Just do it yourself. And yourself. And yourself. And your other self.
No more games! Queen Chrysalis was a queen and she was going to have her will be done. Even if she had to do it herself! Yes! That was it!
She would do it herself!
A maniacal giggle came out of her as she landed once more in a distant part of the Everfree forest. The day was waning so she didn't have much time, but the revelation washed out all of the frustration and torment she had gone through today. This would work! After all, who could she trust but herself?!
Oh, yes. Even if these were mere magical construct copies, Twilight Sparkle and her friends would be no match for an army of Chrysalises. Chrysali? What was the plural on her name?
Whatever. Time to make an army of queens!
ZAP!
The precious old-growth tree was burnt with a jagged symbol that marked Chrysalis' birthright. That was after she begrudgingly plucked a hair from her mane and tacked on a photo of herself. She had lots of those. Photos of herself. And nopony around to ask why.
That was one. She repeated the process a second time. This time the photo showed her in a seductive pose rather than with a duck face. She moved to a third tree and then a fourth. These photos showed her trying out her new selfie stick and then a lens cap shot.
Twenty seconds later and the lens cap shot was replaced by a photo of her tanning at the beach.
ZAP! CRACK! BAM!
Her mark was added to the other three. That meant four down. It was at this point that Chrysalis was defintely not huffing and puffing with exertion, low on energy from the day's earlier exploits. She was also short four hairs and was looking at her remaining stack of photos. She really didn't want to waste any more of them. These were the only copies she had and the rest were the best. Photo printing was expensive for a changeling living under a bridge. Four would be enough to get revenge and conquer Equestria. Yeah. It'd be fine.
With a snapping green lightning bolt from her long jagged black horn, Queen Chrysalis ignited the final part of the spell. The tree wilted and split, sizzling with glowing green lines of dark magic. In the center of the life-drained plants were four identical copies of herself. Tall, majestic, dignified, and-
"Yay~!" squeed the first in a sickly sweet tone. "It feels so good to be alive~!"
Chrysalis went pale. Did she just hear herself squee?
"It's too warm," complained Chrysalis Clone Two. "Somepony have a fan or something?"
"I want my teddy bear!" pouted Three.
"You never had one to begin with!" Four grumped back.
"Oh no," the real Chrysalis remarked and practically turned white.
One skipped out of the tree remains and twirled around. "Come on, everyone! Let's get out in the sun and play~!"
Four groaned heavily. "Fine," she complied anyways.
Two scurried towards One. "Good. It should be cooler out of this cramped forest."
Three just stood where she was created and sniffled on the verge of tears.
"You too, Chrysy!" One insisted and began pulling Three out of her spot.
Poke. Poke.
"Hey, are you alive?" Four deadpanned as she poked the real Chrysalis.
Her twitching eye returned. This wasn't happening. It couldn't. NO!
"The four of you are going to line up in front of me right now!" Chrysalis ordered, fighting to keep it together. She could rein them in and still use the plan. "You will do as I say or I will destroy all of you!"
Three started crying and One gave Chrysalis a hard disapproving gaze for bringing her to tears.
Four sighed. "You need to work on your social skills."
All at once the stresses and maddening irritations of the day returned with an entire collection of new ones. Chrysalis snapped and started to laugh. It started as a crazed giggle and worked its way up to a boisterious guffaw.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
"What's so funny?" Four sneered.
"Hahahahah!" One joined in for the fun of it.
Two looked around for a blanket while Three just stared.
"HAHAHAHA!" Chrysalis went cross eyed. "Idiots! They're all idiots!"
"Hey," Four frowned. "I was going to invite you to a tea party, meanie."
"Tea party?!" One pranced in place.
Four finally smiled. "Yeah. I thought it would be nice. And isn't that what we all want? To be nice to everypony?"
"Totally!" One agreed.
Three nodded with tears in her eyes.
Two was gone.
Real Chrysalis was banging her head on a tree in an attempt to knock herself out.
"If memory serves me right, there should be lots of nice ponies in Ponyville. I can get the things we need for the tea party there too. Let's get out of here," Four instructed and led her two companions out of the wilted area.
If Chrysalis' head wasn't spinning then she would have been able to tell that they were indeed headed in the right direction to reach Ponyville. Was that a good or bad thing? Who even cared? She was done! Done with it all!
Soon the sound of the three clones faded into the distance. Chrysalis laid there on the ground, looking up at the cloudy and darkening evening sky. Two was right. It was a bit warm.
A minute passed and then ten. The clouds were moving at a slow pace. Thoughts of what would happen if her copies were seen only briefly entered her mind. She didn't care anymore. Today's failures had long entered the realm of absurdity. She tried to be a villain. She really did. But it just wasn't meant to be. So it was just whatever.
OOF.
"What-?" Chrysalis lifted the edge of the big green something that had been flopped down onto her.
It was a leaf. A huge heavy dark green leaf.
"I found it," Two smiled from above her, looking down at Chrysalis where she laid on the ground. "It's kind of warm, so these huge leaves should work just fine as blankets. Might get cold during the night, after all. Wouldn't want you to catch a cold, Chry."
A poisonous comeback came to mind but she didn't have the energy to conjur up a biting tone for it. So instead of trying to dig into her clone's insecurities (which she knew quite well), all she could manage to come out with was a "sure, whatever."
She turned onto her side and held the leaf to her body. It beat sleeping under the bridge at least. Maybe she could even get a free meal out of her clone in the morning. If she could supress any worries about where the ingredients might originate from.
Meanwhile, Ponyville was in chaos.
Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends were attempting to deal with three nice Chrysalis clones.
