The glare of the spotlights wasn't half as wilting as the whispering from the darkened audience beyond.

Starlight Glimmer, sprawled lazily in the contestant's booth two seats away, turned her head toward Chrysalis and slowly raised an eyebrow.  "You're going to kill a prisoner."

Being arthropods, changelings didn't blush — but Chrysalis had spent enough time in pony form to feel phantom heat in her cheeks as the crowd's whispers turned to suppressed laughter.  She shoved herself upright in her chair, baring her teeth.  "Is the [i]master villain[/i] so willfully blind that she finds that so hard to believe?"

"Here we go again," Twilight Sparkle muttered caustically from the seat between them, slumped over her podium.  "Another lecture to the ponies outscoring her on evil points ten to one."

[i]"You're not even evil!"[/i] Chrysalis screeched.  "You 'solve problems' with [i]friendship[/i] —"

Her sentence trailed off into a strangled little cough as she felt the tingle of magic clench around her tongue.  "Stars and [i]clouds,[/i]" Starlight shouted toward the ceiling, "do you [i]ever[/i] shut up?"

Chrysalis reflexively tried to light her own horn to counter it.  Her magic flared, sputtered, and died.  As the audience erupted into open hoots and catcalls, and panic stirred in her breast, she glanced to the bored-looking figured in the emcee's seat.  Nightmare Moon — grooming a hoof-edge with a file held in her magic — surveyed the scene disaffectedly and then looked down at her hoof again.

"The only one who [i]isn't[/i] evil here is [i]you!"[/i] Starlight bellowed, tugging at Chrysalis' tongue for punctuation as the crowd cheered.  "Because you're [i]stupid[/i]!"

Twilight languidly stood up, stretching her wings out.  "Apparently we have to explain even this basic thing, which is a disappointment I really should have expected."

"Do you know why I locked Twilight in a room for reprogramming when I've got Equestria's greatest mind control powers?" Starlight said.

"Or why I let her come live with me based just on a promise to be better, when I had friendship lasers and outnumbered her six to one?"

Starlight leaned in.  "Because we [i]could[/i] have solved the problem by force.  It would have been easy.  It would have been, briefly, satisfying."

"And," Twilight smoothly added, "it would have cost us everything.  A powerful asset.  Gloating rights."  A smirk spread across Twilight's muzzle.  "And the ability to watch my foe suffer for [i]years[/i] as the guilt ate her from the inside out."

"You think the ability to kill gives you power?" Starlight said.  "Oh, you poor, pathetic fool.  Power comes from making beings [i]want[/i] to obey you."

Twilight slowly walked up to Chrysalis, caressing the underside of her jaw with a hoof as the crowd's cheering redoubled.  "From [i]respect[/i]."

"You think we respect you?" Starlight said, then inclined her head at the crowd.  "You think [i]they[/i] do?"

"And if they'll do this to your face," Twilight said as the surging emotions from the beings in the darkness began to crowd out Chrysalis' thoughts, "what will they do [i]when you aren't awake to keep them in line?"[/i]


[hr]


Chrysalis jerked upright with a gasp.

She blinked repeatedly as her throne room swam back into focus.  Her honor guard stood at attention at the doors, and the background hum of her hive-link tickled at her groggy mind.  The captured alicorns were still slumbering in the pods glued to the floor to her right.  If it weren't for her tight chest and her clammy chitin, everything would have been perfect.  

Just a dream.

She swallowed through a dry throat.  No laughter.  Just a dream.

Behind her, a throat cleared, and she nearly jumped out of her exoskeleton before placing it with her hive-sense as her seneschal Red Mandibles.  "What?" she snapped, trying to cover her lingering fear with irritation.

"I said, my queen, that the executors you ordered to suck the prisoners dry have arrived, and are waiting just outside."

Chrysalis glanced at him, then slowly turned her head to the pods.  She stared at the alicorns for a while as her breathing slowed.

"Not just yet," she finally said.