Chapters Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 2: Scarlet Escape (REMADE)
A ungodly chorus of groans, roars and hoofsteps echoed from the staircase at the end of the corridor. Sometimes, it was joined by half chewing sounds and bone cracking. The night that darkened the corridor had no idea of the bizarrely bloody thing that was happening in that moment.
Feeling her incoming visitors getting closer, Grimwood headed back to her cell and took her bag from her bed. She opened the bag and pulled out four silver, metallic shoes, being actually demonic-looking artificial limbs: Two clawed hands and two talons, all of them being four digits, with a violet jewel being inside their lining. She putted on the metallic claws on the hooves of her forelegs and the metallic talons on her hind legs.
Suddenly, Grimwood was struck a unbearable pain spreading on all of her legs. A yell of pain escaped from her mouth, a moment before flopping on her side. She clenched her teeth, trying her best to mute her voice and bear all of that pain as she felt her bones snapping, repairing themselves and rearranging themselves into a slightly different order.
After a few moments, the pain and the internal turmoil stopped, giving her a moment to recover from that. Her appearance was the same, except that she felt her skeletal anatomy being changed a little bit.
Grimwood slowly rose up and looked at her hoof wearing the metal clawed hand. Feeling the metallic limbs as her own, she quickly moved the fingers of the her right claw to test their functionality. Seeing them working was what she needed but was still annoyed by that little, vexing toll she had to pay for wearing them.
"It's been a long time since last one I putted these on. The magical gems were still doing a good job connecting the claws to my nervous system."
"But damn if that hurts," Grimwood muttered, a second before she heard the chrous intesifying. "I need to act very fast before they come here."
True to her words, Grimwood put her bag on her back and headed toward the doorway. She peered outside from behind the wall and waited for her incoming visitors to come.
After a few moments, a pony like figure in a dark-blue armor entered in the corridor, passing on the mangled corpses of the dead guard ponies. It slowly marched through the corridor, followed by other ones behind him. Despite the place being darkened, Grimwood managed to get a good view of their form. Her eyes widened, alarmed. There was something horribly wrong with their appearances, which confirmed her thoughts.
"Sometimes I hate to be in the right." Grimwood stated bluntly.
True to her statement, the 'Night Guards' were now monsters barely resembling ponies, being nothing more than twisted versions of themselves. Their mouths being smeared in blood. Although they had the same holes in most part of their bodies, clawed hooves and dreadful red eyes, those ones were different in a few aspects. Each one of them had part of their body being warped, decomposed or even growing some new gruesome limbs. A detail made even worse by their figure being torn into bits.
The creature leading the group appeared as a tall earth-stallion wearing only the helmet. Six side tusks were growing out of his mouth. Spikes were protruding from his forelegs and huge bone covered arms growing from his shoulder. Next to him, there was a female pegasi with a wound on her chest exposing her rib-cage, her mane being turned into a grotesque coil of sharp teeth and multiple bone tendrils protruding from her back.
The two abhorrent creatures were followed by a earth-pony with a missing eye and a bone sword protruding from his head, a female pegasus with spike coming out of her back and voracious maws in her eye-socket, and a earth-mare with the bone of half of her jaw being exposed and her chest being turned into a sharpened mouth.
Grimwood didn't even bothered to look at the other ones since they were equally horrid. She stepped outside and turned toward the mutated ponies, who were at few yards away from her. Noticing her, they let out chilling growls and slightly fastened their march while looking at her with a voracious expression. Some of them even grinned.
The violet mare wasn't worried or scared at all, only annoyed. She looked at them tranquilly as they were slowly approaching her.
"You want my flesh, right?" Grimwood asked calmly.
Glaring at them with defiance, Grimwood rose up on her hind legs and putted her claws on the bag as the horde was getting closer to her. She then pulled out the metallic blue box from her bag and wield it from both the handles. She then lifted it above her head and vertically swung it toward them, causing something coming out of the it's rectangular fissure, revealing it's true form.
The box was actually a huge, long chainsaw with spiked teeth, those blades was hidden inside to make it more transportable.
Wanting to get straight to the point, Grimwood pointed her chainsaw toward them and then pulled out the cord a couple of times, revving it and making the blades moving so frantically to emit some ear-shattering, metallic sounds.
Grimwood locked her eyes at them, with her expressionless face suddenly turning into a mask of fury, made more threatening by her own weapon.
"I will rip you into shreds before you can even try!" Grimwood shouted furiously.
Instigated by her provocation, the whole horde of undead monsters let out a chorus of blood-chilling roars as they rushed ferociously at her, with the tusked stallion and two sword-horned earth-ponies going first. Grimwood didn't made them wait and menacingly charged two legged toward them. Once she got close to them, swiftly swung her chainsaw at them, half-decapitating their heads before they could even touch her.
As they fell on the ground like crumbling statues, with blood gushing out of then, Grimwood instantly noticed the remaining four creatures trying to exploit her opening to mangle her, guided by the horrid pegasus lunging her bone-tendrils at her. She promptly denied them that chance with a quick second swing that cut them and some tendril into pieces.
Nopony would be able to fight like that, but her metallic limbs had done to to her more than just giving hands and feet to use. Their magic had altered her skeletal structure and muscular one, allowing her to even move like a bipedal creature. As a result, she was able to have more evasion and gain access to every tool, including her own long chainsaw.
The path seemed to be clear, until she spotted another pony-like, clawed, holed abomination coming toward her. This one being a female unicorn Night Guard with two tendril made of muscle tissues, with two half-melted, living unicorn heads being attached to them as their tips.
Without even saying anything, Grimwood ran two legged toward her. The unicorn glowed her horn in a grim, red colored light and wrapped the chainsaw in a red colored aura, only for it to dissipate a second later, much to the creature's confusion.
"You tried, bitch!" Grimwood exclaimed as she was getting closer to her.
Seemingly enraged, unicorn made two unicorn heads aiming at her and charging their horns to cast a spell, but was too late. Grimwood was already in front of her, violently plunging her chainsaw on her head, churning through her helmet, her skull, bones, muscles, her armor and her organs. The two living heads emitted a gruesome scream before they ceased to move in response to their master's brain being divided and fell on the floor. A crimson fluid erupted out of the monstrosity as she the spinning blades were splitting her front side in two.
Once shredded, monstrous unicorn stopped moving, Grimwood pulled her chainsaw out of her, leaving her bleeding body falling on the ground. Severed limbs, bone fragments, and split bodies were scattered around the corridor's floor, with their vital fluid pouring out of her fallen assailants.
"Magic users generally relies on their spells, and so she does it. Unfortunately for her, I had installed a protective crystal in my chainsaw, power enough to protect it and myself from the magic of Class S unicorns and below..."
"I better hurry." Grimwood said.
Ignoring the bloody mess that she had caused, Grimwood dashed toward the staircase and went upstairs, having her mind set on her escape. Making her way toward the top, she could hear a the echo of a upsetting cacophony of roars and a few terrorized screams coming from the top. She turned off her chainsaw just to hear and pressed on. The far she goes, more audible the chorus get.
Once she arrived at the top of the staircase, Grimwood was met by a opened door. The hellish chorus came from there, yet it seemed to distant. A strong smell of iron met her nose, which gave her a bad vibe about what was waiting for her on the next door. Without any hesitation, she entered inside.
She stepped into a hall with stain-glass windows at her left, darkened by the blackened night, with walls being stained with blood of the victims and a few of the stain-glass windows were shattered, with their fragments being on the ground. There was no monster, but what they left in their wake was equally chilling. There are other mangled corpses of Royal Guards scattered on the marble floor, being either chewed up or gruesomely teared apart.
As that horrible spectacle wasn't enough, the distant cacophony of screams and roars echoed once again, this time coming from the outside. Looking at one shattered the stain-glass window, Grimwood realized the most nighmarish scenario. What was transpiring in the castle could be happening in the rest of Canterlot as well. She could barely believe that but she heard it. There could be countless ponies being turned into monsters, going after their neighbors' flesh.
"Just when I thought this mess was not bad enought. Is this madness happening everywhere?"
"This damn night is going to get messy, isn't it?" Grimwood asked to herself.
Grimwood headed toward the very end of the hall. She reached the doorway and entered into another hall. There was a blood trail on the floor that leaded toward the door on the other side. As she approached it, she heard a chorus of groans and roars echoing from behind it.
Taking that as a warning, Grimwood promptly revved up her chainsaw once again and kicked opened the door. Steeping inside, she was met by a horde of Royal Guards, earth-ponies and pegasi alike, now being turned into monstrosities and blocking her path. They turned toward her with a voracious hunger being imprinted in their faces.
Grimwood rushed two legged toward the creatures, who launched themselves toward her in response. As the violet mare got closer to the group, four earth-pony monstrosities leaped toward her with wide opened jaws. She made a quick horizontal swing, cutting their bodies in two while they were in mid air and made the two sides falling gruesomely.
"Fuck off already, undead! I have no time to waste on you!" Grimwood yelled, a moment before landing another swing that beheaded other two monsters.
Relentless, she teared through the horde, shredding every one of them who tried to assault her. Every hit that she landed was guided by her own furor, something that never leaved her go. As she continued to cut them down, a unicorn with a fanged mouth and his horn being fused with a molten spear rushed toward her, glowing the tip with a ominous red light. Without even looking, Grimwood promptly turned at him in a cutting swing, half decapitating his head and sending his brain flying.
She pressed on, decimating the monsters who were ferociously charging at her when was approached by a female pegasus with four mandibles and snakes made of arteries coming out of her sides, which disgusted her. As she dashed toward her, the pegasus flapped their wings and flew upward. Grimwood looked up, only to see the creature's artery made snakes spitting a red liquid toward her.
Grimwood quickly moved away, dodging the spits as they whizzed past her ears. Then, two warped voices roared from behind her. She looked in the noise's direction and saw the mutated ponies from before, being caught by the liquids as they tried to attack her. Their heads were melting, due to the liquids corroding their flesh.
"Corrosive blood?" Grimwood exclaimed with disturbed surprise as the corroded creatures fell on the floor. "Now that is otherworldly disgusting."
She looked back at the abhorrent pegasus, whose snakes spitted another dose of their corrosive saliva. Grimwood leaped away from their trajectory. But one of the red projectiles slightly touched her arm, causing her to shout as she got struck by a unbearable pain. Her grip on her still revving weapon loosened, letting it falling on the floor.
The violet mare gripped her arm to mitigate the pain and looked with muted fury at the flying monster, who was ravenously diving on her, probably eager to eat her flesh. In the same moment her four mandibles were reaching her face, Grimwood immediately blocked her head by grabbing it with her metal claw and brutally crushed it on the floor, literally reducing it into a pulp of meat and gray matter. The headless monstrous pegasus' body flopped dead.
With the horde being slain, Grimwood picked up her now inactive chainsaw and headed toward the left doorway at the end of the corridor, but then stopped. She looked straight ahead, scanning the path in front of her, feeling someone watching her.
"Whoever you are, you better show up," Grimwood demanded, annoyed.
Then, slowly, somepony stepped into the corridor from the doorway, being a female blue guard pegasus, looking at her with an disdainful and nervous face. Grimwood since she didn't presented form of alteration and didn't had the same smell of death, but wasn't much alive either, due to her body being critically injured.
Her ear were a little bent. Blood flowing down her forehead smeared almost half of her face. Her armor was half destroyed, retaining some cuts on its metal surface and exposing part of her skin. She has gruesome, bloody bite marks on her legs and her left wing was tattered.
"Of all the ponies who weren't turned into monsters," She said harshly, glaring at her. "You were the one that I least expected to see. In normal circumstances, you shouldn't be allowed to roam free."
"Spare me your lecture, Blitz Lane," Grimwood replied, annoyed. "I had guard ponies who tried to kill me, so of course I have to fight back."
"I saw how you had dealt with them," Blitz sighed, uncomfortably. "The stench of the blood on your body says too much... I can't blame you for trying to defend yourself."
"I don't have time to waste," Grimwood interrupted impatiently. "I want to get out of this funk. However I know already that won't be easy since this story about ponies suddenly turning into monsters can't be a isolated case. I know is happening in the whole Canterlot."
"...... You are correct. Is exactly what you said," Blitz replied with a pained tone. "Needless to say- Ugh! -..... We didn't expected that to happen."
"Just tell me what is going on?" Grimwood asked.
"I-I... Ugh..." Blitz grunted in pain for her injuries. "It is the malevolent work... Of a curse... A enchantment in which nopony knows its origins and it cannot be dispelled in any way."
"A curse?" Grimwood replied perplexed.
"I was told that by my captain. Is a curse that affected random ponies with a weak force of will," Blitz explained. "According to what I heard from my superior, the was a forbidden, permanent curse that somepony had unleashed in the midnight. It turns the cursed ones into mindless creatures, driven to kill or devour the others for pure cruelty or simple hunger."
"Tsk, that explains everything," Grimwood said with a grim tone. "Does Celestia even know about her trusted guards being turned into flesh eating, shredding monsters?"
Blitz went wide-eyed, with her expression becoming a grim one, and said hesitantly. "Celestia... Disappeared."
Grimwood was taken aback by that statement. What she heard seemed to absurd or even a weak excuse to be believed. Yet the tone that Blitz used wasn't that of somepony that was lying.
"What kind of bullshit is this?" Grimwood asked with a inquisitve tone.
"I was doing my report to Princess Celestia.... When we heard a sudden explosion of energy coming from one of the rooms in the west wing."
That statement made Grimwood to remember the sound of the explosion and the multivocal chilling roar that followed
"It came from the room were Twilight Sparkle was residing. Hearing... it..." Blitz coughed blood before continuing. "Princess Celestia teleported me and my group nearby the room. We then stormed inside the room with the intention to save Twilight. But she wasn't there anymore... Instead, a black flaming alicorn was standing in her place."
Grimwood almost flinched. "A black flaming alicorn?"
"Celestia confronted the beast. And one second after she charged toward him, the creature's flaming figure increased its intensity and exploded in a burst of black energy as it roared, engulfing the room. After a few moments the energy had dissipated... But both Celestia and the creature had disappeared without leaving any trail.."
".... I see."
"As for me," Blitz continued, feeling uncomfortable with what she has to tell. "I had obviously calmed the down and suggested them to investigate every room to find both the Princess and Twilight. But after some minutes, my companions started to feel sick. And before I could realizing what was happening, they turned into killing monsters. So of course I fled, but wasn't easy for me to flee in one piece. Just look at my wounds and you got the idea."
"But what about Luna?" Grimwood asked. "She is also a Princess after all."
"She had vanished six months ago," Blitz replied.
Grimwood froze with incredulity, a moment before asking her. "How?"
"Six months ago," Blitz began. "Princess Luna had disappeared without leaving any trail. Worried, Celestia sent a research squad to find her, but was all in vain. Since then, our Princess never ceased to wait for her return."
"Figures. So the whole Equestria is left without a guide, huh?" Grimwood inquired, and moment before grabbing Blitz's neck. "Why nopony told me anything of that? Why I was kept in the dark? For what reasons?"
"Because-" Blitz coughed violently, not bothering to struggle. "We had... The obligation... To not inform... You about anything that happened in the last six months."
"By who and why?"
"I don't have... Any idea... To be honest, I was against that... But my superiors approved that... Regardless that."
Grimwood was angered upon being kept in the dark about that during her period in her cell. But she put that aside since her escape was her first priority. She released Blitz from her grasp, leaving her coughing frantically to catch her breath. Grimwood headed toward the doorway but was then stopped by Blitz.
"Wait, where do you think you are going?" Blitz demanded perplexed.
"I'm going to get out of this funk," Grimwood replied, almost annoyed.
"All by yourself!?" Blitz asked, shocked. "You are committing a suicide with this!"
"I won't be killed so easily," Grimwood said with a grim reassurance. "Besides, what are you going to do, now?"
"As much as I don't want to do that," Blitz admitted. "I have to retrieve something from one of the rooms of the castle, before leaving."
"You are going toward the pack of monsters who had reduced you into this, you know." Grimwood pointed out.
Blitz paused, looking at Grimwood scornfully. "Since then a criminal like you knows the meaning of life?"
After that, Blitz turned around and ran back to the doorway where she came, leaving Grimwood on her own. The violet mare
A few moments after that, Grimwood resumed her escape, crimson soaked as she was and with her tool and claw dripping blood. She was fully aware of that, but she didn't cared this much as long as she is still alive. The smell of blood and piece of flesh, however, was anything but bearable.
"Ugh. I'll never get used to this. I'm going to cleanse my body once I got out of this madhouse."
Reaching the doorway, Grimwood steeped inside and was met by a disgusting sight. Before her there was the entrance hall of the castle, once majestic and benevolent premise of hope now being turned into a carnage field. A fact made evident by the many dead bodies in golden armor laying on the floor, and the blood and pieces of flash that stained the hall. There was the staircase on two sides, with two stained-glasses depicting the sun and the moon respectively, desecrated by various bodily fluids being splattered into them.
Not wanting to stay in this place any longer, Grimwood turned around and headed toward the main gate leading to the outside. Once she reached it, she was by the louder cacophony of terrified screams, ferocious roars and occasional moaning. Despite that crude welcoming , Grimwood stepped without thinking twice.
What didn't expected to greet her was Canterlot being plagued by pure hell.
