The Death of Chrysalis

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Queen's Court
Chapter 3: The Heirs
Chapter 2: Immortality is Relevant

Chapter 1: The Queen's Court

The Changeling Hive a twisted and contorted stone tower. Caverns snaked through its many ever shifting walls, new labyrinthine passages periodically opening and closing, always changing. It was a massive citadel unknown to all but the most far flung and fringe ponies, and those who stumbled upon it rarely lived long enough to tell. Smaller fringe hives dotted the surrounding landscape, not towering to the same heights, but looming over the horizon all the same. The Central Hive however, was the most important, if only because it housed the great queen herself.

The hive was divided into sections, based on the hive's many floors, both above and below ground. The bottom 900 floors, all built deep into the ground, were where the hive's 'drones' lived. Miserably forced into enclosed homes, barely enough to fit themselves and their families. They were forced to do the same menial labor as many others, fed just enough love to keep them alive, but still starving. It kept them in line.

The next hundred floors were for the soldiers. Those drones who showed marginable military skills and were thus raised in status alongside their families. They were much better fed then the drones, but that wasn't saying much. Their lives were filled with exhausting military drills, and more often than not, boring and meaningless patrols, only given enough off time to feed themselves and sleep.

The twenty floors above them were home to the 'elite' Mantis Guard. The Mantis Guard were the queen's personal bodyguards, alongside her secret police. It was their job to hunt down and execute all changelings who voiced displeasure at the queen's rule, publicly or not. They were, more than anything, cruel and loyal. The perfect combo in the eyes of the queen. They lived lives of excess, never starved for love, or violence.

Only five floors above them,was the top most one ,the queen's personal throne room and bedroom. It was a room of every conceivable comfort, often filled on the daily basis by fawning drones, loyal concubinators and Mantis Guards, most sacrificing all of their love to keep the queen as content as possible. The love of kidnapped ponies and other creatures was not enough for the queen, who in the eyes of her subjects, was nothing less than a god.

The four floors below that, however, were the homes of the Queen's Courtiers. The royal advisors and directors. Those who, more often than anyone else, had the queen's ear. Her most professional and trustworthy subjects. In a room on the 1024th floor of the hive, they sat around a disk shaped table, in a meeting with their all powerful queen.

"-and then she says to the guards; 'do I look like a black widow to you?'" A changeling in a black and red dress suit shouted out. A black top hat on his head, a hole for the horn to jut out included.

He smiled as a round of laughter passed around the table, the loudest of which coming from Chrysalis herself. It took a couple of minutes for them to settle down. There were 6 changelings at the table, including Chrysalis. The greatest minds of changeling kind, as rumor had it. Mantis Guards flanked the edges of the room, standing as straight as they could eyes staring at their Queen.

"Ah..." One changeling said with a smile as she sank into her seat. She was wearing a green and black dress, a tie on top of it. "I haven't had this much fun since Canterlot." She said, a dark smile coming to her face, which brought about a couple chuckles.

"Indeed. On the topic of Canterlot, I believe it is time we settle down and begin the meeting," Chrysalis said straightening up, clearing her throat, eyeing the changeling next to her.

The changeling was wearing a suit of deep blue, bug like plate armor, mandibles sticking out of the sides of the helmet, coming to an end on either side of his snout. The uniform of the Mantis Guard. A scar stretched down the side of his face, forcing him to slightly squint one of his eyes. He stood up and cleared his throat to mimic his master. "All attending?"

"Tegmen, Head of Drone Labor." A changeling in a green suit said placing a forehoof on the table and nodding.

"Tarsus, Head of Outer Security and Defense." Said a second changeling in a suit of deep blue armor, though it was lighter and lacked the mandibles of the Mantis Guard.

"Trochanter, Head of Diplomacy and Infiltration." The changeling in the red suit who had made the original joke replied with a nod.

"Tibia, Head of Propaganda and Culture." The female changeling exclaimed with a smirk as she sat back into her chair.

The original armored changeling nodded as he turned to Chrysalis. "And finally, Mandible, Head of Internal Security." He said with a nod before sitting back down.

"Good." Chrysalis said as she looked down at a piece of paper in front of her. "First on the Agenda. Mandible, I have a new list for you."

The mere mention of a list made everyone at the table, barring Mandible, visibly cringe as Chrysalis slowly slid a series of sheets of paper over. The faces of the Mantis Guard around the room visibly hardening, a couple of them smiling even. Mandible took the list and held it up to his face reading it over. He stopped for a second and turned to his Queen.

