//------------------------------//
// Unscrewed 
// Story: House of the Rising Sunflower 
// by kudzuhaiku 
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A corn-studded black turd festooned with pretty pastel hairs plopped down upon the forest floor and an eyeblink later a javelin protruded up from the litter-strewn loam. There was a brief pause in the combat as all involved processed the events that had transpired and come to pass. Sundance missed and was immediately hard upon himself for his ill-timed failure. The ogre finally pinched his loaf. With her whiskers all a-quiver and wearing a stern mask of disapproval, Megara judged the whole of the situation in terrifying silence that radiated condemnation. Groaning in disgust, River Raider retreated with her forelegs raised in front of her face, as if warding off the unpleasant sight of the now-freed turd threaded with silken hairs in all the colours of the rainbow. As for Hornet, she was a helpful creature, and with a brilliant burst of green witchfire, she recovered Sundance's javelin for him and teleported it back to be with the others. 

Brimming with optimism despite the odds, Sundance readied another javelin. 

Combat unpaused and returned to its chaotic, frenetic pace. Megara lept away as the ogre recovered; she lept up onto a tree, clung to the trunk for a moment, and then hurled herself to safety as the ogre tried to punch her. Circling around, River Raider blew smoke in the ogre's face. Right away he stopped what he was doing and then tried to rub his eyes, which meant that he made for an incredibly easy target. Swooping in, Sundance loosed a javelin—

And missed. 

Somehow. 

It grazed the ogre's oversized ear and then embedded itself into a nearby patch of roots and leaves. The javelin didn't stay there for long, and was magicked back to Sundance in a small explosion of glittery green witchfire. This time it appeared in the air right in front of his nose and he was quick enough to snatch it before it fell. The blinded ogre grunted and pawed at its eyes with one paw while trying to clobber Megara with the other. 

"I bet you piss on the seat, too," Megara said to Sundance as she kept out of the ogre's considerable reach. 

"I lift the seat," he retorted with a frustrated huff. "We don't even have seats… just… holes cut in the planks… and I usually pee outside in other places when I—" 

"Just aim, you bumpkin!" 

"I am!" To prove it, Sundance hurled his javelin right for the ogre's gross head—and much to his own disappointment and dismay, he missed. When his javelin stabbed into the ground several yards away, he snarled as his temper boiled over. "How could I miss?" 

"Yes, how could you miss something as big as this ogre?" Megara asked, goading him on. 

When the javelin reappeared in front of him, he snatched it and shook it at Megara while saying, "I can't concentrate with you… doing… what you're doing!" 

"Well, you'd better," she replied as the ogre's paw came dangerously close to her hindquarters. "And if you hit me, you're going to be a bird-horse shishkebab!" 

"Your big ass is an easy target!" he retorted whilst the ogre recovered from a clumsy swipe. 

"Ooroog oo-OO-argh! Ooh ooh poo-fooh!" 

"You stay out of this, ogre! This is an exchange between a manticore and her student! How dare you call him that! Sure, he's slow"—she had to dodge a blow that nearly clipped her whiskers—"but he's trying his best! Sometimes I take on special-ed students!" 

Again, Sundance flung his javelin, and this time, Hornet didn't even bother letting it hit the ground before she retrieved it for him. The sound of River Raider's smoky laughter invaded his ears and he didn't like it; not at all. She was laughing at him, no doubt. Anger verging on rage left his cheeks in a hot, flustered state, and all the muscles in his belly twitched in the most distracting manner possible. 

This was worse than being picked last in gym class. It was somehow worse than not being asked to play during recess. How long ago was recess, anyhow, and why did he cling to the memory as if it mattered? This was worse than discovering that some of the things that he was sexually curious about made others unhappy. Worse, some of those unhappy sorts teased him. Mocked him. Ruthlessly and mercilessly tried to shame him because he didn't quite fit in. A teacher had once said that gender rolled because it was round and smooth. Square pegs had no place. 

