Ocellus the rat scurried away from the room, keeping close to the walls and the shadows. She tried to bury her emotions as deep and as far down as she could, put her fear - no, scratch that, abject terror in a little box in her mind and close it up, leaving it there. The rat form at least let her scurry along unnoticed once she’d climbed a wall and made her way up to the pipes along the ceiling, crawling along the tops of them. A crack near where the pipes met a wall - chewed by real rats, probably - let her slip into the space between the walls, then navigate down, looking for another exit. Rep had mentioned that Nonchalant was “downstairs”, there must have been a sub-basement somewhere...
At length, she managed to find her way out from between the walls and into a new chamber. This one wasn’t sectioned off, but instead was one large room, sixty feet on a side but only about ten feet tall. One wall, the one Ocellus emerged from, was obscured behind water tanks and heaters and filters, no doubt for the various pools up above in the Chill Spot, but most of the room itself was dominated by long tables, atop which rested various beakers, burners, vials, mortars and pestles, and other alchemical supplies. The opposite wall had cabinets and shelves with clearly labeled ingredients, including witchweed, small boxes of the stuff taking up an entire case larger than one of the bookcases in the library at the School of Friendship.
Three other things drew Ocellus’ attention. The first was Catrina and a pair of hybrids: Rep, the green-scaled dragon-changeling who seemed to be the boss of the bunch, and a pony-changeling, both of whom were helping Catrina in her alchemy as she brewed up a trio of potions: one clear, one green, and one blue-and-pink. All three liquids glowed with inner lights.
Second was some kind of large object, five feet tall and four feet wide, resting off to one side and covered with a cloth. Ocellus wouldn’t have paid it any mind if not for the fact that the two hybrids and Catrina kept looking over to it. Part of her wondered what it was, but she decided she could find out later.
Third was a changeling cocoon. It had been suspended from the ceiling and anchored to the floor, almost looking like a support column for the room. Ocellus figured that Nonchalant must have been in there, and so scurried along the side of the room. There were other rats in the room as well, and it didn’t escape Ocellus’ notice that Catrina occasionally eyed them - and thus also her - hungrily. Some of the crumbs that the rats found on the ground looked scattered too evenly to have been an accident...
But concern about being eaten by Catrina soon gave way to a far more primal, visceral, real terror when she saw who was in the cocoon. At first she thought it was Nonchalant in her true changeling form with a magic-suppressing ring over her horn - the carapace color was the same. But the head, hanging limply in unconsciousness, was shaped wrong. The aquamarine hair was a dead giveaway as well; true changelings didn’t have hair. Ocellus briefly wondered if she was looking at another hybrid, but then she realized she recognized the face’s contours and proportions. And size - the being in the cocoon was far too tall to be a normal changeling...
...but just the right size to be Queen Chrysalis.
Queen Chrysalis. But - but at the same time, not the Queen. The color was wrong, white instead of black, and Ocellus could see within the cocoon that the Queen - stop it, stop thinking of her like that, she's not the queen anymore - had no holes in her legs, had elytra on her back, and her horn was still sharp but now straight instead of gnarled. She looked Reformed...but how could that be? How could Chrysalis have Reformed? Yet there was no mistaking Chrysalis herself, no confusing her for any other creature no matter how she looked now...
But Chrysalis wasn't supposed to be here! It was supposed to be Nonchalant! Unless...unless Chrysalis was Nonchalant? But that would mean that the entire time...and yet Chrysalis was Reformed, and trapped...but it was Chrysalis...
Ocellus scurried into the darkest corner she could of the room, one where she could look at Chrysalis and Catrina and the two hybrids, as she tried to figure out what to do, whether she could help Chrysalis, whether she should. She'd only just pressed herself into the corner when Catrina stepped away from her alchemy table, reaching into her robes and producing a small packet that she shook, tore open, an then blew the dusty contents of into Chrysalis' face. Her reaction was immediate, an animalistic hiss that Ocellus knew down to her bones, no matter what shape they were in - a snarl that completely banished any lingering doubts of who this was.
What do I do? Ocellus wondered, feeling a shiver go from her snout to the tip of her tail. She almost decided to scurry off, but she remembered all her interactions with Nonchalant - no, with Chrysalis. The lengths that Chrysalis had been going to to find out what was happening to the changelings in Tiatarta. Her pushing Ocellus and Smolder together, helping them get over the walls they had built between each other. And the emotions that Ocellus had been barely able to scent behind her emotional barriers...anger and pride galore, but also confusion and a deep, abiding loneliness...
Chrysalis had spent her first few moments of consciousness straining against her cocoon, but it had been well-made, holding her tight, while any attempt at using magic failed due to the ring around her horn. She tried to spit ooze at Catrina, but all that occurred was a thin greenish-black liquid spilling forth, dribbling down her chin and into a puddle on the floor.
“I dosed you with something to render all that inert, your majesty,” Catrina said in response to the attempt. She produced a cloth from her robes and came forward, wiping Chrysalis' mouth with short, deft actions. Chrysalis tried to bite Catrina continuously, but her limited mobility coupled with Catrina's reflexes meant that nothing landed. Once the Abyssinian was done, she held out the napkin...and a dragon-changeling hybrid came forward and took it, then carried it over to a wastebasket and threw it away.
