A village west of the Everfree.
Eighteen years ago.
The young pegasus mare ran frantically through the earth pony village. She stopped at the entrance of the market co-op. “Uncle Flax!” she exclaimed. “Something’s happened to all the other ponies.”
“‘Uncle?’” the normally serene stallion thundered at her. “Where do you get off calling me ‘uncle’? You’re nothing to me!”
“But Uncle…?” she blubbered.
“What are you even doing here?” he demanded, pulling one of her wings outward with a hoof in contempt. “A pegasus will never learn my traditions. You’ve been wasting my time; you’ve been wasting all of our time! Go back out into the forest and die, like the worthless insect you are!”
The young pegasus burst out into fresh tears, and ran off across the street, to the local bakery. “Aunt Croissant!” she exclaimed. “Something’s happened to all of the other ponies.”
“‘Aunt’?” the normally smiling mare shrieked at her. “You don’t deserve to be related to me!”
“But Aunt…?” she—
“Stop, stop, stop!” a voice declared, causing the dream to freeze.
All except for the protagonist of the dream, who looked around her in confusion.
The owner of the interrupting voice, an adult version of the pink pegasus, rubbed the top of her muzzle with a hoof with exasperation. “I get that everypony had lost the ability to love, and that was really bad,” she said. “I really do. But can we move on from that?”
I should stop at this point to explain. Like Princess Luna, Queen Chrysalis had the ability to dreamwalk…but only through the dreams of ponies trapped in her cocoons. That was how she learned how to impersonate her victims, and she had the ability to implant that information into the minds of her nymphs, so they might be able to do the same, with any luck. (The same spell partially protected those changelings from other effects, one of which you will learn about shortly.) Right now, Chrysalis wanted to know two things from the dreams of Princess Cadance:
First, more information about Twilight Sparkle and her circle of heroes. She absolutely didn’t want to mess up her Princess Cadance impersonation in front of the few ponies capable of taking her on in a fight.
And second, she wanted to know all about how Cadance became an alicorn, now that she knew that she wasn’t born that way. The stuff earlier about the magic- and love-drained ponies was interesting, like how it was the same but different from what her changelings did when they “finished off” one of their victims. But the ascension bit was crucial.
“Why don’t we skip ahead to the cottage of the enchantress…Prismia, was it?” the older Cadance asked her counterpart with a sickly-sweet smile.
The young Cadance nodded. “That was her name. Prismia.”
“Perfect!” the older Cadance exclaimed. “Show me the interior of her cottage, and how you, a mere pegasus, figured out how to use her unicorn magic against her, and became an alicorn.”
“Oh, it wasn’t unicorn magic,” the younger Cadance explained. “After I cured her, Prismia told me that the gem had actually—”
“QUEEN CHRYSALIS!”
The dream fractured, and Queen Chrysalis suddenly awoke.
The caverns beneath Canterlot.
An hour before the start of the last chapter.
Chrysalis saw Cadance begin to violently struggle from within her greenish-yellow cocoon. Chrysalis touched the surface of the object she was named after, and her hoof began to glow as she sent mental commands into the slumbering princess’ mind.
“Your Majesty…” the voice said insistently.
“If you would prefer to retain your head upon your body,” Chrysalis said absently without looking back at the source of the voice. “You will wait five Celestia-damned seconds for me to stabilize our most-important asset.”
“Ye—” the other changeling began to say.
“Not. One. Word!” she hissed.
There was no reply.
Chrysalis smiled to herself. Obedience. Pure unquestioning obedience. That truly was what made life worth living.
Finally, she finished putting Cadance back into a dreamless sleep.
She turned and faced her lieutenant, Commander Pharynx. “Yes?” she asked in a dangerous tone.
Pharynx looked over her shoulder at Cadance’s cocoon. Slowly his head tilted until it was in the same orientation as the captive’s.
Chrysalis looked impatiently between the changeling and the pony. “Well, what is it? Why did you interrupt me?”
Pharynx’s head turned upright again, as he realized that he had completely forgotten why he was here. “Um…uh…” he began. If he could sweat, he would, because he was fairly certain he was about to be eviscerated.
“Oh for crying out loud…” Chrysalis said under the breath. With a rapid tug, she used her telekinesis to pull the commander across the room until he was right in front of the cocoon. “Feed,” she instructed him.
Without hesitation, Commander Pharynx opened his mouth and began to pull love out of the unresisting captive.
Queen Chrysalis watched the transaction proceed with a cold calculating stare and as soon as she judged that the nymph had enough magic to function, she cut it off. “Now what is it?”
“Oh!” Pharynx exclaimed. “I remember now!” He marveled at how well he was able to see everything.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. She loved keeping her nymphs from ever pupating, she really did. Because it guaranteed her an endless supply of unquestioning obedience. But the decision did have one consequence that really annoyed her: she was the only one with a fully functioning brain in the entire hive. Now if she could only figure out a way to have intelligent minions that never, ever questioned her, she would be set for life.
