Chrysalis Condemned Chapter 1

>It's been a month since you were banished from the home of the thrice damned princess'

>Undone by the very thing that you needed to sustain yourself and your brood

>And now you wandered the wastes with your few remaining children, the ones that lived after a month of no emotions to feed on but hate

>But hate had never gone too far for you, except to sustain your will to fight

>You are starving, but your children suffer more for their sympathetic link to you

>You are tired, but all your hate for who put you here and killed nearly all your children is the only thing that keeps you trudging on

>You are Chrysalis, the queen of what remains of your brood, your children

>You are their ruler, but in the same breath you are their mother

>You are willing to sacrifice them as a means to an end, but their memories will still haunt you

>You lift your head and look up at the horizon

>The sun is descending, taking its baleful heat with it

>The desert stretches ever onward, though, and you know you and your children are in for a cold night

>But as the moon rises, you see a glow in the distance

>A glow not unlike that of a setting sun

>Fires

>Your children perk up as your hope floods their connection to you

>Maybe you've just found your next meal

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"Arista."

>A rather small changeling comes forward when you call his name

>An oddity in your brood, he is smaller than many of your children, and far leaner as well

>"Yes, my queen?"

>You frown at the way he addresses you, like a ruler instead of as a mother

>But you can't lose focus on why you called him forward

>It seems, as an adaptation for being scrawnier than most of his brothers and sisters, he was far more adept at shapeshifting

>Not only that, but he could even blend with his surroundings, much like a chameleon

"I need you to go and scout those fires on the horizon. We need to know if it is a potential feeding ground, or a threat to be avoided."

>Your child nods

>"Of course, my queen. I will return as soon as I can."

>With that, he slinked away into the darkness, his carapace already shifting colours to blend with the dust and scrub of the desert

>And once again, you are alone in the dry land

>You give the rest of your hatch the order to relax and doze

>It gave you some time to think

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>You look up at the stars

>It had been a long time since you had looked up at them without thinking about how they came to show in the sky

>You think back to when you were just a child, like your own here, learning under the previous queen, your mother

>Queen Thoraxia had taught you how to care for her brood, soon to be yours

>But you hadn't laid your first clutch yet

>She told you about the bond you would share with your offspring when you produced them

>You had never even thought seriously about rearing a hive, yet

>But most important was the lesson she had imprinted on you every day, without missing a beat

>That you must do everything you possible can to protect, to feed, to care for your children

>Then she had passed on

>You still remember how you had found her

>That day, when you awoke, you felt a strange absence of your mothers presence in your mind

>You noticed, on your walk to her chambers to find out the reason behind it, the subdued nature of the swarm

>Most slunk around, wings low and loose instead of folded, looking depressed

>When you reached the queens chambers, you knocked as you had been taught

>There was no answer

>You knocked again, perhaps your mother was sleeping very deeply

>Once again, only silence answered you

>You pushed open the door to the room, fearful of what you would find on the other side

>The smell was the first thing to hit you

>You had breathed this scent numerous times before, of course

>Drones died on occasion, in accidents, battles, or sometimes just from time

>But in any case, they always released that pheromone

>The same one that you detected as soon as you entered the room

>It was then that the reality of the situation hit you

>Your mother was dead

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>You approached the nest of your late parent

>Her eyes were closed, her face and body relaxed

>She had died peacefully, as she slept

>And even though you were a grown queen in your own right, you couldn't hold back the reaction to seeing your mother like this

>You held her body and wept for hours, and the entire hive ached in concert

>When you had finally regained control of yourself, you had a new sense of purpose

>Your mother wouldn't want you to weep over her body, or to be broken by loss

>She would expect you to take care of her children, and rear your own hatchlings

>And so you did

>You consolidated your rule over the hive

>You established your connection within the hive to include all of the changelings

>You bred your own clutches of eggs, and raised your own children to maturity

>They took after their mother, as they well should have

>They were smaller than Queen Thoraxia's broodlings, and took longer to pupate

>But they were also more clever, and far more adept at changing shape than their grandmother and her children

