A few hours and several kicked asses later, I’m still going strong.
My massive, muscular minotaur hands wrap around the Hive Guardian’s tendrils and bend them around, putting its blades in my control. “Wait, STO-“ is all it manages to get out in its messed-up, hissing language before I ram its own blades up its ass, thoroughly skewering the creature’s anal cavity.
“America: 23, Nightmare Turrurists: jack shit!” I announce, tossing the desecrated remains to the side and strolling along down the path. I’m still not 100% this is the right path, but there were plenty of Nightmare asses to kick, so who really cares?
Wait…
Hold up, what? I would care, thank you very much! I’m supposed to be saving lives in Sifty’s stead! That’s the point! I can’t just run around, killing Nightmares with no goal in mind! Even if I did, I couldn’t do it as a minotaur, I'm sucking up way too much from my love reserves! At this rate, I won’t even be able to hold my own head up within a couple hours! The hell am I thinking!?
…
I’m thinking I’m giving too much of an internal monologue when there are commie terrorist Imperial British Nazi asses to kick in Uncle Sam’s name, that’s what!
Snickering, I continue along the path, stomping down one or two Nightmare-tainted ponies with my gigantic hooves as I continue along the way. The call of freedom and duty rings in my ears as I boom along. For America! For the hero I know I am!
With a final cry, I burst into an open clearing, and finally find the source of the Nightmares in this area: a Hive built out of a cave, now writhing with giant maggots and Nightmare ponies and Guardians and heavily-armored Alphas and, overlooking it all, a gigantic spider the size of a Mack Truck: a Hive Queen.
I grin and crack my knuckles. Now things were getting interesting.
The spider-bitch raises a hairy spindle of a leg and levels it at me, letting out an ear-splitting screech, its mouth dropping open to reveal fangs dripping with venom. The small army roars in response and slams across the field, barreling towards me with feral eagerness. I grin and, as the head of the army approaches, whip a gigantic fist around against the temple of an Alpha, sending it to the ground with a sickening crack. I bring a hoof down on its neck as a bladed tendril whips by, slicing a thin red line into my bicep. I grit through the pain and bring my fist up into an uppercut that cracks against a Nightmare Pony’s jaw, but a couple more Alphas appear to take its place.
For a moment, I consider retreating. For an instant, a part of me thinks a tactical retreat to figure out a better plan than “run in there and punch everything” might be prudent. Then the pussified moment passes and I barrel into the crowd, a roar booming at the top of my lungs and echoing throughout the forest.
I twist, a Nightmare pony goes flying. I roll, coming up to stomp in the skull of an Alpha. Both fists lash out, sending a couple Hive Guardians flying, only to have a Nightmare changeling latch onto a forearm with its elongated mouth and clamp down hard with its massive fangs. I roar again, slamming it into the ground hard enough to send dirt clods flying. Another Guardian latches onto the back of my neck, its blades stabbing into my back again and again and again. Still roaring, I throw myself back, crushing the Guardian but allowing the Alphas to dogpile me, stabbing at me with boneblades, razor-sharp fangs gnashing, the air filled with screams and hisses.
I throw one off, then another, more rush to replace them. I lash out with my fists, my hands, and are they all getting bigger?
No.
No, I’m getting smaller.
It’s only now that I notice the pit of fire blazing in my stomach, slowly fading. The feeling of my love reserves burning up, only now dwindling to nothing. The world starts to go dark as the gnashing teeth and whipping blades are replaced with stomping hooves and whipping clubs, against my head, my back, my chest, my legs. I fall, my Minotaur form melting away in a pathetic little burst of green embers as my body collapses, beaten, bloody, and bruised beneath the onslaught. Darkness fills my vision. I…wait, isn’t the hero supposed to triumph? Isn’t this where I complete my rise?
“Hero?” A tiny, hissing voice asks. I lift my head, see something small skittering towards me. “Whatever gave you that idea?” It cackle-hisses. The beatings stop, but I still can’t muster the strength to stand again.
I feel something latch to my face, the skittering thing. My vision fills with green mist. I try to reach for it, but something heavy pins my arms to the ground. I tug a few times, then stop.
Tired.
So tired.
What was I doing again?
“Sleep fool, rest,” the voice hisses.
Tired, so tired…I close my eyes, and the darkness takes me.
“You want to use magic on him, you stupid piece of shit!?”
I stir, my vision fading in and out. Focus, damn you! The call of freedom can’t have a blind champion! Eyes! I demand you focus right now!
