Ascension
Starlight Glimmer was surprisingly calm when the world exploded.
Of course, the world was probably fine. It was unlikely that the harmonic energy released by the changelings had destroyed much more than the room they were in. Still, from the center of a cloud of smoke, all explosions looked much the same.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the dust slowly settled and it became apparent that they were still in a room full of bizarre looking, but alive, changelings, rather than something more gruesome.
Even better, as she lowered the shield that had protected her and… whatever Thorax had become, familiar shapes came into view. Familiar shapes that were no longer in cocoons, and that, slowly but surely, were moving!
…I did it.
She wasn’t shocked. Shock implied strong emotion, and were Starlight to attempt to describe her emotional state, the first description to come to mind would be that of an overwhelming calm. Still, that didn’t stop her brain from crunching to a halt as a possibility she hadn’t dared to imagine appeared reified before her and forced every gear in her head into reverse.
She couldn’t process that the changelings somehow now looked as brightly colored as ponies. She didn’t register that the princesses were all safe and unharmed, and the political crisis she’d been agonizing over would never come. She didn’t realize that the other members of her apparently-not-doomed rescue mission were safe before her; at least, not at first.
Instead, all she could think of was the fact that she, Starlight Glimmer, former tyrant and literal destroyer of worlds, personal protege of the only pony competent enough to salvage her broken mind, terrible friend, nervous wreck, and bane of therapists and manaphysicists alike, had succeeded. Without magic, without witness, without hope, she had saved them.
Looking back on the moment later—as little as five minutes later—she would be embarrassed at the selfishness of her reaction. But she would never become so embarrassed that she could stop herself from cherishing the memory; one’s first feeling of real pride, she reasoned, was worth preserving.
In the moment, her trance was broken by the sight of a cloud-colored mane. Trixie.
She dashed to the showpony, stopping herself from fully embracing her only when the rational part of her mind recovered enough to note that everypony here except her had just been in a changeling cocoon, and might appreciate some breathing room. Still, she couldn’t resist a small hug. Trixie was slimy, wet, and somehow both feverishly hot and unnaturally cold, but she was smiling, and she was alive, so every other adjective could wait in line.
The sight of Twilight slowly standing up finally managed to jolt her fully back to reality. She was going to be so proud—no, not the time. Quickly, she trotted over and offered a hoof.
Twilight looked as if she’d been to a spa with some radical ideas about what materials qualified as therapeutic. But she, too, was alive—thank Faust—and, if Starlight knew her, about to start asking questions.
She was right. “...Starlight?”
Starlight nodded, in what she hoped was an encouraging way. Thorax walked up next to her, standing at a respectful distance.
Twilight shook her head, dislodging a small fraction of the slime coating every part of her body. “What… happened?”
That was a good question. She should’ve prepared an answer.
“We defeated the changelings with no magic at all, and they found a new leader, and they’re all… kinda… good now?”
Not for the first time, Starlight wondered if any of her well-perused mental catalog of memory modification and mind-altering spells would work on herself. But Thorax nodded, so she supposed she could’ve done worse.
Twilight gaped.
Princess Luna wobbled towards them—had Starlight ever met Princess Luna? They’d spoken in her dreams before the whole mess began last night, but she couldn’t remember ever standing before the Princess of the Night. Then again, if there was ever a time she’d felt nearly worthy to do so…
Luna was panting, but smiling. “Well done, Starlight Glimmer. It seems as though you’ve learned a great deal since last we—“
The rubble behind them shifted.
Oh horseapples.
Every creature present whirled around in time to see the broken shards of Chrysalis’s throne shift to reveal the queen herself, standing painfully upright. She let out a feral hiss, horn flaring.
Starlight didn’t think she would be able to excise that sound from her nightmares if she lived a thousand years.
