As the first egg hatched, it caused a chain-reaction among the others. Right now, I was sitting among 127 grubs, all in which were climbing, chirping, and staring at me.
I stared.
They stared back.
I stared.
They stared back.
'Welp, this was not what I expected' I concluded, as I continued to stare back.
Then, one of them that was resting on my back raised its little front legs, and squeaked.
*Mama!* echoed through my mind.
My eyes widened, and the other grubs perked up. Immediately, hundreds of little voices filled my head.
*Mama!*
*Da!*
*Lovey!*
*Ma!*
*...umgi*
I scrunched my snout at that one as well as the others. All of them turning and staring at one grub who was sitting in the middle. Its mid-section rumbled and it shrugged.
*Umgi!*
I facehoofed.
'Scout we are going to need at lot more food than planned'
'Why is tha- '
'The eggs hatched.'
'...I'm on it your majesty.'
With that, the connection was cut off and I looked back down at my new children.
They stared at me with wide red eyes, and gave me big toothy smiles and I sighed. Of course, the shear innocence destroyed my composure, and I began nuzzling every one of them.
'What am I going to do with all of you.' I thought to myself as a small smile worked its way onto my lips.
Scout shook his head once the hivemind connection cut out.
'Well, looks like this feeding won't be as easy as I expected' he thought grimly and a few dark specks caught the corner of his eye.
He turned and glanced at it, after identifying it his eyes widened.
It was a changeling raid party.
'Time to take my leave' he thought calmly as he turned to leave the village, and a burly zebra blocked his path.
"I don't believe you're going anywhere" the beefcaked equine said quietly as its eyes flashed purple.
Scout swallowed, 'Hivemother help me.'
I chuckled as I let a few little grubs play wrestle with my hoof, and suddenly a message echoed through the hivemind.
'Hivemother help me.' my eyes widened.
'Scout?!' I messaged.
No reply.
I rose up, Scout was in trouble, but as I looked at my grubs a dark thought came to mind.
'Just leave it, drones can be replaced.' it tried to tempt me and I immediately dismissed it.
'He's my drone and my responsibility. No fucking danger is going to take him from me' I thought with determination coursing through my veins, and I looked at my grubs.
'Children.' I announced and all my grubs looked up.
'I will have to go out and save a hivebrother, do not leave the nursery unless you are in imminent danger' I ordered and my small spawns nodded in acknowledgement and bared their little fangs and hissed at the thought of something hurting one of their brothers.
I eyed all of my grubs "Alright, which one of you was the first that hatched" I asked and one that was to the left raised one of it's forelegs.
I gave a stiff nod and focused on the grub, "You will supervise your younger siblings, any problems and you will notify me" I said calmly and the grub chirped happily.
I looked over the rest of the grubs for any objections (there were none), and carefully walked forward as my children parted to make a path.
'This actually would be pretty cool if the people I was giving a speech to weren't a couple hours old' I randomly thought to myself as I made it to the outside of the nursery.
'Well, never mind I've got a Scout to retrieve.' I thought as I leapt out of the cave, and followed Scout's mind link.
'I'm trapped!' Scout panicked as he was grouped with the rest of the tribeszebras that were surrounded by hissing purple eyed changelings.
As the rest of the raiding party combed through the village, the bigger raiders began to separate the foals from the parents.
"Mama!" The young filly Scout had seen earlier cried, as she was being forcefully pulled out of a zebra mare's arms.
"Zeki! Let go of her you heartless spirit beast!" The mare screamed at the raider, but it ignored her and finally yanked her from the mare's arms. Tears ran down the filly's cheeks as the raider took her off to where they were keeping the foals.
The other raiders noticed him watching and growled as they tore off his disguise, the zebras around him immediately backed away in shock, "Stupid feral." The lead one snarled as they promptly began walking forward.
As he turned to look back at the mare he saw her glaring at him, righteous anger burning in her eyes and Scout looked away, 'I never knew it would end like this' he thought dejectedly as the large changelings got closer.
'I hope have served well' he thought as he faced his imminent doom.
Suddenly, a explosion rocked the village.
The raiders turned-
"What the-"
I crashed into the dirt as I leapt out of the cave. 'Oh yeah, don't know how to fly' I reminded myself, and ran in the direction of Scout's link.
With each step I took I buzzed my wings, trying to get some momentum like an airplane. Eventually my hoof hit nothing and I saw I was flying!
Two feet off the ground.
'Eh, its better than running' I shrugged and I buzzed my wings faster and jerkily shot forward.
Eventually, I saw a village come into view and stopped my wings so I dropped/landed out of detecting range. I saw tons of purple backed changelings flying around, and to my envy they were a lot bigger than Scout.
'Why couldn't I have gotten one of these guys' I thought irritably and then reminded myself why I was here.
'Ok, it looks like there's about thirty of these guys' I examined as I tried to count their flying black bodies, I accidentally looked up at my horn.
'Hey, I almost forgot about you' I thought and tried focus on it.
A few pitiful sparks came from it, and I put together a plan.
'Alright. Maybe, I can use this to cause a small distract-
As I was trying to plan, my focus slipped off my sparking horn and huge magic missle shot from my horn and exploded right in the village.
'...'
"Ok, I guess stealth out of the equation" I said slightly dumbfounded and headed toward the highly dangerous (half on fire) village.
As I made my way around the burning buildings, I saw quite a few of the purple changelings flying above me. They seemed to be occupied with other things, so they didn't notice me as I continued forward. Before I made it to the center of the village, I heard crying. My ears perked up, 'Trouble?' I wondered as I directed off course toward the sound.
I slowly got closer and what I saw disgusted me. Foals. Over at least a few dozen foals were trapped in changeling goo cages (its called chaligite but I call it changeling goo) all in which they were being taunted/guarded by three Scout eating changelings.
I slowly lighted my horn.
'I got this'
Scout thanked every deity he could think of when the changelings that were advancing pulled back when the village caught fire.
Most of the changelings rushed off to help their comrades that had gotten caught in the explosion, but the leader stayed a little longer and glared at him.
"I will come for you later, feral" it spat and slowly walked off.
Scout swallowed at the threat and slowly looked at the remaining changelings for a weakness in their defenses.
Soon, the zebras around him soon got a little braver and one of them eventually stomped right up to him.
"You brought them upon us!" he accused and Scout ignored him.
'Idiot' he mused, but of course his silence was taken as agreement, and the rest of the zebras began to get threateningly close as they threw more accusations.
Before things could escalate any more, a small explosion rocked the village, startling the small mob. Smoke rised to the sky as the huts near them caught fire.
Strangely, Scout felt a familiar presence and slowly turned his head.
Out of the fire and smoke waltzed the insane queen.
"Hello boys"