The Queen of Blades...and her sister, Blackarachnia.

Chapters

Wings of Fiberglass
Spark of the Swarm
Nova: 'Rescue' ops.
Legacy of the Smooze
Mourning Glory
Spinning Strands
Healer; Heal Thyself, or Jason and the Bugs
Consequences and opportunities.
Interlude - Divinity Deviation
In The Zen
From my Heart and From my Hand...
Recovery One

Wings of Fiberglass

"That asshole didn't smudge my makeup, did he?" My voice trembles from holding back tears of pain; one hand clutching my side where a layer of purple and grey latex had marked an easy soft target under a series of harder plastic rib-like structures. My other hand is clenched into a fist around a scrap of his shirt that I managed to tear off while giving him a very clear lesson in why attacking someone wearing hard pointy plastic protrusions all over their legs was a very bad idea.

"Someone thinking with their dick punches you in the face and abdomen for telling him not to touch your ass, and you're more concerned about your costume than about making sure we tell security to detain him so we can call the cops and press charges" My sister, Liz, shakes her head only to start laughing as I lift up the fist with the scrap of shirt. "Okay, point taken. Are you okay? He didn't have a blade hidden in that punch or anything? Move your hand, Sam!"

Both hands tense up for a moment at that name; the name that I never considered my own to begin with. Blood pounds in my ears as dark echoes of past taunts resurface in my mind, and I must have a murderous expression on my face because Liz suddenly looks frightened. Next thing I know I have her supporting me and guiding me down onto a bench to sit. I just barely notice a few costumed people standing still nearby, and obviously acting as a wall to create a buffer zone between the crowds and the bench. I don't even realize I'm crying until she pulls a few tissues out of the spherical purse she's carrying and dabs at my cheeks and eyes.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry, Sarah, it just slipped out! Please don't be angry." I feel her other hand gently probe the area of the abdominal punch, and this makes me flinch away with an involuntary hiss. "Well, no blood and no damage to the costume, but you're probably going to have a nasty bruise. This is not the time to have a breakdown just because I used the wrong name!" I can hear the worry in her voice, and I close my eyes to focus and center myself a bit while gently squeezing her shoulder.

"I'll be fine, just, please, never call me that again." I squeeze her shoulder a couple more times; a signal we'd developed years ago that we'd talk more later, in private. I take a few more calming and deep breaths before opening my eyes again. The first thing I see is Elizabeth's gold-and-black-painted face looking back at me before she nods in understanding while taking off her helmet to let her red hair down for a bit. "We might need to call it a day a bit earlier than expected, or at least get something to eat now while my face is already messed up. The police will probably want me to remove the facial makeup to document my injuries anyways."

"Security and police report first, then lunch at a local restaurant sounds good. Food's on me, and I have the retouch kits for both of our faces in the purse if you decide to come back after lunch." This brings a painful smile to my face and I carefully stand up from the bench.

Before we can go anywhere one of the people who created the living wall around us clears their throat: a teenager wearing a purple dress with pink and fuscia patches as well as matching pink gloves and boots, with purple feathered wings made of cardboard. "Excuse me, I know this is probably a bad time, but those are the best costumes I've ever seen of those characters and I just have to get a picture with you." The others who stood watch all nodded and chimed in as well, including a man painted in the red and black chaos of Carnage offering to add his observations of the incident.

"I heard what that animal said to you, miss, and he clearly needs a lesson in hate crime laws. I would have done something more to prevent his escape, but I did manage to record the whole thing by chance." Even his phone is red and black. A passerby is commandeered to get all the pictures everyone wants, then the three of us head off to present the damning evidence.

Three hours later, after an uncomfortable recounting of the incident and a delicious sushi lunch, we arrive back at the convention center with raised spirits and special cargo. In one hour there is going to be a panel that includes comic writer Simon Furman, followed by a chance to get autographs. Liz brought a single Beast Wars comic, whereas I have my collection of mint-condition Starcraft comics carefully tucked away alongside a few select valuables and necessities in an armored pocket hidden behind the 'bone-plates' covering my stomach: wallet, phone, emergency charger, emergency solar panel in case no outlets are available, tampons in case my sister forgot. I had to be inventive, since my costume wasn't one that would allow for a purse. A glance at my sister's back makes me stop, then laugh before calling out while we pass a souvenir setup. "Liz, wait, your hourglass is mussed up and there's some bunching. I think it happened when you sat down for lunch and I didn't notice before." I kneel down, frowning as I try to smooth things out using the palms of my hands and grateful that Liz had used a firm plastic base for the back 'shell' piece of the costume rather than making the whole thing out of shiny spandex.

"Well hello ladies! My my, such fine costumes, and so accurate to the source material." The sudden voice sends a shiver down my spine as I quickly stand and look into the stall, only to get hit in the face with a foam-rubber spider leg attached to my sister's forearm. "A Spawn of Amon and the least toy-accurate character since Jetfire, one with a perfect costume and the other missing her pincers." The guy in the stall strikes a severely strong chord of wrongness in me. For one thing, why would someone dress like the Happy Mask Salesman from Ocarina of Time at Comic-Con?

"My costume is not incomplete. I'm not about to put on some oversized chopsticks just to please a stickler for detail either. Other than that, your compliments are accepted and appreciated on my part." Liz's tone brooks no argument, though her face does light up a bit as she looks at the vast display of wares. Masks are by far the most common thing available, including a few that are so detailed as to make it appear that characters have been beheaded. One thing catches my eye as well, but I take care to avoid showing any of the excitement I feel as my eyes trace the outline of a C-20A Cannister Rifle replica.

"Of course, of course, I wouldn't dream of questioning your design decisions on a matter of practicality such as having hands. Now, for ladies of such distinguished tastes only the best wares will do... and I only stock the best wares. Each one absolutely unique and guaranteed not to break due to casual use." His attention turns to my sister and he steps out of my sight while I look around to see what else he has to offer so I get a better price when I start off with something other than that gun. "I even have an MP-05 Megatron with the arm armatures made of titanium alloy to fix that annoyingly common breaking issue."

"Oh, no. I'm sorry, but I hate that mold and I just bought an MP-36 last month." I hear her open her purse and reach in before I look over at her and grab her wrist before she can pull the new toy out. My gaze flicks to the man dressed as O'aka and I can't help but wonder why that seems like such a strange costume.

"Liz, think before you act. You were about to pull out a collector's item toy shaped like a gun in the middle of a crowded convention hall. I don't care if security cleared you to carry it as long as it stayed inside a plastic bag; I don't want you to start a panic when some idiot can't tell the difference between a plastic P-38 and a metal one. Now that I've said that loud enough for everyone in earshot to have heard that this is simply a high-end TOY, you can show the man." I glance around at the people nearby, and I notice a few of them either shaking their heads or laughing. One guy has a camera pointed right at my ass... at least he isn't grabbing it.

"You know, Sarah, you could have done that without embarassing the shit out of me." Her angry tone suggests that she's not going to be chipping in for gas on the drive home, and I return to looking at the other items the guy dressed as Marcus is offering. Why is he dressed as a Borderlands character when this is a comic convention? Why is he glaring at me? You'd think a guy would be happy having two women whose costumes render them little better than nude standing at his booth for an extended length of time. Maybe he's gay, or married. Shit, Liz was right; this guy has so many gun and weapon replicas on display that nobody would blink at another one. How the hell did he clear all this with security? How the hell did I manage to spot that C-20A among all these other ones? Why is he grinding his teeth instead of looking at Liz... no. I close my eyes and take a deep breath while bringing my hands up to my temples and gently massaging for a few seconds. Shut out the world, center yourself, breathe and calm down. Nobody is glaring at you. Nobody but Liz even has a reason to be angry with you right now.

"Well now that is some nice engineering there. May I hold the bag for a moment miss, Liz was it?" Shutting the world out isn't working very well, and something just sounds off about his voice or that is an extremely bad impression. "Here, as insurance that I'm not about to make off with this expensive toy how about looking over these two pieces to see if they interest you?" Two heavy thuds rattle the table and I quickly open my eyes. "One Autobot Matrix of Leadership, and one Key to Vector Sigma."

Liz starts bouncing like a little girl and grabs my left shoulder to shake me. "Holy shit, Sarah, look at these!" It's unnecessary since I already have, my gaze just barely catching the guy in the Undead Burg Hollow Merchant costume and I shiver at how digustingly realistic his makeup job is, as well as wrinkling my nose as I swear I smell decaying flesh for a moment. Even I can't help but marvel at the workmanship in these two pieces. The Matrix is sized for a human but clearly made of silver and gold, or at the very least it has been electroplated with those metals. "That is the largest sapphire I've ever seen!" I can't help but cringe and shake my head while looking over the other one.

"Liz, there's no way that's a sapphire. Something that large would be worth more than this entire building and the net worth of every person inside it. It's most likely glass, but the whole unit would be worth at least three hundred in materials alone unless the casing is made of plastic. It's too heavy for that unless this 'Key' is depleted uranium." The key is more intricately detailed than the Matrix. It is easily an inch thick and superficially looks like a remote control of some kind, but it has lines and patterns of silver and some blue crystals which I can't even come close to identifying. "This, on the other hand, I can't begin to guess how much this is worth." I look up again as I swear I see some light flash nearby. Oh...now that is interesting. A Zerg Drone plush, about a foot long. This time I can't hold back the smile as I move to get a different viewing angle on it.

"That would be the true form of The Key, young miss. Many of the Geewun Purists would call it a bastard fusion of the 'real' Key and the one used in Transformers Prime as little more than a super-sized memory stick." Liz giggles at that, and I roll my eyes as I realize that no matter how good a deal I manage to get on my choices this guy is going to earn a fortune off of us. "Now, it seems you finally found something else you like." Before I can blink the man dressed as the Tavernkeeper from Dungeon Defenders places the cannister rifle and the drone plush in front of me. I look up and my stomach twists as I look into his eyes. Bile rises in my throat and I quickly look down to help ease that instant rush of nausea. I try to hide my haste by pulling open that clever pocket on my stomach and reaching in for my wallet. "For you two lovely ladies I offer a special one-time deal: buy one, get one free." Anything to get us moving, we're holding up other business...wait, where did that thought come from? Fuck it, nevermind, those eyes aren't human! Nobody has irises that are purple and green with blue capillaries in the sclera.

"W-wow, what a great deal. You have no idea how much that kind of compliment means to me right now." I stammer, fumbling a bit before finally managing to twist my arm to the right angle so the ridges and spines on the back of my forearm don't get stuck at the rim of the opening. I try to keep my face stuck in a smile as I look up and see him as the vendor from the secret shop in DotA 2. I can't keep it as he flickers like a bad projection. Everything around me goes silent as I watch a deep saucepan appear on his head with the handle facing me and that huge double-chin turn into a beard. His clothing, no, his disguise becomes Crazy Steve from Plants versus Zombies for a solid five seconds before it begins flickering too fast for me to even register individual forms. "H-how much will that be, then?" My vision starts going dark, as if all the lights except the ones over this creature's booth had gone out. "W-we'll give you w-whatever you want."

"You little bitch. You see me." I can't move, hell, I can barely breathe as his form becomes incomprehensible, like something Lovecraft would have come up with if he'd done LSD and had a really bad trip. "I should have known better than to come to a version of this planet with latent psionic potential, no matter how miniscule it is in the general population. I will take your sister's humanity, and her home, but she can keep her hands. I'll take your humanity. I'll take your home. I could take your mind, but it might be more cruel for me to leave you that much. Good luck trying to stay sane, Samuel James Destefano, on a world where hormone treatment and gender affirmation surgery do not exist." His form solidifies into a humanoid of pure black with glowing white eyes, like white dwarf stars on an otherwise featureless face. "Take your toys, and get out of my sight!"

As my vision truly does go black I feel a few things collide with me, and I manage to overcome whatever he's using to paralyze me in order to scream one last defiant thought at him; "That is not my name, you alien rectal wart!" The instant splitting headache tells me that was a bad idea, and I feel something start flowing in my nose before unconsciousness takes me.

"Sarah, wake up. Wake up, I'm freaking the fuck out!" I don't recognize the voice, and I groan in pain as I open one eye. The angle of the impact tells me that whoever spoke just punched me in the back of my left shoulder. The force of the impact tells me that whoever it was doesn't know their own strength, because that really hurt. The sound of metal on bone, not plastic, and the feeling of things on the back of my head twitching in response to these stimuli are what really wake me up.

"Shit, what the fuck is going on?" My wings twitch as I sit up. Wait, what? I don't HAVE wings! I stand, stagger, and fall flat on my ass in a foot of snow as I quickly find out that my feet are no longer supported by clear plastic wedges around what simply looked like a four-inch bone spike for a heel. My wings flex and dig into the ground to help lift me up onto my feet again, and I begin to realize what that being meant when it said it would take our humanity. Standing in front of me, one hand on her knee and the other being shaken to try and remove some mucousal fluid that transferred when she punched me, is Blackarachnia. More accurately; my sister in a Blackarachnia costume that has actually become mechanical. I have to be sure... "Liz? Is that really you?"

She glares at me, and it is odd to see metal flex like skin to create her facial expression. "Who the FUCK else would both look like this AND KNOW YOUR NAME?"

"Anyone could recognize Sarah Kerrigan, and for all you knew you just punched the real Queen of Blades until I said your name." I know I shouldn't be angry about that, but goddamn she needs to start thinking before she does something that isn't work-related.

"Sarah Francessca Destefano, stop assuming that I'm a complete moron for just one second, PLEASE! Your pocket still exists, you had your wallet in your hand and the spare box of tampons you INSIST on carrying with you any time we go anywhere together was still inside. I knew exactly who you were before I punched you." Any further argument is interrupted by a flash of light that is absolutely blinding for me with the snow on the ground and falling around us reflecting and refracting it; eliciting a shriek as I bring my hands up to cover my eyes.

"Faam, E tet hud aqbald du veht cusadrhk mega aedran uv oui rana." The voice is musical, but the language unknown...and yet I can hear an echo in my head. My hands go from holding my eyes to clutching my temples as I shake my head in a vain attempt to silence this echo. Well, I did not expect to find something like either of you here. "E tet hud aqbald du veht yhodrehk yd ymm vun yhudran vevdo oaync." I did not expect to find anything at all for another fifty years. I open my eyes to realize that I haven't been blinded afterall, and I see my sister alternating between looking at me and at the entity that has appeared somewhere to my right. "Fryd yna oui?" What are you?

Liz looks at me one more time before growling and bending down to grab something off the ground. Silver, black grip, black 'scope,' and slightly oversized for her...no, perfectly sized for her hand now...odd. "Look, flying horse-thing, I don't know who you are or what the FUCK your glowing horn is doing, but you are hurting MY SISTER. Either you stop hurting her right now or we all find out exactly what my little toy here can do after that guy dressed like the JojaMart representative who sent us here touched it. I'd rather not get blood, or whatever internal fluids you have, on my hands so quickly, but NOBODY FUCKS WITH MY FAMILY; WE'RE ITALIAN!"

"Elizabeth Maria Destefano, stop yelling when I already have a headache. It's not helping."

"E ybumukewa vun yho" I apologize for any "discomfort in the process, but I had to fine-tune the translation matrix of my spell for the unknown language. There was no way to do that without either some kind of sample, or invasive mental probes. I elected to go with the former as I had made the latter illegal to use on sapient beings outside of times of outright war over a century ago." Oh, good, the echoing stopped...but there is still an almost-whisper in the back of my mind that is less painful and more of an annoyance akin to a mosquito buzzing in my ear. "While I do not appreciate the threat against my health I simply must applaud your loyalty to your family. Loyalty is a key value in the nation I govern. If you could please lower the weapon I would be happy to continue this discussion in a more civil manner." Liz blinks, looking at me in confusion until I nod and gesture for her to stop threatening whoever this is. I do my best to stand up straighter myself, wiping away the tears on my face before they can freeze as I turn and behold the palest shade of pink I've ever seen. "Thank you. My name is Princess Celestia, and the two of you tore a hole in the Weave the size of Manehatten somehow."

"You're a talking pegasus...with a horn, and you're making horse puns." I blink as I finally notice the faint reverberation my own voice seems to have, but the snow is falling straight down now rather than blowing sideways, so the wind not flooding my ears might explain that. "Nope, not going to think too hard about that at the moment. My sister and I need to get somewhere warm before we," I cringe and look over at Liz again before continuing, "sorry, before I begin to get frostbite. I think Liz may be beyond such frailties of the flesh for the forseeable future."

"Liz? That would be short for 'Elizabeth Maria Destefano' which I heard you say?" The princess shifts her focus towards my sister, who simply nods as if not trusting herself to speak. The golden glow around her horn intensifies slightly, and the air feels a bit more comfortable without really eliminating the chill. "So, what would your name be then?"

"Call me Sarah, and try to avoid using more than our first names unless we have caused a huge problem and need to be given some kind of lecture or punishment." I manage a smile, no teeth, and the hor-Princess Celestia smiles in return.

"I-I have some sensors telling me that some lubricants in my body are about ten degrees away from crystallization, actually. I may not get frostbite anymore, not that we know that for sure yet, but that doesn't mean freezing temperatures aren't a threat to my safety. You mentioned spells, right? Is there any chance you could create a warm room for the three of us if this discussion needs to take place now? Eight degrees."

"Oh, of course. Let me see...five walls of force and a radiant heat spell on a stone table. You two look like you would fit comfortably in the chairs that we use for minotaur ambassadors and their families when they visit, one backless. Afternoon tea with some pastries, I think, would hit the spot." I take her word for it on the walls of force, but the other items begin appearing as she names them and both of us sit down after she gestures with a forehoof. "Now, let us talk of why you have invaded the territory of the Crystal Empire, which still exists even if it has been missing for nine and a half centuries, and is a protectorate state of the Unified Equestrian Nations despite its name. Let us also speak of how you managed to nearly destroy the local Weave. Finally, you will convince me why I shouldn't have one of you sentenced to at least twenty years of community service for threatening me with a weapon of unknown capacity and therefore potentially ending all life on this planet since I control the movement of the sun."

"GODDAMNITT LIZ!"

Author's Note

So, yeah, I'm trying my hand at this 'Displaced' thing because the idea would not leave my head and wouldn't let me work on anything else whatsoever until I had at least written out this chapter. This sure as hell felt longer than 4k words while I was writing it, but I do hope any who read it find it an enjoyable experience.

I haven't had time to give it a final editing pass yet, so I would appreciate comments pointing them out if anyone finds any errors.

P.S. Apparently the formatting here on FiMfiction eats the tilde character (~) in story text, which is what I was using to denote the difference between internal monolog use of italics versus stray thoughts or surface-layer mind reading, which in turn makes it impossible to tell the two apart at this time.

I'm not going to fix this problem in this chapter. It. Makes. Sense! Sarah has no clue how to tell read thoughts from her own thoughts yet because until now it has been 99% dormant! A word here, an emotion there, and now full sentences being translated in real-time while she hears a foreign language being spoken.

I love happy accidents like this!

Spark of the Swarm

It takes me a minute to process the fact that that almost chime-like sound is the laughter of Princess Celestia, who currently has her head laying on the table with her muzzle covered by her forelegs. "The looks on your faces! I'm sorry, but it has been decades since I have been able to pull a prank like that. You really thought I was going to bring her up on charges when she was trying to spare you pain?" Her laughter continues for a few more seconds before choking itself off with a series of loud and undignified coughs. "Ahem, right *snrk*, why were you in pain anyways? Nothing in my spell has the capacity to trigger pain receptors as it doesn't reach into a mind."

"I was hearing your voice twice. Once with my ears in your language, and a second later it would echo in my head in English. I have a problem with effects like that, and it's why I can't stand watching foreign films with subtitles. If I hear the speech and read the words at the same time everything gets muddled up because of the different languages." I can't keep a groan from escaping my mouth as I bring my hands up to my face. "Speaking of which, the two of us are going to have to learn your language. Spells for translation are nice and all, but I doubt this one extends to, say, the written form of the language. Similarly; neither of us are capable of spellcasting, so we wouldn't be able to understand Jack or Shit once we get outside a certain range of you, Princess."

"Oh, well I can certainly understand how disorienting that could be... wait. The only way you could have something like that happen is if you were seeing into my mind. I must insist that you answer the question I asked before your sister threatened me: what are you? You told me who, but not what. Time to come clean, girls." I glance over to Liz and shrug before gesturing for her to go ahead.

"Short version: We are sisters. We come from a planet called Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy, and we do not know the exact method by which we arrived. We used to be humans, a bipedal species of the primate family that rose to dominance on our planet through tool use and adaptability. I say used to be because the bodies we have now are not those we were born with. We met something at a social gathering, and it turned us into copies of the characters we dressed up as while leaving our minds, our memories, our personalities intact. I don't just look like the character Blackarachnia; I have a good ninety-eight percent of her body. Blackarachnia is a member of a race of sentient autonomous machines known as the transformers. My body is no longer organic, and I should be able to reconfigure myself into the shape of a Northeastern Black Widow spider once I figure out exactly how to trigger that. I already tried the method used in the source material, so I think that might only work as a shortcut after I figure it out the long way." She taps the silver circle on the outside of each thigh and pulls out the MP-36 from one and the Key to Vector Sigma from the other, then taps the yellow Predacon insignia on her collar and I look away as her torso panels separate and unfold, opening so she can remove the Matrix of Leadership as well as exposing her Spark.

It takes me a second to realize that I can still see this even though I'm no longer looking at her. I close my eyes and continue listening while trying to figure out how I'm seeing her at the same angle as when I was looking her way. I watch her point at the Spark in her chest first. "This is called a Spark. Do your people have a concept of a soul?" Celestia nods in response, her expression that of rapt fascination. "The Spark is essentially the soul of a transformer. It has the drawback of being a physical piece that can be damaged by direct action, or even by pushing oneself too far too fast or too often. When a transformer dies, the Spark copies all memories and personality data from the body to share the experiences of that life when it rejoins with Primus, the deity of creation in their lore. Any questions so far?"

"How long do they live? How long could you live now that you are one?"

"Hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of years with proper maintenance, care, and minimal exposure to danger. Moving on to the next item we have the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. This version appears to be the one that serves as the collected memories of every Autobot to ever posess it, as well as one that can provide an upgraded body to one worthy of holding it. I hold it, but I have not earned it. Granted it could be fake...but the crystal wasn't glowing before we came here." The Matrix is carefully picked up and placed back inside of her torso, which closes once more. She taps one finger against the Key before picking up what was once a Megatron toy by the barrel. "This used to be a fun thing, now it's a weapon. He did something to it and I can tell just by looking at it that all the panel lines have fused together. Touching it, holding it as if to use it fills me with a sense of dread. Threatening to use it against you was not comfortable for me. For all I know pulling the trigger on this could call down an entire Decepticon armada, or it could just be a standard gun firing energy instead of bullets."

I clear my throat, loudly, before opening my eyes. "Perhaps I should go on with telling the princess what I have become before you explain the capabilities of that last item, Liz. Even though she doesn't seem to mind it; she asked about us, not our inventory. You already know my name is Sarah. The name of the character that I used to only be dressed up as is Sarah as well. Sarah Kerrigan, Queen of Blades, Eternal Will of the Swarm, Successor to the Overmind...Queen Bitch of the Universe. She was once human before being betrayed and left for the Zerg to kill her. Instead she was captured and infested, turned into a hybrid between human and Zerg. Even before becoming corrupted and having her limiter implants removed she was easily able to read surface thoughts of those nearby with enough detail to know when someone was having a sexual fantasy involving herself. I'd say i'm still a few steps below that point so far, and a great deal below a level 12 on a ten-point scale. That explains my ability to read your surface thoughts. The Zerg are a collective of parasites and hosts. Parasites infest a host body and cannibalize it most of the time, stripping out the best parts and adding it to any compatible soldier strains. Infestation can also be used to strengthen exceptional individuals at a cost. This form that I have, the armor plating, the purple glowing cracks in the skin of my face, the exposed muscles, and the telepathic communication tentacles for hair; this is Kerrigan after absorbing the essence, the vital strength and primal power of the planet Zerus. I have no intention of conquest by force, but I can guarantee that I will grow to become very powerful. The question I put to you, Princess, is a very simple one: do you wish to make allies today, or enemies?"

"Allies whenever possible, and you two would make strong allies indeed if even half of what you claim is true. It may be best to keep the two of you away from population centers for at least the first few months while you acclimate. Obviously you're going to want someplace warmer than this..."

"Do you have any areas that are inhospitable to most forms of wildlife, including plants? I'd rather not risk accidental infestations before I'm able to find a way to change a few things about how my brood will function. Zerg thrive in areas that force them to adapt, so it will help you in the long run as well."

