Red and Black 2

Chapters

The Meeting
Invasion
Preparations
Turning up the Heat
Viscera
A Respite with New Faces
Let the Cleansing Begin
Foalcon Cave
McCarthy
It's the Final Sound You Hear
Letters
Train Ride
Assembly
A Pain in the Thorax
Casting Pains
Discordant Trance
False Complacency
Monotony
Valkyries
The Calm
Relaxation, Ruined
Document to Turnabout
Petty Feudalist Politics
Homework in E Sharp
Flashback: Field Hospital
Royal Ruckus
Flashback: Burns, Nurses, and The Past
Murder, Mystery, Motive
Strike Team Autopsy
From the Fryer to the Frying Pan
Hell's Bells Toll for Thee
Drunken Antics

The Meeting

"Captain Armor, we have brought three of the four ponies you have requested," an armored stallion spoke as he rushed into an ornately-decorated room with a red carpet, bookshelves, and some chairs sitting before an elegant wooden desk. Behind that desk sat another stallion, one with a white coat, purple armor, and piercing blue eyes that stared ahead as his front hooves clapped once.

"Which ones?" Armor asked in a low tone, a brow raising up.

"Distrance, Patient Care, and Trigger," the first stallion answered with a slight frown. "Writhing Ember is… well, she's just been discharged from the infirmary a few halls down. She told me the miscarriage she had took a hefty toll on her, so she might be… ah, late to the meeting, depending on how well she's feeling."

Armor nodded slowly. "I understand if she's not feeling well. Brief her before escorting her here while I address the other three. Speaking of which, tell them they are welcome to my office," he stated firmly.

The armored pony saluted with a brief “Yes sir” and trotted off, closing the door behind him. Less than half a minute later, the door opened up again, and in trotted three unicorn stallions, who silently took their seats.

“Gentlecolts,” Armor stated as he nodded. “We’ve gathered here you today for a reason. Can you guess what that is?”

“My drug useage? Are you gonna arrest me?” one of the stallions, a white unicorn with a neon blue mane and sniper scope on his flank scoffed. He lit a cigarette using magic.

Armor snorted, shaking his head as a hint of a smile came onto his face. “Nope. Try again.”

“Uhh, maybe I’ll get a medal for being such a good doctor in the pony-zebra conflict?” another of the stallions, a light yellow unicorn with green mane and a red medical cross cutie mark spoke up, giving a smug smile.

Armor's smirk only grew. "Close, but no cigar," he replied flatly.

“Will I be getting a Purple Hoof for my wound in said war?” the third pony, a brown unicorn with a dark brown and gleaming shield etched magically on his flank calmly asked.

"Getting colder, colts," Armor replied with a sneer. He paused as hooves clicked outside the room, before the door opened and a large reddish-brown tendril slid in, followed by what had been attached to it. He eyed the new arrival, a light periwinkle unicorn mare with a violet mane, reddish-brown eyes, and a large yellow third eye with three brown irises resting on the barrel of her chest. She also had rocky protrusions and six tentacles emerging from her back, with a seventh curled snugly around her horn.

"If only I didn't get drunk that night…" the mare grumbled through grit teeth, shambling inside the room with her tentacles folding at her sides like crude wings. Upon taking the last available seat, the other three stallions turned to her as the door clicked shut.

“S-Somnus? Somnus Wisp!? W-what the fuck!? What happened to you!?!” the yellow unicorn shrieked, jumping out of his seat and standing on his back legs as he eyed the mare.

Slowly, Somnus turned to him, regarding him with an unblinking gaze. "A lot. And I changed names—now I'm Writhing Ember, according to my official documents," she scoffed, tentacles twitching violently.

“I...uh—what?” the yellow stallion stammered, hesitant to return to his seat.

"Don't ask," Armor interjected bluntly, his smirk finally fading. "It's a long story, Patient Care. Now sit back down. You can flip out later." At his request, which sounded more like a command, Patient sat down and turned back to the Captain.

"I'm gonna take a gander and assume this conference has to do with the pony I strung up like morning sausage with my tentacles?" Somnus—or Ember, rather—asked in an agitated tone, eyes narrowing slightly. Her tentacles spread out suddenly, as if electric volts shot through them, only to close snugly at her sides a moment later.

The brown unicorn ducked for cover, waiting until the tentacles retracted before reclaiming his seat. He turned to scowl at Ember and stated, "Keep those things to yourself, filly!"

Armor cleared his throat just as a wordless snarl left Ember's throat and her head turned to the unicorn who hissed at her, and once more the eyes of the quartet he'd summoned were on him. He turned to Ember and nodded slowly. "In fact," he began, "it has to do with ponies just like that one you… reamed."

The other three stallions turned to Ember with widening eyes. "You reamed a pony?" the white one asked.

"And got pregnant doing so. And suffered a miscarriage very recently," Ember confirmed with a huff.

Patient turned to Armor and blinked. "Wait, what was the pony like? The one you said she reamed?" he asked. The armored pony responded by pulling open a drawer with a front hoof, and pulled out some pictures which he slid to the other side of the desk. Patient looked at the pictures, noticing the first one had a black and red alicorn stallion that with stripes on his body.

The next set of pictures also had Ember in them, covered in blood and what looked to be milk. Surrounding her were the limbs of the alicorn, including his wings, horn, and flaccid cock. The sexual organ had vicious holes torn into the flesh, looking like erratic bite marks. The last picture had just Ember, lying on her side still caked in blood—and sporting a proud erection from a cock she should not have been able to possess.

“Well…literally, what the fuck, man…” Patient blew air from his lips, attempting to process the images he saw. “Trigger, is it, can I steal a cigarette from you?” His pupils shook violently in his eyes, and he slowly turned to Ember with nothing short of a wide-eyed look of horror.

Trigger, the white stallion, used some magic to hand Patient a lit cigarette. He looked at the pictures with a critical eye before slowly nodding and lighting another cigarette. He cracked a smile after taking in a puff of smoke. "Dude, that's fucked up. That wasn't reaming; that was literally tearing him a new asshole," he remarked.

"Hell, her dick's bigger than mine!" the brown stallion shouted, the volume of his voice causing the others to flinch and fold their ears back. "At least, I'm assuming that's her dick…" he mumbled in a quieter tone.

“Oh… kay, then.” Patient attempted to process the information still. “What do you want with us? I mean, why did you ask us to come here, and why were we even given armed bodyguards as well?” he asked.

Armor leaned back and cracked a smile again. "Equestria and the other kingdoms are undergoing an epidemic of sorts," he began, using a hoof to gesture to the picture with just the alicorn stallion. "Ponies like this stallion are cropping up all over the place, bringing destruction and ruination to our citizens' livelihoods. In fact, Ember was such a victim of just a pony. I'm pretty sure she can tell you all about it."

"I'd rather stick my dick in a gryphon's beak," Ember mumbled under her breath, rolling all three of her eyes.

Armor chuckled and continued, "So, for you four, I have an ultimatum of sorts."

Patient breathed through his nose and made eye contact with the Captain. Trigger’s eyebrows raised substantially when the word ‘ultimatum’ was spoken. Ember merely huffed a soft, "Just get on with it." The brown stallion blinked, his front hooves shifting a bit.

"Either you lot take on ponies like the one Ember tore to shreds and…" Armor paused, as if mentally searching for words, "exterminate them. Or, if you decline, I'm afraid you'll have to be… put down."

The stallions' eyes widened, and Ember merely shrugged. The mare decided to speak, "Why kill us?" She gestured to the other three with a tentacle as she went on, "Me, I can get—I've done some fucked up shit, and the evidence is right there on that damned desk."

Armor sighed, "You're dealing with confidential information—strictly speaking, word of this meeting cannot get outside of these walls, unless it's between colleagues. Ember, you're carrying more intel than you might realize—the spell the alicorn fired on you as you fired back can only be cast by such a pony, and it's irreversible. We can't let what happened to you happen to anypony else."

"But what about the cops of Equestria, or the other regions? What if we get caught in the act like Ember did?" the brown stallion asked nonchalantly, crossing his front legs together.

"Every policing power the world over will be notified of your… task. They'll simply turn a blind eye," Armor replied, still smiling. "So, what do you say?"

"I'm in, but I have a question," Ember began, garnering the Captain's attention.

"That being…?" Armor implored, a brow raising.

"Do we exterminate the targets cleanly, or what?" the mare asked.

"Since this is a problem we're dealing with… and with your particular condition, you can go full gusto. Hell, you can even rape one of those targets in broad daylight in Griffonstone—just don't tell them why you're doing it, and the law will not touch you," Armor replied. "Am I understood?"

"My lips are sealed with Discord's magic cum," Ember replied, lifting a tentacle to perform a quick salute. She then used it to gesture to the other unicorn stallions. "I don't know about those guys, though."

Patient, Trigger, and the brown pony gave Ember an incredulous look. They then turned to Armor and nodded slowly. "We're in," they said in unison, though Patient hesitated for a moment with his utterance.

"Good. Now, for your first task…" Armor began, tilting his head slightly and shifting his front hooves to rest on the desk.

Invasion

Patient woke up with a snort as his alarm tore him and the form next to him from the private confines of the dream world. His hoof hit nothing but air and the nightstand at first, before it fell on plastic and a click hit his ears, whereupon the beeping ended. He sat up with a small grin on his face, using the same hoof to grope around again until it touched a slender, beaded thing he tugged on.

A lamp lit up the room, and he looked at the side-mirror to find his mane in a state of horrible tangles. A unicorn mare sat up next to him, one with a blue coat and two-toned blue mane and eyes of a similar hue. "What time is it?" she groaned.

Patient looked at the nightstand, finding an alarm clock that read six in the morning. "Friggin’ dawn," he mumbled.

The mare nodded. "What do you want for breakfast today?" she mused.

"Uuuhhhh…” Patient tried to comprehend the mare’s words. “Probably barley oatmeal, Colgate."

“Sure,” she quietly stated, sliding out of bed with a stifled yawn. She began languidly walking to the door, but stopped as a faint clap echoed into the room. She turned to Patient with a frown. "Is it supposed to be storming today?"

"Dunno. I'll ask Twilight later, though. Maybe Rainbow Dash tells her these things," Patient replied with a shrug as he made to get out of the bed. He trotted up to Colgate and gave her a small, tired smile. "Maybe it's coming from the Everfree Forest."

"Maybe," Colgate sighed, raising a front hoof to open the door. As it swung with a gentle creak, she arched a brow as a series of wet slaps hit her ears. She exchanged a glance with Patient and slowly opened the door fully. Once the door no longer obstructed her from the room beyond, her eyes widened.

Behind a coffee table, and on the couch opposite where she and Patient stood, jerking a two-inch dick off to a loaf of bread sat a young unicorn stallion with a red coat and oily black mane. He moaned lewdly, his small organ dribbling precum like a broken water spigot.

“Babe. Get the knife,” Patient quickly whispered. Colgate nodded and went to retrieve something from under the bed, revealing a glistening, serrated blade with a black handle. She returned to him a moment later, handing him the knife which he gripped in his magic before directing his attention to the masturbating stallion.

“Motherfucker!!” Patient galloped at full sprint towards the intruder before tripping over the oak coffee table in the center of the room. He cursed up and down, standing up and garnering the red-coated stallion's attention.

The masturbating pony looked up and yelped like a filly. He immediately sped out of the room via the front door, turning a sharp right down a hallway outside with his tiny sausage flapping uselessly in the wind as he went. Patient turned to Colgate and sighed. "Babe, stay inside, unless one of those red and black fucks shows up with a wrecking crew. If that happens, find me as soon as you can," he stated.

Colgate nodded, and trotted to him and pecked him on the cheek. "Be careful, honey," she pleaded.

Patient pecked her back with a soft smirk. "Don't worry hun, I'll come back in one piece," he replied, trotting out into the hall and taking a right.

**********

As soon as the yellow unicorn found himself standing outside an apartment complex, he was greeted by Trigger and Distrance. The two had concerned looks on their faces, and one gestured to an adjacent street with a hoof. Patient followed that hoof, and found a dark maroon pegasus mare with an ash gray mane hassling a short teal colt with a comically overgrown head and orange mane.

"Phillydelphia, we have a problem," Trigger groaned. Patient ignored him and zeroed in on the mare, listening to what she was trying to do.

"Sweetie-snookums, why won't you poke my succulent cunt with your tongue?" she asked.

"You're creepy," the colt hissed, hastily backing away from the pegasus that loomed over him. He turned around and galloped as fast as his short legs could carry him, screaming "I need an adult!" as loud as he was able. Immediately after he started running, some stallions of similar color gave chase, flanking the mare and quickly forming a tight circle around the hapless foal.

“Luna Eclipse… there’s a dozen of 'em!” Patient inhaled sharply.

The black and red ponies came closer to the colt, only to break formation as a periwinkle blur dove in from a rooftop. Objects of reddish-brown hue lashed out vehemently at the ponies, forcing them to take a few steps back, revealing to Patient what the figure was. His eyes widened, and he turned to Trigger and Distrance. "Guys, I think we might have a helping hoof…" he murmured.

Trigger lit up a cigarette and watched as the black and red ponies scrambled away from the colt, before the foal's savior darted off after one of them. "Figures she'd be here during an outbreak," he mumbled. "Must be itching to shove her dick in something."

"Now why would she stick her dick in one of those diseased fucks?" Distrance piped up as the ponies who heckled the colt skedaddled out of sight. He turned to Trigger and went on, "That's what her tentacles are for."

"Shut your mouths and let’s fuck up some freaks!" Patient barked, causing the other two to turn to him blinking. They nodded in unison and rushed down the street, briefly pausing to check on the hapless colt. The foal ran into the house, and the stallions left once a series of locks clicked from within.

The trio rounded a few bends, finding empty streets devoid of any signs of life—regular pony, and otherwise. Some shouts of annoyance filled the air, but Patient and his current company could not detect their sources. Exchanging glances and shrugs, the three pressed on, finding themselves in front of a great oak tree with windows and a door built into the branches and bark.

As well as a terrible pony, a four-winged alicorn with three golden horns, a rainbow mane and tail, and a hideous black and red body fought with an earth pony stallion. The earth pony, a brown lad with a blonde mane, a green hat on his head, and a half-heart outlined with silver for a cutie mark, fought back with nothing more than a cart. He spun around, howling furiously, the cart forming a solid wooden shield that twirled with him and deflected the alicorn's attacks—which consisted of nothing more than weak magic blasts and the occasional punch from the hooves.

”It’s like they’re organizing this shit or something!” Trigger complained, waving a hoof at the ongoing spectacle for emphasis.

"Fuck him up, Rupee Heart! Bash that triceratops with the cart!" Distrance cheered, pumping his front hooves up and down as the the alicorn performed a poorly-timed strike with his magic blasts. The cart-pulling stallion deftly dodged the blasts, then rushed up and spun around again, letting the cart's momentum do the rest and clock the mutant pony on his side.

The sickening crunch of the mutant pony’s bones was almost music to Patient’s ears, and a giddy grin came on his face as one of the extra wings on the freak dangled uselessly. This threw the 'triceratops' completely off-balance, and he flapped awkwardly for a moment before the cart slammed into his other side, cracking a second wing like a twig and forcing him to land. "You'll regret this, earth pony!" he hissed in a pained voice, standing up and quickly limping off into another street.

The three unicorns approached the earth pony, who turned to them with a small grin. "He started boasting about being stronger than me," he stated, craning his neck to survey his cart. His grin widened when he saw a distinct lack of hoof-shaped dents, instead seeing two body-sized ones. "Oh well, I've something to do over the weekend; that is, repairing my cart. But hey, at least it helped me today."

"You said it, Rupee," Patient chimed, patting the earth stallion on the withers with a hoof. Rupee nodded and gestured to another street.

"I saw a… a tentacle-y pony chasing after some of those red and black dungheads. They ran from her like she was about to end the world or something," Rupee stated, his grin fading.

The three unicorns gave each other knowing glances. “I think we know who you’re talking about,” Distrance spoke calmly, attempting to keep his usual attitude and composure after watching the recent scuffle.

"You might wanna see what that's about. I have a strong feeling the tentacle-pony is gonna land in hot water otherwise," Rupee replied, nodding. The trio of unicorns nodded back and rushed off to the street he pointed them to, finding it as empty as the ones before it. They slowed to a languid trot, eyes and ears peeled for anything out of the ordinary.

Sounds of clanging metal, hooves bashing against the dirt, and shouting echoed around from the next street over. Galloping at full speed, the three unicorns found a few dozen stallions, all clad in loose-fitting leather armor around their torsos and heads,. All of the armored ponies were wielding woodcutting axes, spears, knives, sharpened and broken cutlery, and anything else that could be improvised as a weapon.

Twenty or so impromptu militia surrounded some of the red and black monsters, taking jabs and throwing sharpened objects at them. The few mutant ponies who dared fight back were quickly put in the dirt by a spear to the throat, an axe blade to the head, or anything similar in nature.

"Leave her alone!" a voice cried from the throng. Patient, Distrance, and Trigger looked up, finding a periwinkle, tentacled form standing on a roof, and the four-winged pony from before heckling a rainbow-maned pegasus mare.

"I can fly faster than this cunt with two wings broken!" the triceratops boasted, chuckling in spite of the fact his broken wings ached.

"With wings like that?" the rainbow-maned mare scoffed, pointing an accusing hoof at the anomaly with a brow raised. "I'm amazed you're even flying at all!"

Patient looked down back at the militia surrounding the rest of the mutants and turned to a larger pony, an earth pony wielding a bloodied baseball bat. The light yellow unicorn nodded, and the militia-pony did the same as he shouted an order. “Take ‘em out!”

The militia charged in, jabbing their sharp instruments into their quarry's stomachs and chests.

Hot red mess spilled from the gaping wounds of the remaining abominations as their entrails slithered hastily from the open wounds. Shrieks of agony and horror were met with even more stabbing, slashing, and cutting. The sounds of bones shattering filled the air with the outcries, but in moments all fell silent. The militia, having killed their prey, turned to the roof the tentacle-pony stood on, gaping in unison as the last abomination rushed and sent himself and said tentacle-pony tumbling to the street below.

"Ember!" Patient cried, eyes widening as the two descended. The four-winged triceratops landed ungracefully onto the ground, but Ember stopped her fall by thrusting her tentacles into the dirt before the rest of her could meet up with it.

“Don’t touch the one with the tentacles, she’s on our side!” growled Trigger as the trio of unicorns trotted up to the messy, bloody ground where the two had landed.

"Bastard had the temerity to punch me in my ovaries!" Ember complained as she lowered her hooves to the ground and pried her tentacles out of the dirt. The militia approached the four-winged asshole, but stopped when a tentacle was waved in their direction. "This one's mine," she snarled, thwacking the triceratops upside the head with a tentacle and smiling as he went limp.

“Whoa…” the rainbow pegasus murmured as she landed next to Ember, admiring the mess and the limp triple-horned alicorn.

“Rainbow.. .just… leave the cleanup to us,” Patient quickly interjected, waving a hoof at the militia as he spoke.

“Sure… Patient?” she half-asked, attempting to remember the yellow unicorn’s name from their initial meeting years ago.

Patient nodded and turned his attention to Ember as Rainbow Dash flew away, and the militia dispersed. He watched as she hefted up the monstrosity that allegedly punched her in the ovaries with her tentacles. "Say, do you need a helping hoof with that?" he asked.

Ember jerked her gaze to the trio of unicorns, the tentacle around her horn wriggling for a moment as she bit her lower lip. "Well… he has two non-broken wings, and three horns… I guess I could use the extra hooves," she stated. Distrance trotted around to look at her from the side, immediately spotting the head of the mare's dick as it jutted from its sheath.

"Boys, let's not stall any longer. She's hardening," Distrance stated, turning to the other two unicorns who nodded in understanding.

Author's Note

Rupee Heart is the name for the pony in the newest episode that appeared as a reference to the Legend of Zelda. Dragonborne Fox made me put him in there because she's fangirling.

Preparations

The first thing that registered in the triceratops' mind was a set of muted voices, whispering about things that eluded him. His eyelids cracked open, only to slam shut as bright light shined in his face. A burning pain came from his sides, a dull throb at first, but gradually intensified as the seconds ticked by. Triceratops could only feel the ropes binding his limbs and wings to the wooden table that forced him to completely lie down, exposing his belly and chest to the sky.

"Wait, she was in the pony-zebra conflict?" one voice of a masculine sort asked. The triceratops opened his eyes slowly, keeping them squinted as a hazy white still obscured his vision.

"Yeah, Trigger. She was one of my patients, too. A zebra clubbed her upside the head," another replied in earnest. The triceratops' ears twitched as a faint shuffling reached them, acting in tandem with the voices.

A third spoke up, this one feminine in nature, "And he patched me up, drugged my ass with painkillers, and kept me out of the battlefield until I was in tip-top condition."

“... And then you were sent right back in, if I remember correctly,” the second masculine voice faded in and laughed, followed by a small, feminine chuckle.

"Yeah, but only because an alicorn-zebra decided to piledrive my ass in front of Celestia and everybody. Now that I dwell on it, I think that's why she ordered the round-up of ponies like what we have here," the feminine voice stated, chuckling again.

"In front of Celestia?? How stupid was that jackoff?" a third male voice asked.

"His dick was bent well before it entered my poopchute. He could not get it in," the female replied with a keening laugh. "And it was one inch in length, and the size of a pen in diameter too—when he did get it in, I couldn't feel a thing!"

“Holy shit. Hold on, what were you doing in Celestia’s court, exactly?” the second male voice asked.

"On trial for war crimes I didn't commit," the female scoffed coldly. "And bent-dick, the true perpetrator, went and revealed himself and got fried. What else do you want from me, a blowjob?"

“Actually, that does sound nice right about now,” a third male voice joked in a Trottingham accent, causing the other three speakers to erupt in laughter.

"Speaking of which, I think Four Wings is waking up," the female started, causing the triceratops to open his eyes fully. Immediately, he shrank as the first thing to greet him in this waking world was a thick dark violet horsedick, at least as large as his hoof and already dripping with pre. "Open up!" the voice shrieked, and the monstrosity had no time to act or look up at the owner of the cock as it slapped him across the face.

"Dammit, don't you know who I am?!" the triceratops yelled in fury as he felt precum get smeared on his face. He turned his head to glare at his assaulter, only to get slapped on the other cheek by the dong. His horns began glowing with a rainbow light, matching his mane. "I am Spectra Aura, the Element of Badassery! You will cease—" Spectra didn't get the chance to finish as the cock was jammed into his mouth and pushed forward, quickly clogging his throat as a feminine grunt hit his ears.

He averted his eyes and gaped at the sight of Ember leering down at him with an ominous grin plastered onto her face. Her third eye blinked at Spectra, rising up and down with the rest of her chest as ragged breaths left her mouth. "Fuck shit damn, you're a tight one. Soft as silk, too," she cooed.

Spectra gagged loudly as he writhed against his bonds. He attempted to break free from sheer force alone, but ultimately could not peel himself off of the splintery, old table he found himself being raped upon.

“Say Ember, how’d you find this place?” the first masculine voice from earlier, Trigger, asked as he watched the futa mare orally destroy Spectra.

"This shithole?" Ember breathed, shooting a glance over her shoulder to three unicorns as her hips began moving. "Long story," she replied, moaning as Spectra continued to struggle, unwittingly driving waves of pleasure through her log of meat. "O-ooh. keep doing that," she sighed.

Patient peered around the darkened basement they found themselves in; boxes of tools, industrial equipment, and dusty tables littered the cool, dark, damp room.

“Yeah, an abandoned factory’ll work for our place of operations. At least once we clear Ponyville of these worms,” the nurse murmured as he picked up a nearby manual boring tool, just before a long and wanton moan had his attention snagged. He turned to Ember, her muzzle pointing at the ceiling and face dusted with crimson, and caught sight of her tail lifting with her ballsack twitching violently.

A series of gurgling gulps escaped Spectra's filled throat, and he gasped for air as the mare-cock slid out of his face. He tried blinking, but magic held his eyelids open as Ember shot her load into them, immediately blinding him with another volley of pure white and a fresh wave of pain.

“Oh god!” Distrance giggled through his teeth as Spectra cried out in agony.

"She came in his eyes!" Trigger howled, slapping a front hoof on his back leg as Ember hopped off of the tied triceratops, a sated smile on her face and her dick going limp.

“I know he hated that! Colgate absolutely cannot stand when I do that to her,” Patient laughed heartily.

“By the way, didn’t you two move in together recently?” Distrance asked.

“Yeah, about three days ago. Woke up to one of these assholes pullin’ his pud over a loaf of bread,” the battlefield nurse blew air from his lips.

"Look, he's hard!" Ember cheered, catching the attention of the stallions again. She pointed a tentacle at Spectra's crotch with a giddy grin, where a surprisingly below average-sized dick poked out of its sheath and stood proudly to attention.

Spectra cleared his lungs, spitting up hefty mouthfuls of cum. He took a moment to stop hacking, though, and spluttered out, "You bitch! Why did you make me drink that foul mixture?! It tasted salty, like my brother's ass!"

Ember burst out laughing, holding a front hoof to her stomach as she guffawed. As soon as she calmed down, she replied heartily, "Please, deary, that was just a warm-up. None of us are done yet."

Patient trotted to the other side of the bound cretin and brought the boring tool with him. He gently placed the sharp end of the tool onto the soft part of the flesh behind Spectra’s front left hoof, and began to twist the tool very quickly. The tool went to digging into the soft flesh behind the hoof. Spectra’s howls of sheer agony almost split eardrums as he tugged in vain at his tight bonds, causing his flesh to further rub and tear.

Once the boring tool was inserted and bored as deep as it can go, Patient violently yanked the tool out from the hole, bringing out chunks of flesh and fragments of bone with. Spectra screamed, turning to the yellow unicorn with all three horns aglow.

“Why, why, why in the fuck is this guy liking this shit? He’s getting a horn-on,” Trigger pointed out as Spectra shook and thrashed violently at the table, splintering his skin as he writhed. He trotted up and prodded at the small penis of the abomination with a hoof, grinning as a river of pre oozed out in response.

“Well, I know one thing, that penis is coming off.” Trigger grimaced and picked up a pair of nearby gardening shears from one of the boxes that lined the cold, concrete walls.

Using a bright blue aura, the unicorn slowly moved the tool over towards Spectra’s throbbing member...

"Wait! I have an idea!" Ember cried out, trotting to Spectra with her horn glowing. From a flash of light appeared a funnel and hot sauce bottle in her tentacles.

“... No… no… no… you aren’t!” Patient began to sputter with giggles. “Fuckin’ really, Embie?”

"We're gonna make a new hole anyway just tearing the little wang off, but let me have a little more fun before said wang goes out the nearest window," Ember replied, a devious grin on her face.

Turning up the Heat

Spectra screamed like a filly as the funnel was jammed into his urethral hole, and Ember had to hold it down as his dick erupted in a fountain of cum then and there. "Oh, hello! I think I found a new kink!" Ember exclaimed, a smile bordering on the demonic plastering her face. She waited until the sudden wave of jizz died down, removing the funnel and shaking it for a moment to remove the accumulated semen.

"Looks like she's having a blast," Trigger noted, a wide grin spreading on his muzzle.

"Aww, I was expecting Three Horns to produce more jizz than that," Distrance sighed, a smirk on his face that did not show the disappointment his voice betrayed.

"He ain't whacked off that often, I reckon," Ember replied with a shrug before replacing the funnel into the hole well before the dick had the chance to retreat into its sheath. With two tentacles, she carefully unscrewed the lid of the hot sauce bottle, and helped herself to a sample of the spicy fluid. "Mmmm, enough to make my cheeks burn and my tonsils tingle," she cooed. Glancing at the others, the mare asked, "Anyone want some sauce before I make the dick chug it?"

“This is gonna be good!” Patient, almost giddy with the ungodly mess that was about to be created before him, raised his hoof. “I’ll take a swig.”

"And what about you two?" Ember asked, using a tentacle to gesture to Distrance and Trigger.

“I’m good,” Trigger stated before he burped and lit up a cigarette. “Dis, you?”

“No thank you,” the Trottingham stallion kindly refused.

"Alright, guess it's just you and me," Ember murmured with a shrug, conjuring a shot glass with some magic and pouring the blazing, red, semi-viscous fluid into the glass. Once it was half-full, she passed the shot glass to Patient and took another sample for herself. "Chug that down; shit's pretty spicy," she warned, hovering the bottle over the funnel as she slowly tipped its lip down.

Patient merely shrugged and took the shot. After pondering a moment on the strangely tart initial flavor, he reeled back when he realized that there was only a mild sensation on the insides of his mouth. “Really, Embie? This is pussy-grade stuff! Gimme somethin’ goo-” He was cut off by the most intense sensation of heat and abrasion he’d ever felt on his tongue.

“Oh god, what the fuck!?” he shouted, heartily laughing as he took deep breaths through his mouth; tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

"I told your ass it was spicy! Not my fault you didn't heed me!" Ember cried, grinning horribly as she forewent all caution and fully turned the bottle upside down, watching the red liquid as it filled the funnel for a moment before draining down the hole and into the dick. Spectra thrashed against his bonds, but as the tentacles rushed in to keep him still, it was futile—all he could do was watch as his dick slowly engulfed the liquid like a second mouth.

After a moment of near-silent whimpering, Spectra immediately began to screech at the top of his lungs, begging for the burning agony to end from tormenting his urethral walls. Another tentacle rushed in once all the liquid went down the dickhole and clamped on the small sexual organ's head, effectively keeping the sauce locked in without a chance of leakage. The ropes keeping Spectra bound rubbed and tore at his fur and eventually his raw skin, leaving his bare muscle and blood vessels exposed.

"Oh dear Celestia, that's brutal!" Trigger remarked, watching as Ember yanked out the funnel with her magic. He noticed another hot sauce bottle appearing in a flash of light, the bottle already opened and its contents being poured on the mare's dick. She rubbed it all over her shaft with a hoof, hardening the organ and making her keen from the burning sensation. The mare climbed onto the table and released her hold on the small penis, suppressing a moan as it sprayed out a mixture of hot sauce and blood, further coating her organ in red fluid.

Without hesitation, and to the surprise of the stallions, she used her magic to force the urethra to stretch much wider than it normally would be. She thrust her dick in, all the way to the balls, making Spectra emit a new wave of agonized cries as his urethra and bladder found themselves stuffed full of pure horsecock. "That's a new one!" Distrance exclaimed, hardening to full mast at the rather macabre sight.

Spectra watched and shook violently, screaming like a filly who spotted a rattlesnake, as his bloodied, burning organ was torn from the inside out by Ember’s mutated monster of a member. His voice became hoarse from abuse as the mare thrust in and out rapidly, watching helplessly and going wide-eyed as Ember cried out. He felt a warmth flood his bladder and swell rapidly, followed by his dick splitting in two as another flood of jizz escaped through what limited space it could.

"Now he's got a vagina!" Ember cheered as she pulled out her organ, which went flaccid again once it was freed. Patient smirked as fresh seemen gushed from the abused stallion's member, coating its owner in globs of cum and blood and hot sauce that started mixing slightly to a hideous pink hue that he found strangely and morbidly appropriate, given the situation. The mare hopped off and cantered over to the stallions with a barely-noticeable limp, and she said, "Your turn. It's gonna be a bit before I have a round three. Just don't fuck his new vagina yet; we're gonna need to douche it out first."

Spectra groaned and gurgled with vicious bile rising from the back of his throat as he groggily looked down towards his ruined nethers. His penis was torn asunder and opened up like a gory, fleshy flower, drizzling a thick river of hot sauce enriched, bloodied semen. He made another attempt to writhe against his bonds, but to no avail, as they held firm. The ropes had dug deeper into his flesh, already getting to the bone, and he ceased jerking as his crotch's nerves screamed in protest.

He slumped against the table, attempting to draw breath that wouldn't come. "You… fucking…" he gurgled out before turning his head and puking out a vile mixture of jism and stomach acid, spraying the floor beside his table like a fire hose.

Patient lifted a foreleg and checked it like an invisible watch was on his hoof, waiting for Spectra to cease emptying his guts. When the room fell silent a moment after a series of sickening splattering sounds, he turned back to the abused stallion and nonchalantly asked, "Done yet?"

Viscera

Spectra retched as he forced himself to open his mouth. Ember sneered at his fruitless attempts to keep his jaws parted for more than two seconds. Her horn glowed and forced his jaws as wide as they could go, though when she stretched them too wide by accident, she managed to split his cheeks, causing more hot blood to drizzle towards his chin and neck as a result.

This also caused Patient to jump back before he could jam the impaled dong into his face. On top of that, there was also a sudden crack as the jaw’s tendons tore and the connecting bones snapped.

"Oops, my bad," Ember sarcastically jeered with a cheeky grin on her face as the other three turned to her with incredulous stares. "Felt like making him open wide, and might've gone a tad overboard…"

"’Kay, the fuck what was that about?" Trigger asked in a tentative manner, lifting a hoof to gesture to Spectra's new split grin.

Ember's grin widened. "Before coming here, I met with a pale, skeletally-thin changeling sporting such a facial quirk. She was cold as death though, and I am not making that up," she answered. "Oh, and she gave me this…" Her horn flared brighter in a field of blue, and in a flash of light a camera appeared and hovered next to her.

Patient coughed, trying to suppress a laugh. “That actually kinda gives me an idea. Hey Distrance, isn’t there an old record player down here too?”

“You’re not thinking of doing what I think you are, are you?” The brown unicorn grinned, mouth a quarter open in suspense.

“Yer damn right!” Patient let out a full blown laugh.

"No need for a record player. Tested this thing out; captures audio and everything," Ember chirped, flipping one side of the camera open before turning it on with a push of a button. "Stand aside for a minute, gotta capture what kind of shit Triceratops landed in."

“I kinda figured that.” Patient spoke. “Though, I had the idea to make our little snuff film a bit…livelier, with some music, no?” His grin never faded.

Ember gave it some thought, and slowly nodded. "Fair enough. Is there a copy of Beethorven's Moonlight Sonata somewhere? Y'know, just to set the mood?" she queried.

“Wenn wir Marschieren.” Trigger hopped up and down excitedly. “We should play Wenn wir Marschieren.” He gave a toothy, juvenile smile.

Ember frowned. "I dunno if they have a copy of that one. Check the records, they should be…" She turned left and lifted a tentacle to gesture in that direction, staring at an old record player with a stack of records placed in a box next to it. "Over there."

Trigger hopped over to the box of records, in a similar fashion to Ponyville’s own pink confectioner. Immediately, he dug his hooves into the records, trying to find anything in regards to his fascist musical choice. A moment later, he frowned and shrugged.

“Ain’t got it in there, but they do have Preußens Gloria and Mozhorn's Requiem," Trigger grumbled.

"Gloria first," Ember chirped, smiling in approval as Trigger picked up the record and put it in the player.

*********

Spectra shuddered and bled. His face was in flames, his jaw and eyelids beset under horrible agony; almost as if a demon rose from Tartarus and dug its claws through his face. What remained of his nethers sputtered blood and shot pain throughout his pelvis and thighs.

His legs were raw at the ropes' anchor points, yet somehow he was still alive. Silently he begged for sweet, sweet death to take him out of this hellish nightmare already, but from the budding looks of sadistic glee that blossomed on his tormentors' faces, he wagered that they weren't even close to being done with him.

He offered up silent prayers to the princesses, and to the Gods, as he noticed the camera and record player, and the blue maned unicorn skipping happily to the latter…

*********

Ember set the camera on a small side-table, at the perfect angle where it could capture everything in grandiose, grotesque glory. Then she turned to Spectra and shuddered, with her member once more sliding out of its sheath. "Last round before it's lights off, Gelded Rainbow," she teased, tentacles shuddering in anticipation of what was to come. "Any last words before I send ya off to the Divine Creator Cat?"

Spectra only howled melodramatically in sheer, abject agony. Patient rolled his eyes and drew a serrated steak knife. “Oh my god shut the fuck up, you stupid cunt.” With no more warning than that, he thrust the knife into Spectra's exposed abdomen and sliced downward, all the way to where his crotch used to be.

With a slick, wet sound, ropes of bloodied, pink intestines slithered out of the wound and onto the floor...and with that, Trigger began playing the first record, the military style march. He hummed the tune to himself as Patient pulled the knife away, and Ember joined the fray.

Ember gathered most of the intestines up with two of her tentacles. "So… party favors, or neckties?" she asked.

“Er, um… doesn’t matter.” Patient chuckled and slung one across his neck like a scarf. “I’m Twilight’s friend Rarity now!” That garnered an uproar of laughter from Trigger and Distrance, while Ember gave no more than a dopey grin and a subdued giggle.

"Eh, my tentacles could be neckties." Ember looked at her bunch of intestines with a critical eye before her smile widened. "I opt for cocksleeve." Then she turned to Spectra's asshole, which had until now went ignored. "Say… let's fill him up like a water balloon. Whoever makes his guts pop buys us all dinner."

Patient blew air out his lips as Trigger bounced over to the pile of ruined-yet-accumulated guts, his member throbbing strong. “All you.” The nurse snorted as the white unicorn used magic to widen the triceratops’ intestines to a point where he could slide his cock in them.

"Fill him up by the asshole. It'll be more fun. We can plug 'im afterwords," Ember snarked, still grinning. "I suggest opening his prostate by magic first." Trigger huffed and used his magic to do just that, eliciting a scream from Spectra, and his eyes fell on Distrance shortly thereafter.

Distrance shrugged and walked in front of Spectra and prepped his own dick for entry, cutting in front of Trigger in the process. "Is there a line?!" Trigger yelped, only to be stopped when a tentacle came to rest on his withers. He turned to Ember.

"No, so long as we all get off. Just wait your turn. I'll go last," she chirped. A fifth set of hooves echoed into the space just as Distrance shoved his cock inside of Spectra's anus, and at once the whole group froze. For a few seconds, just the fifth sound of hooves filled in the void, until it stopped just seconds later.

Slowly, everypony, including Spectra, turned to the source to find an orange-coated unicorn stallion with a red-tipped horn standing next to the record player. His red eyes, blue baseball cap, and ludicrously long mane and tail that were tied by white ribbons snagged their attention as he just stood there staring at them with a thousand-yard gaze.

Silence held for a full minute before Ember donned a not-so-convincing innocent smile. "O-oh!" she began, feigning ignorance, "Rekka! I didn't expect you to show up so suddenly!"

Rekka leaned toward the record player and blew air from flared nostrils. "More red and black ponies have been seen at Griffonstone… and I was sent looking for you, Writhing. I heard screaming and came to investigate," he stated with an impassive voice. Then his crimson gaze fell onto Distrance. "That's extremely gay, by the way. Not to mention disgusting."

“I know.” Distrance gave a sheepish smile. He pointed a hoof at Ember. "Her idea."

Rekka rolled his eyes and nodded. "I'll leave you guys to it, then." With that, he turned around and left, mumbling something about how he was going to need brain bleach on his way out.

“My face hurts,” Patient interjected before he twirled the knife mid-air with magic and shrugged, stifling a red faced chuckle at the increasing ridiculousness of the situation.

"Eh, it won't be long now. Distrance, take it away," Ember ordered, turning to him with that unnerving smile still plastered on his face.

“Can I start now?” Distrance asked, looking back to see Trigger impatiently staring at him with twitching eyes and a lit cigarette.

“Yeah, sure, whatever…” Patient shrugged and stood back to watch the unholy defilement of Spectra’s guts via his anus. Distrance eagerly started pounding away, thrusting in and out with reckless abandon.

“So, uh, who was that guy who just showed up and called Distrance a fag?” Trigger queried, turning to Ember with a brow raised.

"Rekka and I are friends," Ember replied, her smile widening. "I met him and… four other ponies in Yakyakistan a month ago, during a mission dealing with a red-and-black outbreak."

“I can understand that, but how did he know where we were?” Patient asked, using the sound of his own voice to distract himself from the sounds of squishy, gory sex.

"I'd wager Three Horns tipped him off. He did say he heard screaming," Ember pointed out, tilting her head a little. "Or he caught wind from somepony else. When I see him again, I'll ask."

Trigger nodded, before he heard a loud grunt and looked over to see that Distrance had pulled out of his victim; he had also left a hot, sticky creampie in Spectra’s shitter. “Your turn.”

While he pulled away, Trigger pushed his way to the alicorn’s guts. He used magic to squeeze a bit of excrement from the tube before trying to fit his veiny member into it.

“While he’s doing that…” Distrance began, post orgasmic disgust overtaking him and causing him to try his best to not watch his friend fuck the same almost-dead body. “I heard what you’ve said about Rekka, but how is he connected to Shining Armor? If at all? Aren’t we the only ones hunting down these things?”

Ember shook her head. "Negative, on us being the only ones. The epidemic has gotten that bad, so Shiny-Biny needed more helping hooves," she replied. "It wasn't like this three years ago, when we first got out missions." She turned to Patient and shrugged. "And you've seen how bad outbreaks can get."

Patient blew air through his nose and nodded. He remembered Germareny, specifically Marelin. Dear Gods, nearly half the town was filled with those things. With the help of his team, however, the town was filled with an alicorn hung from every tree by a noose made of their own guts.

He shook his head and directed his attention to Trigger, who groaned excitedly and blew his load deeply into the groaning alicorn’s intestines.

Spectra had faded in and out of consciousness throughout the whole rape, in too much pain to even understand what was happening to him. His few lingering thoughts were of fear, a longing for death, and a deep hatred for his tormentors. His eyes slipped shut, which immediately snagged Ember's attention.

"Anyone know a lightning spell? Or do we have adrenaline shots?" Ember asked, looking at Spectra with a critical gaze. "Because it would be remiss of us to let him go out here and now, when we're not even done yet."

“Shit…” Patient trotted over to the dufflebag of instruments and dug around. “Clear!” he shouted, pulling out a defibrillator that he immediately applied to Spectra's chest. A current of electricity ran through him, but for a moment he was unresponsive. "Clear!" he yelled again, and a second current coursed through before Spectra jolted awake with a choked scream.

“Eat a bag of shit if you think you’re allowed to die before we’re done with you,” Trigger growled and poked his still erect penis in Spectra’s face.

"Fuck… you…" Spectra hissed in a weak, wavering voice, eyes narrowing coldly.

"Already doing that," Ember quipped, turning to Patient yet again. "Your turn."

Patient gave a smug grin and lazily trotted over to the dying alicorn. He kept the grin and used magic to pull a cherry bomb from the dufflebag. “Trigonometry, can I get a light?”

“Don’t ever fucking call me that again,” Trigger pouted and lit the cherrybomb for Patient.

The nurse quickly used the knife to slice a small opening at the top of Spectra’s stomach; acid spilled out of the laceration and began to dissolve parts of his innards. Patient quickly dropped the cherrybomb into the open wound and backed away.

With a loud pop, the explosive ripped a hole through the chest of Spectra, sending bone fragments and stomach acid into his heart, finally killing the repugnant creature. Blood and semen showered the table and Distrance, who laughed at the spectacle. Patient shielded his eyes, since he didn’t want to disrupt his perfect 20/20, and Trigger stood agape, accidentally dropping the lit cigarette in his lips. Ember merely let the gore splatter her with a shrug of indifference, and she turned to Trigger. "You're buying dinner… for ten."

Trigger turned to Ember and his jaw dropped. "T-t-ten?!" he cried.

Ember slowly nodded. "Affirmative. There's some folks I want you guys to meet proper…" she began in a sing-song voice.

A Respite with New Faces

By the time the group of four had cleaned themselves up and left the abandoned warehouse and started plodding along the streets of Ponyville, night had fallen. Trigger was paler than usual, his face affixed with a tight frown and wide eyes. Ember led the group onward, keeping her tentacles to herself and her third eye rotating this way and that.

Yet even having three eyes did not seem to help in her case; as the quartet trotted on, they noticed that the streets were oddly empty. That didn't slow them down; if anything, they merely quickened their pace. It took them a good half-hour before anypony spoke up.

"Where are we going?" Patient piped up as they passed Sugarcube Corner.

Ember gestured ahead with a tentacle. "This way," she replied cryptically.

“Yeah, that’s helpful,” Trigger remarked in a snarky tone.

“Shut up and follow her,” Distrance hissed with a sour look. With that, they plodded along, and it took them a little over twenty minutes to reach a train station. The Friendship Express was parked in the station, and a group of six ponies were assembled before the boarding car. At least two were looking away from the car in question, giving the impression that they were waiting for someone.

Ember continued on, but Patient, Distrance, and Trigger all halted before they got within five feet of the station. A pair of red eyes, framed by a blue hat and some red bangs, stared at them with a look of indifference. Next to that pair was a set of blue eyes, framed by more blue hair and a white face. "Oh, this ought to be fun…" Patient groaned as he made to follow after Ember, if only to get a better look.

Shining Armor gave Ember a wan smile and hoofed over a small brown satchel as she gave him the video camera. "Well, good news and bad news… good news, Griffonstone's newest town of Asgard is reopening its first tourist attractions. Even better, you got some new friends coming with you," Shining reported as Patient, Distrance, and Trigger trotted up and took another set of brown satchels for themselves.

"Bad news?" Trigger piped up, opening his bag to find a carton of cigarettes atop a pile of bits.

“It’s been turned into… a housing reverie for the resident alicorns…” Shining deadpanned, his smile fading. "Think of it as a ghetto, if you will."

"Ergo, we have a whole few city blocks to clear out," Rekka piped up, causing the trio of stallions to turn to him. They raised brows when they saw a massive cannon-looking thing that was painted in vibrant red strapped to his right foreleg; it had to have weighed a good five to ten pounds by itself. That, and it stretched from his hoof right to the barrel, with a trigger sticking out to point at his left foreleg.

Patient groaned quietly with his mouth shut in exasperation before sighing. "Fantastic, more dead alicorns. At least they ain’t communists, else I’d break their wings and have pegasi throw them from high altitudes." His eyes focused on Rekka's odd accoutrement. "How the fuck does he carry that thing? And what is it?" he wondered.

Rekka noticed Patient leering at him and smiled, before lifting his strapped leg and pointing it right at Patient with such ease it almost seemed as if he were carrying a very heavily modified stick. That revealed that the odd object had a grey muzzle, with an even stranger yellow orb settled above a hole of some sort. Shining turned to Rekka and snarked, "Put the blaster down; no firing at co-workers."

Rekka sighed and lowered his armed leg, but made no effort to argue.

“So, uh... what now?” Trigger piped up, which made Shining gesture to the train.

"All aboard, you lot. No use letting red-and-black monsters live a day longer," Shining snarked. Sighing, and making their satchels vanish in flashes of light, Patient and his group boarded first, followed by Rekka and the ponies accompanying him. Distrance looked at said other ponies, only to find that they too were armed, and that two of them didn't quite fit the bill of 'pony.'

One was a gold-coated earth stallion with a short brown mane and eyes matching in color, the latter of which were framed by round-rimmed glasses. The second was a lilac unicorn mare sporting a blue mane and eyes, capped off with her horn being wrapped in bandages. The third was a hippogryph mare with tufted ears, a chest laden with dull orange feathers that cascaded down to grey talons, and a light purple coat where feathers weren't prominent.

Slit pupils hovering before deep amethyst eyes stared back at him, framed by a wild mane of yet more purple. The last was a hippogryph stallion, with teal feathers, a light green coat, teal claws, and a messy green mane cascading over the right side of his face. All four smiled rather serenely at Distrance, who decided to smile back, if only to be polite for once.

"I would advise you to watch where you're going," Rekka snarked, prompting Distrance to turn just in time to run into and then trip over a seat. The group paused as he got up to find themselves in a seat-and-table-laden car, ornately decorated with flower motifs. Ember was the first to claim a table.

“Who’re these guys?” Patient asked Ember, taking a seat beside her.

He turned to the other four, noticing a crossbow of gold on the earth stallion's foreleg and a purple boomerang with blue teeth on the withers of the bandaged unicorn, and one that stretched from the back of her head to the dock of her tail. He paused before finding a sword of some sort strapped in a scabbard of the hippogryph stallion, and a grey yo-yo with a purple center wrapped around the tarsus of the female hippogryph.

"Oh, them?" Ember replied, turning to Patient with a smile on her face. "I'd introduce them m'self, but I'm not very fluent in Neighponese. At most, I can only pronounce their names." She used a tentacle to gesture to Rekka. "Ask him, and he'll take care of the rest; he's the only one of them who can also speak and understand Winglish."

Patient turned to Rekka and paled a little. “Does one of them at least know Coltic? I can speak that,” he queried sincerely.

Rekka shook his head at that. "No, unless one of them—" His gaze averted to the earth pony, who smiled back as his glasses caught light and made the expression seem a little more demonic in nature, "—has been taking classes without me knowing."

Patient swallowed a lump before turning to the earth stallion and asking, "A allwch chi siarad Cymraeg?"

Do you speak this language?

The earth stallion's grin widened. "Ydw," he replied with a nod.

Yes.

"Hai," the lilac mare piped up.

"Yes," Rekka finished, now himself smiling.

Patient pursed his lips and let off a low whistle of amazement. "Beth yw eich enwau?" he pressed.

What are your names?

"Tenmei," the brown stallion replied.

The blue mare shifted for a bit before answering, "Koto."

The two hippogryphs merely exchanged glances, before they caught onto what was going on and they turned back to Patient. "Yuuki," the female answered.

The male hippogryph leaned back and assumed a small frown that gave the impression that he was fast getting bored. "Nagare," he finished with a tone of disinterest and a wave of his talon.

Patient turned to Tenmei. “Eich acen swnio'n gyfarwydd. Saesneg?”

Your accent sounds familiar. Manex?

Tenmei kept on smiling with amusement. “Yr Alban.”

Trottish.

“Close!” Patient chuckled before clearing his throat. “Roeddwn yn agos.”

"Damn, should've gotten the popcorn…" Distrance remarked as Patient and Tenmei continued to exchange banter amongst themselves in their strange bout of moonspeak.

Ember nudged Trigger with a tentacle to the shoulder. "You're still forking dough over, sniper-colt," she jeered.

“Fuck…” Trigger cursed under his breath, right as Shining came over and sat next to him. In that same instant the train shifted, before the rhythmic sound of wheels turning on tracks filled the air with an accompanying hollow and piercing whistle.

"Already paid for dinner tonight, so unless you two are betting something, there's no need to fork bits over," Shining stated, causing Ember to deflate with his utterance. "Besides, dinner should be here soon." A door at the southern end of the car opened, revealing a pony and a trolley standing on the other side.

That pony and trolley covered with steaming plates, all wrapped in tin foil, was pushed slowly through the walkway as the unicorn hostess quickly gave each pony and hippogryph their own meal with magic. Patient slipped her a tip and proceeded to munch on his toasted spinach and kale sammich.

“Where do you know these guys from?” He turned to Ember as he asked in a quieter tone.

"Rekka told me," Ember replied, taking a bite out of a piece of salmon. "Though I had to ask first, since they were yodeling at red-and-black ponies in their native tongue at the time."

Patient nodded in understanding. “At least their native tongue doesn’t sound like you’re trying to slaughter a goat,” he tried to joke. “Fuckin’ nips.”

"Hontōni ima?" Koto snarked from her table, making Patient turn to her to find her brow raised.

"Really now?" Rekka translated.

“Yes really, ching chong.” Patient shot back with a wry smile.

Koto's brow rose higher, and she took a few seconds to eat a roll of sushi—a roll that had what looked suspiciously like a piece of raw fish stuck in the middle. "Anata wa tashikadesu ka?" she asked the very instant she finished chewing and swallowed.

"Ya sure?" Rekka piped up again.

Patient's smile wavered a little as Koto lifted a hoof and reached for her oversized boomerang.

“B-beth mae'r uf-uffern” Patient somewhat angrily managed, preparing a spell on the tip of his horn.

”W-what the h-hell?”

Koto tilted her head, and a grin formed on her muzzle. "Baka," she hissed, lifting her raised hoof higher before dropping it to gesture to Shining. Patient's horn stopped glowing then and there, and he flinched as he felt Shining turn to glare at him.

“Shame she doesn’t like him. She’s a cutie,” Trigger muttered as he turned to Distrance.

Koto immediately turned to Trigger, gestured to Rekka, and promptly added, "Sudeni koibito ga ite, kare wa soko ni iru."

"She and I are lovers," Rekka translated once more before he popped a piece of crisped kelp into his mouth. When he finished the bit of food, he added in a rather smug tone, "You put your hooves on her, you can expect a three-foot boomerang wedged up your ass sideways."

“HA! Wrecked!” Distrance laughed heartily as Trigger crossed his forelegs and huffed indignantly.

"Let's save the banter for tomorrow. Right now, let's eat and rest up," Ember piped up, garnering the attention of everyone else with her utterance.

"You heard the Beholder, let's chow and snooze," Shining agreed with a hearty nod.

“What did he just call you?” Patient asked once more, turning to Ember.

"It's the nickname I got after my accident, but before I was brought into the wholesale slaughter of red-and-black ponies," Ember replied with a shrug. She gestured to her third eye and added, "A guard said 'beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,' and then it stuck."

“Hmph,” was her answer. With that, Patient finished the rest of his sandwich and wiped his face with a napkin. “Strangely fitting."

*********

The sun rose over Equestria and the surrounding lands, just as it always had, showering the faces of everyone in the train with bright rays the next morning. Trigger was the first one woken up by this, and his first response was to breathe heavily through his nose and flip open his satchel, using a hoof to cradle his carton of cigarettes like it was a newborn. He looked around to find several beds, arrayed in bundles of two. In a few moments, everyone else woke one by one, including Patient and Ember.

“I hate these beds,” Patient could hear Distrance mumble as the nurse shifted in his uncomfortable cushions.

"Kyō wa nan'yōbidesuka?"" Yuuki piped up, yawning widely to Patient's left. He turned to her just in time to get a good glimpse of sharp, feline front teeth paired with flat back molars.

"Assday," Rekka snarked as he crawled out of his bed and stretched.

Shining had woken up by now, as he got out of his bed and started to stretch. "I've never heard of an 'Assday' before. Care to enlighten me?" he queried, garnering a look and a sheepish grin from Rekka.

"Something I said because I could," Rekka replied, his grin widening.

"Anyone else feel like they got a good dose of charlie horse?" Ember groaned, stumbling out of her bed only to then faceplant on the floor as she tripped on one of her own tentacles. "Because right now, every single one of my limbs hurts."

"Chārī-san wa mada watashi no tame ni kite imasen," Nagare answered as he crawled out and spread his wings as wide as they could go.

Patient stared off into the distance, lifting a hoof to his face and instantly noticing the bags under his eyes as he tried to think about the coffee he’d be drinking as soon as he got off the train. His face was kinda numb and his eyes kinda burned.

“Mornings,” he muttered to himself. “If there isn’t any coffee in Asgard, I’m going to kill myself,” he stated, slightly louder. Before he could banter any further, he felt the train lurch and slowly come to a stop, and everyone heard the telltale screech of wheels that ceased spinning grating upon tracks.

