Fireworks lit the night sky with brilliant traceries, casting their brief but spectacular glows on the Imperial camp. The Brass Keep burned long into the night, and pyres of the denizens’ corpses smoldered between its slums and the encampment. The roar of the fires complemented the song and celebration of the soldiers as they rattled swords against shields, cheered, and reveled in the Keep’s firelight.

At the center stood the Emperor’s tent, a canvas castle bearing a grinning skull and crossed swords on jet-black siding, looming in a looming watch over the soldiers.

“What?!”

Karl Franz’s tent shook from Chrysalis’ outburst. He hastily righted a fallen candelabrum, as it spilled hot wax over the table and threatened to set the papers alight.

The Queen’s disguise faltered, random spots on her body burst into green flames, bulging out in the form of her black carapace before she willed them back under control.

“Too many good men have died taking the Keep,” Franz said coolly, turning from the wax-stained treaty. “After all this, it would be inconceivable to tell the army we’re just going to walk away empty-handed.”

“That’s the whole premise we agreed on! My subjects were driven to the brink of extinction, and we’re just now clawing our way back! This land is ours!”

Franz leaned forward, planting his hands on the table between them. “I’m fully willing to make concessions. Your people can live among the settlers as long as they’re cloaked, you can expand your tunnels under the range, even control mining operations as they’d be in your underground. Essentially what will need to happen is cohabitation.”

Chrysalis wrenched her claws from the table, tearing out splinters in the process and forcing them back into the form of the petite hands of a female Inquisitor. “You should have brought this up sooner, Franz. You can’t just change the terms. You could just tell them the land is too corrupt, and they’ll grow a second head if they stay too long.”

Franz wrung his hands tensely. “That flies in the face of the words of my wizards. They tell me the influence of Chaos is disappearing by the hour since we started burning the Keep. Keeping Imperial secrets is one thing, but I can’t lie so brazenly when everyone already knows the facts.”

A cold silence stretched out between them. Franz was momentarily surprised; he’d expected the Queen to scream or rant in rage at hitting a dead end, but instead, Chrysalis just looked desperate, almost defeated. Her eyes were screwed shut, fingers white knuckled into fists.

“Think about it, Chrysalis,” he continued. “You really have nothing to lose, here, and much to gain. Your subjects do not ‘eat’, so farmland is not an issue. But there will be families coming here, people who will try to make a living, be bound by community, and have love for one another.” He dragged the last phrase out slowly, pointedly. “You’ll be right under their feet.

“But what if you were to take it all? If you brought the hives to the surface and some explorer finds your spires out there, you and your race would be exposed. There’d be, without a doubt, a call for another attack on the range. I wouldn’t back it, but the Electors are the local authority. Count Ludenhof will see this place as part of Hochland, and since the last Incursion, he’s been fast to act on reports of intruders.”

Chrysalis ground her teeth together in frustration. Without offering any retort, she slumped back into her chair, burying her face in her hands with a ragged sigh.

“I’m so sick of hiding our very existence. I just wanted my subjects to see the light again,” she muttered sullenly.

Franz put his heavy hand on Chrysalis’ shoulder. “I hadn’t considered it until recently, but... have you ever heard of Albion?”

Chrysalis peered up between her fingers at him, her face blank. “No.”

“Then that is where you should try next.”

“And why is that?”

“The recorded histories are scarce, but they read of magical stones made by giants that keep the influence of chaos at bay. As far as we know, there are no beastmen, no Skaven-”

The light jingling of a bell outside the tent interrupted him.

“Come,” Franz said, standing up sharply.

The canvas flaps fluttered open, letting in a silver-armored knight of the Reiksguard with a stamped envelope in his hand. “Milord, a courier came with a message from Sylvania.”

Franz’s features hardened at that. Who are those parasites to think he can address the Emperor directly? “Open it. Who is it from?”

The knight ripped open the blood-red seal binding the scroll, and unfolded the parchment. “Mannfred and Vlad von Carstein, and a… Nightmare Moon.”

Chrysalis stood up in a flash. She didn’t even try to mask her look of rage. “Her? In Sylvania? What are her and the Carsteins doing?”

Franz took the message, his brow creasing warily at the names. Mannfred had died in the Battle of Hel Fenn four hundred years ago. Vlad, a hundred years before that. And Nightmare Moon… had apparently disappeared to parts unknown, according to the Princesses. If she was confident enough to reveal her existence and affiliations now…

“Absolve me of my ignorance, your highness, but who is Nightmare Moon?”

“Don’t mind it for now,” Franz said, taking the letter. “I’ll organize a briefing and inform the Order. And thank you. Dismissed.”

The knight was barely out of the tent before Chrysalis asked, “What does it say? What do they want?”

Karl Franz skimmed past the list of titles and pleasantries, long since used to the routine. He stopped midway through, eyes locked on a single paragraph. And then he just stared, long and hard. The crackling of fire and distant cheers from the encampment rang in the silence.

“Franz?” Chrysalis tried again.

The Emperor slowly lowered the parchment, his gauntleted hands tensed hard enough to crinkle the sides. He looked at the Queen gravely. “Reintegration.”

