-Internal Bleeding-

The mountains around the Canterhorn were not tall enough for Clean Cut's purposes, he needed to be where no life existed. So he had traveled far to the North, where the mountains scraped the stars far above the termination line.

He sat on top of his heavy Lunar-Blue cloak, the only insulation from the deadly cold of the rocks he had brought with him. He didn't breath up here, there wasn't really enough air for him to bother with it. Besides, it was a simple way to slow his heart. He listened carefully past the harsh winds for his own heartbeat, the longer he waited the louder and slower it became. It slowed ... and slowed ... and finally stopped entirely.

The clouds around the mountaintop rumbled and swirled, they gathered around him until the sunlight that rose over the horizon was little more than a sliver of light. Clean Cut blinked and his audience appeared.

The being stood before Clean Cut cloaked head to foot in darkness. The light from the horizon leaned heavy and solid on its shoulders. Its body stretched unnaturally far down the steep side of the mountain so that it could stand in front of Clean Cut but still be connected to the world below, its feet were nearly a hundred body lengths underneath Clean Cut.

"Hello again, my friend," Clean Cut breathed, what little air was in his lungs would have to be carefully rationed. Once he took another breath, the apparition would disappear.

"Have you come to ask for your release, I had warned you," it said, something shifted under its black hood as it spoke. "It would be simple, peaceful. You have spent so long here."

"If only," Clean Cut risked to say. "I ask to know the fate of the near future," he managed to hiss.

The apparition shifted its shoulders and the horizon's light broke away from the horizon and broke the illusion. Now it was easy to see that it was not the light on his shoulders, but instead a massive curved blade. "I am a shepherd, not a seer," it said.

Without warning the apparition lunged toward Clean Cut. Its head extended out from its hood on an impossibly long neck, the sound of scales on fabric even though it's skin was pale and wrinkled. But worst of all was it's skinless face: A pony’s skull stared blankly into Clean Cut's eyes.

"However," its wretched breath stank of blood and rot and washed over Clean Cut, "I do foresee death; a new genocide. I will be very busy," it hissed.

"Does this have to do with the Gods?" Clean Cut asked, his lungs were nearly empty.

The creature rattled and shook, a laugh. "Do you speak of Discord?" It laughed again. "He is a fool, my way I and She both win," it said, red flickered in its eyes. "He was a fool when he tried to use his strength in its entirety while within Her grasp. He may as well not be a God anymore."

"And Celestia? Luna?" No reaction. "Delicae?"

It recoiled at the name that uttered from Clean Cut's lips. "That joke of a goddess is no better than a necromancer, a leech!" it bellowed. "She and her dogs and her demon child will all fall to mortality, I am patient," it said and pulled it's head back into its hood. "Tell your bird that I said hello," it cackled.

Its huge scythe blade swung off its shoulders in the grip of a cloaked arm and whipped out at Clean Cut. It sparked as it impacted the shield Clean Cut had been sitting within, but the shock was enough to make the Unicorn jump and gasp for a breath.

Reflexively he reached for his mask, a magically pressurized tank hung from the front to deliver the proper amount of oxygen to his lungs. Clean Cut's heart jumped back into motion, and the being was gone. The sunrise continued unimpeded. Clean Cut cursed under his breath, a hoof pressed to his chest to calm his racing pulse.

Luo Cha was never a God Clean Cut was excited to see, but unfortunately he was without choice in the matter. Their contract demanded that at least twice a year, on the solstices or sometime close to it, he had to summon the Master of the dead so that it could make its offer for eternal rest once more. Every time Clean Cut was either able to refuse the offer or change the subject with a question. Each time left him feeling wretched and empty.

A thousand years was a long time for a pony to cling to the mortal plane.

"I'm not sure I like the way that went last night. The Hearing, that is," Rarity said to the others. They were back in Luna’s chambers, where they'd been spending the last few nights, however their host was absent.

"I don't get it: what happened?" Applejack spoke up. "What's all this 'bout some sorta evil that we can't handle?"

