Chapter 3: Nothing left but the famous last stands

“Hold the line ponies! Don’t give the curs an inch!” Fancy Pants’ shouted as his cutlass decapitated one of the spiky brown monsters. Beside him Fluer De Lis lept and slid her rapier into the great green eye of one of the floating red beasts.

The demons had come pouring in as great shrieking hoard, welling up out of the ground from beneath Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. They had slaughtered and raped without discretion, and in the first few hours of the attack had claimed the lives of hundreds of ponies.

Surprise had served the demons well. The only place in Canterlot with any kind of organized defense left was the Castle, and aside from those who had made it to the safety of its walls the population was on its own.

Ponies however were a very tough species when cornered.

General Twerp slammed into one of the pink, fleshy demons and began to flail about, the bladed armor favored by earth ponies tearing an arm from its socket and disemboweling the creature. He snarled and bucked a second one with skull shattering force.

“We can’t hold this spot much longer!” the muscular earth pony General shouted.

Fluer De Lis gave a snort as she slashed open the throat of a shrieking ape creature and said in a Fancy[1] accent “Then we will make them pay for every inch that they claim!”

Fancy Pants’ felt his lips lift in a defiant snarl at the words from his warrior mare. She looked so beautiful splattered in blood. He felt the old rush again, back from out of the past. It was an age of death or glory where you thanked the princesses for every breath and knew the only way to survive was to throw yourself into battle with more mindless ferocity that your foes.

Something spidery chanting in a language that made the ears bleed fell beneath his cutlass, its head sailing off in an arc as viscous green fluid spurted from its neck, and another of the brown creatures was cut off at the knees, and was swiftly executed by Twerp with a brutal stomp to its skull.
***

Across the city the Wonderbolts led a chaotic blitz against the enemy. They easily dodged around the brutal blazing blue bolts fired off by the red orb like beasts, smashed through the rear of enemy lines and carried stranded and wounded ponies back to the castle. The sight was one that would bring tears of admiration to the eye of the most skilled fighter ace, and at the forefront of every charge was a rainbow maned pegasus who was rapidly becoming a priority target for the demons.

Rainbow Dash dropped into a dive and abruptly swerved ninety degrees to the right turning her momentum into a brutal kick that snapped the neck of an enormous goat legged demon and sent him toppling from the minaret he had scaled.

A hail of gunfire greeted her, and the self proclaimed fastest Pegasus alive weaved a cat’s cradle of rainbow afterimages as she dodged nearly every shot.

Spitfire, a pegasus mare with a yellow coat and a mane and tail like an open flame took the opening and rushed down, punching and kicking in every direction, scattering the demons and forcing them to shoot wildly into a melee.

Soarin flew beside Rainbow Dash and saw more blood streaming across her coat. He had to admit that he was impressed. He’d seen ponies live through some nasty wounds, usually as a result of a training mishap, but this was the first time he’d seen anypony live through being impaled twice. The mare barely seemed to notice the new wound which had clipped her shoulder.

“There’s a big cluster of civilians over at donut Joes!” he shouted to be heard over the sounds of battle.

Rainbow turned her head to him, trying to focus on him with her remaining eye and nodded before flying towards the shop as the few surviving wonderbolts joined up behind her, spitfire joining up a moment later.

How the hay am I still alive?! the Pegasus thought as she swooped low, using the rooftops for cover from ground troops.

One of the monsters had nailed her to the ground with a spear it had wrested from a guard pony, and after a brief moment passed out she’d gotten up again. It was freaky, useful but freaky.

Almost any other pony would have taken the Wonderbolts up on the offer to be flown back to the castle and left in the infirmary, but not Rainbow Dash. She’d actually fought them when they’d tried to force her to.

She would have found it difficult to put into words, but something bone deep in Rainbow snarled and rebelled at the idea of giving in. She’d die before that, die before she left anypony behind to face this monster, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to leave her idols to fight this battle alone.

Besides, Pinkie was somewhere out there, and Rainbow Dash never abandoned her friends.

Donut Joe’s shop was in sight now, getting pounded by explosive projectiles from almost a dozen armored skeleton things. The wonderbolts fanned out, and swooped in low behind the beasts, the blades affixed to their limbs held out.

Soarin struck first, neatly bisecting one of the things which let out an unearthly scream as it toppled over, followed by Rainbow Dash and Spitfire.

Spitfire bore one to the ground and in a flurry of limbs and cursing tore the monster to shreds, and two other wonderbolts zoomed into the fray.

The beast Rainbow Dash was going for whirled on her with an unearthly shriek that was cut off as she sliced with her hoof blades at it, cracking the naked skull like an egg.

She glanced up from her kill and let out a scream of primal fury. A bunch of bulky pink things had torn through the shops barricade and were choking the entrance. Several had turned to face the new comers and were already charging with their bull like horns lowered.

Dash and Spitfire both dove into the melee. The first of the beasts went down after a roundhouse kick from Spitfire split its belly open and another fell after dash drove one of her blades into the top of its skull.

Behind them Saorin nimbly dodged around some of the skeletal thing’s rocket fire, launching into an uppercut that shattered the jaw and split the skull, but another one of the things fired and he was tossed to the ground by the explosions, his ear ringing and pain radiating from his side.
***

Applejack forced herself to her hooves. She couldn’t die now, she wouldn’t let these monsters kill her so easily.

She sprinted forward and launched herself up into the face of the massive pink goat legged thing, ignoring the green fire that was charring her back as she did so. She slammed a hoof into its nose which resulted in a gratifying feeling of bone breaking and flesh tearing. The thing screamed as she latched onto its eye with her teeth and launched herself backwards when ichor filled her mouth.

The dark orange earth pony twisted in the air and landed on the back of a smaller pink demon, and folded her forelegs over its horns, twisting its head this way and that, causing it to bite and gore its allies.

As she wrangled the bucking, shrieking beast she scanned the horde of monsters around her.

The things were starting to break through the guards ranks now, soon they’d pile into the courtyard. Applejack saw a massively built pegasus, his gilded armor and white coat streaked with blood go down beneath one of the spiky brown creatures, and another was decapitated by an ape creature with a hatchet.

They were all going to die.

It was Celestia’s own truth, nopony was going to get out of Canterlot alive. Yes they killed scores of the monsters, but their numbers seemed endless.

One of the monsters, blinded by rage lashed out at and killed her improvised mount and Applejack dismounted with another savage kick into the melee.

So she’d die. So what? Everypony had to die one day, and if she could do it while standing on her hooves against the forces of darkness then she’d at least be able to go into the next life with her head held high.

Applejack just wished she could see her friends one last time before it happened, to hear prissy Rarity panic over getting her hooves dirty in that cute way of hers, to share a mug of cider with Rainbow Dash, to hear Pinky break into song for no explicable reason, to see Fluttershy give one of her rare smiles. As she whirled on a new monster and bucked it over the side of a balcony she thought about her family.

It was a horrifying realization that she’d never see them again, that she’d never know what Apple Bloom’s cutie mark would be.

She bucked and kicked and bit the attackers, a whirling ball of painful blunt death. Then, just as a demon forced her to the ground and Applejack drew in breath for a last defiant word a massive comet of purple energy slammed into the monster’s chest and a wave of energy blasted out from it, tossing demons and ponies to the ground.

Standing alone in the center the ring of fallen, terrified demons was Twilight Sparkle. Her face was contorted in a snarl, and her eyes glowed with a pure white light.

