Episode 4
Cold Blood, Part 4
The Doctor of Many Faces
In Doctor Silk Mane's office, the mad geneticist herself was watching the news coverage of the Lizard attack on her office computer with a happy (bordering on manic) smile on her face.
"Well, well, well..." she began in a sinister voice, periodically tapping her slender fingers on her desk while casually leaning back in her chair. "...it seems as though Miss Sparkle's curiosity got the better of her after all. Silly little girl. Now she's nothing more than a rabid animal running around in the city with none of that precious intelligence to help her. I'm sure it won't be long until someone has the balls to put her down like the monster she is."
She picked up a glass vial sitting on her desk and gave off a small chuckle as she toyed around with it. "Hehehe...and of course, only I have the cure! Ahahahaha! But then again...what's the fun in using it, really? I think Sparkle's better like this, don't you?"
"Hmmm-Mh!" a muffled voice cursed behind her.
Mane spun her chair around and asked, "Oh come now, Shimmer, what could you possibly do about it?! I mean, you already tried breaking into my office when you thought I wasn't around...and look where that got you."
On the floor at the other end of the room, Sunset Shimmer was angrily glaring at her with a look of utter disdain in her eyes.
Unfortunately though, no matter how much she desperately wanted to, Sunset couldn't act on those vengeful feelings for her as all four of her limbs and even her mouth were currently restrained under several layers of sticky spider-silk...the exact same kind of spider-silk in fact that Rainbow Dash was currently using to swing around with.
Now, if you remember, the webbing that was stored in Spider-Girl's web-shooters came from CelestiaCorp's bio-labs...and before Twilight created the wrist-mounted versions for Rainbow, the company had already developed a few prototype web-guns that they kept in storage...one of which was currently sitting on Silk Mane's desk, making it pretty easy to figure out how she managed to restrain Sunset so easily.
"Of course, leading you here was all part of the plan," she explained. "All I had to do was to get you paranoid enough and you'll fly into my trap like a moth to a flame. Any sensible person would take it up with Celestia of course, but not you. No you, the prideful Sunset Shimmer...want to do things all by yourself. I swear, you're easier to manipulate than my old college professors, and that's saying something! Hehehe!"
After hearing a few angry mumbles and grumbles coming from her captive, Silk Mane turned her ear to her and mischievously asked, "Oh what's that? You want to congratulate me on my expertly crafted plan? Awwww...that's adorable."
Sunset groaned and rolled her eyes.
Dr Mane turned back to her computer and took a moment to giggle at her own joke. Simply calling her a narcissist would probably not do it justice.
"And that's only the beginning, of course! Once my business partner finishes her part of the bargain, there will be quite a few changes around here."
Her smile briefly turned to an expression of anger. "First and foremost, I think a change in management is in order. Celestia's bleeding heart has done nothing but hold progress in this place back! I could have revolutionised the whole world by now if that self-righteous bitch hadn't moaned about ethics and gotten in my way! With my formula, I can alter the very definition of being human...and yet all she wants to do with it is to help injured fools grow their missing parts back!"
Silk let out a disgusted gag at the end of that sentence, almost as if the mere mention of Celestia's name, even by her own mouth, made her physically sick.
Her arrogant smirk then found its way back on her lips. "After this day is over however, things will be different. Soon, I will run this company, and the true experiments can begin again! Everyone will love me! Everyone will adore me! And the world will be all the better for it! This day will be just perfect...one I have dreamed about since I was small! Ahahahahahaha-wha-WAIT WHAT!?"
Something she briefly spotted in the live news feed on her monitor caught her attention and immediately made her stop laughing. While so far the images released to the press had been out of focus or too far away to make out much of what was happening, one lucky cameraman eventually caught the Lizard in a detailed close-up for a moment or two...long enough for her to notice something that she couldn't believe she didn't notice sooner.
