//------------------------------// // Sharing truths: 3 // Story: They're home. // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// A drone is standing inside a snow tunnel, muscles tense and breathing as quietly as it can. It’s staring at a tunnel wall, goop stick ready to poke, because it can hear scratching from behind it as if another drone is about to dig through. I’m sitting here in the cold. My hooves are shaking, but I can’t let go of my pokey stick. The blues mustn’t get our flag stick or everything we’ve been fighting for will be for nothing. I’ve been on the front lines. I’ve seen my buddy peek out of cover and have its head sniped in an instant. I’ve hidden behind cover, legs tucked to my body as white clouds of projectiles rained around me. After I got blasted and removed from combat duty, I was on the back lines, bringing supplies and building fortifications. I saw a team of my buddies obliterated by snowballs from all sides as they got ambushed in a killbox. I want to go home, to be in my little cubby hole, to dig and carry eggs again. The only thing keeping me here is hope… …the hope that we’ll get the mysterious noms. The tunnel wall breaks from the other side, and the drone immediately pokes its goop stick through in an attempt to catch the digger off guard. It hits empty air, and the drone looks into the eyes of the enemy between whose legs it stuck its weapon, missing entirely. The blue drone was ready for the whole thing. It smirks, spits out the snowball held in its mouth into its foreleg, and lobs it at the red team defender’s head. “Oh goop…” the red drone moans, frowns, and turns black, “Back to spawn it is.” “Gooh amphush, doh,” the blue drone comments in appreciation before poking its mouth numb from holding the snowball for too long, “Mahbe nechst tahm.” “Thanks,” the ex-red smiles back, “Just give me a moment to get out of the way so you can keep playing. The tunnel is too small for both of us.” “Shuh,” blue nods. Red rushes back to the base through the tunnel, but in its quick retreat it misjudges the height and raises itself too much, breaking off a goopy part of the ceiling critical for structural integrity. The tunnel section collapses on the red drone immediately. The blue guy backs off to the safety of the tunnel it dug. “Ummm, I’m a bit stuck here,” the red drone breaks the rules and connects to the hive link of its blue nemesis, “Do I pop a cocoon or wait for my guys to help? It’s kinda hard to breathe.” “Nah,” replies the blue drone, “10k wouldn’t be happy if we wasted a cocoon for a game. I heard they’re pretty difficult to make. Give me a moment and I’ll dig you out.” “Okay! Do you want something in return? At least something game-related.” “Nope! The game is supposed to be fair, so no favors,” blue shakes its head as its digging reveals a pair of black legs sticking out of the snow wall, “Almost got you.” Some more digging later, the blue drone pulls out the poor victim out of the snowslide where it starts gasping for breath. “Phew!” it says out loud, suddenly shaking, “Whoa, I f-feel r-r-really c-cold now…” “Lesh geh yoo out of he’e, buddy,” says blue and leads the way back to the home base. *** 99 opens her eyes and realizes she’s lying on the floor of an abandoned tunnel near the surface level of the hive. How long was I out? A quick check of the hive mind reveals that it’s late afternoon. She can sense the Queen back in the throne room, 156 is with her, and 387 is gone. The drones are still on the surface, her hive link reaching them only via the Queen bridging the distance to 2119. The same goes for the several ranked changelings scattered all over the tunnels, although some are out of direct reach of the Queen, and accessible only by linking through others on the way. “Oof,” 99 stands up, her joints cracking. Almost a whole day spent on a cold floor, especially in a position into which she must have folded by accident, and not moving can’t be healthy even for a changeling.  Sixteen hours and I haven’t found ANYTHING regarding 745 other than that she’s running late. I checked every drone one by one, and none of them remembers meeting anyone of that rank. Of course, the top ranks can easily be hiding the information from me. Was I wrong in assuming 415 referring to a high rank being killed by a drone was about 745? No high ranks I was able to scan had any information either. 99 sighs and starts slowly walking to get her blood flowing again.   