Toast the Bride
As Twilight ran through the crystal caves under Canterlot, she mentally berated herself. Cadence’s heart-song about how she loved Shining Armour and might lose him to another was another poinard of failure through a heart that already felt like a pincushion. She was impressed that the half-starved alicorn could maintain a full vocal accompaniment while at a dead run; though she put that down to the power of the heart-song or innate alicorn vitality.
However, even wondering about that couldn’t distract her for long from the central cause of her heart-ache. She’d failed; her friends, her sister-in-law to be, her brother, Princess Celestia, indeed all of Equestria. She’d had one chance to stop this mess, and she’d blown it by running around like a mad-mare yelling ‘Cadence is evil!’
It was no wonder they’d all thought she was crazy. Hindsight in this case wasn’t just 20:20, it was using a magic mirror with a microscope attachment. She could have gone to Celestia privately and told her of the things she’d observed calmly, like a rational mare. Now she thought about it, Cadence’s horn-glow was normally pink, the green aura the fake had displayed was a dead giveaway that she wasn’t the same pony. But who was the fake Cadence? She should have done some research into what spells could produce such a perfect duplicate…
She would have face-hooved if all her hooves hadn’t been otherwise occupied with running. “Cadence, do you know anything about the pony who replaced you?”
Moments later she knew quite a bit about the Changeling, Queen Chrysalis, who had taken Cadence’s place; including the fact that they were capable of mind control, though that was because she and Cadence were facing three of her mind controlled minions. She briefly considered manifesting a bouquet of flowers and throwing it to distract them (they were bridesmaids, after all), but letting them jump around in a cave filled with sharp crystal edges might get them hurt in their current state, so she simply hauled them off the ground with her telekinesis and used a sticking spell to fix them to the nearest flat wall.
“Let’s go!”
Cadence followed her, but gave a brief glance backwards. “Will they be okay?”
“The spell will only last a few minutes, less if they think to cast a counter-spell. Twinkleshine was at Celestia’s school with me, she can show the others how to do it. But by then we’ll be long gone. The last thing I want to do is get anyone else hurt through my mistakes.”
“What do you…” Cadence started to ask, but then they arrived at the rubble pile that lead up to the cavern entrance, and needed all their breath for climbing.
&&&
Twilight sighed with relief. They’d arrived just before Celestia finalised the vows, and pulled the big reveal. She felt some joy at being shown to be right, but mostly relief that now she could reconnect with her friends and mentor, not to mention her brother. She could set things right, she’d fixed her failure, at least as much as she could...
Chrysalis was boasting about how she was going to win anyway. “Soon, my changeling army will break through. First, we take Canterlot. And then, all of Equestria!”
“No. You won't. You may have made it impossible for Shining Armor to perform his spell, but now that you have so foolishly revealed your true self, I can protect my subjects from you!”
That brought a smile to Twilight’s lips. Princess Celestia was going to finish the job and fix the whole mess. Her horn beam crashed against Chrysalis’s, and bore down… Wait, it was being pushed back? That was not how things were supposed to work! Princess Celestia was supposed to win! This just wasn’t fair!
Looking at Chrysalis’s smug face as she started to drive the Princess back, Twilight’s feelings of failure came back along with the same fury that had possessed her down in the Crystal Caverns when Chrysalis had taunted her, but increased tenfold. Unconsciously, she pawed at the ground. That bug was the cause of her friends abandoning her, her childhood friend being imprisoned and starved, her brother becoming a mind controlled slave, and the possible destruction of Canterlot, even Equestria if she could overpower Celestia. However, it was Twilight who’d failed to stop her in time…
Twilight barely noticed her coat turn white and her mane and tail burst into flames, not the red and yellow of rage, but a cold blue and purple to match her mood. Chrysalis would not win! Twilight would stop her, whatever it took! She put her glowing horn down and charged, just as she had Nightmare Moon so long ago.
Chrysalis clearly noticed her, but couldn’t really do anything about her. An attempt to move her head, presumably to target Twilight, had Celestia’s beam gain back several hooves of distance. Green fire started to swirl around the changeling queen’s hooves, her legs tensing for a magically enhanced front kick, but she never got the chance. There was a white flash, and Twilight reappeared a few hooves from the Changeling Queen’s chest, still travelling at a full magically enhanced gallop.
