Singular's Demise

by The Psychopath

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Changelings, Original Character, Mystery, Queen Chrysalis, Adventure, Thorax, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 19677

Queen Chrysalis' vengeance didn't take long to find her, for ants aren't confined to single hives, and there are always queens hiding deep within them. These queens, however, do not see too kindly to Chrysalis' failures.

"Currently undergoing revisions"

Chrysalis, after being captured by the blue-purple hive, is given a perfect opportunity to exact her vengeance on Thorax and his 'abstergo changelings'. However, the queens are not as blind and vengeance-hungry as Chrysalis is. They're wary of the traitors to their own species, but they're moreso wary of those surrounding them.

With the discovery of a changeling hive, others have begun to surface as well, but queens all have their own goals and agendas, many with conflicting interests. With the increasing threat of changeling hives at each other's throats, the red hive is not far off.

Check source for art. This person has an amazing art style and coloring methodology.

Published 2018-06-12 22:50:05 UTC
Last updated 2022-08-29 20:15:52 UTC

Not Found by Accident (revised)

Author's Note

For those that know this story, I'm posting the previous two stories' chapters in this one. If the story gets any kind of traction, I'll be willing to resume it and look over the contents again.

Until then, you just get this and some spellchecking.

Not Found by Accident (revised)

Violent winds howled between the crevices of the sharp blades of stone rising from the uneven and dangerous terrain of the barren mountain range interior. Dust and sand were taking being lifted high, filling the air with a sparkling powder reflecting whatever sunlight could come through. They would land far into the distant deserts and beaches of the world, scraping away any plant life attempting to take root within the mountain’s flesh. The mare clambering around the gray skin wheezed at the efforts needed in her exercise. She sat on a flat plate of stone and pulled a water bottle out of her saddlebags and took a drink, making sure to let the water set within her mouth and hydrate her. There wasn't much sunlight due in no small part to the unnatural gray clouds floating high above and spiraling across the landscape. Faint sounds of thunder rumbled across their forms, but there was neither lightning nor any signs of rain. The mare shivered. It was like listening to the death throes of a suffering beast.

Said explorer had a wine-red coat and a mane pale-yellow mane and tail. Her mane was accentuated on its right by a deep blue outline remaining upon the edges. She put her bottle back into her saddlebags and started fumbling through them.

"If I could use my horn to instantly discover the paper, that'd be swell," she mumbled sarcastically to herself. "Where is it?" She pulled a crumbled group of paper and raised high above her head. "Ah ha!" she cheered triumphantly. "Let's see...What rumored brood was I looking for again?" The explorer trailed her hoof down the list then passed to the next page. "A red brood. Right. That's the one the old…thingyelled about." She looked up and shielded her face from another gust of dusty wind. "I heard that there were sightings of changeling-like creatures here." She frowned and put her papers back into her saddle-bags whilst analyzing the surroundings. "Why would they be on the border between Equestria and Prance, though?" The thought marinated a moment. "Does that mean they came from Prance? Maybe they migrated? Does that mean there’s others outside of Equestria?" She gulped audibly and shivered unwillingly.

The climbing was not as fruitful as she hoped, but with the mare being an adventurer, she as still going to have enjoyed a trip along the surface of these mountains. Another bit of thunder reached her ears, this time much louder, but the mare ignored it.

"..."

"Huh?" she said loudly.

The mare shrugged and continued on her way after seeing nothing. Thunder sometimes echoes in empty places like this, so she believed that was throwing her off. She climbed atop a stone mound after kicking the sides of the wall to push herself up and land comfortably on a relatively flat surface, giving her time to breathe. The explorer didn't have time to realize what was happening that the rock under her dissolved and something grabbed her legs and pulled her down into a dark tunnel where she was eventually let go and allowed to tumble about like a piece of paper through an active air duct. When she finally broke through another section, she landed hard on the ground and flopped about due to its elasticity. Her saddlebag's contents were also knocked around and fell down inconsistently.

Taking a moment to reorient herself, the mare realized she was covered in a sangria-colored mucus-like membrane "Ew. Gross!" she complained. Her attempts to remove it were made worse when she realized she was standing in a plethora of the stuff.

She looked around to see she was now in a colossal cavern easily twice the size of Canterlot. Massive stalactites, the size of houses, dangled from the ceiling above and dripped with even more mucus. Most of them were covered in glowing, tiny green pods numbering the hundreds. Below was a large pit comprised of several rings imitating an open-mining zone, and to the top-right of the cave, glowing along most of the wall, was a bright white-yellow moss imitating the light of the sun as best as it could, but it succeeded.

"This is amazing," the mare said. She tried to recover most of her belongings to put back in her bag, but had an unfortunate gag reflex every time she saw a gooey strand of the mucusy substance stretch from the ground. "That's so gross..." She stifled a regurgitation and looked around again. "Where are the changelings?" She remained silent to try and hear buzzing. "Unless they aren't here."

"Oh, they're here alright," an imposing female voice announced.

Two holed black hooves latched onto the edge of the ledge the pony was next to. The owner of the hooves pulled itself up and stared down at the mare from a height that only Celestia had ever done.

"You're a long way from home," the figure mused. She lowered her face to the explorer's. "You weren't trying to find us, but we found you." The figure chuckled.

"Not at all. I was looking for you, in fact," the mare explained.

The figure was taken off-guard. "You what?"

"I'm Honey Blossom, and I was looking for you after hearing rumors about other broods existing." She squeed internally. "Oh, w-wow!" she spoke nervously. "I found a hidden changeling hive! On my first try, too! The rumors were true. There's more hives out there."

The figure grunted in displeasure. The changeling stepped closer to the mare, letting her better see the queen before her. The changeling's body was just as black as Chrysalis', but where that changeling had green, this one had a blue-purple tinge. Depending on the angle, the colors would change from deep-blue to deep-purple and vice-versa. Her mane was shorter than Celestia's, with the right side not going further than her lower-jaw. The right side went past and stopped at chest level, but the ends resembled multiple little insect legs perpetually wriggling thanks to the lighting reflecting off of the black ends. Here eyes were a deep, full shade of violet, and upon her head sat a crooked horn twisted into a hook with its end pointing to her left.

"How did you even know there were other broods?" She walked around slowly while she talked. "We were very meticulous in hiding our existence." Her colorful parts glowed in the dim light, accentuating her eyes, flapping wings, and the purple tip at the end of her horn.

Honey smiled sheepishly. "W-well, I overheard of the rumors after some...no on really knows what he was, but he rambled about knowing Chrysalis and her brood before anypony else discovered them, then--"

The queen shot a look at the mare by bending her head backwards over her shoulder. "Chrysalis?" she repeated. "I know not of this 'Chrysalis', but if she's stupid enough to have revealed herself and her brood to the outside world, then she does not deserve my pity."

The mare scratched the back of her head then pulled it back and stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Well, she IS the one who attacked Canterlot."

"THAT WAS HER?!" the queen bellowed in absolute rage. "No changeling attacks a massive city of food! It doesn't matter how many of us there are. That never works! This is something all queens were taught at a young age."

Squishing noises originating from the mucus filled the caverns. Changelings hiding underneath it started to push out of their camouflage to reveal themselves. Much like their queen, their eyes, wings, tails, and torso had a purple-blue tint to them. Several unhooked themselves from the stone walls and landed next to the pony, causing her to scream in surprise.

"They have claws!"

Some of the changelings looked at each other with confusion, while the queen shook her head. "They're retractable hooks. We live in mountains. We need a way to climb around."

"B-but..." Honey looked at the queen's hooves. "You don't have any."

" 'Retractable'," the queen emphasized. Two hooks folded down from her forelegs then returned. She passed a hoof through her mane then tilted her head to the side. "I suppose you want to know my name since you gave me yours." She frowned.

"T-that would be--" She flinched from a changeling hissing aggressively at her. "That would be nice."

"It's Pronotum."

"That's...not what I expected."

The queen dragged a hoof across her face. She smiled excessively. "Why would you even come here if you thought changelings lived here? Did you expect us to be happy friends?" she suggested in a mocking tone."Changelings don't make goodie-goodie."

"B-but, Chrysalis' old brood became a peaceful hive. They even share the love they receive from others and one of them is even attending a school of friendship!"

The queen was becoming livid. "What exactly is this 'Chrysalis' doing?" she growled through clenched teeth.

"O-oh. They aren't ruled by Chrysalis anymore," Honey said eagerly.

"Oh?" Pronotum put a hoof to her chin and smirked. "They overthrew her?" The queen walked over to a tiny changeling carrying several green sacs and excreted the mucusy membrane from her mouth onto them. She controlled its flow using the mandibles on the sides of said mouth, grossing out her guest. The changeling took off towards the stalactites further away.

"In a way. They followed King Thorax instead, then Chrysalis refused to follow their lead."

"King?" Pronotum's curiosity made way for even more anger and confusion, and she started the pony down. "We don't have kings! Changelings don't have kings! They have queens! The broodmothers! Mine has ME!"

The queen hissed angrily then called her changelings to her. Honey Blossom didn't understand the chittering, but a few dozen of the purple changelings flew through the ceiling and into the hidden tunnels.

"And these rumors originated from whom again? An old...creature?" Pronotum asked.

"Ah, yes," Honey confirmed. "He disappeared after chasing an alleged red changeling into a sandstorm."

"Red changeling?" the Queen's eyes grew wide. "If he found the red hive then he's likely dead."

"Why?"

"The red brood is extremely aggressive on account of their provenance...A jungle of sorts." She coughed and looked away. "Unless it was the red-orange hive, then he most likely ISN'T dead but is just being left alone."

"Really? That other hive sounds very passive." Honey smiled.

"It is." The queen frowned and tugged on her mane. "Well, this certainly complicates things for changelings..." She looked at the mare from the corner of her eyes. "But that leaves us the question of what to do with you." She booped the mare on the muzzle. "We can't very well let you leave."

"Wh-why not? I've got nothing for you. I-I-I just came her to discover the existence of other changelings," Honey explained nervously.

"Mmmm, but now you know we're here, and I shared aaaaaall this information with you. Hmmm..." Pronotum tapped her chin whilst pretending to be in deep thought.

Honey noticed her behavior and that of the other changelings and slowly came to a realization. Color flushed from her face and she started to panic. "Y-you can't--"

"Why not? Nobody would miss you," the changeling queen added. She took a step closer to the boxed-in pony.

"Ponies would come searching for me!"

The queen shook her head. "Except no they wouldn't. We moved in after learning that this mountain is notorious for its disappearances. The chances of a search party are slim." She turned around and pointed to the larger pods on the stalactites. "You'll be put in there."

"Wi--"

"You won't be killed," the queen interjected. "But you won't technically be alive either. You'll have something akin to a dreamless sleep, and we'll be harvesting your love while maintaining your life." She approached very closely to the mare's face. "Now that's a life worthy of ponies like you."

Honey Blossom was knocked out by a drone and stuffed in a cocoon to be taken away by others, leaving Pronotum to mull over the information she acquired.

"They better find that 'Chrysalis' and bring her back here. Her 'dreams' have cost the changelings their centuries of stealth." She looked to her drones. "Go across the mountain range and look for any other ponies. Only make some of them disappear. Hide from the rest. We don't need too many disappearances, after all."

Took Things Too Far (revised)

Pronotum climbed around her hive by using the sangria-colored mucus lining the walls. The massive stalactites held new eggs and the captured ponies meant to feed their hosts when they hatched. While her mind was more laced to the status of her hive, such as new infants, food supplies, and watching for predators like a throos; she had other concerns.

The queen jumped down next to a changeling currently feeding on a pink, luminescent ball of crystallized love after a scouting mission around the mountains. "You. Scout," Pronotum called out. The changeling shoved the orb under its left foreleg and stood to attention. "How have the rocky lands above been?" She paced around the changeling, staring it down with a vicious glare. “Any signs of abnormalities? Parties of ponies or other creatures? Dragons?”

The bug nodded. "In the 74 days since that mare was captured, there have been a number of other ponies trying to look for our brood."

"How many?"

"Twenty-three discovered so far. Three were in groups."

Pronotum fiddled with her mandibles. "Did you capture the couples?" The changeling nodded, and the queen gave a brief smirk. "Good. What about Chrysalis? Has she been found yet? I would have word with her, still."

