Phasma Is Considerably More Evil But He Is The Main POV Character So It’s Okay 1/4
Hunger.
Its specter haunted me. Hovering just behind me, just out of sight, and just out of reach, the feeling weighed me down more and more with each step I took. The gnawing pain was burning me up from the inside out. I could practically feel my body coming apart at the seams.
Days.
I had been wandering for longer than I could keep track of. On three legs, I hobbled through the forest, whispering promises of fixing everything. I knew I could save everyone. I knew that Coxa, Oest, Lace, and Thorax were counting on me. I kept pressing on only because of them. They needed me, just as much as I needed them.
Pain.
Staying upright was becoming an issue. As if the hunger wasn’t enough, the stump that was once my right foreleg was not looking good. It was far from feeling good, either. The makeshift bandage of changeling-gel that I spat onto it was only a temporary solution and infection had set in. Around the gel, I could see discoloration in my chitin. It burned. My whole body was beginning to burn.
Lost.
Beyond the pain, beyond the hopelessness, and beyond the fear of death. I could have pushed through the pain that was wracking my body. I might have been able to press on, despite the hopelessness of my situation and the almost certain fact that Oestridae was dead, and that everyling else was probably dead, too. I might have been able to fight off the infection with my alicorn-tier changeling royal body. I might have been able to survive, had it not been for the black void inside.
With each passing day, my energy waned. I walked for short and shorter periods. It became harder to focus. More and more, I could only think about food. My daydreams and nightmares alike were filled with the stuff. Pastries, steaks, greasy fast food, stale cereal, cookies, chocolate ice cream– anything and everything. And, of course, love. I dreamed about love. I salivated over it. I hated its absence. I hated its absence. I wanted it. I needed it. Where was it?!
My mind drifted away from my own body. As my strides turned to shambles, I lost control over my magic. I could no longer even cast the most basic and meager spells. The ridiculous physical strength that my changeling body once possessed was long gone.
Eventually, I had to confront the terrible truth that I was dying.
I begged. I pleaded. I demanded. I yelled. I screamed.
“Well?”
Slowly, my shambling came to a halt and I pivoted on my hooves.
“I did as you ordered, Phasma,” Praetorian Oestridae said smartly. “I held up my end of our oath. Have you held up yours?”
I blinked and rubbed in surprise. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone.
“Oestridae?”
“The Queen lives,” he said behind me, causing me to jump and collapse onto the ground. “You failed, didn’t you? After everything we did for you?”
As I struggled back up, I panted, “You… you can’t be here. No one is here. No one is here…”
I braced myself and turned to face the ghost– only he was nowhere to be seen. Grimacing, I started my journey again.
‘One hoof in front of the other, just like the songs say.’
“No songs say that.” Lacewing cooed into my ear.
My ears pressed down against my head as I hissed, “You are not here. Leave me alone!”
“On the contrary. I am here, with you, and I’ll never leave you. I’ve got nowhere else to be, after all!”
My vision blurred, “No! Lacewing is out there! You are… just a hallucination. Nothing. Leave. Me. Be!”
My friend trotted around me tutting in disappointment, “You and I both know that’s not true. Oestridae, Lacewing, Coxa, Thorax, Weevil, Eucharis, Cicada– everyling you come close to, you killed.”
I leaned against a tree and knocked myself on the top of my head with a hoof.
“Stop thinking like that! It’s not true! Not true! Just keep going, Phasma. You can fix this…”
With deep, rasping breaths, I willed my heart to slow down, for the hammering in my chest to stop. I shut my eyes and counted slowly, breathing in and out. The whispers faded as I ground my horn against the bark of the tree, the pain grounding me.
When I opened my eyes, I was alone again.
Like a shark getting a taste of the faintest whiff of blood in the water, I tasted emotion.
It was a paltry wisp of happiness but it tasted sweeter than any pure love I had ever devoured. Suddenly, all other thoughts except for ending my hunger left my mind.
I was hungry. Food was somewhere. I could taste something!
I staggered towards the emotion. The faint scent grew and grew with each slow, lumbering step. My jaw dropped and my tongue lolled out as I began to drool. Somewhere close by, there was a pony.
“Oh my, you just never learn, do you?”
Growling in annoyance and anger, I sent curses in the voice’s direction.
Queen Chrysalis lazily hovered alongside me, the soft buzz of her wings melding with the sounds of the forest.