"With all due respect my queen. I just would like to make sure. It seems as though your son is on this list. Do you truly want him-" He started, but Chrysalis cut him off.

"I would not put him on the list if I didn't want him dead. Dispatch several Mantis Guards to Equestria to find and dispatch him." Chrysalis growled, her eyes narrowing in hatred. Mandible nodded as a smirk slowly spread across his face as he went back to reading the list.

After a couple seconds he nodded and set it down on the table before him. Chrysalis turned back to the table once more.

"Now then. Since you brought it up Tibia, I would like to segway into the topic of Equestria." She said with eyes brightening. All changelings in the table smiled as she stood up.

"I have a plan in the works as we speak involving Equestria. I am simply hammering out the final details as we speak. Come our next meeting, I will have everything ready and I shall explain it. Just know, Trochanter, that you need to prepare your infiltrators. Study the Elements of Harmony and the Princesses." Chrysalis explained, her tone darkening.

"Yes my Queen." Trochanter said with a deep bow, his head almost meeting the table.

"Good. Meeting adjourned." Chrysalis ordered, standing up, pushing her chair out of the way and walking away. The Mantis Guards followed after her, before stopping by the door and flanking it in a straight line.

All eyes in the room then turned to Mandible as he reopened the list and stood up while rereading it. The courtiers watched as he approached the guards.

"Kill this one and hang him in a public place," He said to one guard handing him a paper, pointing out a name on the list. The guard quickly chuckled before turning and leaving the room.

"Beat her, pin it on him, then execute them both." Passing another page to another guard who licked his lips as he left.

"I'll leave the rest to you." Mandible said as he picked up the remaining papers in a green aura and passed them out, one page per guard.

He was left with a single page, only one name on it, written in a bold font.

Thorax.

"I have something special in mind for you." He hissed as he slowly walked out of the room with the rest of the guard.

The other courtiers were left alone with only each other as company.

"So... who's up for a drink?" Tegmen asked.

"Count me in." Trochanter said after a chuckle.

Chrysalis walked through her throne room, flanked by six hive guards. As she approached her bedroom her walk became somewhat sluggish, which was thankfully not noticed by her guards. The second she arrived at her bedroom, she used her magic to throw open the doors.

"I want no intruders or disturbances for the rest of the day, understand?" Chrysalis demanded with a growl.

"Yes, my que-" One of the guards started. He was cut off when Chrysalis slammed the door in their face.

Chrysalis shook her head as she walked to her desk, sitting down in a chair in front of it. She had a headache. A bad one. Perhaps the worst one she had ever had in her thousand years of life. She groaned as a massive painful throb, similar to being stabbed flared through her skull. That wasn't good.

She shook her head once again. She would call for an ice pack and a medic soon, first and foremost she had planning to do. As she looked down at the letters and documents the symbols on them seemingly moved around on the page, spiraling around in a vortex of letters and numbers. It felt almost impossible for her to focus.

Her forehead scrunched as she yet again shook her head. Something didn't feel right. That feeling was compounded when she felt something wet slowly pouring out of her nose onto her upper lip. She brought a forehoof up and wiped it. Gazing down at it made her eyes widened. Glowing, cyan liquid. Changeling blood.

"F-f-fuckkkkkkk" She started, the k rapidly becoming a gurgle as she fell back, her chair coming with her as she hit the ground with a loud crash.

The Mantis Guards outside of Chrysalis's bedroom had formed two columns, their eyes dutifully staring ahead, heads held high and spears in hand. No harm would come to their leader as long as they drew breath.

A crash behind them rapidly caught their attention as they all turned their eyes to the bedroom door. Their eyes stayed glued to it for a couple minutes.

"S-should we investigate?" The guard closest to the door on the left side asked, looking to his fellow soldiers.

"No, we should shut the hell up before you get us all killed." The soldier farthest from the door on the right side said, returning to his rigid stance alongside the other guards.

The one closest to the door cleared his throat, looked back to the door one last time, and returned to his stance.

Author's Note

Chrysalis is evil, and now she is ded.

Anywho, time for a dark comedy. And in case you are wondering, no, Chrysalis is not the mother of all changelings in this story, she is merely the Queen. She does have kids though, three of them who shall have prominence in this fic!

