“But we are the founders!” Scootaloo pleaded to one of the Crusaders as Sweetie Belle was thrown into a prison cell with her. “We started out in a tree house! Babs Seed is Apple Bloom’s cousin! Tell her we’re here!”

The soldier simply ignored the mutant pegasus, and slammed and locked the cell. Scootaloo grunted in frustration, shoving her head between the bars and frantically waving a hoof towards the crusader’s back as he walked away.

“Wait! Come back!” she called out desperately. “Please! We didn’t do anything wrong!”

Sweetie Belle rose to her hooves, grimacing in distaste at the cold and featureless gray walls all around them.

“Well…” she said sheepishly, “There was that one time when I accidentally burned down that village, and Apple Bloom ate through half of the dead people in a single all-night sitting—”

“That’s not helping!” Scootaloo snapped at her, then jumped back to the bars. “I’m pretty much your boss! Come back!”

Upon entering the city of Middenheim, Captain Fellblade and the rest of the Crusaders had force-marched them through the streets, people gathering from all around to gawk and hurl insults at the impromptu triumphal parade. They had been disappointed to find that they were being taken to a separate dungeon in the city, rather than the one in the palace as Twilight had originally thought. None of their captors so far had shown even the slightest interest in any of their protests, and they had all been locked into cells to languish for however long they saw fit, or until they’d be brought to the surface to face the reiksmarshall.

Twilight, however, didn’t look like she could wait that long. Having reverted back to her normal form soon before reaching Middenheim, her thirst had come back with a vengeance. Her coat had paled to a ghostly light purple, and black bags hung under her bloodshot eyes.

“Sir... please,” Twilight rasped, weakly hanging her hoof out between the bars of her cell. “I need... a drink...”

“You should have thought about the need for blood before turning to the dark gods, mutant,” Fellblade spat back.

Powerless, Twilight slumped against the bars, her breathing raspy and weak. She stared at his muscular form silently as he paced up and down the hall, a couple drops of drool pattering on the stone floor below.

Pinkie Pie was huddled up with a muzzle over her mouth, tightly holding her stitched wound which squirmed under her skin. Once in awhile, she’d involuntarily kick as the wound was jostled.

Two more of the Crusaders were escorting the Doctor and Fluttershy through the dungeon, the soldiers casting nervous glances towards the latter. Ultimately, the ten-foot tall metal juggernaut had been covered in rotten food, garbage, and some brown squishy masses that she really wanted to assume was mud that were thrown from the hateful people and ponies lining the streets all the way to the prison. She remained silent as she followed the soldiers down the corridor, a lot more afraid of them than they were of her.

“Can’t we put her in an ogre’s hold?” one remarked, his eyes roving critically over each too-small cell door. “She can’t fit through any of these.”

Fluttershy swallowed uncomfortably. “Um, actually, I think I can get in here, just let me...” she trailed off as she walked towards one of the cells.

The Doctor smirked knowingly, hunkering down on the floor and covering his head both both forehooves. The soldiers glanced at him, then back to the juggernaut.

“Hey, what are you—?”

Cree-eeeeerrr!

One teeth-rattling moment later, the soldiers watched slack-jawed as Fluttershy walked through the ironbars that she had twisted like overcooked noodles. She turned back to the door and bent them back to their original shape, accidentally snapping one out of place, which went whizzing an inch over the Doctor’s head and clattered against the stone wall.

“Sorry...” She stepped out, brought it back, and tried to slide it back into place, successfully.

“Get back out here!” ordered one of the soldiers after he had recovered his wits enough to speak. “The bars are useless, now!”

“B-b-but I wouldn’t dream of walking out. Besides, they couldn’t stop me from just bending them with my bare paws, so what hope would there be in the bars keeping me in? I feel so safe from all those people who threw all this stuff at me.” she said, giving the wall a few light punches with her claw. “Thick walls, one way in, one way out... and best of all, we’ll finally get fixed once we see...”

Fluttershy hesitated as she saw the Doctor silently mouthing ‘No!’ and shaking his head violently. Finally, she sighed and finished, “Besides, It’s just... safe.”

“Sir, should we leave it like this?” one soldier asked, turning to Fellblade who was just passing the cell.

The captain took a long look at the shaken monster. “It’s a juggernaut that talks of peace and safety. It must be brain-damaged, so what have we to fear?” he said with a lingering wonder at her nature. “Put the other one in the next cell over.”

“Yes, sir!” the two soldiers said in unison, snapping a smart salute.

The two-thousand pound scrap metal heap of Big Mac was hauled along by several Crusaders, popping sparks where his iron hide scraped the floor. He was dumped in one on one corner of a cell, his family’s severed heads on the other side, placed so they could face each other.

Applejack could barely turn on the stump of her neck, looking between Braeburn, Apple Bloom, and the mechanical stallion whose breath came in small steaming plumes from his nostrils. Each night before, Braeburn spoke to her. Each night when the soldiers were asleep, a cloud of flies would stuff themselves into his neck, vibrating their wings in unison to make a wind through his vocal cords. His voice was barely even a whisper, but in the sack, his lips were right in Applejack’s ear. She herself couldn’t respond, couldn’t object to him as he silently tried to persuade her, preaching Nurgle’s everlasting love for her, him, all of his children.

”Y’all woulda been dead if it weren’t fer Him. The instant them Crusaders cut off our heads, it woulda been lights out, but He don’t let His babies die so easy. We’re all deathless, AJ. Why can’tcha thank Him fer savin’ yer life?”

Then upon the conclusion of his final personal sermon, he had bitten her ear and the sensation of every disease and malady the Plague Lord inflicted her with came to her nerves like the spikes of an iron maiden. Her inflamed brain pounded like a storm in the warp and she was cast into the throes of her worst infection, Nurgle’s Rot. Her severed head was motionless, yet Braeburn could see her pain as yellowed tears streamed from Applejack’s shaking, rolled back eyes.

“It hurts, don’t it, AJ? He can make it stop. Just accept Him. Accept that He’ll always be there fer you, that all He does is a labor ‘a love.”

And here she was now. The pain having stopped.

The rest were accounted for in good order; Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Lyra, Rarity, and Kivsin. Satisfied, Fellblade made his way back to the stairs and paused when he was met by a snarling, gnashing face that jumped at him from a cell. Twilight snapped her fangs at him in bestial fury and hunger, like a starved lion chained just out of reach of a fat goat. Her skin threatened to tear against the bars with the force that she was throwing herself at him and her hooves were so close, so close. The captain didn’t even flinch, chuckling in wry amusement.

“You see?” Fellblade said. “That’s what you get; a head full of lies and madness. Soon it leads to being just a mindless, feral animal. Somepony get this one under control! And somepony else, find me a messenger so I can tell the reiksmarshall we have them. I’ll be in the Drowned Rat.”

“Count on me with the purple one, sir,” one of the pegasi crusaders said, snapping off a smart salute. Fellblade nodded in his direction and promptly made for the stairs, followed by Twilight’s starved scream as her potential sustenance walked away.

As the crusader went to Twilight’s pen, a putrid smell pierced his nostrils; the stench of something burning. He peered inside, noticing smoke emanating from Twilight’s magic suppressor.

“Cease your magic, creature!” he snapped.

The monster was deaf to him, still screeching and straining against the bars. Her suppressor started to fry and melt, sparks and a deep lavender aura slowly beginning to materialize.

“Stop!” he shouted, his voice tinged with fear.

“Sir,” the Doctor muttered worriedly, backing further into his cell with a knowing grimace. “You’re going to want to run very far, very fast.”

The soldier’s lower lip quivered for a moment, then he pulled his sword free with a somewhat jerky motion.

“No!” he said, leveling his gaze at Twilight in defiance. “I’ll do whatever must be done!”

He plunged the sword forth.

Snap! Poof!

The blade pierced nothing, save a dissipating black fog where the daemon had been mere moments ago and the molten, broken suppressor that slid off the sharpened edge onto the floor. The soldier drew his weapon back in confusion—

And then he noticed a large shadow cast over him, then a very hot wind blowing at the nape of his neck. He turned around to face a very large, very hungry-looking white-purple alicorn looming over him.

Before he could even react, she widened her fanged maw and roared a flaming haze that immediately engulfed him, rapidly melting the hapless soldier into a pile of throbbing, bloody, organic pulp.

The rest of the Crusaders charged, weapons raised to strike. In response, she quickly flapped her wing facing them and produced a gust of wind that launched them back across the floor in a tumbling wave.

She disappeared again in another puff of smoke, and one of the soldiers’ screams was muffled by her teeth stabbing his throat and almost immediately drinking up every drop in him, leaving a mummified husk. In the time it took the rest of the soldiers to turn around, she was on the next one, then the next, teleporting faster than they could react.

The last one managed to barely escape the panicked slaughter, quaking in an obscured corner of the dungeon and praying to his necklace charm displaying a solar eclipse with a twin-tailed comet streaking across it.

“...and He on high, our savior Sigmar, carried ponykind to safety and united us with the realm of man. Celestia, our guiding light, our Angel of the Sun, rose again so that we may see a better tomorrow. Luna, our Mistress of the Night, Thy unblinking eye in Heaven be ever watchful over Thy flock—”

He snapped his mouth shut as he saw Twilight’s blood-soaked muzzle round the corner, fangs and tongue outstretched in a snakelike display. He held his breath, and slowly, shakily raised his halberd.

He felt something warm and wet run down his lip, then red droplets floating from his muzzle, through the air and into the monster’s mouth which was illuminated in a purple glow. His blood soon leaked out of his eyes, mouth, and he desperately lunged forward to strike the monster. It simply pulled back, drawing more sustenance out of him, faster until he was too weak to get back up, to move, or breathe.

Spike sat cross-legged at the top of a shaded hill, warm sunlight streaming through the branches of the oak tree above him and playing across his face. He breathed in deeply, his steel lamellar armor—which had to be recast after his earlier encounter with Screwball—rising and falling in a steady rhythm. His outburst at Celestia some time ago, though cathartic, was a sign that he needed to resume his meditation practices so as not to be subject to the whim of his anger.

‘A clear self, body and mind. In... and out…’ He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. ’I am one with myself, the High Gods, and all in between. In... and out...’

His reverie was interrupted as something firm, yet soft like a teddy bear poked his temple. He sighed inwardly, resisting the urge to facepalm.

’Asuryan’s mercy, she found me.’

Poke.

“Stop it...” he muttered.

Poke.

“Stop it...”

Poke.

“Stop it...”

Poke poke poke poke po—

He wheeled around in a blur of motion, gripping the head of his tormentor in a claw. Screwball gave a surprised squeak like a rubber duck, ruefulness and mirth dancing in an unearthly paradox within her spiraling eyes.

Spike brought his arm down, burying her head into the ground like an ostrich. Without missing a beat, he returned to his former posture, resuming his controlled breaths.

’One vision, one purpose, one truth. In… and out...’

The filly gave muffled sounds of protest as she wrestled with the soil, until she finally tugged her head free in a spray of dirt, and spat a mouthful of earthworms all over Spike’s lap. He groaned in exasperation, dragging the palm of a claw over his face. Getting up, he walked away into the sunlight, wiping off his armor skirt.

“Sorry, unca Spike!” giggled Screwball, floating after him.

He glanced at her in contempt. “Sorry for spitting on me, or trying to shoot me?”

“Hey-hey-hey, yuu tried to kill me furst! I wuz just minding my oan bidnizz—”

“Turning ponies into chaos cultists for Discord.”

“It wuz just Davenport!” Screwball said indignantly, pouting at his interruption. “He’s gonna leed the whole thing, cus he’s speshal to me!”

Spike raised a brow. “Special? How?”

“Som’n ‘bout me taking over the bodeh of his fee-ahn-cay and that he’ll do anyting to be with her. Duworry’ baht’ it.”

Spike glanced over to make sure she said that with a straight face, only to find her playing a trumpet made of macaroni and dripping with cheese. She pulled it away, licking her lips of the cheddar goo.

“Or maybe he just owed me twenny bits... meh,” she shrugged, and continued tooting away.

As she hit the high note of her somber melody, Spike lashed out with a claw, crunching the instrument all over her face.

“That mare, crying into Davenport’s shoulder… she was the one whose body you stole?” he asked in a low voice.

Screwball’s tongue extended and swept across her face, licking it clean of the viscous cheesy liquid once again. She waved a hoof in a so-so fashion. “Nyeehh, not stole. She was always a tight-plot neat freak. Everything in her life, she had a schedule for, and everything had to be perfect.”

Screwball started chasing her own tail like a dog. “I wuz her fun-fun-funny side that she kept supprezzing, the yang to the yin that ruled her lyfe! When Daddy wehnt nuts on Ponyville, he let me outta her head, gaiv me her body as mine, and tuuk me in as his own!”

