"It is not essential, then, that a Prince should have all the good qualities [of leadership], but it is most essential that he should seem to have them; I will even venture to affirm that if he has and invariably practises them all, they are hurtful, whereas the appearance of having them is useful."
"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."
"The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."
"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."
-Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince"
It was during the second year of his rule that Chrysalis contacted King Thorax with promises of a truce.
The letter arrived by way of dragon’s breath. Spike had just been about to move his pawn to take Thorax’s queen, which would unfortunately leave his own king open to Thorax’s bishop, when he suddenly sat up and belched a scroll out.
“Ugh,” he moaned. “I told Twilight I was hanging with you today, she knows better than to send things out when I’m just hanging with friends.”
“Oh, just open it,” Thorax said, a placid smile on his face as he pulled out a comic book and started scanning the power ponies’ umpteenth confrontation with Mane-iac. “If she interrupted our time together, it has to be for something important.”
“It better be,” Spike grumbled as he unrolled the scroll and read it over. As he read, his peeved expression was replaced with widening, surprised eyes. Thorax set his comic book down.
“Spike?”
“It’s…not Twilight…” Spike gasped, holding the scroll out to the changeling king. “It’s Chrysalis.”
Everything after had happened in a whirlwind of frenzied activity. Thorax hardly had time to dig into how Chrysalis had known he would be spending time with his friend at the exact moment she sent that letter, though quite a few changelings responsible for his security and day-to-day scheduling were quickly reassigned. By the next day, he was leading a small military convoy filled with his most trusted and capable advisors and soldiers into the Everfree woods, just on the border with the Badlands.
As he expected, Celestia was waiting for him just beyond the edge of the Everfree.
He stopped the convoy, trotted up to her, and gave her the friendliest smile he could muster. “Spike?” He asked.
She nodded.
“Tell him I’m not angry. In fact, I figured he wouldn’t be able to keep from telling you.”
“He’s only a child,” she said, letting her breath out in a long sigh. “He just did what he thought was best for his friend. He thought you were being foolhardy, and truth be told, I feel compelled to agree.”
“Your concern is appreciated, your highness,” Thorax replied with a relaxed nod. “But it is also unnecessary. I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re walking into a place where everything is on her terms,” Celestia stated flatly. “She has had time to prepare for you, to gather up her forces, to find who-knows-what kind of magic to use against you. Pardon me for my skepticism.”
“You are pardoned.” He said with another smile and a nod. “Now, if you don’t mind, we would like to be underway.”
“Thorax, please, I have an entire battalion of Royal Guardstallions on their way. If you’ll just wait—“
“Her instructions said noon on the dot. If I wait, all we will find is an empty camp.”
“Then let me join you! With our strength combined, we can overwhelm her!”
“And she knows this, and will likely have a whole assortment of traps meant to inform her if you set so much as a single hoof in these woods,” he shook his head, giving her a little frown. “This is a changeling matter, princess. We changelings must be the ones to settle it.”
Instead of giving a sad little farewell as he expected, Celestia cocked her head suddenly. She blinked, then returned his placid little smile. “Very well,” she said as she stepped aside, spreading out a hoof to gesture towards the foreboding woods looming up ahead. “I trust you will do what is best for your subjects. I will see you when this is over, Thorax.”
“And you, your highness,” Thorax nodded, not betraying how badly her unexpected gesture at the end of their meeting had shaken him. He motioned to the convoy, and they set off, marching on into the woods, under the hanging vines and deep, dark trees that seemed to close in behind them as they disappeared into the brush.
A few hours later, the party strode into a small camp deep within the woods. The colorful, reformed changelings marched on behind Thorax, not paying mind to the handful of regular, still-black, unreformed changelings that ducked out of makeshift huts and crude tents to hiss at the column as it passed. Thorax did some quick calculations, combining the rushing shapes at the periphery of the camp with the little black monsters now hissing at him from random treetops and crude huts. Fifteen. Probably a bit more. We outnumber her three-to-one. Good.
