A Change in Strategy

Chitis and Specks' hooves echoed on the polished black floor as the two of them strode, with as much feigned confidence as they could muster, towards the Queen's audience chamber.

As they walked, the green braziers in the walls became more frequent, and grander. Studded with small glittering diamonds, and coated in extra layers of the shiny black spittle that builders reserved for the royal chambers. It seemed to the pair, as they grew closer to the Queen, that the colors around them grew more vivid. The green of the flames seemed to separate into dozens of flickering hues, and the floor shimmered with it, taking on a pearlescent cast.

Chitis forcibly restrained herself from performing any of her usual nervous ticks, like scratching her head or muttering to herself, as they approached the enormous double doors that led into the grand chamber. Beyond the thick marble entryway stood six rotund pillars which held up the entirety of the vaulted audience chamber. They, too, were made of the same glistening black substance as the floor, though the pillars were embedded and engraved with precious stones and metals. At the far end of the yawning hall, there stood a raised black and green dais, and on it was the Queen.

Queen Chrysalis, undisputed master and dominator of all changelings in the hive, slouched sideways in her throne, which was embroidered with gold and studded with gemstones that twinkled in the ethereal firelight. Her long wings drooped over the sides of the chair, and a prim foreleg covered her face, though neither of the Automi needed to actually see the queen to know what was going on. She was sulking again.

As they approached, both of them slowed as an almost physical barrier of distraught exhaustion slammed into them, and their legs nearly buckled.

"Wings alight," Chitis whispered to Specks, "this is by far the worst she's been... m-maybe we should come back-"

"Who... approaches?" The Queen demanded in a regal, yet suffering, tone. She did not bother to remove her foreleg from her face.

Chitis and Specks glanced quickly at one another, then Chit steeled herself and stepped forwards into the aura of gloom, "S-semi-autonomous drones Chitis and Specks, Your Grace."

The Queen stirred at the sound of her voice, but seemed to hunch into an even more despondent posture.

"And what... farce have you decided to parade before me next?" The Queen asked. Her words were angry, but her tone... blessed hive the Queen was tired. So very tired.

"We have come-" Chitis began, but the Queen interrupted, shifting in her chair.

"Do you know, drone, how many proposals I've viewed in the days since our defeat?" The Queen spat out that last word with particular venom. Chitis couldn't help but bristle. "Drone" was not a word used to address one of her station. Said station was, of course, granted by the Queen, but there were traditions in place far older than her which needed to be obeyed.

"I would guess a great many, Your Grace," Chitis answered, unbowed.

"Hundreds," the Queen lamented, "good heavens, it seems like thousands! And not one of them has contained a single, reasonable idea."

The Queen finally removed her hoof from her eyes, and a single iridescent iris glared down at Chitis from the black throne, "So what, pray tell, have you brought me? Another tunneling breed? Yet more requests for personal empowerment, or increased cranial function? More talk of peace?"

Chitis weathered the seething tone, further amplified by her emotional connection to the Queen, and huffed softly through her nose, feeling her own anger rise within her, "My Queen. May I be frank with you?"

Chrysalis sat up, and Chitis felt a small vein of curiosity pierce through the shroud of negative emotion, "... proceed, Automi."

Chitis took another step forward, "My collogues, though I love and respect all members of the hive, are fools."

There was a tense moment in the hall. The silent flames moved, casting dancing shadows that taunted and jeered at Chitis. Then the Queen asked evenly, "Oh? Are they indeed?"

Chitis gave a firm nod, "Yes, my Queen. You have said yourself. Days of isolation, days of nothing but thinking, not stopping to rest or eat, and not a single valid solution? They have clearly not been trying hard enough, or not been thinking broadly enough."

The Queen hid her thoughts behind an impassive expression, but Chitis could feel the small measure of amusement radiating from her monarch. She must have been intrigued.

Chitis breathed in, steadying her nerves for what was to come as she asked, "What was the reason for our setback at Canterlot, my Queen?"

Chrysalis' eyes narrowed to slits, and Chitis felt a sharp stab of hatred, "Bah! That cursed Princess and her idiot husband! Truly, only one as dull witted as he could fail to perceive my charms."

That... had not been the reaction Chitis expected. But she could work with this.

