Be Prepared

by eemoo1o

Rating: teen
Tags: Thorax, Tragedy, Violence, Pharynx, Dark, Alternate Universe, Drama, Changelings, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, My Little Pony Comic, Queen Chrysalis
Length: 6724

Beyond the mirror, Prince Thorax crowns himself king through some dire means.

Beyond the mirror of opposite-Equestria, Thorax is tyrannical and bloodthirsty. This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the hive when he decides to crown himself king.

Co-written with the wonderful BezierBallad.

Published 2022-09-02 20:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-09-02 20:10:00 UTC

For the coup of the century

Author's Note

This was a collaboration with the lovely BezierBallad. By all means, go check her out. It was a pleasure, once again, to work with her. :twilightsmile:

Perhaps not-so-subtly inspired by a certain song. Go to the remake for the mood, but stay at the far superior original for the eloquence.

If Thorax is Simba, then mirror Thorax is Scar… :raritywink:

(Foreshadowing? I think so.)

For the coup of the century

The Changeling Hive, typically radiant and viridescent, with sunny skies and floral arrangements up the wazoo, was a disgusting sight that made Thorax want to rip the place to the ground.

He’d feel pity if he was capable, but seeing as he was not, he settled for disgust and, most importantly, immense hatred.

Prince Thorax had returned after one of his usual hunts - it was glorious, really; he’d found a cluster of ponies and drained the of love just to watch the colour empty from their eyes, because he could, and because it brought him joy - just to be bombarded by his wretched mother.

Princess Chrysalis was, by definition, the mascot of all imbeciles.

The rest of the Hive, pony-like and frail, meaningless pawns, was a cesspool of inbred naïveté and nice warm smiles but Princess Chrysalis - by far - was the prime example. And so close at her heel (if she had heels) did his elder broodmate, Pharynx, follow.

Chrysalis smiled at her son sweetly, her bouncy blue curls shining in the early afternoon sunshine; something that made Thorax want to vomit his guts out. “Welcome home, my darling!” she crooned, and Thorax didn’t withhold his desire to hiss venomously at her. “Oh, my!”

“Get rid of yourself from my sight, mother,” Thorax spat. He wasn’t in any mood to deal with her blind adoration for him, currently. After all, he was in a perfectly good mood from his torture-filled morning, so why must she ruin it?

She blinked a few times. “Thorie! What ever seems to be the matter?” She extended a whole, grey hoof to place on the side of his slime coloured face, but Thorax swatted her leg away with such a second-natured brutality that she winced and nursed it against her chest.

“Are you deaf or just incredibly imbecilic?” he hissed again, bearing his fangs. He then licked his upper lip with his serpentine tongue. “Great! You’ve ruined my morning, you sentimental wretch!”

It seemed to Chrysalis that something always seemed to ruin her dearest son’s morning. “Oh, dear! I’m so incredibly sorry, my darling! Let mummy make you some of her sweet li’l’ cookies to make you feel all better! They’re fresh out the oven! Your brother was even kind enough to help me make them - you know how much our Pharie loves to cook!”

Thorax’s face split into a sinister grin, and tilted his head robustly to the side, letting out an audibly sickening crack.

Chrysalis cringed. “Oh, Thorie! You mustn’t do that so much! You’ll give yourself terrible aches and pains when you’re older!”

“The ponies should fear us,” Thorax retorted, letting his voice form a reverb as if he was gargling broken glass, “not see us as ones of their own! We’ve been over this countless times!”

“But, Thorie! Ponies are a lovely, considerate species! They’re our-”

“-friends!?” Thorax finished for her, and his grume eyes glowed ferociously. “Changelings should not make friends!”

“You don’t really believe that, do you, darling?” Chrysalis asked, her eyes glittering with tears, “I’m thinking about the future of the Hive! If a changeling is lonely and low on love, then making friendships is the most nutritional option. Taking love via brute force isn’t good for us! It helps nopony!”

A large, almost insane smile rose to Thorax’s cheeks in a rather robotic, creaky manner. “I know - that’s what makes it hilarious!”

“And to think,” Chrysalis chirped, “someday you’ll grow into a big, strong handsome king! But not before your older brother-”

Thorax’s creepy grin snapped into a ferocious scowl as he lunged in his place. “Is that a challenge?!”

“No!” She gasped in fright. “Not at all, I was just-”

“You disgust me, you foolish wretch! Rid yourself from my presence this instant! Filthy cow.”

