“Who are you? Where am I?”
The Queen smiled, “I am Queen Pincer of the Jungle Hive. And you, my prize,” she said and reached up to stroke my cheek, “You will be my key to much, much more.”
I shook my head, “Somebody else already tried that. It will not work.”
“Ah yes, Chrysalis,” she chuckled, “That stupid fool got herself revealed at an crucial part of her assault. And now she’s a pet to those that should be her food. Pathetic.”
“So what’s your plan here, exactly? Take my place?”
“Of course not,” she said and noses at my cheek and I could feel her drink in my emotions, “Just until the wedding.”
“Won’t work.”
“Food don’t get opinions,” she said and stepped back, “Especially not wrong ones. My infiltrators are already in place. The weak pets don’t even sense us, not with our pheromone blockers in place. Especially when we replaced your pet changeling as well.”
“Amber. What did you do to her?”
“Oh, she’s… somewhere. For now,” before she smiled, “Oh, such spicy rage. You’ll feed us nicely.”
With that, she pulled back and headed away, exiting the chamber.
Igniting my horn, I fired a cutting spell towards the closest of the resin keeping me in place. Nothing. It didn’t even leave my horn.
Glancing upwards, I could see it covered with some sort of substance.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
Okay. Okay. Okay. Think. You know changelings, you have powers that don’t require your horn. Looking over towards Blue Dawn, I saw her still out of it.
Think I’m trapped in here with you, Queeny? Yeah, not so much.
Closing my eyes, I made myself slip off into sleep and I stepped out into the dream realm, stretching my wings.
Well then…
Shifting things around, I brought the dreams around to match geological location relative to myself.
Mostly changelings around with a dozen or so ponies spread through the hive. I needed to warn Luna.
If it was still day, then she'd…
Shifting her dream portal to me, I stepped through the silvery portal into a forest clearing that I'd never seen anywhere but Luna's dreams, a place close to where she first grew up.
As I entered, she looked up from where she had been lounging beneath one of the trees in the soft, thick grass. “My Page! What are you doing sleep?”
Sighing, I moved over to nuzzle her. “My Sky,” I said and settled down next to her, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“What do you mean?”
Leaning against her side, I explained what had happened.
Luna surged to her hooves, “I’m mobilizing the guard, we’ll come for you.”
“...No.”
She blinked at me in surprise, “...What?”
“It’d be a bloodbath,” I said and got up to nuzzle her, “There are hundreds of changelings here. It would be tunnel fighting against enemies that could look like the pony next to you. We’d win, but so many ponies would die.”
Luna shook her head, “No. Not with my sister and me coming. We’ll burn that hive to the ground.”
“...No,” I said and gave her a small kiss, “I know Changelings. I’ll find a way to figure things out. You know what’s happening, you’ll have the advantage. Just… play along for now.”
Luna shook her head, “Page, it’s too dangerous! We can’t risk it.”
“Please. I think we can find a better way to do this.”
Luna didn’t look happy at all and shifted her wings, nuzzling at my ears before she sighed and nodded, “...Very well. I trust you, My Page. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Me too, Luna. Me too.”
Knew it. Dream magic is not connected to his horn. This will be interesting to see how it plays out against this new queen.
Hope Amber is okay.
Narrator: He did not not know what he was doing
You know I just took a real good look at the cover art for this story. And I love it.
Even if that changeling queen is just straight stupid and evil her changelings shouldn't be blamed for her stupidity
Never mess with a determined human. Especially a determined human who has gained god-like status.
Luna should warn Chrysalis. She probably know something about these "pheromone blockers", for example how to find and disable them and she will be VERY pissed about replacing her own changelings. Best counter against spy is other spy.
Also this Queen Pincer obviously never saw Rules of Evil Overlord, specifically one about not explaing your evil plan to anybody, ever, especially for bragging sake.
“...I don’t think we are thinking of the same Changeling. If Chrysalis is a pet then she is like a fussy cat who doesn’t listen to anyone.”
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Image of chrysalis sitting on a table, batting a mug off it?
this little queen about to find herself up a very smelly creek without a boat or paddle.
