Chapters Setting 1: Pinkie's Pit of Nothing
Author's Note
Please note there will be 6 chapters to set the story before we begin with story 1, the Inquisitor. Wait for his story first or skip there now if it's already up and you wish to indulge in none of the setting but learn as you go.
Setting 1: Pinkie's Pit of Nothing
Clopper Kurtz walked down the cold abyssally dark halls. The world of Pinkamenia's cult left no room for brightness or color; only the soul crushing black emptiness. Ponies eyes adjusted the longer you were one with the Mare of Nothingness. Clopper Kurtz could tell which coltists were recent and which ones had been here for centuries. In the eyes of new recruits, the expendables ones, you could make out the white in their eyes still. Those that had been with the abyss long enough
had completely darkened black pupils. Those that had achieved some status of recognition; you could see the great twinkle of Pinkamenia's plan within them.
There were no statues or tributes to Pinkamenia's nothingness; only the cold darkness of an empty hallway. Here within the heart of nothing, a mare was alone in the void until they sought one another in the darkness, as Clopper Kurtz sought out the Sorcerer now.
The mare walked towards the altar, a single light shining down upon them, finally illuminating where they stood. Diacoltus Daniegh stood from his prayer and turned to his sister of destruction, his champion of Pinkamenia's coming darkness. “Yes sister?” He asked.
Now that they were within the light, all of the cult could see the two ponies. They stood there half white and half black split down the middle by a solid line of sweet pastel pink. Their power armor clanged as they approached each other in the void; echoing off the centuries of pure despair. Their eyes were solid black with the slight glimmer of white and a dot of pink. Looking there you could see the grand design of the great abyssal one; a pony could get lost in those eyes and never return. Unlike other chaos armys of Coltists, Champions, and Believers that adored their armor with glyphs, spikes, skulls, colors, and insignias; the cult of Pinkamenia had nothing. Pinkimenia's power armored suits are simple; white to their left, black to their right, and a single stripe of pink separating the two. Their armor held no symbols, no trim, no distinctiveness. Even for her greatest champions there was no prideful embellishment. You simply knew who they were. Even if you knew nothing of Pinkimenia's Colts you knew one thing, who their champions were just before they tore you from existence.
Of all the pony kind, of all the mares of chaos and the stallions of woe; Pinkamenia's forces were the ones you wanted to look upon the least. Even the simple act of seeing them drove colts mad. An illness called Pinkamania would possess the minds of those whom saw their flanks; something that only the strongest of willed ponies could resist and many would simply end their existence rather than face.
“My brother, since we were foals, we have followed Pinkamenia's path and been guided towards the ultimate goal. I believe it is time, for pinkamenia's presence to return to the galaxy once again.” Clopper Kurtz replied with a voice that caused the skin of her brother to receive a single cut across its cheek. Her voice itself an instrument of annihilation.
“What do the scriptures read?” Diacoltus Daniegh said with a coldness that frost bits of the air before his muzzle. An ancient book appeared within his hoof and he slowly opened it. The pain of his bleeding cheek nothing he was concerned about as it meant that Pinkamenia's blessing was in the room. He opened the book and it fell to the last page that was written in. The way of Pinkamenia displaying her will; never completing the book always just leaving a passage to add to the hallowed tome. The text was written in the black blood of the great empty nothing that spanned across the end of the universe.
“...and the mare that went before now came last, and that which was white and black and all direction was thrown against itself forming a purest pink light. Grown mightily indignant at the words of the Gods, Pinkamenia did turn her heart against them and no pony looked to Pinkamenia now, save those that serve that which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for that of the most damned and those lost to the greatest of despair. At such times as a warrior's heart turns to Pinkamenia, all Gods of Chaos grow fearful and laughter is all you can hear in the great abyssal nothingness that drifts between life and death. Let Pinkamenia come back and let despair reign once again.....”
The two ponies looked at each and stared into the great darkness of the end mare's plan within their eyes. Then they slowly started to giggle, before finally breaking into laughter that rose higher and higher till a cackle echoed throughout the world. It is said that as that cackle was heard across the rift into the world of real space; thousands of ponies contracted Pinkamania and millions died as an entire system seemed to just disappear into the warp storms of Ponehammer 40K as 40.999 turned to 41.000.
Setting 2: Grandmama Fluttershy's Nest
Buboes Barrenflank stood there surrounded by blisters that clotted upon the ground. The mass of biological flesh merged into the dirt itself to become some new form of plague. The green bulbous shells slowly grew up and then popped into puss and pustule sprites which shot into the air around him. His flank was bare. Where a cutiemark had been, had rotted away and spilled out onto the ground along with part of his intestine. He had drug that rotting tube of meat behind him for nearly three millenium. his small intestine on his left and his large upon his right like the sight of uneven decaying regal robes. He had once been a loyal Pony Hoof of the twin sisters but now; he loved his new body and his grandmama Fluttershy provided him with an endless source of happiness and renewal as his physical form grew more grotesque and rotten. He felt it; the essence of the abyssal countess echoed returning from the end of the darkness. He felt the laughter inside his bones. It was time; time to begin their attack as well.
Barrenflank turned to his second in command, Rotter Scales. The pony looked to the dragon and the dragon turned his gaze as they examined one another. Buboes's right fore hoof was completely rotted away and replaced with a chainsword that oozed blessings of the virulent pone. A poison so vile that it takes nearly a year to die from it. There is no cure as you slowly watch your entire body rot away and become a new pustule sprite for grandmama Fluttershy. The only way to end it was to leap into flame and burn ponyself alive.
The stallion's lower jaw lacked skin while several blisters with cysts lining his chin down his neck and over the shoulder into the power armor he wore. His stomach was completely devoid of skin as maggots with a pustule sprite were merged into his abdomen where his abs and belly button should be. His liver partially spilled from his gut and leaked an unnatural sickly colored ooze. His green furred body was covered in the slime that made up his mane of yellow and pink, changed to color of his goddess of chaos. Three balls of pustule sprites starting to merge into a flutterling adorned his shoulders on each side poking through this armored shoulders.
Rotter Scales grunted and belched out a gaunt of flame from his mouth, full of rotten teeth and with a smell of a thousand corpses. He was physically taller and more imposing that Barrenflank had ever been. The dragon stood upon his rear legs as well but, he knew in a real fight; fluttershy's champion would rend him asunder then put him back together to do it again and again till he could find no pleasure in the fallen dragon's annihilation. His tail was nothing but a skeleton, the scales and flesh long since rotted away and replaced in spikes of bone and newly grown bits of hardened calcium shards. Each one covered in poisons from all across the galaxy. The poisons ranged in colors that shone with the ferocity of a rainbow turned to a force of pure perversion and death.
He had only one actual leg, the other was made of an unwilling flutterling that squirmed to be free but was held in place by an even darker blessing. His scales had grown directly into the head of the massive sized ball of puss and blood that was barely holding together from exploding with each of his steps as the dragon's weight fell onto it. It was happy none the less and chittered with bites outward trying to get another piece of flesh to suckle upon. In several spots he was missing his scales and you could see his organs decayed to the core but functioning still despite torn by disease and pestilence. But the most distinctive feature was his eye, replaced by a pustule sprite. The creature in the dragon's head looked at what he did and moving around with its eerie bug body. A pone could see through and the ball of puss swishing inside.