"What if Luna found out that there're Elements of Disharmony?!" Pinkie blurted out, she put her face right up in front of Twilight. "You know! Like kryptonite to Supermare! Or matter to antimatter!" She widened her eyes with each pair of opposites for emphasis.

"I doubt that's what this is about, Pinkie," Twilight grumbled as she pushed the invading pony out of her space. "Luna is probably just worried, maybe even rightfully so. We all live right next to the Everfree Forest, nopony really knows all that much about it," Twilight said strongly, determined to be the voice of reason.

"Okay, I can get that," Rainbow said, ready to defend Twilight’s hypothesis but at the same time doubtful herself. "But why make Coalback our Guard? Why not some of her Guards? There's six of us, how is one pony supposed to 'guard' six of us?"

"Perhaps he will bring a Guard with him, some ponies to help?" Rarity suggested.

"That’s not what it sounded like," Twilight said. "In order for Coalback to be in charge of that she would have to make him a Captain, which doesn't seem right for the situation," Twilight said, her mind back on the study sessions she'd helped her brother through after his apprenticeship. "He must be her only choice though, otherwise the Princesses would have sent the Guard."

"This doesn't make any sense!" Rainbow yelled in frustration, one of Luna’s pillows became an effective vent for her frustrations. "What's he going to do? Sprint between our houses to check on us?"

"Patrol the Everfree Forest?" Coalback parroted, his eyes trained carefully on the incomplete map of the said wood. His wings shifted uncomfortably under a Lunar-blue cloak, one he had picked up before he had answered the Princess’s summons.

"Indeed. If what We fear is to come, it will come from there," Luna confirmed, she used a quill to illustrate a few points on the map. Her chin still stung from the cut, but only the thinnest line of pink flesh showed as a scar. "Here are where the Elements reside, thou shalt be responsible for fortification as well." Her quill scratched against the hard, dark wood of her desk under the parchment. She had summoned several warm mage lights to light the room, her curtains closed so that no sunlight entered.

Coalback growled lightly in the back of his throat. "The forest surrounds all but the Northwest side of the town, that is a large place to ... secure," he said with a pause to search for the proper word.

"We trust thee to be able to, the forest still remembers thine kind, We are sure," Luna said as she made more notes on the map. "Our suggestion would be to claim the entire town as thine own, mark it thoroughly and the normal inhabitants of the forest should be no trouble. Then thou might simply watch and wait for what does not belong."

"Am I deterring an animal or more ponies?" Coalback asked as he eyed the forest.

"There is a difference?" Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Animals are not as stupid," he mumbled as he traced a trail through the forest with his eyes. Through his peripheral vision he eyed what trophies he could around Luna’s study, as well as the frown of disapproval that flashed to her face. "I'll need armor and weapons more for intimidation than I will for want or need if I am trying to deter ponies," he said.

"You have experience with this?"

Coalback looked up at her with a nonplussed frown. "Weapons make ponies think they are strong, then I have to kill them. If I look like I will cut off heads, I won't have to," he grunted.

"Very well. All considered, there was a smith seeking to speak with thee. Send for her," she ordered a Guard at the door to her study. He bowed low and left quickly.

When the Guard returned with an aging unicorn mare and a wiry colt Luna had already begun to debrief Coalback on the various recorded creatures that inhabited the Forests. Her dusky coat was unbrushed and spotted with soot, her Mark was simply an anvil. Her mane and tail was short and starting to grey, the edges still remained a shadow of the rich brown it once had been - or perhaps it was simply roasted from long days in front of a hot forge. She announced herself.

"There you are!" she rattled off, a smoldering pipe bobbed in her lips. "I've been looking all over for you." She walked up to Coalback with a grin in her eyes. She nodded to the Princess as an afterthought and the colt with her paused to bow with his nose to the floor for the Princess. "I was out there on those fields, I saw you fight that Guard: You fight like a demon, where did you learn to fight like that?" she asked Coalback, her apprenticed colt whipped his head back up to listen to the conversation.

