The shouting match had briefly drowned out the sounds of Nightmare Moon attacking the city.
To say Applejack wasn’t pleased to be surrounded by changelings on all sides would have been a massive understatement. Sure, as nominal “queen” of the Everfree Hive, she’d grown more accustomed to it, but that didn’t mean that she was comfortable with it, especially since these particular changelings were serving Queen Chrysalis, the single greatest threat she had yet faced...and the changeling that killed her mother.
The apple farmer was pleasantly surprised to find Rainbow Dash backing her up, getting just as angry with Chrysalis as Applejack clearly was. It eventually took Twilight Sparkle and Rarity acting as referees to get them to calm down enough to “act like ladies,” as Rarity put it. A.J. knew intellectually that this version of Chrysalis wasn’t the one that killed her mother, but accepting that emotionally was a whole ‘nother apple orchard.
Even just looking at Chrysalis caused the old ache in her heart to throb a bit.
Once the initial hurled suspicions and outright accusations had been dealt with, Twilight unilaterally declared a ceasefire until full explanations could be had and heads could be cooled. Chrysalis took the opportunity to lead them out of the small reception room they woke up in and into the halls of her palace.
“It started a few days ago,” Chrysalis was explaining to the changeling version of Twilight Sparkle, who contrary to Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s) reaction was behaving at least neutral, if not straight up friendly, toward the queen. “I had initiated the instructions to the hive to raise the sun when we began getting massive feedback. We had to shut down the solar cycle in order to prevent a catastrophic cascade throughout the system, and that’s when one of my changelings noticed the moon had changed. Within minutes of that, we plotted a vector from the Everfree Forest heading straight for The Heart of the Hive.”
“‘The Heart of the Hive?’” inquired Rarity, who also seemed to have no problem being in Chrysalis’ presence.
“The city we’re in. We renamed it a decade after we conquered Equestria.”
While all the Elements seemed uncomfortable with this last revelation, only Twilight seemed willing to ask the follow-up, “What was the city’s original name?”
“Canterlot, if I recall correctly,” replied Chrysalis
At this, Twilight stumbled. “H-how long ago?!”
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow, “Hmmm? Oh, that was...well, time flies…” she paused her walking and tapped her chin with a hoof as she pondered. “I believe that was nearly 950 years ago? I’d have to check the calendar and history logs to be sure.”
So saying, she continued walking, which turned out to be a short distance before she tapped a wall, causing the living substance of the wall to iris open. “So, yes, welcome to The Heart of the HIve.” Without further comment, Chrysalis led the six queens out onto a balcony
Rainbow Dash took to the air, hovering as she tended to do in, apparently, every reality. The other Element bearers lined up along the railing, looking out over the city with varying degrees of shock
Twilight, who’d spent the most time in Canterlot as she had grown up in her version of it, felt her heart break as she saw buildings and landmarks that she almost recognized, but realized that what she was seeing was very probably not what her childhood recollections told her it should be
Rainbow Dash recognized a facility that was probably the changeling version of a local weather station; Rarity was watching the changelings mill about the streets, noting that a few were wearing clothing, some of the fashions looking disturbingly familiar while being just alien enough that she couldn’t place the designer. Pinkie Pie’s mane was nearly flat-iron straight as she gazed out over what should have been a bustling pony metropolis, Fluttershy was hiding behind Rarity, as she tended to do even in her home universe. Rarity’s lack of reaction seemed to indicate that she was accustomed to this behavior from her own Fluttershy as well
Applejack looked past the city spread out before her and over into the valley to the west. To her great upset, there was no sign of Ponyville, or even any indication of a changeling hive in or near the Everfree. She could sense, somewhat distantly, a bit of the mental tug that she was learning to recognize as the presence of changelings off in that stretch of land, but it was just as alien as the version of Chrysalis that was standing near them. “What’d’ya do for farms?” she asked
“Farms? Why would we have farms?” Chrysalis replied with a question of her own
Twilight turned from her study of the city, “Well, how do you feed everypony?”
Chrysalis snorted, “Everypony? We feed them...hmmm, I’m beginning to believe that you may not be familiar enough with how this particular hive works. Do any of your hives operate as their own nation-state?” she asked the group
Pinkie snorted in amusement, “Only if you count Chryssi’s hive a nation, it’s more like a large family home.”
