Author's Notes:

The Usual Disclaimer:

The following is a work of parody, and is protected as Fair Use under section 17 U.S. Code § 107 of US Copyright Law. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all affiliated characters are property of Hasbro Inc.

I own nothing. All characters, settings and other belong to their respective owners. This is purely a fan-work with no intent towards profit, slander or harm towards the characters, settings or other, or their respective owners. If the respective owners feel that this fan-work in any way, shape or form threatens or besmirches their property, please let me know so that it be can be removed asap.

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A quick side-trip to our other players in this farce of a story.

Clop soon, I promise! Stop sending me angry tells!

CHAPTER 25

“You know, if I wasn’t so terrified sir, I’d be in awe of your wife.” Dappled whispered, crouching behind the desk with his C.O. Peach Seed, Scout and one of the burly ‘Guard’ Changelings, as several very confused and frightened Changeling Drones and a somewhat miffed Queen Chrysalis were run ragged creating a nursery for her three broodlings by Peach Seed’s wife, a very wide, very large, very loud Mare by the name of Candy Apple.

Every time Chrysalis tried to protest, or her Changelings didn’t do exactly as directed, Peach Seed’s ‘delicate little flower’ would turn and fix what Dappled could only call the ‘Glare of Death’ on them. The Changelings would cower and fall all over each other as they rushed to complete their tasks, and in the case of the Changeling Queen, over several seconds of exposure to the ‘Glare of Death’ the Queen would go from angry protests to spluttering to mute silence.

“Well Dappled, you’ll find Mares like my sweet little angel if you try hard enough.” The aging officer said with a dreamy look on his face as he looked over the table at his wife. “I still remember the day we were engaged.”

“A fancy dinner date?” Dappled asked as the ruckus in the next room grew louder, with the added laughter of Chrysalis’s three ‘foals’ as they played amongst the legs of their beleaguered kin.

“Somewhat. I had been held back at the base by some paperwork, and was rushing over to my darling’s homestead, hoping to salvage what was supposed to be our one-year anniversary with an expensive bouquet of roses for dinner.” Sighing happily, Peach Seed gave what could best be described as ‘puppy-dog eyes’ to his very-large-and-in-charge Wife in the next room. “I was greeted at the door by her father and let inside, and there was my angel, giving me a nervous smile with her entire family gathered around her, grinning like Diamond Dogs in a jewellery store. I was worried, because it had only been a few months since my sweet angel and I had stepped into a more … physical state of our relationship, and her kin weren’t too keen on a career soldier dating one of their own, especially when I could be reassigned to somewhere else in Equestria at a drop of a hat. But when I apologised for being late, all they did was laugh.”

“I was confused, and asked what was so funny, and my dear Candy’s father put a hoof around my shoulders and said ‘Well son, let’s just say you’re not the only thing in this house running late!’.” Peach Seed finished, a wry smile on his face.

“Oh snap Sir. So it was a shotgun wedding then?”

“What? Oh no, no no no, when I finally clued in to what Golden Smith was talking about, I proposed to Candy on the spot. Honestly, I just thought the glow she had, and how soft and snuggly she was, was just, you know, young love. I do love my Mare when she’s a snuggly little bundle.”

Dappled looked at his C.O., then the massive Mare bullying the Changelings in the next room, then looked back to the beaming Peach Seed.

“I would never have guessed, sir.”

“Very droll son, but I’m docking your pay for that.”

“Dammit!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the giant, fat, middle-aged Mare in-front of Chrysalis didn’t terrify the Changeling Queen on an instinctive level, she would have ordered her Guards to remove the bossy Mare from the compound, damn the commander’s feelings. Chrysalis bowed to no-one, especially not some fat, sun-browned old Mare who smelled like cider and wood-smoke who stirred feelings of inadequacy and nervousness within that Chrysalis had thought long since buried.

Yet the great and terrible Candy Apple was an expert on motherhood, having had nine children herself and helped raise several other foals in her large family, and had quickly and bluntly set Chrysalis straight on many of her misconceptions on her latest brood.