Coalback’s eyes narrowed dangerously but the old smith either didn't notice or didn't care. She took a long pull from her pipe as she looked up at him. The embers glowed hot, and when she spoke smoke billowed out from between her lips and out of her nostrils.

"I can see you're a colt of few words, I can appreciate that. But let me tell you, kiddo; I know legends when I see them, and you are certainly something." She extended a hoof as she puffed on the pipe with her wrinkled lips. "You can call me Steady," she said as Coalback took her hoof, she didn't flinch at his strong grip but instead turned his hoof over to examine it herself. "Listen here, soldier, all the other smiths and Guards might look at you and see some sort of freak of nature, but I see a colt just itching to put his Mark up there with legends like Starswirl the Bearded. And salt and sand be damned if I'm going to miss the opportunity to put my Mark right there next to yours," she said, her eyes wrinkled as she examined the strange multitude of scar and muscle in his forearm: There seemed to be too much muscle in his forearm for a normal pony, but it could have just been her age and this colt's remarkable strength.

"I'll need measurements of course, but we can do that later," she mumbled as she chewed on her pipe. "Do you prefer heavy or light armor, m'boy? And how heavy a weapon do you use? I'll need to start gathering the materials," she asked. A flick of her head to the colt and he extracted a pad of paper and a piece of charcoal with his budding magic.

"I would prefer no armor," Coalback grunted.

"He will take the armor," Luna insisted.

"Something flexible but strong, I do not want to forget about it and bend it if I flex the wrong direction. It needs to be easily fitted and removed quickly. I want the most protection on my front hooves and around the neck and face. Something to shield the back of the rear legs as well, I want to avoid being ham-strung," he listed off quickly in response to Luna’s not so subtle order, many of his words fitted together on the spot. The colt's charcoal scribbled furiously. "I'll need something heavy and sharp that won't bend or shatter, I expect an alloy of two different steels to work best. The shield I used on the field was too light, I need something much heavier but no larger," he added.

He watched the mare take the colt's notes and add a few marks to it before she responded. "Of course, sir," she said with a respectful nod and a puff of smoke. "We should have all the materials collected and ready to begin forging by tonight if we're lucky. I'll send my boy to get you when we're ready," she said.

The colt put away his notes and pulled out a small wooden box and bowed low to the Princess as he presented it to her. "Also, Yer Majesty, my boy found something that I believe belongs to you," Steady said with an equally deep bow.

The Princess took hold of the box in her own magic and pulled open the lid. She froze when she saw what was inside. Nestled in a carefully wrapped length of silk, much like an egg in a nest, was the single drop of blood Coalback had liberated from her: a single, perfectly round, red pearl.

Luna gave a single glance to Coalback, who watched her carefully from across her desk. "Forge it within a piece of his armor, or his weapon," she said, much to the smith’s surprise. "Tis not often that somepony can bloody Us, We shall not ignore the skill it took to be able to." She closed the box and gave it back to the colt who held it gently as if he had been given the crown itself.

"Thou art dismissed, Steady," Luna said with a respectful nod. The blacksmith and her apprentice bowed low to the Princess and were led away by the Guard at the door.

Luna had to stifle a jump when she turned back to Coalback, his intense eyes were trained on her. "The blood ... It was not ..." he began to say, an intense look of concentration furrowed his brow.

"Indeed," Luna said, already aware of the source of his confusion. In truth Luna had been just as surprised that she had not bled like a mortal, but she supposed that his kind had never used weapons against her before. "You truly do have much to learn," she said, her eyes flicked to the disturbed in the carpet behind Coalback.

Iron Bar was outside of the hospital room when Coalback arrived, the earth pony fully armored and armed with a heavy mace. He stood when he spotted the painted pegasus, anger and fear in equal measures in his stance. "Halt!" Iron Bar barked in his most commanding and threatening yell.

