Project: Chrysalis

12. Chrysalis

Twilight studied the map of the facility, scanning her eyes over the various symbols and passageways. Currently they were in the final stretch of the hall, and judging by the scale at the bottom of the map, about a hundred feet to the last exit; a large storeroom.

Chrysalis seemed to have fled, recently dealt a heavy blow. But if this awful experience had taught Twilight anything, and she wasn't one to not learn a lesson, then the changeling would be back for more soon.

Applejack knew this as well, and relished the chance to finally finish that monster. Their most recent battle with her gave them a new sense of confidence and hope.

Dr. Antlion, walking beside the orange mare, felt apprehension concerning another inevitable engagement. Before she had used magic, but this time she didn't. What was going on? Maybe she was out of magic...or maybe...just maybe...

His thought process was cut off by loud sounds coming from behind. He readied his weapon.

"This is it!" Applejack said, grinning. "Alright everypony! Don't none of y’all hold back! It ends now!"

Rainbow Dash and Twilight nodded, while Fluttershy stood protected in the circle formed by the ponies. The pegasus was ready to dress any wounds sustained, though hopefully she wouldn't need to. Celestia flared her wings and her horn began to glow. The Chairpony retreated within the circle.

The metal beams and ceiling tiles began to deform as Chrysalis pounded them with her legs. Roaring came from within the matrix above the ceiling. Lights flickered out as she passed over them. Several volleys of bullets and magic were shot, and Chrysalis shrieked in pain. Several more went off, and again she cried...or so it seemed. In truth, Chrysalis, hidden in the celling, was never hit.

Even so, she turned around, audibly retreating to wherever she had just come from.

"We did it! Now let's get the hell outta here! We've bought some more time." Twilight celebrated.

"But wait! That was too easy. She didn't even show herself." Antlion objected.

"We probably hit her somewhere really vulnerable, like her heart...or something." Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Twilight's right. We should move now."

"Doctor, as much as Ah agree with you, and would love to run after it, the door’s just right down this hall. We can order an air strike or something." Applejack placed a hoof on his shoulder. "It's too fast to catch. Under different circumstances I'd say let's follow, but well...Ah don't wanna put anypony's life at risk anymore. Let's go."

The Doctor knew she was right; that it was best to just leave. Without a second thought, well maybe two or three, he joined the rest as they proceeded to the storeroom.

Chrysalis looked down the hall, watching the seven ponies walk away. “Excellent” She thought. Her feign had worked. Caught off guard, it would be even easier to snatch another meal. Silent as the still night, the black creature crept along the beams and quickly looked down on the group. Bearing her fangs, she lowered two long tentacles and as fast as a lightning bolt, wrapped them around the wings of Rainbow Dash. Being drug into the darkness, the cyan mare yelled out.

"HELP!! Everypony!!"

Applejack turned around fast enough to see her friend disappear. She began her pursuit, the fire in her eyes enough to scare a manticore. Everypony else followed suit.

Meanwhile Chrysalis retreated into a small nook with her new prey. Still holding her by the wings, the changeling pressed Rainbow Dash up against a wall.

Opening her mouth, about to devour the pegasus, Chrysalis saw her eyes filled not with fear, but courage. A defiant expression covered her face, and she did what her prey never had done before: talk back.

"So. You're gonna eat me? How original. Consume me like all the others. Like Pinkie Pie...and Rarity. Well I'll warn you now, I'll go down fighting! You ugly fuckface, hideous monster. Good for nothing but eating yourself sick."

Rainbow gave a smug smile, and expected her end. But it didn't come, and the threatening eyes of Chrysalis began to water up. Dash became confused.

"You...you think I don't know that? Look...look at me...I'm a terrible beast...a creature nopony wanted. I eat because I must...I do not want to...when I saw the pink one, she was so joyful looking...I felt horrible...more than ever...but the white one. She was special." Rainbow stared at her in disbelief. "So...beautiful...her coat so pure...her mane was...so well groomed and a lovely purple. And her eyes...even filled with absolute fear...were still the prettiest shade of azure I had ever seen."