>And slowly, gradually, they took their place as the dominant kind in the hive

>The brood of your mother slowly faded away, replaced by your own

>But you never allowed them to forget about her

>Many years passed, numberless hatchlings grew to maturity and eventually died

>You expanded the tunnels of your hive, as your children also had longevity far surpassing the norm

>The ponies built a village above the tunnels of your hive, providing a near limitless food source

>Your feeders, specially bred changelings for long-term shapeshifting, intermingled with the species above your home

>They fed on the love they garnered on the surface, and sequestered away much of the excess to later bring back to the hive

>Eventually, the village grew into a city, and the city into the metropolis known as Canterlot

>Your hive flourished under increased intake of emotion

>The feeders only needed to take to the surface when you were swollen with eggs and needed the extra nutrition

>Such was the strength of the ponies love that you could feed on it even here in these caverns

>But never can such golden times last forever, and neither did this one

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>You are brought back to the present by a pressure on your underbelly

>You look down and see the youngest of your remaining children nuzzling your belly

>Nygma had taken the longest to pupate out of his brothers, and just happened to be a runt as well

>And yet, somehow, he was one of only two remaining from his entire clutch

>Arista was the other

>Nygma curls against your belly and you nuzzle him with a great deal of affection

>You had grown much since your first contact with the ponies

>You lower your wings over the slumbering drone as you remember that fateful time

>There had been an increase in the number of cave-ins over the past few months

>Your tunnelers had stopped making new passages and had focused on shoring up the current ones

>This most recent one was particularly horrifying, however

>A birthing chamber with three nests of eggs had collapsed, crushing all of the unbirthed children

>This impacted heavily on you and you personally oversaw the clearing of the rubble, helping as much as you could

>A breeze carrying a strange smell came down from the top of the collapsed wall

>You took two of your warriors and went to investigate

>Clearing the rubble from the top of the chamber, you had found a breach into another tunnel

>This was odd, given that the egg chambers were always placed at the top of the hive, in the unlikely event of an emergency exodus, so that they would be taken on the way out without risking the lives of too many drones

>You followed the breeze from the tunnel further along

>There were strange metal and wood structures laid along the ground here

>Rails, that's what they were

>You remember one of your feeders relaying the information that the ponies were building a massive structure like it across their entire domain

>You hadn't cared at the time, whatever those ponies did on the surface didn't matter, so long as they didn't interfere with your children

>A righteous fury had begun building in your chest

>You would make whatever was responsible for this tragedy pay dearly for causing it

>You could hear voices coming up from further along the tunnel

>And they were getting closer

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>Your guards shifted into the form of two different ponies on pure instinct

>You, however, controlled yourself and kept true to your body

>It was time to show the Equestrians that they weren't the first inhabitants of this land

>A large group of equines came racing down the tunnel

>They nearly ran into you, since your dark chitin blended well with the rocks of your home, as it should

>When they saw you, however, they froze

>You could not say whether it was in fear or surprise, but it didn't matter to you

"You, ponies. You are trespassing on the tunnels of Hive Gaster. Your burrowing has caused the collapse of a birthing chamber containing three nests of my eggs. Do you understand the enormity of your crime?"

>One of the ponies, a unicorn, stepped forward

>He had a ruddy coat and a pickaxe symbol, a cutie mark she remembered off hand, on his flank

>You guessed that he was their leader, or took on the role at least

>"W-we apologize for the damage and will help you repair. But these tunnels are the mines of Canterlot. This is sovereign pony territory."

>He gulped as your eyes narrowed at him

>"We could h-help you relocate, if need be. I'm sure Princess Celestia wi--."

>His speaking was cut off as you used your magic to turn his brain into liquid that leaked out his ears and stained the floor

>You step over the corpse and stare down the other equines, spreading your wings and making yourself appear larger

"You will speak to me with respect, mules! You have killed many of my brood with your reckless tunneling, and for that there will be retribution. Who among you will take me to this 'princess' of yours?"