Singular's Demise

by The Psychopath

The creepy new student

Applejack stared at the table in the teacher's lounge, her face devoid of anything but a twisted melting pot of emotions. The current ingredient to bubble to the surface was frustration. Rarity was currently brewing tea in a white, floral patterned kettle she took from her home and poured its warmed contents into two cups. She took both, along with a small container of sugar and a tiny plate of assorted cookies to the table and set a cup in front of her distraught friend.

"Are you okay, Applejack?" Rarity asked her friend.

The white mare vaulted over a few of Pinkie Pie's fallen roll of party wrap, and even though she was tempted to grab them and place them somewhere, she was more preoccupied with her friend...and grinding her teeth.

"Not exactly," Applejack lamented. She dropped her head hard against the white, plastic table, causing her hat to fold. "Ah got this might-be student who came to mah class earlier 'n..." She swung her head to the right. "Well. She's a might..." Applejack couldn't find the words to use, so she's just shrugged wildly. "Is it possible ta be 'too' honest?" she asked Rarity.

"Too honest?" Rarity looked at her friend with a slanted and doubtful smile. "Since when does Applejack believe in an excess of honesty?"

"Ah...Well..." She took of her hat and passed a hoof through her mane.

The mare grabbed two cubes of sugar and dropped them into her tea and stirred them in. "What brought about this kind of concern?" she asked her friend after blowing on her drink. "Surely, this potential student isn't all THAT bad." She squeaked from the heat of the tea and set the cup down abruptly, spilling some drops on the table.

"Well, she's a changeling!"

Rarity raised a brow. "And? I thought we were passed the suspicions of them."

"Ya say that," the farmpony started loudly. "but ah've only seen Chrysalis do like her...and Chrysalis was hardly ever that...extreme."

Rarity's eyes sparkled with interest, her ears perked up, and she soon forgot that she was stirring her drink to get all the excess heat out of it. "Do tell."

"W-well." The mare readjusted herself on her rear and straightened herself as best she could. "That changeling was analyzing as much as she could, and it wasn't just simple honesty linked to friendship. It was..." She twirled her hoof in the air. "Advanced psychological stuffs."

Rarity narrowed her eyes. " 'Advanced psychology stuffs'?" she imitated mockingly.

"Yes!" Applejack shouted. She quickly recomposed herself. "It was unnervin'. Taking into account not just the pony, but as many possible outcomes as possible with outside elements."

"Sounds like she's fascinated with psychology," Rarity shrugged with a smile. "That's a good thing isn't it?"

"Not when she says it with a hint of...what's the fancy words ya like to use again?" Applejack entered deep thought briefly. "She said it with malice. There we go."

Rarity took a sip of her tea and savored it. "I'd hardly call 'malice' fancy," she mumbled dismissively.

"She creeped me and the other students out a lot."

Rarity shrugged the notion off and twirled the contents of her cup. "That's hardly a reason to make cause for alarm." You took another sip while looking at her distraught friend. "You have to get used to the idea of 'special' students popping up in our school. Geniuses, even."

Applejack rubbed the back of her neck. "Ah suppose yer right...Still. Ah'm uncomfortable around her." She rubbed her chin and a smirk formed at the corner of her mouth. "Tell ya what; How about ah send her your way, then you'll see what she's like."

"Well I think that that's a fantastic idea, Applejack," Rarity agreed. "I'll be more than happy to meet-Oh. What's her name?"

"Uhhh..." Applejack thought hard. "Cranberry." Rarity was taken aback. "She said she wanted ta try pony naming."

---

Chrysalis used the goop around her in the small chamber to draw plans on how to get back at both Starlight and Thorax. She had been working on the plans for hours, and every time, she'd wipe the 'slate' clean. By this point, she was having an angry temper-tantrum displayed by her stomping about furiously.

"Always those six and their elements of harmony!" she screamed. "I can't get around them!" She looked at a smeared display of her old hive, and her eyes glowed a furious, bright green. "They'll never let me destroy my old hive! The traitors! THEY WERE MY FAMILY!" she bellowed louder. "If Pronotum hadn't found me, I'd be..." Her eyes darted from side-to-side, and she exhaled loudly. "I need to get out of here."

