Size Shifting

Queen Chrysalis. The name alone was enough to raise fear and dread in the heart of any pony who was in Canterlot during the infamous changeling invasion. And even those who didn’t witness one of the most terrifying events in Equestrian history knew the queen as one of the most evil beings ever existed, a heartless monster who needed to abduct ponies and consume their love for the survival of her subjects, the changelings.
Especially the ponies who actually saw her still had nightmares because of her appearance: large, unsettling, dark, malicious… and yet kind of beautiful in her own way. Her distorted voice was almost sensual, like the hoof of a femme fatale who is gently caressing your body before killing you in cold blood.
But what they had no idea about was how truly benevolent and almost maternal she could be with her subjects, she was very strict if they misbehaved but she was never truly a tyrant, and almost every changeling in her kingdom adored her immensely and never wished for any other ruler.

One of the subjects with whom she had a particularly strong feeling of affection was Metamorpho, a young changeling who was pretty much what Twilight Sparkle was to Princess Celestia: he was incredibly gifted in shape-shifting and he was able to transform even in creatures who were much smaller than him, when for most changelings (except for Chrysalis) it was safer to pose as beings who were of the same size; needless to say, that was a very good reason for Chrysalis to accept him as her personal apprentice.
But another thing that enforced the bond between the queen and Metamorpho was the fact that the adolescent changeling had tragically lost his parents when he was little, so Chrysalis was pretty much a mother to him, and he was more than a protégé for the queen: he was like a son to her, and she always made sure to protect him and pamper him in any way she could without spoiling him.

One day, Metamorpho was in the queen’s personal room in the huge royal palace and his teacher had brought a rather unusual object with her to show him: it was a model of a city made of plastic, paper and other materials, and it was inhabited by dozens of different species of bugs that Metamorpho had never seen before… except in the books about Equestrian fauna.

“You see this, my dear student?” The queen said. “Inside of this toy city I gathered several species of Equestrian insects which one of our spies brought from there. Perhaps you’re now asking yourself why I bothered to create an entire city for these little things which are way less sentient than us… well, I just felt like having something prettier to work with than just some plants and dirt.” She chuckled.

“Anyway, this scale model is protected by a special magic field that prevents anything as small as an insect to fly away, so even the species with wings are trapped for good. We will use it for a very important lesson for you: posing as an Equestrian bug can be extremely useful for covert missions, and with your special skills I believe you could become one of the best spies that our kingdom has ever had. Can you figure what I’m asking you to do right now?”

“Yes, my queen,” Metamorpho answered. “I will practice my shape-shifting abilities with every single species of Equestrian bug that we got.”

“You always understand so easily, my loyal apprentice!” Queen Chrysalis said with a warm smile. “Alright, you can start as soon as you’re ready.”

And so Metamorpho flew over the city of bugs, low enough to observe the insects he had to turn into. He started from the species known as ladybug; he focused intensely and immediately turned into a small red beetle with black dots, making it look incredibly easy.
The rest of the training session proceeded just as smoothly: Metamorpho spent a good amount of time as an ant looking for food for its colony, an earthworm digging in the dirt, a spider patiently waiting for its prey and so forth, everything under the satisfied eyes of Queen Chrysalis.

After a while, someone knocked at the door: it was a royal guard. “My apologies, your highness,” he said. “The ambassador of the Succubus kingdom is here.”
“We’re in the middle of an important training session, can you ask her to wait a little longer?” the queen asked.

The guard answered: “I’m afraid I can’t, my liege. She looks rather impatient.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and groaned: “Fine! Metamorpho, wait for my return, I’ll try to be quick. Meanwhile, do not continue without me, you never know what may happen with special powers like yours. Got it?”

“Yes, my queen.” Metamorpho answered bowing.

The sovereign gave him a pleased smile and trotted out of the room to get her tedious duties out of the way.