Chrysalis' felt her jaw dropping dropping at the sight of the dragon-changeling, moreso when she looked noticed a pony-changeling as well. “Hybrids...?” she asked before she could think better of it. “But...who? They're too old to be from after Thorax's treachery, but I would have known if one of my changelings was out creating them...and why? All you get is a worse version of both races' magics!”
“Hmph,” Catrina responded as the hybrids scowled. She stepped over to the dragon hybrid and lay a hand on his shoulder before looking to Chrysalis. “Now that's quite rude, your majesty, and just not true at all. Perhaps Rep can only take on draconic forms, but while in those forms he has all the benefits of a dragon. And Zephyrwing over here can take on any pony form and gain their magics. What does it matter if they have to shapeshift to do so?”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Because any changeling could become a dragon and a pony and anything else!” She glared at this 'Rep' creature. “Becoming a dragon takes the same amount of magic for him that it does for a changeling. And in this form? Resistance to fire instead of immunity, you need to breathe, you're not as strong as a dragon, and your breath is more smoke than flames.” Her glare turned to Catrina. “I bred hybrids with a dozen different races long ago and determined them to be wastes of time and magic to create. There is no point. If your plan involves creating hybrids, Catrina, then you might as well release me and let me go on my way. It will defeat itself without my needing to do anything.”
Catrina chuckled, patting Rep reassuringly as the dragon-changeling's wings - the skin between the wing's fingers was gossamer and full of holes - beat in annoyance and his long tail whipped the floor. “Well, we'll see if you still feel that way in just a bit, your majesty. But before we begin...” she made her way over to an alchemy table, tapping a finger on a vial full of clear liquid, peering into it, then lifting it and starting to shake it. “I've always wanted to know something. Once upon a time, far far away, there were two kingdoms who had been bitter rivals for generations. But one day the rulers of both decided to set aside their differences and live in peace. As a symbol of that peace, the princess of one kingdom would marry the prince of the other. But the princess was a snobby brat and the prince a boorish lout, and both hated each other. The two kingdoms wanted their peace to last, however...and so they created a love potion and gave it to the prince and the princess. The two fell madly in love with each other. But this love poison proved to be a disaster, for when the prince and princess became king and queen, they could do nothing but fawn over one another all day long, leaving their kingdoms effectively ungoverned. Both fell into chaos and disaster, and collapsed.”
Chrysalis bared her fangs, tiny though they had become in her Reformed state. The sound and the hiss was enough to send a number of the rats in the room scurrying back to their hidey-holes, and to bring her back into focus, allow her to ignore the hybrids. “It's been simplified,” she spat.
“Oh, I imagine,” Catrina agreed. She finished her swirling of the vial, then put it to her lips and drank down the contents, letting out a satisfied breath once done. She turned back to Chrysalis, licking her lips. “A useless king and queen wouldn't end two entire realms simply on its own. But it might prove to be a fatal distraction at the wrong moment, mightn'd it?” Catrina's perpetual smirk grew wicked, and coy smugness filled the air. “Was that you?”
“My subjects and I ate well,” Chrysalis intoned, “but it will be far more satisfying when I drain you of all your love, Catrina!”
Catrina shrugged, walking down the length of her alchemy table. A book lay open on the other end, and one of its pages had an illuminated drawing of a pony prince and princess staring lovingly into each other's eyes...as darkness closed all around them and two kingdoms burned beneath them. Catrina ran a hand over the drawing, then turned the page to a new one. “How about this one? Once there was a queen who fell madly in love with a simple peasant stallion, but he loved another. So the queen created a love poison and fed it to the stallion. Captured him. But the stallion's lover would not let his true love remain in the evil queen's grips, so he lead a revolt against the queen and cast her down.” Catrina looked to Chrysalis, grinning playfully. “So...were you the queen?”
Chrysalis shifted within the cocoon as best she could. “No.”
“The stallion's lover? Or is that simplified as well?” Catrina leaned back against the table, slit eyes staring into Chrysalis' own. She purred, tail flicking. “If I had to guess...the queen was real enough, and maybe her infatuation with the stallion too? What was he, some local hero, loved by all? And when he was taken, you and your changelings came, fed on the townsfolk's love for their lost hero, then disguised yourselves as a peasant mob and brought down the queen. But...where did the queen ever get the love poison to begin with?”
Chrysalis said nothing. Catrina's grin became one of supreme amusement. “Did you invent love poison?” She asked. The changeling queen remained silent, and Catrina's grin grew. She hopped away from the table with ease that belied her age, clapping her hands together, then began pacing back and forth. “One more story, one I wrote myself, but inspired by true events. Once upon a time there was an evil queen of monsters who could never feel love and yet who needed it to live, and so she and her monsters stole the love of others. But love in quantities great enough to satisfy the queen was hard to come by, so the queen invented love poisons. She could not consume the false love directly but she could dose her victims with it and feed off of it. And so the evil queen used the love poison to conquer and feed on kingdom after kingdom...
“...buuuut,” Catrina stopped her pacing, and looked to Chrysalis, “the false love of love poisons was insidious and addictive, but not nutritious. At first the evil queen - that would be you, your majesty - didn't realize it because it was consumed alongside true love and in small doses, a sort of icing-on-the-cake at the end of a conquest. But as time went on you would use more and more love poison in your conquests, which were now about seizing that wonderful euphoric high as much as they were filling your stomach. Yet your power waned and waned. So you tried to refine the love poison and in the process stumbled across a way to create and consume the false love directly. All it took was the right ingredients...one of which, was witchweed.”
