The Retribution of Chrysalis

by Fallen Prime

Prologue: Extinction

Pain. Immediately after regaining consciousness, the first thing to register was the pain.

Chrysalis, sovereign monarch of the changeling hive, slowly began to collect her wits. It felt like nothing had broken after what must have been a tremendous fall, but in exchange, every inch of her body was in agony. The very act of existing seemed to cause her suffering, and every slight twitch or shift served merely to amplify it. Beyond that, all she could tell about her situation at the moment was that she was on solid ground, perhaps embedded within it, and that she was sprawled out on her back.

Carefully and slowly, she opened her eyelids despite the pain the very action brought, and began to survey her surroundings. At once, she recognized the terrain. The dense cover of trees, the luminescent spores and fungi lighting the entrance to what she identified as her hive, her throne. She was just shy of home. Curiously, she also observed a crater around her aching body and a fleeting beam of sunlight that breached the treetops and shone directly onto her.

Wait. Something was not right. Why was she lying battered and broken in a crater at the foot of her own doorstep? She had no time for this! She was supposed to be in Canterlot, disrupting a royal wed—

And then it all came back to her at once. Mi Amore Cadenza. Shining Armor and that meddlesome sister of his. Overpowering Celestia. The invasion. The lovers reuniting. The force field.

The failure.

The siege of Canterlot was an unmitigated disaster. The only evidence she needed was the pain surging through her body, the queen-shaped hole through the trees and crater on the forest floor, and, after one last glance at her surroundings, the scattered bodies of changelings in various states of disrepair. Several were dead, none as lucky as she.

No, no, no, no! How could she have failed? Her plan was flawless, perfect! She should have been sitting atop the throne that belonged to the ruler of Equestria, watching as her subjects gorged themselves on the amply abundant supply of love that those precious ponies harbored! She herself had drained enough love from Shining Armor to outmatch the solar goddess; how could that not have been enough!?

Hindsight began to creep in. It was the sister. Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic. Her catastrophic failure centered around that mare. She had seen through her disguise when nopony else had. She had very nearly exposed her at the rehearsal. What could she have done beyond banishing her to...

...to the same prison as the real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. That was where everything crumbled. That mare had such determination to escape, and had she sent her elsewhere, that would have been less of a mistake. But the bride seemed to have abandoned all hope before then, and sending the best mare to meet her old foalsitter must have reinvigorated her. They came together, blew her cover, so very close to the moment when it would not have mattered. But what else could she have done? Twilight would surely have fully compromised her position if...

...if she hadn’t broken down and apologized after those she loved turned against her. The heartbreak and despair would have been enough to end the best mare’s attempts to expose her, but instead, in her fury, she fully incriminated herself and banished her to the same cave as the bride-to-be. In the end, she had foiled her own poorly-laid plan.

Which all led to now. The great Queen Chrysalis, lying in a crater and surrounded by the broken bodies of her loyal subjects.

For most, it must have added insult to injury. She had staged her attack during a time of stress and famine. Their supply of love was running critically low, and the scouts dispatched to various towns in Equestria could never gather enough to feed the entire colony. She had begun to see it as a success if the scouts didn’t use the opportunity to gorge themselves instead! Bringing them all to a place filled with sustenance, at a time and place when supply was at its peak, seemed like such a noble and logical idea. In one fell swoop, she could have both expanded her own kingdom and fed her subjects for a lifetime!

But instead, those subjects lay in smaller craters around hers. To her knowledge, not many had a chance to feed once their efforts were focused on blockading the Elements of Harmony. Many of them had died hungry, and the ones who lived could potentially starve before their wounds ever mended.

Instead of feeding her malnourished subjects, Chrysalis had sent them all into a death trap. The forceful expulsion from Canterlot crippled the population (literally in the case of those who survived). Who even knew what became of those forced in other directions? Were there just as many dead and injured? Were any left that could possibly find their way back to the hive on their own power?

She tried to connect to the hive mind, the mental link she shared with all of her subjects, to see how many of them were capable of regrouping. She was overwhelmed at once by cries of agony ringing through her head interspersed with pleas for help and the occasional wish for death. She forced herself to cut her connection again once a number of those cries began abruptly silencing.

The invasion may have very nearly wiped out her entire race... and it was all on her own head. And she could do nothing about it except lay in her crater and weep.

No. She was stronger than this. She would not simply lie there and lament the suffering of her subjects. She could think of a solution. She had to!