The changeling grinned. "The hunters sent message that they found her five days ago." The changeling mumbled to itself while it calculated their estimated time of arrival. "They should be here in about an hour, though they told me to warn you that she is quite aggressive."

Pronotum nodded. "Good. At least in that department she still demonstrates the quality of a queen. What about those searching for other broods?"

"They're looking for them, but we have not heard news of any other hives, my queen."

The queen remained silent for a moment "You may resume eating, scout."

"Thank you, my queen," the changeling said. He sat back dawn and started gnawing on the orb like a dog would a bone.

Pronotum lied down next to the changeling and started meditating. She was sensing every possible disturbance she could find along the mountain side closest to the hive. After several hours of impatient waiting, a loud noise echoed through the wide spaces of the blue-purple hive. Chrysalis landed with a thud from the ceiling tunnels onto her weakened hooves.

The blue-purple queen watched Chrysalis' wobbly legs struggle to keep her standing. The changelings that carried her in followed out of the tunnels and hissed at the fallen queen. She saw Pronotum looking at her from 'above' with disdain, her disgust leaking washing over her.

"What do you want?" Chrysalis wheezed.

The opposing queen snorted at her. "Such a sorry display." Chrysalis hissed at her. "Disheveled and thin beyond comprehension for a queen of changelings, even for one putting the well-being of her own hive above her own."

She grabbed the half-eaten orb from her scout and threw it at Chrysalis who eagerly started to gnaw on it. When the scout whined, she told him to go get another, something Chrysalis wasn't too fond of.

"You're letting the drone take MORE love?"

Pronotum stared at her former equivalent. "Yes," she stated blandly. "We have a large surplus of excess love, so drones that distinguish themselves acquire an extra orb of condensed loved if needed." She snorted and looked down at Chrysalis from the corner of her eyes. “Besides, that was my scout’s meal, and he did his job excellently.”

The former queen stopped gnawing on the orb, but her lower jaw did not clamp up. "S-surplus? HOW?!" She jumped up and butted heads with her opponent. "My hive STARVED for YEARS before we could find any food!"

Pronotum pushed back. "So this is what your hive was? Blue-green? And you say you starved?" She scoffed then walked away, letting Chrysalis fall over. "The pieces are setting into place little by little." She grumbled angrily, scaring the drones around. "Hmmm. You still emit the essence of a queen, Chrysalis. You're starting to scare my changelings as much as I do."

"Well, they SHOULD be scared! I'm still a queen!"

"A former queen," she emphasized harshly. "You lost your brood, your home, and your validity." She stood tall in front of the fallen Chrysalis. "You never thought about the well-being of your own hive, and thus you never developed surplus food stocks. Did you even research your prey and their superstitions before setting into a developed city?"

Chrysalis closed her mouth and looked down.

"What? What is this? What are you hiding?"

"We lived in the badlands. It was the safest place."

Pronotum's eyes twitched. "I bet you even made your hive visible to everyone above surface.” When Chrysalis didn’t respond, the queen took on a more stoic tone. "...I see. I'm understanding more and more about your thought patterns, Chrysalis." She paced around the queen and analyzed her disheveled, boney state. "You tried using intimidation tactics, but you didn't plan ahead. You would have been able to get away with that if you were a war-like race of changelings." She booped Chrysalis' muzzle. "But you aren't. You're just a pupa that thinks its status exempts itself from logic."

"Exempt from logic?! I almost had all of Canterlot! I almost owned it all!"

" 'Almost'," Pronotum emphasized with a smile.

"We were defeated by a fluke! By that accursed lavender unicorn. She--"

"Only worked through the flaws in your plans and planning." She wiped her muzzle "Ponies are crafty creatures. Let one loose and they'll find ways of undoing your work." She leaned in closer, letting her mandibles fumble about. "That's why we don't attack major metropolitan areas like that. In fact," She gestured to the stalactites behind her. "we use the rumors and legends of the locals to acquire our 'food'. The ponies come on their own, and if they vanish?" She shrugged. "They weren't supposed to come to this cursed place." Her emotionless face warped with the advent of an immediate, massive smile.

"So you only brought me here to berate me? I'm a joke to changelings everywhere, now?"

"Did you even know there were other hives?" Pronotum snapped. Chrysalis shook her head. "Now you know the answer. It's 'no'. Changeling hives will only contact each other when they find each other and need help, or if they're...outstanding, like the red hive." The other changelings quivered at the sound, and some sank into the mucus to not think of them.

"What was that?" Chrysalis asked. "Why are they so terrified of this 'red hive'."

"Nothing!" the other queen snapped. "The reason I brought you here was to figure out what to do with you now that the world knows changelings are real things and not just rumors that our drones have created over centuries of us living." She pointed at the queen accusingly. "It was your endeavor that exposed us all, and now ponies are trying to find my hive. I even had a few mention this 'King Thorax' and his brood," she noted dismissively. "Whatever that is."

"THORAX!" Chrysalis yelled. "I hate him! He took my hive from me! He destroyed everything, and then Starlight Glimmer." Chrysalis ground her teeth against each other. "She's the one that allowed it all to happen."

"An interesting tale, that you bring in ponies to your failure as a queen," a voice said.

The two queens turned to see that, further down the tunnel opening to the massive cave was another, incoming queen accompanied by Pronotum's changelings. She was vanilla yellow in her traits. The newcomer appeared to be smiling, but looking closer, Chrysalis noticed it was the shape of her lips accentuated by the fangs built into them. This new queen's mane dug into her neck, popping in and out of it to create an interwoven neck cover of golden hue. Her horn stood straight up, but was covered with hundreds of small bumps. Her back and tail were also strange to them; They appeared like a single, solid mass. The mass was ridged, with the elevations pointing away from the queen and towards her tail. Her tail was similar to the two other queens save for it being a third of the length.

"What is this? Another?" Chrysalis noted. She stood up and hissed at the opposing queen. "I don't need more of you insulting me.

The new queen lowered her brows angrily. With a mouth that only displayed smiles, she needed to accentuate her emotions with her eyes. She walked towards Chrysalis and started to hiss with her mouth closed. The two exchanged angered hisses until the new queen started to create a loud grinding noise from her mouth. Both Pronotum and the green-blue queen reeled their heads back in preparation of what was to come; The queen opened her mouth revealing seven rows of teeth in her throat spinning around and screaming as they ground against each other with each rotation. Chrysalis flew back in fear behind Pronotum.

The blue-purple queen laughed. "A fine display for a changeling queen!" The changeling drones around stared with a morbid curiosity at the new arrival.

"They're used to grind stone, so bone and chitin are not an issue" the new queen explained. She pointed to Chrysalis. "Is she the one responsible for exposing our kind?" she asked. Pronotum nodded. "Foalish...Stupid...!" She couldn't formulate proper words and jolted her head to the side because of an anger tic.

"Her name is 'Chrysalis' of the blue-green brood. Mine is Pronotum of the blue-purple brood. What is yours?" the blue-purple queen asked.

The pale-yellow queen relaxed her neck in a bid to stop her tic. "Clypeus. I am the queen of the pale-yellow brood." She opened her mouth and dug into it with her hoof, pulling out several shining shards of obsidian and iron. "We live in very rocky and crumbling terrain."

"I trust then that my changelings kept your flight her comfortable?" Pronotum wondered.

Clypeus made a single laugh. "My brood does not have wings. We dig through the grounds." She tapped her horn and swung her tail. "Hence my form."

"Adaptations. Understandable." Pronotum huffed. "I suppose my scouts told you about THIS one's actions," she pointed to Chrysalis.

"Yes," Clypeus growled. "This IDIOT exposed us!" She looked to Pronotum and slammed her chest with a hoof. "MY brood caught a few ponies looking for our brood as well. The terrain was PERFECT! Ponies had not set hoof in our lands because of how unstable and dangerous it is." She sported disbelief. "Do you know why they would actively search for us with the guise of wanting to be our 'friends'?" she wheezed. "Why did these ones want to 'reform' us? Teach us to 'share'? What even IS sharing?!"

"I heard from a pony I captured that it's because of a changeling from Chrysalis' brood that became a king. They--"

"King? Changelings don't have kings. They have QUEENS!" Clypeus emphasized with a bellow that echoed throughout the caves several times.

Pronotum resumed, ignoring the outburst. "They have been...promoting love and peace between changelings and other creatures." Pronotum stuck her tongue in mild distaste.

Clypeus however, was absolutely appalled. She was going over to Chrysalis, her eyes sparkling with explosive anger, but the blue-purple queen stopped her. "Why?!" she asked.

"She still seeks to regain control of her hive, but if she fails and-or if they refuse, then she is a fully fallen queen."

Chrysalis looked up towards the two queens. Perhaps it was the lighting, or perhaps it was the angle and the fact she was still gnawing on the orb, but their faces had taken sinister expressions, and their glowed intensely with color and hope of her failure.

"This isn't...I shouldn't have come...They want to kill me."

"Thinking of running away?" a raspy voice whispered in Chrysalis' ear.

The queen swung her horn to the left, attempting to skewer what startled her, but her horn met with a hard substance.

"An elder queen!" Clypeus gasped.

This other queen had a twisted face, almost like someone with a cartoonish fake smile pulling their face upwards. Her left foreleg was a gnarled, twisted pillar of chitin with shapes similar to snakes wrapping around each other. She possessed two horns on opposite sides of her head. They both pointed backwards and followed a delicate waving pattern twice. Although the horn on the right was riddled with holes whereas the one on the left was a solid mass. Her color was black, and the scelera of her eyes were a deep gray while her iris was white and pupils black. Her tail was split in two a few inches from its base, and her mane was almost nonexistent; having been gradually eroded down to a few bands of 'cloth'.

"What is an elder queen doing here?" Chrysalis asked. "Shouldn't your successor be here in your stead?"

The elder chuckled and chucked a changeling of Thorax at the hooves of the other two queens. "My successor is not yet ready for the tasks bestowed to her, so I still work outside the hive since I'm infertile now." She put a hoof to her neck and cracked it several times while stretching. "I even lost my colors. Magenta brood." She hummed to herself. "As for you, Chrysalis, my brood developed the ability to read minds." Her horns glowed magenta and exchanged creeping bolts of energy briefly. "Makes it easier to trick potential prey for food." She looked towards the other two queens. "I see someone has been calling as many broods as she can find."

"Not at all," Pronotum said. "I've simply been looking for others. And...What are you doing, Clypeus?"

Clypeus was poking the colorful changeling who flinched with every poke. "What is this disgusting thing? It looks like a changeling, and also not."

"That's one of Chrysalis' old brood." She pointed at Pronotum. "Some of your drones captured it, and I took it here since I was coming here anyways."

The three glared at the little changeling who trembled against the dripping wall, much to the disgust of the other drones around. He looked around in terror then spotted Chrysalis still lying down on the ground and gnawing on the orb. A great big smile grew on his face, and he hurried over to his former queen.

"Chrysalis! I'm so glad you're here! Please, help me! I want to bring you--"

The changeling was interrupted by Chrysalis swatting him away. He sat up and put a hoof to his cheek and stared at the queen the avoided his eyes. He looked betrayed.

"Don't touch me, traitor," Chrysalis said sternly.

"But, Queen Chrysalis..."

"DRONES!" Pronotum screamed. Seven came in from the abyss in the main cave and sat in front of her. "Bring this thing to an empty chamber. I want to know everything about this 'brood'."

They nodded and were about to grab him, but the elder queen blocked their path and put a hoof on the colorful changeling's chitin.

"A-a-a-a-an elder queen?!" the changeling stammered.

"I have easier ways of getting the information we n--"

She was, in turn, interrupted by Clypeus. "I'd rather they use the 'classic' methods." She grinned. "It's more fun," she cackled.

The elder queen shrugged and stepped away. "Fair enough." She turned back to Pronotum. "Say, your brood has been looking for other broods. I'm already surprise that there are more than the few I knew of that have since gone extinct, and even fewer that still exist. You..." she gave pause. "You haven't been actively looking for the RED ones, have you?"

The blue-purple queen shook her head. "No. Certainly not."

"Never," the pale-yellow queen added.

"Good. Good...Do we attack the fallen queen's hive and all those responsible for this betrayal?" she asked casually.

