Chrysalis removes her disguise, the green flash making both 68 and 96 transformed into earth ponies pulling a cart with her and their supplies glance backwards. She doesn’t bother with explaining anything. After all, she’s the queen. Queen with growing appreciation for her subjects, but still the queen. They’ve finally reached the barely inhabited forests stretching from Manehattan all the way to Appleloosa so the chances of them being spotted are miniscule and diving into memories has proven to be easier if she’s in her real form. Still, just in case of supremely bad luck, she hides under the tarp covering the cart’s contents.
As her mind vanishes from their hive links, 96 and 68 understand that their queen is going for another dive into her memories and doesn’t want them to be affected by anything that might try to crawl out.
No reason to waste time. Thanks to Venom, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
Chrysalis skips the hive mind waiting room and finds herself hovering above a scorched pony village. She quickly finds her link to the memory - a changeling infiltrator disguised as a Royal Guard in a small group of heavily armed ponies led by a paladin and a pony who, despite her being almost completely covered in a visibly heavy full plate armor, can’t be anyone other than Celestia because, you know, size, horn, wings, and a huge halberd floating next to her.
Celestia takes her helmet off, revealing her flowing rainbow mane cut short and a devastated look on her face. Unlike the princess, with Chrysalis’ experience from the ruthless life in the hive, the scene of a massacre underneath her doesn’t faze the queen in the slightest. Ponies impaled on spikes are lining the road ahead, more are hanging on nooses from the occasional still standing two-story building, and the stomped ground is red with blood. Too much blood spread too evenly, notes Chrysalis, as if someone systematically tried to create a horrifying scene rather than simply wiping out a pony village.
This wasn’t done in hate, this was for show.
“Your Highness, please, wait here-” says the paladin walking by Celestia’s side. A familiar paladin, actually. Last time Chrysalis saw him, he’d just had his mind shattered by Scream.
Holy Shi- wait, no. Holy Storm, that was it.
Their armor barely changed over the years… how far in the past am I? Timekeeping has never been our strong suit. Weird for a species with a perfect internal clock and shared memory.
“Holy Storm, I always appreciate your concern, but I’ve seen more than your whole order combined since its inception,” Celestia cracks a grim smile, “Scorched earth tactic is nothing new to me.”
“I was walking about what the monsters did before the scorching, Your Highness.”
“What did your scanning spells detect?”
“They weren’t all killed, most were tortured as well. A few are still alive in agony but beyond saving.”
“You know what to do.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Holy Storm levitates up his solar symbol, the clouds above scatter, and numerous beams of light strike multiple places of the village including several of the impaled ponies nearby who turn to ash in an instant, “Done. Barring us, the scanning spells show there’s only one living creature in the village now a short distance ahead.”
“The town square,” Celestia nods, “If I were to leave a messenger, they would be there.”
It doesn’t take long for the scouting party to reach their destination, during which Chrysalis can only roll her eyes at the pure theatre of atrocities unfolding ahead. Flayed ponies, buildings covered in blood from butchered corpses on roofs, more and more spectacle. A brutal spectacle but still one nonetheless. She can’t stop herself from facehoofing at the sight of intestines and strips of skin hanging from anything even remotely vertical in the square.
This is just getting silly.
Based on the wetness of Celestia’s eyes, the pony princess disagrees with Chrysalis’ feelings about the absolutely over-the-top gruesome picture of brutality. What the queen wasn’t expecting is a sad sigh from the alicorn’s lips as she sees the solitary changeling sitting under a scorched wooden cross with few remains of a crucified pony hanging on it. Judging by the burn marks, it was one of the still living victims before being killed instantly by Holy Storm’s village-wide spell.
The guards prime their weapons as the group approaches the creature who is about as threatening as a cupcake with a sad face drawn on in frosting.
“A changeling...” one spits on the ground.
“Your Highness, be careful,” the paladin grandmaster steps ahead of the alicorn, “Who knows what it can do-”
“It’s just a drone, Holy Storm,” Celestia picks up the pace and soon she towers over the comparatively tiny creature who stands up and looks up at Celestia with a blank expression, “So, what does your queen have to say to me?” she looks around with a sigh, “As if I couldn’t tell already.”
In a completely flat tone, the drone cites the message left in its head:
“If ponies encroach further on changeling territory, every single settlement will end up like this one. We have no desire to harm the ponies who live here but we need them to survive. If you intend to take our means of sustaining ourselves away and starve us, we will make sure every single pony curses your name in agony as they die knowing who pushed us this far.”
“How dare you-” growls Holy Storm.