Grandmama Fluttershy had been most generous towards the two of them in her blessings. Their appearance long since losing the refinement of a dragon and a pony of Twin Sister's Kingdom. Instead they looked like beasts from an age before civilization. Their foreheads both were larger, their faces much more primordial, and the hair upon their body heavily overgrown and under cared for.
Rotter Scales felt it too. The essence of the darkness seeping and preparing to come forth. The oldest, supposedly, of the chaos gods, Fluttershy, would not be pleased should they allow this. The two exchanged a stare, the stare of their grandmother. Such a look would freeze the hearts of those less willed and even still force others to obey their command out of sheer embarrassment. A stare that said, “You have disappointed me and cannot redeem yourself. Good....fall with me.” A blessing only granted to Flutters most loyal and highest achieving champions.
The leader of the Death Manes and the leader of the Plague Scales finished their stare and knew that neither had backed down. If either of them did, they would consume each other and the Great Yellow Mare would be most unhappy with this.
“So....it is time then?” Rotter Scales asked of his rival. He looked upon the stallion as the creature only slowly; in a way that would make a mortal pony's stomach twist and vomit, smiled. A rotten tooth, barely hanging on, dropped from his muzzle. “I believe Grandmama Fluttershy has already told both of us, it is time.” Rotter Scales said as he watched his barely holding together dragon's scales molt outward and form into his power armor. The sickening slurps and crunches of metal and flesh sown together was a symphony of desecration to all whom could hear it. The heavy plates attached directly to his flesh. He groaned and then smiled taking pleasure in the experience of the pain that ebbed into his form. It was through this he knew Fluttershy's love.
“Then let us not wait for the others and prepare for the final battle to decide the fate of the one.” Buboes Barrenflank grunted through his teeth. Another cast out of mouth and regrew an even more cavity ridden chunk of denten and enamel in its place. He turned and started to trot towards his ship alongside the drake, walking in the same broken stride.
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Setting 3: Twilight's Legion of Dust and Fate
The Thousand Mustang's Ruby Rubikorn stood there and stomped her hooves in frustration as the spell was lost and it exploded in the chambers. Her wings fluttered in the wind outside of her purple and pink power armor. Ruby's staff clattered to the ground, as the dust settled and her long thin horn ceased to glow. Dusty Stangs sat there, his power armor all that was left of him holding together his soul. He knew it was hollow, his champion sorceress knew it was hollow. Yet they one day hoped to be hole again. The sealed armor let out a snort as it picked up the staff and walked to Rubikorn's feet. He knelt before her. If anything he was loyal, loyal to the core, loyal to the point that he had died hundreds of times trying to accomplish their goals. Whether they be for chaos or for harmony.
Ruby Rubikorn blew the magical essence that was her mane out of her face and took the staff into her hoof. She let out a huff of pure anger and nodded to him. “By Celestia's Ass! Once again, I fail to see the exact future course we are upon. Why? Why has there been so much interference? I demand answers of Twilight and she remains silent or worse yet MOCKS ME!” Dusty Stangs raised his head slightly and in that moment the area the spell had been grew dark. The light in the steel clad room was seemingly swallowed. Rubikorn spread her wings and let her automated cannons. The two battle mounted friendship ending pattern guns came up to aim from her flanks. One chain bolter the three barrels slowly whirling and one heavy flamer with a roar of flame on it's tip coming to life. The long since stained with corruption terminator armor glowed to life with unnatural magics. Runes in various shapes of twilight's cutie mark glowed creating circles and spirals within themselves. Her horn glowed while the staff in her hooves erupted in light as Ruby stood to her hind legs.
“Who dares?” Dusty Stangs demanded has he took his power sword into his hoof and his shoulder mounted melta gun glowed with red power next to his helmet face. He was prepared to melt a banehoof into ash but held back. His hoof clanged onto the ground and drug the heavy horse shoe back with a shriek of metal on metal, echoing a challenge.
A voice echoed through the room not with power or intimidation, just pure ice upon their flanks. The cutie marks of the heretical ponies crawled, even this voice could manage to touch their long dead souls and ignite a fire that should have been squelched out. Their souls themselves felt like they were being pulled apart. Then it stopped as that flame echoed with one word, “Hope”. The voice said only two words that caused all of this to transpire: “Nothing Challenges......” The voice was unfamiliar. It wasn't their Primarch turned Chaos Goddess. It was something else, a threat had been issued and a challenge had been sent. These were Ruby's thoughts while the sentence was incomplete and the voice never finished. It held there on the last syllable for an eternity and a half. Then stopped, everything stopped. Even Rubikorn's cold dead heart, stopped.
Ruby felt herself being pulled into the abyss then the flame in her soul reignited her heart as she fired the spell from her horn to neutralize the vision and she felt the warmth return; a warmth that the mare had only felt when she had been in service to the two sisters. Before the enthronement of the brightest in the galaxy. She felt it, the warmth, the love, the embrace of her creator. Ruby looked to Dusty and then to the various rubineigh hooves. They returned the gaze from their eternal watch over their alicorn master. The time had come for something astounding and astonishing to happen or absolutely disastrous. There could no longer be the uneasy half-truce half-war between chaos's factions and harmony. Pinkamenia had declared; it was now only war, only destruction, and only one would survive this end to the Equestrian Galaxy.
Dusty Stang rose slowly from his fighting position, “And all that is dust shall be made whole and all that is whole shall become the dust........” His sentence wasn't finished but he spoke no more, the rubineigh knew what he had to say.
Setting 4: Applejack's Rampajacks
The mare stood there, her red rage taking hold in an utterly uncontrolled fashion as she tore the guardpony apart. The chainblade protruding from her forehead in place of a horn slammed down through the flak armor of the colt, cutting rib after rib from the flank of the nameless pastel white creature. His coat turned pink and red with the blood and viscera of the still living pony as its screams joined the roar of the chainhorn. What used to be his innards caking his own coat. There was a scream of agony that was slowly cut off into a gurgle as the Rampajack Champion Stampeder sliced into them with glee.
The enraged power armored mare leapt to her hind hooves to give the poor dying guardpony one final embrace, as spikes upon the red and orange armor impaled his eyes, throat, and chest. The fore-hooves revealed two chainshoes attached to them. She rended skull from shoulders and neck as one of their hooves moved in blur, pieces flying off the dead guardpony as the chainshoe ran and sliced. Within just a moment, the skull had been reamed clean, and the brain of the stallion ripped from its cavity. Blood flowed over the armor and Scarlet Impalette cackled to the heavens of the forsaken world she trotted upon.
“A new skull for the skull throne....or just another impaled upon my armor,” she howled through the maniacal laughter. Her blood frenzy suddenly ebbed, broken by the sound of battle dying down. She sensed, even through her rage something else testing the currents of the warp. The other's of fallen six felt this as well. The moving of Pinkamenia back into the realm. The 41st millennium had begun and with it came the end of intermittent war and an uneasy half truce. The entity of pure annihilation, the abyss itself, was coming back.
Scarlet growled, this also meant that she had to prepare for Applejack's return. “Fuji Hoofbreaker!” Scarlet shouted over the battlefield. Her voice that could be heard like a thundering slam of bucking hooves by a thousand ponies.
