> Battle reports
>  by Gowak
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 01 - Twilight Sparkle - Blood Games
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Trust is never given. Trust is earned through your deeds. Trust can only be built upon the guaranty that everyone will do their duty to the best of their capacity.”


✶✶✶


Before Ponyville, before the Elements and the change they brought, Twilight Sparkle was one of the ten thousand blades in charge of the Empress’ protection. Thought Canterlot had been at peace for centuries – or at least unbothered by the constant war surrounding it – the equustodes stationed in the palace stayed vigilant and prepared through rigorous training and exercises. 

The blood games were one of these exercises. In these, equustodes tried to pass the defences they helped put in place in an attempt to reach the Empress. In addition to helping them spot potential flaws in the bastion of the Empress, it built a healthy rivalry and, more importantly, keep them ready and efficient. The benefit of it seemed obvious to everyone... save for one.

At that time, Twilight Sparkle was still young by the standards of the equustodes. Her feats of fame were still few and far between, and her names – tokens of the Empress’ satisfaction – were so too. At that time, she had already formed the mix of ambition and anxiety that would drive her. Already then, she dismissed her own accomplishments and yearned for more occasions to prove her valour. To prove that this time, she had not just been lucky. Hoping that this time she would be the warmare her Mistress needed.

When she had been summoned to the Throne, she had believed her hour had come at last. At that time, it had not mattered that she had been summoned to a fake replica of the throne room. The decorations and statues, shining in the bright lights of the copy, had as little relevance to her as the myriads of shackled ponies feeding the Empress in the darkness of the real one. All that mattered to her was to be in Her presence. Even if it was merely a projection of her being. Twilight instinctively kneeled as soon as she felt the supernatural warmth of Her presence probe at the edge of her consciousness.

“Twilight Sparkle.” The voice of the Empress echoed in the throne room, not carried by air and sound waves, but by thoughts and sheer power. Twilight’s bow had deepened at that moment.

“My Empress,” she answered her head still low.

“I was told that you were not a participant of the last blood games.”

There had been the slightest hesitation in her voice as she had answered. “I was not.”

“May I inquire why?”

“My Empress, I am sorry if I displeased you...”

“You have not yet, my faithful equustode.”

“I just don’t understand their goal. To imply that you need to be defended... it doesn’t feel right to me.”

Twilight could not see it, but at the edge of the real throne room, dozens of ponies died. The almighty Empress did not even reacted to it. Still bowing, Twilight couldn’t read the expression on the face of her mistress. But the psychic aura emanating from her was enough. There was the slightest trace of amusement... And a growing amount of disappointment.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“My Empress?” she had fretted.

“Do your servitors have to stop checking your gears because of the genius of those who made them? Should our archivists stop their work for other ponies had witnessed the fact they so dutifully write? Should we stop defending our worlds because ultimately it is our destiny to rule the galaxy?”

Twilight had stayed silent. In that moment, she thought how lucky it was for her that her face was facing the ground so the Empress would not see the shame on it. 

“As powerful as I may be, this Imperium is the work of trillions of ponies. Not only mine. I merely had a vision and put it into motion, but every last one of my citizens is to strive to make it work. I ask of them to do their very best, just as I do my best to keep it safe. To this endeavour I created warriors to extend, pacify and protect the Imperium... and me. From those exceptional beings I expect even more. Ponies are flawed. You have been engineered, trained and conditioned not to be. I expect better from you.” 

Twilight was mortified, but the Empress was not finished yet. She breathed deeply. It was not a sigh, nor the simple mark of exasperation that common ponies used. It was the effort of a greater mind trying to reach a smaller one with simple words. ”Trust is never given. Trust is earned through your deeds. Trust can only be built upon the guaranty that everyone will do their duty to the best of their capacity.”


✶✶✶


Months had passed since that day. Twilight Sparkle had sworn to think on her actions and do better for her Empress. Then, she had locked herself in her meditation room.

It was a cold, dark and silent place. Here, those entities were dense enough to have a life of their own. Even for Twilight Sparkle's senses, the place provided few stimuli. And this was a thing she was grateful for. Right now, she needed some peace.  Before her coming trial.

It was odd to think that for the past few weeks, she'd been waging war against herself, only to stop and wage it in the physical world instead. Had she been more literary inclined, she would have enjoyed the poetic irony of the situation. But as curious of books she had been so far, she had always prioritised more pragmatic knowledge than poetry.

In the distance, clawsteps interrupted her thoughts. It was already time. A soft knock at the door confirmed the arrival of Spike. She didn't answer. The dragon waited. Seconds passed. Almost a minute. Every day it took him longer to dare to open the door. Yet he still came in and checked on her.

Twilight felt prouder and more relieved than she cared to admit.

"Your meal, my Lady," he said laconically.

"Thank you, Spike," she answered with a neutral tone.

"Will you eat it?" he asked. There was still this glimmer of hope in his voice. Even after a month of fast, he would still ask.

Such an admirable dedication,she marvelled. Her resolve didn’t falter, however. "Not today Spike."

The dragon sighed, then walked toward the exit. He stopped before he reached it.

"I heard some rumours," he said, not even facing her. "I've heard that tomorrow, you'll participate in the Blood Games. I heard it was a way for you to atone for your faults. You know how rumours are... so I chose not to believe in them," he continued, his tone now increasingly agitated – the closest to angry that he would dare to reach. "Because there is no way even a brilliant Equustode such as you... especially a brilliant Equustode such as you, would do something as stupid as defying the entire defence of the palace right after one month of seclusion and fast."

The dragon finally faced her. His face was showing conflict, frustration, anger. All at once and none really. As his control over himself had slipped up, green flames would come out of his nostrils from time to time. Twilight observed him with attention. She could have taken offence over his reaction. She had every right to. Some might even say that she should have to if only to maintain the decorum between them. But she didn't. 

"I am sorry to have worried you, Spike," she finally apologised. "It is true that I will participate in the Blood Games tomorrow. It is true that I am not at the peak of my abilities right now. I am sorry for putting you through these worries. I guess I underestimated how loyal you are, and for that, I once again apologise."

Twilight got up, and Spike could barely keep a gasp. weeks without any sustenance had left her weak and emaciated. Her weakened muscles on elongated bones now made her look feeble and weak rather than massive and tough. She still stood with the nobility of the golden guards of the Empress, but her body was obviously rebellious to the mind. Spike wondered how much willpower it took her only to get to him.

"I know what you're thinking. But I swear on the Empress's name that I know what I am doing. Stop worrying for my sake."

"But can you promise you'll be okay?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"You know I cannot promise that..."

"This is why I cannot stop worrying."

"Whatever did I do to merit such a loyal servitor?" she taunted him with a smile.

"I know right?" he answered, finally smiling.

Twilight smiled at her impertinent servitor.

"Don't push it too far, Monitor," she gently scolded him.

His accomplice smile was short-lived but sincere. Calm and confidence took its place. "Take care of yourself, my Lady. And may the Empress guide your path toward her tomorrow."

Having nothing more to add, Spike left the room.


✶✶✶


The day came to the imperial palace. For the first time in weeks, Twilight admired the unique spectacle of Canterlot sunrise. There were as many sunsets as there had planets on the galaxy, but none was as beautiful as the sun rising on the Imperial Palace. It was not the light of the yellow sun on the golden walls. Nor some tricks in the orientations of the constructs, the particular beauty of the star or some natural feature of the planet (most of them had been lost to the aeons anyway). Other planets could claim similar settings. What made every morning so unique was the very presence of the Empress. Every morning, Her psychic manifestation would rise above the palace and greet the sun. The meaning of this display had been lost to the ages, but it had been so for as long as ponykind could remember. It had been so for as long as historic documentation would go. Every morning, the Empress would greet the rising sun. Or rather, it was as if the sun would rise to her command. Such was Her power as if the stars themselves answered to Her will. 

Twilight basked on the first rays of the morning sun. It filled her with faith and righteousness. Then, without a word, she penetrated the labyrinth of the Imperial Palace.


✶✶✶


Despite its size, the palace of Canterlot offered few entrances and even fewer exits. Thousands of military geniuses, including primare'chs, had seen to that. And each Blood Games offered the opportunity for a warmare of the Legio Equustode to eliminate them. One by one. 

Still, the outer perimeter of the palace in itself was already a challenge. One that Twilight had passed with difficulty, but without being noticed. Discretion, careful planning, an analytical mind and perfect knowledge of the architecture of the outer structure were a good start. Now another challenge, harder in every way, began. Discretion would not last past a few minutes. Careful planning and analytical mind were one of the many prerequisites for simply being an Equustode, and though she was gifted in those particular areas, she was not the only one. She was also alone against hundreds of her peers. And more importantly, academic knowledge of an ever-evolving defence mechanism lead to speculations at best.

Twilight was alone and deprived of several of her best weapons. But she was determined to get through it. She would stop when and only when she had reached the throne.

Hidden in the shadows, Twilight focused on her plan. In addition to the Equustodes stationed all around the place, several automated and magic defences, magic nullifying fields and sensors, not mentioning secrets and lost technologies that had been included in the place. In order to penetrate deeper into the palace, she would have to somehow pass all that. The first perimeter would need coordination and speed, which she lacked due to her weakened state. Fortunately for her, she had other ways to pass through them.

The patrol of Equustodes passed before her position without noticing her. She waited four seconds before she started to follow them. She had waited here for two reasons. First, this path had the best ratio speed/efficiency for her plan. Second, the sensors in the room created auditory distortions. It was not enough to fool the warmares more than a hoofful of seconds. Even less considering their apparatus and various helps. But it was enough. Her steps followed the repetitive rhythm of her peers' footstep. The mares left the hallway, never once realising that they had been shadowed by the unicorn.

Several hallways went like this. Twilight avoided as many strong points as possible, waiting and contouring the concentration of soldiers as she could. And by doing so, she was willingly getting herself into an elaborate trap. She knew this well, this part of the palace had been built for this intent. Dozens of them in fact. Potential assassins would try to avoid the guards, lose more and more time, putting themselves in an increasingly difficult position until they ended caught in the web, stuck in the grave they would have dug for themselves. Twilight knew that perfectly. How many time had she been the one to catch a new recruit in a similar knot? But every fortress had a weak point. And the best trap could make even the best hunter overconfident. Even her sisters could, and would, make a mistake from time to time. Twilight had had several weeks to rethink the place, checking the problem from several angles, from the safest and most probable roads to the craziest ones. Somewhere in the middle, there were paths no one had seen before. Those were the one that had the most chance of success.

So Twilight progressed, slowly and discretely, purposefully, avoiding the ever so numerous Equustodes' patrols, traps and sensors, getting closer and closer to the jaw of the trap. Twilight checked her magic. Still inactive. But soon.

The palace was a nightmare for unicorns and magical practitioners. Gathering too much magical energy would, at best, raise several alarms. At worst, it would end with a severe backlash which consequences would range from unconsciousness to the utter destruction of the user. Several magic patterns, including most teleportation spells and specific race-based patterns, were simply blocked by technological or magical means. In some places, the walls themselves were made in magic repellent metals to forbid any unforeseen access. If that was not enough, several anti-magical spells and nullifying wards had been put into place. Thus, teleporting inside the palace was almost impossible. Almost. For anyone willing enough and able to carefully manage their magical surges, there were a few places were such a feat was feasible. It would not be as efficient as the normal usage of the spell but it would permit to go through a wall for instance. Or cross a few dozen metres without being seen. It would still require very extensive knowledge of the place as well as being able to cast old and obsolete variations of certain spells. Of course, it should come from somepony whose magic would have not been tainted by the corruption of the warp or mutation. And even then, one would have to cast the spell precisely at the moment when the nullifying fields would be at their lowest, which happened seemingly randomly when it happened at all. 

