Double Jeopardy
Starlight Glimmer — sprawled casually two seats away — glanced toward Chrysalis and slowly raised an eyebrow. "You're going to kill your prisoners."
Another disbelieving murmur swept through the audience, and not for the first time, Chrysalis bristled at the impudence of … whoever the ponies were that were watching this wretched joke of a game show. She squinted against the glare of the spotlights, but couldn't make out anything more than shadowy figures in the darkness beyond the stage.
So she whirled toward Starlight. "Has the master villain," she said caustically, "fallen so far that she finds that hard to believe?"
"Here we go again," Twilight Sparkle muttered from the seat between them, slumped over her podium. "Another lecture to the ponies outscoring her ten to one."
The crowd's whispers shifted to suppressed laughter. And even though changelings were physically incapable of blushing, Chrysalis had spent enough time in pony form to feel phantom heat in her cheeks. She shoved herself upright in her chair, baring her fangs.
"You're not even evil!" Chrysalis shouted, waving a hoof at the huge Who Wants To Rule The World? logo behind them. "That's what this farce is supposed to measure — your skill at seizing and holding power! How dare you act like an authority while you 'solve problems' with friendship —"
"Then why," Twilight said with a roll of her eyes, "are you still losing?"
Chrysalis bolted off her chair, flipping her podium away as her rage at the ponies boiled over. "The game is rigged!" she screeched.
The crowd broke into a collective groan. A few boos echoes from the back of the room.
Chrysalis jabbed a hoof out toward the darkness. "You shut up! You know nothing! I've conquered your country twice now! I've captured your leaders — and they live or die at my word! No amount of 'points' will ever erase —"
Her sentence trailed off into a strangled little cough as she felt the tingle of magic clench around her tongue. "Stars and clouds," Starlight shouted toward the ceiling, "do you ever shut up?"
Chrysalis reflexively tried to light her own horn to counter it. Her magic flared, sputtered, and died. Twilight's horn lit too, and a second aura clamped in around her body.
Panic tightened Chrysalis' chest. As the audience erupted into open hoots and catcalls, she glanced to the bored-looking figured in the Master of Ceremonies' seat. Nightmare Moon — grooming a hoof-edge with a file held in her magic — surveyed the struggle with an unflinching stare, and then looked down at her hoof again.
Twilight languidly stood up, stretching her wings out. "Apparently we have to explain even this basic thing to you, which is a disappointment I really should have expected."
"Mmh—!" Chrysalis protested, cut short by a sharp jerk to the tongue.
Starlight sneered, leaning back in her chair and putting her hind hooves on her podium. "Of course the game is rigged."
"The thing is," Twilight said, pacing past Chrysalis' paralyzed form, "it's rigged in your favor."
"The game uses your definitions."
"You said yourself," Twilight said, "evil is about power. Getting what you want."
"So the only one who isn't evil here is you!" Starlight bellowed as the crowd laughed and jeered. "Because you're stupid!"
"Mmmph!" Chrysalis flailed uselessly against the ponies' iron grip, her muzzle contorting around the prickly field encircling her tongue.
"Do you know why I locked Twilight in a room for reprogramming when I've got Equestria's greatest mind control powers?" Starlight said.
"Or why I let her come live with me based just on a promise to be better, when I had a friendship laser and friends telling me to use it?"
Starlight leaned in. "I could have solved the problem by ripping her brain apart and being done with it."
"Same," Twilight added. "But with rainbows."
"Eradicating our captured prisoners would have been simple. It would have been, briefly, satisfying."
"And," Twilight smoothly added, "it would have cost us everything. A powerful asset. Gloating rights." An unsettling smirk spread across Twilight's muzzle — the sort Chrysalis herself might have given. "And the ability to watch my foe suffer for years as the guilt ate her from the inside out."
"You think the ability to kill gives you power?" Starlight said. "Oh, you poor, pathetic fool. Power comes from making beings want to obey you."
Twilight slowly walked up to Chrysalis, caressing the underside of her jaw with a hoof as the crowd's jeering redoubled. "From being strong enough to gain their respect."
"You think we respect you?" Starlight said, then inclined her head at the crowd. "You think they do?"