Changelings weren’t true insects, or true anything, and the tegument on their torso area was hardened skin, not chitin. It still made for pretty tough armour, able to turn light blows or even sword slashes. The amount of magic Chrysalis was channelling through her body formed a natural structural integrity field, making her skin even tougher. There was very little that could harm it… Unfortunately, a piercing attack by a unicorn horn reinforced by the rage enhanced magic of one of the most powerful unicorns since Starswirl the Bearded was one of those things.
Chrysalis had just enough time for an almost comical look of surprise as the horn sunk in; then there was an intense explosion which sent her rag-dolling backwards. She sailed through the air and ended her trajectory by smashing against a pillar with a sickening crunch. She slid down, leaving a trail of green ichor on the white marble and flopped forward off it at the base. Of Twilight there was no sign.
Celestia’s beam turned the stonework molten where it touched the ground, an instant before it winked out. The rest of the chamber was silent as the ponies in it recovered from the sudden turn of events. Then the yelling began. There were screams, cries, Cadence rushing over to Shining Armour as he sagged to the ground, the green glow of Changeling mind control fading from his eyes. Various ponies started rushing around, trying to make sense of things. They weren’t having much luck.
“Silence!” Celestia’s command voice cut through the hubbub. She continued more gently. “My little ponies, I know this has been a shock, but the best way to resolve it is to remain calm and help one another. We must find Twilight, and prepare to face the army that that creature summoned. ”
Rainbow Dash shot across to hover in front of the fallen Chrysalis. “I bet she knows where Twilight is! Hey bozo! What did you do with Twilight?”
The crumpled figure of Chrysalis stirred, her wing buzzing spasmodically like a dying insect’s, and her eyes opened slowly. Her head rolled slightly as she looked towards the polychromatic Pegasus and a sneer grew on her face. She rasped, “What did _I_ do to _her_? She’s the one who punched her horn through my chest! Right into my primary philogastric sac too.”
“What the hey is a filly-ghastly whatever? WHERE IS SHE?” Rainbow got right into the Changeling Queen’s face as she finished the last word, and the creature gave a crackling chuckle. “You’re probably breathing her!”
Rainbow reeled back in shock, and her distress seemed to energise Chrysalis. Her voice strengthened. “My philogastric sac is where I convert the love energy I drain into magic and store it. When she ruptured it, there was enough magic in it to empower an entire changeling army and duel Sun-butt over there to a standstill at the same time!”
Her eyes were having difficulty focussing on the Pegasus, but she continued her speech. “When your little purple pain in the posterior stuck her horn through it, I got hit by the backlash and got half fried, not to mention getting slammed into a pillar. She must have gotten the rest channelled right into her through her horn, and been instantly vapourised. She may have beaten me, but at least she didn’t get to enjoy her victory.”
Expressions of shock and horror were pretty much universal at Chrysalis’s callous assessment, and both Fluttershy and Rarity started crying, while Pinkie Pie just stood there, deflated. Rainbow simply got angry. “That’s horseapples! Twilight would never be defeated by some bunch of hooey hocus pocus! Call off your goons and bring Twilight back or I’ll…”
“Do what?” Chrysalis smirked, seeming to gain strength from her defiance. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m already done for. I can’t even feel or move my _own_ body, much less sense or control the hive. Just as well for you, if I could I’d tell them to tear this city to the ground just to see the looks on your stupid faces.”
Her head sagged forward to view the ichor leaking from her wounds, and the hole in her chest. “It’s also just as well that I can’t feel anything, I suppose… this looks like it would _really_ hurt.”
Celestia had been listening to the dialogue with everyone else and was just as shocked, but she’d also been sending messages to the guards around Canterlot. She was surprised at some of the responses.
“Your changelings have stopped attacking and fled. Why?”
“Not my changelings any more, thanks to your precious protégé! I only ever allowed them enough power for the task at hand. I had no desire to risk creating a rival. Now I can no longer feed them, they’ve fled to conserve what power they have left. Curse them, and curse Twilight Sparkle!”
“You monster!” Rarity exclaimed, having finally pulled herself together enough to take part in the conversation. “Twilight was our best friend!”
Chrysalis’s response was odd, a rasping cackle that tapered off into a series of choking coughs. “Oh, that’s good, I thought the pink one was the comedian of your group. As far as Twilight was concerned, you’d all found a new pony to take her place. She still cared about you all for some reason, enough to do… this.”
Her head twitched towards the wound that marred her torso.
