Hightalon
The day dawned early for Cimmerian. The griffons had decided to move out at an early hour, meaning they would be reaching Hightalon late in the evening. Twilight was already in the room that the griffons used for their array, the drone-riding mare already going around and offering the griffons suggestions on improving the efficiency of the array while gushing over the impressive arrays the griffons were using.
As he entered, he was directed to a collection of circles that would be powering the teleport. The lines around him were old and well used, most likely by unicorns and magic-storing gemstones of one kind or another. Celestia was present as well, along with several unicorns in Talon uniforms.
"We will be holding the portal for most of the supplies and troops. Once that is over the unicorns will take over, allowing us to use the portal," Celestia explained as he took his place.
Cimmerian frowned at the smaller mare.
"I'd still prefer you didn't go. You're nowhere near full power, nor do I want the Nightmare to get her hooves on the Element Bearers again."
Celestia bristled at his words.
"Those are my ponies over there. I will not sit in comfort while they experience horrors the likes of which they could never have comprehended before this coup. I will not leave them to be saved by another when I can help. If nothing more, I can stay with the refugees in Freeside. I remember seeing many of my guards there. I can't assume the griffons will be that interested in taking Canterlot back, so it will be my ponies that will do so. My guard may have been scattered by the Nightmare, but they are loyal. They will follow me, Cimmerian. And if I ask them to, they will follow you."
As the room began to fill with noise in preparation for the assault, Celestia's firm demeanor softened slightly.
"Cimmerian, if I don't see you after the assault, please make certain Luna is freed."
"I will," he said, starting to channel his power into the arrays at Herrick's signal. "I promise."
<-(0)->
The minutes turned into an hour, the flow of griffons and supply crates not stopping for a moment. At one point a side-portal had opened, allowing a griffon from Hightalon to return with a report of the ongoing battle without stopping the flow of supplies and troops but for the most part his experience was uneventful. That changed when he saw yet another messenger approach Herrick. Unlike before, the old griffon responded by sending a messenger back into the compound. The runner returned moments later with a fully prepared Zelus in tow, the queen wearing a grim expression as she slowed to speak to the griffon commander before approaching the portal.
"Focus, Cimmerian. Do not let the battle and the movements around you draw your attention from your task," Celestia admonished, her own horn glowing brighter as she took up the slack his distraction had left.
Nodding in understanding, he boosted his own power, allowing the smaller mare to ease back before they evened out the power load again. That didn't stop him from worrying though. The last time he'd seen Zelus that grim had been during their assault on the castle. If something was both bad enough to warrant the griffon requesting the changeling queen's presence and enough to shake her normally battle-hungry attitude, it would likely be something big. Something that they didn't know how to deal with.
"There's a queen in Hightalon."
"Two actually," Herrick responded, approaching the alicorns. "No, this didn't surprise us. Your insider warned us about them. We thought we could break through to them though. The unicorns that were stationed there have been runed, though. We need some power to break through their shields and Zelus should be able to do that. She's just a bit apprehensive about approaching other queens."
Nodding in understanding, Cimmerian focused more on the array. If Zelus was willing to face two queens and their forces with the griffons, the least he could do was keep their supply lines open.
<-(0)->
Zelus shivered in the cold night air as she left the mercenary compound in Hightalon. Bodies were piled high around the compounds hallways and large doors, the mercenaries using the inability of the drones to think for themselves in order to funnel them into kill-zones. By her estimate, the only reason she was able to traverse the halls the griffons had used was because there was so little left of the drones in the first place.
It was well into the winter months so what would normally have been a cold mountain peak was currently a bone-chilling, windswept warzone. Even with the enchanted bracer she could feel the cold seeping into her shell. The faster she dealt with this, the faster she could get somewhere warm. Preferably with Cimmerian's wing over her. The stallion made a wonderful security blanket, something she would likely need after dealing with this.
The city was eerily quiet for what had just taken place. A few fires burned here and there, but with most of the town made of carved stone there would be no permanent damage. Some of the fires were for warmth of the troops she passed by, the griffons huddled close as they tended to their wounded or took meals. Others were cheering loudly with their fellows, their dream of seeing their home retaken already fulfilled. In truth the battle wasn't quite won. There was still one last bastion of the Nightmare's forces in the town.
