Chrysalis Wins
Ch.39 “Extroverted Introspection”
When Chrysalis came out of the portal, she was in her bedroom in the Canterlot castle, formerly Celestia’s Bedroom. Her eyes darted about to look for the one she had rather forcefully shoved through first. By the time she found the form of the swollen changeling on the floor, her eyebrows tensed, and she lifted a hoof to her mouth.
“Oh… oh my.”
It was a rather unpleasant sight indeed. Crone was reduced to a heavy wheeze for her breaths, and all her limbs had become puffy and swollen to dysfunctional levels. When Chrysalis saw Crone’s face, she looked away. For one, that was basically her own reflection, she couldn’t stand to see her own countenance contorted like that.
Quickly her horn ignited, and she walked over to Crone’s splayed out body, and she was about to use some magic to accelerate healing… but that was magic… her horn fizzled out. Hmm what else could she do? It would not be acceptable to have some royal lay on her floor all night in a wretched state. There was a second best option she supposed. So she lowered her head close to puffy clone, and opened her mouth to exhale.
Clear emotional energies wafted from Chrysalis down to the distorted body below her, and the results came quickly. After a few ragged breaths, Crone was able to steadily inhale more. This continued for minutes, and the swellings began to recede to manageable levels.
Eventually Crone made a few throaty coughs, then her breaths normalized, and she was also able to open her eyes. A few conflicted emotions raced through her face rapidly, and she turned away from Chrysalis so that her face wasn’t visible. The high queen leaned back and ceased the transference of emotional energies.
After Chrysalis cleared her throat and tapped on the floor once, Crone flipped around to face her again. The swish of her head was a little fast, and her mane got all over her face. She chuckled nervously, and pushed it to the side with a hoof, then struggled to get up on her hooves. She spoke, but her words were as shaky as her legs.
“M-made i-it didn’t I!”
Chrysalis placed a hoof on Crone’s shoulder, and made her sit back down.
“You’ll stay there for a while longer. You’ve put on a face well enough… But you don’t have to pretend that wasn’t miserable.”
“W-what?”
“Sit down, and stay down.”
Crone reluctantly obeyed, and she rested her belly on the floor. Her limbs still shook with nervous fidgets, and she couldn’t stop the rattled twitch her wings insistently made. Wide fearful eyes followed Chrysalis as she walked over to the bed, and ignited her horn. The small flash of light made Crone flinch, but no harm came to her.
A few pillows were lifted off the bed in magical grip, and casually tossed at the queen’s duplicate. The feather stuffed, silky bodies bounced off the target royal’s chitinous form for the most part, but one got impaled on her horn. Crone didn’t make any sudden motions, and she awkwardly let the pillow rest ontop of her head.
Several pillows floated alongside Chrysalis as she moved closer towards Crone’s spot on the floor. The extra set of feathery cushions were dropped a step away from the clone, and the high queen planted herself ontop of them. When she had made herself sufficiently comfortable, she fixed Crone with a hard stare.
“Stop shaking like a leaf… It’s unbecoming.”
“Y-yes h-high queen.”
“Stop stuttering… that is also unbecoming.”
“As you wish.”
Crone’s shaking didn’t stop, but it became reduced. Chrysalis continued to stare down her copy, and the changeling who was taller than her, dropped her gaze, and looked down at the sunny themed carpet. She was unable to keep her eye’s level with the true queen. Chrysalis breathed out another criticism.
“looking at the floor is also… unbecoming.”
That got Crone’s eyes to flicker up for a moment, and she didn’t look directly back at Chrysalis, but she didn’t stair dejectedly the floor anymore. There was a definite clench in the clone’s jaws, and the high queen smirked when she saw it. Silenced reigned for several minutes after that. The space of quiet time caused Crone to start to fidget again, and her tail swished back and forth every few seconds. Chrysalis opened her mouth again, but Crone beat her to the punch.
“And what else, pray tell, is unbecoming.”