"Hang on a minute!" she muttered as she stared closely at her computer screen. "That isn't Twilight Sparkle! That creature is...male? But who could-"
The doctor looked back at Sunset, deliberated on her choices for all of two seconds, then got out of her chair and bent down to her level. "If you reenact the cliche of spitting in my face the second your mouth is free, I will break your fingers one by one, got it?!"
Shimmer sighed but gave a small nod anyway.
Silk ripped off the piece of webbing keeping the teenager's mouth shut, then asked, "Who the hell is that!?" while she pointed at the computer screen.
To her credit, Sunset didn't spit Silk Mane in the face, even if she was tempted to do so. Instead she asked, "Now first off: why the hell would I know?! And secondly: even if I did, why would I tell you?"
Silk Mane groaned. "Well, I assume you know miss Sparkle enough to tell me if she was living together with, or meeting with, someone with a Y chromosome, boyfriend perhaps, who could have stupidly opened the package I gave to her. And as for why you should tell me...well...I guess the offer to break your fingers is still on the table if you refuse."
"You're just gonna kill me anyway when you're done gloating," Sunset predicted. "You think I'm afraid of a few broken fingers?"
"Kill you?!" Mane echoed, sounding rather insulted at her assumption. "Who the hell do you think I am?! No, I'm not going to kill you...well...okay, I will kill if you don't fall in line sooner or later, but honestly, you're more useful to me alive."
"Really?" Shimmer questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, with Celestia gone, you'll inevitably end up working for me, and I could use someone with your...intellect."
Sunset responded to that with a humourless laugh, "Hahahaha...after all the crap you've pulled today? I don't think so."
Silk grabbed her by the chin and forced her captive to look her straight in the eye. "You think I'm giving you a choice?!" she warned dangerously.
Sunset didn't answer.
Mane let go of her and argued, "Besides, nothing I've done today even comes close to the crimes your current mentor has committed! Seriously, do you have any idea what Celestia's done!?"
"Well she hasn't tied me up against my will and tried to turn my best friend into a crazy lizard-monster if that's what you're asking. So...I don't really care."
Silk practically growled at that reply, and responded by forcing Sunset yet again to look her in the face, this time by painfully grabbing her by the hair and yanking it up.
"SHE DID THIS TO ME!" she screamed while her familiar reasonably attractive face shimmered away in a bright green flash, almost like emerald flames washing over her body, tearing away the convenient lies and revealing what was hidden underneath.
For a precious few seconds, Sunset came face to face with pair of multi-toned green eyes with snake-like pupils belonging to a face covered in blackish grey chitinous insectoid armour with a select few sickly green soft parts. Long, vampire-like fangs stuck out of her mouth where a long forked tongue briefly showed itself. Her hair, which was previously neat and organised, now hung limp over her face in a rough chaotic pattern, and somehow, not only was it covered in big visible holes, but it also had a far more silk-like substance to it than normal human hair.
And then, just as swiftly as that grotesque face had appeared, another ring of green flames soon covered it up behind the Doctor Silk Mane façade she had been using up until now.
What she just saw left Sunset nearly speechless with a wide-eyed expression of surprise on her face.
"....What...the...hell...are you?!"
'Dr Mane' angrily slapped the girl clear across the cheek hard enough to leave a visible red mark in her wake, then answered, "I'm the most beautiful woman you'll ever meet, and don't you forget it!" her voice reeking of pride and resentment. "Oh...and the name is Chrysalis."
After wincing a little to push herself past the stinging pain in her face, Sunset asked a little more quietly, "Touchy subject, huh?"
"You have no idea," the shapeshifter apparently named 'Chrysalis' affirmed, starting to strangely enough sound almost a bit sad. "It should have been me! I was the one who would propel humanity into the future, ME! I was the smartest, prettiest and most lovable scientist this city had ever known back in the day. I had plans to make a name for myself, to start a company just like this one, and gain the respect my genius deserved!"