Chrysalis herself had seen better days. Her mane was ragged, ribs poked out of her side, and he was certain the hole pattern in her legs was more wide-spread, the holes themselves appearing chapped and dry around the edges. And still, she had that old defiant snarl on her face. Some part of him had to respect her for that.
“Hello, Thorax,” she hissed dryly.
“That’s King Thorax to you, Chrysalis,” he replied.
A low growl rumbled deep in the back of her throat, but by some admirable force of will, Chrysalis kept her tongue. “Let’s get this over with. We both know things can’t go on as they are.”
“On that, we can agree,” he nodded. “A civil war is hardly conducive to the well-being of our species and the good of the kingdom.”
She paused, cocking her head at him. “That actually sounded intelligent.”
“I’ve had some fantastic tutors. You should meet with them sometime. Miss Twilight Sparkle? She has a simply fantastic technique for aiding memorization and building vocabulary.”
The snarl returned, and the growl made a comeback. “I’ve heard of her.”
“So I see. We’re getting off-track.”
“Yes, as I was saying,” she strode to the side, appearing to be entranced with something caught in her hoof. “Things cannot go on as they are. At best, an ongoing, protracted conflict will make us appear weak before the other nations, as though we can no longer pose the threat we once did.”
“Are you proposing a truce, then? Or perhaps even an alliance? Reuniting the changelings under one banner?”
“Oh, I was hoping to reunite the changelings under one banner, certainly,” she said, then turned to him, whipping her head around with an evil glint in her eye and a smile that showed every one of her fangs, sharpened to a point. “My banner.”
Thorax blinked. Then he snickered. Then he guffawed. Then he laughed. Soon, his long, insect-like chitters were filling the woods, his laughter rolling around among the trees, echoing into the distance. When he managed to peer through his tears, Chrysalis was scowling at him, though the confusion on her face was a definite improvement in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…you.” He splayed his hooves out at her. “You! You’re incredible! It doesn’t matter how stupid, hopeless, moronic, ill-advised, or completely irresponsible your position is, you don’t give up! You just don’t! It’s incredible! You could be at the end of the world with nothing but a spoon and a hooffull of granola, and you’d probably still be looking for a way out! It’s a shame really, someone like you would’ve been really useful in rebuilding the changeling nation.”
The confusion melted away beneath a layer of white-hot rage. “That was your one and only chance, Thorax,” she hissed. “Let it not be said I wasn’t a merciful Queen. You could have lived out your days cleaning out the Hive’s new collection pools, but you chose defiance.”
She reared up on her hind hooves, levelling a hole-filled leg on him. “Guards! Fire!” She bellowed.
Thorax only stood there, a smart little smirk on his lips. Around him, the unconverted changelings started looking around, obviously confused.
Chrysalis blinked, then glared, turning towards the woods lining the northern flank of her encampment. “I said fire, you incompetent imbeciles!”
“Such poor manners for your subordinates,” Thorax tsked, shaking his head. “Guards? Fire, if you please.”
Within seconds, a trio of emerald beams burst from the foliage, meeting in the center of the encampment, right above the firepit that had been dug. There, they reared up into a single beam, a massive tidal wave of shimmering, white magic that rumbled after Chrysalis.
She tried to summon a shield, tried to meet the beam with one of her own, to no avail. The beam had been engineered to pierce through anything a changeling ruler could summon, after all, and she knew it was hopeless. It ripped through her shield like tissue paper, engulfed her counter-spell, then tore through the air with a crackling rumble like thunder. It struck her dead-center, blowing her off her hooves and sending her flying high over the camp until she slammed into a tree with a dull thud.
Thorax craned his neck back, looking up at where Chrysalis had embedded herself in the tree. “Oh look, she got herself stuck,” he sighed. He spread his wings and fluttered up to her, landing on a branch next to her body.