Rainbow Dash began to tear up herself, thinking about her lost friends.

"Do you think I enjoy being a parasite? Do you think it pleases me to take from others...their emotions...to sustain my carnivorous, sinful form? Do you think I am proud when I leech the love and fear of ponies? I am the scum of the Earth, created for death and destruction. I know what I am...and of all the terrible things to emerge from the world's bosom...I hate myself above all else."

"And you think I'll pity you?" Rainbow Dash said, venom spraying from her lips.

"No. Never. But know this…before you're departure from this life. I regret every death I have caused. I am truly sorry for your friends. I hate my actions, and always have. Far too many times I have slashed my own throat, or carved out my heart, praying for death." She leaned in closer to the pegasus. "But it never comes."

"Just eat me. I don't want lies to be last thing I'll hear." Rainbow said, dignified.

"They are not lies." Just then, two of her legs came up and morphed into hands. Rainbow cringed at the sound of bones splitting and twisting, forming into grotesque black claws. Enzymes began to dissolve and reabsorb the keratinous shell over her chest, and then she plunged her black fingers into her sternum.

"What are you doing?!" The cyan pony cried out.

"Showing you my conviction."

Then, with immense strength, the changeling pulled apart her ribcage, snapping her bones and crying in intense pain as the broken ribs stabbed her lungs. Rainbow saw her chest cavity, and noticed the large, beating heart. She viciously resisted the urge to vomit.

Chrysalis removed her hands from her chest and then placed them over her heart. Her own heart pounding at what would happen next, Rainbow Dash reluctantly stared at Chrysalis. The black monster quickly grabbed her beating organ and yanked it from her cavity, her claws slicing the various blood vessels from it. The loudest, most ear-piercing screech the pegasus would ever hear erupted from the monster's larynx. She held the still beating mass of cardiac muscle before Rainbow. The pegasus gazed in horror at the twisted autocardioectomy, not noticing the spray of blood coming from Chrysalis' aorta.

Then, heart in hand, the changeling crushed it, her body trembling. Almost immediately after, tendrils of muscles and nerves began to coalesce into a new heart. Chrysalis' ribs lined back up together, and started to fuse.

Without a word, letting her actions speak for herself, she opened her mouth again. Rainbow looked at the various cracks on her shell, and the raw flesh around her eyes. “She WAS decaying” Rainbow thought, and she hatched a plan.

It was a quickly thought up one, with little thinking. But it had to work. Still held by her wings, but nothing else, she folded up her strong legs, and unleashed their stored energy like a spring. The powerful buck hit Chrysalis dead on the nose, causing much of her face flesh and shell to fall off, being only weakly held by what tissue wasn't dead. Rainbow saw her bare skull, the bones stained with blood.

Chrysalis' next action was unintentional, a result of the pain she felt as her face literally fell off. Her tentacles wrapped tightly and jerked on her captive's wings, tearing them straight off. Rainbow screamed and yelped as she felt her beloved appendages being torn from their sockets. But now free, adrenaline coursed through her veins, and she made a full gallop back into the hall.

Chrysalis managed to snag her leg for a second, making a deep gauche going from the wingless pegasus' right flank down to her hock.

Rainbow ignored the pain, still running as fast as she could.

The changeling's jaw and face bones snapped back into place, and new flesh formed over them. She gave chase, roaring like a feral creature.

Fluttershy was the first to spot Rainbow Dash running out into the hall. Joy turned to fear as the yellow pony flew up to embrace her friend when she began to yell.

"Run! Run away!"

The instructions were heeded immediately as Chrysalis bellowed and burst out, pursuing Rainbow.

Applejack was about to shoot when Rainbow strongly urged her not to. Fluttershy wondered why Rainbow wasn't flying, but then noticed...she didn't have wings!

