The Bridesmaids

by Meep the Changeling

The Defeat

Twinkleshine / Meep

It had been forever since I last connected to a hive mind, or controlled a drone. I had intended to simply instruct the drones to attack the soldier, but whomever programmed them in the first place was ether very good, or the normal psi control methods had completely changed in the last few centuries. I tried my hardest but I couldn't remove or add code to the drones. It just wasn't in the cards.

To say I was rusty would be an understatement. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. If I were back at a hive I wouldn't be qualified to use a single drone, let alone operate eleven of them. Especially not ones someling had taken very diligent care to program for combat. The had even worked in some situational awareness. I was about to give up when I remembered I had another option. I could directly control them.

Spreading my mind out between multiple bodies was never something I enjoyed doing. It's frightening. One moment you are yourself, then the next you are torn into fragments, flung through a black void of nothingness, and suddenly you are multiple. Making things even worse was the second I connected I realized I forgot how to control individuals within the group individually.

It was as if I had been given a crane to operate but somepony had disabled my telekinesis and then covered my hooves in three inches of butter. Making it even worse was the images coming to me from twelve sets of eyes, I couldn't make heads or tails of anything.

I had just enough time to take all of this in before the soldier charged, horn blazing for Lyra.

I wanted to scream in terror, but I couldn't even manage that. Instead, all of my drones made a chittering, cheeping, sort of squee sound. It was pretty much the exact opposite of a terrified scream.

At the last moment Lyra rolled to her left, the soldier shot past her, landed, turned around, and was hit directly in the chest by a crackling ball of golden fire Lyra threw. “Come on girls! Do something!” Lyra pleaded.

I nodded, my drones shook their head. Confused as I could be I ordered the drones to turn left and charge at the soldier. They turned right and sat down facing away from him. I felt my right eye twitch. Someling must have worked in some sort of safety system into them to prevent me from doing what I was doing. They seemed to do the opposite of what I told them as literally as could be interpenetrated.

Cole suddenly ran foreword screaming a war cry which could best be described as the warble of a terrified turkey. She swung her pick down to try and hit the soldier's left flank, he simply stepped aside and then kicked out with his rear left hoof, striking her across the forehead.

I could have told them what soldiers did, but I hadn't had the heart. No pony should have to know they are fighting something with a functioning danger sense. If he had trained in the use of a move, he could use it on us without even looking. Our only hope was to overwhelm the soldier, but someling had apparently decided to set up these drones with inverted controls!

Concentrating on the drones I sent them a simple message, <Land.> To my satisfaction they immanently took off, hovering in the air where they had been sitting.

The soldier playfully fired a ray around Lyra in a circle, scorching the ground black. “This is battle, not play.” He mocked.

Lyra narrowed her eyes and ran to her left, lobbing bolts of flame at the soldier in small volleys. The flames mostly missed, but a few splattered over his armor leaving faint scorch marks. Cole shook her head to clear it, stepped backwards, and extended the reach of her telekinetic grip, swinging the pick again. Once more he simply stepped out of the way.

“Dose your hive not train you to defend it?” the soldier asked looking at Cole before casually firing a single bolt of energy, slicing one end of the pickax's head off.

Cole's eyes widened in terror. I could see the despair in them from a dozen different angles. A burning rage welled up in my chest. <Kill him!> I telepathically screamed.

I felt something in the drones give way. One drone twitched in the air before drifting lazily to the left. The others surged forewords in a singular wave of anger, hissing and screeching with horns blazing. Bolts of green energy flew, shards of crystal flew everywhere as parts of the floor exploded. Lyra laughed in relief and started to charge up a spell.

The soldier grinned as he took several direct hits, none of which did more than blacken or crack his armor. He reared up, slamming one hoof into a drone's face, caving it in before swinging the drone's corpse into a second, smashing him aside into a third. “This is better!” He exclaimed gleefully, throwing a cone of green flames out and incinerating two more drones.

