Chapter Twelve: The Crown of Pulsing Jewels, the Womb of Cosmic Want
The moment she spoke—no, not even spoke, merely uttered—the psionic resonance in her voice struck me like a low, seismic wave brushing the inside of my skull. Not quite a shout. Not even a raised voice. Just... presence. The way an ancient star might groan as it dies, or a tidal wave might whisper before it crashes.
Reflexively, I snapped every mental ward I had into place. My psychic lattice flickered like a feverish candle flame. The Queen's words, though delivered at what could only be described as conversational volume, were laced with latent authority—the kind of imperial command that made you flinch even when it wasn't aimed at you.
"Kimchi?" I asked, baffled, gaze stuck on what I thought was a wall. "Where's the Queen?"
What I had assumed was just another organic mural—white-veined purple flesh forming an arc at the end of the throne-room—began to move. No, shift.
Kimchi tilted her thorax downward, exposing the full curvature of her upper body with an almost smug flex. "Mate-spawn, you are looking at the Queen, no? Here—Kimchi gives better angle."
It clicked.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
That wasn't a wall. That was her.
The Queen.
The monarch-mother. The heart of the Hivemind.
She was colossal.
Eighty meters, maybe more, towering like some forbidden temple carved out of star-flesh. And she was alive—a cathedral of scaled sinew and exuding will. Unlike Kimchi and the rest of the Hive who wore lacquered black chitin like armor, the Queen's body shimmered with a thick, semi-scaly hide that seemed half-skin, half-seraphic shell. Smooth in texture, lavender in color, accented by ghostly whorls of bone-white. It pulsed gently—breathed, almost—as if even her epidermis was sentient.
Her legs—long, sharp, and largely vestigial—protruded from her lower trunk more as ornament than function. Above them, a glistening torso with armored plates wrapped tightly over what might've been a chest or thoracic command core. Her arms numbered four: two massive, cruelly curved scythes honed to molecular sharpness, and two delicate clawed manipulators, each three-pronged like a triune crown.
Her face—or what passed for it—was a pentagon of smooth chitin. No visible eyes. No discernible mouth. Just a blank, armored façade with two sensory tendrils sweeping out from either side like the whiskers of a dreaming god.
And behind her head—looming, alive, pulsating—was her womb-sac.
A swollen, alien halo of pure fecundity. The sack was nearly as large as her torso, shimmering with psychic heat and studded with orbs—some glowing purple, others a radiant blue—each embedded in the tissue like jewels inset into the crown of a dead empress. The purples throbbed with thick, sluggish psionic energy. The blues crackled with barely restrained static, like bottled lightning dancing along a motherboard forged by mad titans.
The sight should've broken me. The psychic overload, the wrongness, the sheer alien mass of her existence. Any normal person would've screamed, maybe pissed themselves, maybe exploded.
But I'd seen weird bug monsters before.
Also—point in my favor—she was currently in a state of pragma eros mania. Which, if you don't speak Hivemind psycho-terminology, means: she was wildly in love with me on a molecular level.
Didn't mean I wasn't nervous, though. You don't look at something that can squash a shuttle and not get the evolutionary fight-or-flight instinct flaring up. Goosebumps. Dry throat. Slight urge to cry and/or laugh hysterically.
I gulped.
Fuck it. First impressions.
"Uh... h-hi. Queen of the Hive. I know you already know who I am via the hive-link and all, but it's a tradition in my species to, uh... introduce ourselves during a first meeting. So—hi. I'm Irvine. Uh... nice to meet you. Also, if possible, could you maybe whisper through the link? Your last words almost liquefied my prefrontal cortex."
A pause.
Then: her mind's hand wrapped around me.
No, not her hand. A tendril—transparent, smooth, psionically manifested like some translucent serpent—slid around my waist and lifted me off the platform. It dragged me slowly, deliberately, toward her face.
"Is this better, my small mate?"
The voice that poured into my mind now was... sultry. Not seductive, exactly. More like... reverent. Intimate. Less nuclear detonation, more heated whisper in a dark confessional. I nodded. A very human gesture. She understood.
"Good. I am glad to have brought easement. I would be honored to exchange in your courtship ritual of name-offering. Alas, this vast body of mine has never borne a name. Would my Irvine be inclined to give me one? As you once gifted to little Kimchi down below?"
I blinked.
Oh, shit. She was jealous.
That made sense.