"And expose ALL of ourselves?" Clypeus raged.

The elder queen tapped her muzzle. "A battle is not always done through brute force."

Pronotum sighed. "I would also like to see this 'king' of changelings," she said.

"King?" The elder queen blinked several times in rapid succession. "Changelings don't have kings?"

"I just wanna SMASH him!" the pale-yellow queen screamed with a deafening boom created by her smashing her fore hooves together.

"Then let us plan and, perhaps, wait for more queens." Pronotum looked at the rays of light created by the massive fungus growing on the cave walls. "And we should try gathering information about pony society first seeing as they were responsible for all of this...insanity."

Behind enemy lines

Skittering little legs bolted through the trees of the Ling Woods that grew around the changeling hive. The new changelings, dubbed 'Abstergo Brood' by outside elements, were making a clearing within the new plains to create a garden filled with fruits and vegetables to give to visitors or simply sell. It was all for the good of the hive, after all. The workers smiled, cheered, grinned, danced, and sang, much to the disgust of Chrysalis.

"These changelings aren't right in the head," a blue-purple changeling hissed.

Several changelings of the blue-purple hive spying on the ‘fallen’ changelings from the young trees. They were tasked with gathering intel on this hive, but the spies had trouble adjusting to seeing their former fellows like this. It was...disturbing to see a bug so utterly transformed and warped not only in body, but in mind, too.

"So what do we do?" another asked.

"We can attack them and see what their defensive response will be."

"How quickly they'll respond? How strong they might be? But then what kind of monster do we use?"

There was a long pause. "We could try a dragon. The adults are dangerous creatures. They could prove a proper threat." The leaves fluttered in the wind. "Any proper hive can fight back an adult dragon."

There was much rustling in the trees at the idea, but when several of the changelings were about to act, one called out to them. There was a small blue dragoness accompanied by a giant green changeling stepping out of the hive.

"What are those things?"

"The blue one is a dragon. What is a dragon doing here?" the scout pondered.

Mandibles crackled at the sight. "What is the giant green one? It stands different to the other changelings around."

"Is this the 'king'?"

All the changelings hissed together. "He ruins the changelings. We must kill him!"

"The queens did not ask for that. We shall not displease the queen."

The blue dragoness punched the 'king' in the shoulder, causing him to flinch in pain. The changelings all leaned forward eagerly in anticipation of the retribution she would receive, but none came. Instead, the king laughed along with her and waved the dragoness goodbye as she took to the skies.

"WHAT?!" one changeling screamed in indignation. "The dragon attacked him, and he did nothing! The hive would lose respect for him. He's a weak leader!"

"But look."

The scouts looked on towards the abstergo changelings and noticed that they were apathetic to what just happened. They were cheerfully continuing what they were doing prior.

"Infiltration," a scout blurted out.

"Infiltration?"

Several minutes later, a changeling scout was shoved out of the trees and landed painfully behind bushes. He got up and rubbed his pained rear, throwing a deathly scowl at the responsible ones. He wrapped his body in purple slime by vomiting out a strand of it into his hooves and wrapping it around his body like a cocoon. The changeling then rolled around on the ground to get the dirt, leaves, twigs, and anything else it could onto its body, letting it crawl to the hive.

Those in the trees collectively facehoofed. "That's not what I meant!"

"Don't worry," another responded comically. "He's slowly crawling to their hive...slowly."

The 'infiltrator' wandered into the fields where a circle of changelings performing hug meditation. Two stood up and gave each other a big hug in the center of the circle while the others clapped with smiles on their faces.

The changeling scout stuck his tongue out in disgust. "What is this supposed to be?" he hissed. "It's disgusting. Changelings don't show affection. They take it!" he shouted in his head. The two dropped down and exhaled loudly. "What's wrong with their colors? How do they distinguish each other? How do they intimidate or hide from their enemies? These colors are absurd!"

He scooched on through towards the towering hive of hollowed stone in hopes of being able to enter it with no issues and use his camoflauging abilities to their best potential. It seemed all was going well, and he felt a sense of pride and joy to be sneaking by with so terrible a disguise, but alas. Not every changeling is an idiot.

"What are you doing?" a soft spoken stallion voice asked. The lump didn't budge, so the owner of the voice prodded it gently. "I know you're hiding there."

"Hmmm?" the scout hummed in response.

The scout turned around to see the one poking him and witnessed a tall changeling. Giant orange antler-like horns protruding from his bight-green skull and dwarfing his normal one. Sparkling under-carapace and transparent wings and tail imitating the same effect. The scout frowned and looked around towards the other changelings around the hive. He bared his teeth and threw off his disguise, using the muck and dust as an excuse to transform without anyone noticing, but with random, bright colors. It took on the reds and blues of forest berries. He forced a smile, and the changeling king flinched at the sight.

"Are you okay?" the giant asked the scout.

"Y-yes?"

"Are you sure? Your colors seem a bit...dim." He rubbed his chin pensively. "Oh, you must be imitating my brother Pharynx." He chuckled. "I kinda like the idea of new colors in the hive, actually. Makes things a bit more lively." He tapped the infiltrator on the shoulder playfully.

The infiltrator looked down at the affected shoulder, his face distorted with anger, then he bared his teeth and glared at the king and hissed loudly at him.

"Woah! Calm down!"

The drone looked around at the surrounding changelings staring at him and relaxed himself. "S-sorry," he blurted clumsily. "I'm..new. I just got back to the hive, and it looks very different."

The king's eyes and ears perked up. "Oh boy! A newcomer. Don't worry. I'll help you get adjusted." He pushed the changeling with a foreleg. "My name is King Thorax, and I take care of everyone here."

"King? What happened to Chrysalis?"

Thorax's lips quivered. "I don't know. She left. We extended a hoof to her, but she slapped it away and flew off. I don't know what's become of her. We've looked around for her, and some of the changelings who took to exploration have sent me mail mentioning them looking for Chrysalis during their spare time."

The scout turned his head away from Thorax and narrowed his gaze. "Oh. That's a shame." He pondered internally. "They're more incompetent than I thought," he thought to himself. He softened his expressions, imitating the others around. "You haven't sent dedicated scouting parties to find her?"

Thorax shook his head. "No one here does that. I can't force them into a role they do't want to take. It's not how changelings work anymore."

The scout's tail twitched at 'changelings'. "Oh. That's a shame. With a dedicated scouting party, I'm sure you could have found her much faster than with what you're doing now."

Thorax shrugged. "Maybe, but Chrysalis was always very crafty and knew how to hide us to protect us from predators." He chuckled. "I'm sure she wouldn't let herself be found so easily." The little changeling smirked at Thorax's beliefs. "But I'm SURE we'll find her one day." He raised a hoof slightly in cheer. "Now, maybe you should go to a meditation circle. It should help your aggressiveness."

"Why? Aggressiveness is a changeling's way of life."

Thorax chuckled nervously. "Y-yes, but those were the old changelings. Now we only use our anger to defend ourselves and when it's necessary."

The scout narrowed his eyes and looked at a few circles from his orbits' corners. "Fine, but I don't want a 'hug' circle," he complained.

"I wasn't going to suggest it," Thorax stated matter-of-factly. He looked around the fields, his eyes gliding over gardeners and his brother Pharynx going through his current class. They were tackling various dummies made from dried grass stuffed into cotton bodies. "Hm. You could actually fit well with my brother." The scout's eyes gleamed with interest. "But we're here to help you relax and feel at ease. Ah ha! There!"

Thorax brought the scout to a group of abstergo changelings and easily caught their attention.

"King Thorax!" the eager circle leader shouted. She walked towards her king and gave him a smile. "What's going on?" She cast a glance at the changeling to Thorax's side. "Is it for him?" Thorax nodded silently and the mare turned to face the scout. "Great! Then let's get started."

She attempted to give the changeling a hug, but he pushed her away and hissed aggressively at her. Realizing what he did, the scout cleared his throat and stood up straight again. "S-sorry. I'm still getting used to this whole...thing."

"He's a newcomer," Thorax explained quickly. "He hasn't had time to adjust to our new way of life."

The circle members mumbled to each other, and the leader clapped her hooves enthusiastically while her wings pulled her higher in the air. "A new member of the hive!" She grabbed the scout's hoof with her two. "I'm so glad we get someone new here! I can't wait to show you how everything works now."

Back in the rocky mountains separating Equestria from Prance, the queens and the blue-purple hive waited. The scouts had yet to return, but this gave Pronotum time to ask a simple question to the queen of the blue-green hive. The two sat within a small empty room of the hive, the darkness barely parted only by the glowing light coming from Pronotum's horn.

"Chrysalis," she started with a high tone. "Have you ever met a pony or felinae or diamond dog, or anything other creature when you were still young?" She pursed her lips.

The blue-green queen looked away. "Of course I have. We fed on their love." She pointed to the Pronotum. "Like you all do."

"Not that way." Pronotum rubbed her muzzle bridge. "Have YOU ever MET someone SPECIFICALLY in your past? Such as when you were quite young. A fledgling queen just starting out her hive." She turned her head to the side. "Hm?"

There was a long pause before Chrysalis gave an answer. "No. Changelings don't get involved in such trite."

Clypeus laughed loudly and burst out of the ground below Chrysalis, tossing her onto her back. "That's a good joke!" she yelled at Chrysalis. The yellow queen got out of the hole and shook the dirt off of her then started pacing back and forth.

"That's funny, because we know otherwise." She stood tall above Chrysalis with her fangs bared.

"Please don't dig tunnels in my hive," Pronotum asked slowly. A look of disinterest covered her face.

"We know that it's YOUR fault that the ponies are searching all over for us!" Clypeus accused.

"MY FAULT?!" Chrysalis retaliated. "How is it MY fault that YOU can't even keep simple rumors from having you discovered by...mountain climbers," she finished with a mocking tone and a sarcastic smirk.

Clypeus' muscles tensed in anger. "Because YOU took in some sort of creature that became attached to you and your brood at the time, and you welcomed him with open forelegs." She kicked a block of dirt from her tunnel against a wall. "It's YOUR fault that we're all being hunted, Chrysalis."

"Not hunted," Pronotum interjected. "Just searched for."

The yellow queen waved a hoof at the blue-purple one. "Formalities." She refocused on Chrysalis. "He somehow knew that other changeling hives existed. Is that you're doing too?"

Chrysalis' eyes looked over her aggressor's face. "What? *I* didn't even know there were other hives. I thought that my brood was the only hive in existence."

"What?!" Pronotum stepped forward. "How could that even be REMOTELY true? Look at ponies, and minotaurs, and--"

"Those fish things that popped up everywhere," Clypeus interjected. She stuck her tongue out in disgust. "I hate fish."

Chrysalis and Pronotum both stared at her with bored expressions, but the blue-purple queen continued. "We all knew the possibility of other hives, but we never found them. That still didn't rule out that they existed."

"Having a tussle?" the elder queen pondered as she slowly stepped within the room. She chuckled and put her gnarled foreleg to her bemused chin. "I see you're trying to have some form of expository back-and-forthing."

"What?" Chrysalis blurted out.

"Oh, your scouts are back, and one of them brought some interesting news."

The elder queen stepped back to reveal a small scout slowly stumbling forward and out of breath. "M-my queen," he wheezed. "The changelings of the fallen brood." He took a deep breath. "They overflow with love, but..."

"But?" Pronotum repeated. A curious expression mixed with faint worry adorned her face.

"It feels...wrong. It's disturbing. I do not feel well with it within me."

Pronotum nodded. "Very well. Go to the feeders. Have them relieve you of that love."

The changeling bowed his head. "Thank you my q--"

"AFTER you tell us about the hive in full detail."

The scout was mildly irritated and greatly disappointed. With a gurgling stomach and swallowing a bitter lump in his throat, he endured. "They're led by a changeling named 'King Thorax' who possessed great horns upon his head. He and the other changelings are brightly colored and--"

"Yes yes. We know all this already," the elder queen noted dismissively. "Tell us things we don't know; Such as their military strategies or their goals. Anything."

"O-oh. Well..." the changeling sat on his haunches and tapped his fore hooves together. "They're pacifists." The atmosphere in the room tensed up. "They're more interested in making music and art and having meditation and yoga sessions together." The scout cleared his throat then continued.