"And so it begins…" Rekka grumbled as a loud whistle pierced the air just seconds later. "I hope Asgard didn't become a complete shithole…"

Author's Note

Beginning of Arc 2

Let the Cleansing Begin

ALICORN TURF SOD OFF

KILL ALL FASCISTS COMMUNISM FOR ALL

DIE CIS SCUM FAT ACCEPTANCE RULZ

MY CREATOR IS A FUCKING EDGELORD

Those scrawlings, so creatively sprayed on to many buildings, were the first thing the disembarking group of ten noticed the very instant they got off the train. The second was the state of the surrounding buildings that boasted such artistic drabble; many had holes in their walls, lacked doors and windows, and one even had no roof whatsoever.

The third thing was the swarm of red and black alicorns, pegasi, and unicorns trotting around with small erections standing to attention. This was also paired with horrifically sagging cunts whose labia were so diseased, pus-riddled, and outright wound-bearing it was surprising they didn't fall off the mares yet. Ew.

The fourth thing? Tenmei was the only earth pony in the immediate area; absolutely, positively nopony else in the alicorn-infested hellhole lacked wings and a horn. The last thing of note was rampant banter between mares and stallions, who talked with no subtlety nor a hint of understanding as to what an 'indoor voice' was.

"Fucking Flurry Heart needs to die," a stallion hissed, unknowing and uncaring that his utterance made Shining scowl deeply.

"I want Celestia, Luna, and Chrysalis as my broodmares," another stallion stated as he cantered past the train station, not even sparing a glance to the new arrivals as the Friendship Express whistled and backed up immediately.

"I want everypony to be transgender, cisgender, or agender, and not cis, and fat-accepting like I am," a haughty and very fat mare chided as she trotted to the house lacking in the roof department.

“We are the Antifascistie! Come, comrades, let’s find some fascists to kill! Hail Trotsky!,” another alicorn, wearing a black bandana around his face and a red hammer and sickle embroidered on it led a small gang of stallions who wore the same thing on their heads that came to the train station.

Patient saw red and attempted to stifle back a berzerker-like rage as he shook with primal fury and charged a pyromancy spell on his horn.

Rekka's horn started glowing in a yellow light, and he raised his blaster-bearing limb with intent. "The instant they notice we're here is the instant the slaughter begins," he sneered, grinning horribly. "Whoever has the lowest score has to lapdance for the one with the highest score, unless it's Shining."

Ember's tentacles snapped open, sans the one on her horn. Her third eye began radiating an unearthly red light. "You're on, Matchstick," she chirped.

The leader of the mob spotted the group and lifted a hoof to call for a halt, which instantly caused his gathering and every other abomination in the area to pause. Slowly, as if they were one, their eyes fell on Ember. "It seems we have a traitor," the leader hissed, trying to pass off a girly falsetto as a deep baritone and failing at it.

Ember assumed a demonic smile. "I'm not a traitor; that'd imply I was even on your side to begin with, you Marksist asswad," she spat, her horn flaring to life with the same red aura as that of her third eye.

“I’m gonna rip and tear your fuckin’ guts you goddamned commie! I want your blood! BLOOD!” Patient let out a horrid, guttural scream as he allowed himself to be consumed with rage and shot towards one of the alicorns. He went into the fray spewing lethal magics from his horn left, right, and sideways as he surged forward.

"Bring it! We will end you all and turn the very roads crimson with thine organs!" Ember yelled as she stood up on her back legs to expose her third eye. The red energy built up until a crimson laserbeam shot forth from a runic circle that formed in front of her barrel. The beam slammed right in the center of the mob, barely missing Patient and incinerating three alicorns on the spot. She followed up with weaker, ball-shaped pulses of mana that exploded in flashes of light above the station, and at once Trigger and the others joined in on the action.

Loud cracks rang out from Rekka's blaster, crossbow bolts flew this way and that, a yo-yo lashed out with lightning quickness, and their owners had taken on murderous grins. Koto spun her boomerang rather lazily with a hoof for a second, before an alicorn got too close to her. She immediately thwacked him upside the head, caving in his skull and twisting his neck in one sitting. Nagare unsheathed his blade, rose to stand on his hooves, and started swinging at every abomination like a lunatic.

Patient tackled one of the alicorns, the leader’s lieutenant presumably, and began to savagely beat him with his hooves. Teeth, blood, and bits of fur sprayed to the left and right of the melee as the alicorn struggled, yet failed to keep the berzerk unicorn off of him. Patient’s horn glowed like Celestia’s Holy sun, and with that, he hopped off, spewing white-hot heat onto the alicorn’s face.

The communist shrieked in agony, which only caused Patient’s bloodthirsty smile to grow. Finally, Patient changed his spell, a levitation incantation he learned long ago, and pulled violently at the burned, bloodied head of the abomination. He tugged thrice with all his might and the seams around the alicorn’s neck finally tore, causing the head and spinal cord to rip out of the neck hole. Patient flung the head and spine away, using his magic to rip off the alicorn’s limbs with a newfound, horrid strength.

“RIP AND TEAR YOUR GUTS!” Patient howled with fury as he plunged his horn into another alicorn’s stomach, spilling blood on to the ground.

Ember seized an alicorn and tore his legs from his sockets with her tentacles. "These guys are weak as hell; they must be eating garbage day in and day out. Their bones are weak, their flesh easily rended, some pack flab that makes the Smooze blush with confidence… I'm amazed they're still standing," she remarked as a pegasus tried coming up behind her, only to be impaled on a blood-stained sword courtesy of Nagare. "I'll bet Snails hits harder."

Throughout the melee, Trigger and Distrance had been providing support, both using pyromancy to keep other alicorns, and the few remaining pegasi and unicorns, at bay. Trigger shuddered and paled as he saw one of his best friends turn into a total bloodthirsty monster, more so than he was beforehand. At least during the torture sessions of Spectra, Dark Slash, and others like them, Patient had retained his personality. Now, though, he was a completely different pony.

"Keep him from drinking more blood; I'll bet that's why he's going hogwild!" Ember yelled, using a tentacle to gesture to Patient for emphasis. Shining surged toward him and his horn glowed, and in seconds his magic trapped Patient in a barrier that deflected the abominations' pitiful attempts to get to him. The barrier picked him up and separated him from the alicorn he loomed over.

“I want the leader! He’s MINE!” Patient roared, trying to lunge at the barrier with all his might to no avail.

The leader of the communist alicorns backed away slowly before he was savagely bucked squarely in the face by Distrance and sent right to the ground. That act made the rest of the abominations release an unholy scream in unison and turn tail, scattering to each and every building like cockroaches. Doorways closed with magic, windows were boarded with sofas and recliners, and holes in walls were sealed up with fresh bricks and mortar in the span of seconds.

Patient snarled animalistically and finally the barrier between him and the leader was lifted. The nurse shot towards the leader like a bullet and immediately clamped his teeth on his foreleg before he had the chance to scramble away.

“I’m taking him!” He twitched, scaring the living shit out of Trigger and Distrance.

“Alright, alright. Go find somewhere else to do your thing,” Shining Armor finally spoke, rolling his eyes. “Edgy asshole,” he added, under his breath.

Ember looked around and took stock of the fact the buildings were now sealed off. "Where, though? They cockblocked us while we were distracted," she pointed out.

Rekka idly checked his blaster, and found the yellow orb it possessed was aglow. "Eh, once Patient calms down, I'll deal with that problem," he replied.

Patient looked around, almost like a predator, until he spotted a smaller, possibly administrative building at the entrance to the train station. The building was surely in disrepair, windows were broken, and the door was off its hinges, but it was a building nonetheless; its single room was probably where ticket sales, train scheduling, and other administrative things took place. Slowly, the yellow unicorn walked over to the small structure and bucked the door open to reveal a small group of ponies huddled within.

Multiple screams were heard from within as he charged his white-hot sun spell again. A beam of energy spilled into the building, blowing out the windows with flames as three forms, all alicorn, were pushed out the windows, flailing about. Patient magically extinguished the flames and grinned devilishly as Nagare, Koto, and Ember closed on on the ponies who were exiled out of the ticket booth.

“Y’all go on without me.” He eyed the unconscious commie leader, and all he did to acknowledge the slaughter of the trio he'd evicted was a bare twitch of the ear.

"You got this?" Ember asked as she tore one of the alicorns clean in two. Koto and Nagare barely looked up at Patient even after they'd stabbed and beaten their alicorns to death.

Patient simply nodded, breathing through his quarter-of-the-way-open mouth; his pearly whites which his fiance had lovingly cleaned at her office were stained with commie blood.

At his signal, Ember turned to the others. "Let's spread out and fuck shit up!" she cried before darting around Koto and towards a random house, trailing intestines on her tentacles as she went. Shining nodded and took off towards the roofless house, and Trigger and Distrance ran down the street shortly thereafter.

Finally, after a few seconds of hesitation, Rekka turned to a large building a good twenty feet away and darted to it. Tenmei, Koto, Yuuki, and Nagare followed after him immediately, brandishing their bloodied weapons as they went.

Foalcon Cave

Rekka skid to a stop at the very door of the tall building, finding a whole pile of desks and used mattresses lining either side of a rotting wooden slab. The scents of mold, rot, mildew, and cheese filled the air. "May've found a fracking crack den," he muttered, craning his neck to look behind himself as his group caught up to him. "Quickly, and efficiently. Last pony alive in there gets the interrogation ritual."

Yuuki, Tenmei, Nagare, and Koto answered in unison, "Hai!" Rekka nodded and turned back to the door before lifting his blaster. His horn glowed, and the orb glowed brighter before a runic circle materialized in front of him and conjured a golden beam that slammed into the door and set it ablaze. When the circle faded and his leg dropped once the beam dissipated, the door then turned to ash, allowing entry.

Rekka didn't even take one step forward as a very fat unicorn stallion bumbled in to block what was left of the door. He had a dirtied yellow coat with patches of white here and there, and a greasy mane with more grey hairs than he could count. The two stared off before the fat slob tried and then proceeded to mangle, "Konishiwat."

Rekka mutely lifted his blaster again, and promptly fired the fat pony in the face with another laser beam, adding the scent of burning flesh to the air in the process. Once the beam cleared away, it revealed that the stallion was now lacking a full cranium and a good length of his neck.

The headless stallion fell over, his cauterized neck stump sizzling and smoking. The group snorted and filed in, trotting over his corpse to find molding hallways, one of which was smoking in places, very likely from Rekka's volley.

The other two, stretching to the left and right, remained untouched for the moment. "Remind me to come back here with a bomb one of these days," Rekka hissed, turning to look at the halls that weren't sizzling here and there. Already ponies were gathering in those halls, if only to see what the fuss was about.

Various overweight, poorly kempt ponies sloughed their way out of the rooms strewn about, eyeing the damage and the newcomers with wary gazes. One made the mistake of bringing a small doll with him. A life-sized, foal-shaped doll hewn of sullied yarn, crafted in the likeness of Scootaloo. Yuuki turned to that pony and growled like a jaguar before throwing her yo-yo at him, hitting him in the face and sending him bowling over his fellow ponies before she flicked her tarsus to reclaim her weapon.

"Bakana hito?" Koto seethed as another doll-bearing pony, one that had a mockery of Sweetie Belle, decided to try and amble forward in a pitiful attempt to confront her and her group.

"Mmm… if you were but little shota and lolis, we'd be more… open," the ambling pony snorted, donning a dejected frown. "You guys are a little too old for our liking."

Rekka responded by lifting his leg and giving that pony, and those who lingered in the hall behind him, another hefty helping of laser beams. "You foal-fondlers have zero chance of seeing the sun rise again. Just surrender and we'll make it quick," he warned, his tone dripping with equal parts anger and shame.

Unfortunately for them, his comment may as well have fallen on deaf ears. The pony who held the Scootaloo plushie staggered to his hooves and scowled at the group. "Listen here, baka, I don't know who you are to think you can just trot in here and raise hell at us when we did nothing wrong, but you can't just stride in here like you own this wonderful place!" he yelled, and for a few seconds silence hung in the air.

Then Rekka turned to him and lifted his blaster once again. "You're right—in that we don't actually own this place. But that doesn't matter much to us, because we're the cleaning crew," he snarked, right before firing another beam that slammed clean into the pony's barrel. The attack incinerated more flesh and came out the pony's tail, before it hit the less fortunate souls behind him and roasted them in vital places. As the beam faded, leaving no more than a smouldering head and legs that remained in place for some seconds, he shook his head.

"I'm amazed you could pronounce the term 'baka' without mangling it," he added as the head and legs remembered that gravity was a thing and promptly fell to the floor in a heap. "Yuuki, Tenmei, take the hall to the right. Nagare, Koto, go left. I'm going upstairs…" The group split as instructed, and Rekka simply trotted down the smouldering hall without bothering to look into any of the rooms he passed on his way.

Going down a few feet, though, made him realize something. He found himself staring at the end of the hall. His eyes narrowed. "Joy, I take the dead end…" Rekka grumbled, letting his horn ignite once more. A golden glow embraced the wall before him, and for a moment nothing else happened. But then he applied pressure to the wall, just slightly, and jumped back with a startled yelp as it crumbled before him to reveal a massive hole that lead to another street.

"Yay, the place is falling apart," he snorted sarcastically as he started to trot to the hole. He stopped right at its frame and peered out, looking left and right before noticing a rusted metal slab with slats that tried to pass off as a ladder a few paces away. Looking up enabled him to see a fire escape covered with more desks and mattresses, complete with a metal door. "Figures. Oh well, nothing I can't handle." He clambered out of the hole, turned to the escape, stood up on his back legs and aimed his blaster up, using his left foreleg to steady his weapon.

It took him a few seconds to gather another charge for his next volley, if only because his back legs started trying to give out the very moment he went upright. The instant he fired was the instant he fell flat on his ass, grunting as a stray pebble from the wall managed to scratch him on the dock of his tail. As a result, the volley missed his intended target, but it managed to incinerate a flying red-and-black pegasus overhead.

"Ecchi, I should've…" Rekka began before he noticed the smouldering leftovers of the pegasus he'd managed to hit. The corpse descended rapidly and struck at the clutter that surrounded the fire escape's exit with enough force to send at least half of it over the edge—toward him. He scrambled up and rushed to the hole for cover, and in a matter of seconds the clutter landed right where he was.

Before Rekka could turn around to see if the fire escape was de-cluttered enough for him to scale, he heard ponies shouting from the other halls his friends were sent to scour. "That blue one's going upstairs to the Maximum Fun Chamber! Stop her!" a stallion cried out, panic all but dripping from his voice. That was followed by the sound of bone caving in, and then a series of loud thuds.

"The purple bitch tripped me! Somepony pin her down!" another yelled, before any further utterance was cut off in a gurgling choke.

"Maximum Fun Chamber?" Rekka parroted, turning around and trotting out to look back at the fire escape, finding that the clutter overhead was now fairly manageable for him to handle. "Oh, that can't be good…" Deciding he'd wasted enough time, he hurried to the ladder and jumped on before rapidly climbing it to get to the bloody fire escape. When he reached it, he was greeted by a runic circle carved into the door itself.

"Really?" Rekka scoffed, lighting up his horn once more before his aura embraced the door to throw the runes into a stark relief. Looking more closely, he saw that they were messily scratched on, and some even were scribbled out altogether. Once he was sure his eyes were working correctly, he let his magic wrench itself into the runes.

The runes began emitting purple sparks, before crystallizing and then breaking away. Rekka's eyes widened at the anomaly as mana of a violet hue pulsed across the door. "Oh no… they've got a captive. And a smart one, too… but how? They're…" He tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but his thought processes halted momentarily as the door swung open of its own accord, giving one last pulse before going dead still.

What he saw beyond that door had his blood boiling. It was a single large room, filled with dead mares and foals. Some sported glazed eyes and very fresh white splotches, indicating they'd only recently passed. Others decayed, and their stench wafted through the room like a cloud of poison.

Amidst it all, however, stood one lone mare with a book-and-pentagram cutie mark that looked more like a teenager. A pinkish, emaciated unicorn with a light purple mane and tail, sporting a cap on her head with a crescent moon hanging to one side. Her horn glowed with the same purple light that pulsed across the door, and as she turned to regard Rekka with a reddish-amethyst gaze, she gave a sputtering cough and her legs buckled a little. One side of her mane sported a red bow, and the other had a blue bow.

The two stared off for a second. The mare's eyes widened, and she started to stumble over to Rekka on shaky legs. "Anatahadaredesu ka?" she asked in a hoarse, very weak voice.

Rekka rushed over to her as she tripped before she could reach him. "Tomodachi," he replied, lighting up his horn to pick her up with his magic. He turned her around before putting her on his back, letting her rest in a way that her head was next to his neck. "Namae wa?"

The mare gave another sputtering cough, but then she smiled. "P-Pachurī…" she replied.

"Patchouli? Ooooh, this'll be interesting…" Rekka craned his neck to give her a friendly smile. Her eyes brightened, and at a very sluggish nod, he turned to the fire escape and quickly made his way out. He descended with haste, but not too fast, lest he jostle Patchouli a little too much for comfort. "I need to get her to Shining, pronto. She needs food, water, and a fracking blanket."

Once he was on solid, dirt-based ground again, he turned to look at Patchouli again. She looked at him before turning away, lifting a hoof, and coughing into it. "What did those freaks do to her…" He turned to the hole he made as hoofsteps reached his ears, and sighed as he found a bloodied Koto and Nagare approaching him with frowns on their faces. "Time to face the music…"

Both of his companions turned to regard Patchouli as Rekka cantered to them. They gaped upon getting a lovely view of her current condition. "Are all of the… things in this building dead yet?" Rekka asked, garnering their attention with his query. Koto nodded, and Nagare blinked before turning to let his viridian gaze fall on Patchouli again.

Just then, Tenmei and Yuuki rounded a corner from the hall they claimed and rushed over to see what was going on. "We have another victim of the plague. We need to report to Shining, pronto," Rekka announced, his tone firm and glum.

McCarthy

Patient had finally finished barring the door to the one room building before the commie leader had woken up. The alicorn’s mind was in a haze, his brain scrambled as he suddenly remembered the deaths of his glorious comrades; cut down by a psychopath; said psycho was probably a damned fascist! Or even worse, a capitalist! He had hoped his other comrades had ran off and grabbed their Kalashnikovs and molotovs.

The alicorn moved his leg without opening his eyes. Horrible pain rushed up his spinal column to his brain, causing him to shout, opening up his eyes. He struggled to move, but found he couldn’t move any of his forelegs or wings; almost as if they were bound to his body.

“Mornin’,” the nurse mused as he turned on an old oil lamp.

The commie looked down to see his forelegs and wings tied down to his torso via a length of rope. Next, he noticed the bear trap on his leg and screamed, flailing his leg and only succeeding to dig the teeth of the device deeper.

“Quit struggling,” Patient growled. The light caught his face in such a way that it highlighted his baggy eyes with popped veins.

“I—” the alicorn began, only to be cut off by Patient.

“Name.”

“C-Crimson Charge.”

Patient nodded. He pulled open a desk and found a dull, rusty letter opener. Perfect.

He set down the oil lamp on the same desk and stood over the alicorn. “Ydych chi'n siarad Cymraeg?”

Crimson shook his head. “I-I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Patient merely sighed and shrugged.

“Mae'n drueni.” He smirked before driving the letter opener up the bottom of the uninjured leg’s hoof.

Crimson howled with agony and shook, trying to free himself. Patient had dug the end of the dull knife into the bone, just barely piercing the marrow; he was also holding the leg down with magic. Suddenly, the nurse hammered into the letter opener with a nearby brick, pushing it deeper and deeper into the bone, splitting it, cracking it, and ruining the marrow and viscera around it.

The alicorn was able to get one of his wings free and he flapped it vigorously, trying to escape. Patient chuckled and got up leaving the letter opener wedged into the split bone. Using his hind legs, he stomped viciously on the wing, snapping it in several spots and mangling it beyond repair. Crimson shrieked with horrible anguish as his left wing was smashed.

“Mae dau goes ac un adain i lawr,” Patient mused; his eye twitched.

He got up from the screaming, bawling, flailing Crimson and strolled over to one of the broken windows. Uninterestedly, he pried a piece of still attached glass off and brought it over to the communist, who looks up with teary, fearful eyes. Using magic, Patient gently pokes the alicorn’s stomach and raises an eyebrow.

“Ydych chi eisiau i gwrdd â Pinochet?” He asked smarmily with a burning hatred in his gaze.

“Wait what!? No! I don’t understand!” Crimson cried, using his remaining wing and forelegs to push fruitlessly against his ropes.

Patient’s only response was to look Crimson in the eyes and slowly inch the piece of glass into the alicorn’s stomach. Blood poured from the wound and drizzled down the sides of the alicorn and onto the floor. Crimson shook and kicked at Patient in violent agony as he saw the nurse scoop out a short few inches of intestine.

Once that was done, Patient held down his kicking victim with magic and leaned his face down towards the wound on his stomach. With a bite, he grasped onto the intestines and began to pull, yanking out long, wet ropes of intestines. Crimson’s shrieks were all that could be heard, and his voice was getting hoarse.

After Crimson’s tormentor had pulled out a significant amount of intestines, he pulled the letter opener from the leg, causing another shrill cry to pierce the heavens. He was able to somehow cut the length of intestinal tract from the rest of the system. With that, he slung the length over one of the rafters in the ceiling. He tied one end of the guts on a sturdy table leg and formed a noose with the other end.

“N-no! NO!!” Crimson knew exactly what was going to happen. He tried thrashing again, but Patient’s concentration was at its peak, so he was able to keep the alicorn pinned.

“Fod yn dawel.” Patient rolled his eyes and picked up the alicorn, slipping his neck through the noose and tightened it. He still was holding the alicorn up in the air with magic.

Crimson was crying bitter tears. His insides were on fire, he saw his comrades die horrible deaths to this bloodthirsty capitalist, and worst of all, he had shamed his ideology by dying like a bitch.

“Bye.” Patient smiled, releasing Crimson…

A loud crack echoed through the building as Crimson’s neck snapped. The intestines held up more than Patient had anticipated, and he was impressed by it. He watched the bound alicorn swing on the noose, blood flowing heavily from the wound in his stomach onto the floor.

He gave the cadaver a salute. He saw stars and stripes for a moment before he turned to leave. He tore down the barricade he made, plank by plank, until it was once more pieces strewn about. A silent, bloodied battlefield of a city street greeted him, and he turned to the train station before trotting to it to clear his head.

The sound of several galloping hooves filled in the soundless void moments later, accompanied by scritching and several voices calling out desperately for Shining Armor. Patient's brow rose, and he turned to the street just as Rekka and his companions frantically rounded a corner, all of their eyes wide.

Patient gaped as he realized they brought with them a sixth pony that not only looked like a foal undergoing a growth spurt, but one that looked barely alive. The group saw Patient and made a beeline for him, only skidding to a halt the instant they were within two feet of him.

“Who’s this!?” Patient’s gaze turned from one of rage to one of immediate concern as he got on the filly’s level.

"Her name's Patchouli, and she speaks Neighponese. The alicorns very likely made her teach them barrier magics, and…" Rekka paused to set Patchouli down on the station, and she immediately curled up into a ball. "We need to warn Shining, but we can't leave her here to the proverbial wolves. Patient, do you have food and water handy?"

“Yeah, probably.” Patient focused on a conjuration spell he halfway forgot. Within a minute, he had formed a fresh loaf of bread and a blob of water that he levitated. Patchouli turned to the two objects and gave a weak groan, before she was given the bread and the glob of liquid. She ate and drank hurriedly, taking large mouthfuls at a time.

Rekka nodded, and only when Patchouli finished her meal did he turn to look at Koto. "You, stay with us." Then his gaze fell onto Tenmei, Nagare, and Yuuki. "You three, get Shining. Murder anypony that gets in your way, if they're like the monstrosities that we ended earlier." With a series of nods, Tenmei bolted off down the street while Nagare and Yuuki spread their wings and immediately took to the air.

It's the Final Sound You Hear

Shining busted down a barrier surrounding the roofless house laced with intricate runes, using little more than a spell of his own to do the job. "Now, when did they start getting into advanced magics?" he pondered aloud as the barrier faded away entirely, allowing him entry to a house whose orifices were bricked up. He trotted to the bricked-in door and started scanning it with a critical eye, looking for the slightest chink so he could force his way in.

"Get away, cis patriarch! Nopony likes you!" a shrill, haughty voice yelled from within.

"Then how did I get married to Cadence?" Shining snarked inwardly with a roll of his eyes as he kept scrutinizing the doorframe in the hopes he could find a fault in the construction. He took a closer look at the mortar, and smiled as he realized it was still wet. Still fresh. He lifted a hoof up and pushed a brick on the bottom in, though that did little by itself. So, seemingly at random, he set about pushing more bricks with a slow and calculated grace.

A minute later, the construct fell once he'd probed it enough, and shortly thereafter he strode in to find a dilapidated living room filled with used pizza boxes and cupcake wrappers. Standing on an old couch on the far side was the fat mare, who was wielding a bent baseball bat in a faltering magical grip. "Get out, straight scum! Your toxic masculinity is poisonous in these parts!" the mare warned, but her remark fell on deaf ears.

"Poisonous?" Shining asked, taking no more than three steps forward. He threw up a barrier as the mare threw the bat at him, making it snap in two from the sheer impact alone. "Did my ears deceive me?"

"Leave, at once!" the mare hissed, stomping a hoof on the couch and pulling it in a manner reminiscent of pushing dirt to the side.

Shining dropped his barrier and took another step forward. "I am a Prince of Equestria, Captain of the Royal Guard, and Emperor of the Crystal Empire. I take orders only from Celestia, Luna, and Cadence," he seethed, eyes narrowing slightly as the mare made the shoving-dirt-aside gesture again. "And you dare threaten me?" Instantly, his magic seized her and pinned her to the couch. "Would you like to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"

From another room, Shining could hear a furious, unearthly screeching as a skinny, short stallion with the smallest penis he'd ever seen bumbled into the room. The erection did not even go past the pathetically small sheath; if anything, it looked as if his body had absorbed all but the first centimeter of the head. His scrotum fared no better. Despite seemingly being nigh malnourished, the stallion sported a bushy beard and thick rimmed glasses.

“Don’t you dare touch my queeeeeen!” the stallion angrily shouted in the worst impression of a falsetto Shining could've sworn he'd ever heard. He then turned to the mare. “I-I’m sorry, I slipped out of my chastity cage, please forgive me,” he uttered. "I… I heard you s-screaming…"

Shining merely grabbed the stallion in his magic and forced him to sit on the couch next to the mare. "I will treat you two as equals. Bearing that in mind, let us begin…" He turned to the mare first. "Who taught you that barrier spell?"

“My proud, strong, feminist, independent mother taught me that spell!” the mare huffed, donning a cocky grin.

Shining raised a brow. "May I ask who your mother was? Or is, if she is still alive?" he queried.

“Princess Luna,” she smugly replied.

Shining's brow dropped and leveled so evenly somepony could have balanced a pin on it and he wouldn't have noticed. Silence held for a few seconds.

“It’s true, though!” She became visibly offended, if her wince and rapidly-scowling face were any indication. “It’s because I’m fat, isn’t it!?” she shouted accusingly.

"Not that," Shining began slowly, taking in the mare's unseemly appearance. He tried to ignore her pea soup green coat and mold-colored mane before shaking his head. "It is that you do not bear an iota of resemblance to Princess Luna."

“I was adopted!” she pulled out of thin air; her pet cuck was still silent, eyeing Shining up and down with a scowl on his face.

Shining's brow rose yet again. "Then why have I not heard of a new Princess or Prince after Luna returned from her banishment?" he asked in a cool, level voice that gave way to a palpable silence. "Not once have I heard of Luna adopting anypony as repugnant as you. The closest equivalent I can think of would be her personal student, but even said student is much more dignified than you two will ever be."

He leaned in close, until he was eye to eye with both of his makeshift captives. "Now, tell me the truth. Who taught you that spell?" he repeated in a chilling murmur that made the cuck and the fat mare quake in their seats.

“B-but it’s the truth! I swear it!” the mare tried not to pout as the cuck attempted to cuddle and console her, but she pushed him away. “Fucking cis scum, don’t rape me!”

Shining mentally facehooved. Seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere with his current approach, he decided to be a little more blunt. His magic flared and twin bubbles appeared around the heads of the mare and stallion, no bigger than fish bowls. "I will ask just one more time. Who. Taught. You. That. Spell?"

“G… G…” the stallion tried to speak, but he was hyperventilating. “Get out of here… racist...” He stopped as the sound of flapping wings echoed into the area, rapidly getting louder as the seconds ticked by.

"Kagayaku Yoroi!" a pair of keening voices, one male and one female, cried in unison. The utterance made Shining turn to the door, only to find Nagare and Yuuki carrying Trigger and Distrance barreling towards him, both unicorns were bloodsoaked. A simple barrier spell made the group halt in their tracks, but did no more than that.

"What is it?" Shining asked, turning to Distrance and Trigger before blinking as he found a pair of wide-eyed, pale faces.

"R-R-Rekka found a mare in critical condition, and she's not like the red and black freaks around here!" Trigger stammered, his utterance making Shining's pupils shrink. "Yuuki and Nagare took me and Distrance to see her, and… and she's…"

"WHAT?!" Shining cried before turning to Distrance for an explanation.

Distrance's horn glowed, and a brown magic aura embraced Shining's head for a split second. When it faded, a vivid image of Patchouli flooded Shining's mind, along with Patient and Rekka fussing over her as they gave her a blanket to keep warm in. Then the image faded, and Shining returned to staring at Distrance again.

“Rekka found her in some sex dungeon. The ones who did this to her were pedophiles, and they had killed off all but one of their victims. That mare… Rekka suspects they kept her around so she could teach them advanced magic,” Distrance spoke gravely. Shining turned to Yuuki and Nagare, only to find them nodding glumly.

"Where's Tenmei?" Shining asked.

"He went to fetch Ember after Yuuki and Nagare hauled us here," Trigger answered.

Shining nodded, and used his magic to poke a hole in the dual fishbowls to let his captives breathe. "Report to Rekka, immediately. I'll be a bit longer." Yuuki and Nagare nodded before they flew back out of the house through the open hole where a roof should have been with Trigger and Distrance in tow. One they left, he turned to the mare and stallion on the couch, and a fierce scowl formed on his face.

“How dare you do that to me! What you did perpetuated rape culture! Raaape! RAAAAPE!” the fat mare began to scream for anyone who would listen, but her only response was Shining's scowl deepening. His magic seized their heads and, for a moment, the image of Patchouli flashed through their minds.

"You accuse me of perpetuating rape… but why did you turn your fat ass on that mare who needed genuine help?" Shining hissed, his tone ominously low.

“B-but pedophilia is just another s-sexual orientation!” the cuck stammered, hoping with all his might that Shining would relent.

"If that were the case… then jail and Tartarus are just another set of rooms," Shining replied darkly before using his magic to forcefully wrench their necks, twisting their heads a full 360 with a series of sickening snaps before he let go. The duo slumped on the couch, completely still, eyes glazing over as death took them away. With that, he trotted out of the house and made for the station.

*********

As the sun set, Tenmei and Ember at last returned to the station. The latter was wobbling, and using her tentacles to steady herself, while the former just shook his head with a sigh. The train had stopped in at the station one last time as the group got on. Rekka busied himself with putting Patchouli to a warm bed as Patient monitored her health. Trigger sat next to Distrance and lit up a cigarette, without being told not to by the hostess and Shining had sat down next to the bedridden mare.

"I'm betting ten bits she's gonna get breakfast in bed until she can trot by herself," Ember murmured, eyeing Patchouli with her third eye. "Maybe a bedpan, too."

“She ain’t the lucky one, unfortunately. I think she deserves it.” Patient gave a small, meaningful smile to Patchouli, who weakly smirked in return. Her horn gave a soft purple glow that made everyone turn to her, their curiosity piqued. The glow rapidly built up, and runes began forming and swirling around her glowing horn until it shined like a miniature sun, and then the aura turned white before it promptly vanished with its runes, oddly enough.

"What the…" The train violently rocked as a deafening explosion pierced the air and shook the ground. Ember scrambled to the nearest window and peered out before gaping as she found purple flames roiling across the ghetto of Asgard. Amidst it all was the violet-white ball, expanding in size to engulf the ruined buildings. Runes danced about, encircling the whole thing with arcane, raw power. "Sweet baby Godcat, you guys might wanna see this!" she exclaimed. Everyone else, save Patchouli, rushed to the windows and peered out before pailing in unison.

Then everyone turned to Patchouli, whose smirk widened slightly. She opened her mouth, gave a lengthy yawn, closed her eyes and collapsed into the pillow. Patient trotted to her and lifted a hoof to check for a pulse, and sighed as she did feel a very weak, but very fast pulse. "Remind me not to get on her bad side," Patient murmured with a frown.

"So, Shining, where are we going?" Ember piped up, immediately garnering Shining's attention.

"To Canterlot. There's somepony there I'd like you to meet, and it would also be a very great place to drop our new friend off," Shining replied, his gaze averting briefly to Patchouli.

"Who?" Patient asked, a brow raised.

At that moment, Rekka chortled. "Tsuki no Kitsune," he replied cryptically.

Letters

As night fell upon the lands, a lone figure stalked through the halls of Canterlot’s palace, wearing a cloak that overshadowed most of their features. The only things poking out from beneath the hood were a gnarled, crimson horn and a crimson muzzle with a white lower jaw. Guards stationed before a pair of grand double doors stared at the figure.

"I wish to see Princess Luna," the figure spoke with a distinct feminine voice, giving the guards the barest glimpse of fangs as her mouth moved.

The guards exchanged glances before one of them turned to the figure and replied, "But she already has an audience at this time."

"Royal Court, I assume?" the figure asked cryptically, lifting her muzzle slightly. This enabled the guards to see a pair of golden eyes glaring at them, with slit pupils sizing them up and down. "I received a letter from Shining Armor himself. This matter is of utmost urgency." Her horn gave a cyan blue glow, which materialized into flames that danced for a bit before they then transformed into a closed scroll bearing a crystal clear, heart-shaped stamp.

The guards exchanged another glance, this time with their brows slanting. Then they turned back to the figure and nodded. She nodded back and put the scroll in her fanged mouth before using her magic to open the door, revealing Celestia and Luna sitting at the far end of the room and nobles lining either side of the room as a red and black alicorn stallion began parading back and forth, left and right.

She trotted inside and quickly sat next to a noble mare, if only to avoid being detected. She listened intently as to what the red and black monster that had somehow gotten into Royal Court had to say. "... so you see, Princess Luna, I must stress that for the good of the world you and I must be wed. The same applies to Celestia," the alicorn stallion began with a cocky grin on his face. Despite a swift booing of the nobles he went on, "And we must also cleanse this world of anything that isn't a purebred alicorn like myself."

Every non-alicorn noble at in the room laughed heartily and dismissively; even some of the guards quietly chuckled at the sheer absurdity of what they were listening to. Luna on the other hoof raised both brows questioningly. "By 'cleanse,' you mean…"

"Wholesale genocide, yes," the stallion replied in an amused tone meant to pass off as a quip. The peanut gallery just laughed that much harder. The cloaked pony would have done the same if she didn't hold a scroll in her mouth, but she did manage a toothy grin nonetheless.

"And why must we 'cleanse' the world of all non-alicorns? There'd be no need for money, an economy, farms… and let us not forget, a kingdom if such a thing were to transpire," Luna pointed out, garnering a short-lived applause from noble and guard alike. "Why, I daresay, even culture would cease to exist in such an event."

From somewhere in the crowd, Blueblood piped up, "I agree with my beloved Auntie Lulu that the entire notion you have proposed is beyond ludicrous, not to mention insubstantial and impossible."

"Good to know Blusey has some sense after all," the cloaked figure muttered under her breath through the scroll. She watched as the stallion waved a hoof dismissively.

"No it isn't," the alicorn abomination argued. "Because with one ruling sapient species, we could advance technology beyond our wildest dreams, and then conquer the galaxy." Again, he got a round of booing, but that didn't seem to faze him in the slightest.

Another noble, a duchess with a crisp, cyan coat and dark blue mane stood up and spoke her piece. “Do you not realize, sir... “ she waited for him to repeat his name, as she was not paying attention when it was first spoken.

“I am Sir Golden Gelding of Asgard. Our kind has made that place a refuge for us, and like minded ponies. And a few ponies who wished to attain the secret of ascension.”

Uproarious laughter, even from Celestia and some from Luna, filled the banquet hall. The duchess who initially spoke tried not to laugh herself silly.

“S-sir Gelding,” she paused and cleared her throat, blushing, “Do you not realize, however, that committing outright genocide is not only unbelievably unethical and immoral, but there simply isn’t enough horsepower or resources with which to rebuild everything afterward? Nevermind the fact that alicorns don’t breed as often as normal ponies do."

Gelding rolled his eyes at the duchess. "We alicorns define 'immoral' differently, madam," he began, donning a wicked smile that showed discolored, cavity-riddled teeth.

“Do you now?” she asked with a raised brow, then turned to Celestia and Luna as if for emphasis. “My princesses, is it true that alicorns have a differing stance on ethics and morality than us mortal ponies?"

Silence hung as Luna and Celestia pursed their lips. Then Luna spoke, "Morals and ethics change over the course of a thousand years, unless one clings to them so rigidly they develop a phenomenon that doctors have dubbed small-mindedness."

"But though we do see a meager hoofful of things differently than mortal ponies," Celestia began in a calm and collected voice, "know that you and I would usually agree on many morals and ethics, my subjects." She turned to the duchess and added, "Hence, we cannot agree to marry Sir Gelding, or call for a genocide of all non-alicorn sapients. Or genocide at all, for that matter."

Luna turned to the cloaked figure at the back and nodded, before a field of blue flashed from a gnarled horn in the span of a second. Gelding opened his mouth to start parroting again, only to scream in pain and double over with a hoof flying to his chest. He dropped to the floor and writhed as if he were having lightning coursing through his body, and he groaned pitifully as whole parts of his twisted mockery of a form stopped responding.

Then, only as his vision began fading did he feel something within his body explode violently. Blood pooled in his mouth seconds after and trickled, staining the floor beneath him. The cloaked figure bounced from her seat and made a beeline for Luna, mutely handing the scroll over as soon as she was within two feet of her before using her horn to gesture to Gelding's fresh corpse. Luna leaned in to whisper to the figure, "Yes, Foxfire, you can dispose of Gelding now."

Foxfire donned a malicious grin and trotted over to the door, using her magic to pick up Gelding and clean up his blood on her way out. "Quickly and efficiently," she muttered as the doors behind her closed. Luna looked around for a few seconds before Blueblood himself trotted to the center of the room.

He began parroting about alicorns, but compared to what Gelding had yapped about, it was monotonous. Luna opened the scroll and passed the time looking through it, and frowned at what the scroll bore.

Dear Celestia and Luna,

I am arriving from Asgard as I write this… or what is left of it, rather. We (as in, me, the Beholder, the Diabolical Surgeons, and the Special Task Force) have found that Asgard may or may not have been forcefully taken by the red and black alicorns. Even worse, we found a volatile unicorn mare with enough firepower to level it to the ground. As of now, Asgard effectively no longer exists.

This mare, who was very likely abused by the alicorns, may or may not have been forced to provide them with a means to learn dangerous and arcane arts. From what Rekka of the Task Force suspects of her, it must be stressed.

I feel I need to have this mare join us in the battle against the red and black monstrosities, but not until she regains some of her strength. All we know of her so far, as far as her identity is concerned, is that her name is Patchouli.

I await further word on this matter.

Best of regards,

Shining Armor

Luna passed the note to her sister and mentally groaned. "This is going to be a doozy," she muttered under her breath.

The court chatted quietly amongst themselves as Celestia read the letter. After a moment, she folded the note back and sighed. She stood up and smiled at the guests, excusing herself; she dragged Luna along with her. They stood upon the balcony outside the hall alone, and spoke.

“The city was leveled?” Celestia was grim-faced, barely keeping herself scowling.

“It appears so, sister,” Luna’s response was no more cheery. "That would explain the explosion we saw over the horizon earlier." A thought hit her and she added, "Though, I'd have liked Foxfire to show him the letter; at least then, we'd get some answers."

“That wouldn't have been wise, Lulu," Celestia sighed, shaking her head solemnly as she turned eastward. Already, she could see small pillars of smoke rising in the horizon, but from her vantage point they may as well have been threads of cosmic yarn. "And just one unicorn was all it took…"

"Mayhaps this Patchouli is a nascent alicorn in her own right," Luna remarked, frowning. "Nothing else even comes close to making sense of it." She looked up and saw a golden shooting star, and her brow rose as it spun towards her and Celestia to reveal a glowing scroll bearing a pentagram-and-feather wax seal. "I think that's the Valkyrie Brigade reporting in." She snatched the scroll in her magic, and turned to Celestia. "I think it's for you…"

Dear Princesses Celestia and Luna,

Reports have come in from the south, with surprisingly good news.

Local lords and ladies have paid bounties on every red/black alicorn head that was brought before them, as well as the wings of red/black pegasi and horns of red/black unicorns. So far, the death toll amongst their ranks has increased to a quarter of a million. So far, this has all but negated the hordes encroaching from the south and southeast.

However, another pressing issue has emerged. Your strike team sent into the Griffon stronghold of Asgard has displaced many of the alicorns without killing them off, causing them to migrate to the west in the thousands, and local policing and military forces are having a difficult time culling their numbers to a manageable degree.

Even worse, more hybrid alicorns are popping up. We've run into alicorns, unicorns, and pegasi claiming to be half-dragon or half-changeling, or even half-yak. It's getting ridiculous beyond compare.

We hereby humbly ask your permission to retain a regiment at our call, as to split and deploy it wherever help is needed most. If possible, we would also like to meet Foxfire in the flesh to discuss matters regarding the recently-reformed Changeling Kingdom in addition to the whole hybrid-alicorn issue that keeps swelling by the day.

Finally, we wish to ask you if we would be able to retain not only a regiment of soldiers, but also elements of your evidently successful strike team as well, just for “morale” purposes amongst the ranks of wretches. If possible, send every available hoof you can. And talon. And paw…

You get the idea.

With warm regards,

General Onyx Star, Equestrian 85th Heavy Battalion and Commander of Western Peacekeeping Operations, and Admiral Lance Boltwing of the Valkyrie Brigade

P.S. Katie and Maria of the Valkyrie Brigade insisted on telling me to tell you they said 'hi.' Apparently, they've gotten a wee bit antsy. I had to comply, lest Lance himself raise a fuss.

"It keeps getting worse and worse," Luna noted with a sigh. She turned to Celestia. "Should I get Foxfire to meet with the Task Force?"

“That would be best,” Celestia answered as she nodded. "Send for Foxfire immediately."

“The Task Force is about to arrive at the train station too, yes?” Luna asked her sister. Her question was met with a short nod signifying “yes."

The moon princess nodded, conjured a blank sheet of paper and a quill, and scrawled something onto it before making it vanish in a flare of blue flame. After that she spread her wings and flapped to become airborne, flying quickly to Canterlot’s main train station to meet up with her “employees." She tried to keep from scowling, she really did, but a frown still managed to firmly affix itself onto her muzzle nonetheless.

Tonight was going to be a long one.

Train Ride

Ember woke up sometime that night; what time exactly, she didn't know. All she knew first thing was that everypony else was asleep, and that she sported an erection that throbbed in a demand to be tended to. For a good ten or so minutes, she laid still. Five after that, it started leaking pre, even though she didn't touch it.

"The joys of being a futaneighri," Ember mentally snarked as she rolled over to crawl out of bed and stand on her hooves. She looked around the instant she stood, if only to confirm that, indeed, everyone was snoozing. She let her gaze linger on Patchouli in particular, and the slow rising and falling of her barrel indicated she was still in the living world. "You are on my do-not-fondle list."

Ember trotted to a door at the southern side, opened it, and jumped to the balcony. She didn't do anything about her erection for the moment, opting instead to let it throw its hissy fit before it could retract into its sheath.

Patient woke up a moment as Ember shut the door, giving a light snort and jolting. He scanned the room and saw everyone was still asleep. He figured he'd get some fresh air to calm his nerves from earlier in the day. A stumble out of bed later, and Patient found himself slowly walking towards the back of the station car, magically snagging a cigarette from Trigger’s pack as he walked by him.

The nurse opened the door to find Ember standing there as well, probably taking in the evening sights and smells of the rolling countryside. The moon was full and provided plenty of light to watch the nocturnal elements of Equestria run alongside the train.

“Evenin’.” Patient used a spell to light his cigarette.

"'Ello," Ember greeted, her ear twitching as the wind ruffled it.

“Hard to believe I quit smoking two years ago.” He chuckled and took a puff. “I guess this counts as an ‘extraordinary event’, in my list of reasons to start back up.”

"Oh trust me, I was a heavy drinker before I woke up in prison to find myself sporting…" Ember lifted a hoof and gestured all around her body, "This."

Patient noticed her still-throbbing erection and nodded. “I think I get the picture,” he sighed and stared off into the stars. “You know, I never got the full story on what happened; just the abbreviated versions. If you don’t mind telling me, that is…”

Ember sighed. "Well, I had two friends of mine named Frostbite and Roarin' Thunder," she began. "The three of us were drinking and playing a game of poker, and I was fucking up the game spectacularly bad. But because we were so shitfaced then, they'd assumed I kept winning."

“You’re probably better at it than I am,” Patient chuckled. He assumed a frown shortly thereafter.

Ember shook her head. "Nope. That was my first poker game, and when I agreed to it I was already drunk off my ass. And then the red and black alicorn showed up, attracted by heat pheromones, which I didn't know I was releasing at the time. He joined in the poker game and called himself Genesis."

"After a few rounds, I took him to a bed in a basement. Whose place or what tavern, that part is still fuzzy to me. But we porked in the missionary stance and fired off spells simultaneously afterward. The two spells became one, hit me right in the barrel, and… I was in pain, Patient. The pony-zebra conflict didn't have shit on what I felt that night."

Patient’s frown deepened in response. “What happened next?”

"I… saw red. Heard screaming. Felt like I'd turned into a spider with a hogwild craving for sex, and the fact that I got laid before didn't even register. It was over so damn quickly, and next thing I know? I'm in prison, staring at a set of bars and a red-eyed pegasus at the other side, and he was just… he had that sad look on his face, the 'I want to end your suffering' frown." Ember shook her head. "And that morning I registered the taste of blood on my tongue. And the fact I had my… current assets. Needless to say, I freaked."

"As for Roarin' and Frostbite, they… refused to join in on the alicorn slaughterfest. That was before I found out I'd gotten pregnant. That night in the… fuzzy place was the last I ever saw of them," she finished, closing her eyes. Her voice cracked and took on a somber note as she bitterly added, "They were good pals of mine, too. To this day, I miss them."

Patient nodded and handed her his cigarette. “I know my condolences won’t mean shit, since everything’s all said and done, but for what it’s worth… I’m sorry. Truly,” he spoke in a softer tone.

Ember nodded and shifted a little closer to Patient, but not enough to brush up against him. She handed the cigarette back without taking a puff of smoke herself. "Only reason they let me live longer than them was because I was pregnant, ironically enough. I took the job so I wouldn't have that happen all over again," she stated, again sighing. "I wonder how Rekka and his buddies got into this mess. They're… a bunch of teenagers, Patient. Teenagers. They shouldn't have to be dragged into this shit, yet they are."

“Either Shining has a lot to answer for, or Rekka and the bunch are on the same tier of sociopath as myself.”

"Sociopath implies next to no emotion, Patient, which you and the teens have a lot of. But the alicorns in Asgard who threatened Flurry Heart may have put Shiny in Overprotective Daddy Mode," Ember snorted, her tentacles shifting a little bit. "We could have some regicide advocates on our hooves for all I know, or an entire 'burn it all to the ground and let the world catch fire' or some shit phenomenon."

“Well…” Patient began, changing the subject a bit. “If it’s any consolation, do you wanna know how Trigger, Dis, and I were dragged into this mess?”

Ember turned to Patient and nodded. "Be my guest, but leave any sex-based details out. My friend's been weeping for the last twenty minutes," she replied.

The nurse laughed at that, and began, “During the war, I was stationed in a field hospital in a particularly contested county. Gods only know how many ponies I treated; I’m just fortunate enough to have most of them pull through.”

“The incident that brought me into this mess, and into the gaze of Shiny-Biny, happened like a flash. I was tending to a higher up lieutenant who had been stabbed by a serrated bayonet. Serrated bayonet. I don’t know what kind of cruel motherfuckers those ziggers—er, I mean… sorry… Zebras had recruited to fight, but serration on blades is always a step too far into the “needlessly cruel” territory.” Patient took another puff of his cigarette.

“As the main doctor remove the blade, one of them somehow snuck his way into the camp, wielding nothing but a shortsword in his mouth. Needless to say, this got everyone in the field hospital on high alert. Worst of all, the guy was in our field tent too. Everyone panicked, the nurses all ran off, the patients were all terrified, and it was only me and the main doctor to defend our wounded men. So that’s exactly what I did.” Patient knew damn well he was embellishing the story. A part of him wanted to spare Ember some of the more dark details, mostly because he didn't want to relive those particular facets ever again.

“I grabbed a medical buzzsaw we were using to cut bone and tackled the zebra. He didn’t have a face after I was done with him. Just about the whole tent was covered in his blood. Other soldiers finally showed up a few seconds after I… well, I fucking brutalized, that zebra. One of them was a future advisor to Shining Armor.”

Patient chuckled and finished off his cancer stick. After putting it out on the side of the station car, he chucked it out into the field before them; a field which seemed to stretch on for miles before being cut off by a mountain range.

“I know Distrance from the same war. He was a Maxim gunner. Fucker fended off three whole platoons of zebras while his loader lie dead next to him. I can’t tell you what the number he killed was, but he was able to hold them off for long enough for reinforcements to arrive. He lead the charge, too, like a crazy motherfucker, and he got injured when a grenade blew up next to him. I tended to him for weeks afterwards, and he was given an honorable discharge.”

"That… sounds scary, and that's saying a lot if it comes from the resident tentacle monster," Ember quipped, donning a small smile. "And what of Trigger Happy?"

“Trigger. He was a hitcolt; albeit a low-grade one, but still a hitcolt. One of his marks made news because of how badly he fucked him up. All per request of the hirer,” Patient stated as he shrugged. “I met Trigger when he showed up in my hospital, he burned himself making acid, like a fuckin’ moron, and I had to help treat him.”

"Who's the hirer?" Ember asked carefully, her voice low and her third eye averting warily.

“He would never tell me their name, only refer to them as W,” Patient glumly said. “Trigger and Dis have been some of my closest friends for the longest time. Hell, Dis even introduced me to my fiance.”

Ember nodded. "Dude, I envy you," she chirped. "But the advisor… do you know him? What's he look like?"

“Not really. I spoke to him once, after he gave me a medal of courage, and a stern warning to not spook my patients ever again.” He laughed. “He wasn’t a bad guy, his name was Onyx Star."

Ember giggled. "Fair enough," she cooed. "Have you heard of Admiral Lance?"

Patient sucked air through his teeth and hummed in thought. “Only in passing. He’s the commander of the… Valkyrie Brigade?”

"You should have seen the look on his face when our first meeting concluded and I was taken to be introduced to all of the individual groups. One of his lieutenant admirals fainted as soon as she saw me, and Lance… well, tried to shoot me until Shiny told him to stand down," Ember replied, smiling fondly. "I swear, the look on his face was worth it. I heard that the only other pony who made him capitulate was a mare named Foxfire."

“What’s her story?” asked Patient

Ember shrugged. "Details are sketchy on her. I've heard rumors that Fox isn't even full-fledged pony, but beyond that I haven't heard shit about her. Some folks I ran into told me she didn't even exist; a proverbial boogeymare to keep the foals quiet at night," she answered.

“Isn’t even full-fledged pony? As in… like a half-breed?” Patient’s eyebrow rose.

Ember nodded. "Supposedly, yes. Many don't consider me full-fledged because of what I became." She shrugged. "Then again, times are bad when you have to call a tentacle monster to help. I can't even get into a motel for more than three hours nowadays, and that's without the Royal Guard stepping in."

“I get the feeling that once we’re in Canterlot, that they’re gonna throw us at the source of all this mess.” Patient shuddered at the notion. “You think there might be a way to revert you back to what you looked like before?”

Ember shook her head, and donned a glum frown. "Got a magical once-over from Luna and Celestia themselves. Not even they know how to fix it. And even if I could go back, what's the point? I've already lost everything of my old life," she retorted in a low voice. "It's either this, or going to death's door a bit early."

Patient nodded in agreement. “Well, at least you’ve got us. I know Distrance and Trigger might need to get warmed up to you, but you can at least count on me and Rekka and the crew.” He tried to smile.

Ember turned to Patient and lifted a hoof before grabbing him by his withers and pulling him into a hug. "Sure beats drinking all night, every night, trying to drown one's sorrows," she replied, a distinct note of happiness in her voice.

They stood in silence for a few moments, admiring the scenery rolling by, the nocturnal creatures dashing through the night, and the stars swirling overhead.

*********

The train arrived in Canterlot a bit earlier than expected the next morning. Luna and a contingent of the Royal Guard were already posted at the station, as was the cloaked form known as Foxfire, as the train pulled up and its hosts and hostesses began opening the doors. One by one, Patient and his group, followed by Shining and the Task Force, filed out in a single line. Patchouli stumbled out after they'd gathered before Luna, and she was further ushered onward with the aid of a guard who draped a wing over her back to steady her.

"She better have eaten, or my horn is going up all of your asses," Foxfire hissed, lowering her horn before stopping as Luna spread a wing in front of her barrel.

“Already done,” Patient responded as Patchouli sauntered off to Luna with a helping wing, looking somewhat better than she did beforehoof.

"Good," Foxfire seethed, briefly baring her teeth before backing off.

Luna approached as Shining stepped off the train. He saluted her and began to speak.

“Patchouli is in a stable condition, and she’s getting better, but for now, she needs rest. The Task Force and the Diabolical Surgeons all need to get to the ‘War Room’ immediately to plan our next attack.”

"What about Tentacles?" Foxfire piped up, using her horn to gesture to Ember for emphasis.

“She joined the Surgeons not too long ago,” Distrance spoke as he and Trigger nudged each other in the sides with a foreleg.

Foxfire nodded. "Fair enough," she replied. She turned to Canterlot Castle. "Shall we?"

The group didn't need to be told twice, and as one they marched to the castle. Ponies who were already out and about in the streets made several remarks as the collective herd passed, some expressing concern for Patchouli while others hurled comments at Ember that were varying derogatory terms related to the words 'freak of nature.'

