Author's Note

Merry Christmas!

Where You See One Man, I See Four

The sound of Selten’s muffled roars echoed through the distance, still deafeningly loud even though the dragoness in question was miles away. Scootaloo sighed, popping in her ear buds and activating her scroll, loud rock music blaring out as she bobbed her head to the beat.

Sweetie Belle grimaced and sent a text through her scroll to Scootaloo.

“Scoots, trn that shit down. Ur makin me def.”

Scootaloo blinked and shrugged, turning down her music and turning to Sweetie Belle in the seat next to her. “Sorry Sweetie Belle. Trying to block out Selten. Gods, she’s loud…. can’t imagine how much it sucks for her right now…”

“Well… at least it’s her last day of this…?” Sweetie Belle half asked, shrugging herself and turning back to her rhythm game. “Gah! Stupid Button, getting me hooked on these stupid games!”

Apple Bloom laughed good naturedly at her friend’s frustration. “And you got him hooked on karaoke. He sucks at singing though. What’s up with that?” Another roar from Selten reached them. “Wonder what Spike and Selten’s kids’ll be like.”

Sweetie Belle blushed, “I think he just wants to impress me… Sheesh, she’s really going at it… woulda thought her vocal chords woulda given out by now.” She looked over to Apple Bloom, “... AB, why are you video chatting with your sister even though we’ve only been on the train for half an hour?”

“Close knit family, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom explained. “AJ gets kinda twitchy if Ah ain’t nearby. Or at least, not where anyone in Ponyville can keep an eye on me.”

“Ah don’ get twitchy! I just worry about’cha! Yer still doin’ alright, right Apple Bloom?” Applejack’s voice rang through the mostly empty carriage, carrying the weight of an indignant older sister.

“Of course, AJ,” Apple Bloom answered, grinning as she rolled her eyes. “Definitely twitchy, sis.” As she laughed with her friends, she looked out the window and saw something very strange. “Hey. Is that a changeling flyin’ beside the train?”

Sweetie Belle looked up and squinted out the window, “... Why is there a changeling outside the- Why are those bugs glowi- DUCK!” Sweetie Belle pulled Scootaloo down with her as Apple Bloom ducked on her own, the entire other wall of the train exploding immediately after with enough force to topple it from the rails… and directly over the bridge it was crossing.

“SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” Scootaloo screamed, clinging tightly to Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle screamed back in response, using what meager telekinesis she had to grab Scootaloo’s hoverboard out of the overhead compartments and activate it, taking a hold of Applebloom and pushing all three of them out of the ruined window.

“SCOOTALOO START PILOTING THIS DAMN THING!” Sweetie Belle cried, all but jamming Scootaloo’s feet onto the magnetic clamps.

Scootaloo, thankfully, took her cue and began guiding the board down for a softer landing, miserably noting the forest below. “Aw… this is gonna suck…” she muttered, clinging tightly to Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom as her board’s rune matrices whined to life and emitted the strongest gravity field they could.

Apple Bloom screamed as they started falling through the canopy of the forest and rolled to a rough landing on the ground. Groaning, she got to her feet and cracked her neck. “You two alright?”

“Euuughhh…..” Scootaloo muttered, hanging upside down from a tree branch, “Hey AB?”

“Yeah, Scoot?” Apple Bloom asked as she looked up at Scootaloo, who was using one hand to prevent her shirt from falling down. “Oh. Ya need help?”

“No, it’s just that… next time we go anywhere… we’re bringing Spike with us so we don’t have to get blown the fuck up.” Scootaloo flipped down from her branch and pulled a weakly flailing Sweetie Belle out of a bush.

A few hundred yards away in the distance, the wreck of the train finally hit the ground with an earth shattering thud.

Apple Bloom flinched at the sound of the impact. “Should we go check for survivors?”

Sweetie Belle made as if to speak, then suddenly threw herself to the side on reflex as a sniper round whistled through the space where her head had been not an instant earlier. “Gah! Run!” she cried, springing to her feet and activating the one shield spell she knew, sprinting into the forest with Scootaloo and Applebloom hot on her heels.

The End cursed, reloading his rifle and muttering in his native Zebrican as he dropped from his perch.

“Did you just miss, old man?” Pain cackled, idly directing her insects to search out any survivors and kill them.

“The brat was too quick for my bullet. That is the long and short of it. Be quiet now and let me think, lest I gut you like a fish and dump you in the drink.” End snorted and leaned against a tree, meditating and thinking on ways to proceed.

“Let me go after them,” Fear hissed as he brandished his hand crossbows loaded with bolts coated in assorted venoms. “Let me strike the fear deep into their hearts.” His tongue flicked out as his pants bulged in anticipation of the fun he would have.

Fury growled and smacked Fear upside the head, the machinery embedded all over his frame whining and hissing as it moved. Flame flickered around the mentally broken man’s mouth, dripping to the ground like saliva.

“I agree with Fury, Fear. Your urges are not right for here. Save the raping for worthy targets, not little girls who haven’t killed yet,” End muttered, flicking a broken off twig at Fear and embedding it just below the crotch of his pants, barely missing Fear’s genitals.

“Hold your urges in just a while longer, Fear,” Sorrow said as he stepped past Fear, dragging his tongue along the blade of his crotch knife. “Things will be more fun if we take our time with them. Kill the young ones, and we cause their loved ones such exquisite sorrow. Besides. This is our new recruit’s first mission.” He smirked at Fury. “Go, Fury. The first leg of the hunt begins with you, friend.”

Fury growled and bared his teeth, bursting into flame as he tore off in a random direction, bursting through every obstacle in his path as he tracked the Crusaders’ scents. A bestial roar tore from his throat, promising pain and destruction to the unlucky targets of his wrath.

Apple Bloom looked back as the roar reached her and the girls. Her eyes widened at what she saw. “Someone set the forest on fire! Run faster!” She pulled out her scroll and desperately dialed Applejack’s number, only to hear static instead of a ring. “Dammit! Ah can’t get a signal!”

Sweetie Belle cursed and shook her scroll, “Dammit me neither!” She huffed and panted, reluctantly activating the runes embroidered into her shoes and gloves to give her a second wind, even as she whined to herself, “I knew I should have worn my running shoes today!”

“Save your breath, Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo shouted back, pushing her hoverboard as fast as she could, using the attached blades on its outer edges to slice through any foliage in her path and clear the area for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

A shadow passed over them before Pain swooped down and grabbed Sweetie Belle by hooking her arms under her shoulders and carried her into the air. “Welcome to Air Pain. Sorry for the lack of in flight snacks and flicks,” she purred menacingly in Sweetie Belle’s ear before slowly dragging her long tongue over the poor girl’s neck.

“Eep! Let me go let me go let me go! Help! Apple Bloom! Scootaloo! Heeellllppp!” Sweetie Belle thrashed and kicked, trying to dislodge Pain’s grip.

“Oh don’t worry, beautiful,” Pain purred as she kept a tight grip. “I’m not going to kill you. Not just yet.” She bit down on Sweetie Belle’s ear just hard enough to draw some blood. “I’m gonna take my time killing you. I love to see the faces of beautiful young women twisted in agony as they die. It makes me feel so alive to torture weaklings to death. I’m getting so wet just thinking about everything that I’m going to do to you.”

Sweetie Belle shuddered, “You’re a freak! Now let me go! I’d rather die than go anywhere with you!” She continued thrashing, going so far as to activate her one true combat magic and generate three clones of herself to weigh Pain down.

On the ground, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo stared off after Sweetie Belle, tears in their eyes as they tried futilely to catch up with Pain. “Give her back you buggy freak!” Scootaloo shouted, splitting her hoverboard into a pair of laser pistols and taking aim.

Pain lost some altitude in surprise at the unexpected weight and grunted as she felt a laser shot graze her carapace. “Got some fight in you huh, you little shits?” She shook Sweetie Belle’s clones off with a sudden barrel roll and strengthened her muscles for some extra power before throwing Sweetie Belle at Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle yelped loudly, spinning in midair as she pulled her primary weapon out of her runes aiming the magitech trumpet at Pain, blowing into it as hard as possible and firing off a massive sonic burst, propelling her backwards and throwing Pain wildly off course.

Pain screamed in pain before correcting her flight path and coming to a landing in front of the girls with a grin. “This might actually be fun.” She grew sharp, nasty looking blades from her forearms, dark purple liquid dripping from them. “Welcome to the big leagues, kids. Let’s see how long you survive.”

Sweetie Belle scooted backwards rapidly, eyes wide with fear as Scootaloo and Apple Bloom came running in, weapons blazing and battle cries echoing through the clearing. Laser shots and bullets flew through the air as they fired, buying time for Sweetie Belle to climb to her feet and join in her barrage with sonic bursts from her trumpet.

Pain easily dodged every single shot they took, a swarm of insects floating around her and buzzing ominously the whole while. She closed in while she dodged, acrobatically flipping through the air and lashing out with her blades.

Poison flew through the air while the Crusaders scattered, splashing against the ground with dark splatters of purple. Sweetie Belle rolled back and split again into four, each one of them sprinting off in a different direction while she yelled out, “Scatter!”

Suppressing fire flew in from Apple Bloom’s and Scootaloo’s directions, the both of them fleeing as well. Apple Bloom unfolded her revolvers, detaching the sickle blades and using them as grappling hooks to drag her through the canopy faster than she could sprint while Scootaloo slammed a fresh mana crystal into her board and cracked it open for a nitro boost.

Pain gave chase, cackling wildly as she sent entire swarms of insects flying after the other clones and girls while she gave chase to a random Sweetie Belle, buzzing through the air with a mad grin on her face.

“Oh goddammit why did it have to be bugs!?” Scootaloo screeched, nimbly dodging over and under various tree branches as she fought to lose the swarm behind her, wincing at every crunch that signaled the shredding of yet another obstacle at the jaws of the bugs.

“Oh fuck this shit!” Scootaloo cursed, slapping her hands on her lower back and drawing out a pair of nunchucks, twirling them around and cracking them open until they emitted a bright, icy glow.

Scootaloo spun around on her hoverboard and slapped in another mana crystal, this one blue and cold. “Alright you fucking disgusting pieces of shit, let’s see how you handle the cold!”

A blast of frozen mana struck out at the bug swarm as Scootaloo slammed her hoverboard to the ground, icing over everything within a one hundred foot radius and completely destroying almost the entire bug swarm.

“Suck it you flying pests!” Scootaloo crowed, easily dispatching the rest of the swarm with her nunchucks’ frozen blasts.

Apple Bloom cursed as she swung through the forest canopy, swinging lower and lower with each arc until she finally gave up and began sprinting away from the horde of insects trailing her.