Following the griffons through the all but deserted city, she quickly found the last holdout of the Nightmare's hordes. In truth she didn't need the escort. She could hear the array calling to her the moment she stepped through the portal. She had Heart's knowledge of the truth though. She knew exactly what the array's honey-laced promises consisted of.
The griffons were dug in right in front of the castle's prison, a shimmering glow barring the entrance. A few drones flew through the barrier, quickly cut down by the griffon archers. On didn't even make it through the barrier, it's body starting to decay while half-through the shield.
'So it's one of those. I wonder if it's changelings in general or just the drones?' the queen wondered, walking out into the open yard. She felt the emotions of the griffons, some holding back both fear and anger at her presence, some overwhelmed with joy at being home again and so close to victory.
The queen paused in her journey, turning that last emotion over in her head. Normally the thought of home was inconsequential to a queen. Her home was where ever she decided to raise her brood after all. Now though, it brought memories. A very specific cave, home of a very specific queen. A smile bloomed over her features. Din's hive was her home, and no amount of whispering would convince her otherwise.
She reached the shield, ducking aside as another wave of drones came forth and were cut down by the defenders. Curiously, she trotted up to the shield and touched her hoof to it.
"Solid. Of course it's solid," she muttered. Still, she could see the alcove the unicorns were stationed in. If did this right...
Motioning for a griffon, she relayed her needs before standing well clear of the doorway. Several waves of drones came and were dispatched before the runner returned, several horn rings in the hen's talons.
"You're certain you can just..."
"Yes, yes I am. I wouldn't have sent you for the rings if it was beyond me," Zelus dismissed, waiting for the next wave of drones. "If they've been here for any length of time they may have information. Information on both who the queens are and what kinds of supplies they were left with. At the least, I'll know what they're allegiance is. They can speak Celestia's praises all they like when they're freed, but I'll know the truth."
Another wave of drones, six this time, broke through the barrier and were quickly cut down. The moment they were dead, Zelus lit her horn. A ring of fire appeared in the wall before her, showing the unicorn's back. Before the array-bound guard could react she lunged through the portal, giving him a powerful shot of her venom before lunging across the hallway to do the same to the second unicorn. The barrier fell as the unicorns collapsed under the anesthetizing affects of the changeling venom, allowing the griffons to push forward once more. A few more unicorns farther in tried bringing up barriers as well, but with no proper thresholds to bind their barriers to, they soon collapsed under the assault.
Zelus followed the griffons at a sedate pace, her jaw tightening as the siren song in her mind continued to grow louder. She passed the griffons that were forming up for a final push into the queens chambers, using a quick burst of magic to shove the caretakers away. They were all that was left, the newest batch of drones still trying to rush out of their eggs to defend the queens. No, not to defend the queens. To defend the array. Drawing her blade once more the queen circled the large glowing crystal, letting the sword glide up and down its surface.
The prism was pulsing green with every push she felt in her mind but it was for naught. She knew what it was promising. To be like them. Like the queens currently staring hungrily at the griffons in the entryway. To give up herself, her children, her hive. The blade clicked against an unseen imperfection in the crystal's surface and she swung the blade around, striking the area with the blade as it spun around her. Against an actual opponent, the technique was easy to defeat. Against a stationary, inanimate object that she was attempting to weaken, it would work just fine.
The queens began to twist and thrash as she struck the crystal, attempting to answer its desperate call for aid. Another batch of drones hatched, the creatures immediately turning to her with screams of rage. They barely cleared their shells before the griffons fired upon them. Slowing her blade, she dragged it over the surface once more, finding the gouge she'd left in the surface with her blade and settling it into the groove. Then she reared up against the blade and shoved with all her strength.
The stand holding it upright creaked ominously as the brace bent, but the crystal was weaker than its base due to her prior work. The blade began to warp the crystal, slowly wiggling deeper into the structure as the green pulses became more erratic, as the queens' thrashing became more desperate. A few more eggs started hatching, the drones being summoned not even finished reaching the basic maturity needed to cross the distance to reach the crystal. Two eggs went still on their own, another broke open but no changeling emerged. Several fell out of their eggs, their bodies not developed enough to actually do her any harm. She would have been surprised if the mindless things could have even reached her.
