13th: Corpus Corporum
The Rule of King Cocoon of the Changelings
There were a couple of times in Appleloosa during the night time between trying to teach Cocoon to read and teaching him about changelings that Cocoon told me a little about his home. It was never really anything in depth, but just a few bits and pieces of what his life was like. Just little stuff like how he'd gone to school most of his life, how he ran around in large circles for fun, and he told me stuff about the ponies... or "people" he knew.
I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around an entire society filled with creatures like Cocoon. If all humans do all the mental and moral gymnastics Cocoon likes to do, I can't fathom how they function. Being a changeling, changeling royalty I might add, I don't waste much time thinking about morality. Cocoon, on the other hoof, wastes all his time thinking about morality.
Life is pretty simple. When you're hungry, you feed. It doesn't matter how you feed, just get out there and do it. If you don't feed you die, and that's bad. If Cocoon has some high-fluted ideals about how ponies are more than food for us, that's fine, but he needs to stop bawling over it already. If the end result of your actions isn't death, you've done something right. It's pretty darn simple.
I've tried explaining this to Cocoon, but he just won't listen.
He killed a human, so what? It was self defense, couldn't be helped. It's kill or be killed. Ever since Sweet Tea escaped, Cocoon has been in a... well, in a mood. I expected him to explode and tear the desert apart after he discovered she was gone, but he did the exact opposite. He just went on with the plan.
So here we are, flying out to Quarterholm as a group of pegasi. Me, the King, two captains, and a fresh scout who I think took a few too many hits to the head when he was a drone. No one has spoken a single word since we left. Bloodbuzz and I asked what the plan for when we arrive is, but Cocoon never responded. Heck, he didn't even acknowledge our existence.
When Quaterholm finally came into view, Cocoon broke his silence.
"Go ahead of me to the headquarters. I'm going to feed." Of course, the underlings just agreed with him immediately, but I'm not about to let Cocoon out on his own.
"Are you that hungry? Come to headquarters and then go feed," I tell him.
"... Fine." As annoying and wishy-washy as he usually is, I kind of miss the normal Cocoon. He kept things... fresh.
We make our final descent into Quarterholm. I really don't like cities like this. Every inch of it is covered in cobblestones and all the buildings have tall, pointy roofs. This kind of architecture would look better in the Hive. The notion that a place that looks this way will be teeming with ponies in the daytime just bothers me.
It's only a short walk down an alley to reach the building that houses our hideout, one of the only buildings on the block with its lights still on. We walk right in the front door and up to the front desk. The ponies moving about the place's cubicles glance over at Cocoon as he walks in.
"Welcome to Magpie Insurance, are you interested in starting a policy with us?" the mare behind the front desk asks us. Bloodbuzz clears his throat and answers.
"I'm looking for some family insurance." The mare behind the counter smiles and nods at us. She guides us into a backroom where a couple of stallions are drinking coffee and chatting. When we enter, they get up and move over to a pair of filing cabinets sitting in the corner. Upon pushing them aside, they reveal the dark hole that leads down into the heart of the hive.
We slip down into the dark, dank, and slimy cavern. Just as a respectable Hive should, the cavern's walls and floors are covered in dormant drones. The Quarterholm operation has been running without a single mass feeding for a long time. Canterlot had been running even longer at the time we attacked it, but that foothold was lost faster than we anticipated. As we walk into this productive little hive, everypony but Cocoon reverts back to their normal form.
"What's the matter? We're here, loosen up a bit and tell us your plan already," I tell him. Cocoon shakes his head and turns back towards the exit. I cut him off before he can reach it. "Would you knock it off with the mopey act? I'm tired of a-" Before I can finish what I'm saying, Cocoon pushes me out of the way.
"I'm not mopey; I'm just hungry." I try and follow him, but he orders Bloodbuzz and his other two lackeys to make sure I stay here.
"Let me through, I order you!" Neither Plundergrub or Swerve budge an inch, but I catch Bloodbuzz shuffling a little. "You know something is up with him, right?" I ask him.
"You heard his majesty, he is only hungry," he says. I shouldn't have counted on any of these simpletons disobeying their leader's orders. Of course, I'm just used to being that leader. I never knew what being in control was like all throughout my own foalhood, so being unable to give orders wasn't a problem before.