“Nobody hurts my friends!” she shouted, punctuating each word with a blast of magic.

Monsters scrambled over themselves to get away from her as the blasts of purple magic tore through their ranks, severing limbs and punching massive holes through their torsos. At least one was reduced to nothing but a blackened skeleton.

Applejack lay in a daze, not quite believing that the awkward, excitable alicorn she’d come to know in Ponyville was capable of vaporizing demons left and right.

Twilight’s attack had bought the defenders some breathing space, and Applejack felt hooves trying to get her back up. As she struggled up and waved off the ponies helping her up, there was a crackle in the air that made her coat stand on end as a wall of transparent purple energy formed in a bubble over the courtyard.

Before she could really gather her wits Twilight was beside her and the orange earth pony couldn’t help but notice that Twilight looked exhausted. She had deep circles under bloodshot eyes, and she seemed to sag slightly.

She realized Twilight was talking to her “Applejack! Applejack, can you hear me?”

Applejack nodded “I hear ya Twi.” She rapidly shook her head in an attempt to clear it. “That was some fancy magic ya’ll pulled off, and none too soon I reckon.”

Twilight paid no notice to the complement. “Do you know where the rest of the girls are AJ? Are... are they all still alive?”

Apple Jack hesitated, the look in Twilight’s eyes was a heartbreaking mix of hope and dread. Applejack swallowed.

“I’m sorry sugarcube, I just don’t know. I saw Fluttershy in the castle, I think she was helping the wounded, and I saw Dash take off with the wonderbolts, but I don’t know where they are now.”

As Twilight’s face fell, Applejack felt like a heel. She wished she had some comfort to offer, but there wasn’t any.

Twilight’s voice was soft “What about Pinkie Pie and Rarity?”

“Rarity was outside the city, so I think she’s gonna be ok. As for Pinkie...”

She paused searching for words. “Pinkie was out in the city Twi. I don’t think she made it.”

Twilight was quiet for a long time, then she looked back up at Applejack, her face streaked with tears. “I have to go Applejack. The Princess needs my help to stop this at its source.”

A cold, ugly feeling began in Applejack’s gut. “What ain’t ya tellin me Twi?”

“We can’t find Discord” Twilight shifted uncomfortably as she said it “and the princesses are under some kind of magical attack, they can’t use magic, not without a lot of pain.”

Applejack sighed. “This is gonna get a whole lot worse isn’t it Twi? Tell me the truth now.”

They’d attracted an audience. The surviving guards were all standing around the two mares, paying rapt attention. Twilight looked from Applejack, blood caking the side of her face, to the mauled and mutilated guards behind her. “I don’t... I don’t think we’re going to win AJ.”

Applejack nodded solemnly as Twilight took wing again and flew up towards the castle. She bit back on her rage. There had been no small part of her that held out hope that the princesses would have had something in store, or that they could count on the supposedly reformed Discord, but no such luck.

She turned and looked at the guards behind her. “Y'all heard her. Ain’t no reason for you to stay here, maybe if you’re quick and lucky you can get out of the city. Me? I’m stayin right here.”

None of them left. They used the time Twilight had bought them to take up better positions, and Applejack was fitted with the heavy bladed guards on her hooves that were the earth pony’s favored weapon.

As the force field fell and the monsters resumed their advance, Apple Jack snarled and charged. Her last thought before all conscious thought was burned from her mind by the melee was Like hay I’m gonna make it easy for them!
***

It was all over now, at least for this little skirmish. Only Rainbow Dash, Spitfire and Soarin had survived it. All three of them were utterly drenched in blood and gore.

Rainbow Dash stood inside of Donut Joe’s shop now, and felt like she had swallowed a stone. The ponies that had taken refuge here had been slaughtered. Blood and viscera was splashed on every surface, some even dripping down from the ceiling.

Soarin stood stock still beside her, they’d seen the terrible things the monsters did to their victims, but this was the first time that they hadn’t been able to save anypony.

Spitfire was the first to speak up. “We can’t do anything here. We should leave before more of those things show up.”

Dash wanted to scream, wanted to kick something, possibly Spitfire for just how cold she had sounded.

Then they heard something, a soft gasping sound, like somebody trying to muffle their sobs.

“Is somepony there?” Rainbow Dash inquired, desperation showing in her voice.

Everything was quiet for a moment then a small, soft voice, cracked from crying called out “Dashy?”

Pinkie Pie shuffled out from behind the smashed countertop where she had been hiding, limping badly as she went. Dash could see a deep, ugly wound on her hind leg, a curving slash right across her cutie mark, and Dash felt her teeth grind. It had to have been deliberate.

The rage which had been building inside Rainbow Dash from the moment these murderous things had emerged into her world and hurt her people boil over. They’d pay. They’d all pay. Every last one of these sadistic monster would die for this, even if she had to drag herself across the universe and back to do it. She’d grind their bones to powder, rip out their throats with her teeth, crush their skulls beneath her hooves rip and tear their guts out she’d-

Rainbow Dash was broken from her murderous reverie by the feeling of Pinkie putting her forelegs around her neck and felt the pink earth pony sobbing into her blood drenched rainbow mane.

Rainbow Dash returned the hug, and felt like crying herself.

“Dashy... I want to go home.” Pinkies voice was choked and soft, barely a whisper.

“We will Pinkie” Dash promised “We’re all going to go home and it will be like none of this ever happened.”

Spitfire coughed, and Rainbow Dash shot her a slightly murderous look. Spitfire averted her gaze guiltily, but still said “We should get back to the castle. We’re all wounded, we’re all exhausted, and its only a matter of time before more of those things show up.”

Dash almost lost her cool, almost told Spitfire how she didn’t know how she’d ever looked up to her, Dash almost demanded to know how Spitfire could be so cold about all of this, but the feeling of pinkies tears washing small tracts of blood and filth off of her mane and coat strangled the hate and bile in her throat.

Rainbow Dash nodded in acknowledgement and they left the bloody shop behind.
***

Almost thirty years ago Fancy Pants had been Sergeant at Arms Fancy Pants, serving under Colonel Twerp. They had been on the border patrol, it being necessary along the borders of the splintered and constantly warring griffon nation states. In general it was a dull job, mostly stamping the passports of traders and trying to sort the inevitable spies out from the hordes of refugees that came streaming across the border every time some griffon princeling decided he was the hereditary ruler of his neighbors and thus invaded.

He now recalled the first famous last stand he’d been involved in. He generally tried to suppress that memory. The griffon bandits, a deserter company from one of the mercenary armies, had been half starved and poorly armed, yet had refused all offers of surrender. They had pillaged and burned several settlements on both sides of the border, and would have pillaged and burned more if left unstopped.

Fancy Pants still recalled the mad look in the eyes of a griffon crossbow soldier as it tried to bash in his head even as Fancy Pants ran it through.

He gave a bitter little laugh as he felt his own deep, probably deadly wounds. When I get to Tartarus he thought I’m going to buy that griffon a drink.
Twerp stood beside him, and somehow looked worse. Half of the stallions jaw was gone, and one eye swollen shut and choked with blood from a massive wound in his scalp. A dozen puckered holes marred his side, all leaking a steady stream of blood.

None of this stopped the massive earth pony general from caving in the head of a demon four times his size.

Fleur still fought as well, her mane and tail scorched and her body now scored with claw marks. With a flourish she sank her rapier up to the hilt in a monster’s eye socket as she kicked out at another attacker.

