“Hm... I don't feel anything... Have I arrived-?”
Opening her eyes, Chrysalis was shocked to find herself spiraling completely out of control down a long, swirling tunnel of blinding colors. Everything was going way too fast and Chrysalis saw her own body stretch and mold itself before her eyes. If she had a heart, it was beating at a rapid pace as the speed intensified and she was pulled towards a bright light at the end.
“WHAT'S HAPPENING??!? GYAAAAAAA!!!”
She closed her eyes and braced herself as she was about to make impact.
Seconds later...
Chrysalis moaned as she slowly stirred back to life. She re-opened her eyes and found herself lying on some stone pavement surrounded by grass.
Getting back up on her feet and shaking off the dizziness, Chrysalis barely managed to keep herself perfectly calm as she regarded her new surroundings.
“Where am I? What is this place?”
One thing was certain; She was no longer in Twilight's castle. She wasn't even in Ponyville anymore. Everything around her felt... different. Even the sun felt different somehow. Looking ahead of her, she noticed a large building that seemed to remind her of those pony schools she saw in Canterlot.
Looking back to see where she came, she was shocked to not only find a large statue of a stallion behind her, but that there was no doorway leading back. Did she just materialize out of thin air?
“What? But... But where's the doorway?” Nearly on verge of panic, Chrysalis quickly reached for the statue's pillar and breathed with great relief as she found the opening still there. It seemed to be part of the statue.
“Good... I'm not trapped here. I thought it would lead me through another mirror or something...” Pulling away from the statue, Chrysalis eyed her surroundings again. “Now then, what part of Equestria have I landed in?”
As she pondered, she noticed someone coming and quickly hid behind the one side of the statue to avoid being seen by the approaching pony. Her eyes widened more than usual when she discovered that the approaching pony wasn't a pony at all. It was some kind of bipedal creature she had never seen before, fully dressed and wearing some kind of backpack.
It didn't look like any creature she was familiar with. At first she figured it was some kind of minotaur, but it lacked many of the familiar features you would normally find on a minotaur.
“What in the Hive..? Where in Equestria have I landed? Wait... Is this Equestria?”
She looked around at the other nearby buildings and noticed they didn't have that familiar Equestrian design. She even saw a billboard with one the creatures advertising some kind of beauty product. She then noticed an approaching carriage that seemed to drive itself. As it passed her, she could make out another one of the creatures inside it.
She had seen similar self-pulling carriages like these in Equestria, but never this advanced. “No... This isn't Equestria... This is a whole new world! A world with no ponies!”
Chrysalis then smiled. “Well well well... Princess Twilight Sparkle has a whole new world hidden inside in her own castle. This is a surprise. Maybe she's princess here too?”
She then noticed a young couple of these creatures hanging out by the entrance to the building she assumed was a school. While observing them from afar behind the pillar, it wasn't hard for Chrysalis to tell which of them was 'mare' and 'stallion'.
She noticed they were holding hands. She also saw them laughing and giggling while blushing as they seemed to have a pleasant conversation. They shared a look that Chrysalis knew very well as she had seen that look anywhere in Equestria.
Love! These creatures were in love!
“So... There's love here too?” Chrysalis licked her lips. “Fascinating...” As much as she wanted to sample this new love, Chrysalis still didn't know what she was dealing with here. These creatures seemed harmless, but she didn't become the Queen of Changelings by being reckless.
She had to know more about this world, and only one place had the answer...
A few minutes later...
Back in Twilight's castle, two worried drones sat patiently by the mirror waiting for their Queen to return. Their concerned looks soon turned to joy as Chrysalis finally re-emerged from the mirror. They happily buzzed their wings and bowed as they cantered over.
“My Queen! You've returned!”
“My Queen! Are you alright? What happened? Did you find out where it leads?”
Chrysalis didn't answer. The world she had just seen still lingered in her mind. She needed to know more about what this world was. While asking a local would be considered easy, it would make things less risky by learning straight from the horse's mouth.
