My Little Pony: Flank Deep in the Dead

Chapter 2: The Great Train Massacre

The thoughts of a former human are hard to understand under the best of circumstances. These wretched creatures were souls locked in undead, regenerating bodies that had been tormented far beyond the breaking point of any sane mind. Most when they finally broke, just sort of caved in on themselves, a spiritual catatonia that left them still and pliant, unwilling to move or think. At this time the demons usually just tossed the carcass onto a pit and pulled a leg off or an organ out if they wanted a quick snack, but sometimes the souls broke in more useful ways.

The bald, shotgun carrying human standing on the edge of the forest, unloading shells towards the Pegasus to make it crawl towards a patch of nasty looking thorns had every emotion but hate burned out of him. It choked his throat like bile, all he wanted was to make things suffer, preferably demons, but that wasn’t possible, so the soft creatures here would have to do. Everything was a hot buzzing haze of hate and bloodlust, so when another one of the creatures, it’s purple mane matted to her body with blood and tangled with sticks and leaves emerged, the former human took no note of the assault rifle hovering near by her.

Rarity took one look at the scene before her, the burning train, the ponies strung up, mutilated or tossed into burning piles while still alive. The horrible bald headed ape firing at a pale green Pegasus mare who’s right wing had been torn off and rear legs reduced to ruins of broken bones and torn flesh. She snarled in righteous fury and pointed her stolen weapon directly at the ape thing’s face and pulled the trigger.

The former human’s head exploded in a shower of gore as the bullets tore through it, blood pumping from the stump in great gushing spurts.

More of the things turned, there were perhaps two dozen of them. Some were brown and covered in bony spikes, but most resembled the creature she had just slain, hollow eyed hairless apes in armor and carrying those strange weapons. There were two others, one a massive thing with nut brown skin, goat legs and horns, the other a floating red orb with a massive toothy maw and a single blue eye.

The massive, goat legged one was seated on an over turned passenger car like it was a park bench. It smiled. “Oh good, some spirit at last” it rumbled and idly gestured towards her with a single clawed hand “do not kill her, but make sure she screams prettily for me.”

Rarity charged before the monsters did, nimbly ducking beneath the legs of one of the ape things, and aiming her weapon at its back squeezing out three shots that punched through its flimsy green armor like tissue paper. She bolted to the side as one of the brown spiky ones leapt towards her with a pig like squeal and slammed the butt of the weapon into its jaw. The thing went over backwards spewing blood and broken teeth, but two more of the apes were already staggering towards her with a deceptively fast shamble, one holding down on the trigger trying to heard her towards the other which had some kind of wicked looking knife in its hand. The knife went flying as Rarity fired at it, most of the shots going wide but at least one hitting the hand and blowing most it off.

Rarity launched herself in a flying tackle with a battle cry of “take this you uncouth brutes!” and smashed the barrel of her weapon into the thing’s face and pulled the trigger.

There was a click and nothing happened. Rarity stared at the weapon uncomprehending for a second, and then something planted a nasty kick into her ribs and sent her sprawling.

It was one of the ape things, and it leveled the weapon at Rarity, the barrel looking like a tunnel as it aimed first at her head and then down towards her foreleg. Rarity rolled away just as it fired, and leapt forward as it pulled back on some kind of slide on the weapon, she lashed out with a snap kick into the creatures instep and felt bone break beneath her hoof, sending the thing down where a quick strike to the throat crushed its windpipe, and she snatched up its weapon with her mind, barely dodging a sudden fireball and a slash from one of the brown spiny creatures which she parried by placing the barrel of her new weapon right by the thing’s knee and pulling the trigger.

This weapon bucked more than the last one had, even steadied with telekinesis it nearly flew from her grip. She remembered what the former owner of the weapon had done and pulled back on the grip beneath the barrel, making a satisfying click clack sound and spitting out a cartridge. Rarity made a mental note that should she survive this little gamble of hers, to study these weapons more closely.

For now she blasted another ape, this one unclothed, and armed with a wicked looking hatchet in the chest, and bashed the screeching monster she’d kneecapped in the head as hard as she could with one of her good legs. She repeated this until there was an ugly cracking sound and the beast went still.

