Blood, blood and more blood, regardless of the source, whether it be of your enemy or your own. This was the motto of Khorne, which personified the Old World. One could say that literally everything and its grandmother wants you dead, so you have to kill it first. Chaos marauders, bandits, the Imperial Inquisition, all roamed the countryside intent on senseless slaughter, riches by any means, and cleansing mutants and witches in holy fire respectively. These ponies were, by the Inquisition’s terms, in dire need of a bath.

Braeburn had the most combat experience and supervised everyone’s ‘self-training’, not caring a whit for Twilight and the Doctor’s constant excuses to get out of it. “I ate something bad,” she had said. “The Doctor’s going to help me through it.” He snorted in annoyance. Running a fever of about three-hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit and shivering like she was locked in a freezer, he thought she was in great condition.

And now he was stuck with Rarity, who did nothing but moan and gripe, tired of the sweat and pain. He provided a little incentive for her to keep on, holding Sweetie Belle under his hoof and threatening to vomit corrosive bile on her.

“Let’s go, Rarity! Just a little shock, like touchi’n a doorknob.”

“Right...” she muttered to herself. “A little shock, simple.” Through her horns, she plucked a bit of warp energy from the Immaterium. It crackled and buzzed across her skeletal hands, like electric pet boas. A buzzing, stinging sensation pricked every millimeter of her and intensified as she concentrated the energy in her fingertips. “Oh, that smarts... Steady. Don’t lose control.” She took aim at a practice dummy, fashioned together out of sticks and foliage. The shot was a mere *bzzz* that left a bit-sized, steaming grey area that burned through one leaf, but Rarity smiled like it was an achievement. “That should send any ruffian into a tizzy, right?”

“What was that!?” Lyra shouted in total disappointment. “You had almost blasted a hole in the wall of the apartment a couple of days ago!” A pair of fiery whips snaked from her fists and she cracked them against a tree, leaving a black hissing gash. “Step it up!”

Rarity turned back to Braeburn, whose head was uncomfortably close to Sweetie Belle, whispering something like a childish secret. “Ya know how a fly eats, Bonnabelle?” he asked jovially. She carefully shook her head while a fuzzy fly walked across his dust-covered eye.

“Well, first they spit acid on their food, let it melt and break down,” The fly spat on his pupil and scraped away at the cornea with its forelegs. “Then they drink it like soup.” The fly squirmed into his eye through the pupil, making the ball bulge and throb. At that moment, black ooze started to drip between his cavity riddled teeth. The blades of grass the droplets touched smoked and liquified on contact.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle cried for dear life.

“Don’t you get a drop on her!” Like an instinctual reaction, power suddenly surged through Rarity’s form and she quickly became lively as a lightning rod.

“That’s it! Give it more juice!” Braeburn jeered on.

Rarity blinked in confusion. ’Give what more jui—’ “AAAGGH!”

The instant she was aware, the raging power took her to her knees. Innumerable screaming emotions and thoughts from the warp flooded her mind, pouring energy into her relentlessly. Features began shifting, her mouth elongated to bisect her jaw and one of her horns swelled until it was a grey, bony tumor stuck to her head.

“Cast it! You have to let it out!” Lyra shouted urgently over the popping drone of the lightning.

Rarity fought the jerks and twists of her muscles to stagger up to her feet. Sweetie Belle didn’t even blink as she watched in horror at her sister burn and seize like a galvanized corpse spasming back to life. The very space around her began to warp. The air, the light, bent and meandered, showing doubles or triples of the unicorn and creating distending bubbles of warpspace that shimmered dazzlingly.

The glass eyes of her suit illuminated brightly and the very mouths on the breastplate creaked as if letting out a great groan. Her body felt petrified as she brought a flaring hand up and focused the power just before her palm. For a moment, she had peace. The pain was gone. Like a concentric ringed planetarium, the warp ball churned and spun. It looked so organized, so ready, and with a flick of her fingers, she let it go.

It wasn’t what she expected. She vanished entirely, as if the universe had made her suffer from a serious case of critical-existence-failure. The three ponies waited for her to reappear. Perhaps it was an illusion. But a minute passed, then another.

“Ra...Rarity...?” Sweetie’s eyes started to water and she suppressed a sob.

“Shame,” Braeburn said. “Well, no sense in letting you suffer without a sister.” He opened his jaws wide and readied to crunch down on the filly’s skull.

“W-wait, she’s back!” Sweetie abruptly shouted, and he paused, looking up just in time to see the mare collapse an instant after reappearing.

He took his hoof off the little prisoner, who bolted straight for Rarity as soon as the cloud dissipated. Her sister lay on the ground, in a hissing, smoking heap. Dust blew from deep tears in her flesh. She was bleeding.

Sweetie Belle desperately searched for any sign of life. “Rarity, are you okay?”

She gave a ghostly sough as the sand pouring from the gashes crystallized, forming swirling, glassy surfaces across her torso and legs.

“She’s fine,” Braeburn said. “You’ll do it agin soon as yer up, bird brain.”

“N...no.” Rarity murmured, just beyond hearing. “No more.”

The pestilent stallion came up and brought his head down to her. “You’ll do it, or else.”

“I don’t... want to.”

He came closer to her ear, his stench making Rarity’s eyes water. “Ya know what I wanna do? Take a big bite right outta Sweetie Belle’s head.” He let it sink in for both of them and sniffed deeply in the filly’s direction. “Mmm, ah can smell it on ‘er. All that warpfire she’s got’s fried her guts good enough for a barbecue, ‘n those big juicy eyeballs, when they pop between yer teeth—”

Rarity lashed out with what little energy she had left, forming her fingers into five prongs and stabbing them clean through Braeburn’s chest and mouth.

He chuckled amusedly, “Ya see? Ah ain’t gett’n whut ah want. Now you give somthin’ up. A little blood, a little pain, and ah won’t eat yer sis’ spongy little brain.”

He started sucking on the finger that had pierced his mouth. She tried to pull her hand out, but the wounds closed tightly, locking it in place. A burning sensation picked up and the bone started turning a snotty yellow. His acidic saliva ate down to the marrow and in an agonizing crunch, her hand was free, with only a sand-bleeding stump of a pointer finger left.