If she’d been in bad shape before, she could only wish to be in such shape ever again. One wing was bent and cracked, hanging off her body, while the other dangled from her back by a tiny thread. Her body was covered in deep cuts from where the branches had clawed at her on the way back, including a deep gash across her forehead that oozed fluorescent green blood down over her face. Her chitin was singed and shattered where the beam had hit her. Based on the angle of her legs, at least three of them had broken on impact. Her horn had been snapped in half and now oozed another stream of green blood that trickled down her face.
“Oh my, you seem to have gotten yourself stuck,” Thorax sighed, then flashed her the same friendly smile he’d shown Celestia. “Let me help you there.”
Grabbing a hooffull of her mane, he yanked back roughly, pulling her out with a loud crack. He held her there for a second, letting her dangle by her mane as she moaned, tears streaking down her face and her legs kicking uselessly in the air. Then he let her go. He watched her plummet all the way to the ground, slamming face-first into the dirt with a low, ugly thud.
He flittered down to her, then looked around. His changelings looked back, calm and stoic. Her changelings just kept watching, jaws agape, ears folded in fear. His gaze fell back down to Chrysalis, and he sighed and turned her over, earning another moan of agony.
“Tell me, what was the next step in your plan after killing me?” He asked as he allowed her body to settle on its side. “Return to your kingdom? Claim my throne? And then what, did you think the ponies would just sit back on their asses and watch as you forced my subjects back into their old, disgusting black forms and raised another army against them? Especially with the black throne destroyed and the Badlands vulnerable to their magic again?”
He shook his head. “That’s your problem, Chryssie. You were stupid. The Canterlot Invasion, your plans for sucking Equestria dry, trying to cow an entire nation by kidnapping a few of its heroes, all plans born of your own, stupid, single-minded belief that you were just destined to rule over all. I can forgive a lot of things: betrayal from a friend, cowardice, failure. But one thing I can never forgive is stupidity in a leader.”
Her only reply was a low, gagging sob.
“Frankly, the whole notion that you could lead the changelings into anything but extinction is idiotic. Your appearance and magic are born of hatred and cruelty: the opposites of love. Did you really think anything like that would be able to continue feeding on love? Your plans for domination would have doomed us all even if they’d succeeded. You can’t force someone to love, it has to be nurtured. That’s why Celestia’s ponies were the best source of it, she spent centuries building up a nation where love could grow and prosper. Under your rule, I doubt that would’ve even lasted a generation. We would’ve wound up with a bunch of twisted, cruel little ponies shaped by a lifetime of hardship, and our starvation wouldn’t have been far behind.”
Nothing. Only her wheezing gasps came to him.
“It’s sad. You had so much potential. You could have done so much. And in fact, you still can,” he stood, turning to face her, glaring down at her beaten, cracked body. “I wasn’t lying when I said you could be an asset to my Hive. Your determination could be channeled to great benefit for the whole world. You just have to do one thing.”
He extended a hoof to her face. “Lick.”
A gasp of horror filled the crowd of unconverted changelings. “Bastard!” One screamed, galloping forward. Without another word, Thorax turned and fired a massive flare of magic from his horns, engulfing the changeling. When the light of the spell faded, there were four black hooves planted mid-stride in the foliage, their ends smoldering, the air around them fizzling and crackling.
Thorax turned back to the former queen and extended his hoof again. “Lick.”
Slowly, her green tongue trailed out between her lips. Still wheezing, she craned her head, turning it towards his hoof, trying to close the distance between the tip of her tongue and the layer of lime-green chitin before her. Nopony spoke up this time, and another tear crawled down her cheek as the tip of her tongue slowly dragged up and down along the chitin. She choked back another sob, closing her eyes. She never saw the sword one of Thorax’s changelings gave to him, and no one bothered shouting a warning as he raised it over his head and brought it down in a high arc against her neck.
