Chapter 4: Long Hard Road into Hell

Rarity scanned the area before her from the woodline. She was looking down into a small valley that the Friendship Express passed through on its way to Canterlot. There was a smattering of buildings down there, barely enough to be called a village really. Even from this distance she could make out the splashes of blood and the warped figures skulking about in the burned fields.

She supposed she could try to skirt around the lip of the valley, keeping to the forest, but that was not a tactic she favored. She’d been ambushed by more of the pink animalistic things and a horrible, buzzing monstrosity that had almost done her in and had torn out a large chunk of her mane when she’d bolted into the woods after...

Rarity swallowed hard. It felt like she had stone in her throat. She’d bolted into the woods after Canterlot had vanished, she refused to think the words “had been destroyed”, with her eyes clenched tightly shut.

A nagging voice in the back of her head screamed they’re dead. They’re all dead. You’ll find nothing there Rarity. Your friends are all dead Rarity. You’ll never see them again until some horrible hellspawn tears you open. But she had shoved that voice down into the deep black vaults of her mind. At least thats what she told herself.

Surely it couldn’t be as horrible as she thought. Celestia was close to, if not the most powerful being in Equestria. Surely she and Twilight had been able to save the girls? Teleport them to safety?

So why keep going? said the hateful voice in her head If they’d retreat anywhere it would be to Ponyville. Run home! You should at least die with your sister. Unless the monsters are already at Ponyville. Unless Sweetie Belle already died screaming and wishing for her big sister to come and save her. Why are you such a failure Rarity? You. Can’t. Save. Anypony.
It was then that Rarity noticed that she’d been chewing on her lip, and had infact bitten through the skin, she tasted blood.

Rarity made her decision. She had to find out, really find out what happened to Canterlot and her friends. She also decided that she couldn’t waste the time it would take to make a circle around the valley, so she’d just have to go through, and an unfortunate byproduct of that was that she’d probably have to kill every single one of those murderous repulsive brutes, that she would have to stoop to unladylike behavior like breaking their bones and castrating the curs, then carving the names of the dead on their hideous, repulsive skin. She made the decision entirely from a practical perspective, and not from a soul crushing desire for revenge and to join her friends in death.

She slipped out of the woods, darting over towards a large rock. No bellows of demonic glee or rage came. She’d have to be careful in her approach, head to the farmhouse first where hopefully she could claim a new weapon, one of the ones she’d come to think of as a big death stick for preference. Those tended not to leave much of the monster behind, especially fired from point blank rage into its hateful murdering skull. A dim, dying part of Rarity wondered if she was going insane.

She ducked from the boulder to a fallen tree , to a tall patch of grass, to a pond.

She slid into the mucky water without a sound, giving only the mildest signs of revulsion at the mud and filth. All things considered the muck wasn’t even close to the most disgusting thing that had been on her that day.

Rarity held her breath for a moment before surfacing, glancing around for any nearby monsters, and locked her gaze with the still gaze of a young unicorn filly.

She would have been about Sweetie Belle’s age. She even looked a bit like Rarity’s sister, so perhaps Rarity can be forgiven for letting out a small horrified scream.

Rarity ducked back down, fighting the urge to vomit. The foal was nothing but a charred skeleton below the chest. There wasn’t even any blood, the heat from the hellfire had cauterized the wound.

She felt it again. The fury that had come up from someplace deep inside when she’d seen that wretched ape tormenting a pegasus he had maimed back at the train wreck.

It burned hot and pure and clean in her veins, she couldn’t put her rage into words, but f she could have she would have said there were somethings that should not be allowed to happen beneath the living sky.

Rarity made no more attempt to be stealthy. She managed to avoid actively shouting out with outrage and bloodlust as she darted into the corn fields behind the farm.

There was one of the ape creatures there, tall and pale with most of its lower jaw ripped away, it was pulling open a cow’s carcass with a baling hook and didn’t notice Rarity till she slammed into it from behind and bore the creature to the ground. She seized an ear between her teeth and wrenched her head to the side. The beast thrashed and gurgled beneath her, trying to right itself as she began rain blows down upon its head.

Rarity felt the skull crack beneath her hooves but kept slamming her hooves into it, even as the head split open with a wet crunching noise, and the thing beneath her spasmed. She didn’t stop until she realized she was just pounding chunks of skull and brain into the earth.

She looked up then, a red haze in her vision scanning around for her next target. Nothing between her and the barn where she heard the occasional staccato burst of death sticks firing.

The bailing hook came up into her telekinetic grip, and she spat out the fallen monster’s ear before rushing towards the big red building.

She crouched low just outside the doors, glancing inside. Three of the spiny brown beasts, two fighting over a dead pig, the other hunched over...

Hunched over a dead stallion, and rutting. That one would go first she decided.

There was also two of the ape creatures, these ones held death sticks and were firing them into the stalls where Rarity heard pigs squealing.

She crept in behind the rutting beast, and announced herself by swinging the baling hook up in between its legs into soft flesh and kept going until she hit bone.

The horrible beast screamed in agony as Rarity, with the sort of expert precision that can only come from years of experience trying to manipulate multiple tools of the seamstress’s trade at once when the pony she was making adjustments on squirmed and fidgeted and ripped the hook backwards sending blood gushing out onto the offal strewn hay of the barn before slamming it into the wretched things back and twisting it around till it slipped over the fiends spine. At the same time she leveled one the last of her big death sticks at the nearest creature that had previously been scuffling with its own kind for the dead pig and pulled the trigger, and Rarity felt a mad grin spread across her face as the top of its head exploded, spraying brain matter and fragments of skull across the room as blood fountained up out of the cratered skull.

The ape things whirled on her then firing their death sticks, a kind she’d never seen before, six gleaming steel barrels spinning and roaring as they sprayed their deadly fire at her. Rarity yanked back on the baling hook, pull the horrible rapist against her where it jerked and twitched as bullets tore into it.

Rarity pumped her big death stick, ejecting a spent shell and as she leveled it at one of the monstrous apes a part of she scolded herself for never stopping and taking a good look at the weapon with an aim to figuring out how it actually worked.

One of the monsters jerked as she fired, its weapon falling to the ground as the arm that held it was severed in bloody explosion. The remaining brown spiny beast was trying to flank her, so Rarity gave a telekinetic heave and hurled the corpse at the remaining ape, knocking it off balance for a moment.

Rarity rushed the ape as the thing behind her gave an angry squeal and leapt at her exposed back. She ducked between the ape’s legs, slamming the stock of her death stick into its kneecap.

The horrible brown monster collided with the ape and the two went down struggling and tearing at eachother.

Rarity had learned that the monsters did not like each other. More than once she’d ducked out of sight along the wood line, and watched as the monsters fought one another for the most trivial provocations. She’d actually exploited this once or twice, using a carefully hurled rock to set the members of one of their bands to infighting.

The spiky brown thing tore into the ape with homicidal abandon, it had been looking to kill something, and now here was something that bled and struggled against it, it could deal with the bloody unicorn later.