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that and the look of smug satisfaction of doing it while you look and can do nothing about it when it drops to the floor and breaks.
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Adorable
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Thank you!
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Grumpy Chrys
Once she sleeps, Page can give Pincer an endless nightmare of her hives destruction. Solar fire. Magical nuke blast. All her Changelings turning to dust. And other imagery that keeps her from a peaceful sleep.
But... I just realized that she'd likely think it was Luna's doing, thus Luna knows, which ruins her whole plan, meaning she did all this for nothing except putting her head on a chopping block.
And Blank choses to play the long game.
yep it is so hard to sneak up on your food when it is watching and laughing at you.
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First person narrator, remember?
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The part about Luna knowing would be true though, and that's the part that all the decisions would be based on so the truth wouldn't really matter.
Seeing that another changeling hive has been introduced into this version of Equestria. How would Page react to an changeling hive based on assassins and shadows called the Shadow Hive Kingdom?
Missed opportunity here.
no use of the dream magic to show luna what the queen looked like or the horror of Vietnam tunnel rat fighting.
i had to go back to CH1, and amber seemed in character, so theres that unsettling feeling of never knowing when she was taken. the train, the castle, super deep triple / quad agent, ect...
Huh.....short but okay
I now expect a scene where she gets punched in the face by Chrysalis, Flitter and/or Amber.
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yeah, I miss a lot of the human stuff. For me, dramatic comparisons to our world are always the best part of fics like these.
So the new hive is just plain stupid as fuck. How is this supposed to lead to anything other than open warfare?
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agreed didnt they know he can dream walk??
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It's much worse than that. Even if it can maybe be said that Page has been private enough that it's hard for outsiders to know what he's the alicorn of, there's the fact that he's Luna's fiancée. And even modest research into her should quickly reveal that she regularly dreamwalks.
Which means that any forethought at all would say she's going to potentially visit his dreams, whether for dream sex or to simply spend time with her beloved. So of course following said forethought would mean that without Luna being taken care of quick, any attempt to impersonate Page is potentially doomed to failure within days.
Queen Pincer hasn't been handed an idiot ball. She's lugging around an idiot boulder.
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unless shes got someone close too luna to take care of her...
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From a broader perspective, that's why I previously mentioned Luna being taken care of quick. So perhaps Pincer does have changelings in position to deal with Luna. We'll see, but of course in story it's pretty much too late for any chances against Luna, barring Hiver coming up with a serious twist.
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yea...
I say send Fluffy.
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Let us not forget that both Page and Luna can communicate with any sentient creature via dreams. The only way to put them out of action is to induce dreamless sleep.
I also suspect that any strange changing attempting to impersonate either is going to get used as a chew toy by the pup.
Even if this get resolved peaceful i hope this queen get at least some butt kicking in her face
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Butt kicking in the face... I cant help but imagine two butt checks stretching out and punching the queen in the face...
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Huh...Nice But seriously we need consequences...
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Consequences was a couple stories back.
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Huh... Nice one [^-~]
Wasn't there an indian food arc somewhere, or am I remembering from a different story?
Wait, that was the one with trixie and some dude named Mark, I remember now.
asleep
How many Hived are out there... I could see one for eatch race so there hunting/harvesting grounds dont overlap...
I wonder how many hives there are
Funny... The Jungle Hive attacks Canterlot, but Blank Page will claim their territory legally
Iconic...
Odd that Pheromone blockers work, I rather would guess that overlapping would be necessarily to be around them or infiltrate the Hive.
If I have something to say is that poison shold not have worked on page, on the count of his imortality if not something else like not being able to go unconcious without wanting it.
But if I am honest my greater complain would be how neglected pegasy and earth pony magic are, at least self boost should have been learned by Page.
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Not to mention he didn't see through the disguise of the one who gave him tea.
I could post "Welcome to the Jungle," but that's the name of a future story. Jungle Boogie!
Get down with the boogie.
Pheromone blocker would not mimicking the Hives pheromones, how that work? Pothole.
Because common sense kills the story plot line
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That changeling didn't come close enough. His guard intercepted the tea tray and brought it to him.
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