King Thorax stood and looked up at the stone edifice that was once his queen. Though his own transformation had made him taller, she would always seem larger than life to him. Even if he shapeshifted into a massive bugbear, she always made him feel like he was an inch tall. Her stone face was frozen in her final moment, her expression was fierce and unyielding.
"A fighter to the very end," Pharynx said, standing beside his brother.
"You admire her?" Thorax asked, though it wasn't really a question. It was something they both plainly knew. He had no doubt of Pharynx's unwavering allegiance to the hive. But if given the choice in leadership, well, his older brother never lied about his preference.
"I admire her purity," Pharynx added. "A survivor. Unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." He ran his hoof along the contours of her stone body. "Her structural perfection was matched only by her hostility." He looked at Thorax. "You said she can hear me?"
Thorax nodded. "Princess Twilight said that they can."
Pharynx sighed wistfully as he put his hoof to her cold cheek. "What I wouldn't give to have been your consort just one more time..."
"Even after everything?" Thorax asked. "The hive is better now, it's thriving. We no longer depend on hostile raids, or live in fear of starving, or in fear of her!"
"You lived in fear of her because you were weak!" Pharynx said. "You could never have competed to be her suitor. You didn't have to slay dozens of other competing warriors for the honor, the privilege of being her mate! Our father was long overdue to be replaced! His weak spawn failed in Canterlot. And when I choked the life out of him, there was only pride in his eyes. And also blood. Probably more blood than pride. And then MY progeny took over all of Equestria! Until you and Starlight ruined everything."
Thorax pursed his lips. "The hive is better now. Even you can't deny that!"
"But for how long?" Pharynx said. "That's the problem with you as king. You can't see but five minutes in front of your nose! Yes, times are good now, but for how long!?" He looked back at the statue and caressed her cheek again. "That's why Mom was such a great leader. She had foresight. She understood that our comfort in our ways led to complacency. And thus, failure. But she knew the hard times after the failure in Canterlot would lead to hard changelings. Strong changelings would lead to good times."
"We have good times now without the need for strength!" Thorax said. "With diplomacy, and cooperation. Our breeders incubate eggs in willing volunteers. The grubs have never been healthier! Haven't you heard the expression that the pen is mightier than the sword?"
"I'm sure that was written by someone with a pen," Pharynx muttered. "And when the fat and decadent are cut down by the hungry and strong, their history will not be in any books. The lesson that the weak should fear the strong is stained into the dirt of bloodied battlefields for ignorant weaklings to forget as they dine on the fruits of the strong!" Several other Canterlot tourists backed away from the ranting changeling. "Yeah, cross the street so you don't have to deal with me, coward!"
"Sorry, sorry about him!" Thorax apologized. "He's just being a grumpy grub. Pharynx, this is why I can't take you anywhere, you're embarrassing us!"
"I'm embarrassing us!?" Pharynx scoffed. "Look at you. Look at us! Look at what we've become!" He shook his head. "I'm going home. I can't bear for Mom to see me like this anymore. Enjoy your stupid peace summit!" Pharynx flew off.
"Hey! Peace summits are important!" Thorax shouted after him, quite certain that his words fell on deaf ears. He shook his head and turned to walk to Canterlot Castle. The guards greeted the familiar guest and let him inside. He navigated the halls from memory towards the throne room. But as he neared, there was a flurry of activity. Messenger pegasi were rushing out of the castle by the dozens.
In the throne room, the princess's assistant, Raven Inkwell was duplicating scrolls by the stacks and Spike the dragon was practically hyperventilating dragon fire to send the scrolls off to their remote destinations. Princess Twilight herself was surrounded by advisors who were all frantically waiting for her directions.
"Princess Twilight?" Thorax asked.
Princess Twilight Sparkle gave him a strange look before remembering why he was there. "The peace summit is cancelled," she said curtly before grabbing a scroll from Raven's pile and throwing it at him as politely as she could amid her panic. "The world is about to be destroyed! Our astronomers have spotted a giant asteroid on it's way to crash into Equestria."
"Are you sure?"
"Do you think I'd be this panicked if I wasn't sure about something!?"
"Uh..."
"Yes, I'm sure! It's been quadruple checked by three other observatories!"
