//------------------------------// // Chapter 15: Ruin // Story: Five Score: A New Hive // by bossfight1 //------------------------------// Chapter 15: Ruin I lit up my horn, but Prima shook a hoof. “Ah, ah, aaahh… Have you forgotten about your Royal? What’s her name… Echo?” I grit my teeth and seriously considered putting a gaping hole in her face, but with an agitated growl I extinguished my horn. “Where is she?” “She is… relatively unharmed, for the moment. Funny, isn’t it? Your stubbornness has traded one bargaining chip for another…” Prima’s eyes fell on Liz; I protectively stood between them, glaring. Prima raised a black eyebrow at the gesture, and laughed. “So it’s true…” she said. “Our dear Queen has lost the will to lead.” “Look,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not, never was, and never will be, Chrysalis… I know I look the part, but… that’s just not me.” Prima sighed, almost pityingly. “So naive… but then, twenty-five years as one of these mongrels will do that to you, I suppose.” “What do you want with me?” I asked. “Why take Liz, if I’m the one you wanted? And what’s the deal with Halford, why are you working through him?” “Patience, dear Chrysalis…” Prima said, turning and beginning to pace around the room. While she wasn’t looking I noticed the exit. I looked at Liz and jerked my head towards it. She immediately shook her head, but I gave her my best impression of her “no argument” look. Liz hesitated, then nodded, her eyes full of reluctance. I turned back to Prima just as she turned back around. “You truly believe you aren’t our former Queen, yet you’ve proven to be quite adept at the common practice of the changelings- transformation, feeding, the preservation of food sources… You’ve even laid dozens of eggs within a week!” She looked at Liz again, who wisely stopped inching towards the exit. “Though, to be fair, you seem to have been eating healthily, hmm?” “What are you talking about?” I asked, once again stepping between Prima and Liz; I didn’t like the way Prima kept looking at her. “Must I spell it out for you?” Prima asked. “It takes a changeling months to train properly- feeding, subterfuge, all of it- and decades for a Queen to be ready to lead a Hive. But you mean to tell me you learned to be one of the most powerful beings on Equis… through guesswork?” She cackled, throwing her head back; Liz quickly took a few nervous steps towards the exit again. “It wasn’t hard to figure out…” I argued; I knew what she was saying, and it was just nonsense. “You think of who you want to be, you change form, maintaining a different form drains what… love you’ve fed on. Not that complicated! Plus Echo taught me a few things…” “And tell me, ‘Chris’...” Prima interrupted. “Echo instinctively knew of her place in a Hive, the place of her siblings, every nuance of a Hive’s inner workings…” “How do you know that?” I asked. She grinned maliciously. “Your royal’s telepathy isn’t so difficult to access. When I realized how you intended to cheat your way out of this little meetup, I immediately gauged her mind as to where you were, and what you were planning… Though, in hindsight, I should have expected as such. You always were the type to give demands, not adhere to them.” “Not when the demands are given by a bell-end like you,” I quipped. Prima’s nostrils flared. “Indeed, you have fallen, if your only hope is to resort to name-calling,” she growled. I smirked. “It seems to have ticked you off, so, hey, victory in my book.” “In any case, your Royal had the inner workings of a Hive imprinted upon her mind…” Prima continued. “Any imprints on a grub are left from the mind of the changeling that birthed them.” “But I had no idea about anything like that!” I argued. “Yeah, I knew about changelings on a basic level, but I didn’t know they could put people into a deep sleep and feed off of those… coma dreams!” “Truly?” Prima asked, her voice sickly sweet. “Are you so certain you remember nothing?” She approached, her voice becoming quiet. “Tell me… Over the past week, you must have been seeing something… some glimmer of the past, some memory, deeply buried, fighting to be unearthed…” I furrowed my brow, confused. Then… “Did you really think you could change things, dear Chrysie?” With a jolt like I’d remembered I’d left the oven on, I remembered that ‘dream’ from the night of my birthday. The two voices- one smug, one furious… both familiar. I shook my head. “What are you getting at!?” “I think you know exactly what I’m getting at!” Prima giggled. “What you’re getting at is batshit bonkers!!” I yelled, gritting my teeth so hard they threatened to shatter. “Are you honestly saying this isn’t my first time being… like this?!” But deep in my mind, something was stirring… Something that made fighting tooth and nail against Prima’s ludicrous claims more and more difficult. It hurt… My brain pulsed, feeling like it wanted to pop my eyes out from their sockets with each throb. With a gasp