Comes With But One Request
It was midnight, and all was quiet, with even the Crusaders having fallen asleep. Only two beings stood awake in the Irongrey Aerie, side-by-side in a hallway, seemingly waiting for something to happen. Something did happen, for a portal of plaid and lightning opened up before them and Discord stepped out, oddly grim-faced for this occasion with his red pupils aglow. He nodded to the tiny band before him, consisting only of Anna and Katie.
"You've heard," he said. There was no question in his low, ominous voice that he knew—if there had been, he would have been his normally jovial and chaotic self.
Katie nodded. "Apple Bloom told me enough to give me some idea of what happened. So I went up my new chain of command and told them," she said. "At this time, only one Lietenant-General can be spared for the effort, because the others are planning for something huge." She jerked her head at Anna for emphasis. "Fitting that one put in something similar be brought along, no?"
Discord slowly nodded, his scowl deepening. "Very," he agreed. "And for too long, Sunnytown has been ignored. We ought to do something about it." He crossed his mismatched arms, tapping his paw digits on his other elbow. "And it's worrying that not even Celestia knows what to do with that community anymore. The nobles are close to having her at her wits' end on other matters, and I swear she's about to pull her mane out someday. Though, she has given us full carte blanche to do whatever with Sunnytown as we see fit, given what it's become."
He procured a curious piece of magitek, a square crystal box with a lens-filled circle on one side. He clicked a button on the top, pointed it at a wall, and let a projection of Princess Celestia appear on the wall to do the talking. Her face was solemn, head hanging a little low and ears drooping with her majestic wings as she sighed mournfully.
"Ever since Sunnytown has existed, it has been nothing but a den of fear, misery, and stagnation," the projection of Celestia said, a tear seeming to form in one eye as she spoke. "For as long as I could remember… they have done nothing but wallow in their own self-wrought misery. I cannot help them anymore. I have tried everything to help them in the past, and they refused my aid. Anna Windwood… Katie Rubywing… do with the town as you will. The community is beyond even my capacity." With that, the projection shut off, and silence held the hall for a moment as Discord stashed the projector behind his back, where it disappeared with a wheeze and a gasp of chimney smoke.
"I'd hardly call it a community if all they do is let fear grip their hearts," Anna hissed, the vines on her body writhing with the words. "What next, are you gonna suggest that the Greenwood Blight makes me immune to whatever cursed Sunnytown too?"
"Eh, probably, even if the Elements of Harmony did purify it into something a little more benign and beneficial. I'd still not take the risk of letting the zombies of Sunnytown chow down if I were you," Discord answered with a somewhat blaise shrug of his shoulders. He waved his paw to the portal behind him. "Come with me, please. I'll return you both by sunrise." He went in, and so did the oddballs who had risen up to the grim task tonight.
At the other end of the portal, they found themselves in the Everfree Forest, on a seemingly unassuming trail. Timberwolves and wyrms stalked about, but shied away when they saw Anna. The portal closed behind them, and Anna summoned a curious stone bow that had colorful, large crystals congregating on its ends to serve as counterbalances. She also conjured a quiver full of arrows made of similar materials as a just-in-case, while Discord slid peculiar clawed horseshoes on Katie's hooves, made of an oddly dulled steel inscribed with runes on every inch.
Katie was the first to notice something standing in the middle of the road, though 'standing' in this case was subjective for it. It hovered an inch above the ground, and it was only thanks to its burning orange eyes that she could see it at all. She tapped Anna's shoulder with the back of her clawed hoof and pointed that way. When Anna saw it too, both nodded and trotted to approach it.
The entity didn't back away, or attack, or do anything of the sort. Katie took a moment to trot around the thing when they were close enough to do so, as memory fell into place and helped her fill in the blanks. Filly-like, glowing eyes, orange-yellow mane, magnifying glass mark—yep, this was the one alright, the one who damn near got Apple Bloom killed from what she had heard and guessed. The entity turned her orange eyes to her, and for a while both did nothing more than evaluate the other through a staring contest.
These two were strange, the entity had to admit to herself, unlike any she had seen before in the Everfree. One was basically a skeletal zombie with skin stretched tighter than the falsest smiles she could count on one hoof, with bug-like features, a stringy red mane and tail, two pairs of insectoid wings, a carved smile and a peculiar broken horn. The other, with a viridian mane held up by golden baubles and wood ending in claws and vines on her tan-beige legs, and not to mention the very visible weapons they had in their possession.
