//------------------------------// // Poison // Story: Why Bother? // by Discorded SheepcityUSA //------------------------------// The sound of all the crystal pony soldiers under her control outside the castle, fighting off the changeling invasion that had descended upon them annoyed Luxure horribly. Not helping was the groaning sound of the “spiderling” queen as she called it, groaning in pain as Luxure dragged her to the huge, dark ruby-colored doors of the castle. In her time as lust goddess and queen of the Crystal Empire, she’d felt a few aesthetic changes should be made to the castle to fit Luxure herself. The bright and colorful crystals all around the empire had been changed to much darker and sinister colors like reds and greens. Her favorite though, had to be the stained glass window she’d had installed above the castle entrance, depicting herself standing righteously above all the ponies under her control as she cast Amore out of her kingdom.   She wouldn’t deny it was beautiful, and probably her favorite thing she’d added in her time as ruler, but the thought of her mother…   She decided not to reflect on it and instead decided to focus on the task at hoof; getting Queen Chitin here to be quiet.  “Do you ever shut up your highness? I get it, I broke all your legs, you don’t need to emphasize that any more than you already have,” she said, chastising the spiderling queen currently twitching as she was being dragged outside.   “Y-You…what kind of m-monster are you?” Chitin asked, tears forming in her eyes from the pain in all eight of her legs, bending at angles they should not be able to.   To that, Luxure let out a loud, hardy laugh that echoed off the crystal walls. “Ohoooohoo you’re joking. Two things you have to remember madame. One, I am a vision of beauty, obviously. Monsters are hideous, I should know, I have seen them,” Luxure replied, flipping her long, purple mane over her to the left side of her neck. “And two, YOU invaded ME remember? Surely you knew I wouldn’t go down without a fight,”   This response obviously enraged the queen, as shown by her clenched teeth and baring her fangs. “My subjects are starving! What you have done to this empire has left us with nothing! There is no love here!” she shouted.   Luxure’s uncaring expression didn’t change as the queen vented her anger at her. She did notice though that in her rage the queen had tried to summon magic from her horn to fire at her, but the spell fizzled out quickly. She must have been quite love starved. “Are you finished?” Luxure asked in a monotone voice.   Chitin stared up at her horn in horror as the spell she had tried to conjure fizzled out, along with the last hope of this invasion being a success. She turned her attention down to the floor, too ashamed and scared to meet Luxure’s icy gaze. “Please…if you have any decency left in your heart, spare us…”   Instead of answering directly, Luxure used her magic to open the doors to outside and kicked the Chitin down the palace stairs, injuring her back and abdomen on her way down. All of the battling Chitin’s hive and Luxure’s mind-controlled soldiers had been doing was halted when they laid eyes on the broken queen at the bottom of the stairs. The soldiers didn’t seem too phased by this, but the changelings were all horrified by the realization their queen had been defeated. Still alive for sure, but in no condition to continue the invasion. They all knew what this would surely mean for their hive.   “Not so eager to fight anymore, are you BUGS? I told you I would not stand for you parasites trying to overthrow me, and well here we are,” shouted over the crowd. She started down the stairs, glaring at all the changelings down below as the shadow she reflected loomed over them, causing some of them to back away in fear. As expected though, her hypnotized soldiers all stood straight up and saluted their goddess. “Your service is greatly appreciated gentlecolts. I will make sure you are…greatly rewarded,” she said with a devilish smirk and scratching one of the soldier’s chins with her hoof.   “Thank you your majesty!” They all said at the same time in a near robotic tone.   “Now then.” Luxure said, turning her attention back to the broken spiderling on the ground before her. “Today was fun, kind of. But now it is time for you to-“   “MOMMY!”   Luxure was shockingly cut off when the terrified, shrill voice of a child pierced everypony and everychangeling in the crowd’s ears, Chitin’s included as she managed to pick her head up and looked back at the source with a look of pure terror on her face. Barreling through the crowd and pushing everyone she could aside, was a young female hatchling changeling, surely no more than about six years old. Her eyes were different than the other changelings in the fact that she had those dragon-like pupils, in addition to her long green hair. When she caught sight of Chitin, she let out a sharp gasp and took her stand in front of her, growling at Luxure. “You leave my mommy alone!” she yelled, tiny green sparks erupting from her crooked horn in an attempt to appear intimidating.   