Queen of Assassins

by Impossible Numbers

The Queen

Far below, the presence crouched within shadow. The Queen.

Through her old legs, the Queen felt the vibrations of faint murmurs overhead, somewhere amid the banging, crashing, war-crying rabble of her loyal, royal soldiers. Then something cracked; she felt it as a sharp shake. A burst. Changelings scattered. The rabble became more chaotic.

A diversion? The murmuring joined in the chaos, impossible to discern.

Part of the roof broke.

The Queen tensed.

A section of the roof – under the Smell Galleries, and precisely under where the rebels’ self-cocoon had been set – sagged. Soil fell down. Then it crashed.

Something large came through. The Queen saw the gleam of changeling hide.

Cautiously, the changeling hide was scanned. Not enough to give her own royal presence away, but enough to tell how much power the hide’s owner possessed. A lot. A commander’s worth, by the heat of it.

The Queen smiled.

Commander Chrysalis – her large hide gleaming – spun round and sealed up the hole quickly. Pieces rose into place. A clever plan: the royal soldiers would not notice unless they were looking specifically for the cracks, and in whatever chaos had broken out topside, no one was in the mood for examining the floor for anything.

Keeping still, the Queen watched as Commander Chrysalis hovered. No one wanted to land on the floor down here.

Because this chamber… This chamber was different.

Every changeling hive needed one. Waste couldn’t be disposed of out in the open; if the huge pile didn’t attract attention, then the scent most definitely would. A scent like that could travel for miles. What constituted waste in a changeling hive was pungent.

Sooner or later, a changeling had to shed its exoskeleton. Sometimes, they lost a limb or a wing and managed to recover it from whatever battle they’d escaped. And sooner or later, every changeling died.

The black mass below was incredibly pungent.

But a changeling adapted to it. Whether a white young adult, or a soldier, or a nurse of some kind, or even a Queen, all changelings learned to carry what was no longer needed down into the depths of this chamber and store it there. The heat of all those skins and bits and bodies baked the air dry. It also warmed the hive, once it escaped to the other chambers, which was why the Living Hive itself usually sealed the chamber in summer – too much heat had to be contained, after all – and then opened them all wide in winter, when the changelings sealed themselves in and slept and kept warm and dreamed impatiently about the fresh air of spring.

Right here, right now, Commander Chrysalis hovered and kept well clear of it. Anyway, she scanned it as she went. So she expected an ambush. Clever.

The Queen crept amongst the shadows, closer and closer.

The Queen – Queen Argent – then circled warily. A direct approach would be spotted, but if she kept to the shadows and let the pungent smell confuse her opponent a bit more… Chrysalis even hovered clumsily… the Smell Galleries had indeed done their job…

Queen Argent didn’t speak. Taunting Chrysalis was a good way to unbalance her, but down here the echoes wouldn’t scramble so much. Even a heavy sigh would tell Chrysalis exactly where the voice was coming from.

So Argent crept on, holding her breath.

She hated this. She hated hunting.

Wet-nursing had been no picnic either, she thought. Argent had watched over each changeling from egg to corpse, and then realized more and more that there were fewer eggs and more corpses.

Some of the other nurses ferried the love from the cocooned victims – brought back from raids which always sounded so exciting the way Chrysalis told them – and brought the love past the throne to the nursery chamber. Once in a while, Queen Imago had come in to lecture the larvae about the hive, and how it would survive thanks to their hard work.

Some larvae would become soldiers, others would be nurses. Some would go out into the world and bring back love in their bellies and captured foes in their hooves. Others fed the larvae and cleaned the tunnels and comforted the Living Hive itself when it was scared or angry or confused, which was very often these days.

Queen Argent watched the figure inspect a likely-looking corpse below. Chrysalis was so predictable.

For Argent had watched Chrysalis all her life, seen her as giggly as a schoolfilly – and Queen Imago proud as a principal – and wondered if that was all Chrysalis ever saw. Because what Argent saw were the tired faces and the bent backs and the weak knees and the suppressed grief in the eyes of those soldiers who had come back with fewer allies than they’d left with.

