This story is a sequel to Without a Hive
It is a time of change for Equestria. A small but slowly growing number of changelings have made the kingdom their home, living openly with ponies. Many ponies welcome them in friendship. Others are concerned by the strange and unusual creatures that disrupt the traditional life of Equestria. Yet others worry that such open acceptance leaves Equestria vulnerable to less well-intentioned changelings. And some still fear the insectoid creatures, memories of invasions--and more personal attacks--still strong in their minds.
Sky, Nictis, and all the other changelings of Equestria would love nothing more than to live in peace, but such changes rarely come easily. But in proper changeling fashion, they are determined to endure, and this time they are not alone. Instead of the shelter of disguises and lies, they are strengthened by the friendship of the ponies that accept them, ready to stand tall in the face of an uncertain future.
For nobody, from the new Equestrian changelings to the Princesses themselves, knows how Queen Chrysalis is going to respond...
And so it begins.
I am seriously happy with the cast of this one. Not only do I get most of my favorite OCs from the previous stories, and several new ones, but I also have several of the best characters from the show... including Chrysalis! Oh, she's going to be fun. I can't promise that the updates will be too swift, as I've got so many distractions now, but I can promise that this has me excited enough that it won't be getting sidelined or forgotten.
I kind of almost regret where I end the first chapter, but... well, I just couldn't help myself. It was too perfect.
I just checked like 5 mins ago to see if you posted it yet and boom there it is! Wow I am good!
Muh sequel!
Wait what?
The last time I left off of "Without a HIve" Nictus was one evil little love manipulating bugger... I felt a little saddened by that and stopped reading the fic...
Now wait a sec he's gone out and done what?????
I need to read "Without a Hive" and then this.
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Yeah, he's been through quite a bit to get here. Glad to know I got you to take another look
3614897 Your welcome, it wasn't I thought "Without a Hive" was bad. I liked it and I felt it was written quite well. I liked that it was darker... that Nictus was such an interesting villain but not really a villain protagonist, unlike other changeling fics that go straight to redemption. It was just at the time I was more interested in lighthearted stuff because I tend to use fanfiction as an escape/vent/relaxation and hence I couldnt' really continue "Without a Hive" with due attention. Now though... i'm interested again :D
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Oh, I understand perfectly. Some of the things Nictis did, well... eesh. And some of the things that happen to him aren't much better, either. This story is still going to have some elements of that (Especially where it deals with the results of some events in that story), but its tone is going to be much closer to Fragments, in general. That's not to say that everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows all day long. Chrysalis is involved, after all, and there will be some (Potentially very) bad things happening, but it won't be holding the same degree of longer dark or sad bits as Without a Hive did.
OH YEAH! WOOH! IT'S HERE!
Been waiting for this for awhile, I like it so far. Now I just have to wait still we see Spark.
Huh it seemed this ate my comment.
I am so pumped for this. Without A Hive was great and as someone once said eeee Chrysalis. It's probably too much to think I might have had some influence on the scene (after all, it's one of the few approaches that actually does justice to the characters involved), but ooh yes. I will like to see what you do with Tia, Luna, and Chryssie.
This exists.
Automatic thumbs up/favorite.
I didn't even realize that there would be a sequel!
Welcome back, and congratulations on taking over the feature box.
They're in for one nasty surprise I presume.
I managed to click the home page to check if anything had happened while I was writing just as Undead from Hollywood Undead began to play on my computer. It was amazingly appropriately energetic music for my sudden mood! All new adventures of Nictis?! Hell yeah!
I didn't want to do homework anyway.
And seriously Chrysalis? You couldn't wait one F'ing day?! I hope someone (someling?) punches her. And screw your five minutes; the confrontation with Spark is something I've waited months for!
Oh, and one small complaint. You switch between the various characters really quickly and often. I can follow along so far, but I'd suggest paring it down if at all possible - doing fewer switches and longer stints as a particular character. I'm worried that at points it will become too hard to follow if a lot is going on in one small area. (Like Chrysalis' first audience.)