Thankfully for him, Coalback followed his order immediately. The withered leaves of a bundle of olive branches hung limply from his mouth. He wore a blue sash around his barrel now instead of the cloak, it was wrapped low enough to cover his flanks. Several Lunar Guards, dressed in thin, darkly colored cloths that swaddled their necks, paused behind him in the dusk-lit halls of the hospital. One in particular was dressed with a medical bag.

"You gotta lotta nerve showing your face here, you bastard," Iron Bar snapped, his mace at the ready.

"I have come to offer my apologies for injuring ... your friend," Coalback said around the vegetation in his mouth. He was calm, collected, and infuriatingly enough completely unthreatened by Iron Bar's display.

"Apology not accepted." Iron Bar hefted the heavy armor on his back, both to demonstrate his strength as well as his integrity inside it. "Now get the fuck away," he said, he scowled at how much his voice shook.

"That is not for you to decide," Coalback said, nearly a growl. "I don't like empty words any more than you do, I want to fix the damage I've done," Coalback said with a deep breath to reign himself in. The guards behind him remained stoic and silent.

"I'm making it my decision, and if you don't back the fuck up I'm gonna bury this mace into your skull!" Iron Bar bellowed. A threatening forward step and heft of his mace did nothing.

"Five days ago I was bedridden and another pony was grounded," Coalback said, his eyes narrowed. "Today we both can fly and I am healthier than ever," he growled, which did well to make the large earth pony reconsider his plan of attack. "Would you like your friend to make that sort of a recovery?"

Iron Bar paused, he had to concentrate hard to work past the red haze of anger that he had built up. "You're ... gonna help him?"

"I will give him a chance to redeem his strength and his honor," Coalback said with a respectful nod, "if he will accept it."

"I shouldn't let you in; his herd just left and he's restin'," Iron Bar mumbled.

"I brought a medic," Coalback said, the Lunar pony with the medical bag nodded behind him.

"I have to come in too," Iron Bar said after a long pause, his own eyes narrowed in fear of foul play.

"If he accepts my gift, you must either leave or give the same oaths he will have to," Coalback warned.

"Done," Iron Bar said. He felt a distinct niggling of doubt at the back of his mind, afraid he would make a stupid decision. But if what the other stallion said was true, and Iron Bar was uncommonly sure it was, then this might be Filibuster's only chance at an unhandicapped future. And Iron Bar had mixed feelings about Filibuster's final actions in that fight; it was against the Guard’s code of Honor to strike at an opponent's back, especially when they couldn't use magic themselves.

Coalback stepped back and with a flick of his wing took the medical bag from the thestral. He stepped up to the large earth pony as he backed through the hospital room door. The Guard took off his helmet as he entered and walked around to the opposite side of the bed. Iron Bar took up a large portion of the small room, and their entrance did not go unnoticed by the unicorn.

Filibuster had been given a private room, one that surely had a view of the sky if not for the tightly shut curtains. A bedside lamp was the only light in the room, a few opened cards and a chewed but uneaten bouquet sat beside it. Filibuster himself lay on his back in the bed, his broken leg hung from a pulley on the ceiling to keep it elevated. His head was wrapped thickly with bandages, a tube exited his broken nose to keep the airway clear.

But when Coalback entered the room, any protest or greeting that would have come from Filibuster froze in his throat. He recoiled as Coalback gently placed the olive branches across the foot of Filibuster's bed. When Filibuster said nothing, Coalback chose to speak.

"In my culture; olive branches symbolize peace. I came to apologize to you," he said in as clear a diction as he could muster with his limited practice. "I know that my words mean little to you, so I want to offer you something," he added quickly when he saw the scowl come to Filibuster's face.

"I don't want anything you have to offer," Filibuster wheezed past the tube keeping his nostril from collapsing. He managed a scowl in Coalback's direction past the swelling in his face and the thick bandages around his forehead.

"I understand," Coalback said. "You are angry, I took something precious away from you. I would feel the same way if you had managed to remove one of my arms," Coalback shifted his wing, the medical bag dropped to the floor with an unexpected lack of noise. "But I saw your skill for what it was on that field yesterday, I want you to understand that I respect your strength and your determination," he explained. Once again his wing moved to open the bag, the flap fell away and revealed the sealed container inside.

