"Get the fuck in there!" One of the bandits grabbed Twilight by her hair and tossed her into an empty cage in a shed made of metal junk. He slammed the door behind him, and he left her alone to bleed.

They had taken her to their hideout, an old junkyard repurposed into a base of operations for the ruffians. The fort was heavily guarded; machine gun turrets lined the walls, mines layered the surrounding area around the fort, and there was even a missile launcher on a gun rack, along with a stockpile of grenades and ammunition. Bodies impaled on long metal poles decorated the outer wall of the fortress, warning those who got close what would happen to them if they crossed the bandits.

Twilight fashioned a makeshift gauze wrap out of cloth from her stolen robe, and she cringed as she felt the ragged cloth wrapped around her forearm loosen, causing the stump that was her hand to bleed again. She was an alicorn, and she healed quickly when it came to broken bones and cuts, but losing an appendage was well beyond her body's limits. She lost a lot of blood on the way to the bandit's hideout, and she was still bleeding. There was no time to plan an escape. She looked over at a nearby table on the other side of the shed, there was a kerosene lantern there, and she tried to reach for it with her single non-amputated hand. However, it was too far away to reach, and there was no loose metal bar or slab of concrete in sight that could save her. The only thing she could do was wait and bleed out.

As she curled into a ball clutching her bleeding stump, she thought of Spike. More specifically, she imagined the look on his face clutching her lifeless body, the hopelessness in his eyes. She began to cry with him as she visualized it. "I'm so sorry Spike, I couldn't... see you again." She groaned in pain as she felt her stump spurt blood again, the sting of caked dirt in her open wound. It would get infected, but that didn't matter to her, she would die from blood loss anyways.

"Gee, that didn't turn out well for you at all, did it?" Gek cackled as he appeared in a vacant wooden stool by the shed door. "You know, I'd pick up that lantern for you, but I am a hallucination. Besides, it's kinda funny seeing you like this. Here you are, Twilight Sparkle, the great 'Princess of Friendship'... all reduced to a whimpering mess. It's a damn shame that you won't get to see that dragon friend of yours again." He grinned sadistically as he laid back on the stool, resting his head against the metal wall. "But hey, you've still got your right hand. At least, you'll be able to write a death note without it being all in scribbles and stuff. Silver linings, you know?"

"I... hate you..." Twilight grunted as she wailed, trying to stop the bleeding by wrapping the cloth tighter around her forearm.

"I know sweetie, I know, but you gotta think positive! You got yourself into this mess and you can get yourself out of it!" Gek cackled at his own frivolous humor. "But in all seriousness, you can get yourself out of this whole mess. Or should I say... I can get you out of this mess."

"What... do you mean?" The faint hope Gek was dangling over her head enticed Twilight, and she became intrigued, ignoring the pain for a moment before feeling her stump sting again.

"I can get heal you up and get you out of this cage, little bird, but you gotta let me take the wheel..." Gek snickered again, only with more malice his tone. His voice shifted into a harmonic growl of raspy groans and withered voices.

"Never... go to hell you demon!" Twilight cursed him as she slammed her good hand on one of the metal bars of her cage. "If you corrupt me, you'll get the stone and drive everyone mad!"

"Oh who told you that bologna? 'Winnny the Mighty Paladin'?" Gek laughed. "You think I care about Kaiser's little schemes? Pumpkin, I never really wanted any of this crap. The Silence, the crazies in here, Infernalgear? I didn't create them, they created themselves. All I do is plant seeds and watch them grow. Kaiser yammers on about how I talk to him and all that junk, but he doesn't know jack. He's delusional. That fake body of his drove him crazy years ago. This whole thing is one big, entertaining-as-heck mess! "

"This is all just a game to you, isn't it?" Twilight realized. "You're just spreading chaos and death for the sake of it!"

"Correctamundo, my brilliantly naive friend!" Gek gave Twilight a 'thumbs-up'.

