Author's Notes:

Advisory warning: this story contains some moments that could be considered upsetting. Reader caution is advised.

With thanks to RoyalPsycho for being the darkly brilliant writer that he is.

***

February 3rd, 2030.

Manfred Stein was disgusted, simply disgusted. No words could ever truly convey what he felt as he watched the mob lead the monster away. He had been there, he had seen what that traitor had done and he had been forced to take action and clean up the mess that had been left behind.

***

It was just another night to him. Patrol was easy enough this time since the Equestrians had just been repulsed from London and weren't yet returning to their flyovers or raids. Granted, from the news bulletin it looked like the city was in a worse condition than it had ever been, at least as far as he could remember. But the same was true of everywhere, really.

Even the little streets Manfred was walking down now were partially in ruins: many buildings here were dilapidated husks, scorched by fire and pulverised by stones, explosives and the vile spells of the invaders. Most of the posters that lined the walls were scuffed and tattered but he could still make the newer prints out. The only one bright and fresh enough to see portrayed the leaders of the Equestrian Resistance.

Manfred had never really known what to think about the turncoats who had defected to their side. On the one hand he wanted to hate them for what their kind had done to the world, to his home, to his family. They were monsters that had beaten every single dictator, warlord and psychopath in the entirety of human history in terms of depravity and sheer evil. However on the other hand the ponies that had abandoned their empire fought just as hard and as passionately as every other man, woman and child left in the world and possibly with more conviction too.

The war itself had cost him a lot. He had not been home when the Barrier hit Germany. He had been on a short holiday, a quick trip to see the sights in London for a few days, take a few photos, the usual tourist things. His family had opted to stay behind: the Barrier was on the border when he left and they had told him they would not leave. If their home was going to die then they would die with it. Manfred had told himself that this was just a short trip, something to help him forget the horrors of the world even as the world disintegrated around everyone. However he knew now and part of him had always known that he was running away and he had abandoned his family because of it.

By the time the news had been given to him it was too late, flights were cancelled and the borders were shut. He was trapped in an unfamiliar country with no way of getting back and helping however he could. After the Barrier had levelled his homeland and moved on to the rest of Europe he had given up. It had been difficult, the first few years he had lived on the streets, begging in broken English for whatever anyone had to spare. Since refugees had been coming in by the boatload there had been very little to give. Manfred still found consolation in the fact that he had never once resorted to stealing, or killing either for that matter. Only when the Barrier had been halted had things calmed down enough for anyone to get enough of their bearings back.

Still everything had improved somewhat. The war aside, he now had a place to call home, a community to help and a cause to work for. This little town was what he called home now and the people who lived here were his family.

Passing the local church he heard a noise inside. There was a light crash as something was knocked over.

Manfred immediately tensed; this church was where they kept the children, orphans and most of the newborns. If anything happened here they would be helpless. Gripping his torch and the small handgun in the holster on his left hip he quickly and quietly made his way in. If it was a false alarm he didn't want to frighten anyone. Children these days had enough to worry about without some hulking German bursting in waving a torch around and demanding to know what was going on.

Walking through the door he came to the secondary doors leading into the main hall of the church. The building was in slightly better shape than most of the rest of the town. That fact that this was where children were kept, rations distributed and religious services performed helped persuade people to keep in decent condition. There was an uncharacteristic amount of noise coming from behind the doors. Whatever it was it must have woken up all of the children inside, Manfred had know the local kids enough to know they were very boisterous and energetic, even in these bleak times. Opening the door a crack he peered inside just to make sure everything was okay.

What he saw made his heart stop for a second.

Dozens of foals were running around, frolicking between the pews and silently playing. Their eyes were glassy but joyous, as if dulled senses were taking in the world through rose coloured lenses. Muffled giggles and whinnies could be heard echoing through the hall. In the centre of the row, near the altar Manfred saw a hunched figure shake around. Manfred could not believe what he was seeing.

A young woman held one of the children, a boy of eleven. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties with reddish brown hair, it was this hair that helped him recognise her. One of her arms was around his middle, her hand holding him tightly and keeping him from pushing her away. as she held a vial in her other hand. The liquid in the vial was purple and there was an unnatural sheen to it. Dozens of other such vials littered the floor around her and where sleeping bags had been placed for the children. Manfred knew what was inside and what she was doing.

That was potion: she was converting them, converting the children.

