Even Stranger

by SaltyJustice

Chapter 1

"Thorax, are you even awake? Hey! I'm talking to you!"

That was his supervisor, Labrum. He was one of the older changelings, and he had always said he would gladly spend his whole life working in the processing vats, rather than deal with whatever was outside. He had said it was cold out there.

Thorax lifted his head off the crude mechanical control panel and took a look at the pH monitor. It read eight-point-five-five, exactly what it was supposed to be. Nothing to worry about, he put his head back down.

"Hey!"

"What is it?" Thorax snapped at his boss.

"It's quittin' time youngun'. Your shift is over. Wouldn't want to sleep through that, would ya?"

Thorax took a quick look up at the wall clock. It had two arms, no seconds counter, and the face of Glorious Queen Chrysalis emblazoned on it, her wings acting as the arms. Five-thirty.

He took a last look at the control monitor before wondering where his replacement was supposed to be. Probably late, again, meaning it'd be up to Thorax to watch the place until he arrived.

"Where's Clasper? Is he here yet?" Thorax asked. Labrum had busied himself with work logs in his small office, in the corner of the processing room.

"Dunno. I don't got no messages from him."

Thorax sighed and resigned himself to watching the panel again. This machinery was old, extremely out-dated when he had started work at the processing vats three years ago and not getting any younger. The vats themselves had been replaced recently, though, the enormous glass vessels in the middle of the room had nary a scratch or mark on them. Catwalks ran over the tops and the piping within the room, connecting all the vats, gave off warmth to their surroundings. In the dead of winter, the vats room was always toasty warm. In summer, it was far enough underground that it was not too unpleasant to hang around.

While the job wasn't unpleasant, it also wasn't engaging. Thorax wanted to be outside, doing whatever it was the older changelings always did. He'd heard stories in the mess hall about their adventures and wanted a piece of it for himself. More importantly, he wanted to not have to stare at the same eight-point-five-five all day.

After five minutes, Clasper entered the room running. "Am I late?" he gasped.

Thorax shook his head. "For you, right on time."

Clasper worked his way up to the control panel and took over the vital duty of staring at it. Finally relieved, Thorax figured it'd be a good plan to get something to snack on. And there was exactly one place to do that.

He set off towards the mess hall. Since it was officially rush hour in the hive, he decided to detour through the older tunnels on the bottom levels. These tunnels had been around since the hive had first been dug out, and they hadn't changed at all, according to some of the elders. Unlike the upper floors, which were finished and smoothed out, the lower tunnels were rough, with rock sticking out and the path being mercilessly uneven. Thorax wasn't in any particular rush, and the tunnels were empty of other changelings.

"Hey there, Thorax right?" asked an older changeling who stepped out suddenly from behind a junction. The appearance startled Thorax, he hadn't made any sound before stepping out. He had been waiting for him.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Got a message for you, you're wanted in the machine shop on the 7th floor. Pronto. That means now, rookie," the changeling said. Thorax reflected for a moment, he had never seen this one before, probably a high-ranker. Or an Infiltrator.

"Yes, sir!" Thorax said smartly. He looked around for a moment before realizing he'd have to double back to reach the drop-shaft and get upstairs. As he scanned around, his eyes led back to where the changeling had been standing before. Except he was gone.

Thorax looked down the halls and saw nothing. That guy was definitely an Infiltrator! This was it!

Earlier that month, Generous Queen Chrysalis had put out a call for new recruits for the espionage team. After the failed assault on Canterlot city, which had been a near-total success before cowardly, backstabbing traitors had compromised the whole operation, many of the undercover agents had been recalled as the ponies had started hunting down changelings everywhere they could find them.

Thorax hadn't been on the raid himself, everything he knew was second-hoof. He had been assured that the Queen had failed through no fault of her own, that sometimes bad luck simply gets the best of you. It was truly unfortunate, that the Wise Queen had been defeated. How could fate do something so cruel to one so Beautiful and Good? Why would the ponies reject her kind leadership? One of the mysteries for the philosophers, it seemed.