My thoughts turn to Mangle. According to the drones, he was in the Hive when I awoke as a foal, but he never once came to see me. We weren't exactly best friends, but I expected him to at least make sure I was okay. I guess he didn't want to acknowledge I was still alive, just in case it meant he didn't get to be King. The very next day, Mangle is gone and I get a report of a changeling named Cocoon running around in Manehattan. I continued to ask where Cocoon came from and where Mangle ran off to, but no one saw Mange leave and no one saw Cocoon arrive.
I try to remember the last time I actually saw Mangle, but my last moments as Queen are all fuzzy. I can still feel the sting of being blown away by that massive wave of energy, I can still see the rocky cliffs my followers and I were dispatched too, I can still hear the Equestrian troops shouting orders from above to finish us off, but after that the feelings, sights, and sounds get muddled together and opaque.
"Bloodbuzz, do you remember seeing Prince Mangle around after the assault on Canterlot?" I ask. Much to my surprise, he shook his head. "Really? Not in the battle in the canyon or back at the Hive?"
"I never personally saw him at the Hive, but several scouts reported that he had locked himself within his personal quarters. Captain Bitedown found the Prince's chamber unlocked and empty the next day when he went to inform him of King Cocoon's emergence as our monarch," Bloodbuzz said. I'd never heard this version of the story.
"So... Mangle never heard about Cocoon?" I asked.
"That seems to be the case."
There's something even more off about Mangle's disappearance now. I'd chalked up his abandonment of the Hive to the fact that he could not be King with Cocoon around, but the changelings at the Hive should have treated him as the acting monarch until they learned about Cocoon. Did he leave for a different reason, or did he know about Cocoon's existence before the rest of us?
"What about during the battle?" I ask. Bloodbuzz shrugs and looks over at Plundergrub. Plundergrub scrunches up his nose and shakes his head, indicating he doesn't know anything either. Neither of them spare a glance over at Swerve, who is idly picking at one the orifices in his hooves.
"I only remember seeing him before we were attacked," Bloodbuzz says. "Captain Bilebulge lead the contingent assigned to protect him, so he might have more details of the Prince's actions before and after the battle."
"I assume Bilebulge is back at the Hive?"
Bloodbuzz nods, but not before Plundergrub offers his opinion on the matter.
"Provided he didn't die during Cocoon's Triumph," he says. I look the maggot right in the eyes. I don't know why he put the words "Cocoon" and "Triumph" together in the same sentence, let alone right next to each other.
"What is 'Cocoon's Triumph?'" I go ahead and ask.
"That's what the others were calling the battle we fought outside the Hive," Bloodbuzz explained. "It was considered a 'triumph' because it broke our current losing streak against the Equestrian Army."
"If we lost, we probably wouldn't have called it anything," Plundergrub added. I catch Bloodbuzz rolling his eyes.
"Why did they pick you to succeed Blacklung?" he said, startling me by complaining all of a sudden. When Cocoon is around, he only speaks when spoken to. "What about Break Back or Collider? Don't tell me they died in the battle too."
"Hey! I'm just as capable as those two, but I have the added perk of being close to the King." Plundergrub sticks his nose skyward and puffs out his chest. The pose itself would've been enough to hide him among the Canterlot elites.
"I used to be proud of the trust the King places in me, until he put the same amount of trust into the two of you." Bloodbuzz glared right through Plundergrub to Swerve, who obviously wasn't paying attention as he scratched behind his ear with one of his hind hooves. I can't help but chuckle a bit at the expense of all three of them.
"Let's hope Cocoon gets back soon," I say. "I think his stupidity makes us all feel a little better."
What kind of town is this where everyone actually goes to sleep when the sun goes down? No wonder Princess Luna lost her shrimp. I haven't even seen a policepony come by. Is pony on pony crime really so scarce here? Nonspecific Deity, I miss Manehattan. There were plenty of night walkers there.
Speaking of night walkers, I must look like one. I dunno why I decided to turn into Rarity. I guess it's because she's cast as a beauty. Doesn't matter though, seeing as there isn't even a single stallion out here tonight!
I guess it's time for Plan B. I just came up with it, so bear with me.
Looking around, I find a toolbox somepony left outside their store. Rooting through it, I find a nice, heavy crowbar. I levitate it before my head for a moment before I turn around and chuck it through the first window I see.
"Whoops! Dropped my blinkin' crowbar." Funny, my voice doesn't sound Rarity-y to me.
Eh, whatever.
