Impatience was getting the better of both of the Cult leaders. Discord enjoyed making his pets do his dirty work, and the sacrifices brought a whole new aspect of corruption to his tedious task of wiping these monkeys from the face of the earth, gore. Sweet delicious gore. He enjoyed how the sane humans screamed as their vital essences were torn from their bodies as an offering to none other than him. Flattering to say the least. And the way the blood would always shower the front row of Acolytes was artful, and they say the artful soul always had a touch of madness.
"If the artful soul is touched with madness, I must be walking masterpiece!" Discord chortled. The Acolytes continued their chants in front of him, doing their pitiful magics. It provided the illusion of permeating darkness throughout his church, and nothing more. But it gave those apes something to do while he plotted his next move against the ponies. One of the Acolytes gasped hard and fell to the ground, dead from the exhaustion of chanting nonstop for several days on end.
"Oh, that's right, you creatures need "rest". You are all dismissed." The Acolytes stopped their chanting, rising from the pews to take care of bodily needs and to rejuvenate themselves. Discord was alone for the first time in days, and thus alone with his wild and crazy thoughts.
In his crazed mind a miniature draconequus popped into existence, appearing on his right shoulder. The little Discord was wearing, oddly enough, a business suit like a human. "Discord, how shameful. This quarterly report is an absolute disaster in terms of our expected quota!" A miniature chart hovered next to the business like phantasm, showing a very obvious drop in the past few weeks in terms of profits.
"Don't listen to him, dude. We're doing fine the way we are." Over on Discord's other shoulder an equally small draconequus sat, dressed in a leather vest and wearing a headband. "We're like, totally doin fine bro'. Stay the course."
"Who the blazes are you two?" Discord said to the imaginary draconequui hovering near him.
"Isn't it quite obvious darling? I do declare that we are figments of your joyfully overactive imagination." a tiny Discord sat on his hoof, dressed in some garish pink dress while sipping what looked like a mint julep.
"Am I really that crazy?" the real Discord asked himself.
"You're durn tootin there pardner!" Said another of the Discord phantasms, dressed as a cowboy, six shooters and all.
"Alright little Discords, why are you dressed like those insufferable apes out there?"
Another of the creatures came into existence with a poof, dressed shabbily and in need of a good shave. He walked up the real Discord's chest, limping on a cane as he moved. "It could be a symptom. When was the last time you were out of the country, did your father have any genetic disorders?" The crazed little doctor pulled a tiny pill out of his pocket and slurped it up with his serpentine tongue.
"A symptom of what? And what country am I even in?"
"Hell if I know." answered all of the ever increasing micro avatars of Discord.
"Like I was saying, it probably is a symptom." said the tiny doctor.
"Of what? Start making sense before I start taking some of those pills the humans eat to treat psychosis."
"You wouldn't do that pardner. 'Sides, then what fun would you be anymore?"
"Indeed dearie, they probably wouldn't work on you anyways."
The doctor Discord cracked the cowboy and the belle over the heads with his cane. "As I was saying, it's a symptom of boredom."
"Boredom! Please doctor, say it isn't so!" Discord swooned, placing a clawed paw on his forehead.
"Snap out of it! Fortunately this a very treatable syndrome. Here, let me write you a prescription for some Vicodin, you'll love 'em, trust me."
The business Discord appeared behind the doctor's head, grabbing around his horns he twisted, snapping the phantasm's neck. "Narcotics won't fix our situation, Discord. Now, if you'll take a look at this chart, you'll see we've suffered an almost ninety-five percent decrease in our gains per month, causing this 'boredom plateau' here." With a claw he referenced his ever present line graph.
"That was a bit harsh, killing my doctor like that. He really was a handsome fellow."
"For the last time, we aren't real!"
A puff of smoke drifted from the side, Discord looked over to see the beatnik version of himself with redder eyes than usual. "What really is 'real', man? Are we all just a part of some great story, subject to the every whim and idea of some all powerful storyteller or writer?"
All the imaginary Discord's stared at the beatnik. Discord summoned a fly swatter, smacking the figment of his imagination.
"This is all very entertaining, but could you please cut to the chase?"
The professionally dressed draconequus cleared his throat. "As you can see, since the day you started your 'vacation'," he threw up air quotes, "We haven't been getting enough souls! Sure this little vacation is a lovely respite from your normal schedule, but it simply isn't efficient enough to keep going at this rate."
