//------------------------------//
// Chapter Four: 
// Story: Simply Existing 
// by BiniBean 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 4:

Bini, as she pushed any self-preservation aside for the upcoming attack, watched as the burned remains of the book fell to the ground. Thorax barely looked at it and then back down to the floor in further shame of his actions. Pharynx stayed silent for a moment as he watched his brother's behaviour.

Bini ignited her blue magic, immediately tipping off the brothers that they were not alone. In a flash she teleported behind Pharynx, hoping to ignore the aftereffects as her mind tried to come up with some sort of plan within five seconds as the older brother started to turn and Thorax cried out in alarm at the sight of her. She immediately fired a blast at Pharynx, sending him into the air and nearly hitting the back wall of the Library, luckily for him, he managed to stabilize himself in the air using his wings and slammed back down to the ground, next to his brother.

"How dare you!" Bini yelled. Thorax, to his credit, stood up and tried to look intimidating but frankly, it was clear his heart wasn't in it. But Pharynx was a larger issue since as much as Bini loathed to admit it, he was clearly stronger than the one she had dealt with earlier and much more ready to most likely kill her. She stepped forward, charging her horn as she did so. "Get out of this Library. Refuse to comply, I will kill you if I have to."

"Oh, look Thorax. The food has decided to come willingly to us." Pharynx taunted, showing not a hint of fear. Not that Bini could blame him, she was certainly no alicorn and frankly, Librarians are not known to be very intimidating. 

"I said, leave!" Bini barked. Thorax looked between them both with frantic eyes. "You are both quite lucky you are not dead on the spot!"

Pharynx lunged at her. She fired a shot at him, which he dodged in the air before slamming into her. She cried out in pain as his horn dug into her shoulder when they hit the ground. She used her front hooves to push him away, before stumbling up as he tried to recover and kicked him right in the ribs.

"Brother, stop! P-Pony, please stop!"

Thorax's cries were ignored as Pharynx stumbled back as he growled in pain and rage. Bini wasn't doing much better as she could feel blood running down her shoulder from the wound which burned in pain with each twitch of her muscle. Pharynx easily recovered and seemed to take delight in the injury he caused.

"Now, Thorax. Watch as a warrior takes down the enemy."

He lit up his horn and yanked the bookshelf behind her down, Bini rolled out of the way as books plummeted down with the shelf. She barely managed to miss the shelf itself but falling books were a bit harder to avoid. She did her best as she brought up a shield a little too late, hoping the books were not unrepairable when this whole mess was over.

Bini teleported away from the damage, surprising both the brothers when she reappeared near the hourglass in the light of day raining down from the ceiling. She cringed as she realized she was stepping on glass, she looked briefly up to realize that Pharynx mostly likely just shoved himself through the ceiling without care and broke the whole dome.

Great, she thought with more boiling rage than she thought she would have to deal with for a lifetime, another thing to add to the great list of issues she would have to deal with after this. She was brought out of her thoughts on her tasks ahead when green fire whizzed past her.

"Oh, good job, Thorax. You missed."

"W-Well...She was moving, Pharynx."

"Moving? She was staring upwards!"

She looked over to the changelings barely hidden in the dark. Thorax, per usual at this point, probably missed on purpose due to his will to not fight, while his brother, probably hoping for him to grow a backbone wasn't any happier with his skills as he glared at him for a moment before refocusing on Bini.

Pharynx shot towards her again, Bini flared her horn and steadied herself, ignoring the glass digging into her hooves when the blast suddenly went upwards into the sky before exploding. Thorax's eyes went large at he looked at the sky before turning back to his brother.

"Y-You didn't need to do that! You could have just knocked her out! She will stand no chance against more of u-"

"I am done playing games, Thorax!" Pharynx snapped. "She is a bore to battle. Clumsy. Weak. Cheating. I do not have the patience to fight such prey."

"What the hay did you just do?" Bini growled, interrupting the conversation. She soon heard more buzzing. A lot more, her ears fell as she dared look up, but she didn't get very far before green magic rained down on her, quickly slamming her into the ground before everything went dark.





Bini groaned as she managed to open one of her eyes, she could feel the carpet surrounding the main hourglass of the library. Her body felt broken, her glasses that lay in front of her were indeed broken. Her hooves were on fire from some glass digging into her hooves still and now parts of her body, now that she was on the floor. Her shoulder wasn't any better, her scarf was probably ripped.

But, somehow, she was still alive.

Bini spat out some blood as it dripped out of her mouth before she wiped it away with her hoof as she tried to get up. She leaned heavily on the desk as she tried to understand the world around her. Her head was spinning, her vision certainly wasn't doing any better. She probably had a concussion. 

She was weak, probably a lot weaker than she should have been. She paused, she could hear the sounds of ponies. Ponies trying to work, or talking, or even the wing beats of ponies above her. She painfully looked to the sky to see that pegasi were flying around and that the moon was setting into the night sky.

So the threat, at least at the moment had passed. The world was moving again. For a few brief moments, she considered the whole day was just some bad dream, but the throbbing of her horn due to using so much magic in large quantity, the pain in her body and the fact that the Library was still a mess, proved to her that despite the threat having passed. She still had a lot of paperwork to fill out before she could maybe put it behind her.

"They lie. They kill. They say we are the monsters in legends. In reality, they are too blind to notice that they are monsters. Forcing every creature to conform to them and their ways. This is karma, Thorax. If we hadn't done this to them, then someone else would have."

Pharynx's words rang in her head as she stumbled towards the doors of the Library, bringing her broken glasses with her as she attempted to mend them with her magic, and barely managed to push one of them open for her to slip through with her hooves. What he said was bothering her more than all the pain she was feeling because, even she couldn't deny, that they had some truth to it.

She could hear the sounds of everypony running around the castle halls in the distance, thankfully, none in the lobby near the Library. She didn't need anypony to see her this way as she stumbled towards another hallway in the direction that she knew was the Castle infirmary.

As she looked out the windows of the castle, as she stumbled along in an uneven trot, she wondered what happened after she was knocked out. They probably took...what was it...the energy...Ugh, Bini shook her head. She supposed she didn't even want to know. But, she did wonder what happened to the brothers.

She chuckled as she walked as a silly little thought crossed her mind.

Thorax really should grow a backbone.

Wait...

She paused.

Can changelings even grow one?


The End