The group ignored the comments, though, and simply trotted on. They were silent, though Ember was giving the cloaked Foxfire a wary glance. "What's with your twisted horn?" she asked.

Foxfire waved her horn dismissively, in place of a hoof. "Not now, Hard Place," she snarked in response.

Ember flinched and balked. "P-pardon?" she queried.

"You heard me," Foxfire snarked back, again waving her horn.

Ember exchanged glances with Patient. "Can you believe that mare?" she groaned in exasperation.

"Something about her horn… and her two-color muzzle puts me off," Patient began, frowning as he too eyed Foxfire warily. Knots began forming in his stomach. "It's… she makes me uneasy. I dunno what it is about her, though..."

"Shut your piehole, Scalpel Dick," Foxfire snarked again, making Patient sputter with her utterance.

“Eat shit, halfbreed.” Patient angrily spat.

“Lock it down, both of you!” Shining snapped, immediately standing in between the two of them. Foxfire gave a huff and a nod. Patient did likewise. "Good."

Assembly

The 'War Room' was less a set of barracks and more of a glorified manor-sized dining room with ancient maps tacked to the walls. It had little else, save an excessively large table and enough chairs to adequately house the entirety of the guard unit. The only other thing of note was an odd rectangular box, black in color with a button on one side and a camera-lens-looking object sitting smack dab on the other, facing a far wall.

Foxfire strode to the object, but not before everypony sat down. All eyes fell on the glaringly strange device, wondering what it was and where it came from. "Two things," Foxfire began, causing the Task Force and Surgeons to turn to her with curious brows raised. "One, you guys fucked up, plain and simple."

That managed to make Patient and Rekka balk. "H-how?" they asked in unison.

Foxfire turned to the device and her horn glowed, and she stepped aside before turning to the device as her magic pushed the button and held it down. "You'll see shortly," she answered cryptically, and for a few seconds the machine did nothing. But the instant she released her telekinetic hold on the box, it gave a single click and produced a whirring sound before it projected a hologram onto the wall from the lens.

The hologram showed the complete destruction of Asgard from an entire continent over, along with several forms flying away in a hurry. Then the scene shifted violently, as if it were a jostled camera, showing a battalion of unfamiliar faces stationed on a beachfront. Patient could've sworn he saw a changeling, a diamond dog tall enough to look Celestia in the eye, something skeletally thin, a gryphon and two hippogryphs, and what looked like a crystal unicorn amidst the scene at the beachfront.

All of them were armed, but with what he couldn't discern as the view shifted violently to Asgard again. "What the fuck did they do over there?" a masculine voice grumbled indignantly, slightly foreign-sounding but nonetheless irritated. Then the machine clicked again and the hologram faded in the span of a second.

"In case you haven't figured it out yet, let me spell it out for you: you left a whole swath of surviving diseased alicorns behind, with juuust enough time for them to haul ass," Foxfire hissed, a displeased frown forming on her muzzle. She eyed Rekka and Patient specifically. "And one of them came aaaaaall the way to Canterlot and tried making Celestia and Luna marry him and kill anything that WASN'T an alicorn."

"'Tis true, I'm afraid. We told him he wouldn't have his genocidal rampage before Foxfire… gave him a final farewell," Luna piped up, shaking her head as the Surgeons and Task Force all looked to her with paling faces.

Patient closed his eyes for a brief moment before asking, “Sooo, what the hell are we gonna do now? We can’t just break into every building in Equestria to find those remaining alicorns.”

"The Valkyrie Brigade's already taking care of it. They've probably filled all the trees in Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Baltimare with alicorn heads by now," Foxfire replied, garnering Patient's attention with her utterance. "Unlike the Task Force, which are a bunch of corporals if they were thrown into an army, the Brigade has years of fighting experience. They'll clean up that mess… which brings me to thing number two."

Foxfire gave a heavy sigh and shook her head. "I have to drag your sorry asses to the Changeling Kingdom while the Brigade cleans the leftovers, because reports have been cropping up there left and right lately. We got hybrid alicorns on our hooves, which makes things worse as they could potentially have access to both magics of… whatever they are. Think of Sombra and Chrysalis having a foal…"

Foxfire's words sank in, and everypony gave a collective shudder. She took that as her cue to continue, "Ain't pretty, is it? But wait, there's MORE."

Patient smiled widely in exasperation, and he solemnly nodded. "Of course… why am I not surprised?" he whispered.

“This is fuckin’ insane. Hybrid alicorns?” Trigger asked; he almost was annoyed with how ridiculous this whole situation was becoming. “That can’t be a thing, right?”

Foxfire turned to Trigger and donned a sinister smile that sent chills down his spine. "Really?" she tersely asked. "I'm afraid I beg to differ." Before Trigger could open his mouth to ask what she meant, her horn glowed before cyan will-o'-wisps formed and seized her cloak and immediately burnt it away to nothingness.

What stood in place of a cloak that used to exist made Trigger open his mouth to emit a scream that was so high-pitched it gave the impression of having come from a filly. Ember gaped, and Patient and Distrance balked. Black, hole-riddled legs gave way to a white fluffy barrel, alongside red shoulders and withers. A dark blue carapace and ribcage connected front and hind quarters together, framing a fox mask cutie mark.

The unkempt, wild mane and tail both started out red, but gave way to white tufts that appeared brush-like. Blackened ears swiveled upright, looking more at home on the face of a mule than the creature that stood before them. Surprisingly, the twisted thing before them lacked wings of any sort, but that did little to mask the unsettling reality that had gobsmacked them all in the face.

There was a black and red monstrosity in the room with them. A hybrid black and red monstrosity. And one who could conjure fire magic on a whim.

“And I thought Patient’s berzerk-state was a sign of the end times.” Distrance laughed. “Though, since we kind of are in the end times, we’ll take any allies we can get.”

Foxfire turned to Distrance and smiled at him. "Fortunately for you lot, I'm not like most red and black alicorns in that I have two braincells to rub together, and enough sense to see that if the world ends, so does my existence,” she chirped. "But in the meantime, I've taken to helping curb the plague as best as I am able. Think of it like this: I'm one of the few red and black monsters that can be spared because I've more or less turned over a new leaf."

“Which is why you’re under the employ of the Princesses themselves,” Shining Armor interjected, garnering a series of looks as he spoke. "That, and your circumstances are unique."

Patient turned to Foxfire and raised a brow questioningly. Foxfore shrugged. "Discord, before Luna and Celestia confronted him, had me, a then-regular-changeling, eat a fox and then a foal for breakfast once. He made me merge with that fox and foal after I ate them, through… means I am still trying to make sense of. Oh, and petrification, because that's always fun," Foxfire answered, sighing. "And the fox was naturally red and black before I ate it, thank you kindly."

Foxfire turned to Ember and added, "Besides, you already put up with Tentacles—what's one more monster with a functioning brain to you?"

Rekka slumped in his seat and proceeded to let his face land on the table. "Tragically, she has a point," he conceded.

"So… aside from murder any red and black ponies we find, barring you and I," Ember began slowly, her third eye blinking as she spoke, "what do we do once we hit the Changeling Kingdom?"

Foxfire sighed and swished her fuzzy tail for a few seconds, pursing her lips in contemplation. "That… is a question whose answers escape me. I don't know much about how bad it's gotten over there, partly because I've been holed up here running errands, but if we have another Asgard on our hooves… we'll need to scour for more victims to rehabilitate," she answered. "I only have a smidgen of what the red and black alicorns want, thanks to the one who dropped by making insane demands last night. But only a smidgen, I must stress."

"Sadly, that means we'll very likely have to come up with a plan in the heat of the moment," Foxfire concluded before turning her attention to Shining. "And how is… our new possible recruitee doing?"

“She’s doing better. Still kind of twiggy, though,” Shining replied.

"I'd suggest letting her… I dunno, pack a few pounds before trying to interrogate her. Give her some time to chill and recover and all that, but that's just me," Foxfire stated, turning to Patient again. "So… does heading out tonight sound good, if another alicorn doesn't show up here making demands that make Discord look sane?" she asked.

“Sounds like a plan.” Patient nodded. “We need a bit to get ready, of course, but we should—” he was cut off suddenly by the door to the War Room opening abruptly. What stood beyond and trotted inside with an erect golden phallus surprisingly rivaling that of Ember's length and girth made the group groan collectively.

“I demand that you release Patchouli Knowledge immediately!” a red and black alicorn blundered his way into the room, swinging a golden horn left and right as he did so. The door behind him closed, and he flared golden wings that were big enough to completely cover the entirety of his hind quarters.

"K-Know—" Rekka stammered before he stood up and slammed his front hooves on the table. "Okay, I'm officially calling shenanigans!"

“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit too,” Shining Armor spoke up, pulling a hafted blade from under the table the projector sat on with a flash of magic.

"Answer: no, please die in a hole," Foxfire snarked, looking at the golden-winged twit with fire building around her horn.

“No bullshit,” the alicorn spoke up, fanning his wings indignantly. “She belongs to the people of Asgard, or the survivors of Asgard,” he growled and stared angrily at Patient.

“What do you plan on doing with her?” Luna piped up, rising up and then trotting over until she was standing between the now agitated nurse and the new alicorn.

"There better NOT be unborn foals involved, or I'll ream you like I did Genesis!" Ember cried, standing up with tentacles snapping open as she turned all three eyes on the alicorn.

“Patchouli Knowledge belongs to the Socialist Foalcon Ponies Guild of Asgard. Release her at once, and I won’t have my people besiege Canterlot and steal your mares and foals for ourselves!” the alicorn shouted angrily as several guards burst into the room, all magically wielding halberds.

Rekka's eye started twitching, and Koto reached for her boomerang. Nagare gave a low, guttural growl at the mere notion of the alicorn's proposal; who was he to barge in making inane demands?

Collectively, and with scowls affixed on their faces, Shining, Foxfire, Ember, Rekka and Patient gave a firm and very loud "NO!" that shook the room briefly.

Just like that, Luna nodded to the guards. Before the alicorn could react, he found himself pinned by halberds aplenty, with at least two of them stabbing him in the wings and holding them to the ground. One guard forced the alicorn to lift his ass into the air, and affixed it in placed with a blade hovering behind the alicorn's testes. At least one jabbed him in the ribs, breaking some on impact. Another one pushed its way through the alicorn's spine and out his stomach, spilling blood. "I believe it would be appropriate for the Task Force and Surgeons to carry out your punishment here and now, filthy cur," she hissed to the alicorn.

“By the way,” Patient began, trotting over to the pinned alicorn. “How’s your friend Crimson Charge doing?”

“Y-you know… about him…?” The alicorn coughed up some blood, staining his lips and cheeks. “H-he esc—” more blood was coughed up. “Escaped.”

“Really now? Because last time I saw him, I hung him from the rafters by his own guts.” Patient smiled warmly as Rekka cantered over to the sorry sod in an upright stance with his blaster aimed at his head. Koto and Nagare did likewise, both upright and with weapons poised to strike.

"This Guild you mentioned… did they survive as well?" Rekka asked darkly, stopping just behind the circle of guards where the alicorn could still see him.

“One… d-did… “ the alicorn spoke softly. “Everf-free… F-Forest… Y-you’ll never f-f-find… “

Koto shook her head. "Baka," she said simply, looking at the alicorn with a small, ghoulish grin forming on her muzzle.

"My marefriend has a point," Rekka agreed, sneering at the alicorn. "Now, how did you get here… and what have you been doing to Patchouli?" he asked.

“I'm still wondering how he even got here. Are these bastards learning how to teleport all of a sudden?" Foxfire piped up, cantering past the table to join Rekka and the guards.

"D-doesn't… matter… P-Patchouli… belongs to…" the alicorn began, but paused to cough up more blood. "A-and s-so… t-too will y-your mares and f-foals…"

“You know a colt called Alec Smart?” Patient asked. The alicorn slowly shook his head ‘no’. “You wanna know how he died?” The alicorn's eyes narrowed coldly at Patient, and all he could see of them was a deep red on par with Foxfire's coat. "Well… I'd tell you, but I'm pretty sure he'll tell you once you join him in Tartarus. Princess, would you be a dear…"

Luna nodded, and one of the guards swung the blade of his halberd downwards, chopping into the neck of the alicorn, killing him instantly. Foxfire huffed and turned back to Luna. "Great, now we gotta send a search party…" she scoffed. "You think we could spend a day searching through the bloody forest before heading to the Changeling Kingdom?"

Luna shook her head. "No. I and a platoon of guards will do so ourselves. You already have enough on your plate as it is," she replied solemnly. "It's no use trying to expend energy doing two things at once, unless it revolves around a chained alicorn that you're in the process of interrogating or helping a fallen comrade."

Foxfire nodded in understanding. "Good point." She turned back to the body and eyed up the golden limbs up and down. "Can I keep those? They'd make a good set of pillow-stuffing and dildoes."

"Necrophiliac," Rekka muttered under his breath.

"Let her have her fun. Besides, they seem to be made of solid gold. It could come in handy," Luna piped up.

"Just keep the gold away from me," Ember hissed, causing Patient to turn to her to find a pair of ears pinned back and dilated pupils. "I don't care how shiny and solid gold it is, just keep it awaaaaay."

Foxfire set about using her magic to wrench the feathers, horn, and cock off of the cadaver. The first item came off easily, though oddly the wings didn't bleed as they were plucked clean. Neither did the horn or cock when they were snapped and ripped off, for that matter.

“Really? His dick? That thing ain’t shit.” Trigger puffed air from his lips. Then Foxfire turned around and beheld the three items, and she shook them to be sure. The feathers bent as they would normally after a good jostling, yet the cock didn't flop and flail even as it was waved like a twisted kid's toy. She turned the blunt ends of the horn and disembodied phallus to Trigger, who then gaped upon seeing a distinct lack of flesh, bone, and marrow in places where they should have been present.

"Uh, yeah… that be solid gold. How the hell did he manage this?" Foxfire asked as she made the trinkets vanish in flares of light.

"That's a good question," Rekka agreed with a nod of his head. "But neither here nor there." He turned to Luna and dropped to all fours. "Uh… should we board the train now?"

Luna shook her head. "We wait until tonight to see if more alicorns decide to drop by. If they don't, then you shall depart at twelve," she answered glumly. "Dismissed."

Everypony nodded in agreement and began to wander off, busying themselves with their preparations.

*********

Patient busied himself at the castle’s hospital well into the night, tending to the sleeping Patchouli as best he could; he ordered the castle nurses around, going so far as to demand a hot meal to be prepared and at the ready the very second she woke up. That aggravated the nurses to no end, since he essentially took over her treatment for the remainder of his stay in Canterlot.

Luna walked in to see Patient giving a list of instructions to an obviously flabbergasted nurse, who was having none of it. A cloak-wearing Foxfire trotted in after her a second later, only to sit on her haunches when the nurse Patient was ordering about began exploding in what amounted to a magical surge converted to a fireworks display.

“The doctor can order me around, not some small-town burn nurse,” she angrily snapped, eyes narrowing as she leaned in to glare extra hard at Patient. “Why don’t you sit this one out? From what I hear, you just met this one less than a day ago. You commoners are way too fussy with medical care; you all think you’re deserving of the best! You deserve no better than a starving homeless foal!”

Patient took in some air. “How about you saunter on down back to the fuckin’ palace you were born in and shove that silver spoon up your ass! Unlike you, I actually give half a shit about my goddamn patients, and I won’t settle for anything less than optimal care for any of them! They can be an old homeless stallion, or a young mare who just was rescued from a fuckin’ rape dungeon for all I care, I just want them to actually get some goddamn half-decent fuckin’ medical care!”

His good work-ethic was showing. He saw Luna nod in approval in the corner of his eye.

Foxfire donned a grin. She turned to Luna, only to find her conjuring a popcorn bowl, complete with fresh and warm puffy kernels.

The nurse's eyes seemed to turn colder, and they averted to Patchouli's sleeping form for the briefest of instants. "Maybe she deserved to be in the rape dungeon. If she was really lucky, I'll bet she had some foals here and there," she stated in a low, cold voice that would have frozen the room if it were a palpable force.

Patient wanted to slap her upside the head, but he resisted the urge as he averted his gaze to see Luna and Foxfire watching them intently. “You haughty, arrogant, ignorant fuckin’ bitch! How dare you say such a thing! Get out of my sight before I have a word with your fuckin’ boss!”

He added the last few words with extra vigor, causing his furious voice to boom throughout the room, albeit one that somehow failed to rouse Patchouli from sleep. The red faced nurse simply turned her nose up in arrogance and walked off. It was then that Foxfire took a bundle of popcorn for herself and popped it in her mouth, chewing loudly to signal to Patient that she and Luna were at the ready. That left Patient with his stomach forming into a knot of dread, the all-too-familiar 'it ain't over yet' cramp.

“Fuck…” Patient finished to himself before he turned to Patchouli and sighed.

Using magic, he changed out Patchouli’s I.V. bag and listened as two sets of hooves walked towards him from behind. He did not turn to the source until after the bag was successfully changed, and only then did he find that the nurse returned—having brought with her a unicorn stallion no bigger than Shining Armor.

“Oh what the fuck now?” Patient groaned. “I told your employee that I could handle Patchouli’s care from—” the doctor raised a hoof.

“The nurse says you snapped at her out of the blue and called her a whore,” the doctor deadpanned.

Patient shot daggers from his eyes to the other nurse, who wore a shit-eating grin. Slowly, he turned his gaze over to Luna and Foxy, who he just noticed were there, still munching on some popcorn with amused grins.

“Did either of you see what happened?” the doctor asked.

Slowly, Foxfire nodded. "Your nurse is a lying sack of elephant shit," she snarked. "And she suggested that Patchouli be raped until she has a foal."

The doctor sighed and quietly muttered: “I fuckin’ hate this place…”

He simply walked out, the now ashamed nurse who trailed behind and gave Patient a death-stare.

“Such bullshit,” Patient muttered to himself as he grabbed a nearby hairbrush from the patient-table and began to run it through Patchouli’s hair comfortingly. He stopped when a low, weak moan hit his ears, and blinked as Patchouli shifted a little. Yet still she didn't wake up.

“Your dedication to your patients’ well being is impressive,” Luna started, walking over to the nurse. “I wish I could say the same for the medical staff here.”

“It’s whatever. I at least got them to back off,” Patient replied, continuing to brush Patchouli’s mane.

“Indeed. Pray tell, may I look inside your mind?” Luna asked.

“What?”

“I’ve been working on a spell to peer into the memories of ponies, in the same vein as Dreamwalking, but this can be taken place while the subject is awake,” Luna elaborated. "Of course, it's still in the testing phase… and I need a volunteer."

“Uhh… sure? What are you gonna look at?” Patient nervously asked.

“I wish to view the events of what you saw during your ‘cleansing’ of Asgard,” Luna replied. Seeing Patient flinch, she reassuringly added, “I understand your anxiety, I will only look at that day, and nothing else. Besides, I usually pry secrets from my subjects from their dreams, anyways.”

Patient took a long, painful sigh. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

Luna’s horn glew and Patient could feel his eyes roll back into his head. He saw blackness, but remembered the events he took part in perfectly. The beatings, the killings, his rage, all of it. Minutes passed as he was forced to relive the sheer slaughter of Asgard, all before it culminated in him looking out of the window just in time to see violet and roiling flames.

His vision swam back into focus, with Luna’s expression grim.

He didn’t regret a thing he did.

“I see… “ Luna began. “Your brutalization of those communitarians. What you did to their leader. Your rage. Your hatred for their ideology. And that raw, finely focused power... that wasn't your own for once." She turned to regard Patchouli's snoozing form. "I saw it all. Heard it all. Felt it all."

“I don’t regret a thing,” Patient responded.

“Typical,” Foxfire chimed in before she heartily laughed.

“Tell me, I’m only curious. Why do you have such a deep hatred for involuntary communitarianism based around the preservation of the state?” Luna asked.

“I think you just answered your own question,” Patient mumbled.

“But that’s monarchism, to a degree, and you obviously don’t hate me or my sister, let alone Cadence or Twilight, who I hear you are good friends with.”

“That’s because you’re not incompetent or corrupt, or obnoxious,” Patient smirked.

“That is true,” Luna mused. “Now that I think about it, I think I know of something you can use in your upcoming battles.”

“What’s that?”

“Come with me, to the armory.”

"I'll get somepony more competent around here to watch Patchy in the meantime," Foxfire piped up as Luna trotted out of the room, leading Patient away.

*********

Even in the dead of night, the armory was loud and bustling. Endless patrols of guard squads marched throughout the many halls and stacks of wooden crates; each area filled to the brim with the highest quality of weaponry and armor that only royalty could afford. Weapons of every size and shape hung on the walls, and sets of armor were put on stands.

Patient was lead past a gigantic pyramid of artillery shells and was shown to Trigger and Distrance, who were eyeing up and fiddling around with an unloaded Maxim gun. Ember was decked out in a steel set of armor resembling that of a knight's that was forged with an open back to give her tentacles and rocks plenty of space. With said tentacles she was juggling a sword, a spear, a hammer, and a wicked scythe. She took to eyeing them like she couldn't decide which one to keep.

“Holy shit Patient!” Trigger piped up, noticing his friend with the Princess. “Dude, Dis and I are gonna be using a fuckin’ machine gun!”

"I have the strange and inexplicable urge to charge onto a large bridge and stage a fight upon it…" Ember remarked, her gaze lingering upon the weapons.

“Hot damn,” was all that Patient could remark at the spectacle of “killy-gubbinz”.

“Come, your chosen wargear lies further on,” Luna beckoned.

The two pressed further on, and into a section marked for the highest quality of armor and weapon sets. Gods only knew what kind of masters of smithing could create such protective gear and pointy sticks. Eventually, Luna lead Patient to another guard, standing before a smaller wooden crate; he was holding a crowbar with magic. Luna gave the guard a nod, and he pulled the crate open, revealing its contents.

Inside the crate was armor, painted all red. It covered much of the torso and shoulders of its wearer, and the helmet, while somewhat open in the face, bore wings on either side; they resembled the horns of a demon. The crate also held a bardiche, whose blade was so shiny and new that Patient could see his gaping reflection in it.

“Try it on,” Luna urged.

Patient didn’t hesitate; he fitted the armor over his torso, making sure the leather straps were nice and snug, yet able to give him enough room to move around. He held his fanciful axe with magic and took a few practice swings, chopping at the wooden crate they came from. Finally, he pulled the helmet over his head; it was a little heavy, but he could manage. All in all, the armor was perfect; maybe a bit too big for him, but he could use the breathing room.

“I love it.” Patient grinned.

Luna smiled back. "Not too overbearing on your withers, is it?" she asked. Her smile widened when Patient shook his head. "Excellent."

A Pain in the Thorax

Ponies with curved horns, pairs of elytra, and insectoid wings buzzed frantically about well into the midnight hour, each and every one using magic to jostle magnifying glasses in and out of a train station that was hewn of stone and reeked of fresh paint.

Among them stood a stallion as tall as Celestia, sporting an additional pair of orange antlers resembling a beetle's mandibles. His bright amethyst eyes scrutinized the receptionist's desk, the built-in ticket booth, and the chairs in which a few of the single-horned ponies were sitting.

It was sturdy-looking, free of scratches, and best of all built with love and care. Sure, the interior paint job was splotchy at best, but then again paint didn't adhere well to stone. He made a mental note to get wallpaper first the next time before something like this would be attempted again.

"Construction of the station is about complete, King Thorax," one of the foremen reported in a feminine voice as she came from behind the receptionist's desk.

Thorax nodded and gave a warm smile. "Excellent. Now, my little changelings, you may go home and rest."

With that, his army of workers all bowed and buzzed off, retreating hastily out the door to fly to their burrows and nests to eat their supper and be with their loved ones. But Thorax didn't follow them. He stayed within the confines of his new train station.

Everything was going to plan, which made him both pleased and anxious. He reformed his kingdom, he brought prosperity and order to his lands, he improved infrastructure, he made his people whole again. Best of all, magic could permeate the lands to be tilled for crops, and the sky's clouds could be melded to the will of weather workers. He should’ve been overjoyed, but he wasn’t.

In fact, his anxiety grew from his people’s sordid history with their neighbors; the ponies of Equestria. He saw their borders swell with legions upon legions of soldiers, some of which looked genuinely frightening. He saw border towns grow and prosper, and that made him afraid; afraid for the safety and continued existence of his people. Surely, the ponies would still want revenge on Crysalis’ attack on Canterlot, wouldn’t they?

That was why they were massing soldiers! They were surely planning to attack his lands and exile his people… weren’t they? He remembered odd reports of mutant, hybrid ponies causing trouble here and there, but he disregarded the information as it didn’t affect him or his changelings. He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't keep track of time; a good two hours standing there pondering was spent, and thus he did not heed the sound of encroaching hooves when they eventually came.

“My king…” a familiar, masculine voice piped up from behind him.

King Thorax broke from his thoughts and spun around, only to see the captain of his personal retinue standing at the entrance. He was clad in dark green plated armor, but the stylized helmet sported beetle-like mandibles did little to hide his tight frown and slanted brow.

“What is it, Erebus?” Thorax asked.

“Beg your forgiveness for my intrusion, but… we’ve reports of a train heading this way,” Erebus replied. "The station's finishing could not have come at a better time."

“From where?” Thorax pressed as the anxiety gripped him to the point knots began turning in his stomach.

"From Canterlot, milord. But that's not all… there's reports of a… a fox-changeling on that train," Erebus answered, his knees buckling a little as he delivered his report.

"Fox-changeling?" Thorax mentally parroted before deciding to press some more, "Is there… anything else?"

Erebus glumly nodded. "Strange… ponies have taken up residence in the hive. Just… you must see this," he answered.

*********

Within fifty minutes, Thorax approached the main hive, where a sea of swarming changelings rippled and buzzed around their patriarch as he was followed by Erebus and the rest of his retinue. The king marched into the main entrance, where a contingent of elite guards had all of the main hallways secured, even as said hallways shifted to close old passages and open new ones. The inside of the hive was dark and damp, yet the pheromones told Thorax that the structure was home. Bioluminescent moss glowed a bright teal on the walls, floor, and ceiling, allowing sight.

“Milord!” One of the guards buzzed over to Thorax and saluted.

“Report,” commanded Thorax.

“Alicorns, milord. They’ve taken up residence amongst the upper floors. No one knows where they’ve come from, but they’ve begun to…” the guard began, but couldn’t figure out how to finish his sentence.

“Well?” Thorax egged his soldier on.

“They’ve begun to make this place their home,” the guard finished. A pair of shrill screams, one definitely feminine and the other masculine, pierced the air and sent chills down Thorax's exoskeleton. "And… they're… they have a unicorn mare and a pegasus stallion with them…"

Thorax let his eyes narrow slightly, but that was more to keep himself from outright shaking. "What are they doing, exactly?" he asked.

“They are forcing themselves upon them, sire,” the guard choked out. "But most of the alicorns are already dead," he added with a shudder.

Erebus’ jaw dropped. Thorax's scowl only deepened. "Secure the upper floors immediately! And separate the pegasus and unicorn from the others at once!"

Thorax’s mind was engulfed in thoughts of how badly this could turn if those ponies ended up dead. That would probably spark the invasion he dreaded. His elytra snapped open and so did his wings, and he found himself flying to a hole leading to the upper floors before it even registered to him. His retinue followed suit, and at once the entire hive was a frenzy of activity.

Yet nothing could prepare him for what he saw on the upper floor a good minute later. Graffiti molded of shit lined the walls, bioluminescent moss was carelessly strewn about, and there were bloodied corpses of recently-deceased alicorns sporting dragon wings and hole-riddled legs littering the area alongside several scorch marks. The bodies were also sliced into chunks, some neatly and others with organs several feet away from their owners.

But what made him livid was the scene in the center of the room; two surviving alicorns, one with a massive icicle stuck in a back leg and the other somehow carrying on with an axe wedged in his skull, were raping two ponies who kicked out frantically. Both ponies were pinned to the ground, one on her stomach and the other flat on his back.

He took a closer look and noticed the ponies that struggled were fighting a losing battle; both were thin, and heavily scarred, and as precious seconds ticked by their attempts to break loose were growing feebler and feebler. Closer still, he could make out their forms with utmost precision.

One was a blue unicorn mare with eyes to match, sporting a frazzled brown mane and an open book with a pentagram on its pages on her flank. Her companion, a red-coated stallion with a blond mane and tealish eyes and wings bent at hideously unnatural angles, tried desperately to reach the axe lodged in the head of his tormentor. His whip-and-sword mark, stained in blood, shined in bioluminescent light. The entire lot stopped as an ominous buzzing filled the room, and the alicorns looked around frantically before spotting Thorax, who merely snorted in their direction.

The retinue arrived seconds later, pouring out of every crevice they could crawl through. The instant they landed, they reacted, rushing over and then seizing the alicorns, prying them away from the duo before they could blow their load into their violated bodies. A pink changeling rushed to the pegasus and unicorn once the alicorns were subdued, and found the latter charging a fizzling spell with a bloodstained horn. The pegasus twisted to rest on his stomach, barely managing to fold his legs beneath him.

"Get… away…" the mare growled in a weak voice, breathing heavily and with tears flowing from her eyes as the pink changeling got closer. Instead the changeling knelt before her and nuzzled her soothingly.

"You're alright now…" the pink changeling began in a feminine voice, only to jump back as the wounded stallion forced himself to stand on shaky legs. His wings flared for a second, only to drop and dangle nigh-uselessly as his legs trembled with strength fast fleeting.

"Y-you c-call… having… this happen… this is okay to you?!" the stallion snapped, giving the changeling a death glare before his legs gave out and he fell to the floor. He turned to his companion and scooted closer to her, and clasped her hoof with a fetlock once he was in range.

“Execute the alicorns, but take them… to that corner over yonder,” Thorax ordered, his disgusted frown unfaltering as he turned to the dirtiest corner of the room that he could see. "And would you please remove the axe when you're done?"

He watched as two members of his retinue dragged the alicorns away to the corner and plunged their chitinous daggers into their necks, blood spurting from the wounds as they were dropped to the ground, gurgling. After that, one of the changelings pried the axe out of the skull it was embedded in, pulling out grey matter and skull bits in the process.

Only when he was certain that the alicorns were deceased did he turn to the surviving ponies, who now got a little bit closer to cradle each other in their forelegs. "I take it you two are responsible for the rest of the deaths?" Thorax asked in a forced calm tone of voice, causing the two to turn to him with widening eyes.

Then the mare nodded. "Th… they put an in-inhibitor… on m-me, b-but it s-slipped… me a-and…"

"Considering what I bore witness to, it is perfectly understandable," Thorax cut her off and walked over to them with slow, careful steps to avoid riling them any further. With the sluggish pace, it took him a minute to reach them, and they studied him with fearful eyes as he approached.

It wasn't until he came to a stop right before them did he decide to press the issue a little further. “Where were you two taken from?” Thorax asked in the most gentle of tones he could muster.

“F-Fillydelphia,” the mare replied. "I-I think…"

“Asgard,” her companion spoke; he almost sounded like he was on the verge of tears. But he tried to remain strong, tried to keep the tears from building in his eyes, but Thorax could still see them forming.

Thorax nodded and heard more buzzing coming from one of the many hallways. He turned his head to the leftmost wall and saw a scout fly into the room, bowing.

“A train has arrived at your station, sire,” the scout spoke before his eyes fell on the two ponies and the carnage around them. "Okay… what happened?"

The stallion turned to the scout and growled defensively, making an effort to stand. A hoof from Thorax came to rest on his withers and held, making him stop before he could move an inch off the ground.

“Have my court wizard meet them. I’ll see to the health and safety of these two.” Thorax’s command was met with a ‘yes sire’ before the scout flew off once more. He turned to the pink changeling. "Medicine and food for our wounded, please." The changeling in question turned to some members of the retinue and nodded to them, prompting them to fly off to get the needed items.

The mare perked up, and jumped slightly at that. "F-food? Y… you're not l-like…" she began in a weak squeak, prompting Thorax to look at her and her friend again. At his nod and warm smile she thrust her face into her companion's barrel and let out strangled sobs. "Oh thank he-heavens…"

*********

"That's odd… nobody's here," Ember noted as she cantered into the train station to find it absolutely barren as far as sapient life was concerned. The rest of the Surgeons, Foxfire, and the Task Force trotted in to see what she was going on about this time.

Patient took a whiff of air. The stench of paint still lingered. "Maybe there's only a day shift," he suggested as the Friendship Express gave a whistle and backed up. After that, it was rolling backwards on the tracks.

Foxfire turned to the fleeting train. "I think that's our ride going 'fuck this shit, I'm out,'" she piped up. "Then again, we could be dealing with potential smellicorns with metal dongs…"

"What next, copper dildos shooting lightning and twittermites?" Rekka unhelpfully suggested, garnering a roll of the eyes from Koto and a groan from everyone else; only Trigger gave a goofy laugh at that.

"I think we should look for someone. No use staying here if the place is empty," Ember pointed out, turning around to trot back outside. She lifted a hoof and stopped as a faint humming buzz filled the air. A few seconds of hesitation passed before everyone filed out to see what was going on.

The group looked up into the sky and saw several flying bug-like ponies whizzing towards their direction. One of them wore ornate, orange armor with a helmet that sported mandible-like appendages, not unlike Patient’s winged helm. The group flew closer and landed, and everyone could immediately make out that the members of their welcoming party were…

“Changelings,” Distrance spoke.

As their welcome wagon approached, the one clad in orange armor spoke up, "Ah, greetings, ponyfolk! I am Asterion Lux, court wizard to King Thorax," he spoke in a wise, old voice.

Foxfire gave a low whistle. "That's an impressive name if I've ever heard of one," she remarked as the group of changelings came in closer to the station.

“We’re honored to have emissaries from Equestria here in our lands,” Asterion stated, though oddly his face was affixed in a frown and his tone was grim. His eyes settled on Foxfire first. "Are you… unreformed?"

Foxfire shrugged. "Discord did this to me, and I can't change back if I wanted to. At most, all I can do is feed and ponder," she replied.

Asterion nodded and turned to Ember. "And you?" he asked.

"I have the same excuse, except without Discord being involved," Ember answered with a sigh. "Why the long face?"

Asterion pursed his lips, and knots started forming in his stomach."Unfortunately, things have… taken a wee turn for the worse. We found two wounded ponies not long ago, and one of them has gone into outright hysterics."

"Hysterics? Wounded?" Ember parroted, her third eye's pupils shrinking to pinpricks. "Oh, that can't mean anything good…"

*********

The top of the main hive was more spacious than the subsequent nesting chambers; probably because it was one big chamber. Huge, glassless windows carved into the chitinous walls peered out onto the mountainous landscape, letting in the natural light of the moon and stars while the bioluminescent moss did the rest of the job lighting the place up. Currently, it was alive with a one-pony chorus that was loud enough it carried sounds through the halls. The noises were somewhere between sobs and borderline crazed laughter.

King Thorax was overseeing the two ponies, both of whom were heavily bandaged, cleaned, and settled onto a bed of straw, moss, and a spare blanket. "I-it stopped, o-oh gods it stopped, at long last…" the mare chanted over and over again, clutching her friend tightly as her body shook with hysterical laughter. He merely took to stroking her mane with a hoof, hoping to calm her down, or failing that at least comfort her.

Thorax turned to the stallion, noticing his eerie silence, and spoke as soothingly as he could, “Could you tell me what happened? From the beginning?"

The stallion shook his head. "Not until…" he paused to sigh tiredly, "not until Charlotte calms down."

Thorax nodded in understanding. "She'll probably have to go to sleep, then. Sooner or later she'll go blue in the face otherwise," he stated. That caused the stallion's eyes to narrow slightly.

"You say that like she hasn't already," the stallion quipped, but his voice exuded several notes of bitterness. He continued to stroke Charlotte's mane as she chanted her little mantra left and right, until she slumped a few minutes later and gave a tired, weak whinny. He watched as her chest rose and fell, and leaned to nuzzle her with a gentle touch.

Thorax shifted to lay down, if only to bring himself to the stallion's eye level. "Your name, please," he stated.

The stallion turned away from Charlotte and wearily nodded. "Jonathan," he replied.

Thorax shifted a little. "Tell me, Jonathan, what happened? From the beginning?"

Jonathan gulped, but his throat felt dry and sandy. "We… we were in Asgard, o-on a…" he paused when his wings decided to send a dose of cramps through his spine, making him wince in pain. "W-we heard Asgard… w-went south. Very south."

"South?" Thorax parroted, trying to keep himself from lifting a brow.

Jonathan hastily nodded, his eyes gleaming with dread. "South," he repeated, "in that it became… a hellhole. M-me and Charlotte went to see how bad… streets were empty at first, b-but th-then we got j-jumped. There were hundreds of ponies… m-maybe th-thousands… couldn't make a dent in their numbers…"

Thorax donned a frown so small it came off more as a pursing of the lips. He lifted a hoof and spun it, urging Jonathan to continue. He regretted it shortly thereafter. "They… pinned us… knocked us out. A-and we w-woke up… in a dark place, with foals… foals… that…"

Jonathan took a few seconds to gather his thoughts before finishing, "They… killed… ate… raped the foals… for months… on end… m-made us w-watch… everything became a blur, and…" After that, his eyes closed and he slumped to the floor, though the rising and falling of his chest indicated that he was still alive.

Thorax felt as though he was going to puke. But he forced himself to keep his stomach down.

“Jonathan?” he asked, gently nudging the pegasus’ shoulder with a hoof. The stallion didn't budge, save for his moving chest. Then, only then, did Thorax let himself scowl again. "Is he… comatose?" he pondered. While that in itself would have explained why his guest suddenly fell unconscious, he had no means with which to be certain, much less confirm or deny his hunch. As it was, the sod's prospects were already looking very grim.

"Milord," a female voice piped up, causing Thorax to crane his neck to look behind him. He saw the pink changeling again. "Did you glean anything?"

"Something… most unpleasant," Thorax replied, his stomach still twisting and capitulating in an attempt to throw out his dinner. "Not much, but what little I got…" he paused to make sure that his stomach would behave itself and stand down before giving a sigh. "Something is wrong, Constantina. Something is wrong."

Thorax shook his head and remembered something else of importance. “The train from Canterlot. Is there any news regarding that?”

“The occupants are safely in the hive, sire. They are awaiting an audience with you,” Constantina replied.

“Good. Tend to these two while I speak with the envoys. I hope that will clear up any misconceptions.” Thorax’s gut was juggling itself at this point.

*********

The bottom floor was packed. Surrounded on all sides by curious, amicable changelings, the group stood in place, admiring the H.R. Geiger interior of the hive. The awful, pungent smell of changeling pheromones reeked, the ceiling dripped with unidentifiable moisture, the atmosphere was humid and overbearing, and the moss viciously stung anypony who dared touch it unless that pony was Foxfire or another changeling.

Speaking of, Foxfire paced back and forth before the Surgeons and Task Force with a frown forming on her muzzle. Her golden eyes glinted in the light of the moon and the moss, barely managing to mask sparks of worry and anger. "I hope we weren't too late…" she muttered.

Suddenly, the crowd parted and a stallion the size of Celestia walked forth, bringing with him elite guards. Despite this, Foxfire still paced about, though her eyes soon fell onto him. He shuddered as they reminded her a little bit of Chrysalis, but he swallowed his trepidation for the moment.

“I am king Thorax of the changelings. I believe you had requested an audience with me?” he asked the newcomers. He gave them all a once-over, noting the armor, the weapons, the tentacles, and the two stallions carrying a great, wheeled gun and ammunition.

“My name is Patient Care. We’ve come from Canterlot as, well, an envoy. We’ve heard troubling rumors of rogue alicorns in the region,” Patient spoke first. “We’ve also heard of injured ponies.”

"And caught wind of wind of hybrid alicorns," Foxfire added, causing Thorax to look at her. "So… your highness… care to fill us in?"

“I guess I have no secrets to hide,” Thorax began. “Yes, there were hybrid alicorns within the confines of my kingdom. I had two of them executed as they held hostage to two ponies from Asgard. Furthermore, said hostages managed to kill most of the alicorns before I intervened."

That made Foxfire cease her bout of pacing. "Are the hostages alive?"

“Barely. One has passed out and I have reason to believe the second one is comatose.”

“May we see these hostages? I am a nurse,” Patient spoke up, eyes widening in alarm.

Thorax looked him up and down, thinking to himself: “There is no way he could be a nurse.” He then noticed his cutie mark, a strange thing these ponies had; a red medical cross. "I guess he’ll have to do."

“Yes, but I must inform you one of them has very badly broken wings," Thorax stated.

“I can set the bones if it comes to that,” Patient stated, handing his weapon off to Ember, who took it with one of her tentacles. “May I bring everyone else along?”

“You may,” Thorax answered with a sigh of resignation. "But… if they do wake up, please keep… her out of sight," he added, pointing his muzzle at Foxfire specifically.

"Understood," Foxfire replied with a nod.

Author's Note

Beginning of Arc 3

Casting Pains

The changeling who'd confiscated the axe from the scene of the slaughter sighed as he and Constantina watched their wounded guests intently. For the last few minutes or so, Charlotte had been twitching violently in her sleep, and as time passed her spasming became more and more violent. Eventually she started kicking and punching at Jonathan, but that did little to even shift him.

Constantina opened her mouth, but closed it as Charlotte jolted upright with a strangled scream. She rushed over to subdue her as the bloodstained horn began charging with crackling lightning. Despite the danger Constantina wrapped her forelegs around a barrel, and got punched in the muzzle for her trouble."G-get away!" Charlotte cried, flailing her legs desperately for a full minute before it occurred to her what exactly was holding her.

"Hey, it's alright now. Just take a few deep breaths," Constantina instructed, and she smiled as Charlotte took in deep breaths. "Slowly," she added as the breathing hastened again.

"Should I get her some food? She's looking awfully pale," the changeling still juggling the axe piped up, causing Constantina to turn to him. Constantina didn't answer; Charlotte's stomach gave a gurgle, more or less answering for her.

“Please?” Constantina asked in a soft voice. Charlotte merely grinned in embarrassment as her stomach gurgled again. "And make sure it's not moss, Minos. She needs the fiber."

Minos nodded, and turned to the axe. "Should I leave this here? It's theirs," he mumbled. At Constantina's nod, he lowered the weapon to the floor and bolted off down a freshly-opened hall so fast he was but a blur.

It was at this time that Charlotte began fidgeting in Constantina's forelegs. "C-could you let g-go, please?" she squeaked.

At the same time Charlotte made her utterance, another hallway entrance had opened up, and what was more that it let a series of chattering voices spill into the room with the sound of several hooves trotting about. The first to emerge from it was Thorax, followed closely by Patient. "Wh-who are you?" Charlotte piped up, still fidgeting in the pink clutches that didn't seem too keen on letting her go yet.

“This pony is a nurse. He is also an emissary from Canterlot; he’ll help you,” Thorax plainly stated, and he softly smiled as Charlotte ceased struggling on the spot.

Patient slowly walked over to the two ponies and Constantina, his horn already aglow to work a few spells. Slowly, he took his helmet off and set it on the damp, soft floor, which shuddered and groaned slightly at the touch of cold metal.

“I’m Patient Care. I’m from Ponyville,” he said softly, introducing himself.

“Ch-Charlotte. That’s Jonathan.” A blue hoof gestured to the pegasus for emphasis.

Patient nodded. “What happened?”

"A-alicorns… w… we w-were s-sent to Asgard…" Charlotte uttered, only to stop as her legs shook as another passageway opened to the outside and blew a cold draft into the room. She turned to glare briefly at the hole before returning her attention to Patient.

“Asgard? I was just there with my team! How…" he pondered for a moment. “How did you know about what happened to Asgard?”

"D-dragged out… as it… exploded in purple. I-I tasted… violet…" Charlotte stammered before lifting a hoof to cough into it. She retracted her limb and stuck her tongue out, likely in disgust. "W-went there… months ago…" Her eyes widened, and Patient got the impression that something clicked in her head. "Y-you know Sh-Shining?" she asked, her voice nothing more than a strangled whisper.

Patient nodded. “I take it you were sent in to thin the crowd before my crew and I got there?” he asked.

Charlotte hastily nodded. "W-went south, f-fast," she answered. "S-so many… f-foals…used for… b-bargaining… h-had to teach th-them… magic..."

"I'm starting to wonder if the alicorns that aren't the princesses are even sentient enough to grasp the concept of basic morality and decency," Rekka scoffed as he trotted into the room from the hall Thorax and Patient came from earlier. He stopped in his tracks upon seeing Charlotte, and his eyes nearly bugged out. "Holy… another one?" he asked, before turning to look at Charlotte's cutie mark.

“So you were the one Shining told me about. You taught those degenerates a shielding spell?” Patient asked as he focused on Jonathan’s smashed wings, all broken and limp.

At that, Charlotte shook her head. "N-no… o-offensive magics," she reported. "I… only know a s-single weak shield s-spell…"

“I understand. Let me take a look at you; tell me what happened.” Patient slid his torso armor off and let that fall to the floor, much to the groaning chagrin of the structure.

"That's the one I suspect to be comatose," Thorax piped up as Patient turned his attention on Jonathan.

“Yeah, I noticed," Patient snarked. ”Do changelings have anything that can be used for casts?”

Thorax nodded and immediately another hallway opened, revealing a fat, writhing worm-like creature with hooked segments and hideous white spots about as large as a pony. It slithered into the room, causing Patient and Charlotte to balk as it came closer.

“Keep that fuckin’ thing away from us!” Patient shouted, putting himself between the injured ponies and the larvae-like creature.

“Settle down.” Thorax rolled his eyes as the creature vomited a fibrous, glowing green substance.

“These are their builders,” Rekka informed the startled ponies. Outside, they could hear Foxfire giggling and assumed she had something to do with it.

"I call shenanigans!" Ember exclaimed from outside the room. "Foxfire owes me a hundred bits!"

Patient sighed and turned to the worm-thing as it came closer with a burble. “Now how can you help me?” he asked the thing quietly.

The pale worm shuddered and groaned in the same way the floor did and vomited a dark yellow paste, which stuck to the floor like paper mache; the ground made a deep grumble that could be construed as delight.

“I guess that’ll have to do for now,” Patient grumbled as the worm slithered back into the hall.

He used magic to slowly unravel the bandages and set the bones in Jonathan’s wings before slowly applying the worm vomit to them and folding them back closed. The material dried fast, and acted like a cast whose origins he did not want to question.

"Th-that was… now I'm d-debating whether or not to tell him wh-when he wakes up…" Charlotte stammered, looking at the new casts with a gaze somewhere between disgusted, perplexed, or wanting to get a chuckle.

"Tell him for shits and giggles," Rekka unhelpfully suggested with a smile on his face. The utterance had Charlotte groaning in resignation, and she shook her head with a mutter along the lines of 'Lord help me.'

“Okay. Now you." Charlotte froze as she felt Patient's gaze fall onto her again. Her ears folded back instantly.

"Y-yes?" she squeaked.

“Where does it hurt?” Patient asked.

"E-everywhere… but my h-head especially," Charlotte stammered, her rear legs shaking as she spoke.

“Okay.” He turned to Constantina. “Do changelings have any kind of pain medication?”

“Yes. There is a root we chew on. No worm botulism this time.” She smiled and finally let go of Charlotte for once, causing her to stumble to the floor. “I’ll grab some for you.”

“That would be best, thank you.” Patient nodded before turning to Charlotte again.

He noted her bruises, scratches, some unpleasant-looking white splotches that still lingered in her coat, and the chips and cracks running along all four hooves. "No farrier, I take it?" he asked.

"Al-alicorns… said they d-didn't need farriers…" Charlotte grumbled, shifting her legs to at least attempt to stand.

"I'll send for a farrier!" Foxfire shouted from outside again, before her outburst gave way to a set of hooves galloping away.

“Thorax told me about… well, what happened,” Patient solemnly spoke. “Normally, I’d need to use a kit to collect evidence, but since the perpetrators are dead, I’d say you and Jonathan can both shower and clean up as soon as you’d like. Preferably if you both were awake.”

Charlotte only nodded in response.

“Once the train to Canterlot comes around again in a while, we’ll have the both of you on that,” Patient reassured.

Immediately after Patient finished, however, a small series of explosions could be heard, rocking the side of the hive and causing it to groan loudly in agony. Everyone was shaken and some pieces fell over from the force. Patient picked up his armor and put it back on as he saw Rekka and the rest of his team sprint away.

“I’ll keep these two under close watch," Thorax shouted, rushing over to the two wounded ponies with all three horns ignited in a bright teal glow. “Go and see what’s going on!”

“Aye!” Patient shot back, picking up his weapon and sprinting off.

Discordant Trance

The rest of the group stood before a vast, smouldering, recently-opened section of the hive that was the size of a house. Though the wreckage wafted with the smell of molten magma and burnt moss, that did little to snag the attention of the eleven who were already gathered at its very edge. In the badlands beyond, several retreating forms shrank until they were but specks in the distance. Faint flashes of what looked to be light flickered here and there among the specks, but they were far enough away that nobody could effectively discern their colors or exact placement.

Foxfire was scowling at the retreating forms. She squinted her eyes slightly as a heavy gust blew in through the opening, lifting her mane to drag it past her withers and causing her tail to flow ominously behind her in a way that gave the impression of being caught in fierce rapids. Everyone else experienced this as well, but they ignored it since it was effectively a strong breeze that didn't do them any harm.

A minute or so ticked by, and that was just long enough for the forms and lights in the distance to disappear entirely. "This… this is something the fucking Brigade would pull…" Foxfire muttered, narrowed eyes catching the light of the moon in such a way they seemed to be glowing. "Looks like I'll have to have a long talk with Lance later…"

"Why though? It’s not like Equestria wants a full blown war against the changelings,” Distrance asked.

Foxfire turned to Distrance and sighed, her scowl only deepening. "That's the thing. The Brigade has a tendency to hit hard and then run for the hills, and as they run the unicorns and changelings—yes, changelings—in their ranks would signal that they were there with illumination spells. But only once they got miles away, just enough so we could still see them as we've done tonight," she replied. "So if the bloody Brigade did this…"

Her horn glowed, and immediately her magic washed over the massive hole that was punched into the hive. Seconds passed, and three large, white and long threads of energy revealed themselves and danced all around the group. Foxfire's scowl deepened to the point she seemed to contemplate whether or not to bare her fangs as she studied these threads. The threads then changed color after another few seconds.

Golden, forest green, and sky blue wisps of energy that glowed with raw power gently wafted past Rekka and weaved around Trigger and Distrance. They turned to Foxfire in unison, a feeling of dread sinking in as she scanned the threads and, possibly, what their presence meant. Soon the others did so as well. "This has their signature written all over it," Foxfire murmured, shaking her head. "No doubt about it. The Brigade was just right here."

Foxfire dispelled her magic, and the threads and her aura vanished within the span of a second. She turned her attention to the badlands again, more specifically where the distant forms had vanished. "Oh, Lance, Celestia will have her horn lodged up your ass sideways when she finds out about this…" she promised darkly. She turned to the tunnel when hooves echoed from within, and she closed her eyes as a form bumbled to her, illuminated by the light of the moon.

“What the fuck happened?!" Patient shouted as he finally came across the scene.

Foxfire's eyes snapped open, sending chills down Patient's spine as he saw they began glowing. "The Valkyrie Brigade decided to pay us a visit. This," she started, and paused to use her tail to gesture to the wreckage. Her tone was already ominous, but she bared her teeth before finishing in a low hiss, "is their calling card."

"This is… insane. Lemme check something," Ember piped up, her third eye and horn aglow. A red-tinted magic washed over the area, revealing the dancing threads of green, yellow, and blue once again. She assumed a dour frown and dispelled her magic in seconds, all three eyes widening. "It… couldn't be…" she murmured, color all but draining from her face.

"It is," Foxfire stated tersely, her ears folding back. "We're in very deep shit if we've pissed off the Brigade." She noticed Patient giving her the thousand-yard stare and decided to elaborate, "Think of Asgard's nuking, multiply it by three, and add in a tank and airships. And reformed and non-reformed changelings to drain you to a skeletally thin state, and gryphons to pick your bones clean. That's the Brigade in a nutshell."

Patient paled considerably as he let Foxfire's utterance sink in. "Y-you're…"

Foxfire cut him off, "I met them in the flesh. I've seen the damage they can do when I accompanied them on a previous mission. They didn't just simply mop the deck with red and black alicorns who infested a good chunk of Thaiwing a month ago; they wiped several towns from the map in the span of a few hours. The Brigade is an army in itself, separate from that of Celestia's, Griffonstone's, Thorax's, and anything and everything in between. They are their own state given legs. And if an entire continent needs nuking, then so be it, they will get that shit done."

“But… why? Why just out of the blue attack a neutral party?” Patient shook his head in confusion.

"I have no idea, honestly. Perhaps they did not get word that we were here, and all alicorns in the area were already dispensed with. There are setbacks to being separate from all other armies, after all," Foxfire replied, her tone grim and her eyes all but alight with an unnatural golden blaze. Her head shook, and the glow trailed behind her eyes as they moved, only further casting her face in a demonic light. "But regardless, we're in some hot water. We may need to lay low for a few days, if only to see if they decide to come back and finish the job."

“Until then, let’s send for a messenger to Canterlot to ask what the fuck happened,” Patient replied with a shudder.

Foxfire shook her head again, and she lifted and subsequently waved her hoof dismissively on top of that. "There's the possibility that the Brigade wasn't responsible, but I've seen the signs of their very recent passing. If we send word now, they'll definitely finish us off and claim collateral damage," she stated. "It is better to wait." She leaned in closer, until she was eye to eye with Patient. "Besides, there might be more wounded as a result of this attack, and us dallying won't get them fixed faster."

Her words sparked something within Patient, and his face hardened. He wanted to open his mouth to argue, yet he couldn't deny that Foxfire had a point. And if the Brigade truly was as she said they were, then there'd be no point in confronting them; energy was best spent doing something else in that case.

Finally, he opened his mouth and spoke, "Let's split up and gather any wounded."

Everyone nodded in agreement and split up into their usual teams, with the Surgeons plodding about the ruined room one way and the Task Force through another. Foxfire surveyed the room herself, taking note of any other details that littered the scene. Aside from debris and magic traces and the smell of molten rock, she caught nothing of note. Her ears perked as a faint sound echoed from the tunnel, sounding like a heavy set of hooves that shook the room.

"Well, someone's not being particularly subtle…" Foxfire snarked, and she began trotting back into the hive to investigate the noise.

*********

Charlotte sat on her haunches, watching as various entrances and exits opened and closed around her at an irregular pace. Every now and again she'd glance back to Jonathan, but soon returned to wall-gazing whenever he gave so much as a twitch of an ear. Time was lost to her; as far as she was concerned it may as well ceased existing altogether. There was no way to keep definitive track, especially as the only holes leading outside showed the ground rather than the sky, even if she poked her muzzle into them to glance outward.