“Calm down,” Celestia shakes her head, “The drone is just relaying a message left inside its mind.”
She knows how we work? How?
The drone just lowers her head in resignation as Celestia telekinetically levitates it up to her face.
“Little one, I’m aware your… superiors left you here to get killed by us but that is not necessary. Do you want to come with us or would you like to return home? I can promise you fair treatment,” in a low tone she adds, “At least more fair than your queen.”
The drone looks up, blinking in surprise:
“Really?”
“Yes, I mean it,” Celestia nods.
“I- I don’t know much about you ponies so I’d like to return-”
Chrysalis feels the drone’s mind get swallowed by pure rage within an instant, like a tsunami crushing a coastal village. Whatever little love the drone has left flares up to enhance its physical abilities, its foreleg transforms into a spike, and all its strength focuses on one goal which is to ram the limb into Celestia’s eye socket.
With a flash of golden light, a beam of magic from Holy Storm’s solar talisman hacks the drone in half before it can reach. Celestia only shoots him a glance as she presses the gurgling drone’s remaining half against her chestplate.
“I’m so sorry, little one. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” she gives its head a soft stroke.
Using the final shred of its strength, the drone stretches its neck to nuzzle Celestia’s but dies before its nose can even touch the armor.
“What do we do, Your Highness?” asks Holy Storm once Celestia lowers the drone’s remains onto the ground.
“Shimmerville is only ten hours ahead,” is all she says.
“Do we risk the same thing that happened here happening to them?”
“What the changelings are doing is more dangerous to them in the long run than to us.”
***
Shimmerville is the same but clearly without the methodical approach to sparking terror.
“This happened recently,” says Holy Storm, scanning the corpses, “No doubt as a response to us pressing on.”
“I had to be sure,” Celestia frowns in grim determination, “Let’s head to the town square.”
Like before, a solitary drone is sitting at the scene of carnage. This time, though, Celestia stops the group from approaching.
“Can you hear me, little one?” she calls out to the drone from a distance. As the changeling raises its head, she adds, “You can tell your leaders that we will leave you alone. We understand why this was done and-”
The drone screeches and, with its love burning like green flame around its body, charges.
“Why force it to attack…?” Celestia whispers.
Holy Storm’s talisman lights up but she shakes her head.
“No, this is my fault. I can at least make it painless.”
A simple flash of light from her horn later the drone is completely gone in a puff of smoke, the ground around it turned to glass.
This wasn’t just a deterrent, the state of the village would have been sufficient. This was meant to force Celestia to kill innocents or have them killed before her.
“Send the pegasi out to scout the surrounding villages. If they’re untouched, we’re going home.”
Several hours later, the pegasi scouts return to the party’s camp north of Shimmerville and consolidate their reports:
“Your Highness, the villages are okay. There are feeding cocoons scattered all over the place but it looked as if the ponies were going about their evening rather than simply being herded. We got spotted by changeling patrols but they didn’t pursue us.”
“Understood,” Celestia lowers her head in both defeat and relief, “If the only threat to them is a military operation from our side then we have no choice. Pack up, we’re leaving.”
***
Chrysalis lands in the village square.
It’s sad to see Celestia treat changelings better than we did.
Than we do...
“CHRYSALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!” a roar of pure rage shakes the ground and the following earthquake shatters the few still remaining glass windows around.
“Took your sweet time,” mutters Chrysalis, looking around but seeing no one, “Now where-?”
A broad, towering figure bursts out of the ground behind her, grabs her tail in one motion, and flings Chrysalis against the wall of the town hall. A quick love enhancement of her carapace later to avoid getting splattered all over the wall, Chrysalis gathers herself from the ground and dusts herself off after flying like a cannonball through all the town hall walls and landing in a pile of garbage.
So much for talking. Damn warriors…
The ground explodes again, but taking Chrysalis by surprise twice using the same attack succeeds only in making Chrysalis fly upwards while feeling somewhat insulted at the assumption that it would work.
Queen Mandible.
That’s all Chrysalis can gather from tapping into her hive link before her own mind gets scorched by the berserker rage boiling through Mandible’s entire being.
“DON’T INSULT ME!” screams Mandible, jumping into the air with the speed of a rocket. Thankfully, changeling wings are excellent for maneuvering so Chrysalis avoids the mad charge with ease.
“I have to get rid of you but I really want to talk first,” Chrysalis gives diplomacy a shot with expected results.
“I HATE YOU! I HATE ALL OF YOU!” screams Mandible after landing.
“Why?” Chrysalis raises an eyebrow, feeling safe in the knowledge that she’s way more agile in the air than Mandible.
