Stanley stared at the battered creature as it lay weakly on his couch.

Stanley considered his home a rather nice one.

It was a cozy, one bedroom house with all of his necessities covered. Brick, with stone inlay and a uniquely designed thatched roof. Stanley had poured quite a bit into his home, although a number of other things had suffered for it; it was something that he was willing to live with, though. Everything had a tradeoff.

Stanley was also mildly frustrated that the insectile creature was positively dripping all over his new couch. He said nothing, however, only busying himself with a towel to dry himself off – and the entire time, the damp changeling watched him closely.

“… What?” he asked eventually, wiping the rain from his hair and face. “You just going to stare at me? Cut that out, it’s creepy.”

Instead of answering, the four legged ‘alien’ glared hard at the towel he held limply in one hand for a long moment. After a few seconds, a glimmering spark of vibrant green zipped over the tip of her jagged horn, and Stanley watched with a sizeable amount of surprise as the towel in his hand was roughly jerked through the air and into her open hooves.

He couldn’t quite tell, but he could have sworn that the thing was giving him a look of smug satisfaction.

“… Okay. O-kay,” Stanley ran a hand through his hair, the sound of rain beating on the roof filling his ears as it picked up strength again. “So, the unicorn alien has telekinesis. Okay.”

“E sola, nomo sibala ti noka dey?” she turned sharply to him, wincing when her one broken leg and crumpled wing shifted.

“Shhhhit, that is not English,” he let out a long breath, thinking heavily. “I mean, obviously it’s not English, you can’t even tell what I’m saying.”

“E sola, bakrasa shak no ti, tzun taka! E sola, e sola!”

Stanley couldn’t help but stare at the creature in dim surprise, vainly attempting to decipher its odd language. During her shouts, she occasionally switched between what sounded like odd pops and whistles, and a couple of whinnies.

“Yeah, great,” he interrupted the furious changeling after a little while, placing a finger into the air. She seemed to catch his meaning, and fell silent momentarily – still just as enraged, but silent. “Say, it’s kind of late. Or, early, maybe,” Stanley glanced at the watch on his wrist for a bare second before immediately forgetting the time. “Tell you what. Hold that thought, I’m gonna go get some coffee, Vicodin, and a shit ton of vodka. Don’t run off.”

Even though she didn’t seem to be speaking English, Stanley could have also sworn that she understood that he had just poked fun at her. Her glare was nearly burning a hole in his back as he walked away.

Queen Chrysalis sat in silent fury for the longest time while the two legged buffoon bumbled noisily about, glass tinkling loudly together for a while as he busied himself.

After a while, Stanley finally returned and dropped into the small armchair across from the couch. He clinked a couple of mugs of coffee down on the small coffee table between them, which the changeling only stared at.

“Right,” Stanley rubbed his temples for a little bit. “So, just going over this, because the Vicodin isn’t kicking in yet. Fucked up body parts, might have been my bad…” he actually looked a little guilty for a moment before shaking his head. “Speaking what sounds like a cross between bad Spanish and… Greek, maybe?”

The creature said nothing.

“Right,” he continued, taking a heavy swig of his ‘coffee’, which probably contained more alcohol than it did anything else. “Right, and if I call the cops, shit’s going to go downhill really damned quickly.”

Stanley leaned forward, clapping his hands together. The changeling neither jumped nor so much as blinked, her steely emerald gaze locked firmly onto him.

“So,” Stanley ruffled his hair in tired agitation. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

To be fair, it was a very good question.

For nearly a full thirty seconds, they stared at one another without moving. Eventually, the changeling slowly raised a single hoof, inspecting it closely.

“E manu ti noki lo sayaméne, ti e sola?” she asked in what Stanley guessed was supposed to be a sly tone, to which he only pointed at his ear.

“It’s all Greek to me,” he shrugged. “For all I know, you could be insulting my mother right now.”

“Krak-ta lo mayeh, soh na!” the creature bellowed angrily, giving a surprisingly human expression of rage.

“Joke’s on you, bitch,” Stanley snickered, leaning back and chugging his drink again. “My mom’s deader’n a fucking doornail.”

He was halfway through his next swig when a bolt of fiery green pain speared him directly in the chest.

Stanley’s cup shattered when it fell to the floor, splattering everywhere. His throat burned as he coughed and wheezed frantically, slapping desperately at the agonizing hole in his chest that wasn’t there. Upon closer inspection, a hole had indeed been singed through his shirt – on both sides. However, his flesh appeared to be thankfully unburned, which baffled him more and more as the pain gradually dwindled.