Catrina chuckled, getting closer to Chrysalis, though still remaining outside of biting range. “So many centuries, so many enemies...but it was you who brought changelings closer to a well-deserved end than any other creature, wasn't it? And so you decided to make up for your mistake by wiping out witchweed. A terrible shame for the rest of us, do you have any idea how many uses that plant has - ”
She'd drawn close enough; Chrysalis spat. Catrina wasn't quite agile enough to avoid the projectile, and saliva and runny ooze landed on her dress. Maybe it wouldn't calcify into resin, but it would still stain. “If you're trying to make me feel guilty,” Chrysalis said, “you're wasting your breath. No, I did not create the original love poisons. I don't know who did. But yes, I used them as weapons against my prey. Yes, I grew addicted to them - got my entire Hive addicted to them. Yes, I created false love directly with witchweed and yes, it nearly doomed me and my subjects. We live only because we ran out and when I came down I realized what had nearly happened.” Chrysalis hissed again. “But no chemical is stronger than my will! I broke my addiction. I broke it in my changelings! Love poison had made changelings weak, made conquests too easy, and the false love offered false promises of another food source when the hunger of changelings could never be satisfied - but as Queen of the Changelings it was up to me to find food for my subjects, up to me to try.”
Catrina had produced another cloth from somewhere and was cleaning off her dress, her smile having finally, finally dropped and the odor of smug self-superiority having finally been broken - by annoyance, yes, but it was something. Chrysalis savored the small victory and drew her head up as much as possible. “I am the Queen of the Changelings, alchemist. No matter what indignities or abominations you try and inflict upon me I will never bow, never submit, never do what you want. And when I am free I will feed you piece by tiny piece to the rats infesting this place. A 'well-deserved' end for one who would attack the Queen of the Changelings and her subjects!”
Catrina's scowl deepened as her rubbing at the saliva-and-ooze had only left a green stain. But she took in a deep breath as she threw the cloth away, letting it out slowly, centering herself. Chrysalis' needling hadn't worked. She pressed her hands together, and looked at Chrysalis again. “My curiosity has been satisfied. Time for you to meet my employer.”
“...your what?” Chrysalis asked, her defiance cracking at the words. Catrina snapped her fingers a few times, pointing at something behind Chrysalis that she couldn't see in her position. The two hybrids moved to retrieve it, then dragged it into position. It was covered in a sheet and maybe five feet tall and four wide. They set it down on the ground and uncovered it, and revealed an ancient-looking wooden frame, in which was set a mirror - a broken one. Most of its upper and middle sections were intact, but the lower part was covered in spiderweb cracks and even missing large pieces, and a few other cracks marred the rest of its surface.
Catrina had busied herself near her alchemist's table, now picking up a beaker of a bluish-pink, glowing liquid. She held it out for Chrysalis to see. “Let's see, fastest way to explain this...broken magic mirror. Needs large infusions of magic to work, larger infusions still to be repaired. Now if we drained ponies or most other creatures we'd have victims to hide or bodies to dispose of, and in either case, missing creatures being looked for. Very messy...”
“...but in a changeling, love and magic are the same thing,” Chrysalis realized. “You can replace the stolen magic with false love. The changeling is starving but doesn't realize it...and other changelings will feed them love as a matter of course...and because they’re Reformed their love returns naturally...” Chrysalis blinked a few times. “We're...we're an accident? This isn't - you're not trying to attack changelings? It's a side-effect?!”
Catrina's smug grin returned with a vengeance as she sauntered over to the mirror and unstopped her beaker. “Yes, though one with potential long-term advantages. My employer has been very eager to meet you ever since I saw through your disguise yesterday and I told her who you were.” She poured the liquid, the stolen changeling magic-love, over the mirror, which immediately began to glow across its entire surface, the magic-love sinking into it. Catrina paid particular attention to its cracks, and Chrysalis noted that in some cases those cracks grew notably smaller. The missing pieces of the mirror, the gaps in its surface, also shrank just slightly. On either side of the mirror, the two hybrids bowed down.
Then it flashed, and it wasn't showing a reflection anymore. Instead, Chrysalis found herself looking at a throne room of some kind. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of bright pink crystal, with black banners lining the uneven crystaline columns along its side that were full of holes. A long red carpet ran up to a black stone throne that was also full of holes, and looked decidedly familiar to Chrysalis, if smaller than she remembered it: it was her throne, the one she'd had in the Badlands, the one that Starlight Glimmer and Thorax had destroyed when they'd led the Hive into betraying her.
And sitting on that throne...
She was tall, though shorter than Chrysalis herself. Her body was equine in shape, with a carapace covered in hot pink fuzz, though the carapace was thin and didn't cover much of her body, and the fuzz was black in those gaps. Her legs were full of holes. Her wings were almost feathered at a glance, but a close inspection instead revealed the “feathers” to be gossamer scales, like hundreds of tiny insect wings, pink close to her alulae but quickly fading to blue. She had actual hair for a mane and tail that was a familiar purple, pink, and cream. Her eyes had purple irises, but slit pupils. Atop her head was a black crown - Chrysalis' crown - and a horn that was spiraled like a unicorn's, but twisted in several places like Chrysalis' had once been.
