Ruin
It was a mad dash down the winding spiral of Smokey Mountain. Chrysalis ran on an injected flurry mix where panic and guilt fueled her drive to return to the home. While her long legs continued thundering down the treacherous pass, kicking up a hell-storm of frigid dirt, she attempted time and time again to establish contact with her children of the swarm. Even one-on-one telepathy, a method of private communication she had used only with her most trusted loyalists in the past, failed her.
There was no answer.
Chrysalis could find nary a rogue signal floating on the winds to ease her terrified self, save one. The voice of the commander still rang through her head, but it was only mere minutes ago that the sense of its presence had returned to her at long last. She never noticed that it had left in the first place until she tapped into her previous memories of recent events and scoured them like a starving plague rat. What was going on over there? Why did she feel that the commander was in such unbearable pain? Where did it go? Why was it not responding to her telepathic hails? Even worse, why did she lose her connection with it to begin with, and what of her other children?
Chrysalis shook her head in denial of the worst and quickened her pace, her hooves becoming but a blur at the speed with which they carried her. This only made things even more difficult for Roseluck, who was just barely able to keep up with her even at sight distance. She took her time to swiftly but carefully stride over piles of mountain rubble and wide cracks in the way, but Chrysalis simply leapt right over each of these obstacles with the finesse of a gazelle. Never once did she falter, and the way she kept her footing could have been the envy of athletes everywhere.
Though it was a very bumpy and uneven ride upon Roseluck’s back, Ditto seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, waving his hooves high above his head and giggling profusely as his personal rollercoaster did her best to keep pace with his mother. Despite her earth pony roots, Roseluck just wasn't built for this level of maneuverability. Her chest burned like a pit of hot embers similar to her fireplace in the wintertime, and her breaths turned to hot steam that bit harshly at her blazing red gullet. Even more tortuously, her body lacked the will to sweat in the cold, leaving her helpless as she tore through the fray with cold air flowing into her open mouth and fanning the flames that scorched her insides.
It felt as if all the hours in the world had passed by the time they reached the base of the mountain at the point from which they started. Chrysalis came to rest atop a mossy boulder while she waited for Roseluck to catch her breath. Attentively, she stood at full height on the boulder with her ears perked and attuned to pick up even the faintest of sounds. They twitched and flickered, and her head turned in response to their signals. Then, she picked up something strange that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
"Roseluck," Chrysalis spoke, her ears drooping to the side of her head as she looked to the exhausted mare behind her. "Put your ears to the wind and listen."
After unpleasantly indulging in a bitterly sore swallow, Roseluck perked up her ears and stood in silence with Chrysalis, unsure of what she was supposed to be listening for.
"Do you hear that?" asked Chrysalis, scanning the foggy tree line ahead of them.
"No..." Roseluck raises an eyebrow, confused. "I don't hear...anything, actually."
"Exactly."
All alone they stood, enveloped by a silence. Damp fog lapped at their shoulders and obscured their vision, and the leaves upon the forest's twisted trees were of green and gray, but the forest bards had been silenced. No night owl cooed, no insect chirped, and the wind was reduced to but a low level of white noise. More frightening than eerie, Roseluck even succumbed to subtly approaching Chrysalis for shelter less she be bushwhacked by the workaday unseen terror compliments of the Everfree's dark reaches.
"W-Well, what does that mean?" Roseluck nervously glanced over her shoulders.
"It means there is something very much wrong in the world..." Chrysalis was shook to the core. Her children had stopped calling to her, and now, on a day more fit for an alignment of the stars themselves, the Everfree forest was silent. Her keen sense of smell failed to breach the misty veil, leaving them with but one foolhardy choice for all the dangerous incertitude that surrounded it. "Roseluck, make sure Ditto is well-secured upon your back." Chrysalis sighed, bringing a brave, determined composure to bear. "We're cutting straight through the forest again."
"W-What!?" Roseluck sharply exclaimed with a hushed voice, afraid of raising the awareness of any creature among the hidden. "You're out of your big bug mind! We're supposed to be going around the danger zone, remember?"
"...no? When did I say we were doing that?"
"You didn't..." Roseluck groaned in a bout of crusty disappointment, annoyed that the bait wasn't taken before retorting straightforward. "But I still think it's the far safer option than just waltzing through manticore territory again!"
