Friendly Invasion
Epilogue - Some years later
Chip looked down at Alexandria from the highest point on its tower. From her perch all that they had built was visible—the ramshackle housing she’d lived in with Chives, the sturdy stone buildings of the wealthy, and everything in-between. Chip no longer needed to climb all the way up here to have a good view, not with as many drones as she now controlled.
Chip was queen in more than just species, now. It wasn’t just that she’d grown as tall as Study, though she had. It wasn’t just that she had a crown. It wasn’t even that she could now see through the eyes of every slave in the city, though she could. More than any of that, it was that she led them. Am I the kind of queen I expected you to be, Riley? She didn’t have Riley to ask, didn’t have anything beyond the memorial and the last testaments of the queens to judge herself by.
The air up here was very cold, but Chip had plenty of glamor to keep her warm. Magic could keep back the chill, even in the beginnings of winter. In a few more weeks there would be snow on the ground, the single greatest reason that the slave-drones had died. They no longer died that way anymore.
“You see it, Inversion?” asked the voice beside her, pointing off the balcony with one hoof. He wasn’t willing to get any closer to the edge, not like she was. If Study slipped off the slick crystal, he was unlikely to magic himself to safety in time. Pony minds couldn’t work that fast.
But Chip’s could. She could feel thousands of bodies, each going about their assigned tasks. Some worked, some fed, some slept or ate or cleaned themselves. They were all her, and yet they were also her sisters, and also her children too. It was confusing.
She had some help, at least. About a dozen of her own treasured first batch of changelings weren’t just alive, but conscious as well. With abundant glamor and the skill of a pony who had worked the nursery for centuries, Chip had given each of them the missing spark that led to sapience. They were controllers, intelligent, independent drones. Her advisors, helpers, and friends.
Study seemed to realize she wasn’t going to respond, because he went on. “They say there’s a god leading that procession. The third battalion was completely destroyed, ponies say. I’m not sure I want her here no matter what she brings.”
This was finally enough to attract Chip’s attention. Yelleron had many wars, both large and small, and she’d never really bothered to pay attention to them more than the opportunity they presented. More ponies at war had meant more jobs undone, more jobs her drones could take as they became more common around the city. Even now there were over a thousand moving through the streets, fixing broken roads, mending roofs, and performing every other menial task.
“Riley always thought it was best to stay away from the powerful. Bugs don’t fly too close to the fire without getting burned. Of course, that didn’t stop her from becoming one of those fires by the end. It’s what queens do, I guess.”
Chip had made only one change to queen Riley’s ancient policies: she’d started giving drones names. Even the youngest, most mindless creatures of instinct got them. She named so many drones that she ran out of pony names and started using human names. Ran out of those, and so she started using technical concepts, or cities, or anything she could think of. Her drones didn’t rotate through the city in their crews—they stayed in the areas they worked, getting to know the ponies who lived nearby.
“Nothing you say about changelings comforts me, Inversion. I don’t understand why Equestria would have introduced them to Earth. All the misery you’ve experienced… why?”
She had lost fifteen of her sisters in arms during her childhood, dead without even a name. Not even one more drone would live like that. “I asked myself that, when I first came back.” She stared off into the distance. Past the high walls her own drones had repaired, past the fields. Far away, at the limits of her sight, she could see Idyia’s army. Huge rolling cargo vehicles, laying railroad tracks as they went. Smoke belched into the air behind them, turning the sky dark for miles. Where had she gotten the steel?
“Did you ever come up with an answer?” Study finally got over his fear of heights, sliding up beside her. He didn’t seem to mind her true body, not since she’d grown to a height and elegance even real ponies couldn’t imitate. What were a few extra holes compared to that? It meant that, for the moment, Study still provided for her personal glamor needs.
She shrugged. “I thought I was a good person, back on Earth. I was furious that God would reward me for all my hard work by making me into a freak.” She held up one hoof. “I had a friend back in Alexandria…” She hesitated, straining her memory to try and remember the pony’s name. He’d worked on a farm, she knew that much. They’d taken the trip down together. “Well, whoever he was. Real religious type. He thought that maybe God wasn’t punishing me. Maybe it was an opportunity.”
