//------------------------------// // The waking Link // Story: A Queen's Perspective - Friendship Games // by gerandakis //------------------------------// At her rather ominous statement, Queen Twilight made to sit up. The others, who had been arrayed around her also got up to allow her more room to move. "I guess it's time I explained why I came here in this form. Like I mentioned when I first came over, you seven seem to have formed something akin to a limited hivemind. I hope to understand this connection in more detail, and for that it helps to have my full repertoire of magical and psychic abilities at my disposal." Sunset seemed intrigued. "So you want to learn more about this connection we have formed? I guess that makes sense. Go ahead." She moved to stand before the Queen who now fully got up, standing before her in a regal stance that reminded her quite a lot of Princess Celestia. Queen Twilight lit up her long, curved horn and gently laid its tip on Sunset's forehead. Reaching out with her senses, both magical and psychic, she scanned through her friend's mind looking for the link with her other friends. It didn't take her long to find it. The others watched the two in silence, illuminated by the magenta light from the queen's horn. Suddenly they saw Sunset wince. At the same time Queen Twilight gained a look of surprise, but it only lasted for a short moment, then she let her horn go out, lifted it from Sunset's forehead and closed her eyes. Almost immediately Sunset relaxed. After catching her breath Sunset looked at the changeling before her. "What was that?" The queen, her surprise fading, gave her a gentle smile. "That, Sunset, was the Link." "Pardon?" "The Link. The Hivemind. The connection I share with my kids. It just took me a moment to realize what had happened and throttle your connection. The only one who can now use it to speak to you, is me." "You brought me into your Link?" In that moment the queen felt the full effect of Sunset's skeptically raised eyebrow. It was nearly as potent as Fluttershy's stare. "Not technically. I only opened it so I could scan the link you already had with them. Your mind just latched onto it, like that of a hiveless changeling would." "Okay, assuming that's true, why couldn't I understand anything?" "Well, because the hivemind speaks Vespid. I can teach it to you if you want." "Teach me an entire new language?" "Yeah, it'll take half a minute, tops." "How would you do that?" "Through the link ... ?" "Oh. Right." The others kept watching this exchange like the spectators in a tennis match. After a moment they both closed their eyes and sat there for several seconds. When they reopened them they both started speaking to each other in an exotic sounding language none of the others had ever heard. "Huh. We just sang a magical song, enabling us to see the magic of friendship. How are we not the weird ones here?" Aria pointed out dryly to her sisters. Ignoring them, Queen Twilight once more focused on Sunset. Now that they were linked it was much easier to scan the link she shared with the others. What she found was interesting and worrying at the same time. "Allright, this may be a bit of a problem." The others looked worried. Though none of them really wanted to ask, Rarity finally spoke up. "What's the matter, darling? Is something wrong?" "Well you see: for a changeling, drones especially so, but queens as well, it's very uncomfortable to spend any significant time outside the hivemind. Whatever exactly happened yesterday seems to have altered your minds to be more changeling-like. Now none of you have ever been part of a hivemind so you probably don't realize you're missing something, but after a few weeks tops it would probably become very unpleasant regardless." "Oh my, is there nothing you can do?" A wide-eyed Fluttershy asked worriedly. The others seemed to share the sentiment. With a glance to the queen, Sunset spoke up. "There is, but it would involve doing the same thing to you she just did to me, bringing you into her link. That would probably also widen the links between us into more of a network." The others looked at each other for a few moments, they could feel the apprehension shared between them, but they also knew that there really was little choice. Eventually Applejack was the one to stand up and walk over to the Queen. "Well, ain’t really much of a choice, is there? Go ahead." The queen gave her a proud smile. "As you wish." One by one the girls stepped up to her and Twilight did what she had done with Sunset. Knowing what to expect she was ready to throttle the connections immediately so that their only connection to her Link was to the Queen herself, not to the link at large. Beyond that she observed them connecting to one another. Each time she added one of them, this widened the links with each of them she had linked before. Finally, after adding her own counterpart to the link, she gifted all six of them the knowledge of Vespid and began speaking to them over the link. Sunset was the first to answer. This time it was Twilight who answered. The Queen smiled. The others seemed confused but did as she said. After a moment the world around them disappeared and they found themselves on a platform atop a tall brass tower with a floating orange crystal in its center. Rainbow was the first to recover from the sudden shift. "Uhh, where are we?" Queen Twilight smiled mysteriously. "I suppose that would depend on how philosophical you want to get." Rainbow gave her a flat look. "What?" "Wait, you told me about this place." Sunset piped in, looking out on the steaming and smoking city below and the faint orange dome above. "This is the central shield tower of Stripped Gear. But ... How are we here?" The Queen smiled once more. "We're not. This is an artificial environment simulated within the hivemind. We call it a linkscape. Technically we're still in the barn. And the Dazzlings are rather confused." And indeed they were it was only due to the Queen using her substantial capacity for multitasking to explain the situation to them, that they weren't trying to wake the others, instead choosing to keep themselves busy thinking about how to write lyrics that better fit their new style of music and occasionally chatting with Twilight. Within the linkscape the seven girls were exploring the tower and gazing at the city below. "My dear, this city is most impressive." Rarity was enamoured by the technopolis below. "But say, darling, this is a changeling hive?" "Yes." "Ruled by a Queen?" "Yes ..." "So ...  