Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally)

by RainbowDoubleDash

Rating: everyone
Tags: Tirek, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Grogar, Cozy Glow, Queen Chrysalis, Random, Slice of Life
Length: 3191

An alternate ending for "Frenemies"

For a changeling, love is magic, and magic is love. They are one and the same within the changeling body. To share magic is to share love. And we all know what happens when an unreformed changeling shares love. Unfortunately for Chrysalis, she got caught up in the moment and forgot for just a second. But a second was enough...

A "what if?", alternate ending for "Frenemies".

Published 2019-05-30 23:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-05-30 23:50:01 UTC

Tragedy Strikes

Author's Note

For context, some of the penultimate scene of "Frenemies" is written out below. I didn't change the dialogue from the episode.

By the way, I love the episode "Frenemies", it's easily in my Top 5 for the entire series. This isn't meant as a "correction" or anything, just a fun little "what if?"

Tragedy Strikes

As with most things that had gone wrong in Chrysalis’ life recently, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d seen the cave that she, Tirek, and Cozy Glow had been trying to reach for days in front of her and surged forward, eager to claim the Bewitching Bell and finally get this whole trip over with. Instead…

Zap!

“Aah!” Chrysalis cried as some invisible force shocked her and threw her back. She landed with as much dignity as the True Queen of the Changelings could in such a situation…which was to say, not much. There was a bit of skidding. She tasted snow in her mouth. She shape-shifted herself a little extra body fat to keep out the cold.

At least Cozy and Tirek didn’t laugh. As she picked herself up, Tirek tromped right on by her and up to the cave’s mouth, reaching out with a hand. A yellow flash struck him as he did, and he grunted in pain.

Cozy flitted around to in front of him, looking at his hand and where the force-field was. “Can you absorb it?” She asked.

Tirek shrugged helplessly. “I can only absorb magic from living beings.”

Chrysalis idly wondered if that meant that if she turned herself into a rock, she wouldn’t have to worry about Tirek absorbing her magic anymore. Questions for later as she continued to brush herself free of snow.

“Like her?” Cozy asked.

Chrysalis’s eyes shot up at that, and she found the centaur and the pegasus filly – if that was what she really was, Chrysalis had her doubts – both looking at her. She hissed, stooping low and into a battle posture. “Betrayal!” She exclaimed, getting ready to defend herself.

“Not betrayal,” Cozy said, just as Chrysalis had been about to blast her. “Teamwork. If Tirek absorbs your energy, he might be strong enough to break through.”

The ‘filly’ had a point, at least, in theory. There was the minor point of Tirek stripping her of her power, however. “And then?” She demanded.

“Then…he gives it back,” Cozy provided.

“I do?” Tirek asked.

“Mm-hmm.”

It might work. But…“how do I know you won’t take my magic and leave me?” Chrysalis demanded.

Cozy flew on over, all big eyes and innocence. “Would we do that to you…?” A gesture from Chrysalis was the only response that merited. Cozy’s expression relented. “Okay, normally, yes, we would.” She looked at Tirek expectantly.

Tirek stared at Chrysalis, before sighing. “I’ll give you your magic back…” he droned.

It might work, Chrysalis thought again. Certainly it was better than anything Chrysalis could come up with, much to her own chagrin. Tirek had no love for her to take to empower herself, and Cozy was just one pony (probably). But she was the mighty Queen of the Changelings. Even without gorging herself she was still the equal of a powerful unicorn mage by herself…and that awesome power added to Tirek’s own…

Chrysalis sighed. “Do it,” she said.

Tirek grinned, then opened his mouth wide as his orange magic appeared between his horns. Chrysalis braced herself to fight back on instinct…but then remembered that literally just now she’d decided to willingly give up and share her magic. She was willingly letting this happen.

Tirek’s magic struck her. She didn’t fight back, opening herself up, sending her own magic forward and towards the centaur, wanting to get this whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible. It was painful…though not as much as it might have been had she not been sharing it. But she felt her magic leaving her…and she felt herself growing hungrier and hungrier. Magic was love, after all, to a changeling.

Wait…

She was a changeling. She was the changeling.

Changelings ate love. Used love to power their magic. More love meant more magic, that was how she had once been the equal of Celestia herself, even if only briefly, by gorging herself on the love of Shining Armor. Love and magic were the same thing. Magic was love. Love was magic. She was sharing magic.