Gently, Coalback laid it next to Filibuster's arm on the bed. He leaned in, he took in a deep breath from the air around Filibuster. "I think I can give back what I have taken by giving you the greatest gift I can offer," he said in a low voice. His intense, predator-green eyes stared intensely into Filibuster's. "The Blood of a Blaidd," he growled.

Iron Bar stiffened on his side of the room. "Is what's in that box what I think is in that box?" he asked shakily. A nod indicated the sealed container on the bed, the one that Coalback’s hoof rested on possessively.

Coalback pulled back wordlessly, his hoof came with him to open the lid of the container. Inside, nestled in thick layers of frozen cloth, was Filibuster's disembodied horn. "I can give it back to you, and so much more," Coalback said softly as he watched the horror and longing grow on the lamed unicorn's face.

Filibuster's eyes had to flick between Coalback's face and the bloody base of his broken horn before he finally choked out a reply. "What's the catch? I know that these kinds of offers always come with some sort of repercussion!" he added quickly, an accusing stare seemed more full of fear than malice now.

"You would become like me, though a lesser form. And you would have to remain loyal to me now that I have bested you," Coalback said calmly. "You would not truly be one of the Blaidd, but you would enjoy many of our gifts," he continued. "Strength, cunning, fertility ... longevity and remarkable vitality. You would never be able to wear another face as I can, but I assure you that you will change in many ways. It will be hard at first, the urges will seem unbearable. But I think you could survive, and be stronger still for it," Coalback said. His voice turned into a low, strangely comforting, growl.

"I would have to answer to you?" Filibuster asked shakily, his eyes could no longer leave the sight of his slowly thawing horn. That was a part of him, the thing that practically made him a pony and it lay nearly a meter away from where it was supposed to sit. Who would he be if he couldn't have his horn? It certainly wouldn't be the same.

"Only that you would follow my rules and remain loyal to me in a fight," Coalback said. "I would allow you to remain here, with the ponies you love," he said, surprisingly gentle. "You would have to keep the nature of your recovery a secret for now, but perhaps one day it can come to the light shamelessly."

Filibuster flicked a worried glance to Iron Bar; the poor sod was frozen in place.

"I understand your reluctance, I felt the same way when I learned the true nature of the tradition I had been born into. I never wanted to leave behind the people I thought I belonged to," Coalback said, so low Filibuster was almost certain that only he could hear it even in the small room. "But I discovered the exclusive gift I had been given slowly, and soon I could not think of living any other way. I assure you this will be worth it," he whispered gently.

Filibuster's heart raced in his chest. "So this is the ultimatum you want to give me? Live a meaningless life as a cripple, or take this 'gift' of yours and be loyal to you?" he sputtered, barely able to muster the courage to look Coalback in the eye.

"If that's how you want to see it, yes," he said bluntly.

"Fine, let's do it then," Filibuster relented with shameful reluctance.

"Last chance," Coalback said to Iron Bar. "Leave and speak to no one about this conversation, or stay and swear on your soul to remain silent about everything you will see." Iron Bar swallowed nervously, with a drop of sweat he set his mace down and planted his hooves firmly on the floor. "Very well. Pray to your gods, for this is the last you will have faith in them," Coalback said with a growl.

He waited patiently as Filibuster and Iron Bar gave a fleeting curse and a request for strength from the ceiling tiles. Once they were finished Coalback wasted no time.

With the practiced flick of a hoof he used Filibuster's own horn to cut away the bandages on Filibuster's head. Once the scabbed over stump of his horn was visible, Coalback stood on his rear legs and towered over the two other ponies menacingly.

"In tenibris," he said, his voice rang in the small room as he sensually dragged out each vowel of the strange words. He raised the disembodied horn above his head, the rings around his bicep glinted in the light of the lamp as they dimmed. "Into darkness," he growled. The horn's sharp tip edged close to his arm, the veins bulged under his thick fur.