Chrysalis stuck her head out of the chamber doorway in time to see the blue-purple queen talking with her subjects on where to take a new set of pony explorers who got too close into the hive. A few others flew in from the openings above them with another pony in tow.

"Hmm," Chrysalis hummed. "I can't get through those tunnels, and transforming into one of them won't work. They'll notice."

The queen laid her head against the wall and slowly sank into the goop. Chrysalis was pulled out by Pronotum who held her by the back of her neck.

"What are you doing?" she passively asked the blue-green queen.

Chrysalis remained silent, frowning, and with goop slowly dripping off of her face. One large drop fell to the floor, attracting the attention of both. The blue-purple queen looked away and let Chrysalis go.

Chrysalis refused to make eye-contact. "Why are you keeping me here?" she asked.

"To watch you."

The blue-green queen glared at her opponent. "Yes, to prevent me from doing 'something stupid',"she mocked with hoof twirling. "By what not just freeze me like you did them?" She pointed to the cocoons being transported by the changelings.

Pronotum looked at the working changelings then back to the queen. "You're a queen. If we can restore your hive to you or we get rid of it, then you have a chance for redemption." The blue-purple queen rubbed her forehead. "I'm not really in the mood for this sort of thing today. I'd rather just have a calm talk or something like that." She looked around, then something hit her. "You want something to eat? You haven't eaten in two days."

Chrysalis put a hoof to her emaciated belly and averted Pronotum's gaze with a grumble. "I've dealt with starvation before. I won't take some handmedowns from your brood."

"Then you wouldn't mind new recipes for 'love' that my changelings have created during their free time, do you?"

Chrysalis opened her mouth several times and closed it just as many. "What...what are you talking about?"

Pronotum smiled. "They grew tired of consistently eating the same thing. They wanted to enjoy food outside of just sustenance."

"What? Love IS sustenance! We just need it. We don't need special spices," Chrysalis complained.

Pronotum shrugged and called some changelings over. They nodded and flew off into the cave. "While I agree, the changelings' creations have proven to be aid with hive efficiency, and I have, as of yet, found no detriments to the creation of these new forms of condensed love."

"Except for the time they waste making them," Chrysalis mumbled under her breath.

Pronotum shook her head at Chrysalis' attempt at being 'discreet'. "Ah. They're already back," she noticed.

Three changelings landed in front of the queens, sat on their haunches, and help up crystal hearts of three different colors above their heads. One a mint green, another wine red, and amethyst. Chrysalis looked them over, and her scowl only grew the longer she did so.

"Just take one, you stubborn mule," Pronotum growled.

"Ffffine," the queen hissed. Chrysalis swiped the mint green heart and started to gnaw at it energetically. Her scowl gradually faded away, and her eyes brightened at the flavor. She took the heart out of her mouth, and held it in her magic, then pointed at it with a hoof. "What is this?"

Pronotum was too busy gnawing on the amethyst-colored crystal to answer immediately. "You like it, it seems," she said.

The other three changelings took off and broke the crystal into three separate pieces to share, something the 'captured' queen had taken notice of. Chrysalis swallowed a mouthful of gem and pretended to display apathy while she twirled it in the air. "It's okay, I suppose..." She licked it and coughed. "How did they make this?"

"You know how animals still carry some love?" she asked the blue-green queen.

"Yes, but it's not as rich as the ponies', nor is it as complex. It's why I never let my hive bother with that," she explained.

"Well," Pronotum wiped her mouth. "They might not be nutritious, but much like spices the other races have used to decorate the flavor of their foods, so too does the love of animals allow for such things." She gnawed a little more at the crystal and hummed in delight. "I love this one's flavor."

Chrysalis turned her own meal over several times in the air with magic and frowned. "But we can eat sugar as a suitable secondary substance," she noted. "It's not as nutritious, but it's just as rich and can give us the energy we need when migrating."

