The March of Giants

by LindwurmProto

Chapter 1: The Start of Everything

A Changeling Queen sat watching a crematorium work its fiery process with tears streaming down her muzzle. While the fire was now a fierce inferno, blocking the visage of her mother, her deep orange eyes glimmered in the light given off by the reinforced glass viewport. Her slender frame with her deep orange mane and tail that appeared to glow by the light given off from the crematorium. With deep red bands around her barrel and a dark orange carapace on her back, it gave her an unique set of colors as her insect-like wings lay flat on her barrel. As she stood up to leave the room, the fire light revealed her legs; which possessed holes like all Changelings, but also revealed her right front leg that clinked on the metal floor.

A thing of beauty, it was an artificial leg that appeared to have been made of bronze. But underneath, it was a marvel of myomer artificial muscle, electronics and ingenuity that had allowed the Queen to have full functionality of her lost limb. A limb that had been lost when she had been exploring an unsafe portion of the ship they lived in.

She used her left hoof to wipe away her tears and schooled her face as she could feel her mother’s drones joining her hive mind. It had been a process that had been implemented by Pantila Hex when she was on her deathbed. In order for the next generation of Queen to continue the great, arduous work of reverse-engineering the numerous machines; it had been decided that the older hive will join the new hive in order to maintain the numbers needed to study the technology aboard the ship. This merging of hives was made easier as the older hive would work in tandem with the newer hives when both queens were alive.

As she emerged onto the reception area of the hospital portion of the ship, two drones bowed to her. Their coloring was slightly redder than Patina, denoting that they had been part of her mother’s hive. No words were spoken, but the message was clear. It was done. Patina steeled her features as she entered the elevator to where her most important project lay.

As she exited onto what used to be a hangar that launched aerial assets, she looked upon a massive cylindrical tower made of rotating orange plates and emitting a pale pinkish glow. All around the bottom were energy connectors that were directly drawing power from the ship’s main fusion reactors. But what was most important would be the outtake pipe that outputs the resulting product produced by her machine.

One must know that artificial love was initially produced by Pantila Hex, which had been created from taking a pure crystal filled with ‘love’ energy and running it through a scanner had given a rather strange response. It showed that ‘love’ was made up of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and an unknown element that was identified on the side as magic. Of course, Pantila had to brute force the exact amounts to produce an artificial version of love, but in a liquid form. It was also less potent than the normal version of love, nearly a quarter of its strength; but when it was capable of being infused into produce needing water, could be mixed into milk, baked into breads, and so much more; thus increasing consumption. But every queen had used the initial recipe Pantila had created, but Patina was the first to fully mass-produce it by using a machine. It allowed for hundreds of gallons of artificial love to be produced every second. The drawback was the fact that it drew an enormous amount of power, nearly 5% of the maximum energy produced by the ship’s main fusion reactor; and that the magical part of the equation, specifically Changeling magic, had to be recharged every twelve hours. And whichever Changeling drone had that duty of recharging, would have the rest of the day off. And then there would be artificial love that could be stored with no expiration date.

In fact, she was the first queen to be born solely from the consumption of artificial love and it showed by her and her hive that they had a lower need for love than her mother’s hive. That and it increased the individuality of each drone, giving them more autonomy than the older generation. More initiative was taken, more proactive, and more intuitive; even if it was only very slight in difference.

It was also for that reason that the water treatment plant was moved next to the Artificial Love Generation Tower (ALGT) so that other than a small portion of clean pure water being stored, the rest was combined into a liquid that Patina called Ai-mizu, which was Japanese (human language she had learned in her free time) and was distributed all throughout the ship using existing piping system aboard the ship. That and it was stored in massive tanks, some of which had to be cleaned out entirely, and was used to water the small farms just outside of a lower hangar bay that had been ruined by the ship crashing here.

