When Twilight heard that Fubar had broken free again she'd been scared. When she had heard that her brother was staying behind to try and slow him down, she nearly teleported down there that instant. She was prevented from this act only by Celestia quickly snuffing the spell. Instead she found herself forced to slowly guide hundreds of guards down the narrow stairway to the basement. They had managed to mobilize quickly, mere minutes really, but even as she painfully hobbled down the stairs on her two mostly broken legs the logical part of her mind stated plainly that she'd be too late, that her brother would be dead long before they could arrive. Her heart desperately tried to convince her that her brother would be fine, he'd doubtlessly be able to slow Fubar down with his barriers, especially since he'd already fought the man before and the Astarte was hardly in peak condition.
When they finally arrived at the basement the logical part of her mind muttered a grim, I told you so.
There was no barrier in the room, the chains she had hung the Astarte had been ripped from their mountings and there were dead bodies, lots of them, torn brutally to pieces scattered about the room. Her breath caught, eyes dancing about the scattered bodies, trying to find one particular body. A single white, blue maned stallion among guards still white and blue maned by their twisted and ruined armor. Which one was he, was that meaty chunk there him? Or that blood splatter? Would, would Fubar have eaten him?
"Princesses?" a terrified desperate voice called out from the room. Twilight's eyes immediately locked onto a wide eyed mare hiding beneath the body of a pegasus stallion with a collapsed head, "Oh thank Harmony you're here! A couple of us are still alive, I think. Swift was still breathing after her fall, and Steadfast only got backhanded, they haven't been moving much but I think they're still alive! I can't be the only survivor right?"
"Where is my brother!?" Twilight demanded closing the distance between the herself and the mare in an instant. She grunted as her damaged legs made an unnatural grinding sound but remained focused on the trembling mare. She grabbed the mare in her magic and lifted her up to her face, "What has he done with my brother!?"
"Twilight," Celestia started, limping into the room as a couple of medics rushed in to check the more intact bodies for any sign of life.
"SHUT UP!" Twilight tossed a smoldering glare back at Celestia her eyes seeming to shine with a furious madness that froze the elder princess midstep. Twilight turned back to her captured guard, "WHERE IS HE!?"
The guardsmare made a few pitiful gasping noises as she looked into Twilight's eyes. The mare's own eyes seemed to be glazing over and drifting out of focus, tears beginning to freely run down her face. The tiny gasping morphing into tiny sobs as the mare went completely limp.
"NO!" Twilight roared shaking the mare, "I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! TELL ME WHERE THE FUCK IS MY BROTHER!"
"It took him!" the mare wailed, her eyes screwing shut as she twisted in the princess' grip, her hooves pushing against Twilight in a futile effort to escape.
"WHERE!?"
"To it's equipment!" The pegasus mare wept beginning to flap her wings with such desperation that feathers began to rapidly dislodge themselves. Her struggles growing more desperate as snot joined her tears and foam began to pour from her mouth, "Let me go! I want to live!"
Twilight did so with a startled blink, seeming to finally realize the state the mare was in. The mare quickly flapped away from Twilight, flying against the walls, much like a bird trapped in a hallway might, hooves scrabbling against the walls as if trying to dig her way out. The mare quickly dove to the ground, curling up in the corner furthest from both Twilight and the door. The only sound in the room was loud wailing sobs of the former guardsmare, her cries becoming all the louder and more panicked as anyone attempted to approach her.
Twilight looked at the broken shell of a pony with a deeply haunted look, her hoof briefly drifting towards her chest, before the pain of standing on one foreleg caused her to quickly return it to the ground. She shook her head and looked down at her hooves, and then around the room, her eyes seeming to skip over the mare.
"Where is Fubar's gear being kept?" Twilight quietly demanded.
"We'd stored it in your Armory, princess Twilight." a guard stated.
This seemed to confuse Twilight, she blinked owlishly, turning away from the gore soaked dungeon, "My castle actually has an armory?"
"Yes mam', we noticed that the enemy seemed to be storing most of his equipment there and we decided to store the rest of his captured gear there to have it all in one place for later study."
"Take me there."
"Twilight, are you sure you are in any condition to face that, stallion, again?" Celestia asked, looking down at the smaller princess, eye filled with blatant worry.
"Are you?" Twilight asked quietly, looking Celestia in the eye. Celestia frowned and glanced away, her newest bruises marring her usually flawless features. "We have to face him again Celestia, I have to face him again. Not only do I refuse to send these ponies against him without our support, I need to know what happened to my brother. More than that, I'm the one who argued to keep him alive, to turn him into a pony, and vainly believed I could teach this monster the value of friendship. These ponies' blood is on my hooves. I will do what I can to avenge them, and my brother, if it comes to that."
