Shortly past midnight
April 6th, 71 BNM
North midland Equestria
Citadel fortress

The rumblings of chaos inside the Citadel could be heard from across the lake it presided over in the valley, let alone the 2 Stone Giants that advanced on the fortress from the north.
A single Owl, its wary eyes scanning across the lake from the tree branch it roosted on, flapped its wings in shock as another tremor rocked the valley. The silver glint in its eyes, like so many birds in the valley the Savant had influence over, was dimmed, as the master was occupied with greater concerns.
Across the lake, a burst of red light was the source of the new tremors.
Yet further south, on a small plateau, a small detonation of purple light escaped into the night sky.

Hidden Labyrinth entrance

Bursting from the entrance, the one-way Labyrinth an exit in this instance, akin to tracing a tree’s branch back to its trunk, the Draconeraqus came to a steady hover high above, as traces of the magic explosion Gaudium was launched by set some of the coniferous forest ablaze.
Surging from the hole, an orange mass like a gelatinous flood poured out, trees it touched melting away in its all-consuming path. Erupting out, a pair of eyes glinted from the orange mass as Satio’s shapeshifting mass came after the Draconeraqus.
Hurling another bolt of magic at him, Gaudium’s red and yellow eyes narrowed as the bloblike mass absorbed it yet again, while a flicked wave of orange magic was sent back his way, the Draconeraqus twisting mid-flight to avoid it as it cut into the night sky above.
As Satio’s form had left the tunnel, Iena’s serpentine form slithered out after him, her dark blue magic charging as she saw Gaudium readying a much bigger magic attack of his own.
“Keep running away, you can’t beat us both!”
“I just needed some room to work is all!”
The purple magic flared outwards, as Gaudium’s clawed fingers snapped. The ground beneath Satio’s massive, bloblike state suddenly was engulfed in further darkness. Off to the side, a massive section of ground had reared up, and as if the ground itself was flicking itself like one would a rug to rid it of dust, the very earth itself catapulted the glowing orange mass skywards, across the lake. A sonic boom, like a whiplash, ripped through the night as Satio went hurtling up and away over the darkened waters.
Satio’s unintelligible yell of panic as he was hurled across the half mile-wide lake would have been heard had it not been for the earth trembling as it resettled, or the rampages going on in the main Citadel, let alone the 2 Stone Giants that had reached the main fortress.
But the crash as he landed on the shores beyond, and slowly slid to sit halfway in the lake, were heard.
As she glanced helplessly at this, Iena turned slowly to see Gaudium hovering to stand menacingly before her, purple and dark magic flowing around his multi-creature featured body. One of his many antlers was still sliced off by Satio’s absorbing tendrils, but in spite of this, he was unharmed.
Flaring out her hands, Iena’s dark blue magic brought some nearby trees to life, some uprooted by Gaudium’s earth ‘wave’ attack against Satio. The roots and branches curved and spiked as they flew towards the Draconeraqus, a thousand skewers at once.
But a purple shield burnt and disintegrated every single wood spike and tree fragment that would have impaled him, as the Draconeraqus then pointed a single finger at her face from his position, and with a single snap, a ball of white energy shot out, before it detonated halfway to create a blinding flash of light.
Recoiling from temporary blindness, Iena felt her throat seize as purple magic engulfed it, and she was dragged towards a wood fragment and dust surrounded Draconeraqus before her. Choking slightly, she felt the earth itself come up, liquefying like mud to engulf her tail and arms before solidifying again, trapping her.
But Gaudium kept a hold of her throat, as his red and yellow eyes turned completely black, and she felt a burning presence in her mind. Her body began to slowly turn grey, as he growled to her as he began a more forceful indoctrination process:
“No more self, there will be only the master!”
Her own blue magic and resistance fought back, half her body turned a dull grey, the rest resisting sharply. Around them, blue and purple swirled, the ground acting up as dust flew around them.
“You’re a slave, he tricked you, just like he did us all! He killed your family.”
“I was created to serve, there is nothing else to me. As there will be with you.”
Straining, Iena tried to find something, anything to resist this Draconeraqus’s power. But this creature had been designed to enslave them, keep them in check, and she had no defence except temporary resistance against it.