The severed finger disintegrated to dust in Braeburn’s mouth and he spat the greenish spit mixture to the ground like a wad of chewing tobacco. “Keep practici’n.”

Rarity clutched her maimed hand, too weak to muster up more than a puppy’s whimper in response. In her last flickers of consciousness, she watched him walk away, wishing for the strength to behead him. It might not have killed him, but his disembodied head would be powerless. She chuckled at the thought of kicking his head around like a soccer ball and as her senses shut down one by one, she saw a pair of mint-green legs and felt something poking her cheek.

“Hey, Rarity... you alright?”

And the world went black.

Fluttershy played with her paws, sliding the blades against each other and making a few pops of sparks. They were incredibly lethal, tapered down to amazingly sharp tips. She occupied herself with some benign destruction, cutting logs with her nails and eating them for warmth. She could hear the splinters pitter-patter down her iron insides and a short burst of heat as they burned in her internal furnace.

A couple of fillies played around her towering body like a jungle gym. It was comforting to hear the happy laughter, but the rattle of the iron rings and chains growing out of her was a constant reminder of her condition. A little zombie filly with a red bowtie swung in one of the hooks of her mane like a playground swing and a horned orange pegasus rummaged through one of the burlap saddlebags for something interesting. Fluttershy was basically the group’s pack mule, but she couldn’t even feel the extra weight and often times didn’t notice the baggage with her strength.

“So whut does that taste like?” Apple Bloom asked, reaching the height of one big swing.

“Wood.” Fluttershy said flatly, popping another log and crunching down on it.

“Figured. Doesn’t it hurt? Splinters ‘n all?”

“Not really.”

“I don’t think ponies usually eat wood. Does it taste good?”

“I can’t really tell. Kind of, I guess.”

Apple Bloom probed and prodded Fluttershy's tough mental barrier. She was about ready to give up. “Come on, look ‘atcha! Yer big ‘n spiky, ‘n it’s just like ‘tha Iron Giant story Applejack read me. That part where the robot says, ‘I ain’t a gun’, that can work for you too.” Fluttershy curiously turned her eye to the filly. “Just cus ya look like a monster doesn’t mean y’are one.”

“And it’s so cool!” Scootaloo’s voice rang out as she bounded to the top of Fluttershy’s head. “She’s like, indestructible. It’d take a cannon just to make a dent! You could go stomping through a town like ’Raaaghrrr!’” She put on the most threatening pose she could think of, but it only made her look cute. “And they couldn’t stop you.”

Fluttershy gave a shaky smile, but the mood was ruined by Applejack vomiting down the tarp on her back.

“Consarnit! Aaugh!” Apple Bloom scampered up Fluttershy's mane and down her back. The restrained mare twisted against her bonds. “Where the hay am I!?”

“Applejack’s back!” Apple Bloom sang happily, hopping up and down.

Applejack fought a million sensations; fatigue, the urge to vomit again, and every joint in her body screaming in pain. “Back? Where’d I go? Why am I tied ‘ta Fluttershy’s back?!”

The giant undid the rope that bound Applejack and both nurglites went tumbling down. With a wet thud, Applejack landed on her face and broke her neck in three places. She tried to lift her head, finding it was firmly staying on the ground. “Uh, I think mah face is stuck. Somepony give me a hoof?” Apple Bloom helped pull her out and found a strange object on her sister’s forehead after she shook off the dirt.

“Sis, whut’s that on yer forehead?”

Applejack put a hoof to the area, discovering an upwardly-curved, bony protrusion. A pestilent stallion bounded over to greet his cousin, elated by her new object.

“It’s a horn! Hooo-eey! Nurgle be praised, ya made it!”

“T’aint no way,” Applejack said in disbelief. “Ya mean I became a unicorn, or somethi’n?” She gasped. “Is it magic!? Can I do all them mind powers?”

Braeburn shook his head. “Nah. It ain’t magic. Plaguebearers got horns, too. It means Nurgle’s blessed ya!”

It was just there to be disgusting, and it was disgusting. Bright red, inflamed veins ran along its length and it was partially cracked, slowly oozing coagulated blood plasma. His cousin made a hollow, unimpressed “Oh...”

“Oh? Just ‘oh’? This is great! Yer one step closer ‘ta daemonhood.” He gave her a short, tight hug. “Y’all is movin up as one ‘a Granpappy Nurgle’s children.”

“I ain’t no child ‘a his.” Applejack spat vehemently at the name.

Braeburn gave an uneasy chuckle, but Applejack continued to stare hard into his eyes. “Wait... whatcha mean? We’re all his kids, one big happy fam—”

“We’re monsters, Braeburn—just a buncha zombies with an extra brain cell.”

The fetid stallion’s mouth fell open in shock, releasing a swarm of flies which surrounded his head in a buzzing sphere. Braeburn popped out one of his eyes, wiping it with a foreleg like a glass lens before replacing it and regarding the mare before him with disbelief. “Y’all can’t be serious! He gave us immortality!”

Applejack shot back, “Cuz we’re already dead!”

“We can’t get sick and don’t feel pain!”

“Cuz we already got every disease in the world! You look like you’ve been rotti’n away for three years!”

“Ten,” Braeburn said with obvious pride. “And even if Big Mac ain’t been blessed the way he have, we’re better off now than we’ve ever been!”

Applejack’s anger vanished, replaced by a flickering curiosity, then hope. “Ya know what happened ‘ta my brother?”

Braeburn swiveled his hoof. “Turn around.”

Applejack snapped her neck around one-hundred and eighty degrees, because actually turning her body would take slightly longer.

She’d expected to see her big brother, maybe a rotten corpse like her, maybe normal. She was instead met by Fluttershy, sheepishly shrinking back. She waved slightly. “Hi.”

“Not funny, Braeburn,” Applejack growled, turning her head back. “Where is he?”

He took out his unbeating heart with the left hoof and raised his right. “Swear to ya, he’s there.”

“Fluttershy, y’all two in on some kinda prank, cuz it ain’t funny!”

“Oh no, I’d never!” The iron giant wrung her paws. “Macintosh... he... well...”

“She ate him.” Braeburn interrupted. Fluttershy went slack-jawed at his accusation.