Metamorpho just sat beside the little sanctuary of Equestrian bugs, pondering on what he could do to pass the time until the queen’s return. He could read through some books of the queen’s library, which he was always allowed to consult, but right now he didn’t really feel like doing that. And unfortunately, deep inside he was a terribly impulsive changeling, and when he was so excited for his accomplishments he could show a terrible lack of foresight.

‘What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?’ He thought. ‘No changeling was ever killed by his own magic, not even if he had a special talent like me! And for that matter, there is only one species left for me to imitate: the fly. That insignificant little black insect that keeps buzzing around garbage! Yeah, I’ll show the queen that she doesn’t always need to watch over me!’

And in a jiffy, the imprudent changeling flew over the toy city once again, successfully transformed into a fly and joined a little swarm searching for some carcass to consume.
By now he was totally sure that he was going to impress Queen Chrysalis like he had never done before… but soon enough, the proof that he had done something seriously wrong came to him in the form of an invisible and sticky trap.

‘Oh no, a spider web!’ Metamorpho thought. ‘This is ridiculous, they are so easy to break when I’m at my normal size! Why in Tartarus can’t I break free?’

Meanwhile, the spider who had built the trap was having a bellyful of some of the other flies in the swarm, but there was no way to know how long it was going to take before he was going to have a taste of Metamorpho… so the queen’s apprentice did the only thing that could save him: he turned back into a changeling, ready to destroy the web with his size.

But when Metamorpho covered himself in a shining green light and reacquired his natural appearance… nothing changed aside from his own body. He was still trapped and he was still small.

“Oh no…” he said out loud with a deeply alarmed voice. “No no no no NO NO NO NO! What’s wrong with my horn? How could this be? No way, this must be just a temporary anomaly with my magic, next time I will be large again and get out of this mess!”

So he tried to turn into a bug and back into a changeling again… and again… and again… and again. And still nothing changed.

“Oh no, what have I done?” Metamorpho whimpered. “This is hopeless, I got myself into deep trouble with my own hooves! Oh why, WHY did I disobey my queen? She’s going to kill me for this, and she will be right to do so! I’m not worthy of being her subject, I’m just a reckless idiot!”

While the changeling was wallowing in his grief, he heard a noise: boom... boom... BOOM…
Hoofsteps, Metamorpho was certain that was the source of the sound. And it had to be a very large changeling if he could hear it stomping towards the room from so far away, regardless his current size. Maybe… the queen?

The door opened up with a click, and it turned out Metamorpho was right. There she stood, the huge Chrysalis in all of her glory. She already looked frighteningly tall and intimidating to Metamorpho at his normal size, but now it was just like looking at a goddess, a moving mountain!

The queen looked rather annoyed, but also quite relieved that her boring task was done. “Finally!” She exclaimed with a heavy sigh. “Now we can proceed, Met-” Her eyes opened wide when she noticed that her protégé was nowhere to be found.

“Metamorpho?” She called, her voice a force of nature that made the little changeling feel even smaller. “Where are you? If this is a joke it’s not funny! Come out at once, that’s an order!” She stomped a hoof on the ground, and although she wasn’t too close to where Metamorpho was, he could feel the terrifying vibrations caused by the impact, which even startled his eight-legged kidnapper.

“YOUR MAJESTY!” The queen’s apprentice screamed as loud as he could. “I’M HERE IN THE INSECT PRISON! ONE OF THE SPIDERS CAUGHT ME! LOOK DOWN HERE, I BEG YOU!” Needless to say, the giantess didn’t hear anything.

Queen Chrysalis grimaced, visibly upset. “He’d better have a good reason for disappearing like that!” She said to herself. “As soon as I find him, I’ll have a talk with him!”

Then she looked at the little city of bugs, her expression changing into an unnerving and malicious smirk. “Well, I can look at the bright side,” she said with a strange giggle. “Now we are alone, my dear little squishy creatures. Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

‘Oh no… what is she talking about?’ The shrunk changeling thought.

