//------------------------------// // Chapter 06 - Work Hazards // Story: The Nameless Queen (Legacy) // by AniMun //------------------------------// After pondering for a few moments, you relayed your new commands throughout the hivemind. Alright, you may begin working on the Healing Oasis. Thank you, my Queen! It’ll help us a lot, you’ll see! the workers thanked you with glee, hurrying to work. As for the rest of you, you may return to the hive with me at the end of your shifts to rest. Understood, my Queen, the rest of the drones confirmed their new orders. Now the only thing left to do was to decide what job to take. I guess that working with Miss Twilight might prove very advantageous, she appears to have a highly esteemed reputation with the Ponyville residents. Befriending her might be worh it, you concluded. Well, I can always switch jobs in the future, if necessary. With your path set, it was time for you to return to your hive to fetch some of those old arcane tomes. If you were going to work with Twilight Sparkle, you had to make sure that your knowledge of arcane sciences was as keen as possible. Plus, judging by her reaction at the prospects of acquiring such ancient relics, she would appreciate the gesture. Your journey back home was quick and uneventful, you easily found a couple of books about some interesting subjects and loaded then in your saddlebags. But the same couldn’t be said about your journey back… It appeared that the Timberwolf season was still in full effect. Dozens of menacing eyes followed you as you walked down the path to Zecora’s hut through the Everfree Forest, choosing to remain disguised to avoid being spotted by her. Most of the vicious creatures only glared at you from the distance, but some dared to face you closer, growling and baring their wooden teeth. None got too close though as Zecora’s gift warded them off from doing so. By the time you reached the hut, the Timberwolves had vanished back into the woods. You knocked on the door, keeping an eye out for any overly pesky Timberwolf that might still be lurking around. Zecora opened the door a few minutes later. She was wearing a pocketed beige apron and carried a big wooden spoon in her mouth. Judging by the smell coming from inside, she was cooking some delicious soup. She placed the spoon in the apron’s pocket, allowing her to speak freely. “Ah, Ms. Enigma. Please come in, the soup is almost ready, I might be able to serve you something,” she offered, but you refused her invitation, raising a hoof in apology. “Sorry, Miss Zecora, but I won’t be staying. I just wanted to ask if we could postpone our classes until a later date. If you don’t mind, it would be great.” You paused for a second, noticing your unintentional rhyming at the end of your sentence. “Hehe, sorry,” you apologized sheepishly, causing Zecora to chuckle. “It’s alright. Well, whenever the lores of alchemy you wish to explore, all you have to do is knock on my door,” she offered, waving you goodbye as you waved back and went off. When you arrived in Ponyville, you decided to pay a quick visit to the hospital to apologize to Nurse Redheart and the sick children. You easily found the nurse in the hospital’s reception. She was bringing a box of tissues to a sneezing earth pony stallion who was waiting for his appointment with his doctor. “Miss Redheart?” you called, clearing your throat to catch her attention. Her face lighting up upon seeing you, she trotted towards you with a big smile and greeted you. “Hello again, Ms. Enigma. The children will be so happy that you’re here!” “Oh, um, sorry, Miss Redheart, but unfortunately I won’t be staying long, but I promise I’ll come back to play with them when I have the time, okay?” you explained the nurse, a bit sad yourself. “Oh…” Miss Redheart visibly deflated, her hopes for some entertainment for the sick children washed away by the news. An idea came to your mind, a way for you to make up for leaving them hanging. “Uhm, may I talk to them for a bit?” you asked the nurse. “Sure, you know how to get there, right? I need to take care of some patients here.” Redheart gestured to the small crowd of sick ponies waiting in the reception room. “Yes, I can get to them by myself. Sorry for interrupting.” “Don’t worry about it. Have a good day, Ms. Enigma.” She said her goodbye before returning to her patients. You easily navigated through the corridors of the hospital toward your destination, finding your way in a labyrinth of twists and turns being almost second nature to a changeling. You entered the bathroom just a few meters away from the children’s room, checking to see if anypony was there. Once you were sure you were alone, you locked the door. Closing your eyes in front of the mirror, you concentrated your magic in your horn. Gathering enough energy, you created about a dozen blobs of changeling slime, one for each child. “Okay, now for the hard part…” Concentrating again, your magic began to envelop each and every blob of slime, slowly molding it into a rough teddy bear shape. Once you were satisfied with their form, you enveloped them with an iridescent fire. The fire burned the slime, leaving behind the soft plush as the slime turned into the stuffed animal. The process was a bit tiring, it was one thing to shapeshift yourself, it's changeling biology, but shapeshifting something else was another story. It required a lot of concentration and skills to nail it. Wiping a bit of sweat off your forehead, you let out a sigh of relief. You inspected your work with