To Save our Legacy

“My my… what a scrumptious parade of treats keeps trickling into my home…”

Queen Chrysalis, foulest of Equestria’s banes throughout its ample history, laughed a victorious, borderline maniacal cackle from her comfortable place on her throne. Her seat of power was carved from an amorphous mass of rock, as dark as a starless night, taking a shape which, to most creative minds, could somewhat resemble a place where one could park their royal buttocks.

As she wheezed out the last ebbs of laughter and licked her lips with the hunger of a predator, her deep-green eyes took their sweet time to drink in the battered sight of the three sole remainders of our hastily-assembled rescue party, said members shuffling nervously at my sides as unease took hold of their spirit under Chrysalis’ intense gaze.

All our instincts screamed at us to put as much ground between her and us as possible, but the lives of our closest friends and family were at stake here.

I, on the contrary to the unicorn mare and the changeling male accompanying me, remained stone-faced and unbothered by her usual show of taunting. Previous, unfortunate meetings with the changeling race and their Queen had won me the lucky chance to experience a full-on course of ALL the wonders a changeling can muster and excel at using their natural gifts.

It didn't work then, and it wouldn't work now. In her arrogance, Chrysalis was committing the same mistake that she’d done with me in the not-so-distant past. I could already tell, just as had happened previously, that it would be her downfall. This time, I wouldn't be pushed around like a broken toy.

The ponies would thank me later.

Flicking out the grime from under my nails, I allowed her crazed tirade of humiliation and victory-drunken boasting number (her usual handbook) to enter one ear and escape via the other like the annoying buzz of a pesky fly at lunchtime.

She was too high on her own arrogance to even notice. With a mighty buzz of her insectoid wings, Chrysalis holstered herself from her Onyx Throne to hover triumphantly above us and, more importantly, between her newest acquisitions.

Those acquisitions were the main source of my concern and the sole focus of my attention; not the crowned pest reminding us yet again of how petty and insignificant we were under her might and how masterfully and dexterously her plan had worked to ensnare and replace Equestria’s best and most powerful leaders. A move that she assured to us, without a shadow of a doubt, would entail her inescapable ascension.

I sent my sight upwards. There, shining with an eerie glow, a myriad of cocoons hung from the high-reaching ceiling, inside each of them a crucial individual for Equestria’s present and future sleeping peacefully through the storm. Friends, and what I had slowly begun to call a family of my own, each remained motionless within the viscous fluid of their sac, hanging helplessly as their bodies writhed every now and then with the contents of their forcefully induced dreams.

Chrysalis finally took a respite from her victory speech to notice how I was, in fact, not bothering to counter a single word that came out of her fang-filled muzzle. Her eyes followed my own as I scrutinized each pod in search of a glimmer of damage any of my friends might have endured under her treatment, an arduous task since the translucent shell of the pods only barely allowed me to single out the outline and bellowing wisps of manes and tails as they floated inside.

Chrysalis needed nothing else to connect the dots and come up with her usual whipping commentary. “Ah… yes.” She purred, a tender caress of her underhoof over the pod containing Luna accompanying her words. “The bonds of love. Such a sweet, delicate thing...”

Her predatory pearls zeroed back onto mine, calling for my undivided attention as she buzzed between the pods, coming to hover near one in particular.

“They were deeply worried about you, Alexander. Some more so than others, but…” She sheathed her wings under the elytra, grasping with her spindly, holed legs on the pod like a spider to a web, wiggling it back and forth for a moment while bringing her face close to it as her serpentine tongue came out to lick its slick surface. “This one. This one had loooots of love to give. Would you know anything about that, human?”

“M-My Queen, please…” The ever-shy and skittish Thorax, ‘reformed’ changeling card under his belt, as he’d come to claim when seeking us, and our main guide through the labyrinthian guts of the Hive, stuttered meekly a step or two behind me, trying miserably while knowing well that his Queen was beyond reason, especially whilst dealing with a traitor like him.

Chrysalis acted as if he didn't exist, and I followed her lead. What little love I held for the changeling and their kind as a whole prevented me from giving a rat’s ass about his state.

The Queen held on tightly to the pod containing the mare who I most cherished in this land of ponies that I‘d been stranded in. A pony who, at one point, had hidden a terrible truth and driven me to being mere moments away from strangling her with my bare hands, but whom thoughts of now had become a rollercoaster of emotions as I rethought much of what made me human, and of my upbringing on Earth.

Twilight’s alicorn outline swayed slowly inside the pod, her wings partially unfolded in her relaxed state, eyes closed and emotionless, unaware of the monster salivating at the mere thought of another bite from her.

As if I needed any more reason to enact what I was planning to unleash on Chrysalis. My hand twitched with eagerness, but I had to bide my time. I had promised Starlight, after all.

Chrysalis knew what my heart still battled over. She could smell it on her, and most importantly, she could smell it on me.

And she wasted no breath to use it against me.

“Hmm, it seems that this young princess is in luck!” She mockingly celebrated with a buzz of her wings. “A valiant knight in… plain clothes, has… disappointingly, come to her rescue!” She unglued herself from the pod and landed on her four hooves, a miracle at work preventing them from snapping from the number of holes marring their figure.

With an extended hoof, she continued. “Pray tell, what does this brave knight and his pitiful party have planned to stop me?” She half asked, half demanded, making sure to glance back at our two trapped companions, who had sacrificed themselves to the changelings tailing us through the caverns so that we could make it this far. Starlight’s fearful eyes were fixed on Trixie while I cast a passing glance at the languid form of the Lord of Chaos. If it weren’t for the Onyx Throne and its magic-stealing properties, Discord alone could have handled this rescue with a snap of his fingers. Chrysalis had played her cards well bringing us to her terrain, upon which she believed she now enjoyed a home-field advantage.