"Well, you're an alicorn. Why don't you just use your magic to blast it out of the sky?" Thorax asked.
"We're talking about something the size of the Crystal Empire! Yeah, I'm powerful, but I'm not that powerful!"
"What about Celestia, or Luna? I mean if they could move the sun or the moon, maybe they could move it, or block it with the moon. Can't Discord just... snap it out of existence?"
"Oh, you mean the most obvious suggestions that every advisor has already given me, as though that wasn't the first thing we tried!?" she snapped at him. He took a step back. "Look, I'm sorry. But we've tried everything. Even Discord's power has limits. He's probably taken Fluttershy and vanished to his dimension. And... once I'm done sending out these scrolls, I'm leaving to go to the Crystal Empire myself to spend our final day with my family."
Family
"What about Chrysalis?" he asked.
"She's not invited."
"No, I mean..." Thorax sighed. "Could you please release her?"
"I'm sorry, is the world ending not bad enough!?"
"Well, if the world is ending anyway... then how much damage can she really do?"
She looked dubious.
"Look, I don't know what awaits us after... the end. If there's an afterlife or what. But I want to give her one last chance. I want to give my mom one last chance to be reformed."
"She doesn't deserve it."
"Is that for you to decide?"
Twilight set her jaw. "... You're a better son than she deserves." He didn't waver. She clenched her eyes. "This is an exceptionally bad, and stupid idea," she said.
"I'm well aware," he said as she drafted up the spell scroll.
She finished writing the spell and rolled it up, and placed a sealing amulet on it. "This should release her from the stone, but keep her from being able to use her magic." She held the scroll to him. "Straight back to the hive, and keep her there. She's your responsibility! Any harm she brings will be on your head! And mark my words, Thorax, whether it's in this life or the next, I will fight through Hell to exact justice! Is that clear?"
"Crystal."
She gave him the scroll and he left the castle. Outside, the news was rapidly spreading and the ponies in the streets started to panic. But as fast as the anarchy arose, it started to fade as most ponies ran home to be with their loved ones. After all, there was no point in looting if you can't take it with you.
Standing in front of the statue of Queen Chrysalis once again, the streets of the city had become eerily quiet. He held the scroll and started to have second thoughts. "Maybe you don't deserve another chance," he said, looking at her trapped in stone. "But I don't think you deserve this either. So maybe keep that in mind when you wake up."
He placed the scroll against her and broke the seal. Her stone form glowed and cracked and melted away, releasing her from her frozen repose. She fell forward before she caught herself and glared at him. In a flash, her muscles flex and she lunged at him with an angry snarl. He caught her with his magic and she was helpless to resist without her own.
"It's nice to see you too, Mom."
"Bastard! You worthless grub! I should have stomped your egg when I had the chance!"
He shook his head. "Such ingratitude. After everything I did to save your life."
"Spare me your self-righteous pity!" Chrysalis spat. "I had it all, and you took everything from me! You and that whorse, Starlight!"
"The only thing I'm taking is you, back to the hive," he said as he started walking out of the city with her in his magical tow. "They will decide your fate, if you are worth reforming, or forgiving."
"Why even release me from the stone if you're just going to kill me?"
"Because despite everything, you remain, irrevocably, a changeling. You fate should be decided by the hive, not the ponies."
Chrysalis almost felt proud. It quickly passed. "You are no king. A king does not suffer the will of his subordinates." Denuded of her magic, she was helplessly pulled along. "This is undignified for both of us! If you're going to kill me, just do it already!"
"No."
"Ever the fucking coward," Chrysalis goaded. "Too afraid to carry out the sentence, yourself?"
Thorax thought he knew what to expect, but even he was at his limit. He turned on his heel and growled at her, "Listen Mom, if it was up to me, I'd-"
Suddenly, a beam of light appeared around them and they started to drift up into the air. Looking up, they could see a huge, mysterious craft hovering above them. It pulled them inside, dropping them into a loading bay and the hatch closed behind them.
They both screamed at each other, "What did you do!?"
Looking through the massive view window, the world below them seemed to fall away as they accelerated up into the sky, yet they felt no movement. The door leading into the loading bay opened and two bipedal creatures walked in wearing matching jumpsuits. Their faces were obscured by respirators. They each carried colorful toy guns.
