When Queen Chrysalis was turned to stone, she knew that someday, she'd be back.
Not like this.
She assumed that she'd escape out of happenstance... an event unexplained. Another possibility she thought of was Twilight herself, or someone she knew well, letting her out with the purpose of teaching her... friendship! The only other option was a new or old villain letting her out to bring together yet another team.
Like she would ever do something like that again... but at the same time...
No. Every time that thought came up she shook it off. She couldn't see or hear while in stone, but her mind was just as active as ever, offering her at least some form of escapism.
That's where she was. For who knows how long, before suddenly...
Reality returned.
Sight returned. Consciousness returned. The crisp feeling of oxygen entering her throat returned. It was all there. The freedom...
And yet somehow, the moment Chrysalis got that feeling of freedom back, she felt that something was wrong. She took no time at all, looking around.
Tirek and Cozy Glow were both gone too. But nowhere to be seen.
And then, she heard it. The low hiss, the growling, the sound of something sinister that dared stepped up to her. She snarled, lighting her horn.
"Show yourselves! If you dare challenge me, then you are making a grave-"
Chrysalis spun around and stopped. Tirek and Cozy Glow approached her. They were far from the same. Covered in some strange black ooze with tiny bursts of different colors, eyes blank, large outstretched smiles... all of that nearly unsettled Chrysalis herself. Nearly!
She couldn't help but ask. "What in Celestia's name happened to you two?"
No response. Just staring.
Chrysalis snorted. "If you two aren't going to answer me then I might as well go off on my own. It's not worth my time to wait for a response from you two! If you want to follow me, then that is your choice."
Chrysalis turned to leave, intending to fly away before any guards spotted her, but then she heard a strange sound. A mix of bones and flesh stretching and breaking, mixed with a sound she heard once or twice before. The sound of Tirek growing in size.
Chrysalis looked. Tirek grew, from his feeble, thin, and dull first phase, to the second phase that she was more familiar with, all the way to his third phase, a form that she was a witness to during their major near-victory battle together. Anything that was near Tirek was either pushed aside or knocked over, damage being caused before a single shot was even fired.
The uncanniest thing about it was that it didn't even seem like Tirek took magic. Chrysalis still felt her own power in her system, and Cozy Glow, didn't seem to have gotten any weaker either. It was as if Tirek did it on his own... or something else forced his body to grow. Or perhaps both. Either way, it felt too unnatural for her to overlook.
Tirek took no extra time the moment his transformation was completed. He raised both of his fists and slammed them hard on the ground, sending multiple cracks along it to where Chrysalis stood. From those cracks in the ground, the same ooze that was on Tirek and Cozy Glow leaked out to the surface, making an attempt to reach Chrysalis.
Chrysalis backed away. "What is the meaning of this? Get back! Get back!" Using magic, Chrysalis kept on shooting the dark ooze, before she had no choice but to fly off the ground to avoid it.
Cozy Glow finally moved, flying directly to Chrysalis at full speed. As a response, Chrysalis grabbed Cozy Glow with her magic and threw her away, careful not to touch the black ooze.
Tirek attacked once more, this time with magic. A ball of the dark ooze formed between his horns, before he unleashed a beam made entirely of it straight for Chrysalis. She dodged and retaliated with her own magic, but it did little, Tirek either taking the hit or blocking it with magic. A couple of times he fired right back, shooting his own magic or picking up whatever he could get and throwing it at her. His aggression was far superior compared to when Chrysalis last saw him.
It both impressed her and disappointed her.
Cozy Glow recovered from when she was thrown and was dashing right for Chrysalis. Chrysalis kept on shooting green beams of magic at her, but the corrupted filly kept on dodging every attempted strike. She swarmed past Chrysalis and flew around her like the annoying pest that she is, before finally attempting to cause damage to the enemy.
Chrysalis was fast to notice, and instantly maneuvered out of the way. Once again she grabbed and threw Cozy Glow aside, this time much closer to where Tirek was.
Slowly but surely, it started to become apparent that this was going to be a battle she would struggle with greatly. She wasn't going to give up though. She never gave up. She was a queen.
"If this battle has to last for days then so be it!" Chrysalis exclaimed, baring her vicious teeth. "I refuse to lose again, no matter who I am up against! And I never back down from a fight!"
Tirek and Cozy Glow just stared. Like they stopped. Like they knew something Chrysalis didn't.
She caught on quick. Her head turned to see what it was they were seeing.
Guards. Many of them. Both Celestia's and Luna's. All corrupted like her former allies were, and beginning to surround her to make sure she didn't get away. Their spears were raised and pointed, the ends of every single one dripping with the black ooze.
Immediately Chrysalis switched from fight to flight. She was outnumbered, and she wasn't going to be free only to fall to whatever this was.
But she couldn’t flee. They all closed in on her. She had no choice.
Chrysalis inhaled, exhaled, and gave it her all.
Using shields to block. Using attacks to shoot away the guards. Using her changeling magic to transform into something small to avoid it all. It was all a matter of survival.