“No she didn’t!” said Apple Bloom. “She told me whut Cheerilee told her. She’s unstable or... something, so she can’t stop soakin’ up metal that she touches. She bumped into him in ‘tha city—”

“Woah, wait a second.” Applejack said. “Y’all tellin me Big Mac’s made of metal?”

“Yup, a juggernaut, just like her.” Apple Bloom knocked on Fluttershy’s leg, producing a hollow ringing noise.

“It really was an accident,” Fluttershy squeaked as Applejack tapped her shoulder. “He might still be alive.”

“Might?” her countenance changed. “You mean he might be dead?!”

The iron pony quivered frightfully under Applejack’s gaze, trying to hide behind her mane. “I...No, I don’t think so...”

Applejack rolled her jaw, thinking. “Well we gotta get him out ‘ta make sure, now don’t we?”

Fluttershy nodded. “But... I tried, and I couldn’t let him out on my own.”

“There’s gotta be another way.”

“Maybe if we just—”

*Pang*

The giant definitely felt something suddenly hit her back and she locked up in shock. “Can somepony see what that was?”

The nurglites found a feverishly-shivering purple alicorn resting in one of the outcroppings on Fluttershy’s back.

“Twi, whut are ya doin up there?” asked Applejack.

“Slacki’n off and not practici’n, that’s what!” scolded Braeburn.

The mare didn’t respond and curled up as tight she could against the war machine’s warm iron body against the advancing cold that stung and numbed her from hoof to core. ‘I shouldn’t have eaten the souls. I shouldn't have even kept them... argh, why can’t I help it?’ Fluttershy noticed a strange smoke fuming from the purple mare’s nose and mouth. ’He’ll come for me... He always does...’

Twilight felt a great pressure squeeze on her head and suddenly yank her up, bringing her face to face with the black devil himself. Without a word, he thrust the Slayer of Kings into her abdomen and the daemonic blade reveled in the taste of her blood.

Fluttershy was frightened sick of the mare’s convulsions, holding her up and trying to snap her out of it, but to the victim’s perception, all was still frozen in time. Archaon clutched his hands to each side of Twilight’s head and squeezed harder and harder inward.

Fluttershy shook her. “Come on, Twilight, whatever you’re seeing isn’t real! You’re okay... Please be okay!” She looked back to Braeburn. “You have experience with sicknesses. How do you treat a seizure!?”

He shrugged. “I give ‘em and get ‘em. Curi’n ‘em’s blasphemy!”

Twilight didn’t hear anyone, and screamed as the vision cracked her skull. She felt her cranial fluids dripping on the inside of her head and her jaw snapping in half, but the Everchosen was not done. More and more he squashed her skull until he’d nearly torn her brain in half. Releasing her, he extracted his sword and with the same fist, struck her across the face, immediately making her lose a fang. She fell off Fluttershy’s back, landing with a crack on one leg. A snapped bone stabbed out through the skin. She had to get away... get help.

“Kivsin! Anypony!” she agonizingly shouted through broken teeth. The whole world around her was still as a photo. She saw Fluttershy, still looking onto her own back in worry, Lyra helping Rarity to stand, and Apple Bloom and Braeburn still looking for whatever had disturbed the giant.

In Fluttershy’s paws, the writhing bat-winged alicorn’s mane started to rise and wave and her coat singed, smoked and hissed, accompanied by a fiery glow growing within her.

Archaon jumped down and continued advancing on his chosen steed, stepping on her broken leg and shattering it even more. He grabbed the protruding bone and swirled it around in her leg, eliciting more screams of pain before ripping it out along with shreds of muscle and tendons. He stabbed its broken end through Twilight’s chest and her head dropped, short of breath and her vision fading. She coughed blood up onto her lips and he stood over her. In his burning eyes, she saw his anger and frustration. She heard a dark chanting that grew in number and volume. Archaon slowly raised his sword to the voices, blade down with both hands. The daemonic choir got louder and louder, more and more frenzied, and at it’s climax, the Slayer of Kings came plunging into Twilight’s neck.

BOOM!

Twilight went supernova, producing a whirling fireball that exploded a great distance. The nurglites were behind Fluttershy and were shielded from the blast, and the others were barely out of range. The juggernaut dropped Twilight in fright and felt that something had suddenly stuck to her face. She peeled it off and found herself holding a burned purple pony’s hide in her claws. Its empty eye holes were wide and its mouth hung in a horrified, ghoulish frown. The beast quickly fell into hyperventilating, dropping the charred flesh that flopped down before a glowing mare. A bright yellow pony gasped for life, it's baleful white eyes dimming to show terrified blood red irises. Crackling flames made up its mane, tail and wings and it looked around frantically, wide-eyed and huffing for the tormentor. Twilight looked at her hooves, her burning wings and tail, and sighed with a mix of relief and sadness.

“Master!” Kivsin bolted to her, but she held her hoof out to stop him.

“I’m okay, Kivsin,” she said raspily. Her throat was still burning sore and her heart pounded in her chest. She looked up to the juggernaut, forcing a smile on her lips. “Hi.”

”EEK!” Fluttershy jumped back like an elephant to a mouse, nearly crushing the Apples as she dashed behind a tree that didn’t hide her massive frame all that well.

Twilight slumped over and Kivsin supported her, her warp-essence flames having gone cold. Braeburn picked up her empty purple hide cooly, like seeing a pony explode into a daemon was commonplace.

“Lookin’ mighty fine there, Twi,” he nodded as he ripped up the hide and hoofed chunks to his family. “‘Ta Applejack’s recovery, Twi’s blowin’ up, n’ crappy health for years ta come!” He took a big bite out of the flesh. “Whew, that’s good tastin’.”

“Jeez, Twi. Y’all made me almost have another heart attack.” She slowly circled the daemon and whistled in impressment. “Wow. Makes ya wonder. If ya turned Kivsin into a big angry critter, what can ya do to— Oohhh.” She suddenly looked back to Fluttershy, grinning ear to ear.

She peered around the tree trunk. “What?”

“She is late,” Franz said annoyedly.

“She arrives whenever she means to,” responded Luna with the same displeasure.

The door of the grand negotiating room opened and in stepped the queen, flanked by two drones. The black, chitinous insects nonchalantly strolled around the table and four waiting monarchs, and settled into their places. The monarchs and their associates wore gas masks or filtering cloths against Chrysalis’ respiration smog, and a couple of the large windows hung open to the outside air.