Determined to help secure the future of the hive, and more importantly, to do something interesting for once, Thorax had taken the aptitude test for the espionage division. He wasn't even sure how well he did, the whole thing had taken place in secret, like everything the espionage division did, and then he'd heard nothing back. But now, an Infiltrator had shown up and given him a secret meeting in the machine shop! His heart skipped a beat or two as he made his way to the drop-shaft and flew upwards. The changelings he passed on his way up had no idea they were looking at the best damn spy in the world. Finally, some recognition!

The machine shop on the 7th floor was a large room where the industrial workers made bolts, screws, parts, and who knew what else, to keep the hive running smoothly. Thorax had never had any particular reason to visit and wasn't quite sure what to expect. As he entered, the room was darkened, presumably as the workers were on sleep shifts and the maintenance crews hadn't gotten here yet. Rows upon rows of huge steel machines with grinders and lights and blades and vices stood quietly as he passed through. There didn't seem to be anybody here.

"There you are," came a voice from behind him. He spun quickly to see who it was.

It was her, the most beautiful creature in all the lands. No face was as perfect as hers, her voice melodious and sweet as she spoke to him.

"My Queen!" Thorax said, and threw himself into a bow. Humble Queen Chrysalis smirked and put forth a hoof. He kissed it delicately.

"Rise, young one. We have much to discuss, for I must depart soon. I need not remind you that this meeting is top-secret."

"Yes, my queen!" Thorax said. He winced and lowered his voice to avoid alerting anyone else. "What do you command?"

"You have been accepted into the espionage division. In fact, you aced your aptitude exam, and my agents have been watching you for some time. We are more than pleased with what we have seen. For this reason, and this reason alone, I am giving you the highest mission clearance there is.

"Your assignment is crucial to the survival of the hive. You will be reporting directly to me, only you, myself, and our courier will be privy to your reports."

"Anything! Anything!" Thorax said.

This was all too much! Too good to be true! If he was dreaming, he prayed nobody would wake him up.

"Very good, and I love the enthusiasm. Now, return to your quarters."

"But my Queen, what is the assignment?"

"Your contact will deliver it to you this evening. I remind you to speak to nobody of this, as I would consider it to be treason should any details leak out. Destroy any correspondence from me as soon as you receive it. Do not address me in public, all communications are to be sent through your contact, do you understand?"

"Completely," Thorax said, pushing himself further into his bow. He could scarcely get any lower to the ground at this point.

"Good. I'm counting on you, do not disappoint me," the Queen said. She spun in place and walked off into the darkness of the machine shop, and Thorax quickly lost sight of her behind the silent machinery.

He wanted to gush, but that would be improper. What would a high-ranking Infiltrator do in this situation? Coolly sneak off into the darkness? Return to his quarters as ordered, as though nothing had happened? He had no idea, only a few minutes ago he had been a Class Q Process Vat Engineer. For all the hive knew, he was still that, perhaps only once he completed the mission would he officially be promoted. More important was the fact that the Queen herself had given him the mission!

It was all he could do to keep from bursting with pride on the way back to his quarters. He didn't have any friends or passing acquaintances except his co-workers, and they would never understand. He was an Infiltrator now, he had nothing in common with vat engineers. He was already forgetting their names and faces.

Queen Chrysalis made her way back to her royal quarters completely undetected by the louts around her. Her shape-shifting skills were peerless and everyone knew it, and more to the point, they didn't know it. Very few changelings had the skill to shift into other changelings, but she did, and that had been a crucial part of her meteoric rise to power.

