• Published 18th Jun 2018
  • 3,833 Views, 52 Comments

Breaking In to Avoid Being Broken - Justice3442



Chrysalis has had better days, but times have changed for the former Queen and she’s going to have to figure out how to adapt to her new life. Or, you know… do something sensible like try to get her old one back.

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Chapter One: Prelude to Meanness

Author's Note:

First chapter of what is sure to be a strange and introspective journey... But you know... Also weird and kinky and possibly funny.

Mature Version to be posted in a day or two (which will also likely be the pattern moving forward). A sort of comparison document is available for patrons that has BOTH versions is up once you get on my Discord channel).

So, enjoy, reflect, and keep lots of kleenex, wet wipes, disinfectant, bleach, booze (just whatever is going to help you get through this ) handy.

Chitin hooves clicked against crystal floors as Chrysalis, once Queen of the changeling hordes, skulked about the great halls of the Crystal Empire’s royal castle. Her jade eyes drifted listlessly in the moon and starlit hallway as she trudged forward and considered her surroundings for what was possibly the hundredth time or more. The base design of the castle itself might be considered attractive enough, if a creature could get over how bright and sickeningly shiny it got in the daytime. At the very least, the bare crystal itself had a somewhat pleasing stark and empty quality to it with a grandeur that admittedly made her somewhat envious of the material over the simple stone of her hive.

However, the ponies had decided to mar such simplistic beauty with overly ornate doors and pillars stationed perfectly spaced from each other giving the whole thing a far too orderly and unnatural symmetrical look. Furthermore, they insisted on hanging drapes and banners everywhere as if they’d somehow lapse into despondency if they forgot for one second that ‘mauve’ was a color.

Ponies… What a weak and pathetic species… A species so soft they have to even surround themselves with the REMINDERS of creature comforts when they walk from one place to the other. Chrysalis soon reached one of the many doors, Of course It’s mauve! and pushed it open.

She found herself in a rather spacious bathroom with more pony comforts the species simply couldn’t seem to live without; like a sink, a bath large enough for several ponies to sit in at once, a ugh… toilet… The items for cleanliness were somewhat reasonable for creatures who had the misfortune to be born covered in tiny hairs that held onto every little bit of filth the ponies encountered, not to mention skin that secreted various fluids and smells that those hairs held onto to heighten their sickening stench. Though the toilet was a reminder that ponies had to subsist completely on organic substances disgustingly pushed through their organs instead of absorbing magical energy directly from emotions like an evolved species that only ate and imbibed for recreational purposes. Such as eating one’s enemies alive, for instance.

Being around them and often having to adapt their horrible physical qualities was tantamount to torture. Though, often necessary. Chrysalis had once again successfully infiltrated the home of some of the ponies she hated the most. In fact, she had been so successful, that she no longer even had to hide who and what she was. Sure there had been some setbacks… Like about a solid week of hiding under the bed of one of the ponies she had hated the most, but she crawled her way out of that situation… somewhat literally, and ingratiated herself to her current hosts through... rather peculiar means. However, she was nothing if not adaptable. Though the months had been grueling to get to this point, any day now she would spring her trap and bring this empire to ruins, get revenge on the rest of pony kind, find her lost children and declare herself Queen once more, purge any dissenters, and restore balance to the world as and her own personal contentment that went with it.

Yes… Any day now…

Chrysalis slinked closer to the sink.

Any day…

She looked in the mirror and caught sight of herself, and her sunken, tired eyes.

Any… Sniff…” Day… “Sob…”

Tears began to stream down Chrysalis’s face and she collapsed onto the sink, her face buried in her arms. Letting out a constant stream of sad wails as her chest heaved, she leaned on the crystal fixture and let her emotions pour out of her.

“Chrysalis… What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” a tired yet concerned female voice asked.

Chrysalis recoiled as she heard a yawn from behind her. She looked up and glanced in the mirror. There was now a baby-blue glow that lit up the room from Princess Cadance, who had clearly wandered out of bed and tracked Chrysalis down to the bathroom.

“What?! Crying?! Preposterous!” Chrysalis exclaimed as she tried to wipe away the tears only to remember that was rather ineffective in her true form as her carapace just spread the moisture around her face. “There’s aren’t tears! It’s from…” Chrysalis thought for a moment. “I can’t get this blasted pony contraption to work! It must be broken!” She exclaimed as she reared up and smashed her chitin encased forehooves into the sink spigot. “Se-wharrgarbl!”

