I smile as a simple touch to the music-cube-thing gift from Jason's Twilight cues a few songs up on a playlist. I carefully set the item down near the spawning pool while I wait for Chrysalis to arrive and provide assistance. Sure I could just rip the information out of her head over the hive mind, but something about personal interaction just makes advice seem more poignant.

My queen, I apologize for the delay. I was in the middle of reverting the attempts to lengthen wings on the pony bodies to biomass after they caused the chitin to become too brittle. She tilts her head to the side as she notices the music playing and sees my smile. You appear to be in a good mood for the first time in the week since your sister was hurt. Is there cause to celebrate?

"You could say that, Chrysalis." I hold up the device that resembles the Unitrix, twisting the dial to bring one of the three humanoid pony forms up; the pegasus. "We have ten essence samples here, at least one of which will provide a specimen of immense size." I continue turning the dial until the cerebrocrustacean hologram is visible. "Can you help me integrate this one's essence into the swarm with the minimum amount of changes? I want to preserve as much of the intelligence as possible so that it may assist the two of us in incorporating new creatures and improving them to my specifications."

I cannot tell you how easy or hard that will be without having the essence in the pool, I merely hope that you are able to activate the device this time. She settles on the opposite side of the pool from me before closing her eyes and almost sighing in contentment as she reconnects herself to the various synaptic relays involved in species integration. It has been far too long since I have had the opportunity to do anything with a truly fresh sample, my queen. I only hope that my first attempts do not result in a mangled mess.

“I don’t need the title all the time, Chrysalis. I already told you that I want you to call me Sarah, because I’m going to go nucking futs if all I ever hear from you is ‘my queen.’” With one hand firmly grasping the tube, I cup the floating hologram in the other palm. A gentle push does nothing, the light seeming almost solid and resisting. “Okay, now I know that Liz wasn’t lying about some of how it works. Let’s see if her advice holds out, or if she’s pranking me…” I move the free hand away from the hologram, hesitating for a few seconds once it’s about a foot away since I really don’t want to break this thing by accident and risk losing so much potential. I bring that hand in hard and slam it into the hologram, forcing it down into the button on top of the device like I’m fixing a stubborn battery cap on a cheap-ass flashlight.

Just like a cheap flashlight, it works. I hold back a cry of triumph as a green light spears out of the device and collects in the primordial ooze of the spawning pool. I hold everything down for a solid twenty seconds just to make sure that everything is finished before lifting my hand away. To my surprise, it continues to eject light for another few seconds before the flow cuts out. I carefully place it on the same ledge as the cube before closing my eyes and seeking out Chrysalis’ mind amongst the hundreds in and around the hive alone.

Inefficient exoskeleton design requires external support of neck. Arms and legs both flimsy, but help conduct electricity. Must isolate electricity genome and preserve for experimental ranged strain. Massive brain. The queen wants intellect intact, must preserve brain at all costs... I smile as I form a mental version of the spawning pool room using some of the old visualization techniques, then create a representation of the hologram in front of myself before gently drawing Chrysalis’ mind into the simulated area.

I heard your basic thoughts already, Chrysalis, and I appreciate that you’re looking for applications for the other abilities, but our primary concern right now is in creating a singular entity with this genome as the basis. That is what will best help us in strengthening our position. I do not have an Abathur at my disposal, so I must come up with the best possible substitute.

Of course. I assume you wish it to be mobile so that it is not tied to one location? Many resources and much biomass will be consumed in growing a brain so large either way, though not nearly as much as a cerebrate would require. I will send out a squad to cut another few heads off our pet hydra to ensure the growth is not interrupted.

I walk around the hologram image and place my hands at the neck and legs. I’m not looking for anything ready for direct combat, but I also don’t want you taking abilities away from the base creature beyond the loyalty that being part of the swarm will instill. I don’t like the idea of creating what is essentially a slave, but I also don’t really have a choice. What changes could we enact that would improve upon the base creature here?

That is hard to say for sure. The neck appears to be the major weak point aside from the way the plates must open to expose the brain when this species manipulates electricity, but that weakness seems to be intended to facilitate lateral motions.

So the weakness in the neck is also what allows the neck to turn...is it the same joint for looking up and down?

It seems to be that way. Many aspects of this form are inefficient in one way or another, but natural evolution tends to not make things utterly invulnerable.

Of course it doesn’t make things invincible, evolution cannot take beings like the zerg into account when they are not present. Would some armor plating around the joint connected to the softer tissue protect adequately while allowing it to retain motion, or will we have to fuse the neck and limit the ability for it to look around without moving its entire body?