"Rainbow! Your...I mean..." but she couldn't finish her sentence, and instead, in midflight, struggling to keep up with the fast mare, got out some gauze and wrapped up the bloody stumps where her wings once were.

In no time at all, the group reached the storeroom. The door was in sight, and panting, everypony sighed with relief. Fluttershy finished wrapping Rainbow's back and leg, and the blue pegasus cried into her friend's mane.

"She...she took my wings..." She lamented the loss of her favorite things. So deep was her mourning that she didn't notice Chrysalis come into the room.

There it was, the beast of Lab 28. Her head was long and filled with teeth, her green eyes bearing down on the seven ponies. The form she chose resembled an insectoid-like reptilian creature, with four long legs, and a spiny tail ending in a club. The hands she previous spawned remained, jutting just above her powerful torso.

Applejack and Antlion fired, but a magical force field deflected the shots.

"Damn! I knew she had magic!" The doctor exclaimed. "What do we do now?"

"Get the Princess to..." But the farmpony was cut off as Chrysalis' leg swung at her.

"Applejack!" He threw himself at her, causing them to both land outside of the leg's range.

"Thanks Doc. Princess! Y'all gotta use magic!"

"Of course!" Celestia reared up on two hind legs, her horn practically bursting with magical energy. Everypony else went further back into the room.

Chrysalis stared down the white alicorn, and shapeshifted back into her base shape. Her horn also lit up, the alicorn-type creature bared her teeth.

"I choose to fight you on your level. But you will not win." The creature boasted.

"We'll see about that." Celestia unleashed a blast at Chrysalis. Her shield absorbed the beam.

Her eyes glowing, pure power flowing into her horn, the changeling fired, pushing the alicorn back several feet.

Unfazed, Celestia stood back up, and galloped towards Chrysalis. The two of them locked horns, trying to use magic to break the deadlock. For a time, the fight became a stalemate.

Grunting, Celestia tried to intimidate her opponent. "You...can't beat me...not again."

"I've...beaten you once...before...and Celestia."

"What?"

"I've been holding back." The Princess' eyes widened as a magical impulse flashed from Chrysalis' horn to her own. Thrown back again, Celestia nevertheless got up, ready for round three. This time it was a hoof fight, the two bashing each other with their legs. But Chrysalis was indeed holding back, toying with her final victim.

For the changeling physically was much stronger than Celestia, a fact demonstrated when she grabbed Celestia by the horn, and flung her across the room. The long instrument of Celestia' magic snapped, and she cried in pain after landing on the hard concrete.

Twilight rushed over to help her mentor. Even though she had done terrible things, Celestia was still the beloved teacher of the unicorn.

"It's ok Twilight. I can...do...this." Struggling to get up, Celestia was intent on beating Chrysalis.

"No!" The Element of Magic, awakened by the dire situation, felt raw magical power in her body. Her eyes began to glow, and she rushed Chrysalis.

"Twilight! Don't!" Celestia's words made no difference.

"Lavender one, you should listen to your teacher." Chrysalis began a similar magical charge, and galloped towards the filly. Each shot beams at one another, meeting in a large junction of magic. Both sides were surprised how much the other one could resist, but Twilight eventually made headway. Chrysalis took notice, shifted back into her large from and swung her tail at the unicorn. Shaken from her trance, Twilight was knocked into a metal support beam, likely breaking several ribs.

Celestia looked in disbelief, worried what would happen next. She could not produce magic without a horn, and tried to run away.

However, Chrysalis lashed out tentacles, and restrained everypony in the room. Slamming Celestia hard onto the ground, saliva dripping from her maw, Chrysalis stuck out a sharp leg, and aimed it over the alicorn.

Celestia shook her head in futility. Chrysalis roared out like a dragon, declaring her "kill". Then, she plunged her razor sharp claw into the white pony's chest, just missing her heart.

"NOOOO!!!" Twilight yelled, wrapped up in a tentacle. She painfully looked as the Princess gasped blood and cried.