Chrysalis was instantly caught off guard as a high-pressure stream of water blasted her in the face as if the sink was desperately fighting back.

With a bemused expression on her face, the magic glow from Cadence’s horn flickered. There was the quiet ‘squeak’ of a metal knob turning followed by the water pressure abating.

Chrysalis said nothing as she walked away from the sink, soaking wet. Her wings buzzed rapidly a couple times, firing off water in all directions as she menacingly stalked towards Cadance, glaring at her the entire time. Her voice began to reverberate with dark promises as she approached. “Pony filth, if you breathe one word of this to another living soul, I swear I will carve out your still beating heart while you scream and beg for—”

“Cantaloupe,” Cadance uttered, her expression most definitely unamused.

Chrysalis felt something like a tug on her brain as she ceased talking immediately and jerked her head slightly. “… Cantaloupe?” she repeated with a sneer.

Cadance simply nodded. “Cantaloupe,” she repeated simply.

Chrysalis closed her eyes tightly and sighed out some of her frustration, her anger turning to more of a quiet simmer.

Cadance tilted her head slowly and regarded Chrysalis as the changeling seemed to put something of a lid on her emotions. “Care to explain what just happened—” Cadance motioned to the damaged crystal sink “—with that?”

Chrysalis opened her eyes. “… No…” she said simply.

There was another yawn, a deeper this time, and Chrysalis found herself grimacing as a lilac glow grew brighter to the sound of hooves clopping against the crystal floors.

“Wha… what happened?” Shining Armor asked as he walked into the bathroom and blearily took in his surroundings. He pulled up a forehoof and looked at it quizzically. “And why is the floor all wet?” He pulled a face as he looked between Cadance and Chrysalis. “Were you two doing water sports—” He put on a pout “—without me?”

“No, Shiny,” Cadance answered with a smile. “Nothing like that.”

“Awwww…” Shining replied in disappointment.

“I know, right?” Cadance said. “Yum.”

Chrysalis watched the couple as it seemed her lips and eyes fought to escape the confines of her face.

Cadance continued, “Chrysi here thought it’d be easier to pretend she forgot how sinks work than to admit she was crying!”

“Don’t call me Chrysi!” Hissed the former changeling Queen. “That names makes me sound like some, some… some confused, rebellious adolescent with father issues!”

Shining frowned, “Oh… Wait… are you sure she’s just not trying to start an impromptu scene of ‘Help! Help! I need a strong, strapping plumber to plug up this unexpected leak!’?”

Chrysalis grit her teeth. “Shining, I just want you to know that I just discovered what it feels like when an entire section of one’s brain just ups and fries itself in their skull rather than accept what’s going on as reality. It was QUITE painful and it’s a sad day for you two if you ever wanted to ask me about my true origin because that info is now gone forever.”

Cadance just laughed. “No Shiny, that’s not…” She trailed off and frowned slightly. “No, wait…” she turned to Chrysalis. “Are we playing emergency plumber?”

“Aaaaaand there goes another section, thanks! I just forgot how money works. All thanks to you two!”

Cadance continued, “I mean, I’ll absolutely play your ‘in over her head’ roommate or sister, here.”

Shining grinned amorously. “And I’ll be the plumber who just happens to have the right tool for the job!”

Chrysalis let out a heavy sigh. “And now I’ve forgotten what a toaster is, super.”

Somehow, this didn’t stop Shining Armor who deepened his voice and stepped forward. “Ladies, did someone call for a plumber?”

“Stove? Gone!” Chrysalis hissed.

Cadane trotted up to Shining. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here!” she announced before flinging herself backwards into Shining’s forehoof and lifting a foreleg to her forehead dramatically. “My poor clumsy roommate has broken the sink and now water is everywhere and on top of that we’re both sopping wet and just a mess of nervous, pent up energy that we don’t know how to release!”

“Aww, and I found the blender quite useful…” Chrysalis lamented as a brief memory of her snarling as she ripped pink hair bows out of her cascading locks of jade flashed through her head and she shoved them in a device and then did… something that destroyed the offending items.

Shining just smiled wide. “Good thing I have the tools and a long length of pipe I can lay down to fix both things!” He said as he waggled his eyebrows at Cadance who smirked back.

Chrysalis’s eyes twitched. “Cantaloupe,” she said simply.