“Release them at once, Chrysalis!” Starlight demanded, heart-wrenching worry for her newest friend of misadventures fueling her resolve and erasing any trace of the quaking in her legs. “Thorax has learned the truth of friendship, and he will share it with all of the other changelings!! And, once they see it for themselves, you’ll be done fo-mmmph!!”

A greenish aura sealed Starlight’s lips shut, followed by a startled buzz from Thorax and a sickly groan from the changeling Queen.

“Ugh, utter another word and I’ll regret having gorged myself on all that love...” A hoof flew to Chrysalis' muzzle as she somehow managed to turn even more green. “You ponies and your ‘friendship’, blegh.” A flash of her crooked horn turned the hold on Starlight’s muzzle into a temporary seal, rendering the mare speechless for the sake of the Queen’s delicate stomach.

I knew she was putting on an act. She must feel so proud of herself before going to bed.

I felt a hoof frantically tugging at my jacket’s sleeve. I peered down at Starlight’s borderline-panicking orbs as she pleaded with them the words she couldn’t blurt out of her sealed muzzle.

That seal could’ve been around her neck for all I cared. That mare deserved everything that befell her. Why couldn't she have been one of the ones to be kidnapped from the beginning instead of one of my friends? At least it’d make me care the slightest amount.

… Nah, I’d allowed her to play her little number to her heart’s content, and I was now growing weary of her shameless boasting and comically villainous cackling. Thorax had his own task of trying to convince his brothers and sisters of the light he’d discovered while we dealt with Chrysalis. Good luck with that. And Starlight wasn't looking too fresh herself to tackle an ancient and powerful creature like the Queen of the last remaining Hive on Equus was. It was up to me to buy the time necessary for the wake-up call and subsequent rebellion Thorax had envisioned.

A shame I didn't care nor need his side of the plan to work for mine to come to fruition.

I felt it was time to step in. “Three warnings, Chrysalis,” I reached behind my back, a mask of tranquility on my features as my fingers coiled around the butt of the crossbow attached to the holster running over my shoulder, a mirror one draped above the other holding the gun. “Let them go.”

The bug Queen lost her theatrics to address me, almost excited that I’d finally broken my silence.

“Hive Mother, he speaks!!” She guffawed, her changelings following in tow, filling the throne room with an unnerving chitter that gave me a nasty case of goosebumps. “And here I thought the ponies had got your tongue!” She buzzed into the air to land closer to us, still keeping a generous margin but close enough for me to follow her serpentine tongue as she licked her long fangs. “Ah… I missed that voice. Oh, the sweet things you’d sing to me when we played together. I can’t tell if I’m more thrilled by my conquest or that you’ve returned to be by my side!” Her eyelids narrowed with a devilish smirk. “I told you that it was only a matter of time.” She purred.

“Let them go.”

Two warnings had now been sounded, yet Chrysalis wasn't deterred in the slightest. On the contrary; the moment she noticed the crossbow was in my hands, she cracked up into another bout of guffaws, her children following the silent command to join her in a deafening cacophony.

I didn't need it to be big or menacing, only reliable. I only had one shot.

Tensing the string until a *click* saw it fixed into position over the trigger, I reached behind me again and fished for the dart in my pants’ rear pocket. Removing the protective casing over the needle tip with my teeth, I patiently placed it into position over the wooden frame while Chrysalis continued laughing her wings off.

“Mmmmph!!” A vigorous shake of Starlight's head, pleading with me to stop, while Thorax tried to reason with the closest changelings to us, failing miserably under the roar of their mocking. Up in the ceiling, our friends twitched in their pods, ears darting back and forth, almost as if the sound of insectoid-like laughing could breach through their deep slumber.

I ignored the unicorn’s pleas and forcefully nudged her away on her rump, my knuckles cracking as I gave a hard squeeze to the frame and holstered the crossbow up, my right eye fixed in the carved sight, aiming straight for her chest.

“Let. Them. Go.”

Three.

Noticing the darkening of my tone, Chrysalis brought herself down from her high. Squeezing in a few last laughs in that creepy, overlapping drone of her voice, the changeling Queen quickly took notice of the weapon pointed dead at her. Her eyebrows knitted themselves into a glare as the mirth evaporated from the throne room, leaving an eerie silence only breached by the occasional buzzing of restless changelings.

“FOOL!!!” Chrysalis was done with her little game, bringing herself aloft to hover just in front of the agglomeration of glowing pods, gently disturbing them with the rapid flap of her insectoid wings. “I’m starting to think I squeezed too much out of you. You must be impaired if you think you have the slightest chance of defeating me!!”

She opened her forelegs wide to encompass the totality of her triumph. “ALL of Equestria’s greatest figures, leaders, or ANYCREATURE that might pose a threat to my ultimate claim!! I am now the sole ruler of Equestria!! You, ponies, are mine to feed upon and obey me for the rest of time!! My children will run free and URRGK!!”

‘Hmm, a bit too high, but it’ll do.’

In her bragging, Chrysalis had failed to catch the dart flying straight towards her. I’d aimed for her chest but I’d instead ended up striking her in the left side of her long neck, the sharp sting making a tangle of her words on her tongue and forcing her into a rough landing on her side as her hooves unsteadily tried to claw at her own throat.

An ear-piercing hiss echoed through the ample cavern. As if a switch had been flicked, the mass of changelings surrounding us from all fronts lost their collective glee for their Queen’s mockery and replaced it with threatening snarls, their pointy fangs flared, dripping foul droplets of paralyzing venom in readiness.

Chrysalis needed a few attempts to find and dislodge the dart from her tender chitin. Sparing it a venomous glare, she tossed it onto the floor of the cavern before swooping down to stomp it to smithereens, sending that very same glare towards me.

“You hairless freak!! Do you think that’s all it will take to defeat me?!!”

