• Published 6th Aug 2013
  • 20,589 Views, 1,216 Comments

Hive Alive - BlackWater



Twilight saved Chrysalis from a bitter end, thus changing her own fate and that of the Elements of Harmony. As she learns the power of redemption, Twilight gains power never before recorded in history. Equestria itself will never be the same.

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16 - Illness is Opportunity



Fluttershy was out like a light when the train took them back to Ponyville. For that matter, Twilight was as well even though hers was a far less restful slumber. The other two were just as tired but managed to stay awake anyhow. Chrysalis was trying to think about what would happen after they got back to the library and Midnight Strike was fighting not to doze off while he was on duty. This trip had him awake and alert far longer than he usually was since he normally worked in shifts with others.

Chrysalis was now looking on worriedly at Twilight's closed eyes. They moved behind the lids and the mare's mouth was etched downwards in a expression not far from one indicating a struggle against some specter of pain. Was it the strain she had been under on the trip or something else entirely? The changeling was incredibly tempted to use what was left of her magical strength to get inside her queen's mind then and there. But, alas, she was too weak to conjure up the guts for it. Her eyes began to waver and she fought to keep them from closing on account of some deep-seated obligation to protect her purple royal.

What should have been a boring return trip to Ponyville aboard a simple train quickly devolved into a single shot of over-energized madness. Such was the general rule to apply whenever Pinkie Pie decided to tag along. It really had been too long since she had some time to let fly her physics-bending craziness on the princess. That final specification was very important considering the fact that she had, after all, used that special craziness earlier when she tagged along with Vinyl Scratch. But Celestia forbid Pinkie Pie find out about the whole “queen” thing and decide to throw yet another party.

“Cupcakes anypony?!” asked the sugar-pumped voice of one pink pony as she appeared seemingly out of thin air. Her head had popped up from above the seat of the row in front of Chrysalis. Balanced on one of the party pony's hooves was a tray full of cupcakes complete with white and blue frosting as was common in the Crystal Empire.

Chrysalis would be a liar if she said she wasn't surprised. However, it was not her voice that came out when her mouth open. The Element of Laughter had awoken the Element of Magic from her uncomfortable sleep.

“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight moaned as she groggily opened her eyes and tried sitting up. “What...?”

Midnight Strike had made a small noise as he got up and then returned to his previous spot assured that the sudden appearance was no threat. How the pony slipped into her spot without his noticing was something he was very interested in figuring out, however.

“I'm so so sorry,” Pinkie Pie apologized for some reason none of the others could figure out. “I got distracted and missed out on all the fun you all had yesterday in the Crystal Empire.”

She looked legitimately sad about it with the way her mane drooped. Twilight felt like she had a headache strong enough to knock out a rhinoceros but worked through it all the same for one disclaimer. “Fun? We didn't have any fun.”

“Oh good,” Pinkie Pie immediately re-inflated and then caught herself. “I mean, that's awful. We're going to have to have tons and tons of fun when we get back to Ponyville.”

“Ugh,” the royal groaned as her head lolled back.

Chrysalis gave Pinkie Pie a hard look and whispered warning. “Be quiet. Twilight is not well.”

“Oh,” the Earth pony didn't hush at all. “I can throw a 'Get Well Soon' party at the same time!”

That time, Twilight visibly grimaced and held her head in pain. Pinkie Pie finally covered her mouth with a hoof and breathed a soft “sorry” before putting the tray of cupcakes back down on the seat next to her.

Chrysalis now had reason to keep giving the party pony a difficult stare, which Pinkie never did well under. She usually got out of any tight spot she got herself into by either being saved by one of her friends or using some cheap breaking of physics and logic. With Fluttershy still asleep and Twilight instantly rejoining the yellow mare, Pinkie Pie was left basically alone with a changeling and guardpony that both looked like they had just fought their way out of a death pit with no humor for casual conversation.

Midnight Strike had no intention of talking, as was the custom of any Royal Guard. The changeling's expression soon went the route of the stallion's glassy stare. Both would be crashing when they got back to their respective places. Or at least as soon as they were able to with all the stuff that still needed to be done. As the clacking of the train tracks went on beneath them, Pinkie Pie poked her seat with her hoof and eventually wound up eating all of the cupcakes she had bought earlier for her friends.

She felt bad. But she was not the only one to feel so. The others also felt bad for different reasons. All were exhausted except for Twilight Sparkle who felt both exhausted and physically pained. She had fallen back into a restless sleep that she would have felt better not to have been in at all.