Chrysalis stopped, her tongue flailing. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Her mouth fell still, gaping as Thorax swept his sword to the side, separating the head from her shoulders. Her body bucked, kicked with a couple broken legs, and laid still. “Such a waste,” Thorax sighed as he withdrew a handkerchief and began wiping off the blade. By the time he turned around, three more of his changelings appeared from the woods, materializing in the bushes from the direction of the three beams that had killed Chrysalis. No one had to ask what they had done with the original operators of the device Chrysalis had built to kill their king: the emerald blood coating their shells was the only answer anyone needed.
“And?” Thorax asked.
“A basic magical amplification battery with a crystalline focus hidden in the firepit, sir,” one of them replied.
“Primitive. But effective,” Thorax nodded. “And that leaves only one thing.”
Daggers slid out from under carapaces. Swords flew from hidden scabbards. Within moments, every non-reformed changeling was hauled before Thorax and thrown to the ground before him, each with at least two blades pressed to their necks. Surprised, chittering cries fell silent almost immediately as each of Chrysalis’s former changelings felt cold steel against their throats. “Hmm, not quite yet,” Thorax mused, then looked up as a dozen more of his changelings emerged from the bush, hauling another three unreformed bugs behind them with ropes tied around their necks, gags in their mouths, and blindfolds over their eyes.
“Ah, now the set is complete!” He announced with a clap of his hooves. The three remaining changelings were thrown in line with the rest, and all heads sank in despair. “Now, let me guess: you three were the backup plan? I take it you were meant to head deeper into the woods to alert whatever reinforcements Chrysalis still had?”
One of the blindfolded changelings was ungagged, and forced to sit up, a dagger pressed against his neck until a thin line of blood ran along its edge. “N-no sir,” he gasped, voice shaking with fear. “W-we are the only changelings Chrysalis had at her command. We are it.”
Thorax frowned. “Then why did she instruct you to head off in case things went bad?”
“W-we were supposed to work towards her freedom if she was captured, sir,” the changeling continued with a swallow. “Make it s-so that Equestria would have to free her, n-no matter what.”
The frown deepened into a hateful scowl. He waved his hoof, and the changeling was gagged again, earning more distressed moans and grunts. He turned to one of the soldiers standing behind the gagged changelings. “What did they have on them?”
“Explosives mostly, sir. Some crossbows and weapons, but mostly explosive potions. Hundreds of them.”
“Too many to move quickly,” the scowl turned into a glare of piercing hatred levelled at the trio. “Now, why oh why would you need so much in the way of explosives? So much that it would slow you down? You certainly wouldn’t need that much to free her if you were just going to attack her prison.”
“We also found this, sir,” another guard spoke up, holding out a piece of paper. “It was using a basic illusion spell to hide the text.”
“And what was the text?”
“A list of targets in Equestria, sir. The Canterlot train station. The Manehattan market. The Library in the Palace of Friendship…”
“All non-military. All packed full of civilians.”
“Yes, sir.”
A muffled whimper passed from one of the gagged changelings. Thorax glared hatefully at them, then his expression relaxed with a resigned sigh. “You chose your path,” he said, then motioned to his subjects. Immediately, three guards stepped forward and jammed their daggers up into each changeling’s carapace, the blades sliding cleanly between plates of chitin and up into their hearts. There was a muffled gasp, a cry or two, then silence as all three went limp.
A cry of despair went up from the remaining changelings. Thorax regarded the crying mare, who was gazing over at one of the bodies with tears in her eyes, and he sighed and rolled his eyes. “Now, that should only leave a couple more loose ends…” he trailed off, then whipped around and pointed at one of the changelings in the line.
“Chicane, former minister of defense,” he said.
Without another word, the soldiers behind that changeling slashed with their blades, opening up both arteries on the side of the unreformed changeling’s neck and standing back as he collapsed to the ground, jaw working up and down like a fish out of water as he bled out.
“Thumbar, her newly-appointed Second-In-Command.”
Another pair of slashes. Another body bleeding in the grass.
“And Krillen, former subterfuge expert.”