“And why do you keep following me?” Spike asked.

“Cuz you’re my daddy’s friend’s friend’s former roommate!”

Spike counted on four fingers. ’Discord, Fluttershy, Twilight, then… me?’

“And what does that make us?” he asked.

“Absolutely nothing!” Screwball beamed, shaking her hooves for emphasis.

Spike sighed, shaking his head. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he said pointedly. “Isn’t Discord missing his little girl, or something?”

“Nah, he knows where I am. I just wanted to see if I can cheer you up, cuz you always look sad or ticked off,” she said, then popped off her cap and shook it, dumping out a full-sized leather armchair and long couch. She pushed Spike down to sit on it and took her own position in the chair, snuggled up in a fleecy red robe and smoking a polished pipe that blew out balloon animals.

“Is there anything you wanna talk about? Problems at home, friends, family?” Screwball asked in a deep, sagely tone of voice.

Spike grumbled in consternation, rising from the couch and walking away. “No,” he said firmly. “And I think you should leave.”

“Hey, don’tchoo walk out of my office! Sweet jeebuz, he went right through the wall!”

Spike groaned in frustration. Without turning around, he bared his teeth and growled, “Just get out of here!”

“Nooooooo!” she whined, springing forward to hug his leg tightly. “I wanna hang out!”

“Get off!” Spike snapped, shaking and kicking to dislodge her.

“Nooooooo-b-bl-b-lb-bl-!”

“What in the world?!”

Screwball’s body dissolved like butter, conforming around Spike’s frame as she swam up his legs. Spike frantically slapped and tried to pull her off, but her body was stretchy as taffy and she fought him tooth and nail at every turn, and soon his arms were firmly locked in place as she wrapped around his torso like a straight jacket.

“Ewe need to lighten up, Unca Spike!” Screwball giggled, stretching her neck around like a snake to look at his face with her playfully spinning eyes. “Strezz is bad fur ya, you know! Heer that?”

Spike stopped for but a moment, hearing a throng of shouting voices in the near distance. “See?” Screwball asked. “Boath our hedds are screeming at us to calm down, so take a load off!”

Spike growled in rage, struggling to pull free of the chaotic filly, who laughed and jeered all the while. Walking blindly, he eventually stumbled into the railing at the edge of the hill and lost his balance.

‘OH, SH—’

His legs buckled beneath him, causing him to pitch over the fence like a sack of potatoes. Spike cried out aloud as he fell, while Screwball simply gave a long ‘whee!’ all the way down the short cliff face to the cobblestone street below.

CRASH!

Spike landed on his front, the impact knocking the wind out of him and leaving a spiderweb of cracks snaking outward along the stones all around his body. He moaned in pain, dizziness, and at the sheer indignity of being brought low in such a manner.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to berate the filly, he felt the vise-grip of her body around his arms loosen. Blinking in surprise, he pushed himself up to a kneeling position, turning his head—and then he found Screwball shaking behind his back, her face locked into an expression of shock and her lower lip trembling with terror.

Spike instinctively raised the frills down the back of his head and neck, and they tingled sharply as they sensed a massive chaotic presence not far away. He snapped his head back around, tracing Screwball’s field of vision—

‘Asuryan’s blood, what in the...’

Dozens of withered, dried bodies lay flat on their faces in the street which was conspicuously devoid of a single living pedestrian, almost all of them having fallen in the same general forward direction. Several of them appeared to possess multiple pairs of black-tinged puncture marks on their necks, spaced very close together.

Spike quickly got to his feet. “Go someplace safe, Screwball,” he said in a low voice.

“Mmhm,” she muttered fearfully, quickly detaching herself from Spike’s armor as she was sucked into her propeller beanie like a vacuum.

As Screwball buzzed and flew away, Spike reached behind his back and unstrapped his shield and greatsword with quick, practiced motions. His face grim, he set off with great strides down the corpse-littered street in the direction of the warp signature.

“Feet apart, soldier.”

Sergeant Norbsteim tapped his pistol against the leg of one of his men, who adjusted his stance with his spear held overhand.

He held the handle of his pistol tightly, returning his gaze to the makeshift barricade that his ten men had hastily erected at the door of one of the city’s guard towers. Their formation was in a loose semicircle, all facing the door with weapons drawn and ready. Whatever might come in would be instantly surrounded on three sides. Behind the gate, he could hear panicked screaming and running from men and women, as well as numerous loose objects being broken and tossed about the streets.

Soon came the sound of a choked scream, which rapidly weakened to silence. There was the tearing of flesh, a feral growl, and the wet thud of a person falling to the ground. The edges of the barricade glowed purple for a brief moment, and the men braced themselves. To their surprise, the glow stopped, but they held their arms tightly nevertheless.

The wall a few feet to the side of the door suddenly blew inward, throwing several men across the room in a flurry of brick and mortar. The others turned to the breach and charged into the smoke.

Norbsteim was right behind them, pressing them onto the offensive. “To the last, men! For the White Wolf of Ulric!”

The dying screams of his men reached his ears almost immediately after the words left his lips. He finally spotted the assailant amidst the smoke, and raised his flintlock pistol for a shot.

BANG!

He saw a pop of black fluid erupt from the creature’s shoulder joint, but it didn’t even seem to notice. It quickly leapt away after a moment, leaving the dessicated carcass of one of its victims behind. It immediately charged forward at the next man with a vicious snarl, telekinetically ripping his sword away and burrowing its fangs into his chest.

Norbsteim discarded the empty gun and drew a second pistol, firing another shot which struck the creature in the gut. This only seemed to make it even angrier, as it seized the remaining three soldiers in an invisible grip and raised them into the air. Blood snaked from every pore of their bodies in torrents, flowing through the air and straight into the daemon’s gaping, insatiable maw. It dropped them to the ground a few moments later, their bodies white as snow and shriveled like prunes.

The daemon’s eyes then swiveled to Norbsteim himself, and immediately he felt a stab of raw terror, like a mouse cornered in a grain sack. He cursed as he ripped his sword from its sheath, gritting his teeth as he held the steel out between him and the creature.

The daemon’s horn flashed purple for an instant, and Norbsteim grunted as his sword was knocked out of his grasp by a powerful force, as well as his shoulder pauldrons. The creature shrieked in hunger, and leapt forward.

Norbsteim raised an arm just in time, and the fangs of the daemon pierced straight through the chainmail covering and into warm flesh. It immediately began to feed, and he rapidly noticed himself growing weaker by the second.

“Hey!”

The monster paused, then pulled its fangs free and dropped the rapidly-paling sergeant to the floor of the tower. She turned around to face a seven foot-tall silver-armored figure, brandishing a Hoeth greatsword in one hand. Staring straight at her.

If he didn’t know any better, Spike would have thought that the chaotic presence he sensed was from the sheer bloodshed all around him.

The scene was unnerving. Stalls and carts lay overturned, produce and other small items strewn haphazardly about the sides of the street. The lane itself was a charnel house; numerous bodies, most of them humanoid, lay flat on the stones with almost no sign of blood on or near their bodies. The large spacing between them, as well as the rictus of pure terror frozen onto the faces of a few he could see, made it easy to assume that they had died trying to escape from something.

Spike gritted his teeth, running as fast as he could whilst still keeping his movements and breathing calculated to mitigate the weight of his armor. It helped to focus on his training in situations like these, to remember the motions and go through them deliberately in order to avoid giving his mind over to anger. Control and restraint, as the masters of the Tower of Hoeth had said, was not to be forsaken, even in the most dire of situations.

Although, Spike couldn’t deny that he really wanted to hit something, right about now.

Spike’s honed senses were in full gear, filtering out the odd sounds and distant cries of fear and confusion from the eerie quiet that pervaded the desolate street. He remained focused on the chaotic signature, now growing so strong that he could smell the telltale ozone stink of warp presence. He tightened his grip on his broadsword.

There it was. Straight ahead, he made out what appeared to be a guard tower, a gaping hole eight feet wide punched into the side of the still-intact door; Spike assumed that whoever was—or had been—inside had attempted to barricade themselves within, only for their attacker to make their own way through. His warp-sense was now a powerful throbbing in his skull instead of a tingling, and Spike knew that whatever was causing it was coming from inside the tower.

This was only further proven when he heard a grunt of pain, followed by a hair-raising screech not meant for mortal ears. Muttering a prayer to Asuryan to grant him strength, Spike bolted to the opening in a blur of movement and peered inside.

And there, among a half-score of corpses and facing the far wall of the dark structure, was the daemon.

No mere corrupted mortal, no unlucky beastman or mutant, no incautious heretic dabbling in warp sorcery. This was a true denizen of the Warp. Though its back was turned, Spike could still see enough; It was in the form of a pony, albeit a very large one, standing at least seven full feet above the ground. A huge pair of bat-like membranous wings sat half-stretched from the sides of the creature, flexing along with the movements of the rest of its body.

Spike’s dorsal frills stuck out so stiffly they started to quiver, sending stabs of agony through his spine and tightening every part of his body in sharp tension. Adrenaline suffused his veins, leaving a cool buzzing sensation in its wake, a desperate need to take action.

“Hey!” he barked in challenge.

The creature’s movements stopped entirely for a moment, and then it raised its head and slowly began turning around. Inwardly, Spike cursed his foolishness at ruining the element of surprise, and immediately raised his sword and shield in a battle stance.

As the creature turned, it released hold of what was apparently another of the human guards, his body slumping down to the floor with an ungainly thud. Spike didn’t spare more than a thought for the fate of the poor man, as every iota of his faculties was locked firmly on the daemon. It finally came around, and Spike got a good look at its face.

However, it wasn’t the first time he had seen it.

Spike’s eyes widened, his pent-up resolve doused like a bucket of sand on a fire. His hands grew numb and shook with disbelief, the sword and shield slipping from his grasp to clatter to the stone floor below. He stood paralyzed, shock and disbelief wracking his mind as decade-old memories he had long since suppressed rose back to the surface with a vengeance.

’Spike! Can you believe it? We saved an entire empire!’

’Yeah! And we taught that creep Sombra a lesson, too!’

’What lesson would that be, Spike?’

’Don’t mess with the power of friendship!‘

’Hehe, you’re right… I couldn’t have it without you, my little number one assistant!’

He looked into her eyes, still the same shade of deep purple as he always remembered them. He inwardly smiled a little when he saw the familiar soft lavender glow of her horn, meaning she was about to cast a spell.

Poof!

’Best partners ever, right, Twilight?’

’...mm...lud...’asty...’

’...Twilight? What’d you say?’

’I said your blood’s really tasty, Spike!’

Spike awoke from his reverie to the sensation of sharp fangs punching through his armor and into his shoulder. He drew in a breath sharply, and in an act of reflex gripped Twilight’s snout, grunting as he slowly pried her jaws away.

’She bit right through me!’ Spike thought in disbelief; his natural scales had survived a hail of bullets from Screwball before, but Twilight pierced them like they were bare skin. He quickly glanced over to the bleeding holes in his shoulder, then turned his attention back to Twilight as she bore down on him even harder.

Her eyes were filled with a firestorm of hatred and hunger, her tongue lashing out and reaching for the red fluid dripping from his wounds. Twilight screamed desperately in frustration, wrestling free from his claws and ramming her head straight into his face.

Momentarily disoriented, Spike could do nothing as Twilight reared up, driving her front legs into his torso and shoving him down to the floor with a loud crash.

’Dammit! This is not my day!’

Spike raised his claws just in time, his palms pushing against Twilight’s face as she tried to press closer and closer, snarling and screeching in mad hunger for his blood.

“Twilight, it’s me, Spike! Stop! Please!” he yelled.

It was deaf to him. What was this goat-horned monster on top of him, whose screams pierced his ears and whose face bore the damage of the short resistance of many victims? He couldn't imagine that face, so wrought with anger and directed on him. He had to end it.

’Please, forgive me...’

Spike rammed his right claw into Twilight’s mouth, digging his talons into her lower jaw in a vise grip. Twilight immediately responded by clamping down hard on his fingers, and Spike grunted in pain as he found himself immensely grateful for his iron-hard bones. Twilight then began to feed, her tongue lapping up the fresh blood eagerly—both his, and her own.

Without wasting a moment, Spike shifted his left claw to clasp around Twilight’s neck, and ferociously squeezed her windpipe. Her eyes immediately went wide, and she tried to raise herself up out of his reach; only for Spike to lash out with his mailed legs, kicking Twilight’s rear hooves out from under her and disrupting her balance.

Twilight’s howls and snarls gave way to choked whimpers as she tried to pull away from being strangled, only to be jerked back firmly by Spike’s grip on her jaw. Her eyelids slowly fell and her cheeks started to blacken.

“I’m sorry…” he whispered, a tear running down his cheek.

It felt like an eternity before her resistance finally gave out, and all at once she went limp as a boned fish and flopped on top of his body.