“I couldn’t tell what she was thinking; I’m an empath, not a telepath, or was. But I know what she was feeling. There was fury, yes, but under it a sense of loss, failure, and a desire for redemption, whatever the cost. Based on what she felt earlier during the rehearsal, it’s a pretty good guess that you were the ones she felt she’d failed. But we all know that’s not true.”
“Yeah, Twilight never failed us! She came back and kicked your butt!” Rainbow growled.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Sarcasm dripped from Chrysalis’s mouth, along with drooling strands of green ichor. “What I mean is that you were the ones that failed her. At least that part of my plan worked.”
She gave a choking cough, and spat out more luminous green ichor.
“Oh yes, I knew about Twilight Sparkle, powerful mage, tireless researcher, Leader of the Elements of Harmony… and sun-butt’s favourite patsy for when she can’t be bothered to get off her cake stuffed rear and solve her own problems. Still, not the sort of pony whose attention I wanted to attract.
“While I could fob off old Sunny over there with some general platitudes, and I had Shiney-boy over there so mind zapped he wouldn’t notice if I danced on the table without my disguise, from all accounts she actually had a functioning brain. Still, from how little Shiny talked about her, I figured they’d grown apart, and she’d only remember Cadence as the pony who foal-sat her a few times. I’d just pull the generic princess routine and everything would be fine.
“Then she comes up to me and does her little dance. Waving her flanks in my face, are you sure you should be baby-sitting foals, Cadence? She managed to completely throw me off for a second. I mean, what kind of pathetic shut-in has her foal-sitter as a best friend? I should have just brushed her off gently with some ‘Aren’t we a little old for that Twilight?’, but instead I froze up, and that blew it.”
Her eyes grew unfocussed. “I could sense I’d aroused her curiosity, and if she started investigating that would quickly become suspicion. I couldn’t possibly stand up to a detailed questioning about Cadence’s history, and that would have been it. It was too late to stop her, so I chose a different path, baiting her. Fortunately, you idiots made it pathetically easy.
“I could sense her following me around, so when around you, and away from sun-butt or anyone who’d notice I deliberately acted as unpleasant as possible. I monitored her emotions, as she got more and more frantic and none of you called me on it. I’m surprised she didn’t talk to you privately about it…”
Seeing the looks on the Element Bearers’ faces, she gave another hacking cackle. “Oh my, she did! And you must have shut her down, this is too rich! You did most of my work for me!”
“I even let her see me zapping Shiny with a mind control spell, and it paid off. I could feel her frustration, her distress at being unable to do anything. Still, when she came into the rehearsal all ready to expose me, I was ready for a verbal duel, even using some of my hoarded power to influence you to my side.
“But it turns out I didn’t need any of that. I cried a few crocodile tears and all of you immediately dropped her like a drained husk. I’ve never seen such a display of shallowness in all my years. It was glorious! Her ‘loyal’ friends, even her own brother abandoning her tore up her heart, but what finished it off was sun-butt telling her off.”
By this time the element bearers were a distraught and sobbing mess. They turned their focus towards Celestia, with shock and disbelieve written all over their faces. Celestia herself seemed to be at the edge of tearing up, already expecting what Chrysalis would say next.
She couldn’t move her head anymore, but her eyes fixed on Celestia’s. “You took your most loyal subject, your treasured student, the pony who’d placed her life on the line for you again and again and protected Equestria from everything from your nutso sister to Discord, and during a time of crisis refused to listen to her, or indeed give her the level of attention you’d give some random guard warning you of a threat."
This finally broke Celestia's remaining composure. Her tears were now dripping onto the ground as she lowered her face into her left hoof. Muffled sobbing noises could be heard across the grand hall; the ancient ruler of the sun just as devastated when she sent her sister away, a thousand years ago.
Chrysalis in turn, only gave a small triumphant smirk.
“Love is sweet, but despair is spicy, and right then purple sparkle’s emotions were volcano hot sauce mixed with liquid rainbow! Then you left her there, lying on the steps sobbing what remained of her heart out. Then I made my first mistake. I had considered killing her and dumping her body in the caverns, but I was pleased that my plans had worked so well and decided she might be useful to me once I had taken control of Equestria.
“I cast her into the Crystal caverns alive, and taunted her using Cadence’s face. I should have just left her there, but it was so much fun to torment her, besides I owed her some payback for the way she'd almost wrecked my plans. I wanted to crush her utterly, ensure she was so wrecked that she wouldn't even consider returning. I even had some mind controlled ponies there to to keep her contained if she tried to escape. Clearly, that didn’t work out the way I planned…”
She looked down at her ruined body again. Her voice was weaker now.
