The Hive Masters

by Lambdanitro

Rating: everyone
Tags: Queen Chrysalis, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Changelings, Original Character, Comedy
Length: 2823

After Queen Chrysalis' failure to invade Equestria, she and her husband, King Metamorphosis, have an argument, during which they realize just how much their Hive had changed over past centuries. Nostalgia ensues.

What is a changeling? A worker bee, or a soldier ant, nothing more. Fine physical strength, unique magical ability to shapeshift and no personality whatsoever. Just a loyal cog in the machine, expendable and dumb.

Queen Chrysalis and King Metamorphosis suddenly notice that their changelings are not like that at all. A modern changeling is an individuality, with an ability to think, to feel and to dream. The royal couple didn't even notice when their Hive became a kingdom. The only thing they can do at the moment is sit back and recall the pleasant memories.

***

Written for Flash Fiction Event #5

Published 2013-07-29 16:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-29 16:40:02 UTC

The Story

The Queen Bee and her Hive
by Lambda Nitro

“Well, excuse me!” Chrysalis pouted. “I didn’t know you were too much of a wussy to go and invade the peaceful country!”

“Well, excuse me!” Metamorphosis puffed his chest. "I wasn't such a foalish idiot to go on a suicide mission, which you did! Let me remind you who has more experience in invading peaceful countries!"

"You can shove your experience..."

"No, you listen here for a moment, honey!" he interrupted her with an unnatural vigor. "There's a reason why we haven't invaded Equestria. Not even once in our long and, hopefully, happy life!"

"Which is?"

"The magic of love," he replied simply.

She opened her mouth, but closed it. Then she opened and closed it again. Poor Queen was at a loss.

"That's just ridiculous!" she finally said. "It's just like saying I was defeated by..." She scratched her chin. "The magic of sandwich!"

"Oh, but what's there not to believe? You witnessed it yourself. When there's a very strong and, dare I say, magical love, it can give ponies power. Enough power to, for example, kick your butt."

"Hey, my butt wasn't kicked! It was a... A strategic retreat!" she said, wounded by the assumption.

"Yes, that was a very clever move," King smiled.

"Anyway, this is just nonsense!" she regained her 'I-don't-buy-this' voice. "I can't be beaten by something which I, basically, eat!"

"Oh, honey, what makes you so sure?" A mischievous smile crept up King's features.

"No. No way! Don't make this face, Morphie, no!" Chrysalis shouted.

"Why's that, Chryssie? I just find your refusal to believe the obvious quite amusing," He grinned wider.

Chrysalis let out an incoherent growl and a puff of steam out of her nostrils, which was met by a burst of laughter.

"Don't laugh at me when I'm mad!" she screamed, slamming her hooves on the floor so strong, that the walls shook a little.

"Wasn't me, love," King answered.

She looked around. A loud debate attracted a mob of about two dozen changelings, who were staring from all around the throne room. The Queen could've sworn she'd seen some Hive Bucks being passed around.

"AND WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!" she barked. "SCRAM!" The changelings suddenly dissolved, but not without some chuckles. "Idiots," she harrumphed. All her royal wrath was suddenly gone and was replaced by mild irritation. "I can't believe we made them like that, Morphie, I just can't."

"No, we didn't. Centuries of mutations did," her husband replied. "I remember the first generation. Loyal like a dog, all of them. And so dumb they didn't even think of second-guessing my order to put out the fire in the volcano," he laughed a little. "Shame they were so sensitive to heat."

"Oh, oh, remember that seventh generation that was so strong, that it nearly wiped out all life on this planet? Had to hunt them all down ourselves. Oh-ho-ho, like it was yesterday..." Chrysalis couldn't help, but join his laughs.

"Yes, hon. Good old times." He nuzzled her tenderly and got the similar response.

"Good old times of playing gods..."

