Other than the small group of changelings, the rest of the isle seemed uninhabited. Sideralis had believed this to be a good thing, but Mjölna on the other hoof, took it as an ominous sign. Sideralis stood near an empty farmhouse waiting for instructions on what to do next.

“We’re being watched… studied… that has to be it.” Mjölna turned and looked at the others. “Mustang, you’ve been with me in some bad shit… what do you think?”

Mustang did not respond, she said nothing, but peered at Mjölna for several long moments. After appearing to give it some thought, she nodded, but no words seemed forthcoming. Under stress, Mustang had decided to keep her mouth shut for a while so she would not offend her friends.

“Those bugs were sacrifices… just enough bugs to draw our attention and make engagement worth it.” Mjölna scowled. “I don’t like this. Reminds me of the big fight on those islands in the Luna Sea. Twilight got burned pretty bad.” Mjölna’s head swiveled and she looked at her fellow C/Equines. “The enemy knows that we need to get our shit together. We’ve shown weakness… this will not end well.”

“We can use that to our advantage,” Apple Bloom replied, lifting her head. “If the enemy is expecting us to be disorganised and unprepared, if we can get our shit together, we’ll have the element of surprise.”

“Yeah, but that involves us getting our shit together.” Mjölna gave her protege a stern look, but also a faint nod of approval.

“I’m sorry I cried… I don’t know what came over me… maybe Mustang is right… maybe I am a little colt trapped in a grown up’s body… I’m sorry—”

“Shut up, Sid!” Mustang snapped. “You don’t talk trash about yourself, do you hear me?” Mustang broke her silence and her lip curled back in annoyance. “You just do what you do best… you make us laugh and you keep our morale up. Nopony here thinks any less of you for crying over a fallen foe… or they’d better not.” Mustang’s eyes darted around and she looked at her companions, almost as if daring one of them to bring up the issue.

But no one replied. Nopony took issue. Scootaloo, who stood beside Sideralis, taking cover beneath his bulk, looked up at her friend and gave him an affectionate pat on the leg. Mustang, seeing no opposition, relaxed a bit, no longer sure what she was expecting. She hated stress… it always made her spoil for a fight and she realised that she was taking her frustrations out on her companions. Understanding this, she lapsed back into silence.

Sideralis, scolded by Mustang, stood with his ears drooping, staring at the now silent, sullen mare. Nothing felt right. All of this felt wrong somehow. Everything felt off. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Cheer up, darling, everything will be okay…

The voice of a long dead mare brought no comfort, not now. Sideralis somehow felt even worse. How was he supposed to save ponies in the current state of mind he was in? Nothing felt right or good. Everypony around him felt off somehow. There was a tension in the air. Sideralis, a creature of instinct, had a hunch.

“Could something be affecting us?” Sideralis asked. His ears perked upwards and he looked around. “I mean, we’re clearly not the most cohesive unit, but what if something was taking advantage of that and making it worse?”

“That’s possible,” Mjölna said, her reply little more than a grunt. “I’ve actually seen this happen before. Spike and Twilight both had a nasty little spat… all of us were at one another’s throats… we encountered a new type of drone… Twilight called it a disruptor.”

“So we’re being dicked with?” Mustang, who failed to keep her mouth shut, stomped her hoof down into the black dirt. “Nothing dicks with me and lives… I’m nopony to fuck around with. I just started to get my shit together and earn the trust of others and now something is trying to fuck with my head and get my friends to hate me?” Mustang grimaced and her lip curled back into a ferocious snarl as her voice dropped down into a menacing growl. “I’ll rip its alicorn forsaken head right off and hooffuck it’s bloody neckhole.”

Stout, wide eyed, looked at her sister. “And to think you kiss our mother with that mouth...”

The group tensed, expecting Mustang to unleash her apoplectic fury upon her sister, but much to everypony’s surprise, Mustang started to laugh. The tension broke and everypony relaxed just a little. Even Sideralis perked up a bit and managed to laugh.

“You kiss our mother too, you cum gargling, cock worshipping, tonsil fucked, throat pussied, cock snot swallowing, naughty nurse.” Mustang paused. “Oh, and you’re slutty too.”

The group tensed again and Sideralis felt his asshole pucker up something fierce. There were jokes, there were snide remarks, there were snarky rejoinders, and then there was that. He felt Scootaloo brush up against him. He heard the muted clank of Mjölna’s wings. He saw Apple Bloom backing away.

He then heard the sound of Stout laughing, a deep belly laugh, and then both sisters were guffawing together. Stout reached out and gave Mustang a hearty slap, and Mustang slapped her back, the muffled sound of metal striking metal filling the air.

“Of for the love of the sacred alicorns, I’m stuck foalsitting a whole bunch of foul mouthed kindergartners.” Mjölna facehoofed herself, grunted, shook her head, and then glared at her companions. “Get your shit together, dirtbags. Be ready to lift off…”

Two islands with nothing on them. Empty houses. No signs of struggle anywhere. No bodies. No traces of violence, no dried blood, nothing. Nothing at all. No contact with the enemy. No detections of life. It filled Sideralis with fear and worry.

Folding his wings, Sideralis had himself a look around. He and the others now stood on the main isle, which rose up out of the ocean. The other isles, formed from the remains of the caldera crater, formed a natural harbour around the main isle, protecting it from the ocean. As had been stated, there weren’t very many roads, but there were paths. A tunnel entrance was visible from where he stood.

Something felt wrong here, on this main isle, but Sideralis couldn’t quite put his hoof on what it was. He didn’t like it. There was the sensation of being watched. Tensions were high. He and his companions were on edge. He didn’t like the idea that something might be exploiting that.