****

Kaiser sat on his throne made of metal, the throne of the old dictator that ruled Ausrüstung with an iron fist. It was surrounded by statues of angels and demons, banners displaying the emblem of the old government. He grinned as he looked down at his mighty empire, his Infernalgear. He got out of his seat and stepped down to their level.

"I have located the whereabouts of Princess Twilight, Father Kaiser..." Dr. Gearza informed Kaiser in his usual cold, robotic voice. "Shall I send my remaining skeletons to her position?"

"No, she is taken care of," Kaiser replied.

"But, Father... don't we need her to unlock the stone?" Kanakirigoe wondered as he drew closer to Kaiser.

"We do, and she will eventually..." Kaiser answered Kanakirigoe as he walked past him and the other members of Infernalgear. "The madness of this world will make her cower in fear and cause her to become desperate. Her devotion to her friends will be her downfall. Gek shall claim her, and she will return very soon."

"Understood, Father Kaiser." Kanakirigoe nodded as he tapped the hilt of his katana. "What of Masami? When shall I face her?"

"Patience, Ichirou. You will see her soon." Kaiser turned his head to face him for a moment, then he looked towards the towering entrance to his throne room. Marie was being escorted inside by two armed cultists. "Thank you, children. Leave her with me." The cultists nodded and left them alone.

"I have done as instructed, Father Kaiser..." Marie said with regret in her tone.

"Very good, Marie. You will see Evelyn soon, I promise." Kaiser patted her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear. "Code: 031-5." Marie's face went blank, and her eyes turned pale. "You will trap Butch and Evelyn in a trance and kill them once you see them, do you understand, android?"

"Yes, Kaiser." Marie's voice became empty and mechanical. She snapped out of her daze shortly after and shook her head as she began massaging her temple. "What happened?"

"You were daydreaming, child." Kaiser lied as he told her his plans. "I want you to go to the first floor of this complex, not far from the entrance. Wait for Evelyn there. She will arrive soon."

"Yes, thank you... Kaiser." Marie smiled weakly as she exited the chamber.

"What's the plan, Father?" Ashurr growled in his gravelly voice.

"You all have your keys, correct?" Kaiser asked, and they all nodded. "Excellent."

"You will go to the armory on the second level, Ashurr. You will be accompanied by your bandit friends in that little arena of yours." Kaiser ordered Ashurr, who exited the throne room and marched towards his destination. He then looked to Gar Nichts. "Gar Nichts, you will go to the third floor, to the experimentation wing."

"No! No, Kaiser! No! I can't go back- so many eyes, ghosts! Mother's ghost! She stares at me! They stare!" Gar Nichts grabbed the chains concealing his face and moaned loudly, his head thrashing about like a lunatic. Kaiser then grabbed one his head and tore off a chunk of his chain armor. He gasped and wailed even louder. "Kaiser please, no! They'll see me, they'll look at me! They'll-."

"I don't want to hear your insane babbling, fool! Do as I ask or I'll strip all the chains off of your body and hang you on a pole so everypony can see you!" Kaiser knocked him down onto his knees and Gar Nichts whimpered like a scolded foal. "That's better... now go." Gar Nichts raced outside with tears in his eyes.

"Shall I head to the radio tower, Father?" Dr. Gearza asked him as he approached Kaiser.

"Yes, and do hurry. They are getting closer every minute. Be gone." Kaiser instructed Dr. Gearza. He then stopped at Ichirou as he made his way back to his throne. "Once the tower is destroyed, I want you to be on the second level of the complex."

"Father, how do you know that they'll split up? Wouldn't it be smarter to take each of us on with the full team?" Kanakirigoe wondered.

"They are confident in the size of their team, so they will split up to tackle each member of Infernalgear all at once. That shall be their demise."

"What about Godfather Fonzi? He arrived in The Silence just yesterday. What shall become of him?" Kanakirigoe asked.