If you liked reading this story, leave a like and a comment :D.

An editor would be appreciated, hit me up if you'd like to work with me.

Chapter 3: The Heirs

Both Tarsus and Trochanter visibly recoiled at the disintegration spell, and the blood-curdling scream the medic let out as her life came to a quick, but ultimately agonizing death. They both sat back on their haunches and put their hooves on the sides of their heads, thoughts rapidly shooting through their heads.

Were they next? Had Mandible brought them here just to kill them?

"Why did you do that?" Tarsus was the first to speak, breaking the silence. He grit his teeth and couldn't help but flinch as Mandible turned on him next.

"We need to keep this contained, only the inner circle can know about the queen's death, at least until we figure out what to do next," he growled as he started pacing back and forth. "Right now, all we can do is wait for everyone else to get here, but until then, we need to spitball ideas, and fast."

"We need a funeral," Trochanter started after shakingly pulling himself up and clearing his throat. "It needs to be as glorious and legendary as we can make it. Unless we want to keep the death of our queen completely one hundred percent secret and like... pretend she is still alive."

"That seems like a secret that will be simply impossible to maintain for long..." Tarsus started as he approached the queen's desk, picking up a piece of paper and holding it up. He let out a slight grunt of discomfort, before showing it off to the other two councilors. It was a picture of Celestia, alongside some writing underneath it, no doubt it was written by the queen. "Especially if we are to continue our plots and war against Equestria."

Mandible visibly cringed at that concept. The idea of going against the immortal leaders of Equestria without an immortal of their own to counter them sounded like suicide. Pure and simple.

"I think what we really need to do is gather the princes and the princess. We need to designate an heir and fast. The nation cannot survive while decapitated." Mandible said with a slight tinge of disgust in his voice. He had never liked Chrysalis's children. All three of them were... well, different variations of annoying to him.

"B-b-but... we don't even know what kind of succession law the Queen would have preferred implemented? Primogeniture? Ultimogeniture? Elective?" Trochanter started when suddenly all of the colors instantly drained from his face. "Oh, sweet Chrysalis... what if it's gavelkind?"

Tarsus smiled, staring over at Mandible, who shared the same look. "You see... that's the good thing about this..." He started.

Mandible continued. "Because the queen never initiated a system of inheritance, we can decide it. We can simply appoint our own heir, one we can easily control."

A wide, crooked smile spread across Trochanter's face, his eyes widening with glee. With the queen dead, the hive was theirs.

"I shall go dispatch several squads of Mantis Guard to collect the heirs," Mandible said turning towards the door. "Wait here and explain the situation to the other members of the circle."

He stopped just as he reached the door, and looked back to them.

"Oh, and kill the guard that comes with them."

Pharynx stood in front of a platoon of changeling soldiers, their blue armor polished to perfection and their stance perfect. Their cyan eyes stared at him, and his purple eyes stared back with pride and determination.

"You did well Stinger, these men loom like some of the finest specimens the soldier caste has churned out in years." He chuckled as he turned to a changeling officer.

"Thank you, sir! It was a pleasure to train these lings. I'm sure that when we next meet those equine scum in battle my men'll knock um flat on their furry behinds." Stinger said with a chuckle.

"Indeed." Pharynx laughed as he approached one of the soldiers. "Name and rank soldier?" Said soldier quickly snapped into a salute.

"Sir! Private Antenna, sir!" The private said. Pharynx chuckled.

"Got any family Antenna?" Pharynx asked with a smirk.

"Sir! A daughter named Ocellus, sir!" Antenna replied, a firm brow forming.

"And when the time comes to protect your hive and secure food, will you protect and serve your daughter?" Pharynx asked with a frown.

"Sir! Of course, sir!" Antenna replied, a slight bit of shock in his voice. Was that even a question?

"Good. When the time comes for battle, I want you all to look at Antenna here and remember that. You are not fighting for yourself in battle, nor are you fighting for my mother, though she is something to be loyal to. No, you bugs are fighting for the good of the hive itself! Remember that!" Pharynx roared to the platoon.

"Sir yes sir!" They roared back, saluting the general.

Pharynx let out a boisterous laugh, but he was interrupted when two armored changelings landed on either side of him. Their armor was heavier than his own soldiers, letting him instantly recognize just who they were. He let out a loud sigh, as his men nervously shuffled on their feet.

"Prince Pharynx. You are to come with us." One of the Mantis Guards said, eyes narrowing at him. "Mandible requests your presence."