To my grim surprise my control over the remaining drones increased as they died. The remaining drones felt much quicker to respond, and I could make far more sense of what was going on. Enough to see a bolt of blue magic streak towards the soldier, super heat some of the armor on his flank, and explode.

Cole charged towards the soldier, firing ray after ray at him, the compressed energy managing to burn and blast small chunks of his armor apart. He wheeled with a grin, leveled his head and threw a blazing beam of fire, reflexively I ordered a drone into it's path. The drone jumped, took the blast and crumpled to the ground smoldering.

A massive ball of golden energy slammed into the soldier's back, the plating above his shell sizzled, molten steel dripping down the sides of his armor. It had to have hurt, but he simply turned in the direction it came from and hissed in rage.

“Hey crab apple! Over here!” Lyra shouted, throwing a few energy blasts as she ducked behind a crystal formation.

<Attack the weak point.> I ordered, my drones instantly swarming, a few firing ray attacks, while others simply threw themselves bodily at the melted spot. He ignored them, advancing on Lyra's position with clenched teeth.

Cole ran forewords, scooping up the broken pick with her magic as she went. With another half angry, half afraid war cry she jumped, slamming the pick down towards the soldier. At the last minute he twisted to other side, the pick striking an undamaged part of his armor and skipping off, embedding itself into the floor.

“Oh crap baskets...” Cole squeaked.

The soldier wheeled around, horn glowing as he charged up an attack. <Attack his face.> I ordered.

Three drones leaped, slamming into his muzzle and horn, sending his shot reeling. Chunks of the ceiling rained down. The jagged shards crushing two of my drones. How many were left? I couldn't tell. The soldier turned, and faced one of my drones directly. “You are irritating.”

He growled, matching towards... oh gods that was not a drone that was me!

I tried to move but I couldn't, the drones scrabbled away instead. <Oh shit I forgot to include myself in the link!> I telepathically screamed.

“What?” Cole asked looking around confused for a moment before shouting, “Lyra! Meep can't move! Help her!”

The soldier was on me in an instant, I felt him pick me up, hooves pressed against my thought as he lifted me up, ignoring my drones' attempts to knock me free. “I am going to crush you!” He announced inches from my face.

I felt my exoskeleton crack as he squeezed. My tracheas burned as the oxygen was forced out of them. The drones dropped to the ground as I could no longer focus on them. I saw some flashes of light. They could have been spells, I wasn't sure my vision was graying out. Faintly, as if shouted down a tunnel I heard a voice shout, “Damn it I can't faze him. Do something Shine!”

Shine? That's what stars did right? Yes. Stars shined. How? Within a given mass of hydrogen and helium two positrons collide and form a deuterium nucleolus, a gamma-ray, and a neutrino. The nucleolus then collides with another positron forming another gamma-ray and a helium-3 atom. Two helium-3 atoms collide and form a single helium-4 atom and two protons. The process repeats until the mass has been entirely converted into energy. I could do that. It was so very dark something should be making light anyways.

I felt myself shift. An odd tingling sensation built up in my chest. Or some part of me. I wasn't very sure where my chest was. Or what it was. All I knew was I was warm. The sort of warmth you experience when wrapped up in a quilt on a winter's day and someone you love is passing you hot chocolate. Then a moment later my everything hurt.

My chest was back, and it felt like it was on fire. As if somepony had literately set my exoskeleton on fire. It smelled like somepony did too. I couldn't see anything, or taste anything. My mind was too fuzzy for me to check and see if I had eyes in whatever form I was in. I could feel myself being moved but I couldn't tell where to, how fast, or well, anything.

After a few minutes I started to hear indistinct sounds and patches of gray and white suddenly sprang into existence. A minute later and one set of the sounds resolved into words, “Her eyes just moved! I told you changelings could regenerate.”

“Oh thank Celestia! Do we do anything?” the second asked.

“Just keep directing your love towards her. That seems to be working.” The first replied.

My vision began to clear as more of my eyes came back. The gray and white was joined by blue, then red, then green, until finally I could see properly. Cole was standing over me. No she was sitting, holding me. When had that happened?

