//------------------------------//
// 4. All for one 
// Story: The Taste Of Blood 
// by Shrink Laureate 
//------------------------------//

The sun beat down on the harsh red sand and rocks. The air wavered in the heat. It soaked through Twilight's hooves as she climbed the ridge, seeking a path through. She kept her head low, to pick her steps carefully and to avoid the unforgiving glare.

She glanced to her left. On the horizon sat the city of Canterlot, standing proud against the mountain. It was surrounded by a globe of rose coloured magic, bright even against the relentless desert sun. As well as being round, it was also spiky, like a ball stuck with a hundred needles. Thin, sharp traces of light emanated from the city in every direction.

She turned to the right, but Canterlot was there as well. Raising her head to look ahead of her, she found the city sitting in the distance beyond the ridge she was climbing.

Following a narrow, meandering gulley cut between two outcroppings, she was alarmed to see signs of life – or rather, signs of death. A creature of some sort had died here, crushed and deformed beyond recognition. She couldn’t tell if she was looking at a single limb or the whole animal. Parts of it were green, parts of it were purple, parts of it were black, parts of it were blue. Some of those parts were clearly inside parts rather than outside, but teezing apart which had been which was beyond Twilight's knowledge.

She carried on walking through the narrow gulley. Heat radiated off the stone walls to either side but it was at least shade, blessed relief from the baking sun. Turning a corner she found more parts, of the same creature and others, slowly frying. The next twist revealed more and more of them. Soon it was clear that hundreds of these creatures had died, somehow, their bodies torn apart and flung across this baked landscape. This wasn't a single creature's random death, part of the natural order. This was a slaughter.

A noise ahead and above drew her attention: an intermittent buzzing. Clambering up a scree slope, she found one of the creatures still alive, if barely. Its head was crushed, its clear blue eyes misshapenly both staring at the sky. Its wings were torn to tatters, its body scraped along the ground leaving a dark, messy trail.

Every few seconds the creature would be replaced with the flickering image of a pony, similarly broken. The illusion lasted only a second or two before it gave up. Then it gathered its strength, buzzing in concentration, and tried again. Each time it tried becoming a different pony, different colours and ages and builds and tribes, but all of them broken. No illusion could relieve the fatal injuries it had suffered.

“Twww—”

Twilight's head snapped up as she heard a voice. She scanned the horizon, strewn as it was with corpses, looking for where the voice had come from.

“Twwaah—”

She trotted towards the noise, and found a creature she recognised: the proud queen who had impersonated her foalsitter, seduced her brother, bested the princess, laughed at her friendship and nearly succeeded in conquering the whole country.

At least, most of her.

Her hindquarters were torn away, drawn across the rock in a messy line. Her hind legs and tail were missing, lost somewhere in the bloody trail. Hey fragile wings, like those of the thousands surrounding her, were torn to nothing. Twilight couldn't recognise the innards that had been drawn from the mare’s body.

Her eyes looked up into Twilight's. She breathed a word that Twilight couldn't hear. Cautiously, Twilight stepped closer, wanting to hear what she was saying.

“Shy…”

“What's that? Fluttershy?” She wondered what the queen could want with her quiet friend.

The mare moved her head slowly from side to side, indicating disagreement. She worked her parched lips, and took a trembling breath. With effort she lifted a hoof, though it was bent unnaturally. Twilight leaned closer, taking the hoof.

“…Shining Ar…r…”

The last breath faded from her throat and her hoof fell limp.