Chrysalis wasn’t sure what was more surprising: that the mouse wasn’t out cold, or the fact that lightning was somehow sparking off its body without harm.

The fact it could talk did not surprise her; her hive had encountered more than their fair share of caterpie, butterfree, weedle, and the like in the first two weeks. They didn’t make for the most interesting conversationalists, she found, but they were certainly more pleasant than a swarm of Beedrill.

This pikachu currently seems to be closer to those than the other bugs in the forest. Worse yet, at the sight of the electricity coursing across its fur, her drone had decided to hide behind her. That meant, whatever this oversized mouse planned to do, she was going to be the main target.

She would have to address them about endangering the queen later, when she wasn’t about to be filled with hundreds to maybe thousands of volts if the wrong thing was said. ‘If’ being the important word, because as queen she obviously had the perfect outcome to this situation.

“Apologies, it was an accident. I was merely teaching this young changeling how to fight, and their first successful attempt at anything missed the tree,” Chrysalis fibbed.

She felt quite proud of herself for that lie; a real show of how talented she was in imitating, improvising, and fooling those around her. Moving herself away from the drone, she gave a kind yet false smile to them and motioned towards the pikachu with a hoof.

“Apologize to the poor rodent, drone,” she said, the kind nature of the words hiding authority behind their tone.

Too afraid to go against the queen's words, especially with the high possibility of getting shocked, the drone gulped and followed orders. “I-I’m sorry.”

Pikachu looked at the drone, tilting their head to one side and the other. He didn’t know exactly how to react to these strange pokémon before him; they were certainly new to Viridian Forest, and he was even more certain they didn’t have a trainer. After all, he would have had a pokéball thrown at him if that was the case.

Which meant that Pilachu knew Chrysalis was telling the truth on some level. Not completely, but enough for him to come to the conclusion that the apology was legit.

“Fine,” Pikachu said to the drone, the electricity faded from their cheek pockets, “I won’t shock you.”

The drone let out a sigh of relief. Chrysalis would have done the same… if a surge of lightning didn’t suddenly hit her. The other changeling jumped at the sight of their queen being electrocuted, not sure what to do till Chrysalis was free from the attack. Their queen collapsed to the ground, and they immediately rushed to her side.

“A-are you alright, my queen?” he asked, trying to help her get back onto her hooves.

“I’m… fine,” Chrysalis replied.

It was partly true, but that was simply because the full truth lines up with what she had witnessed back in the hive. The shock definitely hurt, there was no way it couldn’t, but outside of her chitin feeling scorched she was physically fine. The real trouble came from how exhausted she felt.

It was like she had experienced half a day of manual labor in the span of seconds. Her brain and body were both drained to the point that she felt like she needed to lay down. Maybe take a nap, too, just for safe measure. All because some mouse had decided to zap her when she had let her guard down.

Just how strong is this creature rodent?

Getting her legs back under her took far longer and far more work than she would ever admit. That included the fact that it was the drone who ended up doing most of the work. It was embarrassing, but since being embarrassed meant showing weakness, she instead turned it into anger. All of which was pointed towards the yellow rat responsible.

“What was that for?!” She shouted. She nudged the drone away with a hoof, getting into a fighting stance. “You said you wouldn’t shock us, you dumb rodent!”

Pikachu rolled his eyes at her. “I said I wouldn’t shock the smaller pokémon. After all, it’s clear you are lying to me.”

“I was not!” Chrysalis replied. “My drones fired at you, that is the truth!”

“Maybe, but it was definitely not an accident. I’d have known if it was,” Pikachu said. Compared to the changeling queen’s manic tone, he was confident, a little prideful, but most importantly, calm. “You're just trying to use a younger pokémon to your advantage, aren’t you? Probably because you’re too weak to fight anything more than a metapod.”

Chrysalis’ eyelid gave a twitch, and her muzzle scrunched up. “What?”

“Yep, definitely weak,” Pikachu said. “Couldn’t take me on, so you made this mon do it. What’s your name?”

“Oh, uh, Thora–“

“Don’t answer the rat!” Chrysalis shouted at the drone. With her eyes on the drone, she didn’t notice Pikachu’s eyes narrow at her. Even when she did, her own anger kept her from noticing the way the mouse pokémon scowled at her. “And don’t you dare call me, the queen of the changelings, weak!”

“Ah, so you hide behind a lot of pokémon, not just one,” Pikachu said, showing just the tiniest bit of anger himself. “Then you must be even weaker than I thought.”

Those words were the final straw for the queen. With a scream of rage, she stomped the ground and aimed her horn right at him.

