“Argh, stupid light!” Discord flicked a talon at his helmet headlamp, which immediately flared to life to shine on a cloth map of Middenheim he was glossing over. He tugged at his stringy beard, and glanced about the tight rocky tunnel, then back where they’d been. “Screwball, how’s progress?”

Said filly was leaning back over the seat of a tiny mining drill, no larger than a wagon. She regarded him with a sore gaze from underneath a mustard-yellow hard hat. “Yoo tell mi! I stopped so yoo cud check the map!”

Discord winced, then flipped the map upside down. “Oh, right… right. Well, keep going. I’ll give you an update when I figure this out.”

Wiping her face of soot and soil, Screwball groaned and turned the ignition of the drill. With a high-pitched whine, it guttered to life and the bit spun up into a shrieking, deafening whirr. Just as she advanced it forward into the rock wall and sparks began to pop from the tip, Discord tapped her on the shoulder.

“We’re here!” He pointed a taloned thumb straight up.

“UUUGH!” Screwball bashed her face on the dashboard in exasperation, and the key absorbed into her skull. She hopped off the driver’s seat and threw off her helmet, revealing the beanie underneath. The propeller spun up, levitating her off the floor, and then she bored straight up into the earth with folded hooves and an annoyed look at Discord as she ascended.

Discord impatiently glanced at his watch, listening to the high-pitched buzz as it grew more distant. Moments later, he jumped back as a gush of dirt cascaded down onto the tunnel floor. Screwball’s head popped out of the dirt pile, and she gave him a bright smile. “Made it!”

Discord cracked a toothy grin, and ruffled her mane with a claw. “Good work, my little protean protégé!” Without further preamble, Discord slithered up the hole into the tunnel’s ceiling—

And popped up straight into a sudden, indescribable stink.

“Oh, jeez, what is that reek?” he cringed, slapping a paw over his nose. The tunnel ended in what appeared to be a gigantic tent, about twice the dimensions of one that might be at a circus. “Smells like the eighth ring of the Inferno.”

An answer to his question came in the form of a gust of stinking, hot wind at his back, and the groan of creaking wood. He slowly turned around—

And froze solid in place as he stared straight into two bloodshot eyes the size of beach balls, each fixated on him with laser-point intensity. They were part of a tremendous creature, coated in rough rust and filth caking its metallic skin, leaking sludgy slimes and secretions from many joints and seams across its body. Constraining it to the ground was a great arrangement of scaffolds and ropes, making it look like a trapped wild animal.

“Fl— gah!

Its vast maw roared long and loud, whipping at his fur and flinging spit and grime onto him, horn to hoof.

Discord shuddered in disgust, wiping an arm over his face. “Well, hello to you, too,” he muttered despondently.

He teleported aside, leaving a draconequus-shaped slime-form to splash in the grass. He took a few steps closer, taking care to avoid the bladed claw that writhed under its bonds.

“Hey there, Fluttershy...”

He was in arm’s reach of the creature, whose hateful glare dissolved to an absent-minded moaning, and in moments, it stopped noticing him entirely. “Hello? Anybody home?” He knocked on her temple, eliciting a pained groan and her shifting her head away. “Come on. You don’t recognize me? Discord?” He teleported right before her eyes, swinging a stuffed rabbit doll upside down. “You know, arch-nemesis of Angel Bunn—”

CLANG!

A set of iron jaws tore his arm clean off. Discord stared at the bloodless stump for a moment, then sighed sadly. A moment later, the severed appendage instantly grew back with a pop.

“You remember him, but not me?” he pouted. In her furious chewing, Fluttershy huffed, as if ready to sneeze. Discord’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh.”

He quickly stepped to the side just as Fluttershy sneezed explosively, sending a blast of searing-hot wind across the room. The gust unfortunately caught Screwball just as she was climbing up from the hole, immediately tearing away her flesh and muscle, leaving only her skeleton behind. Its sightless eyes glanced back at the skin, then back to the growling juggernaut.

“Hey, Auntie Fluttershy!” Screwball’s bleach-white jaw said happily. She stuffed the ripped skin into her bony mouth, gnashing on it like gum, then blew a huge pink bubble that popped and snapped back over her skeleton. She shot forward in an attempt to glomp the juggernaut’s face, but with her tiny hooves, it was as futile as hugging a wall. This close, she noticed several rivets in Fluttershy’s neck had popped and cracked from overpressure, leaving her coughing feverishly through her swollen throat.

“Oh, I can’t take this,” Discord groaned, shaking his head. “It’s like watching a beached whale die.”

Screwball back-stroked through the air, pouting at how much she liked whales and disliked seeing Fluttershy in the same predicament. She landed on the scaffolding, rummaging around in her hat. Quickly, she put on a welding mask and began trying to spark a hissing blowtorch. “So, we gonna try to fix her, or—”

“Ah, that won’t be necessary,” Discord interrupted, raising his claw. He swallowed uneasily, muttering, “I’m about to make someone very, very angry.”

SNAP!

If one asked Pinkie Pie, ‘what is pain?’ at this point, she’d have no idea, for she had completely lost the ability to distinguish it from its counterpart. Her broken, bleeding nose, cracked, hanging jaw, and tongues nailed to the floor around her like a splayed octopus all throbbed with indescribable pleasure that brought a huff of euphoria with each heartbeat. Under the straitjacket, binding her tentacles and claw to her sides, she gently stroked her abdomen. At least her prize, the piece who silenced the unending hunger pains, was safe.

“Doc,” she muttered, “How you doing in there?”

