The Curse Of Chrysalis

The Curse Of Chrysalis

Chapter 3

Out of shock upon a pony suddenly appearing, Silk quickly changed her form to that of a brown unicorn mare with a black mane and tail wearing a normal short sleeve black and white striped top and blue jeans.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHH!” Both Kris and Pinkie were squealing and hugging each other as they jumped..

Cory, while he too wanted to join in, held himself back and sighed. “Kris, you know we’re here for a reason, right?”

The two stopped and Pinkie took notice of Cory. “ANOTHER HUMAN! EEEEEEEEH!” Pinkie squealed as she rushed to Cory and glomped onto him hugging him as she lifted him up and spun around.

Cory felt the air leave his lungs while his ribs and spine were begging for mercy. “Gonna….snap….”

“Oh! Sorry.” Pinkie stopped and released Cory before stepping back.

“This can’t be good.” Silk said in concern.

“Oh, hello there.” Pinkie then greeted Silk with a smile.

“How do you know what these two are?” Silk asked.

“Silly, that would be telling.” Pinkie stated with a grin.

Silk simply raised a brow in confusion.

“Pinkie being Pinkie obviously.” Kris whispered to Cory.

Cory was busy sucking in air while his bones were thankfully spared. “Clearly.” He replied before pushing into his back, several pops being heard.

“What’s your name? I’m Pinkie Pie.” Pinkie asked Silk.

“I..I’m...Browning Fudge.” Silk replied.

“I’m Kris.” Kris said. “And my friend who is currently trying to catch his breath is Cory.”

Cory waved at her as he finally caught his breath. “Hello.”

Pinkie giggled. “Sorry about that. I just love meeting new faces.” She stated. “So what are you all doing here? How did you get here, what are humans doing in these lands?”

“Um...well…” Kris started unsure how to answer.

Thankfully, Cory was used to thinking on the spot. “In order, we’re here so me and Kris can hunt for food, we walked here, and we have no idea how we arrived in these lands. We were sitting on our couch one moment and the next, we meet Browning here.” He wasn’t about to let the truth out just yet.

“Right, they appeared and I decided to help them out so here we are.” Browning Fudge stated.

“What are you doing in this forest miss Pie?” Kris asked.

“Me and my friends were on our way to visit a zebra friend of ours who lives in the forest. I got a little distracted and got separated from them, then I ran into you three.” Pinkie stated. “They’re going to be so excited and surprised to meet you both.”

Cory however had to put a stop to that. “That wouldn’t be wise. Not at the moment. You see, me and Kris need to eat meat right now and we haven’t eaten anything in the past twenty four hours. I don’t think your friends would want to meet two beings they’ve never met before just as they’re about to kill something to eat.”

“Nonsense. We got a few carnivorous friends and Fluttershy has meat she could spare that she usually feeds to her animal friends. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to share it with you.” Pinkie stated. “PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSE!” Pinkie begged giving the biggest wide eyed look ever seen as she pleaded.

“Ooh! Not that! Right in the feels.” Kris said holding his hands to his chest over his heart like he got shot.

Silk rolled her eyes at this unamused.

Cory however had his eyes closed. He knew he would crumble otherwise. “I’m sorry, but we need fresh meat. And I never eat meat I don’t hunt myself.” That was a lie, but he was able to trick a lie detector before, so he wasn’t worried. The thing was, even though he knew it wouldn’t take long, he wasn’t going to risk being around all the Elements and risk one of them sniffing out a slip in their story. Plus, his plan on reforming the changelings and helping Chrysalis change back to how she once was depended on gaining her trust. He had to make sure he and Kris returned as soon as possible for that to happen.

“Uh, what are you talking about? What about the fried chicken we usually have? And the steaks, and…”

Cory gripped the back of Kris’ neck and pulled him close and away from Pinkie, while keeping her in sight. He knew how that mare worked, the instant you took your eyes off, like that one SCP, she’ll pop up where you don’t want her. “Listen, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have you know who become impatient with how long we might take. And I’d rather not have her get ideas that we were plotting against her. For once use your brain and remember that we have a mission to do. That is to change her for the better. Can’t do that if we’re busy indulging your desires to hang out with ponies.” Cory never really got like this unless it was serious and everything he said raised good points. And he was right, there’s no telling what Chrysalis would do if she thought they were about to turn on her, especially with the love all the changelings just got.