"Chryssie? Chryssie, you there?" Metamorphosis, a young alicorn buck with a glorious lime mane poked his head into the biolab and found his fiance Chrysalis asleep on the desk in a pile of clipboards and sticky notes. "There you are!" He smiled and gently levitated her on his strong back. "Gotta get you to the bed now..." he whispered and carried her all the way upstairs from the labs and into their personal quarters. She was so tired from constant research that she didn't wake up even once.

When laying her down on the bed, Metamorposis saw a sticky note on her cheek. She must've slept on it for quite a while, because it took a little effort to detach. He chuckled a little and floated it closer to read.

Check b.14 possible success
Discard b.2 100% fail
Shopping list: Tomatoes, green onions, lots of cheese, fuel for cold fusion power plant got this yesterday, smokes for Scrubs (camel light), beer for M.
I know you're reading these, you <3

After he set her all comfy on the bed, he decided to follow her instructions, but first, he cleaned up her desk and stuck all the sticky notes back onto the wall. They were mainly outdated, but they could be useful for future reference. Batch Two went down into the processing block. He looked carefully at each and every little body, but they were either dead or so deformed that they couldn't possibly be of any use. Then he went to Batch Fourteen, writing down the time of Batch Two's 'flush', as they called it, in a special journal.

Batch Fourteen was no different from batch two, except maybe a less unnerving deformation rate. Metamorphosis just had his hoof above the 'flush' button, when he saw it.

A foal.

No, it was not a perfect match. But it was alive and much less deformed. Its pink skin wasn't ragged, there were no bubbles in its eyes, no rejected internal organs, no bony outgrowth. It was so unbelievably bald and skinny he could mistake it for a rat, but for its hooves. He carefully took the glass canister in his telekinetic grasp and floated it onto the automated life support capsule. Now the unborn was safe and monitored. All the other abominations in Batch Fourteen went down into the hellfire of the processing block.

Batches Five to Nine had 100% dead rate, all the others didn't have any successful specimens. He hit 'flush' with no remorse again and again and the whole 'plantation' of red glass canisters went downstairs to be cleaned of any organic material and reused again for future Batches.

"Are you done here?" he heard a cranky voice behind him. Scrubs, the lab janitor, stood there and smoked her awful Camel Lights, the smell of which followed Metamorphosis in his nightmares.

"What are you doing here, Scrubs? It's not your shift yet, is it?" he asked.

She took a drag and extended her foreleg to a huge chronometer on the wall. 07:49.

"Gosh, look at the time! You're actually late!" he smiled.

"Yeah, yeah," she said and coughed. "Just scram, Morphie, I gotta clean this 'fore you turn it into a pig house."

"Okay, just don't touch Chryssie's table, okay?" he said, taking his journal and hanging the lab coat near the door.

"Whatever. Get outta here," she spat the cigarette butt into her water bucket and took a broom into her teeth.

"Morphie, sweetheart, did you recover the genetic material from Specimen Primus?" Chrysalis sang as she flew into the laboratory.

"Yep. Processing the data as we speak," he nodded at the computer. "Though I can't help but notice it's a very good coincidence, rather than scientific progress."

"And why's that?" She gave him a sweet I-just-ate-a-cupcake kiss.

"Well, the DNA is nothing I've ever seen. You remember all the other Batches, right? This... It's just something very different. I can't remember synthesizing any of it. It does not match any of the parent material. I... I think it's a mutant," he said in an unsure tone, licking the icing from his lips. "But this mutant came closer to a pony than any other Batch."

"But it's bald, isn't it?" she inquired.

"Not 'it'. 'He'. Specimen Primus is a male," Metamorphosis corrected her.

"Oh. I see now," she said, looking at the Life Support Capsule more carefully. "Do you think we can synthesize something like this again? Maybe reshuffle something to get some hair. No?"

"But honey, I think our primary target now is the source of all this mutation. You see, if it's some environmental condition, it may affect all the future Batches," he said, sweeping some papers into a trash can. "Though I don't know what it could've been. A random mutation seems far more likely... I'll think about it," he promised.