“W-well sir, i-it was just a suggestion…”
“What good is breaking him with magic!? I didn’t want to just cast a spell that finished him! I wanted him actually broken! I wanted to see him, begging me on his hands and knees, with nothing but open honesty in his eyes! I wanted him to know on every level who his superior was! What good is breaking down a drooling zombie that wears his face, you stuttering moron!?”
“I-I’m sorry sir, I just thought…”
Damn you, eyes! You have failed me. Arms, can you do any better?
…
You too, arms!? Damn you all, my body has failed. Arms, what good are you if you can’t break us out of a bit of glowing green gunk!?
“No, you did not think!” Shouted the first voice, coming from something tall and bipedal and practically begging to get its face stomped in, from the sound of that awful voice. “I told you I wanted to break him! I told you I wanted him in tears, begging me to stop the pain! And now you’re telling me he’s too damned moose-headed to do either!? Now you’re telling me I could kill his family and burn his hometown down in front of him, and he’d still try and crack a one-liner!?”
“E-everyone has a different reaction to the Draining, sir…” the second voice speaks, this time from something much tinier: a dot that wobbles just a bit off the ground at my feet. “I-I thought his logical side might take over, perhaps leave him heartless and more susceptible to our influence, but i-it appears he’s even more irrational than before.”
“You idiot!” The first figure steps forward and I see a leg lash out in a Superbowl-worthy punt, sending the wobbling dot flying to crash against something in the haze my traitorous eyes won’t lift. “Nincompoop! Moron! You’ve ruined everything!”
“Sir, wait! Please, I…”
I see something flicker by the first creature’s side, a tendril rising with a flicker of white, then a loud thunk followed by a choked-off cry, a hiss of pain, then silence. A green mist rips through the air, enveloping me in a shimmering cloud, and when it fades, I realize something terrible:
I’ve been a complete jackass for this entire day!
“Ohhhh what the fuck!?” I scream, falling back against my restraints. “What the hell was I thinking!? Oh God, what…”
“Well, look who’s back from the land of the blind,” that voice, the first one, intones. I turn, craning my head around, but my vision is still all blurry, something fucking with my eyes. Something cold presses to my throat, and I shrink back. I swallow around the narrow band of steel. I don’t need 20/20 vision to know that a knife is being pressed against my throat, and is a flick of the wrist away from slicing me up and leaving me to bleed out in seconds.
“Don’t speak, you’ve done enough of that.” The cold voice rasps. “Can you understand me? Nod if you can.”
I nod slowly.
“Good. I’m guessing you’re back to your old self, that’s good. I want you to understand the sheer weight of the situation you’re in,” the voice carries on as my eyes trace the arm-tendril back into the dark…only it’s not a tendril, it’s an arm, a solid arm. And in the corner of my vision, what I thought was a white blob focuses into skin. A hand? A human?
“Right now,” the voice continues. “You are totally drained of love. I doubt you could even change the color of your pinkie finger if you wanted to. You completely exhausted your reserves out there. Nod again if you understand.”
I nod again. I remember the battle outside, and recognize the telltale burning at the pit of my stomach from going through my love much faster than I should have. Stupid. So stupid.
“Good. You and your friends were under the influence of one of my servants, so don’t feel too bad about your loss.” The blade at my throat eases up a millimeter, allowing me to swallow without fear of slicing my carotid open. “You’re spent, alone, and deep behind enemy lines. Even worse, this isn’t just any Nightmare Hive, but it’s my Nightmare Hive. Trust me, as bad as you think the others are, I’m a whole helluva lot worse.”
I nod again. Don’t want to interrupt the nice trend we have going.
“This all can stop,” the voice says. “I’m going to untie you now. We are not alone in this cavern. I have enough Alphas crammed in here to take on the Royal Guard by myself. If you try anything, they’ll cut you down before you can even take two steps. Nod.”
I nod.
“Good.” In a flash, the bindings around my arms vanish and I fall to the ground. Only now that I have to support my own weight do I feel my own exhaustion, the sheer emptiness where my love stores should have been. I collapse to my knees, heaving, and then I feel a heavy boot press down on the back of my neck.
“Good boy,” the voice hisses. “Now, there’s one last thing I want from you. Just one tiny thing, and this all can be over. No more headgames. No more battles. No more struggling. That sound good?”
I nod, even as my jaw clenches until my fangs start to dig into the inside of my cheeks. My ass this was gonna be one tiny thing.
“Bow to me,” the voice announces. “Swear to me with tears in your eyes that I am now and forevermore your superior. And make me believe you. Then, as your first loyal duty, run home. Leave this place and go back to Earth and tell your mommy and daddy what a pussy you are. Tell them how totally you failed here. Do that, and I’ll leave you alone forever.”
