Roughly half an hour or so earlier...

"I'm not so sure about this, girls," Fluttershy protested, her voice quiet but firm in her concern, "something isn't right about what I'm sensing."

Twilight, who had decided she and the others should let their would-be captors or killers come to them, was busy examining one of the mysterious magical mortars they'd all barely managed to avoid earlier. Seeing them up close, the black pillars were far larger than she expected.

The pillar was a dozen or so meters across and several dozen tall. No matter how closely Twilight looked or how carefully she observed the cylindrical monolith, she could find nothing but a smooth, featureless black surface. She'd been eyeing the ground around the pillar, wondering if the mechanisms were buried below the surface, when Fluttershy spoke.

"Hm?" Twilight replied distractedly after a moment, "what was that, Fluttershy?"

"I'm all for sneaking into the facility and avoiding danger," Fluttering elaborated, shoving down her irritation at being ignored, "but these creatures... they're ponies but they don't... well, they don't feel right."

"What do ya mean?" Pinkie asked in the gruff voice of a brawny griffon. The mare, having grown bored with waiting, had spent the last few minutes shifting into different creatures. She shifted back into her pink pony self as she turned to address Fluttershy, "are they sick?"

Fluttershy began shaking her head in denial, but then stopped and frowned in thought instead.

"Well... maybe?" she said tentatively, "I can't really explain it, but... I think something's wrong with their... mind?"

The strange assertion caught Twilight's attention and she whipped around to give her yellow friend a bemused look.

"Their mind?" she asked, making her way over to Fluttershy, "in what way? How would you even know something like that? Does your sense extend to encompass the brainwaves of another creature?"

"I don't know, Twilight," Fluttershy replied with a shake of her head, "remember, I'm still new to all of this. I still don't understand how it all works or how to properly describe what I'm feeling."

"Fair enough," Twilight conceded, "sorry, Fluttershy. I guess I'm just... itching to find out more. More about us, more about how the world's changed, more about what happened during and after the war, just... more," she sighed, "I don't think I've ever felt this lost before. It's like... like—"

"It's like this isn't even our world anymore," Pinkie added in a somber tone that surprised the other two mares. The pink pony had flopped onto her back and looked up to find her friends looking over at her with matching expressions of worry and confusion.

She waved a hoof and gave a sad little chuckle, "oh don't mind me, just thinkin' out loud," She flipped herself over and popped back up onto her hooves, "Anywho, I kiiinda don't think there's any use worrying about it now."

"No, I guess not," Fluttershy agreed, sounding somewhat disappointed.

Twilight looked from one mare to another, then turned around to see what they were both looking at. Her face lit up as she failed to hide the flood of anticipation at the sight. There, making a beeline for them from the direction of the large silver dome, was what looked like a small group of fully armored ponies.

"...Three, four... five ponies in all," she counted aloud, "looks like you were right on the money, Fluttershy. And yeah, there's definitely something wrong with them all."

"Are you sure they're ponies?" Pinkie asked, tilting her head and furrowing her brow in bemusement as she watched the group approach at an unnaturally fast clip, "they look more like robots. They move like robots. Their eyes are all glowy like robots.... are you sure they're not robots? I think they might be robots."

"They aren't robots, Pinkie," Fluttershy replied grimly as she stepped forward to join the other in meeting the soldiers head-on. She could already feel that horrible battle rage bubbling up inside her as she spoke and hated herself for it, but could no more stop it than the hooves of time, "I don't know what happened to them, but I don't like it. I don't think they're in control anymore."

"Ha!, Now isn't that a familiar situation?" Pinkie commented, her bitter laugh at odds with the eager bounce in her hooves, "I wonder if there's some bossy voice in their head telling them what to do?"

"Who knows?" Twilight answered, unconcerned as she took a measured step forward, "what I do know is that we only need three of them."

With that, Twilight's horn sparked to life, the viral mare ready to put her plan into action... a plan that failed when the murky black aura around her horn sputtered and died out entirely. She stumbled back, reeling in shock and crying out in pain as the magic pouring out of her was seemingly shoved back into her wellspring.

"Wha—"

"Twilight!"

Unable to spare even a second to clear her head or wonder what had just happened, Twilight whipped around to find both Pinkie and Fluttershy laid out flat across the ground, pinned under the weight of some kind of spell. An eerie purple and green aura bubbled around the two, binding them in place as they struggled to break in their prone state.

"Twilight!" Pinkie cried again, "what is this? It looks like magic but it feels all gross and slimy and I... I can't get out! I can't move!"

