The power of Chaos comes to the peaceful land of Equestria. Can the princesses prevail?
Chaos, from the Warhammer universe, extends its corrupting power into the land of Equestria, taking countless ponies into its service. Civil war begins between the princess loyalists and Chaos worshipers. Twilight must navigate the new war and try to leave it alive.
AN: Sometime you have average ideas. Sometimes you have good ideas. Sometimes you have awesome ideas. And sometimes you have ideas so weird and crazy that you just have to share them. This story is that kind of idea.
…
It was a dark and stormy night. Rain poured down upon the land. Twilight Sparkle stood on the battlements of Canterlot, looking down at the horrors below.
Up the mountain path marched an army like no other. Countless ponies, branded or scarred with the eight-pointed star. The symbol she had so come of fear. The symbol of Chaos.
But the branded ponies were hardly the worst. She could see some of the ponies were grotesquely mutated, sprouting arms, extra eyes, tentacles, and countless unmentionable horrors. There were ponies in ramshackle pieces of red armor, dripping with blood and covered with organs that looked fresh. They roared feral, bloodthirsty cries. A fearsome-looking pegasus completely covered completely from head to toe in fearsome, spiked red and brass armor led them. He flew above his troops, and giant axe in hoof. Even though she couldn't see his eyes, Twilight knew they radiated with barely-contained bloodlust.
Ponies marched dressed in bizarre, gaudish clothing and armor. They had symbols that hurt the eye merely to look on painted on their flanks. Twilight had seen more than one unfortunate pony who stared too long at such symbols completely lose his sanity before mutating rapidly into a rapid and uncontrollable monster that had to be put down. They were covered with self-inflicted wounds, many of which still dripped with blood or some unknown ichor. They looked almost aroused by the idea of impeding violence. At their head was a unicorn wrapped up completely in pink armor. He seemed to be surrounded by some sick parody of an angelic aura, and wherever he passed, ponies would writhe on the ground with ecstasy as they mutated into new, hideous forms.
The most grotesque and disgusting ponies Twilight had ever seen marched as well. They were covered with countless sores and diseases. Their fur fell off in clumps, and their limbs were rotten. Their sores oozed some revolting black pus. Even from here, Twilight could smell them, and she wanted to vomit. Their obvious leader was, as the others, wrapped up in a suit of all-concealing armor. Despite its rust and the unidentifiable green stuff growing all over it, Twilight could tell it would be as difficult to pierce as the others
Scattered throughout the force were a handful of ponies with their fur dyed blue, wearing bits and pieces of blue or gold armor. They clutched staffs or swords. Their bodies dangled with fetishes, potions, and artifacts Twilight couldn't identify. Despite their small numbers, Twilight judged them a deadly threat – they were clearly potent magic users. High above the army floated the clear leader of the sorcerers. Standing on a bizarre and clearly unnatural flying, spiked disk, the figure was safely concealed in an intricate suit of blue and gold armor. He held a staff in one hoof. He looked directly at Twilight for a moment, menace in his eye. She shuddered.
Not all of the creatures below belonged to these obvious factions. There were countless mutant ponies among the bunch who looked simply mindless. Twilight pitied their fate, but steeled herself, knowing she would have to put them down. Other ponies simply had a brand or scar in the shape of the Chaos star, and carried ramshackle weapons with little apparent organization. There were many creatures so mutated and vile that Twilight simply couldn't tell what they might have been once, or even if they had ever been anything else at all.
There were thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Twilight shook her head. She didn't know, and the rain made it impossible to count the army that marched against them, even if it had been possible in the first place.
In the center of the horde there was a litter. Carried by chained, hulking mutant ponies, it trudged forward through the rain and mud. Surrounding it were a grotesque parody of Celestia's Royal Guard – vast brutes encased in heavy black and silver armor, carrying polearms of all sorts. Despite lacking the obvious mutations or grisly trophies as the others, Twilight feared this group above all else. For if these were the only ones worthy amongst this vast and mighty horde to guard the leader, whoever he might be, then it was obvious that they could only be the most powerful warriors of the horde.
In comparison to the vast forces arrayed against them, Celestia's army looked pitifully few. A few thousand Royal Guard, and maybe ten thousand hastily drafted and trained civilians. Twilight would have felt bad about sending them to their deaths, but if they failed here they were all dead – or worse – anyway. At least, that's what she told herself every time she looked into the frightened eyes of an old stallion pulled away from his retirement or a young mare barely out of filly-hood. They had no choice. That didn't make her feel much better.
Much more comforting to Twilight was the imposing figure of Princess Celestia herself on the battlefield. Arrayed in shining golden armor patterned into beautiful flames, Celestia seemed a beacon of light in the dark hopelessness of this night. It was clear that other ponies thought the same way, as she could see notably more resolve and much less fear in the eyes of those closest to she who had ruled Equestria alone for a millennium.
Of course, Celestia was no longer the sole ruler, and neither was she the only alicorn on the battlefield. Luna, in a black suit of armor beautifully patterned with shining stars and a moon over her chest, stood at the other end of the battlements, far from her sister.
Their presence gave Twilight hope, but it also reminded her of the stakes heer: if they should fail this night, all was lost. Equestria was doomed, and Chaos would reign triumphant over the planet. All she and her friends had accomplished – defeating Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis – would be for nothing.
As Twilight mused on these things, a sickly horn sounded from the enemy army. As one, they stopped in their tracks, though many still brayed with bloodlust in their eyes. At last, silence descended onto the field. The only sound came from the pitter patter of rain.
"Ponies of Canterlot! Screamed a voice into her mind. Twilight staggered, and a quick look around showed that the others were doing so too. Only Celestia and Luna remained upright. I will not bother with words. I will not bother asking you to surrender. I know you will not. I would not wish it. Therefore, I will simply say this: In the name of Khorne, I will slaughter you! In the name of Nurgle, I will leave your bodies of rot! In the name of Slaanesh, I will revel in your suffering! And in the name of Tzeentch, I WILL ALTER THE FUTURE! CHARGE!
The horde roared their devotion to the skies, and did exactly that.
Even as what she knew to be her probable death charged her, Twilight could not help thinking about how it had come to this.
It was a day just like any other. Twilight had woken up early to peruse her books, greeted and fed Owlicious, and woken up Spike.
He had, as usual, resisted. "Uhhh… five more minutes mommy. Gotta… gotta… gotta rescue…"
"Spiiiike!" said Twilight with exasperation. "It's already 6:00 in the morning! That's five minutes past your usual get-up time! And that's 8 hours of sleep, three more than dragons your age need according to my copy of Caring for Your Dragon by Scaleside the Slightly Crisp! And furthermore, my own metabolic studies of dragons have conclusively shown- mmhp!"
Spike had reach out of bed and grabbed her mouth. He sighed. "You know what? I'd rather just get up and get to work than spend the next hour of my life hearing you lecture me on how I get too much sleep for my species." He yawned. "Just drop it and I'll get up now. Deal?"
Twilight nodded, and he released her.
"Alright then, rise and shine! We've got a busy day ahead of us! At 6:01, breakfast!" Twilight looked at her clock and let out a small shriek.
Spike rushed to her. "What? What is it? What's wrong?"
Twilight pointed a shaking hand at the clock.
Spike looked at it nonchalantly. "The clock looks fine to me."
"Not the clock! The time! We were supposed to be eating breakfast by 6:01! And it's… it's… 6:02!"
Twilight gave another small squeal. Spike simply looked at her, utterly deadpan. He then and wandered off to go find something to eat. Twilight, meanwhile, was frantically adjusting her schedule.
"If we take another minute to eat, we could be a minute late for the mailpony! Or, Celestia forbid, even two minutes late! Ok, so I've gotta make some time. But we don't have any! I scheduled everything today precisely to the minute! We don't have any time to spare! If we're late for the mailpony, I might not receive my package! Ok, so it says that they'll just drop it on my doorstep with no signature required, but how do I know that's true? And if I add in more time for the mailpony, I might be late for Rarity! But if I add time for her, I'll have to cut my reading time by a whole three minutes! And if I do that, I might miss a question on my upcoming exam! And if I do that, my A+ average is ruined! Ruined forever! What do I do! What do I do! What do I do!"
Spike simply munched on his Wheaties while Twilight drove herself insane over her schedule. Again. …
After Twilight had finally managed to calm down (when she realized she could just knock 3 minutes off her sleep schedule that night to make up for lost reading), she went through her morning as normally as could be expected. She had received her package (a chemistry set piece she'd ordered), read her books, attended Rarity's spa appointment, helped Applejack mend her fence, eaten lunch, and loaned Fluttershy her book on the care and feeding of baby chimeras.
"Alright, check." She said happily, marking off her time with Fluttershy from her schedule. "Next is…" she took a look, "Trying Pinkie Pie's new cake recipe. Alright!"
Twilight trotted away from Fluttershy's cottage back into Ponyville proper. It didn't take her long at all to get to Mr. and Mrs. Cake's address, and in it, Pinkie Pie.
"Heya Twilight! What's up?" said Pinkie in her usual perky fashion the instant Twilight walked in the door. "Howya doing? Cause I'm doing great! I think I've finally got my new cake recipe down!" She bounded happily all over the room in her usual manner, blowing on a blower that she had somehow acquired from nowhere.
Twilight mentally shrugged. "Just Pinkie being Pinkie."
Aloud, she said. "Great! So, can I try it?"
Pinkie bounded over to her. "Of course silly! That's why I invited you over isn't it?"
"Great!" Twilight smiled, although she was less than enthusiastic – Pinkie's last try at this had contained so much sugar that she'd had to excuse herself to the little fillies room, where she'd promptly lost her lunch. "I do hope you've put a wee bit less sugar in it this time, though." She grinned nervously.
"Of course I have, silly! I remember the last one!"
Pinkie hummed cheerfully as she trotted into the kitchen, rapidly coming back with a fresh-baked cake in her hooves.
"Right here," she said, setting her new cake down on the counter. She rapidly cut a piece and handed it to Twilight. "Eat up!"
Twilight took the plate, somewhat more hesitantly than she'd intended.
"Well, bottoms up,"thought Twilight as she started to take a bite.
At that exact moment, there came a tremendous bang from another room. Twilight dropped the cake, startled.
"What was that?"
Pinkie shrugged. "Beats me. Hey, maybe it's someone new! I should throw them a party! But wait…"
"Finally, a dose of common sense. You don't throw a party for someone if they're breaking into your house at the time."
"I don't know their name! How can you throw someone a party if you don't know who they are? Ok I've done that before, but it was always more fun when I knew who I was celebrating!"
Twilight face-hoofed.
"Hey, new guy! What's your name? I need to throw you a party!" Pinkie said rather loudly as she rushed towards the source of the noise.
"No, Pinkie!" Twilight cried, but it was already too late. She struggled to get in behind the counter to follow.
Suddenly, there was a high-pitched scream. Just as suddenly, it was cut off, and there were sounds of struggle.
"Pinkie!" cried Twilight. She looked at the counter. "Ah hoof this!" She blasted the lock and door away with her magic.
"Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, but I'm kinda in the middle of an emergency here. My friend is in trouble!" Twilight thought as she ran towards the source of the scream.
Twilight burst into the kitchen. There stood perhaps the most unsettling pony she had ever seen. His coat was dyed a deep blue, but that wasn't what unnerved Twilight. Many ponies did that. What creeped her out was the way that the dyed coat looked somehow unnatural. Magical. But not the healthy, normal kind she used. Something clearly not normal. Looking into his coat, she could swear that she saw the ghosts of images dancing and heard the faintest of whispers.
"Mmmph!"
That snapped Twilight out of her study of this stallion's coat. Pinkie was lying on the ground, bound and gagged by some sort of multicolored energy.
"Hey!" Twilight said, shifting into a fighting stance. "You let my friend go right now!"
The stallion looked briefly down at Pinkie, then back at Twilight. "And why should I do that?"
"Because I'll beat you up if you don't! I've faced down Discord and Nightmare Moon! Whatever you are, you're nothing next to them! So let her go now!"
"Indeed? And you are so sure that you could, as you put it, 'beat me up'?"
"Well, I… errr…" Twilight had to admit that the pony's strangeness and total lack of fear was pretty unnerving. He simply smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Yes! Yes I am! Bring it on! I'm no startled victim for you to ambush! I'm Twilight Sparkle! Favorite student of Princess Celestia! Defeater of Discord and Nightmare Moon! Wielder of the Element of Magic!"
"Quite a list of accomplishments you've got there. Regardless," he brushed imaginary dust off his fur, "It matters not. I have no intention of facing you here. I'll leave that to the Blood God's brutes. I have what I came for." He nodded to Pinkie Pie. "The wielder of the Element of Laughter should make an excellent sacrifice to Lord Tzeentch."
"Blood God? Lord Tzeentch? Sacrifice? What in the hay are you talking about?"
He chuckled a bit. "Oh, you'll see soon enough, Twilight Sparkle." He mockingly bowed a bit. "I bid you adieu."
"No, wait! Stop!"
"Does anyone ever actually do that?"
The stallion and Pinkie Pie vanished in a crack of blue light and the smell of burnt food.
"Pinkie Pie, NO!" Twilight fell to her knees.
Even as she began sobbing, Twilight heard a voice from outside.
The shriek came in through the window. It sounded like it was coming from the street.
Her despair at being unable to save Pinkie temporarily brushed aside, Twilight looked outside the kitchen window. She gasped.
On the street were three ponies: two mares and a stallion. Their fur and manes were matted with fresh, dripping blood. Their eyes were filled with a manic glee and a bloodlust Twilight had never seen in any creature before. The stallion held an old, blood-spattered wood axe in his grip. The mares brandished a large kitchen knife and an old spear. These were slick with gore.
On the ground lay five ponies, spouting hideous injuries. They were missing limbs, or had a cracked skull, or had deep cuts in their flanks. One even had his guts spilled on the ground. Blood poured from their wounds. The only mercy was that they were already dead.
Other ponies were on the street, fleeing in panic. They screamed as they tried to run in all directions, frequently bumping into each other in their frantic attempts to escape the maniacs with the weapons.
Twilight had never seen such carnage before. Never seen ponies so brutally slain. Especially never seen it done by other ponies that would look perfectly normal without the blood, weapons, and crazed looks in their eyes. Twilight wanted to vomit.
So she did.
After she was done losing her lunch (and maybe her breakfast too), Twilight looked out again. The crazed ponies had already killed two others, but thankfully it seemed most of the rest had managed to flee the scene. There were still a few cowering near the edges of buildings.
One to the mares got on her hind legs. "Is there no one in this pathetic town who dares face the warriors of the Blood God? Is there none among you with the courage to face us, pony to pony? Are you all worthless sheep like this bunch?" She indicated the slain ponies.
Twilight felt a horrible rage building in her gut. How dare they? How dare they come here? How dare they bring their mindless bloodlust, their murder, and their blood god? How dare they attack the innocent? Would they get away with it?
"Not while I'm around!"
Twilight burst out of the kitchen door. "Hey, you murderous bullies! I'm here! I'll challenge you! I'm Twilight Sparkle! I've defeated demons and corrupted gods! You're nothing compared to that! So leave these ponies alone and fight me!"
The three ponies turned to regard her. She stared right back at them unflinchingly.
Finally, one of the mares raised her spear. "Slaughter her in the name of Khorne!"
Twilight didn't hesitate. She hit the mare dead on with a wave of pure magical force. The pony went flying back into a brick building nearby. Her head hit the brick with a sickening crack, and she lay still, something trickling down her neck.
"Oh, Celestia… I may have killed a pony! What have I done?"
Twilight looked at herself. She hadn't meant to hit her that hard. Had she? Was she really that furious? Was she right to be?
Twilight had little time to ponder this, as the stallion began to scream. "Sorcery? The coward uses sorcery? Butcher her! Bring her skull to the skull throne!"
With that, the stallion and the remaining mare charged.
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" screeched the stallion as he swung his axe at her. Twilight barely ducked under it. She felt it catch the edge of her mane before burying itself into the ground near her flank.
"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" screamed the mare as she stabbed at Twilight. She swung her kitchen cleaver haphazardly, but she still looked deadly.
Twilight ducked and rolled, desperately trying to get away from this crazed pair. She came up a few feet away, towards the center of the street. The stallion was struggling to remove his axe from the ground, and the mare was picking herself up from where she'd fallen after leaning too far forward in her attempt to stab Twilight.
Whatever the ponies had done, Twilight still didn't want to kill them. She wanted answers. What could possibly cause normal, peaceful ponies to suddenly start acting like this? What could she do about it? What did the stallion who had kidnapped Pinkie have to do with it? Who was "Tzeentch"? Who was "Khorne"?
So, instead of blasting them again, Twilight focused all her energy on the mare. Her eyes closed hard, and her horn glowed.
"Go… to… sleep…"
Twilight felt an unnatural resistance to magic from this mare. Still, she pushed hard, and eventually the mare gave out and flopped to the ground, sleeping like a baby. A blood-encrusted, crazed, ponycidal baby.
Twilight panted as she opened her eyes again. Just in time to see the stallion charging her again with his axe, a mad gleam in his eyes. He swung the axe as Twilight backpedaled as fast as her hooves could go. Still, it passed within inches of her throat.
Twilight acted purely on instinct, without conscious thought. She hit the pony in front of her with the biggest blast of solid force she could conjure. He was picked up and hurled through the air, smashing through the wall of Mr. and Mrs. Cake's store and slamming hard onto the sink. There was a hideous crack. Blood began to ooze from his back.
Twilight cautiously approached the injured stallion. "If you surrender now, I'll take you to get medical treatment. I promise I won't let you die."
He looked up at her, eyes still filled with the maniacal gleam. "Lord of skulls, accept this humble offering."
He picked up his axe with his one good hoof.
Twilight frowned. "Put that down! You're in no condition to fight me!"
He turned the head back towards himself.
"He doesn't want to fight me!" Twilight realized, but too late.
The stallion swung his axe hard at his own neck. Sickeningly, it went through his throat and most of his neck before lodging in his spine. He died with the same maniacal gleam in his eyes.
The sight of his almost-beheaded corpse was so disgusting that Twilight retched again, but her stomach had no more contents to void.
Twilight fled the room. …
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
The cry echoed across the town, as dozens, or maybe even hundreds, of crazed ponies seemed to spring from nowhere, slaughtering all in their path with mismatched blades. Ponies fled in abject terror of the lunatics as they cut down everyone within reach, while chanting praises to Khorne. A few tried to resist, but almost none had as much success as Twilight. It wasn't long before they had broken into town hall and beheaded the mayor and her assistant. Fires raged out of control around Ponyville as the lunatics burned everything or simply by accident. Ponies were fleeing in every conceivable direction. Almost all were headed for the hills. Many chose to flee towards nearby Canterlot, hoping to find safety there. …
Twilight found herself in this crowd. She had tried her best to interrogate her prisoner, but she had gotten little other than lunatic promises of slaughter overcoming Equestria, of the princesses being cast down, and of the entire world being transformed into a blood-soaked monument to the gods of Chaos, whoever they were. The prisoner would only give one name: Khorne, the Blood God. That told Twilight nothing she hadn't already guessed.
Eventually, she had left the bound prisoner in another maniac giggling fit and fled from the dozen or so Khornate ponies that were burning the neighborhood. First, she'd run desperately to her house. She had to save Spike.
When she got there, she saw it was on fire.
"SPIKE!" Twilight screamed desperately as she kicked down her door.
"T-T-Twilight?" came a small voice, hiding in what passed for a basement in her tree.
"Spike! Oh thank Celestia you're safe!" Twilight said, scooping up the small dragon as he emerged from the root system beneath the floor. She hugged him tight. "Come on, we've gotta get out of here! There doesn't seem to be an end to these lunatics! We have to get to Canterlot! The princesses will know what to do!"
Spike nodded. "Behind you all the way!"
Together, they ran out of their home of several years as it burned and collapsed. …
Twilight was far from the only pony fleeing Ponyville for Canterlot, as she passed numerous ponies bolting as fast as their hooves could take them in that direction. Others fled towards Fillydelphia, Manehatten, smaller towns or villages, or simply the wilderness, all in search of safety.
Overhead, Twilight suddenly caught a glimpse of a very familiar blue Pegasus.
"Rainbow Dash, down here!"
At first Twilight was worried she hadn't been heard, but at last the figure turned and swooped down. Rainbow Dash tackled Twilight and hugged her tight.
"Twilight, you're ok!"
"Oof," Twilight struggled under the choking hug. "I'm alright, but do you think you could let me breathe?"
"Oh, sorry." Rainbow released her.
"Thanks!" Twilight looked at Rainbow and noticed a long gash along her flank, just behind her wings. "What happened to you?" she said, with a look of concern in her eyes.
Rainbow looked at her cut. "Oh, this? It's nothing. Not deep at all. I got it when I tried to fight off a crazed madpony from a group of children."
"So they're in Cloudsdale too?"
"Yeah. Hundreds of em. I wanted to fight, but I realized I didn't have enough power to beat them on my own, so I just helped everyone get away as best I could before I ran to check on you guys. I'm really glad I found you, by the way. I was afraid you been killed when I saw that your house burned down. Pinkie's place got burned down. Rarity's and Applejack's too. Fluttershy's house got wrecked. Gashes in the walls and floor, furniture in pieces, blood and animal bodies everywhere."
"And Fluttershy? Did you see her? Is she… is she…"
"Dead?" Rainbow shook her head. "I didn't see her body, or anypony's for that matter. Just her pets."
"And what about the others? Have you seen them?"
Rainbow shook her head. "No. You're the first one I've seen. I've looked everywhere for you guys, but all I've found is your houses."
"What are you doing now?"
"Still looking for the rest of you."
"I saw Pinkie get taken."
Rainbow grabbed her shoulders. "She's dead?"
Twilight shook her head. "Alive when last I saw her. But the pony who took her mentioned something about a sacrifice to 'Lord Tzeentch', whoever that is."
"Horse pellets!"
Twilight would have been shocked at the foul language, but Rainbow left her no time.
"Where are you going?"
"Canterlot. The princesses have to know what happened here!"
Rainbow nodded. "Good idea! I'm going to take another sweep around to see if I can find anyone else, and then I'll meet back up with you again, ok?"
"Sounds good."
"Ok then. See you soon!" Rainbow soared back into the sky …
Several hours later, Twilight and Spike were laying underneath a tree, trying to rest, or at least catch their breath. They'd fled as fast as their feet could take them for several hours, first running, then trotting, then walking, then limping with exhaustion. Finally, they'd decided that they could take no more, and it should take the madponies hours to catch up with them, if they were trying at all.
As they sat beneath the tree, they both looked sadly at the vast column of smoke rising from their hometown.
"Look on the bright side: I'm sure the princesses know now." Spike said between heavy breaths.
"Yeah, because our home is now just a giant pile of firewood! And who knows what else those ponies will do? Or where they've gone?"
"Good point. Just trying to be optimistic here."
Twilight smiled sadly and gave him a little hug. "I appreciate the effort."
They sat in silence for a few more minutes as they worked to catch their breaths. Finally, Spike pointed upwards.
"Hey, it's Rainbow Dash!"
Twilight looked up. Sure enough, the distinctive form of the blue pegasus was visible, and slowly approaching. She was going noticeably slower than usual. Almost as if… she was guiding something? Twilight's heart leaped at the thought, and she stood up. Spike clambered to his feet a few seconds later.
They watched as Rainbow slowly approached their position. Finally, she halted in the air not far from where they were.
