The Swarm

Chapter 6

As the Princess lands in her courts, she is surrounded by guards who had worried about their leader. With a motion, she swipes her hand and with that orders them to be silent. As she walks towards the castle she looks back "Clean up one of the rooms. We're going to get a guest soon. It is going to be treated as a noble and any 'pets' it will bring" she says. At that moment, two of the guards bow and leave to prepare the room. She walks up to the doors to the castle as she opens them with her magic before quickly closing them. As she walked down the hall, she is accompanied by two of her more studious and elite guards. Unlike the regular guard, these guards were with wings of a bat and feline-like eyes and referred as bat ponies.

As she walked down the halls, she contemplated which one would be sent. If it was the tactical mind, then she would need to ready all the battle plans for his mind. If it was the general, she would need to get her troop records ready and of course any sort of training regiment that would be needed. Honestly it was all for her army to benefit from there vastly superior army tactics and weaponry. The only problem was that if it was that weird nearly armorless one, then things would be.... awkward in a way. As she stops, she looks up to the time and smiles as she waves her guards off and makes her way further down the halls.

Her walk brought her around a few corners and down quite a few steps to places that not many ponies know of. Instead of the vast black and silver walls, they were now of stones and some darkness with torches as the only light source. At the bottom of the stairs were two bat ponies with spears as they stand guard and look to see Nightmare Moon walking down as they salute and open the door for her. As she entered, she saw the room with some light from up above of a small window that a filly could not get through because of the bars. The room was old and decrepit as the corners were covered in spider webs and remains of food in the past of it's only prisoner. As Nightmare  smiles, she looks at the prisoner who would arguably be taller then her, if she wasn't slouching on the floor. Her body was a grimy white color, mix of dirt and grime from her time in the cell, all with a very slowly moving, almost ettheral like hair of blue, green, purple and pink with a matching tail. Her attire was of simple rags for a prisoner as her light purple eyes simply glare at Nightmare. She just laughs as she looks at the prisoner "Hello.... sister" she says to Celestia.

As the guards patrolled the grounds, the loud sound of roaring is heard as the large creature came from the sky and landed on the ground with a audible thud. From the top, Skorge and his pet come down from it's back as he looks at them all draw swords. He motions for the zebra to take a stance as her hands glowed with magic as he spins his staff at the sight of a threat. As he roars at them, they back down as a larger stallion steps forward, a helmet with a few spikes as he stands before him. The stallion was a bit taller then the others, but still fell short to the creature as he nods "I am here to escort you to your chambers emissary" he says. Skorge held his weapon tight as he seems to speak to the creature as it flies away. As the zebra steps forward, it was evident by her hair and look that she was Zecora, but now.... she seems to be a mere pet to Skorge now.

As he speaks, she translates "My master says he wishes to see the leader as soon as possible" she says. It was weird to find her not speaking in rhyme, though perhaps it was because of how he trained her to act. As the guard commander nods, he escorts them to a plain guest room as the balcony doors open and some metal cases are dropped in the room. Skorge makes a motion as Zecora escorts the commander out as she stands outside with the doors closed. Inside the room, Skorge opens his cases and finds a few weapons he uses besides his staff along with some rather.... gruesome looking tools as he inspects them.

As he looks them over, the doors slam open as he roars and sees Nightmare walk in. They make eye contact as he hisses and keeps his hands on the staff, ready to fight as she just carefully walks over to the cases. She sees the tools and with her magic levitates them as he growls unpleased at this. She looks over her shoulder "I take it, thee are the deemed the cruelest of the three?" she asks as it simply clicks it's mouth as Zecora walks in.

As he speaks in some kind of garble she looks at Nightmare "Yes, if that is the title I am given and I prefer you to put my tools down" she translates.

Nightmare complies as she smiles a bit "What if we can guarantee the help of our ponies? A scratch my back, scratch thine back? You get to use your tools on a immortal, so they will not die as simple as mortal foals" she says with a dark grin.

Skorge looks to Zecora as he crosses his arms and speaks more for Zecora to translate "Go on" she says as Nightmare smiles.

Down near the stairs to the dungeon cell, two ponies sit near a separate door as they are called to a 'special viewing'. As the two sit there, bored out of their ever loving mind, they hear steps coming as they look to see Nightmare Moon coming. The two stand tall as they are Pinkie and Fluttershy. Nightmare nods as she opens the door and for a few minutes of silence, the three walk down the stairs to a observing room. The one way window was magically disguised as a rock wall in the prison as Fluttershy breaks the silence "What's the meaning of this?" she asks irritated.