She wracked her brain for ideas, but it quickly became apparent to her that there was no way for her to solve the issue on her own. She would need to seek aid from a kingdom in far less disrepair. And no matter how hard she tried, only one would come to mind. Equestria. The last place she would be allowed to return to. The last place she would want to return to.

There was no other alternative. Somehow, she had to seek audience with the princess whom she had fought and overpowered not long ago. Celestia could very well have been the only one with enough power to aid the changelings. But convincing the solar monarch of her plight could potentially prove difficult, and entering Equestria’s capital again to even speak to her would be all but impossible. Without a doubt, the Royal Guard would still be on high alert for potential threats to its kingdom’s citizens, and she would surely be captured, if not killed, on sight.

The obvious solution would be to remain unseen. To return in disguise, the changeling’s natural talent. But she would not put it past the Guard to have developed some sort of detector or counter to changeling camouflage. It was possible that they had not, but this time, she was not willing to risk it.

Perhaps they needed to be shown the virtue of her intentions. But how? Even if, by some miracle, she made it into Canterlot alive, none would believe her. And why should they, after what she had done? For all she knew, they could have been told to view any further action by her or her race towards Equestria as an act of war, and again, while she hoped this was not the case, it was a risk she could not take.

A thought occurred to her. What if she started out in a location other than Canterlot? Sought help in a village she would have had to pass through to reach the capital in the first place? Someplace like... Ponyville?

She had sent scouts out to Ponyville in the past, and she was well informed of events there. The small village housed the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, which a few took the time to monitor. Among them was Twilight Sparkle herself. A direct line to Celestia, a way to reach her without first confronting her in person.

But if anypony had cause to distrust Chrysalis, it was her. Twilight was easily impacted more by her actions than any other pony at that wedding. Manipulating her brother, imprisoning her former foalsitter, assaulting her mentor... it would take far more time than she could afford to waste to convince the young mare to come to her aid.

Unless... she could convince one of her friends to come to her aid! There must have been one or two that would be forgiving enough to hear her out. From her brief encounters with them during wedding preparations, she got the sense that the ones called Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, the Elements of Laughter and Kindness, were not capable of holding a grudge or even hating anypony.

That was it, then. She would have to go to Ponyville and gain the trust of one of the other Element bearers in order to convince Twilight to send a plea out to Celestia. And if she wanted to enter the town more or less unnoticed, she would have to approach from the Everfree Forest, which, to her convenience, was immediately adjacent to the home of the Element of Kindness. She would be the liaison to Twilight, then.

Slowly and painfully rising to her hooves, she analyzed her plan in her head one last time. Its downfall, if any, would be its complete reliance on her expectations of these ponies’ reactions and acceptance, but nothing else would work. For the sake of the changeling race, she had to try. And she had to act now.

And so, Queen Chrysalis wordlessly arose from her crater and flew off to seek council with the Element of Kindness.

Comments

[Garbo]

Wow, this is looking pretty good. The plot set up is great, and although there are a ton of Chrysalis comes back stories, this one is completely different and definitely worth watching.
/]

[The Wizard of Words]

1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/a/image/1346/96/1346961234895.jpg

[Diamond Sparkle]

Favourited and watched and very well done.

[themanesix]

what could possibly go wrong

[CommanderX5]

Finaly we can see how thinks were on the other side.

When everypony was happy that changeling invasion was repeled and returned to wedding like nothink happened.
In the badlands and all over the place alot of changelings were dying from starvation or damage from falling.
I wonder how Cadence would react if she knew that she and Shinning Armor just practicaly killed hundreds of changelings and make entire race suffer, there is no way she would ignroe it or she would even rush to changelings aid, unable to ignore suffering.

[ambion]

She...leaves them to die? Alone and in pain? But she has a plan?? Something's very wrong in this...

[twow443]

Finally, I can actually read some of this. And, I like it.

It's defiantly a stark change from how I've been writing our favorite changeling queen. You're wants to help her race while mine is acting on a thousand year plot of revenge. Time to read a bit more.

[joebob50]

1799275
Ain't nopony got time for that!

Well there doesn't seem to by any point. most are dead and the living ones are likely going to die soon anyways. Maybe she reproduces asexually so a mate is uneccesary?

[joebob50]

1616572
Well technitally they both caused the suffering

[SilverDiamond]

2111218
I didn't grab no horseshoes no nothin, I RAN for my life...

Oh god, what have I done?

[TheGreatEater]

2111218

Well there are vertabrates that are able to impregnate themselves (and an insect that can procreate before birth) so it's totally possible.

[Violet Sky]