The Changeling That Defied Change

by AC97

Chapter 1

"This is bad, isn't it?" Chrysalis heard Cozy Glow's oh so obvious statement in the midst of her shock, and closed her mouth, in the wake of that accursed rainbow that began emanating from Twilight's horn, after being fed into her from three sources, after she made her speech that'd grown loathsome to her within the first sentence, the shock originating because it had instantly dispelled the Windigos like they were nothing, her future plan for letting them turn Equestria into a frozen wasteland before disposing of them, so she could gain grateful ponies as followers to replace her hive that turned into a pile of failure (thanks to Starlight Glimmer) in the process being evaporated before her very eyes.

Chrysalis gaped again in a state of shock and disbelief when she saw the dreaded rainbow on a crash course with them, and when it hit, she couldn't even bring herself to scream, the sensation of the immense power that had been rightfully gained from Grogar's bell bleeding out of her body like water would from an obliterated dam being too much for her. Worse, the back of her mind was telling her that she was probably not alone in this happening to her.

Faintly, she had the awareness that something had bounced off to somewhere while that was happening to her, but it hardly seemed important at the moment. The rainbow's merciless assault ended, just as quickly as it began. After the moment that had seemed to last an eternity to her ended, her hearing registered Cozy Glow falling to the right of her, and grunting disappointedly for some reason (no more horn, she noted), along with Tirek (who seemed to be in his decrepit form again) chattering his teeth and shivering.

When it was all said and done, Chrysalis could barely stand, for the moment, her previous level of power that she had been forcibly returned to both feeling and being so much weaker in comparison to what she just had mere moments ago... but it was still power nonetheless, power that eclipsed the vast majority of those insignificant unicorns, and by extension the vast majority of beings, power that had forced many to kneel before her unrelenting might, like the inferior beings that they were, fit only to feed her power.

She wasn't done yet, she would never give up, so long as she still drew breath. One day, they would all know their rightful place was beneath their Queen. She'd especially make sure they understood that they were beneath her before she eradicated them.

In the distance, she could see Twilight and her friends descending to the ground, grim expressions plastered on all of their faces, including that purple dragon that she now thoroughly wished that she'd gone through with ripping both of his wings off just a few minutes ago, just to hear both him and Twilight cry out in agony, to see him bleed, before exterminating them alongside their friends. Putting Twilight through that pain would've truly been a balm to her soul. She had a feeling that whatever it was between Spike and Twilight went beyond simple friendship, but she didn't care much about what it was exactly, save for it being so easy to capitalize on. Caring about others was Twilight's greatest weakness, and she knew Tirek and Cozy Glow also recognized that, and she'd prove it once and for all if it was the last thing she did.

Just because they cheated yet again didn't mean anything to her, save for it merely being a temporary setback. She was never more determined in her life to make them suffer, and she knew that the three of them could still accomplish revenge together, one way or another.

Chrysalis growled in rage, her weakness she felt a moment ago fading into the background, her rage fueling her feeling of vitality back to normal (although there was always the omnipresent hunger for love, for power, for her to deal with, in due time).

"You think friendship will save you?! We will always return! Nothing will ever sto-" Chrysalis' declaration that they would never be safe from them was interrupted by something large and heavy falling onto the three of them.

---

Eventually, she worked her way out of the giant cupcake, her two cohorts escaping alongside her her. Internally, she promised to make whoever did that pay for their insolence. Chrysalis' newfound energy she gained with her rage she felt several moments ago felt like it had diminished, but she was still determined to escape, once she got her bearings, and fast.

Chrysalis' musings were interrupted by the sight and sound of a hoof powerfully stomping the ground, in a way that almost seemed to reverberate throughout the area. That hoof was connected to an angry Celestia (accompanied by Luna), the one she'd once gotten a fortuitous break with by attacking her with the powerful love she had consumed from Twilight's dearest older brother Shining Armor, the one who'd pissed her off along with her sister and that wretched Starlight, the three of which she'd made certain to tell them that she would make them suffer for the disgraceful act they committed in distracting them so the others could escape.

Oh sure, the weak other six had helped distract them as well, but she made sure to promise those three especially that they'd live a long time, and threw them in the same cell, befitting their status as special prisoners, which Starlight was already one to begin with, because she'd declared that she'd have an eternity to exact revenge on her. All of those horrors she was going to show all of them, and they'd all fallen apart, had been pushed back by cheating yet again.

"There isn't a punishment worthy of all you've done!" Celestia's voice had an edge to it, self-righteous as ever... but at that moment, Chrysalis wasn't feeling more anger than fear. In fact, it was the opposite. Celestia and Luna radiated a truly immense amount of power, in contrast to how they were so weak earlier, and they seemed like they weren't going to let them escape so easily this time. She'd have to be swift in bolting, and hope that they'd be too indecisive to do anything.