“What? Boo!” Cadance protested as her face tightened. “It was just getting good!”

“Aww, man…” Shining uttered.

“I’m in no mood!” Chrysalis snapped. “If you two need this room, go ahead. I could use the alone time!”

The married couple exchanged glances and began talking in hushed whispers. Chrysalis just sighed. This meant this incredibly awkward and brain-destroying conversation would continue after the two made a pact to take care of each other’s overactive desires to mate later.

Shining put down his wife and began to awkwardly trot over, his back legs tacking wide sideways strides forward like a pony out of an old frontier expansion play, “Well if you aren’t trying to role-play in the middle of the night, why would you even need to cry?”

Chrysalis groaned and smacked a forehoof against her forehead. “By the ancient primordial oozes of evil, you’re so unfathomably stupid when you’re this tired and all the blood has rushed to your smaller head. I didn’t even think that was possible, yet here we are!”

Biting at her lower lip as she tore her vision away from between her husband’s legs, Cadance approached and put a foreleg on top of her husband’s shoulder. “Well, Shiny, why does anyone cry outside a role-playing or private bedroom situation?”

Shining thought for a moment. “Emotional distress!”

Chrysalis shook her head. “It’s not something as sad and pathetic as that, alright?! I just had something in my eye… no doubt some random fluids from our bedroom escapades.” Chrysalis thought for a moment. “Which is plenty sad and pathetic in its own right…” she admitted.

Cadence took a few steps closer. “Chrysalis, Shining and I are here for you. You can talk to us about anything!”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “You know for a fact that’s not true…”

Cadence face took on a slightly more serious look. “Okay, right… but you know… even we have limits.”

Chrysalis couldn’t help but snort as she put on a smile that seemed steeped in irony. “Oh, I see. YOU two are the ones with limits.”

Cadence sighed. “Is that the reason you’re so upset?”

“Specifically, right now? No…” Chrysalis admitted.

Cadence smiled. “So something IS bugging—”

Chrysalis hissed angrily.

“—bothering you,” Cadence corrected.

Chrysalis grimaced slightly. She found it exceedingly difficult to determine when Cadence and Shining found it in themselves to shift from being completely oblivious morons and start being complete morons who were maybe acting that stupid to lure her into underestimating them and letting something slip out... If there was a lesson she should have learned by now, it would have been to never underestimate a pony. However, the creatures could seem so disarmingly stupid she often found herself caught off guard, and no two ponies she met were so stupid, disarmingly or otherwise, as the pair she found herself with now.

That being said, the image of Starlight Glimmer hammering at her throne with a rock and a frantic look on her face would always keep her warm at night.

“Awww…” Shining Armor uttered as he gave Chrysalis a sympathetic look. “Is someone feeling a little down?”

“No! I’m NOT feeling a ‘little down’!” Chrysalis exclaimed. “And stop using the ‘special voice’ with me! I HATE the special voice.”

Cadence gave Chrysalis a small smile. “If you don’t want to talk to us, you can always try talking to a different pony. We can have Sunburst listen to you again.”

Chrysalis smirked. “As amusing and cathartic as it was to watch that pony squirm and try to tunnel away from me through solid crystal again, no.” Her smile dropped. “I don’t think that’ll be enough.”

Shining tilted her head. “Well you should tell somepony. It’s not healthy just to keep all this stuff bottled inside.”

Chrysalis shot Shining a glare full of murderous intent. “Do NOT presume to tell me what is healthy and unhealthy for me, food! You only know what I allow you to know, and if you’re fooling yourself to think otherwise!”

Shining sucked in his lips into a frown and leaned backward from Chrysalis as Cadence gave her a disapproving look. “Chrysalis, Shiny is just trying to help. You don’t need to bite his head off!”

“Believe me, I would if I could!”

“Uh… Cantaloupe?” Shining uttered in a moderately distressed tone.

Chrysalis twitched slightly again. “Ugh…” she shook her head as the dangerous look in her eyes softened a bit. “I don’t expect you two to understand! I don’t expect anypony to be able to have the barest comprehension of what I’m experiencing!” Chrysalis shook her head. “So it’s pretty unfathomable that either of you would have a solution for me!”

Shining raised a forehoof.

“No, being peed on will not solve my problems!” Chrysalis snapped.

Shining sighed and lowered his forehoof.

Chrysalis growled. “When has getting peed on solved anyone’s problems in the history of ever?!”

