Chapter One: Enter the Unicorn

Rarity’s attention was finally torn away from the horrific sight of Canterlot in flames by a loud banging sound and the feeling of something too fast to be seen zipping past her face. She ducked down as more explosions sounded. Ponies screamed and she heard something outside the car roaring, a crazed, gravelly sound that she felt more than heard.

More of the unknown projectiles tore through the feeble cover the train car offered and Rarity desperately scrambled towards the windows on the opposite side of the car on her belly. To her horror she saw a spray of blood across the floor, and then a Pegasus who had been serving ponies their meals. There was a massive hole in his side and his breathing was labored and had an unpleasant liquid quality.

Rarity wanted to scream, but her terror strangled it in her throat. The poor stallion was staring madly at her, his eyes pleading. Blood was leaking out of the corner of his mouth. Rarity reached out for him, touching his hoof., trying to say that she was here for him and he wouldn’t die alone when the creature climbed through the window.

It was horrific. A huge, ape like creature with pale skin and a short cropped green mane. It was dressed in brown armor and carrying some sort of metal rod in one of its massive fists. It seized the dying stallion’s tail in its free hand and stared down at Rarity with a pair of eyes that were nothing but a pair of burning orange coal in inky black pits. Its mouth unhinged like a snake and it droned out “I’ll swallow your soul!”

Now, time really did seem to stand still. Rarity stared at the thing, the monster, the murderer. It had come here, participated in an attack that had probably killed dozens of ponies and now the demonic thing was threatening her. It’s eyes burned with a hate and malevolence that she had never before seen and something strange happened in that moment. Rarity’s fear turned into anger. The scream that had been strangled by her terror turned into a shout of primal fury and reflexes she had long suppressed awakened in her.

She leapt, extending one of her rear legs as she jumped at the creature, forming a position that martial artist might recognize as a well executed flying crane strike. The blow struck the thing right in its repulsive, hateful mouth and she felt its teeth come loose and its jaw shatter with the strike. The thing staggered back, blood spewing from the ruined wreck of a mouth. “You dare?! You dare to come here, hurt my people, threaten my soul?! You monstrous cad!”

She moved forward like a hurricane striking with all four of her limbs in intricate combinations. She felt bones snap and flash break under her blows, a roundhouse kick knocked out one of the beast’s eyes and swift blow to the monster’s throat collapsed it trachea and it’s grunts turned to gurgles as it struggled to breath.

This should have killed it, but to Rarity’s horror the thing didn't stop. It kept swinging at her or trying to aim that metal rod at her. Finally, she snatched the rod out of its hands with her telekinesis and promptly slammed it into the side of its head. Repeatedly.

Finally the thing sprawled on the floor and tried to crawl away from her. Rarity was about smash its skull in, the rage that filled her demanding blood, when three more of them pulled themselves through the shattered windows and opened fire with those metal rods of theirs. The tings spat fire and the world around Rarity seemed to explode in tiny increments, the one she’d been fighting jerked and twitched as the shots tore it apart, its hand exploded into a pile of blood and gristle, organs spilled out onto the ground, and its skull exploded out across the ground.

The poor young Pegasus also jerked and twitched as the weapon fire tore into him, and Rarity screamed inside. Also outside.

She dodged and weaved, the shots going wild and lunged at the nearest one, jamming her short but sharp horn into its thigh and shaking it to the side, tearing a massive gash that gushed blood in its muscle and sending the monster bellowing to the floor. As she did this she slammed the heavy end of the monster’s weapon into a second one’s groin hard enough that it made a crunching noise using her telekinesis, and followed it up by jabbing the barrel end into the third’s face as hard as her power could allow. “You wretched murderous brutes!” she screamed, all righteous indignation. One of them was able to snatch at her mane, but Rarity twisted around and planted all of her body weight concentrated in a single hoof onto the creatures knee, buckling it with a sickening crunch.

The three were down, more or less, one of them was now struggling back to its feet, but more of them were pouring in. Horrified, Rarity realized they were executing the living ponies as they went. She leapt at the monster that had staggered back to its feet and wrapped her forelegs around its throat and threw her weigh forcing it back towards the window away from the monsters advance.

The strange weapons roared and Rarity felt a cold sting across her flank as one of the round punched through her improvised meat shield. The worst case scenario happened then. The window she was aiming for turned out to be intact.