"Sarah, what do you mean by your brood? Kerrigan couldn't create drones," I smile and reach into the armored tendrils that have replaced my hair as Liz points out the percieved flaw, withdrawing it after a moment with the second set of eyes I'd discovered on my palm: a no-longer-plush miniature Zerg drone. "So unless you..." She trails off upon seeing it, her mouth closing and opening a few times. "Where did you get that? When did you get that?"

I don't even need to concentrate to feel the fear and revulsion pouring out of Princess Celestia's mind, and I quickly hide the drone back in my 'hair' for the moment. "That is, perhaps, the most disgusting thing I have ever seen." Looking back in her direction tells me this is no exaggeration as she has backed up into a corner made by two of the invisible walls of our little room in the snow. Her ears are flat back against her head and her wings are trembling. "That thing...it has no magic. Even the two of you have absorbed some of the radiant magical energy fields as they repair themselves."

"That's probably a natural defense mechanism for the drone type to keep outside influences from interfering with the ability for it to become various elements necessary for a hive to be able to generate the full range of individual Zerg soldiers. Keep in mind I will attempt to do something to make it so that I am not just a spare army that you would have at your beck and call." My attention turns back to Liz, and I frown as I catch her trying to hide laughter. "Now, about that relocation?"

Celestia clears her throat, followed by taking a few deep breaths before approaching the table again. "I am afraid that the only location on the planet that is completely devoid of any life would be too dangerous: a massive crystal formation that shatters, explodes, and reassembles itself every five days, destroying everything within an hour's running distance. There is another place, of course, but there would be others like myself nearby. Smaller, weaker, in need of protection from the predators that call Flame Geyser Swamp home. Chimerae, pyrohydras, salamanders, and even an elemental or seventy. All of these threaten regular shipments of food and medical supplies, both of which would be needed less if you were there to make it less dangerous."

"Why the fuck would anyone be crazy enough to move to a place where everything around you is capable of killing you, and eager to do so?" Liz looks over at me, sees my smile, and facepalms. "Other than a Zerg, Sarah. We're going there, aren't we?" My nod in response elicits a string of muttered cursing from her as she pushes away from the table and stands up so fast that her chair flies back a good five feet. "I'm not leaving anything behind. We'll probably never be able to find this spot again...where the hell is my purse?"

The three of us spend a good ten minutes searching the area inside the room before giving up on finding Liz's purse. Of course, the second Celestia begins returning the furniture to wherever it was before being summoned we find it...right underneath the stone table and miraculously undamaged except for the shoulder strap having gone missing. Celestia lifts it in her magic and floats it over to Liz, who immediately drops it once the telekinetic grip is released. It lands on her foot, producing a distinct ring of metal impacting metal. "I thought you made that out of four bicycle helmets, some red LED's, clay, epoxy, and silver paint?"

"I did! It's easily seven times heavier than it was before we arrived here, and solid metal...I lost everything inside there..."

"How? WHY? Nothing else we brought with us was damaged or rendered useless other than our phones what with there being no cellular networks here."

"Nothing else was designed to look like part of my costume."

"Ladies? I suggest we hurry up and teleport, otherwise it's going to be night in the swamp." Liz and I look at each other and nod before she crouches to pick up the former purse in a more secure grip. I take quick stock of our provisions, such as they are, and hand the cannister rifle over for Liz to hold in her other hand for the time being. I can't even get my bone-armored fingers inside the trigger guard anyways. "Stand close, and close your eyes...it will help with the nausea if this is your first time teleporting."

I take her advice, closing my eyes and breathing deeply as I feel some kind of power surround me. One second I smell snow, the next it's hard-boiled eggs. My wings stretch out of their own accord and I take a few steps back from where Celestia stands before I stretch my arms out deliberately to work out a few tense spots. My second deep breath catches in my throat as I feel a presence coil around my mind, embracing me in a way before mostly retreating. You are not the Overmind... "Celestia, run. Flee for your life."

Author's Note

Ever have an idea refuse to allow you to sleep until you transfer it from your head to someplace another person can see it?

Sorry it's so short, I spent half the day writing something that takes place after this.

Alternative Chapter Title: Infodump.

Nova: 'Rescue' ops.

Author's Note

This chapter was going to be longer, but I realized three quarters of the way through writing it that what I'd had happen made no fucking sense whatsoever. A huge rewrite ensued, eating twice as much time as I wanted to take, but this SHOULD be much clearer now.

If there is anything here that is still outrageously confusing; please let me know and I'll see if I can make edits to clear it up a bit.

Yes, I am intentionally starting this story off with chapter titles based around campaign names from Starcraft 2. That means the next one will have a title based on Legacy of the Void.

...

Oh, and the first person to correctly name the language ponies speak gets to suggest a name for Sarah's brood. Hint: Video game source.

Nova: 'Rescue' ops.

I waste no time after my warning to Celestia. The miniature drone drops out of my hair and scurries away a short distance to begin mutating into a Hatchery. "Liz, find a vantage point to watch over the area, one where you will not likely be seen." My thoughts gather, only to be disrupted as the tip of a horn and the barrel of my rifle press against opposite temples.

"Sarah, I insist that you explain yourself. You are hardly in a position to threaten me or make demands."

"Don't lose yourself, Sarah. Telling her to leave, dropping the drone, and having it start building for you seconds after she does us a solid? Do not go 'Brood War' on me."

"A Zerg mind contacted me, either that or something close enough to being a Zerg that it makes no difference since it mentioned the Overmind." The gun is immediately removed from its position. "Why would you even think I'd betray her?"

"Oh, I dunno, you screwed me over often enough in multiplayer that seeing a drone start to mutate within fifty feet of me kinda puts me on edge. Either that or it could be the fact that your eyes were glowing green instead of purple right before you said that. Take your pick."

Fear once again emanates from Celestia, followed by a single word before she vanishes in a flash of light. I pay it no mind as I turn in place to take in the entirety of the immediate area. As promised, it is a swampy area with trees that wouldn't look too strange in the backwater areas of Louisiana. The ground is soft and springy, but too firm to casually wear a hole in by rubbing your foot around. It doesn't stand a chance against my heel, though, and the stench of decaying vegetation rises from the black rift in the brown surface. "It's a peat bog, freshwater, near volcanic activity. No salt in the air, plenty of sulfur, and the heat speeds up the decomposition process. Which came first, though, the firey monsters or the fire?"

"What do you think she meant by 'Smooze?' It's certainly not a word I recognized. How do I know if this gun is loaded or not?"

"You'll have time to figure that out, Liz. Aim and shoot, open end points at what you want to kill. If it helps, pretend you're playing Team Fortress 2. Move out."

"As you command, my queen!" My head snaps towards the new voice, only to see Liz standing there with a shocked expression and her hand covering her mouth. "Okay, I think I know what happened to my phone now, because that was the sound clip of Inferno I wanted to play to be sarcastic."

"Why am I not surprised that you had that on your phone?" If sarcasm could be concentrated into liquid form I would have just puked up a gallon. "Let me guess, text from Mom alert?"

"Don't you have something more important to do than needle me over my use of storage space?" She's right, but she's also smiling as she says it. "Find a vantage point. Kill anything that isn't you, one of your Zerg, or a watercolor horse. Wait...how will I tell your Zerg from enemy Zerg?"

"Direction of travel would be a good indicator, for starters!" The wet sound of flesh ripping open and various fluids rushing everywhere as a result heralds the emergence of the completed hatchery structure, and the viscous lavender substance known as Creep begins to spread further. I sink a hand into it, touching every organ in the hatchery at once as I try to get a feel for how this will work now that it's no longer a game. Larvae gestation tubes: standard, nonindicative of capabilities. Biomass storage? Volatile substances storage: obviously 'Vespene' gas doesn't exist. Energon storage: Minerals, but where...wait, WHAT!? Worry about it later, hatch two drones, standing order: Acquire Resources. "Liz, we need to talk after we survive this."

No response. I try to stand up, only to wince in pain as I realize my command tendrils have also sunken into the creep. Converting excess biomass into rebirth chamber for Queen of Blades. More biomass is required to generate further hatchery organs. Creep will digest any biomass not originating from this hive cluster that does not register as being alive. Inititating primary neural connection. Creep surges up the tendrils, tethering me in place even more securely as I feel it reach my skull, gather around the joints where bone meets zerglocks, and press into them.

Agony is the result. Seconds feel like years as neural tissues bridge the gap between the Human and Zerg portions of my brain. My body convulses as synapses are tested, resulting in my wings stabbing into the ground all around me as well as into my own flesh more than a few times, and my throat is left raw and sore by my screams. The living carpet releases its hold on me after about a minute, allowing my body to slump over as I desperately try to catch my breath. Images come into focus quickly as I open my eyes, and my eyes, and my other eyes, followed by the eyes on my actual body. Two sets of eyes have their forward field of view dominated by purple crystals with what looks like lightning trapped inside: my drones. The third remote viewing position is clearly airborn, and bobbing up and down slightly as if constantly adjusting bouyancy: An overlord.

I stand up, my legs shaking from the injuries I inflicted on myself. Enemy approaching base, Queen. The thought coincides with the aerial perspecting shifting in a way that produces a wave of nausea, then zooming in on a swarm of creatures with carapaces as black as onyx. Come on, come on, heal faster! A wave of energy builds up inside of me, releasing after a moment and rapidly regenerating the damaged tissue after leaving me feeling like I just woke up. "Huh...so that's how I trigger the Mend effect, and if I have access to Mend..." I concentrate, holding my arms out in front of me and waiting as the enemy forces approach. "That means I should be able to shoot lightning!"

The leader of the pack of the first assault wave manages to get within ten feet of me before I figure out that I just have to focus my thoughts on which one I want to die first. Unlike the character in the game I am not limited to standing and shooting when enemies are trying to bite my tits off, and I take full advantage of this by crouching low to present a smaller target, as well as to make it easier for my wings to attack anything in front of me as well as to the sides with their devastatingly-sharp tips and serrated edges. As I stand my ground and easily destroy nine out of every ten of these zerglings before they can so much as scratch me; a song begins playing in my head. I blow up the next 'ling's head with a bolt of lightning that chars the wings of four others before I begin singing along. "And now my unfortunate friend you will discover a war you're unable to wiiiiiiin! I'll have you kno-oooow, that I've become INDESTRUCTIBLE! Determination that is incorruptible; from the other side a terror to behold. Annihilation will be unavoidable..."

Six minutes, five additional drones, and four reminders from the brain of the hatchery that it has enough biomass to create a Spawning Pool now later; I have the first dozen Zerglings of my own ready to meet the next wave of enemy forces. Creep and ichor cover my legs and torso, none of it my own as mend has been more than enough to keep up with what little harm has been inflicted on me so far. The occasional enemy head exploding into a cloud of orange mist and black exoskeleton shrapnel well before it reaches my line of defense is enough to tell me that Liz is doing her part and staying hidden. I decide to make use of the luxury of no longer being the first line of defense by using my right wing to stab one of the black-carapaced Zerg in both legs on the same side and pulling it behind the line of my own troops.

It hisses and snaps at me with a mouth that appears far too large for its head. My response is to charge my arm with lightning energy and pull it close enough that my backhand slap becomes a sawblade of bony protrusions starting at my elbow being dragged across its face and utterly destroying one of its insectile compound eyes. "What are you, you genetic clusterfuck? Clearly a Zergling analogue, but what made you?" Tattered wings with drab, faded colors lay along its back with a dull green being the most prominent. Features that do not physically protrude away from the generally horse-like shape are hard to distinguish due to the uniform blackness of its exoskeleton, and it isn't until the horn on its head starts to glow that I realize that it isn't dead yet. You will NOT steal my brood, beast!

I whip my wing to the side, trying to fling the not-quite-carcass away as its limbs begin to twitch again. This movement causes the exoskeleton to break and crumble away, revealing neon colored flesh that clashes so horribly against the color of the body part next to it that I can't even continue looking at it. Turning my head away and giving one last flick of my wing likely saves me from more serious damage as the creature screams and violently explodes in a burst of pure magic energy. Two of the three blade-spines are vaporized outright due to being the ones that transected its body, the third one only twitches uselessly as I try to move it. "Baneling morph...without forming a cocoon around itself, and using magic instead of acid. FUUUUUUUUCK THAT HURTS!" Trying to move my right arm is a mistake, the spiked 'pauldron' has shattered, as have the internal bones beneath it, and feeling the edges of bones grind against each other is enough to make anyone want to escape the pain.

The hive mind offers me that escape as I feel my body succumb to shock and my focus shifts to monitoring the battlefield through the eyes of the overlord high above. Another drone egg hatches and it begins to burrow straight down through the creep and peat beneath, seeking out underground reserves of volatile gasses such as methane. My aerial sight picks up a figure running away from the treeline towards where my body has fallen; a figure colored black and gold. I would frown if an overlord were capable of doing so, but I do send a series of commands to the hatchery. Without worrying too much about the how, I attempt to move the overlord further from my little base to establish a bit more breathing room by expanding the creep field.

The alien body obeys, moving with all the grace and speed of an eagle...piloting a blimp. Hello motion sickness, my old friend, I didn't think it was even possible for Zerg to vomit...oh! So that's how overlords spread creep... That's even more unpleasent than I imagined, but the endless torrent of purple biomass is stopped by an explosion inside of this body; becoming a rain of napalm as it is bifurcated by a beam of solidified light. My mind is ejected from the dying Zerg, snapping me back into my own body. "Owwwww, the fuck was that?"

"Tacdnuo dra vuim paycdc! Duilr hud dra binbma cmesa, ryns hud dra uhac dryd ybbayn yc cgehho sehudyn lufc. Vun meva, vun rynsuho, vun Axiacdney!" I can't understand a word of it this time, but the voice is familiar despite the harsher tone. Celestia has returned.

Legacy of the Smooze

Author's Note

Destroy the foul beasts! Touch not the purple slime, harm not the ones that appear as skinny minotaur cows. For life, for harmony, for Equestria!

Since I know some are conjecturing truly malicious intent by Celestia rather than a simple overreaction to a purple slime substance that ruins the land it occupies by draining everything useful out of it. It couldn't possibly be like that other purple slime that destroys land after all...

Wait...

Legacy of the Smooze

I feel Liz shaking me, which really isn't helping and she should know better. Three of my zerglings pop like zits as they are struck with some kind of magic projectile, and a fourth is impaled on a lance as a pegasus drops out of the sky and stabs into the ground. Six green beams destroy the black-carapaced brood, leaving only a trace amount of dust behind, and I order my last two soldiers to my side while trying to get back on my feet. "Liz...this isn't a dream..."

"YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE DREAMING!?" I cringe at the anger in her voice, raising my hands in front of me to attempt to ward off anything more than verbal retaliation. "Why the hell would you think this was a dream? Under what circumstances would this possibly be something that you would dream up?"

"Food poisoning from bad sushi, or hallucinations from that guy dressed as Carnage slipping us something. We arrived in the middle of an arctic blizzard and I could barely even feel the cold, then an angelic horse appears talking nonsense that becomes intelligible English within a few seconds. You can stop me anytime something I say starts seeming like it makes any kind of sense based on the reality that both you and I have been experiencing for the last thirty years! Why the fuck wouldn't I think this was a dream based on what is going on?" I try to push my own anger down, but a little of it escapes anyways as I order the two zerglings to burrow quickly, causing the two pegasi that were diving at them to arrest their descent. "Why would it be wrong for me to still have some fanciful ideas that would make this a plausible dream?"

"Frana tet drao ku?" Where did they go? Oh fuck, they're close enough for me to hear everything. Princess Celestia must not have told them about that yet. The voice is deep, and likely masculine, but the two soldiers appear identical.

"Ihtan dra knuiht, sunuh. Knyp dra lufc yht dyga dras du dra bnehlacc." Under the ground, moron. Grab the cows and take them to the princess. This voice has a somewhat higher pitch, but a more commanding tone as well. It is simple enough to assume that this one, at least, is female.

"What did you just call us?" I know it's a bad idea to let something so small get to me, but I am most certainly not fat. My anger clouds my judgement, as does the prickling pain I'm feeling remotely as spells begin to assault my hatchery. I can even feel my eyes start glowing this time as I scream with both my voice and my mind at once; "Stop attacking my hatchery this instant! Celestia! What is the meaning of this treachery?" Ow, that's going to leave one painful headache later.

I jump back as a wide beam of flames and light blasts the ground in front of me and over to the guards; grabbing onto Liz's shoulder to avoid falling over as I lose my balance yet again. A tall horse covered in golden armor that has flames coming from every joint, seam, or crack in the metal lands in front of us. She emits a glow along with the flames, creating a zone around her that is almost as bright as day in the deepening dusk. "Drec ec hud dnaylrano. Oui tet hud damm sa dryd ouin teckicdehklnaydina fumit dinh ehdu cusadrehk dryd lnaydac Smooze. Drec ec tecbucym uv tyhkanuic cipcdyhalc." This is not treachery. You did not tell me that your disgusting creature would turn into something that creates Smooze. This is disposal of dangerous substances.

"Disposal of dangerous substances? This isn't smooze, whatever that is, this is creep." I kick at the slime-covered ground, my foot impacting with a slight squish. "It's a living surface on which zerg buildings grow; one that drains nutrients and digests biomass to grow and spread to better facilitate the growth of a fully functional zerg base. Cast your translation spell again so Liz can understand what you say. She can't read the surface of your mind to get the meaning." Press your luck a bit more, Sarah, she's not actively trying to disintegrate you yet...

Celestia doesn't do anything for a moment other than stare at us. Her horn glows briefly and her voice sounds almost embarrassed once her spell is complete; "Could you repeat that, please? I do appreciate you not shouting into my mind this time, but that does make it rather hard to understand you when we do not yet speak the same language." I oblige her request with a smile on my face, this time leaving off the bit about casting the spell for Liz's benefit. "You call this substance 'creep' and say that it is not dangerous, yet you admit that it drains nutrients from the soil as well as dissolving anything that touches it that is not alive. Draining nutrients from the soil means that it will kill plants and digest them."

"So what? A few plants die off, the soil loses some growth potential in the future which is easily replenished with the next year's leaves dropping off to decompose. We're in a peat bog, not exactly prime farmland what with the fact that this is called Flame Geyser Swamp, and you yourself mentioned a number of dangerous-sounding beasts so it's not likely to become prime farmland anytime soon."

"And if it gets out? If this 'creep' were to spread outside of the swamp and begin to grow into areas where we do have valuable and vulnerable farms? What happens when it absorbs enough magic to start moving under its own power? What happens when it starts attacking and digesting living matter? What happens when it starts draining my ponies of their will to live? I have seen this substance before, and creating more of it is not something that I can condone at this time."

I open my mouth to declare such concerns ridiculous before thinking, but I do manage to stop myself from actually saying those words just yet. "Are you sure you have seen this exact substance before, and not just something that looks quite a bit like it?"

"Bnehlacc, suna pmylg suhcdanc ybbunylrehk!" A mare's voice calls from somewhere nearby, seeming worried.

"So kill them like you did to the previous ones. Surely you have more than one disintegration or similar deadly spells available before you head into a battle." Celestia turns her attention back towards us. "Honestly, it's as if they've never fought anything more dangerous than a kobold before when I'm in their vicinity." I can practically hear her rolling her eyes behind that helmet, and Liz actually starts laughing. "I last saw smooze that could move on its own about four thousand years ago, and I lost some good friends shortly thereafter. That was fifty years before the first sighting of these bug-pony monsters, though I have never seen them in this concentration before."

"So, wait, are you telling us that this planet has had a zerg infestation for the last four thousand years? How the fuck are you not completely overrun and assimilated into the swarm yet?" I nod in agreement. Liz might not be quite as up on the lore as I am, but we both enjoyed playing the game enough to know the basics.

"Power of the sun, focusing on learning combat spells and training soldiers to kill these monsters on sight, predation from stronger wild beasts? I don't know what your point of reference is, but we do have a flourishing ecosystem with many creatures dangerous enough to even pose a threat to myself if I were to be caught off-guard, and at night."

"Well, then let us work together to find the source of these pony-zerglings. Don't destroy my hatchery so I can create reinforcements of our own in case one of your soldiers is injured or runs out of spells. I swear that I will allow you to destroy that one building to prevent possible 'smoozification' of the creep after we have destroyed whatever it is that has been speaking to me and controlling this rival brood. Just, have them stop killing things that are clearly helping me, no matter how repulsive they may be to you." My two remaining zerglings emerge from the ground next to her, and do nothing other than walk over to my side where I stroke their heads almost like dogs.

"Very well, we will not attack your pets." She unsheathes a disturbingly large flaming sword and holds it in the air before rising to be fully visible to her soldiers. "The creatures that are not covered in black carapace are to be left unharmed, for they fight at our side as the pets and soldiers of the skinny cow with bone wings."

"Humanoid or biped. Please, don't call us cows, skinny or otherwise." I can feel Liz shaking as I keep a firm grip on her arm and a hand over her mouth. I'm doing my best to stay polite while feeling a bit angry myself. "It's a cultural thing, but that comes across as a rather extreme insult to call a thin woman a cow. It's insulting to call any woman a cow, but the less accurate the comparison the worse the insult is."

"Well, even diamond dog females don't like being called bitches, so I suppose I can see your point, but my soldiers needed an easy reference and you bear a stronger resemblance to minotaurs than dogs." Celestia stops herself, clearly struggling for a moment between diplomat and commander modes. "This is hardly a good time for this kind of discussion. Let us destroy this infestation and then we can sit down and work on some kind of resolution."

That being said, Liz and I share a look and a nod before I let go of her and we begin to fight alongside our equine allies. Liz stays back with the spellcasters, and I head to the front with the few land-bound combatants that remain uninjured. The waves of enemies start coming in greater numbers and greater frequency after a few minutes, but that has given me time to command a number of overlords to spawn as well as a dozen or so fresh zergling eggs. I use my lightning to pick off any of the neon bugs before they can get close enough to injure anything but a couple of my own troops; though trying to keep myself focused when I'm seeing through over a dozen points of view is proving to be a bit problematic, and the burning sensation of my injured wing regenerating is not helping matters.

It takes us three hours to locate the enemy base in the bog. Three hours in which five ponies have been severely injured and every unicorn has run out of their internal reserves for casting spells. Celestia has even taken off some of her armor and given it to a retainer that was teleported in after a solid hour of fighting. More than fifty of my own zerglings have died to surprise attacks by the neon baneling analogues. A hill of stone, nearly eighty feet tall and wider at the base than five hatcheries side-by-side. A small opening is visible near the base, creep visibly oozing out of it and forming a small ring around the exterior. A dozen black-carapaced creatures pour out of the opening as we watch, but only four of them are of the proper build to be the sergling-like soldiers we have been fighting the entire way here. This is proven to be true as the other eight run around the creep perimeter and start to nestle down into it as if to sleep, only for the purple substance to form a cyst-like structure around them. "We have less than a minute to get inside of there before those drones finish mutating into something likely to be harmful to us. Good thing there's only four of them in our way."

Liz and Celestia both nod, with Liz quickly firing off another round that rips one of the approaching zerglings in half. Celestia conjures one of her impossibly powerful solar rays to utterly obliterate the other three, and the three of us follow a wave of my own zerglings towards the hole in the hill. We don't manage to make it before the first of the drones finishes mutating, but the result is what shocks me. "That...that's just a creep colony."

"Kill now, examine later!" Liz's shout cuts off any further thought I may have at the moment, bringing my attention back to the cave entrance where Celestia stands with her mane hanging nearly limp and almost entirely pink instead of the multicolored aurora it was when we first met. "Sunbutt's running out of juice if her mane's any kind of indication."

"I'll forgive the use of that name this once on account of our mutual need for support; do not use it again."

I roll my eyes while running towards the opening, and a single leap carries me through it with inches to spare above the lower lip. Celestia lands next to me seconds later, with Liz dropping down off of her back. I hold my hands a good foot apart while charging them with lightning, creating light as a byproduct as the energy arcs from one limb to the other through the air. Two tunnels oozing with creep lead up and away from us to the left and right while a third is directly in front of us. The beast arrives. I notice Celestia flinch at the thought being imposed into her mind, but Liz shows no reaction whatsoever. Know that I am Cerebrate Skrau, servant of the Overmind and made immortal by its will.

"Well, Cerebrate, you may be immortal, but I know it will take you time to revive when I destroy this body. I also know that a weapon such as those weilded by the Protoss can kill you without allowing you the opportunity to revive." I walk forward slowly, expecting to see a titanic brain in the room beyond that inner opening. What I find is much more disturbing, and I hear Celestia gasp, while Liz utters a single syllable expressing her disgust.