She stumbled back reflexively, immediately filled with visions of her (very recent) last confrontation with the queen. She couldn’t fail now! She didn’t know if she’d survive another fight like that, even though she hadn’t had magic at the time, but hadn’t she learned how much less valuable magic was than she thought, and how could she have told Twilight things were okay?! She hadn’t saved them yet, she hadn’t succeeded, she had to…
As she glanced around in her panicked spiral, she noticed, for the first time, just how many ponies stood behind her. Her friends the Elements were there, of course, exhausted but uninjured, and Trixie beside them. Shining Armor and Cadance stood firm, terrible expressions on their faces, and even Flurry Heart hovered next to them, comprehending nothing but that her parents were angry, and so she would be angry too. Luna stood by Celestia, Thorax—nearly as tall as the sisters now—lit his enormous antlers, and, between and behind them all, the colorful… reformed… changelings. There was an army at her back. Chrysalis had brought to her doorstep the most powerful collection of ponies imaginable.
But they stood still, unmoving before their enemy. They looked at Starlight, each and every one of them. And she stared back for one baffled second before she caught on.
They were waiting. They were waiting for her. They were… they…
They trusted her. Her friends. The Princesses trusted her. A whole other species trusted…
At another time, she might’ve burst into tears (and, later, she did just that). But now… She turned back to the queen, took a breath, and hoped her confidence held.
Chrysalis was barely standing. She could do this.
She stepped forward, and spoke carefully. “When Twilight and her friends defeated me, I chose to run away and seek revenge. You don’t have to!” Chrysalis looked at the ground. “You can be the leader your subjects deserve.” And, acting on the first and only instinct in her mind, she extended a hoof.
Chrysalis’s expression lept from uncertainty to absolute terror. Starlight cursed internally, feeling the tension behind her without having to look.
It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t have been enough for her—it hadn’t been enough for her.
Think.
She knew they were alike. She’d spent the past day thinking of little else, besides saving her friends; considering every uncomfortable way in which the evil queen she was striving against resembled herself.
So what would have worked on her?
Her first, and likely most reasonable, thought was… Nothing. There was no way in any sensible world that Twilight could have changed her mind back in those mountains.
But her second thought was that, if there was any remote possibility that she was wrong, any tiny loophole that would allow every single creature in the throne room to walk away victorious, and she didn’t take it, she would never be able to look in a mirror again. And she was running out of time.
So she threw caution to the wind blowing through her mane. “Look! I’ve been here before. Exactly here. And I chose wrong. You aren’t going to!” The fear was fading from Chrysalis’s face, replaced by guarded anger. She didn’t know if that was better or worse, but she soldiered on. “And I’ll tell you why!
“You have two options right now. You could run. You could run, and never see your children again.” She gestured behind her to the crowd of changelings she knew was watching. “They made their choice already! They’re not going to follow you, not there. If you leave and you look for revenge, you’re leaving them too.
“Or… you can stay. You can adapt, you can change, and you can stay with your subjects. They look different, but they’re still yours! You can be smarter than I ever was. You don’t have to lose this. You don’t have to lose anything.”
She stepped closer to Chrysalis, who flinched away, and looked into her eyes. “When I lost my village, I ran, and I chose revenge instead of the ponies who relied on me. I gave up everything… And because I did, I failed. I lost, again. I know you care about your subjects, just like I did. No matter what you’ve done, you told me, when you’d beaten everypony else, that you were doing this for them. So. Were you right?”
She extended her hoof again. Chrysalis gazed unblinkingly back at her, expression unreadable and unchanging.
So she flipped one last coin. “Also… that speech definitely bought enough time that nopony is going to be surprised enough for you to run. So… I guess you’ve only got one option?” She smiled winningly, letting the smallest glimmer of her old sinister grin into the expression. For once, it felt right.
Chrysalis slowly, uncertainly raised her hoof. Her face contorted into anger, then pain, and for a moment Starlight almost thought she might cry. But then…
“Damn you, Starlight Glimmer,” the queen growled. And their hooves met.
The moment they did, Starlight felt a physical force press her back as Chrysalis began to glow. She looked baffled, and then resigned, and then Starlight had to look away or risk being blinded.
It took several seconds for the glow to fade, but she looked back as quickly as she could, fearing the worst. Instead, her jaw dropped. Standing before her, wings fluttering, was… Queen Chrysalis. A version of Queen Chrysalis, anyway. A chorus of soft oohs arose from the crowd.