She was sharing love.

“Wait – !” She tried, but it was too late. Tirek took all her freely given, offered up, fully shared love…

…and Chrysalis changed.

Anger

“Give me my magic back!” Chrysalis demanded, horn glowing blue. Blue! BLUE! Not the royal and imperial and wonderful green it was supposed to be, but BLUE!

Tirek and Cozy still stared at her. “What…happened?” Cozy asked.

“I Reformed, you idiot!” Chrysalis exclaimed, turning to hiss at Cozy. She paused as she did, then ran her tongue over her teeth. Her eyes widened. “My fangs! Where are my fangs?!”

“Why did you Reform?” Tirek asked.

Chrysalis turned on the centaur. “I’m a changeling! Love is magic, magic is love, I shared my magic so I shared my love and now look at me! LOOK AT ME! Give me my magic back now!”

Tirek did, much to the Queen’s surprise, though some part of her imagined it was as much to try and calm her down than anything. It didn’t work. Chrysalis had rather hoped that doing so would revert her to her previous form, her true form, but while her stomach filled up and her power fully returned, she still looked like she’d had a terrible accident in both a paint store and a hair salon.

“HHHZZZKKK!” She screamed, wings buzzing. She could still do a proper changeling scream, at least. She whirled on Cozy Glow. “This is all your fault! ‘Just share your magic, Chrysalis! It’s the only way, Chrysalis! It’ll make Tirek strong enough, Chrysalis!’ Now look at me!”

“How was I supposed to know?” Cozy demanded. “I’m just a kid! I don’t know about changelings.”

“Is it permanent?” Tirek asked, poking Chrysalis in her cheek. She whirled and tried to bite him, but his reflexes were too fast and he pulled away. “Did you know you’re fuzzy now – ”

“OF COURSE I KNOW!”

Cozy lifted herself up off the ground, wings buzzing as she went over to Tirek’s side, still clutching the Bewitching Bell. “Look, I can tell this is upsetting you. But maybe…you should look on the bright side? Can’t Reformed changelings make their own love? So now you’ll never go hungry again! That’s good, isn’t it?”

Blue (accursed blue!) fire washed over Chrysalis as she transformed into a copy of Cozy Glow. “That’s good, isn’t it?” She mocked in Cozy's voice. “No it’s not good, you dolt! Hunger is a powerful motivator. Hunger drives the changelings forward to glory and power and conquest and – ”

“Did you know that your eyes are blue now too?” Tirek asked.

Chrysalis returned to her new true form and screamed.

Bargaining

“It’s not all bad,” Chrysalis intoned as the three made their way down the mountain, Chrysalis’ new wings buzzing a completely unfamiliar buzz as she flew rather than walked. Cozy had taken to riding on Tirek’s shoulder. “I mean…okay, yes, Cozy, you have a point. I won’t go hungry anymore. But I’m sure I can still steal love if I wanted to.” She looked at Cozy, who had tucked the bell securely under her hat. “Think about something you love.”

“Don’t listen to the changeling, Cozy,” Tirek said. “She’s in a mood.”

“You’d be in a mood too!” Chrysalis objected. “What if you…what if you’d turned blue?”

“I wouldn’t let it bother me,” Tirek said imperiously. “Oh, sure, I prefer being red, but blue has its charms. And it doesn’t change who I am.”

Chrysalis huffed, brushing her voluminous new mane from her eyes. You could lose a boat in the thing. “There must be something I can do to change back,” she said, trying to bend her vast and incomparable and regal thousand-year-old intellect to the task. “In fact…ha-ha, yes! Cozy, think about something you love!”

“You already asked me to do that,” Cozy drolled.

“Yes, but that was to see if I could still eat love. I’m sure I can. But if I eat enough love, if I steal love like a proper changeling, then maybe I’ll Dereform!”

“That’s not a word,” Cozy pointed out.

“You’re just a kid, you don’t know.”

“I think the term is deform,” Tirek ventured. “Or maybe revert might be better? Cozy, you were in school most recently out of the three of us. You should know this.”

“I never went to school…” Chrysalis said

“Seriously?” Tirek and Cozy both asked, eyes wide.

“Hang on, what about that pony that lived at the bottom of this mountain?” Chrysalis asked. “Ha! Yes! Him! He’s my only hope! All I have to do is completely drain him of love, then I’ll turn back! I’m sure of it!”