A final body joined the others. The ground ran green with changeling blood. Thorax closed his eyes for a split-second and prayed that would be the last of it. When he opened his eyes, that same, blank coldness remained in them. Seven bodies laid bleeding on the ground, not counting the charred remnants of the one that had been foolish enough to charge the king head on. All the remaining unreformed changelings had their heads bowed, certain of what was to come.
To their surprise, chains were soon affixed to their necks. Collars and manacles were added and run to one long chain that was clipped to harnesses on a few of Thorax’s guards, making a prisoner train. “The rest of you can be broken up into those who honestly thought they were doing the right thing and sparing their species, and those who wanted to back out, but were too afraid to stand up to her,” Thorax strode over Chrysalis’s body, casually knocking the head aside. “While I understand and sympathize, you must still be punished. You will all be tried for your crimes, and given sentences befitting them. You will serve them out with a pony family of my choosing, serving said family until your respective debts to the Hive are considered paid in full.”
“Bastard,” a mumble went up from the line of prisoners.
Thorax paused, turned, and strode along the line, casually looking over each prisoner. “What was that?”
“You heard me,” one stallion straightened as far as his chains would allow. “It’s not enough that you forced our entire species to serve the ponies, now you’re giving us to them as slaves!?”
“As part of their world, you will learn what they really are, and hopefully what it is to love,” he said, then added under his breath: “It’s the only hope left for you.
“At the end of your sentences, you will be released,” whether it would be from their bonds or from their mortal coil remained to be seen, though Thorax kept that part to himself. “At that point, you will be free to contribute or grow however you see fit. If, however, the spark of rebellion remains on your mind, I ask you to look at your brothers and sisters on the ground.”
All eyes sank to the ground. The tiny gathering shivered in unison.
“They made their choice. They chose to follow Chrysalis into madness, despite the obvious folly,” he regarded them all with that disconnected, dead-eyed look. “If you choose to follow her example, then you will follow her in death. I hope I made that clear today.”
The unreformed changelings all nodded, keeping their heads bowed.
“Well then? If there are no questions, let us be off.”
He turned away, trotting off into the woods. The remaining changelings all followed soon after, the clanking of weapons, armor, chains and shackles echoing off into the woods. As they left, Thorax watched a small robin alight on the stump of Chrysalis’s neck, and paused as the rest of the convoy continued on. An idea ignited in his head, and he turned and shooed the bird away, watching as it left a tiny drop of scat by the body’s shoulder.
Catching up with the rest of the group, he led the caravan on, another few hours passing with nothing but the jangle of chains and shift of armor filling the air around them. At the edge of the forest, Celestia was there to greet them again. She sighed at the line of prisoners. “I take it things didn’t go well?”
“Nothing we weren’t prepared to handle,” Thorax replied, shifting the basket at his side from one shoulder to the other. “And nothing that won’t be sitting in a manticore’s stomach within the hour.”
“And them?” She nodded to the captured changelings, all bowing their heads.
“Recruits for that reformation program we talked about,” he replied. “Those especially-loving families you said would be interested in some sort of citizen exchange? I think they would be better suited for something else I had in mind.”
She nodded, smiling. “I’m sure they will be delighted, though it will be a bit of a surprise when an unreformed changeling shows up on their doorstep instead of one of your citizens.”
“We’re changelings. We’re all about surprises. And besides,” he ran a hoof along the line of chained changelings, each little black head ducking as his hoof passed by. “These are my subjects.”
“Very well,” Celestia nodded and stepped aside, allowing him to pass. “I am glad things went so well.”
“You trusted me to do what was best for my subjects,” he replied, striding past. “Did you really think that trust was misplaced?”
“Not in the slightest, but one last thing?”
He turned to her, cocking an eyebrow questioningly. She pointed to the basket. He looked down, spotted the locks of sea-green hair trailing from inside, and with a scoff, lifted them with his magic and shoved them inside. “Thank you, princess.”
“You’re welcome, your majesty.”