“I thought you were an atheist,” Study whispered, into her ear. How he’d come to be so close to her, Chip didn’t know. But she didn’t mind. Study’s company was always welcome. Now if she could only convince him to let her make him a changeling…
“Yeah, well.” She shrugged one wing, dismissively. “I’ve gone through lots of different beliefs. When I was a drone I sometimes thought Riley was God. M-my mueen, I mean. Thought she couldn’t do wrong, like she gave order to the whole world. But when I was myself, I saw clearer.” Far below, the sun was rising. She watched it in silence for a few moments, as shafts of yellow and orange crossed the farmland, the walls, the city. Watched as it rose behind Idyia and her army. An army without weapons, led by a goddess.
“Did I ever tell you the story of where changelings came from?”
Study shook his head, before resting it against her neck. “I don’t recall, no. But how would you know, if they weren’t supposed to be here to begin with?”
Chip ignored the question. Such knowledge was only known to queens, and she would not be the one to violate that covenant. “When the world was young, it had only two kingdoms. One was filled with love, with warmth and happy ponies. The other kingdom was a wasteland, dry and scorched. The first queen was the least of all insects in that kingdom. She had been killed over and over, known every torture, but it didn’t matter. The dry kingdom knew no death, and so she suffered forever.
“The other kingdom grew so bright and full of love, that she noticed. Even if they treated me the same, even if I suffered and died there, for in that kingdom there was death, you see, even then it would be worth it, if I could know love once first.”
Study retreated from her a few hoofsteps, staring fearfully. “That sounds like…”
She nodded. “My human ancestors were outcasts. My changeling ancestors were Outsiders.” She flicked him with her tail. “Don’t interrupt the story! Anyway, she waited a very long time for a way across. Many forevers passed, but that didn’t matter since time didn’t exist either. Anyway, eventually she found a way across. Something bad had happened in the pony’s world, and that made their world dry enough for a few moments for her to cross. She did, and many more ponies died. She wanted to understand them, but her nature was too different and they all died. But then she met a pony who didn’t run. A pony who wasn’t afraid, who tried to help her.
“The pony didn’t live very long. Even their honest love could not protect them from the withering touch of death. But before the pony died, they gave the first queen something. She had her first daughter. The first queen’s touch had been corruption, but instead of destroying she had created. She could die in peace, content that she had created something that would endure. ‘To be unbound is not a blessing, child,’ she cautioned, as she died. ‘Each day you are less like me is a day I grow more proud.’
“None of the queens know for sure what she meant. Riley believed the first queen wanted us to find a way free of the need for glamor. We even… once. We did it once. I think one day we’ll do it again.” She leaned against him again, exhaling. “I have a drone in position, Study. I’m about to stop the caravan.”
“I’ll keep an eye on you,” Study said, gesturing towards the hatch. But maybe from inside the tower, okay? If you won’t be paying attention here, there is no point to stay somewhere so unsafe.”
Study was referring, of course, to how out-of-focus Chip became when assuming total control over a drone. She was still young, and the effort demanded much of her concentration when she took them over completely. Enough that she would smile and nod to everypony around her, and only major events could distract her.
She let Study lead her down the hatch into the university, even as she let her mind drift, extending miles and miles across the countryside until she was somewhere else.
Even a controller in her swarm could be taken over this way, though Chip had never known a queen to do that. She hadn’t chosen one of her smart drones for this task anyway, but one of the youngest, only recently grown enough to fly. She was still in the tower, still working in the city, but now she was also walking down the road, towards the massive machines. With a brief moment of concentration, the drone transformed until it looked like a body she’d used a long time ago, a plain blue unicorn with several different shades of blue in his mane and tail. A form only two ponies in the whole world would remember.
Idyia’s machine was like nothing she’d seen before on Earth, at least not in person. It was nearly fifty feet high, more like a rolling fortress than a vehicle. It leveled the land before it, crushing and scattering rubble, and she knew that behind it was a leveled road with a single track of rail down the middle and telegraph wires running alongside. How it worked she didn’t know, but she could hear and see many parts moving as it went. Rams and blades to clear the earth, gaping jaws to swallow debris, smokestacks belching smoke on its back. About four stories up, she could see a control booth with glass windows, and ponies inside.
She, or he, or whatever Chip was at this point, stopped right in the path of the machine and waved up at the control booth with one hoof. For a few terrible seconds, it seemed like she was about to be run over. Chip hesitated on the edge of teleporting away, not willing to allow even a year-old drone to die in the name of her experiment. Was this Alicorn really so callous that she would run over a pony who got in her way?
No, it turned out the machine was just very slow to stop. Grinding gears protested loudly, and treads taller than a house chugged to a halt, less than twenty feet from her. Chip looked up the metal surface… and up, and up, and up.