"What? That can't be right, how many was I consuming every day before?"
The tiny Discord crunched some numbers, summoning a calculator. "Anywhere between five hundred individuals to three hundred thousand, depending on the population density. Ooh, with a standing record of five hundred thousand."
"Gotta love New York baby." Discord stopped to receive the accolades and applause of his various insane apparitions. "And how many have I been consuming lately?"
This time the suited figment took no time to calculate. "Two."
"Two hundred?"
"No, just two a day."
Another Discord popped into existence, wearing gray sweats with a cigar in his teeth and a sweat rag over his shoulders. "Come on Dissy ya bum! Ya gotta eat souls and crap chaos! You're a lean, mean, human exterminatin' machine!"
"By all that is unbalanced, have I really been that lenient lately?" All the phantasms nodded and grumbled their agreement. "I got so bored consuming all those souls, all those delicious, tasty, easily reachable souls."
All of his imaginary clones began to lick their chops, mouths watering at the thought of a fresh human turned to chaos, and the more the better.
"Oh that does bring back delightfully chaotic memories. But that still does not explain why you are all dressed like humans!"
The various Discord incarnations began to disappear in puffs of smoke, "Something about all those human souls you've been chomping down on, their memories and such are bleeding over into your mind."
"Any way to stop it?"
"I'd personally try consuming more souls, but that's just me." The suited Discord vanished, bringing the real Discord back to reality. In front of him stood the High Priest, looking extremely confused.
"What are you looking at?" he snapped at the less than savory human.
"My Lord Leviathan, one of our raiding parties has not returned from their mission."
"And this concerns me...how?"
The High Priest shifted uncomfortably. "My Lord, there were five of our most experienced raiders in that group, if they haven't returned yet, something has definitely gone wrong. And whats more, our spies report that there is only a little increased chaos in the pony territory. I think the two are connected."
Discord pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head at the despicable creature that he (for some reason) let live. "Once again, you are too lucid to be around me. Go smash your head on a rock or something until you make a little less sense. Maybe enjoy your petty 'sins of the flesh' with some more barely mature females. And yes, I know about that."
"But my Lord! We needed those Acolytes, especially the potential converts! We are barely able to control the Lost as it is, we need all the influence possible to keep this place from exploding!"
"No 'buts'! Head. Rock. Smash. NOW!" The High Priest shuffled out of the church of Chaos, wondering how big of a rock he needed. Discord sat back on his throne, wondering if he really should go back to the way he normally did things. At least then he didn't have to deal with idiots like High Priest Stewarts.
****************************************************************
"By Celestia's rainbow mane..." The twelve ponies lay crouched on a hill overlooking the human town that had become the hiding place of the Cult. They always thought the human fortress of Stronghold was the polar opposite of their citadel of harmony at Canterlot. They were dead wrong, this place had to be the greatest concentration of hate and chaos on the planet. Black smoke poured from several buildings, Acolytes slaving over various projects. Hundreds of them trained on simple weapons like swords, spears and daggers. But they were only the minority, literal thousands of the Lost milled about town. Sometimes a scream would come from the town, only to be quickly silenced.
"They look like they are preparing for war. Starswirl, if the king ever had any doubts about your claim, this is enough to vindicate a thousand royal assassinations."
The ponies crept back to the safer side of the hill, quietly discussing their next move. "What do we do!? We can't get in there without being seen! If that human wasn't lying to us, Leviathan should be in the very center of town, through thousands of monsters that would tear us apart!"
"The first step is to stay calm Sun! We just have to go back and get reinforcements from our tribes."
"Not a chance Cloud, by the time we got back this army could be hot on our tails, burning down all of ponydom. It would be far too late to warn them then." Starswirl retorted. "We need to think of a way to cut the head off the serpent. If we kill Leviathan then this whole army will dissolve. But how do we get to him?"
"We could fly in and try to get the drop on him." Jet Stream suggested.
"Not a chance if he is in a building, we need to find out where he is first!"
One of the other unicorns thought of something. "We could magically destroy the entire town! Level this place like hail on wheat stalks."
"The human said there are prisoners in there, we can't kill innocents. Besides, it would take hundreds of unicorns to have enough power to destroy this place." Sun replied.
"GAH! We should have brought that entire legion with us! Stealth won't even help us here, only a full sized army could take this place!" Cloud threw his helmet on the ground, mussing the horsehair crest.
