Hive Alive

by BlackWater


36 - Recovery is Tiring



Discord?” asked a very concerned pink alicorn.
“I'm sure it'll be fine,” Shining Armor tried comforting his wife. “If Princess Celestia trusted him to do this then there should be no worries...”
Cadance could hear the uncertainty in her husband's voice regardless of his words of assurance. She couldn't help but pace back and forth in the hospital hallway, wanting to peer inside the intensive care room. She was too scared to do it.
“This is Twily we're talking about,” Shining Armor tried again. “She's the strongest mare alive. Besides you, of course.”
A sad smile came onto Cadance's face. The way her stallion had tacked on that last bit was an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. She kept pacing, however.
“You're right,” she agreed. “And Luna seemed confident about it as well. It's just been – how long has it been?”
“Two hours,” Shining answered. He had been glancing to the hallway clock every five minutes since they had arrived.
“Plus the hour he had already been working before we got here,” Cadance began humming nervously to herself. “What could be taking so long?”

“And then the rabbit said to the fish: That's not a carrot. That's my eulogy!”
Queen Twilight Sparkle sat there in the dark empty void, staring blankly at the draconequus. Her face was as stiff as stone. She didn't get the punchline, though she blinked a few times in an attempt to.
“Ugh,” Discord groaned and dropped his arms in frustration. “You ponies don't have a micron of humor in your bodies. Or whatever it is we're supposed to be right now. Creating a representation of the real world in a fake mental world is just confusing. No wonder you got all jumbled together! I'm not one to complain about chaos, but it's an art. What you've done here is just too blasé.”
Twilight finally moved to speak. “Where am I? What're you doing here?”
Discord's eyebrows flattened in a deadpan expression.
“Where's that changeling?” Twilight asked with a suddenly angry tone. “I'll snap him in two!”
The master of chaos floated up close to the queen and flicked her on the forehead right below her horn. The pony went sailing backwards, flipping end over end. When she finally stopped, her pupils were rolling in a spiral that she had to shake off.
“Discord?” she asked again when her vision cleared and she beheld the creature floating over to her once more. He was wearing an absurd knight's uniform.
“Do I have the honor,” he sniffed for no reason, “of addressing m'lady or some specter of mismatched persona?”
“Talk like normal and I'll tell you,” Twilight replied in an obviously snarky manner.
“Oh good,” Discord said and quickly threw off the uniform. “You're back. I really didn't want to keep that outfit on for more than a few lines. Itches like an alpaca sweater.”
“What're you talking about? I've been here all along.”
Discord's frown returned, though his positive mood was hardly dampened. “Not remembering recent events well, Sparkle? Let me recap for you. The hivemind got messed up. Your hivemind. Connecting to Chrysalis was the last straw that your mind couldn't take. Your identities fused and triggered a large release of magical energy stored up within both of you. I reset the hivemind and Chrysalis' connection is complete and in order, no charge. I've paused the active links until your confusion has abated. Go ahead. Fail to thank me.”
Queen Twilight Sparkle sat there in the void again, speechless. Was this really Discord? The Discord? Master of chaos and chief troublemaker? Why would he do all of this for her?
“I'm in your mind, my little pony,” Discord literally tossed the frown from his face. It landed in a trashcan nearby, which quickly popped out of existence. With his eagle's claw, he drew on a smile instead. “In spite of everypony not trusting and generally failing to be a good friend to me,” he made heavy use of air quotes, “I have studied this friendship thing very hard. I read all of your letters and diary entries-”
“Hey!” Twilight complained about the invasion of her privacy.
“-and I must admit in all forms of humility that I, Discord, have transformed into the flawless butterfly of the perfect friend!”
He killed the moment of grandeur at the end by snickering. The purple alicorn, however, was stumped. Her mind ran through the basics to confirm all that the draconequus had said. Her connections did feel alive, but they were muted. Stuck, as if time itself had been put on pause. Vague memories came back to her. They were of pain and desperation, though their intensity was almost non-existent.
“Dear Queen Twilight,” Discord chuckled. He whipped her changeling crown out of nowhere and placed it on her head. “Why do you not learn from your own lessons? You already have all the knowledge you need to be a good friend, yet you forget constantly.”