Chrysalis put the “Do NOT disturb the queen” sign on the door and locked it. Then she started to trot towards the bugs’ prison very slowly, like a huge cat ready to pounce on her prey. On her muzzle there was still a weird and naughty smile, Metamorpho could swear there was also a hint of lust in her slightly narrowed eyes.

When the queen got close enough to the prison, she stopped for a moment to admire what was in front of her and she chuckled maliciously. Then she took one heavy step forward, stomping her hoof really hard and causing an earthquake that caused panic and commotion among the bugs below.

“Look at how small and helpless you are,” the giant monster cooed mischievously. “And look at how BIG and how BEAUTIFUL your queen is! Imagine, what would it be like if I came and joined you? It would be horrible for you, but I would be so pleased! I can already feel you under my pretty hoofsies, turned into a squishy little goo, giving me the best hoof massage I could ever dream of! You are mine, darlings, you are trapped! Get ready to be squashed, because here comes the stomping giantess!”

Metamorpho couldn’t believe it… he was mature enough to realize that even his queen needed to relax and play once in a while, but he would have never expected her to indulge in such a strange game of pretending! And the worst thing was that inside of the little world that the giantess was going to trample for her own amusement, there was… him.

“Fee…” Chrysalis whispered, taking another booming step forward.

Metamorpho tried to scream again, begging the queen to stop.

“…fi…” Another step, another earthquake.

More screams from the small changeling, his efforts totally in vain.

“…fo…” One more step, this time dangerously close to the border of the prison.

Metamorpho gave up. This was it, it was the end for him.

“…FUM!” And in the exact moment when that word was screamed, an almighty front hoof of the queen vigorously stomped on a little house, causing several bugs to run away, and some of them weren’t so lucky and got callously squashed by the giantess.
Metamorpho had never been so scared of his queen and teacher… she was now laughing really hard, but it was an incredibly sadistic and ruthless laugh, not the warm and comforting laugh he was used to; beneath her hoof he could see the remnants of the fake house and the tiny legs of those helpless bugs, and meanwhile another hoof was descending on the city to destroy whatever it could find!

The other front hoof landed on a fake tree, which snapped like an old twig, a back hoof trampled another toy building like a dry leaf and the other rear hoof stepped on a cockroach who had fallen on its back and couldn’t get up, crushing it with a loud crunch.
All of Chrysalis’s gigantic legs were now in the city, towering above the poor little creatures, including Metamorpho, who was so terrified he couldn’t even make a sound, while the giantess’s evil and deafening laugh resounded like an approaching cataclysm.

After savoring the pleasant feeling of the crushed objects and bugs tickling her soles, the queen stopped laughing and bent down a little with a grin on her pretty face to admire her scared victims (too bad Metamorpho was still out of her sight), then she slowly licked her lips and whispered: “You have no idea of how much I’m enjoying this already, little ones! And if I wasn’t, perhaps I’d feel sorry for stepping on you, I really needed to play a fun game, and you are giving me the best one I could ever hope for!” Then she stood tall once again.
Meanwhile, her shrunk student could only look at her with a mixture of awe and terror, his lips quivering and rivers of tears forming in his eyes.

“Oh no, help us!” The huge queen said with a strange and squeaky voice, pretending to be one of her victims. “Queen Chrysalis has become a gigantic monster and she’s stepping on us all!”

Then she returned to her natural voice: “Oh yes, I’m such a huge and scary giantess, am I not? And you are so small and pathetic, puny Equestrian ponies!” She raised a hoof above a terrified beetle. “But look at the bright side…” STOMP! “You will all die under my adorable little hooves, they are so smooth and beautiful, there couldn’t be a better way to go!” She grinded her hoof on the ground and moaned a little, like the thing was giving her an enormous pleasure.
And in fact Chrysalis was truly having tons of fun, that felt even better than deliberately stepping on that little figure that the purple unicorn in Canterlot had created with her magic while moping on the ground!

The queen started to trot through the fake city, her legs moving slowly and gracefully, showing an incredible amount of beauty and elegance for four enormous pillars that caused death, destruction and earthquakes every time they landed.