Blood sprayed and she felt a smack in her fore leg, which collapsed under her spilling Rarity to the ground. She barely rolled out of the way as one of the brown creatures made a swipe at her neck and unloaded another shot that went wide.

“How dull” the voice came from the brown, goat legged monster “honestly if this is the best your species can offer I can’t say you’re going to be much fun” the creature grinned down at her “though you are tight enough to at least be pleasurable.”

Several response offered themselves up to Rarity. Had this been just some jerk she would have risen handily to the occasion, naming all of his faults and insulting his dress sense[1] however this did not seem germane at the time. Also, she was extremely angry, in the same sense that a bundle of dynamite is extremely explosive. She elected to pull back on the pump again, and shoot the monster right in front of her, then charge the goat legged one while screaming.

“I think you annoyed it ser” said the floating one.

The goat legged monster yawned “deal with it Calthoshek, she bores me now.”

The thing swooped down directly into Rarities path, she fired the weapon at it, and then the thing flinched, snarled and spat out a crackling ball of blue energy that caught Rarity right in the chest.

The blast bowled her over backwards, and Rarity shrieked in agony. When she was barely more than a filly she’d broken a leg quite badly during her martial arts training. This new pain was a thousand times worse, it felt like her nerve endings had been flayed open.

She hit the ground in a heap, and dimly she fell back into blackness.
***

Rarity reeled at the blows the earth pony mare was raining down upon her, trying desperately to regain the advantage. A sharp, stabbing pain in her side told her that at least one of the ribs was cracked, maybe broken. She couldn’t see out of one eye because of the blood leaking from the cut just below her mane.
***

The unicorn was trying to rise again. How was it still alive?! The cacodemon thought. He had blasted the wretched beast at least four times, and each time it had tried to get up again. By now its organs should have liquefied and its large blue eyes burst.

Then its head snapped up and Calthoshek looked into its clear blue eyes and for the first time in thousands of years felt fear.
***

The kick was beautiful and graceful, describing a perfect arc from the ground to her opponent, all of the things that had first drawn a young Rarity to martial arts. A choreographer would have sold his soul to direct just one such kick in a life time of arranging fight scenes in martial arts films.

Everything was perfectly clear, everypony in the stadium held their breath in awe, and it was later suggested that Rarity’s opponent, Sapphire Stone, failed to defend against the kick precisely because it was such a magnificent attack.

For the rest of her life, Rarity cursed herself that Sapphire hadn't defended.

The blow connected to the side of the earth pony’s neck with a terrible crack, the shock of impact travelling up Rarities leg and in that instant she knew that she had won.
***

The cacodemon let out blast after blast at the unicorn to no avail. Every soul present, demon or pony watched in awe.

Rarity was catching every blast in a telekinetic grip, the magic radiating from the orbs sending waves of shocking pain down her horn and making her teeth vibrate as she bit down and ground them together.

She was on three legs now, and forcing her badly wounded hind leg up, trying to make it take the weight. Twilight would have done better she knew, the purple unicorn, now alicorn had amazing versatility with her magic, however Rarity had always prided herself on her more delicate spell work. It took a lot of skill to sew with telekinesis, about as much as it took to force the five-

The cacodemon fired off another blast at her.

-make that six balls of malevolent magic into a single massive orb, and then into a lance of magic power that blasted across the field.

Calthoshek barely dodged the lance which set the grass on fire and liquefied the arm off of a former human which shrieked in agony and was subsequently crushed by one of the Hell Knight’s massive hooves when it staggered to close to it.

The cacodemon stared at the white unicorn in horror. That should not have been possible, nor should the fact the lance of magic made two abrupt 90 degree turns and struck Calthoshek in the back.

The red, orb like cyclopean demon glowed briefly white and blue, tried to scream, and then exploded, raining chunks of blubbery blue gore on the ground and ruined train cars, and sprayed blood in every direction.

Bezzro’Max dropped down to the ground with an elephantine bellow and reared up to his full fifteen feet of height. “KILL HER! RAPE HER! TEACH THIS WHELP WHAT IT MEANS TO DEFY A TRUE LORD OF HELL!”