“Well… I mean… jellyfish stings…” Shining mumbled.

Chrysalis groaned. “What is wrong with you two?”

Cadance smiled. “Perhaps you could give us a brief rundown of what’s upsetting you? I understand we’re not perfectly suited to help you, but we can’t do anything if you don’t tell us anything.”

Chrysalis’s brow tightened. “I was the undisputed ruler of a horde that betrayed me! ME, their CREATOR! Their BROOD mother! And the moment they so much as thought they could move on without me, every single one took the opportunity to reject me! Their LIFE giver!” A malevolent smile spread across Chrysalis’s lips. “I had it… I had it all. My vengeance… You two, and a great deal of your entire species cocooned as nothing more than food to feed me and my children for as long as your love and bodies would hold out!” Chrysalis quickly studied the faces of the two ponies in front of her. Somehow, instead of shock and gear there was quiet contemplative thinking. Instead of revulsion there was sympathy. Instead of hatred there was kindness.

And it was worse… it was so much worse.

Chrysalis clenched down on her teeth. “And now I have nothing. No minions, no domain of my own… nothing…”

Shining and Cadance exchanged glances then turned back to Chrysalis.

Cadance began, “Look… you know we can’t just give you… minions… but well… if you—”

‘Prove’ I’m worthy of the responsibility to have some pointless courtly rank as I can have some ‘subjects’ that I ‘rule’ over just so long as I don’t hurt their poor fragile feelings?!” Chrysalis interjected in the most condescending tone she could manage. Which, in this case, would have been enough to collapse the castle if ‘patronizing’ was something that had real weight to it.

Cadance sighed, “I’m sorry, but ponies aren’t like changelings.”

“Why Cadance, are you sure you’re not the Princess of Stating the Obvious?”

Cadance frowned heavily at that one. It was a small victory for the former Changeling Queen, but she took those where she got them.

“Okay, but it’s not like you have literally nothing!” Shining exclaimed. “I mean, you have your own room and just about whatever you can ask for in the Empire.”

Chrysalis winced at Shining’s pathetically stupid response. If she thought he had enough brain cells to rub together, she might humor this was his way of coming to his wife’s aid.

But of course, he was a complete idiot, so that couldn’t be it.

“I had a horde, you blathering idiot!” Chrysalis snapped. She shook her head. “By the empty primordials, are you two dense. Do you both really think with some basic amenities and your love, such that it is, you can make it so I’m content in your glorified gilded cage?! Do you really think that’s enough for anypony?!” She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t wait until that horri—” Chrysalis hacked out a coughed then huffed out a frustrated sigh briefly “—that infant of yours grows to resent you both!”

Oddly enough, Chrysalis found this elected a smirk from both ponies. Cadence even had the audacity to laugh to herself. “Honestly, I’d say we’re both dreading when Flurry Heart becomes a teenager, but this is, in all likelihood, wonderful practice.”

Shining likewise gave Chrysalis a warm smile that sent an electric shock of anger through her own body. “Look, there’s got to be something we can do to make you feel better.”

Chrysalis grunted in displeasure. “I need something to fill the giant chasm of a hole left in my life left by your friends and family, and I doubt either of you are capable!” Chrysalis flashed the pair another malevolent smile. “Unless you’re willing to present me with the heads of your sister and her—”

Cadance’s forehead tightened. “Canta—”

Chrysalis clamped her mouth shut and glowered silently at Cadance.

Cadence likewise opted to leave the word unfinished.

Shining Armor raised a forehoof.

“No, Shining! No, it’s not a literal hole!”

Shining nodded. “I get that, but maybe I have something that can fill that figurative hole!”

“By the boiling pits! You both have already filled all my literal holes with basically anything that would fit! This is not something you can just fix with your genitals!”

Shining smile. “No not that, this!”

Chrysalis let out some groan. “Some new device that somehow plugs all my holes at o—”

Shining leaned forward and wrapped his forelegs around Chrysalis. “Of course not! It’s a hug!”

“Awwwwwwww!” Cadance uttered as she leaned forward and likewise wrapped her forelegs around Chrysalis.

“No! This is worse! This is much, much worse!” Chrysalis snarled. “I would have much preferred it if you tried to solve this problem with your genitals.”

“Oh, come on!” Shining exclaimed as he nuzzled his face against Chrysalis’s cheek. “This has got to make you feel better!”