In her mind, Twilight felt empty. It was not the emptiness one might feel between the dream-filled parts of slumber. It was a dark and painful emptiness like one doomed to live in a world where all family and friends were dead and gone. A world where there was nopony else around. Not even one's own enemies.

The alicorn cringed as a new wave of silence hit her in the dream state, as if the lack of anything to begin with was in need of refreshment. What was this terror that came upon her? It had no form, which made it impossible for her to use her logic to defeat it. The pain was the sheer lack of anything and that was the problem. But she couldn't help it by waking because her over-taxed body could not keep from sleep even if that same sleep gave her no energy in return.

She had found Tartarus in personal form. That had to be it. She had been to the real one and it was far less painful than what she was going through now. Before she could try and rouse herself back out of the pain of sleep for just a few seconds, something finally disrupted the void in her mind. It was the voice of her changeling friend.

“My queen...” the buzzy voice echoed in the empty space. It sounded far, distant, and not at all as soothing as it should have been. In fact, it sounded more like a recording played back rather than live words.

Twilight strained to give herself physical form as she had before in the hivemind, but it would not come. Again she heard a voice. Only this time it was Fluttershy instead of Chrysalis.

“My queen....” the soft shy voice echoed in the exact same way the last one had.

Still Twilight strained and still no fruit came of it until a third voice called out.

“My queen...” Midnight Strike echoed. The repetition of it was maddening and made unbearable by the queen's inability to make any kind of response. She wanted to say something at the very least so that her hive could know she was there. They should know she was with them and that she cared for them.

Hive? Twilight's logical part, which was to say most of her, stopped suddenly. When did she think of her friends as her hive? And why? She was a pony, not a changeling. A princess, not a...queen? Oh, but she was a queen and she had those that depended on her. She loved them and they loved her. She was at peace-

SLAM!

Twilight's heart wrenched with a fresh wave of pain she had not seen coming. The emptiness washed over her like a nausea. She felt like throwing up and that was just when her eyes shot open and the light of the afternoon sun hit her, casting through the train car's windows.

Pinkie Pie's face was inexplicably in hers. “You look terrible!” the Earth pony exclaimed with mixed concern and a desire to keep her upbeat attitude. She liked to be happy as much as possible if it meant cheering up her friends, after all.

When she opened her mouth to speak, Twilight found her voice a grainy mess. An “ugh” was all that made it out before her throat seized up in pain.

Pinkie's face turned out of view as two holey hooves wrapped around Twilight and slung her gently out of her seat. “We need to get her back to the ring,” Chrysalis hummed with some kind of sad tone. “I knew something was wrong.”

“Wrong?” the quiet voice of Fluttershy sounded from somewhere behind them. Twilight was losing track of where she was since her vision was beginning to spin. And that was not because Chrysalis was carrying her and flying out of the train car at the same time.

“Oh! Oh!” Pinkie Pie's voice started sounding lower in volume, farther in distance. “Get Well Party! On it!”

“Is she going to be okay?” a stallion asked from nearby. It sounded like Midnight Strike but it also sounded deeply worried and Twilight had not heard him quite that way before.

“I don't know,” the changeling responded unsure. “It's my fault. I should never have mentioned Sombra.”

“What's Sombra have to do with this?” the stallion asked another question. This time his voice was less concerned than it was tired.

Chrysalis grunted and shifted Twilight's weight in her hooves to make sure she didn't drop the mare. Twilight herself would have gotten up and flown on her own if she could stop her body from aching all over and her vision from being caught in a twisted blur. Closing her eyes didn't help as much as she thought it would and only started calling back the painful non-sleep that she had been through previously. She didn't want that but did that mean that she could never sleep at all?

“I should have known better,” the changeling explained as they continued flying towards the library. “Our queen has this innate urge to protect Equestria. It goes without saying that she would try to track down Sombra even if it would be bad for her health.”

“What did you do?” Midnight's voice took on an accusatory tone.

“Don't talk to me like that,” Chrysalis growled. “If it wasn't for what I had done, you would never have known Twilight as you do. It's the hivemind. It's not for ponies but I forced it anyways.”

There was a lurch as the changeling and two pegasi touched ground. Twilight wanted to speak; she wanted to act. Confound whatever it was that had taken her like a plague! All she could do was just lie in Chrysalis' arms like a bag of hammers.

“Get her to the ring,” Fluttershy spoke as Twilight heard a door open. “I'll get some damp towels and a thermometer.”

