Strange Alchemy

It was a dark night. Most ponies had long since retired to their beds. Few populated the streets, aside from those who had nowhere else to go. Even then were braced with blankets against the oncoming storms.

Through the dark, narrow streets walked a nun. Nyar moved quickly, her saddlebags filled with ingredients for Master Kelley’s spells, as well as food that she would prepare into dinner for him and the princess Fyr’mond, who had been staying with Kelley for some time now.

The sky continued to darken, and thunder was audible throughout the streets. Nyar looked to the sky with her blind eyes, and knew that she did not have much time. She quickened her pace, not wanting to get caught in the cold rain.

In the darkness, she did not see the shadowy figures moving around her, watching her, waiting until she crossed the threshold into their ambush. Nor had she even realized that she of all ponies would be a target.

Then, without warning, several cloaked figures jumped out of the shadows. Nyar cried out in surprise, but she was not strong enough to resist being shoved through an opening into a long-abandoned building by three large earth ponies. As she was thrown to the dirt floor, a fourth appeared, this one far more heavily cloaked compared to the others. He closed the door behind him as he entered.

“What are you doing?” cried Nyar, sounding panicked. “Please, let me- -”

Her words were interrupted by a sudden blow to her lower chest, just beneath her sternum. The air immediately left her lungs, and she fell to the ground, the contents of her bags scattering over the floor. The three earth ponies immediately descended upon her, slamming their hooves into her body again and again. She tried to shield herself, but it did little good.

The one pony that did not participate in the beating looked on from beneath his hood. Nyar looked up at him, only to have a hoof brought down on her face.

The hooded pony pulled back the cloth that covered his head, revealing his blue face and rainbow colored mane.

“Stop,” he ordered. “We need her conscious.”

Pegasus looked down at the bruised and broken nun beneath him. She was breathing heavily, gurgling through the blood that filled her mouth and nose. The nun turned over slightly, and spat blood and teeth onto the floor beside her.

“What do you…what do you want from me?” she asked, wincing and crying out at the pain that came with just speaking. It was a feeling that Pegasus knew all too well.

“This is her,” said Pegasus. The nun looked up at him. Her eyes were covered with black cloth, so she could not see, but Pegasus still felt like she was looking at him.

“Wings,” she said. “You have wings…you were there that day, with the Magus…”

“You are the nun who is associated with Ward Kelley,” said Pegasus. “Are you not?”

The nun nodded weakly. “Please,” she said. “Please let me go…I’m badly hurt…I won’t tell anypony, I promise…”

“I am afraid we cannot,” replied Pegasus, trying his best to remain neutral in the face of this pitiful sight before him. “We require your master’s power.”

“To…to what end?”

One of the earth ponies leaned forward and kicked the nun in the chest. Pegasus winced as he heard her ribs crack, and she rolled over in pain, writhing as her blind eyes cried. “Please, please stop!” she wheezed.

“We want what he has,” grunted the earth pony. “What the horn-heads don’t have.”

“I don’t…I don’t understand!”

“Magic,” said Pegasus, simply. “We need magic Kelley has that power. I know he does. We need it. For the revolution.”

“He will never help the likes of you!” cried the nun, defiantly. “He treats the sick, the ill, not thuggish- -”

Another hard blow to her chest silenced her, followed by a second blow to the head. Pegasus turned away, unable to watch. He could not help but see his own face on hers, back when it had been unicorns who had done the same to him.

“Stop hitting her,” he demanded. He then gestured for them to lift her. Two of them did, until she was at eye level with Pegasus himself. “You do realize that we can take your life? I do not want to. I really do not. But if you do not help us, you are a traitor to your people, and an enemy of the revolution. You will tell us how Kelley performs his magic. You will take us to him, and he will do as we say if he wants you to live. Or we kill you.”

“I would rather die than betray Master Kelley,” spat the nun.

One of the ponies holding her dropped her into a bloody heap onto the floor.

“This isn’t working,” he said. “What threat is death to a nun? I have a much better idea.”

The earth pony moved behind her, holding her shoulders down, and lifted the back of her dress. The nun cried out in terror, and Pegasus felt his hoof grabbing the earth pony’s foreleg.

“What do you think you are doing?” he demanded.

“She does not value her life,” hissed the pony. “So I’m going to take something that does matter to her.”

“No,” said Pegasus, revolted at the red-pink earth pony towering over him. “How dare you?”