Fluttershy shook her head in the negative and shrank further behind Rarity
For her part, Rarity primped her hair in an unconscious fidget as she replied, “I don’t think my extended family members could even cooperate enough to build even a single city.”
Rainbow Dash spoke next, “Pfft, why form our own nation? Between me and Luna taking over from that looser Chrysalis...er, no offense,” she casually tossed off the backhanded apology at their host, who simply rolled her eyes, “Anyway, between the two of us and Celestia passing laws that make any changeling who wants to be a full citizen, we don’t need our own nation. Too much paperwork anyway.”
Applejack snorted angrily, “Well, y’all have it better’n we do. Between the anti-changeling extremists in Equestria and the other queens who’re sending out feelers to my hive, we’re too busy runnin’ ‘round like a chicken with too many eggs to hatch to build any nation.”
Twilight, while somewhat subdued from what her friends were used to, spoke next. “Mother...that’s my universe's version of you,” she nodded her horn at Chrysalis, “Is really the only...well, thinking changeling in our hive beside me. Our drones actually consider it to be shameful to show any independent thought. Our hive is pretty small as a result; can’t have a sprawling metropolis if only one person is in charge of its upkeep and growth.”
Chrysalis’ raised eyebrow was her only reaction to her alternate’s relationship to the six imported queens. “Well,” she began, “We don’t need to ‘feed’ the ponies anything other than the nutrient bath we keep them in. And since changelings feed on love, we simply ensure that every member of the hive has access to the love nectar stores. No need for farms, unless you consider gathering moss for the nutrient baths to be ‘farming.’”
All six of the trans-universal changelings blanched at the casual mention of feeding ponies little more than moss. “Wait,” started Twilight, “What do you mean by, ‘nutrient bath’?”
Chrysalis cocked her head to the side slightly, as though she couldn’t quite understand the question being asked. “The...nutrient bath. In the cocoon pods.”
It was clear that Chrysalis was not expecting Twilight’s response. Nor was anyone else. “YOU’RE FORCING PONIES INTO CONVERSION PODS?!”
The larger queen had taken a step back instinctively, “...a what-pod?”
Applejack draped a foreleg over Twilight’s shoulder, “Settle down, now. I think this may be one of those failures to communicate.” She offered the changeling version of her friend a sympathetic smile
Twilight took a steadying breath, using the hoof motions that Cadence had recently taught her, and turned back to the queen that had brought them here. “The pods we put ponies into on my world are for converting ponies into changelings. If there’s one point of contention between me and Mother that is larger than any other, it’s her use of those pods to alter a pony’s fundamental nature.”
Chrysalis’ face twisted into a disgusted grimace, “Goodness, no! Why would I ever ‘convert’ a pony into a changeling? I’ve laid enough changeling eggs, we don’t need anymore that I don’t create through...ah, the ‘normal’ process.” she grinned with a hint of suggestion in her voice
Everyone turned to the source of an unexpected giggling to find Rarity and Pinkie sniggering behind their hooves. “Oh, what?” said Rarity in response to the disbelieving looks, “Like you don’t know exactly what she’s talking about.”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes at Twilight’s blush and Rainbow’s confused look and continued. “At any rate, once we pinpointed the massively powerful magic heading straight for us, that’s when we found out that it was…” a massive thrumming noise shook the city and a bleached-white glow of a magical explosion light the rim of the city, “...ah, her. Nightmare Moon.”
Clouds were summoned above and swirled together, the lightning generated by the storm arcing down to accompany a series of smaller booms. “What is she doing?” asked Twilight
Chrysalis frowned at the display of magic, “Near as we can tell, trying to break into the Solar Vault.”
This got some confused looks traded between the six guest changelings, Rarity was the one who spoke up next, “What’s in the Solar Vault?”
“Celestia,” replied Chrysalis, apparently casually. Applejack could see the tensing of muscles and the signs that she was watching her guests for their reaction. The adopted apple farmer guessed that she was the only one paying close enough attention to notice
“WHAT?!” gasped Twilight in shock, “Princess Celestia is still alive? You have got to be holding her captive, that’s the only way I can imagine she would even begin to allow you to have taken over Equestria like this!” she swept her hoof across the panorama of the city below them
Chrysalis snorted derisively, “Of course she’s captive. As though I’d allow someone who’s so obviously more powerful than me to run around my domain unchecked.”