Arranged in a wide hemisphere, the round redwood table cast a long shadow as the sun set behind it and torches were lit by the servants. The Emperor’s seat was placed with its back to the sun and the gold panther on his helmet cast a snarling, baleful gaze on the insects.

The room was almost dead silent, life was only given presence by the working attendants. Cadence, Franz, Celestia, and Luna watched and waited while Chrysalis made herself comfortable. The celestial princesses had the most angered demeanours.

Celestia’s armor was almost animated with her influence; the gold-plated sun behind her head, in a warped slow motion, quietly churned and erupted solar flares. Though Luna sat next to her sister, she seemed like a distant observer; her armor was a dusty, light grey and in the chestpiece was a carved jade eye.

Chrysalis leaned forward, resting her chin on two of her sharp, interlocking hands, folding the other two on the table, and throwing a derisive smirk in their direction. “It’s about time you two got an upgrade. Miss me?”

“Hardly,” Celestia replied tersely. “We thought you had perished.”

“And rightfully so, you should have.” Luna added.

Chrysalis huffed off a laugh. “Well it doesn’t really matter, since I’d simply be reborn by the hivemind.” She rubbed two fingers together in a pecuniary fashion. “Death comes cheap to me, you see.”

Hammer asked, “And how long would it take to be rebuilt?” He and his associate, Anvil, were the Crystal Ponies’ diplomats in the Old World. As their names implied, one kept the other side talking or kept himself talking, and the other would shoot down their unfair proposals or force forth their own. Though, he could be a little headstrong.

Chrysalis smirked. “That’s a bit confidential.”

“Speak words of purpose, insect,” Franz said firmly. “What is your business with the Crystal Princess and the Empire?”

Chrysalis scowled at the Emperor as if he were an insect himself. “I would appreciate it if you addressed me by title.” Her changeling companions buzzed irritatedly with her. Franz’s expression didn’t change. “Love and cooperation,” she said plainly. “It is all I want.”

“And you attempted to gain the former by attacking Princess Cadenza,” Luna warned. “This is tantamount to a declaration of war with Ulthuan, and you are about to cross the line with the Empire.”

Chrysalis considered it a moment, but Ulthuan was on the other side of the world. The elven army in the Old World now was only to halt the Storm of Chaos.

“They’d have a very difficult time finding me,” she said finally. “And until the line is crossed, I’ll dance around it.”

“You cannot afford to make enemies.”

“Then let’s not be enemies!” Chrysalis said grandly, opening her arms in a friendly gesture. Her demeanor snapped to that of a friend trying to apologize for a prank. “You’re all making this more complicated than it has to be. We have all fallen on hard times and you know the old saying, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.”

Anvil spoke up, placing his hoof on the table. “You only number a few hundred left, dwindling by the day. What can you bring to the war effort?”

“Intelligence,” the queen offered. “Skaer, Ditto, and I just waltzed in here with nary a suspicious look.” the three bugs burst in flame and assumed the look of two reiksguard stallions and Franz. The clone-emperor leaned toward the original, and even his voice was copied exactly. “Imagine what I could do for you. Imagine what I know already of your armies, the Skaven, the Hordes of Chaos, even your...” She giggled, “our little Luitpold.”

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed balefully. “What do you know of my son?”

“He is in the theater now, the play is in intermission. My drone is near, just beyond his bodyguards.”

“You know,” Celestia leaned forward as if discussing the weather, “There is a spell to force changelings back to their natural shape. If we were to disclose information on the spell to every unicorn soldier in the Empire...” A smug grin curled her lips and Chrysalis understood, telepathically ordering the changeling to leave the Emperor’s son and relinquishing the spells she and her entourage had on. But she wasn’t out of cards yet.

“I don’t think it would be in your best interest. What if heretics get this spell and spread it amongst their ranks? Then I won’t be able to gather more information on Chaos. Besides, few of us can disguise ourselves anymore. The ability has gotten increasingly rare as we have been warped. A few of my informants are close to some high-ranking members, mimicking their slaves and servants.” Chrysalis could feel the hivemind running low on energy and the hungry chatter of her children. ‘Clever mare, Cadence. Only a day’s worth,’ she thought. “I’d love to relate the vast knowledge they’ve gathered, but I am simply parched.”

A steward stepped forward with a dish carrying a pitcher and glasses of water. “Oh, no water, thank you,” Chrysalis dismissed. “I just need a sip of love. Anypony have any spare love on them?” She motioned to each seated figure one at a time, each annoyed by her act of innocence. “Celestia, Franz, Luna, anypony? No? What about you, Cadence?”

The crystalline alicorn shifted nervously as Chrysalis’ drones got closer. Hammer and Anvil solidly stood in their way.

“Look,” Chrysalis said in a straight and sincere tone, drawing curious glances from across the table. “All I’m asking for is a simple trade. My children require love, and of a strength and purity of which there is naught to be found anywhere else in this land. You are likewise in need of something with which to aid in your own survival. Give us what we need, and I give you my word you will have your information.”

“One moment,” Luna said. “And just how are we to be assured that you even possess any information of worth? You know about the workings of the Imperial city, yet—”

“Did you know that there is a rather large horde of Skaven burrowing their way towards Castle Reikguard at this very moment?”

All eyes in the room flicked up in surprise at her offhanded comment, Chrysalis’ own countenance showing neither mirth nor malice.

“...Are you certain of this?” Franz said at last, his eyes set with steely determination on the Changeling queen.

Chrysalis recalled some bitter memories. “We have had our share of conflicts with the vermin. For some time my subjects have contested them for dominance of the Under-Empire, but we were outnumbered, and...” She hesitated at the next bitter word. “Outmatched. I figured leaving a few eyes back there would be of some use.”

“I think...” Cadence said tentatively, considering the chitin-covered mutant carefully before giving a small sigh. “I think she’s telling the truth. At the very least, she does not have anything to gain from lying to us now, short of satisfying her own vindictive nature.”

Chrysalis glared at the crystalline alicorn for a moment, before a vicious smirk slowly curled her lips upward to reveal rows of fangs sharp as daggers. “I’m impressed, Cadence. You’ve acclimated to the chicanery of courts and intrigue quite well.”