Starswirl had a look of secrecy on his face, like he knew some way in. Cloud noticed and got closer to his old friend.
"You look like you know something, Starswirl."
"Forget it, it's just some experiment of mine. It would never work in a thousand years."
"And why not? What is this experiment that it can't possibly work when we may have no other options?"
"I said forget it Cloud!" Starswirl turned away.
Cloud gave a winged leap over the unicorn, landing in front of him. "No, not when it might work!"
Starswirl growled, "Fine, I'll tell you what it is, then you can judge how terrible of an idea it is!"
"Just so long as you stop keeping our possible salvation to yourself!"
"Hmph, my assistant Clover and I discovered early on that we magically have the ability to change something's very form. We toyed with the idea for weeks, changing rocks to logs, squirrels to hawks, deer to dogs, and so on. But then we got the thought, if we can transfigure other objects, why not ourselves? Clover and I enjoyed our little game, she enjoyed being a sparrow for a few hours and I made major headway in magical research."
"And what does this have to do with us getting into the Cult hideout?"
"Quiet Cloud, one night after Clover had left for the day, I started my more dangerous areas of research, as usual. I had the corpse of a Chaos human that your warriors had killed and sold to me. I looked into its blood....and found the key."
"You can't possibly mean..."
"Yes, I discovered the proper nuances for human transformation. I wrote it all down in my journal, I haven't yet had the opportunity nor the reason to try this spell on myself or any living thing."
"You mean you could say a few words, throw a few magic sparks and pow!, you walk on two legs and have extra digits?"
"In theory, yes. But it is an incredibly complicated spell, if a single word went wrong or a single magical weave were laid astray, then you would not be a human. You would end up as a twisted mutant of magic, unable to function and most likely unable to survive."
"But if we at least look like them, then we can get into town and possibly into Leviathan's hiding place. A hell of a lot more than we could get as ponies if you ask me." Cloud reasoned.
"I agree with the general, we need to work whatever advantages we have to the limit."
"Not you too Sun! Even if I did get the spell just right, would we just waltz into town, parading ourselves up to Leviathan?"
Cloud shrugged his shoulders, "Why not?"
Another unicorn stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Master Starswirl, I have an idea. There are literally hundreds of humans down there, if we applied a little illusion spell and made your skin grey, they might not notice you. Who knows? They might even point you straight to Leviathan!"
"An excellent point my good sir. Starswirl, I have to admit that this plan is sounding better with every second."
Starswirl stood resolute, but his willpower was crumbling before this superior logic. "Oh alright! I'll need a test subject though. Just in case I don't get it right."
Cloud raised a hoof, "I volunteer."
**********************************************************
Cloud sat in a circle protected by magic runes, just in case something went horribly wrong. He had stripped off his armor and now sat in his most natural state. Starswirl reached into his saddlebag, pulling out a tiny book that held his notes and journal.
"Um, that's your grand and glorious tome, high and mighty mage?"
Starswirl passed a hoof over the cover while muttering an incantation. The book sparkled with magic, growing in size until it was a massive tome that Cloud thought he could not lift by himself. Starswirl gave him a smug glance. "Still doubting magic, huh Cloud?"
He flipped his tome to a certain page, showing a fresh drawing of a man spread eagle, but with two sets of limbs. Next to him was a drawing of a pony, with a similar limb spread to the human. "That's a little drawing some human did who knows how long ago. I find it very accurate when portraying human anatomy. Better write down the name before I forget it." He whisked out a quill, quickly scratching a note under the human picture.
"Now then Cloud, before we begin I'm going to have you sign this form here." The unicorn mage levitated a piece of paper from his saddlebag.
"What's this for?" he asked as he scribbled his name on a dotted line.
"Nothing really, it's just the standard form we unicorns have our test subjects fill out before we try new and unknown magics on them. It forgoes me of any liability for your death or mutilation and provides your next of kin with a decent settlement in court, should it come to that."
"Suddenly I'm not so sure about this..."
"Too late." Starswirl began to read from the tome, muttering the incantation while weaving the magic with his horn.
"Alright Cloud, before we start, be sure to keep your hooves and head inside the circle at all times. And if you feel a slight tingling sensation...there's nothing we can really do about that. Homo sapiens, here we go!"