Katie lifted a hoof, removed its horseshoe, and tried to touch the filly's shoulder. Her hoof phased right through as though she weren't there, and was instead greeted with a chilling void that told her the lingering spirit was there alright, even though it felt as though she wasn't. She put her horseshoe back on and cocked her head. "In all my years… few times have I seen a ghost that stuck around for this long," Katie said, brow furrowing slightly. "Why do you linger?"
The ghostly filly frowned at the question. "I won't move on until they atone," she said, lifting a hoof to point at a seemingly innocuous bush. "Some already have since Apple Bloom came, but…"
Katie's brow furrowed. "Not everypony?" she guessed. The filly nodded.
Anna leaned on her bow, catching the ghost foal's attention. "Well… Godcat's been freed, and I would call Her to help with this, but She might have more pressing matters at the moment," she began, causing the filly to tilt her head. "Like, say, being unable to intervene on Mythonian soil or something."
The filly turned to the bow, her frown deepening. "... you're not gonna be nice to them, are you?" she asked warily.
"Depending on what answers we get, and how they behave when they see us," Katie said with a shrug. "But we're probably the nicest Fantasians available right now, which is saying a lot. So…" She sat down. "You're Ruby?"
The filly nodded. "Was that your skeleton in the fireplace?" Katie continued. Ruby winced, but nodded again. "How'd it get there?"
Ruby wilted a bit, shifting to sit down herself. "Well… Grey Hoof cut my cutie marks off and burned me alive," she answered uneasily. "Every year the day of the party repeats, I still… feel it happening."
Katie's brow furrowed even deeper now. "Okay, that's… less extreme than what I was guessing, actually. But still extreme," she muttered. "Is he atoning?"
Ruby shook her head. "Why do you ask, and how do you know about what happened to me?"
Katie lifted a hoof to tap at her broken horn. "I eat Nightmares, and I think that's what's keeping the Sunnytowners for far longer than they should be staying," she said. Ruby's ghostly eyes went wide, and she added, "And, my out-of-control magic can end undead immortality. I've tested it before. As for how I know… well, another filly with a pink bow told me the sordid details." At this, Ruby's eyes went even wider, and for some reason she couldn't help but shudder.
"Is the night going to be longer than usual tonight?" Anna asked, causing Ruby to turn to her.
Ruby nodded. "It usually lasts for several hours, actually. But I don't think it's a good idea for you to go there," she said, lifting a hoof to point at Anna's cutie mark.
Anna rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Eh, I helped stop Godcat's rampage, I'll probably be fine," she said.
"One last question before we start sending ponies to the hereafter," Katie said, causing Ruby to look at her with her frown deepening further still. "Who laid the curse down?"
"Well… it was back when Faust wasn't sealed, so… an alicorn of Hers brought the curse to existence, and just before She was sealed, Faust modified it so nopony who doesn't atone can leave Sunnytown. Every year, the day repeats, but so far few ponies in the town have atoned," Ruby answered, ears drooping as she considered the bizarre choice in weaponry of the two who were interrogating her. One had the excuse of an arrow as part of her cutie mark, but the other just perplexed her the longer she thought about it. "I'm usually supposed to warn ponies away from Sunnytown, but I guess I slipped up…"
Katie and Anna shared looks at this tidbit of information. Sunnytown was ancient enough that Faust had to be directly involved before Her sealing? That would have explained its presence in the Everfree, then—it probably predated the forest. Katie shook her head and replied, "You didn't slip up. Sure, Apple Bloom was in danger, but you made up for it by taking her away from the town. Besides, you couldn't have kept us out anyway."
Ruby sighed. "Why not?"
Anna idly thumbed the drawstring with her wooden claws. Ruby began wondering where those and the vines came from. "We're Fantasians; we have a knack for danger," she said with a blaise shrug. She turned to where Ruby had pointed and nodded. "Well, kiddo, you might want to steer clear of Sunnytown for a while, because things are going to get messy."
"We'll try to spare the potential few repentant remaining, but… no promises," Katie said, and with that, both trotted into the spot where Ruby had indicated for them to go. At first, it seemed to be a grotto when the bushes were parted, leading into darkness that seemed to snuff out all light. Anna scoffed, cast an illumination spell, and took point.
Ruby watched them go, and decided to use this moment to sit and clasp her forehooves in prayer, eyes shutting tight and ears folding back at the carnage to come. "Please, Faust, Celestia, Luna… help Sunnytown…"
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The party was in full swing in Sunnytown; the lanterns were up, the bunting was high, and the food plated, but all felt uneasy within. It was happening again, and a grey-coated, red-maned mare felt something unusually different this night. The door opened, and ponies were shoved in before she could process what was happening. First it was a mare, then two stallions, and then another mare, all dragged there by their tails by far older ponies who should not have been able to stronghoof them to begin with.