It tore open the ape creatures guts and began pulling lengths of intestine out to howls of pain, and bit into its skull silencing the creature.

Rarity leveled the death stick at the monster’s head and pulled the trigger. The death stick gave an impotent click, and the brown monster lept.

Rarity barely dodged away just in time, one of its claws slicing across her cheek and she brought the stock of her now useless death stick down onto the brute’s head so hard that the wood cracked, then shattered on the second blow, leaving a jagged shard that she rammed into the back of the stunned monster’s neck hard enough to pin the vile beast to the floor. She watched it scrabble at the hay and dirt, and listen to its gurgles for moment, her heart hammering in her chest, then took stock of the situation, listening closely for the sound of approaching monsters, she had made quite a lot of noise after all.

As she listened she took in the state of the barn. It seemed that when the monsters had first attacked the people who lived here had herded the animals into the barn to keep them safe, apparently believing that they would be safe here. The demons had killed most of the animals, some of the pigs still thrashed and squealed as they bled out. The stallion had been, decapitated. Rarity felt the bile rise in her throat when she caught sight of the earth pony’s severed head. It had been forced down onto his own...

No. Rarity refused to acknowledge the defilement. There were somethings no one should ever have to look at.

Keeping her ears trained for the sounds of attack, and one eye on the door, Rarity began to investigate the spinning death sticks the two ape monsters had been using. These ones were bigger than any of the other’s she’d seen, at one end there was a trigger and a handle, and she noted a small glowing screen with 054 on it. Rarity considered the possibility that it was an ammunition counter of some kind.

Speaking of which, she noticed a belt of interconnected metal objects going from a slot on the side of the weapon down to a box supported under it.. They resembled nothing more so that fire works, except she couldn’t see a fuse.

Rarity tinkered with the object for a bit, she twisted knobs and lifted levers until the thing clicked and the top of the weapon popped open a hinge down near the barrels and the glowing screen went black.

Five minutes later Rarity was fairly certain she’d worked out how the weapon worked. She’d linked the two partially expended belts together and now had them laying in a single box hooked up beneath the spinning death stick (she really had to find a better name for these things than that, it sounded distressingly phallic.) She pulled back on a handle on the weapons side, which rotated a new barrel into position, and if she was right pulled the first bullet out of its links and readied it to fire.

She crept out of the barn, her new weapon levitating on one side of her, and a pitchfork she’d found in the barn on the other.

The rage had died down significantly, Rarity still wanted, oh how she wanted, to kill every last one of repulsive things, but now at least she was capable of thinking.

The farm house was empty, at least of monsters. What they hadn’t been able to steal, eat or fuck they had smashed. The creatures had ransacked the ice box, then bashed it until it was a deformed chunk of crumpled metal and plastic leaking water on the floor. They had smashed the table and chairs to splinters and torn the doors off every cabinet and cupboard smashing or shredding the contents on the floor.

Rarity picked her way carefully around the torn up kitchen. Filth she thought thats what these things are, they are filth down to the core. Rarity despised filth, she could tolerate tackiness or physical ugliness, the former being mostly a matter of personal taste and the other being an unfortunate state of nature that only the insufferably cruel would judge an individual for. Filth however was inexcusable. For Rarity there was a world of difference between being dirty which was an unfortunate side effect of both work and play, especially when she did things with the girls, and being filthy which was a sin.

The question is came the small, hateful voice of doubt which one am I?
Rarity found the owners in the basement. A family of four. They’d been burned alive. One of the charred bodies was clutching two tiny ones to its chest.

Rarity felt herself getting angry again. Good. She preferred it that way. Everything hurt less when she was angry.

No. The word slammed out into her head no I’m not going to do this anymore just because I’m angry. If I must fight I will do it for the right reasons, not for revenge. Where had these thoughts comes from? The rage in Rarity’s heart snarled and snapped at them, howling for blood and revenge, but something cold was waking up in her.

Rarity knelt before the charred bodies. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you.”

“Its not your fault miss” said the larger of the corpses “no one can plan for everything, let alone a demon invasion.”

“I just wish I could have helped ponies.” Rarity hung her head in shame. They were just trying to make her feel better obviously, it was really rather kind of them to do so. “I got so caught up in the fight that I never thought to save anypony.”

The corpse that had been trying to shelter the children put an ashen foreleg around Rarity’s shoulders “the world needs ponies who are willing to fight, love. Now more so than ever.”

Rarity felt the tears come. Celestia help her she was so tired, and she was so useless. A stupid useless filly playing at saving the world and too much of coward to admit that her friends were all dead.

She leaned into the corpse and hugged it back, not caring about the ashes that smeared her coat or the way blistered sking cracked open and spilled blood and pus across her. What did it matter? She was as filthy as these demons and No.
No I am not. I did not kill these nice ponies. I did not invade another world in the name of bloodlust and plunder. I may be dirty, as Applejack says, dirtiness is often a side effect of hard work, but I am not filthy.
Rarity looked up into the kindly, burst eyes of her dead acquaintances. “Thankyou all for your kind words, but I really must be going. I want to reach the other side of this valley before nightfall you.”

The large one, he must have been the father seemed to frown, though Rarity supposed it could have just been some melted flesh sloughing off of the skull. “Doesn’t it seem like its been daylight for quite a long time miss?”

Rarity froze in midstep. She felt a coldness in her veins that she didn’t want to face. Some part of her mind was screaming at her, but she refused to listen to the words. “Why,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face “whatever do you mean darling?”

The burned corpse chose his words carefully. “I mean miss, doesn’t it seem to you like the sun stopped moving four hours ago when there was, let us say, an unknown incident at Canterlot?” he paused for a moment “almost as if the princesses were dead.”

She badly wanted to vomit, she wanted to turn tail and flee this place, she wanted to throw herself into battle so she could die and not have to be alone with the blood and killing and monster, she wanted to run back to Ponyville and hide under the bed with her little sister until the end came, she wanted to run out and kill every last one of those wretched murdering beast, to bathe in their blood and guts, to make her name something to fear she wanted to Go to Canterlot. Find my friends. Find the Elements. See to it that justice is done.
That was odd. Her head felt numb now, and she slowly turned to ask her new friends if they had felt that.

There was just a pile of charred bodies in the center of the basement. Rarity hit the ground and the world went black.
***

Rarity dreamed of a soft place. It was warm and quiet and she didn’t hurt there. She felt a soft lump snuggle up against her side and looked down at the sleeping form of her sister, who was safe and sound, here in a quiet warm place where nopony was hurt. Rarity realized that she was resting her head on something firm and very comfortable, she looked down again and saw Applejack’s belly. Looking up she saw the farm pony leaning back with her forelegs folded over her chest and her battered old stetson pulled over her eye.