Realizing he wasn’t pulling his weight, Fancy Pants dodged the green fireballs hurled by an enormous goat legged beast and whipped his cutlass across the beast’s hamstrings, then plunged it between the vertebrae when it fell howling to the ground.

It was only a matter of time now, the three couldn’t hold out much longer.

General Twerp went down first, the demons believing him the most dangerous target. At least his death looked to be instantaneous, a rocket fired by a fat, repulsive monster had hit him square in the chest, and after the explosion nothing was left above the hips.

That monster fell soon after, Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis carving open its horrible belly with their blades, but soon the two were forced flank to flank.

“I believe this is the end my love!” Fancy Pants shouted over the din.

“So it would seem dear!” she parried the claw strike of one monster and slid her blade into its ribcage with pinpoint precision “I have but one last request before the end.”

“Name it!” Fancy Pants performed a neat dance with his blade, severing a demon’s head and showering them both in warm blood.

“Do not allow these creatures the pleasure of finishing me!”

For a long while there was nothing but the crash and din of the battle.

“Fancy Pants?” Fleur said as she narrowly avoided the axe wielded by one monster.

“Will you grant me the same requested?” He finally responded.

“Of course my love!”

Reaching deep inside, Fancy Pants called up his magic and sent out a shockwave that pushed back the horde for a moment.

“Then let us go to eternity together!”

The two unicorns kissed the sweetest kiss of their lives. As he melted into her, Fancy Pants felt a pinprick of cold pain in his chest. He looked down. Right through the heart, she always did have brilliant aim with that thing.
As thought faded and the world went black he returned the kindness to his wife. They embraced, and fell into the darkness together.
***

Fluttershy stood by a guard pony, and held his hoof in hers as the poor soul breathed his last. She’d done what she could to make his last few moments comfortable, even if all that had been was not letting him die alone.

She released the hoof and pulled a white sheet up over the dead pegasus’s head.

All around her the impromptu hospital was swarming with activity. Ponies in white robes and caps with red crosses on them rushed about, but they couldn’t do much more than bandage the wounded.

Fluttershy felt so useless. She wasn’t a fighter, she knew that if she went out and tried to help Applejack or Rainbow Dash she’d just get in the way and probably get one of them killed. If these ponies had been bunnies or mice instead she might have been able to help them, but all that she could was bandage their wounds and stay by the side of the dying.

A new batch of ponies were being helped in. There was a pegasus with one wing torn off, an earth pony who with all of his legs broken, brought in by a pair of guards who had made a stretcher out of a curtain.

Fluttershy and two other nurses bandaged the wounds, and brought the new comers over to an unoccupied section of floor.

She hoped her friends were alright. They were all so tough and brave that they all had to be alive, and if she told herself that enough, then maybe eventually she would believe it.

Nopony knew what had happened to the Princesses, all three had been up in Celestia’s chamber when the attack had begun, and when the guard had tried to reach it the ones at the front had died, torn to shreds by some kind of magical field that crackled with red energy.

The guard who had brought this news had died twenty minutes ago, bled out from internal injuries.

There was shouting just outside the room, and Fluttershy tensed, expecting at any moment the monsters to burst through and slaughter them all.

When the doors were opened, four ponies staggered in, two of them in blood splattered Wonderbolt uniforms.

All four of them were wounded, Fluttershy dimly recognized Spitfire, who had applied a rough bandage to a large wound on her side, and Soarin who, to Fluttershy’s and probably his horror, had lost most of his right foreleg.

The other two was a pegasus covered from head to tail in blood and gore, one of her eyes gone, and her body covered in ugly scratches with two large puckered holes on her side, and a dark pink earth pony who’s mane and tail hung limply to the floor and whose flank was marred over with an ugly gouge right over her cutie mark.

Recognition dawned, and Fluttershy had to strangle a horrified gasp.

She rushed over to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.

“Girls you’re alive!” she embraced them both

Rainbow Dash gave a tired smile “it’ll take more than a few ugly monsters to kill me Shy.”

Her voice sounded weak, and the blood stained rainbow maned mare fell limp in her friend’s hooves. Pinkie helped Fluttershy get her out of the way, and as Fluttershy bandaged her friend, Pinkie told her what had happened.

The pink mare’s voice was flat and trembled as she spoke, recounting how she and perhaps a dozen other ponies had barricaded the donut shop after barely fighting off the first wave of monsters.

At first Pinkie had done what she could to keep spirits up, never an easy task when ponies were placed in such a tight, dangerous situation. She’d tried to laugh at the danger, but her enthusiasm had quickly died when a mare who’d barely made it in had torn into her. The mare had been acting out of grief, probably hadn’t meant all the horrible things she’d said to Pinkie. Her name had been Sunflower Sarsaparilla and she’d seen her husband and young colt torn to pieces in the initial assault.

None of the other ponies barricaded in Donut Joe’s had survived. The monsters had taken their time killing everypony inside, even as the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash had fought their way in the horrible things had refused to fight back, not while they still had weak and defenseless ponies to kill. Pinkie had barely escaped in the chaos, hiding under a smashed counter.

She’d found Donut Joe’s head staring at her, and she’d been forced to sit there, staring into the blank horror that was frozen on the mutilated face.

“I tried... I tried to be brave” the sad pink pony said.

Pinkie began to cry, slow and soft.
***

Celestia’s chambers were ordinarily a pleasant place. They were large and airy, with huge windows to let in the light, and there always seemed to be a warm breeze flowing through the room.

From her resting place Luna considered that is she lived through this, both she and her sister would likely never set hoof in the damned room again.

It now felt stifling, like a cage too small for its occupant to turn around in, the black magic forcing them inside an ever shrinking circle, and both princesses knew that once the alien force reached them they would be powerless.

They’d been able to brute force a hole into the spell earlier, allowing young Twilight Sparkle to slip out and aid in Canterlot’s defense, but in doing so they had allowed the dark magic to enter their minds for just a second.

Luna had felt something burst in her head when that had happened, and now she lay on her side in a mound of pillows, trying not to think about the wetness leaking out of her ears, or the way even attempting to use magic made her taste blood.

Celestia was if anything faring worse than Luna, keeping the dark magic from completely overwhelming them both, but at great cost.

Luna could see the blood streaming down her sister’s, from the noble mare’s ears, nose and eye sockets. Celestia’s eyes had burst after a while.

Black veins had begun to form on the white Alicorn’s horn, worming their way down like blood poisoning.

Luna felt an old and terrible emptiness return to her. She’d felt it when banished as Nightmare Moon, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that drowned thought.

Its not fair the Princess of the Moon thought I didn’t even get a chance for redemption...

There was a noise like a crack of thunder and Celestia let out a scream. Fragments of bone rained and the noble princess of the sun collapsed, the stump of her horn gushing blood that stained the flowing pastel rainbow of her mane.

“Sister...” Luna whispered, she tried to rise, and felt her entire nervous system light itself on fire.

Somehow the dark blue Alicorn was able to drag herself over to her fallen sister who lay panting on the floor.

“Luna?” Celestia’s voice sounded broken, all the maternal calm that normally suffused it torn apart by the agony.

“I’m here sister.” Luna leaned her head against Celestia’s neck, and hoped that the contact would bring her some comfort.

“Did...” Celestia shuddered as she spoke. She felt so cold... “did Twilight escape?”

“Yes sister, the fate of Equestria lies with her now.”

“Canterlot will fall Luna.”

