Dawn of the Changeling

The final moments of the Canterlot invasion continued to play in Chrysalis's mind. The feeling when she overpowered Celestia. The moment when her changelings brought her the Elements of Harmony. The thought that her victory was secured. Then, the worst memories played. The shield of love pushing her and her swarm out of Canterlot. The torment of loss when victory seemed so near. She could hear the screams as her hive cried out in pain. Each individual voice an echo of the swarm's failure, her failure.

Now, her world was a void; an abyss as black as her heart. Nothing existed in this void. The pain that her body was in continued to become less of a sharp throbbing and more background as she faded from existence. This blackness didn't scare Chrysalis. It seemed that her time in this world was over. Death was sure to overtake her, that much Chrysalis knew. Death was unavoidable and something that every sentient race has to deal with.

Other memories flashed in her eyes. The first time she took a disguise. Her first meal that she caught all on her own. The confirmation of royal blood in her. Her own coronation as Queen. The memories, while clear as day, felt like dreams; they nothing more than reminders of a past that didn't feel like her own. It was as if life was a dream and death was just waking up.

Death is supposed to mean the end. If it is, then why did all of her memories seem fake? Nothing seemed real. Even the events earlier today faded away.

Her body felt a chill. Death had finally come. Would it be quick and painless, or would she suffer? What happens after death? What would happen to the swarm now? These thoughts flew around in her head; all valid, but with no answers.

All of these questions were drown out by the sounds of an ocean crashing against a cliff face. The sound consumed her thoughts and gave her a headache that threatened to burn a hole in her skull.

In one final rebellious act, the queen had one final thought: one that filled her body with a new life, "Is this the end? No, I refuse to give up so easily."

The sound of crashing waves slowly became background thought as the Chrysalis became aware of the rest of her body. It was cold and every conceivable thing hurt. She couldn't feel her wings though, which led her to believe that they had been removed from her body and that said body was in so much pain that it was impossible to tell what hurt worse.

Lacking the will to open her eyes, the queen tried to stand. She failed miserably and continued to lay there on the cold surface. Breathing hard, she tried to figure out what went wrong with such a simple task. It took her several minutes to catch her breath. This time, she went for something else. Her eyelids felt like stone and just to open them required a power that she struggled to summon enough energy to open them. It didn't take more than a peek for Chrysalis to know that something was wrong.

Her eyes shot open and the pain that once filled her body numbed as adrenaline flooded her system. In a nanosecond, she was pushing herself to her feet. She then fell down again because her body was different. Where there was a hardened chitin before there was now a soft fleshy material that was a pale tan in color. Her body in general resembled a Minotaur's, only without the goat legs. If anything, it was a cross between a Minotaur and a monkey. It lacked fur, but had the monkey's general appearance with the Minotaur's height.

This new found revelation did little to calm her nerves. If anything, it put her even more on edge. The only good thing now was that she was fairly certain that she was bipedal. Forcing herself to stay calm, the changeling turned monster attempted rational thought, "Okay, I'm not myself anymore. Lets just hope this is a bad dream. Now how do I walk. I remember how Minotaurs walk, so maybe it's similar."

Using her arms as balance, Chrysalis forced herself onto her feet. It was a new feeling. The queen thought she could conquer anything now. This little accomplishment spurred her to try to walk. As a changeling, you have to get used to different was of walking and presenting yourself depending on the species. While her first steps were unstable at best, Chrysalis thought that she had gotten the hang of it.

The concrete jungle that Chrysalis now stood in was a maze. Towers of engineering marvels were sprawled out in every direction. The changeling queen had never seen anything like this. Canterlot was a big place, everyone knew that. This place made Canterlot look like Appaloosa, and that scared the queen. What kind of super genius species could build such a technological impossibility? Even more importantly, where are they? The metropolis was deserted of life as far as Chrysalis could tell.

"Hmm, why would these things decide to pack up and leave? I don't like this." Chrysalis muttered.

As if to put her nerves on edge, a gust of cold air picked up and blew against her bare body. Shivering, Chrysalis bolted to the best of her ability to one of the nearer structures and shoved the door open. Once inside, she slammed the door back into place.

The room's floor appeared to be some sort of tile and parts of the ceiling were stained in a dark red. This definitely wasn't a home as far as she could tell. This assumption was reinforced with an old desk sitting at the far end of the room.

"Probably a reception hall. Pity I won't find anything of use to me here."

Chrysalis approached the desk. There was something on it. A flat metal box with some sort of glass on one side. The purpose of this box was unknown, but the pieces of plastic tubing caught her eye. Following them, she found out that they led to another box, but this one was bigger. Deciding that it wasn't worth her time, she searched the rest of the oak desk. Most of the drawers were filled with meaningless things like pens and pieces of paper. There was yet another box like the one on top of the desk, only this one was smaller. On the back of it was wrote iPhone. Chrysalis did not know what such a thing was, so it she didn't really care.

Other things included a cylinder about 15 centimeters long that had a button on the bottom. When pressed, the opposite end emitted a beam of light. There was a bag on the floor with a grey design and made of a nice, slick material that was filled with beauty products. Again, that did not interest Chrysalis so she dumped them onto the desk. An L-shaped piece of metal with a piece of metal coming out around the curve caught the queen's eye. This thing also had a button on the side that slid down another piece of metal in a rectangular shape that had little metal objects inside of it. Not knowing what it did, she put the thing in the bag.

Still didn't find food or water. That disappointed the queen as she was thirsty. Sniffing the air in a blind hope of finding something to eat, she learned that her sense of smell wasn't as good anymore. It also told her that there was something rank in the floor above her.

Pulling out the cylinder and putting the back over her shoulder, Chrysalis moved up the stairs and next to the door. Closing her hand around the doorknob, she mentally counted to three. She yanked the door open and what she saw disgusted and frightened her on a level she had never experienced before.

At least she wasn't hungry anymore...