The Purifier

Act 2: Battles of Minds and Worlds
Chapter 5: Dolor in Depravity

I can’t have lost. I can’t have, not after getting so far. They can’t have won with their cheap tactics and utter naiveté, after having everything given to them.

My body may be taken, my mind may be trapped, but I have not lost, no matter what anypony may say. And they do say it often.

I hear the cheers and jeers of the nobles and servants as my body walks into Canterlot Castle, from those who celebrate the princesses’ ‘victory’ and those who utterly despise my existence. I find their zealous demeanors and their lewd bodies repulsive, though my gaze is attracted to them, via the will of the corruption in my body. The princesses walk behind me with expressions that show their relief at my capture, their joy at their reclaimed freedom, and their hatred of my life. However, Celestia in particular has a mocking look on her face, as if she knows what I’m going through, and truth be told, she probably does.

My disbelief made me lose focus of my goals, but it did not last. I soon found myself focusing on the loathing I felt for all of these madmares, the pain they have wrought upon myself and those I love, their lack of care for anything or even anypony good. I took hold of those emotions and used them to fuel my resistance, trying desperately to wrench myself free of this unholy trapping, with my efforts not quite in vain. I could feel the occasional twitch in my body, a spark of my magic, a sharp pain in my mind, all signifying that escape is not futile.

I kept pulling more pain and hatred from my past, all the while finding it complimented in the present, furthering my emotions to heights worthy of only the darkest of magic, yet I still could not break free. My body was led through the castle an into a ceremony that was to make me part of the royal guard, specifically an ultimate member meant for hunting, and then into a celebration of unfathomable lewdness, both only adding to my rage. Yet even with my body being made to follow the exact opposite of my ideology in the most extreme ways, I was still restrained.

After that debauchery, my body was led up to the room it was to stay, located directly across from Luna’s room- no doubt more taunting by Celestia- and contained a four-poster bed, huge wardrobe, large chandelier, opulent washroom, and more than twenty times more space than my trailer had. In short, it was ridiculously excessive and megalomaniacal, but that didn’t stop my body from taking it in stride, sauntering on into the room and hopping onto the bed before stripping off my clothes quickly and laying down in an attempt to go to sleep.

However, sleep would no easily be found for the corruption controlling my body, as it seems my incessant mental thrashing unsettled it, keeping it awake. The exhaustion of the day did slowly begin to take over though, blurring the senses in a manner that may usually feel pleasant, but to me it felt suffocating. My mind was running faster than my body, tossing about in a constricting void where I could not see or hear, with nothing but a blazing heat about me to remind me of the pain that encompasses my life.

I found myself standing up while shackled tightly to a wall in a pitch-black room, the cold feeling on my backside and the stale air letting me know I was bereft of my clothing within a dungeon of sorts. I attempted to light my horn, yet magic didn’t even begin to flow on it. The feeling I usually have of my horn seemed mostly gone, and what was left was short and jagged, meaning my horn- my very catalyst of magic- was broken.

Such a revelation would generally incite fear and depression into any unicorn or alicorn (with Sparkle probably going to suicidal levels), but I could immediately tell something was off, as the last thing I remember before being here was a ceremony where I was given a position because of my magical prowess. So either the ceremony was some elaborate ploy to get my body to drop its guard, which doesn’t make sense given they already have full control of it, I was foalnapped when I was sleeping, which would be nigh-impossible given my body’s physiological paranoia, or the corruption placed on me did not even give me control within my dreams.

No matter how much I wish it weren’t true, it seems the evidence is unmistakable.

“This isn’t real,” I noted as I made the conclusion, though further thoughts were interrupted a blinding light erupting from a decent ways in front of me, making me have to clench my eyes shut and look away.

“This is real!” A familiar voice exclaimed from where the light was, though I couldn’t currently place it given the distracting situation. “Well, at least as real as you make it,” The voice finished as my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw the dark stone of the room with a rectangular aperture of light several meters ahead of me, with a unicorn silhouette in it.

Said unicorn stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, the room still somehow being lit up, also somehow keeping the other mare pitch black. “Cool the stuff you can do with dreams, isn’t it?” She said, her voice seeming so familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place it. “Oh, right; you’re probably wondering who I am,” She said, putting her hands at her hips. “Well, it’s simple. I’m you.” With that, the blackness faded from her, showing her to indeed be myself. Same coat, mane, and voice, the only reason I couldn’t place it before was because of her particularly modern enunciation and utterly gall-replete tone.

“You’re not me,” I stated with a scowl.

The fake Trixie merely smirked, replying with, “Maybe not, but that doesn’t matter. After all, you’re trapped here. Forever.”