*happy dance*
Oh, I've been eagerly waiting for this, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Just seeing Nictis interact with the Mane 6 (and Sky), in itself, with no other context, is a joy to read. Guess that's the advantage of keeping Without a Hive almost completely free of canon characters; bringing them in is an exciting novelty on its own.
Oh, Chrysalis, you evil witch. You horrible, evil, filthy, monster. You will pay in blood for your inhumane, unthinkable crime of...
...Delaying Nictis and Spark's reunion. Come on!
Keep up the awesome work. Lookin' forward to the next chapter!
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Hmm... maybe. At the very least, you gave me a lot to think about when I was considering Chrysie's motivations and behavior, and some of it may well have made its way in. She's a lot of fun to write, and I really hope I can portray her right.
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She really is. I think I had more fun writing Chrysalis' bits than any other part of Triptych. Such pizzaz! Such joie de vivre!
This is awesome.
It DOES seem a bit jumpy at points and hard to keep track off....but overall......certainly awesome!
I love the story, But you really need to space between each paragraph, Makes it kind of hard to read when its all jumbled together like that
It ain't easy being swiss cheesy
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I dunno, I've always preferred the more book-like formatting, though I guess it's all a matter of taste.
I did find a simple work-around that lets you read a story with that kind of formatting, though. When you open a chapter, one of the buttons just below the main title/story link, above the text of the chapter itself, is button labeled 'HTML.' Clicking it and opening (Instead of saving) the html file it returns will open up a copy of the story formatted with an extra line between paragraphs. Should work for any story. Hopefully that will help?
Yea know your good when one of your stories is featured but to have all three of your stories featured at the same time! All bow down to the great Phoenix Dragon!
My favorite changeling based story has resumed, excited!
Excuse me while I fangasm at this continuation.
IT'S BACK! My favorite changeling story has returned, and it has a strong start!
Hmmmm.... Everyone entering the castle is scanned, and Chrysalis and her party obviously entered the castle somehow without being stopped.
Did they teleport? Trick the scanners? Blow off the scanners? Or maybe they were allowed to pass?
I get the feeling that the Princesses are prepared for this if they let them get so far.
"I... I heard that the princess that named me was going to call me Carapace. But... the other princesses complained that the name was already used... um, several times, I think. So she just cut the name in half..."
I see what you did there! I remember when you were going to call Nictus "Carapace", but then changed it because a few readers guessed it too easily!
Nitpick time!
which lead to the formulation of doomsday scenario number twenty four, where she replaced only Luna at first, and then used her influence with Celestia to convincer her
A couple typos. (led & convince)
(From the story description.)
For nobody, from the new Equestrian changelings to the Princesses themselves, know how Queen Chrysalis is going to respond...
Nobody ... knows.
Oh it's good to see this story continue. I've been looking forward to this for so long. Also, congrats on the triple-feature, dood. You deserve it.
Holy guacamole!
What if the reason all of the drones all seem male is due to a scalar symbiotic relationship with the number of pony females?!!!
This would explain but not eliminate the imperfect gender imbalance in-between the species... Perfect...
I don't know why, but I am having a serious problem liking this...maybe it's the pacing but I really got irked bad by this...I'll have to wait and see what happens before I can commit to following this.
hey, i better see Nic get some serious back together time with that one pony, sorry the one who specialized in robots? forgot his name but damn it I want to see something happen between the two. I will wait...
This is one of my most anticipated sequels in the history of fimfiction, and I am more than excited that its finally here. I am a bit surprised you made Sky a changeling (I don't think that was needed, really), but I think you are going somewhere with that. And I already really like Cara.
But man, you tease. I don't care about the reveal way at the end (was pretty obvious from a mile away, really), but I hope we won't have to wait too many chapters before the reunion with Spark.
Oh, it's Spark... right. Well shit hit the fan
You've no idea how excited I was waking up to see this.
You just saved my life with this.
Just a couple things I noticed.
Anyway, I absolutely love how you're portraying the changelings so far, even Chrysalis who should really learn to wait her turn.
The playwrite named Skit nice, in the "I see what you did there" kind of way.