I blink. “Y-you’re serious?” I stammer.
“As a heart attack.”
I can’t hear that little gem over my own laughter. Despite the boot pressing down on the back of my neck, despite the shuffling of dozens of Nightmare-spawn around me, despite being cornered deep behind enemy lines with no plan, no resources, and no backup, I can’t help myself. “Motherfucker, you gotta be out of your damn mind,” I chortled, my high-pitched, hissing peals of laughter still echoing throughout the caves. “You think I’d take you up on that offer in a million years? I’d rather have barbed wire shoved in my urethra!”
A snarl fills the cavern, followed by the hissing of the various abominations surrounding me. “Thanks for the idea,” the voice growls.
Aww shit, I’ve really gotta learn when to shut my damn mouth.
“I-I meant to say…I’d rather get a BJ…from…Princess Celestia!” I screamed in a panic, only realizing what I said as I was hauled up by a dozen tendril-covered hooves. “Shit, wait! I meant…uh…I’m not a clopper!”
“You know, I might just grant you your wish,” the human-thing says. I look over at him, curious, still trying to make out his face in the darkness without any luck. “In your last hours, you can see how low I bring the princess when I bring her over to suck you off. Hope you don’t mind if a few pieces are missing by that time, though.”
My eyes narrow in the blurry darkness as more hooves press down on me, my chest nearly too constricted to breathe. “Too far, shitbag.”
“I think you’ll find that, as far as I am concerned, nothing is too far.” A pair of boots enter my vision, clomping over the ground. “Make sure he’s secured, then take him to the pods and attempt the changeling corruption with him.”
“But sir!” An unseen Alpha hisses in the dark. “His human side will fight the corruption! Even if we get his changeling side, the results will be useless!”
“That is the point,” the human hisses, and then the crunch of boots, and a patchy, half-full beard filled out with a wide, shiny grin fills my vision. “I’m gonna turn you into an abomination. Something not even the Nightmares will be able to look at. By this time next week, you won’t be able to take a breath without knowing pain.”
“Oh, so it’ll be like when my ma used to turn on TLC back at the ol’ house,” I groaned, quickly adding: “The Learning Channel my ass.”
At that, the mouth turns up into a quick peal of laughter as its owner rises out of view. “Let me know when it’s done!” It calls as it turns, walking away and leaving me with a bunch of Nightmares and shitheads pressing me to the ground.
I grimace as I’m picked up again, swept up off my feet before I can even stand. “Jesus guys, at least take me to dinner first.”
“Silence, human!” A Hive Guardian shrieks, pressing a drool-filled mandible to my cheek and growling in my ear.
“Oh, boo, you’re no fun. Bring in that first guy again, he knew a little bit about witty banter.”
“How about this for witty banter,” a hoof presses into the back of my skull. “I’m gonna squish your head like a grape, and then it’s your dead ass I’ll ra—”
Before he can finish his surprisingly creative (y’know, for a Nightmare-spawn) limerick, there’s the familiar hum of pony magic, followed by a purple shimmer that flashes in the room for just a second. At last, the whole world is filled with green. I go flying, blasted up from my stomach to be sent spinning end over end, finally stopped by the cave wall. Despite my weakened state, I’m quick to twist around to see the source of this insanity.
Cypher and Chittery stand in the middle of the cavern, a hole having been cleared in the middle of the Nightmare horde, illuminated by the green glow off their horns. “If anypony’s shoving anything up any assholes, it’s gonna be me,” Chittery growls.
“G-get away from our friend, y-you meanies!” Cypher squeaks.
I cringe. “Good try, Cyphy, we’ll work on that later.”
“Get them, you stupid jackasses!” The guy what had a knife to my throat shouts.
The Nightmares close ranks, completing the circle, howling and spitting. I barely manage to tuck and roll in time, twisting and raising my fists in a way that I can only hope looks intimidating and disguises the fact that I can barely stand. “So, you two just popped in thanks to Twi,” I shouted, switching my stance as quickly as possible to face as many directions as I can. “Did you have a plan beyond that?”
“N-not really?” Cypher hisses sheepishly.
“Great,” I mumble as the circle tightens, the air filling with the whipping of tendrils and the gnashing of bone blades against rock.
Chittery says nothing. Instead, she focuses on the ground, pressing her muzzle to the rocky earth, breathing over it. Finally, she stands up and grins, a grim light igniting in her eye. “Don’t worry about any plans, Deezy,” she cackles, her horn igniting. “Not when the odds are pretty much even.”