Tears were streaming down Chrysalis’ grey cheeks, now, as she was clearly wounded by her son’s abrupt change in mood. She sniffled as she sobbed aloud. “Why do you do this, Thorie?! Why can’t you let love and friendship into your heart like the rest of us?”

Thorax put on a warm, gentle smile and cupped his mother’s cheek with one of his cavitied, slime-green hooves. As Chrysalis opened her eyes at the surprisingly tender touch, preparing to lean into it, Thorax sharply withdrew his hoof and licked away her tears.

“Have I ever informed you how melodramatic you actually are? And to think, I thought Pharynx was bad.” Thorax shot a mocking sneer.

A moment of thick, sickly silence followed like a sticky treacle. Eventually, it was Chrysalis who broke it: “I could make you scones if you’re not interested in cookies,” she offered, feebly, “or cupcakes.” Thorax gritted his pointed teeth. “Muffins?”

“Cupcakes,” Thorax gargled, leaning towards his mother with a large smile splitting his muzzle, putting his fangs on full display, “Right now...”

Chrysalis flinched. “Oh, of course! Right away, sweetie!”

Thorax trotted down one of the Hive’s many hallways with his head held high. The pawns cowered as he passed, and each time he made sure to give them just a fraction of what he was capable of, ranging from simple hissing with his eyes alight, to tendrils of magic harshly tugging at their extremities, pulling them onto their carapaces and towering over them until they were blubbering for mercy. Anything just to keep his image in the back of their minds.

Overall, Thorax found his stroll rather enjoyable. Unfortunately, it had to end, as he came to the outside of Pharynx’s quarters. He summoned a beam of crimson magic with his horn, and blasted the double door with a mighty beam, blasting the entrance to bits and replacing it with a large, smouldering hole.

“Oh, brother!” he called, hungrily - feeding off of his own was always entertaining, especially when it inflicted multiple emotional scars - “Where aaare yooou?”

Thorax scowled when he found his brother’s room empty. A moment of confusion washed over the insatiable tyrant, before his ear flicked to the sound of hooffalls behind him.

There, behind Prince Thorax, was his brother, Prince Pharynx, out in the open and unattended. He winced and turned away from his brother’s unnerving gaze as soon as he noticed him. Then, his attention turned to the enormous hole in his bedroom wall: “Aw! Thorax! You promised you wouldn’t do that, anymore!”

“I promised no such thing,” his brother remarked, only to grin unstably right after, “or, did I promise just as I did not to do... this?” Thorax’s horn and antlers lit in a savage red again, and he forced Pharynx into a sitting position, grabbed one of his cyan-white forelegs, and twisted it until he was forcibly smacking him with it. “Hahaha!” he cackled, wildly, “Isn’t pain fun?”

“No it’s not! Stop it, it’s not funny!” Pharynx whimpered and squirmed in his seating, trying to yank his hooves out of the magical grasp of his brother. “Stop it, Thorax!” he sobbed. “You know I’m not as powerful as you!”

“No one’s as powerful as me!” Thorax growled victoriously, another uncanny grin splitting his face open, a near-ten foot tongue behind his fanged smile.

“H-Hey! You let him go!” A little grey pawn with large, pink eyes called. He was backed up by another pawn with orange eyes, and another with blue. Effectively, their eyes and carapaces were the only things keeping them from looking absolutely identical. It was boring. It was sickening.

“You sick freak!” The orange pawn exclaimed, bravely.

Thorax relished moments like these. He licked his lips to prevent himself from drooling; the love they shared for their beloved prince - Pharynx - really was, in essence, culinary genius.

“What did you call your future king?” Thorax’s eyes made the passage brilliant with a monstrous red light.

The orange pawn quivered, biting his lip. “Y-You heard me! Leave him alone, freak!”

Despite the earnestness of the three pugnacious little pawns, Thorax cackled loudly. It was a hollow, quaking sound that reverberated off the Hive walls, making the pawns hesitate a bit.

They were only ever capable of doing ‘a bit’ of something at a time.

Grinning, Thorax lit up his horn and took hold of the three interrupters in his pulsating magical aura. His sinister, entertained smile took up even more territory on his face when he watched them writhe and squirm as they began begging for mercy.

“N-No wait! Please—”

A thick tendril of pink vapor filled the atmosphere of the hallway, permeating from the triad of pawns, being ripped out of their shivering, lifted forms like a lollipop from the claws of a griffon fledgling still covered in scraps of its amniotic sac.

“Brother, no!” Pharynx protested, scrambling to his hooves and running over to Thorax.

