Decoding Chrysalis
It has been 30 years since the final battle for Harmony in Equestria had been fought and won.
From her throne, Twilight enjoys the site of everycreature preparing for Nightmare Night, the glow of her horn flickering every time she changes view from one province to another.
However, her pleasant mood took a sharp turn for the worst when she saw something in the Canterlot Gardens.
Ocellus had been giving a tour of the Gardens. More specifically, it's centerpiece: the petrified villains of Equestria's past.
Now, Ocellus and the young creatures she had been educating on the evildoers of old stood frozen in time. The perpetrator: a human of all things.
Twilight had looked upon the scene just in time to see the human materialize out of nowhere before snapping his fingers to stop Ocellus and the children from moving. Afterwards, his eyes locked onto the petrified form of Queen Chrysalis.
The human went through a variety of emotions at the sight of her. Sarrow, Regret, Anger, Frustration, and finally resolve.
Twilight didn't know what he was planning, but she felt the need to intervene lest he do something that she should've prevented.
Twilight teleported to his location. "Stop!" She declared.
The human turned his head to face her and raised his hand to snap his fingers.
Twilight cast a shield spell to protect herself from his magic, but was absolutely shocked to find herself frozen nonetheless...and then immediately unfrozen.
Twilight's confusion was (slightly)remedied as she realized another human had joined the fray. "GET OUT OF HERE JERRY! THE GAME IS OVER! YOU'RE GOING TO MESS UP TWILIGHT'S HAPPY ENDING!!!"
The first human, a man identified as Jerry, whirled on the newcomer with righteous fury in his eyes. "PISS OFF ELLIE!! I'M TAKING MY PRECIOUS BACK AND THAT'S FINAL!!!"
"NO YOU ARE NOT!!! YOU SOLD US THAT THING FAIR AND SQUARE!!!" The second human, a woman identified as Ellie, shot back with a bit of a snooty attitude.
"WHY THE HELL DO YOU EVEN WANT HER ANYMORE!!? YOU ALREADY FINISHED YOUR STUPID GAME!!!" Jerry demanded.
"BECAUSE IF SHE DISAPPEARS, THE PONIES WILL FREAK OUT OVER NOTHING BECAUSE YOU'RE OBSESSED WITH YOUR STUPID MONSTER!!" Ellie shot back.
"WELL IT LOOKS LIKE THEY CAN FIGURE IT OUT FROM HERE!!!" Jerry retorted, throwing his arm towards the stupefied Alicorn glancing back and forth between the arguing humans.
"OH NO YOU DON'T!! I AM ERASING HER MEMORIES AS SOON AS YOU'RE OUT OF HERE AND MY HAPPY ENDING IS GOING TO STAY HAPPY!!!" Ellie declared.
At the mention of her memory being erased, Twilight snapped out of it. "ENOUGH!!" She declared as she bound both humans in her telekinetic grip, making sure to their palms flat so they couldn't move their fingers. "Now what in Celestia's name is going on here?"
A Half Hour Later
Twilight's friends were running as fast as they could. Twilight had never called an emergency meeting before. And nopony knew what to expect.
Spike took the lead of the pack. Rainbow Dash and Applejack keeping pace just behind him, Rarity and Fluttershy not too far behind, and Pinkie Pie brought up the rear with Little Cheese in tow. (Couldn't find a sitter)
The six(seven if you count Little Cheese) friends all but busted through the Throne Room door to see Twilight...and two bipedal ape-like creatures.
They seemed to match Twilight's description of the 'humans' she encountered in the Mirror World as it was called. Of course Rarity latched on to their appearances more than anything else.
The female was definitely better dressed. Wearing a long sleeved white shirt that made her blonde hair appear darker than it really was, coupled with blue jeans and pink sneakers. Casual, yes, but also a far cry better than the other human.
The male wore a large brown hooded jacket with unkempt brown hair both tucked in and out of the jacket in various places, flowing below shoulder level where not, a shaggy beard ruining a decent goatee and black jeans coupled with black shoes, that did not fit the jacket at all.
However, Rarity had long since learned that proper dress isn't everything. And the female carried herself with an arrogance that wouldn't feel out of place among the Canterlot Nobility, which the male glared at her with vengeance in his eyes.
"Ah, glad to see you could all make it. This is Jerry and Ellie and...they have a pretty interesting story to tell." Twilight tried to appear calm, but her friends could easily that something had put into one of her freak-outs. The humans glared at each other as if to say 'this is your fault'.
"Go right ahead Ellie, I'll fact check." Jerry said.
"You're paying the fee for this." Ellie hissed.
"Happily." Jerry confirmed.
Ellie took a few steps forward, looking very uncomfortable in her situation. "So...how should I start?"
"Uh, at the beginning?" Rainbow Dash offered.