"Pacifists?" Pronotum pondered the idea. "How do they defend themselves against attacks?" She looked straight at the scout. "ARE they attacked?"

"Y-yes. They've been attacked by a few creatures but have chased them off."

"How? Pacifists would have long forgotten how to properly fend off threats!"

"That's the brother of Thorax that takes care of it." The scout scooched towards the exit as inconspicuously as possible. "I didn't catch his name, but he behaves similar to us. Very aggressive and cautious, like a proper changeling."

The elder queen hummed with intrigue. "A potential insider for us?" she asked the other queens rhetorically.

"They're also friends with a dragon," the scout continued. "Uhhh...a small blue one. A female, I believe. We did not see it properly."

"That...complicates things," the elder queen grumbled. "At least we know where they are now. Now we just need to see how the ponies work with them."

Author's Note

My patreon is here
I'd put some witty banter here involving it, but, eh. Patreon links are only for the first chapter.

Pharynx hates books

Pharynx looked around the crystal castle's large and tall hallways with contempt.

"Your hallways are too big. Anything can come in here in large numbers and attack it all," he said.

"Stop worrying about that," Twilight replied. She stopped in front of a pair of doors and pushed them open. "No pony is going to attack the castle, and even if they did." She looked at Pharynx and smiled. "It's protected by the magic of the table."

"Our home was also protected by magic, but it didn't prevent anyone from entering it," the changeling retorted with a scowl.

Twilight smiled sheepishly but said nothing. They entered a large room decorated with only a few bookshelves, a table, and some chairs. There wasn't much else in it.

"Sorry about this. I only just got all of this in the castle, and now I'm trying to fill my bookshelves with as many books as I can get." She started to shake uncontrollably. "WHILE alphabetizing them and categorizing them based on the majority of their contents!" The alicorn admired her collection. "I wanted to decorate my personal library, but I still don't know with what."

"Why not books?" Pharynx replied sarcastically.

"That's a GOOD idea," Twilight replied with equal humor. ", but no. I need something else." She brushed away the thoughts. "Instead, I need your help confirming a few things for me." The changeling raised a brow at Twilight's request. "Your brother asked me to help him find history on changelings."

"Because changelings don't really keep it. The queens do."

"Exactly!" Twilight threw a foreleg into the air. Her enthusiasm started to fade. "The thing is...I haven't been able to find much information concerning changelings apart from the reports of terrified ponies attacked by them or missing reports." She tapped a shelf board rhythmically. "I thought you might be able to help me recognize anything about it since most of changeling history tends to be about--"

"War and covert operations," Pharynx finished. He leaned against the wall and looked at Twilight with a raised eye. "So why exactly do you want me here?"

Twilight blinked several times in confusion. "Wh...I just said because--"

"No. That's the SURFACE reason," the changeling specified. "What is the ACTUAL reason?"

Twilight would have twiddled her thumbs if she had any. Instead, she was left with biting her lower lip and averting Pharynx's gaze. "Exactly what I told you."

"No. You can get all you need from the books, and you know that we never recorded our history." Twilight didn't respond to the changeling, aggravating him even further. "Fine. If you don't want my help, then I'll just be leaving and--"

"No!" Twilight had instinctively reached out to Pharynx and cursed herself internally for it. "Fine. I need you to help confirm rumors of other changeling hives existing. I can't find anything, or, at least, I can't recognize any possible mentions," she mumbled to herself.

"Other hives?!" the changeling repeated in indignation. "If there really were other hives, we would have found them!" he yelled angrily. "Instead, Chrysalis never found trace of any other in Equestria and beyond while she wandered the lands during her early years." He exhaled loudly. "Our hive was always left to fend for itself, even when we looked elsewhere." He grabbed a book from the shelves violently, throwing the others on the floor and causing Twilight to dive forward to try and catch them with both her hooves and magic. "I don't even know what some kind of stupid little pamphlet thing can tell us!" he says whilst holding the book from its side and making the pages flutter down.

Twilight glared, her jaw agape, in indignation at the changeling and swiped the book back. "These aren't just pamphlets," she mocked. "They're treasure troves of new ideas and knowledge! ESPECIALLY KNOWLEDGE!" she blurted at Pharynx.

He cleaned out his ears in reaction to her scream. "Well, it doesn't matter what you say, because we're the only hive in the world."

"The WORLD, you say?" Twilight wondered. A grin formed across her face. "It sure would be STRANGE for something as big as the WORLD to only have...ONE hive, wouldn't it?" she wondered matter-of-factly.

"Okay fine. I'll help you look for them, but I won't like it." He frowned further at the bookshelves. "Books are annoying and never get to what you need at the exact moment you need it." He grumbled to himself and grabbed one that Twilight joyfully passed to him.

"Tell me when you find something that sounds familiar," she told him. "I'll tell you as well."

"Alright," Pharynx sighed. He leaned his head against his foreleg and started reading. The tediousness was extreme.

"So what have you to report now?" Pronotum asked her scouts.

The scouts saluted their queen, making Clypeus chuckle while she sharpened her mandibles. The blue-purple queen hissed at her quietly.

"Nothing much, my queen," a first scout saluted.

"Except..." another trailed off nervously.

"Except?" Pronotum repeated with a raised brow.

The changelings looked at each other nervously. "Well...They're friends with ponies and dragons. They have connections to a few other races but it's through the ponies."

The queen's eyes twitched briefly. "How?" she asked. "That's impossible. No one has EVER been comfortable around us even when we were revealed to them." She paced about. "Is it their new forms?"

Clypeus laughed. "Or is it because of her?" she pointed at Chrysalis with a mandible. "After all, she revealed the existence of their hive and became the source of their hatred and fear. By chasing her off, they made her the target of most hatred, alleviating SOME of the issues with changelings." She jolted away from her mandible in pain. "Ow. Stab," she said under breath. "And with the intervention of some of the ponies responsible, it became easier to bring them into their society."

The three queens and scouts stared at her. "How do you--" the elder queen attempted to speak.

"I took the place of several psychologists. It's easy to take what little love they have left over and watch them destroy each other." She cackled. "I love it when they tear at each other's throats after I've drained them completely. Always fun to watch."

The elder queen nodded in approval. "Much fun to be had in manipulating your enemies psychologically. They destroy each other while you don't even need to lift a finger." She laughed alongside Clypeus. "I didn't think I would get to see another creature, let alone changeling queen, who goes the that way."

"Can you two focus, pleasure?!" Pronotum shouted. She reered back when the elder queen looked at her. "Not to disrespect you, elder queen."

The queen brushed the apology off with a calm face. "No need to apologize. It was not an affront towards me." She turned to face the scouts. "Don't you have more to report to your queen?"

"R-right!" the scout stammered. "I think that the best way to earn everything about them is to take the place of a few of the other races and see what they're doing with the changelings and what they think about them."

Pronotum pondered the idea. "Then we should take the place of a high ranking member of each society."

"Yes," Clypeus agreed. "If you don't want to learn about the regular people, of course."

The blue-purple queen glared at Clypeus from the corner of her eyes. "What are you talking about? The highest ranking members of society have the most resources and the most information to part with."

"And are the furthest away from the commoners." The yellow queen stood up and snorted out the dust from her sharpened mandibles. "Having one in both worlds would be the best possible solution, preferably being as separate from each other as possible."

"But that's a waste of resources!"

"Do you WANT to eliminate these changelings o not?" she retorted angrily.

Pronotum scratched her chin. "I'm not entirely decided on that, actually."

Clypeus' face twisted in frustration. "What? What do you mean 'not entirely decided'? They disgraced the name of changelings everywhere, and now they flaunt about colorfully hugging each other and giving therapy to the food." She spat at the notion. "I want them wiped from existence. DAMNED any who get in our way!"

"But that's EXACTLY what SHE thought," Pronotum gestured to Chrysalis. "and look what happened."

Chrysalis grumbled but otherwise remained silent as she laid on the floor. "Getting tired of them using me as an example," she thought to herself. "Not like I didn't have everything planned just right." Thoughts of Twilight flew into her mind. "Every time, there's ONE that ruins everything."

"It doesn't matter!" Clypeus retorted. "They're a lost cause. There's no way to return them to normal. They taint the name of changelings everywhere." She gulped loudly. "And it's only a matter of time before the red hive hears of it." She regained her composure and put on an air of determination. "We NEED to wipe them out before that happens."

"And then what?" Pronotum asked. She approached the yellow queen and stretched her foreleg out to the side. "It's an entire HIVE. There's NO way we can eliminate them discreetly." Clypeus was about to say something but was stopped by the blue-purple queen. "And don't say 'full assault'. We don't know the extent of their relationship to the other races."

One of the scouts spoke up, breaking up the fighting. "Well, we discovered this thing called a 'school of friendship', and many creatures from the other races go there to learn about...friendship. That's the best place to learn about the relationships no?"

The queens -Chrysalis excluded- nodded to each other.

"That's not a bad idea," the elder queen mused. "Do you know where it is?" The scout shook his head. "Then go look for it. Meanwhile, I have a plan for it." She grinned. "I will transform into a changeling of the lost brood and shuffle in as new student."

Chrysalis groaned loudly. "It's a school!" she spoke loudly. "They won't let you sign up without someone attending you."

The elder queen tapped her chin pensively. "You're right." She pointed to Clypeus. "You know your way around someone's mind. I want you to transform into their king and come to my aid should I be unable to convince them to let me sign up."

The yellow queen reluctantly agreed to the plan. "I hope you know how to approach these things, Elder. We don't need them discovering more of us, let alone the existence of our elder queens."

The elder laughed heartily. "You needn't worry about that, young one." She pinch the queen's cheek. "I know my way around a dead end or two."

Pharynx was bashing his head against the table in a constant, almost rhythmic fashion. "I can't find anything."

"But those mentions were found--" Twilight started.

"Just rumors that don't hold up to what we do," he waved the notion off then turned his head over to face the alicorn. "Most of them can just be monsters in the forests. "He chuckled to himself. "I know quite a few."

"But--"

"Look, Twilight. I know you really want to find others, but the truth is that there ARE no others!" he stated dryly. "You won't find any other changeling hives because we're the only ones." He calmed himself and explained more logically. "If you want me to help you anymore, get some new books that you think could be CONCRETE proof of their existence."

The lavender alicorn pondered the thought then nodded. "Fine. I'll see what I can scrounge up. Thanks for the help you gave me, anyways."

The changeling nodded then flew away through the halls of the crystal castle. When the buzzing of his wings mellowed into silence, Twilight turned to her bookshelves and frowned. "I wonder if I'll be able to find Starswirl," she thought aloud. "He must know about other changeling hives, if ever there were any." She tapped her head angrily. "There HAS to have been others. Chrysalis' hive can't have been the only one to ever exist. That's not how nature works," she mumbled to herself.

Author's Note

Yis. Next chapter will be aboot Elder Queen in shool.

School is awful

Author's Note

Told you guys I was changing my writing tactic of just 1.6k or less as a 'that's good enough' tactic for writing. I don't want less than 2k words unless I want to troll with a cliffhanger. :trollestia:

School is awful

"Did you understand what is you have to do?" Clypeus asked the elder.

"Yes, yes," the queen answered dismissively. She was looking at herself in a shard of mirror leaning against a stone. "What would work best for entering the school unnoticed?" she pondered aloud.

The two were hiding out on an elevated ledge just behind the School of Friendship, and while it didn't offer the most ideal view, the many rocks and boulders adorning its dry surface permitted protection against even the flyers coming in.

"Maybe try finding one of the students and asking how to sign up?" Clypeus suggested. "I don't know how these 'schools' work."

"Hmmm...neither do I," the elder queen answered dismissively. "The key is getting in unnoticed as there are likely changelings in there as well."

The yellow queen rubbed her temples. "Remind me why I'm not escorting you as their king and why you aren't going in as another creature?"

The elder continued looking at the school and analyzing every potential point of entry. "Because the changelings already present will likely be wary of your disguise, because it's possible the real Thorax will appear, and..." She slouched slightly. "Because we haven't seen what he look like, only descriptions. That's insufficient for a disguise."

"And the other?"

The elder shook her head. "Because we're trying to learn everything from the point of our own kind, not that of the ponies or griffons or--" She stopped momentarily after seeing a giant brown ball of fur bouncing joyfully alongside a group of various other creatures. "Whatever that thing is."