Discord suddenly appeared next to those accursed sisters and started whispering something into their ears.

That was another thing on her long list of grievances: Discord was once someone she'd admired for his power, for the things he did. Sure, he didn't exactly go far enough for her tastes when it came to his reign that she'd heard about, but he was very accomplished in terrorizing others.

Now? This sorry shell of what he once was had pretended to be Grogar (the real one surely couldn't have been that weak) with the probable intent of setting them up to fail for whatever reason she didn't care about, but had nonetheless foolishly enabled her to gain power along with her annoying albeit useful partners (who she'd have to put up with for longer as opposed to before, when backstabbing was tantalizingly on the horizon) had the audacity to stand there in two places at once, powerful as ever.

No matter, they would get the better of him aga- "Oh, that does seem fitting." Luna said in response to whatever Discord said.

"May I help? Pleeaaaase?" Both Discords alternated in saying that, puppy-dog eyes plastered on both of them with the drawn-out "please."

In a moment that made everything in Chrysalis' mind grind to a screeching halt, Celestia and Luna raised their heads, eyes closed, horns ablaze with whatever they were charging up, with power, while Discord's hands were likewise crackling with energy in preparation, a smile on his face.

After a brief moment that seemed like forever, the three of them let loose their combined spell, to Chrysalis' complete shock. She thought she could get away after they cheated yet again, but this? This was inconceivable.

The combined spell bursted the giant cupcake the three of them were trapped under, and Chrysalis felt the beginnings of something beginning to sweep over her body, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes briefly.

To her horror, when she opened her eyes again, she noticed that parts of her muzzle were turning into something white, hard.

'They're turning me into stone!' She realized, darting her eyes to and fro, before settling her eyes on those three, the ones doing this to her, and almost certainly to her two cohorts.

Chrysalis' transient feeling of fear was overswept by a strong feeling of unbridled rage and hatred, because how dare they, they couldn't just do this to her, so with all of her rapidly disintegrating strength, she tried to leap at them and hissed in a final attempt to attack them, a murderous expression immortalized on her face.

Author's Note:

So.

I think it's probably worth noting that I basically wrote this back in 2019 as my first fic, and that I've been holding onto it for years, which I'm not sure if the chapter's date will actually reflect this, because I figured that I'd catch some flak for writing it, since it is a bit contentious in nature. But the voice in my head saying "why not" grew too loud to be ignored, so what the heck.

I'd say that my view of Chrysalis has remained more or less the same throughout the years, even if the specifics of a couple details have shifted a tad, like, for instance, acknowledging that while she wasn't faultless in impersonating Cadance, or her actions during the rest of that plotline, A Canterlot Wedding was heavily, heavily skewed by the fact that it was in Twilight's perspective, made it seem disproportionately justified compared to those of her other friends.

As for the fic proper I more or less wrote it as a character study to get into Chrysalis' head, and I found it quite natural, even fun to do so. It's more or less, as far as I see it, something along the lines of a worst case scenario for a logical interpretation of her canon mindset, where she's being explicitly active in wanting to backstab the other two if she'd gotten what she wanted, aside from her sadism which there really, really isn't much room to doubt on whatsoever, at the very least on the "torture Starlight indefinitely" front; it's quite a stretch for me to think it would be remotely plausible for her to, say, make her a changeling to serve her, as opposed to keeping her around to use as... stress relief, for at least years.

While it might not be entirely impossible, Chrysalis' all-encompassing pride and entitlement make her especially being portrayed as redeemable a hard ask, in my eyes, especially when coupled with the fact that I think it cheapens her as a villain; determination, steadfastness is twistedly admirable on some level.

But anyway, I think Chrysalis is a nuanced depiction of that type of character; she kept the same goal of "conquer ponies," but the context changed significantly from "primarily serve as food for me and my army to make me stronger" to "replace my old hive and make me stronger," and she is thusly perhaps my favorite MLP villain, definitely out of the unreformed ones. She has the style, fun mindset to pull it off entertainingly; the influence she has on the world and the characters in it if she wins is more interesting than, say, Tirek's, because with his mindset, he tends to get shit done too efficiently and might burn everything to the ground with his pre-S9 mindset, plausibly, and doesn't seem to care much on shaping a society around him, and because he loses his creepy charisma largely in favor of a straightforward menace factor, as he gains power, an issue that Chrysalis doesn't have.