Her tail swished, the hairs dragging against the floor and tangling into each other as it moved. The place was quiet, although every few minutes she could've sworn she heard a faint buzzing or a clip-clop of hooves. Absently, she wondered if she had begun hallucinating. "At least it's… pleasant," she murmured aloud. Her stomach gurgled to remind her that she needed food, and she sighed in response.

"... trout face…" Jonathan murmured, his utterance causing Charlotte to turn to him.

"Trout face? What's he going on about?" Charlotte thought, before it registered that her companion had spoken. She jolted into a standing position in an instant, and trotted to him on shaky legs that didn't want to cooperate. "Wait, does that mean…" As soon as she reached him she knelt down on her front knees so she was more or less at his level. Nudging him with her nose caused him to shift a leg and he grumbled something unintelligible.

"Good to know he's still in the realm of the living. At least I'm not alone…" Charlotte murmured, more in relief than resignation. She rose up again and sighed, and resumed her bout of wall-gazing. "God… this is so monotonous. I swear, if Jonathan doesn't wake up soon, I might go stir-crazy…"

Charlotte stood there, transfixed by the ever-shifting form of the very structure around her. "How does this place operate? The floor definitely feels like stone, but… stone shouldn't have these sort of shifting properties, erosion by water aside…" Then a hole opened up in the floor, making her grimace as it gave a distinct growl. "Okay, that is beyond bizarre. Stone shouldn't make such a noise either..."

The yawning hole didn't close for thirty minutes on end. Charlotte stared at it during that time, donning a frown as it merely kept growling. The sound echoed in a way it seemed to come from everywhere at once, and part of her wanted to peer down to see what could have caused it to behave as it did.

With a huff, she ambled over and did just that, her horn flaring to life with a soft light as she did so. She released a small ball of light from her horn and it settled daintily onto the floor beneath; what she saw made her gasp and jump back.

More of those same builder worms squirmed about, writhing tirelessly as they set about moving from place to place, all fat with their paper mache and slimy, viscous paste. At least one noticed the hole and tried to crawl up it, but could not gain an iota of traction and simply kept falling. "Tell me one of those things didn't open up a passageway…" she grumbled in her head, grimacing as she heard the worm keep on trying and failing to get through the hole.

From behind her, she could hear the faintest of hoofsteps; perhaps Jonathan had finally woken up and tried to stand for once.

She turned around and froze in place, as time seemed to slow to a crawl around her. Instead of her friend getting up, there was a blood-red alicorn stallion with an oil black mane staring at her, wings fanned wide to show off unusual veined and eyeball patterns that were more likely to occur on the wings of a butterfly. One wing could have easily engulfed her whole; the things were so massive she was wondering how the hell the pony could even stand with them as rigid to attention as they were.

Behind the alicorn's hooves another hole started closing. Her mind began whirring, making demands to somehow subdue the alicorn, take Jonathan, and run for the nearest hillside she could find. Her body, however, failed to respond. She was paralyzed in a staring contest with the ugliest peacock of a pony she'd ever seen, but she noticed he seemed locked into place as well.

As time finally seemed to resume its normal course, Charlotte scowled deeply, and her horn flared to life in a white light. The alicorn, however, flapped his wings and took to the air so fast and sharply her eyes couldn't keep up. A glow, as black as the stone surrounding her, grasped her tail and lifted her up before flinging her bodily into a wall.

She found herself half-buried in a hole that opened up at that exact moment, her rear legs defenseless and her front quarters only hanging onto the edge thanks to cracked hooves. "Sure beats landing face-first in stone," she inwardly hissed. She felt another tugging sensation on her tail, and her eyes widened in alarm before she was forcibly yanked out and thrown to the floor.

She scrambled upright the instant she landed and turned to look up, finding the alicorn leering down at her with a predatory smirk and an unnatural aura wafting around his horn. "What do you want?!" she hissed.

The alicorn's smile widened. "Oh, just a little payback for killing my fuckbuddies," he murmured, his voice chillingly low. "You know… you're awfully weak. As a mare ought to be," he added as an aside.

Charlotte's eyes narrowed again, and her horn flared brightly before her magic took on a crimson hue. Fire erupted around her and hurled itself at the alicorn, forming into the shape of a wicked drake before it reached him. He attacked it with dark-colored magic, trying to make it dissipate, yet all it did was slow the roiling flames down slightly. Left with no choice, he flew into another opened hole and lead the drake into it.

Charlotte dispelled the drake before it could finish crawling in, however. Her eyes darted about, and her ears swiveled, trying to gauge where the alicorn would pop in next from. But the holes shifted, yawning and closing as they pleased. They definitely didn't give her so much as a fleeting glimpse of the pony who was now eluding her.

She whirled around, yet no trace of the alicorn turned up. "Gah! Cheeky bastard! There's no way I can track him in the walls!"

Suddenly, Charlotte heard the familiar sound of the floor opening up behind her and she was immediately dragged in by a pair of crimson hooves before she could react. She fell onto a pile of writhing worms, which slithered off and groaned with distress from the impact. She got up onto unsteady hooves within moments, and her stomach lurched. The floor was sticky and even more damp than the room above her; there was only a quarter of the floor to ceiling height than there was in the room upstairs, much like a crawl space.

And that damned alicorn was nowhere in sight. She conjured another ball of light, yet all she could see were the worms, their produce, and half-eaten moss that didn't glow. "Well, now I know how the worms make their vomit," she mentally groaned before twisting around, bringing the ball of light with her.

Still no sign of the alicorn. There were more worms to greet her. "Lovely, a game of cat and mouse," she inwardly snarked.

From her left came a swift buck which sent her into the wall. She screamed as the breath from her lungs was knocked clean out, only further amplified by the sound of bone breaking. She shifted herself from the wall the instant she stilled, gasping and coughing for air as pain flared through her right shoulder. Her right foreleg then gave out, and she slumped to the floor, twisting her head to where the attack had come from.

Using magic to guide her ball of light to the location, however, yielded nothing more than another yawning hole that was fast closing. "Fantastic," she hissed. She rose to stand again, being sure to lift her right foreleg to avoid putting pressure on it. The pain flaring through it and the distinct feeling of a bone shifting in a way it should not have been able to told her all she needed to know.

One of the worms came up to her with a gurgle that sounded like a purr, and it rubbed itself against her left back leg soothingly, though that only jostled her balance a bit and she tilted to the wall in response. She found herself gritting her teeth as she re-steadied herself. "Can't really stand right now, I'll pet you later," she hissed.

A dark halo of magic yanked the worm away into the darkness as another set of hooves bucked at her, barely missing and connecting with the wall next to her head. Her retaliation was instantaneous; she thrust the ball of light onto her adversary and contorted it with her magic to produce a gigantic ball of crackling lightning that engulfed the alicorn. He bucked and screamed, yet she shoved him away as jolts of lightning coursed through his body.

The battle was over in that instant, yet his torment didn't end. It extended for several minutes, during which the caverns were filled with his piercingly loud, anguished cries. Worms gathered around, yet did not get close enough to contact the lightning ball, seemingly watching intently as the smell of burning flesh and feathers filled the already-musty air.

Once the alicorn had breathed his last breath and the ball of lightning faded into a small, compacted form, the cavern’s worms descended upon him. Charlotte watched as they started ripping into his flesh with powerful jaws. The sickening crunch of bones and the gory tears of blackened viscera filled her ears, yet she could not look away no matter how much she'd wanted to.

One of the worms, a particularly fat one whose stomach sloshed about with fresh gore, slithered up to her, lifting its upper half into the air and looking into her eyes with its own beady ones. “He shall be recycled for the good of the hive,” it somehow spoke, its voice horrifyingly deep and filled with mucous.

After speaking, the worm slithered quickly back into the feeding frenzy, gnawing at the alicorn’s now severed head. Only when nothing more than a splatter of blood remained did Charlotte pale considerably. "Does that mean… the casts are made of…" Her musings halted and her stomach lurched as another set of hooves echoed into the space, followed by a bright blue will-o'-wisp that sailed right past her.

“Yes,” was her only response; the voice was feminine, but it had not been her own. Charlotte turned to the will-o'-wisp to find Foxfire staring at her with the ball of flame at her side. "By the way, you did a very good job of frying that alicorn." Foxfire punctuated that by sitting on her haunches, lifting her front hooves, and slowly clapping them with an impressed gleam in her eyes. "Shall I get you back up to your friend now?"

Charlotte could only hastily nod. Without any warning, Foxfire lifted her in her magic and started trotting through the cavern with her in tow. She moved quickly, only stopping as another yawning hole opened up, and that was to send Charlotte through it into the floor above before Foxfire followed her.

The two found themselves in the room Jonathan was left in. "Stay put. I'll get the nurse," Foxfire stated, and without another word she retreated into another freshly-opened hole. Charlotte sat there and stared at the hole Foxfire went into, flabbergasted as her brain caught up to the fact that a red and black fox… changeling… thing had just helped her out.

"A-a friendly red-and-black… thing?" Charlotte simply could not believe what had just happened. Her brain simply refused to process the notion. "That's it, I need some hard cider. I need hard cider at this point. When I get to Canterlot I am getting smashed off my ass. Maybe that nurse can give me some hard cider..."

Another sound of shuffling hooves snapped her out of her reverie, and Charlotte instantly turned to the only other possible source of the noise. She shuffled up on her three good legs and hobbled over awkwardly, a big grin stretching across her face as Jonathan finally came to. "My head… I swear I won't touch the martini glasses ever again…" he grumbled as he lurched onto his hooves.

"You, uh… didn't touch the martini glasses…" Charlotte began, her grin faltering as Jonathan looked at her. A puzzled frown spread on his face when he took in how she held up her right leg.

"You look like you crawled right out of hell…" Jonathan began, before he stopped as everything rushed back to him with perfect clarity. He fell to his haunches, and paled when he looked at the right leg again. "What happened?"

"I… I was ambushed while you were out. Th-the alicorn who did this," Charlotte paused, shifting her right leg for emphasis and wincing as pain shot through protesting nerves, "well… he got fried."

Jonathan nodded and folded his forelegs to lay down. Charlotte cantered closer to stand at his side before following suit. Then he registered that his wings were still bound, and he craned his neck to find their new makeshift casts, and found himself getting a stronger stench of vomit and something else he couldn't pinpoint. "Wha…"

"We got reinforcements, and one of them's a nurse. He did that to your wings," Charlotte stated, her stomach lurching again. "I've a feeling he's gonna do the same to my leg… when he gets here." She lowered her head to nestle it in her good foreleg. "You're going to be responsible for me when we get back to Canterlot," she added, closing her eyes.

Jonathan turned to her with both brows raised. "What are you rattling off about now?" he asked, concern in his tone.

"I'm getting hard cider. Exceptionally hard cider. The hardest I can get my hooves on," Charlotte replied, her tone equal parts angered and exasperated. That caused Jonathan to pale considerably, and all he could do was gape at her like she'd gone mad.

Both turned to the furthest wall as the sound of several hooves galloping echoed into the room. The first to enter was Foxfire again, this time accompanied by Patient and Trigger. Shortly after they set hoof into the room, Thorax came in, flanked by Minos and Constantina. The six instantly noticed that Jonathan was awake, and assumed huge grins. They trotted over to the pair eagerly, and Patient nudged them both onto their hooves with a snout-poke to their stomachs.

The smiles faded when Charlotte got up, holding her right foreleg away from the ground. "Need a cast?" Patient asked.

Charlotte nodded hastily before shifting to lay back down. "And a barrel's worth of alcohol," she added, looking at the group expectantly. "Any one of you have a flask? I'll take whatever you have on hoof."

"Charlotte, you're not getting drunk on three legs," Jonathan scolded, turning to his friend only to find her snorting dismissively.

Trigger opened up one of the ammo bags draped over his back and pulled out a glass bottle filled with a bubbly, brownish liquid. “My personal mix; barley whiskey and hard cider!” He handed it to Charlotte by magic.

“It’s something to take the pain away,” Patient reasoned.

Jonathan responded by lifting a hoof and slamming it upon the bridge of his muzzle. "Lord help me…" he grumbled as Charlotte popped open the flask with her magic, took a whiff, and then brought the bottle to her lips. Within seconds she downed the entire bottle, making Trigger's eyes go wide.

"Okay, I haven't seen a mare drink that fast before…" Trigger remarked as Charlotte handed the bottle over with an expectant look that screamed 'more please' written all over her face.

Foxfire turned to Jonathan and sighed. "Is she the screamer type of pony whenever she gets inebriated?" she asked, eyes alight with a spark of curiosity.

"No, worse. She and I got smashed one night, and next morning we were in the same bed… with Shining Armor standing over us, and we got roped into the mess with red and black…" Jonathan stopped upon lifting his hoof and immediately realizing exactly who he was addressing.

Patient and Trigger exchanged glances, the former frowning and the latter gaping.

An opening silently yawned in a nearby wall, allowing one of the fatter worms to slither out and pop onto the floor with a wet splatter of slime and mucus. Jonathan backed up, only to feel his tail brush up against the wall with widening eyes. "Th-the hell is that thing?" he stammered.

"He was recycled for the greater good of the hive,” the thing grumbled.

It was the same worm as before.

The worm vomited another thick paste-like mixture onto the floor, with said floor giving its pleasured remark, although it had streaks of black hair visible in the muck.

Charlotte turned to Jonathan, her face flushing as the alcohol started to kick in. Being a wee bit buzzed, she decided to elaborate in a slightly slurred voice, "Your wing casts are made of dead bodies. Dead alicorn bodies. Bones and all." That caused Jonathan to look at his wing-casts again, this time paling as the implications sank in.

“The dead of all are reused,” the worm slowly stated behind a glob of mucus in its throat. “What can be salvaged, will be salvaged. The dead isn’t all we use, however. Most of what’s in your cast is wood fiber.”

"How is it talking?" Jonathan asked, turning back to the worm with dilated pupils.

Foxfire rolled her eyes. "They're relatives to baby changelings. They have the ability to speak from the moment they hatch, and co-exist with the grubs. I should know; I was a grub once," she piped up, making sure to have as snarky a tone as possible.

“The Norn queen remembers you, little one.” The worm’s beady, black eyes pierced Foxfire before it turned its head to Charlotte and Jonathan. “She gives birth to all. We are all children of the Norn queen.”

A grumbling came from the hive, a gentle, almost maternal groan. Everyone, save Foxfire, glanced around for a moment.

“She calls for me,” the worm stated, and it slithered off back to the yawning hole in the wall, which immediately shut afterwards. Only when it was out of sight did Jonathan's legs buckle, and he found himself laying down again. His head then buried itself in his front hooves.

“You changelings are fuckin’ weird,” Patient piped up.

"I agree," Jonathan hissed, shaking his head.

Foxfire rolled her eyes again. "I'm not as weird as Luna gets some days," she snarked again, as if she were trying to be unhelpful.

“What do you mean by that?” Trigger asked.

Foxfire snickered. "Sometimes she takes me Dreamwalking with her. You should see some of the shit she's into," she replied cryptically.

“I unironically hope she doesn’t poke her way into my dreams,” Patient shook his head and shivered.

“What’s wrong with that? Everyone knows you fuck your girlfriend on a leash,” Trigger teased to the chagrin of everyone involved.

“I swear to fuckin’—that was not what we did that one night! I will fuck your shit up with a hand grenade!” Patient shot back, getting somewhat red in the face.

At that moment Jonathan threw his forehooves to the air. "Just perfect! What we all needed to hear!" he yelled in exasperation, his face somehow turning a darker shade of red. His outburst caused Charlotte to snort as the alcohol began working overtime.

"Then again… you did invite Shining to a three-way last time we got smashed," Charlotte stated, her utterance garnering a series of dropped jaws from Patient, Foxfire, and Thorax.

“This is bullshit, I’m going downstairs… “ Patient grumbled quietly after he reeled in his jaw, dragging his weapon behind him as he walked off into the hallway.

"So who's idea was it to try and get motherfucking Shining Armor into a three-way?" Foxfire asked, her voice but a strangled squeak.

False Complacency

Morning light shined through the massive hole in the hive as the sun rose and tinted everything in a bright orange glow. Standing at the rubble's edge, using his hat to polish his blaster was Rekka, who averted his gaze to keep his retinas from being damaged. With him was Tenmei, who lifted a hoof to adjust his glasses. The only sound that dared permeate the area was another heavy breeze that blew into the hole; even the polishing job was fairly quiet in comparison. The two kept to themselves, though that made things a bit monotonous as an hour ticked by.

The distance was lacking in moving shapes of any sort at this time, and soon the temperature got a little bit warm. "How much longer are we gonna be out here watching for the damned Brigade?" Rekka grumbled, using a hoof to set his hat back on his head. Tenmei turned to him and shrugged.

"Watashi o naguru," Tenmei uttered, turning to the barren plains in the distance. He spotted several small, sparse splashes of green here and there, but to what they belonged eluded him.

"Oh, great, you don't know either…" Rekka mumbled, turning to the tunnel leading within the hive. His ears twitched when he heard the sound of hooves hitting stone, and his brow rose.

Tenmei turned to the noise as well, and tilted his head as Patient emerged from the dark depths rather sluggishly. "Peischent?" he tried, only to receive no response. "Paishanto-san?" he asked again, now noticing that Patient had bags beneath his eyes that looked like they'd drag his entire front quarters down at any second.

“Gallaf gymryd drosodd oddi yma,” Patient spoke with a yawn, his eyes bloodshot and half closed.

“I can take over from here.”

“Rydych yn edrych wedi blino,” Tenmei pointed out in as blunt a voice as he could muster.

”You look tired.”

Patient smiled and let out a breath from his quarter-of-the-way open mouth whilst nodding.

“Ydw,” Patient sniffed and Tenmei chuckled. “Mae Charlotte yn anhygoel o feddw.”

“Yes. Charlotte is unbelievably drunk.”

Tenmei's brow rose all the way up his forehead within seconds.”Sut felly?”

”How so?”

“Mae hi'n ceisio cael personol gyda Jonathan,” Patient replied, stepping up to the hole in the wall.

“She tried to get all touchy-feely with Jonathan.”

Tenmei groaned in exasperation and his raised brow dropped instantly. He lifted his forehooves and made several gestures with them, including one that looked like he was tugging on an invisible leash wrapped tightly around his own neck.

“Roedd hi wedi cael ei ffrwyno,” Patient deadpanned.

“She had to be restrained.”

Rekka was glancing back and forth between the two as they exchanged their banter, unsure as to what they were harping on about. Tenmei turned to him and made the leash-around-neck gestures again before using his hoof to draw a book-and-pentagram cutie mark in the dust of the rubble.

All that accomplished was making an orange brow raise questioningly. Tenmei facehooved before he finished off by rattling what Patient told him in Neighponese. Crimson eyes went wide in that instant. "You are shitting me right now," Rekka murmured.

Patient shook his head. “ ‘fraid not.”

Rekka stood up, and so did Tenmei. "Okay, we have got to see this…" The two bolted down the tunnel, barely missing a dry chuckle from Patient as they went. They slowed a little to let their eyes adjust to the dark interior of the hive, before weaving around this entrance and that in their haste to see what today's fuss was about.

No more than an hour later did they come across the unofficial sick bay housing Jonathan and Charlotte. The former was perched on a tall rock that wasn't there in the room before, while the latter was tottering around with her right foreleg cast-bound and her other three legs set to wobbling overdrive. A leash had been fastened to her neck and another rock, linked by collared anchor point, and a rune-inscribed ring was set onto her horn. She tried to reach Jonathan, but the leash only let her get up to the base of his perch.

To cap it all off her face was flushed in a vibrant red that would have made even Foxfire envious, and her eyes were very much glazed and distant. "Ghet daaaaawn heeere, you blond-maned bastard," Charlotte hissed as she reared up onto her back legs and thrust her left front hoof onto the rock, her voice so slurred it was quite a feat for her to somehow remain coherent. Rekka turned to Jonathan, only to find a wooden sign reading 'help me' hanging from his neck by woven threads of vine.

Tenmei lifted a hoof to his face and hit his muzzle with it. "Yare yare da ze," he grumbled in exasperation.

"You said it," Rekka agreed with a nod, his eyes transfixed on the spectacle before him. Tenmei gazed around the room, noticing a painfully distinct lack of any alcohol-related paraphernalia.

Charlotte ignored the two for the moment, still trying in futility to reach Jonathan thanks to her leash. "Ghet dawn 'ere and mount me, damnit!" she shouted, only to garner a rapid shaking of the head.

"Didn't the alicorns mount you enough?!" Jonathan hissed, a firm frown creasing his muzzle.

"They lifted yer tail too!" Charlotte argued, scraping at the base of the rock in an attempt to get a solid hold on it.

"The madness has begun," Rekka murmured, shaking his head solemnly with his eyes still glued to what he was witnessing.

“Nice, desu!” Patient could be heard, almost from miles away, which resulted in his utterance echoing in very quietly.

Rekka promptly facehooved. "For fuck's sake…" he grumbled before dropping his hoof and inhaling as much air as his lungs could allow. Tenmei lifted his forehooves to cover his ears, falling to his haunches as a loud, piercing shout came from his companion that was comprised of, "Cut it out already!"

That made Jonathan wince, and Charlotte slowly turned to Rekka with a reddened brow raised. "Did you get castrated or somethin'?" she asked in a tone that was oddly carefree.

Rekka breathed in deeply. "What were you doing in the last five minutes?" he asked rhetorically.

Charlotte shrugged. "Can't remembaahr," she replied.

Rekka facehooved again. "How much did you drink?!" he groaned in exasperation.

"Nine bottles' worth," Jonathan answered with a grimace. "I'm almost wondering how she hasn't passed out yet."

Rekka sat on his haunches and his other hoof rose to join the first. "Whose idea was it to get her drunk?" he hissed in a murderous tone, eyes gleaming with intent beneath his hooves.

"O-one of the nurse's friends. He had a circle-telescope cutie mark; dunno his name, though," Jonathan piped up again, frowning as Rekka dropped his hooves, stood up, and turned around. "White with a blue mane."

Rekka very briefly donned a wicked smirk a pony would only see on the face of a serial killer. "Ohoho, I know who you're talking about…" he murmured darkly, as if he himself were going manic. His horn glowed, and a small holographic box started to materialize before him, his magic acting as both light and projector. "And I have a spell to contact Shining Armor…"

Soon enough, a picture materialized within the box, showing off a throne hewn of crystal with Shining Armor himself sitting on it, cradling an alicorn foal with a large horn and wings so large they covered her back just by being folded. The baby burbled in glee, though Shining himself raised both brows as his horn glowed. "Well, this is unprecedented," Shining noted, bouncing the foal in his forelegs up and down gently. For his trouble he got little more than an excited giggle.

Rekka's grin faltered into a small, wan smile as he caught sight of the baby. "Two things," he began, "one: did you cast that Forbearance spell on Flurry?"

Shining nodded. "Just finished before you called, actually," he replied. "What's the second thing?"

"Well, we found a surviving hit team that was… thwarted at Asgard. They're in worse condition than Patchouli, and one of them decided to hit Trigger-colt for some hard booze. I heard something about being invited to a three-way one time from Foxfire of all ponies," Rekka reported, angling his head just enough that Shining could see a beet-red Charlotte.

Shining's lips twitched like he wanted to frown, but he could not bring himself to let his expression change. "You've found the Castle Destroyers?" he asked.

Rekka nodded. "Yep, and the other one's perched high up to escape the drunk ninny. Fondling may or may not have been involved," he stated, using his magic to tilt the box upward a little, so Shining could have a perfect view of Jonathan and his 'help me' sign.

"I ahm naht a ninny!" Charlotte protested, but all that got her was an unintelligible murmur from Jonathan.

Rekka tilted the box back to him. "Oh, and alicorns came by the hive. They were already dispensed with before we got here," he stated. "By the way… are the Destroyers on probation or not?"

"From alcohol, yes. Largely because they tend to drink so much otherwise… put it like this, I'd be dealing with something similar to Ember twice over," Shining replied, finally managing a small, tight frown. "I assume the one who got plastered is restrained?"

Rekka nodded again. "She doesn't seem to notice her binds, though," he answered.

Shining would have facehooved if he wasn't holding a giggling Flurry. "Remind me to make a note to self to contact Trigger in the flesh once the Friendship Express picks you guys up," he groaned. "And how is Thorax doing over there?"

"Splendid, all things considered. He's wondering why alicorns dropped by and why we were sent here. He doesn't know yet. Should he be informed?" Rekka queried, his smile turning into a frown.

Shining pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Well… he's technically a ruler now, so I guess it's safe to tell him. Just don't tell him what the Surgeons do to whatever alicorns they catch, though," he replied after a moment.

"Will do," Rekka answered. "I'll talk to you later." At Shining's nod, he dispelled the projection and slowly turned to Tenmei. "Trigger is gonna be in so much trouble…"

"What're you goin' on 'bout?" Charlotte piped up, causing Rekka to turn to her with another murderous smirk forming on his face.

"The stallion who gave you booze is gonna get an earful when we drag his ass to Shining," Rekka replied, his tone equal parts amused and icy.

*********

Foxfire and Thorax trotted through several winding tunnels, horns aglow with blue and green lights that did a decent job of illuminating their path. As they went, they were chatting fervently. "So… what happened in Equestria? Why did alicorns and the Friendship Express drop by?" Thorax began, frowning nervously.

"Very long story, but the short of it is the alicorns that dropped by were part of a larger community that was nuked into the ninth frozen circle of Tartarus," Foxfire answered, sighing. "Oh, Cocytus would keep those alicorns there for hopefully a long time yet." She paused as she and Thorax rounded a corner into a yawning hole, passing by a builder worm that purred as they went.

"Surely those alicorns mean…" Thorax stopped as he remembered what two of them were doing to his guests. He shivered enough that his elytra rattled.

"Many, I dare say almost all of them, bear ill will to everything not within their ranks," Foxfire replied, her voice grim. "The princesses, the common ponies who sadly and inevitably get caught up in the mess, and the nobles are clueless as to where they're coming from. So Equestria responded by raising security all over, and recruiting special ponies and whatever else they can accrue into their ranks to form specialized hit squads."

"Hit squads?" Thorax parroted, turning to Foxfire just in time to see her nod.

"Those two ponies dragged here by the alicorns? They're technically a hit squad. The squads are trained to the best of their individual abilities and how they function as teams, and sent out to curb the sudden arrivals of alicorns as needed. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail," Foxfire stated, donning a tight frown. "But the alicorns who aren't the princesses form a predictable pattern."

"What's the pattern?" Thorax asked worriedly as they veered to the left into another hall.

"Every town they can successfully claim as their own turns into a shithole. Economy ceases to function in those towns. Mares and foals of all ages get used until they simply drop dead. Yet I have not heard of an alicorn from any of the claimed cities being… as rational as a pony with common sense and basic decency." Foxfire huffed through flared nostrils. "As Rekka put it, they're likely not smart enough to understand decency and sense."

They veered right into another yawning hole. "Wait… they're… stupid?" Thorax asked, garnering yet another solemn nod.

"Save the occasional oddball like myself, but that's likely because of circumstance," Foxfire sighed, her tone slightly bitter. "I've seen the damage the alicorns can do to a few claimed towns. Needless to say, those towns needed an immediate purging." Her ear twitched as she heard the faint sound of scraping hooves and yelling voices. Her gaze snapped forward in an instant. "What the…" The two took off galloping towards the noise without hesitation.

"So what do you do to alicorns that can't stage a coup, or are thrawrted?" Thorax asked as they rounded a bend and the noise they were heading after got louder by a substantial margin.

"Execution, effective immediately upon capture and restraint. Most alicorns simply are beyond redemption," Foxfire hissed as they veered left after a good twenty feet to find a trio of alicorn stallions with pitifully small and erect penises pinned to the floor by massive worms. A duo of scowling, grim-faced changelings loomed over them, one with wings and elytra flared and the other with a horn that crackled with emerald flames.

"How did you get into the hive?" hissed the changeling with the flared wings, ignoring Thorax and Foxfire as they came to a stop at the scene. "What were you trying to do to the brood?"

“We need your grubs for our communes! T-they’d make perfect slaves and we’ll pay handsomely for—” the alicorn that spoke was savagely torn to shreds by the worms that held him down. Foxfire noticed that sod was a bright neon green and electric blue; a far cry from his red-and-black friends.

"Slaves?" the changeling with the crackling horn asked, turning to one of the red-and-black alicorn. "What did your friend mean by that?"

“T-they’ll just be used for our breeding! That was all! You could afford to lose a few of your young—” the second who spoke was cut off as a worm bit down on his throat. All that issued out after was a strangled gurgle. All eyes fell onto the last alicorn.

“How would you breed with those pitiful saplings? Your shrunken testicles? Have any of your ilk successfully bore or sired foals as of late?" Foxfire inquired honestly.

The two changelings looked back, bowed their heads in the presence of their king, and returned their gaze to the remaining alicorn in question.

“N-not really…” the last alicorn stammered, shaking in place. "W-we tried everything… magic, artificial insemination… we've lost the ability to produce foals for some reason…"

"Including kidnapping the Castle Destroyers to force one of them to sire a foal for your sick schemes, I presume?" Foxfire asked again.

The alicorn nodded hastily. "N-nothing worked... " he murmured pitifully.

"Not even forcing Jonathan to breed?" Foxfire queried, her eyes widening.

"H-he wouldn't… get hard… no matter what we did…" the alicorn confirmed with a nod.

"For that, I've four words to say. It's official." Foxfire took a few seconds to let the alicorn soak in the silence. The worms seemed to do so as well, looking at him intently. "You. Suck." She lifted a hoof and waved it, and instantly the worms seized the alicorn, shredding him to a pile of gore within seconds.

Thorax shuddered as the full implications sank in. Were the alicorns really this deranged? If so, they certainly gave Chrysalis a run for her bits. He turned to the two changelings and nodded to them. "Head for the wounded ponies immediately. What the alicorns just relayed… it makes me fear for their safety. I will check on the brood." The duo bowed and filed down a yawning hole that opened up behind them. The instant they departed was the same instant Foxfire and Thorax resumed their galloping, weaving down several halls in a hurry.

"If they hurt those grubs…" Foxfire growled as she and Thorax charged with determination.

*********

The brood that gathered in a massive room that had a throne sitting in the middle hissed uneasily. Sitting in the throne was a creature with an eyeless face plastered to a semi-pyramid-structure, with four claw-tipped arms and an oddly minotaur-like chest joining said arms. Its lower body was composed of worm-like segments, and its entire body seemed to be composed of blackened bone. A tooth-laden maw moved as its head moved about, seemingly scanning the whole area despite the lack of eyes.

The form hissed and growled as it looked around the room. The gigantic cavern beneath the hive was home to thousands of slithering worms and grubs as well as large mounds of eggs, which shuddered and pulsed with each passing second. All activity came to a halt, however, as two sets of galloping hooves echoed into the massive room.

“Who…” the form atop its chitinous throne somehow spoke with a slow, dry, almost feminine voice as the hooves became louder. It turned to a freshly-opened hole a dozen meters opposite of its throne as Foxfire and Thorax skid to a stop just outside it.

”King… come…please…” was the response the two were given as the creature extended a clawed hand forward, beckoning Thorax. Its voice almost sounded like it was inside the heads of Thorax and Foxfire.

Thorax obeyed instantly, cantering over before bowing low. "I've… heard several distressing things as of late, love." he stated, his tone solemn.

“Intruders... “ the form hissed. "Eldest… informed me... "

"I have received further elaboration from Foxfire," Thorax began, pausing to sigh as a chirping grub crawled up to him with a forked tongue sticking out.

The creature turned its head a bit to view Foxfire. “It has… been…” it was silent in thought for a moment. “Years... "

Foxfire cantered forward and stopped to kneel next to Thorax, mindful of the grub that had taken an interest in him. "Yes, it has, my Norn Queen." she agreed in a low voice. "But there have been… swarms of alicorns as of late." The grub turned to her and licked at her snout, and she nuzzled it tenderly.

“Alicorns... “ the Norn Queen let the word sit in her mouth. “More princesses…?”

Foxfire shook her head. "Not princes or princesses. These alicorns I speak of are… degenerates. They want to ruin all that has been built, no matter how many victims die to do so. Or at least, that is what I could glean from scanning areas they've successfully destroyed beyond repair. According to one, they have also lost the ability to breed," she reported. "I know not any other ulterior motives, aside to be able to produce foals again."

The Norn Queen let out a growling gurgle and frowned. ”Threat…”

"A worldwide threat," Foxfire confirmed with a nod. "They've even captured powerful ponies; one with access to a spell that can level a city, and another with the ability to completely engulf a target in lightning if she so chose. There's a third, but… he's a pegasus. I was told he was more or less breeding stock. I know not the exact scale of victims… but it seems we could be dealing with full rehabilitation centers when the alicorn threat has passed in the only way it can. That way would be the non-royal alicorns' complete annihilation."

"In response, Equestria and her allies have raised their armies and specialized squads to curb the alicorns. Almost all alicorns who are caught are executed; they cannot be redeemed. Only one non-royal has escaped with her life, but that is because she is not a degenerate in any way."

A moment of silence followed as the Norn Queen thought over what she'd just heard. The more thought she gave to that which she was absorbing, the deeper her frown became. Within seconds she was outright scowling, and if she possessed eyes she'd have narrowed them to meager slits.

”Thorax...aid Foxfire...protect hive…” she finally spoke. "Stop alicorns…"

Monotony

As the day dragged on, the hive erupted into a flurry of activity. Changelings began doing routine patrols, changing shifts every hour on the hour. Builder worms went into overdrive, producing bile that was then forged into gooey armor. Those changelings who didn't make armor prepared spells and weapons, with some even going so far as to file their horns to a sharpened point. This left Patient and his friends to focus on watching over Jonathan and Charlotte with all eyes available.

Fortunately for them, once they'd assembled into the sick bay, Charlotte had passed out onto a slime-forged half-cocoon filled with moss, blankets, and a few pillows. Jonathan laid in a similar construct belly-up, watching Ember with a wary gaze as Patient examined his ribs for any more injuries the changelings might've missed with his horn aglow. "Would somepony tell me why there's a tentacle monster standing right over there?" Jonathan hissed, squirming a bit as Patient poked him in the ribs.

"I'm a surgeon. Would you like me to examine you instead of the nurse?" Ember quipped, a wicked smirk spreading on her lips. Her tentacles flared and contorted, seemingly growing bumpy bits all around that ended in sharpened points oozing some sort of clear substance. "Because I can make it quick." Jonathan paled and shook his head. "Thought so."

"Don't agitate her, and she won't bite," Patient suggested as his gaze shifted to Jonathan's cracked hooves.

"But still… why?" Jonathan asked as Patient grasped his left foreleg in his magic to study the hoof more closely.

"She's a member of my hit squad," Patient answered, frowning as he saw signs that the hoof was growing outward and away from the bone. "Whelp, looks like you're getting slipperfoot…"

"I'm impressed he can still stand if it's slipperfoot he's got," Foxfire chimed in, a frown creasing her brow.

Patient prodded at the hoof with his magic, his frown deepening as the inner wall of said hoof squished like it was puddy. He dropped the foreleg that wasn't his own and sighed. "Both the Destroyers will need to grow entirely new hooves. Their current sets have been softened within and are growing without. I'm suspecting rickets on top of slipperfoot."

"If it comes to it, we'll have the builder worms make them some more slime to construct temporary ones in the meantime. But let's let them rest for today. We've done enough poking to make the Manehattan police envious," Foxfire sighed, to which both Patient and Jonathan agreed with mute nods.

Ember folded her tentacles back to her sides, and the bumps shifted in a way they seemed to fold inward on themselves, making the limbs sleek again. Seconds after, the clear substance that coated them dried, making them glisten slightly. "What do we do now, though? If the farriers around here don't come soon, their hooves will only get worse," she pointed out.

Patient donned a smile and slowly turned to Nagare. "You're helping me when the hoof-files and trimmers come." When that made a green brow raise questioningly, he added, "You have talons. You'd have a firmer grip on the equipment, and one of us will have to hold up Jon and Char while they get their hooves treated." The brow lowered and Nagare nodded.

"Hai," he replied tersely.

"I wonder what the changelings have that pack vitamin D if it's rickets. But either way, these two aren't fighting for a long while yet," Rekka interjected, causing Trigger to turn to him with a snort.

"When'd you start taking a doctorate?" Trigger snarked, earning a huff of flared orange nostrils for his trouble.

"What, didn't you learn lack of vitamin D causes rickets in high school?" Rekka retorted without turning to Trigger.

“Who said I had to give a shit about high school? It’s all this ‘no foal left behind' nonsense and 'least common denominator' crap that only protects the stupid, like me, from failing.”

Rekka turned to Trigger with a small smile on his muzzle. "You mean to tell me you're a dropout? No wonder you took to drinking. You must've disappointed some really expectant folks and got disowned for it," he quipped, noticing that Trigger gave a slight wince at that. He decided to ladle it on, "That's one of a few things I can think up off the top of my head to explain your being a dumbass. Or maybe… you're the mailpony's foal."

Trigger sighed in exasperation. “I didn’t drop out; I graduated with all C’s. And yes, I am the mailpony’s kid. What’s wrong with that?”

Rekka's smile dropped. "You serious?" he asked.

“Yeah.” Trigger forced a gaze of anger towards Rekka, but quelled it and then looked past him. “Ember’s the dropout you’re looking for.”

Rekka instantly turned to Ember to find her looking at him with all three of her eyes. She gave a slow nod. "I'd rather not get into why," she stated, her voice cold and her gaze piercing. Her ears twitched as another hole opened up behind her, and she spun around to face it as Thorax strode in. "Anything?"

Thorax shook his head. "No further alicorns have been sighted. Everyling’s on diligent watch; in fact, more effectively than I could recall when Chrysalis was still ruling," he replied. "All entrances going outside have been closed off, except for the ones at the top of the hive and the hole punched through the side."

Ember nodded and sighed. "Alright. As far as food goes, what all do you have?" she asked.

“Plenty,” Thorax replied assuredly. "We have a wide selection."

“You mind giving some to Mister and Mizzus Twiggy over here?” Distrance asked.

Another hole opened up, and as if reading Distrance's mind, a feminine voice said, “Already on it.” With that, Constantina buzzed from the hole and over to the group, gave everyone a warm smile as they saw she magically carried two large plates.

Set on one large plate were bowls of soy paste, chunky mashed potatoes, various brands of cheese, a few crackers of different shapes and sizes, and leeks next to each other. There were also bowls of rice, and what looked like cooked mincemeat, kept on the second. Along with the mincemeat sat a gnarled rooty-looking object, seemingly freshly dug up and peeled to expose a white sub-skin beneath. All of the foodstuffs were kept in one of their own individual protective cocoons.

"What's that?" Trigger asked, looking at the mincemeat-looking substance warily. Foxfire and Ember both helped themselves to some, though they were mindful to leave enough for anyone else that wanted a meaty morsel. They also took some cheese, crackers and potatoes, oddly avoiding the vegetables for some reason. Rekka and the rest of the Task Force, though, were more than happy to fill in on that front. They took most of the soy paste and leeks for themselves.

"Smoked salmon, imported by Equestrian airships. And cooked," Constantina replied, cantering over to Jonathan and Charlotte once everypony else helped themselves to a snack.

“Never had salmon before. Only some beef…” Patient shrugged and took some of the salmon off the plate, eating it.

“Beef? When was this?” Distrance asked, taking a bit of the salmon as well.

“Remember when we had that detachment of Griffons we served with in the war? They had some in their rations,” Patient explained.

Constantina turned to Charlotte and nudged her with a hoof, only to garner nothing except for the slow rhythmic movements of a breathing chest. "Um… anyone have a jolting-out-of-sleep spell? She needs her root…" she mumbled.

“Patient can electrocute her. He zaps his girlfriend all the time when they—” Trigger found himself with a hoof from Distrance shoved into his mouth before he could finish that sentence.

“Shaaadap,” Patient replied with masked anger as he trotted to Charlotte, using some magic to tingle the tips of her hooves. At first he got no response, but figured it was because of how badly in shape her hooves were. So he moved his magic up her legs, and made sure to get her tail while he was at it...

A second later, she jerked her good legs up sharply and woke up with a strangled cry, and she also managed to sock him in the process with a raised back leg. Another second passed before the jolts stopped running through her system and her eyes snapped open, but it took a good minute before she registered that one of her back hooves was touching something.

Charlotte hadn't been given the chance to dwell on it, though, as Constantina merrily chirped, "It's time for your medicine." Her legs then dropped, and she tilted her head back to give a groan as the worst headache she'd ever felt finally settled in and declared residence.

"Oh, Trigger… I should tell ya something," Rekka piped up, watching Constantina as she lifted the root with her magic and shoved it into Charlotte's mouth mid-groan. He turned back to the stallion in question, whose mouth released Distrance's hoof with ease.

“Yeah?” was the response.

"Charlotte and Jonathan are forbidden from drinking any sort of booze. And since you gave one of them booze…" Rekka trailed off, quickly stuffing his mouth with a leek.

"What?" Trigger asked, his brow raised.

This time, it was Tenmei who spoke, in Germarenic no less, "Dywedodd Rekka Shining am yr hyn a wnaethoch. Rydych mewn trafferth.”

”Rekka told Shining about what you did. You’re in trouble.”

“Patient, what the hell did he say?” Trigger asked, turning to Patient for a translation. What he heard next made him blanch within seconds.

Patient shrugged. “You’re fucked.”

*********

The rest of the day, and much of the following day passed without further incident. Patrolling the hole at the top of the hive as the sun began setting were two changelings, one blue and one yellow. Both were accompanied by Ember. To pass the time, they began having a bout of small talk. "Do you use your tentacles for everyday things, like opening doors or washing dishes?" the yellow changeling asked, sporting a masculine voice.

Ember shook her head. "Not really, because I don't have a house. At most, carrying things," she answered with a shrug.

"You don't have a place to live in?" the blue changeling asked in a feminine tone, turning to Ember with a brow raised.

Ember shook her head again. "Not many ponies would be willing to give me a place to rent on the basis that I am a tentacle monster," she stated. "I can't exactly cover my assets with a cloak. It's not as easy at it may seem."

"But don't they accept Discord over there?" the yellow changeling pointed out with a frown.

"Only because news of his reformation reached all corners of Equestria. Me? I gotta keep a low profile, unless a swarm of red and black alicorns decide to show themselves in a town en masse," Ember replied with another shrug. "Patient and his clique accept me though, and so does Shining to an extent."

The two changelings exchanged glances. The blue one was the first to turn back to Ember. "Did you do something to make the ponies over there not welcome you as much?" she asked.

"Far as I know, no. They just boot me out unless an alicorn is pestering them," Ember answered, sighing. She turned to the badlands and surveyed the miles and miles of barren soil, keeping her eyes away from the setting sun in doing so. She caught sight of a moving shape in the distance and zeroed in on it as it passed a withered tree, closing the eyes on her face to focus her third solely on it.

It felt as if looking through a telescope lens; a sort of zoomed-in picture of the scene immediately filled her third eye and her brain. Tri-pupils dilated, and tri-irises widened as the extra ocular spotted a shape that had no chance of camouflage if it even tried, unless it attempted to blend in with a crowd of ponies befitting the moniker 'freak of nature' attending a hardcore rave party. Even then, the shape would stick out like a sore thumb due to how gaudy it was.

It was a distant alicorn stallion with a rainbow mane and rainbow stripes on a blackened body, furthered in garishness by a golden horn, silver wings, and eyes that sported six irises in one set of sclera with ease. The sod was zig-zagging his way to the hive, seemingly unaware he was detected, amusingly dragging a large set of copper testicles that looked more like inflated airbags attached to his ass than anything else.

"Just what sort of treasury vault did that bastard have to raid to get testicles as big as Celestia?" Ember asked, her tone carrying a slight note of awe amidst a sea of scorn.

"What is it?" the yellow changeling asked, turning to Ember with a brow raised.

"We got an alicorn… with luggage. Sunshine, the colt is litterally dragging his balls across the badlands," Ember replied, gaze still affixed on the alicorn.

The alicorn stopped, seemingly having noticed he was being watched, and ducked behind a nearby rock. Unfortunately for him, his balls jutted out behind the stone by a good foot and some impressive seven inches, giving his position away to anyling with sharp eyes that so much as looked in his direction.

"He's not even trying, for fuck's sake!" Ember exclaimed in exasperation, resisting the urge to facehoof as the sod tried to make his balls sink below the rock to no avail. She noticed they didn't squish when his hooves and horrendously rainbow-colored magic worked furiously to meld them; not one dent was formed in copper-colored flesh.

"Yep, those balls are coming off… when he gets here," Ember snarked, shaking her head. "We could melt the… copper into something useful. I think it's copper anyway."

“It’s brass! Polished to the Nth degree!” a shout was heard from behind the same rock.

"Whoa… he has some good hearing. Whose ears did he lop off?" Ember asked, a smile fast budding on her muzzle.

“I’m part bat-pony!” came another shout.

Ember's urge to facehoof only grew in tandem with her smile, and soon enough she found herself giggling at the absurdity the world threw at her today. Her legs shook as her giggling grew louder, and Sunshine and his fellow were looking at her with concerned gazes. "Should we stop her?" Sunshine asked, frowning.

"Nah. I'd probably laugh if I didn't understand what a few somelings were saying… wait…" the blue changeling trailed off, eyes slowly widening with dawning comprehension. "She said alicorn… and we all heard an alicorn..." She turned to Sunshine. "Sound the alarm immediately."

Sunshine nodded and his horn glowed vibrant purple, and he reared up on his back legs, almost flinging the spell from himself in the process. A purple orb of light shot up into the sky, high above the hive, before it exploded in color with a deafening boom on par with a vicious clap of thunder. The glow then transformed into a large, bright neon arrow which then propelled itself down at an angle, only stopping with an earth-shaking crack appearing in the dirt as it embedded itself into the rock the alicorn hid behind and caused said rock to explode into tiny pebbles.

As for the alicorn himself, even with his massive testes weighing him down, he was still sent flying quite a distance away; easily a few yards if one had to estimate. He skid to a landing, rending deep gashes in the ground with, again, the help of his testes. Eventually, he stopped still when he collided with the withered tree where Ember initially spotted him.

"That's a snazzy alarm system, although primitive," Ember remarked, her barrel puffing up as her gaze moved to track the sorry bastard. "Regardless, I think Mr. Peacock's gonna be out cold for a while." As she said that, a hoofful of changeling guards buzzed over to where the alicorn was at, and she could hear them distantly laughing as they got in close to see his large sack. Slowly, almost delicately, they hefted the sod up once they were close enough to do so, and wasted no time transporting him to the top of the hive.

It took them about ten minutes even at top speed to deposit him on the floor of the makeshift crow's nest, during which time Ember opened her closed eyes. The alicorn landed with a heavy thud, and she turned to him to find his eyes closed and his form more or less unmoving. "The blast killed him? Awww," she pouted, lifting a hoof and stomping it in a manner reminiscent of a petulant foal.

"But aren't dead alicorns better?" the blue changeling asked, lifting a hoof to gesture to their gaudy guest for emphasis.

"Not always, Dreamy Raindrops. We have no information on why they're migrating here and there and wrecking whatever they can get their grubby hooves on. Ergo, I was hoping to extract a motive from this unusually endowed sod," Ember explained with a shrug. She donned a small smile as she peered closer at the alicorn's chest and realized it was moving up and down.

The alicorn was still breathing. She turned to Dreamy Raindrops again and added, "That, and ask how the hell he managed to get a nutsack this big. If he's a scout, then the other alicorns did a shit job of selecting somepony who is competent—this dude's less subtle than me, and that's tragically saying something."

"So… how should we wake him up? He looks like he suffered a bad concussion," Sunshine piped up.

Dreamy Raindrops trotted over to the alicorn and viciously slapped him across the face with a hoof; immediately, he awoke with a start.

“Wh-what??” he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

“Name and why you’re here. Now., Sunshine seethed as Raindrops held the alicorn down with his front legs.

“I’m not telling you anything, you goddamn fascist capitalist!” the alicorn yelled as he struggled in vain, but was effectively held down by fast-acting tentacles. "Weak-ass bitch," he snarked, turning to the source of his sudden obstruction.

Ember's muzzle opened in a smile better befitting of a great white shark. "Then how am I holding your limbs down, if I am a 'weak-ass bitch?'" she retorted.

"Must've spent most of his energy lugging these around," Dreamy piped up, planting a hoof on the brass testicles.

"Fair point," Ember agreed with a nod. Her third eye fixed itself onto the alicorn's six-irised face. "Your eyes certainly give mine a run for their money. You have every color of the rainbow in those things. Are you a night club reject?"

"We have an—" another voice cut in but then stopped as a hole opened behind Sunshine, from which emerged Foxfire. She found herself staring at the impossible-to-miss ballsack, and before long her jaw dropped open.

"Holy shit?" Ember finished for her, garnering a hasty nod in response. "I understand." Directing her attention to the alicorn, she frowned as he began flailing his head about. "Stop struggling. You're making this hard on yourself."

"Eat shit, capitalist scum!" the alicorn hissed, angling his horn at a tentacle holding his left foreleg down. He stabbed the magic-casting instrument into the limb before Ember could react, and instantly the limb started developing angry, almost black webs that ran across its surface.

Ember screamed in pain and jerked all of her tentacles away, backpedaling a few paces for good measure. Her wounded tentacle flew to her third eye to be scrutinized, and she hissed as the web of darkening veins continued to grow. "Shit shit shit!" she cursed, her horn glowing in a vibrant red light. Her own limb was embraced in the aura, and twisted it violently before pulling it taut.

Everyone, even the alicorn, watched as the afflicted tentacle started to stretch beyond the length of the other tentacles, and before long it reached the other side of the crow's nest. The webs ran further along the limb, almost seemingly hastening its reach, in response to the stretching.

A horrific tearing sound permeated the area for some seconds before the tentacle snapped in two; the webs could not reach the midway point before then. The other half, more or less a bleeding stump now, retracted to its owner and curled up at her side. The first half of the tentacle was embraced in a red glow, before it incinerated as if spontaneously. All was silent after that, save the crackle of unnaturally crimson flames as they ate away at the lump of flesh and turned it to ash.

Ember growled and turned to her shortened tentacle, sighing as it stopped bleeding, leaving a glistening stubble of exposed flesh. She turned back to the alicorn. "I ain't going anywhere near him until something is done about that horn," she seethed.

"I've… never seen anyone react to gold like that before," Dreamy piped up.

Foxfire got over her shock of seeing massive balls and sighed. "Seems like she's got a gold allergy," she groaned, her horn glowing. "But I know just the thing to remedy that." Her aura seized the golden horn and violently wrenched the alicorn's head, not enough to break his neck, but enough to cause the accoutrement to bend. The alicorn's six pupils widened in panic.

"No, what, what are you doing?!" he cried as Foxfire jerked his head sharply to the left, twisting his horn the other way in the process.

"Just doing you a favor," Foxfire replied, violently jostling him again and causing his horn to peel off of his forehead. Her eyes widened when it did not take a patch of skin or hair of mane with it; it simply popped off like a piece of wet clay. She made it vanish in a flash of light before he could cry out. "What'd you do, glue it to your forehead?" she asked in a surprisingly sincere tone of voice, her gaze trailing upwards to his silver wings.

"I… uh…" the once-alicorn stammered as the blue aura grappled his wings. Before he knew it, all of his feathers came off in one tug and vanished, revealing bat-pony wings with garishly rainbow membranes stylized to look like a galaxy beneath.

"Yep. Convinced he robbed a treasury vault now," Ember piped up as, similarly, the aura yanked away the brass balls and made them vanish without peeling skin or fur.

Foxfire grinned and turned to Sunshine. "So… quick question," she began, "if you guys reformed, would you still be okay with bashing this false alicorn's face in?"

Sunshine shook his head. "We reserve that for the builder worms," he replied.

"Hrm… then do you mind us," Foxfire began, lifting a hoof to gesture to herself and Ember with it as she spoke, "bashing this false alicorn's face in?"

Sunshine and Dreamy exchanged glances, then turned back to Foxfire. "Well… not until he spills the beans on why he's here, if it's less than… savory," Sunshine answered uneasily.

“They’ll make it quick on you if you tell them,” Dreamy reminded the false alicorn as she stepped in with her horn glowing, grasping the sod's legs in her magic before he had the chance to start flailing again.

"No! Me and my comrades will smash your thinly-veiled fascism and that of the so-called Equestrian princesses!" the flailed alicorn shrieked, spreading his wings in an effort to take off. Sadly for him, the magic grasping his legs increased its area of effect and snagged his wings as soon as they gave their first feeble flap.

"Lift his rear legs. I wanna assess how big his junk is, now that the brass nuts are out of the way," Ember piped up, trotting up to the alicorn. Dreamy assumed a frown bit didn't question the request, and lifted the sod in a way his front hooves were still planted on the nest, but the rest of him went up like a plank. Both could see that he simply didn't have a real set of testicles, and his sheath was so small it looked more like belly fat at first.

Behind the sheath looked like a smear of dried, semi-translucent milk. Ember peered a little bit closer and lifted one of her good tentacles to the smear before grabbing it and tugging it off, pulling a small clump of fur with it, though not enough to leave a bald spot. "How the hell did superglue make those nuts stay on so well?" she asked.

"Must've used the extra-strong brand," Foxfire piped up as she came around to inspect the false alicorn's underside. She lifted a hoof and prodded at the sheath with it, immediately causing a small penis to bulge out with the slightest push. "That is so small I doubt a filly could feel that."

The false alicorn blushed, more in embarrassment and ridicule than confidence. "It's… the biggest one of my flock," he muttered.

Foxfire's eyes widened. "The biggest?" she parroted, before her hoof dropped and a toothy grin spread on her muzzle. Her chest heaved, struggling to contain budding laughter. "The biggest?" she repeated, her voice cracking. "Y-you sure of that?" Her voice went a full octave higher and her chest heaved faster with that utterance.

"No, son, you got it backwards," Ember began, taking a second to pat Foxfire on the withers with a hoof as she doubled over and started laughing. She trotted around to the sod's face and used a tentacle to stroke her sheath.

She turned to Sunshine and Dreamy and mouthed, "Ya might wanna leave soon" as the head of her member poked out. The two changelings nodded and filed down a hole that opened in the floor, but not before Dreamy turned the sod's belly away from Foxfire and let go, dropping him in an instant. He landed flat on his back in short order.

Ember's horn glowed and her magic filled in for Dreamy's own, keeping the alicorn to the floor as the changelings went out of sight. "I-I got what backwards?" he asked, turning to Ember as her length hardened to full mast. He paled at seeing how large it was, and color drained from his face as it contorted to show erratic, sharp bumps that oozed a clear liquid.

"You aren't the biggest," Ember began slowly, her good tentacles likewise contorting to show the sharp bumps that oozed with clear liquid.