“... I guess not,” I replied nonchalantly, discarding the now-useless crossbow somewhere behind me, allowing myself a brief smirk when I heard it bonk against an unsuspecting changeling's head. “Although I almost believed I did. You were all ‘arrgh! urrgk!’ and all that. One can only guess what happens the day you get stung by a bee.” I mimicked her choking gestures with my hands, sticking my tongue out and giving her back a bit of her own medicine, adding even more logs to the Queen’s roaring inferno.

Virtually foaming at the mouth, Chrysalis looked ready to lunge and tear me a new one, yet I could glimpse how, at the last second before going for the pounce, a strange taste filled her muzzle, her hissing tongue coming to hide behind her lips to better discern the sudden invader.

‘Fucking A, it’s working.’

“W-What was that?” The pathetic squeaks from Thorax fell on deaf ears as I waited for the tense seconds to pass until Chrysalis had concluded her self-exam. She had nothing to worry about though where her life was concerned, yet her flames were not appeased by that fact.

“... Did you seriously just try to poison me?” Chrysalis seethed, letting go of the weird taste assaulting her taste buds to grant me her full attention once again.

“Beta-enriched endosulfan. Banned in two-thirds of Earth’s countries, last time I checked.” I put on my ‘professor glasses’ and explained in short. “So, you tell me.”

“You mindless moron!!!” Chrysalis exploded once again, wings flared and held up in defiance. “I am a changeling Queen! The blood of ALL Equus’ creatures runs through my veins! No poison in the world can kill me, for there is none that I can't counter!!”

“Kill you? That’s what you think I’m trying to do?” I fired back, almost sounding offended.

Chrysalis reeled back slightly, surprised by my bluntness while the Hive watched attentively.

“What kind of monster do you take me for?! I’m not trying to kill you!!” I brushed her accusation to the musty air while pointing up to our trapped friends. “I’d never hear the end of it from them if I killed you! Jesus fucking Christ!”

Chrysalis could only blink owlishly, a gesture mirrored by Thorax and Starlight at my sides, the latter still trying and failing to remove the seal around her muzzle through non-magical means. It was in moments like these that you became painfully aware of how actually useful magic can be, and this was coming from someone who in theory wasn't supposed to be able to use it at all. That had led me to make use of… creative approaches to deal with the Changeling Queen. The hate and resentment I felt for that spawn of Tartarus was beyond measure, but the lives of our closest friends and family were at risk. Cool heads must prevail above anything else.

That didn't mean, though, that I couldn’t return the favor.

“No no… god, it won’t kill you… It will just render you sterile. Forever.”

If the previous silence was deafening, now it felt as if the air had been sucked from the room, leading us to ponder in a vacuum. Her eyes narrowed to pinpricks, her breath hitching at her throat. Once again, she knew that I knew, that I knew that particular fact about changeling physio-anatomy I’d become introduced to after a thorough research session on their kind. The bane of all colony-based species. In their game of chess, if you strike the Queen, all roads after lead to checkmate.

And none of her shape-shifting capabilities would save her from the curse of her own biochemistry. The fun things you learn at college!

“Sooo, yeah, no more egg laying for mama bug. Your egg factories are now officially as dry as the wastes around us.” The joke was on her now, and you can bet your ass I was gonna milk it for all it was worth, not giving a damn about the color slowly draining from her face.

“It's beta-enriched too! So good luck trying to find a species to shape-shift into that’s capable of fixing that mess. You wanna know something else cool about it? It targets the limbic system, producing endocrine and hormonal imbalances, which means…”

I made a number of hard sniffs several times while running my sight across the countless minions waiting for a command from their queen. Funny thing… they wouldn't be getting one, at least not through their special way of communication.

“T-The smell…” Thorax was the first to voice what the Hive was slowly coming to realize, countless changelings shifting in their places while a new clarity of mind slowly settled within them. “It’s gone!”

“Y-You…” The broken sound of Chrysalis' voice dragged me back to her, a hoof coming to rest on her underbelly while her horn flashed a few times, confirming what I had been taunting her with.

The only difference between her threat and mine was that my threats weren’t empty ones.

“Me?” I pointed at myself with an innocent pout.

“What have you done?!!” She demanded with a snarl, yet the smallest twinkle of an unsheathed tear in her eye filled my heart with more resolution than a thousand miraculous rescues ever could.

“Uhh, have you been listening to a word I’ve just said?” I was drunk on the desperation that slowly consumed her.

With a cry of utmost fury, she boomed commands at her children.

“KILL HIM AND TAKE THE ANTIDOTE!!!”

“...”

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!!! TEAR HIM APART!!! YOUR QUEEN COMMANDS YOU!!!”

“You see,” I answered for her changelings, who looked at their siblings left and right with puzzlement, not obeying her orders of murder while unsure of why they actually weren’t dancing at her beck and call. “Everypony thinks your children obey you out of sheer fright. Some even go as far as to claim mind magic is the reason. But I know how you bugs work, and all those special things you guys can do that fly over us poor vertebrates.”

With my most devilish smirk, I took half a step back to pat Thorax’s head, the poor ‘ling as confused as his siblings.

“So now, you’ll have to do as the rest of us do and boss your way around the old-fashioned way. Do you feel like tearing me apart, Thorax?”

Thorax fixed his compound eyes at me, muzzle opening and closing like a fish out of the water, for that was exactly how he was currently feeling. For the first time in their collective story, the drones weren’t being subjected to a Queen’s influence. It was never about magic, at least not without obliterating a drone’s mind in the process. The actual reason why all the magic-based attempts to disrupt their hierarchy had failed. Until now.

Thorax had already experienced a taste of true independence when he’d spent so much time away from the Hive. He’d discovered that his nature wasn’t one of pure, mindless evil and that the permanent thirst for love that befell his kind since their dawn didn't make him a monster by default. A trait of his species that was no different than the hunger any creature feels regardless of their place in the food chain, and that as a rational, sentient being, he could find a compromise to sate it.