Teeth bared, with all of his old issues now fresh in his mind, Sundance once more took aim. 

He missed. 

But not in the way he feared. 

He had taken careful aim at the ogre's heart, or least the spot where he believed the ogre's heart to be. There was a moment when he had a clear shot—but then the ogre moved to clobber the antagonising annoyance that was Megara. In that most dreadful of moments, the javelin ploinked right into the ogre's skull. Just above his eyes and right between his ears. It stuck out like an antenna, quivering, and the poor ogre now stood very still, blinking. He reached up, and with a tender touch, felt the javelin protruding from the top of his skull. 

The combat paused once again; no one involved moved. Quite overcome by what he had done, Sundance recoiled. His actions caused another creature distress—no, not mere distress, but pain and suffering. He hovered several yards above the ogre, almost frozen with astonished disbelief. What had he done? There was now a sharp piece of metal protruding into another creature's brain. This was horrible, no, far beyond horrible, and Sundance could not imagine reconciling with himself after this. 

"I am so terribly sorry," he said, apologising to the ogre. 

"You don't apologise to ogres!" Megara bellowed from down below. 

Prodding the javelin with the tip of his paw-finger, the ogre moaned. 

"I really am sorry," Sundance said, ignoring Megara's harsh reprimand. 

How could he have thrown a javelin with enough force to sink through bone? Another creature suffered now and there was no time to consider everything or sort out his feelings. What might his mother say? Or, for that matter, what might Princess Celestia say about his actions? The ogre tried to pull out the javelin—he tugged and yanked to no avail—and the horrible sound of metal screeching against bone assailed Sundance's ears. 

Each squeal of metal against bone and groan from the ogre was punishment in Sundance's ears. Why was the ogre still alive? How was the ogre still alive? Why didn't Megara finish him off? But as bad as things were, they took a turn for the worse. With a flap of her wings, River Raider darted forwards, reached out with one foreleg, and whacked the javelin embedded in the ogre's skull. It bent off to one side, and tension could be felt in the air. Then, she let go, and the javelin made a noise like a springy door stopper found behind a door. 

Eyes wide, the ogre reacted with alarm, because of course he did. There was an awful something going THWAAAANG! in his brain. A thin trickle of blood oozed from the ogre's nostrils as Sundance watched in wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror. At long last, he understood the fundamental differences between himself and River Raider. She was capable of cruelty, while he was not. While Sundance tried to recover, the ogre retreated, clutching futilely at the vibrating javelin protruding from its head. 

Snarling, his lip curled into a sneer, the ogre retreated to the pile of scrap. He then picked up a long piece of wood—Sundance didn't know the name of it, but it was the long bit of wood that was on the front of a wagon that ponies were hitched to. It was at least two-thirds of the ogre's height, solid, and had metal reinforcements in places, along with protruding steel bolts flaky with rust. He waved his makeshift club around and from the looks of things, Megara was not the least bit concerned. If anything, she was amused by this development. 

"He's got a lightning rod sticking out of his brain," Megara remarked. "Sundance, work up some lightning and zap him. See if you can. Light this guy up." 

Horrified, Sundance swallowed, and then clutched his flip-flopping stomach. His mouth was flooded with drool, but his tongue and throat felt far too dry. His limbs—all six of them, seven if you counted his tail—twitched with jerky, exaggerated movements. Slowly, oh so very slowly, he began to understand why the storied Pegasus Pony Tribe used javelins to skewer their enemies. It didn't matter that the ogre was tough—at least as tough as Megara, maybe more. Lightning was the great equaliser. 

It was almost too horrible to think about. 

"River, help me keep him distracted. If he gets too excited, flick his switch again." 

"Can do, Meg." 

"Hornet, if things go bad for some reason, fly away with Sundance. Don't get into range. I don't want a squashed ladybug." 

"Right." 

"Sundance… you know what to do." 

He had no response; he had no idea what to do or how to do it. 

