I groaned, and opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was grey. Grey walls, grey ceiling, grey floor. I saw light grey bars, blocking another wall of grey.
Because of all the grey, the smell of stone and steel, and the events that happened before I got here, I guessed that I was in the Canterlot dungeons.
I knew very little about what happened exactly. Queen Chrysalis told us to go feed. That meant that everything on her list had gone well. She had planned for ages about how this would go. She would kidnap the Princess and hide her in the crystal caverns, before taking her form. A drone had pointed out how she... wasn't the best actress. The Queen decided to set the light insult aside, as her plan for her acting was to blame it on stress, and get Twilight Sparkle suspicious also. If Shining Armor suspected anything, she would have to use magic to cover up her bad acting - pardon the light insult, My Queen - which would damage Shining Armors mind, but this plan had to work. The final step... was to kill Princess Cadence. And here's where things started to go wrong...
Queen Chrysalis intended to make Twilight so incredibly suspicious, that when she was sent down to the caverns, she would kill the real Cadence, leaving Queen Chrysalis and Shining Armor to get married, and then take over Canterlot when Queen Chrysalis revealed who she really was. The drones - including myself - were to chip away at Shining Armor's shield spell, and then disable the other Elements of Harmony, and assist with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Then, when everything was taken care of, we would go to feed, and get as much love as possible from the most likely terrified ponies in Canterlot. Then, Queen Chrysalis would announce her rule over Equestria, making it into a large hive, and once the ponies were more calm around Changelings, we would become the strongest hive on the planet.
The plan seemed so perfect: What went wrong?
'Are you alright, My Queen? I must ask you something.' I called over the Hivemind. This also properly set me on the Hivemind again, allowing me to hear the conversations on it, and the Queen's response.
'Everyling seems alright, though our hive is in worse state then ever before. We will surely be attacked while the hive is weak... Where are you, Keero?' Queen Chrysalis asked me. I was worried greatly about the hive's survival now.
'I am still in Canterlot, My Queen. I believe the Emotional Blast knocked me into a wall, hard, and I was captured. I think I am in the Canterlot dungeons, Your Highness. Should I attempt an escape, or stay put?'
My Queen sighed. 'Stay put. You are the thirteenth drone to report that they are in the dungeons. It would be best that you contacted them. Try and stay healthy, as well. Walk around, treat your injuries as best you can. Stay alive, Keero.'
'Yes, My Queen.' I finished, and sat up. I immediately cringed. Everything hurt badly, the side effects of smashing into a wall, I suppose.
I rolled over and put my hooves on the ground, the familiar light click, click sound of my chitin hooves making me feel a little better, emotionally at least. Though I still hurt all over, and I took a quick look at myself. I cringed again when I saw new cracks along my chitin, though my armored shell protected all that it covered. My left wing hurt horribly, and I looked to see it bent a bit at an odd angle. No flying, then. I sighed.
I took a few steps forward though it hurt. I looked around, and I realized that it was definitely a dungeon cell. A bed, a bench, a toilet, a barred wall with a locked steel door. It just screamed 'prison' to me.
I sighed, and gave the air a sniff, smelling for emotions. There was a difference between normal smelling and smelling for emotions. Ponies didn't have that ability, but Changelings like me could change what we smelled, able to flip between normal smell and emotional smell. I was rewarded with an emotion of annoyance, coming from the left side of the bars, and a smell of light fear, coming from the right side of the bars. Guards, I guessed. I gave a small cough, though they probably already knew I was awake. Neither seemed to move, though the slightly afraid guard gave a whiff of curiosity and his fear increased a small bit.
"Hello?" I finally said, "Do either of you care that I'm awake?"
The annoyed guard sighed, and the afraid guard just got a little more afraid, and a little more curious. "Go get the Princess," the annoyed guard told him, "and tell her the armored bug is awake."
"Yes, Sir!" said the other guard, and he headed off to... get the Princess, I guess. That scared me a little. I also guessed that the annoyed guard was of a higher rank.