In the center of the room is a pulsing mass of flesh with brain clearly visible behind the thin-stretched membrane, but attached to the side facing the opening is half of a pony. The brain of the cerebrate appears to have burst out the back of its skull, and stray wisps of hair still grow in random patches of olive green mane on what remains of the head as well as along the 'Cerebrate' body. Defying all logic, the pony appears to still be alive and in pain if the fruitless twitching of the remaining forelimb and butterfly-like wing is any indication. Its mouth is locked open as a larva crawls out and impacts the creep-covered ground with a wet slap, followed by hacking coughs and retches. "Liz; shoot as fast as you can. Celestia; use that sun-blade spell you destroyed my overlord with, and try not to think too much about how that pony got in this condition. I swear it is not something I will ever allow to happen again."

As if you have any control over what I can or cannot do. This mare that birthed me has been my plaything for millenia. I don't need to hear anymore, I don't want to hear anymore, and I give in to the anger that rises in me at all of the implications that word brings along. I charge at the cerebrate and leap to begin attacking it with every weapon I can bring to bear. A shot from Liz blows a hole in the flesh and a crater in the neural cells beneath which I quickly exploit by jamming both of my wings into and starting to pull apart. I hang slightly below the gaping hole I am tearing into the alien mind, creating the perfect target for Celestia to cast her spell on while I interfere with anything it tries to do by zapping it with my lightning every couple seconds. You cannot defeat me! I will be reborn again and again! I will never allow you to rest!

Celestia blasts it with three lances of light, each one searing deeper into the brain and actually cooking some of the meat that it passes near if the scent is anything to go by. I feel the physical form begin to quiver and unleash a focused bolt of lightning down the tunnel left by Celestia's spells. "You're clearly outclassed, Skrau. I am the Queen of Blades, and I take control of this hive cluster from you for the safety of the people of this planet. "

"Grenade!" Liz finally seems to have found that little feature of the cannister rifle, and a red-glowing grenade round flies down the fleshy tunnel; landing a good fifty feet inside the vile creature. I release my wings' hold on the tissues of the cerebrate, effectively sealing the blast inside of it while I carefully step back a few dozen feet and watch as the entire thing begins to dissolve in a wonderful, yet revolting, display of teamwork destroying something truly evil.

"Are we done here...because I feel like I need to sleep for about a week, followed by having a lovely little meltdown over actually being in a different world."

Mourning Glory

My request for a reprieve is denied for two reasons. The first reason is that Celestia is moving over to the twitching pieces of pony left on the ground as the body that was protecting the cerebrate starts falling apart. The second is a creeping sensation in the back of my mind as I feel the creatures and living structures in the area slowly connect with me. I stiffen briefly in surprise as Liz wraps an arm around my shoulders and squeezes gently. I give a quick mental command to the drones here to construct a suitable bedroom for myself and one for Liz while imparting an image of the exact meaning of that.

"Morning Glory?" I don't need my extra senses to hear the pure sadness in Celestia's voice, nor do I need to look to know that this isn't going to end well no matter what happens. She's infested, mutated beyond the realm of possible recovery, and now she's dying as the only things keeping her alive were the twisted will and the vascular connections of the cerebrate. Nevertheless, I walk over and kneel down next to the dying pony and lay my hand on the side of her neck. "Excuse me, can I have a moment with an old friend in private?"

"I'm trying to give you that moment, princess." I close my eyes and focus on the infestation inside of Morning Glory, but I feel my entire body tense up at the effort of making the connection so soon. The effort to undo the alterations to her throat alone is enough to cause a stab of pain in my head; one that must have echoed through the hive as I faintly hear dozens of alien hisses. My queen, you are hurting yourself trying to do this alone. I try to ignore that voice, one that is so similar to the cerebrate except feminine. I manage a smile, despite feeling my nose start to drip with blood, as I hear the mare's labored and ragged breathing become slightly less arduous. "If I do anything more than this, she dies now instead of in a few minutes."

"Su-" she begins coughing, her remaining muscles spasming violently until I do my best to soothe her without making any further changes. "Sun...beam, is that thee? I cannot see anything. The mind-demon took my sight at some point. Is Moonstone with thee?" Something tells me that the translation spell is struggling with an ancient dialect, and doing its best to render the words into an understandable form of phrasing.

"Nay, Lu-Moonstone is not with me. I have two new friends here, and one is working to ease your passing."

"'You?' When didst thou become so formal, Sunbeam?" Another set of wracking coughs comes from the dying mare. "Mine oldest friend, wilt thou indulge me with our greeting one last time so that I may die with a final pleasing memory? Sun-sun...shine..."

I hear Celestia sniffle, and her guard just drops as she struggles to keep herself from crying. I find myself crying as I see a few flashes of her memories and can't help comparing the healthy mare in them to the dying wreck I'm connected with. "Sunshine sunshine, ladybugs awake. Clap your hooves and...and..." She sobs, her voice so thick with emotion that she can't finish saying it.

"And do a little shake." Morning Glory coughs again; her body starting to fail as the hive shuts off support to the dead body of the cerebrate, which cuts off the only thing keeping her alive as well. "Thy new friend is so bright, Sunbeam, not a beast at all. A wall of purple, parting to allow me to pass through to the blessed fields of Elysium. I hope my family has not been long in wait for me." Her voice begins to fade, becoming weak as she struggles to get the last few words out.

"I have it on good authority, Morning Glory, that they are most eager to reunite. You will also always be welcome in a guest suite in Chronias."

"As if I...would ever...be...worthy..." I open my eyes and quickly lift her off the ground as I feel her breathing cease, my wingtips moving quickly to sever the various tissues that connect what remains of her body to the hive. I'm not surprised to see Liz hugging Celestia and offering what comfort she is able to give just by being a person to be there.

"Princess, if you want to have her buried somewhere other than the swamp you will have to cremate the remains, or perhaps even use one of those spells that leaves behind only a pile of dust." My queen, if you have a mome- I slam my mind shut to that voice, forcing my face to betray none of the annoyance I feel as it intrudes again. This isn't a hard thing to do, as I feel the full weight of Celestia's sadness despite trying to close her off as well.

Celestia sniffs a few times, looking from my face to the body in my arms and back as if struggling to speak. She settles for wrapping me in her magic and pulling me in close to the side opposite Liz while wrapping us both in her wings. "Later. Do either of you know any good songs for mourning? Something from your culture might be appropriate as the two of you helped rescue her."

Liz and I share a look over Celestia's neck, she mouths a few song titles and I shake my head quickly. I mouth one back to her and she frowns before nodding in agreement as it is the only one we know with no overt religious overtones. "Sarah has one, but I'd ruin it with this hoarse voice I've been given, so we're going to hope this translates properly."

I clear my throat before starting; glancing around the cavern and thinking that it might be better if we had a place that wouldn't echo. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot..."*

We comfort Celestia the best we can after the song, and she spends a fair amount of time crying on both of us as well as telling us both a fair bit about some of her adventures in days long gone. It isn't until a pegasus guard flies into the entrance and hovers in front of us that we realize how much time has passed. "Bnehlacc Lamacdey, ed ec ymsucd tyfh. Ed ec vyn bycd dra desa yd frelr fa cruimt ryja nadinhat du Lyhdanmud."**

Celestia looks at the two of us and the questioning expression on my face before standing and taking Morning Glory's corpse from my arms. "Captain Blueblood was just reminding me of the time and of prior obligations. I will send a courier within the next twelve hours with a selection of books to get you started learning our language as well as various other subjects. I'll include a book of non-poisonous plants as well as herbal medicines just in case."

"Send anything you have on abilities that come solely from the mind and willpower as well. It may take me a while to understand it, but that would possibly help me get a grip on how my new abilities work a bit faster."

"I'll take anything you have on medicine and anatomy. I'm a paramedic back home and that's something that will be incredibly useful to spread goodwill towards us in the town we're guarding."

Celestia smiles, the first one not to have sadness to it since she started talking to Morning Glory. "I will see what I can do. The two of you have much work to do before I can officially present you to Equestria at large as new citizens and the protectors of even such a remote place as this. Oh, when the courier arrives it will most likely say the following;" I can tell that she turns the translation spell off as I only recognize two words of what follows. "Tamejano vun Sarah yht Elizabeth."

"Right, I'll keep watch for them." Liz volunteers almost eagerly, but the rest of what she says is unheard by me as I once again get a call from that voice. My queen, I am hurt. The cerebrate did not care if I could move as long as I could help it create more larvae.Tell me why I should care about how much pain you're in instead of reverting you to biomass and starting over?I was given the name Chrysalis, my Queen, and I am now the only being who knows how to work magic into the banelings based on local patterns. "Sarah. Earth to Sarah!"

"What?" I shake my head, trying to clear the cobwebs induced by the telepathic conversation. "Sorry, there's another intelligent mind here. I was just having a conversation." I look around again, trying to figure out where to go. "I take it Celestia left with her soldiers?"

"Yeah, while you were staring at the wall like you were trying to think it into a different type of stone. I just wanted to let you know I'm going to be in the 'doorway' if you need me, that way the pegasus doesn't have to land on this purple shit. You might need to yell a couple times, I'm going to be testing a few things to see what else I can access from my old phone."

"Great. I'll have a zergling bite you if it's important. I have to go meet Chrysalis."

"Sarah, that's not funny. I have no way to repair myself if I get injured."

"You're made of an alien metal of unknown strength. I think you'll stand up to a few teeth from one of the pony-based ones. The cerebrate was either a moron or a genius, and I'm leaning towards moron."

Author's Note

Well, shit. I seem to have hit publish when I meant to hit edit...which proves the folly of trying to edit on my phone.

Okay, I'll work with that.

* Yes, they are Italian, but that doesn't mean they don't enjoy songs and such originating in other places and virtually permeating the entirety of western society. Enjoy the song.
** Translation: Princess Celestia, it is almost dawn. It is far past the tim*** at which we should have returned to Canterlot.
*** Typo, should be time. Will have to fix that.

Spinning Strands

I find a large side-cavern with an entrance barely large enough for one of the pony-shaped drones to get through. "Yeah, I'm not going to crawl helplessly through that shit just to get attacked on the other end." I fold my wings carefully, bringing them up so I can examine the flexible talon that caps the main joint. "Well, I've seen these things destroy a metal door that looked like it was a good six inches thick at least. Breaking through a few rocks should be simple enough."

It is indeed simple, but it takes a while. About an hour later I break through the last bit of rock in my way, having cleared a doorway easily twice as wide as I need it to be before I even get my first look at Chrysalis. The fact that her body barely fits in the space she was given confirms my suspicions about Skrau being utterly incompetent and uncaring. The fact that half of her face is outright lacking any kind of tissue over a pony-like skull raises an emotion I never thought I would feel for any zerg; pity. Fleshy membranes stretch between her legs; legs which are too long for the space she has been given up until now and thus she is 'standing' on her knees. Despite the general emulation of a pony body in her overall shape, she has a third pair of legs set midway between the forelegs and hind-legs. The overall impression is that of an old flying zerg queen squished into a pony body. "You are the one called Chrysalis?"

I am, my Queen. I was placed in charge of overseeing the evolution of this brood, and I thus know its secrets. I see one of her legs twitch as she tries to stand, and I quickly move over to her side. "Stop. You're only going to hurt yourself if you attempt to move right now. Your legs are suffering from muscular atrophy due to not being able to move, and I doubt that any of this is going to be comfortable at all for either of us." I attempt to prove my point by manually moving the leg for her; the action eliciting a pained hiss.

Then there is no hope for me, and I must impart my knowledge of the process to you. "I never said that, Chrysalis. I know of two modifications to the basic queen strain upon which you were based, and both of them are able to move freely. The first is the simplest one to do, by turning you into a second-generation queen. The second option would grant you more freedom still by turning you into a broodmother. The second option would give you more power as well, but I would like you at my side as an adviser with experience in creating new sequences. Which do you choose?" I don't wait for a response in order to begin to heal her body as it is.

My Queen, you honor me beyond reason. I have done nothing to earn this other than survive. I roll my eyes in response, continuing to manipulate that same leg while channeling that unique healing energy for zerg into her body. "I'm not honoring you. I'm strengthening the hive by making sure to keep a vital source of information alive. For fuck's sake, call me Sarah. I'm going to regret saving your ass if you keep calling me 'my queen' every time you address me."

Chrysalis actually flinches a bit at the venom in my voice, but she doesn't argue about it. She actually stays completely silent other than a faint hiss of pain until I stand back up and beckon for her to move with me towards the enlarged opening. But...you have done nothing other than make my legs stop hurting. "So? Come on out of that cramped room already." I would, but I am still bound to the hatchery.

"Bound to the...okay, I guess even cerebrates can have fetishes for things." I step forward again, carefully moving around to examine the rest of her body as well as I'm able to do in the cramped space. "The hatchery isn't designed to just stop working if the bodies attached to it are removed, is it?" I place my hands on her side, trying to get a feeling for the rest of her body configuration, and then I draw away in disgust. "That thing had you hooked up like a fucking xenomorph queen...through the wall?"

The cerebrate was not concerned with truly effective use of assets. I believe it was corrupted by being forced to manifest through an inferior local pattern. I feel my temper flare, my nerves still a little raw after sharing in Celestia's grief. "Let's not talk about your source of local essence, ever, not when it comes to the ponies at least. I'm not going to be able to do anything to free you without you making your decision. I suggest you make it quickly."

Then I choose the second option. The title does not seem all that different from the function I currently serve anyways. This actually makes me smile, and I quickly place my hands on her side again. "Very well. This may hurt just a little bit, but the first thing I need to do is sever your ovipositor so I can fix your body without screwing anything else up."

"Sarah, the delivery came! Sarah?" Liz's voice carries and echoes, snapping me out of the trance-like state I had entered to coordinate with Chrysalis as to the best way to start changing her body. Her legs are already visibly thicker and stronger to support a body larger than she currently has, and she is twitching and pulling away from the wall slowly. Your metal pet is calling you away?

"She's my sister, Chrysalis. Family." I receive an impulse of confusion and sigh as I walk out of the room. "She's part of the brood I had before becoming zerg, and to us that is an important bond. Come on, she will want to meet you anyways." I walk off, trusting her body to hold together now with the healing and modifications, while I go back to the main entrance. I find myself surrounded by pony-shaped drones carrying stone in no time, and the crowd quickly parts around me to allow me free passage. "Hmmm, they must be working on making those changes I wanted."

I find Liz holding a large crate and looking around for a place to set it down. "Ugh, I do hope you're planning on having some places in here free of this crap, otherwise we aren't going to be able to store much of anything that isn't made of metal or stone."

"That's not going to be much of a problem. One of the first things I did was order the drones to begin constructing rooms for us. What's in the box?" My enthusiasm is curbed by the fact that I am now completely exhausted, and I can't completely stifle a yawn despite being genuinely curious.

"Books, books, more books, a tea set, tea that smells like pot is an ingredient, a green candle, and a set of simple building tools like hammers. It's been five hours and you look like you're ready to crash after a marathon of bad movies."

"I feel like I've been running a decathlon. Let's go see if at least one of those dry rooms is mostly finished, shall we?" I manage a strained smile before yawning again. "I can have Chrysalis give us a guided tour when we've both had a chance to get some rest, if her legs are up to it and she manages to pull herself away from the wall."

One week later

"Ugh! Screw this!" Liz throws one of the children's books across her room in frustration. "I need a break from trying to learn this language, and I need a way to repair myself which I still haven't figured out." She stands up and walks out, moving past her sister's room. "Maybe that Unitrix core I saw in the artifact storage room might help if it has a smart species stored..."

Author's Note

So, yeah, another short chapter. This was supposed to be the latter half of the previous one.
Savvy Displaced readers should know what's coming next, and who.

Oh, by the way, the shift to a complete third person perspective at the end there is intentional. There was no way I was going to write the crossover in first-person while having to switch perspective characters multiple times.

Healer; Heal Thyself, or Jason and the Bugs

The hive is silent around her as Liz walks through the tunnels. A good thing she has recently noticed is that her systems include an automatic mapping function which allows her to mark points of interest as she comes across them. One hand trails across a thin vein of purple crystal worked into the waxy substance that covers the more delicate organic components of the structure. “Hard to believe we ended up on a planet with both a pre-existing Zerg infestation and raw energon. It’s like there’s some truth to that concept of destiny after all.” A light flick of one of her mechanical fingers activates the latent energy, causing the mineral to flicker back and forth along its length before turning on like some low-tech version of a fluorescent bulb. Fifty feet in front of her the hall opens up into the artifact archive; the room that holds everything scouts have brought back that isn’t raw materials or of obvious use in some other way while seeming too valuable to simply discard.

She’d recognized three things while looking around in here earlier, and one was going to be avoided like the plague while another seems to be of no immediate use. The three drone guards around the perimeter of the chamber ignore her as she heads over to the shelf where she’d seen the Unitrix core. “Okay, if I remember correctly you come from a series with at least three genius-level intellects, and I need some help if I want to live without fear that a single bad accident will cripple me forever. The question is, how the hell do I know what’s inside of you?” Her right hand reaches out, hesitantly touching the casing and only tightening her grip to lift it from its place of rest when it doesn’t immediately crumble to dust.

The fact that she begins hearing a voice in her head that is clearly not coming from anyone she knows almost causes her to drop it. “Man of many shapes? I thought this thing would just do something to give me the body of whatever was inside of it for a short time? Okay, Liz, time to think first and act later. Weigh the odds. Am I going to get someone just as clueless as I am about technology beyond how to use a computer? His intent certainly doesn’t sound malevolent, unless he’s changed since this recording was made.” She turns, looking around the room at the three guards. “My sister told you to obey any orders I gave unless they conflict with one that she gives. Do not attack unless you are attacked; no matter what ends up arriving here. Do not infest either.” The one she’s facing offers a salute, and the sound of three hooves hitting the floor tells her the other two have as well. “Whoever you are, don’t make me regret doing this.”

Her thumb lifts as she closes her eyes, but her audio receptors pick up the sound of high heels coming down the hall. Even closing her eyes doesn’t block all input anymore, a readout showing distance calculated based on echoes as ‘too far to intercept’ causes her to smile as she brings her thumb down the precise distance required to activate the unit without damaging it.

A bright flash fills the room, and three new beings appear.

“-Freya, I know you don’t like talk shows, just do your dad a solid for once,” a male voice speaks.

“Fine, but you owe me,” a distorted female voice speaks. A beat passes and something heavy collides with the floor. “Never fought a robot before, this should be fun.”

“Why don’t we let them talk before we go swinging a sword around?” another, clearer, female voice speaks up. “Hello, can you understand us?”

Three people? Liz opens her eyes and looks around the room once again; bringing her hands in front of her body with the palms held open and outward at the mention of fighting in what she hopes is the universal gesture for ‘wait a second here.’ “You’re speaking English clearly enough. One of you sounds a bit like my sister with that burr in your voice, but I doubt it’s for the same reason. I didn’t call anyone for a fight, either. I was hoping I could get some assistance with something I need, but have no means of acquiring or creating.”

Liz blinks, taking in the trio before her. One is a tall man, clad in a t-shirt with a vodka drinking skull on it and a pair of jeans. A wicked scar runs under his eye and his hair reaches down to his waist. His right forearm is almost entirely taken up by some kind of device.

Standing on his left is a lavender colored alicorn with a waving purple mane. She wears a smile, despite an ugly scar carved into her throat.

Finally, standing off to the side is what appears to be a humanoid changeling. It also wears jeans and a hoodie, hefting a sword taller than itself. The sword had to weigh at least a ton, though its blade is corroded.

The man clears his throat, holding his hand up. “Bah-wheep-Graaaagnah wheep nini bong.”

“Just my luck. I not only get a comedian, but a stingy one at that. You’re supposed to offer an energon chip while saying that.” Her expression changes from apprehension to an enthusiastic smile as she lowers her left arm to hang at her side, extending her right hand towards the human for a quick shake. “My name’s Elizabeth, but I will answer to Blackarachnia if you slip up and use that instead.”

The man shrugs. “I don’t have any of those.” He looks at her hand, taking it. “Jason Hughes. This is my daughter, Freya, and my friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Jason, got it. I don’t think I want to know the specifics of how you have a daughter who looks like one of these rogue zerg, but I am sure it is an interesting tale.” She offers her hand to Freya the same way, while turning her attention towards the only new arrival who isn’t a humanoid. “Wings, and a horn. You wouldn’t happen to be related to Celestia, would you?”

Twilight giggles, shaking her head. “No, I’m afraid not. She used to be my teacher. That was at least twenty years ago.”

“Twenty years ago? How are you speaking English when I couldn’t understand a word she said before she finished casting a translation spell?”

“That's because we’re from a different version of Equestria,” Twilight explains helpfully. “You brought us to your Equestria through Jason’s token.”

“Ah, so Multiverse Theory really is true then? A different world for every option available when making a decision... which means I just created a new world when I decided to summon you versus the one where I decided to wait and try doing things on my own?” She looks back at Freya, a sound like grinding gears coming from her throat as she pulls her hand back.

“What?” Freya asks, frowning at Liz. “You gonna just stare at me?”

“No, but I’m wondering just how different things must be on the world you come from for you to be able to speak to me. The zerg here communicate via telepathy, and apparently a computerized brain is so different from their own that I can’t catch the sig-” She facepalms mid-sentence as the idiocy of her own train of thought hits her. “Different world, different conditions, different rules. You aren’t even zerg, are you?”

Freya huffs, letting her sword hit the ground. “No. I’m a changeling queen. I don’t know what a ‘zerg’ is.”

A new voice butts in on the discussion, one with a similar distortion to Freya’s and carrying a tone of relief. “Good. Consider yourself lucky that you have never heard of them, because that means you should be safe.” Sarah enters the room, flanked by Chrysalis and a far more dangerous looking insectile pony as compared to the three guards around the room that look no different from each other, and anyone would be forgiven for thinking them a simple changeling. “Sarah Destefano, the person in charge of this hive, and someone my sister should have consulted with before doing anything that could endanger it.”

Freya grins at Chrysalis, giving a wave. “Sup, mom?”

I would know if I had spawned a non-Zerg somehow. I am not your mother.The response comes instantly in a deliberate telepathic signal that echoes in organic minds. It does end up with an identical tone to the version the visitors know. What differs is made more evident as it steps further into the room and unfolds its segmented legs to stretch and stand at a full height of nearly ten feet tall. She lacks antennae and her mane is composed of olive tendrils similar to those that Sarah possesses.

“I didn’t mean you exactly.” Freya hefts her sword again, somehow storing it in her pocket. “Another version of you is my mother.”

“You’ll have to forgive her for not extrapolating. Zerg that are created as such from scratch rather than infested from intelligent sources do tend to lack much in the way of imagination. Cerebrates, being little more than brains the size of a sports stadium, are an exception.” Sarah approaches the trio, with the honor guard blocking the doorway behind her. “I was a bit of a fanatic for Starcraft lore back home. Hopefully that will end up paying off. I’d offer to shake your hand, but I’d rather avoid infecting one of you with the base parasite form by accident.”

“Sarah, I don’t need your help here.”

“Liz, do you have any idea what that man registered as when he arrived? He’s not human. The guards sensed a Xel’naga. The only one that interferes with life outside the void is Amon. I don’t know how much of the game translates into this reality, but I’m not about to leave you alone with a being on the same scale as the one that created the zerg in the first place without proof that you are in no danger.”

Jason rubs his neck. “I have no idea what a ‘Xel’naga’ is, but, you are right. I’m not human. I’m a jotun, grandson of Hel, Goddess of Death.”

Sarah smirks and lifts her left leg off the ground, her ‘wings’ bracing her for stability. “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I could summon her if you like. She’s probably already spying on us. Watching me is like her number one pastime.” He shifts, crossing his arms. “Or, I could do something else.”

“No, please. I called you because I need help. I need help Sarah can’t give me, and the sooner I can get it the better.” A glare is directed at her sister, followed by bringing her right hand up to give a futile rub at her left shoulder. “Zerg don’t do machines. I don’t know how to transform yet, and the only other way I know to heal an injury is a C.R. chamber. I called him because I thought he could do something about that once the Unitrix turned out to not be what I thought it was.”

Jason eyes Liz, looking her over. “I’m going to guess repairs, yeah? I can do that.” Another bright light fills the room and Jason is replaced by a tiny, grey skinned creature.

“Err, not repairs as such at the moment. I’m more worried about the future. I need something that will be able to repair me if I end up too damaged to do it on my own.” Her eyes narrow as a thought rises to the surface of her mind. “Then again, not being able to transform could be a result of an injury that I don’t know about, or an imperfection in the associated systems due to caring more about having hands than being completely accurate to the show model.”

