//------------------------------//
// Educating the Ignorant 
// Story: Rise of the Wholesome 
// by Masterweaver 
//------------------------------//


"Do not force your answers, for the curious will ask on their own."


"Ah! Miss Sparkle, it is a pleasure to finally meet you." Chrysalis stood aside with a welcoming gesture. "Come in, please! I'm so glad that you came to visit, I have heard so much about your accomplishments, I do hope I can have you in my class one day."

Twilight Sparkle hesitantly stepped in, returning her warm smile with a weak grin of her own. "Um. I don't... You probably get asked this a lot, but, um. Everything's... clean, right?"

"Oh, don't worry. I use the most effective cleaning tools after every one of the Wholesome's communal support and pleasure sessions. And the last one was more than a week ago." She shut the door. "You're perfectly safe in this house."

"Yeah. I... So." Twilight straightened up, adjusting her glasses. "You're probably wondering why I'm here."

"A bit, yes." Chrysalis considered her living room, before sitting down primly on an armchair.

Twilight sat down across from her, moving aside a bell on the coffee table and putting down a thick binder. "Well. As you know, there's another world... the one where Sunset Shimmer originally came from. And everyone over there has... an alternate, over here." She cleared her throat. "I'm not sure the same is true in reverse, but from what I know there's another Twilight Sparkle, another Rainbow Dash... and another Celestia. The match up isn't entirely identical, though--the Celestia on the other side of the mirror is... well, she's been around for over a thousand years."

Chrysalis quirked a brow. "My word. That's quite a long time."

"Yes it is. It... it got me to wondering about how... the resonance translation effect works. So, I started digging through records--worldwide records, it was a bit hard to put together, but there's a definite pattern." Twilight flicked through some of the papers in the binder. "I... well, it might be best to call it reincarnation. Every time a Celestia on this side dies, another is born a couple of days later. I don't know if they share a soul, or anything--there's certainly not much correlation between regional origins or bloodlines--but... well, it got me curious, and I might have asked my alternate for a list of long-lived individuals."

"Oh dear. Was I on that list?"

Twilight shook her head. "No. Twilight--the other Twilight--she didn't know if.... Your alternate is a bit of a mystery, to be honest, and she didn't want to talk about it. But I did go down the list, and the pattern holds." Her gaze fell to the binder as she flipped through the papers. "Repeated Lunas. Repeated Discords, even though over there he was trapped in stone for a while. Repeated Sombras, even though over there he was in some... temporal dislocation lock?"

She looked up. "Repeated... Tireks."

Chrysalis leaned forward. "Ah. You want to know what happened in Tauros."

"It's kind of a big risk!" Twilight pointed out. "I mean, I don't know if it will happen any more, since Equestrian magic is now on Earth and that might affect the resonance thingy, and I certainly can't guarantee that the next repeat will be as blatantly monstrous, but if he's dead, we have to--"

"I think we need a couple of drinks." Chrysalis picked up the bell and rang it.

"What?"

"We'll probably be talking about this subject for a while, I don't want your throat getting parched. Oh, not alcoholic, of course, you're too young for that and I wouldn't want you to feel left out."

The teenager nodded. "I suppose tha-EEEP!"

"Ah!" Chrysalis turned to smile at the clean-shaven, muscular man who had just walked up behind her. "Hello there, dear one. Would you mind terribly getting me and my guest... hmm. Are the young folk still drinking lemonade these days?"

Twilight quavered behind her binder. "Th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th...."

"Oh my. You seem rather stressed." Chrysalis nodded. "Iced tea, dear one."

"Of course, Mother." The muscular man gave Twilight an odd look, earning a squeak of fright, before walking into the kitchen.

"Th-th-th-th-tha-th-th-th-tha-th-th..." She raised a quavering finger, barely pointing in the direction of the kitchen.

"Ut ut ut, miss Sparkle! You'll feel much better when you get some calming tea." Chrysalis smiled as the muscular man returned with two glasses. "Thank you, dear one. I am terribly sorry about our guest, she's just been under so much stress lately."

"If you say so."

"Now why don't you go back to your playroom? I promise, I'll be there just as soon as I'm done with this."

"Of course, Mother." The muscular man walked back down the hall, vanishing just as quickly as he arrived.

"Th-th-th-th-th-th-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha..."

"Miss Sparkle, please, drink your tea." Chrysalis nodded toward the glass, sipping her own. "As I told you before, you are perfectly safe in this house."

"That--that---" Twilight's eyes darted from the hall to the woman. "That--that--That was Tirek!"

"You're absolutely right, miss Sparkle. He was Tirek."

"No, I mean--that was Tirek!" Twilight whisper-shouted. "The ruler of Tauros, the, the modern day--and he--tea, I--clean shaven? Wait, you... was?"

Chrysalis rose an eyebrow as the teenager stared at the tea in front of her.

