A Change in Strategy

The question became one of economics.

How do you make a changeling that's better, while reducing the resources spent producing it? Obviously, the answer was to cut back in some areas so that others can be improved, but Queen Chrysalis never was much for compromise.

As Chitis scuttled through the great arched tunnels of the black Changeling hive, the semi-autonomous drone furiously scratched her front hooves together in frustration.

She and the other Automi had made several suggestions to their illustrious Queen, but none seemed to sate her lust for a decisive and quick solution, while also facing the reality of their drastically decreased food stores. Already as Chitis passed by room upon empty room of great alcove-nooks, carved from the rock and paved over with pearlescent builder-spittle, she could see the toll the lost assault on Canterlot had taken. Scores of changelings lost, unquantifiable amounts of love squandered or devoured. The worker drones were already on half rations, and their feral instincts were becoming less and less complacent by the day. Most of the battle drones had been lost in the assault, and without an adequate police force, there were already reports of slaves going... missing.

Chitis raised a forehoof as she passed another autonomous, similarly dressed in clean white wrappings, hurrying back the way Chitis had come with a bright face and an arm full of sheaves of shell-paper. Chitis grimaced. It wouldn't work. No solution pleased the Queen when she was like this. Her mood was foul, her outlook dark, and her temper waited to be unleashed at the slightest provocation. Several automi had already lost their mind-privileges over particularly upsetting ideas. Tossing around the words, "alliance", "peace", and "chicken kazoo" were all taboo for now.

Chitis sighed as she reached her small laboratory. She placed her latest idea for a smaller, more agile changeling breed on the hardened ichor desk, and slumped onto her moleskin blanket, thinking as hard as she could for a solution that wouldn't get her effectively killed.

Okay... okay, she breathed in and out, trying to calm her shaken nerves. Three sleepless days, this had been going on, since their defeat at Canterlot. The rage the Queen felt echoed like a ghostly pain through their nervous systems, keeping every thrall and servant on edge.

Think, Chitis. Solutions, real solutions... what do we need, and what can we make with the resources at hand?

Chitis propped herself up with her elbows, resting her cheeks on her two front hooves, "Well..." she said aloud, "Despite what the Queen says about maintaining strength, we do need to reduce magic costs. I don't know what Mandible was thinking with her genie idea, we'd only be able to make one at most, and for what? So it can go through small gaps? No, no, no, we need something practical, and cost effective!"

She jumped up and went over to a cage embedded in the oily colored wall, and popped it open, allowing a grayish skinned grub about the size of her leg to slowly undulate its way out, its four huge rounded eyes staring up at her blankly.

Chitis picked it up and plopped it on her table, walking over to a moderately sized drawing board she'd retrieved when a nearby school had closed down. She picked up a well-worn piece of chalk and began tapping her lip, as she often did when in deep thought.

"Alright Grubby, let's start from the beginning, shall we?" she asked the fat grub, who was currently in the process of turning to eat the corner of her theorem paper.

"Changelings start out when a male drone impregnates the Queen. Happens every year on Lay Day, and the amount of eggs spawned is dictated by the surplus of love nearby, or manually maintained by the queen. With me so far?"

The grub was now nibbling on the paper, but its deep, soulless eyes seemed so devoid of emotion that it was almost a perceptible feeling.

"Right you are. The eggs then hatch grubs, that's you, that are taken in by various drones and raised with the experts on how to do their jobs."

The grub had given up eating, and now sat perfectly motionless half-on, half-off of her papers.

"Unfortunate that grubs aren't good for much. Really, making them doesn't require much effort at all, it's the growth process that-" Chitis gasped and dropped her chalk, which Grubby stared at. Or it was staring at her. Its eyes were so big that it could conceivably observe the entire room through one of them alone.

"Grubby, you're a genius!" Chtis exclaimed, and whipped the chalk back into her hoof, furiously sketching on the chalkboard, "Yes, most of the grub's magic goes into growth. The Queen wouldn't want a drone that could... but if it were removed... yes, YES, that could work. Focus more on internal knowledge, given purpose rather than learned behavior. Capacity for growth can remain unchanged, but is not encouraged..."

With snake-like green tongue poking out of the side of her mouth, Chitis muttered to herself for hours. Frantically, she scratched notes on pieces of paper, debated theories with Grubby, who remained a stone cold wall of reason despite Chitis' enthusiasm, and sketched diagram after diagram onto the chalkboard.

She yelped as a knock on the archway into her study caught her mid-heated exchange with Grubby, who was now upside down on the ceiling.

"Heya Chit, whatcha up to?"

From the leg hole patterns and slight purple spine coloration, Chitis recognized her friend and colleague Specks, who radiated a soft aura of sadness.

"Specky, what's wrong?" She asked with concern, and her friend shook her head.

"I just got shot down. Again. Fourth time in as many days."

"What?!" Chitis said, looking at the daybug on her wall, and finding that its wings were wide open, "It's tomorrow already?"

Specks raised an eyebrow, "Wow, you must have really been at it, huh? What's got you so excited?"

Chitis' face broke into a wide grin, and she shoved the chalkboard, now nearly illegible with scribbling, over to Specks, "Look! Look! I think this might be it, the answer to our problems!"

Specks adjusted the crude clear quartz half-moon lenses on her face, squinting at the chalk markings and mumbling, "... decreased physical attributes... localized mind... auto-gathering... wow, Chit, you've really outdone yourself, this is some great stuff!" Her nose scrunched, "Only one problem though."

Chitis deflated, "What? Where?"

She pointed at the chalkboard, "This is, frankly, incoherent. I could only read a few two or three word phrases."

Chitis huffed in exasperation, and then shoved the notes she'd been writing across a 24 hour period into Specks' hooves, "Those are more organized. Now tell me what you think."

Specks' eyes slowly widened as she read through the documents. After half an hour of silence, Specks slowly put down the pitch, took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes, "Wow Chit, I mean... this is big. Like, big big. This changes... so much about who we are. From the ground up."

Chitis growled in frustration, "Well, we're getting nowhere as we are! If we want to succeed, we need to focus on our natural strengths and enhance them! Not... prance around giving out ideas about superpowers because the Queen is actually willing to listen to outrageous ideas for once!"

"Yeah, but... Chit, what you're proposing is... it's almost treason. I mean... a mini hive mind?" Specks looked at her friend worryingly.

Chitis glanced away, and scratched the back of her head, "The larvae don't grow up... they aren't real changelings."

Specks looked back at the proposal papers, "Yeah, but... you can see the implications, can't you? What it could become? What it might look like you are trying to make?"

Chitis looked at her friend in horror, "I would never betray our Queen! I live for her!"

"Whoa, easy there tiger," Specks said, placing a gentle hoof on her friend's shoulder, "I just... I hope she sees it that way," there was a pause,"... or has she already?"

Chitis shook her head slightly, "She hasn't seen it yet. But Specky, I," Chitis put a hand to her face, sighing, and holding back four days of stress behind a barrier of very thin hope, "This is all I have Specks. If this doesn't work... I'm done. This is it for me. I can't... I can't do this anymore."

Her friend slowly pulled her into a hug, "Well then I guess you'd better make it a damn good pitch, huh?"