“I BUILT THIS! MY DAUGHTER MADE US GROW! AND YOU KILLED HER! YOU RUINED OUR RACE! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!”
“I’ve never met you,” Chrysalis calls out, “And if it helps, Venom might be the first queen I actually respect.”
“DON’T COMPARE US TO YOU!” Mandible rips a signpost out of the ground and spits on its end, shaping the goo into a spike, “WE WERE NOTHING LIKE YOU MONSTERS!”
The makeshift spear blurs and Chrysalis gets shot down from the sky by the piece of wood burning from friction which she couldn’t even see.
Wha-?
Mandible is already on her just as she gets back to all fours, staring in disbelief at the long pole protruding from her chest.
The punch is the final drop which makes Chrysalis understand the real difference between warrior and infiltrator queens. She can’t even track her surroundings as she flies through another building with barely any resistance. The best she can do on pure instinct is shut off her pain receptors completely to have the barest fighting chance.
Chrysalis’ advantage over Mandible lies in her mental abilities but she can’t affect the furious queen at all. Attempting to control her is like trying to pull something out of a pool of molten lava while hanging over it on a hemp rope that’s already on fire.
Chrysalis stops time. She’s not able to move but without the distraction of her brutalized body she can at least think.
She’s lying on the street at the end of a line of holes her armored body made as she skipped like a rock thrown across a lake. She has a spike in her chest. Thankfully, warrior venom can do nothing to her so the main problem is just her being impaled by a piece of wood reinforced with goo. Mandible is already halfway towards her, charging like a raging bull with unavoidable murder in her eyes. Unfortunately, unlike what common combat knowledge states, furious Mandible isn’t less accurate, she isn’t less agile, and even if it was possible that she’d make a combat mistake it would be long after Chrysalis has been reduced to paste. In Mandible’s case, the fury only means that whatever little empathy she might have had is gone and any hesitancy is replaced by pure warrior instincts.
The last warrior queen, the strongest one, the one who hits like a fully loaded cargo train barrelling down a mountain.
Damn it. Stumbling upon a warrior immune to mind control really does put certain infiltrator… inadequacies into the spotlight.
Okay, so I can’t win a direct fight. An unpleasant situation but hardly a unique one. Pros - we’re inside MY head. Cons - that doesn’t seem to mean much at the moment.
Hmmm…
We’re still inside my body, though, and while I might not be able to control her, I’d be a pretty bad excuse for an infiltrator queen if I couldn’t control myself.
Time restarts.
With a burst of green flames, Chrysalis jumps up on all fours, incinerating the piece of wood inside. Mandible’s following strike is significantly weaker than before, which means Chrysalis doesn’t fly away like a punted golf ball this time, but only grunts as she blocks it and her entire body creaks.
As Mandible primes her foreleg for another blow, Chrysalis grows a spike from her hoof and rams it through the warrior queen’s neck.
The chitinous spike catches fire along with Chrysalis’ mane splattered by the completely non-metaphorically magmatic blood. In the next instant, the horrific wound she caused to Mandible gets cauterized from the inside and the pierced carapace regrows.
Ooookay… just a little longer.
Chrysalis dodges the next swing.
And the next one.
And one more before Mandible stumbles and collapses on the ground, able only to growl and shoot furious glares at the infiltrator queen.
“We’re inside your memory but you’re inside my body and, unlike the infiltrator queens I fought before you, you have next to no control over my love reserves unless you’re distracting me by effortlessly tying me legs behind my back and dribbling with me like with a basketball. I freely admit that if we were fighting in the real world, you’d run over me without even slowing down. Buuut, to be completely accurate, it’s not as if I would be stupid enough to fight you head on if I didn’t have to.”
“You… are all… pure evil!” growls Mandible.
“Aaand I’ve just about had enough. Do you even realize how much of my love you burned before I stopped you? I AM going to feel it when I wake up and I AM going to have to organize a damn wildlife ORGY to recover! I’m taking what I want and you’re not stopping me.”
Chrysalis’ horn flashes and this time the walls of Mandible’s mind shatter.
“I’ll make this quick - a changeling king. Does that ring a bell?“
“No.”
“Next - do you know anything about Scream?”
“This… this entire massacre was her idea,” growls Mandible, “She said that the pony ruler was soft, that she wouldn’t attack if we threatened her by killing our ponies.”
Chrysalis looks around.
This wasn’t just a threat. If it was, the ponies wouldn’t have been tortured before dying. This was Scream’s personal vendetta masquerading as strategy and she WANTED Celestia to see it.