Luna said nothing. Forty thousand ponies lived in Canterlot, maybe a thousand of them had managed to escape the city.

Something was wrong. The dark magic had beaten them both, so why weren’t they dead yet? Luna could still feel it flowing through the room like a rancid oily liquid, but it wasn’t flowing towards them. It was pouring into a single spot in front of the windows.

“Luna?” Celestia sounded so weak now.

“I’m here sister. I won’t leave you.”

“We can’t let them have Canterlot. We can’t save it, but we won’t let them have it either. Do you understand?”

There was a weight in Luna’s stomach. “I understand sister.”

“I can’t... I can’t feel my magic anymore. I can’t do it.”

“Then I will.”

Luna reached out for her magic, pain lancing through her mind. She felt, grasped it and pushed aside the pain as well as she could even as the blood boiled in her veins.

The oily black magic clung to her thoughts as Luna prepared the last spell she would ever cast.
***

Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns was not the large, impressive campus that most ponies pictured when they first head of it. It didn’t have to be, the prestige of the school was enough on its own, needing no ivy covered facade to convince one of its importance.

Twilight remembered it as being a quiet place (barring the occasional magical explosion or twelve) where she had for the first time in her life felt as if she was truly where she belonged in the world. It had taught her the simple joy of learning, imparted upon her a love of knowledge for its own sake, and now it was a bloodbath.

Twilight crouched down on the roof of a nearby building, trying to think invisible thoughts as demons swarmed out of the campus. It almost reminded her of an anthill, and maybe if she thought of it that way she could keep from screaming.

Somewhere in the bloodsoaked halls was the source of this invasion. All Twilight had to do was somehow sneak past the hoard.

As it turned out, stealth would not be an option for Twilight.
***

Down amidst the swarming masses of demonic beasts a former human howled out his fury. It wasn’t directed against anything in particular, he had the sort of directionless homicidal hatred that belongs to the truly broken and mad. All he knew was that he wanted the human next to him to die, and for the demon cracking the whip back in the pit to herd them up the burning path to this world to die, and for the small, soft creatures in this world, so happy and innocent to scream and suffer like he had.

So when he had the rocket launcher forced into his hands and was told to run up and kill every living creature he encountered or he would spend a millenium being turned outside again he began itching for a chance to see blood not belonging to him for a change.

So as soon as a target had presented itself the creature fired and Twilight leapt from the building in a panic.
***

Twilight threw up a shield and jumped just before the projectile hit, a dome of energy that flared up bright purple as it absorbed the explosion and deflected shards of wood and stone.

The shield flared up again and again as a hail of weapons fire and magical projectiles slammed into it again and again, the purple alicorn drew in her power and her will, then her eyes flaring white wrapped them around herself and drew a line of sight towards the monsters closest to the entrance. Her target in sight, she took a deep breath and then charged towards the crowd at roughly a thirty degree angle.

She was really rather proud of the spell, it was simple tweak to the teleportation one she had mastered back when Nightmare Moon had reappeared. Technically it was much less efficient over the short distance than the doorway in space time she conjured up for the original spell, this was more analogous to taking a speeding train. She’d developed it at Celestia’s recommendation as it was considerably better at moving long distances.

It also had other applications as Twilight had found when she’d accidentally leveled a fortunately uninhabited house in Ponyville as well as several nearby trees nearby when she’d first begun testing it.

The effect on the demon directly targeted was that the enormous flabby brown creature more or less exploded as Twilight became pure energy for a half second, accelerated to an appreciable fraction of light speed and returned in a burst of pink white magic somewhere in the creature’s upper torso.

Blood and gore rained down as a shock wave of magic radiated out bowling over everything standing in about a twenty foot radius.

The next spell was tricky because Twilight was improvising on the fly. She closed her eyes and concentrated as the swarming demons in around her either pulled themselves to their feet or succumbed to infighting as friendly fire triggered a lot of barely restrained tempters and sadistic impulses.

It was all heavy lifting, striving to worm her magic into position to lift several hundred thousand pounds, gather it all into herself and then release it all on a relatively small target.

For a few seconds everything on the street outside the school was lifted up weightless, everything that is but a cylinder around Twilight where the demons suddenly found themselves subject to every bit of gravitational force that Twilight had syphoned.

With the monsters behind her now a confused mess and mostly tearing into one another given their lack of other targets and the fact that most of them hadn’t seen Twilight till her explosive entry, she now only had to deal with the handful directly in front of her (and Celestia only knew how many more inside waiting to tear her limb from limb, but Twilight could burn that bridge when she came to it).

Heat built in her horn as she tried to gather the power for her next strike while at the same time keeping a shield up to deflect the attacks from the handful of remaining monsters and the dozen more she could see framed by the doorway of the school.

The heat built slowly, rising from a low unpleasant burn to white hot agony but Twilight gathered still more power even as bolts of green lightning, balls of fire, bullets and rockets smashed against the shield. She didn’t charge until she smelled smoke and felt a sensation of pins and needles inside of her skull.

As she charged she reshaped the shield before, changing it from a dome to a wedge of raw magical force. In the last instant before she made contact she poured all of the magic she had gathered into a burst of unnatural speed.

The impact shattered bones and pulped flesh, Twilight had formed the wedge perfectly to match the height and width of the doors. Some of the demons outside would survive, but all the one just inside the small entry wall were swept up and either ground against the wall, ceiling or floor, until Twilight hit the far wall and the impact crushed and ripped apart the few demons that lived through the initial impact.

Twilight didn’t stop, a long drawn out fight looking for the source of this invasion while slogging through halls and classrooms choked with dead foals was not a good idea she had decided.

She blasted through walls with a force that killed demons on the other side before they’d even had a chance to be crushed by the plow of energy she pushed before her. Chairs and desks snapped and were annihilated beneath the onslaught, corpses she didn’t have the strength to look at exploded into bloody pulp and in a few rooms the ceiling collapsed, dropping the room above onto the survivors of Twilight’s passage.

Sooner or later she would run out of magic or find what she was looking for. As luck would have it she did both.

The last wall gave way, not in a final climactic burst of flying splinters and magic, but with a dull crack. There was only a small fractured hole down towards the bottom as the magic faded. Twilight’s head felt like somepony had scattered a small box of thumbtacks inside and then carefully rolled her brain around until it had an even coating.

Something wet dripped down her muzzle and a quick lick confirmed that she’d sprung a nasty nose bleed. There were no demons here in this hall, at least no living ones she realized as glanced at the pulped and mangled forms she’d been forcing ahead of her, but she could hear the bellows of rage and hate everywhere and knew that pursuit couldn’t be far behind. That was important for reasons she couldn’t quite remember and her head felt really dizzy now. Maybe she should just lay down and let whatever was causing that racket sort itself out.

Twilight shook her head. She couldn’t afford to think like that now. Escape was the important thing, she crouched down to the hole she’d knocked in the wall. It looked big enough for a pony to crawl through.

On the other side was what had been the school's auditorium. Twilight fondly recalled many lectures on magic that she’d attended here. Like the rest of the school it was a bloodsoaked mess now. Corpses lay everywhere, most horrifically mutilated and most .

Twilight turned her head and felt the urge to be sick. It was never a good thing to see a corpse, but the corpse of foals held a special revulsion to her.

The air in the room was a thick miasma of smoke and the stench of spilled gore. She slipped behind a pile of smashed chairs and glanced out. There were no demons here, just a great smashed hole in the center, just before the stage.