”If I know Catrina, then she's told quite a few stories today,” the creature on the other side of the mirror said as she stood from her throne, walking slowly towards the mirror's edge, ”Let me tell one of my own. Once upon a time there was a scared, lost pegasus yearling, seemingly abandoned by her parents in the wild. The yearling was found by a changeling. The changeling supposed that a free meal was a free meal and so ate his fill of love from her...but the yearling was seemingly unharmed. So she was brought back to the Hive and the Queen there. The changelings all fed on her, and yet still she had more love to give. A bottomless, endless supply of love.
”The Queen, Chrysalis, named the pegasus Cacophony, due to her wailing and crying during those first, frightful days. Cacophony grew up in the Hive. Chrysalis stopped her conquests, for Cacophony would be able to feed the Hive for as long as she lived. But Cacophony knew she wasn't a changeling. She wanted to know more of ponies, but Chrysalis forbade it, forbade her from ever leaving the Hive for as long as she lived. However Cacophony fed the changelings now, not Chrysalis. She convinced some drones to let her leave the Hive. She went to Equestria, only intending to remain for a short while, not wanting to abandon forever the only home she'd known and the Queen whom she loved like a mother. But Equestria's ways were strange to her, so she got in trouble. This lead to her meeting a handsome stallion named Shining Armor.
“She fell in love instantly. She stole Shining Armor to bring him back to the Hive - 'if I could just have this one stallion, I could be happy there forever, and he will come to love me as I love him', she thought. But she was pursued by ponies - and intercepted by Chrysalis and her changelings, who had come to bring her back to the Hive. The changelings were exposed, secret no more. A fight broke out. And in the ensuing chaos...Chrysalis and Shining Armor both were struck mortal blows, Shining Armor by changelings, Chrysalis, by a pony named Twilight Sparkle. As her true love and her mother lay unmoving at her hooves, Cacophony's heart broke, and into that void spilled rage and hate...and Cacophony was a pegasus no more.”
The alicorn-changeling creature spread her wings wide, standing tall, proud, regal...and then she giggled, putting a hoof to her mouth. ”Wow. When I say it all out loud like that, it really does sound like I was just a spoiled brat back then.”
Chrysalis' mind was reeling. She looked to Catrina. “What is this?” she demanded of the Abyssinian. “Who is this? What kind of dross am I listening to - why does Cadance look like a hybrid?”
Catrina rolled her eyes, a motion that was copied in the mirror by this “Cacophony” creature. In the mirror, her horn glowed pink, and bubbles appeared all around her. ”There are worlds, shadow-of-my-mother. Worlds beyond your own.” She held forth one bubble, and Chrysalis saw a regal, noble-looking King Sombra defending ponies from feral, wicked versions of Celestia and Luna. Another bubble came forward and showed that show-mare Trixie Lulamoon and five other mares Chrysalis didn't recognize standing together as they battled a kirin in some arena. A third bubble, and Chrysalis saw an image of machines and primates with oddly familiar features wearing an odd amount of clothes. A fourth, and a gray unicorn pony Chrysalis didn’t recognize was picking her way through a barren wasteland of metal ruins. ”What I described didn't happen in your world. But it happened in mine, long ago - the timelines of worlds aren't always synced up.”
Chrysalis scoffed. “Ridiculous. I have no idea what you're trying to gain from this, Catrina, but any respect I had for your plan just went down the drain - ”
Cacophony scowled. Her horn glowed bright pink again, and the mirror was suffused with the same glow. Then the alicorn-changeling hybrid stepped up to and through the mirror, carefully stepping around cracks - which widened with the sound of breaking glass as the creature passed through - maneuvering herself deftly until she stood fully on the other side, in front of Chrysalis, wings spread wide once more.
“I am Cacophony,” the hybrid creature said. “I am Princess of Equestria, Queen of Changelings, Empress of All Creatures, the Alicorn of Love, and the ruler of my world.” She looked around the chamber they were in, and her snout wrinkled somewhat. “And this place is...unhygenic. You're letting rats run around, Catrina?”
“Alchemy shouldn't be performed on an empty stomach,” Catrina responded evenly, looking over the rats with interest. Her eyes actually flashed with some inner light as she did, and her smile grew wicked again.
Cacophony scoffed, turning her nose up at the room. Meanwhile, the pony-changeling in the room looked up from where she had been bowing. “Your majesty,” she said. Cacophony looked to her, and she flinched. “Forgive me, I only wish to say that there is no need for you to have risked coming to this world...”
Risk? Chrysalis wondered. She eyed the mirror again, the cracks, and suppressed a smile. Admittedly an easy task given that she had no way to act on her knowledge...
Cacophony, meanwhile, trotted over to her, running a hoof along the hybrid's cheek. “Oh, you're worried about me, Zephyrwing?” She asked softly. She flicked out her tongue, her rather changeling-looking tongue, and nodded. “That's sweet of you. You deserve a small reward.” She leaned down, touching her horn to the small one on the pony's head. A pinkish glow passed between the two of them, and the smaller hybrid shivered, eyes rolling up slightly and a smile spreading on her face. As Cacophony stepped back from her, the hybrid needed a few moments to steady herself. Cacophony looked to the dragon hybrid and repeated the action. “So you don't feel left out,” she said, voice full of cloying sweetness.