Pharynx let out a loud growl. "First that fat bastard interrupts all my patrols and displaces all of my guards in the entire hive, now he is dragging me away from my troops. Who the hell does he think he is?" he snarled, grinding his teeth together. "Fine! Take me to him."

The two guards took to the air, Pharynx quickly following after them, one in front of him and one behind him. As soon as they were out of the sight of his soldiers, however, the guards both stopped, causing Pharynx to come to a halt as well.

"Guards? What's going on?" Pharynx asked with a raised brow before he suddenly found himself grabbed into an aerial chokehold from behind.

"What the fu-!" Pharynx started but he was cut out when a wet rag, which smelt distinctly of chemicals was pressed against his mouth and nose. He tried resisting, but he rapidly found his hooves too heavy to move. He tried transforming, but he found all his horn could do was weakly spark. Before long, everything went black.

Thorax was sitting in his room in the Crystal palace, reading a light book he had borrowed from Twilight. She had brought it during her last visit to the empire, and had been all too happy to let him read it!

It was on Crystal Imperial history, something he would definitely have to read if he was going to be here for a while. He was quickly alerted to the sound of his door opening and two sets of hooves walking in. They sounded heavy and metallic, like the Crystal Palace Guards. He smiled and turned around. He didn't hear the roaring of magical fire or see the green light that filled the room for a microsecond.

"Oh hey guys, what's going..." he stopped when he saw exactly who was standing there. Two Mantis Guards, their eyes narrowed into slits as they stared at him.

He felt his heart leap into his throat. He tried getting up to run, but his legs felt weak. Too weak to stand on. The guards slowly approached, smiles slowly forming on their faces.

"H-help! Help! Hel-" He tried screaming, but he was silenced by a rag being pressed against his mouth. Everything went black shortly after that.

A single changeling roamed through the halls of the hive, a bottle levitating in the air next to them, wrapped in a green aura. Well, roamed was the wrong word. More like they stumbled.

"Hive damned council and their stupid guards and their stupid mom and their stupid... stupid... urm..." It slurred in a distinctly female voice, rapidly losing its train of thought. She took another swig of her drink as she approached a door built into the side of the hall. As she wrapped a hoof around the door handle, the sound of buzzing filled her ears.

Two Mantis Guard landed on either side of her, towering over her and looking down at her.

"Princess Elytra. You are to come with us. Mandible requests your presence." One of the guards said.

"Go fuck yourself you two-bit fascist faux-intimidating knock-off," Elytra said before she took another swig of her bottle and pushed herself into the room, walking away from the two guards.

The two guards blinked several times, turning to each other before simultaneously growling and rushing into the room after her.

"We are not to be-" One of them started before they found her passed out on a bed in the middle of the room, bottle collapsed uselessly next to her, spilling its contents onto her sheets.

The two looked at each other and shrugged.

"That'll work." One said before rushing forwards to grab her.

Author's Note

Sorry, this took so long.

Meet the newest OC of the story, the youngest of Queen Chrysalis's children Princess Elytra. She a sassy drunk bitch.

Chapter 2: Immortality is Relevant

Mandible was sitting at his desk going over reports from Mantis Guard infiltrators all over Equestria. Contrary to popular belief amongst the hive, Thorax was not the first rogue changeling. All other events involving rogue changelings had been previously ruthlessly dealt with, generally leading to the perpetrator's entire family being purged. Thorax however, was the only exception. He had gotten the farthest, and was impossible to purge from public memory.

For one, he was the middle child of Queen Chrysalis. The prince was one of the most well known changelings, entirely due to his family relations. Purging him from memory by killing those who knew him would lead to over half of the Empire being killed. That wouldn't do.

On top of that, he was the only changeling to make it past the Mantis Guard and make it to Equestria. Usually rogue changelings were caught before they even reached the borders and dealt with. Thorax made it not only past the Mantis Guards, but thousands of army border guards and then crossed hundreds of miles to make it to Equestria. The mere thought of it made him grind his teeth. It was inconceivable. Unless... he somehow had help. His older brother, the only changeling in the hive he was even remotely close to, was the head of the entire Changeling Army, answering only to Tarsus and Chrysalis herself. Prince Pharynx was his name. He was perhaps the most popular and powerful changeling in modern history, second only to his mother. Loved by both the queen and the people. This made him both immune to any actions taken by the Mantis Guard (as damaging the queen's favored child would likely lead to the entire organization being completely purged.) and immune to any suspicion of treason.