Or in this case, the alicorn's horn.
"My Queen..?"
“Quick! Search everywhere! Find me books! Journals! SCROLLS! Anything that has any mention of this mirror and the world it leads to!”
The two drones shared a confused look before one of them asked. “What world?”
“NOW!!!” She bellowed, sending them scattering around the library to begin their searching. “I need to know more about this world! Maybe the royal 'bookworm' has the information I need?”
Many hours later...
Chrysalis tapped her hoof on the floor in annoyance as she rested on a pillow by the mirror, with all sorts of books and scrolls littering the floor around her. Her drones had been searching aimlessly for hours trying to find anything about the mirror and she was beginning to get impatient.
“Ugh! Why is this taking so long?” She looked up longing at the mirror that was turned off at the moment. She groaned. “A whole new world is just waiting for me beyond that doorway, but I need to know what I'm up against here.”
Chrysalis had during her long hours of impatient waiting pondered how she was going to go about this.
At first she contemplated on simply taking the mirror back to the Badlands and set it up in her Hive. But the thing looked too heavy for only three changelings to carry, even with her magic. Another thing that bothered her was the machinery. Was it important? Was it needed to make the mirror work? Even so, it would only make things a lot more difficult.
She also considered simply sending one drone back to the Badlands to fetch more changelings, but the journey back and forth would take days, even in flight. Twilight would be back by then. And the ponies of Ponyville weren't that stupid. They would know something was up when random ponies suddenly started moving stuff out of the castle.
She could simply disguise herself as the princess to throw off any suspicioun, but with Canterlot's Royal Guard doing random patrols about Ponyville in search of any changeling threats, it was too much of a risk. It would quickly result in a one way ticket to Tartarus.
“No. This is the only way.” Chrysalis turned away from the mirror and breathed calmly. “Just relax. I'll get what I want soon enough. As a wise pony once said before I drained him; 'Good fortune come to those who wait.'.”
She closed her eyes and sighed, blissfully thinking of those 'lovelies' beyond the mirror that made her lips wet with drool.
“Yes... Just relax an-” Her stomach growled. “HAVE YOU FOUND ANYTHING YET??!?”
“I found something!” one of the drones finally yelled as he popped out of a pile of books with a journal in his mouth.
“Finally!”
Chrysalis quickly seized it with her magic and pulled it towards her, along with the drone as his fangs were still stuck to it. After shaking the drone off, Chrysalis looked at the cover.
“'Twilight's Portal Research'. Well done!” She patted the drone on his head. “This appears to be exactly what I am looking for.”
As Chrysalis eagerly flipped through its pages, the drone who found the journal painfully readjusted his jaw while his comrade joined up beside him.
“Let's see... Where-? Aha! Here we are. The mirror to the... Human World?” Chrysalis cocked her eye in confusion of the name. Shrugging it off, she continued reading. The two drones silently watched as she quickly read through the chapter, muttering to herself as she did and skipping a few notes.
“Alternate universe..? Human pony friends..? Principal Celestia..?! Flash is hot..??? Fascinating...”
Her eyes then suddenly widened and a large grin cracked across the surface of her face.
“NO MAGIC?!” she exclaimed. She tossed the journal in the face of one of her drones in excitement and quickly cantered over to the mirror. “A world with no magic! How wonderfully delicious!”
Her drones shared a look of confusion. Or rather, one did as the other still had the journal in his face. “My Queen?”
“No magic means no defense! No defense means instant takeover! MY TAKEOVER! A world just for me!” She squealed like an excited filly and clapped her hooves with joy. “This is positively perfect! I must have it!”
She pushed herself past her drones, giving one of them his sight back by knocking the journal off his face. She pulled the lever to activate the portal.
“My Queen?! Where-”
“Stay here!” she commanded as the portal opened. “I'm just going to go back over there and...” She licked her grinning lips “...and sample the 'hors d'oeuvres'.”
With that, she entered the mirror and disappeared.