Something stirred the curtains as it circled around the room. Filibuster felt a presence wash over him, and compelled, spoke. "I will follow you anywhere, take my soul and lead me there." It was only after he had said it that he realized Iron Bar had done the same, or that he had no idea where the words had come from.

"In the silent night you kill the lights," Coalback breathed. The light dimmed until it was nearly gone, the magelights flickered as if it was a dying flame. Coalback’s eyes glowed with whatever light was left in the room, lit from behind like a predator's.

Filibuster felt a wash of surety and determination, rush through him like a fever. Iron Bar must have felt the same way because they both began to speak again, overwhelmed with anticipation for whatever was to come even though neither was sure of what it truly was. "I will follow you to the end! Take my heart, my love, and then ... lead me into darkness."

With that, his oath apparently satisfied, Coalback met a vein with the sharp tip of Filibuster's horn. He used it like a blade to cut a long furrow down the length of his forearm. Blood poured freely from the wound and splashed across Filibuster's forehead. The blood was black as pitch, and marbled with red. It stained Filibuster's fur and soaked into the broken base of his horn.

Coalback coated the end of the horn with his black blood and, violently, slammed it down on the stub it had come from. It slipped easily into place, the clean grooves of the cut proved to fit almost perfectly together. More blood washed across Filibuster's face and he had to sputter to breath past it. Pain exploded from his forehead all the way down his spine and to the tip of his tail, it was all he could do not to scream in agony.

"Drink," Coalback ordered breathlessly as he pressed the horn harder against Filibuster's skull. The thought to resist the command was blotted out by the pain, and he drank in the black blood that still flowed from Coalback's arm. "You too," he ordered Iron Bar, who leaned in to lap at the wound almost hungrily.

"Shadow me," Coalback began again, the abstract singing only now revealed for what it was with the Blood on their tongues. They could hear the orchestra of voices all around them, a thousand others that had been given this gift the same way. "Into darkness."

Filibuster's mind was forced to a blank, all of his attention focused on the pain and the blood. Iron Bar licked at the wound on Coalback's arm as if it were the last water he would ever drink, and Filibuster had a hard time disagreeing with him. The Blood was bitter and tasted of iron, but somehow neither of them could stand to halt now that they had begun.

But just as the Blood began to ebb in its strange flow, Filibuster and Iron Bar both cried out in shared pain. Their stomachs contracted, both to try and repel the blood they had so happily drank and to try and allay the intense fire that had burst to life there. Iron Bar collapsed as Filibuster curled into himself.

"I am burning," Iron Bar breathed from the floor. He struggled to stand again only to fall and take the curtains down with him. They fell with with a clang and the room filled with silver light from the full moon. Iron Bar gave a strangled wail. "The fire is growing inside me!"

A moment later and Filibuster knew exactly what Iron Bar meant. Warmth blossomed quickly from his stomach and intensified at an alarming rate, within moments he felt as if he had swallowed burning coals. His vocal chords tightened of their own volition and he yelped in pain. The fire spread out from his stomach, engulfed his barrel and burned into his limbs. He shivered as the temperature suddenly dropped, he felt cold and naked. His limbs quaked, and his body convulsed against itself in pain. The walls of the room stretched far away, he felt like he had shrunk to the size of a fly.

As the hot and cold flashes only intensified Filibuster caught sight of Coalback again, and he almost forgot the pain he was in. Coalback crouched over himself as well, the cut arm was soaked in black blood with a small puddle had formed beneath him. His wings shook against his back in what could only be a painful, twisted position. As Filibuster watched, with a sickening crunch of bone on bone his wings collapsed into his back. Coalback’s neck twisted obscenely as he growled in a mixture of pain and ... something else. In a moment the only sign he'd had wings at all was the cape of feathers that were quickly falling off of his back. Blood spurted from his arm as he clenched his muscles.