Chrysalis flitted off down the mountain with all the speed she could muster. Tirek and Cozy watched her. “Two bits says this doesn’t work,” Cozy said.

“You’re too young to gamble,” Tirek said. “But…I’ll take that bet. It might, you never know.”

Depression

Tirek had become a living taxi service, as a pegasus filly (or something that might have been a pegasus filly, anyway) sat on his shoulder, and a morose Reformed changeling queen lay sprawled across his back. “It…it…it didn’t work…!” Chrysalis cried. “I d-drained all the l-love I could from that p-pony…and it didn’t work! I d-didn’t even d-darken in shade a little…!” Great tears fell from her eyes, splattering onto the ground below. “I’M STILL FUZZY…!”

She couldn’t see Tirek or Cozy roll their eyes, nor see Tirek pass two bits to Cozy, who stuffed them into her jacket. “He’s gonna be okay, though, right?” Cozy asked.

“Of course he is…” Chrysalis moaned as she continued to hang limply off of Tirek. “He’ll wake up in a day with a headache. I even left him inside and tucked in bed. Because that’s what I have to do now. I’m Reformed.”

“What?” Tirek asked, stopping and looking back at Chrysalis.

Chrysalis continued to stare at the ground. “I’m Reformed. I’m good now, don’t you see? That’s what all this fuzz and big poofy hair and bright colors mean. It means I have to be good. So I left a fire going in his fireplace and I left some cookies by his bedside. That’s what a good creature would do, I think. I am new at it.”

“Oh for the love of – ”

“Yes!” Chrysalis moaned. “For the love! That’s what I have to do.” Her wings buzzed and she picked herself up off of Tirek’s back. “I have to go. I can’t be part of Grogar’s Legion of Doom anymore. I guess I should go live with Thorax, or maybe see if I can move in with Cadance now. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go and live with Cadance, apologize for everything. I’ll be Flurry Heart’s nanny. I’ll make her oatmeal and teach her to pounce, or whatever nannies do for foals.”

“The first thing, sure, the second, not so much,” Cozy informed her.

Tirek reached up and grabbed Chrysalis’ tail before she could fly off. He decided to not observe aloud how soft and smooth it was. “Chrysalis, you’re not good.”

“Recent, major chromatic changes in my life suggest otherwise.”

“You drained a pony completely of love and left him all alone. Sure, he might be fine, especially since you tucked him up and left him with a fire. But he might not be. That’s not good. Ergo, you’re not good.”

Chrysalis hovered in midair, still facing away from the two. “Really?” She asked.

“Really, really,” Cozy said. “I mean, that’s more negligent then evil. But it’s definitely not good.”

Chrysalis turned around. Her blue eyes were huge and full of tears. “Thank you!” She cried, flitting down and pulling Tirek and Cozy into as tight a hug as she’d ever given any creature while not in disguise.

“You know, doing this will probably not help with the fact that you Reformed,” Tirek said.

Chrysalis broke away from the hug, realizing the truth. She landed on the ground and sat back on her haunches, twirling her front hooves around each other. “So…what should we tell Grogar?”

Author's Note

Oatmeal and pouncing being taught to a baby Flurry Heart by a changeling is a reference to Dear Small Pony Book, by Carapace (among other of his works) (although it's Thorax doing the teaching in them, not Chrysalis). Read Carapace's stories!

Informing the Hated Ones

Dear Thorax,

I hate you with every fiber of my being. One day I will overthrow you and resume my rightful place as Queen of the Changelings, and on that day you and Starlight Glimmer and all your other precious new friends will suffer. My vengeance shall be terrible, but it shall not be swift, oh no. It will be long and protracted.

That being said…I have some questions. As your Queen I demand they be answered.

As far as I am aware I remain the only changeling with hair. Is that true? If not, may I ask what shampoo that changeling is using? I’m trying something new with my mane and tail.

What kind of cleaning agents do you recommend for Reformed changeling fuzz? Asking for a friendconfidant bug I know.

Reformed changelings generate their own love. Is there a limit to this, or can I expect each Reformed changeling to gradually grow in power without limit? Can a Reformed changeling be ‘full’?

I think you’re a queen (biologically! That was not recognition! I hate you!) now, so, queen to queen, if you don’t mind…how long are your wings? Because I think mine are longer.