Crone had lifted her gaze up, and she looked directly into the high queen’s pupils. The action just caused Chrysalis to close her mouth, and her smirk to turned into a smile. Silence continued on for another stretch of time. A stretch the clone found difficult to bear. The momentary confidence that Crone had gained from anger deflated. Along with the sunken confidence came sunken posture. In one movement Crone’s long neck dropped to the floor, and both of her front hooves hid her face. She shouted in exasperation.
“Just go ahead and do it then!”
Chrysalis tilted her head, and lowered one eyebrow. Her smile pursed back into a reserved flat line.
“Do what?”
“Blast me! Blast me for being useless. Just end it.”
“Blast you?”
“Well what are you waiting for? It didn’t take you long to blow away my… my, my um… the first one!”
“I was just making sure what the tablet said worked…”
“You killed her! You didn’t banish her. Why is that any more ok than blasting me away right now? Is it because you already gave me a name? Or I just happened to do the right little jig to entertain you? Or I just haven’t upset you enough yet? Well, what is it?”
Behind the shield of her forelegs, Crone’s voice started to crack, and her poor composure fell apart even more. Chrysalis just held her mouth slightly open, and she couldn’t think of a reply at the moment. As another painfully quiet moment passed between them, and the longer Chrysalis didn’t give an answer, the worse Crone’s emotional condition became.
She buried her face behind a pillow that the queen had given her earlier, and moaned into. Her voice became quiet and forlorn.
“Just do it… please.”
“No.”
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes; she had bounced back from her momentary loss for words. The short single word answer made Crone slow her wallowed cringe. A sniffle came from behind the shield of legs.
“What?”
“I said no.”
“Why?”
Anger had crept back into the clone’s voice. Only her eyes came above her hooves, but they glared furiously at the queen. The discontent directed towards Chrysalis did nothing to dissuade her, and she continued onward.
“I’d like us to share some more honest words. I'd like to talk about me, and by me, I mean we.”
After she heard the words Crone just snorted.
“Then will you blast me?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Oh joy…”
“That is more like it.”
Chrysalis put on her comfortable smirk again, much to Crone’s antagonized displeasure. The duplicate spoke through clenched teeth.
“You know it’s a rather stupid idea to have me around in the first place. I know you too well.”
“I thought about that a little before I brought you here. It was more than a little forced when you put on a whole display about being my friend. I wouldn’t be a friend with me so quickly… So tell me Crone, how much do you know exactly?”
“Where do I even start?”
“The tablet said your memories could be patchy.”
“Well?”
“How about our last chat with Luna?”
“Hmm, Sombra was there too right?”
“Yes.”
“And you decided to just eaves drop for a while before you even joined in.”
“Uh, huh, but the primary purpose?”
“-snort- Ha! You were blushing quite hard when Luna mentioned some of the swarm’s dreams. Hmm, this is so strange.”
Crone lifted a hoof to her lips, and brushed it around lightly.
“I can even remember the sensations quite clearly, but I know I wasn’t the one to do them... He did have nice fangs…”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Alright, alright, you’ve proved you remember details very well. That hardly seems patchy. Inaccurate tablet, psh.”
“So tell me why you want me running around again. When I have so much sensitive information up here. Such as where you so cleverly stashed the elements of harmony… Especially after you gave me this pathetic body to work with. You’re not afraid that I would have a grudge?”
Crone straightened her posture, and jabbed Chrysalis in the chest with a hoof. Then tapped her own skull for emphasis. The shorter royal grunted at having her chest poked, and gave Crone a critical eye for it. Then her tone turned softer and slightly indignant.
“It’s a nice looking body.”
That caused Crone to gawk, before she briefly scanned over herself, and appreciated the well toned features. She shook her head to get rid of the distraction.
“That may be, but you basically insured my insignificance, my lack of potential, my-”
“Crone…”
“What?”
“You are me, but you are not.”
“Cryptic words don’t help.”
“Well, I… hmm, I don’t know why I find this hard to say.”
“… I’m not 100% you, so spit it out.”
“Wait what?”
“No, go on, finish what you were going to say.”