Chitin looked as if she was panicking from this turn of events. “C-Chrysalis no! You’re not supposed to be here!” she yelled.   “I don’t wanna let this big bully hurt you anymore!” the young changeling now identified as Chrysalis shouted back, not taking her eyes off Luxure.   Laying eyes on this changeling princess gave Luxure an uneasy feeling at first, though she didn’t show it but instead wore an expression of annoyance. Not because she was afraid in the slightest, but because while this child’s body language, what with the shaking knees, clearly showed she was scared, she refused to back down from her. HER. An all-powerful lust goddess. She didn’t even know where to go from here, or what to make of it. This situation was a new one to her.  Just looking at this young one reminded her of how she refused to die in the snow when she was young herself. Determined, but afraid, she was.   Not to be outdone, she kneeled down to the child’s eye-level, making Chrysalis bare her tiny fangs, but clearly more afraid than before. “You know who I am, correct?” Luxure asked.   “Y-You’re the witch that hurt my mamma!” she growled back stuttering a little.   Chitin, now more afraid for her daughter’s safety than ever, butted in. “L-Luxure please, she’s just a child, she knows not what she says,” she stammered hoping against hope to keep her appeased.   Luxure kept her eyes glued on Chrysalis and said nothing for several minutes. Eventually she simply stood back up and turned her back to the crowd. “…It would be best for you and your hive if you got out of my sight. Do so before I change my mind,” she said quietly. Not wanting to even look back to see if they understood, she teleported back into the castle, the doors shutting as she did so. When she was sure nopony would see her, Luxure rested her forehead on the castle doors, thinking long and hard about what had just transpired.   “I didn’t ask for this shit,” she told herself. “Mmmph, again with this. When’re you going to stop being such a stupid piece of shit?” Luxure groaned to herself as Celestia’s morning sun arose her from her slumber. The thing she noticed right away was that she wasn’t in Fluttershy’s cottage like she expected to be. Instead when she looked up from the source of the sun, she saw she was outside instead, looking up through some kind of hole. The second thing that she noticed was that wherever she was horrible smelling and whatever she was laying on was unpleasantly slimy. “Haaaaang on. Processing, processing…I’m in a trash can.” Luxure’s suspicions were confirmed when a pile of fresh garbage was thrown on top of her. Panicked at the suddenness of the situation and the awful smell strengthening with the fresh load, she gagged and tipped over the trash can that she’d slept overnight in, now laying on the ground outside of Sugarcube Corner. Not the best way to start her morning. Looking up, she saw the bewildered expression of Mrs. Cake, who had been the one to just take out the trash and was not expecting a lust goddess to fall out. This was surely a weird morning for her too. “Um, Miss Luxure was it? What were you doing in my garbage?” she asked, shocked she had to even ask this question in her liftetime. “Oooh stop the presses, beyond omega-level monster pony gets blackout drunk and wakes up in garbage can. Blame drunk me. Must’ve wanted me to be with my own kind or something,” Luxure said, rubbing her temples. Another night, another hangover. “Look you haven’t seen Fluttershy have you? She had to have been with me when I blacked out,” Mrs. Cake shook her head. “No I’m afraid not. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of her friends today either. Especially strange for Pinkie, Wednesday is pie day and she’s usually so ecstatic to start baking early,” “If I wanted to know balloon-butt’s work ethic, I’d ask for it,” Luxure groaned.  “Screw it, she’s probably just at home, as most shut-ins are,” Luxure said beginning to turn around to leave.  ‘If my hangover’s this bad, I can’t even imagine how a lightweight like her is doing right now.’ She thought. Before she got the chance to though, Mrs. Cake stopped her with a hoof on her shoulder. “Now hang on, hang on,” she said as she said as she galloped back inside the bakery, and came back moments later with a pie baked for the aforementioned ‘Pie day’. The alluring smell of cherry came emanated from it and hit Luxure hard in the nose, causing the slightest bit of drool to form in her mouth, against her will. “I can’t exactly let you go off without breakfast, can I?” Mrs. Cake said with a smile. “Uhhhh…” Luxure just sat there for a moment taking this in. Who offers pie to some random pony that they found in their garbage can? Then again, she wasn’t just some random pony, it’s clear that Mrs. Cake knew her, and surely only knew the bad things. Was she doing this just to get in the good graces of someone as powerful as she was to save her own skin if the time came? No that couldn’t be it, not a smidge of fear was present on her face. “…Thank you?” she said, taking the pie, still looking baffled. “So how much do I owe you?” Mrs. Cake shook her head, still keeping that smile. “Oh no no it’s alright just go on home and relax. Just take care of yourself, won’t you deary?” she replied before going back into the bakery, leaving Luxure with her jaw agape and in a state of shock. What she believed to be the true intention behind this just hit her like a pillowcase full of bricks. ‘That…was PITY. In its purest form. I was just looked down upon my some rando mare, are you serious right now?’ she angrily thought to herself. ‘Well no shit she pities you. Waking up in the trash isn’t the greatest first impression in the world. Gaaah. Know what? I’m too hungover for this right now. Screw it, pie for breakfast,’   Proceeding to take a bite out of the pie and walk back to Fluttershy’s cottage, her first immediate thought was how it was undoubtedly the best-tasting thing she’d had in a long time. It happened that cherry was her favorite flavor of pretty much anything. At the point where she was in total bliss from the fruit itself and the flavored-filling inside, she didn’t even care if this was given to her out of pity or not, she just knew it was better than anything she could conjure with her magic and was just happy to have it. That in itself was an almost alien feeling to her for the longest time. That feeling changed to annoyance though when upon arriving at Fluttershy’s front door, she found she had eaten the entire thing on her walk home. “Oh damn it, you don’t have any self-control at all you stupid fatass. Keep that up and you’re gonna lose literally the ONLY THING left going for you,” she grumbled to herself. She’d have to make sure this didn’t happen again. Trying to ignore that horrifying thought, she knocked on the door and awaited for Fluttershy to answer. Several seconds passed of pure silence. No such luck. Trying again, she added a shout to try and get Fluttershy’s attention. “Hey, c’mon open the door! I know your head hurts as bad as mine does right now. Stop ignoring me and open up or I knock twice as loud!” she yelled. Still no response, not even a yell back. After several seconds of even louder knocking without any success, a very cross Luxure finally decided to just phase through the door with her magic. Upon entering, she realized something was wrong almost right away. No sign of Fluttershy anywhere, and the animals in her cottage all were just rolling around on the floor, shelves and tables holding their stomachs. It was clear that none of them had been fed today, hence the look of pain on a lot of their faces and them clutching their stomachs. “Seriously? So hungover she can’t be bothered to feed her pets? Come on Fluttershy, you’re better than this.” She said, shaking her head. When she felt a tug on her leg, she looked down and saw that Angel was standing there, clearly impatient and hungry like the other animals. As soon as Luxure looked down at him, he pointed to a few of the other animals across the room, including things like birds, cats, snakes, and even a bear, all having that same, hungry look about them. “Yeah I get it, you guys are hungry, what do you want me to-oooh,” Luxure stopped midsentence. She was seeming to be the only pony capable of feeding them at the moment since Fluttershy was still missing in action, and she did have magic on her side so surely it wouldn’t be too difficult. But this was servant work, not for one such as herself. Why should she lower herself like this, it was ludicrous. She was going to voice her concerns but ceased to do so when she got a good look at all the animals giving her sad, puppy dog eyes. Even the bear was managing to tug at her heartstrings with that expression. Fully realizing she can’t beat those eyes, she let out a long sigh and poofed up a bandana that wrapped around her forehead, as well as sanitary gloves around her hooves. Animal germs and fleas were an absolute no no. “Alright, alright, feeding time, just stop looking at me like that,” It didn’t take long to get every animal well-fed, after all, Luxure’s magic was valuable in getting many of them food at the same time. The difficulty for her was figuring out what they actually ate. For most of them it was rather easy, but Angel especially, the little shit that he was in Luxure’s mind, was real picky. He’d ask her for one thing, she gave it to him, he tried it, decided he didn’t like