I fell to a knee, putting a hoof to my head. “Chris?” I heard Liz ask; I felt a hand fall on my back. “It seems there’s a part of you that doesn’t wish to deny the truth…” Prima said smugly. “And what of you, human? Surely you’ve seen signs… Signs that ‘Chris’ was changing in more ways than one…” Liz said nothing, her hand becoming stiff on my back. My heart sank; I remembered exactly why I’d locked myself in the basement for the past few days. My temper, the measures I was willing take to keep myself- and my children- safe from discovery… Another point for Prima. “Perhaps I can aid you…” Prima said, stepping forward. Now it was Liz’s turn to step up, standing between me and Prima. The Queen chuckled. “Fear not, this won’t hurt… Assuming Chrysalis can accept what I am about to show her.” I looked up and saw her horn light up, a sickly dark red like fresh blood. “Get away…” Liz began, but a red aura appeared at her side and, gently but firmly, pushed her aside. Prima approached, leaned down, and pressed her horn to the tip of my own. The entire world seemed to black out of existence; for a moment I thought I’d lost consciousness. Then, as if I was waking from a dream, the world around me faded back into view. Liz, Prima and the warehouse were gone. I was floating, unsupported, without the slightest flutter of my wings, over what appeared to be a barren desert, nothing but sand and rock as far as the eye could see under the gray sky. Rising from the ground appeared to be columns of rock, littered with holes, like a termite nest. Or… I felt a pang in my stomach. Almost unbidden, I floated towards one of the stone structures and into one of the holes in the middle. It was pitch black inside, yet somehow I just… knew what was there, like when you’re in your bedroom with the lights turned off, yet can easily find your bed. The tunnels winded downwards, torrents of dust floating down with each gust of dry wind that entered the column’s many holes. I followed the tunnels downwards, not fearing I would get lost in the black labyrinth. As I descended the pain in my stomach worsened; from the back of my mind I could feel a deep sense of despair, horror and anguish. I couldn’t fathom why, but at the same time the answer seemed obvious… There was something down here I didn’t want to see. The tunnel expanded at the very bottom. I was in an immense cavern, a faint green glow emanating from the very middle of the ceiling. I could see a solidified substance lining the walls, floor and ceiling… The goo. The very goo that I’d decorated my basement with. But this… amber, I think Echo had called it, from the signs of dust, had been untouched for… decades, it looked like. I moved down towards the center of the room. There appeared to be some kind of rubble strewn across the floor… But that didn’t make sense. The ceiling hadn’t caved in, why would there be rubble-- The stomach pangs peaked when I caught a glimpse at something reflecting the light up above. I knelt down… It was an eye. The open, glassed-over eye of a dead changeling. My mouth quivered with horror as I noticed another next to it… And another… And another there, several there-- Oh, god, they were everywhere… Countless dead changelings, strewn across the floor, their chitinous bodies cracked and dusty… They hadn’t even rotted away. They hadn’t fallen in battle- no, nothing so quick. They had… “Starved…” I whispered, wanting to find someplace to throw up. “Yes,” came a familiar voice. I turned to see Prima standing some distance away. “You have some knowledge of what happened in Equestria- you and many others, as it turns out. Tell me, what happened to the ponies?” “They…” I said, my voice cracking. “Discord turned out to be a… a traitor the whole time, he’d been playing them… He betrayed Celestia, and started… doing something to everypony… He started with the Mane Six, and…” My mind started drawing blanks on the series finale. “I don’t know what happened afterwards…” “You’re thinking about this… show, aren’t you?” Prima asked. “Don’t think about that, Chrysalis… Remember. Look about you… What happened to you? What happened to us?” From the depths of my mind I began to… remember. Memories that had never thought to speak up until now. “They died…” I said, choking back a sob. “The changelings died… With the ponies gone, they… had nothing to feed off of… Chrysalis tried to fight Discord, but I couldn’t do anything--” My hooves flew to my mouth. “What did I just say?” Prima smiled. “Starting to get it now?” Canterlot was in my sights. Its once purple roofs and marble-white buildings now painted a ridiculous number of colors, twisted into the subjects of some maniac’s twisted fantasies. The skies overhead were laden with pink clouds, raining… chocolate milk. Just like last time. I paid none of it any heed as I flew over the city. It had felt so long since I’d last been here, laying siege to the city, seeking to secure a prosperous future for my subjects… To think, now