Apparently, the asshole in the dark knows what’s going to happen, and doesn’t like it one bit. “Kill her already, you fucking idiots! She’s gonna…”
He’s cut off when a rotting hoof bursts through the ground, a bit of flesh trailing from the leg, followed by another, and another, and another. A whole undead horde explodes from the earth, the ground roiling and heaving beneath us with its mass. The Nightmares are thrown around, tossed aside like so many bowling pins as the horde rips its way up into the air and rotting teeth and limbs clamp around every exposed body part.
“Hell yeah! Nightmare of the Living Dead, bitch!” I scream, thrown off my feet as a particularly large stallion bucks his way into the light, his teeth clamped in rage, his one intact eye glaring from deep inside its socket.
I could care less. I’m grinning like a moron, even as I hit the ground with the grace of a sack of hammers, at least until I look up and see the Nightmare-asshole-dick-guy standing at the mouth of a cavern, just over the heads of a few Alphas, his face still cloaked in shadow.
Snarling, I leap to my feet and throw myself after him, more stumbling than running along the cave floor. A line of Alphas flanked by Guardians rushes to meet me, only to be tossed aside when an entire mass of undead bursts from the ground in the middle of their line like pus from an overripe pimple. I twist, see Chittery, her horn glowing, teeth clenched in concentration. I give her a thumbs up and vault over the ranks of fallen Nightmare, narrowly dodging gnashing fangs and whirling blades.
The sonofabitch who made the mistake of waking me up turns and runs off down the cavern, his boots scraping against the floor. “Oh no you don’t, fucker!” I scream, pouring what little energy I have left into the chase. But before I can get two steps into the cave, he pauses, whips around, and holds up a little box with an antenna on top, his thumb primed over a big, red, shiny button. I stop, my shoes skidding against the granite as I throw myself back: I know a remote detonator when I see one. Not even a second after rocketing back, a series of powerful explosions blast out of the cave’s mouth, sending rock and dust flying into our cavern and sending me, a collection of Nightmares, and an assortment of undead flying ass-first into the middle of the floor.
We all skid to a halt, tumbling out of control, my ears ringing from the explosions. My eyes swim in their sockets, totally dazed. When I snap back to reality, the princess is standing over me, her mouth open as a stream of love pours into my gaping maw.
I sit up with a grunt, grateful for the little strength her meager donation gives me. “Easy, big guy,” Chittery hisses, easing me up in her hooves. “I have plenty, but that’s all we have time for now.”
“You got plenty? Where did you…oh,” I grimace, rubbing the back of my head where I landed. A fuzzy memory surfaces from before I launched this one-man suicide mission, striding into this forest like an idiot, of Chittery prepping to give all of Ponyville the wildest day of their little pony lives. “Jesus girl, I didn’t pull you from anything, did I?”
“Not really,” she shrugs, nudging me to my feet. “I was in Twilight’s castle anyway, so it wasn’t too much to ask her to grab me and Cypher and drop us right on top of you.”
“What were you doing at Twilight’s castle in the middle of a total cavalcade of pony lovin’ crazine--“ I trailed off. “OH! Oh wow, I didn’t think Twilight swung that way.”
“She doesn’t, but not for lack of effort on my part,” Chittery replies with a wink. “Believe me.”
“Umm…g-guys?” Cypher brings us out of our conversation, and we both take stock of our surroundings. The absolute insane clashing of limbs and writhing, random masses of undead colliding against Nightmare have all died down. In the absence of chaos, the Undead and Nightmare-spawn have formed battle lines, with Nightmares backed up against the entrance to the cave and Undead standing between us and them, like a protective barrier. Both sides stand on rocks stinking with black, clotted blood, disembodied bone-blades, shattered chitin, and rotting pelts of their fallen. The stench floods the cavern, filling our nostrils with the putrid smell of rot and infection.
On the Nightmare side, a particularly-large Alpha strides forward, armored chest puffed out and head raised. It rears back, the spikes at the ends of its hooves slicing into the air as a deep howl builds from its throat and echoes throughout the cavern. The other Spawn take up the rallying call, a battle cry filled with gibbering screeches and deep howls from what can only be an unholy group of abominations in the night. I clamp my hands over my ears as a few Gorgers even materialize from the shadows, their screams almost paralyzing me.
The Undead take a step back. They each look at one another, rotting eyeballs and hollow sockets somehow expressing a sudden pang of fear. Evidently, the Nightmare’s cry is able to even stir fear in hearts that haven’t beat in years. The Undead outnumber the Nightmare, but they are weakening bones and rotting skin, whereas the Nightmare are all armor plating and blades made from bone. Even with numbers, the odds are still stacked against us.