She clenched her fist in anger. "But then that obnoxious little ray of sunshine got into the picture...the great Celestia! She made me look like a complete idiot at every turn, always upstaged me at everything, and everybody and their mother just loved her to bits! She even became the student of Professor Starswirl himself for goodness sake while I was stuck in mediocrity! She forced me to up my game, she forced me to ignore the risks! And when it came time for me to test my one and only chance of getting some recognition for myself, the same little experiment I had you two help me with, it turned me into a walking freakshow!"
Chrysalis' face flickered a little, briefly alternating between Silk Mane's face and her real face, almost as if whatever she was using to mask herself was somehow tied to her mood.
"I now have to wear the faces of others just to not have everyone running and screaming at the mere sight of me. And, as I was, the only ones who wanted anything to do with me was criminals and madmen, forcing me into questionable alliances. And then...that little miss perfect Celestia had the gall to exposed me, sending me to rot in jail for twenty excruciatingly long years while she moved up in the world!"
At the end of her story, the doctor slumped back in her chair and let out a sigh. "'CelestiaCorp'...what a laugh."
"Soooo...what? You expect me to feel sorry for you or something?" Sunset asked after awhile, sounding very unimpressed by her captor's backstory. "I mean, if that's all true, then god you're pathetic."
Chrysalis' gave her an evil glare.
Sunset just smirked, displaying an arrogance and bravado that she hadn't shown in quite a while. "Heh, I mean, having to look like you do every day sucks, sure, but from where I'm sitting, that was all your own damn fault. No need to blame Celestia for everything just because she's better than you. And yes, she is better than you, and so am I, and so is Twilight. In fact, I think everyone with half-a-brain is better than you. You know that, don't you? You're just too much of a whiny kid to accept it."
Chrysalis took a moment to absorb those words, her left eye twitching a bit, her teeth clenched, and a rhythmic heavy breathing could be heard coming through her nose as she was trying to contain the bubbling unfiltered rage that was was laying hidden just beneath the surface.
"What? You gonna cry now?" Shimmer mocked, pouring more fuel on the fire. "I mean-"
"You know what, you little brat!?" Chrysalis interrupted while she silenced her captive by clenching the girl's throat with a remarkably tight grip, then squeezed it so hard that Sunset couldn't breathe, making her desperately gasp for air while her body was starting to panic. "I was really hoping you would take me up on the offer to join me, but now I don't even want you!"
Sunset struggled as much as she could, but restrained as she was, she couldn't even so much as budge Chrysalis' violent hold on her throat, and the villain only squeezed tighter as a result.
"Last chance, Shimmer, tell me who the Lizard is or I'll leave you dead on the floor!"
Sunset tried to speak, but soon found that to be impossible while being chocked half to death. By now, the colour from her face was even starting to fade.
Chrysalis transformed back into her terrifying real form and stared Sunset straight in the eyes with her unsettling inhuman pupils and whispered, "That's right, I'll fucking murder you right here...right now. And I'll enjoy it! I'll love it, and I won't feel bad about it for even a second...because that's the kind of woman I am, got it?"
She finally let go of Sunset's neck after finishing that sentence, leaving the poor girl wheezing and gasping for air while her colour slowly but steadily started to return to her face.
"Now talk!" Chrysalis demanded.
After having been left coughing and panting on the floor for a while, Sunset eventually regained the ability to respond in proper words.
"I don't-" (cough) "-I don't know, okay! I just don't know!" she answered, sounding more weak and distraught than she had ever been before.
"Not the answer I was looking for..." Chrysalis warned, twirling her long black fingers that Sunset now saw were both clawed and covered in chitinous armour in front of her face.
Sunset whimpered, knowing full well what her captor was gonna do next.
Wherein in the beginning, she held nothing but contempt and defiance to Chrysalis and her fake identity, now for the first time in ages, Sunset Shimmer was actually genuinely terrified at the very real possibility that she might die today.
