This chapter actually didn't need any censoring- definitely the tamest one of the story (especially compared to the last, which is coming up next!)
xx
The queen paced her chambers impatiently, amber eyes ablaze, black fur and orange mane and tail slightly damp and emitting the sweet scent of cave flowers. The queen put having a long wash before dealing with anything else; she refused to go around her hive stinking of blood and filly vomit.
"I don't see what the problem is, Web," she spoke, coming to rest in front of one of her minions. Like everyone else, his body was black and eyes cold blue, legs riddled with holes. The only thing unique about him was the blue armour of the Elite Hive Guard that graced his form and a slanted horn that poked out of his head.
"The problem, your Highness," his voice had the same buzzing quality of all his brethren, but it was more pony than insect-like, "is that simply taking a youngling from her home was extraordinarily dangerous! They'll come looking in their hundreds and eventually uncover the hive. We'll have to evacuate again and all our work will have been for nothing!"
"You are being paranoid. One pony gone in the dead of night won't spark a forest-wide search. They might look around here and there, but eventually they will accept she has disappeared into thin air," the queen said confidently, settling onto her regal bedspread. Web refused to be swayed.
"In any case, I still don't see why we need to be creating a new queen so soon, or at all." The queen's eyes narrowed in contempt.
"Are you really so uneducated that you don't know even the basics of our species?" she said insultingly, drawing an offended look from her subordinate. "Even the youngest drone knows that the birth of a Changeling queen is only born when the hive is practically drenched in love. You know full well of our current famine. The only other option is to do as our anscestors did; create one ourselves. As for choosing her so early, my new queen needs years of nurturing and training to reach her full potential. The sooner the process begins, the better." Web knew what his queen was saying made perfect sense; the method she was using was both practical and proven to work. But one thing still niggled at his mind. And the queen had picked up on it instantly.
"Speaking of the new queen, you seemed unsettled during the rebirth," she stated accusingly, crossing over her holed legs.
"Well, we are related to the ponies in many ways. To see a young one being in such pain..." Web cleared his head to get the gruesome images out. "Why not just do it while they're asleep?"
"Web, the method we used was the least painful one. How would you feel, waking up and being suddenly hit with such agony? Besides, the augments can only function properly if they are attached to a conscious subject." A strangely maternal look appeared on the queen's face.
"I don't do this out of cruelty, Web. It's all necessary, for the good of the hive." Web's eyes softened at her words.
"I understand, my queen. When shall I retrieve the filly?" the Changeling soldier asked.
"The last stages of rebirth usually take a few hours. Check in at regular intervals and bring her to me when the cocoon has hatched," she answered, dismissing Web.
"As you wish, your Highness." He bowed, and turned to leave his queen's domain.
xx
The filly didn't even feel the soft substance beginning to cover her, oozing from the skin benath her fur and quickly hardening into a tough shell. The pain, the torture, burning and stinging was still there, and she doubted it would ever go away. The filly tried to lift a mutilated limb, but the feeling of the bone moving so loosely sickened her and made her whimper from the ache. Something dripped from the area were the horn now portruded, sweat or blood or Celestia-knows-what. The pool of fluids around her had dried to lumpy crust, leeching onto the cocoon forming around the pony. Even if she could move herself, the shell had already encased her ruined legs and was working up to her neck, like solid water reaching out to drown her. The filly fluttered her dull eyes open one last time, before the chrysalis closed around her head, severing her from the outside world.
The shell filtered only the lowest levels of light through, cloaking the space in shadows and outlining the filly in grey. She felt something beginning to fill up the tiny area, a thick gooey liquid. It reached up to her mouth, and the filly braced herself to splutter for air.
However, somehow she was able to breathe in the stuff without swallowing. It was like some kind of liquid oxygen, or enchanted to not drown. She took deep gasps of it, the pressure in her ribs lifting slightly as she did so. The fire in her head and spine was also quenched, the sitnging in her hooves dulling. Not only was the liquid breathable, it also healed. The filly had never heard of such a thing. But all that mattered now was that she wasn't in danger of dying.
She idled away the next hour taking in the stuff, her injuries lifting and pain fading away.
Somehow, it managed to lull her to sleep.
xx
"...Yoohoo...June? Wakey wakey, sweetie."
June Bug yawned and lifted herself from the rustled hay bed. A small pegaus mare with light yellow fur, a blue mane and green eyes looked down at her half-awake daughter, a loving smile on her face.
"We're going shopping today," the mother said, grabbing her saddlebag from the nearby kitchen counter, above which a colourful calendar marked the day as Monday. The only day of the week the mare wasn't working.
June jumped out of bed and hurried to her mother's side, hastily going over her green mane and tail with a hoof. She loved shopping with her mother; she could go expore the wilder parts of Ponyville she was usually restricted from.
The two walked outside the modest cottage near the centre of the town, and made their way across the dirt paths to the marketplace. The mother paused by a carrot merchant to discuss prices while June, as always, wandered off into the long grass.
The filly scanned the ground beneath her with the focus of a treasure hunter, taking slow and calculated steps. Butterflies, bees, ants, they all came to greet her as they did every week. They seemed attracted to her, like she was a flower. Whatever it was, June wasn't complaining.
She would have stayed there for hours if it wasn't for the sudden yell that came from the marketplace. Her head shot upwards towards the source of the ominous noise. June ran through the grass, and was spat onto the cobbled sqaure. It was deserted.
