//------------------------------//
// 26 - Imagination is Insurmountable 
// Story: Hive Alive 
// by BlackWater 
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Chrysalis was no greenhorn, though her horn did glow with green magic. The point was that she was far from naive and even farther from inexperience. She could handle a terrible situation in stride because, honestly, she had quite a bit of practice with such situations throughout her life. This one was, however, rather unique.
There she was, laying on the massive burgundy sheets that had funny embroideries of green and black running through them. She might have thought she liked the style if she hadn't been preoccupied with transforming a levitated bundle of clod she had created using the dead plant bits from the castle courtyard. Direway had let her in and out to get it through one of the glass doors.
She was sprawled haphazardly, not caring one bit if she appeared overly-relaxed. She was with her queen in a grand bedroom chamber. Why should she care? And, anyways, said queen was talking Rarity's ear off about the whole hivemind business. Chrysalis made sure there was an extra connection worked into the faux ring system she was rigging together.
What had been a random black bundle suspended by green magic began to form into a long thin cord that emanated its very own green light. Chrysalis' eyes narrowed in concentration and one of her fangs poked out of her mouth. Two protrusions extended from the center of the cord like antennae. At the end of each was a bulb that began pulsating with the same glow as everything else.
The changeling finally set the cord to line the topmost part of the mattress and was pleased to see the illumination of the thing did not fade out. She wiped a bead of sweat that had formed on her forehead, not realizing she actually had been working so hard on it. When she looked to her queen for some accomplishment recognition, she found the occupancy of the room to have changed.
Twilight Sparkle was gone and so was Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie was still working on her mechanical devices while Rarity was at one of the extended glass domes, looking more self-reflective than holding any interest in the garden courtyard outside. Chrysalis was about to ask Spike what had happened when she had her attention diverted, but she found the miniature drake had fallen backwards on the mattress. His comic book laid over his snoring face.
Then there was a ring. It wasn't the kind of ring that Chrysalis had made for her queen to sleep in back at the Golden Oaks. Rather, it was the kind of alarming noise one heard when they set a magical detector to inform them whenever someone or something was attempting to tear down the cloaking magic surrounding a hivemind. It was the one sound Chrysalis did not want to hear.
She heard it.
None of the others noticed because it was a ringing that happened only within the changeling's head and was not repeated throughout the hivemind. Not wanting to garner any attention, Chrysalis quietly closed her eyes and lit her horn. This was going to be tricky. To say she had rigged the cloaking magic would be a terrible understatement. She hadn't rigged it. She had tossed it together like a rotten fruit salad set upon by a swarm of parasprites. It would not likely last a second more and, honestly, it was a surprise it had lasted at all.
Chrysalis strained to find the culprit behind the alarm. She was in a mental space nowhere near as intricately built as the one Twilight had been constructing and it was a struggle to keep herself from slipping into her queen's hivemind. Just as she was about to give up the effort as futile and let whatever it was remove the detection shield on the hivemind, she got a clue to the attacker. Her horn diffused and her lids shot open.
“Luna,” Chrysalis growled beneath her breath. A dreamwalker spell. Typical.
Well, she was officially annoyed now and wouldn't let this go even though she had plenty of other valid reasons to interfere besides mere annoyance. Luna had no business messing around with the queen's hivemind and Chrysalis would make sure the deceptively young alicorn knew as much.
She closed her eyes, linked through the newly made ring cord, and barreled over to Spike's passive hivemind existence. It was still floating there as a little purple and green orb of light. It hadn't changed since she had locked it away from Twilight. With no more preparation, Chrysalis exercised her magical strength she had grown from Twilight's friendship and love. She copied her queen's approach and transformed her orb-like presence into a more straightforward representation of herself. She transformed into her full-height physical version and Spike's orb morphed into a sleeping version of himself.
The cloaking magic was being eaten away from the outside, but she decided to Tartarus with it and ripped the whole thing away. Suddenly, a purple orb blinked into existence. It was a deeper shade than Twilight's and quickly it resolved itself into a familiar Mare of the Night. Said mare had a very unamused expression on her face.
“Chrysalis,” Luna squinted in suspicion. “What is this? What have you done to Spike's dreamworld?”
The changeling lifted her head high. “I think the question is what you are doing here. Do you have any idea how dangerous it would be if my queen connected right now?”