The pony pushed him hard in the chest. Pegasus’s comparatively light frame was thrown back easily.

“You’ve grown soft, Sic’Semper,” said the pony. “I’m only doing what has to be done.”

The other two ponies gathered around, pushing Pegasus back, excited to watch. The pony behind the nun grabbed the bottom of her dress and tore it, exposing the parts of her he needed access too.

“No, please!” cried the nun in absolute terror. She pressed her rear against the ground, trying to defend herself. “Please! Kill me, if you have to, but please, I beg you, don’t take my chastity! Don’t break my vows!”

Pegasus looked at her terrified face, and then turned away. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“He’s not in command here,” said the pony behind the nun, forcibly lifting rump by pulling up her tail, causing her to cry out in pain. He grinned as he looked down at what he was seeing. “Besides…you’re going to like it. By the gods, its been so long since I’ve had a virgin.”

“Please, Pegasus!” cried the nun, clawing at the ground but unable to escape. “Please! Don’t let him hurt me! I beg you!”

The pony behind her lifted his weight onto her. She was small and could not support his weight, and was pressed against the ground. “Come on don’t be a prude,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m going to fill you up with nice, strong earth foals. Assuming we don’t just kill you after I’m done.”

The nun was now crying, but she was no longer resisting. She seemed to have accepted her fate.

Pegasus took a breath and held down his vomit, and then pushed past the two earth ponies who were watching in anticipation. Pegasus crouched in front of the nun, and was almost overwhelmed by a sudden powerful scent of carnations.

“Just give us his magic,” he said.

“Nev- -never,” she sobbed.

Pegasus sighed. “Then there is nothing I can do for you.”

A thought suddenly occurred to him as the pony on top of her pushed himself against her. He found himself suddenly reaching up with his hoof. Something seemed strange about this pony, but he did not know what. He realized that he needed to see what was behind that blindfold, to know what she was behind that satin veil.

With one swift motion, he pulled it away from her, and then froze. He could not fully comprehend what he was seeing, or how it was possible that there could be a pair of eyes so large and so red. The nun stared back at him with pure red orbs devoid of pupil or white- -and then she smiled, her lips pulling back from a far too large number of highly pointed teeth.

Pegasus’s eyes suddenly shifted to her torn dress, to where her rump had been exposed. Her cutie mark was that of an eye- -but to his horror, he saw the eye shift, its black pupil suddenly turning toward him. He saw the surface of the mark glisten, and realized the ghastly truth: it was not a cutie mark at all, but a real eye imbedded in her flank.

“No!” he cried. “Get away from her!”

He was too late, though. The pony on top of her smiled as he finally found his target and prepared to enter. That smile rapidly shifted into fear and agony, though, and he immediately released the most bloodcurdling scream that Pegasus had ever heard.

“Gotcha,” said the nun. Without warning, her entire back half split down the middle, separating her into two halves. Her vagina burst forth as a jaw filled with teeth and wrapped it around her attacker’s pelvis, crushing it in a single bite, pulverizing his lower back and upper legs.

The earth pony gasped and screamed as he fell onto the floor. The demonic nun passed toward him, her rear half now a mass of teeth and chitinous, clawed legs with too many joints, all pouring out from within her. Her gentials opened like a flower, and several long, strap-like appendages covered in barbed, bladed teeth began to pour out.

“No, please, oh gods NOOOO!”

The pony with the crushed pelvis was torn apart as the mouths and teeth descended upon him, tearing apart his body, shoving it into the back of the nun. Pegasus stepped back, frozen in horror as he watched his friend disemboweled and shredded.

“Sic’Semper!” cried the pony, vomiting blood. He reached up, but his limb was severed with a sudden burst from one of the tentacles and crushed between the seemingly endless rows of snarling teeth. A pair of long chitinous legs then crawled over his face and, upon twisting his head into the correct position, plunged into his eyes. The straps then poured down his screaming throat, and Pegasus watched as returned bearing his lungs.

“Kill her! Kill her!” cried the other two, drawing their swords.

The nun smiled, and as her body snapped back instantly into its original conformation she raised a hoof toward them. Both ponies cried out in pain as they burst into flames. Pegasus ducked away, covering his face from the heat. He watched as those two burned from within and listened as their screams were distorted by the superheated air around them. Then he saw them fall, now little more than skeletons and ash- -and yet they still writhed in pain on the floor as they continued to burn, unable to die.