It was the perfect cover. If he wanted to smuggle Thorax out of the Empire, he could have, and nothing short of the absolute strongest of evidence would convince the queen of that fact, as perfect as she was. Perhaps it would do Mandible to simply kidnap Pharynx right now and torture the information out of him... Mandible shook those traitorous thoughts out of his head.

In doing so however, his eye latched onto one particular report of one of his infiltrators. Reports claim that, according to a Crystal Empire news bulletin, an undisguised changeling was discovered outside of the Crystal Kingdom. Could that be the lead he needed? Thorax was known as being hopelessly naïve. He held no doubts in his mind that the fool would have approached a pony undisguised to attempt to 'befriend' it. No wonder he never 'fit in' so to say.

He was just about to send a letter to that particular infiltrator, telling him to move in on the Crystal Empire and hunt the traitor down, when the door to his office slammed open and a Mantis Guard charged in.

"Sir!" The guard cried with a salute.

Mandible turned to him, a frown coming to his face. "What is it? I have important business that you are interrupting! Tell me why I shouldn't have you hauled away as a traitor right now!" he growled, sitting up.

"It's the queen! Something is wrong with her!" The guard cried. Mandible's eyes widened.

"Report. Now." Mandible said, standing up and approaching the guard.

"I, and five other Mantis Guards, were stationed outside of her bedroom over the night, when we heard a loud crash inside, but we were discouraged from investigating by her previous orders." The Mantis Guard started in a panic, his voice becoming increasingly frantic as he spoke. "This morning, when several drones arrived to bring her breakfast in the form of a cocooned pony there was no response when we knocked, so we opened the door and... and..."

Mandible growled once again and stomped forwards, bringing his face an inch away from the guards. "Spit. it. out."

"We found her laying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the room sir!" The changeling cried out straightening up. A silent gasp escaped Mandible's lips as he took a step back.

His jaw became slack as he lowered his head. "No... that can't be... Did you get her medical attention? Is she alright?" Mandible stammered.

"N-no sir. She is... dead..." The guard said, lowering his head.

"And who knows this?" Mandible asked as his features hardened.

"Just me, the other guards, and the two drones who brought her breakfast this morning." The Guard said with a salute.

"Good." Mandible hissed as his horn glowed a dark green. A beam of energy shot from the tip, striking the guard directly in the forehead. With a cry of agony, the guard disintegrated into a pile of dust.

Mandible stomped out of the room, purposely kicking through the pile of dust and marched out of his home, which was connected directly to the Mantis Guard Headquarters, a division of them standing ready to receive their daily orders.

"All of you. I want every drone who has brought the queen food within the past month found and executed, then I need the hive's best medic in the throne room as soon as possible. Lock off all entrances and exits to the Central Hive and contact the leaders of the outer colonies. Inform them to do the same. Am I understood?" He ordered features hardening.

"Yes sir!" The guards replied with perfect unity, before scattering to do their duties.

Mandible then turned, and took flight towards the throne room.

He arrived about thirty minutes later, that Mantis Guards were indeed effective in their duties, already sealing off many critical corridors and hallways, but it had unfortunately slowed him down, especially when he had to make a quick stop to deal with the two drones who had served the queen that morning and thus saw her corpse.

When he got there, he found five guards standing in a wedge outside of the closed door to the Queen's chamber.

"Sir, the medic arrived several minutes before you did. We allowed her inside to analyze the body and have not touched it since this morning." The guard in the middle said with a salute.

Mandible nodded. "Good." He grunted as he approached. He quickly pointed to the guard in the middle.

"You. Go and fetch the rest of the queen's court then report back to me. Be discreet. Tell no ling about the queen." Mandible ordered. The changeling nodded and silently took flight, leaving the room.

Mandible watched as he went, turning to the rest of the guards only after he was truly gone. "I thank all of you for your service to the hive."

He said with a nod, before his horn lit up and four beam fired from the tip at once, all of them striking a changeling directly in the forehead, turning them to dust.

Mandible nodded at the now ashified guards, before pushing his way into the queen's bedroom. Chrysalis was laying in the middle of the room, having been dragged away from her desk by the medic. A slowly expanding pool of cyan blood slowly spread out from her limp body. A medic, marked by white armor rather than the usual blue armor of soldiers, knelt over her.