The closest mare turned to Scarlet. A towering creature that stood nearly 3 stories tall. Despite her size she was just pony, clad in Orange and Red power armor. Hearts being crushed for their blood symbols across the flanks of the mighty titan sized earth pony. Adamantine spikes lined the armored hulk from shoulder to hoof. Each of the hooves glowed with the energy of 100 generators powering the titan class powerbucks, though this mare was not a titan, but instead was creation of the horde. A giant mutant of purest frenzy and destructive power.
Scarlet Impalette was completely covered in blood. Though the pony was inside her hardened ceramite power armor; if not for the spikes off it Scarlet looked like a walking caked puddle of life fluids. Even the grill for her voxgrill was dripping with essence of life. All of it shredded from a whole company of guardponies in the last hour of battle. “Hoofbreaker! The stampeders have it from here. Calm your rage, we must discuss.” Her voice spat out the words, barely contained hatred and an authority in them that could not be defied. Not unless you wanted to lose your life over it.
Scarlet stomped her way towards the command land raider. Every step specifically aimed at a body part of former guardpony. She revved the chainshoes with each step to rend the gore further into the air. She took the new skull in one hoof and crushed it down onto her shoulder spikes, smashing the skull at the bottom of the chain into dust as the new one was pushed into place. A total of 3 pony heads on each of her shoulder pauldrins, impaled there on the ceramite spines for everyone to see.
The world they trotted upon shook as Hoofbreaker followed her there before crashing in the bloody remains of dozens if not a hundred ponies slaughter for Applejack's Skullbuck Season alongside the tracked vehicle. The gunners were shaken by the sudden collapse of the weight nearby and Hoofbreaker's shockwave threatened to turn the armored assault vehicle on its side. But it regained footing of the far side tracks and the gunners resumed firing their six gun bolter turrets with glee.
The armor the massive titan sized mare wore was colored of solid red with a pair of massive volcano plasma cannons mounted to her flanks through it. She turned off the powerbucks so that the giant titan class mare could rest. She released a heavy snort that made the air around the voxgrill the size of two ponies heat up with stream and heavy breathe as the rage subsided for a moment.
Hoofbreaker covered in spikes that could easily impale tanks, looked to her champion. Her head slowly lowered in submission, knowing full well that while she could squash Scarlet, Scarlet was fast enough to avoid it and rend her flesh little bit by bit. She had done it to the two titan-pones before whom had challenged her position. Fuji also considered the small mare the only one who could match her rage. “Yes, Mistress of Mareskulls?”
Scarlet grinned at the title as she took off her power armored helm. Her coat underneath was a rose pink, and her mane was that of purest white of a well kept and manicured mane. Most Applejackers, especially rage enduced Stampeders, were gore soaked messes with manes of knotted masses of visera, grime, and death. Their coats tended to be permanently red from being stained with blood and eventually just turned in the life essence of others into layers of dye. She took the helmet off with her hooves so carefully that the dripping blood of her chainshoes and helmet did not touch the hair or a drop upon it. “Did you feel it? The removal of millions of pony and dragon souls, crying out in fear and then vanishing?” she asked as the heavy armored cap hit the blood soaked earth with a splash of crimson caked liquids.
Hoofbreaker nodded. The sound of gears cranking and neck joints moving in the hardened plates that covered the massive beast echoed over the land. The distant sounds of guardponies crying out in a final stand as the stampeders overwhelmed the last defensive line towards the stable-city.
“Always a mare of the fewest words. Then we know the 41st Millennium has begun and Pinkamenia's promised return has arrived. What say we start a new skullbucking season, this time aimed to please Applejack so much, she manifests again for us?” The blood-craving pony said to her massively larger counterpart.
There was just a snort of agreement. Hoofbreaker hadn't spoken in nearly 11,000 years; since they betrayed the twin sisters. It always unnerved everypony that knew her. Though her eyes reflected the screaming inside her mind of a million souls smashed into dust beneath her hooves.
Setting 5: Rarity's Ecstasies
Winged Torment cackled with glee as she ran the razor whip again across the flank of the wanna be coltist. This was her legion, she would not have any other pony oppose her in any way as a claw chitted from one of her two hooves replaced with massive four pronged claws that looked like they belonged on a mutated crab. Her flesh had lost its coat of fur leaving nothing but leathery pink flesh. Her mane was made of living purple scaled snakes with white diamond markings in sets of three, the strands embroidered with a perversion of Rarity's cutie mark turned into a venomous cobra.
She had gained wings that were a combination of beautiful gems mixed with feathers and flesh. Nearly a hundred piercing ran her right side from tip of the ear to shoulder of the body. Each one adorned with a different ring, each ring a different setting and gem around a golden loop. Each gem had a tormented face, animated trying to escape; the soul of a captured pony turned into eternal torture just for Torment's amusement. She could listen to the symphony of their screams anytime she wished. It sung a song that only a true Rarite could appreciate.
She raised the whip once more and shouted around the knotted grip held tightly in her teeth, “Go on! Scream maggot! Scream for the Princess of Pleasures!” The razor blades along the scourge cracked into the tattered and abused flesh of what once was a pony. That unrecognizable creature that barely clung to life and would have surely been finished with another hit. The strike never landed. The whip stopped on a dime in air. The pony raised its head, bleeding from wounds larger than its legs. Most of the flesh had been rended off but there still was muscle and fat underneath. The heavy hits had only been upon the surface after all to drive the pony mad from raw open pain. The Coltist turning his swollen eyes to Winged Torment with awe, fear, and agony but there was something else deeper there: Love. A pure unfettered perverse love of its fate.
Gorefest Clopguzzler held the whip between his claws. His left arm made of six different dragon claws that broke off into short arms with their wrists and trifold digits holding the whip, equally spaced to cover it from tip right up to the grip in Torment's maw. Fresh blood ran from his gem like scales as they were cut into by the mono-molecule razors. “Mistress of Pleasures, I must insist that you take a moment. Your master of secrets has found what they sought,” he said, speaking in the third person since he could no longer decide if he was one entity or dozens of them from Rarity's free flow of thoughts that poured into his mind.
The dragonhad all of his scales replaced by gems of wondrous colors from head to toe. He looked like a walking elemental. Gorefest looked like a living sculpture, a master
craft of a mad artisan, comprised entirely of priceless jewels, each cut and placed to inhuman, peerless,
beautiful perfection. He tugged the whip hard enough to take it from the mare. She growled and howled at that, her play time had been interrupted.
Gorefest knew he had pushed the limit possibly too far. He knelt down, expecting a blow from the claws that would rotate like a blender and rend gems from his body till his lava like blood flowed out and turned the personal champion's chamber into a raging inferno. He sought to Rarity to all him to speak or give him that pleasure. The scream was so loud that it echoed down the halls, shattering glass throughout the mighty Princess Class Battleship as it floated through space. There have been tales that such howls could bring enough of the warp into the realm to cause space itself to have audible noise, driving everypony, dragon, and griffin into a temporary state of lust filled madness just to make the void go silent again.
“WHAT!” Winged Torment began, each word having a haggard breath between them. Each one sounding like it was forced from her throat and out between her gritted teeth. “IS SO IMPORTANT! That YOU! Dare INTERRUPT our PLEASURES?!” she shriekd out through the knotted rope in her muzzle. Her rage clearly burning towards Applejack's but mixed with a hint of disappointment and authority that could only come from someone being your dominatrix.