A deep frown sat on Celestia's face, a rare expression for the princess that had been becoming worryingly common this past week. She watched Twilight limp over to the waiting guards and begin to lead them back up the stairs out of the basement. Celestia's eyes drifted over to the still sobbing mare, now being tenderly looked over by two medics and the room full of dead ponies. She to felt an odd alien emotion take root in her chest, her normally friendly face becoming hard and grim as she turned to join Twilight and the army.
~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~
More bodies. Usually in groups of three or four, scattered about the halls on the way to the Armory, doubtlessly the patrol groups that she had intended to use to keep ponies out of the castle while she dealt with Fubar. It was obvious, even to her untrained eyes that they had met their end largely unaware of their attacker and with overwhelming brutality. Ponies hung from walls impaled by their own weapons, torn in half, crushed into paste, and often with injures that Twilight struggled to understand how they were even inflicted. Not to mention why someone would even inflict them.
"He seems to have a rather odd fascination with hindquarters doesn't he?" one of the guards commented eyeing the four guards weakly struggling against the cruel and torturous injury that had been inflicted on them.
"They still seem to be alive, medics, try to get them out of there while they're still breathing. They can't have to much air in there." Twilight ordered as she walked past the honestly horrifically fascinating four. "How much further to the Armory?"
"Not much further princess, just around this corner."
Twilight nodded, her face becoming a gathering of black storm clouds promising a storm of vengeance as she hobbled slightly faster. And drew up short.
Twilight had thought she was becoming immune to the damage that her monstrous charge could inflict, but the amount of destruction and death around the armory drew her up short. There was a half dozen mangled bodies scattered about, their blood splattered across every surface, two more were impaled to the walls by spears, and another seemed to have been embedded into the ceiling. The door to what must have been the armory was missing, though there was plenty of splinters scattered around, and opposite it was dozens of massive craters in the wall, the craters was thankfully mostly free of blood so however they'd been made it likely hadn't involved killing more ponies.
Twilight could hear loud, furious cursing from inside the room, but her eyes were drawn to the last detail she'd noticed. One of the bodies across the hall was still breathing, something that might have once been white, but was now so covered by blood and bruises it was difficult to tell. But she did notice a small blue shield with a purple starburst half hidden under a frayed bloody tail.
"Shining!" Twilight cried hobbling forward at her best attempt at a gallop.
A single red engorged eye peaked past a purple swollen eyelids, the broken face lifted itself off the ground with the most heroics of efforts, revealing a shatter chunk of bone that might have once been a horn. The eye widened as the broken stallion took a wheezy breath and breathed out a weak cry. "No, don't."
"Wha-?"
"FUCK OFF YOU EMPERAH DAMNED CUNTS!"
Twilight shrieked as the wall in front of her exploded, a spear hurled by terrific force screamed past her snout, close enough to draw blood, before embedding itself halfway into the opposite wall where it vibrated with an almost comical twang. Twilight backpedaled eyes focused on the weapon that had nearly killed her before shifting to her brother across the hall. Gathering her focus she quickly teleported to the wheezing pile of beaten meat, flinching as the blood swollen eye drifted over to her, still full of desperation.
"Don't worry Shining, you're going to be okay, we can get you out of here and to a hospital." She ignited her horn to try and move him but the corona had barely formed around him before he emitted the most pained wheeze Twilight had ever heard and she quickly released him. Her eyes widened as she cast her gaze across the hall where an army of ponies waited for orders, eyeing the damage to the hall worriedly. She quickly picked out the two blood stained ponies she wanted and teleported them to her. The two blinked in confusion and before they even had time to recover Twilight gave the pair a simple order, "Heal him as best you can and get him to the hospital when he's safe to move."
Before they could respond Twilight teleported back to her army, holding up a single hoof ordering them to hold position. She slowly lowered herself onto her belly and began to crawl forward towards the hole a spear had recently made in the wall. Twilight could clearly hear the sounds of angry grunting, rattling chains, and muttered curses from the room but could only hazard a guess at what the beast inside was up to. Needing more information she slowly raised her eye up to the hole to peek inside, where she gulped as she noticed her gaze being met by one glowering green eye and three radiant red ones.
"WHAT PART OF 'FUCK OFF' DON'T YOU LITTLE ANAL SAUSAGES CUNTING GET!?" Twilight witnessed the astarte snatch up a nearby spear from a rack full of them and using his mechanical arm hurl it a her. She didn't have time to react or try to defend herself, thankfully for her, Celestia was watching over her today.
