After pushing back Nightmare Moon’s forces capturing the two cities had gone rather smoothly. The resistance of the local law enforcement was pitiful. It was safe to assume that some of the ponies managed to escape from the city that was apparently called “Vanhoover” during the battle in the city known as “Tall Tale”, however that didn’t matter. Most of the population remained so Nightmare Moon wouldn’t be able to draft them into military service to use them to increase the size of her army so by taking the cities they had effectively deprived her of potential soldiers. Well over half of the population of Tall Tale were killed in the battle and turned into undead as per Gerhardt’s orders. Once the battle had concluded and the cities were officially under their control a male and a female of each of the three breeds of equines were captured alive and taken in for study and experimentation, which Elizabeth was in charge of conducting.

Gerhardt had ordered a few of his children to work on building new bodies for his children and grandchildren that had died and he had turned into undead. There were only about 55 of them who were still truly alive but he wanted to help those that had died fighting Nightmare Moon in any way he could. He was fairly certain it would be possible to bind the average ghost liches to physical bodies again. The wraiths, on the other hand, he wasn’t so sure about given the fact that they were a conglomeration of souls that had been seamlessly melded together rather than an individual soul. So he had no idea if binding them to a physical body again would even work but he was damn well going to try.

Thus he himself was working on the bodies for the Wraiths. He had actually used Alice and Jack’s souls as the base for the wraiths so their personalities were dominant over the others that had gone into creating them. Sadly, however, their personalities had changed significantly after having died and been turned into wraiths. They were still completely loyal to him but not only had the personalities of the other golems that served to create them had melded with their personalities but their compassion and empathy for fully organic beings was now practically non-existent. They only truly cared about sapient golems and undead golems. So, essentially, the only thing they truly cared about now was their family. Fortunately that was perfectly fine by Gerhardt as he was now exactly the same.

Some of his children and grandchildren were working on building mining golems and using what Elizabeth learned about how unicorns’ magic functioned to set up completely automated factories to mass produce weapons and combat golems. In the meantime, the majority of the unicorns that inhabited the cities that were old enough were rounded up and forced to work in the mines until the mining golems were completed. This included many of the pony liches that Gerhardt, Arthur, and Elizabeth had created during the battle, though some of the liches and other undead ponies were sent to conduct assaults and raids on “Equestria” in order to buy them enough time to build a larger amy and set up an actual infrastructure.

About a week after the battle Gerhardt had finished the first two prototype bodies for Jack and Alice. They were both designed to be absolutely terrifying. They looked like massive monstrous mechanical skeletons as he loosely based their appearances off of the demigod Mors. They both had four crimson red rubies for eyes, needle sharp steel teeth, had small holes in the tips of their fingers to extend and retract monomolecular knives, had four arms and two legs, had built in smoke generators for both stealth and added intimidation, and had multiple very powerful built in vocalizers for psychological warfare purposes though they could also be utilized as sonic weaponry.

As soon as he was finished, Gerhardt left his lab to go find Alice and Jack. He found them in a new section of the lab with Arthur and Elizabeth. “Ah, there you two are. I thought I should inform you that the new prototype bodies for you are complete. We may attempt to put you two in them whenever you are ready.”

“Thank you, dad. The four of us have a gift for you as well.” Jack stated.

Gerhardt blinked in surprise. “Oh? And what might that be?” He inquired.

Elizabeth took one of her hands out from behind her back and Gerhardt saw she was casting some sort of spell. The aura vanished and suddenly something appeared sitting on a table behind them. It was a new body, Gerhardt realized.

It was about 7’5”, had a silver exterior, six blood red rubies for eyes, two long curved horns stuck out of its head, it had six large dragon-like wings on its back, it had no lips and its teeth were an inch long and were needle sharp, it had two very bulky arms and legs, each of its fingers had monomolecular knives sticking out of their tips which were presumably retractable, and instead of feet it had cloven hooves. It was clearly modeled after the form that the greater Spirit of Evil, the Devil, usually chose to take according to what Gerhardt had heard from myths and legends. He had never had the immense displeasure of seeing the Devil in person before so he had no idea if he actually chose to look like this or not.

