Believe it or not, there is nothing supernatural about being able to have visions of the future. You see, my brethren, the ability to do such a thing requires calculations and fast thinking, something that the vast majority of my kind weren’t capable of. When I was born they classified my power as being a genetic “defect”, mostly because they don’t like it when some drones are more equal than others.
All hypocrisy aside, my life had been mostly normal, about as normal as a changeling’s life can be from the perspective of you, my brethren. Everything we did and didn’t do was for the good of the queen, which meant that it was also for the greater good of the hive. If the queen was happy, then the rest of us were happy. That didn’t happen very often, though, as the queen was a regularly grumpy individual. She was an individual, taller and more intelligent than the rest of us who were damned to a life of serving her needs. However, in the Spring of last year, that all changed for me.
Forgive me, my brethren, but I assume all of you knew of the wedding that was taking place in the city of Canterlot at that time. It was the month of April, and it was the time when the captain of the Royal Guard was being wed to an alicorn with a rather unusual mane. I think her name was Cadence, but that’s not important right now, the important thing being that this was a golden opportunity for the hive to have a grand feast. As you probably know by now, your land is the most rich in love and compassion that we’ve witnessed of all the lands that we came across in our travels as a species.
Quite impressive, considering that none of you are fluffy teddy bears who eat sunshine and excrete rainbows. Anyways, the queen was mighty interested in the love that was so plentiful in this country, so she and her advisors came up with a plan. She would kidnap Cadence, disguise herself as said alicorn, trick the groom into thinking she’s the bride, and when all is jolly and celebrative that was when the attack would begin. If the queen sapped the groom of his magical energy, the shield that was protecting the city from us would collapse.
Does that seem like it would have worked? Because it didn’t. The strangest part of the ordeal was that I calculated the attack being a massive failure and leading to the scattering of the hive way before the attack started. That’s what it means to be a precog, you know, to calculate future events and acknowledge the most likely outcome. It isn’t magic, and it isn’t a ghostly force that no one can understand. It’s science, but it’s also an ability that only a select few of any sentient species can possess and I happen to be one of those few. So let’s go back to the beginning shall we, my brethren?
It was the evening of an April day, and I was resting in my alcove after a day’s work of doing other drones favors, along with trying to avoid contact with the queen. You see, my brethren, the queen didn’t like me. To be fair, she didn’t like anything that had a pulse and a brain, really, but she and I had a very special kind of hatred towards each other. I was snoring, thinking to myself, my wings lightly fluttering on occasion, and the gooey texture of the cubicle was giving me a headache once again. The rough earth combined with generations of changeling “puke” that dried up and merged, as if they were made of rock, made up the majority of the hive’s physical makeup. The place was a paradox, really. It was claustrophobic, yet vast and seemingly endless. Organized, yet confusing to navigate through. We were like a bee hive except that instead of giving you honey, we sort of just killed you.
Well, ended your first life. That’s quite an achievement in changeling abilities. A good portion of the members of the hive were assimilated beings who were once of another species, but were no longer their former selves. We called such things “reflectors” due to their slightly more compassionate and stubborn nature. They looked very much like pure bred changelings, except for their less protrusive fangs and complete lack of holes scattered throughout their appendages. Oddly enough, the bone structure of a reflector is not as strong as that of a pure bred changeling such as myself and most of my brothers and sisters.
My roommate, whom I shared my unclean alcove with, was a reflector, although he couldn’t remember what his former name was. None of them could. It’s part of what made assimilation both effective and oddly cruel at the same time. Anyways, I was minding my own business, when the siren bursted through the walls and penetrated my sense of hearing. Actually, the “siren” was an internal mechanism that connected all the changelings at once to their queen. Kind of like telepathy, only more annoying. If you were there and weren’t a part of the hive mind, you wouldn’t hear a bloody thing, but we did. Slowly and with a smug vibe in her tone, the feminine yet ugly voice rang out in my head.
