Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Love as a Construct

The door to room eight-thirteen stood in front of Chrysalis, no different from the many other doors flanking the empty corridor. She grit her teeth in anticipation, prepared to shed her disguise and unleash a torrent of magic at the first sign of danger. She shouldn't have been afraid, and she hated the fact that she was. But she couldn't help it.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to convince herself there was nothing to be nervous about. Whoever was inside that room had made a huge mistake if they thought they could take her own. She placed a hoof on the knob and opened the door, stepping through.

The door closed behind her with a click. The room was dark, but in the darkness she could make out a shape, the silhouette of something that was unmistakably a pony staring at her from the furthest corner. And it was a familiar shape indeed. "You," Chrysalis growled out, halfway surprised and halfway afraid. Then her eyes adjusted to the low light of the room a bit better, and the pony stepped forward, and both her shock and her concern grew. "No," she whispered. "You?"

The mare stopped in the middle of the room. "Hello, Chrysalis. How have you been?" she asked, her tone cold. The darkness around her made it almost impossible to notice the few things that set her apart from the pony she so closely resembled, but Chrysalis couldn't mistake the expression on her face. "Or perhaps I should call you mother?" She smirked. "As for me? Well, I've been really busy being dead. You know, after Harmony murdered me. You'd know about it, you were watching after all. Though that's not a concern anymore, as you can see."

Chrysalis's disguise dropped and magic flared bright around her horn as she hissed at Twilight's clone, rage blazing in her eyes. But she didn't fire any spells, and her hissing died down to a low grumbling after a few moments of complete lack of reactions from the other. She stared at her through her slit pupils, wings tense on her back. "What do you want?" she barked at the alicorn.

The mare smiled at that. "Your help," she simply answered.

"As if I would ever help you after you betrayed me once!"

Twilight's clone rolled her eyes at that. "Chrissy, please. Have you considered that, if all your children end up betraying you, that might mean you're a terrible parent?" She chuckled at that, then continued, "But honestly, do you think I would trust you? I never said you have to do this willingly. I was thinking more about having you obey my orders.

"And don't look at me like that. I know what you're thinking right now." She smirked again. "Think about your options, Chrysalis. I beat you once already, and you were stronger then than you are now. No one is going to help you if you try to run away. You don't have a choice here, unless you want to find out what happens when your enemies aren't as merciful as Equestria's leaders."

Chrysalis swallowed. There wasn't a single word of what the alicorn had said that she didn't hate from the core of her being, and the remarks about the other changelings' betrayal made her want nothing more than to lunge at the mare and shut her mouth forever. But she was smart enough to recognise that the overgrown log had a point, even if doing that alone was almost enough to make her throw up. The magic in her horn died down. "What do you want?"

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Huh. Well, this makes perfect sense. Who else would know her so well? Who else would take such pleasure in taunting Chrysalis's inability to fully drop off the radar? Who else could channel GLaDOS so effectively? I look forward to seeing where this goes.

[Saix]

Didn't see that coming. This should be interesting.