A golden barrier appeared between Twilight and her demise. The spear shattered and splintered against the barrier as broken masonry like wise pinged of the now dented and cracked magical barrier. Twilight yelped in shock, toppling over and scooching away from the wall and back towards relative safety, taking deep breaths as a weak chuckle escaped her throat as she realized just how close to death she'd come. She quickly silenced these nervous giggles and ignored both the guards around her and Celestia herself as they all fussed over her.
What she had seen with her brief glimpse had not at all been what she was expecting. She'd expected to see Fubar half clad in his armor, gearing up to go on a slaughtering spree, instead he seemed to be doing the opposite. The massive pink pony had gathered all of his things together in a pile and had been in the process of chaining it all together around something. Instead of wearing his own armor, he had instead fashioned a makeshift armor from his own chains and the cuirasses of more than a dozen suits of armor. Considering the absolute disdain for anything pony made and the vast superiority of his own gear, if made Twilight rather curious. Now she wasn't going to be so stupid as to- "Hey Jackie, what are you doing?"
Twilight's, Fubar's, and nearly every other gaze in the hallway snapped to where Pinkie was happily looking into the open armory without an apparent care in the world. The mountainous stallion in the room growled like an avalanche as he roared, "I'M TRYING TO FUCKING BLOW MY SHIT UP SO NONE OF YOU COCKING XENOS FAGGOTS CAN FUCKING FUCK WITH MY FUCKING STUFF! NOW SHUT THE FUCKING FUCK THE FUCK UP SO I CAN FINISH AND PURGE EVERY FUCKING LAST ONE OF YOU FROM THE DAMN UNIVERSE BEFORE I END MYSELF!"
Twilight needed a bit of time to absorb that bombshell, sadly Pinkie didn't seem to. "Why would you want to do that? Your stuff's super neato and you always told me suicide was for pussies and xenos."
"WHAT THE ABSOLUTE EMPERAH LOVING FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM NOW!?" Fubar roared with such volume that every ear in the castle folded. The raw fury and anguish in that cry carried across the town seeming to echo for minutes throughout the crystal halls of the castle even as he continued, "LOOK AT ME YOU FUCKING CUNT! I'VE BEEN TURNED INTO A FAGGOTY ASS TINY XENO ABOMINATION LIKE YOURSELF! I'M NOT ME ANYMORE! I NEVER WILL BE MYSELF AGAIN! I CAN'T DO MY ONE EXPRESSED PURPOSE ANYMORE! I CAN NEVER RETURN TO MY HOME, NEVER SEE MY BROTHERS AGAIN, NEVER TRULY SERVE THE THRONE BOUND GOD OF TERRA EVER AGAIN! I AM NO LONGER ASTARTES, I'M NO LONGER HUMAN, I'M NOT EVEN A FUCKING ABHUMAN ANYMORE BECAUSE OF YOU CUNTS!"
Despite not being able to see the titan, Twilight could tell from here that he was crying just from the raw anguish in his voice. For a brief moment, she began to find herself questioning if she should try to end the man or embrace him in his moment of need. However, as the ex-astarte draw breath and continued, his voice now devoid of anguish, only what she knew as duty and a rapidly building inferno of pure rage, all such thoughts fled her mind. "SO SINCE I CAN'T USE MY OWN EQUIPMENT ANYMORE, FOR NO SON OF MISBEGOTTEN XENO WHORE IS GOING TO LAY ONE HAIR ON ASTARTES EQUIPMENT, NOT EVEN MYSELF, I'LL MAKE DAMN SURE IT IS UNRECOVERABLE. AND THEN I WILL TAKE GREAT AND BOUNDLESS PLEASURE BY FUCKING ASS RAPING EVERY LAST CUNTING LIVING THING ON THIS COCKING PLANET WITH YOUR OWN FUCKING GEAR UNTIL NOT A SINGLE LIVING THING IS LEFT TO RECALL YOUR MONUMENTAL FUCK UP AND MY DAMNED SHAME IS ERASED FROM LIVING MEMORY AND HISTORY! ALWAYS ANGRY!"
"But can't Twilight change you back?" Pinkie asked cocking her head to the side.
Suddenly one could hear a pin drop, if a pin would even be capable of falling due to the raw amount of tension in the air. Every breath in the entire castle seemed to be held as slowly ever last one of the hundreds of soldiers crammed into the hall slowly turned to look at the paralyzed princess with wide terrified eyes. As one they all began to quietly shuffle away from her with the lone exception being Celestia herself, who had just enough mental fortitude to not abandon her fellow princess just yet. Though even that resolve was shaken as from within the armory emerged a single, almost quiet word that rumbled with more menace than an active volcano threatening to explode. "What?"