It was happening under a grim black-clouded night. The chorus of screams, laughs and spine-chilling moans and roars filled the air, this time more louder than Grimwood heard before. A pure carnage plagued Cantelot, with multiple pony monstrosities who used to be some of the inhabitants attacking their still normal kin who tried to escape from them. Most of the ponies fell victim to them and were killed or eaten alive by them.
For the helpless ponies, this madness is a nightmare. For the creatures, it was a macabre fest, with the lives of normal ponies being their meal. But the most contorted fact about them was that some of them weren't eating them, but killing or mangling them for sport, as they had fun inflicting the atrocious suffering on their defenseless, scared victims
Grimwood couldn't believe at the ordeal that she had to face. She had the suspect that would happen, but she never thought this would had already plunge the entire Canterlot into this madness. Such sight astounded her, but only for a few moments. Grimwood took a few steps forward and revved her chainsaw with newfound, vigorous furor.
"Talking about a bad day to regain freedom."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 3: Violet is for Violence
Grimwood didn't waste any second as she ran two legged toward the streets, armed with her chainsaw. Avoid any encounter was almost impossible as some of the monsterized ponies noticed her and blocked her way. There are different types, like a pegasus mare having wings made of bones or a earth stallion having side tusk growing from his mouth and the list goes on.
"Do you expect me to take it, isn't it?" Grimwood taunted.
Motivated by her provocation, all of the creatures rushed at her menacingly. Grimwood quickly reacted by charging two legged at them and shredding nine of them in one swing, and then immediately landed another other five monsters coming from her right. Blood was spilled and a few cut organs fell on the ground as the first wave of undead creatures were torn apart by her weapon before they could even touch her.
As Grimwood was finishing her job with them, another wave of mutated ponied furiously charged toward her. She dashed toward them and shredding many of them in one horizontal swing, leaving falling pieces of what used to be ponies in her wake. The quickly turned around to see the remaining ones charging at her.
She was about to attack when she noticed a mare pegasus with scythe blades protruding from her hooves diving toward her to slash her. Grimwood promptly stabbed her chainsaw behind her through the abhorrent pegasus' chest and slammed her weapon against a altered unicorn running toward, shredding both him and the winged creature's head in two.
Grimwood turned to see other three earth-pony monstrosities going toward her, guided by only hunger and instinctive cruelty and accompanied by a group of altered unicorns who followed them.
"Damn you, bastards! I have no time for this!" Grimwood shouted in annoyance.
Unwilling to waste anymore time with them, she pulled out three golden, four spiked discs with red jewels encased at their center and tossed them at horde. The objects managed to hit three of them.
As they touched their targets, the disks started to glow for a moment before exploding into a huge columns of fire that raised toward the sky while incinerating all of the creatures being hit by it. Grimwood watched the blazing column as it was shrinking in width before disappearing, leaving only ashes in it's wake.
"It's just getting worse and worse." Grimwood said in annoyance. "I need to run away before more of these are going to show up."
That being said, Grimwood rushed toward the infested streets of Canterlot. She trekked through the whole chaos, mowing down any monsterized pony she came across.
Seeing a square in her sight, Grimwood accelerated her ran. There are some normal ponies who were running in fear from these creature, while other faced a horrible death inflicted by them. Among them, she spotted two female pegasi, a red one and a green one, landing nearby a fountain.
Grimwood didn't know what they were doing until she noticed their bodies trembling in a weird way. The two mares slowly began to mutate themselves, having holes opening around their bodies, exposed muscles and bones, clawed hooves and their eyes becoming completely white.
Taking that as a signal, Grimwood didn't had a second thought as she pulled off two other fire amulets and toss them. As the amulets hit connected, they exploded in two columns of flames that were incinerating them, leaving them only a little time to let out a bizarre, hellish scream.
Ignoring their their fiery deaths, Grimwood she was about to resume her run but then noticed another mutate pony, being a unicorn with it's head being opened in a maw cornering a mare with a filly, a mother and a daughter. Grimwood promptly dashed toward the creature and beheaded it with her weapon. The two ponies looked up at their savior, shocked of the way this rescued had been done.
"Hey!" Blitz's voice suddenly called from above.
Grimwood looked up and saw Blitz Lane landing in front of her.
"You are just in time. This family needs a serious help and you are more than qualified to give them that," Grimwood said before turning around walking away.
"I don't need to be told by somepony like you." Blitz asked sternly. "But still, did you have still the intention to get through this hell all alone."
"Just do your duty and mind your business." Grimwood retorted.
As Grimwood walked away, Blitz reluctantly turned her attention to the two rescued ponies and approached them. "We can't stay there any longer. You have to follow me. I will take you to safety, i promise."
The mother and her filly followed suit and followed Blitz, hoping to find a way to save themselves.
As for Grimwood, she know she couldn't stay tranquil for even a second. The night was long and the city was still infested of those mutated things who used to be ponies.
"I can't continue my run at foot... It will take me a while to find the exit. I have to get to a high spot to find it... And maybe another type of exit."
An idea came up in the right moment when she noticed a tower next to her. Grimwood made her chainsaw blade retreating inside her metallic box and put it back to her back. She then headed toward the wall of the tower next and used his metallic claws to climb her way upward. Once she reached the top of the tower, Grimwood turned down to see the very edge of the waterfall falling down the mountain. She took a deep breath and gathered her own determination that she needed.
"Always better that being devoured, so fuck it." Grimwood said as she leaped from the balcony, falling down the void where the water falls.
She was diving at the very elevated height of the mountain without even screaming. She was deliberately looking down to her lake at the very bottom of it and let the force of gravity doing the rest. The fall looked like a eternity, but the speed didn't stop increasing.
Suddenly, a green blur tackled her. Grunting, Grimwood looked at what was hitting it and saw that being another monsterized pegasus with fangs and no eyes trying to eat her. The violet mare promptly put her iron claws on it's head and
And after a while, the bodies reached the lake beneath the and were plunged into it's depth. Her descend slowed down, allowing her to avoid being slammed against the rocky part. Underwater, Grimwood got rid of the corpse of her aggressor and swam and emerged from the lake, with her black bag being still with her. She coughed multiple times and slowly swam toward the lake shore.
"I have to admit, that was the most demented way to escape from that inferno," Grimwood said to herself. "But that cannot be avoided."
Once out of the water, she shrugged off all of the water and scanned her surrounding. Grimwood realized to be in the woods not far away from the outskirts of Ponyville. Strangely enough, there was a tick mist engulfing the wood and a very unnatural silence.
"I don't like this atmosphere," Grimwood murmured. "And more importantly, I have now both the law and those monsters trying to track me down. I have to find a place to hi...."
Grimwood couldn't end the phrase that a sense of dizziness wash over her head. She tried to remain still but ended up stumbling, flopping on the soil. Her sight was getting dark. She tried to rose up but her body refused to move.
Just as her sight was getting worse, somepony appeared in front of her. A scarlet maned green mare who was looking at her with a very worried look.
"Oh, goodness," The mare said with a tomboyish voice as she approached her. "Are you alright?"
"W-what the... what the hell are you?" Grimwood said a second before her sight finally darkened and her consciousness passed out.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
"Asphodel, what's wrong!?"
"What happened!?"
"I don't know. We were just talking when she suddenly felt sick."
"What?".
"I'm going to get the water!"
"Hurry!"
"It... It hurts... Make it..... Stop...."
Opening her eyes from her dream, Grimwood soon realized to not be alone. She hastily rose up and turned to see the green mare who found her stumbling. The green mare was startled a little to see the violet mare's eyes but maintained her calm despite their animosity. Behind the mare there was a brown maned beige elder stallion who was using a wok to cook the soup.
Grimwood realized to be inside a cave. She also realized to have her claws being removed from her hooves and that the black bag with all her equipment was nearby the said wok. She would had tried to reclaim her belongings but she could easily know that the two ponies weren't armed or anything. The green mare was the first to speak.
"G-good thing you had woke up," The green mare said. "You know, we saw you fall-"
"Give my equipment back," Grimwood threatened, being about to pounce when a sudden circle of magic surrounded her body and paralyzed her movement. "Oi! What the-"
"I know that you would had tried some reckless move, so I put a spell to make sure that you behave tranquilly, Grimwood Vileberry." The elder pony said. "Oh, the same goes for the entrance."
True to the worlds of the elder pony, the entrance of the cave became sealed by a luminous red wall covering it. Grimwood became instantly enraged, but then didn't even bothered to struggle since the magic of the circle was too strong. She steadily calmed herself down, seeing that the two ponies weren't armed or anything. And yet doesn't trust them a little bit.
Still, what she saw had transpired some form of curiosity.
"An earth pony with ability to use magic? He's not a unicorn and should have at least read some formula to acquire such powers. But that is something that I want to keep for later."
"For how much I had slept?" Grimwood demanded.
"Eight hours," The green mare answered. "Listen, isn't our intention capturing you but-"
"I have no time to waste with you," Grimwood interrupted. "Can you have the courtesy to set me free?" Grimwood demanded.
"Only if you don't attack us,"
Grimwood groaned and the sighed. "Fine... but then again, I was about to pointlessly assault unarmed ponies."
The elder pony pointed his hoof at her, causing the magic circle to disappear, setting Grimwood free and allowing her to
"But what exactly you are, bounty hunters?" Grimwood asked.
"No, nothing like that. We are both former Royal Guards. I am Ortiva Eclair," The green mare said. "And he is my companion, Dandy Leon. It's like a second paternal figure to me."
"Don't exaggerate, Eclair," Leon said, almost embarrassed.
"What do you mean with that?" Grimwood demanded.
"My real father died long time ago." Eclair said with a grave tone.
"Ah... Sorry." Grimwood replied, feeling a little guilty.
"I took her under my custody since then," Leon said. "It's like a second daughter to me."
"Did you have any credible rank, mr. tough elder?" Grimwood demanded curious.
"The least notorious figure of the military," Leon explained. "Not that I will have the opportunity to meet some worthy celebrity that is not Blueblood."
"Well you can't do that anymore," Grimwood retorted.
"I know what you mean. It's destroyed by the monsters generated by the curse." Leon replied.
"Wait, how did you know that happened?" Grimwood demanded.
"I have my sources," Leon informed.
"Seriously?" Eclair said astounded. "First Appleloosa and now Canterlot too!?"
"Wait a minute, are you telling me that whole mess isn't happening in just Canterlot?" Grimwood inquired, almost shocked.
"I was trying to follow the trail of somepony who was carry on the plan to release the curse," Leon explained. "I guess i was too late to stop him."
"And so dozen of ponies were turned into bloodthirsty monsters who are also caricature of themselves." Grimwood added.
"I hope that Ponyville isn't the next to fall... Oh, please, no..." Eclair shivered.
"Well, the only thing that we can do is hide in this place." Dandy suggested.
"I guess I have no choice but join your dinner and remain here... right?" Grimwood demanded.
Leon nodded. "Believe me. You won't make it all alone. Those ponies who were turned into monsters by the curse would be everywhere."
"Can we just eat already? I am getting hungry." Eclair complained.
Grimwood and Leon looked at each other for a moment without any kind of pathos whatsoever and then nodded.
"Ok, but only for this time." Grimwood said calmly.
At that point, the three ponies proceeded to consume their meal and began to talk about stories on their own, except Grimwood, who never talked about herself, much to Eclair frustration. After having consumed their meal, they went to sleep. The wind outside the wall of red light at the entrance was becoming slightly strong, but only for a few moments.
After a few seconds, Grimwood opened her eyes and silently rose up. Exploiting the sleep of her hosts, she took back her bag. She first checked inside and found her chainsaw box and her claws being in their own places. Grimwood put her bag in her bag and approached the wall of red light. She pulled out a white jewel and used to dissipate the wall.
She was about to leave, but not before having given a final look at the two sleeping ponies.
"Sorry guys," Grimwood said as she went out the cave. "I am going on my own."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 5: Toward the Old Hideout
The walk through the woods that was blanketed with the tick fog was adorned with a surreal silence and a sense of tranquility that doesn't fit any merry content at all. There are only few animal rumors who doesn't seems to be normal at all, in the distance. Grimwood, equipped with the claws but retaining her chainsaw in the bag, walked two legged with precaution.
"I have to find my old hideout that I had found after I had arrived in Equestria. I hope Clay Smith survived. I hate to admit but I am quite in debt with that guy."
Beneath her feet, there are multiple sprints from many types: from hooves to even pawns, Timberwulves pawns... Except that something was wrong with those ones. Their forms were warped and curved. Wanting to know what had transpired, she followed the trail while keeping a eyes in her surrounding. At that point, very warped growls were heard in the distance.
"What the..." Grimwood said quietly.
She pressed on, hiding from tree to tree until she reached a very grizzly spectacles. There are three Timbervulves and a tiger, all of them mutated like the ponies in Canterlot, feasting on the bodies of defenseless ponies. The wolves had multiple plant like snake heads protruding from their mouths, eyes and claws and had their bones exposed. As for the tiger, it's body was full of bone spikes and has emptied eye sockets. Such thing made Grimwood almost puke.
"What the hell? The curse affected animals too?" Grimwood said quietly. "Tsk. I think I better make a quick job of them."
That being said, Grimwood pulled out a blue gem from her bag and tossed it at the creatures. As it came in contact with one of them, an icy explosion happened, freezing all of them in place along with their victims. Ignoring them, Grimwood resumed her path.
"At least I wouldn't had put the forest on fire for monsters like these."
The violet mare continued to traverse the arboreal maze. The thick fog began to dissipate the more Grimwood proceed in long the way. After thirteen minutes of walking, Grimwood found a wooden house that she instantly realized as her hideout. It was there, but at the first look she gave to it, she know something was wrong. The place looked forsaken, demonstrated by the vines infesting part of it except the entrance.
One preoccupation came into Grimwood's mind. "I hope nothing happened to Clay."
Slowly, she approached the door and opened it. Stepping inside, she found a very ordinate living room but found also one disgusting thing that she wasn't expecting to find.
Death stench.
She shielded her nose for a moment and darted her eyes to the trapdoor leading to the basement. Wanting to solve this disgusting mystery, Grimwood descended downstairs and once had arrived at the bottom, she witnessed what had become of the basement.
The room was both a studio and a horrific laboratory were multiple pony corpses were hanging on the walls with exposed organs, mutilated of their legs and butterfly eggs inhabiting their insides. There are also tables with dead animals, including a white rabbit, and some gem used for magical experiment.
"Disgusting fucker. I think he felt the liberty to stole my property then I was in prison."
Looking around, Grimwood noticed at her left the hanging corpse of a elder rust maned blue pony. She recognized him being Clay Smith, his personal guardian and caretaker before her arrest, two years ago.
"Poor bastard," Grimwood commented with quite sadness.
With nothing else to look, the only thing to examine was the desktop at the very end of the laboratory. Approaching it, she noticed what seemed to be a diary with three butterflies depicted into. Just to get some info about the responsible behind this wretched spectacle, she opened and read one of the pages. Needless to say she was instantly disturbed by that.
"Killing ponies is wrong they said, but that is purely objective. Life and Death it's cycle that won't follow any mortal rules and has the right to be improved. While ponies would be killed in order to gave them new purposes, others would have any other purposes: Giving their forfeit life for other life form that really deserve that. Life and Death had so many forms that is a crime keep it limited."
"When ponies and animals were alive, as i was before, they were subjected at every injustice possible, such as prejudice, famine, poverty, illness, violence, mortality, fear and pretty much of the negative things. No matter how hard they dealt with, those things won't stop to hurting them. I won't even blame the jerks or the evil ones doing their mean practice. They were victims of themselves as living beings. But death has nothing to do with all of this. Is the perfect equalizer. Once everypony are dead, everypony are equal without any exception. And that is a benevolent factor in our undead."
"No matter of bloody, horrible or cruel can be this kindness."
".... This is seriously sick. And I think this guy had missed some marbles." Grimwood commented.
Just when she was about to pass to the next page, someone slowly approaching from the stairs. Grimwood didn't made any movement. She just let the pony to approach her until it finally approached her, silently.
"You shouldn't be here at all," The pony from behind her said grimly with a female voice.
Grimwood promptly took a yellow triangle and throw it at her. "Here you are, psychotic bastard!"
The impact caused a flux of electricity to shock her aggressor. Grimwood didn't even bothered to look at her aggressor and galloped away from the basement. Once out, she stormed out the house and took the distance from it. She then turned toward the entrance and stood up two legged. She then pulled out her chainsaw box and looked at the entrance with newfound fury.
"Enough it's enough!" Grimwood roared. "I don't care who you are or why your are doing this, but this is my property and you had desecrated this place, started by killing it's caretaker. C'mon! Just came out and face me, you fucker!"
There wasn't response at first coming from the house. Then, hoofsteps were heard, slowly coming out of the entrance.
"This isn't your property anymore," The voice said, causing Grimwood to flinch a little.
"That can't be..." Grimwood said.
In a few seconds, somepony came out, or rather, what used to be a pony.
It appeared as a yellow female pegasus with a curved pink mane and her cutey marks depicting three butterflies. Her wings were a twisted mix of green nature and living organism, with them being adorned by leafs as her feathers with some arteries and veins pulsing, and green vines protruding from the wing's conjunctures. Her hooves were replaced with dragon claws and her left eye portion of her skull being exposed.
