The Changeling That Defied Change

by AC97

Rating: teen
Tags: Drama, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Queen Chrysalis, Violence
Length: 2074

Chrysalis in her closing moments

Chrysalis was many things: a conquerer, a queen, but she most assuredly was not a quitter.

Which would always work out for her... right?

(Gore, Violence, and Dark tags are because the POV character is Chrysalis, but not because of actual events, beyond the mention of a near-miss.)

[Spoilers for The Ending of the End]

Published 2023-03-29 18:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-03-29 18:40:00 UTC

Chapter 1

"This is bad, isn't it?" Chrysalis heard Cozy Glow's oh so obvious statement in the midst of her shock, and closed her mouth, in the wake of that accursed rainbow that began emanating from Twilight's horn, after being fed into her from three sources, after she made her speech that'd grown loathsome to her within the first sentence, the shock originating because it had instantly dispelled the Windigos like they were nothing, her future plan for letting them turn Equestria into a frozen wasteland before disposing of them, so she could gain grateful ponies as followers to replace her hive that turned into a pile of failure (thanks to Starlight Glimmer) in the process being evaporated before her very eyes.

Chrysalis gaped again in a state of shock and disbelief when she saw the dreaded rainbow on a crash course with them, and when it hit, she couldn't even bring herself to scream, the sensation of the immense power that had been rightfully gained from Grogar's bell bleeding out of her body like water would from an obliterated dam being too much for her. Worse, the back of her mind was telling her that she was probably not alone in this happening to her.

Faintly, she had the awareness that something had bounced off to somewhere while that was happening to her, but it hardly seemed important at the moment. The rainbow's merciless assault ended, just as quickly as it began. After the moment that had seemed to last an eternity to her ended, her hearing registered Cozy Glow falling to the right of her, and grunting disappointedly for some reason (no more horn, she noted), along with Tirek (who seemed to be in his decrepit form again) chattering his teeth and shivering.

When it was all said and done, Chrysalis could barely stand, for the moment, her previous level of power that she had been forcibly returned to both feeling and being so much weaker in comparison to what she just had mere moments ago... but it was still power nonetheless, power that eclipsed the vast majority of those insignificant unicorns, and by extension the vast majority of beings, power that had forced many to kneel before her unrelenting might, like the inferior beings that they were, fit only to feed her power.

She wasn't done yet, she would never give up, so long as she still drew breath. One day, they would all know their rightful place was beneath their Queen. She'd especially make sure they understood that they were beneath her before she eradicated them.

In the distance, she could see Twilight and her friends descending to the ground, grim expressions plastered on all of their faces, including that purple dragon that she now thoroughly wished that she'd gone through with ripping both of his wings off just a few minutes ago, just to hear both him and Twilight cry out in agony, to see him bleed, before exterminating them alongside their friends. Putting Twilight through that pain would've truly been a balm to her soul. She had a feeling that whatever it was between Spike and Twilight went beyond simple friendship, but she didn't care much about what it was exactly, save for it being so easy to capitalize on. Caring about others was Twilight's greatest weakness, and she knew Tirek and Cozy Glow also recognized that, and she'd prove it once and for all if it was the last thing she did.

Just because they cheated yet again didn't mean anything to her, save for it merely being a temporary setback. She was never more determined in her life to make them suffer, and she knew that the three of them could still accomplish revenge together, one way or another.

Chrysalis growled in rage, her weakness she felt a moment ago fading into the background, her rage fueling her feeling of vitality back to normal (although there was always the omnipresent hunger for love, for power, for her to deal with, in due time).

"You think friendship will save you?! We will always return! Nothing will ever sto-" Chrysalis' declaration that they would never be safe from them was interrupted by something large and heavy falling onto the three of them.

Eventually, she worked her way out of the giant cupcake, her two cohorts escaping alongside her her. Internally, she promised to make whoever did that pay for their insolence. Chrysalis' newfound energy she gained with her rage she felt several moments ago felt like it had diminished, but she was still determined to escape, once she got her bearings, and fast.

Chrysalis' musings were interrupted by the sight and sound of a hoof powerfully stomping the ground, in a way that almost seemed to reverberate throughout the area. That hoof was connected to an angry Celestia (accompanied by Luna), the one she'd once gotten a fortuitous break with by attacking her with the powerful love she had consumed from Twilight's dearest older brother Shining Armor, the one who'd pissed her off along with her sister and that wretched Starlight, the three of which she'd made certain to tell them that she would make them suffer for the disgraceful act they committed in distracting them so the others could escape.

Oh sure, the weak other six had helped distract them as well, but she made sure to promise those three especially that they'd live a long time, and threw them in the same cell, befitting their status as special prisoners, which Starlight was already one to begin with, because she'd declared that she'd have an eternity to exact revenge on her. All of those horrors she was going to show all of them, and they'd all fallen apart, had been pushed back by cheating yet again.