It sounded impossible. But Twilight had found a flaw. A single minuscule flaw where all those securities overlapped. There were paths in the palace, where magic flew. Not a lot, and narrow ones at best, but enough to indicate teleporting roads. All she needed was to be able to predict the nullifying shield patterns. And she had done so. It was far from perfect... but it was enough. It was predictable and she was intended to use it if possible. Right now, the field was still stable, but she could already feel the ripples in its interference. Magic built into her horn, not yet able to unleash its physic-bending effects. Not yet, but soon. She stood at the ready. A few more seconds...  


⚡⚡⚡


Flawless Mist wandered alone in the corridors, a confident smile in her face and a golden spear carefully holstered against her side, right under her wing. The current Bloods Game was featuring Twilight Sparkle. Twilight "Bookworm" Sparkle. This was something that would probably happen once this century and she wouldn't miss it for the world. 

So far, there had been no news of her. Which was a good thing. It wouldn't have been fun if the purple unicorn had been caught immediately. Considering her capacities and the time since the beginning of the game, it was safe to assume that she'd had penetrated the outer defences. Probably even passed them. Which meant she could be very close now. The golden-armoured pegasus smiled at the thought, revealing perfect white teeth. The chances that her prey would really be here were almost void, but she had a feeling there would be something interesting to see in this part of the palace. And her intuition often hit just. Often enough for her to consider it a gift from the almighty Empress. 

Her steps had led her to a crossroad in the innumerable roads of the palace. The outsiders lucky enough to stride those passageways called it "the worthy's path", due to its long, turning ways, which forced ponies into hours of walking before they could finally meet their omnipotent ruler. The Equustodes merely called it the "nagger's path", for only the most insufferable ponies were to lose their time here. More direct ways existed for the true servitors of the Empress. Their time was their Mistress's. It was not to be wasted. 

She patrolled aimlessly here, waiting for something to happen, or for her instinct to switch on again. For something was about to happen. She just knew it.


⚡⚡✶✶


Twilight Sparkle was frustrated in more ways than one. The sector was supposed to be situated between heavily guarded nodes, he patrols were supposed to be less frequent and highly regular since continuous patrols here made no strategic sense, so she had simply neglected them. She had not been carefree enough to think that everything would go smoothly, but this was supposed one of the safest parts of the defence and thus, she had deemed the possibility of such a hitch negligible. And now she was forced to listen to the incongruous hoofsteps with impatience.

But as irritating as this situation was, it was but the tip of the iceberg. The truly unnerving fact was that she was stuck in a wall. And this, more than the unforeseen patrol bothered Twilight to no ends. It didn't matter to her that she had to launch her spell in the split second the reboot in the magic nullifier took. Or that she had to teleport in a hidden hole hundreds of metres from her with no visibility. Or that she was still weak from starvation. It only mattered that she was stuck, her hooves, mane and tail fused to the walls because she had miscalculated her jump.  Her Twilight was close to berate her foolishness out loud...

The hoofsteps got closer to the wall. Twilight stiffened. The situation she was in dawned on her. She had not been caught yet. But she would if she didn't find a solution. She needed to get unstuck and another path. She had only one minute before the next opening. 

Now focused on something other than her shortcoming, Twilight's mind worked overtime.

Flawless Mist instinct was working overdrive. Something had happened. There was something there. She could feel it. She just didn't know what. She could ask the closest hub for a checkup, but she didn't want to share the glory of her discovery. The Equustode grinned and closed her eyes. What she was looking for was not visible. This sense was useless to her now. Smell would likely not matter either, so she stopped breathing. She stopped moving as well. She was focused. If there was anything she'd feel it... She just had to wait.

Twilight had a plan. It was risky and went against several Codex recommendations, not to mention a few imperial regulations on magic usage... but it would work. The field was weakening again. She had two seconds to move. Magic flowed with its typical high pitch sound.

The sound was so faint Mist wondered if she'd really heard it, or merely thought it. She didn't lose time to ponder on it. Her spear left its maglock in a fraction of seconds. The blade whirled around her quickly, flying above her dexterous wings... then stabbed the wall in front of her with force. Even without its force field, the blade stabbed the wall with ease, until only the shaft remained. Mist slowly retracted the blade. It was pristine. No resistance, no trace of blood... nothing. A frown spread on her face. 

She, barely, resisted the urge to stab again, out of frustration this time. Instead, she angrily sheathed her spear. The golden weapon maglocked at her side. The shock made the blade vibrate, making a few strands of lavender fur fell into the ground. Mist almost didn't notice it. 

Almost.

A smile slowly conquered her face. There was not a lot of lavender ponies in the Equustodes. And only one participated in the Blood Games. The bookworm had been here! She couldn't be far! The pegasus licked her lips with anticipation. Her wings stiffened slightly, overdosed with chemical and sheer excitement. Not without doing an over the top kick, Flawless Mist charged deeper into the building, hoping to find her prey.

"Girls?" she said into her communicator. "Bookworm's inside our perimeter!"


✶✶✶


Twilight caught her breath through gritted teeth. She mentally cursed at her injuries, using her fur and robe to mop up the blood slowly dripping from her hooves. Her metabolism was already closing the injuries but the outer, solid part of her limbs would take time to heal. She now had another handicap to add to her struggle. A particularly graphic anathema left her muzzle at the thought. 

In order to leave her hiding place, she had had to willingly fail her spell and leave parts of her, in this specific case the bottom half of her hooves. Willingly fail her spell had proven harder than casting it but it was either that of trying to teleport herself and the entirety of the palace which would have, at best, fumbled lamentably and killed herself in the process. The prospect of such a pointless and purposeless death sounded almost heretical. 

A few minutes passed. Enough for her to walk without hobbling. Every moment standing hurt more than words could describe. A normal pony would have fainted many times over. Twilight, however, could stand. One would barely notice the difference. Her metabolism and training were enough to make the pain tolerable. In fact, she used it as a driving force. It fuelled her determination and focus. This pain was the result of her mistakes and the reminder of her failure. She welcomed it. She made it hers and made it an ally. She needed a new plan to get going. 

A few other minutes passed. Twilight's mobility was close enough to one hundred per cent. She could not afford to wait longer. Her hideout would not stay safe indefinitely. She waited for the next drop in intensity of the field and disappeared again. 


✶✶✶


The Palace was in high alert.

It would have been hard to see for the untrained eye, but Twilight couldn't miss the signs. The patrols were irregular, yet more frequents. Their patterns were different too. Also, even if the guards were trying not to be obvious, their body language suggested they were actively looking for something. Twilight guessed that auxiliary system would be put at full efficiency soon if it was not already the case. 

There were many explanations possible, but the most plausible one was that she had been detected, but not seen. Had she raised an alarm? Did somepony pick up her magical pattern? It didn't really matter. This had always been a question of 'when' she would be detected rather than 'if'. Still, the configuration she was in was one of the worst she had anticipated, and there was but one option left for her.

Fight her way to the throne.

The patrol strode silently under her. She watched them pass from above, without a word, trying to identify them. They were two. An earth pony and a unicorn. The first one wore her helmet and no decoration. The distinctive signs of a young Equustode. Her trot was confident, full of assurance. Probably more than two names, but likely less than five. 

Probably Rock Steady… or maybe Flashing Light, she assessed.

Her companion was an enigma. She also wore her helmet, and from her position, she could see no decoration. However, her hoofstep was calm and composed. It was the way of walking of somepony who had seen their fair share of battles and Blood Games. This one could become a problem. Twilight hesitated a second. Should she wait for another, easier-to-handle patrol? She cast away her doubts. The time for careful planning was gone at the same time as her hooves. It was time for a leap of faith.

Twilight fell silently. The mysterious Equustode heard her... but too late. Way too late. The fight was too fast for the naked eye. It took less ten heartbeats for the unicorn to incapacitate her sisters. 

Twilight fell right behind the unicorn. She rolled swiftly, transferring most of the kinetic energy of her fall into a charge. She hit her sister hard on the flank. The difference in weight between the two warmares faded as Twilight hit her centre of gravity, making her lose her hooving. She managed to catch herself, but not without jostling her comrade. 

She didn't give them any time to recover. A heartbeat after her fall, she sent a small flash of magic to hit the maglock of Rock-Steady-Flashing-Light's weapon. Various securities normally blocked the device, preventing it from activating by accident. However, some new blood kept it unlocked, trying to coax a few milliseconds in battle. The process was widely frowned upon, for anything could provoke an accidental activation. A shock, a lucky shot... or a well placed magical surge. Whether or not Rock-Steady-Flashing-Light was doing it was pure speculation... but it worked. The weapon fell. A few centimetres falls, nothing a normal pony would notice. But enough to trump the trained reflexes of an Equustode. She tried to reach for her spear and missed. She corrected the movement immediately of course, but this small hiccup was all Twilight needed. Her magic flared again, struggling against the recalcitrant weapon. She didn't even try to activate it, for the weapon would refuse anyone but its rightful owner, she just used it as his basic form intended. The spear hit several times, the point and shaft stabbing the weaknesses of the armour. 

Rock-Steady-Flashing-Light fell before she could react. 

The other warmare fared better, but it was still not good enough. She followed her sister on the ground in an instant.

Twilight caught her breath with difficulty, both her hearts struggling to keep up with her sudden burst. She could not stop here nonetheless, for time was of the essence. She took a last glance to her sisters and went deeper into the palace.


⚡⚡⚡


"Are you telling me that she got you both, all by herself?" Flawless Mist laughed.

"Come on Mist, give it a rest," said a voice in her vox.

"She was unarmed!" she answered, still laughing. "And she didn't even have her power armour! Can you imagine?"

"Mist..." the voice the other side of the vox sighed. "Anyway, you don't know that."

"There are marks of hooves on the ground where she fell. The mark's not deep enough for a warmare in armour."

"Okay maybe. How do you know she was unarmed though?"

"Oh you know... just a hunch."

"Dead Equustodes don't talk Mist." the voice warned.

The pegasus laughed at that. "I know, I know. Don't worry I did not cheat."

"You'd better not," the voice threatened just before its owner ended the communication.

Mist smiled broadly. Even her grumpy sister could not spoil her amusement today. She made a dismissive sign to Discreet Glory and Rock Steady and started to follow the trail of the intruder unicorn. The tried not to gloat as their misfortune as they left the hallway in silence. They were not to talk until the end of the Game. 

Maybe they'll even make a vow of silence after such a humiliation, she thought bemusedly.

She was running now. This game was definitely very fun.

"Girls. I think I know where she's headed."


✶✶✶


Twilight ran, trying to escape the ever-vigilant gaze of the palace sensors. She needed a place to gather her strength, even for a few minutes. She was running on fumes and her predictions concerning the anti-magic field were off by several minutes, forcing her to run and jump aimlessly in the hallway. For the first time in her life, she felt the weight of mortal existence. Things were going out of control, her own body pushed into its limits and beyond, her hooves and very bones hurt like Tartarus. She had not felt such punishment since she'd been moulded into an Equustode. And it felt good. She felt as if she was reconnecting with her roots, improving herself once again. So she ran, trying to escape the inevitable, knowing well that if the field didn't recede in the next few seconds, she'd have another fight on her hoo...