He walked in front of the bars so I could see him. "Listen up, Bug. The Princess is going to ask you a few questions, and you're going to answer them correctly and truthfully. We decided to ask you the questions first, as you look like you're the highest rank of all the insects we have here. Got it?"
I paused. 'Queen Chrysalis, they are bringing in Princess Celestia to ask me a few questions. The guard is making is sound like if I don't answer truthfully, they will bring harm to me or another drone. Should I answer truthfully, or lie?'
She seemed to consider this. '...Tell the truth. On every question they have to ask. It could potentially save the hive, as ponies are very forgiving creatures, and if they realize that we may die, they might save us.'
And so, I answered. "Yes."
The afraid guard returned, and told both me and the annoyed guard that Princess Celestia was calling the other two Princesses, Shining Armor, and Twilight Sparkle here, so they could ask their own questions as well. It only made me more nervous. I was going to face three alicorns and two incredibly strong unicorns... on my own. And so, I worried.
A few minutes later, the three Princesses and the two unicorns walked into the room without any warning. I was a little startled, but quickly relaxed, knowing that they weren't going to hurt me-
SLAM!
-and yet, I jumped back and made a surprised sound when Shining Armor charged up and slammed his hooves against the bars angrily, making a loud CLANG sound fill the dungeon. I could smell the surprise and fear of everyone else in the room, but just barely, as Shining Armor's anger was hard not to smell.
"Why did you attempt to invade Canterlot?! Why did you bugs kidnap my wife?! Wh-"
"Shining Armor." Princess Cadence said, interrupting his shouts of anger. Shining Armor seemed to relax, the anger dying down a little. But not by much.
When everything was quiet again, Princess Celestia cleared her throat. "I am Princess Celestia, and this is Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, Prince Shining Armor, and my student, Twilight Sparkle. We have a few questions that we would like answered."
"With all due respect, Princess Celestia, I already know all of your names. Queen Chrysalis made sure that we did so that there would be no confusion later on." I told her. She was a bit surprised, but continued anyways.
"We will all take turns asking you questions. I will go first, then Shining Armor, then Cadence, then Luna, then Twilight."
I tilted my head in confusion. It seemed like a strange order to go in. As if Princess Cadence knew this, she blushed and said, "We drew straws."
"Ah. That makes more sense." There were actually a few laughs from that comment.
"Now, for my question. It is a question that has been asked a lot: Why did the Changelings attempt to invade Canterlot?"
The Queen said that I must answer these completely truthfully. So, I answered, "I believe Queen Chrysalis mentioned this: Changelings are emotivores... we feast on love in all it's forms, though romantic love is the most nourishing. The hive was running rather low on love, and normally the lowest hive gets attacked by the others to get what's left. So, the Queen's plan was to take over Equestria: A place that was completely full of love. Everywhere you go, at least one pony is kind. She wanted to be the ruler, so that changelings and ponies could coexist and live together. We would never go hungry again! Though Changelings and ponies would never quite get along if we invaded, it would work... if the plan didn't fail." Everypony was shocked when they realized that there were other changeling hives.
"I guess it's my turn," Shining Armor said as he approached the bars. I was a little worried he would slam them again, until I realized he was examining me, and asked, "Why do you have more armor then the other Changelings?"
"All drones get jobs that are assigned to them by the Queen. Sometimes, a Changeling is better at their job then average. This makes them assigned to that job permanently, as it would be better if they stayed as what they're good at. A guard or soldier drone gets a larger shell to protect them better in battle, covering their heads like helmets and across their chests too. I am a guard drone."
I waited for Shining's reaction. He tilted his head, and I smelled a bit of curiosity from him. "Huh," he said, "Changelings have a Royal Guard... Who knew."
As Shining stepped back, Cadence stepped up, ready to ask a question.
Author's Note
...aaaaaaaaand I don't know what else to write. So hey, let's make Chapter 1 have two parts! yayyyy!
