-Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair-

A heavy haze had fallen over Coalback's mind, and the last few hours had passed like a dream. His thoughts came sluggishly, and his vision came to him in waves. Blood rushed in his ears and he began to come back to himself. Unintelligible echoes bounced inside his skull; echoes full with fading whispers, but he could not understand nor remember what they said. His eyelids felt heavy, and his muscles were stiff and sore.

He struggled to stand, cold stone floors shook starved limbs into an itchy wakefulness. Some sleepy part of him realized that his paws had changed to hands, and that they were stiff as well. He managed to twist his feet underneath himself and stand, a faintness nearly overcame him as the blood rushed out of his head. He fell back to his knees with his hands pressed to his temples. His mind slowly began to wake up, and he began to wonder at his weakness. He hadn't had a faint spell since he was a boy. But as he looked around he realized why.

He had moved deeper into the castle, and had found an intact room. The room was silent, and no wind howled outside. And he'd covered the walls in his own blood, the ragged hole in his arm and the flesh under his fingernails were evidence enough. He looked again and realized what he had done it for: Words and pictures covered every surface from floor to ceiling, and if the hoof and paw prints that littered the floor were any indication then he had changed several times through the course of his blackout.

Strange symbols decorated every surface, and alongside them were gruesome depictions. He had painted cities, people, and ponies in his own blood. He could recognize the silhouette of Canterlot, and an army of ponies pulling carts away from what he thought might be smoke. A cloud city dropped fire from its belly on an army of flying jellyfish. And a single man, painted in extreme detail, sat on a throne made of bones above the entryway. In an instant Coalback recognized him, the same spectre had appeared in mirrors behind him a hundred times: Fenrir. The strong chin and scarred lips were unmistakable, neither could he deny the tattoo so proudly displayed on his left breast; the same that decorated Coalback's.

Coalback's chest felt tight, but he wrote it off for the moment. He looked at more depictions of a war he had never heard of, and drawings of pony Princesses that he did not recognize -- although almost all of them were depicted with a horn and wings. He flinched when he saw what he had created on the back wall, directly across from the king of death. The goddess, which is what he could only assume it was, stared back at him with black eyes that had dripped down the wall during their creation. Above her head floated tines painted in blood that twisted and wove into a net over her head. Here the art style changed, and he could see animals and plants of all kinds living in the disconnected bone crown. Below her head a pool of water had frosted over in a place where the floor had fallen in.

But no matter where he looked was the same phrase written again and again, in as many languages as he knew and then some: "Bred for war."

He stumbled over to the pool and looked into the calm water. He looked at his reflection, but it took him several moments to recognize himself. He had not looked in a mirror at his human face for more than three years. Hideous, in his opinion. His eyes were similar, yes, but crow’s feet and heavy bags decorated them. He looked old, an absurd thought for he was sure he was not older than thirty – though his exact age escaped him. His hair was unkempt and graying, and what facial hair he did have grew tough and short. His shoulders were mottled with scars from sunburn, and his muscles stood out as if they had been sewn on as an afterthought to his bones. When he had fur it was harder to see these things, and especially hard to see the scars.

He'd heard before that some considered scars as trophies, he only saw them as damning reminders of the person he had become. The single rune on his left breast stung in the cold air, the scars and burns he'd subjected himself to in attempts to remove it surrounded it but had left the mark unmarred. The scars had completely mottled his skin in places, from the line that had removed his naval to the burns that had taken his left nipple. It was a simple symbol, nothing more than three little lines. Like a fork, or a broken cross. As simple as it was, it had power: the kind that binds souls and traps them.

Coalback growled deep in his chest as a shadow appeared in the surface of the water. “You know what that thing was,” Coalback growled. The shadow looked up, its invisible eyes admired the macabre portrait of the strange spirit-doe.

The shadow’s head tilted to the side when it looked back down at him. “Yes,” Fenrir said softly, though still with enough strength to cause ripples in the water. Fenrir was a powerful shade, and the vengeful spirit liked to make use of it -- but only when Coalback's control over him slipped.