Twilight crept forward as slowly and silently as she could till finally she was at the edge of the hole and looked down. into the schools basement.

A fiery pit stared back at her, a great gaping wound in the earth. She could see forms writhing hypnotically in its depths, it took an effort of will on her part to force her gaze away from it.

When she finally managed to avert her eyes Twilight’s gaze fell onto its borders and she solved another mystery. Laying in a circle around the massive hole was Discord, most of him anyways. The draconequus’ head was missing, and his body gutted. A technicolor nightmare of blood had been sprayed from the body in every color imaginable.

Twilight was so engrossed in the horror, her mouth locked in a silent scream that she only barely saw the massive red hand emerge from the pit, and only barely had time to dodge out of the way as the most massive demon yet hauled itself out of the pit, towering over her with barely its waist out.

The thing glared down at Twilight, who gulped and prepared for battle.
***

The Prince looked over his work and found it good, he hadn’t had this much fun in millenia. Taking a world was a lot like marriage he thought. There was the whirlwind romance of the first penetration, of taking what was yours by right well and truly. Soon though the honeymoon ended and though you were still quite happy with your bride the initial excitement was gone. You had your fun, casting the mortals into squalor and filth, peeling back their flesh and rearranging their organs in alphabetical order. Eventually though you’d notice how stretched out and tired the bride was until you were left with an old useless whore, broken and stained with sin and madly gibbering about how it would do anything so long as you stopped ripping out her fingernails.

So you found a new bride. The old one could stick around, teach the new one how to weep and suffer properly and you know that eventually like all the marriages before it you’d get bored with this one as well.

Best to live in the moment he decided, and withdrew his presence from the Royal bedroom where the dark Princess was gathering her strength. It would be interesting to see for what, he hoped it would be as entertaining as the humans setting off their nuclear weapons.

For now though it was time for foreplay.

The creeping miasma of black magic drew itself up a ways from Canterlot castle on the opposite side of the bridge leading up the place.

It really was a repulsively pleasant looking palace, all gleaming marble spires with truly awful accents of pink, purple and green. He’d have to do something about that.

He began to form himself as he observed the battle around him. So many choices, so many emotions. The fear and rage of the ponies, the mindless hate and hunger of his forces, the pain and despair of the wounded in the palace, it was thrilling.

He decided on a classical shape blended with the sensibilities of this world, and the darkness condensed itself, falling into a new shape.
***

The world dimmed as Applejack fought to dislodge one of her hoof blades from the face of a grotesque tentacled beast. She thought it was her wounds for a moment, she had lost a lot of blood recently, but then the world returned to its normal brightness.

Something was wrong, there was a new scent in the air, something foul and unidentifiable. Demons were falling back or jumping off of the bridge if they couldn’t.

Up above one of the pegasi guards called out “I see a pony on the other side!”

Immediately he flew forward as Applejack called out “Wait!” and was ignored by the dozen or so guards who bolted forward to investigate or to press the advantage on the demon’s sudden retreat. There was something very wrong here, she could feel it on a bone deep level.

When the pegasus was half way across a black, oily cloud jetted up and and surrounded him, he shrieked and a moment later plummeted down onto the bridge where he landed with an audible crunch, black fluid coated his body, and spurted and gurgled away from the corpse which was slowly collapsing into the sludge.

Across the bridge a pony strode forth. He, and it was emphatically a he, impressively so even, had a jet black coat and mane with smoldering red eyes and a cocky, imperious look on his face.

The guards did not let up the charge, the first one to meet the apparition wasn’t able to scream before his head met some sort of invisible mesh that sliced his skull into cubes an inch across. The next was hurled to the ground by an unseen force that slammed down onto and crushed his hips and legs.

The horrifying black pony looked into Applejack’s eyes then, and a sickening grin split his lips.

So this was it then? Applejack felt something oily and wicked slither across her soul, it whispered to her, hissing about her, about how she should get down on her knees before her new master and make herself of use to him, and perhaps, just perhaps her suffering would be less than the others.

Fury blossomed in her chest and the sickly whispering force burned away. Unnoticed by the now enraged Applejack, the Prince staggered back as if he’d been struck.

“How dare you?” Applejack whispered “How dare you?!” her voice raising from a whisper to a shout.

She charged, wounds and fear forgotten as a raw burning fury filled her. She know what this thing was but something in her told her it was not a pony, never had been and as she drew closer she could see the proof of it. The thing had six horns sprouting from its skull, and its mouth was filled with sharp fangs. It actually looked quite handsome in a diabolical way but Applejack could feel the lie that defined this creature. It was everything she was not, a lying beast masquerading as a living thing that held the right to walk beneath the living sky.

The fluid that had leaked from the dead, now dissolved pegasus lept from the ground in sticky black tendrils as fresh flesh approached and as it struck at her coat the fluid burst into brilliant white flame the same color as the furious glow that came from her eyes.

She met the Prince midway across the bridge and struck at him, the Prince ducking back with a serpentine motion.

Applejack followed up with a second blow that was dodged, and a third. There was no planning to the assault, just raw fury.
***

This was unexpected. When the humans had thought, nothing had answered their prayers, there was no holy force to defend mankind, but the terrible burning flame in this pony was the first thing he’d ever encountered that could be called divine. The Prince had always sort of wondered what it would be like to actually face a force that countered him.

Turns out that he hated it. This little bitch would squirm for daring to bring this pathetic little display before him, he’d make a special place for her, and he finally let her die and pass into the general population of hell only when she renounced whatever god was feeding her this power.

He casually struck out at her flank with a razor sharp tendril of will that should have split flesh to the bone but that cracked and burned against her instead. She actually caught him a blow across the face this time, a quick savage strike that knocked out a tooth and forced the Prince to stagger back.

“You impudent little cunt.” His voice was utterly deadpan, and he decided to lower himself to physical attacks, slashing at her exposed throat with his horns, but the orange pony nimbly dodged back and countered with a viscous lunge that clipped one of his folded bat wings quite painfully.

The Prince was angry now. Such defiance was not to be tolerated. There would be time enough to fuck the lesson into the little bitch later, but for now it was time to crush this insect and get back to his fun.
***

Applejack snarled at the snake, the vermin, the rancid sadistic liar standing before her, mocking her and all the ponies who had died with its form.

If she had been rational, she might have wondered why it was that this creature more than any of the other nightmarish things inspired her to hatred but as it stood she mostly just knew that she wanted it dead because...

Because somethings should not be allowed to walk beneath the living sky came a cool calm voice within her. But you know you can’t win.

The voice wasn’t hers, but Applejack didn’t care. It didn’t matter that she would lose in the end, you had to fight when things like this reared their ugly heads.

Besides there was nowhere to run to.

Again the world dimmed around her, and again she struck out, but the Prince caught her foreleg in his jaws and turned upon her a look so hateful that it cut right through her fury and chilled her soul. The corners of the demonic stallion’s mouth turned up and he bit down with a sickening crunch

Applejack punched him with her free limb right in the eye, which caused the Prince to release her leg as he bellowed in fury and Applejack tackled him, hoping to force him over the edge.

Just before she reached him through a sliver of brilliant pain ran through her body and she fell to the ground again in a pair of wet thuds.
***

The Prince breathed hard as he looked down at the bisected pony, it had taken a lot of force to slice through that power that had wrapped around her, and it had hurt like the blazes whenever his magic made contact with that invisible fire.