Nightmare just looks at her as she smiles darkly "We are here to learn my followers. We are here to learn of how this... thing, breaks their survivors. So that we can use it against our own enemies" she says. It was bland, but also had a more darker plan to it. All will come in time.

As they watched the cell in complete silence except for the rattle of chains now and again, the door to the cell opens as in walks two creatures in red and black along with Skorge. He carries and drops a crate of tools as all are soaked and nearly entirely coated in dry blood. As he makes a single motion, the two armored creatures walk over and force the prisoner, Celestia, to stand as they look at her. They force her head to look up and at Skorge as she is holding a strong face as he doing a twirling hand motion.

As the armor creatures undo the locks, Celestia doesn't fight back as she is too weak to do anything as they turn her around. As she is rechained, back exposed, her wings are a bit featherless as Skorge cackles a bit. He motions them out as the two leave and leave Skorge there. As he closes the door, he seems to be... examining his prey. Every inch, every curve and part, yet took very close examination of the wings. As he went back to the crate as he grabs some spike covered chains and lightly wraps them around her wings. In one hard pulls, the room is filled with screams as the spikes dig into the wings of their frame and all. The spikes were only four inches long and two inches thick as they dug into her wings.

In the observer room, Nightmare writes down these notes of what to use as Fluttershy grins "Already to chains? With spikes? Oh that's interesting" she says.

Pinkie just sighs "Whatever. She's in pain" she says as her hair poofs a bit at the possible excitement of this. As the three watch, he seems to snap the chains like one does to reins as he forces her wings to flap in pain. He laughs a bit as he pulls the chains hard now, making the wings go straight back as he holds the chains. He slowly wraps them around his armored hands as he yells and gives them a hard yank as Celestia's eyes go wide as she screams in pain as she feels her skin and flesh stretch from him yanking on the chains as she screams in sheer pain. The chains keep on getting pulled as the observers can see the wings start to break, but not in a way he is expecting.

After a few minutes, he gives a hard yank as the chains fly off her wings, ripping off all her feathers, leaving only the still fur covered wingframe, hanging bits of flesh, and bones of where wings used to be. All the observers could do is watch as they saw the monster rip the feathers off of Celestia's wings as they all laugh at this. Nightmare looks at the scene "Such marvelous cruelty!"

"Such painful screams"

"Such messy work! Oh this guy knows how to break ponies! Oh! Oh! What will he do next?!" Pinkie is simply bouncing all around as she and Fluttershy are mainly learning and seeing what Skorge does. As Pinkie calms down a bit, thanks to Fluttershy holding her in place, the two watch as he drops the chains as he goes to the box and starts to search for something. As he does so, a very faint golden aura starts to come around the chains as they try not to rattle. Problem was, she underestimated his hearing as he roars and charges at Celestia.

As he reaches her, he starts to pummel her face in to make her learn her place and of trying to escape as he leaves her face batter and bruised. He looks at her face and chuckles as he brings up his staff. He turns it on as he brings it to her head, but not to do what she expected. He makes it collide into the horn as in silent screams from pain and image, he starts to cut off her horn as it proves more difficult then he expected. He forces her head to come closer as he increases the power as with close observation, the three ponies watching can see bits of white falling from her head.

It took a good three hours as he cuts it off and picks it up like a souvenir, but has other plans for it. He moves back to her cutie mark as he holds the horn like a blade as he extends a small hole in her pants to show her cutie mark as he hisses. He takes the horn and digs it deep into her thigh as she screams in pain. He slowly, very slowly indeed, drags it over the cutie mark before he yanks it out, bleaching her fur a nice shade of red. He digs it in again and drags it again slowly over her mark, leaving the cutie mark with a large, bleeding, X mark over it. He drops the horn as he looks at her wings and grins maliciously.

He walks over to the container as he pulls out a good, three foot long cleaver as he looks at it like it was his favorite tool. Before the observers knew it, Skorge was slicing away at the wing base as Celestia screamed in torment at this. They all saw the blade rise, spraying blood over the walls as before long, Celestia's left wing fell off. As he was about to start working on the other wing, a knock is on the door as he looks over. He growls as he leans over and whispers "Sssssuuufffeerr..." he says as he goes to pack up. As he leaves, he sees Celestia's body slowly healing, yet he did not worry. He knew she was weak just by looking at her as he laughs and leaves.

It would take a few days to break her, mainly because Skorge wanted to have some fun with this one and of course he had more ideas for her. In due time though, he will break her like he did with others, though for what purpose... that's the juicy part of it all.