Chapter 1: *The Hive*
The Hive was always bustling and chaotic, but today was even more so, not that Chitin noticed that much. "Mother, why must we try again so soon?" she called out after a much taller changeling, who carried herself with a regal air as she quickly strode down one of the thousands of resin-coated corridors that connected the various rooms of the Hive. "There must be some way other than needless fighting!"
Chitin's mother abruptly turned around and looked sternly at her. "Chitin," she started. "While I may be your mother, I am also the Queen of The Hive, and you still need to respect me as such."
"Besides," the Queen added as she curtly turned and continued down the slightly curving corridor. "I have tried numerous times to make truce with those wretched ponies, and every attempt was met with relentless persecution."
"But, Mother," Chitin began, but another stern look from the Queen stopped her.
"You best not meddle in these matters, Chitin," the Queen stated clearly. "When you take on the role of Queen in my wake, perhaps then you will see the futility of befriending those vain, extravagant monsters of the surface."
Chitin stifled a huff of annoyance, instead opting for a stiff bow. "As you command, Queen Chrysalis."
Chrysalis narrowed her green, cat-like eyes, sensing her daughter's poorly concealed emotions. "Go to your classes. I have important matters to take care of." With that, she buzzed her insectoid wings, rising into a vertical passageway that led to the center of the Hive.
Chitin stood there for a while, watching as the drones buzzed by her at the busy intersection, going about the daily routines of keeping The Hive functioning. She finally turned and flew down another corridor, buzzing her wings just a bit louder than normal.
"Now, you nymphs have learned all that you need to know about transformation, and the knowledge and skills that go along with it," said Chitin's rather elderly teacher, Lacewing.
Chitin was seated with her back to the edge of a shimmering pool of water that refracted the green light of bioluminescent fungi growing on the small cavern's ceiling. To the sides of Chitin were seated several other young changeling nymphs, all within several years of adulthood.
"When I approach you, show me your best transformation!" Lacewing exclaimed to the group.
The first nymph in line flashed his horn and was briefly engulfed in a green flame. When the flame dissipated, a brown-coated blue-haired unicorn colt sat in his place. His irises were the same turquoise-blue as a changeling's eyes.
"Why hello, there little foal, what is your name?" Lacewing asked in his most kind pony-like voice, which was likely nothing like the real thing.
"Um..." The foal hesitated. "I'm...Growing Sky. I just moved here with my parents from...Manehattan, and I'm very good at...growing...plants?"
Lacewing sighed. "I must commend you for effort, but for a fabricated identity to be believable, it must sound believable." He turned to the other nymphs. "What would you all say was wrong with 'Growing Sky's story?"
"It was freaking retarded," muttered a nymph next to Chitin, eliciting a few giggles from those around her. Chitin, however ignored the snide remark.
"His name and story didn't match up with his appearance," Chitin said boredly. "'Growing' is an earth pony name, and growing plants is an earth pony profession. 'Sky' is a pegasus name. He chose, sadly, to be a unicorn."
Lacewing nodded. "Precisely. What is the first rule of being an Infiltrator?"
"Conformity is our armor against discovery," recited the nymphs unenthusiastically.
"Exactly. By blending in, by conforming to the social norm, we do not garner attention that would lead to our discovery." Lacewing moved on to the next nymph.
"Growing Sky" let his disguise drop instantly, and he hung his head in shame.
Lacewing moved on, and found himself greeting a rather timid-looking pegasus filly, who was a pale grey color with a flowing purple mane. "H-hello mister..." she said in a convincingly frightened tone. If Chitin hadn't been a changeling, she would have been fooled by the display. However, she was a changeling, and thus sensed the absence of emotion to accompany the filly's mask of shyness.
"My name is Sky Flower..." continued the disguised nymph. "I-I'm lost... Can you help me find my mommy?"
Lacewing almost smiled. "A flawless example. Bringing out sympathy from the pony is a simple, yet effective way of earning their trust." He moved on to the next nymph, who was just to the right of Chitin.
The nymph concentrated, letting a wave of green flame roll over him, before looking up expectantly at a slightly amused Lacewing. The nymph had transformed into a large, dopey-looking dog.
"Well, what have we here?" Lacewing chortled. "Very creative. Very creative indeed. If you played your cards right, managed to get adopted as a family pet, you would have a near limitless supply of love and affection."
The dog let out a "Woof!" of appreciation, before Lacewing approached Chitin.
She took a deep breath, her mind racing through details before finally resting on a final product. Within a second, she was a spring green unicorn mare with a red-orange mane and tail, golden eyes, and what appeared to be a flaming lightning bolt emblazoned on her flanks.
"Hello," she said in a cheerful, friendly voice. "My name's Pepper. I'm new here in town, and I don't know where any affordable inns are. Could you point me in the right direction?"