Cadence bore a look of sadness, before closing her eyes and sighing deeply. “Let them come.”

Hammer and Anvil reluctantly stepped aside and the chattering insects moved on the princess. A decade of feeding on fear and hate had done a number on their species. Both changelings were balancing on their hind legs like fowls. One’s forelegs were scything claws and the other‘s were fused together, shaped like some kind of projectile weapon, and crawling with tiny worm creatures. Both sniffed at Cadence, seeking sweet spots of high love concentration. They soon began their work, drawing out the nourishing aether.

“Now talk.” Cadence said.

“Very well.” Chrysalis cleared her throat. “There is a chaos force headed for Frote from the Brass Keep. I suggest sending the Middenland 2nd Legion. There are two chaos-corrupted mayors, one in Kemperbad and Salzburg. The Skaven are planning to assassinate Marshall Kurt in one month at the rim of the crater of Talabheim...” The longer Chrysalis went on, the more the diarchs considered her seriousness. “And the pièce de résistance; the Everchosen is stalled.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up with interest. “What delays him?” Luna asked.

“He is missing his horse, the steed of the apocalypse.” Celestia failed to hold back a wide smile. Twilight was not found. At least not yet. “Until then, the Storm of Chaos is a bottled force, waiting to explode from the wastes as soon as he finds it.”

After she finished, the room was pin-drop silent. Emperor Franz slowly raised and reached his hand to Chrysalis. She looked at it for a moment, then to his face.

He nodded with a grim expression. She in turn took his hand and they shook.

After popping a couple of pustules on her foreleg, Applejack painted her leaking blood in the shape of a chaos star on Fluttershy’s forehead as she laid on her back, shaking like a washing machine. The plague mare was angry and Fluttershy could see it in her eyes, but the time was near. The juggernaut she absorbed would be expunged.

Twilight nervously wrung her hooves. It was enough hell to perform a possession spell once, but again? She didn’t know if either of them could take it, but if she was successful, it would relieve two of her closest friends.

“Cost and benefit analysis,” She whispered to herself in reassurance. “Still haven't lost my mind.”

“She’s ready, Twi,” Applejack said impatiently. Her body was absolutely giddy, insects and maggots in an energetic feeding frenzy on her rotting hide. Twilight lightly slapped herself on each cheek, warming up as if going into a wrestling ring.

“Okay, let’s go. Let’s do it, Twi.”

Everyone but Rarity had gathered eagerly to watch. She was still sobbing and plucking at her wide, toothy scar of a mouth and bulbous mass of a horn, “I’m hideous... Why?”

Daemonic possession was considered a blessing, but between two neverborns, the result could be unpredictable. Twilight feverishly rested one hoof in the center of the star and Octavia recited what she remembered from the daemonancy tome. Both hesitantly acknowledged the implications and Twilight began the spell. Her form slowly dissolved into a bright yellow ether and flowed around Fluttershy’s terrified face. The giant resisted every urge to sit up, swat the mist away. She kept reassuring herself, it was her friend... it was her friend... She’d make some of the pain go away.

The last of the daemon’s vaporous essence entered the beast and she breathed a sigh of relief that it was over. Most everyone was let down, however. Vinyl expected Fluttershy to explode into a bajillion pieces, the Doctor feared she would be instantly enraged and lash out.

“Well, that was anticlimactic...” Lyra sighed.

Fluttershy was surely glad it was. She could have been turned into a similar monster like Kivsin was when Twilight possessed him. After a bit of rolling on her back like a turtle, she managed to fall sideways and get upright. Everyone was moving on. She put a paw to her heart, which beat erratically. Her friend was inside her, swimming like a ghost and the very thought made her feel sick. There was no howling of the warp, no clawing at her mind by the daemon in her being, for the monster within her wasn’t a slave to the darkness. It would take a while for Twilight to get her bearings in Fluttershy’s head and the band marched on. Eventually, Fluttershy heard a familiar voice swelling in her thoughts.

’Fluttershy...’

The giant pegasus paused a moment. “Twilight?”

’Yeah, I’m here.’

“Finally!” Braeburn huffed, noticing Fluttershy’s acknowledgement. “Ya’ll see Big Mac in there?”

Fluttershy felt a strong tingling all throughout her body as Twilight searched. Between the parts that were Fluttershy’s, the hellcannon, and Big Mac, she was stumped.

’Can... can you tell them it might be a while?’

It didn’t sit well with the diseased ponies. “Work fast, sugarcube.” Applejack growled.

All throughout Fluttershy’s psyche, Twilight searched for the soul-imprisoned juggernaut. It was a dark void, winding with glowing, stringy nerves and memories. The whispers of both the former pegasus’ happy and increasingly numerous miserable experiences hissed softly from these nodules, and one in particular was throbbing red. It resonated like a wardrum, a heartbeat of destruction.

Twilight poked it once, and the whole void rumbled and growled. Fluttershy suddenly got very annoyed at the Apple’s circling. “Would you guys just leave me alone?!” she snarled. “Twilight’s looking for him and he’ll get here when he gets here! Now go away before I mash you three blobs together into a single body!”

“Yeesh, fine,” Braeburn said cautiously and backed away with his family.

The nerve slowly cooled and Fluttershy resumed a more abashed demeanor. “Thank you.”

Twilight moved away from the crimson node and moved on. 'Curiosity killed the cat, Twilight. Let's back away.'

She soon found the soul-chained hellcannon. It’s monstrous bore screamed and roared and the faces of souls down the barrel, sacrificed to forge the weapon, howled and wept forever. The wheels madly spun forward and back. The sentient artillery wanted out, but if it were released, it would attack the first thing it saw, everyone else.

’Fluttershy, you mind if I take over for a bit?’

“Take over what?” the pegasus asked nervously.

The daemon spoke sweetly. ’Just relax, let yourself go, and I’ll show you.’

Fluttershy tried to ignore the circling nurglites and clear her mind. She felt Twilight’s energy seeping in. She let her paws hang down, loose as vines to gravity. Twilight slipped herself into the vessel, one limb at a time, and after a rush of coldness and a couple muscle jolts, she opened her new eyes.