She gave me a toothy grin, “Poor little nymph, still strung up by his vices. If I could feel pity, I would weep for you. Instead, I think I shall laugh! Ha!”
“Get out of my head,” I hissed.
Chrysalis cackled, “No can do! I’m living rent-free in here. That’s the phrase, right? So many useless references and jargon floating around up here…”
Tasting the faint hints of love, I changed course to chase the fleeting food.
She inspected a hoof, acting bored, “Why do you hold on? Why bother chasing this chance at life– if it’s even real and not another phantom of your imagination? Do you plan on getting more friends killed?”
I shook my head, “Your words aren’t worth the air you breathe, wretch!”
“I think I admire that. You so selfishly hold onto life that you would push everyling else underwater to get a lungful of air! That’s a proper royal mindset!”
“Just trying to help,” I muttered, brushing aside a large spider web as I walked through. When I glanced at the tyrant, she had been replaced with Chamberlain Eucharis.
My eyes snapped forward.
“I was, too,” he said.
A shiver went down my spine and I hit myself on the head again.
“Out! Out! Out!”
‘What I would give for some quiet! What I would do to let the pain wash away! I just want to go to sleep and never wake up…’
After what seemed like hours of trudging through the underbrush, I finally found her.
The emotions I tasted were coming from a pony out here in the forest.
When I came across the pony in her cottage in the woods, I was feeling closer to a shambling corpse than a Prince. Every ache in my body screamed out as I neared the small house. I watched as an elderly earth pony mare tended to her flowers in front of her cottage. The delicious orange pony was humming a tune– no doubt remembering fond memories.
‘Love.’
The snap of the twig underhoof was what alerted her.
She shot up from her bed of yellow flowers and scanned the woods. When her eyes locked onto me as I emerged from the shadows of the forest, she gasped in horror and bolted for the safety of her home. In her old age, her movement was slowed down enough for any predator to catch her.
She was quite lucky that I was incapable of even pacing towards her. The thin white wooden door slammed shut as I was only a third of the way across the clearing. The taste of love and happiness in the air became polluted with the sour-yet-delicious taste of fear, all muted by the presence of the building in the way of my meal.
Step by step, I crept closer and closer to the meal. The pony peered briefly through one small window, before slamming shut its shutters. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter. One way or another, I would conquer the hunger.
When I finally arrived at the doorstep, I took one deep breath and reached out with my magic. My horn screamed in protest. Or perhaps I was the one who screamed… When I began breaking the door down with my bare hooves, it was certainly the mare who screamed. Chitin and wood alike cracked and splintered as I ripped the door away, chunk by bloody chunk. Beyond the growing hole, the pony stumbled backwards into the corner of her sanctuary that served as her kitchen. Ceramic plates fell and shattered on the ground when her back hit the far wall.
When the hole in the door was wide enough, I squeezed myself through it. Desperately, the pony scrambled around for a weapon. Her hooves found purchase on a saucepan that was knocked to the floor. The pony wielded the formidable cooking utensil before her trembling body.
“Please!” It begged. “Take anything! Just leave me in peace! Please!”
I closed the distance between me and salvation.
As I neared, my mind started coming up with ideas. I could’ve disguised myself as a wounded stranger and tried to obtain aid. I could’ve disguised myself as an older pony, passing myself off as her husband– whose likeness I spied for a brief moment when a painting was knocked off the wall by her desperate attempt to get away from me. I could’ve disguised myself as a monster and eaten her in one gulp.
I chuckled darkly when I realized that no disguise was necessary for me to look like a monster to my meal. No, as I loomed over the trembling mare, bloody, haggard, missing a leg, and no doubt drooling, I came to one truth.
No paltry sum of emotions that I could siphon off this pony would do. I was too close to the end– too far gone. I would need everything to survive. I would need a miracle.
“And miracles require sacrifices!” I whispered hoarsely.
I reached out with my mind and grasped the String of Emotion. All around me, a miasma of fear swirled like a vortex.
Then I pulled. I pulled and ripped and tore with all the strength I had left.
The old mare gasped in pain as her wrinkles increased tenfold. From her open mouth, a pink cloud emerged. In an instant, I gobbled it up and pulled on the Thread for more.
More.
More!
More!