A wet sloshing sensation from within was her answer, making her let out an involuntary giggle. The voice inside her groaned, suggesting that the Doctor had only managed to get into a stance even more awkward. “Not much better than I imagine you are.”

“You’re still getting air?”

Whooves took a deep breath, taking in the musty vanilla scent of his surroundings. “Yeah, but there isn’t an inch of flesh between me and the blows that landed down here.”

She pressed her stomach wall against his face, wiping up and tasting a substance that made her belly growl in delight, but also brought her brow to turn dark. “You’re bleeding… They hurt you!” The force of her gasp nearly blew her up like a puffer fish. “At first this was fun, but I gotta get you outta here!” She began pulling her tongues back as much she could so that she could get some of them, mid-length, to touch the Doctor’s head. “Doc, grab ‘em and when I say ‘pull’, yank as hard as you can!”

He firmly grasped them, anchoring his legs against the slimy walls. “Ready.”

“Pull!”

He put all his strength into the flesh-ropes, as did Pinkie Pie who threw her head back like a fisherman calling back the line with a twenty-pound bass at the end. It happened in nearly an instant; the first tongue snapped free of its nail, rending tissue and spattering blood against Pinkie’s chest as it thwacked back at her. The sudden surge of pleasure made it squirm wildly like a worm with an end cut off. With this, Pinkie’s eyes shot wide and a hysterical grin broke across her face. She pulled yet harder, breaking free another and another. Undeterred by their spasming, she sent them to the straps and belts of her straight-jacket unbuckling them until her appendages were free. The last tongue came off with a wet thwack, torn down the middle like a snake’s. She shed the jacket, packed it into a big ball, and stuffed it into her mouth and down her throat, sending it down in one powerful gulp.

“Got you a jacket if you get cold. Before I digest it, I’m sure it’s gonna be snuggly!”

“Oh, you’re so thoughtful! It’s wonderful!” Whooves wrapped himself up in it, though he was plenty warm already.

Sucking the appendages back where they belonged, Pinkie then picked up a new scent on the air, of blueberries, licorice, and white chocolate—all of which made her mouth water. “I smell Rarity... and,” she sniffed again, “she’s alone.” Slowly she crept toward the door, smacking her quivering lips. “I don’t think I’ve had a taste of her yet.” She positioned herself on the side of the door it would swing toward, sniffing eagerly as the smell got stronger.

“Am I about to get some company?” Whooves asked weakly. “I’d love some company.”

“M’hm. She might actually like it, like those mud baths she used to take with Fluttershy at the spa.” Pinkie could hear the footsteps, drawing louder, closer. She nearly held off breathing for the sake of silence. The footsteps stopped behind just a few inches of iron and stone, followed by the rustle of keys, and a sigh.

“Oh, bugger it.”

A bony spike rammed through the door like a needle through a sheet of paper, buckling the whole passage and splitting into a swath of vines that came straight for Pinkie, pinning against the wall. The puncture in the iron peeled back at the glow of the horns of the mare who stepped through the door, lifting her mask with her other spindly arm. She got right up to Pinkie, grasping her cheeks tightly and sending a burning glare into those whiteless opal pits. Her belly suddenly began to jostle and growl, which drew Rarity’s gaze to her distended gut. Rarity removed the hand from Pinkie’s face, causing the mare to gasp desperately for breath, and set the appendage on her belly, feeling the shifting form of a whole stallion inside.

“Ah, there you are!” Rarity said, smiling archly. She merely lifted a finger, and up shot the soaked Doctor from his fleshy tomb, leaving Pinkie to groan at the sheer force.

“Rarity, put me down! Put me back!” Whooves shouted, flailing against her wildly. Rarity’s smile sank. Telekinetically locking his legs in place, she forced one of his eyes open, investigating his massively dilated pupils.

“Ohh, what is wrong with you, Doctor?” she muttered.

“There’s nothing wrong with him!” Pinkie screamed, thrashing bug-eyed and drooling against Rarity’s tendrils. “You know about us, don’t you?! You’re here to take him away, separate us!”

Rarity pinched Pinkie’s lips shut. “I was, but…” She looked into Whooves’ other eye; how wildly he was twitching, “Hmm… You used some form of the Want-it Need-it spell on him, and made yourself the target of affection.”

She chuckled while bringing him back to Pinkie, gently swinging him left and right, tantalizing her with her favorite meal. “You’ve become quite the anomaly, Pinkie. When I tried to divine where the Doctor was, I thought something less familiar had eaten him. I’ll tell you what: you can keep him, on a few conditions. We’re in very deep water and the Doctor needs to be where he belongs, helping clear our names to the authorities. Your incentive is that I can track you down anywhere. If you stray too far, I’ll find you, and expand a magic ball inside of you until you explode.” She raised a fist and slowly uncurled her fingers, making a blue light grow in the pit of Pinkie’s belly, inflating it like a balloon until she gave a whimper. Rarity quickly shrunk it back.

“This isn’t out of malice, dear; really, it isn’t,” Rarity assured with a toothy smirk, “What with Fluttershy’s episode, I can’t leave anything to chance anymore, and there can’t be too many unknown variables.” She retracted her arm from Pinkie, setting her on the floor, and held up her head caringly. “As long as you control that appetite of yours, you have nothing to fear. So,” She put a hand to Pinkie’s stomach and asked cheerfully, “Hungry?”

A low, growl rolled through Pinkie’s whole body, her stomach twisting itself in knots in longing for its food. Grunting in pain, Pinkie mumbled, “N-No. I’m good.”

“Oh. It’s too bad; I had to dispose of two guards to get here, and I need somewhere to get rid of the bodies.”