Everything looked smaller, even Applejack only came up to just below her shoulder. The hooked chain links of her mane hung like a butcher’s shop of horrors. It felt more like dreadlocks.

“Oh, wow!” she said excitedly. Rolling her vehicle’s stiff joints, the clunking of iron made her feel tough, invincible even. “She's got an amazing set up here!”

Twilight held up Fluttershy’s paw and focused on it. To her delight, the hellcannon’s bore took shape at the end, a titanic weapon at the end of her leg. It wanted to fire, to rain fiery destruction on everything, but it was bound to the juggernaut’s thoughts and Twilight pretended to fire it, taking aim at random.

“Pew! Pew!”

“Fluttershy, what in Sam hill are ya doin’!?” Applejack ducked as the weapon made an arc over her head.

“Oh, no—It’s Twilight. I’m using her body for a little bit.” The giant’s face scrunched into concentration. “Maybe if I’m at the front... I can find Big Mac more easily.”

The puppetmaster toyed with Fluttershy’s mind, probing and searching while also trying to keep her soul calm that there was another in the driver’s seat. Twilight wove a dream for her, tried to make it a peaceful as possible. A warm sun, cool breeze sweeping along the valley and bowing the tallgrass like lake ripples, and under the shade of a fledgeling oak tree, the butter-yellow pegasus sat on a picnic blanket surrounded by the animals she took care of. Mr. Bear slurped honey from a jar, the squirrels and rabbits chittered between nuts and carrots, and Fluttershy, she finally looked happy. Not forcing a smile to apologize for destroying someone’s house, but the smile of one among friends.

It dawned on Twilight, a slow wave of realization. Fluttershy was living a shred of normality in that dream. She might not want to wake up, just stay asleep and pretend that was her reality. That she could go down to Ponyville and see her friends, Applejack not a horned zombie with a hole in her cheek and guts spilling out, Rarity, not bleeding sand and electrocuting herself, and Rainbow Dash, not having disappeared to Celestia knows where. But Twilight would have to leave her body eventually and wake her up.

Day drew near, and camp was pitched again. Kivsin and Octavia had come to really enjoy one another’s company, and the mutant musician had finally goaded the batpony to take off his armor and come into her tent with her.

“So, what exactly did you want me for?” he asked, smiling with her at his back, pushing him through the tent entrance.

“You’ll see,” she said lewdly.

Inside was a white unicorn to the side, her enchanted voice playing an oddly lucid, romantic number and with a look as if in a world of her own and a pink mare lying with her hind legs crossed, licking her lips as Kivsin entered. Vinyl’s horn provided a dim, sunset glow on the interior.

“Um... what is this?” he asked nervously.

“I thought we might want to ‘consummate’ our friendship.” Octavia said.

“What does that mean?”

Octavia brushed his broken ear gently with her muzzle. “You’ll see. Help me down?”

Octavia let go of her cello and Kivsin slowly lowered her to the ground. Pinkie wrapped her tongues around the mare and dragged her to her mouth.

“See you on the other side,” Octavia said before being devoured.

He squeamishly watched his marefriend be swallowed down and expand the earth pony’s belly. She fixed a still hungry gaze on him. “Next.”

Kivsin hesitated, but it had to be okay, right? Vinyl and Octavia got eaten plenty of times by Pinkie and she let them out, so...

He took a step closer and she practically inhaled him.

“Welcome to my little mobile home.” Octavia giggled and helped Kivsin get his face out of the stomach acid.

Pinkie squeezed her occupants tightly and yawned. “You two have fun in there.” All the blood started flowing to her stomach to fuel its labor and she soon dozed off.

Kivsin’s ears twitched. “She fell asleep?! We’ll be dissolved in here!”

Octavia put her hoof on his shoulder. “That is why we have this” Tentacles slithered from her body cavity, bearing a syringe that lightly pierced into the stomach walls. Pinkie took a sharp, pained breath, then sighed calmly as the chemical was carefully injected. The dark purple goop secreted from the walls turned a little lighter. “And there we are,” Octavia smiled. “The acid is neutralized. “Vinyl never goes anywhere far without sedatives or stimulants.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes. She makes her injections so well, she might as well have a PhD in chemistry. Come now, relax.” She cuddled up against Kivsin. “Why don’t you tell me another story. From your exploits abroad, perhaps?”

“Hm... Oh, The Shadow King launched an expedition into Ulthuan and brought me as part of his guard.”

“You must have been quite the fighter in that armor of yours.” Octavia purred, sizing him up appealingly.

“The Black Guard have to be the best of the best. I can’t remember how many I killed when the High Elves retaliated and the Black Guard regiment ploughed straight into the Phoenix Guard.” Kivsin raised his hooves in praise. “The Lord of Murder must have smiled on that struggle. We were both devastated and found that both Princess Cadenza and King Sombra were gone, but of course, we kept fighting.”

“Did you win?” Octavia asked eagerly.

“No. He ordered a retreat and, strangely, the High Elves and Crystal ponies abandoned the field at the same time. The king was in especially low spirit on the sailing back to Naggarond.”

“My poor stallion. Thank the gods you made it out alive. Do you miss Naggarond? Did you ever think about going back?”

“No,” he said darkly. “Sombra had me mutilated and I can remember now what he does to my brothers and sisters. My master has shown me kindness and affection. Now I can see his wickedness.”

They heard Vinyl’s song end and the unicorn wiggled under Pinkie’s paunch, making an awkward hump between the two grey ponies.

“Damn it, Vinyl.” Octavia grumbled. She twisted herself out of a contorting position and smacked her hoof down on what she hoped was Vinyl’s head.

“Ow! What?”

“We were in the middle of something!”

“Well I’m freezing out here, so get used to it. Rrgh... what’s with my leg today?” Her injured leg had been stiff and lost a lot of flexibility. Most recently, it went numb. She unwrapped the cloth bandage and found a strange object in place of her hoof. A cylinder of a plastic-like material and metal, entwined in copper wires and blue and purple rubber insulation. It looked like something out of a cyberpunk poster. “Du-hu-hude. I don’t even remember shooting up anything! Am I still that high?” She lightly bit the cyber-hoof. Sure enough, the taste and texture matched the look. “Ermahgerd!” she exclaimed with a strange accent. “Slaanesh’s giving me something!”