I was here to bring an end to the one responsible for its downfall. There he was. He was playing some ball-maze game with the Canterlot Hedge Maze, lifting the landscape the gardens were planted on like an enormous tray and tilting it, to allow an enormous beach ball to roll along the walls. The very sight of him made my blood boil. I lit up my horn. “DISCORD!!” I fired a blast at him. He cast a casual glance at me, then dropped the gardens, the landscape landing on the ground with a cataclysmic crash. He deflected my blast away like an errant insect and floated towards me, grinning madly. “Chryssie! How good to see you… Care to join in the festivities?” He asked, gesturing to his new kingdom grandly. “You KILLED THEM ALL!!” I shrieked, throwing a barrage of blasts at him. Discord’s smile faded; with a single wave of his talon the blasts turned into candy… He caught one of them and took a bite out of it. “Who are we talking about?” He asked after he swallowed. “Ah, yes, your subjects… Terrible shame, that…” He didn’t even pretend to have the slightest bit of remorse. With a roar I flew towards him. If my magic couldn’t hurt him, I could find some way to make him hurt- I’d even gore him with my horn, anything to make him bleed. With a flash, he vanished. I stopped and frantically looked around, snarling. “Yoo-hoo!” I heard him call from below. I looked down to see him strolling casually through the hedge maze. With a roar I fired volley after volley of blasts at him. Within seconds the maze was alight. Discord strode along the flaming hedges, not paying the fire any mind as he hummed the most infuriatingly cheerful tune. What little control I had left vanished. With a scream I divebombed towards him; I wanted to hurt him, beat him, kill him… Make him feel the pain I was feeling, the pain my people felt as they starved… He casually turned around and, with another lazy flick of his eagle claw, sent me flying back as though I was struck by the tail of a dragon. I flew backwards and felt myself crash through glass. I rolled end over end and landed heavily on a tiled floor. My body was covered in scrapes and cuts from the window, tiny bits of glass sticking from my chitin, and my eyes were blurred from the impact. Shaking my head I stood up, my legs screaming with the effort. My vision cleared. Fate was, indeed, cruel; I was standing in the Canterlot Chapel- the very room in which my plans had nearly succeeded, the room where I had overpowered Celestia, and nearly taken Equestria as my own… A flash made me look down the aisle I’d walked down, years ago. Discord was floating some feet above the ground, his arms crossed, raising an amused eyebrow. “Are we done?” He asked, patronizingly. With a roar I extended my wings. The simple act made me yell and look back- they were torn and dislocated from my landing. I lit up my horn and turned back to him-- I hadn’t heard him move- he was but a foot in front of me. He caught my horn with his lion’s paw, with the air of a parent scolding a misbehaving child. He lifted me up, holding my face to his. He regarded me for a moment, then grinned madly. “Did you really think you could change things, dear Chryssie? Did you honestly think rising against me would bring your precious food back?” “Shut up...” I hissed, flailing in his grip. “I suppose I should have seen this coming,” he said, shaking his head. “In a world where there is only my beautiful chaos, love is swept under the rug as well as friendship and harmony and all that other tripe.” “I... will... kill you...” I growled, wanting to bite him, to rip his throat out, to punish him... “And that will magically save your kind? Bring them back from extinction?” He chuckled. “Did you even think this through? Whatever the case, as much as I’d like to punish you for your hubris, I have other matters to attend to, so let’s just get this out of the way, hmm?” He raised a single talon. “For Five Score! Divided by Four! Your memories removed, your body confused! For your insolence you must pay, Cast off to a land far far away! To scatter the six, just the start of my tricks! Your mind shall be weak, your outlooks bleak! Forgetting everything and living like a fool, You have all lost, now no one can stop my rule!” I shut my eyes. I sat on the floor of the cavern, tears streaming from my eyes. Twenty-five years… Twenty five years, I’d been living a lie… Yet somehow, this didn’t upset me nearly as much as the corpses strewn around me. My subjects… no, my children… All dead… because of him. “Now do you see?” Prima asked, her voice cold. “He killed us all…” I said, my voice faint. “No, Chrysalis…” Prima said. “You did.” I looked up at her. “What?” “When Discord began his rise to power, it was clear the ponies couldn’t hope to win against him,” Prima said. “We should have turned our gaze elsewhere, to find somewhere Discord couldn’t be bothered to torment… But you…” she grit her teeth. “You were too stubborn. You asserted that