“I doubt you’ll believe me but after meeting your daughter, I think I understand why you’re so angry. But it can’t just be your hatred for what the hive mind revenants did to Venom through Hiss that’s been poisoning our minds for centuries, because your rage makes sense. The overwhelming hatred coursing through all of us does not. What is waiting for me in the hive memories?”
“Insane, worthless queens like you! Queens who would rule from a throne on a pile of changeling corpses. Queens who only think about themselves- ”
“Alright, I think you don’t have much more to say. Disappear.”
Frothing Mandible disintegrates along with the memory, leaving Chrysalis in the darkness of the hive mind alone.
“Can’t say I disagree, though,” she adds.
She closes her eyes.
“HELP ME!”
Chrysalis bolts upright in the real world and untangles herself from the tarp covering the cart.
It’s pitch dark, she’s gasping for breath, and as expected she’s exhausted. None of that, though, is on her mind right now.
That familiar voice.
It was her daughter, it was a memory from when changelings were leaving the hive to attack Canterlot. At the time, Chrysalis dismissed the cry for help with the usual thought - if her daughter wasn’t strong enough, she may as well get eaten during the usual high rank struggle for power. After all, she was a warrior and thus unfit for eventual leadership.
However, Mandible and Venom made it work. They made it work to create the most successful changeling era in history, albeit short-lived.
Her daughter didn’t even make it to Canterlot, that much Chrysalis already knew, but for the first time, possibly in her life, she cares.
“Too bad it’s too late for you...” she sighs, “But maybe it’s not too late for us.”
Uhm....who was Chrissys daughter again? I forgot :(
I didnt read Silver sun and Imbalanced. And from that you show Scream as being somebody with personall vendetta with little to no empathy for lings (they are tools to the end for her) but not that much evil evil .
She isn't skaven level of evil
I admit I couldn't find a shorter clip, but I feel like this is Chrissy about her daughter at the moment.
Scream could survive a One Serious Flare?
10869927
Eight, if you've read Exercise in Management.
10869937
I mean, if the method of said personal vendetta is "torture and kill everyone before Celestia's eyes until she does what Scream wants" then I doubt anyone can call Scream not evil. The fact that the original sin was caused by Celestia's stupidity doesn't exactly mitigate all that.
10869943
True, but ye olde Bugbutt didn't succeed in the end, Boss and Three did.
10869945
Well, that Comedy tag is kinda sprinkled between grimderp stuff.
10869979
I'm not exactly eager to answer things that should be answered later in the story, but the general classification is right, ranking is right too, the gender roles aren't, although there are more female infiltrators than male because it's easier to gain favor, although changelings are baseline genderless.
10870009
I'm not smart enough to understand references I myself don't make so I'll stick to this - as established in the overall story, Scream is the second best magic user with the ability to see potential futures. What she can't survive, she can avoid, until she has her Dr. Strange 1 in XXXXXX moment.
10870010
Yeeeah, my stories tend to be a pretty mixed bag.
10870021
Yes, but that is a loooong time ago. Don't know if 8 kicked the bucked or got a promotion. Things get fuzzy over time and the TONS of 'improv promotions' make it a teeeny tiny bit confusing.
10870021
Well thats typical political thing to do, so yeah its evil but looking at perspective they are both "immortal" its pretty much lack of empathy for things that are beneth them.
Its in term of what she is doing its evil but its working. If you want somebody to feel pain start destroying stuff that he loves.
Leaders/tyrants don't have any empathy when they want something only end effect is what matters.
Mostly because its vendetta I can somewhat says its acceptable. Of course its fucked up but I can somewhat understand that.
Ooohhh no... Not the BIG MALLET! Awesome couple chapters! No idea why I missed them in my feed..
Can we get a roster in the comments? It is getting difficult to remember the situation of each queen by name.
10870029
Eight did earn hers, tbh, many times over. But, at this point, Chrysalis has no clue what really happened to her and the last call she heard from her was when 2 higher ranks joined up and attacked her at the same time. That's not exactly a survivable situation.
10870041
I feel like this kind of oversimplifies Scream's position towards changelings but we never had a proper story from her POV so it's understandable. She genuinely feels a connection with them over the whole Alicorn of Lust thing but her main goal has always been setting Void free from Tartarus and she'll do anything and use anyone to get it done.
10870101
I mean, if you're following actual big names with stories that flow instead of just meandering about based on current mood and the most recent idea mine can easily get lost.
10870244
If you have any idea how to do it without the ability to have a pinned comment or spoiling things in the story description for the occasional newcomer not turned off by the length and slowness of this, feel free to say. For now, I'll add the name of each queen to the title of the corresponding chapter. The number thing works best for normal changelings, but a queen wouldn't be caught using something as common as a number so it won't be out of flow for this story.
