Glowing in Everglow

by Darkmoon9

Chapter 18: The Last Changeling

Diary of Chrysalis

Hatred, that was what consumed me after so many years as a stone statue in Twilight’s Garden, but also, reflection. I had stood defiant to the very last, the only one among my co-conspirators who was not frozen in time with an expression of terror on their face, weaklings. If I were to be immortalised as a living statue, I would do so displaying a fearsome snarl that would strike fear unto my onlookers for ages to come. After all, I wouldn't grant my hated enemies the satisfaction of begging for mercy.

Mercy, the ponies of Equestria always pretended to hold such lofty ideals, it was all a lie, a front for brainwashing and propaganda. I knew that better than anyone, even if what remained of my people were too young to understand. They were not there more than a thousand years ago when the changelings were on the brink of extinction, and only thanks to me were reborn as something stronger, something more suited for long-term survival.

Long ago, the lands that are now Equestria were the original home of the changelings. A peaceful species that fed on the love they felt for other creatures, much like the weakling pacifists that followed the usurper Thorax. I was one of them, I was once weak, pathetic, just like them, until my eyes were opened to the truth. Everything changed when the colonizers came, pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies, their original homeland a frozen wasteland, ruined by their infighting. Now united under one banner, that of King Sunlance, and desperate to claim a new homeland, ponykind trampled the changelings underhoof. I remember when my original hive was put to the torch by General Blaze himself, I was only a hatchling at the time, I was hiding in terror, the soldiers put all of the changelings to the sword, but they never found me. As the sole survivor of my hive, I swore vengeance upon Equestria, a crusade I have continued to this very day.

I survive in the wilderness for years after that, communicating with the bogs and swamplands I made refuge in, I learned a respect for nature in its purest form, for in nature only the strong survive, a lesson I learned well when my original hive was destroyed. I would use my shapeshifting to appear as beautiful ponies to seduce unlucky travelers who decided to travel through my bog, trick them into loving me and drain them dry of every drop of love, leaving only an empty husk. After all, the principle of the whole world ran by was survival of the fittest and I prefer to be predator rather than pray. With time my original green carapace turned black and holes started appearing all around my legs and body, but it also turned harder, more resilient to damage. I realized that this new metamorphosis was the next step in the evolution of my people.

With time, without any readily available food source, with most ponies hostile to them, the surviving changelings flocked to me, asking me to teach them how to live as a predator rather than prey. How to hunt others and drain them of their love. Those changelings went through the same metamorphosis I did, becoming strong in the process. Those who didn’t go through the metamorphosis didn’t survive, soon the only remaining changelings were the ones under my banner. And we gave Equestria hell, even after King Sunlance was overthrown by his own daughters, Celestia and Luna.

Equestria entered a more peaceful era under the rule of the two sisters, yet I didn’t trust it, I had grown wise to pony trickery, friendship, unity, all tools of control, only a way to force their way unto others. The way I see it the only difference between the royal sisters and Cozy was that at least Cozy was honest about her manipulation, she admitted that what she was doing was for selfish gain. How could it not be? No creature ever does anything that is not to the direct benefit of themselves and their group at the exclusion of all other groups. Cooperation between the different creatures was nothing more than a fairytale, a delusion. The only world where the changelings would be safe would be in a world where the other creatures were trapped in eggsacks to be drained of their love.

So, I led my people in continuing to live as predators, for over a millennium we survived this was until Starlight Glimmer convinced that traitor Thorax to embrace the old ways of the changelings, the way of weaklings that had almost led to our destruction. A new metamorphosis happened as Thorax convinced the rest of my hive to embrace the old pacifistic ways. I was the only one who resisted metamorphosis. Because I saw this for what it really was, a trick, a way for ponykind to make my people weak so that they could conquer them, like always. I was the only one alive who still remembered those times, who understood it was a trick.

I found myself alone, without a hive to support me. But support was overrated, I always managed to survive alone before I gathered a following, and I would continue to survive relying only on myself, for codependence breeds weakness. I had allowed myself to get attached to my hive, this had weakened me, I felt pain over what I lost, and I would make sure that Starlight and Thorax paid for that pain in blood.

Yet I was encouraged by a great magician named Grogar to cooperate with two other enemies of Equestria, Tirek, a powerful warlock, strong and self-reliant, and Cozy Glow, a weak and pathetic pony who relied on others to pose a threat. Yet Cozy had a silver tongue and somehow managed to convince me to cooperate with her and Tirek. Cozy, as I described earlier, I considered to be the epitome of the deceptive nature of ponykind, using friendship as a means of conquest. But I couldn’t deny her methods were effective, given her track record, but the allure of that kind of power turned out to be just as poisonous as Cozy’s words. With time I started to enjoy working with Cozy and Tirek, and I felt that if I kept this up, I would undergo metamorphosis, back to my original weak state. I couldn’t let that happen; friendship was a disease that if embraced would endanger my very identity as a survivor. The bonds I made with Tirek and Cozy needed to be cut before it corrupted me and made me weak, like my kin had become.

Of course, Grogar turned out to be none other than Discord, a demigod of chaos aligned with Equestria, it had been a trick all along, a way to infect my mind with pony propaganda. Equestria needed to pay for the deception, while no longer friends, Tirek and Cozy were likewise angered by Discord’s deception, and we made a last-ditch effort to lash out against our common enemy. This would eventually result in our defeat. As expected, despite their talk of mercy and redemption, the rulers of ponykind wanted to make an example out of us and had their pet Discord turn us all to stone. My co-conspirators both begged for mercy to no avail, I refused to give them that satisfaction.

