Fanfic / Black Queen, Red King

Chrysalis: the first of the Gatekeepers.

"Three weeks ago, it started with a dream."

— William

Black Queen, Red King is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan fiction story by wille179^note  who is also a troper.

Black Queen, Red King stars a teenage boy named William who forms a psychic connection with Queen Chrysalis. The story is set on a version of Earth set in the year 2029 and during the middle of season two of My Little Pony.

Eventually, William^note  who changes his name to Alvarium Rex after metamorphosis into a royal changeling capable of transporting matter and opening portals to Chrysalis's universe.

The thing is, he's not the only human to start pairing up with creatures in the other world, and not every human is as interested as he is at upholding the masquerade. And then there's Oblivion...^note  who is more of a multiverse-scale Spacetime Eater.

Black Queen, Red King has a companion story named Gatekeeper: Prince of Darkness written by InfiniteBrony. It follows the adventures of Victor DiVinci, who may or may not be Clairvoyant, and his partner, King Sombra.

Several other authors are writing additional side stories featuring other Characters within the same 'verse.

Has since been unofficially canceled as wille179 has left the fandom.

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"Black Queen, Red King" provides examples of:

• Accidental Murder: Catherine is killed when Gilda attempts to free her from her cocoon. She drops twenty feet and breaks her neck. Gilda dies a minute later due to the connection of their souls.
• Amnesia Danger: Two examples:
  • Taruke uses a spell to prevent memories from forming, Trapping Victor for a time because he cannot remember his detectors going off.
  • Oblivion can erase all evidence of its existence, including memory. It's also the Big Bad.
• Anti-Magic: Catherine and Co. get their hands on a set of Anti-Magic rings. The problem for Catherine is that they nullify the magic in her wings, rendering her flightless.
• Artifact of Attraction: Anything that has the Want-It, Need-It spell cast on it. Inverted: the Notice-Me-Not spell.
• Autocannibalism: Rex eats his own arm after it gets shot off in order to recover the nutrients he needs to heal.
• Boom, Headshot!: Rex was shot in the head at close range.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Rex uses cognitive dissonance and positive reinforcement to curb Slagteri's murderous tendancies.
• Broken Masquerade: Catherine discovers early on that William is actually a changeling.
  • Later, she creates a whole anti-changeling movement dedicated to ending the Masquerade.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Catherine and the anti-changeling movement all qualify as this.
• Curse That Cures: Implied that becoming a changeling helped Slagteri quit using heroin.
• Dead Man's Switch: The anti-changeling movement has twelve of them. One eventually does go off.

• Demonic Possession: At one point, Rex pretends to be the devil, kidnaps a serial killer from a prison, rips out the man's soul, and then Rex animates the body with a fragment of his own soul to create Ψ.
• Eat the Evidence: Changelings eat the bodies of their own dead and those of the humans they kill in order to uphold the Masquerade.
• Eldritch Abomination: There are at least six of them named, each vaguely described at best. They are Rex and Chrysalis's souls, the mouth of Death/Chaos, the darkness, Scythirraax, and Oblivion.
• Emotion Eater: The changelings are this. They can feed on ambient positive emotions, actively drain someone nearby who feels emotions towards them, or rip the emotions from their prey by biting the victim^note  which causes the victim to rapidly age.
• Glamour Failure: Cause a changeling pain, and it (partially) reverts to normal. Also, Rex's eyes tend to revert temporarily when he is overcome with lust or anger.
• Greed: Rex, who spends time as a bank robber, and Taruke, the hive's accountant, the most economically minded of the hive.
• He Knows Too Much: Any human who discovers the changelings is considered this by the changelings.
• Hermaphrodite: Changelings. Rex and Chrysalis have both impregnated themselves at some point in time.
• Hive Mind: Each changeling hive has its own mental network. It acts like a Psychic Link most of the time, but it can be turned up all the way to full unity and control.
• Hive Queen: William and Chrysalis both qualify. They each have their own hive.
• Horror Hunger: Downplayed due to a lack of emphasis on the horror part. The list of horrifying things Rex has eaten (and enjoyed) include (true) love/lust/happiness^note  not eating emotions causes heart failure in changelings, human flesh, other changelings (his own subjects, though this was in a funeral for their murders; the changelings eat their own dead) and human souls. However, he is not so much upset about his appetite as what his (human) daughter would think of him if she knew.
• I Have Many Names: Rex has sixty different false IDs, several of which are opposite genders.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The changelings eat their own dead. It is a decision based on practicality, as it eliminates the risk of the body being found later.

I'm Having Soul Pains: John Smith suffers from this right before his soul is crushed to death and consumed by Rex.

• Join or Die: Played with: The anti-changeling movement is told that they can join... or leave the room completely unharmed. What they don't know is that the latter option involves cocooning them and using them as food.
  • Averted the next chapter: all of the cocooned humans are converted to stop a series of dead man's switches from going off. It's not done soon enough.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: The Silencers tend to do this from time to time.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The hive is searching for a way to do this to humans in order to keep their existence a secret, but has yet to succeed.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Changeling venom paralyses its victims and forces them to hallucinate visions of the people they love, often erotic visions. It is the emotional equivalent of digestive enzymes.