"Over here! They're over here!" Rainbow called.
Twilight felt a rush of relief flooding over her at that. Rainbow could only be guiding her friends to her! That meant they were ok!
A moment later, Applejack rounded the bend, Applebloom on her back.
"Applejack!"
"Twlight!"
The two embraced, almost causing an exhausted-looking Applebloom to fall off her sister's back.
Twilight's happiness turned to disappointment as she saw that there was no one following. Rainbow landed near her.
Twilight turned towards Rainbow. "You didn't find the others?"
Rainbow shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, Twi, but there wasn't anything else I could do. I looked and looked and looked for hours, but I couldn't find heads or hooves of Fluttershy, Rarity, or Pinkie. I had to take Applejack to you."
"Was I that easy to find?"
"Yeah, you're on the straightest, most direct path to Canterlot. It's the first way a pony would think to go."
Twilight mentally cursed herself for a fool. Of course anypony would think of that. Anypony, including the psychos who wanted to kill them! But she could deal with that in a bit.
She turned to Applejack. "So… where's Granny Smith and Big Macintosh?"
Applejack's eyes filled with tears, and she burst out sobbing. Twilight backed off, unsure of what to do now that her normally tough friend was sobbing like a baby.
"They… they…" Applejack sobbed, "They killed her, Twilight. Stabbed her right in the heat." Tears poured down her face.
Twilight's face radiated sympathy. She put her hoof on Applejack's shoulder. "And Big Mac?"
"He… he went out like a hero, Twilight. He demanded that we run, and wouldn't take no for an answer. He made me run off with Applebloom. Last I saw around ten of those crazy ponies were mobbin' him. I wanted ta go back, but he made me promise…." She sobbed again.
Twilight simply patted her on the shoulder, not knowing what to say. After several minutes of tears, at last Applejack calmed down a bit.
"I know you're tired, Applejack, but we've gotta get moving. The princesses have to know every detail of what happened, as soon as possible, so that we can prevent this from happening again."
Applejack sighed. "Ah guess you're right, Twi. Lead on."
Rather surprisingly, the actual journey to Canterlot was fairly uneventful. Twilight was terrified the whole time that some of the lunatics who had destroyed Ponyville would pursue them here, but they seemed unwilling or unable to do so, as they ran across not a single pony wielding a blade and screaming insanely about the blood god the whole way.
After a matter of hours, the ponies and Spike arrived at the train station at the base of the mountain where Canterlot was located. It was much more crowded than usual: several thousand ponies were packed into the same small area, talking, crying, and generally making a lot of noise. As it turned out, many were in the same situation as Twilight and friends: they reported that their hometowns had been suddenly attacked and burned, though descriptions of the attackers varied significantly. Some ponies reported similar screaming maniacs as had attacked Ponyville, while others reported disgusting, rotting ponies attacking. Some reported swarms of ponies that seemed to take pleasure from being injured, or from injuring, while others reported a handful of powerful magic-users destroying their villages. Most common, however, was simply a take of friends and neighbors suddenly taking up arms against their former friends, with brands or scars of an eight-pointed star on their flanks.
At any rate, Twlight found plenty of time to discuss this, as simply waiting for a train up the mountain took longer than arriving there in the first place had. Several hours passed as they simply stood in line to get tickets for the train. And even then, the earliest they could get were for noon the next day. The train system was clearly being used in numbers far greater than those it was designed to accommodate.
Twilight and her friends had to sleep on the train station floor that night, cold and hungry. But at least they were safe here: there were dozens of Royal Guard about, doing their best to keep order. More than once, they'd had to break up near-riotous mobs of furious ponies. It seems that losing one's home and family, and then being forced to sleep in a train station, did little for one's self-control.
The next day, after starving throughout the morning (it was way too crowded to go looking for food: they might not be able to get back in time), Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Applejack, and Applebloom boarded their train up the mountain. It was as packed as the station, and there was absolutely no room to sit down. It was, by far, the worst train ride the friends had ever experienced. Thankfully, it was also quite short – the whole thing took a mere 10 minutes to reach Canterlot proper.
"Ten minutes too long." Thought Twilight.
But at last they reached the city proper. Canterlot, capital of Equestria, home of esteemed princesses Celestia and Luna. Many called it the greatest city in the world.
"I'd call it the most crowded city in the world." Twilight grumbled to herself.
Canterlot was disappointingly, if not surprisingly, almost as crowded as the station below had been. Ponies were everywhere. The lines were long. The hotels were completely booked. Anyone with friends or family here was calling them up to ask for a favor.
As a result of the massive overcrowding, tempers seemed to be flaring. Countless times, Twilight heard angry shouting, or saw the Royal Guard break up a brawl. They seemed to be deployed everywhere in the city, but even their presence only seemed to keep a lid on disturbances, not get rid of them.
"So, how were we planning on getting to see Princess Celestia or Luna again?" asked Rainbow Dash, as she flew down from where she'd been hovering. "I can see the palace, and the line there seems to be longer than anywhere else here. It'll take days! Weeks maybe!"
"Not to worry, Rainbow Dash," said Twilight confidently, "I've got a plan." …
"Seems that wasn't such a good plan."
"Rainbow, zip it," grumbled Twilight irritably.
She had intended to personally appeal to Celestia via her status as a student. Unfortunately, the Royal Guard rejected that argument.
"Her majesty is extremely busy right now. If you wish to appeal to her, you must wait in line like every other pony here," had been the only response she'd managed to get to that line of appeal.
Next, she'd tried sending a letter via Spike, but he had burped out a response mere seconds later. At first, Twilight was excited. Then she read it:
Dear Student,
I regret to inform you that, due to extreme demands recently placed on Princess Celestia's time, the Student Information Line is closed until further notice.
-Walter E. Hooves, Assistant Secretary to Princess Celestia
"Great," Twilight grumbled, crumpling up the paper with her magic and tossing it into a wastebasket. "Well, I'm fresh out of ideas. Anyone else got anything?"
"We could try just flying directly to her. I'm sure she'd hear us out," offered Rainbow.
Twilight shook her head. "No, in this situation, the Royal Guard would arrest us on the spot, and they might not even be able to get around to looking at our case for weeks, if all the ponies I've seen arrested since we got here are any indication."
"Uh, shoot, Twilight. Ain't yer brother the captain of the Royal Guard or somethin'? Couldn't he help?"
Twilight's face lit up. "That's it! Applejack, you're a genius!"
"Aw shucks. Ah just remembered the last time we were here."
"His wedding with Cadance."
"Yep."
"We need to talk to him! Come on, I know where he lives!" …
Finding Shining Armor's house hadn't proved difficult. Unfortunately, it seemed he and Cadance were as busy as everyone else.
"Come on, answer the door!" yelled Rainbow Dash as she pounded on his knocker. "Why won't you answer your door!"
"Uh, Rainbow, I think he's not home. And it might not be a great idea to slam down on his knocker so hard. You might damage the door."
"Alright." She released the knocker. "So now what? Do we just wait out here until he comes home, then?"
Twilight shook her head and smiled. "Nope. No need to wait out here."
Her horn glowed, and the welcome mat lifted. "Aha, just as I thought!" Twilight lifted a key with a smile and a wink. "I know my brother. And I know that he always keeps a spare key under his doormat."
Sure enough, the key clicked effortlessly, and the door slid open.
"Ah, just as I remember it from last time," said Twilight as they stepped in, "You know, except for the whole 'evil shape-shifting monster queen replaces my brother's bride and hypnotizes him' thing."
Spike stretched and yawned. "It feels great to have some room again. Hey, Twilight, you know of anywhere I could get some shuteye in here?"
"Me too," yawned Rainbow.
"And me," said Applejack.
"Don't ya forget me!" piped Applebloom.
"Well, I know my brother has a guest room, but I don't quite think it's big enough for all of us… Let's just see what we can find." …
It didn't take too long to get things settled. The Apple sisters took the double bed in the guest room. Spike took a cozy armchair in the same room. Rainbow Dash curled up on a couch in the living room. Twilight took an armchair in the same room.
"I need to stay awake," she thought, over Rainbow's snoring, "Gotta keep watch for my brother or Cadance." Twilight yawned. "Well, maybe it won't hurt if I rest my eyes a bit…"
Within a minute Twilight was as sound asleep as the rest. …
"Twiiiiilight, wake uuuup," whispered a familiar voice as a hoof gently shook her.
"Mmmmmmm… five more minutes…"
"No, Twilight, I'm afraid it's time to wakey-wakey."
"Ugggghhhh…" Twilight cracked open one eye. Hovering above her was a very familiar pink face with purple-pink-white hair. "Cadance? What're you doing here?" she asked in a sleepy haze.
"I live here, Twi. Remember?"
"Huh?" Twilight rubbed her eyes.
"It's me, Cadance. Your foalsitter? Your sister-in-law? We had an adventure together. Remember?"
"Cadance!" Twilight said happily, hopping out of the chair. She got in a familiar pose. Cadance smiled and mimicked Twilight.
Sunshine, Sunshine,
Ladybugs awake!
Clap your hooves,
And do a little shake!
Twilight and Cadance laughed together.
"Just like old times!" thought Twilight happily. For a moment, she was content.
"So, what brings you here?"
"Aaaaaand there goes that moment."
Twilight sighed. "The same as everyone else, I'd wager."
Cadance's face suddenly saddened. "Yes, that. It happened in Ponyville too?"
Twilight nodded sadly. "Maniacs. Maniacs with knives and axes and spears and all sorts of stuff. They… they… oh Cadance!" Twilight gripped her tightly as she recalled the blood, the fire, and the horror that had befallen her hometown. She sobbed.
"There there," said Cadance comfortingly, wrapping her legs around Twilight firmly, "It's alright. Go ahead and cry. I don't think bad of you."
So Twilight did. She cried and cried for all the dead, the homeless, and the traumatized. She cried for her town. She cried for Equestria. She cried for herself.
After a while, the crying subsided.
"Now then," said Cadance, releasing Twilight, "You and your friends are welcome to stay here as long as you need to. I understand what you're feeling, and I promise: I'll do everything I can to help you through this." Cadance looked briefly sad and thoughtful, as though attempting to decide whether or not now was a good time for what she had to say. Eventually, she evidently decided on yes. "So," she said gently, leaning in close. "What happened to your three other friends from the wedding – Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie?"
Twilight sobbed again.
Candace looked horrorstruck. "No, no! I'm sorry! It's ok! You don't have to tell me if it would hurt you!"
Twilight sniffed a bit. "We couldn't find Rarity or Fluttershy. Fluttershy's place looked broken in to, and we found the bodies of her pets, but not hers. Rarity's house was burned down. We never found her. Pinkie Pie…" she sniffed again, "Pinkie Pie was… was taken by a strange pony."
Cadace looked a bit surprised, but then leaned in closer and said, "Twilight, I hate to pry into such a personal matter, but this may be important – what do you mean by 'a strange pony'?"
"He was…" Twilight thought for a second. "He was dyed blue. But it looked unnatural. Weird. I could have sworn I heard whispers when I looked at it."
Cadance looked briefly shocked at that, but prodded, "Go on."
"He was highly skilled in magic. He was totally unafraid of me even after I announced who I was. He mentioned… he mentioned sacrificing Pinkie to someone called 'Lord Tzeentch'. Does that name ring any bells?"
Cadance sighed heavily. "Yes, Twilight. Yes it does. I've heard a lot about that name for the past few days. I'd hoped you might be relatively ignorant, but that was stupid of me. Tzeentch is one of four of what our mysterious attackers call 'Chaos Gods'. He's called the Lord of Change, and is apparently worshiped by sorcerers and witches among the enemy. The other three Chaos Gods are Khorne, the Blood God, Slaanesh, the Dark Prince, and Nurgle, the Plaguefather. And then there are some that don't seem to claim any specific allegiance to one god at all, just to something called 'Chaos'."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I've spent my last two days in meetings with a lot of high-ranking figures on the subject of these attacks. What they haven't told me, Shining Armor has."
At the mention of her brother's name, Twilight recalled her intention in coming here.
"Uh, Cadance? Can I ask for your help?"
"Of course, Twilight."
"I need you and Shining Armor to help me get an audience with Princess Celestia. She has to hear this."
"Celestia is very busy right now, as is Luna. Are you sure what you have to say is worth it?"
Twilight hesitated. Did she know that? Would she just be repeating what others had already said and would say to Celestia? But, no, no one else could have known what happened to Pinkie Pie. That alone seemed significant. She didn't know much about sacrificial magic, banned as it was, but she did know that souls with connections to powerful magical artifacts like, say, the Elements of Harmony, made for good sacrifices.
Twilight nodded.
"Alright," Cadance sighed. "I trust you. We can talk to Shining Armor when he gets back and together we should be able to get you in."
After their little chat, Cadance and Twilight got to rousing the others from their slumber.
"Come on, Rainbow, it's time we wake up," said Twilight as she shook her a bit.
"Mmmm… why?"
"Cadance is here now. We should try and be good guests for her. That means we should get up and talk to her. And Shining Armor too, whenever he gets here."
"Uggggghhhhh… fine." Rainbow slowly propped herself up, yawned, stretched, and finally hopped off the sofa.
"That's better. Now for the others." …
Twilight and a still-sleepy Rainbow walked into the guest room. Appledash and Applebloom were already on their feet, and Cadance was shaking Spike.
"Spiiiiiiike. Time to get uuuuuuup."
"Ugggghhhhh…" Spike cracked open one eye. "Do I have to?"
"I won't make you, but I'd really appreciate it if you did." Cadance did an amazing impression of a pleading foal's eyes. "Pleeeeeeease."
"Awwww… alright." He yawned and hopped up. He glanced around. "Now that everybody's up, what do we do now?"
"Well, that depends. Who here feels like dinner?"
Everybody's hand (or hoof) shot up. …
Cadance cooked as well as Twilight remembered from her youth, if not better. Everyone started to dig in.
Mid-bite, Applejack's eyes shot wide open with realization. "Uh, beggin' yer pardon Miss Cadance, but shouldn't we have waited fer yer husband to get home before we started eatin'?"
Cadance sighed and looked a little sad. "No. I'm afraid Shining Armor won't be home until much later in the night, and he'll have already eaten by then. All these horrible incidents are running him ragged. And he refuses to stop until someone forces him to. It's times like that when I remember why I fell for him in the first place." Cadance gave a small smile. …
After dinner, everyone had enjoyed a rousing game of Pin the Tail on the Gryphon. After that, the group had made small talk for a while, until Spike and Applebloom got sleepy again. Cadance had tucked them into bed with a short lullaby, just as she had for Twilight at that age.
After closing the door on them, she turned around to face Rainbow, Applejack, and Twilight again. She had a decidedly more serious look on her face.
"Look, guys," Cadance began, "I love having you around and all, but I'm going to have to tell you something: you're probably going to have to leave soon."
"You're throwing us out?" gaped Twilight, not having expected that nearly so soon.
Candace shook her head rapidly. "No no! Nothing like that! You all are welcome to stay as long as we can accommodate you until this is all over. I'm not throwing you out, Celestia and Luna are demanding you."
"Huh?" said Applejack.
Cadance sighed. "The princesses have ordered that anypony who sees you should report in to them personally. They're very worried, you see. In these times we need the Elements of Harmony more than ever, and the fact that Ponyville was burnt caused them great concern. I heard Luna herself even went to look for you. Now that you're here, they'll almost certainly want you in the army, helping win the war."
Twilight looked down a bit. "It's that bad?"
"Worse. Hundreds of towns and villages have been totally destroyed. Tens of thousands of ponies are dead, by the most conservative estimate. The refugee crisis has only gotten worse since you got here. Over one hundred thousand ponies at the very least are seeking refuge in the one place that has yet to experience an attack or uprising. Canterlot wasn't built for this. We don't have the capacity to feed these ponies for long. And Manehatten and Fillydelphia are in Chaos hands."
Twilight gasped. Those two cities were Equestria's main centers of trade. With so many farming villages burnt, Equestria would have to rely on imports just to feed the survivors. With both of them in enemy hands, the situation was critical. It was obvious that the princesses would have to strike back in both areas as soon as possible or face mass starvation.
Cadance saw Twilight's troubled look. "Yes. The Royal Guard just wasn't designed to cope with this. And they're the only standing army. They're putting together a draft as quickly as they can to at least raise some more troops, but that'll take weeks at the minimum. Weeks we don't have." She sighed heavily. "So, the princesses see no choice but to take in every pony with a mildly useful skill and put them in the army. Since you've got such a record, that includes you guys."
Twilight swallowed nervously. …
Shining Armor, as Cadance predicted, arrived home late in the night. Twilight had never seen her brother looking so ragged. His eyes had deep, black lines. In some areas, they were bloodshot. Her mouth fell open a bit.
Cadance walked up to him and nuzzled him warmly. He did the same thing right back, before noticing Twilight and co.
"Twili! Oh, thank goodness you're safe! I was so worried!" He looked to Rainbow Dash and Applejack. "And your friends too! I'm so glad…" He took another look, and his face saddened. "Twili… where are your other three friends?"
Twilight shook her head. "I don't know. Fluttershy and Rarity vanished, and Pinkie got kidnapped."
He walked up to her and put a hoof on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "Don't be. It's not your fault."
"It's my job to protect Equestria. If I had been more vigilant, more alert…"
"Stop it!" interjected Cadance, "Stop that right now! We've been over this a hundred times since this began: it was not your fault!"
Shining Armor shook his head. "I know, but… It just feels like I failed. Like I could've somehow stopped this."
"Stop that train of thought. I'll tell you what it is: you've run yourself so ragged trying to fix everything that your mind is starting to get affected! You need rest, and you need it now."
"But I-"
"Rest! Now!" said Cadance in a tone that brooked no argument.
Shining Armor gave Twilight a quick grin before heading off to bed. …
The next morning, everyone was up bright and early. Shining Armor and Cadance seemed to have gotten up first, as they had breakfast ready when they woke everyone else.
"Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Twili, you ready?" asked Shining Armor after they had finished their breakfast.
"Yep."
"Yeah."
"Yes."
"Good. Applebloom, Spike, I need you to stay here."
"NO!" squealed Applebloom. "Applejack's all ah got left! I ain't lettin' her outta my sight!"
"Wherever Twilight goes, I'm going too," declared Spike, folding his arms over his chest.
Shining Armor shook his head. "No guys, I'm afraid you're staying here."
"No way!"
"Not a chance."
Applejack spoke up. "Applebloom. Sugarcube. Ah need you ta stay here. You're not the fightin' type, and we're gonna be facing the same ponies that killed Granny Smith and Big Mac."
"Then ah gotta come with ya! Yer all ah got left! I can't lose you now!"
"She's right, Twilight," said Spike. "You're all I have now too. If I lose you, I don't see what the point of living is."
"Don't you dare say that!" yelled Twilight. "Don't you even think it! Life is worth living, even if I'm gone! Promise me right now that you won't hurt yourself if I die in this!"
"But-"
"Promise!"
"Fine. I promise I'll try and keep going without you. I'm still coming with you."
"No, you're not!"
"Yes, I am!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
"… You know what? If you're not going to stay on your own, I'll make you stay."
"Wha?"
Spike was suddenly lifted into the air as Twilight's horn glowed. Applebloom found herself in the same situation. Twilight marched out of the kitchen, ignoring their protests. She threw open the guest room door and tossed the two onto the bed. She slammed the door. Exerting herself, she pushed a heavy piece of furniture in front of the door, preventing it from opening again.
Applebloom and Spike pounded on the door.
"Let us outta here!"
"This isn't the end, Twilight! Let us go!"
Twilight walked back into the kitchen, to be greeted by the silent stares of everyone there.
"What?" …
Eventually, it was reluctantly decided that Twilight's solution was probably the best, for now. Shining Armor and Cadance led the trio towards the royal palace. Ignoring the crowds outside the main gate, they slipped into a side entrance. The guards saluted as they passed.
"At ease, ponies," said Shining Armor as they entered.
Shining Armor and Cadance led them down a twisting path of corridors that seemed almost designed to confuse a pony. At last, they arrived at a plain, simple-looking door.
Twilight looked confused. "This is it? We'll find the princesses in there?"
Shining Armor nodded. "Can't be too careful with all these Chaos ponies about. Young mares, I welcome you to the War Room!"
He opened the door. Inside, Twilight could see the princesses.
When they saw the princesses, Shining Armor, Cadance, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack immediately gave the customary bow. They waited for a response to come. And waited. And waited.
Twilight eventually peeked her eye open to see what was going on. Princess Celestia was looking at them out of the corner of her eye, and appeared to be unsuccessfully trying to suppress a grin. Luna had her back to them.
Grumbling, Twilight got to her feet.
"Uh, Twilight? What're ya doin'?" came Applejack's whisper.
"She sees us," said Twilight in an irritated tone. "She's just waiting to see how long it takes us to figure that out."
Celestia gave Twilight a wink and a mischievous grin, before suddenly turning formal again. "You may rise, my loyal subjects," she announced in a rather exaggeratedly imperial tone of voice.
Twilight rolled her eyes as the others got to their feet.
Celestia walked over to the group. Luna remained with her back to the ponies, deeply engaged in conversation with another pair of ponies. The repeatedly gestured at what looked like a large scale model of Equestria on an equally large table.
"It is good to see you all alive. When we heard the news about Ponyville…" she shook her head, "We feared the worst. But now that you're here, we can use the Elements of…" her voice trailed off as Shining Armor and Cadace filed into the room, and she noticed that there was nopony behind them. She suddenly looked much more serious. She looked Twilight in the eye. "Twilight, where are the rest of your friends?"
Twilight shook her head, feeling a bit ashamed of herself, though rationally she knew there was nothing she could have done. "I'm sorry, princess. I don't know. Fluttershy and Rarity disappeared. And Pinkie Pie… Pinkie Pie…" Twilight resisted the urge to break down in tears over having failed to stop that pony. Who knew what horrors Pinkie could be experiencing right now, if she was even still alive?
Celestia pressed in, now looking more serious than any time Twilight had seen her since her brief fight with Chrysalis. Her eyes bored into Twilight's own, and Twilight shrank back. "Twilight Sparkle, tell me: what happened to Pinkamina Dianne Pie?"
"She… she… she was kidnapped!"
"By whom?"
"I don't know! Really! He had his fur died blue, but it was really creepy! I thought I saw stuff and heard things when I looked at it!"
"And was this pony an earth pony? Pegasus? Unicorn? Or something else?"
"He was… he was…" Twilight pondered for a moment, recalling the experience she'd had with Pinkie's kidnapper. One detail that she hadn't given much thought to at the time suddenly stood out: he had no horn! "He was an earth pony, princess."
"And his cutie mark?"
"I didn't see it."
"How did he get away from you?"
"He… he used magic! I don't know how that's possible, but I swear he did! He had Pinkie wrapped up in some magic bonds, and they vanished in a crack of blue energy! I know that sounds ridiculous, but please believe me!"
Celestia sighed. "A few days ago, I might have said that was absurd. That he had to have had a horn, or at least a unicorn accomplice to do that. Now? Now I'm not so sure." She sighed again. "Tell me: did you see anything else of note? Did he say anything about his plans for Pinkie? Anything at all?"
Twilight reluctantly nodded. "He said… he said he was going to…" she gulped, "Sacrifice Pinkie! To someone he called "Lord Tzeentch"!"