Pinkie jumped at Rarity, giving her a sorrowful puppy-dog look. “I mean I am hungry! Starved!” Her hunger-driven senses picked up new scents and snatched the doctor from Rarity’s magical grip. Rather than consuming him immediately, she gingerly set him on her back and nuzzled at his slime-coated face. “You’re gonna come back to me, right?”

“Have no doubt about it!” he said resolutely. “Keeping the imperials satisfied keeps us off the chopping block, and putting your head together with Rarity’s, I’m sure you can find hiding spot. I’ll spend every moment not with the Imperials, with you.” He hugged her neck warmly and Pinkie, bounding like a wolf, shot out the door.

Rarity casually strolled behind her, muttering, “He’s going to be hell to clean up…”

Apart from the required guard and nightly staff, Middenplatz was under curfew for non-essential personnel; not a single gardener or scribe walked the halls or hedgerows. This left the eastern terrace of the castle eerily empty to the evening air, save three, rested around the same table.

“Ten thousand killed, fifteen thousand wounded, and an outbreak of the undead in the Merchant District, caused by a zombified filly whom we’ve managed to detain, along with a mare trapped in Fluttershy’s mouth. The militia and Order of the White Wolf are still scouring the area of zombies.”

Shining concluded his report of the recent events, under the scrutinizing glare of the Emperor and with the somber attention of Celestia. His audience of two was silent for a long minute. Franz was still sorting through what Celestia had finally disclosed to him before: the true nature of Twilight Sparkle; what Luna and Celestia were charged with by the Ruinous Powers; and now that that Warp-spawn had helped save the city. He was left pinching his brow in exasperated contemplation.

“Is that it, then?” he asked.

Shining nodded slightly. “Yes, sir.”

Franz sat back in his chair, looking out over the pennant-streaming roofs of Middenheim under the rising moon’s light. “You have called for them already?”

“Yes. They should be here any minute, actually.”

“And Celestia,” Franz regarded the somber, regal mare with a most disaffected look. “Did you really try to teach a daemon to do good?”

Celestia frowned, but nodded. “To be honest, it was the first contact Equestria had ever had with one. The Rift to Tartarus, which we now know as a Warp rift, was guarded by Cerberus, so no such malevolent entity ever emerged—aside from Discord, I suppose. And I had already told of Twilight’s deeds; Defeating the dark king Sombra, returning Cerberus to the rift, and…” she peered up to the solitary moon, smiling, “returning my sister to me.”

“Then I will say she is truly one of a kind. Although, I’d certainly like to know how in all creation she and her friends got here without the whole of the militia being put on alert. Shining Armor?”

“Well, my lord… I had employed the Cutiemark Crusaders to retrieve them. They must have arrived in the way of a P.O.W. train, so they didn’t raise any alarm.”

“And you sent for a mercenary group to capture one of the most pivotal beings in this world, without informing me.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Shining’s face. “Sir, I felt that it was absolutely urgent, and every day we weren’t looking for her, her location could be more and more uncertain—”

“It was completely uncertain from day one.” Franz leaned forward, disapproval clear in his face. “I have a mind to suspend your authority and place all of the equine regiments under Kurt Helborg’s command.”

Shining’s throat tightened at that. Helborg despised ponykind, often sending them in first against the Arachnarok spider-riders of the Cluster Eye tribe of goblins, lending no artillery support. One of the only things that could break the insects’ exoskeletons.

“But please bear in mind, Franz,” Celestia said poignantly. “The Elements of Harmony allowed themselves to be used by Twilight. In Equestria, the Elements are ancient beyond reckoning, and I know they made the right choice in giving her and her friends access.”

“And, until recently, they seem to have been nearly all-powerful. Nightmare Moon’s survival tells us they aren’t.”

Celestia cast her gaze down for a moment. “Recently… I suppose. However, after Discord’s initial escape, the most he could do to the elements was hide them away. So as far as Discord’s power goes, and it reaches far and wide, they are incorruptible. They may not have been able to destroy Nightmare Moon, but this is the night she recedes into the back of Luna’s mind. Nightmare Moon is in a stranglehold.”

Franz’s countenance turned dark. “Let us hope you are right...”

The very darkness for a mile around the cemetery shuddered, interspersed by the low chants and psalm of a tiny congregation among the headstones. In the center of their ring, two bodies were bound in a parasitic bond as an oily blackness left one for the other. The one taking it unto himself convulsed in a hypnotic trance, with one of the cultist’s hands gripping his head.

“Take refuge in this mortal vessel, true Empress. Luna’s weakness shan’t weigh thee down any longer. Mold him to your liking, make his body worthy of you!” The last tendrils of the dark left lying an alicorn of a midnight-blue coat resting in the grass. “Duncan, help me move the vessel somewhere secluded. Everyone else, wake the princess up and get her out of here!

“Low angle, broad face of the wings. Almost there…”

Spike tipped his wings up, letting them slow his descent until his feet reunited with the ground, coming to a kneel to absorb the impact. Folding his wings, he nearly laughed in excitement at his first successful full-stop landing. But he didn’t because he knew what he was called for; and there they were, across the terrace. His worries deepened as he heard the exchange already underway.

“Miss Sparkle, you are to cease your work entirely. There is no returning to one’s original form once the seed of the Warp is planted in the flesh.”

“B-but, but—”

“Countless others before you have tried. Wizards, doctors—one of which sold his soul to the Plague God for the knowledge of how to cure every mortal disease. He was granted this information, but then driven mad by Him. Now he spreads disease wherever he goes. Then there is you, Spike.”