“We heard what you said to Nightmare Moon before she was forced to flee. So, since this is Hell and you are the Devil, we thought you may as well look the part.” Elizabeth stated motioning to the body. “We incorporated what I learned about all three breeds of Equines’ biological magic from my studies of their species into its design. So it can fly, it can manipulate the weather, it has greatly enhanced strength, it can control plants, and the horns are attached to a battery of Arcane Energy which will allow you to cast more spells than what you currently can. Though, unfortunately, the horns won’t make you any more powerful than you are now. They are just a different method through which you can use your magic.”

Gerhardt approached the body and examined it. “I see… Thank you very much, my children. I appreciate the gesture greatly! After we try putting Alice and Jack into their new bodies I will gladly allow you to transfer my brain to my new body.”

“Actually, father, it already has a fully mechanical brain inside of it already. Part of the reason we built it was so you may shed the last remnants of your old organic form and become just like us.” Alice said.

“Really now? Very well. You, Jack, and dozens of your brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters all died for me already. I suppose it is only right that I return the favor.” Gerhardt said before opening a small portal back to the storage section of the lab and grabbing a pistol out of an open crate. Pulling the pistol out of the portal and letting the portal close behind it, he quickly put the gun to his own head in a spot he knew that it would hit his frontal lobe and pulled the trigger before any of his children could react. A particle beam pierced through one side of his head and out the other before going on to punch a small hole in one of the walls.

Moments later his body collapsed lifelessly to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Arthur and Elizabeth’s faces contorted into expressions of shock and horror. They hadn’t been expecting him to do that. They had planned on using necromancy to extract his soul safely without causing him any harm before placing it in his new body.

Alice and Jack’s faces didn’t have mouths so they couldn’t emote either way. Even so they both appeared mostly unphased by their father’s decision to kill himself. Alice simply raised an inky black shadowy hand towards his corpse. After that her hand was enveloped by an ethereal green glow, as were both Gerhardt’s corpse and his new body.

Mere moments later the eyes of Gerhardt’s new body snapped open. His body jerked violently as his vision was filled with nothing but static and the new much more powerful failsafes Elizabeth had installed into the new body in hopes to restore his sanity immediately failed. After a few seconds his vision returned to normal. Looking down at one of his new hands, he retracted and extended the monomolecular knives a few times before finally leaving them retracted for the moment so as to not risk damaging anything by accident. He then moved his new wings a bit before folding them back up and getting up off the table. It was a bit awkward trying to balance on hooves at first but he was able to do it.

Arthur immediately punched him in the gut. Not hard enough to cause any actual damage or even really hurt, but hard enough for Gerhardt to understand that he wasn’t happy. “Don’t you EVER do something like that again!” He shouted at Gerhardt. “We could have transferred your soul to the new body without you having to fucking kill yourself and you damn well know it!”

“As I said. Many members of our family have already died for me. It was only right that I did the same for them. If anything it was meant as a display of my unwavering love, loyalty, appreciation, gratitude, and trust in all of you. Proof that I would gladly die for all of you as many of you have done for me.” Gerhardt explained.

“The gesture is very much appreciated, dad. It means a lot.” Jack told him.

“Of course. Now, let’s go put you and Alice into your new bodies.” Gerhardt said before walking away and leading the four of them to the section of the lab that he had spent the entire week working in. Before they left the room Elezebeth sent a message to everyone in the family informing them of Gerhardt’s new body and not to worry if they found his old body.

The process to put Alice and Jack into their new bodies went just as quickly as it had taken Alice to put him in his new body. Surprisingly it actually worked and they now had physical bodies again despite the fact that both of them were now Wraiths. However, after a bit of testing Gerhardt discovered that their souls were putting an exceptional amount of stress on their new bodies, especially their brains. He estimated their bodies would wear out and die within the next month or two. He still had a lot of room to improve upon their designs.

