Day 7 - Drones? What drones?: 1/7
Rays of morning sun entirely fail to penetrate the windows of the water bungalow belonging to the changeling delegation thanks to a secondary membrane of green goop hidden behind the bead curtains. Inside, 387 is sleeping unexpectedly peacefully, mainly due to a little help from Chrysalis' mental skills, as limited as her control over the ancient warrior is.
Well, was sleeping until a few moments ago.
The Queen herself, however, is taking a steaming hot shower in the next room, not caring in the slightest about how the piping can even work here. 93 is standing next to her, currently busy with shampooing the Queen’s mane. Some things are a luxury hard to come by in the hive, and she fully intends to enjoy them as much as she can.
“Tell me, 93-”
“You do realize that 387 is listening to us, right?”
“I can’t sense anything other than his presence nearby, Your Majesty. I can’t even tell if he’s awake.”
“Heh. It does take some practice. Anyway, I’m just telling you because I want him to taste his own medicine. Report as always, but do try to sound as suspicious as possible, will you?”
“I don’t understand, Your Majesty.”
“Hmph… just do it.”
“-how is your primary secret mission doing?” Chrysalis lowers her voice only so much for it to be recognizable but still not too difficult to hear over the running water.
“It- uhh- it’s going slowly but well, Your Majesty. I’m still having trouble inserting myself into the required situations, but I… um… infiltrated the vicinity of Emperor Shining Armor yesterday and we had fun- we got to know each other on a rather intimate level.”
“Wait, really? Don’t tell me I actually did teach him something useful before the inv-”
“NOT LIKE THAT, YOUR MAJESTY!”
“What do you mean?”
“I confirmed my suspicion that what I invest myself into the easiest are events requiring tactical decisions. I believe your objectives regarding Shining Armor allow me to develop in ways I haven’t considered before.”
“Okay, now you’ve confused even me. What’s that about?”
“I enjoy tactical games, and so does Shining Armor. It’s clear that his wife accepts that side of him but can’t become a part of his hobby.”
“Ohhh, well done. Keep at it, but- wait, we’ve been quiet for a bit too long.”
“Continue pursuing that objective, but don’t forget about the others,” Chrysalis raises her voice a little as 93 begins rinsing her off with a stronger stream of water, “We need to spread our webs as far and wide as possible, to know where to pull in which situation.”
“And I don’t want a changeling whose main skill would be sitting in a cellar and huffing paint.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.”
“However, there’s one aspect in which you have disappointed me very much.”
“Y-Your Majesty?” 93 jolts. This… this doesn’t sound like a part of the game.
“Your critical mission regarding 65536.”
“So far, you have failed to develop a physical affinity, 93. Listen to me very carefully now,” Chrysalis hisses and lowers her voice this time for real, “You are an experiment, the only stable one I managed to create before we lost access to the, ugh, crusher. I don’t know what it would cause if I told the drones and 387, or sent them to re-establish the tunnels and the cavern system. Right now, the hive is running smoothly, but we won’t survive if we suffer an internal split. My rule needs to be based on success and improvements, but I must retain the underlying threat, and the crusher’s reputation does way more than its original function.”
“I’m lost, Your Majesty. I apologize,” 93 breathes out.
“Then you’ve failed to grasp the deeper structure of the hive,” Chrysalis frowns, not bothering to hive what she’s saying anymore, “And I think you might benefit from tough love a little more, 99.”
“Your Majesty?”
“That is a demotion, 99. Of course, that doesn’t mean I will feed you less, nor does it change our relationship, but smart changelings might look at drones and put two and two together.”
“Oh…” 99’s breathing quickens.
“My advice on how to shore up your position is to start working on the 65536 angle.”
“But what do you want me to DO?”
“You will figure it out if you observe the target, understand it, and analyze our conversation. I’ve given you enough clues. Oh, and try to keep your calm when the drone bends your legs behind your back.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,”
“Good. Now let’s swap and I’ll wash your-”
*Knock knock knock!*
“Motherfu-” 387, listening with his ear pressed against the bathroom door, hisses and stumbles backwards when the knocking on the door a leg’s length away from him resonates through the bungalow, “Coming!” he calls out, thankfully now having the excuse of being out of bed despite pretending to be asleep when Chrysalis and now demoted 99 went to take a shower.