The pony died with a wheeze. Her life force was expelled with a putter of breath as her chest was squeezed like a fruit being juiced. As I pulled out and feasted upon her very life’s energy, she shriveled up into a mummified husk.
Her body dropped to the floor and I gasped and brought a hoof up to my mouth, wiping away saliva. I looked down at her corpse with a startling realization; I felt nothing. No remorse. No loathing. No pain. No hunger.
No, that last one wasn’t true. The hunger was still there, merely pushed to the side and lurking at the edges of awareness. I hadn’t defeated it. I merely delayed it.
“A bottomless pit, a bottomless curse,” Chrysalis whispered to me.
Without another word, I turned away from the dead pony and left through the door, casually unbolting it and pulling it open with telekinesis.
“What happened after that?” Coxa asked.
I grunted a reply as I poured myself another glass of brandy. We were in a bar in some backwater town on the outskirts of Manehattan at the moment, enjoying some alcohol despite the Prohibition. My disguise, a blue unicorn with a Mu Cutie Mark, blended in with the ponies well enough. People saw the fancy letter ‘u’ and nothing more. Coxa’s disguise, an off-yellow pegasus, was a bit too cheery for the moody atmosphere, but these were ponies and therefore he blended in just as well.
“Then I wandered. Survived off the meager pickings at bars, clubs, and other hole-in-the-walls. Eventually, I got the opportunity to make money. All I had to do was work my way up the social ladder of a certain growing distributor of alcohol….”
“How long did that take?”
I shrugged, “It was quite small. When I joined, it was only about eleven ponies. I helped it grow to thirty before I removed the boss and took over. Only had to deal with two assassination attempts since then.”
“And that’s how you got here?” Coxa asked, gesturing to the seedy bar around us.
“That’s right. This place buys from me.”
“That’s… quite the story,” Coxa said in wonder as he relaxed in his seat. “You, uh, might want to leave out some parts if you ever share it with ponies. What about that demon you were speaking with? Nightmare Moon?”
I shrugged, “She’s dead. As far as I can tell, Princess Luna is back in Canterlot. I haven’t seen neither hide nor hair of her in the Dreamscape. It’s a vast place so that’s no surprise…”
Coxa tapped the table as he thought, “I got some other friends. They’ll want to hear that you’re alive. Will you come with me to the city?”
“Maybe,” I sighed.
“Maybe we can help with this business-thing of yours?”
I nodded, “That… could be a good idea. It’s hard finding ponies that have enough of a backbone to bootleg alcohol.”
“Then it’s decided. You’ll come with me back to Manehattan and we’ll…. Do what you say. I’ll admit, though I have been leading our friends around, I’m…. It’s not easy. Stuck so far north with pony newspapers being our only way of hearing what’s going on… They’ll be glad to see you’re alive. Ecstatic!”
I chuckled, “Okay Coxa. You stand relieved of duty.”
He grinned and took a swig of the cheap beer he had ordered.
“Have you seen anyone else?” I asked. “Of the First Fang, that is.”
“No,” he shook his head. “Just some girls and guys from the Lodges– and a number of kinsmares that come from outside of those.”
“We should gather up as many wayward members of our family as we can,” I said. “They’ll be lost and looking for guidance. We can… help them….”
“Like you helped in Canterlot?”
“Shut your fucking mouth” I growled.
“W–what?!” Coxa stumbled.
I blinked and looked at him. He was looking at me with unveiled concern and confusion. That’s when I realized that he hadn’t insulted me at all.
‘I must be getting hungry again.’
“.... Nevermind,” I mumbled.
“You’re always hungry. It’s the curse of being a changeling, isn’t it?”
I glared above Coxa’s shoulder, where Chrysalis was absent-mindedly stealing hayfries off of an earth pony’s plate. Coxa turned to see what I was staring at but gave up when he didn’t find anything.
“You alright, Phasma?” He asked me.
Chrysalis chuckled, “Things are about to get lively,” she said as she pointed to the bar’s front door. Two whole squads of Royal Guards– gold armor and all– were just beginning to file in.
“Are you going to slaughter them all like you murdered our Praetorians in the Palace?” Chrysalis grinned.
“Coxa, get out through the rear exit. It’s through the kitchen. The Fuzz is here, make yourself scarce.” He frowned and discretely looked over at the entrance while I leaned away and tapped on a nearby pegasus’s shoulder, “Cloud. Get the others and get out.”