“Brother, yes!” Thorax mocked as Pharynx used his much weaker magical force to try to prevent his feeding. Blue aura met red, and for a moment a purple one formed.

“Stop this at once! Let them go!”

Thorax paid no mind; there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that his brother would - or could - beat him, and thus he continued his wrongdoings with pride, and the pink vapor continued to pollute the air.

Pharynx’s limbs trembled in a desperate attempt to hold his ground against his tyrannical brother. It wasn’t long until he began sweating up a storm.

Thorax sucked the vapor up like spaghetti. Once it was all gone, he decided to drop the three pawns all at once, and there was an earsplitting crack.

“Ow! My carapace! I think he broke my carapace!” The orange pawn proclaimed in anguish.

“Mine too!”

“It hurts! It hurts!”

Thorax cackled wickedly, like he’d just heard an incredible joke.

“Princess Chrysalis will put an end to this, some day!”

The cackling stopped abruptly, and in an uproar of red flame, Prince Thorax transformed into an enormous, unkempt maulwurf with jagged yellow claws and teeth.

The three pawns stared up in fear, before scurrying off with their tails in between their legs.

Thorax sneered; he loved it when they did that.

“I hate it when you do that,” Pharynx said meekly, “you’re so mean to them. To mom. To me.”

Thorax didn’t take his time to mull over this comment. He would have, once upon a time, but as he had already done so - quite a few times, in fact - he had no need to. He was different from the moment he had hatched, and that was that. He will, and always has, been different.

He turned around towards his older brother with a sharp smile, and Pharynx winced a little. For someone who was his elder brother, he was a huge wuss.

“I came to talk to you, brother,” Thorax said, grinding his fangs together.

“A-About what?”

“That insufferable matriarch of ours,” he said, entering Pharynx’s room. “I’ve finally chosen the perfect scheme to overthrow her, at last.”

“You mean mom? Thorax, she practically gave birth to us. I mean, she’s so sweet, kind, and pretty. Why do you want to do that to her?”

“Because, my dear brother,” Thorax remarked, “I believe it’s time for a new leader. One that will bring the hive a glorious new return to power!”

“We don’t need a new leader!” Pharynx stamped a hoof on the ground.

Thorax chose to ignore him as he began lifting the debris from the ruined wall and sealing the hole back up with his magic. “Don’t you worry about lifting a single one of your molecules, brother. You and the other pawns won’t be so essential. For now…”

Pharynx furrowed his brow, trying to ignore the moisture threatening to build up in his eyes.

“Princess Chrysalis has always been too akin to those pesky ponies for my liking,” Thorax said, returning to his brother. “She’s shown too much restraint when it comes to hunting for love. And why?”

Pharynx flinched as Thorax suddenly raised his voice.

“Because she’s scared!”

“She- She’s not scared. She just knows that it’s wrong to take love by force,” said his older brother timidly, barely daring to meet Thorax’s volume. “It’s not that hard to understand.”

The younger brother scoffed. “What’s the difference between the two?” he muttered aloud.

Pharynx whimpered to himself. He could taste his brother’s wrath bubbling away under the surface, and he most certainly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it once again.

“That docile old mare has been too kind for far too long! We’re lucky we haven’t starved because of her!” Thorax exclaimed. “I think it’s time for our race to be cruel at last, don’t you think?”

“…No.”

Thorax scowled, “What do you mean ‘no’?” he thundered. Pharynx certainly looked sorry for himself, shaking with fear and crouched low as to make himself seem as less of a threat. Thorax, upon allowing himself just a sliver of the sight, refrained; “How do you feel, brother?”

“What?”

“I said,” Thorax raised his voice, nearing a tyrannical bark, “how do you feel? And none of that emotional crap!”

It took Pharynx a prolonged amount of time to answer. “A- A little peckish…”

Thorax’s lip curled smugly. “Peckish, you say? That’s because you’ve been holding back, my brother.” He said, and his voice bordered towards a purr. “I haven’t felt that way in years!.. And all because I’ve taken all I’ve ever wanted, when I’ve wanted it.”

Pharynx sniffled, gritting his teeth. Surely, a bit of hunger wasn’t worth preying upon ponies and taking every morsel they had? Unfortunately for him, for their mother, and for the rest of the hive, Thorax seemed to think that it was.

And Thorax wasn’t one for anything other than perfect success.

“It’s time,” he continued, “for a new dawn in the, ugh, Goodlands, as a shining new era is upon us! One of cruelty and bereft of mercy: the Thoracic era!”