it, kicked it right into her face, rinse repeat. How Fluttershy got weighed down with such a little hellspawn and why she kept him around at all was a mystery, but he was Fluttershy’s hellspawn, not hers. Eventually she managed to get him to eat through use of the most stone cold glare she could muster, and that left all the animals satisfied. After laying back on the couch, she sat there for several minutes just watching all the animals eat and impatiently waited for Fluttershy to show her face. As minutes turned into hours, Luxure grew more and more disgruntled. Surely she should have been home by now, hangover or not, this was annoying. Still waiting, even at around noon, Luxure crossed her arms. “Fluttershy you are NOT doing this to me right now, come on.” She grumbled. Not even a second after she was done griping to herself, the door creaked open and it made her jump to her hooves. Anticipating Fluttershy to finally show her face today, she was rather confused when the pony she saw coming in, turned out not to be Fluttershy at all. Instead it was the orange hick, Applejack if she recalled right. Of course she did, no way would she forget any of their names after hearing them so many times. “Ooh it’s just you.” Luxure said in a tone laced with annoyance and slight disappointment as she reclined back on the couch. “Luxure? Yer still here?” Applejack asked, confused at her presence. “Yeah, what’d you expect? I don’t really have anywhere to be. No job, no real responsibilities, don’t even gotta pay rent, why would I be anywhere else?” Luxure answered back. “Ah uh, guess ah can’t say. Ah honestly just kinda expected ya to have bailed out by now,” Annoyed by her assumptions, Luxure’s ears twitched slightly and her frown deepend. “Well I guess that’s a good sign that you don’t really know me,” Luxure said , poofing an already lit cigarette into her mouth. “What’re YOU doin’ here?” Having looked around the room, seeing all the satisfied faces of the animals, Applejack answered. “Well ah was comin’ over to feed Fluttershy’s animals but uh…looks like you’ve got everythin’ taken care of,” “Oh yes, that would bring me to my next question,” Luxure said, burning the cigarette out on her own forehead without even the slightest flinch. “Mind telling me why Fluttershy is taking her sweet time getting home? I don’t intend on holding down the fort here forever,” At the mention of Fluttershy’s absence, Applejack’s ears folded. “Ya really didn’t hear, huh? Guess it’d explain why ya weren’t with us,” The way Applejack’s voice sounded, soft and actually sounding pretty upset, caught Luxure’s true attention for the first time since Applejack had entered. She turned her head, meeting her eye-to-eye. “What, what are you talking about?” she asked, still annoyed she hadn’t given her a direct response. “Luxure, don’t get cross with me, this is serious. Fluttershy’s been in the hospital since last night,” Applejack answered straight out. With that revelation, Luxure felt like her heart dropped into her stomach. “Wait…what?” “Alcohol poisonin’.  Pinkie found her face down in a puddle outside the bar. Ah trust the doctors know what they’re doin’ but she looks awful right now,” Applejack said, taking off her hat and putting it to her chest, taking some deep breaths to try and calm her nerves. “Everyone else is at the hospital with her right now, ah only came back to check on things with her animals here. She’d want them to be okay above all else,” All Luxure got for sure out of that sentence was “alcohol poisoning”, she had tuned out nearly everything else due to the loud, ringing sound that was coming from nowhere but her own head. It had to be, Applejack clearly couldn’t hear it. She’d come to realize it wasn’t even ringing at all, but a voice. Her own. ‘You did this. Fess up,’ It said. ‘No no no no, she’s a grown mare, she can make her own decisions. She had to have known what she was getting into,’ Luxure tried to reason with herself. ‘NOPONY knows what they’re getting into when they’re involved with you. Do you REALLY think Fluttershy would’ve done this without you pushing her to drink as much as she did? You are poison, and you know it,’  Her conscience replied ‘DAMN IT QUIET! The element of honesty is standing right in front of me and sooner or later she’s going to read my fac-‘ “Luxure? Shoot. You look like you’re takin’ this just as bad as the rest of us. Sorry ah jus’ didn’t expect ya to look so torn up with how jaded ya’ve been,” Applejack said with a look of concern on her face. Luxure quickly shook her head and tried to save face. “U-Um…yeah. Listen, I’ll probably go to the hospital to see Fluttershy later. I’m just…not ready yet,” Applejack gave her a solemn nod and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “We’ll be ready for ya sugarcube,” Applejack said as she turned around and left, shutting the door behind her. For several minutes Luxure just stood there standing at the door, without words. What was she even supposed to say after that?  