"If you won't help us protect those from the curse marks, then you don't deserve to take part in tonight's party!" one of the elders, with a scraggly beard and wrinkly brows, declared as he glared at the five.
"You should be ashamed of yourselves!" Another with a thin and bristly moustache declared. "We'll be much more prone to the curse marks thanks to you!"
She noted the particulars involved, a blue-maned orange stallion, a white-pelted mare with an orange mane, a forest green mare with a lighter shade of green mane, and a brown-coated stallion with a sandy mane, had looked at the door as it shut behind the elders.
This time, though, something told this seemingly unassuming group that the day of the party was not going to occur again after tonight. The only one who didn't bother to join the group this time was the one who was seemingly oblivious to the unearthly chill the rest of them had received—the one who had started this whole sordid affair to begin with.
The five shared glances at this uneasy development. The green mare spoke up, "We tried telling them something was wrong…" She looked to the floor and pawed at it with a hoof. "But they wouldn't listen…"
The orange-coated stallion moved to pat her on the withers, and sighed. "When would they ever listen? Their heads are too far up their own…"
He was cut off by the sandy-maned stallion, who snorted. "I can tell you right now, they're convinced their horseapples don't stink. Especially Grey Hoof. And after how they treated us, played us like lutes? I'm still amazed they think they can get away with 'protecting' ponies from the curse marks."
"I don't think those are curse marks, though… they seemed so harmless when we… when we 'took care of' the ponies who got them… they didn't spread out of control like we thought they would…" the orange-maned mare said, shaking as a haunted look came into her wide blue eyes as every implication she could think of started battering into her full force.
The others got the same haunted look as well, except for the red-maned mare who assumed a no-nonsense expression. "Of course they didn't, because they were killed!" she spat, anger burning in her orange eyes as, briefly, they seemed to glow as her skin rippled. "And none of us actually checked to see if they were curse marks first!" The sandy-maned stallion raised his hooves and raced to calm her down.
"Hey, whoa, no need to chow down on us! Last thing we need is another mouthful of cursed flesh!" he said. This caused the red-maned mare to sigh and calm down, the glow in her eyes receding as her flesh more or less stopped rippling. "I get we did some horrible things to you and others, but if we want an out, we have to stick together for now. There'll be time to sort grudges out later."
"You're right," she said, lips pulling into the tightest, most disgusted frown they had seen on a pony. She stuck her tongue out with a nod before saying, "I bet it tastes horrible after all these years anyway…"
The orange-pelted stallion sighed, having prepared to break up the fight before it potentially escalated. At least one of his companions had defused the situation. "But what if the curse keeps us here? At this rate, we'll never have an…" He trailed off when he caught sight of something swirling behind the red-maned mare. He gestured to it with a hoof. "Look!" he cried, causing the others to glance up at the anomaly. It looked like swirling fire and ice, coalescing with white and black energies into something corporeal.
Perhaps it was a trick of the mind affecting them all, but that didn't excuse the glowing, legged feline that had spontaneously appeared in front of them with resplendent white fur and piercing blue eyes that matched the aura radiating off of it. Or maybe it was another feline a few feet away that had appeared in tandem with the white cat, with sable fur and smouldering crimson eyes that promised eternal suffering. The group balked slightly, unsure of what to make of this.
Silence lingered as the cats made eye contact with the group. The white one was cold and distant, yet motherly and appraising at the same time. The black one seemed to be judging their sins, as though all were laid bare before it, yet also seemed to consider recent events and other things they couldn't pin names to. Eyes went wide as a feeling of dreadful recognition sank in, and the green mare uttered a word—no, a name that had not been heard in the hamlet for countless ages. "Is that… Godcat?"
The dual felines turned to her with a shared nod. "We are," They spoke in tandem. "We had considered letting this town suffer for its sins, but it has lingered beyond the mortal coil for long enough. A more… proper afterlife is in order."
Ears pinned back at this development. "Does that mean… Sunnytown's going to be wiped off the face of Mythos?" the red-maned mare asked, eyes widening.
Again, the dual halves of Godcat nodded. "Indeed, it had been erased even from the memories of most already. But it has come to the attention of one of Our… Chosen," They answered.