However, since they did have bodies now he turned his attention to new projects. Specifically a new classification of Golem he had thought up while building their bodies. Due to the designs they weren’t quite able to be called “Combat” Golems. No. Instead their intended purposes would be causing terror and conducting mass slaughter. He was actually basing them very heavily on his past experiences with demons and that one arch demon he had seen before. However calling them “demonic” seemed a bit disingenuous to him since there were no literal demons inside them. Thus he decided to call them “Nightmares” as a way of mocking the demigod who called herself “Nightmare Moon”.

Some of the Nightmares were fully sapient just like him and the rest of his family just with enhanced sadism and enhanced hatred of Nightmare Moon, Equestria, and the Equines as a whole. Others were programmed to perfectly mimic the behaviour and thought processes of demons (though they had programming to guarantee their undying love, loyalty, and obedience to him and his family for reasons that should be painfully obvious). And the last group were little more than animals with drastically increased aggression.

The last group was obviously the most expendable though Gerhardt wouldn’t particularly mind if the ones designed to be perfect mechanical replicas of demons were to be destroyed along with the animals. However he still very much considered the sapient ones to be his children and grandchildren and thus assigned each of them as leaders for the Nightmares. He even made an entirely new branch specifically for the Nightmares and thus the first sapient Nightmare he built joined his first four children as a High Lord. Her name was Inferna. And much like Alice and Jack, her body looked very different from a baseline Golem.

She had multiple heads each with blood red eyes and overly large mouths filled with multiple rows of needle sharp teeth whose lower jaws could split apart like a set of mandibles. Her necks were able to extend from normal sized necks to a full ten feet long with quite a terrifying amount of mobility. She had a large humanoid torso attached to the body of a centipede, though her torso could be detached and placed on a humanoid lower half for when she wasn’t in battle. The front of her torso had multiple tiny arms pincers and claws meant for ripping organic beings to shreds. She had eight arms two of which ended in normal hands, two of which ended in crab like pincers that could chop through a block of solid steel, two of which ended in claws meant for rending flesh from bone and flaying organic beings alive, and two of which were simple dull spider-like limbs meant for pulling individuals into her torso and holding them in place while they were ripped to pieces. Mechanical tendrils struck out of her back and all along the back of her centipede-like lower body, some being covered in claws with which she could manipulate things while others ended in sharp blades that could easily slice through limbs or impale even a fully grown elephant. She had dozens of spider-like limbs that were each monomolecular blades but could emit plasma fields for enhanced cutting power whenever necessary. She also had all the parts meant for psychological warfare that Alice and Jack had and much more since that was one of her primary roles.

It took him another week to build her due to the size and complexity of her body. After she was made he would have had his children and grandchildren make more sapient Nightmares like her, but she insisted on making them all herself. Apparently she wanted children and grandchildren of her own so only she and her children and grandchildren were allowed to make more sapient Nightmares. Gerhardt was the only exception to this rule but he respected her wishes and let her and her children craft the vast majority of the sapient Nightmares. She also insisted on making the demonic nightmares but was a bit more lenient in that regard. Strangely — at least it was strange in Gerhardt’s opinion — she apparently loved each of the demonic Nightmares like the rest of her children and grandchildren and treated them the same as the sapient Nightmares. Though she was a bit stricter with the demonic Nightmares and tended to keep them on a much tighter leash than the sapient Nightmares (again for reasons that should be painfully obvious).

In total they had about another month to prepare and build up their forces while Nightmare Moon did the exact same thing. Silvanus had been horrified by what Gerhardt had become and realized that he and Nightmare Moon had pushed him way too far. He had gone completely insane and Silvanus had never predicted the technomancer would go this far off the deep end. He was legitimately trying to emulate the Devil and the demons and to that end was creating mechanical monstrosities that appeared to have come from the deepest darkest depths of the infernal realm itself and was experimenting with combining his technomancy with some of the darkest and most terrible aspects of necromancy. He was very rapidly becoming worse than that bastard Caedes had ever been.