"Intruder! Seize her!"

By the Empress glorious Mane!

The three Equustodes moved instantly, in the strange individualistic unison that characterised them. Twilight rose her stolen weapons and prepared to hold them back while she gathered her magic. The spears moved inelegantly, in a very pathetic display compared to Twilight's standards. The weapons were reluctant to her magic touch and manipulating two at the same time was a chore, not mentioning trying to teleport. It would be barely enough to defend against them, let alone defeat them. The blades collided once. Twice. On the third time, Twilight's horn was on fire, maybe even literally. She tried to teleport, only to feel her magic fumble against the remnant of the field. 

Come on! Hur...

A fourth strike, deviated by her spear, she felt like her head was splitting in two. One of the golden warriors tried to get passed her defence. Twilight stopped her. Two more blows rewarded the effort. Each one of them felt as if directly aimed at the tip of her horn. She was unsure if the liquid that trickled down her face was blood or sweat. Another blow shook her to the bone. 

Just... a little... more...

Going all out, Twilight lunged at them, the blades pointed menacingly forward. They easily avoided the attack and surrounded her.

"Surrender now!" one of them said.

Twilight answered with an exhausted but victorious smile. Her horn flashed. She saw the frustrated face of her sister, realising too late what was happening, she felt her body being sucked up by the spell, she felt the drag of the weapons, resisting even the teleportation, she tasted the blood in her muzzle and nostrils and smelled her singed mane. 

Then all faded to darkness.

Twilight hobbled a moment on her bleeding hooves, the understimulation feeling almost like sensory deprivation. Her lungs painfully reminded her to breathe, and her muscles forced her to lay down. As she rested on the stone ground, she thought how calm and peaceful her retreat was. It was a small study, place into a small archive deep into the palace. It was a small, empty, square room. The decoration was almost nonexistent: a small table and empty shelves. It was cold, dark and silent and those entities were soothing companions after Twilight's struggle. 

Twilight had discovered the place decades ago and made it into a study room for her personal use. Almost nobody knew its existence and those who did didn't really care about it. Hence the relative laxity of the defence. She was alone and hidden for a few minutes at least. She was safe. It felt so strange that she'd had to wage war against the entirety of the palace defence to find peace once again. Twilight was sure there was some kind of deep teaching hidden here, and she was sure it would reveal itself to her sooner or later.

But not today, she thought bitterly as she heard hoofsteps approach. It's way too soon! How did they find me?

But already her training kicked in. Swiftly, methodically, as silently as possible, Twilight readied herself. Seconds passed and stretched into minutes. Then the intruder made its entrance.


⚡⚡✶✶


"Wow... you look awful."

Flawless Mist stood proudly in the entrance of the room, her golden armour capturing a few rays of lights from outside. Her spear rested casually on her wings, shifting naturally from resting place to resting place every time she moved. With minimal efforts, just by being here, she was showing the extent of her martial prowess. Something was wrapped into her tail, but the fugitive had no way to identify it yet. Twilight observed attentively the warmare, looking for openings. There was none.

"No seriously... you could give fashion advice to a World Eater." Twilight cringed at the evocation, but remain silent. Flawless smiled at that and continued. "No scratch that. You've got more of a Word Bearer vibe. You know, with the fuming horn and all..."

"Why are you here Mist?" Twilight finally asked.

"Cutting right to the chase huh? You don't even want to know how I found you?" she teased. "No? That's fine, that's fine." She let out a satisfied sigh. "I wanted exactly three things," she announced, spreading her wings excitedly. The blade smoothly circled around her body, finding its new position in perfect equilibrium atop her wing folds. "The first was to give you this."

She effortlessly threw the thing in her back with the sheer strength of her tail. The weapon spun into the air then stabbed the floor to the hilt.

"Come on," she said with a mocking smile. "Take it."

There was no mistake possible and Twilight didn't need to check it twice. The pegasus could see it in her eyes. She recognised the weapon immediately. The patterns, the inscriptions and engravings, the length of the blade, reforged to fit her grip and fighting style. In her brain, she could probably feel the sensation of the blade enraptured in her magic. It was hers.

"Why do you have my spear?" she asked, her calm façade sightly eroded.

"Can't you guess? I'll give you a clue. It's related to the second and third things I want." Twilight didn't answer. Flawless gave her a few seconds to play along, but the unicorn was a stubborn and frustrating interlocutor. "Oh come on Twilight Sparkle! You're the clever one between us. I. Wanted. To. Fight. You," she articulated, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Why not defying me on the training ground then?"

"Really? We both know you're never serious on the training ground! You just fight enough to keep your ground and never more! You've never been serious once there! Think you can fool me?"

"There's no need to get serious..." she started. She didn't finish her sentence, finally realising her sister's point.

The pegasus smiled brightly, enjoying the smell of victory. "Exactly."

A silence born a rising understanding installed itself in the room. The unicorn was the first to break it. "If I were a real assassin..."

"If you were, you'd have your weapons ready and this whole discussion wouldn't even have happened. And we'd already been fighting which is exactly what I want. Come on Sparkle, I want this duel and you want to get passed me. We can both have what we want or we can both end up frustrated. Make your choice."

"And it doesn't bother you that I'm actually this weakened for our big fight?"

"We take what the Empress provides," she shrugged. "Besides, you did pretty well so far against very unforgiving odds," she added with a wry smile.

Twilight and Flawless faced each other in silence once again. Despite her best effort to look unphased, Twilight couldn't help but frown at her situation. She was, literally, cornered. In more way than one, her only way out was passed Flawless Mist. She was all smile, as if already victorious, which she technically was. 

The unicorn slowly got closer to her weapon, her gaze still fixed on the pegasus. Her horn lit up and her magic slowly engulfed it. She almost affectionately tucked it out of the ground, weighing it, taking some kind of familiar comfort in the sensation. 

The defender put herself into position, ready to fight. The intruder did the same. The weapon hovered at her right, pointed toward her foe. The tension rose slowly in the room. 

And then Twilight resigned."You caught me. You've won. I forfeit," she stated without energy. 

"You... What?" 

"I said I quit," she insisted. "You won. Congratulation Flawless Mist."

"You can't do that..."

"Well, I just did, so your assumption has already been proven unfounded." And just to prove her point, Twilight's magic dissipated as she threw her weapon at the hooves of Flawless, unbound by magic, inert and useless. 

In that instant, Flawless instinct went on, screaming through every fibre of her being that there was a danger. In most occasions, she'd have reacted immediately and jumped back, but right now, the warmare was slowed by conflicted emotions and incredulity. Next thing she knew, she felt two blows on her wings. She didn't immediately register the pain, she just stood there, wondering what in Tartarus had hit her. 

Twilight didn't have any bolter or weapons except-

The unicorn was on before she could consciously register it. But her body reacted. Reflexes honed to perfection took over. Flawless Mist shifted her weight to place herself, her wings and hooves moved on their own accord... and failed. She was stuck. She was unexpectedly and incomprehensibly stuck. Something caught in her wing kept her in place.

What kind of magi-

Twilight collided with her. The shock was not that intense, the mare was emaciated and armourless, nothing she couldn't handle. She braced herself and took it. And then it hit her again. Two sharp pains in the wings.

What did she do to me‽

She took a quick glance while she tried to prepare for the incoming assault. The answer came spear-shaped, stabbing her wings and stuck on the ground. 

When?

But she didn't care. Questions were not her deal. Action was. It was time for payback.

Twilight had to press her advantage as much as possible. Her surprise attack had worked wonders, she had almost nullified her disadvantage but it was not enough, she had to put an end to the fight as soon as possible. Her spear came alive once again. It sliced through the air, a golden blur in the dark. Faster than even the blade, Flawless Mist grunted and moved. The armoured warrior went out of the way and parried the attack, using the very weapons that had immobilised her. Then, using her and Twilight's momentum she sent two quick jabs with the shaft of one of impaling spear. Twilight tried to dodge, but at such a range, with such a speed, all she could do was minimising the impact. The shaft hit her squarely in the muzzle. She felt something break and blood filled her nostril. She riposted with a quick attack, more destined to gain some distance than to hit. To her satisfaction, it worked. Flawless stood back and so did she. 

The two adversaries were looking at each other with renewed consideration. The spear in Flawless Mist's left wing was almost out, dislodged by the two attacks. It hung limply off her wing while the other stood, proudly erect, out of the limb. Despite the obvious pain, the pegasus looked more annoyed than hurt. One dismissive shake of the wing made the spear fall off. Then, with the same nonchalance, she took the right-wing weapon in her mouth and took it off, like she would an oversized splinter, then kicked both weapons out of the room. She didn't even consider the bloop spilling from her wounds. Her body would shut them off soon enough. 

The apothecary is going to be pissed.

"When Golden Stitch lecture me, I'll tell her it's your doing," the pegasus said as if reading her mind.

Twilight smiled. It was a genuine smile. The same as the one on Mist's face, she guessed. The fight was almost over. She had the advantage of reach and manoeuvrability but her opponent was in better shape and protected. Furthermore, Flawless Mist was one of the best fighters the Equustodes counted in their ranks. 

The first series of assaults were probes, tests. Soon they became more resolute. The pegasus was the first to become aggressive. Despite her injuries, her spearmanship was frightening to behold. The blade swirled around her with a fluidity even Twilight's magic could not reproduce; her wings, her neck, her whole body moved as one well-oiled mechanism, shifting seamlessly for optimal efficiency. Her spear was a blurry cloud surrounding her. A flawless mist of golden death. Every strike from the unicorn was countered by two more. It was as if Flawless Mist sensed the attack before they'd even taken form. Maybe she did. In fact, she probably did, realised Twilight. A new sense of awe arose in some part of her brain as the skill of her foe was made manifest. The gap between the warmares closed, slowly but inevitably. A hoof closer. Another hoof closer. Another. Another. One more and Twilight would lose her edge. 

Flawless Mist moved closer.

The next attack came from the right. An obvious feint. Twilight dodged rather than block it and riposted in kind. The armoured warmare deflected it with ease and intercepted the vicious blow that followed it. Her attack was coming, Twilight could predict it. A slicing one from her right. She could not dodge it, but she was ready. On the other side of the wall, a spear came to life, aimed directly at Flawless Mist's hearts. Instinctively the pegasus jumped out of way. She realised too late that she'd been had.

"You rely too much on your intuition!" Twilight shouted somehow. She didn't have enough energy to launch such an attack, she knew this well and she had no intention to. All she needed was an opening. Her spear glowed more brightly, ready to pierce the pegasus while she was still mid-air and thus unable to avoid efficiently her attack. She barely had enough magic to propel it. It was likely her last attempt. 

"You spend too much time thinking!" her opponent answered.

Still defying gravity, the pegasus counter-attacked. She repeated the attack, faster, stronger even than before. Twilight could see it clearly. She wouldn't hit in time. She had not enough strength. Flawless Mist was too strong and fast. She could as well stop it now. She had made a good effort. She had participated in the Blood Game, wasn't it enough already? 

"Trust is never given," She had told her. "Trust is earned through your deeds. Trust can only be built upon the guaranty that everyone will do their duty to the best of their capacity." 

Those words echoed in her mind. They echoed with force, erasing pain, doubt and exhaustion. She had been about to slip. She had almost failed. A failure worse than death. This was not about her. It was about trust. About her bond with the Empress she was to protect. Nothing else mattered.