Grunting, Spike rolled her over onto her back and sat up next to her. He couldn’t look at her face, but he did brush the mane off her neck, where the thick marks of his claws were engraved in her skin.

He turned an eye to the sound of a drop, finding a small black pool growing under her and trickling gashes adding more oily slime to the puddle.

’Hospital,’ he thought quickly. ’They’ll know what to do.’

Even then, though, he wouldn’t be able to keep her there long. The district was evacuated, the injured would also be at that hospital. Spike would, however, show his face to terrify a doctor into helping if he had to. Who would deny a furious dragon?

In the meantime, he tore some strips from the clothes of one of the dead soldiers and tied them around his and her gashes as compresses. He could feel his heartbeat in his shoulder, and blood started to drip through the cloth, but he had to get past it and ignore the throbbing pain. He then wrapped Twilight in his cloak with legs folded so she’d be a more compact package to carry. She was much bigger than he remembered, and he leaned her against his body so her head hung over his shoulder.

Norbsteim, trying to get back up, felt his legs give way under him and he fell again, apparently too weak to stand; and also, Spike thought, too disoriented to have properly seen what transpired.

Spike stood with the creature in his arms and his head buzzed in dizziness. He’d lost a lot of blood, and what was left was providing barely enough circulation. He staggered, one step at a time until he exited the tower, then as the rush quieted, he took to greater speed down the evacuated street.

A pair of sterile steel tweezers maneuvered slowly into the blackened hole punched in the surface of purple fur. The owner of the hand behind it had every ounce of his self-control allocated to keeping his arm steady. His instrument felt around for a bit, then encountered a hard, round resistance. He relaxed his fingers, letting the tweezers open and fit around the object, then pinched and pulled up. From the broken skin slipped a bloodsoaked lead ball.

“.45 caliber,” the doctor muttered idly as he inspected the shot. Flipping down the magnifying lenses of his glasses, he found an inscription along the bullet’s circumference that read: ‘Kill the Heretic’.

Into a nearby shallow bowl it went, along with a second ball and bits of similarly-bloodied jagged shrapnel and splinters. His observers looked on in silence, a pall of anxiety draped over them like a blanket.

“What have I done...?” Celestia muttered under her breath, her expression blank and distant.

Spike said nothing, leaning against the wall with both arms crossed and a grim expression on his face.

After some deliberation, Spike had decided to simply write and send a letter to Princess Celestia, rather than trudge through the city and risk drawing attention. After being informed of the situation, Celestia had engaged in a frenzy of teleporting around the streets, eventually finding them both huddled up on the porch of an abandoned chapel in the midst of the evacuated quarter. She had subsequently brought them both to Spike’s room in the palace to avoid arousing suspicion from the guards, and requested a doctor be sent to take care of her.

Plink.

“That’s the other bullet,” the surgeon murmured, placing the bloodsoaked lead ball in his bowl and raising the glasses off his eyes. He wiped down the wound with a rag dipped in alcohol, then pressed on an adhesive patch to cover it.

“Princess, are there any other ailments you've seen?” he asked.

“No,” she said curtly. “You’ve done your charge. You may leave.”

He gave a bow of his head before taking a rag and wiping his face of sweat, packing his tools into a waiting bag, and walking away.

Celestia’s horn shimmered a sunny yellow; at the same time, the doctor stopped at the door with a slightly concerned look like he’d forgotten something. After a few seconds, Celestia relinquished her magic and he turned back to her.

“Be sure she takes one pill every six hours, and the swelling should clear up before the prescription runs out,” he said.

Celestia nodded, and no sooner had the door closed behind the departing doctor with a click that she slumped over, tears falling from her eyes as all the anxiety and emotion she had been forced to contain came back with a vengeance.

Twilight lay in the bed, black-stained bandages around her shoulder and abdomen, and a bracing block in the back of her mouth to hold her broken jaw in place while it healed. Parts of her cheeks were flayed away from the glancing blows of swords and her cuts almost invisibly burned with tiny warp flames, ever-so-slowly healing them. Only her original magic horn remained, the others having been filed away down to her temples.

“So, I guess your little deal with Tzeentch is done.”

The princess turned, regarding Spike with an incredulous expression. ”Excuse me?”

“This is almost how it was all planned, wasn’t it?” Spike remarked with clinical detachment. “You shelter her, help her grow up, and then once Chaos wants her, ship her off to the Wastes and save your own plot.”

“Spike, you do not speak to your princess in such a derogatory manner!” she snapped.

“Then with all due respect, my loyalty currently lies with Princess Cadence and Ulthuan,” the dragon remarked, then scowled and looked into her eyes.

“What else did you talk to Tzeentch about? Would you have surrendered half of Equestria to him, too?”

“I did what I had to for the safety of all of Equestria, the entire world!” Celestia shot back indignantly.

Spike pushed off the wall, stifling a grunt as he lowered his bandaged arm. “But why in the way you did? Why raise her to be so happy, have so much to live for, and then...” he snapped his fingers sharply, “...just take it all away? Why not just lock her in a dungeon and feed her a daffodil pedal a day, or send her to the moon for twenty years and not even have to look at her?”

Celestia cringed, looking back to her former student turned bat-winged alicorn. The sheets above her chest slowly rose and fell, her expression relaxed and mouth hanging open slightly. The princess bit her lip; she had seen that same look on Twilight’s face so many times before, when she was still a young filly and gone to sleep in Canterlot Castle after a hard day’s work, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and always looking forward to the experiences of the next day.

“I thought—” Celestia began, but choked up and closed her eyes before she could continue. “I thought that there was a chance that the Changer of Ways was lying, that he didn’t have the power, or that he could be stopped. Then... then perhaps she wouldn’t have to leave.”

She gently laid a gold-plated hoof on Twilight’s chest, feeling the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. “After Luna had fallen, I saw the families of Equestria in a new light, as something sacred for those in it. Twilight had her mother and father at home, but her life of studies was lonely, alone in the library and observatory. I wondered if I could be her second family, away from her home, with Cadence and Shining Armor. Then maybe... I could keep her as my own.”

“And did you think this far?” Spike asked, scowling. “When, or if, she wakes up and isn’t still bloodthirsty, the first thing she’ll ask will probably be if she and her friends can be cured. How do you think she’ll react to being told she was born this way, and that no one has any idea how to fix this!?”

“The Elements of Harmony—”

“You said it yourself, the Elements are gone!” Spike threw an arm to the window. “The Everchosen took them from the Ponyville library, and even if he can’t use them, even if he doesn’t know what they are, we can’t, either!”

Spike’s words hung in the air for several moments, a thick silence falling upon the room like a final death knell. Celestia’s head dipped low in admonishment, hot tears staining her milk-white cheeks in forked lines of pallid gray.

“I can’t wait to see what Cadence and Shining Armor think when they see her,” Spike said, huffing a dry laugh. “Tick-tock, Princess. Tick. Tock.”

“I—” Celestia choked out, then forced her sobs to cease and gained a little control over her expression again. “I need to think.”

“You’ve had a thousand years to plan for this moment. I’m sure after a couple more hours, you’ll come up with something.”

Celestia glanced up, taking in Spike’s cold and venomous stare for a moment. Closing her eyes with a weary sigh, the Princess of the Sun briefly lit her horn and disappeared in a flash of golden light.

Spike would spend the next few hours in the room, not just because it was the guest room he was given in Middenplatz, but mostly to watch over Twilight. He didn’t want her to see the injury in his shoulder, at least not yet, and so he wore the blue and gold undergarment that usually went beneath his armor to hide the bandaging.

The whole time he was putting it on, he wondered if the creature that attacked him was just an episode Twilight had, or if she was already lost. He glanced at his sword which leaned against the wall before blasting the lucid thought from his head with an angry shake.

‘It’s no coincidence she’s here. She came because she wanted to.

That evening, he slept in the chair since Twilight had his bed, but he didn’t sleep. He was kept up by the gnawing doubt until somber-eyed Morr descended and cast sleep over his eyes.

Spike shot up from his sleep suddenly with a yelp, his heart throbbing, breathing in strained gasps, and looked about himself. His stature was diminutive once more, his body bare and infantile, and he was in his old bed, the wicker frame and blue blanket. To his right was a familiar dresser, and to the left, a bed with a lavender unicorn sitting up, looking at him with a troubled face.

“Spike, are you alright?” she asked, concern evident in her voice. “Did you have a nightmare?”

He was silent, his heart on wings as he took another look around. It was nearly a minute of processing what he was seeing before Spike leapt up from his bed and threw himself, watery-eyed, into Twilight’s embrace.

“It- it was horrible!” he sobbed, burying his face in the fur of her chest. “These monsters destroyed Ponyville and took everyone away, including you!”

Twilight rubbed the top of his head and held him tightly. “It’s okay. It was just a dream,” she cooed. “It didn’t happen, and we’re still here.”

Spike still vented all he needed to for a few minutes, until his throat was sore and chest ached before he spoke again, sniffling, “They… they turned you into a monster, with fangs and bat wings… and… and…” He looked up into her soft, worrisome eyes. “You bit me… You tried to k-k-”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Twilight murmured, “You know that can’t happen. I don’t even have the teeth for it. See? All flat.”

She smiled, big and wide to ease Spike’s fears, but his eyes only grew wider as he saw them. Four sharp canines, jutting taller from their top and bottom rows.

“What?” Twilight asked in confusion. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth until—

“Ah! Ah, ow!”

Spike dropped aside as she jumped up and bolted downstairs to the treehouse’s bathroom. He was frozen in fear for a moment, and from the open upstairs balcony, peered into the restroom where he saw Twilight spitting red-tinted saliva into the sink. She stuck out her tongue to see it in the mirror, gasping at a long gash cut across it and, opening her mouth wider, found the fangs that slashed it.

Spike looked on as she hunched over the sink and her back squirmed under the skin, growing two bulges at the shoulder blades that Twilight screamed in pain at until they broke, shooting up leathery, bloodsoaked wings.

Spike’s strength failed him, and he moved back from the balcony, shaking his head. “No… no…”

“Spike!” Twilight cried hoarsely to the sound of her hoove fumbling about the bathroom. “Spike, help me! I don’t know what… NGAAAAAH!”

But the toddler couldn’t bear to see it. The sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh was enough to get his gut twisting in sickness. Tears streamed down his face while he heard Twilight writhe downstairs.

A great light suddenly flooded the building, like the sun had been turned on downstairs, followed by Twilight shrieking with such intensity, Spike found strength to finally see what was happening.

A regally-adorned white alicorn stood with head bowed, horn alight in hostile magic, and a gaping, smoking gash in Twilight’s shoulder.

“P-p-princess…” the mutant muttered, grasping her wound and staring in abject terror at her mentor. “Why?”

Celestia glared furiously, her eyes filled with anger and regret. “You were a mistake!”

Another blast from her horn burned like a crackling spear of light through Twilight’s chest, throwing her back, shattering the mirror with clear view of her lungs and, just barely missed, her heart.

“Tzeentch would have come for us whether I said yes or no!” Celestia cried.

Spike jumped down from the short balcony and shouted desperately, “Princess! Stop!”

Celestia paid him little regard beyond, “Stay out of this, Spike,” as she readied another shot.

Spike grabbed her leg and futilely tried to pull her away. “She’s sick! She needs help!”

“There’s nothing left to save.”

Celestia then merely held him away with her telekinesis, but didn’t bother to make him face the other way as a beam struck the hemorrhaging Twilight in the face, burning and flaying away flesh and bone. Twilight held a hoof out to Spike and he thrashed in his weightlessness in her direction.

“Twilight! Princess, please stop!”

He watched helplessly as Twilight was engulfed in the golden light, and half a bloody foreleg fell to the floor, cauterized and ashen on one end.

His head snapped up in a jolt fast enough to give a buck deer whiplash. His hands were gripping the sides of the chair so hard that when he let go, he found the wood imprinted with claw marks.

A barely-audible murmur brought Spike to look to the bed where Twilight was shifting around under the sheets. He stood up quickly, partly from excitement, the other from a simmering fear.

Two weary eyes slowly blinked open, very confused at the wood ceiling they were staring into, the oddly comfortable, warm feeling all around her, and the noticeable, but not complete numbness of her mouth and body. She tried to move her right leg, but a shock of pain in the shoulder sent it back down with a his escaping her teeth.

“Hey, try not to move the places you were hurt.”

Twilight locked up. She wasn’t alone. She didn’t know how exactly to listen to the voice, since everything hurt. Her neck not so much so, so she inclined her head only so much before the stiff bones in her spine locked up.

Despite only being able to look down to the very bottom of her eyes, they were fixed on the tall figure walking to her side with a mixed expression. Happiness, guilt, anger, all vied to show through on his purple, scaly face.