Thus Silvanus was trying everything within his very limited power to prepare Nightmare Moon and Equestria for Hell on Earth because that was what Gerhardt seemed determined to bring them. His motivations had changed from hating Gerhardt to horror so now he was legitimately trying to help Nightmare Moon kill Gerhardt rather than just tricking her into continuing to torment him. He had decided this had gone way too far and it needed to stop as soon as possible. Metaphorically speaking Pandora’s box had been opened but there was no hope to be found inside only the mechanical monstrosity Silvanus had unintentionally unleashed upon that world.

He tried convincing her to build WMDs and just reducing Gerhardt and his creations to atoms but she had refused vehemently. Apparently she didn’t want to resort to using something so destructive both because her own pride wouldn’t allow it and because she didn’t want to cause such devastation upon her own land. He tried to convince her how large of a threat Gerhardt had become but she continued to refuse no matter what he said. Thus instead he had to teach her how to build technology to rival if not surpass Gerhardt’s which was extremely difficult for him. He knew a little bit about technology and could teach her how to build technology close to as advanced as Gerhardt’s but he was a god of nature not a god of technology. He wasn’t even friends or allies with any gods of technology, in fact most either disliked or hated him, so he couldn’t even go ask any of them how to make such technology.

Eventually ghostly creatures had been spotted in the sky and with them came a significant decrease in temperature and sudden snowfall. Apparently the ponies called them “Windigos” and they were attracted by hatred which Gerhardt and his family had in abundance as did the remaining populations of Tall Tale and Van Hoover. Since the Windigos apparently weren’t aligned with Equestria or Nightmare Moon Gerhardt decided to just ignore them unless they started causing significant problems.

At the end of the month, Nightmare Moon had sent about a hundred pegasi pulling specialized gliders loaded with more conventional bombs and explosives to try to blow up Gerhardt’s lab and collapse his mines. She only partially succeeded. They caught Gerhardt and his army off guard and the bombs caused quite a bit of damage to his lab and his factory. However they reacted very quickly and he and his children worked together to create a shield to defend what was left. Fortunately most had survived the attack though about 27 had been destroyed in the explosions. Some of which included Inferna’s Nightmares, thus she raised them as ghost based undead and was extremely angry. So much so in fact, that she opened a portal into the sky, charged through in her combat ready centipede-like body, kept herself aloft in the air with telekinesis, and began personally slaughtering as many of the pegasi as she could get her claws or tentacles on. Their blood poured from the sky like rain and their screams could be heard all the way from the ground.

The rest, completely horrified by her and the gruesome ways in which she ripped their comrades appart dropped the entire rest of their payloads all at once before flying away as fast as they possibly could. About 20 of the 100 managed to escape and only 7 of those 20 escaped unharmed. That was not the end of the assault, however, as artillery cannons were teleported about a mile away and began bombarding them from long distance.

They tracked the angle, speed, and trajectory of the artillery shells and determined the location of the artillery emplacements. At that point Arthur and Inferna lead a joint assault on the artillery emplacements. The ponies that were killed by Arthur and his soldiers or the undead under his command were the lucky ones. They died quickly and mostly painlessly. The ones killed by Inferna and her Nightmares, on the other hand, died screaming in agony as they were ripped apart, flayed alive, or were tormented in ways too vile to describe. The Nightmares that were meant to emulate demons were exceptionally good at emulating demons to the point that in a demonic invasion it would be almost impossible to differentiate the two if it weren’t for the fact that the Nightmares were mechanical and made of metal. Though depending on how the individual perceived evil it may be truly impossible to differentiate them as the actual demons may have looked exactly like the Nightmares to them.