It was only by sheer dumb luck that at that very moment...her cellphone started ringing.
The unexpected appearance of Sunset's Hard Rock-esque ringtone made Chrysalis pause ever so slightly, but she then smirked as an idea crossed her mind.
She curiously followed the source of the noise and snuck her hand into one of Sunset's jeans pockets, which Sunset herself of course couldn't reach in her current position, and checked the caller ID to see who was trying to reach out to her prisoner.
It was Twilight Sparkle.
Chrysalis' devious smile widened even further. When life gives you lemons, right?
Though before she pressed the answer button, there were two things she had to quickly take care of first.
She started by picking up the web-gun from her desk and covered Sunset's mouth shut again with a single well-aimed spray of cobweb so she couldn't interfere. Once she was done with that, another bright green flash washed over her body and transformed her into the spitting image of Sunset Shimmer herself, right down to her voice.
Once those two things were out of the way, she answered the phone.
"Hey, Sparkle! What's up?" Chrysalis greeted, trying her best to mimic Sunset's speech mannerisms.
A very distraught-sounding Twilight responded, "Sunset, thank goodness you picked up! I need your help."
"Okaaay...with what?" Chrysalis asked cautiously, trying her best not to tip Twilight off about who the girl was really talking to.
"Are you at CelestiaCorp right now?!"
She debated for a second whether she would tell the truth about that or not, but ultimately decided it was safer to do so. "Uh...yeah, why?"
"You were right about that box Doctor Mane gave me! But it wasn't just a prank, it was an unstable version of the cross-species genetics formula! Spike opened it, and now he's turned into a giant lizard-monster!"
And there it was, the answer to the question she had been trying to get out of Sunset for about half-an-hour at this point. The only problem she had now was...well...who the hell was Spike?
"Spike!?" Chrysalis echoed, hoping Twilight would give some glimmer of info on who he was. It wasn't as if she had ever made an effort to ask Twilight about her personal life or anything.
However, no such answers were given, as Twilight instead said, "Yes, and he needs our help. Do you remember where we kept the Gene-cleanser?"
Casting a glance at the object in question sitting on her desk, she smirked, "Of course."
"Well, what I need you to do is to retrieve it and give it to me. I'm on my way to CelestiaCorp right now."
That could be a problem in Chrysalis' plan, she soon realised. The plan in question hinged on the fact that Twilight was to be the one transformed into a lizard, not this Spike person, whoever he was...and now the little teen genius had an alarming amount of knowledge about this whole conspiracy...knowledge that could put the whole plan into jeopardy if she talked to the wrong people.
On the other hand...if she played her cards right, that problem might actually turn into an opportunity. One that could, if she was lucky, kill two birds with one stone.
"Hmmm...you know, it might be easier if you wait in the lobby," she suggested, just barely hiding the arrogant smirk she had on her face while she did so. "I'll be coming down there with the Gene-cleanser in a minute or two tops. That sound good?"
"Uh, well, sure. I'll be there soon."
"Good to hear. Bye!"
Immediately after she hung up, Chrysalis crushed Sunset's phone in her grip like it was made of tissue paper, then idly tossed it into a trashcan sitting by her desk.
"I suppose that could have gone worse..." she muttered while she replaced it with her own phone, punched in a number, and turned back into her rather hideous-looking real form.
After a few seconds of waiting, the call was answered and Chrysalis started the conversation with a simple, "It's me."
"Ah Chrysalis...I was just thinking about you," the distinctive sinister voice of the Nightmare Goblin replied from the other end. "Now when I told you to cause an 'accident', I didn't think you had it in you to do something quite as spectacular as a giant lizard running loose in the middle of the city...but I guess I was wrong. Now we have more than enough to get Celestia out of the picture for good!"
"Ehhh...about that..." Chrysalis began a bit uneasily. "There's a problem."
"...oh. And what's that!?" the Goblin asked, starting to sound a bit angry.