"Actually, my Queen," Chitis said with a slight smile, "I believe that your seduction and indoctrination of Shining Armor was flawless."

Chitis sensed confusion from the monarch. Interesting, could the Queen actually blame herself for the failure at Canterlot? Intriguing.

The Queen frowned, although Chitis could not sense any true displeasure from her, "Flattery will get you nowhere, child, I know your mind. Speak truth here, or be removed."

"Oh but I am, Great Queen!" Chitis said quickly, not quite believing where she was about to go with this. All of her note cards had, unfortunately, been consumed by Grubby, "No, the failing was not with you! Who was it that was wise enough to see through your deception? One who was crafty enough to piece together the clues?"

Chrysalis cocked one ridged brow of oily black carapace, "You... refer to the Element of Harmony, Twilight Sparkle?"

Chitis nodded eagerly, "Indeed, my Queen! A variable we could not have planned for, a ward trained by the tyrant Celestia herself in the arts of sorcery, one who could pierce the veil of your guile, like a rough needle through the finest of threadsilk! And then, of course, there were her friends! The other Elements of Harmony, who also helped thwart you!"

Admittedly, they had failed to believe Twilight Sparkle at first, but that was a detail that didn't need to be mentioned.

There was another slow moment in the hall as the Queen considered this, then nodded slowly, "Yes... yes it was her fault I was discovered. It is she who ruined my plan."

Not going to touch that, Chitis thought, sensing a disturbing amount of turbulence from her Queen as the monarch sorted through that thought.

"Your suggestion then, Automi, is to remove the Elements, I would suppose?" Chrysalis questioned, refocusing on the scientist.

"Better, my Queen," Chitis said, "What if we could get them to serve you instead?"

The Queen paused for only a moment before scoffing, "Impossible. The labor and resources required to indoctrinate not one but six strong willed ponies? We would need full backgrounds for every agent, compatibility checks, behavioral analysis, support staff. After their ploy at Canterlot, we no longer have the means for such a grand infiltration."

"Oh, but that's just it, my Queen," Chitis said, gesturing hurriedly with a wing at Specks, who scrambled to set up her chalkboard, "what if all of this, the background, indoctrination, and subterfuge, could be conducted by one, single, changeling?"

"Preposterous," the Queen said immediately, but Chitis could feel her mounting curiosity.

The scientist whipped out a piece of chalk and slammed it against the board, causing one of the warrior drones in the chamber to jump, "Not so, my Queen! You, of course, know the life cycle of a changeling more intimately than any of us, from humble grub to noblest Automi. What I suggest, is a new breed, as you so wisely surmised, but not any kind of tunneler or new warrior form. What I propose is a swarmling."

Chrysalis cocked her head, taking in the odd name, "A... swarmling?"

Chitis began to draw furiously, chalk squealing on the board as she worked. This was the most anyone had gotten out of the Queen in days, and she was not going to waste this chance!

"Grubs have an incredible amount of magic stored inside of them, Your Majesty. In fact, most of our supply of Love simply goes into feeding grubs enough to enact their shedding cycles. Without those, they remain small and impotent, their brains cannot expand to the proper size for knowledge retention."

"Of course," the Queen said, nodding.

"The question I posit is: why have the grubs grow at all? In their basest larval state they are tiny, no more than an inch or two long, but their minds, like those of ants, store the hard-coded information they need to survive. Eat, grow, survive, wait for a higher form to evolve into. What if we were to tap into that potential? Instead of having the grub grow, consuming enormous amounts of Love over time, have it stay the same, but with more built-in functions? Feeding habits, a mind-link for safety and control, even it's own indoctrination capability?"

She glanced up from her frenzied scribbling, but seemed to be slowly losing the Queen, who leaned back in the throne and tapped her pointed chin with a long, slender hoof, "Hmm, I don't know. This sounds expensive-"

"My Queen," Specks said, taking a huge risk by daring to interrupt, "pardon, Your Grace, but it isn't. Automi Chitis and I have both run the numbers multiple times. This grub is orders of magnitude cheaper in Love cost, and that's without factoring in the ability for it to harvest its own love sources to re-distribute back to the Hive."