Then again… She looked out of the hangar that housed the ALGT and looked outside where the jungle had been cleared into a massive field where construction was ongoing. Living on the ship itself was nice, but sooner or later, the ship itself would have to be taken apart to build a far more permanent home. Of course, considering much of the construction was still underway, all they were doing were…

The sound of wood being demolished could be heard from the distance where one could barely see something taking out entire lines of trees at a pace no living being could match. Patina couldn’t help grinning as one of the first mechs that the Changelings had produced emerged from the forest. Taking the original blueprints and building with only local resources was insanely hard work and had taken her and her mother’s hives to finish just three such mechs. Standing on two feet with a massive claw arm on the left and a large chainsaw on the other, the light Crosscut forestry IndustrialMech ran smoothly back to an open hangar where several other Changelings were waiting with what appeared to be extra components for the chainsaw. Patina narrowed her eyes and noted that the teeth for the chainsaw had been worn entirely out. Nodding with satisfaction that the work was being taken care of smoothly, she began to walk towards the lift when a message was sent to her through the hive mind. Her large orange eyes glimmered brightly before swiftly entering the lift and pressed the button for the floor that led outside at ground level.

As the lift opened at the ground floor, Patina walked out with a skip in her step. She came out to a sight she was used to seeing. A dozen of drones that once belonged to her mother’s hive, wearing a combat harness, stood guard around another Changeling queen. She was a head taller than Patina, who herself was only slightly larger than the normal pony, and had on a large bonnet. Patina didn’t bother questioning how her long curved horn, much like that of a thin scimitar, did not tear the pale peach bonnet.

The last time she asked, all she had gotten a reply for was that it was ‘magic’.

Patina walked up to the other queen, who appeared to be distracted by the numerous containers being loaded onto her carts, and knew why. The faint smell of ‘love’ in the Ai-Mizu was just enough for Changelings to recognize what it was, but for the other races; it would smell just like water. Drinking it would be a whole different issue, though.

“Gemini, it is great to see you again.” Patina greeted her friend with a smile as she sat to the taller queen.

“And you too, Patina. Condolences on the passing of your mother, though. She was a Changeling to remember.” Gemini answered in a somber tone as she bowed briefly towards Patina. Her eyes, the right being a silvery color while the left appeared a glow a faint lavender shade, focused back onto the containers that her hive was loading onto the carts. “I see that… the supply has grown from before.”

“It has been nearly three months since you last visited. I have completely activated the Love Generator to full and thus resulted in a bit of excess.” Patina replied as she nodded back to the queen who removed her bonnet to reveal her lavender-colored mane done up in a messy bun with a metallic needle holding it in place. “I see that your hive has grown.”

“All I can do is thank you. Your Ai-Mizu has allowed for a much easier birthing cycle as we had an excess of love.” Gemini smiled at the sight of smaller Changelings helping their elder Changelings with moving other goods onto the carts. Gemini’s tone shifted to a far more serious note as she shifted her focus onto Patina. “The next Council of Queens is being held in the southern border of Macintosh Hills. Congratulations, many Queens are practically begging me to introduce them to you now.”

“Expected and the time?” Patina’s mechanical leg clicked as the hoof opened up to reveal four mechanical fingers and was handed a circular metal disc that appeared rather simple by one of her drones.

“Sixty seven days. I will be pushing my hive to get to the location from here. Will you be there?” Gemini gave Patina a questioning glance as the smaller queen inspected the device with her mechanical hoof.

“Of course. I have so much to discuss after my grandmother, who was the last to attend the Council.” Patina smiled as she handed the device back to her drone. She looked right at Gemini's eyes and gave a drin. "I may be younger than the rest of the other queens as I am only nineteen total years old, give or take a month or two; but even I can see that the times are changing far quicker than that Council would like to admit."

"And how are you going to change their minds, Patina? There is a reason some of those queen's control entire towns and cities." Gemini arched her right eyebrow as Patina motioned for her to follow. They entered a lift and Patina pressed the button to head to the bridge. "You know something, don't you?"