He glared angrily at the smug creature sitting before him, who casually inspected her injured insectile wing for a couple of seconds.

“What in the fucking flying fuck just happened?” he spluttered and croaked, coffee dripping down his chin.

“You certainly aren’t very quick on the uptake, are you, vulgar beast?”

Stanley gawked at the creature, hardly noticing when his jaw dropped slightly. Her voice seemed to have undergone a drastic change – and not just because she had apparently switched to fluent English. She spoke with a haunting, nearly echoing and melodic tone. It was almost hypnotizing, and Stanley didn’t like it in the slightest.

“… Okay,” he shrugged again, wiping his face violently. “Okay. This is what I get for mixing drugs and alcohol, not gonna do that again. Okay.” Stanley repeated himself as he fingered the spot on his chest where he swore that a hole should be, shakily feeling nothing but exposed skin.

“If you are quite finished ogling yourself,” the changeling spoke again. “Rise, servant.”

Immediately, Stanley felt his legs yanked upward by an invisible force as he was involuntarily pulled to his feet. He did so with a great amount of surprise, and an even larger amount of swearing.

“Silence!” she barked, and Stanley’s jaw clamped shut. Although he didn’t show it, Stanley was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and for a good reason. “Kneel, servant.”

Again, Stanley was forced to watch as his knees immediately buckled beneath him and he dropped to a kneeling position before the changeling, his mind racing fast.

“My servant,” the changeling hummed, and again Stanley was reminded of an insect’s buzzing wings. “You shall keep a civilized tongue in the presence of royalty… or you shall have no tongue. Have I made myself clear?”

Terrified that the thing would telekinetically rip out his tongue should he fail to comply, and sorely regretting not backing up and running over her again, Stanley nodded violently.

“Very good,” she purred. “Rise, servant. Rise, and speak your name and rank.”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator Tee – eight hundred.”

She unblinkingly replied “If you lie to me again, I will command you to pull off your own ears. Slowly.”

Stanley gulped audibly, straining vainly against invisible bonds that held him in place. Obviously, brute force wasn’t going to work, and he paused after the fourth failed attempt and tried to coerce his panic addled brain into discovering a way out of the situation.

“My name’s Stan,” he said eventually. “Stanley McDonald. Not the clown.”

“… Very good, ‘not the clown’,” the changeling said with a hint of satisfaction that he was at least somewhat complying. “You may refer to me as Queen Chrysalis, empress of changelings and future ruler of all of Equestria.”

“Bet that sounds stupid on a resume.”

“What was that?” Chrysalis’s head snapped toward him.

“Nothing,” Stanley said quickly as the undetectable grasp around him was slowly loosened, allowing him to reclaim his (now damp) seat properly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Queenie, I think I just shit myself.”

Chrysalis frowned at his words, and went back to inspecting her broken wing and hind leg. Stanley probably would have felt a hint of remorse for her if she hadn’t just magically speared him and forced him into servitude. At the time, he was actually hoping that it caused her a great deal of pain, which it seemed to.

“… Well?” Chrysalis snapped eventually. “Don’t just sit there, fool! Your queen requires healing. Get to it.”

Understandably, Stanley gaped at her in mild confusion.

“Uh…” he stuttered at last. “Well… I-I’ve got a first aid kit, uh… in the bathroom.”

“Then obtain the medical devices. Now,” she snapped, as if he were being stupid on purpose. If anything, Stanley was more in a state of shock than anything else. Again, just as before, he felt his limbs jerkily yanking him toward the bathroom down the hall. Stanley silently snapped the bathroom door shut behind him, slowly but steadily falling limp against the door and sinking to the floor.

He ran his hands over his face and the hole in his shirt a couple of times, and shook his head forcefully enough to make him dizzy.

“Right,” Stanley mumbled bitterly through his fingers. “Should have called the cops.”

The longer he sat in place, the longer a stinging sensation began to rise in the spot where the emerald spear had jabbed him – eventually, it developed from an agitating stinging to a painful burn, like a hot poker were being placed against his chest. When slapping it angrily did nothing, he scrambled to his feet as panic began to overtake him again.

“Cease your dilly dallying!”

“Christ!” he yelped as the pain faded, the watchful glare of Queen Chrysalis inside his bathroom mirror where his own reflection should be.