Her chitinous body had smoothed over, leaving her with a coat of fur so bright blue it was nearly white. The holes in her legs had sealed, and her ragged wings had filled out and grown to become a set of four sparkling dragonfly wings, reflecting the light as if dewy despite being entirely dry. Her formerly lank, teal mane and tail had lightened in color and looked almost healthy, and the crooked, angry spike that used to serve as her horn had been reshaped into an elegantly curved white bone.
Only her crown, and the expression of comical embarrassment on her face, made it clear it was still the same changeling.
“Get your staring done now,” she said bitterly. “While I allow it.”
Starlight repressed an undignified squeal of happiness. If she hadn’t been sure that Chrysalis, fluffy form or not, would still prefer her dead, she might not have tried so hard. Instead, she settled for saying, relieved, “Thank you. I’m happy you accepted.”
“Oh, yes, certainly,” Chrysalis grumbled sarcastically. “That’s what I have in mind right now, Glimmer. Making you happy. I should… bah.” Her now-voluminous tail flicked in indignation.
The two turned as a few hesitant footsteps sounded. An orange changeling had stepped out of the crowd. “Will you stay?” he asked hopefully. The other changelings looked at each other, murmuring amongst themselves.
Chrysalis hesitated, torn, looking around at the crowd. “Do you…” She seemed to realize that she was about to ask her subjects what to do, and instantly stood up straight as an arrow and forced her usual expression of haughty confidence back onto her face from wherever it’d been hiding. “Of course I’m staying. Do you honestly think I would let someling else do my job?” She glared disdainfully at Thorax, who smiled openly back.
Chrysalis turned to face the crowd, and strode forward, nearly managing to hide a limp. “I am the queen of the changelings! I have always been the queen, and I will always be the queen. After all…” She walked up to the princesses, staring Celestia in the eyes as if daring her to argue. “Whatever may happen, we will move forward as changelings, and we will weather this change under our power.”
Starlight, watching proudly, wasn’t sure how true that would end up being. But the princesses knew how to pick their battles, and Chrysalis’s grandstanding, as much for her own sake as for her audience, went uninterrupted. That is, until another glow began to shine from somewhere, dimly at first, but growing stronger by the second.
At first, she didn’t know where it was from. It seemed to originate from everywhere, glowing in every color of the rainbow, glimmering and sparkling across the damp stones of the throne room, ever-brighter and ever-faster, until she noticed where everypony in the room was looking—Chrysalis included—and connected the dots.
Oh. It’s me.
For the second time that day, the world exploded.
Starlight’s first thought was that she was dreaming.
She blinked instinctively, feeling as if her eyes should be bleary, but they weren’t. In fact, she couldn’t feel any of the scrapes and bruises her body should definitely have. She stood, completely comfortable, in a void of stars.
She wasn’t standing on anything. Instead, she floated, but without the sense of vertigo she was accustomed to feeling with weightlessness. Her muscles didn’t quite work normally; instead of moving them with her body, she simply thought, and found herself moving, as if she were a detached pilot of her own form. It took some getting used to, and she kept getting distracted by the sparkling beauty of the stars surrounding her, but, before long, she was walking aimlessly forward.
She passed nebulas, clouds, and whorls of sparkling stardust that parted before her hooves. She felt as if she could see with more than her eyes; she was somehow aware of the dazzling emptiness in every direction without ever turning her head.
After what felt like hours, but was probably barely minutes, a figure began to fade into sight in the distance. Starlight was surprised to be unsurprised to see Twilight emerging from the stars. She noticed that Twilight, too, seemed undamaged from her ordeals in the… real world.
Where was she?
Of course, Twilight would know what this was; hopefully Starlight wouldn’t make a fool of herself. Concentrating, she found her voice. “Twilight?”
Before the alicorn could reply, two more silhouettes appeared: one tall, and one still taller. The alicorn sisters. Starlight bowed automatically, the motion more elegant than she suspected it would ever be in reality. When she arose, all three princesses stood before her.