__________________________________________________

Moonlight shone through the steam columns of the Darklands, giving the sky a greenish tint to its sunset purple. Cracks in the earth wept rivulets of glowing lava, and ponds of contaminated waters steamed thickly like the birthing grounds of the clouds in the sky.

“You need to look the part.”

That was what Rarity had said, insisting to Spike to let her change his wardrobe. He reluctantly agreed, seeing the necessity to abandon the High Elven aesthetic with as far north into unfriendly territory as they were. After about two weeks, it was nearly done.

Using a feather plucked from her elbow, she brushed off metal shavings from the helmet. The old elongated shape had to go. It reminded her of the aliens of Chaurus Attacks, a B-movie that Rainbow Dash had convinced her to see years ago. She remembered with some amusement that she had been grossly offended by the ugly, scuttling, slimy insectoid creatures that were supposedly an otherworldly equivalent of rats. But now that she had plenty of time and experience with all the Dark Gods’ ideas of servants and beasts, she saw how silly she was to be afraid of a few chitinous bugs. She could even see some appeal, in fact.

A pile of links from Fluttershy’s chain-mane was neatly coiled next to her. She procured the metal with her consent. Oddly, the giant’s mane still grew as if it were organic, and to leave little trace of where they went, fallen links were simply fed to Pinkie Pie, leaving her to wonder if there was anything the mare couldn’t eat, now.

The blackness of the iron, when melded with the helmet’s silver and steel, made the perfect shadow effect under the eye holes. It gave them weariness of experience, but under heavy-set brows, ferocity still burned behind them.

As far as Rarity knew, Spike was the only truly sapient dragon in this world, one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable. She wanted a dragon lord look for him in the style of the various chaos champions, but grander. Less of a “walking brass heap” look; after all, Spike had flat-out ordered that he would under no circumstances wear the eight-pointed star anywhere on his armor or his form.

She reached over for another link of chain, but only grabbed stone. The links were gone. A slur of obnoxiously loud slurping and gulping told her where. Rarity set the helmet down, and stood from the rock she reclined on.

As she surmised, Pinkie Pie was sucking up the links like oversized spaghetti. Only when the last link vanished past her lips did she look up at an unamused Rarity.

Through a full mouth, she tried her best to speak. “Oh, were you using those?”

Rarity pinched her brows and nodded. “Mhmm.”

Pinkie put a claw on her middle, which was already showing bumps of the chains coiling in her stomach. “I thought Fluttershy had shed another one. Do you… want them b—”

“No, no,” Rarity sighed. “They’re going to be discolored, weakened, broken. Just… no.”

Pinkie swallowed quickly as Rarity passed her by, intent on asking the iron giant for more material. As the candy mare trotted alongside Rarity, her gut rattled with its contents.

“So, are we still on for…” Pinkie raised her brows. “tonight?”

Rarity felt a chill of embarrassment at the thought. Explaining why she’d willingly let Pinkie Pie eat her alive the first time was relatively easy; delirium, of course. However, then she had to explain why she started feeding herself to Pinkie Pie regularly.

Was it therapeutic? The warm acids dissolving away the dirt and grime of the day, the smell which, despite being strong, brought a certain relaxation, along with the muscular massage of the organ trying fruitlessly to break her down. Rarity wondered how many of Pinkie’s unwilling victims must have been become sedated in such an environment before being broken down to sustain her.

Rarity actually had a theory for why Pinkie absorbed anything but, so far, herself, and Twilight Sparkle. It was a matter of matter. If Pinkie had, at any point, become daemonkind, she would need some physical anchor for her immaterial form to hold onto to manifest. So, by consuming anything within claw’s reach on a regular basis, she absorbed solid matter to maintain physical form. In Rarity’s case, Pinkie must have been absorbing her ambient magic instead.

“Of course,” she said curtly.

They climbed over a rocky outcropping, between a pair of massive stone pillars. Such pillars ringed the depression the others were camped in, sunken below and free of the gloom of the sulphur steam.

Twilight and Spike were at the center of the bowl, each orbiting each other in predatory stances. Fluttershy, with the others spectating atop her torso, rested nearby. Rainbow Dash spoke of placing bets, but with what, no one knew.

Spike charged first, his claws braced. Twilight side-stepped at the last second to see him rush past like a bull, but Spike gained purchase, wrapping one arm around her neck, the other claw in her face, forcing her muzzle skyward. They were instantly locked in a vicious dance, Spike twisting Twilight left and right to try to force her to lose footing.

“Fluttershy, dear! If I may?” Rarity said, drawing the attention of the mechanized pony. Fluttershy already held a scowl at being distracted from watching the bout. “It appears the lock you gave me was misappropriated,” Rarity continued, scratching Pinkie Pie’s meekly-smiling head. “May I make use of another?”

Fluttershy shot a hard glare at Pinkie Pie. “Give you enough time and you’d just eat the whole world without a second thought, wouldn’t you?”

Pinkie's ears pinned against her head. “Sorry.”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes and snapped off another line of chain, dropping it in a heavy heap. “You’re not getting another one,” she said.

Rarity nodded and picked up the chains, smiling warmly in response to her generosity’s end. “Thank you, dear. I’ll make the most of this.”