Octavia couldn’t care less. “Congratulations, now go to sleep.”

“No way. You guys keep doing whatever and I’ll... figure this out.”

“Just be quiet.” After a moment of nothing but the sound of Pinkie’s grumbling belly, the grey mare smiled.

She rolled herself onto Kivsin who was wiping some gastric goop off his face, in the mood for some roleplaying. “In the belly of the beast, two ponies are eaten alive by a voracious predator.” She cuddled him provocatively, brushing her forehead under his chin. “Its heartbeat thumps, just above them...” They heard the ba-dum ba-dum of Pinkie’s heart. They could almost feel it around them. Kivsin’s body temperature quickly began to rise and he smiled slightly on his partner. “And its cavernous stomach grinds away and tries to digest them. What do they do?”

She pressed their noses together and stared lustfully into his yellow, cat-like eyes. “Do they wither like flowers in the flame, or make the most of their time together, and go out with a bang?”

Kivsin grinned sensuously and pulled Octavia’s body down to him, locking the contours of their forms together. “Out with a bang.”

EEEAAAAAOOOOAAAAAEEEE— *BANG!*

“What kind of patrol rolls around a fucking screaming skull catapult?!” Vinyl shielded her eyes from the whining flash of an artillery projectile. The shrieks of a dozen souls burst from the blazing skull that hit the ground, erupting in a geyser of white hot energy. “This is just like that play, Saving Private Lion! You know, the beach of Normanedy? One of the fuckers took his helmet off after a bullet bounced off, and he got nailed on the second shot!”

A light green fist came conking on her helmet. “Would you shut up and focus, you stupid loudmouth!” Lyra shouted. Like a soldier from said era, she poked her head over the embankment, halberd in hand. She focused her power through the shaft and fired a seething beam into the undead, exploding like a grenade among them. “You just kept screaming and making so much noise, flaunting that new hoof, and it drew these guys straight at us! If we survive this, I’m gonna kill you!”

Arrows flicked down from over the ridge they covered behind. Sylvanian skeletons slowly advanced on the natural barrier while Fluttershy lost her mind in the best way possible. She got inventive with the hellcannon, forming multiple barrels on her hooves that fired in rapid succession, pounding the undead with thudding shot. Her face was twisted in sickening glee at the carnage.

“YAAHAHAHA! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! KILL! KILL!”

The ordanance shredded ranks of bony warriors, but fearless and unthinking, they advanced on in a rigid shield wall.

“I’ll keep you safe!” Pinkie pleaded, trying to force her maw over the Doctor’s head.

He was getting soaked in her spit, hooves up to hold her back. “I don’t need your help!”

Her tongues came whipping down and yanked him up into her gullet. In one gulp, she downed him easily “I won’t let them get you. Just until it’s safe.” Her belly responded by screaming in indignant anger.

Something hit Vinyl’s shoulder, landing soft and heavy. She looked up into a mutilated face of torn and charred flesh and broken teeth, glaring at her with cloudy grey eyes. It let out a weak, throaty moan and lunged to bite her.

“Holy shit!” she snapped her voice-powered hoof cannon around and fired. Rib bones exploded outward as its chest was flattened and a black ooze gushed from its mouth. The body was hurled back several feet and when Vinyl peered over the embankment, it picked its head up and started clawing forward again on its torn belly. “These zombies don’t take a hint!” She fired a magic beam straight through it’s forehead and it fell limply. “Hey Rarity, how’s that boon of mutation coming?”

The novice sorcerer was still lighting her head on fire with energy to come up with the spell, then her hand flickered to light in a miasma of colors. “Ready!”

“Yes! Charge me, doc—”

“Wait!” Octavia put her strings on the unicorn’s shoulder. “Are you sure you can handle it? Look at me, I can barely walk.”

Vinyl held her hoof firmly. “You wanted your cello to be a part of you and you got it. I was strong before you took part of me.” She took the hoof off and pressed it to Octavia’s cheek. “This is my chance to get it back. Who knows if Rarity can get the spell right again?”

Said unicorn’s horns popped and crackled painfully. “I can’t hold it for long.”

“Hit me.”

Rarity held the sides of Vinyl’s head and funneled immaterial energy into her and the loudmouthed mare fell into an awestruck, shaking trance. The whims of chaos played with Vinyl’s features, beyond Rarity’s control. The living, warpforged cybernetics expanded and crept across her body. If she couldn’t bring her stereo system with her, it would be on her.

Braeburn checked to make sure his rusty helmet was still on. A shot anywhere else on this chaos zombie and he’d be relatively fine, but a hit to the brain would be his end. “Gonna see if I can distract their archers. You better hurry up, Scratch.”

“Be careful.” Applejack said.

“I will.” He climbed up into the open, an arrow already impaling into his eye socket. “Come on, you sorry excuses for the dead! Y’all couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, even with eyes!”

“It’s too quiet...” Vinyl muttered as the transformation neared completion. She got angry, really angry, slapped Rarity’s hands away and took up her weapon in a talonlike plasteel claw. “This quiet...” A lethally red glowing eye glanced to Octavia who was scared frozen. It swiveled forward again and VInyl crested the ridge, raising her sonic gun in hedonistic rage. “This quiet offends Slaanesh! Things shall get LOUD NOW!” Everyone covered their ears as Vinyl sucked in a huge volume of air. “EEEEEEEAAAAAAAWOOOOWOOOWAAAAAA!!”

She sang the Cacophonic Choir. Like a thousand screaming daemonettes, Vinyl wailed to the heavens. Even the undead shuddered to a halt, some of their skulls shattered and exploded, and arrows were diverted off course from the buffeting air pressure. Braeburn’s jellified bodily fluids helped to displace the pressure and he was already somewhat deaf.

Kivsin stealthily flew around the skirmish, en route to the rear. His acute hearing rang at the sound of a hypersonic cry from the ridge. Perching among the tree branches, the bat-pony spotted the insidious device below. Formed of giant bones and sinew, skeleton crewmen chattered among themselves before the lead gave a retaliatory shriek in an echoing, ghostly voice, thrusting a bony fist to the air.

