//------------------------------// // Fear // Story: Chrysalis trial. // by Kingless knight //------------------------------// Four changeling queens in different parts of Equestria were having a screaming match at speaking mirrors. "YOU CAN'T USE ICE CREAM AS SHAVING CREAM!" Spindle, Archania and Cocoon all looked at Meryria. "What?" The red-eyed queen asked, completely thrown out of her element. Cocoon blinked at the odd phrase. Spindle was going over it. Archania just sighed, relieved the screaming match had stopped. Meryria continued. "So what? We lost two out of six, right? Big deal! Cocoon doesn't have any form of spell protection and it was Discord! I mean, could any of us stand against him without protection?" The queens shook their heads. Archania was the next to speak. "What happened to your captive? The only way get through your maze of a hive is with pheromone trails, and unless Discord has the nose of a changeling, they shouldn't have been able to find the captive and escape." Myreria chuckled and laughed. "Oh, I sent them off to Emilia's hive." All the queens stared in shock except the youngest. Cocoon was the first to speak. "Sorry, but how is Emilia dangerous? I remember her being very kind." Spindle answered that. "You're too young to remember the time when she lived with us. When she was still a princess she would prank us and a few workers who angered her, and her pranks drowned the hive in paranoia and fear. Father then made a decree that only once a year may one be pranked, and that date was her hatching day." Archania nodded. "Yes, she would always prank us or and scare the horns off us. We would always smell of fear during her hatching day, like the time she filled the hive with cups of water and hexed us, so we couldn't fly." They nodded, remembering that horrible day. "May the formless be merciful and may Emilia not be high on sugar." Meryria then had a question. "Did you know Emila thinks reformed changelings are made out of candy?" The mirrors all turned black. In the Underground Our three adventurers were laying on the Floor after being pulled down by a few undead. "Those roughlings! Don't know how to handle a mare." As she stood up a coconut pie launched at her, and after that a banana cream fire pie and then she got back on the floor. Discord looked around to see gems, and if he had had a bag of flour, they could have seen the pink lasers. as well he raised a lions his paw and it got coated in maple syrup and featheres. "Seems like this queen likes to prank ponies." He snapped his fingers but the poof that summoned items or altered the world just was removed in the place. "Of course this place has a protection against spells too," he said as a cherry pie landed on his head. Snakes started slithering and mice were freed from openings in the wall. Then those snakes ate the mice and went back to their dens in the wall. "This place is odd." Discord then crawled, keeping his entire body close to ground; Fluttershy followed his example, getting closer to a door. Rarity, on the other hoof had run after seeing the snakes, and was at the door after having been blasted by paint balls and water balloons filled with pudding, finally ending with her being sprayed with water. After opening the door they were swarmed by bees. "Aaaaahhh!" Rarity screamed, running to the next room which was filled with whoopee cushions and no lights. Pfffff! "That wasn't me!" Rarity said, and Fluttershy saw the bees were actually flies that looked like bees. Fluttershy walked into the room and pffff! She blushed before asking the flies to leave the poor Rarity. They continued with Discord snorting at the fact that every step lead to a fart noise. Then came the next room filled with skeletons, each having a name plate hammered into their skulls. Discord floated to a unicorn skeleton with blade like teeth and bull like horns whose name plate said: horunculus subject #5-success. “Hm, I thought it was forbidden to create life." He floated to another one with eight legs. "Chaos magic exposure subject #12-success.” I don't remember creating a spider pony." He touched the skeleton and saw multiple images, one of which was the skeleton walking on wind and clouds. Then he saw Scythe speaking to the now dead pony. “Chaos magic can't be learned, only gained from birth; you ignore laws of the world and sense probability. Sadly you're not immortal, yet I'm happy to have had you as my friend." Discord let go of the skeleton, looking at another skeleton with the same description but with lower numbers ending with "minor success" instead of "success." One earth pony skeleton, once touched, showed it carrying a massive boulder on its back without a sweat. "I wish I could have met them." Then he looked at the recreation of