Everything was nice here. Nice and soft and warm. Rarity just wanted to lay her head back down and never get up again.
***

Rarity woke up at the foot of the basement stairs and everything hurt. Dried blood covered her coat, and turned her once elegant mane into a collection ragged clumps. She forced herself to her hooves, feeling slightly drunk. How long had she been out. There was no way to tell. She climbed up the stares, pointedly not looking at the remains in the basement. She didn’t have much memory of what had happened before she’d passed out, but she had a feeling that she really didn’t want to look behind her.

Upstairs it was still daylight, and quick glance out one of the windows showed that the sun hadn’t moved an inch. Rarity had never been a Filly Scout, and had no knowledge of how to tell the time from the position of various celestial bodies, but terrible thoughts started gibbering and clawing at the back of her mind again. It had been a bit after noon when this whole nightmare had started, but how much time had passed? Where had the sun been when she’d seen canterlot vanish?

Before these thoughts could add up to something terrible a merciful distraction was provided, in the form of a savage howl that ran from a pitch so high it made Rarity wince in pain to down so low that she began to feel ill.

The white unicorn ducked under the window she’d been staring out, propping up her pilfered spinning death stick as she glance out towards the center of the valley where the howl had come from. Nothing presented itself to her gaze.

“CHILLLLLDDDRENNNNNN...” a voice boomed out making Rarity’s teeth rattle “CHILDRENNNNNN COME TO MEEEEEE... COME TO WITNESSSSSSSS THE PUNISHMENTTTTTTT... COME TO TASTE THE SUFFERINNNNNGGGG OF THE HERETICCCCCC...”

Heretic? the word bounced around Rarity’s head. What could these monsters possibly call heresy? She bolted to the stairs and up to the second floor. In a surprisingly intact bedroom she found a window that still offered her some cover and willed herself to see the distant center of the valley clearly.

She could make out little, just lots of figures running, scrambling and slithering towards the valleys center.

This changed things. Rarity knew she could now easily skirt around all the monsters and continue her journey towards Canterlot, however something was nagging at her. “Heretic” had made her curious.

Equestrian religion was unusually tolerant as religions go. They had no crusades or inquisitions, largely because their deities were also their physical rulers and tended to incinerate ponies who took an aggressive interpretation of their words, however one of the numerous issues that had shattered the Griffin Commonwealth into a dozen warring nation states was heresy, there could be something here that was at very least useful to know.

Plus it meant she could kill more demons.
***

“Fuck you.” The former human spat at his tormentors. He would never give in, no matter what they did to him. He had refused to break no matter the torture in hell, and he wouldn’t break here either.

The wickedly barbed lash tore a line of fire across his naked back again, and he spat another “fuck you.” at hell knight holding the whip.

He cast his fiery eyes across the crowd. There were the few surviving ponies in chains, many whimpering or staring at ground, all mutilated to some extent or another.

He wondered who the first would be?

After a dozen more lashes which split flesh and muscle down to the bone, and a dozen more “fuck you”s, the collector began undulating hideously, the front end of its green worm like body splitting open like a flower in bloom exposing the a grinning skull. “BRING FORTH THE FIRST” its voice both boomed and whistled “LET THE HERETIC CHOOSE.”

“Fuck you” the former human growled “I ain’t breaking now you cunt, not for you or your shitt sucking little cum dumpster of a Prince.”

The Hell knight behind him casually reached forward, slid a finger into his mouth, and yanked back with, tearing open the former human’s cheek. Pain lanced through his head, but he and pain were old friends now. Turns out that there was only so much torture you could go through before it all started to seem the same.

“You will speak with respect to high Collector Offarthrax you little shit, or you’ll spend a century in the rape pits.” It spoke with an almost bored tone of voice. Torturing humans was old hat for the demons, after the eternity in the timeless space of hell they’d done everything interesting to humanity and had driven all but a few thousand so mad they thought of themselves as demons. The Hell Knight badly wanted to take apart more of these ponies, the females screamed so prettily.

The collector gestured out at random into the group of ponies that had been dragged before the makeshift gibbet, a slightly built one with a blue coat missing both of its ears. The former human took note of the mark on her flank, it was a teddy bear. He’d remember that. He’d remember all of them, and one day he vowed to himself that he would flay the shapes out of these demon’s skins, one day he would have his revenge. One day he would complete his mission.

The barbed wire around his wrists snapped and he fell heavily to his knees.

The pony was dragged up before him, shaking with fear and pain. “Please...” the creature moaned “Please have mercy, please... I’ll... I’ll do whatever you want just don’t hurt me any more.”

The collector backhanded the creature with the flat side of the scythe like appendages it had instead of arms or legs. “SILENCE WHORE” the pony fell to ground, crying softly. “YOU MAY YET BE REDEEMED FOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL” the collector piped “MAKE THIS WRETCH SUFFER, MAKE HER SQUIRM AND BEG FOR DEATH AND YOU MAY YET BE GIVEN REPRIEVE.”
The former human looked from the small, softly crying creature to the collector, to the Hell Knight behind him, to the crowd of demons around him and back once more to the small, crying thing that had never done him any harm.

The collector caught him with a scythe like limb as he leapt with murder in his burning eyes, knocking the former human back to the ground where he cursed and threatened the demons. The pony died by inches. The former human paid close attention. He wish he’d known her name, it would be nice to carve that onto the collector’s slimy hide as well.

“FOOL” the collector rumbled “YOUR DEFIANCE ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING. YOUR MORALITY SERVES NOTHING. THERE IS NO INNOCENCE. THERE IS NO EVIL. THERE IS ONLY POWER.”

“GOD DOES NOT CARE FOR YOU. GOD DOES NOT CARE FOR THESE WRETCHES. YOU ARE ABANDONED. YOUR ONLY HOPE IS THE MERCY OF THE POWERFUL, AND IF YOU WISH TO SEE IT, YOU WILL MAKE THESE BEASTS SUFFER.”
The former human felt the barbed wire return, wrapping around his wrists and burrowing into his veins as it was conjured back into reality, pulling him up off of his feet.

“FLAY AND SALT THE NERVES, THEN WE SHALL SELECT ANOTHER.”
***

Rarity heard the screaming more than a mile away. It had been a pony, of that she was certain, which had bored through her skull and nearly made her bolt into an open gallop. Even now that the screams had stopped she found herself wanting to sprint towards the town, to actually save some ponies for a change.

With a great effort of will she managed to keep her approach stealthy until she reached the small cluster of building in the center of the valley. She glanced around the corner of what used to be a post office on the edge of the cluster.

She could see a crowd of demons all clustered around a gibbet. It was hard to make out anything going on from her position, she’d have to get to a higher position.

Glancing about to be certain that she could make her move unseen, Rarity darted into the post office doors and almost slammed into one of the ape creatures. It made to shout, only for Rarity to launch herself up into a marvelously executed crane kick that she planted firmly in the creature’s esophagus. It tried to level it’s death stick at her as it choked and gurgled unheard by any but her and the unicorn gave a viscious stomp to the inside of its elbow that made a clicking noise and also forced its fingers open. Rarity finished the creature by driving the pitchfork directly into its skull at eye level.