"You work too hard, sweetie," she took his face in her hooves and put his glasses off. "Look, why don't we take a day off and then think about it with refreshed brains? I think that'd be great," Chrysalis said.

"Whatever you say..." He sighed. "I just don't know if I can let this all go, even for a day. It's too important to me."

"Of course you can, love!" She gave him a lick on the nose. "Let's just do everything aside from research. Leave the lab to Scrubs."

"All right... I suppose we can do grocery shopping, right? That note you wrote me yesterday, remember it?" He smiled enthusiastically.

"See?" The mare smiled too. "Let's go! Fetch the wallet, would you?"

"Look at them! All similar and fully functional!" Chrysalis said, looking at about twenty ponies. They all looked exactly the same, were bald and didn't have any cutie marks. Their eyes, for some reason, were deep cyan and didn't have irises at all.

"They are kinda creepy. Can they understand us?" Metamorphosis looked at them too.

"Yes, they can," Chrysalis said. "Listen up, everypony!" They all looked at her. The blank faces didn't show any emotion or thought. "Make one step forward and one step back!" They obeyed, but their faces remained blank.

"Do they think? Anything at all?"

"No, I guess not."

"Self-preservation instinct?"

"Never checked."

"Well," the stallion took control in his hooves. "Everypony! Hey!" They slowly looked at him. "Go and put the fire out in the volcano!" He stretched his hoof towards the window, behind which, a glorious volcano stood in the distance.

They kept looking at him for about a second and then, all of them synchronously marched towards the door with an 'Exit' sign on it.

"They totally creep me out!" he complained.

"Same here. Do you think we should do something about those eyes? I have all their DNA samples."

"No, the eyes are pretty neat. It's those blank faces and no emotion whatsoever. They could've at least said something," he whined.

"Stop whining like a baby!"

"I'm not whining!"

"You do!"

"No, I don't!"

"Scrubs!" Chrysalis called. "Scrubs! Are you in here?" She turned around a table, filled with papers and saw the mare playing some game on her hooftop PC. "Scrubs! There you are!" She approached the janitor and tapped her on the back. "Are you done?"

"Huh?" She looked up from her (as Chrysalis observed) 92x combo and turned her head around towards the scientist. "W-what are you talking about?"

"What do you... Wait a minute... You don't smell of those awful cigarettes!"

"Well, duh! I don't smoke, all right? I mean, it's, like, swag and junk, but my grandma died of lung cancer... And... Her name was Scrubs!" The mare gasped. "Y-you mean, like, you knew her?"

"Um... Uh... Grandma? You mean you're Scrubs' granddaughter?" Chrysalis looked at the lab chronometer, or, to be more precise, at the place where it used to be. "I remember a chronometer being there! What happened to it?"

"There never was a chrome-whatisit! At least, as long as I work here. What are you talking about?"

"Excuse me for a moment, please. Wait, what's your name?" Chrysalis asked nervously.

"It's Mop Blanket, ma-am!"

"Nice to... Argh! Morphie! Morphie, sweetheart, what year is it?" Chrysalis ran towards the staircase.

"Look at the chronometer, darling!" Came an answer from upstairs.

"There is no chronometer!" She screamed at the brink of panic.

"Oh! Right! We burnt it with all this reactor overdrive the other day! They said, the new one is going to be delivered next week!"

"Morphie, please, I need to talk to you! Now!" The alicorn mare was almost screaming her lungs out.

"I can't believe it," Chrysalis finally managed to say.

"Nor can I," her husband responded.

"I mean, duh! You been working your butts off since I remember myself. Going months without sleep on that hydra blood or whatever is it you drink."

Metamorphosis looked at the crimson bottle in the closet across the room with disgust. "At least we managed to hatch the fourth generation. Do you think they're smarter than the third one?"

"Yes, they are!" Chrysalis answered enthusiastically. "They all are showing huge progress. Even their shells are growing much faster than the previous generation's!"

"This is really good to hear."