And Chrysalis’ daughter is an even greater unknown. The best I could get was from 156 whose mind reacted as if she knew about the topic, but I couldn’t push her without being immediately discovered intruding in her head. Or maybe she noticed anyway despite what little 387 could teach me about hiding my presence- “99!” Chrysalis’s voice rings through 99’s head, evoking a sudden falling feeling in her stomach that shoots down to her hooves. “Y-Yes, Your Majesty?” replies 99, failing to steady her voice. “Get up here and make some tea. I can feel that you could use something warm,” says Chrysalis without any hint of anything suspicious that 99 could detect in her voice, “I’m going to stretch my legs and check up on the drones personally. Yesterday they lasted outside only a couple hours and today they’ve been there since early morning.”  “On my way, Your Majesty,” 99 jumps up and down a couple times, still trying to warm up. As she ascends through the hive again, she resumes pondering how to proceed, periodically huffing to relieve her frustration. I’m in a situation where some tactical thinking could finally be useful. This isn’t a game for once. And of course I’m drawing blanks. Great job, head… *** Chrysalis steps out of the hive, closes her eyes, and takes a long, deep breath. The cold air bites the inside of her nose but she doesn’t let it show in the slightest despite no one looking. Her only response to the frost is a quick burst of green fire all over which leaves the normally tall and slim Queen just a tiny bit bulkier, betraying that some layer of heat insulation has just been added to her carapace.  I need to do this more often, especially in winter. There’s something about the almost silent outside that does wonders to help her concentrate. She lets her senses spread, touching the drones in the distance as well as their chaperone without being sensed in return. The drone games are over and, despite the stakes, no side is unhappy or holding a grudge. Chrysalis doesn’t dig deeper and leaves some harmless unknowns for until she talks to 2119. 65536’s surgery seems to be nearing its end and, despite the general sense of optimism she gets from the guard drone, a brief glimpse into 10k’s mind makes even her stomach revolve. The drone leader is exhausted both physically and mentally, and so is 65536 out of sheer focus on a task for so long. 57999 is going to need extra love as well as some of the herbs in the greenhouse because its goop reserves are dry, and 99380 is suffering a migraine because gathering all parts of its mind and filtering out all the influences not useful for the current task is taxing. With the weather calm since morning, most of the ranked changelings are out on short-range missions again - gathering love in settlements around the Badlands. Those don’t yield much, but they slow general love depletion down enough for the big ticket missions further away in the cities, towns, and trade hubs to feed the hive.  Chrysalis catches herself slipping back into a “work” mindset and shakes her head. Now’s the time for a different kind of headache. All her quick checks take less than a second. When she opens her eyes again and looks in the direction of the drone links, she facehoofs, tossing snow over herself. Without shaking it off, she starts walking regally towards a gigantic pile of snow covered in holes, which is clearly an imitation of the surface section of the hive.  Nevermind, they built some tunnels too… which should be the least surprising part, really. Good thing 838 isn’t here to see it, his head would explode. Chrysalis snickers to herself. “...oh noooo, we can’t control them and now they have their own hive. Nooo…” she mumbles in a mocking tone. To be fair, I freaked out too, but I had full information about current drone “technology” and I survived too many uprisings and wars to remember without the hive mind history.  As she approaches the entrance to the snow hive, she notices the familiar statues of 36658 and 9999 guarding the hole as well as the generally decorated feel of the holes above the main floor. Since grandma brought us here, we’ve never bothered with decorations, art, or anything non-essential. Why would we? After all, everyone hated us and any signs of recent changeling presence could only bring us doom. She glances back at the real hive. It’s a hole by design. From the outside, no one can guess whether it’s inhabited or not, and if someone without a map goes inside then changelings might be fairly low on their list of problems. No easy to access sources of food and water, an entirely random and confusing layout, and creatures that would love to eat something without a tough carapace. Maybe… one day… it’ll be different. However, despite what everyone including 387 seems to think, we’re not there yet. Chrysalis looks the snow statue of 9999, which is- which to a lesser developed ruler would be insultingly close to her own size, in the eyes. Neither 36658 nor 10000 could gauge the aftershocks of what the few weeks of your life really meant. You and 65536. You gave us a chance to bridge centuries of hatred, and 65536 gave it to them. One insignificant butterfly flaps its wings and causes a hurricane or something. As for 36658, we’ll see what your and 10000’s island gambit will lead to in due time.   “YEOWCH OW OW OW OW!” a yelp of pain comes from above and makes Chrysalis look up just in time to see a drone hoof-sized glob of resin fly through the snow wall accompanied by audible sizzling and barely miss her. The Queen raises an eyebrow, watching the glowing green glob sink into a hole that’s rapidly melting through the snow sheet.  That’s not the sound of acid, and the mist in the air left behind is just… steam? Curiosity winning, she thoughtlessly reaches down to grab the seemingly hot chunk. Wincing when she touches the goop wet from the melted snow around it, she immediately changes the carapace on her foreleg to resist heat. Once she picks it up she notices a strange carving on one side of the object that has no meaning to her so she leans closer to examine it. The resin chunk bursts into flames, singing her mane and quickly evaporating into nothing but mist. “WHO THREW THAT?!” Chrysalis screams, eye suddenly twitching and strands of her mane on her forehead still smoldering and giving her a halo of pure fury, fire, and smoke. Moments later, drone heads start peeking out of all the holes, and two of them make a big mistake - 99200 looks out of the window closest to where the “bomb” flew out of, and 99450 peeks directly through the hole the bomb melted in the wall. Both get immediately engulfed by a green telekinetic aura and dragged down towards the Queen, in 99450’s case through the wall. 99450 looks at the Queen’s smoldering mane and its eyes open wide with horror and realization. “Meep!”  “DON’T YOU ‘meep’ ME!” she snarls and shakes the drones, “I asked a question!” Chrysalis is burrowing deep into the minds of both drones, checking every word, today’s memory, searching for any inconsistency. In a fraction of a second, she knows what happened and calms down a little. Accident or not, however, what just happened is unforgivable and the only reason why 99450 isn’t a scorched smear in the middle of a smoldering crater is that no one of any relevant rank saw it. 2119 isn’t watching her through the eyes of the drones, and his link shows he barely heard her scream. The drones will forget it soon due to their busy lives, but others could get… ideas. Mercy isn’t necessarily a weakness, but it definitely can be. If both drones want to see tomorrow, they must prove their character, here and now. It lies, it dies. The answer comes immediately in the form of 99200 almost involuntarily glancing sideways at 99450 and the responsible drone stuttering out: “M-Me, Your Majesty.” “Why did you try to kill your Queen?” she narrows her eyes. “Whaaaaa-?” 99450 now starts trembling and gets stuck in a loop of opening and closing its mouth.  “Y-Your Majesty?” peeps 99200. Chrysalis doesn’t move, instead she just slides the two telekinetically held drones sideways so that 99200 is in front of her face, “65536 told me last breaky time that some ponies who live in snow like this build tiny mounds out of it which they call uglies to keep warm. I didn’t understand how it could work which is why I kinda… froze last time. Later it explained to me that the snow kinda doesn’t melt if you build things right so I asked it to lend me its heating stone so that I could try. We did and it made the inside nice and shiny so I’m not sure why snow ponies call the mound houses uglies. We shared a hole with 99450 who had the idea to try to make 65536’s heating stone out of goop!” 99200 blurts out the usual nervous drone’s long stream of consciousness, ending with, “99450 thought it could work like glowgoop so we tried it.”  “It kinda worked…” adds 99450, surprising Chrysalis by her own newfound ability to twitch both eyes at once. A charred piece of royal mane lands on 99450’s head and slowly slides down. Under the Queen’s increasingly tested glare, the drone doesn’t notice. “Did it now?” she asks slowly. “Yup!” 99450 somehow manages to forget the situation it’s in when an interesting topic is presented, and Chrysalis immediately recognizes the same excited tone of voice that 99111 slipped into when talking about ‘tech’ and mainly when 99856 explained its ‘chemistry’ experiments, “65536 said that Luna Princess was really good at runny magic which is just about drawing squiggles into thingies and then filling those up with energy. 