himself. Rainbow dash woke up in a room filled with weapons and a pegasus training with a spear. "So you're awake?" The pegasus placed the spear on a rack. "I haven't had that kind of fun in two centuries; I can't remember the last fool who broke my outer skin." He looked the pegasus. "But don't even hope that this form and my changeling form have anything to do with my strength! Even as an old stallion I can beat you!" he yelled, fire burning in his eyes, his voice full of confidence and joy. Then he brought Rainbow Dash a warm meal. She started eating then noticed a framed picture of him and a young pegasus colt. "Who's that? Your son?" she asked, taking a closer look. She noticed the pegasus was missing a wing. "Yes and no. He was a descendant of mine, lost his parents in an weather factory accident and broke his wing. Back then they just cut wings off. So I took him under my wing, taught him how to use a bow, and he was known as Shooting Point." Rainbow Dash spit out her apple juice, coughing. "What's wrong?" "The Shooting Point?! The one who holds the title of Equestria's greatest archer!" He nodded, not showing his emotion. "He was a changeling?" The gladiator’s eyes burned with anger. He hit Rainbow Dash with his hoof, on the top of her head. "No, he was a pure blooded pegasus with the heart of a hundred storms! So were all my descendants! They carry the love of my Oculus tempestatis!" He started calming, he chuckled. "I bet I sound like an old stallion talking about my grandfoals, Sometimes I watch my grand foals when they're about to make great achievements or just to pull them out of a bad spot." Rainbow Dash only thought, ‘This guys creepy’ A second thought came to her. "Were you a pony?" He nodded, pointing toa clay pot with his image on it. "You might know me better as Impetus Gladiorum or Storm of Swords in modern tongue." Rainbow Dash's mind had crashed; her jaw was on the floor and her eyes were the size of dinner plates. "You're not a frog, close your mouth." He had a changeling push her mouth shut. "What?!" she yelled, causing the changeling to hide under the bed. Rainbow ignored that and continued to interrogate him. "How are you a changeling?! In school they told us you were born in Cloudsdale, to cloud sculptors!" He nodded, taking one look at Rainbow. "A friend of mine had the same mane color, well, colors." He took one of the swords and turned on the grind wheel. "To become a changeling you need a changeling king or queen and a high pain tolerance and so you may keep your sanity." He took a chair, sitting in front of the grinding wheel. "As your flesh melts and being burns as it turns to liquid, losing your sense of touch your organs dissolve, your stomach eating itself as every cell pops like a firecracker. Once that is over, your bones will shatter into thousand pieces and you will have the worst headache of your life as your brain burns with the heat of Celestia’s sun,".he told Rainbow Dack as the sparks flew in front of him and he looked at the blade. "Like this sword I was sharpening, by breaking it dull edges." He looked at the shocked wonderbolt. "No more dumb questions, got it?" She nodded slowly seeing the Pegasus with the sword. The two ponies and the mix of animals awoke in a closed room and then the floors opened. The three jumped to the edge of the room as it rained firecrackers. "Does anyone remember how we got here in the first place?" Fluttershy asked with her sweet soft voice. Rarity "Hmm, I remember a show of dancing skeletons, after which they screamed and I fainted out of shock...please tell me I'm not the only who remembers that," she asked, worried she was losing her sanity. "N-no, I remember that. Null must've placed us here after we were knocked out." The edge closed and the firecrackers stopped raining. Discord frowned that when the chaos ended. "I wish I came up with half of this." The ceiling opened and the ground rose to the throne room with over hundreds of changelings and a queen with pink eyes looking at the three. "Is this where you do an evil monologue?" Discord aske, and Applejack was thrown in front the three, then she exploded into confetti. "Are we related?" She chuckled as the real Applejack came out of a room that smelled like bananas. A changeling emperor stood in front of the two changelings. "Are you kings or princes?" Scythe asked the only two reformed changelings left who weren't encased in a green secretion. Thorax glared at the emperor of the changelings. "Why are you doing this?" he asked as his brother jumped at Scythe who teleported in a millisecond. "We didn't do anything wrong!" The former unicorn glared, rage irradiating off from him. Thorax prepared a shield spell, while Pharynx turned into a giant insect monster. "You revealed