PInkie gave a curious look as Cory spoke to Kris secretly.

Kris closed his eyes and frowned. “Awe man. And we were so close too.” He gave a heavy defeated sigh before righting himself. “Sorry miss Pie.”

“Silly, you can call me Pinkie.” Pinkie stated with a smile.

“Sorry Pinkie, but I’m afraid my friend is right. We’ll have to pass.”

“Well can you at least promise you’ll be able to come visit Ponyville sometime soon?” Pinkie asked pleadingly again.

Cory raised a hand. “That we can promise. Might not be too soon, in fact, it might be a long time, but at some point we will visit. We kinda have a lot to worry about at the moment so we need to make sure that’s all taken care of.”

“Okie dokie lokie. I’ll be sure to be ready to throw a big welcome to Ponyville party for you two once you visit.” Pinkie stated with a smile.

“That sounds like great fun.” Kris said.

“And you can come too of Course Browning Fudge.” Pinkie then said looking to the changeling.

“Right. Sounds like fun.” She said in a flat bored tone.

“Well, guess I’ll be off then. Gotta catch up with my friends. La la la la la.” Pinkie happily skipped off into the woods to meet back up with her friends.

Kris looked ready to cry at missing a chance to meet the other girls and the visit with Pinkie was so short. “This sucks.” He stated sadly.

“Ah suck it up. Hunting will be a monthly thing so sooner or later you’ll get your chance. For now, we have beasties to hunt.” Cory said as he patted Kris on the back.

Kris stood up right and puffed out his chest. “YOO HALOO!” He cheered out and made like he was holding a trumpet making a trumpet like sound to the same tune.

“You humans are so weird.” Silk commented.

“Don’t lump me with him. You won’t see me randomly shouting things like he does.” Cory said before going deeper into the forest, grabbing a rock and tearing off a large branch from a tree.

Silk rolled her eyes.

“Onward we go then.” Kris said and the two began their hunt.

Pinkie managed to join back up with her friends just before they had reached Zecora’s. “Hey guys!” Pinkie cheered.

“Pinkie! There you are. Where’d you disappear to?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, just had a run in with two humans and a pony who were out hunting for food in the forest.” Pinkie replied casually.

The girls gave a confused look. “What are...humans?” Rainbow asked.

“Beings from another universe who mysteriously appeared in our universe.” Pinkie added.”

The mares looked at each other with odd looks. “Pinkie, that sounds weird even for you.” Applejack commented.

“It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. We might as well move on.” Rarity said and they continued on their way.

The humans finished their hunt managing to catch a few small animals to cook up before they headed back to the hive with Silk back in her normal form.

“Well, that was a satisfying meal.” Kris commented patting his belly. “Didn’t think a cockatrice would taste so good. But you get the taste of chicken and snake in one. Not bad.”

“I still can’t believe you two managed to take one down so easily.” Silk commented. “One look in its eyes would have turned you to stone.”

“Yeah, but it can only look in one direction, and that’s it’s biggest weakness. Sure, if it catches several in its gaze at one time, then that’s a problem, but the thing with prey mentality is that they tend to huddle together for protection and that’s what the cockatrice wants. However, I’m glad we found that salt deposit. Now we can preserve our left over meat for later meals so we don’t have to go out as much. And those fruit trees were just pure luck. We have enough to last at least a month between the two of us.” Cory said as he carried a large sack he made using the hides of the animals they caught, using a needle of wood he made and plant fibers for thread. He even had the cockatrices head for later study. He had ideas for it’s stone gaze.

“I’m a little grossed out though you...kept a head.” Silk stated. “What exactly are you going to do with that?”

“I’m going to study it. We don’t have anything like it in our world so I want to know how its stone gaze works and see if I can’t weaponize it. Being able to turn your enemies to stone at a moment’s notice is something I would have killed for back home.” Cory said.

Silk shivered at the thought. “If you ask me it’s a cruel way to go.”

