Queen Chrysalis addressed the fourth wall and began cackling in a high voice.
“Greetings, workers and gentledrones! It’s your old pal, the Hive-Keeper, here with some more tales of me and my beloved changelings, so spooky that you'll be changing yourselves! Ahaha! And today we have a very special guest. Welcome Discord, a real mixed bag who likes to spend his nights getting stoned! Ahaha!”
“Hi, Chryssy,” Discord said.
“I hate that name!”
“Ooh, I know! That’s why I said it! Now, shall we get to our first story? I’m sure you’re ready.”
“Oh, yes! You could say I’ve been awaiting it,” she lifted a hoof to show its disfigurement. “. . . hole-heartedly! Ahaha!”
“Don’t you mean, ‘hole-hoofedly’?” asked Discord.
“No, I mean hoof-heartedly,” said Chrysalis.
“Hoof-hearted?”
“Wasn’t me, must have been you! Ahaha! Now, kiddies, while Discord’s draggin’ himself off, why don’t you enjoy a little tale I call, ‘A Clone’s Throw Away!’ Ahaha!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Well, this bites,” the changeling said. “Another plan down the drain. Oh my Chrysalis, but I’m so hungry!”
“I know what you mean,” his friend, who was also a changeling, said. “I haven’t had any love to snack on in days!”
“First we get forcibly expelled from Canterlot, and then you go and insult the queen’s haircut and she kicks us out!”
“Yeah, I know all that, I was there.”
“Yes, but it’s back-story, I have to repeat it.”
“Stop breaking the fourth wall! That’s not going to get us any closer to a plan to feed!”
“Actually, it might. Haven’t you heard about the humans?”
“What’s a human?”
“Weird creature. No wings, no horns. Doesn’t matter, they’ve got love to give and apparently they’ve been dishing a lot of it out to Queen Chrysalis. That’s how we’ve been surviving ever since.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“We find where the humans live and go feed off them. Rather than wait for their love to come to us, we go and get it!”
“I like it. OK, you’re elected leader!”
“Hey, I don’t want to lead; I just want to feed!”
“Good slogan. You’ll be popular.”
“But I don’t even have a name!”
“None of the changelings do. We take the name of whatever we change into. For that matter, have you ever heard Queen Chrysalis actually called as such?”
“Funny enough, no. Makes you wonder how we even know her name. OK, well, give me a name.”
“Um. . . Changey McChangerton? Lord Evil? Swarmy?”
“Ooh, go with that one,” Swarmy said. “And you, loyal assistant. . . “
“Yes? I get a name too?”
“I just gave it to you! Come on, Loyal, let’s find the humans.”
*********************************************************************************************
“Well, you’ve done it.,” Loyal Assistant said. “Here we are in a human city, filled with humans waiting to give us love. How do we go about getting it, oh fearless leader?”
“We try the direct approach,” said Swarmy. “Go change yourself into a human and ask.”
Loyal peered out from the alley they were hiding in. He saw that as a general trend some humans were smaller than others. He figured he’d turn into one of those first to make it easier. Spotting one with particularly colorful plumage, he memorized its pattern and, as soon as it had walked away, converted himself. He walked out and approached a human.
“Excuse me, but do you know where I could find some love?”
*********************************************************************************************
“Well, that didn’t work!” Loyal reported back to Swarmy. “Apparently these humans are related to some of our lower-order insect cousins. The males’ only function is to mate. I tried asking where I could find some queens, but when I went there, there were only more males, and they weren’t interested in me at all!”
“Great, just great! I don’t want to breed; I just want to feed! What do we do now?”
From the front of the alley a new voice came. “Oh my gosh! Changelings!”
“What?!” said Swarmy. “Who goes there?! Stay back, we have sharp teeth!”
The speaker was one of the humans, smaller than the average. To the surprise of Swarmy and Loyal, this one was actually decorated on the front with the image of one of the ponies they had taken the form of not too long ago.
“You don’t have to be scared. My name’s Louis. I’m a brony. Are you guys OK? Do you need love?”
“Aha!” said Swarmy to Loyal. “They have a subspecies. They’re the ones we need. Louis? You are willing to provide us love to feed on?”