Pharynx slowly got back up from his crouching position. “‘Thoracic era’? But, Thorax-”

“Silence!” Thorax roared like a manticore, and Pharynx jumped in fright. “Your king-to-be is talking. Ah! Yes… that’s another thing I wished to discuss before you so rudely interrupted,” he shot a menacing glance over towards his brother.

Pharynx gulped. “Wh-what?”

“That sow holds too much respect for that King Sombra, she’s even crowned herself under him. Princess Chrysalis,” he sneered, “should have allowed this hive - her hive - to have been a kingdom long ago! Soon, brother…” he mused, “soon we shall have a leader we deserve. One unafraid to take what he desires. Me! King Thorax!”

It was at this moment that the emotional dam started breaking away for Pharynx. Thorax as leader? Equestria wouldn’t survive. Neither would he. Neither would the rest of the hive. Why was his own brother so insistent on this?

Pharynx began to cry hot, fat tears, and his body started to tremble. He bowed his head down low, not daring to look his brother in the eye again.

Thorax smirked at the sight, and Pharynx shut his eyes. “Oh, brother, I shall always turn to you for entertainment.” He reached a hoof and carefully wiped the streaming tears from his brother’s face to taste.

“For the love of Sombra! Enough! Enough! This hive doesn’t deserve you! No one deserves you!” Pharynx objected and smacked Thorax’s hoof away, quickly gasping and covering his mouth with two front hooves.

Thorax widened his crimson eyes as his scowl twisted into a sadistic smile so large that his cheeks almost split. Pharynx started to shake. “Why don’t you relearn your place, brother?” he mocked, “I’m sure it’s still warm for you.”

Despite his still-crumbling composure, the elder changeling continued. “Everyone was perfectly happy until you started going on about this whole overthrowing thing! Why can’t you just learn to—”

One last intense glare from Thorax finally shut him up.

“Return to baking cookies, Pharynx. This new face doesn’t suit you.”

“I could say the same about you…” the other changeling croaked weakly.

There was no reply as Thorax left.

Thorax was plotting in his quarters when a fly started buzzing around his head. He eyed it while barely moving a millimetre from his desk chair.

It was loud and obnoxious, and it found an interest in circling his left ear and pointy crimson antlers.

He bared his teeth at it, swatting a hoof at it. The insect only swiftly dodged the attack by whizzing through one of the holes in his dark green hoof.

Thorax scowled, swatting with his other foreleg, then both of them. Curse these damn holes.

With a hard smack, Thorax knocked the pest out of the air and onto the desk, pinning it down with just its wing. It let out a pathetic buzz.

The dark changeling grinned as he slowly shifted his hoof closer to the base of the sordid creature’s wing. Closer, closer, closer…

Crunch.

…before crushing it effortlessly, and wiping the split, hemolymph-coated carcass on the corner of his desk.

Thorax smirked. Pathetic. Almost as pathetic as the rest of the hive. They’ll soon be under his hoof, too, once he’s through with them.

There was a knock on the door. Thorax’s head whipped around astutely. “Enter,” he ordered firmly.

A shaking pawn with green eyes and a green carapace entered by just two minute hoof-steps.

Thorax turned around in his chair to face it. “Well, then? Out with it!” he snapped, his lack of patience evident in his tone of voice.

“P-P-P-P-” the miserably little pawn sputtered.

“I said: out with it!” Thorax lunged forth and slammed his hooves down just in front of the cowardly, defective thing.

“Ah!” It fell backwards onto its haunches. “P-P-Prin- Princess Chrysalis has summoned you t-t-to her- to her chambers!”

Great fury bewitched Thorax. Couldn’t that foul wretch understand that he was scheming? How dare she call for an interruption? The nerve.

“Tell her it can wait. I’m currently dealing with far more important matters. Why should I waste time on such a miserable coward like her?”

“Sh-She said it was- that it was urgent, your majesty.”

Thorax gritted his teeth. Well, at least it had addressed him correctly.

And yet, it was still here. It was terrified stiff - teeth chattering like a set of maracas - and it was still here.

“Why are you still tormenting me with your most undesirable presence?” he groaned.

“B-B-Because Princess Chrysalis-”

A bright red blast suddenly shot from Thorax’s long, sharp horn and struck the terrified, unsuspecting pawn before him. It pierced directly through him and left a large, gaping hole in his torso.

The pawn stood stone-cold for a few moments, before it fell over limply like a tattered, useless ragdoll.