Citadel, Main Atrium

Backing up, Siral loomed around, his body engulfed in dark magic. Too many guards to count lay dead around them, as Golmov’s yellow magic and centipede like legs hurled the last one away. And from below, as the last rumblings subsided, the stone floor gave out as a grey flesh and stone skinned arm pulled himself up.
And at their middle, Teal Quirt in all her ape/scorpion centaur shape embodiment.
Outside, Siral knew the two giants were waiting. But he enhanced his voice, magically enchanting it:
“Retreat to lower levels!”
As he reduced his voice, Teal’s venomous tone came across the atrium as she slowly advanced, legs scuttling on the ground as she dragged a green glowing scorpion clawed foreleg to cut a line in the masonry.
“You’ve lost, you have no power against all of us.”
“You’re all doomed without me, without unity. You may be powerful, but separated you have no chance at defeating all the Alicorns, wiping them from history.”
“What makes you think we want to do that anymore?” Teal asked bluntly, to which Golmov eyed up Siral with aggressive challenge, the dragon hybrid’s legs clicking as he advanced, his form as big as possible.
Beside him, Odi-Viscer stretched to his full height, standing unnaturally still as he focused on the Wizard before them.
At this, Siral suppressed a laugh, as he said plainly:
“You’ve seen my thoughts, more than I’d care before you lost all self and drive that causes this rebellion. But I have seen yours, and I see it in all of you 6, bar Ave-Dol. A resentment of authority now, of Alicorns imposing power over you, making you feel suppressed. All I did, was exploit what resentment was already there, enhance it along with your bodies, give more reasons to lend fuel for your dislike of them, your hatred and resentment, regardless of whether I had to directly interfere in your lives before we met officially.”
At this, Odi-Viscer’s eyes turned ablaze, red as a fire’s embers, as he charged Siral at that moment. Spikes extended from his apelike knuckles, his size growth out of rage making his fists as big as Siral’s Unicorn body.
“WAIT!” Teal shouted, but Siral’s body vanished into black smoke, as Odi-Viscer went bursting through the Citadel’s front doors blowing them off their hinges with a red blast.
Yet right outside, as he skidded to a halt, the booming rumble of the 2 Stone Giants drew Odi-Viscer’s attention. Their silver eyes glinting in the darkness as they advanced reminded him of Siral’s magic, the one who took everything he had as a foal from him just to get him later in life as a servant and weapon.
The ground cracked as the stone/ape hybrid leapt towards the nearest giant, his bellow filling the night as red beams shot from his eyes, scorching molten orange slices into the nearest Stone Giant’s head as he landed outside the Citadel walls, tearing across the ground and ripping aside trees and entire hillside rocks as he tackled its legs.
Buckling, the Giant groaned in the night as the being of Wrath began to attack it head on.

Inside the Atrium however, as Odi-Viscer rampaged against his stone giants, Siral’s voice echoed across the darkness filled main hall now, while Golmov’s large form and Teal Quirt’s smaller one stood fast, wary of an attack from any direction.
“But as all your power grows, so does my OWN!”
At that last syllable, the entire atrium turned a complete pitch black, the air rushing around them as reality itself began to distort.

From outside, a sphere of utter blackness, as if a black hole from beyond the stars the civilisations of now were unaware of had come down to occupy the hall. Black and grey magic like lightning flickered around it.
Struggling up the hole Odi-Viscer’s rampage a floor below had caused, bleary and shaken from the levels of hyper violence left in Odi’s wake, to say less of the others, not being one to desire an outright rampage right away, Ave-Dol glimpsed the black sphere inside the Atrium.
Golmov and Teal Quirt were inside, as was Siral. But she sensed Odi-Viscer’s rampage further away, outside the Citadel.
But what really drew her was what she sensed to the south. Iena, and across the lake was Satio. Yet with Iena, a corrupted mind:
“Gaudium…”
With not another word, the Windigo hybrid took off, her translucent blue and white frame passing over the many dead guard bodies and crumbling stone as the black sphere’s lightning arcs took their toll on the support structures of the Citadel.
Darting out, Ave-Dol’s flight turned its back to the shrieks of earth moving and crashing a half mile to the north, as Odi-Viscer’s eye beams had sliced a Stone Giant’s leg clean off. On the dark hillside, he seized the massive leg, and with a heave that roared louder than a thunderbolt overhead, swung it over his own head to smash down atop the same Stone Giant’s head with enough force to send waves across the lake.

Over the sound of all the carnage there, as the waves rippled from the battles, they reached the south end of the lake, where Satio’s orange mass lay semi-awake from his flight.
Disturbed by the ripples, his eyes flashed open, and he felt the water he was sitting in. Vaguely, he recalled his emergence form the caldron at his ‘rebirth’.
Over the tremors, Satio’s massive bulk slid into the lake like a land jellyfish, beginning to glow a brighter orange as it did so, a few ripples of suction forming in his wake as water began to flow into him from all directions.