Celestia looked openly astonished. Twilight looked uncertain and confused. And Luna looked as though Hearth’s Warming Eve had come early.
Starlight looked between them. “Princesses?” She wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt so lost in her life. “Have I… done something wrong?”
They looked at each other. Luna found her voice first. “No, Starlight Glimmer. You have…” She shook her head, beaming. “You have accomplished something beyond what I had ever dared to dream.”
Was that what this was about? “You mean with Chrysalis?” Starlight smiled sheepishly. “Thank you; I’m just happy nopony got hurt.”
This time, Celestia shook her head. “Not quite. Certainly, what you managed to do with her is something you deserve to be proud of for all of your days, but that is… not all we speak of.” She blushed. “Our apologies for the delay. I was… not expecting this, and got a bit turned around.”
Starlight’s confusion mounted. “Expecting what?”
Luna nodded to Twilight. “Princess Twilight, do you wish to do the honors?”
Twilight jumped to an impressive height. “Me?! But I don’t even know— well, I do, but I’m not— what I mean is, she should have someone— stop smiling!”
Luna did not stop smiling. In fact, Celestia had joined her.
Twilight inhaled deeply, the motion Starlight recognized automatically as her ‘hyperventilation forestalling’ breath. “Um, okay. I can do that.” She turned to Starlight, an expression of hesitant excitement on her face. “Starlight… ever since I met you, I’ve been in awe. Obviously it wasn’t always for good reasons, as you remember, even though it is, um, now… Gah, Celestia made this look so easy!”
Celestia’s calm smile dissolved into undignified giggles at Twilight’s helpless look. Regaining her breath, she said, “Why don’t you give her the full speech when we aren’t all in quite such a compromising position in the physical world? For now, just tell her what she needs to hear.”
The portion of Starlight’s mind not dedicated to exploring how many varieties of bafflement and apprehension one pony could experience at once noted that the phrase ‘physical world’ implied that the dimension they currently resided in was embodied by some other thing, which made sense—a world of the mind, perhaps? Or magic itself?
Her thought process was interrupted once again by Twilight, who was looking directly into her eyes. “Celestia’s right; I’ll keep this quick for now. First…” She leaned in, and gave Starlight a tight hug (bone-crushing, by the standards of Twilight’s muscle mass). “I am so, so proud of you, for everything. I mean it.” Starlight’s heart filled with an embarrassing degree of warmth at the sentiment.
“Also, you’re… going to wake up with wings. You’re an alicorn now.” Twilight grinned awkwardly. “Surprise?”
Starlight fainted.
“…shattered the dimensional framework…”
“…her, after all. I’m not…”
“…if Twilight hadn’t…”
“…told me too! It’s not…”
“…worry, we know you only…”
“...didn’t get a song…”
Starlight slowly opened her eyes, blinking in the light of the now-sunlit throne room. She’d been… dreaming? Twilight had been there, and…
“Oh thank Cele— um, you’re awake!”
She found herself both lifted to her hooves by the purple alicorn, who brushed off Starlight hastily. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, that was all my fault, I hope you’re not—“
Recognizing a nervous Twilight ramble when she saw one, Starlight raised a hoof and closed her mouth mid-word. “I’m okay. But what happened?”
As her eyes left Twilight, she noticed that the crowd that’d backed her against Chrysalis was now staring at her, mouths universally agape. “…Do I have something in my mane?” What had she done now?
Luna gestured behind Starlight with a wink. “Oh, something like that.”
Starlight frowned, and looked back.
And turned back forward.
And looked back again.
She appeared to have wings.
That dream… Oh, Faust.
Characteristically, it was Pinkie who broke the silence. “STARLIGHT! You’re an ALICORN!”
And indeed she was.
The spell broke, and the crowd broke out into excited chatter with each other and, rather one-sidedly, herself.
She was in no shape to respond, though. She was astonished that she was in shape to stand, or even to exist. It felt like this situation, if possible in the first place, should by its very existence cause reality and fate to simply give up, dissolve the world, and start a new one afresh. She had a vague sense that she was hyperventilating, but that seemed like something ponies who existed did. Clearly, she couldn’t possibly qualify.