"Well? What happened? Can she be revived?" Mandible said, his brow furrowing down at the medic.

"Even if I knew what I was doing," The medic started staring up at him, her voice full of dread. "I don't think she can be."

"Don't know what you are doing? You're a damn medic." Mandible hissed.

"Exactly, a combat medic. I know how to bandage wounds and heal burns, magical or otherwise. I am not a doctor in the slightest!" She cried, gesturing down to the queen.

"Then get out of here and get a doctor!" Mandible growled violently, stomping towards her.

"There are no doctors!" The medic replied putting her hooves to the sides of her head in a panic. "The Queen said there was no point in teaching anyling proper medince to treat the drones! She said there were always more drones to take the place of the dead ones!"

Mandible's jaw dropped. "That's..."

"Stupid? I know! Everyling knew it was stupid but no ling said anything!" The medic cried. "We didn't want to speak out against the queen!"

Mandible was silent for a couple minutes.

'Maybe this isn't the worst thing that could have happened. No what am I saying, that is heresy!' He mentally chastised himself. He shook his head.

"Well, can you at least determine what happened to her?" Mandible asked as he walked over to the room's capsized chair, set it back upright, and then sat down in it.

"Well, judging from the amount of blood leaking from her nose and... eyes, it was likely that a vein in her skull burst, leading to a brain aneurism. From what I've heard though, brain aneurisms don't usually produce this much blood. It's almost like she was injected with the most powerful anticoagulant in existence to keep her bleeding so much. It's also likely that the vessel burst yesterday, at least, meaning she was up and active when and during it, only falling unconscious and dying during the final stages." The medic explained pointing out the places she was talking about.

"Injected? So you suspect foul play?" Mandible asked, his expression hardening.

"Yes sir. She was immortal after all." The medic nodded.

Mandible cleared his throat. "I thank you for your medical knowledge and aid. You have done a great service for the Empire." His horn glowed a deathly green.

Before he could do anything, the door to the room slammed open and a changeling rushed inside.

"What happened? Where is she? Who did this?!?" Trochanter cried in a panic, his voice shaky and weak. He rushed to the side of the queen. He was about to drop to his knees to cradle the queen, but then he saw the blood he splashed onto the sleeves of his suit.

"Ewww..." He mumbled, taking a couple steps back and kneeling down just at the edge of the blood.

"Why did this happen!?! Why!?!?!?!?!" He screamed in 'agony'. Mandible saw a single tear crawl down his cheek. He was expecting more.

"The hive cannot exist without a leader, therefore... it is with great p-personal sacrifice, I nominate myself to take our irreplaceable queen's many responsibilities onto myself, until a better candidate is found." Trochanter exclaimed with a furrowed brow, standing up and straightening his back.

Mandible frowned. "Are... are you legitimately trying to become king right now?" He asked, his teeth clenching in anger.

"I mean... if the title of king comes with it..." Trochanter said with a shrug.

Mandible was about to stand up and punch him the face, when the door once again slammed open and Tarsus marched in.

"Mandible!!!!" he roared in a distinct rage. "What in Chrysalis's name do you think gave you the right to use your Mantis thugs to displace my forces and do my damn jo-" he started in a rage before he noticed the queen laying face down in a pool of her own blood.

"O... Oh... Oh my." He said, all of the color draining from his face.

"I think the queen's death gives me more than enough jurisdiction to do that." Mandible said as he stood up, pointing a hoof down at the queen.

"B-but... The Queen is an immortal goddess, like Celestia!"

"I'm pretty sure that if Celestia had a vein explode in her head she'd die too!" Mandible shouted.

"Stop yelling at each other!" Trochanter screamed in a high pitched voice, before covering his mouth with his hooves.

There was an awkward pause as everyone stared at Trochanter.

"You aren't going Thorax on us, are you?" Mandible hissed.

"Wh-what? Of course not!" Trochanter cried.

"Good," Mandible straightened up, his horn glowing once again. "Then you won't mind when I do this."

A beam fired and struck the medic in the forehead. She cried out in agony before, nothing but dust was left, crumbling to the ground and being washed away in the blood of the queen.

Author's Note

The Queen is dead. Long live... the council.

This is not going to end well for the Empire.

Let's just all hope something changes for the better for our favorite nation of buggos. Mandible sure is a baddy.

I still need an editor if anyone is interested lol