“Ah may not be as scared’a bugs as Sweetie Belle is, but this is damned ridiculous!” she muttered, firing wildly behind her and wishing for once that she had more than a pair of revolvers and a giant chainsword.

The swarm continued chasing, chewing through everything in its path and even going so far as to split into two swarms to flank Apple Bloom and force her into a corner. Apple Bloom continued sprinting along, nimbly dodging around trees and firing off specialized shots of ice to trap small portions of the swarm and slowing them down with wildly fired incendiary bullets.

Still, the swarm continued inexorably onward, grinding away the ice and flowing around the explosions, buzzing ever louder as it began catching up with Apple Bloom’s tiring form.

“No no no no no no no no no!” Apple Bloom screeched, finally breaking through the foliage and leaping into the conveniently placed river cutting through the trees, submerging herself and denying the swarm its target.

Sweetie Belle swiftly sprinted through the trees, turning back every few seconds to blast away the swarm chasing her until the swarm had shrunk far too much to be a real threat. She sprinted anyway, wind whipping through her lilac and straw colored hair as she cursed her luck and her creator. Her legs screamed at her to stop, and stop she did, sliding to a halt and ducking into the hollow of a nearby tree as she panted in exhaustion.

The crunch of feet landing on dirt drew her attention to Fear as he grinned at her, blocking her escape from the tree. He flashed her a sinister grin and flicked his tongue out in anticipation. “Your fear is so delicious, girly.” He shoved her against the tree’s interior and slowly dragged his tongue from her collarbone up her neck.

Sweetie Belle shuddered and flinched away from Fear, futilely trying to push him away and struggling to find any sort of leverage she could use to get away from him. “L-let go of me you freak!” she screamed, finally lashing out at Fear’s crotch with a snap kick.

Fear only groaned in pleasure against her skin before grinning as he gripped her face. “You’re a feisty one.” He smashed his lips against hers and shoved his tongue into her mouth as he roughly squeezed her left breast, enjoying her softness and size before ripping the front of her dress away along with her bra. He got rougher in his treatment of her as he explored her mouth.

Squirming and thrashing, Sweetie Belle flailed ineffectively as her panic overrode her training, throwing her into a perpetual cycle of fear that culminated in a horrifying moment of clarity and a trickle of humiliating warmth hissing down the side of her leg.

Fear only broke the forced kiss when he picked up that scent. “Ah… The lovely scent of a woman pissing herself in terror. I love that sort of reaction.” He gripped her wrist and forced her to touch his bulge. “Feel what you’ve done to me, girly. I’m going to have so much fun with you.” He started sucking hard on her neck as he made her stroke him.

“S-stop… d-don’t do this….” Sweetie Belle whimpered, tears running freely from her eyes as she shuddered through a few sobs. “P-please j-just let me go….” She tried to pull her hand back from Fear’s crotch, shivering just from the feeling of it in her hand.

Fear only grinned as he left a hickey on Sweetie Belle’s neck and dropped his pants, pressing her palm against his throbbing shaft. “Stroke it, girly.” He made her keep stroking him as he tore her panties off with his free hand and started pinching her clit while shoving a couple of fingers inside her.

“Gah!” Sweetie Belle’s hips bucked unconsciously, a trickle of urine slipping out once more, mixed with something quite different. Shivering and not wanting to deal with the alternative, she began stroking Fear’s member while plotting out ways to escape before things got too terrible.

Fear licked Sweetie Belle’s earlobe as he moaned from her stroking. Her soft hand felt wonderful on his experienced flesh. “That’s not so hard to do, is it?” he asked as he pulled his fingers out of her and suddenly lifted her legs off the ground, pinning her in place as he shoved his length inside of her with a single thrust.

Sweetie Belle shrieked in surprise and pain, Fear’s cock having been pushed inside her without any lubricant, natural or otherwise. As she screamed, a fresh wave of sobs wracked her form, tearing through her and leaving her devoid of the energy to fight back.

Fear grinned at her sobbing as he thrusted in and out of her with groans of pleasure. She may not have been a virgin, but Sweetie Belle still felt fantastically tight, and that was always a plus in Fear’s book. “And we’re just getting started, girly.”

“Oh gods oh gods oh gods why did this have to happen now!?” Sweetie Belle muttered, springing through the tree branches with little effort, eyes flickering wildly around the area as she fought to get a bead on Pain. She hissed in pain, even the feeling of wind flowing across the shallow cuts and scrapes she had gained so far feeling as if they were lit on fire.

Pain’s laughter carried across the air from all around Sweetie Belle. “Stings, doesn’t it? I’ll say this for you. You’ve got quite the high pain threshold. Most people I use that poison on and nick start writhing in agony. But then again, this makes it more fun. Let’s see how far you can go before you scream!” A poison tipped dart flew from behind Sweetie Belle toward her calf.

Sweetie Belle dropped out of the way, flinging herself to the side and screeching quietly, sending out a pulse of sound to try and find Pain. As she swung herself to another tree branch and hissed from the pain, she listened intently, still sending out pulses, and closed her eyes.

Pain threw a volley of poison coated senbon at Sweetie Belle as she buzzed about the area around her, aiming for nonlethal points that would still hurt like hell. She licked her lips as she moved. Playing with her prey was such fun. This was why she was a lone changeling. Even among her emotion eating people, she was a black sheep. Other changelings secretly fed on love. Pain preferred to overtly feed on terror, pain, and hatred. Hatred was poison to most of her kind, but to her it was a drug that she had no desire to kick.

Sweetie Belle suddenly snapped to attention, screaming loudly and unleashing an omnidirectional wave of pure sound that knocked away the senbon. The shriek died down quickly though, Sweetie Belle’s larynx unable to handle the sheer force of her own scream. Faced with the rest of the senbon, Sweetie Belle chose once again to drop, this time to the forest floor and sprinting as fast as she could, hoping that the density of the trees would slow Pain down.

Pain’s smile widened further, her fangs on display and her eyes wide with manic sadism as she closed in and tackled Sweetie Belle to the ground. “Good try, but now it’s time for my fun.” She slowly dragged her tongue along Sweetie Belle’s neck before kissing her and shoving her tongue into her mouth, the long, probing thing giving off fast acting paralytic saliva.

Sweetie Belle froze up with a quiet whimper, muscles stiff and unresponsive. She quivered slightly, breathing shallowly and rapidly. Unconsciously, tears welled up in her eyes as she began crying, sobbing softly while Pain went to work.

Pain grinned as she slowly withdrew her tongue from Sweetie Belle’s mouth. “Best thing about that paralytic? You can still feel pain, and you won’t bleed out quite as fast.” She drew a wicked looking dagger from her belt pouch and dragged her tongue along it before ripping Sweetie Belle’s clothes off. “I like a clean canvas. No clothes to get in the way.” She moved her victim’s arms so that they were pointed away from her body, and slowly lowered the knife to the middle of her right upper arm. “I saw this one in a third world country.” She broke skin and started slowly tracing the blade around Sweetie Belle’s arm, never going lower than the dermis.

Sweetie Belle whimpered in pain and fear, twitching sporadically as her nerves screamed their protests against Pain’s ministrations. Against the effects of the paralytics, Sweetie Belle’s bladder released, the sheer amount of adrenaline rushing through her veins flushing out just enough of Pain’s saliva to allow her that humiliation.

Pain grinned, holding Sweetie Belle still to avoid getting her cuts messed up by twitches. She switched to the other upper arm, cutting it the same way. “I love the smell of piss released in terror.” She moved down Sweetie Belle’s body and began a cut around her waist, right above her hips.

Sweetie Belle continued crying, longing to scream out her agony to the world, but unable to. She begged and pleaded internally for some kind of salvation, even to the point that she wished she could kill herself and be done with it.

Pain’s smile widened as she finished the cut on Sweetie Belle’s waist. “Now here’s where it gets interesting.” She took a moment to squeeze and fondle Sweetie Belle’s breasts. “Such a well endowed chest. Seems almost wasteful to mangle it.” She started making a cut from the waist cut going up between Sweetie Belle’s breasts.

While Sweetie Belle continued her quiet whimpering, Pain smirked and finished up her cuts, creating a gentle line around the slope of Sweetie Belle’s collar bones and finishing off the bloody parody of a shirt. “Hmm… not bad if I do say so myself,” she murmured sultrily, just barely stopping herself from touching the wet spot in her pants.

“But… we can make it better, you know?” Pain’s grin turned feral as she began slicing cuts into Sweetie Belle’s arms and legs, forming crude swirls and lines almost reminiscent of a mix between runes and End’s tribal tattoos.

Sweetie Belle whimpered louder as she felt the shooting pain from the carvings in her limbs, tears flowing more heavily down her cheeks. She felt Pain make cuts to connect the ones on her upper arms to the one around her collar. Her eyes widened and she managed a small scream as Pain gripped the skin beside the cut between her breasts and started pulling in a sick parody of removing a T-shirt. Her torso was awash with agony, especially as she felt the extra resistance from the flesh over her nipples.

“Oh yes! Scream for me little bitch! I love your agony!” Pain threw her head back and cackled, the sheer weight of Sweetie Belle’s suffering kicking her into a most wonderful high. She stared down at the mass of skin in her hands and the exposed, bloody flesh of Sweetie Belle’s torso. “Pretty… very pretty… but something’s missing…” she tapped her chin and then suddenly grinned maniacally, manually spreading out Sweetie Belle’s limbs and staking them to the ground with a knife through each palm and one through each foot.

Sweetie Belle screamed louder as her hands and feet were pierced. “No more! Please stop!” She just wanted the agony to end. After the wedding, she wanted to believe changelings weren’t bad, but this one was pure evil. She looked human, but was really a monster. “Stop it please!”

“Ooh~! You’re making me soooo~ wet right now you have no idea!” Pain chuckled, sitting down on Sweetie Belle’s leg and grinding the crotch of her pants into the lacerations and bringing fresh spines of pain shooting through Sweetie Belle’s nerves. “Now… on to the next treat…” With a flamboyant twirl, Pain drew out another knife, wicked and curved with serrated teeth and the appearance of a metal file. “This little piggy went to the market…” she nicked Sweetie Belle’s big toe. “This little piggy stayed home…” Another nick, this time to the second toe. “This little piggy had roast beef…” Third toe. “This little piggy had none…” Fourth. “And this little piggy went wee… wee… wee… All the way home!” With a violent slash, Pain sliced off Sweetie Belle’s pinkie toe in a spray of blood, ripping the blade from the side of her foot and stabbing it up through the bottom, piercing entirely through and then tugging up and to the side. The blade sliced through the flesh of Sweetie Belle’s foot easily, coming free and almost bisecting Sweetie Belle’s foot in a spray of gore.