Cory waved it off. “Hey, it’s not a defense. The cockatrice uses it to hunt, so I doubt it’s a method to kill, only stop its prey, like how a scorpion will sting its prey to neutralize it.”

It didn’t take too much longer before they got back to the hive. Silk led the two to the queen. “Your majesty, we have returned.”

“I trust you two got what you needed?” Chrysalis asked.

Kris bowed. “We did your majesty. And we thank you for letting us go out.”

“Well I can’t have my two star soldiers starving now can I?” Chrysalis replied with a grin.

Cory bowed before holding up the two large sacks. “Well, with the bounty we got, we should be good for at least a month before having to hunt again. And if my studies prove fruitful, I might be able to make a way to capture targets with little effort.”

Chrysalis smiled. “Oh really? Do tell. What do you have in mind?”

Cory nodded. “Well, based on one of our prey, the cockatrice, we learned its victims are still alive while encased in stone, but they aren’t slowly dying due to lack of air. They are more in a state of stasis. I’m going to study the eyes and organs of the cockatrice to see HOW it can do this. And if I can, I might be able to weaponize it. Think about it, a small handheld object, no bigger than a ball or a rock, thrown at a target and it emits a cloud like substance that encases any caught in it in stone. Naturally, I would make sure I have a way to reverse the process before even weaponizing it, but the potential is there.”

Chrysalis frowned. “Without a way to reverse it, petrifying would be useless. Plus we need our pony victims to be able to react and think if we are to draw love from them. I’m afraid I don’t see it being all that useful myself other than simple defense rather than capturing prey. If they are caught that way, they will be too alert once freed for any mind manipulation to really work into making them think they are with a pony they love in order to extract any love energy from them.” She stated.

Cory grinned. “And that’s where my tweaking would come in. As I said, I would work on a way to reverse the process, the cockatrice can naturally do the same, so it would have some kind of organ or special function to do so. As for manipulating them, I could try to weaken it to where while in stasis, they would be put to sleep, so that when released, they wouldn’t know what happened and be ripe for manipulation. Granted, for such things, I would need assistants to help test it, but that will only be once I have the stoning and reversal taken care of.”

Chrysalis kept her stern look. “I feel it sounds like this would take too much time, effort, and resources to research all this. And as I stated, that is something we don’t have much of. You said you could help in improving my armies weapons and armor as well as train them to be better fighters. How do you plan to do all that AND look into this petrification thing? I’m sorry but no. You will forget this ridiculous idea and start working on what you said you would. You were summoned here to help me take over Equestria, not invent new useless weapons or waste my time and resources.”

Cory bowed. “As you wish, your highness.” He then thought to himself. “Looks like I’ll need to work on that in my spare time then. Oh well, I can work well with four hours sleep.”

“Once you’ve rested after your hunt, you two will begin your work. We must act quickly. I will not let my hive die and we must have Equestria within my power soon.”

“Of course your majesty.” Kris said with a bow.

Cory bowed as well before looking up. “Your highness, forgive me for my ignorance and potential rudeness if this offends, but why do you say you don’t have much time? I at first thought it was because of the love shortage, but thanks to me and Kris here, we can ensure you have enough love stored up for years to build in strength. So….why the rush?” He honestly was curious, but might have an idea. How true it was he didn’t know.

Chrysalis practically gritted her teeth. “That is not your concern. Go.” She ordered pointing a finger.

“Yes your highness, forgive me your highness.” Cory said before he and Kris left, taking the sacks with him. After they reached their room and entered, Cory sighed as the doors closed and set the sacks down. “Well, I saw that coming, but it was worth a shot.”

Kris sat on his bed. “I’m not sure how much of a difference this petrification weapon would have made anyway. But oh well. And Cory...don’t you dare start working on it where you barely get any sleep. I know you.” He said sternly.

“First off, four hours of sleep is a heaven given gift compared to the one hour of sleep I had to get used to in the Marines behind enemy lines. Second, the weapon wasn’t for the changelings, it was for us if things turned sour and we had to bail.” Cory said while pulling out an orange from the fruit sack and tossing it to Kris before pulling out another one for himself.