Thorax, not unused to breaking his toys, fed on what love remained in the broken doll, and then stepped coldly over it. “Someone clean this up,” he demanded as he began his journey to the throne room.

The throne room was filled with a gathering of just barely a fraction of the hive’s full number; the group of pawns was large and - despite their uniform smooth, whole, grey bodies - inherently multicoloured.

Small grey bodies quivered and shrank to the ground while large compound eyes welled with great fear at the sight of Thorax, and as the changeling prince entered he found them all practically bowing at his feet!

“Chrysalis,” he said, his voice as rough as gravel.

Princess Chrysalis barely flinched. There was no ‘mother’, or even an acidic ‘your majesty’. Just ‘Chrysalis’. Bereft of any emotion, even anger.

Instead, she turned around slowly and said, “Yes, Thorax?” with atypical stillness and reserve.

“You summoned me,” he snapped, unable to take such idiocy, especially from her, and especially now. She knew exactly why he was here, of course.

“Thorax, I have been informed that you plan to usurp me,” Princess Chrysalis said, her voice surprisingly unwavering.

Thorax’s full attention snapped to her, and he craned his neck ninety degrees stage right. His carmine eyes only added to the concave throne room’s brilliant light.

Chrysalis remained still, her gaze now much more slack, and tilted away almost abashedly. “Pharynx told me what you’ve been planning.”

Immediately, Thorax searched the crowd for his smarmy older brother. He’d kill him—how had he fostered enough gall as to intervene with his plan? WHERE WAS HE?!

“Thorax, my son…” Chrysalis forced the words out, her jaw as stiff as steel. “What has become of you?” she asked, woodenly.

“Your questions are as foolish as you are,” he commented, but then put on a wolfish smile; now, he decided, he would carry out his meticulous plan now. “But I’ll bite - however do you mean, mother?”

And there it was. ‘Mother’. As venomous and as cold as Chrysalis had imagined. She couldn’t exactly say she wasn’t expecting this outburst the moment she sent one of her aides. After all, Thorax despised being summoned.

“You know what I mean, Thorax,” she said, and that wooden demeanour slowly started to splinter, “like- like this. Mean and bitter, a-and manipulative. I never raised you to be like this.”

“But, of course you did, mother,” Thorax said with a conniving little purr, completely undeterred, “it was you who brought me into this world, was it not?”

Chrysalis’ watery green eyes met Thorax’s red ones with an immense plea. “I’ll ask again,” she said in a hoarse voice after swallowing the lump in her throat, “why?”

“Because it’s time for a new leader!” Thorax proclaimed roughly. “And you have crafted the perfect one! Haven’t you?” Chrysalis silently shook her head in disbelief. “You nurtured me and helped me grow into what I am. There’s no denying it, your majesty, that you are com-plete-ly to blame, here!” There was a wild, off-key cackle that followed.

Chrysalis couldn’t help but let her mouth drop open in complete and utter shock. “I- what?!” she sputtered out. Suddenly, her features furrowed sharply into something stern and reprimanding: something she should have done long ago. “I did what I did because I love you! I defended you, I sheltered you, I fed you! I loved you! And for what? For this?” An ugly, angry emotion took hold of her, and she snorted as she faced away from him.

“For what? Glory? You shaped me into what I am, Chrysalis,” Thorax snapped, every single word - each carefully picked and put together as to cause emotional fatalities - laced with poison lethal enough to bring down the largest of stallions. “Admit it! You’re the one to blame here, not me! You wanted this!”

“No!” Chrysalis cried, going to shove him in denial and despair, and in one swift motion Thorax had glued her hooves to the floor with his red slime; Chrysalis gasped and looked down in horror, trying and failing to move from her spot. “That’s not true!”

Thorax let his shadow cast over her momentarily as the scene earned themself an audience, and she looked up in terror, mouth agape and eyes glistening. Then, he turned his flank on her so he could approach the throne, ascending the small group of steps before it, and then caressing it with a delicately placed hoof.

He ran a hoof across the throne before him once again. Not just any throne. His throne. It was his, at last. Or at least, it would be. Soon.

“T-Thorax…” Chrysalis stuttered out, still struggling against the slimy crimson binds that kept her glued to the floor. “What are you—”

“Quiet! I’m envisioning,” Thorax said, curtly, “a future clear and wide-ranging. It is of a future with myself as our leader. As a king. I see myself upon this throne, ruling an epoch of my very own. And with you out of the picture,” he shot Chrysalis a blood-curdling glare, “we shall all be rewarded quite generously. The future I’m envisioning is littered with prizes, after all -” an amused little chuckle, throaty and swift - “and all addressed to me as the new king.”