First there was the sharp cracking pain of impact, then the cold slicing pain of glass shards ripping through her coat as she pulled herself and the monster through. They hit the ground in a tangled, bloody mess and before the confusion could kill her she seized the monster by the throat again and threw her weight back and forth until she heard the sound of bone splintering. The thing’s weapon lay nearby, and she seized it with her mind and tried to run, only to double over in pain. A fresh burst of weapon fire spurred her on.

Rarity ran blind into the forest, tripping over roots and rocks as she went, the pain in her back and leg almost unbearable, blood streaming down her coat. She ran until she could no longer hear the sound of gunfire, slowed to a limping trot and then collapsed onto the ground. She would have cried if she hadn't dropped down in unconsciousness.
***

Bezzro’Max strode through the carnage. He was quite pleased, the former humans made excellent shock troops. The pathetic creatures of this world could actually fight them it seemed, just not very well.

Twelve of them had been badly wounded, eight killed, and still none of these ponies had escaped. One, a mare with a torn off wing was trying to crawl away as she sobbed gently. Bezzro’Max took his time crushing her beneath his hoof.

One of his lieutenants, a cacodemon, floated down and waited patiently for the sounds of whimpering and cracking bone to die away. The creature always looked like it was grinning anyways, but it always enjoyed the sound of some pathetic creature trying to come to grips with its slow painful death.

“You report?” Bezzro’Max drawled as he looked for his next victim.

The cacodemon spoke in an unpleasant watery voice. “One of the creatures escape Ser, it killed one of the maggots and fled into the forest.”

The hell knight grinned. “Let it run, I know what’s in those woods.”

The cacodemon chuckled, a truly unpleasant sound. “What shall we do next ser? I understand the village this transport came form is only a day’s march away.”

The hell knight arched an eyebrow “where did you get that information?”

“One of the ponies was most cooperative, and also delicious. The place is called Ponyville I believe.”

Bezzro’Max glanced around, his minions were dragging the soft, pathetic creatures from the wreckage of their train. Many were still alive, most of them were screaming. “There is no rush” he said “bring me a young one, and tell the imps to take their time.”
***

The kick caught Rarity on the chin, forcing her back across the concrete floor. It had been a desperation tactic from her opponent, a tan earth pony mare, her gi spattered with her blood and one eye swollen shut, had really needed the respite from Rarities assault.

Rarity and the mare watched each other in silence for a moment. Rarity wondered what the girl’s reason for being here was. Was it the money like Rarity? Or was it pride? Honor? To prove herself for some lover or relative? In all of her fights no one had ever stopped and conveniently given a monologue about their motivation, she sort of wished that they would.
***

Rarity stirred back into wakefulness, her entire body wracked with cold, sharp pain from the cuts on her back, and a larger burning pain from her hip where the projectile from the monster’s strange weapons had grazed her.

Something had awoken her, something grunting and growling.

She forced herself to her hooves, shaking as she rose. She caught a glimpse of it, and for a moment thought of the various monsters from the Everfree Forest. Manticores, hydras, timber wolves and worse things stalked that place. She was a long way from the Everfree now, and she suddenly wished she’d paid attention to all of Twilight’s chatter about obscure monsters.

This thing had been pink and fleshy.

Ponies are by and large a resilient species. They can take an astounding amount of physical abuse and as a rule tend to heal quickly. Thus Rarity was able to get moving despite the blood pouring down her back.

Canterlot was burning. She’d seen it just before all this horrible mess had happened. What if there are more of those, those things there she thought. What if… images of atrocities flashed into her mind. She saw her friends, the strong and self reliant Apple Jack, the brash Rainbow Dash, the sweet Fluttershy, the happy Pinkie Pie and awkward, intelligent Twilight Sparkle falling into the monster’s hands and shook her head to chase away the thoughts. Surely the Princesses would be able to hold off the invaders. True Celestia had been defeated by Chrysalis, and had sent her and her friends to the crystal empire to deal with Sombra, and had been utterly absent for the fight against Discord and nopony quite agreed on where she had been when Nightmare Moon had returned, but surely she had the power to stop these things?

Rarity steeled her nerves. She had to get to Canterlot, whatever was in her way. Her friends would need her.