I tried to speak but nothing came out, just a few rattling gasps. Cole frowned and hugged me close. “Come on hon, you can do it.” She cheered softly.

“...Soldier?” I gasped out after an irritatingly long time.

Lyra leaned into my view, “You freaking disintegrated him!” She exclaimed in an exuberant yet impressed tone.

“I did?” I asked my voice slowly returning to normal as I felt my through heal. “How?”

Cole looked over to the right, “Well... for just an instance you conjured a ball of fire... Everything over there is well... melted. I thought you were dead... You um... You were missing a lot of pieces.”

Lyra nodded, “You just grew back a leg.”

“What?” I groaned looking down at myself and wincing. Large chunks of my exoskeleton were missing, small tendrils of energy slowly replacing them. “Oh crap... Cole... Thank you. I would be dead without you right now.”

“What did you do?” Cole demanded in a tone she reserved for talking to idiots while upset.

That was a good question. What did I do? I couldn't remember much at all. “I... I'm not sure. I think... I think I shapechanged. Whatever I did... my body didn't appreciate it.”

Lyra nodded, “Yeah seriously.” She looked around the cavern for a while before smiling, “Well the coast is clear! We can just make our way to the exit and-” Her face fell mid sentence. With a horrified look on her face she asked, “What have I done? Now the irony gods will smite us by-”

That's when every nearby crystal lit up with the image of impostor Cadence's face.

Lyra sighed, “-summoning forth Shifty Jerkface. Discord's beard I'm an idiot! You never say everything looks clear! Argh!”

“Well, well. It looks like you three can handle yourselves after all.” the false Cadence mocked.

“Don't say anything else!” Cole snapped at Lyra glaring daggers her way.

I wanted to laugh at the venomous expression on her face, but apparently my body wasn't up to that yet.

A circle of green flames blazed for a moment on the side of one of the crystals as Cadence stepped out of it. “The three of you were able to defeat one of my soldiers, so the three of you should be able to delay a half starved alicorn if she manages to break free like you did.”

Cole winced and in a panic blurted, “Don't say we will never work for you! … Ponyfeathers... I said it... Which means....”

“Now she mind controls us into doing her bidding.” Lyra finished with a groan.

“I really must read more books on pony tactics,” the false Cadence mused, “If all your responses are so simply scripted it will be easily to exploit them.”

Her horn glowed green, her eyes blazed brightly, “Stay here and kill any ponies which try to pass through.”

Her words sank into my mind like fishhooks. The command filled my head until there was nothing else. Only the Queen's orders. Not a thing more. I stood up on my hooves, “Yes your Majesty.” I answered together with the others.

She glanced at me, “Shift into your unicorn form. It will demoralize her more to be attacked by her own kind.”

I changed, staggering slightly as my injured body didn't quite want to change just yet. The Queen nodded, “That's better.”

A portal opened up under her hooves. As she sank into it she chuckled, “This day is just prefect.”

Comments

[Shadowmane PX-41]

Holy crap, that was awesome! I'm really glad that fanfics exist for us to fill in the gaps. Wonder what's next?

[ForSpite]

“I really must read more books on pony tactics,” the false Cadence mused, “If all your responses are so simply scripted it will be easily to exploit them.”

This... explains rather a lot about Chrysalis, if she thinks fictional tropes are tactics.

[drone_r0m-3]

A portal opened up under her hooves. As she sank into it she chuckled, “This day is just prefect.”

Damn.

[djthomp]

Wow, they are really lucky that fight only went as well as it did. With the skills that soldier had, had he been taking it serious they all would have been dead or disabled in very short order.

[DeshLune]

Pony Tactical Script, just $79.99 at your furthest retail store! Always the furthest from!

XD That's just too good! How exactly did Chrysalis control them? A spell, or something a 'ling Queen can do? :\

[Osiris Prime]

Holy shit. Did she just turn herself into a literal fusion bomb? Because that's fucking awesome. Do it again! Okay not really, but do some moar cool stuff!