But that day, at that precise moment, he became something more. The changelings surprised themselves when the compulsion to obey, the rage that filled each and every bone they didn't actually possess banished in a flicker, leaving only the empty screams of an enraged creature they had never had the chance to call anything else but their ‘Queen’.

Their Queen was issuing an order, and they were having doubts.

A glimmer of hope shone in Starlight’s eyes, her sharp mind clicking with my intentions.

“Mmmmph!!” She nudged Thorax, breaking the spell that kept him mumbling like an idiot, ushering him to get a move on with his side of the plan.

“I-I… I don’t…” But the poor ‘ling couldn’t utter a word that could sum up what he was experiencing.

Chrysalis ran her sights around the room frantically, searching for a glimmer of obedience, yet all her children remained in place, now peering at their ruler with puzzlement, and even a hateful look or two amongst the crowd, instead of their standard blank expressions.

The changelings were waking up, and she was losing control.

“CURSED HUMAN!!” She sent her wrath at me. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!!”

“What?” I chuckled, shrugging my shoulders. “Your special throne sucks up all magic, remember? A man’s gotta get creative with those odds.”

“I WILL KILL YOUR FRIENDS!!! I WILL LEAVE THEM WITHERED HUSKS AND USE ALL THAT LOVE TO DESTROY YOU AND YOUR PRECIOUS PONIES IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME THE ANTIDOTE!!!”

Her threats were sound and clear, enough to make your average pony piss themselves and flee with their tail between their legs. Alas, to ashes they turned when my turn came to fill the throne room with loud, obnoxious laughter.

“Oh my god, Chrysalis! I thought I’d been clear about this already!” I wheezed out between cackles, patting my knee while the Queen shed the green for a delicious shade of red.

“DON’T YOU DARE MOCK ME, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF…!!!”

“There’s no antidote, Chrysalis,” I replied in short, freezing the Queen in place as if lightning had struck her. “I never bothered creating one.”

Reaching back, I took hold of the gun’s butt and slid the holster so it could hang in front of me at arms reach, feeling that my little ‘joke’ had fanned the flames beyond the brink of reason.

With a measured step forward, I took in the image of the room before once more glaring fixedly at the bug whose world I’d just shattered, whose future I’d just condemned to the darkest pits of Tartarus. It was a waiting game now, only a matter of time. For me.

“An antidote is what a pony would do, Chrysalis. That's what she proposed, in fact.” I pointed back at Starlight, whose deep shock was a product of her ignorance of a lack of said antidote, for I had reassured her I was carrying one with me.

Oops.

“And still, knowing that I would come to their rescue, you’ve made the same mistake as you did the last time we met.”

It was that day, under the watchful eye of a thousand and one changelings, that I brought to heel one of Equestria’s oldest enemies.

“I am NOT a pony.”

“Dead, because of you.”

“...”

I was in a cloud. But… not in a cloud, like a pegasus would be, all snuggled up in silky, refreshing comfort, letting the cool, vaporized moisture sap the bothersome heat of a hard day’s worth of weather patrolling. I was in that cloud where evercreature runs to hide after the worst of news is delivered to them. That place where we all find shelter from reality, when the feeling of our limbs fades away, leaving the drum of our breathing and the blur of the tears masking the horror in front of us.

A thunderous battle erupted in my mind, jumpstarting the old cogs into an emergency recollection of what I’d just learned, and just saw with my own two eyes. In my detached state, I could only find one logical conclusion that would explain what my eyes were feeding me.

‘... This is a trick… She’s trying to trick me. She’ll…’

Masters of illusions changelings were... but only to a point. I’d experienced first hand their mind tricks and learned the painful way how to tell apart dreams from reality. This was no trick. The bony-thin, rotting corpse resting within my arms, with its foul smell and empty eyes, was no trick. The countless bodies of the last remains of changeling kind, granted a new hope in the light of our rescue, a second chance to rise up as the proud race they deserved to be; were not a product of my imagination.

‘... It’s a trick. I-I have to wake up. I h-have to…’

Ocellus' eyes, lacking eyelids as it was for her kind, peered behind me into the nothingness for the rest of eternity. Her body, slick with the gooey substance that would preserve them inside the pods, threatened to slip in my feeble grip as my body rocked and crumbled with every sob that betrayed my delusions of a trick being played on me.

Dead. They were all dead. Chrysalis wouldn’t need smoke and mirrors this time to destroy me. She just needed to show me the fruits of my labor. My work. My sins.

My legacy.

“Look at her, Alexander.” Chrysalis remained close, silently drinking in my pain with gusto, yet any semblance of satisfaction remained closely hidden behind her mask of pure hatred. “Look at them!”

I felt her telekinetic grip around my head. She could’ve snapped my neck with a flick of her horn if she‘d wished to. Instead, she dragged my attention from my old friend to the hundreds of remaining pods, still disturbed as were their hosts. Unmoving, silent, gone.

… They were looking at me.

‘W-W-Wha…?’

I couldn't see anything beyond the blur of my tears. I couldn’t hear anything beyond the beating of my pulse in my ears, but their screams…

‘... murderer!!’

‘so hungry…’

‘YOUR FAULT!!!’

‘... our friends…’

‘... freedom…’

‘... he promised…’

‘why…?’

With a startle that froze my blood solid, I dropped Ocellus' remains with a wet plop and scurried away from it like injured vermin, heart beating a mile a minute, a gloved hand rising to grasp it and keep it in place once I’d achieved sufficient distance. Her painful wail hammered my ears, filling me with a sensation I cannot describe.

She was dead, her body draped over the cold stones like a rag doll, compound eyes fixed at me, lacking the spark of life, yet tearing at my soul.