The arm of the engine flung up, hurling a giant flaming skull through the air like a howling comet that exploded dangerously close to the ridge. Vinyl and Braeburn stumbled to remain upright in the gusting shockwave. Kivsin arched himself, wings outstretched, and launched like a bullet, hurdling down on the closest skeleton. He tackled it down, the charged lightning claws pierced the lead skeleton’s cranium, the warpstone power vaporizing it into white sand.

The rest of the crew came at him and he quickly dispatched the clumsy soldiers with cruel gaiety. The crackling claws slashed through one’s pelvis and another arc severed its head. Each swipe of his weapons was followed by a crumbling skeleton. The last crewman went down with a shattered ribcage and his skull shattering like white pottery. Not in so long had he felt the joy, the thrill of combat. If the undead still had hearts, he’d cut them out and drink from them, cackling. He cut the ropes binding the catapult together and piece by piece it collapsed into a skeletal heap.

Back at the besieged embankment, they noticed the catapult had stopped and now it was time to put Rarity’s metalworking skills to the test with their new armor.

With the fury of the Forsaken the ponies charged into the last of the skeletons, screeching, hacking, and slashing with claws and halberd with total abandon. Applejack kept the three fillies safe behind the raging, possessed juggernaut. The daemon within the giant frantically fumbled through her body.

“Where is he? WHERE IS HE!? There you are!” The iron daemon was wrapped in bloody chains in the mental void. Twilight quickly flew up to him and shook his unconscious face. “Mac. Big Macintosh!” That didn’t wake him, but a magic shock did.

“Ah! Ah...uh...”

Twilight worked at the chains, burning through them with magic energy. “I’m here to get you out, Macintosh. Your family is out there!”

“...Apple Bloom?”

“Yeah, she and Applejack are worried sick about you.”

He smiled widely. “Applejack’s there, too- *Clank* Whuh- AAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Macintosh tumbled through the void in total freefall when the bounds snapped. He would be way too heavy for Twilight to carry by wings or magic.

“Oops.”

An enraged Fluttershy readied to jump the ridge and join the others in slaughter, but a wracking, squirming feeling throughout her body impeded her.

The sensation culminated in her chest, bulging like a parasite ready to burst from within her. Like a giant drop of steel water, a mass swelled and hung down, then it broke from her and thudded on the ground, slowly morphing and changing. As it took a recognizable shape, Apple Bloom raced through the thinning arrow fire to the juggernaut taking shape.

Fluttershy drew heaving breaths, unable to decide whether to slump at the pain in her chest and hooves, or smile that half her nightmare was finally over.

“Come on, Big Mac! Wake up!” Apple Bloom jostled the machine’s shoulder, searching for some sign of life. The empty, black eye sockets flickered, sparked, and little balls of fire soon came to life in those iron bowls. A low grinding grew into a steady hum within his shell like an activating machine. An elated smile curled the filly’s face as the machine slowly stood, vigorously shaking his head.

Whilst knocking his senses back into order, he caught a glimpse of his former tomb which was fearfully backing away and trying to look as innocent as possible. “H-h-hi... B-b-b—”

“Big Mac!” Applejack sounded. “Yer alive! Wouldja look at ya!”

The juggernaut only smiled for a brief moment before catching the sound of battle nearby. Duty to the lord of war came first. He launched up the ridge, his weight shaking the ground under his iron hooves. Like a living battering ram, he smashed into the undead, not losing an iota of momentum to the lightweight corpse soldiers. In his wake was nothing but a line of shattered bones and crumpled armor. He only slowed after he’d run all the way through them and wheeled around for another strike.

“Look at ‘im go!” Applejack cheered. “Fluttershy, why ain’t you like that?”

It didn’t take long to mop up the last of the undead. Braeburn had his hoof on the face of the last skeleton. It clawed and tore chunks of meat and flesh off his leg. “T’sokay,” he whispered as it screamed. “Just go back ‘ta sleep, child. Go back ‘ta sleep and Nurgle will welcome ya back home.” He put more pressure on it until its skull cracked, and shattered. The rest of its body fell apart. “There ya go.”

“That’s the problem with skeletons,” Vinyl said, weaving a necklace of bones. “All thumbs and too predictable.”

“N’ them damn vampires dun brought all of ‘em back ta life after they got Nurgle’s grace,” Braeburn said angrily. “They needed ‘ta stay with the Plague Father.”

“N’ope.”

The diseased stallion turned a curious, annoyed look to Big Mac who was racking up a couple skulls on the spikes of his body.

“Then where do you think they go, wiseguy?”

The iron stallion said haughtily, “Kharneth.”

“Don’t be usi’n that fancy-shmancy black speech with me. Mmm...” Braeburn pondered, tapping his lip. “Nah. Nurgle’s god ‘a death. He gets em.”

Even the slightest disagreement and the khornate engine was displeased. When Braeburn had his back back turned, looking for something to eat, his horn stabbed through the stallion’s back and Macintosh lifted him on his head.

“Y’all wanna play it that way?” Braeburn gathered a wad of acidic bile to spit and twisted his head around before Applejack interrupted them.

“You two go at each other easier than a starvin’ snake to a rat!” The two glanced at each other a moment. Braeburn drank back the acid and Macintosh let him get off his blade. She put her hooves around them and brought them close. “Come on guys. We’re family, back together agin!” She sat between them, leaning toward Macintosh. “Big Mac, ya put a hole in cousin Braeburn’s chest.”

The juggernaut rolled his burning eyes and hesitantly said, to break the awkwardness, “Apologies, cous’n.”

“Ah, nothi’n a quick snack can’t fix.” Braeburn ripped the arm off a zombie and bit off a good chunk of meat. He swallowed it and his body used it to patch the hole. “Oh, ‘n look here.” He plucked out the zombie’s eye, and his own right eye and replaced it. After a couple blinks, the new eye swiveled in sync with the other. “Much better. An arrow grazed my other one. Y’all right, Mac?”

“Yep.”

“Any damage from bei’n trapped in Fluttershy?”

“Nope.”

Braeburn picked himself up. “Right, then. Let’s get back on the move. Great ta have ya back, big guy.” A welcoming hoof patted Macintosh on the back.

“Try not ta touch me too much,” he said. “Y’all gonna make me rust over.”

“Then ya better get used to grindstones, cus I ain’t lett’n you outta my sight!” Applejack chuckled, and wrapped her moldy forelegs around his neck.