Twilight's confusion continued to drain away as she comprehended the situation. Her gaze drooped downwards because the chaos-bringer had hit a sore spot. Now more than ever, she was struggling to make sense of the complex relationships she had gotten herself into.
“Lectures and lessons are easy on paper,” she replied, almost sad. “It's much harder to translate them into a real-life relationship.”
“Pfft,” Discord stuck out his tongue, which dropped down to half his body size. It rolled back up obscenely. “Oh, please. Am I invisible to you, Twilight?”
“Huh?” the queen looked back up to him.
“Has that logical brain of yours not returned yet? Who do you think you're looking at?”
Twilight pursed her lips and decided to go along with it, not seeing the immediate point. “Discord, master of chaos and disharmony?”
“Precisely,” he flicked her on the tip of her horn. She didn't tumble back this time, but it still stung a bit. “And yet here I am giving all I have for your sake. What do you think this is doing to my image? You better not tell anypony about this. My reputation would be ruined. It's already bad enough that I'm using Luna's magic rather than my own. Didn't think she'd give it over that easy, but-”
“Wait, what?!” Twilight's eyes shot open to the size of dinner plates.
“Hush now,” Discord put a claw to his lips. A grin laid behind it. “Quiet now.”
“You stole Luna's magic?!”
“She gave it to me. Small difference, I know.”
“Ugh,” Twilight held her head, trying to work out the mess that would await her when she awoke from the hivemind session. Her head came back up when a paw forced her chin up.
A small bit of seriousness was visible in Discord's eyes, something that was not often seen. “The point I was trying to make a moment ago was that you can be whatever you choose to be in life, Twilight. I decided that I wanted friendship, which is why I am here doing what I am. Change is not about destiny. It's about what you decide is important in life.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“I thought that's what good friends did for each other. It's what you did for Fluttershy,” he stopped himself before revealing that he had a paw in that relationship. “You better make good on that promise you made her, else I'll be forced to stand up for her. You don't want that, Twily.”
It was the weirdest thing to hear that unique tone in Discord's voice. The sensation was almost as if Discord believed himself to be Fluttershy's older brother, responsible for ensuring her feelings were never damaged in an intimate relationship.
“Though I will be gone for quite some time,” the draconequus wondered aloud. “Perhaps I'll pull one last string before I close the curtains.”
“What are you talking about?” Twilight crossed her forehooves as she was sitting. It was annoying when he thought to himself but was mentally inaccessible within her own mind.
As suddenly as Discord always did such things, a psychiatrist's couch poofed into existence beneath the queen. Discord was randomly in a fancy leather chair with a fine pressed suit and pair of glasses on his face. A notebook and a pen were in each of his mismatched appendages. The control he had within Twilight's hivemind space bothered her, but she supposed that it came from his usual bout of chaotic magic. It would be simple for him to do with a magical source as powerful as Luna's.
“You have a lot of problems, Twilight,” he began in a terribly professional tone. It lacked emotion and yet attempted to draw out her feelings. Discord the Psychiatrist. The world was coming to an end. “Tell me about them.”
“Oh, c'mon!” Twilight grumped from her new laid-down position on the bed/sofa thing.
“Tsk, tsk,” Discord tutted and wrote some notes in his book. “Chrysalis, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash all have very serious feelings for you and you've only made vague promises in return.”
“That's not true,” Twilight denied. Why was Discord doing this?
“Is it? Or has your hivemind connection already revealed the unfulfilled hopes of those three mares? The same hopes you hang out in the air, making them think you'll devote yourself to them more intimately in the future.”
That struck a nerve. Twilight used her magic, now thankfully under control, to make the couch-thing disappear. She stood on her hooves, glaring intensely at the creature of chaos.
“First of all, what I do with my own personal relationships is none of your business. And second of all, I'm not waving anything in the air. I fully intend to devote myself to them for the rest of my life. I just don't know how to do that because I've never been in that kind of relationship before. I don't even know how I can be involved with three ponies at one time without being looked down on by others!”
Discord patiently awaited the end of the rant. He wrote down more notes in the book and carefully observed the queen's increasingly rage-filled expression. It was fun to be playing this part, though he had other ideas that sounded far more entertaining. He stuck with this approach because he knew that it would help Fluttershy farther down the road.
