//------------------------------// // Confrontation // Story: Home Sweet Hive // by Mad Hatter //------------------------------// This is an impossible scenario. No changeling has the power to attack the queen. Even with freedom of will, it should not be an option. I faced upwards to Intricate Compass. “You will cease this action. Immediately!” She did not. She merely veered slightly. Her horn was charged with magic. On passing by me, she slashed deeply into my left leg. “Aaahh!” I collapsed to the ground, clutching reflexively at my leg. “Aranea!” Nohbodi rushed up to my side. “I... I will recover. We must contend with this forced encounter.” I painfully returned to standing, and transformed into my armored queen body. The wound still existed, shifted to my rear left leg. I reacquired sight of Intricate Compass and gave a pheromone command. I detest using this option. However, even a free changeling is forbidden from attacking the queen. Successfully striking one is unheard of, and must be accounted for. This would, at least until reversed, strip her of her will. It did not. She flew by again, this time to my right. I lurched to the left, further damaging my leg, if only slightly. Other changelings have endured more extreme conditions in Equestria. I remembered the scars that Butterfly bore, that she now wears willingly as a reminder of our darker times. She caught my right leg with her magic, though not her horn. A burning sensation and a slight line of discoloration was all this caused. Intricate Compass came around again, and landed. “There is a false queen! She must be purged from the Hive!” Nohbodi stood in between us. I was struck. Not by magic, but by the very idea. She charged her horn again and fired. Nohbodi deflected it with his natural immunity to the magic of this world. She took flight again, charging Nohbodi with her horn pointed at him. She was sloppy. She was too slow. Nohbodi caught hold of her horn on the pass. She should have turned around or stopped. She did not. * Snap * “Screeeeee!” Intricate Compass tumbled to the ground, digging a trench a short distance with her body. I heard another snapping sound. Her head hit first. It was likely she had broken her neck. I walked up to her prone form. “You will explain this assault!” I stared her in the eyes, every word and pheromone demanding an explanation. Her eyes looked up at me from her position, a sizable portion of her head still embedded in the dirt. She breathed in deeply. With tears in those eyes, she simply struggled out “Hive... False queen... Purge...” before shifting her neck in the soil. * Crack * The more vertical portions of her body slumped over, and the light of magic in her eyes faded to nothing. She was dead. I collapsed to my knees again. No physical pain caused this. No pain I could imagine could compare. I began to be wracked with sobs for my sorrow. The world blurred and darkened as a single though repeated itself within my mind. Had I accepted the oath Nohbodi asked of me those years ago after all, and fail? Did I commit some unpardonable sin? As time and life lost meaning, as the world went black, the thought continued repetition... The Hive has returned, and It has denied me.