With a final heave she wrenched the blade downwards, separating the top quarter of the crystal from the rest of it. Without a full circuit, the green runes began to sputter and spark, slowly dying in power along with the fading voice calling to her.
Zelus stepped back from the crystal, looking at the blade appreciatively. With a flair of her magic she gouged a nick in the hilt, right next to one she'd added not too long ago.
"Two."
<-(0)->
Cimmerian trotted along the relatively empty streets at a quick pace. He'd already been informed that Zelus had taken the queens and the control array. The griffons were now in full celebration mode, a good amount of them currently sleeping in their own houses in spite of the fact they'd been abandoned not too long ago.
It hadn't been without casualties though. He'd seen several Talons with sheets over their heads, as well as a few dead ponies here and there. All of them had arrays in their cheeks, and most of them were also dangerously malnourished. The few ponies that had survived had either been knocked out and policed up after the battle or had been freed when a griffon had slashed into the array with their claws.
That wasn't why he was here though. Zelus had requested his presence as well as his aid in dealing with the queens. Two changeling queens who Zelus was terrified to even try to wake up without someone else there. Someone she could trust.
"She's inside, Sir. The other queens are down there too," a griffon near the door said. The alicorn wondered at his presence, then decided it was likely for the safety of the griffons just as much as it was for the queens.
There were several locations where the speckled blood on the floor took a red tinge, signifying another pony or griffon injury, but for the most part the halls were relatively clean. In a large room the scent of death struck strongly, likely the last defense the ponies under the arrays control could make. It had done them no good and for this instance, the alicorn wasn't certain if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Thanks be," Zelus breathed as he entered the jail. Before he could even open his mouth, the queen was at his side pulling him into a hug, shivering in what was either fear or the cold. Either way, he pulled her tightly against his side with a wing as he got his first good look at an enslaved queen. The sight did not fill him with much hope.
The mares were obscene, their chitin long since fallen away from their bloated forms in favor of more mass to catch the passive magic in the area. As Twilight had described it, the bloat was a side effect of forcing the hungry queens to produce so many eggs. By removing the drones that would have suffered in their place, the queens added extra mass to protect themselves from the constant burn, a form of physical insulation from the magic that they had to feed on. Towards their flanks, they expanded even more, reminding him of the cartoonish bloat some associated with ant queens. Actually, they were closer to the, what was it called? The queen Xenomorph than to anything he'd ever seen before. Their barrels extended well beyond what was healthy, their frail forelegs scraping at the stone in an attempt to pull themselves towards him. The rear legs weren't visible, likely lost somewhere under the bloat that was their body. With a sigh, he looked to the queen under his wing.
"Can we pull them out of this, Zelus?"
"I don't know," she mumbled, shivering as she looked back to the queens. "I don't even know if their minds are intact. Part of me hopes that we can help them, but part of me-"
"You don't know how anyone could recover from such a thing," he finished for her, earning a nod. "There's unfortunately only one way to find out. Are you ready?"
The armored queen nodded, taking a few more preparatory breaths before approaching the queens. Cimmerian walked closer as well, making certain to stay out of their range while trying to maintain a certain proximity to Zelus. If anything went wrong, he wanted to be able to pull her away as quickly as possible.
Zelus was silent as she searched the first queen, her mind quickly checking every nook and cranny for the hibernating mare. It would react to the intrusion, no matter how animalistic the reaction would be. A push, a shove, an attack, Zelus was ready for anything the torpid queen would attempt. Or so she thought.
It was a complete surprise when the sleeping mind she was traversing suddenly latched on to her, pulling her conscious into a simulacrum of her own hive's dream-side. She landed with a thud, the queen not being all that concerned with kindness to the intruder. As she shook off her shock though she found herself face to face with the enslaved queen. In the form the apparently older mare remembered herself having.
"You're not one of her usual test subjects," the queen stated in confusion, looking over Zelus from her throne. "You don't, how do you support so much armor? She wouldn't waste that kind of, I don't-"
Zelus shook her head.
"I'm not one of the Nightmare's captives, I'm free. I'm part of a new hive, one that she couldn't detect. Pandinus and I are free queens and the Nightmare's arrays are falling. I've destroyed two myself, while the griffons have eliminated many more."