“No,” Chrysalis replied, “it doesn’t. In fact, I now feel even worse than I did just a bit ago, and let me tell you that the last few minutes of my life have been something of a death spiral in regards to how well everything is going for me.” Chrysalis’s slit pupils widened a bit. “Which is saying a lot, unfortunately.”

Cadance gave Chrysalis a cheerful smile as she nuzzled the large changeling on the other cheek. “Even you have to admit it’s comforting to be hugged.”

“No, I don’t, and no it doesn’t!” Chrysalis snapped. “See, the fact that you two think your trivial mammalian habits do anything but disgust me is one of the many reasons that my entire time here has been a complete and utter misery!”

Cadance and Shining broke the hug and gave each other looks of deep concern. “You’ve never been happy here?!” they echoed in shock.

Chrysalis pursed her lips slightly. “You know, if I was a pony I’d probably try to sugar coat this until it was mostly just a pile of sugar, but I’m not, so I’m just going to come out and say it. No. I’ve never, ever once experienced true happiness while living here at the castle. I hate your species, and I hate you two the most…” Chrysalis thought for a moment. “After Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, that is.”

Shining Armor and Cadance exchanged sad glances.

“Really? Never happy?” Shining asked in disbelief.

“So rude of you to ignore the part where I mentioned I despise you both.”

“There has to be some occurrence of you being happy here,” Cadance insisted.

“There absolutely is not, so can we just—”

Shining thought for a moment. “Sick patient in need of TLC and a nice big shot of vitamin M?”

Chrysalis scoffed. “I believe you mean vitamin ‘D’ for ‘dolt’.”

Shining grinned. “Nope, I meant ‘M’ for ‘Massive!’

Chrysalis’s entire head spasmed for a moment and she sighed. “There goes my ability to play a pan flute.”

“Ooooh… Naughty kitty in heat!” Cadence suggested.

“Wow… Having to relearn how to use a spoon without holding it over my tilted head and wide opened maw is going to be embarrassing.”

Shining gasped and pointed at Chrysalis with an ‘I GOT IT!’ expression on his face. “Surprise mystery box that I’m carrying between my hind legs!” Shining leaned forward and whispered, “The mystery is that it’s my dick… My dick is the gift!he said as if this was somehow unknown to the parties present which elicited a giggle from Cadance.

“I can no longer recall the difference between a salad fork and a regular fork… Which… not all that important when I think about it.”

Cadence smirked and flashed Chrysalis alluring eyes. “What about the time when I was in front of you with a strap-on while Shining was behind you? ”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “Licking plastic was so stupid that the very act made me forget the how multiplication works, which is a thing I re-taught myself, but now need to remember again because of this conversation.”

Shining Armor Spoke up, “Well, how about when I was in front of you and Cadence was behind?”

“BETTER! But hardly pure bliss.”

Cadance interjected again. “…What about when Shining was in front, I was in back, but there was something a little more magical in-between my legs?”

Chrysalis considered this for a moment. “Well….”

Shining’s face lit up. “How about when I was behind you and Cady was in front working her magic?”

Chrysalis pursed her lips. “You know what? That might have been the happiest I’ve been since I lost my hive… Okay, fine…” Chrysalis said, doing her best to sound bored. “Let’s try that.”

“Haw! Nice!” Shining said as the trio begin to file out of the bathroom.

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Cadance shouted. “What’s wrong with my cock?!”

“Nothing!” Chrysalis’s said. “Just that Shining's real penis is still somehow objectively better in every conceivable way.”

“YES! Score!” Shining cried.

“Awww…” Cadence uttered in disappointment.

~A few hot and heavy minutes later~

Chrysalis’s vision blurred as the feelings the ponies she was between flooded her being and pure pleasure triggered every touch receptor in her body. She found herself moaning, or rather humming, in ecstasy along with the yells and moans of the Princesses and Prince. The changeling’s hunger was quickly and completely satiated as the strongest love she had known coursed through her body and her brain seemingly swam in a sea of pure physical delight. For one brief, bliss filled moment, it was like the three lovers were completely wrapped in passion and pleasure and melting into one singularity of pure joy.

Chrysalis had to admit, it was…

…kind of okay.