Lacewing thought for a moment. "Hmm, the disguise is bright, but not unheard of, and you've given enough backstory to avoid immediate questions." He paused. "It's subtle enough to be believable."
Chitin nodded, letting the disguise drop. The rest of the nymphs showed varying levels of success, some showed even more skill than Sky Flower, and others failed more miserably than Growing Sky."
"Most of you performed decently. Some of you performed exceptionally," Lacewing commended. "However, 'decently' could endanger not only your personal safety, but the safety of The Hive. Remember this, because if you wish to become a skilled Infiltrator, you must be indistinguishable from pony kind under even the most intense scrutiny. Plan out your backstory, or inconspicuously replace the life of an existing member of society, and harvest the love that is vital to staving off our extinction."
On that note, class was dismissed.
Chitin stared at her warped reflection in the still pond, illuminated by light from more bioluminescent mushrooms.
She looked very different from normal changelings. Like her mother, instead of the dorsal membrane that most changelings had, her head was adorned with something more resembling a mane, and she stood slightly taller than most nymphs her age. Unlike any changeling in The Hive, her eyes were lime green in color, as opposed to the turquoise or aqua tones of most changelings.
"Damn it!" Chitin struck the water angrily, sending a large portion splashing onto her exoskeleton. "Why does it have to be like this?"
Why did her own mother treat her like a simple drone? Why did the ponies have to hoard their precious love and starve the Hive to extinction? Why was she the only one who could see that fighting would only ensure their doom? Why did the Queen not see the solution that seemed so glaringly obvious?
Chitin stared at the dying ripples of the pond, and an idea began to form in her head. A terribly stupid one, but an idea nonetheless. No changeling was willing to put aside the centuries-old grudge between the two species.
None, that is, but Chitin.
If she couldn't show the Hive, she needed to show the ponies. There was only one way to do so: she needed to infiltrate pony society.
However, she was not ready. She needed to hone her skills, build up strength, and then, she would be able to survive outside the Hive, and maybe, just maybe, change the world.
One week later, Chitin was woken by the agonized scream of a dying changeling.
It crashed to the ground just outside the entrance of her personal chamber, an immense swathe of its exoskeleton fragmented and caved in, blue blood seeping onto the waxy floor. A swift jab with a sword ended the drone's suffering, and a pony, dressed in regal brass armor stepped into the chamber. Dozens more flooded past the entry, shouting barbaric war-cries as they clashed with changeling warriors.
Chitin scrambled to her hooves and backed away from the pony warrior, shaking in fear.
"What's the matter, Changeling? Not suck enough love out of somepony recently?" the stallion chuckled sadistically.
"S-stay back!" Chitin warned unconvincingly, pointing her scythe-like horn at the pony.
The pony looked amused. "Oh, please, what are you-" he was cut off as a changeling warrior drove his horn into the back of the stallion's skull, silencing him for good.
"Princess, come with me. We must get you and the queen to safety," the warrior chittered, taking the form of the stallion he had just slain.
Chitin nodded, she, too taking the form of the royal guard, but with enough adjustments to make her form look different.
They had traveled all of twenty yards down the tunnel before the warrior was blindsided by magical crossfire, killing him instantly. Chitin yelped in shock as she scrambled out of the way, her disguise failing. More bolts of magic flew between a handful of changelings and a group of several unicorn guards.
A changeling drone made a mad dash to the cluster of unicorns, screaming at the top of his lungs as bolts of magic cracked and chipped his exoskeleton, before ramming into the tight group. With a flash of his horn, the changeling violently exploded into a ball of green flames, reducing the unicorns to little more than bits of charred bone and metal.
Chitin got on her hooves in a daze, the concussive wave from the explosion having rocked her senses. She stumbled down the corridor, getting ever closer to the center of the Hive. Ever closer to her mother. She passed the lifeless body of a nymph, barely a year past hatching, and choked back a sob as she continued on.
A pegasus pony appeared in front of Chitin, but she was galloping to fast to stop, so she barreled into him, knocking them both to the ground.
“Gah! Stupid insect!” the pegasus growled as he picked his sword up in his mouth, and raised it high above Chitin, ready to plunge it into her chest. In a fit of terror, she delivered a strong buck to the stallion’s chestplate, sending him reeling several feet clutching the wound painfully.
Chitin took this chance to scramble to her hooves once more, but found herself blocked by more guards. She immediately pivoted to run the other way, but two other pony guards had arrived on the other side of the corridor.
She was trapped.
“YOU WRETCHES SHALL NOT HARM MY DAUGHTER!” screamed a voice from behind the guards at one end of the corridor, who were quickly incinerated by a bright green flame. Before the plume of fire was even fully dissipated, three needle-like bolts of green changeling magic lanced straight through the remaining guards on the other side of the tunnel, and they dropped to the ground like ragdolls..