In his shock, Thorax's magic hold on Chrysalis faltered and she lunged at the creatures, attacking them with her hooves and fangs. They squirted her with their squirt guns and she hissed in pain as the acrid-smelling chemicals stained her carapace. But it didn't have the stopping power they had hoped. She pushed through the pain and landed her attack, sending one flying across the room with her kick, and biting the other, literally dis-arming it.
"Get us out of here!" Chrysalis snarled at Thorax.
"Me!?"
"I don't have my magic, you idiot!"
"Uh, okay... follow my lead!" Thorax quickly shifted into the form of one of the creatures and grabbed Chrysalis by her horn, pulling her along towards the exit. The door opened before he got there, and four more creatures walked in, looking at them.
"Uh... I got her!" he said. The creatures looked at the two bodies on the floor, at each other, and back at them. As the ship moved further away from Equestria, Thorax's magic failed along with his disguise. The creatures sprayed the two of them down with their chemical squirt guns, sending them into writhing spasms on the floor.
~
The two changelings were barely conscious as they were carried down a narrow hallway and dropped off in an enclosure. With almost double the dosage, Chrysalis was much slower to recover. She looked up at Thorax standing over her as she slowly regained consciousness. She looked around the room. There was nothing. The room was a box with four walls, one of them being a transparent floor-to-ceiling window.
On the other side of the window was a hallway. Across the hallway, she could see a similar enclosure with the floor covered in mud and a pond in it, resembling a swamp. Two large cragadiles rolled around together in it. To the left of the swamp enclosure was another enclosure, grassy, with a pair of large spotted dogs. To the right of the swamp was another room that appeared to still be empty.
In the hallway between, there were a few of the creatures from earlier observing her and Thorax.
She slowly got to her hooves.
Thorax took a deep breath. "Well, now that you're awake, I was hoping that we could-"
Chrysalis screamed and lunged at the window, beating against it with her chitinous hooves as hard as she could, bearing her fangs and snarling at the creatures on the other side. They didn't even blink as the robust window barely even made a dull thud from her hooves.
Thorax sighed. "Yeah, because I didn't already try that."
She turned and glared at him, redirecting her wrath. She leapt onto him and started beating him mercilessly as he screamed in pain. A panel in the back wall opened and another raid team rushed in, spraying them down again.
~
Chrysalis slowly opened her eyes some time later. She looked across the room at Thorax in the opposite corner, only barely more awake than she was. Outside the window there was no creatures to see her this time. She stood up to finally kill him once and for all. She tripped and fell forward, arrested by her hind legs that were bound together, or rather apart, with a heavy metal bar locked to the holes in her ankles. The bar was, in turn, was chained to the corner of the wall behind her. Undeterred, she pulled at the chain with all her might. But the links held fast, only letting her reach half-way across the room. She thrashed and screamed with impotent rage.
Thorax got up from the corner where he was recovering and was able to move about the room freely. However, he took care to stay on his side of the room, out of her reach. He nervously waited for her to calm down. Though he was reasonably sure that she couldn't break free, he couldn't know for sure until she finally gave up. At least for now.
"Are you done?" he asked. She refused to look at him. "Well, now that you're awake, again, I was hoping that we could-"
"That we could what!?" she hissed at him.
"Talk."
"You really are worthless!" she spat. "Not even a desire to escape!?"
"Obviously I want to escape," he said. "But first we need a plan."
"The plan is to get the fuck out of here!" she said.
"That's not a plan, that's a goal," he said. "That's just it, it's not your leadership, it never was. It was your attitude. It was that brazen attitude, your hubris that cost you Canterlot!" She sneered at him. "And don't even try to blame that one on me." He scoffed and shook his head. "Pharynx thought so highly of you. Like you were this great, infallible tactician."
"Thought!? Don't act like he doesn't now!"
Thorax lifted his hoof. "Oh, did you not hear the news? Did you not hear the panic in the streets before I freed you, about the world ending? I don't know how long we've been in this room exactly, but if it hasn't happened yet, it's going to very soon."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "...I don't believe you."
He shrugged. "It doesn't matter if you believe me or not. I hope it's wrong. But it changes nothing for us, in here. Either way, I don't want to be in here. Especially not with you."