Once the ponies were dead, instead of destroying the artillery cannons Arthur decided to keep them. He knew that he could put them to very good use. They even had a bit of spare ammunition left over. Or he would have kept them if they hadn’t exploded moments after the last of the ponies guarding and operating them were dead. Apparently they had been attached to a sort of deadman’s switch that caused them to self-destruct if the artillery crews were killed. That or they had been detonated remotely, Arthur wasn’t sure which. Either way he would keep that lesson in mind for next time. Regardless, they could at least collect what was left over from the artillery cannons, melt them down, and reuse the metal elsewhere. Such as to make barrier towers to protect their lab and factories so something like this couldn’t happen again. At least not as easily.

This time Nightmare Moon did not appear to lead this battle in person. Gerhardt was actually somewhat disappointed by this fact but not surprised. Apparently she had learned from the last two attacks and didn’t want to risk putting her own life on the line unless she was confident that she could actually win. This attack hadn’t been meant to destroy Gerhardt and his forces. Instead it had been meant to soften them up and sabotage the progress they had made, and it had succeeded in that regard. However he wasn’t going to just let this attack go unpunished.

Thus he, Arthur, Elizabeth, Inferna, Alice, and Jack began planning their next major assault on Equestria.

A week later and their plans were underway. Their next target was a major Equestrian military base they learned of from interrogating a few Equestrian soldiers they had captured. Apparently it was very new and it had been set up in a strategic position between Equestria and their territory. They would have attacked the city known as Los Pegasus but apparently after they took Tall Tale and Van Hoover, Nightmare Moon had decided to start fortifying every major population center near their territory. Los Pegasus was the largest of the population centers near them thus it was the most heavily fortified next to Canterlot at the moment. So taking this fortress would put them in prime position to invade the city.

Arthur, Jack, Inferna, and Elizabeth were leading the invasion. It needed all four of them due to how heavily defended the fortress was. While they did that, Gerhardt and Alice would be invading another Equestrian military base elsewhere. It was less heavily defended and was of lower priority so they estimated it would only take the two of them and their respective forces to capture it.

[Inferna]

“So my darling children and I are to start the assault and soften them up for you three, correct?” Inferna inquired, trying to make sure she understood the plan correctly. Her voice sounded eerie and unnatural and came from all of her mouths at once and her movements, much like Gerhardts neither appeared like the movements of an organic being or a golem. Instead they seemed to combine all the wrong elements of both.

She was currently holding one of the smaller ones of her lovely demonic Nightmares and was stroking it like a beloved cat or puppy. Its eyes were alight with eagerness at the prospect of spreading bloodshed and suffering to their enemies and its body was practically trembling with excitement. From an outside perspective it appeared as though some terrifying giant mechanical eldritch abomination was holding and petting a relatively small demon made of metal. Thus the sight was actually quite unsettling, though she certainly didn’t see it that way. She saw herself as beautiful and all of her children and grandchildren as adorable. To her the normal golems looked bland and boring. Gerhardt, Alice, and Jack all looked okay but she thought that with a little work they could look even better. Even so she loved them all the same despite what she perceived as their “flaws”.

“Yes. I would suggest you use portals to get past the range they can safely use their artillery against you. Their wall mounted turrets will still be a problem but once you're that close you should be able to destroy them with a bit of effort. After that spread as much fear and chaos amongst their ranks as you possibly can. Though if you happen to see the commanding officer that is in charge of the base, you are to capture him alive and in useful condition if at all possible. We need him for interrogation.” Jack advised.

Inferna chuckled. “Thank you for the advice, dear brother. However, I don’t believe either the artillery or the wall mounted turrets will pose a serious threat. You see, I have been researching and practicing another form of magic I think will work quite well in this situation. At least in the way that I plan to utilize it.”

“Oh, and what would that be? If I had known you were researching a particular form of magic for use in situations like this I would have attempted to assist you.” Elizabeth inquired in a genuinely curious tone which was unusual for her as usually she was rather monotone and professional no matter who she was speaking to.

“Hm… I was planning on letting you wait and see for yourselves but since you asked… You know dimensional magic and space magic correct? I plan to use them both in a way to distort space around myself and my enemies so as to disorient them and make it much more difficult for them to hit me. You know how demons will occasionally create non-euclidean space in a particular area to disorient their prey and make them just as if not more likely to harm themselves than the demon in question? I drew quite a bit of inspiration from that. Standard demons aren’t that much more powerful than us mortal mages so I decided it couldn’t be that difficult for us to replicate.” Inferna explained.