"M-Momma?" she squeaked, taking shaking steps across the empty area. Nothing, not even the birds made a sound. The sky had gone signifigantly darker.
"Where-" before June could ask herself, a ball of fire exploded a store nearby. She jumped, diving for her grassy refuge. Even from the considerable distance, the filly could feel the heat of the fire against her face. Another ball fell nearer, scorching the nearest grass. June retreated further into the wild ferns, risking a look upwards.
Overhead, gargantuan dark shapes trailed the skies and dropped inferno bombs below. Behind the clouds, the tip of a wing and the end of a snout could be seen.
'Dragons,' she realised, her breath caught in her throught. Already the air was heavy with suffocating smoke, making the filly cough violently. Her only option was to run.
On and on she ran, followed by what insects had survived the attack. She didn't know where to go, what to do or, probably most importantly, what in the name of Celestia was going on. She'd heard that dragons rarely stray far from their homelands, and that attacks on pony communities were an impossibility.
Just goes to show how unreliable textbooks are.
Below the hovering shapes of the reptiles, much smaller and agile shapes flitted about, diving and rising. Some lifted up things and then let them fall to the ground, black dots dropping to earth. June didn't want to think about what they were, both the creatures and their cargo.
She reclined to just running, no stopping or looking back. The only sanctuary she could think of was the Everfree forest, sheltered by the ancient trees, filled with edible plants and pools of water for her to live of reached the end of the grass, and would have made it to safety if it wasn't for the wall of fire that sprouted in front of her.
"NO!" she cried, backing away from the flames flicking out to lick every flammable part of her. "So close, so close..." she repeated the two words like a mantra. Everfree was literally a gallop away, not the best place to go but also the only sheltered area in miles. All the grass. June was hyperventilating, eyes wide and brimming with tears. Her insectoid followers disbanded, leaving her alone and helpless.
She backed up as fast as she could without tripping over, but instantly halted when she felt sparks licking her back. The fire had spread to form a circle around her, trapping the filly. June's breathing grew laboured and ragged as smoke smothered her. She was going to die, it was an absolute certainty.
'Please Celestia, make it quick...' she prayed, kneeling to the scorched earth and squeezing her dripping eyes shut. A terrible sound boomed nearby, and June opened her eyes for the last time.
The giant wall of flames had been impossibly parted, a tall and evil figure emerging from the edge of the forest. She was surrounded by a small army of armoured pegasi, and was the one pony June needed right now.
"Princess Celestia!" she cried, her frail heart lifting at the sight of Equestria's ruler. "We need to get out of here, there are dragons and other mean creatures destroying everything, and everyone disappea-"
"SILENCE, YOU FOAL!" the princess screamed, the force of her voice knocking the filly backwards. Celestia's normally soft pink eyes blazed bloody red, her mouth set in a cruel frown. "I'm perfectly aware of what your pathetic town is facing. Where do you think the dragons came from?" June looked at the alicorn in disbelief.
"B-But why?" was all she could stutter. Celestia laughed again, her soldiers joining in.
"You silly ponies, so naive and ignorant. All these years I've been building my power, waiting for the right opportunity and you didn't even notice. Your pathetic town is a mere loose end to be tied up, or should I say burned up?" Celestia lifted her face to the black sky and let loose a laugh so evil and full of madness, June thought it would shatter her soul. "Look around you, foal. Dragons destroying all you hold dear, griffons and zebras killing any who survived; I'm sure you saw those weak things being dropped from the sky? And now only you remain. I would congratulate you on your resiliance, but I'd rather kiss a donkey than do such an embarrasing thing. So instead, you get the honour of the undivided attention of my manticores." The filly hadn't even noticed the lion-like abominations gathering behind the princess. They eyed her hungrily, drooling and scraping their claws in anticipation. The Sun Goddess took off into the air, her etheral mane and tail billowing in the fire-light.
"No need to rush, kitties!" she called as she flew away from the inferno, the pegasi chasing after her. The manticores edged nearer, licking their lips. June screamed and screamed until her throat grew raw but no-one came. They were all dead, or didn't care. For the first time in her short life, she was untterly alone.
The lead manticore was now right in front of her. He opened his maw, the foul stench of rotten meat wafted over June and made her gag. Leaf-green eyes locked onto soulless black, and the manticore reared up on his hind legs. The filly brought her own pitifully soft hooves up in a feeble attempt at defence, and flayed them wildly until-
xx
The filly's eyes snapped open as a draught of cold air swept across her wet leg. The cocoon had burst from her comatose thrashing, the healng liquid spilling out. She rolled onto her side and broke more of the shell open.
'What a strange dream, or...was it a dream?' she thought to herself, her mind blank. The filly had no idea of where she was, or how she got here. Her mane- a dark green blue mix- fell in a damp river around her head, the same coloured tail dragging behind her. She brought a hoof up to her face, showing her fur as a very dark grey and her leg baring scattered holes. It reminded her of cheese.
She stood up, her legs trembling but not collapsing under her weight. She tried walking forward, careful not to slip on the cocoon-liquid. It felt strange, but was in no way difficult. She looked upwards, and was faced with a strange trio of creatures. Two showed off transparent wings crisscrossed with black veins, an armoured unicorn in the centre.
"You are to come with us, Newborn," the unicorn spoke with veteran authority. The filly nodded blindly, the pegasi-like forms flanking her as she was led out of the small prison and into the catacombs beyond