"The feeling is mutual."
"Then can we at least work together on escaping!? Then once we're out of here we can go back to hating each other."
Chrysalis growled through her grit teeth, "Sounds dandy."
"..."
"Okay, here's the plan," she said, "you shapeshift into one of them again, and don't fuck it up this time. You act like I've taken you hostage, and when they come in here to save you, we jump them and you grab the key to get me free and then we kill everyone!"
"Even if Equestria hasn't been destroyed, we're too far away. We have no magic. We can't shift. So... what's plan B?" he asked.
She stared at him.
He stared at her.
"... Fuck!"
Hours passed. The lights went out. Hours passed. The lights turned back on. Hours would pass. Days would pass.
"Is this what it was like being trapped in stone?" Thorax asked, from his corner of the room.
"This is worse.
"Because you're stuck with me?" he asked.
She snorted. "It's not just that. In stone, I didn't have to feel the hunger."
He looked over at her. She had always been very lithe. But she was skinnier now than he had ever seen her before. She looked emaciated.
A group of the alien creatures walked through the hallway. Among them were smaller versions, moving from window to window to look inside excitedly. The little ones looked at Thorax and waved. He waved back politely and they smiled. He crouched down to their level and one made a circular motion with their hand. He rolled over onto his back like a kitten and the creatures giggled.
"Why!?" Chrysalis complained. "Why are you debasing yourself to them like that!?"
"They love it," he said. "And it feels good."
Chrysalis watched the little ones moved over to look at her side of the enclosure. She lunged at the window and snarled, striking the window with her hooves and biting at them with her fangs. They little ones recoiled behind the taller ones and the group moved on. Thorax frowned. "I'm just saying, you get more love with honey than vinegar."
"Give me your love!" she demanded. "Or so help me, I will gnaw through my ankles while you're asleep, crawl over there, and rip your ovipositor off!"
"Well, gosh, how can I say no to loving you when you're being so romantic?" he deadpanned.
"...You're really going to sit there and watch me starve to death?" she asked.
"As if you wouldn't forcibly drain every last bit of love from me if you had your magic."
"If that's your goal then why haven't you just killed me already? Why not leave me in stone?"
"Because, as you've said many, many times, I'm a fucking idiot!" he yelled. "Because some stupid part of me thought you were worth the effort. Because I'm a naïve fool who still believed that maybe, just maybe, before the world ended, that you could stop being a fucking monster for just one day and just try for once in your life to be a decent mom!"
"..."
"Because despite everything that you've done; to Equestria, to the hive, and to me to make me hate you... There is still a part of me, that I can't stand. A part of me that still... doesn't hate you." He didn't say the word, but in that moment, Chrysalis felt it. The tiniest sliver of the emotion that his guard let slip. It was barely a morsel of love, but to the starved queen, it was a sumptuous banquet.
Her first impulse was to say something disparaging. To agree that indeed, he was an idiot, a naïve fool that would have allowed her back into the hive. Had he succeeded, she would have easily fooled him into believing that she had been reformed. She would have even mimicked their new, garish appearance. And then once she had their trust, she would have usurped him and taken back what was hers. But none of that mattered anymore.
Her eyes drifted to look at the swamp across the hall. The door in the back opened and several of the bipedal creatures entered the room with poles and rope to wrangle the cragadiles, pulling them away from the guarded nest while another handler swooped in and collected the eggs from the nest.
Chrysalis looked at the spreader bar on her ankles, and then at Thorax.
"I know how we get out of here."
Thorax laughed at her. He would have laughed in her face if he wasn't so sure she'd try to bite his off.
"No!"
"Yes!" she insisted.
He repeated louder, "No! In fact, fuck no! Why would I ever agree to do that!? I'm not giving you the satisfaction! To say nothing of the fact that as soon as I even get close enough to do that, you'll try to break my neck!"
"And I'd still be chained to a fucking wall!" she snapped. "How would your death profit me at that point!? If you don't trust me, use your eyes! Look!" She pointed across the hall at the cragadile eggs being collected, and at the spotted dogs humping each other like... well, like dogs. "Two animals in every room. Breeding pairs. Look at me!" She pointed at the spreader bar on her legs. "It couldn't be any more obvious what they want!"