“Yeah, I mean, if it doesn’t kill me,” he said. “Do you guys want to come home with me?”
Again Swarmy spoke under his breath to his companion. “We’re in.” They started walking out of the alley.
“Oh, but how am I going to get you home without anybody noticing?” said Louis.
“Let us handle that!” said Swarmy, and he and Loyal changed themselves into humans.
*********************************************************************************************
Two days later, Swarmy and Loyal, back in their own bodies, were relaxing on the back deck of a suburban house.
“Ah, this is the life!” said Loyal. “You sure steered us right this time.”
“I haven’t been so full in all my life,” said Swarmy. “These bronies are full of love to give, and when they want you to change for them, it’s so easy! Do you know that more than half of them asked for the same transformation?”
“Oh yeah. What is a ‘Megan Fox’ anyway?”
“Who knows? Who cares?! We get to sit here and lap up the love forever.”
“Ahem.”
The two changelings took off their sunglasses and sat up.
“A-HEM.”
A new figure had come on to the deck.
“May I ask what you’re doing?”
“Um. . . hi. We’re just relaxing right now. Care to join us?”
“What do you think you’re doing to my humans?”
“Yours? We’re stealing love from them to feed on.”
“Yah, I noticed. That’s our gig. We’ve been doing it a lot longer than you, and you think you’re going to come in and just start mooching?”
“But we are changelings!” said Swarmy. “We can alter our size and shape as needed!”
“Big deal, we can do that too.”
“We can go invisible and you’ll never find us if we don’t want you to!”
“Mastered that ages ago.”
“We will breed uncontrollably until we take over and rule this planet!”
“Been there, done that. Face it, guys, your evolutionary niche has a big sign marked ‘Ocupado’ on it.”
Swarmy was becoming increasingly desperate at the threats. “What are you?!” he cried.
“Felis Domesticus, or just "cat" for short.”
“Well, Felis, you may have noticed, but we’re also considerably larger than you. If it comes to a fight, I don’t think it will be any contest.” He leaned back on his lounge chair.
“You’re right, it won’t,” the cat said, and then he jumped up onto Swarmy’s lap and began purring. Swarmy reached out a hand and began stroking it gently.
“What are you doing?!” said Loyal. “Kick him off!”
“No, he’s just being a cute widdle kitty, yes he is, isn’t he?” Swarmy nuzzled his face next to the cat’s, who started knitting at his lap with his claws.
“He’s attacking you! Fight back!” said Loyal.
“No, it doesn’t—Ow—hurt. Aww, look, he’s going to sleep.”
“Get up and run! He’s put some kind of spell on you!”
“No, he’s just sweepy, the widdle baby. I’ll let him stay here till he’s ready to go.”
“Well, I’m getting out of here! Starvation’s better than being turned into a mindless zombie!”
The cat purred and curled up, but then perked his head up toward Loyal. “Do so, and tell the rest of yours that they may accept the love sent across worlds, but do not attempt to send any more to this world or to damage any humans. They are our beloved pets and we will protect them if we have to. I will keep this changeling here for my troubles.”
“You can have him!” screamed Loyal. “I’m going home. Maybe Queen Chrysalis is in a forgiving mood.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“And I certainly was!” said Queen Chrysalis. “Why, I only had to chop off eight or nine limbs before I let him back in the hive!”
“Eight or nine?” asked Discord.
“Yes, changelings can be rather like plants. You prune them, and they grow back even weirder!”
“Oh, Chryssy. You and I were made for each other. Let’s go somewhere private and make beautiful music.”
“I don’t know, Cordy. Last I heard, you didn’t do so well around harmony! Ahaha!”
Discord sulked and turned away.
“Well, kiddies, until next time, remember: change is inevitable! Ahaha!”
“Ah, Chryssy. These bronies really are a subspecies of humanity, aren’t they?” asked Discord.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. In order to be a subspecies, you have to have a life! Ahaha!”
“You make me laugh so! Are you sure we can’t go off somewhere a little more private and 'alter reality'?”
“There’s a difference between you and me, Cordy,” said Chrysalis. “I’ve got a crooked horn, and you’re just a horny crook! Ahaha! And speaking of pitiful begging for my attention, how about tonight’s tale about the fanfic writer who found meeting me a life-changeling experience!”