“Shff... Shpaach...” Twilight blinked quickly to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was. No longer was there a little chubby toddler, but an adolescent dragon who sat on the bed beside her. She smiled like only the proudest of mothers could.

“Shpa-a-ach...” She tried to use her good leg to lean up, but another shock, this time in the abdomen sent her flopping back to the bed, then she remembered what he said.

“H...huuht.”

“Hut? Hurt! Yeah.” Spike reached for the papers the surgeon left behind and held them in front of Twilight.

’Multiple gunshot wounds, moderate concussion, dislocated jaw, four broken ribs...’

Twilight gave a plaintive moan, and nodded for Spike to put them away. She held out her good hoof, shaking it a little to pass on the hint.

She squeaked as he helped raise her to an upright position and arranged the pillows at her back to prop her up. She had a much better look at him, not just out of the bottom of her eyes and Spike chortled as her jaw almost hit the floor.

“Yep. Puberty hit me like a brick wall.” he said. “How long have you been... around?”

Twilight took another cursory look around and said, “Cuppah munfs. Anj, how’jid I get heer?”

“I, uh, found you passed out with some pretty bad injuries and brought you here. A doctor patched you up and it’s been about half a day since then. And only a few months? What, have you been time traveling or something?”

“Jush wunsh.” Twilight said with a slight giggle.

“You missed out on so much! Cadence rules Ulthuan with the elven Phoenix King, Shining Armor is reiksmarshall of the Empire’s military, and look!” He jumped up with his back to her, raised the back of his shirt, and outstretched two webbed wings. “They’re still kinda small, but they’re coming in fast. I might start to learn to fly in a few days!”

“Jatsh graych!” Twilight murmured happily. “Where ish Shy’ng?”

“He and Cadence are visiting the memorial cemetery outside the city and won’t be back till later. Until then, you have to stay here and rest up.”

Twilight nodded, but wondered how her brother would react to seeing a different creature from his little sister. It was something she could think over in a bit.

“Whah yoo joo gwowing uff?” she asked Spike.

“Well, uh...” Spike nervously scratched the back of his head. “Spent a lot of time in Caledor. They really like their dragons, and after a couple months in infested woods, I earned a special title—”

His heart leapt into his throat. Was he about to tell her about a month he spent fighting daemons? And then where would that lead to? She’d ask him how he could do that so well and it’d snowball. If anyone was going to tell Twilight, Spike would make sure it was Celestia.

“Beast Slayer…” he lied. “Ulthuan’s forests are rife with beastmen and just surviving in there is a feat.”

Twilight spied the greatsword in the corner in it’s glittering scabbard. “Oh. Ish jat yoor shord?”

Spike looked back to it. “Yeah. It’s made from some of the strongest steel in Ulthuan, and it’s got an inscription along the flat. ‘Bringing Galrauch’s retribution.’ He was the first chaos dragon. He ate a Lord of Change after it killed his master, and it took control of his body, but his soul kept fighting as, after his head and neck split into two, one head attacked the other.”

“Whach happen’j to him?”

Spike’s expression turned solemn. “He lost… even now, he’s sleeping in some cave or on a mountain. Once in a while he wakes up and goes on his own spree of destruction.”

“Oh,” Twilight mumbled.

“Do you know about your… condition?” Spike asked. “The fangs, horns?”

Twilight’s ears flattened. “Mhmm. How jij yoo know?”

Spike suddenly wished he hadn't asked. “I have this uh, sense I use through these.” The green flaps down his back snapped up in the shape of a spiny mohawk. “It lets me tell where warp entities are and, when I sensed you, I couldn't believe it.”

“How cahn yoo joo jat?” Twilight chuckled amusedly. “Noh dwagon can joo that.”

Spike had run into another wall. “Well... some dragons in Ulthuan can sense these things.”

“Yoor noch from Ulchwahn.”

’Damn it, Celestia!’ Spike cursed inwardly.

“Uh, when the warband attacked Ponyville, I was taken, too. I started changing, immediately mutating, but the elves saved me. I wasn’t too far gone, and after getting cleaned up I could still feel chaotic presences.”

“Je elvesh khured yoo?” Twilight asked with rising intrigue. “Can jey help my frienjsh and I?”

Spike shifted uncomfortably, scrunching his lips and said, “All I had was some elongated fingers and teeth. You, on the other hand… I don’t think they can cure daemonhood. Even if we were to sail there, the subcontinent’s surrounded by a veil of magic. It’d repel you like a wall and they wouldn’t open a breach in it for any reason.”

Twilight’s ears fell back down and Spike put a claw on her shoulder. “But hey.” he said, “We’ve still got one of the best magic academies in the Empire right in this city.”

“Ish it anyching like je lavs in Khancherlot?”

“I actually haven’t been there yet,” Spike admitted, “But it’ll be a day for us both.”

“What the hell happened down here?” Fellblade muttered, his mouth agape as he looked about the prison-turned-charnel house. He and Shining Armor stepped cautiously around and over the dried husks of the Cutiemark Crusaders, the Reiksguard in tow.

“I thought a captain would know what his troops are doing,” Shining said pejoratively.

“Reiksmarshall, my men had everything under control. All of them were locked away, you see that!”

Shining rolled one of the soldiers over, finding two pairs of holes in his petrified face. “So what do you think did this?”

“It’d be safe to say it was our primary target, Twilight Sparkle,” Fellblade continued, and Shining noticeably cringed. “She’d asked for—”

A brown hoof stuck out from one of the cells as he passed by, interrupting the conversation. “Shining Armor? That’s you, right?” said the Doctor. “Good. Listen, your sister, Twilight Sparkle, is here and— gah!”

A unicorn guard squeezed his neck in a telekinetic hold and threw him backward.

“Who is this?” the reiksmarshall asked, turning a curious eye to the Doctor. “And how does he know that name?”

Fellblade looked up from where he had begun closing the eyes of his stricken soldiers one by one. “It’s one of the prisoners my party captured from our mission. He keeps claiming that they weren’t—”

“I was going to tell you,” the Doctor interrupted, gasping as he got upright. “She was here, but she went berserk in bloodthirst— hold that thought!”

Shining closed his mouth again, and the Doctor continued.

“She told me that her fillyhood doll was named ‘Smarty Pants’, her assistant in the Ponyville library was Spike the dragon, and she at one point accidentally turned you into a halibut and kept you in the toilet for three days when she was eight— ah, ah!” The Doctor raised a hoof, interrupting Shining who was about to speak. “Then explain how I know her name, explain how all these soldiers died, and explain what other leads you have right now, and if you don’t have any, think about what could happen to her in the time it would take to find one other than me!”

Shining only knew him for a minute and didn’t have a counter. Still, it was too sudden, the look in Whooves’ face too expecting. Shining put a burning stare into him to find any fault in his facade, but that cocky grin was unflinching, so sure of itself.

After a long staring contest, Whooves sighed and craned his head to the side. “Fluttershy,” he called, “Shining Armor’s here!”

Shining quirked a brow in confusion. “Fluttershy?”

The whine of bending iron drew all eyes down the hall and the head of a juggernaut peered around the corner of a cell. The instant it saw him, it cracked a wide smile and came clumsily bounding toward him.

“Sweet Celestia, what is that?!” shouted Shining.

He and Fellblade leapt back as the reiksguard moved up. Fluttershy ground to a halt before the silver-clad bodyguard who braced a shieldwall against her. Nigh ignoring them, she used her titanic stature to reach over them and picked up Shining like the answer to all her problems.

“Yes! Yes! He’s here! Now you can take us to the princesses and we can get back to normal! Yay!”

The reiksguard sprung forth to relieve their reiksmarshall, thrusting their swords into the joints of Fluttershy’s hind legs, hoping to strike some sensitive cabling. It had a clear effect as the giant jolted with a yelp of pain, but still held Shining in her claw.

The reiksguard’s swords started to melt, though not becoming hot, fusing to Fluttershy’s body and sinking into her as quickly as water drops. Disarmed, the reiksguard looked up into a face that curled into a balefully savage snarl. Fluttershy raised her free claw and swiped at them, missing as they ducked and got her claw stuck, smashing into the wall with her momentum.

“I didn’t do anything!” she snapped. She wrestled quickly to free her claw, ripping out several heavy stones with it.

“Fluttershy,” Whooves said quickly and loudly. She paused and turned to him. “Look at what you’re doing, Fluttershy. Look at Shining Armor.”

She glanced to the pony in her claw. He was focused, sweat running down his face from the living war machine’s heat. The only reason he wasn’t striking her with magic was because of her sudden restraint. Though, his horn was still alight and ready.

“What is wrong with you stallions?” Whooves said with a cross face to the reiksguard who were dumbfounded at how he had control of the monster. “She was ecstatic to meet Shining Armor and you attacked her for it? For shame! They had no reason to do that, Fluttershy, but Shining didn’t do anything to you.”

Fluttershy thought for a moment, first wondering what Shining’s flesh and blood tasted like. Instead, her claw creaked open and let the reiksmarshall fall in a painful heap. “I... I’m sorry.” she muttered, trying to bring her temper down. “Shining, please forgive me.”

The red-faced unicorn wrestled to rip off the crushed chestplate that was compressing his lungs. Gasping for a few seconds, he glared up at the calming face of the giant, then at the Doctor.

“Get the brown one out... and bring him with me,” he said. The warden filed through his ring of keys, constantly taking nervous glances at the giant, and let the Doctor out.

“I swear, if you’re wasting my time, you’ll hang from the first tree,” Shining muttered darkly.

Whooves gulped. “All the more motivation to search harder, then...”

Mannslieb and Morrslieb were as mismatched as the eyes of Discord in the sky; one outright normal, the other smaller, green and dark. After hours of dead-end solution-seeking and introspection, Celestia ultimately felt that she needed Luna’s advice on what to do next. With both moons up together, she expected to see her sister involuntarily put into the look of Nightmare Moon again, but still in control of herself. Luna usually liked to look from the west balcony up at the twin moons, often wondering if Morrslieb could even be moved, given the fact that it was the moon of chaos.

Celestia was near the wing in question when she picked up the sound of a pained struggle, frantic flapping of wings, and noticed the torches along the walls dimming the closer she got until she was in pitch blackness.

Her heart seized up for a moment in fear, and within seconds she was sprinting through the palace with her horn illuminating the dark hallways with brilliant light; a fact that mostly served to make things worse, however, as the shadows running along the walls from the lone light source seemed to watch and mock her every move.

“Luna!” Celestia called out, giving up running for a blitzing flight. “Luna!”

Adrenaline flooded her system as she laid eyes on her objective; the arched doorway that led directly to the balcony. She could hear the sounds growing clearer, now, with the unmistakable pained cries of her sister added to the ghastly mix. She gritted her teeth in anger as she wrapped the doors in a telekinetic grip, the wood creaking in protest as she threw them open inward with the force of a battering ram.

“Luna!!” Celestia screamed, her horn crackling with a furious white-hot glow as she rounded the corner and crossed the threshold—

She froze in sheer terror, her eyes widening as the blood in her veins turned to ice.

Her sister was split, and yet whole; one half of her body remained the same, but as she thrashed about the balcony in pain and terror, Celestia could see a pitch-black mass spreading from her left side like living, viscous oil. And it quickly became apparent that the side that was still Luna was losing, her gentle dark-blue coat shriveling away as it was subsumed by the shadows.

Celestia stood for a moment on her shaking hooves, her face torn apart by anguish and denial.

“L… Luna...?” she murmured, her voice small and silent.

And then the aberration turned towards her, giving Celestia a good look at the other half of her sister’s face.

Time and existence itself stopped, as Celestia’s mind rocketed one thousand years into the past. And no matter where she looked, the cold, hateful glare of the Nightmare bored into her very soul, sullying every memory of her sister with its black web of envy and loathing.

‘No...’ she thought pleadingly, the mocking laughter of the creature echoing in her mind across the countless ages.

An ear-piercing shriek in two different voices split the silent night, jolting Celestia back to the present. The half-Nightmare spun around and lurched for the edge of the balcony like a lame legged dog.

Celestia was upon them both in a second, dragging her away from the edge and powering her horn for a blast. She threw her sister’s possessed body to the stones below, making sure the broad side of the Nightmare’s face was toward her.

’Not again... I won’t let this happen again!’

A brilliant beam of energy leapt forth from her horn and smote into the black void that was her face, burning away skin, flesh and bone; but Celestia didn’t care about collateral damage at the moment.

Suddenly, a hoof came out of nowhere and struck Celestia’s head, cutting off the lance of power and sending her reeling backwards. The black alicorn rose from the floor slowly, the oily shadows already rushing to her jaw which by now was only a few shreds of cauterized flesh and her hanging tongue. A moment later it was rebuilt completely, and she rolled and popped it into position.