“So you believe that cultural acceptance is more important than your personal relationships?”
Twilight winced. That was the kind of logical question that she would have asked somepony else. It hurt to have that revelation be given to her when her own logic told her that it was dead right.
“Remember,” Discord added before the mare could reply, “I'm not here to guide your decisions, Twilight. I won't tell you what to do with your life. I'm just a mirror, showing you to you. Look deep and be true to yourself.”
The more Twilight looked at the misshapen creature, the more she began to see purple colors and dark blue bangs. Eventually, she really was looking at herself. The copy was wearing a changeling crown and changeling-esque horseshoes along with a chestplate-like thing. She walked about with pride and self-assurance. It wasn't arrogance, though. She was merely certain of who she was and set on what she wanted to do.
Three mares walked up to the copy, though one mare could only be considered as much for the sake of convenience. They were Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Chrysalis. All were smiling and all embraced the queen's duplicate with something more than a friend's hug. Each of them had a necklace with a sparkling pendant. It meant something very serious and yet very happy.
Boos and hollers of disapproval came from multiple directions. There were no faces associated with them, but they seemed great in number. With a swipe of her hoof through the air, the Twilight clone silenced the sounds and spoke.
“Let friendship overcome distrust. Love replace hatred. Freedom over tradition. To each their own within reason and understanding.”

“A little manipulation isn't always bad,” Discord nodded to himself, pleased as he walked over to Rarity's medical bed. He had just reappeared in the real world, triumphant in his brief hivemind adventure. “Parents direct their children, do they not?”
“That's a might different,” Applejack narrowed her eyes at him. Nothing seemed to have changed with her friends' dire condition in spite of his hours of absence.
“Whatever,” he waved his eagle's claw over Rarity, as if he were performing some ancient ritual. “She needed a boost in confidence or else she'd be stuck in the same place forever. Honestly, I have to do everything for you ponies.”
Rarity's medical equipment began to beep wildly, which caused a flood of doctors and nurses to enter the room. They had been waiting and watching patiently throughout the hours. The white unicorn mare breathed deeper than she had during her coma and then she coughed violently. Her eyes opened and her coughing died down.
“Wh-what h-happened?” she stretched the words outwards in shock.
Spike was at her bedside at an instant, shoving aside the medical ponies that flocked in at the impossible event. As they poured over medical readouts, the mid-sized dragon grabbed Rarity's forehoof and practically cried.
“Rarity!” he exclaimed in pure joy.
“Spikey?” the mare said in return. Her confusion remained, however. “Where are we?”
Not wanting to bother with the dull back-and-forth, Discord moved on to another pony in coma. He tried not to smirk when he saw Applejack's mouth hang open nearly as far as the floor. A more simple tap to the forehead and Discord had both of Twilight's comatose guards awake. The medical ponies couldn't keep up.
They hadn't a clue that he had actually done all of the magical healing and reordering inside of Twilight's hivemind. What he was doing now was hardly more than flipping an “on” switch. With a few of the hospital patients, he pretended to exert great physical force in the magic ritual. He was, after all, never one to abandon a perfect opportunity for showboating. Various medical tools and massive magical inscriptions accompanied his further acts of miraculous recovery. All fake, but all convincing.
“Blueberry Pie!” Pinkie Pie shouted angrily as she came to. Her face immediately softened and she stuck her tongue out. “Oh, sorry. I thought I was still in my coma dream for a second there.”
Discord laughed, though nobody besides him knew what she meant. Fluttershy was already hugging Pinkie and crying with relief. She had done as much with Rarity and was beside herself with the continued revival of her friends.
“Don't forget the dimensional observation magic I told you about,” Discord reminded Pinkie Pie. He couldn't wait to see Twilight's face when she found out what he gave Pinkie Pie.
“No, sir, captain, sir,” the mare saluted in return. She had to do it through Fluttershy's hug. “I'll try it out as soon as I finish my horn!”
“Huh?” Fluttershy finally backed up from her friend and queried.