The ogre, who now hunkered in a defensive crouch near the scrap pile, waved his makeshift two-pawed club around, but did not move to attack. Megara too, did not move, but remained right where she was, as if rooted to the spot. Clearly agitated, her tail swished from side to side as if she were an annoyed housecat. At a loss for what to do next, Sundance wondered just how he was supposed to summon lightning. Sure, he'd done it once, but that was by accident. Doing so had depleted him and there was no telling what doing it now might do to him. Curiously, River Raider landed, folded her wings against her side, and then stood there, huffing smoke from her flared nostrils. 

A completely random thought flitted through Sundance's mind: if one slept beside a smoker, one would surely wake up with a cough. He was quick to shove this out of his consciousness before River Raider turned her head to give him a stern glare. She didn't need to be distracted at the moment, because there was more than enough going on. The ogre, still waiving his club to and fro, waited patiently for the battle to begin anew.

It was hot, but Sundance wasn't sweaty from the heat. 

Becoming a thunderhead was no easy task and Sundance didn't know where to begin. He tried to recall the day it happened, but he couldn't remember much at all. Maybe anger was the way forwards. He tried to be angry; the ogre was an invader in his lands and did awful things. But his anger fizzled out and became pity when he thought about the pain that the poor ogre must feel given the current state of things. This was, for all intents and purposes, a home invasion. They'd showed up at the ogre's home and without so much as a single 'how do you do', they declared their murderous intent and went about the dirty work of killing. 

And it was dirty work; Sundance felt unclean. 

River Raider and Megara were painfully nonchalant about things. Downright cavalier. In fact, River Raider's fantastic cruelty spoke volumes, but this was so incomprehensibly vast and Sundance didn't have the time to sort it all out. It certainly changed how he felt about her. As for Megara, this was her business. This was the sort of thing that the Manticore at Arms did, he supposed. The grim reality of it all gave him second thoughts and he began to wonder if he'd made a mistake. Maybe he should seek out professionals and leave the fighting to them. 

But then, he thought of his duty. 

Just what, exactly, was expected of him? 

He still didn't know; there was no clear answer to discern. 

Still waving his club, the ogre waited as Megara began to move to his right, and River Raider to his left. The tables had turned and the predator was now prey. Sundance was still fascinated by the ogre's very existence, and his curious physical form. Tall. Bipedal. Bestial. With a wide mix of species. How did such a creature come into existence? He was alone here, with no mate. No friends. Just one creature striving for survival in the hostile wilderness of Equestria. A consummate survivor—that had reached the end of his luck. Bigger, badder predators had arrived, and Sundance thought himself as the sheep among wolves. 

As for Hornet, he couldn't determine much about her just yet, but surely her actions would offer insight. 

Megara had given him an impossible order and the pressure was unkind to Sundance. There was a tension just behind and below his ears, a certain tightness that alerted him to the fact that he had a headache coming on. He hadn't had a stress headache since school, just before his graduation. The first wave of pain surged inside of his skull, like a hurried incoming tide. It caused his vision to blur and both of his ears twitched. 

River Raider turned her head ever-so-slightly to look at him, perhaps to see if he were alright. 

A rapid series of events unfolded in such a way that Sundance could not keep up with them all. Perhaps seeing a chance, a weakness, the ogre lunged at River Raider. He moved with impossible speed for being so large, and brought his makeshift club to bear before Sundance could even blink. River Raider reacted, and was airborne with a single flap of her wings, but she wasn't fast enough. After it was swung in a broad arc, the ogre smashed River Raider with his club. She was flung backwards with terrific force, somersaulting end over end, her mane and tail flying in all directions. Her parabolic flight was low but fast, and she careened headfirst into a narrow tree with peeling white bark. 

The poor tree never stood a chance. On impact, it snapped in twain, and River Raider's head was squished right down to her withers, as if she were some big, hairy, frightful, bat-winged accordion. She made an awful sound as all of her wind was compressed out of her, and came to a skidding halt after she flipple-floppled onto the leaf-strewn ground. 