"We won't have to worry so long as you don't scream at first sight of them. Just keep close and follow my lead. I don't like the look of this any more than you do." Chrysalis tossed her mane behind her head and stepped down from her perch, exchanging a reassuring nuzzle with Ditto at Roseluck's side as he pulled down two locks of the mare's long, flowing mane around his ears, his tiny horn left to cutely stick out. "Stay safe, little one..." She whispered to him, turning and coaxing Roseluck to follow.
The journey through the cold, fog-laden wilds was one plotted by uncertainty at its end, and stillness accompanied. Life in the forest was nowhere to be found. Even the trees and their otherworldly ilk seemed to have just...given up for whatever reason, and a simple glance and brush against the bark revealed this to be true.
The gloom of desolation was everywhere, a devious courtesy of the thick fog and the absence of life it shrouded. Chrysalis led Roseluck through the shortcuts she had mentioned earlier, itching with anxiety to uncover the reasoning behind the disappearance of every animal, but found it pointless to hide and stray away when nothing was round to bring them harm. They carried on with timid breaths, not a word spoken between each other. It was if a wandering specter had enraptured everything that walked the earth.
There wasn’t a trace of any creature to be found. The tree-dwellers were gone, and every nest they passed, be it of bird, reptile, or insect was left withered and abandoned, gray like the decaying flora they stood near as though they had been that way for months. Utilizing his vantage point, Ditto reached for a flower growing out of a crevice in one of the trees, but its wilting petals and stalk immediately bent forward and broke off just as his hoof tips brushed against them. Disappointed whimpers followed.
They continued along a straight path, passing through swamps with idle waters and vacant lily pads. Even the trademark stench of murk was almost nonexistent. The winged insects had vanished as well, leaving, for the first time, something that was once a nuisance to be desired as so it could at least be called a part of home again. It left a hole in Chrysalis' heavy heart upon seeing her homeland so bare and inert.
It was as they neared the central hive that Roseluck finally understood the meaning of 'untamed'. If one was able to look past its hideous frontal features, they would find that the Everfree was a diverse biosphere with all manner of life nestled within its many rich habitats. Presently, they would have no such luck. Oasis pockets and even small, scattered meadows were just as dull and uncaring as everything else.
Through her secret entrance connected to her bedchamber, Chrysalis rushed Roseluck through the vine-linked tunnel, growing steadily more uneasy. The greenery of the thick foliage was a welcoming sight, but even as they treaded familiar ground it looked as if it was all dying already. What disease could have brought about such a strange, unnerving catastrophe?
"What happened while we were gone?" Chrysalis spoke softly. Obviously, her question was left without an answer; for now, anyway.
A disaster of this scale would leave just about anyone dumbstruck. Besides Chrysalis, Roseluck was by far the one most affected. What she committed to the future of the changeling species was far more valuable than even the ruling of an appraiser. For her efforts to all crumble and fall around her now would be a tragedy too costly for even the princesses to redeem. Her love and devotion was all that was carrying them. Beyond that, there was little left worth hanging onto.
They exited the tunnel and appeared back in Chrysalis’ bedchamber, including Ditto's cradle and the new "blanket" he recovered from the castle earlier hung over its side. The sight of it excited him and brought about new light to his eyes after having wandered through such a grim version of the home he once, albeit barely, knew. Chrysalis picked up on his smile and levitated the shredded tapestry towards him, which he snatched from her magical grip next to Roseluck’s head and hugged as if it were a carnival teddy bear.
He then stuffed one end of it into his tiny maw and proceeded to chew on it, his incoming fangs biting through the fabric and soaking it with his saliva. He gleefully cooed and chirped with all the cute and lovability of a puppy, or was it a kitten? The difference didn't matter since Ditto was having fun either way. Joy could be found in all sorts of places, it seemed. It made Chrysalis question what she had been doing wrong all this time.
The time for pondering was not now, and she retreated to that intuitive mindset. Then, the lowest of whines, sorrowful in tone, echoed from somewhere within the central hive's cavernous reaches. Roseluck detected it too, faintly gasping and perking her ears up and on the alert in the same fashion as Chrysalis. To get a better understanding of what they had just heard, Chrysalis shut her eyes and tapped into a very weak, very unstable hivemind connection.
The link was worsening by the minute. The entire neural net was on the verge of collapse. The strands of energy that kept it bound together were analyzed and appeared to be far too fragile to support even a simple spell. She knew that the hivemind relied on the strength of the mentalities of those connected to keep it functional. But, even then, the magic that kept it together as a whole was nearly a millennium old. What modern day sorcery could weaken such a tightly woven bond?