Equestria was the most viable source of food for us… You refused to relinquish your claim… You ordered us to swarm the land, to take as many ponies as possible… But you were foolish. You acted too late. Discord had already either banished the ponies, corrupted or changed them, all to suit his vision. By the time you realized this, it was far, far too late… Our people began to starve out, too weak to head elsewhere… They all died…” Her eyes flashed with hatred. “Because of you.” I said nothing, looking down at the corpses lining the tomb. “And rather than flee yourself, find some place where you could rebuild our shattered kingdom… You threw yourself, foolishly, against Discord, putting up one last pitiful effort to bring the ponies back.” She was suddenly next to me; she grabbed my head and forced me to look around the chamber. “All this…” she hissed, gesturing with a foreleg. “All of this happened, Chrysalis… because of YOU!!” She released me and hovered away. My heart was hollow… No room for grief, hate, or anything… I had nothing left. I wished I’d been left as a human… At least then I’d never remember the result of my stupid, stupid choices… The world blinked out again. When it returned I was back in the warehouse. Liz was at my side, shaking me. “Chris? CHRIS!” I looked at her. She had that look in her eye… The fear that she’d almost lost me. No… that she’d almost lost Chris Barton. Could I still call myself that? Was that truly who I was, or was it just some shell I’d been forced into, and had shed one week ago? Could I really hope to keep any ties to that life now? I looked away from her and over to Prima. “So now you see…” she said. “Chris Barton was a shell, a false name given upon your exile. Yet even now, with your true form restored, your time as Queen has ended. Your actions nearly destroyed us, Chrysalis… I was the sole surviving member of our race, under hiding in Zebrica. I’d found an old pair of zebras who I could encase and feed off of, yet my place as a Drone meant I had no hope of becoming a queen and beginning anew… Then, five days ago… Discord came to me.” “Chris, what is she talking about?” Liz asked; I ignored her. “You’re probably aware of the other ponies springing up across this world?” Prima asked. “Such events cannot transpire without causing a little… mayhem. Why, you yourself caused a fair deal of chaos last week, in that fool Bedford’s car. Discord feeds off of chaos, Chrysalis- he is aware of when it happens, where it happens… And when he realized that the lot of you would eventually piece together what had happened- the Elements of Harmony, in particular, he realized the world he’d worked so hard to build was at risk. So he came to me for aid…” “How’d he find you?” I asked. “Oh, he always knew where I went… I suppose he kept an eye on me as I fled the land, in case he found use for me… He came to me and offered me a deal- one that I would be a fool to turn down. If I offered my allegiance to him, he would grant me the powers of a Queen, and allow me to return our people to their former glory!” “Naturally, I accepted. He granted me this beautiful form…” she floated a few feet into the air, motioning grandly at her corrupted body. “Then he sent me here- to where he found you. I needed time to put together what numbers I could, so I… blended in.” She gestured towards the crate in the cage containing the corpse. “A week ago I took on the form of the one man trusted most by that fool, Bedford, and began manipulating him to arrange this little meeting. And afterwards, Bedford’s resources can prove very useful… His mining company has left countless places for new hive clusters, all across this nation. In a few weeks we can begin to blanket this whole planet.” “Why not just come to me?” I asked. “Why go after Liz?” She scoffed. “Discretion is the very last word in changeling tactics, Chrysalis… If I were to storm into your home, who knows what would have happened… You may have struck back, drawn attention to us, ruined everything… No, I had to draw you out for a little chat… And away from your fresh clutch. Figured it would be best to get started right away…” I wanted to feel the slightest bit of anger or hatred at the way Prima grinned at me, a smile of malevolent, smug self-satisfaction… But the image of the dead hive- my kingdom- was still burned in my head, making the mere act of standing up a labor in of itself. I didn’t even latch onto the hope that Echo, Shift, Digit and Ray had gotten out of there… Really, what would it matter in the long run? Liz’s hand had tightened on my shoulder; she fell to her knees and tried to make me look at her. “Chris?” She whimpered. Prima seemed invigorated by my lack of defiance, and continued her monologue. “With the resources provided by that fool Bedford, we will swarm throughout this world in secret, and eat our fill! Then we will lay siege on the other kingdoms of Equis- Zebrica, the Griffon Empire, the Minotaur Tribes, all of