Discord had already moved on to the next pony. Queen Twilight Sparkle. Since they had talked extensively already, he knew there wouldn't be much trouble in reviving her. Still, he groaned as he “powered up” his magic. The room darkened, the lights flickered, and his body glowed brilliantly. The ponies watched in awe as he wielded Luna's magic for a pointless display. Good thing they were clueless about how much of a show he was putting on.
Twilight's eyes opened slow and dramatic. Her forehoof came up to her head, massaging her forehead while she moaned due to the bodily ache. The IV tube followed with the movement of her hoof. All conscious occupants of the room found their eyes riveted on the purple alicorn. She was, after all, the one that had been at the center of the terrible incident. No green lightning sparked about, though.
“T-Twilight...?” Fluttershy stared in disbelief. She had already started to move away from Pinkie Pie and towards her queen. “You're okay?” she added more to herself than anypony else.
Discord was winding his arms around as if he were stretching after a tough workout. Nopony was paying attention to him anymore.
When Fluttershy came up along the very edge of Twilight's bed, she finally saw her queen's irises. Something was definitely different about them. They were still purple and yet there was a movement within them, almost as if there was something alive within their circular shapes.
Fluttershy half climbed onto the bed to peer close, making sure her Twilight really was alright. What her own eyes confirmed both made her relieved and worried at the same time. The Element of Magic seemed okay in every respect except for her eyes. Tiny lines of green lightning danced within her irises and glowing specks of the same hue persisted throughout. It wasn't distracting at a distance because one could only see some minor discoloration until they got closer.
“Discord?” Fluttershy let her small worried voice carry without looking away from Twilight.
“Don't worry about the details,” the draconequus tilted and cracked his neck. It popped off afterwards and he had to chase it across the floor before grabbing it, reattaching it, and continuing. “They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, it's magic instead.”
Fluttershy wasn't certain she liked the laugh he made. It was as if he thought the issue was some big joke. Then again, Twilight seemed okay now and what was a little discoloration in exchange for her life?
“Shy,” Twilight breathed out faintly upon realizing which pony she was looking at. Her vision was blurry but steadily returning. Her hooves felt too heavy to lift, so she requested what she wanted instead. “I could use a hug.”
Fluttershy didn't have to be asked for something like that. She was going to embrace her queen anyways, which she now did. Tears flowed freely and she sobbed her relief out loud without any consideration for the others in the room. Twilight had become everything to her and the assurance that she hadn't passed on was paramount to her.
Twilight simply enjoyed the soft embrace of one of her closest friends. Though Rarity and Pinkie Pie couldn't come over due to their weakened conditions, they verbalized their relief. Spike was the most forward of them by far. He raced over to Twilight's bed and wrapped his much larger arms around her, weaving through Fluttershy's hug and having to approach from the other side.
“Hey there,” Twilight tried to giggle but only wound up coughing a tad painfully. “Looks like my little dragon grew up when I wasn't looking.”
“Don't joke,” Spike sniffled through his tears. “I didn't do it on purpose. I don't even know how to go back.”
“Why would you want to go back?” Pinkie Pie questioned from her nearby bed. “The new Spikers is awesome!”
“Yes,” Rarity agreed from her own spot slightly closer. “We were hardly speaking empty words whilst in Twilight's hivemind.”
Whilst?” Pinkie Pie snorted her everyday laughter. “That's Rares for ya!”
“Pardon?” the fashionista raised a brow and looked to her other side to question the pink pony.
“Done yet?” Discord tapped a hoof and placed his claw and paw on his hips. “I've got a few more to go through.”
“I hadn't forgotten,” Twilight replied solemnly and glanced to Rainbow Dash's medical pod.
“Jumpin' jellybeans,” Applejack finally exclaimed. “You could've told us you could do all this from the start!”
“I prefer to see the shocked looks on your adorable little faces,” Discord only half-joked.
Typical of the chaos-bringer, he mixed up the room with a snap of his fingers. Twilight suddenly disappeared from the grasp of the pegasus and dragon, who fell forwards onto the bed. The alicorn reappeared beside Rainbow's bed, which no longer had a glass enclosure. Discord was standing on the opposite side with a full surgeon's scrubs. A matching mask was over his mouth.