Luna said nothing to that but glanced around her and spotted Spike. “Hiveminds have changed a lot in the past millennium,” she remarked with a challenging tone. “Since the last time I made the mistake of walking one, that is.”
“It's none of your business,” Chrysalis matched her look of annoyance.
“It is my business if you are doing something harmful to Spike - say nothing of Twilight Sparkle!”
Chrysalis stepped up to the representation of the alicorn. “I would never do anything to harm my queen. You challenge my loyalty, mare?”
Luna stuck her chest out. “I'm not sure I trust you, changeling. Why have we not heard of this from Twilight herself?”
Ah, valid point, Chrysalis cringed inwards but smirked outwards. She stepped forward again so that her chest bumped Luna's and she had to peer down at the shorter female. “Because it's none. Of. Your. Business.”
Luna forced her face up so her horn crashed into Chrysalis'. “Twilight Sparkle is my business! And what have you done to Spike?”
The tall shape-shifter stared daggers into the mare's eyes not a hoof's distance from her own. “Get lost.”
Luna was not about to take another word. She had never been completely forgiving in the first place and wasn't about to be talked down by the changeling. Her forward hooves tipped as she pushed forward, attempting to bowl Chrysalis over. The target quickly met her with equal force, however. They initiated a back-and-forth of pushing, horns locked in anger. Words were exchanged. None very pretty.









“You seem more interested than usual,” Twilight remarked as she and her blue friend leaned casually against one of the castle kitchen's massive and totally spotless steel countertops.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash looked back to the alicorn. She had been distracted, carefully watching the chef prepare their request. Each ingredient was critical and there were some she put in that were far from normal. “Oh, um, what makes you think that?”
Twilight gave one of her nerdy and, for one sporty rainbow mare, completely heart-stopping giggles. “C'mon, Dashie. You've haven't been subtle once in your whole life. Is cooking a couple of hayburgers really so interesting?”
Rainbow blushed. “Well, uh,” she stammered. “I was just thinking it'd be nice to make them on my own, you know? I'm really hungry after those workouts.”
If it wasn't for the mouth-watering smell of the grilling burgers and the enticing sizzling sound they made as the chef prepared them, Twilight might have been more apt to push the point. But she hardly needed to do so to figure that her most loyal friend was scheming for a chance to make her some hayburgers as well. For some reason, that little fact helped calm the alicorn's nerves even if only by a little. She had incredible friends that were just as incredibly supportive of her. But then...
“Hey, what's up, Twi?” Rainbow broke her thoughts. “You're getting this real downer of a look.”
“Nothing,” the queen shook her head to try clearing both her mind and her emotions. The former needed to focus and the latter needed to go out on a vacation because it was clearly overstressed.
“Yeah, right. I can tell you've got something on your mind. What's bugging you?”
“Besides the whole being immortal thing?” Twilight deadpanned while resuming her stare at the sizzling burgers.
“Besides the whole being immortal thing,” the pegasus confirmed in a lower but compassionate voice. 
Normally, she wouldn't feel so hasty to speak of it. Circumstances were uncommon, however, with her shape-shifting companion not around to hear her so long as she didn't slip it into one of those hivemind broadcasts. She'd probably find out anyway when they went to sleep that night.
“It's Chrysalis,” Twilight admitted.
“Ah,” Rainbow put it simply.
“I talk big and I think she falls for it sometimes but I just...”
Rainbow could hear her friend working out the words and gave her the necessary time. It wasn't anything she didn't already know but she wasn't about to hound her queen about it either. If Twilight wanted to talk it out, she had no problems at all with it.
“...I just don't have anything over her. I'm only able to keep her in check because she seems to really want me as her queen. But I have no spine to do anything against her because I'm worried that she might stop getting whatever nourishment she gets from me. I can't bear the thought of seeing her like she was when I saved her. I know she wouldn't hurt anypony anymore but she still hides things from me as if she doesn't trust me or something...I'm sorry.”
“What for?” Rainbow almost squeaked as she furrowed her brows.
“For rambling like this,” Twilight took a deep breath. “I don't like to talk about things I shouldn't be so concerned about in the first place. Especially when it's probably not a very nice thing to do.”
The blue mare just couldn't understand it. She too had to shake her head to try and figure out what Twilight was saying. In a single flap, she hovered away from the countertop and faced her friend more directly.
“First things first,” she crossed her forehooves in seriousness. “Why is Ms. Egghead forgetting all those lessons about sharing concerns with her friends?”