"...Yeah, fair enough...so um...you're not real." Ellie said.
"...Come again?" Applejack asked.
Ellie rubbed the back of her head. Her expression saying that she felt ridiculous. "Yeah, um, this world is virtual. It's...an illusion. A game, actually."
"Oookay, Uh, Twilight? Maaaybe you should leave the practical jokes to me and Dashie from now on." Pinkie Pie said. The others sharing her reaction to the absurd claim.
Twilight's expression only seemed to get darker. "...It's true."
"...Okay, allow me to repeat myself...come again?" Applejack said.
Ellie growled in frustration. "This is stupid. Please, just let me erase this nonsense from your memories so we can put this behind us. It's better for everyone."
Everypony had different reactions for that proposal, all of which were negative. But Twilight's carried the most weight. "While I appreciate your efforts to prevent us from suffering an existential crisis, I can't turn away from what you've done."
Ellie looked like she had been bucked in the stomach. "Wuh-WHAT I'VE DONE!! IT'S HIS FAULT FOR MAKING CHRYSALIS SO O.P.!!!"
Jerry erupted like a volcano. "I DIDN'T MAKE HER O.P. YOU PRISSY BRAT!!! YOU WERE JUST TOO LAZY TO FIGURE OUT HER WEAKSPOTS!!!"
Ellie was about to snap at Jerry, but swallowed her anger and turned back to Twilight with the fakest innocent smile this side of Cozy Glow. "You wouldn't want to face that thing, would you?"
Twilight narrowed her eyes at the woman before turning towards her friends. Her horn glowed and shot a spell towards the five ponies. When the spell faded, the ponies were wearing the dresses Rarity had made them for their Grand Galloping Galla...the ones they told her to make.
Rarity almost screamed when she found herself wearing Twilight's old fashion disaster, and the others were just as confused for the turn of events...Though Little Cheese didn't seem to mind the cupcakes that spontaneously appeared beside her.
"Uh Twilight, care to explain?" Spike asked while the others tried to find their voices.
"Well, the short version is yes, our world isn't real. The closest thing I can compare it to is Discord's O&O sessions, only the characters are still alive when the game isn't being played. That's why Equestria hasn't seen conflict since we defeated Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis. The players won. The game was over." Twilight explained.
A silence followed the revelation before Twilight continued. "As for why I brought back this old memory..." She removes the dresses, barring Little Cheese's cupcakes, before continuing. "My...Player, hired an NPC designer to create Chrysalis and the Changelings. But the villain we know isn't the monster he designed. There was an argument, he was banned from the game, and the Changelings were changed into something less horrifying than their original design...without their creator's concent."
Everypony had various reactions. Rarity's stood out the most. HOW DARE YOU!! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST GIVE IT BACK IF YOU DIDN'T WANT IT!"
"B-BECAUSE IT COSTS MONEY TO TRANSFER CHARACTERS TO DIFFERENT GAMES!!" Ellie shouted back in her defense.
"WUH-AND YOU COULDN'T JUST LET HIM PAY FOR IT!?" Rarity all but screamed, horrified by the crime against art.
"I WOULD HAVE TO REMOVE HIS BAN FIRST!!" Ellie replied, very much upset that her characters were against her.
"Then remove it so we can be done with this." Jerry glowed through clenched teeth.
"NO! YOU WOULD RUIN EQUESTRIA TO SPITE ME!!" Ellie shouted.
"No, I just want my monster back." Jerry replied calmly after seeing the ponies reaction.
"OH PLEASE! LIKE YOU WOULDN'T TURN EQUESTRIA INTO A FEEDING GROUND FOR THOSE THINGS!!!" Ellie persisted.
"I created them to be defeated you imbecile." Jerry reminded her.
"BUT-" "ENOUGH!!" Twilight shouted over her player before turning to Jerry.
"If you get Chrysalis back, what will you do with her?" The Alicorn asked.
"I'd change het back into the monster she was meant to be, give her a new hive with drones that actually have a Hive Mind instead of...whatever the Changelings have now, and I'd see if anyone wanted to buy her as is. If not, then I'd just be grateful to have her back to normal. If I'm the only who appreciates her as she's meant to be, then so be it." Jerry explained.
"HE'S LYING!!!" Ellie shouted.
"THE HELL I AM YOU STUCK UP B-" Jerry saw Little Cheese out the corner of his eye and bit his tongue.
Twilight picked up where he left off. "I don't think he's lying. And I want you to return Chrysalis to him. Please."
"Bu-but he's lying. H-he'll ruin the story just to get back at me." Ellie said.
"Well he wouldn't need to get back at you if you hadn't stolen Chrysalis from him and made her fight us!" Rarity glared daggers as she punctuated those last words.