The dragon stayed his steps, looking over as the Emperor addressed him.

“The closest friend to Miss Sparkle herself,” Franz continued with an angrily simmering voice. “I daresay Shining Armor is deserving of praise for his honesty, and disclosure of your fairly recent visit to the palace’s medical wing for a shoulder injury. Care to show us?”

Spike’s voice was lost at the request—no, demand—and he cautiously glanced to Shining, then Twilight, whose hooves were put firmly against her mouth in fear, then Franz, with his rapidly shortening fuse of patience. Spike stretched down the collar of his tunic where two darker purple circular scars stained his shoulder.

A squeaking gasp escaped Twilight, followed by Franz ordering, “Shining, take a measurement of that and Miss Sparkle’s bite radius.”

By the time Twilight turned to Shining, nearly unwilling to believe the possibility, he’d already drawn a measuring lace from one of the pockets of his suit. “Extend your fangs,” he said sullenly.

Those pearly daggers poked out from her upper lip, and, putting on a fake grin to show them, the rest of her teeth, though shorter, were also carnivorously sharp. Shining put either end of the lace to each fang, marking the length with a magical tick, then went to Spike and put the length up against the scars.

Please don’t say it, please don’t say it… Twilight pleaded in her head, squeezing her eyes shut. Please don’t say—

“It’s a match.”

Twilight’s eyes shot open in shock. Her fangs retracted, and she looked sorrowfully to Spike as he let the tunic snap back. He was first to speak.

“D-don’t sweat it,” he said, trying to smile. “It’s healing already. I mean… it is a scar.”

“Why didn’t you tell me I did that to you?” Twilight whispered, her voice deathly quiet. A single tear slid down her cheek.

“Because he has hope,” said Celestia. “Hope that what was may come again.” She looked straight into Twilight’s reddened eyes. “But hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.”

Twilight had no more tears. She’d spent them all. Still, her face was buried in the sheet of a hay bed, dryly sobbing into her tear-salted hooves.

No fixing it… It was always this way.

Always a monster… forever. We’re stuck like this.

Twilight was on a rocky field trip through her own memories. Every day since her ‘birth’, meeting her friends, hatching Spike, every little adventure they’d gone on, even Shining and Cadence. Was any of it real? Her friends had to be. Just look at what she’d gotten them into, and they stayed.

Her thoughts were cut by a sudden thirstiness, striking her palate like a mouthful of dust. She didn’t want to get up and appease this bestial craving, but the threat from not doing it was far worse.

Some seven stories below the Inquisitorial headquarters was her chamber. One of the few amenities she was allowed was a rickety wooden dresser, turning green with rot around the mirror frame. On the desk rested a bottle and a small metal cup. She wasn’t trusted with her own magic anymore, so with a ring around her horn, she gripped the bottle between her hooves and bit the cork off. As for the viscous red juice that trickled out as she poured, though it came in a wine bottle, by the way it flowed and smelled, those above knew what she needed.

As she tipped it up at her lips, the taste of ambrosia tickled her senses, as invigorating as morning coffee, but so much sweeter. She turned to bring it back to the bed, but the sight of a pink and yellow mass sitting on it sent the cup dropping to the floor.

“F-F-Fluttershy?!” Twilight backed against the dresser, barely catching the bottle as it tipped over. “How’d— where did—Aah!” The pink fuzzy blanket the pegasus was draped in jumped off of her and leapt at Twilight, catching and engulfing her like a spider.

Twilight figured that if it was alive, it must have blood, so she immediately bit into it as hard as she could. A startled—and somewhat petulant—whine of pain rang out.

“Owwie! Stahp, stahp! Wait!”

At once, the blanket liquefied, swirling around the floor and gathering into a slime-form of a grunting filly. She tightly wrung her forehooves, liberally placing kisses on the end of each. “Ouuuch…”

Twilight stared at her in shock for several moments, until her mind finally caught up with the scene. “Screwb— Screwball, where did you and Fluttershy come from?!”

“Ssssshhhhhh! Not so lowd!” the filly hissed, casting nervous glances to the walls of the room. “First off, we’re not relly heer. Daddy’s hiding Fluttershy since he fixed her, and—”

It was her last word before Twilight grabbed her up, firmly forcing both their eyes not an inch from one another, her own glowing with a hopefulness bordering on mania. “Discord’s here?! Please tell me he can restore me and everypony else as well! He did it to Fluttershy; he has to do it for us!” She dropped Screwball, shooting a glance back to Fluttershy who wrapped herself in the sheet of the bed, shivering and chattering.

Twilight waited for Screwball to say it, beaming in anticipation; ‘Of course he can!’ then that conniving magnificent draconequus would come out of the woodwork in some grand entrance. After several long, hopeful seconds, Screwball finally burbled. “Well… he kind of… had to get his friends to help him with it.”

“Friends? He made new friends?”

“Yeah, but only a couple actually helped, and they…” Screwball solidified, hesitantly clopping her hooves together. “They don’t want you or the others changing back.”

Twilight’s ears drooped, and she shook her head in denial. “No. No, he didn’t...”

“I mean, if he didn’t, Fluttershy would still be a monzter, and he still wouldn’t be able to do anything for you guys. It took his, Tzeentch’s and Slaanesh’s powers toogethur to give Daddy what he needed to chainge her back. Now, Big Red’s really mad, and Daddy’s gotta protect his place in wyrdspaysz.” Her buzzing beanie carried her up to raise Twilight’s drooping head.

“But… I…”

“Mizz Twilight, it isn’t that bad, is it?” Zipping behind her, Screwball flapped Twilight’s wings. “I mean, you got wings, and… and uh…” she looked up and down her body, “You got… wiiiings.”