"I trust you'd be willing to offer more than a simple word. She often connected us to individuals who would make such offers and statements, attempting to coax us out into reality where she could study our minds in greater detail. It was not a pleasant experience."
The armored mare was silent as she searched her memories for an image that would prove her statements true. Showing the crystals destruction would be one thing, but certainly she could do better than that. A smile slowly grew on the queen, her mind conjuring a clear image of the Temple from just before she left.
Pandinus was speaking to Cadance as the two sat in the morning sun, Amare hanging over the edge of the fountain in front of their home. The proto-queen was currently splashing around in the honey, much to Cadance's irritation. Zelus smiled, the memory of her sister and the safety the hive meant to her bubbling to her surface thoughts.
The unnamed queen stepped off her stone throne, approaching the image in both confusion and curiosity. The pink alicorn likely meant something to her, especially considering the array visible on Cadance's cheek. What seemed to hold the mare's attention though, was the contents of the fountain.
"That's impossible."
"I have three jars of it being brought over as we speak. You won't be able to eat it for a while without getting sick, but it exists. I'll bring it here if I need to. My sister's mate put forward the idea. It's what drew me to them; I could smell it from miles away."
The queen was silent as she stared at the image, shifting her head left and right as if a different angle would reveal the memory to be a fraud.
"This...what did you call her? The Nightmare?"
"A Nightmare. Similar to the parasite that drove the Dreamwalker to madness years ago. It moved against all those in power very carefully, even planning a trap for Change himself. Discord-" the other queen hissed in anger at the name, but Zelus pushed on "-has told us that he could escape from the prison but that he would be taking things into his own hooves if it came to that. Otherwise, he is willing to wait for us to do what we can. The mare it possessed is currently bound to my hive as well."
The queen's eyes nearly crossed at that point.
"You, you have her in your hive? Are you mad? She could-"
"I've checked her every memory for any form of betrayal," Zelus cut her off. "There is nothing the mare does that I am not aware of. She wishes to see this madness end as much as we do, even if it means destroying her body. You know as well as I do that there is a difference in speaking such words and feeling them to be truth."
The older queen was silent for a while, turning her gaze back to the image of the Temple.
"So this is it then," she said with a sad smile. "Once more the world changes and we must either adapt or die out."
Turning away and walking back to her throne, she seated herself and looked at Zelus with a spark of determination.
"Three times our kind has been put through such trials. I survived each one in turn, I will survive this one."
"You don't need to do it alone this time, though," the younger queen said. "Pandinus, the queen you see in this memory is not a blood sister. I, I hated it at first, but to know there is another I can trust with my life, that I can trust with my hatchlings? I left her a clutch before I left on a mission and when I returned those drones were waiting for me. If you need something that I can provide, I will gladly help. I can do no less after being offered such a chance myself."
The queen was silent as she contemplated her visitors words. Finally she nodded.
"Very well, youngling. I will...speak if I find myself needing aid."
"It's very likely you will," Zelus said, replacing her image with a recent vision of the queen. The older mare's eyes widened in shock before the cavern shook. Zelus looked around in confusion for a moment, trying to remember that this was a mental construct. You couldn't experience an earthquake inside someone's mind, not in the same way as one perceived it in the living world. Her eyes fell on the older queen though, and she understood.
The mare was shaking with rage.
Taking a step back, Zelus swallowed hard as the queen screamed at the image and the dream-hive shattered around them.
<-(0)->
Cimmerian jumped as Zelus was shoved from the bloated queen with a weak detonation of magic. He was preparing to retaliate when he noticed the queen struggling, her eyes alight with rage. She thrashed in the prison her body had become, gurgling what he could only assume were oaths and promises of pain. Zelus quickly recovered from the surprise, moving forward and speaking to her in their own language, stroking the mare's ragged mane and nuzzling the other queen's cheek. Eventually the bloated mare started to slow, clicking a few words back, though as far as he could tell she had no wings to buzz.
"She's still with us, Zel?" he asked, a bit of excitement slipping into his voice. That was rage, not a feral mind breaking lose. It also spoke back to Zelus. If he was right-
"She is," the armored queen sighed, pulling back as the other halted her thrashing completely. "She said she may know a way to get free of this, but I have to check the other one as well."