All of this happened in the span of an eyeblink. 

Megara attempted to pounce, but the ogre was still in motion. With momentum in his favour, the ogre continued his mighty swing. Holding the long, heavy, iron-bound length of wood, he twisted his body in the middle whilst he swung. It was too late for Megara, her pounce put her in the path of the arcing club. She tried to twist herself out of the way, her supple body somehow changing direction mid-flight, but it was not enough. The heavy, iron-bound end of the long length of wood smashed right into her face, and a scarlet mist erupted from her nose as she too, was flung backwards, completely at the mercy of physics. 

As for Sundance, he barely had time to process what had happened, much less determine what to do. It was all too fast, the situation too unfamiliar. Megara flew upwards, her limbs ragdolling in all directions, and a ruddy crimson flow spurted from her face. In mere seconds the companions had gone from dominating the ogre to becoming victims. All Sundance could do was stare as Megara continued to climb, and then, with a blood-flecked roar, she began her flailing descent. 

Eyeblinks. 

Mere fractions of a second. 

Sweat trickled into his eyes. It stung. His breath was too hot in his lungs and he was too quick to exhale. Time was distorted. Reality, disconnected. Mere seconds ago, Megara was in full control of the situation. It was almost a classroom setting. Instructions were given. He had thrown the javelin. His javelin. There'd been a few misses. Now this. The ogre was in control now and the two major players of the game had been taken out. This was his fault; he'd distracted River Raider with his careless thoughts, or his headache. Already events were becoming blurry. 

This was the owlbear all over again, an event which ended with somepony's death. 

What went up came down. Megara crashed into the pile of scrap. When she did not get up right away, Sundance feared that the ogre would move in to finish her off. He willed his limbs to move, he demanded that his body react, but nothing happened. Total numbness. Sensory overload. Megara wasn't moving. She was totally vulnerable. Prone. Exposed. All the ogre had to do was raise his club and finish her off. He would do just that and it would be over. The club was raised and the ogre advanced. So much could happen in the short period when one blinked their eyes. 

"River and Megs need a moment to recover," Hornet said in an irrepressibly cheery voice that seemed entirely and wholly wrong for the situation. It was as if she wasn't concerned at all. She certainly wasn't fearful, or frozen. "Sundance, you stay put. I'm going to introduce myself to Mister Ogre." 

"Hornet… no… you can't—" 

But it was too late. Hornet took off in a blur and all of her illusion melted away, revealing her changeling form. She was a keg with legs. Short, stubby rather chubby legs. Her chitinous body was armored and reinforced to the point of ridiculous proportions. She was shiny, almost oily in appearance, and her black-brown-green shell shimmered with iridescent rainbow hues. Hornet had stubby-but-stabby antlers that appeared to be made from some kind of reddish wood, and there were most certainly pine needles growing from her magnificent rack. 

She flew right for the ogre, unerringly and without veering away. 

"Hey… dung-brain! You hungry?" 

Blood still trickling from his nose, the ogre gave the fearless 'ling his baleful attention. 

"Eat me," Hornet suggested whilst she gestured at her own body.

Brows furrowed, the ogre took this suggestion into consideration. Meanwhile, Hornet hovered mere inches away from his face. He lowered his club, licked his lips, and all Sundance could do was watch in frozen, motionless horror. Hornet turned around and began to waggle her backside right in the ogre's face, and she wiggled her stubby hind legs enticingly, just daring the ogre to sample what she had to offer. 

With his club now resting on the ground, the ogre was free to pull one paw away. He did so cautiously, curiously, perhaps unable to believe his own good fortune. In one swift motion, he swatted Hornet into his maw and chomped down. There was an awful sound that was almost like glass shattering, but it wasn't Hornet's chitin suffering catastrophic structural failure, no. Recoiling in silent shock, Sundance watched as the ogre's teeth shattered like glass windows, with tiny, jagged, yellow shards exploding out in every conceivable direction. 