Patina didn’t reply, but guided her friend over to a large device built into the floor that was displaying a holographic globe of their home planet. Patina rose to stand on her rear hooves while placing her left hoof onto the surface of the machine while opening her right mechanical hoof back up. Without a word, Patina used her mechanical digits to manipulate the image of the planet to several pictures of decent clarity from a bird’s eye view. Gemini leaned in to take a look, and could only gawk at what was being shown.

“And this is just from the border fortress of the Griffons, bordering that winter wasteland. That particular Knightly Order sworn under the High Queen Amberclaw has been noticeably aggressive in building fortresses uncomfortably close to Equestrian borders. What you see is a partially completed fortress.” Patina sounded serious as she tapped the metal surface with her mechanical digits.

“That’s an incomplete fortress?” Gemini sounded incredulous as she looked at what could be classified as a small town in Equestria.

“Then we have Equestria building up their own forces using those bipedal golems made of rocks.” With a swipe of her metal fingers, a new set of images were brought up.

“I’ve seen those. Surprisingly agile for looking so bulky.” Gemini grimaced remembering that training event that had been public. It had been an event to recruit more for the Equestrian Guard and to show off their strength. “You can feel the magicks woven into those Golems. Not to mention, I’ve heard rumors of their airships; but…”

An image of a large airship, appearing just as half as long as the mountain it was anchored to, was in the process of being hidden from view with clouds as nearly thirty pegasi were concealing it with clouds. Gemini could see that the pegasi were wearing something colored dull bronze with gold-bronze hoof guards. While no weapons could be seen, Gemini was sure Patina knew what they used for weapons.

“I see why you are saying times are changing.” Gemini idly let out a growl as she got a larger picture of the world now. “If anything, your hive possesses far more advanced machinery than the Griffons and the Ponies; but…” Gemini walked over to a viewing port and looked at the half-dozen bipedal machines tearing down the forest. “You lack the numbers to fully devote to something specific.”

“Indeed. I need numbers, but I also wish for the unification of our race.” Patina sighed tiredly as she looked at the holographic planet. “Imagine if we can stand hoof to hoof with the Ponies and Griffons. We can easily be a country, but our lack of centralized food source prevents our unification. But with the ALGT completed and a capital city built, we can satisfy the necessary things that’ll allow for our race to grow as a species.”

“Then I will be glad to support your cause.” Gemini closed her eyes as she placed a hoof on her chest. Patina hid a surprised look as she tilted her head slightly. “Acting as traveling merchants is good and all, but even I am getting tired of moving around nonstop. Many other queens will claim that you are not like them as you did not struggle as they have, but I know better. Meeting your mother and watching your hives become so… advanced is rather awe-inspiring, you know?”

Patina blushed as she rubbed her nose at the compliment. She smiled and nodded as she sat next to Gemini once again.

“If anything, my only difficulty is to convince Chrysalis isn’t it?” Patina whispered as she looked out of the viewport and at the sky.

“Perhaps.” Gemini merely chuckled as she watched the sky as well. “Perhaps…”

XoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoX

Gemini sat in silence within the underground area that had been carved by Earth Pony miners long ago. Around her were other ‘Minor’ Queens, just like her, and five ‘Major’ Queens who sat in the middle around a circular table carved out of wood. Gemini discretely took out a flask from within her saddlebag around her barrel and took a sip, noticing the Queens near her glancing at her flask at the scent of love within. A queen next to her looked at the flask with hungry eyes, and Gemini observed that she was rather thin. Sighing silently, Gemini passed the flask to the clearly starving Queen and idly listened to the ‘Major’ queens argue over something.

