Alicorn. Chapter Eighteen. (Patreon)

Chapter Eighteen.Wasp had been to the Sabot estate hundreds of times throughout her life. It was a point of pride for the long term infiltrator, seeing as no other member of the hive had managed to successfully make it into the gilded halls of the heavily warded and guarded tower yet, bar herself.There were better ways to gather love than playing prostitute for a bunch of rich unicorn nobility, of course. Replacing some farmer’s wife. Abducting a few drunkards for podding. Certainly safer, at least. But she’d be a liar if she admitted that she hadn’t grown used to the high life of being a cloud dancer.Besides, the real value in her presence within the cult controlled building was her role as a spy, keeping an eye on Providence’s movements and relaying any important details back to the hive. Knowing what the shakers and movers of Prench society were doing was simply good strategy, even the queen agreed!The revelation that the lunatics apparently had someling working on making an alicorn had been startling, and if she had been a smart changeling, Wasp would have hopped out the nearest window and fled across the country’s borders to report such a thing to the rest of the hive.But she’d gotten greedy. Within the perceived safety of their carefully tailored staff and well defended penthouses, getting the ponies around her to open up about just who the mind behind the project was had been trivial. Making her way to the mare in question had been even easier.It should have been simple from there. A quick entrancement and a private room would allow Wasp to ask as many questions as she liked, all while allowing the unicorn to act as a living snack. Pillowtalk was the best time for an interrogation, after all.Snap.“Ah, there! I was hoping I could get past the carapace without breaking it entirely. One moment, I need to cast a sterilisation spell. Perhaps a numbing one as well, if only to keep you from shaking in your own shell in response to the pain.”Now she couldn’t move, trapped within her own body by the mad mare she had thought easy prey. What a fool she had been.A moment passed in silence, and aside from a brief silver wave that had passed across the room, Wasp failed to notice any real difference.What she did notice was that the back and upper half of her head felt cold in a way that she had never experienced, ever. It was discomforting enough that she actually managed a brief flare of her own magic, before another silver flash put a stop to the attempted breakout.“Now now, I can’t afford you moving at such a critical junction. Wouldn’t want to accidentally stab into your brain while reading it.”W-What?! What was she doing back there?! Hey!Squelch.If she could have, Wasp would have shuddered. Or perhaps screamed. But as the sensation of some slimy, foreign thing digging into the back of her thoughts made itself known, she could only silently pray that someling would notice what was happening within the hivemind, and rescue her.—Fascinating, utterly, stupendously fascinating. The specimen before me was one I would need to whisk back to the lab somehow for more thorough probing, but as it stood I was already learning so much just through an only somewhat invasive mind reading spell.Ordinarily, such magic required carefully calibrated machines with big, bucket-like helmets that would fall over a pony’s head, allowing careful interrogations that wouldn’t actually harm the individual in question. It was a problem that a few of my associates in the Fallen Fang had complained about at length, requiring them to occasionally do partial mind wipes in order to avoid the Equestrian Guard from uprooting the entire Church through a single interrogation of an unlucky cult member.I had been intrigued by the theory behind it all for separate reasons to do with ensuring my various flesh beasts could operate with a little more than muscle memory guiding them, and in the process of my various experiments, had developed my own method for pouring through a pony’s thoughts and memories.With my horn firmly embedded in the back of the insectoid’s exposed brain (so green and slimy!), the situation no doubt might appear rather inappropriate should anyone walk into the bedroom, considering it looked like I was outright mounting her. But the data I was getting back from the creature’s exposed mind was more than worth the risk.Changelings. A hiveminded species of emotivores that fed on love. From what the female beneath me knew, the current hive was led by a queen Chrysalis, and mostly based in the badlands, though infiltrator cells existed in more than a few places, including Gryphonia, Equestria, and most obviously, Prance.It wasn’t an easy process, of course. ‘Wasp’ was doing her level best in resisting my rifling through her brain, slowing progress down a little. Nonetheless, in between memories of growing up in the nursery, and playing with my fellow nymphs, I also got invaluable information through the occasional biology lesson the spy had attended while growing up.The phantom sensation of passionately kissing my first crush beneath the glowshroom caves came and went as I poured further, chasing the feeling of connection that seemed to link my subject with the rest of her hive.The horror that I felt was not my own, but rather that of the paralysed changeling, as I took a metaphorical pair of scissors to the string keeping her in communication with others of her kind, and cut her loose in one fell swoop.A shame, considering I would have liked to study the hivemind itself a little more. But I had begun to feel the first instances of other changelings beginning to notice Wasp’s distress, and the last thing I needed was a bunch of bugs trying to stage a rescue of their captive comrade.“There, now we’re alone. Ah, getting you back to the lab is going to be an effort, I do believe.”The rage and terror and loss trying to overwhelm me cut off as I extracted my horn, willing forth a burst of biomantic energy in order to patch up the damage I had caused. Certain memories would likely never return to my latest side project, of course. Such a violent mind reading tended to leave more than a few scars, but that was an acceptable tradeoff for an increased understanding of the infiltrator’s biology.Willing the discarded piece of carapace back from where I had tossed it with a burst of telekinesis, I melded it back into place with another spell, nothing beyond a faint line across the material indicating that it had ever been removed in the first place.Then I slipped off of and stepped around the changeling, staring into her eyes with a genuine smile plastered across my face.“I understand this may be very frightening, Wasp. But trust me, you and I will do wondrous things together.”—Loss. Loss. Loss. Cold. Alone. Separated. Loss.The mare had been in her head. Both metaphorically and literally! The sheer…sheer violation of the act had left her wanting to curl up into a shivering ball of carapace, but she still couldn’t move!And even worse was the silence. The hivemind could get quiet at times, of course, particularly when large distances were involved. But silence? Such a thing was reserved for either deserters, exiles, or the dead.Cold. It was so cold without everyone’s warmth. She was cut off. Alone.…The terrifying thought that everyone back home probably thought she had been found out and killed filled her mind for a moment, before Wasp finally marshalled her thoughts back into some semblance of order with a sharp breath, desperately trying to ignore the feeling of loss dominating her mind. She…she had been moved at some point, in between her captor digging into her brain and the changeling’s own attempts at recovering from the sordid act.Their new surroundings didn’t resemble the dining area, or the Sabot galleries, or even the fountains and balconies that littered parts of the tower. Instead of the blacks and blues and golds she had gotten used to, everything around her was an almost clinical white or grey, and judging by the fading urge to vomit, the spy could deduce that she had likely been teleported in order to sneak her past the guards.“Igor! Get some restraints please, we have a guest!”Snapping her eyes in the direction of the voice she was beginning to fear and despise in equal measure, Wasp briefly glared at the back of the mad mare’s head, before the loping, clanking thing beside the unicorn wrenched her attention away entirely.Multiple limbs, with visibly stitched together skin and fur beneath crudely molded armour, the monstrosity had the changeling desperately trying to flee her own carapace, even as it got closer and began to sniff at her frozen form.No no no! What was this insanity?! Brothers! Sisters! Queen Chrysalis! Someling, please!“Oh, and no eating her heart. I’m keeping it.”Free her from this bucking nightmare!