“Still, I have at least some compensation. My killer went to her grave thinking she’d lost everything, and the rest of you will never be able to make it up to her, or escape the fact that if you’d been one whit more the ponies she’d believed you to be, she’d still be alive. She may have saved you from me, but she can’t save you from yourselves.”
She managed a sneer. “Oh, and good luck against the next threat that comes along to _eat_ your precious little land. Without nerd-pony you can’t use the Elements to defend you. I hope it consumes you all and leaves nothing but ashes…”
Her eyes glazed over and she slumped down, her shredded wings giving one more spasm before falling silent. The entire hall remained that way for some time, except for the sobbing of ponies and a shuffling of hooves.
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I like to think this is foreshadowing to the crystal war timeline.
You should fix the formatting; underscores are a lot less pleasant for emphasis than italics or bold.
You know with a bit of editing this chapter would work well as a one shot. A dark one, but a good one all the same.
Typos
whose
Wow i forgot about reading this before and waiting for it to be completed but after reading this chapter again I'm even more hyped lol.
MIKE DROPPED
Does it say something about me when I feel pity for Chrysallis'es death even in a story like this?
7694544 it say you more forgive person then most other people are
The speech was glorious, bravo.
Near the end, I was like "She's dying with a giant hole in her torso and she's still talking? Was she Eponine in another life? (Les Mis anyone?)?"
7693339
What did Mike do to you?
There's one upside to it being Chrysalis delivering the verbal lashing: Since she's in this to hurt them and nothing else, it's much easier to dismiss her words when you're one of those people who think folks are being too hard on Twilight's friends and mentor.
So, in essence, suck it, Chrys.
7793881
So by chrys saying it makes her friends look less like douche bags? I don't think so. Chrysalis had stated she was surprised by their actions (just as much as the audience was). Chrysalis did have a contingency but she didn't need to use it at all. So I'm sorry but chrysalis still got the last laugh. They may be able to deny her words but their own individual actions will still haunt them. I can see Rainbow justifying as "hey she's trying to get to us, and she had us fooled." But Pinkie pie, Fluttershy, most likely Rarity, and maybe even Applejack if she's keeping her lie detector ability (and which way swings) in this fic will believe her words regardless if they are fact or fiction.
So no this is were Chrysalis goes "Suck it bitch"
The speech was glorious, I agree. But I think it was too exposition-heavy and too long winded for someone dying from a mortal around. Reminds me too much of anime speeches.
Don't forget that this doesn't have markup language. That said, you could do a find and replace with certain text editors that'll replace it with the italic code.
I probably shouldn't have been expecting it to come from Spike. Still, villainous gloating isn't too far off the beaten path, but if it works, it works.
i'm liking this already
Interesting to have Chrysalis give the 'you fucked up' speech. The effect is ruined by way, way too much exposition and rambling. Her mocking them for being shitty friends with her last breath would have real punch if it didn't drag on so much.
This is why I love chrysalis. Even to her last breath, she defy s them and makes them feel like shit.
I don't understand the _ in sentences all over the place. are they meant to be there?
dam if this isnt freken amazing
8309105 It's a habit from when I posted on old boards that only allowed for flat text, where you couldn't bold or italicise a word to emphasise it.
7768448
While you are right that its a little long, I still love to see the dying villain making the heros' feel like utter s***.
8044541
I would agree with you if it were a different character, but Chrysalis is most certainly the type to drag things out like this. She also said that Twilight pierced her main philogastric sac, this tells me that she has more than one. I don't know how else she lived long enough to give that rant.
What I don't like about this chapter is Chrysalis rattling off her monologue with practically no response or reaction mentioned about the ponies she addresses, except for the end with the shuffling and sobbing.
You really need to put some reactions between the blocks of text you wrote for Chrysalis.
For example:
You don't really immerse reader if those reactions are missing.
How are Twilight's friends feeling after the delivery? What kind of expressions are they wearing at that moment? How intense are those expressions?
For (E1) You could have written something like:
For (E2) as a reaction from Celestia, this might have been appropriate:
Something like this makes it more believable and real for the readers, it also fills plenty of empty space.
Also helps to build empathy and immerse yourself within the story.
9303627 You have a point. My worry was that her monologue was long enough already, and I didn't want to appear to stretch it out further. However, I'm not so egotistical as to think my deathless prose is perfect. I'll seriously consider the idea.