Thorax pursed his lips. "Fine. Let's say you're right. And let's pretend that you won't kill me the second I get close enough. And in the incredibly unlikely event that I trip, and fall, and become brain damaged enough to agree to start a new hive with you. Without non-changeling seed or host, we'll only produce sterile drones."
"It doesn't matter! Once I lay, they'll come in here to collect them and that's when we escape!"
Thorax pointed at the wranglers with poles and lassos on the cragadiles. "You don't think they'll be expecting that? I really don't want to get sprayed down again. That shit burns!"
"It'll be worth it," she said. "Even if you don't get out, one or both of us can mount one of them and get a few eggs in them!"
"I think they'll notice having eggs inside them," he said clutching his belly. "I still remember how it felt when you used me as a vessel."
"Even if that doesn't work, my drones will still be loyal to me. And they can help us escape from the outside."
"Like the eggs won't just end up hatching in a secured room like this? There's no way that'll work."
"You have a better idea?" she asked.
He looked over at the enclosure across the hall as the creatures left with the eggs. "Obviously not."
"Then get over here."
"No." The lights in the enclosures turned off and he laid down to sleep.
Thorax sat in his beach chair, looking out over the shimmering water of Horseshoe Bay. He pressed his legs into the soft sand and reached over to grab his drink. A hoof touched his and he looked over at his mother sitting next to him. Chrysalis had bumped her hoof into his as they both reached for their drinks. She put her hoof into his and he held hers. They looked into each other's eyes to the sound of the surf and tropical birds.
"This is nice," he said.
"I love you, Thorax."
"I love you too, Mom." They each picked up their piña coladas and tapped them together. She set her drink down and got up her seat to move over to his, straddling his lap. "Mom!?"
"Shh," she put her hoof to her lips as she ground her hips against his lap, coaxing out his penis. "Just drink your drink." She reached down and guided his dick inside her.
Thorax brought the glass to his lips, but felt a drop on his cheek. He looked up at the clouds as a drop turned into a sprinkle. He laughed and caught the raindrops on his tongue as they were caught in the rain.
Thorax licked the raindrops from his lips as he blinked awake on the metal floor of the enclosure. He felt more droplets. "Wha? Rain?" He looked across the room.
Chrysalis sat on the floor with the spreader bar behind her head, along with her ankles as she played with her pussy. She grinned and flexed her pelvic muscles, carefully aiming her next squirt to arc across the room onto his face again. "Pleasant dreams?" she asked with a coy purr.
"Wha? Mom! What are you..."
"Oh? Did Pharynx never tell you about my royal jelly? I figured giving you some of my concentrated pheromones would help make you a bit more... agreeable," she said, looking at his rigid erection.
Thorax stood up, if a bit too quickly. His head felt like it was spinning. His lips and tongue were tingling. His penis was painfully hard. He tried to walk but stepped into a puddle of slick royal jelly. He slipped, stumbled and fell face first into the puddle, smearing his face and much of his body with her potent secretion. Even if he hadn't already ingested some, there was enough seeping into his carapace to paralyze him with chemical lust. His semen glands ached with fullness.
She righted herself and stood up. She watched him writhe and fruitlessly hump at the air. "He should have also told you that this time, that won't go away with just your hoof. It needs to absorb my special secretions from deep inside me." She turned around and leaned her front half to the floor. The spreader bar kept her hind legs wide apart for him with her ass in the air and her tail moved aside. "So the only way to get relief is by putting that exactly where it's intended to go."
He stayed where he was on the floor, refusing to even look at her as he grit his teeth.
She turned back around and looked down her nose at him resisting. "Do you think what you're doing is brave? You aren't special. I've had proud lovers before. Those who resisted being dominated, and put into their place, where they belong, under my hoof. In my thousand years reign, none have succeeded. Even your dear brother, brave, tough Pharynx, was little more than a quivering puddle of a grub before me, begging for his queen to straddle his face and give him more of my sweet nectar."
"You aren't even the first traitor to the hive," she continued. "There have been other dissenters before. I dealt with them thusly. Chained them to the hive wall and smeared their faces with jelly. Then I'd masturbate, or take a loyal lover if the mood strikes me, and make them watch while their ovipositor gets no relief. As I understand it, the pain just gets worse and worse. Until eventually it kills them. But they usually go insane first."