Heh. Old Bugbutt needing help washing her back, my ass.
With a smirk, he opens the door which reveals a griffon wearing an armband identifying them as the member of resort staff, carrying a small notepad. The griffon gives 387 a quick bow before saying:
“Good morning, Your Excellency! As per our resort policy, I’m here to inform you about an unusual expense by your staff.”
“Staff-?” 387 furrows his brows, “The drones? How much?”
“24857 bits for room service from earlier this morning.”
“Hive almighty, be a bit quieter or-” 387 wheezes, but before he can say anything else, his worst nightmare comes alive.
“HOW FUCKING MUCH?!” screams Chrysalis, the bathroom door simply disintegrating in front of her as she stomps forward, horn flaring with green light and steam rising from her entire body.
“-ahhh, shit…” 387 facehoofs.
“I’m not paying that!” she grabs the pad from the stunned griffon’s talons, “Tell a drone to grow extra holes to work it off or somet-”
“Your Majesty, it’s been paid already. This is just a recapitulation based on our security and information policy, not an invoice,” the now trembling griffon takes a step back.
“What?” 387 bluescreens.
“What?” Chrysalis stops in her tracks.
“Your staff… paid in cash. Uhh, and casino tokens,” the griffon laughs nervously, “I guess someone just got lucky last evening, perhaps?”
387 takes this as an opportunity to remove the Chrysalis variable from the equation for this situation.
“Your Majesty, I’ll go check it out.”
“Do so,” Chrysalis turns around, “Thank you for the immediate report, griffon. You may leave.”
***
“Twenty-five grand…” mutters 387 to himself as he’s walking through the apartment complex for servants, “How did they both manage to earn and spend that much?”
His analytical instinct kicks in as he realizes that he can, with the exception of Smiley, sense all the hive drones in the same place this late in the day. Considering their usual tendency to run around the entire day, this is downright unique and possibly worrying.
As he reaches their suite he pushes the handle without knocking and the door opens, revealing the incredible mess that is the living room of the suite. Several food trolleys filled to the brim with everything from salads to smoked meat are standing by the walls, an entire freezer containing various ice creams is humming by the door, and every elevated surface is covered by bottles of liquor, ranging from the cheapest paint stripper to…
…to several crystal clear explanations of the bill.
Some of that stuff is older than the other guests in this place.
“Hi, 387!” 10013 stands up from whatever it was doing on the floor, and waves at the warrior. Other drones absent-mindedly greet him as well, with the exception of 99526 sitting in the back next to several small buckets, currently busy throwing up into one.
“-urrrgh!” it examines the contents of the bucket before looking up, all while breathing heavily but with a surprisingly accomplished, happy smile, “Hiii!”
Controlling his desire to yell at the busy drones regarding how they managed to spend that much money, 387 simply asks:
“What are you all doing?”
“We’re making Scufflestick tinies!” 20100 beams, taking a small, freshly finished figurine into its forelegs and raising it up for 387 to see, “Mister Shiny said they were called minis in the original pony game, but we drones are smaller so we’re calling them tinies.”
387 takes the figurine and examines it.
“Is that a changeling warrior with…” he spins it around one more time, “You didn’t put much thought into how this would move in reality, did you?”
“Ummm, too many spikes?” asks the drone sheepishly.
“One wrong step and you have a quadruple amputee on your now shredded hooves,” 387 winces as he turns the figurine upside down, “Anatomically correct, I see. That makes the spikes and blades all over him even worse.”
“Hmmm, I guess I can just put more spikes on the outside,” admits 20100, “Oh well, got any more of the whiskey-chocolate ice cream-strawberry mix, 99526?”
“Gimme a sec!” replies the drone, and 387 watches it with growing fascination and horror as it swallows a tiny bit of each ingredient before finding a presumably specific container and throwing up amber-colored, red-tinted goop into it, “There ya go!”
“Nice!” 20100 digs out a few spoonfuls of the goop, plops it onto a plate, and starts making a fresh changeling figurine using the original over-spiked one as a template.