"For too long, hamlets like this have wallowed in misery, stagnation, and damnation," the sable half of Godcat said telepathically, the feminine voice She spoke with overlapping with a deep and echoing growl that instilled a primal fear into the ponies before Her. "This cannot continue any longer. If Fantasia and Mythos are to have any hope, they must move on from the past. The relics that have laid buried, awaiting recognition and never truly resting… they, like this town, ultimately must disappear for the good of the sister worlds."
"But for you five… you show promise, and repentance," the white half of Godcat telepathically muttered, Her tone more motherly and purring than that of Her counterpart. She waved a paw, and an ethereal glow cast itself on the gathered five before Her. "Now go, while the curse is at its weakest, before the Twisted Remnant of Greenwood comes here to sow her carnage and destruction."
"And beware the Envoy of Cocytus, for she is as merciless as the fiercest of blizzards," the darker side of Godcat spoke, grimly shaking Her head. "Once you leave the town parameters, the curse shall yield its hold on you, and you shall be free to live as you should have done so long ago."
Before the ponies could ask any more questions, the halves of Godcat vanished in flourishes of fire and ice that crackled and lingered for a moment, before the flourishes, too, had disappeared with them. For a few seconds, the five shared uneasy glances, eyes glinting with questions that could not be answered now that the cats had taken their leave.
"Gladstone… do you think that really was…" the orange-coated stallion asked, turning to the sandy-maned stallion.
Gladstone could only weakly nod and lick his parched lips. "If Godcat's loose, then…" he shuddered to think of what would happen if he even entertained any notions about that thought in his head. "Roneo, we might need to… to heed Her warning."
Roneo balked with a whinny and ears pinned back against his head. "But why do we need to?!" he snapped, pupils trembling.
"If we leave… if we follow Godcat's warning… then we might become part of something big… She gave us a blessing…" Gladstone replied, shaking his head. "Though… I can't help but wonder… who is this Envoy and Twisted Remnant She mentioned?"
The green mare spoke up, looking between Gladstone and Roneo as she did, "But why us? We've been doing horrible things since that day, until… until…" She paused, unwilling to even speak the words that her thoughts dared conjure. "Until we… we started defying Grey Hoof and the others…"
The orange-maned mare piped up, "Maybe that's exactly why, Three Leaf—that we're the only ones who said 'no more' and put our hooves down when the others tried stronghoofing us back into line." She shook her head. "And we've all been right fools to follow the herd… for what? Eternal damnation in a world that's probably forgotten us by now?" She sighed and wilted. "Maybe that's why even Faust abandoned us…"
Silence held, as the mare's words sank in for the group. Three Leaf was the first to break it, "You might be right, Starlet… but why would Godcat be kind to us after all we did? What's so different now that it didn't earn us instant incineration?"
None could conjure an answer as to why. None wanted to. For another while, silence lingered, barely heeded by the party taking place outside.
There was no choice but to heed the warning, for another chill wafted into the house and seemed to nudge them into action. The five took a moment to look outside through the door, finding that the grey-pelted one who remained oblivious wasn't near the town gate. Instead, he was trotting away from the house they were in, but his attention wasn't on them. Rather, he was snooping about, trying to figure out just what was wrong. Some other members of the herd, no doubt just as ignorant to the danger coming to roost, were also trying to find out what was amiss.
All of them ignored the vacant gate.
They took the opportunity to trot to the gate as the other members of the oblivious herd vanished from sight. Into the dark undergrowth they went, feeling the curse that had befallen them so many years ago already waning. Through an old and twisting path they trotted, being careful to stay together even as the darkness did everything it could to break them apart.
Time seemed to speed up here, and it felt as though hours were ticking by at a much faster rate than normal. The path stretched on for far longer than they remembered, for several dozen yards at least, and no light broke through the canopy to guide them. Their sojourn took them to a small clearing of innocuous blue flowers, visible only thanks to a green light hovering above. They glanced up to find an unfamiliar unicorn mare self-levitating there, tan-beige and scarred. At her side buzzed an insect-looking thing, as skeletal as… as…
They couldn't help but shudder at the seeming reminder of their misdeeds, regarding them with a cold and distant gaze and an unnatural chill that could be felt even from the ground. So small, so child-like, so… dead. Yet oddly preserved, with nary a rot-hole to be seen on the mobile carcass. The only indicator to any previous damage lied solely in its face, and even then, the horn and smile could not have occurred naturally.
The thing buzzed to them and looked them up and down with ice blue beady orbs, regarding them with nothing but concern. "Are you the repentant?" she asked.