Twilight shrunk at that. It stung because it was true.
“Second,” Rainbow frowned, feeling a little hurt that Twilight would feel the need not to say things in front of her. “Why would you think it wouldn't be 'nice' to talk to me about Chrysalis?”
The alicorn queen shifted on her hooves. “I know how you feel about me, Rainbow. I feel like I'm walking all over you when I talk about somepony else again and again.”
“Hey,” Rainbow dropped to her hooves with a single collective clack against the kitchen tiles. She stepped up to Twilight in one move and put a forehoof to her shoulder as a playful grin worked its way onto her face. “I told you it's 'Dashie' now.”
Her queen gave a tired “heh.”
“And you can't go hurting my feelings just because you care about others,” Rainbow continued. “In fact, I'd be mad at you if you didn't care about anypony other than me. I'm not one of those obsessive mares that wants to lock you away all for myself.”
“But this is different,” Twilight had to argue.
“Yeah,” Rainbow lowered her head for just a second but brought it back up again. “Yeah, it's different. Maybe you know some obscure bit of history I don't but I'm pretty sure this is the first time a bookworm unicorn turned into an immortal alicorn queen of a pony hive.”
Said queen couldn't help but muffle a snort of laughter at how absurd it sounded coming from her star athlete.
“Seriously, though. I may not be all super smart like you are but I am flexible – as flexible as you need me to be.”
“I think I needed to hear that. Thanks, Dashie,” Twilight hugged he friend gratefully.
As Rainbow pulled back, she beamed her go-to look of pride. “I don't know if you needed it or not but I do know one thing,” she said with a smirk.
“What's that?” Twilight asked, knowing full well something silly was about to come out of Loyalty's mouth.
“I know how to get free hugs from my queen.”
No disappointment was had.
“Burger's up!” the red mare with the chef's hat called as she flipped the hay patties over her head and onto two buns sitting on a plate behind her. Truly a world expert. Remembering the two that had made the request were still there, she blushed and added, “your Highness.”
Twilight gave her a kindly look and dismissed the title once more, finding that none of the castle staff ever took the dismissal to heart. “Thanks for making these,” she remarked in appreciation. “I just needed to walk around and think – only my stomach seemed to be doing all the thinking.”
“No problem,” the chef laughed and waved it off. “I do that all the time. A change of air is good for you, after all.”
Rainbow scooped up the plate of hayburgers and hovered right out of the kitchen. Twilight gave one more word of thanks and followed her friend, all the while wishing she was skilled enough with her wings to do the crazy things Rainbow could do seemingly on thoughtless whims.
The kitchen door they used opened up to a grand dining hall for special political gatherings. It was currently empty, however, which left the two winged ponies to find opposing seats that weren't too far apart. They only had one plate, which Rainbow may or may not have schemed into the whole picture. Two of Twilight's guards that had shadowed them the whole time were as silent as most guardponies were. They took up positions at the nearest door.
After they ate a few bites, Rainbow continued. “You didn't finish did you?”
“About what?” Twilight asked around a mouthful of burger.
“Chrysalis,” Rainbow turned soft again. “What is it you think she's hiding?”
The alicorn chewed slow and breathed calmly until swallowing. She also took a sip of water from the glass that Rainbow had retrieved just before they had sat down. Oddly, it was also just one single glass for the both of them rather than two.
“Lots of things,” Twilight admitted.
“For instance?”
“Her past, what she knows about her people and the outside world, why I seem to randomly get more of a working hivemind over time, why I'm seeing these weird trace lines between inanimate objects-”
“That's just Pinkie,” Rainbow cut in. “Yeah,” she answered her queen's curious look, “it's her Pinkie Physics thing. That's how I got in your ink pot. Been a lot more careful since then...”
“So that line between the plant vase in the corner,” Twilight gestured to the spot on the other side of the massive dining room and then another spot upwards, “and that chandelier is a teleportation guide?”
“Probably,” Rainbow agreed, seeing the same line that was entirely invisible to everypony else should anypony else actually have been there to not see it. “You won't see me testing any theories, though. Not a second time. It just feels weird.”
“Anyways,” Twilight resumed the original topic and gazed at the half-eaten hayburger she longed to finish. “I think she's hiding other things too. Like, why did she connect those two guards with me so quickly? And why haven't I seen Spike's mind yet? I should have felt his existence at the very least.”