shouldn't there be a palace somewhere?" Finally Queen Twilight understood and smiled. "There is. It's just a bit hard to see from here. The tower was built atop it. Here, I'll show you." Once more the scene shifted and the girls found themselves in a large hall, one side of which was left without a wall. The floor and walls, made from black stone, were decorated with various patterns of stylized blueprints and designs. None of them actually meant anything, but the girls were too busy gazing around the hall to realize that. Twilight turned to her counterpart. "Is this what you meant by 'a way to meet your children'?" "It is. Just hold on a second." She took a moment to ping Aegis, meanwhile still keeping up conversation with her friends in the linkscape and the Dazzlings outside of it. Aegis only took a few seconds to answer her. The queen couldn't help but smile, both in the linkscape and in her real body. The eldest among my children have always been the most casual around me. Aegis was confused. It only took Aegis a few seconds to reach the mess hall of the Phoenix and find a seat overlooking the panorama of Canterlot visible through the window. Once she was safely seated, she gave her mother a quick ping and found herself in the meeting hall of Stripped Gear a second later. What she saw, if anything, only managed to confuse her further. "Wha- Hu- How?!" "Let's just say magic beyond the mirror is really weird." Aegis spun around to see her mother standing beside her. Once more her confusion only increased as she looked from the Queen standing beside her to the human standing before her, taking in the uncanny resemblance between them. "I did mention that many ponies I knew from Ponyville had counterparts over in that world, didn't I? Yeah, she seems to be mine." "Huh, strange, I would have thought I'd notice seven adults entering into the link." "Well, that's easy to explain. They're not part of the link, I've only connected them to myself and among each other." At that point the other six noticed the conversation going on, they were initially taken aback by the drone standing beside her queen, but soon Sunset noticed her very familiar hairstyle. "Hold on. Aegis?" At the drone's nod, all six of them went to tackle hug her. Being in a linkscape, their will to reach Aegis alone was enough to catapult them towards her at speeds that wouldn't be normally possible and stop next to her so suddenly that, had they been in the real world, the whiplash would likely have killed them. In the linkscape, all it caused was short-lived confusion. They soon chose to ignore the quirks of the metaphysical realm in favor of chatting with their old friend. Both Twilights meanwhile had a deep conversation about its implications which the Queen used as a convenient jump off point for the reason she had brought them into the linkscape in the first place. As the conversation around Aegis wound down, she cleared her throat, more to get their attention than out of any physical need to do so. "Let me explain why I brought you here. I would like to test to what degree you can manipulate the mindscape." "May I ask why, darling." "To better judge your position in the link. Drones only have very limited control in a linkscape while queens can do pretty much whatever they want." Rainbow seemed intrigued. "So you want to see what we can do here, hmm?" The Queen nodded. "Okay, how do we do that?" "Well first let's establish whether you have the level of drones, try to create something, from memory or imagination, and manifest it in the linkscape." Without training, the seven took a few tries but soon they all managed to summon an object into the linkscape. An apple for Applejack, a plain but stylish pearl necklace for Rarity, a book for Twilight, a plushie of her pet Angel for Fluttershy, a football for Rainbow, a handheld gaming console for Sunset and a weird, logic defying amalgamation of a balloon and a cupcake that was apparently somehow edible for Pinkie. Somehow no one questioned Pinkie’s ability to create such a thing outside the linkscape. "Allright, so you can reach the level of the common drone, now some drones, with a bit of practice can change how they appear in the linkscape. Allow me to demonstrate."  A moment later a human, looking almost exactly like Twilight, stood in her place, only her hair was untied and fell behind her unhindered. This time it only took the others a few seconds, Twilight mimicked her counterpart by turning into a version of her natural form only keeping her hair tied up. Both of them looked at each other and the Queen simply swapped their positions, then they both turned towards Aegis and giggled at her confused expression. The other six quickly assumed their ponied-up shapes with Sunset assuming the form she had taken in her battle against Twilight. Even in this metaphysical realm the power she radiated was almost tangible. "Okay, well, definitely above drone level. Even drones with a talent for these things take at least a little practice to do that. Now this last part will be the most interesting, but first try leaving this mindscape." Again it took a moment, but soon the seven disappeared one by one. Aegis waved her mother goodbye and vanished as well. Finally, Queen Twilight left the linkscape, the simulated reality quickly collapsing behind her.