Twilight snapped them away to her front somewhat irritably. “Screwball, don’t you get it? Me, Applejack and her family, Pinkie Pie and Rarity are never getting back to normal! Pinkie can’t stop eating everything in sight, Applejack’s a walking biohazard, and me…” She shakily raised her unshorn hooves. “I’m not even real, just a… a mass of thoughts and other people’s emotions in this shape!”

“So am I!” Screwball added matter-of-factly. “Jusht don’t think about it that way, and yur as real as ennething!” With a tight hug, she said, “It’s not like you’re a ghost who can’t touch stuff.”

Twilight raised a hoof to touch her leg, but was interrupted when the door suddenly sounded with harsh knocking, and immediately followed with the clank of heavy bolts.

“Uh-oh, gotta hide.” Screwball packed herself into her beanie, zooming to Fluttershy while Twilight corked the bottle and put the cup back up. The noise alerted Fluttershy, who took the pink hoof poking from the bottom of the hat which yanked her in as well. The beanie promptly deposited itself under the bedsheet.

I’m alone, nopony else is here… Twilight repeated in her mind as the last deadbolt snapped, and an exceptionally-muscled staff hand forced the six-inch thick door open.

“Miss Sparkle.” The figure awaiting looked to have seen ten thousand terrors. Wrinkled by onsetting age, three deep scars along his cheek ran to the thin metal plate bolted to his jaw. Lining the sash across his jacketed chest were six wooden stakes, small vials of different-colored powders, and two revolvers crossing over his belt. He looked on Twilight with burning orange eyes. “Your associates have been processed, and we are ready to begin the questioning. Follow me.”

He sharply proceeded down the hall with Twilight in tow, and two knightly soldiers, each carrying a separate blunderbuss rifle at ease, yet ready to act on a moment’s notice.

Questioning… Twilight worriedly thought, watching her patron’s purposeful stride and the pale, worn knuckles of his gloves. That can’t be good.

Rarity was above ground, yet looking on Twilight and her entourage at the same time. She glanced up from her magic looking-glass at the sound of a shattering jar over where Pinkie was winnowing through the cupboards feverishly.

“Two guards and whoever it was whose abode this is, and you’re still hungry?” Rarity asked, able to hear the mare’s stomach rumble from across the room. “Pinkie, show some moderation.”

Pinkie reluctantly shut the cupboards and put a claw to her complaining stomach. Three men’s bodies stewed within, her belly hanging down to her knees, but it didn’t relieve the hunger pains much. “Okay... but I think I’ve gotten used to the Doctor, so tummy needs so much more to feel satisfied.”

“Just try to think with your head, not your stomach.” Rarity looked back to the glass, where Twilight was clearly far from her chamber. “Pinkie Pie, this is my window,” Rarity said, and turned to her. “Stay here with Sweetie Belle until I get back and make sure the condemned sign stays up.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” Pinkie snapped a smart salute. “By the way, when did you suddenly start acting so… chaos-y?”

Rarity chuckled, retracting her glass. “It was never sudden. When Lyra found me in Mordheim, she showed me many things, told me to wait and see Him at work. And I have seen. This whole time, I couldn’t let you or anypony else know. But now I know we’ve been on the same side for a long time. Now, I really must take my chance.”

At that very end, Rarity began to come apart in dust, blowing away like desert sands to the wind.

“Hey, Rarity,” Pinkie said quickly, “You know I’m sorry for what I did to Sweetie Belle in Mordheim, right?”

“Oh, I know you are,” she said with a dark smirk, just before the last of her body dissolved into the swirling cloud of particulate.

As the last of the cloud slipped out the door, Pinkie sighed, rubbing her working belly. Its contents may only last a few hours, then what? Maybe she could root around the street for discarded things, maybe find a criminal or two and make snacks out of them; she wasn’t picky. She glanced back to the furthest corner of the room from her, where a four-eyed little monster glared back, curled up with five, then six fearful eyes.

Pinkie stayed where she was, sucking in her gut so she didn’t look as much like the glutton who had made a snack out of the filly. They maintained a silent, tense eye contact until Pinkie muttered, “So how’re you doing?”

“Fine,” Sweetie said back, and shrugged. A whole minute of silence later, she admitted, “Well… I haven’t had anything in a couple days.”

“Oh!” Pinkie’s ears perked up and she jumped to the cupboards. “There’s bread, fruit, uh—”

“Any meat?”

Pinkie rummaged every little door, but, “Doesn’t look like he’s got any—i-dee-aa!” She sucked in a breath and hunched over. Her stomach began to roil and heave, sending a large mass up her throat and finally letting a partially-digested human arm dangle from her lips. With a quick snap of the claw, she cut it off from the elbow and with her longest tongue, bridged the distance and let Sweetie take it in her hooves.

“Thanks,” she said curtly with one mouth and biting off a couple of fingers with another.

Pinkie swallowed the body back down and shuffled around the corner of the kitchen, out of Sweetie Belle’s sight. She smiled at the sound of hungry eating and, for a minute, imagined herself in a safari hat on the plains of Zebrica.

And Pinkamena Diane Pie has successfully fed a wild Sweetie Belle. Hopefully this encounter will be the budding flower of a renewed friendship.

Her belly murmured, and Pinkie felt her eyelids grow heavy. She laid back against the wall, sleepily kneading her bubbling stomach and figured that closing her eyes for just a few minutes couldn’t do any harm. If any trouble came around, she’d hear it.