Her magic strengthened, gathering from the few remnants of energy in her body. She felt her own vitality empty to fill the aura around her weapon. It was not much, but it was enough: the spear went faster. It was not much, but it was faster than Mist's. There was a shrill sound as the spear stabbed through the armour, deep into the flesh than through the amour again. She flew back, caught by the inertia until she met the wall.

Before Mist could do anything to prevent it, she was impaled and immobilised, the tip of the shaft standing out of the warmare chest as a proof of her defeat. It was a serious injury. Serious enough to immobilise her, but clearly not to kill her. No before several hours of agonizing pain anyway.

"Heh," she articulated painfully, almost incredulous, "looks like you won."

Twilight didn't answer. She was too weakened to say anything worthwhile.

"Hey tell me," Flawless Mist grunted. "How long have you been planning this?"

Dead mares did not speak. That was the tacit rule of the Blood Games. But Flawless had always been the kind to bend those. 

"What?" Twilight painfully let out.

"I mean this. This room, the traps."- she moved her hoof around -"This."

"I didn't... study room... never planned on... fighting here."

Mist laughed at this, a long and honest laugh, sometimes interrupted by pained coughing. "Somehow this is so like you... and totally out of character! What about the spears?"

"I took them when I took my staff."

Mist laughed harder, causing blood to spill out of her mouth. "What do you plan to do about this cozy hideout after the games?"

"Seal them."

"Heh. That too is like you and different. Go on Sparkle. Go get caught or something. I've got some loser shit to do. Like learning to think without speaking out loud."

"Good luck... with that." Twilight joked painfully. "I'm borrowing this," she said, enveloping Mist's spear with her magic. "Take care of mine. Exchange later." 

The pegasus didn't answer. She was not in a position to refuse anyway. The unicorn left the room in a haze. The three spears following her limply, scrapping the ground. She went through the archive without really realising it. She was ready to keep going until she met another patrol. She didn't expect Mist's squad to be waiting for her. They had surrounded the place, placed anti-magic devices, auspices and sensors all around. The pegasus was not as carefree as she looked... her victory had never mattered at all. Twilight sighed tiredly. Was it even her victory in the end?

"Twilight Sparkle, you've been caught," one of the Equustode stated.

Twilight said nothing. She let them restrain her. She had, truly, given her all.

"Follow us, please."

That she did. They escorted her through the corridors, deeper and deeper inside the palace. It took her a few minutes to realise they were not going back to the Equustodes' quarters and a few more to formulate hypotheses about where they were headed. Her suspicions became certitudes when the hallways became big enough to let siege weapons pass. Her certitudes became facts when she reached the sacred entrance to the hearth of Canterlot. The Eternity Gates. The pony Imperium glory laid bare in the form of banners in the name of thousands of heroes, chapters, military corps and groups; in the form of hundreds of soldiers, Equustodes chosen for their extraordinary military prowess and dedication, soldiers who'd spend their entire life protecting the Empress sanctum, and the hundreds of servitors, themselves weapons crafted from birth with the finest care, to attend the needs of the soldiers. It was the glory of an Imperium which had faced its worse crisis and stood proud and victorious, its heart preserved from harm by the sacrifice of its citizens and the ingenuity of its savants. 

And behind those doors, the Empress herself. Not merely her projection. The Empress. Mother, ruler and protector of the strongest empire of the galaxy. The group escorted her, on the vigilant watch of Equustodes in tactical dreadnought armours and stopped a few dozen metres to the doors. Time stood still. Then it happened. The light rose from the gates like a rising sun. Without the protections of her helmet, Twilight had no other choice but to close her eyes to bear the sight.

When she opened them, she was there, or at least, her psychic manifestation. A shudder of devotion crossed the room. Twilight and her escort bowed instantly, following the natural answer of their body. The guards in presence, deprived of such a luxury by duty, merely nodded.

The alicorn spoke three words to Twilight, and the power behind it was like a balm on her bruised body.

"You may speak."

Twilight's bow deepened. "My Empress..."- the spears floated slowly in front of her -"here are the weapons of those defeated in battle during these games. I present them to you as an atonement for my past failures. I-I only wish I would have been able to arrive here on my own to present them to you."

At that moment, the aura of light surrounding the Empress had dimmed, getting bearable for mortal eyes. It warm and welcoming... it was a maternal feeling, it was... pride, acceptance, appreciation and more. Still Twilight did not raise her gaze. The following words, she never knew if the Empress spoke them aloud for everypony to hear or if she sent them directly inside her mind. 

"You did well, my dear Equustode. You need not atone. You have my most sincere appreciation. I do hope to see you show the same dedication in every and each of your actions. Remember that day Twilight Sparkle. Remember it well, whenever doubt or contempt tries to take root inside you. Now I think you have a rendezvous with Golden Stitch. I think she will require some explanation from you."
> 02 - Pinkamena Diane Pie - Hide and Seek
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The secret to making a good warmare is to scrap what we do not need without altering the core of the individual. We need the version of them that will be best suited to the Empress' needs. Millenia of practice gave us quite the documentation on the subject."
— Iron Scalpel, Master Apothecary of the Death Spectres

Pinkamena Diane Pie had few memories of her past prior her transformation into a warmare. Years of indoctrination were due to affect somepony’s memory. She did not mind. She could not mind. But even if she could, she probably would not. The ponies she left behind were long gone. Whatever was left of her relatives were foreign to her.

Her past was dead. Probably literally.

Still, she liked to probe at the shattered fragments of her former times. The most curious part of psyche poking at the edge of her remembrance, following the crumbs of half purged thoughts scattered in her mind. She tried not to indulge herself in it, but something was exhilarating about it... like a forbidden treasure hunt... or the last silent steps before an assassination. 

Most of these memories were just flashes, deprived of context. A race in the streets of a crowded city... the exploration of an old house... the capture and release of rats in the hidden corners of buildings... But if she looked deeper, at the fuzzy limits where the conscious and the unconscious met, she stumbled upon bigger remnants. There, the last surviving parts of her pony self resided, broken, distorted, warped out of shape, hollowed out of their substance… but present.

She always considered them with a mix of excitement and anxiety. What if her past self infected her? What if it made her weak? Hesitant? What if it challenged her loyalty or her faith? 

In the end, she always dug deeper, convinced of the righteous nature of her present self and confident in her purpose. If her past was enough to make her waver, then either she was weak or the chapter was wrong. The former meant she still had a weakness to purge out of her. The latter was heresy.

So further she searched, following the breadcrumbs of memories, pushing into her childhood. She dug until she found something big, something important… something fundamental. She always hesitated then. Whatever she would remember, she would not be able to forget. She would have to carry it with her. 

Curiosity killed her doubt with the same efficacy as it did the paleo-cat. 

Pinkamena Diane Pie reminisced.


⚔⚔⚔


That day had been hot. Hot enough for her Pa to turn on the air conditioning. He hated turning it on. He called it a waste of money and a way to tax gullible ponies. So she knew the day had to have been hot.

Her Pa wasn’t here today though. Neither was her Ma. Some ponies had come to her house in their giant ship and they had taken them out to discuss things. She had no idea what or why. Well, maybe she had an idea. She was certain it had something to do with her. And a weapon. She knew because she had listened to the conversation in secret. It had not been a nice talk. Ma had been crying and Pa had been shouting a lot but in the end, it seemed like everypony had agreed to something concerning her. 

She had a very hard time focusing on this, however. There was a giant in front of her. A literal giant. Even sitting, she was taller than Swift Surprise standing up. She was probably bigger than her Pa too and her Pa was the biggest pony she knew. The giant was beautiful too, with her soft white fur and short, straight, bright pink mane. Yet, something about it was different. She was beautiful in a way the filly had not experienced before. She was not beautiful like High Sky and her pretty blue mane or like her Ma and her bright smile. She was beautiful like one of the city's statues: imposing, noble, and a bit frightening. She even wore the same armour as the statues, which in turn made her more imposing. 

"You're very big," Swift Surprise finally let out without thinking. 

"I am very big," the giant said with a small approving nod, "and you are very small. Would you like to be as big as me, Swift Surprise?"

The foal thought about it for a few seconds. “Nah," she finally declined, shaking her head vigorously. "Being big can be good but that’s too big. I would lose at hide-and-seek all the time.”

“You play hide-and-seek too?” the warmare said with a feigned expression of surprise. "I am a champion of hide-and-seek in my Legion!”

“But how can you hide‽ You’re so big!”

The giant looked left and right before leaning toward the foal, whispering in a conspiring tone. “I have secret techniques. Secret hiding places my masters taught me. I could show you but..." she looked pensive for a second as if considering it. "No I should not... it is one of my Legion's secrets…”

Swift Surprise took the bait immediately. “Please tell me!" the foal begged, clinging to the power armour of the spacemare. "I want to know! I promise I won’t repeat them! Tell me! Tell me! Tell me! Please?”

The giant mare put a hoof under her chin. “I do not know… they are secret… I cannot give them to anypony… But I suppose I could teach them to you if you prove better than me.” 

“Really? You would?”

“Only if you are better than me,” the warmare said with an amused smile.

“I am! Let me show you!”

"Really? Well, let us see if you are. What about a game of hide-and-seek? If you win I will tell you all I know."

"You promise you will tell me?"

“Only if you win,” the spacemare reminded, her confident smile never wavering. “Do you want to hide first?”

Swift Surprise nodded emphatically. 

“Very well then.” The giant mare got up in a supernaturally fluid movement. She nonchalantly pointed at the door. “Follow me.”


⚔⚔⚔


“The rules are simple,” the mare had stated. “You can hide anywhere you want. I will count to one hundred before I start searching. If I can’t find you in half an hour, you win and I’ll teach you my secrets. Any question?”

Swift Surprise had shaken her head, trying hard not to smile too broadly. The giant had said 'anywhere she wanted'. That included her ship! She would never suspect the foal to be hiding here. She just had to find someplace discreet inside and she was sure to win.

Infiltrating the ship had been easy. As often, adults didn't expect a foal to sneak in and the giants were no different. Years of practice had turned a knack for lurking into a bonafide skill. And Swift Surprise was the most skilled in the area. 

She quietly explored the bowels of the craft. It was so different from the other vessels she'd been into. First of all, it was way cleaner. Usually, she had to be careful about walking on the filth littering the ground. Here, the only thing under her hooves was the neat reflection of her cyan and white figure on the deck. There was less stuff, but the few things she could see looked either dangerous or mysterious. Often both. The more the reason for her to be careful around them. She didn’t want her Pa to have to pay for broken stuff… or worse, to signal her presence to the giants. Only one thing interested her now: a hideout, a place where she could see and not be seen, a place her seeker wouldn't think about or wouldn't be able to reach, preferably both.

After a minute of reflection, she opted for a small box in a corner of the room. It was unremarkable, not in anypony’s way and, more importantly, it had little holes she could see through. A perfect hiding place.

Time passed, slowly at first, then even slower. Swift Suprise didn’t mind too much. She kept her calm and waited, counting the seconds as precisely as she could. This was a lesson she had learned and remembered: never give in to impatience. She would wait twenty minutes, half an hour or even all afternoon if needs be. Anything rather leave her spot early and get caught. She was in to win.