‘N-No… it w-was not… It's not…!!’

“Do you hear them, Empyrean?” Chrysalis’ question bounced around the silent cavern, sending her eyes up as I clenched mine shut, covering my ears like a child afraid of the barking of a dog, clenching my teeth hard as I struggled to keep the ghosts at bay. “Their pain echoes through the Over Hive to this day. It drew me here after I was free from that cursed stone prison.” Her green, haunting orbs fixed themselves over me, speaking with the hatred of countless lost souls. “They curse the freedom you granted them. The freedom to starve to death when the world cast them aside, when your promises took root and your vision became a reality.”

“S-S-Stop. P-Please…” I begged with a whisper, down on my knees while the wails of the dead drowned me, summing a pressure on my chest that threatened to cave it in. They were looking at me, from their hanging tombs they peered down at me with ire. I could feel it, even with my eyes closed, I felt their gazes burning a hole in the back of my neck. Goosebumps crawled all over me, my senses screaming and short-circuiting, unable to cope with this new reality.

They cursed my name, then called for my head. My life's goal, my gift, for everycreature.

‘I’m s-so sorry! Please, PLEASE NO MORE!!!’

A sharp pain sent me unceremoniously back into the waking world when my hands were forcefully torn from my ears. My teary vision was then filled with a changeling Queen glaring centuries worth of resentment straight into my soul.

“Demands? From you?!!” She boomed, fangs coming close enough to my face that I could almost feel them piercing my skin.

I couldn’t have cared less about the survival instincts making a ruckus out of my troubled mind. Something inside me broke, making me shake like a leaf.

I answered the only way I could. The only way I knew.

“It… It’s n-not my f-fault...”

A rivulet of filtering water leaking from somewhere in the ceiling, counting one, two, three heartbeats before the thunder…

“... You DARE!!!”

A telekinetic wave launched from my crumbled, defeated position on the ground, sending me on my back a few meters into the throne room. A sharp sting numbed my injured shoulder, quickly followed by screaming alarms from the rest of my wounds, some halfway through their healing process opening wide again and staining my already filthy clothes with blood.

“Fuck!!!” I clutched my throbbing shoulder, feeling as if a thousand needles were being jabbed in unison over it while my fingers became stained crimson with blood. But my true concerns lay on Chrysalis, foaming at the mouth and two pinpricks as eyes as she quickly caught up with me, murder intent oozing from her every pore. My survival instincts kicked into gear once again, this time screaming at me loud enough that I’d better get some footing under me, or she’d rip me to pieces and feed them to a tatzlwurm.

Doing so clumsily like an infant during their first steps, I summoned Binary to my hand, having forsaken it beside Ocellus’ corpse in my startle. Chrysalis had another idea in mind. Just as I could feel its leathery grip on the joined handles at my wetted fingertips, she cast a quick telekinetic shove, sending them off course to bounce against the stony ground. I was rendered without a chance to resummon them as the very same magic took hold of the neck of my shirt, pulling me against my will towards her open jaws.

“You will NOT run away this time, human!!” She screamed at my face as her dominating presence and stronger magic brought me down to my knees. “I brought you here so that you could face the consequences of your acts!! So you could experience ALL the pain your actions brought to my children!!”

Powering my gauntlets, I sent an energy wave between us, buying me some much-needed distance between her dripping fangs and my exposed neck.

“I brought them nothing!!” I fired back in ire, frustration, shame, and soul-wrenching pain; all building up in a feedback loop inside of me and breaching through, making my temper grow in the blink of an eye. She wasn't gonna bully me around! Not again!!

I spoke with hurt since my mind still reeled from the ghostly wails that haunted me from beyond the grave. “Nothing but the chance to decide for themselves!! A future away from you!!” I used the precious moments she needed to shake the stupor from her to re-summon my weapon to my side, angling it towards her in preparation for the showdown. That’s the reason I’d traveled there, after all.

“A future?! What future?! This?!” Chrysalis’ focus returned to the lifeless pods once again, pointing a hoof up in emphasis. “Is this the future you wanted for them?! Was it not enough when you robbed me of the chance to have more children?! Was it all part of your plan?!!” Her horn crackled with greenish energy, forcing me to change my stance to a defensive one. “First you rob us of our continuity!! And then spit out false promises while you watch with your forelegs crossed as your precious ponies starved my children to death!!”

Chrysalis let go of her magic, taking flight as emerald lighting flew straight against my shield. I was beginning to regret having given Sunny my pendant. I sure felt that one, and the accumulated exhaustion from my long journey wasn’t helping me make a proud standing.

The lighting crashed against the shield, my defenses holding if only barely, bouncing them around the curvy outline of the shield to rain upon the walls of the cavernous room. Some found home in the numerous pods tightly clinging to the walls, the strength from their caster enough to make the gooey prisons burst out like water balloons in a haunting show. Viscous slime, pod tissue, and bodies rained down from the heavens around us, painting the place in a disgusting show of gore. My stomach churned, the pungent smell empowered me a hundred times over now. But I couldn't let it distract me if I wanted to spare myself from a world of pain.

“It’s not my fault!!” I reaffirmed my stance, having to yell it so that I could cling to some semblance of belief for my own claim. I was no fool, I knew deep inside; but I was blinded by soul-crushing shame. I simply couldn't see it then, nor I would I give her the satisfaction. “I stood true to my promises! But I cannot change the hearts of ponies!! We tried, for MONTHS!! We couldn't understand what was going on, why Opaline words found rooting so strong, so fast!! We tried, Chrysalis!!”

“Oh, I know you tried...” She rebutted with unnerving calmness, not batting an eye to the rain of gore coming to an end around us. “I could hear you and your precious Twilight butting heads over it while going to the Garden of Statues for some privacy. I could smell the desperation taking hold of you slowly, day after day, dead end after dead end. You tried, and you failed, Empyrean. Nothing but a selfish, misguided creature who should’ve never been brought into this world, too blind in his ambition to see how his touch poisoned the ponies he had come to love until it was too late.”