Time passed while I was in my petrified state, many years, my whole focus being clinging onto my hatred and what I would do to my enemies when I got out. Eventually an orange unicorn with a red mane with yellow stripes came to visit the garden and free one of us, Cozy Glow. Of course, it wasn’t me, who would be stupid enough to free someone as fierce as me? Of course, it was the small, innocent-looking filly, that orange pony would learn the error of their ways the hard way. Get more years passed, my hatred starting to wane, and I had to concentrate hard on the indignity my enemies had subjected me to keep it going. More statues started appearing in the garden, the first one was Discord, not too great of a surprise there, he deserved it for his part in bringing destruction to their homeland, it was strange he wasn’t petrified to begin with. But the pony frozen beside him, in a pose that looked like she was trying to shield him from harm, took me by surprise, Fluttershy. Why? Did she accidentally kill one of Celestia’s pets?

These two wouldn’t be the last either, eventually the statues of random ponies would start appearing all around me, followed soon by the statues of changelings and eventually even Thorax himself. I knew it, Twilight was only using friendship to weaken my people so she would be able to destroy them. I didn’t know if any of them were even still alive. The very thought made me indignant, how dare they? My people rejected the only person who could have saved them, their pacifism had led them to this path of destruction. I felt an unfamiliar feeling when I thought about it, mixed in with my hatred, was it sadness? During the same time, Twilight’s old castle of gemstones was replaced by an enormous Spire made of pure obsidian. Like if made by King Sombra himself. Ponies were always hypocrites and liars, yet this did seem a bit more extreme than I expected. Whoever was in charge now was a far darker nature than who has been in charge before. Did Celestia retire and Twilight show her true dark nature? Because no matter how much I hated the two sisters, I knew them well enough to know that these blatant displays of evil were beyond them. Yet even that assumption soon became questionable as statues with the resemblance of Twilight’s friends started appearing in the garden, one after another. First came Rainbow Dash, frozen in the middle of what seemed to be a battle pose, together with Applejack. Next came Pinkie Pie and Rarity who both had expressions of terror on their faces. With how much Twilight prattled on about friendship, why would she do this to her closest? Maybe she had been lying from the beginning, friendship really was a means to an end for her and she discarded it when it was no longer convenient.

Eventually the monarch of his kingdom would appear before me, just to look at me and gloat. She looked like Twilight Sparkle, only her mouth was frozen in a stern expression and her purple eyes filled with a sense of cruelty and malice. She was clad in a dark cloak that may or may not be hiding a pair of wings, iron armor reminding me of that of King Sombra and a cruel looking crown pulsating with energy. Twilight gave off a sinister aura of great power inspiring fear by her very presence, I have to admit even I was shaken to the bone. For the first time in a very long time I felt truly afraid. Was this really the Twilight Sparkle I had been fighting against all this time? She has never displayed power of this nature before. Twilight looked right into my soul with those eyes of hers and spoke, as if she was a judge pronouncing a sentence.

“You are lucky you are not the Chrysalis of my home realm, for then I would have a fate even worse in store for you. For now, I am satisfied with settling with having you suffer the torment of being alone with your own thought forevermore, unable to move a muscle ever again or interact with another being. And to add to your torment, know this, the changelings have all been wiped out, your disgusting people are no more. Ponies are the purest incarnation of order, and I will not rest until all other creatures have been wiped from the lands.”

These words fill me with a lot of different thoughts, not of her home realm. So, this was not actually the Twilight I knew. I wondered what would happen with the princesses if this creature was in charge of Equestria now. A lot of different emotions for me when I thought about the fate of my people, wiped out? If only I could be free of my stone prison, I would do everything in my power to destroy this individual. My wish would soon come true when Starlight Glimmer would eventually appear in the garden. She wore a similar black cloak and armor to “Twilight”. Yet what she did next was something I would’ve never expected, she cast a spell to free both me and Tirek from stone. In normal circumstances I would report to shreds the first opportunity I got but considering the circumstances I decided to hear her out:

“I don’t have much time, so listen; Midnight could discover what I am up to any minute now. Equestria has been taken over by a being with incredible dark power who bear the guise of Twilight Sparkle. I beg you to forget whatever grudge we had in the past as we now have a greater adversary, and I wouldn’t do this unless I was desperate. Journey to the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadence has been informed and will welcome the both of you with open arms. Drink from the power of the Crystal Heart, it will empower you and with it we could maybe have a chance of defeating Midnight. Go, now, however much I hate to admit it you two are the only hope we have left, and I would rather take a reality of Equestria being destroyed than under iron hoof of Midnight.”

I didn’t get much time to question her as Starlight disappeared as quickly as she arrived using a teleportation spell. But what she said made sense. After a quick discussion with Tirek we both agreed to journey to the Crystal Empire, because she was right, the Crystal Heart would have the power to allow us to once again pose a threat to Equestria. And I certainly wouldn’t mind eliminating this Midnight, who had the audacity to try to exterminate my people. As the last remaining changeling, I wouldn’t rest until I had made this Midnight wish she never been born.