your existence to the world and risked the species to being found and hunted down! You and Chrysalis broke a few simple laws excessively! Revealing our existence to the entirety of the royal family?!" A shield formed around the emperor, a single opening as he moved a ice arrow into position. It flew at rapid speed creating a shock wave; once the dust settled, the ice arrow pierced the shield spell, while the outside of the shield the ice that formed looked like a massive fire had been frozen in time. "So will you surrender peacefully, or do I have to be a strict father?" He flew, pulling up multiple ice arrows; he waited and the answer was a giant angry insect beast. He fired the arrows at once at Pharynx. Luckily, his brother was able to create multiple shields to protect him and this led to an opening for Pharynx to slash at the emperor’s head, making Scythe hit the ground with a broken horn. "I didn't know my strength—" Scythe threw a stone sphere to the groun, which after sinking into the dirt, rose out of it. "What is that?" the King asked as the earth monster formed. Scythe smirked. "That is an earth golem, have fun!" A green liquid oozed out of his mouth, moving around him into a sphere, hardening instantly. The golem sat near the emperor and when pharynx tried to break one of their changelings out the secretion, but he was stopped by a ball of mud being launched at him. He dodged and looked at the spheres making up the earth golem. "Pharynx, we better call for help." The earth golem started growing, taking more from the ground, until it was twice the size of the two changelings. It opened its mouth. The orange pony ran, hugging her friends. "Y'all still here?! But she said..." she smirked. "Y'all lied to me!" The queen nodded. "And you punched me the first second you were here; none of us are innocent,” Queen Emilia said, giving each of them a glass. "Drink! Or the poison I injected will melt your organs." They instantly drank every drop and then Discord breathed fire, panting. His face turned red as and everyone else did the same, except the fire breathing. "There was no poison and you all drank ghost pepper oil." She laughed as the three ponies and Discord were in a lot of pain. Discord melted his tongue off and grew it back. "Oh, it looks like my magic works, bye." He snapped his finger and they teleported. The queen smiled chuckling to herself. "Mother why are you laughing; they escaped." "I know. I let them; but look at the ground." The changeling did so and saw the runes carved into the floor. "A second identical one is carved in a landfill four hours away from here and—“ She summoned shards of a mirror, showing the image of a landfill. "It's hilarious." She told the one changeling which caused all those hiding in the shadows to join them to watch as the screaming was heard and changelings around her laughed at the ponies. The golem started spitting thousands of balls of hardened earth at the two kings. "We need help on this one,” Thorax said as he summoned a shield at the last second. But from the back of the golem hoof steps were heard as a speeding pegasus with a shield hit the golem’s head off and used a shovel separate the golem’s legs in twain. The golem started to reform but stopped as the sphere was pulled out of its body with magic and then shattered by the two who attacked the golem. The other pillars came, following behind "The pillars have arrived!" Flash Magnus announced. Rockhoof smiled. "And we have defeated the villain!" he announced with his friend helping the changeling king. They started freeing the other changelings, Mage Meadowbrook helping anyone injured, that being the kings, and Starswirl watching over the chrysalis of the emperor. He prepared a sealing spell which wasn't a normal choice to handle such a villain. Starswirl started the spell, yet it was broken in an instant. "Odd. Mistmane, Meadowbrook, I need some assistance." The chrysalis cracked. "Quickly everycreature!" The pillars and the changeling started writing a spell formula around the emperor‘s chrysalis. "I seal you to a timeless existence locked in an endless dream!" The pillars rose from the ground, the magic starting to take effect. "Your hopes of evil will be stopped as well as your dreams of conquest!" That is when a scorpion tail broke through the chrysalis and a magic burst was released, destroying it completely. Starswirls stared at the changeling king, a head taller than Thorax and has vertical eyes, yet he had no mouth. All the changelings were frozen with their eyes the same shade as Scythe's. "I don't need conquest." He spoke through Pharynx and Thorax fighting against him until his eyes turned the same color. The changelings all started walking toward the pillars. “Because I already have won.”