“That can wait, what do you mean you’re not 100% me? Also I’m still confused, how could you be aware of anything before I pulled you out of that pool? How far back can you remember, when you were part of the pool?”
“Um… now that you mention it. I, I uh… huh.”
“What is it?”
“Much of it is blurry, it’s more feeling than anything concrete. Everything became much more clear and concentrated when you pulled me out. Before that though… It was, a swirl? It’s strange to describe, but it felt like I wasn’t one identity, but part of many?”
“Is there another way you can put it?”
“The pool has had many emotions added, and pulled out over time. I remember feeling them. A few times whole volumes of memory were dumped into the pool as well… Huh, for some reason…”
“What is it this time?”
“I remember a little conversation, some pony named… Whispy?”
“What?”
“All I remember from that is… she shot me!”
“She, what? Hehe huh?”
“Ya there were lot’s of other… ponies that looked the same. She blasted each of them, and… not me, but me?”
“If you’re confused, then I have no idea. Anyway, any other significant things you can remember.”
“Just a little while before you came, many bodies were pulled out of the pool, so many… wait, what happened to them? There were more changelings!”
“Shade said they were somewhere else.”
“… Chrysalis, I know that tone.”
“-sigh- they were handled, cleaned up so to speak. It all happened before I had heard a word of it.”
Crone shuddered back, as if she had been hit with heavy news. Her posture slumped, and she rested her head on the ground. This made a strange observation for Chrysalis.
“Well, that’s the first thing you didn’t remember.”
“What?”
“I talked with Shade before I drew you out, shouldn’t you have remembered that?”
“I… should.”
“But you don’t?”
“No, not with clarity.”
“How selective…”
Crone appeared bothered, by more than one issue, and she bit her lower lip. Chrysalis just shrugged. After another moment or so, the clone turned and asked her.
“What were you going to say before? What was difficult to say?”
“Oh that.”
Chrysalis shifted a little uneasily this time, and she started draw circles in the floor with one of her hooves.
“About why I brought you back here.”
“You’re lonely.”
“I, no-”
“You cried like a lost broodling, not too long before you came to the pool…”
The blunt statement caused Chrysalis to flinch, and she swallowed, to clear her throat of a non-existent block.
“I suppose there isn’t much to hide then.”
Crone gave a flat dead pan expression, before she sighed.
“You sure picked a Tartarus of a way to get some company. Have no faith in your order to multiply?”
“You should know, it’s already been tried so many times.”
“You tried several times, personally, and felt ashamed every time.”
“That’s enough Crone.”
This time, it wasn’t Crone that was uncomfortable with the silence. Despite the warning in Chrysalis’s tone, the duplicate pressed on after several long moments.
“It’s been a long time since there was a royal family around. Shellish wasn’t even our… your mother, though she acted like it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know…”
“You hoped for me to fill that gap… Though more likely as the sister you never had, rather than having a royal brood of your own.”
“Is it really so easy to say… just like that?”
“You wouldn’t have any other changeling talking to you like this, short of you subjecting yourself to a memory scan by one of your vanguards. But they wouldn’t understand the emotions quite the same, now would they…”
Crone wore a weak smile, she had some ability to get under Chrysalis’s skin, and getting under the skin of some changeling much stronger than her caused her to grin. If she could make the high queen’s skin crawl with just a look, then her chitinous hide would be a ceaseless tide of waves at the moment. With a greater measure of confidence than she had started with, Crone spoke once more.
“Also you’re a pretty shoddy queen.”
“What!”
“You don’t even look it. Where did you lose poor Shellish’s crown? I thought you kept that because you cared.”
“I… where is it!”
Chrysalis’s hooves shot to her head, and her eye’s flared wide. The crown was indeed not the there, but her hooves vainly went over her scalp again, and again. It had been such a natural part of her for years, and she had virtually never taken it off. Now that it wasn’t there, and she noticed, it felt like there was a hole in her soul.
“GAAAAAWWWW!”
Crone just chuckled.
And again you just rush it. She hsan' even existed for a chapter and she is already going off the rails here.