Her opened wound exposing her heart was covered with a web of branches inhabited by undead butterflies. Brambles were protruding from both her sides, and her emerald eyes weren't so livid. Her face was rather calm but was also irritated for the shocking in which she was subjected before.
Grimwood instantly recognized in muted shock her identity. "F-Fluttershy... But you were dead."
"It depend of what you mean with this," Fluttershy said with a morbid tone.
"What the fuck is going on here? She died a few weeks prior this curse mess." Grimwood thought. "How can she be here as a monster. But more importantly, does she had retained some kind of her intelligence?"
"You looked quite surprised to see me, eheh... Well, you shouldn't." Fluttershy remarked.
"Since by then the Element of Kindness started killing ponies and animals?" Grimwood glared at her.
"Since I had a revelation during my rebirth. What you said is true only in part. I killed ponies in order
"Rebirth?... Who had resurrected you?" Grimwood asked.
"You don't even deserve to hear about it, but know this," Fluttershy replied. "A good benefactor saved me from my old self.
"Kindness... What a joke." Grimwood remarked.
"Huh!?" Fluttershy looked confused.
Grimwood remained silent for a bit, not even flinching, leaving the monstrous caricature of Fluttershy perplexed a little. The mare then swung the metallic box and pulled out the chainsaw blade. She pulled it's starting cord, revving it up one more time, and glaring at the vegetal pegasus with a dreadful intensity as the blades were rotating,
"Then you and me got a problem." said menacingly Grimwood.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 6: Corrupted Kindness
Without wasting any time in pointless chatters, Grimwood rushed toward the mutated Fluttershy while revving her chainsaw like mad. The undead Fluttershy putted her hoof on her chest as she waited her attacker to get closer.
"I wont hold any responsability for what i'm going to do!" Grimwood declared already charging toward the twisted creature.
"You are not the first thug that i met, you know?"
Fluttershy then gestured Grimwood with that same hoof as sudden swarm of undead butterflies flew in her direction, faster and aggresive as locusts.
"You will regret for this transgression!" said Fluttershy.
"The hell!?"
As the swarm was almost reaching her, the mare quickly cutted them up with a single swing. Green fluids spurted from their tiny bodies, which some drops were poured her various parts except her head. That liquid ignited a umbearble pain burning her body as some whisp of vapor rised from the mare. Grimwood clenched her teeth groaned as she tried to sustain her pain and remain still on her two legs.
"Their blood is composed with a strong natural acid solution. A single drop bring intense pain. That is the result of your opposition. You see, sore meanie? Brute strenght is not a victory garantee." said gleefuly Fluttershy.
Grimwood furiously turned her attention to the undead Fluttershy and noticed the vines protunding from her wing conjectures digging into the ground. These undead butterflies were a distraction. But she realized that too late as the vines were then rising from the ground beneath her and immobilizing the mare's body, making her standing on her two hind legs while holding her chainsaw with her right hoof while being unable to use it.
The vines started to crush Grimwood's body very hard, tightened themselves on her limbs and her necks as Fluttershy flapped her wings and started to fly a little higher.
The monstrous yellow pegasus watched the scene from above as the vines continued to squeeze and strangle the violet mare, severly testing her endurance already tested by the pain of the acid. Grimwood's breath was obstructed by this vegetal equivalent of hanging execution. Her consciousness started to vacillate.
"Isn't that great? I used to be afraid of the heights, but now i can enjoy this wonderful sight at my heart content. I will grant you a gentle death that will become the seed of your rebirth. You will experience a crude death, but after you had hatched, you will be grateful that i-"
"FUCK YOU!" screamed Antiblue as she instantly, forcefully kicked a chunk of rock nearby her so hard to sent the it to flying at a elevated speed toward Fluttershy and managed to hit her before she could even move away from it.
The rock thrusted horizontaly it into her right eye and cutting it along with a portion of her skull, that instantly started to spurting blood from the opened wound. Fluttershy screamed and loosed her balance due to both the impact of the blow and the unbearable pain, making her falling toward the ground.
With the pegasus' concentration being broken, the vines loosened their grip and Grimwood was set free. She then cutted the vines with two swing of her chainsaw and stamble at something very unusual as Fluttershy's scream became even more louder.
The reason of such increased volume could be described by one fact: The cutted vines started spurring blood coming from the holes, resembling these of the veins and arteries from their flat cutted part. Probably the vines were part of her body.
"What the... blood?.... Are these vines seriously connected to...?" murmured a little disturbed Grimwood in her mind.
As the undead Fluttershy crushed to the ground, Grimwood coughed multiple times as she was trying to catch her breath.
The yellow undead pegasus stood up in pain, half blinded and enraged, feeling horribly humiliated and tossed around, with her rock falling from her eye socket. Her only remaining eye was bloodshot in resonance with it's color as the other one was destroyed and spurting blood, just like the her cutted vines. Fluttershy breathed heavily as she withdrawed
"Unforgivable.... Unforgivable! Unforgivable, unforgivable, unforgivableunforgivableunforgivable,
Fluttershy took a few steps toward the mare with her face and the side of her body being blood soaked, trying to ignore the pain and glaring at her with murderous intent.
"You are a really dangerous pony! I don't know how did you managed to do this to me, but your luck
Fluttershy violently flapped her wings.
"Don't even try," Grimwood warned as she pointed her chainsaw at her. "RAGING CHAINSAW!"
The chainsaw blade suddenly stretched toward the mutated Fluttershy and pierced her stomach before she could do something. Fluttershy bellowed in agony for that, but that doesn't end there. A sudden charge of magic blocked her body, preventing her from move or sliding through the stretched blade. Grimwood then retreated her chainsaw blade to it's normal length, taking Fluttershy closer face. With the magic charge being still active, the monster couldn't even move, she could only watch Grimwood's grim intent in her eyes.
"Do you want to say something else?" Grimwood asked.
Fluttershy, gritting in anger and pain but trembling like a leaf doesn't respond.
"Then suck it," Grimwood raised its chainsaw along with Fluttershy and swung forward while deactivating the magical force, causing the monstrous Fluttershy to be slammed against the soil, with her stomach still bleeding from that blow.
Grimwood was about to approach it's target when he heard a very ungodly roar from behind her. She turned to see a gruesome bear with metallic claws and no eyes.
"Mr. bear! Give her the lesson that she deserve!" Fluttershy ordered.
The bear swiped his claws, only for Grimwood to jump very high at the top of it's head and carving his entire body, splitting it in two.
"NOOOO!" Fluttershy bellowed.
After having finished with the now blood fountain that used to be a enhanced bear, Grimwood returned her attention to the bleeding Fluttershy, who flailed the brambles toward her. Grimwood effortlessly cut the bramble whips as she stepped closer to her target. Fluttershy began do be a little afraid of her that she flailed the other brambles, only for them to be cut.
Grimwood stopped in front of her and glared at her.
"What you have to is to answer my question and I will make your death easy," Grimwood suggested.
"Easy?... Eheheheheheheh," Fluttershy laughed. "You won't know anything from what made me into this. YOU GET IT!?"
I desperation, Fluttershy leaped very ferociously toward Grimwood to cut her with her dragon claws. The violet mare, in retaliation, give her a powerful punch with her metallic claw that broke her skull.
But at the blow connected, everything went slow, the colors around Grimwood were inverted and a vision appeared in front of her eyes.
"What the..."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
"Rarity! Why you are doing this... to me?- ARGH!"
"Relax, Fluttershy. One bit of pain and it's all over."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
.....................
.....................
.....................
"Rise from your supposed rest my dear. I also need your help. You will see both life and death into a new light. Soon Equestria will become a giant sepulcrum."
Grimwood remained still and looked at the battered corpse of the monster who used to be Fluttershy. There was no other reaction than confusion. She had witnessed multiple visions, just like that time when she was in the dungeon. Although she has no basis regarding about what she saw, there's one thing that traversed her mind.
"What the hell was that?" Grimwood asked
"A vision," Said someone entering the scene, being the stranger.
Grimwood glared at him as she recognized him. "You again."
"A vision of something that happened for real... You should know this," He said.
"Or maybe you were the one who injected this bullshit in my head!" Grimwood accused.
"You know it's true." The stranger remarked.
Grimwood was about to attack him, but then halted to reflect upon what he said. The visions seemed too absurd but were also too vivid to not be believed. She heard the voices and felt the tension of what was transpiring. Multiple question traversed her mind.
"Allow me to respond one thing," The stranger said. "You know why Fluttershy was living in the form of a monster despite her being dead prior the curse?"
"What are you implying?" Grimwood asked.
"It's because there's no curse." The stranger said.
Grimwood flinched. "What!?"
"Think about that. The monsters you had slaughtered are nothing more than dead ponies who were returned back to life as monsters and then disguised in their original form to confuse themselves. Resurrected ponies through the Necro Alchemy. Their name is Homunghoul."
"Homunghoul?"
"Dead ponies who were twisted, transmuted and resurrected through this methods, resurrected as monsters. Do you remember when your power was unleashed? Your power unmasked them!"
Grimwood pointed her chainsaw at him. "Ok, enough bull. Even if this is true, what is not clear to me is that you didn't told me your name or what your intentions are toward me, or even if what you said is true."
"Frost Bite is my name," The stranger said. "And for your information, I have my own agenda that doesn't involve you...yet."
"Huh?"
"Now if you excuse me, I will take my leave."
"No, you bastard! YOU-"
But before Grimwood could do something, Frost disappeared into a white mist without leaving any trace. Now she was alone with the remains of the twisted Fluttershy. The violet mare looked at the monster with a melancholic look. What she had fought tried to kill her, but it has still what represents the Elements of Kindness.
"Just for this time," Grimwood said as she closed Fluttershy's eyes and put her body at the center of the house.
Grimwood then stepped far away from the house, pulled out a large red amulet and tossed it toward the house, causing it to burst in a fiery explosion that destroyed everything and start to burn the wooden house and Fluttershy's body. That would be her own cremation.
"At least whoever bastard is running around resurrecting ponies as monster wouldn't do that on her anymore." Grimwood said as she turned toward a new path and leaved the place. "I will assure of one thing. I will make him take responsibility for his crimes."
Canterlot Castle Plaza, one day later...
As the rest of Canterlot was wrecked and devastated, multiple Royal Guards were gathered in front of the castle. One of them posed itself in front the whole ranks and start speaking, introducing another pony that was standing in front of them. A pony wearing a full black armor veiling his face, with rectangular features. The guards murmured at each other about him for a moment until he start speaking.
"Yesterday we had the tragedy that struck not just Canterlot but other part of Equestria." The black armored pony said. "Something that has no precedents. Somepony has invoked a horrible curse that turned our beloved ones into bloodthirsty and twisted monsters. What's worse, Twilight was turned into a monster as well and fled the castle."
The guards shivered upon hearing that new.
"But who is responsible for this mess that has caused the destruction of Canterlot and the death of innocent ponies? I will tell you. It's somepony that had caused the curse as a excuse to execute them for fun."
"Who?" Blitz lane asked.
"It's name is none other than Grimwood Vileberry. She's cursed on her own and is a danger for what Equestria stands for. Celestia wants her dead. No matter the cost."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 9: Momentary Tranquility
Grimwood slowly woke up, not knowing what is going on. Her mind was a little dizzy for a moment.
"You had finally woke up." said Leon. "It's miracle that we were able to treat your wounds."
"But how did you know how to find me?" Grimwood asked.
"Me and Eclair saw the fight from bushes and retrieved you after Nemesis left,"
"Where am I?"
"In the outskirts of Ponyville, of course."
"What?"
"That was the only safe house we have found. It's forsaken after all." Eclair said, entering the room.
"You know you are protecting a wanted criminal," Grimwood informed.
"I don't believe it. Sure, you don't look very nice but you are not the one who putted the curse."
"It doesn't matter. Its your word against that of the Royalties. Besides, what do you want from me?"
"I was just defending you,"
"Spare that for yourself. I have not time to- ARGH!" Grimwood tried to stood up, but she couldn't even try that as a very sharp pain stinged in both sides were her chest was pierced. Leon gestured her to remain in the bed.
"You should remain on the bed. Your wounds has not completely healed yet." said Leon.
The mare layed on her bed once more. She relaxed herself a little, though that she wasn't enthusiast to remain binded there. She was, however, conscious of the fact that she risked to die during that fight. Grimwood took her time to rest while reflecting about what happened before.
Nemesis was no joke. That was the first fore to pose a real threat to her. But that was just a excuse. Infact, Grimwood had underestimated the armored pony. But there's on thing that seemed really off. Nemesis was an Homunghoul, a undead twisted creature created by the maker, and yet she has displayed a vivid sign of both free will and unwarped behavior, though that Grimwood doesn't believe that yet. Even now, the violet mare doesn't know anything about her motivations.
"Eclair, I think we should leave her on her own." Leon said as he escorted Eclair out of the room.
Grimwood didn't even bothered to ask were her gear was and decide to get some rest. Restore her strength was her first priority. She took her time to summarize what happened so far. From her escape from Canterlot to the fight with the Homunghoul Fluttershy. All of that leading to the thought of the Homunghoul Maker.
"Seriously, who could this guy possibly be? Frost Bite said he's Necro Alchemist, the most treacherous thing to Equestria. I better not underestimate this nutjob."
After this consideration, she sighed and finally decided to get some sleep to recover. But this recover arrived very earlier since, after seven minutes of rest without being able to actually sleep for the nervousness, Grimwood was struck by a sudden stinging sensation coming from her wounds, but this time it vanished after one second.
Grimwood stood up and removed the bandages from her chest. She looked at were the front wound was supposed to be. It vanished from her chest, meaning that even the one from behind her is gone. And internal wounds were healed as well.
That cannot be a coincidence. She went out the room and descended downstairs to the living room, where she found Leon sat on the couch.
"Hey!" called Grimwood
"Ah, you. I didn't though that you can recover this faster."
"Spare your corteous shit. You had done something to me, isn't it?"
".... Well, i just forced you to drink a Vitae Potion one hour before your awakening."
Grinwood grabbed Leon by his neck. "Never touch my body. EVER."
"Chill off! He just healed you!" Eclair intervened.
Grimwood remain still and slowly loosened her grip on Leon. "I guess I should thank you for healing me... But mind your business this time. it's too dangerous being involved with me."
At that point, Grimwood leaved the two ponies alone and went upstairs, returning back to her room. She lay on her bed and managed to sleep.
In Canterlot Castle, the black armored pony entered in a bedroom, were Celestia was waiting.
"Come in, Neo Zen" Celestia said.
"It's a honor," Neo said. "Unfortunately for us, Grimwood Vileberry escaped our watch."
"She killed?" Celestia asked.
"No, somepony else helped her."
"Somepony else? Continue." Celestia invited.
"Strangely enough, it was one of the mutated ponies. Probably she wanted Grimwood for herself." Neo said. "She can control a strange liquid metal being inside her blood. Belgientum should be the name."
"Continue to investigate and reinforce our watch. We cannot allow this crisis to endure."
"Of course."
The following day, Grimwood took her bag and went nearby the entrance, when she was stopped by Leon and Eclair.
"Wait, were are you going?" Eclair asked.
"None of your business," Grimwood said.
"You are going after the Homughoul Maker, are you?" Leon asked.
"What?" Eclair said perturbed.
"It's about just me and him. Now get lost," Grimwood shoved both of them and went out the house. "And you shouldn't be involved with me in any case."
Eclair was about to go after her, but Leon stopped her, gesturing her that stop Grimwood won't do anything. Set to find the maker, Grimwood galloped her way throughout the woods. Her destination was specific.
Ponyville.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 10: Old Quittance
Grimwood wandered through the outskirts of Ponyville while wearing a long hood to cover her appearance. Her chainsaw was previously repaired by that mare name Eclair. That pony should be a genius. Despite her previous fight with Nemesis, Grimwood didn't felt any fear except one: That would be always something worse than her. In a travel of fifty minutes, she arrived in Ponyville and expected to find Royal Guards waiting in the entrance. But there's no one.
"No one waiting for me, huh?" Grimwood said as she took a look at a cartel with her face and the word wanted on it. "Considering that I am supposedly the one who put the curse, the surveillance should be present in this town."
Wandering for the town, she scanned her surrounding, finding only three ponies who were briefly looking at her with confusion and suspect before looking away from her gaze. She returned her attention toward her path and continued to walk until she stumbled into something absurd.
Grimwood was puzzled to see the Sugarcube Corner, whose entrance was sealed by a steel plate with a cartel upended on the door which test says "off limits".
"What hell happened here?" said perplexed Grimwood.
The mare then looked around just see if this atmosphere could get even more stranger until she stumbled into something even more absurd.
The confusion in her head was added at the sight of the Carousel Boutique being completely barricaded on
Grimwood walked toward the shop, still trying to make sense to what is going on in the town.
"I didn't know if Rarity disappeared or had some financial trouble, but that is just absurd."
The mare rised her head toward the upper floors when her gaze stumbled in the sight of a red mained old white
"Hey! Get down!" yelled Grimwood, continuing her forniture bashing as the stallion quickly turned
"Sssssssh!" gestured the stallion for silence.