Swift Surprise heard the giant coming as she counted the twelfth minute. The hoofstep was calm and loud and purposeful. In her mind, there was no doubt. It was her. Her heart beat faster and faster, louder and louder as her seeker got closer. Panic began to whisper bad ideas that looked more reasonable by the second, sowing doubts in her mind, messing the numbers in her head. 

This was the second lesson for the hiding ponies: panic was bad and one should never listen to it. If she could stay calm now and not reveal her presence, she was almost sure to win. She just had to remain calm. She took a deep, silent breath; she closed her eyes and emptied her mind. 

I’m not here. I don’t exist. I’m not here. I don’t exist… She kept repeating this mantra, forgetting her surrounding, forgetting the hoofsteps closing in on her position, forgetting even her presence. It didn’t matter if the giant found her hideout. She wasn’t there. She didn’t exist. There was nothing to find at this place. Not even her.

The hoofsteps stopped right next to the crate. If she had been there – which she was not – she could have seen the silhouette of the giant casting its shadow over the box. Swift Surprise didn’t waver, still repeating her mantra in her head.

How long did it last? She had no idea. But when she emerged from her trance, the giant was gone. She was alone again. 

She had won this round. 

A sigh of relief escaped her lips, carrying with it all the tension she had accumulated so far. She was about to win! Adults never checked the same place twice so now she was safe! She just had to wait a bit more. The filly could feel the victory, and her prize, merely a few minutes away. She could already see the face of her friends as she would use the secret techniques of the giants...

A low, massive growl, coming from all around her interrupted her thoughts. It ran through the hull of the ship, and into her bones. Swift Surprise knew exactly what it meant... 

“Departure from Occulus imminent. Every pony must go to their station. Departure from Occulus imminent…”

Swift Surprise left her hideout and ran.


⚔⚔⚔


“I have found you.” The giant had said the word with a detached, almost cold tone. It had felt like a slap on the foal's face. She had run, faster than she thought she could, only to find the giant sitting in front of the closed exit. Even for her juvenile brain, it was easy to understand that she had been tricked.
 
“You cheated!” she accused between two laboured breaths.

“Really? How so?”

“You! You… you made the ship fly!”

“And?”

“You knew I would try to leave!”

“Doesn’t that mean I knew you were on the ship in the first place? Doesn’t that mean I knew you were hidden in that box in the storage room?”

The words slapped her again, harder this time. Had she been that transparent? “You cheated…” she repeated, with less conviction this time.

The giant ignored her. “These will be your first lessons. First, if conditions are not in your favour, make them be. Second, be where your opponent does not want you to be. Third, make your opponent be where you want them to be. Do you understand what I am saying?” 

Swift Surprise didn’t answer. Confusion jumbled the words in her head and paralysed her mouth. She was lost and on the verge of tears… Something was happening and it looked important but she couldn’t understand what…

“Did you understand what I said,” the giant repeated. “Quick, foal. We do not have all day.”

The impatience in the giant’s tone snapped her out of it, putting the words back in the right order. Whatever was happening, it was important and the faster she obeyed, the sooner she’d be back to her parents. “I… I do,” she said with a nod.

“Repeat what I said.”

“Change the condition if they’re not in your favour, be where the seeker doesn’t want you to be, make the seeker be where you want.”

“Close enough,” the giant evaluated with the hint of a smile. 

“Miss I… I want… I want to go home... please?”

The giant tilted her head on the side, in a posture of incomprehension even Swift Surprise knew was fake. “That’s where we’re going. To your new home.”

“Bu-bu-but… what about my ma and my pa? An-and my friends?”

“You probably won’t see them again. You should accept it as quickly as possible.”

“Why‽”

“Because the Imperium needs you, young one. You will become the mare it needs to survive. That is heavy duty and it demands sacrifices.”

“Bu-but why... me?”

“Because you’ve been chosen, even before your birth. Because you’re gifted, smart and resourceful. Because you have passed my tests with flying colours.“

The compliment didn’t make her fate any more tolerable. “But what if I don’t want that?”

“You do not have a choice.”

Tears trickled down her face, crashing hopelessly on the cold metallic floor. This was not fair. She just wanted to stay the Champion of hide-and-seek. So what if the Imperium needed her? Swift Surprise just wanted to go home. Her real home, with her Ma and her Pa! There were other fillies! Better fillies! They didn’t have to take her! They didn’t need her. Her ma needed her to bake treats for her Pa when he came home after work! And who would wake her Pa for his morning shifts! This was so unfair! 

Each tear carried with it her sadness and hopelessness, letting place for a whole new set of emotions. Anger. Resolve. Righteous indignation. She wiped away the tears and look at the giant in the eyes, unafraid and proud. “I challenge you at hide-and-seek”

For a second the giant seemed to wonder if she’d heard correctly. For a fraction of that, genuine surprise took over her feature. The moment passed and surprise faded, replaced by genuine appreciation.

“I admire your spirit, foal!” The giant gracefully got up. For the first time, Swift Surprise truly realised how big she was. “I, Pinkemena Diane Pie of the Death Spectre, accept your challenge. You have two hours before we reach our destination. If you can find me before that, you win.”

Swift Surprise slowly nodded. For the first time, she wondered if she could even win. The giant had damaged her armour of confidence and doubts crept into her mind through the cracks. Could she even win? Could she defeat the Giant and her secrets? 

It didn’t matter if she could. She would, she decided. No matter what happened, she would win. And she’d even be back before dinner. She. Would. Win.

She tied her her white, creamy hair in a knot, a sign every other fillies in her neighborhood knew meant she was getting serious. Her Ma hated when she did that, but this time it was for a good cause. It was worth being yelled at… if it meant she would see her again.

“Are you ready, little one?”

The filly took the bravest-looking pose she could. “I, Swift Surprise, Champion of hide-and-seek Occulus, am ready.”


⚔⚔⚔


Years passed in a blur of forgettable and forgotten memories. Swift Surprise was different now. More than a mare, less than a warmare. Training, war and indoctrination had forged her in ways that would break most ponies. And yet it was still not enough. The Death Spectres expected more and more from her and she didn’t shy away from the challenge. She welcomed it, for, despite her growth, she still had not caught up with her. No matter how strong, how fast, how tough, how discreet she was… she still couldn’t catch up with “the giant”. All her efforts had so far amounted to a crushing series of defeats. 

But this was the day.

After months of painstakingly rising through the ranks of the initiates, she had finally gotten a chance to face her mentor. All she needed was to win one last bout against the other aspirants and she would be rewarded with a fight against Pinkamena. Unfortunately, her opponent was not of the cooperative kind.

Bright Night fully deserved her first place among the novices. She was fast, precise and deadly with a knife and, unfortunately for Swift Surprise, she was determined to keep her rank. The challenger had hoped she could have eliminated her from afar before she could reach her as she had every other one of her opponents. She had severely miscalculated Bright Night's craftiness. Now she was stuck in close combat range with her sniper rifle as her sole weapon. Probably the worst scenario she could imagine at the moment.

Swift Surprise ducked, barely dodging a vicious blow aimed at her head. Curled white hair fell on the ground, severed from her scalp by the knife. She shuddered, thinking about the damage it would have done if she had not dodged. Bright Night was taking this fight extremely seriously.

"That was close," she said, jumping back to get some breathing room. "Lucky hair cut doesn't count as drawing blood... Could you imagine?"

Bright Night didn't answer, choosing instead to charge her opponent. She seemed determined to ignore the babble of her challenger, which didn't seem to phase the talkative pony one bit.

"Well, it wouldn't be very dangerous for you..." Swift Surprise added, bocking two quick attacks with the handle of her gun. "You're almost bald. But for me? Gosh, that would be a mess."

"Do you ever stop talking?" Bright Night grumbled, finally breaking her silence.

"Nope!"

And so went the fight. Bright Night was pushing her advantage while Swift Surprise was slowly and cheerfully retreating toward the edge of the arena. It was only a matter of time before the challenger found herself deprived of any escape room.

"Any last word?" Bright Night said, carefully closing in for the kill.

"Yes!" she said with a smile, producing a detonator from her hair. "Boom."

Bright Night was good. One of the best. She had honed her reflex and reactivity to highs mere ponies could only hope to reach. And in this case, it backfired completely. Years of training took hold of her in an instant, before she could even think about it consciously she had already jumped out of the blast area, hoping to reduce the incoming explosion.
 
It never came. 

She realised she had been tricked a fraction of a second too late. She felt the biting impacts of the shots on her armour before she was even on the ground. She was on her hooves instantly, ready to fight more, unfortunately, she knew the fight was already over.

"Winner: Swift Surprise," the vox erupted.

"Celdammit!" Bright Night shouted, throwing her helmet on the ground. "I was so close!"

"You were!" Swift Surprised confirmed, stopping the helmet dexterously. "I was sure I had lost for a second." 

"You won't get me twice with the same trick. I'll get you next time." 

"I sure hope not!" Swift said, gently throwing the helmet back to its owner.

Bright Night caught it with a smile. It was hard to stay mad at the cheerful mare. “So you’re defying her again.”

“Yep!”

Bright Night waved her head incredulously. “I can’t understand for the life of me why you want to fight her that much. How many defeats has it been already? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Twenty-two so far!” Swift announced cheerfully without a trace of shame nor discouragement.

“Wait really?”

“Yepper!” she said, nodding vigorously. “She’s really sneaky. Even the trick I used on you didn’t work… she just knocked me out before I could even say ‘boom’.”

Bright Night studied the face of her sister, looking for a punchline. There was none. “Why do you inflict this on yourself, Swift?”

Swift’s cheerfulness dissipated like a shadow in bright light. “I… I… I don’t know,” she admitted. “I feel like I promised myself I would beat her someday. I’m not sure why though.”

 Bright Night simply nodded. Whatever happened between the two of them was none of her business after all. "So you're ready to face her?"

"Yep! I'll get her this time!"

"Really?" said a third voice. "I would love to see you try."

"Lady Pinkamena!" they said, turning toward her and bowing respectfully. "We didn't see you coming."

"I know," she simply said. This was their usual greeting. She would sneak on them and they would acknowledge their failure to detect her. It almost felt like a game to them now. One the noviciates were keen on winning one day. "This was a good fight. You two show lots of promise, noviciates."

"Thank you for your kind words, Lady Pinkamena," Bright Night answered, bowing once again.

Pinkamena smiled then turned toward the new champion. "So, Swift. You have the right to ask me for a duel. Are you sure you're ready for this?"

The neophyte giggled cheerfully. "I was born ready!" she boasted.

What happened next didn't even register to Swift's brain. One instant she was talking then the next the world was upside down, the ground crashing down towards her at incredible speeds. She fell hard, air leaving her lungs on impact leaving her dizzy and defenceless for a second. The fight was over before it had even started.

“You were overconfident.” Despite her spinning head, the voice of Pinkamena reached her loud and clear. “Always expect a surprise attack. Never relax your guard in front of the enemy. You must also work on your close combat skills. This attack should not have worked on you.”

“You cheated!” she coughed, painfully standing up.

The Spacemare’s answer was a victorious smile.

“I’ll get you one day, you know?”

“At this rate, maybe in a century or two,” she boasted, leaving the place. Swift Strike followed, already thinking of her next duel.


⚔⚔⚔


Untold, insignificant years passed, filled with wars and recovery and little to no consequences. Until the siege of Bodak-Sigma-Two.