Finally nutting up, I grimace, crack my knuckles, and bound into their midst. I find the tallest Undead I can, some massive stallion whose ratty blonde mane and Red Delicious-colored pelt tells me he might be a distant relative of the Apple Family, and I climb on his back. The stallion starts under me, craning its neck around to look at me with an eyeball dangling out of its socket. I grin at him. He grins back with teeth partially exposed by rotting lips. Then, I lean back, rearing him up on his hind hooves and letting loose with a howl from a voice modulated by changeling magic.
My howl echoes throughout the cavern, booming in the ears of Undead and Nightmare alike. Suddenly, the fear and hesitation that overtook the Undead lines not a few moments before is gone, the ponies all straightening on rotten hooves and half-skeletal legs, joining in with a nightmarish cry of their own. After a couple seconds, a familiar pair of hisses join in, and I turn to find Chittery and Cypher at my sides, baring their fangs at the horde.
Now, it’s the Nightmare’s turn to look unsure, to take a step back, to have second thoughts. Then, a pulse from the Collective mind robs them of such pesky things as “willpower” and “free will,” and the entire line falls back to their hooves and spindly legs, lowering heads, baring fangs, snarling like animals. I raise a fist. The lead Alpha rears back and slams its hooves back down. The Earth rumbles, and the Nightmares charge. I lower my fist, and the Undead barrel down to meet them, pressing ahead. I cling to the tattered remnants of my stallion’s mane. Surely, this will be a battle to be remembered! Surely, this will be an epic clash that will forever echo in everyone’s minds! The sort of epic that is super hard to put into any media properly, much less write about!
So I’m not even gonna try.
Picture if you will: the mightiest of caverns. The sort of thing you read about dwarves mining in Tolkien. Picture a high ceiling with stalactites clinging for purchase, holding on despite centuries spent gaining weight, pulling themselves inexorably downward, finally reaching towards their brethren rising from the floor. Now picture row after row of cages filling this space, crowded with all manner of creatures. Pony, griffon, manticore, even the desiccated remains of a human every so often. However, despite that variety, every creature has one thing in common: a sense of despair. These creatures have been broken, all hope of escape or rescue broken by the Nightmare ponies patrolling occasionally, only stopping every so often to rattle the cage bars and laugh at the way the occupants flinch back, save for a few. One of these is a certain light blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and…
Oh Jesus, it’s Rainbow Dash. You know it. I know it. No need to beat around the bush with this mysterious prose bullshit. You’re reading an MLP fanfic, the only characters “rainbow mane” could describe would be Dashie or a shitty alicorn OC, and considering we’re avoiding those like the plague, let’s just carry on, shall we?
Rainbow glares through the bars of her prison at the Nightmare pegasus as it rattles the flat of its spear against her bars. She doesn’t flinch back. She just grits her teeth and meets its empty gaze with a death glare.
Finally, the Nightmare backs off, its empty red eyes rolling down to her. “Why you still resist, pony?” It hisses, that nails-on-a-chalkboard tone from its voice forcing her ears to lay flat against her skull. “You know it useless. You no have friends. You no have family. Nopony know where are. Nopony care. No hope. No chance to be free again, but for be Nightmare.”
“And you no have grammar,” Rainbow growled. “Seriously, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but pick up a danged book once in a while. If Twilight was here, she’d be having conniptions from the way you’re butchering the Equish language.”
The Nightmare frowned, then its grin lit up, flashing her a jagged smile of mismatched, but razor-sharp teeth. “If Twi-pony here, she say she agree. She smart. She know I right.”
Rainbow flared her nostrils and reared up on her hind hooves as far as the cage’s low, rusty roof would allow. “You watch what you say about my friends, pal!” She bellowed. “Once they find me, they’ll tear this place apart, and then I’m gonna kick your flank so hard you’ll be coughing my hoof shavings up for weeks!”
The Nightmare just smiled and shook its head, turning away with a little smirk. “You down here almost whole day now, pony, why friends no find? They even care?”
“Wha-of course they care!”
“Then where?”
Rainbow Dash bit her lip. “O-obviously they’re rallying their forces, making a rescue, you’ll see! Pretty soon, they’re gonna come to the edge of this cavern, and you’ll be sorry then! You’ll be the sorriest excuse for a Nightmare there ever was then!”
The Nightmare just smirked and turned away, trotting along down the line of cages and running its spear along the bars. It chortled as the ponies inside flinched back from each clang of the spear, still snickering to itself as it rounded a corner and disappeared from sight, its presence only known by the fading, chittering snickers and clang of metal on metal.