Sweetie Belle screamed her loudest yet as she felt blood dripping from her mangled foot. “Stop it! Please have mercy!” She sobbed into the dirt as she felt more blood leaking from her body and pooling around her. “Please… It hurts so much…”

“Mercy? I’m afraid that word isn’t in my vocabulary,” Pain smirked sadistically, heating up the blade of her knife with its runes and cauterizing Sweetie Belle’s foot. The stench of searing flesh filled the clearing as Pain stabbed the burning hot knife deeper into Sweetie Belle’s foot, then dragged it up and out through her calf, then finally slammed it home… right into Sweetie Belle’s vagina.

Sweetie Belle shivered, having lost the swarm after jumping in a lake and swimming to the other side. Her soaking clothes clung to her frame and slowed her down, chafing her skin and preventing her from running. “Oh gods oh gods oh gods,” she muttered, rubbing her arms to regain feeling in them while she stumbled towards a tree hollow.

Before she could reach it, Sorrow swooped down and grabbed her from behind. “You may have evaded Pain’s swarm, but I am not so easily eluded,” he breathed in Sweetie Belle’s ear with a dark chuckle before licking her ear. “You truly are blessed with a desirable body, Sweetie Belle.” His right hand trailed up her body to cup one of her breasts and squeeze it.

Sweetie Belle reacted immediately, violently thrashing in Sorrow’s grip and slamming her head into his, then using the temporary distraction to scream as loudly as she could. Her magic infused her voice, amplifying it and resonating it until the sound created a reverberating mess of frequencies that began shaking apart literally everything within a ten foot radius.

Sorrow held her tight even as she screamed, the vibrations causing massive damage to his body and causing his blood to trickle from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. Once Sweetie Belle had screamed her lungs and throat sore, he chuckled and gripped her chin, turning her head so that he could gaze deep into her eyes, his blood red eyes seeming to glow. “A powerful ability, but for naught against me.” He squeezed her breast harder and bit down on her ear enough to draw drops of blood.

Sweetie Belle whimpered, unable to protest. She began hyperventilating, both to calm down her burning lungs and to try and alleviate the fear coursing through her veins. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, drawing tracks that blended with the rest of the water soaking her form. “P-please…” she croaked, “j-just let me go…”

“Now why would I let my prey go, Sweetie Belle?” Sorrow asked, purring the question in her ear. “I always enjoy young women like you. Especially the sound of your heartbeat. As I approach, I can almost dance to the beat.” He looked back into her eyes. “Your lover is a lucky one, having a lovely girl such as you in his life. Especially with your body.” He ran his fingers through Sweetie Belle’s hair and roughly gripped it in his fist before kissing her, exploring her mouth at a slow pace.

Sweetie Belle began flailing again, biting down on Sorrow’s tongue with force enough to completely sever it. As soon as she felt the tongue tear free, she reared back and headbutted Sorrow in the face again, using her barely recovered vocal chords to scream loudly in Sorrow’s face, concentrating the burst of noise into a sonic blast capable of punching through brick walls.

Sorrow felt his skull largely vacated of his brain, the back of his skull, and his face as he fell back, letting Sweetie Belle loose as he held off on regenerating for the moment. “Such interesting prey. She may be more fun than I expected.”

“Oh gods… oh gods oh gods oh gods!” Sweetie Belle sprinted off, hyperventilating and panicking over the fact that she had seemingly just killed a man in cold blood. After a few hundred feet, she fell to her knees, shaking violently and dry heaving into the grass.

“And here I thought you would have a stronger stomach,” Sorrow’s voice noted from behind Sweetie Belle, as calmly smug and superior acting as before. “You can kill, but have never taken a life. Still so pure.”

“Gah!” Sweetie Belle stumbled back, slipping in her own vomit and tumbling to the ground, wide eyed and shivering, “H-how!? I-I killed you! I saw y-your b-brains….” She quivered violently and scooted back, “W-what are you!?”

Sorrow chuckled as he slowly stalked toward Sweetie Belle. “I never get tired of that reaction to me playing dead. I’ve done it to so many people over the centuries.” He licked his lips. “A pity you’re not a virgin. You would have made such a lovely vampire.”

“V-vampire….? L-like Alucard!?” Sweetie Belle yelped, scooting back faster and leaping to her feet. “T-then…..” she steeled her nerves and stood her ground, taking a deep breath….

And unleashing a scream powerful enough to actually uproot several trees and send them flying away.

Sorrow was thrown back several meters before flaring his wings and bracing his feet against the ground. “Such spirit. You are destined for great things, child.” He flew at her, brute forcing his way through the soundwaves and clamping his hand over her mouth.

Sweetie Belle choked and gagged from the sudden blockage of her mouth. She coughed out a heavy amount of nasal spray, stumbling backwards and leaking blood out of her mouth from her freshly abraded and overworked larynx.

“Your ultrasonic screams are an effective weapon indeed,” Sorrow noted with a smirk. “But you haven’t trained your body to be able to handle the backlash from all that vibration, so using it is just as dangerous to you yourself.” He kept walking toward Sweetie Belle at that slow pace. “So utterly filled with potential, so wholly lacking in training.”

Sweetie Belle continued coughing, utterly helpless to keep Sorrow away from her. Blood dribbled freely between her fingers, each spasming choking motion throwing up a fresh wave of blood.

Sorrow finally trapped Sweetie Belle against a cliff wall and gripped her chin with his right hand, leaning in and licking up some of her blood. “Your blood is quite tasty, Sweetie Belle.” His eyes glowed brighter red as he kept licking up her blood, his left hand rising up to her right breast and pressing down on her nipple with his index finger.

Sweetie Belle’s vision swam as soon as she stared into his eyes, everything but those two crimson orbs fading out into a psychedelic blur of lights and sounds until everything went dark. The eyes were the last things to wink out of view, carrying with them the dark tones of Sorrow’s laughter.

“Hi! I’m Sweetie Belle! Nice to meet you!” Sweetie Belle smiled and held her hands out, shaking Apple Bloom’s and Scootaloo’s hands.

Truly nothing could go wrong now.

“Why would we want to hang out with you anymore?” Scootaloo asked, spitting in the dirt at Sweetie Belle’s feet. “You’re just a lousy markless bitch!”

“Don’t leave me!” Sweetie Belle cried, reaching pathetically out towards Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom sneered and kicked Sweetie Belle away from her, “Why don’t you just go back ta crawlin’ in the dirt, ya pathetic waste of space?”

“Please! No! Don’t do this to me! No!”

Why are you leaving?

The slick sounds of flesh slapping against flesh as strained grunts filled the darkened room. A thick cord of rope stifling the screams of protest.

Sweetie Belle sobbed silently into her pillow, bound and gagged, as her father had his way with her. Her mother stood idly by, naked and masturbating, squirting all over Button Mash’s similarly bound and gagged form.

‘Why are you doing this to me…?’ she screamed internally, hot tears falling from her eyes and staining her pillow with their salty wetness.

“You’re such a good girl!” her father praised, brutally reaming her anus without a single drop of lubricant other than the fresh, hot blood that dribbled out of the many tears lining the orifice. “Such a good little slut for letting dear old dad work your slutty little ass!”

Her father came in her ass, prompting a muffled scream of agony as hot, sticky semen splattered all over the inside of her raw, torn anus.

“Hi! I’m Sweetie Belle! Nice to meet you!” Sweetie Belle smiled and held her hands out, shaking Apple Bloom’s and Scootaloo’s hands.

Maybe she’d make friends this time around?

“H-hey… what are you doing with that knife….?” Sweetie Belle stuttered, fearfully backing up as a dead eyed Scootaloo advanced on her. She peered through the doorway and almost vomited upon seeing the desecrated and shredded corpse of Apple Bloom.

“O-oh gods…” she muttered, staring at the suspicious splatters dotting the area around the corpse’s nethers and then looking down at the bloody bulge in Scootaloo’s partially opened jeans. “Y-you didn’t…. oh no…. Scootaloo no! Don’t!”

She screamed as she felt the knife pierce her heart, and Scootaloo’s throbbing cock pierce her lower lips.

Sweetie Belle stared helplessly as her boyfriend eagerly pounded her mother’s vagina, the both of them screaming in the throes of ecstasy.

“Hey!” her father’s voice sounded out, just in time for a harsh slap to strike true across her face. “Don’t focus on your stupid boyfriend when I’m reaming out your little cunt!”

Her father’s strong, calloused hands clamped around her throat, choking her even as her father came inside her for the nth time. Semen had caked her body, coating it entirely in a slimy layer of white.

Outside her room, a line of men stood naked and ready.

“Hi! I’m Sweetie Belle! Nice to meet you!” Sweetie Belle smiled and held her hands out, shaking Apple Bloom’s and Scootaloo’s hands.

Just what about these two makes them so trustworthy?

Memories.

Countless, unending memories.

Each and everyone one of them dark and twisted. Every forgotten nightmare, every half repressed memory of fear, every single dark thought that had surged through her mind.

All of them brought to light.

The pure memories. Happy, carefree. Full of laughter and the joys of youth. Memories corrupted and soiled and dragged through the muck until all that remained was a pale, desolate shadow.

Fear.

Anguish.

Loathing.

Hatred.

Sorrow.

Pain.

Fury.

Paranoia.

Death.

A swirling, dizzying cycle of experiences pounded through her mind over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER.

Never ceasing never stopping never letting go never resting never giving a single inch never never never never NEVER NEVER NEVER!

No light no escape no warmth no joy no life no safety no happiness no laughter no fun no breath no no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO.

Screaming ripping tearing roaring surging hunting killing murdering eating gorging clawing skittering shrieking gasping moaning groaning aching hurting burning drowning stabbing pulsing beating!

…..

“... Please….”

“....”

“Save me….”

Sorrow smirked as he watched the tears stream down Sweetie Belle’s cheeks, his finger buried within her breast as blood dripped out and stained her dress. It had been fun exploring her memories and turning them against her, but now it was time to end it. He slowly leaned in and opened his mouth, revealing his sharp teeth and exhaling on Sweetie Belle’s throat before biting down into it.

Sweetie Belle’s breath hitched unconsciously, so lost was she in the depths of her twisted and shattered mind. She shuddered quietly, mouthing silent nothings of fear and despair as fat tears dripped down her face. Without so much as a single sound of protest, she began shriveling from blood loss, her skin becoming ashen gray and her face becoming gaunt and lifeless. Her hair slowly dwindled from lilac and periwinkle to a subdued, aged white.

Sorrow finally released his hold on her when she had been fully exsanguinated, allowing her to fall, lifeless, to the ground, her eyes staring blankly at the sky as rain began to fall.