Aided by Twilight’s reassurance, though, she eventually discovered her voice and the proper use of her lungs, and looked around in a daze. “Am I dreaming again?”
Luna chuckled. “I am quite sure you are not. What you are is owed congratulations—more than can be expressed.”
Starlight wasn’t sure she believed any of that, but she nodded wordlessly and focused on calming herself down, trying to ignore the bizarre sensations of an entirely new set of limbs appearing on her back. She was unsuccessful, and she was grateful to Twilight for staying next to her despite the panicked flaps that were surely menacing her face. The rest of her friends had approached—Trixie looked as though she would explode, and Starlight didn’t even know the emotion that’d be responsible—but maintained a respectful distance.
After a time, a thought broke through the haze. Chrysalis. Starlight’s eyes scanned the crowd…
There she was—standing solidly twenty feet from any other creature, and looking as though the sky had fallen down. Starlight waved; she didn’t react.
Starlight approached her cautiously. “Are you… okay?”
“You. You’re…” Chrysalis looked faintly ill. “Is it too late to change my mind?”
There was a pop, and Discord appeared standing beside the changeling; both she and Starlight yelped. “Oh, it certainly is, my dear Chryssy!”
“What did you call—“
“Trust me, I had no intentions of making this a permanent gig, but do you know as time’s gone on I’ve gotten to quite like some of the benefits!”
‘Chryssy’s’ look of illness intensified.
“Certainly they need to work on this whole draft system of theirs”—Discord conjured a vaguely military uniform, teleported into it, and vanished it with a snap—“but, well, noling’s perfect, hm~? And you’ve already gotten the new uniform!” He turned the same light blue as Chrysalis, sparkling merrily. "And of course now that you're on our side you won't even mind that the pony you didn't think to capture who defeated you with no magic is now going to live forever! How generous of you!"
“Please leave,” Chrysalis said faintly. Starlight would’ve been shocked to hear the queen utter the word ‘please,’ but even if she hadn’t just heard the phrase 'live forever,' Discord’s presence tended to stab one’s sense of shock in the back and bury it in an unmarked grave.
Discord chuckled. “Your wish is my command!” He popped over to put his arms around Luna and Celestia, who’d been excitedly talking with Twilight. “You know, if I’m not mistaken, this calls for a party! I have a dimension that’s perfect this time of year, but some of you might not have the requisite…” He stretched his neck fifteen feet to stage whisper to Fluttershy. “Mental fortitude?”
Oh! This she could help with. “You know…” Starlight winced as everyone’s gaze shot to her, as if they’d been waiting for an excuse to stare (except Fluttershy, who’d intercepted Discord’s neck and was whispering chastisingly to him). “I might have just the place.”
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To be honest, I didn’t understand why Chrysalis is miserable at the end? She seemed to have lost nothing and rather proudly accepted her new appearance.
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She lost her pride. She was defeated by a random pony she overlooked, and, after she very reluctantly conceded that defeat, that pony immediately became an immortal demigod. I probably could’ve made the exact reasoning clearer, though.
Starlight and Chryssy are far from done interacting, so hopefully their dynamic becomes a bit more apparent in a couple chapters.
I look forward to the coronation chapter.
If actual effort and logic was put into trying to reform Chrysalis... Great work so far! Curious to see how this will go.
I always thought that what Starlight said to Chrysalis was very good, just lacking in convincing the Queen of the Changelings, given the state of the situation. Seeing this being rectified in your story got me good.
Highly interested to see where you take this story.
I agree with Doctor_Den, the reason of Chrysalis' state of mind at the end of the chapter was not adequately communicated.
You could simply copy your response to Doctor_Den and paste it at the end of the line “Is it too late to change my mind?”, and that would most likely help clear up some of the confusion. Or use this opportunity to delve deeper into Chrysalis' mind in a future chapter, both options sound good to me.