As night fell, tents rose. Twilight cast orbs of magical light around the depression.

Rarity peeked over a boulder at the rim, spying on the assembly of the campsite. Ducking behind the boulder again, Rarity came face to face with her finished work. A shimmering body of blue magic animated the suit. With flicks of her hand, it turned its head, spread its arms, giving her a final look before the product was delivered.

It carried a shield on its arm. Spike had made a point to Rarity that the phoenix engraved on its face was to remain. The avian was still there, wings of flame widespread. In its claws, it gripped a bundle of arrows in one and an equine skull, talons through its eye sockets, in the other.

The helmet was made in the shape of a greater dragon’s skull, a number of slits giving room for the fins on his head. The torso was composed of a musculata chestplate with jagged spikes jutting from the shoulders. On each layer of the segmented abdomen, chaotic symbols and runes were etched in, many of which Rarity was still teaching Spike the meaning of.

Into the darkness, came a light. A torch of the gods,

A dragon of two minds.

The Lizard King, the Daemon-Eater

A fallen, golden drake.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said anxiously.

Faceless, the body of light didn’t respond. Rarity waved a hand, and its head turned backward. She took a breath to collect her thoughts, turned it forward again, and began her descent.

The magic puppet strode behind Rarity. As she passed each of her friends and they saw the walking suit, she motioned for them to keep their silence as her sights were on Spike.

Twilight and Spike were piling stones as supports for a tentpole, the former picking up the wooden rod in question.

“Right, so just put hold it all in place and I’ll shimmy it in,” Spike said. He glanced at Twilight in her silence. She wore a face of surprise and was looking past him.

Rarity beamed as the dragon turned around and his eyes widened at the puppet. She stepped aside and let them meet one on one. The puppet drew the Hoeth greatsword, and held it before Spike with head bowed in supplication. In the tips of the crossguard shimmered with embedded warpstones broken from her own shoulders.

“Happy birthday,” Rarity said.

“What?”

Pinkie Pie poked out from behind Rarity, holding up a calendar with one particular day of the month highlighted. Tapping it with her claw, she silently mouthed, Never forget. before vanishing again.

Twilight tackled him from behind, hugging him round his neck and nearly knocking him the the ground. “Aaah! Our first birthday together in over a decade!”

As Rarity joined in, Spike shouted, “Girls, girls! Falling over!”

They all came toppling down in a laughing pile. The puppet disintegrated with Rarity’s breaking of focus and the armor clattered into a pile. Spike held both of them close and kissed rarity on the cheek.

“Thank you, guys! How could I have forgotten?”

“It’s pretty easy when we don’t have a calendar,” Rarity said.

PInkie Pie loomed over the three of them with a noisemaker in her lips.

Fweeeep!

Between working on the armor, Rarity had delved into more conscious attempts at divination. At first, glimpses of the future came in fits and bursts. In her dreams, she would see a flash of events that would happen a day later, or while spaced-out, suddenly swat an insect out of the air she didn’t even know was there.

Spike threw a clawful of shredded paper upward. It exploded into a confetti shower against the tent ceiling. Each bit of parchment had a letter written on it, and only one had the letter ‘A’.

Rarity’s eyes darted from one scrap to another, seeing the next one in her mind before her eyes did. Like a frog snatching an insect, she grabbed a scrap from the paper haze and showed Spike a letter A.

“Enhanced reflexes,” the dragon declared in disbelief.

Rarity snorted and, with a gesture, brought all of the scraps back into Spike’s claw.

“Alright then,” she said. She sat erect, eyes closed. Spike let her sit in silence for nearly a minute, wondering if this was going somewhere.

Rarity held her thumb and pointer fingers less than an inch in front of Spike’s snout.

“Do it,” she said.

Spike tossed the paper once more. Without moving her hand, Rarity pinched a scrap that fluttered between her fingers. Smirking, she turned it over, the A on its face.

“You’re really getting the hang of it,” Spike conceded. “What else have you seen with that mind’s eye, like, what we might see in the far north?”

Rarity mulled it over as she gathered the scraps. She might just burn them later. They were made from a paper that had been smeared nearly illegible.

“I’m quite far from being able to just turn it on or off,” she said. “But I did see something in a dream last night. There was a mountain of metal, stretching to the ends of the horizon, and a neat staircase leading up. Each step must have been fifty feet high. On the other side was a sea of the most beautiful roses, tended to by loving caretakers.”

Spike snickered. “So, poison plants and angry caretakers. Sounds like an excellent place to spend a weekend.”

Rarity barely smiled, seeing the aura around Spike burning black.

“You’re worried about something,” she muttered.

Spike’s sighed. “We’ve got a lot ahead of us. We ran out of food days ago, so we’re back to hunting, and we’ve got to keep everyone in one piece. And… and…”

“Yes?” Rarity prodded.

“What if the Elements aren’t even there?” Spike snapped. “We don’t know if Archaon even has them. We’ll be walking into his front door and then, ‘Oh, sorry! The Elements are still in Canterlot, or scattered around the world, or even pawned off and each of them is in the hands of Gods-know-who!’”