“Scalpel!” he demanded from Twilight, who furrowed her brows trying to comprehend what he was doing. She wobbled and felt weak on her hooves, but she didn't fall. “Nevermind, Nurse Sparkle. This one needs a chainsaw!”
Just as the rumbling roar of the suddenly-appeared chainsaw filled the room and Twilight's expression turned to horror, Rainbow's eyes shot open. She flung up on the bed so that she was standing on it with all four hooves, no wounds or burn marks visible anywhere. Her stance was defensive towards Discord.
“Don't get anywhere near me with that thing!” Rainbow warned with a tone of steel determination. Her voice was muffled oddly by the oxygen mask still attached to her face.
“Rainbow!” Twilight called out from behind her, as equally shocked as the others in the room.
This was a different shock than the one they had been going through with each miraculous recovery. Twilight knew that Discord had worked to fix up everypony in her hive, but she honestly hadn't expected Rainbow Dash to be in such perfect condition considering the severity of her wounds. As she was now, the rainbow mare looked better than she had before the incident.
Discord threw the chainsaw over his shoulder and it evaporated out of existence just before reaching the face of a doctor pony that was behind him. The poor stallion almost feinted from the near death. The other hospital ponies didn't notice because they were busy rushing back and forth trying to figure out the incomprehensible medical miracles that Discord seemed to be pulling off.
The continued heartfelt reunion of the previously comatose friends was actually a tad boring for the draconequus. Therefore, he didn't pay much attention to Twilight and Rainbow's embracing, tears, and general repeat of the other reunions. Discord instead focused on the last member he had to revive. This was, after all, the most interesting one in his book. Queen Chrysalis. Or rather, the former queen.
“Like a bear walking into a lion's den,” Discord giggled to himself as his magical ministrations started receiving feedback from the changeling.
Twilight looked to Chrysalis' bed with renewed worry. Small green sparks started dancing out from the changeling's horn even though she hadn't yet been awoken. Discord was waving his fingers over Chrysalis' body, seeming to orchestrate a build of magic from the horn.
“What are you doing?” Twilight quickly asked, all attention now removed from her recovered friends.
“I could have simply removed the magical cross-matrix,” the tall chaos-bringer continued in his gleeful mood. “But what fun would there be in that? I'd hate to come back-”
“Come back? From where?” the pony queen kept her worry but added in some curiosity.
Discord's smile paled only for a second before returning in full glory. He had forgotten that Celestia hadn't spoken to Twilight about the whole ascension thing yet. “In spite of recent history, I don't spend every waking moment looking after you,” he covered it up with a half-truth. “I have vacations lined up, you know.”
The sparks had turned to complete electrical arcs that reached from Chrysalis' horn to Discord's arms. The energy seemed not to affect him, probably due to his purple and black magic that he was using to absorb it when it reached his body. Luna's magic source was a thing of beauty, he reflected.
“With your new connection to Chrysy, no future connection should pose a problem,” Discord leaped into the air. He remained airborne for the purpose of laughing at gravity. “And your new Hive Power will be accessible to all members thereof.”
“Hive Power?” Rarity asked, brows furrowed because she was lost with everything Discord was saying.
“Come now,” he began a backstroke in the air over Chrysalis' bed. The electric lightning had risen to a near deafening roar, though it did nothing when it was absorbed into his body. “Don't make me explain everything. Learn for yourself and you might have an easier time defeating...”
“Defeating what?” Twilight's eyes narrowed. She always suspected Discord knew more about the world than he let on. This slip made her feel like he had them all on strings.
“Live life one day at a time, Twily,” Discord's expression shifted so that his gaze shot into the pony queen's very core. “That's the only way to enjoy it.”
Spike crossed his arms and side-stepped a stray bolt that had reached out towards him. “Chaos and wisdom go claw-in-claw, huh?” he remarked sarcastically.
“I know,” Discord waved a paw sheepishly. “I'm just such a good friend. I mean, I totally leave you ponies in the dust, don't you think?”
Deadpan stares were his garnered response.
“Anypony for ice cream?” he tried again. Bribing with special treats usually worked. The green electricity had died back down so that not even a spark came from Chrysalis' horn. He descended from the air and stood on the floor for a rare moment of normality.