Butterscotch Stripe trembled in his hiding place. He’d survived, hidden in one of the sleep compartments, but unable to escape as every time he had glanced up from his hiding place he’d seen the monsters still there, still chasing down and butchering ponies.

There’d been a mass of explosions, screams roars and howls a few moments ago. Apparently somepony was fighting back outside, by Tartarus it sounded like a whole platoon of Celestia’s heavy guard was outside, but only after the enormous goat legged demon had issued its furious command had he dared to take a glance out.

He couldn't spot the pony at first, she blended in too well with gore, but he saw her as one of the armored ape like creature went down after a masterful kick from the unicorn mare shattered its skull.

She was drenched in blood from head to hoof, and her blue eyes blazed with a fury the likes of which he’d never seen before. Her mane and tail were a tangled mess, plastered to her body with gore, and as she ripped the arms from the sockets of one of the brown spiny creatures with her telekinetic grip Butterscotch Stripe thought she was the most beautiful mare he’d ever seen in his life.

Years later he would achieve a controversial fame with his painting “Venus upon the Battlefield” which was generally considered to be in bad taste, yet proved quite popular with colts of a certain age and mindset, and put a shortage upon the world supply of red paint.

Bezzro’Max hurled a fistful of green hellfire at the unicorn who yanked a former human in front of it. He howled in fury as she dodged around the burning corpse and charged him, a pair of shotguns held in her telekinetic grasp.

She blasted his minions as she approached him, and a small rational part of Bezzro’Max’s brain realized that he was rapidly running out of minions, only a handful of imps remaining, and even as he hurled another blast, which again she dodged, that handful was reduced still further as one imp now found a hole in its chest as she fired the shotgun into it at point blank range, pumped another shell into the chamber and decapitated the creature with the next shot.

Another imp died as she slammed the now empty shotgun into its chest with enough force to impale it to the side of the luggage car.

This little bitch was going to suffer, oh yes. Bezzro’Max would spit her upon his cock and burn her limbs off with hell fire. He’d break her horn off and sodomize her with it, and then when she squirmed in agony and begged for death he’d make her watch while he skinned everything she’d ever loved alive.

He reached her in a single leap and tried to catch her, but she dodged his grasping hands and delivered a scything kick into the inside of his knee, tumbling Bezzro’Max to the ground. He heard the shotgun roar again and the last of his imps gurgled pathetically.

Rarity whirled around as the last of this brute, this beast’s minions went down chocking on its shredded organs. There was no thought in her mind, just fury. This hadn’t been her plan. Rarity had wanted to get the monsters attention, to draw them away from Ponyville, but the combination of taunts, agony and the sight of dozens of innocent ponies dying or being tortured had erased that plan. These monsters had to die.

She fired wildly into the massive form of the collapsed beast. It’s knee exploded in a shower of blood and bone, a pothole formed in its thing, and its voice jumped several octaves as it shrieked in agony.

The horrible little cunt had just shot him in the balls. Bezzro’Max howled out in agony, and kicked out wildly with both legs, one of them caught the pony and sent her flying.

Bezzro’Max tried to stand and collapsed. His legs somehow hurt worse than his destroyed genitals, and he flailed wildly at the ground, digging up divots of earth. Every tiny movement brought him fresh agony, and one overwhelming though came to him. This couldn’t be happening.
***

It was all over. Rarity stood panting in the arena, the referee holding her forehoof in the air and announcing that she had won with a stunning and decisive blow. The cash prize of eighty thousand bits was hers, and the crowd was going wild.

Rarity should have been happy. With the money she could pay off her parent’s mortgage and finally chase down her dream of being the greatest fashionista in all of Equestria. She could bring the world beauty and style the likes of which it had never seen.

She should have been happy, but she wasn’t. Sapphire Stone wasn’t moving. The movement in her chest had slowed to a stop.

In the end Sapphire Stone’s death had been ruled accidental, a terrible tragedy, Rarity was completely innocent. That didn’t stop the nightmares though.