“He wasn't with us,” Rainbow only now remarked to herself in realization. She was too much in the habit of not realizing whether or not he was around. That could have been an insult to his sense of presence or a compliment to the fact that he was never really out of place. “You think Chrysalis has something to do with it or is it just a hinky hive?”
Twilight had taken another hungry bite of her meal and had to finish first. “That's just it. I don't want to sound spoiled or anything. Maybe she really doesn't have a clue why all this happened.”
“On the other hoof, why hasn't she asked about it when she would likely be the first to notice?” Rainbow provided the suspicion.
“Exactly,” Twilight sighed and took another bite. After finishing and sipping some more water, she added one more tidbit of appreciation. “Thanks for listening, Dashie. I know it doesn't come out to a hill of beans but it makes me feel better when I can just talk to somepony about it.”
Rainbow would have argued that her queen shouldn't be thanking her for lending an ear but was instead caught on the old saying. “Who thought up the whole 'hill of beans' thing anyway?”
“Probably Applejack,” Twilight said on reflex and then caught herself.
A painful second elapsed before Rainbow started laughing so hard that she fell out of the chair she was in.
“I didn't mean-” the queen tried to take back her bad sense of stereotyping.
“No, no,” Rainbow wheezed through her laughter on the floor. “It's so true!”
Twilight still didn't feel too good about it. She just heard so many peculiar things come out of Applejack's mouth that she started blaming her whenever one came out of hers.
“You know,” Rainbow panted as she crawled back up from her exercise, cheeks flush. “AJ wouldn't take offense. She'd probably give you another one of those sayings in return.”
The purple pony shook her head and found herself wishing the Element of Honesty had come along with them. But then she sipped from the glass again and instead wished Rainbow had gotten some carbonated sugary drink rather than plain spring water.
“How about we grab some fizzy drinks, ask the girls if they want some food, and then get my last talk with Celestia over with?”
Rainbow took a shot at the glass of water, careful to spin it around so she could drink from the same side Twilight had. “Solid,” she said as she flipped the plate, sending the remains of her own burger into her mouth.









Just as it was about to be taken to the disastrous level of magic combat, a new presence began to materialize in the currently black space. The darkness crawled away to an upper light and the ground began turning into a soft if rather crunchy green grass. Chrysalis panicked. The queen was entering, Spike was still visible, and Luna could be accidentally connected to Twilight any second.
Luna saw her chance and thrust forward with her whole representative body. Even though Chrysalis was taller, she still went past her point of balance and rolled halfway onto her back.
“Hah! We are victorious!” Luna cheered in the Royal Canterlot Voice, triumphantly falling back into her old tongue. “Now we shall havest our answers!”
Chrysalis grit her teeth and exploded her horn into a whirlwind of green energy. Just as Twilight's body materialized into the space beside them, the world went dark again.
“Ah!” Twilight shivered in shock and one short vocal exclamation. She blinked and shook her head. The light of the real world was around her, the bedroom mattress and a series of carbonated drinks exactly the same as they had been when she attempted to communicate with her seemingly asleep changeling.
Chrysalis also blinked her eyes and reached up with a holey forehoof to rub the base of her horn. “Ow...” she moaned.
The ring cord she had recently finished wasn't glowing anymore and, in fact, looked like it had been charred at a thousand degrees. A little smoke may or may not have drifted off of it. Chrysalis' expression deadpanned but she didn't have any time to bemoan the fact that she'd have to make another one all over again because Spike had flung his comic across the room as he too woke up. His eyes were large, he sat up as if he had just laid into a hot frying pan, and he began quickly muttering things such as “who, what, where?”
“What the hay, Chrysy?” Twilight shivered again. Whatever just happened was giving her a combination feeling of a papercut and the creepy-crawlies.
Chrysalis, of course, salvaged what she could of the situation. “Safety measures,” she buzzed out lamely. Upon hearing some loud slam of a door elsewhere in the castle, she added, “better have that talk with Celestia.”
“Huh?” the pony queen hung her mouth open.
The door to the bedroom chamber, which was quite far from their mattress, began thundering with a furious tempo. “Chrysalis!” shouted a very mad sounding Princess of the Night.
Twilight looked to the door and then back to her changeling as fast as lightning. “What did you do?”
Chrysalis blushed, opened her mouth, closed it, and then voiced an innocent little “heh heh.”