"But you're not going to tell me," Coalback said. He knew it as fact, having the spirit trapped in his body tended to allow them to share their intentions but not quite their thoughts. "Why?" he asked, though it was more of a command.

"It is the highest sin for one of us to speak her name, and I swore to never do so," Fenrir said, the shadow's head moved as if he still had a body to speak with. Dust shook from the crumbling bricks, the water rippled again. "I am bound."

"You are bound by me! You should be trying to help me!" Coalback yelled. He spun around and stood to his full height. A growl shook the entire chamber, separate from his own and louder than anything his lungs could have produced. Coalback could not see him, but he knew that Fenrir had changed into the shape of a huge wolf: one that could fill the room and swallow him whole if not for the fact that his body had long since rotted away.

"We are not alone," Fenrir’s voice rumbled, just as softly as before.

Coalback froze. The words and their implications came to him in a rush. "Where?" he asked in a whisper. His hand found a tapestry, one he’d apparently torn down in his blackout, and he began to wrap the stiff and dusty thing around himself.

"We are not alone."

"Where?" Coalback hissed as he tied off the makeshift covering.

A gust of wind rushed around Coalback and back out the entrance to the empty room. He turned and followed, a scowl on his face. The gust of wind halted before a dark corridor only a few steps away from the chamber he'd been in. A stray beam of moonlight crossed his path and robbed him of his night vision, but Coalback pressed forward blindly and quietly.

A whoosh of hot, stinking air halted him. And as his vision adjusted to the darkness Coalback saw what had curled up in the dead-end passage: the reptilian creature, marred on one side by a bright red burn.

Coalback took a careful step backwards, his eyes warily locked onto the sideways beak. He remembered the speed with which this thing's brother had struck him, and just how powerful its beak was: enough to dent the metal bracers that had saved his arm before. But now he had no armour, naked as a babe, and in this shape he was not as fast nor as strong as his other shapes. A smart wolf only killed the easiest pray, only Blaidd were often proud enough to hunt down more difficult quarries. Coalback had wanted to hunt it, but not on equal ground.

Coalback moved his feet carefully: he rolled them on their sides and backed away silently. If he could leave, change, and return with his weapons and squires then this would end quickly and easily.

Coalback's foot came down on something soft, it went taught as his weight pulled it fully to the floor. A loud rip of ancient fabric and creak from rusted metal filled the hall. He scrambled back as the heavy bar that had once held up a fading tapestry began its plunge. The brackets twisted free of their bolts in the wall, and it fell with a cacophonous crash.

A startled burble quickly drew Coalback back to his quarry. It uncoiled from its alcove and opened its eyes - one boiled white from the fire that had scarred it. Its good eye locked onto Coalback instantly and its dagger sized claws flexed nervously as the burble rose in pitch.

"Jabberwock," Coalback cursed under his breath as the creature lunged.

The badlands were quiet. Smoke rose in forest-like columns. Above, a ceiling of angry, black clouds blocked the stars. The mother storm was far off yet, but it would arrive soon. Dead wolves smoldered in their armor, and Discord’s scions had watered the earth with their gore. Pyres, burning effigies, were all that could chase away the darkness. Random skirmishes still plagued the Wolves’ exclusion zone, but the battle was for the most part at a halt.

Discord looked out at the destruction with glee. He had effectively crippled the Wolf army, they would pose little issue in the final push. If he knew Delicae as well as he thought he did; then Discord was certain she would retreat soon and sequester herself and her followers away. And if his eyes in Ponyville were right, then all was going mostly to plan. His sacrifice of a few pawns had done well in shaking the creature out of hiding, and hopefully that would result in the breakdown he expected.

Otherwise he had his own migration to attend to.