I buck down the door and enter the establishment. It's even quieter in here than it is outside. I begin to wonder why I bothered throwing the crowbar in through the window, but I figure it's just because damaging property gives me a rager.
"Hey! Is anypony home?" I shout. I don't get an answer. I don't even get an echo. I wander through the drab, little abode and find the window I trashed. I levitate the crowbar and examine the walls of the house. There are some pictures of ponies on the wall, but only one, yellowish stallion appears in all of them. I can only assume he owns this place. I smash one of the pictures with the crowbar.
"I'm in your den messing up all your shrimp!" I clear the contents of a table onto the floor. "Come down here and stop me... or something." I tip his bookshelf over and throw my crowbar across the room, lodging it in the opposite wall. I don't have the energy to keep holding it.
I give up on having the owner of the house come to me. I search around and go up a staircase. There are two doors at the top. One of them leads into a bathroom, and the other I find tightly locked. I try the nob a few more times, but stop when I finally hear something from behind the door.
"G-go away," somepony says.
How rude. I am a guest in his house and he refuses to entertain me. I even asked nicely, so there is no way I'm leaving without a little face time. I break down his door as politely as anypony would and let myself into his bedroom. Despite his best efforts to hide behind his bed, I can still see his tail sticking up as it quivers.
"I've been looking all over for you, buddy," I say. The timid stallion pokes his head out from his hiding place, but his expression changes to one of confusion when he sees me. He stops shivering in fear and stands up at his full height.
"I'm being robbed by a mare?" he asks. I want to tell him he isn't being robbed by a mare at all, but I'm getting impatient. I came here to eat, and that is what I intend to do. Unfortunately, I'm not getting anything from this stallion, but he probably just needs a little encouragement.
"Yes, I'm a mare. Do you need any additional proof?"
"Get out of my house!" I see this stallion's courage has been fully restored. I look around at the picture covered walls of his bedroom. I smile when I notice a particular light-blue mare occupies a lot of them.
"Alright, we'll do this the way you want to." I pour the very last of my energy into one, final transformation. I'd been doing okay up until now, but now I'm losing the strength to stand. If this form doesn't work, I'm sunk.
Fortunately, this stallion, no matter how skeptical he might be, can't help but let a bit of his love trickle out to me. With a pathway into his energy open, I don't waste any time extending a stream of energy back along the path. I reach into his being and force even more love out. It doesn't want to come to me, but now that I have a hold of him the only outcome is total compliance.
Gallon by gallon, cup by cup, and drop by drop I drain him. The draining process is so violent and deep, the flow of energy from him to me becomes visible. The room is alight with a sickly green. I can sense that he's almost been sucked dry, but I keep going. I press on and I refuse to let up. I eat at every last bit of love I can find within him.
Then I arrive at the bottom. I expect to find nothingness, but there is still more love. I pull at it and tug it from where it's rooted. Once it's free, it slips out of the stallion's body with ease. Whatever it is, though, it is not love. It is partially comprised of love, which is why I was able to grasp it and pull it out. I'm not entirely sure I should eat it. I sense a great power from it and decide I've already come this far.
I swallow it easily, but it does not sit well once it hits my system.
My ears are filled with the sound of the stallion screaming while my vision simply turns off. Pain like hooks being gouged into my body erupts from the root of every hair. Those hooks pull, but its as if my very essence is being torn at, not the body I'm in. I do all I can to fight against it, but in all the pain and blind confusion I don't know what the heck I should be doing. I kick and flail and cry out in agony. I clasp my hooves over my ears to drown out the screaming, but it doesn't do any good.
The sound is coming from inside me.
My left hind leg goes numb, all feeling replaced by pure, unfiltered pain. I try to redirect the pain back into the leg in an attempt to restore control, but I'm being pushed out. Something inside me is trying to take control if me against my will, but it's more than that. This body I'm in is accepting whatever wants to take control. I'm being rejected by my own body.
I can't let that happen.
From somewhere inside me, I manage to construct and cast the spell to morph my body into its normal form. I can feel the transformation start in my torso. The pain lessens as my own power reclaims what is rightly my own. The battlefield is changing into one I'm more familiar with. The outside entity still fights for control, but it's suddenly a losing battle for the visiting team. It doesn't know how to command this chest, these shoulders, these hips, these arms, these legs, this mouth, these fingers, these toes, or these eyes.