“Well spit it out!”
“Right!” he exclaimed. “Thorax has found something in the Royal Gardens that you really need to see.”
Chrysalis groaned. “What was he even doing there? I said that the Grand Galloping Gala was completely off-limits to all changelings! It contains far too many unconverted targets, and the other Bearers besides Twilight, none of whom I have been able to study in enough detail to handle safely.”
“His disguise was assigned to look after the pony nymphs at the party,” answered Pharynx.
“And as usual he wasn’t smart enough to talk his way out of a suicidal assignment. Can’t you bail him out like you always do? Oh, and don’t call them ‘nymphs’ in front of other ponies. They call them ‘colts’ if male or ‘colt-lettes’ if female.”
Pharynx knew that the last part she said was wrong. He wanted to remain living, so he decided not to correct her. “Yes, but he found something. He found It.”
“What do you mean he found…” Chrysalis’ eyes went wide. “Is he sure?” she whispered.
Pharynx was stunned—it was the first time he had ever seen fear on the face of his dread mistress. “He knew, Majesty. Can’t you feel…It?”
Chrysalis closed her eyes and hummed softly. She turned her head around slowly, until her eyes popped back open, and she found herself looking towards a spot on the surface that was almost certainly the Gardens.
“By Celestia’s favorite hair tie,” she swore under her breath. She then put a hoof to her head and focused, sending a mental command out to all changelings in Canterlot: ‘Return immediately to the Catacombs and await further instructions. Your life, and far more importantly my plans, depend on it.’
Chrysalis put on her Princess Cadance disguise. After looking thoughtfully at the cocoon for a moment she summoned up a fancy dress around herself as well. She picked up the purse that Cadance had been captured with and inspected herself with the mirror she found inside. She looked up to see that Pharynx had disguised himself as one of their newer captives: Captain of the Guard Shining Armor. “What are you doing?” she asked flatly.
“I’m coming with you. To give up my life if need be so you can do what you need to do. And to give you advice.”
With a glower she filled up all of his personal space, glaring down at him. “You forget your place, worm! You wish to give me advice? You? You are a child, while I have ruled for a thousand years. I have led your ancestors through every trial that Celestia and her ponies have inflicted upon us. I single-hoofedly oversaw the extinction of the Sirens—the greatest threat to our entire existence! You may be my right-hoof changeling, but you are not worthy of protecting me, and you never will be!”
Pharynx dropped his disguise and fell flat on the floor. “Please do not smite me, Oh Exalted One!” he cried. “It is true that I am not worthy!”
Chrysalis sighed at the pathetic display and yanked her Commander up to his hooves. “Listen closely, because I’ll only tell you once,” she addressed him. “There is an extremely small chance that I will not come back alive. If that happens you will automatically become King, and wow, I sure wouldn’t want to be you when that happens!
“Far more likely is that we’ll have the entire city by the morning, and the whole of Equestria by Tuesday. Now the love you just wasted in that transformation will soon leave you back to being a starving idiot, so try to remember this: Stay. Here. Stay here. Here. Don’t move from this spot. Can you do that for me?”
Pharynx frowned at her. She was talking about her own death, and now treating him like he was a moron. “Yes,” he said patiently.
“Good!” Chrysalis exclaimed. She patted him on the head. “Good nymph.” She walked out the door and was somewhat surprised when he didn’t follow her. “Good nymph!” she repeated in her most-patronizing tone. “Staaaay.” And then she walked away, swinging her purse back and forth like a colt-lette would.
‘Colt-lette’? Was that right? Pharynx asked himself as his thoughts grew fuzzy once again. What am I supposed to do now?
Faintly he heard Cadance’s voice call out to the forty or fifty changelings in the main cavern that Pharynx had passed on the way here: “Changelings! I will be taking all of your magic—do not dare resist me!”
He looked at the captive in confusion. Which one was the real Cadance? he thought in simple befuddlement.
Princess Cadance strode into the ballroom like she owned the place.
“Princess!” some nameless jackal exclaimed. “Quelle surprise! Shouldn’t you be at the soup kitchens right now?”
“Don’t mix your languages,” Cadance replied sweetly. “It makes you sound like a pretentious ass.” She looked over at one of the servants, an ass. “Aren’t I right?”
The Prench ass, not used to being noticed, looked around in confusion. “Um…oui?”
Cadance gave the poor servant a look that would have melted iron. And then she remembered herself, and began speed-walking right through the ballroom, her dress sticking to her like it was a part of her body. (This is why changelings shouldn’t include clothes in their transformations.) “I’m sorry, mares and gentlecolts,” she said to anybody who would hear her. “I have a top-secret mission in the garden, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you with who! Please don’t follow me—I wouldn’t want Princess Luna to have to melt your brain!” She then put on a pretty unconvincing look of shock. “Oops! I mean, something bad might happen, from the secret pony I’m meeting!”
