The Queen walked throughout the Hive, utterly incensed by the failure of her changelings. They were far too weak, too frail, to properly hold Canterlot. They let a measly wave of love bat them away, as if they were mere insects swatted by a careless hoof. It was their fault! Why could they not be better? Chrysalis ground her sharp teeth together, stomping her hooves hard enough to leave cracks in the cave floor. With a final stomp she unleashed a scream of frustration that echoed throughout the caves.
“AUUUUUUUUUURGH!”
The very foundations of the Hive trembled in her rage, her power. Why couldn’t the other changelings be like her? And she was only a breeding Queen! She was created to found a colony, not fight. Chrysalis paused. She was created, like any other specialized changeling, rather than simply bred like all of the drones. The Queen’s malicious grin grew as ideas began to rush through her mind. Even if the wave of love batted away her and her drones, it had fed them ridiculous amounts of love. Enough to hide and plan for the next two centuries, if need be. But that is not what Chrysalis planned on doing.
Like all species in the world, changelings needed love to reproduce. Unlike the others, which may have only needed a moment’s amount of love or as much as a lifetime’s worth, different amounts of love meant more amounts of additions. A mere speck could easily fertilize a drone’s egg, and a healthy amount of young love in the cocoon would make a sapient drone. Queens, however, like all specialized breeds, needed far more love for their eggs to be fertilized; several decades of what lovers feel for one another, a lifetime of what a mother feels towards her children, centuries of what a loyal subject feels towards a leader…and the entire Hive had a good millennia’s worth to spare.
Blackie hated her name.
Granted, there were over a thousand changelings in the Hive, but only about a hundred had their own names. It couldn’t be helped that the Queen was so bad at original names. The names got progressively worse in the younger generations, Blackie having met a ‘Buggy’, a ‘Junior X’, and even a ‘Blue-Eyes-Black-Changeling’. All in all, she could have been far worse off.
Such as that day, where the Queen had given her the task of harvesting a specific trait of a specific species. It was difficult to extract concepts from living creatures ̶ Blackie pitied the changeling who had to harvest Mercilessness ̶ but at least these creatures lived close enough to the hive in the badlands, and they were particularly ambivalent towards changelings. On the other hoof, the minotaurs were notoriously difficult to be around.
It has only been an hour’s flight before Blackie came across the few telltale signs of a minotaur tribe: the smell of sweat, the heavy grunting, and the occasional abandoned dumbbell. As much as her instincts told her to take a minotaur disguise, Blackie knew that upon entering as a minotaur, she would be challenged. So she took the form of an azure pegasus with a white mane.
She landed in front of the sign that had been placed at the entrance to the village, and squinted at the odd lettering. Whoever had written the sign needed some serious practice.
“Gya…gea…What does that sign say?” Blackie muttered.
“WELCOME TO THE GEIGH VILLAGE!” A voice boomed besides her, eliciting a yipe from Blackie as she jumped in the air. “WHAT BRINGS YOU TO THIS LIFTER’S PARADISE?”
“He-Hello, my name is Azure Cloudmane” Blackie stammered, noticing that she had inherited her mother’s creativity. “I just dropped by to…um…look around.”
“NORMALLY, WE DON’T SEE FEMALES AROUND HERE, BUT YOU SEEM NICE ENOUGH. FOLLOW ME, I’LL GIVE YOU A TOUR. I’M BIG PECS, AND I’LL BE YOUR GUIDE.”
“Tha-That sounds lovely…”
“Y-YOU TOO.”
Blackie tried to look at Big’s face in befuddlement, but he chose to avoid her gaze. Inside the village, Blackie couldn’t help but notice all the minotaurs doing nothing more than…physical activities. Two minotaurs managed to pull up the side of a house, shouting ‘BROJOB, BROJOB!’ before they high-fived each other. Another was bench-pressing a stick with a goat chewing on each end.
“HERE IN GEIGH, ONLY THE FIT EXIST. WE WAKE UP IN THE MORNING FOR GAINS. WE EAT EGGS RAW FOR GAINS. WE GO TO BED AT NIGHT IN A BIG PILE SO WE ALL DREAM OF GAINS.” Big Pecs passed another minotaur, who turned to face him.
“BRO, DO YOU EVEN LIFT?” The newer minotaur asked.
“I DO, THANK YOU.”
“I’M ‘MIRIN.” The other minotaur said as he snapped his fingers and winked. Big Pecs and Blackie continued on their way through the village, as the minotaur watched Big walk away.
“HERE, WE HAVE THE MARKETPLACE, WHERE WE TRADE OUR WARES AND TALENTS FOR OBJECTS AND JOBS.” Blackie was almost instantly assaulted by the clamor of the market.
“I’LL GIVE YOU MY VITAMIN D IF YOU GIVE ME YOUR FISH OIL” A minotaur yelled as he held a box of what was surely prescription medication.
“AY GIRL, ARE YOU A CARPENTER, BECAUSE I’VE GOT SOME HARDWOOD THAT NEEDS SANDING.” A brown minotaur held up a plank of some fine mahogany.
“ARE YOU AN ANTIQUARIAN? BECAUSE I HAVE JUNK THAT HASN’T BEEN TOUCHED IN YEARS!” A blue minotaur held up a beautiful ornamental vase. A black-coated minotaur blocked the path to speak to Blackie.
“ARE YOU AN ARCHEOLOGIST? BECAUSE I HAVE A VERY LARGE BONE FOR YOU TO EXAMINE.” Oddly, the minotaur had nothing in his hands, because they were on his haunches as he held his chin up, like he was proud of something. There was a clattering at the stall besides him, and a dish fell into the dirt, spilling its contents to the ground.