“Keep the mammoths asleep while you prepare their armor!” Discord bellowed at the depths below as the workers scrambled away from a perturbed pachyderm. “If you screw it up I’ll just use you to block magic missiles!” he snarled. He slithered down the steep inner walls of the hive into the main chamber.

It was a huge, open space. The hive had been built across an open chasm, and more tunnels had branched off from its walls. Green pods glowed along its walls, and the algae farms let out a constant mist that hung drearily in the warm air inside. In the deeper most pits huge ovens sucked air from the surface and roared their fumes out the other side. Changelings worked tirelessly, fought desperately and without thought of self-preservation, and renewed their numbers as quickly as one would expect from an insect's nest. The perfect army for a god who cared little of what happened to them afterward: he would burn a thousand hives just as populous if he had to.

"Here, kitty-kitty-kitty," his voice hissed through the hive. He was immediately answered by the distant yowl of his champion. In only a moment he saw her bound through the changelings toward him. He stopped on a terrace, an exhaust tunnel from the forges rumbled behind him.

The jaguar landed in front of him with a scrape of claws against stone. Her legs flexed with unnaturally strong muscles, black crystal strapped across every surface of her body. She'd been dressed in a changeling fashion, with many small plates woven together and a thick helmet with a frightening expression. Layers of cloth, colored as Discord had requested, protected everything else. She carried no swords, or bows and arrows. She would use only her claws, and the ferocity that Discord had grown inside her. He chuckled at the sight; a samurai cat from beyond the badlands.

"You look the part, at least," Discord chuckled. "It's almost time to put you into play. The daemon masquerading as a pony is almost ready to be taken down from his throne. He stands on pillars of sand, and you will be the tide that sweeps it out from under him," he purred as he circled the warrior cat. "Break him, make him show his true face. Don't think you can come back unless you do." He ran a lion's claw over the plates on her back, the horrible screech echoed in the hive but the cat barely offered a shiver of response. Discord smiled his lopsided smile, his one fang glinted in the light and his paw moved around to cup the face of her helmet.

"Yes, Master," the jaguar breathed.

"He somehow thinks that he can control himself, prove him wrong. Make him kill without thought or conscious. Make him the monster I want him to be."

"Yes, Master. But …”

“But?” Discord asked. Curiosity overwhelmed him, as it so often did with his chaotic creations. They often inspired intrigue in him, as because of their nature even he did not understand them. If he had done things properly, then she would have little thought at all. But then again, she was an experiment.

“Why not simply kill him? Surely you’ve prepared me to slay gods, have you not? He should pose little threat … shouldn’t he?” the jaguar asked in a monotone that betrayed the amount of concentration with which she thought. At least that was some comfort, her own thoughts did not come easily.

Discord grinned again. “I no longer believe we can kill him, at least not in the traditional sense,” he chuckled. “No. We need to drive him away from his purpose. We must rip out the roots before they settle or the weed will spread. If we can tear down the foundations to Luna’s control, he will become isolated and dangerous. He could even turn on the ponies and kill them, perhaps they’ll wipe each other out, I don’t know. But the fact remains that if we turn him against the ponies, or turn the ponies against him, then he will be taken out of play.”

“I see now, Master.”

“Good,” Discord grunted. “And don’t call me Shirley.”

A scream from far below tore Rainbow away from sleep. The rattling pop of the Guard’s guns peppered the air with their fire. The explosions were muffled and distant, but the next scream was followed by a screech. Rainbow struggled to pull herself out of bed, but the sounds of combat could not be ignored. She rushed to her window, her sore muscles and bruises made their displeasure clear with every movement. Purple strands of magic streaked wildly from below the Library's canopy that wove into a long net around a group of houses.

"Not again," she said breathlessly. She launched herself from the window and hurtled toward the ground. The sounds of a fight rose as she swooped in below the leaves of the library. Each instant of action was punctuated by a long moment of total silence from the other side of the makeshift shield.