"Th-then who is?" the false alicorn asked, his voice cracking and his eyes sparkling in fright.

"Yes. I'm the biggest," Ember replied darkly, using her magic to wrench his entire hindquarters clean off the floor, spreading his rear legs so his asshole was exposed to the world. She cantered to the exposed hole and aligned herself when Foxfire stopped laughing and gave a cough.

"Quick question: what's that stuff on your tentacles and dick?" Foxfire asked, lifting a hoof to wipe away a tear that formed at the corner of her eye. "Because it looks… off."

"If you're thinking it's lubricant…" Ember trailed off and wasted no time; she rammed her dick inside the asshole and hilted it in one go, causing the false alicorn to scream in pain as the member managed to wrench open his prostate and go in a full inch after. "You'd only be half-right."

"Get it out! Get it oooooout!" the false alicorn howled, squirming and as much as the crimson magical grip would allow. It wasn't much, but it did have the effect of brushing his insides against the sharp bumps lining the intruding cock, making him bleed and only further causing searing pain to assault his nerves.

"Not happening until you tell me and Foxy what we wanna know," Ember replied, oddly content to stand there and let him writhe beneath her. "Who're you, why're you here, and whose treasury vault did you rob?"

“I-I have no name, and I-I didn’t raid a vault; they were g-g-gifts!” The false alicorn cried bitter tears.

“From who?” Foxfire growled.

“Our leader…” the false alicorn finally spilled the beans.

“And where is this leader?” Foxfire asked.

“The Citadel.” the false alicorn sniffed.

“Where?” Ember asked as she busied herself with holding him down magically, and she grinned as his struggling slowly weakened as the seconds ticked by.

“The F-Frozen East,” came the strangled answer. "P-please let me go…I’ll t-tell my comrades to m-make your deaths q-quick."

Ember pulled out, sliding out easily thanks to the odd liquid and blood coating her dick. She stepped back and relinquished her magical hold on the sod, letting him land on the floor with another thud. "You won't get the chance," she answered, a wicked grin on her face.

"Y-yes I…" the false alicorn began, rolling over and shifting his hooves so he could stand. Foxfire's horn glowed, but the aura diminished when Ember waved a tentacle in her direction.

"Watch closely," Ember instructed as the sod made to stand on very shaky legs. Blood poured profusely from his asshole, staining the floor beneath him as he took a wobbling step towards the edge of the nest. The instant his hoof touched the floor was the same instant he slipped on his own bodily fluids and yelped as his legs went out from under him. His stomach landed on the floor, and his legs spread as wide as they could go.

Then, he started to spasm. His legs kicked at thin air, his wings began flapping yet could not lift him away, and his head thrashed this way and that. Seconds ticked by, yet his struggles grew feeble and less frantic. Strangled cries issued from his throat, further supplemented by beating wings, and as Foxfire watched she noticed that his eyes were starting to glaze. Within four minutes he was still. Not even his chest moved.

Foxfire turned to Ember slowly, eyes widening and comprehension dawning. "You… you're poisonous?" she asked.

Ember nodded, still smiling. "You're spot-on," she answered in sick glee. "Once the barbs are out and I jab somepony with them, it's game over for them in a matter of minutes. Struggling only prolongs the agony." She gestured to the false alicorn and added, "And these guys? I doubt they eat healthy. They probably don't have very good immune systems; otherwise, he'd have taken off by now and dropped somewhere in the badlands."

Foxfire nodded and turned to the carcass. "Can I do the honors?" she asked, her horn glowing again.

"Go for it," Ember replied, and she watched as blue will-o'-wisps formed in the air and rushed to the body. It went ablaze upon contact with the first orb, and soon the air was filled with the stench of burning flesh. A plume of smoke rose into the sky from the body, climbing high up enough to be seen for miles around.

This started a reaction, although one that would not come until the very next day.

Valkyries

The airship that Asterion and Erebus hijacked swiveled at a sharp 45 degrees, cannons shifting to point at another airship that didn't have anyling hovering around it. Behind the barrier, Thorax stood tall and proud on the crow's nest, smiling faintly with a heavily-breathing Charlotte not even three feet away from him. Surrounding them, Jonathan, and their new guests were several split-in-two alicorn bodies, of which one was still impaled crudely by a bloodied axe.

The green unicorn slumped a bit, looking towards the airships as a second turned onto another, cannons poised to strike at a third vessel. Twin volleys from the ships facing the third raced out, but bounced harmlessly off of a barrier that went up. "Fools, the lot of them…" she muttered under her breath scornfully.

"Who, the alicorns?" Thorax asked, averting his gaze to the unicorn to find her nodding.

"First a horde or three, and now airships. What next, will they find a way to move mountains?" Jonathan hissed, taking a few seconds to sit on his haunches.

"I think it's best not to give the alicorns any more ideas," the earth stallion chided, only to get a glare from Jonathan in return.

"Those bastards made us work for them, Vincent! Who's to say they won't get more creative?!" Jonathan yelled, raising his forelegs and waving them about in the direction of the airships.

"Tragically, he has a point," Charlotte agreed. She simply stared at the airships as they began firing at each other, with shields going up to deflect any and all potshots. Magic volleys went everywhere, with some landing on more alicorns who were on the ground. Others painted the surrounding badlands in a few new splotches of scorched black. "Say, Stella, Loretta, what did the alicorns do to you?"

The two mares remained silent for a moment. Jonathan turned to the one with the shaved wings. "Stella, did they pluck you?" he asked rhetorically.

Stella nodded and gave a defeated sigh, shifting her legs to lay down. "More or less. Other than starvation, they've done nothing to me," she answered.

Jonathan's brow climbed up his forehead. "You sure of that? I think I see a bit of white paint on your hoof," he stated.

"I'll clean it off later," Stella hissed, turning to the airships that were engaged in the process of playing a particularly heated game of hit-me-if-you-can.

Loretta sat on her haunches and her horn glowed again, and she used her magic to pick up a stray stone. "Mayhaps we could engage in a game of hot potato to pass the time?" she piped up, waggling the stone for emphasis. "Because I would much rather do anything than mope, especially since things started turning for the better for us all."

"I think I'll pass. Thanks for the offer," Jonathan replied, dropping one hoof and waving the other dismissively. "My legs ache, and I've been slaughtering alicorns left and right."

"Fair enough," Loretta stated with a nod of understanding. She turned back to the carnage below, and watched as it lasted for two hours on end.

*********

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah!" Foxfire yelled as she, Ember, and Patient teleported again, causing the slowly-but-surely dwindling horde of alicorns to turn to them as they popped up behind them. "Sweet beautiful death in the name of Faust!" With that utterance she charged into the mass of red and black degenerates, burning still more as she went.

"So, how many bits did we rack up?" Ember asked as she resumed hacking and slashing at the monstrosities that dared call themselves ponies. "I mean, we surely have thousands of more bits by now."

Patient could barely hear Ember's utterance over his own slicing and dicing of sable-crimson limbs that were soon flying everywhere. More alicorns piled onto him and Ember, attempting to keep them down, as the airships above fired more potshots at each other. The resulting volleys were deflected, with some vaporizing more alicorns and sending others still skyward.

“A millioooon!” Patient screamed in a horrible, furious tone as he turned for a split second to respond to Ember’s question before returning to the carnage he was sewing. At that moment Foxfire darted past him.

"Shining's gonna pay out the nose when we're done, and the Royal Court will bitch like no tomorrow!" Foxfire shrieked, turning around to sail past Ember. "And there's nothing they can do about it!"

"Tell us something we don't know!" Ember snarked, rearing up onto her back legs to fire off a few lasers at a better angle. The bloodbath had the unfortunate side-effect of making her member poke out, though for the time being she paid it no heed; currently, there were bigger fish to fry. She did, however, notice something else: the flames surrounding her, the fires that kept the gold at bay, were turning as red as the monsters she was slaying.

So too did the ball of death surrounding Foxfire, for that matter. Worse still, the flames grew colder with each passing second. Less and less efficiently were they melting the gold, and Ember could feel her third eye starting to get incredibly sore. Her weapons and armor felt heavier, and her horn felt as though it were rammed into a furnace until it became red-hot. The tentacle coiling her horn reeled back, dangling like an exposed worm. "Shit! Patient, how are you holding up?! I don't think I can go on much longer!" she cried, her utterance causing the alicorns to hasten their approach.

Patient’s brain was on fire. He used magic to swing his weapon so much and with such a ferocity that his magic reserves were running low. His face was flushed beyond all belief, his muscles ached, he huffed and panted, and he was soaked, almost douched head to hoof in sweat and blood.

“There’s too many of them!” he shouted, as Foxfire rushed past once more.

"Even the extra love is depleting! I can't keep up!" Foxfire shrieked, stopping dead in her tracks before turning to the airships above. Her fire dimmed and she immediately noticed the lack of an air unit and the changelings retreating back to the safety of the hive. "Looks like we're on our own!" she yelled. "Let's finish this now, and pass out later!"

"You sure?!" Ember screeched as she impaled three more alicorns at once.

"Positive! If nothing else, we can eat at the hive!" Foxfire answered, her voice dripping with equal amounts of determination and uncertainty. With that she charged back into the fray, doing her best to fry as many alicorns as she was still able. Above them, a third airship turned on its fellow, and some of the cannons pointed downward once more.

Trigger's voice droned out from one of the airships, "You three, back to the hive. Me, Rekka, and a few changelings will take it from here."

Foxfire stopped again before she could complete another lap around Patient and Ember. She, the two grounded Surgeons, and their still-breathing enemies looked up at the airships. Their eyes widened, and comprehension dawned. Before the alicorns could react, Foxfire's flames died, and she, Ember, and Patient vanished in a blue flash of light.

As soon as the trio were off the battlefield, the cannons pointing downward fired in unison. The air was filled with explosions aplenty, dust rose in trembling heaves as the remaining alicorns came under heavy fire from which they could not escape as easily as their enemies had. The lone airship that didn't change direction fired at the others, but all this accomplished was a series of reflected shots that merely hastened the enemy's demise.

In seconds, the air was thick with sediment and soot, and a cloud gathered around the hive. Yet still the airships kept up with their onslaught, until their cannons turned white-hot and caved in slightly from overuse several minutes later. Foxfire, Ember, and Patient, having reappeared at the crow's nest, found themselves with legs threatening to buckle from both the earth-shaking attack and their own exhaustion.

Patient dropped his weapon and sat down on the shaking floor, panting heavily and removing his helmet with a hoof. “Fuck…” he grumbled, scooting his way over to the side 'railing' and peering over at the carnage. The cloud of dust had yet to lift, effectively obscuring everything a foot below the nest.

Foxfire dropped to her stomach and her legs spread out. "You said it," she agreed.

Ember made her weapons vanish in flashes of light before likewise sprawling out. "Somepony sign me up for a spa treatment, I think I'm getting woozy…" she complained.

Thorax let the aura around his horns fade away, and in turn causing his barrier to drop. He turned to Patient. "Is it safe now?" he asked.

Patient squinted his eyes as, finally, the cloud began to settle. He did not answer until a full minute later, when the dust gave way as a breeze blew into the area, revealing several skeletons and scorch marks where the enemy stood. Only one alicorn managed to escape with his flesh intact, but he was pinned by several bones and was seemingly immobilized on top of that.

“I wish I knew a blood boiling spell…” Patient mumbled to himself as he noticed the incapacitated alicorn. “We got a live one! Or at least, one who is still in his furcoat.” Then the alicorn moved a leg. "Yep! Definitely alive!"

“What the fuck!?” Patient could hear a changeling soldier from a nearby place respond to him. He turned to find Minos emerging from a hole in the floor, though he was looking at Loretta, Stella, and Vincent instead of the carnage.

“I know, right!?” Patient shouted back before he turned to Foxfire. “Could you teleport me down there?”

Foxfire lifted a hoof and shook her head. "Drained. Legs hurt. Fuck that noise," she replied curtly, dropping her hoof as soon as she made the proclamation.

Patient thought for a moment as Minos trotted over to him and peered over to examine the carnage, just in time to witness the alicorn haul himself up from the pile of bones. A faint rumbling, like a set of train tracks, filled the air, though Patient couldn't care less about it. “Could you fly me down there?”

“Sure, I wanna see how he survived that!” responded Minos, who quickly flew over to Patient’s front with ease.

He picked up Patient by the armpits with his hooves and buzzed the two of them down to the smouldering ground. The earth was still hot to the touch, but not unbearably so. Slowly, Patient and Minos made their way towards the limping, dazed alicorn who barely noticed them even as they touched down minutes later. The alicorn also didn't seem to notice the rumbling sound, which started to grow as the three airships who turned on the fourth flew around the hive and came in for a landing.

“Now how’d you survive that bombardment?” asked Minos, stepping in front of the alicorn.

The red and black pony froze and snapped back into reality, looking around hastily for the source of the voice. For some reason, it didn't register that Minos was right in front of him. “I, uh—w-what?” he asked, sounding like a filly.

“You heard him,” Patient growled from behind, his utterance causing the alicorn to sloppily whirl around to face him. The alicorn glowered at them.

"I… uh…" the alicorn paused for a bit, pursing his lips before his eyes went wide. "My compatriots leapt on me so I could survive!" he exclaimed, sounding none too convinced of his own words.

Patient's brow rose as the rumbling still increased, now causing the bones of the freshly slaughtered to rattle slightly. "Uh huh," he replied skeptically, turning up to the lone airship that still hovered in the air.

"Blow this place to kingdom come, Rim Job! Send them a nice, lovely bon voyage in the name of communism!" a screechy, feminine voice droned from the still-hovering airship.

“... Rim Job?” Patient asked in disbelief as he turned back to the lone alicorn, his lips twitching as he struggled to keep himself from outright breaking into laughter. Alas it was a losing battle; a few chuckles had already escaped the moment he looked down.

"Who would name their kid Rim Job? Somepony must've had some daddy issues!" Ember cried from the crow's nest, her voice echoing across the badlands.

Patient chuckled some more and looked at Rim's face; it was covered in serious burns, and what little he could see that wasn't scorched was a sickly green a pony was more likely to see on poison ivy. Rim Job glowered at him, his horn glowing with light. But he hesitated with whatever spell he wanted to cast, as he noticed the sound of several sets of galloping hooves in addition to more distant cannon-fire. "What's taking you?! Blow them up already!" the voice from the lone airship droned, but the order may as well have fallen on deaf ears.

Minos turned to where the hoard initially came from, blanching as he saw more alicorns numbering in the thousands heading towards the hive, accompanied by airships, changelings both unconverted and reformed, and a swath of gryphons. "You have got to be kidding me," he hissed, his voice so many octaves higher he legitimately sounded like a filly. His utterance caused Patient and Rim to turn to the source of the commotion, and Patient gaped while Rim Job donned a wide but tired smile.

But these airships were different, they all noticed; half of them sported tattered pairs of wings and changeling-esque busts, and the other half had feather-clad wings and talons and beaks on their mantelpieces. One airship contained a bust that was a fusion between a pony, a changeling, and a gryphon, and it had four pairs of wings instead of two. The airships released volleys of their own onto the alicorns, and those who dodged them were swept up by the airborne gryphons and changelings.

Following the alicorns right on their heels was a massive, house-sized dark grey tank, easily discernable due to twin drills jutting out of either side of the massive barrel. With the drills were two smaller machine guns, and the treads had spikes nesting between them. Standing atop the main barrel, precariously at that, was a lone crystal unicorn mare. Her long scarlet mane and tail whipped about as the tank moved, her cream-colored coat only further highlighting her presence. Piercingly blue eyes zeroed in on the alicorns, yet oddly she wasn't armed nor armored.

In fact, as the tide of alicorns and mechanized death came closer, the trio realized her horn wasn't even glowing. Not one slight spark came from the spire, not one spell was being channeled. She wasn't even using it to maintain balance on the barrel of the oncoming tank.

Patient shuddered as the alicorns were dispensed with well before the force pursuing them surrounded the hive, the airships with this force descended to the ground, and all stopped dead still. He turned his gaze upward to the lone mare, who stared down with an emotionless visage. Slowly, her eyes turned to Rim Job, and one brow raised just an inch in silent askance. "Who are you?" Patient asked, his voice low and quivering.

Reality caught up with Rim Job, and his horn started to gather a bright, unnaturally blood red light. "I, Rim Job, will take you all to hell with me!" he proclaimed.

Yet he did not get the chance to do so; a blue aura grappled him and yanked him into the air by his tail, before a giant, hollow golden star materialized out of thin air and rammed into his barrel. The two held there for but a moment, suspended in mid-impact, before they went sailing into the air away from the hive and the force surrounding it. Within seconds Rim Job was but a fading speck in the distance, before he exploded brilliantly in a ball of white fire that left a sizeable scorch mark in the badlands without hurting anyone else.

Only then did the crystal mare turn to regard Patient and Minos again, before deftly hopping down from the tank with a blue aura surrounding her body. As soon as her hooves touched solid ground the glow dissipated, and she slowly strode over to the two. Patient had to keep his gaze upward to look into her eyes; this mare had to have been at best as tall as Luna. "Lieutenant Admiral Natalie Starcovert, First Division of the Valkyrie Brigade," she responded lowly. "You?"

“Uhh...Patient Care of the...uh, Diabolical Surgeons…?” Patient had no idea what to respond with. Natalie stared at him impassively for a moment longer, before she gave a curt nod. She turned to the airborne airship with white-hot cannons, and as if on cue the barrel of the tank swiveled and turned up to face it. A single shot fired from the barrel, making the machine recoil slightly, and the airship sent up a shield in defense.

Patient watched as the blast slammed clean through the dome and out the other side of the airship, whilst at the same time sending it further away from the hive and the gathered gryphons and changelings in the process. "Anti-aircraft, magic-shield-piercing rounds. Crafted just for such an occasion," Natalie murmured as the airship fell down to hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

“We could’ve fuckin’ used these earlier,” Patient grumbled. “We appreciate the help.”

Natalie nodded again, and turned to the tank. "Secure the hive and help wounded and yadda yadda?" she asked, as though the tank were a living being.

A hatch that Patient couldn't see before opened from atop the tank, and for a few seconds all was silent. Then somepony flew out of it, but a blur for another second before stopping to land behind Patient. He whirled around to find a pegasus stallion easily as tall as Natalie, sporting a black-and-silver officer's uniform that only accentuated his burnt orange coat, red mane, torn ears and crimson eyes. "Affirmative," the pegasus replied curtly.

As one, the gryphons and changelings that came after the now-dead alicorns moved, flying into the air as a swarm in itself. The sky was shrouded by bodies upon bodies; there were so many present and accounted for that Patient lost count. He froze as the pegasus turned to look at him and him alone. "I take it you were helping hold the fort here?" he asked slowly.

Patient nodded. "Yes." He saw something in those red eyes of the pony before him; something the red and black alicorns lacked. A slight glint that commanded authority, respect, and intellect. Then, something clicked in his head. The tank, the airships, the gryphons and… "Admiral Lance?" he squeaked as comprehension dawned.

"The one and only," Lance replied, and a slight grin spread on his muzzle. Patient had the feeling it was of the smug sort, but it did not look to be such. "What's the casualty count among you and yours?"

Patient blanched, and his ears fell back. "Several… hundred?" he guessed.

The Calm

Days passed before a train came to pick the exhausted Surgeons, Task Force, Foxfire, and the Destroyers from the Changeling Kingdom station. Thorax and Lance accompanied them, leaving the rest of the Valkyrie Brigade to sort whatever other mess cropped up in the meantime. Once they boarded, they filed into the amenities' cab, finding two things first and foremost right off the bat.

One was Shining Armor sitting at a booth to greet them, and sitting in a baby seat was Princess Flurry Heart who cooed and giggled at the arrivals. The second was that the tables were laden with fresh food whose aromas wafted into the nostrils of the lot, making the less restrained amongst them salivate with anticipation. Silently, they filed into the seats, the groups splitting up to keep to themselves. Foxfire grabbed Trigger with a hoof and nudged him to sit next to Shining. Thorax, curious as to why she was doing this, decided to sit on Shining's other side, very close to Flurry Heart.

The Task Force and Surgeons were watching Trigger intently without touching their food, while the Destroyers already began eating with a slow, controlled pace that belied their hunger. Lance moved to sit next to Trigger, and Foxfire sat after he did, effectively cutting off his only route of escape.

Shining turned to regard Lance with a passive gaze. "Situation was under control?" he asked.

"More or less before I arrived," Lance replied with a nod. "The enemy had four airships of their own, and the Task Force wants extra to clean and keep three of the damned things."

Shining turned to Rekka, who nodded with a knowing smile. "First time piloting aircraft, and the alicorns made it stupidly easy. They had everything labeled," he chirped.

Shining nodded and turned to Trigger before assuming a predatory smirk. "So… I've decided on your punishment for helping one of the four Destroyers bypass probation," he said ominously.

Trigger blanched at that, and his mane almost stood on end. "N-no booze?" he stammered.

Shining's smirk widened. His eyes averted briefly to Charlotte, who turned to face the scene with a roll sticking out of her mouth. He turned back to Trigger and replied lowly, "No, something… worse. But if you do a good job, your pay will be doubled."

Trigger relaxed a little at that. Double the pay meant more booze and smokes, after all. "Wh-what is it?" he asked, sounding hopeful.

Shining's smirk widened still, and began twitching just to stay in place. "Airship cleaning duty," he replied tersely, the utterance causing Trigger's pupils to dilate. "Once we get back to Canterlot, that is. Rest up for now. You'll need it."

Trigger merely sighed and cursed under his breath, making sure Flurry Heart couldn’t hear him before nodding sourly. Shining continued to grin at him, but then shifted it to Charlotte, who whimpered and hastily turned around with flattened ears. "Oh don't think you're off the hook either, miss. But your punishment will be delayed until you can be deployed again," he chided.

Flurry Heart giggled and threw her forelegs into the air. Foxfire turned to her and gave a toothy smile, yet that only made Flurry giggle some more. "So, what shenanigans have you been up to lately?" Foxfire chirped.

"Eating, throwing mashed peas everywhere, playing… you know, the works for a typical baby," Shining replied. "In spite of being an alicorn… and speaking of alicorns…" That caused everyone to immediately turn to him, with the Destroyers having wide, hopeful eyes while the Task Force sported raised brows betraying immediate skepticism. The Surgeons and Thorax maintained straight faces, save the sulking Trigger.

Shining's horn glowed, and within seconds a scroll materialized in a flash of magenta light. He levitated it so it was inches from his muzzle and opened it before clearing his throat. Briefly scanning the contents before nodding in approval, he began to read, "I…"

*********

“... Prince Blueblood, and Princesses Celestia and Luna, would like to congratulate you all for your continued service to Equestria and your continued fight against the red and black menace," Blueblood spoke, with a scroll hovering before him as he was standing before an assembled crowd of various ponies, hippogryphs, and whatever else decided to join the fray in the banquet hall informally known as the Royal Court.

"As it stands, I would like to announce two things first and foremost." Blueblood paused to let that utterance sink into his gathered crowd. He briefly looked up to a hovering projection screen wrought of magic, showing a much bigger crowd gathered outside the castle in every street it could fill.

Blueblood turned back to the scroll before continuing, "Firstly, in light of recent events, we have granted commoner, noble, and royal alike the right to strike at the red and black menace in self-defense, should they be able to do so without the aid of a hit squad given the Royal Seal of Alicorn Bounty Hunting."

Briefly, he turned to his left to look into the crowd before spotting Patchouli, who grinned and nodded before he returned to the scroll. "With that said, there shall be an official notary in every town with a list of approved hit squads and their members. Complete with pictures of the squad members in question, so one can hire them as needed to deal with individual cases of red and black alicorns."

"Which brings me to my second thing." Again, Blueblood let it sink in, spinning around to look at the gathered crowd to take in their tense bodies and unmoving faces. Once he came to a stop and faced the projection, he continued, "Anypony caught housing, helping, or hiring the red and black menace shall be promptly dealt with by the hit squads and them alone. As the hit squads see fit, but we ask for one precaution: to keep whatever dealings done to those caught assisting the red and black menace in supplanting all cultures to be kept out of the prying eyes of foals."

"With exceptions in place, mind you. There are some victimized foals who would like to hurt the red and black menace, after all, and still more ponies who would like to hurt their employers if given the chance. And on that note…"

*********

Another day passed before the train stopped in Canterlot, with all filing out of it. Most trotted alongside Shining and Thorax, leaving Patient, Ember, Tenmei, and Koto at the station. "So… what do you guys want to do?" Patient asked, turning to the other three for their input.

"Spa?" Ember asked.

Patient's brow rose. "Why do you want to hit the spa?" he asked.

Ember donned a grin. "I wanna see if they'll finally let me have a treatment. If Blueblood's in our good graces, then who knows who else could endorse us or something," she pointed out. "Maybe I could relax for once, without worrying about getting the steel-hoofed boot."

"For bad behavior?" Patient asked, garnering a nod from Ember.

"Sut wnaethoch chi yn rheoli hynny?" Tenmei asked, turning to Ember with both brows raised. Ember promptly turned to Patient for a translation.

“He asked how you managed that.”

Ember's grin widened. "Absolutely, positively, buttfuck nothing," she replied.

Patient's eyes widened. "How the…" His mind boggled, struggling to process what he'd just heard. The tentacle monster, doing nothing to become worthy of a boot from an establishment? A red flag went off in his head at the mere notion. "What?" he asked in a high-pitched squeak.

"Exactly. So I'm wanting to try another throw of the dice, if you will," Ember chirped. She turned to Tenmei and Koto and asked, "So… spa?" The two exchanged glances and hesitantly nodded once they faced Ember again.

Patient, seeing he was outnumbered three-to-one, reluctantly nodded. "Lead the way," he grumbled. Ember let out a high-pitched eeeee and cantered along down the street, with Tenmei and Koto following her with hesitant steps. Patient trailed after them, quickly noticing how much his whole body felt like shit from post-battle fatigue.

Well, if it was a spa Ember wanted to hit up for goods and services, then he supposed he had no right to really gripe. If Ember was feeling the fatigue as he did, then maybe this would help her as well as him. Though he wondered what was swimming through Tenmei's head at the moment. Koto, however, he couldn't get a read on; as far as he knew, she only spoke Neighponese. That, and she was looking away every time he tried to look at her face to gauge her expression.

So he decided to ask Tenmei something as he and the rest of his small group rounded a corner to trot down another street. "Beth sydd â'r corn a gwmpesir?”

“What’s with the bandaged horn?”

Tenmei halted for a second, before turning to Patient with widened eyes. “Rydych yn gofyn i'r ferlen anghywir.”

“You’re askin’ the wrong pony.”

*********

The spa was so clean, comparatively to the hive, or even anywhere else in Canterlot for that matter, and packed with ponies to boot. White washed walls held pieces of local painters and potted plants dotted the rooms. Long windows on the roof let in natural light and the light grey carpet was the softest Patient had ever felt in his entire life.

After checking their weapons and armor at the door, the four were escorted to the first part of their treatment; the good ol’ massage. Though Ember had to wrap her tentacles around her rocks, with the exception of the stub-tentacle as it was still healing, if only to make the job of the massage ponies easier.

The Prench masseuses bustled about with their duties, helping the four onto the massage beds that were in one room and getting their backs lotioned up.

“Comment devons-nous travailler avec ces tentacules?” one of the masseuses asked in her native tongue to the other. Another masseuse nodded in understanding.

Koto's ears twitched as the second masseuse stated, “N'est-ce pas? Et la princesse l'approuve.”

Koto sighed and piped up, "Je vais bien avec le monstre du tentacule, et elle se comporte. Je ne vois pas le problème.” Her utterance caused the masseuses to halt briefly, before they resumed their duty.

”I have no problem with the tentacle monster, and she’s behaving. I don’t see what the fuss is over.”

Patient turned to Koto, and he would have blinked if he didn't zucchini slices covering his eyes. "Prenchie?" he asked.

"Oui," Koto answered.

"Apparently, the entire Task Force is bilingual. What second languages do Yuuki and Nagare know?" Ember piped up, grinning widely as a hoof slid onto her withers.

“Siapan ac Rwseigi,” Tenmei responded.

“Chineighse and Hoofgorodian,” Patient parroted.

"Wow. Remind me to take second-language courses one of these days," Ember chirped.

“I could teach you Coltic or Frupish if I thought you wouldn’t get bored and nod off,” Patient chuckled.

"Frupish please. Haven't heard that before," Ember stated in a daring tone.

“En usko, että haluaisit oppia tätä kieltä,” Patient coldly responded in an attempt to confuse Ember.

"How is your jaw not broken right now?" Ember asked sincerely, her third eye blinking.

“Practice.” Patient gave a shit eating grin in response. The massage therapy went in silence after that, save the banter of the masseuses in Prench as they griped about this and that. Several minutes ticked by, before the four were herded into a small sauna, all to themselves. Left to their own devices, the conversation started anew.

“Why’d you drop outta school?” Patient quietly asked Ember as he prodded at the hot coals of the sauna with magic. The door opened before Ember could answer, revealing a fifth pony joining them. Or what would be a pony if not for a heavily-scarred face and a body of stripes. The four turned and found a zebra stallion, who Ember and Patient looked at with blanched faces and widening eyes.

"H-hold the tank… am I dreaming?" Ember asked. The zebra shook his head.

"N-no… you and I…" The zebra blanched. "Please don't hurt me. I'm just here visiting wife, kids, and relaxing…" he murmured.

Ember threw up her forehooves like she was being mugged. "N-no problem. I won't bite," she stammered. The zebra relaxed and trotted in to sit next to Tenmei, and the door behind him closed.

“If, uh...if you don’t mind me askin’. You got a brother or something?” Patient tried to ask as he could swear he saw this zebra’s face before.

“I did; a twin at that. He and I fought in the Pony-Zebra war.” the zebra answered. "My brother… had his face sawed off. Poor bastard got into some nasty deals with red and black alicorns, and… just went nuts. I was dragged in reluctantly." Patient felt his face go numb at the implications. That’s why he recognized this zebra.

He killed his brother. But his brother, according to this lad, made deals with…

"Did you say… red and black alicorns?" Ember asked slowly, her third eye blinking as her brain struggled to process that bit.

The zebra nodded. "Went mad and thought he could become an alicorn himself and take Equestria by storm," he replied, turning to Patient. "His eyes… were blood red when I last saw him seven years ago."

“The same color his eyes were when I saw him,” Patient thought out loud. Some part of him wanted to call shenanigans, but he didn't have the heart to act on it.

“When you saw him…?” the zebra began to ask before something dawned on him.

It became very obvious by Patient’s reaction to his entering that he and his brother were connected somehow. And after a few more seconds of thought, he finally understood.

He was staring into the eyes of his brother’s killer.

"Alas, my brother… while I cannot forgive you for ending his life, I can understand that you likely did it out of your own concerns. Regardless, his suffering is at an end," the zebra muttered slowly and somberly. "The alicorns drove him to madness. It is they I should be enacting retribution upon."

Patient nodded slowly, a knot forming in his stomach. This zebra’s brother was the only living thing he’s killed and felt guilty over. No guilt over the red and black alicorns, obviously, but this stallion’s brother had qualities to him; he had a family, friends, and others who would miss him. And his victim’s sibling was staring him in the same sauna.

Ember leaned over to whisper in Patient's ear, "I'll tell you why I dropped out later."

Even that did little to ease his discomfort.

Author's Note

Beginning of Arc 4

Relaxation, Ruined

"So… why do you have tentacles?" the zebra asked, looking at Ember warily. "Last time we met, you didn't sport such… things."

Ember frowned. "Same reason your brother went mad, except I didn't make a deal," she replied. "I was stupid enough to get drunk."

The zebra nodded and turned to Koto. "Whatever happened to your horn?" he asked. All that garnered was a flinch and ears folding back.

"I say we just relax for right now. It's what the sauna is for, right?" Patient interjected, causing the others to look at him. Silence hung for a few seconds before everyone nodded. "Alright then." Then someone began knocking on the door from the other end. He turned to the door and hollered, "Come in."

The door opened, and in cantered the smallest changeling with mule-like ears Patient had ever seen. This one was unusually pale; stark white instead of ebony black, further accentuated by a broken horn and a foal-sized body. It was more emaciated than even Patchouli, with knees bulging out and spinal vertebra jutting along the back. Its red ribs, carapace, wings, mane and tail were the only things that dared keep some semblance of color. The icing on the cake was a split grin stretching from ear to ear, and blackened eyes housing glowing, beady orbs.

The door slammed shut behind the changeling. It cantered over, seemingly unaware of the gaping stares it received, and proceeded to sit next to Patient. "First day of relaxing… and yet the stares are worth it," it chirped in a raspy, barely feminine, and echoing voice.

Ember scooted away from the changeling, and towards Tenmei. "Patient… give her a wide berth," she muttered. Patient didn't need to be told twice; he scooted away from the changeling as well.

“Uh… hi?” Patient attempted to give the smallest resemblance of a creeped out smile. The changeling nodded to him, and would have smiled back if it were not carved into her face.

Her orbs fell onto him and glimmered a bit. "Hello to you too." Patient noticed a small necklace adorning the changeling's neck; how he missed it, he wasn't sure. But it had three heads, six wings, and two horns.

"What is that?" the zebra asked, looking towards the necklace. The changeling lifted a brow, and the zebra lifted a hoof to gesture to the jewelry.

The changeling turned to the necklace and nodded. "Oh, this thing. Just means I'm a colonel of the Valkyrie Brigade. This was the only thing that would fit me," she replied. She turned back to Patient and added, "Lance decided to give me a break. You expect me to fight much by myself?"

Patient shook his head; the logic of that decision was so painfully obvious he wondered how the Royal Court wasn't in on this yet. "What's your name… and what are you?" he asked.

"This is gonna sound strange, so bear with me." Once the changeling was sure she had everyone's attention, she sighed deeply and answered, "Katie Rubywing, frost wraith."

Ember blanched. "Don't have the shoes, don't have the shoes…" she muttered. Katie rolled her orbs.

"They're at the gates. It's fine." Katie lifted a hoof and waved it dismissively. "Why bring my weapons if I came here to have a good time?"

Patient simply nodded. “You know what, after the shit that I saw at the changeling hive, and the shit I saw in Asgard, I’m not even surprised anymore,” he said in a monotone voice, then added an exasperated sigh after that.

"You sound like you took a cheese grater dildo to the ass," Katie snarked, her head tilting a little to the side.

“I think the only one who’s took something like that was that one alicorn that Ember—” Patient was cut off when a tentacle uncoiled and suddenly thrust itself into his mouth.

Ember rapidly shook her head, her eyes twitching. "No, no, no… nononononononono… no. Don't want that going around and being common knowledge… NO."

Katie's wings spread and buzzed. Patient noticed she had four instead of the usual two. "No need to be upset now. No tears need be shed; you only need to dream. Every hit squad knows how you came to be as you are," she stated rather unhelpfully. Her orbs shifted to look at Koto and she added, "Except maybe the Task Force."

Ember's face drained of its color, and her jaw soundlessly dropped open at the implications. Katie went on, her tone taking on an amused note, "Oh, yes. Only other ones who don't know are the Canterlot elite and the upper crust families scattered 'round Equestria." Ember sat there, still stunned and pale. "All they know is you have tentacles and a third eye, at best."

The zebra nudged Tenmei with a hoof, who then nudged Ember, which caused the tentacle in Patient's mouth to slip out with the grace of a wet, limp noodle.

“Why the fuck do you taste like ramen?” Patient asked immediately after, disturbed only by the sensation on his tongue. Ember couldn't answer, as the implications of Katie's remark still took precedence in her head.

"Is she alright?" the zebra asked, looking at Ember with a concerned frown.

“She’ll need a minute,” Patient reassured the zebra.

"On dirait qu'elle a besoin de plus d'une minute,” Koto chimed in with a worried look.

”It looks like she needs more than a minute.”

"Well… why not take it easy today?" Katie chirped. She lifted her forelegs without toppling forward and added, "So… how was your day today?"

“My whole body hurts,” Ember simply put.

*********

The hours waned, and the sun started setting when the group left the spa with their weapons and parted into groups to do things. Katie went with the zebra, but why Patient didn't know nor care about. Koto and Tenmei went elsewhere, to the far side of town.

Patient and Ember found themselves in the other side of Canterlot; close to the palace and standing in a line of ponies who were gathered in a fancy post office. The columns around them were painted in gold, while the floor was deep violet. The counters had silver and brass accentuating moons and suns, and the post-office workers had half-lidded eyes that suggested they were bored out of their minds.

Many eyes darted to Ember, though thankfully their owners kept any comments they had to themselves. Ember fixed her gaze towards the front of the line, where an unruly unicorn stallion was yelling at a worker and waving a poor orange tabby cat with a stamp on its forehead in unsteady magic.

“Just ship the damn cat already! Ship it to the Bahamares!” the stallion yelled, his voice slurred so much it reminded Patient of when Charlotte decided to have some booze. His unkempt lime green mane and dark purple coat, which held roots that were neither color, did little to suggest anything to the contrary. "I don't care if you have to lop off its legs and pass it off as the friggin' cat the Brigade has! JUST SHIP IT, DAMN YOU!"

The worker frowned with ears folded back, eyes fixed on the cat as it began mewing in protest. "S-sir… I-I may need to call security…" he stammered.

Patient groaned internally and approached the customer. “I know someone who can ship the cat without having to mutilate it.”

“Oh you do? That’s freakin’ awesome man! Why don’t you take him? His name’s Phobos!” the stallion proclaimed, unsteadily turning around to face Patient with such a vacant, vapid gaze he had to stiffen to keep from stepping back. Without warning, he thrust the orange tabby cat to Patient and stumbled out of the building. Ember watched him until he left, and snorted before turning to Patient as he found a cat on his withers.

Phobos meowed again before rubbing his head against the back of Patient's neck, removing the stamp stuck to him in the process. Patient's horn glowed, and in a flash of light he conjured a sealed envelope that had an address, a stamp, and even a small wax seal on the back. Then he conjured a small, open bag filled with bits.

“Please send this to Ponyville. It’s for my fiance,” he told the post-office clerks, who nodded and threw his letter in a hopper. The one with folded-back ears turned to Phobos.

"Sir… could you take the cat? I think the poor thing's suffered enough. Here, a can of food, free of charge." The worker levitated a can of tuna from behind the counter, one perforated with dents that did not bust it open. "That… crazy stallion threw it all around…"

Patient took the can and handed the bits over in exchange. With a nod, he turned to Phobos, who meowed at him with a purr. Ember heard hoofsteps outside the building, faint but noticeable all the same.

The two wandered back outside, where Tenmei and Koto were waiting on them. Koto immediately noticed Phobos and squealed, running over to pick up the cat with her hooves. “Kare wa tottemo kawaii!”

Phobos meowed and licked Koto on the nose, garnering a giggle in response. Patient wondered why there were only two atomic harmony bombs dropped.

Tenmei donned a grin and turned to Patient. "Ydych chi wedi gweld y ceffyl meddwi?”

”Have you seen the crazy drunk stallion?”

Patient widened his eyes and nodded, blowing air out of his lips. “Yeah.”

"He wanted the cat to be sent to the Bahamares. I don't know what he was on about," Ember chimed in, shaking her head. Her face hardened. "But the fact that he's here… means I need to do something." When Patient turned to her, she elaborated, "I have a feeling I'll be in deep shit tomorrow."

"Ydych chi'n gwybod iddo?" Tenmei asked, turning to Ember with a brow raised.

”Did you know that guy?”

Ember looked to the sky and glared as an airship sailed across it, sporting the purples and golds that were more or less all around Canterlot. "I've a feeling… a gut feeling at that…" she trailed off.

Phobos meowed again. Patient turned to regard Koto and Tenmei. "Give the cat to Patchouli, and this can of tuna." He magically gave Tenmei the tuna can and added, "Tell her the cat's a friend." The two exchanged glances and nodded, and Koto shifted to let Phobos climb into her withers. With that, they were off, cantering down a street to deliver the cat.

Patient turned to Ember. "So… why'd you drop out of high school?" he asked.

Ember closed all three of her eyes and sighed. "A handful of ponies… drove me to do it," she replied bitterly. "And if my hunch is correct… they're likely here to bitch at Celestia like no tomorrow."

Document to Turnabout

"Princess Celestia, we must insist that you return Somnus Wisp to my family this instant!" a unicorn stallion with a golden coat and a copper mane hissed as he marched left and right through the Royal Court, with two elderly unicorn ponies with entirely greyed coats and manes cantering in step behind him. The nobles all looked at the trio with scrunched noses and distasteful shaking of their heads.

"But Somnus Wisp has died three years ago," Luna retorted, shaking her head in kind. "We'd have to exhume the body to return her to you."

"Nonsense! A notary told us she's in some hit squad or some such rubbish!" the golden-coated unicorn retorted, scowling at this point. He lifted a hoof, stomped it, and added, "He even gave us a bloody picture of her as she is now! We demand that you remove those accursed tentacles from her body and return her to us at once!" That caused the crowd of nobles to murmur amongst themselves, exchanging glances as the proclamation set in.

Luna frowned. "That's an entirely different mare. She just happened to look like Somnus Wisp is all," she replied, hoping that this could convince the stallion and his two eerily monotone lackeys to back off.

Unfortunately, he pressed on, "'That mare' has Somnus's distasteful cutie mark! There's no chance she could have dyed her coat and painted something else in the place of a z-laden fireball!" The gathered nobles muttered some more, all eyes glued to the stallion at this point.

Then, one of the two lackeys spoke up in a frighteningly dead voice that barely passed off as masculine, "Somnus has yet to pay off her debt to the House of Hydrapike. As a member of Hydrapike herself, she is steeped very deeply in… unpaid dues."

"What do you mean by 'unpaid dues,' exactly?" Luna pressed, eyes narrowing slightly at the notion. She could feel her patience starting to run at its end.

The copper-maned stallion donned a cocky smirk that Luna found sickening; it reminded her of Sir Golden Gelding, and her stomach began forming into knots. "Well… she's spent half the House's fortune on commoner-grade alcohol for one; two, she blew the other half of said fortune on a failed tuition of the highest caliber…"

He paused to let it sink in, and only spoke when he was certain the gathered ponies fully absorbed the weight of his words, "Thirdly, she had the temerity to be allergic to gold. I had to buy her an entirely new set of jewelry to keep her from breaking out."

Luna assumed a tight frown. "Being allergic to gold? What sort of crime is that?" she asked sincerely, unsure of what the hell his third piece to his argument had anything to do with the rest of his riff-raff. "That's not something anypony could control."

“That’s beside the point! The point is, Somnus Wisp needs to pay us what she owes, or we’ll be forced to take more… drastic measures!” the copper-maned pony hissed, his smirk widening.

Luna shook her head. "Somnus. Is. Dead. How could she possibly pay these dues, which are very likely imagined at best, when she isn't even around to hear thy insane proclamations? You might as well ask Shining Armor to revive and wed King Sombra in the course of seventy-two hours!" she exclaimed, lifting a forehoof to wave it for emphasis.

“We have evidence of her involvement in your prized task forces,” the dead-voiced pony spoke up again.

Luna's wings flared at that utterance. These guys had evidence? But then she halted and assessed the situation, looking over the trio to find they had no shred of paper hovering next to them in magical fields, no photos for reference, no documents stating anything to the contrary. "Where is this evidence, then? It seems you've trotted in bare-hoofed," she retorted with confidence, a small smile budding on her face. "And that is the one thing you should never do when approaching the Royal Court; coming here to make insane demands without anything backing your inane claims up."

The dead-voiced pony’s horn glowed a dark green before it materialized a manilla folder next to him.

“We’ve had a contractor take these photographs. It seems she’s not alone.” Luna paled instantly. Contractors? Part of her wondered where and how they'd gotten whatever it was they said they'd had.

She dared to say, "Sh-show me these photos. A-at once." One picture went flying towards her as soon as she made the request, and she deftly caught it with her raised hoof once it was close enough. Sweat started beading her brow when she brought it to her muzzle and saw a scene of Canterlot's train station, with Ember and Patient just leaving the car, followed very shortly by Koto and Tenmei.

“We know at least one of those ponies in the photograph is currently with her. We have eyes around every corner. And here you sit, on your lofty and high throne, feigning ignorance? I, Viscount Cyril Goldhoof, fifteenth son of the House of Hydrapike, will not stand for this folly,” the copper-maned stallion snorted, his smile widening to the point his cheeks shook and threatened to tear.

Luna's face hardened, forming into a scowl. Her wings flared wide, and she rose to stand on her back legs before stomping her front hooves solidly upon the floor. "How about this, Viscount Cyril, should you dare show your face in this Court ever again, or I happen to hear you continue to stalk a mare whose resemblance to Somnus Wisp is coincidental at best, I will have you swiftly executed and eviscerated before the day is out! Now leave, at once!" she yelled, her voice echoing across the Court.

The three ponies exchanged glances, but Cyril's smirk had fallen to be replaced with a frown so deep it seemed to stretch from ear to ear. Without warning, he broke into a gallop, rushing towards Luna with his horn angled at her throat. Before they could connect, a white-and-blond blur shot from the crowd and sent him back with a magical aura of his own, right into the waiting hooves of two royal guards who dove in to catch him.

When the world caught up to Cyril, the first thing he saw was a huffing, puffing, red-faced and fuming Prince Blueblood. His normally-slicked back mane was a mess of tangles, his eyes were bloodshot and twitching, and one hoof was raised and shaking, struggling to stay there as though he were contemplating whether or not to punch Cyril in the snout.

“Don’t you dare try to touch my dear Auntie Lulu again, or I will have you drawn and quartered like the miserable wretches you are!” Blueblood roared in fury. He turned to the guards. "Get them out of the Court, at once!" The guards obeyed, and two more filed in from the doors to round the pale lackeys up before all three were escorted out.

A few minutes passed, with Blueblood standing there, dropping his hoof as he took in shuddering and shallow breaths in an attempt to gather his nerves. The crowd was now facing him, half of them gaping and the other half managing small smiles. Only when he collected himself did he turn to Luna. "Might we add a third part to my treaty regarding the hit squads?" he asked slowly.

Luna nodded. "You were the one who passed that bill," she replied. Then she cracked a smile. "What is it, dearest nephew?"

Blueblood took several more minutes to formulate an answer in his head, before it rolled off of his tongue, "Anypony caught threatening, harassing, or otherwise harming or obstructing the Royal-approved hit squads shall be treated as red and black degenerates. This includes getting documents and photographs without their consent, unless it's by the press or the approved notaries."

"A sound thing to add to the bill. But… it must be held off, for now," Luna began, her utterance making all in the room gape and turn to her. She turned to the door that Cyril was dragged out of, feeling the weight of the stares boring into her. "I've a feeling we might need to delve into an investigation first."

"Agreed," Blueblood replied once he'd overcome his shock.

"Also… I would like to warn… her that she's not the only one with more eyes than she knows what to do with, if you catch the drift," Luna added solemnly, her wings folding and tensing at her sides. "I know not how deep the rabbit hole goes… and suffice to say, I'm not taking chances."

"Might I aid her, then?" Blueblood asked, in turn causing Luna to turn to him with pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks. "I could help her and her squadmates out; Cyril did say he has eyes in every corner… but would that mean just here, or all across Equestria? As it stands, a valued member of the makeshift emergency defense team is being threatened. We cannot risk harm befalling her; I heard from Shining Armor that she's already compromised enough."

Luna took a few seconds to blink and let it soak in. On one hoof, Blueblood himself wasn't a member of any squadron; on the other, though, he had a very valid point. She straightened her posture and fluffed her wings before answering, "Only if you act within Equestria's laws. And swear to not freak out about her tentacles until you are in your bedchambers once the threat over her head has passed. Do I make myself clear?"

*********

Patient and Ember trotted through one of Canterlot Castle's many hallways, flanked on either side by two royal guards who kept their distance. Ember's stub-tentacle fidgeted as they rounded a bend, and her tail shifted to rest between her rear legs. "Where are we going?" Patient asked, frowning as he could see Ember's uneasiness from the corner of his eye.

A guard cryptically answered, "Somepony has requested an audience with you two."

"But who? Why? What did we do wrong?" Ember asked in a frightened tone, shuddering as several bleak possibilities formed in her mind. Her ears fell back as she and the rest of the group kept on trotting along.

“Neither of you did anything wrong, but this is a very important pony who would like to discuss something,” the guard elaborated. “If you’ll just follow me, I’ll show you to him.”

That did little to ease Ember's growing trepidation. If anything, she was more incensed to turn and make a run for it. "Godcat help me," she muttered.

“Just this way,” the guard said as he rounded a corner to a short hall that ended with an open door. Patient and Ember trailed behind him to the room beyond that door, bracing themselves for whatever or whomever wanted to see them.

The decorations were lavish, almost garishly so; if there was a rare gemstone or expensive mineral, it was used to frame pictures and dot tables like somepony's deranged art experiment. Sitting on a couch hewn of brass, with plush silk cushions was the last pony Patient and Ember expected. He beckoned them on with a raised, curling hoof, and the two very reluctantly trotted to him with faces set in wide-eyed gapes.

"P-P-P-Prince Blueblood?" Ember squeaked, unable to comprehend what—or more accurately, whom—she was seeing. Hastily, she bent her front legs to bow, keeping her tentacles folded at her sides out of sheer shock.

Patient reeled in his jaw and bowed, though he muttered, "Why am I not surprised?"

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve summoned you here, aren’t you?” Blueblood asked. When the two stood and shook their heads in unison, he frowned. “I have a proposition, but it seems the guards didn't inform you of it.” He turned to glare at the two guards briefly, who flinched and folded their ears back.

“What would that be?” Patient asked as he finally reeled in his surprise.

Blueblood turned back to Patient and his face softened. "To cut a long story short, in your vernacular, there have been ponies… spying on you two since you came to Canterlot this morning. The only reason I know of this was because the ponies doing it were stupid enough to reveal themselves before the entirety of the Royal Court," he began.

Ember paled, and her stomach twisted into a knot. "Y-you're kidding," she muttered.

Blueblood shook his head. His horn glowed, and in a flash of light a small stack of papers appeared. He passed the sheaf to Patient, who took it in his own magic. "I sincerely wish I was joking about this," he replied grimly.

Patient flipped through the papers, finding several dated photos of him and Ember in various locales. Somepony even caught them receiving the 'happy ending' treatment in the spa; Patient courtesy of Colgate, and Ember getting one from two masseuses. Patient looked at the dates on each photograph, noticing some years old and others being fairly recent.

A few were even taken that very day. He paled and turned to Blueblood. "Is this… blackmail material?" he asked.

"No, because I'm not a blackmailer. However, the ponies who took the photos could have used it as such, if they weren't confiscated earlier today," Blueblood replied. "And that's just what they had with them at the time."

"What… do they want?" Patient asked, his ears folding back.

"Your tentacled companion," Blueblood replied, turning to Ember. She flinched and sat down with her tail moving between her rear legs to cover her assets. "And they want her… as just a pony. They demanded we remove her tentacles and such, which would be a death sentence. Her extra limbs and third eye are attached to far too many vital arteries and organs to count."

Blueblood turned back to the still-blanching Patient. "And maybe your head… and the heads of the other Surgeons, and possibly even the Task Force. Though on that, I am not entirely certain," he added. "They even had some pretty… bizarre reasons for wishing to claim your friend."

Patient gritted his teeth behind his lips and sighed. He could feel his cheeks flushing with anger, embarrassment, and disgust. Nopony touches him or his friends! Unless it was Colgate fussing over their teeth or something along those lines. "What…" He gathered himself before he could explode, "what 'bizarre' reasons did they have?"

Blueblood's face hardened. "They claimed she blew the family fortune on a failed tuition and, I quote, commoner-grade alcohol," he replied. "They even cited her gold allergy as a reason, strangely enough. It's an allergy; what are they going to do, just wish upon a star to make it go away?"

He turned to the guards, and sighed. "Summon Duchess Sapphire Reedwind of the House of Reedpipes this instant. I have something to tell her too," he ordered. The guards nodded and filed out of the room, and soon all that was left of them was the fast-fleeting sound of their galloping hooves.

"House of Reedpipes?" Patient queried, turning to Blueblood again with a brow raised.

Blueblood nodded. "Yes. Some of the Noble Houses have ludicrous names," he answered. "Some of them have never ceased to amaze me. Some of their Knight Houses are even worse."

"Such as?" Patient pressed.

Blueblood smirked. "There's the House of Cushions, and their Knights are called the Rim Jobs. The Reedpipes also have the largest collection of woodwind instruments in all of Equestria. I heard a Knight for that clan also uses, of all things, a yo-yo as a weapon," he answered.

Patient's eyes rolled and then widened, as he recalled somegryph who used a yo-yo as a weapon. “So you’re tellin’ me that…”

Blueblood nodded, cutting him off. "Oh, yes, the Task Force is mostly Knights. Only one of them's a noble," he answered. He leaned in just a little closer to Patient and added, "And that's one of several things a pony should never do: threaten nobility and Knights." He leaned back afterwards. "The rest of the Court was… hesitant to let them join the battle against the red and black menace since they're still young and impulsive, but alas, one such monster hurt the young Reedpipes heiress. Managed to break half her horn off."

Patient's jaw dropped. "No way…" His brain struggled to process what he'd just heard.

Blueblood nodded. "And ever since then, she'd been bashing red and black faces in. I have no clue what else the alicorns have done to upset her, but I suppose she's merely acting within the Golden Rule: they treated her terribly, she's every right to treat them terribly in kind," he stated. "Poor dear's probably going to be the laughing stock of the more… cold-hearted nobles of the Court, if she were to ever return without a fully-grown horn again. It would be remiss of me to let that happen."

"And one such cold-hearted noble had to be dragged to prison today," Blueblood concluded, shifting his forelegs to rest one over the other. "All because he made those photographs."

Patient reeled in his jaw again, yet still his brain threatened to black out. He felt a supporting hoof come to rest on his withers, though that hoof trembled. He swallowed a lump and began taking deep breaths to calm himself. Blueblood was silent, seemingly content to let his guests absorb the information. Several minutes passed in silence, only broken when the sound of galloping hooves echoed in from outside the room. The three turned as a duchess with a crisp, cyan coat and a blue mane cantered into the room, followed very closely by a frowning Koto.

The duchess had a deep frown on her face, and she turned to Blueblood. "Is it true? Is it true that somepony might have threatened my child?" she hissed.

"Sadly, Sapphire Reedwind, that would seem to be the case," Blueblood answered with a slow nod. "It was a pity you didn't attend Court today; otherwise, you'd have seen the pony who made the threat."

Sapphire's glower deepened. She cantered over and sat down next to Ember. "Why?" she growled.

"I have no idea as to why they would threaten your child… but they have also threatened one of said child's… friends," Blueblood answered, figuring that was a good reply as any. "And that, in my book, counts as a threat to the child herself."