Ellie looked ready to defend herself, but Rarity was having none of it. "Don't think I didn't catch the meaning behind what he said about the Changelings having a Hive Mind. You gave independent thought to an army of mindless drones that wouldn't have turned against their Queen in a million years otherwise, didn't you."
The others looked at Ellie with mixed emotions, mostly negative. "W-well yes, it would've been impossible for Starlight to rescue all of you if we hadn't don-"
Rarity interjected. "It would've been unnecessary for Starlight to rescue all of us if Chrysalis was open to the idea of Friendship like her Hive is, and you could've done that! And don't try to give me that 'it's a game and we needed a bad guy' excuse. If that were the case, then you could've made Chrysalis accept Starlight's offer of forgiveness after the fact instead of vowing to take revenge on her and leading to her current predicament, which I can only assume is her current predicament because you wanted to take your anger against Jerry out on his creation. I would never believe that you could be Twilight's player in this game if I didn't realize that with this being a game, that means that Twilight is how you see yourself as opposed to who you really are... I could probably stand to marry the sort of stallion Blueblood thinks he is."
There was a long silence after the verbal beating had come to an end. It ended when Jerry spoke up. "Uh, if it'll help speed this along, I'll let Twilight cast a mind-reading spell or something to prove that I just want to reclaim my precious Lusus Naturae."
"...I'll...I'll accept that." Ellie said, still processing the biting words that Rarity threw in her face.
Twilight, shell-shocked herself at the Blueblood part, nodded and went along with it. Casting Luna's Dream Diving spell to bring the present company into Jerry's memories.
"We'll just go through your memories at random if we don't have a focused train of thought. Do you mind bringing us to where this all started?" Twilight asked.
"No problem." Jerry said as he started to remember that day.
The blue-white void of the Dream Realm as the group entered a memory proper. They saw Jerry, no longer a young adult but a teenager with clean, combed hair that reached half his neck and a trimmed goatee and moustache wearing a black T-shirt with a green skull, or rather a skull in green fire, with a snake in it's eye, and the same black jeans and shoes. This time, they completed the top.
He was sitting at a desk, and seemed to be communicating with someone through magical means. "Alright, let me run this back. A shapeshifter that feeds off love, that's all the specifics you wanna give me... a Queen's crown and a magic horn, couldn't I just make the crown magic and skip the horn?... Alright, I'll have it done before dinner...You are most welcome, goodbye."
Jerry made a motion, like he was pressing a button that wasn't there, and the conversation ended. He pressed another invisible button, and the scenery changed.
Gone was the quaint little house, it dissolved into blue blocks, replaced by blue-white void similar to the Dream Realm but the orbs of light that blended into one another were replaced by perfectly defined squares of varying blues and white.
"Hmm, let's see...She said the leader has a Queen's crown, so I'm guessing it's meant to be a Queen...or at least a wannabe one...feeding off love...well I don't think Succubi are what she has in mind so...Oh! An insect Queen." Jerry spoke aloud before pressing more invisible buttons.
Pictures of different insectoid shaped creatures appeared all around him. They all seemed absolutely vicious, but Jerry settled on two pictures.
The first walked on four legs, it's front legs having talons like a griffin, it's back being a mix of hooves and talons, it also had a long whip-like tail that ended in what could be called an organic knife.
The second was a two-legged version of the first...that was as tall as an Ursa Minor. "Ah, the xenomorph. Can't beat a classic, but..."
Jerry pressed another invisible button, and the two monsters opened their mouths...both of their mouths.
"Intimidating, but I don't see how they can eat love. I mean, I guess it's okay bu-...Ooohh yyyeeeesss..." Jerry smiled to himself and pressed another button and brought forth another picture...the most unnerving of all.
It's skin had the texture of a frog, it's eyes were blank and reflective...and that was it, it was a face that wasn't a face.
"I'll just let it speak through telepathy, let it's voice echo in it's prey's skull without giving away it's location. Alright, I got an image in mind, let's put it to paper."
He pushed another invisible button, and a song began to play.
As the song began it's slow foreboding intro, Jerry changed their surroundings again. At first, it looked like the Changeling Hive, but then Jerry added a few tweaks...and it was the Changeling Hive.
The song began in earnest as Jerry started to draw an outline for his creation. His head bobbing and hips swaying with the music as he hummed the lyrics to himself.
As he concluded the outline and began to fill it in, the ponies could piece together what he was trying to do.
The body was quadrupedal like the first picture, and bore the same tail, but all four legs had the cross between hooves and talons. It's head bore the shape of the larger bipedal creature...but it's face. It was that face.
The outline was finished, the drawing was finished, at this point texture and color was all that remained. And as Jerry went to work, he started to sing along with the breakdown. "What nature warped...I will restore...I WILL LOVE!!...WHAT ALL! AB~HOOOORRRR!!!"