Gorefest Clopguzzler knew if he did not actually give a good enough reason, he would experience 100 years of torture mixed with pleasure until his mind couldn't tell the difference again. The drugs, tortures, and pleasures he would be exposed to would be made specifically to break his mind and turn him into another living dildo drake for the champions of Rarity to use and abuse till they got bored. Even being Master of Secrets of the Legion of Excess would not protect him.
“My mistress, I assure you, it is worth it. The secret revealed has come at the 11th hour of the 40th millennium.” Gorefest spoke quickly, lest the implication against the Mistress’s shortcoming raise
her ire more. “It is now the 41st millennium and if you had not been, indulging in your namesake, you would sensed it. Pinkamenia returns with her coltists of the abyssal leading the charge. And if I am correct, she just took material form once again, ahead of our blessed goddess of pleasures.”
Winged Torment's disappointed gaze eased, she took a hoof forward and her head lowered to be eye level with the near groveling dragon which hoped to not become a dildo drake. “Good...We knew why we agreed for you to become our master of secrets for a reason. You know just when you can interrupt us.” Torment spoke, her voice switching back to a royal tone now that her rage was quelled. “We won't degrade you into a mindless piece of clopping meat,” the mare replied. She placed the whip grip into the eager mouths of the snakes that made up her mane, which began to bite into it and infuse the pain and orgasm causing poisons into the fibers again. The whip in her mane was passed from snake to snake, to keep the infection going and entirely unknown to them much less the one whom they are apart of.
“Let us go, we must acquire more crystal ponies to rend and torment for our mistress, if we truly wish Rarity to come back and rule this galaxy. Only she can turning it from the ugliness we see, into a visage of excessive beauty.” Torment spoke, her features illuminated to be too alien for a pony. This was alien of artificial design made flesh. Her eyes were just the right size compared to her head to look like a barely matured foal. Meanwhile her face was too perfect, too well crafted for something natural. It was like beauty you would expect to see far away but when it held up as you came nose to nose with the mare, it shocked and recoiled you. She trotted off as the dragon stayed knelt before he was ordered to move. “Come Clopguzzler, we have work to do.”
Setting 6: Throne of the Twin Sisters
Author's Note
This is the final piece of setting for our stories to begin. Expect to see the First Part of the First Story "Inquisitor" later this week.
Setting 6: Throne of the Twin Sisters
Shining Armor exhaled as he lowered his head and turned around to see the three alicorns behind him. His wife, Cadance registering a pulse every 3 minutes. Her form was barely alive having long since been ripped to pieces and torn asunder. Her rear hooves and cutie mark torn from her body completely cutting angel of his life in half. Her majestic wings nothing more than bit of feather and bone ripped and scattered around the stasis tank she laid in, for so long. He turned his head as he did every minute to the next alicorn princess. Luna whose body was whole except for her head which nearly been severed from its neck, the cut so deep that a thousand unicorns had died from the scream of their princess before it gurgled when the vocal chords were severed.
Luna inhaled and nearly a minute later, exhaled. The throne of the twins, one side white and one side black kept her alive. She was entombed upon the side of the sun while her sister lay upon the side of the moon. The two positions had been switched in order to allow the love of the other to sustain their sibling. Their horns glowed twice a day in unison to turn the galaxy around them, so that Terra could have a night and a day. The one geocentric galaxy in the universe still required the rules to sustain life. Finally when the cold air showed the breath of the moon princess, he moved his head to look through the golden power to Celestia.
The princess of the sun looked withered. The sacred cloth that adorned her face covered the scar she had suffered at the hands of her student, Twilight. A burn so vicious so horrific, that the alicorn's skull was visible beneath the fabric. The blast she had suffered was made of pure chaotic flame straight from the heart of discord himself. And now, as he had done for 10,999 years, 11 months, 29 days, 23 hours, 57 minutes, a single tear rolled down the golden armor of the stalwart stallion sentry. The green rust long since embedded into his helmet; a reminder of his failure to protect them.
The floor beneath him caught the drop of purest tortured love which rolled into the grooves and down the pipes to be used to bless weapons of Empire of Twin Sisters.
Before him, nine hundred screams shot up through the floor and the wiring echoed with electrical energy as nine hundred unicorns, whom had failed their magic testing; were slaughtered. All at once the magic they contained was used to power the throne and directly inject the now tainted energies into the alicorn princess so they could stay alive. Each day, 1 minute before the strike of midnight this happened.
Those nine hundred unicorns came from all across galaxy brought into the chamber beneath their princesses. All the ponies whom had failed to show enough magical aptitude to be useful in Harmony's fight against Chaos had one role to play. Their sacrifice would fuel the princesses as they lay in a state between life and death. Each of them names entombed into slabs of gold to remember their martyrdom in the name of the greater good. They kept the power of the golden throne alive, the alicorns sustained in hopes that one day the damage to their mortal forms could be repaired. Now Shining Armor looked to the empty stasis pod, the one meant for Twilight if she ever needed it. His anger grew, he felt himself wanting to hold down that alicorn as demand answer as he tore her horn from her head. This was his place, this was where he stayed for 11,000 years.
At the strike of midnight as he turned his head to Cadance when something happened. Luna took a breathe 1 minute too early. He snapped his gaze with inpony reflects to her. The princess of night had her eyes opened. Shining Armor didn't know what to do. He had been on his vigil for so long and the three princesses had never moved. What was he to do? The prayers of billions of ponies flowed through their minds, or at least he had assumed they did. Yet here, one of the sister had awoke. She did not move, she did not speak, but her eyes followed as he took that first step towards her withered form.
He felt it now too, the darkness, the abyss itself rising. He knew now why she had awoken and it ate at his soul. He felt his magic wanting to flee his body. He felt his strength drain away, unable to move his power armor even an inch for a long moment. They were coming back. The five of the six whom had betrayed were rising. Did this mean the loyal one might wake up also? It didn't matter there was too much to do now that Luna was awake.
All because that cursed Pink one, whose name should never be spoken by any loyalist; was returning from the edges of the darkness beyond the furthest reaches of the galactic rim.
He forced all the magic he could into a single spell to sanctify the room, a brilliant blaze of rainbow colors shot out, as the energy overpowered the presence and forced it from the holiest of holy chambers.
Luna spoke as the abyssal one's presence was cleansed, “We have to gather, those whom will become our avatars.” Was all she said before the door opened and attends rushed in.
Inquisitor 1: Encounter with the Abyss
Gillihone tossed a ball with his horn. His deep ashen gray coat was slightly illuminated with the use of magic within the Discordia. This calm stream within the warp was the only place it was even remotely safe to use. Safe in the warp, what a joke. Ships disappeared never to be seen again, others reappeared mangled with other vessels into spacehulks. Yet the worst were those that became harbingers to the daemons of the mane. There was never anywhere safe in the galaxy in Icehorn's mind much less in the warp, even if it was just the surface within discordia the border between the realm and the depths of chaos that haunted a pony's souls.
He blew his navy blue mane from his face. He had allowed to grow this time around, just so he could have cut precisely right later. It was a bit late for that, his work as an inquisitor of the Twin Sister kept him busy. Gillihone was a Lord Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos.
He paced past his sage ranked adept. Her left front leg replaced with an auto-writer and dozens of pages having printed off onto the floor beneath her. She was less pony by now and more machine, what little you could see that was still biological, her eyes, one ear, and her tail. The flowing mane was gone in place of cybernetic steel and adamant that was unmoving. Silver Scroll was this mare's name, and her hooves clanged with steel upon steel as she walked forward towards the Inquisitor.