For the first time since Isstvan, a conflict had found them utterly unprepared, forcing them to fight in ways that weren’t theirs. The unending, thundering staccato of heavy bolters had replaced the single, decisive impacts of sniper rifles. Spectres ran openly in the battlefield in clear view of their opponents, chainswords ready, rather than roaming its shadow. It was an open and bloody war, one that forbade the subtleties of their customs. But even in these conditions, the Death Spectres were spacemares. They were the pinnacle of ponykind excellence. Even deprived of their best weapon, they were the deadliest warriors in the galaxy and they would remind it to their foes.

For most of the recruits, however, it was an ungodly baptism of fire. In those extreme conditions, they had to prove once and for all that they were worthy of the attention of the chapter. Armed with weapons too big and powerful for even their pre-horstarte modified body, they fought alongside their future sisters with both courage and apprehension. 

Swift Surprise was an exception to that. Something in her had been awakened by the conflict. An urge to dive deep into the enemy lines, a need to strike in the middle of their ranks, where they wouldn't expect her. Just because they were stuck into a conventional war didn't mean she wouldn't use the tactics and training of her mentors. And if she died, she would die a Spectre, striking fear in the heart of the enemies of ponykind.

Which should happen as soon as her future target got out of hiding and decided to take the road below her. A matter of hours if not minutes if her calculations were correct.

"You are far away from your assigned position," a voice whispered behind her.

It took all of her willpower not to yell in surprise. She instantly turned, her dagger already striking. An oversized hoof stopped it effortlessly, simply by being in its way before it could get any momentum. 

"At ease, neophyte," Pinkamena said, putting a silencing hoof on her muzzle. "We do not want them to find us."

Swift Surprise nodded slowly and the spacemare removed her hoof. "I'm sorry, Lady Pinkamena, but I just felt I could be more useful here than in the rear guard."

"And why do you believe this?"

Swift Surprise hesitated for a moment. While it was true that the Spectres valued initiative, she was not a spacemare yet and disobeying a direct order was probably not a good thing. However, she refused to lie to another Spectre. Especially her. She wouldn't lie to Pinkamena. "My lady, if the enemy reaches that point, then the battle would have been already lost. I always excelled at reconnaissance and sabotage. This is what I do best. I think... No, I know that I can help more here than stuck in tranches."

"And what is your plan exactly? Killing them one by one?"

"That would be slow and boring... No, I found one of their supply roads. They use it to sustain their push in the centre." To add emphasis to her point, she drew a rough map of the area, showing the push in the frontline. "If we cut it, their forces will have to retreat for a time, 'less they get flanked by Lady Thunder Strike and Lady Iron Bolt." She sent a glance at Pinkamena, looking for approval. The Spacemare nodded curtly.

"Go on."

"A mile away from here, I noticed the perfect place for an ambush. They do not expect any attack so they've been lazy with their defences. I planned on severing their supply line there and retreat before they come back. It will be easy peasy."

"And what will you do after that?" 

"Find another point to poke them and keep up of course!"

"I do not mean that. What will you do to make sure this road remains closed?"

"I– I don't..."

"You did not think about that."

"No, my Lady," Swift admitted, lowering her head in shame.

"Do not forget this. It is not enough to harass the enemy and disarm them. You also need to make sure they do not take back their weapon."

"Yes, Lady Pinkamena."

"Now, follow me and do exactly as I say."

The plan was simple. Pinkamena was to stop the supply convoys and Swift Surprise was to assist and provide cover. The aspirant wanted to point out how suicidal that plan was, but since it was the exact same plan as hers, she kept it for herself. If anything, it was way superior now due to the presence of a warmare.

The enemy never saw her coming. They simply progressed on their assigned path without care and then started dying. Oubjaleba was a shadow hiding in plain sight, moving toward the troops without a sound, seemingly disappearing and reappearing without leaving a trace. Many soldiers died before they even noticed the dead among them. Even Swift Surprise had trouble following her movement. It was as if the spacemare could simply vanish in thin air, erase her presence until it was nothing more than the trace of a memory. It was mesmerizing enough that it would almost distract her from her task. Almost. 

Her first shot claimed the life of a soldier about to ring the alarm. The detonation filled the air, echoing around them with force. This immediately revealed their presence to the convoy's escort, but instead of giving them an advantage, it simply created chaos and confusion. They were realising that something was killing them and they had no idea where it came. She reloaded quickly and resumed her aiming. Another shot claimed the life of another enemy about to raise their weapon against her mentor. Reload. Three more soldiers died, engulfed by an unequine shadow. Another shot silenced an officer. Reload. Another soldier died. Reload...

It took them a few minutes to eliminate the threat. To Swift Surprise, it had been both an eternity and the split of a second. They had done it... And she had helped Pinkamena. Pride was slowly rising as her adrenaline was leaving her system. Even in two hundred years, she would remember this.

"That was awesome!" she said in the vox, trying to contain her enthusiasm.

"This was pretty impressive, neophyte. You did we–"

Time stopped, trapped between two instants. Swift Surprise saw the explosion as it happened, like a still pictograph made by a surprisingly grim and talented artist. There was some terrible beauty in it, something poetic and majestic yet tragic about the way the flames and debris framed the silhouette of her mentor. Pinkamena blinked once in surprise. Then time took hold again. Swift felt the deflagration push her again with the finality of destiny and everything turned black.

She woke up surrounded by flaming debris. Her body hurt in ways she didn't think possible. She had several broken bones and probably suffered some internal bleeding, but nothing she wouldn't survive. She had another concern than her wellbeing anyway.

“Pinkamena!” she screamed, both out loud and in her vox. “Pinkamena, answer me!”

“Shhh. I am dying, not deaf.” 

The weakness in Pinkamena’s voice made Swift Surprise shudder. She realised how right her mentor was. She was dying. She had probably less than a couple of minutes in her. She ran faster, trying to find the signal in the chaotic mess of the battle. “Where are you?”

“Under some rubbles, obviously,” the spacemare painfully coughed.

“Where are you?” 

“It does not matter, neophyte. I should not be your concern anymore. The only spacemare who should look for me is the apotheca–” the rest of the sentence was drowned in her blood that the spacemare audibly expelled out of her mouth. If it was not obvious before, it was clear now. There was no saving her. "Look like I will stay undefeated...”

“I won't let die! I will find you and carry you back so I can win properly!”

Pinkamena laughed. It was a pitiful sound, a repeated whizzing growing calmer and calmer, softer and softer. “A commendable wish. But even if you found me you would never get to me in time. I win this round, Swift.”

She wanted to say she was wrong. She wanted to prove her wrong, even one time. But she was beaten. Again. She had lost. Again. “You cheated…”

“This is your last lesson, Swift…” she breathed painfully, “cheat...”


⚔⚔⚔


The spacemare woke up on an operation table in an empty, unlit room with a strong feeling of dissociation. Her mind was running faster than ever before, yet her memories were surprisingly scarce. She could barely remember what she was doing here or how she even got here. Even her identity was more hollow than she remembered, as if something had been pulled out to make space for something else, something more. Her body too felt alien to her. It screamed in pain from miles away from her consciousness, hundreds of surgical cuts healing at the same time, taken care of by her superequine metabolism. She put a hoof on her neck, feeling her new organ lodged deep under the skin and muscles. Her new progenoid gland. She was not a mere pony anymore, not even a heavily augmented one. She had transcended that. She was a horstarte. She was a full-fledged Spectre of Death.

She looked around her, getting a feel of her new set of senses and sensation. Her gaze pierced the gloom with ease. On her left, she could see the light pouring from the frame of the only exit. She effortlessly got out of the surgery table and stood on the ground. She was bigger now. A strange sense of vertigo flooded her then receded as she started to walk. It would take her some time to get fully used to it, but she would adapt.

She walked slowly, each step shedding more of her clumsiness revealing more confidence and strength. By the time she had reached the door, she felt like a whole new mare. A Spacemare. Without hesitation, she opened the door.

Light flooded her, overcoming her sense for the briefest of times. Nine spacemares were waiting. Waiting for her. They were looking at her with a form of kindness and sisterhood she didn't know existed before. These ponies were her new family, she realised. Her squad.

“Welcome sister,” they all said in unison. “You are reborn, reborn as a Spectre of Death. Tell us, sister, what is your name?”

For a second, she hesitated. Deep in a corner of her mind, a name struggled to surface, buried deep under her conditioning and half-awakened brain. A part of her wanted to reach for it, grab it and claim it… but she stopped as she saw her fur in the light for the first time. It was pink. As was her long curly mane. There was something terribly wrong yet soothingly right about this. It was as if this wasn’t hers, as if she had taken it from somepony else… somepony more deserving. The feeling passed, replaced by righteousness. It didn’t matter. No matter who or what this fur meant, it was hers now. She was pink. It was her. 

A name finally emerged, a fitting name, a name worthy of her new fur and status. She claimed it, out and loud, with pride and respect to her new sisters.

“I am Pinkamena Diane Pie.”
> 03 - Fluttershy - Immortals
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“To be an apothecary is to fight two wars. The first is against the enemies of the Chapter. The second is against death itself. It requires the skills and training to be good at both and the wisdom to know which fight is worth fighting and which one is already lost. It is a hard equilibrium to reach and one could argue that no other warmare, save for the head of the Chapter has to bear such a heavy burden.”
— Sister Corbula, Sanguinary High Priestess of the Blood Alicorns Chapter


🌢🌢🌢


Tatzl was a Tartarus pit. 

A wild and violent blue sun bathed the whole system in deadly radiation barely stopped by the planet’s magnetic field, making navigation hazardous and rendering auspices and arrays unreliable. To make matters worse, Tatzl annually passed through a thick asteroid belt – the scattered remains of another planet, whose course had sent too close to the sun – and the irregular tilt of its orbit, combined with the composition of its crust caused planet-wide earthquakes and intense volcanic activity all year long.

For these reasons and many, many more, the planet had been overlooked by explorers and rogue traders. They expected a deserted world barely worth the trouble... when they noticed it at all. 

A very costly oversight.

Tatzl was a gold mine like no other in the sector. The planet was rich, both in unrefined prometheum and rare minerals. As an added bonus, it was conveniently close to other strategic assets, which would make it an invaluable tool in the sector’s pacification efforts while being an easily defensible spot.

Calculations had been made, costs and risks calculated, potential gains assessed and the results had been unanimous. Tatzl had to be added to the Imperium. The task would be arduous at best, but even the most conservative prognostics were very favourable. And so, the monolithic machinery of the Pony Imperium came alive to assimilate the planet.

Tatzl, however, was not a docile world. It was as if every one of its facets had been shaped to hinder any attempt of colonisation. Claiming the surface had been the priority in the exploitation efforts. The resources the first wave of miners would harvest would help to provide the necessary materials to install the planetary and orbital defences. This in itself had not been considered a noticeable problem... until it was discovered that, despite all odds, Tatzl was inhabited by hostile and dangerous feral xenos. To add insult to injuries, the specific composition of the atmosphere made use of heavy weaponry on the ground impossible while and the solar magnetic disturbances made any attempt of orbital action excessively costly at best. There would be no short-cuts, no easy way.

The initial deployments showed good results. The first waves of soldiers, aided by countless criminals trying to earn their redemption, were sent on the surface and hacked through the xenos’ forces with anecdotal resistance. Soon plans of settlements were made, strategic bases were hastily built, mining operations started... The world was slowly being ingested into the pony Empire. 

Then the Tatzlwurms attacked. 