Her affinity for peering through the blurry network of the changelings paid off, yet still all she could sense was the commander's wavering presence. Beyond that, all else was still. It reminded her of the swamps they passed by, leaving nothing but the barest hints of life in its wake.
"It's coming from the gathering hall," Chrysalis spoke up, breaking the lengthy silence, though at the price of startling Roseluck again. "The commander's got to be in there. Only it knows what happened. We must confront it at once and discover how this all came to be! If I had a right mind...even I am willing to say that it must have something to do with this."
"Took you long enough to start thinking that..." Roseluck responded dejectedly, which rewarded her with a pair of angry eyes and an uptight expression from Chrysalis. "What? Don't get me wrong, Chrysalis, but I never trusted the commander in the first place. I made it clear enough already, didn't I? And, based on the way it was acting in the past few days, all I can smell is trouble!"
"Well...you're not wrong." Chrysalis huffed and hissed respectively. "I've had my suspicions as well, but we will never know what has become of my home until we confront the commander first. Watch your back. I doubt that anything was brave enough to follow us here, if anything still lives out there, but I still feel as though something lurks in the shadows...remain wary."
The forest fog had now migrated into the central hive, seeping through and shrouding its corridors. It all felt so dead inside; so empty that it could put a tree husk to shame. It never even had a roof to begin with! The potential for danger to just swoop right in had been there all this time, yet nothing ever came before, and now nothing would ever come again. Their walk through Chrysalis' personal passageway to the gathering hall was a silent one, their hoofsteps muffled by the damp earth beneath their hooves. A steady sequence of deep, lowly wails matching that of the one they heard before came from their destination a short way ahead.
Through the veil they stepped, and they arrived onto a strange scene, where there was a break in the fog that allowed part of the night sky above them to be seen through the open-roofed ceiling. The bright crater of the eye of the former Mare in the Moon peeking in as the clouds rolled by and over it. A stream of moonlight beamed down into the lethargic chamber, leading the group's attention to encounter an all-too familiar scum of the earth: The commander, its back turned towards them as it sat bent forward in a slouch.
The answer to the mystery of the bellows heard before had its answer tacked on at last. They were coming straight from the commander's mouth, as demonstrated when the changeling's black carapace heaved upward as it took in breath before steadily falling, exhaling in a mournful tone.
Chrysalis and Roseluck exchanged glances with each other, some disturbed, others plastered with fear of the unknown. It ultimately resulted in Chrysalis making the first move, signaling for Roseluck to keep her distance as she approached the commander from the rear, taking short, brief steps towards it. Chrysalis then made her presence known in the place of her court with one final step, slamming a front hoof into the dirt and twisting it ever so slightly just to let the dirt crinkle and crack to purposefully reinstate her presence with further force.
Did she really have to make her entrance in such an aggressive, uninviting manner? Her most elite comrade was suffering before her eyes and broadcasting the scale of its ailments through her mind, and yet providing aid to one of her own was the last thing on her list. Though, in reality, it wasn't too far off, but the smell of deception in the air was so thick that a timberwolf with a stuffy nose could smell it from miles away. She swallowed her pride and stood firm before the old raid leader with an angry grimace to accompany an audacious, commanding voice that had not been tapped into for what felt like an eternity after her introduction into motherhood.
"Commander." Chrysalis gnarled in a serious tone of voice. "What has become of my home?"
"...Chrysalis?" The commander spoke, lifting its head. "You've returned..."
"Answer. Me." Chrysalis hissed, swiping her tail to one side.
"You've killed us, my queen...all of us...so swiftly and unforgiving you were in doing so, and now you demand an answer to a question only you can provide a truthful answer for?"
Chrysalis was taken aback, devolving her expression to one of open misunderstanding, staring at the commander like it had lost its mind. "W-What?"
"What have I been to you, my queen? Where was my place in our world? Were my origins forged among the steel of which crafted another link in this chain built on the foundations of culture and togetherness?“ The commander's voice made it out as if the authoritarian figure within it had sank into a deep depression. Each breath it took was furthered and shaken like minute gasps for air; they were feeble endeavors to hold on to whatever meaning for existence it could fathom.
"To protect the future of the changeling species" was going to be Chrysalis' answer to its second question, but it was seen as too much of a digression and she would continue to berate it with questions of her own until she got what she wanted.