Edit: I've decided I like your additions enough to make them canon.
Blaming this episode on Celestia is missing the rather larger point: the wedding episodes were altogether badly written.
A few sore points:
__________________________________________________________________________
The whole premise of the episode is utterly nonsensical. What was Chrysalis even trying to do? She replaced Cadence...because why? To steal love, right? Ok, but she had her army set to invade. So...what was the plan? To marry Shining, and then have her army come in and ruin everything? Overt invasion isn't exactly compatible with covertly replacing Cadence. Oh, maybe she needed the army to break through the shield? And why was the shield up in the first place? In the episode it's explained that the shield was in response to "a threat against Canterlot." Uhh...what threat? Issued by whom? Chrysaslis?
...so, did Chrysalis sneak into canterlot and replace Cadence, and then issue the threat so that Canterlot would be shielded so that she'd have a reason to have her army come break her out? That doesn't make any sense. Ok, so maybe she issued the threat before she came to Canterlot? But if that's the case, that would mean that she threatened Canterlot to put it on high defense alert...because why? Certainly wouldn't make her infiltration easier to warn ponies of a threat ahead of time. And why was she alone in Canterlot when she could have brought infiltrators with her? The three in the crystal caves were apparently mind-controlled bridesmaids, not changelings. Odd that nobody noticed them missing from the ceremony. What, was she never planning to invade at all and just got stuck inside the shield and that's why she summoned her army in the first place, to break her out? Then why issue the threat? That's the only reason the shield is up in the first place.
What does the shield even do? In the episode we're shown Twilight's train going right through it, and there's a scenes where it's shown penetrating the train and everybody on it passing through it. So it's not an impermeable barrier. But then elsewhere in the episode we're shown Luna making a hole in it and then passing through the hole. what exactly does the shield stop? It doesn't stop trains. It doesn't stop ponies. Spike gets through so it doesn't stop non-ponies. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy get through, so it doesn't stop creatuers with flight magic. And presumably it doiesn't stop "flyers not in contact with the ground" because Dash is hovering on the train when she passes through it, and the whole thing is pretty pointless if the changeling army could simply fly up to it, walk through, then take to the air again.
But wait...Luna makes a hole in the bubble to get through, and we're shown in other episodes that she's a shapeshifter, right? And the changelines are shapeshifters and at the end of the episode we're explicitly shown Chrysalis being batted away by the restored shield as it grows. So does the shield stop shapeshifters? So Canterlot knew exactly what the threat was? How did they know? Did Chrysalis seriously issue a threat on Canterlot making it explictly clear to expect an attack from changelings? Were there maybe traces of her magic on the threat, and ponies detected that? Either way, if they know it's shapeshifters, why is anypony surprised when Twilight accuses fake-Cadence? They've known each other since Twilight was filly. If anyone should be able to identify that Cadence isn't Cadence...shouldn't it be Twilight?
Putting it all together, Chrysalis apparently snuck into Canterlot all by herself for some reason and replaced Cadence, then issued a threat against Canterlot once she was already inside, telling everypony to expect an attack from shapeshifters, so that the shield would be put up so that she would have a reason to need her army to attack Canterlot to bust her out, and yet despite a city-wide lockdown against shapeshifters specifically, still nobody takes Twilight seriously when she points out that fake-Cadence isn't acting like Cadence.
The whole plot is riddled with issues that make no sense.
__________________________________________________________________________
It retconned Twilight's backstory in weird and unfortunate ways. She was originally written as a social recluse who earned her way to prestige and glory through personal merit. The wedding episode suddenly gave her a doting brother and familial connections to royalty. How did a pony who grew up with healthly emotional ties to her brother and a princess become the socially awkward bookworm we see in season 1? Worse, the scenes with filly Twilight and Cadence show Twilight without a cutie mark. She was being babysat by a princess before her test for Celestia's school. And her brother who now suddenly exists is the captain of the royal guard...romancing that same princess.