“For one, we’re not behind enemy lines...well...I guess in a way we are, but it’s not like they're going to be waking us up at ungodly hours of the morning. Second, I guess I see your point on the second thing. Whatever the case, I do hope we can resolve this without too much of a ruckus or whatever.” Kris stated before he started eating his orange after peeling it. He was going to eat the skin after.

Cory began eating too, not bothering to peel the orange, as even the skin had nutrients they both would need. “Our luck holds, and we might get things done. But, I think the best way to hopefully get the queen to see our way of things is to….well, basically have her WANT us. If you catch my meaning.”

“I think. Get her to see us as more than just servants she pulled from the ether to serve her.” Kris replied. “Here’s hoping we can do that. Chrysalis is a rather stubborn queen after all.” Kris stated before taking another bit of an orange slice.

Not long after the two humans had left her throne room, Chrysalis retired to her bedroom. Walking in and closing the doors to her bedroom, she crossed her arms and walked over to her vanity. Sitting on it was a star-like gem with twenty points around it floating in a dome glass case. At least it seemed to originally have twenty. Currently, it was down to one. With each twenty years that pass, a point would dim. After that,, ten more years pass and the dimmed point would crumble to dust. So every thirty years, a point would be lost. It was down to one dimmed point….nine years later, yet Chrysalis seemed to stare at it emotionlessly. “Crumble away as much as you want. I am resigned to my fate. I will not let some piece of rock or any pony dictate how I will live my life. Even with how hideous I may have become. Love is nothing but a lie. Yet my subjects and I are doomed to feed on it like parasites.” A thought flashed in her head of a stallion wearing a cloak offering a beautiful twenty point gem with a gorgeous yellow glow.

Chrysalis suddenly gritted her teeth and slammed her fists on the dresser. “CURSE THAT PONY! HE DID THIS TO ME! I DID NOTHING WRONG! What’s wrong with wanting to be loved for your beauty and admired by all!? NOTHING!?” She threw her arms across the top of her vanity, avoiding the case with the gem, causing the other items sitting on it to clatter to the ground. She then punched the mirror causing it to shatter. “I JUST WANTED TO BE ADMIRED! WHY!?” She slowly fell silent as her head lowered, her mane a mess now as it draped over her face, covering half of it. She closed her eyes and slowly slid to the floor. A tear fell to the ground before her. Though, as if coming of its own will, the thought of the two humans she summoned looking at her and such love for her, and her alone, enough love to drown a fish if it were water, came to her.

Chrysalis’s eyes opened at the thought. She softened her look as it only lasted a moment. “Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. They are just mere humans. I cannot allow myself to feel anything for them. Once their job is done, I’ll have no further use for them. I cannot allow myself to feel anything for anyone. I can’t….I can’t.” She silently repeated to herself.

Meanwhile, back in Ponyville, Twilight and her friends had returned from their visit with Zecora and went on to their homes or businesses. It had been some time since then. Twilight seemed deep in thought as she had an open book before her on top of her desk.

“Twilight? Hey Twilight? You okay?” Spike asked as he approached. He was wearing a purple hoodie and pants with a green tank top underneath.

Twilight didn’t respond as she stared.

“Twilight!” Spike shouted.

“HUH!? Twilight jerked to alertness. “What? What’s going on?”

“Twilight, you’ve been staring at that same page for hours now. What’s going on?”

Twilight looked to Spike. “Oh, sorry. It’s just something Pinkie said while we were gone. She isn’t usually one to make up such outrageous stories. I...can’t help but feel what she said...I don’t know.” Twilight replied unable to phrase a proper response.

“What did she say?” Spike asked.

“When she wandered off and came back, she said she ran into two...humans. I don’t even know what that is. There’s no such creature listed in any of my books, and they have a definition of every known creature in the world.” Twilight stated.

“Maybe it’s a new species?” Spike suggested with a shrug.

“I don’t think so. She said they were...from another world or something. Maybe I should consult with princess Celestia on this.” Twilight said. “Would you mind taking a note.”

“All right.” Spike got out a parchment and quill ready to take a note.

“Dear Princess Celestia….”