The first assault took everypony by surprise. There were no warnings, no calls for help, nothing. One second, there were hundreds of ponies, armed to the teeth... then there was nought but holes in the ground and ravaged lands. Entire battalions simply disappeared. The first reports came in twenty-one minutes after the first attacks. Disorganised calls for help, incoherent screams and sudden bursts of statics suddenly flooded the communications. The first reliable descriptions of the enemy arrived almost half an hour later.

The Tatzlwurms were the stuff of nightmares. Flower-like maws, filled with teeth and tentacles put atop huge serpentine bodies; vicious predators, sliding through the earth as easily as fishes in the water. They came from the depths of the planet, attracted by tremors of the drills, the clamours of combat and the blood of the lesser Tatzlite fauna. In a couple of days, they completely wiped out the forces on the ground with an unsettling cunning and a frightening appetite for equine flesh. The losses were astronomical... but the Imperium of Equus was relentless. More troops were called, penitential planets were emptied, more material was requisitioned... and when this proved insufficient to conquer the world, the most elite armies of ponykind were called to action.

The Blood Alicorns and their successors answered this call. 

The Battle Barges Sanguinem Nasus, Cadence Irae and Vitreum Filiae reached the planet on the 108th day of colonisation. On the 109th day, the tide of the battle had dramatically changed. To the spacemares, the creatures were nothing more than oversized earthworms. No matter what was thrown at them, they adapted and overcame. Soon enough, the Tatzl war went from a defensive battle to a systematic campaign of eradication, first on the ground, then underground, directly in the creatures’ lairs. In two months, the Tatzlwurms had gone from apex predators to endangered species, only surviving in the deepest burrows of the planet.

The last days of the xenocide took place several kilometres under the ground. Mere ponies were now absent of the fights – at such depths, the pressure and temperature were too much for them to handle, leaving only the spacemares to finish the jobs. The Alicorn’s 4th Company was at the heart of the enemy’s lair. Their primary objective was to force the enemy out and then let the other squads eliminate the threat. This plan, however, had changed when a particularly violent tremor had separated them from the rest of their forces and scattered the squad inside the artificial tunnels. 

The sanguinary priestess checked her signal for the fifth time. This planet tested the limits of the ingenuity of the Imperium’s craft. Five signals showed on her retinal display. Counting herself and Igneous Shot at the entrance of the tunnel, only half the squad had escaped the tectonic trap for sure... meaning that the other half was either trapped deeper in the caves or in need of her services.

She tried her vox again, hoping the signal would, at last, go through. “Sisters, do you hear me?”

There was no answer. 

“We need to move, Priestess,” Igneous Shot said deferentially. “We have a mission to carry and the operation relies on us.” 

She didn’t answer immediately, waiting a few more seconds in hope for an answer. She also used that time to assess Igneous’s status. She was calm and in excellent health. Her vital signs were all optimal, no sign of injuries whatsoever. Everything was fine. Good.

“You’re right, ” she finally answered. Her voice was soft and soothing, a fact that often confused and reassured mortal ponies. They always expected something else from spacemares. Hers was the voice of a friend, of a confident, the whisper of somepony who would entrust you with a secret. It was a discrete and soft voice that even her communicator could not alter. It was a voice that instantly calmed the one who heard it – a phenomenon she could see happen first-hoof as the heartbeat rate of Igneous instantly lowered by 2%. “Forgive me, I am merely trying to carry my own mission.”

“Of course, Priestess,” Igneous said with a short bow.

I don’t mind you calling you by my name, you know? That’s what she wanted to say, but instead, the words that came out were “What is your plan?”

Igneous pointed at one of the collapsed tunnels. “This one should get us closer to their nest. We should be able to dig them out and carry on. The rest of the squad will likely follow and we will regroup further in.”

Only if the rest of the tunnels are open, Sister… Only if there’s still a squad to regroup with us... Once again, she kept the thoughts for herself. She hummed pensively as if thinking of the best way to proceed. This was enough to fool Igneous.

“Using bolters would be faster but a waste of ammunitions, and we don’t know how many of these things are still there,” Igneous explained. “I guess we should simply dig our way in. Unless you have another solution in mind?

To wait and regroup, Igneous... The priestess thought so loud she almost said it. She shook her head. “You are right. Let us carry out our mission.”

They dug in silence. The rocks were sharp and brittle, broken in small hoof-sized shards that tried futilely to pierce their armour. It was a monotonous task which did not alleviate the priestess’s frustration or worry. They were halfway through when new signals came in. Ire Sword first. Tempest Shot second. Righteous Hammer and Magna were third and fourth. Their life signs were good and judging from their positions, they had been spared by the scree. Nine warmares out of ten. These were excellent odds given the situation. She didn’t care.

There was only one question in her mind, and it soon echoed in eight voxes at the same time. “Where is Fanged Spear?” 


🌢


Fanged Spear was enjoying one particularly gripping battle high. As soon as she had set hoof on the planet she had felt it. The craving to hunt and kill. It had grown stronger and stronger as she indulged it, a never-ending, never-quenched thirst that drove her to higher and higher battle prowesses. 

She licked the blood trickling from her armour. Information and sensations filled her mind instantly as her body distilled some of the creatures’ essences in her brain. It had been a hunter, silent and deadly, preying on the surface-dwellers with lethal efficacity. It had been a prey, fleeing for days, trying to avoid the righteous fury of the spacemares. It was dead now, bleeding its now useless ichor on the ground. Fanged Spear smiled without realising it.

The voice came out of her vox like a silhouette out of the fog. She recognised it instantly yet the realisation took a long time to hit her. It was the sanguinary priestess. Fluttershy. She was calling her. “Fanged Spear? Sister, where are you?”. Her signal was close. It had to be for her to be able to contact her. “Sister, where are you? Answer me!”

Fanged Spear didn’t answer immediately. Her instinct screamed at her to ignore the voice and keep hunting. Keep looking for more blood, but she ignored it for a few seconds. The priestess was here and it meant something. “Priestess,” she said. 

“Fanged Spear, are you alright?”

The voice was filled with concern. Fanged Spear didn’t like the sound of it. She wanted to hunt. The concern would make her stop she knew it. She growled and hummed the air, slowly, deeply. The noise echoed in the vox, a silent threat of violence to come. “I’ve found a big one! I’m claiming it!” 

There was a hint of madness in her voice. The sanguinary priestess knew the signs too well. There was more than her sister’s life in the balance here. There was her very soul too. “Sister, we’re pulling back.”

“No way! It’s the biggest worm! It’s mine!” 

As if to prove her claim, she rushed forward, deeper into the nest. She delved deep into dark tunnels. She couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of her, even her armour faded into the blackness. It was as if the obscurity was a living entity slowly digesting her. She still didn’t care. There were no sound but the beating of her heart and the distant tremors of her prey. 

Something else tried to reach her, but the noise crashed against the static her head was drowning in. The air smelled foul, soiled by the pungent smell of wurm’s blood, though even that was slowly getting swallowed by the darkness. 

It took long and painful seconds for the spacemare to understand. The creature was already healing. Fanged Spear accelerated. She would catch it and kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!

So she can taste blood again.

Something stopped her. A solid grip on her shoulder, forcing her to turn back and cease her chase. A voice pierced the static. “Sister!”

Fanged Spear reacted fast, faster than she knew she could. Her chainsword made a deadly arc toward the interrupting nuisance. She would kill them and take their blood and…

Her hoof stopped, hitting a wall made of ceramite and gene-crafted flesh and bones. Another of such wall hit her square in the muzzle. “Sister. Where you’re going there’s no going back,” the priestess said firmly. “I cannot let you. We need you.” Fanged Spear tried to fight the words, both in mind and physically. She tried to reach for the nuisance again, but a hoof pinned her arm leg in place. “Wake up, Fanged Spear! Don’t let it overcome you!” The priestess hit her again, harder this time. “Wake up!”

The spacemare gurgled something unintelligible… but this time, she didn’t attack.

“Wake up, Fanged Spear! The Thirst is getting ahold of you! Fight it before it’s too late!”

Inside her mind, Fanged Spear was fighting for her soul, claiming back the control the flaw in her gene had stolen. All the mental training she’d gone through and all of it she hadn’t deemed necessary came back to her mind, like so  many weapons aimed at the beast hidden in her brain. She fought, relentlessly, with the strength and determination of a warmare with nothing to lose. It was hard. It was temporary, she had no illusion about it. But it was working. 

Fluttershy looked the inner fight from outside via Spear’s brain patterns, blood composition, heart rate and a flurry of widely varying bio-data. It was as if the violence in her mind was manifesting inside her body, threatening to destroy her if it didn’t let have the reigns. “You can do it, Sister.” 

Fluttershy’s voice was the tiebreaker. Slowly at first, everything was turning back to normal. In her mind, the cursed spacemare could feel her urges, her savagery receded, going back to the edge of her mind, more manifest than ever before, yet subdued. “I… can do it… I am in control.”

The priestess hoof pinning hers moved away and instead came on her shoulder. And offer of support and understanding. “Are you alright?”

“If shame doesn’t kill me, Priestess, I will be fine.”

“You vanquished the Red Thirst today, sister,” Fluttershy countered softly. “There is no place to shame here. Only celebration.”

“Thanks to you, Priestess… I owe you my life and much more.” The warmare took a deep, calming breath. “I have a debt toward you I cannot repay.”

“Think nothing of it,” she countered with a smile. Then a thought crossed her mind. A strange but pleasant thought. “Although, if you want to repay me, please, call me by my name.”

Fanged Spear didn’t say anything and she instantly regretted her request. A moment of awkward silence passed between them until Fanged Spear spoke. “What now? Do we keep on deeper?”

“There will be a time to charge head-on and face death, but today is not that day, sister. Today, we live and carry on the fight,” she said, emptying a magazine into the maw of a beast. “Let’s retreat and regroup. If that’s okay with you?”

Fanged Spear simply nodded. There will be other times to fight. This felt like another tool to keep her feral side in check. She gladly took it. 

“Ready, Fanged Spear?”

“I’m ready, Priestess Fluttershy,” she answered, trying to hide her unease at being so familiar with the priestess. They started walking back to their sisters, to sanity, as temporary as it might be. She had been on the brink of losing herself that day. She had been lucky. “Thank you, Fluttershy…”

“You’re welcome,” she simply answered with a smile.


🌢🌢🌢


Decimatio had been a paradise once. When the first settlers had landed upon the planet, they had marvelled at its beauty, at the abundance of edible food and resources it provided. It had taken less than a century to turn it land into a planet-wide megacity. Two centuries had made it a toxic waste, filled to the brim with ponies. Hundreds of billions of them, living deep into the planet’s crust for the poorest individuals, or high in the planet’s atmosphere for the rich, corrupted elite in charge.

This had made Decimatio a fertile ground for revolts and insurrections and Chaos cults had carefully cultivated it. Discontent had grown to unmanageable proportions in a matter of weeks and soon, the situation had devolved into a full-on civil war that the local governor – a tired old stallion more interested in his comfort than that of his ponies – had been unable to stop. Out of desperation, he had sent a request for reinforcement. 

The Blood Alicorn had answered the call.

This was when things had gone from bad to mad. Driven to a corner by the overwhelming forces of the spacemares, the rebels had called upon the powers of the Warp to help them. Demons and strange energies had swooped into the planet causing unfathomable destruction, making the purge into the deadliest kind of fights. The spacemares had immediately raised to the challenge, dealing with the demonic threat with calm and method.