"You see, I hid the serum in a package I gave to Twilight Sparkle, hoping the little grub would open it and become infected herself. That way we could use the cure as leverage to get Celestia to do whatever we want...or at the very least get rid of one little annoyance that the world could certainly do without. But now I found out that some random guy named Spike got it instead!"
"Twilight's little brother?"
"She has a brother?"
"Actually, she has two...one of which is a cop! If she can trace this whole thing back to us, the whole plan has FAILED!"
The Goblin shouted the last part of that sentence so loud that it made Chrysalis flinch from the phone at the shear volume of it.
"Not if we stop her first," she suggested after putting the phone back to her ear. "She's coming here to CelestiaCorp to get the cure...and she expects Sunset Shimmer to wait for her in the lobby with it. That will be our chance to remove her from the equation."
"Hmmmm...than that's what we have to do. If you can turn into Sunset and go down and wait for her, I'll keep a bird's eye on her to make sure she doesn't get away. Goblin...out!"
Without waiting for her co-conspirator to reply, the Nightmare Goblin terminated the call...leaving Chrysalis to follow through with her part of the plan on her own.
With a sigh, the shapeshifting villain transformed her likeness back to that of Sunset Shimmer's and put the phone back in her coat.
And speaking of Sunset Shimmer...Chrysalis was now left with one massive issue she had to take care of before she could leave...as her eyes then set on the real Sunset still sitting on the floor with her mouth and limbs restrained while glaring daggers at her.
"Now what to do about little old you?" she wondered aloud, tapping a finger on her chin while she started to pace back and forth a bit.
"I suppose I could just kill you and be done with it..." she suggested with a smirk, making Sunset's eyes widen in dread. Though luckily for her, another thought quickly shut down that idea. "...though on the other hand, I could probably do without a disgusting dead body in my office. Believe me, the smell alone is too revolting for words," Chrysalis added with a shiver.
After thinking about it a bit more, the villain eventually conceded, "Well...I guess I have no choice but let you stay here for the time being. Now be a dear and don't go anywhere...please?"
Sunset replied with a small nod, hoping it would get her off the hook for the time being.
Chrysalis' eyes narrowed, and given that she was using Sunset's face to do it, the girl knew that that meant she didn't believe her one bit.
In the blink of an eye, Chrysalis delivered a swift and precise kick to the side of Sunset's head, knocking her out cold in an instance and letting her gently fall to the floor on her side.
"That'll slow you down for awhile," she nonchalantly noted. "Right now, I have more important things to take care of."
She snatched the gene-cleanser from her desk and put it in her coat, then she picked up a small mechanical canister that looked identical to the one she hid inside the 'gift' she gave to Twilight earlier from a box sitting in the corner.
And with both objects on her person, she gave the unconscious Sunset a small glance and said, "I'll be back for you soon enough," before she took her leave and closed the door behind her, effectively leaving the girl trapped inside.
Chrysalis would have to deal with her properly at a later date. Perhaps as a test subject if nothing else. Goodness knows she was gonna need a lot of them when this was over.
However, before she left, Chrysalis made sure to lock her door down as securely as she could. She couldn't very well have someone come in and find Sunset in that state...or any of the other incriminating evidence hidden there either, so she had gone out of her way to reprogram the door mechanism to not even allow Celestia herself to gain access to it.
And given how tough the door and its locking mechanism was, as per Luna's tight security standards, one would need a powerful battering ram or a blowtorch to force their way through it.
In conclusion: no one was getting in or out of that office.
Now all she had left to do was to find Twilight Sparkle and finish the job she set out to do. After that, she only needed the Goblin to do her part of the bargain and Celestia would be out of the picture for good.
Still hiding in the guise of Sunset Shimmer, Chrysalis smiled evilly as she made her way down to the lobby where she told Twilight to be, the thought of what she was about to do to her making her more excited than she'd been in years.
The revenge of Chrysalis, the notorious Changeling herself...was close at hand.