With hate and strangulation, your Queen and mother,

— Chrysalis

Denial

“No no no no no OH NO NO NO NO!” Chrysalis babbled uselessly and weakly as her form glowed. Neither Tirek nor Cozy noticed, Cozy getting into position while Tirek was too enamored with the return of his power. She was vaguely aware of Tirek shooting his magic forward and tearing a hole through the force-field and Cozy shooting through.

But she had bigger problems.

She noticed something happening to her hooves first. “Stop it!” she demanded, pawing at her hooves to try and get the holes in them to stop closing. It didn’t work.

There was a flash from above her. Chrysalis glanced up, and saw her horn had straightened itself out, its beautiful twists gone save for a slight jagged edge at the bottom. And her hair, once wonderfully thin and slick, pompfed out, becoming thick and fluffy, aquamarine at the roots but fading to lime green at the tips.

“Stop it!” She demanded again.

But it was no use. A glow appeared around her chest. Orange fur erupted from the base of her neck back to her elytra. She tried shifting a hoof into a blade to cut it off, but she had just given most of her love/magic to Tirek. Her hoof wouldn’t change. Another flash from her dock revealed that her tail’s hair had gone the way of her mane.

“I don’t want this…!” Chrysalis cried.

Her carapace glowed and shimmered. The base of her hooves were now orange, but the color swiftly paled and transitioned to a cream white. And…and was that…fuzz? Yes, it was. Exactly what she’d feared, the worst thing in the world. The reformed changelings weren’t just garishly colorful. They were fuzzy.

Another flash from behind her drew her attention. “Oh no, come on!” she demanded. But it was too late, and the change didn’t care about her objections anyway. Her wings had multiplied, from two to four. They’d elongated. And they’d turned purple, concealed beneath a pair of purple elytra, while her underbelly had become lime green.

Chrysalis was so busy staring at herself that she barely noticed a flying filly hitting a snow pile near her. She did notice when the filly emerged from it, holding something aloft in her hooves.

“Ta-da!” Cozy exclaimed.

The Reformed Queen of the Changelings glared at Cozy’s choice of words.

Cozy looked back at her, as did Tirek. “Uh…” the centaur ventured, holding up one finger. “Chrysalis…what did you do to your mane?”

Acceptance

“Grogar,” Chrysalis said, standing tall and proud before the ancient goat, Tirek and Cozy Glow on either side of her for support. “We went to Mount Everhoof. In the process of trying to retrieve your bell, I shared my magic with Tirek. Since for a changeling love and magic are the same thing, this meant that I Reformed. But I want you to know that I am still evil! Or at least criminally negligent. I may look different on the outside, but that doesn’t change who or what I am on the inside. Probably. I’m still willing to help your plans to destroy Twilight Sparkle, and Starlight Glimmer, and Thorax especially, and all the rest!”

Grogar looked Chrysalis up and down. It was a lot to take in. And she clashed worse with his décor than even Cozy Glow did. “Chrysalis, you’re my minion, and as my minion I should tell you that I don’t care about you or your problems. Where’s my bell?”

“Oh. That. We failed. Sorry, but I’ve been going through changes, a lot more than normal, I mean, but – ”

“You failed?!” Grogar demanded, stomping his hoof.

The three shrank back. “W-w-we’re sorry, almighty Grogar!” Cozy exclaimed.

“We worked together like you asked…” Tirek said, and pointed to Chrysalis as proof.

“We just aren’t as powerful as you!” Chrysalis added. “And, also…changes! Look at me!”

Grogar somehow resisted the urge to slam his own hoof into his face. Instead, he blasted a hole in a nearby wall with his magic. “Looking at you gives me a headache! At least you finally did as you were told and worked together..”

“Of course!” Cozy said.

“Whatever you command!” Tirek said, as Grogar stomped off through the hole he had made.

“Forget all about that old bell!” Chrysalis called after him. “You were right. We’re so much more powerful…when we work as a team.” She made sure he was out of sight, then glanced back at the hidden bell, and smiled.

Cozy, meanwhile, panicked. “Oh thank Celestia he didn’t see it,” she said, flitting over to the stalagmite they’d hidden it behind when Grogar had appeared much sooner than any of them had anticipated. They’d stuck it behind the first hiding place they could see, but they’d been lucky. “I’ll go hide this in the lake.”

“I’ll make sure you hide it in the lake,” Tirek added, following Cozy as she flittered off.

“I…will join you shortly,” Chrysalis said.