"Do you mind if I see to her? Or should I keep my distance just yet?" he asked. She was likely starving and considering the way this whole scene twisted his stomach, the queen could probably taste his sympathy.
Zelus stopped just before she touched her horn to the second queen and looked back to him. Sniffing at the air, she began to click and buzz at other queen who perked slightly at being addressed.
"I've told her that if she harms you all bets are off and that the best way to feed is to drink, not pull. If you feel dizzy, step away from her. Also, keep in mind her body is still burning much of its energy with drone production. Until we can find a way to stop them, she may use a good bit of your energy on-"
Zelus was interrupted by indignant clicks, the queen doing her best to look offended at the accusation.
"Excuse me for not assuming all queens have that kind of self-control!" the younger queen shot back. "If you think you'll need help, just wait until I finish with her. Oh, and we would like your name."
The queen gave a few more clicks and Zelus rolled her eyes.
"No, I don't think it matters, but it does to him and he's the one with the emotional energy. Something about it helping to focus the emotions to an individual. Pandinus had a better explanation, I don't remember it at the moment."
Zelus closed her eyes and touched her horn to the second queen, once more going still as she delved into the other mare's mind in search of signs of life.
Cimmerian cautiously moved closer to the queen, placing a hoof on her bloated shoulders.
"Pulmonus," the mare wheezed, coughing afterwards. He waited a moment as she settled again before taking out a canteen and offering her a drink. She accepted a few sips but soon weakly pushed it away.
Not really certain what to do at that point, he began running his hooves gently over the mare's shoulders and neck. After all, contact seemed to help. The queen's eyes drooped as he sat there humming idly while waiting for Zelus. There was a slight tug at the edge of his senses, a little prick of what he thought might have been the queen pulling a bit, but looking at her, at the state she was in, he couldn't find the strength to blame her for it.
Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to a good half hour, and still Zelus worked. Pulmonis had long since fallen asleep, leaving the stallion resting his foreleg over her shoulders as he waited for his bodyguard to finish her work. With a growl the armored queen rose to all fours, rearing up and coming down on the second queen's head with a scream.
"Nothing!" the queen shouted, casting an immolation spell on the rest of the body. "No thought, no memories, no desires, I couldn't even find a stray thought left over from her hive's drones! She's empty, completely fucking empty! Do you have any idea what that means? Do you know what it takes to leave a queen's mind that desolate? I-I can't even..."
Cimmerian grabbed her with a quick spell, pulling her away from the burning body and wrapping her in his wings.
"It's okay Zel, this won't happen again. We'll make sure of it. We already saved two queens, we'll do what we can, alright? We'll do what we can for the rest and then we'll head back home. We'll go home and you can stay with me and Din for as long as you need to. I promise."
Zelus let out a strangled sob as she shook in his grip.
"They, these queen's are worse off than Heart. They didn't have a source, they, the guards came close so many times before when Lestidae and I were running and-"
"Shh," he whispered, rocking slightly. "You're my bodyguard, right? Din needs you to be strong so you can keep me safe from myself. Come on, Zelly. You're safe, you know this. We're going to make sure the rest of these things are destroyed and this never happens again, right?"
Zelus nodded, beginning to rock with him as he did his best to calm her frayed nerves. The armored mare soon perked though, pushing away from him and moving towards the other queen.
"Zel?"
"You idiot!" she shouted at Pulmonus. " I told you to ask for help if you-rargh!"
Before he could even process what was going on, Zelus drew her blade and cut a large section of the bloated queen's side open, causing Cimmerian to gag as the furious queen began to dig through the gore. His questions as to what in the nine hells she was doing were answered a few moments later when she shouted in triumph, pulling a skeletal changeling form no larger than an adult pony from deep inside the queen's body.
"She really is a master," Zelus muttered in awe. She became serious a split second later, lunging towards Cimmerian and shoving the gore-covered form into his hooves.
"Keep her warm, I'm going to get my love and some towels. Oh my gosh, if she'd just waited another-"
And with that, the mare was gone, tearing off at speeds that surprised the alicorn. Looking from the doorway to the form in his hooves, he held it against his body while wincing at the feeling that was slowly trickling down his barrel.
"I'm never going to be clean again."