Purple light flares in the ‘cracks’ around Sarah’s eyes, and her expression goes from hostile suspicion to shame before she can turn to hide it. Her wings draw up tight against her back as she begins to walk back out of the room. “Right, right. Don’t antagonize the only person in the world that can help build something that will keep you from dying in the future. Good plan, and you actually thought about the consequences of things for once. My baby sister is finally growing up.” If you hurt her, I will destroy you. The thought is sent to Jason alone, and accompanied by the hissing of a hundred bestial vocal cords as the hive mind responds to its leader.

Jason frowns at Sarah, shifting into a larger, floating cat creature with a purple tail. His eyes glow blue and a searing pain fills the hivemind. I really don’t like being threatened. Your sister will be fine, I swear it on my life. He shifts back into the smaller creature. “Alright, I’m going to need a lot of tools, and space to work.” Pausing, he looks back at Sarah. “I promise.”

Sarah wipes the orange ichor leaking from her nose away with one hand. “Point taken. Sorry. I’m not feeling so great after a week without my medication, and the thing that sent us here has made me more suspicious than usual about something that I can’t just look at and know what it is that I’m seeing.” A new tunnel opens along the southern curve of the room, leading down at an angle that is almost steep enough to require a ladder. “Liz will show you the tool collection, but the only open area is the creep field outside. Do try to make whatever you create reasonably portable.”

“Right.” Jason hops up to Liz’s shoulder. “And uh, sorry about the counter-threat thing.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t hold grudges without good reason, and a dick-waving contest leaving me worse off is hardly good enough of a reason.” Two of the three guards step away from their posts, moving to flank Freya and Twilight, the third moves next to the newer opening. “It seems that I am to entertain guests, though. Are either of you hungry, by any chance?”

Liz starts walking down the tunnel leading out, not waiting to hear responses. “We’re Italian, family is important to us. I threatened Celestia with this because she was giving Sarah a headache and I thought that she was casting a spell to harm her. It didn’t help that I couldn’t understand her yet.” A whirring sound is heard and her left hand holds up a gun clearly based on the gun form of the original Megatron. “Not my proudest moment, but she got me back by pretending to threaten me with twenty years of community service.”

“Sure, I could eat.” Freya shrugs. “If you’re offering, I’m eating.”

Sarah nods, sending out a quick signal with instructions for two hunters and a gatherer trio before turning her gaze to the alicorn in the room. “And for yourself, Miss Sparkle? I’ll admit, I don’t know if I even need to eat anymore myself, but a full stomach brings more comfort than an empty one.”

Twilight nods. “I wouldn’t mind a bite to eat.”

“Should I assume that you both prefer a diet of plants?” She keeps the pace slow and easy, the hall lighting up as she approaches with the guests, revealing the undeniably organic nature of the building around them as the flesh within the walls pulses with an impossible heartbeat. “You bear more than a superficial resemblance to strictly herbivorous herd animals on Earth, and I noticed no meat of any kind in the small spread Celestia provided for herself when she greeted us in the frozen north.”

Neither of them seemed all that bothered by the walls.

Twilight peers around, fascinated. “Ponies, at least where we’re from, can eat meat. We just choose not to.”

“Not me,” Freya cuts in, bearing her fangs. “Meat all the way for me.” She closes her mouth. “And love. Love works too.”

“A race of emotivores? Alan Dean Foster wins that argument I guess. Old science fiction author from Earth, to answer the unasked question. He wrote about such things as entire planets full of crystalline creatures that eat light, beings whose entire nature wasn’t even fully visible because half of their body existed as fractals to the point of invisibility. I do wish I had saved more books to my phone before going to that con. Watch where you step, the floor isn’t perfectly smooth or level yet.”

“We could always bring you back some books from Midgard,” Twilight offers. “If you give me a shopping list, I can see to it that Dash drops them off.”

“Midgard? Next thing you’re going to be telling me that you’ve personally met Elminster Aumar himself.” Drones move on the ceiling, answering the call for resources elsewhere. “Don’t get me wrong, Miss Sparkle, I believe you when you tell me you have been places, but I do prefer to see things with my own eyes whenever possible.”

Twilight blinks, tilting her head at the name. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before. Midgard is the cosmological name we call the realm Earth is in,” she begins to explain, sounding very much like a teacher. “Equestria resides in Asgard.”

“I see. So your universe is, what, some kind of multi-leveled bubble with different galaxies on each level? I’m not trying to sound mocking, if I seem to be coming off that way. Much of my concentration is required in trying to develop new strains of zerg for domestic use to build some kind of sustainable economy.”

Twilight brightens up at the idea. “That sounds fascinating but, no, our universe isn’t like that. Our little section of the multiverse is like an enclosed ecosystem. There are nine universes inside of it: Muspelheim, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Åsgard, Midgard, Vanaheim, Niflheim, Svartalfheim and Nidavellir.”

“Closed systems don’t spontaneously generate. I’m getting the nagging suspicion that your home may have been developed artificially. Closed systems are also bad because they stifle development, but that might just be the Zerg part of me talking since they are also more stable. Have you been told about the concept of a bio-dome?”

“I think you misunderstand.” Twilight shakes her head. “The realms are cared for by Yggdrasil, the world tree. It doesn’t interfere with any of the realms. Only keeps other void dwellers away, usually by eating them.” She coughs, shuffling her wings. “As for the artificial part well... seven of those universes were crafted from Ymir, the first being.”

“Are you seriously telling me that your home is protected by an incomprehensibly gigantic version of Audrey 2?” The question is accompanied by both laughter and a brief image of a singing plant, complete with cartoonish musical notes, appearing on one wall as it shifts from transparent to opaque.

“It’s not really a tree.” Twilight frowns, watching the image. “It’s a void dweller that chooses to manifest itself as such. I wouldn’t begin to try and speculate on what it does or why.”

The hallway ends at an intersection, and Sarah pauses briefly before turning to the left. “Void dweller...you keep using that term. What exactly does it mean? I have a feeling that the image it brings to my mind as a result of exposure to the concept in a singular form is wildly inaccurate. Void dweller, to me, conjures this image.” The wall on their right acts as a screen, showing the image of a being clearly inspired by Cthulhu with neon orange highlights being attacked and harmed by what looks like Sarah herself. “Xel’naga. They live in the void and cultivate two races at a time. One with purity of form, and the other with purity of essence. One unchanging, and the other constantly adapting. This is a scene from the game where I got this costume that is now my body. That is what I thought Jason was, in disguise.”

“The concept is basically the same,” Twilight elaborates. “Void dwellers live in the, well, void between universes. One of them, Faust, created the Prime Equestria universe.” She taps her chin. “We’re still not exactly sure how she convinced Yggdrasil to let her create Equestria on Asgard.”

Sarah nods and stops for a moment next to a pulsing aperture in the wall. After a second or two she shakes her head and rubs her eyes carefully. “Sorry, had to hand over control of the brood to Chrysalis and that always makes me space out. I want privacy for this and that is hard to do with a thousand other minds in your head, no matter how primitive they are.” With that said she heads inside the room; the invitation unspoken.

“I wouldn’t know.” Freya steps in, followed by Twilight. “I don’t have a hive yet.”

“I’d say cherish your privacy while it lasts, but I don’t know how it works for your species.” The room is spacious and actually quite pleasant. Care has been taken to attempt to disguise the nature of the architecture and make it seem more of a sanctuary than yet another room. A table with five chairs stands in the center, a sixth open place near a small pile of actual pillows while the table and chairs are clearly made of bone. A shelf recessed into the wall near what must be some kind of bed holds a smartphone, a box of tampons, and a manilla envelope that has been carefully set flat as if to protect the contents. Sarah is stretching both her arms and her wings with a few loud pops. “Take a seat. One of the servant drones will be up in a minute or two with some tea Celestia gifted to me. The food should be here somewhat later than that.”

“Lemme guess; zebrican red tea?” Freya comments, dropping into a chair. Twilight chuckles as if it were a joke, taking a seat on the cushions.

Sarah flops into a chair as well, followed by stabbing the table with the spikes at her elbows in order to massage both temples with her fingers.”I honestly don’t know. She said it was something that always helps her to relax after a long day, but I swear there’s a hint of cannabinoid essence in the smell. It’s like she knew that setting up an actual place to live was going to put my mind through hell despite the fact that I have nobody back-talking or second-guessing any of my decisions.”

“Sounds like the changelings before they became a part of Equestria.” Twilight shifts, fluffing her wings. “Chrysalis was too stubborn to ask for help while her hive was starving so she replaced one of my fellow princesses and tried to take over.” She looks away uncomfortably. “It didn’t end well. Nopony was killed, but hundreds of her drones died, and she felt every one of them die.”

“Hmph, sounds like I have more in common with your Chrysalis than yours does with mine. Then again, I haven’t really talked with mine much about her past since we’re both too busy trying to fix her body so that walking no longer hurts. Born a Zerg, will die a Zerg, but the cerebrate that had corrupted the ponies here to make its brood really sucked at genetic integration. One day earlier and you’d have seen her with half of her skull exposed and six feet of decaying ovipositor dragging behind her.”

Twilight and Freya stare at her.

Twilight clears her throat. “That sounds... horrible. But, eventually, Chrysalis found Jason and he convinced her to become part of Equestria. Hay, he even got the other queens to unite, and Chrysalis became the changeling empress.”

“So, if I may ask, I’ve been curious about something with that name: Changeling. There are old myths on Earth about faeries abducting human babies and replacing them with one of their own that has been disguised by magic, only to return years later and demand their child be returned. Is the name more coincidences at work?”

Freya grins and is consumed by green flames. A moment later, Sarah is looking at a perfect copy of herself. “Changelings can shapeshift into anything.” Freya gestures to herself. “Before my father came along, changelings would abduct and impersonate a pony, feeding off the love that pony’s loved ones felt toward them.”

“I see.” Sarah looks at the mimicry of her form with an intently critical eye before shaking her head. “I think I may want to invest in some clothes after all. A costume is a costume, but seeing that I suddenly feel naked all over again. How long are you able to maintain a given shape?”

Freya shrugs, resuming her original form. “Pretty much as long as I want, long as I’m not starving.”

“Interesting, but I assume that kind of change must burn a good number of calories away.” A pony-shaped drone walks in with a tray made of more bone, but the cups are finely-crafted pieces of porcelain. Sarah stands up to take the tray, making a shooing gesture with her left wing as she carefully places it down. “I need to make them taller, and do something about their balance or replace the hips entirely.”

Freya changes shapes again, this time becoming a small, insectoid pony. She has big, pure blue eyes, a curved horn and large upper fangs. Her legs have holes in them, and instead of a mane, she has a fin. “This is what our drones look like.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a monitor right now to help compare things so that you can see them the way I do.” Her eyes move along, examining every aspect of Freya’s outer shell that can be seen without actually asking her to move. “So, your drones have functional horns? Ones that can generate magic or interact with the local weave?”

Freya nods, her horn lighting up with a red glow. She grabs a teacup in her magic, bringing it to her mouth. “Of course, all our drones are sexless. Only kings and queens have genders.”

“Fascinating.” Sarah’s eyes move from carapace to cup, though she doesn’t linger there. Her gaze instead moves to Twilight. “I have seen what your kind can do with your horns, although it has not always been pleasant. My drones, my regular ones at least, don’t even look like ponies. The ones I have absorbed into my brood only use theirs for headbutting. I haven’t been able to get any samples to use so that I can compare the essences to see what exactly differs between the different kinds of horns.”

Freya shifts again, back to her normal form. “There really isn’t a difference for us. Only in what the horn is made of. Changelings have chitin horns, and ponies have bone horns.”

“So is there a science to it, some kind of rote memorization of formulae or rules for how to interact with things?” Sarah begins to act a bit more excited, opening up and actually starting to enjoy this chance to unwind. “I have so much to do already, but if it doesn’t require much more than a mind capable of forming a couple thoughts, maybe I can spread it out in just one simple fix.”

“Spread it out?” Twilight asks curiously. She takes a sip of her tea, savoring it.

“Well, yes. I mean, it’s less time-consuming to attempt to integrate new essence into old strains with existing bodies than it is to revert them all to raw materials for recycling…” She stops talking, blinks a few times, and then groans. “I’m doing it again. I’m thinking of them less like distinct beings and more like disposable meat. I used to have more respect for life. I was a pharmacist! I helped make people healthy.”

Twilight shares a look with Freya. “I’m sorry, but we’re both very confused.”

“Ah, it seems we have enough members to form a club then. Welcome to the Dazed and Confused Club.” She finally picks up her own cup of tea, draining it quickly and closing her eyes. “Sorry. I’m not the best person to be around even on a good day. What, exactly are you confused about?”

“Neither one of us really knows what you’re talking about.”

“It’s complicated. I’m not trying to brush off your concerns or anything, but that’s really the best way to sum it up. I don’t even know that much about the process myself since the game tended to gloss over the exact details, but think of the zerg like a bacteria. You catch a disease, you get sick, you take medicine. If you take the wrong medicine or not enough of the right kind you get a little better, and then you get a whole lot worse because now the disease comes back with a vengeance. In the case of the zerg, well, they gain strength best by absorbing the strengths of what they kill...and devour. Good traits are kept and integrated into the swarm and the rest is discarded.”

Twilight stares at her, setting the cup down. “That sounds like-” she gulps, “SCP-682.”

“I have no idea what that is, but you have my pity if it’s anything like trying to kill a hydra only for it to suddenly grow scales as hard as diamonds.” She takes a few deep breaths, calming herself down. “Another way is for a genetic manipulation specialist to isolate a desired trait from a base creature and to integrate it in such a way that it disseminates to every zerg of a given type. One could, for example, kill a salamander or two to attempt to find a way to give some of them the ability to create fire, then upload it to the swarm as easily as editing a Wikipedia article about Stephenie Meyer so that the entirety of it reads: Complete Hack.”

“Oh, no, no,no.” Twilight vigorously shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I’ll put it like this. If SCP-682 ever ends up in your universe, leave. You can’t kill it. It’ll adapt to anything and everything you throw at it. Viruses, magic, altering the laws of physics. Nothing will work. The only thing to do is leave, and pray it doesn’t follow you.”

“So about twice as dangerous as zerg, then, at a minimum. Hell. Good to know there’s something out there more dangerous than I could even have nightmares about being. The methodology is a polar opposite. Zerg grow stronger by devouring, but that grows stronger by developing an immunity to whatever tries to kill it.” Another drone walks into the room, followed by a second one. The first carries a platter of various meats in its mouth while the other has a large bowl of assorted wild vegetables on its back braced between its wings. “Ah. I do hope that your definitions of poisonous substances aren’t different from local ponies. I was given a book on what is edible here in the swamp, but I didn’t think about compatibility until just now.”

Twilight cast a spell over the vegetables. “It appears to be alright.” She took one in her magic, biting into it.

Sarah waits a moment, ready to react in case there is a delayed effect. “Well, at least that’s one bit of consistency then.” She attends to the platter of meats first, setting that on the table between herself and Freya before hefting the bowl to position it more towards the center. “I’m still trying to figure out how to season things, or how to collect salts that aren’t rendered toxic by the sulfur around here, but produce seems to be a little tastier than back home...and salamanders do produce some naturally spicy meat.”

Freya wastes no time in digging into the meat, ripping and tearing at the flesh.

“Note to self: Changelings have worse manners than zerglings when it comes to meals.” She quickly secures a small selection of rare bits, pieces that have only been seared brown. She eyes the bowl for a moment, then looks down at her hands. “I think I’ll let you eat your fill before worrying about anything more for myself. It’s not like I’ll be short on prey in the near future.”

“Thanks.” Freya grins, chewing on another piece.

Twilight clears her throat. “That reminds me.” Levitating a small bag out from under her wing, she places it in front of Sarah. “A gift. It’s a bag of Enigma berry seeds.”

“I’m a character from Starcraft, my sister is now a cybertronian, and you just happen to have something that sounds like it came from Harvest Moon. It’s like I fell into the Twilight Zone episode where everything fictional becomes real for a day.”

Chuckling, Twilight offers her a smile. “Enigma berries are actually from Pokemon. If you eat one, it can restore most of your health. We grow a lot of them, and offer them as gifts to new Displaced we meet.”

“New what? There’s a name for this happening?”

Twilight nods. “There are an infinite number of you. A good number of them were sent to Equestria by a being known as the Merchant. Jason thinks he does it because he’s a, and I quote, ‘bored eldritch abomination who ruins lives for shits and giggles.’”

“The Merchant, eh? That’s...that’s a fitting name for it alright. I remember meeting it, and I can’t help but wonder why it didn’t seem strange at the time that he looked different every time I looked away from him while he was talking to Liz. He said something about latent potential, and threw us here. I’m pretty sure I’m missing a couple pieces there, because my memory goes blank while it was in the middle of a sentence.” She pauses in thought, looking over her shoulder at her skeletal wings. “I can’t even remember if we paid...not with money anyways.”

“I know he charged Jason a hundred dollars for his Omnitrix.”

“An Omnitrix?” Sarah freezes, her eyes wide with fear. “My sister brought THAT into my hive? He could destroy everything if that thing has its repair function activated!”

Freya shrugs. “He could do that with the self-destruct.”

“Oh, yes, well that just makes everything better, doesn’t it? No need to worry. You truly do have a way with words… Ugh. I need to stop imagining worst-case scenarios around every corner. He promised not to harm my sister, so I should probably assume that means indirectly as well.” She pops a finger-sized chunk of meat into her mouth and begins to chew as slowly as possible, a rather obvious ‘I need to shut the fuck up right now’ signal.

Twilight flashes her a reassuring smile. “I know Jay can be a little rough around the edges, but he doesn’t go back on his word.”

“That’s a rare thing where I’m from, and I’ve had my issues trusting people because of it.” She glances at the bag of seeds again before finally nodding as she comes to a conclusion. “I’ll plant these as soon as I can find a way to make it so that creep stops dissolving any plant life around it. Rather hard to grow things on soil that eats growing things that can’t move fast enough. Celestia called it ‘Smooze.’”

“Nothing can stop the smooze~” Freya sang out, licking her lips. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

“I don’t get it…”

Freya reaches into her pocket, fishing out what looked like an iPhone. She brings up a video and passes it to her.

Sarah watches the video, her face contorting a bit. “You have got to be kidding me. This looks like that horrible cartoon Hasbro tried to use in the 80’s to stop girls from watching Transformers. It even looks like it was made then!”

“That’s because it is,” Freya replies, taking the phone back. “The Smooze back home looks different though.”

“I got sent to the future of the same world as a cartoon that was cancelled after two episodes? Jesus child-raping Christ on a popsicle stick!”

Freya and Twilight look at each other. “Well actually, you’re the exception then.” Twilight gestures with a hoof. “In most universes, My Little Pony has been around for decades. The original show aired in the 1980s. The universe you’re in, is actually the fourth incarnation, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It followed the adventures of me and my friends.”

“I guess I really should have seen this coming. Maybe not this exactly, but I knew that something had to be going on other than just ‘magic’ for everything here to be so weird. Children’s show...makes absolute sense. So that probably means that...no. No there has to be SOME logic to this world, otherwise everything would be complete chaos.” Sarah stands up, beginning to pace. “I’m in a world where horses talk, magic is real, and the moon has a unicorn head on its face. You’re telling me that there are uncountable others like myself out there, and Liz called one of them here somehow. How does this all work?”

Twilight’s mouth forms a small ‘o’. “Right. You’re back before Luna’s return. As for how this works. This is just your reality now.”

“So...I’m in your past? Relativistically, not you-you, but this would be something you already know about?” She pauses in thought, looking upwards. “When Celestia came to see what had ‘ripped a hole in the Weave the size of Manehatten’ she mentioned that she didn’t expect to see anything in the area for another fifty years, and that we had technically invaded the Crystal Empire...does any of that ring a bell? What should I look for to avoid doing anything that could destroy the world?”

Twilight takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I would suggest moving. If you stay, there's a good chance you’ll alter more than you intend to.”

“Seriously? I asked her specifically to give me the most secluded and inhospitable area of her country. We’re in ‘Flame Geyser Swamp’ with only a tiny...town...fuck, that’s practically a hero origin story right there. Why didn’t I see that?”

“Wait, Flame Geyser Swamp?” Twilight blinks. “Oh, then you should be fine.” She pauses. “I don’t recall anyone important coming from here.”

Sarah breathes a sigh of relief, grinning after a moment. “Did you really think I would have been irresponsible enough to plant my ass in the middle of a population center with a bunch of dangerous creatures under my command that get stronger by eating other animals? How...how stupid are some of these other...displaced?”

Twilight shuffles for a moment. “Well..., you’d be surprised.”

“So, I know there’s not much here to use,” Liz gestures at the tiny, wooden toolbox with all of three hammers, a broken saw, and some screwdrivers in it. “Like I said before, the Zerg don’t really do technology...yet. I do have something that could help us, but, since you used the ‘Universal Greeting,’ you have to promise not to freak out when you see it.”

“By all means.” Jason nods, gesturing in front of them.

“I’d rather wait until we get outside for that. I guarantee it’s going to be of more use than a stone hammer in correcting anything you might find wrong, but we might as well bring these too.” Having said that she picks the little box up by the, well, technically it’s a mouth-grip. “This next bit might be a little crazy, so you’re going to want to hold on tight.”

“I’m fine, trust me.”

“Alright then, time to get a little slimy. The only exit from this point without going through about a mile of tunnels is like something Six Flags might put in one of their water parks.” She walks calmly over to the doorway, smiling as she braces her hand on it for a few seconds. The floor of the ‘hall’ beyond has a severe slope, and there is only the faintest of illumination. Trusting that there is nothing coming up this way she crouches down and launches them down with her legs crossed.

Brief glimpses can be caught of other doorways on the way down, and momentum causes a corkscrew effect around a couple sharp turns. Less than a minute later the pair emerges from the building and slide a good twenty feet before even slowing down on the smooth surface.

Jason hops off her, taking a deep breath. “Next time, I’m just going to teleport us.”

“You can do that without knowing what the area around you is like? What if you end up in the same space as something else?” She stands up, looking around and pointing to a boulder that has managed to stay uncovered by the purple substance. “That look suitable for a decent examination?”

“Uh, sure why not.” He looks up at her, clasping his hands behind his back.

“I just wasn’t sure if...nevermind. I’m still thinking like I have an organic body, despite knowing quite well that that simply isn’t true anymore.” Her right hand taps out a pattern on her thigh, causing the exterior to split open so she can reach in. What she pulls out is a golden remote control-shaped object, the face of which is decorated in silver with blue crystals. “You have the Omnitrix, I have the Key to Vector Sigma. Not horribly useful on a planet that isn’t Cybertron, unless you need to make a lot of metal really quickly.”

“Right.” Jason nods, eyeing the disk. “If I’m going to do this I need to know how you work. Try not to move.” He shifts again, and before Liz could ask what he was doing, his new form leaps onto her, spreading over her body.

Liz simply freezes as requested, not something that’s terribly hard to do for a robot of any kind what with not even really needing to breathe.

Jason jumps back off her, changing back to the smaller creature. “Well nothing's broken in you.”

“Great, so that means either something’s wrong with what I’m doing or I ended up locked with a single form. Either way I’m stuck here.”

“There are two things inside you that aren’t hooked up to your systems.”

“Wait, so this could be as simple as a gear being out of alignment or something? I suppose it makes sense that there would be safeguards in place to prevent transformation if it would just result in further injury…”

“They’re both in the chest,” Jason elaborates. “One up high, and the other low.”

“Huh, It’s probably the lower one then. I know what the higher object is, and it’s something that should correct itself if the underlying cause is taken care of.” She walks carefully, sitting down on the boulder. “The only problem with that is I was never really all that good with Cybertronian anatomy, and the only major component that I know of for sure in my lower torso is my spark. I’m assuming you’d have to do something a bit more invasive to see about fixing the loose connection?”

“Eeyup.” Jason nods. “This is gonna get weird.”

“I’m pretty sure I can self-induce stasis-lock if it’s going to be painful, but I also don’t know if that would mean automatic reactivation or if something would need to be done first.” She pauses, eyes narrowing in thought. “Then again, the way you said that makes it sound like you have something else in mind rather than any kind of surgery. This is going to be some kind of goo, isn’t it?”

“Nope.” Jason changes again, vanishing from sight. A closer examination shows that he turned into a mosquito sized mechanical creature. “This’ll hurt a bit,” he squeaks, firing a tiny blast of energy at her side. He creates a small hole, which he quickly flitters into.