“Attention. This is an order carried out by your humble ruler and friend, Queen Chrysalis. All changelings on active duty must report to the central hub for an important announcement. This is important to both yourselves and the greater good of the hive.” With that, the voice abruptly cut off, and I yawned.
“Bahh... I don’t feel like moving.” I was lazy back in the day, I’ll admit that, but with good reason. I knew what the announcement was going to be anyways. “Maybe if I can convince the queen my legs are broken- AGH!” Suddenly, my head hurt even worse than it did before. There was a sharp pain in my forehead, and it felt like someone messed with my horn. I looked up to see my roommate. He didn’t look so enthused.
“Sorry for disturbing you, mate, but when the queen says that it’s important, you should probably go.” Again he tapped me on my horn with his hoof, causing a quick but intense pain in my head.
“AGH! You didn’t have to do that a second time!”
“Do I have to do it a third for you to get your lazy rump out of here?” He grinned. I thought about it for a second, and it took too much pain and work to not do what he asked of me. I really hated my life sometimes...
“Fine, I’ll go, but only because you’re so pushy about it. The announcement is going to be a waste of time, you know.” I rolled over and stretched out my limbs, my joints feeling as if they were made of timber. Sturdy but not very flexible. “What she’s going to go on about is not my problem, and it’s not yours either.”
My so-called mate leaped off the end of the alcove where there was quite a sizable opening, and flapped his wings quickly. He looked back at me, still having that devious grin on his face.
“Yeah, yeah, that power of yours. Would you believe me if I said that I think your ‘precognitive’ abilities are a load of donkey piss?”
“Depends, how badly do you want to live?”
“...Is that a rhetorical question?” He asked me with a hint of genuine worry. Returning his grin, I jumped out of the opening of the alcove and landed on the sticky ground below. Despite being in one of the higher leveled cubicles in the hive’s intricate system of rooms and hallways, that was an easy fall to manage. Hurt a little bit in the forelegs, but nothing to cry like a pansy over. I looked up at my airborne friend and we took a stroll through the caverns of the hive.
“I asked that because the assault is going to be a failure.”
“What assault? The queen didn’t mention a-”
“But she will, and we’re going to be a part of it. Just wanted to let you know ahead of time.” My friend snorted and landed right next to me, his wings retracting and hooves making clip clop sounds on a rugged patch of land.
“Nah, you can’t be right about that. There’s no way!” We came upon one of many passageways leading to the central hub, its interior as brown and green and disgusting as the rest of the hive. The ceiling was covered in small stalactites, and the walls were dripping with green slime, or “crap” as some of you call it, that was drying but still carrying its disorienting scent. Crawling through the small hole that connected the passageway to the central hub, because the engineers who constructed the hive’s layout many decades ago were idiots, me and my so-called mate made it to a spacious clearing where a crowd was forming.
Every time there was an announcement, the central hub was packed almost to the brim with the majority of the hive’s population, or those of the hive who were on “active duty”, which is a bit of an oxymoron since a lot of us including myself didn’t do a whole lot. We functioned as one massive unit instead a large number of individuals, because what the queen said was law and even if she wanted all the gummy bears in the world by next week we had to get them for her. It’s... kind of a dumb way of how things worked.
“But I am right, brother, you just haven’t seen it for yourself yet.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then you get to bonk me on the horn as much as your heart desires.”
“Pffft. That’s a little silly, eh? I don’t even have a heart.”
“You and everyone else. Now stay quiet and follow my lead.” With that order, my buddy followed me to the crowd that was gathering around for the queen. Despite its roomy nature, the central hub was a bit nauseating. Stalagmites merged with stalactites in certain areas of the complex, and cocoons where beings were in the process of assimilation could have been seen on both the ceiling and on the floor, sometimes in corners or right next to stalagmites. Unsurprisingly enough, reflectors who were “born” on the ceiling tended to have a fear of heights and those born on the ground tended to have claustrophobia. Vertigo and amnesia were also common conditions with reflectors, which was why we didn’t rely on them much for attacks on foreign countries.