Applejack noted the blunt humility in the statement. She also saw Twilight start to bristle. “Not now, sugarcube, we’re kinda outnumbered here with no way home. I’d rather not whack the hornet’s nest while I’m still in the middle of it.”
Twilight took another cleansing breath with her eyes closed. By the time she finished her exhale she was glaring at the host queen, “So, why is Nightmare Moon trying to break into the vault.”
If Chrysalis had any thoughts on Applejack’s intervention with Twilight, she chose to keep them to herself; “From her rather...insane ramblings, I’d guess she believes that Celestia is hiding from her in the vault.” Another ‘thoom’ rocked the city
“How much longer is this gonna go on? I mean, she’s gotta get bored at some point.” observed Rainbow Dash
“I don’t know about bored, but she does get tired. She keeps this up for a couple of hours at a time and then...ah, there she goes.” They then saw the astral form of Nightmare Moon zipping off at incredible speeds toward the Everfree forest and, presumably, The Castle of the Two Sisters
A relative quiet settled over the city for a few minutes, followed by some changelings emerging from the various homes and buildings they’d been sheltering in. Some took to the air, most walked from point to point. If it weren’t for the black chitin and the organic look to the buildings it could have been any of their versions of Canterlot
They watched the metropolis return to life in silence for a few minutes. Applejack was the one to break the silence. “Aint nopon...er, no-one tried to explain the situation to her?”
Chrysalis snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oh, we’ve tried. I lost a platoon of soldiers and five of my best workers when we tried to talk to her. She simply killed them. When I approached her she attacked me and announced that she would, and I quote, ‘deal with this invasion once I’ve banished my sister as she did to me.’” While reciting what Nightmare Moon had told her, Chrysalis morphed into a mirror image of the Moon Tyrant. A brief shiver of deja-vu swept over the visiting changelings Chrysalis chuckled as the flavor of their emotions flickered ever so slightly into remembered fear. “All that being said, all of you have dealt with Nightmare Moon in the past. I...don’t know the details of your encounters. My agents confirmed that you are from six different alternate realities, which was unexpected. When I used the spell that brought you here, I was hoping for six changeling drones to bring forth the Elements of Harmony for this universe.” She looked wistful, as though both happy and sad at the same time, “I guess...that I’m the only version of myself that has succeeded in seizing the Changeling’s rightful place.”
Again, Applejack noted the apparent humility in her statement. “I’m a bit surprised,” she interjected, “Y’aint much like the Chrysalis I know; ‘least as far as ego goes. She’d probably be goin’ on ‘bout how we hadn’t fulfilled our destiny as changelings or some such nonsense.”
At this Chrysalis snorted, “Yes, well running the strongest nation on the planet is surprisingly humbling, especially when our neighbors are ready to leap onto the slightest hint of weakness. Torch is...reasonable, or as much as an ancient dragon can be. The yaks closed off their borders as soon as we moved on Equestria and have been surprisingly resistant to any attempts to annex them. Trying to capture the deer is like trying to catch water in a hoof,” she waved her ventilated hoof almost unconsciously, and of course the other queens knew their own difficulty in dealing with liquids compared to their pony friends, “...and the Storm King managed to not only halt our expanse but rallied enough of the other races to create a...somewhat unified front. They even managed to take some of the Badlands from us, for all the good it’ll do them. The Hive does extend from sea to sea, and we’re limited on how far we can expand northward due to the climate, and the Storm King has blocked us to the south.”
Applejack saw Twilight’s brow furrow, indicating her friend was thinking of something the rest of them hadn’t caught on yet. “What about the griffons?” asked the studious queen
Chrysalis blinked in apparent confusion, then comprehension dawned. “Oh, we claimed their land decades ago. Once their royal house fell from prominence, the whole nation weakened. It left them ripe for takeover. The griffons have been cocooned ever since.”
The six visitors shivered with varying degrees of discomfort. “So, wait,” began Rainbow, “Does that mean...all the griffons are in a pod?” The haunted look in her eyes betrayed a concern that was more personal than just worrying over an entire race being subjugated, and then Applejack remembered the griffon Gilda that had visited. This Rainbow Dash must have a similar friend in her own universe
“Of course. Does this look like it would give any quality-of-life to any creature besides a changeling?” Chrysalis waved her hoof to indicate the sprawling city before them. “We keep them in the pods for their own wellbeing.”