“Your pacing is nerve racking, as usual my liege. Would you care to explain your worry?” she inquired, genuinely concerned, even though you couldn't tell if you just listened to the monotone delivery of her voice. Gillihone however had known her for nearly two centuries; he could sense it at this point. He could even tell her sarcasm occasionally now.
“There is something in the warp that courses through my horn,” Gillihone began as he looked to her with a heaviness that only came from the exhaustion of day long battle. The warp even in the Discordia, was too turbulent for something to not be wrong. He felt it in his bones. His voice reflected it back at his cohort.
“Something is just telling me that I should update my knowledge of the fallen 5 and the loyal 1,” he said as his hoof came up to muse under his chin. “What system are going to again? Mareison II? It is near the edge of known space barely within the Imperial border isn't it?” All of his questions were more him thinking out loud and looking for verification of for his own thoughts.
Silver Scroll nodded and smiled a line of pure metal along her muzzle, it was one of the few luxury features her cyberpony body had, emotional expression. “Yes, all of that is correct.”
“Something tells me-” Gillihone was cut off by the ships alarm blaring. Red lights illuminated every room of the one quiet vessel. His light corvette was no match for any form of real warship should they have encountered it. But this far out? The Fringe? Even the Yaks didn't dare raid this close to the abyss.
The intercoms turned on, “Inquisitor! Come to the bridge! NOW!! This is impossible! This is madness! This-” The communicator on the overhead bulkhead shut down as the ship went dark. After ten seconds, the lights came back on when back up batteries kicked in and the alarm was gone. The entire vessel was somehow silent as a graveyard.
Gillihone ran for the bridge. His hooves echoed off the metal walls as he made his way up to the elevator and activated it. He hoped the power would not flicker again.
Silver Scroll trotted behind him. Not running as that was not her way, even in some of the most dire emergencies she would rather require repairs than run her nearly 2 ton body at any speed. Unless it was run or be annihilated.
When Inquisitor Icehorn arrived at the bridge, his pilot and astropath were both standing there staring out of the view port. Their eyes were nothing but blackness lost, staring into the abyss. When Gillihone touched one of their flanks, the pilot turned into dust, black as the space around their ship. He took step back and looked out the viewport. His mind was nearly overcome with the endlessness of it. He glisped eternity within that endless pool of black. Then shook free before his will was lost forever. He lit his horn and used it to seal the blast door over the cockpit. The strain of which made him feel near faint from moving the massive doors with just magical power alone. “Silver Scroll advert your eyes, we are in the presence of forsaken one, Pinkamenia.”
The cybermare stopped and looked upon the floor rather towards her master. She knew he would never tell her to advert her eyes unless he had to. Those soft silvery orbs that were one of the pieces of her body not completely turned into cybernetics. Her one flesh ear twitching for information unlike the cybernetic one. Her tail drooped to the floor as well, the only hair that remained upon her body of orange and silvery white that shone brighter due to the darkness around them.
Once the blast door was sealed the inquisitor looked at the sensor readings. By what the star alignment said, they were where they were supposed to be, but by the sensors, there was nothing here, they were sitting in abyss or at least upon the edge. He shoved the black ash remains of his pilot from his mounting seat and turned the ship around. Icehorn pulled upon the throttle in full reverse shoving them back into the warp portal that had yet close. They had to flee, whatever this event of chaos was, it had consumed an entire star system. Millions of ponies and thousands of drakes just gone.
They were back in the Discordia, the surface warp used for travel and speeding away back towards the last port of call. “Silver Scroll, go now! I need all the information on the legends of the 41st Millennium in relation to the abyssal one!” His horn still glowed as he now had to focus upon the light of twin sisters to successfully navigate the Discordia and drive his ship, Whoovian's Box, through the warp. There was little chance that if he lost focus even for a split second they would arrive in one piece instead of being dragged into the deeper parts of the warp and be at the mercy of the fallen five.
Silver Scroll nodded and began to look around with her eyes. She was searching the inside of her mind as the cybernetic holographically displayed her thoughts onto her irises. She worked thoroughly to get the correct data before her right front hoof began to print new pages. Page after page rolled forward onto the floor, and the information cascading around her as she confirmed it. She knew upon their arrival Gillihone would want all the information she had, both the long and short versions. Her mind read it at a pace that even a super computer would be jealous of.
She began to speak out loud to give Gillihone priority information he would want to know first. “Upon the dawn of the 41st Millennium, Pinkamenia will return from the abyss beyond the galaxy. She will have but one goal, to turn all of creation into the abyss from which she resided for nearly an eon. A star shall die, and with it all life under its warmth, heralding when she shall walk among the living once more.
"Her followers will flock to her and they shall begin a new crusade whose purpose is annihilation. To quote the words of Pinkie Pie herself at the time she fell: ...and the mare that went before now came last, and that which was white and black and all direction was thrown against itself forming a purest pink light. Grown mightily indignant at the words of the Gods, Pinkamenia did turn her heart against them and no pony looked to Pinkamenia now, save those that serve that which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for that of the most damned and those lost to the greatest of despair. At such times as a warrior's heart turns to Pinkamenia, all Goddess of Chaos grow fearful. Laughter is all you can hear in the great abyssal nothingness that drifts between life and death. Let Pinkamenia come back and let despair reign once again......” Silver Scroll paused, “Error, that information is not in the Imperial Archives. It is not in the forbidden section of our librarium either. It appears as though chaos itself has chosen to give us information that I should not possess.”
Silver Scroll slowly descend to her knees as she bowed her head and began to pray, “Celestia and Luna guide us. Bring your servants back to the light from the darkness we tread. Ensure that though we trot through the valley chaos, you guide us back harmony. We, your faithful servants shall know no fear and shall not taste of death so long as we remain within your eternal embrace at Cadance's feet. Forsake us not for we are your warriors whom must venture into the absolute darkness and bring the light to those whom would forsake our harmony.” She remained kneeling and prayed for the souls of the crew and for her inquisitor but not for herself. She offered her soul as sacrifice if needed to save the others. It was the only secret she kept from Gillihone.
Whoovian's Box lurched and shook as it re-entered the realm. What was likely weeks sidereal had been only mere moments for them. They had returned to Atheneigh I in one piece and were scared for their lives.
Inquisitor Icehorn had heard every word from Silver Scroll. He walked into the hallway with her while the ship was adrift. Stopping in the corridor within a hoofbeat of Silver Scroll, he drew his hand cannon and his horn glowed. Turning to Face his servant, he pressed the barrel of his gun to her eye with hoof upon the trigger. The only reason it did not touch the pupil was because of Silver Scroll's nose. TSilver Scroll could see out of her right eye was down the length of the barrel, to a final destiny. Gillihone was ready to terminate her if the mare had even a hint of taint or corruption.
His horned glowed a mixture of sickly green swirling with sanguine red. The two colors of the spell to detect mutation, corruption, and chaotic taint. After a few moments, the glow receded and he holstered his side arm, the .54 Flank Buster a relic from the past that could still put hole through power armor. An elegant six shot piece from an era long since gone. One of the few slug throwing weapons besides bolter that could deal with Mare of Battle. The inquisitor clicked into its leather hiding place beneath his coat. “You are clean, the twin sisters have seen fit to give you a vision, we must find out what it means and how we can use it.”
