My Little Pony: Chaos in Equestria

by Snake Staff

New Foes

As the sun at last set behind her, Twilight simply ran. She ran down streets, through the rear guard, into the flatlands surrounding the city. She didn’t stick to any path, darting this way and that, desperate to shake off the daemons she imagined were even now on her tail. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t care either. Anything to take her away from there, away from them.

Twilight was a unicorn of phenomenal stamina for her kind. She had to be to continue running, fueled by adrenaline and raw, unthinking, primal terror. She’d spent hours in street-to-street fighting without any chance for sleep, then was brutally bludgeoned by her own friend. Her jaw remained dislocated, her chest and windpipe protesting every step she took. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t thinking. Her rational self had simply shut down, unwilling to face the fact that she had just watched the sweetest, shyest, most gentle pegasus she knew brutally murder a beloved friend she’d treasured since fillyhood, beat her, then try to murder her as well. What remained were her primal instincts. So she ran.

Eventually, even the greatest reserves of energy have to give out. So it was that, after bolting for what felt like an eternity, but which couldn’t have been more than a handful of hours, Twilight’s body abruptly shifted. Suddenly the pain was more intense, impossible to ignore. Her injuries pounded incessantly, demanding her attention. All her muscles and joints seemed to be on fire, clamoring for a break. Her eyelids were made of stone, pressing down, harder to support with every passing second.

As her body awakened to its damaged, drained state, something of Twilight’s mind began to clear. Adrenaline rush gave way to a slow awareness of her surroundings. As Twilight finally slowed to look at the world around her, it occurred to her that the sun had finally set. It was dark out.

“Time for sleep. Yes, sleep.” Even the thought of rest was enough to make her lose her balance, tumbling face first onto the small grassy hill she had been running down. She rolled, eyes shut until the movement stopped.

Opening them again, Twilight saw she had reached a more hilly grassland. Her blurred memories couldn’t make any connections of what she saw to her extensive geography studies, but that was immediately brushed aside by a more pressing instinct. “Hide. Hide. Can’t be seen.” Twilight knew the daemons could fly. “Can’t let them see me. Inside. Indoors. Safety.” She scanned the area until her eyes picked up what seemed to her like a gift from heaven: a desolate village, not far at all from where she was. No sounds or light came from the ruins, a fact that only encouraged the unicorn.

Twilight summoned the very last of her strength to force her overdrawn body forwards again. She reached the village, heading to the first building she saw with a roof over its head. Were she of more sound mind, she would have observed that it had once been a store of some kind, likely hardware. As it was, she ignored the faint smell of rot, clambering into the comforting darkness of a small space beneath the counter. Barely had she curled up and shut her eyes than she was fast asleep.
…

Some miles away, another unicorn mare was getting ready for a well-earned rest. The great and powerful Trixie, drained but satisfied by the day’s events, swept into her tent, brushing past her twin guards. A pleasing shade of purple, the tent matched her favorite cape. Inside were uncounted charms, potions, body parts, and other assortments of apparently random junk. Trixie’s bed awaited her. Shedding her armor and placing it on a pile, the unicorn crawled in, closing her eyes and smiling as she reflected on the day.

Everything had gone according to the plan. The fools in the Royal Guard hadn’t realized, had never suspected, that their enemies would happily sacrifice thousands of their own to gain the services of the armies of the Dark Gods for a scant few hours. Trixie had particularly enjoyed riding on her daemonic disk, relishing how much stronger it had made her magic. She had rained death on the enemy, pounding them with more powerful spells than that fool Twilight Sparkle even knew existed.

Thinking of the purple unicorn, Trixie frowned. Perhaps everything hadn’t gone according to plan. How was she to have known that the raving madpony Fluttershy would so selfishly insist on stealing what rightfully belonged to Trixie? Twilight had humiliated her, made her a disgrace for all Equestria to see. It was obvious to any right-thinking pony that revenge belonged to her and her alone. “But then, nopony who follows the Blood God can be considered right-thinking.”

