A change of fortune

by The Wingman

I hate bugs

"Could you stop doing that please?"

"Nope"

"But I..."

"Nope"

"Bu..."

"Nope"

I had always found myself in situations in life what could have gotten me killed. Really, really stupid situations. This one was no different. Was I regretting it? Fucking HELL no.

"Sam, stop doing that." I sighed. Felt like I was going to get a scolding. I whipped around and spotted Chrysalis behind me, hole filled hooves crossed, giving me a tired stare. I stopped what I was doing, shrugging.

"Just something us humans like to do to anything that is remotely cute."

"I am NOT cute!" I heard her drone bark behind me. Yeah, cute as all hell confirmed.

Oh yeah, sorry. If you're wondering what I was doing, I was casually booping one of her drone's snoots. Snoot boops are the king of cuteness, after all. As soon as we got here via Chrysalis's teleportation (thanks for that by the way, bug queen. Still feel like I need to empty my stomach), I'd been introduced to her changelings. They tried so hard to be intimidating when I saw them. Did I scream? No. Did I cower in fear? Fuck no.

I did what any sane human would do and ran to one of them, booping their snoot in the process. Safe to say that their reactions were priceless. It was a mixture of embarassment and confusion. Granted, I'd probably react the same if an unknown and weird ape like creature bum rushed towards me and prodded my nose. Alas, it was way worth it.

"You're a weird one, you know that?" Chrysalis was still staring at me. Could see a sliver of an amused smirk behind that tired look now though. Good sign, right? Maybe I wouldn't be killed yet.

We'll see.

"And you're not, miss buglord 2000?" The poor drone that I'd just finished commencing my horrendous act of cuteness on was now staring at me in disbelief, looking more terrified for me than anything. A sort of "oh shit you're in for it now" kind of look. I could understand why. I only just got here, some malformed creature what looked like a mixture between a minotaur and a gorilla and I was talking to Chrysalis, their queen, as if I was best friends with her. Thankfully I just received a scoff from her.

"Whatever you say. This way. I'll show you around the hive and introduce you to my top soldiers." Top soldiers. Heh. Feel like I'm playing a Call of Duty game right now. Fuck though, I miss my games so much. Almost as much as pizza.

Don't you guys and girls worry, I'd never forget about pizza. More chance of me getting the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz, closing my eyes, clicking my heels together 3 times and chanting that there's "no place like home" 3 times just to get back home.

Maybe the Wicked Witch of the West exists in this place? God I hope not.

As my thoughts sidetracked themselves, I didn't notice Chrysalis staring at me again. Seems I got so lost in my thoughts that she actually looked slightly concerned for a quick moment.

"Gaia to Sam. You there?"

I shook my head, getting my thoughts back in check. I smirked. "Unfortunately I am. Don't remind me." She rolled her eyes and turned around, me following in tow.

"I can make that a non-issue if you so please." I saw that fucking smirk, you bitch. "In anycase, before we go and meet my other top soldiers, there's already one here." I raised an eyebrow as she stopped in her tracks and turned her head to look behind me. I caught onto the notion and turned my head around also. Oh.

Oh.

She was looking towards the drone who I'd booped a few moments ago. The cute one. It rolled its eyes and stared past me at Chrysalis. "I would never go against your wishes my queen, but why do I have to keep an eye on this peculiar creature?" Wait, keep an eye on me? The hell was it (I say it, it sounded like a female. Still had that weird and cool echo that all changelings seem to have in their voice) talking about? I turned around at a now smirking Chrysalis, staring right at me. That didn't bode well for me.

"Dusk Mercer here will be keeping watch over you as your personal escort guard. You're in my hive now and while you took my side on the earlier matter, I still don't trust you enough to go wandering off in here on your own. Either that or your go wandering off into the badlands and get yourself killed."

I smirked back. "Pfft, caring about whether I get killed or not? I appreciate the gesture." She rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"I don't. I just want to make sure that my new curiousity doesn't go and vanish. It's either that or I become bored."

