The teleportation was rocky at best, but it succeeded. Shining Armor’s sphere of magic burst open and his ruined body collapsed onto the stone below. Even without lungs, he felt the atmosphere begin to close in threateningly. The air was perfectly still and so very cold

Slowly, he rose. His body splashed open into machinery; thousands of magically animated robotic appendages began work on the repairs to his form. The retinas in his eyes shifted, adjusting to the low light, and his sapphire irises widened.

He had landed in what seemed to be and endless plane of stone. In this land there was no sun, but a kind of harsh blue light. In the distance, Shining Armor was able to see the vast mountain fortress that loomed at seemingly infinite distances on the horizon, their tops obscured by the endless tempest above.

The stone was all the same color- -and identical in both color and texture to the pebble that formed the core of his phylactery. To escape Thebe, Shining Armor had transported himself to the one place that might not be able to reach- -and to the one place that he had sworn so long ago that he would never return to.

This was the hell-plane of Tartarus.

Then the world shifted, as Shining Armor had expected it to. He stood straight and tall and braced himself for the pony he was about to meet. In seconds, he found himself in a new place, a chamber of indeterminate depth or height from the true surface. There was little light, and much of the atmosphere seemed to consist of a fine red mist.

“Shiny!” called a voice. Shining Armor had only ever heard it once before, but even after four hundred years he still recognized it.

The mist cleared partially, revealing the owner of the voice: an amber pony with long red hair, her body the epitome of feminine beauty save for her brilliant red eyes which lacked both pupils and whites. She lay in a suggestive position in a pool of mutilated and disemboweled ponies, some of them still intact enough to be struggling to escape but none of them so much that they would ever be able to leave their perverse orgy.

Satin Veil stood, removing the intestines and battered organs that she had inserted between her legs. The ponies below moaned in agony as she walked over them, their blood unable to stain her immaculate coat.

“Why…why can’t I die?” said one of them, who consisted of little more than a wide-eyed head, its spine and throat drawn out and still linked to the masses of organs beneath it.

Satin paused, and picked up the head.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said. “Nopony ever dies in Tartarus! Isn’t that swell?”

As the head started to weep, Satin opened her mouth and kissed it. Shining Armor watched as several of her forked, barbed tongues pushed their way out the ragged stump of its neck. He knew exactly what those tongues tasted like, and for a moment he felt pity for the poor soul.

Satin impaled the head on a nearby stalagmite and crossed the mist. Every step was measured to be as appealing as possible, but Shining Armor could not bear to look at her. Doing so was physically painful. He had met her once before, and knew what to expect. Anypony who witnessed Satin Veil would see what she wished them too see- -but looking closely would normally reveal something far worse. Usually, it was a rotting corpse of some kind. Corpses- -even walking ones- -did not bother Shining Armor anymore, though; arguably, he was one. Now what he was seeing was worse. He still saw the rot and decay, but also saw something else, and he thought that it might be a vestige of whatever horror that Satin Veil truly was.

“Oh, Shiny,” she said, covering herself as if she were not already naked. “Trying to lift my veil already? We’re not even married yet- -” She appeared inches from his face, her red eyes staring into his, her body reeking of something far worse than death. “Of course, I would be more than willing to consummate our eternal union right now, if you want.

“Lady Satin Veil, Eternal Lord of Tartarus, Goddess of Perversion,” said Shining Armor, stepping back and bowing. “I bid you greetings.”

Satin frowned. “Don’t do that,” she said. Her annoyance was oddly frightening. “You are not one of my children. You are not worthy to speak to me that way. And…” Her body shifted. She was now an astoundingly hansom stallion, complete with the same color hair, coat, and eyes. “I am a mare just as much as I am a pony. Though of course…” She shifted back to her female form. “I know you prefer this one. Or…perhaps with wings? Or a horn? Or…both?”

The landscape changed. The stone seemed to vanish, replaced by room decorated in royal splendor. Shining Armor distantly recognized it as one of those from the New Crystal Palace, although it was decorated in shades of rich red and gold, with wood on all the furniture made from some strange dark colored wood.