Never in her life had Chrysalis faced so many enemies, head-on. The fact she was surviving and didn't even get a scratch both impressed her and left her irritated over how defeating foes like Twilight Sparkle or Starlight Glimmer should have been that easy.
Chrysalis was unfortunately too late to realize that her own cockiness led to the one second of distraction that caused her downfall. One second too early, she transformed from a ladybug back to herself, turned her head one way, and a guard jammed his hoof right into her eye. Chrysalis's flight suddenly shut down against her will, and she began to plummet to the ground. When she was close to the terrain below, another guard swatted her with a tendril made of the ooze, which somewhat broke her fall, resulting in her sustained injuries being far more minor. Her head however still began to undergo a throbbing pain and a sense of a loss of control.
Her mind was going blank. She felt like she was blacking out. She could feel the ooze starting to crawl on her chitin and expand, and she felt even more of it running down her damaged eye like tears. Hisses and whispers were all that she heard. What was left of her vision was blacking out, before her eyes rolled to the back of her head, completely cutting off sight. Her mouth began to stretch to a grin. She felt herself giving in to this entity’s control, and guard ponies began to surround her.
Control. A queen herself, falling under control of something else.
"No..."
Her voice gargled with distortion as the word was said. The growing smile stopped and started to change into a bitter snarl. She breathed heavily, her chest expanding and shrinking as she focused her mental energy on claiming her body, her sense of control. She was a queen! Not a mindless drone! And she wanted it to stay that way.
"No!..."
Her groans turned to distorted screams as her twisted face shrunk back to how it was. Her senses, while resisting, slowly came back as she used as much determination and strength as she has ever used helped her... even if it was slow. Her horn flickered as she tried to use her own magic over whatever this… “corruption”, she chose to call it… would make her do.
"NO!!!!"
In a sudden burst, a green shockwave burst from Chrysalis, sending back both guards and blobs of corruption. They all recovered and charged, and Chrysalis fought back faster, stronger, and in rage.
One guard dared to shoot her with a crossbow. She immediately took it away the moment the guard armed it, and shot that guard directly in the chest. She teleported away and snatched the arrows, before multitasking, knocking down guards with both her magic and a crossbow.
She wasn't one for crossbows... after all, since when has a Queen ever used them... but in the heat of the moment, she didn't care anymore.
And whenever she didn't have time to reload, or just eventually ran out ammo, she beat the guards down with the crossbow like it was a melee weapon.
When the dust settled, Chrysalis stood victorious. She realized that not all of the guards attacked. Many of them flew off. Tirek and Cozy Glow were nowhere to be seen. Chrysalis looked around, having to choose between running off or confronting the threat directly.
She chose the former, and opening her wings, quickly fled Canterlot.
She had her control back. But throughout the whole flight... something still felt off. Half of her vision was colorful and twitchy. And she still felt like there was some of the corruption on her body, in smaller amounts, but still present.
It then occurred to her to look at herself. It felt like some of the dark ooze was still on her hooves, mainly in the holes.
She stopped flying and for the first time took a good look at her hooves. As she suspected, small globs of the corruption were resting in the holes, threatening to drip and run all the way down her forearms.
Even then, it felt like there was more. She knew it was in her eye.
She had to see for herself.
Chrysalis dove down, looking down, hoping to find a body of water.
Soon enough, she did, and she got a good look.
Her right eye didn't just have some of the ooze in it: it was completely filled with it. Some of it was on the verge of dripping, but it all still clung to where it was sourced. The most noticeable thing was the green and white iris with the black pupil staring right back at her from her reflection.
Chrysalis wiped off some of the drippings from her eye, and silently looked at it. It didn't go anywhere. It just stayed.
Another realization suddenly came across Chrysalis. She felt her head, and came to realize that her crown was gone. She never noticed that it fell off during the fight. She growled... the crown, something that symbolized her authorative status, was now gone.
She looked at her reflection again. When she wiped her head, she subconsciously wiped off the corruption right where her crown used to be. Suddenly, the ooze fizzled, and began to take shape.
Chrysalis' smirked at what the shape turned out to be. A replica of her crown. It was completely made from the ooze... but it would have to do.
Her smirk was also due to what felt like a small victory. Everyone that she's encountered since she was free has fallen control to whatever this peculiar entity was. But not Chrysalis. Unlike everyone else, she could control it. She was the one in control... as she should be.
She flew off once more, lost in her own thoughts. Wondering about only one question on her mind
What now?
She couldn't proceed with anything at all if that... corruption was going to get in her way. If she wanted to enact her revenge, and take over all of Equestria, the corruption was going to have to go. It was an interference. She knew her odds of making the entity itself do her bidding were low. The only option was to beat it to make way for her own plans.
Her only allies were gone. She only had two options.
Fight it alone. Risk everything. Fight against who knows how many corrupted enemies, with some of them being who knows how powerful.
Or seek help.
But both had drawbacks.
Fighting alone would get her nowhere.
And she had no idea who was or wasn't corrupted.
Because if she couldn't get help from anyone that was evil like she was...
Then that left her with the most likely option. One she didn't even want to do.
She had a choice.