It made his testicles tingle and his dock clenched deep into the fuzzy crack of his ass. 

It seemed as though Hornet was trying to cram herself down the ogre's throat. She wiggled and squirmed, but did not attempt to free herself. Some kind of gas billowed from between her chitinous segments, like heat shimmers rising up from a hot road. The ogre's eyes went wide with surprise, then were squeezed shut. More gas flowed from Hornet's body and then a truly terrible stench assailed Sundance's nostrils. 

"I synthesised the cheese!" Hornet shouted in triumph whilst she wiggle-waggled her backside around in the ogre's devastated maw. "Behold! The power of cheese! I am the cheeseling!" With her every movement, her every jiggle, more and more of the ogre's shattered yellow teeth fell to the ground. 

The club tumbled to the ground as the ogre reached up with both paws to yank Hornet from his maw. She was half-in and half-out. With every kick of her hind legs, more of the ogre's teeth broke and there was a spine-chilling tinkling sound of ever-so-fragile enamel against impervious chitin. Sundance's eyes watered; though it was uncertain if the smell or what he saw was the culprit. The smell was awful beyond description, but then again, so was what he witnessed. It seemed as though Hornet was shoving herself down the ogre's throat, possibly to choke him to death. 

The little 'ling seemed impervious, if the ogre's ruined teeth were any indication. 

"Bite my shiny, chitinous ass! That's right, eat me!" 

Ribbons of vomit guysered from the ogre's nostrils and then a second later Hornet was ejected out of his maw with terrific force, propelled by an eruption of foul, steaming, chunky liquid. Clutching his guts, the ogre doubled over and retched. Now unspeakably filthy, Hornet recovered herself and then flew in orbit around the now heaving ogre. Cheese-scented gas streamed from vents hidden between her chitinous segments. Not just any cheese; Equestria's smelliest, most dangerous cheese, and quite possibly the most hazardous, most vile cheese to have ever existed if the advertising could be believed. 

And Hornet was laughing. 

Sundance was reminded why changelings were dangerous. The ogre hurled again and grotesque, mysterious chunks of unknown origin splattered and bounced against the forest floor. As if adding insult to injury, Hornet turned herself into a flock of birds, all of which circled around the ogre's bobbing mostly-toothless head. Since she wasn't actually a flock of birds—this meant that her main body was somehow invisible. One of the birds shat upon the ogre's head, and then the flock vanished as Hornet came back into view. 

A leg shot up out of the scrap pile, very much like a zombie limb emerging from the grave in a horror movie. Nothing in Sundance's life had prepared him for this absurd terror that had turned his blood into congealed ice, a slushy that squirted through his veins that was not cherry-flavoured. Open mouthed, wide eyed, and terrified, he watched as Megara sat up and shook off stray bits of scrap and wood. Her eyes? Furious. Her face? Bloodied with bared teeth. A steady trickle of blood oozed from her nostrils and she had fat lips lacerated by her own sharp teeth. 

"I'm gonna unscrew your head," she said as she rose up out of the scrap pile, "because I don't like your head!" 

It was then, at this very moment, that Sundance decided that he was living in a mad world. He had to be; how else would creatures like Hornet and Megara exist? Bloodied, impaled by multiple bits of splintered wood, Megara continued her zombie rise out of her shallow grave all while Sundance had ceased to breathe, for such was his terror. He was just a pegasus… what exactly was he doing with these monsters? And they were monsters, all of them. 

Hornet's gleeful giggling rang in his ears like dreadful alarm bells. 

River Raider was on her hooves, too. Sundance became aware of this when he heard a horrible pippity-poppity ratcheting sound. When he turned, he saw her twisting her head from left to right, and when she twisted her head from right to left, her neck bones made the most testicle-tingling crackle. While a part of him was still very much attracted to her, he was absolutely terrified of her current bestial state. A jagged, broken rib—bright pink and glistening—protruded from her torn flesh, just below her right wing and behind her shoulder. The very sight of her caused a part of his anatomy to go from an outie to an innie, and it wasn't his belly button. It was as if the part of him that was most responsive to her well-muscled form now retreated from this unpleasant reality, which was too much to bear. 