Clypeus' face contorted with confusion and mild disgust. "What is that thing?"

The elder shook her head. "No idea. I've never seen one before." She rubbed her chin. "Do you think its love is edible?" The two changelings braced when they heard the fluffy monster's booming voice deafen them despite the distance separating them. "I see its voice wants for not."

"We should ignore it. And all of its kind," Clypeus suggested with a barely contained tone of hatred. "Sounds like a very brute and simple-minded people."

The elder queen surrounded herself in changeling flames, turning herself into a tiny beetle-like changeling with a pale-blue body and wine-red wings, tail, wing covers, and eyes.

"What do you think?" the elder asked.

The yellow queen walked around the elder and hummed. "You look revolting," she said in disgust. "It's perfect." She gave the elder a smile. "But what about a name?"

The transformed changeling groaned. "Naming things is tedious, so I'll be lazy and tale the pony's route of naming things after foods," she stated condescendingly. "I'll call myself 'Cranberry' and say that I just wanted to try a pony's naming conventions first."

"What if someone asks you your name?"

"Then I won't tell them." 'Cranberry' shrugged. "Simple."

Clypeus rolled her eyes then jumped back into the hole she had dug for the two to arrive on the cliff. She plopped back out and rested her forelegs on the edge of the hole. "You said you wanted someone here once every day for a week while you're at the school, right?"

"Yes," the elder replied.

"If you say so. See you in a week, elder."

The queen vanished within the hole, leaving the elder alone to perform her much needed tasks. "Finally. Now I can do things my way." She looked at her legs then frowned. "I haven't decided on a personality yet, however." She thought for a moment then shrugged. "I'll just make it on the spot. Nothing more fun than improvisation."

The elder lost no time buzzing down to the school entrance where she got to see the architecture more clearly. "Impressive...I think." She rubbed her chin. "Pony architecture sure has changed since I was an active queen." She leaned over the sides of the trail to get a better look at the water. "This would be a great place for beasts of war." The elder chuckled in her head at the thought of a pony getting chomped and dragged into the depths of the water.

'Cranberry' pushed through the large doors to come upon a great entryway adorned with pillars built into the walls and a large carpet pathway. The pillars' end points were golden in color and elaborate with strange shapes baring no converging form. The carpet was a pale red accentuated by silver threads on its flank. It ran along the whole length of the school's stone floor, its design creating splits that led to class rooms left and right and to the upper floors. There weren't many decorations yet, but some plant life had been cultured at the entrance to climb a long the walls and ceiling and bloom constantly. The elder queen hissed at the appearance of white and yellow flowers.

"Disgusting. Reminds me of the forest deer," she hissed quietly.

"S'cuse me," a voice spoke behind the changeling.

Startled, the elder flew back a ways before facing the culprit with a heaving chest.

"Woah, woah! Calm down there!" the pony said. "Ya don't need ta get stressed out like that."

The elder cough nervously and stood straight. "S-sorry. Force of habit," she said.

The mare eyed the changeling. "Aren't you s'pposed to be in class?"

"I'm not a student here," Cranberry answered. "Yet."

"Oh, so yer thinkin' 'bout joinin' ?" The changeling nodded in response. The mare speaking to her gave a big smile. "Well then, yer just in time. Ah've got a class 'bout honesty right now. How's about you start off yer first day with me, and then we'll see what we can do afterwards." The mare was about to step forward but mentally slapped herself for it. "Ah, mah name is Applejack. What's yers? Oh!, and ya can tell me while we're on our way ta the class." She tapped the changeling on the shoulder. "Wouldn't want to be later now.

The elder queen looked at her shoulder with disdain and spoke with a hushed, angry tone. "It's Cranberry."

"What's that?" Applejack said loudly.

"Uh, Cranberry!" The changeling smiled sheepishly. "My name's Cranberry."

Applejack scrunched her lips in thought. "Strange name ya got there. Very different from what ah'm used ta changelins bein' named."

"That's because I'm trying a new naming convention based off ponies."

"Really?" Applejack looked at the changeling. "And what' yer real name?"

Cranberry closed her left eye and looked at Applejack with a smirk. "That would spoil the fun and the purpose, now wouldn't it?" she answered playfully.

Applejack shrugged and continued. "If'n ya say so."

The two entered a room on the first floor, and Cranberry witnessed many different creatures present, although most of them were ponies. Some were griffins and hippogriffs.

"Hippogriffs?" Cranberry blurted out. "I thought you went extinct."

One of the hippogriffs chuckled nervously. "N-no. We just hid away as seaponies. It's a long story."

The class was a circular room with an indentation at its center. There were two layers below the floor: One for sitting and another to put one's feet down. The windows along the wall opposite the hallway were opened to the inner-garden of the school, bringing a partially fresh breeze of cold water from the artificial waterfall as well as a rather unpleasant smell of moss. The white walls had built-in ornaments of fake gold in seemingly random areas, creating a bizarre impression of the night sky during the day. There wasn't much else of note aside from a blackboard against the wall, so Cranberry looked back to Applejack.

"So, this is Cranberry. She's a possible new student for our school, but she's comin' here to see if she really wants ta join or not." The mare gestured Cranberry to come into the circle with her. "She'll be learning one of our lessons about honesty 'n when ta use it."

The changeling scooched in-between a tall, grumpy dragon and a small griffon. She felt hostility between the two. She smiled in response.

"Now where were we?" Applejack pondered. "Ah reckon we could try somethin' else. How's about Cranberry do a 'blind run' as ah like ta call 'em 'n get paired wiiiiith..." She scanned the room for the perfect candidate. "Ah. Foamstreak."

"Hmm. Another 'hippogriff'," the elder thought.

Foamstreak was comprised of nothing but blue. His chest tuft was almost white. His beak and eyes were a deep blue while the crane of large feathers along his neck and serving as his tail were a faint blue tipped in white. His wings and ankle feathers followed the same pattern. As for his talons and hooves, they were teapot blue. Foamstreak was a scrawny little thing for a hippogriff, but no one made fun of him for it. After all, this wasn't the place for that. He nervously stepped into the center and smiled sheepishly at the changeling flying towards him, her face apathetic and wide-eyed.

"Okay," Applejack started. "Let's say that Foamstreak is a little troubled and doesn't want to talk to his friend Cranberry. What do you do?" There was silence. "Foamstreak, Cranberry; why don't ya add somethin' to it? Develop the scenario so we know how to react and how truthful we should be."

"O-okay," Foamstreak answered. He scratched the back of his neck and looking around, his voice blushing. "Uh...I...I..."

Cranberry rolled her eyes. "If this keeps up I'll never learn anything." She took the initiative and stepped forward. "You okay, Foamstreak?" she asked. "You've been troubled for a few days. What gives? You've never been like this before."

"O-Oh! I....yeah. Some changes have been happening..." He shied away.

"That's good!" Applejack shouted. "He's havin' problems. How would you respond?" she asked the students.

"Punch him until he tells us?" a dragon asked. He brought his fist to his open palm loudly and smiled.

Applejack facehoofed. "No. Violence isn't how you solve the problem."

The dragon shrugged. "It's how it works in dragon land."

"Yeah, but that only works with DRAGONS...and maybe minotaurs, to a lesser extent..." her anger trailed off.

"I know what to do," Cranberry said.

Applejack ears perked up. "You do?" She stood up. "Then tell us how you would approach it."

Cranberry cleared her throat then stared at Foamstreak. "Because he's being so dismissive, it means that he's having family or romantic issues," she started. "I would begin by prodding him for information regarding the actual direction of the issue then assuring him that I would do nothing to betray his trust." She took a step forward, making the hippogriff nervous. "If it's family issues, then I need to be honest about my own and say how one of my family members were troublesome and I know exactly how they feel."

"O-okay...?"

"Several reactions can happen. If it's a lesser problem, then they're likely to make the comparison saying they don't have it that bad and try to rehearse the solution with me. If it's equal, then they'll be silent for a moment and likely confide in me." She looked to Applejack. "These are the two best scenarios."

The class was finding this sudden arrival's behavior and approach disturbing.

"A-and what's the worst?"

"The worst is the third," Cranberry answered immediately. "They become enraged, telling me that I'll 'never' understand and likely rush off. This tells me that the problem is much more serious then initially expected."

"So then we look for a councillor or therapist?" Foamstreak asked.

"No," Cranberry said. "The worst way to approach the sudden change is with a large influx of outside influence. This makes the troubled person nervous and feel unsafe. They'll become extra defensive and likely never open up afterwards, potentially even worsening things forever." The changeling shook her head. "The easiest way is to wait a while for them to cool down and gradually edge into the problem, or bring another friend they have great confidence in. Both cannot treat the affected party like someone to take pity on. This results in the same reaction as the therapist, intervention, or whatever. If all else fails, the best thing is too psychologically destroy the person by showing them what happened to what they love the most, or having that thing watch them silently from the room."

Applejack stared at the changeling slack jawed. "Uh...That's..." The mare exhaled loudly and wiped the nervous sweat from her forehead. "Y'all can sit back down. Let's take somepony else instead because ah think that was quite advanced fer this class." She narrowed her eyes. "Maybe too advanced."

The elder shrugged and sat back down. Her moment was ruined by forty-three minutes of bland and boring conversations and just sitting around. After that performance, Applejack refused to let her participate again no matter how much she wanted to, so she decided remaining in the background and just observing was the best solution. When Applejack let everyone out of the class, Cranberry casually strolled to the exit while everyone else kept their distance. Well, all but one.

"Who are you?" a female voice asked.

Cranberry turned around to see a blue and hot pink colored changeling from Thorax' hive glaring at her. "What do you mean?" the elder asked.

"Since you got into that room, I've been feeling something off with you, even if the other changelings don't." The elder tilted her head in response. "You're an elder," the changeling whispered.

"An elder?" Cranberry let out a few mocking laughs. "I scoff at the notion. Now, please leave me be. I have a few other things to tend to, like finding--"

Cranberry was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled to an empty classroom whose windows had been fully covered, preventing any light from coming through.

"This room is used by Twilight Sparkle during her classes on astrology and astronomy, so we should be safe here," she insisted.

Whilst the changeling looked around the classroom to be absolutely sure of her claims, Cranberry was left to watch her. "I don't know what your obsession is, changeling. I'm not an 'elder'.

The blue and hot pink changeling looked at Cranberry from over her shoulder and rolled her eyes, head, and groaned loudly. She became engulfed in blue flames that switch to hot pink when they dissipated, revealing a queen from yet another hive. Her blue hair wrapped around her head and neck like a helmet. Her forelegs were reinforced by a thicker layer of chitin while her hind legs were more muscular than the rest of her body. The wrap around her body was blue from the top but gradually transitioned to hot-pink at the belly. Her wings and wing covers followed suit with the transitioning, but it depended fully on the angle at which one looked at them. They were usually a full blue but reflected hot-pink for certain portions at certain angles. The wing covers in question stretched from her back to her rear, completely replacing her tail. Her face was much more narrow than the usual changeling queen, and her maw was accentuated by fangs not only coming from the top, but the bottom as well. All her colors glowed in the dark, although the elder assumed it was just for 'show' in the current situation.

To 'Cranberry', it appeared that this queen was actively shrinking them in front of her so as to better talk. The new queen looked particularly angry.

"I am Mesosoma," she said, "And I want to know exactly WHAT you're doing here!" Cranberry snorted in response. "I know you're the elder. Only queens can sense the pheromones of others queens."

The elder conceded and revealed her bizarre shape in a cloud of smoke. "I didn't think I would meet any other queens, especially not here," the elder remarked with a smile.

Mesosoma's anger turned to confusion as she eyed the queen head to hoof. "Wh-what? You're not the elder of my hive." She stared, mouth agape, at the elder. Said elder queen moved her hoof, asking the queen to proceed. "Who are you?" Mesosoma asked in a whisper-yell.

"I am an elder of another hive."

"I didn't know there were other hives! That''s impossible." The blue-pink queen grabbed her head and started mumbling to herself.

The elder heaved a heavy sigh. "Yes, there are others," she stated in a bored tone. "I simply didn't imagine another would be here to learn about Thorax and his hive and a way to get rid of them for their treachery against changeling kind..." She raised a brow. "Although I do find it strange that you would say you didn't know of other hives and yet knew of the Abstergo Changelings."