There had been no shots or gun fire, no sign that anything had seen her but the mare still jump, spinning around and aiming her own weapons at the door, her heart pounding in her chest as a horrible bestial roar sounded outside. It began as the simple pained exclamation of an animal, but soon Rarity could make out a torrent of profanity and snarled promises of violence. She counted the words “cock sucking sons of bitches” at least twelve times and seventeen variations on the word “fuck.”

Carefully she found her way to a small stairwell that led up to the aviary that allowed pegasus mail ponies to deliver and pick up mail, and peaking over the small ledge she finally saw the situation in its entirety.

The source of the shouted threats and obscenities was one of the ape like monsters, its hand strung up over its head and its legs bound together by some sort of wire. The thing was naked, and absolutely covered in wounds, some barely stitched shut, others ancient and ugly scars and still others fresh and bleeding.

Two more of the ape like monsters stood to the left, one pulling open the flesh beneath the hanging creature’s shoulder with a pair of wicked looking hooks, the the other slathering handfuls of something white inside the wounds.

“YOU MURDERING FUCKING COWARDS!” the creature shouted at his captors “YOU’RE ALL GODDAMN PATHETIC YOU HEAR ME?! I SWEAR TO EVERY FUCKING GOD IN THIS AND EVERY OTHER WORLD THAT I’LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF CHILD RAPING BASTARDS!”

It was obviously in pain, Rarity could see that from the way it jerked and kicked as much as it could whenever a new wound was torn open and more white stuff crammed in, but more than anything else it seemed angry.

In a single horrible moment Rarity felt an odd sort of kinship with the horrible creature.

Her eye was drawn to the massive obscene thing at one end of the gibbet, squatting there and picking at a light blue corpse that Rarity wished she hadn’t seen.

The thing resembled nothing so much as grotesque combination of a caterpillar and a flower, its top end occasionally opening like a blossom and emitting a high pitched piping whistle. Its two scythe like limbs were carefully and meticulously cleaning the flesh from the blue ponies skull.

Finally the monster’s head opened fully and that booming, piping voiced rolled out “ENOUGH FOR NOW. HERETIC, CHOOSE AND SUBMIT.” The ape creature turned its head towards the worm and spat at it.

The monstrosity paid no heed, and just gestured out into the crowd, one of the demons, a ghastly pale thing with two heads and five limbs dragged a pegasus filly onto the gibbet. Rarity’s breath caught in her throat. The barbed wire around the heretic’s hands and feet unwound itself, dropping the creature heavily to the wooden platform.

“SUBMIT HERETIC. SUBMIT AND BE CLEANSED.”

No. Rarity would not, could not allow this to happen. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here, and Rarity knew in her heart of hearts that she would stop this madness or die trying.

She stood up and clenched the trigger. The barrels spun.
***

The Heretic looked up at the collector and saw the glint of metal from the top of a nearby building, and more to the point he saw the creature wielding it. He grinned a nasty half grin and forced himself to his feet. The child these fucks want me to kill a child THESE fucking monsters want me to kill a CHILD whimpered, hiding its face and just hoping no more pain would come to it. The heretic could see the charred nubs where they’d burned off its wings. The litany of hate rose up anew in his mind, and old friend that froze the blood in his veins and turned his thoughts into ice.

The heretic looked out at the crowd and in the days to follow he would always treasure this memory, treasure the perfect timing of his words. “You’re all going to burn for this.” and then the unicorn opened fire.
***

It had taken Rarity a moment to figure out that the trigger did not fully depress and fire her newest death stick until it finished spinning up the six barrels, but afterwards? Rarity would never admit that she found anyform of violence fun, but it certainly was satisfying.

She laid down a stream of fire on the horrible slug like thing and it burst open in a shower of gore and viscera that would have been disgusting had she not wanted it so badly, before guiding her fire up a ways to one of the ape like demons and another of the goat legged ones. The ape was cut off at the legs, blood spraying out in great gushing arcs as it dropped to the ground and flailed about, and the goat monster’s gut was chewed open by a single long sustained burst of fire. It tried and failed to keep its guts inside and Rarity barely had time to notice both this and the heretic scooping up the tiny foal in his arms and sprint for cover when the first in what turned out to be a series of rockets hit the roof, followed by a steady stream of gunfire from the amassed demons below, along with assorted balls of fire and magic.
***

The Heretic kept the child close to his chest, trying to shield it from as much of the chaos as possible. He was good at this part, dodging and weaving his way through the chaos of battle was a skillset he’d developed early in his life and had only refined in death during his numerous attempts to escape or murder his tormentors, and this time it wasn’t even him they were shooting at! That was a new experience.

The Heretic leapt through the broken window of what looked to have once been a general store, rolling his body to take the impact on his side. There was a lot of broken glass on the hardwood floor inside, but he’d felt worse in the eternity he’d spent in hell.

The small child shook with fear in his arms and was scrabbling for escape. He gingerly put it down on a relatively clear patch of floor, where it promptly scrambled away and stared up at him with large, terror filled eyes.

How long had it been since the Heretic had seen anything cute? What little memories he had left of life suggested that he hadn’t especially cared for soft or lovely things then, and trapped in the bowels of hell he’d finally come to appreciate them. His eyes fell upon the charred nubs where the tiny creatures wings had been and all thoughts of escape evaporated from his mind.

“Hide.” He growled, and turned away.

He strode out and saw the demons swarming the post office, a dim part of his mind wondered if the brave creature that had turned a chain gun on the Collector was still alive, but it didn’t matter ultimately. You couldn’t win against these beasts, the Heretic had fought his way to the Prince himself shed thousands of gallons of demon blood only to fall and find that every demon he’d slain had risen again in the pit and that all of humanity was now in the monster’s grip.

There was no victory to be had here, but that didn’t mean he had to make it easy for the demons.

He strode up behind a former human that was naked down to the waste, demonic sigils carved into its flesh and one arm warped into a tentacle that was firing a sawn off shotgun one handed at the post office, not caring what it hit and bellowing with fury.

Calmly, the Heretic looped one of his arms around the traitors neck and slammed his knee up into its back, bending it over and forcing it to drop the sawn off. He followed up with a punch that flattened the things nose and stunned it, the tentacle whipping around blindly.

The heretic dropped the former human to the ground and picked up the dropped weapon, broke it open, saw that single shell was left unfired inside, snapped it shut and blew the fallen monsters skull into a fine red paste.

He reached down and helped himself to the bandolier of shotgun shells around the thing’s torso, loaded two into the sawn off and turned back towards the mob. An imp had turned at the smell of fresh blood and opened its mouth to screech out a battle cry and the heretic happily unloaded both barrels into the demon’s gut.

That got their attention. He gave them a grotesque smile and reloaded.
***

Pain burned through Rarity but then that was appropriate, because she was currently on fire. She’d fallen from the roof as rockets, bullets and fire balls smashed it to pieces and landed heavily on the ground below. She rolled around, trying to extinguish herself, and pain exploded in her side. She’d definitely broken something in the fall.