That they were not talking was understandable, given that they knew what the other Changelings around them wanted, and could be understood in turn, through the empathic transfer of the Hive Mind, but the knowledge that Ponies began to talk within a few weeks of their birth had shocked Chrysalis. Her own … foals … were only a month old, yet apparently they were supposed to be speaking already?

A part of her wondered if being born in the dark, desperate atmosphere of the collapsed castle where Twilight Sparkle had trapped Chrysalis and her surviving brood might have affected them, but the two black females and the white male seemed unaffected when she covered them in ‘darkness’ in the Hive Mind. They seemed to think that, however, was a cue for a game of ‘hide and seek’ and instead rushed to find hiding places around the room, one Female ‘hiding’ behind an annoyed-but-amused Candy Apple’s leg, the Male jumping head-first into the pile of rags that the fat old Mare had declared ‘unfit’ for anything but tinder or cleaning rags, leaving his lower half exposed and wriggling in the air, and the other Female clambered up onto one of her Guards and squirmed under its translucent wings, grinning cheekily at her mother.

“That … wasn’t what I meant, children.” Chrysalis said after several moments of thought. Candy Apple had insisted that she talk verbally to the foals, and encourage them to do the same. What would I do if they never learned to speak? All of my previous broods just … did. They would hatch, obey commands, and when they finished growing to full size they knew how to speak.

Three little pairs of eyes twinkled at her, and three little mouths split into mischevious grins. A dozen more larger, tired eyes gave her pitiful looks, begging for salvation, as they were harassed by the implacable voice of Candy Apple as they assembled a suitable ‘nursery’ for the Foals, consisting of plenty of padded surfaces, high walls the Foals could not climb over and no sharp edges anywhere. Not an easy task when all the Outpost could provide was office furniture and some spare blankets.

“Come here.”

The Foals kept grinning at her, sending her images of being caught and snuggled. The sensation was warm and sweet and made the dull ache in her head and the stabbing pains in her torso seem so far away. And she had to make them stop …

“No, you need to come here. We’re not playing right now.”

The smiles faltered, but the Foals kept hidden. A sense of confusion reached Chrysalis from their mind-glows, a sense of trepidation and fear. They reached for her with their mind-glows, but she remained … aloof.

It was, Chrysalis found, one of the hardest things she had ever done. Their bodies remained where they were, though their eyes glistened and their manes and tails drooped, but their mind-glows danced all around hers in the Hive-Mind, begging, pleading with emotions and images to be played with, to be consoled and loved.

She weakened, and assembled a complex image for them. The three of them coming to her, but only when they heard ‘come here’.

Instead the three Foals bolted from their ‘hiding places’ and rushed to her, throwing themselves against her chest and sobbing.

That was it for Chrysalis’s intentions to teach them to speak. She pulled them to her, both with hooves and her mind-glow, and saturated their mind-glows with love and images of them snuggled under her head in a warm, safe place.

The lessons could wait. She would not, could not, make any of her children feel she did not love them. Love for the Hive, from Changeling to their Queen and from the Mother to her Children, was the foundation of all they had built. It was more than food, it was their lifeblood, their religion, and to shatter that bond would be a true death-blow to the Hive.

They would understand, in time, what she was trying to convey to them. But for now, Chrysalis would let them be, and just suffuse their minds with the glow of her love for them until the sensations of confusion and anxiety from these, her last children, faded away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shining Armor felt like somebody had just thrown him into a pool filled with ice.

Chrysalis, the very same creature who had taken over his mind and locked the love of his life in the unmapped caves beneath Canterlot for weeks, had just surrendered to the Border Guard and was to be escorted to Canterlot for Princess Celestia to judge and deem if her offer of surrender would be accepted.

A part of the Stallion’s mind recoiled from the offer of being a witness at the trial, remembering the feelings of horror and self-loathing that had consumed him when he had realised that the Mare he had loved with every fibre of his being was not, in fact, Cadence. The memories of the time he and Chrysalis had spent together still tortured him, for they had been as happy as the times he had spent with Cadence, at least up until the wedding began, and his memories became unclear and confusing, proof, the experts said, that Chrysalis had begun to use actual mind-control magic on him.

