. “What did you do now?” he asked.“Ah, Chryssy. These bronies really are a subspecies of humanity, aren’t they?” asked Discord.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. In order to be a subspecies, you have to have a life! Ahaha!”
“You make me laugh so! Are you sure we can’t go off somewhere a little more private and 'alter reality'?”
“There’s a difference between you and me, Cordy,” said Chrysalis. “I’ve got a crooked horn, and you’re just a horny crook! Ahaha! And speaking of pitiful begging for my attention, how about tonight’s tale about the fanfic writer who found meeting me a life-changeling experience!”
“Dear me, is this a meta-story?” asked Discord.
“Sure! I always say that I never meta-story I didn’t like! Ahaha!”
“I guess the story will have lots of twists and turns! Ohoho!”
“What?” said Chrysalis.
“Turns. Because you turn into things.”
“Yeah, you haven’t got the whole wordplay thing quite down. See if you can’t learn something from this guy in ‘A Vice for the Love-Lore!’ Ahaha!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Oh, yeah. Out of school and time to troll the Internet!”
Harold threw his bag onto the couch and fired up his laptop. The first place to hit was the image board.
“Man, two more full pages on this bitch? They need to start moderating better.”
He opened the new images in separate tabs and started writing comments on each. For most, a simple “ur a faget” would do, but then he found a captioned one that he wanted to work on a little more. He started typing.
“All you losers who like Chrysalis aren’t even real bronies. She’s the villain. The VILL-AIN, get it? As in, you’re supposed to root against her, be happy when she loses. Seriously, I love MLP, but I like the good ponies, not the evil ones. And stop ragging on Celestia, while we’re at it. She sent ONE pony to the Moon ONE time. Kthxbai.”
His next stop was to FimFiction. “Only four stories about her today. Good, maybe they’re finally getting tired of her. OK, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down. Got that done.
As Harold went off to begin to cook dinner, he heard the familiar rising tone signaling an instant message was incoming. He sat back down and opened the window. It wasn’t from anyone he knew. The handle was “LuvEeter_2198” and the message was, “Hey, are you the guy who’s trolling all the Chrysalis fans?”
Harold was wary. He never used his real name on the internet, but it was possible that someone traced his e-mail address or something. He decided to play dumb.
“Sorry dude, think you got the wrong IM handle,” he typed.
Moments later the reply came through. “Don’t lie to me, little man. It’s not good for you,”
At that point he figured that whoever this person was, it was definitely someone he didn’t want to give any information to, so he ignored the message and went back to cooking. But as soon as he got up another message came through.
“Don’t get up and ignore me either.”
Now Harold was getting a little worried. He looked at his window to see if there was someone watching, but his blinds were down and it was impossible to see in. He looked over at the door just in case and saw that it was locked. He went back and typed in, “Who are you?”
“I am Queen Chrysalis herself. Stop interfering with the love of my fans, or it will not go well for you.”
Now he laughed. “Yeah, right. You trying to troll a troller,” he typed. “Good luck, whoever you are. Chrysalis Sux0rs, kthxbai.”
He got up and had his meal, ignoring the one more message that came through. Before he went to bed he shut down his computer, and saw the final message that was written.
“I warned you.”
*********************************************************************************************
The next day he came home the same as usual. He thought about hitting the My Little Pony sites first, then remembered the warnings of the previous day. “Feh, just some stupid troll,” he thought. “I’m not going to stop, but I am going to play my MMORPG first.”
Firing up his computer, he loaded the game, but it stalled when it tried to connect. He shut it down and saw that his network had no connection. He checked all the lines and found that everything was working up to the modem, but he still couldn’t get online. Figuring he’d call his ISP, he fired up his smart-phone and called up their web site, but it turned out that he had no connectivity there either.
“This is just great! Now I’m going to be offline all night!”
“A good bit longer than that, I’m afraid.”
He turned around and saw an eight-foot-tall black changeling in his room. Very suddenly, Harold’s belief structure shattered. Torn between panic and adrenalin, he started throwing whatever was near at the figure. When her horn glowed green and deflected all his missiles, his fear took over and he curled into a ball. “Don’t kill me!” he cried out.
“I’m not going to harm you, little human,” Queen Chrysalis said. “Not physically, anyway. I’ve simply come to stop you from, in your vulgar parlance, ‘trolling’ my loyal bronies.”
“What are you going to do?!”