I felt something snap inside me. Balling my hands into fists to the point my gauntlets threatened to snap, I countered her accusations the best way I could…

Agreeing with her, for she was right.

“Selfish?… SELFISH?!!! Of course I’m selfish!!! I’M THE MOST SELFISH BEING ON THS FUCKING PLANET!!!” I sent a hand up into the air, LIMstone facing forward for her to see. “This!! Is me being selfish!!” I fished my smartphone from my pant pocket and showed it to her. “This!! Is me being FUCKING SELFISH!!” In a fit of rage, I smashed the phone against the stony ground, the force enough to tear it apart into a pile of useless junk.

Not a single blink betrayed any trace of a thought that Chrysalis might’ve been mulling while I felt I was about to turn into a volcano, simply watching me lose my bearings with the tiniest of smirks denoting her satisfaction.

“I made friends with ponies because I was selfish! I learned their culture, their ways, and customs. I learned to wield their magic, because I was selfish! I fell in love with a mare, a MARE, and fucked her every single day afterward because I was selfish!! I took a crown on my head and a blast through my heart because I was selfish!!”

In another fit, I dug Binary into the ground, the sharpness of the lunar blade enough to cut stone until almost half of it had disappeared into the blackened rock littered with moss-filled cracks.

“But I’ll tell you the same thing I told that mismatched freak of nature!” I pointed a very accusing finger at her smirking form. “You do NOT give me morality lessons. Equestria’s most disgraced bane does NOT speak to me about being selfish!! I know very well what I am!!! And I tried nonetheless, every single day for TWO YEARS, I tried!!! We all tried!! But they would not LISTEN!!”

A few silent seconds passed while I regained my composure. With a flick of her tail and a loud snort, Chrysalis turned tail and brushed my fit off like a foal’s tantrum, trotting towards the west side of the room, continuing with her speech while not even bothering to address my demand. “This is not about your pathetic attempts to rein Equestria back into the herd. This is not about that demented alicorn spitting a venom deadlier than mine could ever hope to be.”

She came to a halt in front of where her throne once stood, all traces of it and the dangerous meteoric stone it was built upon erased from this world after the changeling insurrection. “Own it or not, this is about you, Prince of Knowledge.” She fixed her rage-filled orbs on me from over her shoulder. “Knowledge. That's what you brought, what you gave away like free candy. Information, ideas, and ways of thinking. Everypony wanted a piece of the cake! Then everycreature!! It gave you friends, power, recognition, a THRONE!!”

Magical power spilled out of her like a waterfall. In the blink of an eye, the pile of rubble that had collapsed over the gap in the wall, which previously had hosted a beautiful garden to help the changelings forget about the dark throne and the Queen who presided over it, was blown to smithereens outwards, cascading down the side the cliff to squash trees and some unfortunate critters foraging around it.

Pure, clean air rushed greedily inside the cavern, chasing away the gloom and humidity, the stench of death and decay, and lit up the room in the gorgeous colors of a mid-day sun. My lungs filled up with the gift of delicious mountain air, the need to gag and barf my last week's meals in a single go disappearing alongside the stream of whispers, as if the light could chase the ghosts back into their graves.

Peace of mind settled within me, not erasing the turmoil of negative emotions targeted towards myself that clawed at my resolution, but at least dulling them for a few precious seconds.

Chrysalis took a breather, her head dipped upwards the slightest amount while her mane and tail bellowed against the cool breeze rushing in. She extended her wings and let them sway in the air as her elytra relaxed at her sides. She bought a few, silent minutes to contemplate the scenery that once saw her hasty departure after rejecting Starlight's peace offering.

Making my best effort to ignore the countless dead changelings still surrounding us and forcing the hurricane of vile into a deep corner of my mind, I took a few tentative steps towards her, Binary at the ready for the slightest twitch that might come from her.

Yet the refreshing breeze blowing from the west seemed to have cooled down her ire. Still admiring the scenery from our vantage point, she remained true to her word and resumed our ‘talk’. She had a few more loving things to tell me.

“... You should have stayed dead.” The wind carried her words.

“... I know.”

“You had no right to be granted a second chance. Not for this, not for all the suffering that came with it.”

Her words stung fiercely, yet rung true as day. I would take the blows I deserved, I was practically numb to them already.

“... I know.”

“You don’t belong in the Game.” Her emerald eyes sought mine from behind her mane. “You’re undeserving of being called an Empyrean.”

“You’re part of the Game too.” I felt the need to remind her. “You’re an Empyrean, just like I am.”

Chrysalis snorted hard, returning her sight forward as her tail flicked with the remainder of a sour memory.

“Was. You can thank ‘long horns’ there for that.” She nudged her head towards the general direction of Thorax’s grave, a new Empyrean to guide the changelings through a new era of change. “Now, I’m free to be whatever I want. No cutie mark to twist my soul. No Element to chain me down. Whatever I want...” The sweet aroma of the surrounding nature filled her nostrils, inviting her for a long, deep breath by the time I had caught up with her.

Keeping my blades close but losing my defensive stance, for I felt that a short truce had been silently agreed upon. I had caught up with her, coming to stand over some loose rocks by her side, graced by a sea of green as far as the eye could see. I was amazed then at how fast the changelings worked to restore nature around the desolate wastelands that kissed their Hive from all four cardinal points. A small smile graced my lips knowing their efforts had not been in vain. A small, minuscule reprieve to sugarcoat the fact that they were all dead now, their kind gone from Equus sans the changeling standing by my side.

“... What are you now, Chrysalis?”

“...” With a sharp intake, her wings twitched with uncertainty alongside her tail, yet her sight remained fixed on the horizon, and no word was uttered as Chrysalis mulled an answer over.