Sometimes, she’d seen that grief on Chrysalis’ face too. Chrysalis might be the last of her brood, but she remembered all the others over the years. Argent had comforted her once or twice, and been violently shaken off and faced furious denials shouted at her. Chrysalis knew how to kill. She didn’t know how to grieve the dead.

Sometimes, the great Queen Imago herself had come down to visit this chamber, full of dead parts and bodies, and Argent wondered if she was mourning in some way. Hard to tell. Unless it was a cheer or a smirk or a grin or a smile – anything good in her eyes – Imago never let on how she was feeling.

Now Chrysalis approached a pile of dismembered legs, rising ever so slightly from the general mass. A good hiding place indeed. Argent decided to head straight for her now…

But Queen Imago hadn’t visited often enough. And so Argent had asked those soldiers who weren’t as giggly as Chrysalis, and they told stranger, less triumphant stories. Stories about big cities, and vast libraries, and new spells coming out of Canterlot and appearing from the horns of unicorns who, six months earlier, had barely known how to levitate things.

Then one day, Argent had slipped out herself and seen Equestria’s towns, where villages had once stood. Cities, where towns had once been.

The map changed daily. Yet Queen Imago didn’t keep up. Instead, she kept up the smiles and cheers even when the love stocks got lower and lower.

One day, Argent had spread word about the cities. She’d decided what they really meant. Some changelings, especially the tired ones, had listened.

One week later, most of the changelings had listened. The Living Hive had listened too. It blocked tunnels in front of Queen Imago unexpectedly. That was a bad sign. It meant the Living Hive itself wanted a new leader. The Living Hive was as hungry as they were. But Chrysalis was next in line, and she didn’t listen at all.

One month later, Queen Imago was dead.

Argent had surprisingly enjoyed it. Poisoning someone and then tearing their weakened body apart from behind was much more fun than trying to fight them up close. Besides, Imago was just a big, dumb brute. It was hardly worth shedding a tear over.

No one protested. No one really understood why the world was turning on them, so they’d stood around like lost sheep waiting for something to make sense. It was easy to take command after that. Like talking to little larvae.

No one had grieved much either, except Chrysalis, who’d finally grieved for a hundred and frankly made a spectacle of herself.

Argent had considered killing her too, but it was one thing to poison a stupid old Queen. It was another to strike down someone shrieking and weeping so hard. Except banishment had not been enough, it seemed.

And now Chrysalis would join her precious, big, dumb brute in the pile.

Argent crept until she was right above the Commander. Then she prepared to drop down.

The bodies were a good hiding place. Trouble was, they were too obvious a hiding place. No one recognized the ceiling was ruffled, though. Plenty of hiding places there.

She aimed for the back of Chrysalis’ neck. One slice. Problem solved.

She dropped.

Chrysalis dodged out of range. Argent’s horn slashed, then she herself rushed backwards from the answering kick.

Both changelings circled each other.

Then Argent sensed something pass over her. It wasn’t a spell appearing. It was the realization that one had been focused on her the whole time, and only when it vanished had she realized it had existed at all.

Scanning magic?

That wasn’t right! Chrysalis should never have sensed any approach at all. She should have been decapitated without so much as a clue to warn her first.

What’s more, Chrysalis definitely didn’t know that kind of scanning magic, not when she relied on her everyday senses so much.

Through the gloom, Argent glared into the answering scowl. A brief scan of her own: yes, the magic level was about right. Opposite, Chrysalis faltered as she hovered, but that was definitely her, her power, her face, her…

For a moment, Chrysalis’ eyes flashed green. Greener than normal.

“A trick!” hissed Argent. She spun round just as the second Chrysalis leapt from the ceiling.

Something black swung. Not Chrysalis.

Argent zipped aside, but the hissing blade nicked her leg and she felt a small jolt at the impact. Groaning, she zipped out of range of another swipe, and saw that it wasn’t Chrysalis’ horn swinging back and forth. It wasn’t a horn at all.

Behind her, the first Chrysalis… changed. Where she’d stood, Captain Antenna saluted, his horn spitting sparks.

“Permission to return the load, Commander?” he grunted.