Her hooves scraped the ground as she came to a stop. Twilight’s horn cast shimmering shadows on every surface. Across the square the net of magical energy sparked as a blur rammed into it and was gone in a flash. Gunfire boomed loudly and something let out an angry burble. A fire had broken out on the other side of the barrier and the snow glowed orange.

"What's going on?" Rainbow shouted over the noise.

"That monster came back. I've got it contained, but Rarity's stuck inside with the Guards! And they can't hold it long enough to put it down! We need Coalback!" Twilight yelled over the noise.

"I'll go get her out!" Rainbow yelled. She whipped her wings around and darted off toward Twilight’s magic barrier.

"No! Wait!" Twilight yelled as Rainbow darted toward the beams of magic.

She tucked her wings in and darted between the net of magic, her fur stood on end as she came very close to the beams of power and burning ozone assaulted her nostrils. She spotted where Rarity was in an instant: she had joined up with the two Guards just inside her boutique. A billowing purple tinged shield stood weakly in place around the front, Iron Bar stood outside in full armor with his heavy rifle brandished and at the ready. As she watched a blur went by and slashed at the partial shield, mauve sparks flew as power surged to accommodate against the attack. Iron Bar swung the heavy head of his rifle at the monster as it passed, but he did little more than to chase it away. The blur disappeared back into the shadowy, snow covered alleyways across the road.

Rainbow dove down and pulled herself into a hover beside Iron Bar. But before she could say anything his full face helm swung around at her and his voice bellowed out of it. “Get inside!” he commanded. One of his hooves reached out to put himself between the street and her. Rainbow dropped to the ground and slid underneath the fabric-like shield without an argument. The monster attacked with a renewed frenzy an instant later.

The boutique’s interior was dark, not a single lamp lit. Most of the windows had been covered hastily with stapled up swaths of various material. Filibuster stood by the only uncovered spot, his horn alight with mauve energy. Rarity rushed between the comfort her impromptu guests and the integrity of the shield. Several ponies from the neighborhood were huddled against the back wall; stallions, foals, and several mares looked fearfully around them as the shield outside sparked and spat again. An explosion split the air an instant after as Iron Bar fired off his rifle again. The creature outside hissed and screeched as it fled. Rarity’s own horn was alight, but for what Rainbow could not tell.

“Rarity,” Rainbow grunted as she trotted over to the fashionista. “What the hay happened? This place looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane!” she said. Her eyes darted over Rarity and the ponies in the room, her first responder training kicked in as she quickly scanned for injuries: none, thankfully.

“It was dreadful, darling,” Rarity swooned. She quickly wrapped her hooves around Rainbow in a fleeting hug. “It came out of nowhere. Some night owl spotted it skittering through the town and screamed for the Guards. Next thing I knew, Twilight had put up her barrier and I was helping Iron Bar out there gather up the ponies stuck inside!” Rarity wailed. "I saw it, Rainbow, darling! It looked right back at me with its terrible, beady, red eye and I knew it was after me! No doubt it's after you as well, dear!"

“Why are you here, Lady Rainbow Dash?” Filibuster grunted from the window. “You should have stayed where it was safe! Now you're stuck in the same pot as us!” he shouted.

“I came to help! I can start getting these ponies out of here!” Rainbow said.

“We’ve already tried flying ponies out, that thing out there can jump straight over this building. It’ll knock you and whoever you’re toting about out of the sky the instant it spots you!” he growled. "I'm surprised you even got in here without a maiming!"

"Calm down before that vein on your forehead pops!" Rarity screeched. "I've already had to clean up your blood once today and I'll not be doing it again!" She stomped her hoof once, a huff of frustration made it clear she would not be argued with. "How are you feeling, by the way? Would you like me to take more of the brunt work again?" she asked, sweet once more with the undertones of maternal concern.

"I'm fine," Filibuster said, his frustration apparently on the back burner for now. "It's funny, I hardly feel the pain anymore," he muttered as he turned back to the window. The light from the window revealed soaked bandages across his flank, black in the dim light with coagulated blood.

“What?” Rainbow grunted.