“Satin Veil does not forget her promises,” said a voice. Shining Armor froze, because he remembered- -and because he recognized the voice.

Twilight Sparkle poked her head around the doorframe and smiled. She stepped into the room and walked carefully across the wooden floor.

“Twilight?” said Shining Armor.

She looked exactly as his sister had, down to the most minute detail. She even walked like Twilight would, with a bit of shyness and awkwardness at the sheer, translucent dress that she was wearing and the makeup over her eyes. She quickly shed the dress and looked up at Shining Armor with the same expression that the real Twilight would- -but she was blushing, and breathing hard.

“Shining Amor,” she said. “I’ve…I’ve always loved you.” She wrapped her front legs around his neck, and pressed her lips against his. Shining Armor felt her tongue inside his long-dead mouth.

She disengaged and looked into his eyes. “I know it’s wrong, and you know it too…but I want you. Please, Shining Armor…I want you to be my first.”

Twilight released him and turned around. She awkwardly lifted her tail and extended her wings, inviting him to mount her. “I know you’ve always wanted it. I’ve always wanted it too. Don’t be afraid. I know you would never hurt me.”

Shining Armor sighed. “Satin, stop this nonsense. If you think I would ever violate my own sister, perhaps you are not as omnipotent as you claim.”

“Perhaps,” said Twilight, turning her head to reveal the red eyes of Satin Veil. “But don’t think I have failed to notice the way your hoofs pause on her supple, hairless skin. Or how your eyes would always linger just slightly on her firm, virgin rump…or perhaps drift a bit toward center? Or how sometimes you would pretend that Cadence was really- -”

“Stop. It.”

Twilight sighed, and blinked. Her eyes returned to their normal state, and she looked so sad. The far end of the room faded into blue stone and mist. Satin Veil emerged from it, still smiling. She crossed the room toward the despondent Twilight.

“Well…if you won’t…”

Satin Veil reverted to his male form. The projection of Twilight, with a tear in her eye, dropped to the knees of her front legs, and Satin mounted her. She cried out as Satin began thrusting.

“Shining! Help! It hurts!” she cried. “Please!”

The sight before Shining Armor was indeed disturbing, but for some reason he could not summon as much emotion as he should have been able to feel. He felt blank inside, and although he knew that what he was witnessing should have been disturbing, he could not feel the appropriate response.

“I’m- -surprised,” said Satin, his hips pounding audibly against projection-Twilight’s. “I would expect- -you to- -look away.”

“I will admit that this is…unnerving. But if this is what it looks like when the devil masturbates, so be it.”

Satin burst into laughter, and so did Twilight, her voice distorting into a high cackle. Satin withdrew from her, instantly becoming female once again. Twilight stood, her motions and behavior finally forgoing any semblance to Twilight. She now moved exactly as Satin did- -because all that was all she was: an extension of the Goddess of Perversion.

“I know, I know,” said Satin. “It’s just not as fun as it is with the real thing. Of course, I don’t have the real Twilight’s soul. “But tell me. If you weren’t her brother, wouldn’t you? To have her on top, and then just as you finish to slit her throat and feel all that hot blood pouring over you?”

Shining Armor did not answer. He watched as “Twilight” returned to the edge of the mist, where she met a familiar blue unicorn stallion. She lay on her back and laughed horribly as she gave herself to an illusion of her and Shining Armor’s mutual father.

At the same time, another familiar pony emerged from the mist. This one was a gray mare with white and violet striped hair, dressed mostly in tight leather. She sauntered slowly to Satin’s side, and the two shared a long, deep kiss.

“My mother? Really?”

“You want a turn with her?” said Satin, pulling her lips away. “I never took you for a motherbucker…but I suppose it is a pony’s most primal urge to mate with his mother.”

“Satin,” said Shining Armor. “I really do hate you.”

Satin Veil smiled, and the scenery shifted again. As it did, Shining Armor briefly saw a pair of bright lights in Satin’s place- -and felt himself nearly go mad from the sight.