Wow. Buglord here sure knows how to treat a man.

I suffice for a simple roll of my eyes and notice that the chang...sorry, Dusk Mercer, is now following both of us. She looks at me stoically. "What is it, human?"

I shrug. "Nothing. Just think that you look cool is all." She smirked.

"Always nice to get a compliment from a hairless monkey."

Ah, so this one has a sense of humour. Good. Seems we'll not kill each other just yet.

I'll spare you the boring details of meeting buglord's other top soldiers. Her general was called High Mundus (safe to say that I chuckled a bit at his first name. Good old mature me). He was quite the stoic one. Reminded me a bit of myself I suppose whenever I'm too exhausted to crack any wise ass quips. Her other two, a sergeant called Skull Shaker and Bone Cruncher (I'm not making those names up. They actually sounded that edgy) were fairly chill. Surprisingly so considering I'm an entirely new species to them. In any case, we were now currently in my new quarters while I stay here. Was a fairly decent room which shocked me. The hive itself was what I expected from the queen of bugs. A bug hive. But the actual rooms for her changelings and this one, which I imagine was just a spare room that one of her changelings used to live in, were akin to the room in Celestia's castle. Pretty weird but I wasn't complaining. As I scoured the room, I noticed that it was a king sized bed. Good enough for me. Chrysalis had said her goodbyes and told me to get some rest if needed, which I was thinking of doing soon. According to her, the time here was currently around 11PM. I used to go to bed around 4AM so I still had a few hours left in me. My new "escort", whatever you want to call her, was sat in the room with me. I was sat on the bed while she was sat on the floor. She kept staring at me curiously and I was getting a bit creeped out by it. I eventually just looked at her and winked.

"Damn. I know that I'm good looking and all but didn't you know that staring is rather rude?" She scoffed, rolling her eyes at me.

"You wish. I've seen better looking ponies. I was staring because you intrigue me."

That was not the answer I was expecting but should I really be surprised? I'm completely foreign to these things, same as they are to me.

"How so? Well, apart from me being a weird looking monkey."

She stretched her legs, getting into a more comfortable sitting position. "You just give off a certain...aura, I guess you could say. In any case despite what I've said, my job is to look out for you while you're around and I shall. I can't say that I'm exactly thrilled to do so but my queen has directed me to do so and do so I shall."

Jeez, what a barrel of laughs this one was. Actually, I was curious about something.

"Are you all connected? You, Chrysalis and the other changelings? Sort of a hive mind?" She nodded.

"Indeed. We can sense when one of us is in danger and requires aid. That's about as far as it goes. We can't really read each other's thoughts without the aid of powerful magic, similar to ponies in the latter part of that sentence I suppose. We just have the advantage of the hive mind's basic abilities compared to them."

I scratched my chin. That was interesting but I'd heard of similar things with insects back on Earth. Bugs can tell when their colony is under attack or when one of them is in danger due to chemicals. I was so engrossed in my own thoughts that I didn't notice Dusk staring at me again.

"What about you? Are you connected with your species?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Humans don't have a hive mind. We're a very secular and introverted species, for the most part. There are certain humans that crave attention and like to be around other humans but then there's ones like me who just enjoy our own time. I probably won't see another human again anyway unless Chrysalis stays true to her word."

She raised an eyebrow. Or at least the changeling equivalent of an eyebrow.

"My queen has not told me about this. What did she promise you? And what do you mean? Why won't you see any more humans again? Are they extinct?"

I once again shook my head. "No. They're going strong as they always have been. If anything they're getting stronger which is a good and a bad thing. But to my knowledge, humans don't exist here. I'm from a completely different world."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't believe you but I'm too tired to scoff at you."

I shrugged. "Whatever you believe is honestly not my concern. It's the truth. As for what she promised me, she promised that she'd try and help me get back for me siding with her against Celestia in their meeting."