Fluttershy had already given into her fury, but not even that seemed to be doing her any good as she fought and screamed and raged against her magic restraints. Only Twilight was unaffected by the strange magic that bound her friends, but she had her own problems to worry about.

My magic! What did they—

Realizing far too late that her attention had slipped from the threat in front of them all, Twilight whipped back around to see that the soldiers had already broken off to either side to surround them. Now that they were this close, she could see that each and every one of the ponies look the exact same, not unlike the guards she'd often seen around Canterlot Castle.

The difference here was that these ponies all wore black modern military combat barding made from hardy-looking materials Twilight couldn't quite identify. What caught her attention the most were the eyes behind the dark visors of their helmets.

Looking around her, she could see their eyes, all of them blazing like green and purple flames, and it was only then that she realized what that meant.

"Dark magic," she muttered in disbelief before giving a small incredulous chuckle, "they have no horns and they're using dark magic. Really, what even is this world anymore?"

Twilight took stock of her situation and the odds that had suddenly been stacked against her. Another attempt at pulling magic from her corrupted wellspring only resulted in the flaring of the magical flames in each soldier's eyes and the same painful backlash.

Oddly enough, the result only made Twilight laugh. Whereas panic would've been her first response before all of this began, now some new twisted part of herself was clearly enjoying the adversity. Not just enjoying it, but reveling in it.

Once the initial shock of being caught off guard had passed, Twilight was able to pinpoint the reason for her own unsettling reaction. It was because, even now, surrounded as she was and trapped as her friends were, she still felt completely in control of the situation.

The feeling was just as euphoric as it had been when she let go back in Squawken. It was just as intoxicating as it had been when she'd played Asger for a fool and sliced him to literal bits. She wasn't blind to her predicament, but that didn't mean there weren't options.

After all, she and her friends were still alive and relatively unharmed and the soldiers weren't attacking. They had clearly chosen to capture rather than kill on sight. Twilight could work with that. All she had to do was wait until they made a mistake like she knew they would.

And then one of the soldiers stepped forward out of the circle and spoke.

"By order of Sergeant Grim Fetlock of the Crystal Gaurd's Special Operations Unit, any trespassers found within the perimeter of this facility are to be detained for questioning," the stallion belted out in a tone completely devoid of life, "surrender and prepare yourselves for transport and decontamination procedures."

Twilight just shook her head and sat back on her haunches with an unconcerned smile.

"And if I refuse?" she asked, biding her time with a question she already knew the answer to, "what will you do then?"

In response, each of the soldier's eyes flashed again and Twilight found herself thrown to the ground, magically bound just as her friends were. Even as she was crushed into the ground she never lost the unflappable grin on her face. If anything it widened slightly, because she was now exactly where she wanted to be.

"Any and all trespassers who refuse to comply will be given one final warning," the soldier replied mechanically. He took another few steps forward until he was standing over Twilight's now prone form, "continued refusal to comply will be met with fatal retribution."

"Fatal retribution?" Pinkie giggled even as she continued to struggle, "seriously? That's what you're going with?" she gave another little giggle-snort and raised her head enough to look at the soldier with a wide smile, "did Mister Grimey Fetlocks tell you to say that? I bet he did, didn't he?"

Twilight cast a glance back at her giggling friend, then turned to Fluttershy. Fluttershy's only response so far had been to wordlessly snarl at the enemies she so clearly wanted to rip and tear into. The sight made her close her eyes smile a warm smile.

Soon, Fluttershy, soon. Just give it another moment...

"This is your last warning, intruder," the soldier continued, "submit yourself for transport and decontamination procedures."

"I'm sure this process works just fine for your average dissident back in the Crystal Empire or Equestria or wherever you guys are usually stationed," Twilight finally replied, "and maybe it would've even worked here if we were just simple, normal, terrified little ponies, but—"

Twilight's eyes snapped open and, with an almost manic smile, she set her horn ablaze once more. This time, rather than being forced back into her wellspring, the void black aura wavered and warped, but did not disappear. She may not have known much about how her new body worked, but magic was something Twilight understood very well, and the dark variety was no exception.

Dark magic was powerful, but it was also one of the most difficult forms of magic to control. Given the glow of dark magic in each of the soldier's eyes, it was obvious that they were working together to keep Twilight and her friends detained. It was only a guess, but Twilight imagined that the strain would've been too much for one single pony otherwise.