The magical weaves latched onto the pegasus, probing down to his every fiber of being. The magic bonded with his blood and flesh, altering as it went. Cloud felt his bones becoming lighter, more delicate, straightening out and becoming longer. His fur began to recede, his naked skin growing much finer hairs and losing its normal toughness. He lifted an awkward hoof, his single hoof thinned and grew small, more digits extending from either side.
With several minute crunches his muzzle shortened and receded into his face, nose separating from his mouth and his eyes coming much closer together. His pointed ears shortened and rounded off, resting next to his head. Within minutes, Cloud's own mother would not have recognized him. If she was capable of recognition that is, she had died as an unaltered horse before the war.
"Well, how do I look?"
Sun was green in the face, retching he ran for the nearest bush. Starswirl looked rather proud of his work. He turned to his fellow unicorns, smiling and shaking their hooves. Having finished his self applause, he turned to the changed pegasus. "Congratulations Cloud, I declare the operation to have been a complete success! You are the first pony to have ever made the complete transition to human form!"
Cloud's hands were curled in a paw like fist, fingers not knowing how to extend yet. He touched his own face, feeling so much detail with his fleshy hands. He looked with his alien eyes at the hands that adorned his legs. No, not legs, arms.
"Aaron my friend, if only you could see me now." He said to the sky. Shakily he tried to stand on all fours, it was incredibly awkward, with such long back legs.
"General sir, try the hind legs defensive." suggested Jet Stream.
"An excellent idea." He reared back and almost fell on his buttocks. The human form didn't require extra balance, it just stood almost on its own. "Woah, this is so awesome! I feel so tall, so nimble. Jet, give me my sword!" The warrior drew the general's sword from his armor pile, handing it to his general in primate form.
Cloud wrapped his fingers around the handle, he felt the cold steel, caressed the soft velvety wrap around the handle. With skill and precision he twirled the blade through the air, the enchanted blade whistling in the general's hand. He held the blade close to his face, seeing his own reflection in the cold steel. It was an alien face that looked back. He still had his own green eyes, with mid length brown hair reminiscent of his mane. Cloud smiled a toothy grin with his human lips. He lowered the blade, taking a few tentative steps. Though odd, he caught on to the technique fairly quickly.
"Starswirl, you have got to try this! I can see now how they managed to do everything they did! These fingers are so versatile, I can touch everything, pick up anything and feel so much!"
The unicorn seemed a lot shorter than normal from Cloud's heightened view. "You make it sound like being a human is just one of those things you give the old 'college try', if my cultural idiom is correct."
"Try everything once! This is fantastic, come on old friend, just go for it!"
Starswirl did see the appeal in human form, "Well, I can't exactly send you in there alone, I guess I'm in. Sun? Would you care to join us?"
The earth pony clutched his stomach and looked queasy from the very vivid transformation of his companion, "Sure, why not. I fought the humans long ago, why not become one for a day." He swayed into the circle, still not lucid enough to be making such an informed decision. Starswirl joined him, powering up his horn for a two-fer.
The yellow earth pony's eyes snapped wide open as he realized something. "Wait, what did I just agree to?!?"
Once again too late, and within minutes an older man plus a queasy looking blonde haired man sat in the circle. "Right then Cloud, now that we look like them, getting in should be no problem at all! Shining Tear, would you do the final adjustments?"
"Yes Master Starswirl." the unicorn embraced his arcane power, laying on the thick illusion of gray skin and features on the new humans.
"We'll fit right in! Only one problem though Starswirl. Humans typically wear clothes when out in public....."
The old man looked at his vulnerability. "Hmm, that could present a problem."
***********************************************************
The three naked, gray humans hid behind a fallen logjam outside of the main gate to the fortified town. Three Acolyte guards stood watch out front, their gazes never drifting from the road. The trio of new humans guessed they had enough clothing between them to outfit all three of themselves. Though physically indistinguishable from the group at the gate, they still needed the clothes to cover up their still present cutie marks and the gigantic tattoo of wings on Cloud's back.
"Alright, are we all ready?" Cloud whispered. They were all armed with whatever they wielded as ponies, Cloud with his sword, Sun with his crossbow and a dagger on his belt, and Starswirl with a simple mace. "And remember, no killing!" The other two nodded.
Cloud walked out into the open. "Hey boys! Leviathan is nothing more than a zit on a dragon's shit covered, scaly ass!"