“Pegasus,” said the nun. Her voice was different; it was no longer pleasant and measured, but now seductive and cruel. Pegasus looked up to see her lying in the entrails of his friend. She rolled in them, and then separated her legs, exposing herself to him through the rip in her dress. She struck a pose, and smiled. “Please ravish me,” she said, running her blood-stained hoof down her waist and to her inner thigh. She laughed. “Please. Come to me. Force yourself into me, hold my head into the gore of your comrade and force me to choke on it as you violate my vows.” Her already unblinking eyes seemed to widen. “Come here and help me blaspheme against your pitiful gods.”

“What- -what are you?” said Pegasus, stepping backward. He looked behind him, trying to find the door- -but saw that it was gone. The walls that should have been wooden had been partially replaced by some kind of gray stone, and by an inky void shrouded by mist. Some still stood, like reminders of the sane world where he should have resided, but the rest was different, as if he were partially elsewhere. He realized that he had been led into a trap.

The nun sighed, sounding immensely disappointed. Then she rose, climbing from the bones and shredded remnants of the pony she had taken inside her. She smiled as the clothing that she wore began to change. Wherever her habit touched her skin, it burned, charring away to smoke. Wherever it was covered in blood, it rotted, putrefying and dripping away.

As her clothing vanished, her hair flopped out. It was long and deep crimson, the same color as her eyes. Her body was yellow, and as it became less clothed, Pegasus saw how perfect it was. She was an earth pony, and the ideal of all feminine beauty. Some part of him wanted her- -but far more of him reacted to her as if he were seeing a living corpse rising from its grave.

“What am I?” she asked, almost rhetorically, her mouth extending into an even wider smile. Pegasus gasped as he thought that for just a moment he saw her shift, as though instead of perfectly straight pony teeth he had seen a smile with thousands of translucent needle-like teeth. “I am the most beautiful pony!”

“You are no pony.”

In an instant, she was within inches of Pegasus’s face. Her red, unblinking eyes were just inches from his, and he saw her beautiful face- -and choked on the stench of rotting, putrid flowers and burning flesh. Before he could back away or stop her, she pressed her lips against his.

Pegasus tried to scream as several long, forked tongues were shoved into his mouth. She tasted far worse than she smelled, and her appendages reached deep within him. They twisted down his throat, into his lungs and stomach, and one went upward until it protruded out of his nose.

Then she released him, and Pegasus collapsed onto the ground, gasping and choking.

“What am I?” mused the yellow pony. “Such a question…” She smiled caringly, and then sardonically as she looked down at the coughing pony below her, and then at his still writhing immolated comrades. “Mortals have no words for my nature, or for what my kind are, if there are really any left. I am your light, your happiness, a pure and beautiful angel. I am the turtle on whose back Tartarus lies. Can you comprehend my meaning, mortal?”

“You…you are a demon,” said Pegasus, wiping away the blood from his mouth. “This was one of Kelley’s tricks- -”

The yellow pony appeared behind him suddenly and leaned forward. Her female form was gone; now she was a tall and perfectly sculpted stallion.

“Ward Kelley is a fool,” he said, running his hoof over Pegasus’s back until it reached the gap between his wings. Pegasus felt his wings involuntarily extend. He was breathing faster, not understanding what was happening- -or about to happen. “He did indeed summon me…but his mind so small, so arrogant that he does not understand the implications of what he has done, of what I am.”

The yellow pony reached forward and, ever so gently, put his lips on Pegasus’s wing. Pegasus closed his eyes and tried to remain composed as the other pony moved his lips and tongues over the feathers. It felt good, as pleasurable as sex- -but it was wrong. Pegasus knew that he was being violated, but once again, he did not have the strength to run.

Then he felt the yellow ponies long, barbed, prehensile penis wrap around one of his rear legs. Feeling that horrible impossible feeling seemed to break the spell, and he jumped away.

“Stop that!” he bellowed. “Or I will- -”

“Hit an innocent mare?” she said, now behind him once again. Pegasus turned sharply, and for a fraction of a second saw her, her bones exposed and rotting flesh dripping away from her body, forming a pool of blood and organs beneath her that squirmed with maggots. He blinked in terror, and she was restored to perfect beauty. “You know you would like it. To raise your tail to me, to let me give you what you want. You liked it then, too, didn’t you?”