He trotted toward some part of the room and started to descent toward the lower floors. Sounds of hoofsteps
"What fuck are you doing here!?" asked the stallion.
"I would had asked you the same thing, former librarian of Canterlot" said Grimwood.
"Not here.... Follow me!"
Grimwoo followed Compass, who leaded her toward a hidden back door of the boutique. They entered into Rarity's bedroom and studio with the latter closing the door. The violet mare put down the huge bag on the floor.
"Come to think, where is Rarity? Don't you think that this barricade is unreasonable and very
"That will not be unreasonable at all." said dismayed Compass. "After all a group of monstrous creatures were after me. Besides, Rarity disappeared from the face of the Equestria from about two weeks, leading this boutique to a closure. So that is not a problem, except my abusive requisition of this place, but who cares."
"So you encountered those fuckers."
"I wonder if i can tollerate anymore of your language. In any case, yes. So, as you can see, i decided
"Then why you took this room as yours?"
"Don't mind me. I am just nervous... What are you doing here anyway?"
"Don't you anything about the Homunghoul Maker?"
Compass remained speechless for a moment and then spoke. "Who told you that?"
"So you know this bastard." Grimwood said. "I encountered the Homunghoul of Fluttershy that almost killed me. So where is the maker?"
Compass sighed awkwardly, walking in circle and trying to figure out how to deal with that question. After a bit of consideration her spoke.
"Face it, I don't know anything about him," Compass said. "But maybe I know somepony who could possibly lead you to him."
"Possibly?" Grimwood asked.
"You saw how the Sugar Cube Corners was reduced, right? But trust me, you should look at the lowest part of the place. Specifically at the retro trapdoor."
"Why that place?"
"Because I knew of ponies, like my friend Pale Gem, had previously visited Sugar Cube Corner when it was opened and others entered the trapdoor after it was closed. They were never saw in live ever again. Somepony had theorized that there's somepony inside the bakery who turn ponies into... Cupcakes."
"Cupcakes?"
"But that can't be it, right?"
"Let me guess. Somepony kill other ponies and conserve their corpses for the Maker himself in secret," Grimwood theorized.
"That's is exactly my same conclusion," Compass' eyes widened. "Wait, you want to go there?"
"If that sucker will lead me to the maker, the I'm going to investigate," Grimwood said.
Grimwood took her bag and was about to leave the room but was then blocked by Compass.
"Just do me a favor first." Compass asked.
"Huh?" Grimwood looked confused.
"If you find Pale Gem alive... Please, save her,"
"Whatever," Grimwood shoved Compass and went downstairs.
The hooded mare went out the boutique and galloped toward Sugar Cube Corner. In her arrival, she inspected the place and found the trap door, without anything that blocks it.
Whatever lays under could hide something far more chilling than the mist.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 11: Sugar Carnarium
Descending in the underground of the bakery, Grimwood scanned every corner. At first there's nothing suspicious, but she knew already what she going to encounter. Reaching the bottom, she found a darkened corridor, adorned with stripes and some occasional balloon, which seemed out of place. Seeing a light in front of her, she slowly advanced toward it. The smells of blood and iron were felt from there. That alone says all to her, and she didn't even bothered shielding her nose.
Before she could even reach the end of the corridor, a familiar voice was heard.
"Hi, Paly Gemy. About time." said a cheerful familiar voice.
Grimwood recognized the voice. "Was that Pinkie Pie... Or somepony else?"
A terrified scream was heard afterwards, echoing through the corridor.
"C'mon, Pale. What wrong with you? Screaming at me wasn't very polite, you know? Oh, my poor eardrums." The voice said.
Grimwood arrived nearby a opened and hide behind it to peer, only for her to see what nopony sees everyday.
"What the..."
The room was somekind of circus, with entrails as streamers, pony skulls attached to the walls this time, and there
And in front of that mare there was Pinkie Pie, which appearance was anything but normal. Her mane was modeled in a pseudo version of her Pinkiemeana mode. Her hooves had kitchen knife shaped claws. Her body was quilted from dried skin, emblazoned with the cutie marks of the various ponies killed by her own hooves. But what get Grimwood's attention was the central cutey mark, which seemed to belong to that of a high figure. Her surprise didn't delayed to arrive.
"What the fuck!? Princess Luna's cutey mark? How is that possible that the Homunghoul Maker was able to defeat her and put it into this Pinkie. It's impossible."
"Paly Gemy, i know that i promised you that i will not choose you as my guest if you had just cooperated with me. But that wasn't even possible."
"W-What do yo mean!?"
"You see, what i have done until now was just delaying the moment in which your number will came up, not preventing it." said cheerfuly Pinkie.
"N-No! You cannot be serious! I trusted you!!" yelled frightened Pale.
"I cannot do nothing about that. I don't make the rules."
Pale eyes contracted once more as Pinkie walked over the desk and gripped a scapel.
"Since life is party, death must be the key to the celebration of a new one and the prospective of a new party until the
"Wait! wait! I want ask you something. Is Luna's cutey mark a fake?".
"Yeah, I will gladly hear what you have to say." Grimwood said entering the scene and removing her hood.
"Huh?" Pinkie turned to Grimwood.
"G-Grimwood Vileberry!?" Pale said trembling.
"Woooow. I love celebrities!" Pinkie said.
"You know, at least a maniac like you would had put some criteria." Grimwood said.
"Look, I want to believe that you want to join me, but I think you want ruin this party instead."
"If you want to have some fun with my own body, bones and veins, then do it."
"Of course I will. It's still a party!!" Pinkie roared as she leaped toward Grimwood with her claws stretched toward her prey and scalpel in her mouth.
Grimwood promptly pulled out a blue amethyst and threw it at her. Connecting with Pinkie, a blast of energy overwhelmed her, sending her flying and slamming her body again the wall, knocking her unconscious, with her scalpel falling from her mouth to the floor.
With that out of her way, Grimwood took a machete among the torture items, approached the strapped Pale Gem, who trembled for the fear, and cut off the straps, releasing her. Pale, however took immediately distance from her.
"Stay back, Vileberry. I know who you are!" Pale said upset.
"Get a hold of yourself. Compass even asked me to save your sorry ass." Grimwood retorted.
".... Really?"
"Don't waste my time and get out of there as soon as possible. Understood?"
Pale nodded, and without any other delay, she stormed off the room, leaving Grimwood with the unconscious Homunghoul of Pinkie Pie. She approached the monstrous mare and took the scalpel with her metallic claws.
"I wonder if that cutey mark is the real one," Grimwood said.
She then proceed to do what nopony sane in his mind would do. Grimwood sunk the scalpel in Pinkie's skin, the one being Princess Luna's cutey mark and slowly began to cut that from the rest of the body. Once she finished the surgical operation of removal, only a hole remained in her body. At that point, she putted the cutey mark in her bag.
"That blast has also the effect of an anesthetic, only magical. Now what I have to do is to finish the job."
Just as Pinkie Pie was showing sign of her consciousness stirring, Grimwood pulled out the metal box, turned it into her chainsaw and revved it up. The Homunghoul opened her eyes but didn't the time to react that Grimwood already slammed her weapon on her, splitting her in two and cutting her scream short.
With the job being done, Grimwood put her chainsaw away and pulled out an explosive amulet, just to put her to rest like she did with Fluttershy.
"Sorry, but at least I don't have to meet your Homunghoul ever again." Grimwood proclaimed as she was about to toss it.
But suddenly, two magical restriction blocked her body, making the amulet fall. "What the f-"
"HALT!" A powerful voice said.
"Don't move." Another voice exclaimed.
Grimwood turned toward the entrance and saw two unicorn Royal Guards with their horns glowing. She doesn't know how they know where she was but one thing was sure. She knew that would happening, but she didn't had predicted that would happen in this way.
"Tsk, figures." Grimwood said with an annoyed tone.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 12: Rainbow Shrine
Being finally arrested, Grimwood was put inside a iron carriage, being pulled by four different pegasi, who flew headed to Canterlot, apparently. She was still blocked by the magical seals, deprived of her metal limbs and was sitting in front of two arrogant looking unicorn Royal Guards. She didn't even bother to glare at them. Grimwood just look at them with a deadpan expression.
"So this is the wretched criminal," One of the guards said. "I won't ask any better trophy."
"Or you will say a better payment," The other one said gleefully.
"Yeah, that's a good charm,"
"..." Grimwood remained silent.
"Don't look at us like that. You really deserve that." The first guard said.
"Are you sure I had the arsenal to make this curse?" Grimwood asked
"What are you talking about? You are the curse maker!" The second guard retorted.
"Did you have checked my stuff before assuming the worse?" Grimwood said calmly. "To make a curse, a formula is needed. If you have checked my stuff during my first arrest, there was no one, and I couldn't had done any of that in my cell."
The two guards looked at each other and then smirked before returning to Grimwood.
"Does that even matter?" The first guard asked.
"What?" Grimwood said almost alarmed, like she was noticing something wrong.
"After all, you are-" The first guard didn't had the time to finish the phrase that two ice spikes protruded from nowhere and pierced their heads.
The death of the two unicorns causes the seals to dissipate, setting Grimwood free and allowing her to put herself on guard. The two ice spikes slowly began to disappear in a mist, only for it to give its place to another pony, who was none other than the stranger.
"Did I missed you?" He asked.
"Frost Bite," Grimwood said irritated. "What are you doing here and why you were helping me?"
"C'mon, that wasn't my only motivation," Frost said. "I have also hijacked the will of the pegasi carrying this carriage."
"Why?"
"You see, I need a favor from you."
"I don't make ones." Grimwood said as she leaped at him, only for him to block her by grabbing her by her neck with a ethereal hand coming from his hoof.
"Let me finish," Frost said nonchalantly. "There's a place I wanted you to visit. Maybe that has something to do with you know who."
"The Homunghoul Maker?" Grimwood said. "Tsk, what you have to gain from that?"
"One less menace would be a biggest favor that you can do. And don't even think to refuse, because there's no turning back."
Before Grimwood would even ask anything, the carriage suddenly stopped and the steel door opened.
"We have arrived," Frost Bite said, one second before tossing Grimwood out of the carriage, making her fall on a stone floor.
Standing up, she scanned her surrounding. The place around her was part of some kind of stone temple, with torches upended to the walls, six pillars and a altar. Grimwood glared back at Frost.
"Bastard," Grimwood growled. "What are you-"
"And don't forget this," Frost said, tossing out Grimwood's black bag as well and closing the steel door.
The carriage began her flight and flew away from Grimwood through a big hole leading to the outside. Grimwood would had chased the carriage, but she couldn't allow herself being unequipped. She puts on her metallic limbs, with the momentary pain that bites her for a moment. She then put on her bag on her back and headed toward the big hole.
Looking outside, she realized to be inside a mountain, and it's not that of Canterlot.
"Where the hell did you had put me?" Grimwood asked.
In a few seconds, the silence was broken by a warped chorus coming from the door nearby the altar. Not wanting to be spotted, Grimwood used her claws to climb the walls and moved to the outside to not be spotted, suspended at the high height of the mountain. Looking from behind the hole, she could see a very odd group, being composed by rainbow hooded ponies chanting a mantra and entering inside, leaded by black hooded one, which tail is rainbow colored.
"That can't be." Grimwood murmured.
The black hooded one gestured his group to stop the chanting and silently ordered them to gather around the altar. Since she won't even try to face them, Grimwood climbed the mountain. After a while, she arrived nearby what seemed to be a metallic facility. There was a opened window nearby her, so she entered inside.
Once inside, Grimwood found herself in a dark metallic corridor, in contrast to the stone place from before. There was a dime light at her left. Metallic sounds and moans of pain echoed from there. She approached the light and entered in what seemed to be a metallic madness.
The grim spectacle is a huge one. There was a complex was full of machinery and signs. The sound of metal moving, pressing or stomping, a long "whirr" and some occasional alarm noises merged together to create the cacophonic chorus that made clear this place's crude identity.
Plus, there is the personal. White coated pegasi were deporting some ponies, in which most of them are also pegasi, in prison cells or even putting them into some machines that the mare can see in the distance.
But more present than these things are the trasparent tubes filtring some liquids, each one of the color corresponding these of a rainbow. They were connecting some strange capsules to some machines pumping their colored liquids in separated metal recipients. All of that conducted by the rainbow cloaked ponies from before.
"Whatever it is, it's not a normal rainbow factory." Grimwood said, disgusted.
"Or sure it is, but not in a normal way," Somepony spokes.
Grimwood turned toward the door she went before in a fighting stance. "Who is it?"
The pony came out of the shadows, revealing to be azure maned white stallion. "This is Rainbow Shrine. I am Sunlight Chime and I'm willing to tell you the story. The story of the Homunghoul maker."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 13: The Story of Ambrosia
In the middle of the industrial chaos of the shrine, Grimwood was face to face with somepony who would know who the Maker is. She retained her guard lifted. Her gaze locked on his face.
"Who exactly are you and what the hell are you doing in this hellhole?" Grimwood asked distrustfully.
"Not here. Follow me." Sunlight said.
The two ponies headed toward a corridor. As goes through this path, she could glimpse some Spectra measuring machine appearing in some part of the walls, but hasn't the time for that since she had to avoid the security who would trying
"Sorry for the hurry," Sunlight said apologetically.
"Spare me courtesy and tell me who you are?" Grimwood insisted.
"... A pony with a weight of remorse that I carried until now. I am a pseudo worker pretended working in this factory and has no courage to stop all of that."
"What are you talking about?"
"All of this... Anything that has been related to him."
"You said you know the Maker, right? Then spit it."
"...... Let me tell you a story of mine."
A few months ago, I was a tutor assisting a yellow maned orange mare with a good healing talent named Ambrosia. She was intelligent, clever, careless but also insecure and timid. She can be recognized by her glass right eye with a butterfly shaped pupil, which was substituting the real one she lost during an incident.
Her talent was that of develop many things in scientific and magical ways to heal other ponies and contribute to benefit Equestria, but was also ostracized by other ponies who thought that her talents would also allow her to create dangerous thing. Her talent was both appreciated and feared at the same time. But that was the case.
The real reason was her past. Her parents resorted to a forbidden art named Necro Alchemy, an horrific art that twists life and dead to the user's rules. They ended up being burnt by that, being reduced into ashes. Ambrosia, being neglected and abused by them, and having a link with their deeds, literally resented them. She was later rescued and the case was silenced as a secret by Princess Celestia herself. Unfortunately, years after that, somepony leaked the news and so almost everypony know this horrific story, leading them to distrust her.
Ambrosia has put every effort to gain their trust and put her past behind, but the distrust was so strong that even Celestia defending her wouldn't be enough.
One day, I saw her being so lost, so frustrated that she wanted to give up everything and live in the shadows. I didn't know what to do to help her when somepony me a Necro Alchemic tome, the one book of the same league of art that leaded her parents to their deaths. Initially I was reluctant but then she was convinced that if she use that for good deeds, in contrast to her parent's madness, maybe that will change her situation.
I told that to her, who was rather disgusted than grateful. However I managed to convince her to use it for good reasons and she had accepted and decided that was our secret. She studied this art in secret for days and never leaved the room. Then one day she had disappeared. I tried to find her, but she was never heard of her ever again.
Until I discovered what went wrong. A few days before her disappearance, I heard in another village that she had resurrected a filly who was accidentally killed by the fire of a dragon, who was having a fight with another one. Ambrosia was there when that happened and simply carried the promise that she made to the filly: Don't let her day. However, the filly was resurrected as a half corpse and was put to fire by her parents, who immediately berates Ambrosia for her choice.
The ponies of the village threw everything at her, including rocks, which one of them broke her glass eye, making her bleed. In a fit of rage, Ambrosia exclaimed her words of spites before leaving.
"YOU ARE A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES!!"
That was what I heard from them. Not only that but I discovered that she had joined a cult that nopony, not even the Princesses knows it's existence: Dominus and used that art for their own benefit, including the disaster that you had witnessed in Canterlot.
As for me, I only joined this cult just so I can follow Ambrosia's movements. This Rainbow Shrine is both a wretched rainbow factory that a branch for Dominus. However, the Rainbow Cult is not part of it. It's just only an assist to their plans. The only Dominus cultist being there leading this junk is actually Ambrosia herself.
"So you are telling me that madmare has created these monsters replacing other ponies," Grimwood said calmly but angered. "And destroying Canterlot because of your act."
"Even now I regret this," Sunlight said, a moment before grabbing his head.
"I am actually wanted because you. Now you better tell me where she is. After I found her, I will decide in which way I will
"If stopping her is what you want, I won't stop you." Sunlight said calmly.
"Then you will follow me, that you want or not." Grimwood said, letting Sunlight out of her grasp.
"I understand," Sunlight said. "But be careful. This factory is highly guarded and their surveillance is largely improved in the higher floors."
"One last question. What exactly this Rainbow Cult does?"
Before Sunlight could say anything, a scream of a filly was heard from behind the door. Grimwood headed toward the door and then turned her head toward Sunlight.
"You better not cross me."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 14: Secret Accomplish
Leaving the room, Grimwood, guided by Sunlight, followed the scream throughout the corridors of the factory, being careful to not get caught by the Rainbow Cultist and the other worker. Arriving in a bifurcation, they could hear the voice at the left exit, followed by a adult, female voice.