Fortunately it seemed that her foes were concentrating their fire on the post office still and she silently offered a prayer of thanks to whatever gods might be listening.

The fire was out now, though she felt like it was still there. It took a lot to force herself back to her hoove, the pain in her side was excruciating.

Rarity glanced around for her weapons, and found none. She considered the situation.

She doubted she could run away, and this close to all of them even hiding long enough to escape seemed like an impossibility. The only option left was to face her death with dignity.

She stepped around the corner of the building, one leg dragging uselessly and one of the pink, fleshy horned things lunged down at her. Acting on instinct rolled away and lashed out with a pinpoint strike of magic at the things beady black eye.

The thing staggered away from her, roaring in pain at the eye that had been pushed out of its socket. An ape monster leveled its death stick at her prone form and Rarity seized the weapon in her magical grip, forcing it back still in the monsters grip and now firing blindly into the air until it rested under the things chin and four shots blew great bloody holes out of the top of its skull.

More of them came. Rarity felt a sudden sharp pain and then coldness as a shot blew through her side but what of it? She ripped the weapon out of the brutes hands and caught a fire ball one of the brown spiny monster had tossed towards her, then lobbed it back as she pulled the trigger on her recently stolen death stick.

Maybe this wasn’t exactly facing death with dignity, but at least going down fighting would be a fitting tribute to her friends. Rarity drew some comfort from the knowledge that soon she’d see them again.

She pulled the death stick in close, taking every target that presented itself. Demons of all shapes and sizes fell beneath her precisely placed shots, and it seemed odd that despite the sounds of battle so few were attacking her.
***

Blood filled the Heretic’s mouth as he tore out an imps throat with his teeth. He fired an assault rifle over the brown monster’s shoulder, the blindfire mostly hitting the scenery, but he heard a few screams as bullets tore through demon flesh.

The ponies had impressed him, they had all had the good sense to fear once their demonic captors had taken their attention from them. He would hate to accidentally take an innocent life.

A pinkie demon that had flanked him managed to ram its horns into his back and the heretic howled with pain as he was thrown to the ground. He spun over and emptied the remainder of the assault rifle’s magazine into the abominations face, blood raining down upon him.

He spun again as a broadsword wielded by a human skeleton in plate armor swung down towards his skull. He caught the blade on the rifle, and before the skeletal swordsman could draw back for another strike kicked at its knee sending it to the ground.

The heretic seized the naked skull in his hands and drove it hard into the ground before taking up the broadsword and swinging it in an arc that split the skull of a former human and upgraded to a pump action shotgun.

A plan was beginning to form in his mad, gibbering brain, he had to get to the pony that had helped him, if it was still alive, and considering that someone was occupying half of the attacking demons it must be.

He spun and bashed the teeth out of an imps mouth, following it up with a load of cuk shot to the knee cap, ducked beneath a hell lords massive fist as the creature gave an elephantine bellow and rolled between the towering beasts legs and as he came up he swung the stock of his shotgun into the stomach of another former human. A point blank shotgun blast severed the hell lord’s spine and sent it screaming and thrashing to the ground.

A rocket barely missed his head, which meant it hit the post office wall beside him. The Heretic and several demons all hit the ground in a series of heavy thumps. Shrapnel and splinters had torn open his face and blood streamed down into his eyes.

For a long time was nothing but screaming roars and gunfire, but slowly a new sound made itself heard, a single scream that was unique among the shouts, high and female, a primal roar of hate and fury. Wiping the blood from his eyes the heretic looked up and felt a genuine grin spread across his scarred face.

The pony was utterly drenched in blood, her mane hanging down limp and plastered to her face and neck with gore, her face locked in a defiant snarl, and somehow the unicorn was triple wielding weapons that hovered about a foot in front of her. Two chain guns and a pump shotgun roared and cut down demons like wheat before a scythe.

Looking towards the carnage he spotted a glint of metal in the distance, and then a burst of flame. No time to think then.
***

A part of Rarity was laughing inside, and only partially from the maniacal giddiness that came with having this much firepower at her disposal. Mostly she was laughing at the fact she seemed to be winning. The demons fell before her in a grim blood soaked harvest, rib cages pummeled open, heads exploded, limbs severed and blood soaked into the earth. When one of her weapons ran dry she hurled it away and snatched another up from her fallen foes.

So caught up was she in the mix of bloodlust, fury and hysterical laughter that she failed to watch her flanks, and thus she did not see the ape creature as it ran towards her, looped an arm around her waist and flung them both to the side where they tumbled and the monster landed on top, forcing the wounded and enraged pony to the ground.

There was an explosion somewhere behind her, but Rarity didn’t care, everything had been exploding recently, she thrashed herself around, she kicked and bit and finally through the thing off of her after bashing the back of her head into its malformed face.

The monster flew back, and Rarity would have finished it off there and then if a new hail of attacks hadn’t interrupted. She dodged to the side, nearly collapsed when her weight came down on her wounded leg, and watched as the thing that had tackled her sprinted into the fray away from her.

The penny dropped then. So that is the Heretic then? She took a moment to gather her thoughts and magic as the monsters turned their fire upon him What exactly makes you a heretic I wonder? Is it just that you wouldn’t kill us? Or are you just refusing to kill us because of your heresy?

Rarity supposed that it didn’t matter. She’d heard that the enemy of her enemy was her friend, and while she liked to believe that friendship was more than just hating the same things in this case she was inclined to believe that the enemy of her enemy was useful.

The Heretic dodged and weaved, reached one of the brown spiky creatures and punched a hole through its chest.

Rarity blinked. Had it really just done that? Maybe she was hallucinating from bloodloss.

The Heretic charged then, using the thrashing monster as a shield, ignoring the claws that dugg furroughs in its chest and arms.

Rarity left her cover and ran to reclaim the weapons she’d dropped. She only managed to get one of the spinning ones up when a pair of the massive pink monstrosities charged her. She opened up with the weapon on the nearest one, the whine of spinning barrels turning into the roaring chatter of death that mulched the pink demon’s torso. Unfortunately the weapon ran dry right as the second demon closed in on Rarity.

She swung the weapon like a club, smashing it into the side of the monster’s face with a satisfying crunch that sent it reeling to the side, and followed it up with multiple smashing blows to the top of its head till the skull caved in.

She found another weapon, one of the big death sticks, pumped its slide and ran towards the fray, nearly fell to the ground as pain carved its horrid sharp symphony across her nervous system, and began to hobble towards the battle, keeping to cover.

The Heretic had seized a new weapon that she couldn’t make out and fired it point blank into the skull of a brown monsters she couldn’t quite make out and was hurled to the ground by a crackling blue ball of energy, where he thrashed and screamed. More rained down towards him and Rarity followed their trajectory up towards a pair of the red orb monsters.
***

The heretic bit through his tongue. Even berserked as he was he couldn’t shut out the terrifying pain that the cacodemons inflicted with their blasts. It was a direct attack on the nervous system, intended to both paralyze the victim and leave them writhing in agony. Multiple blasts would eventually kill you, but in hell that just meant waking up later for more torments. If the Heretic had been capable of thinking rational thoughts he might have wondered what that would mean if he died here, but the closest approximation of his thoughts was a single unbroken scream of anguish.