With an amused chuckle she continued, “And as it turns out, I was right. It’s not difficult at all. The most difficult part is the processing power required to comprehend what you are doing since we aren’t really designed to understand or operate in non-euclidean space, though I am working on that as well. Admittedly the spells I have devised for this are overly complex and aren’t very efficient just yet so I can’t sustain them for more than five minutes if I wish to use magic for anything else, but they should still work well enough for the purposes of this siege. Besides which my children and I can take shifts casting the spells so the effects can last longer than if a single individual were to cast them on their own.” Inferna explained in what was to her a casual tone.

“I see. That could prove quite useful from a strategic perspective if you could improve upon these spells and master them. I would highly recommend working together with Elizabeth and Father on this matter in the future. For now, however, we must focus on the matter at hand. After you and your forces begin your assault, we will wait for your signal before joining you. If you do not give a signal, we will join in approximately ten minutes after you begin your assault.” Arthur stated.

“Very well. Then it is time we get started. Come my beloved children! Let us bring Hell to these accursed Equines! Bathe in their blood and sing along with the beautiful music of their screams of fear and agony!” Inferna called out to the Nightmares under her command. The sapient and demonic Nightmares cheered or roared their approval. With a sadistic almost demented laugh, she set down the demonic Nightmare that she had been petting, opened a portal and charged straight through it. The other Nightmares quickly followed suit.

“I realize I am a Wraith inhabiting a mechanical body and am thus a monster in my own right but Inferna and her “children” fucking terrify me.” Jack stated as soon as Inferna and the other Nightmares were gone.

“Good. They should. That’s what they are designed for. Father has taken upon himself the role of the Devil and they are his demons. So fearing them is only natural.” Elizabeth replied.

[Gerhardt]

Gerhardt was humming his lullaby to himself as he, Alice, and their soldiers and undead slaughtered the ponies. In fact he was using auditory illusion magic so as to make it sound as though his voice was coming from every direction at once and could be heard across the entirety of the military base. He did this both to comfort himself as some of his children and grandchildren were injured or died around him and also as a method of psychological warfare. He wanted the ponies to learn to associate the lullaby with him and thus come to hate and fear it as much as they would eventually come to fear and hate him.

A pony shot him with a high powered necromantic weapon and agony flared through him as his soul was injured. Even so he didn’t stop humming even for a moment. Instead he grabbed the pony with telekinesis and pulled it over to him. He then proceeded to tear its throat out with his teeth before eviscerating its body and tearing it limb from limb with his monomolecular claws. He had killed it in this fashion intentionally so as to coat himself in its blood as a means of psychological warfare. The other ponies would see the blood running down his torso and dripping from his mouth and claws and would presumably panic at the sight of him.

Apparently it worked as quite a few of the ponies now seemed to be focusing much of their fire on him. That was not quite the reaction he had been hoping for but it could prove useful nonetheless. After all if he was drawing their fire that gave his children somewhat of an advantage as that meant there were less ponies shooting at them. As such he decided to turn himself into a massive target and draw as much of their fire as possible. Thus he sent a message to all of his children that were participating in this particular assault so they could capitalize on his actions.

Casting an optical illusion spell he bathed his entire body in light to make himself as visible as possible, especially in the darkness of this perpetual night, before flapping his wings and flying above the base. He then proceeded to begin casting very flashy combat and war spells while firing fully automatic bolts of magic from his rifle to draw as much attention to himself as possible. He also overclocked his brain and slowed down his perception of time until everything appeared to be moving at a very slow crawl. He needed to do this since if he was going to be drawing as much of their fire as possible then he would need to be able to react and retaliate in an instant, otherwise he would be shot to pieces in a matter of moments.