The makeshift red-maned leader of the small herd nodded, noticing that this creature looked so much like her, and yet was so different at the same time. In fact, given her skeletally thin state, she seemed so frail and delicate, that it was a miracle that she could fly at all. "I… I'm Mitta," she said, extending her grey hoof in a shaky display that offered a simple hoofshake. The creature returned it, but not before removing a horseshoe. She put it back on once the shake concluded, and used that same hoof to gesture behind herself.
"We were told to spare the repentant, so I'd advise you to run like hell," the creature said. "We… get messy and tend to damage a lot of ground with our antics."
The unicorn levitated over and landed behind them, turning to the group. "Sadly, she's not kidding," she said. "We'll wait for you to get out of the magical blast radius before we head on in."
True to their word, neither Katie nor Anna moved a single inch as the small band of five moved around the field of blue flowers and out of sight, though all cast one last glance back at them to be certain they would keep their promise. They shuddered when they saw Anna's mark, and wondered if it was a legitimate curse mark as opposed to all the others they thought as such that came before. The pair waited until the sounds of all hoofsteps faded into silence before continuing onto the path they had left, using only conjured light and sound to lead the way.
Fortunately for the pair, the five repentants had left some very fresh, very helpful hoofprints to lead them to their target, and even better, the mud was just wet enough to set the prints. They followed diligently, using conjured light to keep them in their sights, through that same twisting path that seemed to wind into several directions at once. More than a few times they thought they were being lead to nowhere, but every time the thought even crossed their minds, they looked to the hoofprints for guidance.
Just when they thought they'd hit another dead end, they looked to see that the hoofprints didn't lead here. So Anna and Katie backtracked a little, to where the hoofprints veered, and found a pair of bushes with light exuding from between them to their left. They shared a nod and waited. When no more repentant ponies came out, Anna entered first, motioning with a sanded claw for Katie to stay out of sight.
As expected, the hour the day would repeat ticked at that exact moment, and the oblivious stallion from before trotted right up to Anna with the biggest, dumbest grin on his face that fell when he noticed her. "Who are you?" he asked, frowning as he took her in her entirety.
Katie watched intently from the bushes, having expected any and all facades to have lasted a lot longer than this. And it seemed their quarry had caught on a lot quicker than she would have guessed; the immediate shift in expression was all the giveaway he could have needed to throw out. One hoof twitched as she paid rapt attention to the exchange between Anna and the stallion whose smile had fallen. "Well… I happened to hear a little something-something about this town," Anna began, a dangerous edge in her voice that the stallion before her didn't pick up at first. "Are you Grey Hoof?"
The stallion balked, eyes widening. Apparently, he wasn't expecting this level of blunt forwardness. "... yes?" he ventured.
Anna slowly began to circle him, tail lashing irritably and her withering glare accusing him with every ounce of hate it could muster. "And I have heard," she continued, her withering glare fixated on him as she stalked around him like a predatory lion looking for the prime spot to strike, "that a filly had her cutie marks cut off before she was burned alive in this town. Is that true?"
Immediately, Sunnytown itself heaved, and buildings collapsed. Lights went out, and overgrowth took the structures to task and made a valiant attempt to reclaim them into the earth. Lanterns diminished, and some exploded into shards of glass and copper as though they'd been smashed by boulders, all dropping to roll uselessly in the dirt. Darkness crept in as the bunting snapped, fluttered, and descended, with only some clinging to their anchors. Walls crumbled, roofs caved in and fell into houses, with the resulting rubble tumbling about inside and out as everything settled into place.
Tables holding food snapped in two down the middle, then fell onto themselves and withered until they couldn't hold their fragments up anymore. Rot seeped in at an accelerated rate, and before long the only traces of the party that lingered were fragments of tables, torn and useless bunting that hung limply, and dirt that had once been food. The town's facade had fully been smashed wide open now, and nothing could hope to put it back together. The grass shriveled and died, wilting in the same way that Grey Hoof started a gruesome transformation.
His pelt peeled off, taking most of his mane and tail with it. Sinew and flesh developed holes, fell to pieces, turned to ash. Muscles atrophied and split at the seams as they tried to hold themselves together, revealing yellowed and ancient bones lined with cracks and mold. From within his exposed skeleton flared a crimson light that was the only indication he was still living… though even that was subjective.
Eyeballs deflated, fell out, landed messily before his hooves, which cracked and chipped and curled into themselves to join the pieces of him that already fell. Where his cutie mark should have been burned itself in pale blue flames, melting away to permanently lock him into a cursed state that would never, could never, gain its indicator of a special talent.
