For two years now, Pharynx and his loyal swarm have been fighting to preserve the changeling way of life, infiltrating and raiding the pitiful pony knock-off his brother set up in order to show its weakness.
For the past year, Pharynx has been keeping his swarm together, preserving them from the invading Equestrians and their allies while still demonstrating changeling strength.
For the past three weeks, Pharynx and the eight left in his swarm have been licking their wounds in their last hideout, waiting for the alliance to give up the search or find them.
For the past day, Pharynx and the remnants of his swarm have been preparing to die.
Inspired by listening to Sabaton's "Shiroyama."
Chapters (1)
Took me a moment to process "broodmate" as "sibling." As with many things, I blame Magic: the Gathering there.
So blinded by duty and obstinacy that he can't see that his greatest fear, the one thing stopping him from surrendering, has been rendered irrelevant. Changelings can still defend themselves. They can do it better than before. But they aren't the only thing Chrysalis said they could be, and thus Pharynx keeps fighting for a fallen kingdom.
Yup. As is ever the case with the brothers, this was ultimately a matter of philosophy. Unfortunately, this time it escalated far past the point of return. Poignant bit of tragedy. Thank you for it.
Pharynx was just an insane fool here. He basically had his own Changelings slaughtered just to prove a point. Thorax's hive was clearly invincible enough to crush Pharynx's terrorist group, and yet his brokrn mind somehow saw them as weak even as they were demolishing him. At least he had some semblance of sanity before he died. Oh well. Good riddance, Pharynx. I'm sure the Changelings you got killed will be waiting for you in Hell.
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Because he didn't see the ponies and dragons as belonging to Thorax's hive. To him, a hive was only changelings, and those changelings under Thorax had done little to impress him. The ponies were demolishing him, yes, but that was irrelevant to him; so long as the Hive, which in his mind, again, was only changelings, didn't stop him, it just meant that Thorax had found another big brother to hide behind whenever something scary attacked.
As I tried to show at the end, Pharynx's heart was in the right place; he wanted the Hive to be safe, and he thought the only way to make it so was through changeling strength. This is not, most emphatically not, meant to excuse everything he did to try to secure that strength, but it is meant to provide more motive than just "I hate ponies." Whether this was enough to make up for his sins is not within my power to say; all I can do is hope that, after the smoke cleared and his breath stilled, he found peace, along with the rest of his swarm.
The point of this story wasn't to condemn or absolve Pharynx and his swarm, it was to provide an account of them and the depth of their convictions, driving them, rightly or wrongly, to charge into certain death. Where they went after death is not mine to tell; all that is is why they went there in the first place. You are right to judge the convictions that drove them there harshly, and to believe that it reflects poorly on Pharynx and his swarm, and yet I can't help but pity them. Perhaps I judge them over-gently. I do not know.
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Honestly I agree