For the first time, Fluttershy spoke up. “W...what does that mean? How can you keep a creature caged up and still get any love from them?”
Chrysalis cocked her head to the side, “Do you...not have a mentor in your home universe? What about the hive-mind?”
The visiting queens glanced at each other in confusion. Applejack spoke for the group this time, “How ‘bout you tell us what we seem to be missing. I got, well, I suppose it’s a hive-mind where we communicate with other changelings, but I get the feeling you’re talkin’ ‘bout something different.”
Chrysalis nodded and paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, then began walking into the building again. As soon as the other six followed her past the threshold for the door, it closed again, looking like just another part of the wall. “As is apparently consistent across universes, changelings have the ability to communicate with other changelings through the hive-mind. Well,” she paused in front of another section of wall, and the six were starting to recognize the variations in the organic-looking patterns that indicated they were at another door, “About 70 years after we took control of what was then Equestria, one of my scientist drones figured out how to tap into the magic that all ponies have in them to connect them into the hive mind. We didn’t find much use for it at first since ponies tended to panic when exposed to the hive, but a decade or so later we figured out how to connect their dream worlds together.” She tapped the wall and the door opened, revealing a cavernous space that stretched at least a full Manehattan city block long, was just as wide, and about twice as tall. Lining the walls were catwalks with gantries that thrust out into the space, which was filled with neat, orderly rows of cocoons. In the nearest, they could see ponies and griffons. There was no order to which beings were in the capsules that they could see, a unicorn mare well on in age was right next to a griffon chick no older than a year. The massive space was filled nearly floor to ceiling, end to end with racks of beings locked in the cocoons
A few rows deep Applejack spotted a caretaker drone connecting a smaller pod to a cocoon with a mare in it. At first, she couldn’t make out what was happening, especially as an injector on the smaller pod punched into the cocoons shell without rupturing it to deposit an orange colored liquid. Curious, she stepped to the railing and squinted, trying to figure out what was happening
Chrysalis took note and stepped beside her, “Anything wrong?” she asked
Without looking at the other queen, Applejack replied, “Jes’ tryin’ to see what’s going on back there with the caretaker.”
“Ah, I see. This will probably answer many of your questions or give me the opportunity to answer them, so we can take a closer look.” So saying, she took wing. The six took wing as well, a couple of them somewhat awkwardly, and within moments a somewhat startled caretaker was receiving a lot more scrutiny while doing a normally mundane task than she expected when she woke up that day
This closely, they could see that the mare was pregnant, and Applejack (who’d seen more than one foal being birthed at family reunions; an inevitability when the clan was as large as the Apple’s) could recognize the signs of labor rippling across the mare’s body. Oddly, the mare remained asleep and apparently oblivious. As they watched, the orange liquid diluted throughout the normal green tinted liquid inside the cocoon. Soon enough, the foal emerged into the world, and the now reddish-yellow fluid was inhaled by the newborn colt, and he stilled into as deep a sleep as his mother. To Applejack’s alarm, the attachment that she had seen being placed on the cocoon earlier began drawing the colt to it using cilia-like appendages to create just enough of a current in the small reservoir, and once the foal was in the smaller compartment, the cocoon’s membrane closed up behind it and the smaller pod was removed by the caretaker. “What the hay is she doin’?!” exclaimed the apple farmer
Even as the mother’s cocoon started cycling out the yellow liquid to replace it with the neutral green that it was before the process began, Chrysalis explained, “After a few years of maintaining ponies in pods, we realized that leaving the foals in the cocoons with their mothers didn’t really provide any benefit and would accelerate the stagnation of the suspension gel, requiring the mother and foal to be re-cocooned, sometimes traumatically enough to kill the foal. We keep them in their suspended state, and the orange potion helps kick-start the foal’s magic field, allowing it to be integrated into the pony’s dream realm and “birthed” to it’s mother there.”