Manfred knew that woman, he had never actually met her but he knew about her from his neighbours and colleagues. She had been a regular helper throughout the town, offering to take on whatever jobs she could, especially with the children. In these difficult times the people of the town had been more than happy to accept her offers.

Now she was forcibly holding the last of the children still as she forced the potion down his throat, splashing it liberally over him when he resisted too much. Manfred backed away, he had to stop her but if he rushed in now the foals would scatter and he couldn't afford to lose them. He ran as quickly and as quietly as he could out of the Church and ran to the nearest house.

“WAKE UP!” he shouted, banging on the door. It took barely a few seconds for the him to hear the sound of feet rushing down the stairs. A man opened the door and looked out. He was obviously still half-asleep, his green eyes were glassy and rimmed with sleep.

“Wha's goin on?” he groggily asked. A sleepy but concerned woman the same age as the man appeared behind him. Others had emerged from the others houses on the street.

Manfred steadied his breathing and looked the tired man in the eye. “The children,” he stammered unsteadily, “the woman, the one who always watches them, she... she has converted them. The children in the church have all been converted.”

As he finished, his voice breaking and his eyes tearing up from the recent memory of what he had just seen he saw the man he was talking too widen his eyes in shock, the woman behind him took a step back, just as shocked as he was. Manfred heard audible gasps from the other people who had been listening and just learned of the horrific news. Without saying anything the man reached behind the door and took out a spade that had been leaning there, a look of cold and absolute hatred set on his face. He pushed Manfred aside and walked out of his house, making his way silently for the church. Shouts alerted Manfred to the fact that his message had spread and other people were emerging, tools and weapons clutched in their hands, some men and women weren't armed but had their fists clenched in anger. Others ran off to other streets to wake everyone else. Angry shouting could be heard everywhere, the sound reminding Manfred once again of what he had just witnessed. The memory caused his own anger to finally rise as well, washing over him and fuelling his rage further. He followed the crowd to the church.

***

Penelope Hatfield held the boy Kevin tightly as the change swept over him, shedding his feeble human body and replacing it with glorious equinity. Even as he shook in the raptures of the change she could feel him changing. Beneath his skin she could feel his bones breaking, shattering and reforming into a new form. His skin sloughed off of his body as tufts of soft fur pushed through and his face cracked and extended, he cried out in pain as his mouth was thrust forward, an equine muzzle shaping itself over his face. His eye sockets expanded and bled as his small human eyes inflated. The short spiky brown hair that had once topped his head fell off in chunks with his old skin and a soft lilac mane of horse hair sprouted in its place at the same time as a long tail that forced its way out his fraying trousers. As his arms reshaped themselves his hands audibly snapped, wrist bones grinding into new shapes even as his fingers fused together, skin, bone and fingernail burst as bony hooves broke out from the now furry arms of the young boy. Penelope stripped the tattered remains of his clothes from him as the metamorphosis completed. Kevin collapsed to the floor, the ordeal over. Penelope watched intently as he immediately began to stir.

Kevin tentatively opened his eyes, gone was the look of fear and hatred that had marred him when Penelope had been rescuing the deluded child from his burdens. Instead there was a look of happiness and boundless joy. The young colt jumped to his hooves and gave a whiny of delight and then winced slightly as unfamiliar bones ground together.

“Quiet now,” Penelope gently shushed him before he could celebrate too loudly. “It's too dangerous still, we have to get your brothers and sisters. They listened to you before so you can help me rescue them. We have to leave town now and get off this island.”

Kevin obediently shut his mouth, a wide, happy grin glued to his face and immediately went off to get the other foals who continued to play around the main hall of the old church. It was only once she had taken her attention away from Kevin that she heard the shouts of anger. She had been found out, how, she didn't know but it was too late. If they found the children they would kill them. Penelope had saved them once from the ugliness of humanity it was her duty to do so again.

Penelope got to rounding up the foals she had saved, quietly shepherding them together so that they could escape through the side door in the vestry. “Come on everypony we have to be quiet, its not safe yet”.

The new foals obediently clustered around her as she headed to the vestry. She had just gotten the keys out of her coat pocket when the door burst open.

The doorway was filled with people. Many of them clutched farming and construction tools, others had brought electric torches to help see. All of them had shocked expressions on their faces. They had noticed the empty sleeping bags, scattered remains of clothing and the thirty three foals hanging around her. The exact same number of children that had been kept in the church.