His skeletal gaze turned to follow Anna accusingly, and were it not for the lack of flesh his eyes would have narrowed. "Yes… how did you come upon that knowledge? he asked in an echoing, raspy voice that should not have been possible given his now-present lack of lungs.
At that point, Katie trotted through the ruined gate with a hiss that attracted the now-rotting Grey Hoof's attention. "From a filly who managed to haul ass from here and see the light of day," she answered, wings buzzing. "Remember her? Little cute pink bow on her head?"
Grey Hoof's skull rattled, and with a tongue drooling with pus and rot that licked his skeletal teeth, he slowly nodded. The pair began circling him, one with a hiss and the other with a rustling of vines and wood. Katie's long ears twitched, hearing the sound of roots being pulled out of the ground, and the ground itself breaking. She didn't turn as more zombies pulled themselves out of the soil with raspy groans, for right now she just wanted to squeeze some more answers out of Grey Hoof.
Grey Hoof caught sight of Anna's cutie mark, a singular, unassuming arrow wrapped with poison ivy tendrils. He noted that it boasted veins that showed through fur, darker in color than on a normal pony, and silverish runes whose meaning he could not make out. He chuckled, the sound grating on the ears and unnerving to most. "You're cursed," he noted dryly. "We'll have to prote—"
Anna promptly shook her head and snorted, halting her circling for a moment as she closed her eyes. "I may still be cursed, but I don't need any of your protection," she scoffed, her magic encompassing two curious scars on her back that stretched from withers to croup. Wood spread from her legs to those scars, joined with ivy and sprouting leaves as they arranged themselves into a shape Grey Hoof had never seen before.
Before he could ruminate on what it was, he decided to lunge at Anna, only to find himself in for a nasty surprise. The entity on the side of her facing him stretched out and smacked him under his chin hard enough to not only make his teeth clack together, but also send him tumbling onto his back with all four legs in the air.
The other zombies, at least those who had gotten close enough to see this, backed off with confused whinnies leaving their decayed mouths. They hadn't seen anything like this before, but then again they also probably hadn't seen wood and other assorted plant matter arrange itself into a crude mockery of pegasus wings, either. Let alone such a pair strong enough to effectively backhand one of their own. "What are you?" and "Why would you deny our protection?" left the mouths of the undead horde once they got their bearings back together, which for some seconds went without answer.
Anna lashed her tail and closed her newly-formed wooden wing, turning her baleful gaze to the horde as her eyes opened to reveal a red glow encompassing the natural viridian of her irises. "I already was under such so-called 'protection' back on Fantasia before I got the hell out of the village it was centered in," she spat, wooden wings rustling with the urge to strike. "I don't need another repeat of that fiasco."
With that declaration, the undead horde rallied with an echoing, angry whinny and charged, some markedly faster than others. Anna simply loaded her bow with a triad of arrows and fired them into the canopy. Some of the zombies' eye sockets, including Grey Hoof's, followed their trail as they shot past leaves and branches alike. Anna spread her false wings and flapped, knocking the horde back a few paces when they got too close for comfort. One bit at the wood, but it simply snapped off with some of the ivy attached to it racing to form a clamp that kept that zombie's mouth shut as it was backhanded.
The horde tried to rally again, only to be stopped by a series of sharp whistles preceding explosions of pain across all of their bodies. Katie got out of range in time thanks to her two sets of wings, but the rest of the undead had to contend with lightning dancing across their decayed bodies, frost immobilizing whole limbs, and crimson crystals erupting across prone spots that burned them when they swelled large enough.
Grey Hoof rose, the only one of the horde who managed to luck out on being struck, gasping at what he bore witness to. He saw a myriad of arrows haphazardly impaled everywhere, when he swore he had only seen three being fired off. The horde whinnied in confusion and anguish, barely able to process what had happened.
Anna turned her gaze to the crowd. More undead Sunnytowners were arriving onto the scene, swelling the numbers to at least four dozen. Okay, this was getting a bit out of hoof, but she shook her head. She loaded more arrows into the drawstring, reared up onto her hinds and stomped her front claws into the ground with enough force to score the dirt beneath her. She glanced to where the town gate used to be, and found even more congregating there, moaning and groaning as their heads seemed to sway in a nonexistent breeze. Anna noted that there were scarcely any unicorns and pegasi in the horde; the few she caught had those extraneous limbs rendered useless through rot and decay.