He took a moment to compose himself, first he should get the physical form back in a properly intimidating condition. He concentrated for a moment and-

-nothing. There was no change, his jaw still hurt and his skull still thundered where she had struck him. The horrible little cunt had actually managed to hurt him, really hurt him.

He whirled on her still form snarling out “what did you do to me you little whore?!” The pony just smiled weakly up at him, contempt in her eyes.

The dam broke and the Prince charged her screaming in primal outrage, rearing up and stamping down on her still form with his massive hooves. Bone shattered and flesh tore beneath the assault, blood spraying across the bridge as he tore into her chest with his horrible fangs.
***

Applejack didn’t fight or scream, there was no point to it. Besides she felt no pain, not even a section of leg was flayed open by magic and the Prince began tearing at the exposed nerves. All she felt was a warm numbness.

The last thought to go through Applejack’s head before everything faded away was of her little sister. I’m sorry Apple Bloom.
***

The Prince reared back and let out a howl of pure rage. The fucking cunt had gone and died. She’d died before he’d had a chance to give her a proper going over for the insolence of fighting back! How dare she, how dare any of these wretched little beasts defy him?!

He’d find the bitch again in hell, whatever had protected her hadn’t been able to stop her soul being drawn down into the pit, and when he found her he’d drag her back and make her watch while he personally skinned everything she’d ever loved alive.

Almost offhandedly he caught the boulder that had been catapulted towards him in a telekinetic grip. Deep breath. There couldn’t be that many more like her could there? He’s enjoy the rest of this attack, have some fun with the stupid cunt Princess up in the castle, then hunt down the orange bitch in hell and spend a few millennia teaching her humility.

He turned and hurled the boulder back towards the castle, not particularly caring where he hit it.

Yes, he’d take out a little bit of his aggression on the ponies in this castle, that should be fun.
***

Twilight’s ears rang. She’d barely dodged that last attack, and the explosion had flung her halfway across the room. Now a sharp pain had begun in her side, and as the monstrosity leveled its mechanical arm at her again she spread her wings and nearly collapsed as agony flared up in one wing. She’d landed pretty heavily on it, and a cold poisonous dread began to creep into the young Princess.

She bolted on hoof as the beast fired, a massive flaming projectile from a cybernetic arm blossomed into a great fiery explosion behind her. Twilight went sprawling across the floor, and as she twisted white hot pain exploded in wing as she landed on it. She let out a pained squeak as the thing’s laughter boomed out into the now burning auditorium, the volume shaking dust from the rafters and causing more than one of the expensive chandeliers to fall to the floor with shuddering crunch.

A hand the size of a house reached down for her, and Twilight barely managed to scramble away in time from enormous black claws.

Back on her hooves she scrambled for the far exit. Twilight couldn’t fight the thing, not like this, not with her magic drained to the dregs, not alone. How could anypony hope to fight something like this alone?

Another deafening explosion tore through the room, this time the projectile passed over Twilight’s head entirely, at first she was just glad it missed, till it impacted the doors she’d been running for and collapsed her only exit into rubble.

Twilight’s heart leapt into her throat. It can’t end like this she thought it can’t have all been for nothing.
“Face me mortal.” The demon’s voice boomed across the room.
Twilight turned slowly and faced the horrible grinning thing. Her voice came out in a whisper.

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

The demon reared its head back and laughed, and went on laughing for some time, it made Twilight’s blood boil and her teeth grind.

“Why?! You ask me why we have come?” it crouched down till it was relatively on eye level with Twilight. “Because we can little beast. Because your screams are like music and your tears like wine. Because its fun.”

“You...” her voice was choked and cracked by a rage she had never felt before “you monster.”

This feeling of fury was definitely new the analytical part of Twilight’s brain informed her. Even when her brother had failed to inform Twilight of his imminent wedding she hadn’t felt this angry. It was a little frightening.
The demon finally took notice of the fact she wasn’t cowering in terror, but rather vibrating with rage. He sighed in anticipation. “And just what are you going to do little morsel? Fling you petty little magics at me? You have nothing left.”

This cut through Twilight’s rage. What could she do? She had nothing left but that isn’t true Twilight.
Where had that come from? It had felt like her own voice, but odd. Was there a way? Yes perhaps there was. Information sprang into her thoughts, there was a way to fight this thing, but it would require sacrifice. There is no power without sacrifice.
“You fascinate me mortal.” the demon purred. “Surrender now, and I’ll let you be my pet.”

Twilight’s eyes blazed. She glared up at the demon and drew in the very fabric of her own life as a knife of searing pain stabbed into her skull and something wet began pouring down her face. She hissed out “Never.” through clenched teeth.

The demon roared and slammed its cybernetic arm down towards Twilight and in the instant before the arm would have crushed her she vanished in a burst of purple white magic.

Not a second later Twilight materialized in something firm, sticky and suffocating, where she thrashed about in panic and rage. All around her was a thundering, shuddering noise of rushing fluid, and Twilight dug deep, once more seizing her own life force and hammering it into a new spell.

The demon’s head exploded above the jaw, raining a shower of bone fragments and brain matter down around it, blood gushing up in a macabre fountain from its neck.

Everything hung suspended for a moment, before the thing began to fall back into the pit that it had crawled from. Twilight followed, her consciousness fading under the strain from both her last desperate magic and the pain that battered at her from every side.

As she fell she looked into the eye’s of Discord’s corpse. The Draconequus’ face was locked in an expression of agony and terror.
***

There was no where left to run, which suited Rainbow Dash just fine. She collapsed on the floor as everypony still strong enough to stand shoved every stick of furniture they could find to barricade the door.

Just minutes ago guards had come running, reporting some new monster which had broken through their defensive lines and was headed straight for them. They’d gathered up the wounded and run, in blind panic they had chosen the route poorly because now they were barricaded in large conference room with no exit.

Now the question was how long would they be able to hold out? There were maybe a dozen ponies left fit to fight, and only a quarter of them had any kind of combat training.

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie huddled close to their fallen friend. Fluttershy knew that Rainbow Dash didn’t have much time left before her wounds took her. Honestly it was a mystery how the cyan pegasus had survived this long at all.

Pinkie gently nuzzled Dash’s blood stained neck, and Fluttershy crouched low and spread a single comforting wing over her friends. The girls silently waited for the end.

It didn’t take long. Blows thudded against the chamber’s doors, accompanied by low growls and moans. Guards readied their weapons, ready to defend the civilians. From the other side of the door a voice like dark chocolate gone rotten said “out of the way.”

The door and its barricade didn’t explode, everypony was sort of expecting that. It melted into a horrible twitching black sludge, and through it strode an ebony pony, his massive bat wings extended proudly, his satanic beauty marred by shiner somepony had managed to give him and his contemptuous sneer would have been more intimidating if he hadn’t been missing a couple of the long sharp fangs.

One either side of the stranger stood a pair of guard ponies, all dead, but shambling and moaning instep with the black stallion nonetheless.

“Allow me to introduce myself” the monster, and Fluttershy felt on a bone deep level that this was a monster, said “I am the Prince, of darkness, lies, suffering” he punctuated that last word with an unnervingly pleased sucking noise “and currently wrath.”

He had reached one of the guards, who took a swing at him with a bladed hoof, the Prince seized the hoof in mid air, and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of screaming as the guard pony’s foreleg was torn out of its socket.