“Dear me, is this a meta-story?” asked Discord.
“Sure! I always say that I never meta-story I didn’t like! Ahaha!”
“I guess the story will have lots of twists and turns! Ohoho!”
“What?” said Chrysalis.
“Turns. Because you turn into things.”
“Yeah, you haven’t got the whole wordplay thing quite down. See if you can’t learn something from this guy in ‘A Vice for the Love-Lore!’ Ahaha!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Oh, yeah. Out of school and time to troll the Internet!”
Harold threw his bag onto the couch and fired up his laptop. The first place to hit was the image board.
“Man, two more full pages on this bitch? They need to start moderating better.”
He opened the new images in separate tabs and started writing comments on each. For most, a simple “ur a faget” would do, but then he found a captioned one that he wanted to work on a little more. He started typing.
“All you losers who like Chrysalis aren’t even real bronies. She’s the villain. The VILL-AIN, get it? As in, you’re supposed to root against her, be happy when she loses. Seriously, I love MLP, but I like the good ponies, not the evil ones. And stop ragging on Celestia, while we’re at it. She sent ONE pony to the Moon ONE time. Kthxbai.”
His next stop was to FimFiction. “Only four stories about her today. Good, maybe they’re finally getting tired of her. OK, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down. Got that done.
As Harold went off to begin to cook dinner, he heard the familiar rising tone signaling an instant message was incoming. He sat back down and opened the window. It wasn’t from anyone he knew. The handle was “LuvEeter_2198” and the message was, “Hey, are you the guy who’s trolling all the Chrysalis fans?”
Harold was wary. He never used his real name on the internet, but it was possible that someone traced his e-mail address or something. He decided to play dumb.
“Sorry dude, think you got the wrong IM handle,” he typed.
Moments later the reply came through. “Don’t lie to me, little man. It’s not good for you,”
At that point he figured that whoever this person was, it was definitely someone he didn’t want to give any information to, so he ignored the message and went back to cooking. But as soon as he got up another message came through.
“Don’t get up and ignore me either.”
Now Harold was getting a little worried. He looked at his window to see if there was someone watching, but his blinds were down and it was impossible to see in. He looked over at the door just in case and saw that it was locked. He went back and typed in, “Who are you?”
“I am Queen Chrysalis herself. Stop interfering with the love of my fans, or it will not go well for you.”
Now he laughed. “Yeah, right. You trying to troll a troller,” he typed. “Good luck, whoever you are. Chrysalis Sux0rs, kthxbai.”
He got up and had his meal, ignoring the one more message that came through. Before he went to bed he shut down his computer, and saw the final message that was written.
“I warned you.”
*********************************************************************************************
The next day he came home the same as usual. He thought about hitting the My Little Pony sites first, then remembered the warnings of the previous day. “Feh, just some stupid troll,” he thought. “I’m not going to stop, but I am going to play my MMORPG first.”
Firing up his computer, he loaded the game, but it stalled when it tried to connect. He shut it down and saw that his network had no connection. He checked all the lines and found that everything was working up to the modem, but he still couldn’t get online. Figuring he’d call his ISP, he fired up his smart-phone and called up their web site, but it turned out that he had no connectivity there either.
“This is just great! Now I’m going to be offline all night!”
“A good bit longer than that, I’m afraid.”
He turned around and saw an eight-foot-tall black changeling in his room. Very suddenly, Harold’s belief structure shattered. Torn between panic and adrenalin, he started throwing whatever was near at the figure. When her horn glowed green and deflected all his missiles, his fear took over and he curled into a ball. “Don’t kill me!” he cried out.
“I’m not going to harm you, little human,” Queen Chrysalis said. “Not physically, anyway. I’ve simply come to stop you from, in your vulgar parlance, ‘trolling’ my loyal bronies.”
“What are you going to do?!”
“I’ve done it already. You are cut off from the internet entirely. None of the devices or methods that work to allow you access will function for you. Nor, if you ask another to write your lies for you will they be able to help.”
“How can you do that? The computer can’t know who’s typing at it.”