"Hopefully, he will distract the half-changeling clone and any others willing to follow him. He is expendable." Kaiser explained. "He has been helpful, but he has outlived his usefulness. I suspect the Task Force will ignore him entirely. Do not fret, Ichirou. My hard work will soon pay off, and the stone will be freed from this container." Kaiser smiled as he sat down on his throne once more and grabbed the cube resting on the arm of his seat. "Soon we shall all be with Lord Gek, and Twilight Sparkle shall be our blessed saint."

****

"Think of Spike, Twilight. Think of his pathetic whimpering face when he cries over your corpse." Gek's words began to weigh down on Twilight, and she began to lose herself. "What'll it be, death or life?"

Twilight thought of her friends; Spike, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie. She thought of warm memories, photos from happier times. She imagined them burning up as a result of her death. It was far too early for her to die, and she couldn't let Spike live on with such grief. As much as it killed her to admit it, she was willing to let Equestria burn so long as Spike was without such pain.

There was a brief moment of silence as she felt the last of her blood drain from her exposed stump. "Do... what you have to do..." Twilight turned her head to face Gek. "I'll break out of it... and when I do, I'm going to kick your ass along with Spike..."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, pumpkin." Gek's grin stretched and contorted into a jagged maw of teeth as he jumped on Twilight and grabbed her by the head. "Oh golly, this'll be fun! Let's get crazy."

Gek opened Twilight's mouth and began to vomit black sludge, giggling as he expelled the noxious fluid into her mouth. Twilight's eyes rolled back into her head, and as the hallucination of Gek began to fade away, she started convulsing and shaking. She snarled like a wild beast as she seized and clawed at her cage with her left hand, which was replaced by a clawed, black-hand made of the same sludge. Twilight stood up she began to vomit uncontrollably all over the floor, laughing and crying as she slammed her head against the metal bars of her cage, trying to cause a ruckus.

One of the bandits barged into the flimsy metal shed and checked on Twilight. "What the hell do you think you're doing, you crazy bit-."

Twilight grabbed the guard by the throat with her clawed left hand, and she stuck her tongue down his throat, violently kissing him like a crazed animal in heat. Her sharp, black tongue became elongated and shot out of the back of his throat like a sword, killing him instantly. With her tongue, she reached into the back pocket of the bandit and snatched the keys.

"Oooo, naughty!" The voice of Gek echoed in Twilight's deranged mind. "I didn't think you had this much crazy all pent up in your noggin!"

Twilight grabbed the dead bandit by his mane and dragged him outside. He tossed him on the ground like a sack of potatoes, and the other bandits rose from their seats and watched as Twilight clumsily stumbled into the center of the fort with her head bowed. The hair in her mane grew into a tangled mess, and it had darkened to the point where it was almost black. It covered her face, and as the bandits drew closer to closer to her, she began to laugh and giggle like a filly, and it got progressively louder as they raised their guns.

"What the hell did you do, you bitch?! You killed my mate!" One of the bandits got out of his chair in an outrage. He had been playing poker with the others. "Rusty, get over here!"

Rusty jumped down from his lawn chair perched on top of the outer wall and aimed at Twilight with his gun. "What going on here?! How the hell did you-... what the fuck?"

Twilight raised her head to look at Rusty face to face, and her long and tangled hair whipped about like a bag of cobras. Her eyes were like Gek's, swirling circles of black and white. The scars all over her body only emphasized her menacing appearance as she staggered back and forth towards Rusty. Her wings unfurled, revealing a mess of clumped feathers and more of the foul black sludge. It dripped on the ground as her wings flapped momentarily, and the droplets of sludge began to contort and morph into writhing little worms. One of them slithered over to a bandit by Rusty, and he crouched down to get a closer look.

"What the hell is thi-." The bandit was cut off as the worm jumped at his face and dug into his eye like a festering maggot. He convulsed on the ground for a moment before his whole head burst open; the intelligent sludge turned into a spiked ball within his skull, causing his head to explode.

"You little cunt!" Rusty cocked his gun and aimed at Twilight's chest. "Fucking kill her!"