“You see” said the Prince, raising his voice to be heard over the maimed pony’s screams “some stupid little orange cunt has left me rather put out, and so I’m afraid that you’re all going to have to die screaming because of it.”

To Fluttershy’s surprise she had risen to her hooves and was baring her teeth. This... this thing... this abomination. She hated it. Fluttershy had never hated anything before in her life! The concept of hate, it had always seemed so alien to the yellow pegasus, but just looking at this monstrosity that walked in the shape of a pony made her bile rise and her skin crawl. It was the antithesis to everything she was, a mockery of life itself and it had to die-

“YOU BIG MEANIE!” Everypony stopped at that, even the undead guards looked surprised. All eyes turned to Pinkie Pie. She stood as well, her mane returned to its normal poofy state, although Fluttershy felt it looked... spikier than it had before.

“Meanie.” Said the Prince, his voice utterly flat. “I must admit, I’ve never been called something so... childish before. I am going to enjoy watching you bleed.”

A choking laughter came from the floor, and Fluttershy looked down at Rainbow Dash, her eye was open again, and she was trying to force herself upright. The rainbow maned pegasus spat a mouthful of blood out. “Bet I know who gave you that black eye loser.” She actually grinned mockingly at the Prince. “Its not like AJ to leave a job half finished.” She took a single step forward. “Lets finish it girls.”

The Prince’s eyes flashed with rage. “Do not kill them.” he said to the undead guards “I have some lessons to teach them before they are allowed to die.”

Everypony charged in that instance, and the room rapidly dissolved into chaos.

The three remaining guard ponies attacked the Prince, blades slashing and hooves stomping, but none of their attacks seemed to connect. The Prince’s did unfortunately, he slashed throats with his horns, bit through tendons with his fangs and shattered bones with his sharp hooves, and yet for all that he was a whirling streak of painful death, none of guards fell or stopped attacking. Rainbow Dash slowly, painfully forced herself towards the fray, still with a mocking grin locked on her face as the Prince snarled in rage.

The undead guards went for the civilians and wounded, only to find their way block by an enraged Pinkie Pie, who reared up on her hind legs, produced a pair of cymbals from Celestia knew where and clanged them on the first zombie ponies head, which was smashed to a gorry pulp and dropped the rest of the body to the ground. She whipped the cymbals at two more, each one expertly severing a head. “You want a fight?!” she shouted “Well you’ll get a fight! Pinkie Pie style!”

Again from seemingly nowhere the dull pink pony produced a cannon. The first blast covered the advancing zombies with confetti and streamers. The second blast turned them into a fine red mist sprayed across the walls. The pink earth pony was everywhere, but as much as she chaotically reduced the undead to pieces, her damage did not compare to Fluttershy’s.

Fluttershy stood confused for a moment when the battle started. She hated the Prince, a great freezing tide of loathing that didn’t drown out rational thought, it crystallized it. She looked at the undead guards. She didn’t hate them, how could she? They were just as much the horrible, loathsome beast’s victims as everyone else.

Her eyes locked with one, and she could feel the pleading in its heart. It begged her for death.

As if in a trance she approached one, and laid a comforting hoof on its shoulder. “Rest now” she said.

And the dead guard did as she told him, slumping to the ground, finally at rest, at least temporarily.

“Fluttershy! Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash called out “get the wounded out of here, I’ll keep this creep busy!”

So saying she leapt, and all of the guards that had been fighting the Prince, even as their guts were torn out and skulls beaten open promptly stepped back and fell to floor stone dead.

The Prince was caught off guard, and was barely able to angle it so that the cyan pegasus impaled herself on his horns, three of them digging into her soft gut, and for a moment the Prince allowed himself a victorious smile as he felt warm blood spill out onto his face. The smile vanished when it became apparent that he now had seventy five pounds of extremely angry pegasus firmly attached to his head, and that this one was filled with the same holy fire as her friend on the bridge.

Rainbow Dash kicked and punched at him, raining blows down upon the Prince, while he panicked and tried to throw her off. Every successful blow felt like he’d been struck with a branding iron, her back hooves which kicked at his chest raked along his flesh like they had talons, slashing open his velvet coat and solid muscle, spilling blood so dark it seemed to be black.

Finally he threw the bitch to the ground and roared, only to find that his undead soldiers had fallen and most of his prey escaped. Then a hoof crashed into his ribs and he went tumbling over the fallen Rainbow Dash, bleating out a noise of genuine fear and confusion.

He was fairly certain that the last attack had cracked a rib.

Rainbow Dash looked up through blood clouded vision “You have to get up Dashy! You promised we’d go home!” Pinkie sounded like she was in tears.

She shook her head. “I’m not gonna make it...”

She felt a strong something soft brush against her, trying to lift her up, Fluttershy she thought “we’re leaving now Dash, we have to go before it gets any worse.”

That made dash want to laugh. How could things possibly get worse?

Something snarled and stomped, the Prince’s hoof hovered only an inch above her head.

Rainbow Dash had heard once that loss of oxygen to the brain from something like massive blood loss could cause hallucinations, and that struck her as the only possible explanation for what she was seeing. Fluttershy was using The Stare (it warranted the capital letters) on what she was pretty sure was pure evil.

“Listen carefully” the shy yellow pegasus said, hate forming frost crystals on her words “we’re taking our friend, and leaving. If you try to stop us maybe you’ll win, maybe you’ll kill us all, but I swear that I will make it the most painful victory in your miserable life you horrible sadistic bully.”

Strong forelegs wrapped under Rainbow Dash’s own, and Pinkie pulled her out of stomping range, her own face reflecting Dash’s disbelief.

The Prince slowly lowered his hoof, and did his best to counter the Stare, he sent out waves of filth and degradation at the wretch yellow pony, sent her visions of torment and pain undreamed of. Her gaze never wavered. The Prince blinked.

“I will hunt you down” he whispered “all of you. And when I have you-” Fluttershy didn’t let him finish the sentence. She slapped him across the jaw.

“Pinkie?”

“Yes Fluttershy?”

“Do you have Rainbow Dash.”

“Yes Fluttershy.”

“Then we’re leaving. Now.”

The two slowly backed out of the room, Fluttershy’s eyes never left the Prince’s own.

When they were out of sight, he let out a shudder. That could not possibly have really happened.

He resolved to end this as quickly as possible. These creatures were starting to get to him. He’d deal with those three properly later, much later after he’d figured out whatever was empowering the wretched things and strangled it with its own intestines.
***

Luna could stand now, the dark magic that had so shackled her and her sister had gone.

Celestia’s breathing was shallow and labored. The Princess of the sun didn’t have much time left now.

The Demon was coming for them, something ancient and crackling with power and malevolence. The elements had hurt it, for a few brief moments Luna had hoped that the girls might actually have killed the monstrosity.

The door to the chambers burst open in a hail of splintered wood and a lance of dark power shot through the air and slashed a bloody wound across her flank.

Luna winced, the pain made her stumble for a moment, but still the power flowed into her. The Princess of the Night looked upon the filth.

That was the only word for the creature, filth. Defilement and cruelty poured off of him, staining everything that they touched. Its face, that was shaped into a mockery of pony form, was contorted in rage.

“So at last I find the pretty pony princesses that rule this putrid little land, I can’t say I’m impressed.”

The living insult took a few steps closer. “Nothing to say? Not surprised. I expect you have some last terrible attack to unleash on me, they usually do.

“Before you die dear, I’d like to tell you what I’m going to do to your little world. I’m going to kill it. And I shall go on killing it for millennia.” He savored the last word like sweet.