An imp grabbed at one of his kicking legs and was promptly knocked away. Dimly the Heretic was aware of the roar of a shotgun not too far away but that was shouted down when another blasted again caused him to spasm and kick as blood boiled in his veins.
***

Rarity did not try to catch the blast this time, she didn’t think she could manage the strain. Rather, she just deflected them, which still hurt as they contacted and rolled off the raw stuff of her thoughts, but at least allowed her to keep firing.

A shot from her rapidly dwindling foes nicked her ear, and a fireball was barely dodged by flopping to the ground on her unwounded side, which still made her gasp in pain. She pulled the trigger and was rewarded with a hollow click, so she cast the weapon aside and forced herself to her hooves. She stood practically on top of the Heretic now, and both of the floating demons cast their attacks at her. She barely kept them from her flesh, holding them in a telekinetic grip that sent lances of fire through her brain. More blasts followed, and she caught each one. There was a sharp explosive thump to her side and she opened her eyes just enough to see the Heretic beside her smoke rising from his side and raising a weapon at the remaining demons.

As he fired into the small bad that remained Rarity but everything she had into one last shot, and prayed that the strain wouldn’t kill her.

Blinding blue white light filled the world around her and she felt something stab through skull, a lightning bolt made of ice. She turned her face upwards and let out the best roar of defiance she could.

It wasn’t a blot of compressed pain and raw magic like she’d used last time, her mind was too fragmented by pain and exhaustion for that. The energy of the demon’s attacks was mixed with her own magic and flung out as an expanding dome over herself and the heretic, a slow motion explosion that expanded too fast for the demons nearest them to escape.

She fell to the ground then, her vision a long way down a hazy red tunnel. Everything was so far away, she felt a distant, painful pressures as the heretic fell back onto her, then there was a sudden chatter of weapon fire and Rarity felt the ground give way and drifted down into the warm, inviting dark.
***

The Heretic was impressed. These creatures didn’t look it but goddamn were they ever tough. Too bad it doesn’t matter for shit he thought as he lay back against the unicorn. The two of them were both too far gone to keep this fight going. Maybe this brave pony would be relatively lucky and die of her wounds before the demons got to her. After every “death” in hell you awoke regenerated and if you were strong and brave you could escape for a little while in hell, which is why they tried to avoid actually ever killing you. Of course once you the first time you died they had you forever.

Only about a dozen of the demons and former humans remained, he and the pony had killed about forty of them, and of those that remained they were keeping their distance for now, terrified by the unicorn’s light show. They’d come howling for blood soon enough.

Right on schedule, a grotesque two headed stalker demon shambled forward on its deformed tripod legs, spiked tongues slithering from its black toothed maw.

The Heretic curled his fist and held up his middle finger. They’d never break him.

A moment after he had fully presented the bird to the advancing stalker there was a shot and the monstrous thing spun, black blood spraying from a newly formed hole in its torso.

After that first shot the dam broke, and the Heretic heard the chatter of gunfire and the zip of bullets over his head. The remaining monsters all fell in short order, taken by surprise once again.

The Heretic lulled his head back and saw his rescuers, perhaps a dozen ponies, all unicorns with guns hovering before them firing upon the mob of monsters. It warmed the heart to see the peaceful villagers fighting back, it really did.

It all finished then, the gunfire dying away as ponies ran out of bullets or realized their foes weren’t getting any deader.

The Heretic forced himself up to his feet, staggering and swaying, willing the symbiote curled around his heart to do its goddamn job already and start healing him. Hypothetically it could bring anyone back from anything, but in practice the miserable little spiny worm took its damn time about everything and nine times out of ten its hosts just bled out or fell into shock before things like lost limbs could be restored.

One of the ponies was approaching them, a pegasus, it was a soft red shading to pink, and its mane and tail had been blonde, at least thats the color that showed in the few tufts of them left. The demons had been tearing the hair out by the root. It froze when he looked at it, panic in its eyes. The heretic put on his most reassuring smile and tried to sound friendly when he said “I’m not going to hurt you.”
***

Sunset Clouds gaped in horror at the monstrosity before her. It was massive, bulging with misshapen muscles and grinning at her with the most terrible smile she’d ever seen. The green burning coals of its eyes didn’t help matters either, and its voice, by the princesses its voice had sounded like a firebreather trying to perform his art through a throat full of gravel.

She swallowed as a unicorn stallion she’d never met before to day ran up beside her and leveled the alien weapon he’d stolen at the creature. “Stay back freak!”

He’d probably meant it to sound tough, but his voice cracked on the last syllable and Sunset didn’t blame him. The thing was horrific.

It through its head back and loosed a sad, insane laugh. Then its head suddenly snapped forward and it flexed the digits on its huge fleshy hands.

“Better make the first shock a good one kid.”

Sunset stepped forward, placing herself between the stallion and the... the monster. The monster that had rescued her daughter.

She hadn’t wanted to look when the demons had dragged her Little Wing up onto their gibbet, but the monster that had spent the better part of an hour pulling out her mane and cutting into her flesh with its horrible barbed claws had forced her to look up and whispered into her ears that after her daughter died it would put out her eyes so she’d be able to treasure the memory of her daughter squealing as the collector raped her to death.

Then that unicorn had blasted the wretched worm thing to pieces and the one they’d called Heretic had grabbed her up and run off before rejoining the fray.

She looked up into the burning green eyes and to her surprise the creature looked away and an expression of regret passed its face for a second.

“Where...” she faltered

The creature turned away from her and walked to the pile of bodies, all the dead monsters. “If you’re lookin’ for the kid I left her in that building over there” he said, extending an arm towards the general store “if she’s smart she hid and she’s alive.”

Little Wing was alive, she cuddle her mother and both took their time sobbing with relief, terror, loss and pain.
***

The fear in the ponies eyes had been too much for the Heretic to take. It made sense he supposed, but it still hurt him. He’d fought to save these creatures fer Christ’s sake, and still they looked at him like he was a monster. Because you are a monster his mind hissed just because you ain’t as bad as you could be don’t mean you aren’t a damn monster.
“Fuck you brain.” he muttered as he began to loot the dead. He’d need pants for starters, true the demons seemed to have invaded a planet of nudists, but he was damned if he was going to forget something as human as pants. Besides, he felt vulnerable with his undead ghoulies dangling in the breeze.

The heretic selected one of the bigger former humans and proceeded to strip him, finding something else useful. He looked into the murky red depths of the syringe and then glanced back at the fallen unicorn.
***

Rarity swam back into consciousness for only a dim moment, a sharp pinch on her neck, just under her jaw line, the image of the Heretic with something in its scarred hand, the other applying gentle pressure to her head. Something hot in her veins that made her itch.