"Damnit!" Celestia stomped her hoof down in rage, shattering the stone underneath her. Twilight and the others backed away, unsure of what to do. Celestia seemed more enraged that Twilight had ever seen her. She looked like she wanted to kill something. Twilight swallowed and prayed silently to whoever might listen that Celestia didn't decide it had been her fault.
"Sister! Celestia!" came Luna's voice. "Calm yourself! You do no good like this! Calm down and tell me: what is the matter." As she spoke, Luna walked away from her conversation at the table to Celestia's side, where she placed a gentle hoof on her shoulder. Celestia closed her eyes and breathed deeply for nearly a minute. Eventually, she opened them again, looking considerably less murderous.
"That's better," said Luna smoothly, patting her sister on the back. "Now, what is it that has you so enraged?"
"The Elements of Harmony! We were so close!" Celestia slammed her hoof down again, cracking another stone. "We need those! And now Twilight tells me that not only are two of the bearers missing, but one has actually been kidnapped by Chaos! Kidnapped! And as if that wasn't bad enough, they plan to sacrifice the one they took to one of their foul gods!" Celestia slammed her eyes shut and breathed deeply again, clearly struggling to contain her urge to lash out at something over this. "So, we not only are missing half the bearers, but at least one may already be dead! And who knows what kind of power such a sacrifice might give the forces of Chaos!" She shook her head. "I am not in a good mood right now."
Luna sighed. "That is bad news. But then, what isn't today? Hundreds of towns and villages are destroyed. Fillydelphia and Manehatten are in enemy hands. We have hundreds of thousands of starving, angry refugees and little with which to feed and house them. We could have a massive riot on our hooves at the slightest incident. We have no idea of enemy numbers or leadership, and little idea of their positions. Not to mention we have no idea if Chaos has taken root in Canterlot itself, or in our refugees. The truth is, the situation is very bad. This does not make it much worse than it already was, when you look at the big picture."
"Not much worse? Not much worse? NOT MUCH WORSE?" Celestia was screaming her lungs out. "Do you have any idea about how much worse this makes it? This is a catastrophe! A defeat of the first order! Not only are our most powerful weapons denied to us, but even now the enemy may have already usurped some of their power! Who knows what they can do with the bearer of an element, even if they do not have it at the time! Not us!"
Luna frowned, and her voice turned firm. "Celestia! You are overreacting! We do not know what has become of Pinkie Pie, but we do know that they do not have the elements! They cannot use their power against us! And be honest with yourself: how is this much different from when we were forced to presume them dead or captured?"
"Because now we know at least one is captured!"
"And we also know three were not." Countered Luna. "The situation is grim, yes, but overall this is a positive development for us. You need to calm yourself and see that. We have just found out that three of the six bearers are not dead, and remain loyal. We know that, therefore, Chaos cannot use the Elements of Harmony against us. Please, calm yourself. Your rage does nothing for our cause."
Celestia shut her eyes and breathed heavily again. When she opened her eyes, her rage was gone, replaced by a look of sadness and weariness. She breathed out. "You're right, sister. Of course you're right." She turned to Twilight and co. "I apologize for my outburst. It seems the stresses of the last few days have been getting to me. Will you forgive me?"
"Of course!"
"Naturally!"
"You betcha!"
"How could we not?"
"Yes!"
Princess Celestia nodded, looking relieved. "Now the, my little ponies, we have a war to plan. Come." …
They stood around the table with a beautiful scale replica of the whole of Equestria and her immediate neighbors. To the north lay the arid, uninhabited Desert of Bone. To the south lay, the Sea of Hooves. Gryphania, Equestria's only neighbor with whom she shared a land border, had a narrow connection through the Desert of Bone in the far northeast. Canterlot and its mountain range sat roughly in the middle of the country, dividing it into east and west. Canterlot was painted a reassuring shade of blue. To the west lay the greater landmass, it's population scattered far and wide into hundreds of small villages. Twilight saw many of them had been painted black, presumably representing confirmed destruction. She found Ponyville slightly to the southwest of Canterlot, painted black. She choked back tears as she remembered the slaughter at her former hometown. At the far western shore lay the great city of Manehatten. It, and several villages surrounding it, were painted in red.
Twilight looked to the eastern side of the country. Smaller and more densely populated than the western side, it featured fewer villages and more large metropolises. The closest to Canterlot was Stalliongrad, thankfully still painted blue, as were most of the villages between it and Canterlot. Further out lay Neighjing, painted blue, Los Caballos, painted black, and Fillydelphia, painted red. In between Neighjing and Los Caballos, there were numerous villages painted black or blue. In between Los Caballos and Fillydelphia, they were black or red. The enemy strategy became apparent: seize the extreme ends of the country to block mass food imports, raze what food-producing villages they couldn't hold, and then effectively lay siege to the entire middle of the country, starving out Canterlot and its surroundings until they were either forced to surrender or attacked and destroyed. Suddenly the way that the crazed ponies had burnt Ponyville after chasing off most of the inhabitants made sense: they didn't mean to hold it, just prevent it from supplying Canterlot with food and at the same time dump hundreds more starving, homeless, angry ponies on the princesses' doorstep. When the princesses were unable to help all of them, they'd get resentful and angry. Maybe they'd even blame the princesses. Then, they'd be ripe for conversion to Chaos or simply for food riots. This would further stretch the already overstretched Royal Guard.
"Ruthless," thought Twilight, "Ruthless, but effective. Somepony's been planning this for a while."
Twilight's attention was drawn away from her musing by Luna's voice.
"I have been speaking to our strategists, including the honorable Shining Armor, Dawn Spear, and Star Shield. We all agree that our current position is untenable. Simply put, we have hundreds of thousands more ponies than we can possible feed with what farms remain to us, and we cannot import food on a sufficiently massive scale with both Manehatten and Fillydelphia in the hands of Chaos. If we do not act soon, we will see mass starvation, riots, and mass chaos in Canterlot. If that happens, we will almost certainly be attacked. And we will fall. With Canterlot in enemy hands, they will control passage through the middle of the country. We will stand little chance of winning at that point. Therefore, we are unanimously agreed that one or both of these ports must be retaken as rapidly as possible, and much of the refugee population must be moved there."
"Uh, Princess Luna?"
"Yes, Twilight Sparkle?"
"How will we fit that many ponies into those cities? They're pretty packed already."
Luna shook her head sadly. "Not anymore."
"Oh." Twilight looked down sadly. She imagined how many ponies must have died. Tens of thousands. Maybe hundreds. Maybe even millions. "What kind of pony could do such a thing?" she wondered.
Celestia spoke up. "What we disagreed on was how to do it. The Royal Guard, excellent as it is, simply lacks the numbers to launch the kind of massive attacks that will be required while at the same time moving considerable numbers of refugees and keeping order in Canterlot."
"We had hoped to offset this with the Elements of Harmony," continued Luna, "But that hope has fallen through. We considered attempting to take only one port, but this is too risky a strategy. The enemy, whoever commands them, will not sit idle. If we attack only one port, they will take advantage of our distraction to launch an assault either on Canterlot itself, should we attack Fillydelphia, or Neighjing and Stalliongrad, should we attack Manehatten. To prevent further devastation, massive loss of pony life, and the worsening of the refugee crisis, we must make a credible strike on both ports at once, to keep the enemy on the defensive."
"Since our plan to use the Elements of Harmony to assault one port didn't pan out, Luna and I have decided there is only one way to go about this. The Royal Guard, under Dawn Spear, will launch a mass attack on Manehatten. Shining Armor will remain here to keep order."
"But-" Shining Armor began.
Celestia cut him off. "We know you would like to join in this attack, but that isn't an option. We can only spare a few of the Royal Guard to stay in Canterlot. If order is to be kept in our absence, we need our best and most competent commander here to defend it. And that's you."
Shining Armor, to Twilight's surprise, actually blushed a bit. "Best commander? You flatter me. I'm not that good."
"But you are," replied Luna. "You have served for many years now, and the Guard love you. The average pony on the street loves you. You've made the streets safer than they've been in many years, and you've done an admirable job at your duties. That is why we need you here."
Shining Armor seemed to think about it. "Oh, alright. I'll do it."
Celestia and Luna nodded.
"Excellent," said Celestia. "This will be so much smoother than if we'd had to order you into it."
"Hey, princesses?" injected Rainbow Dash, who until now had been rather unusually quiet. "You said something about your absence, right? So where are you going?"
Luna nodded. "An excellent question, Rainbow Dash. We were just getting around to explaining that. While the bulk of the Royal Guard departs for Manehatten, and a small portion stays in Canterlot, Celestia and I plan to take a small group with us. We are going to go and retake Fillydelphia personally."
"We'll show them what happens to those who harm our subjects," said Celestia, with an air of menace that chilled Twilight's spine.
Luna nodded in agreement, with a malevolent look on her face that rather uncannily resembled Nightmare Moon. "We failed to protect them once. We will not repeat our mistake."
"So, uh, why're ya'll telling us this? What do ya what us ta do?" said Applejack.
"Ah yes," said Luna, "That. Dear Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle. Even without the Elements of Harmony, it is indisputable that you are heroes, and powerful fighters to boot. We request that you join the attack on Manehatten."
Twilight’s eyes went wide as saucers. “What?!” She took a step back, suddenly afraid. “But-But I can’t…” Tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered the insane mare she had blasted back in Ponyville. “Oh Celestia…” Twilight thought as what she’d done finally sunk in. She’d killed somepony! Until now, all the other urgent tasks on her mind had kept her focus away from that fact, but now that she was being asked to fight… to kill… Twilight sobbed, sinking to her knees. Celestia’s face softened.
“Twi? Twi? What’s the matter, sugarcube?”Applejack said gently, lowering her head to be level with Twilight’s. “What’s wrong? I know being asked ta fight ain’t easy or nothin’, but-“
Whatever Applejack was going to add was abruptly cut off by another sob from Twilight. She stared up at the princesses with fearful eyes. “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseforgiveme. I’m sorrysorrysosorrysorrysorry…” Her voice was drowned out by the sound of her sobbing again.
Celestia looked at the rest of the ponies before her. Applejack and Rainbow Dash just shook their heads sadly. Cadence looked at the floor with a pained expression but didn’t speak. Shining Armor seemed puzzled and sad. “Twilight,” Celestia said gently, placing a hoof lightly on the smaller pony’s shoulder, “What do you need to be sorry for?” Shining Armor added his hoof to Twilight’s back. “It’s ok, Twily,” he whispered. “We’re here for you.”
“All of us.” said Cadence, adding her hoof.
Applejack added her’s. “We sure are.”
“Right on.” came the sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice as her hoof joined the others.
Luna joined in. “Indeed.”
Twilight’s fearful sobbing slowly began to subside. A short time later, she began to speak. “I-I-I-” she looked up, her eyes red and full of tears. “I killed somepony,” she whispered, before sobbing again, face to the floor. “It was… It was in Ponyville. Three ponies were attacking, they were killing… So I-I challenged them. Tried to get their attention. Then one mare yelled to kill me and raised her spear, and I… and I…” she broke down sobbing again. The other ponies kept their hooves on her reassuringly as she cried some more.
Finally, when her tears had run dry and her eyes were bloodshot, Twilight looked up again. “I killed her,” she managed, between wracks of pain and dry sobs. “I didn’t mean to. I was just so… just so… angry!” Twilight made a snarl as the memory of her hatred came back to her. “Pinkie Pie had just been taken. She had already killed… killed so many. So when she wanted to kill me too, I couldn’t… couldn’t take it. I hit her with as hard a blast as I could muster, and… and… and…” Twilight doubled over again, her stomach threatening to void its contents yet again as she relived the pony’s gruesome death scene. “And I sent her flying back, and she hit a wall, and-and her skull cracked.” Twilight put a hoof over her mouth as she wretched yet again, struggling to contain the bile she felt rising in her throat. She couldn’t vomit on the princesses. On her friends. On her brother. She needed to be strong. She had to keep it down.
“Twily…” Shining Armor whispered, apparently at a loss for words. He looked at the princesses imploringly.
Celestia was the next to speak. Her voice was firm, but warm. “Twilight Sparkle,” she said, “Look at me.” Twilight reluctantly took her eyes off her hooves and looked up at her mentor. She saw solemnity in her eyes, but not condemnation. Still, she had to suppress the urge to turn and bolt and hide under the covers somewhere. Celestia put her hoof under Twilight’s chin. “It is good that you feel the way you do. Killing is never something to be taken lightly. That you so obviously do not is another proof of your worth, if any were needed. But…” Twilight saw a flash of something unfamiliar on her teacher’s face. Sadness and… regret? “But what would Celestia have to regret?” Twilight wondered.
“But it is sometimes the only choice,” she said, her expression making it obvious how much she hated saying what she was saying. “Sometimes harsh things need to be done, if all we know and love is to survive.” Celestia’s face contorted still further into an expression Twilight was almost certain she’d never seen before – shame. “Do you really think I have never killed anypony?”
“Sister…” said Luna, a worried expression on her face, as she put a hoof on Celestia’s back. Celestia looked back at her sibling with her face hung low. Luna nodded sympathetically.
Twilight, meanwhile, was in open shock. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were wide. “Celestia?! Celestia killed?!” The thought of her teacher, her friend, her paragon having actually shed the blood of somepony else was just… inconceivable to Twilight. For their part, Applejack and Rainbow Dash appeared equally shocked, the latter backing up slightly. Shining Armor and Cadence, however, just looked sad and grim as they pulled each other close.
“I’m sorry I had to reveal it like this, Twilight, but it’s true. I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked. Finally, I had no… no choice. For the good of Equestria…” Celestia let the words hang, her face bitter.
Luna gave her sister a gentle tug, her face a barely-controlled projection of calm neutrality. It was clear to all that the conversation was affecting her as much as her sister. “Cellestia, perhaps…”
“No, I need to say it,” the white alicorn replied with a more steely voice, raising her head. “I’m sorry, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, but it needs to be said. I need you ready to fight. Ready not just to sacrifice your lives for Equestria, but even your own needs. I need you to be ready not just to die for all that you love, but to kill for it.”
Celestia let those words settle into the three ponies’ minds for a bit. They stared at her with an almost stupefied incomprehension. Yes, they had seen death. Yes, they had fought evil. But they had never been asked to kill evil. And by the very figure they had all been taught to revere since fillyhood. To say that the request was shocking would have been to undervalue it by orders of magnitude. World shattering was more accurate.
After they had had a minute to digest the implications of what they were being asked to do and Twilight had resumed her feet, Celestia spoke again. Her tone was almost all steel and urgency, with almost nothing of her characteristic warm voice to be heard. “So, my little ponies, I’ll ask you: will you fight for Equestria?”
Silence reigned for several seconds. Nobody seemed to want to be the first to speak.
“Yeah! You bet! We’ll show those Chaos chumps what happens when you attack our home!” Unsurprisingly, this came from Rainbow Dash.
Applejack was next. “I… I don’t like it,” she muttered almost below hearing. “But after what happened… to Granny and Big Mac… and Pinkie and Flutterhsy and Rarity…” She held her head up high. “I’ll do it.”
Twilight stared. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. It was like someone had poured extra-strength glue down her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Suddenly she felt a pat on her back. Then another. Then another.
Mustering her considerable reserves of courage, Twilight managed, “I will.”
And that is how Twilight found herself marching with the bulk of the Royal Guard to Manehatten in not two days time.
The sound of thousands of hooves marching in unison had long sense embedded itself in Twilight’s brain. “And it’s giving me a headache,” she moaned, briefly rubbing her head with one of her own hooves.
By then, the column had been on the move for some days. Thousands of the Royal Guard marched in disciplined formations, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. Twilight stood near the rear of the group, along with Cadence, Applejack, and a host of other non-guard personnel. Supply wagons, medics, and other support ponies, for the most part.
Initially, she’d tried to keep pace with the guard formation, but it had soon become painfully clear that such effort was futile. Twilight was smaller and physically weaker than the well-trained stallions that made up the vast bulk of the guard, and they’d had plenty of practice. So Twilight had allowed her pace to falter, and soon she was near the rear.
Twilight looked to her right briefly. Cadence noticed, and gave her a small reassuring smile for what felt like the millionth time these last few days. Twilight didn’t know what it was, but something in that expression seemed to lift her spirits, and those around her. Everyone was scared. Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack, the noncombatants… heck, even the guard were scared, though they did a good job hiding it. But Cadence always seemed to make a pony believe that somehow, some way, things would be alright, just by her smiles. Twilight smiled back.
Looking further, she saw Applejack, amicably chatting with one of the guards stationed to protect the vulnerable ponies in the rear of the column. Twilight looked up, hoping for a glance of Rainbow Dash. She saw nothing. She sighed. “Come on, you knew it was going to be this way,” her rational side chided her. She had. When commander Dawn Spear had ordered all pegasi who could fight and fly onto continuous aerial patrols and scouting missions, Twilight knew that she wouldn’t be seeing much of her friend. The time she did get wasn’t very eventful – Rainbow was always too exhausted to say much when they met at the camps at night.
Looking at Cadence and Applejack again, Twilight felt a sudden burst of shame. It was her fault they were so far to the back. Both were strong and fast enough to keep up the pace with the stallions, but they had allowed themselves to slow down when Twilight began to wear out. Both understood how badly she felt, and wanted to be there for her. It was a generous gesture for a friend. “Rarity and Fluttershy would approve.”
Thinking of Rarity brought tears back to Twilight’s eyes yet again. A thousand and one potential terrible fates for her friends flashed through her mind. “What if they’re… dead? What if they’re alone out there, terrified and hunted? What if they’re lost in the Everfree? Are they sick? Starved? Dehydrated? Did the Chaos ponies get them? Like they got… like they got Pinkie Pie?”
If thinking of Fluttershy and Rarity made Twilight feel miserable, thinking of Pinkie made her conscience writhe in agony. “You should have done something!” it screamed at her. “You’re the Element of Magic, you should have been able to stop that pony!” Twilight hung her head at the unspoken accusations, unwilling to say a word in her own defense. It was true. She had run the scenario over again in her head hundreds of times. She had imagined herself blasting the pony the instant she saw Pinkie Pie tied up. She imagined teleporting the pink pony to safety. She saw herself interrupt the blue pony’s magic, or dispel it somehow. She saw hundreds of outcomes, and in every one she did what she hadn’t done in reality – save her friend. The shame and guilt threatened to crush her. Doubly so because she was abandoning Pinkie to her fate so she could go fight the war. Twilight’s legs trembled. If it weren’t for the thought that she and her magic were so badly needed, she’d be running in every direction, using every spell to try and find her friend. As it was, she couldn’t do anything for her. Twilight sobbed quietly. Cadence gave her a worried look. …
The column continued their long march throughout the rest of the day time. Day, Twilight noted, was much longer than it should have been in mid-autumn, and warmer too. No doubt this was Celestia’s doing. The skies were also kept perfectly clear of any clouds by the pegasi in the group, ensuring that all had an open view of any potential airborne threats, and that no poor weather or muddy trails hindered progress. In the afternoon, the guard column passed out of the flatter areas around Canterlot and into the Great Western Forest. No Everfree, this forest had been carefully cultivated by ponies to ensure both safety and accessibility for any travelers. The weather was, naturally, also under pony control here. Twilight knew enough geography to know that, taking the fastest route, the army should reach the other side in three days of marching.
“This is where we make camp for the night,” announced a grey stallion returning from up ahead. He indicated the area the group was already standing in, for the most part. “Time to get some shuteye.”
It didn’t take long for the exhausted ponies at the rear of the column to begin laying down wherever they could find. Those that could laid down in the wagons left open for that sort of thing, replacing the night sentries who had been resting during the day. Those ponies not so fortunate were left to find a comfortable space on the ground to place their issued mats on. Some ponies were already so worn out that they didn’t even bother with the mat, simply curling up on any soft patch of dirt or grass that they could find, heedless of the effects on their appearence. It was a pattern Twilight had grown used to over the past few days, and she used telekinesis to roll out her own mat on a patch of grass not far from the treeline in short order.
Twilight laid down, instantly missing her soft bed again. The mat wasn’t rough, and the night was clear and warm, but she had nothing beyond her pack to rest her head on, and the ground was rough. Taking a peek around, she saw Cadence giving orders to several of the night sentries, pointing to positions around the area where they could get maximum fields of vision. She didn’t sleep much – always too busy doing whatever she could to help the ponies around her. Applejack, Twilight could see, was coming her way. The earth pony rolled out her mat next to Twilight’s and laid down on it. She met Twilight’s eyes, and the latter attempted a weak smile. Applejack’s expression told Twilight that she didn’t buy it.
“Listen, sugarcube?”
“Yeah?”
“Is there anything y’all want to talk about? Ya know, like-”
“No.” Twilight said hastily.
“Are ya sure? ‘Cause it looks to me that-”
“I said no!” Twilight snapped, far more viciously than intended.
Applejack’s eyes widened, then she lowered her head, looking sad. “Well, alrighty, if that’s what y’all want…”
“It is.” Twilight didn’t want her friend knowing about any of her guilt. Applejack must be suffering so much already, with her grandmother and brother dead, her home and livelihood burnt down, and now being asked to fight and kill in a war she never expected. But she had been strong, hadn’t complained. Twilight couldn’t be a lesser friend by indulging in her own misery. “I can’t add my problems to her’s.” Twilight had decided.
“Well, ok then. Just me me know if ya change your mind, ya hear?” Applejack laid down, her back to Twilight.
“I hear.” Twilight laid her own head down. A minute hadn’t passed before she was sound asleep. …
“RAAARGH!!!”
“No! No please! AAAAAH-”
Twilight awoken to the sound of a vicious roar that somehow sounded slimy, then a brief plea ended with a thump and a wet gurgle.
“Huh? Wha?” Twilight’s head bolted up, but her mind was still foggy. It was still night, of that she could be sure, but at first she couldn’t make out anything else. As her eyes and brain roused themselves, she suddenly saw a vision straight out of the depths of Tartarous.
An enormous, multi-headed beast loomed over the wagons on the opposite side of the trail. Twilight’s biology lessons quickly identified a hydra, but this creature looked nothing like anything she’d seen in a textbook. Twenty feet tall, it towered over the natural specimens of its kind. Rather than sleek, shiny, protective metallic scales, the creature seemed to be covered in a disgusting green fluff, interspersed with odd, black patches. It took Twilight a few seconds to realize that its covering was no fluff – it was bloated, moldy, green flesh. The black patches were what remained of its once-magnificent scale armor, rotten and black with disease. Its leftmost head had swollen and rotted so badly that its eyes and nostrils were lost beneath the green tissue. Its gums were black, and its teeth were yellowed and cracked, or missing altogether. The poor thing looked like it should have been long dead, but it was definitely moving. Moving and killing.
Spears plunged into the great beast’s flanks as the sentry ponies fought desperately to protect their charges. Yellow ooze with all the consistency of molasses dripped from the wounds, but the hydra didn’t seem to feel a thing. One daring stallion ducked under one of its swinging five necks, driving his spear so deep into its central neck that it burst out the other side of the necrotized tissue at an angle. The pony’s triumphant grin quickly turned to a look of raw terror as the beast’s targeted head lashed out at him without pause. He ducked under the snapping jaws, showing admirable reflexes. He yanked on the base of his spear as he went, trying to pull it free. It wouldn’t budge.
The guard tripped, suddenly overbalanced by his own immobile spear. He fell flat on his face. Before he could so much as look up again, the hydra’s central head looked down on him and vomited forth a great stream of blackish-green bile. The stallion screamed in utter agony for a mere second, then fell silent forever. In two seconds, his skin was gone. In five, nothing but a few cracking bones were left of the brave pony, surrounded by a pool of pulpy red and black goo.