Gemini watched the five ‘Major’ Queens that possessed sizable hives and held the most territory. First was the clearly annoyed Myxine, Queen of the Hagfish Hive. While she was around Patina’s size, it was her short mane and constant serious look on her face that made her appear hard to approach. Smallest of the ‘Major’ Hives, but was the only to possess a wet navy of all things. Yes, they were all barely the size of a sloop; but she used them very effectively. Both her mane and tail were rather short and under her blue eyes were lines that were most likely not from age. Her horn looked rather unique with two grooves that seemed to give a feel of a shark's fin.

Next to Myxine was the easy-going and innocently sadistic Queen of the Honeycomb Hive, Ambrosia. She was just as tall as her and both of her bright orange mane and tall were long enough to be on the floor, with her young greenish yellow eyes looked excited as she played with some glowing bugs that flew around her. Her horn was relatively curved with a single curve within and appeared much like that of a saber strangely. She possessed the third largest hive amongst the ‘Major’ Hives and was the closest to the border of the Chaotic South and Equestria. The only reason she was considered a ‘Major’ Queen was most likely due to the sheer amount of ‘Love’ she had stockpiled and sold to other Hives at exorbitant prices.

Observing the seemingly air-headed Ambrosia was most likely the creepiest Queen alive. Calliphora sat next to Ambrosia with her extra set of milky white lens over her crimson eyes and her even more so 'perforated' limbs than the normal Changeling, idly lay on the table appearing bored. Her back and barrel were colored a reddish pink color and both her mane and tail were colored a light reddish peach color that gave her a ghost-like appearance that frightened other Changelings easily. But strangely, Calliphora was most likely the friendliest Queen amongst them all. When one lives in the Graveyard and consoles those that come with the image of their dead relatives, they are strangely the least dangerous Hive there is.

Then there was the Miasma Hive, led by Miasma. Possessing the second largest hive, Gemini couldn’t help but to hold her breath at that moment. The only thing that made her 'different' were the openings to the side of her mouth that showed her inner jaw far too clearly and the extremely bad smell of rotting... things and the strong smell of some potent perfume. Her violet coloring of her back, mane, and tail gave her a sort-of regal look that was ruined by the horrid stench. A stench that the nearby Queens have avoided by sitting rather far away from Miasma herself.

And then there was Chrysalis. The self-proclaimed Queen of All Queens and this was not her being overconfident. Her hive was the largest, most aggressive, and their queen was just as volatile. Noticeably taller than most queens, both her long mane and tail were colored a dark bluish green and her jagged horn gave her a near sinister look. Her green eyes darted back and forth as she studied the underground room with a serious look and appeared just as annoyed as Miasma was complaining about the increasing security against Changelings. Gemini was about to see if she could eat that lovely sandwich made by her drones when something sounded.

It was a guttural and powerful sound. Like that of a dragon releasing a torrent of flames as it is roaring, but magnified. Gemini had only heard this once and it had been a glorious sight at the time. The sound shook the chamber a bit, but this room had been built close enough to the surface that its supports were strong enough. Then with a resounding ‘THUMP’, the sound ended in a gradual manner. Gemini couldn’t help but to sit in her seat as Chrysalis herself looked surprised. In fact, Gemini could swear she could hear Chrysalis’ mind try to make sense of what her drones were most likely seeing. Then the slowly widening eyes at most likely seeing Patina…

The rhythmic sound of ‘thumps’ made Gemini pause, however. That and each thump was accompanied by the room slightly shaking at each thump. Was it those chainsaw wielding machines that she had seen recently?

One of the younger minor queens gave a shriek before she darted through the door that led to the cave the room was connected to. Almost like a given signal, most of the minor queens also ran outside as Gemini sat there in the chaos, a hoof over the other queen that had been given her flask. She saw Myxine give her a look of suspicion and merely left the room in an orderly manner, the other queen following after her.