Shock quickly gave way to explosive rage and the front of the mob exploded forwards with roars of outrage and pure hatred. Those who followed the first wave may not have known exactly what had happened by they didn't need much information to be immediately swept up in the anger.

“Run!” Penelope shouted and she ran for the door, the foals nipping at her heels as she bounded across to the vestry door. It was then that she realised she had made one grave mistake, the vestry door was still locked. Penelope fumbled with the keys as the thuds of quick and heavy footsteps grew louder and more prominent. The foals were screaming in terror, many of them calling for her to open the door even faster. She had inserted the first key she had into the keyhole and heard it jam, it was the wrong one, she tried to pull the keys back out and even kicked the door when rough hands grabbed her roughly and pulled her away.

Numerous pairs of hands were grabbing at her, her blouse tore from their efforts to grab a hold of her, red scratches were carved into her skin by the crowd and several even took the chance to kick, slap and punch her as she was dragged away. Over their curses, snarls of anger and loud bouts of verbal abuse and hatred she could hear the panicked whinnies and cries of the foals. They had to be surrounded and without her they were as good as dead. Penelope fought harder than ever against the crowd but that merely prompted them to attack her all the harder in turn.

At the doors of the church she railed against them, fighting as hard as she could to break free of their grip and rescue the children. The crowd finally backed away on one side as she saw a large man lift a broom and strike her in the abdomen with the bottom end, knocking the breathe out of her body. She slumped over and her handlers lifted her up with renewed vigour, taking the liberty to hit her again in the ribs and face, one strong hit broke her nose and a middle aged woman tore out a good clump of hair in her effort to pull her out of the church.

***

Manfred had pushed himself to the front of the mob of townspeople. However after they had dragged that woman, that monster, out of the church he had been one of the few people to stay behind.

Five other men were standing in a semi-circle around a corner of the church's walls. There was one middle aged woman who was sitting in one of the pews, head in her hands and loudly weeping, her cries echoing in the room and only interrupted by the echoes of the mob outside and the terrified chattering of the children, no, the ponies, that the other men were obviously corralling.

Walking up to them Manfred stared down at the large cluster of foals. They were all of various sizes, shades of coat and mane colour. They all huddled in fear of him and the other men who might have been family at some point. Their voices still sounded the same and every whimper seemed to make the adults in the church wince, several men were crying silently, even as they nudged or kicked any pony that tried to break away from the group back into place. What hurt Manfred the most was their eyes, under the strange glassy expression and look of fear were the same eyes that they had when they were human. Even then they were now the freakishly large and flamboyantly bright eyes of ponies. These foals were not the town's children, they were monsters that had stolen their souls and warped their bodies into these abominations.

Manfred walked into the semicircle and looked at the men beside him. He knew that they all understood what he was doing, one of the men who was still crying even nodded in affirmation. Manfred reached down and took out the pistol he had been given for patrol duty and cocked it. As he raised it the foals backed away even further than before. Manfred reached down and picked up an infant foal, it must have been a child of two or three at one point. Kneeling down he placed it in front of him and pointed the pistol at its forehead. The foal began to wriggle away from him just as Manfred pulled the trigger.

The shot rang through the church hall. The sobbing woman hiccuped in shock and stared at the ring of men before breaking down into more tears.

Manfred looked at the corpse of the foal in front of him, now missing a good portion of its forehead and face. He brushed it aside and lifted his pistol again, locking onto another young foal that shrieked in terror and turned away, trying to run deeper into the huddle. Manfred fired again and the shot took it in the back of the head where the skull and vertebrae met which exploded in a small splatter of gore and bone fragment, the foal immediately fell forward, pushed slightly be the force of the blast and landed in the front of the group.

Screams filled the church as Manfred shot the foals one by one, pausing only to replace the ammunition clip in his pistol. He moved from pony to pony, slowly and methodically. Some foals did try to escape but the ring of men kicked them back in. All of them wore expressions of stony grief, their eyes empty as tears ran down their cheeks. No-one spoke and as the screams of the foals died down the only noise was the despairing sobs of the woman only a few metres away from them and the angry roar of the mob outside.

Manfred holstered the pistol yet again and turned away from the pile of corpses. He watched one of the men move to gather them up. The woman in the pews had also risen to help, her crying now reduced to the occasional moan of grief. He ignored it all as he walked out of the church and went to join the crowd outside.