"Enough, commander! I was touched by a spirit wind this night, and with it...silence...the others have stopped speaking. Their connection to the hivemind is gone! Severed! The bonds that keep us all together are on the verge of total collapse! The hivemind is on the verge of total collapse! Surely you've noticed all of this?"
"I have...it's heartbreaking, isn't it?"
Place in the world? Heartbreaking? The commander was experiencing these thoughts and prevailing emotions with little to no reaction? The latter put a tinge of fearful concern in Chrysalis’ heart. In the hivemind's favor, emotions were far more powerful than thoughts and ideas. They influenced the body in ways that, even more so, boggled the mind, making decision-making sloppy and unorganized, and thus ideas pointless. Empathy was a weakness, and one poorly placed sentiment could send the whole connection into a tail-spin.
"I understand your concern, commander," Chrysalis spoke more calmly, yet the potency of the venom in her tongue was relentless in broadcasting her spite. "But you have yet to answer my question. I say again...what has become of my home?"
"...has it ever occurred to you that somewhere, somehow, things could get better? All you'd have to do is try to find it." The commander rose to its hooves, hanging its head low while still facing the opposite direction. "On the eve I was spawned, my mind was already set...unwillingly. My future was shaped, stretched, broken, and reshaped all in the name of survival. We never saw salvation from our crisis, and it was on the day of your son's conception that I was granted new knowledge...and bleak tellings of our future. Long ago, Chrysalis, I had faith in our people, but now...my faith has been lost."
The commander slowly turned, lifting its head and revealing a battle-scarred face with nearly every pore coated in dried blood and cringe-worthy burn marks and gashes. Aside from its cheeks, a different material stained its deep blue eyes and ran down its face in streams. They were twin rivers of icy tears.
The commander was crying.
Roseluck gasped and jolted backward, startled by its hideous appearance. Ditto was far from able to handle the sight of such an atrocity. He whimpered and hid his face, burying his head deep into Roseluck's neck fur.
"W-What...what happened to you?" murmured Chrysalis, her anger having evaporated in an instant.
"You happened to me, you gutless excuse for a leader!" The commander shouted, bearing its teeth and fangs which were revealed to be completely coated with blood. One of its fangs were missing, a jagged stump next to the other one indicating that it must have broken off a short while ago, possibly even shattered. "You brought about the fate of every one of us!"
"W-What?!" Chrysalis's jaw dropped. “Is your tongue as brittle as your resolve, commander? What's going on!?"
"Couldn't you feel it, my queen? The tremors of your lost children? The hundreds of which now lay dead far from home?!" The commander reared back before lashing out verbally, the sheer force of its anger reaching its cold heart and causing it to shed a few loose tears, most of which streamed down its face. "Nearly all of which I cared for is now dead!"
The commander snarled and pounced forward, landing just a few feet away from Chrysalis and her entourage. Chrysalis leapt back and positioned herself defensively in front of Roseluck. What she expected to be a surprise offensive turned out to be the opposite. The commander went silent. Then, it smirked deviously and looked away as raspy chuckles and snickers escaped its lips. Was the frightening appearance and state of the world as they knew it affecting the commander? Had it been driven to madness somehow?
But just like that, moments later, the commander ceased its vile laughter, turning and pacing left and right before them with a few trailing snickers descending into sheer detestation.
“You’ve led us to our deaths…” It continued, staring Chrysalis down. “You’ve brought our reckoning to our front door, and yet you only stand there while our species, your kin, and our very existence fade into the miasma of time! Your pitiful efforts to restore us to our former way of life were doomed to failure from the very beginning!”
“S-Stand down, commander! Stand down, I said!” Chrysalis herself lashed out, attempting to reassert her dominance by making her eyes and horn glow vividly with her aura. “You repeatedly questioned my rule in the past. This is the last straw. I will not tolerate--!”
“You have no power here!” The commander interrupted, foaming at the mouth a little. “Do you hear me? Who do you have left to rule over? Your subjects? The ones you cast out and left to fend for themselves? Listen and listen well, Chrysalis. You once ruled an army of ill-fated demons. Have you ever cared so much as to attest those ‘colonies’ you established?”