That she was the reason that Fluttershy very nearly could’ve died? Not even she could tell somepony that to their face. And there was no way she could go to the hospital with that thought in the back of her mind. She was basically the one who put her there. ‘Applejack even called you ‘Sugarcube’ and you still can’t be a mare and admit what you’ve done. You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?’ her conscience chastised her again. Choosing to try and ignore her inner-voice again, she looked around and saw that all the animals knew something was up with her. They all stared at her with equally concerned faces as Applejack’s. All those pairs of eyes on her grew to be too much, and she quickly ran to the bathroom and locked herself inside, sitting in the bathtub. In there, her breathing was growing rapid and shallow. She knew what she was going to do next, and she knew for sure it was going to be painful, but she just had to. With her eyes glowing, a blast of green energy erupted from them and stuck onto the wall in the form of a spinning, green, circular window. Mumbling, the words almost not leaving her mouth, Luxure spoke to it. “Show me Fluttershy,” The magical window obeyed her command, and the window opened up to show Fluttershy laying in a hospital bed on her side, groaning in what Luxure could only assume was pain. She’d never had alcohol poisoning herself but she knew it was lethal. Surrounding her bed were her friends, sans Applejack who must have not returned yet. All of them were barely able to hold back tears, but they all reacted differently. Pinkie’s mane had gone completely flat, all of the pomf in it had left. Rarity’s mane was a frazzled mess, obviously having not slept whatsoever since arriving. Twilight was frantically looking through a book of spells in an attempt to find a way to make Fluttershy healthy again. There was something especially off-putting when Luxure saw Rainbow’s reaction to the situation. The tears in her eyes were still there like the others, but she looked really angry. More than Luxure ever expected a pony outside of herself could be. ‘She knows,’ Luxure thought to herself. ‘Somehow, she knows what really happened. She’s had a bad feeling about me since the beginning, of course she does,’ She couldn’t sit there and watch this anymore. It was too much. With a touch of her hoof to the window, Luxure’s magic flowed through it and straight into Fluttershy, all the way across Ponyville. After several seconds of this being seemingly invisible to everyone else, Fluttershy’s eyes opened very slowly. This of course elicited shouts of surprise from all the ponies present. “Fluttershy, oh my gosh, Fluttershy you’re awake!” Twilight shouted, quickly hugging her friend, the rest of them following suit. “W-What, where am I?” Fluttershy asked, confusedly looking around. “F-Flutters you were passed out at the bar, you drank so much you nearly died!” Rainbow shouted very loudly, having practically become a sobbing mess of tears. “O-Oh dear…” Fluttershy said with her ears folding. That obviously did sound very drastic to her. But she was rather confused about something regarding this revelation. “Well, I don’t’ know why but, I feel perfectly fine now.” “I-It is rather bizarre indeed. But, so long as you’re alright, I don’t believe I wish to question it,” Rarity replied, taking a deep sigh of relief. The only one who wasn’t even able to speak comprehensively about this was Pinkie, who was hugging way too tight and was in hysterics with her crying. A little bit of snot was even leaking from her nose. “WAAHAHAAAAA!” she screamed. A little uncomfortable from this, Fluttershy squirmed slightly. “Um…Pinkie? It’s fine. I’m fine,” “I-I DON’T WANNA LET GOOOHOOO!” she wailed. “O-Oh gosh,” Fluttershy said, still a little uncomfortable and patting Pinkie’s head to try and keep her calm. Rainbow, wiping the tears out of her face, tried to regain her composure long enough to actually talk to her now-awakened friend. “L-Look Fluttershy you’re not really one to over-drink. What happened?” she asked, though it was clear from her expressions that she already had some idea of what occurred the day before. When Luxure saw that Fluttershy was thinking to herself quite hard, making it clear she was having trouble remembering, that is when she shut the window. She couldn’t stomach to see what the outcome would be. ‘Coward,’ her conscience growled at her. “I know I messed this up bad, don’t rub it in,” Luxure replied to her own mind out loud. ‘You keep this up and you’re going to ruin even more ponies’ lives, just as you did those thousands of years back. The way you see it, you’ve got a couple options. If you have any sense of