“Aww, why are you running, little cuties?” She cooed. “Don’t you want to play with me? Aren’t you having fun as much as I am? Too bad for you, cupcakes, I’m too gigantic to care.”

From up above, she observed her playful rampage with sheer delight, making sure that every time she put her hoof on the ground there was actually something beneath it.

“Hmm, yes, my little hoofsies,” she moaned. “Keep crushing, crush everything!”

Power… that was what absolute power felt like! She was totally sure of it!
And after reaching the limit of her playground, she took a different path, towards the place where Metamorpho was still imprisoned…

All that the tiny changeling could do in the meantime was sobbing and blaming himself for his unhappy fate, which he was sure he couldn’t escape by now.
He was going to be stepped on, just like all the other Equestrian creatures around him, and it was his entire fault! Why did he disobey the queen? How could he be so inconsiderate? And now the booming hoofsteps of the giantess, accompanied by a myriad of crunching sounds, were clearly heading towards him, his well-deserved punishment was coming!

“What are you gonna do, dearies?” The echoing, seductive voice of Chrysalis said. “Call your princess? Tsk-tsk, do you really think she can do anything against the most gigantic queen in the world? Chrysalis the Huge will simply SQUASH her, like this! ROAR!”

The round shadow of a hoof loomed over Metamorpho, he closed his eyes and waited for his doom…

BOOM!

The entire world crumbled around Metamorpho, nothing at all stood still around him, the giantess’s playful roar echoed in his ears…
He opened his eyes again… was he dead? No. In front of him there was the black and smooth surface of Chrysalis’s giant hoof, the spider web and its builder completely mushed by it, but he was alive… and free! Was fate giving him another chance? He had to find out!
First of all he checked if the magic barrier really worked even for him at his current size. Yes, it did; when he desperately tried the most efficient solution to fly right in front of the queen’s face, he bumped into what felt like invisible iron. And to make things worse, the barrier did not even reach the queen’s knees.
So he tried to fly in front of the trotting giantess’s front legs, waving his arms and screaming at her, hoping she would notice a different bug who moved in such a peculiar way… but it was no use. His voice was totally covered by the buzzing of all the flying bugs around him and the queen’s gaze was too distant to see him as any different from her other victims.

Chrysalis grinned and roared again, raising a hoof to stomp on a funny little fly that didn’t seem to be willing to go too far from her… it proved to be fast enough for her hoof, but she didn’t mind. “You were lucky, little one, but remember, the giant queen’s magnificent hoof will come back for you, very soon!” She said with an amused laugh.

Metamorpho couldn’t believe it! His beloved queen, teacher and adoptive mother who did not only taught him everything he knew but also stroked his cheek and kissed him on the forehead so many times… had just tried to step on him on purpose, and she had also warned him that she was going to try again! He knew she was totally unaware of who the flying speck at her hooves really was, but that was still too much for him to handle!
The little changeling felt the warmth of tears drowning his eyes again, and in a fit of panic and hopelessness he did something he would have never even dreamed of: he flew inside one of the holes in one of Queen Chrysalis’s legs and curled up inside it, making sure that he would never come out of it no matter what.
His small hooves tickled the surface of the hole, from outside he heard the giggling voice of the giantess, no longer a malicious laugh but scary and booming nonetheless.
The funny feeling made the queen of the changelings stomp her hooves a bit while laughing, the movement almost made Metamorpho feel sick… but no, he wasn’t going to move from there. Not now, not ever.

Queen Chrysalis really had to take a closer look to such a brave and funny insect. What was it up to? Was it trying to make a nest inside of her leg?
She raised the leg where the little being was, casting a protective spell on it so the bug could go through the barrier, and brought the hole close to one of her eyes so she could take a look at the intruder.