"...but... different color... chromelanin... Wholesome magic... telepathy. Oh sweet science." Twilight looked up in horror. "You mind raped him!"

"There's no need to be so crass, miss Sparkle." The woman put her glass down with a frown. "I assure you it was completely consensual."

"Consens--?!" Twilight gestured at the hall. "That?! He's... the beard--gone, and... butler, and... how is that even consensual?!"

Chrysalis shrugged. "He wanted my magic. I gave him my magic. The fact that it was laced with... shall we say, behavioral modification enchantments? Well." She smiled dryly. "I suppose we all have our kinks."

"You.... you can't... this is... how did you...?"

"Well, I won't deny it took some effort. I really must thank mister Pants at some point, his little stunt caused just enough chaos to put my deep-cover children just where they needed to be for this all to work." Chrysalis sipped her tea briefly. "As to the magics themselves, they were adapted from some spells I borrowed from Discord's Dusk files."

"Dusk... Sonata. The siren." Twilight sunk into her seat. "You... you planned this. Every step. You planned it all."

"It would be foolish to have no idea what to do when I got there."

Twilight looked up. "This is... this is wrong, you know. What you did, it's--"

"Miss Sparkle, let me stop you there." Chrysalis put down her glass. "I could say 'the ends justify the means,' you could say 'it's a violation of self to inhumane degree', and we could argue in circles till the cows come home. But the fact is, that's no longer relevant. What's relevant is simply that it has been done, and what you intend to do with the knowledge of my dear one."

"...Who else knows?"

"Hmm... Scorpan knows. Honestly, he was glad that I found an alternative to execution--Tirek might have been a monster, but he was still his brother. The Wholesome knows, this operation wouldn't have been possible without them--and given they joined me for completion, not many of them disapprove and those that do acknowledge its necessity. A few heads of state and secret agents from various countries... well, it would be hard to hide it, and quite frankly the situation was dealt with so cleanly they're willing to turn a blind eye. Mister Discord might very well suspect, given the files I took, but... well, given what his assistant did, and what Tirek did, I don't think he'll try to bring this up. Sunset Shimmer... I don't know if she knows, I don't understand how her vision of the world works, but somehow I suspect this is something too small for her to worry about."

Chrysalis brought her hands together. "You know, now."

Twilight looked at her. "Are you... are you going to wipe my memory or, or make me okay with this, or--"

"No, of course not! As I said before, what happened between me and Tirek, that was completely consensual." Chrysalis smiled gently. "You're perfectly safe in this house. And honestly, I see no need to. I won't even ask you to keep this secret."

"Wait... what?" The teenager gestured at the hall. "But--if this ever got out--"

"Let me spell this out for you, miss Sparkle. At the moment, the world thinks that the Wholesome, through blood and sweat and tears, managed to depose a modern day Fuhrer Lebensraum, freeing an entire country from his horrible reign. And that is completely true, and beyond that they don't really care about the details. Some people think we burned Tirek alive, others are suggesting it was a drawn out duel with epic laser spells, what matters is that to the public, we are heroes."

Chrysalis leaned back. "And to those in the know, well. To them, I'm the head of one of the most successful intelligence networks that they have ever seen. On the one hand, they can't know where my children are unless my children identify themselves, and I just so happen to have one of the most dangerous individuals this new world made at my beck and call. On the other, if they play nice I might be willing to give them information they couldn't get otherwise, and since I've only 'hurt' those who definitely violated human rights there's really no reason to try to provoke me."

She smirked at the teenager. "So go on, if you wish. Tell people how I... altered Tirek. Your friends might believe you--Sunset herself, if she's not already aware, might believe you. And the people up top? They'll make sure you sound like a conspiracy theorist, just to save their own asses. It helps that there are already conspiracy theorists claiming I 'mind raped' the man, that I've made him into a sex slave, trying all over the internet to get attention. And even if people do believe you... some will point at what Tirek did and say I was entirely justified."

Twilight gulped, staring at her with wide eyes. "...I... I guess... I guess I won't tell... anyone."

"That's an awfully kind gesture, miss Sparkle. Oh, don't worry, I don't intend to take over the world or anything like that." Chrysalis picked up her glass of tea. "Too much paperwork, and... well, such a blatant move paints a target on my back the size of the moon. I'd lose everything I worked so hard for, and honestly I have everything I could ever need."

"I just... I..." Twilight took a moment to straighten her glasses. Then, stiffly, she stood and picked up her binder. "Thank you for your time, miss Chrysalis. I should be going now."

"Do say hello to your brother for me."

The teenager paused, halfway to the door. "...How do you know Shining Armor?"

The woman smiled cryptically, swirling the tea in her glass. "Well... I think that's his story to tell."

Twilight stared at her for a few seconds. Then she shook her head, rushed for the door, and left.

Chrysalis chuckled to herself, draining the last of her tea. She took a moment to consider the glass in her hands.

"...I fucking love magic."