The javelin, still protruding from the ogre's noggin, was evidence that Sundance was a monster amongst monsters. No longer in control of himself, his fear flowed from him and formed a puddle that spread around his hind hooves. River Raider's neck popped again, then again, and then she began to flex her jaw until it also made an awful, indescribable sound. 

When at last Sundance breathed again, he squealed like a stuck foal.

A wheeze. 

A whicker. 

A whinny. 

Seconds, stretched out like hours, ticked away, lost forever to the void of the past. Blinking one's eyes had nothing to do with vision; it was a biting maw, a ravenous consumption of the present in real time, with the eyes devouring all there was to see. Sundance was a pony lost to the moment, stricken dumb and useless by his own fears. His eyelids chewed through an endless all-you-can-eat buffet of ghastly images, each somehow worse than the one before. 

Megara was on her paws now. Tail twitching, her eyes blazing, she was everything that made a manticore terrorising. A splintered spoke from a wagon wheel protruded from the fleshy area just between her ribs and her hind leg, and dozens of other smaller splinters festooned her chocolate hide in a variety of places. For a pony, this might have been crippling, or otherwise debilitating. For a manticore however, this was clearly just an annoyance. 

An annoyance that caused no end of anger. 

The sudden roar caused every bird for miles around to take wing, and many left behind fresh deposits of liquid fear. All around Sundance, the forest came alive. If a lion was the king of the jungle, as the old saying went, then the manticore was king of the forest. Her Majesty Megara let all of her subjects know that she was about to pass judgment—but none dared to stick around to bear witness. 

Still doubled over, the ogre retched and spewed, all while clutching at his guts. What foul, awful alchemy had Hornet done? While the stench was undoubtedly epic, what else had she done? A terrible taste? A pernicious, putrescent poison? Was Hornet venomous or poisonous? There was a difference between the two, but Sundance couldn't remember what it was at the moment, for such was his state of distressed distraction. 

Megara lept; but not at the ogre. With legs like coiled springs, she hurled herself away and then flapped her somewhat torn and bloody wings to speed herself through the air. Still wide-eyed, Sundance watched in rapt, almost-but-not-quite unblinking fascination as Megara struck a thin, supple sapling. The tree bowed, bending beneath her considerable weight, tipping further over than it had any right to do so. It was almost perpendicular to the ground when it snapped back, the trunk creaking in protest with the inconceivable strain that it endured. 

What goes down must also go up, and in a fraction of a second, Megara was catapulted back in the direction of the ogre with terrific forceful assistance. It was, quite possibly, the most amazing thing that Sundance had ever seen. The manticore was a missile now, a manticore-missile, an object of brutal physics, a fuzzy weapon of mass destruction. As for the tree, it swayed back and forth, almost as if trying to playfully swat at Megara's immense, hairy backside as she made her swift departure. 

She flew, knives out, all of her paws and claws extended. Airborne supremacy in motion, Megara appeared to be of similar mass to the ogre—and Sundance had no idea what might happen when the two brutes collided. The whole of the world and nature too seemed to be holding its breath right now in anticipation of the Big Bang. Hornet zoomed away with all haste, fleeing from the incoming manticore-missile. The ogre, after retching, attempted to stand up, wobbled a bit, and turned just in time to face his incoming doom, which he failed to notice until it was too late. 

For such was the way of things. 

Claws first, Megara struck the ogre in guts and groin. On impact, the ogre puked again, and Megara was soaked by the ogre's unspeakable stomach contents. As the hot, sour liquid guysered once more out of the ogre's shattered, ruined maw, the full force of Megara's impact bowled him over. Her claws carved deep gashes into the ogre's flesh and wide lacerations opened upon his stomach. The manticore rode the ogre down to the ground, and he skidded across the befouled and bloody forest floor. 