"There isn't a punishment worthy of all you've done!" Celestia's voice had an edge to it, self-righteous as ever... but at that moment, Chrysalis wasn't feeling more anger than fear. In fact, it was the opposite. Celestia and Luna radiated a truly immense amount of power, in contrast to how they were so weak earlier, and they seemed like they weren't going to let them escape so easily this time. She'd have to be swift in bolting, and hope that they'd be too indecisive to do anything.

Discord suddenly appeared next to those accursed sisters and started whispering something into their ears.

That was another thing on her long list of grievances: Discord was once someone she'd admired for his power, for the things he did. Sure, he didn't exactly go far enough for her tastes when it came to his reign that she'd heard about, but he was very accomplished in terrorizing others.

Now? This sorry shell of what he once was had pretended to be Grogar (the real one surely couldn't have been that weak) with the probable intent of setting them up to fail for whatever reason she didn't care about, but had nonetheless foolishly enabled her to gain power along with her annoying albeit useful partners (who she'd have to put up with for longer as opposed to before, when backstabbing was tantalizingly on the horizon) had the audacity to stand there in two places at once, powerful as ever.

No matter, they would get the better of him aga- "Oh, that does seem fitting." Luna said in response to whatever Discord said.

"May I help? Pleeaaaase?" Both Discords alternated in saying that, puppy-dog eyes plastered on both of them with the drawn-out "please."

In a moment that made everything in Chrysalis' mind grind to a screeching halt, Celestia and Luna raised their heads, eyes closed, horns ablaze with whatever they were charging up, with power, while Discord's hands were likewise crackling with energy in preparation, a smile on his face.

After a brief moment that seemed like forever, the three of them let loose their combined spell, to Chrysalis' complete shock. She thought she could get away after they cheated yet again, but this? This was inconceivable.

The combined spell bursted the giant cupcake the three of them were trapped under, and Chrysalis felt the beginnings of something beginning to sweep over her body, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes briefly.

To her horror, when she opened her eyes again, she noticed that parts of her muzzle were turning into something white, hard.

'They're turning me into stone!' She realized, darting her eyes to and fro, before settling her eyes on those three, the ones doing this to her, and almost certainly to her two cohorts.

Chrysalis' transient feeling of fear was overswept by a strong feeling of unbridled rage and hatred, because how dare they, they couldn't just do this to her, so with all of her rapidly disintegrating strength, she tried to leap at them and hissed in a final attempt to attack them, a murderous expression immortalized on her face.

Author's Note

So.

I think it's probably worth noting that I basically wrote this back in 2019 as my first fic, and that I've been holding onto it for years, which I'm not sure if the chapter's date will actually reflect this, because I figured that I'd catch some flak for writing it, since it is a bit contentious in nature. But the voice in my head saying "why not" grew too loud to be ignored, so what the heck.

I'd say that my view of Chrysalis has remained more or less the same throughout the years, even if the specifics of a couple details have shifted a tad, like, for instance, acknowledging that while she wasn't faultless in impersonating Cadance, or her actions during the rest of that plotline, A Canterlot Wedding was heavily, heavily skewed by the fact that it was in Twilight's perspective, made it seem disproportionately justified compared to those of her other friends.

As for the fic proper I more or less wrote it as a character study to get into Chrysalis' head, and I found it quite natural, even fun to do so. It's more or less, as far as I see it, something along the lines of a worst case scenario for a logical interpretation of her canon mindset, where she's being explicitly active in wanting to backstab the other two if she'd gotten what she wanted, aside from her sadism which there really, really isn't much room to doubt on whatsoever, at the very least on the "torture Starlight indefinitely" front; it's quite a stretch for me to think it would be remotely plausible for her to, say, make her a changeling to serve her, as opposed to keeping her around to use as... stress relief, for at least years.

While it might not be entirely impossible, Chrysalis' all-encompassing pride and entitlement make her especially being portrayed as redeemable a hard ask, in my eyes, especially when coupled with the fact that I think it cheapens her as a villain; determination, steadfastness is twistedly admirable on some level.

But anyway, I think Chrysalis is a nuanced depiction of that type of character; she kept the same goal of "conquer ponies," but the context changed significantly from "primarily serve as food for me and my army to make me stronger" to "replace my old hive and make me stronger," and she is thusly perhaps my favorite MLP villain, definitely out of the unreformed ones. She has the style, fun mindset to pull it off entertainingly; the influence she has on the world and the characters in it if she wins is more interesting than, say, Tirek's, because with his mindset, he tends to get shit done too efficiently and might burn everything to the ground with his pre-S9 mindset, plausibly, and doesn't seem to care much on shaping a society around him, and because he loses his creepy charisma largely in favor of a straightforward menace factor, as he gains power, an issue that Chrysalis doesn't have.

I figured that it would be nice to have a story published so that I'm capable of auto-publishing down the line, since I've had ideas that have been interesting ~~if I can have the self-confidence to give it a good try, anyway, because damn, am I afraid of forever tainting something subjectively interesting I've thought of by~~ thoroughly ~~not doing it justice.~~

Aside from all that, I'd be curious on input in regards to if there was anything to speak of on this, stylistically.