Trixie still couldn’t comprehend what made the others choose any gods to deal with beyond Tzeentch. What was the appeal in being a raving bloodthirsty lunatic, existing only to kill until you yourself were killed? What did anypony see in being a vulgar hedonist, pointlessly seeking after ever more insane pleasures until they consumed you? How could anypony want their flesh to rot, their skin to fall off, and their treasures to turn to so much rusted junk? And, most of all, why would anypony side with the old fuddy-duddy princesses when the Dark Gods not only manifestly offered so much more, but were the obvious and inevitable victors of the conflict already? Trixie shook her head, baffled as ever by the ignorance of inferiors. “Just goes to show how much more insightful and rational Trixie is than others. They worship and enslave themselves, Trixie makes deals,” her mind whispered, and she smiled. Her troubles melted away with the comforting thought that the Master of Fate had promised her revenge. She would get another chance, she was sure.

Trixie’s comfortable reverie was interrupted by the sound of two spears clacking together just outside the tent’s flap. Her guards said something she couldn’t quite make out as she roused herself from bed. There was a swish, then two meaty thunks in rapid succession. The sound of bodies hitting the dirt, and a stream of dark liquid began to snake its way under her door.

“BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Is that all you Khorne-types can ever say?”

She raised her hoof, and her staff flew from its resting place into her outstretched limb. She hopped out of bed as the tent flap burst open to reveal an enraged yellow pegasus, rune-etched axe in hand, fresh blood coating its edge. Fluttershy’s armor was dented and damaged in several places, black with dried blood and gore, helmet still missing. Cadence’s head dangled from her waste, mane tied to a small loop on her armor. There were several more such loops. Trixie could see bodies at Fluttershy’s feet as the pegasus stormed in.

Trixie’s face was utterly unimpressed. “Trixie thinks she’ll need some new guards,” she idly observed.

“WITCH!!!”

“Trixie is right here, you don’t need to shout.”

Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed. “You owe me blood, coward! Not only did you deny me the head of the purple one, you fled battle rather than face me like a warrior.”

“Trixie had better things to do than play around with you.”

“You dare mock me?!”

Trixie looked idly at her left hoof, checking for nonexistent dirt. “Trixie thinks you’re wasting her time with this nonsense.”

That was the last straw. Fluttershy let loose an incoherent scream of rage and charged, wings propelling her at the blue unicorn. Trixie’s staff rose to catch the blow. It was stronger than she thought, and she stumbled and fell backwards. Fluttershy brought the axe down on her, but Trixie vanished before it connected, appearing near the tent flap.

“Coward! Stand and fight like-“

“Enough.”

The voice was soft, almost a whisper really. But for the two ponies, it was plenty loud. Fluttershy reluctantly lowered her axe, Trixie slowly setting down her staff. The two ponies defied their great pride and lowered their heads in deference as they felt a weight on their souls. Their leader was here.

Lord Qesh wasn’t a tall pony, not really. Even in his black-silver armor, he wasn’t much higher than the two mares that now bowed to him. Trixie guessed that if she were looking him in the eye, they’d be the same height. All the same, there was something about him that told a pony he was no one to trifle with. Trixie and Fluttershy backed up, eyes low.

“I am given to understand that you failed to kill Twilight Sparkle today because of your own infighting. Is my understanding correct?”

“My lord,” Fluttershy began, “The fault lies with the witch. She-“

“I asked you a question. I am told that Trixie attacked Fluttershy initially, but you decided to spend the next few minutes pursuing her, then attacking random enemies that came close, ignoring the objective I assigned you. Is this understanding correct?”

“…yes,” the ponies eventually admitted, after several moments of pressing silence.

“I see. You are aware that the elimination of the Element of Magic is a critical part of my plan for the war?”

The two ponies nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“And you remember that I assigned that objective to you two, personally, at your own insistence, under your absolute assurances that you were capable of seeing the task through during today’s battle?”

Trixie and Fluttershy glanced nervously at each other. “Yes.”

“And you are aware that an extensive search of the city has failed to turn up Twilight or her corpse, meaning she has almost certainly escaped this place alive?”