Unlike Kimchi—who always referred to herself in third person, the way a particularly enthusiastic Pokémon might—the Queen had used I and my. She was self-aware. Possibly even autonomous. She wasn't just the Hive's center—she was a distinct personality inside it. And apparently, the idea that Kimchi had a name before her had bruised something deep in her unfathomable core.
I looked at her again.
Specifically, at her head. From this new angle, I could see it clearly—a ring of blue psionic orbs just peeking over the rim of her birthing-sac like a bejeweled halo.
Inspiration struck.
"How about... Crystal?"
Silence.
A long one.
Like... five full minutes.
The silence wasn't empty. It was heavy. Pregnant with data and resonance. Her mental presence stared into mine like an abyss blinking without eyes.
"You think... I am precious?"
The mental link quivered like a string drawn taut.
That's what broke her?
I couldn't help but laugh inwardly.
"Yes," I said aloud, voice steadying. "You are. Do you like it?"
A sharp pulse of satisfaction. It was the emotional equivalent of someone burying their face into a pillow and squealing.
"Of course, my mate. To be your precious Crystal is all we desire. Everything I am belongs to you—even my name. Should you wish to commence mating before the allocated time you gave... just speak, and your Crystal shall respond in kind."
Okay.
Now that was creepy.
Her tone had shifted into that tone—the kind of obsessive inflection where, if she had hair, it would be bubblegum pink and clotted in dried blood.
I coughed.
"Yeah. Thanks. Um. As much as you may want to... mate me... my body still isn't even capable of that. Like. Literally. I have no functional sex drive yet."
"Oh. Right. Yes. My mate is correct."
She paused.
Then something shifted in her. Some old command queued up in a subroutine.
"KIMCHI. YOU MAY LEAVE TO UNDERGO THE AUGMENTATIONS SPECIFIED IN A NEST-POD. TAKE YOUR TIME. THIS SHALL BE IRVINE'S GIFT."
"Yes, Queen. Kimchi understands," came the immediate reply.
Wait.
"Wait—what?"
"Kimchi shall undergo genetic and biological augmentation. I am modifying her so that she may better care for you in the future. I understand the strength of your bond with her. I would not diminish it."
"How long?" I asked the link, feeling her presence already halfway down the hive's vascular tunnels.
"Kimchi does not know, Irvine-mate. But worry not. You shall see this one again. Although Kimchi may look different... Kimchi will still be Kimchi."
I felt it.
The sadness. Hers. Mine. Interwoven like laced hands.
Crystal picked up on it immediately.
"You need not worry, my Irvine. I shall monitor her entire metamorphosis. In the meantime... you must eat. Look—I have cultivated a gene-thread for you."
Before I could respond, a small, fleshy tendril snaked into my mouth and released a warm, nutrient-rich fluid. It tasted like Kimchi's exocrine milk—only richer, creamier. Embedded within were micro-strands of psionic data, like the neural flavor of stardust.
---
Two Months Later
Life with Crystal wasn't bad.
Weird. Occasionally terrifying. But not bad.
My body, still infantile in form, grew rapidly—thanks in no small part to the nutrient slurry Crystal pumped into me like I was the larval heir to an empire. Psionic energy accelerated cellular division. Supernutrients, drawn from biomass meant for the Hive's elite caste, bathed my every organ. I was the most pampered fucking baby in the cosmos.
My days fell into routine: sleep, eat, train my mind. No flashy new powers yet, but my Mindspace had grown far denser. I could now hold conversations with Crystal without flinching or shielding every thought. A small thing, but meaningful.
I'd also gotten furniture.
My bed was a softly curved chitin frame, filled with interwoven silk spun by drones specifically bred for me. My blanket? A creature I dubbed "bed bug"—a furred, genetically modified warm-bug that exuded comforting heat across its entire surface.
When I woke, it stirred too—rolling off me with a satisfied hum.
I pet it absently.
"You had a good torpor, my Irvine?" Crystal's voice cooed into my thoughts, even as a psychic tendril lifted me into her waiting claw.
"You really like that bed bug, don't you?"
"Hey, don't bully my blanket," I grumbled.
We both giggled.
"And I sleep, thank you. I'm not conscious during it. Not aware. I'm helpless during those hours."
"Then it is good that all I do... is watch you while you rest."
Totally not creepy.
After our usual round of morning banter and grooming rituals, Crystal's voice pulsed gently through the link:
"My Irvine... I have prepared a surprise for you today."
Oh, fuck yes.