“We’re both working together to keep the shield up. The creature nearly broke through the first couple of times,” Rarity explained. “It’s rather taxing on the both of us, but I think we’ve worked out a system,” she said with a small smile. “This has been a bit stressful on all of us; stuck here. And it looks like we’ll be here for a long while still.”

“And now I’m stuck here too,” Rainbow groaned.

“I’m afraid that those boys won’t let anypony out of here until that monster is taken care of,” Rarity agreed. “We’re all trapped here until Coalback comes back.”

“Where is he, by the way?” Rainbow asked, she turned to Filibuster at the window and saw his brow furrow.

“Don’t know,” Filibuster said. “Twilight has been blowing her whistle but we haven’t heard from him,” he said with a flick of his ear. “Last time we saw him he took off into the forest on his own. Told us not to follow. Said something about ghosts,” he said, his ears folded back and a strange look of guilt passed over him.

“Filibuster?” Rarity asked with concern.

“This is strange,” he said. “The creature hasn’t attacked in a while. It’s planning something …” His eyes broke away from the window and wandered around the walls. An ominous creak floated through the air. “Give me control again, then pulse the power when I tell you to,” Filibuster whispered.

Rarity’s eyes went wide and her horn began to glow brighter. Filibuster’s horn dimmed considerably as his eyes scanned the ceiling. He froze on a single spot above Rarity’s chandelier. “Alright, on three,” he said, Rarity nodded and gave a ladylike grunt of acknowledgement. “One … Two …”

The wall behind Filibuster smashed in and buried him in rubble. Rarity let out a shout as their magic link broke and her horn let off an intense flash of light as the magic backlash overwhelmed her. The flash blinded everypony inside and as the dust settled they tried to blink their sight back. One of the foals was the first to regain their vision, and they screamed at what they saw.

Rainbow cleared her vision in time to see the creature rear up on its rear legs in the hole in Rarity’s wall that it had just created. A burble rose in its throat like a growl, and below it Iron Bar groaned. Both Guards had been knocked unconscious and lay buried in the rubble of the wall, Iron Bar’s own bulk apparently the tool with which the creature had busted through. Its one eye locked onto Rarity and Rainbow with a single minded prejudice. It crouched low like a cat and slowly began to creep toward them. Its sideways beak drooled a green slime and the burble vibrated its snake-like neck, it seemed to be relishing its moment of triumph. The beak opened and closed in anticipation, and behind its hard surface teeth gnashed in a second set of jaws.

That moment of triumph ended quickly however and its beady red eye widened in surprise as its claws suddenly sank into the floor. It screeched and an answering bellow from the hole in the wall shook dust from the ceiling. The creature’s claws dug deep furrows into the floor as it was wrenched back out through the hole by its tail. It struggled and twisted, clawed at the pile of rubble as it was steadily tugged out the hole. Its claws grabbed on the edges of the hole and it gave a desperate howl as the wall gave again and it disappeared in a waterfall of stucco and dust.

A voice boomed through the air. "Hræðilegur eðla! Imposter af dreka! Taktu reiði mína beint og örvæntingu!" It bellowed, a clear challenge but in no language recognizable to the ponies.

"Quick! Get them inside!" Rainbow grunted. She ran forward and began scooping rubble off of Filibuster. A magical duster began to clear rubble from Iron Bar nearby. As Rainbow worked she glanced up and peered through the hole in the wall. She almost wished she hadn't.

A new monster had been attracted by the fighting, and it was far more terrifying a sight than the mangled creature that had burst through the wall. It stood regally on two legs, powerful muscles in its back glistened in the light of the smoldering building nearby. Its bare skin was naked to the snow. He, for surely it was a male, was covered only in the tattered remains of some rags that hung to it tightly with thick knots. His skin was crisscrossed and deformed from an innumerable amount of scars. It circled the monster on its strange, flat feet. Strong arms ended in clenched, bony fists. And his flat face was twisted into an angry scowl as he bore down on the other monster.