Ultimately, Rarity hadn’t spent any of the prize money on her dream. It was tainted in her eyes. Rarity had tried to track down the earth ponies family, but never had found anyone. As it was she had been the only pony at the funeral. She’d paid for it, listened to the minister’s hollow words and after she’d left she burned her gi in the fireplace. Rarity had vowed to never raise her hooves against another living thing again.
***

Butterscotch Stripe laid his ear down against the mare’s side. He could hear her heart beat, and she was breathing. A small collection of surviving ponies, most bloody and wounded were staring at the fallen demon which had finally bled out as he’d moved about free ponies from their shackles.

There had been 89 ponies on that train. Twelve still lived, and four of them looked like they were going to drop dead at any moment.

Terror, sorrow and angered all warred for domination of Butterscotch’s heart, and right now he really wanted to cry.

The unicorn mare stirred then, letting out a short sharp gasp.

“Don’t move miss!” he looked over his shoulder and shouted at the survivors “she’s alive everypony!”

A white earth pony mare with a red cross shaped cutie mark approached, limping on one leg which looked badly lacerated.

Rarity stared, and then comprehension dawned “Nurse Redheart?” she whispered, her voice sounding cracked slightly.

“Yes dear, don’t move” she put a hoof on Rarity’s side as she moved to get up “you took quite a few nasty blows there.”

“How many-” Rarity started, her eyes going wide, and trying to rise again.

Nurse Redheart applied light pressure to make Rarity lie back down “no Ms Rarity, don’t think about that right now. You can’t help them, I can barely keep these ponies standing as it is.”

“But” Rarity said, forcing herself up, which shocked Nurse Redheart who actually leaned in trying to keep her from damaging herself more “I have to get to Canterlot. Those... those things, I don’t think they’re much farther along than this. Get back to ponyville. They need to know about these things.”

Redheart cut her off “half of these ponies can barely stand and you want them to march to Ponyville?!”

“Of course I don’t!” Rarity became aware of the volume of her voice, and made to soften it. “I just don’t see any other options” she cast a glance towards the forest “and I don’t think its safe here. There was something out there, another monster. It almost killed me.”

That made every pony pause.

Rarity pointed at a pair of unicorns who looked relatively unharmed, one had an eye gouged out and crudely bandaged with some torn linen, and the other had bloody claw marks dragged across her cutie mark. “You and you gather up some of their weapons, point the hollow end at any monsters you see and squeeze the trigger, they run out of shots after awhile, so take some spares.”

Nurse Redheart nodded at this “anypony else who can walk or fly gather up some sheets for bandages and litters, we’re leaving now.”

An earth pony raised his hoof timidly, too her horror, rarity saw that his foreleg was severely burned, the flesh blackened and charred “Excuse me Miss, are you coming with us?”

The hopeful look in his eyes made Rarity feel like a cad for what she said next “No, I’m sorry. I have to head to Canterlot.”

The earth pony turned his eyes towards the view of the distant city. Everypony present stared at Rarity like she was insane. Maybe I am Rarity thought.

“Are you sure Miss?” this came from a yellow and apparently unharmed earth pony.

“My friends are there” she said. “I have to help them.”

Reaching out with her mind, she lifted one of the odd pump weapons “I promise that I’ll do whatever I can to keep those beasts off of your trail” the unspoken meaning being that she would give them a more important target.

Two hours later the two relatively intact unicorns pulled guard on the forest line, while nurse Redheart saw to getting the wounded bandaged up, including Rarity.

Before they parted the nurse voiced the thought Rarity had been trying to avoid, specifically “How in the name of Celestia are you still standing?” as she bandaged the rather nasty wound on Rarity’s hind leg.

“Healthy living” Rarity replied absently, while internally worrying that the wounds would leave some very unpleasant scars.

As she walked along the train tracks the ponies all stared at her until she was out of sight. Several of them had known her from ponyville, and she’d always struck them as a bit prissy, but now... now they would always make it a point to be very polite to Rarity.

[1]It has been asked why a species that is naked by habit and custom would ever develop a fashion industry, or even insults related to said fashion industry. The truth is that the entire obsession amongst ponies regarding fashion was begun by Princess Luna roughly fifteen hundred years ago, largely because both princesses were of the opinion that the nobility needed more reasons to fight amongst themselves.