But before she could move to climb it, she felt a brief flash of disorientation. For a fraction of a second the connection was broken, and the poor drone was terrified to have her gone. She gasped and spasmed, as she might’ve if the drone was killed. But she hadn’t been, and after another moment Chip’s vision returned.
She’d been teleported onto the bridge. It looked nothing like what she’d expected—far more space age than steampunk. Maybe fifty feet across, with consoles arranged around the outside. Even stranger, there were humans sitting in many of them. Chip stared, opening and closing her mouth several times but unable to form words. How can I have a connection to a drone inside the CPNFG? How does she still look like me?
Though it was no starship, the machine had a captain’s chair in the center, and someone sitting in it. A blue-haired human he knew well. They’d fought alongside one another on several occasions, after all. “Hello Isaac,” he said, inclining his head a little. “A pleasure to see you back in Alexandria again.” Her English was a little rusty from disuse, but she did her best.
Armed guards had approached from the walls as she appeared, though who had done the teleporting she couldn’t know. There were no unicorns in this room, just humans with brightly colored hair. What was more, she could sense magic coming from them. A drone’s magical senses were very weak, but there was no missing magical activity when she felt it. How is this possible?
“Kirk?” Isaac stared at him, stupefied. “Didn’t you die? After Riley…” He stumbled forward, looking him over. “Those queens would’ve eaten you alive.” Isaac hadn’t changed much in the centuries Chip spent frozen. He still had the implants running down his spine, though he was taller now and they were further apart. His hair was so long it was almost a tail in its own right, and had even been loosely braided like one. Like all these humans he had strangely delicate features, almost elfin. At least there were no pointed ears.
“My sisters? They were something else, weren’t they?” He shook his head. “No, not dead. Riley put me on ice. Guess she… well, that’s for someone else. I’m here to meet with Idyia.”
“You mean you don’t know?” Isaac raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and honestly. “Look, I know she’s here to meet with the king, but that asshole barely does anything to run the city anyway. I’m here to negotiate the safety of my swarm in the transition. Whoever this pony is, I know she respects refugees. I know she’ll hear me out.”
At that moment a large elevator door opened on the opposite side of the room, and three ponies hurried out. One was another unicorn, a stallion she’d never seen. The other two…
One she had half expected, though she hadn’t let herself hope. Not after centuries of waiting in vain… He supposed Isaac wasn’t the only one who would be getting a surprise today.
“Alex,” he muttered, staring at the Alicorn. This wasn’t the pegasus she remembered from many years before, the one who’d been murdered. “You came back.”
“Hey Chip.” She smiled at him, the same exact smile she’d seen hundreds of times during hundreds of visits. It came with love too, deeper than anything Chip had ever felt. The simple appreciation she felt for one of the ponies who’d helped her in the early days of Alexandria. Well, helped Riley. But that was one and the same. “Riley’s still kicking, is she? Sent you out to say hello?”
Chip shook his head sadly. “Unfortunately not. Riley, uh… discovered that even a powerful changeling queen has a maximum effective lifespan. If she had wanted to live much longer, she would have needed the glamor of an entire nation. She was unwilling to do so, and…”
“This is old news, Alex,” Isaac said. “We would have covered it if it were relevant. But most of those queens starved during the plague. Any who didn’t would certainly be dead by now.”
“I see.” Alex walked over to him, offering her open hooves. “I’m sorry you lost your queen, Chip. I know how much Riley meant to you. She meant the world to me too.”
Chip accepted the hug, letting Alex embrace her… well, him currently. The stallion was still smaller than she was, though not by terribly much. Alicorns were very tall, though Chip thought Riley still would’ve been taller. In a fraction of a second the poor drone was flooded with all the glamor its little stomach could take. So much that Chip felt the sudden presence of a second, intelligent mind. All that from just one hug?
“Wait, you said…” The voice came from behind Alex, one of the ponies who had followed her in. The mare. “Did you just say ‘Chip’?”
“Oh, yes.” Alex broke away, turning to face the pink pegasus. “Chip, this is my apprentice Nancy. Nancy, this is Chip. I knew him back when I lived in this city, a long time ago. He…”
“I knew a Chip.” Nancy’s voice broke, and she rushed forward, stopping inches away from him. She stared at him with suspicious eyes, ignoring the Alicorn completely. “Before I came to Estel. But she didn’t look like you.”