On the far end of the hub was a podium of sorts, where the queen would reside during her public service announcements, which was a tad redundant seeing as how she was about twice the average changeling’s height to begin with. Murmurs, hisses, and little conversations could be heard from the crowd, with hundreds of my brothers and sisters in clusters. Me and my so-called mate got in our respective places, the same “seats” we occupied for these assemblies.
“The stars are projectors...” My friend grumbled to himself, which was inaudible to everyone but me.
“What?”
“The... Sorry, had a flashback again.”
“Having another episode?” It always slightly amused me whenever these moments happened. You see, my brethren, occasionally a reflector would experience brief glimpses of what their previous lives were like. Flashes of beloved moments in their minds. You can tell whenever this happens because they always seem to randomly blurt out things and what-nots like they were of some importance. Sudden realizations like that were always fun to witness, and my friend was no exception.
“It’s nothing, really. Listen, if your vision turns out to be right, what’re we gonna do about it?
“Easy, we act like we’re doing our job by taking part in the attack. But be careful to not cause any casualties with the natives.” From where we were, the assembly was in full view. There were two levels in the central hub, the first floor and the second that surrounds it. Some reflectors told me that the second floor is shaped like a horseshoe, and was more like a balcony or a cliffside than a floor. They were right, and the view from there would’ve been amazing if it weren’t for the fact that everything around us looked so hideous. I patted my friend lightly on the head, drawing an annoyed grunt out of him. "I may be technically a soldier, but I'm not a killer. We just need to be careful when the time comes."
“That’s not as easy as you might think, mate. The queen will expect a lot from us.” He pushed my hoof away, and I scoffed at him.
“Like that would matter? Wait just a few more days, my brother, and we’ll be free to do whatever we want.” I whispered to him for fear that maybe one of our brethren would hear us, but it looked like the coast was clear. “Just be patient.”
“If you say so...” He was staring at the podium in the distance, which was lit via an all too convenient hole in the central hub's ceiling. We were so close to the surface, we could almost taste it. From the stalactites and crusted earth came a great beast with a formidable horn and transparent wings, otherwise known as the queen, otherwise known as my boss. She swept down with as much grace as her form could muster and landed roughly on the podium, her wings fluttering. The crowd instantly went silent, like everyone died from just how terrified they were of their leader. Well, everyone except for me. My friend was scared out of his wits, despite what I told him regarding my visions. The queen looked around with a cold glare, like a giant bird searching for its prey in the grassland.
Chrysalis was truly extraordinary, not in the sense that she was “good”, as everyone came to the conclusion at one point or another that she was a rotten being even by changeling standards. She was just as ugly and insect-like as the rest of us, yet she possessed the stance and aura of a higher being. Maybe that was why she was our leader? But what makes her so special is that she’s the only one of her kind. She wasn’t a drone like the majority of us, and she wasn’t a reflector either. No, the queen was as close to a true alicorn as any changeling could ever be. Her power rivaled that of the Equestrian princesses, and her appetite for conquest made her all the more dangerous. She was dangerous. But I knew that I was out of harm’s way, or at least that was what I thought at the time. A crackling noise was heard in the distance, and the queen spoke up.
“My children! I believe it is time for us to come out of the darkness and into the land of the loving and the majestic! In less than a week from today, the royal couple, Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will hold a wedding in the capital city of Canterlot! And they didn’t invite us...” The queen grinned and scanned the central hub with her eyes, waiting for a response from her “children”, we sinners of the black heart. Quickly a wave of malicious joy spread throughout the room, and each of my brothers and sisters bore evil smiles. “When the time arrives, I will capture the Princess, take her form, and tear apart the wedding from the inside out. That is where you, my children, come into play!” I heard cheers and devilish hisses come from the crowd. The hive was in an uproar.
