chapter twenty six
Changeling Heart and the New Moon
chapter twenty six
There is perhaps a part of the soul that, unburdened with the distractions of conscious thought and memory lurks in the quiet. It ponders the greater things and, on great occasion, sends up the revelations of these musings, typically to the wide eyed, life changing astonishment of the overall person.
Chrysalis was not listening to such. The changelings packing in tighter behind her, their backs to the shimmering wall of lights and a regiment of armoured guards ponies bearing down before them, The Queen of changelings listened avidly to another part of the soul, the one that delights in things exploding and howling at the moon. Vicious, wilful defiance.
She rolled and cracked her shoulders. She felt good, almost manically - or maniacally - so. Her poorly laid, but well meant plans unravelled around her. Maybe it had been despair at first, and the Queen had taken the chance to escape the melancholy of her home on this mad errand with Luna. Maybe it had been whimsy, or even hope that the alicorn could shock them all, ponies and changelings, suddenly and boldly enough to force something - anything - to happen. To change.
For all of it though, with her aspirations going up in flames it left only the clear and simple options. No more back and forth, now there was only forwards. No more posturing, no more little games.
Chrysalis did not try to deceive herself; in her dreams she had been - and still wanted to be - the conqueror, not the peacemaker. In the honesty of her own heart what she truly wanted was to control Equestria and instill the changelings supreme, not foster relations just to secure their own little corner of the world.
None of that really mattered now anyway. Playing nice had chafed at her in ways that only in passing she could fully realize; in the depths of her being it had felt to be, more than aggravation, actual vulnerability.
They were pretty damn vulnerable, at that. The legion at the far end of the street rushed onwards, the falls of their hooves rising like thunder in the air.
Shining Armour was not among them. If he was not leading the charge, he was not in it at all. His slighted pride and want for retribution would not see him anywhere else. Chrysalis felt the tremors. He could only be at the castle then, sustaining the shield of Canterlot’s imprisonment..
He must itch to be out here, she mused, and the thought made her smile. Chrysalis could sympathise, well and truly, with the good captain’s crisis. In her time masquerading to him, prior to the invasion, the Queen of changelings had gleaned more into Shining’s nature than he realized. She saw they were more alike than he would ever accept, much to her ongoing delight. Neither could back out from a good fight, and part of Chrysalis was shamelessly thrilled that it had come to this.
Her changelings were strong. More than ever before she placed that trust in them. Not the foalish, arrogant conviction of their superiority with which she’d lead the disastrous invasion. No, she had watched over them through their gnawing hunger, humbled and ashamed at her inability to make things right. She had seen the real extent of their strength, and their weakness, and through it all she had seen, and been bewildered by, their ongoing commitment to her. Their trust, their faith, their belief in her.
The irony did not elude her; as she had grown in realizing their strengths, likewise she had become more protective, more caring for her people.
She took a last look at Surreal, while she still had the time. The little female frowned at the world, unaware of her Queen’s attention and struggling to comprehend the situation, only somewhat aware that things were happening and that these were not good. Beetle placed his hoof on her shoulder, and catching her gaze after a long second she seemed a little steadier than before, if only just.
She feared for that changeling more than any other. It was one thing to take away their food and leave them hungry, or to throw them in a cage and take their freedom, but to burn out their identity, to take away the heart of who they were, drown it in a torrent... a hungry changeling she could feed, a caged one she could free - but one made hollow, filled only with the excess of another being? What Then?
A thought too long in coming surfaced within Chrysalis, or perhaps it was a memory. She had not deserved her role as Queen, she had never earned what had by default been her’s. There were too many bad decisions and too few good ones she could recall. Perhaps she’d never earn her right to rule the changelings, but she had seen that there was more to her people than she ever had before and, for them, she would try.
They were trapped, their backs to the impassable barrier and penned in by buildings. They were trapped, but they were not yet conquered. Chrysalis’ people brimmed with the ambient forces of love prevalent to the city.