Rarity pursed her lips in thought. “Didn’t we save the Crystal Empire with as much a chance of the Heart being anywhere in the tundra?” she remarked. “Oh, we were lucky it was still in the palace, but Sombra could have taken it with him when he was banished, or it could have been buried under a hundred feet of ice and snow. What I mean is, it's not as if we haven’t done this before.”

“You’re right,“ Spike sighed. “It’s just the stress.”

“And I’ve got just the thing!” chirped Pinkie Pie who poked into the tent, holding a stone bowl full of what looked like squirming leeches held in her tongues. “I figured you two might want some treats as you wind things down, so I got you come taffy!”

Spike took the bowl reluctantly as Pinkie thrust it against his chest. “I’m almost afraid to ask where you got these.”

Pinkie gasped, “Oooohh. You better tell him now, Rarity, cus it’s only gonna get more awkward later.”

Pinkie started to back out and paused. “And Spike, I’d always be willing to keep you and Rarity in my tummy for a night, if you’re interested!”

“Yeah, I’m sure sitting in another pony’s guts for eight hours is a wonderful experience,” Spike joked in visible disgust.

“Ah, well,” Pinkie resigned. “If you ever change your mind, I’ve always got room for a second midnight snack.” Before vanishing, Pinkie stole a lick at Spike’s chin.

Spike groaned in disgust and quickly wiped his chin. “How do you ever find peace with her? And what did she want you to tell me?”

Rarity was biting her lips tightly. “Really, she’s not that bad. She tends to get quiet on a full stomach. As for those… Just remember, they are taffy, but.”

Spike almost dropped the bowl in his haste to put it down. “These aren’t chopped up bits of her stomach tentacles, are they?”

Rarity sucked in a needles breath and held it, thinking long and hard about her next word. “...Yes?”

Spike slapped a claw over his eyes. “Oh, by the gods. You eat pieces of her? She lets you eat pieces of her?!”

“They seem to grow back quickly,” Rarity amended hastily. “And she looks to enjoy it.”

“Because her senses are warped!” Spike exclaimed. “Even if it’s not meat, you’re still eating Pinkie Pie. You have her trying to control her eating, and I can tolerate you giving yourself to her because she won’t hurt you, but please, practice what you preach. This is cannibalism on your part. You’re better than that.”

Spike spat a wad of fire into the bowl, instantly setting it alight. The tentacles writhed as they melted into a pool of boiling, black sugar.

“Okay?” asked Spike with a look of fear and concern.

Rarity nodded. “Al… alright.”

Despite the rough terrain that Fluttershy walked over, her midsection had stayed surprisingly stable. Twilight attributed it to some kind of gyroscopic stabilization deep in the machinery of her body.

Spike paced the breadth of Fluttershy’s back, the others watching intently. He wore his newly refurbished armor suit. Despite the heavy-set appearance, his movements were as fluid and quick as if it were a second skin. Rarity sat at the base of the iron giant’s neck, her hands aglow and ready to do her part.

“You’ve come a long way,” he said. We’ve assessed our strengths and weaknesses, and trained around them. Now, I think it’s time for you to learn Ulthuan’s Six Axioms of Battle.” He smiled at the murmur of interest from his friends. “Rarity, if you please.”

Arms spread wide, Rarity conjured up a shimmering list of text. Spike pointed to each article.

“One, ‘Don’t be there.’ The enemy cannot kill what is not present. Two, ‘Don’t be seen’. The enemy cannot kill what he doesn’t know is present. Three, ‘Don’t be engaged’. The enemy cannot kill what he cannot reach-”

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof.

Spike pointed to her. “Yes, Rainbow?”

“What’s the point of learning how to fight if you actively avoid fighting? Seems like a waste of the effort.”

“Because,” Sweetie Belle started, “If you can get what you want done and not have to risk getting hurt, that’s even better.”

“Excellent,” said Spike. “That gets right to the heart of it: goals. Is our objective fight every ornery animal we come across, or survival?”

“Survival,” they all responded.

“That’s right. Violence is the last option when all else has been exhausted. If you can be accomplishing your objectives while the enemy is elsewhere, then that’s not something to complain about.

Going on. The last three are self-explanatory, and this is where the fighting starts.”

Rainbow Dash sat up a little straighter.

Spike continued. “Don’t be hit, don’t be cut, and last, don’t die. Again, if possible.”

Applejack smirked, and lowered her half-raised hoof.

“GUYS!”

The shriek carried the grip of ice as it washed over them. Fluttershy halted in her tracks, her head swiveling backward. Pinkie Pie bounded over the rocky outcroppings in the distance, catching up like a pink lightning bolt.

“Ah swear, if she tried to eat another giant scorpion…” growled Applejack.

Behind Pinkie, a multitude of snarling hounds and men on horseback surged over the ridge, bellowing curses and raucous battlecries calling for bloody vengeance.

Faster than Spike could register movement, Pinkie Pie clutched to him, crushing like a vise.

“RUNRUNRUN!” She screamed.

Spike peeled Pinkie off as the sight lent Fluttershy wings, albeit hesitantly in the face of the opportunity to shed men’s blood.

“Everyone hunker down!” Spike ordered, rushing to retrieve his shield from one of the storage bags. “Twilight, Rainbow, with me!”