The colonies… thought Chrysalis with a soft gasp. I…
“Yes, Chrysalis. The colonies.” The commander started with a low growl, its weak link to the hivemind hardly inhibiting its ability to read the thoughts of its significant others. “I paid a visit to two of the four. The Northern Hive was the first…and I learned that all were dead within three days. Everyone was slaughtered, by both the blade…and the cold.”
Suddenly, hurtling straight out of nowhere, a tattered length of blue fabric and a jagged piece of metal were thrown towards them. The fabric landed to left of Chrysalis in a heap, its wrinkled surface riddled with slash marks. She assumed it was once part of a banner, for on its surface the Equestrian Royal Seal was sewn in golden thread. She recognized it instantly, courtesy of memories of past raids on neighboring villages and caravans. The jagged metal object was the next to land at her right. It was the bruised hilt of a scimitar, a commonly-used weapon among low-ranking royal guards, most of the actual blade having been broken off by some great physical force. Its gold-plated quillons were dented and speckled red. Whatever it fought against must have put up more a struggle, but Chrysalis already knew who its unfortunate combatants were. For each second the thought of her children fighting and dying by the dozens remained in her mind, their screams piercing the air, the more distraught she became. Her jaw shuddered, and her eyes twinkled as though to threaten tears of her own.
“You’re…Y-You’re wrong! You lie!” Chrysalis retorted with a voice wracked with angry grief.
“The Southern Colony never lived past the first day! That was the second place I chose to investigate. You sent them to a wasteland! There wasn’t a sign of civilization within a hundred miles! They turned on each other for survival, cannibalizing one another just to suck whatever love was left from their weary bones!”
“That’s impossible! I knew there were villages close by. At least three of them. That would have been enough to last them for months!” She knew that it had been some time since she had last visited the southern edge of Equestria; a few years in fact. Her facts did little to shift the outcome of the truth to be revealed.
“Abandoned! Every one of them! There’s nothing but shacks and rotten woodwork there now!” The commander sighed, its anger dying down as it hung its head low, dismal. “The other two colonies weren’t so lucky. They actually survived. Can you believe it? It’s a miracle in itself...”
The other two colonies survived? To speak truthfully, she had never even visited the east or west portions of Equestria, though she knew from post-invasion espionage that there were the cities of Trottingham and Manehatten in those directions, both of which were ripe for the leeching of love. Even after hearing what the commander told her, why did she feel so surprised? Those are her children, yet she’s left in awe wondering how they are actually alive? Her heart was far too heavy to take all of this in at once. She was ashamed of herself, and she couldn’t tell whether her reasons were right or wrong.
Over half of the original colony was dead. Her children died without honor, and even a name. Not even she could imagine how the last two colonies had suffered so in the few days they were away, but they had reliable food sources, so did the commander bring it up just to make her feel like even more of a monster than she already was?
No.
She was a mother. She had always been a mother.
“Tell me.” Chrysalis deadpanned, scanning her eyes across the thick walls around her. She was tired of being treated this way. She needed to know right there and then. “Tell me where they are! I will kill you if you don’t!”
“You are not a savior. You never were. Our entire species is doomed, and it is all because of you.”
A breeze blew through the chamber, and the walls of vine began to rattle. Not swaying, but actually rattling as though they were being shaken. She could easily tell that something was nearby. Chrysalis tapped into the hivemind again to check in on it, hoping to use its supreme sensory abilities to see what she could not.
Suddenly, there came a break; a literal fracture within her own mind. Chrysalis’ vision went black. She kicked back and bayed loudly, hissing as pain shot through her spine and up to her head. Ditto watched on in horror as his mother’s body twisted like a snake with each sharp grunt. She grinded her sharp teeth together in a desperate effort to end her misery. It failed, and her fangs slipped and pierced her bottom lip, drawing blood.
Then, just as quickly as they came, the contortions ceased, and Chrysalis was left anything but a spitting image of her title. She wheezed as though she was out of breath, her forked tongue left to hang out of her maw as she recovered.
That was the most painful torment she had ever been through. She reflected on this, and found that she could compare it to no other experience in her life, yet it all vanished in an instant, leaving her as dumbfounded as she was aching all over. Childbirth felt as trivial as obtaining a bruise from falling down compared to the scope of what afflicted her body so. What had happened to her? What sort of invisible force could have been pressing down on her entire body all at once?
“Chrysalis!” Roseluck shouted just as tears began to flow down Ditto’s cheeks, his glossy face buried in the pillow that was her pale neck.