“Miss Dash?” Rainbow turned to the source of the voice, finding a shivering mint-green unicorn next to her. “What he said isn’t true, right? Your friends are searching for us right now, right?”
Rainbow pasted on a grin, and then her trademarked, self-assured smile. “Of course I’m sure!” She scoffed, poking a wing through the bars for the other pony to nuzzle. “Look Lyra, I know you’re not 100% familiar with how the Elements of Harmony roll, but loyalty is kind of a part of who we are. They’re not gonna forget us. They’re gonna do everything in their power to get us back.”
“B-but…you’re loyalty…” Lyra blubbered, her massive golden eyes growing even more massive. “And right now you’re the one separated from everypony else!”
Rainbow flinched at that. “It doesn’t work like that, Lyra,” her eyes darted away, then she frowned, turned, and met the unicorn’s gaze, pointing towards the rise overlooking the tiny valley, at the summit of which a Nightmare Alpha stood, keeping watch over all of the cages. “Besides, that doesn’t matter! Pretty soon, they’re gonna come barreling over that hill, kicking butt the entire way, you’ll see! Just sit back and wait for the show to start, we’ll be free in no time!”
“O-okay…if you say so…” Lyra whimpered, still unable to meet Rainbow’s gaze.
“Just you wait…” Rainbow said, though now she was talking more to herself than to Lyra. “Gonna come over that hill on a sea of rainbows…just you…wait…”
When she imagined her rescue, Rainbow envisioned power. She envisioned magic of the finest purity. She envisioned a colorful kaleidoscope of magic descending over the hills as a shining beacon of hope to all around her. She did not envision an ice cream truck blaring a metal version of "Pop Goes the Weasel" with the decapitated head of Nightmare Alpha embedded in the grille to ramp off the ridge like a Hot Wheels toy, slam back down on its side, and come to a skidding halt with a titanic rending of twisted metal just short of the first line of cages.
She also did not expect the part monkey-monster, part changeling she’d met the day before to come ripping out through the serving window amidst an avalanche of condoms, then burst to his feet, twist, and blow a Nightmare’s head off with his signature weapon. Nor did she expect his changeling friends to come barreling out at his side, the partially-corrupted stallion wearing a tutu and the promiscuous mare now sporting chitin dyed a lime green.
“Heilige scheiße, das warn verrückter mist!” The stallion screamed.
“WOOH!” The monkey-monster added, coughing up a party streamer as he worked the action on his weapon. “Y’all are not gonna believe the shit we just went through to get here!”
My head swivels on my shoulders. I reel on my feet, hardly able to keep myself standing. I’m covered in party streamers, Nightmare blood, and some other shit I probably don’t even wanna name. And still, I can’t keep the grin off my face.
“That was a fuckin’ ride!” I scream, collapsing to my knees. “Jesus Christ, Cypher, was that you who passed gas back during the Cylon assault?”
“Nein.”
“That was me,” Chittery replies. “And I’ll have you know it was after the Cylons showed up, right before we had to solve the Riddle of the Doors, remember?”
“Aww yeah,” I choke, coughing up a noisemaker. “But before I lost the Mandate of Heaven we got from that African elephant god…shit…I had to punch an elephant down and everything for that.”
“That was actually really impressive, even for you.”
“Got me a fist bump from the Punchmaster.”
“Seid ihr das essen? Nein, wir sind die jaeger!”
“Okay!” I shout, rising to my feet. “We’re back in Equestria at least, so we figure out if we landed in the right time period this time, and after that, we can figure out how to get Cypher to stop speaking Nazi.”
“Wir müssen die verbündeten Hund aus der Castle Wolfenstein schieben!”
“Yes, I get that you needed it to earn the favor of the Aryan spirit and get him to hand us the Oracle of Power, but some hot kraut probably wasn’t worth usin' long-dead Forerunner technology to mess around with your language centers!”
“Ahem.”
We all turn to look at the Nightmare spawn standing with us at the bottom of the ridge. Its bladearms are folded against its body as its empty, hellish eyes look up at us impatiently.
“Oh my goodness gracious,” I gasp. “Just where are my manners!? Terribly sorry, we’ve had one helluva day.”
“Eh, it’s alr…” the Nightmare starts before its head is pulped by a single twelve-gauge, solid bore round. The shot echoes throughout the cavern, and in a flash we hear the skittering and stomping of dozens of hooves.