Rarity stood atop Fluttershy's back while the others grabbed onto the many protruding parts of her body. Spikes, barbs, and knots of chains became anchors to take advantage of the giant’s size and speed.

She kept perfect balance with Fluttershy’s rolling motions, ignoring Applejack’s call to hold onto something. The wind whipped Rarity’s mane like a frenzy of purple smoke, and with the merest lean to either side, she avoided splinters of rock kicked up in Fluttershy’s sprint that would have taken her head off.

Her mind was warm, a bubbling, intensifying heat, surging and powerful. “Small world,” she said as Fluttershy skidded to a halt before a river of liquid earth.

“Oh, come on!” Fluttershy cried. She dipped her claws into the lava, her face twisting in pain as her metallic hide singed. She began to wade the river.

Everyone clustered onto her back, warily watching the fiery waters get closer as Fluttershy waded deeper.

The sound of magic bolts and furious shouts drew nearer. Spike’s practiced screening strategy wasn’t working quite as intended. The horsemen hurled heavy javelins at their winged harassers. Even as a score of them were burned in emerald flame, or blasted apart by exploding magic bolts, they charged on toward the river with no sign of stopping.

Spike dipped too low and a horseman with a weighted net hurled it, ensnaring his wings. The dragon tumbled into the magma river, shouting and fighting with the net as he vanished under the current.

As Fluttershy ascended the far slope, her legs and underbelly glowed, reeking of burning iron. She hobbled with softened joints, dropping her passengers with the knowledge they were on the safe side.

A hooded horseman goaded his horse to the front of the Nnorscan formation. His body was covered in deep piercings rattling with arcane fetishes and thick furs. He raised his hand, as if reaching for some fleeing insect just out of his grasp. As his horse charged over the river bank, his hand lit with furious energy. The lava river hardened before him, becoming a rigid bridge of gleaming obsidian which his kith followed him over, cheering on his effort.

Fluttershy threw herself between them and her friends, bouncing off a hail of javelins and throwing axes. Her movements were rendered lethargic, stamping flat a paltry few before they rode around her.

Pinkie Pie dodged a lance that was aimed for her face. Her tongues lashed out, grabbing his horse by the legs and and yanking them down. The rider tumbled across the ground and Pinkie was upon him before he could stand. Her claw impaled through his back, jutting through his chest with a spray of blood and shattered bone fragments. She barely had time to savor the smell of freshly spilled blood before she was stunned by a pain as if Sigmar’s hammer had struck her in the back of the head.

The ring of tinnitus deafened her to the roar of battle. She blinked stars from her eyes, feeling an intense warmth building in her skull.

To either side, Rarity desperately unleashed the warp bound within in shrieking arcs of lightning that stripped flesh from bone, and exploded the opposing horses into fine red mist. Leaping hound bit into her shoulder, dragging her to the ground and shattering bone in fizzles of dying magic, and her jaw locked open in an unheard scream.

Applejack struck home with each swing of her molar axe, crushing armor like the wild jaws of a giant. It was not long however before she was overwhelmed, blades piercing her with little effect, but but an armored brute was nearing, lugging a massive, two-handed axe.

A lava monster emerged from the river, covered in armor heated to a glowing orange and bits of burning rope coming off like spectral energy. Liquid earth slopped off his body as he charged, flinging his arms and wings, throwing lava onto the norscans in lethal sprays. His claw gripped a man’s entire head, flesh boiling off his skull as he fruitlessly struggled to pry him off.

Pinkie’s head throbbed with the most exquisite pain, and she smiled as she was yanked up by her mane. She stared into the furious eyes of a warrior wracked by hatred and grief. Her lips barely moved as she formed the words, and felt the press of warm steel against her throat.

“You look lonely. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you company.”

Her body-maw ripped open in a swath of teeth and whipping tentacles, not unlike a warp beast merely wearing the skin of a pony. She yanked the attacker directly into her open stomach. Her senses aching in pleasure as the warrior frantically swept a blade across the lining of her insides, stimulating the organ to crush down on the fighting meal. Bones snapped, flesh and armor dissolved in seconds, and two hundred pounds of meat and metal was absorbed into her system in the time it took her to stand. Throbbing veins swelled under her skin, blood thickened with sustenance as she sighted another next target.

She flew at the next norscan, poised to ensnare him like a living net. Braced against her, his spear ran her through. Pinkie Pie howled in ecstasy as the weapon ripped through her abdomen, sticking clear out her back. Momentum carried her down the polearm, breaking it with both weight and corrosive bile, and she fell upon him. Pinning his arms down, she widened her jaw enough to swallow him whole.

A monstrous roar drowned out all sound, commanding at least a momentary silence afterward. Fluttershy held Spike in one of her massive claws, and a burly brute of the Norscans in the other who held his hands in the air for attention. Rivulets of blood trickled down Spike’s jaw which stuck out puggishly, and he tried to restrain the fire in his heart with a stoic expression. The head of an oversized axe was dug deeply into his shield, an exact match of the second weapon belted at the Norscan’s waist. The man’s right arm was painted in a pattern of reptilian scales.