He just groaned on the floor.
"Not that I'm especially looking forward to carrying your brood. But I suppose we all must make sacrifices," she said as she bent over again. "For you, that means having the best sex of your entire, pathetic life. Now get on your hooves and walk over here. Mommy has a belly full of eggs that she needs basted."
Every muscle in Thorax's body was as stiff as his dick as he stood up on shaky hooves. One hoof stepped in front of the other as he was pulled along by an invisible force. His eyes never left the dripping teardrop shape of his mother's glistening vagina. It was like looking down the barrel of a gun held by the most erotic creature in the world, beautiful and terrifying. He reared up to mount her. She moved away and turned suddenly, rolling him to the floor and squatting over him.
"Ah, ah!" she chided. "Your dick isn't getting near those eggs until I feel you tongue-massage them!" She sat on his face and he laid there without resisting. "Look at you..." she teased. "Just laying there and taking it like just another nectar fiend, already addicted. Do you want more?" she asked. He nodded. "Do you want Mommy to squirt in your mouth?" He already had most of his tongue inside her pussy. She grabbed him by the horn with one hoof as her other played with her pussy. "Beg for it! Say the words!"
"Please squirt in my mouth, Mommy!"
She grinned and flexed her hips, squirting a big gush of her royal jelly, filling his mouth. She planted herself down on his face again, waiting until he swallowed before letting him breathe again. The more he got, the more he wanted, completely and utterly in her thrall. She brushed her hoof along his drenched cheek. She looked at his vacant, unfocused eyes. "You didn't really think Pharynx was so loyal to me because of my charming personality, did you?" The question slid right off of his cum-drunk brain.
She got off him and resumed the position, bent over with her legs spread. "Now get up here and fuck me!" He obediently did as he was told, like a good little subservient slave. He mounted her and slid his dick inside, the tip getting just the barest taste of relief from the depths of her vagina. It only bolstered the signal to his glands to go into production overdrive. She would drag him through hell before he got to heaven.
His hips thrusted with earnest desperation, driven by a need to cum unlike anything he had ever felt before. The texture and temperature of her pussy was almost supernatural. It felt smooth and textured and hot and cold all at once. He felt rippling pressure come in waves threatening to pull him deeper. Any fear he felt of her pussy sucking it right off was overridden by an insane desire to let her. He wanted to cum so badly, he had been sure he would have gone off instantly as soon as he stuck it in. And the more he fucked her, the stronger that feeling became. And yet release would not come.
She could feel him growing more agitated as he fucked her. His glands would be near to bursting soon. Which was exactly where she wanted him as she purposefully withheld her final secretion for his release. "Do you want to cum inside Mommy?" she asked.
"Yes!" he yelled in desperation.
"Beg!"
"Please Mommy! It hurts so bad! Please let me cum inside you!"
"Are you going to be a good boy and promise to do what Mommy says from now on?"
"Yes Mommy! I Promise! I'll be a good boy!" Chrysalis shivered and willfully released her nectar.
"Cum for Mommy!"
Her secretion washed over his dick. The chemical signal rocketed up his dick to his swollen glands. He screamed out loud as he came, shoving his dick as deep inside his mother as he could, dousing her massive clutch of eggs with each thick spurt of his seed, ensuring every single egg was thoroughly coated for maximum fertilization. "I love you, Mom!"
Chrysalis felt a warmth rush over her, sating her hunger at once. The feeling swirled through her body and settled into her belly, along with her son's semen, feeding the eggs. A faint green glow emanated through her translucent abdomen. Thorax staggered backwards, and tumbled to the floor as he pulled out of her. She turned around and grabbed him with her hoof, pulling him close to lay beside her, cradling his head against her distended belly.
"Tell Mommy how much you love her," she cooed.
He wrapped his hooves around her and nuzzled against the eggs inside her. "So much! I love you so much!"
She purred as her belly flooded with more warmth. They might only be sterile drones, but they would be mighty strong when they hatch. Stronger than their father, certainly. They would be a fine restart of a hive. At least until she could get ahold of a suitable host to lay some proper breeders inside of. But until then...
"I suppose I'll keep you..." She held Thorax close and kissed his forehead. "... for now."