“Move!” Chittery screams, rearing up and blasting a massive bolt of green magic from her horn that catches a Nightmare in the face as it rounds a corner. With a screech, I drop to all fours, my repowered changeling magic fueling another transformation. A seven-foot-tall timberwolf rises in a flash of green fire where I stood, bounding through the narrow alleyways between cages, sticky sap drooling from razor-sharp twigs shaped like fangs. The next couple spawn have time for a single, choked-off cry before I flying-tackle them down and maul them, ripping flesh, tearing bone, and generally making a rotten-smelling meal of them. They don’t even have time to cry out.
I look up with beady, glowing eyes. A Nightmare Spawn stands in place, staring. I stand up straight, licking off the black blood coating my muzzle. Something pungent dribbles down the Nightmare’s hind leg, then it turns and bolts, running at top speed through the maze of corridors.
Despite my longer legs, the creature makes good time through the cages, being smaller and more agile. It takes all my strength just to keep up through the long, twisting aisles. Finally, it hits me: why am I going through the halls on the ground like a pleb?
Grinning widely, I bound straight up a wall of cages, my claws clinging to the bars, careful to avoid the hooves, talons, and hands of curious onlookers. One particular little filly darts back with a frightened squeak as I shoot by, and I pause long enough to shoot her a wink before mounting the top of the cages, glaring down into the hallway at my prey.
The Nightmare looks up, having followed my progress (I wasn’t exactly able to keep quiet while mounting a wall of metal cages, cut me some slack) and again, another stream of pungent stuff dribbles down a leg, hitting my newly-sensitive nostrils.
“Shit man, you eat a lot of asparagus?” I ask with a toothy, sap-filled grin, my voice a cross between a breeze through some tree branches and a feral growl.
The Nightmare backs up against a cage, its hindquarters bouncing against the bars. In a flash, it turns, sees the cell’s contents, and grins so wide I can even see it where I’m sitting. Uh oh.
I bound down the side of the cages, landing on all fours, but I’m still not fast enough, and now I can see what put a smile on the abomination’s face: Rainbow Dash, glaring defiantly back at us all, even with a tendril wrapped around her midriff and neck, ending with a long blade pressed up against her throat.
“B-back off!” The Nightmare hisses. “I’ll slice her open! I swear!”
“Let her go, and your death will be quick and painless,” I growl in reply, my voice now akin to a howl. “I promise you won’t have to find out what your own scrotum tastes like.”
Meanwhile, Dash just looks between us, confused. “Wait, I’m supposed to be your hostage?” She asks with a cocked eyebrow.
The Nightmare looks back at her with a growl, bearing his mismatched fangs. She just cocks that trademarked smile again. “Of everypony you could have grabbed for a hostage here, you picked me?” The prismatic pegasus asks with a smirk. “Buddy, you’re either the dumbest Nightmare spawn that ever lived, or the unluckiest.”
“You can shut up or I’ll…”
That’s all he manages to get out before she takes off. Seems he didn’t make sure his tendrils secured her wings. Huge mistake. She bolts right over my head as a rainbow blur, forcing me to duck with a frightened yip. I whip around, watching the blur run circles in the air high over the cages, trailing something black and streaming more foul urine.
My nose wrinkles in distaste, trying to dodge the worst of the Nightmare terror-piss while listening to the gibbering cries of the terrified spawn. “Dude, seriously! I’d get checked for kidney disease if I were you!” I roar at the cavern.
At long last, the rainbow blur starts to slow down, and a black speck falls ungracefully from its side, landing on the rock with all the pomp and class of a brick hurled through a living room window. Snickering at myself, I stand and trot casually out of the cages, reveling in the terrified cries and explosions from Cypher and Chittery moving methodically amongst the Nightmare.
I find a large, purplish blotch on the ground, with a trail leading away. I follow the trail for only a few yards to find the Nightmare spawn, dragging itself along with a partially-frayed tendril, all four of its legs now a broken mass of flesh beneath its body. I sigh and shake my head as it turns and lets out a frightened squeak at the mere sight of me.
“This is just pathetic.” I sigh. “Almost makes me wanna forget about you pressing a blade to my friend’s neck and trying to hold her hostage, however ineffective that might have proven.”
With a growl, I spring onto its chest, pinning the bladed tendril to the ground hard enough to crack it. The Nightmare whimpers in pain as I lower myself against it, growling while sap drips from my fangs and onto its body. “Almost.
“Now, what is this place!?” I roar, low and dangerous. “Tell me, and maybe you’ll die with your eyes still in your skull.”
“It’s…a camp…anh! It’s a camp! Please…” the Nightmare mewls pathetically.