“... I’m done.”

Unsure if I had quite heard her right, I twirled on the balls on my feet to fully face her.

“You’re what?”

A coy smile stitched her narrow muzzle.

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me.” She spoke in a low tone filled with resignation. “My children are all dead, and I can’t bear it anymore, thanks to you…”

I shivered with the amount of spite her words carried, yet soldered through it as I felt I deserved.

“... So, what’s left for me besides living whatever years I have left free of Harmony’s yoke amongst the dead bodies of my children? I’m not even in the mood to conquer that sorry excuse of a town you call home now.”

Leaving me behind with the word on the tip of my tongue, Chrysalis buzzed her wings and hovered back into the gloomy interior of the throne room, seemingly satisfied with watching the few brave enough birds that had built nests on the top of the Hive returning with food for their chicks.

I babbled like an idiot into the air until I heard the clatter of his hooves on the ground behind me. Chrysalis NOT in the mood to conquer a bunch of defenseless ponies and feast on them?

Tartarus would freeze over first.

Not liking her tone one bit, I left the vantage views behind and chased after her, finding her lying on her belly like a concerned mother would do for a sick or upset child. Only her child was now a pile of rotten flesh and bones, being out of the preserving pod fluid accelerating the process to a vomit-inducing demise.

But Chrysalis was unbothered by it. She wore her motherly side on her sleeves, a trait I strongly believe only I had had the privilege of witnessing during the first time she captured me. With a hoof, she brushed Ocellus’ dorsal membrane, a gesture of love and reassurance whose receiver would not be able to enjoy.

The clatter of my boots bounced over the walls one last time before coming to a halt beside the two changelings. The voices were gone, but the sight was no less harrying. I felt tears sting in the corner of my eyes as soon as they settled over the poor ´ling. Such a precious creature, a true gem amongst her kind even before their change of ‘rehatching’. A top-grade student with a brilliant future. I remember when we spoke about her future plans after graduating from the School of Friendship. She had claimed her sole purpose was to learn as much about friendship as she could and bring all that knowledge back to the Hive to help everything in turn. I couldn’t have sympathized with her more at the time, and when the time came for her and the rest of her friends to wield Harmony where the Elements couldn't, saving me and Starlight from that demented filly, my heart couldn't bear more pride for them.

“You don’t need to worry about Tirek or that derailed filly anymore.” Chrysalis' sudden comment shook me out of my melancholic daydreaming. “We became free at the same time. We were very weak, and I was very hungry. Not that they had much to give…”

“For Faust’s sake...” I rubbed my temples. I was genuinely surprised by her recollection, yet couldn't bring myself to feel any semblance of pity for them, not after what they’d done to me.

“Don’t act like you’re not thanking me on the inside.” Chrysalis sent me a knowing side glance, yet a shadow fell over her features. “... I never wanted things to go so far…”

A sharp exhalation was all I returned, torn on the inside about how I should feel about this new revelation, although the predominant feeling of lightness after closing prematurely another potential future issue to deal with overpowered them all.

“Lucky you, then.” She resumed after a few more delicate strokes. “You get to close that chapter, and I get to close mine.” Her emerald orbs sought mine, wordlessly speaking of an intention I had dreaded was plaguing her thoughts.

“...”

In the silence that befell us, she snorted as if a bad joke had landed in her ears.

“Please, we both know what you really came all this way here to do.” Her gentle petting returned, a striking contrast to the offer she had planted on my feet. “One of us isn’t trotting out of here, and it just so happens that it can't be you, can it? No, Harmony still has a use for her little toy. After all the destruction you have brought to her precious ponies, one can only wonder what it is...”

“Dammit, Chrysalis!!” I cut her off, a hurricane of conflicting emotions tearing at me from all directions. Did I want this? I had dreamt about it, the moment I could pay them back for taking my life. But this… like this… now… here of all places.

My hands twitched, my mind running faster than my thoughts, itching to claim revenge, powergems humming and depowering in rapid succession as the summoning spell for Binary bit and clawed to be cast.

‘I… I… I c-can’t. Not like this, I… They took my life!! She took my life!! She captured me, tortured me, raped me for days on end!! I should’ve torn her throat open a while ago!!... B-But…’

“Oh, Hive Mother above…”

“Chrysal-offf!!”

The changeling Queen’s intentions were clear, and she was going as far as easing it for me, using her telekinesis to rip Binary from its holster on my back and forcing it into my chest.

“Just get on with it, human. I’m not part of the Game anymore.” She demanded with lidded eyes, not a trace of fear or second thoughts in her. “My place is with my children. Wherever they are, I’m going to teach them what happens when they backstab a Queen!!” She spit out behind clenched jaws, catching herself by surprise a moment later. “My, I am a spiteful bitch. Isn't that what you kept calling me?”

“SHUT IT!! FUCK!!” I screamed to the heaves in a fit of rage, but Chrysalis was not the target of it. “How can you play it so easy, huh?!! You didn't call me here so that I could murder you!!”

“I didn't.” She replied in short, her attention back on Ocellus’ gaunt remains. “I called you here to talk, and we’re now done talking. Now, you do what you came here to do.”

“I won’t!” I stubbornly refused again all my better instinct, firmly digging Binary into the stone to loom over the changeling Queen. “Both our hands are soaked in enough blood as it is! I won’t have you too on my conscience! I won’t give you that satisfaction!” I pointed a hand toward the wide opening at the end of the cavern. “If you want out so badly, you can do it yourself!!”

Chrysalis followed my pointing hand and back to me, a little, unnerving smirk gracing her lips, almost making me jump the gun and act on her proposal.

“Why, you were so eager to do so before! You can do it now, human. Or you can do it after I strike your loved ones down.” Her smirk grew into a toothy smile. “They won’t see me coming, will they?”