As sleeping goes, she couldn’t tell how long she’d slept when she awoke next, with her muzzle aching sorely, and lying on the floor, facing a wall. She groggily got into a less contorting position and noticed several strands of a golden brown goop dangling from her lips to the floor. She wiped her mouth and batted her eyes in bewilderment at her third foreleg, her hoof, which was oddly striped pink and white. The color wrapped around her leg like a thick candy cane, and the slime that covered it smelled of maple syrup.

I don’t remember seeing any syrup in the cupboards, she thought. Was I sleep-eating?

Pinkie reached for the nearby bucket to spit into, but froze solid on seeing the reflection in the base. Half of the face was bone-white, the other pink. Both eyes swirled in intertwined spirals of a cotton candy blue and rose, whirlpooling into a pair of tiny black pupils. As her jaw hung in shock, she saw her teeth too were discolored, orange at the gums, yellow, then white at their carnivorous tips. She touched a hoof to her face and licked at her teeth, giggling, “Quite the set a’ chompers you got there, candy mare! Eh, don’t see the point, though. I usually just swallow things whole.”

She admired herself for a bit, then got to wondering where Sweetie Belle was. “Sweetie Belle?!” she called. A little groan answered her and she felt a lump in her belly shift position. She looked back over her body where some faint imprints of hooves poked out. “Oh, there you are, snug as a bug in a rug!” she said coolly as if finding her house keys. Somewhere in the world, glass shattered, and Pinkie’s blood ran cold. “Wait a minute...”

She heard the filly start to snore, telling her she’d merely turned over. Pinkie dared not move, but instead looked around. No burn marks anywhere, so she didn’t ‘attack’ Sweetie in her sleep. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Rarity’s gonna kill me… literally!”

Grrrrrr...

“No!” Pinkie whispered harshly at her belly. “She is not for you! Did you drag me all the way over here and eat her?” Silence. “You did! You’re so greedy! I’m trying to show some self-restraint here!”

Her belly gave another low gurgle and the cavernous walls constricted on Sweetie Belle, drawing out of her and filling Pinkie with the taste of a grape sourball, spiked so sweetly. “Mmm, ohh…” Her anger melted away immediately as the sensation flowed through her. “She does hit the spot, but… no, no. She’d never forgive me if she wakes up in there.”

Pinkie funneled her tongues into her stomach, gently slipping them under the filly and slowly sliding her up her widening throat. Pinkie set her down on the floor, the filly completely covered in the brownish slime.

“How do I explain this?!” Pinkie knocked her head back and forth forcing herself to think harder. “Um… I could clean her up! Yeah! Say she tried to go for syrup in the cupboard, fell and hit her head, can’t remember and the bottle had fallen on her! But I’m here. She could have asked me to get it… Rrr! This is all your fault! I don’t eat my friends unless they let me, and what if I digested her, huh?! I’d be a color palette for Rarity to smear all over the walls!” With a curious claw, she scratched at her chin. “Speaking of Rarity, maybe I can persuade her spend a night—” As if with a mind of its own, her claw struck her across the face “Getting side-tracked!”

In the mare’s ramblings, Sweetie stirred, feeling heavy under the weight of some sweet-smelling amber goo. She spat and flicked off some off her hooves. “Eww… What’s this gunk?”

“You fell and hit your head getting syrup!”

Outside, the wind was in Rarity’s favor, blowing the same way she was headed. She flowed around the people’s feet as dust while she searched for the position she’d memorized. She came to the high walls of a compound where a palatial cathedral had its spires and golden dome reach up to the heavens. Down a sewer grate and through the guts of the compound, she went down, down, and at the appearance of a light at the bottom, let herself be taken by gravity and poured out the opening into a small room with little more than a dresser and bed. As the rest of herself poured in, the dust piled together into her living form.

Like a sand creature come to life, Rarity crawled on her torn stomach toward the bed, and discovered the lime green beanie under the sheet. The only thing that brought a worrying scowl to her face at this point was the little creature inhabiting this headwear. Little Screwball. Discord’s insurance policy, that if he couldn’t torment everyone at once, it’d be at least two at once.

She smiled. A filly still had to listen to her elders.

”Are you out of your mind?! Do you have any idea what they do to people like us?! We’re not talking about some dumb mail fraud scheme or hijacking, here! We stole a balloon! And they’re gonna lock us up forever!”

Fluttershy didn’t care to understand what Screwball was laughing at on the flickering picture box, where a pink starfish was screaming his lungs out, confessing of some childish crime in public.

She felt sick in so many ways, her hooves trembling when she thought of what they had done as tremendous claws. She tried to let the ramblings of the figures on the screen distract her, but it was firmly ground into the front of her mind. So vividly could she see those memories, of scooping up a dozen people that were screaming and scrambling to escape, and feasting on them like a gourmet buffet. And the reason for the spark that ignited the firestorm was equally nauseating.

She remembered tearing the roof off of a slaughterhouse and seeing rows and rows of bodies of pigs and cows hanging headless, legless. And the workers, dropping their cleavers and knives, looking up to their imminent death. Despite Screwball’s attempt to make her comfortable, a soft chair, warm blanket, and a wad of pink cotton candy dripping chocolate milk, tears still silently wet her cheeks.

At the same time Screwball’s ears twitched, the box flashed off, and the filly turned her attention to the hole in the mud-brown carpet. Peeking through it, she gasped gleefully, reached down and yanked up Rarity all at once. Fluttershy sighed at the misfortune of her friend; more mutations brought on by the God of Change. Ruffling two black-feathered wings and regrown her second eye, Screwball wrapped her in a spine-crushing hug. “Auntie Rarity! How’d you know we were here?”