Chrysalis hissed. “Let’s say I believe you about this other worlds nonsense. What does this have to do with hybrids? With the love poison? With me?”
“Everything, shadow-of-my-mother,” Cacophony said with a giggle. “I was listening this whole time, you know. The mirror doesn't need much magic just for that. You forgot to mention something about hybrids, one immense benefit: they still have a changeling's ravenous hunger for love.”
“That's n - ” Chrysalis began to retort, but caught herself. Was she really about to claim that it wasn't a benefit? After all that the hunger, the drive, of the changelings had led Chrysalis and the swarm to over the centuries? She glared at Cacophony. “How does that benefit you?”
Cacophony giggled, looking to the dragon hybrid. “All you need is love. Isn’t that true, Rep?”
“Y-yes, your majesty,” the hybrid confirmed, still clearly basking in the feeling of false love that had been given him. Catrina had come over to him again, petting his scaled carapace lightly, an action he clearly enjoyed as he leaned into it while Catrina continued to eye the rats in the room. “We all need you.”
“All you need is me,” Cacophony confirmed, and giggled again, going over to the pony hybrid and stroking her cheek once more, looking into Zephyrwing's eyes as the hybrid looked back with desperate, undisguised awe and desire. “I am love, all love, even false love. And with that I have bridled my world. I have crossed the other races with changelings so that they all feed on love, can all be bound to the false love I offer them, all want me - all need me!”
No giggle this time - Cacophony laughed instead, spinning on Chrysalis, advancing quickly on her cocoon. “Need, you understand? The changelings never needed you, shadow-of-my-mother, and they never needed my true mother either. You lead them, guided them, molded them, yes, but another could have. You have been replaced here and in my world. But here the changelings do not need Thorax, while my subjects need me and the false love that only I can provide! And in this way, I now rule everything!”
She laughed again. It was pretty good, as laughs went. Chrysalis eyed Catrina, who was still looking between the rats, licking her lips, though the Abyssinian caught her gaze and shrugged. Chrysalis looked back to Cacophony. “If all you wanted was to brag to your dead mother, you’re wasting your breath on me.”
The laughter stopped. Cacophony snarled. “I know that, shadow-of-my-mother. My real mother was proud and cruel and strong. She would never have allowed...” she waved a hoof at Chrysalis, “this to happen to her. Reformation. Pfeh. A plague that hasn’t come to my world. My subjects’ dependency on me has ensured it...” she smiled, and sauntered up to Chrysalis. “Which brings me to why you’re here. Why Catrina is here.”
Catrina perked up at having been addressed. She patted Rep on the head, then stepped forward. “Princess Cacophony obviously can’t personally supply each and every one of her subjects with false love. She relies on carefully distributed alchemical substitutes. And to create and distribute it in this world she needed a native skilled in alchemy. Rep here contacted me, and the princess and I negotiated a deal where I get to keep some of the witchweed she sends for my own...personal needs.” She smiled again. “It has so many uses. Health. Long life. Magical powers like that of a unicorn mage.” She lifted a claw and pointed into a corner. “Also the ability to see through changeling guises - like the fact that there's a young changeling disguised as a rat over there. Hello, Ocellus.”
Chrysalis’ eyes widened, and her whipped to the corner, spotting a rat frozen in place, eyes wide and wearing an expression of stunned shock. “Run - “
Chrysalis got no further before Rep and Zephyrwing both hissed and made to attack, but Cacophony was fastest of all, horn glowing bright pink and grabbing the rat before it could scurry away. With an amused laugh, the alicorn-changeling sent a pulse of magic at the rat. It squealed even as blue fire washed over it, and Ocellus was forced into her true form as the tiny changeling was dragged forward and forced to stand between Cacophony, Catrina, and Chrysalis’ cocooned form.
Ocellus' abject terror forced its way down Chrysalis' nostrils and clawed at her tongue. It was a taste that Chrysalis normally enjoyed, but at the moment all it was doing was spurring her to try and tear through her cocoon again. Cacophony, for her part, simply amused herself by snuffing out Ocellus' magic each time the changeling tried to defend herself. “Excellent!” the hybrid princess said. “This is a lucky break! We won’t have to drag one of my changelings over here to use as an example.”
Chrysalis hissed at Ocellus. “You idiot!” She shouted, struggling against her cocoon. “What are you doing here?!”
Ocellus was breathing heavily. She turned her head a little to look at Chrysalis. “I - I w-was l-l-looking for you, o-or for Nonchalant...” her gaze managed to harden. “You...you l-lied to us...lied from the start!”
“I lie to everyone! You know that! Why didn’t you run to get help the moment you saw me, fool?!”
Ocellus was hyperventilating, hysterical. “You...I felt sorry for you...I was trying to help you! I wanted you to come back to the Hive, to f-find a new life...but you’re Chrysalis. You’re the queen...evil...I th-thought maybe you'd R-Reformed but I've been listening and you're no different then you ever were!”
Chrysalis snarled rather than respond with words, still struggling against her cocoon. Clearly the bug wasn’t capable of thinking straight right now, was useless. Chrysalis would have to be the one to act if they wanted to get out of this. Cacophony, for her part, just clapped her hooves together. “Perfect! Perfect! We couldn’t ask for a better example! Catrina?”