Patient felt another hoof poking at his withers, and he turned to find Koto looking at him with concern. She sat down next to him, her brow slanting. 'Is it true?' she seemed to ask. Her face blanched as he nodded.

"But, since this is another noble we're dealing with, we have to… deal with this as nobles do, so to say. Which means no needless bloodshed, except in the event the noble I speak of has been caught with alicorns in his employ," Blueblood began, once more catching the group's attention. "Which means we'll have to take the long road."

He turned to Ember again. "The noble said you were one of the members of his House. Is it true?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Never was a noble or a Knight. Nor will I ever be one, unless I manage to marry one of the two with an extreme tentacle fetish," Ember replied. "Which will probably be never."

Sapphire closed her eyes and sighed. "So… would you have any suggestions as to how we approach this, then?" she asked. "This isn't exactly a trot in the park."

Blueblood pursed his lips and contemplated for a few seconds. "Hrm…" He lifted a hoof and idly tapped his chin with it in an effort to get the gears to start turning. Within seconds his hoof dropped. "This is going to sound ludicrous, Sapphire, so bear with me…" At her nod, he cleared his throat and turned to Patient and Ember. "Tomorrow, you two will attend the Royal Court. Not as snackmaids or anything like that, mind you."

Patient and Ember blanched until their faces were white. "Th-then as what?" Ember asked, her voice but a strangled whisper.

"As Knights. You're friends with a noble heiress, so we could pass you two off as Knights," Blueblood began, smiling again. "Of course, half the Court is going to fuss incessantly over it more than likely, but they're not our concern. I'm expecting the one noble who procured those photos to return to Court absolutely livid."

Sapphire slowly turned to Patient and Ember, comprehension dawning. "You're… expecting the noble who…"

Blueblood nodded. "Yes. I'm expecting him to make a fool out of himself again. And what better way to do that than to have him and the very pony he wants in the same room?" he asked. He turned to Koto and added, "But, unfortunately, it would require the young heiress to come as well."

Koto tensed up and turned to Sapphire for a few seconds, before directing her gaze back to Blueblood. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Don't worry, we'll get your translator Knight as well. And you won't be required to speak before the rest of the nobles; just attendance is all that matters in your case. Understood?" Blueblood asked, garnering a very hesitant nod from Koto. "Good. Now… you three need to rest up. I'd suggest…" he paused to turn to Patient and Ember again, "sleeping in either the Knight barracks or in the manor itself."

Petty Feudalist Politics

The next morning, just as the sun came up, the Royal Court was filled with a one-pony banter. Blueblood explained his little plan to Luna and Celestia, who were still munching on breakfast as he more or less ranted and raved. The Surgeons and the Task Force, as well as Sapphire, were also accounted for, though they let Blueblood do all of the talking. Ember looked at the Task Force, frowning as she saw all of them sported bloodshot eyes with bags beneath them.

It took him several minutes to cease rambling, and another five so Celestia and Luna could finish eating. Luna was the first to speak, a wicked grin on her face, "So… you're betting on that Viscount making another fatal error in his judgement?" she asked.

Blueblood nodded. "Affirmative. We have little reason to do an investigation on him as it stands. I'm hoping he'll slip up, so to speak," he answered. With that, he trotted to one of the rows of seats at the side of the room. Reluctantly, the group behind him followed.

Trigger leaned over to Patient to whisper, "Why didn't you tell us Koto was a noble?"

"I'd only just learned that yesterday. I'm not exactly a mind-reader here," Patient snarked as they came to sit down next to Blueblood.

Trigger sighed as the doors to the Court opened and a flood of more nobles rushed in to claim seats. None of them, however, had ponies that seemed out of place; with the exception of a lilac-coated unicorn stallion that came in to sit next to Sapphire. The stallion nuzzled Koto affectionately, and Trigger asked, "You know her?"

"Hai," the stallion replied. He turned to Sapphire and pecked her on the cheek.

"This is my husband," Sapphire answered with a dainty giggle. "He's a dignitary of Neighpon."

Then it clicked into Trigger's head, and he nodded before turning to Distrance. "This feels more like a family reunion all of a sudden," he noted.

Distrance sighed. "You're telling me," he murmured.

Within minutes, the Royal Court was packed. The doors closed once a smug-looking Viscount Cyril trotted in, though Blueblood noticed he wasn't with his pale lackeys. "And there's our star," he mused, causing Patient to turn to him. "All alone this time. I wonder how he'll play his hoof today."

Ember turned to Cyril and scowled at him, though for the moment he trotted up to Luna and Celestia, as if he didn't notice her yet.

“So… have you thought on my proposal yet?” Cyril asked the princesses in an authoritarian, and very smug tone.

"We have, and the answer's still no," Celestia answered, shaking her head. "You're proposing something ludicrously impossible, even for us."

Cyril frowned. "Very well then. I rest my case," he grumbled. “Though I do have another offer on hoof, however, that I feel the two of you are much more able to accept.”

“Very well.” Luna rolled her eyes internally. “Let’s hear it.” That caused Ember's stomach to form knots again.

“I wish to lay purchase on the land, townships, and guilds of Blueblood. I have a spectacular offer for him in return."

Blueblood gaped. The Surgeons' jaws may as well have hit the floor. The Task Force jumped into standing positions, before Sapphire's horn glowed and nudged them back into a sitting stance. Luna and Celestia exchanged glances, both of them frowning. Then Luna turned back to Cyril. "Have you… considered how much Blueblood owns? The cost thereof?" she asked.

Cyril nodded, and a shit eating grin formed onto his face. "Yes, I have," he answered smugly, his horn glowing. In a flash of light several sheafs of paper appeared around him. "For instance… his ancestral home within Canterlot itself." One paper flew off one of the stacks and hovered before Celestia and Luna. "That, with its less liquid assets, costs… a few billion bits worth of gold and silver bonds, as well as numerous foreign bank accounts. I know of what he has."

“I only require his Canterlot holdings, however. He can keep everything else he has in foreign places. Just his chambers within the castle, his own private domicile near the gardens, and the Canterlot Blacksmith guild,” Cyril clarified. “And for that I would offer you all of my personal holdings of land and guilds… as well as a few hundred million bits to make up the difference in cost, and the deal sweeter.”

"What of the hit squads Blueblood pays?" a pony from the far back of the room piped up. The utterance made Blueblood blanch further.

"With the exception of the Special Task Force, the Castle Destroyers, and…" Cyril paused to shuffle the sheafs of papers before he added, "and the Valkyrie Brigade, I would be paying them with more… substantial amounts of bits. I'd treat them to a first-class experience only a Knight or Royal Consort would enjoy."

"But, I would also require the hit squads I claim from the deal, if we go through with it, to… act more nobly. Which means enforcing a few dress codes and such." Cyril's grin widened. "And that would include…" He shuffled the papers again, almost as if he were on a teapot-themed ride. Another sheet lifted up and hovered before Luna and Celestia. "Those four ponies on that parchment. Go on, princesses, read their names for me, please."

Celestia swallowed and began, "Patient Care… Distrance… Trigger, and… Writhing… Ember…"

The room hung in a palpable silence. Ember lurched, feeling as though she were going to puke. Patient, Distrance, and Trigger sat with widening eyes and mouths still agape. All four were wondering where Cyril got the sheafs of paper, but they didn't have time to wonder then. Luna's next utterance caused their pupils to shrink in unison.

"You'll have to speak with Blueblood in private about this matter. These are his lands and guilds you're contesting for," Luna stated, shaking her head solemnly.

"Oh, I promise to give him a talk in private," Cyril replied, still wearing that shit eating grin on his face. "But… that will be after Royal Court concludes. We have business to attend to, and it would be remiss of me to keep the… spotlight any longer." The sheafs of paper vanished in flashes of light, and he trotted to sit next to a noble at the far side of the room, right where the group couldn't see him.

But he couldn't see them from his new vantage point, either.

Blueblood swallowed heavily and turned to regard Koto. "It seems we have a change in plans…" he growled, garnering a nod of assent. Then his eyes went wide, as though an idea had instantly formed in his head. "So… since Asgard needs rebuilding…" he whispered.

Koto turned to him with a brow raised. Rekka also twisted to face Blueblood with more or less the same expression. "What are you harping on about?" he asked.

"I was thinking one of us should propose its refunding to rebuild it, specifically its planned tourist attraction," Blueblood answered, a smile budding on his muzzle. "You two saw how bad it was, right?" Rekka and Koto nodded, before their pupils shrunk at the implications. "Of course… we'll use the tourist funds to further help the destitute. How does that sound?" The two nodded again, and this time grinned in unison.

"Alright. Remember: etiquette, wordplay, posture, and attitude are your dearest companions. But you may need to hold your petitioning of the Asgard reformation off for a while. The cruelest nobles will watch you the moment you take the stage, so to speak, and they'll do all they can to boot you two out. Dispense with them first if they do so." The dual grins widened.

"Are you sure about this? We might be playing our hoof too early," Sapphire pointed out to little avail as Koto and Rekka bounced from their seats and trotted to stand in the center of the room.

"Trust me, I know what I am doing. And besides, your child is going to get into politics sooner or later," Blueblood replied, this time loud enough for the entire Court to hear him.

"If only we had popcorn," Ember muttered as one noble on the other side stood up before Koto could even open her mouth.

“Her? Into politics? She isn’t fit to advertise magic-cancelling rings, nevermind speaking Winglish or, Gods forbid, getting into politics,”the noble that stood scoffed, garnering a few chuckles from his advisors and family as well as causing most with sense to gasp. "For crying out loud, her horn is likely to remain non-functional for the rest of her life! She's not a proper unicorn!"

Koto leaned over to Rekka and whispered something to him. Then Rekka turned to the noble who made the proclamation and returned verbal fire, "And you aren't fit for politics, since everypony knows your mother got together with a pegasus! You aren't a proper unicorn, either!" The noble who stood gaped and sat down, face blanching as the nobles with sense tossed around a few chuckles here and there.

Blueblood nodded in approval, and turned to Patient and his group. "You four, just play along… he may insult you, or get somepony else mad enough to do it, but this is part of my Plan B. Rekka's just likely to… shake things up a bit," he warned in another whisper. His eyes fell to Patient specifically and he added, "You may yell back if you wish, since I’ve heard of your little spat with another nurse in the medical ward, but no hooves will fly unless you are making an accusatory gesture. Understood?"

Patient nodded as Rekka trotted to one of the nobles that sat near Celestia and Luna, looking him up and down. The noble he was eyeballing tensed up and spat, "You should cut that mane and tail; be more like a proper gentlecolt in appearance! Have you forgotten your social standing?”

Rekka shook his head grimly. "No, I haven't, and no, I won't cut my mane and tail. You forget one crucial thing about me," he muttered darkly.

"That being?" the noble hissed, eyes narrowing.

Rekka donned a small smile. "I'm under the employ of the Reedpipes family… and I've noticed you bear a family crest on your flank. The Heartfrogs, I assume?" he asked. When the noble nodded, his smile widened. "You've as much social standing as the Hydrapikes. Which means I outrank you." The noble hissed, but could not muster a response. "Good luck trying to climb the ladder; you'll need it."

The noble sputtered as he trotted away, only to witness Rekka fall under the gaze of another noble stallion who stood up farther back.

The noble then looked towards Sapphire. “Your daughter stands before us all, yet her mark—a distasteful boomerang—does not match her name. While I am not fluent in Neighponese, I know enough that she's named after an instrument. She has failed you, spectacularly, and us in the process. Why did you insist on bringing her here? Why didn't you disown her or marry her off?" he scoffed.

Sapphire almost burst every blood vessel in her entire body at his words. Her eyes narrowed coldly. Luna looked to the stallion and sighed. "And so it begins," she muttered, her voice still carrying across the entire room.

“Thus, I have a proclamation of my own: how about I take your wretch of a foal off of your hooves? I could turn her into a proper noble mare overnight," the standing noble stated. "I could even… expunge the influence of commoners from her." The nobles surrounding him gasped and immediately shuffled away from him, forming a funnel of open space that revealed to him that somepony else was glaring daggers at him. The glare itself didn't phase him; its owner, however, did as he coldly marched right up to him wordlessly.

The noble dropped to all fours to get down to Rekka's level. "And what do you have to say?" he scoffed, expecting an insult of some kind.

Rekka leaned in closed and flashed a shark's smile. "You haven't heard yet?" he asked, causing the noble to shake his head. "Koto and I are engaged. You have no luck of getting with her." He turned and trotted out of the funnel, garnering a giggle from Koto and a delayed gasp from the noble as the implications set in.

"T-to a commoner?!" the noble yelled as the crowd that parted from him moved to fill in the space between him and Rekka before he could even move one step forward.

"To a Knight," Rekka snarked in reply before he trotted down past another few nobles. Some applauded him, those he'd already scorned almost choked on the very air they were breathing, and Sapphire relaxed with a few deep breaths.

"At least he's honest," Blueblood chimed in a whisper.

"Engaged? Ooooh, I wonder who's gonna be attending that wedding…" Ember murmured, watching as Rekka cantered on until he vanished from her immediate sight. He right up to Cyril and gave him the stink-eye.

Cyril scoffed, "Whatever you want to say to me, make it quick. We haven't the time for petty insults."

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you," Rekka snarked, smiling once more. "Aren't you the poorest of nobles here in this Court?"

Cyril's face did not shift, save for a brow slowly climbing up his forehead. "Whatever do you mean by that, peasant?" he hissed.

“How are you going to accrue the needed bits to buy Blueblood's property?" Rekka retorted, his utterance causing a palpable silence to descend upon the room. All eyes turned to Cyril, awaiting an answer.

It didn't take long for Cyril to reply, "I already have the amount needed. Why do you ask?"

"Have you accounted for… I dunno, living conditions for the squads Blueblood has hired? What about his guilds? And have you considered that the squads and guilds, if they were under your employ suddenly, might quit and take their work elsewhere?" Rekka answered, his grin widening. "Unlike you, I've done my homework. Took me all night, too." His horn glowed, and several sheafs materialized around him; at least twice as many as the amount that Cyril had.

“Even if I paid them more?” Cyril asked, brow raising higher. It threatened to brush up against the base of his horn.

Rekka's grin merely widened. A piece of paper lifted from one of the massive sheafs and floated over to him. It had several words on it. Cyril looked closely at the parchment, realizing it was a sum of bits needed just to keep housing costs afloat. The number outweighed his original proposal of a few hundred million bits, and he blanched. Before he could make a retort, the papers vanished in golden flashes of light. "You see what I mean now, don't you?" Rekka asked.

"I'll… I'll find a way," Cyril mumbled, trembling slightly as Rekka turned around and cantered to the other side of the room.

"Good thing I had a contingency," Blueblood mused, smiling wickedly as another noble stood up.

"You had your servants do your homework, didn't you?" the standing noble hissed. "There is simply no way in Equestria you could have accrued that many sheets otherwise!"

Rekka turned to the noble and merely stared, letting him see the veins in his eyes and the bags beneath them. "What did you do last night, then?" he snorted. "Because it sounds like you didn't do anything important to me."

The noble blushed and sputtered, "Th-that's none of your business! At least I don’t get up to mindless bloodshed every night as I act like a proper noble!”

Rekka raised a brow and tilted his head. "Have you done anything to curb the red and black menace yet, or have you been loafing around in some mare's rump?" he shot back. "When's your next illegitimate foal due, and are you gonna pay a visit to the next mother-to-be?" All eyes turned to the standing noble, some with firm frowns accompanying them and others with smug grins.

"The… the mares I've been seeing haven't been able to conceive foals. It's their fault," the noble attempted, hoping that would get Rekka to stop staring at him incredulously. He blanched when Rekka didn't budge in the slightest.

"I've caught wind recently… that red and black alicorns have all gone sterile. Every single one of them. Were you seeing red and black alicorns?" Rekka hissed, the corners of his lips twitching as he spoke.

"Wh-where is your proof?" the noble snapped, eyes narrowing. "You're going off on pure conjecture, instead of logic and reason!"

"Well… you could still be investigated nonetheless. After all, my claim does carry heavy implications, and your reactions to them only add to the weight thereof," Rekka scoffed, a horrible glint in his eyes. The frowns aimed at the noble deepened, and their owners realized that Rekka, very tragically, had a solid point nonetheless.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve been paying as much as I can to my hired hitcolts to eradicate the alicorn menace! I have never once let any of those abominations anywhere near me or my family!" the noble spat.

Rekka blinked. "I heard from a little birdie that a stallion named Golden Gelding managed to trot in this room as I am doing now. Wouldn't that constitute as 'letting him near you,' in that case?" he retorted smugly.

“I swear to the Gods, I—” the noble was cut off when he noticed Trigger in the room, standing up to star at him a few good heads down.

The noble stopped talking and nodded to him before clearing his throat.

“And as for the rest of you lowley vermin, I shouldn’t’ve expected anything more out of Blueblood paying common filth for his mercenary work,” the noble started anew, and he turned to the rest of the Task Force, and the Surgeons behind them. Rekka only grinned, as if he knew what was about to come.

“You there. With the Shield cutie mark. Pony at arms?” he asked Distrance.

“Yes. I was injured and—” Distrance was cut off by the noble, who waved a hoof to silence him.

“A poor excuse to not get back to the front lines! You are weak; your drill sergeant should’ve toughened you up more, you coward!” the noble spat with disdain. "Why, I'll bet you ran home to your pitiful excuse of a mommy just to cope with the horrors of war!"

His eyes then turned to Tenmei. "And you! An earth pony! What are you doing here?" When Tenmei failed to answer, his face hardened. "Oh, a dumb earth pony, then? Why in the name of Equestria were you dragged here, again?" That time, Tenmei lifted a hoof and gestured to Koto with it, followed up by making a gesture that looked more like drawing a shield in the air. The noble then cracked up.

"A-a Knight?" the noble yelled, and he shot down to all fours to guffaw to his heart's content. "Y-you can't be serious!" he exclaimed.

His laughter stopped dead in its tracks as Rekka interjected, "Yes, he is serious."

“That is unbelievable!” the noble stopped laughing and returned to his angry posture, standing upright as his tone resonated throughout the room. “A dumb earth pony, a Knight?" He turned to Koto and added, "It seems the young Reedpipes heiress has lost her mind!"

Tenmei proceeded to snark in the noble's direction, "Nid wyf yn fud. Er mae'n ymddangos eich bod yn yr un wallgof.”

The noble's eyes widened, and his ears perked up. "Me? The crazy one? What kind of slander is that? You're just as mad as the stallion who's trotting around like he owns the place!" he yelled.

His eyes fell onto Ember and he added, "And how did that… thing get in here? Purge it with the rest of the red and black alicorns!" With the utterance, half of the gathered nobles turned to Ember and mutely stared, wondering who exactly allowed a tentacle monster to join today's Courtly session. But soon their attention was snagged by something else altogether.

The noble’s eyes then fell upon Patient. “And what do we have here, a nurse? Shouldn’t you be be changing somepony’s colostomy bag, or sitting in the crematory ward for dead bastard foals? Leave politics to the nobles! I bet you’re a part of a union, you damned communist!”

Patient got legitimately angry by the noble's words; he remembered Blueblood’s instructions, but still strutted on up to the noble. The crowd dispersed to let him pass, and only when they were face to face did he rear up on his back legs and point an accusing hoof at him. Luna conjured a box of popcorn and shared it with Rekka, Koto and Celestia; the Knight and heiress came up to sit next to them as she conjured the box. All four watched with anticipation for the upcoming fireworks display.

“Nopony calls me a goddamned communist, you piece of shit! I’ll have you know that we live in the Free Kingdom of Equestria, and I still have my right of free speech to call you out on your horseshit, you fuckin’ primped-out, money grubbing, globalist shill!" Patient snarled.

“I’m no petty globalist, you brainwashed peon! I bet you probably read the InfoBattles newspaper!” the globalist angrily defended himself.

“In fact, I do read InfoBattles! But that’s not the fuckin’ point! My point is that you can eat my fuckin’ tapeworms, and that your ass must be jealous of the fact that everypony around you in the Court here, at least the noble ones, are infinitely more successful than your shitty little clan of tryhards, you goddamned inbred cunt!” Several in the crowd gasped and a few laughed, and even Koto tossed her head back to give a very unlady-like cackle, complimented with a snort for good measure.

“Us nobles are purebred, you emissary of the dregs! As a noble, I have the authority to restrict your rights in any way I want to, if the princesses allow for it, so you should be more respectful to your betters,” the noble seethed. “Besides, I bet you don’t even do anything important in the hospital; I bet you’re just an EVS tech mopping the floors for eleven bits an hour, you high school dropout.”

“As somepony with a fuckin’ degree from a Fillydelphia community college, I’ll have you know that I work in a goddamn burn ward. I have to work with the most pain-receptive ponies in the entire facility, and I’ve been told many times that my work is exemplary by both my superiors, and my patients, you useless fuckin’ bureaucrat! I bet you cheat on your wife every night; one of my friends is more faithful than you, and he was parading five minutes ago!"

“I. Do. Not. Cheat. My wife simply cannot bear foals, so she asks me to bed other mares in an attempt to harbor an heir for our family! An heir that, if conceived, shall be reared far better than you, and even that damned Reedpipes heiress who can't speak Winglish like the rest of us!" the noble yelled.

“In modern Equestria, which I should remind you we're both currently standing in, you’re still technically cheating! And if your wife is allowing you to do this, then she’s a massive cuckquean and I have no respect for her.” Patient deadpanned. "Or maybe you're one of those kinds of stallions who enjoys taking it up the back door!”

“It is a sad, lowly soul that gets so angry over his superiors that he resorts to such horrid insults! Only those on the bottom rung of the social ladder could ever be this ridiculously irate over simply being told by somepony who is clearly better bred, educated, and refined that they need to know their place. I hope you understand that you will never attain what I have, and you will never know luxury and the noble’s lifestyle. Now go back home to your hovel, peasant, and do not return or else I will have my ponies escort you to the chopping block!”

Patient donned a sinister smirk in that moment. "Only if you agree…" He leaned in closer, almost to the point of rubbing snouts with the noble, "to ride my friend that you addressed as a thing."

“I will do no such thing, you vile city-scum!” The flabbergasted noble rose a hoof and struck Patient across the face, giving him a serious bruise.

Patient didn’t retaliate, but he grabbed his now-aching and blueing cheek. “Then I won’t fuckin’ leave then, you worthless, inflated piece of shit! If we weren’t in Canterlot right now, I’d force feed you your own fuckin’ guts, you—” At that point, Ember stood up and cantered over to the two, with no more than one tentacle flaring from her side to jut straight upwards while another shifted to fully cover her cutie mark. She seemed to be making to grab Patient, but once she crossed the distance, she did no such thing.

Instead she faced the noble and asked in as sultry a voice as she could manage, which caught Cyril's full attention in that moment, "What's a few rocks and tentacles to you if you know ways to tie a mare down~? I'd be one of the best mares you'd ever chosen."

Patient immediately stopped being angry and backed up, reverting to all fours in doing so, raising his eyebrows. He decided to let Ember take it from there, and cantered over to sit next to Blueblood again as a whole new spectacle unfolded in the Court the very moment his rear connected with the seat.

Cyril shot up and rushed to the middle of the room, his eyes wide and his mouth flailing about without producing sound. It took him a few seconds before he could manage something that was barely coherent.

“Y-y-you...Somnus Wisp!?” he began to speak, his tone turning into a furious one by the final word as everything finally registered with the impact of a freight train.

"Nope. Dunno who that is," Ember stated in a very convincing tone of innocence. She continued to stare at the still-upright noble, who blanched under her three-eyed gaze. "So what do you say, pal? We do the samba, and my friend leaves you alone?"

Cyril became visibly enraged, and red blossomed on his face to show it. “You do not have any ability to speak to me the same way your companion did to that petty bureaucrat!” he pointed a hoof at the noble who spat with Patient and found himself cornered by the tentacle monster. He heard some stifled laughter from Celestia and Luna, but ignored it for the moment. "Nor do you have the authority to come onto that same bureaucrat as you are now!"

Ember used four tentacles to form a very rude hand-shaped gesture that was directed at Cyril. "Dunno who you are, but I am busy. You can parade once I am done with this hot piece of flank right here," she replied, keeping her attention more focused on the now-sweating bureaucrat whose ears folded back. "So… deal or no deal?"

"Wh-what?" Cyril stammered, his pupils shrinking at Ember's brushing him off as if he were a complete stranger. She got just a teensy closer to the bureaucrat, whose eyes began averting as though searching for a way out of the hole he dug himself into. He took a few deep breaths to collect himself, even as the Royal Peanut Gallery and their two sideliners guffawed at his flabbergasted expression.

“What are you talking about!? I’m here to demand, no, command that you return what you have stolen from my House this instant!” Cyril couldn’t hold back his ange as he shouted. His eyes may as well have turned red in that moment.

"Only I can command me… unless I let a stallion ride for the night," Ember chirped, making the bureaucrat back away with her utterance. She still did not even look at Cyril, instead taking a step forward to counter the bureaucrat's retreat. That alone made Celestia sputter in an attempt to keep from choking on her popcorn.

“I have enough concubines to satiate that lust, you… you… I don’t even know what you are anymore." His eyes turned to Celestia. "Please help me!" he yelled in desperation, only to have color drain from his face as Celestia slowly shook her head.

"You dug the hole you're now in. You will sit in that hole," Celestia retorted with a big grin on her face.

Ember moved forward until she was within licking distance to the bureaucrat. She leaned over and whispered something to him so softly only he could hear it. Something that made his tail hike upward once and only once. When she pulled back with a shit eating grin on her face, the bureaucrat turned around and bolted for the doors. "Please don't tell my wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!" he yelled in a high-pitched falsetto as he fled the room.

“I’m fuckin’ done,” Patient spoke loudly before trotting out of the crowd towards the door. He paused before he could pass Cyril, and turned to address him. "Just stop. Seriously. You won't get anything out of clinging to the past. Move on,” he warned in a chilling murmur that sent chills up Cyril's spine before continuing on his way to the door.

"Cling to the past? Whatever do you speak of? I'm doing no such thing," Cyril huffed, trying to maintain a tough facade. Patient trotted on unhindered, and the only sound he made other than hoofsteps was opening the door with his magic.

Luna eyed Cyril critically. She tilted her head quizzically. "Are you sure of that?" she asked slowly, making him jump with her query. When he turned to face her, she added, "Because it would seem you're still wanting a dead mare to pay some… rather suspect dues.”

Two guards filed into the room on some unspoken command, making Cyril turn around only to blanch as his legs threatened to buckle. "I-I won't pursue it anymore, I-I promise…" he stammered. The guards nodded to him, thankfully going no farther from the door than its frame.

"So, Celestia… me and Koto were thinking…" Rekka began, turning to Celestia with a grin on his face.

*********

Patient sat at a dimly lit bar within the confines of the castle, one with moon motifs on the ceiling and sun-shaped tables accompanied by star-shaped booths and stools. Surrounding him were several off-duty guards, which he easily noticed due to them having everything on their bodies except for their helmets. Some had dark purple armor, indicating they were in Luna's regiment. Patient sat at the bar itself, being poured a generous amount of shots from the Yakyani bartender, who was being tipped handsomely by the nurse.

Several hours passed before he turned to the door just as Ember walked into the bar and weaved her way to him. "Royal Court too much for you?" she asked as she got within five feet of him.

Patient snorted and took another shot of whiskey, his favorite drink. His mane was messy and his eyes were half shut.

“I had’tuh leave… ‘else your, uh, advances on that noble guy would’ve given me a boner,” he murmured before he took another shot. "That, and half the nobles’re dickbags.”

He heard another set of hooves encroaching and twisted around from the bar again to find Rekka cantering up to him. "I get ya. Before I went to join the fight against the menace, they were always giving me hell for having to translate for Koto. 'You should do this, she should date that pony,' and other such nonsense," he groaned. "The real asswads only let us go fight because we didn't live up to their high-and-mighty expectations, and trumped everypony else's objections. Celestia should give them a golden boot."

“You kids… you and Koto…” Patient paused to burp loudly. “You kids don’t need no grown ups to tell you who to date. Koto, she’s a sweetie; you should keep her around… got a big heart.” He gestured to his chest. “How old’re you kids anyways??”

Rekka nodded, and managed a grin. "About… political age. In laypony's terms, we're adults who are just a little young-looking," he answered. "Those nobles don't know shit about how serious the red and black menace is, let alone how badly they're fucking up the places that need genuine help. Hell, half the court tried kicking me out the very moment I mentioned Asgard's situation. 'Gryphons can rebuild it themselves,' they said."

“You should run for office, kid. Y—” Patient was interrupted by another one of his burps. “You should run for… President!! You’ll make a much better leader than those fuckin’... piles of tapeworms.”

Rekka chuckled, and his grin only widened. "You should have seen Yuuki and Nagare's faces when the asswards began bashing them for having claws and wings. I swear, they started using every colorful word in the Neighponese book and the nobles looked at them like they were speaking Horse Latin," he chirped. "I had to translate before they stopped, partly because I was still trying to pass a reform for Asgard, and partly because I was still laughing."

"No wonder they wanted you out. You and yours rile them up ten ways to Sunday, without even trying," Ember chimed in, smiling herself. Then her grin widened and she turned to Patient. "Maybe that was Blueblood's Plan B; he was fucking with the dickbags from the get-go. Boy, those asswad nobles must be reaaaally sore at this point; we both saw how Rekka popped their egos."

"I've researched the bastards too, and their egos are about the size of a gnat's dick. One of the many benefits of being a Knight and a translator," Rekka stated, still grinning. He turned to Patient. "Should we carry you or something, or can you trot on your own four legs?"

“I dunno.” Patient shrugged.

The last five shots Patient had left in front of him were gone in an instant as he chugged all five of them, leaving another generous tip for the bartender as in one drunken swoop, he payed his tab and hopped up on one of the tables.

“When I become President…” Patient shouted loudly, getting everypony’s attention like the drunk attention whore he was. “I’m gonna build a wall around Equestria, and make Yakyakistan pay for it!!” He was then silenced by a tentacle shooting up from Ember into his mouth, before another four tendrils wrapped around his fetlocks and hoisted him up with astonishing ease.

"Yep. You need to be carried. You had one too many shots," Ember grumbled, shaking her head. "Reminds me of me when I did this shit."

“Allahock Yakbar…” the bartender muttered to himself as Ember and Rekka set about dragging Patient's sorry ass out of the room.

Homework in E Sharp

Patient cantered in the bustling streets of Canterlot, accompanied by a hobbling Charlotte. She wore a cloak that cascaded down her back and to the rear pasterns, covering up most if not all of her ailments. Still, that did not stop the creme de la creme of Canterlot from giving the duo the hairy eyeball.

The two ignored the stares and continued to march on their way. "So… what were you doing before you got roped into this whole mess?" Patient asked, turning to Charlotte with a frown.

Charlotte turned to Patient and stared at him with a wan smile. "Would you believe me if I told you?" she asked.

"After all the dogshit I've seen, I'll believe anything at this point.” Patient gave a dry laugh, idly wondering whatever it was Charlotte would throw at him.

Charlotte shook her head and rolled her eyes in a way that told Patient 'I don't believe you.' Still, she began regardless, "Discord… pulled me and my friends from another dimension's afterlife."

Patient's eyes bugged at the sheer absurdity of what he'd just heard. He turned to gawk at Charlotte, who merely stared back with her smile fading. "What." A pause, the H of his response being emphasized. "I swear to the Gods, what are you talking about?"

"I wish I was kidding," Charlotte replied, her tone low and ominous. "And then… me and my friends were given new bodies by—I'm betting bits to bridles your jaw will rotate the earth shortly—being born to red and black alicorns."

Patient continued to give Charlotte the gimlet eye.”Charlotte, I swear to the fucking Gods. Are you…currently...as drunk as I was last night?”

Charlotte shook her head. "That's besides the point. Discord pulled us away from the alicorns we were… reincarnated to, and restored our memories and… past forms, somewhat." Here she imitated Discord's accent as best she could, "'With how the alicorns of crimson and sable are degrading, I figured you would shake things up chaotically well.' How he did it, I'm still trying to figure out."

Patient continued to stare. Idly, his mind wandered to the alicorn who barged into the War Room, and how he rattled on about how Patchouli… he blinked. "Did he… do the same to Patchouli?" he asked.

Charlotte shrugged. "Wouldn't surprise me if he did."

Patient groaned and turned ahead again, making a mental note to ask Princess Twilight later, if only to try to make sense of it all. Pushing the confusion aside, he changed the subject, "What would you do if the nobles… I dunno, made it so only they could get the best spells taught in schools to their foals alone?"

Charlotte narrowed her eyes and thought about it for a moment. “I'd probably take Stella up there to tear them a new one if they did that. Doubly so, if they tried passing forbidden spells to be taught to school-age KIDS on top of that," she groused. "I don't care if they're trying to teach foals forbidden arts to curb the red and black menace or if it's to fatten their own pockets, they're forbidden for a reason!"

“... I mean you’re right.” Patient chuckled. “What constitutes as a forbidden spell, anyways? Other than half the shit you and I know about.”

"What's the forbidden arts that you're aware of? You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine," Charlotte challenged, turning to Patient to flash him another wan smile.

“Eh… Pyromancy… conjuration of some illegal drugs, sort of, and… um, illegal uses of levitation, like, pulling teeth out of an alicorn’s head for more information.”

Charlotte's smile widened. "Well…" She took a deep breath before rattling off, "Necromancy, illegal transmogrifications from one species to another, venomancy, petrification, pyromancy, cryomancy, and electromancy, illegal uses of tornadoes, several dozen hexes, illegal summoning spells, giving guns to creatures produced by said illegal summoning spells, and one spell to reverse almost any and all ailments."

“Ah… okay…” Patient nodded, continuing to take in all of the utter dogshit he’d been exposing himself to. A thought hit him, and he turned to Charlotte again. "Did the alicorns capture you… because of what you know?"

"Not sure why they did anymore. The excuses changed every two hours." Charlotte shrugged and rolled her eyes again. "For all I know, it may as well have been 'because we could.' Not that they could even get any intel from me, mind you."

"Wait… the alicorns failed to get you to spill the beans?" Patient asked, one brow raising. “Color me surprised,” he added with extra sarcasm.

Charlotte shrugged again. "They kept shoving things into my mouth, and far too often for me to speak if you get the drift. I was drugged so many times I honestly lost count of how many days I was sober enough to try and remove my magic inhibitor."

“Were they giving you doobies?” Patient asked.

"No, they had gotten their filthy hooves on more… dangerous chemicals." Charlotte sighed and twitched her ears. "I had to go to Canterlot infirmary just to get detoxified, and the results are something you wouldn't believe. The alicorns may have drove me to drink yet again…" She gave a groan of discomfort. "Oh, and they have no taste in alcohol. None at all. I don't think they know how to brew alcohol, either."

"Have you ever had Sweet Apple Acres cider?" Patient asked, hoping to divert Charlotte's attention from ranting and raving.

Charlotte nodded, and her eyes brightened considerably. A fond smile crossed her face. "Oh, yes… but I haven't gotten drunk off of it. The Apples… oh, they know what they're doing," she chirped.

Patient smiled. At least he'd gotten somewhere.

*********

The Royal Courtbox was in full swing, and in the middle of the room stood an earth pony stallion with a slicked-back grey mane and a brown coat. He was facing off with Viscount Cyril, who was grinning smugly at him.

“And I’ll tell you that I’ve already sent Ponyville’s quota of volunteer militia to the front lines! I can’t spare any more stallions for this mission you’re trying to pull! I even lowered the requirement age to 16 and I still could barely reach the minimum numbers!” the stallion cried, hoping to appease Cyril.

“Well, Filthy Rich, you may want to send your own filly out to the front lines if that’s the case, since you can’t recruit more military age stallions and colts.” Cyril's smug grin widened at Filthy's face as it contorted to a paling look of abject, wide-eyed horror. "Maybe she could whip them into shape… and pay off whatever dues she owes you."

Filthy's ears pinned back, and his pupils shrank. "I-I couldn't send her out to the front lines! She’s my everything!” He balked at Cyril's grin, almost as if it were eating at his soul. "W-what would you have done if you h-had a foal and… sent them to the front lines?"

Cyril's grin somehow widened. "I have already done that, and the cur came back… with his remnants in a soup can," he hissed. "His genes were inferior."

Filthy felt himself choking up, unable to come up with a response to Cyril's retort. Somepony else in the audience, however, was all too happy to speak for him, "You sent your foal to die?"

Cyril turned to the speaker, finding one Sapphire Reedwind casting a baleful glare at him. "Haven't you done likewise?" he hissed, causing Sapphire to flinch and balk. His grin went Cheshire as soon as he saw that he struck a nerve.

Just as Cyril asked that, the doors opened and Patient and Charlotte walked up behind the shaken Filthy Rich before veering off to sit at the back of the room and wait their turn. They did not escape Cyril's notice, either, and he turned to them faster than they could hide. "Aaaaah, we have some new guests… would somepony tell me who keeps letting these filthy commoners into this area of prestige?"

“I think your prestige was thrown out the window last night after you got into it with me in front of.. .literally everypony of importance in this town,” Patient snorted. “Cunt,” he added coldly.

"What happened?" Charlotte whispered to Patient, turning to look at him with a brow raised.

Cyril snorted. "You would do best to avoid addressing me by such lowly words, cur," he hissed.

“Equestria free speech laws exist, faggot. Try again,” Patient snarked.

Charlotte groaned and turned to regard Cyril, frowning at his seemingly-fixed smile. "In that case, would you do the honors of… bringing us up to speed, then?" she asked.

Cyril canted his head. He turned to Patient. "I propose that we send off stallions like that nurse—" He lifted a hoof and pointed at Patient "—to the front lines. That way we can tell the competent from the feeble, and weed out the feeble."

“And how many alicorns have you killed? One on one? With your own four hooves?” Patient asked in a smooth, level tone.

Charlotte shook her head and giggled a little. "Or with magic?" she chimed in.

“That’s besides the point. The ones you’ve killed were probably small foals anyway, damn sub-pony scum,” Cyril sneered.

Both Charlotte and Patient seized up and issued choking sounds from their throats. They shook their heads, and Charlotte piped up, "How would you know that, exactly? Were you there?"

Cyril growled. “That. Is. Besides. The. Point.” He trotted up to and then spat on the immaculate tiled floor before the two. “What are you hiding under that cloak?”

"That's none of your concern, you trumped-up egomaniac," Charlotte hissed, eyes narrowing to thin slits.

“I have no ego, worm. I only understand the world better than you,” Cyril snarled.

“Speaking of understanding the world better than we do, that report you were talking about earlier. We’re entitled to know about it as well,” Patient spoke up.

Charlotte donned a slightly manic smirk. "Know more? About the world?" she challenged, one eye twitching. "How much do you know about the red and black alicorns' capabilities as a whole? How do you know to counter such? How much power do they possess? And what's your ranking amongst the nobles gathered here, hrrrrm?"

Cyril harrumphed. "That's none of your concern, you mangy mongrel," he scoffed.

His smug smile finally dropped in lieu of a slack jaw once Luna piped up from her seat, "Too dangerous and too many to count, and you're higher ranked than Viscount Cyril is, Miss Runic Tome."

Charlotte leaned in to whisper in Patient's ear, "'Runic Tome' is a name I settled for before remembering my… er, past-life shenanigans."

Patient nodded, and smiled at the look on Cyril's face. "A-a-a commoner… higher ranked than I?" Cyril shook his head and turned to Luna. "Inconceivable!"

Luna shook her head gravely. "Afraid not, dearest Viscount. You're staring at another Knight who serves a house of high standing," she replied. She assumed a slightly smug grin. "And she has an earth pony friend, also a Knight… of her rank."

"An… earth pony is higher-ranked than me?! W-when did this become possible?! How?! I demand an explanation for this nonsense!" Cyril bellowed, his face turning red and puffy with anger.

Luna's smirk widened. "There's another of similar ranking: Tenmei."

“Hmph. Of course. The earth pony with sight issues.” Cyril rolled his eyes as he made the remark, before his eyes bulged when he realized what he'd just said and the implications thereof. The look that formed on his face when the revelation hit him would have made for one hell of a photoshoot, if only Patient brought a camera with him. "The earth pony with sight issues has a higher rank?!" he squealed, his inflection now rising a good octave higher as the words left his mouth.

Patient and Charlotte could not help but snicker as he blanched. "F-Filthy is just a commoner!" Cyril yelled, turning to Filthy as he spoke.

Luna tuttered. "Nay, for even he is higher-ranked than thee… and better respected," she chimed in.

"But I'm thoroughbred! H-h-he isn't! Isn't th-that what determines rank?!" Cyril stammered, hoping to get Luna to cease with her shenanigans.

Luna, however, wasn't buying it. "Nay, for wealth, deeds, titles passed on through familial bonds and other such requisites determine rank. When has the House of Hydrapike done anything noteworthy in the past… two centuries, hrrrm?" she retorted.

Cyril stood there, petrified for but a few seconds before his face transitioned from white to blood-boiling red. "You'll regret putting earth ponies above me in rank!" he declared before turning tail and storming out of the Court, nose up high and horn even higher.

Flashback: Field Hospital

The distant sounds of mortar shelling and the subsequent trembles through the earth were perceived by everypony in camp. Patient was more on edge than ever. The coffee didn't help, and the overcast made the whole situation even more dreary. There had been a raid last night in one of the nearby encampments. A few zebras had carved a swathe through sleeping pony soldiers, killing maybe twenty or twenty five, or so Patient had heard.

Shivering, the nurse stomped through the packed snow and into the main field hospital. It was an old, dark green tent with flap-covered windows. Empty crates of medical supplies were stacked neatly to one side of the hospital, collecting snow. The camp itself was nearly barren, with a few sentries standing guard as the rest of the soldiers were out in the trenches, getting torn to pieces. Most of the other tents in the camp were depressed with snow, and sparsely populated. Once inside, and in the heat from a few dozen oil lamps, he sighed, took off his coat, hanging it on a nail driven into one of the support posts. He checked in with his commanding officer, the only on-site doctor, and started working. Internally, he was happy to be posted during the daytime, at least for now.

The tent itself wasn't very big, about thirty feet in length, and about twenty in width. Good enough for immediate care, but not so good for those who needed long-term recovery. Along the length of the tent were several cots, each separated from one another by a fabric divider, which served to give the patients privacy and to keep infections from spreading. Half of the cots were empty.

Patient noticed that the only other on-site nurse, a mint green mare with a lyre cutie mark, was already brightening up the day of a private first class who lost his back legs by changing his bandages.

"Thanks, Lyra. It just feels so much cleaner down there, you know?" the private croaked with a warm smile of relief.

"Anytime. That's what I'm here for," she smiled back. "I'll be back in a second with your breakfast."

Lyra turned to walk to the mess hall before she noticed Patient. "Morning, sunshine!"

"Mornin'." Patient attempted a half-smile.

"You're not your usual peppy self. What's wrong?" Lyra asked, somewhat sarcastically.

"Kinda startled, is all. Just thinkin' about that raid from last night." He shook his head. "It's neither here nor there."

Lyra paused for a moment before looking to the doctor, who had his face buried in paperwork.

"We haven't had a shipment for a week. I just used up the last of the clean bandages! We've gotta resort to using rags and alcohol at this point!" She whispered worriedly. "I already told the doctor about it, and he said he put in the requisition a few days ago, but it never takes them this long to deliver!"

Patient shook his head. "Of course, not like Doc Ivory's gonna go and actually demand that we get what we need. He'll just politely ask once, and never again."

"Just get to work, staff sergeant." The doctor, Ivory Spirit, pipes up, not shifting his gaze from the paperwork.

Patient breathes silently through his nose. "Yes sir."

*********

"How does that feel, Distrance?" Patient asked as he applied the last remaining aloe gel to the burns of a pony caught in a grenade blast.

The poor unicorn's body was rife with bandages, stitches, and burns. The nurse recalled Dr. Ivory spending over four hours pulling out all of the bits of shrapnel in the unicorn's chest and stomach; not one piece made it to his heart, miraculously. Patient guessed the Gods were smiling upon the stallion that day.

"Muuuch better..." Distrance spoke as his angry red burns were soothed. His Trottingham accent was crisp, as he enunciated his words very clearly.

"Honestly, corporal, I know you've heard this a million times from the doctor and Lyra, but you're one lucky motherfucker, I'll tell you that." Patient grinned toothily at the brown stallion.

"I'm just surprised how I managed to survive as much as I did!" Distrance smirked and chuckled.

"I heard you fended off a hundred guys from one of the sentries. That right?" Patient asked as he finished applying the aloe.

"Not only that, but I did it with my loader dead." He corrected. "And I lead the counter attack!"

"You Maxim gunners are a piece of work," the nurse snorted. "I bet you couldn't hit shit with a flintlock rifle back in basic so they stuck you with that thing, eh?"

"Eat shit." Distrance punched Patient on the shoulder and the two laughed.

Lyra suddenly walked into view. "Your attention is needed, my good sir." the brown unicorn pointed to Lyra.

"We got a new one," she stated calmly, like she does whenever there's an emergency.

"Who?" Patient shot up and turned around.

"Officer. Stabbed with a bayonet." She briskly walked to the cot nearest the tent entrance.

Patient followed to see the officer in question being placed on to the cot by a pair of soldiers, who quickly trotted off after setting him down. The officer was an orange pegasus with broken wings and a bayonet plunged into his gut. His jacket and trousers were all stained with blood. Dr. Ivory was already busy pulling off the officer's clothing and applying some antiseptic to the grisly wound.

"Lyra, I.V.; Patient, info." Like that, Lyra cantered off to bring an IV bag and sterile needle while Patient picked up a clipboard and pen with magic to take down some information.

The officer was still awake, as his eyes trailed the doctor's and nurse's movements. Patient pulled the dog tags from the officer's neck and attached them to the clipboard.

"What's your name, sir?" Patient asked.

He already knew that. He was looking at his tags. He was only asking to keep the poor stallion awake and responsive for now.

"Sapphire Metal..." a weak voice croaked from the throat of the pegasus with a Trottingham accent.

"Rank, sir?"

"Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir. Blood type?"

"My blood type? I don't...fuckin' know, kid."

Patient nodded. "Understood, sir." He jotted the information down from his tags. "A negative."

"Where are you from?" The doctor asked.

"Derbyshire...th-the Sals'bry side of town..." the officer replied weakly.

"Figured as much. I recognized the accent." Dr. Ivory attempted a smile on his light grey face.

"That maxim gunner's from around that area too. Once we get you better, you be sure to talk to him." Lyra chimed in as she returned with a clear bag of saline fluid and a hypodermic needle.

"I hate needles..." Lieutenant Metal rolled his eyes and gulped before offering his hoof to Lyra.

"Alright, we're gonna put you under. You won't feel a thing and we'll get that knife outta you in no time, okay?" Patient assured the officer as he levitated a tank of general anesthesia and a cleaned face-piece over to the lieutenant's side.

The pegasus said nothing and closed his eyes in relief as he quickly lost consciousness. Seconds later, Patient removed the mask and walked out of the officer's "room"; only Lyra and Ivory were trained in surgery, so he simply returned to his other duties.

Within a few minutes of going over patient records, the nurse's ears perk up to an exasperated Dr. Ivory.

"This knife is serrated!"

"What in Celestia's name!?" Lyra responds, just as shocked as the doctor.

Patient nearly dropped his clipboard as he walked slowly over to the flap to the officer's cot. Through the little slit he'd given himself, he noticed blood. A lot of it. All over Lyra and Ivory as they attempted to remove the tissue from the officer's knife wound.

The yellow unicorn reeled back slightly and shivered before returning to the front of the tent where a small desk sat right before the main entrance flap. He sat down at the worn, wooden table and fiddled around with the lock on the pharmaceutical chest underneath, as he knew that noon chow-time was coming soon and some of the men would need their medication.

*********

An hour passed before anything happened. Patient could hear Lyra and Ivory mumbling things to one another whilst they performed on the officer. During that time, the nurse made his usual rounds, checking up on everypony, changing bedpans, chatting with them a little, just making them feel more comfortable.

As of now, Patient waited at the table, filling out recovery information, and just waiting. He was very good at what his first name describes.

He was almost about to doze off before a familiar snout poked its way through the tent flap.

"...Garnet?" Patient asked as the face he saw poking through the flap just stood there, motionless.

"You here for your meds, gunny?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Before he could react, the head of the red earth pony flew at him and smashed right into his cranium, knocking him out cold.

*********

Patient was unconscious for Gods know how long. When his consciousness finally seeped back into him, he jerked awake to the sound of shrieks of fear.

His eyes shot open as he quickly peered around the tent. The place was a mess; tables overturned, papers strewn everywhere, the blood--the blood.

Blood was all over the walls and flaps in each of the patient cots, all but 2 of the occupied ones held the dismembered corpses of their former occupants. The severed head of one of the camp sentries, gunnery sergeant Garnet, rolled about the floor next to him. The world sped up once again, and he could hear another scream of terror. Jumping to his hooves, Patient looked around to find the tent flap of the surgery open.

Inside was a Zebra. He was soaked head to hoof in blood, and in his mouth was a shotel. The headless corpse of Dr. Ivory rolled about on the floor before him, his black mane doused in blood and his light blue eyes glazed over. The dismembered corpse of the orange pegasus officer was lying on the table, with fresh wounds spouting torrents of blood. Lyra was curled up in the corner, as she had been taken off-guard by the surprise attack and had no weapon on her.

Patient's world went into slow-motion again as his eyes flashed to an electronic bone saw that was sitting on the medical tool tray; the saw was a circular blade spinning like a plate on a motorized handle. His eyes flashed back to the bloodsoaked Lyra, who looked him with the utmost horror.

The nurse used magic to pick up the bone saw and pull it towards him, turning it on. The zebra spun around and stared at him; blood red eyes fixated on the nurse before him. Several gold teeth clung to the Abyssinian sword carried in his mouth.

The next thing the zebra knew, however, was the searing agony of the bone saw blade digging into his neck. As the blade spun, it shredded the muscle and skin, spraying it on the already bloodied wall flap. Patient suddenly found a pit of anger he didn't know existed within him, and all he cared about was to make the remainder of this zebra's life as painful and traumatizing as possible.

The zebra stumbled back and fell to the floor. With that, Patient hopped atop the now dying enemy soldier and jammed the saw into his open, choking mouth, using his hooves to close the muzzle down as the blade sawed through the bone on both the upper and lower jaw. The gargling zebra's muzzle-less face spurted blood at Patient, who began slamming his hind hooves down on his head, shattering the skull.

Through Patient's roars of fury and violent plunges on the zebra's face, Lyra's pleads for him to stop as well as the concerned shouts of another pony could be heard. Once Patient had finally calmed down, he stepped back and looked at the zebra; his head was a red mush piled up at the cleanly sliced neck.

"Patient stop, he's dead!!" Lyra hoarsely cried, panting.

"What's going on!?" Distrance could be heard at the other end of the tent.

Just like that, several sentries burst into the field hospital, wielding flintlock rifles and bayonets with magic and wings. Patient stumbled back and tumbled over his knocked over chair and looked back at the other patient cots. The realization hit him.

These ponies, his comrades, his brothers. They were all just cut down in their moment of weakness, when they were at their most vulnerable. He cared for them since they had arrived, and they were all on their way to a full recovery! Now, they're on their way to the afterlife.

Patient began breathing heavily and scooted back a bit, trying to keep it together. Two of the sentries lowered their weapons and proceeded to help the nurse back up to his feet whilst two more walked over to Lyra to help her, one sentry ran off to radio-in for backup, and another one, a medic, tended to Distrance, the last surviving patient.

Royal Ruckus

For a time, Royal Court sat in silence after Cyril's rather unruly departure, and all looked at the doors as if waiting for them to do something they weren't supposed to do. It took a while before anypony even made an utterance, and it was one that summed the whole event up rather nicely. "Well, that escalated quickly…" Charlotte muttered, her voice managing to pierce the fog of the silence that had settled in, carrying over to all four corners of the room.

"Indeed it did," Filthy agreed with an apprehensive nod. He turned to the Princesses and trotted up to them before awkwardly clearing his throat, staring at them for a few seconds.

"Permission to speak granted, Mister Rich, as you still have the floor. We haven't all day," Luna remarked with an encouraging nod and a soothing tone of voice, indicating quite plainly that Filthy should continue.

Filthy nodded back and began, his confidence bolstered, "Well, I propose that we should have a bit of an educational reform to all of the provinces outside of Equestria's main cities, but still within her borders. Most schools, including Ponyville, are tragically behind on up-to-date textbooks and such other requisites most major cities have in bulk. That way, all of the students get up-to-date with the times, and get a quality education that could help them later in life."

"Provided, of course, those provinces have the bits for it," somepony snarked from one row to Luna's left.

Filthy zeroed in on the source, seeing a pony with a frog and heart cutie mark standing as rigidly to attention as the royal guards standing at the doors. "That's why, of course, provinces are provided the necessary bits via a singular stimulus package," Filthy stated, shaking his head at the pony. “This should get them off their hooves by the bootstraps, at least, and onto their whole legs proper.”

The heart-marked pony rolled his eyes. "Aren't you a delirious one? Giving the poor a stimulus will only enable them to rely upon federal assistance more often, and thus, give them no incentive to maintain themselves; may I draw your attention to some of our welfare queens, Mr. Filthy? Oh wait, you are one!” The heart-marked noble chuckled loudly, but soon his fit died when Charlotte rose and stamped her hoof before scraping it, drawing his attention.

"Oh, how much revenue do you generate with your vassal estates? Your plantations? Your mines? Your towns? Or should I ask, how much revenue do you pocket from those holdings? Those poor ponies you so scorn, who toil away without praise nor respect?” Charlotte hissed, eyes turning red at the very fringes. Her horn flashed dangerously once, its magic aura brilliant red. "Unless you want the Task Force, or Gods forbid, the Surgeons, to ruin your homestead and pilfer your vault, I would recommend you bite down on your tongue this instant. I could even send the Valkyrie Brigade, if you truly desire the complete annihilation of all your pockets of wealth!"

Patient looked at Charlotte, his eyes wide and a tiny chuckle vibrating from his throat and slightly open mouth. “Ho-ho-holy fuck…” he whispered.

The frog-marked noble raised just one brow, and sharply at that. “You wouldn’t dare!” the noble hissed.

Charlotte's horn flashed again, and she conjured a spellbook with a flash of light. She opened it, and managed to extricate a radio from between the pages. "Try me," she challenged.

Just to add to the effect, Patient averted his gaze back to Charlotte and spoke. “Send us in, we’ll fuck the place up harder than the Valkyries ever would,” he faux-requested quietly.

Charlotte rolled her eyes dismissively, letting her gaze fall on Patient. "Oh, please, you wouldn't be able to level Yakyakistan within the course of three hours," she stated curtly.

“That a challenge?” Patient asked with a hopeful smirk.

"If it were… there'd be no contest," Charlotte replied simply, bringing the radio to her muzzle as though actually about to contact somebody in the Brigade to sic on the frog-marked noble.