And thus did her corpse fade away into a swirl of pale blue smoke, washing away in the rain and leaving not a trace behind.

Pain arched her back with a pleased sigh as she felt the rain fall on her, soaking the gothic lolita dress she so adored along with the blood that stained it. She lightly panted as she hugged Sweetie Belle to her chest, her breath quickening in pace as she took in the textures and scents, the raw emotion. She deeply kissed the dying Sweetie Belle as fluid flowed down her thighs in rivers. She broke the kiss and hugged her victim’s head, her breathing reaching a crescendo and giving way to a scream of ecstasy as she hit her climax, snapping Sweetie Belle’s neck in one swift, orgasmic motion and letting the mutilated body fall limp.

The lilac and salmon haired corpse faded away with the rain, the swirl of red smoke left behind barely visible.

Fear groaned out his orgasm, one of the countless others he’d gone through but just as sweet, spraying the utterly mutilated form of Sweetie Belle with another jet of semen. At this point, Sweetie Belle had been reduced to a limbless, disemboweled lump of quivering, bloodied flesh. Both of her eyes were gone, pulped and ruined by the forceful introduction of Fear’s throbbing erection. Her ears had clogged with semen, as had her torn open nostrils and throat.

Fear had violated every single hole available on her young, nubile body, and then proceeded to make more, tearing holes open in her breasts, her stomach, her limbs, even going so far as to tear out her uterus and use it as a condom while he fucked her in the ass.

Still hard, he advanced upon Sweetie Belle and tore open a long, gaping gouge in her throat, shoving his cock through immediately and causing the very tip of it to erupt from her gagging and choking mouth.

With another spray of blood tinged semen, Sweetie Belle died, the lilac and flaxen haired girl’s corpse immediately dissolving into pale yellow smoke and vanishing in the rain.

Sweetie Belle rushed up to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, relieved to see them safe and sound. “Hey gu-urk!” Tripping to the ground and writhing in pain, Sweetie Belle let out an ear piercing shriek of pure, unending, agony.

Memories raced through her head; memories of desecration, pain, corruption, fear, rape, death, blood, insanity.

Three lives snuffed out in brutal manners, all at once, causing all three sets of memories to etch themselves into a psyche far too delicate to handle even one of them.

Overwhelmed, Sweetie Belle went still and catatonic, her eyes unfocused and glassy.

“Sweetie Belle?” Apple Bloom asked, shaking the poor girl’s shoulder. “Sweetie Belle?! Come on, wake up!” She pulled Sweetie Belle into her lap and tried to shake her awake. “Come on. We gotta get outta here!”

Pain’s giggle rang out over the air as she sat down on a branch, looking at the trio with a grin. “Wow. Looks like all three of her clones died at roughly the same time and her mind couldn’t take it, so she slipped into a coma to protect herself!” She tilted back and laughed manically as she slipped and began hanging from the branch by her knees. “It’s almost as intoxicating a sight as the clone I killed. She made it all the way to my orgasm. And I had skinned her torso early on. It’s so rare that they make it all the way through to getting their faces skinned.” She hugged herself as she recalled some really good kills. “So. Fucking. Great!” She gripped the branch and swung back up onto it. “And now I’m going to paralyze you two and take my dear, sweet ti-”

Pain was interrupted by a pair of heavy black boots slamming into her face and then exploding with great force, driving a pair of high impact concussion rounds into her skull and launching their owner backwards and to a halt in front of Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle.

“Alright, y’all, y’did good makin’ it this far. Now scram!” Applejack commanded, just as the dropship that had carried her let down a ladder and unleashed its other payload. That is, the rest of the Elements of Harmony, plus Alucard, Schrodinger, Anderson, Blueblood, Seras, Trixie, Gilda, Soarin, Big Mac, Facet, Maud, Ditzy, Vinyl, Octavia, and Discord.

Spike slammed down behind the assembled group a mere second later.

Pain lighted back on the branch, a swarm of hornets surrounding her. “Well well. The cavalry is here. How sweet. Too bad you’re too late to save the girl. I imagine she’s damaged beyond repair.” Her gaze fell on Vinyl and Octavia. “Hello, Fake and Interloper. I think I’ll kill Interloper next and make Fake watch.”

Vinyl growled, “You’re not getting to Octy! If you wanna kill her you’ll have to go through me first!” She held her sword out to the side and dropped into a ready stance, just aching for the signal to go and wreck Pain’s day.

“And if you want to get to her, you’ll have to go through me first,” Octavia muttered, standing back to back with Vinyl and taking up her own stance.

“Can we just shoot her already?” Rarity asked, hefting her minigun and aiming it at Pain.

Blueblood snorted, “Shoot, stab, slice, burn, shred. I fear that none of them would be quite enough punishment for her.”

Pain giggled even in the face of their hostility. “Oh… It burns you two doesn’t it? Knowing that Sorrow, Fear, and I worked our magic on your little sister and you weren’t there to save her?” She licked the air with her long tongue. “Your hatred is so intoxicating.”

“Hey wait a minute, isn’t hate supposed to hurt changelings?” Rainbow Dash asked, scythe unfolded and planted blade first into the ground. “The hell is up with this bitch?” She began aiming for Pain, lining up a shot with the semi-disguised barrel of the rifle built into the scythe.

Pain laughed and grinned widely. “While that may be true for the rest of my kind, I’m what the rest call a… genetic defect. Changelings like me have a taste for negative emotions. Anger, sadness, and especially hatred. Most of us choose to stay confined and away from others. But me? No. I decided to sever myself from the Hivemind and strike out on my own. Hatred is even tastier than love. A drug that I would never dream of kicking.”

“Alright, that tears it, time to shoot this bitch up,” Rainbow shook her head and immediately opened fire, prompting almost everyone else to do the same while Ditzy carefully lifted Sweetie Belle back up to the dropship.

The sounds of gun and spellfire rang through the air as the combined force of 20 combat trained individuals, a god of chaos, and an adult sized dragon blasted the general area where Pain had stood into nothing more than a smoking, glassed trench approximately three miles long.

Pain’s laughter echoed around the group as the trench smoked. “So violent. So hateful. Your hatred is so very delicious, my snacks. Which one of you wants to kill me the most?” A swarm of bugs formed into a clone of Pain and landed beside Octavia. “Is it Interloper, to protect her wife?” The clone moved over to Vinyl. “Is it Fake, to keep lovely Duet under wraps and away from the world?” To Rarity. “Is it Mrs. Generosity, for what I did to her sister?” She finally moved behind Blueblood. “Or maybe the disgraced prince?” She licked Blueblood’s cheek. “The hatred that the people of Canterlot had for you made you a wonderful buffet.”

“Hands off my husband!” Rarity screeched, immediately slashing the clone apart, such that each and every insect in the swarm was neatly bisected from the sudden appearance of Rarity’s signature flash of reflected light.

“So violent, Mrs. Generosity,” Pain’s voice echoed. “And how strange of you to end up married to a man who once raped you. Most in your position would sooner kill him. I personally would have brainwashed him and made him my little fuck toy. See how long he could keep me entertained before I decided to skin him alive one limb at a time. Wonder how long he’d last. I love the ones that can make it to their faces being skinned. Your sister certainly did. Her screams were so lovely. Want a full play by play of the gritty details?”

Rarity stilled, to the point where she even seemed to have stopped breathing. “Twilight?” she murmured, a wicked gleam coming to her eyes.

“Don’t let her get to you, Rarity. She’s pissing you off on purpose,” Twilight answered, silently flicking over a spark of magenta and washing it over all of Rarity’s runes.

Shaking her head, Rarity smirked, “Thank you, Twilight. That will be all.” And with that, she vanished from sight, a gust of wind announcing her departure.

Twilight sighed and pulled out her Scroll, dialing a single number and waiting a moment, before speaking, “Hey mom? I know you’re already tracing my Scroll. Would you and dad mind coming in for a bit? We have a Cobra that desperately needs a mongoose set on its ass.”

Pain giggled as she sat waiting for Rarity on a boulder, grinning when she appeared. “Ooh… You look absolutely pissed off. I can see it in your eyes and taste it in your aura. It tastes delicious. Especially mixed with your hatred for me.”

“Shut up and die!” Rarity screamed, her supercharged runes allowing her to instantly dash to Pain’s position and slice Pain in half… scattering her into a much diminished swarm of insects while the air pressure of the slash disintegrated the rest.

Rarity paused and growled, dashing away from the insects and tapping her scroll, sending a silent message to Twilight Velvet.

“Trace Message. Lock Coordinates. Arrive ASAP”

A storm of senbon flew from the surrounding trees at Rarity. “You sure you don’t want the details of your sister’s torture at my hands? Fear raped the clone he found to death. Sorrow mind raped his and sucked her dry. I took my time though. She’s such a pretty thing. It’s a shame that her mind is so wholly broken. I would have loved to play with her some more.”

“Shut…. UP!” Rarity roared, vanishing in a blur of motion, striking down the senbon before they even came close to her previous position. Trees fell from the wind pressure, the ground cratering in certain areas where Rarity had pushed off from in her mad search to find and eviscerate Pain.

Pain’s giggle echoed tauntingly in Rarity’s ears. “First I paralyzed her. Then I stripped her naked and skinned her torso like a T-shirt. Her nipples gave some extra resistance. Love when that happens.” A swarm of hornets flew at Rarity while she was airborne. “That first scream… Oh I still can’t believe how wet it got me. And that screech she loosed when I shoved my serrated dagger up her pussy and tore up her womb? I had a mini-orgasm from it. And she couldn’t do a thing since I had staked her feet and hands to the ground.”

Slicing apart the swarm in midair and impossibly using their shredded corpses as a platform, Rarity lost herself in a sea of rage, opening her absorption runes fully and supercharging her speed far beyond what Twilight had gifted her, tearing up the landscape in a howling tornado of sheer, undying hatred.

“I love the emotional ones,” Pain purred. “They’re so easily manipulated…” A black blur flew through the air and punched Rarity hard in the gut, Pain’s lips pulled back in twisted smile that showed off her fangs as her wide, manic eyes glowed green. “Hatred is my food. And yours is supercharging me.” She started knocking Rarity around like a ragdoll at high speeds, playing air tennis with herself before double kicking Rarity in the gut and sending her into the ground and making a crater.

When the dust cleared, Rarity was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a rather plainly dressed woman with violet and silver hair stood slowly, cracking out her joints and rolling her neck. “Such a pain you are, little bug. I suppose now I’ll have to squash you.” Twilight Velvet smirked and cracked her knuckles, slipping on a pair of leather gloves and bursting out of view in another eruption of dust and debris.