“Are you planning on staying behind?” The Equestrian asked.
“If I have to buy time, I will. Now get going!”
Coxa gave me a worried glance before rising from the table and excusing himself. Around me, several ponies left one-by-one for the bathrooms– which of course were right next to the door to the bar’s kitchen.
One of the two Royal Guard squads peeled off to intercept. Groaning, I pushed myself up and away from my drink and headed to intercept them myself. When they saw me coming, the lead pony muttered something to the rest and barked an order at me.
“Freeze, Royal Guard! Back up, citizen! I want you up against the wall back there– that goes for everypony else, too!” She yelled.
She was a dark blue earth pony, and her squad consisted of three unicorns and two pegasi. The other squad split up to block the entrance and head to the bar, no doubt to arrest the barkeep and other staff for serving alcohol.
Several patrons looked up in bewilderment as my henchponies and Coxa continued to try to escape. A few paused to look at me for guidance.
“Keep moving,” I ordered.
“Shut ‘yer gob and get against the wall!” The Sergeant yelled again as she got close to me.
“Heh, Not to worry, My King,” Praetorian Weevil said as his phantom stepped out from behind one of the Royal Guards. “We can handle these chumps with booth hooves tied behind our backs! Ain’t I right? Just, uh, maybe make sure everyling gets out alive this time?”
I shook my head vigorously before staring down the Sergeant, “Look, officer, I’m not having a good day, so I would appreciate it if you took your Girl Scouts and fucked off.”
“We ain’t no Filly Scouts!” One of the unicorns barked. “We’re the bloody Royal Guard!’
“No, just a bunch of stupid country hicks,” I muttered under my breath.
“You’re all under arrest for the purchase of illegal substances. I advise you don’t put up a fight,” the Sergeant announced to the room.
I heard Chamberlain Eucharis sigh from somewhere in the room, “They probably all have friends. Families. Lives...”
“It’s their decision to fight,” I whispered in reply. “But I’ll try to spare their pathetic lives, despite their attempts to throw them away.”
The Sergeant stopped three paces in front of me, “Look fellah, there’s no way out of this, so how’s about you avoid a second felony of resisting arrest and just come quietly? You’ll spend a moon in the hoosegow, and then you’ll be on your way home.”
By now, the other ponies who were not heading to the back had moved out of the way and went against the wall that the Sergeant had ordered them to. The bartender was cornered by a large earth pony Royal Guard and looked about as terrified as the civilians. He knew that I was the one who sold the booze to the place and knew that I wasn’t afraid of breaking a few knees.
The whole room now reeked of fear. The confident guards kept cool and their emotions in check, while the patrons and barkeep were becoming more and more afraid for their futures and clean records.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance, “Not gonna happen. You’re scaring away my business, love. So I really need you to leave and never come back, you hear?”
The armored pony huffed in annoyance and lunged forward. Perhaps the attack would have worked on a civilian and not a trained soldier. Perhaps her comrades were ready to jump to her aid if I cast any spell that took her down. Perhaps there were a hundred ways out of this fight that I could have taken, yet chose not to.
In the end, I wanted to fight. I wanted to kill. But I was not about to prove to Chrysalis– to prove to that phantom that I had no self-control.
The giant earth pony Royal Guard Sergeant found herself flying in the completely wrong direction. Within the blink of an eye, I had physically and magically redirected her away from me and towards the nearest window. Glass broke. Wood splintered. Miniscule droplets of blood flittered through the air outside from where the shards cut into the mare’s back. She tumbled and rolled across the cobblestone street, coming to a stop in the middle of the road.
Shock now accompanied the miasma of fear.
The ponies’ heads were all turned towards their fallen comrade, leaving the next guard completely unprepared for the wooden chair that shattered across their skull. The unicorn slumped to the ground, unconscious.
‘That stirred them into action!’
The remaining guards took up battle stances, the remaining two unicorns readying shield and stun spells while the other ponies lined up opposite me.
“Gentlemares, I don’t believe that we’ve been acquainted,” I said, dusting off my shoulder. “When you were little foals, you were told stories of scary monsters that would eat you if you didn’t finish your vegetables or go to bed on time. I am–”
They charged forward with a yell of anger. Hissing in annoyance, I quickly teleported out of their way and placed myself conveniently next to the pony on the far left side of their charge. With a well-placed kick to the side, the pony’s right hindleg caved inwards as she galloped to where I once was.