Inquisitor 2: Heresy Begets Heresy
Inquisitor Icehorn had to make sense of what had just happened. They had just survived an event that no pony was meant to ever see, the annihilation of an entire star system. All of it, swallowed up by Pinkimenia. Millions of loyal citizens, thousands of heretics, and all forms of life in around the Mareison star; devoured into the abyss. This had not happened since the birth of the 5 elements of chaos, when Harmony was shattered and the rainbow streaked one had been mortally wounded.
Events were playing out that were beyond his understanding. Even the most archaic and forbidden tomes of his librarium were not mentioning just what had just happened or how. He stood there, surrounded by dozens of books he had cast onto the floor.
They had been in orbit of Atheneigh for nearly 2 days and Icehorn had not slept. Silver Scroll had never left his side, the mare helping him find references and reminding him every two hours that there was a vox communication request from the local inquisitional offices. He had to have answers for his abrupt return and for his lack of communication. The fibers of his sanity were being eaten away by the thought that there was some power within a week's travel at most from where he was that could consume a star system.
Finally Silver Scroll placed a cybernetic hoof onto his shoulder and Gillihone had to look up. His soft velvet orange eyes were thoroughly bloodshot from days of pouring over the ancient tomes. “Icehorn breathe,” was all that Silver Scroll said as she stared back with her delicate violet eyes through the indexing visor covering them. She raised her visor so that he could see her clearly now.
“I am 81.7% cybernetic, I need not sleep as the repairs to my physical mind and mental state are done actively while I am awake. You are not even 1% cybernetic, and have physical limitations. It is not a draw back but you must rest.” There was something in the semi-mechanical voice that Icehorn didn't always hear from his scribe adept companion. Compassion? No....something deeper than that.
“Thank you, my friend. I will respond to the local office of inquisitors once I have rested. Please inform them my arrival will be tomorrow morning,” he said, slowly walking away. His head was hung in defeat so low his horn nearly touched the metal clad floors as he walked towards his chambers. The heaviness in his hooves echoed through the mighty librarium chamber. Gillihone wrapped the door in a telekinetic shroud as his horn glowed and the mighty chamber closed. Silver Scroll had watched his every step, staring at the door until long after he left.
The adept resumed what she was doing, pouring into the research archives as she lowered the semi-transparent visor, the device glowing as it settled over her eyes. She was pouring through dozens of research files as she heard the vox caster blaring once more, indicating they had another call. The mare trotted over, sounding very different with cybernetic legs ringing out against the adamantium upon the floor of Whoovian's Box.
She pressed the button for voice only, “Hello, I humbly apologize for our lack of communication. We have had our hooves very busy attempting to make sense of what has transpired before we consult you. Please be patient as my master has gone for rest. We will be with you in 10 hours.”
The other end of the vox reminded quiet for a long moment. All that could be heard was the breathing of the individual on the other end. Silver Scroll was silent as she no longer required more than a single breathe a minute. “Acknowledged, whatever it is Icehorn has found had best be worth the annoyance.” The voice on the other end was a mare, barely keeping her rage contained and clearly beyond upset. There was a pause between them before a high pitched beep indicated termination of the call.
Silver Scroll turned around and sighed, “Ten hours right...”Like I will find anything in 10 hours we haven't found in 2 days! What exactly should I-...wait. Silver Scroll had an idea and began to read over the prophecy she had been infused with as they departed the encroaching edge of the abyss. Then something seemed to drain the warmth from the room. It felt as cold as the outside of the hull, the absolute zero of the void. She let out a breath to test and her exhale turned to ice as it came in contact with the scroll held in her hoof.
“I know you are here agent of chaos, reveal yourself and face the light of the twin sisters!” she boldly challenged as her flank opened and a large weapon slid into view. Looking like an over sized version of the standard Guardian Sister Lasgun except the energy it produced as it began to crackle and was clearly extremely more powerful. Her hoof glowed with energy as there was a click to release the safety of the cybernetic weapon. Silver Scroll was fully ready to unleash the fury of the twin sisters at a moment's notice.
The room grew colder and darker now as the only light was the projection of rainbow colored laser light inside the focus chamber pulsed ready to be unleashed. Silver Scroll's other flanked opened and revealed a double barrel looking punt gun except the laser sight guidance indicated it was rocket launcher. Two matching engines of the projectiles glowed ready to be fired.
Silver Scroll had many secret cybernetic implants into her body, ones that didn't reveal themselves until they absolutely had to. Even her inquisitor wasn't sure of all the cybernetics inside the mare. They had been planted over the decades waiting for the moment they would be needed. Though he may have experienced a few of them that were more, intimate.
“Don't fire upon me and I shall agree to reveal my presence, what threatens you; threatens everything, even me.” The voice had a weighty presence, as if it could change her fate with but a flick of the tongue, stealing away her very future.
“A truce? From a pony of chaos? Who got onto our ship without permission? How can I trust you?” The adept replied while considering her options very carefully. She knew that the best one would be to purge the room and let the void consume the librarium. Priceless volumes some one of a kind would be lost; but she would survive to rewrite them and the heretic would be purged.
A weapon flew out of the darkness to land next to her, a bolter. Much larger than a standard pony bolter, it was a bolter that only the greatest of Celestia's warriors could wield. The Mailed Iron Shoes of Celestia. The Night Mares of Luna. The bringers of love. Soror Equinus. Super soldiers of the alicorn princesses that were designed and engineered to be the perfect ponies. This one bore a symbol upon its recoil butt. A purple star surrounded by 5 smaller white stars, cracked across the center as if broken. The mark of the Traitor Princess, Twilight.
Silver Scroll noted the agent of chaos was a Night Mare of Luna, an angel of destruction, an avatar of Twilight. She stood there and tensed up, her miniature multi-laser and twin anti-tank rockets would have to score a lucky hit to penetrate the armor. She holstered her weapons into the cybernetic hide and back under her long duster cloak. The room grew much darker with the charging chamber's rainbow glow of her mini-multi-laser “Fine, Heretic. But at the first sign of corruption or betrayal....” Silver Scroll couldn't finish the sentence as a rubineigh stepped out. The armor was completely sealed and a sickly purple light shone through the eye holes, as the cracked symbol of Twilight's cutie mark was etched across the chest of the mighty mare. Heavy boots sounded as though they might crack the ship hull with each step. The armor clad entity had a hallow echo coming from the armor as though it were not all there.
“There will be none. I am bound to my word, little adept mare,” she stated bluntly. Her breath rolled out from her helmet’s vox grill, coils of purple-violent icy vapors drifting towards Silver Scroll. The Mare of Metal walked across and picked up her bolter, shaped for her hooves it looked like a toy in there. She stood on her hind legs and holstered the weapon against her flank. “You felt it in your mind? You had a prophecy spill forth didn't you?”
Silver Scroll only nodded. She had agreed to this meeting, her hooves were damned at this point unless this meeting showed otherwise. Icehorn was a moderate, neither radical nor puritanical. He always saw the benefit of it, so long as you stayed in the light of the Twin Sisters or found Cadance's love and forgiveness at the end of the journey.
“Good, then you know that the time has come. Are you prepared to hear what I have to say from Ruby Rubikorn herself?” the massive genetically enhanced mare spoke.
“Go on and stop wasting my time!” Silver Scroll shot back with as much venom as she could put into her robotic voice.