“That’s it! I’ll show you who's weak!”

Thinking that it would come as naturally to her as it did her drone, Chrysalis raised her head so her muzzle was aimed at the pikachu. She opened her mouth, willing the newfound energy in her there. Tunnel visioned on the mouse, she waited for the shadow ball to form.

…

…

Pikachu’s anger subsided, and the drone tilted his head at his queen in confusion. From both of their perspectives, Chrysalis looked like she was waiting to be fed like a baby pidgey. The energy never took shape into that same dark ball it had with the ‘ling beside her. In fact it took no form at all.

Oh for the love of… work, damn you! She thought, leering at her own muzzle.

Pikachu gave the queen a smirk; the only sign of his amusement. Dropping onto all fours, the electricity in his cheeks once again started sparking.

“Nice try,” he mocked, “now let me show you how it’s really done.”

Pikachu used thundershock. Chrysalis fainted.

The queen only realized she had blacked out when she suddenly had to open her eyes. Her body felt like it had woken up from hours of sleep, muscles being both rejuvenated and tired at the same time. Stretching her limbs felt amazing, as did the yawn that came after. The sounds of many hooves and dozens of changelings chittering, however, caused some concern.

Especially when the last thing she recalled was some dumb mouse zapping her.

Lifting her heavy eyelids, she found at least a half dozen drones looking down at her. That alone was enough to put their minds at ease, at least to some extent. The fact their queen was currently in the hive’s makeshift infirmary chamber, new and understocked as it was, made certain that worries were impossible to completely eradicate. The sight of her hive all worried for her wellbeing did chip at the cunning, calculated exterior she usually kept.

“Oh thank goodness, you are awake,” one drone said.

“When Thorax brought you back unconscious, we thought something really bad had happened to you,” another said, leaning just a little bit more over the ‘bed’ she was laying on. “Then he told us you were electrocuted by a pokémon.”

“It didn’t hurt you badly, right?” yet another drone asked, taking up more than half of her vision with he close they brought themselves to her face. “There still isn’t a lot of love to go around, but I can share some to help you get back on your hooves if you need it.”

Chrysalis groaned, tilting her head away from the crowd and closing her eyes again. As if being beaten by a rodent wasn’t bad enough, now her entire hive knew about what happened. Either Thorax or spilled everything, or his brothers and sisters were so overwhelmed with concern for her that they wouldn’t let him go without the full story. She preferred to think the latter, simply because it showed her hive cared, even if bullying information out of one of their siblings was incorrect.

She at least hoped he hadn’t explained just how humiliating her defeat was. If she had actually fought back and given the pikachu a taste of his own medicine, then at least she could have kept some dignity. Instead, Chrysalis could distinctly recall how that new energy in her refused to obey her commands, leaving her looking like a fool. Leaving her looking weak.

If there was one thing Chrysalis knew about herself, it's that she was not weak. She couldn’t be, for the sake of her hive’s future.

She scowled. The last thing any mouse should be able to do to her, queen of the changelings, is make her seem weak. Upon sitting up, the drones surrounding her took a few steps back in order to give her space. While Chrysalis knew that she should comfort them, let them know she was fine, her mind found it hard to stray from her swift defeat. If she was to fulfill her end of the bargain she made with Arceus, then she had to master these new abilities she had.

“Next time I see that rat,” she mumbled to herself, “he will not get the better of me.”

A few of the drones looked at each other, concerned, and then back to their queen. “Your majesty?”

“The hive has a new priority!” Chrysalis shouted, the authority in her voice leading all those in the infirmary to suddenly go to attention. “If we are to defend ourselves, we must learn how to harness this new energy.”

The following two weeks proved to somehow be even busier and more exhausting then the first two in this world. Building a new hive was something many of them had done before, and while it didn’t make it any less tiring, it was familiar. Collecting love, donning disguises, that was second nature to every changeling from the youngest grub all the way to Chrysalis. Using powers that they had never had until a month ago, however, proved to be far more difficult than any of them imagined.

Thorax, the drone that had first discovered the capabilities of these new powers, certainly had it easiest when it came to learning how to control them. While timid in nature, he proved to be adaptable and a very capable teacher… when he wasn’t stumbling over his words. Chrysalis was certain, however, that his confidence and ability to teach others of the hive would grow as time went on.

However, it soon became very clear that there was only so much he could teach, and it also led Chrysalis to understand why she had failed to use the same attack as her drone. While many could use what the pokémon of the forest called a shadow ball, there were also many who couldn't. The same went for the various other moves that Thorax, Pharynx, and other drones had learned. It did lead to the hive making many new discoveries, but it also made training everyling a more difficult task than it had first seemed.