Slowly, the feeling faded and Chrysalis’s faculties returned. She had collapsed into the center of the bed and retracted most of her loose appendages back into herself. Only her tongue lolled out of her mouth as she breathed in and out deeply, noting with some great dissatisfaction that she was still sandwiched between the two ponies, but now it was a snuggle sandwich instead of a spit roast. She tilted her head one way, then the other; noticing she was receiving twin expectant looks of post-coitus stupidity.

“Sooooo…” Shining began.

“How do you feel?” Cadance asked.

Chrysalis retracted her tongue. “No…” Chrysalis said between heavy breaths. “I’ll grant it was enjoyable, but if you two think that act somehow made me ‘whole again’, you are both sadly very mistaken.”

With disappointed looks on their faces, both ponies opened their mouths to speak.

“AND THE FIRST ONE TO MENTION MY LEGS GETS BEATEN TO DEATH WITH THE LARGE PLEASURE AID THAT WAS INSERTED INTO ME!”

Much to Chrysalis’s chagrin, her threat only resulted in a fit of hysterical laughter from her bedmates as they began gingerly pulling the various foreign objects from her less erogenous holes.

“HAHAHAHAHAhahahahehehe…” Cadance managed to get her laughter down to a mere snicker. "As entertaining as it'd be to have 'Beaten to a pulp by the 'Yesterday's Dinner Tickler' on my epitaph, I think Shining would be very jealous if anything phallic besides his own dick was my undoing."

Shining nodded, "I'd be inconsolable."

Chrysalis attempted to muster more anger but found she either lacked the energy at this point or perhaps the residual mix of emotions left over from her vigorous mating ritual with the ponies made it much harder than usual to maintain the simmering pot of disdain she felt for these two. She instead quickly struggled free of their grasp, her twisted horn flashing jade as she roughly pushed the ponies off of her, and leapt off the bed.

At least the remorseful and sorrowful looks of the two ponies were some cold comfort.

“I’m going to my room,” Chrysalis informed coldly.

“Chrysalis, wait!” Shining said in a pleading tone. “You don’t have to do that!”

Chrysalis growled, “Impudent, self-important Prince! I’m not leaving for the benefit of either of you!”

Shining let out a little whimper.

“Chrysalis, can’t we talk this out?” Cadance said. “Shining and I are going to feel just awful if you storm out like this…”

Good!”

“Come on, Chrysalis,” Shining said. “We just want to figure out what’s going to make you happy.”

Chrysalis glared at the couple on the bed. “Well, unless you’re going to allow to seek vengeance on the ponies that have wronged me, I feel we’re at a bit of an impasse!”

Cadance gave Chrysalis a somewhat hopeless look. Again, cold comfort.

“Okay.” Shining said simply.

“Shining! That’s mean!” Cadance exclaimed in a shocked tone.

Chrysalis scoffed and turned. “I thought as much…” though, truthfully she thought Cadance would be the first to crack.

“No,” Shining said, “Okay, as in we’ll give you permission to seek vengeance against the ponies that wronged you.”

“We will?!” Cadance gasped in complete disbelief.

“You will?!” Chrysalis said, echoing Cadance’s tone.

Shining leaned over and whispered into his wife’s ear. Chrysalis immediately reshaped her hearing structure, but it was too late. Shining’s horn was glowing lilac, and he had created a tiny barrier to block the flow of sounds from his whispers. The clever complete fool that he was.

Chrysalis simmered in silence, listing to the various disgusting sounds coming from inside the ponies’ bodies as she dreamed of opening their major arteries. The location of which she happened to know quite well...

As Shining continued to whisper, Cadance’s brow furrowed for a moment, then she pursed her lips in contemplation. After a few moments she smiled and nodded. Then the two ponies shared a quick revolting kiss and touched their horns together, rubbing them against each other with sickeningly lovesick expressions on their faces.

Shining’s horn stopped glowing and Chrysalis quickly reshaped her audio receptors back to normal as the couple’s heavy breathing joined the sounds of their heartbeats and blood rushing through their bodies.

“We will,” Cadance said.

Chrysalis’s jaw dropped. “You understand that I want revenge, right? Revenge on quite a few ponies. Including pretty much all your loved ones and you two in particular.”

Shining nodded. “We know, that’s why we have a few conditions.”

Chrysalis let out a heavy groan as she raised a foreleg to her face dramatically. “You’re not going to lift any of the limitations on me!”

Cadance chuckled. “Oh please, you wouldn’t let a vicious murderer of changelings just roam free if you had the option of curtailing its behavior.”