***

The crowd still surrounded the woman. They had grown tired of beating her and had instead gotten some rope and tied her to a street-lamp on the corner of the street. Manfred had been shoving aside everyone in his path, making his way to the front of the mob. He never took his eyes off of that woman. It did not take long for the people in front of him to realise what he planned to do and began to move out of his way.

As he approached the lamppost he could finally make out the woman. She was a wreck, her clothes had been torn repeatedly, now little better than tattered rags, she was covered in bruises, especially around the face and her mouth was liberally dribbling blood. The people fortunate to be at the front of the crowd had been working her over it appeared. Manfred noticed that one of the men held something in his hand and was dangling it in front of her face. Whenever he brought it close the beaten woman would lunge out for it, her hands tied but her head still capable of moving. It was a vial of pinkish liquid, the very same vials that she had been pouring down the children's throats and had littered the church floor.

“Give it back!" she frantically slurred through swollen lips and broken teeth, “I need that”. The woman was pulling against her bonds even as the crowd kicked and hit here when she reached out to them.

Manfred was not able to pick up the replies sent her way by those who surrounded her but he knew they would be mocking her. As he approached one man finally came forward from the rest he took the potion in hand and held it before her.

“You really wanted to be one of them fucking horses so much didn't you?” he asked, contempt and hatred filling every word.

The woman glared at him, anger clear in her pained expression.

“You murdered them!” she shrieked. “I saved them from this nightmare. I made them better. They were playing right after I finished helping them, they had just forgotten how horrible this world is and you came and murdered them!"

She was cut off by the man punching her in the face again, flattening what was left of her nose. He lifted her up and brought her face to his. Manfred could just make out what he said to her.

“Now listen here you sick cunt. I don't want to hear you saying anything about saving them. They were our children, my children, and you took them away from us. Far as I see it whatever we do to you is more than you deserve” venom dripped from every word. He raised his other hand, a large hammer was in it, and prepared to finally finish her off.

“Nein!” Manfred said, subconsciously slipping back into his old German as he stepped forward and intervened. “No!” he said again a little more firmly and grabbed the man's arm before he could brain the woman. “I found her," he said looking levelly into the man's eyes even as they glared back at him with barely restrained fury “I think I should get to decide what we do with her”.

The man gave him another look of incredulity which turned to contemplation as he considered what Manfred had said. The crowd behind and beside him were jeering now. Some wanted him to finish his swing and finally kill the woman who had murdered their children, others supported Manfred's claim, other still wanted to be the one to kill the bleeding woman still tied to the lamppost that now looked at them with much more fear than before.

Not taking his eyes off of her Manfred snatched the potion bottle from the man and held it in front of her.

“You wanted this didn’t you?” he asked her with a vicious grin on his face. The woman nodded vigorously, starting at the potion just out of her reach.

“All right then” Manfred replied levelly and calmly. He pressed his thumb onto the cork stopper on the potion bottle, pushing the cork deeper into the bottle. He reached out to her and grabbed the sides of he mouth, her face slippery with the blood that had been running down and across it. He squeezed, forcing her lips to part and her mouth to open and held the potion over her mouth.
However he never tipped it. Instead he brought the potion bottle down to her and forced it into her mouth, bottom end first. She began to struggle again, gagging as her screams were muffled by the glass bottle being shoved down her throat. Manfred struggled as the bottle refused to go down and pressed harder. The woman's eyes bulged as the bottle was slowly forced further down her throat until it stuck.

Saliva dribbled down from the sides of her mouth as tears streamed from her eyes. She was struggling to gasp for breath as Manfred pressed further and further. The hand that held her mouth open went down to the back of her head and Manfred used it to brace himself as he pushed on the bottle again. Suddenly the bottle gave beneath him and he heard an unpleasant crunch, the woman convulsed in front of him, her eyes rolling back into her head. The crowd watched for several tense minutes, ha the bottle broken, was she going to transform like she had wanted, some were preparing their improvised weapons to finish her off. Just as they were about to finish her off the woman stopped and went limp, blood dribbling out of her mouth were the top of the bottle still jutted.

She was dead. The crowd immediately went mad, some cheered her demise but most were angry that she had died too soon, others lamented the fact that they themselves had not been the ones to kill her. Manfred stepped back, satisfied with what he had done. It had been difficult but he considered her fate justice for the atrocity she had committed, what she had forced him to do. He had failed to keep the children of this town, the new family he had just been getting to know, safe, and he had paid for it. The foal's blood was on his hands now but the children's were on hers.