It was a human: the first to be seen in over a thousand years.

"Rainbow, what are you doing?!" Rarity yelled. Rainbow flinched out of her hypnotic stare. "It's distracted we're making a run for it, let's go!" Rarity yelled as she tugged at Rainbow’s hoof. But then she realized what had caused Rainbow to freeze, and she did as well.

The titans met with a crack of bone on bone. The human's palm met the bottom of the creature’s head with a sickening snap. It reeled back and attempted to wrap the human in its claws, but with a twist that suggested martial mastery the human captured its arm between his own and twisted. The creature howled as its arm snapped in half at the elbow and bent abhorrently and the human dragged the creature over his shoulder and to the ground.

"Oh, dear," Rarity said with a shiver of primal fear. "Run!" she hissed. "We have to run now!" She tugged more insistently at Rainbow’s leg and finally tore the both of them from the hypnotizing, horrific spectacle.

They dragged the surprisingly heavy ponies away from the hole and back to the ponies huddled in the rear. They handed off the Guards to a few of the stronger earth ponies in the group and made for the rear door. They sprinted out from the boutique and stole down the back street, hell bent on the magical barrier less than a block away.

Rarity took the lead, her horn ablaze. Her magic grabbed the net-like shield and it gave way for her. Apparently Twilight had enough control over it to realize who was trying to warp her carefully created perimeter. Rarity dragged the shield up like a curtain and ushered the ponies through. But as the last pony ducked under and the Guards were dragged through the fight migrated in their direction.

"Look out!" Rainbow grunted. She tackled Rarity underneath the open shield, it dropped down behind them with a splash of cold slush. The shield sparked and spat behind them, and the monster slammed against it.

It screamed, and its skin sizzles against the cords of power. A pale body slammed into it and pressed it against the shield, the human's hands wrapped around the creature's head. The human slammed the creature's head against the shield and it screeched again. He hit the creature again, and again, until the magic barrier finally shattered under the force of the blow.

Purple shards of magic coiled out through the air and the creature dropped to the ground, unconscious. The human stepped out of the cloud of magic sparks, a halo of darkness around him where the glow of magic faded out of existence. He planted a single, calloused foot on the back of the creature's neck. The human bent down and wrapped his fingers into either side of the creature's strange beak. His arms flexed and the veins across his chest stood out, and a battle cry fell from his snarled lips. With a sickening crunch, the human's arms pulled apart and took a different chunk of the creature's head with them.

The chunks of skull fell into the snow with a wet slap. Brain and bits of skull were sprayed across the human's chest, the scars that circled the left side of his body stood out sharply. A single rune inked in black on his chest practically glowed against his pale skin. He rose to his full height and his intensely green eyes fell on the ponies sprawled out before him. Angry lines crisscrossed his forehead, and crow's feet edged in on them like the tips of knives. A strong chin held a hard frown, thick stubble shone in the dying light of magic. His eyes drifted across them and stopped directly on Rainbow’s.

Rainbow suddenly felt as if a great weight had been dropped on her, and it got heavier with every moment that she stared into those green disks. She felt her Element in her heart, an ancient feeling of despair both alien and familiar. In her mind's eye she could see the fires of a war that had been extinguished thousands of years before she'd ever been born, seen through eyes that were not her own. But there it was, the same fear, despair, and anger borne into her by the Element of Loyalty that had yet to forget the image and what came with it. An ancient echo of the previous owners’ mind.

She felt Rarity’s Element through her own, similar emotions racing through her. Slowly she realized that all of their Elements had sparked awake, and that they all hummed to the same tune. It was a kind of interconnectedness that Rainbow had been unsure she’d ever feel outside of using the Elements themselves. She’d only felt this way when they’d all come together to turn the Elements’ power against some foe, never without it. But the message emanating from them was not so confounding. It was simple, really:

But it never said to run, it screamed to fight.

Author's Notes:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

...

Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.