“Just a hunch,” she gasped. The filly let her fall and catch her breath.

“Since you’re here, I gotta show yuu around!” Screwball reached for Rarity’s hand, but she intercepted it, grabbing her hoof.

“After I have a little talk with Fluttershy, you can give me the whole Tour de’ Hat. Alright?” Answering Rarity’s half-hearted smile, Screwball nodded furiously, producing a sound like a maraca. “Good, now go to your…” Rarity looked around the sky-scaling space right out of an illusory painting. “Room… and I’ll call for you.”

Screwball gasped and slapped a hoof to her mouth. “I gotta feed my goldfishie!” And like a firecracker, burst into a cloud of dry, odd-smelling flakes.

Fluttershy’s chair widened itself into a two-seater sofa, and she timidly shifted further from Rarity as she sat. “Come now, dear. In the forests you never reacted this way to how we look,” the former fashionista said.

Her great black wing scooped Fluttershy closer, right up against her side. Back to her original size, Fluttershy only came up to Rarity’s shoulder, where a warpstone crystal poked her temple whenever Rarity moved that arm. A skeletal finger wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Fluttershy, I want to talk to you about something very serious.” Rarity said, causing the pegasus to squeak. “I want to make it clear right off the bat; I have absolutely no scorn for you.” Fluttershy peeked up to her as she examined the oozing cotton candy cloud and took a good bite out of it. “Actually, I would go so far as to call what you’ve done... admirable.”

In mid-gasp, Fluttershy quickly found Rarity’s finger at her lips. “I know, I know. ‘Ghastly, reprehensible, just evil’. But remember what you saw, and how much worse it was; and, honestly, that’s not even the half of it.”

Fluttershy was almost afraid to ask. “R-Really?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I’ve seen humans put animals on barbecue pits!”

“W-what’s a barbecue… pit?”

Rarity’s hands shivered in disgust. “It’s almost too gruesome to describe; they burn the poor thing over an open fire.” In her palm, she produced a glassy magical projection of a pig, with a wooden rod speared through it, snout to plot, turning slowly over a roaring flame. Fluttershy couldn’t look at that for a second.

“And this isn’t even the beginning. They smash the eggs of chickens and fry them on burning iron. Behead, defeather and roast a turkey until its flesh is leathery, then cram its rear end with breadcrumbs and peck it down to the skeleton.”

Fluttershy’s eyes welled up once more, and Rarity draped her wing further around her in the embrace of a caring friend. “How did those monsters taste when you were up there?”

“Huh?”

“It must have been the perfect, poetic justice. Man stuffs himself with the innocent of the forests and land, and they in turn face a bit of contrapasso.” Rarity gave her a slight, yet encouraging smile.

It didn’t take long for Fluttershy to remember. Though she chalked it up to altered senses, they were the best thing she’d ever tasted; crunchy, chewy, their blood like nectar to the honeybee.

“But there were ponies, too—”

“Ponies make up a fraction of the population!” Rarity shook Fluttershy like a champion who didn’t realize she’d won. “Look at what you’ve succeeded in! You, Fluttershy, destroyed the slaughterhouse, broke open all the cages. All those birds and animals that fled in the panic still have their lives because of you! And think of it this way: in Mordheim, everypony was insane! Nopony knew any better. But here, this is a nation with a State. These people have their intellect geared toward coming up with new methods of this industrialized evil.”

Fluttershy was speechless, and Rarity could see it in her eyes. Thinking, pondering, considering. Rarity paused, chuckling at the cotton candy that appeared to grow back what it lost, and indulged some more.

Fluttershy leaned forward with a hoof over her mouth, her face suddenly twisted with nausea like she’d vomit. “I… I… I tried to eat… Applejack.”

Rarity coughed harshly, beating her chest and hacking up the candy cloud that she accidentally inhaled into her hand. Not another word came from Fluttershy who slowly laid down against the armrest. Tugging at her mane, she descended into sobbing again.

So far, so good. The questions at first were easy; date and place of birth in the imperial dating system, former occupation and the like. Then, they became more recent: the kidnapping; meeting the Doctor—who was currently barely able to focus on answering—and what they’d been through so far. Trying to avoid talking about the Everchosen and his lackeys was difficult enough, and the questions soon became unavoidable. The whole time, Twilight and Whooves had run by one maxim: ‘tell the truth, so you don’t have to remember what you said.’

A red-robed man whose black curly beard brushed his desk kept a face of unreadable neutrality, while nearby his unicorn assistant scribbled every word said on a parchment as quick as one could talk. “Do you know anything about the bat creature that attempted to attack the Reiksmarshall?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir. His name’s Kivsin. He’s actually a Noctral, but I had been in control of his body. Well, not so much ‘control,’ but I did try to give him direction. He’d gone berserk before going for Shining Armor. Do you know where Kivsin is now?”

“Currently in medical care, after which he will undergo rites of purification from your actions,” he answered curtly. “How long were you inhabiting his body?”

“I… think a couple of hours… before I made him rip me out.”

“Do you know anything about the giant that attacked the city not long ago?”

“Yes, sir,” Twilight said with the most composure she could muster, “It’s a ‘she’, and I’d worked with her many times before we were taken.”

“Hmm.” He nodded, whist Twilight’s escort raised an eyebrow from behind her. “And Mr. Whooves, you have been in much contact with… her, as well?” The stallion didn’t seem to notice the question, lazily, sleepily tipping side to side and looking like it was quite an effort just to blink. “Mr. Whooves.” The Doctor’s head snapped up to the judge, eyes seeming to focus lamely as if coming out of a dream.