Meanwhile
Citadel Catacombs
Artefact vault

Some hallways had already caved in, as the fortress shook from the carnage unfolding on the ground floor.
But as he tore through the vault, Tacit Scrivener, a Unicorn stallion vowed to silence out of devotion to Siral, before he got the usual indoctrination, looked for what he knew needed to be salvaged. Around him, others seized the artefacts, in case this room caved in.
As was becoming swiftly apparent, Siral’s strengthening enchantments on the foundations and structures were not enough to endure the wrath of these rebellious creatures.
“Leave the potion crap! Rare items and forged ones only!”
The leader of the Fortress’s ‘keepers’, or the all-purpose housekeepers of sorts who oversaw the day to day runnings of the Citadel, bellowed to the others working to open the many cabinets.
Treasures, mystic artefacts and rare tomes Siral had collected, were tucked into robes and satchels as they tore through the room.
Opening the last cabinet, Tacit’s eyes turned to see what he needed to save.
The cabinet of Alicorn amulets. Oddly though, one of them was missing, a red one.
Shrugging off this, knowing only Siral had access unless he lifted the lock enchantments in an emergency [like now], Tacit unceremoniously swiped all the 19 Alicorn Amulets of varying colours into his satchel, the Earth Pony uncaring of what was the products of 19 harvested Alicorns now his cargo.
Tearing from the room, Tacit nearly stumbled as another tremor from on high shook the Catacombs. A keeper Pegasus fell sideways into the wall, while an Earth Pony stallion used his hoof to shield his eyes from a cloud of dust that erupted where a cave in occurred further up the halls.
“Out the labyrinth, go!”
“But some of them went that way!” One mare cried, knowing not all the creatures were in one place.
“Then they had the right idea, now go!”
Hearing his boss’s words from inside the vault, Tacit Scrivener took off, grunting a wordless command as he headed towards the stairwell.
It wasn’t long before the Unicorn was coming down to the caldron vat hall, one of them broken from a battle now taking place south of the Citadel.

4 minutes later
Hidden Labyrinth entrance

Scowling, Gaudium saw that Iena was still managing to resist his indoctrination, her body only half greyed as a visible sign. Ripping her from the earthly restraints he’d made, he formed a ball of lightning in one hand as he gripped her in a chokehold with the other.
“I should have expected such resilience from any of you, but this is taking too long for the master’s liking.”
“GAUDIUM!”
Turning his gaze, the Draconeraqus saw a blue glowing Windigo/Alicorn hybrid land near the scorched ground along the lake shore, lit up by the smoking and ember strewn trees around them.
Ave-Dol’s face was alight with horror at Gaudium’s state, but more than anything else, she was saddened by it.
“About time. I can deal with more at once this way.”
“Set her free, please!” Ave-Dol pleaded, her light blue magic glowing with her body, her fiery orange mane the only colour difference. Raising an eyebrow as he continued to strangle Iena, who scrambled and flailed her scaly tail and hands to escape, Gaudium replied as if telling the time of day:
“But nothing is more freeing than having no more self to worry over.”
As he raised to thrust the ball of lightning into Iena’s face, Ave-Dol’s light blue magic fired, hitting the lightning sphere and detonating it hard enough to force Gaudium to drop Iena as he flinched. Choking as she did, Iena angrily flung out her tail, hueing it dark blue as it crashed into the Draconeraqus’s torso.
Flying backwards, he came to hover just above the water at the lake shore, a faint ripple going out beneath him.
Thundercracks sounded to the north, as something inside the Citadel wreaked havoc and plunged its innards into total darkness, while further north, white light from the remaining giant’s eyes blazed and writhed as the unseen destroyer began to viciously assault its legs.
Slithering to come beside Ave-Dol, Iena stood firm with the Alicorn hybrid, while Gaudium merely hovered in place over the water’s edge, a purple glow beginning to waft off him like visible fumes from a fire, staring at them.
“Gaudium, what have you become…?” Ave-Dol blinked, while Iena replied coldly, but not insultingly to the heartbroken and fearful Alicorn hybrid beside her:
“I think we all know Gaudium is gone. And we’ll be the same if we let them.”
“Your perception served you when manipulating courtiers and nobility. I doubt the same shall occur when facing me head on.”
“Gaudium, I don’t want to fight you.”
“There is no Gaudium anymore. And if so, you should surrender now, or fear of my power will be the last free thought you have.”
“Its two against one, you can’t take us all on!” Iena countered, her hands glowing dark blue, whilst Ave-Dol’s horn reluctantly lit up pale blue.
Cracking a ghost of a smile, Gaudium replied bluntly: “Two cannot handle all of me.”
As his purple glow brightened, its highlighted at the joints the many different parts of his body had with each other, from his limbs to his tail segments, wings and many horns.
And like a gigantic puzzle, they split apart, attached by ribbon-like wisps of purple magic between them. His head, large wings and limbless torso floated above the other parts as he expanded himself.
Gaping at the disassembly of his body, Iena and Ave-Dol were nearly caught off guard as the Draconeraqus’s many body parts began to spin, purple and black glows taking them as they did so, and fired forwards in a flurry.
An eagle clawed hand flew behind them, a purple beam firing from it at point blank, Iena barely deflecting it, right as a dragon leg came and magically booted her midair in the side, sending her reeling away.
Ave-Dol weaved as the lion arm fired waved of purple beams at her, while from overhead a hammer blow from the black hued dragon tail came crashing down, the ground cracking and turning to a mudlike quicksand as it also shook beneath her feet. Leaping skywards, Ave-Dol fired her magic, stunning the disembodied limb.
But out of nowhere, whistling through the air, the Draconeraqus’s torso and head section came, wings hued black and purple as they sliced the air like gigantic, energy hued scythes. Slicing waves of magic tore apart the ground, water and waves crashing where Iena and Ave-Dol deflected some into the lake.
But around them, his 5 disembodied limbs delivered energy blasts, clawed attacks, kicks from all directions, and heavy hammer like blows from the tail.
Ducking as another donkey leg came at her head, Iena’s eyes went wide as she saw many of Gauidum’s mixed deer and jagged Unicorn horns atop his head crown detach, and fly towards them like a spikey hailstorm.
Her light blue shield deflected them, but as the number of projectiles suddenly increased, both Ave-Dol and Iena found themselves cornered, while all the time Gauidum unleashed a cloud of purple magic over the entire shoreline, as both noticed the ever so slight creeping of greyed out fur and body parts on them the longer they fought Gaudium.
Every second they fought him, he crept further into their subconscious with slight indoctrination.
Even as the water in the lake began to retreat very slowly from the shore, as something glowing slight orange began to expand at the bottom of the lake, their thoughts were on this seemingly inevitable loss at the hands of one they once thought of as ‘kin’ under Siral.
As the battle raged, a distant red explosion beyond the Citadel went unnoticed.