Pain giggled as she blocked a punch from Twilight Velvet, staring into her eyes. “And who are you? Some retired old bag? I can see crow’s feet and so much gray hair. Does your husband still find you attractive? Maybe he’s secretly ditched you for some younger, sexier slut?”

Twilight Velvet smirked, “I may be old, but I’m not over the hill yet. And, little girl, you just really ticked me off.” With that, Twilight Velvet vanished in a burst of speed once more, a nigh endless barrage of punches slamming into Pain from all sides. Twilight Velvet’s voice echoed across the clearing, loud and almost manic, “Your pathetic attempts to rile me up may have worked but even with the boost your abilities are useless! Trying to escape is useless! Everything you do is useless useless useless useless useless useless!”

Just as quickly as it started, the barrage ceased for the barest fraction of a second… until Twilight Velvet flickered into view right above Pain and slammed a steamroller into Pain’s still writhing form, carrying it to the ground and continuing her barrage on the roller itself. “Die die die die die die die die die die die die die! I’ll squash you like a pancake!” With one final blow, the steamroller exploded into a fiery conflagration, sending blazing hot shrapnel everywhere and setting much of the surrounding area ablaze.

Pain choked out a giggle despite her broken body. “Beauty. Pure beauty. Your quiet rage is more delicious than any of the finest wines in the world. Can’t wait to taste it again…” She went limp before dissolving into a swarm of hornets.

“Bitch.” Twilight Velvet spat into the dirt and picked Rarity’s unconscious body out from behind a conveniently formed barrier of fallen trees. “Come, child. Let’s get you back to safety.”

Pain’s taunting laughter echoed around Rainbow and Applejack as they stood back to back. “How does it feel? Knowing you couldn’t protect your sisters? If you had gotten here even a little later, I’d have gotten to work on them just like I worked on dear, precious Sweetie Belle.”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash both glared at Pain, not saying a word in favor of simply taking the bitch out. With a silent, shared nod, Rainbow Dash took to the air and began firing pot shots at Pain. With covering fire established, Applejack began spinning on her hands, legs flying out and firing an absolutely impossible tornado of glowing white bullets.

Pain’s laughter continued to echo even as the forest was perforated by the pair’s bullets. “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongues? I had such fun planned for those two.” She giggled. “First I was gonna tie up the Aerial and prop her eyes open, then strap the Terran to a table. I’d start small. Slowly popping out the Terran’s eyes after injecting her with a pain enhancer.”

“Oh shut up!” Rainbow finally spat, no longer firing wildly but instead dashing forth into a blazing whirlwind of blade and bullets, while Applejack pushed off out of her spin to fire a pair of guiding shots at Pain, drawing the tornado in, sandwiching the terrorist between a whirling dervish of steel and a spinning drill of bullets.

The clone was reduced to a swarm of hornets that didn’t last against the onslaught. “After the Terran was blinded, I was gonna carve patterns in her legs. You Apples are known for nice legs. Then I was gonna use her breasts as a nest for a new swarm of hornets.”

“Dammit! Where in the name of Tartarus did that sneaky bitch go!?” Rainbow raged, slamming her scythe into the ground and looking around for any sign of Pain. Applejack frowned and looked around as well, slowly moving until both she and Rainbow Dash were standing back to back.

“And while the larvae were slowly feasting on the Terran’s tits, I’d hook her up to the Aerial so that every bit of pain the Terran felt, the Aerial would too. Then I’d skin the Terran’s arms strip by strip. The screams were sure to have been utter music!” Pain let off an erotic moan at the thought. “Oh what could have been…”

“Alright, that tears it! If she ain’t gon’ come out n’ fight us, then we’re gon’ have ta make her,” Applejack growled, once more going into a hand spin, this time allowing her shots to run free and slam into just about everything within a few hundred yards.

Rainbow grunted in agreement, swinging into an aerial spin above Applejack and using her scythe to both propel Applejack’s bullets faster with wind, but also fire off her own shots, the recoil serving only to kick up even more wind until Rainbow finally dropped out of her spin with Applejack and allow the tornado that formed to explode outwards in a destructive wave of high pressure wind.

Still charged from the hatred she had gotten from Rarity, Twilight Velvet, and now Applejack and Rainbow, Pain weaved among the shots as though dancing, dodged over Blue Rose’s blade and clotheslined Rainbow before quickly kicking her down into Applejack. Grinning at the sprawl and tangle of body parts, she moved in for the kill on Applejack, deciding to make Rainbow her next torture victim.

That is, until a pair of strong, muscular hands grabbed her neck from behind and impossibly chokeslammed her into a dark void of nothingness.

Back on the surface, Night Light cancelled the magic that held open the realm of shadows as a tunnel system, grinning wickedly as he thought of just how ironic it would be that Pain would have to suffer through an eternity of deathless pain. As he dusted off his hands, he nudged Applejack and Rainbow Dash with his shoe, “Hey, you kids okay?”

Rainbow knocked his foot away with a groan as she got to her feet, gripping her neck. “Fuck, that bitch hits hard!” she rasped while helping Applejack up. “Thanks for the save, dude.”

Night Light chuckled, “Well, I couldn’t let my only daughter’s friends die when I’m in the area now could I? Still, what were you two girls doing fighting an internationally wanted criminal? …. Then again, you are my daughter’s friends…” He tapped his chin and shrugged, “Now, let’s go find my wife and see just how everyone else is doing, hmm?”

“Sure thing,” Rainbow said, groaning as she collected her scythe. “Can’t wait to kill these monsters.”

“Me neither, RD,” Applejack said darkly as she cracked her knuckles. “Let’s go!”

“Get back here so I can incinerate your insectoid ass, you fucking bitch!” Twilight roared, launching herself after Pain with runes glowing almost like individual suns. Every single combat spell she knew raced through her mind, along with calculations for the exact amount of force that she’d need to reduce Pain into a puddle of molten slag.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have breathtaking anger management problems?” Pain asked, her voice echoing in Twilight’s ears. “I mean, there’s having a short temper, and then there’s being on a hair trigger. You flip your shit for the pettiest of reasons, sweetcheeks.”

“DON’T FUCKING CALL ME SWEETCHEEKS YOU INSOLENT WORM!” Twilight’s anger briefly manifested in spontaneous combustion, setting everything around her alight as her hair spontaneously burst into a column of flame. Said column of flame proceeded to propel her even faster, as if it were a miniature rocket engine.

“That’s a cute fireworks display, sweetcheeks,” Pain taunted. “So what does your husband see in you? Your tits are the smallest in your little group, your ass is kinda fat, there’s way too much meat on your legs, and that belly? Are those stretch marks and leftover baby weight?”

Twilight suddenly halted and grinned, “Say, did you notice the scenery~?” Twilight spread her arms, indicating the mountainous gorge they were in, miles from anything important. Twilight giggled madly, eyes visibly glowing magenta with emitted mana, “There’s a reason why Canterlot never lets me go all out near populated areas~”

“Really? Why’s that?” Pain asked. “Is it because the people might see the princess’ student for what she really is? A trigger happy, psychotic, destructive, vampire whore?”

“No~” And then Twilight snapped her fingers.

Everything for a ten mile radius spontaneously erupted into a physics raping bubble of pure death and transformed the mountain gorge into a glassed over crater twenty miles wide and ten miles deep.

Celestia looked up from her tea and the utterly boring nobleman standing before her that was trying to convince her that it was logical and productive for all of Canterlot that he be given a private airship, noticing the glowing magenta light over the horizon. Sighing, she set her tea down. “Looks like the maps will have to be redrawn. Again.”

Luna facepalmed from behind Celestia, “In my own name, that area is going to be on fire for the next ten years, isn’t it?”

“Most likely,” Celestia agreed. “Twilight really needs to learn that not all of her problems can be solved by glassing the surrounding twenty miles.” She looked at the ceiling. “Someone get me a drink. Something strong, preferably.”

Twilight panted and stumbled out of the sea of fire that she had created, clothing burnt to a crisp and hair in severe need of brushing. “Well… at least the bitch’s clone is dead. Maybe the backlash burnt her too.” She stretched and yawned, walking back to the drop area without even caring about her own nudity.

“... I need to find an easier way to glass an area…” she muttered.

Pain sat on a stump beside Fear and wrinkled her nose. “Just how many holes did you tear into that clone to fuck?”

Fear grinned and shrugged, “I lost count after thirty four or so. Good thing all of them were tight and ready to fuck, though. Splattered that little cunt good before she blue balled me with that stupid disappearing corpse trick.”

“You’re such a disgusting pig,” Pain jabbed. “I prefer the living, thank you. Like that cute little boy from that one town we passed through on the way here. I had such a good time with him. Especially getting him hard, tying off his dick, and riding him until he came so hard his dick’s blood vessels burst. That scream was what really made me cum.” She sighed fondly at the memory. “It’s such a shame that he died of shock when I was halfway through skinning his face. Oh well. His parents being forced to watch made it better. Especially when I did the same to his older brother.”

She giggled maliciously. “I turned into his girlfriend and hypnotized him. Then I started torturing him. Poor guy died thinking his girlfriend had murdered him. Then I turned into him and raped his girlfriend while skinning her one patch of skin at a time!”

“Oh that’s brilliant!” Fear cackled, slapping his knee in hysteria. “The only thing that would have been better would have been if you’d have given their corpses to me!”

“You know I consider my every torture session a work of art, Fear,” Pain cooed teasingly. “Letting you at them would mean defiling my hard work. Besides, you shouldn’t need charity from me to find dead people to fuck. Especially not the prepubescent kids that I absolutely adore…” She purred in longing for one. “They’re so innocent and easy to lure. Especially the little boys just on the cusp of puberty and becoming interested in seeing naked girls. Just have to flash my tits and they’re wrapped around my finger.”

“Calling Fear a monster is like a shit calling a turd disgusting. Utter hypocrisy,” Octavia called out, dropping out of the air and slamming into the ground in front of both Fear and Pain, the shockwaves created by her impact resonating with her own magic and blasting outwards as a category 6 localized earthquake and releasing enough energy to equal a small atomic bomb.

Pain took to the air and managed to resist the shockwave with some effort, while Fear was sent flying through a number of trees to another clearing. Pain grinned at Octavia with her tongue lolling out a bit. “Hello, Interloper. Decided to give my precious Duet some space to stretch her legs?”

Octavia smirked and activated her battle suit, “Oh no no no, I’m only here so I can rip your spine and strangle you with it.” She dropped into a ready stance, still smirking insufferably as she activated the four extendable arms hidden within the suit’s backpack. “Say hello to my little friends.”