This is amazingly well-written. The thing that stood out to me here was you, dear author. Your voice, your narration, your style of writing. It’s unbelievably good. That opening line had me hooked from the very beginning. Dunno if I’ll be tracking this, but it - along with you, Venlinelle - have earned a place in ‘Best of Comedy (3)’!
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Thank you for the kind words and feedback! Honestly, when I wrote this chapter (though it was a few months ago), I thought the reasoning was inferable, but, given multiple people have said otherwise, I was clearly mistaken, and I've amended the ending to hopefully make things a bit clearer.
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This is possibly the kindest comment I've ever received, and I can already tell I'll be rereading it frequently. Thank you <3
It's funny, I didn't even really intend this chapter to be comical (unlike some later ones). I'm glad you thought it worthy, though!
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Youʼre very welcome.
Iʼll be honest, though, I was debating on whether I put it in drama or comedy (I never put a story in two genre shelves), but I eventually decided that the comedy won.
This Starlight certainly cut through Chrysalis’ anger to get to the heart of the issue. Even when the former Queen was going off the deep end in season nine, she was still concerned about the Changelings. She even treated the wooden leftovers of Mean Six Twilight like a kid cradling it. Which was pretty weird to watch in the show when that first came up. At she has her mentor who has gone through this same exact thing—both being a semi-normal pony beforehand.
Chrysalis might’ve accepted the offer then actually went through the Metamorphisis, but like Pharynx showed us. The Changelings are still themselves on the inside so the Queen will have to unlearn quite a few habits she once did. Among many other things. Discord just casually dropping the immortal bomb was hilarious.
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I actually added the line about immortality due to some confusion amongst other readers; I'm glad it's also funny! Discord's handy that way.
So many people seem to forget how much Chrysalis clearly cares for her subjects/children; I think that, if she were forced to actually consider what leaving her hive would mean rather than just making an angry, impulsive decision, she wouldn't be able to abandon them.
Thank you for the comment!
Very well written.
Whoever said that needs to get their priorities in check
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Celestia, I believe <3
Chrysalis: You are wrong Starlight, I choose option 3.
Starlight: Option 3? What would that be?
Chrysalis: Retirement!
Gay as in happy, gay as in homo, or both?
Both. Both is good.
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:)
Honestly, Had Starlight redeemed Chrysalis at that moment, this scenario is very likely.
It was also hilarious that Starlight would ascend before Shinning Armor who in my opinion has earned his wings in full by now with all the insanity he had had to deal with. Sorry, I am still slightly salty after all of these years that Shinning Armor did not ascend in canon when he by all rights should have in my opinion. Tangent aside Starlight as an Alicorn opens all kind of fun insanity I can't wait to read.
Loved this! I really like the way you write Starlight's stream of consciousness. I'm looking forward to seeing all the places the future chapters of this lead to!
GEHT IN MAH FAVORITES!!!!
You win the internet today. Waifu Glim as an alicorn goddess.
Sign me up :)
I'm a simple man.
I see Starlight, Trixie, and gay in the same sentence, I click
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I’m sorry to disappoint in that Trixie has yet to do gay things :(
But she will! Do not fear
Love how hard this goes, Glim-Glam basically saying that while Chrissy might be a villain, she’s still not a supervillain like Glimmy was.
While I’m not against this event going down this way, I still feel like it would be cool to see some remnants rebelling from the harmony bugs.
Luna excited to finally have someone relatable to talk to with, ain’t she?
Well, darn it, looks like this is going to be another great story I’ll have to keep track of. An exciting start for sure, can’t wait for the next-next chapter (since the next one is already here, and I can definitely tell this is going to be good.)
I only have praises towards this first chapter, and while I would’ve written things differently it’s still a very well written and choreographed story, bravo to you author.
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I think Starlight was more reflecting upon her inadequacies than feeling proud of her villainy, but you may interpret it as you wish.
Thank you for the comment!
Never seen the idea before, interesting.
ooh this looks interesting.... follow, and we're good! now, lets see where this goes.
Well, that's an interesting start.
And Chryssie is about to hit the closest booze stash.