Half mile north of the Citadel
Lake shoreline

The massive foot of the 200-metre-tall, turtle shaped Stone Giant came crashing down on top of Odi-Viscer’s form, crushing him into the ground.
But the Giant audibly groaned as it felt its foot being raised, and the joints in its leg began to glow red as they also began to fracture and turn hot in a few seconds. Beneath its foot, Odi-Viscer stood on his rear legs, red highlighint every joint and wrinkle in his hairless body, the stone parts like boney armoured plating over half his exposed skin. Like an ape, his forearms raised the massive weight over his head.
But as the ground began to crust and move below his feet, it became obvious that as he grew angrier, more than he had ever felt, he grew larger.
Stone and clawed hands gripping the Giant above him, Odi-Viscer ripped deeper, and with a roar that was drowned by the sound of shattering stone, he ripped the Giant’s leg in half up the middle from below. An unearthly shriek filled the night, as he strained to fully rip off one of the leg halfs, finally wrenching it free and using his rage fuelled magic and strength to hold it together like a 40-metre-long club.
Swinging back, Odi saw the Stone Giant reel back its half shattered leg, lumbering it around to meet his massive swung leg half in a parry. But Odi’s red magic held his leg half together, as the Giant’s leg half shattered entirely, earning a weak bellow from the Giant as it slumped down.
Crouching, shuffling he massive leg half to hold in the middle, the being of Wrath leapt skywards, higher than even the Giant itself stood at full height, the ground shattering beneath his feet as he did so. Now looming at 4 normal pony heights above all others, he quickly shuffled the leg half in midair as he came to the end of his rise high above, shoving himself in mid jump to place the leg half end first vertical.
Right as he began to fall, he placed his feet on the end of the leg half, and kicked with enough force to send himself further up into the air. But the leg half tore downwards, slamming end first into the weary Stone Giant hard enough to impale it through the spine, paralysing it as Odi-Viscer began to fall towards it from half a kilometre up.
Surrounding himself in red energy, Odi’s roar was lost over the immense explosion as he all but bombed the Giant’s head and the mountainside below it.
Rock fragments flew in all directions, the red light and shockwave lighting up the night as if sunset had arrived for a brief flash once more.