“I’m beginning to question the validity of your drug test,” the interrogator muttered, then switched to a firmer tone. “Do you know the creature?”

“Oh, uh. A-absolutely,” he stammered, then seemed to regain his senses. “In her right mind, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. Because of her corruption, there’s so much that can set her off. Before, she was no bigger than me, and afraid to even say ‘hi’ to strangers.” He glanced up to the high, marbled ceiling, somewhat hoping he’d suddenly gain x-ray vision to see where Pinkie Pie was on the surface.

Clearing his throat, he continued. “I was in a very bad spot that I only got out of after the fact. She didn't have to be rusted to near-death.”

“You know her personally?”

“M’hm. Spent many a day keeping track of her behavior, trying to keep her temper on ice. But when you feed a neurotic vegetarian animal-lover the ground-up and stewed remains of those very animals, it’s pretty much like firing a cannonball through a twig.”

The interrogator removed his spectacles, wiping them in his robe. After replacing them, he adjusted the small plaque on the desk, reading ‘F. Karamazov’. “I trust you’re fully aware that merely socializing with a mutant is punishable by death. Harboring one—befriending one—is damnation. By the request of Celestia herself, I am to show mercy, but it does not lessen her crimes. Her actions would land her in the Blood God’s Malebolge. Now, tell me her name, so that her fate may be decided.”

Whooves and Twilight spoke simultaneously. “Fluttershy.”

The pony assistant’s quill flung from his magic grip, spattering ink across the desk, and he fell back, wide-eyed.

“Truly?” Karamazov muttered. They nodded in response. All of them were fully aware of where the Church’s mind was in regards to the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony. He sat back, running a hand through his receding hairline, and took a deep breath.

“So, Kindness has been consumed by rage,” he said in a low voice. “You and the Bearers are miserable souls, indeed, forced to inhabit such tainted bodies.”

Karamazov cleared his throat. “Mr. Jaeger, please escort Miss Sparkle back to her quarters. I have more questions for Mr. Whooves specifically, and we may need to call Rainbow Dash back. I’ll have a ruling on Fluttershy’s punishment come the morning after next.”

“W-wait!” Twilight said, raising a hoof in protest. “Fluttershy can’t be held responsible for this. She’s been made into a time bomb. That isn’t her fault!”

“Her soul is weak. Having succumbed to an uncontrollable rage like that, she has proven that she is wholly open to corruption. As far as I—not to mention near the entirety of Middenheim—am concerned, she is His, and therefore, must be punished.”

“Mr. Karamazov—”

“As well as you, Miss Sparkle,” he interrupted tersely. “Immortality will make a ‘life’ sentence truly mean something. Celestia may have ordered leniency, but the crimes of you and your friends run so deep that it will not mean much in the end. You will forever be marked by Chaos, and so, you will forever be seen only as a pariah. An enemy.”

Twilight fought back the urge to swallow out of nervousness. She cast a millisecond-long glance to the Doctor, only to find him gazing listlessly into space, immersed in his own world. What the hay is wrong with him!?

“And the same holds true for all of your ‘friends,’” Karamazov continued. “But we will get to them—and their respective punishments—in due time.”

Twilight’s head snapped up to the man, eyes flashing with disbelief. “Th— that’s not right! What have Rarity or Rainbow done?” Her voice grew more sharp, “Why do they deserve ‘punishment’? What crimes have they committed?”

Karamazov leaned forward, calculatedly parting his lips in response.

“Existence.”

Just as she was about to retort, Twilight felt a leather-sleeved hand firmly grasp her shoulder. She looked back, meeting the dark, silent glare of her escort. The creak of a chair brought her attention back to Karamazov, who was simply sitting back and waiting.

Twilight’s seat creaked her farewell, and only this sudden motion made Whooves acknowledge his surroundings. He gave her an assuring smile which she couldn’t interpret before the door closed. While the inquisitor caught up with himself, Whooves pondered where he would take Pinkie Pie when this was said and done. The paddleboats in the Great Park’s pond was his first choice.

Twilight got a good look at her escort’s vampire-killing arsenal and wondered who called for such security. No doubt the Emperor. She’d known Celestia too long, too personally to believe she would put two shotguns to her back like a rabid prisoner. And then a thought began to surface like bubbling pitch. Any minute now, if not already, they’ll realize Fluttershy’s missing, and want my head for answers. She kept quiet, though, until she was safely back in her prison-apartment hybrid.

Once alone again, she noticed Screwball’s beanie above the bed sheets. Though no eyes were on her, she quickly stuffed it back under the covers and sat on it for good measure. Did someone come in earlier? What did they think when they saw this odd hat hidden there? Was Screwball even aware that someone had touched it?

Twilight took it back out and flipped it over, looking for some way in, but the interior, the crisscrossing stitches, looked as normal as any other hat. “Hmm.” She got under the sheets, completely covered, and gingerly placed the hat on her head. “Anything? Screwball?” Out of ideas, she wound up the propeller, which only made the beanie tighten over her head. Once it got painful, she gave up and let it spin out. Then the hat crushed down on her skull, and the world shot by in a blur.

Twilight felt weightless for a moment, only for it to be ended by the union of her face and a carpeted floor.

“Ouch.” she put a hoof to her head. Looking up, she stared into a vertical abyss of stairs going up, down, and sideways, spiraling into nothingness. Taking in the immediate surroundings, it was some kind of child’s playroom—only with a familiar mare sitting on a sofa, looking at Twilight with an expectant, dagger-mouthed grin.

“Hello there, darling.”