The last thing to come back under my command is my throat, which finishes off my intruder by the only way it knows how: regurgitation. I recognized the thick, green slime that other changelings cough up, but for a few moments something glitters inside it. As the faint light fades away, realization washes over me.
I just tried to eat somepony's very soul.
The events leading up to my foolish blunder play through my head like a poorly shot movie. It takes me a whole three minutes of thinking to realize I'm in Quarterholm. I mentally trace my footsteps into the house, around the den, and then into this room. Where there was once a cowering stallion I see a face forever etched with surprise and horror. The stallion is no more, but a white statue stands in his place.
I get to my feet and examine it. I put a careful hand on the stallion's rigid mane, confirming that his body has turned to minerals. Even at the lightest touch, a bit of it flakes off and sticks to my hand. Curious, I raise the sediment closer to my eyes for examination. The cubic, white crystals remind me of salt.
I lick my hand.
It is salt. As I continue to lick the granules off my fingers, I assess the gravity of the situation. Like any other predator, I killed for food this time. Now that I've killed before, I feel like I shouldn't be so bothered by this; however, what I've done makes me sick and I know why.
I was so far out of my mind. I want to rationalize it. I just want to say that wasn't me acting, but that it was the hunger that made me go so far as to devour my victim's soul. As with when I killed Sparrow, there appears to be a way to shed the blame. The fact still remains that this stallion lost his life at my hands, so how does that make it not my fault? I could have avoided this if I just restrained myself, so why didn't I? Why did I break the taboo and drain this stallion completely?
I take another bite of the statue's ear and search for an answer.
...
It has just come to my attention that the statue is missing both ears, but I find one is half eaten and in my hand. To confirm my absent-minded, deviant behavior, I explore my mustache with my tongue. It tastes salty.
Now this is a whole different level of wrong. I can't justify snacking on my victim's remains, especially while I'm trying to riddle out why I killed him. Now I've got to figure out why I'm eating him. Even stranger is why am I eating him at all? To changelings have some sort of instinctual craving for salt?
*thunk*
I jump when the statue suddenly falls on its side. I look down at the big, leg-shaped salt lick in my hands.
"Am I going crazy or something?" I ask myself before taking a big bite of salt leg. I haven't actually physically eaten in such a long time. It's kind of relaxing to do something normal for once. Actually, I guess eating insane amounts of salt isn't exactly normal. I'm surprised the saltiness hasn't knocked me on my rear yet. Back home, I could hardly stand a pinch of the salt you find in the bottom of a pretzel bag. My mouth is full of salt, but it tastes just fine to me. Further experimentation with salt and salty food must be performed.
I dusted my hands off and took inventory of how much of the statue I hadn't eaten.
...
Nope, he's all gone. What have I done?
"Okay, okay... calm down... this isn't as bad as it seems," I say to no one in particular. I guess it's not. There's no body for the police to find or anything, but now this stallion's fate will forever remain a mystery. It's cruel, but I can't do anything about it now. I take the form of a pony and try to find my way back to the Quarterholm Hive.
"I swear Cocoon! If you ever brush me off like that again, I will make your life a living Tartarus!" Chrysalis screams at me. I look to the others for some help with calming her down, but Plundergrub and Bloodbuzz quickly avert their eyes. Swerves, however, picks up on my silent cries for help.
"He's a big fella, ma'am. Yup. He can do what he wants, bein' king 'n all," he said. As Chrysalis turned to sublimate her anger onto the poor guy, I couldn't help but feel proud that I had finally found a servant who could take the heat off of me.
"No! Being King doesn't mean he can do what he wants! He has to do what's best for the Hive, but seeing as he has no idea what that is ever I have to stick around and make sure he does do what's right! I'm the only one around here who is willing to sacrifice her time to make sure he gets it right!" Chrysalis says, getting further and further into Swerve's face. If changelings could sweat, Swerve looks like he'd be saturated. "You all are just a bunch of enablers! Don't just do what he says! Listen to me once and a while; I'm the voice of reason around here! Me! Me, me, me!"
I never knew Chrysalis saw herself as such a martyr. She finishes berating poor Swerve and turns back to me.
"Please tell me you ate your fill without causing trouble." She glares up at me like she knows I screwed up. Tonight brought up a lot of questions for me, but if I reveal them to Chrysalis now she's just going to yell at me. I'll tell her the truth, eventually.
"Yes, yes, I'm all full now. If you'd like to calm down, I want to hurry and start putting my plan into action tonight," I tell her. At the mention of my plan, her eyes light up and she calms right down.