“Ow! Okay, definitely not the worst pain I’ve felt from someone trying to help me.” Her voice gets a little harder to hear on the inside, and every component seems to be just barely fitting in the space allocated to it as it is. There’s still some room to maneuver, especially for something so small, but nothing like the kind of internal emptiness shown in the few episodes where a look inside was given.

Jason relies on his own sensors, weaving between Liz’s mechanics. “You know, I scanned a Transformer once.”

“Really? How’d that end up turning out for you? Awesome strength but immobile when hiding, or did you get an alt-mode with some horsepower?”

“The guy I scanned was from Cybertron, that crappy show that capped off the Armada trilogy,” Jason explains, squeezing between two components. “The alt form is basically Kevin’s car.”

“Oh thank Primus, someone else who refuses to honor that garbage with the designation of ‘the Unicron Trilogy.’ I hate how they butchered the characterization of Solus Prime, and don’t get me started on the horrible fake Australian accent.” She actually laughs, relaxing a little.

“That series was just full of stupid,” Jason agrees. “Okay, I think I see the problem. I’m gonna try to fix it now.”

“Should I try to relax a bit more? I don’t think it’s really possible for me to get any less tense without flat-out reverting to protoform.” The mechanisms shift a bit as she moves slightly. “Ugh, I really wish I knew why i’m using so many sayings like that. It’s like my head has more than just my memories sometimes...but never anything useful.”

“And... go!” Jason shouts as he grabs the misaligned piece, pulling it into place.

Okay, THAT hurt! Liz screams in pain at the sensation of something shifting in a space where things are far too tight for that to be comfortable, and it ends in a discomfort akin to setting a dislocated shoulder. The component quickly engages with the surrounding mechanisms, and a set of tones that is both wonderful and potentially alarming emits from the completed circuitry as multiple systems start to shift around to accommodate the change in form that has been ‘pending’ for over five days. “Ummm, Jay? Might want to make with the escaping. I don’t know how things are going to move in there.”

“Already on it!” Jay calls back, hurriedly making his way back through Liz’s mechanisms. He darts out of the hole, panting heavily.

The escape is accomplished with moments to spare as panels shift and turn, the hole being closed off as the two armor sections it pierced rotate in opposite directions around the central axis of her robot mode, effectively sealing her internal components away from the outside again. The end result is a near-perfect recreation of the beast mode Blackarachnia was introduced with. The only ‘flaw’ being the correction of the hourglass placement to the underside of the spider rather than on top. “Ugh, remind me not to hire you as a chiropractor anytime soon.”

“You’re welcome.” Jason waves. “So, how do you feel?”

“Well, I feel like I just got punched in the gut for one, but a punch in the gut that somehow loosened me up to the point where I can kiss my toes. On the whole, I feel a lot better, but that was only half of the battle. Now I have to get back on two feet.” Despite the complaining, her tone of voice is thankful. “Now...Blackarachnia, Terrorize!” Nothing. “Hmmm, Blackarachnia, Maximize?” Nada. “Shit, don’t tell me it was a one-way trip.”

“This could be a problem,” Jason agrees, buzzing around her.

“Stupid computer protocols. It would end up glitching out on me or something. It was so simple in the show, and predictable. Roll-call and the activation code. The character says their name and they’re battle-ready…” All eight eyes close at once. “And my name isn’t Blackarachnia...duh. Elizabeth, Maximize!” That wonderful sound series plays in reverse, and within two seconds she’s back on her feet while scratching the back of her head. “I really do wish I was smarter sometimes. I should have figured that out instead of starting to panic.” She sits back down on the boulder, looking around. “So, what do I owe you for all this help, anyways?”

“I don’t normally charge.” Jason changes back to himself, stretching out. “A scan would be cool, though.”

“A scan? Oh, you mean you want to see if you can acquire a second cybertronian mode? Would that even work?”

“Well, I figure, Beast Wars Transformers have different DNA from the ones in other series.”

“You have a fair point there. I mean, they obviously have systems and equipment far from the standard to the point where they can replicate organic tissue based on a fossil scan. Then again, that clone dinobot episode had a lot of things that defied logic. I don’t have any reason to object on principle, but I’d advise against trying to scan for a beast mode around here.”

“Yeah, this place kinda sucks,” Jason agrees. “I actually got my chimera scan around here.”

“Just a chimera? Yeesh, your world ripped you off. Here we have salamanders that are surrounded in flames, hydras that breathe fire, outright animate flames, and I think there might still be a den of chimeras unless the last extermination sortie cleaned the one by the trade road out. Celestia set us up here on the condition that we keep the road safe for supplies to the local town. I meant more ‘no scanning zerg because who knows how bad that would foul the sensors.’” She smiles, clearly more amused than anything else about the relative threat of the local fauna. “So, do I need to do anything special for you to get that? This sounds like it could almost be fun.”

“Nah. You just gotta stand there.” Jason walks up, holding his watch arm out. “As for the rest, the watch only scans sapient races. The nemetrix scans animals.”

“I meant for your Beast Mode.” Her eyes widen and she gives an awkwardly-choked cry as the phrase quickly reverts her to spider form. “You set me up for that, didn’t you?”

“Uh, no.” He rolls his eyes. The watch chirps, passing a yellow light over her. “Well, that answers that doesn’t it?”

“I suppose it does at that. So did you get a protoform, or something with a bunch of kibble pre-assigned?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “The last one just had an alt mode already. I think the watch did that on its own.”

“Correct”

“Ah.” Jason nods. “There ya go.”

“It can talk? I only watched sporadically when I had the time, so I thought it was just a tool, not an AI.”

“Yeah, it became self-aware a while ago, it just doesn’t talk all that much.”

“Not that I’m going to judge, but I’m assuming you came to some kind of agreement over things after that point, a mutual arrangement that benefits both of you.”

“I am loyal to my user.”

Liz thinks for a moment, chuckling at the choice of words. “Loyalty, definitely an admirable trait in any sapient entity. Without that you get nothing but a bunch of backstabbing and…” She cuts herself off with a grumble. “Ugh, too many soured relationships in my past, and here I am complimenting a watch. Maximize.” She ends up sitting on top of the boulder again, in a position reminiscent of ‘the thinker.’ “I have so many questions I want to ask, but everything just keeps getting jumbled around as new things happen. How did you make the Unitrix act as a summoning device instead of a genetic storage capsule? That’s something I wanted to ask earlier, before Sarah barged in.”

Jason leans on the building, grinning. “I turned into Grey Matter and took apart a bunch of Twilight’s lab equipment to do it.”

“You just made it, and it does something completely different than the original design? I think there’s a bit more to it than that.”

“Grey Matter can make Omnitricies, which I have done before. It’s really not that hard to alter a design.”

“I’m a paramedic, not an engineer, and I’m certainly nowhere near the same intellectual level as Grey Matter. What did she call it...a token? I saw a sonic screwdriver and something that looked like it came out of an Avengers comic which I kinda recognized. Do they have to be technology, or is there some other trick to it?”

“Not really.” Jason shakes his head. “You just have to find something that represents you and with a little focus, put a saying into it.” Jason cracks his joints. “Then, you send it out to the void.”

“Send it to the void? Like a banishing spell or something, because I don’t think I can use magic.”

“I usually turn into Hodgepodge and punch a hole in reality.”

Liz blinks, then slowly mouths that phrase as if trying to figure out how it could be possible before the missed implication catches up with her. “Wait, you could do that for me if I have something that I made with a connection? Would sculpting a spider out of solid energon count as having a connection?”

Jason shakes his head, looking up at her. “I just said something that represents you. It could be just a rock, if that's what you felt would work. It’s literally whatever you want.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve already made something that could work. I had to do something to keep myself busy for the last week, and I used to shape rocks for fun like the guy in The Shawshank Redemption, but without the whole breaking out of prison thing. I made a spider for me, and a drone for Sarah.”

“You know, I’ve never actually seen that movie.” Jason runs a hand through his hair. “I gotta say, thanks for giving me a reason to use Upgrade. Can you believe I had this thing for nearly two decades and haven’t once used that form?”

“Well, that’s not exactly hard to fathom. Alternate universes, likely nearly identical timelines. When would you get the chance to use a form dedicated solely to enhancing machines or diagnosing problems with them in a world that has a freaking sun god but hasn’t even thought of photovoltaic cells? Hell, the only reason I even know the proper term for them is because Sarah bragged about getting some portable ones to charge our phones in case we got stranded back home.” She does smile, looking down at the Omnitrix. “She likes to prepare for everything, but I think she just wanted to show off that she made more money and could spare the extra.”

“I wouldn’t know, I didn’t grow up with my biological family.” He looks up at the sky, letting some hair fall into his face. “My sister and I aren’t all that close.”

“I can’t really weigh in on that, but Sarah and I weren’t all that close until about six years ago when she started needing my help dealing with some big changes in her life. No offense to you, but it’s not my place to go into more detail than that. Planning ahead doesn’t do much when your free ride turns into a leaky cruise, after all.”

“Yeah, I feel ya there.” Jason closes his eyes, listening to the sounds around them. “Course, I got adopted into the Apple family, and we’re pretty close. Once you get in with them, you’re set for family.”

“Apples, eh? I guess I’ll have to pass that tip along to Sarah at some point. The only pony we really know right now is Celestia and some of her guards who swooped in to help us destroy the remains of an ancient pony named Morning Glory who had become fused with a bunch of zerg stuff somehow. She was controlling the brood that Chrysalis belonged to, and was completely nuts. I can’t really follow Sarah when she starts talking about all the alien stuff, the same way she can’t follow me when I talk about gothic novels like Dracula, or The Modern Prometheus which is better known as Frankenstein. Sometimes our interests are just incompatible, but we care about each other.” She smirks looking up at the sky. “Hell, she can’t even be bothered with Stephen King, but I still love her.”

“That... that's something I wish I had with more of my family.” Jason lets out a long sigh. He opens his eyes, brushing some hair out of his face. “I had to give up one of my children. If I had taken him, his father would have hardly ever seen him.”

Liz slides down off the boulder, not even asking before giving Jason a hug. “I’m not even going to question how, but no mother should be forced to give up a child without there being evidence of abuse. That you chose to suffer that kind of heartbreak says more about the real you than anything else you do. If we can get things set up you need to call Sarah for a long chat sometime. I’m sure you two have more in common than you would ever believe.”

Jason returns her hug. “I dunno, does she have an evil, opposite gendered clone?”

“Not that I know of, well, not for sure anyways. Does it count if the evil clone is the same character while being mind-controlled by an evil alien in the source material?” A pained look crosses her face, and she gives a quick shake of her head. “Some things are too private for me to be the one to talk to you about, and for me to tell you would be breaking her trust. If I lose that trust, I’m alone in this world.”

Jason pulls away, clapping his hands. “Right, we’re way off topic. We need to make you something for repairs.”

“Oh, um, right. Yikes. Let’s get that done before we end up swapping stories about our worst dates or something. Neither of us wants to get attached to the other since that seems to...just nevermind.” The Key is resting against the boulder, a small pool of liquid metal surrounding it. “Ugh, and that’s why I keep it in my thigh most of the time. That organic-to-metallic conversion field around it doesn’t seem to ever completely turn off, but it also doesn’t seem to affect anything more complex than the creep or grasses without being actively used.” The device is quickly scooped up from the ground and wiped clean. “Plus, what am I going to do with this stuff?”

“Sell the metal it makes?” Jason offers. “If we’re going to do this, I need machine parts. Actual parts.”

“I’d consider it if the stuff actually cooled off and turned solid at some point.” She reaches out and touches the pool of what looks like mercury. “I guess I should have thought about the whole level of technology aspect of that request, but I should be able to recover from injuries, if slowly, now that you helped repair me.”

Jason reverts to normal, cracking his knuckles. “It’s fine, I’ll fix it. Just don’t feed the troll.”

Liz just looks confused at that, followed by a shake of her head. “I’m going to have to get used to a lot of weird things if I want to save my sanity, I suppose, but what troll are you talking about?”

Jason shifts again, this time into a strange, mishmashed creature, his body made up of various different animals. He grins.

“This one!” He proclaims, with the voice of... Christopher Walken?

“Do you have any idea how strange it is to hear that voice sound excited, about anything?” She’s clearly struggling not to laugh from that bit of oddity alone, but she is not succeeding very well. “Where’d you get this alien?”

“The name’s Hodgepodge.” He takes her hand, shaking it vigorously. “I hang around in Jay’s head with all the other guys.”

Liz pulls her hand back carefully, wincing a bit as she does so. “Interesting, so you’re a split personality of some kind?” She flexes her elbow a few times, making sure nothing slipped out of place from the unexpected shaking.

“Nah! We all just pal around in Jay’s head.” He hovers in the air, coiling around her. “You know, I’m not sure this is your look.’

Her expression becomes worried quickly at the comment, coupled as it is with an obvious display of at least gravity-warping power. “No offense intended, but I’d rather you not mess with my body too much. I’ve got a piece of precious cargo in here that I’d rather not risk being damaged, and I’m not even talking about the metal-generating key.”

“Nonsense.” He snaps his fingers. “How’s this?” Conjuring up a mirror, he holds it up to Liz’s face.

She stares, seeing Animated Blackarachnia staring at her.

She quickly looks away, looking around for reference points to get a quick height comparison. A sigh escapes from her as it is quickly noted that everything looks to be about the same relative size before she reaches up and tries to remove the helmet that covers this version’s head. “Well, if you’re going to do that, can I make a small request?”

“Yes~?” Hodge asked sweetly.

“Can I get my hair back? I was a redhead before all this and if I’m going to be a robot with organic parts in what was considered to be some kind of abomination in the source material; I’d like to at least have one piece of the old me back.” One hand is lowered to about waist height, as if to indicate how long it was.

“Hm... Nah, I don’t think this look works for you. How about... Transtech?!” He snaps his fingers again, altering her form once more.

“Ack! They actually completed that design on your world?” She shudders, not even wanting to look. “They scrapped that entire line on mine after rumors about having hired a hentai artist to draw the concepts.”

Hodge blinks. “No, that was not a thing back home.” He rubs his chin. “Maybe you’d look better with Beast Machines paint...”

“Oh please no, not that fuschia and green eyesore!”

“Hm well, it’s still a bit to early in the story too early in the story to upgrade you,..” he snaps his claws one last time, restoring her original look.

“Early in the story? Okay, I’m going to do what my sister does and just not think about it, because thinking about someone enjoying reading something like this is going to drive me crazy. It’s going to be bad enough trying to figure out how to get home that we both need all our wits about us.”

Hodge frowns, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “Elizabeth, there is no way home.”

“There has to be. Even if we’ve been sent to the future, this is at least a universe with an Earth in it. I mean, there’s an Earth in Starcraft, and we ran into an ancient Zerg base here…” Her voice lowers in hopefulness rather quickly as her mind begins processing what she’s saying and thinking. “But...Sarah’s not the same, and neither am I…”

Hodge pulls back, holding his arms out in offer.

Liz quickly embraces the odd creature, and immediately begins muttering all kinds of swears into his shoulder as all of the various implications of never being able to go home hit her hard. “Mom and dad are going to think we just ran off the road and crashed, or worse. I hope that guy dressed like Carnage isn’t accused of murder…”

Hodge gently pats her head. “I know what it’s like to lose something you can never get back.”

“Okay...if you’re part of Jason I can’t disagree with that. You lost the same thing he lost at the very least. I miss being able to cry, but that’s not likely to be fixed without messing with my body again, and since we just got through fixing it I suppose I can live with the limitations it has.” She tries to step away again, starting to feel awkward.

He let her go. “Anyway!” He snaps his fingers, making a pile of machine parts pop into existence.

“Hmm, let me guess, ‘some assembly required?’” She smiles, looking the parts over and actually going so far as to start trying to sort through them. She steps back after a few seconds. “I’m...I’m getting part names as I look at them, like something in the back of my mind recognizes them. This is going to start getting confusing trying to keep stuff I know separate from stuff that came with the body.”

“Don’t try.” Hodge shrugs. “But.” He magicks up a cellphone, dialing someone. “Hello? Is this Chrysalis?”

Who is that? You are not my Queen.

“There’s something I haven’t thought of. What could possibly go wrong with not bothering to keep what I know separate from things that came with the body? Oh, right, becoming evil and going crazy in a desperate grab for power, forcing my sister to kill me and probably driving her insane in the process. It may be a bad idea to make an effort to keep things separated like that, but that’s better than losing my mind.” Her tone is firm, and not even remotely angry. It almost sounds like something she’s said to herself a number of times since everything changed. “Wait, my Chrysalis or your Chrysalis?”

“Sh! I’m trolling!” Hodge whispers, covering the receiver. “Yes Chrissy, I invaded your hivemind. I’d like to order some zerg, extra T H I C C.”

You are not my Queen. Order not recognized.

“Wow, you really need to lighten up.” Hodge rolls his eyes. “Anyway, how about we do something fun?”

The zerg do not have...fun. Get out of the mind before I contact my Queen.

Hodge smirks. “Now that's where you're wrong~” Suddenly, Liz finds herself surrounded by Zerg and a confused Chrysalis. Clearing his throat, Hodge pulls a ukulele out of nowhere. “F is fire that burns down the town. U is for uranium bombs! N is for no survivors!!” He blinks. “Wait wrong bit.” He tosses the instrument over his shoulder, pulling on a very familiar red jacket.

Liz blinks as music starts to play from nowhere. Hodge begins to move to the beat, and Liz’s eyes widen in realization. “Ummm, I wouldn’t do this. You’re going to make Sarah mad, or scare her that something else has abducted her brood…”

Hodge pays her no mind, already performing the song and dance. He even has Vincent Price’s narration going. Afterwards, much to Liz’s reluctant amusement, the zerg join in. Granted, since none of them are bipedal some of the moves look awkward, but the total effect strikes just the right balance between creepy and hilarious.

The number ends and Hodge releases the zerg from his control. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be signing autographs until midnight.”

What the hell is going on? Sarah’s voice echoes through the hive mind, sounding both angry and panicked with a bit more fear to it than anger.

“I borrowed some zerg for a comedy bit,” Hodge replies, sending them back into the hive. “There, your creepy bug monsters are back, safe and sound.”

“Okay, that was probably worth her being angry at me later for not stopping you. She’s not going to hold onto that for long, especially since I couldn’t stop you from doing anything if I tried.” Liz smiles, looking around for any remaining disturbances as if suspicious that not everything has been restored. “Seriously, even Celestia put more effort into her spells than what you’re doing. I could at least see her working in some way.”

Hodge is suddenly coiled around her again. “I’m a draconequus, we’re like Q from Star Trek. We can just do whatever.” He slams his head against hers. “The zerg genocided the flutterponies!!?!?!?”

“Not... not exactly. From what I’ve been told the end result amounts to the same thing, with the pony-shaped Zerg here being based off a corrupted version of them. It’s not like it happened after we arrived! It was thousands of years ago by Celesta’s own admission.”

He pulls away, grabbing at his horns. “Oh, now we’ve got to fix it!”

“Sarah’s been trying, I think. She said something about trying to create a pure sample, but it’s taken a week just to make it so that Chrysalis doesn’t look like something out of a Wes Craven movie, or The Thing.”

“Bah!” Hodge waves her off. “We’ll fix it. Not like we haven’t done it before.”

“Wait...you said like the Q? Yeah...you’re not going to have any trouble doing that if I remember correctly. I guess you know what you’re doing if you’ve done it before.”

“Oh no.” He shakes his head. “We gotta bring the big guns. Anything I do could be undone with the Elements of Harmony.”

“The what?” She almost looks alarmed at this bit of information. “You’re telling me there’s something on this world capable of fucking with the results of a Q-level being’s powers?”

“Yes.” Hodge nods. “Anyone, if anyone asks, tell them we’re busy.” Hodge vanishes in a flash of light, replaced by a solid black humanoid, who has tiny white dots all over his body.

“Oh, oh hell.” Her eyes widen at this. This is a form that has every right to scare anyone familiar with Ben 10. She’s not too alarmed at the implications in regards to herself, but a reality rewriter like Alien X is disturbing on a fundamental level.

Alien X stands silently, not moving an inch.

Liz simply waits patiently, knowing there’s nothing she can do here. She does keep her gaze focused towards the rock structure the hive is grown inside of to keep an eye out for anything that might happen as a result of this creature being sensed. A lone zergling, not one based upon a pony body, runs out to her side. “Message to Chrysalis, and Sarah. Jason’s taking care of the extinction issue apparently. No reason to attack. We’re fine here...how’re you?” She adds the last bit with a smirk, knowing the creature to be incapable of relaying any response anyways.

“Motion carried!” Alien X shouts, extending his arms. A strange... pulse ripples through the world, rewriting some law of reality.

Liz watches, waiting for either the figure to revert or for whatever changed to have some kind of sign that it happened. “I wonder if ripple-proof memory is a thing with this. Will I even know things are different other than the whole extinction event?”

“Yes,” Alien X speaks, sounding like the amalgamation of six or more voices.

“Well, that’s good to know. I don’t think anyone would like having their memories changed to not remember things that happened. You finished rewriting the world yet?”

“Yes.”

Liz nods, waiting for some signal from the zergling that everything has been relayed while watching the starry humanoid intently. The response comes as a light bite to one hand, almost like a pet dog might give. Considering her body is metal rather than flesh, the result is about the same rather than an actual painful wound.

Alien X shifts back to normal, leaving Jason clutching his head. “Expect a visit from Celestia.”

“Shall we go inside for the time being? Something tells me you’re going to want some water, or something to drink along with either willow bark or aspirin in case we still have some. In either case we do need to get to my room in order to see if that spider I made could work.” She seems to not really care about the possibility of a visit from the solar alicorn.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go do that.” He nods, heading toward the opening.

“Wait, not that way. One-way exit designed to look like an entrance. There’s a bunch of stairs carved around the back. Well, not quite stairs, but it’s better than trying to go back up a massive slime-based waterslide. Takes about three minutes to walk.” She pauses for a few moments, smiling as a thought crosses her mind. “Though, I could always carry you right up the wall now if you want a shortcut.”

“Already ahead of you.” He shifts back into Nanomech, resting on her shoulder.

Liz shifts back to her spider form, taking a moment to make sure everything still feels right before making her way to the top of the large stone hive structure. The ‘stairs’ on the back side are spotted, looking more like a bunch of ambush points and areas for rocks to be rolled down on anyone using it. “We’re a bit open to attack from anything that can fly, but aside from a few stirges we haven’t seen a reason to correct that. Um, really big monster mosquitoes. Saw one suck a pony dry the other day.”

“If you had told me that, I coulda brought that pony back.”

“I suppose I should have thought of that. I was just a little intimidated by the fact that I had a Q in my face talking about genocide, and then there was the whole wonder of watching you rewrite things. How much of a difference does one pony really make? Plus, if he’s already buried, would he be revived underground? Fast way to die again.”

“I can alter reality. I can just make him appear next to us.”

“Remind me to consider everything like that the next time I’m around when you do that. I’m starting to appreciate the advantages of having a computer for a brain.” She heads inside, following that same map that helped her earlier in order to reach her own room. Laughter is heard from nearby, the other group obviously having managed to enjoy themselves after all.

“Good to hear they’re in good spirits.” Jason flitters off her shoulder, changing back to normal.

“Good just to hear Sarah laughing again. She’s been far too serious about everything ever since she realized this wasn’t all a dream, or that she wasn’t drugged. We don’t have much yet, and Sarah has told me that my top priority is to learn everything I can so we can help. Just learning the language has been a bit of a struggle.” She heads across the room, turning around a moment later with a spider carved out of pure energon in one hand, glowing softly from the inherent energy of the mineral.

“That's why I have the Omnitrix, built in translator.” He grins, leaning on the wall.

“Oh, look at you. Big guy with a Game Genie for languages.” She laughs, more at the situation than her joke. “Ever had to go for a week with only one person to talk to? Conversations can get a bit dull after a while.”

“Anyway, you promised me some headache remover,” Jason reminds, looking around the room.

“Right, right. It’s not exactly the best thing in the world for it.” Her other hand holds a ball of bark about the size of a jawbreaker, though not exactly compressed very tight. “This should help a little though, if anything holds true about remedies from Earth to plants that look like an exact match. If I know Sarah, there’s going to be a pot of tea in her room.”

Jason takes it. “Shall we join the others?”

Liz nods, leading the way down the hall and stopping just outside Sarah’s room. She tenses up and pauses for a moment before stepping inside. “We’re back, and I’m sorry about anything that might have caused a panic in the hivemind. I didn’t exactly have many options available to me at the time.” Sarah just looks over to the doorway, not even bothering to hide how happy she is just to see her sister again as she stands up from the table to offer her own seat.