Crone knows Chrysalis very well (no surprise since she's a clone)
Several places eh? Well let's see... Repairs to the city, so water main along with stone and wood repair points that look weak. Could always blame poor craftsmanship on changelings. Plus disabling the main pipe line would wreck havoc on plumbing. Destroying the guard quarters would cripple the expected population boom. A tunnel system inside a mountain isn't safe at all, it could EASILY collapse not to mention the chance of coming across poisonous gas. Oh I almost forgot about those prisoners in those pods. How many were there? Considering Chrysalis' attitude, enough to make a rather large army. The love bank might miss a few donations over night. And disturbing the drone's rest would make them exhausted in the mourning.
That's not even mentioning the long term effects manipulating the sun and moon Chrysalis is going to find out about.
And the mane 6...
And Sombra...
You know, it's easier just to say Chrysalis fucked up.
Chrysalis has not thought about what she would do in the place of Crone. If she had, she could have prevented the unnecessary poo-poo that is going to rain-rain on her in the next while.
Seriously dude. Its only been like two chapters at most, and already going nuts.
Also that magic vulnerability thing is rather........ Iffy.
that was fast. honestly I think you added too much weakness. From the show the pinkies could do all the crazy things the original could but they were mroe sigualary focused. So honestly Crone should have these weaknesses.
Also would be better if Crone was actually a lost soul in the pool with a new chance on life.
This pool arc is not really going the best route.
And that is why cloning is a bad idea.
There's a kind of condition referred to as 'cloning blues'.
She was cool... for a while. Now she's ok.
6243171
Fast? Perhaps...
I thought about writing another filler chapter. Let Crone and Chrysalis roam around Canterlot for a day, and have crone keep up her helpful facade a little longer.
But the way I figured, Crone has actually been desperate from the get go. I'll make some bullet points
-She was afraid for her life the moment she came out of the pool
- so she tries to act as if she's useful, so that Chrysalis won't blast her away for being useless
- Crone inherited Chrysalis's hopes and dreams... But she'll never have them. It won't take her long to realize that, and feel irredeemable bitter about it.
- After all, if Chrysalis suffered a permanent power nerf, and she could pin the blame on an individual, she would do everything to get back at them... Chrysalis is not above petty vengeance, no? So naturally Crone follows that route.
And the magic weakness... Sure, that's something I added. The mirror pool still had plenty of undescribed attributes. This is my imagination
6244988 There is a major difference between having an undescribed attributes, and creating one solely for the convenience of the plot.
Put it simply the concept should have more meaning besides creating something for the plot.
the changelings love eating was in a sense used as a method for chrysalis to overpower celestia, as it would make no ense if something naturally more powerful than celestia had not come after her before.
however this factor also ties into the motivation of the changelings. they need to feed. so it ties into another aspect.
in addition there is contradiction to the idea the mirror clones are vulnerable to magic. they can ue magic for starters, and are created from magic to begin with. mayb e they could be vulnerable to certain types of magic, but a general vulnerability does not make sense. Not to mention considering the nature of their world, there is likely ambient magic as well. If they were vulnerable to just magic in general, it would mean they would be in constant discomfort.
6243195
BUFF THE CLONE ARMY! Lol
- that might turn it into too much of an advantage for chrysalis. / spam clones, and don't let anyone find the banishment spell. Or if they're all too wild then chrysalis wouldn't want to bother. Anyway...
... That is an interesting suggestion. crone being some lost soul could be interesting, but that would also complicate things immediately.
For one thing, some other soul+ chrysalis would = some really scrambled brain
Or if it was only some other soul in chrysalis's body, and shared none of her memories, then that would be suspicious, as it wouldn't line up with the description on the slab.
In either case, even if chrysalis accepted them for some reason, what would she do with an unknowledgeable, underwhelming copy.
Without crone trying to sell herself, chrysalis might figure it's not worth the effort to tutor some royal with so little potential anyway.