them… Discord’s chaos will blanket the world, and we will thrive! THRIVE!!” A hint of mania filled her eyes as she relished in the opportunity laid out before her. Her gaze fell upon me again. “That’s why I need you, Chrysalis… Your time as Queen is over, but you still have unprecedented value.” “How?” I asked. Prima gestured at the goo pile some distance behind her. “As you can see, the changelings I’ve birthed are mere shades of our former glory. Perhaps it is because of my being a drone; maybe I just need time to adjust to Discord’s magic. Such is the nature of evolution.” She grinned hungrily at me. “But you… You are the key, Chrysalis… a Queen in her prime, still capable of laying hundreds of eggs in a short span of time…” “So you’d be in control of my children,” I said in a monotone. “I’d lay them, you’d control them…” Prima nodded. “With Discord’s magic I can make the changelings loyal to me, and me alone. Within weeks my Hive will stretch all throughout this nation… then the world.” (In my despair I somehow found it in me to imagine her donning a monocle, top hat and evil, curly mustache, laughing maniacally.) I didn’t bother to argue, to fight, do anything… Prima was right. My choices nearly killed us. In retrospect, I didn’t deserve these past twenty-five years… I didn’t deserve to be as happy as I had been with Liz. Really, this would be a fitting punishment. What could I do, anyway? Prima was obviously doped up on Discord’s magic, I couldn’t hope to fight her. She and her- or rather, my children, would swarm the world, they’d find all the other ponies, and Discord’s victory would be absolute, though I had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t hold up his end of the bargain with Prima. The garage doors opened. Six suited men entered the warehouse, nonplussed by Prima and I; they were either changelings, or mind-drugged humans. “Take Chrysalis to the Hive,” Prima instructed. “And bring the human--” “No.” All heads turned to my sudden outburst as I stood up, giving Prima a steely glare. “I’m who you want, just… Just let her go.” Prima gave me an amused look before chuckling. “Very well… It’s not like she can do anything.” She motioned with her head towards me. One of the suited men stood beside Liz, giving her an intimidating glare. “Bring her back to her home and keep an eye on her, nonetheless. The rest of you, bring our dear Queen to the Hive.” I turned without a word as the remaining men stood around me. I began to walk towards the doors… “Chris!” Liz cried, her voice cracking. She bolted in front of me and held my face in her hands. “Chris, please, tell me what’s happening!!” I gazed sadly into her eyes. “Liz, I…” I took a deep breath. “I’m not Chris Barton. I’ve… always been Chrysalis… Chris is gone… He can never come back.” I blinked tears from my eyes. “But I want you to know, that these past few months… The time I spent with you, I… can never express how much they’ve meant to me. Chris-- I, loved you… I… still do.” “Chris…?” Liz asked, tears streaming down her face. “But we can never go back…” I said. “God knows I wish we could, but… we just can’t. Liz, I… need you to… to move on. Forget about me, find someone who can… Who can love you the same way I do…” I leaned in, pressing my head against hers; she was openly crying now, and if this went any longer I’d break down as well. “I love you, Liz…” “Enough of this!” Prima barked. “Bring the human home, and get this fool out of my sight!!” Liz was pulled away from me. She pulled against the guard, sobbing. “Chris! CHRIS!!” She screamed, struggling weakly as she was taken from the warehouse. I walked solemnly after her. Outside the warehouse, in addition to the car I’d seen on my way in, was a large black van. As the rear doors were opened for me I wordlessly climbed in and laid down, trying desperately to put Liz’s cries out of my mind. Two of the guards sat in the back with me, but it really wasn’t necessary; I wasn’t gonna put up a fight. The other two got into the front; the van rumbled to a start. I laid my head down on my forelegs and shut my eyes. At this point, dreams were the only hope I’d have for some genuine happiness.                 -                -                -                -                - I watched as the van drove away, up the dirt road with Chrysalis in tow. I then turned as the other car, containing Chrysalis’ human mate, began to pull away. “My Queen?” The remaining drone asked, having stayed behind to keep guard. “We’re not bringing the human girl home, are we?” I chuckled at how it sounded like he already knew the answer. “The love she has for Chrysalis knows no bounds… Have her put in the amber at the Hive… Just make sure Chrysalis never finds out.” The guard nodded. “Yes, my Queen.” He turned, took his true form, and flew off into the night. I grinned as I looked up the dirt road, just as the van holding Chrysalis rounded a corner and went out of sight. A new era for our people had begun.