<-(0)->
Zelus returned before too long, refusing to take the skeletal queen from his grip as there was no other willing heat-source nearby.
"If she'd made herself a bit smaller I could have taken her, or if she'd taken a little more time to add some mass we may have been able to...listen to me, going on about something I have no experience in. She rearranged herself in less than an hour and I'm complaining that she didn't do well enough. I don't think I could pull this off with a full supply of love and three days."
The changeling in his grip shuddered slightly, a wheezing laugh from what he could tell. Zelus scowled in response.
"You think that's funny? Maybe I should have left you in there? How would that have turned out do you think? You'd have suffocated in your own body, you idiot. If you'd waited for me before beginning I could have been ready to pull you out the moment you were ready instead of having to pull you clear just before you passed out from suffocation.
Pulmonus' only response was another bout of weak chortles, her head hanging limply against Cimmerian's foreleg as Zelus wiped her chitin clean.
The larger queen sighed, leaning down and touching her horn against the older mare's horn. Zelus performed what he assumed was an energy transfer, causing the changeling in his forelegs to hum happily.
"It's Pulmonus, right?" the alicorn asked at last. "I mean I assume it is, but well, there's a saying about what assuming does, so-"
"It is. Pulmonus, you asked if it was true. You said it was impossible, correct?" Zelus asked as she leaned down to look the other queen in the eye. Behind her Cimmerian saw a jar of love floating in her grip, slowly being brought closer to them.
"Here's one."
The form in his forelegs weakly reached out a hoof, brushing it against the jar with an almost reverent manner before she began to shudder again. Cimmerian frowned as she laughed, watching as Zelus' expression dropped. The wheezing laughter soon gave way to heaving sobs though. The mare waved Zelus forward, touching their horns together once more. Zelus straightened afterwards, closing her eyes in thought.
"Zelly?"
"Two drones match your list," She said after composing herself. "Recon is currently working at our mine while...we lost Prism in an attack on the Temple."
"He was...fed?" Pulmonus rasped. "Cared for?
Zelus nodded.
"No drones at the Temple are hungry. We wouldn't have the fountain if it was merely taunting our hive. Any who are hungry may drink from it. As for the safety of the drones, Pandinus personally hunted down a...a queen who attempted to subjugate some of the drones who had joined my sister's hive. Recon is doing what he wishes to do."
Pulmonus nodded, her muzzle forming a wan smile as she slipped from consciousness.
"I do not like debts, youngling. I will see you...compensated."
The alicorn breathed a sigh of relief as Zelus busied herself with cleaning the rest of the smaller queen's shell.
"Sixty-six percent."
"Excuse me?"
"We found two queens, we managed to save one. That's a sixty-six percent success rate so far. Din, you, Lestidae. Heart, Pulmonus, her," he said, gesturing to the location the other queen had occupied.
"I hope we get better chances moving forward, Zelly, because that's not a trend I want to see continue."
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7834287 Hmmmmm
.... that sounds familiar
.... Oh yeah
(at 0:15)
You and me both.
Brilliant as always!
Wow theres more than 20 people reading right now. Impressive, but not unexpected, this is a great story after all.
Hi everybody!
This... this chapter, right here... this is the kind of writing that I hope to one day be able to accomplish, and it is this kind of writing that brings hope and inspiration. Keep it up, my friend. Keep it up.
This was a lovely little treat to wake up to. Thank you for a lovely pair of new year's gifts.
You wrote weekly instead of weakly.
I think it was the scene with the canteen.
Happy 2017.
I often had trouble figuring out who was saying what.
Time to work on proper dialogue attribution, I think.
Remember, always have a speaker's actions in the same paragraphs as their dialogue, and when it's not 100% clear who's saying what, you're not doing it right. You don't even need "X says;" just specifying their actions prior to the dialogue helps considerably.
There is the Amare's biological mother somewhere among the enslaved queens. Will she be saved? What will happen after that?
I liked the new queen
great to see you again. I can't wait to see more of your story one again.
Awesome
damn that hurt.
A thought that occured to me before they left for hightalon:
I'm imagining Cimmerian inventing the Super Soaker, filling it with diluted honey and just overloading drones with a quick spray. Think the fight scene in Despicable me 2 with the jelly guns.