Trixie closed her eyes, afraid of what might come next. “Yes.”

“I see,” there was a long pause before he spoke again. “Come.”

Trixie and Fluttershy followed behind their leader, heads down. His heavily-armored personal guard formed up around the trio as soon as they left Trixie’s dwelling. They walked in silence through the city, the two mares throwing sullen glares at each other. Trixie cursed Fluttershy again for getting her into this by her selfish insistence on killing her former friend at the expense of Trixie’s revenge.

The silent procession walked through scenes of looting, celebration, and murder. Often all at the same time. With the vast numbers of reinforcements from Fillydelphia safely across the portal they had set up, the army’s numbers were even greater than they had been before the battle had started. What discipline there was had accordingly suffered as Chaos ponies ran wild across Manehatten in the wake of the daemon rampage. Lord Qesh didn’t seem bothered, but then he rarely did.

Eventually, they reached their destination: a ruined skyscraper with its windows smashed, furniture stolen, broken, or overturned, and machinery wrecked beyond repair. They descended into the basement levels via the secondary stairs. It had been converted into a room overflowing with magic. Pentacles, summoning circles, alchemy equipment, and many other magical devices and objects littered the space. Part of the ritual to summon the daemon army had been performed here, Trixie knew, though she had not taken part.

A blue earth pony awaited them, flanked by several robed acolytes. Three captured members of the Royal Guard stood further back, chained, beaten, and wounded but still defiant. Trixie narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust that one. She didn’t know him, his motives, or even his name. He worshiped the same god she worked for, but that didn’t make him a friend. It made him a rival, and a potential threat. She didn’t know what he did with the bulk of his time, only that Lord Qesh had appointed him Lord Sorcerer, tasked with overseeing the magical work of the war and various other tasks.

He lowered his head in deference. “Lord.”

Qesh didn’t waste any time. “Are they ready?”

“Yes.”

Without another word the black-armored pony swept past the larger blue one. He approached the prisoners. “Yes, these will do. You will serve adequately for this task.”

One pony spat at the Chaos Lord’s feet. “We serve the princesses. Not you.” The others nodded their agreement.

“Comrades slaughtered, tortured for hours, but still intact and defiant? Strong bodies, strong minds. Exactly what I require.” He gestured, and the circle the three were chained in began to light up. He pointed to each of the three ponies in turn, whispering something Trixie couldn’t hear.

“Qwzar’upiort, Xemawio’dtry, Etch’umwe’tes, come. Inhabit these vessels, and fulfill your oaths.”

Trixie almost gaped. Surely he couldn’t expect daemon summoning to be that easy, could he? There had to be hours of ritual preparation, chants, sacrifices. You couldn’t just whisper a few words and point! She began to think her leader might be more insane than she had taken him for.

She did gape when she felt them come.

The three guardsponies doubled over, trembling. Despite their efforts to remain stoic, they began to scream as things entered their bodies. Their eyes rolled back in their heads as they writhed on the ground. Their hooves cracked and broke open as new, clawed feet forced their way free from deep inside. Their skin ripped open to reveal rapidly growing appendages, tumors, or raw swelling musculature. One’s backbone ripped itself from his body. Batlike wings began to form out of it. Another pony’s jaw widened as he screamed, before splitting with a sickening crack. His lower jaw hung forward as the rest of his head fell back like a downed hood, seemingly no longer connected to his spine. A new, birdlike head sprouted from his throat, dripping blood as it screeched its new birth. Trixie could see in the stallion’s eyes that he was feeling every second of this. Even she had to somewhat pity these ponies.

Her academic mind raced as she wondered how such easy summoning could be possible. “Maybe the barrier between our world and theirs is still thin from the earlier breaches?” she speculated.

Lord Qesh watched without comment or any real reaction at all until the changes had mostly ceased and the newly-possessed ponies stared at him. He stretched out his hoof and received a small bundle of purple hair from the Lord Sorcerer. It was obvious enough what it was. Trixie had no idea where he’d gotten such a thing. Lord Qesh threw the hair at the daemons. Two scented it with snakelike tongue, the other by nostrils grown in its flanks.

