//------------------------------// // Executing Change.exe // Story: Buggy System // by Dedion //------------------------------// Chrysalis walked through a hallway of steel. Her body seemed to move on its own accord, towards a source that she did not know. From intersections, staircases, elevators, and giant pits, she continued to walk to her unknown destination. She had walked for what seemed like days, but she never felt tired. Chrysalis would have questioned everything that led to this moment, but she felt contempt and did not need to. The humming of lights and distant machinery kept her company. It was after Chrysalis walked for what seemed like an eternity she heared voices. They started as whispers; vague sounds that, if Chrysalis had not been near silence until now, she would have thought were just her imagination. Then the voices became louder. She could hear them as if the owners of the voices were right next to her. Each one spoke in a language that she did not understand, but sounded so familiar. Eventually, she felt she was close to the end of her journey. The voices had grown to be disorientingly loud. A pounding headache forced Chrysalis to stop her walking for a bit. Soon, voices had become even more deafening. Her head pains grew more intense. Chrysalis' legs out as she fell to her side. Her ears pinned themselves to her head, and her eyes were closed tight in an attempt to block out the voices, but to no avail. "Stop..." she whimpered. Almost immediately, all sounds ceased. Chrysalis was left in complete silence for a few brief moments. Then a single voice spoke to her. "Oh my! How interesting..." the voice said. There was a flash of light before Chrysalis opened her eyes. In front of her stood a changeling queen, much like her except she was much taller. The only other difference was that her chitin was an off-white instead of black. "... A member of a lost flock found their way back to the Network." The changeling queen reached out towards Chrysalis and made contact with the downed changeling's horn. Darkness overcame Chrysalis as she lost consciousness. "Oh my... it would appear you're not ready, yet. Stay strong, my child, and we'll see you again one day." Chrysalis awoke with a start. Her eyes quickly glanced around her surroundings. She was still in her makeshift base. The same one that she had been in for about twenty cycles along with Almira and Ge-Foli. Once she managed to catch her breath, Chrysalis managed to stand up and head over to a console. A few prongs of pain shot through her side as she did so. Chrysalis hissed as she sat down in the chair in front of the console. 'Chitin is such a pain to regrow!' she thought to herself. Looking out of the window, Chrysalis saw that it was still night time. Maybe a few hours past midnight at most. 'Great, I have eight more hours until the sun comes up,' she mentally groaned, 'Well, might as well look at the inventory and other things.' With a few touches of her hoof, Chrysalis brought the console to life. Lights flashed as panels of information floated above the console's screen. Everything calmed down a few moments later, leaving Chrysalis to navigate her way to the application she wanted to open. Within a few clicks, she opened the inventory tool that they had been using to keep track of their stuff. The tool itself was simplistic, to say the least. Chrysalis had gripped about the tool as she had seen more efficient inventory tracking tools on the research ship, but Almira managed to convince her that the tool they had would be enough. After a quick glance at the list, Chrysalis made a note that they needed to purify some more water. At least eleven liters of it. Ge-Foli was going to have her work cut out for her once the sun came up. Their food storage was doing good along with any tools that they had. Once Chrysalis was done with that, she moved on to manually checking the base's systems. Her horn ignited in an emerald green hue before emitting her TSF. Once her TSF covered the base, she checked every circuit that ran throughout the base. She checked almost every line of code... three times. Her turrets were in good condition. The rainstorm they had yesterday made her a bit worried that they would stop. A bit of rust was beginning to form on them, but she could easily clean that. Their flux engines still had optimal amounts of fuel left in them as well. A few more glances at whatever electronic they had left and Chrysalis was certain that she had cleared half of her eight hours. She was also certain she had exhausted all the things she could do without waking up Almeria or Ge-Foli. So her current activity consisted of staring out into the moonlit forest that surrounded the base. It was not long until her thoughts began to run their own course. Her mind thought of ways to escape the planet. Hundreds of ideas were shot down before Chrysalis decided to derail that train of thought. Her mind then transitioned to her home planet and a frown etched its way across her muzzle. How long had she been gone again? Since when did she momentarily forget about it? Would she ever be able to return there? Why should she return there? That last question struck a nerve and Chrysalis was left wondering. Why should she return? Equestria held no place for her ever since her plans backfired. Her hive, the one thing that Chrysalis assumed would always be her's until the day she died, was stolen from her. She had made a lot of enemies in Equestria and none of them would be thrilled at the thought of her returning. Most of them probably thought she was dead. A part of Chrysalis thought that this was excellent. With the whole world thinking that she was dead, she could return with a whole fleet and... 'What would that actually accomplish?' Chrysalis thought, 'With my losing streak, I'm sure that they'll find a way to defeat me. Especially since they have Discord with them.' Chrysalis grimaced, 'He could probably take out the entire fleet if he wanted to.' 'I think you're missing the point!' Chrysalis's mind fought back, 'With all this technology, you could attack hard and fast. Discord wouldn't even be able to respond by the time you're done' 'You know, I think I'm actually getting tired of this revenge stuff. Weeks and weeks of planning and for what? For me to run with my tail in between my legs? I don't think so.' 