It also didn’t help that, while using these moves did lead to exhaustion, getting hit by them was far more taxing. Sparing became far less common, lest too many of Chrysalis’ drones found themselves passed out from the amount of blows they took. It still occurred – attacking stationary targets would only get them so far – but it meant the training chamber had to be fortified to deal with the power these attacks held.

However, that was only part of the reason. After all, they were still changelings, and changelings need love. Love that was held in far greater quantities by humans than the pokémon around them. Not to mention they seemed to hold their love back significantly less.

Their cities flanked either side of what they now knew as Viridian forest, with the city it was named after lying to their south. To the north was Pewter city, and while their locations were different they both had many humans inhabiting them, and therefore a lot of love. Scouting parties came back with some basic idea of how they were laid out, what humans were really like, and the like.

Talks with the bug pokémon of Viridian forest also held their own revelations about what these creatures were like. Specifically how the relationship between humans and pokémon usually went. Sometimes they worked together in the various jobs that kept human society going, sometimes they were simply lifelong companions. The most usual form, however, and the one that most of the pokémon seemed to enjoy most, was battling with humans. Not as in a human fighting a pokémon, but the two training, strategizing, and working side by side to overcome another team for glory, fame, and pride.

Through these scouting missions and chats, they learned about pokéballs; how they were capable of holding even the largest of pokémon inside of them despite their size, and how the pokémon themselves still had choice in whether it captured them or not. Chrysalis was more than relieved to learn about that latter part. She wasn’t sure how much truth there was in it – centuries of dealing with hatred from griffons, dragons, and the pony tribes making it hard to trust anything from a non-changeling at face value – but if it was accurate she wouldn’t need to be concerned with a drone of hers being taken against her will.

Yet if they did go with these humans, then they would likely be secured love for the rest of their lives.

“Are you sure we can trust them, your majesty?” Pharynx asked. His immaculate work during the invasion of Canterlot, not to mention his status among her guard, had made him the perfect drone to discuss this with. “No doubt they hold great love, everyling has said so, but what if they turn out to be like the ponies?”

“I am more than aware of that possibility, but we can not starve ourselves either, Pharynx,” Chrysalis said. “You told me yourself that noling has been capable of transforming into a human so far, only pokémon. If we are to survive, then we must interact with them in the same way they do.”

Chrysalis took a deep breath in, and then exhaled. These next few words were hard for her to say.

“We must trust that these humans are as open as Arceus has made them out to be. I must put my trust in them.”

Pharynx frowned, not out of annoyance at his queen’s directions, but out of solidarity. Every other syllable had felt forced, every word carrying hesitance. The fact his queen had to steel herself for them alone spoke of the difficulty. It was a sign of vulnerability that would never be glimpsed by any other drone, and Pharynx knew what that meant of himself.

“Still, many of the other drones will likely not be open to the idea,” Pharynx replied. “Many of us have been hurt before, and those who haven’t have heard stories about the species we once lived beside. Very few would be open to a human capturing them.”

Chrysalis sighed. “Yes, that is true. Still, humans don’t yet know of our existence, so unless one stumbles upon our hive it is up to us to make the first step.”

Chrysalis closed her eyes and thought hard about how to press forward. Her drones were intelligent, strong, but they were also subservient to her before anything else. She had to be the one to make the decision, and she had to be sure it was the correct one.

The first thing to consider was how Pharynx was correct about the majority of the hive. Even if they hadn’t gathered love themselves, many of them had heard horror stories about the things ponies and other species would do if they had been caught. Nonetheless, one drone needed to be the example and show both the rest of the hive and Chrysalis herself that this could work.

Now who could possibly… Chrysalis’s thoughts stopped as she thought back to the day she arrived. She remembered Echo, the young changeling who had led the charge to finding her. Now that I think about it, hasn’t she also been helping in gathering info from the pokémon in the forest? If she’s willing to talk with them, then perhaps…

“Pharynx,” she said, opening her eyes and focusing on the drone, “fetch Echo for me. She might be the solution to our trust problems.”

“At once, your majesty!” Pharynx said, giving her a salute before dashing off into the hive.

Once he was gone, she leaned back on the makeshift throne the hives had made for her. Her frown deepened, her mind trying to make her question herself. Despite it all, Chrysalis remained steadfast, and with another deep breath, she managed to shove them into the corner of her mind for the moment.
Well, humans, she thought to herself, if you wish to prove that you aren’t ponies, then you will have your chance very soon.