Mesosoma looked at the elder with squinted eyes and pure confusion. "Abstergo? What?" She shook her head. "Let me focus...You said you're here to take them DOWN?" The elder nodded in response. "Why?" the queen asked.

"I told you: Their crimes against changeling kind."

"But I'm not here to take them out. I'm here to learn about how they feed without infiltrating anywhere and learn from that."

The elder's muscles tensed up, and the blue-pink queen felt her body locking up in response.

The elder glared at the blue-pink queen. "What," she spoke in a deep and appalled voice.

"Wh-why shouldn't we? They're no longer famished. They don't have to scrounge by just to eat! It's survival! If we stick to our traditions, then my brood will die out!"

"It's not a question of 'tradition'. Tradition is made to adapt to new times," the elder explained quietly. "It's a question of principles. Of concept. Of changeling identity." She poked Mesosoma hard in the chest. "You're betraying that principle by becoming like the Abstergo changelings, and if you reveal yourselves, you'll prove that other hives exist, and we'll all be found."

"So what? Maybe you should all learn to live like this. We'd never go hungry ever again nor would we need to move from place-to-place constantly. What my ancestors WANT is not relevant to what we NEED."

The elder cackled. "And what about the hives that don't accept that idea? That fight against it? What then?"

Mesosoma averted her gaze. "Then it will be a fight between progress and stagnation." She looked at the elder, catching her off guard. "That's what you want, no? The fight between old and new. Which one is right and wrong?" She sighed and looked down. "I just want to be able to sleep knowing that we won't go hungry the next day. That we don't need to be on full alert every day and night for predators and other threats."

The elder remained silent for a moment. "Then you need to destroy the abstergo changelings. They are a threat to our way of life and may very well cause our extinction in the future." The elder frowned. She looked at a drawn image of a constellation attached to a class wall and relaxed herself a bit.

The creepy new student

Applejack stared at the table in the teacher's lounge, her face devoid of anything but a twisted melting pot of emotions. The current ingredient to bubble to the surface was frustration. Rarity was currently brewing tea in a white, floral patterned kettle she took from her home and poured its warmed contents into two cups. She took both, along with a small container of sugar and a tiny plate of assorted cookies to the table and set a cup in front of her distraught friend.

"Are you okay, Applejack?" Rarity asked her friend.

The white mare vaulted over a few of Pinkie Pie's fallen roll of party wrap, and even though she was tempted to grab them and place them somewhere, she was more preoccupied with her friend...and grinding her teeth.

"Not exactly," Applejack lamented. She dropped her head hard against the white, plastic table, causing her hat to fold. "Ah got this might-be student who came to mah class earlier 'n..." She swung her head to the right. "Well. She's a might..." Applejack couldn't find the words to use, so she's just shrugged wildly. "Is it possible ta be 'too' honest?" she asked Rarity.

"Too honest?" Rarity looked at her friend with a slanted and doubtful smile. "Since when does Applejack believe in an excess of honesty?"

"Ah...Well..." She took of her hat and passed a hoof through her mane.

The mare grabbed two cubes of sugar and dropped them into her tea and stirred them in. "What brought about this kind of concern?" she asked her friend after blowing on her drink. "Surely, this potential student isn't all THAT bad." She squeaked from the heat of the tea and set the cup down abruptly, spilling some drops on the table.

"Well, she's a changeling!"

Rarity raised a brow. "And? I thought we were passed the suspicions of them."

"Ya say that," the farmpony started loudly. "but ah've only seen Chrysalis do like her...and Chrysalis was hardly ever that...extreme."

Rarity's eyes sparkled with interest, her ears perked up, and she soon forgot that she was stirring her drink to get all the excess heat out of it. "Do tell."

"W-well." The mare readjusted herself on her rear and straightened herself as best she could. "That changeling was analyzing as much as she could, and it wasn't just simple honesty linked to friendship. It was..." She twirled her hoof in the air. "Advanced psychological stuffs."

Rarity narrowed her eyes. " 'Advanced psychology stuffs'?" she imitated mockingly.

"Yes!" Applejack shouted. She quickly recomposed herself. "It was unnervin'. Taking into account not just the pony, but as many possible outcomes as possible with outside elements."

"Sounds like she's fascinated with psychology," Rarity shrugged with a smile. "That's a good thing isn't it?"

"Not when she says it with a hint of...what's the fancy words ya like to use again?" Applejack entered deep thought briefly. "She said it with malice. There we go."

Rarity took a sip of her tea and savored it. "I'd hardly call 'malice' fancy," she mumbled dismissively.

"She creeped me and the other students out a lot."

Rarity shrugged the notion off and twirled the contents of her cup. "That's hardly a reason to make cause for alarm." You took another sip while looking at her distraught friend. "You have to get used to the idea of 'special' students popping up in our school. Geniuses, even."

Applejack rubbed the back of her neck. "Ah suppose yer right...Still. Ah'm uncomfortable around her." She rubbed her chin and a smirk formed at the corner of her mouth. "Tell ya what; How about ah send her your way, then you'll see what she's like."

"Well I think that that's a fantastic idea, Applejack," Rarity agreed. "I'll be more than happy to meet-Oh. What's her name?"

"Uhhh..." Applejack thought hard. "Cranberry." Rarity was taken aback. "She said she wanted ta try pony naming."

Chrysalis used the goop around her in the small chamber to draw plans on how to get back at both Starlight and Thorax. She had been working on the plans for hours, and every time, she'd wipe the 'slate' clean. By this point, she was having an angry temper-tantrum displayed by her stomping about furiously.

"Always those six and their elements of harmony!" she screamed. "I can't get around them!" She looked at a smeared display of her old hive, and her eyes glowed a furious, bright green. "They'll never let me destroy my old hive! The traitors! THEY WERE MY FAMILY!" she bellowed louder. "If Pronotum hadn't found me, I'd be..." Her eyes darted from side-to-side, and she exhaled loudly. "I need to get out of here."

Chrysalis stuck her head out of the chamber doorway in time to see the blue-purple queen talking with her subjects on where to take a new set of pony explorers who got too close into the hive. A few others flew in from the openings above them with another pony in tow.

"Hmm," Chrysalis hummed. "I can't get through those tunnels, and transforming into one of them won't work. They'll notice."

The queen laid her head against the wall and slowly sank into the goop. Chrysalis was pulled out by Pronotum who held her by the back of her neck.

"What are you doing?" she passively asked the blue-green queen.

Chrysalis remained silent, frowning, and with goop slowly dripping off of her face. One large drop fell to the floor, attracting the attention of both. The blue-purple queen looked away and let Chrysalis go.

Chrysalis refused to make eye-contact. "Why are you keeping me here?" she asked.

"To watch you."

The blue-green queen glared at her opponent. "Yes, to prevent me from doing 'something stupid',"she mocked with hoof twirling. "By what not just freeze me like you did them?" She pointed to the cocoons being transported by the changelings.

Pronotum looked at the working changelings then back to the queen. "You're a queen. If we can restore your hive to you or we get rid of it, then you have a chance for redemption." The blue-purple queen rubbed her forehead. "I'm not really in the mood for this sort of thing today. I'd rather just have a calm talk or something like that." She looked around, then something hit her. "You want something to eat? You haven't eaten in two days."

Chrysalis put a hoof to her emaciated belly and averted Pronotum's gaze with a grumble. "I've dealt with starvation before. I won't take some handmedowns from your brood."

"Then you wouldn't mind new recipes for 'love' that my changelings have created during their free time, do you?"

Chrysalis opened her mouth several times and closed it just as many. "What...what are you talking about?"

Pronotum smiled. "They grew tired of consistently eating the same thing. They wanted to enjoy food outside of just sustenance."

"What? Love IS sustenance! We just need it. We don't need special spices," Chrysalis complained.

Pronotum shrugged and called some changelings over. They nodded and flew off into the cave. "While I agree, the changelings' creations have proven to be aid with hive efficiency, and I have, as of yet, found no detriments to the creation of these new forms of condensed love."

"Except for the time they waste making them," Chrysalis mumbled under her breath.

Pronotum shook her head at Chrysalis' attempt at being 'discreet'. "Ah. They're already back," she noticed.

Three changelings landed in front of the queens, sat on their haunches, and help up crystal hearts of three different colors above their heads. One a mint green, another wine red, and amethyst. Chrysalis looked them over, and her scowl only grew the longer she did so.

"Just take one, you stubborn mule," Pronotum growled.

"Ffffine," the queen hissed. Chrysalis swiped the mint green heart and started to gnaw at it energetically. Her scowl gradually faded away, and her eyes brightened at the flavor. She took the heart out of her mouth, and held it in her magic, then pointed at it with a hoof. "What is this?"

Pronotum was too busy gnawing on the amethyst-colored crystal to answer immediately. "You like it, it seems," she said.

The other three changelings took off and broke the crystal into three separate pieces to share, something the 'captured' queen had taken notice of. Chrysalis swallowed a mouthful of gem and pretended to display apathy while she twirled it in the air. "It's okay, I suppose..." She licked it and coughed. "How did they make this?"

"You know how animals still carry some love?" she asked the blue-green queen.

"Yes, but it's not as rich as the ponies', nor is it as complex. It's why I never let my hive bother with that," she explained.

"Well," Pronotum wiped her mouth. "They might not be nutritious, but much like spices the other races have used to decorate the flavor of their foods, so too does the love of animals allow for such things." She gnawed a little more at the crystal and hummed in delight. "I love this one's flavor."

Chrysalis turned her own meal over several times in the air with magic and frowned. "But we can eat sugar as a suitable secondary substance," she noted. "It's not as nutritious, but it's just as rich and can give us the energy we need when migrating."

The other queen bobbed her gem multiple times at Chrysalis before swallowing her mouthful of food. "That's true, but how are we supposed to get any? We spent our time here preying on the mountain climbers from here and Prance, draining them of their love then sending them back at the base of the mountains, creating rumors of monsters appearing at the lower levels so they wouldn't come snooping up here." She heaved a loud sigh. "It's not like it's extremely dangerous for non-changelings of our hive to come up here." Pronotum looked at her reflection in the crystal then through it to see Chrysalis' distorted shape. "Torrential winds from the height and uneven mountain shape. Extreme steepness leading to ninety degrees walls and slopes or even sharper inclinations. Lack of nearly all heat up here, causing even those with lots of thick clothing to freeze to death."

"A waste of food," Chrysalis scoffed.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you, Chrysalis."

The emaciated queen looked up with cautious, analytical eyes. "What?"

"What exactly drove you to attack the capital of the ponies."

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "I already told you this."

"No you didn't." Pronotum shook her head. "You said you wanted tons of love to feed your hive, but as we all discussed, there were other ways."

The emaciated queen grumbled loudly. "Why are we going back on this?"

"Because I want to know why you exposed our entire race to lesser beings." Pronotum continued to speak calmly, but her eyes were bright and wide with rage.

"Fine!" Chrysalis yelled to the heavens. "I was trying to take over Equestria and force my changelings within it."

Pronotum was taken aback. "You what?!"

"We wouldn't have needed to hide in that hive anymore and would have love constantly available! A supply chain would've been established under the guise of military supply transportation." She smiled and looked at nothing, imagining whatever scene was going through her mind. "Imagine everything we could have done. Changelings would have gradually phased out ponies in Equestria, and by the time they might have noticed something, it would have been too late."

Pronotum nodded intently at the plan. She took her food out of her mouth before talking again. "So what stopped your plan?"

"That Twilight Sparkle!" she bellowed and slammed her hoof in the goop. "I wasn't expecting her at all. I acted appropriately to everyone else there, but she and this Cadance had an intimate relationship I wasn't aware of."

"Ha!" Pronotum laughed. "You went in half-cocked because you were too sure of yourself." Her bemused demeanor turned to rage and quick talking. "That's EXACTLY what got you in trouble in the first place. You only heard TALK of Twilight and didn't dig deeper into that." She counted by poking dots in the goop with each point she made. "Taking the place of a well-trusted servant. Becoming a guard and patiently working your way up to personal bodyguard. Prying for rumors regarding their relationship. Sending changelings out to find the Twilight Sparkle and learn about her, her snooping behavior, and her relationship to your target."