She didn't know the particulars, but Twilight was willing to bet her own wellspring that the soldier's use of dark magic was an extremely delicate balancing act. One doesn't simply force a non-unicorn to use unicorn magic without consequences, especially if dark magic was involved.

With all of that in mind, the solution had become simple, if risky. All Twilight had to do was push back against the suppression of her magic long enough for the robot-like soldiers to lose control of their dark magic. Under normal circumstances and if the soldiers in question were dealing with normal ponies, this plan would've been laughable.

With Twilight being who and what she was, however...

"Whoo! Go, Twilight!" Pinkie cried, cheering her friend on from behind with bloodthirsty fervor.

Sensing a change in their favor, Fluttershy began fighting harder than ever to break free. Twilight ignored them both, focusing all her energy on pumping out as much of her tainted magic as possible as fast and as forcefully as possible. The pain was almost unbearable, but the promised satisfaction once she broke free was enough to spur her on regardless.

She smiled through the pain because even in her agony she could see the fruits of her labor paying off. She'd used the soldier's own suppression method like a dam, her magic acting like a flooding river with nowhere to go. She'd built up more and more and more magic within her wellspring until it was full to bursting.

Having released it all in one single wave, it was all the soldier could do to hold back the tide of magic. The strain was visible even beneath all that armor, and to Twilight's delight, she could see the other soldiers beginning to buckle under the same pressure.

The air around Twilight and the soldiers began to twist and warp. Twilight, though wanting to scream for the pain, could go on for a while yet, but the soldiers weren't fairing too well anymore. Their eyes burned brighter and brighter, their bodies twitching and shaking and shuddering with effort.

Their breaths started to come in ragged gasps as they tried to hold out until at last, with a loud electrical crack,the stalemate broke, and the pony before Twilight crumpled to the ground. As if in response, all the other soldiers staggered, stumbled, or otherwise faltered, crying out in pain and surprise all the while.

With their focus broken, the magic holding the girls down vanished and none of them wasted any more time. With a mad cackle that was equal parts agonized and triumphant, Twilight reached out to the fallen soldier. Her outstretched hooves shot forward, shifting into black tendrilsand wrapping around the stallion's torso with a wet schlorp.

The tendrils grew and multiplied impaling the soldier as she pulled him into the gaping, tooth fill maw that was now the entire front half of her body. The poor stallion came to just in time to see that giant maw snap shut around his face.

In that instant, his mind had once more become his own. The naked fear and unbelievable pain had dominated the magical chip in his brain for the briefest of moments. Radiant Ruby only had time to cough out large gouts of blood before those monstrous jaws snapped shut and he knew no more.

The moment Pinkie was free, she set to work, giving in to the Voice as it reminded her that they only needed three of the soldiers. She leapt up, spun around, and snapped out a blackened hoof, punching a hole through both the helmet and face of the pony behind her.

Holding the stallion up, she let the tendrils in her leg consume the body before dashing forward to grab another dazed and hapless soldier. With a slight shift of her legs and a twist of her barrel, Pinkie spun about and flung the pony over her shoulder, sending him screaming past the facility's perimeter defenses and into the magical mortar's crossfire.

With no wings and no way to stop his momentum, the lasers made short work of the stallion, the searing heat leaving nothing of the previously brainwashed soldier behind. The viral pink mare turned to continue her grim work but found that, as quickly as she'd finished her victims, Fluttershy had already beat her to her next target.

With a terrible roar, Fluttershy had all but launched herself off the ground and toward the nearest soldier once she was free. Her prey had been defanged and was ripe for the slaughter, a fact that her chosen target apparently seemed to pick up on far more quickly than the others had.

With a horrified scream, the stallion threw off his helmet and tried to flee, but only got a few hooffalls in before Fluttershy was on him. The enraged mare bore him down to the ground, pounding with blackened hooves that shifted into vicious claws she used to rip into flesh.

Fangs bit into his scalp and countless tendrils spilled from Fluttershy's mane to envelop the gurgling soldier's head. There was no grace or method to the massacre, just an uncontrollable need to kill and consume. And kill and consume Fluttershy did, taking everything from the stallion who hadn't even remembered who or knew where he was and what he was getting himself into.

Thanks to the soldier she'd consumed, Twilight had recovered from both her brief bout of mania and the magical backlash and subsequent drain she herself had suffered. Now she was back in control and wondering how to deal with the last remaining soldier she'd captured.

Seeing his fellow soldiers brutally massacred one after the other, he'd tried to sneak away, but hadn't gotten very far when Twilight snatched him up. Now he was pinned to the ground trapped beneath Twilight's magic just as she and the other girls had been only moments ago.