pride, a whole rainbow of fluffy and cuddly teddy bears sat in front of you. Satisfied with the results, you grabbed them all with your magic and went to the children’s room. “Hello everypony, I have a gift for you!” you said in a sing-song voice. All the children immediately got out of their beds and wobbled towards you, eager to receive their presents. “Now now, back to bed everypony, or Miss Redheart will kill me!” You joked, helping the foals climb back onto their beds and giving them their plushies. Once everypony was back in their beds, you waved your goodbye and said, “Bye kids, I’ll be back to play with you sometime!” “Bye, Ms. Enigma!” they shouted back, the appreciation for their new toys enough to compensate the energy you spent to create them. Once everything was taken care of, you proceeded to Golden Oak Library, where your future co-worker awaited you. “Oh, hello, Ms. Enigma!” Twilight called from her balcony when she noticed you approaching. She ran inside and opened the door, levitating the heavy saddlebags off your back. “I’m glad you decided to return!” “I’m glad as well, I think we will have a lot of fun researching magic together,” you replied, smiling at her enthusiasm. “Sure we will! Working with someone with your experience will be great!” she said, laying your saddlebags on the table. You reached for them and fetched your books, presenting them to Twilight. “I brought some pretty interesting tomes that I thought you might like to examine,” you said, levitating a red and silver tome and a blue and black one. “This one is about ‘Metaphysics and how to mess with it’ and this one is about ‘Advanced levitation and other applications to telekinesis’.” “Oh, I think I’ve heard about these before, they were written by that famous, pre-Equestrian sorcerer, Time Shift, right?” “That is correct…” you started to say but were interrupted by Twilight, who began to prance in place excitedly. “Oh, yes yes yes! I’ve had my eyes on these books for such a long time, do you know how hard it is to find a modern copy of them without mistranslations from the old ponish?!” “W-want to start with these, then?” you asked, almost defensively, preparing yourself in case she tried to pounce on you. And she technically did. “YES!” Twilight cried, jumping and grabbing the books from your magic. After Twilight managed to calm down, it didn’t take long for both of you to dive deep into the pages of those ancient books. Translating them was easy with the help of one of Twilight’s trusty dialect dictionaries You now sat in an emptied living room, all objects had been moved to the sides to clear space. Each of you held a small scroll that contained a new spell you spent most of the afternoon developing. “You think it’s going to work?” you asked Twilight, a bit of worry in your voice. “I hope so,” she confessed, not more confident than you. “Ready?” “Ready.” “Three…” “Two…” “One…” You both lit up your horns and cast the spell. Suddenly, you felt you hooves being swept from beneath you. Losing your balance, you braced yourself for impact, but instead of falling, you completely turned upside down in the air as you began to “fall” towards the ceiling. You landed in the ceiling with a soft “oof”. The spell worked, you actually reverted how gravity affects you! “Haha, this is amazing!” Twilight cheered from the other side of the room. You began pacing around, testing to see if the spell would hold. Each step felt just like walking on the ground, there was no difference in the gravitational pull at all! “Huh, I really doubted this was going to work,” you said. “I know right...” Twilight started saying but was interrupted as Spike entered the room, carrying a tray with tea and cookies. “Hey, Twi, Ms. Enigma, I brought you some…” He derailed, finding the room empty. “Uhm, Twilight? “We’re over here, Spike!” Twilight called, waving her hooves. The drake’s eyes went wide in surprise. “Woah, how did you get up there?” “We managed to develop a personal gravity reverter spell,” you explained to him. “I see. That’s cool and all but… how will you two get down?" "..." "..." The sun was beginning to set when you finally managed to get down. It turned out that because all the excitement of developing that complicated spell, both of you forgot to write a counter-spell. You sat with Derpy at a table in Sugarcube Corner, three empty glasses of chocolate milkshake sat in front of you as you were already halfway down the fourth one. “Sweet Mother, I’ve never drunk milkshake before, why I craved it so badly?!”  you asked Derpy in annoyance. After you left Twilight’s home, you began to feel a strong and weird crave for the cold drink, even though you didn’t even know the name of it at that point. “He hehe, I wonder why…” Derpy replied quietly, nervously munching on her muffin, like if she was guilty of something… “So you spent the whole afternoon stuck on the ceiling?” she asked you, changing the subject. “Yeah, and let me tell you, that really sucked. We had to spend hours holding those heavy books with our magic because the darn spell only affected ourselves… I’m spent.” You whined, letting out a heavy sigh of defeat. You laid your head on the table and chugged on the spiraling straw with gusto like it was your lifeline. Behind the counter, Mrs. and Mr. Cake were decorating the shop, hanging little orange and black paper banners, pumpkins and bats everywhere. “What’s that?” you asked Derpy. “Oh, the decorations? It’s for Nightmare Night!” “Nightmare Night?” “Yeah, it’s a celebration where everypony walks around with cute or creepy costumes asking for candy! It’s one of the most popular celebrations ponies have, the town gets so crowded that even a changeling could walk around undisguised without raising alarm!” Derpy explained, eating another muffin. “Is that so?” you wondered. ‘This could be a fun break for my drones to enjoy, they do deserve it after working so hard lately.’ Suddenly, a crazy idea came to your mind, an idea so crazy that it might even work. ‘Maybe they could even go undisguised… It would be a good way to ease our real forms into the ponies if we were ever to attempt peaceful negotiations in the future, or maybe if we were to be discovered…’ Your thoughts were interrupted by Derpy as she gestured towards your neck and asked, “Huh… did you leave your trinket at the hive?” “Trinket…” You patted your neck and chest, but Zecora’s gift was nowhere to be found. “Oh, no! I may have dropped it when I turned the reverse gravity spell off!” You got up from your seat and was about to go search for your necklace when you felt an agonizing dread take over your body. Time slowed down and every fiber of your muscles locked down as a sickening cry echoed through the hivemind; ‘HELP!’ Your head snapped toward your hive, ears pointing forward in attention. You could feel the distress spreading through the hivemind, alerting all the other drones. Your workers were in danger! Your instincts kicked in in full force. You wanted to drop your disguise, to fly away as fast as possible to their aid, and you were about to do so but Derpy dashed in front of you, snapping you out of your desperation. You can’t do it here, there are pegasi managing the weather today, you would be spotted! she told you through the hivemind, pointing a hoof up towards the clouds. Sure enough, there was a team of pegasi taking control of some rogue clouds that wandered away from the Everfree Forest. You didn’t even take the time to reply, you took off in a mad gallop. Your lungs burned as you ran through the grass fields of the forest, you’ve been running at top speed for minutes, deciding to keep the disguise to avoid being spotted by any pegasus that wandered too deep into the forest while cleaning the skies. Derpy was flying just a few meters ahead of you, her locust heritage bestowing her far greater stamina than a normal changeling. Your mind was on autopilot, cursing yourself for taking so long to reach your drones. You could feel their worry and desperation like they were your own, and that horrible feeling kept growing stronger and stronger as you almost reached your hive. You tried to talk to them, to calm them and to learn what happened. Apparently, in their tired state, they had an accident while finishing the tunnel to the Healing Spring. Now they were trapped and the water was rising fast. You kicked yourself mentally for allowing your drones to work for such a long period of time. How could I let that happen?! Suddenly, a loud and spine-chilling howl completely froze all other thoughts passing through your mind. Your heart skipped a beat upon realizing that a pack of what appeared to be almost twenty Timberwolves was in hot pursuit. When did their numbers get so high?! you thought, panicking. You’ve only seen a few Timberwolves here and there over the past few days. You didn’t know their numbers could grow so fast! If only you’ve sent your warriors to scout the surrounding areas when you had the chance, maybe this threat could have been avoided… Your first instinct was to fly as far away as possible, but then, a hard realization hit you like a carriage; You were leading them directly to your hive. Derpy, go to the hive, the workers are trapped in a tunnel on the lower level of the ruins, see if you can help them! you instructed, turning around and going into a defensive stance. What are you going to do?! she asked, landing on the grass with a short skid due to the sudden stop. I need to prevent the Timberwolves from reaching the hive! You crazy?! They’re gonna shred you to pieces! There’s no point in rescuing the workers if the Timberwolves get in! The rest of the hive will be here soon, I can take them. Now go! you ordered her one last time. You could feel her disagreement, but she obeyed you nonetheless. Now it was only you and the Timberwolves. You dropped your disguise and lit up your horn. You were not about to give them any space. You began firing your magic bolts to the nearest wolves, hitting two of them in the head, causing them to dismantle. The whole pack ran toward you, they were not going to give you space either. Two wolves got to you first, they tried to bite your front legs, but you managed to avoid them by casting your kinetic skates spell and dodged to the side. Taking advantage of the speed, you circled around the two wolves and shot them down. Four down, fourteen more to go. Another Timberwolf got behind you and pulled you by the tail, making you lose your balance and fall. Three Timberwolves were about to bite you while you were down, but you quickly shapeshifted into a squirrel and climbed one of them. You jumped from wolf to wolf as the others tried to catch you, stumbling on top of each other in a messy pile of scattered wood. You reverted to your original form, appreciating the chaos you caused. A new Timberwolf jumped on your back, its sharp wooden stakes of teeth cracking you carapace and sinking into your back. Another wolf took the opportunity and bit your hind leg, pulling it and dropping you to the ground. You instinctively rolled into a ball, protecting