heart left in you, you go to the hospital and own up, they might even forgive you. They’re known for forgiving even the worst scumbags,’ it shot back. ‘Or, you can do what you KNOW you’d rather do, abandon all responsibility and leave. Though they might go looking for you because let’s face it, they can’t leave someone with your power on their own no matter how docile,’ For what felt like hours on end, Luxure sat there in the bathtub, weighing every option she had. In probably the most panicked state he’d ever been in in his entire life, a young changeling drone zipped through the hive, past all his now-confused associates. He nearly slammed right into many of them as he flew, as well as a few walls, but the holes in them made it a lot easier. It did little to calm his anxiety. What news he had to give to the queen would certainly not be pleasant to give, but it was urgent. “CHRYSALIIIIIIIS!” he shouted, eventually making it to the main throne room, where Chrysalis’ magic-nullifying throne stood. On said throne, the disgusting yet beautiful at the same time queen stood, using what magic she had to conjure green cocoons on the ceiling that oozed unidentifiable green slime from them. “This had better be quite important scout. I’m rather busy preparing the cocoons for our soon-to-be prisonors. You know how much attention this needs from me,” she replied, not even looking the changeling in the eye as she continued working. The changeling scout heaved and coughed from lack of breath due to his panicked state. He tried several times to get the words out of his mouth but kept coming up short. “I-GAAAHK-EVIL-HEEE-“ “Use your words, worm. Otherwise you are wasting my time,” Chrysalis said, still keeping her mind on making the cocoons. Managing to finally contain himself at his queen’s request, the changeling managed to calm down enough to speak comprehensively. “Y-Your majesty, we are in b-big trouble. B-Biiiiiig!” “Don’t tell me you doubt my ability to take over a kingdom. Last time was a bust, but I’ve taken every precaution for the next invasion,” Chrysalis said, smirking in a confident manner and continuing to boast. “This time we will succeed for su-“ “THE LUST GODDESS HAS RETURNED!” the changeling interrupted loudly. His words couldn’t echo through the hive thanks to all the holes, but he did shout loudly enough to the point where every changeling could hear him and stopped dead in their tracks. Among those were Chrysalis, who flinched at the sound of it, causing her to lose focus on the cocoon she was making, and it fell to the ground with a SPLAT. Chrysalis just stood there, looking down at the scout, and blinked. “…Excuse me? Surely I misheard you because it sounded like- “I saw her myself! I-I was scouting out the Crystal Empire for the i-invasion a-and she was walking right up to the entrance from the Frozen North! I swear I’m not seeing things, s-she’s free! WE ARE GOING TO DIE!” he screamed, barely able to keep himself together. This elicited some nervous whispers from the changelings all around the hive. They knew the stories of what happened to the last queen when her hive confronted the lust goddess, the monster that she was. If such a being had really returned, what could they even do when an invasion was so close to taking place? Chrysalis knew the threat the lust goddess posed more than any of them. The rest of them hadn’t seen the monster throw THEIR mother down the palace stairs like a wet rag. They never saw her up close or met her cold and unfeeling eyes with their own. Recounting the day of that failed invasion gave her a sense of dread unlike any other. Chrysalis tried to block out the memory of that awful day for years, but the state of her hive only served as a reminder that they’d never really recovered since then. ‘No,’ Chrysalis thought, shaking her head. ‘I can’t let her presence ruin this, not now,’ Refusing to look like she was inwardly in a fit, Chrysalis stood straight up in her throne and put on a hardened expression. “If what you say is true, we will need to take much more extreme precaution going forward. The ponies may have many powerful beings on their side, but SHE has no filter. We will need to dispose of her as quickly as possible. Tell the other scouts if they see her, DO NOT approach her. No death would be more certain. I’ll need time to dwell on how to deal with this,” she said sternly. “Y-Yes your majesty,” the changeling said, opening his wings and flying off. The other changelings around the hive were still looking quite scared at this news and Chrysalis’ response did little to reassure them. Chrysalis sat back in her throne, rubbing her eyes with her forehooves, growling. Of all the precautions she’d taken, she hadn’t accounted for this. “You have provoked the wrong queen Luxure. I will make you pay for what you’ve done to us,” she growled to herself.