"It looks like the blowback from your failed suppression spell had an interesting side effect," Twilight frowned, tapping a hoof to her chin as she watched the whimpering soldier, "to be honest I hadn't expected you all to regain your senses."

"P-Please, oh sweet Celestia, Please don't eat me!" the soldier wailed, "Please, I... I don't know what's goin' on here, I just... I'm sorry! Whatever it was—wh-whatever I did, I didn't mean it, I... I—"

"Oh I know it wasn't your fault," Twilight interjected with a sympathetic shake of her head, "some of it is a bit hazy because of what the implants did to your mind, but I think I have a better grasp on a few things that were bugging me now."

"W-Wait, I... I know you," the stallion suddenly paused, a strange expression coming over his face as he looked Twilight up and down, "ain't you... ain't you Twilight Sparkle? Y-Yeah, you're Twilight Sparkle! You're supposed to be..."

He swallowed and looked to the other two. Pinkie stood by, uncharacteristically impassive as she waited for Twilight's judgment. Fluttershy stood to one side, her eyes blank as she stared off into the distance at something only she could see.

"You're the Elements of Harmony," he swallowed again as he turned back to a frowning Twilight, "y-you're supposed to be dead, the lot of you. Sombra, he made a big stink about it. He—"

The stallion's words devolved into screams of terror and agony as Twilight took the magic in her wellspring, clamped down, and twisted. The magic holding the stallion in place shifted in response, the pitch-black aura warping and solidifying into a mass of black tentacles that wrapped around the stallion, cutting off his screams.

As she began pushing the Voice back down—a much easier task now that the fighting was done—Pinkie's eyes widened in awe. To her, it looked like the cocoon of tentacles began to shrink in on itself, growing smaller and smaller until it vanished entirely.

"Well that was a neat trick," she commented as she made her way over to where Twilight stood, "how'd you pull that off? Where'd he go? Did you crush him out of existence or something?"

"Just a little experiment is all. We can talk about what happened and what we learned later," Twilight replied, very much wanting to change the subject. The troubled frown on her face eased only slightly as she addressed the curious mare, "how's Fluttershy?"

Pinkie gave a small frown of her own and after a tentative glance in Fluttershy's direction, the two approached the spacey pegasus.

"Fluttershy?" Twilight tried, "are you okay?"

At first, there was no response and the mare simply continued to stare blankly past the two. Both Pinkie and Twilight eyed each other nervously for a second, but thankfully they didn't have to wait too long for a change. With a blink, Fluttershy's dull gaze cleared and she focused a somber gaze on the other two girls.

"Is it weird that I can still taste the blood?"

Twilight blinked, frowned, opened her mouth to reply, then shut it when she realized she didn't know how to answer the question. She instead looked to Pinkie for an answer, but the other mare just shrugged, not sure what to make of the question either. Fluttershy just gave a weary sigh.

"I'll be fine, girls," she assured with a genuine if tired smile, "I guess this just... takes a lot out of me mentally. I think it'd be best if we moved on for now."

"You sure?" Pinkie asked worriedly, "you don't look so good, maybe we should—"

"No, Pinkie," Fluttershy cut in more firmly, "the sooner we go in and get what we need, the sooner we can help stop this madness from infecting anyone else," she grimaced, "I wouldn't wish this nightmare on my worst enemy."

The other two mares gave each other one last concerned glance and Pinkie shrugged.

"Fair enough," she exclaimed, "so how do we do this? Just..." she frowned, tongue poked to one side as she focused on shifting forms to the soldier she'd consumed armored barding and all, "there we go! How this?"

She spun about with a fashionable flourish that would've made Rarity proud. Twilight, however, just furrowed her brow as she inspected Pinkie's transformation.

"Try this," she instructed, shifting her own form and bringing focus to the glowing eyes behind her visor, "you missed the eyes."

"Oh, pfft," Pinkie scoffed, rolling her now eerily lambent eyes, "silly me, how could I forget the glow-in-the-dark eyeballs?"

"Is this okay?"

Fluttershy's guise was spot on from what Twilight and Pinkie could see. With a satisfied nod, Twilight began making for the silver dome, motioning for the other two to follow after her.

"Fluttershy is right, the sooner we get this done, the better," she began, "we can talk about it all after everything is said and done, but for now, just follow my lead and don't say a word once we get there."

Author's Note

Alternate title: Massacre-ade.