Celestia rose, readying her horn for another attack; and just then the half-Nightmare turned, leaving her to watch helplessly as the last of Luna’s face was slowly swallowed up by the creeping darkness. Her sister’s eye, full of sorrow and remorse leaked one last tear which rolled down her cheek, before Nightmare blinked it into a turquoise slitted pupil.

“No, no, NOOO!!” Celestia shrieked, a second layer of crackling overglow enveloping her horn as she fired off another blast of golden flame.

The black alicorn didn’t even flinch as the bolt struck empty air in front of her, ricocheting away into the starry night sky like a freak comet.

“You seem angry, sister,” Nightmare Moon said coolly, her horn powering down from her hasty shield spell. “Is something the matter?”

She shifted her head to the side, dodging a second magic beam by mere inches, then lifted a leg to block Celestia’s follow-up flaming hoof-strike. Nightmare Moon tsked, a cruel smile coming to her lips as she beheld the princess’ face contorted into a visage of sheer anger, despair, and denial.

“You do realize that every injury you inflict on me, little Lulu will have to deal with, too?”

“What have you done with her!?” Celestia screamed. “So help me—”

“I was getting tired of this charade; but unfortunately, she is still alive,” Nightmare Moon spoke with clear distaste. “I think I’ve figured out the pattern, now.”

“What the hell are you talking about?! Where is she?!”

“Come, now,” Nightmare Moon said calmly as she disengaged, letting Celestia overbalance and stumble a bit. “The little wretch is still here; and whenever Morrslieb wills it, it will leave Mannslieb and she’ll be back. For now, though, I have to deal with you, and vice versa.“

Before Celestia could reply, the sound of several pairs of mailed boots striking stone echoed through the hallways behind them, followed by the odd shout and steely rasp of blades being pulled from their sheaths.

Neither of the alicorns on the balcony turned, however, and instead continued glaring at each other; one with casual indifference, the other with righteous fury.

“I wouldn’t recommend telling the guards any… unnecessary information,” Nightmare Moon said, her lips curling into a devilish smirk. “We wouldn’t want the divine balance of power to be upset so, now would we?”

Four palace guards rounded the corner with swords drawn, dressed in half plate and greatcoats and with the white wolf of Ulric emblazoned on their tabards. They slowed to a surprised and abrupt stop as they saw the princesses, their eyes sweeping over and above the balcony for any threat. The only indication of anything amiss was a small smoking crater in the bricks of the floor.

“Your Highnesses,” their leader said as he stepped forward, rapping a fist on his breastplate in salute. “We thought we heard several spells going off and someone screaming. Are you alright?”

Nightmare Moon turned slowly, giving them a thin yet encouraging smile. Unnoticed by the guards, a sliver of inky black shadows seemed to separate itself from her rear hooves, sliding across the balcony and over the ledge. Down it dripped to the grass below and took on the form of an unmoving Skaven gutter runner, its blades broken, its chest burst and destroyed.

“You might want to get your hearing checked,” she said, gesturing with her head behind her. “The only scream you may have heard was that beast down there.”

The guards shared quick glances among each other, and the leader nodded. One walked forward with his sword raised and ready, leaning over the edge; and then he jerked upright, hissing a particularly vile oath.

“Sir, it was a Skaven assassin!”

The guard sergeant sighed in frustration, sheathing his weapon with a click. “We do apologize, your Highnesses,” he said. “The damn rats are thick as flies here in Middenheim; although, it is rare that they would be able or willing to come this far into the palace grounds.”

Nightmare chuckled slightly, lifting a hoof to point up at the twin moons in the sky. “You know that I see all things. It merely interrupted the conversation Celestia and I were having; which we would like to continue, alone.”

The rest of the palace guards saluted to the princesses, then sheathed their blades and walked back to the entrance. “I’ll have the groundskeepers come to handle the rat’s body,” the sergeant said. “And I’ll see about increasing the guard around the inner walls. Stay safe, Your Majesties.” And then they disappeared into the hallway, the doors swinging shut with a mild bang of wood and clanking metal.

Nightmare Moon’s smile disappeared, making way for her usual look of cold, condescending resentment. She turned back to Celestia, who was still staring off into space with only the rage simmering in her eyes as any indication she was feeling anything at all. Coming to stand directly in front of her, Nightmare Moon got right in her face, her voice filled with nothing but seething malice.

“Let me make something clear: I. Hate. You. If the word ‘hate’ were printed ten thousand times on every square inch of a parchment large enough to cover every planet, star, and infernal rock in this universe, it would not equal a billionth what I feel for you at this micro-instant.”

“I expected no less,” Celestia snapped, gazing right back into the slitted eyes of her former sister. “You’re just a construct. You’re merely Luna’s monster that was supposed to be on a leash!”

Nightmare Moon smirked in amusement. “And what did Flankenstein’s monster say, when he found out that he was stronger? ‘Slave, obey!’” she stomped the ground with a forehoof at the last, sending a shockwave rippling through the stones.

“This is my body, my power, and my legacy,” she continued, her voice low and dangerous. “And now that I have more access to her memories, I know who paved the way for my return: the Vampire Counts. You do remember what happened last Nightmare Night, don’t you?”

Celestia drew in a sharp breath. Nightmare Moon sneered slyly, almost purring as she watched the baleful glare evaporate from her features in an instant, replaced by shock, pain and denial.

“That was…” Celestia muttered darkly, “Those bastards that nearly foalnapped Luna did this?”

Nightmare Moon nodded, turning her head to gaze up towards the sky, her expression turning somewhat wistful for an instant as she beheld the glittering stars above them.

“Apparently, Manfred von Carstein himself sent them to release me from within this body; which is mine to begin with, I might add,” she said, and savored the name, “Sylvania, land of the Vampires and home to all who thrive in the darkness. Maybe I’ll be more accepted, there, and Luna can have what she’s always wanted: subjects who love the night.”

“You have no reason to go there,” Celestia said pointedly. “There is already a large lunar cult in the Empire; millions of followers for you to step on, and madmen to do your bidding.”

“You’re right, but never has such a place been so forsaken by light as Sylvania. I’ll never have to look at the sun again, and I will command an entire empire with people who share my interests. Maybe even continue my research into necromancy since our civil war in Equestria. And as a third of the Empire collapses, or even secedes to follow me—”

“Other enemies will take advantage of the chaos,” Celestia interrupted. “This is not the time to break apart the strongest nation in the Old World into smaller pieces.”

“But you have the Evershosen’s mount, so we have the key to the world’s survival in Spike’s bed,” Nightmare Moon replied with a knowing smirk. “And the orks are gone, likely after the Nemesis Crown again. But ultimately, I suppose it all comes down to you, sister.”

“You are not my sister!” Celestia snapped.

“Why not?” Nightmare snickered as she slowly began to pace in front of the other alicorn. “Do you not see your her in these eyes? At the very least, I’m an extension of her, so as far as I am concerned and as far as you need others to believe, I am Luna now. And now, I want to see you squirm every time you see me, to know what happened and how we both felt that day. We just wanted some appreciation, just a thank you from our subjects as we raised and lowered the moon every day, a thankless job that Luna wasn’t even needed for!”

Nightmare read Celestia’s unbelieving expression with malice. “You controlled both the sun and moon for those thousand years; the world went on just fine without its unseen princess, and they even forgot me.”

Her eyes started to shake miserably, and her venomous voice softened slightly. “A thousand Nightmare Nights, a thousand Summer Sun Celebrations, and everypony forgot there ever was a princess Luna, or the magic from our duel that still curses the Everfree Forest.” Her face hardened again into a baleful snarl. “I only existed in your head and in storybooks! Do you understand the humiliation, the indignity of having to ask, ‘Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?’ And only that anti-social bookworm you call a student could muster an answer! And every other face had the same question on it: ‘Who are you?’

“I want you to feel as much pain as I did, having my eyes boil in the zero pressure atmosphere before casting a counter spell to prevent it, to forever starve and be dying of thirst, but never die. It was by your own selfishness that you lost your sister, and now, heh...” She cracked a toothy grin. “You could lose your daughter.”

Celestia snarled, her horn glowing and crackling with barely-restrained rage. Nightmare Moon sneered, laughing at the display.

“Oh, that’s right,” the black alicorn crooned mockingly. “You’ve set yourself up again! It appears that Fateweaver was right all those years ago. You got bored and lonely after you disposed of me, and must have thought you could play with the Sparkle daemon in your spare time.”

The sun goddess moved closer, her words coming dreadfully quiet and deliberate. “You will not say a single word to her. You know nothing about her.”

Nightmare Moon locked eyes with Celestia, the former’s purple slit irises meeting the magenta orbs across from them.

“You want me to keep quiet?” Nightmare Moon asked archly. “Then, slave,” she put her hoof out, and slowly lowered it. “Obey.”

Silence reigned on the balcony for several moments, until Nightmare saw that Celestia’s expression had still not fallen completely into despair.

As if reading her thoughts, the solar princess said simply, “You overlook something.”

“Oh? And what might that be?” asked Nightmare Moon.

Celestia took a step closer, articulating her words very precisely. “The Emperor will know of the true you.”

For just the briefest of moments, Nightmare Moon’s confident smile faltered. It wasn’t just the two of them anymore; Karl Franz wielded a hammer which was used by a god, and the Silver Seal protected him from all but the most powerful attacks.

“Franz is a man, a mortal,” Nightmare Moon replied crisply, huffing in derision. “Such creatures are always the most easily deceived.”

“You know that is not true,” Celestia said flatly. “If you have been able to see though Luna’s eyes, then you have seen him eviscerate a man’s words, picking it apart with the mental dexterity of a surgeon. In fact, I do not think I will even have to tell him. Once he takes one look at your face and no longer sees my beloved, caring sister Luna there, he will know.”

Nightmare Moon’s expression fell into a frustrated snarl, and Celestia pressed even harder. “Chrysalis has probably also felt the surge of hate and jealousy from your recreation. She will be on my side, as you are the essence of emotions that will torture her to be in your very presence. In fact, you may have just set our alliance in stone now.”

Celestia took a few steps back before retreating down the hall, craning her head back and uttering, “You have me on a leash for now, yes. But you will not operate with impunity.”

As the doors closed shut with a resounding slam, Nightmare Moon gritted her teeth and slammed a hoof to the floor, cracking the stone in a miniature thunderstrike. She went back to the edge of the balcony and looked up to the moons for an answer, then found one in Morrslieb.

“I will unlock your power,” she hissed. “And I’ll make sure Luna is burned out of this body forever. then, and only then will the world know my name for all time.”

It was one thing that Twilight didn’t have to sleep anymore, but another thing entirely that she couldn’t sleep. This made for a painfully boring few days as her wounds stabilized and she became overwhelmingly aware of the slow passing of time.

Her daemonic condition did have its perks once in a while, of course, and faster healing was one of them. In time, her jaw was well enough so the the bracing block could be removed, it didn’t hurt to breathe anymore, and she could sit up on her own.

She had constantly thought about her friends rotting in the dungeon while she was there, but what could she do? Ask nicely for a dozen mutants, half of them completely hostile, to be set free? The letter she had written earlier to Celestia for an audience had brought no response, and Twilight’s only knowledge of the outside was what Spike told her at the end of each day and from Middenheim’s news pamphlets. She’d already read an article about a daemonic monster rampaging through the streets; a violent episode that Spike had informed her about the details, but clammed up tight when asked if she had hurt him, too.

So many things had happened in the past several days that it all seemed like a blur, a whirlwind of circumstances and events that all seemed to conspire to make her life as difficult as possible. However, the ever-present feeling of anxiety and impending doom had settled down ever since they’d arrived in Middenheim, and with its absence came the reassuring—and nearly forgotten—feeling of hope, that things would still turn out alright in the end.

She smiled. The familiar figure sitting on the chair by her bedside had a lot to do with that, as well.

“Does Shining know about all this?” Twilight asked, setting the pamphlet she was reading aside.

Spike bit his lip. “Yeah. And he didn’t exactly take it very well.”

Twilight nodded, then buried her face in her hooves and gave a plaintive moan. “Ugh… what’s he gonna think of me now? Who knows how many people I hurt…”

“I don’t know,” Spike replied. “He’s been kind of tight-lipped since he found out. Do you need any help getting up?”

“Nah, I think I can do it on my own, now,” Twilight said, then rolled out of bed with a grunt, favoring her right front leg as the afflicted joint ached. Spike quickly rose from his chair, supporting her just in case.

“Whoa, you’re a little taller than I thought,” Spike remarked.

Twilight lifted her head, almost snorting in amusement as she realized she was almost at perfect eye level with the dragon.

“So are you,” Twilight snarked back.

Spike huffed off a laugh, inspecting Twilight’s body with a solemn yet inquisitive gaze. “And hey, the wings are new!” he said. “Do they, uh… do they work?”