The hints of motion in the darkened crowd boiled over into activity. Figures surged forward toward the edge of the stage.
Dark figures.
Changeling drones.
"What do you think we see when we look at the pointless sacrifice you ordered for petty revenge?" Starlight said, her pupils lengthening into slits.
"Weak!" the changelings shouted, as the swarm began to climb up into the light. "Greedy!" "Failure!" "Usurper!"
Twilight's smirk grew fangs, and she gestured at the swarm with a holey hoof. "And once we lose our respect for you —" she said as the dark figures closed in — "how will we act when you aren't awake to keep us in line?"
Chrysalis jerked upright with a gasp.
She blinked repeatedly as her throne room swam back into focus. Her honor guard stood at attention at the doors, and the background hum of her hive-link tickled at her groggy mind. The alicorns she'd captured in her second attack on Canterlot were still slumbering in the pods glued to the floor to her right. If it weren't for her tight chest and her clammy chitin, everything would have been perfect.
Just a dream.
She swallowed through a dry throat. No laughter. Just a dream.
Behind her, a throat cleared, and she nearly jumped out of her exoskeleton before placing it with her hive-sense as her seneschal Bloody Mandibles. "What?" she snapped, trying to cover her lingering fear with irritation.
"I said, my queen, that the executioners you ordered to suck the prisoners dry have arrived, and are waiting just outside."
Chrysalis stared at him, desperately groping for inflection in his flat, disaffected speech. Flailing for some hint of expression on his rigid facial chitin. Searching for the tiny muscle twitches, the movement of his blank eyes, which would have revealed the emotions hidden behind any soft, weak pony face.
Nothing.
She looked away, feeling her chest squeeze and her windpipe clench. Turned her head slowly toward the pods. The blue alicorn's face was slack with sleep, and her open eyes were unfocused, but somehow, that unflinching stare seemed all too familiar.
Chrysalis stared at her prisoners for a while as her breathing gradually slowed.
"Not just yet," she finally said.
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...Don't you mean the Season 6 finale? The Season 5 finale was about Glim Glam's time travel shenanigans.
. . .
Sorry, it's just that the s5 finale is relevant to my own works so the inconsistency instantly threw me for a loop.
This is good.
Oh, nice! Luna saves the day, huzzah!
This was my fave from that round, IIRC. Glad to see it here.
"Usurper" is certainly an interesting accusation. How did Chrysalis come to power?
In any case, I love the ambiguity here. I'm legitimately unsure whether this is Chrysalis's much-abused better judgement trying to warn her or the Mare in the Moon showing her how evil is really done.
... Okay, I am leaning towards Luna, because the idea of Chrysalis even subconsciously coming to this conclusion on her own is a bit much. Still, fantastic read. Thank you for it.
9594424
I love the idea of Luna being able to mess with Chrysalis, even while in a pod. Know any other good stories along that line?
Lol, nice.
But yeah, it is S6 finale not S5Hm
This is the kind of thing that should be a crackfic, yet somehow it isn't?
9594699
Welcome to Horizonville, population: ascended crackfics played straight.
9594285 9594584
I even looked it up to double-check. And then I fat-fingered and typed the wrong number. Thanks for the catch.
9594298 9594330 9594340
Glad you enjoyed!
9594424
That was certainly the implication I was going for. Death of the Author and all that, but there's a reason she's in the character tags and cover art despite not having any speaking lines.
For purposes of this story, "queen" is implied to be a political rather than biological title. Obviously people's headcanons are going to differ on that one, but at least I can point to Thorax becoming leader of his own rainbow hive and say the idea seems to be compatible with canon.
9594542
Good question! I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are others. I'd love to know as well.
..., "I find your lack of true villainy disturbing"
Have a downvote. chrysalis wouldnt waste food.
for a minute I thought that the cover image was hinting too much. then I changed my mind, I think it's so much better this way.
9595992
I personally feel like a disagreement over what a character would or wouldn't do seems like a petty reason for downvoting -- but I know not every story is going to work for every reader, and I do appreciate you explaining your reasoning!