Pain whistled as she watched the arms lift Octavia off the ground. “Nice. You even have a pair that holds up your breasts for you.” She drew her serrated knife and started twirling it. “Wonder how hard it’ll be to make you scream.”

“You won’t be able to do more than make me smile as I beat you until your bones are nothing but shards and chunky salsa,” Octavia shot back, lashing her gauntlet clad arms forward and back, extending a pair of bladed whips that hung in the air around her like a deadly metallic halo.

“Fancy,” Pain quipped with a smirk. “You know… I may be mad at Duet for now, but she’ll come back. She always has. Sweet, beautiful Duet the Ripper can’t stay away from the battlefield. Watching her work excites my blood even more than a seven course meal of hatred or torturing someone to death!”

“You’ll not get her back this lifetime!” Octavia roared, launching herself at Pain with a cry of fury and bringing her bladed whips forward in a deadly dance of metal and edges, sparks clanging through the air just from how fast the blades moved.

Pain dodged backwards, taking to the sky and cackling madly, “Oh you don’t know a damn thing, Interloper!” She sent down a pair of swarms, both clouds of flying insects swirling around the other until both of them had built up the momentum to drill through concrete.

Octavia huffed and activated her whips’ second function and launched them forward, spinning them around and turning them into oversized blenders that chopped the bugs into fine paste. “It seems like you’re the one that knows nothing, Pain,” she muttered, pulling out a few grenades from the inside of her battle suit.

As the buzzing swarms closed in on Octavia, she flung her arms outwards, flinging the grenades in an outward arc and sending them into the midst of the swarms. The grenades detonated immediately, erupting into swirling orbs of flame that detonated once again and sent the charred remains of the insects fluttering through the air, trailing thin streamers of smoke.

Octavia took that chance to rush forward, her metallic arms springing forward and lashing out at Pain, who twisted in midair and dodged with barely any effort. Octavia growled and the claws at the end of each arm opened, spinning rapidly and unleashing a salvo of energy bullets at Pain.

Pain cackled as she twisted in midair, evading the bullets neatly while advancing steadily on Octavia, flitting back and forth on the power of her absorbed hatred until she flickered down into view below Octavia and slammed her fist directly into Octavia’s gut, the battle suit’s armor insufficient to block even half of the force.

Octavia doubled over, halting her attack and nearly vomiting as she shakily pushed herself back away from Pain. “Y-you bitch,” she muttered, wiping the blood from her lips and unleashing her whips once more, this time extending each bladed section outwards with a hiss of ionizing air as the pulse blades on each blade activated and carved burning trails of blue heat through the quiet forest air.

“So close!” Pain laughed, carelessly flickering around the now burning clearing while Octavia’s whips slashed nothing but air and foliage. Octavia growled and charged forward, changing tactics and instead using her robotic arms to their fullest and extending the hidden blades within each one, effectively tripling her striking speed.

Six bladed whips tore through the air about Pain, each one barely doing more than nicking at Pain’s disguised chitin and creating hissing wisps of steam. “Stand still so I can wring your disgusting chitin covered neck!” Octavia roared, slashing furiously and carving the surrounding forest into burning pieces.

“Now why exactly would I do that?” Pain teased, vanishing in a burst of speed and reappearing right below Octavia once again, leg scything directly at Octavia’s seemingly unprotected abdomen once again.

“Nice try!” Octavia gloated, the two arms supporting her breasts lashing out and catching Pain’s leg with lightning speed. “But you’ll have to do better than that to trick me twice with the same move!” With a swift twist and a sickening crack, Octavia snapped Pain’s leg like a twig.

“Gah! You damn Interloper!” Pain snarled, jamming her hand through her thigh and ripping her leg off in a spray of green ichor and zipping away, trailing droplets of her own blood as she escaped.

“You’re not going to escape so easily!” Octavia gave chase, retracting all her robotic arms for mobility as she sprinted after Pain’s retreating form.

“Oh come on, Duet!” Fear cackled, his erection plainly showing through his pants, “How ‘bout a quick lay, huh? Show you what a real man’s like?” He unzipped his pants and let his cock hang free, its tip already glistening with precum as he openly fantasized about Vinyl pinned under him and begging for mercy.

Vinyl grimaced at the sight of his junk. “Put that filthy fucking dick away!” She fell into a stance as she glared at him. “Octavia’s bigger than you, monster! And don’t call me Duet! My name is Vinyl Scratch!” Her visor closed over her face before her helmet enclosed her head. “It’s my duty to personally put an end to the Cobras.”

“Ooh, feisty!” Fear grinned, advancing slowly on Vinyl, darts gripped firmly in hand. “Always a pleasure to break the feisty ones… they always scream the loudest, remember, Duet?” His erection throbbed as he walked, the flow of his precum quickening in response to his heightened arousal.

“You don’t put that dick away, I’ll cut it off!” Vinyl snarled, her muscles tensing as she got ready to attack, lightning beginning to crackle over her suit. “Always wanted you dead the most, fucking necrophiliac.”

“Oh like you didn’t get off on some of the things I did,” Fear retorted, sheathing the poisoned darts he held and pressing a button on his wrist. “Now, let’s see that oh so lovely fear, my dear former boss.”

With a quick pulse of violent black magic, Vinyl’s armor stripped itself free of her body, returning back to subspace, locked away and unreachable despite Vinyl’s best efforts. Along with her armor, so too did her weapons lock themselves away, leaving her standing in nothing but her civilian clothes. “What the!?” she exclaimed, looking down at herself in total shock, “What the hell did you do!?”

“Just made things a little more fair,” Fear smirked, whipping out his dual crossbows and firing a pair of bolts at Vinyl, their poisoned tips gleaming a faint purple in the light. Vinyl scrambled back, just barely dodging the bolts and backing against a tree, eyes wide and feeling helpless without her armor.

Vinyl began hyperventilating as Fear casually reloaded his crossbows and took aim again, leaping back and sprinting away from Fear as fast as she could, heart jackhammering away in her chest and cold sweat flying from her pores.

Fear cackled as he gave chase, flitting from shadow to shadow in a twisted parody of motion that allowed him to easily keep pace with Vinyl even as he took deliberately mis-aimed potshots at her.

“That’s it! That’s it! Show me your fear, Duet! Show me the fear you never showed anyone!” Fear’s maniacal laughter echoed through the forest as he tracked down Vinyl. Hyperventilating and pupils dilated with fear, Vinyl slowly caught her breath in the hollow of a tree trunk, crinkling her nose at the scent of blood and tears filling the tiny area.

As she tried in vain to relax and calm down, Fear slowly descended down the trunk of the tree itself, slipping into an almost absurdly tiny hole halfway up and continuing down the interior of the trunk, chuckling quietly to himself.

Vinyl stiffened upon hearing Fear’s chuckles, “Come on you bastard… quit the assassin bullshit… show yourself…”

“...Boo.” Fear’s voice whispered from behind her, just as reflex kicked in and allowed Vinyl to barely escape being impaled on the poisoned blade of Fear’s knife. As Fear stepped from the hollow of the tree and faced Vinyl once again, Vinyl focused her normally almost unused magic and sighed quietly, sinking into its oscillating depths and losing her fear to the peaceful vibrations of her mana well.

“.... Alright…” Vinyl muttered, body blazing with swirls and eddies of blue mana. “Let’s see how much worse you’ve gotten over the years…” She held up her fists and allowed the mana to build up, charging the air with a high pitched vibration and blurring her fists in a cloak of vibration.

With a quick dash forward and a vibration enhanced leap, Vinyl took to the air and bounded off of a tree trunk, redirecting her momentum at Fear and slamming into his position in a cloud of dirt and dust. Fear had already moved by then, and fired his crossbows, both poisoned bolts soaring inexorably towards Vinyl.

As Vinyl flipped backwards, she kicked some of the thrown clumps of dirt back into the air and blocked Fear’s projectiles with them, sending both bolts back at Fear along with an extra dose of rocky shrapnel and dirt.

“Almost, but not quite!” Fear cackled, loosing more bolts and moving positions once again, taking to the shadows and all but vanishing from sight. Vinyl cursed and glanced wildly about the clearing, dodging more poisoned bolts and even the odd poisoned knife as she tried to get a hold of Fear’s true position.

And then she smacked her forehead, launched into the air to avoid another salvo of projectiles, and slammed back down with the force of a 9.0 earthquake, toppling every tree within half a mile and tearing up the ground into jagged clumps and spikes.

Fear stumbled and coughed, limping out from under a fallen tree, smirking insufferably. Across from him, Vinyl panted harshly, breath coming in ragged pants as blood dripped slowly from the scratches she had sustained during both her jump and her earthquake, some bleeding a dull green where Fear’s toxins had slipped into her.

“Y-you… you’re going down right now!” Vinyl roared, rushing at Fear with her fist cocked back and eyes full of wild abandon. Without even flinching, Fear waited until Vinyl was nearly upon him, then fired a pair of poisoned bolts directly into her chest, both of them glancing off her ribs and embedding into her lungs.

Fear’s victory was short lived, however, as in his haste to move away from Vinyl’s fist, he slipped on a loose piece of rubble and tumbled to the ground. Flipping back to a crouch a mere second later, he turned towards Vinyl’s previous position only to find her expected corpse unexpectedly missing.

A shadow fell over him from behind as a vibrating fist struck him in the spine and all Fear knew was the blackness of oblivion, organs pulverised and melted from the force of Vinyl’s blow and chest exploding outwards from the aftershock.

“Got ya, you fucking necrophiliac rapist…” Vinyl muttered, sinking to her knees and flopping to her back, breathing shallow and choked with blood. “Damn… that… wasn’t a good idea…”

“Vinyl!” Octavia cried, sliding to a halt painfully by Vinyl and fussing over her, “Oh gods what happened to you!? Wha- are these crossbow bolts!? How did this even happen!? Where are your clothes!? What happened to your armor!?” Tears leaked from her eyes as she checked Vinyl over and tore strips from her outfit to patch up the few lesser wounds Vinyl had sustained, “We need to get you a medic right now! Just… just hold on, I’ll call one in!”

“Facet…” Vinyl muttered. “Get Facet…” She pointed to Fear’s smoldering remains, the aftermath of his body’s immolation runes doing their work. “Killed Fear… You okay, Tavi?” She smiled up at Octavia despite her serious injuries and blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.

“Don’t worry about me, love,” Octavia soothed, cupping Vinyl’s face and brushing the hair from her eyes. “I’ll be fine as long as you are… Facet’s en route, darling, he’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Vinyl nodded. “He’d better hurry… Fear got me in the lungs…” She lifted her left hand slowly and placed it over the hand Octavia was using to cup her cheek. “Glad you’re… okay…”

“Shhh… it’s alright, love… just focus on my voice. You’ve lost a lot of blood, so don’t speak.” Octavia leaned in close and planted a shallow kiss on Vinyl’s lips, her other hand coming up to gently stroke Vinyl’s side and legs.