“Did I not command you to move quickly?” the warped reflection demanded, leaving Stanley standing rather dumbstruck.

“Not-not that I remember,” Stanley stuttered while his hand went protectively back over the spot on his chest, and the changeling narrowed her eyes.

“Then move faster, idiot. This pain is horrendous. Now, stop touching yourself and hurry up in there!”

Stanley only bit his tongue and nodded furiously, yanking open the medicine cabinet and turning the mirror away from him. He fumbled around for a bit in a twitchy anxiety, dropping bottles of pills and ointments into the sink as he snagged the first aid kit and dragged himself back to his new ‘queen’.

Stanley deliberately slowly lowered himself next to the sofa where the changeling sat, gradually picking open the plastic box for the first aid kit.

“… So,” he asked conversationally as he tried not to look at her angry glare. “… Alien powers can make towels fly, but you can’t fix busted bones?”

Which, now that he stared at her leg, made him wonder if she even had any bones to break.

She only stared at him hard, frowning.

“My formidable strength is vastly dampened in this… hellhole,” Chrysalis spat as he attempted to forge a makeshift splint with some of the items in the kit, and failing miserably. “If I had any idea that the magical hoofhold this dank pit failed to provide, I would not have given this filthy hovel a second glance.”

“Okay,” Stanley stopped suddenly, angrily resisting the urge to poke her hard in the leg. “Okay, lady. Firstly, don’t talk shit about my house! Secondly, magic? What-?”

He would have continued angrily ranting; Stanley really would have liked to, as it almost distracted him from what was really happening. Instead, however, he found himself unable to speak, as his tongue was no longer in his mouth.

He blubbered incomprehensibly and his eyes widened when his own tongue firmly latched itself to his upper lip, leaving Stanley blowing unpleasantly violent raspberries.

Chrysalis deadpanned at his display in mild disgust.

“Cease your putrid nonsense,” she demanded, glowering at him. Stanley eventually felt his tongue fall, though he had long since lost feeling in it. He rubbed his sore jaw miserably with one hand, rifling absentmindedly through the first aid kit with the other. He wasn’t even looking for anything, Stanley just wanted a distraction from the crazy changeling.

“… Thank you.”

He blinked, unconsciously freezing.

“Uh, what?” Stanley gawked at her, bandaging tape hanging limp in one hand.

“Explain to me how your war machine works,” Chrysalis inspected the bottom of her hoof again. When Stanley only balked at her, she quickly became frustrated again.

“I don’t have a war machine. I mean, I’ve got my dad’s old revolver in my glove box, but that thing’s a piece of sh-”

“The one you nearly killed me with, moron!” she snapped, wincing when she shifted her wing. Stanley found that he held absolutely no sympathy for the changeling the angrier that she got with him.

“… That’s a car,” Stanley explained as if he would to a small child. “Are you telling me extraterrestrials don’t have cars? Did you walk to Earth?”

He expected his tongue to try forcing its way into his nose again, and instinctively cringed; however, Chrysalis only let out a long, slow sigh of agitation.

“No, Stanley,” Chrysalis seethed quietly, pronouncing his name as ‘Stan Lee’. “Obviously, I possess no such machine. If you do not tell me, or even speak in a condescending tone again to your queen, I will tear your mind out for the information.”

He was tempted to smart off again simply to spite her, if only because it was a terrible habit that Stanley had – when Stanley got scared, he shot off at the mouth. He didn’t quite know if it was possible for ‘Queen’ Chrysalis to actually rip his mind out, but he wasn’t particularly planning on pushing his luck.

After a few seconds of pretending to catch his breath in which he was actually desperately struggling to lower his heart rate, Stanley wordlessly put away the antiseptics and assortment of items from the first aid kit. He gradually lowered himself into his chair across from her, glancing at his watch habitually. Stanley hadn’t even noticed when the morning had come at all, let alone the time.

“Okay. Right. Okay,” he started slowly, rubbing his eyes tiredly and vainly wishing that he would wake up with a horrendous hangover. “So. Okay.”

“Get on with it!”

“Cars are just transport,” Stanley blurted. “If you want war machines, you’re going to have to get a tank.”

“A tank, as in a stone sentinel?” she asked with genuine interest.

“Not really,” he scratched the side of his head tiredly. “I’m kind of surprised you don’t know much about earthlings, for an alien.”

“Bite me,” she deadpanned again. “I only just discovered this revolting mud pit.”