But the hydra paid its victim no notice. After dispatching him, it swung its tail and claws at the other guards attempting to surround it, impaling one on a cracked, black claw and forcing the others to back up. Two heads on either end vomited more bile at the retreating ponies, while the other three tore open the canvas top of the nearest wagon. A young-looking mare in medical garments cowered underneath the crates within, desperately trying to avoid the creature’s attention. She was not so lucky. The three heads dumped their bile on the wagon, dissolving wood, metal, and glass just as readily as they dissolved the mare’s flesh and bone. Twilight stared in raw shock and horror.
“Twi? Twi?! TWI?!” Applejack’s cries brought Twilight’s attention away from the monster, back to her friend. “We gotta get in there and help! Now!”
“You’re right. You’re right.” Twilight said, breathing heavily as she fought to overcome her shock at the sheer horror of the scene before her. “Let’s-”
“NO!”
For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. Even the creature stopped momentarily, its jaws looming over a guard with half his rear left leg stripped away by a glancing hit of bile. He writhed helplessly in agony.
“NO!” the voice repeated.
Striding out from between the wagons was the unmistakable pink form of Princess Cadence. Her expression was like nothing Twilight had ever seen on her old foalsitter. Raw fury was evident in every movement she made; her eyes shown with raw magical power. She opened her wings, and floated slightly off the ground.
“You. Won’t. Harm. My. FRIENDS!”
Cadence glowed pink for a brief second, then the ground shook as an enormous pink sphere of energy left her body, going in all directions. It passed through ponies and wagons without a trace. When it reached the hydra, however, it smashed the creature off its feet. The mutated monstrosity rolled backwards as it was pushed. Suddenly, the sphere seemed to reverse itself, disappearing around the camp and enveloping the hydra instead. It roared, now in true pain, as the energy contracted around its form, crushing it inwards. Then a pinkish fire began inside, consuming diseased flesh with stunning and unnatural rapidly. The hydra roared out its agonized death screams. Cadence’s expression didn’t change.
Finally, the creature within the sphere was no more. It disappeared, and ashes and a burning smell wafted over the camp. The glow around Cadence faded, and she sank to the ground, panting.
“Cadence!” Twilight rushed towards her sister-in-law. “Are you alright?”
Cadence looked up at the purple unicorn. Her face was covered in sweat, and she was breathing hard. She raised a hoof and held it for a moment as her breathing started to calm down. “I’m *gasp* fine, Twilight. Just a little *wheeze* out of breath.”
“Is there anything I can get you?” came a third, more timid voice. A smaller unicorn had walked up behind the two.
“Princess Cadence! Are you alright?” came another voice, as a guard joined the growing crowd around the alicorn.
“I’m-” Cadence began, only to be immediately cut off by a new arrival, a medical pony.
“Step aside, step aside, I need to check her over!” But no one seemed to be listening to him.
“There she is!” a more distant voice called.
“She saved us!”
Another pony managed to worm her way through the crowd, only to fall near Cadence’s feet. “Oh thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”
“Everyone, please…” Cadence plead, seeming to sense it would do no good even as she did.
“She’s a hero!”
“Three cheers for Princess Cadence!”
“Whoa! Careful!” Two of the guards had managed to lift Cadence onto their shoulders, though she struggled to balance. More joined in moments, and soon enough Twilight was pressed away by a surging mob of ponies who seemed intent on tossing Cadence around.
“Hip-Hip, Hooray!” Cadence was tossed in the air, then fell and was caught by the mob.
“Hip-Hip, Hooray!” Up and down she went again.
Twilight could only watch from a distance. Cadence noticed, and gave her her best apologetic look as the crowd carried her away, as if to say “Sorry, I can’t get them to stop.”
Cadence could have flown away, of course, but it was better to allow the ponies their moment of happiness if it would keep their spirits up. They would soon be needing them. …
The next three days passed with no further signs of attack, and it was generally concluded that it had been the random fluke of a pained creature, acting alone. Cadence’s act had spread like wildfire throughout the army, and she had been swarmed by admirers for hours on end before she had finally managed to convince them that she’d prefer it if they left her alone and did their duties. Reluctantly, most had acceded to leaving the princess alone.
Passing out of the forest, the column had moved through the more flat, populated areas of the west. Or, at least, formerly populated. Twilight had known, intellectually, what all those black marks on the princesses’ map meant, but seeing it up close, for herself was still something nothing could prepare a pony for.
The towns and villages the column passed were scenes of utter horror and ruin. Old, black, dry blood had mixed with piles of ash on the ground to create the impression of a black mold infecting the earth itself. Buildings, from vast halls to tiny cottages, had been gutted and burned. Few were anything more than charred skeletons of what they had once been. Even those that had retained something of what they once were only served to remind Twilight of what had already been lost here, and what might still be lost if they failed.
But the buildings weren’t the worst part. No, that was the bodies. Bodies everywhere. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Ponies had been slaughter in ways too numerous and gruesome to count. Here a severed, rotting head was impaled on a burnt stake of wood. There a half-eaten pony bone had been jammed into the ground and left there. Twilight saw a carcass of a pony that had been ripped in two, her jaws frozen in a permanent scream, eyes rotting and covered in a disgusting black mold. An unlucky stallion looked to have been mutated to death, his flesh running like some revolting wax doll into tentacles, sores, tumors, mouths, and worse still. His eyes had somehow been preserved, which only made it worse – Twilight could still see the agony and fear as he’d died. Rotting organs were on display, ropes of intestines hung about like some sick party decorations. Hearts with chunks bitten out of them had been scattered carelessly.
Commander Dawn Spear had made the wise decision of ordering maximum pace when going through the dead towns, and forbidding any halt to rest while any part of the column was within. Guard ponies with torches were dispatched throughout each village, ordered to give what rest they could to the desecrated dead with impromptu cremation. They did their work as efficiently as they could, but even towards the army’s rear Twilight could see hundreds of bodies and parts that they had not yet been able to burn.
“There are just so many.”
Twilight wept. …
The journey through the western half of Equestria lasted almost two weeks. During that time, whatever was left of the army’s light-heartedness utterly evaporated. Most of the former civilians acquired haunted looks and downtrodden demeanors as they looked upon the dozens of small towns and villages filled with the rotting corpses of their kin. Many had even lived in the area. Some had recently fled to Canterlot, only to be sent back to see the corpses of their friends, their neighbors, their families. The guard ponies, more trained and somewhat less surprised, nonetheless acquired looks of grim stoicism at the very best, and haunted depression at the worst. Rumor circulated that at least one pony, unable to stand the sight of his childhood home utterly destroyed, had killed himself. All the authorities denied it, but many believed it anyway. How could they not? The same thought had occurred to many of them.
Throughout it all, one pony had always seemed to be there, with an encouraging smile and an understanding shoulder to cry on – Cadence. She seemed to be everywhere at once, taking on the duty of raising the badly flagging morale in any way she could. She always seemed to find just the right words to say to a depressed pony on the verge of giving up, and many took it on themselves to find her at night, to speak to her about their troubles. She had become something of an army psychologist to the ponies, and her reputation among them continued to rise. Some saw her as a miracle-worker. Twilight would have liked to have seen her, but she knew other ponies were taking this far harder than even she was. Other ponies needed Cadence more, and so Twilight had left her be. …
Sixteen days after leaving the Great Western Forest behind, the column’s scouts had finally reached the edge of their true target – Manehatten. Everypony was hurrying to assume their designated attack positions. The column was quickly being adjusted into a vast semi-circle. Spearponies in front, archers, magicians, and war engines behind. The noncombatents and a few selected guards would remain the rear, medical ponies already prepared to receive the inevitable flood of wounded and dying.
Twilight swallowed nervously as she assumed her position near the center of the vast semicircle. Ahead of her were twin ranks of Royal Guard armed with long spears. Applejack was somewhere to her right, but Twilight couldn’t make her out. Rainbow Dash was amongst the flocks of pegasi soaring overhead, but they were so high up that making out one particular individual was virtually impossible. Behind her, Cadance and Dawn Spear lurked, surrounded by guards. Twilight waited in nervous anticipation as ponies struggled and squirmed to get into position, wondering if this was going to be her last day alive. If it was, she vowed, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She would enter the afterlife with her head held high, safe in the knowledge that she had done all she could.
Minutes passed as ponies shifted, adjusted, and prepared themselves. There was little in the way of sound beyond that of clopping hooves; nopony had much to say right now. Finally, a loud horn blew. Once, twice, three times. That was it, the signal to advance. Twilight swallowed nervously and began marching forward with the rest of them. Ahead loomed the first of Manehatten’s out suburbs.
Twilight swallowed nervously as the advance began. For all her mental preparation, for all her rationality, for all her fortitude, she was still be asked to march into a city filled with the defiled corpses of innocent ponies and fight the monsters who did it. “And kill them,” she reminded herself. That terrified her more than anything.
The vast semicircle of Royal Guard advanced slowly on the outer rings of Manehatten. The bulk of the city was on an island, connected to the mainland by several vast bridges, but first the outer districts had to be secured. Resistance was expected to be heavy and only get worse as they advanced.
The ponies around Twilight split into preordained groups as the army reached the suburbs’ edge, advancing slowly into what had been a small neighborhood that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Ponyville. The street sign had been obliterated reduced to a small metal rod sticking out of the ground. The houses were trashed, looted, and covered in blood. Some were burned in certain areas, though not nearly to the extent the previous villages had been. Twilight resisted the urge to cry again as she saw yet another pony carcass, this one impaled on the broken remnants of its mailbox, half-eaten and half-rotted. It reeked of some disgusting black mold.
Eying the houses as they passed, Twilight didn’t need to be a military expert to know that these were the perfects points for an ambush. The Royal Guard knew it too – two-pony teams broke off at each building to check it for hostiles, while the main force, Twilight included, secured the street. Once they were sure the area was clear, they would hold position and wait for the signal to move ahead and do the same thing to the next block down. Street by street, block by block, building by building, the guard intended to totally secure the outer districts before pushing an assault on the far denser island population center.
Twilight didn’t have to wait long for her suspicions to be validated. A crash and a roar emerged from a small, yellow house not more than a few yards from Twilight’s current position. One of the two ponies that had gone in was backing out frantically, jabbing his spear at an opponent Twilight couldn’t see. Then he back up some more, and she could.
It had been a stallion once, that much was clear. Emphasis on had. The hunched creature before them was utterly hairless. It lacked more than a bare patchwork of skins, attached to random parts of its body by grossly oversized stitches that looked as though they might have been made of dried intestines. Its undulating musculature was a demented shade of violet, and oozed some bizarre viscous black ooze. Its tail had become a grasping, boney claw. It jaws had nearly doubled in size, blue gums sprouting sharpened yellowed teeth at seemingly random intervals. Its eyes had gone entirely black, and continuously wept some sort of greasy gray fluid. It had what looked like a piece of mangled pony flesh impaled on its teeth, dripping blood. And it wasn’t alone.
Perhaps a dozen ponies poured out of the house behind a mutant. Manes and tails shaved, flanks covered in pulsing tattoos that hurt to look on, they carried an assortment of sharpened cutlery knives, cords tied into whips, and other pieces of random junk sharpened or otherwise weaponized. Riotous grins covered their faces as they bounded past their mutant leader, charging headlong at the nearest ponies headless of tactics or their own lives.
The first pony to reach the guard was a mare with a knotted whip covered in broken glass and rusty metal. She swung it randomly at the stallion, raking it along his face and drawing blood from several thin cuts. His helmet was able to absorb the worst of the blow, and he retaliated with a spear blow straight to the chest. She laughed as if in some kind of demented ecstasy, pulling the weapon out of his hooves as she fell backwards, bleeding profusely. Before the guard could do anything, another mare was on him, stabbing wildly with a broken glass bottle and an enormous knife. The guard fell, his flank perforated with wounds. The pony didn’t stop stabbing him until she too was run through with a spear.
The guards formed a wall of spears between Twilight and the madponies. Twilight shook her head hard, trying to dispel her battle shock and instinctive urge to stand quietly or run. She saw the mutant finish tearing the throat out of the guard it had been chasing, then turn to the formation in the street. Roaring, it charged.
“Oh no you don’t.”
Twilight reached out with telekinesis to the best object she could see for the job: a splintered, sharp beam of wood lying on the ground. Twisting her head around in synchrony with the heavy object, she hurled it at the charging mutant’s flank as hard as she could. It went through his spine like it was nothing, impaled itself into another madpony before stopping. The two squealed and squirmed on the beam as their lifeblood filled the street. They squirmed and moaned with pleasure.
Twilight couldn’t help it – she vomited again. …
“Three dead, one lightly wounded. Area secured,” read the message Twilight’s group had magically sent back. The remainder of the houses had been checked and proven clean of enemy presence. They had accomplished their mission, but…
“Three of our ponies dead? A dozen enemy dead?” Twilight looked over the ruined street. “Over this?” She looked out at the several mile expanse the army had to secure before they even reached the ocean. “How many more?” she wondered. …
Many more, as it transpired. Twilight’s group was relatively lucky in the streets it was chosen to secure. The next block had proved clean, and the one after that had only contained five blood-maddened lunatics holed up in one of its houses. Those had gone down with only one serious injury on the guards to show for it. But then they had begun to leave the suburbs and enter the more urban Manehattenite area. The next block they were assigned had featured more than just houses – some stores and other small buildings were in evidence as well. An ambush from a garden-supply store had proved costly: five ponies were killed and six wounded by screaming maniacs shrieking about the Skull Throne. They had ignored their own injuries until they had almost been torn to piece by the guard. Reinforcements began to filter in from reserve groups, replacing the wounded and corpses sent back towards the wagon caravan. Another block and Twilight group had left the houses and entered a full commercial area. That is where things began to get tough.
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!” screeched a stallion as he brought his knife down into the jugular vein of a wounded guard pony. “SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!”
The guards were in retreat, disciplined spear wall formation clashing with dozens of fanatical lunatics, backed up by what looked like the rotted skeletons of ponies covered in green slime.
Twilight let loose another blast of magical force, shattering the stallion’s sternum and flinging him several dozen yards through a broken window. Another guard quickly assumed the dead pony’s place in the formation. They were holding against the raw fury directed at them, but only just.
Twilight’s horn glowed again, rapidly condensing water vapor into a cloud, then an extremely localized electrical storm. Lightning rained down on the berserkers, flash-frying half a dozen in as many seconds. They crumpled to the ground even as the cloud disappeared.
The skeleton ponies slowly advanced into the vacated area, bones creaking and somehow seeming to bubble. Twilight had all of half a second to ponder this before the leading skeleton exploded, spraying green goo over friend and foe alike. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the ponies hit, berserker and guard alike, began to scream and convulse, dropping to the ground. Their bodies shook and seized at random, eyes glazing over, then slowly contracting inwards even as they continued to screech their agony. Fur and hooves turned green, then black. Growths appeared from out of their rapidly deflating bodies. Muscle, meat, and fat were exposed as skin flopped off, only to themselves rapidly turn brown and shrivel. Bones appeared as the meat vanished, quickly going from a healthy white to a cracked, brittle yellow. And still the screaming didn’t stop. Only once the bones themselves crumbled to dust were the ponies at last granted the peace of death.
Twilight stared at the process in slack-jawed horror, seeing healthy ponies decay alive in mere seconds. It took another scream to wrest her attention away from the dust piles.
A guard pony, eyes wide with terror at the sight of his fallen comrades, had dropped his spear and was fleeing in a blind panic. The others attempted to fill in the sudden hole in their line, but the berserkers were quicker. A mare with a short sword jammed herself into the gap, running a pony through the flank. He collapsed, widening the gap as more madponies surged through. The guard quickly retracted, trying to form small circles of four ponies each. These held the berserkers’’ attention, but left Twilight, behind their line, exposed. A mare charged wildly at her, swing her knife hard. Twilight vanished, teleporting herself behind the crazed pony, before giving her a hard magical shove. The pony went flying.
Twilight turned back to the others to see one of the pony circles had already fallen, overwhelmed by the enemies’ numbers and aggression. A mob surged around what was left of the guards, hacking wildly and hurling body parts everywhere. The remaining skeletal ponies advanced towards the four remaining circles, intent obvious.
“Celestia forgive me.” Twilight thought, as she seized one of the skeletons telekinetically. She hurled it hard into the berserker mob, where it exploded. The mob, too busy hacking at the fallen guards to pay attention to tactics, was almost entirely covered in the slime. Twilight shut her eyes as they screamed, desperately trying not to look on her gruesome handiwork. In seconds, they too were but silent dust, joining their victims in death.
Twilight forced her eyes open again just in time to duck a wild swing from an oversized cleaver. The stallion holding it overbalanced and toppled. Before Twilight could do anything more to him, she had to hurl herself to the side to avoid a spear thrust. She hit the ground hard, only to roll to avoid an axe blow. She wasn’t quite fast enough, and a portion of her tail hair was ripped out painfully. Desperately invoking her already worn magic, she vanished, reappearing a dozen or so yards away.
She saw that a mob had broken off from attacking the guard ponies to attack her instead. Clearly, even these lunatics couldn’t fail to notice what she’d done to their colleagues. But she hadn’t noticed them. “Never close your eyes on a battlefield! Stupid stupid stupid!” Twilight cursed herself.
It didn’t take long for the ponies to spot her again and they charged, screaming oaths to Khorne. Twilight heard the sound of an explosion and screaming from near the guards, but she didn’t have time to look. The ponies were almost supernaturally fast, and were almost on her already. She concentrated hard, then mentally summoned a glowing purple wall between herself and the enemy. The first pony, the stallion with the cleaver, smashed into it so hard that he cracked his skull. He rolled over and bled while the others impacted hard. Twilight struggled to maintain the wall’s integrity, but just as suddenly as it had appeared the ponies had forced their way through.
Twilight hit the first with yet another wave of raw magical force, hurling her into one of her companions, before ducking under another knife swing. Before she could do anything more, a hoof smacked hard into her jaw and she fell over backwards. She looked up at a young mare, barely into adolescence, raising a shard of shattered glass for the final blow. Drawing on what power she still had, she vanished before it could hit, reappearing near the edge of the block.
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as she saw reinforcements moving in to engage. Her relief turned to yet more trauma as she saw that there was nopony left of the guards she’d come in with. Corpses from both side littered the area and the skeletons were gone, but the berserkers still gladly threw themselves at the incoming Royal Guard. Twilight hung to the rear as the two sides met, feeling ashamed that her magic needed a brief cooldown. As soon as she was able, she hurled herself back into the fight. Thankfully, the enemy had been bled so thoroughly that finishing them off didn’t take long.
That was the first time Twilight was the sole survivor of a group. It would not be the last. …
Twilight was with her fourth group of ponies by the time they finally reached the waterfront, hours later. She was exhausted, dripping with sweat, and covered in dirt and gore. If she thought her first brush with serious opposition had been bad, the rest of the day had been far worse. The enemy was everywhere once they had entered the urbanized area, and the split groups were forced to recombine into much larger ones. Tall buildings could conceal hundreds of enemies, ready to pour out and attack the Royal Guard at any seconds. The skies were filled with dueling flights of pegasi, and more than once Twilight had been “treated” to the gruesome sight of a small rain of bodies around her.
The enemy seemed to have no end of madponies and mutants and zombies to hide in buildings, parks, and sewers. Every time the guard advanced they risked triggering yet another tide of enemies in their dozens and hundreds. Twilight couldn’t decide which ones were most horrible: the random mutants, their pony forms desecrated by powers beyond her understanding? The rotting skeleton zombies, who exploded to kill friend and foe alike? The writhing deviants, covered in tattoos and Celestia knew what kind of fluids? The crazed berserkers, seeking nothing but death, be it the enemy’s or their own? Twilight had met plenty of each. She’d seen ponies dismembered, decapitated, burned, rotted, and otherwise viciously killed in their hundreds. She herself had accounted for at least one hundred and forty-three enemy deaths, by her own count. Not including the times she had hurled the exploding skeletons into massed enemies to rot their flesh and bone. She was a mass-killer in her own right. And they were only partially done. …
Twilight lay on a street near the water’s edge, surrounded by dozens of guards from her latest group, who kept a wary eye at all times. She was resting her tired body and mind, trying not to picture all the ponies she’d seen die that day – or all the ponies she herself had killed. Instead, she absentmindedly went through math problems in her mind, just trying to keep herself busy.
“The square root of 567 rounded to the fifth digit is 23.81176. The square root of 568 rounded to the fifth digit is 23.83275. The square root of 569 rounded to the fifth digit is…” Twilight’s thoughts trailed off as she heard a familiar horn blowing. One long blasts, two short, one more long. That meant the enemy was starting to move across the bridges. Twilight roused her aching legs despite their protests. Despite the many hours they had spent fighting under it, the sun was still up in full bloom, providing the Royal Guard with plenty of light to see their enemies. There could be no doubt which pony was behind that. Peering across the waters, Twilight could just barely make out small figures moving forward, crossing the long bridges at a slow but steady pace.
“Odd,” Twilight’s most rational side thought as she slowly began marching with the rest of her group to their designated position close to the nearest bridge. “Abandoning defensive terrain to come fight us on narrow chokepoints is consistent with earlier extreme levels of irrational aggression displayed by enemy forces. However, such a slow pace implies a deliberate, planned action rather than a mindless charge of suicidal fanatics. Something’s up… But what?” Twilight frowned, puzzled. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a reason to husband those troops during earlier stages of the battle, only to hurl them through narrow chokepoints directly into the massed formations of Royal Guard now. “If they didn’t mind them dying, why didn’t they engage us here, farther from any inner sanctums or vulnerable points they might have? But if they wanted to preserve them, why send them on a suicide mission? It just doesn’t make sense. I know what Discord said about chaos and making sense, but…” Twilight’s mind trailed off. She didn’t have an answer. Especially given what was about to happen.
As Twilight assumed her position near the rear of the ranks guarding the Colt Gate Bridge, she felt a powerful, familiar aura of magic. She smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like forever. Twilight craned her neck back to get a better view.
Princess Cadence rose above the army, wings spread wide, eye closed. Pegasi guards clustered around her protectively. Twilight could see Rainbow Dash among their number and felt a surge to know that her friend had made it so far. Cadence’s front hooves closed slowly over her chest, as if hoarding something close to it. Her horn began to glow with its bright pink aura, slowly becoming brighter and brighter. Cadence held the position for what felt to Twilight like an eternity, poised on the edge of something great. Suddenly, without warning, Cadence’s eyes snapped open even as her hooves went wide, as though showering a gift on the army below her. Her horn and eyes shined with an almost blinding pink glow, and, just as suddenly, the army was enveloped in a vast pink sphere.
Twilight breathed with relief that nothing had gone wrong. The barrier was an extremely potent piece of magic, one not even she had mastered yet. A more complex version of the spell Shining Armor had used around Canterlot during the changeling attack, it would serve to block enemies, even their weapons and spells, while simultaneously allowing the spells and weapons of the Royal Guard through as though it did not exist at all. A very complicated spell, it required the whole of one’s focus to maintain it. In her current state, Cadence herself was basically helpless, and even ceasing the spell was likely to cause intense feedback that could shut a pony down for hours. Hence the swarm of bodyguards soaring protectively around her.