Vinyl kissed her back, closing her eyes and focusing on Octavia’s voice, her touch, and her scent. She felt her pain dulling under her wife’s loving care. Her right arm slowly lifted and lightly draped itself around Octavia’s waist.

Octavia smiled softly and gently, barely caressed Vinyl’s bare vagina, breathing deeply of Vinyl’s scent and smirking, “It’s alright love, you’ll be fine…. eyes on me and only me…”

Vinyl gasped and lightly moaned at Octavia’s touches, looking into her eyes as her nethers responded to Octavia’s fingers and began moistening. “Tavi…”

“Shh… what did I tell you, love? Don’t speak… just… stay with me,” Octavia whispered, gently pressing her breast to Vinyl’s mouth and letting her suckle from it, her fingers swiftly gliding across Vinyl’s bare sex.

Vinyl closed her eyes as she moaned against Octavia’s nipple, her core leaking more and more fluid as she gently suckled from her wife, feeling a sweet tasting liquid flow across her tongue and down her throat.

“That’s it… just like that, love…” Octavia smirked, repositioning herself above Vinyl and pressing against her, idly slicing the protruding shafts of the bolts out of the way. As her cock slipped free from her bodysuit, she gently kissed Vinyl once more, using her fingers to spread Vinyl’s dripping lower lips wide open.

“Get away from my wife, you bitch!” the real Octavia screamed as she punted Pain away from Vinyl, standing over her wife protectively as she glared at the mutant changeling. “Filthy creature! Using my form to try seducing my wife!” She couldn’t help smirking. “It’s Vinyl that always seduces me.”

“Tch,” Pain spat, wiping a trickle of blood from her mouth, “Should have known you’d crash my party, Interloper…” She cracked her neck and dropped her disguise, revealing her true, chitinous form for the first time in years, leg still dripping ichor from the slowly regenerating stump.

Facet stood across from Sorrow with a stoic glare on his face, the sheathed Suigetsu clenched in his left hand as he stood beside Maud, ready to attack with her at a moment’s notice. “I knew the Cobras were depraved, but now you kill at random for fun instead of money, Sorrow?”

“The economy is slow for our business,” Sorrow admitted, adjusting a few of his knives and shrugging casually. “One must do what one can to sate the baser urges, after all. Money need not factor in.”

“You’re a sick, heartless monster, Sorrow,” Maud said with a glare despite her usual stoic tone. “You and the rest of the Cobras. Killing you will do the entire world a great service.” Her flesh transmuted into diamond hard carbon as she spoke.

“You are certainly welcome to try,” Sorrow smirked, taking up a casual defensive stance. “Far better than you have tried and failed to match me.” He rolled his shoulders, not even bothering to keep an eye on either Facet or Maud.

Facet shared a look with Maud for a brief second before teleporting behind Sorrow in the same instant that the bedrock erupted up to encase Sorrow’s body from the waist down, Facet drawing Suigetsu in a slashing motion with his slash aimed to decapitate the vampire.

Blood flew through the air, followed shortly by Sorrow’s still grinning head. As his body slumped over and his head thumped to the ground, the flow of blood strangely reversed, carrying Sorrow’s head along with it until he burst from the stone prison, smashing shrapnel in every direction as he cackled.

“Like I said,” Sorrow scoffed, “far better than you have tried and failed. Their blood was delicious. I wonder if yours will taste the same?” He flexed and cracked his neck, then faded from sight.

Facet and Maud immediately sprang to cover each others’ backs, both looking around wildly for Sorrow. Echoing laughter filled the area as shadows darted and leaves rustled, but Sorrow was nowhere to be found.

“Tch, hiding like a coward, I see,” Facet muttered, tapping Maud’s back in a distinct pattern.

Three short taps, a long press, and a swipe upwards.

Wait three seconds, then create a sensory earthquake while Facet took to the air.

Maud nodded, repeated the pattern and then summarily grabbed Facet by the back of the collar and threw him upwards, stomping down at the same time and- in a mirror of what Vinyl had done some miles away- smashed the entire area with a pulse of earth magic and sheer physical force, throwing up massive spikes and slabs of bedrock and even tapping into the groundwater in the soil itself, spraying the air with drops of dirty water and mud.

In the center of the maelstrom stood Maud, form transmuted into solid diamond while Facet simply hopped from slab to slab, spreading the water and mud into a thin brown mist and jetting it outwards to detect Sorrow.

There.

Facet smirked when he felt the mist rush around a suspiciously male figure, pushing off from his position in midair and jetting towards said figure while Maud herself took off in the same direction, both of their arms outstretched and poised to deliver a pincer deathblow.

And then a horrible, tearing, jerking sensation and Facet found himself slamming into a tree while Maud suddenly found herself thrown high into the air, covered in slashes and diamond form crumbling in multiple areas.

Facet coughed, a wet, gurgling noise punctuated by a splatter of blood from his lips and a sharp pain in his chest. “W-what happened?” he murmured, eyes hazily taking in every detail of the now torn and jagged field. When he looked up, his eyes widened at the sight of Maud’s battered form being thrown through the air by a black blur of falling feathers.

“No…” Facet struggled to a stand, pulling the mist from the air and using it to heal his bruised ribs. He snatched a feather from the air and crushed it in his grip, snarling silently and activating the rune schema he had long neglected:

Dispel Illusion.

With an audible shattering of time and space, reality reasserted itself to Facet’s perception, revealing himself standing over Maud’s unconscious body, a broken Suigetsu dangling from limp fingers and numerous gashes and fractures dotting his own form.

Maud had fared seemingly better, with her body still diamond, though noticeably chipped and cracked in areas. Most telling was the chipped and warped remains of Suigetsu’s blade clutched in her fist, along with the signs of pressure damage around Maud’s chest and neck.

“Bastard…” Facet growled, turning to face the now revealed Sorrow, who was simply standing upon a vertical slab and grinning insufferably.

“Bravo, bravo,” Sorrow mocked, clapping slowly. “Even if there was no blood, there certainly was enough violence to make up for it! Are you sure that yo-GACK!”

A flaming projectile interrupted Sorrow, the screaming and raging form of Fury slamming into Sorrow’s back and sending them both into a tumbling heap of burning clothing and infuriated shouting.

“Get off of me you flaming sand zebra!” Sorrow grunted, trapped under and around Fury’s flailing and chained form, fingers and legs twisted into the innumerable white hot links while his hair- his precious, precious hair- caught aflame and filled the air with the horrible stench of burning hair.

After a few seconds of incredulous staring, Facet shook his head, gathered up Maud in his arms, and raced off, following the distress signal that Octavia had sent mere minutes ago.

“I regret not tracking you down and putting a grenade down your throat,” Octavia panted, glaring at Pain’s monstrous chitin. She held tightly to her left arm, which had been rendered nearly useless by a lucky swipe on Pain’s part.

Pain was, as a testament to Octavia’s skill, faring far worse, what with both legs and an arm now torn off and laying in a discarded heap. Still, the real danger came from Pain’s insect swarms; Octavia being a hand-to-hand specialist had no direct solution to their numbers beyond a now empty can of industrial strength bug spray, also discarded in a nearby pile of rubble.

Still, Pain fought on, sending swarm after swarm at Octavia, each one of them filling the air with wave after wave of cascading explosions while their mistress hung back and cackled.

Octavia leapt and dodged, tucked and rolled, deftly avoiding the explosions with barely a scratch. That is, until a stray rock came loose under her foot and she stumbled, regaining her footing a second later but losing enough ground such that the next wave of exploding insects instead flung her into a cursing pile of tangled limbs and blood.

“S-shit…” she coughed, hacking ash and dust from her lungs while her nerves all but screamed at her not to get up. Still, she had to move, get away from the incoming swarm before it encircled her and blasted her into a crispy char of burnt flesh.

Limping and knees giving out under her, Octavia barely made it a few feet before she fell again, this time tearfully looking towards Vinyl, hoping that the two of them would meet again on the other side.

A sudden splash of cool water roused her from her fatalistic thoughts, startling her into a sitting position and letting her see the high pressure stream of water whip around and slice off Pain’s other arm, carrying hundreds of insect corpses within its depths.

Pain swerved wildly and dashed away, dripping green ichor until another blast of water caught her in the back and shredded her into yet another sopping pile of dead bugs.

“Damn,” Facet muttered, shaking his head and setting Maud down by Vinyl. “Another clone.”

Octavia groaned and sat up, half dragging herself over to Facet and flopping down on Vinyl’s other side. “At least I tore her fucking leg off…”

Facet sent ultra purified water into all three of his patients, assessing their conditions in order to triage them properly. “Vinyl first.” Water seeped into Vinyl’s chest wounds and carefully extracted the heads of Fear’s crossbow bolts. “Her lungs are punctured, and these bolts are poisoned.” While he carefully mended Vinyl’s lungs, he sent more water into her bloodstream to collect and purge the poison. As the water flowed from a wound, discolored with poison, Facet finished mending Vinyl’s lungs, allowing her to breathe properly. “She’s stable.”

“That’s good,” Octavia muttered, finally allowing herself to breathe a sigh of relief and let the adrenaline fade, slowly slipping off into unconsciousness. “I’ll be alright… just tend to Maud…. and keep Vinyl safe…”

Facet nodded and began tending to his wife as he telekinetically shifted Vinyl a bit closer to Octavia. Once he got them stabilized, he’d call in the dropship to pick them up and get them to an actual hospital for a follow up examination.

Sorrow cursed and silently bemoaned the loss of his prized hairdo as he shot through the forest canopy, wings flared open and flapping silently. “Hurry up you two! We must regroup before those heroes find us!” His eyes scanned the environment for anything that might be useful as a shelter, noting that the three terrorists were coming upon the foothills before a mountain range.

Fury growled and kept up as best as he could, augmentations whining as the various bits of technology and runes embedded in his flesh suppressed his fire in favor of speed.

Pain giggled to herself even as she kept pace with Sorrow. “Even if we didn’t get to kill those girls, I still got to torture that one and help send her into a coma. I doubt she’ll ever wake up.” She sighed in disappointment. “Such a shame my clone was interrupted before I could have some fun with my precious Duet. I’ll give Fake credit though. She’s sexy, and skilled. She killed Fear without her armor or even a weapon. She’s still got it after all these years. I was worried she’d gone soft in that cushy tech.”