Chrysalis struggled to right herself. Her knees wobbled as she arched her spine and stood upright, the pain from her ordeal dying down at a maddeningly slow pace. Something was definitely close by, and drawing closer to them specifically. She could almost hear its breaths being carried by the wind amidst the miserable backdrop. They were in great danger of being ambushed, and she wasted no time in tapping into the hivemind to find out where it was coming from, failing immediately on the first try.
Something wasn’t right. The hivemind wasn’t responding like it should. Figuring that her being in shock was affecting her connection, she took a deep, calming breath before trying again. Silence failed to do her reply justice. In fact, there was no silence to take in; only nothing. Only the void.
“The hivemind is no more,” The commander spoke in a proud, daunting tone. “I have severed my link with that hopeless excuse for a means of communication!” Then, the commander began snickering, shifting its tone whilst baring its one and half fangs in a way all too intimidating. “Your feeble mind has failed to carry its weight, and now you’ve paid the price; a debt you’ve held on your shoulders since the failed invasion of Canterlot! Can you feel it? Your precious hivemind has crumbled all around you, and there is only one being to blame...yourself.”
Chrysalis was speechless, and years of pent-up remorse seemed to break through the floodgates of her memory and wash over her like a tsunami. She was in tears now, and the reality of the moment made her regret everything she had ever done in her time as ruler. She began beating her temples with her hooves, her lips quivering as she so desperately wished for none of this to be real. A throbbing headache and stinging, bloodshot eyes told her otherwise. The commander just looked on and laughed, reveling in the beauty of the sweet anguish it was seeing.
The list was endless, the torturing of captured village ponies, the cruelty inflicted upon disobedient minions, and the banishment of the weakest links of what was once the hivemind were just a few to name, but it was the connection itself that tore her heart to pieces. It was a part of her, and a part of her mother's legacy.
“What have you done...what have you done?!”
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next chapter please!
so sad
also, congrats on making it to the featured again
Weird. That dude is nuts. Sure, the linkage meant everything to Chrysalis, but I'm thinking it might as well have ordered the rest to commit suicide since they'll now lack any direction. The reason for it's crumbling wasn't her, persay, but him.
3216868
I'm more suspicious of the commander. It seemed pretty confident that the hive mind would be destroyed when Chrysalis came around, and all we know about those colonies is what the commander told us. For all we know, IT could have done something to sabotage them!
Hey! I just realized Monster or Mother is one year old today! Congratulations!!
Son of a gun..
Another riveting read! Keep it up.
Happy Birthday Monster or Mother
My thoughts whilst reading this story:
"Poor Chrysalis..."
"Chrysalis deserves to burn!"
"Poor Chrysalis..."
"Goddamn it Chrysalis will you just die already?"
"Chrysalis, go get em gurl or dude!"
"WHY MUST YOU MAKE ME HATE YOU SO?!"
So congratulations on turning my brain into a burning pile of mush - it is a good story, and I am looking forward to the next chapters
I kind of want to hear what happened to those two colonies that survived.
3216947
Sorry, I saw your name and HAD to do that.
mood woplash does not even begin to describe this fic.
i feel like hexidecimal right now; "happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, annoyed."
I WANT MORE!!!! AND I WANT IT NOW!!!!!
Nice job, but is this really the end of the changelings?
Im scared...
3253604 Well excuse me for showing my enthusiasm
At times like this, it is inevitable that any living being with emotional sentiency steels against the brash and overcomes the seemingly impossible challenge. The hivemind is something that I can see as part of one's soul, but to read this and simply hear that its chrysalis' fault is something which is very much impossible. Its a collective. Not even the queen is in control. If something has shattered it, it is something near otherworldly.
I thought the commander was a he?
oh... my... Solarus... i guess that the hive mind was more important than i thought, and poor Ditto having to watch his mother be in pain like that, but great read none the less.
... and... and they call...
Haha...
And PONIES...!
Ah hahahahah...
THEY CALL CHANGELINGS! MONSTERS?!
AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Genocide-heheh... at least, that won't be on the list of sins that the changelings commited.
NO WONDER THEY ALL DIED! THE PONIES ARE HEARTLESS!!!
Oh god, poor Chryssy.
I always loved Chrysalis (for some odd reason not known to me,) and it pains me to see her in such a state.
well that just happened. i never would of expected the Commander to completely lose his mind or do something like this. yeah, i had a feeling he was gonna betray Chryssy eventually or something... but this... wow...