“Oh, really,” Stanley answered automatically without a single shred of interest, far more intrigued by the fact that he wasn’t actually biting her. It seemed that although he was forced to obey commands, some were easily ignored or bypassed if she didn’t mean them literally. His mind instantly flew to different kinds of loopholes that he could use, and the gears began to turn. “Where from? Alabama?”

“Equestria,” Chrysalis replied flatly, moving herself to a more comfortable sitting position and moving her seaweed green mane from her face. “A rich enough source of magic, but the resources required to feed an army are dwindling as of late. Hence, my latest excursions.”

“Uh huh,” he again said distractedly. “Never heard of that planet.”

“Country,” she said through her teeth, and for a moment he thought that she was angry at him for not knowing; it was a couple of seconds before he realized that she was clenching her teeth in pain. A single shard of pity clawed its way into his chest, similar to when he had first found her beneath his car.

“… You know, I’ve got some painkillers,” Stanley started, wondering if he could overdose the changeling. “I’ll bet that you could really use that, I’ll go get –”

“Sit!”

Stanley promptly collapsed to the floor, and barely managed to throw his hands out to keep his face from slamming against the ground. His head snapped around to the changeling queen, who shot daggers at him the entire while.

“What?” he stuttered. “Just-just being helpful, uh… Queenie.”

Chrysalis was clearly enraged, but slowly calmed herself slightly before speaking.

“I will not allow you to poison me with your filth,” she spat angrily.

“No, no, it’s not poison!” Stanley held up his hands innocently, struggling to sit up straight. Although, he would have been immensely pleased if he could have given her poison. “I swear, it’s just Vicodin.”

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and he almost felt as if she were looking directly through him. His heartbeat almost seemed to chug like a speeding train, and the sweat prickled along the back of his neck badly.

“… Very well,” Chrysalis stated eventually, and he had to resist the urge to let out a sigh of relief. “Bring me your medicines, that I may relieve a fraction of the pain from the injuries you caused.”

Stanley nodded dimly, scrabbling in his pocket for the bottle before shoving it under her nose.

“… Open it, moron.”

Stanley let out a quiet sigh, popping out a couple of the pills for her before dropping them into her hoof. He was surprised that she even managed to hold them in her hoof at all. She swallowed them both quickly, and Stanley spotted a pair of uncomfortably sharp looking fangs in her mouth. He cringed backward, suddenly afraid of adding ‘being bitten’ onto the list of things he was already terrified of today.

“Now,” she cleared her throat eventually, and Stanley ever so slowly retook his seat and tried to ignore the unnecessarily cheerful chirping of birds. “Back to the war machines.”

“I don’t have a tank,” Stanley deadpanned immediately. “I don’t have war machines of any kind, don’t bother.”

“… Not even a small one?”

He didn’t know why, but he almost felt the urge to laugh at that one.

“No,” he stated flatly. “If you want a tank, you should have gone to the army, or the marines, or something. I’ve just got a car.”

Chrysalis thought over this for a moment, before nodding with a hint of a frown growing.

“Of course not. Gather the necessary supplies,” she said, mulling something over. He felt his limbs jerkily obeying, and he sourly rose for her vague command. “You shall assist me in traversal through the conversion point shortly.”

“Assist you in traversing my foot up your ass,” he grumbled automatically.

“What was that?”

“I said we should get food and gas,” Stanley lied unconvincingly, stretching his aching back. “Very necessary, for your, uh… ‘conversion point’. Yeah.”

Stanley would probably have said more, if not for the fact that he turned directly to the black haired woman standing stunned in his doorway.

Inky black hair, chocolate colored eyes and tanned skin heavily implied that Rose was of Latino descent. Her strong jaw was wide open from the surprise of the sight before her, and her thin eyebrows nearly rose into her hair.

“… Stan, what the fuck – ?”

“Run!” he yapped, nearly tripping over himself to keep her away. Before he could manage to shove his fiancée out the door, the dreaded command filled both his mind and ears.

“Seize her!”

Rose gaped at the changeling for a split second, which was all the time she had before she was rudely grappled by the frantic Stanley.

“Run, run dammit!” he shouted through clenched teeth as he dragged her violently inside, simultaneously struggling to force his own muscles to obey. Stanley was nearly blinded by a brilliant flash of green light, and his stomach felt like the bottom had just dropped out from the sheer horror when Rose fell limp in his arms.

Stanley shouted and swore hatefully at the changeling, desperate to keep the woman away from potentially being forced into servitude; he hadn’t even heard her car pull up!