Chrysalis growled angrily, but she conceded. "That's all true...and I lost everything afterwards because of Starlight Glimmer."

"Yes. The pony who sneaked into your hive with a god of chaos in tow." She scratched her chin and started to wonder aloud. "I'm surprised his counterpart never appeared."

"Counterpart?" Chrysalis repeated.

"It's nothing." Pronotum waved the thought away. "But it was a changeling in your own hive that betrayed you."

Chrysalis stared longly at what was left of her gem and squeeze it. "My own flesh and blood."

"You should've seen something wrong with him and dealt with him like the traitor he is," Pronotum said.

The emaciated queen shot a glare at the blue-purple queen and growled through her teeth. "And what do you do to your traitors?"

Pronotum looked to the side and continued to gnaw on her crystal. "Oh, nothing important enough to put in details," she slurred dismissively.

Rarity's Taste

Author's Note

Update lateness explanations here

Rarity's Taste

Rarity entered her classroom and became briefly startled when she saw the new student Applejack talked about. The changeling's smile and stare were unnerving to the unicorn who forced herself to give a smile in return. She cleared her throat and levitated several boxes of cloth squares to the circular tables where the students convened together.

"Alright. Today we're going to make some spring-themed quilts, with each of you working together on a side." She raised her hoof quickly in the air. "But! You're going to have to work together on how to best make the quilts. While they ARE meant to be randomly stitched together, the best quilts use the materials available to make beautiful decorations." She smiled widely. "Does anypony know why we are doing this?"

A pony raised his hoof. "To give to the needy and help them get through the cold nights?" he asked.

"That's right!" Rarity applauded. "But that's just one of the many things you can do with a quilt." Her eyes gleamed with ideas. The unicorn raised several brown boxes filled with greens, yellows, and white cloths onto the tables and let her students take out the contents. She opened her mouth then shut it instantly, realizing the mistake she had almost committed. "Why don't one of YOU try and figure out what another possible use for them could be," she said.

"Well," Cranberry started. She flipped the cloths squares over again and again to understand them better. "If you give gifts to someone you care about, they will be extremely grateful and will likely love you for all the gifts you've brought them."

The other changeling, sitting in front of Cranberry, spoke out. "But that would spoil them, and they come to expect more and more gifts and fancier ones at that!" She looked to Rarity with an angry expression. "The BEST way to make friends is to give them small and few gifts at first. Leave the large ones for special celebrations."

Cranberry chuckled while some of the ponies and griffons nodded in agreement. "Yes. Give them very few gifts at very frequent intervals."

The changeling was insulted. "That's not--!"

"No. The best way to befriend them is to give them everything you intended to give them. Right. At. The start," She stomped the table with every word. "Otherwise, they'll start expecting gifts every day, which will tarnish the relationship and make it built on money, rather than common ground."

"No...If you give them the huge gifts all at once, you're essentially bribing them into becoming friends with you, leading to a hypocritical relationship with the other creature and tarnishing what the concept of friendship is!" she said.

The two glared at each other from across the table; with Cranberry leaning back in her chair, still smirking; and the disguised Mesosoma leaning forward with her hooves on the table and fangs bared wide.

"A-actually--" Rarity attempted to lessen the tension of the situation.

"Nooooo, your plan will lead to unrealistic expectations," Cranberry said. She put a hoof to her chest. "MY plan is a thoroughly tested and fully successful one."

Mesosoma crossed her forelegs. "So bribe them and they're your friend?" She started waving her forelegs in the air and stuck her tongue out. "Oooo, we're friends whilst wearing these embroider, Saddle Arabian silk dresses you got us! BEST friends!" she mocked.

Cranberry's smirk was starting to dissipate. "Because you giving them rags will make you a good friend?" she asked.

"Now wait just a minute," Rarity interjected. "A gift can be of any value so long as it was made with affection by your friend. As long as you know each other very well, there would be no issues with receiving even something as simple as a quilt!"

"My experiences say otherwise," Cranberry rebutted. "Giving everything all at once has presented my friendships from only being built upon the possibility of gifts."

"Oh, COME ON!" Mesosoma threw her forelegs in the air in rage then pointed at her 'fellow' changeling. "There's no way that's true. You just bribed them! And if you didn't, did you at least wait until a special day to give them their gifts?"

Cranberry blinked slowly at the disguised queen. "Why would I do that?" she asked with a blank stare.

Twilight and Applejack were eavesdropping outside Rarity's class and hearing just how loud the changelings were getting. Twilight frowned with concern.

"I don't get it," she said. "I thought that the reformed changelings were beyond this kind of behavior."

Applejack pursed her lips. "Well, ah did tell ya that this changeling was a bit weird. Seems they're disturbin' the rest of Thorax's hive." She passed a hoof through her mane then put her hat back on. "Ah figure they've had more than enough time ta become a little more like us." She shrugged.

"I'm going to intervene," Twilight said.

The alicorn took a step to the door then swung around behind it when it started opening, pulling AJ with her against the wall.

"Well, if you can't behave yourselves then you're BOTH staying outside!" Rarity shouted.

The light and heavy hoof clopping on the school's floors preceded the door slamming shut behind the two changelings, leaving them seemingly alone in the hall.

"Look what you did!" the disguised Mesosoma shouted. Cranberry ignored the shouted and gnawed at the chitin on her right foreleg. "I'm just here trying to learn about the ponies' way of life, and then you come out of nowhere and ruin everything!" She paces around, mumbling angrily to herself, then turns and points to her enemy. "YOU STUPID EL--"

Her face turned pale, peaking Cranberry's curiosity. She was also surprised, although in a less extreme fashion.

"Oh, the teacher's of this school!" she said happily. "And Miss Applejack!" she said. "I'm glad to see you again."

"Can't rightfully say the same," Applejack replied. She was upset and lowered her hat slightly to reflect it.

Twilight circumvented Cranberry, avoiding any form of eye contact, to reach Mesosoma. While the elder kept her happy expression up, being snubbed like that by a pony filled her with a seething rage.

"How DARE she just ignore me like that!" she thought. "I deserve respect no matter from what creatures!"

"What happened Anten?" Twilight asked softly to the disguised queen. "You never had issues like this before." The alicorn looked at Cranberry who waved back at her. "I thought you would be ecstatic about another changeling being here. You were the second to come, after all."

"It's HER fault!" Anten accused. "She's being obnoxious about everything here!"

Cranberry looked away in indignation. "I'm only stating my methods of approaching problems. YOU'RE the one who gets angry every time I talk," she replied.

"You see?!" the changeling shouted. "She's doing it again!"

While Twilight became disheartened, Applejack was having none of it. During the short exchange, she had gone to the janitor's closet and taken out empty buckets, soap, and mops and dropped them loudly onto the floor in front of them. The sudden noises startled the three.

"If yer not gonna behave like adults, then yet gonna work like adults." She put a mop in the forelegs of the two changelings. "Y'all best work together until the end of the school day. Then tomorrow, ya can go back ta class normally."

"But--" Anten attempted to protest.

"There AIN'T no appealin' in THIS court!" Applejack interjected rapidly. "Y'all work 'n get this behavior out of your system, am I understood?!"

Cranberry raised a brow and looked at Anten from the corner of her eyes. Her head was held low and her ears were drooping.

"Yes, m'am," she mumbled despondently.

Applejack jabbed the red changeling in the chest, surprising her a tad. " Y'all better get ta changin' yer act as well. We're more than open fer accomodatin' the more 'outrageous' kind 'o folk ta teach them how ta be 'round others, but you're in another league entirely."

"Applejack!" Twilight scolded.

She pulled her away, and the two started bickering loudly while walking down the halls, leaving the two changelings alone to start mopping the floors of the School of Friendship. Anten was using her wings to better reach the floors with the long broom handle, but the more she thought about how she got here, the angrier she became, until the mopping became angry 'stabs' against the floor.

"You're ruining everything!" she growled through her teeth. "It was going just fine until you popped up! I was going to get all the knowledge I needed to help my hive integrate into this pony society and no longer suffer from love famine."

"Uh huh," Cranberry dismissed. "So you were still going to work as changelings do?"

Anten blinked slowly. "What? No. I was going to approach Thorax."

Cranberry scoffed. "And thus reject all that makes changelings unique in favor of being exactly like the ponies." She used her magic to mop large portions of the floor at once. "You could have ousted me right then and there, anyways. Why didn't you?" she asked calmly.

"Because it could have jeopardized my plans. Revealing you to be an elder would mean there there are other hives." She mopped a little more before continuing to talk. "I will oust you eventually, however," she grumbled.

Cranberry chuckled awkwardly and spun on one hoof to face the changeling. "Ha ha. You see, now THAT'S not something you should have said." Her lips rose higher and higher, further than physically possible, warping her face into a monstrous smile. "Can't have a whistle blower ruining an operation far more important than your exposing the whole of the changeling world." She flicked the fins on her neck. "Imagine all those hives that don't want to be found." She wagged her hoof at the now distraught queen. "I might be an infertile elder, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable." She laid the mop against the wall delicately then looked to where the changeling used to be and heaved a sigh. "I know how to intercept you. I've spent about two hundred years dealing with escapees. A changeling queen is nothing special," she scoffed.

Mesosoma was rushing through the halls as fast as her wings could push her. She was looking for any of the professors. She knew that they couldn't be replaced. The magic in the school wouldn't allow one of the elements of harmony to be attacked that way. No one was on the first floor, so she flew up stairs and followed the sweet, pastry scent filling her nostrils. Pinkie Pie was having a baking class. That was her chance. She was caught by the elder queen disguised as a section of the wall and the two were teleported outside just beneath the cliff that the elder had used. The two dissolved their disguises and hissed at each other.

"See?" the elder gloated. "You had no chance of reaching anyone the second you announced your 'plan'." She paused a moment then lessened her body's strain. "Well. 'Plan'. As much as one can call it."

"So what now? You're going to kill me?" Mesosoma growled.

The elder queen raised her twisted foreleg up, and the blue queen closed her eyes, ready to be knocked out. Instead, the hoof hit the dirt wall behind her three times, and its owner back away.

"No, but SHE is," she said with a grin.

"She?" the blue queen repeated.

The dirt behind her exploded outwards, and multiple hooves grabbed onto her screaming body. The yellow changelings of Clypeus had taken her as a prisoner, much to the elder's pleasure. The side of the cliff blew outwards as well, but the yellow queen was the culprit this time. She shook the dirt off of her body and stuck her tongue out in disgust.

"I hate it when the dirt gets into my mouth," the queen complained. Her eyes went to the elder then Mesosoma. "Not even a day and we already have a problem?"

"It would seem so," the elder grumbled.

"Let me go!" the queen ordered the yellow changelings. Her horn lit up then fizzled out just as quickly.

Clypeus wagged her hoof. "Ah ah ah! Queens cannot order the changelings of other broods!" She accentuated her statement with a chuckle. "Are you sure we need to bring her back already, though?" the yellow queen asked.

The elder looked at her colleague with scrutiny. "What do you mean? She was going to oust me."

"Was she?" Clypeus scratched the back of her neck. "Well, be that as it may, we came here to learn, not to randomly kidnap everyone that bothers us."

"What are you suggesting?"

The yellow queen hummed pensively, confusing her underlings. "We can learn of her point of view and ways of thinking to better assess any other hives that think the same way." She glared at the blue queen. "Let her go. If she tries to actually oust us, then she'll be killed."

The elder shook her head. "We can't kill her. Her brood would be doomed. It has no heir."

Mesosoma puffed up her cheeks. "I never told you that."

The elder gave a single laugh as a response. "It's easy to tell that you're a very young queen. There's no way you could have already--"

Both the elder and Clypeus bolted their attention to a ledge behind them where two red eyes his behind the shadows of a bush. Realizing it had been found, the eyes vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the two queens to fly off to the ledge. Using her magic, Mesosoma broke out of the grip of the yellow changelings and followed them, landing atop a brown patch of land where dead grass and dried bushes wilted. Clypeus and the elder observed the insects on the straw pitter-pattering in every direction.

"They seem dead," the elder said.

Clypeus leaned in closer then shook her head. "No. They're just completely drained." She stood up and looked at the forest. "If there are no insects to eat them, then they'll recover eventually."