your neck and sensitive underbelly. You tried to create some space with a small kinetic blast, but the wolves’ attacks were relentless. As soon as the first layer of timberwolves was blast off of you, more piled up on top of you, biting and scratching everything they could. Your hardened carapace and fetal position made it hard for the wolves to get a good angle to bite. You felt a sharp jab at your back as one lucky scratch ripped your wings off. Pain clouded your mind, your vision beginning to blur. The only feeling besides the constant burn from all the scratching and biting was your fear, but not your fear of being eaten alive, it was your fear of what these wolves would do to your drones. Suddenly, you felt a strange spark of energy running through your spine. It was a similar feeling from what you felt yesterday, but this time it went up, from your belly and into your head. This new-found energy helped you clear your mind as you cast a new, and stronger, kinetic blast. The Timberwolves retreated a few meters, their numbers reduced to only half a dozen. More than enough to finish you off. You steadied your hooves and got up, only to tremble and fall to your knees a few seconds later. There was no more strength within you, you have lost the fight. The Timberwolves inched closer and closer, savoring the taste of your glowing blood on their maws. The biggest wolf, the alpha, was about to pounce you, but out of nowhere, five iridescent flashes of energy hit the Timberwolves as your warriors used their bodies as a living artillery, launching themselves into the vicious beasts. The sixth timberwolf barely had time to react as your gatherers swarmed it, beating it into a pile of splinters. After the threats were gone, your drones rushed to your aid, their overwhelming worry completely taking over the hivemind. My Queen, are you alright?! Help me... reach the hive… you said, weakly. Your drones quickly helped you up and supported you as you stumbled your way to help your workers. You finally reached the steps to the Castle of the Two Sisters when a thunderous howl made the ground shake, almost throwing you off balance. You watched in shock as a giant Timberwolf emerged from the trees, his green eyes glaring daggers right at you. Quicker than your abused body could react, your warriors took off to assault the invader. They swarmed the great wolf’s face, flying around his attacks and firing magic bolts at it. Every time a piece of wood was hit by your warriors, it would fly back to its place a few seconds later. “S-should we help the warriors, my Queen?” your gatherers asked, not knowing what to do. You couldn’t help but stare at it in horror, how would you be able to defeat it? You tried to find any opening, any weakness, but the Timberwolf was completely armored by its magical wood, which pulsated with green magic every time it re-grew a new piece. Wait… An idea surfaced in your mind. Warriors, focus your attacks at the creature’s chest, you commanded your drones. Yes, my Queen! They confirmed your orders, swiftly looping around another of the creature’s attacks and firing all their magic bolts at the same spot at its chest. True to your suspicions, the hole formed by the attack revealed a giant seed, pulsating with magic like a heartbeat, feeding the creature. Don’t let it regrow, keep that hole open! you instructed your warriors. “You, get inside and help your siblings quickly, and you, I need you to feed me your magic,” you instructed your gatherers as well. The first unit reluctantly obeyed your orders and went inside while the others began to siphon their love to you, empowering you. You channeled their magic to your horn, enveloping you with a powerful force field of iridescent flames. Charging all the energy you received into one single attack, you combined your reverse gravity spell with the living artillery and launched yourself like a bullet. You ordered your warriors to clear the area. Faster than the Timberwolf could regenerate, you pierced its wooden armor, tearing its heart through its back. The wolf exploded into thousands and thousands of splinters as you fell limply behind it, with no wings to break the fall. But before you hit the dangerous wooden pikes that formed after the Timberwolf’s explosion, Derpy, now undisguised, dashed to your rescue and broke your fall. “Thank you… Derpy…” A couple of minutes have passed. Your mind slowly came back into consciousness as you woke in the newly built Healing Oasis. Upon realizing where you were, you quickly shot up in distress, trying to find your drones. Relax, Your Highness, your workers are fine. A bit shaken, but fine, Derpy assured you with a smile. This news brought you a deep relief that you’ve never felt before. You slumped back into the welcoming healing waters as your body demanded you to rest. “Thank the mother…” “No, thank you,” Derpy corrected. “You’re a very brave queen, you know? If you haven’t stopped to fight the Timberwolves, they might have gotten to your drones as they returned to the hive. You granted them safe passage to help your workers.” “I’m just glad they’re all okay,” you replied, inspecting your back for the missing wings. “Don’t worry, they’ll grow back, thanks to this Healing Oasis. But a barrack would do a better job, I suggest you should consider having one in your hive sooner than later,” she said, shapeshifting into her usual disguise. “Well, I gotta go now, I’ll be late to pick up Dinky from school if I don’t hurry up. Goodbye, my Queen.” “Goodbye… and thank you.”