“No,” I said tersely. “I’m not.”

“Well, yes, technically not,” She responded blithely. “You will die at some point, and so will I... unless they make you an alicorn, I suppose,” She continued, looking up in thought as I stared at her callously. “And they might just do that! I mean you are their ultimate hunter and would be useful for a very long time, and would be even better with more power and wings...” Her gaze returned to me, and seeing my dull expression, she exclaimed, “What?!”

“I meant,” I replied slowly while continuing to glower at the other mare, “That I will escape from this. No matter what you say, no matter what the princesses or anypony says, I will get out of this prison. And I will purify the world.”

The other Trixie scoffed at that and responded with incredulity, “Oh, come off it! You’re in denial! Getting out of this is impossible!”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try my damnest to do so.”

We devolved into a silence where we merely stared at each other, I with determination and conviction, she with chutzpah and disbelief as she tapped her bare foot in thought. “Why?” She asked after several moments. “Why do you do this? Why do try so hard to do something so clearly difficult?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to do this?” I asked in response, getting a confused look from the corrupt pony. “Why wouldn’t I want to purify the world, to cleanse it of those who take advantage of others for their own sexual gratification, to eliminate those who care not for true worth, to make it better, for those who actually deserve it?”

“To have a better life maybe?” She replied, her tone rather perplexed. “To leave most ponies alone so they can have fun and, you know, live?”

“Most ponies take far more of others’ life to leave them deserving of their own. And as for myself,” I continued, sighing heavily, “I care not for what happens to myself; I would go through Tartarus and back to ensure good ponies have good lives.”

The fake me didn’t respond to that, instead staring at me again in disbelief and thought for a while before sighing. “This isn’t working... Apparently I can’t get logic through your thick skull!” She exclaimed as she turned around and walked back to the door. “It’s not like it matters anyway; convincing you of the truth isn’t my job, after all,” She added while opening and going through the door, then closed it, the room changing back to black.

That dream was certainly the tamest I had at the castle, as every night after, I had not a dream, but a nightmare. These nightmares were famiciles of my past, twisted and distorted to be even worse, with sex and pain at levels that could only be described as ungodly. I suppressed those memories as best I was able to during the days, where I was truly made to be a hunter, given assignments by the royals to arrive at specific locations within Equestria and find the pure ponies there, then capture and threaten them into submission, leaving their mind ripe for the taking by a cloaked mage named Sortilege Sloe that accompanied me.

I will always remember the looks on their faces when I confront them; the utter terror, sadness, and hopelessness as they see the mocking smirk written on my body’s face that showed them my failure, letting them know that any retaliation is completely futile. I tried so many times to escape from this madness, taking the blazing rage I felt for the abominations of ponies that capture me and turning it onto my confines, burning and warping them to what should have utterly ionized them, yet they still stood. I am truly impressed by the power of this corruption, but far moreso disappointed and disgusted at what they used that power to do.

The flames of my anger burned ever brighter with each mental entrapment, with no chance to go out due to the nigh-unlimited fuel I have for it, and being left to stew as my body rested either in the castle or on the trips to and from my assigned locations. Those trips weren’t purely myself and the corrupting mage though, as some guards were on the missions with me for insurance.

More and more missions were assigned, making my body help capture more and more pure ponies’ minds for months, letting the emotions they instilled into me drive me to madness. And so, when I was assigned a city in Neighpan, I continued to seethe from the utter depravity I was forced into, unknowing of just what would be different there.

My body was leaning over the edge of the large carriage as it was flown through the mid-afternoon sky, the relatively tame noises of Prench kisses and muffled moans flooding my ears as my eyes kept scanning the surroundings, looking for its next target. The chasteness of the situation, and my body’s in particular, was because we needed to keep watch for anypony that would try to escape the hunters’ wrath, as sometimes they attempted to flee as soon as they saw the carriage approaching.

I basked in the not quite infernal pain of the situation while my body kept watch, seeming to be subconsciously enjoying the lewd background noise, until a small portside town came into my view. “There it is,” My body said as a smirk came onto my mouth, continuing to steadily watch the town for any frantic inhabitants.

The guards drawing the carriage lowered their angle while the two others and the mage inside paused their ministrations. “Oh, really?” Sloe asked in a tone that implied she wasn’t fully paying attention.

My body nodded and replied coolly, “We’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

“M’kay,” The reply came, with those lewd, scathing noises resuming afterwards. My eyes were still set on the town though, my body seeming to be appreciative of the numerous sexual acts being done in the streets, but I felt a burning pain that still scorched me even while I’ve long since gotten used to it.