The queen looked upwards, to where me and my so-called mate were observing the scene, and smirked. I knew right then that she was taunting me, questioning my power. If there is one that was always true, it was that the queen’s arrogance was her fatal flaw. Her recklessness was going to cost us dearly, I knew that, but the bright side was that the survivors would live on to be free individuals.
“What say you, precog? I noticed your lack of applause over there!” Suddenly, all eyes were on me. The central hub was designed so that voices carried over easily over long distances. There was a slight echo to it, but I do commend the engineers for such a design. But oh, my brethren, was the pressure building. At that moment I felt a chill run down my spine, and realized that I was nervous. My friend poked me in the side and looked even more nervous and just as surprised.
“I think... No, I don’t think, I know that the attack will be a failure, Queen Chrysalis.” I hesitated, but what was not hesitant was the outcry from both the queen and all the drones and reflectors in the central hub. A gasp made its way out of the queen’s mouth. I had foreseen this being their reaction, but I could not have planned what happened next.
“How dare you say that! Do you not trust in your leader’s power? Or perhaps you don’t have faith in your brothers and sisters!” The queen snarled, her wings spread and her horn glowing faintly. Suddenly, her mood changed from rageful to calm, restricting her face to being almost expressionless. I didn’t know what she was planning, all I knew was that she was going to punish me in some way. “Get down here.” She called out in an almost soothing tone, but I could tell by her eyes that she was referring to both me and my friend. He looked over to me, puzzled, as if he figured out the same thing.
“May I ask why you need my service, Queen?” He asked her, but she just repeated what she said.
“Get down here.”
“But-”
“Now.” With a shock, I felt a pain in my horn, and it was an incredibly sharp discomfort, my brethren, that I fell back on my haunches. My friend did the same thing, as he must’ve felt the same sharp sensation, and gripped his head. We were both groaning in agony, and knew that we had to do what she told us. What Chrysalis said was law, and all her children must follow her.
“Alright, alright! Please stop that!” I yelled at her, which probably only made matters worse, but when your horn is being messed with you tend not to think clearly, my brethren. Our wings flapped and we lifted ourselves off the ground, soaring towards the podium, our heads still hurting. My friend appeared to be worse off, as reflectors aren’t as adapted to having changeling bodies as the rest of the hive. With a thud we landed at the same time, in front of the queen and our “great” leader. She glared daggers at both of us, especially at me, then at my friend, shifting her predatory eyes between us. In a bird-like fashion, the queen swiftly turned to face him, smiling devilishly, yet I didn’t know why that was.
“He told you about his visions, didn’t he.”
“Well, yeah, I mean... He’s my roommate, and we kinda...” He froze up, realizing his mistake all too late.
“So you don’t have faith in the hive, don’t you, you halfling.” Without warning she raised her hoof and swung it across my friend’s horn, hitting it with the force of a tidal wave. There was a loud crack, like the breaking of a bone, that was heard throughout the central hub. It made a slight echo, immediately followed by screaming.
“AAAAAAAAAAAGHH!” He collapsed, gripping his forehead tightly as he fell to the ground, curling up and crying in what was possibly the most intense pain any changeling could experience. My jaw dropped and I leaned in to see how bad the damage was and I can tell you this much, my brethren, his horn was cracked. Fractured, in fact, as I could see the horn splinting around the middle, but it wasn’t completely gone.
You see, a changeling has a very sturdy horn that enables it to change forms as well as use other forms of magic. While a changeling can fly, its insect-like wings are functional enough, the horn is what gives a changeling power, whether it be a drone or a reflector. Without our horns, we are nothing. Useless. Without changing her expression, the queen looked down at my friend and stomped on his leg as hard as she could, causing another audible crack. There was no doubt that his foreleg was broken. The scream was almost deafening.