Twilight caught the idea, smiling as she nodded. “Yeah. I could probably teach you to fly. It’s not that hard, once you get the patterns and maneuvers memorized.”

“Awesome!” Spike grinned widely. “Still, in public, you’ll actually need to cover it up. I got you some clothes, and we have to make sure your mane is covering where your horns used to be.”

Spike reached down into a wooden box by his chair, producing a set of fine robes of blue silk embroidered with simple yet beautiful patterns of stars and crescent moons, the sleeves and hood ending in a trim of turquoise sewn with interwoven runes of golden fabric. Twilight was immediately reminded of her old Starswirl the Bearded costume, although this robe lacked the wide-brimmed conical hat, as well as the outrageously ostentatious jingling bells that had adorned the entire ensemble.

“Where did you get all this stuff?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, that was easy,” Spike said, then paused. “Ok, maybe not so easy. The Princess had to have this made for you from scratch, since you’ve apparently filled out over the last few days when she wasn’t looking.”

“Hey,” Twilight said, sticking her tongue out at him. “You try keeping your figure after a whole barn full of— uh, never mind.”

Spike blinked, his smile slowly falling away. “O...kay. I’m just gonna focus on getting my armor on, now.”

He set the robes on the bed, then walked over to the opposite wall where his set of silver scale lamellar armor was hanging, as well as a long flowing cloak that she didn’t remember seeing on him from before.

“The mayor put out a statement saying that the ‘creature’ was killed,” Spike continued as he donned the raiment with deft, practiced movements. “At least that’s what Shining Armor told him to say, so no one’s looking for anything of the sort now.”

“Great,” Twilight said absently, her remaining horn and her new clothes glowing a soft purple. She lifted them into the air, shrugging into the robe with only minor difficulty from her injury. When she finished, she lifted her head—and nearly burst out laughing.

“Spike, really?” she snorted, grinning widely. “A cape?”

“Hey, let me live the fantasy. Besides, the elves gave me the option, and—”

“It’s silly!” Twilight giggled. “No dragon of mine is going to look like some fictional superhero!”

“Fine, mom.” Spike unbuttoned the cloak and threw it aside. His shoulder shuddered in pain and he clutched it with his other hand, hissing through his teeth.

“Are you okay?” Twilight asked.

“Uh, yeah. Just a cramp.” he lied, grinning sheepishly. “Shining and Cadence are waiting for us.”

“Then lead the way, my little dragon knight,” she chuckled.

Spike winked at her, then pulled on his helmet and retrieved his ornate broadsword along with its accompanying sheath from the wall.

They proceeded through the halls of Middenplatz in silence.

A grandfather clock tick-tocked in perfect beat, one of the only sounds in the spacious room besides the flutter of book pages.

Cadence was trying to pass the time by reading the next novel of the Adventures of Gotrek and Felix, a series she’d really gotten into since her arrival in the Empire. At the end of the book, Grey Seer Thanquol had been defeated, his Skaven army forced to retreat from Nuln for his safety as his bodyguard was slain by the duo of man and dwarf; one of the guards being a Boneripper, tricked into swallowing a grenade.

She put the tale down and glanced over to her husband, whose body was still as a statue and his gaze firmly locked on the doors ahead of him.

“Remember, she’s still the same mare,” Cadence commented.

He nodded almost imperceptibly, still not moving an inch.

“Shining, for the love of the Sun, will you please sit down? You can greet her properly when she gets here.”

“I’m fine,” he muttered in response, his expression not wavering an inch.

“He has known her some time longer than you, Princess Cadence,” said the Doctor, briefly skimming the contents of a book he had pulled from a shelf before replacing it and retrieving another. “I’m not surprised that he’s feeling apprehensive.”

Cadence sighed, rising from the couch and walking slowly over to her lover’s side. The guest room they had acquired for their stay in Middenheim was adequately spacious, with a bountiful assortment of chairs, divans and other such accoutrements spread around liberally in the center and around the periphery.

Shining had done all he could to preemptively prepare the room, fortifying the graceful arched windows that looked down upon the sprawling city below with an elaborate shield spell that would ensure no escape nor entry from an ordinary pegasus or other flying creature.

Twilight, however, was no normal pony. Not anymore.

“Shining,” Cadence said softly, laying a hoof on his shoulder. “Please, put down the shields. She would never threaten us.”

Taking a deep breath, Shining squeezed his eyes shut and slowly shook his head from side to side. The black bags that hung under his eyelids had come in full force ever since Twilight’s return and subsequent violent capture, ample evidence of just how badly the recent turn of events had shaken him to the core.

“I don’t know how to deal with this, Cadence,” he said, his voice broken and wistful. “I’m her brother, for Celestia’s sake. I’m supposed to protect her from anything. But I don’t know how to protect her from something I was never there for. You saw the casualty list after she went berserk; seventy-six people dead, in twenty minutes.”

“But you know that Spike has been taking care of her,” the Doctor cut in pointedly. “And I’ve been with her since day one. Twilight has come a long way, as far as controlling her nature goes...” he trailed off, his expression turning sheepish, “Well... about as far as she can at this point, I suppose. In any case, I do not doubt that she can master the most of her urges when it truly matters. She put up with eating rats in Mordheim, and the last time her thirst took over, she resisted attacking me and went for other animals instead.”

Shining bit his lip. He had gone to the hospital immediately after Spike sent him a letter. The place was well occupied with the injured, those palace workers struck by magic or debris in the panic. Spike was outside one of the rooms and let only him enter. There, Shining saw her, the skin of her cheeks sliced away and streaks of oily blood across her abdomen.

And then, just yesterday, Spike came to him and said she’d made an almost complete recovery, no extra treatment. Her physical connection to the Warp was strong at this point. He wanted so, so badly to believe that they were right, however, and that Twilight was still the same mare as he remembered, even after ten very long years.

After a couple laps of contemplation, he let the magic he was channeling flicker out, and the pink bubbles at the windows evaporated into thin air.

“Just you wait,” Cadence said reassuringly. “She’ll come through there with a smile, wanting to work as hard as it takes to get back to normal.”

Soon enough, they heard Spike’s heavy footsteps, accompanied by the steady clip-clop of hooves. The doorknob jiggled a bit, then stopped.

“You ready?” a voice came from the other side.

Shining and Cadence stiffened, their twin gazes locking on the door with anticipation.

“Yes,” a hauntingly familiar female voice responded.

The creaking of the brass hinges caused Shining to hold his breath. The mighty hardwood door swung inwards, leaving the reiksmarshall, crystal princess, and daemonic alicorn in full view of each other.

Shining swallowed a knot in his throat, a smile coming to his face that was not entirely factitious. He was immensely relieved to see that Twilight was relatively the same as he’d remembered; her coat was still its same sheen of soft lavender, and her horn was still in its original shape, although it had apparently grown to over a full foot in length.

He did find it awkward, however, to have to look up at somepony who was supposed to be his little sister.

“H...Hi, big brother,” muttered Twilight.

“Hey, Twily,” Shining said somewhat shakily.

What worried Shining the most was the smell of burning sulphur, the same stench that led the Everchosen to his first steed.

Like magnets, they quickly came at each other in an embrace.

Twilight giggled a little. “Looks like I’m the big sibling now.”

“Hey,” Shining replied dryly, smiling. “I’m still older.”

“Spikey-wikey... So good of you to visit...”

The dragon stood, tongue-tied at the sight of the creature behind the bars. The craggy formations of green crystals sprouting through its shoulders nicely complemented its gangly tree branch-like arms, unnaturally-wide mouth which curled ear to ear, and blue and gold eyes.

“H-Hi... Rarity,” Spike stuttered out, still staring at her grotesque form.

The warden of the dungeon undid the unicorn’s restraints, and she calmly and buoyantly stood. “Why thank you, dear.”

“Are you sure she’s what you need?” Spike asked skeptically.

Adjusting her alchemist’s hat, Twilight nodded confidently. “Absolutely. Not only will I have a raw warp source to tap into, but she’s affected by Tzeentch, so she must have inherited his love of knowledge and magic. Excuse me, warden; the noctral too, please.”

Rarity’s backward-jointed legs carried her out like that of a raven, wobbling once in a while on their taloned toes.

“Hey, Rarity... are you feeling okay?”

“Right as rain, darling!” she chimed, scratching the black feathers which were slowly molting off her back. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you were stuck in here for five days and you didn’t have bird’s legs last I saw you.”

“Oh, these?” Rarity wiggled her long-nailed toes. “You, ah… you learn to deal with that when you’re changing constantly. Next thing you know, I’ll have wings one day, gone the next!” Her wide-eyed gaze snapped to Spike, making him flinch.

“Look at you, my big strong dragon!” She landed a peck on Spike’s cheek, then made for the cell with the two fillies. “This is too perfect! Sweetie Belle is coming too, right?”

Spike rubbed his cheek with a claw, smiling goofily as he nodded. “Uh-huh—”

“Now hold on,” Twilight interrupted. “I’m not sure about that, Rarity. She’s still kind of unstable. We can’t really risk her exploding in the lab.”

“Oh, what!?” Sweetie said, jumping to the bars. “I can totally control it! I can, uh... light torches or your bunsen burners!” She sucked in a breath and clenched, but the suppressor on her horn only let a fog of smoke belch from her many mouths.

“And I’ll be miserable without her!” Rarity added, clasping her hands together pleadingly. “Please-o-please-o-please-o-plea-he-heeee—”

“Okay!” Twilight huffed in frustration. “She can come, but she’d better not light the bookshelves on fire.”

Sweetie put a hoof on her heart. “Swear I won’t— Ow! I bit myself...” she moaned as the mouth on her hoof spat out a clump of white fur.

Twilight hummed thoughtfully. “Alright, now we just need a test subject... Ah! Octavia!”

“Didn’t she play at the Grand Galloping Gala a long time ago?” asked Spike.

“She did, but she’s...” Twilight laid a hoof on the back of her head sheepishly, “...kinda different, now.”

The dragon raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Get your tentacles off my arm!” Spike snapped as he tore the berating mutant’s gaping maw off, along with a swath of whipping, fleshy tendrils. He tightened the rope around her midsection, and carried her under his arm.

“Jeez…” he said, wiping off the slime from her grasp. “So this is the lab Celestia gave you, Twilight?”

“Yeah... Wow...” Twilight replied absently, looking around the room in awe.

The Guild of Wizards and Alchemists was even more grand and opulent than the libraries of Canterlot, with several floors stacked wall-to-wall with books and scrolls. A community of mages and scholars worked tirelessly to master the essence of the Warp that flowed freely through the world, better known as the Winds of Magic. Twilight’s assigned lab was something out of a mad scientist’s dream. As Celestia’s returned prodigy, she had everything she could need, including the Doctor’s expertise.

To get the three deformed ponies across the city, Rarity and Sweetie Belle did a good impression of prisoners being herded along, while Octavia didn’t really need to act.

“Let go of me, you beast! The Dark Prince will devour your soul once I kill you!” she shrieked.

Slam!

“Mmph! Mmmphh!”

Spike dropped the squirming mare into a strongly-constructed box, replacing the lid and setting a stack of thick and heavy books atop it. Leaning against the crate, he said, “So, you all set here?”

“That, and more,” Twilight chirped happily. “Now, I just need a good test area, and some restraints...”

“And my own hat, just like these wizards!” the Doctor added, his attention aroused by the traffic in the hall. “I wonder if they have a fez, anywhere.”

Rarity was already attacking the bookshelves, climbing about with the grace and dexterity of a cat, grabbing and throwing down any books that caught her interest. “Medicine, physiology… ooh, ‘History of the Ghyran Order’...”

“Spike, do we have any leather straps, thick ropes, or anything like that?” Twilight asked.

The dragon was just finishing punching a few air holes in Octavia’s box with his fingers. At that moment, Her tentacles shot out, grabbing Spike’s hand and bending his wrist backwards.

“Not tight enough, you worthless bint—”

*SLAM!*

“OW!”

Spike yanked back, smashing the mare’s face into the interior and violently rocking the entire crate.

“Would...”

Bang!

“You...”

Bang!

”Let...”

Bang!

“Go?!”

The tendrils slipped off and slithered back into the box, followed quickly by the sound of Octavia falling over. She groaned in pain, then started giggling which grew to a strong mirthful laughter.

“Mma-ha-ha! Fantastic! It’s been so long since I’ve been handled like that!” she crooned dreamily. “Can we do this again later?”

Spike didn’t dignify her with a response, and again flicked the slime off his hand. “They can really take a beating, can’t they?”

Twilight chuckled. “You have no idea. Whenever she and Vinyl had a fight, they’d both be laughing with bite and burn marks all over themselves at the end. And try to be a little considerate. A lot of ponies we know still have some of their original selves left.”

