There was silence in the room for a good hour, Cadence was slack-jawed at Tenten, her gaze darting between the icon and myself.

Understandable, not everyday you meet the inventor of the Metal Music Genre in Equestria, nor learn said turning point of music happened to be an entirely different species.

“The… the Tenacious Tempo?!” she cried out in disbelief, but despite how much she wanted to deny it, such claim would be difficult. After all, Tenten’s outfit wasn’t just a replica of her original outfit, it was the original outfit, and with the eyes of a true fan, she knew it.

No joke, it was recovered along with her and had been one of her keepsakes, only real change was that it had been cleaned and the… holes repaired. If you looked at her, and the way it all fit, the way she stood in that get up… you’d never believe her to have been through such hell, she looked so happy, so strong…

It hurt to know that behind all that was a broken woman, with so little chance of regaining what she lost.

Must not hug must not hug must not hug-AND DON’T YOU DARE CRY!!

This time, I was able to swallow down my emotions, giving Cadence a calm, level gaze as I gestured. “I take it you know her?”

“Are you kidding?! She’s a legend! I have all her albums! I even got one signed! It said-”

“‘Let your wings forever soar, Rule The Sky while I Rock The World - Tenacious Tempo’ yeah, you used to be a Pegasus back then.” Tenten recalled, and slowly, any thought of a changeling trick died in the Princess’ mind.

Which of course, gave way to horror, as she remembered another part about what I said, about having a drone that was…

“No… no, no! That didn’t happen! It couldn’t have happened! She had quietly stepped out of the spotlight and retired on tour! She wasn’t-”

“Retired? Oh is that what they’re calling it now?” I said, with no desire to hide the venom that slipped into my words. “Tell me, did they tell you she ‘retired’ after a cancelled performance in Sunny Peaks?”

Her eyes… holy fuck those eyes, she looked at me like I had bloody slit Shining Armor’s throat in front of her after skull-fucking Celestia, it had so much pain, rage and despair, and behind it I could just make out her worldview powderising before me. It was all clicking into place, so many interviews about how Tenacious Tempo loved her art and her fans and then just slipping out of the public eye for no reason, no word of where she had settled down, no solid explanation for retirement or even why the concert was cancelled, and the ponies involved giving the exact same story.

Oh fuck it hurt to be near her in every sense of the word, I didn’t expect to hit this hard but honestly I should’ve, I only knew Tenten’s story before her music, Cadence was a die-hard fan who, unlike many of the Queen of Metal’s stallion fanbase back then, held a pure, innocent love for her and the music, aspired to reach her idol’s level, and felt joy when said idol offered her hoof to raise her up.

And I’ve just told her that very same idol, who she came to respect and cherish, possibly hope to become friends with, had been gang-raped and mind-broken by her own kind, without hesitation or mercy.

I don’t know what was worse, when I was feeling a veritable storm of negativity in that room, or when she just stopped feeling anything altogether. It was just a maelstrom that was almost deafening and then silence.

“They… they really did… that… to her…?” she said softly, a rhetorical question if I-

“Well, that is what her majesty just sa-” okay, I didn’t expect someone to be hit with a bout of stupid so bad I’d actually punch one, but apparently this guard had to kill the moment, and now I made sure he wouldn’t repeat it, now that he was unconscious.

I took a deep breath. “I know that I should’ve eased you into this, not taken a sledgehammer to your worldview… but unfortunately I’m on a timetable, if I want to get the plan that’ll benefit everyone on a roll, I need you to cooperate with me, and we can’t do that if you’re stuck on the notions that All Ponies are innocent and incorruptible balls of fluff.”

“How… how would that even help??”

“Because then I have someone on my side, the one pony no-one would expect to trust my word when I call out every single one of them when I reveal myself at the Altar, I’ve got a way to handle Celestia without a fight or harming her, but I need your help to break down the wall of self delusion, or else they’ll never receive justice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re here.” I say with a conviction that seemed to shock life back into her. “Every single one, mare and stallion, those who lynched a town hero because of his carapace, the poachers that snatched up a nymph because any other species is product… every single bastard that believed Tenten lost all rights as a sapient being the moment she got revealed on stage.”

Oh, that last one got to her. “... I’m listening.” she said calmly, but the aura she had was anything but, all that rage in the room...