The next time Twilight opened her eyes, she could make out the vague shapes of her bookshelves situated some distance below. She had an equally vague sense of weightlessness and her blurry vision had a green tint to it. She was being magically carried up to her bedroom at the Golden Oaks Library. She was home.

Fluttershy was downstairs in the kitchen, filling a bowl with cool water after grabbing some small towels from the bathroom. If a million chaotic things happening at once was what none of them needed then that was exactly what had to happen. The butter-yellow pegasus could hear Midnight Strike just outside the library door getting chewed out by one of the other guardponies. It was an older voice that was berating him.

The Element of Kindness would have thought to try mustering up some courage to speak up for the stallion if she wasn't already to the point of tears at the kitchen faucet. She was tired, she was worried, and she felt helpless. Celestia forbid Twilight to have anything other than simple exhaustion sickness.

When the water was done filling up the container, she hoisted the towels across her neck and grabbed the thermometer with her mouth. She carried the water bowl in her hooves as she fluttered upstairs to the bedroom. These were the kind of things she did all the time for her animal friends and it came naturally to her. What didn't feel as natural was the utter blackness of Twilight's bedroom. She hadn't physically been in it since Chrysalis had changed it and its appearance was stronger than she had imagined.

But no creeping feeling from the room could keep her away from a patient. Least of all when the patient was her queen, Twilight Sparkle. Chrysalis had positioned the purple alicorn in a restful lay on the sleep ring's padding. Her head was propped up by the changeling's forehoof. With deft speed, Fluttershy enthusiastically zipped into the ring with the others.

“I brought the thermometer just in case,” the pegasus said as she settled the things beside Twilight. “But it's probably exhaustion sickness.”

“And something else too,” Chrysalis added weakly. “She's asleep again. I'm going to join her. When you're done doing what you need to, lay down next to her and go to sleep as well.”

Fluttershy might have asked why if she was not as tired as the others were. And besides, she had wanted to sleep in Twilight's ring. This opportunity would have made her giggle with glee and prance in place if not for the weight of her queen's condition and her own lack of energy. Doubtless there were bags under her eyes. She knew there were under Twilight's.

“I will,” the Element of Kindness affirmed and set to getting a towel damp in the bowl of water. Chrysalis leaned in towards Twilight's face and touched their horns together as she laid down fully. Her eyes were closed when Fluttershy brought the towel over to Twilight's face and wiped away the sweat and dirt that had gathered there over the past twenty-four hours.

The yellow mare's lip quivered when she saw how close Chrysalis was to her queen. She decided to at least match the changeling when she joined them. After all, she had been friends with the alicorn long before Chrysalis had come along and certainly before Twilight had even been an alicorn to begin with.

Fluttershy continued using the towels to clean where she could and simultaneously check for unusual body temperatures, conditions, and wounds. It was a system she had worked out a long time ago for some of her animal friends. She didn't find anything unusual with Twilight even after she double-checked with the thermometer.

Seeing Twilight's clean sleeping face, a little bit less troubled than it had been before, made her heart glow. She looked so serene. So perfect. Fluttershy drooped and snapped out of it. She was tired and needed to sleep but, now that she had gone over Twilight, she noticed how much a contrast Chrysalis was and even herself. So with a sigh of relent, she turned her attention to the next two subjects in need.

It was when she had finished the changeling and half of herself that the mare nearly passed out. She wasn't used to going on as long as she had. The tiredness she had kept fighting was now at a painful state. Hanging on a little longer out of sheer will, she finally finished with her last hoof and placed all of the used items outside of the sleeping ring.

Fluttershy stumbled downwards towards Twilight with just enough of a gap between them to prevent the purple pony from being rudely awoken. Then again, considering all that Fluttershy had already gone through to clean her up, it was pretty obvious that she was not going to wake up easily. The pegasus was fine with that because the sleep ring's cushioning felt better than the softest cloud in that moment.

A yellow hoof draped across Twilight's midsection. The shy mare sidled up and hugged her queen from behind just before her eyelids shut completely and she dropped into the darkness of slumber, the warmth of Twilight's back being the last thing she felt. The release into much needed rest was a sensation hardly done any justice by mere words. In that sense, it was similar to more complicated things. Things like love.

Where many ponies fell into the nothingness of sleep interrupted only by the occasionally remembered dream, Fluttershy spent only a brief time in the initial void before she was pulled by a strong force into a place she had seen before. It was what she knew now as her queen's hivemind, still formless but continuing to shift in dark colors.