“I don’t presume to explain changeling magic to you, nor, if I did, would I expect you to understand. But Queen Chrysalis is nothing if not merciful. I will give you one opportunity to win my forgiveness and then I will undo the spell I placed on you.”
Facing the prospect of having to go through modern, twenty-first century life without the same advantage as everyone else, Harold relented. “What do I have to do?”
“First, go to your device and write about me. Write honestly and use all your skill. You need not praise me, but I expect you to give me my due.”
He was not much of a writer, and his skill was not enhanced by being watched over by a giant, fictional, magical beast, but over the next hour he had a decent essay about the queen. “Now what?” he asked.
Chrysalis’s horn turned green again. “I have lifted the curse. Go to the story site you have been trolling.”
Harold typed the address into his browser and was relieved when the site came up.
“Upload what you just wrote,” Chrysalis said.
“Aw, come on, everyone’s going to laugh at me.”
“Do it!”
Grumbling, he clicked the links to send a fic to the site, and saw it in the queue for approval.
Chrysalis cracked a sinister smile. “Only one more thing, and then I will leave you alone. Look into my eyes.”
Once more the changeling queen’s horn glowed, and Harold’s eyes went all 
. “What did you do now?” he asked.
“You’ll find out. I’m leaving now, and I promise you will never see me again.”
And then Harold was alone in the room. “Great. I can just delete what I uploaded. Stupid changeling bitch.” He sat down at the computer and moved his mouse to the “Revoke Submission” button, but hesitated. The moderators probably wouldn’t even approve it. He fired up his game and got to playing.
An hour later, he logged off the game and saw that his story was in the queue position for the front page, with position number 12. He hit refresh on the browser and it changed to 11. “I’d better take it down before someone sees it,” he said to himself, but again something stopped him. “Well, I’ll leave it up for maybe a day.”
He went off to bed. In the middle of the night he woke up and flipped open his laptop. He was still logged in to the site, and he had a private message alert and two notifications. The PM simply said that his story was approved. He clicked on the little fire icon. When the next page came up he read the first two lines on the list.
"PonyJoJo favourited Queen Chrysalis Made Me Write This 12:29 am”
"20PercentDerpier favourited Queen Chrysalis Made Me Write This 1:36 am”
“Cool,” he thought. “Couple of people liked what I wrote.”
He rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next morning, before going to the bathroom he peered at the screen and saw a (1) in front of the title on the taskbar. Clicking through the link he saw another notification line.
"Sparklight Twighle commented on your story Queen Chrysalis Made Me Write This 4:44 am”
He clicked through to the story itself and read the comment. “Pretty good, write moar pls.”
“Wow, someone really liked it. Maybe I should become a fanfic writer.”
He went off to perform his morning routine. After showering and brushing his teeth, he returned to the computer. “OK, come on, more likes,” Harold said, but when he brought up the site, the notifications icon read 0.
“Aw, come on, I was hoping for more.”
Then the PM icon changed from 0 to 1. He clicked on the message and saw the username “LuvEeter” again. The message had no subject, so he clicked through and read.
“Now you will learn what it’s like to feed on love and starve when you don’t get it. I suggest you get working on another story soon, as you will find that attention tapers off after the first few hours. And while I wouldn’t want to tell you what to write, let me just remind you that I have lots of fans who love to read about me!”
Harold felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. An empty feeling. He clicked back to the site and saw the icon read 0 again. He didn’t like seeing that.
He clicked over to the word processor and started to type.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Well, looks like I’ve certainly made an impression on that young man,” said Chrysalis. “He just wanted to play his online game. But now all he’ll be playing are hunger games! Ahaha!
“You certainly are cruel and ironic in your punishments. In fact, you’re a regular M. Night Sham-alan” said Discord.
Chrysalis just looked at the fourth wall.
“Sham, as in I’m a fake because I’m a changeling. You know, folks, it’s hard to play the dozens when this guy’s only sixes and sevens. In any case, my little emotional MRE’s, remember, ponies may say they want them more hay, but I need mi amore! Ahaha!”
End note: I don't know if I'll write any more of these, but these two were fun. If you have read to the end of this chapter, though, think before you click off: do you REALLY want to not rate, comment, or favorite this? 