The new location was back in the cave, or a cave similar to it. Now, however, Satin sat atop a throne of ponyflesh sewn togather with bladed wire. Many of the ponies within seemed to be burning from within, filling the room with warmth, while others were frozen mostly solid, their bodies tearing as they tried to move. The projection of Shining Armor’s mother, now chained to the throne, was clinging to the Satin’s side. Twilight- -also chained- -was moaning wildly as she repeatedly thrusted against a limp version of her father, his neck twisted at a lethal angle.

“We have a problem,” said Satin, stepping down from where she was sitting.

“And that is?”

“You.”

“Would it help if I apologized?”

“Aww. That’s sweet of you. But no.” The throne- -and the projections of ponies with it- -faded into the mist, leaving Shining Armor alone with Satin. She leaned against him, pushing her hoof across the metal of his body and around the crystal in his chest. “Look at that body. Look what you’ve done to yourself. You’re not even a pony anymore.”

“And you have a problem with that?”

“Oh no. I don’t really care what form you take.”

“Then what is the problem?”

She sighed, and as she did, Shining Armor momentarily witnessed her form as a thin, dry corpse- -and as something far worse. “Shiny, do you know why I do what I do?”

“I do not care.”

“Except you do,” she said, her eye glinting next to Shining Armor’s. “Don’t forget who it was who gave you that stone. I know everything about you, because we are so very close to being one and the same.”

“Then why?”

“Because I like souls,” said Satin, laughing and dancing across the room. “They never go bad! I tear them apart, I rend them, tear them, violate them endlessly for all eternity, and they can never escape me!” She stopped. “But I only like certain souls. Souls have weight, you know. And I like them heavy.”

“Evil souls, you mean.”

“Yes…and no, no, NO! Evil souls are only adequate. A truly fine soul, though, is one that started out life innocent and ended it horribly corrupted. I bother to exist for those very souls!”

Shining Armor suddenly felt a distant surge of terror. He was not sure if that was the correct response, but he knew that she was talking about him.

“That’s right,” she said, running her forked tongue over her lips. “A hero, a knight in shining armor, a truly white unicorn. A happy stallion with a pure soul- -converted into a raging, murderous necromancer, brought to the limits of pony depravity in the name of love. You were to be my crowing achievement.” She stamped her foot and the whole cavern shook. Satin Veil glared with the full might of her evil, and for the first time Shining Armor was forced to look away.

“But then you had to go and ruin my work,” she said. “Right at the critical juncture. The final choice, the final crushing blow, where you choose the path to damnation and into my arms- -or, in your case, in between my legs.”

“By becoming immortal,” said Shining Armor, unable to suppress his smirk.

“Immortal? You are no more immortal than that arrogant fool Thebe. I don’t care that you’re undead, or even that you pilfer souls from my personal stock. It is that you managed to forget.”

In the distance, Shining Armor could hear the screams of his memories, the thoughts that he had felt when Thebe had been standing over him. Satin Veil smiled.

“Yes,” she hissed. “You are starting to remember…”

“Did…did I really do it? Did I kill my wife?”

Satin paused maddeningly. “No. That just won’t do. If I tell you the truth, you would never believe me. I am the King of Lies and all. But there is somepony who can help you…and help me.”

“Who?”

“The only soul too badly corroded for even me to take. You two have even already met.”

Shining Armor’s eyes narrowed- -and he realized that it made perfect sense. “Blackest Night,” he said.

“In the flesh! So to speak. Assuming you want to know the truth.”

“You’re not going to force me?”

Satin Veil leaned forward, smiling. “I will force you to do so many things,” she said. “I will force so many things into you, and you will force things into me. An eternity and blood and semen when you choose my path, to stand at my side. But for now, you have to make that choice. Or else you would never be quite ripe.” She licked her lips and stepped back. “The next time you come here,” she said, “you shall be my bride. Never again will you walk the land of the living, and I will devour your soul. But for now, go up there and have fun!” She turned back to the mist, but then seemed to remember something. “Oh! And if you see Thebe again, be sure to slit her throat for me.”

Then the realm of Tartarus seemed to shift, and Shining Armor was plunged back into the eternal darkness of Equestria.