The ponies—most of them nobility—had no idea what to do with this very uncharacteristic utterance from the Princess of Love. So they just collectively shrugged their shoulders and waited for tomorrow—the paparazzi always ferreted out the truth in cases like these.
Chrysalis, still in disguise, made her way unerringly through the garden until she arrived at an unmistakable statue.
Still March 20th. “The Return of Harmony”.
After using her emotion detection sense to ensure that nopony was around to stop her, she dropped her disguise and immediately sent all of her stored magic into the statue. More and more and more, until…
With a mighty cry of pent-up frustration, the Almighty Discord was finally released from His stony prison.
“I was tricked!” was the first thing that Discord said. He looked around him, muttering, “When I get a hold of those two conniving Princesses…” His eyes then settled on the prostrate form of His liberator. “Ah, Chrysalis! My most-loyal creation! Unlike certain individuals…”
“I live to serve you, O Master!” Chrysalis proclaimed from her prone position, using the exact same simpering tone that she demanded that her subjects use with her.
“And you have freed Me!” Discord proclaimed, stepping down from His pedestal and raising Chrysalis back up to her hooves. (It was alright…He still towered over her.) “You hate all ponies, yes? I ask because of a certain Siren that failed me in that regard…”
“I hate all ponies!” Chrysalis quickly proclaimed. All ponies but the late Meadowbrook, she thought to herself. And I have long since avenged her death, she added in her thoughts, so that I would owe nothing to the mare.
“Excellent! You and your kind will be richly rewarded. But first…to business! I was frozen by a pair of unique artifacts…the Elements of Harmony. Do the Princesses still bear them? Do they still live? Please tell me they died horribly…”
“Alas, the Princesses still live and rule Equestria, My Master,” Chrysalis told Him. “Luna…and that insufferable idiot Celestia. The Elements have been split—they are now six in number. But the Bearers are all together, there in that palace.”
Discord looked in the direction indicated. Then He looked around Him. “Ugh!” He exclaimed. “What is this mess?”
“This is a ‘garden’,” Chrysalis said with some disdain. “The ponies’ version of your Nature.”
“This is an abomination!” Discord exclaimed. “A mockery of My Nature. How typical of the ponies, to ruin every natural thing they touch.” He looked over at the lit-up palace. “When I am done their entire civilization will be uprooted, from highest pediment to lowest sub-basement!”
“…‘Pediment’?” Chrysalis said with slight distaste.
“Yes, I know,” Discord said quietly. “Being the embodiment of all life means that I am infected with all things pony, including their uncontrollably swelling vocabulary! Oh, how I wish for the day when this pony plague is pitifully purged, so I might once again be a pure Being with an empty vocabulary! On that day, the monsters will finally cease to exist, and Reason will die forevermore, replaced by pure Savagery!”
Chrysalis shook in fear, unnoticed by the Creator of Monsters. She prided herself on her reason and found the prospect of becoming indistinguishable from the common animals as a particularly horrible fate. But the might of Discord was unstoppable, so what else could she do but follow Him over the cliff of her own existence? A tiny, insignificant part of her hoped that Discord would fail in His plan, as all of His previous plans had failed.
And right now, He was telling her of that very plan: “I will begin that promised destruction…tonight!” In Chrysalis’ eyes the mismatched god seemed to swell and grow in terror with every word: “I may not be able to destroy this stain of Ponykind with a single thought, but for two days I will inflict a shock of horror, of shame, so devastating that the tale spread by the witnesses alone will do most of My work for Me!”
“H…how will you do it, O Lord?” Chrysalis asked, having fallen back into a full bow once again.
“A night of Hate, followed by a day of Lust,” Discord replied, the most-wicked imaginable grin upon his features. “Night is best for violence, while the day is best for passion, don’t you think dear Chrysalis?”
Chrysalis thought for a moment, of how hollow a victory it would be for her, if she took over a city that had already been torn to pieces by an orgy of violence. “Couldn’t You maybe reverse the two? And maybe put a month or two between Steps B and A?”
“You forget your place, worm!” Discord said as He towered over her.
Chrysalis fell over like a startled goat, complete with a bleat.
“Get up!” He commanded, and her body obeyed before she had time to process it with her mind. “Run along and be quick about it. And no, I won’t give you enough magic to put your disguise back on—that’s what you get for back-talking Me. In about thirty seconds the height of Pony Civilization will be at each other’s throats, and it would be a pity if My liberator was inadvertently torn to shreds in the melee…”
“Eep!” And a second later she had sprinted out of sight.
With a disgusted sigh, Discord crouched down, laying all four of His hooves and claws upon the earth. And then He began to Pull all of the magic He could reach into Himself, enough to cast the first of His two dread spells of irresistible mind control.
A black creature, with features of both a pony and an insect, raced through the ballroom.
“Monster!” a guard cried out, starting a panic.
It turned out to be a very short-lived panic.