“Oh!” Pinkie Pie bounced in front of him and jammed an ice cream cone into his paw. At some point, she had sprung back to her normal energy levels and abandoned her bed. “Already got them! Everypony's favorite flavors too!”
The pink wonder proceeded to teleport around the room with a snap of green electricity. That fact was not lost to anyone in the large intensive care room. They all promptly received their favorite flavors of ice cream in a variety of cups and cones.
“See?” Discord gestured with his eagle's claw and licked his cone of Mystery Sherbet. “Pinkie Pie already has it.”
“Actually,” she suddenly materialized in front of him. “I'm cheating right now with Pinkie Physics. I'm not using Hive Power yet because I need Chry-Chry's help with the changeling mechanics of my artificial horn and wings!”
As if on cue, Chrysalis' eyes slowly opened. The large black being groaned from her splayed-out position on the bed. Twilight's focus shot from Discord and Pinkie to Chrysalis. She desperately wanted to get up and go over to her changeling, but her own physical condition prevented that. Her body was still tired and achy in spite of her increased mental clarity. As if catching onto that, Discord teleported her back onto her medical bed and in between Spike and Fluttershy.
By some subconscious move, she reset the connections in her mind to sync all the members in the room. Instantly, they were able to share thoughts, emotions, questions, and answers. Spike was the only one that visibly flinched at the reset. The others simply skipped a breath, minus Twilight herself. The queen paled at what Pinkie had mysteriously learned in relation to dimensional magic theory, causing her to throw an upset glare at Discord.
“Chrysalis, are you alright?” Twilight asked verbally even after she had connected with her changeling mentally. Some things she would never get rid of entirely when it came to speaking.
“Of course,” was the buzzy reply, not quite as weak as Twilight's voice had been upon awakening. “I regret to realize who our savior is, though.”
Discord might have feigned offense if he wasn't busy chasing Pinkie Pie around the room for no reason at all. They were both laughing like a pair of brainless foals. Their ice cream had, of course, already been consumed. It was as they darted through the dumbfounded nurses and doctors that Chrysalis realized she had a cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream next to her on the bed.
The primary doors to the room blasted open and two ponies came rushing in straight to Twilight's bed. The purple alicorn was thankful that she could use the hivemind to settle all concerns within her hive because there was no way she'd be able to keep up with what was going on otherwise. Especially considering who the two newcomers were.
“Twily!” shouted the teary voice of her older brother. Cadance was right beside him and shouted the same.
Twilight's bed began to complain about the number of ponies leaning or otherwise pressing upon it. The frame creaked under the weight.
“Everypony's alright,” Cadance glanced quickly around even as she hugged Twilight along with Shining Armor. “How?”
Some of the doctors finally gave up, threw their medical masks on the floor, and stomped out of the room. A few mumbled curses were had about “dumb chaos creatures using confounded magic.”
Discord hopped over to the mass of ponies around Twilight's bed. He was holding Pinkie Pie under one arm, who had a sign hanging around her neck. It read “I've been got.”
“Now, now,” Discord fluttered his eyelids in mock humility. “I didn't do all the work. Discord over here deserves most of the praise.”
Shining Armor and Cadance looked over to the individual Discord had motioned to and found...another Discord. The duplicate bowed and then disappeared.
“Seriously,” the draconequus chuckled, “Chrysalis really did try her best. She accomplished a lot in protecting her new hive. Unfortunately, as hivemind magic goes, none of that hard work was visible to the naked eye of the common pony. Behind-the-scenes stuff. I'll leave you all to have a talk with her. Especially you two.”
Discord grinned almost creepily at the rulers of the Crystal Empire before he popped out of existence. Pinkie Pie dropped to her hooves and gave an “aw” of disappointment. She wanted to play around with Discord some more.
Shining Armor gulped and Cadance's mouth twitched as they both turned to face Chrysalis upon the medical bed beside Twilight's.
“Hello there,” Chrysalis tried to smile at them, though her fangs showed and she didn't feel as if she were in her best of moods. She didn't have an IV stuck in her, but she did feel a bit sickly. Perhaps it was the sterile hospital air.
Or perhaps it was the looks she was getting from the two ponies she had a particularly sour past with.