Whoo!! I’m really glad emotions are more absorbed than digested, I’d dread to know how this’d feel going out.

The meeting went on for a good few hours after that, going through the plan with Cadence, who, while she was still a little distrustful of me, craved blood far more madly than even the most starved vampire, in the name of vengeance for her senpai, and was willing to follow along… after I convinced her a sixth time that no, we were bringing them to justice, we’re not going to charge in and proceed to enact various disgusting applications of multiple phallus-shaped cactuses, and a fourth time that while yes, the hot sauce made it tempting, I was wanting to be better than them.

So, the plan was I would be keeping up the act up top, up until the point where they ask for objections, that would be when she bursts in with Twilight, who I will be letting in on the whole double-agent shenanigans early, in the chaos I’ll ‘convince’ Shining to drop the shield and the swarm will descend on my location and start flooding the place with anti-teleportation wards before the unicorns in the crowd could try anything stupid. If Celestia misinterprets and tries to apprehend me, I disarm her with the code-phrase, and then when all of those snivelling little cockroaches are in my web, I’ll be telling everyone in that room, with excruciating detail, every sin those bastards have committed. If they didn’t truly realize what had happened and weren’t aware the changelings were their actual lovers, friends and the like, then the act of being made directly aware of what they did will break them, but if they knew full well what they did and didn’t care… well then they’d still need to justify it to the Mane Six and Princesses in the room.

Of course, you have questions, like why am I still doing this when I’m not a villain? Well fact is I’m in too deep and I might as well dig my heels in and go through with the chaos because at this point I don’t even KNOW what I want anymore! Why am I not trying to seduce Cadence at this juncture? Because I know there’s a time and a place, and I kinda want to get this major collection of fuck-ups over and done with so I can then convince Cadence to postpone the wedding… at least until I can join in since like hell I was gonna be a Concubine! And probably a big thing, why am I still keeping up this act instead of letting Cadence take over and only letting her intervene at the last minute? Because I’m a dramatic little shit that REALLY wants to have an ‘I object’ moment alongside having a bond-villain-esque ‘pieces falling into place’ situation.

Cadence seemed to be against the idea of me walking around in her form for a minute longer… until I told her that if we went along with my plan like this, then I’d be handling all the wedding and bride preparations and all the other extensive, precise work to make the day ‘perfect’, while she got to relax here with my drones waiting on her hoof and wing with tropical drinks and luxury foods.

At that, she was ‘mysteriously’ very compliant as she laid back on a cushy resin-coated rock formation while being fed a bundle of grapes by one of the drones. Funny how easy it is to let people do all the work for you if said work was the kind of pain not even a Masochist wants.

In fact, I had just gotten through writing and practicing ‘my’ vows so I didn’t bite my tongue on them during rehearsal, something I find myself emotionally drained by both figuratively and somehow literally, so I had went to go find my precious walking equivalent to a morning coffee when I heard the rather ecstatic hopping of one purple unicorn.

It honestly was adorable watching her hopping around, gleefully announcing that Shining was marrying Cadence, you’d almost suspect her of being a little filly rather than a full-grown mare.

My smirk was positively impish, unlike the apathetic Chrysalis, I had an invested affection for Twilight, albeit not as strongly as her brother, but it seemed to help that I actually kinda wanted her as a little sister.

She was just. So. CUTE!

She stopped as she caught sight of me, a look of surprise on her face just like in the show, which only served to make my smirk widen just a tad.

“Oh, don’t mind me, you go on and keep cheering about me marrying your brother.”

...Oh now the blush on her face just made the scene all the more precious.

Author's Note

For those of you who don't get the joke, anger is spicy, love is sweet as honey, disgust is fittingly sour, fear is just wrong, like drinking spoiled milk or eating the contents of the victim's soiled pants. sadness and despair and other emotions in that range just tastes like salt, but then throw in some hope afterwards and it becomes a rather filling and savoury meal.

In other words, if a Changeling sees benefit, they could take a sad pony and help give them hope, which results in a satisfying warmth within both parties, but won't make a pony sad in the first place because it's just not an enjoyable process. In both taste and morals. And Love's the primary food since it's not easy finding sad ponies to make happy.

Thank you for being patient, we're now moving on to the fated episode, I hope you're all ready for how our new Chrysalis handles the Mane Six, as well as her cover.