She dipped back down into the hell inside her head then, even as she clawed at the brief wakefulness, desperate not to see those horrible things anymore.

They were all dead or worse. Rarity saw Sweetie belle being dragged limply on a choke chain, her large green eyes cut out with cruel imprecision that left her with only a pair of scarred empty sockets. Those empty pits turned towards Rarity and her sisters sweet voice, cracked and wracked with pain asked “why didn’t you save me?”

The image changed, now Rarity stood in a scorched and ruined Sweet Apple Acres, and as hard as she thought she couldn’t help but look up to where Applejack hung from a barbed wire noose, a heavy stone tied to her tail and linked to piercings in her most vulnerable of spots. Hideously the orange earth pony still lived and writhed as her red blood fell to the ground below. Rarity screamed and tried to run to her friend, tried to lift her out of the noose with magic but she could do nothing but watch as her eyes forced her to see the way the wire cut into the esophagus making Applejack wheeze.

“No please no”

The whimper went unheeded and now Rarity stood rooted to the ground in Fluttershy’s cottage and she tried to force her eyes shut as the animals Fluttershy loved with all of her enormous heart tore into her flesh with sadistic glee. Rarity tried not to hear Fluttershy pleading. Tried not to hear the slapping of flesh as one then another of the forest creatures mounted her.

They’re all dead Rarity. They’re all dead and you couldn’t save them.
Rainbow Dash plummeted through the air, desperately flapping skeletonized wings as she fell, tears streaming from her eyes. The sickening crunch as the pegasus hit ground would haunt Rarity till her dying days.

You couldn’t save them. You could never save them. You’re a weak, vain, petty snob. You’re going to die afraid and alone and when you are dragged screaming into hell to be used as our personal cum dumpster they’ll spit on you and curse the day they met you, you stupid little slut. You filthy little murderer. Yes you killed lots of demons because killing comes so easy to you doesn’t it? You just want to kill but you can’t kill hell Rarity! You can’t kill us! YOU’RE TOO WEAK YOU LITTLE FOOL!
Twilight’s Library now, all the books reduced to ash. Spike gutted and hanging from the ceiling, mewling pathetically as something unseen batted at his dieing form like Opalescence playing her cat toys.

Rarity’s gaze was drawn to the stairs. Something worse was up there.

You think the Heretic will help you, you stupid little shit?
She took a step towards the stairs, horror numbing her thoughts.

The Heretic is weak! He thought to defy us as well. We made him watch as his world died. We ripped his soul apart. He will fall and you along with him. Do you think we care that you freed him?! Failure is his greatest torture, you may be allowed to share it after we’re bored with pulling your bones out while you shriek for mercy.
Another step, Rarity tried desperately to stop. She didn’t want to go any closer to the stairs.

YOU’RE GOING TO FAIL! YOUR WORLD WILL BURN AND EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER LOVED WILL DIE SCREAMING!
Another step.

they lie pony. SILENCE! BE SILENT WHORE!
Step. She was at the stairs now.

they always lie.
“who are you?” Rarities voice sounded a thousand miles away now.

find me pony. find me in the pit.
THE WHORE CANNOT SAVE YOU! SHE HAS NO POWER!
Step.

the heretic knows me but he has no faith. the princesses knew me of old. knew me and feared. discord knows me and has hope. know me pony, and i shall give you power undreamed of in your darkest dreams.
Step. The top of the stairs now, a pool of blood. Twilight’s blood. She lay in the center of the room, spread eagled. Her breathing was slow and shallow, her horn snapped off at the base. The flesh of her abdomen and chest was peeled back, exposing an empty ribcage and a mass of tubes and veins leading to a dozen silver bowls around her. Each one contained an organ.

kill them pony. kill them and rejoice in their blood. kill them and rejoice in your strength. do not believe their lies. they lie because they are weak. its time for you to wake up now.
Rarity’s eyes snapped open. She lay where she had fallen, though someone had draped a blanket over her. She expected pain, but there was nothing but a small ache in her back as she stood up.

The sun had not moved an inch since she’d passed out. The implications were inescapable, Celestia and Luna were gone. Rarity thought that she should have immediately fainted at the thought, or screamed or sobbed or something. All there was though was hollow ache in her heart.

Dimly she felt something’s gaze on her, and slowly turned around, not wanting to make any sudden moves that might trigger an attack and scanning the ground for something, anything she could use as a weapon. Her gaze came to rest on a large death stick, one of the ones you had to pump before firing, although this one had a shorter barrel.

She left it alone for now, and fully faced her observer.

The Heretic sat on the porch of one of the buildings, staring at her through his long, filthy brown mane, his mouth twisted into a horrifying rictus that Rarity eventually realized was meant to be a smile.

Truly the creature was fascinating in its ugliness. This was the first real look she’d taken at the ape monsters. They didn’t have muzzles or fur, instead their smooth flesh simply collapsed in under the nose so that it stuck out like a beak. This creature’s lips were split by an ugly purple scar that ran up from its chin and over one of the black pits where eyes should have been and up into the hairline. The right cheek was torn away leaving Rarity with a clear view of its jaw and sharp, pointed teeth. They eyes themselves didn’t seem to exist anymore, instead there was a green flickering flame that held a slightly hypnotic quality.

The rest of its body was no better to look at, pale flesh covered with scars over slabs of unsculpted muscle. It had wrapped bandages around both of its fists, each one large enough to cover Rarity’s head, and its left arm was completely wrapped in white bandages that were rapidly staining red. Its right arm was covered in some kind in tattoos, the only one she could make out at this distance being a sort of barrel with two knives crossed in front of it and the word “mountain” on a curved tab over it. Maybe it was the creature’s equivalent of a cutie mark?

Rarity actually felt relieved when her gaze went lower and she saw that the horrifying beast was wearing pants.

“Hello.”

Rarity actually jumped back at this, and had to take a moment to process that the thing hadn’t gone for her throat. Its voice reminded her of Sombra, a low gravelly growl that set her coat to standing on end.

She snatched up the weapon from the ground and leveled it at the creature who went as still as a statue.

The Heretic and Rarity stared at each other for a moment. Wide blue eyes stared into flickering green flames. Somewhere in the distance a crow cawed.

Rarity finally broke the silence “ah... hello.”

The Heretic’s hand went to his pocket and rarity tensed, aiming down the sights of her weapon. The Heretic paused and smiled. Rarity wished he’d stop doing that.

He made sure his hands were visible and slowly drew out a red and white packet and withdrew from it a thin paper cylinder. He proffered the packet to Rarity. “Smoke?”

Rarity numbly shook her head.

“Smart,” said the Heretic “these things’ll kill you.”

He placed it in his mouth and lit it and Rarity finally understood what it was. A small cigar, unlike the enormous foul smelling things Applejack smoked in the summer to keep the flies off of her while doing field work.