And yes, I feel like a smart leader would know better than to waste food. But then again, a smart leader would have just taken over Equestria via infiltration rather than a military campaign which terrifies the ponies they're trying to draw love from. (Isn't that a textbook case of wasting food? And it's canon.) And a smart leader wouldn't have tried to invade twice, after her victims were alerted to her existence and her army was broken.
9596202
I went back and forth on it. Honestly, I think the story works better from a complete cold start, but FIMFiction isn't set up that way; if I'm going to tease it, I'm going to at least subtly highlight the big theme I'm trying to draw out.
>And yes, I feel like a smart leader would know better than to waste food. But then again, a smart leader would have just taken over Equestria via infiltration rather than a military campaign which terrifies the ponies they're trying to draw love from. (Isn't that a textbook case of wasting food? And it's canon.) And a smart leader wouldn't have tried to invade twice, after her victims were alerted to her existence and her army was broken.
Following your retarded logic, that chrysalis is not smart at all and is an incompetent buffoon, that would make twilight and the gang twice as stupid, since they fell for both of her ploys twice in a row. Celestia even lost in a contest of raw strength, and the only thing twilight did was play directly into chrysalis's plans to cause infighting inbetween the elements of harmony, and all princesses where kidnapped the second time, meaning every single pony failed to account both intellectually and physically for the problem they knew was at hoof for years!
Why I have the feeling Luna dreamception Chrysalis
9606431
Yup!
Ooh, this was nice. Explain some of why Chrysalis does what she does (in addition to the basic "she's stupid," which it seems like she was in the middle of correcting), yet also give just enough to ask--just how serious are the dream-ponies?
Also, did you drop this in one of the most incredible Jeopardy! runs ever on purpose?
9606741
Thanks!
Wasn't aware of it, but I love how the timing worked out!
9598596 Actually, the writers of that episode were stupid and incompetent. They had to hand-wave how Chrysalis managed to capture everyone a second time by having it all take place offscreen and never have any shred of explanation... meaning they couldn't even come up with a half-assed rationale for it.
Remember, that's also the episode where ALL THE CHERNGELERNGS, save Chrysalis and Pharynx, suddenly decided to become happy Skittles Bugs despite being absolutely evil and showing ZERO TRACE OF HESITATION OR REMORSE right up until the last moment. That's some seriously D-grade kiddie show writing, right there.
You have too look beyond merely what's on screen and realize flawed people are writing this stuff. It makes perfect sense when you realize they just aren't that good at plot construction and characterization. Always keep in mind that characters are merely puppets, and their performance and behaviors are only as good as the ones writing and delivering their lines.
It's like 'Why is "The Room" so bad?" You don't ask questions of the fictional characters, instead you recognize it's because Tommy Wisseau is a crazy man with delusions of grandeur.
Eh, getting people to follow you is a 'sort' of power, but it generally only works on those who are very weak-willed and suggestible and/or are flat out wrong in all of their beliefs because they were never taught anything correct.
Absolute power is being able to reshape the laws of physics to your will.
THAT'S da shizzle I'm aiming for!
9739764
On the bright side, that's what makes deconstructing it such an interesting exercise.
9739930 It's like making a story where Luna deliberately sat back and watched Chryssi invade the first time because she realized that somehow it would all work out, cuz she thought back and was like, "Waiiiiit, how did I lose in the first place? I should have mopped the floor with Twi & Co! WHY DIDN'T I JUST SHOOT THEM?! Ok, clearly we're all being manipulated by some Omnipotent God Troll or something, otherwise I'd have been permitted to be really evil and murder them all. I'll test this by seeing what happens with these bug ponies. And if they actually manage to win, I'll snipe their Queen from the tower."
And then the Deus Ex Love Blast happened and Luna was like, "Well, puppets of a cruel god it is!"
And that's when Luna totally stopped caring.
9739764
>Actually, the writers of that episode were stupid and incompetent. They had to hand-wave how Chrysalis managed to capture everyone a second time by having it all take place offscreen and never have any shred of explanation... meaning they couldn't even come up with a half-assed rationale for it.
not an arguement. this kind of logic can be used to attack any part of the story equally.
9740953 You're right. It's not an argument. It's a fact.