As Chrysalis was wrapping up her explanation, the caretaker picked up the small cocoon with its small pony cargo and flew off into the depths of the chamber
Applejack’s own words about not making waves were haunting her as she had to fight her familial instinct to go after the caretaker to reunite the colt with its mother. If she understood the queen right, as far as the foal and it’s mother knew, they were still together
“Fascinating,” said Twilight, “Where did you get the potion from?”
“A zebra, believe it or not. It’s been many generations, but once upon a time we had one wander into our territory. In exchange for being allowed to leave our territory, he supplied us with the mana potion that we used as a basis for the potion you saw being used here.” With that, Chrysalis flew back to the entrance they had come through
Once the group of queens was back on their feet and resuming their tour, Chrysalis continued. “For all the ponies know, they’re happy in their almost-perfect lives in whatever version of Equestria is running at the moment.”
Pinkie Pie finally spoke up, “What’d’ya mean? How many versions of Equestria can there be? I mean, obviously there’s at least one, two, three,” she started pointing to herself, then to each of the others in turn, “four, five…”
She was interrupted by Applejack putting a hoof over her mouth. “We get it, Pinkie.”
Chrysalis, surprisingly, chuckled. “We’ve had several thousand versions of Equestria in the dreamscape, actually. Time flows differently in a dream, what seems like a year in a dream is actually minutes in the waking world. We’ve taken advantage of that and used it to come up with some fairly innovative solutions.” She snorted, “If there’s one thing I’ve had to admit since becoming Queen of the most powerful nation in the world, it’s that changelings, for however superior we are, simply aren’t very good at ‘new’ and ‘innovative.’ We’re a race of mimics, after all. When a particularly vexing problem comes up, we simply select a pony that’s proven that they’re intelligent, resourceful, and capable of coming at a problem laterally. This creates...interesting solutions that we Changelings wouldn’t necessarily have thought of. This isn’t to say that we never come up with any solutions on our own, but we’re not nearly as good at it as the ponies are. Once that pony is selected, we place them in a special ‘centralized processing pod’ to become the hub for numerous different realities. Some...don’t survive, unfortunately. We’ve managed to improve the process over the centuries so that we don’t leave a pony in for too long.”
Twilight perked up somewhat at that. “Oh, does that mean you have a pony managing your current crisis?”
Chrysalis nodded, “We do, and that’s our next stop. This pony ran through dozens...no, hundreds (now that I think about it) of versions of Equestria under attack by Nightmare Moon. We actually had to ‘jack in’ Celestia briefly to get all the information we needed, but once we learned about the Elements of Harmony the pony was able to come up with a variety of possible scenarios. In every one that was long-term successful, you six wind up bearing the Elements. As I said, I had thought that you six would all be drone changelings from the same world, but the spell matrix designed by the processing pony was apparently designed to seek out the best changeling candidates regardless of universe of origin so long as they were compatible with the Elements.”
“So you needed an intelligent, creative pony who knows magic inside and out and is capable of coming up with new forms of magic.” Twilight almost let slip a little bubble of a giggle, they could all hear it on her voice, “Was it..maybe...me? I mean, this universe’s version of me?”
Chrysalis seemed torn between smug, amused, and confused. “...no, I’m not even sure if this universe has an analogue of you.” As she stopped in front of another door, Twilight sagged somewhat, “You’re right on the qualities the pony I needed would have, and we picked this one.” Chrysalis punctuated her statement by opening the door. The organic building irised the opening to reveal a pod with a pony inside connected to massive cables that led into walls and smaller cables that connected to various panels that, apparently, were built to display the pony’s vital statistics, much like a hospital’s medical monitoring gear. Inside the pod some unusual organic tendrils connected from some of the organic machines connected to the cocoon to various points on the pony’s head, including her horn, temples, and various spots on her skull through parted hair. She’d been in the pod and connected for some time, as they could see where her mane had been shaved down so the fibrous leads were connecting to her nervous system. “This one is a natural leader. She’s got a magic well to rival even Celestia’s, and she’s wicked-smart for all she never seems to attend any formal magical training in any of the iterations of Equestria she was just a participant in.”
The six smaller queens glanced between the mare in the pod and each other, confusion stitched on all their faces. Finally Twilight spoke for the group, “Who is she?”
Chrysalis hummed, “A bit surprising, I’d have expected this one to be at least a well known governmental figure or running a school by adulthood in at least one other universe...her name is Starlight Glimmer.”