She was quick to dominate her helpless prey, flipping him over, raking his back with her claws, and when the dust and vomit finally settled, she had him in a headlock, with her hind legs wrapped tight around his middle. Both paws were locked tight on the ogre's tusks, and with both a grunt and a heave, Megara began to twist the ogre's head, following through with her promised threat.

While down, the ogre was not out.

He kicked; he thrashed, and reaching up above his head, he clubbed Megara's bloodied face with his fists. His hind legs kicked against the ground, but Megara clung to his back and would not be shook off. Slowly, ever so slowly, his head began to turn as Megara began the tedious process of unscrewing his head, because as stated, she didn't like his head. She applied all of her strength directly to the ogre's tusks, and the tendons on his neck stood out like steel cables as he tried to resist having his head turned. 

It occurred to Sundance that if Megara could unscrew an ogre's head, she would have no great trouble at all removing a pony's precious cork. A stopper that, once removed, would allow all of the precious liquids contained therein to come spilling out, uncontested. This realisation unnerved him, and he began shaking his head from side to side, as if this might somehow allow him the magic of denial so that this dreadful acknowledgement could be undone. He wished to return to a simpler time in life, a time before knowing that heads could be unscrewed. 

Ink-a-bink, out spills all the precious pony ink. 

Even from where he stood, which was some distance away, Sundance could hear the ogre gasping. His torso was slowly being crushed between Megara's thighs, which constricted him, little by little, bit by bit, inch by inch. He was unable to breathe in, only out, but every time he did so his ribs neared a state of collapse. Though the ogre clubbed the manticore's face with his paws, she did not let go, she did not relent, the slow death did not ease up. The ogre's head was sideways now, and still turning. Megara had him by the tusks, and his lower jaw jutted out at an odd, unnatural angle from the pressure she applied. 

Sundance feared that the ogre's jaw might just get ripped right off. 

But as it turned out, his fears were unfounded. The ogre's jaw did not pop free as Sundance thought it might. After a final gasp, the whole ogre shuddered, his legs kicked and flailed, and then his head began to turn on his neck. It did not stop—Sundance watched every horrible moment, his stomach tossing and turning like an insomniac having a bad night—and the ogre's head kept turning long past the point when it should not have. With every horrible sound, Sundance's ears twitched, and the ogre's head kept turning. For a short moment, the two monsters had looked each other in the eye—which was a terrible thing because Megara was behind him. 

What a terrible, fantastical journey the ogre's head was having. It'd started off to the right, toured the right shoulder, got turned around, looked right into the baleful eyes of the murderous manticore, and was now exploring the region of the left shoulder. But the journey wasn't over, no. With the tearing of tendons and the mutilation of muscle, Megara kept twisting, kept turning, determined to see this sojourn through to its final, fatal end. 

Unable to watch, Sundance closed his eyes—but could not close his ears. 

When he opened his eyes again, Megara's face was an impossibly crimson mask that glistened grotesquely, dappled by shafts of sunlight that found their way through the treetop canopy. The ogre's head—now uncorked—had rolled several yards away and the manticore had kicked the ogre's headless body away from her so that she might recover. The javelin—Sundance's javelin—still protruded from the ogre's head. Blinking rapidly, his eyes stinging, the poor pegasus couldn't determine what the most horrible part about all of this was. While all of it was truly awful, some parts stood out more than others.

Perhaps the worst was that Megara had actually unscrewed the ogre's head. 

It'd come right off like a twist-top from a bottle. 

Sour bile collected in the back of Sundance's throat. The ogre was dead. No longer would he menace the ponies down in the valley below. No more poached or stolen livestock. All manner of second thoughts swirled through Sundance's mind, and he began to doubt himself. He feared and worried that he didn't have what it took to deal with threats like this one. Dumbfounded, all he could do was stare. One thought rose to the surface of his mind and then stood out: Megara needed a bath. 

Though the fight was over, the ogre issue was still unresolved…