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I haven't read the work, so I can just go on what you're writing, but it seems that it could be a variation of the trope, or a reference to it, or even a parody. It doesn't sound like a subversion - that would be setting up the trope and then going off in some other direction.
Tropes Are Flexible so it's possible this could just be a straight example with some variations.
A good place to ask this type of question is Is This An Example
, as it is dedicated to answering them.

So early on in Chrysalis Visits The Hague, Šarić organizes an expedition into the Everfree Forest to look for ponies who have gone missing in the recent-ish past, and they find a rather large (as in 350 trapped ponies) Changeling (do you capitalize it? I don't watch FiM) hive in a cave. I know that (strictly speaking) it's not a Rescued from the Underworld scenario (they don't literally go to the underworld), but it has a lot of elements thereof: there's a harrowing journey into a confined, dark place where several hundred ponies are trapped by a character who's a demon archetype, and there's a Cerberus equivalent (though they're both pretty messed up — strictly speaking, none of the ponies are dead until after they get rescued, and the Cerberus equivalent is a malnourished, brainwashed pegasus with a single booby trap).
Does this count as Playing with a Trope, maybe downplayed or subverted? Or am I playing Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory games with myself?
Thanks.
Edited by XndrK