***

Red Ribbon hadn't known what to make of what he found outside the church. Beside him Night Shade scowled at the scene, they had come to this town to relax, at least as much as anyone could in these trying times, and the one night they had picked for a romantic rendezvous had been interrupted by a riot.

Both ponies had both been lying on a small grassy spot between two houses, gazing at the stars, saying nothing as they enjoyed each others company, when the shouting had started. He had wanted to ignore it but Night Shade had insisted they investigate. You couldn't be too careful and no-one would have made such a racket for nothing. Red Ribbon had known that the minute Night Shade said something like that there was no changing his mind and so had reluctantly followed him as they searched for the source of the shout. When other voices joined it and the shouting grew louder Night Shade had picked up the pace and Red Ribbon had been forced to chase after him.

They had rounded the corner of the street that the old church lay on when other people had begun to appear. They were all running in the same direction, several were clutching their work tools and either had expressions of anger, shock or terror on their faces. It was all rather worrying for Red Ribbon, what had happened here?

“Red come on” Night Shade said as he bounded in the same direction as the crowd, a grim look on his own face.

“I don’t think....” Red Ribbon called after him before Night Shade disappeared into the crowd. Not wanting to be left alone in this situation he ran after him.

Red Ribbon shouldered his way through the crowd as he searched for Night Shade. Several of the townspeople gave him dirty looks as he wormed his way through them, some even tightened their grips on their tools, holding them threateningly as if they were struggling to restrain themselves from swinging them at him.

Red Ribbon was close to panicking when he spotted Night Shade's navy blue tail.

It was a struggle to reach Night Shade even though he was not that far away. The closer he had got to the spot where Night Shade stood, the tighter the press had become. Here the people were waving their arms, many of them holding dangerous looking tools as they did so. He slowly made his way next to Night Shade and then stopped at what he saw.

There was a young woman tied to the nearest lamppost. Her clothes were tattered scraps, some pieces held in place by the ropes that tied her to the post. Her body was bruised all over and she was cut in various places, blood streamed down her arms and body. Her face was a ruin of black ripe bruises and blood. There was another man in front of her, looming over her as he did what was probably the most disgusting act Red Ribbon had ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

The woman had a small bottle jammed into her mouth, obviously forced into her throat and the man had his palm pressed on the bottle's top. He was shoving it down her throat.

Red Ribbon could feel his gorge rising as he watched the man push harder, the woman writhing and bucking and the crowd jeering for more or screaming obscenities, barely keeping themselves from joining in. red Ribbon wanted to open his mouth and say something, anything to end this madness but his throat felt dry and he had to struggle not to throw up his dinner. Suddenly there was a soft crunch, his ears perked up and he stiffened as he saw the woman go into worse convulsions than before until she stopped and went limp, blood trickling liberally from the sides of her mouth.

The crowd burst into louder noise than ever before but Red Ribbon couldn't hear or see them. All he could focus on was the ruined body of the woman, He had seen her before, she had been pleasant and always had a kind word for him and Night Shade. Why had the townsfolk done this to her?

Red Ribbon was distracted from his shocked contemplation when he heard one voice in particular amongst the vulgar screeching of the mob. It was Night Shade's and he was joining them in their abuse.

“What are you doing!" he said loudly, just enough to be heard over the crowd, as he rounded on Night Shade. Red Ribbon saw the anger on Night Shade's face turn into confusion as he registered what he had just heard.

“What do you mean?" he replied. “I heard everything. She murdered children in that church.” Night Shade's expression had returned to one of seething anger as he glanced at the slack corpse of the woman, the top of the potion bottle still jutting from her mouth.

“We have to leave,” Red Ribbon urged. "This is awful”.

“Awful?” Night Shade answered back. “She was a murderer. She went after children, can't you hear what everyone's talking about? She did something to their kids.”

“But this” Red ribbon gesticulated at the body still tied to the lamppost “this is just disgusting”. He then noticed that several of the crowd had overheard what he had just said and were beginning to give him very nasty looks. Red Ribbon shrank back from them. Suddenly he felt very claustrophobic, surrounded by a mob of people who were still baying for blood and looking around for another target to vent their rage on. Already people were untying the body and letting it drop to the ground. Several came forward and began kicking it.

“We have to go now” Red Ribbon pleaded “I don't want to see this."