“No,” whispered Pegasus, backing away. “No…how do you know…”

“Because I have been watching you. I have been watching them all. All these…ponies. Their violence, their lust, their perversion…” she smiled widely, and then broke into feminine laughter. “I have wandered for what must seem to you like eternity. I have crossed so many words. So many were empty. Some were Ordered. Some were terribly dull. Most, though,” she lifted her hoof. “They burned at my touch. Their remnants ride my back as you ride this word. My children….but this word…” her eyes flicked to Pegasus. They had no pupils, but he could tell where they were focusing. “This impossible word…a reality that survived the grip of the Soth. How could I have known what I would find. These ponies…mortals with souls, with minds, writhing in eternal sin and anguish. Never in eternity have I witnessed such beings, have I felt such pleasure. Even if you are so…” she gestured toward the heap of flesh behind her and the pair of still burning ponies. “…so very fragile.” An idea seemed to occur to her. “Perhaps I will make my own version. Yes…ones that are a bit more durable…but in time.”

Pegasus stood, folding his wings against his back. She watched, bemused, as he took a defensive stance. “I will fight you, if I must,” he said. “I cannot die here. Not now. Not yet!”

“Nopony dies here,” whispered a voice. It did not come from the yellow pony, and Pegasus turned sharply- -and felt his heart nearly stop. “No…”

From the mist, unicorn appeared. Her skin was pale, sickly violet, and she bore the rotting remnants of armor. Her eyes had long since been whitened by the cast of death, and the blood that stained her coat from the wide slit in her neck had long-since dried. She stared at Pegasus, and saw the empty socket in her forehead, the skin pale and torn around where her horn had once been.

“But I killed you!” cried Pegasus, stepping back. “You are dead!”

She nodded. “We’re all dead here,” she said in reply. Black, semi-liquid blood bubbled from the hole in her throat as she spoke. “And yet…”

“We remain,” gurgled a second voice. Pegasus turned to see the remnants of his comrade start to rise. His pelvis had been crushed, and his rear legs and lower body had been reduced to frayed flesh and entrails. His lungs, which protruded from his mouth, tried desperately to inflate, and yet somehow he spoke- -and stood on his remaining leg.

“It’s so…so cold…”

The last voice made Pegasus shiver and he closed his eyes. “Please…please gods no…not her.”

“There is no God but me,” said the yellow pony. “Look at her, Pegasus. Look upon your sister.”

Pegasus gasped and opened his eyes. The world was distorted through his tears, but he looked down and saw her. A little, pale filly standing beside him. Her coat was darkened by death, and her eyes blind.

“Brother?” she said. “I…I can’t see. Where am I? I don’t know where I am…”

“It’s alright,” he said, kneeling beside her. “I’m here. I’m here, Pandora.”

“Brother,” she whispered. Her voice seemed distant, as if she was confused. “I’m so cold…why am I cold? Why does…it hurts. It hurts so much…”

“No, it will be okay. Don’t worry, we’re together again…”

He reached forward to take her in his forelegs, but before he could reach her, she was pulled back into the shadows. She did not even scream- -but she did not have to. The look of despair on her face carried far more emotion than any scream could.

“NO!” cried Pegasus, trying himself to run into the shadows, only to run into the legs of the yellow pony. “Please, give her back! She’s just a filly!”

“The dead are my property,” said the smiling yellow pony. “By my power, I shall siphon them from this word for all eternity, taking them within myself. The fate of all mortals, at their end, is to see what lies behind the this veil of death.”

She knelt down, and ran her rotting hoof through Pegasus’s rainbow mane. “You will, one day, love me too, child. Never for one moment believe that death will bring you any peace. It only brings me.” She stepped away from him, allowing him to wallow in his own sorrow. She stopped for a moment to contemplate one of the burning ponies, staring at it with a light, feminine smile as though she were contemplating fine art, taking in the suffering and pain.

“But you came to me for a reason,” she said, crossing the room further and putting her hoof beneath the squirming heap of entrails that had once been an earth pony. “That is why I allowed you to bring me here. Surely you did not come here simply to attempt to mate with your one true Goddess. What would you ask of me, mortal?”

Pegasus looked up. He was shaking, and his mind was on the verge of being broken- -but he knew that he had heard her right. After all that she had done, she was now offering to help. The pain she had caused had no purpose, aside from her enjoyment; she had always been intending to do what they asked.

Slowly, Pegasus stood, and the amber colored pony turned to stare at him, waiting. “We want Kelley’s magic,” he said, simply. “Can you give us that?”