With a dramatic groan and roll of her eyes, Twilight got to her hooves and went to open the door. Just before she got to it, the polished wood shattered into a thousand pieces. Thankfully none of them hit her. What was left, though, was a purple alicorn of a deeper hue. She was breathing heavy with a posture and expression that appeared ready to tear the world itself in two.
Rainbow snickered and moved the drinks she had brought to a safe distance. “Someone's in trouble,” she said, finding it amusing for some reason.
Rarity looked back from her spot against the glass outcropping and seemed to find the affair distasteful to her rudely-interrupted musings. Pinkie Pie was now sporting a halfway elated and halfway joyful look as she concentrated hard on the one mechanical contraption that looked most like a pair of wings. Spike just stood where he was with a dead look of “what?”
“Luna,” Twilight tried addressing the princess.
Said princess didn't hear it as she scanned the room and locked eyes with the changeling. She squinted in anger.
“Luna!” Twilight called louder as she stepped to the other alicorn.
Finally, it caught. Luna looked to Twilight and regained enough of her senses to lower her breathing.
“What's going on?” Twilight asked much more calmly, concerned at the remains of the door.
“That one!” Luna replied in a hurt tone and waved her hoof at Chrysalis. “She's done something to Spike!”
The small dragon waddled over the mattress and come up beside them. “Me?” he asked, possibly mishearing and thinking his name was mentioned for something other than what it was.
Luna started walking around them but Twilight stepped over and stretched out her hoof to stop her. As queen, it was to Twilight's reasoning that her first job was to get the facts on whatever it was that had happened in her absence. “What has she done, exactly?”
“She...she...” Luna struggled to put actions and observations into a summary explanation. “She hid her hivemind and put Spike in it!”
Twilight's brows creased with not the least amount of confusion. She glanced to Chrysalis, who averted her eyes. Something was up. “It's okay,” she tried to assure Luna. “I think. Anyways, I need to talk to you and Celestia about this. We'd better have our discussion now.”
Luna pursed her lips and seemed to pout, calmer but now also indignant. “We were forced from our dreamwalking. We want an apology.”
“I'm sure Chrysalis is sorry that the ring broke,” Twilight began while taking in the gnarled remains of the cord and the changeling who's eyes seemed to wander everywhere but where they were standing. “Aren't you?”
Chrysalis flinched before giving a “sure” within a sigh that sounded more long-suffering than apologetic.
Twilight wasn't very satisfied with it and neither was Luna, but they had a discussion that was getting prioritized. A certain book beside the mattress was levitated into her grip before she started out. “Come on,” the pony queen wrapped a hoof around Luna's shoulder to guide her. “We need to sort this out with Celestia. Everypony else, just stay here and - for the love of everything holy - don't do anything crazy.”
Just before they left, Luna caught the changeling give her a stuck out tongue. They were out of the room and around the corner before Luna could respond with her own infuriated glare.









“I never get a break,” Twilight grumbled under her breath as Luna lead her to Celestia's room in an odd turn of events.
“Hm?” Luna hummed as she made a triple knock on her sister's large and ornate bedroom door.
“Do you ever want everypony to just shut up and leave you alone for five minutes?” Twilight looked the princess in the eyes with her very disillusioned voice.
“Twice per day,” Luna agreed. “Sometimes hourly.”
The door creaked open by a faint yellow magic and Luna stepped through with Twilight following behind. The room was as grand as Twilight remembered it being every time she had been in it when living in Canterlot and being tutored by her special teacher. Of course, it seemed a tad smaller now that she was no longer a filly. Celestia seemed engrossed in something while standing at her desk and hadn't even asked who it was that entered. She just gave them a distracted “leave them on the edge of the desk.”
“Tia,” Luna said as the door closed behind them and they stepped up to the tall white mare.
Celestia almost jumped in her spot. “Oh,” she finally diverted her attention from the court papers piled in front of her. “Lulu, Twilight. I was expecting the Commissioner again. Is something the matter?”
“We need to talk before anything else happens,” Twilight responded even as she shook her head at the idea that something had soured up not even two hours after their last discussion.
“The changeling interfered with our dreamwalking,” Luna added.
Celestia turned thoughtful and then gestured to some seating cushions kept out of the way against her bed frame. She remarked on one thing before grabbing her own comfort for the chat. “Lulu, you're using 'our' again.”