Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Aryze

It was a revolting thing. If the corpse they'd sent into the Empire once before had been slightly less dead, it no doubt would have looked much like that. What had once been a pony was an unnatural mockery of life itself, something that looked every bit like it was in as much pain as it would be able to give out, though mercifully mentally no longer capable of comprehending it. Shining hoped so, at least, as having to exist like that was not something he would wish on anyone.

Its ribcage had pushed through its skin and flesh, leaving tattered shreds of its body hanging from its lower ribs and drifting in the wind and some of its spine visible as well. Its hind legs were thick, bent over themselves, ending in far too many claws and carrying themselves over the ground with every step, bending joints differently every time the creature moved. It stood almost like it was rearing, thrice as tall as even Celestia, and long slender front legs that looked by then more like arms stretched all the way to the ground, each with at least one knee or elbow too many. Fingers oriented at random angles capped by keratin knives one could generously pretend were nails dragged over the ground with a sound like metal scraping against stone.

It had been a unicorn once, that was apparent. What had become of its horn had elongated in both directions and pierced through the lower back of its skull, then into its spine, locking its head in place and ending in a jagged broken portion a little farther back. On the front it stretched longer than any normal pony horn should, but it had grown wrong even in its surprising straightness. It was like it had been stretched, cracks and thin bulges lining its length and the natural spiralling pattern broken and deformed.

One of its eyes was hidden, completely covered by a misshapen bulging mass of pulsing black flesh with tendrils burrowing into the creature's skull and neck. The other, its white tinged a sickly bluish colour, had its bulb exposed more than it naturally should have, and the pinprick thin pupil at the centre of its faded green iris darted maniacally around seemingly outside of the creature's own control. The mane was a dusty greyed light blue, drained of hue like something consumed by sunlight too harsh for too long, and barely a strip between the former pony's ears and down its neck.

Its attention settled on the ponies. Its elongated neck turned slightly, then its body did to accommodate for the lack of mobility of its head. Its jaw fell open, revealing dozens of malformed and wrongly bent fangs, as its general attention focused on the group, even as its eye erratically continued to dance around its precariously incomplete socket. Then the lower part of said jaw split open like a snake's, ripping the flesh within it apart and leaking black blood over the creature's exposed ribcage. A hiss that would have been a howl if the creature had still had the lungs and throat for it crawled out of its open mouth. Then, limping forward, it charged towards the ponies.

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[Speckle]

Dear God