A thick film of tears glistened in Chrysalis’ large, fearful eyes. She scrunched them shut, and the films burst, leaking down her cheeks. “N-No! This can’t be happening! It can’t be! Thorax, darling,” she tried a laugh on for size, but found it like a piece of clothing ten sizes too big, dwarfing both herself and whatever shred of confidence she had left, “please, reconsider!”

Thorax decided not to hear her as he looked back down at his new throne, “Unlike you, mother, I find the pawns to be extremely essential. They aren’t just subjects to me, you know. They’re soldiers, ready to be used at my advantage. Assisting in my victory.”

Thorax merely had to turn towards the onlookers to make them cower and step back towards the walls.

“P-Pawns?” Chrysalis parroted in a shaky voice, unable to wipe the tears from her face, but they kept coming like an overrunning faucet.

“You’re too spineless to be their leader,” Thorax spat, as Pharynx snuck out from the crowd. Well-alert, Thorax’s head snapped to the right with a boney crack to catch him.

“No, Pharie! Pharynx, get back!” Chrysalis screamed out, squirming more than ever.

“What did I tell you about leaving your place?!” Thorax boomed, and shot a burst of magic towards his older brother. It impacted with Pharynx’s light cyan chitin, and sent him barrelling back into the crowd.

Chrysalis gasped in consternation, “Pharie…” she quickly fought her tough slime shackles, but to no avail once again.

Pharynx only gave her a silent, helpless glance as he peered from behind a few of the other pawns, as some others rushed to his aid. “M-Mom…” he groaned, grieved with the affliction of the strike.

“You won’t get away with this, Thorax,” Chrysalis announced with a newfound bravery as stood back upright.

“I already have,” a sick chuckle echoed through the throne room, and the princess cringed, “no one can save you. I’ll make sure of it.” His long, twisted horn and jagged antlers each illuminated with a savage scarlet.

“You- You won’t kill your own mother, would you?” Chrysalis’ eyes were wide as she giggled nervously, but deep down she knew it to be true.

With a pretence of tenderness, Thorax cupped his mother’s chin and forced her head into a position where she had to look at him,“Even with your futile attempt at soiling my plans, everything is still going according to how I intended.”

Chrysalis fought against his cast iron grip, but only freed herself when Thorax chose to let her go. She gasped as she opened her eyes, staring in trepidation at the red glare of his antlers and horn. Chrysalis cringed, bracing for the impact of his murderous blast.

It did not come.

Coolly, Thorax circled his mother like a mountain lion would a deer. Another fanged smile contracted his muzzle.

“You’ve always shown too much restraint when it comes to hunting,” he said after some time, “my reign will at last see to our bellies being eternally full! We - as the superior race - will be free to take whatever we want!.. As a mighty empire prepared to take everything we’ve ever desired, whatever the cost.”

“Is conquering Equestria truly worth all of that?” Chrysalis asked, her voice fragile and her body trembling. “You’re sentencing us to death!”

“‘Us’?” Thorax repeated with sadistic glee. “No, my dear mother, us,” he clarified, gesturing towards his veneering pawns.

“King Sombra won’t stand to see you hurt his little ponies!” she protested, and then started sobbing. “But, I can’t stop you. I can’t…” her head fell, and her eyes scrunched closed, “I can’t!”

Thorax stared down at Chrysalis with malice, but soon found himself unwillingly hesitant. Was she bowing her head in submission, or because she no longer harnessed the energy to keep it up? He didn’t know.

“You can,” he insisted, with a sharkish smile, “you can…” and with that, he lowered himself to his haunches, and grabbed his prey in his forelegs, pulling himself closer to her.

He placed his large head on Chrysalis’ much smaller one, and held her curved horn against the left of his jugular, just under his jaw. With his magic, Thorax started to gingerly play with his mother’s wilted curls.

“I can’t,” Chrysalis repeated demurely, weakly, against her son’s chest. In a last act of submission, she fell limp against him.

Thorax let his magic travel to her carapace, the red aura stroking up and down, slowly, as to continue the act of comfort. “I’m listening,” he forged a sympathetic coo.

“I did this,” Chrysalis admitted, with the newfound gift of sight and intelligence. Consider it a miracle, and Thorax its worker. “It’s all my fault.”