“Well I do.” Night Shade insisted, his face set. “This is no less than what she deserves and I want to be here to see her get it. She is everything we ran away from. We came so far to escape this kind of atrocity and it's been brought to us anyway."

Red was taken back by what Night Shade just said. He had been increasingly angry and depressed since Empress Solamina had slaughtered the Night Guard and Red Ribbon had always known that Night Shade was still affected by whatever had happened there but he had never expected this. He had never thought that Night Shade, a member of the old Night Guard, would stand by and let murder and the desecration of a body take place.

“You should go," Night Shade finally spoke, his eyes on the floor and his voice now dour. "You don't want to see this right?”

Red Ribbon took a step back, bumping into another member of the mob who was too distracted by their attempts to reach the woman's corpse to notice. He had no idea what to do. He was surrounded by a crowd of lunatics and his coltfriend had just looked him in the eye and said he was okay with what they were doing. He stumbled as he tried to turn around in the press, trying to find a way to get away from the dead body at the centre of the mob and escape the madness that had just consumed everyone around him. Red Ribbon forced his way out of the crowd, shoving his way through people's legs or around them.

Thankfully it did not take him long to escape the crowd, breaking free of them he galloped a few metres down the street before turning around to look back at the mob that even now were shouting in outrage and cheering at the death of the young woman who's body was even now being abused. And somewhere in there was Night Shade, his Night Shade, who had not only condoned what was being done but had stayed to watch.

***

Major Thomas Williams sighed softly as he finished handing out the punishment details. He had been sent to this town shortly after a disturbance had been reported. He had arrived to find a broken and bloody corpse hanging from a lamppost, it had once been a young woman from the town. According to reports and the bodies that had been examined she had been responsible for the mass conversion of the entire town's children. Thirty graves had been dug outside town which had been investigated as well, the entire church had been divided into an impromptu crime scene that several of his men had gone over in order to gather as many facts as possible without relying entirely on interviews with the ring leaders of the assault.

Said ringleaders were now in a set of stockades. What they had done was inexcusable, no matter the circumstances. These may be trying times but they were a nation of laws and this vile example of vigilante justice would not be tolerated even if the victim of their riot had in turn committed a terrible atrocity. Thomas grimaced at the lamppost, memories of the ruined body that had been hanging there when he arrived returning.

He knew that he did not have the time or resources to properly punish the entire town and so he had reprimanded all of the, set up the stockades for those responsible for the riot and murder and set up extra mandatory work for the rest of the townspeople. There was little else that he could do.

***

It had been nearly a week since Manfred had been let out of the stockades in the town centre. He had gone two days without food and only been given two cups of water a day. Ever since then he felt empty.

The punishment had been gruelling but even then he had expected worse when the army group had arrived in town and started giving orders, rounding up the villagers and chiding them for what they had done to that woman, Penelope her name had been, and the severity of their actions. Even with the legal rhetoric it had felt less like a tribunal or court hearing and more like a surreal version of an angry parent lecturing their disobedient child.

A strange noise distracted Manfred from his revere as something new rounded the corner of one street. It was a macabre procession of men and women in black clothing all of them reciting sombre dirges. Two of the men were pulling a cart filled with books and leaflets, whilst a large sign had built onto the top of the wagon. It read; "WE ARE DEAD. OUR BODIES CONTINUE THEIR WORK FOR THE GOOD OF THE REALM”.

Several of the women then began unloading desks and folding chairs and set out across the town square, asking people questions and offering them copies of their leaflets. Most people ignored them or politely declined their offers but other stopped to listen. The town had lost something after he children's death, it seemed so much quieter and grey. However those who had changed the most had been the former parents of the town and Manfred quickly realised that those who were listening to the preachers were the children's parents.

Manfred picked himself up from the old wooden bench he had currently been spending his short break from his extra duties and walked over to the wagon. The clothes the preachers all wore were uniform with the exception of the emblem on their shoulders. All of the little patches had a red skull with stylised depictions of veins and muscle tissue embroidered onto it but each had a different flag, several of which Manfred recognised from his mostly forgotten geography lessons and old football games, as the flags of nations swallowed up by the Barrier and Equestria.

One of the preachers, a young woman with cropped black hair noticed him approaching and turned to look at him. She had dark skin and green eyes that seemed to regard him with a dull detachment even as her face lit up into a friendly but noticeably forced smile.

“Welcome brother,” she said offering him one of the leaflets in her hands “do you seek purpose?"

Manfred hesitated and then accepted the leaflet.