Catrina came forward, clutching a green-glowing liquid in a large beaker, the last of the three potions she'd had on her alchemy table. Cacophony’s magic intensified, forcing Ocellus’ mouth open, and Catrina poured some of the liquid down Ocellus’ throat. The tiny changeling sputtered and tried to spit it out, but Cacophony closed her mouth tightly first - stopping her breathing, and still stopping her from transforming into some other form. The princess didn't relent until Ocellus swallowed what Catrina had dosed her with.
No hiss this time - Chrysalis roared, shaking her cocoon, straining her muscles, turning her head and biting into the resin and tearing loose chunks as she tried to free herself. She'd almost managed to free one leg, but it was too little, too late as Ocellus started shaking, convulsing, and screaming. Cacophony’s magic released her, but the tiny changeling only fell to the ground, crying out as jade-green fire erupted first from her horn, then consumed her for several long, agonizing seconds. When it cleared...
...black chitin. Holed legs. No elytra, a spine down her back, and fangs. A changeling, a true one.
Chrysalis stopped her struggle, staring with wide eyes. Cacophony giggled, moreso when Ocellus' eyes fluttered where she lay, realized what had happened to her. “No...” she exhaled as she sat up, looking at the holes in her legs, wings buzzing on her back. She pawed at her fangs. “No...no! Wh...what...h-how...”
She glowed green and transformed into her blue form, but let out a cry even as the transformation finished. “I-it’s not real!” She cried, tears welling up in her eyes. She transformed back into her black form - her true form now, and looked to Catrina. “H...how?!”
“The right ingredients in the proper proportions,” Catrina intoned, teeth flashing as she folded her hands behind her back and leaned forward, looking Ocellus over. “It looks good on you, bug.”
Chrysalis had been staring at Ocellus, processing what she was looking at, what had happened - what it meant. She looked to Cacophony, who was looking back already with undisguised eagerness. “Release me,” she commanded.
Cacophony eyed her for a few moments, and smiled. “You know...I think I will.” Her horn glowed bright, and Chrysalis’ cocoon was peeled open. The Queen of the Changelings stepped from it with all the grace she could muster and quickly tore the ring on her horn from her head. She kept one eye on Cacophony as she trotted over to Ocellus, who had collapsed onto the ground sobbing, hooves over her head. When Chrysalis neared she let out a scream and tried to back away, but Chrysalis seized her in her blue magic, looking down at her. She reached out a hoof and placed it under Ocellus’ chin - prompting a flinch - turning the tiny changeling's head left and right as she looked her over.
“How long does it last?” Chrysalis asked.
Catrina considered. “For her, a week. The effects fade.” Ocellus let out a whimper at that, while Catrina pressed on. “For you, a being of your magical might and power...might require daily doses. But in both cases, repeated exposure and consumption should make it permanent.”
“No!” Ocellus screamed. She shut her eyes tightly, horn glowing bright green as she put her hooves to her heart. “I want to share my love...I want to share my love...I want to share my love...”
“Sharing requires a recipient,” Cacophony giggled as she came up alongside Chrysalis. “No one in this room wants whatever you're offering...whereas what I'm offering...” Her telekinesis had reached out and grabbed the beaker of green liquid from Catrina. Cacophony held the liquid out to Chrysalis, spreading her wings out and bowing a little to the queen. “Drink up, shadow-of-my-mother. If we were going to poison you or chemically enslave you, we could have done that while you slept.”
Chrysalis considered the vial, before doing as Cacophony asked, taking the vial into her hooves and tossing back the contents without hesitation. The liquid tasted vile, and it burned. It seemed to sink through her throat before reaching her stomach, and sought out her heart, stabbing into it like thousands of tiny needles. It was utter agony, and Chrysalis felt amazement that Ocellus had somehow remained consciousness at the experience.
But she was Chrysalis. She stumbled, but she didn’t fall. Jade-green fire consumed her. She felt holes being bored into her legs and wings again, felt her elytra dissolving, felt it as her fangs grew again, as her fuzz and the mantle of fur around her neck were consumed by the fire...all of it painful. But apart from a hiss, she did not cry out.
And when the fire cleared, Chrysalis stood tall. Proud. True. She panted heavily and shivered from the ordeal but cleared even that with a breath, letting the pain and agony fade away, forcing it away. The purple log that housed the shadow of Twilight Sparkle fell from her and clattered to the floor, as she no longer had elytra to hold it under.
Ocellus let out another sob. She sank to her barrel again, hooves over her head, staring up at Chrysalis with undisguised horror as she looked at the doom of everything she valued. Cacophony, meanwhile, had stepped back, and had a warm smile on her face. “Oh, yes...” she breathed. “No longer a shadow. A reflection. Beautiful and strong. Everything you were meant to be, mother.”
Chrysalis took in a final long, steadying breath. She felt...emptiness. An emptiness that hadn’t been with her for some time. She was hungry again...a hunger that started in her heart but started moving through her whole body. She wanted love. Her nostrils flared as she scented the shadow of love for her that Cacophony possessed, due to her resemblance to the alicorn-changeling’s adoptive mother. The cloying sweet, false love that poisoned the other hybrids in the room. The smug self-love of Catrina, so sure, so confident. And the love for Smolder and her other friends that Ocellus had, now tainted with anguish, pain, terror at what she had become - at the thought of what her friends would think of her now, of fear at what Chrysalis would do to all of them.