Fluttershy’s burning gaze didn’t leave the norscan chief, the claw she held him on twitched with an ache to crush him then and there. She set them both down and the Norscan grabbed Spike by the arm, holding it high to show his kith their matching pattern.

“Jinam vorshun!”

The Norscan sorcerer gingerly approached and rested hand on Spike’s shoulder, then motioned for the others to come.

Appplejack was dropped with only two legs attached to her body, and Rarity managed to coax a hound of its newly acquired chew toy.

Twilight touched down just beyond the congregation, her horn still smoking and ready to blast the men again.

“What are they doing?” she asked.

In little time, Spike was at the center of a crowd of at least one hundred men, every one of them with hands outstretched or laid across his body.

He inclined his head to Twilight. “That dragon Fluttershy killed. I think they believe I have something to do with him,” he said cooly. “Play along with it. See if any of them know Black Speech.”

Many of the Norscans stared at Twilight after Spike acknowledged her. She licked her lips, thinking of what to say. She stood up superior and with purpose in her step as she paced before the men.

“Which of you speak in the way of the Aether?” she asked.

The crowd parted for the sorcerer, understanding at least Twilight’s questioning tone. His braided, white beard hung long, starkly contrasting the serpentine, black tongue that slithered out as he spoke. “I am a Son of The Storm. Speak to me, and you deal with my people.”

“So, you are their leader?” Twilight asked.

He shook his head. “No, but an arcane conduit for the sea of souls. I guide my people through dark times, and I have seen storm clouds gather for this day.”

Twilight forced herself to grin arrogantly. “My brothers and sisters say that watching you ephemerals try to read the currents is most amusing. I am pleased to see you’ve survived all your attempts.”

“You are?”

“Oh yes.” Twilight stamped her hoof, shaking rocks loose with the force of impact. “Tell your people that you’ve interfered with… J-Jinam’s pilgrimage! The gods have marked out his soul for a grand purpose, and he must come face-to-face with the lord of the End Times! Your people’s reverence has been duly noted by my master, and Jinam will return to bless you, despite your ignorant meddling. Now, we will take of the dead what we will, you collect what remains and go! You’ve done enough damage to his associates.”

The sorcerer nodded hesitantly and relayed Twilight’s message. Four Norscan corpses were drained of blood, the ichor filling several containers the group had emptied in days prior. Pinkie Pie had her say, claiming those desiccated husks, and three more fresher bodies. On the dietary regimen Rarity had her take up, she broke a personal record, having the corpses of six men keep her fed for one day.

The climate had given way to perpetual storms. Roiling clouds obscured almost all sunlight, arcs of lightning stabbed across the sky like daggers in the dark. The land and sky were tinted red, rock and sand crunching under Fluttershy’s stride. the air changed by the minute, from blizzarding cold to carrying hot sand that burned like the desert.

In the far distance, at first a massive mass appeared to be a simple rise in the terrain, then a mountain, but it seemed too clean, its top too flat, and too wide to be a plateau. It stretched across the horizon and beyond.

The monolithic wall of iron defied all architectural sense. Its sheer size should have crushed it under its own weight, the resources needed to build such an edifice unfeasible. But there it stood, as if willed into existence by some godlike maker.

Those with wings flew up step the massive sets of brass stairs, each step over a head taller than Fluttershy. Faces of horned giants whipped probing metal tongues at her and those she carried, to which, with deft gestures, Fluttershy tore from their mouths. Daemons chained to the walls for unknown aeons shouted curses and insane ramblings, which Twilight politely refused to translate for her friends when asked.

It seemed the stair was actively fighting to keep them from ascending. The angles of the steps twisted and altered, sometimes becoming perfectly flat, and Fluttershy would slide down a hundred meters before regaining traction.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Spike awaited her at the ‘top’, which was really the entrance to one of the vast tunnels through the wall which still soared high overhead. Fluttershy’s claws dug gouges in the steps as she hauled herself up. Exhaustion had no presence, her body having been elevated beyond the limits of flesh and bone.

The tunnel led on for nearly a mile, letting out to an unbroken sea of row after endless row of bloodied corpses lashed to stakes. Like bean plants, engorged roses bloomed from ruptured skin, their vines pregnant with fruits, and irrigation ditches which flowed with gore. Uncountable daemons tended the meadows with a care and concern that seemed totally out of place. The creatures vomited blood over the plants and bodies, voiding their bowels to fertilize the garden.

The far side steps were better made for human scale, and they stepped down into the gore-slicked mud. The roses bore the visages of horrified faces. The larger and older the bloom, the more detailed and anguished the expression.

“Rarity told me of a vision she had of this place,” Spike said. The smell of jasmine coming from the flowers brought back memories of Ponyville and the Canterlot Palace, but was spoiled by the coppery stench of blood.

“Is it anything like she described?” Twilight asked.

“A little.”

Despite the ruin Fluttershy caused, trampling the plants, the caretakers didn’t appear to pay her any particular attention. They rushed in her wake to rectify the damages.

Rarity pointed with the stump of her right shoulder before correcting her phantom-limb reflex and pointing with her good arm.

“Look there, a mile-fort!” she exclaimed.

“Ain’t nopony’s stopped us getti’n in,” Applejack said. “Think anypony’s even home?”