“We stand with you. We are not traitors by nature and you know that, as heretical as it is to have that knowledge. Pinkimenia has already made an attempt upon Rubikorn herself. When the time comes, we ask that you tell your inquisitor; save us. Restore that which was and save Twilight's Legion of Fate to be restored as the Legion of Magic. Tell him Rubikorn is left with one choice, repentance. The other entities of chaos do not see it yet. But Twilight does and the alicorn princess herself must retake mortal form to prove it to her friends in chaos.”
With that the rubineigh turned and stopped her hoof. The mighty horn upon her head appeared from nowhere, softly glowing as a rift into the warp opened. The mare stepped through the portal of raging red and oranges that swirled and threatened oblivion. She was stepping right into the depths of the warp, well past the Discordia used for travel.
The lights in the room came back on and the familiar hum of the ship's power cells echoed back into existence. Silver Scroll looked around, the presence of the chaos mare was gone. No one would have guessed an angel of destruction from Celestia's hooves themselves had been here, much less one of fallen Soror Equinus. What had been said however was certainly heresy. Would she be able to act upon it? Silver Scroll looked up to the ceiling, where there was a mural of the Twin Sisters, circling around the cutie mark of Cadance,
protecting the princess of love. The mighty castle floated above and there were no words that came to mind.
“Cadance, Luna, Celestia; I need thy guidance. Was this your intention or is there something I am missing? Please...answer me,” the cyborg mare called out, her voice sounding as close to natural as it ever had. She heard her voice and was startled by the sound of it. It had been nearly three decades since her wound required the replacement of her vocal cords with the vox box, yet here she spoke and it sounded as though she were whole again.
An unfamiliar voice, one she could swear upon her cybernetic implants she had never heard before, spoke to her with the authority of a goddess. “Yes, you will know the answer when it is time. When you hear my voice; do as it says.” Something crept into her mind now, peace. Her turmoil abated and everything seemed to rest in the cool peace of night itself. One word came to mind as Silver Scroll started towards the edge of the chamber, “Luna...yes my princess as you command.”
Silver Scroll could not be certain it was Luna but the voice screamed of the vox recordings she had heard as a foal of the great princess who slept upon the sunlight side of the throne of twin sisters. It had to be her, speaking directly to her. Right? Not the warp creating an elaborate illusion? This was madness itself. Silver Scroll needed space out of this librarium, somewhere she could find peace and discern what she could possibly tell the Inquisitor when he woke. How was she not going to be shot for heresy? Claiming divine revelation from an Alicorn Sister herself? Conversing with a traitor Soror Equinus? One that belonged to the most hated of all, the traitor Twilight's Legion, the fallen alicorn. This was going to take some careful wording to not finally feel the .54 Flank Buster's final judgment piercing her mind and ending her existence.
Inquisitor 3: Reporting For Judgement
Silver Scroll approached her master's quarters. She knew that Inquisitor Gillihone Icehorn was a tolerant pony but this, this she had seen heretics executed for. By the Shining Light of The Twin Sisters! She had seen the faithful tortured and destroyed for it. She knew full well that telling the truth might just be the end of her. What was she to do? If I tell him, I can die at peace with myself. If I lie to him, I couldn't. The Tenant of Honesty came to mind as she lifted a cyber-hoof to press into the door.
“If you cannot tell the truth it is better you say nothing at all. But y'all shouldn't hide things from your friends. Sooner or later it will come out, I'm tellin' ya that much. So just be honest for Pete's sake.”
The ancient words of Applejack herself. Part of her that was kept by the Ministry of Harmony and not expunged from the records utterly. The traitorous mares may have fallen to chaos but many of their teachings, ways of life, and the legendary accomplishments as champions of Celestia and Luna became forsaken to the Elements of Harmony, had been kept.
Silver Scroll pressed her hoof forward. I have to tell him, there is no choice if I am to remain faithful. It is better to live in shame of honesty than honor a lie. She rapped against the door four times. There was a long wait from each of the heavy stubbornanium clangs that echoed through the hallway. After the fourth clang, Silver Scroll stood there un-moving. She could feel a twitch in her cyber-body preventing her from shaking at the hooves as her nerves felt fried for the first time in a century.
“Master Icehorn, it is time to wake and we must speak,” the lump in the mare's thought was audible to anyone within earshot. Silver Scroll realized her voice was still pure, non-robotic. She couldn't figure out why but the feeling brought a tear to her still biological eyes.
The great doors to chamber creaked and whined as the telekinetic veil started to pull the opening ajar. The room inside was dimly lit by candles scattered unevenly around the room. Who lit them and positioned them was not present. The ashen gray unicorn was a shadow moving through the gloom, approaching Silver Scroll slowly in full ceremonial shoes that clanged harder than the cyber-mare's metallic limbs. It was clear from Icehorn's eyes that became visible in the hallway light; he had gotten little if any sleep since departing the librarium. His head lifted just slightly when he saw his companion standing there. He looked at his assistant and companion, his eyes were concerned and full of worry. She has never disturbed me before I made ready.
Exhaustion vanished and replaced with guarded concern as his attention fully fell upon the mare and his features hardened almost completely. The .54 Flank Buster was sliding from its holster and the only softness upon the inquisitor was a single tear in his eye that rolled over his cheek.
“Silver Scroll, your voice, explain it to me?” he watched the mare carefully, giving a scant two breathes before looking to see if the scribe would flinch or retreat before continuing on. “Our augurs detected unusual energy readings after I went to sleep last night.” He paused once more and took a few more steps forward, now completely out of his quarters and into the hallway. The hand cannon floating in air closer and closer to the adept librarium. “The readings were coming from the Librarium. Tell me why?” With each word his composure got stiffer and ice blue eyes became harder. The room grew a colder and the friendship between them seemed to matter less as the tension between their gazes twisted tighter.
Silver Scroll's robotic voice returned, as the feeling of her vocal cords vibrating as metal on metal resumed, much to her relief. “I do. And following the Tenant of Honesty, we have had something happen that I must speak to you about. As much as it may damn myself to the final pasture.” Even with the cybernetic enhancements returning to work, one could pick out the cracking and nervousness in the voice.
Icehorn looked at her with the full authority of his station. No longer were those eyes one of a friend but one of a judge, jury, and executioner waiting to render a verdict. Silver Scroll slowly and deliberately took her time to explain the experience from the previous evening to her master. She took her time, spelling it out. Gillihone didn't ask any questions, the volcanic ash colored unicorn stared on; each word rang out like a hammer striking a anvil that might break from the blows of his heavy stare. If Silver Scroll had been anypony else, even a dragon of the Adeptus Mechanicus Scalinos, he would have pulled the trigger and ordered the body incinerated.
When Silver Scroll had finished relaying her encounter with the Rubineigh, the silence stretched out for eons before Icehorn hung his head low to the floor. “I should shoot you right now,” there was a click of the hammer as the flank buster was safed from firing. “But the High Inquisition will want to hear this. Our greatest enemies are on the move and they appear desperate. We need to understand why.” Gillihone turned on his hoof and started to pack back and forth before Silver Scroll. He worked out his thoughts aloud while ceremonial gold hoof shoes echoed between each wood. “You appear to be a focus point for it. I will save my questions for later. I want to see what they think first.”