The Queen of changelings was not one for speeches, but with an army driving down upon them, perhaps it was a fitting time to improvise a little something. Some part of her recognized the absurdity of it, that on the moment’s eve of battle she was deliberating on pompous words. That kind of drama was Luna’s thing anyway, not hers.
“Oh buck it,” she said. “Stay together and hold them off. I’ll knock down the shield. Soon as it goes, and it will fall, everyone leaves, fast as you can. I’ll follow, so nobody waits for me.”
She almost feared someling would question her on the plan of action. None did - as ever the changelings were holden to their Queen, and Chrysalis had never felt more Queenly in all her life, as if the world spiralled around her.
Chrysalis took a deep breath as the thrill welled up in her. Let’s be the big bad hero, she thought. It was just her and a whole lot of ponies out to get them between her and the castle, and she had the excuse to be - no, her people were counting on her to be violent.
She was getting the sneaking suspicion that this day was going to be just perfect.
The Queen of changelings pawed at the ground and charged. Before her second step fell she could see the division already, and by the third it was clear in their faces. Of course, most every one of the onrushing guards looked more determined than anything, perhaps amused at her choice of action. Maybe they thought she’d jump and fly away, or that she was a complete fool, taking on so many alone.
Her hooves adding their thunder to the greater storm of sound, Chrysalis conjured a swirling vortex of black and green before her, writhing in the air like a desert mirage. Accelerating all the while the Queen of changelings tore through it, and where the twisting magic touched her form it clung like shreds of greasy, acrid smoke. Bolts of magic cast her way were caught in it like arrows in water, skewed from their path before passing the Queen by.
Chrysalis felt she’d never run so fast in her life. She could see the whites of their eyes, the beads of nervous sweat running down the front runners faces; if she grinned any wider she could swallow the first pony whole. Her gnarled horn surged again, the patchwork scraps of spell armour exploded into emerald flame, whipped by the wind of her speed into a wild blaze.
The guards line had bent inwards, a concave to surround her once they’d realized it was her and her alone they faced. More spells were fired at Chrysalis, too closely cast to be deflected entirely they tore chunks from her armour. Chrysalis did not slow; she kept onwards. Those few ponies directly ahead of her balked, tried to turn from their course yet could not, trapped to their place by those beside and behind them.
It was in that moment of fear, that moment of derision in the front line, the one she needed for this to work at all that Chrysalis ploughed into them, a flaming spectre of war, exhilarated in the extent of her own power.
Towering over the guards, the Queen of changelings’ hooves reaved their formation, battering flesh and metal aside. Hapless guards were knocked down before her, tripping up those that followed so that all things near Chrysalis were in utter calamity, for the moment the guards hindered one another more than helped, their battle cries becoming frantic, confused and panicked.
Chrysalis could no longer see the ground beneath her hooves, only guards in various states of disarray, scrambling and tripping. Embedded deep in their number like a ragged thorn and with no direction to go, she spread her wings and beat the air. She rose, her wings churning the air. Her hooves were above their heads in a second, and in the next her horn lit up in its eminence. The green glow shone its poisonous light from the the buildings, the armour, even the eyes of pony and changeling alike as the Queen’s magical call was answered.
A pillar of roaring emerald fire rose up from beneath her, spilling over the Queen’s body until it was only a silhouette of darkness within the flame, then lost entirely. Ponies scattered, but as the last suggestion of Chrysalis’ form was lost in the inferno an opalescent blast of light struck to the black heart of the towering conflagration. A quick succession of unicorn bolts followed the initiative and blasted into it.
They struck true and the tower snarled back like a thing alive, unbalanced and knocked over by the assault. It collapsed and as it struck the ground the spell forming it shattered. The changeling fire spilled over a score of guards. They batted helplessly at the flames, but in an instant every last trace of the green embers winked out of its own accord.
One delirious moment came and went, pony eyes blinked away the afterimage of light, and pony lungs drew breath and pony hooves struggled to stand once more.
“Where is she?” one called.