Twilight turned her gaze back towards the enemy. If anything would give them pause, it should have been that. The barrier was such a defensive advantage that any commander worth his stripes would immediately turn his army around and adopt their own defensive position. The Chaos commander hadn’t done that. As far as Twilight could tell, the marching ponies hadn’t even slowed down at all. She shook her head. “They’re insane. They’re just plain insane. They’re marching to their own deaths for nothing!”
Still, Twilight had a job to do, entrusted to her by Princess Celestia. These ponies had to be defeated. If that meant she had to kill a foe too violent and out of their mind to bother with tactics, she would do it. It was time for her to do a little magic of her own.
Even as her horn glowed, Twilight felt another pang of regret on her sorely overburdened conscience. “I promised I’d never use this spell again,” she thought sadly. She shook it off. “I don’t have a choice now. This is a war we can’t allow ourselves to lose.”
Her conscience temporarily subdued by this line of reasoning, Twilight scrunched her eyes and pointed her horn at some sharp rocks in the bay and cast the “want it, need it” spell. The effort was enough to seriously drain her already severely taxed stamina, but when she took a peak she saw it had been worth it. Dozens of ponies had suddenly stopped marching and thrown themselves off the bridge, desperate to possess the magically irresistible rocks below. They smashed onto them, blood and body parts going everywhere. Stallions, mares, young and old, berserker and mutant, all found they suddenly could not resist the allure of the spell. They died by the handful, soaking the grey rocks red. But even as Twilight watched, a bolt of lightning emerged from the crowd, ripping through the rocks and dashing them to pieces. That seemed to break the spell.
The horde pressed on, Twilight now temporarily too exhausted to try another spell. With much of the living vanguard having thrown themselves to their deaths, the plague zombies were the first to reach the barrier. They exploded in bursts of gore and slime, flinging countless drops of the ooze at the front lines. Twilight closed her eyes and braced herself for the screaming. It never came.
Opening one eye a crack, Twilight saw that the barrier had done its work well; not one drop of the foul substance had reached the Royal Guard sheltered underneath. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, then smiled up at Cadence. “I know you can’t hear me like that, but thank you.” She wasn’t the only one, but Cadence gave no sign of having heard.
Turning her focus back to the bridges, Twilight saw that the enemy had reached the barrier. Ponies with wild piercings, mutilations, and tattoos attacked the pink sphere with blades, hooves, arrows, and the occasional unicorn spell. Nothing took. The spears and arrows of the Royal Guard, by contrast, passed through with ease. Ponies fell by the score, fruitlessly trying to strike back at their attackers, moaning in pleasure as they were impaled by the guards and then trampled by their own comrades, desperate to reach the front lines. Bodies began to pile up. …
An enormous creature strode forth from between the tall buildings. At least thirty feet tall and half again as wide, it was barely recognizable as having once been a mid-sized dragon. Now its wings had fused to its back, enormous insectile antennae emerging from their joints. Its tail had split into three, each becoming more and more like a tentacle the further from its body they became, ending in several suction cups and at least one eye. Its scales had become a slimy, pink, rubbery skin. It had sprouted five new legs to add to its old four: two spiderlike on one side, one birdlike, one that of an antelope, and one that resembled the tail of a grotesque fish. Its proud horns and crests had receded, becoming a flat disk of what looked to be bone. Its trunk had bloated to perhaps three times its natural size, white its neck had shrunk inward but gained in flexibility, allowing the once-dragon to turn its head in almost any direction. The favor of Chaos was in much evidence with this being, and it roared its fury to the sky.
It roared even louder when Princess Celestia bathed it in golden flame.
The mutant’s skin, ironically, proved highly flammable. The beast shrieked in its death throes, blundering around, smashing and burning all that it came into contact with. A dozen ponies and a pair of building constituted its last victims before it finally ceased its struggles and lay still to burn.
“778,” thought Celestia, before she sent a golden beam of light to spear through the head of a crazed, charging pegasus, “779.” It was important, she felt, for a ruler to know the exact price of her wars, that she might never take them lightly.
Luna, her sister, was not far from her side. Tendrils of inky blackness reached out from around her, seizing, crushing, smashing all enemies within their reach. A berserk mare hurled herself out of a building towards the princess of the night, falling far short, and then falling to her death dozens of stories below.
The two alicorns flew high above Fillydelphia’s streets, unashamedly remaining far above the reach of the screaming mobs of Chaos ponies below. They bayed for royal blood, but could do nothing to the princesses. Only those that could fly or cast spells had a hope of touching the rulers of Equestria, and those seemed in short supply.
“In suspiciously short supply,” Celestia noted, unleashing another wave of flame on the crowds below. “801.” In their hours of fighting, there had been no more than a few hundred fliers, and perhaps two or three thousand ground fighters were below them. That didn’t jive with intelligence and divination reports of a force of tens of thousands of madponies and mutants holding the city, with more constantly pouring in. The sisters had expected they would need to fight a series of running battles over several days, using their superior mobility and control of the sun and moon to hit the enemy where and when it hurt most until they had whittled them down to a manageable number. Powerful as they were, even they could be overwhelmed – Queen Chrysalis had proven that.
But the enemy hadn’t proved nearly so fearsome. Most were ground-bound, making them effectively powerless until such time as the alicorns chose to land. What aerial fighters there were were uncoordinated, unorganized, and random. Dispatching them had proved simple.
Celestia felt as another charging pegasus crashed into her protective barrier, breaking his neck and plunging to his death. “802.”
Celestia turned to voice her concerns to Luna. “This is…”
“Too easy?” Luna finished. “I agree.”
“But what’s the game? Trap?”
“No, we’ve seen most of the encampments – too few to support the numbers reported. Unless… magical trap?”
“We would have sensed something. And no reason not to have activated it.”
“Hmmm… distraction?”
“From what?” Celestia let out another burst of her flame on the ground ponies. “836.”
“Attack on eastern cities?”
“We’d have seen coming here. No signs of armies or supply gathering.”
Luna’s tendrils lashed out to grab three more raging pegasi, snapping their spines before throwing them to the ground below. She let loose her own stream of blue fire on the horde. “Exit by water?”
“Not enough ships.”
“Hmmm…”
“Sacrifice?” Celestia wondered, recalling Twilight’s description of Pinkie Pie’s abduction.
“Of their own troops? In such numbers? And where’s the alter?”
“Somewhere large enough to hold tens of thousands that we haven’t looked…”
“The stadium,” the sisters said simultaneously.
Fillydelphia’s Ponyball stadium was right held up as one of the biggest and most impressive in the nation. Capable of seating up to fifty-thousand ponies at its peak, it was equipped with every convenience modern technology could provide. Including a roof.
The sisters had bypassed it when entering the city, seeing as the area appeared looted, destroyed, and empty. Bodies and ruins were everywhere, but living ponies were in short supply. As they had been seeking the enemy, Celestia and Luna had abandoned the area after a cursory mundane and magical search, heading for where they sensed more life, further east of the stadium and surrounding districts. Now, spurred by a worrying hypothesis, the alicorns quickly flew back that way, easily outpacing the ground horde and dispatching what scant flying pursuers appeared.
“857,” thought Celestia as they approached. The roof, as they remembered, was sealed. That was no obstacle to the princesses of Equestria, and they simply sheared off a section and flew low to peer. Their eyes widened as they beheld what lay within.
Not a bloodstained alter, surrounded by thousands of bodies, as they had worried. Instead, a vast swirling vortex of purple-pink energy occupied the center of the stadium, covering much of the field. A single pony was there, his voice unnaturally loud, echoing throughout. It was magic of some sort, that both sisters could tell, though the source was unfamiliar to them. Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the pony. He was blue, with a similarly-colored mane. She could sense great power emanating from him, and the closer she looked the more she could swear she saw some hints of visions in the corners of her eyes, faint whispers heard below the chanting.
It took Celestia all of half a second to recognize Pinkie Pie’s abductor.
Her horn glowed as an intense beam of golden light emerged, launching itself at the chanting pony. But as it grew closer, it seemed to weaken and change course, until finally it bypassed its target and disappeared into the swirling vortex. But it did get his attention.
The chanting ceased as the earth pony turned and looked up, meeting Celestia and Luna’s gazes with his own. He smiled and laughed. “Oh, well met, great princesses,” He gave a mocking bow. “So nice of you to come visit me here. Though I’m afraid I haven’t much hospitality to offer you.”
“What have you done with Pinkie Pie?” Celestia demanded, her voice hard. “Tell me!” she snapped in a voice that shook the stadium as the pony grinned at her.
“Oh, but why spoil the surprise? I- ugh!”
The pony staggered as Luna unleashed one of her tendrils on him. A blue field sprang up to shield him, but the force of the blow staggered him back towards the portal.
“No more insolence!” Luna cried, her voice causing the ground to rumble. “Tell us what you have done with Pinkamina Diane Pie!”
The earth pony’s grin and lighthearted air were gone, replaced by a look of indignant rage. “Never! The next time we meet, I’ll take your head for that!” With one last glare, he jumped backwards into the vortex.
The stadium shook violently. Pieces of the roof started to come down. Pillars began to crack. The alicorns began to move in, confident they could hold the place together and deduce what had happened, when the flow of the vortex suddenly reversed itself. The ground shook harder than ever, and cracks appear everywhere. Hunks of masonry crashed to the floor as the portal itself glowed and shook violently. Celestia and Luna looked at each other, then retreated, unwilling to risk their lives in an unknown magical reaction of such power for uncertain gains.
The Princesses hovered hundreds of feet above the Fillydelphia stadium as it came crumbling down. The roof went first, tumbling to the ground below in pieces. Next, the supports on much of the wall structure gave out, sending cascading avalanches of metal, wood, stone, and glass in every direction, covering the streets. Finally, a purple light flared up beneath the debris, blinding everypony for miles. Even the alicorn sisters needed a few seconds to recover. When they descended again, all that was left was rubble. No sign of the vortex could be found, despite their efforts. It was when they attempted to scan for what type of magic the vortex had been that their questions were answered and their minds struck with horror. It wasn’t sacrificial magic.
It was teleportation magic. …
Twilight looked at the scene of slaughter with growing disgust. Corpses by the hundred and thousand were piled high across the Colt Gate Bridge, but they still kept coming. Ponies of all shapes and sizes had continued to march across the bridge in seemingly endless waves for almost an hour now, climbing over their dead comrades to reach the barrier, only to join them almost immediately. Each spear thrust found a target, every arrow and magic bolt struck home. The bridge was slick with blood and gore, but the lunatics didn’t seem bothered in the least. A few forced their way through the sphere, many of them wearing spiked brass colors with the symbols of Khorne. They died almost as quickly, cut off from support or retreat.
In the air, the story was much the same. Pegasi of the Royal Guard swooped in and out of the barrier, hitting their Chaos counterparts hard and then retreating back in. The tactic was bloody and effective, dozens of enemy pegasi plunging to their deaths with each sortie, or throwing themselves fruitlessly against the barrier. And yet they still came, seemingly immune to fear or the slightest traces of common sense. Twilight couldn’t see, couldn’t understand what this was all about.
“What kind of pony could do such a thing?” she wondered, “Who could send their own ponies to die like this, for nothing? What could they gain? What kind of madpony would listen to that kind of order?” Twilight had moved near the front now, more rested and feeling safe behind the barrier. She looked at the madponies, not twenty feet away, hatred and desire and madness and Celestia knew what else visible on their faces. “Perhaps they really are just that insane…”
Twilight thought and thought. This was troubling her. “But… if they are that insane, how has it come to this? Their strategy so far shows plenty of insight and planning, with well-timed mass uprisings and strategic scorched earth campaigns. If they were that insane, how could they have waited so long and done so much damage with their first attack? Somepony with military insight has clearly been directing this thing, so why this? What will they gain?” Twilight wracked her brains for anything she knew about Chaos. She thought of the attack on Ponyville, the flight to Canterlot, the knowledge she’d gained there, the hydra, the burnt villages… “Nothing. It’s no good. Nothing I’ve seen accounts for this. Nothing explains why they would sacrifice so many…”
Twilight’s eyes widened as a realization hit her. “Sacrifice… That pony said he wanted to sacrifice Pinkie. But what if…” she paced a little bit, walking back and forth in the confined space between guard ponies. “What if Pinkie’s not the only thing they can sacrifice?”
Twilight started to sweat a little. She knew almost nothing about sacrificial magic. Such studies were absolutely forbidden to anyone. To sacrifice another being’s life for power was anathema to every rule and code of magic Twilight believed in.
“But they don’t believe them.”
Twilight started sweating even more, though she suddenly felt cold. Yes, it made a certain twisted kind of sense – if the sacrifice of one pony would grant power, what could the sacrifice of thousands of your own do? “But what could be worth all this blood? All these ponies?” She shook her head. She had no answer. And it wasn’t as though she could just go up to the Royal Guard and demand they stop killing the ponies they had come here to kill. “I guess I’ll just have to-”
Twilight was interrupted by a tremendous surge of magical energy. She cried out in pain, doubling over as her head seemed to explode. Though she couldn’t see it, every unicorn in the army cried out with her, falling to the ground and writhing as their innate senses detected magic that simply should not be.
Twilight, a unicorn of uncommon willpower if there ever was one, forced herself to her feet in defiance of her pounding head, opening one teary eye.
On the other side of the bay, on the island districts of Manehatten, there were tremendous flashes of purple light. The ground shook, the bridges wobbling along. The sea seemed to writhe and flow in all directions, as if seeking to escape what it somehow knew was coming. Smoke of every unnatural color poured from the island, blotting out Celestia’s sun. Screeching and roars and mad cackling could be heard as if they were right next to the hearer. The guard ponies whispered in silent awe. The crazed mutants and madponies cheered, screamed, or fell to their knees in worship. The guards by the edge of the barrier even halted their spear thrusts momentarily, mesmerized like everypony else.
The first sign of what had just happened came in the skies. A vast host rose up from the island, hovering above even the tallest of skyscrapers. Many were pegasi, yes, but many were… other. Vast numbers of red beings soared through the sky on batlike black wings. They had arms and legs ending in razor-sharp claws, elongated faces resembling twisted avaians, and vicious horns protruding from their heads. There were packs of what resembled nothing so much as flying blue manta rays. They had vast fangs, multiple yellow eyes, and sharklike fins. Some ponies rode among their number, on great flying disks. Finally, swarms of bloated flies buzzed above Manehatten, ridden by disgusting, humanoid figures with horns and one eye.
A single pegasus mare covered from head to toe in red and brass armor, wielding an enormous, rune-encrusted axe, positioned herself at the head of this vast aerial host. She swung the heavy weapon easily, with one hand, pointing it towards the ponies of the Royal Guard. A great cry could be heard from anywhere in the city, no matter where one was, carried to a pony’s ears by the power of Chaos.
“SLAUGHTER THEM!!!”
The aerial armada charged, with a great multitude of unholy cries that Twilight felt to her very core. The pegasus lead the charge, countless unholy beings following in her wake. Twilight stared in unmasked horror. She was far from the only one.
Twilight’s attention was ripped away from the incoming air attack by soul-chilling howls from the ground. From the other side of the bridge, a new force appeared. Hundreds of bizarre beings had charged over the ground, trampling any too slow or stupid to get out of their way. They were quadrupeds, like ponies, but there the similarities ended. They looked like some horrific red fusion of lizard and dog, wide purple frills and vicious-looking spikes coating their necks. Their feet were clawed, their teeth sharp, and their tales split. They all wore the brass collars Twilight had seen earlier, and even at this distance she could feel their baleful effect on magic.
Behind the lizard-dogs charged yet another new monstrosity. These were red bipedal creatures, rushing forward on two clawed feet with double-jointed legs somewhat resembling the rear legs of a pony. Long purple tongs dangled from their elongated heads. Massive horns protruded from these, some capped with brass. In their hands all carried hellish red-black swords. Some rare few carried horns or banner bearing Khorne’s symbol. Many now blew these horns, a sound that reminded Twilight of nothing so much as impending, inevitable death.
Those ponies now between the daemons and their prey scattered, ran with the monsters, or else threw themselves into their path to deliberately be trampled. The daemons did not seem to care either way. The ponies already at the barrier redoubled their efforts, a few managing to slip through. The Royal Guard, roused from entrancement by this new threat, redoubled their own efforts, felling dozens of ponies even as the daemon horde drew near.
Twilight, feeling her magic weaken as the enemy drew closer, began to back away, putting distance between herself and the barrier even as other ponies flocked to meet the charging enemy. She sensed her magic would do little to these creatures – the god they served seemed to reach out to nullify its effects on them. More than that, she was afraid. She thought she had been afraid before, but no. This, this was fear. More and more, her body, mind, and soul united as one to urge her to run. “Run,” they said, “Run and never look back.” It took all of Twilight’s mental power just to stop herself from fleeing blindly in a panic.
Twilight forced herself to turn around, against the protests of every instinct she had, staring at the daemons.
They had breached the barrier. Many were still outside, yes, but dozens of the Flesh Hounds had already shoved through Cadence’s magic, their god’s blessing providing the way. It took them all of seconds to tear through the front line. They moved impossibly fast, ignoring what should have been mortal wounds, always focused on the next kill. Guard ponies were dying like flies to the vanguard of Khorne’s army. Here and there a group would force one of the hounds down and pierce its unholy flesh, but more came through each second. Twilight watched in fearful fascination as one Flesh Hound tore through the barrier, ripped a pony’s head off in one swing of its claws, then leapt directly into the greatest concentration of enemies, eviscerating over a dozen before finally being brought down. The ponies who did it were immediately set on by five move, torn to so much gore in mere moments.
Twilight backed off still further as reinforcements from the rear rushed forward to contain the breach. Hundreds of ponies swarmed, but now the first of the Bloodletters had forced their way through Cadence’s barrier. Roaring with unholy delight and rage, they swung their blades through ponies like a thresher through wheat. Each swing seemed to kill, and each kill only seemed to drive them to further kills. It was horrible. Twilight vomited yet again as cold fear clenched her stomach. She back off even more.
Horrible screeches made Twilight look back at the sky. The flying host had already cleared the skies beyond the barrier of ponies with blade and fang and plague and magic. Now the first of them had cleared the barrier, Khornate pegasus still in the lead. She swung her axe, killing the first pegasus to reach her. Twilight’s heart nearly gave out as she watched Rainbow Dash charge the pegasus, only to in turn be tackled by another pegasus from the side. They wrestled in the air, tumbling beyond Twilight’s sight.
The daemons were within the barrier now, and in numbers. Swarms of Furies descended on the ponies below, clawing and kicking and biting. Screamers screeched through the sky in great flocks, dueling pegasi and feeding on their corpses. Plague Drones swooped down on ground ponies, carrying off dozens even as they screamed and decayed before their very eyes. Armored ponies on disks waved staffs and wands and all sorts of fetishes, unleashing bizarre magicks to deadly effect. Twilight saw one strike a pegasus with lightning, heard his screams as his body broke out in uncontrolled mutation as he plummeted to earth.
Despite everything, the Khornate pegasus in her heavy armor maintained her lead, killing every being the dared attempt to stand before her. Twilight even watched her kill a Screamer that dared pull ahead of her in the headlong charge forward. Even petrified with fear as her mind was, Twilight did not take long to see her destination. She was closing fast on Cadence’s position, a flock of pegasi and Screamers at her back. Cadence still floated there, immobile and helpless. Though her barrier had been breached in many places, it still held the great majority of daemons and ponies out, and she struggled to maintain it. Her guards still stood between her and the pegasus, but Twilight’s already panicked mind went into overdrive.
Twilight bolted, running as fast as she could through the streets of Manehatten, desperate to get beneath Cadence. She took the back ways, through areas already taken, rather than try to struggle through the chaotic melee near the bridges. She didn’t know what she could do if she got there, didn’t know if she could even hurt the pegasi, but she knew she had to try. She’d already lost so much – Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Ponyville – that she couldn’t lose Cadence too. She just couldn’t.
Twilight emerged from an alleyway. Cadence hovered above her. Her were guards occupied or dead. The pegasus beheaded the last guard between herself and the alicorn. She charged. Twilight’s horn glowed as she hurriedly tried to work a spell on the Khornate.
The pegasus swung. The axe connected. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’s head came off in a single clean cut.
“CADENCE!!!” Twilight screamed.
“SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!” roared the pegasus, seizing Cadence’s head in one hoof by her mane. Twilight could only watch in stunned horror as her old foalsitter’s body crumpled to the ground, huge amounts of blood gushing from her open neck. As it fell, the earth shook. In the distance, Twilight could see the pink barrier collapsing, cracking, breaking up, and then it was gone altogether. Unholy cheers of triumph and terrified screaming filled the air.
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!” screamed the Cadence’s killer yet again. She brandished the princess’s head high in one hoof, holding her axe in the other. She let out another inhuman triumphant roar, swinging the bleeding alicorn head about for all to see like some sort of sick trophy.
Three emotions struck Twilight at once. The first was shock. It just didn’t seem possible. Princess Cadence, her friend since fillyhood, her sister-in-law, now dead, head waved about proudly by her murderer. The second was self-hatred. She was there. Magic was her element, wasn’t it? So how had she failed so utterly? But these questions were pushed aside by the third emotion: hatred. As Twilight saw her friend’s murdered body so desecrated, a powerful heat rose in her chest. Her vision started to narrow as the feeling spread, rejuvenating aching limbs with raw power. As she stared at the pegasus, she could think of nothing but eliminating the pony who had murdered her friend.
Twilight screamed in the throes of her own murderous rage. Shunting aside all logic and reason and survival instinct, she telekinetically grabbed the nearest chunk of concrete and hurled it as hard as it would go at the murderer’s head. It impacted with an audible crack, and the pegasus plummeted to earth, head and axe slipping from her grip. She impacted roughly on the pavement, rolling several yards before stopping. That should have been fatal, yet through some artifice of her master the pony yet breathed.
Not if Twilight had anything to say about it. She grabbed another heavy rock and rushed the downed pony, suddenly beset by the irresistible desire to look the vile mare in the face as she died, see the light dim in her eyes.
The mare rolled over onto her back, groaning. Her helmet was severely cracked on the left side cheek, where the projectile had impacted. The metal had nuermous fractures, and had caved in several inches, perhaps driving shards of metal into the pony’s face. Twilight hoped it hurt. Blue eyes stared up at her as she loomed over the pegasus, enormous hunk of concrete held high above her. “Just… DIE!”
Then, even as she prepared to end the monster once and for all, the last thing that Twilight expected happened: she spoke.
“Oh, come now, Twilight,” said a soft voice from within the ruined helm. It was barely above a whisper, and somehow familiar.
“No, it couldn’t be…”
The pegasus reached up and unclasped her helmet with one hoof. A cascade of pink hair tumbled out as she raised the headpiece and then tossed it aside, exposing a light yellow coat. “That’s no way to treat a friend.”
“Fluttershy?” Twilight gasped. Her jaw dropped, her eyes bulged, and her weapon dropped, forgotten in her utter incomprehension. Her mind simply refused to connect what she was seeing with the logical answer.
Fluttershy simply grinned.
Then she was in movement, hurling herself off the pavement towards the purple unicorn. Her armored right hoof connected with Twilight’s chest, driving all breath from her and sending her stumbling back. Fluttershy didn’t let up for a microsecond. She was on Twilight with a speed that would have driven Rainbow Dash to envy, her left hoof smashing into Twilight’s right cheek, dislocating her jaw and stumbling her further. Fluttershy’s lower right hoof shot up and impacted hard on Twilight’s trachea, knocking her off her feet as she coughed and wheezed, her lungs desperate for air.