Begun to use mind-control magic. Not from the start, only when things had started to get hectic around the wedding itself and the Princesses had gotten involved. Up until then he’d had no clue … not one red flag had gone up until Twilight had appeared and immediately recognised that his Special Somepony wasn’t who she looked like.

Another part of Shining’s mind burned with anger that Chrysalis wasn’t simply struck down like the enemy of the state she was, but Shining reeled in those emotions, knowing full well that Celestia would tolerate no such actions amongst the Ponies she counted as the protectors of her people.

And a third part wondered if there would be a plate in the palace after Cadence was done with her fit.

“That BITCH!” The Princess of Love bellowed for probably the thousandth time after receiving the coded message from Canterlot High Command, telekinetically flinging plate after crystal plate at the nearest wall.

Which ‘bitch’ she was referring to, neither Shining, who had taken shelter behind a lushly-padded fainting couch for shelter, nor the few servants who remained, ferrying the oldest and least-valuable plates into the room for Cadence to take her anger out on, were willing to risk attracting her ire by asking.

To say that Cadence took Chrysalis’s actions very personally did not do the Princess of Love justice. Not only did Cadence loathe Chrysalis for what she had done to Shining’s mind and imprisoning Cadence herself in a crystal cavern with only food, water and taunting accounts of how easily Chrysalis was fooling everypony, but on a darker and more humorous note, she seethed with the need for vengeance for Chrysalis almost ‘stealing’ her wedding away from her.

And that neither Celestia nor Luna, nor any of the Ponies that Cadence had come to call friends in the Canterlot Castle, had noticed the switch-over galled her to no end, even after the reports of how flawlessly Chrysalis had imitated her had been delivered to the distraught Princess.

Shining also felt it appropriate to not say anything about Chrysalis’s bedroom skills. He loved his wife, and didn’t want her to feel the need to ‘compete’ with a … bug … that Shining would have felt quite happy about loading into a catapult, tying anvils to her limbs and launching her into the middle of Gryphon territory.

That said, he felt rather awkward that he didn’t notice the sudden change in ‘Cadence’s’ behaviour from adorably shy to sexual tigress in the bedroom, or rather had been blind-sided by his ‘fiancee’s’ sudden take-charge attitude between the sheets.

“Of all the … how can they just … this is complete … arrogant, insufferably self-righteous …”

No, not letting Cadence know about Chrysalis’s ‘charms’ was definitely the right course of action, Shining decided as he saw a thrown plate neatly bisect an antique vase. Yes, definitely better to let her assume that he didn’t remember how her doppleganger knew more tricks than a stable of Las Pegasus working-mares.

“I … take it her Royal Highness is taking the news poorly?” Shining’s second-in-command, a diamond-coated Pony with the name of Adamant, asked nervously from a nearby doorway, poking his head around the opening and wincing as a trio of plates went whizzing through the air and smashed against a marble column, covering the ground with razor-sharp fragments of crystal.

“Actually, considering what she was like in therapy, she’s taking this surprisingly well.” Shining quipped, ducking back behind the couch as the air filled with another spray of crystalline shards. “That said, anypony with a black coat or a green mane or tail should probably take the week off. I can’t guarantee their safety right now.”

“Duly noted, sir.” Adamant squeaked, ducking out of the doorway and taking off at full speed as Cadence began shouting a stream of profanities that would have made a Minotaur sailor swoon.

“Honey, honey, don’t use the Royal Canterlot Voice, there are children in the city!” Shining urged from behind the overturned couch as Cadence’s violent swearing became loud enough to shake the surviving windows and ventured into the realms of the anatomically impossible.

“…-SPAWNED GRUB-LICKING ASS-MONGER OF A DISEASED SHE-MULE’S …”

Sighing, Shining ducked down behind the safety of the couch again, levitated a pen and a piece of paper over to his shelter, and began to pen a reply to the crisp, informal letter from General Rhinestone.

“I only hope things will get less crazy soon.” Shining muttered, folding the letter up and tucking it into his breast pocket, waiting for Cadence to run out of dishes so he could make a break for his office and the precious vials of Dragon-Fire stored there for emergency correspondence such as this.