Through the smoke emerged a battered, but alive Queen Chrysalis. “My child!” she half sobbed, have exclaimed, emotions of relief, happiness, fear and sadness pouring unrestricted from her body. She brought her daughter in a tight embrace, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I was so worried...I don’t want to lose you, the only good thing I’ve brought to the Hive.”
Chrysalis pulled away, looking at a shocked Chitin with sad, hopeless eyes. “I have failed, Chitin. I have brought nothing but death and famine to the Hive, and now the ponies are here. You must run, escape. Do what you know is right. Find a way to save our kind. You are the only one who knows a-”
The tip of a sword erupted from the broken Queen’s throat.
“NO!” wailed Chitin in shock and despair, as the lifeless body of Chrysalis slumped into her hooves.
The unicorn wielding the sword wiped the blue stain off of his sword with little more than mild disgust, his beige coat hidden under a royal white and gold uniform. His apathetic red eyes, which were the same color as his well-groomed mane, seemed to regard Chitin as little more than one would regard an insect, which, in a sense, she was.
Chitin sobbed uncontrollably as she held the body of her mother close to her. The princess's hooves were blue with blood, and her tears flowed like hot rivers down her cheeks. Chitin regretted every moment that she had even thought of hating her mother. With all her faults and shortcomings, Chrysalis was always there when Chitin needed her to be. While appearing to be the distant, uncaring Queen of the Hive, deep down, Chrysalis was always doing everything she could for Chitin, despite her role as Queen.
And now, she was dead.
“It was Queen Chrysalis who turned down our offer of peaceful submission,” said the unicorn at last, his voice just as uncaring and devoid of emotion as his eyes. “Seeing as you are now the new Queen of what is left of her Hive, I will extend the offer to you: surrender yourself and your subjects peacefully, or face systematic extermination.”
Chitin looked up at the pony standing there, acting and speaking as if he hadn’t just cold-heartedly murdered her mother right before her very eyes. She felt rage building in her, and she was practically quaking with the emotion.
“You…” she hissed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “WHY DID YOU DO THIS!? WHY CAN’T WE JUST LIVE IN PEACE AND HARMONY? ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU PONIES STRIVE FOR?” Chitin sobbed. Only a distant part of her mind registered that, in this one sick moment, she had become Queen. Queen of what? she thought sardonically. Queen of nothing? Queen of a few dozen half-dead drones?
“I don’t hear an answer,” the unicorn stated, absently looking at a golden pocket watch he had produced from his uniform.
Chitin thrust out her front hooves. “Take me,” she hissed venomously. “There’s no point in fighting if it’s just going to be a slaughter.”
The unicorn snapped shut the watch with a resounding CLAP. “Excellent. I see you have much more sense than your mother.”
It took every ounce of Chitin’s self-control not to rip the unicorn apart.
“Bind her, round up the last changelings and cart them off to Canterlot,” the unicorn ordered the troops behind him as he departed down the tunnel towards the surface. “Exterminate those who put up a resistance.”
Chitin sat dejectedly in the back of an armored carriage, two Equestrian soldiers accompanying her and the other Changeling, who was sitting across from her.
“[Do you speak the Lingish?]” asked the other changeling in a series of chitters and clicks.
“[Yes, I do,]” she replied sadly.
The guard next to the changeling eyed her suspiciously. “What was it saying?” the mare asked threateningly.
“He said ‘I am terribly sorry for your loss, your majesty,’” Chitin lied.
“Why doesn't he just speak Standard?”
Chitin looked at the guard cynically. “Do you expect a drone to know something as complex as Standard?”
The guard looked as if she wanted to say something, but she held her tongue.
“[The guard next to you is a changeling,]” the changeling told her. "[When he gives us the signal, put up the strongest shield you have.]"
"Thank you," Chitin said to the changeling in order to keep up appearances.
Suddenly, a strong wave of anxiety and excitement flooded from the guard next to her: the signal.
Chitin and the changeling instantly enveloped themselves in translucent green bubbles as the disguised changeling revealed himself, before promptly exploding.
Chitin was falling. All she could see was green, and then the black of night. The blast had shattered her shield, but left her relatively unharmed. She noticed the coolness of an early autumn rain, and her vision was suddenly lit by a flash of lightning.
As if a switch was flipped, she could see again.
She was falling, the wreckage of an armored carriage tumbling down with her. The shield had drained what little energy she had, and left her with barely enough to move, let alone transform.
She buzzed her wings. To her horror, the rain bogged them down too much to fly. That was when she started screaming.
Something slammed into her side, knocking the breath from her lungs, but carrying her weight. She looked to the side to see the changeling from before carrying her, partially transformed so that he had the wings of a pegasus.
Before Chitin could utter so much as a 'Thank you,' the changeling's transformation failed, and they both plummeted the remaining twenty feet to the ground.
Pain blossomed in Chitin's back when she landed, and she tumbled several yards from the momentum, before laying still.