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Sky is from a story in the same continuity(Fragments)
"Cara" sounds quite weird for me: not only it's usually a female name in the US&A, it also has a number of interesting meanings in my native Portuguese: "expensive", "cherished", "face", and "dude".
They have come to pluck their chickens!...big, big, viscous chickens who know kung-fu!
Next chapter: Celestia and Chrysalis square off while their guards to the rumble scene from "West Side Story"!
Damn you and your cliffhangers
Nice to see the sequel is finally starting to come out
Cliffhanger! Nooooo!
Ahh. I wanna see her face when she finds out the Element of Magic got an upgrade, and Luna has been spying at her dreams
Spotted one mistake:
> One by one they gathering behind her
Looks like this should be either "they gathered" or "they were gathering".
Ha! "Skit". Subtle
For a moment there, I thought the last word was "apprehension". I think both kinda apply
They're developing a habit of keeping... ersatz-cutie-marks?
He woke him up with the equivalent of an intravenous shot of caffeine? That's awful!
And here I was expecting he woke up because he wanted waffles
"Hey Cara, we're off to meet the Grand Poobah Pony Princess! Wanna come?"
Yeah. That'll end well
Oh wow. Cara's one brave changeling
Princess of the Ponyville library! (that pic never gets old
)
Sky, you know he's right. Now go kiss and make
upout with Rainbow Dash alreadyAww, don't worry. She's not that bad! I mean, sure, she's incredibly powerful, and has the tendency to go crazy when stressed, and is rather manic in general... wait, where was I going with this again? Screw that. Twilight Sparkle is fricking scary!
What'd I tell you? Scary!
Heh. These trinkets really are kinda like cutie marks, aren't they? Easy identification.
Aw. I had half expected Cara to eagerly use Pinkie's excuse to get away from the scary princesses. I guess changeling group safety trumps that.
Then again, Cara seems traumatized enough as it is. He really doesn't need any extra helpings of Pinkie Pie with that.
Damn straight. Nyctis' little caffeine injection this morning was nothing compared to Fluttercare(TM).
Pfff
Pfhaahaha! wow. Should've seen that coming
Did she really just delude herself into thinking Celestia and Luna didn't know who they were from the start? Wow. What an amateur. She forgot the cutie marks, for heaven's sake. Talk about sloppy.
Dammit, I am so addicted to this. It's been a long time ago since I had this much fun reading a story here
Small remark:
> It wasn't long before the small dining room and kitchen was filled with changelings
Unless the dining room and kitchen are the same room, that should be "[were] filled with changelings".
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Making Sky a changeling? Erm, he was a changeling in both the previous stories
And yeah, the "reveal" was pretty obvious. They were not being subtle in the slightest. Spark should be showing up soon (Probably next chapter).
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Funny enough, I was planning on having someone comment later on about how "Cara" sounds like it should be a mare's name
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I do feel a little bad for starting things off with a cliffhanger like that. I promise I'll try to keep from overdoing it. If nothing else, cliffhangers lose their impact when they get used all the time. But I really just couldn't resist it here, it seemed too perfect, especially at the end of an already-long chapter.
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Yep, I'm off to a great start
Yeah, Chrysalis hasn't had the opportunity to "congratulate" Twilight for her promotion yet. And oh, I've got some fun things planned with Luna...
Eeyup!
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Eh? Sky was always a changeling... he appeared at the end of Without A Hive as well.
Erm... Why would Chrysalis have her guards so poorly disguised?
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Yeah, my bad. Somehow I got Sky mixed up with Glitterbug.
IT BEGINS
The one concern I have with the double-protagonist thing you seem to be going for is that Nictis will probably steal the show by sheer virtue of being a hell of a lot more elaborately developed compared to Sky's comparatively sudden amnesiac idealism and much less visceral story. Sky's not shallow by any stretch, but his emotional depths were subtler, he's been cooked for less than half as many words and a bare fraction as much of his life, and we as readers are going to remember it in less detail because we read it longer ago. So don't be afraid to break the balance a bit and give him a hair more focus.
I love how they foil, and I foresee a lot of beating sense into each other.