"Oh, you parasites are in for it now! Sick em', little princess!" Gek cackled, and Twilight did as well.

A hail of bullets impacted Twilight as she ran towards the bandits with blinding speed. However, they did not generate the desired effect at all. They seemed to pass through her body as if she was a mass of liquid, splattering black tar on the ground as she drew nearer. She cleaved the closest bandit's head off with her slimy left claw, and she grabbed the decapitated head of the bandit with her teeth and swung around like a crazed barbarian as she tore the next bandit's arms off with her own two hands. Turrets mounted on the walls emptied their entire clips into her, but it didn't seem to slow her crazed rampage down at all, it only prolonged the violence. Twilight wailed as she came close to an RPG-wielding bandit, who was able to hit with one of his shots. Dust and debris were kicked up, and as the cloud rose high into the sky, there was a momentary feeling of relief amongst the bandits.

"Fellas, don't worry I got her-." A tendril shot out of the cloud of dust, piercing through the RPG-wielding bandit's chest. The tendril lashed a bit, and the whole tentacle shot through his upper half, cleaving him in half from his sternum all the way up through his skull.

Twilight jumped out of the cloud of dust and began hacking up the remaining bandits. They kept firing, but that was not enough to even slow her pace. She grabbed another bandit by the head, ripping his whole spine out of his body. She then moved on to another bandit. Twilight grabbed a grenade off of the poker table and rammed it into the bandit's chest, pulling the pin. She tossed him up in the air, and he exploded into a red mist like a grotesque firework.

"Boss, we've gotta get out of here-!" The bandit with the sledgehammer called out to Rusty before being cleaved in half by Twilight's elongated left hand.

Realizing most of his comrades were slain, Rusty retreated, and exited his fort, leaving the remaining bandits behind to be brutally killed at the hands of the insane princess. He ran as fast as his hooves could carry him, dodging his landmines and booby traps. He hoped one of them would go off and blow Twilight to kingdom-come, but he heard no such sound. He looked back at his destroyed fort for a moment, and as he turned away he ran into Twilight, who blocked his way. Rusty fell backward onto his rear, and he began to move away from the insane princess in fear.

"You get the fuck away from me, you crazy bitch! Get the fuck away!" Rusty raised his gun and aimed it at her head, but before he could fire off some shots Twilight snatched the gun and put it in her own mouth, firing the entire clip into her brain. Twilight laughed and bowed her head as she dropped the gun, and she got closer to Rusty. "Please, no! I'll give you anything you want! Do you want money, hmm?" Rusty grabbed some money out of his pocket and put out his hand, offering her some gold cogs. Without a word Twilight took his hand and tore it off like a dead tree branch, smiling as she heard the boned in his wrist snap off. "Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck you, you cunt! Aaagh!"

Twilight's grin grew wider as she dug her hand into his stomach, trying to find the key he swallowed. Rusty screamed and cried as Twilight ripped the key out of his stomach. She then used it to remove her collar, and within seconds, she felt her magic powers return. Twilight grabbed Rusty by his mane and tossed him onto an unoccupied metal pole, and he joined the rest of his impaled victims outside the walls of his burning fort.

"That was wicked, Twilight! I didn't know you had it in you!" Gek cheered her on. "Now, let's go home, shall we? I hear there're tea and biscuits waiting for us there!"

Twilight cried and giggled like an imprisoned lunatic as she looked up at the sky and readied her wings. She blasted off like a rocket with a single, strong flap, and she headed back to the underground complex, back to Kaiser.

On the other side of The Silence, Winslow heard Twilight's maddening cries, and he turned around for a moment and mumbled to himself. "No..."

"What is it, Winslow?" Spike saw Winslow's worried expression, and he stopped to talk with him.

It took a moment for Winslow to reply. "Twilight... she has been corrupted. I don't know if we will be able to free her, Spike."

Author's Notes:

That was violent! Just the way I like it! As always, I hope you enjoyed! See you in the next chapter!