"Can you please call some engineers or a skilled slave to solve this problem!? And you are supposed to be competent!?"
"Who's that?" Grimwood asked.
"It's Leaf Shocker, one of the inspectors, Rainbow Cultist and just like the rest..." Sunlight said.
"A Homunghoul?" Grimwood asked.
"Yes."
They peered from behind and saw two Rainbow Cultists, pegasi, entering the room while dragging a rebellious pegasus filly who struggled to set herself free from their grip. There was also Leaf, a female pegasi with holes, clawed hooves and wings made of bones.
Leaf was gleefully observed the scene as his subordinates forcefully putted the filly inside the machine and chained her up before leaving. The filly was cleary frightened, but mostly confused.
"Why are doing this to me!? Is because i failed the test!?"
His tormentors doesn't respond. Not even empathy was shown by them.
"My mother will be worried, she is waiting for me at home!"
The two pegasi leaved the metallic room, leaving to Leaf the depreaved pleasure to deal with the pegasus.
"So you thought that you could escape this factory, eh?" said Leaf.
"I had to go. You had no right to isolate me there." retorted hesitant the filly.
"Yea, yea, i get it... No. You can't. As you can see...." Leaf then pointed her knife at the filly, scaring her even more, as the female pegasus tried to maker her fear for her life. "YOU CANT'T!!"
The filly started to whimper a little while Leaf glared at her with her contained fury.
"P-please, don't kill me. I.... i have to help my mother with... the work... i promised..."
"Your mother will not wait for a failure like you. And even if she is waiting for you..." Leaf smirked a little while suspending her sentence before let it fading away from her face. "I don't care. What i care now is just to teach to some impudent fillies like you, who doesn't respect my authority, a really special lesson worth a entire life."
As if a nerve was poked, Grimwood assumed a very grim expression and pulled out her metal box, which she turned it into her chainsaw. Without thinking twice, she stormed inside the room. Before Leaf could react, Grimwood was already shredding her head.
Not understanding what is going on, the filly slowely opened her eyes and looked at the scene in front of her. She gasped in horror to see her tormentor being reduced like this. Her eyes darted on Grimwood, who was standing in front of Leaf and shredding her tormentor with her bloodstained revving chainsaw. The filly was shocked to see this brutal kind of miracle, infact she was praying for a benevolent angel to help her, but wasn't expecting this angel of death.
"You won't be missed by anypony," Grimwood said.
"I just hope nopony realized my deception," Sunlight prayed as he approached the machine and makes it putting the chained filly being near to the floor. He then pressed one last button. The chains untwisted and the shackles opened, dropping the filly without hurting her her.
Grimwood walked toward the filly, who remained paralyzed in fear, questioning about what she intended to do with her.
"You can think whatever you want. I have nothing to do with you."
"Y-you are the one who had done this to her and released me?" The filly asked.
"That moron over there was giving on my nerves, so of course i had eliminate her. I don't expect you to understand that."
"But where you are going all alone? You won't seriously going after Ambrosia, I hope. You don't even know where she is."
"Upper floors. And let me tell you. Your old friend declared war at me, even if by accident. So of course I have to go after her."
"Be careful and watch out for the high priestesses. The ones with the rainbow tails."
That being said, Grimwood took an exit at her right and went into a corridor. She pulled out a transparent amulet and made it glow, causing her to become invisible.
"I can't believe I had to resort to this. I have only two copies of that." Grimwood murmured.
She was making her way in the metallic industrial maze of corridors and making her way toward the upper floors without being spotted by the cultists and their workers. At one point, she noticed one room. She peered inside and noticed a very grim setup.
The whole room was full of Rainbow Dashes being encases in glass capsules. The Rainbow clones had their cutey mark being a bar code instead of the iconic rainbow lightning one. Most of them had their muscle or bones exposed and other monstrous details.
"A clone room, huh," Grimwood commented. "I knew something was going on. So they must be the high priestess. All Homunghouls. But the question now is: Where is the real Rainbow Dash?"
Resuming her path, Grimwood noticed a hall full of machinery, blocked by black coated ponies with rainbow tails and other Homunghouls pegasi being gathered nearby a steel gate.
"Damn bastards. I have to take care of you." said a irritated Grimwood, pulling out a amber amulet and tossing it to the group as her invisibility turned off.
The object bursted into a sphere made of plasma that struck and shocked all of the undead pegasi. As the sphere dissipated, they became overwhelmed by hysteria as they found themselves unable to move their wings.
"I-i.. I can't feel my wings!!" One of the Rainbow Dashes said.
"We are literaly grounded!!" Another one said.
"YOU BITCH!! WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO US!!?" One of the Homunghouls.
"The speed of those clones won't be a problem." Grimwood thought.
Grimwood glared at them with very intimidating eyes as pulled the starting cord of her chainsaw before taking it's handle with her teeth. The pegasi immidiately rushed toward her with all their fury. Grimwood charged toward
As the monstrous pegasi were almost reaching her, Grimwood leaped toward them while delivering a circular spinning slice that bloodily decimates most of them and does a quick high jump to avoid some of them who tried to tackle her while releasing the chainsaw's handle by the grasp of her teeth only to catching it with her hoof before slamming down her chainsaw to the ground in a slashing drop, splitting in two other three pegasi who were in it's trajectory.
Only eleven of them remained, and were charging toward her: some of them tried to to slash her with their implanted weapons while the others tried to devour her.
Grinwood slashes four of them and severed one pegasus' hoof with a curved sword implanted into it just to kick it to trowing it into another undead pegasus' head, piercing it along with his brain.
She then pierced the said amputated pegasus, lifted his constantly and painfully mangled body and delivered a horizontal swing that killed other four of them before killing a fifth one with a overhead slash while violently slamming the trapped mutilated foe to the ground.
Only three Rainbow Dashes remained, which one of them leaped toward Grimwood, only for her to punch her head so hard to it splattered. She then proceed to cleave the second one who tried to attack her from behind.
Now only one remains.
"Don't get so cocky. I'm so awesome that I can still flying!" The Rainbow Dash said as she hoovered in the air.
"No, you don't," Grimwood said as her chainsaw blades start illuminating in a purple color. "CHAINSAW MAELSTROM!"
Her chainsaw shoots multiple purple energy chainsaw blades that ended up blasting the Rainbow copy's wings, making her fall back on the floor. The creature layed on the floor in agony.
Grimwood approached the creature and put her metallic talon on her abdomen. The Rainbow Copy however, smirked while drawing out electric claws from her hooves and tried to swing them at her. But she was too slow.
"Don't even try!" Grimwood said as she cuts off the electric claw armed arm, resulting the creature to bleed and scream. "And don't even die yet. I have most things to ask to you."
"W-what!?" The Rainbow copy was confused.
"Who made this facility to begin with?"
"You won't believe it said from a copy like me, right?"
"Spit it."
"......... Princess Celestia."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 15: Unbelievable Truth
Grimwood froze upon hearing the name from the mouth of the Rainbow Clone she was interrogating. She didn't saw that coming. That name was least expected. And she doesn't believe it, even for a bit. She then rapidly lifted her metallic talon
"You're lying idiot!" said irritated Grimwood "I met Celestia a few years ago! There's no way she could have been so insane to do this!"
"Just check the pocket of my cloak." The Rainbow Clone said.
Reluctantly, Grimwood leaned toward her prey and rummaged inside the pocket. She found a scroll and took a look at it. Her eyes widened upon seeing it's content. It was like an awful kind of surprise.
"To the workers of the Rainbow Shrine.
I'm sure that you can understand my reason to do so. Is kind of disturbing, but has to be done. Since we have to create some undead worker ponies who mustn't be bound by the curse of the cutie marks, i need every help necessary to accoplish that. I have to make a test in order to improve the future depopulation center that is going to be build in the Badlands. Which is why i requested the construction of this factory. What you had to do is to sacrifice the life of anypony in order to use their remains to create more collaborative ones. Your superiors will give you the instructions. Additionally, I'm counting on your force of will. Cruel or not.
With the trust that you deserve.
Princess Celestia."
Grimwood wanted to throw up, mentally. She was even more baffled than before. The calligraphy is exactly that of the Sun Princess. But she wasn't expecting her to go this low.
"No fucking way," Grimwood murmured, backstepping and releasing the Rainbow Clone from her grasp.
The creature tried to exploit the violet mare's apparent distraction to draw out her other claws and leap toward her to attack her, only to be met by the chainsaw being moved in front of her. The Rainbow Clone ended up being split in two as the two sides bloodily fell on the floor.
The violet mare opened the gates and entered inside, leaving the hall completely infested by the pegasi Homunghouls' corpses and severed limbs, accompanied by the a great amount of blood staining both the devastated floor and the walls.
She ended up in a very large room full of machinery, just like the previous room. At the center there was a console, and tubes attached to a stasis pod containing a unconscious rainbow maned pegasi, with a unmistakable rainbow lighting cutey mark.
"So this is the real one," Grimwood commented. "Time to end this farce."
Grimwood approached the console but didn't even bother to see of that works. Instead she preferred the physical approach, consisting into break the pod with a fist. She moved away as the real Rainbow Dash was dragged out of the pod by the water.
The violet mare putted away her chainsaw and approached the unconscious mare, who suddenly woke up coughing and spitting out the water.
"W-what happened?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I don't know anything about what happened to you," Grimwood informed. "But those damn Rainbow Cultists took you there and made copies of you."
"Copies?" Rainbow's eyes widened realizing something. "I remember now! I was dragged here." She tried to move her wings but they refuse and she started to wobble. "What... I can't fly?"
"I think they had used a drug that prevents the pegasi from flying."
"What!?"
Suddenly, a blast of electricity struck Grimwood from behind and fell to floor, wriggling for the shock.
"Why you should leave us? You were also my goddess." A voice said.
"W...What... Scootaloo?" Rainbow said confused.
Rainbow turned to the gates and saw somepony entering the room. Her face became contorted in horror upon seeing a pony with two sides being stitched together. The right side of her body was in part a Rainbow Dash, and her left side was that of an adult Scootaloo. Her body was partially holed and her hooves were clawed. Her wing were made of metal, exuding electricity from them.
"Please, refer to me as Raintaloo," 'Scootaloo' declares.
"N-NO! You are not Scootaloo! You can't be her!" Rainbow Dash bellowed.
"I am now a far more evolved kind of a pony. Seriously, I had nothing against the weak pegasi, but their weakness would be an insult to your magnificence. You are our god. You can't be allowed to be tainted by the loyalty toward the weak. It's time to change the basis of our nature. We have to be better than this!"
"By grinding who doesn't fit your parameters? I completely refuse to be part of this."
"Don't worry, sister. I will convince you of my own truth."
"Tsk. Really funny." Grimwood said while slowly standing up two legged and wielding her chainsaw.
Raintaloo turned toward her, flew in the air and launched another voltaic blast. Unfortunately for her, Grimwood dribbled the blow and instantly cut her body in two parts horizontally. Raintaloo screamed as her lower part fell down, but was still flying and soared toward her. Grimwood let the creature get closer and delivered a heavy punch that causes her to dive down to the floor. As Grimwood was menacingly approaching her, Raintaloo hastily flapped her wings and managed to flew away from her, escaping into a path leading to a stone bridge.
"This isn't over!!" Raintaloo said as she disappeared from Grimwood's sight.
Grimwood didn't even bothered to chase her down. At that point, Sunlight and the filly from before entered the room.
"Oh, Goodness," Sunlight murmured.
Grimwood turned toward them. "Idiot, what are you doing here with the filly."
"...... Was that really Scootaloo?" Rainbow Dash demanded.
"No. It's just a Homunghoul whose part was made from her," Grimwood said. "She is dead and her corpse was used to make this thing."
"What?"
"I don't have time to explain."
Suddenly, a menacing voice coming from a scaffolding above them made it's presence known. "You won't get away with this."
"... Ambrosia." Sunlight said.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 16: The Challenge
The group of ponies looked upon the scaffolding above them to meet their host, being none other than a blonde maned orange mare wearing a scientist coat, standing two legged and wearing golden metallic talons and claws similar to the ones that Grimwood was wearing. Her left eye was glassed one, fully tinted in red and adorned with golden pupils. She looked at the group with a mask of muted anger, but most of all, she was looking at Grimwood with interest.
Grimwood wasn't surprised about her showing up, but was impressed that she managed to replicate her same tools. Sunlight looked at her in awe while shielding the little filly and Rainbow Dash was just furious because of the imprisonment and the use she had made with her DNA and Scootaloo's body. None one was saying anything, so Grimwood took his own
"About time, bitch." Grimwood said calmly.
"GRIMWOOD!" The mare screamed, a moment before jumping off the scaffolding and landed in front of them with a loud metallic sound of her talons colliding with the floor. She then looked at Grimwood with a smug. "You can't even imagine how much I hate then someone so troublesome like you refuses to die. And now you are here, trying to destroy my facility."
"Ambrosia I presume."
"More than that..." Ambrosia turned to Sunlight. "I don't understand what are you trying to accomplish."
"I'm trying to save what remains of your soul, Ambrosia." Sunlight replied.
"By helping my enemy?" Ambrosia demanded.
"You used me and Scootaloo as your GUINEA PIGS!" Rainbow Dash bellowed.
"And why I should feel sorry for you? or even that aged filly? After all, you were fine specimen for my cause." Ambrosia said calmly.
"You bucking-" Rainbow was then interrupted by Grimwood gesturing her to stop.
"You were the one who creates whose monsters who tried to kill me and mostly destroyed Canterlot, right?" Grimwood pointed her chainsaw at Ambrosia. "Now give me a reason why I shouldn't reap you into shreds?"
"Eheheheh, you are joking right?" Ambrosia asked mockingly while pulling out of her coat a bizarrely horrendous sword made of pony flesh and faces, with iron teeth around the blade. "Then behold my Chainsword! I won't allow anypony to take me so lightly!"
Grimwood and the rest of the group was legitimately horrified upon seeing this. The filly in particular covered her eyes to protect her fragile mind from that sight.
Sunlight had a sudden burst of indignation. "I can't believe you would had fall this low. Crafting a weapon from the dead ponies."
"I don't care. Who cares about rules when you can control life and death in your hooves!" Ambrosia declarede as she pulled out five syringes and injected all off them inside her sword. "Is there anything in Equestria who dares to judge me!?"
The faces emblazoned in the sword emitted a very chilling chorus of screams as the blades started revving, turning the sword in a unique chainsaw that was spinning it's teeth like no other.
Sunlight turned to Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow, take care of the filly, and whatever happens, don't do anything reckless."
"A-alright," Rainbow Dash said. "Come here, little one."
"You better be prepared for what is coming for you." Grimwood said to Ambrosia. "Because after what I had gone through, I won't allow you to survive."
"Hmph!" Ambrosia scoffed.
As the two mares studied each other, Grimwood took a few steps toward Ambrosia, with her chainsaw pointed toward her. Intended to attack first, she was about to dash when Ambrosia suddenly dashed with a spectral speed toward. Grimwood blocked the attack with her chainsaw. Their weapons clashed multiple times. Sparks where flying every time their chainsaws collided.
Both of them leaped back, distancing away from each other. Ambrosia's left claw started to glow, a moment before she swung it forward, unleashing four red slashing waves.
"What!?" Grimwood said surprised.
Grimwood jumped away from their trajectory. Sunlight raised a magic shield to protect Rainbow Dash and the filly. The impact of one of the waves was so powerful that shattered the entire barrier, causing Sunlight and the other two ponies to fell back. Rainbow recovered from that and shielded the filly with her wing.
Grimwood looked at Ambrosia with a almost surprised look. "Not for nothing she's a Necro-alchemist, but I never thought she could also use magic. There's also her strength to consider. What the hell is that pony?"
The two mares continued to fight, moving toward a stone bridge. Grimwood tried slash Ambrosia, who managed to parry the blow and landing a kick so strong that made Grimwood flying out of the bridge.
"GRIMWOOD!" Sunlight and Rainbow Dash exclaimed at unison.
"Goodbye." Ambrosia proclaimed.
Just than Grimwood was about to fall down, she pulled out a levitation amulet that made her levitate in the air, much to Ambrosia's surprise. At this point she flew at full speed toward Ambrosia with her chainsaw pointed at her. "I'LL BUST YOU UP!"
"BRING IT ON!" Ambrosia roared as Grimwood was landing in front of her.
Their chainsawing weapons clashed on again and none of the two mares seemed to give up.
"Grimwood, you can't continue like this!" Sunlight exclaimed. "Your weapon will break soon enough! You have to step back!"
"Step back you said?" Grimwood replied while continuing her clash with Ambrosia. "Are you fucking kidding!"
That being said, Grimwood kicked a metallic debris under her feet, tossing it right in Ambrosia's face. She was about to stumble but remained still. Infuriated by the pain but with a gleeful plan in her mind, she charged her claws and unleashed four violet slashing waves. Grimwood dodged but realized too late that Rainbow Dash and the filly were in their trajectory.
At that moment, Sunlight put himself in between them and the projectiles and formed a shield with his magic to protect them. The waves cut through the shield and shredded his entire body.
"SUNLIGHT!" Grimwood exclaimed.
What remained of him was his head falling down on the floor, with Rainbow Dash and the filly being the awed spectator of the death of a gentle pony like him.