I figured that it would be nice to have a story published so that I'm capable of auto-publishing down the line, since I've had ideas that have been interesting if I can have the self-confidence to give it a good try, anyway, because damn, am I afraid of forever tainting something subjectively interesting I've thought of by thoroughly not doing it justice.

Aside from all that, I'd be curious on input in regards to if there was anything to speak of on this, stylistically.

Comments

[Hoofprintz]

While I abhor season 9 and the finale in particular, I really liked this fic. You captured canon Chrys pretty much spot on in my opinion.

I am a bit saddened that it ended the same for her. (While I know she does deserve it.)

Fingers crossed you write some more stuff.

[AC97]

11566995
Even if, from the sound of it, I got more out of it, I'll definitely admit that S9 had some... pretty faulty episodes (biggest highlights for me being how for some reason it decided Garble of "pillage and burn Equestria" fame should be cast as sympathetic, and the Daring Doubt twist with Ahuizotl), or how it was hard to sympathize with the perspective of Scootaloo's parents, and I thusly appreciated the aged up CMC episode more; the designs were at least visually appealing, and I thought it was cool that Sweetie Belle got a S1 callback in teleportation ala her teacher Twilight (and it furthered something really interesting to me about her being good at magic as far as the show went... even if it certainly could've focused more on it with plotlines)

You captured canon Chrys pretty much spot on in my opinion.

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I think if I'm being honest to myself, I spent years initially upon joining the fandom being torn on liking sympathetic portrayals of her, or the odd unsympathetic portrayal out, but I'd gradually come around to embracing the fact she's actually pretty fun to think of in a less than flattering light (not 100% pure evil... maybe 80%, and the rest is unrelenting pride, as someone else once said), especially when she's one of the most realistic ways that Starlight might hypothetically suffer, as far as anything presented in the show at least.

Fingers crossed you write some more stuff.

One thought that really can't, after years, leave my mind, is the fact Twilight put forth the idea in canon of Flurry Heart being Equestria's last hope if they failed. If Cadance really didn't like Chrysalis and co. before... killing Twilight would be unforgivable, even before you get into the other stuff, and she's already capable of feeling less compassion than Twilight, and I've seen it headcanoned that she was meant to be Luna 2.0 on Celestia's part: more than capable of diplomacy and, but backed by ruthlessness (it's nice how well it aged as a take; I don't think that interpretation ever really had too much reason to doubt; Cadance regularly seemed to look better in action scenes ala "jumped to act first, tried to protect with a shield, but didn't know the Orbs were anti-magic" in the Movie which certainly had its flaws in terms of pacing and plot, lol). Cadance is pretty perseverant in nature.

I think Story's End, for example, which is based on that concept, was well-written for what it was, but it kind of suffered from the fact it skipped to what would be the climax of that story, and furthermore, it kind of raised ideas that would be interesting to explore in their own right, like, for instance:

“Oh, I didn’t kill anypony. I defeated Chrysalis in single combat, took the Bewitching Bell when she offered it in exchange for mercy, then let Starlight Glimmer deal with her as she saw fit.”

“Starlight Glimmer is alive?”

Flurry Heart nodded. “Very much so. Or did you think somepony as evil and vindictive as Chrysalis would be satisfied with only killing her? She kept her imprisoned and forced her to watch as her new horde hunted down everpony she’d ever loved. Her father, Trixie…” She closed her eyes. “Sunburst.” She opened them again and glared at the Empress. “She made her watch while she drained them, drove them insane, and finally murdered them. Now, after all that, do you really think Starlight was in the mood for mercy?”

There's a lot of angst potential in exploring the impact of that sort of thing beyond being dropped in an expositional pre-fight speech, and, as I said in the comments, how growing up with that sort of pressure might impact Flurry Heart.

I've had the thought that it might be interesting if Cadance had the ability to empathize to at least some extent with suffering, since she was Chrysalis' prisoner at one point, for an indeterminate period of time; days, weeks, months?

But yeah, as I said, it felt like it should've been the climax of something significantly longer.

[Hoofprintz]

11568937
That's quite a lot of text and I'm awful at utilizing the site properly, being on my phone and all so I'll try and give a somewhat coherent response.

So I think that's a weakness with villains that I really hate, monologuing and the like. The longer you draw out your plans the more time you give your foes to foil them.

I do agree that canon Chrys would definitely love to play the long game torture and destroy, (Who wouldn't really? It sounds delightful.) but when you do so there's more a chance someone unstoppable could catch wind and annihilate her and her schemes.

I think sometimes it's just smarter to plunge the knife or shoot the gun. That's why in my story she relished in at least the victory she had attained, one that no matter what happened in the future could not be taken away from her.