The carriage continued to descend towards the town, taking not too long before it landed on the outskirts and my body opened a door and hopped out, landing on a dirt path amidst tall shrubbery with a scent of the ocean moderately noticeable through the heavy stench of sex I pretty much filtered out at this point. My body walked towards the town and saw a sign near the entrance written in a language I didn’t understand, most likely Neighpanese, with shouts in the same language amidst the sounds of sex I have grown to loathe emanating from within.

After a moment, I heard footsteps behind me, and my head turned slightly to see Sloe walking up to me, clad in her usual black cloak as opposed to the obsidian-coloured half-t-shirt that seemed more like a bra with how it accentuated my cleavage along with matching jean shorts and leggings my body wore. “Hiroshimane,” The mage said, faintly gesturing to the town before us. My eyes drifted further back to see the two guards that didn’t pull the carriage trailing a bit further behind, though likely not so because of their heavy golden armour.

“The Princesses said that there’s only a few here,” The cloaked pony added as my body turned back and started walking further to the town, the others following it.

“‘Course there is,” My body quipped, “In small places like these, there’s so much freedom and connectivity that the ponies here would’ve already ridded most others of their purity. Makes our job a lot easier.”

The town soon came around us with bright light coming from my right in the nearly cloudless sky, reflecting across the shimmering waters, slightly tainted though they were, and illuminating the sparse sepia-toned buildings amidst dirt streets and tall bamboo around us, the loudening sounds of ‘friendship’ supposedly finishing the picture. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” The words came from my mouth, my resentment for them notwithstanding.

“It truly is!” Sloe said from a few paces behind me. “The lovely mix of chaos and peace only attainable by nature, bereft of all the dull mattes the pure heathens wish to impart upon us!” She exclaimed, my body turning to walk backwards to see the cloaked pony raising her arms and spinning around slowly.

A short chuckle escaped my lips before they replied, “Eloquence isn’t your thing, Sorts.”

The other pony put her arms down and let out a short laugh of her own. “Oh, I know,” She responded mirthfully, “It’s the pures. They polish their garbage faith up with fancy words to make it seem more important and truthful. It’s ‘The grey beneath the silver,’ As they say.”

“Don’t I know it,” My body said while it turned back around, only to find a calm-looking building a ways down the street. “Let’s start here,” It continued, keeping the single-story house in view as it slightly accelerated its pace.

When they all finally arrived at the front door to the house, Sloe began again, “So, how do you want to do this?”

“Hm?” My body replied quizzically as its head turned towards the mage, the other guards with us doing the same.

“Like, do you want to go all, ‘Konichiwa, prepare to get fucked, nerds!’ Or, what?” The mage responded enthusiastically, emphasizing the quote with a fighting stance.

The other ponies stared for a minute before my body replied, “...Does it matter?”

“Of course it does!” Sloe exclaimed, “We haven’t been in Neighpan, after all!”

“I... don’t see how that’s relevant...” My body said, mystified.

“It’s for emphasis!” The excitable mage shouted, thrusting her arms above her head, raising one of my eyebrows. “We need to make a good impression. I mean, culture is different here, and ponies are gonna respond differently to what we do...” She trailed off with a gesture for use to figure out the rest.

My body merely blinked as it looked back, staying unmoving for several seconds before an exasperated sigh was released as my eyes closed, my head then tilting downwards. “You two,” My body started, pointing to the guards, “Go,” My finger then gestured to the door.

I could then hear footsteps moving towards the door, then a grunt by one of the guards and a loud smash, quickly followed by a scream in a voice that I found... familiar. My body seemed to as well, turning its head to and looking through the smashed open door, squinting slightly in thought as it looked at the guards cornering somepony under a desk, though they were hardly visible because of the dim lighting. My body then shook its head and looked at Sloe, who looked back with confusion.

My head was then quickly flicked to the side to gesture the mage inside, with my body soon following her. My eyes glanced around the slightly cramped room, observing a bed in the far-right corner, a desk and bookshelf on the other side, a wardrobe on my right near the door, drawn curtains over windows on my left and the far wall. My orchid magic was then used to open the curtains, showing the colour of the room to be of dim reds, blues, and purples; once again striking me as familiar for a reason I don’t know.

My mind and body’s attention were pulled back to the desk when the cloaked pony standing before it announced, “Hiding won’t get you very far, you know.”

My body took a couple steps forward and listened to the whimpering, eyes twitching in thought as it and myself attempted to place the voice, but to no avail. Shaking its head, my body commanded, “Bring her out.”

The guards then leaned down to crab the crying mare by the arms and pulled her out, Sloe stepping to the side to let me look at a terrified dim blue unicorn with a dim red swoop of a mane... wait...

‘M-mother?!’