Chrysalis was happy. She couldn't be more happy. She couldn't stop being happy. It was a method of reformation that was being tested out on the worst of the worst, the scummiest bunch in all of Equestria, and Chrysalis happened to fall in to that category. There was nothing that she could do about it.
Not that she was complaining. Not that she was unhappy. This was the happiest she'd ever been! For the first time in a long time, everything seemed right. No plans of domination to be worried about. No hive to control. All her life she had been at war with the reptilian part of her brain, the one that demanded survival, control of everything, and she was winning. It felt so good.
She wanted to get up and sing and dance and simply move, but that wasn't really an option right now, considering she was strapped to a table. That's okay, she decided. It was a nice table after all. Comfy. Plus, at the angle her head was tilted, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the little poster with the kitten, the one that said "Hang In There!". She liked that poster. It made her smile.
Sometimes her lips began to hurt from smiling. It wasn't terrible, just a dull throbbing. The pain went away usually after she took a nap. She wasn't sure why, but her favorite time of the day was when she was asleep. When she was asleep, she could dream she was somewhere else, being happy and doing happy things. When she woke up, she was still happy, but also kind of sad. This puzzled her, and puzzles are fun, so everything was as it should be.
Being strapped down, she had very little space to move around, but what little space she had, she took advantage of. She let her eyes wander across the blue wall. There looked to be darker patches where other posters might have at one time hung, or the same poster, the one that made her smile, had been moved from. If she really strained her eyes to look far enough to what she believed to be the north-north-east, she could just barely make out the crack where the door opened, also painted blue. She had never received a visitor, and that was fine. She was fine being happy by herself.
She made up jokes in her spare time, which was all the time. Some of them were pretty funny. She memorized every joke until she knew them by heart. She practiced her delivery until it was perfect. Having nopony to tell the jokes to she ended up just telling them to herself, and cracking up every time. "That was a good one," she would say "but you need to work on the punchline."
She never got hungry or thirsty. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was because of how happy she was. She believed that, no matter what your problems are, if you enjoy yourself enough, they'll just go away! That's how it worked for her anyway. Whenever she was feeling sad, she just decided to become happy, and nothing was ever wrong. Or maybe that was backwards. She gave up on that train of thought and continued being content, except more than content.
Sometimes, if she angled her right forehoof just right, she could slide it out on one of the indents, and tickle herself. This made her giggle, but not laugh, 'cause everyone knows you can't tickle yourself. That would just be silly. Sometimes she would tickle herself all day. One day she woke up and found her restraints to have been tightened ever so slightly. She could no longer fit her hoof out. At this point she remembered she had magic and tried to use it, to no avail. Oh well. She could tickle herself in her brain. Everything was perfect.
Every so often she would think of her past. She didn't know why, as she didn't think she was really happy back then, and she was happy now, so why bother even thinking about it, but she did anyway. She thought of all the buggies she played Simon-says with, except she was always Simon and she always said "Simon says". The buggies were really good. They never lost. She remembered having a giant pillow fight, the buggies against the non-buggies, except they weren't using pillows. She remembered watching her team win. It was like watching with thousands of eyes, which she thought must of made her look funny. If you had thousands of eyes on your face, you would fall over forward! If she remembered right, she didn't end up winning the pillow fight. That's okay though, 'cause there was a light show, and it looked really cool! Then she was skydiving. Then she was put in a bag. She didn't remember what happened after that though, 'cause for whatever reason she decided to take a nap. Then she woke up and saw the poster and was happy.
Occasionally, she would sing songs. They didn't always rhyme, or even make sense, but she liked them. Some of them were ones she didn't make up, but had heard somewhere before. In addition to those, she periodically heard bits and pieces of happy sounding songs as she woke up. They would always cut off before she could truly listen, and she enjoyed what she heard nonetheless. Every so often, she wouldn't worry about the words, just "La la la, doo dee da, wheeeeee!". She sang these kinds of songs really loudly.
She wondered if she would ever stop being happy. She knew that being happy was good, but she also knew too much of a good thing was a bad thing. Not that being happy was a bad thing. Being happy was a good thing. She knew because it made her happy. This puzzled her, but that's okay because she liked puzzles, and...
Employee # 15572 monitored her vital signs. It had been smooth sailing thus far. Whenever the machines detected a drop in dopamine or serotonin, they would automatically, by means of both magic and chemicals, working together, spike them back up. She was kept nourished by an I.V. Employee # 15572 thought it was a little bit messed up, the entire process, but as long as they were using criminals and not him for testing, he wasn't complaining. He was getting paid too well to complain.
He had watched this place being built from the beginning. The building itself was no secret. It was a regular lab on the outskirts of Canterlot. Celestia was determined to refrain from keeping secrets from her people, and had been successful so far. Security to get into the building itself was very minimal, and with permission, anypony could inquire as to what kind of research went on in the labs. Very few did.
When it came to leaving the building, things got a bit more complicated. Obviously, they couldn't allow their test subjects- err, the criminals to just up and leave, so they kept them heavily restrained. Suppressors were used to prevent the unicorns from using magic. A single elevator was used to get to the floor which held the criminals (B7), which could be turned off by the flip of a switch. Despite security measures,it was very unlikely there would be any escape attempts, considering the state the criminals were in. Who would want to leave when they're having the time of their lives? It was paradise. Kinda.
Employee # 15572 was one of several in charge of keeping track of their most important "resident": Queen Chrysalis. The decision to try out the experiment on her was made relatively quickly. After her shenanigans, she had been left incapacitated, leaving her, unlike many of the evil forces that had been thwarted, alive and mortal. Ripe for testing.
So they tested. While without the constant intake of drug- err, chemicals, she might have been destructive and seething, she seemed to always be calm and contemplative. She appeared to be on the path to reformation. The higher ups were glad she was reacting similarly to the rest of the facility's occupants. Less trouble for them.
Now and then there was some maintenance that needed to be done from inside the room, such as tightening a clasp that might have been slipped out of to escape, or wiping the drool off her face when too much had built up. Employee # 15572 and his coworker buddies drew straws, and on one particular occasion, he got the short straw.
They waited till she was asleep. When he got into the room, he wasted no time finding the correct tools and tightening the clasp. He had planned on exiting the room as fast as possible, but on the way out, he got a glimpse of her face. He was terrified. She no longer looked alive, just a hunk of flesh, or whatever it was changelings were made out of. He barely managed to not lose his lunch, and went back to work, manning the machines.
It would be a while before they could risk letting her free of her restraints. Maybe never. Until then, she would just go on, being happy. What else could anypony want?