Chrysalis buzzed her wings...her shorter wings, producing a sound that should have been familiar but which now slid strangely through her ears. She scowled at her wings, then looked to Cacophony. “Talk,” she ordered. “What is it you want? Why go through this trouble?”
Cacophony grinned. She waved a hoof at the mirror. “One tiny, broken mirror will not let me invade this world, not to get the numbers I need - and I need my warriors to keep the chattel of my world in line anyway. No, I will need local help. Catrina...she is a highly skilled alchemist, but she is no general, no leader of armies.”
“True,” Catrina allowed.
“But you...” Cacophony said, smile widening. “I can give you back everything you’ve lost, mother. Reformation? Undone, as you have seen for yourself. You will make the changelings need to steal love to survive once more. Disloyalty? You will bridle the changelings with false love, make them need you as my changelings and hybrids need me. Changelings have been exposed in this world? You can turn that weakness into a strength! The ponies and griffons and dragons won’t suspect that the Reformation was a lie, won’t know until it’s too late!
“And you won’t be alone. As soon as the mirror is fully repaired, is no longer damaged by passage, I can send through forces of my own to aid you. Only small troops at first, but once we take Canterlot and the Royal Archives there we can learn how Star Swirl created these mirrors and duplicate them a hundred times!” Cacophony came forward, smiling up at Chrysalis, eyes wide as she advanced. “And all I ask in return for this? Tribute. Send me slaves, chattel, more food to feed and grow my armies - I admit that victory on my world has been costly, has made feeding my subjects difficult. But though this will be the first world to fall, it will not be the last! I will build an empire of worlds - but I will share. You want worlds too? You can have them! There is an infinite multiverse out there, mother - and we can have it all!”
Chrysalis had backed away at Cacophony growing ever closer to her, invading her personal space. Her hooves brushed up against the stick that served as the shadow’s home. She glanced down at it, picked it up, then looked to Cacophony. An empire of worlds...starting with this one. She could have her revenge. Have her kingdom back. Every pony, dragon, griffin bowing to her. Every changeling obeying her commands as they should...
“...and then?”
“What?” Cacophony demanded.
Chrysalis looked to Cacophony, almost as surprised at her own words as Cacophony looked. “And then?” She repeated, as her hooves ran over the stick she held. “What is your next step, Cacophony?”
The alicorn-changeling stared uncomprehendingly, mouth opening and closing a few times. “I...I just told you,” she said. “The next world.”
“And then?”
“The one after that.”
“And then?”
“The one after that!” Cacophony beat her wings. “And the next, and the next, and the next! As changelings have always done! The hunger of changelings can never be satisfied! It keeps us mighty! Powerful!”
Chrysalis looked back to the block of wood, then to Ocellus, who was curled on herself, crying openly. Chrysalis snarled, reaching out and grabbing Ocellus, forcing the tiny changeling to her hooves. She seized up at Chrysalis’ touch. “You...” Chrysalis hissed, using the shadow's home to point at her. “You are everything I hate about what my changelings have become - so soft and weak and pathetic. But now you feel that hunger again, don’t you? As acutely as I do?” Ocellus whimpered, but didn't answer. Chrysalis grabbed her tighter. “Answer your queen!”
“Y-yes!” Ocellus blurted out.
“The hunger is lurking inside of you. It’s been gone for years now but it’s back. The eternal hunger of the changelings!”
“Yes...”
Chrysalis barred her fangs, and Ocellus flinched away, but Chrysalis wouldn't let her flee. She pressed the shadow's home against Ocellus' neck like it was a knife. “Wouldn’t that hunger drive you to do anything? If I left you with it for days - a week - and then threw Smolder in here - ”
“N-no!” Ocellus cried. “No, please no, I don’t - I don’t want to hurt her!”
“But you would! You’d rip and tear and consume, don’t deny it! You would drain every last drop from her to end it!”
Chrysalis looked at the shivering, tiny changeling in her grip over as she cried, tears falling to the floor beneath them. She put a hoof under Ocellus’ chin, tilting her head so that she could look into as many of the changeling’s eye segments as possible. “The hunger...it’s horrible, isn’t it?” Chrysalis asked, trying to sound soft...something she’d never tried to do with her true voice before. Ocellus hiccuped, staring back at Chrysalis uncomprehendingly at the sudden shift in tone. Chrysalis pressed on. “It’s like...like your stomach is opening wide and trying to eat your soul. Like your heart is full of holes and bleeding out inside of you. It’s a pain you grow used to...a drive that you follow...but...but that’s no reason to keep it. Familiarity breeds contempt...and we know this hunger very well. Don’t we, Ocellus?”
Ocellus nodded slowly. Cacophony stepped forward. “Mother, what - ”
“I am not your mother!” Chrysalis roared, turning on Cacophony, gnarled horn glowing green and lashing out with telekinetic force. The alicorn-changeling cried out as she stumbled away from the strike, hoof at her cheek and eyes wide in shock. Chrysalis snarled. “But if I was? I’d find you pathetic. False love? You need addiction to keep your bugs loyal? I ruled my Hive for a thousand years and I never needed that. Even when I was using love poison, I did not need it. I broke my addiction and their addiction and they remained with me for centuries after!”