The trio of Acolytes charged in fury and in defense of their Master's name. Cloud ducked behind the logjam again. The Acolytes chased him behind the logs, getting clubbed on the back of their heads by Starswirl and Sun. They weren't killed, only stunned for a few seconds. And with those few seconds Starswirl threw his hands on their heads and cast his memory spell. The three Acolytes gained color and changed back to normal humans. Panting, they looked up at their incredibly odd saviors.
"Thank you! We thought we would never be free!" said one of the freed Acolytes.
"Yeah, about that, we're going to be needing your clothes." Sun said casually.
"What?" the ex-Acolytes asked in confusion. Minutes later the freed humans ran for the treeline in nothing but their filthy underclothes, thankful for being saved, but quite cross about being mugged in the process.
The trio of ponies in human skin struggled to get the human clothes on. "How do they manage with these shoes? They are way too tight for my hooves, I mean "feet"."
"Trade with me Starswirl, mine are too big. Sun, your shirt is inside out."
"How can you tell?"
"The seams are on the outside when they should go in. Even I know that." A bit of grunting and trading later had them marching in a rough formation through the front gate, into the jaws of oblivion itself.
They hid their weapons under their clothes, maintaining the stoicism that they saw on the faces of every other Chaos human in the compound. They walked without aim, looking for some sign of a central headquarters. Occasionally an Acolyte would stare at them, then to their relief return to his menial task. Cloud took the front, being most familiar with human culture and idiom.
"You there!" all three froze, looking around they saw a rather disturbing sight, a normal human with his own forehead coated in blood, pointing directly at them. "Stop right there!" This human was robed in red, and carried himself self importantly, like he ran this show. They kept their visages of stoicism and indifference, hoping he wouldn't notice. The bloody man marched across the street to confront them.
"Are you Acolytes on an assignment?" Cloud would have breathed a sigh of relief, but it might have blown his cover.
"Yes sir." he answered curtly.
"Well consider it cancelled, I need escorts to the prison!" He turned away without them agreeing, shrugging to one another they followed. Cloud leaned close to Starswirl, hissing into his ear.
"Do you think this is Leviathan? He acts like a leader."
"I don't know, he isn't some monster at all. Give it time, maybe this one will tell us something."
The hodge podge group of ponies in human form and a half crazed Chaos priest marched with all haste to the prisons. The priest shoved open the door to a small human style jail. In the front a pair of Acolytes stood stark still as guards to prevent prison breaks, they let the Priest and his escorts through with no question. The Priest opened the door to the back with a large key. Two large cells covered the back wall, one filled with psychotic Lost, the other filled with frightened and imprisoned humans.
"Fetch me a concubine, Acolytes. And make her a pretty one." They stood still, biting their lips,hoping he meant some other Acolytes. "What are you waiting for? The Master has ordered this, I order this!"
Sun took a step forward, heading to the cell jam packed with humans. He grabbed the handle and twisted it, opening the door. Several people recoiled to the walls, not wanting to be the repugnant High Priest's next plaything. Sun grabbed a young woman by the arm, forcing her to her feet. But he pulled her close for a second, holding her there. The young brunette look confused, then understood. Lowering her eyes she walked willingly out of the cell, going to her master for the night.
"Excellent choice, Acolyte. I've been looking for a nice brunette for days now. Come my dear, you will meet the Lord in the flesh, but not until I have given your flesh my own purity." His smile was wicked and filled with lust. The young woman showed no defiance, but walked with him, eyes on the floor. Sun rejoined his companions, not showing any signs of remorse.
The High Priest walked out the door, his 'Acolytes' following closely. Once out in the streets, the High Priest waved a hand at them. "You are dismissed, we conduct our sacrifice in a few hours."
"Yes sir." Cloud replied flatly, controlling his rage at the earth pony who had damned that young woman. They walked away as a group, pulling into an alley Cloud grabbed Sun by the front of his stolen jacket and slammed him into a wall.
"Damn you Sun! Why!? You just sent that woman to her death!" Starswirl's hands wrenched away Cloud's, releasing his companion.
Starswirl placed his hands on Cloud's shoulders. "Keep it together Cloud! If we had done nothing we would have been discovered. All we worked for would have been for nothing!"
"Calm down both of you, I knew what I was doing, and I would never damn an innocent soul, not without giving it a fighting chance."
Starswirl and Cloud stared at him with confusion and rage. Sun grabbed the side of his coat, lifting it he exposed his empty dagger sheath.