“Soft? Ha!” Sorrow scoffed, not even entertaining the notion. “Our precious Duet would never let any armor or augmentation let her go soft! It is entirely against her nature!” He chuckled and idly stroked his erection through his pants, “Though, I wouldn’t mind making her go against her nature just so I could see her begging beneath me…”

Pain moaned and squeezed one of her breasts. “I was so close too. She thought I was that interloper she married. When we finally get the drop on Interloper, she’s mine. I’ll take my time with her and make Fake watch.” She snarled. “I’ll show Interloper how things are. Duet is mine!”

“Mine, you mean,” Sorrow glared at Pain, daring her to challenge his claim over Duet. “She was mine before you had ever entertained the notion of her being more than our boss. My claim takes precedence, you insectoid cripple.”

“I’ll plant my new foot up your ass first thing once it finishes growing, bloodsucker!” Pain snapped. “I can make any of Duet’s fantasies real. Physical. All you can do is make her think they’re real.”

“Mind over matter, bug. Just because you can take a paltry image doesn’t mean you can bring with it the emotion and the true feelings.” Sorrow snorted and flew forward, clearly ignoring Pain in favor of entertaining the fantasies of what he would do to Duet when he finally got her back.

Meanwhile, back at the Cobras’ original campsite in a cave under the destroyed train tracks, End checked his watch for the fiftieth time and rolled his eyes, taking the cooking pot off the fire and putting away the plates for the others. “Fine. If they do not want their food, then I shall let them brood.”

He chuckled to himself and rifled through their left behind packs, smirk growing wider with each packet of sneaked in comfort food found. “Pocky from Fury, such a delight. Pork rinds from Pain, such a strange sight. And what’s this? Sorrow prefers peppermint sticks? And Fear… that bag I’m not even going near.”

The old man chuckled uproariously to himself, thinking of the absolute rage the others would react with when they found their food all gone.

“Sucks for those fools blind, leaving their only sniper behind.”

Pain looked around the cave that they had found in curiosity. “A cave full of treasure. Someone’s stash, I bet. Rich fuckers.” She looked around through the treasure, helping herself to whatever looked nice, before her eyes widened in glee at the sight of eggs. “Ooh! Come take a look at these eggs!” She picked up one of the beach ball sized eggs and examined it. “This would make such a tasty omelette.”

“... Pain. We need to leave. Right now.” Sorrow began backing out of the cave, dropping the jewels and gold he had picked up and bodily dragging Fury with him, desperately trying not to make a single extraneous sound. “Pain, listen to me for once you stupid bugbrain, and let’s go! Those are dragon eggs!”

Pain looked at him with her head tilted. “Dragon eggs?” Her eyes widened. “Massive piles of treasure, clutch of eggs…” She felt a warm breeze down her back. “The mother is right behind me, isn’t it?”

“She is…” Selten growled, pupils contracted to angry slits and a harsh, blue glow already building up in her throat. With a deafening roar and the impression of unrelenting force, Selten unleashed a massive bolt of pure magic, throwing Pain, Sorrow, and Fury from her cave, all three screaming on the way down the mountain.

The bottom of the mountain provided no safety for them from draconic wrath. Though Selten would not leave the clutch unguarded, her roar had drawn even more dangerous attention. Standing over the trio was her equally enraged mate.

“So you three upset my mate and probably threatened our eggs,” Spike said ominously as the back of his throat glowed. “Any last words?”

“DIE!” Fury roared, climbing to his feet and unleashing a torrent of white hot flames at Spike, his rage addled mind unable to comprehend the mind numbingly obvious fact that dragons are fireproof.

Spike waited for Fury to tire himself out, staring at him with an arched eyeridge. “You done? Okay then.” He roared and lunged at Fury, snapping him up and swallowing him whole, content to let the killing be handled by his stomach acids.

Pain and Sorrow had wisely decided to run while Spike was distracted, the both of them taking wing and fleeing as far and as fast from Spike’s general direction as they could.

Spike let them go and flew up to his and Selten’s den, entering quickly. “Are the eggs okay, Selten?!”

Selten nodded, crooning over the eggs and gently bathing them in flame. “They are fine, Spike. The interlopers have done no damage to our beloved brood.” She smiled tiredly and gathered the eggs into a divot in the stone floor, curling above it and letting her body incubate the eggs.

Spike smiled and curled up with her, looking over the eggs. “I told you the pain would be well worth it, didn’t I?” he asked as he nuzzled Selten lovingly, their tails twining together.

Selten grumbled good naturedly, “Though the pain was worth it, I still wish that I did not need to go through it. A week with no sleep is only barely worth the birth of our brood.”

“Humans have developed ways to dull the pain of giving birth,” Spike said. “Maybe next time we have a clutch, we’ll look into that?”

“Definitely,” Selten nodded, leaning gently against Spike and drifting off, tiny snores emanating from her form.

Octavia sighed as she plopped down in her armchair, sighing deeply and groaning at the aching soreness that not even Facet could fully heal. “What a day…” she muttered, rolling her neck and wincing at the multitude of cracks that burst forth.

“At least Fear is dead and Alucard was able to help Sweetie Belle,” Vinyl pointed out as she collapsed into her own recliner and stretched out. “But yeah. What a fucked up day.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Octavia stood and stretched, peeling off her battlesuit and letting it flop to the floor. “I still can’t believe that Alucard was able to just erase all the trauma just like that. Seems like a bit of a deus ex machina to me.” She stretched her spine, rolling it just so and revelling in the deep cracks and loosened joints that resulted.

Vinyl’s eyes followed every movement that Octavia’s body made as she listened to the chorus of popping joints. “Well you heard the psychiatrists. Other than Alucard erasing the memories, Sweetie Belle was mentally damaged beyond repair.”

“Good point, love,” Octavia conceded the point and went back to stretching, throwing off her remaining articles of clothing and shutting the blinds so she could work out her tension in the nude like she normally did.

“I love watching you do naked yoga, Tavi,” Vinyl said, grinning at her wife as the scent of arousal began filling the air near her. “So sexy…” She reached into her shorts and pushed a couple of fingers into her core, moaning as she felt how soaked she already was.

Octavia smirked and laid down on her yoga mat, erection bobbing in the air as she shifted languidly into the scorpion position and resting her feet upon the back of her head. “Come now, love, I can’t do naked oil yoga without my oil~”

Vinyl grinned and stripped naked before crawling over to Octavia and slowly dragging her tongue from the base of her throbbing shaft to the tip, slowly licking her up and down to make sure she was completely lubed up.

“Mmnh~” Octavia moaned, eyes shut and mouth hanging open in delight. “Nice try, but you can’t skip foreplay so easily now, darling~” She smirked and winked at Vinyl, “Now be a dear and actually oil the both of us up, will you?”

Vinyl chuckled and pulled the bottles of massage oil over with her telekinesis and squirted generous amounts onto her arms and legs along with Octavia’s chest and belly. “Sure thing, Tavi,” she purred before deeply kissing Octavia and throwing her arms around her, rubbing their bodies together as they made out.

Octavia writhed against Vinyl, smearing the oil over and deeper into their bodies. Snatching the bottles from Vinyl’s grip, she smirked wickedly and pressed the nozzles of both bottles against Vinyl’s vagina and anus, squeezing both of them and sending twin jets of warm, slippery oil deep into Vinyl.

Vinyl moaned as her holes were lubed up, rubbing her hard nipples against Octavia’s and rubbing her even slicker pussy lips against the top of Octavia’s shaft. “So fucking good, Tavi.” She kissed her again. “Make love to me, baby!”

“As you wish, darling,” Octavia purred, taking a careful hold of Vinyl’s hips and lining her member up with Vinyl’s entrance. With barely a moment of hesitation, Octavia slammed her hips forward with a loud cry of pleasure, driving herself deep into Vinyl’s hot, slick depths.

Vinyl arched her back as she felt Octavia bury herself inside her, crying out with her. “You fit me like a fucking glove, Tavi!” She grabbed Octavia’s breasts as she started riding her, spreading the oil more and more on her wife’s chest.

Octavia revelled in Vinyl’s ministrations, groaning aloud and gasping every time Vinyl’s fingers caressed her almost painfully hard nipples. Her cock throbbed inside Vinyl as she thrust quickly and roughly, the wet slapping of flesh ringing out in time with both of their heartbeats.

Vinyl put her vibration based magic to work and sent vibrations into Octavia’s breasts, especially her nipples, while her walls vibrated Octavia’s cock and massaged it at the same time. “I love you, Tavi!” She leaned down and deeply kissed her, reveling in how they felt more like one being than ever.

Octavia leaned deeply into the kiss, flipping the both of them over and slipping Vinyl’s legs over her shoulders. She gripped Vinyl’s legs as she pounded deeper and harder, unable to contain her cries of ecstasy.

Vinyl’s eyes rolled back as she was reduced to panting as she kept squeezing Octavia’s breasts. “Tavi I’m gonna cum! I’m gonna cum!” She gripped Octavia’s nipples and pulled on them as she let her tongue hang out, feeling her orgasm fast approaching.

“Cum with me, darling!” Octavia panted, increasing her speed and flipping the both of them over once more so that Octavia was now pounding Vinyl in doggystyle. Octavia flopped over onto Vinyl’s back, leaning heavily on Vinyl as she came in great shuddering spurts, with a seemingly never ending blast of semen splashing and oozing all over the inside of Vinyl’s vagina.

Vinyl panted as she came down from the high. “Oh yeah. That felt so fucking good, Tavi…” She slid off of Octavia’s now flaccid shaft and lay on the floor, uncaring of the excess seed slowly dripping out of her.

Vinyl sat in her recliner nervously. “Uh, Tavi?” She reached out and stroked DeadMau5’s head for moral support. “I uh…”

“Yes, darling?” Octavia asked, casually lounging in the nude whilst paging through her latest music sheets for her next performance. “What’s up?”

“So… You know how I hate seeing doctors?” Vinyl asked. “Well, DeadMau5 convinced me to see one for what I thought was a stomach virus since I keep hurling. Turns out…” She gulped and took a deep breath. “TaviI’mpregnant!”

“.....” Octavia took a deep breath, set down her music sheets, and walked over to Vinyl. She placed her hands on Vinyl’s shoulders and looked deeply into Vinyl’s eyes, “Love…. did you just say that you’re pregnant?”

Vinyl slowly nodded, unable to look away from Octavia’s eyes. “Yeah. I’m pregnant. We finally slipped up with the birth control.” Her hands came to rest on her stomach as she kept looking at her wife.

Octavia straightened up, and coughed, shoulders shaking as she turned away from Vinyl, “I… I…..” With a final shake of her head, Octavia decided to let Vinyl know exactly how she felt.

In the form of a tackle-hug and a scream of joy so loud that it could be heard clear across town, were it not for the soundproofing on each house.