cornicle shouted back. “I need the caf—I mean, I need my sugar! I’d be useless if sleep and slumber get me when I don’t want to!”
Ocellus looked at him suspicious, still flying. “It’s the coffee, isn’t it?”
Cornicle gulped. “Uh….”
“I should’ve never allowed anyone to taste pony-made coffee at all!” she raged. “It’s addictive, it’s filled with caffeine, it’s bad for your health, and it takes your mind away from—“
Fwip!
Saw the arrow whiz by and strike Delilah, plunging her down to a battering death on the beach below.
Cornicle looked behind him and moaned timidly as the changelings ahead descended to the ground with hisses and growls.



“It’s waiting,” Silverstream muttered to herself as she heard the hooffalls and the whack!’s going on before the rock. “All I have to do is wait until they get this far and—“
Her spear yanked away.
“No!”
She flew around the rock, faced a changeling holding her back with the tip of the spear.
Silverstream raised her claws up in the air in surrender. “OK, OK!”
The changeling cackled, moving in on her with the spear.
Then, she grabbed the spear and shoved him down with the flat end of it, turned it around, and poked him on the head, knocking the changeling out.
Silverstream grinned, planted the spear on the ground. “Just like old times, Smolder!”



Terramar had sweat pouring down on his face, teeth bare and facing the ocean with fear. He saw his fellow seaponies bob up from the water and fire arrows over the rock. He heard changelings and hippogriffs scuffling about on the beach; he listened to the familiar screams of death before the corpses fell to the sand.
He looked at his spear, saw a distorted reflection of himself on the tip of it.
“I hope those lessons were enough!” he whispered to himself before poking his head out of the rock, spear beside him.



Cornicle and Ocellus fought side-by-side, seeing the hippogriffs fly in from the sky to charge at them only to hit the ground with a great force and enough trauma to the head to strike themselves into comas. As they took care of the hippogriffs, they also dodged arrows from everywhere they could see, from the tops of the rocks to the ground level of the beach to the surface of the ocean. Arrows whisked by them, mere centimeters away from their faces.
“How many do they have?!” Cornicle yelled after slamming down yet another hippogriff.
“Many!” Ocellus screamed in reply before giving a series of punches to the head of still another hippogriff whose wings could not stop them.



Ocean Flow looked at the surface carefully, eyes peering, grip on the spear.
Then, screams from the distance, from behind.
She and several guards turned around, seeing changelings pop into view and battling it out with the guards already there under the hanging houses, with more seaponies shifting into changelings.
“This ain’t good!” yelled the guard beside her. “We have to—“
But Ocean Flow was already swimming her way to the changelings, spear in fin, silent but with arched eyes.



Terramar blocked punches and kicks from Cornicle who was taking his time to swing a hit in as many other battles continued around them with the dead being thrown around.
“Please go easy on me!” Cornicle yelled as he lowered his head to dodge a punch from the hippogriff.
Terramar looked confused. “Huh?”
Then kicked at the jaw.
“Got ‘ya!” Cornicle said, pointing at him in mocking fashion.
Terramar rubbed his sore chin and smiled. “No. I got you.”
It was Cornicle’s turn to look confused. “What?”
And was punched at the jaw, held by the head, and kicked at the jaw and then thrown down on the beach, the pebbles and stones scarring his body as he lay down.
Terramar placed a claw on his torso. “What do you have to say for yourself?!”
Cornicle struggled. Then, he relaxed, though the tension on his face grew. “Should’ve never drank coffee!”



Ocean Flow clashed with the changelings underneath the hanging houses, using long kelp and seaweed as ropes to tie them up with before smacking them left and right. The other changelings who were swimming there and holding their breath—they stopped for a second by her spear before trying to swarm her, yet she swam out of the way and let them hit each other on the head.
She looked behind her, then looked at the troupe of guards ahead of her above the seafloor, hearing and feeling the sudden silence. She felt everyone else watching her and the other soldiers there. “Is that all?”
The guards looked at the corpses littered around. “I guess so,” said one of them.
Ocean Flow turned her head back towards the entrance. “Make it out of there alive….”



Ocellus, bruised and scarred, wings broken and cracked, crawled her way under busy fighters occupied with their weapons and, at times, without their weapons as they resorted to their hooves and claws. Bodies fell beside her yet they did not notice; instead, they turned to the next opponent.
She looked at the various changelings still coming in from above the cliff. With a weak hoof cupped around her mouth, she yelled, “Retr—“
A claw stomped right in front of her.
She slowly looked up.
A pink hippogriff. She made a fist out of her claw. In a frightening growl: “I’m Silverstream.” Paused, breathing slow and steady as she looked down on her. Her grimace spoke of unspeakable fury—the wrinkles on her cheeks and her forehead, the tightened eyes and brows, the teeth all in full seething display.
Silverstream cracked her knuckles. “Get ready to die, bug.”