AGC

"Oh no… that's just awful…" said Twilight.

“Why would somepony dig up a grave?” Rarity wailed. “It’s just so... sacrilegious.”

Fluttershy remained a quivering, catatonic mass, unwilling to process the events of the past weeks.

The funeral had been less than two days ago, the second in a month, and already Dash's grave had been defiled: dug up and exhumed. The robber hadn't even bothered to hide any evidence: a muddied shovel, a cracked casket, and a trail of mixed blood-and-dirt footprints told more of a story than anypony wanted to know.

Something greater was at work: they could feel it in the birds' sombre calls, the howling of the wolves, the motions of the water: the world beneath their hooves seemed to be in mourning.

Dash awoke groggily: the initiates’ chambers were far from comfortable. There were two other mares in the room with her. The first was dark grey, with a black mane and a curled, black shape for a cutie mark. The second bore a pale yellow coat and a dark orange mane, with a cutie mark of three carrots. Ponies she had met, but never known personally.

The voice within her spoke:

Golden Harvest! Octavia! They’re nice ponies, you should talk to them. Harvest is very nice. She taught me how to make carrot cake! I would never have tried to make cake out of vegetables, but it doesn’t taste like carrots at all! I don’t know Octavia that well, but she plays the violin or something. She’s always too serious, but she makes beautiful music, and I love the way she li—

Ah. Silence. Dash was getting ever better at muting the party pony’s chatter.

Another, instantly recognisable voice called from beyond the room:

“Awake,  initiates three, come and stand before me.

In a day there are only hours few, and we have yet much work to do.”

The recruits rose from their cots and and wandered into the chamber to greet the zebra.

The other two seemed nervous to be face-to-face with the mysterious mare. Dash was relieved to see a familiar face - foreign or not- who might be able to shed some light on the cryptic cult’s ways.

“Hey, Zecora!” she said. The other newcomers flinched, wholly expecting to be stew sometime in the near future.

“What’re you doing here?” she continued. “You in on all this spooky cult stuff, too?”

“Patience, pony from beyond the grave:

Your purpose will be made clear in the coming days,” Zecora rhymed, leading the ponies down a poorly lit stone corridor.

“Not bad,” barked a gruff stallion, overseeing the mares’ training.

“You want to hit something important: you don’t want a wounded pony screaming for help. Throat, chest… head, if you have to. Once more, for a kill!”

At his order, the three mares drew back and, in unison, reached under their capes and lunged at the targets placed before them. Three thunks resonated through the chamber, offset from one another by no more than a millisecond.

Each of the three targets shuddered, an eight-inch black spike protruding from each of their throats.

“Not bad. Two, you’re off center.”

Rainbow Dash—no, Dearth. Dearth was her name now... A different name for a different person. They’d all been assigned names to represent their falling from society. ‘Dash’ became ‘Rainbow’s Dearth’, for the lack of mercy her fate brought. The musical pony, sunken into obscurity, was now Requiem: to mourn and exalt the dead, herself included. The farmer’s new name was Gilded Blight, for the glory she could bring to herself, even after death.

Dearth nodded. She removed the dagger from the mannequin’s trunk: about an inch to the left. All the important stuff, she recalled, is right in the middle.

“Optimally, you’ll be coming up behind somepony,” the officer lectured, trotting around to the back of his own mannequin. “It shouldn’t be difficult to figure out how best to take advantage of this,” he said, lodging his blade firmly between the mannequin’s shoulders, where its body met its neck.

“Depending on depth and posture,” he explained, “you just impaled their trachea, punctured their esophagus, and, if nothing else, severed their spinal chord.”

“Now, gimme ten. I want this down to an art!” he demanded.

The ponies wasted no time obliging: Requiem still nursed wounds from the last time she resisted.

“With the same constance with which the nightbird calls,

The sun always rises and the moon always falls.” Zecora lectured.

“Nature works in cycles without end, where all creation destruction mends.”

The zebra spun images for the mares: a small rabbit, stolen from its burrow, serves, in its life’s early ending, to sustain the fox’s young; a glorious dam that, as the final log is put in place, collapses and floods the bank; a flower withers and dies, spreading its seeds across the field.

“Nature simply functions this way:

For every sapling, an elder oak must drop to make way.

Every forest fire, typhoon, or earthquake

leaves untapped potential in its wake.

For the fallen let us not weep,

for in their place others life’s bounty will reap.”

Three shivering mares were marched into the chamber, their fetlocks barred and their legs chained. Black burlap was pulled over their faces, though they were still identifiable by the symbols on their flanks as residents of Ponyville.

The sergeant cleared his throat, facing the initiates on the other side of the room.

“You’ve done well. But real targets aren’t made of wood. Real targets bleed. They scream, they beg and they plea. Don’t let your conscience get the better of you. You are above these mortals. You are not one of them. They are worthless to you. You know what to do,” he said, bowing out of the way.