“A camp. Yeah, I’ll buy that. I’m sure the arts and crafts tent is in one of these cages, right?” My lips curl back, revealing two rows of long, even fangs made out of sharpened twigs. “What’s this camp for? Why are you holding all these creatures?”
“N-new idea from the Collective!” The Nightmare wheezes. “Th-this was after it found some information…f-from another world…Earth! It was called Earth!”
I swallow my surprise. The Nightmare is on Earth? Shit. Hopefully, that doesn’t mean I have to worry about the family back home. Still, I have no trouble figuring out where they got the idea for a “camp” consisting of cages and malnutrition. Bastards probably found a World War Two documentary somewhere. Of course, the Nightmare would be fucked-up enough to draw inspiration rather than revulsion from a documentary on Auschwitz. “Still haven’t answered my question, scum.”
“Ah! Please!” Tears gather in its eyes as even more urine leaks out, wetting my wooden hide. “It’s to break their will! Ponies are more susceptible to the Corruption if their spirits are broken beforehand! W-we have a couple chambers out back where the process is carried out!”
Jesus Christ, it’s a factory. Mass-produced corruption. I doubt these guys are union though, otherwise they’d have dental and some jerk in an orange hard hat would be screaming at me for getting in his workers’ way.
Joking aside, the Nightmare’s getting smarter.
This is bad. This is really, really bad.
“One last question, then I’ll release you,” I growl, digging my thistle-covered claws into the fraying tendril, threatening to snap it off. “I saw humans in those cages. Why have you taken them? How many did you take? And why were they dead?”
“Oh…oh dear sweet…” the creature’s eyes roll up, preparing to swoon, but it manages to regain itself and focus. Having a claw pressed into your throat until it breaks skin will do that. “We were hoping to expand to Earth too, bu-but humans are too resistant to the change, most of them just die. We haven’t m-made any significant gains there. I-I don’t know how many we took, I just know that even if we break ‘em first, humans still just die when we try to corrupt them, usually.”
“But you guys are still taking them.”
“M-might as well…” the Nightmare grins, showing off rows of jagged teeth. I scowl back. The grin doesn’t last long. “P-please…y-you said you’d let me go if I answered that last one, a-and I did…”
“Wrong,” I reply. “I said I’d release you. And I will. I’ll release you from your mortal coil.”
“Wh-wha…” before it can finish, my claws slash across its throat, slicing through the neck in one swift motion. Muzzle wrinkling in distaste, I crawl off the twitching body as blood steams in the air.
Chittery, Cypher, and Rainbow all gawk at me. I sigh, and flash back to my human form, standing before them in my birthday suit. I make sure to cover myself as I begin the hunt for my clothes.
“Dude,” Rainbow gasps. “That was…”
I sigh, shaking my head as I track down my boxers and tug them on. “I’m sorry you had to see that, I didn’t mean for…”
“…totally awesome!” She cries, wings fanning out, hooves going to her cheeks. I turn to her, stunned as she swoops to land by my feet, emphasizing her words with swipes of her hooves. “He was all cocky just a few minutes ago, then you showed up and wham! And then bang! Instantly downed! Jeez, I take back, like, three-quarters of the things I said about you!”
“Umm…thanks?” I blink at her, my feet brushing against my jeans. I pull them on.
She just grins and levels a hoof at me. “You. Awesome.”
I continue blinking at her before she takes off out of the cave. “Catch you guys back in Ponyville!” She calls over her shoulder as she vanishes over the ridge.
I still keep blinking. “Did Dash just call me awesome?”
“That h-has to be the highest compliment she’s ever p-paid anypony,” Cypher points out.
I sigh and look back. A group of ponies, griffons, and changelings are walking, stumbling, and hobbling out of the lines of cages, all trying to get away from their prisons. I smile. This is the part I was looking forward to all along. If Dashie could show some damn gratitude, maybe this time, I…
“Was that Rainbow Dash?”
“It was! Rainbow Dash saved us!”
“Awesome! She’s awesome!”
“I knew it’d be her! Once I saw ‘em dragging her down here, I knew it was all part of a plan!”
I bite my lip, trying to think of something to say, but then look back at my little group. Two changelings, one of whom was obviously corrupted by the Nightmare, all just sitting and watching this group as they made their way out the cave. Yeah, maybe it was better if we went unnoticed.
As of right now, the group of ponies, changelings and griffons kept their backs to us, walking out of the cave, all forgetting about old race wars and rivalries among them to make their way out. I just keep my focus on Chittery and Cypher and grin. They grin back. “C’mon, gang. Let’s get back to town.”