“I don’t see her!” another shouted, and in an instant their bewildered calls overturned the shouts of struggle.
One gray guard lunged forward, using the momentum of his stride to drive his hoof into the face of another. “Here!” he shouted, his voice deep and gruff. “She changed! This one’s the monster!” The one struck gaped in complete shock, but before being able to do anything at all the gray bulled him over, leading with his shoulder in a forceful charge.
“No! It’s not me! It’s...where’d he...it go?!” Of one mind, the dozens of guards whipped about, looking this way and that, instantly suspicious of their fellows. Panic driven imaginations made the worst of the innocent collisions of the closely packed ponies. Unable to trust their own, any semblance of order amongst the guard broke down, and for all their training and armour they descended into a brawling mob like any other, a few more level-headed ponies’ determined attempts to rally reason drowned out in the havoc.
Chrysalis, in the guise of a gray pegasus, peered down from the rooftop. The bolts had struck her along her midriff, knocking the wind from her. It hurt more than she cared to admit, and even now she was having difficulty drawing a full breath. Quickly as she’d sown dissent she’d removed herself from the chaos below.
Her gaze turned further afield; a certain stubborn blotch of blackness at the foot of the wall of lights. Her people were holding their own, using their magic to tear up the paving slabs, the branches from trees, even the doors from buildings to barricade themselves into some semblance of cover. For all her grandeur and flaunted power, Chrysalis had only effectively unstabilized a third of the guards. Amusing as their panic-stricken attacks on one another were, without her continued attentions they’d get their act together quickly, too quickly.
The Queen of changelings drew breath until the familiar pinch of her injury came back, then drew past that. Changeling instincts told her no, told her to flee, to be discreet and forgotten. Such impulses were a whisper against the greater roar of Chrysalis own heart and mind. Her familiar, predatory grin smattered itself back across her faux-pony lips. She still had to get to the castle and storm the keep, after all.
Casting aside her illusion and doubts, the Queen of changelings leapt to the air once more. Even as the ponies below spotted her she blasted a spell over them, a wild array of crackling sparks that danced maniacally in the air as they fell. Wherever they touched ponyflesh the sparks burst into a sudden torrent of waxy, viscous material that came to life, reaching out to other splotches, the patches binding together until all of it was connected in net that sat heavy atop the trapped guards. Yet for all of it, for every guard stricken three more pulled free of it or had been missed entirely, and those captured would not be so for long.
Chrysalis blasted two lines of magic, criss crossing them one after the other as if to mark the guards beneath her with a great and terrible X.
“Come on then, if you think you can take me!” the Queen shouted, almost to the point of wheezing for the force behind her words. As if in answer, a bolt of shimmering magic struck her clean in the face. Screeching, struggling and losing her battle to keep airborne, she crashed to stone roadway, it gouging her more deeply than she gouged it.
Through the sting in her eyes Chrysalis spotted the unicorn responsible and returned his favour in kind, with interest. She stood, snarled out her challenge once more and broke away, dozens of guards still hot on her hooves as she lead them away.
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0 views. Holy moly.
Anyways. Still highly anticipating that moment Celestia steps up and puts her hoof down. Crysalis' plan is to go after Shining Armor? In the heart of Canterlot? Really? Well, she was fun while she lasted.
In actuality, I'm hoping for a happier ending than the one that keeps seeming to be building. I'm hoping that that moment of insecurity is a prelude to Crysalis having some sort of change of heart, even if it has to be beaten in to her.
Chrysalis is a terrible leader
The Great and Powerful Chryssy!
Loved this chapter! Can't wait to see more.
1993792 Agreed.
I can already see the big showdown and yet it's so far away.
Calling it because I can see it ten miles out at sea. Chrysalis gets whomped by Celestia or Luna in a boringly predictable fashion and then we get to bear witness to more brow beating and punishments. I'd like it if Chrysalis could actually get away with her Changelings and have Celestia look after her sister.