She teleported onto a branch large enough to support her weight, making sure to spread her false wings to keep herself visible. Katie flew up to meet her, seeming to await an order. The zombies converged onto the tree the branch was attached to, and for a moment they were unsure of how to approach the seemingly out-of-reach Anna. They piled onto the foot of the tree, then each other, in their fervor to catch up to their quarry. Some still had paralysis and frost slowing them down, so they didn't make much headway, other than becoming stepping stones for their fellows.
Anna waved her horn and channelled her magic in the ground surrounding the tree, using the tree itself as a pulsating medium to reach the earth. Surprisingly, the Everfree itself responded and pushed back, sending sharpened, stake-like logs shooting upwards through the soil to knock the herd back. Some were impaled by the sharpened trees, and one was sent high enough to be able to look Anna in the eye for a second. She waved with a claw, and time slowed for that zombie before the log pulled itself back into the earth, taking them with it. Vines and sharpened bamboo emerged seconds after the logs had departed, skewering and tangling up more zombies with impunity, and lingered afterwards.
Anna nodded to Katie, who dove in for the kill. The unimpaled members of the undead herd watched as she went from zombie to zombie, stabbing her clawed horseshoes into them. Frost grew on her legs and prey, freezing them solid enough that she could then jab her broken horn into decayed flesh without issue. She wasted no time letting loose with a red magic that was out of control. Crimson, crackling sparks flew, cold energies gathered, and red-pink miasma rose from the stabbed zombies each and every time. Flesh clinging to bones melted to ash, bones solidified with frost, and the animate energies that caused the zombies to cling to the mortal coil went into that split maw with the red-pink miasma to swell the emaciated belly of their murderer until there was nothing left of the curse energy for those zombies.
Each and every zombie that was stabbed this way was reduced to a pile of shattering bones in moments. The killer flew back up to the safety of the branches, licking her torn lips with a long and pale tongue rivaling their own, the blue of her orbs turning as crimson as the energies she had consumed. She kissed one of her bloodied horseshoes, smacked her lips, and turned to the rest of the baffled herd. "Ah, the fine fragrance of denial and hypocrisy, spiced by hatred and irrationality! Truly, the best taste I could have asked for from you miserable lot!" Katie declared, bringing her claws together in sharp metallic clangs that made the undead rattle where they stood.
Grey Hoof watched the pair, unable to believe what he had just heard and seen. Here was an unfamiliar zombie, and that was how she ate? Feeding from the very energy that had cursed them to begin with? His hocks twitched. Something definitely wasn't right about these two, and he swore to himself that they would get Sunnytown's 'protection' one way or the other. He looked to the members of the herd that had fallen, and shuddered when he realized they hadn't gotten back up. He rallied, his cry echoing across the Everfree, "Get the little one first! She must be put down!"
The remaining members of the herd whinnied in acknowledgement, and started to climb each other in an effort to get to the airborne nuisance. Some managed a foothold on the tree, and began to gain ground.
Katie turned to Anna and asked, "Can you still infect ponies with the Blight?"
Anna turned to Katie, eyes widening in befuddlement. "Do you really think that now is the time for that?!" she snapped.
Katie nodded, and gestured to the zombies that started climbing the tree. "Truth be told, it might stop these assholes enough for us to finish the herd," she said, ears twitching as she heard the distant sound of tilling soil and more roots being evicted from their homes. She looked around, seeing more glowing ribcages and skulls alight with the blighted energy that coursed through their nonexistent veins congregating at the gate and the edges of the town she could see. The numbers were swelling again, and she wondered just how many Sunnytowners there were in this forest.
Anna looked around, seeing what her companion meant. She groaned. "Fine, but we're not telling Lance about this," she said, turning to the members of the herd that were closest to reaching the branch she was perched on. Some were about to reach for it, and it was those ones she chose to attack. Her ivy rustled, and her wings started to blossom with odd wisteria flowers with a wave of her horn. She flapped her wings in that direction, sending a spray of crimson, smoking seeds out of the flowers.
The seeds that hit the zombies burrowed in immediately, and those that hit the tree clattered down to hit more of the herd on their descent. Wood and ivy sprouted from where the seeds had landed, and the zombies screamed and recoiled, dropping from the tree and knocking their fellows aside as they came tumbling to the ground kicking and flailing.
Grey Hoof watched as the afflicted twisted horribly, their already-broken bodies contorting into new and terrifying shapes as wood sprouted all over them and proceeded to play merry hell with their bones and flesh. The rest of the herd, confused, turned to the afflicted as their screams rose in pitch. The ones who were attacked by the seeds sprouted rotting wood that glowed with clashing energies of red and green, with ivy racing to keep the wood bound into and onto those who had been stricken.