Everypony else was just as horrified. Their Princess had been beaten and punished. Antlion noticed his gun on the ground, and summoned what magic he had to levitate it up and fire. Chrysalis noticed him, and sent another tentacle to wrap around his horn. In one decisive flick, his horn was ripped from his skull, its nerves uprooted. Screaming at the burning sensation akin to being set on fire, Antlion dropped the gun.

"Nopony will interfere! I have no quarrels with any of you, but I warn you I will not be stopped in my final goal!" The changeling declared. She then looked at Celestia, and saw the alicorn was slipping into a catatonic state.

"Wake up!" Two more tentacles came out, this time impaling themselves into Celestia's fetlocks. Gnashing her teeth, Celestia was certainly awoken. Chrysalis then sent a magic jolt of electricity down her tentacles, ensuring the alicorn would remain conscious.

The creature then turned to the others. "I promise you, when my revenge is complete, you may exact your justice on me. I implore you, make me suffer...pick the scales from my wings, gauge out my eyes with your hooves, rip my armor from my skin, and sear my bare flesh. Give me a prologue to the black flames of Tartarus!"

Applejack was shaking in pure rage. "Let me go and Ah'll be happy to make this wish come true!"

"Why are you doing this?!" Twilight yelled through her tears. "Just let us go...please...we meant no harm! Why did you have to kill all those ponies! They never did anything to you!"

"Those pure, innocent souls were needed to make it so I would be able to persist. I have been biding my time, and now...I have gathered enough magic to defeat a "goddess" once again. Those two ponies stopped my vengeance in Canterlot. Celestia is the cause of all my misfortune! And now I'm going to do what should have been done in Canterlot!"

"What??" Twilight screamed.

"Enough talk!" Applejack said, fervently beating away at the tentacle, trying to break free. "Ah'm gonna send you back to whatever pit you crawled out of!"

Chrysalis' mouth curled into a smile, and she began to laugh maniacally. Her final descent into madness was complete, the result of her actions and regret. "Oh no...you see I never crawled from that hole." She looked down at Celestia. "I was TAKEN from it!"

Positioning another leg between Celestia' legs, the alicorn pleaded.

"No no...please!"

Chrysalis whispered into her ear. "Tell them."

"Please..."

"TELL THEM!!"

"No no no..."

"Then I shall. This creature you see before you was made in this laboratory! And you already know where they got the specimens! Well I was no different. But I came from a different place."

"...where?" Twilight hesitated to ask.

"Celestia!" Jolting the alicorn again, Chrysalis used her hands to rip open Celestia's abdomen. Screaming in pain, the Princess endured the changeling sifting through her intestines and other visceral organs, before grabbing her uterus. Chrysalis pulled out the organ, careful not to separate it from the body, but only display it.

"I was Celestia's fetus! Taken from her womb before I committed the original sin! Why!? Why was I abandoned!?"

Nopony could believe what they had just heard. Chrysalis was...Celestia's daughter?

The Princess could only whimper.

"WHY!?"

"The...only...one...strong...enough...would have...been...an alicorn..."

"Princess! Is this true?" Asked a weak Twilight.

"Every word, purple one." Chrysalis then drug Twilight over to her.

"What are you going to do to her?" Celestia inquired. "Please don't hurt her! Kill me!"

"Oh Celestia, you know I cannot kill you. No, but I can do something far worse. You had my children slaughtered. They all felt pain as they were blow apart or crushed or burned alive. But they couldn't understand their pain. They felt it, but didn't know what it was. Yet I did. And I have felt what it is like to die a thousand times. I have felt flesh and limbs I never had being hacked off. You cannot possibly imagine that kind of pain. But I can try to show it to you."

"What does Twilight have to do...with this...?"

"The greatest pain is having your child die, and you cannot stop it. I will translate this to you. This mare is like the daughter you never had."