That sap Thorax was a risky move, she thought, but there were no other options. He had scored poorly on his aptitude test and displayed below-average intelligence, awareness, and problem-solving skills. The one thing that stood out about him was his incredibly high loyalty score. Her agents had informed her that Thorax was probably the most blindly loyal changeling in the whole hive, and he'd frequently be heard humming a song to himself as he ate or worked. Upon searching his quarters, her agents had located a set of lyrics written on parchment that matched the song. Every word extolled the virtue of the Perfect and Clever Queen. For the mission she had selected, there could be no better candidate.

She hovered in front of the passageway which would lead her to her bed chambers, looking around at the thinning crowds of changelings going about their business. Hidden in plain sight, the secret passage was on an otherwise uninteresting looking brick wall at the end of a short corridor. Changeling enters a short alleyway, and doesn't come out. Nobody misses her. Rather than go straight through, she walked to the end of the passage and listened, hoping to hear somebody attempting to follow her. Nothing.

She had no reason anymore to be worried about being followed, now that she was queen, but it was the part she had truly enjoyed. Leading others into traps, outwitting the other side, feeding them false leads while eliminating their agents. This, now, was peacetime, as she was in charge of the government. The edge inside her, however, would never dull. Unfortunate, that nobody had been following her.

The other end of the secret passage would normally exit at another location near a busy intersection. Chrysalis, however, had no interest in that, and knew the secret entrance within the already secret passage. She pulled the right blocks and pushed aside the right piping to open the portal to her bedchambers, one of three in the room she slept in. Curious, how most monarchs would feel unnerved to know there was a secret way into their room, yet Chrysalis would not sleep easy unless there were multiple escape routes. One pony's bane is another changeling's blessing.

Her daily briefing report lay on her nightstand waiting for her, she picked it up and perused it idly while waiting for the soft clip-clop of her chief of intelligence to come down the hall to her door. The report had nothing of particular interest, nothing she didn't already know. The ponies had tightened security all across their borders. The ponies were sending hunter-killer parties to take down her spies. Most importantly, the ponies had taken the bait, and were now fruitlessly searching the forests of Trottingham looking for her hive. The hive, coincidentally, located clear across the continent from Trottingham. She smirked darkly to herself at the rare piece of good news.

The door creaked open and someone walked inside. Chrysalis looked up to greet Tarsus, her most trusted confidant and head of her espionage division. The scowl on his face told her exactly what she wanted to know.

"So you've done it despite my objections? Do you realize how much of a risk you're putting us in by throwing that amateur out into the wilds? The entire hive is in jeopardy if he fails!" he spat, and the scowl grew wider.

Chrysalis drank in the scorn, she relished it. She had always hated sycophants and fired them whenever she found them. They deserved to be floor-scrubbers, not spies, and suck-ups had a way of stabbing you in the back the moment you showed weakness. Tarsus was an old-hoof, so to speak; he had been a high-ranking intelligence officer before she had seized power and had shown himself a willing and capable servant of the new regime. Her smile continued to broaden as he voiced his disgust.

"He doesn't know his head from his abdomen, he doesn't know what a bit is or why he'd need one, and he failed every single assignment and question I put in front of him. Did I design the screening process for nothing, or have you lost your mind?" he challenged.

Chrysalis dropped her smile. "You know nothing of the forces arrayed against us, do you? It's not surprising, before a month ago, neither did I. They are something powerful, new, and very different," she said.

"And why can we not send out proper agents to do proper field work? Is there some information a buffoon would be better able to gain than a professional?"

"You still misunderstand. I have sent Thorax out on a personal crusade, he does this assignment for me. Any one of your agents - even you, perhaps - would find yourself utterly corrupted by this new power we face. Thorax stands the greatest chance of any against it, and that is why I chose him. I expect you will come to understand my decision soon enough, but until you do, you will give it your full support. Is that clear?"

"Yes, my queen," Tarsus said. "May I inquire as to this powerful force that has brought us to our knees?"

Chrysalis paused, thinking, before her smile returned and she loosed a deep, low laugh.

"Friendship."