“The suffering of your people shall be legendary, more so than that of any other world I’ve taken for the insults your subjects have offered me.” He physically struck Luna now. It didn’t erase the sting of that horrible yellow bitch’s slap, but it did feel good. Would have been better if she sprawled on the floor and whimpered, but they would have time enough to break the haughty little cunt.

“Do you understand slut? Your world will die, screaming and raped, all because you are too weak to stop me.”

Something unseen grasped him, and flung the Prince across the room, slamming him into a wall.

Celestia rose to her feet.

“Do not touch my sister filth.” She stared at him, her eyes nothing but bloody ruined pits, and yet she still locked her gaze on him. Blood flowed freely from her nose and ears, gushed from the stump of her horn in slow horrible spurts. Her nightmarish warm magic seized one of the Prince’s wings.

“YOU DARE TO TOUCH ME WHORE?!” he shrieked, casting out his dark magic into the Princesses mind again “YOU WHO ARE AS AN INSECT?! YOU AND YOUR WRETCHED LITTLE SUBJECTS SHOULD BE ON YOUR KNEES BEFORE ME! YOU SHOULD-”

One of the things that made Princess Celestia Princess Celestia was the fact that she could cut off a shouted rant without ever raising her voice.

“Do not” she said, strengthening her mental grip around the Prince’s wing “touch” she began to twist “my” she began to pull as bone snapped “sister.” With the last word she tore the Prince’s wing from his body, spewing black blood across the wall.

The pain gave the Prince the edge he needed, he found something in the Princess’s mind and tore. Celestia gave a gasp and shuddered to the floor as life finally fled her body. Tears streaked Luna’s face. I’ll see you soon sister she thought.

The Prince gasped and staggered up. The pain was more than anything he’d ever experienced in his life.

Victory was in his grasp. He’d end this blue bitch and retire to hell where he could lick his wounds and plan his revenge.

He snarled up at Luna and stalked towards her. “Any last words bitch?!”

Luna opened her eyes and smiled, she spoke in the Royal Canterlot Voice.

“BURN!”
***

Pinkie and Fluttershy were sprinting, or at least running as fast as they could with a wounded Rainbow Dash on Pinkie’s back. One thing was certain, the palace had fallen and now was the time for all sensible ponies to get out while the getting was good.

Fluttershy’s stare warded off any monsters that happened to cross their path. Most veering off on a different course, but in at least one notable case the demons just stood aside to let them pass.

Tears ran freely down Pinkie’s face. All around them were dead ponies, many of them the wounded that had managed to escape while Dash had held off the being that had called itself a Prince.

Eventually the girls made it to wide open courtyard, It was strewn with the bodies of ponies and demons, and overturned in one corner gilded chariot, enchanted to fly when pulled by a pegasus.

The girls ran for it, and it was the work of a moment to get the harness fitted around Fluttershy. It would be slow going with only one pegasus, but no better options for getting out of Canterlot presented itself. Gingerly, Pinkie Pie laid Rainbow Dash down on the chariot’s floor and pressed an ear to the cyan pegasus’s chest. Her heartbeat was there, slow and weak, and the rise and fall of her chest was barely detectable, but she was still alive.

The chariot jerked and began to move. Slowly it rose in the air, and Fluttershy finally allowed herself to cry. She wished that this would all be over, that she’d wake up any minute now in her cozy warm bed to Angel bunny thumping his foot against her head demanding his breakfast.

Slowly they approached the border of Canterlot proper, nopony was willing to look down at the carnage below, the demons themselves too preoccupied with the slaughter to bother much about single chariot fleeing the battle, though one or two took lazy pot shots at it.

Pinkie held Rainbow Dash close and murmured half coherent pleas for her to live.

As the passed over the off pink wall that surrounded the city, now shattered and over run with a scrabbling, gibbering horde of demons, there was the sound of a great explosion, and the world was flooded with brilliant white light. Pinkie closed her eyes and screamed, Fluttershy felt a painful yank as the shockwave twisted and tossed the chariot before blacking out.

The air opened up behind and beneath Pinkie Pie and as she fell for just a moment she saw a second sun in the air. She screamed again, and fell seemingly forever before there was a second explosion and she felt strong limbs wrap around her and push away from the earth below.

***

Still miles away, Rarity ducked into the forest again. She was tired and hurt. Every moment she felt the urge to just collapse and let the blackness take her. Now was not the time to fight an unwinnable battle with a horde of monsters.

She stared towards her goal, Canterlot still so far off. Something was wrong, more so than the fact it was burning at any rate.

Then it happened, a blinding flash of light like a second sun. When she looked back, she couldn’t stop the gasp of horror.

Canterlot was gone.
***

Pinkie Pie slowly came back to consciousness. She tried to remember what had happened to her, and it all jumped on her at once.

The pink pony leapt to her hooves and looked around with panic in her eyes. She and Fluttershy were laying in a small clearing. She ran over to Fluttershy and gently shook her. Fluttershy moaned and blinked, returning from the depths of her own black out.

“Pinkie? Where-” Fluttershy’s own memory returned, and her eyes began to fill with tears.

Pinkie hugged her friend close.

When they parted they found Rainbow Dash nearby. She looked quite peaceful, laying down as if asleep. Her chest wasn’t moving. Her heart wasn’t beating.

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy held each other close and cried softly, then abandoned all pretense and sobbed uncontrollably.
***

The Prince was in agony, but still he howled in elation. His body was charred, the luxurious mane burned away, one leg nothing but a smoking molten stump but still he stood. The bitch had failed! He’d taken everything this world could throw at him, and he had beaten it all.

A horrible smile spread across his mutilated half blind face. He hoped the Princesses would enjoy hell. He certainly would enjoy them, and all those little bitches that had dared to strike him.

A worm of doubt had been planted though, what if there were more of them? What if they found and allied themselves with some of hell’s more troublesome prisoners? He snorted, banishing the unbecoming emotion from his mind.

What would it matter? He’d beaten them all before, and he’d survived having what he was pretty sure was a miniature sun dropped on him.

He strode across the plane of red hot glass that was all that remained of the ponies’ beautiful city. It was marred by a great glowing pit which was slowly widening.

The Prince kicked at the wretched beast that had been used to hold open the pit. The thing couldn’t really die, it existed beyond such certainties.

One of it’s yellow eyes opened, and Discord croaked out in a voice dripping with contempt. “Oh, you again. Go away you dull little beast.”

The Prince kicked again, and the bound spirit of chaos winced. “I need information creature. You will left out a lot when we first spoke.”

“Did I?” There was a spark of humor in the draconequus’ eyes. “Terribly sorry, normally I’m much more cooperative to boring little things that torture me for information, where are my manners today?”

The Prince thought he’d be more irritated by this, but smile crept across his face. This was exactly what he needed after all the awful stuff that had happened today. This was going to be fun.

[1]Fancy being a predominantly unicorn country renowned for its wine, cheese and snootiness, with a forgotten reputation for bloodthirsty rebellion at the drop of a hat.

Author's Note

So the ending got a substantial re-write because I absolutely loathed the original one. It had the ponies going out like little bitches because I wanted to get back to writing about Rarity kicking lots of ass. It still needs a lot of work, but hey one day I might get around to actually editing my unfiltered mind vomit and make it something approaching tolerable! We all have our impossible dreams, and writing something that I don't hate is mine!

Hope you enjoy.