Citadel
Sub-dimensional magic realm

Inside the dark sphere that occupied, and was slowly tearing apart the Citadel’s main atrium, Siral brought them both here to a place where he had more knowledge and skill in operating within.
The sub realm, where teleportation traversed in an instant, where vanished items went until summoned again, where magic itself was given form.
To those with eyes, wherever they entered, they arrived in a distorted version of their immediate surroundings where the laws of physics were hung out to dry.
Swirling fog all around their surroundings beyond a mile away, the floating ‘islands’ of ground, Citadel masonry, tapestry and floor tiles gave away what features of the Citadel made themselves known here.
But Siral’s magic on the Citadel manifested here as its enchantments for defence, its structural reinforcement to give its walls and towers durability beyond their material. Glass pillars, with swirling black and grey magic, the grey being older magic, when Siral had not fallen as far. Glass pillars that represented the foundations of Siral’s fortress enhancing magic.
Hurtling backwards, Golmov’s spiked wings caught one of those glass pillars to stop himself falling away in the zero gravity, his yellow magic firing back at the black smoke in this strange realm.
There had been no time to marvel at this unnatural environment, not when Siral had brought them both here to deal with them in an environment where he had the advantage.
Glancing around, Golmov spied Teal Quirt, clutching onto a floating island in a way that appeared upside down to him a hundred metres away. Space here was much bigger than the sphere in the real world atrium made itself appear to be.
All around them, like black snakes that flew through the air, Siral’s magic sought and hit them, burning cold each time. Golmov and Teal desperately fired yellow and green beams to wipe these attacks whenever they came, but they came in greater numbers each time.
Seeping out like leeches from many of the hovering ‘islands’, Siral stared at them both, speaking in a voice that reverberated:
“BE MY SERVANTS, OR BE HARVESTED. YOU WILL FULFIL YOUR DESTINY!”
“Destiny you forced on us by exploiting our state, or a state you created!”
“I HAVE BEEN THROUGH TIME, TIME IS THE GREATEST TEACHER, THEREFORE THERE IS NO GREATER AUTHORITY THAN MY OWN!”
As he spoke, at the far end of the mysterious shattered realm, a whirlpool of dark black and grey energy began to form, sucking everything towards it, a few islands of castle masonry and flooring being sucked in.
A wind picked up, as Teal sensed this whirlpool was Siral’s indoctrination going full force. Before her, and before Golmov, she saw dark smoke coming streaming off their skulls, as immense pain coincided with it. No subtlety, Siral was sculpting their resisting minds, and in this realm, to fall into that whirlpool of Siral’s power was the end of their free will forever.
Glancing around, Teal saw Golmov desperately hanging on to the glass pillar of magic that supported the real world foundations of the Citadel to give it strength. The Dragon knew how to unleash raw magic in powerful attacks and change his shape, but he was not skilled enough to truly escape. And she couldn’t see herself escaping this place either.
All she could ponder was what sort of damage this darkness sub dimension’s real world ‘entrance’ was having on the Citadel, likely tearing it apart and creating a need to repair its main atrium.
But as she glimpsed the pillar Golmov clung to, Teal grew an idea in her head, as her green magic began to build in both claws. Knowing she had one shot, she let go of the floating island, both of her clawed hands charging green magic along with her ape hands and 4 head horns, aiming directly at the whirlpool that was Siral’s mind warping magic at an inescapable level.
“You fool, you let go!” Golmov bellowed, but further away, Siral merely grinned in his many watching forms, as he also sensed Gauidum having success overwhelming the others in the real world.
Charging a magic attack, no doubt to attack his mind as she was about to be sucked in, Siral casually strengthened the fields around the ‘whirlpool’ as Teal was slowly pulled towards it, aiming her beam right at it.
Black magic sifted and smoked as it attacked her mind, making her wince as her body was also badly scratched and burned, the scorpion/ape hybrid drifting closer and closer to the mental oblivion’s event horizon before her, a few castle ruin filled islands falling into its suction.
Sparing a glance towards Golmov, as he was still clutching to the magical support spell that manifested as a glass pillar in this realm. She knew she would have only one shot.
She only hoped he was smart enough to move when the time came.
She may not have power to overcome Siral’s magic over them, but she knew the real world could interfere with him. And if Odi hadn’t come after them by now, she would do it.
And here, there was manifestations of critical structure support in the real world she could attack more easily than in the real world. And with it, a secret desire to bring down all Siral had built was also available to her.
As she fell towards the mental event horizon Siral sucked her into, she strained as dark magic siphoned her mind, filling her mind with demon enhanced whispers, submission and threats common in them. But never once did her charged magic, focused in four limbs and four horns together falter in its buildup.

Author's Notes:

Gaudium proves he can handle more than one at once if he divides himself up, even as Satio seems to be building himself up for something.
The red gemmed amulet being separated and discarded will prove its means of not being buried in the ruins, and recovered and sent out as a one off artefact for many years to come.