Now that got her attention. "You sided with my queen against Princess Celestia, the pony ruler of the sun? She did not tell me this."

"Indeed. I understood both sides but I couldn't let a race die. That's essentially what Celestia was going to do, even if she had her reasons. I may have a cold heart at times but I'm not evil."

The cute little feisty changeling smirked at me. "Awh, how cute. Wanting to save a species huh?"

Now it was my time to roll my eyes. "Yeah yeah, whatever. Just didn't sit right with me."

For the first time since we'd met a few hours ago, I saw a glimpse of a smile. "Teasing aside, I appreciate you thinking about us, especially considering we're both alien to one another. I can only assume that the princess meant us when you mentioned dooming a race to die, correct?"

I nodded. "Yup. It's why Chrysalis brought me here. Suppose she wanted my help with plotting against them. I don't exactly feel right being in the middle of a possible war."

Dusk walked over and sat next to me. Jeez, already getting this physically close to me huh? Calm down there missy.

"Mhm. Assuming humans aren't a war hungry species?"

I scoffed, chuckling more to myself than her. "Oh no, trust me, we are very war hungry. Humanity does nothing other than fight each other. We've always done it. But me, as an individual and relatively average person...it feels odd that I could be in the middle of a giant conflict on a world completely different to my own."

She looked away, humming to herself quietly. "Not lying about the alien thing huh? In any case, try not to think about it too much. My queen clearly sees something in you. Just see what happens. I'm ordered to keep my eye on you anyway. Not as if you'll be alone, regardless of my opinion on the situation or on you."

She was already starting to warm up it seemed. In her own way. Maybe? No idea. Met her a few hours ago so I don't expect much and I'm too tired to show much emotion. Speaking of which, how long had we been speaking?

Holy shit. Looked at the clock in here just now and realised that it's 3AM. Fuck it, better get some shut eye. I looked over to Dusk and it seems that she'd already caught on.

"I'm getting pretty tired myself. I'll be hitting the hay. I'll stay in here and sleep on the floor. You can have the bed."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're staying in here? Why? Don't you have your own room?" She laughed.

"Of course I do, numbnuts. My queen ordered me to stay near you basically 24/7 so whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me as I'm stuck with you. Better get used to it."

I rolled my eyes and got into bed, pulling the shockingly comfy cover over me. "Terrific. Welp, good night."

"Night Sam."

She knew my name huh? Must have been Chrysalis. Makes sense I suppose. Must have told her when she was giving her orders to stay by me.

In any case, I'll ask more questions in the morning and find out what I should be doing around here. Don't want to feel like a burden. However, I can't help that I've somehow walked into something that's way bigger than me in the grand scale of things.

If only they did pizza around here.

Author's Note:

Welp, look what finally got updated. Finally got some motivation to come back to this and update it. I won't make any promises about when I'll next update this story but I'll try and be around more in the forseeable future. Hope you enjoyed. I'll proofread this sometime later or tomorrow.

Comments

[Ralanost]

Thank you for a new chapter. Glad to get more of her glorious bug butt.

[Lucien Arindel Domingo]

invested

[FanOfSun]

Inhale

YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!!!

[Blackmain]

This is a cute story and I'm now invested.

[Prince Jules Moonshade]

Interesting story so far, can’t wait to see where this goes.

[The Wingman]

11717104
I'm hoping to get another chapter out in the near future. Life been busy. Thank you for the kind words.

[Prince Jules Moonshade]

11717458
Understandable, also like your Cynder pfp.

[f0st3r21]

I wonder how MC will be able to help the Hive.. first thing is to try to establish and maintain food. Has Chrysalis examined MC for love? Is this the type of human with lots of it?

Then revenge on Equestria? A slow takeover of their banking system and or news media? They could make a massive portion of their money disappear overnight and then run negative news blaming the royalty.. the chaos that would ensue…