“Oh, please,” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I already have a servant, and it consumes enough precious energy as it is to forge a link with a single one. Cease your whimpering and shut the door.”

Stanley promptly dropped Rose, who fell unconsciously to the floor. Stanley screamed her name, terrified that she had been killed. Her head hit the floor with a painfully loud thump, and he cringed as he violently slammed the door shut. Every single muscle and tendon in his body screamed against him, resisting his every urge to fight back; instead of granting him control over his limbs, it only seemed to make him twitch horribly.

“… Are you finished?” Queen Chrysalis asked in mild exasperation at Stanley’s desperate attempts to control himself. “Quit simpering, she’s only asleep. Stop doing that, I already told you that your precious little… thing shall not be permanently mine.”

Stanley froze, thinking swiftly. It was almost as if she were reading his mind.

“Obviously,” Chrysalis deadpanned, answering most of his questions with that simple answer. If anything, this only horrified him further. “Bring her to me.”

“Fuck you!” Stanley belted spitefully, but forced to painstakingly slowly drag the poor unconscious woman toward the changeling. He winced again when her head hit the leg of the coffee table, and though he was glad that she was only unconscious, she was definitely going to have a headache when she woke up.

“Rose,” Stanley let out a croaking whine as his heart sank. “Goddammit, Rose, why didn’t you stick with the loud-ass jalopy?”

“Excellent,” Chrysalis grinned, leaning over the unconscious woman. “Observe, servant. This is important.”

Stanley finally stopped fighting futilely against himself, if only because the urge to vomit suddenly became a powerful factor. He flinched when Chrysalis opened her mouth wide, revealing her fangs as she leaned over Rose’s exposed neck.

And he couldn’t even look away, because she commanded him to watch.

Instead of plunging straight into her neck in a horrible and gruesome display of vampiric hunger as he expected and feared, Stanley was instead thoroughly confused. For a moment, it almost looked as if Chrysalis were only… breathing on her. A few seconds after that, the tips of her fangs brushed lightly against Rose’s jugular, and he flinched again, just as if she were about to bite into his own neck.

A light, silvery blue light slowly began draining out of Rose’s neck and between the changeling Queen’s fangs. She gulped it hungrily, lapping the dimly glowing aura as the color gradually left Rose’s face. She looked almost peaceful for nearly a full minute, but afterwards began twitching and jerking as if she were in growing pain. Rose moaned lowly, beginning to shake as if she were nearly freezing.

“Stop,” Stanley choked eventually. “Stop, stop!”

Chrysalis eventually pulled away from her, allowing the woman to fall drooping to the floor. Stanley barely caught her, and again the intense hatred for the changeling boiled in him.

At least, for a moment. It was quickly replaced with surprise when Chrysalis shrieked loudly.

Her injured wing violently popped into proper position, and her broken leg snapped with a stomach-churning crack! Chrysalis’s breathing was shaky for a few seconds as she finally stood and stretched, flexing her newly healed limbs.

“There,” she sighed contentedly. “Much better.”

“… ‘The fuck just happened?” Stanley breathed, desperately trying to wake Rose.

“Were you not paying attention as instructed?” Chrysalis snapped, stomping forward. “You share the strength of your Queen, idiot. Feed, and we will depart.”

“… What?” Stanley struggled to process this information, looking back and forth between the agitated changeling and his unconscious girlfriend.

“Love!” Chrysalis bellowed. “Love, idiot, love! Drain her of it, and prepare your metal chariot!”

Stanley’s mind was abuzz with questions, and was repulsed when he found himself slowly kneeling next to Rose.

“No – wait, wait wait wait!” he blurted quickly, desperate not to reenact what the changeling had just done to her; or worse, kill her. “Just – let’s just go!”

“Oh, fine,” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Leave the wretch. The conversion point awaits.”

Stanley wasted no time at all in darting out the door, clambering rapidly into his own car. The engine groaned to life as he peeled out of the gravel driveway, manic grin on his face as he sped away.

He couldn’t be commanded to stop if he couldn’t hear her, could he?

His hope was short lived, unfortunately, as the rearview mirror promptly began snapping at him with the visage of a highly unamused Queen Chrysalis.

“My command extends beyond the length of sound, imbecile,” she deadpanned, and Stanley nearly swerved off the road in shock. “That was monumentally stupid. Now get back here, or I’m going to make you rip your own genitals off.”

Needless to say, Stanley grudgingly obeyed.