“That was for following his orders, and this...” She grabbed his horn, which was already badly damaged, and squeezed, causing him to scream again. “Is for willing to defy me. I have no use for halflings who can’t perform transformations. I have no patience for useless children.” She turned to me, and I saw the evil in her eyes intensify. The gloomy and dark atmosphere surrounding us only seemed to make it worse. The great white light originating from the hole in the hub's ceiling shined upon nobody. “Tell me something, do you want to live, precog?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I do. I would also like for you to let my friend go-”
“NO! You don’t get both, you don’t deserve such luxury. You’re a heretic and as such you’ll be treated as one. Isn’t that correct, my children!” Another round of applause from the crowd, who were both fascinated, excited, and scared all at the same time. My brothers and sisters had betrayed me and my friend. “I want you to do something for me, precog.”
“That would be...?”
“Your friend here.” She slammed his face into the ground, then let go of his horn and looked back to me. “Snap off his horn.”
“...Excuse me?”
“Either you break his horn, or you die. Make your choice, heretic.” She walked past me and waited for my turn in this little game of hers. Oh, my brethren, I had foreseen a punishment, but I didn’t expect it to be that, for the first time in a long time, I was genuinely frightened. I wanted to live, but I knew that I had no real choice in the matter. Even if we somehow managed to defeat the queen, we would only be killed by the others. They were far too loyal to her. Mindless drones. Even the reflectors were going along with it, although my guess was there was a small part of their minds trying to fight back what was happening. I bent over and frowned, seeing how terrible my friend’s condition was. Right then it was clear that if I broke off his horn, the one thing that gave him purpose within the hive, the shock of it combined with the pain in his foreleg would kill him. To kill him would have been a mercy, and so I was stuck with no other choice.
“The universe is infinite... The stars are projectors...” He murmured softly, almost to where I could hear it, but he was having an episode. I remembered what he was like before this. I remember the day they brought him in for assimilation. My friend had a name, an occupation. The memories must have been coming back to him. I slowly grabbed his horn, but tried to make it as painless as possible.
“It’s okay, Artemus, I’m right here.” I whispered to him, almost like I was singing him a lullaby. He only looked up at me and continued to murmur to himself. The force in my foreleg was building up, preparing to break off his horn in one swift motion, to make it as quick and painless as I could. Finally, he seemed to notice my presence and smiled slightly despite his discomfort. My grip on his horn continued to tighten.
“Are we going to be free, mate?”
“Yeah, we are. Don’t worry.”
“Am I going to see the stars again?”
“Yes, of course, my brother.” I lied through my fangs. The great white light shined down upon nobody.
“Will we be happy then?”
“More happy than you could ever imagine.” I smiled at him, but couldn’t form tears.
“That’s wonderful, mate. We’re gonna have so much fun together, right?”
“Yes we will, Artemus. We’ll be going to a much better place, don't you worry about a thing.” The queen glared at me, growing impatient, and the crowd was deathly silent. It was clear that nobody would save me and my friend. We were lost.
“Finish him off, heretic! DO IT!”
A loud crack was heard, not like the breaking of a bone or a twig, but almost like the roaring of thunder. As quick as a lightning bolt, and just as powerful, I ripped Artemus’ horn off his head, leaving only a small splint in its wake. The reflector who I am now happy to have called my friend collapsed in a heap, He didn’t scream, didn’t groan, didn’t weep, didn’t even make a sound as his breath left and disappeared with his life.
I uneasily sat back on my haunches, holding his horn in my hooves, and the queen walked towards me. She looked as if she were impressed by what I had done, but I didn’t care about anything at the time. I realized in my state that the only reason why she gave me a choice to begin with was because I was useful to her and my friend wasn't. Those who were useful lived while those weren't were deemed as sinners, and died off.
“You seemed to have known him haven’t you, heretic?” Smirking and without genuine interest, she waited for my response. My voice was dead and cold by the time I answered.
“His name was Artemus, and he was an astronomer. I remember when he was captured and brought here for assimilation. I remember it so clearly now. We’ve been roommates and friends ever since.” I continued to look down at the horn in my hooves, ignoring the queen’s existence. My brothers and sisters just continued to look on, their faces lacking any sort of emotion. “We’re free, Artemus. Aren’t you happy about that? At long last, we’re free...”