“Sooo…” 387 furrows his brows, waving his hoof around, “You ordered all this to have 99526 make more resin so that you could craft these small models?”
“Mhm,” 10013 nods, “We wanted to test a whole bunch of things so that we got different colors and effects for them, so 20100 and I went to the casino and got us some shinies to pay for all the stuff we’d excrement with.”
“Experiment, please.”
“What did I say?”
“Nevermind,” 387 shakes his head, “I guess… I guess I’ll just go and tell the Queen that everything is okay.”
From his slow and weird tone of voice, 10013 reads that something isn’t as clear as it was expecting by doing all this.
“Did we do something wrong?” it asks, “We spe-ci-fi-cal-ly picked the old and stale drinks from the list so that the new and fresh ones would be left for the guests who wanted them. We tried to do the same with the salads or ice cream, but apparently those only come in the fresh variety.”
387 sighs.
They just went to the casino to get some money and they did. I’m not about to tempt fate itself by telling them off.
“No, no…” he pauses, “Here’s a point for you and 20100 for… paying for all that. Somehow.”
[10013:2, 20100:6, 36658:4, 99111:3, 99380:6, 99526:3, Smiley: 6,
65536:2]
“Yaaay!” 20100 momentarily leaves its miniature to hoofbump 10013.
“Ya want any of this?” offers 10013 with a look around, “99526 might be even better at making goop than we thought, so we haven’t used up nearly as much as we expected. Just not these, umm, please,” it points to an assortment of vegetable and fruit juice boxes, “They’re great for coloring.”
You little idiots are a headache, but also what’s making everything I do worth it. Sometimes.
387 walks around, careful not to step on any figurine or ‘raw material’, and eventually picks up a square, glass bottle of amber liquid with its neck shaped like a griffon holding a flag.
“Mind if I take this?”
“The oldest one?” 10013 nods, “Sure, we haven’t figured out how to open it anyway and we didn’t want to ruin the bottle by breaking it. There’s a bunch of fresher stuff-”
“No, this is fine,” 387 shakes his head, his eyes stopping on 99380 blowing on a miniature to harden it, “By the way, why don’t you crack open the balcony door and put the models you want to dry out there?”
“Gasp!” 99111 perks up, “That’s a much better idea than making a fire in the metal filing cabinet.”
387 fights off a sudden impending heart attack before barking out-
“NO FIRES IN THE SUITE!”
-and storming off with a bottle still stuck in his leg hole.
Stats
Page generated in 0.04 seconds
Total duration
994 users online
1,736,271 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
That's a lot of expensive items used for a silly but fun activity. Drones are so surreal in their single minded simplicity, but damn are they good at getting things done. I feel like it would be much different if they weren't so damn cute, but I read this and even tho I cringe at it I can't help but think 'aww they don't know what they're doing, poor little guys' and want to pat one on the head and hear it squeak adorably.
That bottle aint gonna last Chryssy all that long.
Yeah, where is Smiley? Seems like it's been a little bit since we both last saw it and got an update on what they're doing...
Oh, well, that explains it. Goop doesn't just appear out of the void, after all.
Aw, bless them. They at least had good intentions with that, misled though it was.
11415777
You assume it's for Chryssi.
11415704
In this Wallmart of a world, it's cringe or be cringed, Jack.
11415777
I wouldn't know. The only hard liquor I drink is Long Island Ice Tea, and that's basically just a Cola + headache.
11415906
- ded
- it appears out of the mouth... in case of drones, that is.
- Drones are now blessed and receive +1 to attack rolls and saves against fear.
11415907
You assume it's for drinking and not just a good bottle shape.
Considering the drones are the ones with all the unique mutations it makes sense that the crusher was for more than just punishment by death, mince the worst failure drones and then sort through the genetic material for mutations to incorporate into the rest of the hive or specific eggs this actually makes me think of the Zerg a bit because they do that sort of thing (sorting through genetic information to improve their ranks).
11416703
Got it in one, but until now we've only heard about it from the PoV of drones who would consider it such.
Huh at least they have a similar cost of creating a army of minis
11416958
Entirely by accident, but true.