“It is,” Thorax agreed, compliantly, “it really is…”

“I’m- I’m a monster,” she blubbered, although she had transformed her very being into the embodiment of defeat. “I’m so sorry, children.” Although she addressed the rest of the Hive, she did not lift her head to look at them. “I- I-”

Thorax succeeded in hiding the demonic smile of gaiety that suddenly pulled at his face with just a slight curl at the corner of his mouth as he predicted what Chrysalis would say next.

“I don’t deserve to live…”

Thorax cleared his throat with mirth: he’d done it. He’d won. “Of course you don’t,” he purred like a lioness to its cub. “I think,” he said, with a voice one might’ve used on a toddler when enticing it over to them, “you deserve to be punished.”

Just as Chrysalis was about to raise her feeble head, Thorax quickly pressed his hoof against her lower back, and used his crimson aura to clutch her wings.

With a petrifying crunching noise, he made sure to rip off his mothers wings at a painfully slow pace. She stared up at the ceiling, squeaking into Thorax’s left ear what would have been a scream affronted by any other volume.

And with her wings, came the top of her carapace, revealing her throbbing muscles to all behind her. Blood painted the floor in both the form of a waterfall and of a sprinkler. Chrysalis was gasping in shock and dolour, and she swallowed the immobile lump lodged in her throat.

“Oh, oh…” she whimpered like a puppy that had just been pelted alive.

Within seconds, a few of the pawns were screaming and gasping for her, protesting as if they had now discovered that they each had a mind of their own, but Thorax confidently knew that that was not true; it was a mere effect of suffering decades of denial of their ensurience.

“No!”

“Princess Chrysalis!”

“Help her!”

“Stop him!”

“You bastard!”

“Silence, all of you!” Thorax snarled loudly, and in one spark of his horn he formed a bright crimson shield around himself and his mother, blocking the crowd and its noisiness out from inside a great surface area.

Chrysalis stared, agape and in pain. Her pretty face was wet with never-ending tears. She was as still as a statue. She croaked, but nothing else came out.

“Now look what you made me do,” he crooned, smiling snakily. “But I think you of all… rueful beings deserve a chance at redemption.”

“W-What?”

Perhaps it was because of all the love that she had fed and shown him over the years, or because of the sudden fragility in her voice, but Thorax sought deep into the dark, unused depths of his black void of a heart where a sliver of incompetent kindness stared back at him, letting it sway his mind into a final decision: no, he would not kill her, his… mother.

Not that what he would end up doing would be any better than that. No, what he had in mind for her insufferable deeds was far, far worse.

With two quick blasts, he freed her resin confines with calm ease, and without letting the force field down, he said to her, “Run.”

Chrysalis trembled, she didn’t move. Hadn’t she heard him?

“Run,” Thorax repeated, showing another act of mercy, because he was fair and caring, “warn Sombra. Tell him what you’ve done to Equestria.”

Chrysalis started to pant. Thorax could hear her heart pound against her ribcage so violently that it was threatening to burst through. More fear welled in Chrysalis’ eyes, and she scrambled to get herself upright, only for her glasses to fall off her face as she dropped to her haunches.

Thorax waited for her to attempt an escape. He stillkept the forcefield up.

She clambered frantically to her hooves, whimpering helplessly as Thorax towered over her crouching form, impatience bubbling under his dark chitin.

“I said: run!” he ordered, and his horn and antlers powered up with an electrical charge. “Sombra deserves to know what you did!”

And run Chrysalis did. She ran towards the forcefield after struggling in a direction to flee in, and then reared up to claw and pound on the red, semi-transparent wall in an effort to break it.

The petty, pretty princess looked back as her breathing shortened, her once bouncy curls now limp with sweat, “No! Nonononono!” she wept, “Children! No! Help yourselves! Flee! Seek asylum in Canterlot! Tell Sombra! Quick, hurry! Save yourselves!” There was a raw, coarse effect to her voice that borderlined a shriek of horror.

Thorax was grateful he’d taken the extra precaution to soundproof his magical dome. And soon, his horn was fully charged…

Blast!

There, the statue that once was Princess Chrysalis stood frozen on her hind legs, one foreleg outstretched high above her head, which was turned a couple of degrees to the right.

Thorax breathed heavily, barely able to keep himself from collapsing then and there; as powerful as he was (and soon he will be even moreso) such a spell usually reserved for the skill of an alicorn took a lot out of him.

He sighed heavily and gazed upon his finest work: his new gewgaw; his new plaything; his bed chamber’s new centrepiece. New, new, new, and Thorax loved receiving new things.

‘Out with the old and in with the new,’ as the saying went.