He walked past her and cast his secondary side arm, a hold out pistol onto the floor in front of Silver Scroll. It only held one shot and only a precision shot would be lethal to any target with something of that caliber. This was made for self applied mercy of Luna. “I see no reason to execute you, yet. But if you feel like you can't live with yourself; then there it is, end it now before you fall to the arms of heresy.” He left Silver Scroll in silence other than his hooves moving away with more and more distance pangs upon the metal. The thoughts and deeds of the cyber-mare weighing more than a ocean of steel.
Silver Scroll collapsed to her knees. Her head bowed low as she could not look at him. She had been weak, and in her weakness she may compromised her very being. Her closest friend, her master and commander wouldn't even look at her now.
After letting a single tear drop, the cyber-pony picked up the hold out pistol and placed it into her crimson barding robes. She took the formal piece of clothing and cast it over her back. If it came to falling to Discord and The Warp or staying in the Arms of Harmony, she would stay; through death.
The mare looked back and trotted slowly to catch up to her master. She slowed at her pace even more than normal and brought the visor over her eyes to start preparing the findings to present to the High Inquisitor.
“Why is she not in chains!? Icehorn, you know better than this; why is she not been turned to ashes and cast to the void where heretical ideas like this belong?” The first High Inquisitor's words sundered Silver Scroll's soul like a bolter round through the heart. The chamber was up in arms calling for death, torture, and interrogation. The commands echoed around her and filled the chamber with a fanatical hatred. Even a chalice was thrown and bounced off of Silver Scroll's armored plated forehead. She winced and took a step back as the gold cup clattered to the floor and the contents spilled out over her hooves.
The cyber-mare raised a hoof to defend shield her face and staggered back. There was no where for her to go though, she was the center of attention within the precise central location of the room. Silver Scroll braced herself for the worst and closed her fragile eyes. Moments passed and she could hear the pangs of food, cups, even the shot of a gun that barely rose over the noise but none of those blows fell upon her. Slowly the mare opened her eyes and saw a film of ashen gray surrounded her through the air all the way to the platform, a unicorn's shield spell. The second High Inquisitor reached a black hoof from the shadow of her golden robes and slammed a gavel down.
“ORDER! Order or I shall have you all flogged!” The mare screamed out while the gavel toned off the wood over and over again, till the wooden anvil shattered under her hoof. The gavel continued to hit down, its metal rings holding the wood together for the prolonged call to order.
The massive chamber echoed as the hard wooden gavel hammered into the metal council table over and over again. They were in an amphitheater designed to hold the inquisitors and the entirety of their retinues. Scribes, enforcers, pilots, acolytes, and marines gathered in with them; nearly two thousand ponies and almost one hundred dragons. The audience was a veil of shadows, one could not see them at all save for vague shapes moving. It was meant to be that way so that Inquisitors could ask questions or drive home points without fear of reprisal for personal grudges. The three High Inquisitors were the only bright spots within the sea of shadows and darkness but were covered head to hoof in flowing golden robes, lined in white platinum trimming and black highlights. Their hooves occasionally became visible as they extended to speak while sitting upon their elevated trio of marble thrones.
Each throne was held up by a mechanism that allowed them to hover in air without sound or wind. They just stayed there, slowly falling slightly and then rising up again. Slowly the room quieted when the rabble realized their blood thirst would not be satisfied. Silver Scroll looked for the source of the barrier and found Icehorn's horn glowing just enough to call forth the shield. He looked like he could murder a hundred thousand ponies right now and his rage might not be sated. The energy field from his horn pulsed and quivered as he held back any further retaliation thrown at his assistant mare. The stallion quite honestly had never looked more heroic to her, even the deaths of heretical cultists at his hooves were nothing compared to this.
“I will remind you!” Icehorn's words punctuated the chamber's silence as he deliberately stepped from the crowd seating to join next to Silver Scroll. “We came here in good faith High Inquisitors and the recent actions of outside forces have brought this to our attention.” He passed through his own barrier to get to the cyber-mare's side but started to circle her as he spoke. “Something is on the move, rising from the depths of our worst fears.” Gillihone stopped here and rotated his head around at the silent crowd. “I believe my assistant is connected to it somehow. I have searched her quarters, the entirety of my ship, the librarium, even peered into the discordia to check. All before we came to you!” He let his voice bite into their ears and allowed their guilt to permeate their own minds rather than just use that which he could inflict upon them.
“I found no heresy. Only in her words and claimed actions.” Icehorn's glare intensified and became a challenge that none wished to answer as he looked from shadow shape to shadowy shape past their bright light shield. “Now an entire system is missing, GONE. You have seen my ship's augur records, you have seen the ashen piles of what used to be my first pilot and navigator. Goddess-Queens Celestia and Luna rest the souls of Void Walker and Metal Hide. I will miss them dearly but that doesn't change the fact we have been presented with an opportunity. And I am willing to swear by that decision.”
The third High Inquisitor, the last one and only one whom had not spoken since they arrived put a hoof down to speak. “Are you willing to swear an Oath of Love and Repentance by Cadance if you are wrong?” The quiet room with murmurs and whispers around them suddenly went dead silent at the sound of a single gavel strike against the dented metal desk.
No one dared to speak further as all eyes were now upon Icehorne. An Oath of Love and Repentance was to say you would devote your life to the Goddess's eternal service. To atone for a sin that no one dared to speak of anymore. You only risked the oath if you were absolutely certain. You could only take such an oath on behalf of another, not on your own. If your friend was found to be a heretic or to violate the terms of the court after that, your mane would be shaved, all ranks stripped, and you would be cast onto the nearest feral world to preach Harmony. It was a death sentence without a true chance to redeem yourself; no one had in over 7000 years since the first one was violated.
Silver Scroll could cut the air with a bite. She knew what such a swearing of fealty to her would mean. Without thinking she pressed a hoof against his shoulder causing his gaze to snap to her ready to strike. Icehorn was not letting up any of the hardness behind it. The shield around them fell down while a telekinetic hoof enveloped his melee weapon, an old heavy longsword from a time before the Crusaders of Unity. The blade came up and pressed against Silver Scroll's throat, hard enough that the metal there started to give into the flesh underneath.
“If I must, to make you not wish to end a potential lead, and a life devoted to Harmony, without considering what our foes might be up to...” Every single one of his words fell like a executioners axe upon their ears. He was using his voice of command channeling magic through his horn and back into his throat. He was making it clear that nothing he said he was not bound to nor could anyone 'mishear' or 'not acknowledge' the words he spoke. “Then yes, I will swear the Oath for Silver Scroll and promise that if she has fallen; I will execute her myself.” The High Inquisitors looked to each other, whispering among themselves. There was a murmur rising around the room; it grew slowly until a gravel slammed into metal bench again and this time finally the hoof of the center High Inquisitor would not be denied. The room fell silent while the sound of a gavel hammer smashed from the pummel and hoof that wielded it, echoed across the metal away from the High Inquisitors.
“Scribe! Note that as of right now; Gillihone Icehorn must swear an Oath of Love and Repentance to Silver Scroll's actions before they are allowed leave. In addition to this, they are to head to their ship and where Silver Scroll is to make contact with the entity in the presence of Icehorn and they are to discuss what precisely it suggests.” He took a moment to draw a new breath and allow the radical nature of his actions to sink in. “One of us will accompany them hidden from sight and knowledge, to witness the event and determine if Icehorn shall have to execute upon his oath or not.”
Icehorn looked at Silver Scroll and then to the High Inquisition Council. It did not matter to him or her now. Whatever this mare did he was responsible for in a way that would either spell out their salvation or their doom.