Metamorpho felt the place around him going higher and higher, until he saw a huge green eye staring at him, the pupil a shining mirror where he could see his reflection.
No... after all he had gone through, it was too hard for him to hope again. He kept crying and hid his face beneath a fore leg. His queen didn’t love him anymore, he was nothing but a bug in front of her size and magnificence, his only purpose was pleasuring her destructive hooves that yearned for something new to tread on…

“What the…” the gargantuan queen said with a surprised and concerned voice. “Metamorpho? Is that you?”

Just like that, the apprentice snapped out of his sorrow and looked at the eye once again.
The changeling felt his entire body wrapped in the telekinesis coming from the queen’s horn. In a few seconds, he found himself in front of two gigantic nostrils smelling him, the sound of the air they inhaled was louder than a tornado.

“Yes, it’s really you!” Chrysalis boomed, bringing him in front of her narrowed eyes. “I demand an explanation! Wait, did you continue the training session without my supervision?”

Metamorpho stammered, his eyes still watering: “I-I… yes, I did. I’m sorry, your highness! I’m so sorry! I could have never imagined this would have happened! Please, tell me you know how to make me grow to my normal size, being small is so terrifying! I can’t take it anymore!”

The queen’s expression became a little less stern. “I didn’t imagine this either, but as I said before powers like yours are extremely unpredictable, and most of their side effects have not yet been discovered! And yes, I know a growing spell that can help you… but you have made a terribly foolish mistake, so as your queen and your mentor, I will punish you by keeping you small until tomorrow!”

Metamorpho, still engulfed by the queen’s magic, started to weep softly, admitting that he truly deserved that punishment. But then he felt something soft and warm gently nudging him… it was the queen’s enormous muzzle, caressing him comfortingly.

“Don’t be so scared though,” the queen said gently, finally using the loving voice Metamorpho was used to. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you until then. I can easily tell that what you went through was enough to make you think about your actions. Besides, anyone can make mistakes, so let’s not allow this to ruin our friendship, okay?”

“*Sniff* Yes, your majesty.”

“Aww, my poor little sweetheart, I swear I almost feel guilty now! I must have scared you so much with my childish games! Please remember that I was just fooling around, arguing with the Succubus ambassador is always horribly draining for me and I needed to play… do you understand?”

“Yes your highness, I understand perfectly.”

“Just promise me one thing: don’t tell anyone about what I just did. You know, some changelings might see it as a sign that I’m not worthy of being followed…”

“My lips are sealed, your majesty.”

“Good boy.” She gently kissed the shrunk changeling, paying attention not to eat him alive by accident. “I just hope I didn’t almost… you know… squish you…”

Metamorpho could swear he had never seen so clearly through the queen’s mask of austerity and composure, her large eyes looked truly concerned and it was probably going to take just a few seconds before he could see them leak… but this was not the right time for a well-meant lie, the shrunk changeling had to face the consequences of what he had done.

“My queen… yes, you almost crushed me. But please know that I don’t blame you, you were not aware that I was among the bugs at your hooves, and I truly deserved to go through so much terror. I disappointed you just to prove that I was powerful, and almost getting stepped on like a bug was my punishment.”

Queen Chrysalis nuzzled him again and gently whispered: “Let’s not think about this anymore, what’s done is done. And I am truly proud of the maturity you are showing, you’re proving that you really want to make up for what you did.”

The giantess trotted out of the destroyed insect city and said: “Well, there are plenty of other Equestrian bugs in the laboratory; our spies sure make an admirable job. Oh dear, look at how late it is already, perhaps we should go and get some sleep, right sweetie?”

Metamorpho agreed and hugged the huge muzzle of the queen, who actually blushed for the first time in years.

Chrysalis and her tiny protégé lay down on the royal bed, comforted and warmed up by the soft covers and the comfortable mattress and pillows.

“Good night, little one,” the sovereign whispered, affectionately putting Metamorpho on her chest. “Have sweet dreams, and don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Good night, my good queen, thank you.”

That night, Metamorpho enjoyed one of the most peaceful slumbers in his entire life, feeling the beating heart of the queen against his little body and her soft hoof gently covering him. For a moment, he almost wished he wasn’t going to grow again the next day.