99200 borrowed the heating stone from 65536 to see how well it worked here in a snow cave. So I made some basic goop, let it harden, and then scribbled the right picture into it. It did start heating up but it kept cooling down really quickly so I kept adding love… but then it kinda… went too hot all at once. It burned me even through chitin,” 99450 shows its hooves which, unsurprisingly, show no marks of being scorched because they’re made from an already black keratin, “Uhh, it felt worse than it looks now. Anyway, I threw it away… uhhh… and it kinda melted through the snow and… uhh…” it stops, looking at the Queen’s singed forehead. Chrysalis stares, but this time in amazement. Changelings using magic? Not as a one-off special drone talent. Real magic fueled with love, limited it may be right now. At this moment, Chrysalis is fully ready to let both drones go and order 10k to have a new, personal cave built for 99450 to experiment with magic just like 99856 and 99111 have. Unfortunately, 2119 trots into view and sees two drones being held by the visibly hurt Queen who immediately senses the gears in the infiltrator’s head turning. Well, I guess your ordeal isn’t over yet. “99450, such a dangerous transgression isn’t something I can just ignore,” Chrysalis’s expression shifts from angry to stern and haughty, “You will not get any love rations for the two following days. If you survive, drag yourself to the throne room. I’ll re-examine your case and see if you’ve regained your right to exist. Understood?”   She lets both drones drop back into the snow while 99450 is nodding so quickly its head is blurring. “Your Majesty!” calls out 2119, stumbling through the snow as quickly as he can, “What’s going on? Why are you here? You’re hurt? Can I help-” “The situation has been sorted out and the offending party has received a warning,” a green flame engulfs Chrysalis, quickly returning her to a pristine form, “And I’m the one with questions here. Don’t waste my time and energy by making me pull answers out of your head.” “Of course, Your Majesty!” 2119 bows, “Drones, off you go and do whatever you were doing before.” “Minus the magma-hot resin,” Chrysalis shoots 99450 a glance. The drone gulps and nods one more time, “We’ll talk about that again once your punishment is over. Go,” she adds firmly and the drones immediately fly up to the hole from which they came out in the first place. Her gaze follows them and, as she looks up, dozens of other watching drones vanish into their respective holes as well. Left alone with 2119, Chrysalis shakes her head and looks at the infiltrator, “I thought the drones were supposed to be running around to avoid freezing.”  “The games are over, Your Majesty. The drones were getting tired from all the running in the snow and, without the enticement of a reward, they decided they were far more interested in building stuff than in fighting, pretend it may be. As you assumed, though, they’re getting colder and I believe we will be returning to the hive soon.” “Glad to hear we’re not repeating yesterday’s hypothermia incidents. Good job, 2119,” Chrysalis nods, turns away, and starts walking back to the hive. “Then you, Your Majesty,” the infiltrator slowly breathes out. Chrysalis barely registers him, all her thoughts consumed by the potential future of changelings using real magic. That reminds me…  “387, can you hear me?” she mentally calls out, hiding the connection from anyone. Silence. “387, this is important,” she adds with calm that would surprise anyone who had ever been present during their usual conversations. “Bugbutt, right now is a REALLY bad time,” 387’s link is barely audible, both due to him hiding it as well as due to sheer distance.  “I need you to make sure 99450’s work assignments for the next two shifts are as safe as possible,” she orders, “Make a note for 10k, just don’t leave behind any hint that it was on my orders.” “Will do,” is all 387 whispers back and disconnects, leaving Chrysalis somewhat dumbfounded. Just like that? What the holes is he doing? Immediately suspicious, she scowls and concentrates on his link again. Of course she would have zero chance of finding the warrior, but the previous interaction revealed he can hear her even from here.  “If you need help, you old idiot, just ask.”