Grimwood's anger on other hand didn't delayed to build up. Like a wolf readied to assault his enemy, she glared at Ambrosia.
"See? That is what he gain for trying to attempt at my well being." Ambrosia said gleefully.
"Shut it. Your voice is giving me some nerves right now." Grimwood said almost furious. "He was your friend."
"He's just like the other ponies. Nothing more than animated piece of flesh. I rather think at them as things, for the record."
"Imagine how many things I will cut you into. You don't know me."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 17: All in a Blast
The noble death of Sunlight was something that nopony should take so lightly. The act to protect other ponies was a sign of being noble. That came from a pony that Ambrosia treated as trash. Seeing her disgusting behavior toward the life of the others and that of Sunlight, Grimwood couldn't help but take this matter personally
As both the mares studied each other, Rainbow Dash made a few steps back, taking the filly with her and shielding her with her wings.
Ambrosia was about to open her mouth when Grimwood pointed her still revving chainsaw toward her while staring at her; glaring at her as she was locking on her own target. Despite that intimidating stance, Ambrosia smirked nervously, trying to retain her composure.
"You fool. And I thought you were so smart, but you can't fool me," Ambrosia thought. "I know you want to pull off the stretching chainsaw trick, the one that you called Raging Chainsaw. It's launching speed is 8 meters a second. Unfortunately for you, I can use it to parry your attack and reposte it with my destructive magic. In any case, you will be dead before you can even touch me."
Without wasting any time, Ambrosia channeled her magic in her Chainsword, all of the while observing Grimwood, who was still staring at her, like she was scanning her being. She felt her gaze piercing through her sight, which made her nervous and bothered; and she didn't liked that at all. Ambrosia wanted to put those feelings into silence.
In that moment, Grimwood's chainsaw glowed in a purpled light.
"Die, Grimwood!" Ambrosia exclaimed as she pointed her Chainsword at Grimwood. "Nocturnus-"
"CHAINSAW MAELSTROM!" Grimwood shouted as her chainsaw shoots multiple chainsaw blades made of purple energy that was raining down on her, causing Ambrosia to interrupt her magical charge for the shock.
"WHAT?" Ambrosia flinched. "A MAGICAL ATTACK!?" She summoned a grappling hook with her magic and use it to grasp Sunlight's shredded body. "SUNLIGHT, PROTECT ME!"
Ambrosia pulled the corpse toward her and thrown it toward the energy blades, causing them to explode along with it. Both Grimwood and Rainbow Dash were horrified by this act.
"Did you had just used your friend's body as a shield!?" Rainbow blurted.
"Tch!" Grimwood glared ferociously at Ambrosia.
"Ahahah! It wasn't just Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie! Sunlight was thoroughly helpful too!" Ambrosia declared deviously as she charged her Chainsword and released it's magic. "Noctornus Grimora!"
With a swing of her weapon, Ambrosia unleashed an axe shaped wave of destructive energy that traveled toward Grimwood. The violet mare rolled away from it's trajectory, causing the wave to destroy part of the laboratory behind her. As Ambrosia charged her claws, Grimwood rummaged inside her bag, pulled out a white crystal and tossed it toward her.
Ambrosia swung her claws, unleashing four red slashing waves that ended up destroying the crystal, releasing a blinding light that almost covered the entire factory.
"I can't see a thing..." Rainbow Dash said, covering her eyes.
"The hell?!" Ambrosia exclaimed, also covering her eyes.
In a few seconds, the light died out on its own and then silence fell upon the scene. Ambrosia and Rainbow slowly opened their eyes and noticed the floor being filled with amber colored amulets. Rainbow knows these thing were magical artifacts but doesn't know anything about their powers. Ambrosia, on other hooves, knows very well what they are.
"E-explosive amulets?" Ambrosia's eyes widened. "No, don't tell me..." She looked upwards and found Grimwood virtually flying in mid air, all of the while pointing her chainsaw as it glowed in a purple light.
"What are you doing!?" Rainbow exclaimed.
"Grimwood! You will end up getting killed!" Ambrosia said incredulous. "You can't be this crazy at this point!"
"YOU WANNA BET YOUR ASS!?" Grimwood roared as she shoot an energy blade on one of the amulets and shattered it, causing a fiery chain reaction of explosions that ovewhelmed her and destroyed part of the entire stone bridge. Grimwood was propelled away by it and ended up falling abruptly on the laboratory's floor.
As for Ambrosia, she screamed in agony as she fell down to depth of the Rainbow Shrine, with her body being engulfed in flames. Her figure disappeared in the depth of the darkness that swallowed her figure and silenced her voice, replaced by the roars of multiple explosions echoing from the bottom.
Grimwood took her time to recover and slowly stood up two legged. She turned off her chainsaw and reverted it into the metal box again. As she putted it inside her bag, Rainbow Dash and the filly approached her reluctantly, not knowing what to say.
"If you were about to thank me, then you shouldn't," Grimwood said. "I didn't have done anything heroic in this moment."
"I know that," Rainbow replied. "After all, killing other ponies is wrong. But seeing that Ambrosia thrashing her former friend's life is wretched beyond levels." Her eyes widened. "But wait, what she has to do with Fluttershy and Pinkie?"
"She killed them and resurrected them as monsters. Enough said," Grimwood informed.
Rainbow flinched in horror. ".... No... That cannot be..."
"We have no time for mourning. You have to put that filly in a safe place," Grimwood said calmly.
"I hope my mother is still alive," The filly said.
"Wait! What about you?" Rainbow halted her. "You can't fight a entire cult of pegasi by yourself!"
"Do as I said," Grimwood said imperatively.
"But-"
"GO!"
That being said, Rainbow took the filly in her arms and flew away from the laboratory without even looking back. Grimwood remained still as a flock a rainbow cultists were raining down on her. On of almost reached her and tried to sunk his claws on her skin, only to be back handed by her.
As seven of them were approaching her, Grimwood pulled out an explosive amulets out of her bag and thrown it at the flock. As it touched one of them, the amulets exploded, them in one instant. Grimwood was about to pull out another one when she got tackled by one of them and was pinned down to the floor.
The rainbow cultist, being a copy of Rainbow Dash, was about to stomp on her face. "Die, you whore!"
"Now who's talking?" Grimwood asked sardonically as she sunk her metal claws on the cultist's chest, causing her to wriggle uncontrollably.
The cultist forcefully hoovered in the air, flew toward the destroyed stone bridge and dived down to the depths of Rainbow Shrine, dragging Grimwood with her. Both of them ended up falling through the darkness of the abyss were Ambrosia precipitated.
Seeing no other options, Grimwood released the wretched pegasus from her grasp, leaving the creature on her own. Grimwood was falling down, but she had a plan. She managed to put her metal claw inside the bag and pulled out an azure crystal. As she saw the terrain approaching her, Grimwood unleashed it's power.
At that point, gravity failed her. Grimwood levitated above the bottom of the abyss and gracefully landed on the floor. She panted heavily, looking incredulous since she never thought she could survive a fall like this. As for the cultist, she leaved the scene without realizing that Grimwood spotted her with disinterest.
"At least I sowed her," Grimwood murmured.
She scanned her surrounding to see where she was. The first thing that assaulted her senses was the smog. She shielded her nose for a moment and saw the flames almost engulfing the place. On the stone wall, there are multiple banners displaying a twisted version of Rainbow Dash's cutey mark, except that the cloud was black and rainbow colored lightning has it's color being inverted. There are also the debrises of the crumbled stone bridge, destroyed machinery and broken vats. In her left, she saw an exit, which was blocked by the debris. That wouldn't be a problem for her, but she had to act faster.
"I need to get out of there," Grimwood said, fed up of what had transpired. "I have no intention to be asphyxiated."
Grimwood was about to pull out another explosive amulet when she felt a sensation that chilled her soul. A presence that she never had perceived before. Instinctively, she pulled out her metal box and turned it into her chainsaw. She looked around but there was nopony around.
"Who's there!?" Grimwood said nervously, looking around as if the presence was still there. Initially, she was convinced that her senses had gone insane until she noticed something on the floor.
A huge shadow grew on the ground beneath her.
The shadow of someone towering upon her.
"I have finally found you, Asphodel."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
In the devastated machinery room, a presence loomed over her. That voice sounded both disturbing and intimidating. It reminded her of demons from a distant past that was never told before. Grimwood turned around to see the interlocutor that was towering on her. What she didn't expected to see was something out of the world.
It didn't looked like a pony, and it didn't looked like a Homunghoul either. It looked like a real demon in all it's horrible splendor.
It was a two legged, humanoid creature wearing a black cape, whose body resembled that of a dragon; full of scales from the chest to the feet and with four digits claws and talons. His head looked like that of a unicorn, except that it's visage was more feral; having a long horn, a silver mane, wolf like fangs and full-red eyes with the absence of pupils.
The creature stood tall and stared at Grimwood, scanning it like it was it's own prey. His existence was unique to her. Grimwood had saw so many creatures, but she never thought to witness something so demonic like this creature. Despite this monster being so imposing, he wasn't even close to resemble the demon of her nightmares.
But that wasn't her only preoccupation.
"How the fuck do you know my real name?" Grimwood asked with a inquisitive tone.
"You have no idea of the importance of your powers," The creature said. "The darkness that cursed your life was nothing more than a bliss in the favor of a bigger scheme. Your existence defies the natural course of this world, and that was what makes your role so important."
He raised his claw and swung them at Grimwood, who had promptly leaped away from it.
"And that's the dilemma." The creature continued.
"You have a problem with me, you bastard?" Grimwood said angrily as she pulled out the metal box, turned it into her chainsaw and pulled it's cord, revving it. "Allow me to reformulate the question before I am going to kill you for that. What the hell do you know about me?"
"You are the recipient of something great," The creature said. "You powers had awakened, but it's essence is still incomplete. You have no choice but to satisfy it's conditions. As for your question, I owe you no knowledge at all."
"You make no sense," Grimwood said impatiently. "Just get to the point already!"
"Don't even think to survive my encounter with that toy of yours," The creature declare and then pointed his claw at her. "The reason of my presence in this lair of traitors was the smell of your soul! I will take it from your dead flesh!"
"Then bring it," Grimwood provoked. "I had killed a psychotic Necro-Alchemist and her army with this tool. I don't care if it's you or somepony else. If you try to kill me, then I'll just have to return the favor to you."
"You had survived the encounter with other demons," The creature said confidently. "But you won't survive a fight with a Bloodlord. I am Geo and I will give you a demonstration of my claim as hatred given flesh!"
"Shut up already! RAGING CHAINSAW!" Grimwood shouted as the chainsaw blade suddenly stretched toward Geo, only for him to instantly dissipating into a swarm of wasps made of blood, much to her shock. "What the-"
The swarm flew through Grimwood, who closed her eyes and shielded herself with her chainsaw. The blood wasps reformed themselves, causing Geo to reappear behind her. The violet mare turned around to see him and ended up being back handed by him. Grimwood fell on the floor, with her chainsaw falling from her metallic claws.
"Pathetic," Geo said slightly disappointed as he charged toward Grimwood and jumped toward her in his attempt to slash her with his claws.
Grimwood rolled away from it's trajectory, resulting him to cut a debris into pieces instead. She then rose up, recovered her still revving chainsaw and rushed toward him furiously to cut him down. As the blade got closer to him, Geo dissipated into a swarm of blood wasps again, making her to miss him.
She tried to tear the swarm apart, but instead of dying, the insects multiplied in numbers. The blood wasps flew toward Grimwood to overwhelm her. She leaped away from them and leaved them to reform themselves. As Geo reappeared, she attacked him with her chainsaw in a surprise attack, only for him to parried it by his hand. Many sparks were ignited as her weapon clashed with the scales.
"Bastard!" Grimwood exclaimed as she jumped backwards and landed far away from him. "Your scales are not normal ones!"
"You can't penetrate my armor," Geo said. "Your chainsaw is insignificant when it's compared to my might!"
"Tsk!" Grimwood looked nervous.
"Burn!" Geo roared as his horn glowed with a dark, hellish aura, materializing five meteors that descended down
Grimwood considered herself to be safe thanks to the invisible magical barrier generated by the crystal inside her chainsaw, but her instinct was telling her otherwise. She tried to escape, but unfortunately for her, the impact of the meteor on the terrain sent her flying, slamming her against the wall while shattering the barrier. Fiery explosions utterly devastated the already ravaged room.
Despite that, Grimwood was still alive thanks to the barrier, although she was stunned by that. She was about to loose her consciousness but she resisted and forcefully rose up, ignoring her pain. By the time she lifted her gaze, Grimwood realized her opponent disappeared in the middle of the flames.
And yet the noise of the swarm was still there, and was echoing from above her. Grimwood looked up, noticing the swarm diving on her. She rolled away from their trajectory, avoiding leaving the wasps being splattered on the floor. The swarm regenerated and multiply themselves, a moment before they started to reforming themselves.
"Got you! CHAINSAW MAELSTROM!" Grimwood shouted as her chainsaw blade glowed in a purple aura and shot a barrage of energy blades against the swarm, in the same time they were resuming their real form. The blades burst in fiery explosions of violet flames.
What followed was a very chilling roar.
Geo roared ferociously in pain as he reappeared with his half of his face being almost destroyed. His left eye was butchered, his eye socket was bleeding and trails of vapor were steaming from it.
"You're predictable as a usual brute force type creature, didn't ya" Grimwood demanded with a gleeful expression.
The creature glared furiously at her. "You will pay for this trickery!"
Geo opened his mouth and channeled it with flames. Knowing what was going to happen, Grimwood promptly ran away from him, a moment before he spitted out a gigantic column of flames that destroyed the stone wall, leaving only a hole that was facing toward the outside.
Grimwood breathed heavily, looking very nervous. "In can't believe it. A two thousand grades blast of flames!"
As Grimwood was about to react, Geo glowed his horn and unleashed other five meteors. Having saw that coming, the violet mare rummaged in her bag and pulled out a red crystal. The object glowed with a crimson aura and the dissipated into a red light that engulfed Grimwood's body.
She then charged toward Geo as the meteors phased through her body without even doing any harm.
"WHAT?!" Geo exclaimed.
"That was the only crystal that I never though to use, until this moment." Grimwood thought as she approached the creature. "It allows me to phase through those meteors without getting hurt. However... It's brief duration makes it very hazardous to use. I had to attack until I can."
Having reached her enemy, Grimwood jumped toward Geo and tried to shred him with a overhead attack, but was then grabbed by him and then tossed across the room. The mare crashed on the floor, all the while keeping her chainsaw handle in her grip.
Geo made a few steps toward Grimwood, emitting very chilling deep breaths. He looked at his prey with a mixed glimmer of scorn and interest. As he was advancing, Grimwood put her metallic claw inside her bag and rummaged inside. Geo instantly noticed that.
"It's pointless resisting," Geo declared. "I will put a end to your life this instant!"
That being said, Geo charged his mouth with the flames and spitted out another columns of flames upon her.
In that instant, Grimwood tossed a very small opal that generated a barrier in front of her that reflected the flames and turned them against Geo. A very huge explosion overwhelmed him, engulfing his entire body with flames. As the flames were slowly dissipating, Grimwood took the opportunity to stood up and observe his conditions.
Geo was made a few steps back as his form was finally revealed. At this point, his body was destroyed; His scales being melted by the heat of the blast. His face was utterly melted, with his skull being almost exposed. And yet his only remaining red eye was still there.
"Time to end your wretched charade," Grimwood declared.
"Y..You cant... Escape the army," Geo said as he charged toward Grimwood. "THE ARMY OF-"
"SHUT UP ALREADY!" Grimwood shouted and she jumped in the air to dodge his attack and dived down on his head, cutting through it with her chainsaw and almost splitting Geo's body in two.
Despite his body being shredded, his blood remained still, as if it refuses to ever coming out. As that wasn't bizarre enough, his body was slowly petrified.
"What the...?" Grimwood said dumbfounded.
All of a sudden, a flux of black energy came out of the petrified body and entered inside Grimwood's body. A very lacerating pain overwhelmed her as the black flux continued to flow inside her. And then, there was another vision.
Another grim vision, just like the time with the Homunghoul of Fluttershy.
Long time ago, before the rise of Nightmare Moon, there was a unicorn who got lost in the land of the dragons. He tried to find a way back home, until a group of dragons approached him. Insulting him wasn't enough. They wanted to abuse him and putted him into tortures of the worst nature.
He escaped for his life, and tried to get out of the land, but he was always reached by them. He lived a real nightmare that lasted for about five years, until he managed to get out of the land. However, the trauma he had suffered caused him to feed his own hatred toward the dragon kind. To further fomenting his hate, his friends were killed by the same dragons that had caused him much suffering.
At that point, he begged for something that allows him to made them suffering a very agonizing death.
And then he had appeared.
A mysterious pony like creature that had bestowed him a very gruesome power that turned him into the monsters that he had become.
"You can go at your heart content. You are not Guilable Drop anymore. Your are now a Bloodlord... Geo."
These are the words of the creature that helped him to get his revenge. With that power, he would had got rid of his hated nemesises. But killing them wasn't enough. He had devoured them, literally, and his body departed from it's ponykind nature, until it resembled that of a draconical monstrosity.