Rarity actually made it a few steps before a new thought hit her. What about Ponyville? What about her sister? Rarity shut down the thought of the monsters getting Sweetie Belle in their clutches, because there is only so much horror the pony mind is prepared to contemplate. Should she go back? That would mean heading back towards the beasts that had ambushed the train, but Rarity knew she couldn't live with herself if she allowed these fiends to get Sweetie.

Behind the bedraggled, bloodied and bruised white unicorn the beast crept, it’s tiny piggy eyes glowing red and drool streaming from its gaping maw. The creature understood few things, as the prince had considered brains an unimportant detail when shaping the brutes. Their main urge was to eat, but even their unfillable gullets had to be satisfied eventually. This brute had enjoyed a large meal recently, and had eventually killed the manticore cub when it accidentally spilled too much blood, so now it was looking for something new to play with.

It leapt with a terrible grunting roar, savoring the thought of pain to come.

Frozen with indecision Rarity felt an old memory stir up in her mind. Her old master, Black Belt.

It would have amazed her friends that the delicate and lady like Rarity had been the student of somepony like Black Belt, a crusty, eternally drunk old stallion, but Rarity knew that was mostly an act, a lesson she had taken to heart.

“The easiest way to win a fight” he’d said in between swigs from the massive jug he carried everywhere “is to never have a fight. Convince everypony that you are harmless and you will always be able to pick your battles, to make the first strike, the one they never see coming…” and after this had rambled off on one of his slightly mad rants about the purity of bodily essence.

It was a different conversation that came to her mind. As part of her training he’d asked her what she would do if faced with a decision to save one pony or many, had gone through six or seven different scenarios with her to. At the time Rarity hadn’t known what to say, hadn’t known what to do. Then he’d whapped her on the back of skull and said “that’s the worst answer cupcake!” though he’d softened his tone a bit when he saw the tears welling in her young eyes. He’d looked away from her and stared out at the field where they trained “the worst thing you could ever do is nothing. You have to make the choice or everypony dies. So make the choice.”

A nightmarish roar sounded out behind her and Rarity spun, adrenal glands pushing a fresh load into her blood, and saw a repulsive bipedal creature, seemingly a lump of raw pink flesh, it’s massive frog like mouth dripping with blood and a pair of bull like horns protruding from the side of its head.

The unicorn juked left and as the creature snapped down at her rolled to the right, sending fresh agony up from her leg. She balanced on three legs and lashed out with all of her muscle and weight with her unwounded leg into the side of the pink monster’s knee, and was rewarded with an unpleasant clicking sound.

The thing scrabbled away with a howl of agony, before turning and glaring at her with murderous red eyes.

Rarity planted all four of her legs, snorted and pawed the ground, making as if to charge the beast. Again it fell into her trap as it bolted towards her, thinking to overwhelm its smaller prey through sheer weight, and this time Rarity seized both of its horns in her telekinetic grip and slammed them downward with all of her might towards the ground.

She felt cold and numb. She was shaking. Rarity couldn’t keep this game going forever and she knew it. The thing was already recovering from its fall, and the only thing Rarity had managed to do was make it favor one leg.

Something caught her eye, the strange weapon the ape-like monster had used. She’d dragged it with her when she’d fled the slaughter, and now…

Well it did resemble a crossbow. You just pointed the business end at something and pulled the trigger yes?

Silently she pulled the weapon towards her, never taking her eyes off of the monster.

The thing leapt, Rarity swung the weapon up, there was a sickening crunch, and a deafening bang and most of the back of the monster’s skull exploded. The weapon’s barrel had been right in the monster’s path and it had been jammed right into one of the thing’s horrible red eyes.

Rarity knew this because now the dead thing was collapsed on top of her, blood falling from the ruined socket, splattering onto her face and purple mane.

Making horrified, disgusted noise, Rarity slowly extricated herself from beneath the demon’s carcass. She deplored violence, and now, now she’d killed. She’d killed again.

“The worst thing to do is nothing” her master’s words echoed in her head again. Rarity made her decision.

She was going to save everypony.

Author's Note

Oh yeah, kung fu Rarity up in this bitch! Reading over this thing again its going to need more work than I though, especially on the formatting. I'll come back to the first few chapters for rewriting and such when I'm done with chapter 5 (as of this writing I'm about a third of the way done with chapter 4).