Chrysalis was there laying with Twilight much as she had been in the real world. But the two were awake in this one and Twilight had her head nestled beneath the changeling's own. Fluttershy heard sniffling and raced across the short distance separating them in time to hear a few words from the Element of Magic.

“I never want to feel that again. Never,” she repeated.

Fluttershy came up behind Twilight and touched a hoof to her shoulder as Chrysalis looked sadly to her. “Twi...”

Instantly, the purple mare's head came out from the crook of the changeling's neck and looked back to her yellow friend. Her face was a mess and nothing at all like it had been after Fluttershy had cleaned it up in the sleeping ring. Something invisible pulled at the pegasus once more, only this time she was sucked into Twilight's arms as the queen turned and grasped her friend with a tight grip. The suddenness made the shy mare squeak in surprise.

Twilight did not speak. She just hugged Fluttershy quietly, burying her face against the other's neck and soaking her coat with tears. Chrysalis still had the same sad expression to which she revealed the reason behind.

“I felt an emptiness when my hive exiled me,” the changeling began. “I was so distraught that I nearly died and it was Twilight Sparkle that saved me. I learned to live with the emptiness until I could do something about it. I thought restoring the hivemind through my new queen would relieve me of the pain but there were far too many problems. Ponies are not changelings.”

Fluttershy embraced Twilight in return, feeling a bit guilty that she could benefit like this from her queen's distress. Still, it was nice to comfort somepony else who had always comforted her. “What happened?” was all she could find to ask. The link she had with Twilight's mind was failing to provide the answer.

Chrysalis lowered her eyes in shame. “Twilight's mind has been permanently altered. I cannot restore it to what it was before. It has fused to the hivemind and made her completely reliant upon it even though she can only interact with us through the rings. When she falls asleep elsewhere, she feels the void. I worry that it's much stronger than anything I've had to deal with.”

“Will she be okay?” the Element of Kindness frowned in concern.

The shape-shifter stood up and leaned in to where Twilight's face was now nestled against Fluttershy. She directed her question to the broken alicorn as if she was a mother speaking gently to a small foal. “What do you want, my queen?”

The response came back warped in more sniffles. “My friends and...my changeling.”

Chrysalis drew back with a smile this time. She liked the sound of that. There was never a time in her life when someone had considered her to be their own. Even if she had resolved to staying alongside Twilight for the rest of her life, it was nice to hear she was wanted in return. Chrysalis looked back up to Fluttershy.

“She will be,” she concluded in regards to the pegasus' question. “But she can't be left alone anymore. I'm sure you understand what the Elements of Harmony need to do here.”

“Elements?” Fluttershy brushed at Twilight's mane with a forehoof and fixed her eyes onto the mostly quiet royal. The pegasus smiled now that she felt sure what was the problem and what needed to be done. And so, she leaned down and rested her own head atop the alicorn's as she closed her eyes. “Yes, we're all friends and I know the others will want to help as well.”

Chrysalis kept her own smile but narrowed her eyes by a tiny margin that Fluttershy wouldn't notice even if she had been looking at her. “Are you sure that you're just friends with our queen?”

At that, Fluttershy's eyes opened and locked onto the changeling. “We were destined to be together - all of us - when Rainbow Dash performed her first Sonic Rainboom.”

The changeling let it drop again. “Well, she will be fine after getting some rest like us. And we're getting that rest right now. Not that Twilight or I are deserving of any thanks for it,” she shrugged.

“What?” Fluttershy furrowed her brows.

Chrysalis reached out and brushed Twilight's cheek with the back of a holey hoof. The queen had her eyes closed as if she were concentrating on something. How the pony could go through all that she had and still manage to focus on anything was beyond the changeling.

“The hivemind is active even now. Twilight made us manifest like this, which means we can continue doing things here at the same time that we sleep.”

“But I read in a health magazine that the mind has to rest as well as the body...”

“Our queen is Magic itself. I don't think a magazine is going to explain it,” Chrysalis laughed a bit harshly at the shy mare, who drooped and shrank behind her mane. “Oh, don't be that way, Shy.”

“What did you call me?”

Chrysalis stepped around to the pegasus' other side where Twilight was not between them and she could get closer. She wrapped a hoof around the yellow one and snuggled up against her so that she was on Fluttershy's right while Twilight was on her left. “I've been thinking. You've been pretty nice to me even though you're usually just quiet and obsessed with our queen - I take that as being pretty nice. And I don't just want to be Twi's friend that you are obliged to tolerate or be pleasant around. I'd like to get closer to you, Shy.”