'So you had a few blunders. You can take it all back and then some! That is if you stop sucking on your hoof like some scared wittle hatchling!' '... You know what? I don't take being berated by anyone kindly let alone myself. I'm going out for a walk.' Chrysalis got up and walked out of the base. The fresh air and wet ground were just what she needed to clear her head. How long had she been outside? Probably too long if she's was literally having a debate with herself. Regardless, she was going to enjoy the air outside before being confined in the base for a good while. Her walk was more pleasant than she thought it would be. The air was so clean and crisp. The light of the moon seem give everything a 'magical' look. Even the ground beneath her seemed perfect. She couldn't help but to travel further and further into the forest her eyes talking in every detail of the forest around her. So enthralled with the natural beauty that surrounded her she did not notice pieces of her chitin falling off. Nor did she notice the aching pains that grew throughout her body until she could barely walk anymore. She needed a place to hide somewhere and quickly. Her attention was caught by a monster of a tree. The top of its branches managed to pierce the clouds. There was a spot in which she could squeeze herself into and still have a bit of room to move. She just needed to coat the entrances with her cocoon slime then it will be the perfect hiding spot. Once she was done, Chrysalis found that what little energy she had was gone. Her limbs gave out and Chrysalis allowed her eyelids to close. The sun had risen and was about to set beyond the horizon again when Chrysalis woke up. She groaned as she tried to stretch, but found that there was no room for her to do so. Her horn ignited before the area around her exploded into pieces of wood and cocoon. She walked out from the hole she made and stretched. A few pops were heard as she did so. Chrysalis yawned, allowing her long snake-like tongue to glide over her sharp teeth. Her fangs were released from their sheaths as her mouth stretched. A familiar scent had entered her nose. "That's Almira isn't it?" Chrysalis asked herself, not noticing her deeper tone. The Alkeion practically stunk of fear and anxiety as she quickly moved throughout the forest. Chrysalis found herself puzzled as to why her crewmate was so panicky. There were no predators around here and if there was, Almira should have been able to take care of them with little to no issue. What could Almira be worried about? It was at this point that Chrysalis's freshly awoken mind finally realized why Almira was running herself rugged for. Chrysalis opened up her four wings and took off into the sky. With speed that she had not experienced before, Chrysalis managed to hone in on Almira in almost no time at all. She quickly dove into the trees, stopping just before she hit the ground, and quickly found the Alkeion woman rushing passed her. Chrysalis encased Almira in her emerald flux field to slow the Alkeion down before bringing her to a stop. "What?!" yelled Almira. She struggled in Chrysalis's flux for a while before she was turned around to face Chrysalis. Her face, which once held frustration, turned to that of confusion. "What?" she asked. Chrysalis was about to speak before she was bombarded with a flurry of emotions. Anger, sadness, happiness, compassion, blood lust, and a few more were all thrown her way and collided with her like a wall. Her hold on Almira slipped as Almira was now free. Almira raised one paw before she proceeded to slap Chrysalis with it. The resounding smack from the slap echoed throughout the forest. Chrysalis hissed as she rubbed her cheek. "By the Creator! You trying to slap my head off or something?!" Chrysalis yelled, "Ah! I didn't think I could feel something like th-" Chrysalis was cut off by Almira giving her a soul-crushing hug. Chrysalis felt her lungs release all of the oxygen they had. "Don't you ever scare me like that again! You hear me!?" Almira scolded. "Understood! Let go, please!!" Chrysalis answered as she gasped for air. Almira obliged the changeling queen's request and let go. Chrysalis never knew how much she loved air until she was desperately gulping it down. "Where were you?! Ge-Foli and I woke up and you were just gone! You didn't leave a note or anything either!! We spent all day looking for you!!" "Okay! I get it!! You were worried about me. I just went out for an early morning walk and... took a nap." "Took a nap? A NAP!? No one just goes out into the wilderness and takes a nap for most of the day!! Let alone come back different." "It was a very long nap. And what do you mean 'come back different'? I'm still the same as I've always been." "Oh, so the shorter, darker hair, deeper voice, the extra pair of wings, the thinner fangs and armored chitin configuration is just me hallucinating." "You've been running around like a maniac so probably! I've always been like... this..." Chrysalis's voice tapered off. Was her voice always that deep? She looked to the rest of her body and her eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. On her back lay two pair of insect wings. The buzzed slightly as she flapped them. Her chitin had changed. Sections of her chitin overlayed each other, giving her chitin a more armored appearance. A hoof ran through her hair. She found that it ended much sooner than she expected it to. She opened her mouth the inspect it and felt her fangs unsheath themselves. Her fangs don't normally have sheaths. "What's going on...?" she asked defeatedly. As she allowed her body to sink to the ground, Chrysalis felt another wave of emotions aimed towards her from Almira. What anger or blood lust Almira had was completely gone. Pity and compassion rose to the top as she knelt down to Chryalis's eye level. "You really don't know what happened, do you?" Almira asked. "I don't," answered Chrysalis, "I was going to a walk, I got too enthusiastic and before I knew it, I was asleep. I... don't... know what happened after that..." Almira sighed before she leaned forward and gave Chrysalis a hug. Chrysalis simply basked in the possitive emotions surrounding her. "It'll be okay, we'll figure this out," Almira said, "Just don't ever go off like that without telling us." "You're not my mother," Chrysalis chuckled. "I mean it." "Of course you do. I guess we should go ahead and head back. Taking a nap in the woods is a lot less comfortable than you would think." The two started their journey back to their base. Unaware of the beings in the trees keeping their eyes on them.