“I get it, you called in someone who outclasses me by a huge margin. I’m only mad at myself for not anticipating something along that line after he gave me a bloody nose for warning him not to hurt you.” The vast change in demeanor might be a bit of a shock to Jason, compared to the reserved and commanding presence she was trying to project earlier.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Jason drops down in a seat next to Freya. “I fixed your Flutterpony problem.”

“For which I will be quite willing to help you in turn should you ever need it in the future, I just need to figure out how to do that. You hardly lack in strength where you’d need me to help you in combat, and I’m afraid the Zerg aren’t all that useful in any other capacity at this time.” She passes her own plate over to Jason, the meat on it hardly touched but still quite warm.

“Got any tea?” he asks, taking a piece of meat. “And actually, I might have something you could help with.”

A motion is made towards the teapot at the center of the table, followed by a meek smile and an offer of the cup she had been drinking from. “I hope you don’t mind. I don’t have much as far as eating and drinking amenities go outside of raw materials.” Liz sits down as well, more to be polite than out of any need to eat or drink.

“It’s fine.” Jason drops the bark in, taking a deep drink. “So, gonna ask what exactly I did?”

“If that was willow bark, you’re going to want to chew it. Steeping it helps release the active ingredient if the liquid is actually being heated, but chewing it will release more.” Sarah walks away from the table, taking a seat on her bed instead. “As for what you did, I’d rather you make yourself comfortable before you tell us. I may have made a bit of an ass of myself at first, but I’m not trying to make enemies, I swear.”

“I want to know. You said that we should prepare for a visit from Celestia. We’re on good terms with her for now, but I want to know if I should be preparing to evacuate in case things go south.”

Jason dumps the tea into his mouth, chewing on the ball. “Resurrecting people from that far back out of nothing would have made things weird, so, we read the universe’s history and transformed at least half of Cloudsdale’s population into flutterponies.”

“Well, I don’t see any reason she’d have a problem with that.” Sarah looks to Twilight, her mind closing to try and force herself not to read thoughts by accident. “But I could be wrong since this isn’t exactly my world to toy with, and I don’t know how this could alter what is history to you, but the future to me.”

“I also turned a sizable portion of unicorns into bicorns, made naga ponies out of all four natural tribes, turned a few earth pony families into tatzlponies and made a few kirins.”

“That...that sounds like a lot of extra changes that weren’t exactly neces-”

“You didn’t see the creature he became before he did that, Sarah, the one that hijacked your hive mind for a bit. He was able to change my body with a thought and a gesture, and wasn’t exactly...predictable.”

“I realize they don’t sound necessary, but, that was the consensus we reached.” Jason puts his cup down. “I can’t do anything as Alien X unless everyone in my head reaches an agreement.”

“I see. Well, maybe she hasn’t noticed anything yet, otherwise I expect she’d have arrived by now in a flash of light and fire. Either that or she’s busy quelling panic before tracking down the source.” Sarah reaches into her little wall cubby, pulling out the crystalline drone figure Liz had made for her and stroking it almost absentmindedly. “I think we’ll be able to explain that it was necessary. She seems reasonable.”

“Remind me to snag a flutterpony scan before we leave.” Jason held his hand out, looking at Sarah. “May I?”

“May you...what? I don’t have any flutterponies here. They’re all zerg clones from a being with severe neural degradation…”

“I meant the figurine.”

Liz hands hers over without comment, looking over her shoulder at Sarah and smiling. “He might be able to make something like his Unitrix; a way for him to summon us if he needs help, and he did mention that he might have a use for the Zerg.”

“Oh, right. We’ll be able to keep the originals, right? Liz put much effort into making them, and this one almost feels alive in my hand. That might just be wishful thinking on my part.” She stands, bringing the bauble over to the table and holding it out for Jason to take.

“Of course.” Jason takes them. He leans back in his chair, examining them. “These will work just fine. You two just have to put your phrases in.”

“Our phrases?” Sarah is obviously confused, not having touched any of the tokens in the hive’s artifact archive herself. Her eyes lose focus briefly as no less than a dozen are transmitted to her through the hive mind, recalled from when the items were first found. “Oh…”

“So, what? I just take it back and I say the first thing that comes to mind about myself, or does it have to be like yours where I brag just a little bit?” Liz does reach for the spider, picking it up gently by the abdomen.

“Tell people what you’re all about and what to expect if they call on you.” Jason passes the other figure back to Sarah. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Well, that makes mine simple enough.” Liz closes her eyes, smiling as she thinks back to what makes her who she is. “I’m a paramedic first and foremost, but that doesn’t mean I’m not prepared to fight. I’m more than willing to take a life if it will save more in the balance. Kolsen’shea orbb.” The figurine flickers in her hand for a moment before the glow intensifies from a barely-visible luminescence to about the level of a flashlight. Jason would hear that last bit as ‘pull the legs off a spider.’

“Ugh, did you have to use a fantasy language at the end there, Liz? Not everyone is going to know what that means, especially if they come from an Earth where Dungeons and Dragons never became popular.” Sarah holds onto hers, not really seeming fully comfortable about this. “But, I didn’t make this, Liz did. Wouldn’t that muddle things up if I tried to use it for myself?”

“It’s fine,” Jason dismisses. “Just give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll help you find something else.”

Sarah nods, thinking while she holds it in her hand. “Have two people ever shared one before? Like, if I wanted this to summon both of us instead of just me?” She actually looks almost guilty as she holds it. “I don’t want to leave her out of using something she made.”

“Sarah, shut up and find something to say. You can always drag me with you when you go if you want, just like Jason came with his daughter and their friend.” Liz waves her hands out, indicating Freya and Twilight. “Clearly the things aren’t coded by biology or magic to bring only one person ever at a time.”

Sarah appears shocked for a moment, then just groans in embarrassment before closing her eyes. “Yeah...we both need to work on our responses to a panic impulse. Let me think for a minute here.” Her hands move over the drone, fingertips tracing the fins and the pincers at the front. “I am the Queen of Blades. I command the swarm. Call on me if you need an ally, or an army.” She pauses for a moment, thinking further. “Try not to summon me too close to a city.” The drone begins to glow as well, though this one is a darker shade of purple than the spider and a bit less bright.

Jason gets up, taking the figures from them. “See? It worked fine.” He flashes them a smile, shifting back to Hodgepodge.

Sarah flinches away at the sudden shift, having seen this shape before through the eyes of her commandeered zerg, but still wary of it. “Okay, so it worked. I guess this form is the only one that can do whatever else is needed to send them out?”

“Sarah, calm down. The worst this guy’s going to do is give you a hug, or maybe turn your hair a different color. He’s creepy, not evil.”

“Hey!” Hodge pouts. “I’m not creepy!” Drawing his arm back, he punches the air, smashing a hole in the world. He tosses the figures through the hole, which repairs itself with a sewing needle.

“I meant it as a compliment?” Liz giggles, standing up and walking over to the doorway. “So, what else is there to do other than for me to get to work on building something out of that pile of parts you created for me?”

Sarah perks up a bit at Liz’s mention of parts, or maybe about this visit being over soon. “Well, I was hoping to get a few genetic samples of you so I can see if I can use anything in them, or maybe just help analyze your abilities a bit. Natural ones only, it wouldn’t give me anything related to spells or that Omnitrix. Specifically I want to see if I can find a way to integrate the ability your daughter has to disguise yourself into my brood, but anything else I could gain or find out would be a pure bonus. In trade, I can offer an endless supply of, well, anything else that we could reasonably provide.”

“How about energon? Guy’s got two cybertronian forms, and even without those it acts as a potent source of power, or storage medium.”

“It really depends.” Hodge leans down, looking into Sarah’s eyes. “What are you going to do with those samples?”

“Other than trying to give my brood the ability to disguise or trying to learn more about Jason’s genetics to see if I can find out things even he doesn’t know? I don’t have any plans, really. If I get nothing useful I’ll probably just toss them aside and never think of them again.” She looks worried for a moment. “By the way, thank you again for taking care of the flutterpony problem. I found out just before you arrived that I can’t actually make any kind of pure clones, so there’s no chance of me creating a bunch of you or anything.”

“You’re welcome.” Hodgepodge smiles before bursting into laughter. “Oh that's rich! Trying to understand jotun genetics! You’re a riot, Sarah!”

“If anyone can do it, it’ll be a zerg. That’s kind of the whole idea of them as a species. Pick through genes, take the best parts, weaponize them. I know that sounds like it’s horrifyingly abusable, but I swear that I will not do that without express permission from you. I’d have to be able to isolate something to tell if it’s usable anyways.”

Hodge reaches over with his paw, booping Sarah on the nose. “That's not how jotun work. I’ll give you an example. Jay’s great grandfather Loki hooked up with another jotun. Somehow, they ended up producing a wolf and a snake. Jotun ‘genetics’,” he air quotes, “don’t make any sense in the slightest.”

“Then maybe just Freya? I mean, even if hers are scrambled worse than a frog in a blender she can use her ability, which means I could possibly isolate it.” She smiles sheepishly at the young queen. “No offense.”

Freya shrugs, holding her hand out. “Go for it.”

Sarah moves quickly, her talons carefully feeling for a tender spot where hopefully nothing will be damaged too much. “This would work out better if I had a scalpel, or something professional like that, but I’m not about to take you down to the manipulation chamber to have pieces peeled away either. Do you know if I could get away with just taking a piece off of your knuckle?”

“Go ahead.”

Sarah nods, looking over to Hodgepodge for a moment before carefully stabbing at the area with her index finger, cutting a small piece away and doing her best to make it as clean as possible, without a chance for the skin to tear in such a way that anything underneath suffers more than a bit of bruising. “Thank you, Freya. I will make whatever use I can of this, and ask before I implement any changes.”

“That's fine.” Freya flicks her hand, casting a spell over the slight wound and healing it.

“Well, before we go back to tool time,” Hodge spins around with a flourish, holding out a green and black canister to Sarah. “A gift, to make up for the pissing match earlier.”

Sarah takes the canister, holding it with a hint of suspicion that is easily seen in her expression. “But that was entirely my fault. You don't need to do anything to make up for my mistake.”

“No, we were out of line.” He gestures to the canister. “That little gadget holds all our scans. You.” He poked her chest. “Only get ten. After you choose your ten, the others are erased. You can then use to to store pure samples of species you run across.’

“Do I have to choose them now?” She smiles, her entire face almost seeming to glow a bit with excitement.

“You do realize you just handed her the most dangerous thing in the universe if she weren't in that character's purified form, right? If she were thinking like a Zerg instead of trying to stay herself, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, I locked out all the really dangerous ones,” Hodgepodge assures with a smile.

“Oh, good. That means I don't have to worry about accidentally finding that ‘scp’ thing Twilight mentioned.”

“That one got removed years ago.” He grabs Liz up, throwing her over his shoulder. “We got things to build, stuff to smash, you know how it is.”

Liz yells in surprise, squirming for a few seconds before giving up. “Be back in a bit, Sarah. This might take an hour or so, maybe less depending on how fast we can work and which alien he chooses.”

Hodge waves, then poofs away with Liz in tow.

An hour or so later Liz wipes some splashed creep away from her face while looking at the finished project. “Granted I'm not really mechanically adept myself, but I never would have thought of using an electromagnetic field to keep the energon stable while leeching power off of it.”

“I have no idea how I did it,” Jason replies, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “But I’m glad to help.”

“And we're both glad you were able to help. Sarah might never admit it, at least not to me, but that gift is probably going to help her out quite a bit in the future if she chooses a few smart forms alongside a few strong ones.” She laughs, walking around the coffin-like assembly of parts and armatures. “Not a whole lot of room to spare in there, but that shouldn't be an issue unless we get a fellow cybertronian visitor sometime soon.”

“Well, then, I guess that's everything.” Jason nods. “I’ll collect the girls and get out of your hair.”

“That won't be necessary.” Sarah lands close to the hive, having jumped down from the roof and hopped off a few protrusions on her way down. “Freya’s been complaining about getting hungry for love for a few minutes, so I had a standing order to alert us when you finished so that she could get her fill as soon as possible without interrupting.”

“I’m starving,” Freya agrees, making her way down the hive.

“Alright, alright.” Jason nods, walking to stand next to her.

Liz looks around, then up as she notes one member of the group missing, “Where's Twilight? She knows how to fly, right?”’

“Of course I do.” Twilight glides down, landing with Jason and Freya. “I just got a little distracted. It was a pleasure meeting you both.”

“My offer stands, Twilight. If you want a larva or some other samples to study in a careful and controlled environment…”

“Sarah, do you really want her to be responsible if whatever you give her breaks free and starts ravaging their world? You know I'd hold you responsible in the first place for pressuring the poor girl...mare...whatever.” Liz all but glares at her sister. “You do remember the reason you asked Celestia for a location like this in the first place, right?”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll have to decline. I just hope you’ll get some use out of that care package.”

“I'm sure I can think of a few things to do with a container that has nearly infinite space in it. Some of them might be a bit questionable, but I promise not to smuggle any known contraband across universe barriers. The spellbooks might be a tiny bit less immediately useful, but at least they're in English. Thank you all, for everything.”

Jason gives them a thumbs up. “Don’t worry about it. It was fun to not have to deal with trouble. All you have to do to send us back is say ‘Jason, our contract is complete.’”

Liz nods, followed by offering her hand for one last time towards Freya and Jason, then Twilight. They each shook it, with Twilight offering her a smile. “Jason, our contract is complete... and thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He waves before they vanish in a green flash, leaving the unitrix resting on the ground.

Sarah picks it up quickly, smiling as she turns to look at her sister. “You like him.”

“So what? I know better than to get involved in a long-distance relationship with a married man.”

“That was one time!”

Author's Note

It hardly needs to be mentioned, but credit to a great guy who was fun to write with.

Jason Hughes is from And then there were 10...er...67 and its sequels by Shagohad12

And, as of this moment, their tokens are dispersed and they are available to be summoned.

Oh and before anyone cries 'continuity error' over the Morning Glory thing, Liz is giving her interpretation of events as someone without the ability to even hear anything the cerebrate said. As far as she knows Morning Glory went crazy until the big mutant brain behind her was destroyed.

Consequences and opportunities.

Author's Note

This chapter, being from Elizabeth's point of view, contains clusters of untranslated Celestia speech. As such this ends the opportunity for a single person to come up with a good name for Sarah's zerg brood as I am forced to disclose the secret both in the narrative and for you readers to not be completely lost with only half of the conversation understandable.

The pony language is Al Bhed, from Final Fantasy X.
Online translator can be found here.

Consequences and opportunities.

"Ouin cecdan-"

"Did nothing wrong! I'm not budging on this, Celestia. Elizabeth did what she thought needed to be done to ensure her own continued existence." I tried to ignore the argument coming from down the hall while reading one of the books that had been left behind as part of the care package from Jason and Twilight. Three more books, including the pony-language children's primer, lay on my bed open to pages with interesting things.

"Hudrehk fnuhk? Cra cissuhat y lnaydina fru fyc ypma du nafneda naymedo yht ica femt sykel uh y fres! Rymv uv dra ledewahc uv Lmuitctym yna eh y byhel tia du cittahmo ryjehk tevvanahd fehkc; aja druikr dra lremtnah tuh'd caas duu ibcad." The cadence of her speech nags at my mind, and I think back to previous times I'd spoken with her; when I could understand what she was saying.

"Did anyone die?" Sarah's question rather obviously makes Celestia think, since a response doesn't come immediately. I play back a portion of a previous conversation in my mind; my new brain actually capable of bringing it up as a recording of the event from my perspective.

"Her mouth matches the length of the English words I'm hearing..." I quickly cut off the memory and walk over to hit the doorframe in order to close the special privacy membrane. I look through the books delivered a week ago; finding another one with a more basic premise quickly based on the three stylized letters on the cover and the fact that it had only a few dozen pages at most. The letters are shocking in their similarity to those used in English, but with numerous accents and flourishes akin to those found in old illuminated manuscripts. "Y, P, L... it can't be that simple, can it?"

On the first page is a picture of an apple with the embellished Y next to it; page two has a bear with P next to it. The pattern continues through twenty-six pages; with the final two pages bearing pictures of a monstrous serpent with arms and a humanoid torso next to an O, and a zebra next to an ornate W. "It's a fucking substitution cipher! The written form is just English with letters swapped around..." I turn back to my bed; grabbing the children's book and smiling as I watch the text switch around and alter itself in my perception. I can finally read the basic story. The text on each page doesn't instantly translate into English, but it only takes a few seconds for my mind to register the letters and begin swapping them for their English counterparts.

"Maybe Hodgepodge was right about not minding if a few things start slipping through. Taking advantage of the fact that my brain is a fucking computer now means I could master the theory of any documented process and would only lack in practice..." I begin to pace as I think; the motion helping me come down from the high of discovering a new capability of this body that I hadn't previously considered. "Engineering, metallurgy, anything defined more by science and methodology is essentially a free skill. I'm going to need some help on the tech side of things, but Sarah likely won't mind if I ask for one of those ten forms to be one of the smarter aliens."

I grab one of the spellbooks left behind by our recent visitor, and I don't wait around after hitting the area that causes the privacy membrane to retract. This turns out to be a mistake as Celestia and I collide as I try to exit while she barges in only to each have our progress halted by the other. "Cunno," her voice rings out as I step back and glare at her. I prepare myself for some kind of confrontation; bracing myself to try and move out of the way if she starts casting that sun-laser spell only to relax a bit as I notice Sarah behind her in the hall. "E theth'd aqbald oui du pa dnoehk du mayja."

"I told you to not try going in the second she opened the door; now back up so she can leave. Cast your damn translation spell so she can understand you and you can understand her. She can't read your mind or project her thoughts at you, remember?" Sarah seems more in control than she was a few minutes ago when the two were yelling at each other.

"No. Don't cast your spell just yet." I shake my head as I step back again and motion for the two of them to come in instead. "I want to see if my theory is correct first, because I just found out that the language you speak is essentially the same as one of ours." I wait for Sarah to repeat this after they both walk in; since my shaking head seems to have been interpreted just fine. I turn to Celestia and smile while calculating the best phrase to attempt. I hold up a finger to ask for a bit of patience while I close my eyes to avoid other distractions. Translating: Nice to meet you, Celestia. My name is Elizabeth. Preserving original name. Say: "Hela du saad oui, Lamacdey. So hysa ec Elizabeth." I open my eyes after saying her name, and I laugh at the utterly baffled expression on both of their faces. "The written form is English with a simple letter substitution algorithm."

Celestia's horn glows, and she clears her throat while sitting on the floor. "Your accent is atrocious, but it was understandable at least. I'm sure you will get better with practice." Her eyes move as she looks around the room; pausing for a few seconds as they spot the cannister rifle. "Five hours. I had to listen to my 'nephew' complain for five hours about how he no longer has rear legs and his wife has scales on her neck. I had to spend eight hours attempting to calm the people of Cloudsdale. Another two hours were wasted assessing the flight capability of the Wonderbolts since half of them were visiting family in Cloudsdale. I have not yet been given a full assessment of all changes and damages caused by the actions of your friend, but I noticed more than a few ponies in Canterlot with enough demonic heritage to have two horns curving back slightly where they had previously been unicorns. The only two consolations are that flutterponies are no longer numbered in the single digits of random births a century, and that this change didn't hurt anypony other than causing some emotional distress. Neither of you are to bring that entity here again unless there is a threat that could possibly destroy the planet entirely."

"I told you there are worse creatures than him she could have picked to summon. Not many of them would have been able to help her quite as readily, but plenty of them could have caused more damage." Sarah has a smug smile on her face as she leans against a wall. "Plus we gained some valuable items as well as information. Remember our deal, Celestia."

"Yes, I know. Now I must deal with your sister." Celestia flicks her ears, not having bothered to look away from me while listening to Sarah. "You are to come with me and bring your weapons to be examined by the artificers and tinkerers in Canterlot. The long one clearly has the destructive power of at least a basic combat spe-"

"No." My refusal is instant, and it clearly takes Celestia by surprise. "I'm not going to be poked and prodded anywhere but here; where my sister can intervene if I am unable to stop anything that I find uncomfortable." I walk over and grab the rifle; holding it by the barrel so there is no mistake of intent. I only barely notice a flash of text and a progress bar in the lower left of my vision about assimilating assembly data as I bring it over in front of her. "You can take this. It's purely a mechanical design as far as I know, so figuring out how to make more of them will advance your technology and manufacturing capabilities to the point where we will be able to help each other much more readily."

"You assume I will take no for an answer."

"To paraphrase Solus Prime*; freedom is the right of all sapient beings, Celestia. I have committed no crime, therefore you have no right to detain me." I narrow my eyes, almost glaring at her. "You don't come across as a tyrant, normally, and I can offer something better than examining me if you bring me some texts you have on metallurgy and local elements of matter."

"What would that be, Elizabeth?" Celestia arches an eyebrow as I pull the Key out of my thigh. "I remember you showing that before, but you never explained what it does."

"The Key to Vector Sigma is a cybertronian atrifact. The main use is in operating Vector Sigma, the computer that controls the creation of new life. A secondary use is that it can turn organic matter into metal on planets other than Cybertron. We have an endless source of organic matter here: creep. With a few books on metallurgy I could possibly fine-tune which metal it creates."

Celestia's eyes widen at this, but she smiles and nods eagerly. "One weapon to examine in exchange for all the knowledge we can give you on the various metals we have here, and all the cloud-iron you can make with that knowledge."

"No. I'm not agreeing to an endless supply of anything. Sixteen tons."

"Cloud-iron has no weight, but you make a good point. Sixteen supply contracts from the crown with quantities measured in cubic meters instead?"

"Cubic anything is going to be hard to make using creep alone. Square meters and a number of layers or plates." Sarah interjects while looking at me. "Why sixteen? That's an odd number to start with."

"The old coal-working folk song, only I'm not going to get deeper in debt." I keep my gaze steady on Celestia's face. "Additionally, I want it to be made public where this supply is coming from so that outsiders can get some of this metal. The way you all but started dancing at the idea tells me this is a versatile substance. A weightless metal would be extremely useful in constructing larger buildings as well as whatever your plans include."

"Very well. I will have some lawyers draft up a simple formal agreement. I wouldn't want to complicate this too much, but none of us have anything to record thi-"

"My brain is a computer, Celestia. I think that should be enough on our end." I hold the rifle out again; a bit of my irritation with trying and failing to figure things out over the previous week slipping into my voice. "I do have one last question for you before you head off to do whatever it is you do to rule your country. Why is one of the books you sent us blank and marked with the symbol on my collar?"

"That is an enchanted volume. I have a matching tome in my quarters. If either of us needs to contact the other, but it isn't urgent enough for a face-to-face meeting, whatever one writes in their book will appear in the other."

"You have spells that can create a quantum entanglement effect? I have got to figure out how magic works, because this is some crazy shit." I clear my throat, and cause that sound like grinding gears to emit again, while pointing to the spellbooks on my bed. "Oh, right, we have resources of our own to peruse on that now, as well as other things we need to take care of."

Celestia nods and stands up. "Very well, I suppose it is time for me to return anyways. We wouldn't want the guard trying to storm this place thinking you were trying to detain me." Her horn lights briefly before she and the rifle both vanish in a flash of light.

"So, what's next, Sarah? Did you want me to teach you the cipher, or show you a few neat spells I think could be useful?" I fold my arms carefully across my stomach; struggling to keep my fingers from tapping at my sides.

"Actually, I think I'm going to need your help choosing those forms. You're more familiar with the cartoon Jason's device came from and I just remember the fact that the Omnitrix could scan and repair damaged DNA. The idea of him trying to 'repair' the zerg sent me into a bit of a panic." I can't help but laugh a bit at this. "It's not a joke, Liz! Neither of us knows what that thing could have done if it had decided that I needed to be fixed, or that the zerg were horribly mutated...which they really are."

"Alright, alright. So, do you have any major goals in mind for these forms?" We head out of my room; leaving the books alone as we head for Sarah's to sit down and examine the device Hodgepodge had given her.

"Well, I want two intelligent samples at a minimum to help me with genetic manipulation and integrating new strains and features. I was thinking one of them should be good with tech so you could borrow them in case you had any ideas for things to make. I already picked three forms that I want to see if I can combine into some kind of ambassador strain." She picks it up and carefully twists a section, which causes a hologram about a foot tall to show above it in the shape of a bipedal version of a unicorn. Another twist is given and there's a pegasus in its place. A final twist brings up something that looks like a fusion between one of the two previous forms and Mera, except much closer to a fish becoming bipedal than a human becoming fish-like.