1995612
Yer looking ten miles out to sea in the wrong directions
1995836 No I'm not! As you can clearly see that iceberg is receding from us!
I still have absolutely no idea what Chrysalis ever hoped to seriously achieve.
Don't get me wrong; I still love this story but it's to the point now where I'm losing my integration with it - it seems more and more like Chrysalis has taken the entire Hive to Canterlot, watched the waste byproduct occlude the extraction device, and then shrugged her shoulders and ... Well, that's it?
I thought maybe she's pull a Heath Ledger's Joker-esque "Some Mares just want to see the world burn," but it seems like she's not even all that insane, rather she's just ... Well ... A self-obsessed bitch. That can be an entertaining character trait (Hellooooooo Trixie!) but I don't think it's a sufficient foundation for a central antagonist.
1998973
Antagonist?
I don't think of Chrysalis as an antagonist 
, rather I see her as shuffleing the protagonist and deuteragonist positions between Luna and herself. Shining represents the atagonist for our dark mares here, at least in my mind. 
Nice work. This is why I follow this story.
2000360
the smell of victory!
Yet there's more to come. Let's go see how our favourite princess is
1999089
I actually agreed with your exact perspective up until I began to struggle to see what exactly Chrysalis was trying to do ... The more she became, at least to me, the kind of Villain who just indulges in villainy because that's how she rolls, the more she became a black-and-white antagonist. Shining, after all isn't evil, just misguided (at least to me).
Chrysalis (as based on her canonical personality and extrapolated in this story in my opinion) is a dyed-in-the-wool, hold-kittens-over-boiling-lava maniac who thinks nothing of committing the most unpleasant of acts. Without any real plan, she increasingly comes off to me as simply a narcissistic, power-hungry maniac.
Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that; it's just I got the feeling in the first dozen chapters that she had a plan. You know, like the Cylons were meant to have ...
*Alondro yawns and aims his sniper rifle at Chrysalis*
HEADSHOT!!
*Pinkie Pie jumps up* HAAAAAAAAAAX!!! *throws a computer monitor at Alondro*
2003529
I'm not really sure how you come to that perspective, interesting as it is. I have to agree that neither of our leading dark mares are particularly stong suited to planning (neither am I, for that matter). Both base their decisions as much on feeling and whim as thought and decision making, if not more so. It is, in part, this shared, volatile tendency to react that got everyone into this.
As regards Chrysalis' motivations - I won't shy away from the fact that it gets a bit murky here. It's important to recall, lastly, just why she's doing what she's doing in these latest chapters - now that she's figuring out her own heart - really knows her priorities well and truly - only then does she come into the confidence to make decisions that really close off other oppurtunities.
As for her being a villian for the evulz - there's no point denying that the Queen of changelings likes herself some good evulz, but would you really see that as being her driving force here? I don't. Even when she does indulge in her petty torments, it's always been with restraint. One of the things that set the seeds of CHatNM was her line in the second changeling episode, where she says it's the Queen's duty to find love for her people to feed on. She could have done anything, said anything, and she says that, and not only that but calls it her duty. If you can harken all the way back to chapter one...or two...or maybe it was three?? -either way it's in one of the first chapters that Luna uses this as a good jab, calling her not a Queen, just the 'fattest leech on the heap,' and it actually works to keep Chrysalis (somewhat) to her word. From the changelings' perspective, she's certainly not a villian. If anything, she's becoming less of a tyrant to them than she was during the her appearance in the show.
Is Chrysalis a villian, or is it that she doesn't really give a damn for 'good' and 'bad' beyond her own decisions and intent, a very self-determining character?
All the same, I welcome your considerations
Brilliant battle. Though Chrysalis has stirred up the hornet's nest in an attepmt to cut her losses, the fact that she has come to care more for her people than she did before is heartwarming. Regardless of how this ends for her and Luna, in a macabre way, this is her finest hour.
and then she charges the guards alone? that doesn't make sense...first i expected her to blast the shield, then i thought she was going after Shining armor...but she's still fighting the guards...
Row, row, fight the powah!