Queen Argent stared down at the black swiping blade.

“You brought a sword?” she said.

The second Chrysalis – the real Chrysalis – bared her fangs. It wasn’t a smile. It wanted to be one. Yet it had too much lip-twitching hatred to be a smile.

“My own make: your, aha, throne gave me much inspiration,” she said, haughty as a Queen already. “This will slice through whatever magic you care to name.”

Queen Argent relaxed. Perhaps that queenly haughtiness could be manipulated?

“Ah. Too dull to concoct your own schemes?” she said. Slowly, in mid-air, she began backing away. “I notice you copied my ‘seeing-eyes’ trick with Blattodea too. Spying on me through master scanner Antenna here? Rather clever for you.”

“I learn fast,” replied Chrysalis.

“That’s what Imago always said.”

“That’s Queen Imago to you!” Anger flickered across those green eyes. “I needed to keep an eye on you while I regained my strength and followed the tunnels leading here. No one noticed me slip away in all the chaos upstairs. But there is one trick I learned without your help.”

“Permission to return the load right now?” Captain Antenna yelped. Sparks sizzled along his horn.

Without taking her glare away from Argent, Chrysalis nodded.

Captain Antenna’s horn sprouted green threads and webs and ribbons and sheets of gangrene. The transferred magic slithered through the air, split around Chrysalis until they ran rivers around her sharp eyes, and flowed back into her horn. Restored to full power again.

Too late, Queen Argent lunged forwards, swiping with her own magic. She should have guessed!

The sword swung back. Argent backed off fast. Even through the rivers of magic returning to her horn, Chrysalis never lost sight of her prey.

“We learned that trick during the Maulwurf campaign.” Chrysalis drifted closer and closer in turn. “Whilst Captain Antenna fled our shield and distracted the beasts, we slipped around behind them in all the chaos and stuck them with our swords.”

“I was under the impression those beasts resist magic.”

Chrysalis’ smile cut her face further into a mortal wound of a grin. “I didn’t say they were magical swords.”

“Indeed? Where did you of all changelings learn that?”

“We spied on unicorn blacksmiths. Queen Imago always said to look for weapons everywhere, and we did. We stole iron from stupid unicorns too weak to resist, and we thrust it into those Maulwurfs until they screamed for mercy!”

Argent frowned. Something was wrong. If Chrysalis had her cornered, or believed she did, then why was she talking so much?

“And you are right about one thing, you simpering milksop of a wet-nurse.” Chrysalis licked her lips, apparently without cutting her tongue on those lengthening fangs. “The hive is dying, and we do need to save ourselves from extinction. But I will see you in Tartarus before I see the changelings surrender! To a mere princess! We are survivors! We master every place we encounter! Why talk to a princess when we are the Kings and Queens of the World!?”

Just in time, Argent stopped backing off. This was a trap!

She shot sideways…

…to precisely where the waiting rebels weren’t.

She heard some of them leap screaming out of the bodies below, springing their trap too early. After all, the bodies were still a good hiding place.

By the time they recovered, she was already down a tunnel, followed only by Chrysalis’ shouts and curses.

Left and right, through branching tunnel after branching tunnel, Argent fled. Somewhere in all this was salvation. A place to regroup, if she was going to stop them all.

Something was wrong here too. The tunnels branched, at first. Then they ran straight, where they should’ve been branching again. She knew these tunnels. She knew they shouldn’t be blocked up now, not with her loyal soldiers out and about. The Living Hive would know, it would let them pass, it would help her.

The last branch sealed itself just as she arrived. Only one passageway left. Far behind her, Chrysalis’ screams of rage followed.

Dread crawling through her skin, Argent peered into the chamber up ahead.

No, this wasn’t a mistake. The Living Hive was interested now. The Living Hive had shepherded them both this way for a reason.

She swallowed, and dived in. What choice did she have? What choice had she ever had?

---

Comments

[Shenzy]

She dropped.

And right here I thought she would attack her 2nd in command posing as decoy

For a moment, Chrysalis’ eyes flashed green. Greener than normal.

ha knew it! Right when she dropped...
:D