Fluttershy had more work than any other warmare on the battlefield. With the forces stretched out thin, she had to constantly assess everypony’s position and status in addition to carry on her own fight. Her vox and retinal display were filled with the presence of her sisters. Commands, positions, biometrics, call for reinforcements, the whole scene played out in front of and around her dozens of times in different ways in a maddening chorus that she had to analyse and act upon. And that was when everything was fine. As it turned out, on a battlefield, things rarely were. 

This was such a moment. She had seen something was wrong before the call for help had come. Ire Sword and Magna’s vitals had suddenly shifted, worsening quite rapidly while, in the distance, a building was collapsing. 

“I need support,” Ire Sword let out laconically. “I’m pinned on my position. Literally.”

“Are you okay, Ire Sword?”

“I’m under a tack, Priestess,” she joked. “A column-wide tack. T’is just a flesh wound. I’d be more worried about Magna. She’s sulking since the building fell on her."

“She’ll be fine,” Fluttershy informed. “She’s in stasis and stable.” The sound of bolter shots echoed in the vox, followed by painful grunts. “I’m more worried about you. What’s your situation?”

“I’m surrounded,” she admitted. “Just little fleas, but there’s a lot of them… and in my position I can’t really scratch them all.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Take your time, Priestess,” she groaned as more gunshots echoed “I’ve got things under control.” 

Fluttershy switched her vox to another spacemare. She couldn’t help but smile as the connexion went through. Fanged Spear was reciting the litany of purpose in her breath. A good way of staying in control, she approved. She’s grown so much in the last decade. “Fanged Spear, I’m going to support Ire Sword and Magna, will you be okay?”

“I will be okay, Fluttershy, I’ll go a regroup with the rest of the squad. Go save them.”

“Thank you. Fight well.”

“You too, sister.”


🌢


Ire Sword was a cheerful spacemare. Humour in the face of danger was yet another weapon to her. She had lost count of how many time had she forced a mistake out of the enemy with a witty comment or an unforeseen joke. This time however, she had little to no hope about the power of words. Demons, and especially lower daemons’ sense of humour was the worst. 

There were half a dozen of them, shifting messes of flesh, bones, limbs and raw energies, hopping and crawling and walking and limping and sliding and many other things toward her general direction. They progressed slowly, conscientiously, with care and attention. They knew she could be dangerous, but they knew she was weak right now and something in their alien mind told them to be careful.

They watched with a sickening look of glee and curiosity, waiting for a reason to lurch at her. Ire Sword had no doubt they would find one soon and she was in no hurry. It gave her more time to think and elaborate a plan.

All of her options were bad. Long-range would have been the preferred solution here. However there were only two bolts left in her bolter, and even with her accuracy, she wouldn’t be able to get them all with that. Close combat was also, and almost literally so, off-limits. With three-quarters of her body under the column, she couldn’t move much and, while her right hoof was fierce, it still wouldn’t be enough to fend them all when they decide to attack.

But these were not enough to crush her spirit. As long as she had some life in her body, she would fight. A plan was already forming in her mind. All her options were bad, so she had no qualm picking a terrible one. There’s no way I can get out of this in one piece, she reasoned. But if I can get rid of them all… I will have bragging rights for decades. In any case, the time for planning is long gone.

The plan was simple, crude even. But is was all she had. She needed to force them into a compact mob and then shoot in the middle of them. An almost impossible task… without a good bait.

“So what are you abominations waiting for?” she goaded them. “An invitation? Well now you have it. Come on! I’ll take you all at once!” 

The first part of the plan was to provoke them. It was also the only fun part about it. Everything else included pain, whether it worked or not. All she needed was for them to attack all at once.

So, of course, they didn’t.

At her signal, the creatures became frenetic. They flocked around one of their own and, in a totally unexpected feat of cunning and disregard for solidarity, threw it at the mare. Far from complaining, the creature played along with it, its shape-shifting to accommodate its new status as a projectile. Spikes and barbs and claws and teeth grew in and out, all pointed at her. 

Reflex took hold of her body. The bolter moved up in an instant. Aiming, shooting, killing… they took even less than that. Before she had realised, the demon was dead, its body flying in the opposite direction as its essence was reclaimed by the Warp.. round crashed on the creature before it could even make half the distance, but already another creature was chucked at her. Ire Sword hesitated for a second… then shot.... then cursed the Warp and its denizens as another demon became airborne. 

The ball of pain grew bigger in her field of vision. With the amount of stimulant in her blood she could almost see it in slow motion. She braced for impact ready to defend her life. So much for my bragging rights.

The impact never came. There was a shrill sound and a flash of blue light… And the creature was dead, hacked in two pieces evaporating back to the Immaterium. 

“You will not touch a single hair on her fur!” Fluttershy declared. Her voice was calm, even angry and this made it even more threatening. Ire Sword had never heard its owner use such a tone… and she was feeling immediately grateful that she had never done anything to deserve it.

“Sister… you’re a sight for sore eyes. And in my case, sore body.”

Fluttershy put herself between the demons and the warmare. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live. And I think I have to thank you for that.”

Fluttershy nodded. Then, she attacked.

The sanguinary priestess was reclusive, only leaving her quarters to participate in the most demanding conflicts. Even her training was made in the secrecy of her laboratory instead of the sparring rooms. As a result, Ire Sword had seldom seen her fight. It was a spectacle she’d never forget.

Fluttershy didn’t have the strength of Magna, nor the speed of Fanged Spear. She fought with unnatural grace and precision. Her blade moved like a breeze, floating into the air and finding the best position to strike. Her blade always found the vital spot, it was always where it needed to be… or rather the enemy always found themselves at the wrong side of it. Her style was an invitation to die, calmly sent at the enemy of ponykind. An invitation none could refuse.

In a matter of seconds, the demons were nothing but collapsing fragment of ether dissipating on the ground. The priestess had barely broken a sweat. 

“That was really impressive,” Ire Sword admitted.

The Priestess dismissed it with a movement of her hoof. “Think nothing of it.” Fluttershy came closer to Ire Sword, checking the rubles that had entrapped her sister. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” 

Fluttershy started to inspect the rubble under which Ire Sword had been stuck. For a few moments there was only the silent noise of Fluttershy’s inspection accompanied by the background music of conflict. It quickly bored the warmare. “On a scale of one to what you inflicted to those daemons, how much will it hurt to get out?”

“A lot less,” she said with a smile. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”


🌢🌢🌢


“Don’t you dare die!” Fluttershy screamed with a surprisingly aggressive tone. 

The dying warmare didn’t answer. Fluttershy had told her to close her mouth and she was not foolish enough to disobey. Besides, acid had already got her tongue.

“Heh. We can’t die with you around,” Ire Sword joked while deflecting an Eldeer sword.

“Death fears Fluttershy,” Igneous Shot added humorlessly.

The attack had been highly unexpected. There had been no precursor sign nor motive allowing them to foresee it. It also made no strategic sense. There was nothing so valuable on The Sanguinem Nasus that it justified attacking a spaceship full of spacemares. It mattered little to the ponies of war, however. The will and motivations of Xenos was none of their concern. If they wanted death at the hooves of the Daughters of Cadence, they would have it.

It had taken only a few minutes for the spacemares to turn the fight. But the Eldeers had made good use of this time. Dozens of crewponies laid dead in their blood, their body mutilated by strange, alien weaponry. And this fate had not been unique to the mortal crew. Several spacemares would have to be harvested… a tragic and gruesome task that Fluttershy would have to carry… after she had saved Righteous Hammer.

“Don’t you dare die on me!” Fluttershy repeated this as a mantra. This was the only thing keeper sane. The only thing keeping her hole and aware. The last rampart against the madness hidden in her. She had to save them. “You’re not allowed to die!”
    

🌢🌢🌢


They were dead. 

They were all dead. It had taken only one second. She knew there was nothing she could have done, but she couldn’t shake that feeling. She had failed them. Igneous Shot’s dead eyes watched her with incomprehension. 

I have failed them... The idea parasited her thought process, clinging to her brain like leeches, sabotaging her attempts at rational thinking. I have failed them. They're dead.

The creature above her roared in rage, sending even more flames in her directions. The remains of her sisters burnt like wax candles atop a fire. There would be no progenoid glands to recover. She was denied even the opportunity to give her friends a chance to rise from the ashes anew. Something stirred inside Fluttershy as the last traces of the “Immortals” dissipated into the burning inferno. Something deeply rooted in her, something she'd kept hidden and locked for as long as her memory would go, something dark and violent. It grew with each beat of her hearts, leaving no place for anything else. It fed off her guilt, cannibalising it, turning the little voice in her head into a rising roar in her throat.

She heard something in her vox. A voice. They wanted to know something. Somepony answered. It took her second to realise she was the one talking. Her voice was calm. So calm. She could hear a chainsword. She didn't remember taking it or turning it on. She did not care. 

There was no one to heal anymore. Killing was all she had left.


🌢🌢🌢


She could hear the voices... It had taken her some times to get used to it but, with a great deal of efforts, she could grasp words and get their meaning. She still had not managed to open her eyes or move her body. Everything was hard and strange as if her brain had been rewired to do new functions she had no knowledge of. She let the matters go and focused back on the voices. She felt like she knew them. But just as the meaning of the sentences, the identity of their owners always evaded her... 

The voices spoke of choices, of pain, of duty and rest. She didn’t get all of it. She was tired but didn’t want to sleep. Sleep brought some… memories and feelings. Too vivid and dark to be ones she wanted to relive. Dreams of death and pain, dreams of loss and grief… dreams of bloodlust… dreams of a loss so great and so profound merely thinking about it scarred her soul… 

Is this my life now? she thought. Forever dreaming the darkest aspect of her mind and nothing else? 

Time passed. Unremarkable in its flow. Until light came out.

The experience was troubling, weird and shocking beyond words. All of a sudden… Fluttershy could see. But it was nothing like her previous experiences. Her senses were wrong. They weren’t hers. They were someone else’s. Something else. Something big, something cold… That’s when she understood. No! No! No! I don’t want to live! They’re all dead you can’t ask me to continue after my failure! Save them instead!

“Fluttershy?”

Slowly, unconsciously, she felt her body and mind bound with the machine. She could feel it… herself… twitch. It was a sickening sensation. Why me? Why did you have to pick me? I’m a sanguinary priestess, not a warrior! I can’t save anyone in this body.

“Does she hear us?”

“Her brain pattern indicate that she does.”

Why? Why couldn’t you let me rest? 

“Fluttershy? Please, answer me.”

She wanted to scream, she wanted to ask them to put her out of this simulacrum of life. She served in dignity for centuries, she deserved to rest. She wanted to say this and so much more… But she didn’t. 

Instead, she turned to look at the source of the voice, the motion registering in a way that was not quite the same as feeling. She identified the chapter master in a way that was not quite the same as seeing.

And she knew. Knowledge was knowledge, even now. Even like this. The only thing that was left of feeling alive was the knowledge that this was all there was. That it did not matter what she deserved any more than it mattered what she wanted. That the only thing left for her that could truly be described as genuinely living was the memory of what it had been like to be alive. To breath. To feel. To be with her sisters and to share in their triumphs and defeats. To know that these memories were all she would ever have.

Like everything else, Fluttershy’s voice was wrong. It was deep and robotic, and it would be the only sound she’d hear from herself again. Still, she answered. Because she had to. Because pretending to be alive was the only thing left for her.

“I am ready to serve again.”