Fluttershy snatched up her axe from where it had fallen before Twilight could even think of doing anything. She laughed triumphantly as she raised the gory blade high, Cadence’s blood still dripping from it. Their positions now reversed, Twilight found she could do nothing but cough and choke for air, her mind simply refusing to credit as truth what her senses told her. She scrunched her eyes and waited for the end.
“Blood for the Blood – Gaaaah!” There was a crack, the smell of ozone, and the sound of an impact some distances away. Twilight opened her eyes the slightest amount.
Fluttershy was gone. The axe blade no longer loomed her head. Twilight opened her eyes further. Above, she could see another armored pony floating on one of the disks. Her armor was blue, featuring a long purple cape. A staff with a long redwood handle and strange silver head was clutched in her hooves. The head smoked slightly with recently-discharged power.
“Back off, Fluttershan’t. You’ve had your fun. This kill belongs to Trixie!”
“Twixy?!” Twilight managed, speech greatly impaired by her dislocated jaw. Trixie seemed to understand.
“Yes! The Great and Powerful Trrrixie is here to take her revenge at last! And she-”
Whatever the great and powerful Trixie was going to say was abruptly cut off as what looked to be a yellow-red missile shot up from further down the street, smashing hard into the unicorn and sending her flying off her platform. She would have plummeted to her death had her loyal disk not moved to catch her.
“WITCH!!!” Fluttershy roared, axe in hand, runes glowing fiercely in tune with their mistress. “You DARE interfere with a warrior of the Blood God?! You DARE attempt to steal what is rightfully mine?!”
“Oh, stuff a sock into it, you lowly little meat cho-” Trixie’s words were cut off as Fluttershy swung her axe at the unicorn, forcing her to parry with her staff. Fluttershy slammed into it with repeated blows, face contorted with fury. Trixie began to retreat, the pegasus in hot pursuit, screaming oaths to Khorne to see her pay for this. Both ponies seemed to have forgotten Twilight as they pulled out of sight behind a building, Trixie still attempting to put some distance between herself and the enraged berserker.
Twilight didn’t know what to do. Her logical mind seemed to have shorted itself out, utterly unable to make any connections. It simply refused to consider the idea that what she had seen of her sweet, shy, nurturing pegasus friend could be real. Lacking a logical train of thought, she defaulted to her instincts. Looking at the rampaging daemon hordes in the sky and not so far away on the ground, the choice was easy: she ran.
Twilight ran and ran and ran. She ran by skyscrapers, through neighborhoods, past the last guard reserves, past the wagons, past the wounded and the dead, past everything. All other thoughts were shunted aside by her absolute desire – her need – to get as far away from the daemons as she possibly. Someponies shouted at her, making noises she heard but didn’t comprehend. It was doubtful she could have answered them with her dislocated jaw in any case. Only a few tried to stop her, but she instinctively teleported directly past them, always moving as far away from the enemy as she could. She heard loud noises in the distance, which she might have recognized as a retreat signal were not in a blind, crazed panic.
Twilight Sparkle fled Manehatten, never looking back. …
Commander Dawn Spear observed the immediate tactical situation. It wasn’t good, to say the least. Mostly because of the rampaging daemon hordes not ten feet from his position, butchering more of his ponies each heartbeat, fighting mercilessly and without pause. Panic had set in over much of the Royal Guard. Dozens of ponies had abandoned their posts already, fleeing in whatever directions they saw fit in their wild, panicked state. If not for his sense of duty to his men, he knew he’d have joined them.
The daemons before him were like no enemy he’d ever fought, or even been trained to fight. He’d engaged ponies, changelings, griffons, even rogue dragons, but nothing like these creatures. Dozens of pink, humanoid creatures with bizarre fetish outfits and massive crab claws danced along his last lines, cutting down ponies where they stood. The degenerate freaks with all sorts of tattoos and piercings and flamboyant clothes had joined them. They, at least, died when a pony stabbed them. The commander couldn’t say the same for the daemons.
“Damn, they’re tough,” he told himself, in the understatement of his career, as he watch one shake off being impaled with twin spears, laughing at the sight of its own blood.
He had already given the order to sound the retreat, trying to at least get his troops to withdraw in good order. Often, that was beyond their crazed, fearful minds. Just as often, they couldn’t, trapped and massacred by the daemonic hordes. That was the position he found himself in, trapped inside a small circle of spear-carrying ponies, itself encircled by a hordes of Daemonttes and Furies.
Dawn Spear knew he was going to die here. There was no way out of the encirclement, no troops close enough to relieve them. He’d accepted that as the price for his failure, his inability to do what was asked of him. He wished that the ponies around him didn’t have to pay with their own lives, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He’d done all he could, the only thing left was to make the enemy bleed as much as possible and keep their attentions away from whoever might manage to get themselves out of this death trap.
The pony beside him shrieked in what sounded like both pain and joy as one of the Daemonettes removed first his front limbs, then his head. It licked the head lasciviously. Dawn Spear shuddered before moving into the vacated position and retaliating, jamming the fallen pony’s spear into the monster’s neck. It fell, laughing all the way, even as its body dissolved back into whatever hell it had come from.
“Commander, you – ugh – shouldn’t be – ghh- in the line. Against – nrgh – protocol,” came the voice of the pony next to him, Faithful Fellowhip, as he jabbed at the daemons with his spear, grunting with effort and pain.
Dawn Spear felt a small amount of amusement. “Always a stickler for the rules, that one.” Aloud, he replied, “Way I – geh – see it, we’re all dead anyway. Might as well – ugh – do a little something useful for once before I die.”
Fellowship never replied. He couldn’t, as his lungs had just been impaled by a Fury’s talon. He coughed and choked on his own blood. As he fell, the last thing he managed to do was headbutt the daemon. It didn’t hurt much, but it did off-balance it enough for Dawn Spear to give it a spear through the skull. The Fury collapsed as the pony circle drew in even closer to fill the lost rank. There were perhaps a dozen remaining against hundreds of onrushing daemons.
“At least we’re giving the others a chance.” Every daemon here was one less hunting down fleeing survivors.
A gurgled gasp from behind him told the commander another pony had fallen, and the circle contracted further. “Bet you’re not so angry I made you run those drills now.” Dawn Spear thought with the slightest trace of validation. Whatever he felt was quickly crushed when he reminded himself that this whole mess was his fault, that he was commander and thus it was on him to have seen this coming and stopped it. That he hadn’t had shown he wasn’t worthy of his rank. He deserved to die for all the pony lives he’d lost today by his wretched incompetence. He’d hang his head if it wouldn’t break formation.
Two more ponies fell, and the circle contracted again. Dawn Spear and the pony besides him impaled another Daemonette, bringing her low with repeated blows. Before he could so much as turn his head from her, an underhanded claw smashed across his face. He fell forward, out of the circle. Another Daemonette loomed above him. He tried to jab her with his spear, but his position was too awkward and he missed, the tip impacting onto something else he couldn’t see. Dawn Spear had always wanted to say some famous last words that would be recorded in every history book, but now that the moment had come he found he couldn’t say anything at all. And nopony would remember them in any case.
The Daemonette reached down and sheared his head off with one claw. Dawn Spear’s death was at least quick and relatively painless. The same could not be said for many of the other ponies that day or on days to come. Though he would never know it, his head, like that of Princess Cadence and so many others, was to become a trophy, desecrated and carried around as a sign of power and prowess. Daemons and ponies fought around his corpse for a few more moments, but the outcome was never in doubt. The circle of ponies was slaughtered to the very last by the daemon hordes, then trampled into the ground as the creatures of the Warp ran in all directions, seeking fresh victims.
It was a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the day. Ponies were encircled, trapped, and slaughtered to feed the unholy bloodlust of Chaos. Compared to the army that had entered the city, only a bare handful escaped. Perhaps a few hundred out of several thousand, and even that was because the daemons were so unorganized and often hostile to each other that they neglected to pursue groups that didn’t catch their whimsy. As the sun slowly set in the background, vicious and unnatural cries of victory resounded throughout the city.
Two armies had clashed in Manehatten, and Chaos had triumphed.
As the sun at last set behind her, Twilight simply ran. She ran down streets, through the rear guard, into the flatlands surrounding the city. She didn’t stick to any path, darting this way and that, desperate to shake off the daemons she imagined were even now on her tail. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t care either. Anything to take her away from there, away from them.
Twilight was a unicorn of phenomenal stamina for her kind. She had to be to continue running, fueled by adrenaline and raw, unthinking, primal terror. She’d spent hours in street-to-street fighting without any chance for sleep, then was brutally bludgeoned by her own friend. Her jaw remained dislocated, her chest and windpipe protesting every step she took. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t thinking. Her rational self had simply shut down, unwilling to face the fact that she had just watched the sweetest, shyest, most gentle pegasus she knew brutally murder a beloved friend she’d treasured since fillyhood, beat her, then try to murder her as well. What remained were her primal instincts. So she ran.
Eventually, even the greatest reserves of energy have to give out. So it was that, after bolting for what felt like an eternity, but which couldn’t have been more than a handful of hours, Twilight’s body abruptly shifted. Suddenly the pain was more intense, impossible to ignore. Her injuries pounded incessantly, demanding her attention. All her muscles and joints seemed to be on fire, clamoring for a break. Her eyelids were made of stone, pressing down, harder to support with every passing second.
As her body awakened to its damaged, drained state, something of Twilight’s mind began to clear. Adrenaline rush gave way to a slow awareness of her surroundings. As Twilight finally slowed to look at the world around her, it occurred to her that the sun had finally set. It was dark out.
“Time for sleep. Yes, sleep.” Even the thought of rest was enough to make her lose her balance, tumbling face first onto the small grassy hill she had been running down. She rolled, eyes shut until the movement stopped.
Opening them again, Twilight saw she had reached a more hilly grassland. Her blurred memories couldn’t make any connections of what she saw to her extensive geography studies, but that was immediately brushed aside by a more pressing instinct. “Hide. Hide. Can’t be seen.” Twilight knew the daemons could fly. “Can’t let them see me. Inside. Indoors. Safety.” She scanned the area until her eyes picked up what seemed to her like a gift from heaven: a desolate village, not far at all from where she was. No sounds or light came from the ruins, a fact that only encouraged the unicorn.
Twilight summoned the very last of her strength to force her overdrawn body forwards again. She reached the village, heading to the first building she saw with a roof over its head. Were she of more sound mind, she would have observed that it had once been a store of some kind, likely hardware. As it was, she ignored the faint smell of rot, clambering into the comforting darkness of a small space beneath the counter. Barely had she curled up and shut her eyes than she was fast asleep. …
Some miles away, another unicorn mare was getting ready for a well-earned rest. The great and powerful Trixie, drained but satisfied by the day’s events, swept into her tent, brushing past her twin guards. A pleasing shade of purple, the tent matched her favorite cape. Inside were uncounted charms, potions, body parts, and other assortments of apparently random junk. Trixie’s bed awaited her. Shedding her armor and placing it on a pile, the unicorn crawled in, closing her eyes and smiling as she reflected on the day.
Everything had gone according to the plan. The fools in the Royal Guard hadn’t realized, had never suspected, that their enemies would happily sacrifice thousands of their own to gain the services of the armies of the Dark Gods for a scant few hours. Trixie had particularly enjoyed riding on her daemonic disk, relishing how much stronger it had made her magic. She had rained death on the enemy, pounding them with more powerful spells than that fool Twilight Sparkle even knew existed.
Thinking of the purple unicorn, Trixie frowned. Perhaps everything hadn’t gone according to plan. How was she to have known that the raving madpony Fluttershy would so selfishly insist on stealing what rightfully belonged to Trixie? Twilight had humiliated her, made her a disgrace for all Equestria to see. It was obvious to any right-thinking pony that revenge belonged to her and her alone. “But then, nopony who follows the Blood God can be considered right-thinking.”
Trixie still couldn’t comprehend what made the others choose any gods to deal with beyond Tzeentch. What was the appeal in being a raving bloodthirsty lunatic, existing only to kill until you yourself were killed? What did anypony see in being a vulgar hedonist, pointlessly seeking after ever more insane pleasures until they consumed you? How could anypony want their flesh to rot, their skin to fall off, and their treasures to turn to so much rusted junk? And, most of all, why would anypony side with the old fuddy-duddy princesses when the Dark Gods not only manifestly offered so much more, but were the obvious and inevitable victors of the conflict already? Trixie shook her head, baffled as ever by the ignorance of inferiors. “Just goes to show how much more insightful and rational Trixie is than others. They worship and enslave themselves, Trixie makes deals,” her mind whispered, and she smiled. Her troubles melted away with the comforting thought that the Master of Fate had promised her revenge. She would get another chance, she was sure.
Trixie’s comfortable reverie was interrupted by the sound of two spears clacking together just outside the tent’s flap. Her guards said something she couldn’t quite make out as she roused herself from bed. There was a swish, then two meaty thunks in rapid succession. The sound of bodies hitting the dirt, and a stream of dark liquid began to snake its way under her door.
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Is that all you Khorne-types can ever say?”
She raised her hoof, and her staff flew from its resting place into her outstretched limb. She hopped out of bed as the tent flap burst open to reveal an enraged yellow pegasus, rune-etched axe in hand, fresh blood coating its edge. Fluttershy’s armor was dented and damaged in several places, black with dried blood and gore, helmet still missing. Cadence’s head dangled from her waste, mane tied to a small loop on her armor. There were several more such loops. Trixie could see bodies at Fluttershy’s feet as the pegasus stormed in.
Trixie’s face was utterly unimpressed. “Trixie thinks she’ll need some new guards,” she idly observed.
“WITCH!!!”
“Trixie is right here, you don’t need to shout.”
Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed. “You owe me blood, coward! Not only did you deny me the head of the purple one, you fled battle rather than face me like a warrior.”
“Trixie had better things to do than play around with you.”
“You dare mock me?!”
Trixie looked idly at her left hoof, checking for nonexistent dirt. “Trixie thinks you’re wasting her time with this nonsense.”
That was the last straw. Fluttershy let loose an incoherent scream of rage and charged, wings propelling her at the blue unicorn. Trixie’s staff rose to catch the blow. It was stronger than she thought, and she stumbled and fell backwards. Fluttershy brought the axe down on her, but Trixie vanished before it connected, appearing near the tent flap.
“Coward! Stand and fight like-“
“Enough.”
The voice was soft, almost a whisper really. But for the two ponies, it was plenty loud. Fluttershy reluctantly lowered her axe, Trixie slowly setting down her staff. The two ponies defied their great pride and lowered their heads in deference as they felt a weight on their souls. Their leader was here.
Lord Qesh wasn’t a tall pony, not really. Even in his black-silver armor, he wasn’t much higher than the two mares that now bowed to him. Trixie guessed that if she were looking him in the eye, they’d be the same height. All the same, there was something about him that told a pony he was no one to trifle with. Trixie and Fluttershy backed up, eyes low.
“I am given to understand that you failed to kill Twilight Sparkle today because of your own infighting. Is my understanding correct?”
“My lord,” Fluttershy began, “The fault lies with the witch. She-“
“I asked you a question. I am told that Trixie attacked Fluttershy initially, but you decided to spend the next few minutes pursuing her, then attacking random enemies that came close, ignoring the objective I assigned you. Is this understanding correct?”
“…yes,” the ponies eventually admitted, after several moments of pressing silence.
“I see. You are aware that the elimination of the Element of Magic is a critical part of my plan for the war?”
The two ponies nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“And you remember that I assigned that objective to you two, personally, at your own insistence, under your absolute assurances that you were capable of seeing the task through during today’s battle?”
Trixie and Fluttershy glanced nervously at each other. “Yes.”
“And you are aware that an extensive search of the city has failed to turn up Twilight or her corpse, meaning she has almost certainly escaped this place alive?”
Trixie closed her eyes, afraid of what might come next. “Yes.”
“I see,” there was a long pause before he spoke again. “Come.”
Trixie and Fluttershy followed behind their leader, heads down. His heavily-armored personal guard formed up around the trio as soon as they left Trixie’s dwelling. They walked in silence through the city, the two mares throwing sullen glares at each other. Trixie cursed Fluttershy again for getting her into this by her selfish insistence on killing her former friend at the expense of Trixie’s revenge.
The silent procession walked through scenes of looting, celebration, and murder. Often all at the same time. With the vast numbers of reinforcements from Fillydelphia safely across the portal they had set up, the army’s numbers were even greater than they had been before the battle had started. What discipline there was had accordingly suffered as Chaos ponies ran wild across Manehatten in the wake of the daemon rampage. Lord Qesh didn’t seem bothered, but then he rarely did.
Eventually, they reached their destination: a ruined skyscraper with its windows smashed, furniture stolen, broken, or overturned, and machinery wrecked beyond repair. They descended into the basement levels via the secondary stairs. It had been converted into a room overflowing with magic. Pentacles, summoning circles, alchemy equipment, and many other magical devices and objects littered the space. Part of the ritual to summon the daemon army had been performed here, Trixie knew, though she had not taken part.
A blue earth pony awaited them, flanked by several robed acolytes. Three captured members of the Royal Guard stood further back, chained, beaten, and wounded but still defiant. Trixie narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust that one. She didn’t know him, his motives, or even his name. He worshiped the same god she worked for, but that didn’t make him a friend. It made him a rival, and a potential threat. She didn’t know what he did with the bulk of his time, only that Lord Qesh had appointed him Lord Sorcerer, tasked with overseeing the magical work of the war and various other tasks.
He lowered his head in deference. “Lord.”
Qesh didn’t waste any time. “Are they ready?”
“Yes.”
Without another word the black-armored pony swept past the larger blue one. He approached the prisoners. “Yes, these will do. You will serve adequately for this task.”
One pony spat at the Chaos Lord’s feet. “We serve the princesses. Not you.” The others nodded their agreement.
“Comrades slaughtered, tortured for hours, but still intact and defiant? Strong bodies, strong minds. Exactly what I require.” He gestured, and the circle the three were chained in began to light up. He pointed to each of the three ponies in turn, whispering something Trixie couldn’t hear.
“Qwzar’upiort, Xemawio’dtry, Etch’umwe’tes, come. Inhabit these vessels, and fulfill your oaths.”
Trixie almost gaped. Surely he couldn’t expect daemon summoning to be that easy, could he? There had to be hours of ritual preparation, chants, sacrifices. You couldn’t just whisper a few words and point! She began to think her leader might be more insane than she had taken him for.
She did gape when she felt them come.
The three guardsponies doubled over, trembling. Despite their efforts to remain stoic, they began to scream as things entered their bodies. Their eyes rolled back in their heads as they writhed on the ground. Their hooves cracked and broke open as new, clawed feet forced their way free from deep inside. Their skin ripped open to reveal rapidly growing appendages, tumors, or raw swelling musculature. One’s backbone ripped itself from his body. Batlike wings began to form out of it. Another pony’s jaw widened as he screamed, before splitting with a sickening crack. His lower jaw hung forward as the rest of his head fell back like a downed hood, seemingly no longer connected to his spine. A new, birdlike head sprouted from his throat, dripping blood as it screeched its new birth. Trixie could see in the stallion’s eyes that he was feeling every second of this. Even she had to somewhat pity these ponies.
Her academic mind raced as she wondered how such easy summoning could be possible. “Maybe the barrier between our world and theirs is still thin from the earlier breaches?” she speculated.
Lord Qesh watched without comment or any real reaction at all until the changes had mostly ceased and the newly-possessed ponies stared at him. He stretched out his hoof and received a small bundle of purple hair from the Lord Sorcerer. It was obvious enough what it was. Trixie had no idea where he’d gotten such a thing. Lord Qesh threw the hair at the daemons. Two scented it with snakelike tongue, the other by nostrils grown in its flanks.
“You will hunt down the one called Twilight Sparkle,” he said, “And you will eliminate her. Do so and your debts are settled. Now go, those bodies will not last long!”
He pointed to the door, and the possessed ponies hurled themselves out of it and up the stairs with supernatural speed. So fast were they that everypony’s mane fluttered a bit as they dash by. Trixie stared.
He turned back to address the two mares, still flanked by his guards. “You still have skill and value, so I will allow you this one mistake. Be warned: if you repeat your offense, you will be the next ponies in that circle,” he turned away. “You may go.” ...
Twilight awoke to the sound of a loud *Creak*. Peeking one eye open, she noticed that it still seemed to be dark outside, though whether that meant she’d only been asleep for a few hours or for an entire day she didn’t know. The creak came again. It was closer this time. She froze and strained her ears, trying to locate where it was coming from. With less of a pause, it came again. It was in the building with her.
Twilight fought the urge to panic. Her jaw hurt and was noticeably more swollen, and her muscles ached, but she at least felt more energetic than she had before. And, more importantly, she’d recovered her higher thinking skills. She simply shunted aside her memories of Manehatten for the moment, concentrating on what was going on in the present. What was going on was that the floor creaked yet again, with less of a pause.
“Speeding up, then.”
Focusing on the direction it was coming from, she saw that it was a hall leading to back storage room, door smashed open and somewhat moldy. If the lighting was poor where she sat, it was positively nonexistent back there. There were no windows in the room, and she only saw the one door. She could just make out a few toppled shelves and crates near the front, but nothing behind that. There were no light sources within. *Creak* There it was again. Only, this time it was behind her.
Twilight fought down another wave of gibbering panic as she imagined what could be standing only a few feet away, just a thin wooden counter between herself and it. She covered her horn with her hooves, hoping to hide the glow as she cast a spell. An illusion appeared over the small space she had wedged in, making it appear from the outside to be a small, wooden drawer. She prayed to Celestia or Luna or whoever might listen that she wouldn’t be noticed.
*Creak* *Creak* *Creak* Moving faster, from both directions. Converging. She started to smell rot.
Twilight felt a cold sweat trickle down her coat. She started to see a figure emerging from the storeroom. Too distant to make out in real detail, but pony-like. And moving.
*Creak* *Creak* The other one was right beside the counter now, mere feet from where Twilight watched from behind her illusion. The scent of decay filled her nostrils, and she struggled not to retch.
*Creeeeeeak* The creature from behind the counter appeared in Twilight’s field of vision around the same moment. They were ponies. Or, rather, they had been. Both were the bloodless pale and moldy green of death and decay. Black and blue molds covered much of their coat. Their manes were gone, exposing yet more revolting flesh. The one that had come from behind was missing the skin from the back of its neck and head. Twilight could see its skull, now porous with holes through which fat white maggots crawled freely. The other was missing much of the skin on its left leg, showing Twilight black muscle tissue overgrown with some kind of hanging moss. But their eyes were the worst part. Specifically, their lack of them. Their eye sockets were empty holes, filled with crawling black insects of all types in numbers beyond count. They should be dead. It took Twilight a second to realize that they were – she was in a town wiped out by one of Nurgle’s plagues, its inhabitants now revived as the unquiet dead. They hungered for living flesh. Hungered for her flesh.
The smell was overpowering now. Rot and decay filled her nose. Breathing through her mouth didn’t help – in fact it just made her feel like she could taste it instead. The sensation of tasting the putrid corpses was the last straw. Twilight’s gag reflex triggered, and triggered hard. She retched noisily. Once, twice, three times. The zombies turned to look directly at the place where she hid.
Twilight didn’t waste any time. More rested she might have been, but she was still tired, injured, and just noticing that she was hungry as well. She didn’t fancy a fight with Celestia knew how many of these creatures and whatever else might be here. Her horn glowed yet again, and she vanished from her hiding spot, reappearing on what she judged to be a particularly stable piece of the building’s roof. From here she could get a good look around and spot the best way out. And get some badly-needed fresh air.