“No,” Chip agreed, then dismissed the illusion. The young changeling drone was missing the mane and tail, but was about the same height Nancy would remember her. She was now the shortest pony in the room, but she didn’t care. “She probably looked like this, huh?”
“A-a little.” Nancy’s voice cracked again, and a few tears started streaming down her face. Everypony else just stared, completely dumbfounded.
Of course, Chip didn’t have to guess about her emotions. She could sense the recognition. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Posy. I’m sorry I couldn’t save your dad.”
Posy broke down completely at that point, right there in the center of the bridge. Humans and ponies alike awkwardly stared at her, or pretended not to see. Chip, for one, didn’t care, as it was time for a hug of her own.
“They told me h-he… gave me up… told them where I lived, s-so he could have m-money for…”
“No…” Chip whispered, into her ear. “They lied. When Chives learned what they were planning, he fought even though he knew he wouldn’t win. He died… t-trying to keep you safe.”
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Far away in a tower, Study was asking her why she was crying. Chip didn’t have the concentration to spare to answer.
“I don’t mean to interrupt…” Alex nudged Chip’s back with one hoof. “Could you please explain what the hell is going on, Chip? I kinda have a city to conquer here…”
“No!” Posy screamed, rising and flaring both wings. “Chip is going to tell me what happened after I left. She’s going to tell me everything, and you’re gonna wait.”
“I’ll send another drone,” Chip whispered to Alex, looking a little apologetic. “I’ll explain everything when I get here.”
Even “Idyia” seemed a little confused as Posy dragged Chip to the elevator, passing a slack-jawed unicorn on the way.
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The trackbuilder is a really obscure machine that I seem to remember, totally unlike the snake trains that are usually used to fit in an existing track width. Still cant find a link to any online representations as I cant remember the author, story name, age or such.
Hope Chip remembers to move the drones out of the way, or out to the Tracklayers first, before they get sent out as cannon fodder.
Well.
Good to see the gang reuniting.
media3.giphy.com/media/h18gH4kCHlmKY/giphy.gif
....
I like how you connected Nancy with Posy
I would never have expected Nancy to be Posy. And the king was mentioned before, we should have realized it's the same one.
Still, it was sad to hear why the queens of old died. That plague really did a number on Earth
Also, damn. Alex love for her ponies is indeed Alicorn level if she could awaken a drone with only a hug
Funny. I was just wondering yesterday if Posy was Nancy.
I didn't pay enough attention during Chives death to remember the name.
Nice epilogue! And tearful reunions!
That stallion with Alex, he's either Dividend or Joseph. Not sure which one.
I was wondering how you were going to move away from Chip and have it be a natural break and now I know! What a PERFECT ending and a BEAUTIFUL reunion we have here! <3
I wonder who's next
We, In Some Strange Power's Employ, Move In A Rigorous Line
Damn, Nancy and Posy, huh?
Damn, but wasn't that a vicious, pointless thing to tell her before throwing her into the Nameless City? Somepony was feeling particularly petty and cruel that day...
I really liked the way this wrapped up Chip's story, but doesn't this invasion seem quite a bit different to the way things went at the end of Earth Without Us? It sounds like Nancy is a lot older than it seemed like she should have been when Alex took Obrican's surrender. Or did he renege on the deal, and this is Alex's response?
Awww... chip and posy/nancy, back together again. A good place to stop, i guess, but im sad to see it end.
i was really confused by the whole "changeling origin story" though, can anyone enlighten me on that?
Also, why is alex "conquering"? Didnt she make peace with the big bad king dude?
Waaaaaiitt... riley was one of the first queens... but there were several of them in the vault... so the vault is where queens go to die, then? To freeze themeselves when they have no way to live on without going evil...
8062793
The two kingdoms are metaphors. The dry, dead kingdom is the Void, where Outsiders come from, while the happy, love-filled kingdom is the physical world. The first queen was an Outsider who wanted to know love, and crossed over so that she could.
I think she meant it in a "cultural victory", voluntary-annexation sort of way. Possibly with some political shenanigans thrown in to undermine the power of opposing factions.
I guess so...? We don't really know the details of how they ended up there. It's possible they all froze themselves while still alive, but it's also possible that Riley's swarm simply used that chamber to bury its queens after they died.
8062793
The fall of the changeling queens can be found in Evoli Victorious.
And I don't think Riley was the first changeling. That goes to whomever the first one in Equestria was.