“One way to find out.”

The superstructure was built into the wall like a lobe, an encased town of high lookout towers and spiked, rippling walls. It was large enough to be a town, but no apparent alarm was raised at their approach.

Rarity sat atop Fluttershy’s head, lazily kicking and occasionally glancing at Spike and Twilight walking side by side. Spike’s stride had become awkwardly stiff, they’d stopped talking to each other, and slowly diverged paths. Spike’s claw wandered toward the hilt of his sword.

Her brow creased into a frown. Something’s wrong… there’s nothing after us yet, so they shouldn’t be that tense…

She looked back to the others. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were sneaking up on Pinkie Pie who was drooling over the fruits below. Sweetie’s mouths hissed multicolored smoke, and with a bellicose shout, loosed a gout of ethereal flame.

Rarity startled at the attack. Scootaloo jumped on Pinkie, sinking her teeth into the mare’s shoulder and knocking both of them into the bloody mud with Sweetie Belle quickly following them for another strike. Pinkie Pie cackled as her flesh seared black, smoking with the stench of burning sugar.

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Apple Bloom leapt to separate them. Pinkie Pie easily wrenched both fillies off, Scootaloo biting a sizeable chunk of sweet-meat out of one leg. Pinkie held each of them by the throat, the fillies choking and still twisting to attack in blind rage.

Pinkie ignored the shouts of outrage as she started stuffing them down her throat, greedily gulping them down like a starved animal, and speedily jumping to escape their sisters. She licked the charred, lipless ruin of her mouth, savoring the assault the fillies were still trying to put up in her stomach.

Fluttershy dashed to keep up with Spike and Twilight, both a blur of purple and green. Gouts of rushing flame and magic ignited the fields between their passes at one another.

Twilight looked at the product of a wicked conspiracy against her. He still thought she was a monster, irredeemable, a threat only to be destroyed.

Spike saw lies, betrayal, the mare who raised him from the egg leading him to his damnation. She was lost, and here was where it must end.

Flames of impossible colors coruscated across Spike’s sword, powered by the warpstone crystals embedded in the crossguard with shone wickedly. Rarity gifted him this reforged suite, flawless, beautiful. She was still on his side, she still loved him.

Their battle became a lethal joust, punctuated by starbursts of immaterial light with each contact. Spike’s sword bit flesh and sliced through Twilight’s wing like a torn sail, sending her spiralling to the ground in a scream of pain and hate.

Fluttershy grabbed Spike out of the air with impatient fury tightening her grip.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she roared, her voice whipping over him like burning wind. “Twilight! Get up here!”

Twilight didn’t rise from the brush of flowers. A thin beam of magic shot at Fluttershy, harmlessly laying a trace of light across her chest and claw. For a moment, it only glowed and slightly itched.

Then it exploded.

Egrimm van Horstmann laughed fiercely at the treachery unfolding beyond the walls. “Who knew Khorne had the capacity for a more passive instigation of violence.”

He risked a glance at the slaaneshi beside him. The warrior looked to be not a day over thirty, but Egrimm knew he was well over three hundred. Cold anger danced behind his brilliant blue eyes.

The warrior’s feet levitated solidly an inch above the metal floor as he willed that the world was not worthy to touch them. Robes of gold-coloured silk hung from his sculpted body, a flowing mane of golden locks lining a seraphic face of youthful vibrance.

His lips twitched with impatient anger. “My horse is down there, being ruined! What can you see, sorcerer? What’s happening to my horse?”

Egrimm rolled his eyes. Sigvald was always such a self-centered bastard. He raised the bejeweled Skull of Katam. Its burning grin gazed on the rolling melee. “She is being burned and battered by her allies. A terrible desire has been brought to the surface, a hunger to swallow the world.” He released the skull and it levitated beside him. “She is binging on the fruits now, and will be immobilized in but a moment.”

Sigvald slammed a fist on the redoubt. “Idiot!”

The loud creak of the fort gates opening heralded a large formation of horsemen riding out into the fields.

“Finally,” Sigvald growled. He motioned to one of his silent menials. “Go tell the commander his little gem has arrived, and have Hrongeth deliver my horse to the mess. I have a special order I want Gustave to fill.”

Sylvania hadn’t been exactly what Nightmare Moon had expected. The midnight aristocracy of vampires had been relatively accepting, and with access to the libraries of Castle Drakenhof, she was able to brush up on necromancy. One thousand years without practice, and the most she’d been able to raise were a few hundred dead from her travels to the province. However, with the Nightmare Forces returning to their empress day by day, she could feel the familiar power returning.

She had been invited to this land by Mannfred, supposedly the ruler of Sylvania, but found another vampire on the throne, this Vlad, a figure with a warm, predatory charm. When the Nightmare finally met Mannfred, he was very cross -- though not with her.

The throne room was the perfect theater of gothic darkness where the lords of the province came for court and council. It was here that Vlad revealed his change of plans for the direction of the province, much to Mannfred’s rage.

“ENOUGH!”

The declaration echoed through the throne room in a way that reminded Nightmare Moon of the Royal Canterlot Voice, a power that would have sent mortals to their knees. Every vampire present flinched, and living servants began departing after their duties as inconspicuously as possible.