"Well, if it's pure brains and the ability to quickly comprehend just about anything, as well as use basic information at hand to figure out a solution to a problem, you're going to want Brainstorm. Twist that dial until we get a crab-like thing with frail-looking pincers and a lower body with four thin legs." As she twists the dial I note that size seems inconsistent in the holograms. Most are around a foot or so tall, but that includes forms like Nanomech. Seeing Nanomech as tall as that just feels weird. Sarah stops twisting the dial, staring at the hologram of a blob with an almost euphoric expression. "Oh, look, your next boyfriend?"

"Liz...that's a paw."

"WHAT?" I stand up and move around the table to examine the hologram from every possible angle; finally noticing the claws and fur. "Why is it so big? Everything else has been small or large enough to at least get an idea of what it looks like..."

"Maybe it's just too big to be reduced any further. I'm locking that one in..."

"Are you completely out of your mind? Do you have any idea how huge that thing could be if that's just its paw when reduced enough so that we can see it?"

"Yes, I know it's going to be big. I need something like the Leviathan for long-range transport and base mobility in case this wasn't the only zerg infestation on this planet. I want to be ready the next time we have to face that cerebrate, and I want to be able to bring soldiers with me rather than being forced to create them all in the field." She looks at me, her eyes full of anger and hatred. "You didn't see into Celestia's mind. That thing tortured Morning Glory for millenia, and I want to make it suffer the most humiliating defeat possible when it revives."

"Okay, okay, I'm not going to argue that with you. I still don't get how it was different from her when it was growing out the back of her head."

We take our time going through the various forms present for selection, and Sarah makes a few choices that seems a bit odd to me. Upon selecting number ten it shuts down for a few seconds before coming back to full power so I can look trough the final choices one last time. "Alright, so you chose those three humanoid-pony forms, Brainstorm, Grey Matter, XLR8, whatever has that giant paw, whatever had those two big hooves, a changeling of some kind...and a boar. Why a boar?"

"Well, your basic boar from Earth is a dangerous-enough creature by itself what with the tusks and powerful running muscles. I want to see if I can make something at least close to an uninfected sample from that one for easy trade goods. Connect a boar to the hive mind and that's docile butchering meat right there. If I can create partitioned strands I could even make something combat-applicable out of it. That and this was the only form on there that flat-out looked like there was no way for it to be intelligent at a basic level, so I kinda want to know what makes this one different."

I shrug in response, not really seeing the point in having yet another small quadrupedal battle beast thing as an option. "Alright, so what else did you want help with aside from learning how to read the language?"

"Right now? Nothing. I want to get to the spawning pool so Chrysalis can help me get these samples integrated, and get started on growing Brainstorm at least so I have my advisor council as soon as possible." She doesn't even wait, and I stare at her as she walks out. It takes me a good five minutes to calm down from just being brushed off like that, but I eventually do find somethingapproaching peace and stability as I slowly walk back to my room.

"I need to get out and socialize with the locals soon, I think, otherwise my sister getting weird is going to drive me batshit..." I pick one of the pony anatomy books up and flip to the first page. It takes a few seconds for that self-written program trick to come into effect and translate the text there: Y pakehhan'c kieta du dra bufanc uv dra seht; Dra Bceuhelc Rhytpuug. Once it finishes getting swapped around I end up staggering and falling onto my ass: A beginner's guide to the powers of the mind; The Psionics Handbook. I close the book quickly and stare at the illustration gracing the cover: A pony head, cut in half to expose the brain and the various other features inside the head and skull. "Well, shit. No point in not reading a bit more I suppose. I wonder if I'll even be able to use any of this stuff without upgrading with the driver though..."

*The version of Earth that Sarah and Liz call home had a bit of a different history with certain things. To those not knowledgeable of Transformers lore; Solus Prime is officially the only female prime of the original 13.

Interlude - Divinity Deviation

Author's Note

My brain wanted to do something different here and expand on the world a bit without having Sarah or Liz read about it in a history book.

Let's face it, reading about other people reading isn't itself the most exciting thing, unless it involves a huge cliffhanger. Thus I present the first chapter not involving either of my main point-of-view characters. Take it away, Sunbutt!

Interlude - Divinity Deviation

I check myself in the bathroom mirror after arriving back in Canterlot Castle and take the time to make a minor adjustment to my tiara before stepping out with the strange weapon cradled in my magic. A small and curious part of me wants to attempt to take it apart myself, but the urge quickly subsides as I remind myself that I have at least one more petitioner to hear regarding the odd disturbances the other day. A quick check of my hooves shows that neither they nor my shoes picked up any residual grime from visiting those two in their 'hive,' for which I am grateful. A soft chime from the other side of the door alerts me to the fact that the kitchens have sent up my lunch promptly upon my return, as requested, and the fact that no doors opened tells me that my favorite chef must have recovered from the trauma quickly.

Opening the bathroom door results in my nostrils being attacked by the inviting scent of a warm vegetable and flower pie: daffodil and honeysuckle in a pea stew base with carrots, quinoa, and a bit of garlic. My nose leads my gaze over to the table where the food arrived after being teleported, and the side dish of two halves of an apple cut apart so carefully as to appear to be a pair of off-white roses causes me to pause. Trouble in the castle while I was away. Green skin means an impertinent guest... I move over quickly and lift up the upper half to examine the details of the shaping. Counter-clockwise spiral with pips removed: powerful leader of an Equestrian protectorate state. I find myself rolling my eyes while quickly eating the upper half of the apple and lifting both the small pie and the bottom half to take with me.

The wall of guards on the other side of my bedroom door parts as I open it, which in turn allows my harried-looking assistant, Quick Quill, to step to my side and begin briefing me on the situation while I do the best I can to savor my lunch under the circumstances. Luckily, holding the still-hot filling of the pie inside is no challenge with a delicate telekinetic touch. "Princess, about ten minutes after you left to air the previous collective grievances with the source of the recent disturbances your afternoon guest arrived. I realize that she is in charge of a small portion of the country, but she is an absolute terror! Isn't there something you can do about her temperment, or her appearance? One of the new maids soiled herself and started screaming about not wanting to lose her soul when that...that thing teleported in."

Female pronouns narrows the possible field of irritations from over a dozen to less than five, and having an overtly frightening appearance narrows it to two on the planet; one of which I have just seen and cannot yet teleport herself. Nevertheless, I swallow the first half of the pie and take a deep breath before asking the question that will determine how I handle this visitor today. "How many guards are just paralyzed, and how many are actually dead?" I dont wait for a response before popping the second half of the pie in my mouth and chewing as quietly as possible.

"At least a dozen are incapacitated in one way or another, but we aren't sure how many are actually dead." We continue towards the throne room; dodging a unicorn racing towards the healers' wing with a frozen pegasus towed behind him. "Princess, I have a long list of titles for this guest of yours, and the initials N.M., but no name: Queen of the Necropolis of Hollow Shades, Dread Necromancer of the Octarine Veil, Pale Master of the Boneyard, Vanquisher of Grogar the Defiler, Lady of the Forsaken Crypt..."

"Believe me when I say she has earned both those titles and my respect many times over throughout the last forty centuries; despite the fact that we tend to disagree on moral grounds. She actually works to keep undead in check and a relatively benign disruption of the cycle of life and death rather than guiding them to spread like the plagues of old." The device in my grasp is quickly given to a guard who is still able to move. "Get this to the guild of artificers, tinkerers, engineers, and alchemists. I want it examined and analyzed so that we can make more of it if we need to." I step up to the vaulted doors of the throne room; carefully wrapping my magic around them before a thought occurs to me. "Are there any guards missing that should have been here today?"

"Just Captain Blueblood the 97th," Quick Quill doesn't sound overly concerned, but hearing that makes me flinch a bit. I make a quick adjustment to the flow of magic around the throne roon to activate the sound-proofing wards before opening the door and stepping inside. The room that is normally bright and cheerful even on the rainiest of days has been turned into an abattoir. The scent of death and blood fills my nose alongside a faint hint of decay while ribcages are strewn on the floor like the broken toys of a spoiled child; some of them are empty and covered only in a thin layer of blood while others clearly still contain lungs and other viscera. The walls and windows are both spotted with large blotches of red and brown with the net result blocking more of the light that should be permeating the room at this time of day.

I direct my gaze up to my throne and the floating skull with sapphires for eyes and ruby teeth capped with pearls to look more like natural bone. A spectral hand holds Captain Blueblood up by his horn and shakes him in front of me as a tired voice surrounds me. "Celestia, your great to the umpteenth power nephew here thought it was a good idea to try hitting me with a simple magic missile assault. Rather than realize his error and apologize when that failed, he decided to attempt to cast a delayed blast fireball...in a room full of other guards. Your mortal bloodline has become astoundingly foolish in this last generation. I must admit the whole snake-like lower body is a new thing, though. This one wasn't foalnapped by yuan-ti at some point, was he?"

"Teleport him to the hall of healing already, Nanay. You know mortals tend to struggle to breathe when paralyzed." I light my horn while calling the runes of illusion erasure forward in my mind; smiling as the throne room brightens considerably with the macabre decorations dissolving back into the Weave. "And could you at least take the time to call up an illusion of your old body for state visits, for old time's sake if nothing else?"

"If anyone but you were asking that of me I'd turn them into a skeleton and a skin kite." The skull seems to glare at me for a few seconds before an image starts to flicker around and beneath it, eventually focusing with great difficulty into the body the demilich once had. The visage is still somewhat menacing, being that of a normal lich, and I give a deliberate cough to drive my point home. "Ugh, you really want me to go back three and a half thousand years? I was all flesh and hair and, ugh, the biological needs..."

"Biological needs you no longer have, but a body that I always felt comfortable around, and that didn't scare my citizens into thinking they were in danger of having their soul sucked out. Forgive me for feeling a bit nostalgic in my old age." My next runes activate and quickly pull Blueblood out of her grasp while teleporting him to the healers along with the rest of the incapacitated guards.

"Old age my ass, Celestia, your body hasn't changed a bit since you came into your full power two thousand years ago, and it's not likely to change again anytime soon unless you decide you want to wish for a few more improvements."

I roll my eyes at this old argument of hers about unchanging bodies and bite back my usual retort. "So, other than the reality-rewriting energy from the other day, what brings you to Canterlot this time, Queen Manaallin?"

An eyebrow raises on her illusionary body and her voice echoes faintly as her temper flares. "Titles titles titles. Are we to fawn over each other in an attempt to recall as many titles the other holds as possible, or can we just skip straight to the meat of the discussion, 'Princess' Sunbeam? I was wandering recently through the Plane of Shadow, trying to see if I could find a new path to a new prime material plane if there ever came reason to abandon this one, when I happened upon two comatose figures. A few simple spells allowed me to backtrack their arrival there so I could observe them for a time." I roll my eyes again at this since I know Nanay considers spells as complex as a hellball to be 'simple.' "One of them managed to enrage a supreme trickster."

"A supreme trickster? You mean there's more things like Discord out there?" My question actually makes her laugh,and the sound is a bit grating on my ears as I wait for her mirth to subside. "Have I truly limited my perspective that much by keeping my attention on mortal affairs that this comparison is so funny?"

"Comparing this thing to Discord would be like comparing you to a breezie, Celestia. As much chaos as the Lord of Pandemonium can wreak when you don't have his consciousness trapped in stone; this thing that I saw was leagues beyond even what he could manage. For all my power I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it from throwing those two girls into a death sentence. What I was able to do is bring them here instead."

"Wait...that was YOU!? You brought them here?"

"Just because I'm evil doesn't mean I lack all compassion, Celestia." At this point Nanay's body has become a perfect reflection of her form when she was alive. Bipedal and vaguely similar in shape to the new arrivals, her body was visually more delicately built and anorexically-thin. Her right arm remains skeletal, but the rest of her is flesh as solid as any stone; with a coloration akin to fine marble. Black hair hangs limp from her neck and reaches her thighs while her entire body is garbed in black robes with purple trim. "Your sister always liked what I did for her anyways."

"You know I still blame you in part for inviting her to chase darker paths. It isn't wise to remind me of that. Just a week ago I was slinging spells around as if I were only four hundred again in an effort to destroy smooze and the corrupt creatures it spawns."

"As if you would stoop so low as to resort to violence against an old friend and honored guest. What would your precious ponies think if you violated diplomatic immunity over a literally centuries-old squabble?"

I grin; my eyes practically sparkling as I seize the opening before she can try to take back the poorly-phrased question, "That I had finally come to my senses about destroying the vile infestation of undead in our fair land? Nevermind that your position over the Tomb of the Bone Roc as its guardian ensures we have ample warning if those things ever revive."

"Fair enough. How about you order some of your kitchen staff to prepare a meal while I reconstruct my taste buds, then we can discuss the new arrivals and our respective observations of them over the last seven days as well as our plans for the future with them?"

"You're going to try and tempt them to evil. You'll lose, old friend."

In The Zen

Sarah comes barging back into my room less than an hour after I’d started reading the handbook. I look up from the floor, where I had placed the book after constructing a makeshift yoga suspension hammock out of some cyber-webbing, and I carefully right myself and release the bound one-legged king pigeon pose I’d been using to help my mind relax to actually absorb the basic instructions in the section to which it is currently opened. “You look like you just ate a spoonful of cereal covered in spoiled milk.”

“I can’t figure out how to get it to work… were you just doing yoga?” She tosses the modified unitrix from one hand to the other repeatedly, something I know to be an old habit of hers that she usually does without even thinking about it.

“Well, yeah. You know it helps me relax, and now I don’t have to worry about blood rushing to my head whenever I hold an inverted pose. I also don’t have to worry about a single wrong stretch possibly crippling me, so I figured why not test the limits of how my new body can actually move?” I smile reassuringly and hold up a set of loose papers that I’d been transcribing passages of the book onto. “Also, I picked out the best possible book to start translating for you. I’ve got a brief rundown of the basic meditation exercises needed to begin learning how to use the power of your new mind for something other than shooting little lightning sparks.”

She immediately places the device from Jason down on my desk with one hand while holding the other out for the pages. “Not that I want to kill things in the first place, but it seems as if that will not be a choice I can even make when it comes to survival against that cerebrate, or others like us if we encounter one whose mind has been twisted by their costume into something horrible. Imagine if someone went to, say, Gary Con dressed as Cyric, Lolth, or Bhaal, and ended up transported and changed like we were. Imagine if someone did that using the Sauron design from the movies. I was also told that we’re likely to see invasions from our source material for a LONG time, and we’re both going to need to be ready to fight in case I’m not able to convince a terran or protoss fleet that we’re coexisting peacefully, or in case we get a visit from something out of the dozens of different transformers continuities.”

“You’re not thinking about the worst possibilities either, Sarah.” I hand what I’d transcribed over to her before taking a seat in the webbing. “Salem, Q, Oberon… there are a number of extremely powerful fictional entities with at least one pop-culture depiction which someone could use as the basis for a costume from our home universe alone. It’s one thing to have the possibility of going up against an unhinged guy stuck with the form and curse of Ranma Saotome, and another thing entirely to run the probability assessment that we end up facing at least one entity with reality warping powers that rival Alien X...one without morals, who could simply write-out our existence. You didn’t even consider En Sabah Nur, or more mundane threats like Evil Morty. No, you jumped directly to deities and demigods as if they were the most logical of the possible threats we could face.”

“Because people love to power-trip, Liz. Which Star Wars character would you rather go to a con dressed as; Leia, or Padme?”

“Neither. I’d do my best to make a Mara Jade cost- oh.” I pause for a moment, then glare as Sarah smirks in triumph. “That means nothing. You gave me two choices out of hundreds of possible characters from the universe because you barely know more than what was in the movies.”

“It does prove my point, though, since the options I gave you were ‘standard non-force-sensitive human’ and ‘nascent jedi with no training but potential’ but you went straight for the full jedi who married Luke Skywalker. If Blackarachnia wasn’t your favorite character, I’d assume the only reason you didn’t go for a classic Solus Prime costume was that you couldn’t come up with a way to pull off a transformation.”

“Well, that and I’d be crucified as a GeeWun fangirl for bringing up a character who hasn’t seen any use in years aside from various plot coupon artifacts or supervisory secondary character positions when both Arcee and Ratchet have been frequently used since. I also doubt I could have pulled off the blocky look properly.” I stand back up, moving over to the desk and motioning for Sarah to sit down somewhere as I pick up the piece of customized alien technology. “Most of it reads a lot like the meditation instruction we both took a few years back, positive visualization and such. There’s a bit more in there that goes beyond regarding formation and projection, with notes regarding this being the only way to determine if one is capable of using certain techniques. ‘Those who cannot could struggle until they die in the vain hope of eventually pushing past a barrier that simply doesn’t exist, while those who can will at least feel something as they make the attempt.’”

“A quote originally spoken by Master Kineticist Rose Quartz, head of the Obsidian Citadel. It is good to know that the teachings of such a wise pony survived the millennia, even if he wasn’t credited in that collected tome you have there.” Something about the voice just sounds wrong. I turn and quickly put my back to the wall of the hive as I look around the room for the source. My thigh pops open as I instinctively reach for the only weapon close at hand.

Sarah glares at me as she notes my hand and thigh, but what stops me from actually drawing the weapon is the sight of a jeweled skull floating in the doorway surrounded by a grey aura. Blue gems for eyes, and the teeth are red and white… I shake my head and try to ignore the more specific readouts and analysis my scanning systems are providing. “Who are you, and why are you here right now?”

“Are you even here, or is this skull some kind of illusion meant as an intimidation tactic? I will admit that a demilich would certainly be a formidable opponent to face, but they also tend to not be concerned with their home plane unless their remains are disturbed if I remember my old epic level handbook monster entry correctly. I know that I haven’t disturbed any long-forgotten tombs lately and neither have any of the drones or zerglings in my hive mind.”

“My my, such sharp minds the two of you have. One goes immediately into a defensive stance, but asks questions before trying to attack, and the other knows what I once was as well as their typical behavior. Neither of you actually seem frightened, however.” The voice is feminine, and almost kind in a way that is completely unexpected from a floating skull.

“She’s here, Sarah, or her illusions are so convincing that they’re giving off information about the composition of her bone that nobody native to this world would realize cybertronian optics could possibly register. Wait. How do you have a human skull?”

“Humanoid, not fully human, although my species is related. Deep Imaskari split off from humanity as a whole millenia before I was even born.”

“Bullshit! You expect us to believe that you’re actually from Faerun? I can’t feel you digging through my mind, but you had to have stolen that somehow to make us trust you.” An aura of coruscating purple energy flares around Sarah as she shouts, one that flickers and dies as she’s flung against the wall and held there.

“Faerun is but one continent on the world of Aber-Toril, ignorant mortal. The fact that you even know that little of my native world is a point in your favor, but I will not be called a liar when I came to offer further assistance to two women who likely owe me their lives for rescuing them from the plane of shadow. It’s true that being stranded there is not a guaranteed death-sentence for all mortals, but I did not become the local goddess of death, necromancy, and the undead by lacking basic compassion for other thinking beings.”

“Actually, from the simplified profiles that exist in our world, most beings like you would be utterly lacking in compassion. Cyric certainly was. Velsharoon, Shar...you could show some more of that compassion by letting her down from the wall and talking calmly about why you’re here rather than insulting her because she got one detail wrong.” I calmly reach into my thigh and bend down to place the weapon my masterpiece Megatron had become on the floor. “I assume this is some kind of...nevermind, you wouldn’t get any of the references I could use as a comparison. Don’t choke her, by the way. She enjoys it.”

Sarah is almost instantly dropped onto my bed as the skull turns to fully face me. “Interesting. I was expecting you to attempt something reckless and utterly insane with your sister’s life possibly being threatened, especially considering how readily you threatened Celestia.”

“At the time all I knew about Celestia was that she was a unicorn with wings who was hurting my sister. I know what a demilich is in terms of a game from our home, and I know that I’d be aiming a
few dozen tiers above my weight class to even attempt doing anything so foolish against a being that claims to be a goddess with three related domains on top of being something that anything less powerful than a demigod has good reason to fear. I’m not foolish enough to piss off a goddess of death intentionally when I’m about as strong as a gnat in comparison. I’m not Lugnut or Bulkhead levels of stupid.”

Two ghostly hands phase into view near the skull, and I am unable to avoid a reflexive dodge as they reach for me and the self-declared deity floats closer. “You are both unique works of twisted art. A human soul, condensed and made physical to be inserted into an artificial structure as some mockery of a living being. A golem given true sapience.”

One of the hands reaches for me again, and this time I don’t flinch as it settles upon my chest. “Not exactly correct, but from a point of view of a being with limited knowledge of technology it’s close enough.”

“You disagree with my assessment? Good. That means you know more about your body than I do. There’s a taint of something familiar inside you, but your soul gives me all the information I need to help you unlock one path of advancement by attuning you to the flow of the Weave here. You are lucky to be such a strange entity, with both a natural inclination for psionics and an affinity for bestial soulmelds.” Her hand rotates on my chest and I feel something inside me twitch and grind. A scream of pain is wrenched from my mouth as i sense something flicker around me and in front of my eyes.

I find myself in a confined space when I wake up, and a moment of panic sets in before the front of the coffin-sized recovery chamber opens to let me out along with a cloud of sulfuric gas. “Pffech, ugh, I hope I don’t have to use this thing too often if it’s going to stink like this every time.” Sarah’s arms are wrapped around me in a hug before I take two steps. “Easy sis, I’m still rebooting here. How long was I out and where did that bitch go?”

“I suppose I deserve to be called that after knocking you out the way I did, but don’t make a habit of it. Nevertheless, you have recovered and your body and soul are now fully attuned to the flow of magic of this world.” The voice comes from beyond Sarah, sounding far less pompous than she had earlier. “Make sure one of you informs Celestia of my mistake here, since she’ll love holding that over my head for the next twenty years.”

“She’s awake. Do you have any further business with us today, or can I have a goddamn private moment with my sister?” Sarah’s voice is thick with hatred the likes of which I haven’t heard since her divorce case, and I brace for another flare of temper from the powerful entity.

“Fine. I will send a special tutor for your sister, one who will act as a messenger as well should you ever feel the need to request an audience with me for any reason, or should I need to pass a message along without having it filtered through Celestia.” the fog shifts as a breeze starts blowing, and I just notice the skull turn away from us. “Know that I intended no harm, Elizabeth. I simply didn’t know how your body would react to the manipulation that was required.”

“Intended or not, it still hurt more than getting kicked in the stomach by a patient going grand mal as they’re being put on the stretcher. I’d like to request that you never do that to me again.” I feel Sarah tense up slightly as I take a step back and to the side. “Would you let go of me already? For fuck’s sake, Sarah, I’m not that fragile that a single stasis lock would kill me. Hell, stasis lock is explicitly designed to PREVENT my death in a situation like this! Get ahold of yourself.”

“Fuck you, Liz. I’m holding you tight for another minute at least. You’re the only family I have here, and might as well be the only family I’ve had for a couple years now, you idiot.” She pulls away a little, lifting her face away from my shoulder while still holding me tight with both her arms and her wings. “Can you really blame me for getting a little emotional when you get hurt?”

“I can when you’re crying all over me and threatening to make me rust. Let go so I can get back to translating those books and thinking.”

“You’re full of shit. Tears aren’t going to make you rust.”

Author's Note

It's alive! ALIIIIIVE!

There, I said it. Now nobody has to in the comments.

I mean it!

From my Heart and From my Hand...

...why don't people understand

I smile as a simple touch to the music-cube-thing gift from Jason's Twilight cues a few songs up on a playlist. I carefully set the item down near the spawning pool while I wait for Chrysalis to arrive and provide assistance. Sure I could just rip the information out of her head over the hive mind, but something about personal interaction just makes advice seem more poignant.

My queen, I apologize for the delay. I was in the middle of reverting the attempts to lengthen wings on the pony bodies to biomass after they caused the chitin to become too brittle. She tilts her head to the side as she notices the music playing and sees my smile. You appear to be in a good mood for the first time in the week since your sister was hurt. Is there cause to celebrate?

"You could say that, Chrysalis." I hold up the device that resembles the Unitrix, twisting the dial to bring one of the three humanoid pony forms up; the pegasus. "We have ten essence samples here, at least one of which will provide a specimen of immense size." I continue turning the dial until the cerebrocrustacean hologram is visible. "Can you help me integrate this one's essence into the swarm with the minimum amount of changes? I want to preserve as much of the intelligence as possible so that it may assist the two of us in incorporating new creatures and improving them to my specifications."