Small chitin plates could work to both reinforce and allow mobility, yes. Perhaps some external cartilage to allow for structure with more flexibility than harder plates, as defense is not a priority due to non-combatant status of singular entity. We could save a bit on resources by removing the plates on top of the brain that serve only as protection against attack. Fusing them together is not advised since they open for more than one reason, but removing them altogether would not cause a problem.

I walk around the mental image, slowly reaching out and forming an almost decorative neck fill at the weak point, then peel aside the armor plates from the top of the head. I can almost see it, yes. What about the legs and pincers?

The legs have a frail design inherent to the sample. We could easily replace the lower body entirely with a more serpentine configuration. The image shifts, the lower body beginning to resemble that of a giant snake or a hydralisk.

No. Keep the same general configuration with minor improvements for stability or mobility only. Add in whatever gives the pony-shaped drones and zerglings the ability to walk on walls and ceilings.

As you wish, my queen.

Please call me Sarah.

You do realize that we are not truly communicating with words...or do you not? I have no control over how you interpret the honor that is attached to the thoughts that represent addressing you with a name or title.

So you’re telling me that I’ll always interpret that thought impulse the way I do? Fuck my life, I need to give you a larynx and mouth capable of forming words then, because that’s going to make me go crazy. The concept-hologram shifts back to the original lower body after a few moments, followed by a slight thickening of the legs and the tips turning into a cluster of multiple points.

I would suggest we leave the pincers as they are for the most part, though it is tempting to try and add a blade of some kind to the muscles there so that it could defend itself with more than just electricity if attacked. With your permission?

Make it so, number one. I nod and open my eyes as I mostly return to my own head. “How long before we have a living specimen to see how these changes impacted the intelligence unintentionally?”

A few days at the very least, if only to account for the mass of the brain itself. I can feel her confusion at the way I’d deliberately phrased that last mental exchange, followed by a short burst of genuine mirth as I send over some memories of that show for context.

“Fair enough. I have nothing but time on my hands anyways these days. Do what you need to do in order to make sure we have a viable specimen, and recycle as much as possible from ones that show marked deviation before they reach maturity.” I smile at Chrysalis and pick up the modified unitrix again. “We should hold off on attempts with anything else in here until we have this intelligence at our disposal. While I trust your experience in dealing with integrating new genetic essence, I want more than just two advisors in dealing with the complexity of what I have in mind.”

As you command, my queen. I will alert you once a viable specimen breaches its growth sack. Go do what you feel need be done in the meantime. I smile again and pick up the music cube as I exit the room, although I can’t hold back an exasperated groan as the next song comes on and the lovely voice of Freddie Mercury begins to pour out along with his bandmates.

“For the billionth time, Liz, I can’t see or hear your tutor unless he wishes me to, so no, I can’t tell him to stop bothering you. You’re the one who got mystical soul-vision bullshit from the death goddess. All she told me was that I’d figure out new ways to shape and use my lightning blasts as I grow into my body and learn the ways of this world’s mystic arts.” I don’t even open my eyes as she comes in, now more than used to how things are working out between her and ‘Poe.’

“No, Sarah, I had a breakthrough. He was coaching me about being calm and opening myself to the spirits and I just wanted him to shut his beak because I barely get five minutes away from him most days, and then only when I pretend I need a bathroom break.” She sounds excited enough for both of us, so I crack one eye open just enough to watch her pace back and forth. “That handbook, it was written for people whose brains are structured differently from our own, ponies. They may be just as sapient as you and I are, but you and I are-”

“Predators. You have a point.”

“... I know you can’t actually read my mind, but that was creepy.”

“It was a logical conclusion, Liz. It also makes a lot of sense. In the cutscenes, Kerrigan was always at her most powerful when she was drawing upon her emotions to fight whereas the book you found suggested suppressing emotion to strengthen the mind. The visualization and meditation techniques we both learned also focused on calming the emotions. What did you end up doing to the old buzzard?” I close my eyes again, taking a deep breath and tapping into the frustration I’d been feeling over the last week and a half of efforts, always feeling something just out of reach.

“Oh, the fire beam passed right through him and only scorched the cover of the spellbook on my desk. Still, I was able to...WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN DRIVING STUDENTS TO THE POINT OF INSANITY IS THE BEST WAY TO FORCE A PSIONIC BREAK? You were pissing me off INTENTIONALLY?”

“Ugh. Liz, if you’re going to yell at him do it in your room. I’m closer than ever this time and I just need to find the right image…” Weapon design after weapon design flips through my mind, each one not quite feeling right and only magnifying my frustration as I move from practical blades to decorative art pieces.