"Can't Twilight change you back? I mean she turned all of us into Breezies once and she changed us back, can't she change you back into a big ol' Space Marine again?" As she asked this, Pinkie to turned to look at Twilight. Though her gaze was more questioning and not one of sheer horror like all the others.
There was a rattle of chains, metal, and the slight whirling of some unknown mechanism, followed closely by loud, heavy, slow hoofsteps. Each step seemed to echo like thunder across the halls of the castle. Each step causing a minor tremor that ran up the legs and down the spines of everypony present. Each step was a clear and succinct declaration of someone with absolute authority that tolerated no argument. They were each accompanied by the soft cracking of crystal breaking and being ground to dust beneath the heavy hooves of an approaching force of nature.
Towering, terrible, and temperamental, the giant pink pony that was now the former Captain Fubar Jac'ass, ex-member of the Angry Marines and all the angrier for it, slowly emerged out of the broken entryway to the armory. With stony slowness and an expression great disdain seemingly permanently chiseled into place upon a face the size of an equine's torso rotated to face Twilight. A short angry snort escaped the beast as a single solitary green eye slowly locked with Twilight's own lavender ones. "Is this true?" Twilight gulped, why was it so much worse when he wasn't screaming and cursing? "Are you capable of turning me back to normal?"
Twilight managed to squeak out a tiny barely audible whimper that would have done Fluttershy proud, "Maybe."
"THEY WHY BY THE EMPERAH'S MASSIVELY EPIC BALLSACK HAVEN'T YOU DONE SO YET YOU LITTLE XENO TRIPLE CUNT!?" Fubar roared slamming his front two limbs into the ground like a petulant colt, though with far more effect.
Twilight desperately and hurriedly fished for a lie that wouldn't get her turned into a grease stain on the floor, "Because I don't have a good template for the spell!" she shut her eyes and flinched, waiting for a deathblow or more screaming, when none was immediately forthcoming she barreled ahead, "I know pony biology inside and out so turning someone into or back into a pony is easy for me, but for something I'm not familiar with I need a template to work off of. In other words, without another Astarte I don't think I can change you back," Uh oh, no that's a squishable offense, she can see his face turning purple as her mane, hell she can feel his shout building, "BUT! I think with a bit of time and research, I might be able to construct a spell that will let me acquire not just a template, but your specific Astartes form. I just need some time to work out a safe time travel spell to go back and scan you is all, it is completely doable, but it will take me some time."
"THEN GET THE FUCK TO WORK YOU RETARDED LITTLE HORSE HUMPER!" With that Jac'ass began to turn back into the armory.
For some reason Twilight couldn't properly explain, merely theorizing at a later date that her fear had become so great that it had somehow flipped all the way around to suicidal courage. "If I'm to do this, I have some conditions that need to be met." Again with geological slowness the titan's gaze turned to her, "You've already expressed intent to wipe out everypony on the planet regardless of your form so if I do this and change you back I want you to swear to your god emperor that you will not harm a single pony on this planet that is not directly trying to harm you." A great and terrible rumble was building in the pink stallion's chest, "More over, while I'm working on this spell, I will need the help of my assistant Starlight so I also don't want you attacking her or her stuff anymore." He was now also bearing his teeth in a most unhappy fashion. "And lastly, I understand you don't like sharing any information with us, but I might need to know some bits and pieces about you to make sure this spell doesn't kill you so I'd like if you'd answer them when I ask them. Is this all acceptable?"
For nearly a solid minute Fubar didn't move, just stood there in the doorway, glaring down at Twilight. As he glared at her, he began to tremble violently. As he began to vibrate his unhappy rumbling turned into the roaring of a combustion engine being pushed to its limits. As his unhappy noises got louder his new wings began to spread in a manner that made Twilight feel like he was about to swoop down on her like some great predator. He bit down on his bottom lip so hard that it drew blood as a sound not unlike a whistling kettle began to sound. Finally as his face become a deep deep shade of purple and his eyes began to bulge so much Twilight felt sure they might explode out of his skull a single word forced its way free of the stallion with such force that the front line of pony fell screaming to the ground with ruptured ear drums and shattered bones.
"FINE!!!"
With that single word he turned back into the armory, tried to slam the non-existent doors close, only to realize they weren't there and instead tore up a massive chunk of the floor to slam into the doorway with resounding finality. By the following sounds of crashing and cursing Fubar was either piling yet more junk against the wall, having a tantrum, or had perhaps caused to floor to collapse. Either way Pinkie smiled happily and skipped over to Twilight, who was herself smiling, admitted it was a frazzled terrified smile and her eyes didn't appear to be all that focused at the moment.
"Wow Twilight! That," Whatever else Pinkie was saying was cut short as Twilight slowly tilted over.