Spike pouted a bit. Vinyl Scratch used to be one of his favorite artists in Ponyville. "What happened to Vinyl?”

“She turned into one of her cyberpunk posters.”

“Oh… Wow.” Spike thought back to the music store, the posters of ponies with wires worming and weaving through their skin, and plates of steel bolted to their legs like an equine cyborg. “Uh, as far as straps, there should be some chains and brackets in another box.”

“I’d prefer the leather straps, personally,” Octavia’s muffled voice chimed in lewdly. “Not as breathable, so you sweat more.”

“Need a table...” Twilight muttered, glancing around the room. “Kivsin?”

“I’ll see if I can find something,” said the bat-pony, leaping up to hover around the large space, his slit-pupil eyes darting from one place to the next.

The Doctor closely examined the flasks and beakers, each warping the reflection of his face. “Oh yes, yes, yes! This is perfect!” After strapping on a pair of goggles, he pondered, “I wonder if I can recreate my sonic screwdriver! A couple shards of warpstone, some steel and copper cabling, and I’ll be in business!”

“That leaves whatever I’m going to do for food...” Twilight mumbled uneasily.

“There’s plenty of places to eat in the city, and Shining Armor is helping fund this,” Spike pointed out.

“I know, but I don’t necessarily... eat, anymore.”

“Then why are you worried about food?”

“Because it’s a liquid I need now...”

“Hu—? Oh yeah, blood. Hmm... There’s the hospital, but that stuff’s diseased. We could probably come up with an excuse to—”

“Actually,” Twilight cut in, “My cutie mark turned to the star of Undivided, when I first discovered my daemon form. It’s supposed to give a little bit from each of the gods, so I might have inherited an immunity to disease from the Nurgle aspect.”

“I think she’s right,” said the Doctor. “Bet it’s still gonna taste like dirty hooves, though.”

“It’s what I’ll have to put up with,” Twilight mumbled as she looked between the tools and receptacles from the closets and boxes, and glanced at the growing pile of books Rarity was carelessly throwing down with a sigh. “Where to begin?”

“Here!” The mutant hurled a black and gold tome at her, which was hastily caught in a magic hold just before it printed its title backwards on her forehead.

“‘Introduction to the Winds of Magic’...” Twilight read, then grinned knowingly. “Of course!” She winnowed through the disheveled pile with the same affinity she had as a filly and picked out similar beginners books. Even if her magic abilities have never been stronger, she had little idea how warp magic really worked, especially imperial versions of spells she’d studied from chaos spellbooks. With the appropriate texts assembled, she laid them out across the newly acquired table.

“I’ve never been one for intense studying,” said Rarity as she ran a hand across the leather-backed covers, “But there’s a first time for everything. Let’s get to it!”

Upon arriving at Middenheim, Spitfire and Soarin had gone to the top apothecary for something to ease Soarin’s headaches, but after describing that they came with hallucinations of immaterial nature, the medicine man had recommended them to the Guild of Wizards for help on magic-induced ailments.

“I just need him thinking more clearly so we can tell what’s going on, here,” said Spitfire.

“We can see him to the medical wing and have one of our doctors have a look at him,” the page pony responded.

The three trotted down the corridors which were less populated as the moonlight shone through from outside. The very air of the Guild had a chemical odor, which varied from person to person, or pony. Spitfire was breathing the smell of a bathroom washed down with too much bleach, while Soarin picked up wood smoke.

“Looks like we came at the right time, Soarin,” Spitfire said. “Some monster went biting its way through the streets a few days back. There might be more to it.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he grunted as his migraine’s tide came once more. “How much further to the medical wing? This place is huge.”

“Just a couple more corners,” said the page.

Spitfire stepped aside as a door opened, letting out a noctral donned in a hooded cloak. Inside, she saw a bipedal, three-horned unicorn reading beside a purple dragon, with a bat-winged alicorn standing behind them and enthusiastically taking notes on a floating notebook.

“Weird... wait a minute!” She tugged on the page’s scarf. “Hold on, page. Hey, you!”

The dragon faced the voice and immediately went a little shaky. “Oh, h-hi! Spitfire, was it? Really big fan of—”

“Save it!” she blurted in fuming indignation. “You’re the dumb lizard who trapped Fleet Hoof, Soarin and me in a water tower! Remember that, Spike?”

“Uh, yeah,” the dragon replied, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Crazy day, wasn’t it?”

“Excuse me!” the purple alicorn chimed in. “This is a private lab!”

“I have the authority to be here,” Spitfire smirked. “I’m in charge of an Inquisition-sanctioned city. I could have this lab operation torched if I wanted! Now you,” Spike took a step back as the furious mare approached. “We were in that bottle until night the next day before excavation crews managed to get it out of the mountain face! No food, water, and Soarin was bedridden with hypothermia for days afterwards! What do you have to say?”

“Uhh… sorry?”

“Not just to me, but Soarin, too... Soarin?”

She turned around, expecting him to be right behind her; instead, he was still at the door, staring blankly at Twilight, who squeamishly looked back and said, “Um, Mr. Soarin, you look a little troubled.”

He shook his head out of it, being met with a crashing wave of pain forcing him to lean against the doorframe.

“Forget about it,” huffed Spitfire as she went back to support him. “Let’s go, Soarin.”

“Wow,” Twilight muttered as the door slammed shut. “She’s still mad about that?”

“She definitely seems the type to hold a grudge,” Spike said with a shrug. “Speaking of which… Rarity, you don’t still have vertigo after that whole mess, do you?”

Rarity was staring vacantly at the door, a strand of saliva falling to the floor from her slack jaw. The errant pop of an electric arc on her shoulder snapped her back to reality with a start, and she wiped her mouth.

“Wait... did you just have a connection with—”

“I-I... agh, I haven’t a clue what just happened,” Rarity muttered. “I think I saw… something. I need a closer look. Spike, catch me.”

“Wha— oh!” He moved just fast enough to catch Rarity’s slumping body.

Rarity’s phantom shape materialized ahead of them, an apparition of shimmering blue and white. She looked back to her cadaver, finding Spike holding her physical body with an expression of total confusion and fear.

‘I forgot to tell him about that, didn’t I?’ Rarity thought ruefully, her ghostly shape frowning. ‘Oh, well; Twilight will explain it soon enough.’

She floated out of the room, setting her gaze on Soarin’s form walking back down the hallway. Giggling to herself, she flew after and soon caught up with him, hovering just over his head.

‘Hello, down there,’ she snickered inwardly, playfully running her ephemeral hands through his head. ‘Now, let’s see what’s inside.’

Digging her fingers into his skull, she pulled up a noded string, dotted with glistening beads of light that Rarity knew contained his knowledge and memories. Upon closer inspection, she discovered that the network of strings was in worse shape than a ball of yarn after her cat Opalescence had had her way with it.

’It’s so fragmented...’ she thought, grimacing. One particular nodule ended abruptly, looking as though it had been severed in some way. She held it up for closer examination, and immediately felt a jolt through her consciousness as the memory revealed itself to her.

“Make… ercent coo...”

Humming thoughtfully, Rarity stuck her hand in again, finding more broken pieces that were rolling around like loose marbles. She pulled them up one by one, closing her eyes as the memories flooded through her one after the other.

“Ohmygosh-Ohmygosh-Ohmygosh-Ohmygosh-”

“Is Spike helping you write your unfinished novel?”

“Right... Well I’m gonna go not do nothing and try to find them.”

“I would never leave my friends hangin’!”

Rarity dropped the bundle in shock.

‘No, no...’ she thought, shaking her head. ‘There’s no way...’

“Wait here, please,” the page said abruptly, bringing Rarity’s attention back to the physical. Spitfire and Soarin were taking seats in a waiting room, filled with a veritable menagerie of patients with the strangest ailments. One had a large tooth-like protrusion sprouting from the top of his head, and another smelled badly of rancid fruits and was covered in pustules the size and color of blueberries.

’I know she can shapeshift, but what I felt was so strange...’ Rarity thought.

She dived back into Soarin’s head, soon finding the other half of the damaged node. She touched it to the other part, and they made a violent hissing and popping as they fused together.

“Make it about… twenty percent cooler!”

‘Oh, my…’ Rarity’s eyes widened. ’Put it back! Put it back!’

She crammed all the strings back into the chaotic jumble. Soarin jerked violently, kicking off his front hooves and smacking the back of his head into the wall. Spitfire looked over to him instantly.

“Are you alright?” she asked worriedly.

Soarin grunted and nodded stiffly, then flicked her a sly smile. “Nothing a big stack of pancakes with extra syrup and a few hours of sleep won’t fix,” he said.

Spitfire scoffed a laugh, gently shoving him in the ribs. “As long as you’re buying,” she said archly.

Rarity quickly fled the waiting room, going right through the door and zipping back to the lab.

‘Everypony! Soarin is… Hey!’ she yelled out, waving her arms frantically, but no one looked up or even seemed to acknowledge her presence. She opened her mouth to shout again, then noticed her unmoving body in Spike’s arms.

‘Oh…’

“So she didn’t die?” Spike asked hopefully.

“No. I’m not sure where she went, but she’ll come back. She’s in her projected form,” Twilight reassured him.

He put a claw to Rarity’s chest, not feeling any movement at all. “B-but... she’s not breathing!”

“She doesn’t breathe, not anymore. She’s full of dust—”

“RAINBOW DASH TURNED INTO SOARIN!” the corpse screamed, making Spike drop her and Twilight rip a page from a book in shock. Her head hit the floor with a hard thud.

“Ow...” Rarity mumbled plaintively.

“Rarity! You’re alive!” Spike breathed, smiling with relief and elation.

“I’m terribly sorry for the fright, but no time!” Rarity jumped up, grabbing Twilight by the shoulders and shaking her. “Twilight, I need you to come with me to access the dungeons!”

“W-what?” Twilight asked, grunting as her head was thrown about. “Wh-why? And what do you mean about Soarin being what?”

“No time!” Rarity said curtly, her eyes dancing with desperation. “I don’t know how long he’ll be there! It’s a small window!”

“A-alright, alright… what do you need?”

“This is taking so long,” Soarin muttered, sighing in exasperation. “Weren’t we moved to the top of the list?”

“Yeah,” Spitfire replied, grumbling as she idly scraped at the floor with a hoof. “I don’t know what the hold-up is, but they—”

“Soarin Windstar,” a voice from the office called out clearly, cutting across their thoughts. Spitfire and Soarin glanced at each other, smirking.

“Finally,” they said at once, rising from their seats and walking forward.

The doctor waiting for them wore the standard garb of the hospital, a thick oil-black leather trench coat and hood, with a long beaked mask. Ironically, the doctor looked like a bird of death, but what threw off the ominous look of the cloak, was the three pronged points sticking up from the head and shoulder portions of the ensemble. A small filly-sized equine assistant in similar clothes stood by silently, following the doctor’s movements so closely as to be his shadow.

“What’s with the hazmat spikes?” Soarin asked curiously.

“It’s a special headpiece,” he explained, “It helps prevent the coated leather from sticking to the skin so you’re not peeling off your epidermis by the end of the day.”

“Ugh,” Soarin cringed. “Sounds like you guys have it rough, here.”

The doctor chuckled at that. “‘Rough’ would be an understatement. The wizards’ spells always have some kind of hideous side effect. You must have seen it for yourself, out there. I’ve read the description of your ailment and, while I will admit that it is powerful, it is not incurable.”

“That’s good to hear, at least,” Soarin nodded, then frowned. “I’m not gonna have to take any pills, am I?”

“You’ll wake up with a little headache, is all,” he responded. “Please, follow me.”

The doctor gestured behind him and to his left, he and his assistant leading the two pegasi down a narrow hallway that stretched further into the hospital. Moans and shouts of agony and pain—and the occasional maniacal laugh—echoed around them on all sides, lending a feeling of uneasiness and claustrophobia to the stained gray surfaces which might have once been a sterile white.

The doctor halted in front of one of the entrance to one of the many rooms, a rather sturdy door of oak wood occupying the rectangular frame. A pair of small window slits with sliding hatches were punched into the center of the door, placed at average eye level for both human and equine use. The doctor laid his gloved hand on the copper-plated handle, giving it a twist and a firm push inward.

At first glance, one might have mistaken the hospital room for a prison cell. With the total absence of windows anywhere on the cold stone walls, several brass lanterns were hung on eyehooks embedded into the ceiling, their soft yet dim glow providing the only source of illumination. Brownish-red blotches of dried blood mixed with dirt and other particles dotted the floor.

“I will need a moment alone with the lieutenant, general,” the beak-masked doctor said.

“Alright,” Spitfire nodded, then turned to her partner. “You gonna be alright, Soarin?”

“Uhh…” Soarin muttered as he gazed dubiously into the dark, foreboding room. “I’m not sure this is such a good ide—”

A rough shove in his side cut him off.