“But they betrayed you - ”
“To end their starvation! I...I ruled for so long...and I did not want to give that up. Not for anything! The changelings are mine and mine alone, my creation, my subjects! By right of a thousand years of rule! Starlight Glimmer had no right to take my crown, turn my subjects on me, destroy my Hive, and then oh-so-graciously offer to let me have back everything she’d stolen if only I capitulated to her! And you, Cacophony, you have no right to offer them back to me either - they were never yours to give! They are mine! But...” Chrysalis looked back to Ocellus. “But...things...change. There was...there was another way.” She stepped up to the smaller changeling, looking into her multifaced eyes, seeing herself reflected back in each segment. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know! As your queen it was up to me to find you food. But how was I supposed to know that the solution was to...to throw up on each other?”
Ocellus let out a shocked laugh at the phrasing, hooves going to her mouth even as she did. Tears still filled her eyes, and yet the ghost of a smile appeared on her face. Chrysalis laughed herself. “Who would think that?” She asked between chuckles. “Who...who would ever imagine that?”
Ocellus shook her head. “N...n-no one.”
Cacophony's mouth was open, though no sound came out for several long moments. “I...I don't understand...” she stuttered at last, backing away another step. The other two hybrids, Rep and Zephyrwing, came up alongside her. “You...you're going to help that drone Reform. You're going to do it again yourself. Why? Why would you debase yourself so?”
Chrysalis grinned her most wicked, triumphant of grins, one she hadn't had cause to wear for what seemed like forever. “Because as queen, it is up to me to feed my subjects...and to make sure that nothing takes that food. Which is what you want to do - would have me do - by stealing Reformation from them. But also? Because I'm a predator and I always will be, and I can't help but bite down on any weakness I see in my prey.”
The words finally seemed to break through Cacophony's shock. She spread her gossamer-feather wings wide and hissed, one that was joined in by Rep and Zephyrwing, while Catrina had moved to behind the three of them, hands folded within her sleeves. “Prey?!” Cacophony demanded. “I am an alicorn princess and a changeling queen, shadow-of-my-mother! And you have forgotten that the timelines of our worlds don't match up. I have ruled for centuries - almost as long as my mother did, almost as long as you did before you became weak and let yourself be overthrown! What 'weakness' do I have?”
Chrysalis bared her fangs. It would probably be the last time she'd ever get to do so in what, to her, would always be her true body, and she wanted to make the most of it while she could. Her gaze shifted to Catrina. “You shouldn't have let me see how that mirror worked,” she said.
Cacophony only grew confused, while Catrina's eyes widened. “Stop her!” the Abyssinian exclaimed, hands emerging from her sleeves clutching two vials and throwing them. But Chrysalis was the faster, telekinetically seizing the vials in mid-air and cracking them open over Cacophony and her lackeys. The alicorn-changeling reacted immediately by putting a shield around herself, her hybrids, and Catrina, clearly not understanding what was going on as a red mist collapsed around the shield.
Chrysalis spared no thought for what the mist would have done had it hit her, turning to Ocellus. The far younger changeling looked back up, confusion all over her face at what Chrysalis was doing - but the air around her had the faint scent and taste of hope. “When the Hive betrayed me and Reformed, could you feel the explosion down in the hatchery?” Chrysalis asked. Ocellus nodded, and Chrysalis grinned. “Well. Mine...ours...will be bigger.”
Ocellus needed no encouragement. Her wings buzzed and she took to the air, closing her eyes and putting her hooves to her heart. Chrysalis rolled her eyes at the saccharine sight, but copied the motion herself, turning her senses inwards, to the love within her. It was easy to find - it was the food of her hunger, an all-consuming beast kept from devouring her only by the love she fed it. Chrysalis seized her love. The hunger grabbed back at it, tried to hold onto its prize, its meal.
Chrysalis crushed the hunger. Stomped it down. Beat it and cast it aside. It was her hunger, and she was the Queen, not it. No matter how old or how powerful or how familiar or how insatiable the hunger was, it was not stronger than Chrysalis, not even remotely. The love within her, meanwhile, was harder to grasp, a slippery, vague thing. It was power...but what was it beyond that? Was it anything beyond that?
It didn't matter. It was hers, and she pulled it from herself - not throwing it away, but holding it out, offering it up. Even as she did, she sensed more love from elsewhere - Ocellus offering her own love to the world. Chrysalis grasped the love of Ocellus, and Ocellus grasped the love of Chrysalis, the love of her queen. Chrysalis took all of Ocellus' offered love...but her own love had gone from slippery to jealous. Or perhaps Chrysalis had. It was hers, and she was just going to offer it up? Give it away? The hunger within her tried to rally, surge forth, crawl from her and seize the love she was so selfishly trying to just take from it...
Chrysalis opened her eyes. She saw that the shadow had emerged from its home once more, was standing in front of the mirror. It looked at the mirror, its cracks, then back to Chrysalis. A face that looked like Twilight Sparkle's smiled at her, then nodded and disappeared. In the mirror's reflection, Chrysalis saw that the red mist had cleared, and Cacophony had dropped her shield. She was screaming something, and lunging for Chrysalis.
The Queen of the Changelings grunted, then closed her eyes again...and let go of her love.
And changed.