A monstrosity that was baptized as the Bloodlord of Hatred.
As the vision ended, her pain stopped and the flux of energy has been dissipated; and stone statue of Geo crumbled in front of her very eyes. Grimwood was confused and doesn't know what really happened when a new surge of power awakened inside her being. She can feel it. Her powers had grown in their intensity. Grimwood can feel a new power fermenting inside her.
In that moment, Grimwood understood what happened, and that disgusted her.
"Did I had... Just absorbed his own soul?" Grimwood asked, almost horrified.
Grimwood didn't had the time to reflect about that somepony screamed from the blocked passage.
It was Rainbow Dash's voice.
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 1: Grim Awakening (REMADE)
It happened in that night, in a humble wooden house the middle of a forest. However was accurate to say what remained of a destroyed wooden house. A blazing pyre consume it. But more tremendous than that, was the tragedy that had occurred in the middle of that blazing inferno.
There was a black maned violet filly, standing front of the mangled and charred corpses that used to be her parents. In front of her eyes a monstrous like dark figure engulfed in black flames, which form was almost that of a pony but with more demonic features. His body obscured by the flames, except for his completely white eyes, and sharp teeth.
The filly glared at him and studied him, as if she was imprinting the entire image of him. After a few moments, the demonic figures turned around walked through the flames surrounding the place, leaving the scene. The filly was left with her dead parents, and what followed after that were her screams of fury.
Nine years later...
A mare woke up with a start. She sweated like crazy and her heart beat was more rapid. She didn't even bothered to look around since she knew already where she is. She was in her own dark, cold and wet cell. One of the many cells in the dungeon beneath Canterlot Castle. What she saw was all a dream, and yet she expected that to happen. She groaned in frustration, as that wasn't the first time that happened.
"I will never be able to leave that behind, huh?" The mare murmured and then sighed. "That damn nightmare. Is the same shit every night."
She got out of her bed and approached the barred window. Black clouds almost covered the nocturnal sky, barely filtering the moonlight. There's no sign of a storm or anything. Only the blows of the wind. The dim nocturnal night partially revealed her appearance.
She was a black maned violet mare with a long mane and two intimidating yet tired eyes. Her cutey mark resembled a bizarre blue strawberry with two transparent demonic looking blue eyes on it.
Assuming that she won't be able to take some sleep after that, the mare continued to watch the landscape outside the window, mostly because she had nothing better to do in that moment. Everything was quiet when two, distant male voices echoed from outside the cell.
"Oh, c'mon, Flamboyant Shield. Why we are here again?"
"I told you, I need you to take my place, so I can inspect the cells and return in my office to make a report."
"Just when my current insomnia wasn't enough." She quietly complained as she walked toward the cell door.
She could hear metallic hoofsteps getting closer from the out side. Judging by their voices, she already know who was coming and how many are.
Two male Night Guards, which one of them was a unicorn that she wasn't very fond of, but the other one sounded new to her. They were getting closer, probably pretending to take a stroll, just so they can forget that was actually their nocturnal duty.
"So... Who's the pony I have to watch?" Rice's voice asked.
"Her name is Grimwood Vileberry." Flamboyant's voice replied. "A female earth-pony. Although that's not her real name, I think that suits well to a delinquent like her. Nopony knows who she really is or where she came from."
"What crime she had committed anyway?"
"You may not know that, but two years ago she was arrested for her involvement in multiple episodes of brutal beating in which she picked up she had assaulted one unicorn, a group of the dragons guided by the once dreadful Flamestroke, a pack of diamond dogs and so on."
"What!?"
"Quiet! You will waking her up."
The sound of their hoofsteps stopped. Looking at the barred peephole of the door, she could see the faces of the two unicorns in front of her cell door. Rice looked just hesitant but curious, in contrast to Flamboyant, who looked a little annoyed, as if he had lived the same scene before.
"I'm sorry but... Brutal beating you said?" Rice murmured astounded.
"No joke. She started with a unicorn. Then she dealt with a gang of tree dragons leaded by Flamestroke that was sent into a brief coma by her, a group of diamond dogs who had their bones being broken by her, and the list goes on. She took them down by herself with only a steel pipe. As that wasn't dreadful enough, she was able to break a concrete wall with her hoof."
"R... Really?"
"She was dangerous and relentless, so of course we had to intervene. However, by the time we had surrounded her, Grimwood just surrendered herself to us without even fighting. But the strange part was that she spent only nine days in Canterlot Prison, as a common criminal should be, until my superior decided to transfer her in this dungeon."
Rice raised a eyebrow, confused. "Wait, why?"
"I don't know," Flamboyant responded perplexed. "Orders from above. But I think that is correlated with what we found in the bag we had retrieved from her. It was containing lots and lots of magical artifacts that she managed to make with her own hooves. That alone is grave fact, considering that the crafting of magical objects is taboo."
"Really?... Is that a crime?" Rice asked, seemingly missing the point.
"Yes, it is totally a crime to create artifacts without a authorization." Flamboyant sighed quietly with muted annoyance. "Think about our history for a second. Princess Celestia personally forbid this practice to the public domain, and for a very good reason. The first hundred years after Luna's banishment to the moon, crime had skyrocketed because of this illegal practice."
"Wow... I never known that fact," Rice admitted, meekly.
Flamboyant groaned. "This is why-"
"If you want to talk of me like I was a freak exposition," Grimwood interrupted grumpily from her cell. "Have at least the courtesy to low your damn voices. Besides, I had already woke up before you arrival.."
The two unicorn Night Guards peered into the barred hole to see Grimwood, who looked slightly irritated a the two, seemingly having woke up in the wrong way.
"Ok, what do you want?" Grimwood asked.
"Watch your mouth, you scum." Flamboyant ordered. "You shouldn't have even the right to retort like that. Not after the whole set of ponies, and others, that you had sent into the hospital."
"Oh, yeah?" She retorted calmly. "For your information, most of them, including the unicorn you were talking about, attacked me without even thinking twice. Putting aside the fact that I had actively took on the diamonds that were attacking a earth-mare, I have one condition. I never attack first without a reason."
"Is that a way to justify your actions?" Flamboyant inquired, irritated.
"You are free to believe what you want, but most of them asked for it. That's all."
"I don't care about your reasons! Your violence and crafting of artificial artifacts have no place outside these walls!"
Grimwood then looked at Rice, which startled him a little. "Who are you?"
"For your information, he's my replacement." Flamboyant countered.
"Flamboyant, I'm sorry to interrupt you," Rice said hesitantly. "But I was thinking... Did you had asked her real name or even her own origins?"
"We tried but she refused to talk about that. The same thing can be said from where she came from. In fact, before her arrival, nopony in Equestria saw this mare before. Only a few of them, including the victims, saw her in live. Her origins are completely unknown from the rest of us."
"I have the right to remain silent, you know?" Grimwood reminded.
"Yeah, but don't even think to behind that rule forever, witch." Flamboyant muttered before returning his attention to Rice. "Well, pal. Have fun with her."
"Wait, did you had just said that she can break a concrete wall, right?" Rice pointed out, meekly. "Couldn't she just get out of the cell by her sheer strength?"
"Relax. Her own prison is filled with multiple gems that gave these walls and the door a magical protection," Flamboyant reassured. "She won't be able to that. My superiors designed that cell."
"Well... Good to know." Rice replied, unconvinced.
"If you excuse me, I have a inspection to do."
"As you wish."
Flamboyant walked away, inspecting every door that he came across by peering through their peephole. Rice was left to guard Grimwood's door. The violet mare looked at him with a very annoyed expression, causing him to feel a little bit intimidated and look away. She facehoofed, slowly before.
"What a pain in the ass. Not only I got to hear another boring recap of my imputations but I have also this rookie to watch over my body. And judging by his seemingly clumsy behavior, I don't even think he had received a proper training."
"Hey. Can I talk with you for a moment?" Rice asked.
"Now what?" Grimwood asked with a bothered expression.
"I was just thinking... Why you had surrendered in the last moment?"
"Why you ask?"
"Well, you have all of that magic stuff and your great strength," Rice responded, almost tranquilly. "Look, I'm not the type to root for these like you but-"
"I didn't had fought them back because it's not worth to invoke the fury of the entire equestrian military," Grimwood interrupted. "The same one in which you had conscripted yourself in, probably to follow your parents' hoofsteps or simply because of your of sense of justice."
Rice became instantly muted by her statement but was still a little eager to know her reasons. "But..."
"Look, I'm not in the mood to talk with you right now." Grimwood said with a fed-up tone. "I'm tired... And I just want to sleep."
"Wait, that's not point." Rice insisted. "I mean, judging by your belonging that we had seized from you, you had great knowledge of magic and other things. You could had benefit Equestria so.... Why you are willingly spending the next twenty years of your life in prison?"
Grimwood frowned, staring at him with a grim and yet tired gaze. "This conversation ends here. So you better not get yourself involved with some Stallionkholm Syndrome of yours. Now buzz off."
Groaning in disappointment, Rice looked away from her. Having put that conversation out of the way, Grimwood headed toward her bed when she was struck by a sudden, atrocious pain in her chest, as if some invisible blade piercing her heart. She put her hoof on her chest, feeling her pain becoming steadily unbearable. Grimwood struggled to not lose her balance but end up collapsing on the ground.
"Missy, is there something wrong!?" Rice shouted worried.
But Grimwood didn't heard his voice, being too focused to deal with the pain flailing her heart. She clenched her teeth to bear that, but became more unbearable with the pass of the seconds. She presumed to be caught by some nasty disease. But that horrible moment of agony took a very bizarre turn. A coil of black-white flames gushed out of her chest, spreading through her body, turning it into a living pyre.
She was alarmed by that sight, yet she felt no pain at all, outside that of her chest. Strangely enough, her coat wasn't burning at all, much to her confusion.
"Hold on! I'm going to warn Flamboyant!" Rice's voice echoed from nowhere.
After a few moments, the black-white flames died off and the pain that was flailing her heart instantly vanished like nothing happened. Paled and confused, Grimwood slowly stood up and remained immobile, visibly taken aback by what she had experienced. She had no idea about what happened. Yet she could tell that wasn't magic, not even that of the unicorns.
"What the fuck just happened," Grimwood murmured dumbfounded.
"Rice!" Flamboyant's voice shouted from outside her cell, having returned from his patrolling. "What did I told you about that? You should not sympathize with any inmate. Her suffering may be a trick."
Grimwood walked hastily toward the cell door and peered in the squared barred peephole to ask something to the unicorns, only to find her vision being suddenly warped.
For a fraction of seconds, Flamboyant's appearance assumed a twisted one, with eyes being completely devoid of vitality, sharp teeth, a opened wound in his neck exposing it's bone and a few holes being present in his body without him or Rice even realizing that. Flamboyant's form returned to normal afterwards, with him finishing his conversation as nothing happened.
That glimpse of madness looked vivid enough to shake her, if not making her doubt of her sanity. She never felt so shaken as she was now.
"What kind of damn sorcery is this!? For a moment it looked like my sanity was betraying me." Grimwood thought, a little alarmed by that.
"Good to know that you get it," Flamboyant said to Rice and then looked at Grimwood with a stern expression. "What are looking at? Go back to sleep, witch."
Nonchalantly, Flamboyant turned toward the hall were he came from and walked away, leaving Rice to watch over Grimwood. Rice couldn't help but feel a little worried about her despite what his colleague said to him. Grimwood was still shaken for what she saw, unsure if what she saw was even real. As Grimwood tried to regain her composure, a loud sound of a explosion roared from the outside, followed a second later by a multivocal, warped monstrous roar. Grimwood became wide-eyed upon hearing that.
"The hell?" Grimwood demanded, seemingly recognizing it.
Rice flinched, startled. "What the deepest level of Tartarus was that!?"
That sound reminded her of something she had heard before. Grimwood could feel some resemblance with what heard in the past. Yet, as much similar as it is, it sounded slightly different. Having a good hearing, Grimwood can tell difference. But her memory didn't made any difference as that roar was similar enough to reinvoke the image of the demonic black figure that infested her nightmares, which monstrous sounds echoed in her mind. Anger instantly filled her mind upon remembering that, until she was snapped back to reality by Rice screaming from the outside her cell.
"WOOAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Grimwood quickly turned at her cell door, startled to hear that his scream, being then followed by the sound of something liquid being splattered around and a loud thud. Then the sound of a key being picked up and being inserted into the keyhole ranged a little bit as puddle of blood filtered from under the door.
Upon seeing that, she took a fighting stance while keeping a menacing gaze at the door, like she was about to trash somepony.
The sound was then replaced by a loud click and the door slowly creaked opened. Grimwood expected the one who had killed the guard pony to be some monster, but when the door was fully opened, she found somepony else standing in front of her.
It was a light-blue maned white stallion with silver eyes. His coat was white as the snow. Ignoring Grimwood's glare and the blood pool nearby him, he took a few steps toward her and made a half gleeful grin.
"I didn't expected you to be in this cell," He said with a bit of satisfaction. "No wonder I couldn't find you."
Grimwood didn't say anything. Instead she stepped back, being ready to charge against him. The stallion, however, wasn't intimidated. He retained his calm, but looked at her with apparent disappointment.
"What is that look?" He asked. "Is that the way to greet somepony who tried to released you?"
"You must be a well trained assassin," Grimwood said with a calm and yet distrustful tone."if you had managed to infiltrate this place and kill that Night Guard without being noticed. You wouldn't had searched for me without a reason."
"You don't trust anypony, huh." He pointed out calmly.
"Who the hell are you?" Grimwood asked.
"A mere wanderer of darkness." He replied solemnly. "A shadow traveler who had saw almost everything. Equestria held more flaws than I had imagined. Harmony is one thing, but everepony's real desire?... Now that is a real thing to consider."
"Tell a reason why I shouldn't kill you in this instant." Grimwood said bluntly, almost menacingly.
"That won't be necessary," The stranger responded. "After all, blood is what you were craving for this whole time, and wasn't my own."
Grimwood glared intensively at him, steadily becoming irritated, looking enraged. "Don't tempt me, throat cutter."
"Alright, as you wish," The stranger said sarcastically as he stepped out of her cell and looked down on his left. "Oh, by the way, you will need this."
With that, the stranger let something slip toward her. Puzzled, Grimwood glanced at the object at her feet, being exposed by the moonlight filtered by the barred window. In the same moment she glanced on it, Grimwood instantly recognized it. It was a black bag, belonging to her. Wanting to confirm a thing, she opened and took a look inside. She paled, looking bewildered upon seeing the content.
"You gotta be kidding me! It's my old gear! But how can that be!? I had hidden that in a secret place in my house were...!"
Grimwood returned her attention at Frost Bite, only find the white stallion not being here anymore.
"Bastard." Grimwood said quietly in tranquil fury as she rushed toward the doorway and peered outside, looking left and right, but there was no trace of him. "Where did he go?"
Her eyes then fell down and found Rice Crest laying on the ground.
Or rather his mangled corpse.
Grimwood observed the body of the pony who used to be Rice Crest. She was disgusted but mostly baffled. She had intuited that Rice was brutally killed by the stallion but the way he was killed was a very bizarre one. His body was literally cut obliquely, along with his own armor. Both the sides were bathed in his own blood, exposing sliced bones, muscles, organs and other things that are better left unknown. That gruesome scene left her astounded. Not just for the corpse itself but for the way he died.
"It was obvious that he was the one who killed him but the way he did is ridiculous! There's no earth-pony who is able to kill somepony like that. He wasn't even carrying any weapon at all. And now that I'm thinking about... Is he even a pony?"
"What kind of monster is that guy?" Grimwood murmured, a moment before Flamboyant voice echoed from her left.
"Rice! What happened!?"
Grimwood groaned with annoyance. "Talking about a bad night."
With the sound of hooves stampeding getting closer and closer, Grimwood retreated in her cell, stepping back toward her bed and hiding her bag beneath it. She watched the scene from the opened door. The hoofsteps stopped and silence fell for a moment before being broken by not one but two horrified gasps. Flamboyant and another unicorn Night Guard slowly approached what remained of Rice Crest, paled for that sight.
"No... Rice." Flamboyant said with a paled visage, kneeling in front of her dead friend and staring at it. "That can't be real."
"Holy Celestia." The other unicorn said with horror, with a almost elder voice. "What the heck happened to him?"
Flamboyant slowly turned toward the opened cell, glaring furiously at her. "YOU!"
Despite her knowing that they wouldn't had listened to her, she tried anyway but couldn't say anything that Flamboyant furiously jumped at her, only for the other unicorn to blocking with his telekinesis.
"Flamboyant, calm down, " Elder said with a strange calm, pointing at the split Rice. "Just look at Rice's body. That is a clean cut. Not even Grimwood could be do that."
"Even so, that doesn't explain how did the door cell was opened!" Flamboyant pointed out inquisitively.
"We should let her explain what happened before taking any action on her," Elder stated, giving a brief look at Grimwood and then back to his comrade. "Because I'm not even sure if she was going to exploit this moment to escape."
"You know that this door can be opened from the outside, right?" Grimwood pointed out. "Somepony... If that can be considered a pony, attacked Rice and he took the keys. He then used them to open the door and gave me this bag."
"You mean somepony managed to infiltrate in this place and do this?" Flamboyant demanded confused. "But why?"