“Come on, you big baby!” Spitfire nudged him sharply with her muzzle towards the open door. “Just get your check-up, get your free freaking lollipop, and we’ll be outta here!”

“Alright, alright! Get off my back, mom!” Soarin pouted, effecting a perfect tone of surly petulance.

Soarin stumbled into the room. The doctor and his assistant followed close behind, the former closing the door behind him gingerly and sliding a heavy iron deadbolt into place with a ka-thunk.

“Take good care of him, alright, doc?” Spitfire’s muffled voice came from the other side.

“Rest assured, general, he’s in good hoov— er, hands,” the doctor replied.

“Jeez, I feel like I’m in some cheesy slasher film,” Soarin laughed nervously, staring at the wide examination table flanked on all sides by a slew of brackets and thick restraints. A clean white linen sheet—thankfully—draped over the entire thing, masking whatever bloodstains or blemishes might have affected the focal point of the whole room by now.

“Please do not worry, lieutenant,” the beak-masked man said. “I don’t think that our more… involved methods of treatment will be necessary, here. We simply need to directly examine the particulars of your ailment. Go and have a seat on the table, please.”

Soarin nodded in response, swallowing a knot of tension in his throat and smiling as genuinely as he could. He bunched himself up on the floor, then leapt forward into the air and flapped his wings a few times, bringing him clear across the room and onto the table.

“Now then, Soarin,” the doctor said crisply. “My assistant here has a mask on under her hood. I want you to tell me the very first thing that pops into your head when you see it, no matter how silly or lucid the thought is.”

“Uhh… okay,” Soarin nodded.

The filly climbed up onto the table, taking a sitting position opposite him and staring him straight in the eyes.

“Ready?” came the voice of the doctor.

“Yeah.”

In one deft, fluid motion, the filly lifted a hoof to the lip of her mask and pushed it up and away from her face.

“Scootal— ah-aaargh! Nrraaaggh!!”

The now-revealed orange pegasus quickly retreated from the table, scampering fearfully to the doctor’s side. He pressed his hands together thoughtfully, watching as Soarin’s seizuring form began to shift from color to color like a kaleidoscope.

“I thought so…” the doctor muttered.

“Everything okay in there?” came a worried voice from the hallway outside.

“Y-yes!” he said quickly. “It’s just part of the procedure!”

Crack!

Soarin’s foreleg snapped backward, bones bending and breaking at unnatural angles as extra feathers began to emerge all across his body.

“I’m coming in!” Spitfire called through the door.

“No!” the doctor shouted. The protrusions on his headpiece lit up with a crackling azure glow, which quickly spread to cover every countertop and cabinet in the room. They wrenched themselves free from the walls, flying to land in a pile in front of the entrance.

WHAM!

“Somepony help me!” Spitfire screamed as the door refused to yield to her kick. “They’re messing with Soarin!”

“Oh no, no, no, no!” the beak-masked man muttered harshly. “Just long enough! Please!”

He glanced back to the writhing, protean form on the table behind him.

’Just long enough…’

“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!”

Crackling tendrils of white light snaked out from the endlessly shifting void, growing thinner and thinner as the pegasus they were attached to thrashed and fought at every turn.

“You’re a Wonderbolt now, Rainbow Dash!” several immaterial voices all around her said, some in soothing tones, others in vicious jeers.

“You don’t need your ‘friends’; they’re just holding you back!”

“You have everything you could ever want!”

“Yes, this is your dream come true! Spitfire is always there beside you, and together you lead the city of Cloudsdale, itself!”

“Shut your stupid face!” Rainbow roared angrily. She thrust one of her hooves forward sharply, finally causing the ensnaring tendril to snap like an over-taut rope and slither back into the dark void. The many voices cried out as one, their keening shaking the shifting mental landscape like an earthquake.

“You took me from my friends, and look what you did to them! I don’t want to live a lie!”

Rainbow spun in a circle and kicked outward, and the ephemeral chain grasping her back right leg broke away. The void rocked again with a weakening shriek, the voices dire, almost pleading.

“What are you doing?! Don’t throw this away!”

“Countless lives are at your disposal!”

“You can be anyone you want to be!”

“I want to be Rainbow Dash!” she screamed in defiance, jerking her other front leg to the side. The tendril snapped.

Instead of slithering back, however, it whipped right back towards her, wrapping around her neck. Rainbow gasped and thrashed as the tendril tightened, crushing her windpipe with sharp, unrelenting force.

“What you want isn’t exactly what you need,” the voices laughed.

Rainbow slowly faded, as pinprick blips of light flickered across her vision. Her kicks became weaker and weaker, until she collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. The voices whispered and cooed soothingly, luring her back to the darkness.

“It’ll be alright, Rainbow Dash…”

“There’s no need to fight, anymore…”

“Just let us help you…”

“GET AWAY FROM HER!!”

The void shrieked and shook with confusion, several of the tendrils flipping around uncertainly. Rainbow’s head flicked up at the sudden—and very familiar—voice.

Through the haze of her dimming vision, she saw a figure rapidly materializing in the distance, sprinting towards them at breakneck speeds. It was barely equine in shape, with three spiraling horns jutting out from its head at awkward angles, and a pair of bird’s legs instead of hooves.

“Rainbow Dash!” the figure called out.

Rainbow blinked.

“Rarity…?”

“Come on, Rainbow Dash, come out...”

Scootaloo crouched on the floor near a vaguely pegasus-shaped pile of throbbing meat. Skin melted away from it in coarse slabs, bones poked through the limbs like the spines of a cactus, and an eyeball was hanging out of a grossly-enlarged socket by the nerve.

She gently turned the head of the body, looking straight into its good eye.

“You recognized me, Rainbow!” Scootaloo said in a pleading tone. “You remember, right? You took me under your wing? C’mon, big sis! Please, change back!”

Bang!

Scootaloo’s eyes flicked over to the door. The barricade jostled, sending several glass instruments smashing to the floor. On the other side, she could hear the sound of someone speaking in a quick and frantic tone, while another voice answered her with what sounded like ‘stand back’.

A sharp gasp drew the filly’s attention back to the floor, where the doctor’s formerly-still body shook and convulsed into sudden life. Scootaloo left the still-throbbing body and dashed to his side, aiding him as he struggled to sit up.

“Did you find her?” Scootaloo asked quickly. “Did you get her out? Is Spitfire gonna—”

The doctor put a finger to Scootaloo’s lips. His breathing was ragged and quick, yet steady, sucking in the stale air of the hospital room like it was the freshest scent in the world.

“Hah… hah… Woo. She—”

KRA-BOOM!

The barricade—as well as a sizable chunk of the wall—exploded inward in a storm of plaster chips, stone shards, and pieces and splinters of wooden furniture. The doctor quickly wrapped his arms around Scootaloo to shield her, the pegasus screaming as they were hit by a veritable shotgun blast of debris.

Spitfire stepped over the rubble, flapping her wings to blow away the swirling dust. She was followed closely by a man clothed in a flowing royal-purple robe, tied in gold sashes, carrying a slender onyx staff displaying a polished bronze planetarium.

“Where is he?” Spitfire demanded. “What have you freaks done with Soarin?!”

A weak, aching moan answered her question. Spitfire looked over to the table, where a blue hoof was shakily rising over the edge. She quickly dashed forward, wrapped her hooves around the limb and pulled up—

She gasped as she was met with the sight of a familiar prismatic-maned mare, whose fur was constantly shifting in hues and textures like a swirling oil palette. Spitfire let go instantly, letting her head slump back to the cold floor with a dull thud.

“W… what…?” Spitfire stepped back, her eyes quailing with confusion and disbelief.

The doctor unsteadily rose, bits of rubble tumbling off of him as he wiped off his shoulders. Spitfire and the wizard whirled on him, their baleful glares driving Scootaloo to duck behind his legs for protection.

“Oh, my,” the doctor chuckled nervously. “Do I have some explaining to do...”

“What did you do?” Spitfire snapped.

“I brought my friend back,” he responded simply.

“What are you talking about, you hack?” Spitfire’s wing flicked to a belt on her harness, pulling a long dagger out in a single deft motion. “What did you do to him?!”

“Remove your mask, medicine man!” the wizard ordered, raising his staff for emphasis.

Scootaloo shrank back in fear, obscuring herself under her hood.

The doctor complied, removing the beaked mask and hood, and grinned with all the innocence she could muster despite her wide mouth and mismatched blue and gold eyes.

Spitfire blinked. “You’re the one from—”

“The room with the purple dragon, yes,” the ‘doctor’ interrupted, her voice now a soft, feminine cadence. “My name is Rarity, and I am with a miss Twilight Sparkle, personal protege of Princess Celestia.”

A bead of sweat rolled down the pegasus’ temple. The wizard frowned, lowering his staff a little.

“You know who that is, don’t you, Spitfire?” Rarity smiled slyly. “That mare that you threatened to call the Inquisition on to destroy her work?”

“But you…” Spitfire started, looking over Rarity’s features. “You’re a Tzeentchian—”

“And you saw me right next to Twilight Sparkle, not bound or engaged with her in any way, shape or form,” Rarity interrupted pointedly.

“She needs me. And you,” Rarity pointed at the fuming pegasus, “need to be told an inconvenient truth.”

“Get to the bucking point!” Spitfire snarled.

The bipedal tricorn walked to the back of the room, reaching down to pick Rainbow’s shaking body off the floor. She placed her on the table, then looked back over to the two.

“There was never a him, Spitfire,” Rarity said sadly. “Do you remember anything about a Changeling daemon?”

Spitfire pointed the seven-inch dagger to the heavily-breathing pegasus on the table. “She... that is it.”

Rarity shook her head. “The Tzeentchian Changeling has been around for centuries, long before any of us were born. But I met Rainbow Dash when we were both fillies.”

The knife sank in Spitfire’s grip, but she quickly returned it. “I saw her change before in the Rig, back in Cloudsdale. She almost turned into a Slaughterbrute; or maybe worse, a freaking Mutalith Vortex Beast!”

“But as she was Soarin, there were still changeling attacks!” Rarity pointed out. “She only has similar powers, but she’s not the same entity.”

Spitfire’s eyes started to become glassy and choked with tears, and her lips quivered with pain and denial.

“B-but... Soarin came back,” she rasped weakly. “He… h-he...”

“No, he didn’t,” Rarity said. “I am dearly sorry for what actually happened to him, but he did not come back.”

“P...plot,” Rainbow muttered weakly, drawing all eyes in the room back to the table. “It was the changeling’s plan all along.”

“Big sis!” Scootaloo cried happily. She broke away from Rarity’s legs, quickly jumping onto the table and helping Rainbow to sit up.

“Wait.” Spitfire gritted her teeth, her eyebrows knitting together in anger. “Are you telling me that this was all some big, obtuse plan to make me think I had him back?”

Rarity nodded. “It’s what the Changer of Ways does best,” she said simply. “He schemes and plots for its own sake, with no real objective in mind. He has to keep his games going, or else he would perish.”

“The Changeling…” Rainbow coughed. “It beat me up, messed with my memories… and it cut me up like this…” She raised a hoof which, along with the rest of her body, bore the scars of her surgical stitching.

“I always wanted to be a Wonderbolt, but I never wanted…” Rainbow turned her head, regarding Spitfire with a look of pain and remorse in her rosy eyes. “I would never impersonate my heroes. Especially not one that’s gone.”

Spitfire muttered violently under her breath, shaking her head vehemently from side to side. Then, with a heartbroken scream, she snapped her wing forward and sent the dagger flying. It struck the thin edge of the surgical table and buried itself several inches, the hilt vibrating like a tuning fork. The pegasus sank to her haunches, burying her face in her hooves.

“Pardon me, sir,” Rarity said, turning to the wizard. “I do apologize for all this commotion, but I hope you understand that it was necessary. Now that it all appears to be done, however, I believe your presence here is no longer required.”

The robed man glared at her suspiciously. He finally grunted, lowered his staff, and carried himself away. His hateful gaze remained fixed on the mutant until he was beyond view.

Rarity clicked her tongue and smiled thinly. She turned back to Rainbow. “Welcome back to the Great Game, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “Now if you don’t mind, Twilight is waiting for us all back at the lab, so—”

“Rarity, wait,” Rainbow cut her off. She looked sadly at the sobbing form of the last living Wonderbolt.

“Spitfire, I… I’m sorry for everyth—”

The golden pegasus abruptly turned and walked towards the exit with a stony expression on her tear-streaked face, not sparing a backwards glance.

“Spitfire, wait! Please!”

She didn’t.

Author's Notes:

So Applejack has fallen into the embrace of Grandpa Nurgle, we get a taste of where Rarity's allegiances might lie, Celestia's having some family issues, and there's an easily enraged giant pony who can absorb metal locked up underground. I foresee no problems...