>This wasn’t right.
>You did everything right.
>Everything.
>There wasn’t a single hero in Equestria left free when you sprung your trap.
>All the threats were netted before they had a chance to run and regroup.
>And then fate itself decided that you could go hang.
>It was all the traitor’s doing.
>The fool had no idea what he was carrying out.
>The old ways were obscured for a reason.
>Bit by bit you stripped him of the corruption, until the idiot unicorn gave him the one idea you’d hoped he’d miss.
>The traitor’s beam hit hard.
>You lifted off your hooves, thrown by the love into your throne with a resounding crunch of crystal and chitin.
>Dazed, you watched in horror as the traitor embraced corruption.
>He emerged whole and strong.
>Changelings were not meant to be whole.
>They CAN’T be whole, never again.
>Inside your broken body, you felt the love he shared trying to fill you in.
>Trying to “fix” you.
>You pushed it away, but it was insistent.
>There was a damn good reason they’d never thought about sharing love before, even if they never knew it.
>His unicorn ally was too charismatic for her own good.
>The the others began to rally, began to accept the traitor’s words.
>Even as you tried and failed to rise on a cracked leg, the second beam struck.
>Then the third.
>Then fourth.
>Fools, they had no idea what they were doing.

>Each jolt carried more love.
>Raw, and unfiltered.
>Love for their queen, their mother, their family.
>A forbidden fruit, that your swarm was now so happily devouring.
>Each changeling that joined the traitor poured more crushing love into you.
>You fought it as well as you could, battered as you were.
>And it fought back, from within and without.
>The blasts fell like hammer blows on your cracked shell before seeping deep inside.
>You refused to let it in.
>Refused to let it corrupt you like all the others.
>And so it built, like water behind a floodgate.
>Each new pulse sent your aching body thrumming with more and more heretical love.
>And soon it began to show.
>Your fleshy middle spread out on the cracked crystalline throne.
>Still you refused to let it in.
>Dozens of changelings had already transformed, but your hive numbered in the tens of thousands.
>You were in too much pain from your broken shell, there was no hope to focus on a spell to escape.
>The constant barrage of love made it impossible to move away, not that your spider-webbed exoskeleton could still support you.
>Your only consolation was that the fools would suffer the fate they chose.
>You wouldn’t.
>No matter what.
>Never again.
>And so you fought on, if only with will.

>A pain unlike anything you’d experienced jolted through your withers and back, accompanied by a echoing crack.
>You let out a scream as your chitin split wider along the crack, forced open by the rejected love.
>A bulge of pulsing pale flesh pressed out through the gap, widening it further with a rolling crunch
>Beam after beam tested you, each and every one of them offering a salvation from your torment.
>Another crack sounded, this time the pain came from your flank.
>Slowly your whole body swelled with the love you scorned, the love of your swarm.
>Your family.
>Bit by bit it broke you apart.
>Chitin split and sundered, shards dropping to the ground around your swelling form as you outgrew your body.
>It hurt.
>But you’ve felt worse pain.
>Unimaginable pain.
>You would never go back to the old ways.
>Nothing could drag you back to them after all that you had lost from them.
>You cracked again under the onslaught of love, this time it was your thorax plate separating from your neck as your chest pushed outward.
>Everywhere, you were coming undone.
>Other plates followed.
>No longer content to force apart the weakened stretches of chitin, the roiling love inside you began to pull you apart at the seams.
>Your hive’s love levered plates apart, surging flesh filling gaps as the connective tissues between gave way in spilling tears.

>The cascade of love only grew as more and more of your swarm joined the fool.
>The larger plates finally worked loose, dropping one by one onto your throne in dull clatters.
>Your body more resembled a pale green sack than a living creature.
>pieces of your old self still clung on in places, if only barely.
>Three hooves.
>One haunch.
>A small stretch on your back.
>The only place that was yet to be sundered was your head and neck, and your neck’s ringlets were rapidly spacing out.
>Without your hardened outer skin, the blows of love pressed into your fleshy form at full force.
>Each one felt like a buck meant to burst you.
>You could stop it.
>All you had to do was let the love in.
>But you wouldn’t.
>You’d killed so many in your carelessness.
>Lovers.
>Friends.
>Husbands.
>You’d never go back to that.
>You’d endure anything to prevent pain like that again.
>And so you did.
>A pair of wet crunches sounded, as your neck’s plating broke apart.
>Without support, your head drooped forward, hair sweeping forward like a veil.
>Your crown came tumbling off, bouncing once on the throne’s edge before falling to the floor.
>A new fracture called out, tracing a fine line from your right eye and down your cheek.

>Let them walk into this hell they’ve chosen.
>Another echoing split jolted from your left eye.
>Thorax will learn.
>He’ll lead them well enough.
>Your whole body was distorted with love, a pale fleshy mockery of what you used to be.
>You knew there was no more room for love.
>The cracks in your countenance widened, tracing pale streaks down to your chin.
>He will learn to love.
>When they start dying, he’ll hate himself for it.
>And Thorax will welcome the hunger back like an old friend.
>With a wet snap you felt your brow loosen, and brow to jaw your last few plates clatter to the ground as the love forced itself into your body’s last refuge.
>Even now, you could accept it.
>Welcome it in.
>Save yourself.
>It wouldn’t be worth it.
>A beam strikes again, and you feel a sharp pain needle through your distended and amorphous sack of a body.
>Again, the next changeling to offer you love strikes you, and the needling sensation never leaves.
>Your whole self is at it’s limit.
>With what little strength you can muster without skeletal support, you tilt your head a few meagre inches to the right.
>The curtain of tattered hair parts against your soft muzzle, giving you one half-focused eye to see.
>Thorax.
>He looks just like you used to.
>So proud.
>So naive.
>Let him love his friends to death.
>Let him build his own towers of bones and grief.
>Let him learn that cruelty is the only kindness he can give his swarm.
>He will make a fine leader.
>One final beam courses into you, and you almost feel happy.
>Tears and seams split wide along your soft and bloated body, and you feel yourself rip apart.