The other queen bobbed her gem multiple times at Chrysalis before swallowing her mouthful of food. "That's true, but how are we supposed to get any? We spent our time here preying on the mountain climbers from here and Prance, draining them of their love then sending them back at the base of the mountains, creating rumors of monsters appearing at the lower levels so they wouldn't come snooping up here." She heaved a loud sigh. "It's not like it's extremely dangerous for non-changelings of our hive to come up here." Pronotum looked at her reflection in the crystal then through it to see Chrysalis' distorted shape. "Torrential winds from the height and uneven mountain shape. Extreme steepness leading to ninety degrees walls and slopes or even sharper inclinations. Lack of nearly all heat up here, causing even those with lots of thick clothing to freeze to death."

"A waste of food," Chrysalis scoffed.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you, Chrysalis."

The emaciated queen looked up with cautious, analytical eyes. "What?"

"What exactly drove you to attack the capital of the ponies."

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "I already told you this."

"No you didn't." Pronotum shook her head. "You said you wanted tons of love to feed your hive, but as we all discussed, there were other ways."

The emaciated queen grumbled loudly. "Why are we going back on this?"

"Because I want to know why you exposed our entire race to lesser beings." Pronotum continued to speak calmly, but her eyes were bright and wide with rage.

"Fine!" Chrysalis yelled to the heavens. "I was trying to take over Equestria and force my changelings within it."

Pronotum was taken aback. "You what?!"

"We wouldn't have needed to hide in that hive anymore and would have love constantly available! A supply chain would've been established under the guise of military supply transportation." She smiled and looked at nothing, imagining whatever scene was going through her mind. "Imagine everything we could have done. Changelings would have gradually phased out ponies in Equestria, and by the time they might have noticed something, it would have been too late."

Pronotum nodded intently at the plan. She took her food out of her mouth before talking again. "So what stopped your plan?"

"That Twilight Sparkle!" she bellowed and slammed her hoof in the goop. "I wasn't expecting her at all. I acted appropriately to everyone else there, but she and this Cadance had an intimate relationship I wasn't aware of."

"Ha!" Pronotum laughed. "You went in half-cocked because you were too sure of yourself." Her bemused demeanor turned to rage and quick talking. "That's EXACTLY what got you in trouble in the first place. You only heard TALK of Twilight and didn't dig deeper into that." She counted by poking dots in the goop with each point she made. "Taking the place of a well-trusted servant. Becoming a guard and patiently working your way up to personal bodyguard. Prying for rumors regarding their relationship. Sending changelings out to find the Twilight Sparkle and learn about her, her snooping behavior, and her relationship to your target."

Chrysalis growled angrily, but she conceded. "That's all true...and I lost everything afterwards because of Starlight Glimmer."

"Yes. The pony who sneaked into your hive with a god of chaos in tow." She scratched her chin and started to wonder aloud. "I'm surprised his counterpart never appeared."

"Counterpart?" Chrysalis repeated.

"It's nothing." Pronotum waved the thought away. "But it was a changeling in your own hive that betrayed you."

Chrysalis stared longly at what was left of her gem and squeeze it. "My own flesh and blood."

"You should've seen something wrong with him and dealt with him like the traitor he is," Pronotum said.

The emaciated queen shot a glare at the blue-purple queen and growled through her teeth. "And what do you do to your traitors?"

Pronotum looked to the side and continued to gnaw on her crystal. "Oh, nothing important enough to put in details," she slurred dismissively.

Comments

[Vaalintine]

Why they seem so determined to destroy Thorax's changelings doesn't really make sense.

[GamePlayer64]

9108807
Betrayal is a major Taboo to them. Try to imagine Bees, Ants or Termites; They all have a queen, yes? What would happen if they got rid of their queen and there was no next queen?

[fanreader999999]

Misses.

[The Psychopath]

9108807

9109110
Don't forget the blue changeling queen (Which I'm going to make with a fun little dynamic in the next chapter :3)

9109427
Typos?

[Kryostasis]

Oy vey!

[eemoo1o]

"Counterpart?" Chrysalis repeated.

Oh yes. Oh yes, oh yes. Spirit of Harmony... is or could be a draconequus.