Gemini paused at the sight of the other queens that were now looking with slack jaws outside of the cave, and even she had to admit that this wasn’t something she was expecting as well. It was seven meters in height standing on two angular and boxy digitigrade legs. Its torso was also boxy, but unlike what Gemini saw of Equestria’s Golems, it lacked a head. But in fact, she could barely make out the pilot within the machine in the center portion of the torso that jutted out through the glass-like slit, but the two arms with three horrifyingly large claws on each arm certainly gave it a frightening look to it. Gemini could see some kind of large cannon on its right shoulder, but the overly sharp claws on the arms had more of her attention. Oh, was that a large blade attached to the left arm?

“Celestial Series Light Omnimech Malak.” A voice that the other Changeling Queens have never heard spoke from between the machine’s feet where Patina was walking up with a bronze colored device strapped to her barrel while she had a clear visored helmet over her head with what appeared to be a device that ran down her spinal column. The devices on the sides of her barrel opened up to reveal a pair of mechanical arms with four-fingered arms. The extra limbs extended out to retrieve something on her back, to which Gemini blinked several times. “A battlemech weighing at 30 tons and capable of running nearly 120 kilometers an hour. It is also armed with a mixture of energy and missile weaponry with an integrated system that allows for advanced synchronization of data on the battlefield.”

Patina looked side to side at the frightened assembly of Queens as Gemini felt the Major Queens look at the machine just as surprised and clearly feeling scared at the massive machine.

“Greetings. I am the granddaughter of Queen Palinia Gear and the Queen of the Ferrugo Hive.” Patina curtsied as she began to undo the locks on the case that had been on her back. “My name is Patina Gear and I am here to make my case on our… situation. But this is rude of me.”

Patina removed a cylinder filled with a bright glowing pink fluid within and smiled. Looking at the machine’s cockpit, the mech moved smoothly backwards and away as it joined three other mechs that all looked slightly different. She motioned outwards where what can only be described as a massive white ‘brick’ with stubby wings on the rear with some form of propulsion attached to the body. And as if to be showing off, which Gemini knew Patina was, from within the open side hangar bays; were an array of tables filled with foods and drinks that all smelled of Love.

“W-what is this?” Surprisingly, it was Myxine who spoke first. It was here that Gemini could observe how each of the Major Queens were reacting and only one truly made her surprised. Myxine, who had spoken, appeared to be shocked and her body was tense as if she was going to be attacked. Calliphora merely walked up, opened and closed her mouth a few times before looking perplexed at the situation before her. Miasma’s eyes darted back and forth from the mechanical giants as they stood guard and at the tables filled with foods that had been made with Love. Chrysalis was keeping her calm somehow and appeared interested in the brick-like airship of some kind. But it was Ambrosia that surprised everyone. As soon as Patina held out the canister, Ambrosia smiled widely as she took it with her magic and trotted off to where one of Patina's drones were setting up chairs. That and every single Queen gawked at the sight of Ambrosia's drones helping the newly arrived Queen's drones with setting up what could only be called a massive open area picnic with a buffet.

"She offered, so why not?" Calliphora idly comments as one of Ambrosia' drones began to float around trays of fancy glasses filled with water, but with a pink hue emerging when hit with sunlight. Without seemingly a care in the world, Calliphora magically gripped a cup and drank, followed by a Chrysalis who seemed to be magically scanning the drink, before looking surprised and then… realization.

Author's Note:

The first chapter that might read like too much details at once.

Don't worry, next chapter will have more dialog amongst the Queens and a check in with the Griffins.

Comments

[jinougaboss]

good chapter, now one thing that displeased me a little in the previous story and that since in the next chapter we will talk a little about griffins, it is their reason for war against the ponies, which in 90% of the stories in fimfiction is "we are griffins, we like war, we go to war "is a bit too classic, it would be nice to have a reason to start it especially that now they are a chivalrous order. For the Changelings you can use the same situation as the previous story with maybe a warning counter to show that they are no longer weak like an attack on a strategic point or military center, however it goes I can't wait to see how it will continue

[W1nd0wL33s]

Amazing chapter, looks like things are starting to take effect. Wonder what that will intel in the future. Either way keep up the great work