The color scheme was revealed. The only thing that was the same as the Chrysalis they knew: black and green.
It kept the green barrel as well, though it had no visible wings, and it's eyes, while still blank, appeared to orbs of glowing Jade.
With the colors completed, Jerry threw on a few final touches and corrections as he sang out the final verses of the song. "I've given you life my Lusus Naturae. OPEN YOUR EEEYYYYEEESSS!!!!"
The Queen of the Changelings stood before it's creator, the press of a button causing it's tail to swing from side to side.
Jerry pressed more invisible buttons, causing Chrysalis to go through her motions. Her crown, the large organic headpiece, glowed the same green as her eyes as a few rock that Jerry materialized for her levitated.
After that, she started changing. There was no flash of green fire, the ponies could see her flesh warp, hear her bones crack. She changed into Jerry and mimicked numerous expressions and talked with his voice in moods that perfectly matched his expressions.
Then, she changed into different forms. Not ponies or other humans, but sprouting wings that turned into barbed tentacles as she stood on her hind legs and became a 9 foot bipedal with hands.
"Alright, now I just need to give you the right voice... Testing." Jerry said.
After pushing some more buttons, Jerry smiled as a voice came to his mind. "Testing."
The ponies started, and Little Cheese started to cry, as the voice echoed between their ears as if they heard it through headphones on full blast. The voice itself was a slightly feminine whisper.
"Haha, perfect. Now I just need to work on the drones." Jerry said cheerfully, delighting in his work.
"How long are we going to watch this?" Ellie asked.
"Oh, sorry. I suppose I should speed it along." Twilight called as her horn began to glow.
"Well, can you at least see that he wasn't being malevolent?" Rarity asked, having enjoyed the display of an artist at work.
"...I can see that he's psychotic enough to think that was normal." Ellie replied. If Rarity wasn't a lady of higher standards, she would've jumped her.
Twilight's spell found the next critical point in the train of thought. Which saw Jerry in his house, sitting at the same desk and pressing an invisible button to start a conversation.
"Heyo, you enjoying the monster I cooked up for ya?...Hmm?....Ah, oka-woah, WOAH! HEY! WOAH!! If you don't like it, just send it back, I'll pay the transfer fee, shoot you a full refund, and you never have to hear from me again. I'll eve-...Woah..hey, hey, HEY!! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!? DON'T TAKE OUT ON ME BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO GIT GUD!! I PUT A PLATE SIZED WEAKSPOT ON THE BACK OF HER HEAD BEHIND THE CROWN, THAT'S HOW YOU KILL HER!!...WHAT!? WOAH! HEY!! YOU DIDN'T SAY YOU WEREN'T FIGHTING TO KILL!! I ASKED IF YOU WANTED TO BE MORE SPECIFIC, AND YO-...HEY! OH NO YOU DON'T!! THIS AIN'T ON ME!!...WUH-WELL THEN JUST SEND HER BACK THEN IF Y-...NO THE HELL YOU'RE NOT!!! DON'T YOU DARE!!!..H-HEY! HEY!!!" Jerry started pressing invisible buttons furiously, his mood deteriorating as he did.
"You know, you were pretty vague." Fluttershy offered. She had been the least upset with the whole ordeal, probably due to her relief of not having to face what Chrysalis was meant to be.
"Well, I'm sorry I forgot to say 'don't create anything psychotic'." Ellie said sarcastically.
"I'M A MONSTER MAKER!! I DON'T DO VILLAINS OF THE WEEK!!!" Jerry shouted. Ellie just harrumphed.
From then till now, the ponies watched Jerry's life deteriorate. Ellie's poor review of his work left him few customers. It wouldn't have been so bad if he were a professional, but he was just starting to branch out. Now he barely made enough to pay his bills, and while he still had business, and had made more than a few terrifying monsters...he still kept a hand drawn picture of Chrysalis in her true form over his desk. All he wanted was to get her back, he had moved on otherwise.
Twilight ended the spell, returning them to Canterlot. "Are you satisfied Ellie?"
"...No, my characters think I'm the villain, and this lunatic is a victim... I will let him take his stupid monster... if you let me erase your memories afterwards." Ellie said.
The argument would continue for another half-hour, but eventually the agreement was made. Chrysalis would be returned to Jerry, and nopony would remember that this ever happened. They even replaced Chrysalis' statue with a stone born doppelganger.
Unfortunately, Discord had caught wind of the entire ordeal. And decided, since Nightmare Night was upon them, to make Chrysalis' doppelganger a bit closer to the original.
Most ponies, especially the foals, were absolutely terrified by the statue they encountered on the Nightmare Night tour of the Canterlot Gardens, especially those who lingered longer than others and heard Discord whisper inside their skulls.
...release...me.