“I might to let it thin my horde of some weakness! I mean… if you’re extending an offer nooooowww…

“Chrysalis!” Cadance snapped.

“Ugh…” She shook her head. “You two are fools… If I succeed here, and I assuredly will this time, I’ll be your end! The end of Equestria like I dreamed!” Her brow tightened. “You can’t possibly want that.”

“Well, no…” Shining admitted. “But if you succeed at least we’ll have finally made you happy again.”

Cadance smiled and nodded in agreement.

Chrysalis at once felt like her brain had short-circuited as it tried to process Shining's sentence and the resulting emotion it elicited. These two can’t POSSIBLY be THAT foolish… Can they?

Chrysalis thought for a moment, then something quite unexpected happened. She smiled. Not a smile designed to intimidate, or at least not one only designed to intimidate, but one of true joy at the thought of having an opportunity to strike back at all who had wronged her. This was followed by mirthful laughter that bubbled out from the changeling.

“Muhahahahahahahahahahaha!”

Correction, this was followed by dark, insidious laughter that oozed out like black tar from Chrysalis.

Despite this, Cadance and Shining responded with quiet snickering.

“You can go, but there have got to be more conditions,” Shining said.

Chrysalis laughter cut off instantly. “More?!” she called out in disbelief. She let out a groan. “Let me guess, you’re going to make a suit for me out of pillows and then declare I can only tickle my enemies to death!”

Shining laughed. “Wow. Don’t give us ideas.”

Cadance just shook her head. “We’ll give you a fair opportunity, but we can’t just let you have free reign across all of Equestria.”

“Of course not,” Chrysalis said, “my reign would be anything but free as it’s going to involve the complete subjugation of your race.”

Somehow this elected more laughter from the other two ponies, much to Chrysalis’s annoyance. She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “I already can’t attack any pony or pretty much any sentient for that matter… Killing is completely out of the question. My options are pretty limited as it is.”

Shining smirked. “We’re confident you’ll think of something.”

Chrysalis thought for a moment and found herself smiling deviously to herself. It was true enough, she could still pull out a win using a number of methods. She wasn’t quite sure what game Cadance and Shining were playing, but even being as reasonably clever as they were when they put their heads together, she was still confident she could find some loophole. Smile still on her face, “Alright, what are your terms?”

Cadance yawned. “For starters, that we talk about this after we’ve all gotten some sleep.”

Chrysalis growled. “Ugh, you weak, pathetic ponies…” she spat out, though truth be told she found herself quite tired. True her earlier acts with the royal couple had filled her with power, but the method used to acquire this power still left her feeling quite lethargic and somewhat overwhelmed. “Very well.” Chrysalis turned to leave. “Tomorrow then.”

“Oh, and you have to sleep here with us tonight,” Shining called out.

Chrysalis could practically hear the smug grin on Shining armor’s stupid face.

She wheeled around. “WHAT?! That’s outrageous! Not to mention deceitful!” she added as she tried her best not to feel a small bit of respect for the couple using this opportunity to get their way.

Cadance gave Chrysalis a tired smile. “Think of it as just one more reason to be angry and an opportunity to let your hate for us bu—”

Chrysalis leaped, flitted her wings, and landed in a heap between the two ponies on her stomach.

“—rn…” Cadance concluded, obviously caught off guard at how quickly Chrysalis has seemingly changed her mind.

“Yes, my… yawn… unyielding hatred for you two… fine…” Chrysalis closed her eyes. “One or both of you rub my back.”

Shining snorted out a laugh. “You want us to rub your exoskeleton?”

“I shifted my back so it’s soft, you dolt!” Chrysalis snapped. “Now start rubbing and I’ll start hating… mind the wings.”

Much to Chrysalis’s delight, two sets of forehooves and some light magical pressure began gently caressing her back. As her wings occasionally buzzed to the feeling of her muscles being worked, she let her thoughts drift to potential, and workable, plans to get her revenge as well as letting her thoughts dwell on just how much she despised the two ponies she also just so happened to be sharing a bed with. A dark smile spread across her face as she celebrated getting the upper-hoof on the couple by forcing them to give her a message. Let her hate burn she would, and after she let that hate turn into an inferno over the course of a sleepless night, she’d use that feeling to push her forth into a new fiery dawn where she freed herself of her shackles and took revenge on all ponies that wronged her!

Still smiling to herself, Chrysalis fell asleep a few short minutes later.