• Magitek: One of the goals of Research & Development. Change.lng is a sentient, animated computer program, while Rex creates a golem out of a robot and the soul of a serial killer^note  He destroys it a minute later. It was just a proof-of-concept.
• Masquerade: Ginny Skinner and the Silencers work for the hive to uphold the masquerade.
• Meaningful Name: Invoked: the changelings on Earth choose their own names.
  • Lampshaded by Klika in this quote to Taruke: "We all name ourselves; Protector^note  Taruke, whom she's speaking to, Slaughterhouse, Daughter,^note  the meaning of Klika's name in the changeling language Stalker – of course it’s fitting."
  • Slagteri: As a definite case of Names to Run Away from Really Fast, his name means Slaughterhouse.
• Mind Rape: Rex does this to his subjects on a couple of occasions, sometimes on accident. There was even a case where a changeling, having had her personality altered, is Driven to Suicide.
• Mushroom Samba: Oddly, Candy Hearts do this to changelings as a combination of Weed and LSD. It also makes them continuously excrete binding gel and temporarily restores their ability to taste normal food^note  much to their delight.
• Mister Seahorse: Since changelings are biologically capable of holding both reproductive roles, any changelings that identify as male qualify^note the main character included.
• Monster Progenitor: Rex and Chrysalis both serve as this for their respective hives.
• One-Gender Race: Changelings are this, which aids in their ability to assume the forms of both human genders. Changelings can both sexually^note Each partner takes the role of either male or female or asexually^note  Only the king/queen can do this. Rex is both the mother and father of Klika.
• One-Letter Name: Ψ, the artificial drone changeling. Bonus points for being a Greek letter.
• Ordinary High-School Student: William, Nick, and Catherine each start out in high school. They graduate in a few chapters.
• Our Souls Are Different: Rex gains the ability to see souls. He describes them as brilliant, flaming figures that glow an impossible color. His own soul is described as a horrifying monstrosity that damages the eyes of those who look at it.
• Painting the Medium: While Rex telepathically thinks to Chrysalis, it's in orange. When she replies, it's in green.
  • Discord (rather, his counterpart John Q. Drocsid) thinks, writes^note  even his letter, written in green crayon, turns to blue ink. This was lampshaded by his psychologist, and speaks in blue.
  • Also, certain words that describe Rex and Chrysalis's souls have Zalgo text, like this: t҉̻̙ḛ͈̩̫͚n̠̭͍̗̫d̤̬͍͇̲͝ͅr̘̯͠i͝ļs̞̤̜͓.
• Physical God: Celestia, Luna, and Cadance qualify. It is implied that Selene is one, too, though it is never explicitly stated.
• Portal Cut: The characters have often used teleportation to cut things, including security cameras, a giant cocoon, and a man's hand.
• Pride: Taruke is extreamly prideful of his contributions to the hive and that his mind was warped by Rex^note  he considers it a blessing
• Resurrective Immortality: Rex, Chrysalis, and all physical gods. However, the mechanism behind the resurrection is different for each. Rex and Chrysalis have to climb their way back from the afterlive, while the physical gods just don't stay dead.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: The changelings can shrink down to the size of flies or grow to the size of a large man. Word of God handwaves this by saying that the false bodies are magical constructs with simulated mass.
• Shared Universe: Gatekeeper: Prince of Darkness is set in the same universe. Many other authors are looking at joining.

• Soul Power: Rex and Sally-Anne, to a lesser extent, have this power.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Two examples: The prison for Discord is talked about while inside a temporary, custom prison for Victor. The former was designed to launch Discord elsewhere in the multiverse, while the latter simultaneously held mind and body prisoner.
• Teleportation: With a snap of their fingers, any Gatekeeper can teleport matter to their counterpart.
• The Men in Black: The Silencer Division were established explicitly for this purpose.
• Thinking Up Portals: This is one of the default power of the Gatekeepers.
• To Serve Man: Many of the changelings, hatched and ex-human alike have eaten human meat.
• Transferable Memory: Changelings can easily upload their memories to the Hive Mind, and all memories there are known by everyone in the hive.
• Transhuman Treachery: Most converted changelings are this way, though Slagteri and Taruke take it up to eleven. However, the latter case suffered from Mind Rape, which made him that way.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The story is set in the year 2029.
• Verbal Tic: Selene has one, see?
• Villainous Glutton: Rex. This overlaps with lust due to the way changelings feed.
• Voluntary Shape Shifting: The changelings. This is the primary power of their species.
• Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: Rex comments about not telling Selene about this in the narration. He wants both human emotions and human/changeling flesh.
• Winged Humanoid: Catherine and Selene, who both grew wings. Gilda, a griffin that turned humanoid, also applies.
• Word of God: Loads and loads. The author gives commentary at the end of almost every single chapter.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Rex's soul damages Sally-Anne's eyes and visual cortex when she sees it.
• Your Head Asplode: Rex was shot in the head at close range.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Rex says the name of the trope verbatim to John, then proceeds to rip his soul out, play with it, and then accidentally swallow the man's soul.

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