“You will hunt down the one called Twilight Sparkle,” he said, “And you will eliminate her. Do so and your debts are settled. Now go, those bodies will not last long!”

He pointed to the door, and the possessed ponies hurled themselves out of it and up the stairs with supernatural speed. So fast were they that everypony’s mane fluttered a bit as they dash by. Trixie stared.

He turned back to address the two mares, still flanked by his guards. “You still have skill and value, so I will allow you this one mistake. Be warned: if you repeat your offense, you will be the next ponies in that circle,” he turned away. “You may go.”
...

Twilight awoke to the sound of a loud *Creak*. Peeking one eye open, she noticed that it still seemed to be dark outside, though whether that meant she’d only been asleep for a few hours or for an entire day she didn’t know. The creak came again. It was closer this time. She froze and strained her ears, trying to locate where it was coming from. With less of a pause, it came again. It was in the building with her.

Twilight fought the urge to panic. Her jaw hurt and was noticeably more swollen, and her muscles ached, but she at least felt more energetic than she had before. And, more importantly, she’d recovered her higher thinking skills. She simply shunted aside her memories of Manehatten for the moment, concentrating on what was going on in the present. What was going on was that the floor creaked yet again, with less of a pause.

“Speeding up, then.”

Focusing on the direction it was coming from, she saw that it was a hall leading to back storage room, door smashed open and somewhat moldy. If the lighting was poor where she sat, it was positively nonexistent back there. There were no windows in the room, and she only saw the one door. She could just make out a few toppled shelves and crates near the front, but nothing behind that. There were no light sources within. *Creak* There it was again. Only, this time it was behind her.

Twilight fought down another wave of gibbering panic as she imagined what could be standing only a few feet away, just a thin wooden counter between herself and it. She covered her horn with her hooves, hoping to hide the glow as she cast a spell. An illusion appeared over the small space she had wedged in, making it appear from the outside to be a small, wooden drawer. She prayed to Celestia or Luna or whoever might listen that she wouldn’t be noticed.

*Creak* *Creak* *Creak* Moving faster, from both directions. Converging. She started to smell rot.

Twilight felt a cold sweat trickle down her coat. She started to see a figure emerging from the storeroom. Too distant to make out in real detail, but pony-like. And moving.

*Creak* *Creak* The other one was right beside the counter now, mere feet from where Twilight watched from behind her illusion. The scent of decay filled her nostrils, and she struggled not to retch.

*Creeeeeeak* The creature from behind the counter appeared in Twilight’s field of vision around the same moment. They were ponies. Or, rather, they had been. Both were the bloodless pale and moldy green of death and decay. Black and blue molds covered much of their coat. Their manes were gone, exposing yet more revolting flesh. The one that had come from behind was missing the skin from the back of its neck and head. Twilight could see its skull, now porous with holes through which fat white maggots crawled freely. The other was missing much of the skin on its left leg, showing Twilight black muscle tissue overgrown with some kind of hanging moss. But their eyes were the worst part. Specifically, their lack of them. Their eye sockets were empty holes, filled with crawling black insects of all types in numbers beyond count. They should be dead. It took Twilight a second to realize that they were – she was in a town wiped out by one of Nurgle’s plagues, its inhabitants now revived as the unquiet dead. They hungered for living flesh. Hungered for her flesh.

The smell was overpowering now. Rot and decay filled her nose. Breathing through her mouth didn’t help – in fact it just made her feel like she could taste it instead. The sensation of tasting the putrid corpses was the last straw. Twilight’s gag reflex triggered, and triggered hard. She retched noisily. Once, twice, three times. The zombies turned to look directly at the place where she hid.

Author's Note:

Wow, Twilight just can't catch a break, can she? Poor girl.

Anyway, I continue to request that whether you like or dislike this you give me feedback.

Comments

[GK-47]

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR!!

Zombie cultists...does this mean a Typhus stand in?

[Alex Wadegrove]

Hm... Chaos? Khorne, no less? Interesting...

[theredchaplain]

we need the imperium to come in and kick some ass