"What happened here?" Mesosoma asked in shock.

"She got out?" Clypeus said half-surprised. "The red brood?" she asked the elder.

"Well, the eyes were red, and this is still a small area, but it definitely looks like their work."

The yellow queen grumbled. "Looks like we're going to have to take this approach more passively. They might know, or this was just a random occurrence." A cold shiver went through her body. "At least I hope it was just a coincidence."

An indiscernible truth

Twilight scratched her head when she saw the wall of goo standing before her. It was seven stories tall and spanned a massive cave dug out by the changelings during Chrysalis' reign. The walls were wavy, uneven, and didn't conform to a 'building code' Twilight was familiar with. Worse were the glowing holes pockmarking the goo in irregular patterns. An occasional buzz came from the uncommon changeling getting some reading material from the slime and flying away with it in tow. The lavender alicorn stuck her tongue out in disgust.

"What is this stuff?" she asked Pharynx.

"This?" he poked the yellowish goop and pulled back a strand of it. To Twilight, it looked like thick mucus. "It's conservation sap. We..." His eyes darted left and right. "exude it through our mouths after eating some mushroom and yellow rocks. Not sure what you call them." He snorted and looked up at the wall with a smile. "This sap is so efficient that many of these scrolls are millennia old." He frowned and shrugged. "Or so we're told."

The alicorn's eyes widened. "Milennia?! That means they're older than the princesses! All the things we could discover that have been forgotten."

Pharynx pushed Twilight down. "Calm down, princess. This is all changeling history and tales that have been shared by scouts." He let go. "We were never good at organizing, so the thousands of scrolls here aren't placed in any proper way. We're not sure what has what or where it even is." The changeling stomped the ground. "Don't know why we'd even need any of this. Everything taught she be from mouth-to-ear! This stuff detracts from defensive and survival training!"

Twilight shook her head at the changeling. "Yeah, and what if somepony deforms the tale? What then?" The mare started scanning the holes with her magic.

Pharynx narrowed his eyes before rebutting. "What of your history? Any one pony could have altered the information."

"That's true, but we have ways of checking the authenticity of something regardless of where it came from." She bobbed her head to the side. "Although it can take several years if no pony is sure of the truth," she trailed off.

Pharynx snorted with confidence. "So we're looking for other hives, right?" Twilight hummed in confirmation. "I really don't see why you want to see them. Like I told you: If they existed, we would have met them already."

"And like I told you, we didn't even know changelings existed for hundreds of years until Chrysalis popped up."

Pharynx rolled his eyes but let the mare continue her searching. It took several hours of combing to finally discover at least one scroll relevant to her needs. Disgusted, the mare dug her foreleg into the goop. She cursed Chrysalis' constant search for antimagic items as bile slowly crawled up her throat. Pushing it back down, the mare ripped the scroll from its resting spot and dropped the item on the floor below. The mare shook her foreleg erratically, screaming in disgust before recovering and setting herself next to Pharynx.

"I'm...I'm going to need my notes to be able to translate what's written on the scrolls," she said as she stifled vomit.

"Oh, don't be such a hatchling," Pharynx berated her. He snatched the scroll from her hoof and spread it out on the floor. "I can read our language just fine. You need it to write down tactics, strategies, and math."

The alicorn frowned and left her saddlebags undisturbed upon her back. Twilight decided to sit down and wait while Pharynx worked on translating what was written. To the alicorn, the words written upon the paper were various vertical and diagonal lines filled with holes, much like the changelings used to be. Was there a pattern to the holes, she wondered.

"Hmmm..." Pharynx hummed.

"What is it?" Twilight asked.

The changeling tapped a side of the unfurled scroll. "There's mention of a unified changeling clan far to the west."

"In Prance?"

Pharynx shook his head. "Just says 'far west'." He looked up at Twilight. "Don't know what that means."

"I don't know either." Twilight looked down pensively but heaved a sigh in the end. "I can't figure it out either. What else does it say about the 'clan'?"

"Well, I only see vague mentions of a single queen with 'princesses' to help her lead a huge mass of our kind."

"Changelings had princesses?" Twilight laughed in disbelief.

"It looks like it...but...if there are other changeling hives, each led by a queen..." Pharynx started.

Twilight's face lost its jovial demeanor. "Then that means that something happened to that 'queen' and these 'princesses'," she murmured. "P-provided it's all real, of course."

"Of course," Pharynx croaked. "Nothing much else in here. Might as well put it back and go look for others."

The alicorn refused to touch the slime again, so Pharynx did it himself under the disgusted gaze of Twilight.

"What will you do if we actually do encounter other changeling hives?" Twilight asked.

After shaking the goop from his foreleg, Pharynx pushed out his lower lip. "I'd like to get into a fight with them," he said plainly. "I want to learn about their strategies and just how long they remained hidden." He dropped in front of Twilight with a thump. "What did they use? Is it a hidden cave system? Do they wipe the memory of those that discover them?"

Disturbed, Twilight was shielding herself with a foreleg. "I think you can calm down now, Pharynx," she said.

"Ah. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "Any other scrolls?"

"That one?" she suggested with a hoof.

Pharynx buzzed to a scroll at floor level and pulled it out with another squelching noise that caused Twilight to heave uncontrollably. Ignoring her larva-like behavior.

"Nope," he said as he rolled the scroll back up. "Nothing in here. Just different versions of the same tale saying that we were born around here and have been praying on ponies since they started civilizations in Equestria."

"That's not very detailed," Twilight pouted. "I really wanted to see more about the changelings. Especially with that last scroll."

"Well..." Pharynx looked around, stood up, then spread his forelegs wide. "We have all these hundreds of scrolls to look through."

Clypeus dangled over a sharp protrusion of stone above the entrance of the hall while Pronotum paced back and forth in the gunk. The blue-purple queen was almost hit by a stray drool of the exhausted yellow queen.

"What are you doing?!" Pronotum shouted angrily.

The queen snorted and lazily wiped her mouth. "Relaxing..." she slurred. "Falling asleep without sleeping." She made a long exhale then looked to Pronotum. "What's wrong with you?"

"We have another queen of yet another hive that's already infiltrated the ponies. She's against us!" She whined and paced around more. "Now what? How many others are hiding in plain sight?"

"I don't know and I don't care. I just want to get rid of the abstergo hive and get back to hunting for food." Clypeus looked at a drone from the corner of her eyes standing sideways on the wall. "I think there's a message for you."

"Hm? What?" Pronotum's gaze was brought to the tiny drone landing in front of her. It hissed quietly in her ears then flew away.

"What's wrong?" Clypeus asked.

"Just more intruders on the mountain." She scratched the back of her neck and pulled dry gunk off. "Seems like there's a pair of couples this time." Clypeus salivated at the idea of eating their love, but Pronotum ignored the drool. "And you didn't tell me about the patch of land near the school drained of life."

The yellow queen chittered. "I was told not to tell you," she said quietly. Clypeus looked to the drones hiding in the slime and smirked. "You're more adept at stealth than my hive is," she mused.

"Well, when you're hiding for decades depending on scraps to saunter by your home, you pick up a thing or two," Chrysalis mocked." She walked to the two queens, her hair unkempt and her face disheveled. "Do we HAVE to constantly met in this same corridor?" she complained.

"It's better than hiding in a box or being somewhere with no light," Pronotum said. "I would love to have our same arguments and all that, but I'm really not in the mood right now."

"Why not?" Chrysalis leaned in closer and tilted her head. "Your attempts to destroy Thorax and his merry band of traitors not working?" The queen made a pouty face with sparkly, watery eyes.

Pronotum bared her teeth in rage and wanted to strike Chrysalis down. Clypeus jumped down and held her back. "No need for that. The elder says we still need her alive." The yellow queen looked at Chrysalis from the corner of her eyes. "For now, at least."

"I take it you found another queen or a changeling from another hive?" Chrysalis surmised.

"More or less," Clypeus answered.

"Well, I guess that proves that there's a large quantity of hives out there after all." She shrugged. "Who knows how many of us there really are." The blue-green queen huffed and scratched her chin. "Are we all the way to the east and south? What about the north? What adaptations do they have and what do they know?"

"CAN you shut up?" Pronotum yelled. "You're giving me a headache with all these obvious questions we've all already asked ourselves." She rubbed her temple with a hoof. "This means that there's likely other nearby changeling hives that know about Thorax, and we don't know what they think."

"Then why not just ask them and found out? It shouldn't be hard for someone who never took risks," Chrysalis mocked.

Pronotum groaned and sat on her rear whilst rubbing the sides of her head. "I'm getting a migraine from my exchanges with you."

"Well, you surely knew that this would happen," Chrysalis said condescendingly. "I just want to get rid of Thorax and recover my hive. I don't give two pony souls about who gets hurt or killed in the process."

Clypeus snickered. "And so we arrive at the point where we must once again speak of the red hive."

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "Not again," she groaned. "I GET it. They're evil. Leave it be."

Clypeus chuckled and walked slowly towards the blue-green queen. "Oh, sure. They're 'evil', but because we discovered each other's existence, we now know that they're somewhere out there, but why they're here is a mystery to us all."

"And we don't know if the legends passed down to us from our mothers and grandmothers are real or not," Pronotum added. She huffed in pain and opened one eye towards Chrysalis. "We thought we were the only hives, but we still believed in the possibility of other queens existing."

The yellow queen grunted. "It's ironic that we learn about the existence of other hives because of one queen going out of her way to try and take over a city. Just ONE did all this."

Pronotum turned to her. "Maybe Chrysalis brought the interest of the red hive?"

The queen in question dropped her face into a hoof and shook her head. "You keep talking about the red hive without explaining who and what they are. Just 'Oh no. Am big bad. Muching the scares!'," she mocked with wide eyes and twirling fore hooves. "Just...TELL ME what you think you know or shut up about them!" Chrysalis bellowed.

Pronotum grumbled but conceded anyways. She readjust herself to face Chrysalis. "From what we were told, the Red Hive still feeds on emotions like we do, but instead of just draining the prey and leaving them to grow for another day, they take everything from them and leave them to die." She cleared her throat. "They're also the most aggressive of the hives and actively attack families in their homes, leaving a nasty scene behind after their drones..." She rubbed the back of her neck then turned it, letting it crack and relieve her of the painful pressure. "Well, they torture to get as much as possible, and they don't care who or what gets in the way."

"Like squeezing a fruit to get all its contents and toss the dried husk aside?" Chrysalis wondered.

Clypeus scoffed and pushed Pronotum away with a jab from her hips. "That's not the story! The red hive takes their food from other emotions, specifically things like anger, hate, and jealousy. They incite it in villages where everything is peaceful and feed themselves from the chaos that ensues. They're attracted to other hives and feed on us too!"

"Cannibals?" Chrysalis asked.

Clypeus nodded. "That's right."

The blue-purple queen smashed the side of her head into the yellow's, prompting the two to force against one another whilst hissing and baring their teeth.

"That's not the true tale!" Pronotum shouted.

"Yes it is! It's the one my hive has been told since its birth!" Clypeus countered.

"Then your hive has always been stupid since its birth!"

"Says the one who hides in its vomit!"

Chrysalis let the petty, pupa-like anger engulf the two queens while she put the two tales together in her head. "So even the elder fears them, but none of them have an actual concise tale between the two." She scoffed quietly. "This is just a pony urban legend by changelings. They've not found proof of their existence, and if they're really attracted to war-like scenarios, they would have appeared already at Thorax's hive."

Pharynx dropped on his belly. "I'm exhausted. I can't find anything on the existence of other hives yet." He yawned and stretched his limbs. "What about you, Twilight?" When she didn't answer, he called for her again. "What are you doing?"

The lavender alicorn was surrounded by stacks of old scrolls, her whole being engulfed by the contents that were alien to her.

"I thought you couldn't read our language?" Pharynx said.

"I can't," Twilight confirmed. "But I like to see how the letters were written and what patterns are within them."

Pharynx shook his head, but he didn't have time to relax. His wings and horns started chittering loud and rapidly. The changeling shot to his hooves and looked around, carefully observing his surroundings. Twilight took notice from the sounds and began to feel unease herself.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Pharynx looked up at the darkening ceiling and narrowed his eyes. "Something here...doesn't belong."