Chrysalis seemed annoyed at the interruption, but her curiosity won out over her fury for the moment, "But this couldn't indoctrinate the Elements all on its own, surely? It has no learning capability, as you said, it cannot adapt. It has a mind-link, you say, but you cannot seriously expect me to individually micromanage each one of these I produce, do you?"

Chitis and Specks spared a glance for each other. This was it. This was the moment of truth.

"No, my Queen, we don't," Chitis said, scrubbing off the diagram she had drawn, and drawing a fresh model. A changeling, sleeker and less durable, but more cost-efficient. Wings gone, replaced with small dimpled sections like holes cut directly into the midsection of the chitin. Reduced transformation capacity to make up the Love cost differential. To make up for growth.

After several minutes of tense, silent writing, Chitis set the chalk down and turned to Chrysalis. The Queen sat fully upright, staring at the board.

"My Queen," Chitis said, stopping herself from wringing her hooves in fear, "the swarmling isn't the modified grub, it's this. A vessel, capable of growing and controlling the stunted grubs over a short range mind-link built specifically for them. Anything more advanced than these specific grubs, it will not be able to connect to. Or even regular grubs, for that matter."

"It? You mean she?" The Queen asked absently, voice sounding distant.

"Hermaphroditic," Specks spoke up, "pardon, my Queen, but an Ovipositor is by far the most efficient method of Love collection, the Automi have known this for centuries. If it is to be in the field, alone, unsupported, it will need the most cost-effective equipment we can give it, as well as the mind to make tactical decisions. It must be both male and female."

Silence in the hall. Chitis glanced around. The guards seemed stunned at the proposal, it was audacious. No, it was revolutionary. Unconsciously, the autonomous licked her lips nervously, before looking back up at the throne.

The Queen rose slowly, and descended the staircase of the dais with a smooth rustle of wings and cloth. She wore an elegant, translucent dress of emerald green that faded to a deep black, mimicking her natural coloring. The closer she got, the more the two Automi saw, heard, felt. Chitis could hear her heart thundering in her ears, loud as a battlefield charge, and she could smell the overpowering pheremones of command the Queen emitted at all times. She bowed her head as the Queen approached, and took the board in a hoof that looked soft, but could shatter stone with its strength.

"The mind-link is limited, you say?" the Queen said softly, tone even as she studied the diagrams, "Only to these... specific grubs? The altered variety that it will... produce?"

"Yes my Queen," Chitis said, voice sounding very small in her own ears, before the magnitude of her Queen's presence.

After a few more endless moments, Chrysalis turned to observe her, "Chitis. I remember you. I have rejected your proposals before. Most have been along the theme of a new changeling variant, as I recall."

Chitis looked up, not meeting the Queen's eyes, but not cowering either, "Yes, my Queen. I believe it is the true path to the salvation of our people. If we continue as we are, we will dwindle. We have too much consumption, and not enough production. We need a... different strategy."

The Queen returned her gaze to the blackboard, "... very well. I authorize the creation of a single swarmling. This is now priority one for all Automi, with you as their Proxima."

Chitis started, stifling a gasp. Specks' jaw dropped, and the guards in the room shuffled and muttered to each other with an intense ferocity. Proxima? She was to be the Automi Proxima? There had not been a Proxima in... blessed caverns, it must have been decades! Proximas were second in rank only to the Queen herself, overseeing an entire caste of hive society! What had she-

Chitis realized that since the Queen had spoken, nothing had escaped her mouth save for a small, high pitched, whine. Actually, she was still making that noise. She stopped herself, and cleared her throat, "I-I... thank you, my Queen, you do me an unbelievable honor."

The Queen smiled, but the expression did not reach her eyes.

"Do not be so hasty in your fawning, Proxima Chitis. Your creation will be field tested where you yourself suggested. On the Elements of Harmony."

Chitis swallowed audibly.

The Queen leaned in, hissing, "And if it fails, you will be executed for attempted treason, Proxima. Do I make myself clear?"

Chitis' legs were shaking. This was... this was too much. First, the greatest honor a changeling could receive, and then death threats?

Chitis responded with a quivering voice, "Y-yes, my Queen, of course. But I-"

"Good," the Queen said, leaning back, face plastered with a predatory smile, revealing her gleaming alabaster fangs, "now come along. We shall ready the ritual to grant you the boon of Oversight."