So happy to see two updates, couple of corrections though
I think you're missing a word here, maybe
?
weakly
Oh my, possible cougar in the future
How did Twilight not know this? They should have had warning. Also seems strange how something so weak could drawn Zelus in. I am currently not quite liking it; there needs to be some loss.
If queens can just make themselves a new body when they desire, Cadance and Luna should be able to easily heal from the arrays put on them. And since they can be broken just from a scratch, how does Cadance still have hers after she was blown up? Hell, why are there ponies in Heart's hive if just a simple cut will free them?
7835732 It's already been established that the Nightmare and Twilight are separate beings, and Cimmer proved that the dream-walking ability could be used to separate them, so the Nightmare approaching them in their dreams is something Twilight would understandably not know about.
As for remaking the body, this queen in particular was stated to be a master by Zelus, who was surprised by this observation. One can assume that means this is rare, even among queens. If you're unsure though, there's always the option of rereading the story and seeing if it mentions it. I think it was mentioned, I'm just too lazy to reread the story to find out.
7835852
The Nightmare did not dream walk but instead sent other queens or changelings to trick queens into coming out. So Twilight would know if this since they are experiments.
Heart had a queen egg that she transferred herself to. No queen has made another body in themselves. I am just starting to see changeling queens with dues ex machina capabilities and it is starting to irk me.
Two update!
The fun has most certainly been double for sure! 
Great chapter. Zelus is one of my favorite characters and the new queen looks like she will a very interesting character too. 
also all things considered I think sixty percent is a good percentage for what the queens have gone through.
7834482 More games need things like that. Just weird, out of place deaths. Cause in the real world, they do happen.
Sudden realization that someone has written out and used a variation crappy idea I thought of years before: Immortals, but through a convoluted way of giving birth to themselves. I am amused.
Changelings are cool. Sounds like the new queen has a ton of experience. Something the others need desperately if their race is to survive. Excellent chapter.
I was gonna keep reading tonight until I realized I was only half way through since starting a 8'ish hours ago
Just how many more Queens has teh Nightmare avilable that she has already burnt through, and how many more that can be converted, but those that due to ego will not be redeemable or even delay and betray.
How big a paddy will the loss of hightalon cause?
Very nice, great work.
7835876 Youre right, it would help if that was some kind of diablos ex machina.
7835876 on the other hand changelings would make one hell of a funny gary stu...
"gary, you've been eviscerated!"
"guys its OK, i didnt need that kidney or liver anyways, i got 3 others!"
7834818 Another problem is long paragraphs of dialogue where the speaker isn't revealed until midway through.
So, now Cimmy's also going to have a saucy, old broad following him around while she's critical of everything and generally making a snark of herself, isn't he?
I love the idea, at least.
Pulmonus' skill set and the things she's said about surviving so much make me think she may be one of the eldest queens in existence. That's good. Din and Zelly need a proper changeling mentor - a mentor into proper changeling things.
7860879 and she even has a good sense of humor, as she chuckled when Zelus was fussing over her.
its
queens'
whom
arrays'
crystal's
queens
Sixty-seven percent.
If he's not counting the ones who were totally gone before he got there, it's 4/5. If he is, then it's way, way lower than 4/6, more like 4/20 or 4/150.
Wonder what would be good music to listen to while hunting/ slaughtering nightmare parasites.
Best I could come up with is
But I'm sure there is a much better song. I just love slaying to music.
7887394 Here's a good one
7895121 I like it!
What a beautifully horrific little moment we had there.
When did Celestia become a man?
No. No you arent.
66% success rate...there is a wide margin for failure there. 44%.
8359370
Actually its 34%
It's actually 7 queens, with Zelus and Lestidae there was a feral one they killed. 4 out of 7, in basic math 4/7 = x/100 equals 7x=400 which equals 57.1428571429 or a 57% success rate.
9134321
I don't know what we would do without people like you to verify our math. No sarcasm.
If there is one thing that bothers me avout this story is how prominent changelings are in over the other species in this story. It started with the ponies but they quickly falled to the way side with onky gleam and wave being prominent characters and even then they are not as active as the side characters that are changeling.
Amazing. Now we have a experienced Quern joining the Hive. The Changelings race survivel rate is growing well.
Why didn't she include heart?