Vlad’s living facade faded, his handsome face wrinkling into a noseless, feral snarl. He marched down the steps, passing a seething Mannfred with no further acknowledgement.

“Why are none of us in the Emperor’s Palace, right now?” Vlad asked, and a moment passed without an answer. “No one knows? Or are you afraid to admit it? We have underestimated the mortals!”

He was met with a chorus of rejection and proclamations of vampiric superiority over the blood-bags.

“It sickens me to say it, but we cannot deny this reality. For four hundred years they have not seen us march in full force, and my family and I awake in an unfamiliar time to see the Empire stronger than ever before. Do you not see? Do you not feel the very ground tremble like thunder at the technology they now wield? And with the help of the Equestrians, in a mere decade they have wrested dominion over the very heavens! Change is coming, and oh, does irony twist the knife now, with the Empire so readily embracing cooperation with those without so much as a trace of humanity. What fury might they muster now against their enemies? And even before all this, you all know what they were capable of by standing together as one.”

Mannfred lowered his head at the memory of Hel Fenn, the full might of the Empire bearing down on a single rogue province that nearly wiped out the greatest land of vampires in the world. And most recently at the Mire where a probing speartip of undead forces was shattered mere miles from the border, attacked from the ground and air by men and griffon mercenaries.

“We are superior to mere mortals,” Vlad continued, “but even a lion can succumb to the bites of a numberless horde of ants. We should not have to hide from them anymore!”

“Nor should we bend our knee!” roared Mannfred.

“Are you deaf?! There will come a time when the Empire will be on its knees, and we will be its saviours. They will beg of us to protect them.” Vlad turned to Nightmare Moon, claw outstretched. “Surely, an ancient like yourself appreciates the need to bide one’s time.”

The Nightmare nodded, and sauntered to his side. “In a way, yes. For one thousand years I had waited for my chance at vengeance, and I was not given the luxury of being dead during my stay on Equestria’s moon--”

A derisive laugh cut across her speech, their face lost in the audience. “The moon! That will truly be the day! What delusional beast have you brought to us, Vlad von C--”

Nightmare Moon rounded with a baleful snarl, and shouted, “INTERRUPT ME AGAIN, IMPUDENT CREATURE, AND YE SHALL FEEL ITS COLD EMBRACE THYSELF!” The Royal Canterlot Voice reverberated mightily through the chamber, silencing any further protest down to dull hisses from the assembled vampires.

“So, any of you, tell me about patience, or how playing nice would take too long. And since impatience seems to be clouding everyone’s judgement, I assume no one here is more than a couple hundred years old. Much can happen in enough time. Internal decay or some great calamity will befall any nation, and they will be brought low.”

“And what else would we do?” Vlad asked. “Do we keep sending army after army, bashing our heads against them until we break? We all know I am the most powerful of the vampires, and I stood atop the walls of Altdorf! Who in our history can claim to have come closer?

“See our friend Mundvard, how he prospers controlling the mortals of Marienburg by his word and not his sword. His success should speak to us; force of arms and a grand display have been our hubris.”

Vlad rested his hands on Mannfred’s shoulders, glaring him straight in the eyes. “Do not be blind to the reality we have awoken to. I swear to you, my son. We will have our ascendance!”

-------------------

Nightmare Moon waited outside the high walls of Castle Drakenhof when she heard that the necromancer she had commissioned for was arriving imminently.

A carriage of bone and compacted earth was rolling down the trail, withered horses driven by a grinning skeleton. Nightmare Moon stopped halfway down the stairs as an attendant opened the side door.

Her smile vanished instantly.

The man who stepped out looked like no more than a party-goer on Nightmare Night. A pointed, wide-brimmed hat sat atop an old, silver-haired head. He was covered in a tattered black cloak, and carried a winged, gnarled staff topped with a crow’s skull that whisper-babbled incoherent sentences to the air.

This was the master necromancer her request had been answered by?

With a curt nod of the head and bend at the knees, he saluted her. “So you are the Nightmare, I presume? You’re every bit what I expected you’d look like.”

“I am,” she said, still in disbelief. “And who are you that has answered my call?”

The necromancer released his staff, which continued to balance on its pinpoint tip.

“Heinrich Kemmler, the Lichemaster.”

Nightmare Moon felt somewhat eased at that. In her studies, Kemmler’s name had come up a number of times in recent history. Despoiler of La Maisontaal Abbey, and bringer of the Time of Woes, when the Wood Elves of Athel Loren were dealt a hard blow by his invasion.

The nightmare snickered and started back up the stairs. “Well, well. The honor is truly mine. Come, Once situated, we can discuss my plans. I’m sure we have much to learn from one another.”

Kemmler took a few steps after her, then glanced back to his carriage. A terrible, restless energy silently quaked within, a hunger for violence and bloodshed. Its impatience wordlessly spoke to him, a million voices screaming form the Warp, but stifled to the merest whisper.

Lord of Undeath! Lord of Undeath! Lord of Undeath! Lord of Undeath!

Kemmler shook his head and continued following the Nightmare toward Castle Drakenhof.

“So much to learn.”