“No infected, no guards, no nothing,” Mjölna said in a low voice. “I can sense something, but I’m not detecting any lifeforms. I think our equipment is being jammed.”

“Fuck me running,” Mustang replied.

“You mean stuff can jam our equipment?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Bloom, you seem to forget that the enemy has been exposed to us before. Of course they’re going to try to find a way to counter us. Just stay close to me, Bloom, and pay attention.” Mjölna eyed her protege and watched as Apple Bloom scooted closer.

“Stout, watch over my garden.” Mustang’s eyes narrowed and her horn began glowing. “I’ve gotta weird feeling. There’s something magic here… something strange. Strange like penis strange, which is the strangest thing I can think of.”

Mjölna froze and looked at Mustang. The wise, older mare knew something was up with Mustang, the C/Equine had a few peculiar quirks, like being able to learn new spells, a magical ability that seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds, and now it seemed that she was detecting magic. Mjölna’s own horn began glowing and she fired up the projectors in her front hooves. She trusted in Mustang’s abilities.

“There’s nothing wrong with penis, Mustang.” Stout moved closer to her sister, the orange crystal synthetic horn protruding from her forehead pulsating with an orange glow.

Scootaloo, who stood beside Sideralis, craned her head and looked skywards. She lifted her hoof and pointed at the sky. “Look”—the orange C/Equine mare waved her hoof skyward—“look how the clouds move over the top of the city… see it? They’re swirling a bit… there’s magic here… also, there are no birds… no bugs. No nothing at all. There’s no life here but us.”

Scootaloo was right. Sideralis’ ears strained to hear something, anything, but there was nothing. No birds. No seagulls. No songbirds. The island was devoid of life. His testicles, secured inside of an armored compartment, clenched painfully. Nothing should ever be this quiet. There were no bees, no bugs, no flies, there was nothing, nothing at all. Sideralis, a creature of instincts, now had his instincts screaming at him to get out of here, and under most circumstances, he would listen to his instincts.

But now, he had a job to do, so he ignored them. His ears pinned back against his skull, his head lowered, and his wings flared outwards from his sides, but did not unfurl completely. Sideralis became the perfect, flawless example of alicorn aggression, one of the more terrifying sights in nature, made all the more terrifying by the fact that Sideralis was perhaps the largest alicorn in existence, mechanically augmented, and surrounded by the meanest, most badass looking group of mares ever gathered since the founding of Tartarus.

Feeling a strange prickle along his spine, Sideralis’ tail twitched and he started forwards, following the path. The others fell into formation behind him. His eyes shifted from left to right, wary, watchful, and he walked with his head low, his ears pinned, and his wings out, making him look larger than he was.

The path meandered along the incline, towards the next rung of the terraced city. Sideralis followed it, crested, and then stepped out onto the narrow cobblestone street that formed the edge of this terrace. Narrow, tall row houses stood together. The terraces were like a giant staircase, each ring smaller as one went up the hill, with rowhouses on each terrace, along with shops, cafes, parks, the entire city was built upon the giant staircase.

Sideralis now stood in the middle of the cobblestone street, his head darting from side to side, wary of his surroundings. He knew that something was there, but it wasn’t showing itself. But he could feel it. He felt it in his mind. He could feel the intrusion. He could feel the very wrongness of this place.

“I think we’ve walked into a trap,” Apple Bloom whispered.

Not a moment after Apple Bloom had spoken, low moans could be heard. A group of diseased, decayed looking ponies shambled out of a tunnel entrance further down the street. They moved like marionettes, puppets, legs shuffling in odd, herky-jerky ways.

“Infected,” Mjölna spat.

“Light ‘em up, girls,” Mustang said as she rose into a bipedal stance. She stood, braced on her hind legs, her forelegs extended, her front hooves glowing as her projectors charged.

Beside Mustang, Stout too rose up on her hind legs, Apple Bloom followed, and Mjölna stood up as well, her wings unfurling for better balance. Sideralis remained on all fours, and Scootaloo rose up into the air, hovering just over the heads of the others, her front legs extended out in front of her.

The infected shuffled forwards, loose skin flapping, they looked bloated and putrefied. Their eyes were sunken, much of their pelts had fallen out, and something about their movement was like a floppy hot water bottle being rolled over. They became distorted and misshapen as whatever it was inside of them sloshed around.

The five mares opened fire, unleashing pulses, telekinetic bursts, and each shot fired ripped pieces free from the infected. Heads, legs, wings, chunks of rotten meat, bits flew as the pulses connected. The air was filled with the horrifying stench of decay, necrosis, and burnt, rotten flesh.

Sideralis lifted up one foreleg, his targeting system locked on, and he fired off one pulse. His shots were larger and more powerful by far. The pony that he targeted exploded into chunks that rained down to the ground, each piece no larger than a grape, or perhaps a strawberry. It was like lancing an infected cyst to let the disease out.

Soon, the infected were reduced to smoking, twitching remains. The companions stood on guard, watching, waiting, wary of any signs of tentacles. The remains quivered on the cobblestones. Scootaloo let go another pulse when a leg gave a bit more kick than she liked.

Something purple oozed from the bodies, running over the cobblestones. It was viscous, goopy, and oddly shiny. It began to form a puddle and the companions watched in horror as the strange purple gloop began to puddle together.

“Some kind of slimy, mucky, oozy thing,” Mjölna said as she watched the purple slime form a puddle.

“Smooze?” Sideralis suggested, trying to be helpful.

“Whatever it is, it dies too… light it up.” Mjölna pointed both of her front hooves at the ever growing purple muck and began to fire. All around her, her companions did the same, letting go round after round of telekinetic fury into the strange purple smooze—

The smooze that showed no signs of stopping…

Author's Notes:

Can it be stopped?