6245052 here's the thing. Crone isn't singularity focused like the Pinky clones were. Having the soul of a lost pony would acount for that. But having said sould doesn't mean she would have that soul's memories.
Why introduce the idea that their could be actual souls in the pool if you are not actually going to use it in story?
6245229
Well the pinkie clones could be accounted for because they already had an impulsive personality to be based on. Also if the succeeding generations had increasingly fractured memories, they'd be based more on pure emotion and personality than life experiences.
The first pinkie clone seemed exercise greater control than her quick- double copied fellows, or at least I'm assuming, I think she was the last clone to be banished.
If crone had cloned herself and made increasingly more fragmented versions of chrysalis, they'd probably run around in a mad horde chanting "power! Power! Power!" Instead of "fun! Fun! Fun!"
Also It's not that I don't plan on doing anything with the idea of originals being stuck in the pool. I have some ideas stirring around. But I'm not sure I want to include it in the method you're suggesting. I mean, I'd still have a few questions about it.
wouldn't having a different soul at least imply a substantially different personality? ... I'm getting more confused the more I try to understand this
what should happen between mixing memories, personality traits, souls? How much of what is present? How is that determined? Why wasn't that noted on the tablet? I don't know if I would even necessarily call them souls. I mean, the banishment spell sucks in their body as well. And the body of the original can be recovered as well.
But if you're suggesting that the "soul" / personality / I'm not sure what to call it at this point... Whatever, soul, can be placed in the body of a random clone, then what would happen if an original pony had it's soul placed in some random clone, and someone else drew out the original body afterwards, would the original be a vegetable body without a soul? Because the clone body effectively took it?
If original souls were susceptible to being sucked into clone bodies, would every new clone suck up some unfortunate original? What would determine that? Is it random? Does the pool have some distorted sense of priority?
Also if a soul could get mixed up with some random clones body, then could souls become a confused mixture while in the pool?
What about other clones, clones that were banished back to the pool? could various older clones from other ponies get mixed in the bodies of new clones from different ponies? Or are old clones invalid in determination?
Are we even assuming that clones have their own souls? Are they soulless? Or do they have their own soul when they're made, and it's copy of the summoner, just like the body is?
Sorry I'm spamming questions, but I just feel I don't have a clear understanding of how your suggestion works.
6245572 the clones should have as many weakness as you put in. The Pinkie clones could do the same crazy things the original could.
For Crone. You had it yourself that she saw the death of her predessor.
Here's what I think the soul from a real pony in a clone body allows then to not be so focused as the Pinkie clones were. This happens unquiely with changelings due to their nature not the memories copied override the original soul's memories. While this could cause complications down the road on how such a clone will react, which may help your story depending where the overall story is going.
Well that escalated quickly
Now Chrysalis is going to have her own 'Nightmare Moon' to worry about...
Can kind of see why Crone has a grudge! And good money it won't end well for anybody.
Comment's before this one are outdated in reference to this particular chapter. If that wasn't already clear in the author's note section.
But i like to keep comments as a history, so that is why they are not deleted.
6273913 I only read this chapter. What happened here?
6275339
I had written something that was very disagreeable with most of my commenters. Primarily what was written for ch. 40.
So I scrapped the original versions of Ch. 39 and 40. what you just read was a complete redo of ch. 39, and what i'm going to post for ch. 40 is a complete redo as well.
I originally I had made it way too dark, poorly paced, and sudden. What I'm aiming for with the redo is something, more lighthearted, and in better character.
6275392 Well it's too late to ask what happened there right?
It is quite good, better than previous ch39 at the very least. But seriously, it does scan well so far.
i have to say this is MUCH better! good job!
6275398 Kill-crazy rampage, basically.
Soooo.... she's allergic to portals?
Quick! Inhale my emotions!
I really like how Crone and Chrysalis play off each other. They act a like sisters and it's a nice dynamic.
8259974
Allergic to the magic of the portal, and thanks! I suppose that may be one of the more natural courses of action for them to take.
I actually want to read those two chapters.
Sometimes grimdark can be fun to read, especially once you know it's non canon.