Unfortunately for Twilight, she’d neglected to account for the brief flash her spell created. This, combined with the cloudy night, meant that she was easy to locate. What had been a handful of enemies suddenly became dozens as half the corpses in the village seemed to stir at her presence, rising from the wreckage where they lay to converge on the little building from all directions.
Twilight’s ears folded down. “Well, this… isn’t good.” She scanned the crowd, then looked out at the flat grasslands beyond, punctuated by the occasional hill. “Nowhere to run. And I’m sure they’ve got more endurance than I do, especially like this.”
It hardly took any time at all for another thought to occur to her – she was in the perfect tactical position to fight them. There was no stairway to the roof, and she didn’t spy anypony who looked like they could fly. They’d have to climb up to get her the hard way, and she could just teleport to another building over if they made it that far. Twilight perked up a bit at the revelation, then aimed and fired. A purple wall of force leapt down from Twilight’s horn and smashed into a trio of the advancing zombies, crushing them like so many insects under some godly flyswatter. Rotten flesh and flow-smelling liquid flew everywhere, one drop just missing Twilight herself. She suddenly found herself grateful for her empty stomach as she wretched involuntarily.
To Twilight’s surprise, the zombies ceased their movement. For a moment they all stock still. “Did I scare them? Can you scare the dead?”
The creatures’ abdomens began to expand and contract rapidly. They doubled over under the evident. Twilight was even more confused, but raised a protective purple sphere around herself, just in case.
All of a sudden one of the rotten bodies expelled something black onto the ground below it. “Is that an attack?” She’d seen the hydra’s lethal vomit, but if these creatures could do it too why were they aiming at the ground? She looked harder at the black stuff. It wasn’t burning the ground, like acidic bile had done. In fact, it appeared to just be sitting there, moving internally like some horrible little black lake.
All of Twilight’s questions were answered the moment it left the ground. A dull buzzing slowly rose in volume. Thousands upon thousands of tiny little black dots hovered a few feet above ground, before hurling themselves at her. She hit them with a beam of deadly purple light, but dozens more of the swarms were already out, flying her way in their millions. The first made contact with her shield, and she could see them clearly.
Little black beetles, with dull, hard-looking carapace and green eyes tinged with unnatural light. Nine spiny legs culminated in sharp, hooked feet that skittered across her defense and on the roof below. Tattered wings that didn’t look big enough to carry their weight somehow carried them aloft. Outsized pincers visibly dripping with some kind of venom grasped at her bubble by the thousand, trying to force their way through and sink themselves into the unicorn. Twilight blasted them with spell after spell. Hundreds died to each shot, but there were plenty more, while Twilight’s limited stamina was already wearing down. She lost all view of the world beyond as a field of black enveloped her.
Twilight backed off, trying to somehow shake the swarm. She didn’t get more than a few feet before one of her hooves met empty air. She still couldn’t see anything beyond the seemingly endless beetles trying to gnaw their way in to consume her. She swallowed, fighting the urge to panic again. Instead, she drew on what energy she had, her protective sphere rapidly expanding on her command, as Cadence and Shining Armor had done at their wedding. Just as it had been there, the swarm went flying in all directions, crashing into buildings, debris, ground, or even the utterly still zombies below.
But Twilight was still tired, and only one unicorn. The swarm hadn’t gone far, and in the moonlight she could see that the insects were quickly picking themselves up, reforming into smaller swarms again. She’d only bought time, and not much at that. And her energy was already drained, badly.
Panting, Twilight looked around, desperate for some means of escape. The building was still surrounded from every angle, and she felt even less like fighting than before. She could teleport, but that was energy intensive and had a limited range. The bugs would still get her again before she could get far.
“Come on, Twilight. Thinkthinkthinkthinkthink…” She looked up at the moon overhead, as if begging the princess of the night for an answer. She could have sworn she saw some tiny dot in the sky briefly silhouetted against it, but then it was gone. She could hear the insects already starting to buzz again, signaling each other. Twilight’s eyes widened as she hit on a solution. It’d take most of her energy, and was risky as Tartarous, but if she stayed where she was she was dead within a few minutes anyway.
Twilight closed her eyes and strained, even dismissing her barrier as she poured all her energy into one more spell. Her body was enveloped in a small cocoon of purple energy. Her horn glowed intensely, then stopped abruptly. Twilight gasped for air like a drowning pony. Sweat poured down her neck as she opened her eyes, praying it had worked.
On Twilight’s back sat a beautiful pair of butterfly wings, not dissimilar from the ones she had once given Rarity to walk on Cloudsdale. She had no idea how long this pair would last or if they could even fly at all, but it was now or never as the buzzing rose in her ears.
Intellectually, Twilight hadn’t the foggiest idea of how she was supposed to move her muscles to fly. As she willed the wings to move, she found she didn’t seem to need it. Her analytical side was already brimming with theories as to why this could be, but she ignored that for the moment as she jumped into the air. The wings caught the air currents easily, and she rose. “Higher, higher,” she thought as she willed them to beat as fast as they could. She was already well past the flight ceiling of most insects, but Twilight Sparkle was taking no chances as she flew high into the night sky. …
Celestia and Luna flew as fast as they had ever done, covering more ground in hours than most could have done in weeks. They had remained in Fillydelphia for just long enough to exterminate the major concentrations of Chaos forces, then hurried back across Equestria, minds ablaze with thoughts of what might have happened in the absence. Discord’s statue, the Elements, the mirror, the refugees, the guards… Had the wards on the city been penetrated? They hadn’t felt anything, but that was no guarantee.
To their great relief, the two royal alicorns made it back to Canterlot after a day and a half of flight to find it intact and even somewhat less crowded than when they had set off. It was still night when they arrived, received by a delegation of Royal Guard that had obviously been thrown together at the last minute, led by a disheveled-looking Shining Armor. They saluted the two as they landed.
Luna wasted no time in getting in the captain’s face. “What has happened?” she demanded. “Is the city safe? Has there been any disturbance? Break-in? Attack?”
Shining Armor looked confused and half-asleep. “Yes, no, no, and no, your…” he paused for a moment as his attempts to suppress a yawn failed. “Your majesty,” he lowered his head and ears, looking embarrassed at his breach of protocol. The sisters ignored his poor etiquette. “Tell me, captain, you are sure about this? Nopony has seen any cultists, scouts? There have been no riots or attempts to break in to the palace?” Celestia asked in a calm but stern tone.
The unicorn’s head remained hung as he shook it. “Not that I am aware of, your majesty. In fact, the Canterlot has been calming down as we’ve sent refugees east. No signs of enemy presence have been seen, and we have scouting patrols as far away as Ponyville.”
Luna hadn’t backed off from Shining. “Look at me when I’m talking to you: have you received any word from the guard at Manehatten? From your sister perhaps?”
Shining did as commanded and looked the darker alicorn in the eye. “Not for a couple of days. The next messenger was supposed to arrive this afternoon, but we haven’t seen them.”
The two sisters shared a look.
“That will be all, captain.”
Shining Armor looked more confused as the two brushed past him and his men without another word. …
A small figure stumbled up the road to Canterlot. Covered in dirt, bruises, and blood, her magnificent mane roughly torn and entirely missing in some areas, the once beautiful unicorn mare now looked the picture of a beaten pony. Her tail was almost gone altogether, reduced to a small stub of hair trailing miserably. Her hooves were split and cracked, black in areas from dried blood. Her head hung low, eyes barely open.
Her stride was weak and halting as she climbed the mountain road. She collapsed more times than she could count, further smearing herself with dirt and cutting herself on rocks. Her hooves felt like somepony had driven nails into them, her muscles were on fire. She’d bee walking for hours, days even. Still the warm glow of the distant capital urged her onwards, her mind simply repeating one mantra over and over.
“Must make it. Must make it. Must make it.”
The mare stumbled again as a voice called out, “Halt, who goes there?”
The mare tried to answer, she really did, but all that came out of her throat was a hoarse wheeze. She hadn’t had any real amount of water for days now.
A pair of earth ponies in the uniforms of the Royal Guard cautiously approached the distant figure, spears lowered, suspicious of some enemy trick but loathe to fail to aid a pony in such dire need. The figure only made pitiful noises as they tiptoed closer, until at last their lantern shone on her properly. The guards gasped in recognition.
In Canterlot, in the deepest and most secretive of all the castle’s dungeons, the two royal sisters were hard at work. They had already had Equestria’s most sensitive artifacts – Discord’s statue, the Elements of Harmony, the dimensional mirror, etc. – moved to a cell hidden in the darkest parts of their dungeon when the nature of the catastrophe had become clear. Powerful magic already enveloped the hidden room, blocking almost all known forms of scrying, teleportation, and telekinesis. Now Celestia and Luna, motivated by the enemy’s troubling new teleportation capabilities, were warding them as best they knew how.
Luna’s horn scraped along the rough stone floor, carving an intricate trail of glowing blue runes behind it. Soon her trail would completely encircle the precious relics hidden within, as five of her others already did. Celestia was carving deep glyphs into the walls with her own horn, muttering softly in languages most ponies didn’t know had ever existed. Alicorns didn’t need the luxury of light to see with, and so the dank room was illuminated only by the soft blue and gold light coming from the siblings’ magic. The distance drip of moisture from the ceiling and the grating of supernatural bone on ancient rock served as the background noise. No prisoners had been held here for decades.
With a satisfied grunt, Luna carved the final rune of her sixth circle into the ground, then raised her head high. Closing her eyes, she muttered in an obscure dialect of the ancient dragons’ tongue, invoking the spirits of earth and sky to protect her treasures from all who would plunder them, as the oldest wyrms once had. When the chant was finished, Luna breathed a sight of relief and relaxed slightly. Sweat trickled down her back and neck, and her breathing was heavy. Fighting for almost a solid day, flying across half a continent in mere hours, and then immediately performing powerful magic, all the while regulating the moon, was not an easy task even for an alicorn of her age and pedigree.
Looking up at her sister, Luna saw that Celestia wasn’t in much better shape. Oh yes, she put on a brave face as she always had, but Luna knew her sibling too well to be fooled. Her wings were drooping slightly, her heartbeat was too fast, her breathing irregular. She looked strong, but in a serious engagement would likely crumple in minutes. They could finish their task in the dungeon in perhaps another hour, but they would need a period of recuperation before they could think of taking to the field again. Luna just hoped nothing would happen before they could get to Manehatten to assist. …
Twilight Sparkle soared hundreds of feet above the ground, feeling little beyond pain. She was exhausted, sweat pouring all over her. At the same time, she was freezing. The air was unseasonably cold and the wind, while strong and in a helpful direction, was incredibly dry and bitter. Her jaw was swollen and sensitive from its dislocation. Her back muscles were strained with the unnatural need to hold herself to an aerodynamic shape. And to top it all off, all the magic she had used had given her a pounding headache.
Twilight was reasonably certain she was heading in the right direction. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, but she knew enough astronomy to point herself east with the stars. It was just a matter of reaching Equestria’s central mountain range or the some other identifiable landmark. From there, getting to Canterlot would be a simple task. Twilight tried to keep her mind on that, and not the gnawing guilt that was eating at her each moment.
“Why are you running, coward?” her own voice taunted her. “You abandoned your friends, your family, your fellow ponies. You left Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and who knows how many other ponies back in Manehatten to die! They’re probably being tortured or dissected or some horrible thing because you couldn’t save them! You let Cadence get slaughtered in front of you, and you couldn’t even avenge her! What kind of horrible desecration has her body gone through because you couldn’t even be bothered to retrieve it?! Weren’t you supposed to be the brilliant magician? Why didn’t you see what was coming, why didn’t you warn anypony? You failed your friends, you failed your family, you failed Celestia! What in the infernal pits of Tartarus are you doing fleeing back to Canterlot?! What use would Celestia have for you?! You’re a worthless failure, Twilight Sparkle, and you should have died!”
Tears were swept away by the wind almost before they could leave the unicorn’s eyes. Shame burned deep within Twilight, clashing with her inborn instinct to live. She wanted nothing more than to give up and fall to her death, but found she couldn’t.
“Too much of a selfish coward to even get rid of yourself properly, Twilight? You cling to life by condemning your own “friends” to a horrible fate! If you had a shred of honor or decency you’d turn right around and head back to Manehatten! You’d die before you let them hurt your friends!”
“I-I-I can’t… I j-just… can’t. There’s too m-many, they’re t-t-too powerful, t-they…”
“Bah, excuses for your own failure! You’re a whining hypocrite to every promise of friendship you every made! You disgust me!”
“I… know.”
Head as low as it could go, Twilight flew onward into the night, sobbing. …
A Canterlot hospital ward wasn’t a pleasant place to be in those times. With so many refugees still crammed into the city and tempers running high, it was hardly surprising that injuries were both worse and more numerous than they had been not a few months ago. Doctors and nurses worked long hours trying to deal with more patients than most could remember ever having before. Despite the best efforts of the city’s medical staff to be conservative in their use, medical supplies were starting to reach critically low levels. Almost all imports to the city had ceased, and much of what remained had to be allocated to the Royal Guard. Those unicorns who could perform healing magic were forced to use it more and more often on critically injured patients. In turn, those with lighter injuries that did not necessitate immediate treatment were often simply left to heal on their own, without even painkillers. With a combination of overworked staff, few supplies, and agonized patients, it was little wonder that the wards of Canterlot had become sour, surly places full of barely-contained discontent and simmering rage.
“What?” demanded an older grey mare seated at the reception desk. “You look fine to me.”
The panting brown soldier was leaning on his spear to support his own weight. “It’s…” he paused to greedily suck in air, “It’s Lady Rarity.”
“Who? Never heard of her.”
“One of the mares-” he took another large breath, “With Twilight Sparkle. Helped save Equestria.”
The tired mare considered for a moment, then vaguely recalled reading something like that in the Equestria Daily. “And what about her?”
“She’s hurt. Badly. Not saying much. We need a doctor.”
“So where is she?”
“The palace. The captain ordered as soon as he found out.”
“So, don’t you have doctors there?”
He nodded, his breath finally slowing down, “Yeah, but they’re all busy. So many guards hurt. Don’t you have anyone you could spare?”
“I’ll see what we can do. No promises.”
He nodded, then collapsed on a waiting room chair, grateful for the chance to rest. …
A long way from Canterlot, in what was once Manehatten, chaos reigned. Discipline, shaky at best before the recent battle, had simply disappeared in its wake. The daemons, though vanished back to their home, had stirred the passions of the worshipers of Chaos like nothing else could. Units broke down into so many petty gangs and roving psychopaths, killing, drinking looting, feasting, burning, and generally acting according to whatever whims guided them. Only the elite of the army retained unit cohesion throughout the revelry. Slaanesh would be pleased.
So, naturally, Fluttershy was angry. She was angered by many things these days. She was angry at the witch, Trixie, for sabotaging her elimination of Twilight Sparkle out of petty jealousy. She was angry at Lord Qesh for letting that witch scum live and for allowing this disgusting sideshow to continue. She was angry at the Lord Sorcerer for his cowardly magic. She was angry at the pathetic individuals that stumbled throughout the city in various states of drunkenness and debauchery. Because of their indiscipline, their urge to revel in victory rather than finish off the enemy, many of the Royal Guard who should have been dead had survived and escaped. How many? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Fluttershy didn’t know.
Most of all, she was angry at the two drunken fool stallions who were blocking her way. The two mutant cultists were locked in a passionate embrace and consumed in what looked in the dull starlight to be lovemaking, and so they paid the armored warrior no attention. This, of course, merely infuriated her all the more. At least she could do something about this right now.
Fluttershy’s axe swung once, twice, faster than most would think possible. Two heads rolled from their necks, blood gushing everywhere. The yellow pegasus didn’t even give them a second glance as she stepped over their corpses and continued on her way down the hall.
“And these are supposed to be warriors of the gods? Useless weaklings.”
Fluttershy crushed broken glass, bits of ceiling, and various bits of debris and corpses littering the floor beneath her steel boots. Once, this had been Manehatten’s largest jail, used to contain its worst criminals. After the city’s takeover, parts of it had been turned into a makeshift prison for what captured enemies hadn’t been murdered, eaten, enslaved, sacrificed, or otherwise made unavailable. Those inmates who hadn’t been willing to join the forces of Chaos had simply been killed. Post-battle, almost three dozen of the princesses’ soldiers and their support personnel had joined the preexisting unfortunates left here to rot. Under the guard of the Blackfire Swords, a special armored unit distinguished for its harsh warrior’s code and unyielding discipline, some two hundred ponies all told languished miserably within its walls. The building had had a name, but Fluttershy had never cared to find out what it was. It didn’t matter to a champion of the Blood God. She was only here for two very special prisoners.
The two black-orange armored warriors guarding the entrance to the inhabited section of the prison recognized her as she stepped into their torchlight, parting their halberds to allow her access. This section of the prison thankfully showed some warrior pride, something Fluttershy could respect. Torches were placed in even intervals throughout the halls to allow for maximum visibility. Patrols of two marched up and down the corridors, eyes alert and ever vigilant for attempts to break in or out. No weakness, debauchery, or sloth was evident here. The Blackfire Swords might not have worshiped Khorne exclusively, but Fluttershy still thought well of them. It would be quite pleasing to do battle with them once the war with the princesses had been won.
After a minute or so of navigating the hallways, Fluttershy finally reached her destination. She nodded meaningfully at the guards, who wisely backed away to give her some space. Two adjacent cells contained the two ponies she knew would be her key to slaying Twilight and proving her supremacy. She’d thought someone might have given orders regarding them, but no one had. That meant they were hers to do with as she pleased.
“Applejack. Rainbow Dash. So good to see you again.” …
A young unicron by the name of Serene Patience gently rolled Rarity’s limp form around with telekinesis. The white unicorn’s back injuries were even worse than she had thought. Gashes and welts crisscrossed at random of ruin her beautiful coat. Some were red, others the disgusting yellow of infection. From the looks of things, Rarity had been whipped or beaten with sharp objects multiple times over the course of days. Thankfully, though awful to look at, none went very deep. The greatest danger was clearly from the infection.
Sighing wistfully at her almost-empty medical bag, Serene did what she could. With an energy-efficient heating spell, she sterilized a small knife, then proceeded to cut away at the infected areas. Rotten flesh and pus she magically flung into a small bucket to be burned. She rubbed the opened areas with alcoholic disinfectant, and then lightly cauterized the smaller wounds on Rarity’s back. A cruder solution than was desirable, but medical wraps had to be saved for the more threatening injuries. The largest she bandaged with the smallest amount of material necessary.
Finally finished, Serene Patience stepped back to look at her work. Rarity was covered in small cauterized injuries and bandages, one of her hooves bound together and treated with specialized adhesive to seal the cracks. What remained of her mane and tail had been shaved away to allow for better care. Rarity was magically sedated and far from her beautiful image at Celestia’s ceremony, but she should live. Serene was content. …
In the distance, Twilight finally spotted somewhere to land: the edge of the Great Western Forest. Hurting badly within and without, she wanted nothing more than a long rest to ease her pain. Descending far more rapidly than any experienced flyer would try in such a state, she tumbled badly on impact, rolling several yards and gaining a nasty set of bruises in the process. With a flick of her horn, she dismissed the wings from her back, glad to finally be on solid ground again. On her last legs, she limped into a nearby patch of ivy growth, snuggling herself deep within before falling asleep almost immediately. …
Applejack rolled over in her cot to face Fluttershy. “What do y’all want?” she hissed.
Rainbow Dash was far less restrained. “You motherbucking traitor!” she screamed, throwing herself at the bars of her cell and reaching out as far as she could. “You evil piece of princessdamned bucking horsecrap! How dare you show your face here?! After what you’ve done!”
Fluttershy laughed at the ineffectual display of bravado. “You’re hardly a position to make threats, Dashie.”
Rainbow’s face became, if anything, more enraged. “Don’t you ever called me that again, you sick, twisted… monster!”
“And if I do?”
Rainbow snarled, head pressed up to the bars. “Let me out of here. Face me, pony-to-pony. I’ll show you what happens to scum like you.”
“Don’t worry, I’m going to let you out. But you’re going to be doing a little work for me.”
“And just why in tarnation would she do that?” Applejack butted in.
“Because if she doesn’t, I’m afraid you’ll suffer for it.”
“Threatening your own friend to blackmail another?! After all we did for you?! That’s low, even for you.” Rainbow spat at Fluttershy’s feet.
The yellow pegasus continued as if she had never been interrupted. “You see, Dashie dear, you’re going to carry a message for me.”
“Never!”
“You will find Twilight Sparkle. You will tell her to meet me in the old western grove in the Everfree, by the second stream. She’ll know where I mean.”
“I’m not doing it!”
“You’ll tell her that if she doesn’t show up on time, I’ll just have to make do with Applejack’s head instead.”
“You… you psycho!”
“Don’t do it, Rainbow! I ain’t worth it!”
“She has two weeks, starting at sunrise tomorrow. After that, I’ll leave dear Applejack’s headless corpse in the grove to prove I did it.”
“You… wouldn’t!”
Fluttershy held the severed head of Princess Cadence mere feet from Rainbow Dash’s face. “Try me.”
Rainbow slowly looked down at her own hooves. “Murderer…” she whispered.
“Oh, and if I see anypony that’s not you or her in or near the area and any time, the deal’s off and Applejack dies on the spot. So don’t even think of trying to call the princesses in on this.” Fluttershy looked at her trophy again and laughed. “Not that it helped last time.”
“Y’all are a… Y’all are a…” Applejack stumbled, trying to find words low enough to describe her former friend.
“I’m many things. But that doesn’t concern you. Rainbow, do we have an agreement?”
Rainbow kept her eyes on her feet. “I… Yes.” …
Fluttershy returned after a short while with a set of keys. She reached for the lock and began fiddling with it. “Excellent, now to- argh!”
The instance the door was unbolted, Rainbow Dash moved. With all the speed she was known for, she delivered a flying roundhouse kick directly to Fluttershy’s chin. She followed up with a hard smack to Fluttershy’s axe sheath, sending the deadly weapon clattering across the stone floor. The third blow was delivered to her forehead, sending the yellow pegasus stumbling to the ground.
“Yehaw! Get ‘er, Rainbow!” Applejack cheered.
Dash raised her right hoof and brought it down, trying to finish the fight with another blow to the head. Fluttershy rolled aside at the last second. Dash flapped her wings, fighting to retain her balance. Fluttershy spun on the ground, armored hooves smashing Rainbow’s legs out from under her. She hit the ground, chin first. Fluttershy kicked her hard on the flank, sending her skidding along the floor.
Dash shook her head to refocus her vision as she regained her feet. She saw Fluttershy standing herself up as well. The blue pegasus panicked when she saw that the axe was much closer to Fluttershy than herself, but her opponent ignored it. Rainbow Dash flapped as hard as she could, flinging herself hooves-first against her enemy with amazing speed. Fluttershy stood her ground, bracing.
Rainbow screamed in agony when she impacted on Fluttershy’s heavy chest armor. It was stronger than it looked, and it looked pretty strong. She felt like her bones had been driven right out of her legs. Fluttershy barely moved backwards at all.
Wasting no time, the yellow pegasus headbutted Rainbow Dash. Dash staggered, blinded, then felt a blow connect with her neck. She hit the wall headfirst. Her head swam, but she wasn’t given a chance to recover. She was lifted off her feet, then slammed hard into the dirt rock floor. A hoof came down on top of her neck, stopping just short of crushing it.