She threw down Twilight, and snapped off her horn so she couldn't use magic to stop her. Then, aiming for Twilight's leg, Chrysalis thrust her spike of a limb right behind her knee.

"Owwwwwww!!!!!!" Twilight's scream hurt everypony's ears.

Celestia began to burst into tears. "NOOO!! Please! Let her go!"

"I am truly sorry...Twilight. But you are the instrument of my revenge... Celestia I am going to kill her, I am going to tear her limb from limb, pull the skin from her body, and draw her entrails! And you can do nothing but watch!"

"Princess!" Twilight called out, reach for her mentor's hoof.

"But before I do...Celestia," Chrysalis shook as her emotions battled within her mind, further damaging the already insane consciousness. "What stallion had the misfortune of planting his seed inside your putrid womb?"

Celestia could say nothing.

Chrysalis sent another shock into Celestia's forelegs. "ANSWER ME!!"

"Eos! I would have named you Eos! I...I...but Equestria needed you far more than I did...I would have loved you with all my heart...but if I would have known...that you would suffer so much..." Celestia trailed off. "Dr. Felthoof and I would have raised you...I'm...I'm...so sorry! Please! Make ME pay for MY sins! Spare Twilight!"

"...Felthoof...was...my..." Chrysalis cried, her eyes streaming down tears. But these weren't tears of saline. The ducts in her eyes had now decayed, and only blood came from her eyes. The stinging though hurt less than Celestia's words.

Overcome with emotion, Chrysalis bellowed again, and twisted her leg imbedded in Twilight's knee. The lower half of her limb was wrenched off.

The deformed alicorn spawn then grabbed the purple mare and prepared to rip off another leg, but her tentacle started to fall apart.

Bits and pieces of her carapace were now falling off, hitting the ground. Chrysalis' eyes widened. "No! Not yet! I'm not done with you!"

But it was time. The decaying process was here. Dropping Twilight, Chrysalis saw her other tentacles give way. The other ponies broke free, and ran to get their weapons. But that was not necessary. The changeling vomited blood as her esophagus' wall ruptured. Her skin flaked off, revealing sickly muscles and sinews. The air pressure pressed against her eyes, and the rapidly thinning wall gave, and her eyes imploded inside her skull.

Twilight limped away on her three legs, but Celestia was still impaled by Chrysalis' legs. The white alicorn watched the creature's stomach area open up, the skin no longer strong enough to contain the heavy organs. Her massive liver fell out, the gland splattering on the floor. The mucus membrane of her stomach disappeared, and the stomach acid ate at the walls of the gut. Shrieking as she felt her own body digest itself, Chrysalis then felt the paralyzing pain of her own bowels bursting with putrefaction gases, the intestinal bacteria making short work of her colon. Blood and excrement plastered the top of her abdominal cavity.

Her rips broke off, the bones too porous to support her lungs. The bones one by one clanked onto the floor, with the smaller left lung and air sacs following suit. Her heart began to palpitate, and aneurysms popped up all over the thinning blood vessels of her body. First the atria, then the ventricles burst, spraying blood all over the floor, especially on Celestia. The high blood pressure of her quickly beating heart combined with the decaying of her aorta cause the giant artery to rupture. Her consciousness began to fade fast, and the pain intensified as more and more organs fell out or dissolved. Her skin was almost completely gone, and her mandibles detached from her skull, hanging only by her tongue.

She looked at Celestia, or at least would have if she still had eyes, and roared. Her cries of pain only stopped when her larynx and right lung fell off. By the time it was almost over, Chrysalis was little more than a spine and a couple legs. Her brain tissue went next, and her balance organs leaked from her ears. Her palate broke, allowing her partitioned grey matter to funnel out. Her leg muscles then slithered off, and then her lifeless corpses collapsed onto the ground.

Celestia bawled, Chrysalis' leg still inside her chest, her uterus and intestine still exposed, and covered in not only her blood, but also the blood, muscles, bones, skin, and entrails of her "daughter".