"Yes. And guess what Batch?.."

"Guys, you do that 'creepy eyes' thing again!" Mop Blanket said and coughed.

"What?" they both asked.

The janitor groaned. "Go into your bedroom or something! Look at yourselves in the mirror! Seriously, guys! Come on! You talk like you've never did it!"

"Sweetheart, do you know when this happened?" Chrysalis asked. Her tears were still present on Metamorphosis' shell.

"No idea," he answered somberly.

"But how could we... Mutate like that?"

"No idea," he said again.

"Why do we look like our Batches?"

"No idea."

"Why haven't we noticed?! We've been looking on each other all the time!"

"No idea, darling."

"We have to check things out!"

"Yeah."

"No, Morphie! Not 'yeah'!" Chrysalis suddenly shouted and bolted upright. "You get off your butt and do it now! We've been putting things off ever since the beginning of our research!"

"Whatever you say, honey," he said and stood up.

"Oh, please, don't be so indifferent! You behave like those first gen clones!" She pushed him in his armored chest.

"Oh yeah?" He looked down at her angrily.

"Oh yeah!" She hissed through her sharp teeth.

"We'll see about that!" He growled. "I'm gonna uncover the mutation mystery faster than you!"

"Don't act like a baby! Besides, I'm gonna do it first!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah!"

"Whose idea was this?" Metamorphosis shouted, pointing his hoof at the cold fusion power plant in the basement like it was to blame for all the wrongdoings in the world. "Whose? Damn? Idea?"

"Well..."

"'Well' what? You'd think if you install a small nuclear power plant emitting radiation all over the place you'd at least reinforce the walls!" He stomped the concrete floor angrily. "Idiots!"

"So... What now?" she asked.

"And what can we do? Now we take over the world, of course!" He grinned maniacally, to be soon joined by Chrysalis and the rest of their changeling minions. "I proclaim myself a King and my loving wife, Chrysalis, I proclaim my Queen!" And the legion of onyx changeling bowed to him and they kissed deeply and passionately and then went on a quest to claim all the world theirs and lived happily ever after.

"Well, the last part was totally not true!" Queen Chrysalis laughed. "If I remember correctly, you've been freaking out about the reactor for about three days after that. And it took decades to evolve into something that resembled a changeling. And only then I decided to take a royal title, not you." They lay in their bed, with a half-empty bottle of wine standing on the bedside table.

"Well, my bad! I just didn't want to look bad in front of the crowd," King laughed.

There was a mob of changeling guards listening carefully to a story of the dawn of the changeling race.

"Well, these guys sure do love to eavesdrop, but I never thought they'd be as bold as going into our private chambers," Chrysalis said with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Oh, come on! Give the guys a break!" King said. "It must be so boring guarding us here for all the eternity. Not that anyone's gonna assassinate us, or something." He turned to the guards. "You know what? Get some drinks! I declare this week a Cold Fusion week for no apparent reason! A Kingdom-wide holiday! Go nuts!" He grinned at them. The guards ran away, cheering and throwing spears and chainswords on the ground, hurrying to make the most of their week off.

"What are you doing, Morphie?" The Queen gasped in mock panic. "You're gonna spoil our children!"

"True. But if they are as intelligent as we think they are now, we have to loosen our grip. We don't command the Hive now. We rule the Kingdom! And there's a huge difference between ruling and commanding, you know?"

"I know." She rolled onto him. "But I also know that we're probably the only ones who are still in the castle..."

"Oh, joy! You don't have a headache!" Metamorphosis exclaimed.

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

And they argued happily ever after.

Author's Note

Flash Fiction Event #5, baby. Said to write something about Cheesylegs being happy. Aight, here you are. A short and stupid oneshot about the royal changeling couple and Chryssie being happy in her marriage. Or whatever.

I didn't actually work hard on this. The deadline was too tight for me. If there wasn't any deadline, I'd write something deeper, longer, harder, better, faster and stronger. But eh.