"We finally get to your plan," she says. She buzzes over to Swerve and roosts on his head. "This better be good."
"Gentlemen, PC, esteemed members of the Quarterholm Hive," I say. All the shouting Chrysalis was doing managed to draw a crowd of idle workers. "We have got six days before the Swarm shows up for an attack. In the meanwhile, we've got to put the threat of a changeling attack out of this city's mind."
"How do you plan on doing that?" Chrysalis asks. I can't tell if she's feigning her interest or not.
"We'll give them something else to worry about. They won't even suspect changelings when the city is suddenly struck by a group of master thieves!" I expected some sort of applause when I finally unveiled the plan I was so proud of, but I was met with deafening silence.
"That's your big plan? Just to rob people?" Chrysalis asked. "I don't get it."
"Okay, let me spell it out for you," I tell her. "We start by stealing something everypony will notice is gone and then we'll leave a calling card. It won't just be any kind of calling card, it will be a message that only humans can read. Everypony will see the message and realize there's a group of thieves roaming their town, but additionally any humans here will be aware of my presence. We keep on pilfering things, but the day before the swarm we threaten to steal something specific. While the ponies of Quarterholm rush to prepare for our theft of a single object, they will leave themselves open to an attack by a changeling swarm. With any luck, I will have made contact with a human by that point as well. We all eat and go home. The end." Chrysalis and company just stare at me with wide eyes.
It's a long, painful silence until Chrysalis finally says, "That might actually work."
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Yay, new chapter! I had to reread the beginning to finally understand it. (not a fault of your part) Otherwise, your story is still as great as before, I await more...
If Cocoon goes crazy, can he do it in front of Chrysalis next time? I want to see her reaction to this.
Dude....Cocoon just crossed the Moral Even Horizon
Thats bad.
This salt thing is really...
Uh...
...
It's really...
...something.
I may have been a bit harsh with my assessment of Cocoon in a past chapter. I was going with the point of view of him being the hero or perhaps anti-hero. I never entertained the idea, until now, that he was never meant to be the good guy. I guess eating someones soul will do that. If this turns out to be a gradual decent into darkness that ends with Cocoon going evil, It would certainly make things interesting. Maybe not literally evil, but for all practical purposes bad. To make a long comment shorter, Cocoon really sucks at being a hero, but makes for a fairly awesome villain.
Is it wrong that I like Cocoon more now that it seems like he might go evil?
I had hoped and preferred that he didn't go all evil and eventually save equestria, kill discord and return all the humans and himself back to earth but now... he has indeed committed full-on murder, and worse, nearly destroyed the soul too, AND ate the remains. those are, in my opinion, the final ultimate acts of evil wicked depravity. He is stupid now if he thinks he can still talk humans, ponies, and princesses into helping him.
it's not in me to root for the bad guys like him. i can only hope now that he's killed by someone. doesn't even matter any more if he's right or wrong about humans being allowed to live in equestion. if anything, his deed only proves that if not all humans, then it's just himself that should not be in equestria.
The most awesome and funny description of insanity and mental breakdown i have yet to come across. Lovely in a horrific way.
I can tell by how 'HoovesLikeJagger' implemented Mangle's disappearance, that Coocon's arrival was connected somehow and if its how I think it is, his subconscious actions would be as well.
At least thats what I can tell by the way this chapter was introduced.
1471243 No loving villains is one of the greatest things you can do. Heros are boring and overrated.
In the event that i would ever meet someone like the main character in real life, i would get pissed
he is like someone from the westboro baptist church
Well, I think I can guess why he ate all the salt. One simple reason: the taste. It's familiar. It's not disgusting. It tastes exactly the way he expects it to, and the part of him that's still Human wants to keep recognizing that familiarity. In a world of madness, one thing still makes sense.
I think that you switched those two words.
So, when ponies get their soul sucked out they turn into salt? Weird.
So... Lot's wife proves that God is a changeling? :P
Seriously, though, I'm not sure what to think here. Yes, I liked Death Note, which did something similar when it introduced Light first, then shaded him over to full-on villain, but this isn't as good as Death Note.
2783573
and delicious
You monst- oh look theres a fat guy over there
LETS EAT HIM
3697507 now he can use the threat
Well... That was particularly morbid...
1471144 He doesn't even? kek
2783573 Maybe he'd just eaten a lot of salt recently?