With a battle cry leaving my lungs, the sun-scorching tip of the solar blade was at her throat before I could blink, a wisp of smoke rising from where it brushed and singed her chitin. Only a little nudge, and I’d slice her head clean off like warm butter.

She didn't make a move, not a single twitch of a muscle, just a neutral face and peace of mind, her neck head slightly angled upwards so as to ease the blade’s path.

I understood then. This had been her wish all along. Had Harmony not foiled my initial attempt to end her once and for all, she would’ve been dead meat by now. Chrysalis hadn't made an attempt to defend herself or avoid the blade. Just taunt me so that I could get on with it faster.

‘Do it! Do it, you motherfucker!! Why are you hesitating now?!!’

My chest raised and fell with my heavy breaths, my arms receiving conflicting orders, keeping Binary rooted in place. All it would take was a little nudge, a tiny push and the solar blade would slice some important artery or another, and a long-lost thirst for revenge would be finally satisfied.

Our staring contests dragged on during the tense minute where a tremendous internal struggle took place inside me. Do it. Don’t do it. Revenge. Murderer. Deserving. Monster…

In my peripheral vision, Ocellus’ empty eyes landed on mine once again, her head carefully cradled in Chrysalis’ forelegs. Angry tears now rained freely down my cheeks, my teeth clenched hard to the point I felt I’d chip a tooth. Animalistic growls thundered in my chest as I fought and struggled to drive the sword the few centimeters I’d need into her neck.

‘FUCKING HELL!!! DO IT!!!’

…

…

…

I couldn’t do it. Not like this.

My arms twitched, and for a second Chrysalis thought I’d made up my mind, closing her eyes and accepting the end. Ten seconds passed until she realized the stinging burn in her neck hadn't become a sweet release. Cracking an eye open, she found me having taken a step back, twinblades harmlessly pointed down while a cacophony of sobs shook my body from head to toe.

She sighed deeply, almost in a bored manner.

“Do I need to beg you? Is that what’ll take?”

“Come with me.” I returned on a completely different note, not believing the words coming out of my mouth but unable to stop them. “Come with me to the Bay. I can help you there. I’ll find a way to fix you. You can start again somewhere, be a proper mother this time.”

Chrysalis’ slitted pupils widened in surprise, also not believing the proposition I was laying at her hooves. It was me doing the begging this time, begging for my most despised enemy to park her delusions of a quick getaway from the world of the living and come with me to a place where I could cure her. I knew I could do it, with enough time and resources I’d fix that terrible curse I had inflicted on her so long ago. I would pay the changelings back in kind for what I did to them, an insignificant part, true, but one that would ease the weight on my heart.

Why in the seven layers of Tartarus would I offer this chance to Chrysalis, the one whose more revenge-driven dreams have starred in my sleep?...

“Please…” I stretched a hand in a peace offer.

... Because it was what my friends would do, old and new. What Twilight would do, what they all would expect me to do.

I could no longer trust myself to make the right decisions. I couldn’t trust my own reasoning, born from either logic or pointless revenge, cold logic or burning emotion. I could no longer tell the difference.

I kept on slipping.

‘You are not a pony, Alexander.’

No. I am not a pony.

Chrysalis' sight was fixed on my offering hand, mouth partially opened in surprise in light of such an alien proposition, undeserving of a being like her. I could see the gears churning in her mind, and for the briefest of moments, I thought I caught her hoof leaving Ocellus to seek mine.

A trick of my own mind, for her head fell down to poor Ocellus’ once more, tears of her own dripping over the rotting flesh of the young changeling.

“... It’s too late for me.”

“Changelingkind DIES with you, Chrysalis!!!” I boomed between the moments my sobbing would grant me. “If not for you, for them!!”

Chrysalis didn't follow me as I pointed upwards to the countless pods, her focus remaining on Ocellus’ vacant eyes.

“We don’t deserve to be remembered. In the nightmares of colts and fillies…” She mused loudly, her mind made. She lost her half-holstered position to fully lie down, cradling Ocellus’ body against her own. She closed her eyes and waited patiently.

“Just make it quick… Or don’t, I don’t care anymore.”

Once again, she had played me into a corner. Once again, she’d go out with her victory over me. Once again, she would torment me in my sleep.

I had come to finish the job.

Dropping Binary like dead weight, I fell on my knees and cursed the goddess herself, bumping my fists hard until my legs had become numb. Tranquil breathing rocked Chrysalis’ body, as if she had already fallen asleep to never wake up.

Blurred by countless tears, I dragged myself close to the pair. With gentle care, I took Chrysalis’ head and cradled it into my lap. Tendrils of dark and purple danced around the gems of my gauntlet when I powered up, but I ignored them, charging a spell at the tip of my fingers which I placed on her temple.

“For all it’s worth now, I’m sorry. For everything.”

Her apology drove the definite hit to break me. Biting hard on my fist, I closed my eyes and cried, cried for the injustice, for the pain, the regret. Two monsters, regretful, entangled in an old dance coming to an end.

Another life taken by my hands, a payback claimed. Satisfaction was the last of the prizes.

“... I’m sorry too… So sorry…”

Cradling her head against my stomach, I took a deep breath and fought to steady my concentration. Her breathing remained calm and even in face of the approaching end. She wasn't afraid; she welcomed it.

She'd be with her children again.

“Goodbye, Chrysalis. Be free.”

With a low hum, the gems of my right gauntlet filled up with the necessary magical enemy. A blue of light glowed faintly at the tip of my fingers, pressed lightly against her temple. Feeling my soul being torn to pieces, I whispered the word, and let go.

“Letta.”

The spell fired. Her neurons shone inside her head for an instant with the same light. And then…

One last breath and the last remaining changeling was gone.

“...”

My cries of pain and anguish filled the Hive one last time.