“OH NO!” He cried (in a very bullish way) “MY NOODLES!” Blackie watched on as he tried to scoop up the remains of his meal.
“Shou-Should I help him?” she nervously asked Big.
“NO, THAT HAPPENS A LOT AROUND HERE.” Big answered. “IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE?”
“N-No thank you. I’ve seen enough” Blackie gave a too-wide smile before flying off, leaving a sad Big Pecs behind. She swore she heard him, and a few others say something along the lines of: “THAT FEEL”, but she had the Strength of the Minotaur, which is all she needed.
Meta stood still among the trees of the orchard, observing the object of his Queen’s desires. Here, in the dense foliage, existed the most merciless creature in not just Equestria, but the entire known world. Their wrath was the stuff of legends, bringing famine and misery wherever they went.
Meta shivered as he saw the creatures go about their work. Their mad, yellow eyes. Their crooked, diseased claws. Their sharp, sharp fangs. They flew about, latching onto their victims and draining them dry, before spitting their innards out onto the cold, hard ground.
“NOOOOOOO!” A pony yelled. He came galloping to the orchard, only to stop at the remains of the victims. “My poor trees!” he cried, cradling the seeds that the bats had left. “My Da died planting this orchard, and now you’re ruining it!” A vampire fruitbat flew in front of his face and spit a seed in his eye. “AUGH! My eye! Now how am I going to work so I can finally afford treatment for my daughter?”
Meta watched, his cold heart wrenching as he saw a filly in a shoddy wheel support for her back legs approach. On the way, she bumped into no less than four and a half trees.
“Daddy? What’s going on, is everything okay? You have to tell me since I’m blind.” The observing changeling stifled a sniff at the sight, his eyes moistening.
“No! Sad Backstory, go back to the house, you might get hurt!” the stallion exclaimed. In response, the vampire fruit bats swarmed and buried the poor little filly in seeds. “NOOOO! Sad, my little filly!” A dog with only three legs came hobbling out of the house towards the stallion, before it too was buried in a storm of seeds. “NOT NINA ALEXANDER TOO!”
Meta suppressed a sob at the sight of the annihilation of all that the stallion loved in the world. Truly, the vampire fruit bats were the most merciless creatures in the world. And they weren’t done yet. A grand majority of the bats landed atop of a rotting branch that had conveniently grown atop a well-cared for tombstone. Naturally, the big branch cracked and fell onto the tombstone, demolishing it.
“NOOOOO!” The stallion blubbered as tears streamed down his face. “Not my wife’s grave!” He stumbled over to the broken tombstone and tried to piece it together. “Come on, Final Nail,” he sobbed, “Let’s get this fixed up.” Meta could take no more. He flew off, wailing, filled to the brim with the Mercilessness of the vampire fruit bats.
Blue limped out of the gryphon courthouse, aching everywhere. Everything was in pain, she was completely out of bits, and she had wasted so much time. Those nuts, bolts, and other fasteners that they threw around were really painful! But she had managed to procure Gryphon Justice.
Nevertheless, gryphon justice screwed everyone.
Chrysalis leered as the three changelings pooled the concepts that would give her warrior the strength to annihilate Canterlot. Mercilessness to give no quarter. Or dime. Or even a penny. Strength, to crush all those before her, like bu…like empty soda cans. And Justice, to seek to right the wrongs ponykind had inflicted upon the changelings. The three pushed the concepts into the giant egg sac, watching it coalesce into the black shadow that was curled up inside.
And while her three changelings fetched the necessary ingredients to form the psyche, Chrysalis herself molded the body…a body designed to strike fear into the hearts of all the creatures on the planet. The Queen smiled and gave it love, more love than a drone, more love than a specialist, more love than she herself had received in her egg. The energy seeped through the egg membrane and the child absorbed it all greedily. Steadily, the green glow thrummed and brightened…until it turned off completely. The six changelings looked at the cocoon, blank stares on all of their faces. Of course, it was normal for two of the Queen’s guards to have that expression, lacking sapience and all.
Meta approached the cocoon. “Maybe it’s a dud?” He gave a meek smile as he leaned on the membrane.
CRACK!
A black appendage burst from the sac and sent Meta flying down the hall and into pupa ward, where he would be forcefully conscripted by a few angry nurses into working. The black shape slid out of the hole it had torn, still covered in green mucus. Slowly, it rose up, and the Queen looked on with giddy eyes.
It was covered in a tight chitin throughout most of its body, save around its eyes and mouth, but left its muscles apparent. It rose further until it was only standing on its odd back legs that promised agility and endurance. Its small eyes shone with intelligence as it scanned the room, but its pointy ears remained unmoving atop its head. Its wings had malformed, joining into one and stuck at the nape of its neck, flowing in some heroic and nonexistent breeze. It moved its mouth about, showing off its omnivorous dentition (Chrysalis was quite proud of that trait; it would strike fear into not only meaty animals, but any leafy animals that may have existed).
“I…I…”
“Yes, yes…” praised Chrysalis as she marveled her creation.
“I’M BATMAN” he shouted before pulling a grappling hook from…somewhere…and shooting it off into the darkness, only to zoom after it. Three changelings looked after it, gaping. The Queen turned to look at Blue, who was trying hard not to sit down on her aching flanks.
“Hm.” Chrysalis noted. “Perhaps that was a bit too much Justice.”
Author's Note
There's a reason I didn't tag this as a crossover or human. That would have been a spoiler to this story I came up after having old fridge pizza at 2 a.m.
No raegrets.