Rarity smiled, she recalled a time when the earth pony mare had strolled into Carousel Boutique to get a quick repair on one of her scratchy horse hair tunics that she wore when clearing out growths of the thorny briars that came creeping out of the Everfree every summer. They’d had a row about that, and it had all somehow ended with them drinking some of Granny Smith’s special reserves in Applejack’s barn swapping stories about their younger siblings.

Not for the last time the Heretic wished he could remember more than brief flashes of his actual life. He might remember how to deal with crying people then.

As it was he sat aloof and smoked the cigarette. They showed up from time to time in hell, detritus from earth was always turning up in odd out of the way places there. He suspected some form of subtle psychological torture for the few human who remained sane enough to recall even tiny bits of time before they’d all be dragged screaming into the pit, or possibly demons just liked them. They certainly had liked some human things well enough, guns and torture devices mostly.

The unicorn finally got her emotions under control, at least enough to gasp out “what are you?”

The Heretic shifted. “I used to be something called a human. That doesn’t really matter anymore I suppose, we’re all dead anyways.”

Rarity glared at him.

“I can assure you that your species is not-”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“We may be walking around and trying to kill you” he hazarded a guess “Miss, but none of us are alive. We’re walking corpses, every single one of us lost and damned.

But I suspect thats not really what you mean. You want to know why they call me heretic.”

That horrible grin returned to his face and he leered, the combined effect was enough to make Rarity take a step back and again raise the death stick.

“They call me Heretic because I never gave in. There are others who never did, but I was there till the last bitter moment when my world died, cursing and fighting. They call me Heretic because I will defy them even when they break my body and soul and leave both bleeding and violated on the ground. They call me Heretic because I am born mortal and even with the truth ripped open for me to see and divine the truth in its wriggling bleeding entrails I will not bow to any of them.”

He paused in his tirade, the mad leer and grin vanishing. He drew in on the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke from the gaping hole in the side of his face.

“Most of all though they call me Heretic because its fun to burn the Heretic, to tear out his finger and toenails, rip out his throat and piss in his lungs.

They call me Heretic for the same reason they butchered the innocent here. Because they were stronger and hurting the weak is what they call fun.” He spat on the last word.

“Heretic might as well be my name now. I can’t remember my real one.”

The horrible manic grin returned. “So! I’ve introduced myself, your turn.”

Rarity stared at the horrible creature. It might be just possible that it hated the invaders more than she did. The level of spite and vitriol in its voice was almost impressive in a perverse sort of way. She was also fairly certain that it was completely mad.

“My name is Rarity. Ms. Rarity if you please.”

Heretic nodded. “A pleasure to meet you miss Rarity. My aren’t we fucking formal! Nothing like dying classy eh?”

“Now listen you brute, I have not fought my way through an army of... of demons just to be insulted for trying to display a little decorum!”

Heretic laughed. Rarity had heard more unpleasant sounds, but she wasn’t certain when.

“Good!” He shouted, his gravelly voice booming out and scaring a small flock of crows into flight “You can still get angry. I was worried that the psychotic berserker thing was a one time deal. You’re going to need that anger if you intend to keep fighting.”

“I intend” Rarity said, carefully articulating every word “to end this. I’m going to Canterlot and I’m going to find my friends, and then we are going to end this.”

“How exactly?” He was looking at her with an eyebrow raised, which made Rarity glad that she had not eaten anything recently. “Because I had some of the most powerful ordinance my species had ever made and I still died. And understand something, we’re not talking about something like that shotgun you’ve got there ‘Ms. Rarity’, I’m talking about the biggest fucking gun the world had ever seen. A weapon that tore apart entire armies of these demonic fucks.”

Rarity felt her face redden as he went on, which was hard to pick out because of all the blood.

“It doesn’t matter how many you kill, they just wake up in hell with a headache, and because you’re still mortal the minute you die they’ll own your ass, just like they do mine and every other poor sod thats died since this whole mess began.”

Rarity felt her teeth grind in frustration and also tried very hard not to think about the last part of that sentence. “Well Mr. Heretic, if its all so hopeless then what was with that macho defiant talk a minute ago hm? I will also thankyou to watch your language when speaking to a lady.”

This was fun. The unicorn had amazing self control. Maybe she did have a way to defy Hell? The Heretic didn’t have room in his heart for hope, mostly because it was crowded out by hatred and spite but the idea of the Prince being well and truly denied, of snatching this world out of his grip was one worth thinking about. He filed it away for future reference. For now he had to keep pushing, see if she was willing to go the distance.

“Really? You’re a lady? Funny, you don’t often see ladies drenched in blood. And the point of that ‘macho defiant talk’ was fuck-”

She moved in a blur and struck the side of his face. Hard.

Heretic was slammed to the ground by the blow. The goddamn thing certainly knew how to fight.

“I did ask you to watch your language” Rarity said trying to cover up the shame of being so easily provoked with haughtiness “and I will have you know that being a lady does not mean allowing oneself to be slaughtered, nor does it mean allowing the innocent to be butchered, nor does it mean accepting mockery from some malformed ape so in love with its own masculine nihilism that it wastes the time of ponies attempting to resolve the situation, and most of all it does not mean abandoning my friends just because aforesaid misshapen ape predicts only failure.” The dream was a lie, she was certain of that now. Likely Celestia, Luna and all her friends were even now doing their best to beat back the demons at whatever event had caused Canterlot to disappear, and were desperately waiting for her to arrive and take up her element in the fight.

Then Rarity realized she had just punched a monster that had torn through the invaders like tissue paper, while naked and wounded. She couldn’t afford to show fear, but she began preparing mentally for the retaliatory response.

Instead Heretic climbed to his feet. “I take your point Ms. Rarity.” There was no sarcasm or contempt in his voice now.

He turned and looked down at her with something like admiration. “I have just one question though,” he raised his hands, palms out in a placating gesture “and please, I don’t mean this as another jab to anger you, what will you do if you can’t save your friends?”

A dozen emotions crossed Rarity’s heart and face then, hatred, anger, contempt, outrage, despair, and horror. She open and closed her mouth a few times, ready to hurl another outraged barb at the beast standing before her, but all of them felt empty.

What would she do? You know what you’ll do came a clear, calm voice in her head. This was different than all the others that had plagued her recently, it felt like it truly was hers.

“If I cannot save my friends” she said “then I will march into Hell itself and save them there and if I cannot do that then I will find this so called ‘Prince’ and I will personally kill him, and if I have to tear Hell apart to do so then so be it.”

She delivered it all flt, a simple indisputable statement of fact.

Heretic smiled. A much softer smile, it was still disturbing, but it evoked more pity than terror. “Then I will help you in whatever way I can Ms. Rarity.”

A sudden sense came over Rarity that whatever else she did, the next thing she said would be very, very important.

“Tell me...” her voice sounded far away to her own ears “who is the Predator Queen?”

Author's Note

Chapter 4, in which Rarity goes mad and meets some dude who also wants to punch the fuck out of demons! As always this is more or less unedited and there is nothing remotely like planning involved.