"I don't know any of his reasons," Grimwood was then interrupted by Elder gesturing her to stop. "He was-
But Grimwood couldn't say anything that the two unicorns grunted uncomfortably, suddenly flinching, as if some sudden, lacerating pain struck them. Their breath becoming hoarse and raspy, and their faces looking pained. Grimwood was about to ask if they were sick when she noticed something that gave her a really bad vibe.
The guard unicorns trembled frantically and began to change in a very disturbing way. Their voices became warped as their grunts became feral. Their coat paled and pieces of their flesh were melting away, opening multiple holes on their bodies. Their eyes became completely red, filled with a sinister vitality. Their hooves having four digit claws bursting through their metal shoes. Their bodies continued their gruesome mutation with few differences.
Flamboyant's teeth became sharpened, almost becoming fangs. A cut wound opened on his neck and his hind leg's flesh melted a little, exposing part of it's bones. Bone spikes pierced through his abdomen and lower parts.
As for Elder, new spiked bones protruded from his chest, bursting through his chest armor and spilling some blood as stretched for a few inches toward the violet mare in front of him. Seemingly irritated, Elder grunted as he grabbed his mangled chest armor with his clawed hoof, ripped it apart and tossed it away, revealing a opened, deep-looking, gaping maw with sharp, tusk-like teeth arranged like a leech's mouth.
Upon seeing Flamboyant's mutating form, Grimwood recognized him being the same creature the she saw him becoming in the glimpse that she had after that bizarre experience. Instinctively, she put her hoof inside her black bag and rummaged inside, searching for something inside. Then, she grabbed something and slowly pulled it out of it.
Their macabre transformation finally stopped. Their form looked twisted and undead, barely resembling that of normal ponies. There was no coherent word from them. Only their chilling roar was their only response. With a startling speed, they rushed toward Grimwood with a killing intent, with their horns glowing. But Grimwood has no intention to remain still and become their prey.
"You showed your true colors to the wrong mare!" Grimwood shouted as she tossed a metal azure, rhombus shaped amulet with a orange jewel encased at the center of it.
The amulet whizzed toward the mutated Flamboyant. As it touched his face, it glowed for a second before shattering into pieces and emitting black lightnings that paralyzed both the creatures, who were letting out warped, chilling screams. Their horns stopped to glow as if their magic was somehow nullified.
Grimwood pulled out a four spiked disc with a red jewel on it and tossed at them. The mutated Flamboyant quickly recovered from the shock and leaped toward her, avoiding the amulet and tackling her during the landing. The monstrous Elder was left to take the object, which briefly glowed before unleashing a fiery explosion that destroyed his head and most of his body.
The Flamboyant-like monster pinned Grimwood down to the floor, pressing his hoof on her chest. Her attacker smelled like dead and yet he was bizarrely alive. She could see his voracious face getting closer to her, eager to sink into her flash. Grimwood was really nervous but maintained her calm as she waited for the for him to do his move.
As she expected, the creature pounced at the violet mare's head, only for her to quickly block his head with both of her hooves before he could chew her up.
"No, you don't!" Grimwood exclaimed before violently snapping his neck, causing the creature's body to collapse on her.
Grimwood moaned for the thing that used to be Flamboyant falling on her. Already fed-up by his unbearable dead body's odor, she roughly moved his body away from her own.
Slowly standing up with a sweat on her forehead, Grimwood observed the creature with a disturbed look. Whatever things she was looking at couldn't be considered a pony anymore.
Before Grimwood could pondering about that, Flamboyant's head suddenly roared, startling her. It was obviously trying to bite her, but she was out of his reach and was still attached to the neck of his paralyzed body..
"I can't believe it... He's still alive?" Grimwood said incredulous. "But I had snapped his neck."
Unwilling to dirt her hooves, she took the mangled piece of Elder's armor and furiously slammed it on the Flamboyant's still living head, thrusting it through his skull and destroying his brain. His voice went silent, dying off with his own owner. The creatures who used to be the Night Guards were dead, but what she saw was out of the natural course of the things.
Grimwood studied the twisted corpse of the former Night Guard in every detail. His death smell was still present in it. She was caught out of guard upon witnessing this, but for other reasons. Like it wasn't the first time.
"There must be some sorcery going one. Whatever made this to them, it messed up their biology and anatomy. Judging the stench, their bodies had reached the Rigor Mortis, yet they were still alive. Also, Flamboyant's head continued to live until I destroyed his brain. Despite their apparent mindlessness, they showed to have retained some intelligence, as demonstrated by them glowing their horns. I'm sorry for them, but since they tried to kill me, I had to defend myself."
"What isn't clear to me is the cause of their transformation," Grimwood said calmly, but still baffled. "How the hell that happened?"
Suddenly, terrified screams echoed from the corridor outside the door, a few moments before being suffocated by a chilling, warped mixture of groans and roars that seemed to belong to a nightmare. Alarmed, Grimwood went out of the cell and looked at the staircase at the end of the corridor. The infernal chorus continued to rang, with chewing sounds and other brief screams of agony joining the demented symphony.
After a few moments, the cacophony stopped, leaving only the lingering echo of the whole cacophony before the silence took its place.
Grimwood stared nervously at the staircase in dismay, taken aback by that. Her gaze was locked on that point. She seemed to know already who was coming, yet she was reluctant to believe that.
"You are fucking kidding me, right?"
To answer her question, multiple thuds hammered from the staircase, like boulders falling down from a mountain. The noises continued their unsettling hammering, becoming louder.
And louder.
And louder, until two mangled bodies of Royal Guards, being shredded around and chewed up, wearing the expression that they had as they died, with eyes and mouth being both wide open in a scream. Some of their insides were shown. One of them had one eye being pierced.
Grimwood reacted with legitimate disgust, shocked by that sight. She could barely maintain her composure. Before she could even comment that, a chilling sound of hoosteps slowly made their presence known, followed by disturbing groans and growls was descending, getting closer. She didn't even need to ask. She knows already what was coming.
"I guess they are other ponies being turned into monsters," Grimwood said, disturbed. "I don't know how that happened to them, but I don't think they would let me go."
As the echo was getting closer and louder, Grimwood felt like a disgusting sensation of being cornered. She wasn't scared, but wasn't tranquil either. She knows perfectly what has to be done, but she didn't liked that a little bite. The violet mare turned her head toward the bag in her cell room.
The content of the bag, her old equipment, was her only way she had to escape. Grimwood has no idea of what was going on in the castle in which she was in, but one was sure.
She has no intention to get killed, but wasn't proud for what was going to do.
"I can't believe I have to fight again."
Viventis Anathema - Story of a Cursed Mare
Chapter 8: Dreadful Fight
As Grimwood continued her hunt for the one who had created the disguising monsters called Homunghouls, she arrived at Sweet Apple Acre, where the apples were almost rotten. The farm looked really forsaken. But more than that, it looked wrecked. That made Grimwood think of an attack.
"I wonder what kind of crude things would had happened here," Grimwood said.
"HALT!" Said a powerful voice from behind her.
Grimwood turned to see who was and saw two unicorn Royal Guards standing in a fighting stance. Grimwood looked annoyed for that, knowing what that was going.
"You are still going to arrest me?" Grimwood asked. "At a time like this?"
"Not this time," the Royal Guard said. "At a time like this we are going to execute you for having put the curse on the entire Equestria."
"I have WHAT!?" Grimwood flinched.
"That's right! You were cause of all of this and we are going to end you!" Another guard said.
"What proof have that-"
"That won't be your concern. Now DIE!!!" The Royal Guard roared.
The two unicorns does the same. The three unicorns briefly flared their horns, intended to use their magic against her. But their action was crudely interrupted by metal spear coming from behind them piercing their brains. The magic dissipated from their horns since the unicorns were already killed by that unexpected attack.
Grimwood was physically surprised this time. She struggled to understand what's happening. One thing can be sure: That is not normal magic-
The spears withdrawed and dissolved into the nothingness. The unicorns' dead bodies collapsed to the ground, revealing a pony being behind them.
A mare was standing in front of Grimwood, wearing her pink bronze armor with her helmet leaving her mouth uncovered.
She regained her calm a little and studied the armored pony in front of her. She could see the piercing gaze passing through the smallest bars of the helmet's metallic beak shape visor and going toward her eyes. This intensity was manifesting a tranquil ruthlessness coming from them.
Grimwood could feel them piercing her mental concentration. But she wasn't scared at all. She was just annoyed.
"Look, i don't know why you saved my life, but not get me wrong. You will follow the other
"Grimwood." said unperturbed the armored mare. "Are you trying to provoke the Homunghoul maker and her forces with that crime of yours? You will not survive their encounter."
"Huh?"
"I know that they were targeting you since Fluttershy assaulted your home. But you cannot expect to win this carnage."
"Are you some undead creature trying to prented to be a good guy?"
"I just pretend that you didn't asked a stupid question like that."
"Hmph... You call her defeat and burial crime? Are you serious? I saw what happened to her and yet this is a crime for you lot?"
Grimwood paused a little, glaring at her in sign of challenge.
"And if i am the culprit behind her death, what're you gonna do about it eh?! Kill me?!"
Grimwood then gestured to her as a provocation.
"Well bring it, armored bastard!"
"The name "Nemesis" would be fine. Besides, you are going to sign a death warranting without even considering about some other possibility."
"Oh?"
"Not that i was expecting anything anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"I learned that you had somehow managed to take down the entire Rainbow Sanctuary by yourself. However, i absteined from give in to such expectation. I am very disappointed with your condition, after all you are only a common delinquent. You're nowhere near as imposing as the rumors say."
Grimwood pulled out her long giant chainsaw from her bag. She stood up on her hind legs and pulled the starting cord to revving it up before pointing it toward Nemesis while looking at her with a aggressive gaze.
"Do you really want to do it?" asked Grimwood with a intimidating tone.
"Before i kill you, i'd like to ask one thing."
"You better hurry."
"What makes you thing that you have some possibility against me?"
"?"
"The difference in power... Should have been evident before. Yet you still try to fight me... I won't even try to warn you. But consider that the Homunghoul maker has many allies and you were also wanted because the Royal Guards think you cursed Equestria. You will not always come out victorious, which means that at some point you will die."
Grimwood lowered her revving chainsaw and studied her opponent. Her motivations were really vague. Were wasn't a single psychotic emphasis in her words. But her murderous instict was present, made evident by her unperturbed eyes filtering through her helmet, though that her glance was a calmer one, completely devoid of bloodlust as her thoughs were deviated to something else.
Grimwood wasn't even sure about what she wants from her, much to her increased annoyance.
"It ain't about wheter i'm able to match you or not." said Grimwood. "I just that you, a Homunghoul, suddenly decided to show and kill your disguised comrades... because you wanted to take on me. Isn't your action a act of deception?"
"Believe to whatever you want."
"No, you had to explain yourself. What do you want from me?"
"That's uninportant now. It's not like you'll have your answer, i mean you're going to die here after all."
Irritated by her behavior, Grimwood furiosly charged toward Nemesis with her chainsaw.
"If that's so, i'll just force you to tell me!" yelled Grimwood.
Nemesis makes a smirk in response to her sudden attack, interpretating it as a act of stupidity.
"Hmph. Bring it!" replied gleefuly Nemesis before she stood up in bipedal position.
Before Grimwood could reach her, Nemesis pointed her hoof toward her as metalic mist was coming out of her skin before assuming the form of a solid, sharpened metal spear that lengthens toward the mare.
Grimwood instantly rolled away from the it's trajectory. The spear then withdrawed and dissipated into it's liquid form as another one tooked it's place, already lengthening toward the violet mare. Grimwood continued to roll in circle around Nemesis, avoiding the spear barrage she was throwingat her. Sick and tired to being targeted by it, Grimwood dashed toward Nemesis while dodging the last lengthening spear and tried cut her down.
Nemesis dodged the blow as the metal spear withdrawed inside her hoof. The armored pony and emanated her metallic mist from her skin once more, this time creating a large club replacing her right hoof.
Since Nemesis was near to Grimwood, she quickly delivered a horizontal swing in a squatted lunge with it, confident that she will crush the violet mare with one hit. But Grimwood instantly performed a high jump before the blow could even connect and dived upon Nemesis, trying to shredd her up in a slashing drop, much to her surprise.
"Bastard! How can you even move that faster with a heavy weapon like that!?" exclaimed Nemesis in her mind.
"DON'T LOOK DOWN ON ME, BITCH!" screamed Grimwood.
Nemesis backstepped far away, avoiding herself from being sliced and shredded by the falling attack, resulting her chainsaw to slam against the ground as the mare landed.
The armored pony transforms her left hoof into a pickaxe and swings it toward Grimwood just when she was regaining her balance. The mare bended herself backwards a little bit and avoided her attack. Nemesis forces her large club and pickaxe to dissolve themeselves into their metallic liquid form and backstepped again as the metal mist returned inside her body.
The armored pony remained still, trying to study her opponent before she started to attack again. Nemesis wasn't expecting this innatural fighting ability coming out from a earth mare, and, most of all, not such ferocity she was displaying in that moment.
Nemesis turned her hooves into large swords and dashed toward Grimwood, already attacking her with a relentless sword dance, trying to slashing her. Grimwood was parrying the cutting barrage that undead mare was throwing at her with her chainsaw.
The violet mare started to fight back and performed a horizontal swing with her giant chainsaw. Nemesis ducked, dodging that blow, and lunged toward Grimwood in a attempt to stab her face with her left sword. Grimwood moved her head away from the attack and prevented her brain from being destroyed, but she could feel the dreadful sensation that this attack is going to be followed up.
She could see the sword dissipating into the metal mist and returning inside the armored pony's body, restoring her left hoof to normal. Grimwood turned her eyes to Nemesis' other sword returning to be her right hoof, only for it to immidiately transforms into a giant axe, already going to chop her down with a overhead smash.
"WHOAA!" exclaimed Grimwood as she tried to parry the attack with the chainsaw while trying to
The enormous pressure exercized by the giant axe was almost crushing her. Grimwood struggled to stand still as she pushed her chainsaw against it's giant metallic blade with all of her strenght while trying to cut it down. But the giant axe doesn't seem to show any damage.
Grimwood couldn't help, but feel awfully surprised as the giant axe seemed to be impervious to the giant chainsaw's revving blades.
"I cannot cut through that axe! How resistent is that thing?" said shocked Grimwood.
"What a disappointment." said Nemesis with a grim tone.
As Nemesis continued to press her axe against Grimwood's chainsaw, she turned her left hooves into a metal lance and thrusts it toward her. Grimwood performed a long jump backwards, avoiding both the lance and the giant axe the hit her, resulting the second weapon to stab the ground. Grimwood could exploit this moment to counter attack, but then a sudden rattling noise coming from her weapon prevented her to do so.
Her chainsaw is stil revving, but the rattling noise keep reverberating through it, and the blades seems to be very worn down. Grimwood became really nervous about it's conditions, and she was right. This timing cannot be good, especially since Nemesis had already pulled her giant axe out of the ground and dissolved her lance.
"T-that is disgusting..." said incredulous Grimwood. "That it's a shitty moment to start cracking!"
"Your long giant chainsaw is breaking." said Nemesis. "I'm not that predictable like your previous victims. You should had died peacefuly. That is the price of your stupidity. The metal that now resides inmy bloodstream is known as Belgentum. It come from the ruins of the former Crystal Empire. I guess that what i told you about you being no match for me was right."
"Tch!"
"Normally, somepony sane in his mind would give up, but i'm sure that is not you case. Figures."
"I have not intention to let you win, you know."
Upon hearing that words, Nemesis looked at Grimwood with a disgusted glance.
"You must be literally naive to think that you can take on the maker like that. You cannot even
After that, Nemesis rotated the blade of her giant axe and immidiately performed a huge horizontal
Despite her chainsaw being battered, the violet mare quickly dodged the blow with a squatted
"GYAAAAAA!"
Nemesis screamed in pain as her blood spured from the severed bone of her cutted hoof. But she wasn't just
Grimwood was going to finish her off with a horizontal swing.
But before this could happen, Nemesis mustered all her strenght while she clenched her teeth
Grimwood's face contorted in pain and her eyes widened in shocked surprise. She wasn't expecting
Blood was coming out from her mouth and her sight was starting to blurr, slowly.
Nemesis withdrawed her metal spear and made it dissipate in the liquid form before returning
Her body started to convulsing as her blood was gushing out from both the pierced sides. Grimwood cannot even
She forced herself to rise her head toward Nemesis' covered face while struggling to not loose her
Nemesis looked at the bleeding violet mare for a moment and then grabbed her own right hoof attached
"Maybe i had indeed understimated you. You were indeed some sort of innatural monster, and yet you seemed
Grimwood was barely listening as her hearing and sight started to falter. Her consciousness was fading away
Nemesis put her severed hoof nearby her cut part and concentrated her eyes into that point until it
"Not even think that the Homunghouls and their maker will play by the rules. You will encounter
"Y... You..! Guuurgh!" said weakly Grimwood as she coughed blood from her mouth.
"I will leave you with this handicap. I hope that you can settle the score with her, if you can
After that, Nemesis returned into her four legged position and turned around before walking, leaving
As the violet mare forced herself to crawl, her consciousness was immidiately sinked into the