The Element of Kindness had little clue as to what had brought this on. “I think,” she muttered softly, “you're already pretty close.”

Chrysalis was sure she wasn't putting it on too thick. She was only nuzzling the mare's face and smiling like an idiot while doing it.

Too close,” Fluttershy whispered at an almost inaudible level.

The changeling stopped suddenly but not on account of anything the pegasus did. She felt something ripping through the space around them. The shifting formlessness of the hivemind abruptly morphed into something new and crystal clear. They were no longer suspended in blank space but were on the ground. The solid, green, and grassy ground. Fluttershy recognized the place instantly. It was one of her secret spots she enjoyed going to with her animal friends whenever she wanted to just get away from it all.

A gentle breeze blew by just cool enough to be pleasant, unlike that of the frigid drifts in the Crystal Empire. The day was sunny with just a few clouds in the perfect imitation of a splendid Ponyville day. The only thing amiss were the animals that regularly occupied the area, but Fluttershy was the only one to notice that. Even the surrounding willows, criss-crossing streams, and lily pads were exact to her memory.

“So that was why she was so quiet,” Chrysalis remarked. Everything was so crisp, from the drift of wind through their manes down to the crunch of the grass beneath their hooves. “Incredible.”

Twilight backed away from Fluttershy, a serene look like the one she had in the ring having replaced the one of distress. Her face had also been cleared as if she had never shed a tear. “I'm sorry,” she spoke up with an even voice. “I was just a little overwhelmed for a while.”

“This is-” Fluttershy halted and would have looked around more if she was not so confused by the purple queen. She knew she had been working to form something because of their active link, but Twilight's magical activities were often beyond her ability to comprehend since she was not a magic user herself.

“-what I can build from your memories,” Twilight finished for her. “I think I'm finally getting the hang of this.”

“Why here?” Chrysalis butted in before either could continue. The changeling was buzzing in a hover towards the large willow that was surrounded on all sides by streams. It made up a cozy miniature island for the tree. Twilight used her own wings to follow just the same while Fluttershy meekly hopped over the small flows of water.

“I know Fluttershy's mind. Her memories, her feelings,” the queen explained as she touched down beneath the tree next to Chrysalis. “Of everything, this place was the most peaceful. The most safe. And, I personally feel, the most beautiful.”

Fluttershy blushed as she came up behind the others. Twilight thought her favorite resting spot was beautiful, so perhaps today had not been such a bad day after all. To see it in her queen's mind was one thing and to hear her voice those words was entirely another.

“Hm,” Chrysalis remarked simply.

Twilight laid down next to the tree and motioned with a wing for Fluttershy to do the same next to her, which she did without question. The changeling, seeing this, made straight to laying down at Twilight's opposite side.

“Everypony has something they like to do that calms them down and gives them rest,” the purple pony began. “I don't want to spend my time here worrying about the same things I do when I'm awake. I already made that decision. It was just the strain from all the magic that made me lose it a bit. I'm fine now.”

“Is this what Fluttershy does to relax?” Chrysalis inquired as she peered around her queen to look at the yellow pony.

“Yes,” Twilight answered for the other. “And I like it too. Doing nothing but spending time with nature is...soothing.”

“But there are no animals,” Fluttershy whispered to herself in a forlorn mood.

Since they were only mental projections within a hivemind, Twilight was immediately aware of all thoughts the others had. That meant that she knew even what they did not say and it meant that she certainly was in-tune with Fluttershy's concern.

“I'm sorry, Shy,” Twilight closed her eyes again in concentration. “Animals are a little hard for me to do right now.”

The pegasus apologized sweetly. “No, you don't have to do anything, Twi. What you've done is far more than enough. I'm just happy to be with you...”

Twilight stopped her focus, reopened her eyes, and smiled warmly at her friend. “Thanks, Shy. That means a lot to me...”

Chrysalis coughed. “Am I turning into chopped daisy over here?”

Twilight laughed lightly and leaned back over to the changeling. “Not at all, my changeling.”

Whether it was that name repeated or the way Twilight stretched upwards to nuzzle Chrysalis' face that caused the shape-shifter to blush was irrelevant. She couldn't help but crack a goofy grin, making her two forward fangs poke out.

“Heh. You're far less intimidating when you smile,” the queen complimented while she felt Fluttershy press into her opposite side. “It's kind of cute, actually. You should do it more.”

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