The noble flinched, his ears folding back at the implications. He blanched when he saw Princess Luna conjure a popcorn bowl out of the corner of his eye with her magic.

Patient chimed in for real, “I mean, you’d probably prefer the Valkyries to come to your neck of the woods, because I don’t think you want your topiary bushes to be filled with the entrails of your guards. Soooo… I’d suggest you stop talking.” The noble promptly sat down, quivering like a storm-rattled leaf. Silence held the Court again for a few minutes, and when she was certain nobody would make any more insane remarks, Charlotte put the radio into the book and made it vanish in a flash of light. She then sat down herself and relaxed a little.

“I’d like to make a statement regarding the proposed stimulus packages,” another noble, this one a bit pale in his face himself, said as he stood up with legs that were a wee bit on the wobbly side. "And of the browbeating by the hit squad...members presently among us." As that last part left his mouth, he looked pointedly at Patient and Charlotte with a steely gaze, trying his utter damnedest not to be cowed by their presence.

"I only condone the browbeating in question, as they are not actually partaking in violent behavior… currently…” Luna paused to take in a mouthful of popcorn before finishing, "But once hooves start flying, I will have them removed and suspended from Court for a period of up to six months, depending on how severe the damage becomes. Possibly a decade, unless red and black alicorns are involved. Am I perfectly clear?"

Patient and Charlotte nodded in response. The noble who was brave enough to actually call them out on said browbeating relaxed a little, and turned to address Filthy. "While I do agree with your proposed stimulus package, I still have some concerns over how you are going to implement them, and of the potential danger of said provinces should they become welfare states," he began smoothly. "We've seen what became of Griffonstone; before its Idol was lost, it fell into the welfare trap."

“My initial plan was to have a single stimulus package, to have the provincial educational systems use at their own discretion;and only one, as government handouts should be rare and only given under dire circumstances,” Filthy responded.

"Yes, you told us that," the brave noble stated curtly. "But the question would be how, since this is a very large project you have proposed that not everypony in this room has enough bits to donate to."

For a moment, Filthy was stone silent. “Perhaps the treasury may have the funds we require? I understand it’s a massive risk, but the long-term payoff has immense potential to it...and, well, think of our children. This would better the whole of Equestria fifty years down the road,” he said.

The brave noble glumly shook his head, but only once. "How about we only fund one city as a bit of an experiment, for twenty years minimum to study the long-term effects?" he proposed. "I hear Hollow Shades is in dire need of an educational reform from the ground up; they have standardized testing. This whole lowest-common-denominator nonsense has severely crippled its infrastructure lately."

“That is a sound idea. All I ask is for us to try.” Filthy nodded.

The noble nodded again. "Very well. We shall discuss this in private at a later date," he concurred. With that he sat down, and Filthy Rich trotted over to sit next to him. The trip he took to reach the spot earned him several leery glares from the more unscrupulous nobles, already plotting to undermine them if the glint in their eyes were an indication. One such pony then hopped to center stage, and right up to Princess Luna with such confidence Patient wondered if he was faking it or taking lessons from somepony else.

“I think we should rescind the castle doctrine!” the noble who waltzed up to Luna proclaimed in a pompous, arrogant voice that Patient was quick to recognize. He groaned upon hearing the voice of the bureaucrat Rekka aggravated to no end yesterday, and his stomach clenched so hard it did not know which way to backflip.

"That is a very bold proclamation to make, my little pony…" Celestia noted, tilting her head. She turned to Luna. "Sister, do you have anything to say about this?"

Luna pursed her lips and furrowed her brow for a few seconds, contemplating and weighing the bureaucrat's words carefully. "Most perplexing… even more so than the eccentricities Discord has partaken in as of late. Do enlighten us as to why you would wish such a thing," she said, carefully.

"I’m not saying that we should revoke weapon ownership across Equestria, but my research has concluded that we will have less unnecessary deaths due to home invasion. Preventing untimely deaths is a just cause, is it not? Unless, of course, one were to refer to the red and black menace the world is plagued with at this time.”

“I can… understand your logic. It is very sound," Celestia noted rather hesitantly, slowly nodding her head.

“But with the mutant alicorns running around, the same alicorns that don’t care much for our laws and livelihoods, then how will anypony be able to defend themselves if one or a dozen decide to break into their homes if the doctrine is taken away?” Patient piped up with a quizzical look on his face, rather than with a snarky threat.

The bureaucrat swished his tail once. "That is what the hit squads and guard units are there for. So the citizens don't have to engage in such needless bloodshed," he stated.

“While I understand not wanting to engage in violence, as I have plenty of friends who are like that,” Patient heard a few chuckles from the crowd of nobles as he said those words. He laughed as well, but his chuckles were mirthless. “It’s true! My fiance is one of those kinds. Wouldn’t it give a lot more power to the guards and hit squads? The same powers that may or may not be susceptible to corruption?"

"My sentiments exactly. Wouldn't that make Equestria a more militaristic state? Who's to say we won't fall to that should we go down that road, just as the corrupted alicorns have?" Charlotte piped up, her utterance causing a few murmurs to sweep through the gathered nobles still sitting down.

The bureaucrat shook his head. "Coming from a hit squad yourself, Miss Tome…" he began, without even bothering to look at Charlotte, "you should know that 'corruption' should not even be in your lengthy vocabulary."

Charlotte's ears folded back. "But what if one of us dabbles in dark magic? What would you do then?" she shot back.

Patient interjected, “What if the guards and hit squads staged a coup and managed to throw every one of the Princesses into Tartarus or, Gods forbid, establish ourselves as Equestria's de facto leaders? We have all the guns and weapons, and the magics. What would you do if we started murdering foals for our sick amusement while we had that kind of power, theoretically?" That caused another wave of murmurs, this one more hushed and frantic, to sweep the crowd.

“Keep talking like that, Mr. Care, and I’ll push for taking weapons away from hit squads…” the bureaucrat threatened, this time turning to glare at Patient from his spot.

"I only meant theoretically. What would you do then?" Patient extrapolated, his voice filled with exasperation.

“Like I said, the civilians will still be able to keep their own weapons! They can rise up and defeat their oppressors!” the bureaucrat explained, giving Patient a sly grin.

“We can take their weapons away if we’ve got the bigger guns, dude,” Patient deadpanned.

"But then you'd feed a vicious cycle. The Brigade would surely come in and grind Equestria into dust at that point," the bureaucrat shot back, causing Patient to flinch.

"My, my," a child-like voice cooed, very young and feminine in tone. "Isn't that coming from the local prison warden?" The bureaucrat jumped and looked around before his eyes fell onto a young foal of all things, no older than eleven, as she strode down to him with the air of honed arrogance. Her magenta coat glittered faintly, contrasted sharply by a silvery mane and red eyes. Her tufted ears, curved horn, and black bat-like wings only further served to set her apart.

The bureaucrat frowned at the foal. "Aren't you one of those abominations? H-how…" he stammered.

The foal held up a hoof and waved dismissively. "Oh, I have a red-bodied friend who encouraged me to change my ways. Last I heard of her, she trotted back to the Changeling Lands," she answered, giving the bureaucrat a toothy smile that revealed canines sharpened to a point. Behind her, a mare stepped down, this one a blue unicorn with a silver mane and ice cold eyes decked out in a maid suit.

“Who the hell let her in?” Patient groused in a mildly amused tone, looking at the foal curiously. "And the maid?"

Charlotte smacked her face with her good hoof. "Oh goody…" she mumbled under her breath.

"Oh, I am a dignitary," the foal replied with a chuckle, her wings twitching as she craned her neck to stare at Patient. She turned back to the bureaucrat and grinned wickedly at him. "Tell me… I wonder what the influx of prisoners would do to your revenue… especially those who were incarcerated defending themselves from the mutant alicorns?" she mused darkly.

The bureaucrat did not falter in the slightest. "Now, bear in mind this is merely a suggested experiment. It has yet to be implemented, and—"

The foal held up a hoof and waved him off again, this time tilting her head. "Oh, don't start that poppycock with me," she scoffed. "I could not have an easier time seeing through your lies even if they came with an instruction manual."

“That… That doesn’t sound like a thing that, like… an eleven year old would say. Like, at all,” Patient said to himself.

"She's five hundred years old," Charlotte hissed under her breath.

“The fuck?” Patient whispered back.

"She's an old vampire from another dimension. Trust me," Charlotte muttered in reply.

"I can hear you two bickering from the surface of the moon," the foal stated, not bothering to look at the two whispering ponies. "You'd best not test my patience."

Patient said nothing in response, but rolled his eyes. He decided to ask the mysterious filly and her maid questions later, and resigned himself to watching the fireworks start.

"Sakuya?" the foal asked, turning to the maid.

"Yes?" the maid asked, perking up.

"Stand by Miss Tome and Mister Care, would you?" the foal asked. "Perhaps provide them with food and drink just to keep them occupied?"

The maid nodded at once. "Your will is done, Miss Remilia," she answered. With a flash of her horn, she vanished in a flash of blue light, leaving Remilia to turn her attention back to the bureaucrat.

"So… Mr. Bar, how would you rescind the castle doctrine?" Remilia asked, still giving the bureaucrat a toothy smile. "Nevermind the why. I'd like to know the how."

“We’ll simply charge the one who acted in self defense with ponyslaughter,” Mr. Bar replied.

Remilia didn't look all that convinced. If anything, her brow arched sharply. "... ponyslaughter?" she asked, her tone dangerously level for somepony who looked like a prepubescent foal. "Are you trying to tear my cutie mark away?"

“Yes. We’ll charge them with ponyslaughter, maybe illegal ownership of lethal weapons,” Mr. Bar replied, sweating a teensy bit as Remilia continued to stare incredulously at him.

At that moment the maid chose to reappear in another flash of light next to Patient, this time carrying a plate of spring roll sushi and a water pitcher expertly atop her left fetlock. "I see you two have seen far better days," she noted.

"Had a bit of… several problems," Charlotte groused, turning to watch the spectacle and silently wondering when the fireworks would really go off.

“Yeah, you can say that.” Patient blew air from his nose before stuffing his face with sushi in an uncouth display. Charlotte followed suit, albeit in one dainty bite before stuffing it into one cheek.

The maid nodded and handed them the pitcher and the platter. "Feel free to drain that at your leisure," she stated, turning to watch Remilia as Mr. Bar went a little red in the face. "But not immediately," she advised. "I've a feeling a spectacle will grace us shortly."

“It’s not as if nearly every settlement in Equestria and its colonies are completely crime ridden, or are in dire need of weapons! Even our holdings in the Mild West have been relatively calm as of late, since we gave the stampeding grounds back to the Buffalo,” Mr. Bar attempted to justify himself. Unfortunately, this did nothing to dissuade Remilia from boring into his soul with her stare.

"Really? Why don't you take that exact argument to whatever leaders Griffonstone has accrued? I'm certain they wouldn't see things much differently than you do," Remilia scoffed, her tone still level and her gaze entirely fixed on Mr. Bar.

Mr. Bar shrugged. “They didn’t implement the system correctly.”

Remilia's eyes widened at that, and her ears twitched. "They didn't… what sort of ludicrous statement is that?!" she questioned, her tone now a mildly miffed sort.

“That is precisely it. It wasn’t implemented correctly. They also took away all weapons from the populace, or anything that could be considered a weapon, like kitchen knives, tools, what have you. In my policy, I say we allow our citizens to keep their weaponry,” Mr. Bar responded, smiling smugly once he saw he'd caught Remilia blindsided.

His smile fell, though, when her gaze leveled again. "You sound less and less sane the more you blather on. It's almost as though your train of thought was being derailed every second, by the second," she hissed. "What next, will you stipulate that Equestria wage war with the Valkyries on top of the one we already have with the seemingly endless alicorn menace?"

“Well, at that point, we may as well institute some kind of Trotsky level communitarianism. Let the state give everybody exactly what they need. Then, crime would go down once everybody was on equal footi—” Mr. Bar stopped rambling when Remilia trotted up to him, spread one of her wings, and backhanded him with it. She did so swiftly and mercilessly, knocking Mr. Bar to the ground and leaving three long gashes in his cheek as the clawed tips of her wing-digits scraped him on their way past.

"Miss Scarlet? May you come here tomorrow, whence you have calmed down?" Luna suggested, prompting Remilia to close her wing and nod slowly.

"Yes… but on the condition that somepony look into Mr. Bar's motives," Remilia stated, her voice now ice cold. When Luna nodded back, she turned to take her leave and started trotting for the door, pausing only to look at her maid. "Sakuya, bring Tome and Care with us... "

Sakuya nodded, and yanked Patient and Charlotte into the air with her magic. Then she trotted until she was behind Remilia, who then proceeded to finish exiting the room. It wasn't until they were several halls away from the Court in two hours' time did Sakuya ask the two levitating charges a question, "By the way… have you seen Patchouli around these parts? My mistress has been looking for her ever since she vanished."

Flashback: Burns, Nurses, and The Past

Trigger couldn't believe he'd be this much of an idiot.

The white stallion lay curled up in a heavy, warm blanket that smelled sweetly of detergent. He shifted about in his bed under the bright lights above him as two strong smells mixed horribly in his sinuses; a sterilized hospital room and burnt flesh underneath thick gauze.

Trigger's previous mark was a great success, as the poor sap didn't even notice the poison in his tea before he was already rolling around on the floor, frothing at the mouth. Said poison was supplied to him by the contract owner, as she whipped up the concoction specifically for her business rival. The target was executed so perfectly that Trigger was immediately offered another mark by the same employer.

This time around, it was requested by said employer that the next target would have to be eliminated in a way to make it look like an accident. Trigger did what he normally would, and cased the joint. It was a grand, two story antique store that hosted a panoply of old nick-knacks and former possessions. Above the register, where the target would be, was a forged iron chandelier, encrusted with decades of wax from tall candles. Perfect; all he'd have to do is find a way to drop that on the target!

After going through many different options, Trigger decided on chemically wearing out the chain of the chandelier, but not in a way that makes it look like malicious tampering. So, after a quick trip to the hardware store, he sat down and attempted to make a slow acting acid. While he did make a C in high school chemistry, he still tried to make an oxidizing solution that would corrode the iron in such a way to make it look like it had rusted apart and fallen.

However, as his luck would have it, he bumped into a stronger solution in a wrong way, causing it to spill all over his chest and the tops of his hind legs.

That's how he ended up here, still in a slight morphine induced haze.

Trigger lazily looked out the window, smelling the fresh breeze as it blew in from the hospital's front lawn. The scent of the inside of his sinuses told him that he had been inside for too long, and that he should rest up quickly so he would be able to leave this lumpy, old bed.

With that thought, the door to his room opened up, and Trigger flopped over on to his back and looked lethargically towards the nurse walking his way. The nurse was a fellow unicorn that was about his height, with a light yellow coat and dark green mane.

"Alright mister..." The nurse paused, magically flipping through a few pages on his clipboard. "...Trigger. My name's Patient Care, I'm your nurse for the time being, since your regular is out sick. First off, I'm gonna change out your gauze."

There was something off about him. He seemed a bit distant, his words were a bit choppy, and he had some bags under his eyes. The nurse had probably been through something.

"How badly is this gonna hurt?" Trigger asked, looking at him through the malaise of medical opiates.

"Not too much if I do this." Patient replied, turning a dial on an automatic IV drip, increasing the painkillers Trigger received.

Now that the nurse was almost right over him, Trigger could see a small pin that was attached to the upper breast of his scrubs; it was that of three golden chevrons with a pair of crossed swords underneath them. The nurse wasted no time unfurling a new length of gauze from a medical cart that had been left in Trigger's room.

"Sooo...you were in the army?" Trigger asked, awkwardly striking up a conversation.

"Yeah! I was a nurse for a field hospital." His caregiver smiles with forced mirth.

"Field hospital? Did you serve in the Zebra War?" Trigger asked, cocking his head.

The nurse breathed in through his nose. "Yeah..." Was his response, his smile now forced into a tight frown.

Trigger winced externally. He knew that he would be a bit more tactful were it not for the drugs.

"Aw shit. I'm...sorry I brought it up." He said sincerely.

"Oh, don't worry about it." Patient said before he began to unravel Trigger's right leg bandage. "I'll be honest with you, there are others worse off than me. Trust me on that, I've helped them to full recovery."

Trigger nodded as the pain of his burned flesh shot searing pinpricks through the numbness. He gritted his teeth as the nurse carefully began to clean the wound.

"If you don't mind me asking...what was it like?" Trigger asked.

Patient paused and looked up at him, unsure of what to say. Immediately, he returned to cleaning the burn, but he kept his mind on summing up his experience.

"Well, Trigger..." He began. "Let me tell you something about myself. I grew up in Marelin, and my best friend growing up with a zebra. We would do everything together, we hung out and played with each other every day. Hell, I even considered him a brother."

There was a brief pause.

"...Loved him like one, too. His parents loved me like I was one of theirs, and my mother loved him like he was one of hers."

Patient had finished cleaning Trigger's right leg and began to reapply the gauze.

"What changed?" Trigger asked, knowing where this was going.

"The war." Patient said bitterly. "I had just graduated college when it broke out. My friend and his family heeded the call, didn't even say goodbye, only left to Zebralia with hatred towards me, my mother, and the rest of pony-kind. I joined the army because it was either that or be conscripted, and since they saw that I was a licensed nurse, they sent me to officer school, and then got further medical training. Honestly, I hate what the war did to the zebras. I hate what it did to me, because I hated them back for a long while."

Trigger's frown tightened, he listened to the nurse rattle off his story as he felt the gauze on his left leg unravel. He remembered how the king of Zebralia hated non-zebras, and how he stirred up racial tensions to spark a war only he would benefit from. He knew that Patient here had immense pain deep down inside of him, and he understood that anguish completely.

"After the war, and after all the peace treaties and non-aggression pacts, and after they threw the old leader in jail, I went to the town in Zebralia where my friend's parents lived. The reunion was tearful, to say the least." Patient chuckled. "There was a lot of apologizing and wounds mended that day. However, they told me that my friend had died in the war. It happened on the day I was honorably discharged."

Trigger looked on speechless. He felt the nurse finish cleaning his left leg, the stinging and searing of his flesh still at odds with the morphine, but he didn't care. Patient's glum expression turned into a resolute smirk as he begins to wrap fresh gauze around the injured limb.

"Wow, dude..." Trigger could only say. "You know, man. Most vets wouldn't wanna talk about something like that to someone they don't know."

"Well, you're an open ear. And a sympathetic one at that." Patient replied, gingerly unwrapping Trigger's chest gauze.

He noticed the burns on the white unicorn stallion's chest were almost as if his skin was corroded, or was being melted or eaten away. Patient knew exactly what kind of burns these were.

"So, why were you playing with so much acid?" He asks, curiously as he swabs Trigger's torso clean.

"Uhhh...well, you see..." Trigger was really bad with making things up on the fly. "I, er, was trying to make some, uh...some..." He could tell this was getting him nowhere. It might be the drugs doing this, or the act of his caretaker opening up to him. "Alright, you know what, fuck it. I'll tell you, because you've told me about your shit."

Patient's ear twitched as he finished cleaning up the stallion's chest and unfurled a final length of gauze.

"I've already bribed the law in town to look away from me, so if you go crying to them about it, then you're out of luck." That made Patient stop in his tracks and balk at Trigger.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, deeply concerned.

Trigger sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm a hitcolt. I got burned by acid because I was trying to find a way to...look, it doesn't matter, but I was working on a hit, alright?"

Patient could hardly believe what he was hearing. Was he even telling the truth? No, he couldn't be. Why would anypony just admit something like that? It doesn't make any sense! Trigger was telling the truth, however, as Patient could see it in his eyes.

"Why would you tell me something like that?" The nurse asked, finally continuing to bandage his torso.

"Because you told me about something deeply painful and personal to you and I...fuckin' understand it." Trigger sighs once more.

A long moment of heavy silence hung, as Patient and Trigger both searched within themselves for something to say.

"Well, I told you mine..." Patient finally spoke, finishing up Trigger's torso wrappings and turning the dial down on his morphine.

"I was really young at the time this happened. Maybe twenty or so? I was living in Manehattan at the time, and there were two rival mafias warring each other for control." Trigger began, trying to hazily find the right words through the numbness.

"I was living in my sister's apartment at the time, and she and I were inseparable. Honestly, it was actually kind of weird; we never fought, hung out with the same group of friends throughout our lives..." He trailed off, his voice beginning to well up. "But one day. One fuckin' day. The bookstore that she worked at got robbed by one of the mafias, because the owner forgot to pay the protection money that month. Long story short, she got caught in the middle of it and ate a crowbar."

Trigger's eyes began to well up.

"You don't have to keep on going if you don't want to." Patient spoke softly, his expression had slowly been softening as Trigger spoke.

"I, uh, went to the rival mafia and asked them for work...because I wanted to avenge my sister. They set me up with one of their hitcolts, and I learned from him. That's how I got into the trade." Trigger nodded.

There was another long silence as the two tried to find words to say.

"Damn." Patient uttered quietly after what seemed like half a minute. It was all he could say.

"Yeah. Don't here a story like that everyday, do you?" Trigger tried to smirk.

"Not really, no." Patient smirked back. "You know what? I like you. It takes a lot of guts to say what you just said."

"That's not the half of it, though." Trigger reasoned.

"And neither is mine. I'll tell you rest over after a few shows, however." Patient offered.

"Figured you'd be a drinker." Trigger grinned toothily and chuckled. "Once I get out of here, hit me up. I've always wanted a drinking buddy."

Murder, Mystery, Motive

Patient could feel the color being drained from his face as Sakuya uttered those words. His mouth clacked, yet he could not will himself to speak. However, somepony else was all too happy to fill in for him.

“What,” Charlotte said in a flat monotone.

"Purple mane and coat, ribbons in mane, book cutie mark?" Remilia groaned in exasperation, spreading a wing and slapping her face with it in lieu of her own hoof.

Patient took a deep breath. "Well… she's in the Reedpipes house, currently. I… helped care for her back when she was wounded," he said, his utterance causing Remilia and Sakuya to halt in their tracks.

"She was… wounded?" Remilia uttered slowly, turning to look at Patient with her eyes growing as wide as dinner plates. Patient nodded affirmatively.

"But she's on the path to recovery. I saw to it," Patient replied. “Would you care at all to hear about what happened before then?”

Sakuya shook her head. "I think she should tell us herself, thank you kindly." Her horn started to gather light, and in a small burst of magic a pocket watch appeared next to and hovered at her side. "I will take us all there, at once." Seconds before they vanished and reappeared in Sapphire's living room, Patient could have sworn the world flashed in four mute shades of inverted gray, and everything—breath, touch, even sight—stopped.

Within an instant, their sudden appearance caused a shrill scream to permeate through the air. The four whirled to the source as she sat on the couch, finding Sapphire staring at them with wide eyes and a pale face. "O-oh… um…" Sapphire stammered.

Sakuya held up a hoof. "We heard a dear friend was here, and teleported over as soon as we were able. Sorry for the inconvenience." She dropped her hoof, and gently lowered Patient and Charlotte to the floor.

“Fucking what…?” Patient began, but he was stopped when Remilia spread a wing and waved it in his direction.

"He told us our dear Patchouli was here," Remilia stated.

“I mean, I did. I’ve just… never been teleported before.” Patient frowned when Sakuya looked at him.

"Understandable; not many of those in the strike teams have experienced it," Sakuya stated in a rather understanding tone. She turned back to Sapphire, who had taken a few deep breaths and lifted a hoof to gesture down the hall. "Thank you." With that, the four bounded down to the hall, and veered into the guest rooms within a matter of two hours.

*********

A pink filly with a striped purple and white mane huffed as she and Filthy Rich trotted through the garden of one of the many noble estates surrounding the palace of Canterlot, a feeling of dread settling into her gut. The sky was clear, the flowers smelled fresh, the hedge figurines were perfectly trimmed to the last square inch, and yet something was still wrong. "Daddy, why did Mr. Bar invite us?" she groaned as they trotted to a mansion sporting thick iron bars visible from inside the windows.

Filthy shrugged in earnest. "I don't know, in all honesty. But I'll do my best to ensure he doesn't get you dragged into it, my precious princess," he replied, his face settling in determination. "I heard all about what one noble said about somepony else's daughter, and I swear by Celestia I will not allow the same rubbish to be spoken about you." The filly nodded and sighed ruefully, but her father lifted a hoof to pat her on the withers. "Don't worry Diamond. We'll just tell Mr. Bar where he can stick it and go home."

Diamond smiled at that and nodded, envisioning the look on Mr. Bar's face as her daddy told him off. They did not speak until they reached the doors to the manor, whereupon Filthy knocked thrice. Silence greeted them. "Mr. Bar? Are you there?" Filthy called at the top of his lungs, yet for a full minute after that he received no answer. He knocked again, perhaps sensing that Mr. Bar might need a little more encouragement to come down and open the door already.

The doors flew open before Filthy could call out a second time, revealing a pale-faced servant clad in a standard maid's garb. She galloped past the guests, hyperventilating, only further setting her silver coat and gold mane in matted tangles as she passed with such speed Diamond wondered if her hooves had caught fire. "Guards! Guuuuaaaaaarrrrds!" the maid shrieked as she vanished after rounding a sharp corner at the gates.

Filthy frowned, and trotted into the living room with Diamond falling in step behind him. "Daddy? Don't we have to find a servant to escort us in?" Diamond asked.

Filthy shook his head. "It seems they have other duties to attend to…" He spared a glance at the doors. "I wonder what that poor dear got herself in a tizzy over…"

"I dunno. Maybe she forgot to get honeysuckle tea for her master," Diamond suggested, frowning as she realized she didn't sound terribly sure of her own words. She took a cursory glance around the living room, seeing massive couches, a few tables, ottomans, and… other than that, it was barren. No paintings hung the rather gaudily-painted walls, which would have made the resulting eyesore of oversaturated yellow more bearable to look at. No decorations hung from the gaudy pink ceiling, save a sole chandelier that had seen a good three layers of dust rather recently. The floor was a pleasing marble, yet no rugs covered it to provide even the slightest comfort.

"... Daddy?" Diamond began, her frown deepening at the overall lack of decor.

"Yes?" Filthy queried, turning to his child with a brow raised.

Diamond looked back and sighed. "I get the feeling Mr. Bar's a boring stallion," she replied, making sure her tone was as innocent as could be, though she could not keep the venom from her voice.

Filthy took a look at the room as Diamond lifted a hoof to gesture around it, and though he noticed a flight of stairs in the far corner and another hall opposite of those stairs, he could see what she meant. After that, the two turned to the steps, where another harried maid had just leapt from. "O-out! Sh-shoo! Nopony's welcome!" she yelled, galloping down with her horn lowered.

Diamond simply raised a hoof and stopped the charging maid by moving to clutch her snout once she came close. "Whoa! What happened?!" she asked as the maid pulled back, tail quivering.

“G-get… out… get out…" the maid muttered, foam already pooling in her mouth.

"What's wrong?" Filthy asked, staring into the maid's wide eyes to find bloodshot whites.

"W-we're… we're… do-done… f-for…" the maid stammered, legs shaking with evident straining. Diamond backed away from her, and so did Filthy, as her horn sputtered to life in a feeble glow. She collapsed before casting any sort of spell, however, as her hooves and magic simply failed her. With eyes turning glassy, and magic dying, she croaked one last time, "G-go… get… out…" With a final twitch, she lay there motionless.

Diamond and her father exchanged looks, before trotting around the maid and heading upstairs. They did not need to rush out and call for help; one of the staff had already taken that task on her shoulders, and they didn't need to exacerbate her woes. They reached the top of the stairs in a gallop, glancing around to figure out where to go and what was wrong. Finding themselves at a hallway spanning to both sides, the pair paused to take stock of what it held.

Left side, perfectly pristine; doors and carpets almost sparkling as if they were brand new. Right side, not so much; maids slumped against doors, half foaming at the mouths and the other half with their brains messily splattered along the sides of the walls and floor. The blood was still glistening and running in rivers from where it was splattered; this had to have been very fresh. Diamond and Filthy paled; no wonder the first maid ran. Poor dear was likely the only survivor of this travesty, Diamond mused with no small amount of pain and distaste welling in her mouth.

At the end of the left side of the hall rested a set of double doors, blood staining its ornate wood frame as one door hung by just a single hinge. Silence held, save for the dying gasps of a few maids as life left them. Trotting slowly to those double doors, father and daughter spared the deceased ponies but a few glances, trying their best to avoid looking at the gaping head-wounds that littered half the household staff gathered here. Aside from their hoofsteps, the manor had fallen eerily silent.

Diamond's gut twisted further at the distressing scene. "What… what has happened?" Filthy muttered, though his daughter didn't respond. She had no response to give; not for the moment. After all, they'd just stumbled upon the grisly crime scene, and answers were not forthcoming anyway since the manor staff were currently predisposed with dying at their hooves. They strode to those doors without even the slightest iota of interruption, and the closer they came to those doors the more the stench of death flooded their nostrils.

Diamond wrinkled her nose and tried her best to avoid making a face as the fresh notes of urine and excrement hit her sinuses as soon as she and her father had stopped at the double doors. Coupled with blood, the stink was reaching unbearable levels that she had only heard about from the specialized groups and individuals who were still dealing with the alicorn conundrum that was sweeping the world as of late.

She and her father shared looks. Then Diamond reached forward and opened the door.

She winced as a creak met her ears, and forced herself to suppress a gag as she unveiled something that would only happen in King Sombra's wet dreams: a mess of gore sprawled all around and in front of her. It was so thick and palpable that chunks were still dripping from the ceiling and the furniture strewn about therein was unrecognizable. A few pieces of what she assumed were table legs were forcibly shoved into what may have been orifices never meant for, much less biologically built to handle that gruesome purpose.

Heads were split, legs bent at unnatural angles, intestines fashioned into nooses… it was almost as if one of the strike teams had besieged this place; to an extent it almost seemed comical, the level of brutality displayed by the grisly visage that was the massacre before her. Who was who, and who did what before death, she couldn't say; it was little wonder her father was already gagging at her side, struggling to keep his own vomit from adding itself to the grotesque tableau.

“We...need to go!” Filthy struggled to say, choking back the tumultuous feeling in his gut. He pulled Diamond away from the scene and galloped past the now dead maids and estate staff and down the other side of the hallway. Up another flight of stairs they went, Diamond looking on at the aftermath of the grisly scene behind her as she was ushered on.

Alas, there was no reprieve for them on the second floor of the manor; decapitated heads filled to near-bursting with white, congealing spaff lay discarded at the front of every door. Their corpses were strewn through broken windows, blood still gushing and spurting from torn arteries; some were hanging on by a thread and others hacked into pieces prior to impalement on glass only barely large and strong enough to support them. How they hadn't noticed that from their approach, Diamond could only wonder in horror.

Interestingly, impaled into one of the doors was an overgrown set of hedge shears, having torn a hole through the wood and dripping with fresh blood and jism. Diamond's gut cartwheeled, and her brain concocted a very unfortunate and wince-worthy image of somepony masturbating with the shears. Perhaps that was the Beholder's thing, she mused, but not even the Beholder would do something quite like this.

Diamond's mind flitted back to the maid who foamed at the mouth before she fell. Some part of her started to entertain the notion that maybe the staff was poisoned… she hoped that the first maid that made it past the doors was able to get the guards in time if that were the case. She turned to her father again, who was once more suppressing a distressing series of dry heaves that threatened to turn into full-blown retching.

She turned down the stairs and trotted, her father following her without a word spoken between them. The less said about this tragedy, the better; it was energy spent for more productive things, such as holding onto hope that the guards would get here sooner rather than later. Returning to the first hall, then the ground floor, was swift and silent save for their hoofsteps.

Scanning the foyer again, Diamond was looking for something—anything—to take her mind off of the senseless death and desecration upstairs. She shuddered as she turned to the hallway on the other side of the foyer; from where she stood, it didn't look that… defiled, but there was no telling on the other side of its doors. She didn't have Luna's dream walking and Celestia's clairvoyance, after all, and certainly not a few more useful skills like what the other strike teams had at their disposal.

She turned to her father again. Something in her gut stirred, telling her to take that brave step forward—quite possibly, at her own expense. "I... " She struggled to gather her words, frowning contemplatively. She halted when her father began to speak.

“I...I need to find a…” Filthy began, only to see an open door nearby, which was thankfully an unblemished bathroom, and galloped towards it. Sounds of hideous retching and cries for mercy from the gods of every creature on this forsaken world began to rush from the bathroom as Diamond herself winced.

She took the opportunity to slip away, at least to satisfy her own growing, yet morbid, curiosity. Down that hall she went, steps light and silent. As with the upstairs, the closer she came to a set of double doors at its end, the stronger the stench of death grew. However, it was comparatively tame; no bodies were strewn about, no blood adorned this set of enclosed walls that she could see.

The doors were not ajar when she reached them. Rather, they were splintered and warped, bowing towards her in a way that suggested brute force had been used within. The knobs were melted and flaking, with whatever keyholes they once had filled in with more of themselves. Even like this, though, there was nary a crack to peek through; with a sigh of resignation and dread, she lifted a hoof to peek the old-fashioned way.

The right door opened with a wobble that suggested its hinges were on its last legs; a grating creak met her ears, tumbling down the hall until it faded with distance.

Within, Diamond could see the room was immaculately decorated; vast reliefs of Equestrian history and Neighponese calligraphic scrolls covered much of the walls while finely crafted furniture was left mostly untouched, par the blood. There was a lot of it, and many bodies to have produced it, all sitting upon a bed with curtains thrown wide open. Most were mares, albeit piled into a strange ball-like shape that held despite the myriad of slack legs and necks. In the center of this mass, which she could only see thanks to a gap in the tangle of limbs, was a stallion… with his extremities stitched to his forehead in place of his horn.

If her father had seen this, he would have cringed in sympathy before bailing to fetch the guards, or preferably Celestia. Diamond wanted to both look away and peer closer to see what had happened, and though she stood for some seconds thanks to indecision, ultimately the morbid curiosity won out and made her approach. With legs on autopilot, she moved, being careful to step around the blood puddles that lead to this legion of carcasses.

As she came closer, though, Diamond began to notice irregularities with this legion: namely, stitches. Some were long, seemingly spanning from one mare to the next, while others only stopped short of limbs and groins. On top of that, there were irregularities with the furniture; a grandfather clock of what was possibly Prench origin stood before the left wall, next to a shelf laden with various knick-knacks that would scarcely be seen in the palace dungeons, much less a noble's bedchambers.

Diamond's heart began to climb in her throat as she approached the bodies, halting only when she was snout to snout with the furthest mare outwards, whose head had slumped to hide the stallion's face. Her once-gorgeous face was now riddled in stitches, preserving only her glassy eyes and bloodsoaked mane. She lifted a hoof to gently move the mare's stitched skull aside, peering closer into the abyss that the stallion lay within.

His eyes were glassy as well, and stitches ran all across his trapped body. Nothing was sacred with him; hooves were attached to shoulders attached to legs attached to groins… in fact, he himself was barely recognizable amidst the patchwork he was part of. She could not see his cutie mark, or even his front hooves; poor bastard was buried up to his withers and then some with mares. It was a miracle she could see him at all, given his current state.

Her mind ran in circles. Who would be twisted enough to make this gruesome gallery of patchworked putrefying ponies? She had to admit, though… the last time she saw something similar to this in nature was when she got a hold of some freak strain of poison joke some years ago and used it against a few wannabe tryhard alicorn menaces for shits and giggles. Even now, that memory seemed distant and dead compared to what she was looking at.

The closer she peered into the stallion's lifeless eyes, though, was the closer she got to being buried in corpses. Diamond slowly backed off, seeing a very faint trace of familiarity within the central carcass's thousand-yard stare.

Suddenly, a creaking floorboard from on high startled Diamond, who gasped and shot backwards in a panicked hurry before regaining control of herself. Such a thing did startle the mare’s body to force it to move somewhat, slumping forward with the grace of a sack of raw meat. As that occurred, the grandfather clock groaned to life, tolling the new hour, which set one of the knick-knacks rolling off the shelf… and down several more shelves that Diamond could not see past the legion of bodies. The knick-knack rolled with a drumming beat, almost bouncing along its journey until it fell on to the body of the mare whose head she had moved aside.

Diamond could barely hear it, the thud of the knick-knack on deceased flesh followed immediately by the faintest ticking. The bodies moved all in unison, their skin stretching suddenly and without warning. Heart starting its rampant pounding in her throat, she turned on her heels and galloped out, turning back around to slam the door shut behind her just as the sound of tearing meat and flying objects spilled from within. She held her whole body against the door, wincing as its mate flew off its hinges entirely to let flashing silver and crimson follow it quite a few doors down, where it landed and skid against the marble with an amplified shriek.

She could barely suppress a gasp of horror at what she witnessed, and wisely waited until the crimson-silver ceased movement entirely before daring to open the door she used as a shield. Alas, when she pulled away from it, it dropped off one of its hinges and rocked on contact with the marble, swaying ever so gently in a nonexistent breeze. She looked up, breath halting in her throat and heart almost stopping completely in her chest at what she now bore witness to.

Diamond silently stared at the macabre bramble bush that sloughed through the other door. It was an amalgamation of razor wire, piano wire, barbed wire, and hunks of torn, ragged meat all coiled messily into a neverending tangle that hurt her eyes immensely to look at. Therein, sputtering and smoking, sat a motor spinning several emptied spools uselessly. Only inertia kept it going, and soon enough with a series of pops, it died and stilled.

Only one question left her mouth there and then, unanswered by all in the world and as unheeded as the ramblings of a madmare trapped in the basement: "Who… what… could have caused this?"

With that utterance, she turned to collect her father and leave as soon as she could. Doing this would be risky she knew, but she was in Canterlot—Guard Central for all the world to see and care. Until the culprit was found, this simply wasn't her mess to clean up—nor her place to overstay her undue welcome.

***************

Shining Armor could only look on in bemusement as a mare in a maid's suit charged through a platoon of guards with enough force to knock the unprepared ponies flying in all directions. He only had enough time to set up a shield with a flick of his horn before wincing as the maid ran face-first into it with enough speed to audibly crack her snout. Fortunately, this was sufficient in halting her, and she sat on her rump to nurse the new wound with her front hooves.

He turned to his ponies-at-arms, sighing as they got up to look around for themselves. Some nursed bruises, and one had a dented breastplate, but luckily there was nothing serious—unless he counted the mare who forcibly broke formation with her reckless running and her bloody nose. And speaking of, he turned to her as she looked at him with pain flashing in her eyes. He lowered his shield and asked, "Do you need a medic?"

The maid shakily nodded, hooves still firmly clutching her face. "P-please… go to…"

"Speak no more," Shining said, approaching slowly in case it was his turn for a sudden flying lesson. The maid jolted when his hoof touched her withers, and her head shook.

"P-please… m-my master, Earl… Earl Silver Bar…" The maid's expression turned wild as she stared into Shining's eyes, lips quivering and tail twitching as her breathing labored.

Shining's brow rose. "What about Earl Silver Bar?" he asked, confusion twisting his features just the barest bit.

The maid pointed a shaking hoof in the direction she had come blazing from. "He… he… he and my c-c-colleagues…"

"They what?" Shining pressed, brow furrowing slightly as confusion transformed into a flash of suspicion that sparked in his eyes.

The distraught maid continued to nurse her wounded snout, still wide-eyed like a deer under the sights of a gryphon. "They all… something horrible… u-u-unspeakably vile… P-p-please…"

Unspeakably vile? That made Shining's gut clench harder than a freshly-convicted prisoner's anus after they dropped the soap. "Who did it?"

"They looked…" The maid began to hyperventilate as horrid memories, only hours old at best, resurfaced in her mind. "I… I didn't get a good g-glimpse… but everypony… h-h-has…"

At that point, another guard stepped in. "Sir, I think we should take her to the infirmary," he said bluntly.

Shining nodded. "I'll take a look-see at the estate myself while you dress her wounds and yours." He turned to the small platoon of guards who still hovered around the maid and sighed. "You lot, take her to the infirmary at once. I'll be off to do a little investigating." Without bothering to wait to see if the guards would follow his commands, he trotted around the whole lot of ponies and galloped away as soon as his hooves were clear of them.

He had a strange feeling he would know what he would find as his hooves took him to his destination. What he had not expected, though, was to find the passage of time oddly… slow as he came nearer and nearer to it. It had felt… wrong… defiled... tampered with. One part of his conscious piped up with his already-known knowledge that at least two ponies of two different strike teams had time-tampering abilities, but he shelved the concern with the decision to talk to both of those parties at a later time.

Something equally unexpected was the already-opened gate—with hindsight taking a vacation to another alternate world where such tragedies didn't happen, and even more surprising was Diamond Tiara and Filthy Rich standing in front of the doors, both paler than Discord's goatee. Shining skid to a halt before them, taking a moment to glance them over. Besides their expressions, and the little bits of blood adorning both sets of hooves, they seemed alright and yet disturbed. "What happened?" he asked.

Diamond lifted a hoof and gestured inside. "It's… a massacre in there…" she muttered.

Shining turned to Filthy Rich for further explanation. "Almost all the household staff… they died…" Filthy lifted a hoof to point at the still-parted gates. "Only one scrambled out, ignoring us entirely."

Shining's brow furrowed, and his gut clenched harder than that one time he was propositioned by two drunk ponies who really, really should have stayed clear of the alcohol that night. "And the owner of the estate?"

Diamond turned around and gestured for Shining to follow. Without words, she lead him into the house and down the right hall, all the way to the catastrophe that was now a ruined bedchamber. "This…" she said, pointing at the spools which had stopped spinning, "almost did me in."

Shining trotted around Diamond and to the anomaly. Peering closer, he could see the barbed wire still strewn amidst torn, unrecognizable flesh. "And why did you and your father come here?" he asked, turning to Diamond.

"To tell Mr. Bar what size dildo he should shove up his ass," Diamond said bluntly. "We didn't expect to… well, enter the aftermath of an alicorn snuff film."

"So… the deaths already happened."

Diamond nodded. "The spools were surrounded by bodies, but…" Her eyes gravitated around the room, not rolling but more tracking which scraps of meat still clung to the ceiling and which ones were going to drop next. "Then the spools triggered…"

"Were the bodies surrounding the spool dead?"

Diamond nodded again. "And stitched to each other, worse than that metal-legged pony on one of the other strike teams," she confirmed. "I couldn't recognize anypony in the ball of legs."

Shining sighed, briefly reminded of more ponies that came from another world and became a strike team. Seemed like he was going to have to hire one of those sorry bastards to do the myriad of autopsies here. And maybe that pony's wife, too. And possibly that pony's arch nemesis. "You didn't see fit to fetch any of us?"

Diamond shook her head. "That one maid came out running and screaming for the guards," she said.

Shining held a nod; his face, however, hardened slightly. "You and your father are spending the night in Canterlot. I'm not sure who did this—" He gestured to the dead spools and mechanisms that had powered it, "—but I am not taking chances. I'd suggest staying with the Reedpipes; they seemed to have a lot more guests lately."

Diamond nodded. "I'll go tell Daddy," she said, and with that, she trotted out of the room. Shining sighed and turned to the spools again, taking a long moment to study the workings of the mechanisms. First, it was Thorax's hive getting blasted with some brand new holes in its rockface, then the alicorns start piloting airships, and now this?

It seemed like somepony, somewhere, had messages to send. The severity of it, however, would not become apparent until the next day.

Strike Team Autopsy

The estate the following day was a bustle with a myriad of local guards, crime scene investigation, and the watchful eyes of Shining Armor. Along with them, much to the latter's embarrassment and the former's consternation, were Patient Care and a blue-coated, silver-maned stallion sporting spectacles and crimson serpents entwined around a winged rod for his cutie mark.

Patient didn't know how or why, but the silver-maned stallion had metal patches in his legs and chest, suggesting something somewhere went wrong for him. At his side stood two mares, a blond-maned lilac pegasus with green and oddly shining primaries with a bell collared to her neck and a pastel-maned grey-teal unicorn who glared at each other. Because the pegasus had larger wings than normal, Patient couldn't make out her or the pastel-mare's cutie marks too well. He could see rings on her fetlock and the silver-maned stallion's fetlock as well, matching each other's manes and coat colors perfectly.

"Okay, first I get pulled here by some chimera thing… then I get tasked with beating and murdering ponies who remind me of somepony back home that I would very much love to kick in the face... and now I get to deal with documenting the dead…" the silver-maned stallion muttered to himself.

“Like it or not, you two were the only official medical personnel that were available in the local strike teams,” Shining Armor spoke up, overhearing the silver-maned stallion. “We’ve got a lot of dead here, so be thorough, professional, and most of all: be brisk.”

The silver-maned stallion gestured to the unicorn accompanying him. "And of course, keep her from burning everything to the ground." The mare in question huffed, before peering over the stallion's shoulder to grin wickedly at Patient. Patient stared into her eyes, and frowned when he realized it was like staring into two whole color wheels that turned evil. Her eyes screamed of the standard red-and-black ill intent, but they did not seem to be of the menace's design. This made him wonder what the story behind such odd oculars was.

“Anything you can tell us about who we’re dealing with in terms of importance? Word on the grape vine says it’s something we outta be worried about,” Patient asked, turning towards Shining.

“This was once the estate of a mister Earl Silver Bar,” Shining looked at the three ponies before him. "And once this is sorted, the estate will go to the Crown until Celestia can figure out what to do with it."

Patient tried hard to hide an expression of shock, for it was naught a few days ago when he had had an argument with the aforementioned stallion. The new trio, however, seemed less interested in that and more interested in either glaring at each other, or showing that disinterest to Shining himself.

“Oh,” was all Patient could utter, blowing the lid on his obscuration of shock.

"The same bastard who told me to de-wing my own wife last week, when we tried delivering our report of the ongoings of the alicorn infestation that was cleared out of Las Pegasus?" the silver-maned stallion huffed.

“Whatever your personal grievances with him were, they must be put aside for the time being so we can ascertain the situation accurately,” Shining spoke calmly, making eye contact with him and Patient.

The silver-maned stallion sighed. "Very well…" He nudged the pegasus mare gently with his shoulder, for some reason steering clear of her primaries.

The pegasus turned to Shining and eased her expression into one of the most apathetic looks Patient had yet seen on a pony. "Avoid property damage?" she asked.

Shining nodded. “You’ll just have to see for yourself. If there’s any more questions, ask them now.”

The prismic-eyed unicorn raised a hoof. "Do we get to burn the bodies when we're done documenting them?" she asked, still wearing her wicked smirk as Shining turned to her. Patient started to wonder if she was a burn ward pony, or just a pyromaniac in general.

Shining sucked in a breath and pursed his lips. "We'll see," he said bluntly. He turned to the pegasus. "Keep her in line, as usual."

The pegasus nodded back and turned to the prismic-eyed unicorn once again. "If you behave, we'll let you eat more roasted star silk spiders," she said. That made the unicorn mare begin prancing in place, teeth glinting as she began to salivate at the thought.

That comment didn’t even phase Patient, as being since exposed to so much crazy from the red and black menace and the other strike teams caused his questioning side to get up, grab a cold one, and trot on its lonesome all the way to Las Pegasus. He turned to the silver-maned stallion and asked, "So how bad was Las Pegasus?"

The silver-maned stallion turned to him and frowned. Somehow, his baby blue eyes spoke of so much before accounting for the red and black menace. "A few shapeshifting alicorns who were, surprisingly enough, not even changelings in the slightest. They kept growing bat wings, feathers, butterfly wings… a few turned into partial objects with heads and legs fused to benches and the like… when I told the Special Task Force about it a few roads down before being summoned here, I swear to the old gods that Rekka had a coronary and several conniptions."

That managed to twist Rekka's longer-than-shit ponytail into a knot? Patient began to wonder what about those details managed to elicit the reaction.

“What was Rekka doing out there to begin with?" Patient asked curiously.

"He wanted to chat with the other strike teams, seeing if any were in the streets at the early hour. Mine was the first his team ran into," the silver-maned stallion replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "The others with him were more… calm with their reactions."

"We need to see his world, and he needs to see ours sometime," the pegasus spoke with a ruffle of her wings. Patient noticed her primaries clicked and clacked like hoofsteps, oddly metallic and… wrong. Something about those primaries started to not sit right with him.

"No, we don't need to give him another heart attack, Sora," the silver-maned stallion muttered, shaking his head. "We all have enough on our plates as it is."

Sora nodded and turned back to Shining. "No further questions," she said.

Shining nodded, and turned to her companions. Both shook their heads, so he turned to Patient. "And you?"

The response from Patient was concise. “Nope.”

“Alright, give your findings to the guards here when you’re done.” Shining nodded and turned, briskly trotting away.

"Does that mean we have to deal with that pony who keeps wanting to touch us?" the prismic-eyed unicorn asked, garnering a rueful sigh and reluctant nod from Sora.

"If he makes contact, you have my permission to… percussively persuade him," Sora said.

The silver-maned stallion shook his head. "If we do that, though, we're going to have to make another report to Shiny-Biny over that guard's… lack of discipline," he said. "On top of the paperwork that would inevitably involve our response to it."

“And I thought I caused enough trouble around here…” Patient muttered to himself, before clearing his throat as Shining Armor proceeded to vanish from sight around the corner of the manse.

The throat-clearing caused the silver-maned stallion to turn to Patient. "And what sort of trouble have you gotten up to?" he asked.

“That’s a very long story and I’m honestly not too proud of it,” the nurse responded.

The silver-maned stallion sighed. "Just like the rest of the strike teams," he muttered under his breath. "Then again, I'm in the same boat…"

“Were I to judge books by their covers, I’d almost believe you,” Patient snorted.

That made the silver-maned stallion bark out a laugh, one that caused most of the guards in the yard to look at him. "That's the first time I've heard that from somepony who wasn't a stuck-up noble-born curmudgeon!" he said, grinning as though his frogs were undergoing tickle torture. "At least I can count on you to be honest with me, as I am with you." With that, he trotted into the manse, with the two mares falling in step behind him as he went. Strange, the prismic-eyed unicorn had a fragmented star wreathed in flames as her mark...

When was the last time he saw a mark that glaringly obvious, he wondered?

“Well, let’s get to work, then. I’ve got a couple days worth of leave coming up tomorrow and I’d rather not spend it trying to document more of this mess,” Patient stated to the group as he followed them into the mansion.

Within, guards were already hustling about, some with quills and paper on standby and others seeming to search for things. A few had sick buckets ready, with some having already been filled with emergency digestional contents having been evacuated before they arrived. That didn't bolster Patient or the strange trio in front of him with any shred of confidence; if anything, that was a clear warning sign to prepare their anuses.

Inside of the foyer, the four could see a multitude of guards patrolling the hallways, all wearing medical grade booties on their hooves as to not leave anything behind as they marched, as well as various local police investigators taking pictures and documenting notes while moving from room to room, setting little evidence markers as they worked.

Sora wrinkled her nose. "Well, now I have to avoid more ponies… great…" she grumbled.

“Let’s see what we’ve got…” the silver maned pony spoke as he walked into an ajar door that one police pony had walked out of.

The other three followed suit, finding a grisly scene of one of the mansion’s guards cleft in twain, his upper half crucified on the far wall of the room from the door. The guard’s innards were spilling on to the floor beneath him in a puddle of viscera and blood; the scene stunk to high heaven, as they apparently were sitting there for at least a day. The lower half was in bits and pieces, strewn across the floor of the desks the room had lining the walls. The method of crucifixion was done with railway spikes driven through the guard’s hooves.

“What in the name of the gods?” Patient furrowed his nose at the smell. Despite being used to the smells of burned and gangrenous flesh, as per his job, the smell of full-body rot always got to him, as it reminded him of the war.

“Oh, quit being a crybaby. You’ll get used to it soon enough,” the silver maned stallion chortled, taking another step into the room to view the scene in its entirety.

Peeking his head in, Patient could also see that bits and pieces of other ponies had been nailed to the walls using railway spikes as well, as errant, rotting limbs and scraps of maid’s outfits were torn off their respective bodies and pinned to the plaster.

“It seems as though this poor fellow was torn in half, as though by sheer brute force,” silver mane concluded, even though it was pretty damn obvious to Patient already. It almost sounded like he was trying to rub Patient's snout in it. “Note the stretching around the skin and the raggedness and stretched elastic-like look of the organs.” With that, one of his compatriots, the prism-eyed mare took out a notepad from the ether, and gave it and a pen brought forth the same way to Sora, who then began to jot down what was seen and said. Something caught his eye, however—the makeshift stakes didn't look quite right on their impalement spots, and it didn't take him much to discern why.

“Hey, take a closer look at the railway spikes. It looks like they were heated up before they were driven,” Patient spoke up, gesturing to the burned flesh around the entry points in the limbs hanging from the walls, as well as burn marks on the plaster.

The lilac pegasus knelt down to take a closer look at the bits of the guard’s lower half that were strewn everywhere. Her wings made that strange clicking sound as her primaries tapped one another. A particularly intact piece of colon and large intestine caught her eye, and she peered closer to discern why.

“Looks like he was gangraped too. Seminal fluid in the bowels,” she spoke, continuing to write. "How the rapists thought we'd miss this is beyond me, considering… well…" She lifted a hoof to gesture about the room before going back to writing.

An audible wretch could be heard from outside the door as one unfortunate guard overhearing the conversation galloped off to find a sick bucket.

“And I thought you were handling it pretty badly,” silver mane said, smirking at Patient as he continued to look around the room.

“Trust me, the shit these creatures pull off hardly ever gets old,” the nurse chuckled in response. “But my biggest question is how they tore the poor guy in half. All of the ones I’ve encountered have been extremely sickly and weak, so how would they be able to physically tear a pony in half?”

Sora stood up and looked Patient in the eye. "Tools, and a lot of time—several hours, at least." She turned about, and spotted a desk with scuff marks on it, as well as something blood-covered glinting off of it. "Like that."

Patient winced at the thought, oddly enough. He could kill a hundred of the multi-colored monsters in worse ways and feel nothing but relief, but this was a normal pony, he was one of “our guys”, and these awful creatures put this one through an ungodly hell before putting his misery to a slow, messy end. The old fire of rage in Patient was breathed with life anew. Such a fire has been burning for too long, he felt, but still new things to hate kindled its embers all the same.

“Ah, the trusty ol’ wrack!” Silver mane walked up to it, examining the mechanisms that were crudely attached to the table. “...and a makeshift one, too. I’d expect them to be somewhat less cunning.”

“They did have airships, you know,” Patient shrugged.

"Last I heard, those things were stolen, then returned in pieces, save the one having to be cleaned out," Sora replied, turning to her male companion. "Yukito, I'm wondering when you and Neon here—" She gestured to Patient as she said that, "—are going to start butting heads and bickering."