She screamed in pain and tumbled to the floor– much like their recovering leader– while the rest tried to regroup and present a shielded defense against me, shouting warnings of my ability to teleport.
“Perhaps you’re right. Now isn’t the time for talk,” I muttered.
With a snarl, I launched a sphere of concentrated magic at the next pony. The filthy brown ball crackled in the air as it struck home, breaking bones like they were leaves.
Coxa watched as Phasma stepped out of the back door. Emerging from his hiding spot at one end of the alleyway, he trotted over. The door swung shut behind Phasma, with no ponies chasing after him, much to Coxa’s relief.
“You dealt with them?” Coxa asked.
“Yes.”
Coxa looked around, “I guess that’s one way to handle it, but won’t they be looking for us now? Instead of some alcohol dealers, now they’ll be looking for someone capable of wiping out an entire Royal Guard Squad! We need to get outta here before ponies start asking questions…! Phasma? Phasma?!”
Phasma was staring blankly at the brick wall ahead of him. Grunting in frustration, Coxa shook him out of his stupor.
“Hmm? What?” The Prince mumbled, blinking rapidly down at Coxa.
“Phasma, we need to get out of here, and fast! Those Royal Guards will report everything they saw!”
“As well as all the injuries they suffered by the hoof of one single unicorn, yes,” Phasma nodded. “That’s going to be a very concerning puzzle for the Royal Guard.”
“Then our disguises our burnt-as-hell and we need to make like the morning rations and vanish!” Coxa insisted, beginning to gallop away.
He had to pause and slow down when he realized, to no small amount of frustration, that Phasma was taking a far more leisurely pace. Coxa looked over his shoulder at the speakeasy. He strained and heard more commotion around the corner, towards the front doors.
“If we’re lucky, this won’t come back to bite us in the ass,” he remarked.
The changeling Prince ahead of him laughed, “There’s no need to be so optimistic, Coxa.”
“Couldn’t you have come up with a better solution? Like, I dunno, not dining in a place you know could be watched by Royal Guards?!”
“I handled it,” Phasma shrugged. “Now they’ll be on the lookout for a unicorn that doesn’t exist. And, while that means there will be many headaches in the future, conflict was bound to happen. These ponies just don’t know how to keep a secret. This little Mafia I’m building is far inferior to my Lodges… Oh well, nothing can be done about that. Now come on, Coxa, there’s a lot I need to catch you up on.”
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Stepped off the ledge and decided a a cannonball was the only true answer... 💥
Darth Nihilus moment
You dislike evil characters but I actually quite enjoyed this Phasma. While of course you decided on a different path for Phasma I think this path was certainly viable and would allow for, I feel, a slower burn where-in Phasma builds up his mafia and eventually comes to terms with the future consequences of his past actions.
Just because he is the MC does not mean he is without consequences, no, but those consequences can be delayed and properly tendered to ensure that the final end is fitting for such a character as shown. Evil can be fun and entertaining to read but evil must still in the end be met with good and the consequences of ones actions.
11601432
I know you like this Phasma, you're half the reason why I wrote this sidestory
11601441
Well I also like the other Phasma. Good Phasma, Morally-Grey Phasma and Evil Phasma are all likable. Just depends on what you want from your Phasma. You want slice of life from Good Phasma, adventure from Morally-Grey Phasma and comeuppance for Evil Phasma.
Only unlikeable Phasma was Captain Phasma.
Wow, in this, Phasma is considerably more evil, but he's still the main POV character so its okay.
In all seriousness, I'm not going to try and defend Phasma being a considerably more evil bastard. But this alternate reality, where Phasma is not found by Luna, nor hospitalized and had to make friends, and seemingly still having nascent corruption by a Nightmare, does do a showcasing of human nature that I enjoy. Phasma doesnt have any support systems to lean on, and with the cavalcade of trauma that has been building on him, can you really blame him for the path he took? Doing the right thing, and being a better person, when your back is against the wall, you're hungry and on withdrawal, and there's no one around to help you except the voices of guilt in your head, is a herculean task that would be the praisable exception to the norm, and, while regrettable, can you really blame this ultimate victim of circumstance for doing what he did? It doesnt make it okay, but was there really any other outcome, given the circumstances?