Requiem was first, lunging silently towards the candy-maned mare on the left. As the steel penetrated Bon-Bon’s throat, a streak of shocking deep red poured from the wound, dripping reluctantly onto the floor. The pony didn’t get a chance to scream as the blade cleft her trachea, letting blood flow down the inside of her throat and into her lungs. The point came to rest within Bon-Bon’s spinal chord, severing her brain. The blade withdrew, its hooked edges leaving a wide, bloody hole in the flesh.

The remaining targets knew what had happened: the mare gurgled as blood bubbled at the wound. Within less than a minute, the bubbling stopped, and Bon-Bon collapsed, dead.

“Well done,” the sergeant applauded, slightly stunned by the mare’s willingness to kill on an order.

“Blight, you’re next!”

The orange mare hesitated: she couldn’t do this it’s not the same why would she do this what had Cheerilee ever done to her oh Sun oh Moon was für ein—

An armored hoof drove into the back of her head, cutting off her train of thought.

“Dammit, mare!” the instructor shouted. “When I tell you to kill, you kill!”

“Now kill!” He pointed at the magenta prisoner.

The farmer stumbled towards her prey, fumbling for her dagger.

Es tut mir Leid, meines Süßchen...

She closed her eyes and struck out at the mare.

She felt blood spray, staining her face and hooves.

A numbness overcame her. Dead. She’d taken a life. Getötet. Somepony died because of—

Her numbing curtain came down around her as she became aware of the screaming.

She’d missed.

She didn’t dare look. She just wanted to end the suffering.

She struck again. And again. Blood specked her coat. The screams had shifted to a blood-chilling shriek.

Just die already!

Cheerilee tried to run away, to remove herself from the agony. She succeeded in tripping her bindings, the rough stone floor jagging the wounds in her throat.

The officer sighed heavily, walking over to the collapsed, bleeding mare, and raised his iron-shodden hoof for the merciful killing blow.

He turned towards Blight after the wails abruptly ended. She wasn’t sure whether what she saw in his face was disgust, pity, or sympathy. “You going to be all right?” he asked.

She wanted to curse him. To curse herself, this cult, the Apple family, all the little fillies that just lost their mother-figure...

But the words didn’t come. Instead, she just nodded, and laid down in the corner, sobbing.

“Dearth, your turn.” he said. “Try not to miss.” he added with a grin.

“Sure thing.” she replied. “Unlike some ponies, I know how to handle a blade.” They both glanced at the pitiful wreck of a mare moaning in the corner, cradling her knees and regarding the growing pile of bodies in the middle of the room with despair.

Dearth stepped forward and regarded her target. The dark blue mare was visibly shaking, knowing she was next.

With a single, practiced movement, Dearth’s blade left its sheath and entered just below Colgate’s jaw, where her head and neck met. The mare let out a choke as her windpipe was severed and her neck began flooding with blood.

She twisted the blade, now perpendicular to the ground, and yanked hard.

The blade came free with little resistance, pieces of bloodied pink flesh sticking to the serrated edge. The body fell onto its side, her bindings clattering against the stone floor.

“Good kill,” the officer applauded. He nodded at Requiem and Dearth. “You will both make great perpetuators. However…”

He turned to the quivering, sobbing mass in the corner.

“…you have much to learn. Whether it was negligence or cowardice, you forgot everything you’ve learned thus far in a matter of seconds. The angle, the swing, the follow-through, all wrong… You shou—” he cut off, aware of a change in the mare.

His scolding had infuriated Blight. She kills a pony in cold blood, and he has the nerve to criticize the way in which she committed murder. She’d died, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that what was important? Never mind that she was irreparably traumatized, the real damage was in her inability to properly end a life. Und der großer, stummer Offizier sah sie jetzt: was soll sie tun? Sie hatte Fehler gemacht, und er wurde sie bestrafen. Dann wusste sie, was sie tun muss.

Time had seemed to halt as Blight’s mind raced faster and faster, every thought channeled into pure rage: hatred directed solely at the officer. She stood and advanced slowly towards him.

Before he could protest, her hoof had come down on the top of his helmet, denting it and stunning him. She drew back for another strike, this time at his exposed face. He expertly ducked under the strike and pinned both of her arms to her chest.

He glared at her. This could not be the same mare. Her glowing, green eyes burned now with only hatred, pure and foul.

She struggled to break free, kicking at the sergeant’s legs. He responded by tightening his grip: something in her arm popped.

As soon as it had started, the rage subsided, and Blight was left bruised and perplexed. Tears welled up in her eyes, washing away the anger.

“Wh... What is wrong with me?!” she demanded, collapsing again into a mess of self-pity.

“On second thought,” the sergeant said, rubbing his bruised head, “I think you’ll do just fine.”