Clearly Twilight's family had all sorts of connections to royalty and Twilight was known in Canterlot before her test, which means that her entire backstory is now altered and diminished. She would have been part of that elite social circle regardless of what she'd done in life. People tend to forget about this, but a lot of fics shortly after season 2 depicted Twilight as a hereditarily titled noble of House Sparkle, and wrote her as a personal and friendly acquaintance of Prince Blueblood to explain her dislike of other ponies that we see in season 1. This interpretation makes a lot of sense in context of what we see, but it completely changes her backstory and has the unfortunate implication that she was probably admitted to the test "just like any other noble daughter." And given Shining's power, the further implication is that magic power is genetic, and so it would have been expected that Twilight would be magically gifted rather than her having "earned" her strength through persistent study. It utterly diminishes her character. Instead of a socially awkward bookworm her earned her way to glory, she becomes an entitled noble with royal connections who never learned to like other ponies because she thought them beneath her station.
_____________________________________
Why is Cadence an alicorn? It's serves no narrative purpose. The story would have made just as much sense if she'd been a unicorn. But by having her be an alicorn, that messes with previously established canon which established the two Sisters as basically divine entities within the verse. Oh sure, people don't often buy that interpretation now because of all of the retcons, but it was common understanding among the fandom back in season 1 that the Royal Sisters were gods. There's a huge pile of religious symbolism in the show, they're introduced by showing them as elements of yinyang, Celestia is shown raising the sun in a Jesus on the cross pose, let's not forget that Celestia's name is a play on words on the word celestial meaning "relating to heaven or divinity," and what about all of the times somepony says as Celestia is my witness? The idea of "God as witness" is straight out of the Bible.
And I suspect that that might be part of why Celestia is shown to be such a derp in that episode. With Lauren gone from the show, some of the remaining writing staff might have wanted to take her down. I actually personally asked one of the comic writers at a Comic Con panel about the divinity of the sisters, and she told me that she didn't like writing for all powerful characters because she thought it was "boring." So blaming the nonsense on Celestia is kind of missing the point. It was the writers at fault here, not the characters.
And at the end of the day...the reason for a lot of this nonsense was probably executive meddling to sell toys. Does everybody remember the pink Celestia toys that Hasbro released that nobody wanted to buy because Celestia wasn't pink? Yeah, how much do you want to bet somebody at Hasbro ordered the studio to add a pink princess to the show so that rather than throwing away tens of thousands of unsold toys, they could instead swap the cutie mark and sell them as the new pink princess instead.
Not sure I'll continue; just too many issues here for me. Not even halfway through her dissertation (while bleeding out from a huge stab wound) I found myself starting to skim through because it just wouldn't end. Halfway through I just started sighing and rolling my eyes in exasperation when a natural end to her speech was immediately followed by "AND ALSO!" in the next paragraph. By the end of this chapter, I just stopped caring.
This honestly doesn't feel like an actual story with actual characters. The non-descript details in the environment combined with the utter lack of reaction from the ponies aside from a few lines about crying, and Chrysalis's dialogue made this feel like a glorified soapbox for the author to vent about their grievances for the episode with Chrysalis acting as the authorial mouthpiece. And the utter passivity of the ponies makes it a bit pathetic because it sounds like someone yelling at a bunch of cardboard cutouts because they're too cowardly to say anything directly to the characters.
Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful premise and I know this expanded far beyond a simple one-shot, but this just didn't really leave a good first impression with me. Still good luck with this and future works. :)
11510824 You have a point. originally that's what it was in part, my own railing against how badly Twilight was treated in the wedding episode. If you did read further, you can see that I try to be fair and point out how Twilight could have handled things better as well, but I can understand how this first chapter might put you off. The reason I don't have more detailed reactions and descriptions is precisely because the chapter is long enough with just Chrysalis, adding in the rest would have doubled the length.
As for how Chrysalis manages to talk for so long with a big hole in her, I say it's a combination of:
1) Changeling metabiology.
2) Narrative causality - The universe won't let a villain die half way through her speech.
3) Sheer bloody-mindedness/villainous effort * - Chrysalis was not going to let herself die until she'd finished one final mind-screw on her enemies. Because she's a complete b***h .
* Like heroic effort but y'know... evil.
To be honest, I've never been entirely happy with the flow of this chapter myself. I just had an idea, what if I transferred some of the initial stuff about how Chrysalis identifed Twilight as a threat and was deliberately acting out of character to get Twilight to freak out to a section before the confrontation, a Chrysalis POV where she's mentally congratulating herself.
It was my explanatiion why Chrysalis seemed so bad at her job. I mean it's like she's not even making an effort. Either she's an idiot, really bad at inflitration, or she had some deeper reason for deliberately risking blowing her cover.
Edit: Of course, from a Doylian point of view, it was to make it clear to the audience that something was wrong.