He turned in the air and flapped all six of his wings hard in order to launch himself out of the way of a volley of particle beams and raised a barrier to deflect some bolts and beams of arcane energy that were being fired at him. His sensors, which he had slightly increased the range of for this battle, detected some pegasi directly above him by approximately 92 feet. Looking up he saw them moving clouds above him. He assumed they were intending to use those clouds in order to shoot him with lightning, since he had learned the pegasi had that ability. So he pointed his rifle at them and sprayed them with fully automatic fire, blasting them to pieces.

Unfortunately, while he was distracted by this a couple of the ponies below managed to land shots on him. A bolt of arcane energy blew off his left leg while another blew off one of his wings and several high powered lasers melted holes in his torso. His humming took on a slightly harsher tone and he used his remaining wings to launch himself out of the way again before retaliating with a moderately destructive war spell aimed at the ones who had managed to land hits on him.

He had been lucky. If they had managed to shoot him in the head he could have died. Fortunately he wasn’t organic so a missing leg, one missing wing, and a few holes in his torso wasn’t going to put him out of commission. The only way they could truly stop him would be to destroy his brain. Still, he was going to need to be more careful. Even with his perception sped up like this he was not invincible or untouchable. It was just a lot more difficult to hit him then usual. Of course if his enemies were using lasers there was no way he was going to be able to dodge them. He was neither a god nor was he truly the greater spirit of evil so he couldn’t move faster than light, as much as he wished he could.

[Inferna]

Inferna let out an otherworldly shriek of pain and rage as a rocket slammed into her side and blew some of her legs and tendrils off of her body. In response she cast a curse on the pony who had shot her. It began screaming in agony as its bones beagan to warp and snap and its flesh began sloughing off of its body.

Another pony fired a grenade launcher at her and wrecked even more of her body. She crushed the grenade launcher with a telekinetic spell, rendering it inoperable and rapidly extended two of her heads towards the pony. She then proceeded to rip it to shreds with her teeth, while simultaneously fighting for her life.

The battle had been going on for thirty minutes now and it was not going in their favor, and that was in spite of her and her children warping space like demons to disorient, confuse, and entrap the ponies. Apparently the ponies had expected them to attack this base and laid a trap for them which they had fallen into almost immediately. Thus they were currently losing.

Many of her children had died in the battle, which had enraged her. So she had resurrected them as undead, however many of their souls were also destroyed by the ponies who were carrying necromantic weapons. This only served to enrage her further. So she was currently trying to slaughter as many of the ponies as she possibly could and she was trying to make their deaths as painful and horrific as she possibly could.

“Inferna, we need to retreat!” Arthur shouted at her via her built in communication systems.

“Not until I make these fucking bastards pay for destroying my children’s souls!” Inferna roared back at him.

“Inferna, listen to me, you cannot avenge them if you’re dead! Retreat now so you can live to avenge them later!” Arthur ordered.

Inferna growled in frustration. Grabbing a couple of the ponies with her tendrils she opened a portal in front of her and charged through it with her newly captured victims in tow. The ponies screamed in terror and begged their comrades for help as they were unwillingly dragged into the portal by Inferna. Once she and her victims were all the way through, she closed the portal behind them. “Fine! But we are coming back, and we are going to slaughter these fucking equines!” She shouted through her communication systems. She then rotated her heads 180 degrees and glared at the ponies she had captured who were trembling in terror and were begging for their lives. It seemed that she was just going to have to take her frustrations out on them once they got back to the lab.

Author's Note

Welp... That's another chapter down. This is about where things really start to go down hill for everyone. So look forward to that!

Also, just so you're aware, Gerhardt having the traits of all three races of pony won't make him an demigod like the alicorns. At least it won't in this version of the story. He might become more powerful later on due to something I have planned, but right now he's essentially just like any other mortal mage.

No fun facts this time.

Anyways, as always, constructive criticism is more than welcome. Please, tell me what you guys thought of this chapter and how you think I could improve if at all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter as much if not more than I enjoyed writing it!

Stay safe out there everyone!