The demon laughed. “Is it so difficult for your mortal minds to comprehend?” she asked him. “I have already told you. Ward Kelley has no magic. No earth ponies do. He is nothing more than a fraud.”

“But the rumors…my soldiers have seen his feats, with their own eyes! He can summon demons of great power from the ether beyond.”

“Did you actually believe any of that? Ward Kelley only ever succeeded at summoning one demon. ME. It is I who raise my children to this word, and I who control them, to make them appear to do his bidding. I do not even believe the fool realizes his exact role in this charade…he may even believe that he is actually performing spells. But I assure you, he is not. I am.”

“Then your magic must indeed be powerful.”

She smiled at the flattery. “I am what your Doctor Dee seeks to become. I am that which understands the secrets of the universe…but unlike him, I dismiss them as lies. Reality itself is mine to pervert.”

“Then can you serve us, instead?”

She shook her head. “Firstly, it does not work that way. I serve no one. You would be serving me. Second, my plans in this world have almost drawn to a conclusion. My time here is short. I do not wish to remain behind for your revolution…I have a prophecy to fulfill. BUT…if you have a request, I can achieve it.”

“So you could resurrect a dead pony? Any of them?”

“I could…but be very careful with such a request.” She smiled. “Those who have passed the veil, and seen what lies beneath…they do not return whole, or the same. It is…an unpleasant fate. But I will still do it if you wish.”

“No,” said Pegasus, shaking his head. The choice weighed heavily on his heart, but he could not use this boon selfishly. “My apologies, Pandora,” he whispered. Then he looked into the eyes of the devil. “Wings,” he said.

“Wings?” she replied, as if confused.

“Yes. I ask you, my goddess: mark those soldiers who stand loyal to Pegasus, and loyal to Equestria. Give them wings, as I have, so that we might take to the air in our battle against the unicorn foe.”

“An army of winged horses,” mused the yellow pony. Then she grinned. “Yes…that will do nicely. It will be perfect…it is done.”

“What- -done? So quickly?”

She gestured downward toward the pair of writhing burning ponies on the floor. Each of them now had a pair of skeletal, flaming wings. “The new pony race is marked,” she said. “Your kind is a new race. You and your descendants shall bear these wings for all eternity. The mark of Pegasus.”

“And…the cost?” he asked. He took a deep breath, prepared for what he must give to her.

“Cost? There is no cost. Not yet. The results alone will be adequate.”

“But…”

“You assumed that I would want something in exchange? To ravish your glorious rainbow-tailed stallion body, perhaps? Or your soul?” She laughed. “Your soul is neither fully corrupt nor perfectly innocent. It is worthless to me…at the moment. And in all honesty, I rather prefer white unicorns…”

She looked down at the mess near her feet. The word suddenly shifted. The gray-blue rocks and mist vanished, replaced with the dingy, moldering room that they had been in before. The two burning ponies extinguished and were restored to flesh- -although their ordeal had been too much for them. They stared blankly into space, their minds having been shattered by mere minutes of torment. Their friend had not been so lucky. His corpse remained, and his soul had been pulled back to the realm of demons.

The yellow pony’s flesh seemed to distort, and the habit she wore returned to her, complete with a tiny silver cross that sat around her neck. Searching the floor, she reached down and picked up the blindfold that had been the only fragment of her clothing that had survived. Her wide, demonic eyes contemplated it for a moment, and then she smiled. Not a demonic smile, but a calm, motherly one, the sort that would be proper for a nun.

“Yes,” she said. “I do like that metaphor.” She turned her gaze toward Pegasus. “If you ever asked what you witnessed this name, provide this name. Know that I am Satin Veil.”

She folded the cloth and replaced it around her eyes, covering them perfectly. She replaced her red hair under her habit, and then picked up her bags. She turned to Pegasus and bowed.

“I am afraid I have tarried too long,” she said in her perfectly measured nun voice. “Master Kelley is waiting on these ingredients. So I am afraid I must depart quickly, Lord Pegasus. Please forgive my rudeness.”

She trotted past him and opened the door. “May the gods be with you, and may our shining Goddess bless your every endeavor.”

Pegasus heard her hoofsteps as she trotted off through down the cobblestone street, and listened until they were no longer audible through the sound of heavy rain. Then, when he was gone, he collapsed to his knees. His shaking legs could simply no longer support his weight, and he needed to rest. He knew that he had succeeded, but he could not help but wonder if, like Kelley, he was working with dark forces whose sinister motives he could not even hope to comprehend.