“I…win…” came a soft hiss into her ear. “Do my bidding, or your friend dies here and now.”
The sun rose slowly, almost reluctantly, over Equestria that day, as though it feared what it would see. It had every right to be afraid. When the sun’s rays finally reached Manehatten, what it saw was carnage, pure and simple. The heads, hearts, and other parts of ponies were impaled triumphantly on banners, dangled from chains, or bolted to crude armor. The streets were full of corpses and unconscious revelers who might soon wish they were corpses. Rot had begun to spread with an unnatural quickness amongst the dead of yesterday. Bodies were bloated, reeking things looking like they were ready to burst. Some already had.
High in the ruins of what had once been a famed skyscraper, a blue earth pony was hard work. Ignoring the foul stench of Nurgle that permeated even here, Lord Sorcerer Xerxes was dully reciting yet another chant revealed to him by the blessing of his god. Xerxes was not the name he had been born with, but he had considered it who he was ever since he had first felt the call of Lord Tzeentch, so many years ago now. The office around him, already scarred and warped by overexposure to the taint of Chaos, trembled a little further as a tendril of stray magic twisted a section of plaster wall into living, bleeding muscle. Xerxes paid it no heed.
When the chant was finished at last, Xerxes hit the floor with his staff. Once, twice, three times, and so on until he had hit it nine times. Purple-blue smoke began to coalesce, slowly at first, then picking up speed as the sorcerer’s spell penetrated the fog of wild Chaos magic that had permeated the city, blocking all attempts at scrying. Xerxes simply waited, indifferent to the spectacle but impatient to get this over with. There was so much more for him to do this day.
Eventually, the smoke formed into the vague outline of a large buffalo, his traditional tribal war paint replaced with the symbols of the Dark Gods painted with whatever he could find. Xerxes found it rather passé.
“Report, general,” the blue pony said imperiously, “What news from the front?”
The buffalo grinned so widely that Xerxes found it idiotic. “The strategy worked perfectly, my lord. Neither the fools in my tribe nor Appleloosa ever saw anything coming until it was too late.”
“Chief Thunderhooves? Sheriff Silverstar?”
The buffalo’s grin somehow contrived to get wider. “Dead,” he said, with obvious relish.
Xerxes looked bored. “Appleloosa?”
“In our hooves.”
“Survivors?”
“What pitiful few remain are in our captivity until the see the wisdom of joining us… or we get hungry.” The buffalo licked his lips. Xerxes held his muzzle high and sniffed aristocratically.
“Are there any who escaped?”
For the first time, the buffalo’s expression dropped slightly. “Ummm…” He hesitated.
“Please, tell me you’re not thinking of lying to me.”
He shook his head rapidly. “No! No, of course not, my lord! A mere… handful have escaped into the desert. Our best runners are tracking them even now.”
“Good, do not permit their escape. And prepare the ritual site, our lord will have need of it very soon.”
“It will be done, my lord.”
“I am sure it will. Now, I have many other tasks to attend to. I leave this in your capable hooves, general.” Xerxes waved his staff through the shaky illusion, dissipating the smoke and the buffalo it formed. With a sigh, he began chanting the same spell again. There were so many more reports to collect. …
Half a continent away, in Canterlot, Princess Celestia stared at the slowly rising sun with tired, downcast eyes. She’d been up all night, working herself to exhaustion. First protecting the vault, then trying to ascertain what had happened in Manehatten. It was no good – all her scrying and communication spells had shown her nothing more than a swirling vortex of maddening Chaos magic. Luna and her servants had tried to persuade to the Princess of the Sun to rest, to no avail. As the sun came up, Celestia hung her head in shame and tears trickled down her cheeks.
This whole catastrophe was her fault, this she knew. She was Princess of Equestria, until very recently the land’s one and only ruler, and she had been for a thousand years. Whoever and whatever had caused this, it had been present for some time, that much was clear. Somepony had been planning to bring this apocalypse down on the heads of her little ponies for years, if not decades, and she’d been completely blindsided by it. She’d failed her subjects, failed her student, and failed her sister, utterly and without reserve. How could she have been so ignorant of what had been brewing? Shouldn’t she, of all ponies, have sensed the buildup to this?
Celestia shook her head slowly as she softly cried. That nopony had even questioned her even after all this somehow made things even worse. The rioters who had intermittently rocked Canterlot had blamed guards, blamed advisors, blamed administrators for their woes, but never their beloved princess. Never Celestia. After how utterly she had failed to protect them, they still trusted her completely. It made her heart break.
However, the Princess of the Sun could never have managed to rule the land for a thousand years after banishing her own sister if she didn’t possess an iron core of resolve. It was this, her determination to protect her ponies from anything that threatened them, that lent her the strength to go on. She wanted little more than to run away and cry and perhaps even end her immortal life, but what good would that do? None at all. For a very long time, she had lived for the good of others, and she wasn’t about to stop now.
But things would be different if they survived, she had vowed. Before this ruin had come, she had believed ardently in the right and ability of ponies to make their own decisions in every aspect of their lives. She had trusted that her subjects could handle most parts of their lives on their own far better than some distant ruler could. So history had taught her. It was, after all, the firm conviction that they were better than everypony else in every way and so entitled to make all of life’s decisions for them that had ultimately brought down the old Alicorn Hegemony, of which she and Luna were the very last descendants.
Perhaps she had been too set in her ways. That was a flaw that all immortals, to some degree or another, possessed. The cold, hard reality was that tens of thousands of her subjects, at the very least, had chosen to use the freedom she had given them to turn to the worship of daemon gods and plunge Equestria into the most devastating and horrific war it had ever known. That she would need to take a much firmer approach to controlling her subjects when this was over was obvious. She already had some ideas on what might be done… …
In a patch of ivy on the edge of the Great Western Forrest, a purple unicorn stirred. Twilight Sparkle blearily cracked open her tired eyes and looked up at the sun overhead. It looked to be around midday, though she hadn’t the foggiest idea of how long she’d been asleep. Her body still ached, but less than before. More importantly, she wasn’t waking up to find some monsters in her face. A better start than last time, she thought.
Slowly, painfully, Twilight forced her unwilling body to rise to its hooves. Her joints and muscles burned with a dull ache as she stretched, feeling the crackles and pops as her body roused itself. Her jaw was swollen now, and badly. She could barely force it to open at all. Her growling stomach and hunger pangs told her that this couldn’t be allowed.
“Only one thing to do,” Twilight thought.
She took several long, deep breathes as she cleared her mind in preparation. Her horn glowed purple as she telekinetically grasped her own jaw. She took one last deep breath, closed her eyes, and yanked.
Twilight tried not to scream, she really did. But the pain of having jaw pop back into place through such sensitive, swollen tissue was just too much. She let out a cry of agony that could be heard for miles as she writhed on the ground.
At length, the blinding pain receded to a dull ache to match the rest of her body. Twilight slowly regained her hooves and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Slowly, carefully, she opened and closed her jaw a handful of times, until she was reasonably certain it was working correctly. With a clinical eye, she looked at the forest around her until she settled back on the ivy patch she had rested in. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but her biology studies told her that this plant should prove edible, and it was better than going hungry.
The light green ivy proved to taste like raw sewage, but it was filling. Twilight’s hunger subsided after only a few minutes of consuming the revolting stuff. She sat back on her haunches, wishing for all the world she had something to drink, or anything really to remove the foul taste from her tongue.
Now that her most immediate problems had been solved, Twilight allowed her mind to think on what to do next. The guilt she had been feeling last night crashed into her like a bombshell. She’d abandoned so many ponies back in Manehatten. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Cadance, the Royal Guard…
“What am I doing? I can’t just leave them! They’re my friends! What would Celestia say if she saw me slinking back to her with all my friends in the hooves of those… those… monsters!”
Twilight looked back the way she had come, a sense of stoic determination filling her up.
“Come Tartarus or high water, Twilight Sparkle is not leaving her friends to die!”
Princess Luna stared wearily down at the map and letters in front of her. They were not what she wanted to see. Fillydelphia’s icon had been switched from red to blue to represent the tentative hold that Equestria had regained in it following the diarchs’ cleansing of the Chaotic filth, but it was shaky at best. Once a city of perhaps half a million ponies, Fillydelphia was now in the hooves of less than two thousand militia and a hundred ponies of the Royal Guard to command them. She’d already gotten reports of hauntings, mysterious deaths, and other unexplained phenomena from her ponies there, less than two days into the occupation. It seemed that whatever magicks had been invoked there would not be so easy to pry loose. Luna and Celestia had even considered ordering it abandoned altogether. The enemy had proven to possess magic capable of warping armies from one end of the continent to the other. Who could say whether or not they would counterattack through another such portal? It was only the urgent need to contact other lands that had prevented them from burning the city and consolidating back to the country’s interior.
No word had yet arrived from the contingent assigned to Manehatten and no attempts to magically observe them had worked, so it had to be assumed that they had failed. This meant the bulk of the Royal Guard was gone – or worse, turned traitor. Chaos thus effectively controlled the entirety of western Equestria all the way up to within a few miles of Canterlot. Now the Princess of the Night and her sister faced the unenviable task of defending the remainder of Equestria with only a few thousand Royal Guard and what civilian militias could be pieced together in a hurry. They had already sent out Royal Decree #6782 to all remaining loyalist cities and villages: every able-bodied pony not already in certain war-critical occupations was to be considered drafted, effective immediately. Several hundred of the dwindling Royal Guard reserves had left Canterlot to oversee what hasty training could be provided. It was but the first of many changes the diarchs were instituting on Equestrian society in a desperate ploy to remake society into something capable of surviving this.
Decree #6783 reestablished capital punishment, banned for centuries as barbarism, for anypony caught aiding the enemy, worshiping Chaos, or in any way knowingly impeding the war effort. Decree #6784 placed Equestria under martial law for an indefinite period, abolishing all civilian and aristocratic authority in anything more than an advisory role. All power now rested in the highest-ranking military leadership. To oppose them was to oppose the princesses themselves – which was of course now punishable by death, or else whatever the ranking officer chose. Decree #6785 gave the government the right to move anypony to anywhere without notice or compensation. Towns and villages deemed defensively untenable were to be stripped of anything useful and abandoned. Refugee populations were to be removed from Canterlot immediately, shifted to new living space in the cities remaining in the east.
Of course, there had been resistance. Most ponies had known nothing but a free, easy existence all their lives, and to see their government suddenly strip all their rights away was hardly painless. The ponies of Equestria trusted the princesses – or, if Luna was honest with herself, trusted Celestia – but they did not trust the newly-created military dictatorship. That the princesses had established it themselves did not seem to have been noticed, or sunk in if it had. Protests rocked Canterlot for days on end as ponies demanded various things from their leadership. From nobles protesting the loss of their traditional powers to haggard refugees demanding the right to stay where they were, it seemed everypony found something worth getting out in the streets for. Only a joint public appearance by the diarchs – and copious use of the Royal Canterlot Voice – combined with a strictly enforced curfew had reduced discontent from a raging boil to a low simmer.
As if there weren’t enough problems already, paying for all of this would be extremely taxing on the kingdom’s finances. Wise financial stewardship for many centuries had given Equestria substantial bit reserves to fall back on, but even that would run out sooner or later. Meaningful economic activity outside a handful of vital industries had ceased altogether, and little of it was taxable in the first place. Confiscatory policies were to be leveled on the wealthy aristocracy, much to their great outrage. Fancypants and, much as Luna hated to admit it about the irritating stallion, Prince Blueblood had been invaluable in keeping the nobles mostly honest about their assets. In return for a cushy “military” job far from the front lines in the latter’s case, of course.
With Celestia out personally supervising the buildup of Canterlot’s defenses and the clearing of the most recalcitrant refugee camps, it was left to Luna to deal with grand strategy for today. She sighed and rocked on her hooves, then crossed another handful of villages out on the map. The secretary beside her took careful note. The villages were too far from the planned defensive perimeter to be tenable. They were to be cleared at once. With a few strokes of a quill, Luna consigned thousands of ponies to homelessness and an even more uncertain future. She hoped she never got used to this. …
“FOR THE GLORY OF CHA-AAARRRRGGGHHH!” a pony screamed as a sharpened rod of wood tore through the center his two right legs. He collapsed mid-charge, knife clattering uselessly to the ground. The large stake flew back around and levitated over his neck, pointy end down.
Twilight Sparkle executed the cultist with a vicious finality, wood piercing his throat and driving straight through his spine to dig into the dirt below. He briefly flopped like a hooked fish as his lifeblood poured out. Then his lungs released their final breath, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he was still.
Twilight regarded the corpse with a sense of utter impassivity that weeks ago would have wracked her with horror and denial. “That’s the last of them,” she said, more for the benefit of hearing her own voice than any other reason.
She stood in the ruins of some village whose name she didn’t know. She had found a trio of cultist scum picking through the murdered community, so she had killed them. It was a lot easier once one stopped thinking of them as ponies and starting thinking of them as diseased monstrosities to be exterminated. That they had been obvious mutants only helped.
Twilight looked in the direction of Manehatten, where had slowly been creeping over the past few days. Chaos patrols, if a pony could call such rabble that, had been increasing in numbers and frequency as she grew closer. While she was determined to save everypony she could and knew that time was of the essence, she also knew that drawing too much attention to herself would only lead to a pointless death. And so it was that despite her emotional side pleading with her to charge in headfirst, her primal instincts telling her to run for her miserable life, and her rational brain telling her that this was impossible, Twilight was slowly but surely making her way towards the city, determined to rescue anypony that still lived.
Her vision caught something in the distance, coming her way. She identified them easily enough. “Pegasi,” She ducked into a ruined building with a partially-intact roof. “Eight of them. Armored. Carrying… something between two of them. Heading this direction.” She ducked deeper inside and waiting for them to pass her by. …
Fluttershy flew proudly over the works of Chaos, taking dark satisfaction from the death that had been wreaked below.
“Merely a taste of the carnage to come.” The thought was enough to make her grin beneath her new helmet, though she didn’t know if it was even hers. Since the day she’d pried the replacement from the corpse of a dark-armored warrior, she’d been hearing voices in her head, encouraging her to ever-greater slaughter in the name of Khorne. Fluttershy found that she didn’t much mind.
Behind her flew the seven remaining members of the Eightfold Ruination. Each a pegasus steeped in the worship of Khorne, bloodied in the Battle of Manehatten, and triumphant in gladiatorial matches, they were her hoof-chosen accompaniment on this mission. For all that she despised trickery, Fluttershy was not fool enough to discount it. It was possible the Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle would violate her terms, and bring entire squads of soldiers or even a princess to ambush her. If so, backup was desirable. If not, then the Eightfold Ruination would stand aside and watch her work. She’d deal with the inevitable challenge afterwards.
Her wingmate was a hulking brute of a green stallion with a giant warhammer known simply as Ironhoof. Like all the pegasi in the group bar Fluttershy herself, he had adopted a new name after his rebirth in Chaos. Her second-in-command, he made no secret of his ambitions for leadership – which meant he would undoubtedly rise to challenge her the moment he sensed the time was right. Fluttershy welcomed the idea. Whatever the result, blood would flow, and the worthiest would survive to lead. Lord Khorne would be pleased either way.
Behind Ironhoof were the yellow Burning Heart and the white Skulltaker, a pair of mares infamous in the gladiator pits for their habit of eating their opponents even during their fights. Hound, a large red stallion with a mouth sealed shut by mutation, followed in their wake. Crushing Maw, a smaller blue mare with a long, poorly-healed scar down her left flank followed him. Bringing up the rear were Deathwing and Snarling Teeth, a grey stallion and purple mare, respectively, carried a bundle between them. In it was the heavily bound form of Applejack. Fluttershy planned to be as good as her word – the earth pony would be alive and healthy when Twilight arrived. Afterwards, she might even let her former friend go to spread the story of her triumph. Or she might execute her as well. Fluttershy felt flexible like that.
The Eightfold Ruin flew low so as to offer a better view of the ruined land. To followers of Khorne, it was considered a good omen to start a journey by observing death already wreaked where one started. Also, it helped remind them of what lay ahead, hopefully keeping any thoughts of immediately slaughtering their comrades at bay. Hours passed as they flew east, occasionally pausing to baptize their journey in the blood of whatever unlucky fool they laid eyes on.
It was while scanning the ground for more victims that Fluttershy spotted something familiar below. Three heavily-mutated somethings, to be precise, running westwards along the ground at supernatural speeds. A chill shudder passed through her helmet as whatever spirit it contained recognized its kindred, cloaked in flesh.
“The possessed,” Fluttershy realized.
Lord Qesh had sent them on a mission to hunt down and eliminate Twilight Sparkle themselves. That they still existed in the material realm was proof that they had not yet done so, for completing their task would dissolve the fragile bonds holding the daemons to the flesh of the Royal Guard. Fluttershy could have let them pass. They were under orders from her sworn lord, after all. The two groups shared the same mission, perhaps even the same god. But that would have meant allowing another to claim the glory of the kill, to cower away from a fight and so fail the Skull Lord. In the end, it was a choice between following Lord Qesh, and following Lord Khorne. And that was no choice at all.
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!” Fluttershy roared as she folded her wings back and dived. “SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!”
Echoing her cries of praise, the remainder of the Eightfold Ruin joined her in the plummet, save two. Deathwing and Snarling Teeth, with great reluctance paused to toss Applejack to the ground from a survivable height before plunging after their leader.
“MAIM KILL BURN!!! MAIM KILL BURN!!!” the pegasi screamed as the barreled down on their prey at blistering speeds.
Fluttershy hit the lead daemonhost like a ballista bolt. The creature with bat wings formed from a protruding spine rose to meet the challenge with an eagerness and aggression almost equal to the pegasus’ own. She slammed into it with a perfectly-timed ax swing. The extreme force behind the blow split the creature’s sternum and sent it crashing right back into the ground as Fluttershy pulled back up for another pass.
Ironhoof, Burning Heart, and Skulltaker hit a second daemonhost, wisely avoiding the one their leader had claimed for her own. The creature reeled under the withering assault. Ironhoof smashed his hammer down onto its spine with all the strength of a bull dragon. Purple blood and bits of yellowed bone splattered all over the stallion. Burning Heart pointed her sword straight at the creature’s eye, jamming the blade all the way through its skull and back out again on impact. Skulltaker ran her spear through the monstrosity’s guts and straight into the ground, pinning it.
Hound and Crushing Maw took the final possessed pony. Hound opted to fly past its side, taking a swing with his axe and carving deep rents in its side. Crushing Maw, with all the suicidal aggression that had earned her her scar, simply tackled the hideous thing. She was much the smaller of the two, but such was the speed she had built up that pony and daemon alike tumbled and rolled along the grassy plain.
The two final pegasi plunged into combat. Deathwing charged the daemonhost already surrounded by three of the Khornate warriors, twin swords held in front like an arrow point. Snarling Teeth was much less wise. Screaming incomprehensibly, she ran the spear she carried hard into the first daemonhost, the one Fluttershy had attacked.
Such a direct challenge to her authority only served to enrage the yellow pegasus even further. Howling like some daemonic wolf, she dropped straight down, all thoughts of tactics or self-preservation forgotten in her burning desire to punish the interloper. Snarling Teeth barely had time to look up before an axe imbedded itself in her brain. Fluttershy’s vision turned to a red haze at the kill, the blessing of her god upon her. All she saw was daemonhost in front of her, it’s very existence a mockery and an intolerable insult.
Screaming incoherently with the raw hatred of the Warp flowing through her, Fluttershy attacked with blistering speed. The daemon’s spiked tentacles, glistening with otherworldly poison, swung at her, but she didn’t care. Her battered and mismatched armor deflected the blows, boney points gouging fresh scars into the steel plate. Fluttershy hacked madly at the tentacles, ax swishing with greater speed than it had any right to. One tentacle came off, then two. Fluttershy crushed them carelessly underhoof, oblivious to the spikes driving themselves in and injecting venom.
The beast back away, allowing its formidable regeneration work its miracles. Already the sternum where Fluttershy had landed the initial blow was almost whole again, the severed tentacles starting to bud back. But she gave it no such chance, pressing forward its face without hesistation. Still more tentacles lashed out, seeking the vulnerable gaps in her armor. Fluttershy bit down on the spike-encrusted tentacle tearing across her chin. Yet more poison was injected into her body as the flailing thing tore open the roof of her mouth, but she simply tore it off with a twist of her neck and spat the black thing onto the ground.
A clawed limb that had once been a pony’s hoof shot out in a blur. Fluttershy twisted around it, feeling the sharp bite as the obsidian-colored claws cut open the flesh of her flank. She brought her axe down on its wrist, severing the claw. Yet more purple-black blood oozed from the wound. Fluttershy body-slammed the daemonhost, staggering it. She smacked it across the cheek with the flat of her axe, audibly breaking the spine with the strength of the blow. A tentacle wrapped itself around her right hoof, pinning it in place. Fluttershy’s body was starting to burn as the daemon’s poison took effect, but nothing mattered to her. Nothing except this creature’s death.
Fluttershy thrust her face forwards, biting deep into the enlarged eye socket of the former pony. She tore out most of a disgusting, gelatinous orb that tasted of rot and mucus. She spat it right back in the daemon’s face. It seized her left hoof in a newly-regenerated tentacle, lifting her off the ground as it opened its maw unnaturally wide. Fluttershy kicked its teeth with both her back hooves. It staggered again, and she yanked herself free. Still screaming praises to the Skull Throne, she jabbed its throat with the pointed end of her axe, leaving her legs exposed. It bit down hard on her left front leg, cracking enchanted armor and bone. The daemonhost swung Fluttershy around like a ragdoll, supernatural strength easily enough to slam her into the ground again and again. Still she would not give in, swinging the axearound with her right hoof straight into the thing’s neck. Its jaw popped open as the ax crushed much of the bone, and she tumbled free.
“SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!” Fluttershy shrieked as she yanked the weapon out and swung at the neck again and again. The second blow cut open the neck even further. The third sliced through the spine. That was finally enough – with a scream of what might have been pain or ecstasy, the daemon released its hold on the mutated flesh. Smoke poured from every orifice and dissipated into the air to the sound of tortured wails. The useless carcass flopped to the ground, its animating spirit gone. But Fluttershy didn’t stop. Four, five, six, seven times she cut into the mutant neck until the head came off.
“SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!”
Fluttershy whirled, seeking new opponents. There was another dead daemonhost, surrounded by the scattered bodies of Burning Heart, Skulltaker, and Deathwing. She saw the viciously mangled corpses of Hound and Crushing Maw next to the final daemonhost. Ironhoof stood triumphantly over the badly wounded thing, hammer raised high. With a great cry, he brought the spiked thing down on the possessed pony’s head, shattering the skull and the daemon’s hold on reality. To Fluttershy’s damaged mind, he had just stolen her kill.
With a shriek that sounded positively daemonic itself, Fluttershy threw herself at Ironhoof. He was bigger, less wounded, and had a heavier weapon. None of that mattered. Her tackle knocked him off his hooves and sent his hammer flying.
“What are you doing?!” he shouted in her face. He had never understood, Fluttershy realized. Never truly. Never as she had.
“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!” Fluttershy roared as she brought the ax down on his head. The stallion’s skull split in two under the force of the blow, and his twitching carcass slumped back.
Fluttershy screamed her triumph to the heavens just as her body finally realized it was mangled and collapsed.