The forcefield had receded into the ground alongside the blast, and almost immediately most of the surrounding pawns rushed to the statue as if it was still in need of aid. As if they could rewind time.

Imbeciles.

Diligently, Thorax used his scarlet magic to replace Chrysalis’ glasses on her nose, and took the time to tilt them into a position that was just right.

Then, he turned to one lone changeling who was sitting in shock with tears welling up in his eyes. Honestly, the sight of Pharynx in distress was - and always would be - addicting. Intoxicating.

“Mom!” Pharynx forced his way through the crowd with both such an agility and force that Thorax had never seen him use before. He caressed the cheek of his petrified mother with a hoof as soon as he reached it from through the sea of pawns. “No, no… please, no. No…”

Oh, yes…

“As for the rest of you,” Thorax turned towards the throne, a large alligator’s grin contorting his face, “we are to organise immediately!”

“We- We’ll never look up to you!” decreed a brave, silly, little pawn.

There was a crackle of thunder, and Thorax looked up to find that in the process of creating his new ornament, he had also broken the ceiling of the throne room to smithereens. A flash of lightning followed, and then so did the sudden downpour of rain.

Thorax only smirked, still watching his brother sob over the statue of what was their mother. But that was pessimistic thinking - hopefully, she was still in there somewhere, observing all of this around her. Some would say it was a fate worse than death.

And Thorax was immensely delighted that he had thought of it.

“Just think about it,” he announced as he started circling the cowering pawns, “You’ll no longer be overcome by the feeling of starvation with me in charge! Your bellies have never been full, and I intend to put an end to that.”

A few pawns in the crowd glanced at each other, some began muttering amongst themselves as to discuss what their options were: to be ruled under their virtuous new king iron hoof, or death.

“These times demonstrate change amongst us,” Thorax continued, scaling the narrow couple of steps leading to the throne and then observing his hapless subjects. “My dues are to be given, and in the meantime you are to each play your part according to my plans, my strategies, and I can ensure that we will all be rewarded immensely!”

Some of the more stubborn pawns still shivered, but a few began to actually consider his words, as they should have. He was their rightful leader, after all.

“You each have a glimmer of potential,” Thorax crooned, as connivingly as Epomis larvae, “in both your entirety and individually,” he was magnanimous with his praise, but soon found an end to that, as he wouldn’t want them becoming too accustomed to his generosity. As generous as he was.

Thorax raised a diplomatic foreleg as he continued on. “Chrysalis is yesterday’s message -” he said solemnly, almost as if it was a promise as opposed to a statement - “her failings have undoubtedly presaged our desire for anarchy, and to that beloved dream I say no more! For I am here to reign over our commonwealth with a conscious, calculated vision… I assure you that I will be here, thoroughly regnant. Looking over, and planning our every move.”

Thorax spotted his brother blanching in the crowd, as most of the other pawns all started to nod and chitter approvingly. He’d be sure to promote some of those most loyal to his cause to bishops and rooks, accordingly. Perhaps even knights, if they appeased him well enough.

Pharynx stared over at his tyrannical younger brother, his eyes red and puffy from uncontrollable crying at the ‘loss’ of their mother. She wasn’t coming back no matter how many tears he shed over her; they both knew that.

The rain poured down Thorax’s chitin like oil. “I assure that all of you are sure to succumb to starvation if you refuse to comply.”

A few pawns whimpered. Thorax grinned to himself: they were growing remarkably biddable by the second.

“And to encompass our victory, you must all take my best interests to whatever morsel of a heart any of you have left, and in return I’ll assure your stomachs are never empty! Injustice will be deliciously squared, so stick with me, and you’ll never go hungry again!”

Thorax grinned in immense triumph when a few pawns began cheering and voicing their agreement at long last.

Then, he turned his haunches on them at last, ascended the steps to the throne, and sat, and as he overlooked his new subjects as their sole monarch, the dark storm raged on.

Thunder groaned and winds howled. The bright blue skies had tanned from the rising dust, and the walls of the Hive began to crack and deform.

Chrysalis’ statue was permanently grieved, standing almost centre in the throne room. She could only watch in horror as a portion of her subjects now bore fangs as sharp as swords, and thick holes in their legs. She stared at the puppeteered souls of her subjects through their red eyes, accompanied by new, shadowy chitins of every colour.

All she could do was stare at her contorted subjects, and her harrowed eldest son, unable to embrace or comfort him in his misery. And all she could do was listen to Thorax’s cackle, echoing through her very core.

All the love and light in the Goodlands had long since dissipated, for a monster now sat on the throne.