Comments

[Scarheart]

First chapter read: I am now intrigued. I shall fav this and read more after sleep...g'nite!

[Brony2893]

Just going through the first chapter and I can already tell the lack of spaces between paragraphs and extra spaces after periods is going to drive me insane

[ssokolow]

3372347

Agreed.

Hey SaltyJustice, you're only ever supposed to double-space after periods when using monospaced fonts like Courier. (All typography professionals and style guides agree on single-spacing after periods. Double-spacing was invented for manual typewriters where the lack of proportional character widths made the characters loosely packed and the spaces at the end of sentences needed help to stand out.)

Here's something with more details:
Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. - Slate

[SaltyJustice]

3374075
Now, I can't speak for any of the other languages, since I only know English and a tiny bit of French, but I must say that nowhere else in my experience have I ever seen anything that approaches the level of backbiting and vitriol as written English.
Full disclosure: I'm a computer programmer. We have a lot of conventions and styles there, and occasionally, someone gets it in their head that something must be done a certain way. English editing is that, but with enough steroids to make Major League Baseball balk.
So image the entertainment value I get from having people insist that I use one space after a period rather than two. This is the rough equivalent of asking to use three-space tabs instead of four-space tabs. Or, to put that a different way: Really? Your eyes don't just sort of glaze over and ignore the little idiosyncrasies as they glide over the words?
That article you linked gave me even more laughing material. The author has an opinion and, at one point, even polled a group of people. When their opinions conflicted, the majority is taken to be wrong! What can one even say to that?

Bonus: If you caught the extra joke in the above paragraphs, kudos to you.

[Alietumbra]

3374242
I agree with you. From my own experience, most people use single-spacing between sentences, but it really doesn't matter. The fact that people can get all butt-hurt about the whole thing is hilariously stupid. I read this whole chapter without even noticing that there were two spaces between sentences.
3372347
Also, from what I've seen most people on this site use spacing between paragraphs to separate them instead of indents, but I dare you to go find the nearest genuine book, and see if it has indents or spaces. And then decide if you have the right to continue whining about this story being correct.

[Deathclaw2014]

He was one of the older changelings, and he had always said he would gladly spend his whole life working in the processing vats, rather than deal with whatever was outside. He had said it was cold out there.

Thank you for telling us about his purpose before having anything to show for it!

He took a last look at the control monitor before wondering where his replacement was supposed to be. Probably late, again, meaning it'd be up to Thorax to watch the place until he arrived.

considering the next paragraph, this one is pointless.

This machinery was old, extremely out-dated when he had started work at the processing vats three years ago and not getting any younger. The vats themselves had been replaced recently, though. In the dead of winter, the vats room was always toasty warm. In summer, it was far enough underground that it was not too unpleasant to hang around.

How do we know this?

Thorax wanted to be outside, doing whatever it was the older changelings always did. He'd heard stories in the mess hall about their adventures and wanted a piece of it for himself. More importantly, he wanted to not have to stare at the same eight-point-five-five all day.

If you're going to tell us about this character he's not going to be that interesting.

I can't stress this enough: SHOW don't TELL!

[ferret]

Oh Chrissy you forgot the one thing even more powerful than even friendship, betrayal. The more loyal, the more powerful it is!

no seriously,
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130104174038/mlp/images/1/17/Twilight_looking_at_Rainbow_Dash_flying_away_S2E01.png
betrayal: 1 friendship: 0

[Super Ponyman]

Earlier that month, Generous Queen Chrysalis had put out a call for new recruits for the espionage team. After the failed assault on Canterlot city, which had been a near-total success before cowardly, backstabbing traitors had compromised the whole operation, many of the undercover agents had been recalled as the ponies had started hunting down changelings everywhere they could find them.

Near total success (translation: Everything was in the bag until Twi managed to use her own obsessive attention to detail to oust your Queen and hand you your chitin flanks on a platter.)