My guess is that this isn't her first encounter with a drone-with-a-message-in-its-head.
So basically, they're both calling each other's bluffs...and both just to press their respective points, really, in refusal to give in to the other.
As a result, far too many innocents must've died needlessly in this whole affair just because neither side was willing to back down or concede that perhaps there was a better approach to making their points that wouldn't be so very costly for all parties like this.
So...wait...Celestia pressed on just to confirm whether or not the changelings would really make good on their threats? Really? She sacrificed innocents for the sake of...morbid curiosity, in a way?
Yeah, that much was obvious from the start. I'm just surprised Celestia didn't get the message in the first village, and only proceeded to test it further, costing even more lives.
10871027
- Or with changelings in general in a different way than "Aaah, a monster! Kill it, Kill it!" unlike the vast majority of ponies in those times.
- As we go deeper into the past, we might uncover more about the possibility of peaceful talking instead of a military action. Anyway, changelings came out of nowhere and took over the entire south of Equestria at some not yet revealed point in the past. Hostility is inevitable. Besides, we know Mandible and Venom weren't complete psychopaths but that might not apply to the queens before.
- I might have not gotten the point across that the "retaliation" happened due to Celestia and her rather powerful armed group pressing on, not a few individuals scouting. Plus, in theory, Mandible would want ponies to be seen living rather than just being cocooned and fed on. Carrot and stick.
- Well yes, but it's not as if Celestia knew how deeply entrenched the changelings were or if Mandible was bluffing, or even who Mandible was. I'd say it was a calculated risk where the more likely options were: 1) ponies are food, which means they're already pretty much the same as dead 2) there's some surviving resistance movement who need help. I should eventually write something about old Equestria that would bring some light why Celestia couldn't just grab the best unicorns and plop out a huge scrying spell. But I'm slow, G5 is coming, interest is waning, and I have different ideas queued up and stuff to do. Or maybe it would make for a good addition to one of the queen chapters, if I manage to shoehorn it in somehow.
10871115
It still came down to deciding whether or not to potentially sacrifice more innocent pony lives just to see whether or not the changelings were truly being that serious, which to me seems silly, because I would think the graphic display at the first village was proof enough of that. Didn't matter whether or not the changelings were bluffing, I would've thought that if it meant sparing the ponies such horrible deaths, Celestia would've backed off to at least reassess her options, not tried to push her luck.
After all, if she could be dismayed about the death of a single changeling drone she would've rather prevented, you'd think she'd think the same about her fellow ponies.
Besides, it may be less than ideal, obviously, but surely a life cocooned and fed upon, but otherwise still alive, would be preferred to a pointless and avoidable massacre in that situation, at least until Celestia could devise a better plan to hopefully mitigate any sort of pony massacre altogether (which as was already shown did indeed seem to be more or less precisely what happened in the end).
I guess I just don't see enough justification in Celestia doing it at all, as the rewards never seemed worth the risks, and overall just comes across as both bad tactics and makes her seem callous when you're clearly trying to spin her as the opposite.
10871539
Hmmm...
You're right. She should have sent the pegasi straight up after the first village.
Still, the different reaction to a single drone and to dead ponies has its reason.
Let's assign the blame for both the mistake and not being obvious from the chapter that there's more to C's reaction to a certain subpar writer.
Tsk tsk tsk, such a good thing writing isn't his livelihood.
10871565
Ha, ha, well, despite that, I think you're still managing well enough.
10869927
OneEight.10870021
Skip Chrysalis chapters and it still will be a comedy.
If
got this reference right she'll not. Can you predict reality сhanging?
10871539
You didn't read other fics, right? Celestia is not most competent ruler here, even if I can't really blame her most of the time.
10872061
But Chrysalis part is what glues this story to a plot (get your mind out of gutter!) This interesting outlook which really makes changelings alien but amiable.
This Celestia is at least fit with "Ruler who Actually Does Something" trope.
10874538
Well yes, I know, but it's fully serious lore chapters which moving the whole universe. I'm not saying this is bad, but with NA complaining about not keeping it fully comedy he could easily write it in separated fic.
Speaking of comedies and sticking, we all know that Shadowstep is not so badass~
10874538
What? Chrysalis' plot glues people together. Also, the gutter is a nice place full of squishy and oiled things. Don't badmouth the gutter.
10878633
At this point, I think complaining is the same as breathing for me and I'm not even British.
And yes, Chrysalis' "plot" could be split off into a separate story but I doubt it has the power to get its own readership and here it might even add something interesting on occasion.