“I’ve done it already. You are cut off from the internet entirely. None of the devices or methods that work to allow you access will function for you. Nor, if you ask another to write your lies for you will they be able to help.”
“How can you do that? The computer can’t know who’s typing at it.”
“I don’t presume to explain changeling magic to you, nor, if I did, would I expect you to understand. But Queen Chrysalis is nothing if not merciful. I will give you one opportunity to win my forgiveness and then I will undo the spell I placed on you.”
Facing the prospect of having to go through modern, twenty-first century life without the same advantage as everyone else, Harold relented. “What do I have to do?”
“First, go to your device and write about me. Write honestly and use all your skill. You need not praise me, but I expect you to give me my due.”
He was not much of a writer, and his skill was not enhanced by being watched over by a giant, fictional, magical beast, but over the next hour he had a decent essay about the queen. “Now what?” he asked.
Chrysalis’s horn turned green again. “I have lifted the curse. Go to the story site you have been trolling.”
Harold typed the address into his browser and was relieved when the site came up.
“Upload what you just wrote,” Chrysalis said.
“Aw, come on, everyone’s going to laugh at me.”
“Do it!”
Grumbling, he clicked the links to send a fic to the site, and saw it in the queue for approval.
Chrysalis cracked a sinister smile. “Only one more thing, and then I will leave you alone. Look into my eyes.”
Once more the changeling queen’s horn glowed, and Harold’s eyes went all . “What did you do now?” he asked.
“You’ll find out. I’m leaving now, and I promise you will never see me again.”
And then Harold was alone in the room. “Great. I can just delete what I uploaded. Stupid changeling bitch.” He sat down at the computer and moved his mouse to the “Revoke Submission” button, but hesitated. The moderators probably wouldn’t even approve it. He fired up his game and got to playing.
An hour later, he logged off the game and saw that his story was in the queue position for the front page, with position number 12. He hit refresh on the browser and it changed to 11. “I’d better take it down before someone sees it,” he said to himself, but again something stopped him. “Well, I’ll leave it up for maybe a day.”
He went off to bed. In the middle of the night he woke up and flipped open his laptop. He was still logged in to the site, and he had a private message alert and two notifications. The PM simply said that his story was approved. He clicked on the little fire icon. When the next page came up he read the first two lines on the list.
"PonyJoJo favourited Queen Chrysalis Made Me Write This 12:29 am”
"20PercentDerpier favourited Queen Chrysalis Made Me Write This 1:36 am”
“Cool,” he thought. “Couple of people liked what I wrote.”
He rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next morning, before going to the bathroom he peered at the screen and saw a (1) in front of the title on the taskbar. Clicking through the link he saw another notification line.
"Sparklight Twighle commented on your story Queen Chrysalis Made Me Write This 4:44 am”
He clicked through to the story itself and read the comment. “Pretty good, write moar pls.”
“Wow, someone really liked it. Maybe I should become a fanfic writer.”
He went off to perform his morning routine. After showering and brushing his teeth, he returned to the computer. “OK, come on, more likes,” Harold said, but when he brought up the site, the notifications icon read 0.
“Aw, come on, I was hoping for more.”
Then the PM icon changed from 0 to 1. He clicked on the message and saw the username “LuvEeter” again. The message had no subject, so he clicked through and read.
“Now you will learn what it’s like to feed on love and starve when you don’t get it. I suggest you get working on another story soon, as you will find that attention tapers off after the first few hours. And while I wouldn’t want to tell you what to write, let me just remind you that I have lots of fans who love to read about me!”
Harold felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. An empty feeling. He clicked back to the site and saw the icon read 0 again. He didn’t like seeing that.
He clicked over to the word processor and started to type.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Well, looks like I’ve certainly made an impression on that young man,” said Chrysalis. “He just wanted to play his online game. But now all he’ll be playing are hunger games! Ahaha!
“You certainly are cruel and ironic in your punishments. In fact, you’re a regular M. Night Sham-alan” said Discord.
Chrysalis just looked at the fourth wall.
“Sham, as in I’m a fake because I’m a changeling. You know, folks, it’s hard to play the dozens when this guy’s only sixes and sevens. In any case, my little emotional MRE’s, remember, ponies may say they want them more hay, but I need mi amore! Ahaha!”
End note: I don't know if I'll write any more of these, but these two were fun. If you have read to the end of this chapter, though, think before you click off: do you REALLY want to not rate, comment, or favorite this? 