Yukito made an 'oh' face and turned to Patient, grin widening now. “That’s right. Aren’t you the one who got into several arguments in Celestia’s court? The one who actually argued with poor mister Earl Bar before his untimely demise?”

“Wouldn’t have to if they didn’t—” Patient began, but was cut off by Yukito.

“If I understand the situation correctly, Earl Bar here wasn’t the one who started the argument; your heckling did.” Yukito’s words cut like a scalpel, because they were true. “That other noble you argued with, Cyril, was it? While he might have had it coming, you did your town—and your ideology—little service with your belligerence.”

Patient wanted to get in Yukito’s face and smack him around like the sissy bitch he seemed to be, but he knew his words to be true and couldn’t say or do anything because that would make it worse. He simply cracked his neck and put on a stoic expression as he simply seethed internally, thinking violent thoughts.

The prismic-eyed mare grinned. "Looks like he wants to burn the world," she said, eyes glinting oddly. "Just like I want to do sometimes." That was said in a dreamy tone that snapped Patient out of his reverie.

Something in Patient clicked, he didn’t know what, but he then blurted out: “Looks like I’ve gotta go to the burn ward myself, for a change.”

Unfortunately, the prismic-eyed unicorn's grin widened. "The burn ward's boring… why not everything beyond it?" she asked rather challengingly, before being smacked upside the head by a hoof as Sora came over to persuade her back into line. Oddly, the noise produced sounded… more metallic than should have been possible, like a bell wrapped in cloth strung up in a clock tower, only downsized to a pony's skull.

"You keep talking like that, you won't get your dessert tonight," Sora chided whilst her wings made that odd noise once again, causing the other mare to turn to her with a pouting frown. "No 'buts,' Star Breaker. Your teats. Calm them." Star wilted, but shut her mouth in an instant.

“So...what’s with that odd sound your wings keep making?” Patient asked, changing the subject.

Sora turned to him and seemed to contemplate the question for a bit. "... my primaries are blades," she said after a moment.

“Like a cyborg, almost?” Patient asked cautiously.

Sora nodded. "All three of us are, to varying degrees," she answered. "There's… three more of our strike team also like that, but they're elsewhere in Canterlot at the moment." Her wings clicked once more. "My wings aren't… fully cybernetic, but just enough to maintain efficiency."

She pointed to Star Breaker—Patient was wondering who in the fuck would name their foal that, as it sounded like something one of the menace would boast amongst their ranks—and added, "She's got mythril-orichalcum alloys running along most of her skull and ribcage, as well as varying degrees on her legs. You can't stab her in the heart with an ordinary blade." She thunked Star's chest, producing the same noise that came from the slap to her head to prove her point. "Not that she'd actively allow it anyway."

“Who would allow someone to shank them?” Patient asked.

Sora grinned, but only barely. "I think we're starting to come to an understanding." Her smile faded, though, when distant shouting skipped its way across the whole damn manse to reach all of their ears.

"Godfuckingdamnit, Flash Sentry! Your breath stinks of booze and your armor's on backwards! Why'd you think it was a good idea to show the fuck up?!" some guard roared, his voice loud enough to rattle the door to the room they were investigating. A wave of groans followed the damning question, and Patient turned to see that his cyborg coworkers were looking up to the ceiling with firm frowns and narrowed eyes. Was that their way of praying, wherever the fuck they came from? Or were they simply preparing for a true shitshow to begin?

“Am I about to see some shit?” Patient asked again, a grin slowly forming on his face. “Should I get popcorn, maybe a few beers?”

Sora shook her head. "I don't think that would be advisable…" she muttered.

Yukito didn't even look Patient in the eye as he brought his snout back to ground level. "I've heard of your drunk escapades… practically everypony else in the strike teams have, at this rate…" he muttered. "But at least you're not as bad as Flash Sentry whenever he drowns his sorrows…"

Patient’s grin furrowed into an uncomfortable frown as he had tried really hard to forget about what he’s heard, regarding him and alcohol. But no, Yukito had to open his cuntmunching fuckhole once again: "Trust me, you haven't ruined karaoke and dancing at the same time… and Shining had to pay for the damages out of pocket."

"Flash! Stop! That's tampering with evidence!!" the bitching pony roared, his voice once more passing over half the manse as if to taunt the group.

Sora's head shook, eyes still fixed to the ceiling. "... does anypony want to cast bets on how much he's intoxicated?" she asked.

“His B.A.C. is probably at least 0.3,” Yukito sighed. “Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s higher.”

"Will he catch fire if I burn everything but his mane and tail?" Star wondered, tilting her head.

Sora lowered her head. "As much as I'd love that, I highly doubt it," she grumbled. "Let's go oversee the insanity… get that report of his antics out of the way…" She looked around the room one more time, to see if there was anything they had missed. Besides what had already been noted, though, nothing in particular stuck out.

The trio left the room, and after a moment, Patient Care followed them. Nodding to some passing guards, they trotted through the foyer and up the stairs leading to the first floor, and both mares groaned upon seeing that the source of the shouting match was apparently closer than they thought.

There, drunk off his plot with his eyes spinning in opposite ways within his sockets, was an orange stallion with a blue mane. His backplate was on backwards, his breastplate was strapped on inside-out and upside-down, his shoes were dangling from his wingtips and his helmet was tied to his ass. He swayed on his hooves as he smooched a fellow guard on the lips, and for a moment the latter just stood there stunned.

Within that same moment, said orange stallion was flung halfway down the hallway due to a swift, furious punch to the face that bruised around his eye and sent his armor askew. With the landing against a door that had just swung open, his shoes flew off and so did his breastplate, leaving his legs to dangle uselessly for a moment before gravity reasserted her presence and tossed him unceremoniously to the floor. What was really funny, was that the door swung back closed only after the bastard was peeled off of it, almost as if it were sentient.

Sora's wings sagged as Patient tried his best, and failed miserably, to stifle his giggles with a hoof. "Oh boy, he's already feeling it… my urge to kill is rising…" Her ears fell flat as Yukito tossed his head back to howl in laughter at the sight, as if the act of one guard being launched across the hall was amusing to him.

“I swear to the gods, if these guys didn’t have Shining, they’d be a fuckin’ joke…” Yukito cackled loudly. "Almost like the ponies we were affiliated with back home!"

Star Breaker turned to Patient, frowning. "These two married whackos are weird in the head…" she said, a surprising flash of clarity housed in her eyes as the words left her mouth. Patient could only nod in agreement to that, even as he noted the irony of the comment coming from a mare who, herself, seemed weird in the head.

Sloppily, the orange stallion struggled to stand up, only to get up again and stumble directly into the group and grasp a foreleg around Patient's withers. By Celestia's sunscorched teats, his breath stank with the stench to curl ears and make testicles shrivel! Just taking a whiff was enough to make Patient swear off of booze for the next week and turn green in the face at the same time.

“Ssssho… who’s got another bottle of…” the inebriated pegasus belched loudly before noticing the finer details of the group. “Whooaaa...wait a minute, who are you two?” He obviously was referring to Sora and Star. Both mares stepped away from him, one taking a withering glare onto her face and the other just shaking her head like 'nope, you shitheads deal with this assclown.'

“Why don’t you go back to the barracks and drink some water?” Patient, in a strangely kind way, asked the stallion, holding out his hoof to block his advance towards the mares. Unfortunately for them all, the dickass stumbled out of his reach, swaying on his hooves as his helmet bobbed from side to side. Then he trotted… well, shuffled and lilted, to Star Breaker, grinning stupidly as he seemed to hyperfocus on her all of a sudden.

“Like, seriously,” Yukito butted in, standing in front of the guard to get his attention. This only served to have the guard basically fall into Yukito and shove him out of the way as he continued his short march up to Star Breaker. He sighed and conjured a clipboard and pen to start writing on something; Patient looked over his shoulder to find that he was writing something in officialese.

In other words, the language of "fuck you dickbag, I can use the law to yeet your ass."

Turned out, the group had no need of the law yeeting his ass, because as soon as the guard walked past Star Breaker, he turned his head and gave a wink, slapping her on the rear hard enough to make it jiggle. There was a brief pause, just long enough for Patient to dare think, "At least she does have firm asscheeks!" before silence temporarily took hold.

What followed afterwards was one of the most immensely powerful kicks to the ass anypony had ever seen. So powerful, in fact, that the guard was flung out of the window at the end of the hallway, flew over the yard, and landed face first into the street below. What's even more, it happened so swiftly that the only sign Star Breaker had moved was her mane and tail settling as she straightened from the kick.

Patient's jaw hit the floor. Sora turned to him and nodded. "This happens every single fucking time that idiot approaches us. I'm not sure if it's because he's drunk, or in spite of it," she said bluntly. She turned to the window and scowled as a wavering, warbling, airborne figure lurched towards the new opening. "Great, he's coming back for thirds…"

Sure enough, the same dumbass who'd been firmly yeeted twice now stumbled back in as if he owned the place, snout crooked and bleeding but otherwise sporting that same stupid smile he was wearing before, minus a few teeth. Somehow, Patient got the feeling that maybe, just maybe, these cyborgs were restraining themselves.

From around the corner, Shining Armor stormed down the hallway up to the group as the drunk guard stumbled his way back up as well.

“I wasn’t gone for thirty minutes and you fuckin’ ponies…” Shining began, stopping just as he noticed the drunk stallion slovenly prop himself up against the wall, trying and failing miserably to make himself seem sober before his C.O.

“Flash Sentry, if you don’t get back down to the barracks this instant, I’ll have you scrubbing gods-damn toilets for a month before I court-marshall you!” Shining barked angrily, escorting the orange stallion out of the mansion with the aid of his magic. Flash gave Star Breaker one final wink before he was forcibly yanked around the corner.

"So that's his name…" Sora muttered, glowering at where Flash Sentry had been taken to. "Now I know what to carve into his ass if he tries that shit again…"

"Why's it always me he slaps? Why can't it be you?" Star Breaker complained, turning to glare at Sora. She shrugged and shook her head at the same time, her glare still not easing.

They heard the sound of a shoed hoof hitting metal, and turned to the only other guard in the hallway. His head shook, his eyes were screwed shut, and his mouth twisted in a pained grimace that could only come from reluctant sympathy.

“He likes to think he’s a straight vodka kind of guy, but he ain’t,” the guard said as he shook his head again.

"He certainly ain't hot shit either!" somepony shouted from the stairwell. "Likes to fondle any mare that he thinks ain't taken!"

"Next thing you know, he'll be frozen solid and broken in pieces! I'm surprised Starby hasn't burned him alive yet!" the first called, causing a scoff to come from the second pony at the stairwell.

"Starby?!" the stairwell guard called.

"Dumbfuck actually managed to touch her and everything!" the first clarified. "I'm amazed his skull's still intact!"

“What in the actual fuck is going on?” Patient asked, turning to each of the cyborgs present as he questioned his present reality. All he got as an answer was a series of mute shrugs and head shakes that screamed, 'yeah, we don't know either.'

From the Fryer to the Frying Pan

Trigger chuffed and turned his attention to a particular box of cooking supplies brought in by Distrance before they began to have their way with Spectra. He wasn't the only one to do so; in fact, Patient and Ember also eyed the supplies with critical gazes.

“What’re you planning?” Patient asked after a brief pause as the brown unicorn sifted through the greasy cardboard box with magic.

Wordlessly, Distrance pulled out a gas operated bunsen burner and a cast iron skillet. He pulled up a small metal table from the dark depths of the factory basement with an effortless magical manipulation and set it down next to the wooden torture table. The brown unicorn then plugged the burner into the nearest wall and turned the heat up.

“Ember, could you be a dear and fetch me a knife,” he began. “I would like to cut up some meat for a stir fry.”

"There's one right there," Ember replied, using a tentacle to gesture to the greasy box's contents. Atop the mess of stuff, Distrance found, was a dirtied kitchen knife.

“Oh, of course.” Distrance picked up the tool with his magic.

He gently traced the dull side of the blade against the base of the ruined alicorn’s penis, letting the cool, rusty, yet extremely sharp metal slide effortlessly around the circumference of the base. Spectra immediately had a burst of adrenaline, shuddering and squealing, knowing what was going to happen without being able to do a damned thing about it.

“Oh Celestia no!” the three horned alicorn begged as he lost control of his bowels, releasing them in a river of diarrhea that mixed with the blood and viscera that already littered the table.

“Oh come on, we never had a problem with the smell until now,” Trigger groaned as he and Patient covered their noses with hooves.

“It just makes everything taste so much better,” Distrance began as he turned the blade around, slicing the gory remnants of Spectra’s penis and dissecting them clean from his crotch.

Spectra howled and shook even more violently than when he was being raped as his member was horrifyingly severed by the war veteran’s knife. The flaccid cock was severed after a few seconds, leaving a gaping wound that was drizzling blood and semen like no tomorrow.

"Get his balls, too!" Ember cheered, pumping her tentacles up and down like a foal watching a home run.

“That isn’t even the best part yet.” The brown unicorn then dipped and dragged the ruined, disembodied member through the shit and gore on the table, then dragged it some more through Spectra’s puddle of vomit on the cold, concrete floor.

In a few seconds, Distrance threw the cock onto the cast iron skillet and placed it on the burner, now already sizzling at a good temperature. Patient got up close and used his magic to not only cover his nose, but to also lift and stretch Spectra’s balls painfully out. Distrance responded to this by driving the blade through the base, severing the sack and tossing it onto the skillet as well.

The sizzling, crackling, and popping of meat on the skillet filled the air with the noxious smell of burning shit, charred flesh, and boiling vomit.

“Yeeeaahhh, this smells like where I work,” Patient snorted with a chuckle.

“Where do you work, exactly?” Trigger asked.

“A hospital,” Patient deadpanned, smirking at his question.

“I know, dumbass. I was asking where,” was the response Trigger gave.

“The burn ward,” Patient finally answered the question.

“Oh wow… yeah, I can see how that would smell like… this,” Trigger mused, turning his attention back to the cooking.

“Almost done!” Distrance smiled warmly.

Throughout the conversation, Spectra screamed and howled non-stop in sheer agony. His mutilated nethers were still spewing blood and leaking bits of viscera. He screwed his eyes shut, as if this was just some twisted lucid dream that crawled from the deepest pits of his deteriorating, fetid mind. Alas, he wasn't able to make it stop; nor was he able to keep his eyes shut as Ember forcefully parted his lids with four smaller tentacles.

"Oh no, your eyes are staying open until the fat mare sings," Ember chirped, wearing a maniacal grin. She turned to the others and asked, "Anypony have toothpicks? My tentacles can't hold these lids open forever!"

The stallions exchanged glances, then turned their gazes to the box of grease-laden junk. "Would you be alright with using forks?" Patient asked, using his magic to lift a couple of rusty, broken ones from the box.

"Those'll do," Ember replied, and she expertly caught the forks with a tentacle after Patient threw them her way. She brought them to her third eye and examined them closely, before nodding in what Spectra could only assume was satisfaction. Then, her gaze turned to him, and her wicked grin widened. "Now be a good little abomination and hold still for your Mommy Beholder Pony," she chirped in a mockery of a motherly tone.

With a bit of effort, Ember was able to force the rusted, pointed ends of the forks into the eyelids of the abomination, effectively pinning them to his brow and cheeks with their sharpened ends. Spectra shrieked in agony once more, thrashing even harder than he did when his nethers were viciously mutilated. Unfortunately, he couldn't shake the forks off of his face; Ember kept them pinned with her tentacles until she felt his skull cracking in response. Patient chuckled and took the skillet off of the bunsen burner, wafting with the steam and smell of cooked penis and vomit into the nose of the tortured soul.

“Dinner’s ready. Here, let me make you a plate.” Patient gave a wry smile before being handed another fork by Distrance.

He jabbed at the disembodied cock until the fork stuck through; it leaked blood all into the pan, staining the cooked vomit in a crimson hue. Slowly, he lifted the sauteed dick into the air and jammed the tip into Spectra’s nose. The tri-horned alicorn moaned in agony as he watched a piece of his own member stare at him.

“Suck on it,” Patient growled, digging the fat end of the cock into Spectra’s mouth.

The alicorn wailed in protest, but eventually submitted, pulling his lips over his own dick and dryly sucking.

“Keep that up, and I might even let you keep it.” Trigger laughed, using magic to hold up a staple gun.

Spectra let tears fall from his now dry eyes, yet he continued to suck on his own cock. The taste of stir-fried vomit and shit as well as burned flesh and blood caused him to gag as he deepthroated his member.

“Funny thing is, I didn’t even tell him to deepthroat it. He’s doing it on his own.” Patient laughed as they all watched.

"Either he has a thing for stallions, or he's starting to realize what's gonna happen if he doesn't obey our commands," Ember piped up, shifting to sit on her haunches. "Considering what he'll look like when we're done with him, it doesn't matter to me either way—besides, I think he should eat a bag of dicks."

Patient donned a wicked smirk. "I think that's a swell idea," he cooed, malicious undertones rampant in his voice. "Open wide!"

Hell's Bells Toll for Thee

"Approaching alicorn hoard! Everyling, defend the hive!"

That utterance, which may as well have been a warning siren, echoed throughout every single tunnel of the hive, piercing the ears of everyling within. Some were rushing to the top and the hole punched in the side, pouring out with wings already buzzing madly to join their already-gathered brethren. The only one who stayed inside was Thorax, who was pacing about the sick bay with shaky legs before his Equestrian visitors.

"A-a hoard?" he stammered, his elytra shivering as he paced. "H-how big is it? C-can't w-we talk it out with them?"

"Well… we dunno the size of this hoard, but we do know they probably ain't here to negotiate anything other than slavery," Ember piped up, shaking her head sadly. She stopped Thorax in his tracks by lifting a tentacle and patting him on the withers with it. "We'll help your changelings take care of it. Just stay here and watch Jonathan and Charlotte. The hoard'll be pushed back before you know it."

Thorax noticed that, throughout her tirade, Ember sounded no more convinced of her own words than he was confident of the situation. "A-are you sure? Y-you could be way over your heads in this…" he pointed out, frowning.

"We're sure," Rekka chimed in. With that, the group rushed out of the nearest hole as one, leaving just him, Jonathan, and Charlotte in the sick bay.

"I hope they'll be alright…" Thorax mumbled to himself, watching the hole the group ran into.

Yet even he did not sound particularly sure of himself.

*********

The moment the group stepped to the edge of the massive hole was the same moment their jaws dropped open in unison. A sea of the red and black monsters was marching in the distance, compacted tightly into a massive herd; there had to be at least thousands present and accounted for. All were armed with various weapons and they had gold and silver armor adorning their bodies. As if that weren't enough, at least four airships were present and hovering behind the oncoming tide, each one bearing rainbows, flapping wings and a bust of an alicorn.

And those airships also happened to have visible cannons on the decks and their undersides, with every single barrel pointed at the hive. Foxfire was the first to reel in her jaw and speak, "I-I'm dreaming, right? Wh-when did they learn how to pilot airships?!"

Ember unfurled her tentacles and summoned her weapons in flashes of light, using her extra limbs to grip their shafts as soon as they materialized. Her limbs slithered, forming barbs and oozing poisonous fluid, and shifted their grip before they lathered the clear substance onto various blades. "Looks like they upped the ante. Who goes on the ground, and who goes after the airships?" she asked.

A few changelings flew over to the group, three with carriages not unlike those of Equestrian craftsponyship attached to their middles. These changelings turned so the carriages hovered before their guests, and instantly Rekka and Tenmei jumped into one. Trigger and Distrance jumped in the second with their gun, and Koto hopped into the last one. They took off into the air again after that, followed in very short order by Nagare and Yuuki.

Foxfire groaned in exasperation. "I guess we're the ground unit then," she hissed, turning to Patient. "Ember's got a gold allergy, and look at what those wankers are packing."

“No fuckin’ way…” Patient mumbled to himself as he saw a small flock of alicorns taking to the air to battle the changeling defenders; they had gold feathers on their wings and some he could've sworn had more than one horn on their heads.

"Yes fuckin' way," Foxfire hissed, lifting a hoof to gesture to Ember's shortened tentacle, which had scabbed over sometime yesterday. "She had to do surgery on herself because she broke out in something worse than hives! That shit is poison to her."

Patient stood for only a moment in thought, coming up with a battle plan as he saw the changelings getting ripped to pieces in the air by multi-horned alicorns wielding fiery swords. Those same alicorns then met with a few laser volleys from Rekka, and those who dodged the death-rays were mopped up by a boomerang, some crossbow bolts, and several strikes of a sword from Nagare.

He turned to Ember. "You still good to fight?" With that, she nodded and gave a sly grin.

As the alicorns who were hit with bolts were dealt with, Nagare grasped them to keep them from plummeting. He deftly plucked the projectiles out and used his tail to hold them before letting the alicorns drop to their deaths. The bolts he couldn't hold right away were scooped up by Yuuki, who was oddly withholding using her yo-yo for the moment.

Patient turned to his oldest friends and yelled with all of his might, “Trig, Dis; use that machine gun of yours to provide air support! They can’t dodge bullets!”

“When are you the one giving orders?” Trigger laughed as he joined Distrance to set up their Maxim gun, pointing it outwards into the hole in the hive wall.

Within seconds, they’ve finally set the weapon up and Trigger began feeding the gun ammunition while Distrance pulled the weapon's barrel towards the alicorns. He yanked on the oversized, hoof-friendly trigger when his first airborne target was within his sights; the sky was filled with gunshots, deafening everypony and gorily ripping through a flock of alicorns as though they were paper.

But the airships and the hoard on the ground kept getting closer, undeterred and ignored until Foxfire spoke. "Looks like we have no choice. Let's get to the ground and fuck up some assholes!" With that, her horn glowed and the three of them vanished from the hole in a burst of blue light, only to reappear on the ground floor of the hive seconds later.

As Trigger whooped and hollered at the carnage he and Distrance were causing, the remaining crew had adjusted themselves to the fact they were now in the bottom level of the hive, where a majority of the worker changelings have gathered for shelter. They buzzed about and gave the strike team plenty of room to advance towards the entrance.

“Kill them all!” They could hear many of the changelings shout as they galloped along. But even the shouts died down once they made it outside, taking just a second to assess the ground forces.

Yet more golden alicorns were fast encroaching, as if eager to greet them. Foxfire turned to Ember and her horn lit up again, bathing her in blue flames that did not melt her armor or do anything of the sort. "You're lucky my magic is powered by the love the other changelings are sharing. Otherwise, the spell would have died out seconds after casting," she chirped.

Ember nodded. "And it'll burn any gold I come in contact with, right?" she asked in a hopeful voice.

Foxfire nodded back. "Hopefully," she replied, turning back to the incoming horde. "You two ready?"

“Ready!” Patient grinned toothily and evilly. He was ready to spill blood for the blood god! His head turned upward again. “Rekka! Shoot at those airships! I wanna feast on alicorn flesh!!”

"Hai!" Rekka yelled back, directing his blaster towards the nearest vessel. He fired another volley, but gaped as the ships came alive with runes that formed violet barriers. The domes reflected his lasers easily, though in a way that ended up coming down onto the alicorns rather than the changelings. "Shit! These guys learned a lot from Patchy!"

"Great, reflective airships… and Rekka's beams aren't enough to cut it…" Foxfire groaned, eyes narrowing at the display. She turned to the horde again. "Let's lower the morale of the ones holed up in the blimps by slaughtering their kin. Maybe they'll wise up and turn back." She charged forward, rushing to meet the alicorns head-on. Fire burst around her and cloaked her, almost forming into a large ball that scorched the first alicorn it came into contact with. Several more backed off, opting instead to gallop to Patient and Ember.

"I swear by Godcat I will fuck you all up!" Ember yelled, surging forward with weapons flailing. One alicorn was impaled in the face by a spear, another got his head lopped off by an axe, and a third was skewered in the barrel by a sword. Those who wore gold that came close to contact screamed as their metal heated up and melted away, scalding their flesh in the process thanks to Foxfire's spell.

Patient watched as a huge swarm of alicorns encroached on their position, even as Foxfire ran around ablaze and torching all of the monstrosities she could in her wake. Ember was soon surrounded, however, and as she felled three alicorns, twelve more came to replace the fallen. Within seconds she was struggling to keep up; even with her third eye joining the fray and charging and firing lasers of its own, it did little to dent the tide. Another few seconds passed, and he could not even see her.

Something within Patient snapped once again. His vision turned blood red. His horn glowed, its aura likewise turning crimson.

”Blood for the blood god!!” Patient roared as he charged forward, magically swinging his bardiche left and right, slashing through multiple alicorns at a time with each strike.

Blood sprayed high into the air as dismembered limbs, fragments of bone, and organs fell to the ground, much to the agony and despair of the oncoming horde of degenerates. Patient let out a terrifying battle cry as he cleft a quadruple-horned alicorn in twain.

“Comrades! Don’t let this fascist capitalist get the better of us—” one of the alicorns tried to rally the others, but was quickly torn to pieces by Patient, who only continued on his rampage and tore through the horde with ease. Patient went on until he caught sight of Ember, still cleaving her way through the alicorns herself, and those she didn't fatally wound with stabbings, flames and lasers aplenty were soon taken care of by her venom.

One incredibly foolish soul tried and succeeded in mounting her, only to scream as his nethers immediately bled and his entire stomach caught fire right after. He backed away with a gaping hole where his dick used to be, and the organ was spit out by Ember's own nethers. For his trouble, he got jabbed in the face with a pike. "I got teeth in my vagina, fucker!" Ember yelled, still slashing and hacking like nothing had happened. She turned to Patient briefly as he carved a path to her and nodded with a knowing smile.

"I'm fine," she seemed to say.

Patient nodded and used magic to rip a nearby alicorn’s head in half vertically with a gory tear; he immediately spun around and bucked at the now dead pony and continued hacking and slashing. Foxfire darted past them, scorching more alicorns that were about to attack the duo. Any alicorns that could fly and were already flying started divebombing towards them, with some dying by the changelings' hooves and weapons in the process.

Trigger and Distrance tried shooting at the airships, but this yielded the same effect as it had with Rekka's lasers. The airships responded by firing a volley of magic blasts from their cannons, which screamed past the group and right to the hive.

"I don't care if I'm putting myself in danger, I am putting up a shield, goddamnit!" a feminine voice called out from the hive. Trigger and Distrance's eyes went wide, and they turned to the hive to find a green speck, a red speck, and a blue speck standing atop the crow's nest. Within seconds a massive square-shaped shield enveloped the hive, right as the volley would have otherwise connected with its walls. They did not pierce the shield, or even penetrate it; rather, the cannon shots disintegrated altogether.

"Is that…" Trigger began, but was cut off when another voice came from the nest, barely audible in the carnage.

"Charlotte's shield can't block close potshots; she can only hold off the airships for so long! Get cracking already!" Jonathan yelled out.

Distrance's face hardened. "What do we do now?" he grumbled, seeing some of the alicorns on the ground bypass the shield like it wasn't even there. They started scaling to the top of the nest, evidently having heard Jonathan's shout and seemingly intent to do something about it. The green speck, whom he presumed was Thorax, started blasting the ones that came close, making the alicorns crackle in green flames. Those that got past that were felled anyway, with Jonathan rushing to greet them and use something to cleave the monsters in gory halves.

"Looks like our crippled pegasus has that matter settled already," Trigger mumbled, turning to Rekka's carriage. He shouted, "You think the shields may be the same?"

Just as that utterance reached his ears, a switch flicked on in Rekka's head. He turned to the shield Charlotte had cast, and immediately noticed runes dotting its frame. He turned back to the airships and studied them closely. "Not a match…" he grumbled, racking his brain for a way to stop the airships before the shield around the hive gave out. Another volley from the airborne vessels whizzed past him and Tenmei, striking at the barrier before vaporizing.

He turned to Yuuki and Nagare as they came up next to him, fistfuls and tailfuls of crossbow bolts with them. The two wasted no time dropping the bolts in their carriage. Rekka turned his gaze onto Tenmei. "Hold your fire, Ten, unless you want to aim below."

"Hai," Tenmei replied, whereupon Nagare and Yuuki took to hovering next to them.

"C'mon… what do we do…" Rekka grumbled, half-tempted to lift his free hoof and hit himself in the head with it to get the gears to start turning. "Ships eat everything we throw at them…" A lightbulb went off in his head, and his horn fizzled with flames in response. "I got it!" He turned to the changeling piloting his carriage. "Get us closer to the airships," he ordered.

The changeling turned to look at Rekka with wide eyes. "Are you crazy?!" he yelled. "You'll get killed!"

Rekka donned a wicked smirk. "Me and my group ain't called the Special Task Force for nothing, bub. If we can't take the ships out of the picture from the outside…" He turned to Koto's carriage. "You ready to hijack a ship?" he yelled.

Koto turned to him with an eager grin. She nodded mutely as another volley from the ships sailed past her to land on the barrier. Rekka then turned to Trigger and Distrance's carriage. "You two, do you have ship-driving experience?" he asked.

The two gunners looked at each other before turning back to Rekka and shaking their heads. Rekka frowned. "Well, we're gonna need a pilot with what I have in mind. Have you two ridden an airship before?" he asked.

*********

Asterion Lux and Erebus circled around one of the airships, both with horns flickering in light. The cannons tracked their every move, though the ones on the deck could go no further backward than the hull. The shield formed intermittently, almost in time with their circling.

On, off, on, off. It was so in tune Erebus wondered if there was some sort of switch being flicked left and right. "Lux, what the hell are we doing?" he asked.

Asterion's face hardened, and he said nothing in reply. He continued to watch the flickering shield of the airship he and Erebus constantly circled, though sometimes his eyes turned to the barrier Charlotte had cast. Each time he turned to the hive, the barrier dimmed little by little, and soon enough so too was it flickering. "We have to be quick. Whoever cast the barrier over our home hasn't much strength left," he hissed ominously. "Which means we haven't much time."

Erebus was close to throwing his forelegs in the air, and he would have done so had the cannons not tailed them nigh-incessantly. "As if things couldn't get worse…" he mumbled. He turned to the hive and frowned as the barrier finally gave out, and he barely saw a blue speck slumping atop the crow's nest. However, another barrier went up in seconds, just in time to absorb another cannon-volley.

This barrier was distinctly teal in color, and it did not falter in the slightest. In addition to that, any alicorns who managed to bypass the previous barrier were violently ejected off of the hive's surface with more blasts of similarly-colored magic. "I'll buy you some time! Stop those airships at all costs!" Thorax shouted, his voice echoing louder than the ongoing battle. Erebus guessed it was magically amplified.

Erebus smiled and turned to Asterion. "You heard the king," he snorted. Asterion nodded mutely, and he turned to the cannons again before noticing that every single one was now pointing sharply downwards. His gaze then followed at what they were pointing to—the ball of death that was Foxfire, circling Patient and Ember with zig-zagging, erratic steps that did little to dent the flood of alicorns surrounding them.

The cannons fired, their volley racing downward to meet up with the two Surgeons stuck on the ground. Before the attack could connect, a bright flash of blue light enveloped them and Foxfire, leaving a scorch mark in its wake. They reappeared on the other side of the tide seconds later, and charged into the unguarded rear to further disorient the alicorns. The cannons followed them and fired, but Foxfire and her compatriots vanished once again in another blinding flash.

Asterion watched as the trio appeared in another flash of light, dead-center of the horde. Then something clicked in his head. "Erebus, it seems we have a distraction for the cannons," he murmured, and turned back to the vessel as it launched another volley at the teleporting terrors who were slaughtering their brethren left and right. At the moment of firing, the shield around the ship gave way entirely, only to go back up again seconds later.

His eyes fell onto the hull, and he flew to it as the ship fired once more. Erebus saw him approach the ship and followed him, and he saw the shield flickering again. The ship went into firing overdrive as they got closer, but this only ensured that the shield stayed down. Asterion reached a window and smashed it with a hoof before flying inside, and shortly thereafter a green flash exploded in the hull, illuminating all the windows as another alicorn went flying out with smoldering wings.

"Stop him!" another alicorn cried as Erebus threw himself into the window, finding himself in a trashed-beyond-compare lounge. Wallpaper was peeling, garbage was strewn about, the ceiling was caked in a white crust whose origins he didn't want to question, and there were fresh cockroach bodies all around. In the middle of it all, Asterion was just getting finished rending two alicorns to naught but ash with green flames.

Erebus looked around the lounge, and spotted a clutter of tables and chairs piled high towards a wall that lacked windows at the southern end of the room. His horn lit up and he grasped the furniture clutter with his magic, and pulled them aside one by one, carelessly tossing the obstacles out the windows as he did so. Within a minute he cleared the clutter to reveal a hatch with a ladder going down into a dark hole, though it was warped by rust and pressure. "Lux, look," he beckoned.

His utterance caused Asterion to turn to him with a brow raised. The two exchanged glances and mutely trotted over to the ladder, and Asterion clambered on first, though he didn't go down. Rather, once he took hold of the rails, he bounced in place, causing the ladder to groan in protest with each shake. Still, it held his weight, and he nodded in satisfaction. With that, he went down into whatever was beyond, leaving Erebus to follow him.

“This is so gay. I wanna be down there, killing those bugs!” an alicorn huffed indignantly without paying any attention to the ladder; he sat bored out of his wits at a console with a steering wheel and a massive screen showing the hive, twisting knobs and pressing buttons as the engine continued to whir. Around him, more trash was strewn about, and he was accompanied by another few alicorns.

“Same! I told my girlfriend that I would bring back a hundred bug scalps, and that fracking pegasus!” another alicorn hissed, garnering a nod from a third with his utterance.

Asterion deftly landed on the floor silently, smiling as the alicorns paid him no heed whatsoever. Erebus came in shortly thereafter, his brows raising at the display. They waited for the moment in which they would be noticed, and they looked to the side of the room to find three more emaciated ponies mutely looking at them. On closer inspection, one was an earth pony stallion with a greying brown, bowl-cut mane and a beige coat, and the other two were mares who weren't alicorns.

One of the two mares, a green-coated unicorn with a purple mane and a bonnet on her head, mouthed something so rigidly Asterion had to do a double-take to confirm her lips moved. "Is Jonathan alright?" she mutely asked. She smiled when she got a mute nod in return.

The other mare, a purple pegasus with a darker mane and wings shaved bare, turned to one of the alicorns and scowled before lifting a cracked hoof. "Sick 'em," she seemed to command.

The earth stallion then stood up abruptly and shouted, his utterance causing the alicorns to finally notice their visitors in the process, "We're saved at last! We can leave this acursed vessel behind!"

"Saved? No, they're gonna corrupt you!" one of the alicorns cried, and he made to say something else when Asterion's horn glowed. Within seconds that alicorn was expelling green flames from his mouth, screaming in agony and spasming in place as he felt his insides get cooked. It took him just minutes to fall over, smoking from the mouth and nostrils. This caused the alicorn piloting the vessel to jump and hit a big red button, and the ship shook before runes lit up and faded away.

Then the unicorn stood up, her horn glowing in a dark purple aura. She turned to one of the other alicorns, and her face hardened slightly. "If you'll excuse me, my sister, and Vincent…" she trailed off, before the trio vanished in a flash of blinding purple light that made the alicorn at the console wince with a cry of shock. The screen at the console showed a similar light exploding at the top of the hive, and Asterion's grin widened as he saw three more specks joining the first.

"Oh, good thing the hostages are safe…" Erebus chirped before turning to the alicorn the green mare glowered at. His horn crackled again, and green fire erupted spontaneously around the alicorn before engulfing him. Within seconds he was naught but charred bones and ash, which fell into a pile once the flames died. The two changelings then turned to the pilot, their smiles falling to be replaced with firm, disapproving frowns.

The pilot's eyes went wide, and he turned to the button his hoof had pushed. It was labeled 'anti-magic shield.' "Oh no… ohnoohnoohno…" he murmured frantically, just before a golden laser shot across the screen, scoring the deck of the ship and causing bits of it to catch fire. He twisted to look at the two changelings, and scowled at them. "You made the hostages run away!" he shrieked accusingly, only to be lifted up in the air by dual auras.

"No, that was your doing," Asterion corrected in a firm, no-nonsense tone of voice. "Now, if you'll excuse us… we're taking over from here." With that, the alicorn found himself engulfed in green flames, screaming piercingly for minutes on end. Only when the fires finished converting his flesh to ash was he released. Erebus looked around the room and snorted.

"Want me to clean up a bit?" Erebus asked, frowning.

Asterion shook his head and trotted to the console. "Not until the battle is over," he replied grimly.

Drunken Antics

The full moon hung over Canterlot as Ember and Rekka trotted through its streets, the former still lugging Patient with her good tentacles and the latter suppressing snickers as the tentacle in Patient's mouth shifted to pop right out and then clamp around his muzzle. As if that could shut him up once he got the taste of ramen out of his mouth.

"You wanna know what I really fuckin' hate? Ziggers," Patient hollered, his voice a little less slurred. As he was dragged down another street, a family of about four zebras paused on the opposite walkway to stare incredulously at him and the tentacle monster hauling him away.

Rekka turned to the zebra family and piped up, "He's drunk; pay him no mind! I hear he's always like this when he takes a shot too many!" The zebras nodded to him and continued on their way, as he went to continue dogging after Ember and the still-rambling Patient.

"I wonder what your toothy folds taste like if your tentacles give me a dose of ramen," Patient piped up, causing Ember to halt with his utterance. She turned to look at him with a slack jaw and widening eyes.

"Wh-what?" Ember stammered, her face turning a light pink as she processed Patient's partially-nonsensical statement. Rekka facehoofed and broke out laughing, and he did nothing to mask it whatsoever.

"I-I'm sorry, but th-the way h-h-he-heaaaa…" At that point, Rekka could not utter something coherent; his laughter had evolved to include shrill notes more likely to come from a whistle than his mouth.

“Because I know that Colgate’s asshole tastes minty, so I was just wonderin’...” Patient slurred a tiny bit. That only caused Rekka to drop to the ground and start pounding at the cobblestone with three of his hooves, his fourth still resting on his head as his cackling only grew louder.

“I mean hell, I wouldn’t mind looking at your spiny dick while I see what your vagina dentata tastes like; it’s not gay if it’s a feminine penis—” Patient was quickly silenced by a hoof pushed into his mouth. The tentacle on his muzzle then retracted, shifting to hover behind his head.

"You don't wanna know," Ember replied before Patient felt a sharp stinging pain as the tentacle rushed to meet with the back of his head. Within seconds, the world went black for him.

*********

Patient awoke an indeterminate expanse of time later, and the first thing that registered to him was a headache he was certain had been the size of the Neighgara Falls. The second was that he could see vivid yellow, despite his eyes remaining closed. The third was the feeling of sheets around and under him, only stopping below his chin.

Patient’s brain was in stupendous agony as he attempted to shift in his bed, only to find a hoof starting to caress his fetlock, which caused him to stop moving. His pain amplified a bit when he heard the meow of a cat, and his ears pinned back.

“Nokori. Anata wa osoroshī to kanjinakereba narimasen,” an unfamiliar voice spoke to Patient; while pleasant sounding, it still tore through his brain like a buzz-saw.

It took him a moment to open his eyes, though he had to squint them as bright colors immediately assaulted his vision. There was a pinkish-purple splotch hovering above him with faint traces of red and blue. Another meow cut through the air, and he noticed an orange splotch off to the side. Both forms were, he could only presume, looking at him intently.

The hoof on his fetlock continued to caress him.

Patient could only grit his teeth and tightly shut his eyes. “Frrrrck…” he gritted out quietly through his teeth. “I need water.”

"Hai," the soothing voice replied. The hoof that was touching him retracted slowly, followed by the sound of hoofsteps hitting a floor that sounded like… tile? Patient wasn't sure. And now that he thought about it, he could've sworn the voice answering him was feminine.

His eyes opened again, and he grimaced as he found an expansive guest room with predominantly lilac hues. The walls were a modest purple, while the dressers and nightstand and the bedframe were mahogany instead. The sheets were plush and silken, soft yet thick. He turned to the foot of the bed to find an orange tabby staring at him. The cat waded up to him, sat on his barrel, and leaned over to lick him on the snout.

“Stop eating my boogers, cat,” Patient quietly spoke, but did nothing to stop the cat from licking him. He stared at the cat and noticed a collar, with a marker reading 'Phobos' on it.

"Fobosu, koto ni kite," the purple form beckoned. Phobos turned around and jumped off the bed before waddling over to the form that beckoned him, and Patient followed the cat with his eyes to see…

"P-Patchouli?" Patient stammered, his eyes widening.

Patchouli turned to Patient and nodded, her horn glowing with a soft light. Next to her, hovering in a dimmed lavender aura, was a glass of ice water. She trotted to him and set it on a nightstand next to his bed, flashing him a small grin in the process. She did look better, save for still-countable ribs that stubbornly jutted out along her stomach.

Without a second thought, Patient snatched the glass and downed the water and closed his eyes again. “Thanks... um." He coughed before finishing, "Arigatō.” With that, he set the glass down again, only to watch in amazement as purple magic hovered over it before spilling water into it, filling it yet again.

Patchouli mutely nodded and grasped Patient with her magic, slowly making him sit up since he wasn't so keen on doing that himself. She picked up the glass of water again and held it to his lips, and he eagerly started drinking the chilled liquid once more. As he drank, Phobos jumped up on the bed again and meowed, though whether to be fed or given attention, Patient couldn't guess. The water did an incredible job of soothing his throat and ebbing his headache a little.

His eyes turned to the door as a creak echoed into the room, just in time to see it open and for somepony to step inside. Standing in the frame was a smugly-grinning Rekka. "I see the zigger-lover is up," he chirped, sounding like he was about to break out laughing again. Behind him, Patient noticed, was another red form with a blond top he couldn't make out too well.

"C'mon, really?" another masculine voice, one Patient could recognize, scoffed from behind Rekka. "And I thought Charlotte getting drunk was enough of a problem!"

"You should've seen Nursey-Colt last night, Jonathan," Rekka snarked before the two turned around and trotted away from the door, bickering about who was the worse pony when drunk as they went.

Patient finished drinking his water and sighed as the glass was pulled away from his lips. He racked his brain, trying to remember what the hell happened last night, but all that came to him was being served by a Yakyani bartender after the nigh-disastrous session at the Royal Court. The rest was a blank; in fact, trying to remember made his head hurt worse.

Wait. Patient turned to the door and did a double-take as his brain fully switched on. Jonathan was present? Now that he thought about it, he could still hear that crippled pegasus arguing with Rekka. Slowly, he shifted out of bed, almost faceplanting because his legs buckled the first chance they got. The only saving grace was Patchouli helping him straighten his posture with her magic.

He turned to the door, but paused as uproarious laughter echoed in from outside. It… sounded like Rekka and Jonathan were both guffawing now. But about what still eluded him. Slowly, he trotted to the door, with Patchouli following him to keep him steady. Soon, they found themselves in a long hallway, lined with a plush carpet of silver hues that had doors lined on either side. Next to one of the doors, seemingly loitering, was Tenmei.

Patient cantered to Tenmei, who flashed him a tired smile. "Sut wyt ti?”

”How are you?”

Tenmei lifted a hoof and yawned into it before dropping it and smacking his lips. He stared at Patient, who only now noticed slight bags hanging just beneath his round-rimmed glasses… that he also noticed were a little on the lopsided state of things.

Patient nodded and asked, "Dywedwch wrthyf ... mae Jonathan a'i ffrindiau yma?”

”Tell me, are Jonathan and his friends here?”

Tenmei nodded in reply, pausing briefly to lift a hoof and rub at his eyes with it. Now seeing that he was playing quiet mouse, Patient followed up with, "Beth mae'r uffern wnes i neithiwr?”

What the hell did I do last night?”

Tenmei dropped his hoof again and shrugged. "Roeddwn yn cysgu. Nad oedd unrhyw ffordd i mi wybod beth wnaethoch chi."

"I was sleeping. There was no way for me to know what you did."

At that, Patient groaned. He nodded and turned to trudge his way down the hall, and Patchouli followed him every step of the way. It seemed to stretch for a good few yards; or at least, that's how he felt. The sluggish pace he was going at didn't really help matters, either, nor did his still-present headache.

He looked up to scan the ceiling as he trudged onward, spotting several stars painted on a dark landscape. He became transfixed in the ceiling's rather artistic taste of decor. In doing so, he forgot to watch the hallway—but reality was more than happy to remind him to keep his gaze forward when he ran barrel-first into a door that opened a good four seconds before he collided with it.

It took Patient a few seconds to register that there was a door, that he was leaning against it, and that there was a knob at his throat before he peeled himself off of it. He fell to his haunches and turned to the door as muffled hoofsteps filled his ears. His brow raised when Koto stepped into the hall and twisted to look at him, and he frowned when he saw her horn was without bandages, revealing a nasty crack that ran from the base to the tip.

Yet, despite that, she was… grinning? Patient shook his head and did a double-take. Yep. That smile lingered, alright. His eyes did not deceive him.

“The hell’re you smilin’ about?” he asked, trying to form a grin of his own.

Koto tilted her head, and her grin only widened. Now that Patient thought about it, something was glimmering in her eyes clear as day. The smirk twitched knowingly. His brain then re-registered the fact that, barring taking Winglish language courses, she couldn't tell him whatever was making her evidently amused to save her life.

So Patient tried again, "Could you take me to Rekka, please?"

“... Hai…?” Koto spoke through her smirk. Then she turned and started to trot down the hall. Patient got up and followed after her, and he noticed a very subtle spring in her step, though it took him a few seconds to process that through his still-persistent headache.

Behind Patient, Patchouli giggled. Lovely. That meant she probably knew about whatever it was that made Koto giddy. But he sighed in resignation; no use trying to squeeze information out of ponies who didn't speak his language. It was better to find the local translator-colt, wherever in hell he'd gone off to.

*********

"H-he did what?!" Jonathan yelled with a wide grin, sitting on a couch in an ornate living room with Rekka at his side. He'd tried to muffle still-growing laughs with a hoof, but alas it was a wasted effort.

“Yeah, he went full racist last night.” Rekka tried to hold back a bit more chuckles himself, but sadly they escaped his mouth anyway. He stood up on his back legs and waved his forelegs dramatically, and relayed Patient's words in a high-pitched falsetto, "When I become President, I'm gonna build a wall around Equestria and make Yakyakistan pay for it! Best part is, the bartender was a Yak, so that just made it so much better.”

Jonathan dropped his hoof and threw his head back, now outright cackling to the point tears threatened to leak from his eyes. "Oh-oh lord! Wh-what next?!" he shrieked, starting to stomp his back hooves against the floor as he continued to laugh.

“He slapped Ember’s ass a couple of times with his tail and talked about eating her out.” Rekka's grin merely widened. That caused Jonathan to lurch forward with a choke and eyes threatening to bug out.

"Y-you serious? Th-the Beholder?" Jonathan stammered, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon and it got lodged in his windpipe on its way down.

Rekka slowly nodded. "Yep. That's not even getting into what he did after he woke up from a temporary knock-out. That's just the tip of the iceberg." His smile grew a little more. "He got into the bar in this manor and drunk himself silly, and when I came to check on him, he thought I was a girl!"

Jonathan snickered. "Well, from behind, you kinda look like a mare… your long tail would be a perfect copycat of a mare's, especially if you undid that ribbon holding a good chunk of it up so it doesn't drag along the ground," he pointed out. Still, he was smiling, and leaned a little forward. "So… what'd he do after that?"

“He tried getting on my back. I just decided to side-step every time he reared up, if only to make him think I was playing hard-to-get. Not my fault he couldn't even walk straight," Rekka snorted. He watched as Jonathan's cheeks puffed in another attempt to hold in baying laughter. "And even if he could get on my back, there's a thing called whiskey dick. He wouldn't have gotten hard if he legitimately tried."

"But wait, there's more." Rekka suppressed a snicker, and his smile widened until it threatened to go Cheshire. "Trigger trotted in on the scene, and stood for a few seconds just to let it soak in. Once it clicked, he tried to get Patient to mount him, only to be pushed away by Patient who said, 'sorry friendo-dendo, I only like girls.’”

That almost caused Jonathan to choke again, and he stomped a back hoof to help him breathe. "Th-then what?" he stammered.

"Well, Trigger pointed at me and told Patient point-blank that I was a dude." Rekka donned a look of mock-horror, complete with front hooves flying to his gaping mouth. In another falsetto he cried, "'I what?!'" He dropped back down to all fours and added, “'Oh fuck. Well, I mean I don’t mind traps at all, really; there was this one cute tranny filly I dated in high school…'”

Jonathan tossed his head back again, once more cackling. Rekka waited for him to calm down again before speaking again. “And this is where he fuckin’ just goes off the goddamned rails. ‘It’s not gay if it’s a feminine penis’, he said. This fuckin’ guy just said that shit like he'd spent all his time with traps, and nothing but.”

"And then, he stumbled off with a limp-as-hell dick and found one of our guest rooms." Jonathan ceased laughing and leaned forward again, leveling an amused look at Rekka that betrayed a twitching eye.

"Whose guest room?" Jonathan asked.

"Charlotte's… after she got smashed and botched a spell. That's not even the worst of it." Rekka continued to grin, almost as if his face was now stuck that way. "And I found it to be of a similar vein to what happened to Ember."

Jonathan raised a brow, eye still twitching. "And?" he pressed.

"Well… Patient found out she became a trap… and somehow was so shitfaced she had him pinned in seconds. I broke them apart before she could make him her bitch, and after that he passed out," Rekka finished. "And on that note, I think we should get her checked out by Celestia later, to see if the trap-spell can be reversed."

Jonathan nodded and leaned back again. "I honestly wouldn't her with something extra, just as long as she doesn't try pegging anypony," he stated, his ears twitching as the sound of hoofsteps echoed into the room. His head slowly turned to a nearby hallway, from which emerged Koto, Patient, and Patchouli. "I was wondering when the devil would appear, and it looks like the wait's over."

Koto and Patchouli parted from Patient, allowing him to stare at Rekka. "What were you two on about?" Patient grumbled with a grimace. "My headache was so bad I didn't catch anything."

“We were just talking about what you were doing last night,” Jonathan explained through a toothy smile that held back a laugh.

“... What did I do last night?” Patient asked.

“Where do we begin…" Rekka took in a deep breath, "Well, you tried to fuck Ember, you tried to mount me, you called a zebra family the 'Z' word, you told a Yak that Yakyakistan was gonna pay for a wall between them and Equestria, and you just went and said the most off the wall shit possible within the span of two hours.”

Patient simply nodded. “Okay…?”

"That's not even the worst of it." At that, Patient's brow rose, and he silently looked at Rekka for an explanation. "You tried your luck with Charlotte of all ponies, but she had you pinned on your back despite being as smashed as you were. Oh, and she botched a spell so bad she basically gave herself a dick and balls."

“So what you’re sayin’ is…” Patient began in a Manehattan accent. “I’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do to Colgate when I get home?”

Rekka's grin widened fractionally. "Nope," he answered tersely. He lifted a hoof and pointed it at Jonathan when Patient sighed in relief. "You gotta explain some shit to him, since you hit on his fillyfriend."

“...I was drunk?” Patient turned his gaze to Jonathan. “I mean, that’s a pretty good excuse; and you know that I wouldn’t put my hooves on her otherwise.”

Jonathan's grin widened as well. "If I wasn't crippled right now, I'd have smacked you across this damn manor. I'll let it slide… this once." His eyes glinted with a malicious spark. "But, when you go to apologize to Charlotte, let her show off her new assets I've heard about. And once you do that, if she really does have something extra, march her right up to Celestia and ask her if it can be reversed. I dare you."

“Don’t talk down to me.” Patient donned a scowl. “I’m not a foal; I know what I did was wrong, and I was going to apologize anyways.”

"Koto, could you tell Shining Armor about all of this for me?" Rekka chirped, causing Patient's face to become bright red with anger from his utterance. "Because it seems to me we have a case of insubordination."

“Insubordinat—Jonathan isn’t ranked higher than me. And I’m technically classed as a mercenary, last I checked," Patient growled. “I take my orders from Shining Armor, not any other military personnel ranked lower than him, since I’m under his direct employ.”

"Even mercs have ranks. That system was implemented the moment Asgard was nuked," Rekka retorted, his horn glowing. In a flash, a sheet of paper appeared and levitated its way over to Patient. "Read the list, from the top down."

“What are you even talking about? What are the ranks even based on?” Patient asked as he began reading the list.

"Based on skill, magic power, teamwork, and number of confirmed alicorn kills." Rekka managed a chuckle. "Regardless of civilized status, at that. Nopony's ranked higher than another due to simply being a noble; that'd be biased as fuck."

Patient scanned the list; the whole Valkyrie Brigade was at the top, with a number of about a good few millions' worth of alicorns. That, he could understand, with what the Brigade being a very well-equipped, and highly trained army on speed. Given the fact it had gryphons and changelings, Lance seemed like an opportunistic employer, second only to Shiny-Biny.

At the bottom of the list, amusingly enough, was Patchouli. She'd only had an estimated hundred or so kills; that he could also get behind, as Asgard was more or less swept out before its nuking. Second-lowest was a filly by the name of... Diamond Tiara?

“Diamond Tiara? Ain’t that the one kid Rarity’s sister doesn’t like?” Patient asked.

Rekka nodded. "Yep. She flies solo. And she's only an earth pony. She can't exactly catch her kills faster," he stated. "Said something about keeping Silver Spoon in the dark when she was recruited only a few months ago."

Patient nodded, seeing the logic behind Diamond's name being on the list. Next up was a dozen or so other mercenary groups or mercs going solo with emotive names, with their kill count ranging from the hundreds to the early thousands. His group, the Surgeons, totaled barely a thousand or so kills, with Foxfire truddling along after his group with a good nine hundred kills. That was including Ember in the group. Barely above that was the Task Force, easily themselves topped by the Castle Destroyers. Some part of him were wondering how they racked so many kills.

“...huh…” Patient blanched upon reading the kill counts, which were somewhere in the early two-thousands, and turned to Rekka again. "Doesn’t that activate the almonds.”

"So now you see what I mean when I say you could be reported for insubordination," Rekka stated, studying the look on Patient's face. "But of course, you could catch up; the Destroyers are on temporary leave anyhow."

“I still ain’t takin’ no fuckin’ orders from you." Patient scowled again, his face turning even more red.

Hoofsteps echoed into the room, and only stopped right behind Patient. “I think I know something that may help you change your mind,” a familiar voice that Patient could swear belonged to Shining Armor spoke up suddenly. "And yes, Rekka already briefed me on everything."

Patient turned around, finding himself face to face with his—damn it all, he was grinning too!—employer. “And what would that be?”

“I can pay for a certain somepony to visit you.” Shining Armor held a letter addressed to him from Ponyville via magic.

Patient knew exactly who he was talking about. “Ah...well in that case.” He turned to Jonathan and Rekka. “I’m cool with getting orders from y’all, just don’t be super shitty and authoritative about it, else I might be an ‘insubordinate’ again.”

"We'll let it slide this time," Rekka chimed in with a snicker.