I cannot tell you how easy or hard that will be without having the essence in the pool, I merely hope that you are able to activate the device this time. She settles on the opposite side of the pool from me before closing her eyes and almost sighing in contentment as she reconnects herself to the various synaptic relays involved in species integration. It has been far too long since I have had the opportunity to do anything with a truly fresh sample, my queen. I only hope that my first attempts do not result in a mangled mess.

“I don’t need the title all the time, Chrysalis. I already told you that I want you to call me Sarah, because I’m going to go nucking futs if all I ever hear from you is ‘my queen.’” With one hand firmly grasping the tube, I cup the floating hologram in the other palm. A gentle push does nothing, the light seeming almost solid and resisting. “Okay, now I know that Liz wasn’t lying about some of how it works. Let’s see if her advice holds out, or if she’s pranking me…” I move the free hand away from the hologram, hesitating for a few seconds once it’s about a foot away since I really don’t want to break this thing by accident and risk losing so much potential. I bring that hand in hard and slam it into the hologram, forcing it down into the button on top of the device like I’m fixing a stubborn battery cap on a cheap-ass flashlight.

Just like a cheap flashlight, it works. I hold back a cry of triumph as a green light spears out of the device and collects in the primordial ooze of the spawning pool. I hold everything down for a solid twenty seconds just to make sure that everything is finished before lifting my hand away. To my surprise, it continues to eject light for another few seconds before the flow cuts out. I carefully place it on the same ledge as the cube before closing my eyes and seeking out Chrysalis’ mind amongst the hundreds in and around the hive alone.

Inefficient exoskeleton design requires external support of neck. Arms and legs both flimsy, but help conduct electricity. Must isolate electricity genome and preserve for experimental ranged strain. Massive brain. The queen wants intellect intact, must preserve brain at all costs... I smile as I form a mental version of the spawning pool room using some of the old visualization techniques, then create a representation of the hologram in front of myself before gently drawing Chrysalis’ mind into the simulated area.

I heard your basic thoughts already, Chrysalis, and I appreciate that you’re looking for applications for the other abilities, but our primary concern right now is in creating a singular entity with this genome as the basis. That is what will best help us in strengthening our position. I do not have an Abathur at my disposal, so I must come up with the best possible substitute.

Of course. I assume you wish it to be mobile so that it is not tied to one location? Many resources and much biomass will be consumed in growing a brain so large either way, though not nearly as much as a cerebrate would require. I will send out a squad to cut another few heads off our pet hydra to ensure the growth is not interrupted.

I walk around the hologram image and place my hands at the neck and legs. I’m not looking for anything ready for direct combat, but I also don’t want you taking abilities away from the base creature beyond the loyalty that being part of the swarm will instill. I don’t like the idea of creating what is essentially a slave, but I also don’t really have a choice. What changes could we enact that would improve upon the base creature here?

That is hard to say for sure. The neck appears to be the major weak point aside from the way the plates must open to expose the brain when this species manipulates electricity, but that weakness seems to be intended to facilitate lateral motions.

So the weakness in the neck is also what allows the neck to turn...is it the same joint for looking up and down?

It seems to be that way. Many aspects of this form are inefficient in one way or another, but natural evolution tends to not make things utterly invulnerable.

Of course it doesn’t make things invincible, evolution cannot take beings like the zerg into account when they are not present. Would some armor plating around the joint connected to the softer tissue protect adequately while allowing it to retain motion, or will we have to fuse the neck and limit the ability for it to look around without moving its entire body?

Small chitin plates could work to both reinforce and allow mobility, yes. Perhaps some external cartilage to allow for structure with more flexibility than harder plates, as defense is not a priority due to non-combatant status of singular entity. We could save a bit on resources by removing the plates on top of the brain that serve only as protection against attack. Fusing them together is not advised since they open for more than one reason, but removing them altogether would not cause a problem.

I walk around the mental image, slowly reaching out and forming an almost decorative neck fill at the weak point, then peel aside the armor plates from the top of the head. I can almost see it, yes. What about the legs and pincers?

The legs have a frail design inherent to the sample. We could easily replace the lower body entirely with a more serpentine configuration. The image shifts, the lower body beginning to resemble that of a giant snake or a hydralisk.

No. Keep the same general configuration with minor improvements for stability or mobility only. Add in whatever gives the pony-shaped drones and zerglings the ability to walk on walls and ceilings.

As you wish, my queen.

Please call me Sarah.

You do realize that we are not truly communicating with words...or do you not? I have no control over how you interpret the honor that is attached to the thoughts that represent addressing you with a name or title.

So you’re telling me that I’ll always interpret that thought impulse the way I do? Fuck my life, I need to give you a larynx and mouth capable of forming words then, because that’s going to make me go crazy. The concept-hologram shifts back to the original lower body after a few moments, followed by a slight thickening of the legs and the tips turning into a cluster of multiple points.

I would suggest we leave the pincers as they are for the most part, though it is tempting to try and add a blade of some kind to the muscles there so that it could defend itself with more than just electricity if attacked. With your permission?

Make it so, number one. I nod and open my eyes as I mostly return to my own head. “How long before we have a living specimen to see how these changes impacted the intelligence unintentionally?”

A few days at the very least, if only to account for the mass of the brain itself. I can feel her confusion at the way I’d deliberately phrased that last mental exchange, followed by a short burst of genuine mirth as I send over some memories of that show for context.

“Fair enough. I have nothing but time on my hands anyways these days. Do what you need to do in order to make sure we have a viable specimen, and recycle as much as possible from ones that show marked deviation before they reach maturity.” I smile at Chrysalis and pick up the modified unitrix again. “We should hold off on attempts with anything else in here until we have this intelligence at our disposal. While I trust your experience in dealing with integrating new genetic essence, I want more than just two advisors in dealing with the complexity of what I have in mind.”

As you command, my queen. I will alert you once a viable specimen breaches its growth sack. Go do what you feel need be done in the meantime. I smile again and pick up the music cube as I exit the room, although I can’t hold back an exasperated groan as the next song comes on and the lovely voice of Freddie Mercury begins to pour out along with his bandmates.

I. Want. Youuuuuu....

“For the billionth time, Liz, I can’t see or hear your tutor unless he wishes me to, so no, I can’t tell him to stop bothering you. You’re the one who got mystical soul-vision bullshit from the death goddess. All she told me was that I’d figure out new ways to shape and use my lightning blasts as I grow into my body and learn the ways of this world’s mystic arts.” I don’t even open my eyes as she comes in, now more than used to how things are working out between her and ‘Poe.’

“No, Sarah, I had a breakthrough. He was coaching me about being calm and opening myself to the spirits and I just wanted him to shut his beak because I barely get five minutes away from him most days, and then only when I pretend I need a bathroom break.” She sounds excited enough for both of us, so I crack one eye open just enough to watch her pace back and forth. “That handbook, it was written for people whose brains are structured differently from our own, ponies. They may be just as sapient as you and I are, but you and I are-”

“Predators. You have a point.”

“... I know you can’t actually read my mind, but that was creepy.”

“It was a logical conclusion, Liz. It also makes a lot of sense. In the cutscenes, Kerrigan was always at her most powerful when she was drawing upon her emotions to fight whereas the book you found suggested suppressing emotion to strengthen the mind. The visualization and meditation techniques we both learned also focused on calming the emotions. What did you end up doing to the old buzzard?” I close my eyes again, taking a deep breath and tapping into the frustration I’d been feeling over the last week and a half of efforts, always feeling something just out of reach.

“Oh, the fire beam passed right through him and only scorched the cover of the spellbook on my desk. Still, I was able to...WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN DRIVING STUDENTS TO THE POINT OF INSANITY IS THE BEST WAY TO FORCE A PSIONIC BREAK? You were pissing me off INTENTIONALLY?”

“Ugh. Liz, if you’re going to yell at him do it in your room. I’m closer than ever this time and I just need to find the right image…” Weapon design after weapon design flips through my mind, each one not quite feeling right and only magnifying my frustration as I move from practical blades to decorative art pieces.

“You never did tell me which discipline you were focusing on from the fifteen or so that book presented as known options. SHUT UP, Poe. I’m trying to talk to my sister. Go fuck a shadow or something.”

My queen, after many failures and restarts, our viable specimen is about to hatch. “God-fucking-damnitt! There’s a conspiracy against actually letting me make this step, I swear it!” My focus shatters like a poorly-tempered blade under stress, and I actually punch the floor as I stand up and walk out of my bedroom. I hear Liz start to follow me and I turn around to glare into her seemingly-empty eye sockets. “If you follow me you will stop arguing with your tutor and allow him to explain himself. I don’t like him any more than you do, Liz. I probably hate him more since all I ever hear is you complaining about him, but I will not be distracted by you whining about his methods while I welcome the newest member of my brood, not when I have been without my medications for damn near a month and am already starting to get my old headaches alongside an extremely short temper. Work. Your. Shit. Out!”

Sarah, what you are asking is utterly impossible. I feel that this has not been made clear enough by the last five failures because you don’t understand the reason why these attempts are failing. The mental voice of Brightshell, as the zerg-ified version of Brainstorm decided to be called, is a bit more condescending than usual, which causes me to grind my teeth together.

“What part of this is so hard that it is impossible, then? How hard could it possibly be to reprogram my body to generate estrogen? You’re zerg. I’m zerg. Chrysalis is zerg! Genetics and hormones are our paints and body structures are our canvas. Between your intelligence, her experience, and MY knowledge of the human body this should be easier than filling a bucket with water at a river!” I glare at him from across the room, my head pounding and throbbing from a number of factors, and my vision occasionally blurring slightly. I haven’t had a migraine this painful in years, and my own yelling is really not helping things.

My queen, please calm yours-

You’re a primal zerg, you stupid cunt. Your body is not subject to the directives of the hive mind despite your control over it. Brightshell seems heedless of the fact that I am suddenly standing right in front of him with my left hand sunken into the cartilage neck frill up to the first knuckle of each finger, and my right hand held at my side with my fingers practically twitching in rage. And the sooner you realize that the only way for you to get some ovaries is to go out and consume enough essence to grow a pair yourself the better we will all be.

My right hand is driven forward, and a wet crunch heralds my talons ripping through the exoskeleton on Brightshell’s lower body before I grab on to a random organ and begin squeezing. “I need the headaches to go away. Apparently the entire hive mind functioning at only a quarter of its capacity is not a clear enough motivation, so we will see how well pain works.” I squeeze harder, and manage half of a smile at the squealing that comes from him. “I also don’t like your attitude. There’s a VERY simple solution to this that we could have tried a FUCKING MONTH AGO if you had been a little more clear than ‘that won’t work.’”

Anything! Anything, just take your hand out of me and we’ll try anything you suggest that doesn’t involve attempting to modify your genetic structure! You have no idea what you’re rupturing right now!

“Cut my crotch open and remove my damn testicles so I stop having their poison pumped into my brain! It’s a stopgap measure, but it will help. I know they’re still in there somewhere, because active testosterone generation is the ONLY thing that has ever given me headaches like this.” I pull my hand out of his body and gently lower him back to the ground, my body shaking as I stop myself from slapping him for not thinking of it sooner.

That… that’s utterly barbaric, but it could work.

My queen, I must object. You could suffer permanent injury if something were to go wrong.

“We either do this now, or the next stage will see the hive mind flooded with various images of me harming myself in various ways to stop the pain one way or another. I have been there before, stayed there for years of denial. I will not subject everyone connected to me to that kind of thing when a simple solution exists. Knock me out. Cut me open. Pull out the source of the poison. End of discussion.”

Author's Note

Sarah's Playlist:
Weird Science - Oingo Boingo
This Will be the Day - Jeff Williams
Animal I Have Become - Three Days Grace
Move Your Dead Bones - Dr. ReAnimator
Monster - Skillet
She Bop & Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Flashdance...What a Feeling - Irene Cara
Sister Christian - Night Ranger
The Touch - Stan Bush
Son and Daughter & Killer Queen - Queen
Shatter Me (Featuring Lizzy Hale) - Lindsey Stirling
Familiar Taste of Poison & Slave to the Grind - Halestorm
This is My War - Five Finger Death Punch

Yes, these are all songs I like. Kinda hard to have a character you write listen to music that makes you cringe.

This...this is the chapter that I lost all work on SEVEN times. This is the chapter that stonewalled me for so long. I am finally past it! Mwahahahahaha!

Recovery One

“Ah, looks like you’re finally waking up. How do you feel?” Liz’s voice cuts through the fog as I struggle to fully wake up. Opening my eyes provides nothing but blackness around me, and pain lances through my body as I twist towards the direction her voice came from. A general numbness blocks most of it, but nothing could fully blank out the ache of having the bony carapace connected to my pelvis cracked open and put back together.

“I feel like Grif at the end of ‘This One Goes to Eleven.’ Why does everything still hurt? I thought Poe was going to call in a doctor from Hollow Shades to help with everything and aid my recovery.”

“Yeah, about that. She was less of a doctor and more of a spellcaster. I heard her praying and hissing so much one would have thought her to be part snake. After about half an hour of trying to heal you with magic she gave up, rubbed something against the armor plates and gave me a jar of it to apply every few hours. She also said something about ‘anathema’ but wouldn’t elaborate before teleporting away and taking her rotten smell with her.” Liz places a container on the table next to me before turning to head back to the wall where she’d been leaning.

“And how long has it been since she left? I feel like I’ve been asleep for days.”

“About six hours, and I haven’t applied more since she left.”

“Why the fuck not?” A lance of pain causes me to quickly regret shouting, and I can’t help but curl up a bit in a futile effort to stop the sensation.

“Well, for one thing I don’t care what some undead mule says: I’m not rubbing anything into my sister’s crotch. For another thing you’ve been so utterly miserable lately and taking it out on everyone around you that I figured it was only fair that you suffer a tiny bit yourself since I know you’re capable of rapid healing now.” Her voice is full of venom born from weeks of frustration. “If we were still home I would have had a doctor give me a prescription for you and paid for it out of my own pocket to get you to stop bitching so much, but we don’t even have access to anything other than phytoestrogens here. I also seriously doubt you’d get the ponies or other intelligent species of this world to ‘donate’ the raw ingredients to distill into Premarin.”

“Is there a point to all this or are you just so mad that I snapped under pressure while you had to stay all calm and logical about things for once? I didn’t exactly ask to be sent here without my medication and with an imperfect body alteration.”

“I know. We can both only do our best to handle the shit that comes at us with grace and dignity. You exhibited...none the last few days. Chrysalis would stop me and gesticulate in the halls before I could remind her that I can’t hear her thoughts; all because you were so unhinged over a simple thing that you didn’t propose removing them as the first option. If it makes you feel any better; I'd offer up the bolts, cogs, and servos my ovaries turned into if I thought they’d be of any use.”

“Ugh. Transform and fuck off. I'm in too much pain for your sense of humor.”

"Fuck off? No. I'm not walking away on this one, Sarah. You got lucky in this situation, because you can just go out and adapt yourself a new reproductive system, or rip one out of a strong enemy and surgically graft it in while hoping for the best. You get to deal with basic biology and science with an alien twist while all I have are various fan theories that all sound incredibly uncomfortable due to dealing with metal instead of flesh. You got damn lucky having a stable job for years after college while I had to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life.” She pushes away from the wall and walks back over, with her hands moving in an agitated manner as she continues. “Sure, your wife was a monster who divorced you and claimed child abuse to get full custody within days of you coming out about being transgender. Sure, our parents decided to shit all over you because they got brainwashed by their church and Fox News that all transgender people are evil. I was always there for you. I’m still here for you, and now you’re literally the only family I have on this damn planet. It would be nice if you would just sit down and talk with me about things instead of bottling yourself up and burying yourself in your work like you used to do before you started transitioning in the first place. I’m not going to abandon you because of medical problems, so it’s time to stop acting like you’re afraid to talk to me when medical problems come up.”

“I was burying myself in my ‘work’ because my entire focus was on stopping the headaches. If that damn smug crab had just given me the reason things wouldn’t work the way I was asking in the first place I wouldn’t have gotten as bad as I did.” I slowly start to uncurl as the internal pain eases up only to be replaced by a maddening itch.

“Right. So why didn’t you just think to do that as your first option anyways? A useless body part is causing you extreme discomfort and may lead to serious complications or other health issues in the near future, why not go straight to removal? Hell, why didn’t you get them removed years ago to spare yourself the hassle of taking extra medication to blo-”

“Time qualifiers and money back home, and a desperate hope that they could be reconfigured and repurposed here. The hospital insurance policy only covered it as a separate procedure in cases of cancer due to complications it can cause in subsequent ‘cosmetic’ surgeries. I read the restrictions and stipulations carefully before selecting my plan.” I try to sit up, only to fail utterly as muscles refuse to cooperate properly.

“Ugh, the jar is right there, Sarah. Pop it open, rub some on the area, and rest for a few more hours. I have to go, Poe’s been all but yelling in my face to get back to training since you woke up and I don’t want to seem crazier than you by talking to myself around other things with a full brain in their body.”

She turns and walks out of my room before I manage to flip her off, so I grab the jar in one hand and begin to focus on applying it as sparingly as possible just in case I don’t heal as fast as I should.

My Queen, are you sure such a move is wise?

I glance in Chrysalis’s direction, then look across the pool towards Brightshell. “We need smarter people. I can only provide so much inspiration from my memories, and I know for a fact that I’m far from the smartest entity in this room. We’re going to need every ounce of unusual insight to make the changes I want to make, to integrate the way that I want to integrate with this world. There will be no rampant infestations, no creep gaining sentience and the ability to truly move under its own power. Project Genio has a viable specimen nearing maturation, and it will be invaluable to us in the symbiotic creep project. I also want six more broodmothers based upon genetic essence closely related to the local dominant sapient species. I have the necessary samples for that in the device I was given, but we will not start that until Genio has matured and been verified capable of free thought.”

Are you sequestering us here until we finish the creep project, then? Brightshell glances around the room, then actually manages to yawn mentally. I can’t say I’d blame you if you did, Sarah, but it would most likely become quite dull if it’s just the three of us brainstorming day in and day out.

“Cute pun, but no. I expect that you and Chrysalis will be more than capable of holding a running discourse of ideas in a segmented portion of the hive mind so it doesn’t disrupt my concentration. I’ll figure out how to craft a permanent version of the mental room I made with Chrysalis last time so we can effectively run simulations once we have another super-intelligent member of the hive mind to use as wetware.”

Wait, you created me to use my brain as an organic computer?

She is our queen. We live because she wants us to.

“No. Stop thinking like that.You live because I need people other than my sister to hold conversations with regarding these matters. You live because I require other perspectives when examining options. You will continue to live because I respect your right to exist as sapient beings, even if I could theoretically absorb the best aspects of you to make myself better. That being said, yes Brightshell, your intelligence is being used to serve the hive, which you are irrevocably tied into. Even if you were to travel to the furthest point from me on this planet I would still be able to consult you.”

Well, since you seem not to have connected the dots yourself; I’m going to put this as simply as possible for your limited human intellect to process. You made me. You attacked me because you didn’t like what I had to say. Did you make me to have a consultant, or to have a slave with a really big brain?

You dare-

“No, Chrysalis, now is not the time for you to come to my defense like that. You’re mostly zerg with some local genetic essence mixed in, so you can’t even imagine true freedom. Brightshell is mostly his source species with just enough zerg mixed in to tie him into the hive mind and enable him to easily improve his own body.” I sigh and shake my head while I begin pacing. “I was wrong to attack you, and I’m sorry. I should have kept my temper in check better, but I also know you could all tell the kind of pain and mental strain I was being put through.”

Answer the question, please. Brightshell insists while staring at me. His pincers tense and click together softly for a few seconds as I think carefully about what to say. I’m a Cerebrocrustacean, not an animal.

“I understand that. I’m just trying to work out exactly how to phrase this so it leaves no ambiguity for me to exploit later.” I look down at myself, my right hand idly rubbing along the outside of my hips for a few seconds. “Bodily autonomy is paramount to me, the unfettered right of any intelligent being, which you are. You can do whatever you like to and with your body, and the only thing I can or will do is help facilitate that to the best of my abilities. Your mind, unfortunately, is tied to mine in such a way that it doesn’t give either of us a way to break that connection without breaking your mind. I need aides and advisors more than I need mindless sycophants. Should anything remotely like this happen in the future, you’re free to attack me to defend yourself.”

I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. What do you intend to do to make such a thing less likely, though? Surely testicular removal alone won’t have enough of an impact on your mental health to completely negate the issue.

“It’s more stopping the testosterone than removing the testicles that will make it far less likely to even become a problem in the future.” I respond quickly, but calmly, as I move towards Brightshell with my arms held wide. “I’d really like to think of this as being an extension of my family since you’re in my head. Hell, since you’re in my head you might as well be an extension of myself, and any lashing out at you should be considered self-harm. I want to make this right going forward.”

Very well. I can live with that perspective provided you don’t go back on your word. What’s our first project today other than the pity party?

“Mouths. I want all of us to be capable of communicating with other intelligent being without forcing our thoughts into their minds. It’s invasive and opens up too many ethical questions...plus I need you all to be able to communicate with Liz if there’s an emergency and I can’t talk. We need to figure out how to reverse the perverted cerebrate’s design decisions and reintegrate vocal cords and mouths into the swarm, or adapt in the shape changing ability of one of our gifted essence strains if that proves too difficult.”

My fingers carefully probe at the armored carapace covering my lower abdomen for a few seconds as I marvel at the speedy recovery. Only a few days ago I could barely stand for an hour at a time and now I could only feel a slight ache from the area. The headaches haven’t started up again either, so that’s probably a good sign of things to come. My gaze moves over to Brightshell as I slide my hand away. “And you’re sure that this is an accurate assessment? We can copy the genetic pattern used for Project Genio and it can have some active combat applications?”

Sabotage more than combat, Sarah. A small squad of these simplified versions of the same species could be hatched with the same neural load to you as a dozen zerglings, but they would be able to readily dismantle any technology-based construction they came across with efficiency so that the technology is not harmed in the process, provided that it doesn’t have circuitry that erases itself when the power is cut off suddenly. Brightshell sounds just a little more smug than usual, which was fairly smug to begin with, but for once he doesn’t come off like he’s talking down to me.

“Alright, so a sabotage and sapper combat unit. What are the projected drawbacks?”

Well, they would be virtually useless in any situation that isn’t one where you catch an enemy unaware, and just as useless against magic or psionic opposition.

“So, in other words, useless for the time being, but with practical applications in the future and in unforeseen circumstances.” I nod in thought for a few seconds while tapping my foot on the floor of the little sub-cavern area. “Alright. We’ll use the Galvan sample as the basis for a soldier species, but the amount of intelligence we’ll have to leave them to be effective for their sabotage application means we can’t take too many risks with them. As it is, having them around will mean that we can begin making this place more comfortable and see about how to begin a technological revolution.”

I still don’t see why you insist on this idea of yours, Sarah. We’re barely established as a settlement here and you’re talking about a technological revolution. Sure, it’d be nice to apply myself to something other than organics, but-

“But nothing, Brightshell. We need every advantage we can get in case that cerebrate comes back, and having technology it doesn’t anticipate as well as magic and whatever other powers we can gain from this world means we can keep taking it out in unexpected ways. Also, the more options we have available to us, the more likely we are to have something someone else can make use of.”

My queen, I bring you good news. The examination I just concluded of the growth pod for the Genio project shows that it should be ready to hatch tomorrow. Your newest advisor will soon be able to assist in bringing your glory to the world!

I facepalm immediately and groan as I look over at Brightshell while making sure to send what I’m saying to Chrysalis as well. “Please tell me you know of a way to convince her that I don’t need to be called her queen every single time, and that I don’t want to conquer anything that isn’t attacking me?”

I’m an advisor, not a miracle worker.

I close my eyes and draw deep breaths as I focus my thoughts on the lessons Liz transcribed from this world's version of the psionics handbook. My hands come to rest on my knees as I relax and hand over the control of each individual drone and zergling under my direct control to Chrysalis one by one. I use the process to focus further, as if I'm literally shutting off additional senses rather than just doing so metaphorically.

Daily meditations are required for a prospective user of the mind blade technique to break through the barrier between thought and reality, and make manifest the instrument of their will upon the prime material plane. One must focus on the shape of the blade one wishes to bear, and the length, and one must remember that the mind blade is only as powerful as its wielder. The words from the basic training lesson in the book echo in my mind as I try to picture various weapon forms, and attempt to settle on the one that holds my interest the most.

Every single one that comes to mind causes a brief tingle in my right hand, which tells me that this isn't impossible, and that the technique will work if I just find the right weapon, but they all just feel slightly wrong.

Author's Note

Good FUCKING god this took forever to write and get it feeling right. I am so sorry that it's been so long since the last chapter, and I plan to get the next few chapters out in only a few months each at most.