Coalback’s face twisted into a horrible snarl as he looked back up at Filibuster, his pointed teeth bared. With a crunch as his bones shifted, his jaw seemed to pop out of place and stretch forward unnaturally. His muzzle cracked forward unevenly and a moment later his upper jaw followed. Fangs sprouted from his unnatural teeth, a quintet on each jaw that fit together neatly. His brows pressed forward as his entire skull narrowed down and his eyes shrunk with the sockets into the intense, threatening gaze of a wolf's.

His hide rippled like water as his body writhed underneath, his mane fell back and grew in all around his neck. His fur grew longer and longer until it was truly the winter coat of a wolf. His tail whipped behind him, lengthened and much of the hair receded or fell to the floor in place of the fur that belonged there.

Finally, with a deafening quintet of explosive cracks, his hooves split. Filibuster watched in morbid fascination as Coalback’s legs writhed and thickened, soon the toes of Coalback’s paws flexed unimpeded to break away the excess keratin that clung to his claws.

"Beautiful," Filibuster's lips said without his command. But Filibuster found that he agreed, the wolf before him no longer seemed the beast it had the first time he had seen it. Now he could somehow appreciate the beauty of the perfect predator that had graced his presence for what it was. He was mesmerized.

Coalback growled low in his throat, it filled the room and shook the walls and window panes. Around him, the excess of his change withered. The blood quickly dried on his arm, not even a raw red line of flesh where the wound had once been. He took a single step forward, his paw echoed on the polished floor and the huge dew claw behind it glinted in the broken light of the desk lamp.

On instinct alone Filibuster broke his gaze away, he whined at the back of his throat in submission. It was only then that he realized his horn was once again attached to his head.

When Clean Cut arrived Coalback was outside of the hospital room with one of the Lunar Guard. He had a towel stained with blood and ink that stank of medicinal alcohol. "They will appear to atrophy dramatically, but keep them on the painkillers and an extremely high protein diet. When the painkillers stop working switch to root of wolfsbane, the pseudaconitine will not kill them." The Guard committed it all to memory.

Clean Cut rushed the rest of the way to the Pegasus' side. "I've only just returned," he said breathlessly, "What happened?" When Coalback ignored him and continued to give instruction to one of the Guards Clean Cut stepped between them. "Coalback, what did you do?" Clean Cut asserted, his hoof indicated the blood soaked towel.

Coalback paused to give Clean Cut an unamused glare. "What the Princess requested," he said with finality.

Author's Notes:

Alright, lots of things in this chapter. Clean Cut is dealing under the table, or just really unlucky. Some minor characters are introduced and even elevated to slightly less minor positions. Rainbow and everypony stuck along for the ride is thoroughly frustrated (). Luna's plan for protection of the Elements is somewhat formed/revealed. And, oh yeah! Coalback has indentured some supporters of his own from ponies that were originally antagonists to him.

I'd like to point out that, among the werewolf type that I built myself, everything Coalback says is true. Werewolves are essentially a more efficient and effective organism than anything before them, I won't go into their origins as that's explained later in the story. They are faster and stronger because of an altered organization on the cellular and molecular level. Their muscles are essentially denser, relying on more muscle fibers than the larger cells that most organisms use. Their bones are even specially structured and madeup of selective metals to make them extremely impact resistant. Their cellular organization slows the aging process exponentially, think reverse dog-years. Running off the same system that gives them strength makes them smarter as well, connections form quickly and most even become eidetic. And those sorts of things amplify as the Blaidd (this brand of werewolf) gain more shapes, or faces.

So then what's going to happen to Iron Bar and Filibuster? Well, a lot of their body structure is going to be adjusted to align with Coalback's biology. Think of this "blood ritual" as a way of forcing another organism to assimilate Blaidd DNA into their own DNA. We'll definitely be following those two as they change and try to find their place in Coalback's reality of a perfect predator (unfortunantly, they won't be really going full wolf, that's just not how it works).

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On a more NEWS related note, I've started to slow down writing because I've started on a few outside projects as well as school getting in my way. I should be able to put out at least one or two more chapters after this one on schedule but I can't promise any more than that.