“You never did tell me which discipline you were focusing on from the fifteen or so that book presented as known options. SHUT UP, Poe. I’m trying to talk to my sister. Go fuck a shadow or something.”

My queen, after many failures and restarts, our viable specimen is about to hatch. “God-fucking-damnitt! There’s a conspiracy against actually letting me make this step, I swear it!” My focus shatters like a poorly-tempered blade under stress, and I actually punch the floor as I stand up and walk out of my bedroom. I hear Liz start to follow me and I turn around to glare into her seemingly-empty eye sockets. “If you follow me you will stop arguing with your tutor and allow him to explain himself. I don’t like him any more than you do, Liz. I probably hate him more since all I ever hear is you complaining about him, but I will not be distracted by you whining about his methods while I welcome the newest member of my brood, not when I have been without my medications for damn near a month and am already starting to get my old headaches alongside an extremely short temper. Work. Your. Shit. Out!”

Sarah, what you are asking is utterly impossible. I feel that this has not been made clear enough by the last five failures because you don’t understand the reason why these attempts are failing. The mental voice of Brightshell, as the zerg-ified version of Brainstorm decided to be called, is a bit more condescending than usual, which causes me to grind my teeth together.

“What part of this is so hard that it is impossible, then? How hard could it possibly be to reprogram my body to generate estrogen? You’re zerg. I’m zerg. Chrysalis is zerg! Genetics and hormones are our paints and body structures are our canvas. Between your intelligence, her experience, and MY knowledge of the human body this should be easier than filling a bucket with water at a river!” I glare at him from across the room, my head pounding and throbbing from a number of factors, and my vision occasionally blurring slightly. I haven’t had a migraine this painful in years, and my own yelling is really not helping things.

My queen, please calm yours-

You’re a primal zerg, you stupid cunt. Your body is not subject to the directives of the hive mind despite your control over it. Brightshell seems heedless of the fact that I am suddenly standing right in front of him with my left hand sunken into the cartilage neck frill up to the first knuckle of each finger, and my right hand held at my side with my fingers practically twitching in rage. And the sooner you realize that the only way for you to get some ovaries is to go out and consume enough essence to grow a pair yourself the better we will all be.

My right hand is driven forward, and a wet crunch heralds my talons ripping through the exoskeleton on Brightshell’s lower body before I grab on to a random organ and begin squeezing. “I need the headaches to go away. Apparently the entire hive mind functioning at only a quarter of its capacity is not a clear enough motivation, so we will see how well pain works.” I squeeze harder, and manage half of a smile at the squealing that comes from him. “I also don’t like your attitude. There’s a VERY simple solution to this that we could have tried a FUCKING MONTH AGO if you had been a little more clear than ‘that won’t work.’”

Anything! Anything, just take your hand out of me and we’ll try anything you suggest that doesn’t involve attempting to modify your genetic structure! You have no idea what you’re rupturing right now!

“Cut my crotch open and remove my damn testicles so I stop having their poison pumped into my brain! It’s a stopgap measure, but it will help. I know they’re still in there somewhere, because active testosterone generation is the ONLY thing that has ever given me headaches like this.” I pull my hand out of his body and gently lower him back to the ground, my body shaking as I stop myself from slapping him for not thinking of it sooner.

That… that’s utterly barbaric, but it could work.

My queen, I must object. You could suffer permanent injury if something were to go wrong.

“We either do this now, or the next stage will see the hive mind flooded with various images of me harming myself in various ways to stop the pain one way or another. I have been there before, stayed there for years of denial. I will not subject everyone connected to me to that kind of thing when a simple solution exists. Knock me out. Cut me open. Pull out the source of the poison. End of discussion.”

Author's Notes:

Sarah's Playlist:
Weird Science - Oingo Boingo
This Will be the Day - Jeff Williams
Animal I Have Become - Three Days Grace
Move Your Dead Bones - Dr. ReAnimator
Monster - Skillet
She Bop & Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
Flashdance...What a Feeling - Irene Cara
Sister Christian - Night Ranger
The Touch - Stan Bush
Son and Daughter & Killer Queen - Queen
Shatter Me (Featuring Lizzy Hale) - Lindsey Stirling
Familiar Taste of Poison & Slave to the Grind - Halestorm
This is My War - Five Finger Death Punch

Yes, these are all songs I like. Kinda hard to have a character you write listen to music that makes you cringe.

This...this is the chapter that I lost all work on SEVEN times. This is the chapter that stonewalled me for so long. I am finally past it! Mwahahahahaha!