What's more, they grew roots from their hooves and backsides that anchored them in place, and extraneous branches from the sides of their bodies that swatted all who tried to help them aside with a ferocious strength that cracked bones and sent herd-mates into trees and ruined houses. Some vines grabbed fellow undead and rooted themselves into their fellows, which only added to the horrifying screams that carried across every corner of the Everfree. More wood sprouted from those the vines attacked, turning into conglomerates of wood and undergrowth and sinew that pulsed with red energy and swayed as though they were seconds from falling.
No less than three conjoined entities consisting of at least a half-dozen herd-mates each stood in front of the tree, howling and swaying as the red energies coalesced onto their exposed backsides. They threw their branches about, swatting more zombies away to keep the masses from growing, but even then it took several batterings before the herd got the hint and rerouted their attention back to their opponents.
Katie went in for the kill again, and the conjoined entities screamed and tried to knock her out of the air. The swings were clumsy, arcing wide and flailing and jerking every which way with every attempt, and the ivy raced to immobilize them as though controlled by some unseen force. Aiming for the back was the easy part, but actually landing proved difficult as the entities screamed and threw their bodies around, trying to knock her aside that way.
But she had a solution for that; all she had to do was activate her innate magic through her hooves and let the shoes do the rest. Frost sprouted on her legs as the runes on her shoes came to life, crackling with blue, cold energies that let her stick to the backside of the first conjoined monstrosity easily. She rotated her head vertically until it was upside-down, and stabbed her broken horn into the congregation of energies.
Once more she started to absorb the energies, causing the first of the behemoths to scream and throw punches at everything, from its fellow zombies to the tree Anna had perched on. It tried to uproot itself, but only managed to topple forward and knock itself over, scattering more of the herd in doing so. The herd bayed for blood with a singular, grating groan, and began to climb the behemoth towards their prone enemy.
Arrows knocked them down, one after the other, as they got too close to Katie. Some of the herd turned away from her to try climbing the tree Anna had perched on once again, but she sniped them with impunity. Again, the roulette of agony visited them, some gaining the painful swellings of burning crystals and others being immobilized with frost. The ones that tried scaling the behemoth were thrown off as it brought itself back up, trying once again to dislodge its tiny adversary. The energy animating it crackled, and the zombies composing the behemoth shuddered as they felt their life-force being forcibly extracted from their ancient husks.
It took a few moments longer than the individuals, but the energy was absorbed just the same.
When it began turning from a flow to a faint trickle, the zombies howled in anger and surged towards the behemoth, uncaring for the arrows trying to stop their advance. Some stumbled, anger surging through their curse and turning their movements more feverish as they began to scale the behemoth en masse. With an echoing cry, the behemoth slumped in place, without having succeeded in knocking Katie off. The energy built within it had been reduced to weak wisps now, and was being sucked in even as the zombies started to reach for the prone Katie.
As they managed to grab her, more arrows shot out to dissuade them. The zombies who had managed the grab didn't care, and brought their teeth in to begin the feast. Quickly, far too quickly for something so emaciated, Katie yanked her hind claws out of the behemoth and jerked in for the one-two solid buck that connected with the jaws that were mere seconds from tearing at her. The frost coating her legs and shoes spread to those hungering maws, freezing them stiff.
The wood peeled off of the behemoth, and the vines parted to search for new flesh to burrow into. Fortunately for it, and unfortunately for the herd, the zombies that had scaled it provided the perfect spot to settle new homes in. Herd-mates screamed and let go as the ivy attacked, digging into diseased and rotten flesh with purpose. This also had the added benefit of getting them to back off of the smaller enemy zombie, who finished feeding and pried her broken horn out of the behemoth's crumbling backside.
The other two behemoths saw their third member fall, and tried to move in to help. One was closer, within branch's reach of the smaller enemy, who defrosted her shoes and darted out of the strike range the moment she heard a branch lifting itself high. She flew up to the canopy, her two pairs of wings providing excellent maneuverability and grace despite their frailty.
Anna evaluated the situation, seeing the zombies' numbers continuing to grow despite her and Katie's best efforts. She racked her brain for a solution; seeding the undead was just a quick fix, and sooner or later they would figure out how to coordinate their new bodies to end this matter. Katie was just one creature; sooner or later, she would mess up majorly enough for the other undead to seize the chance.
Katie seemed to sense this too, rubbing her chin with her cold pastern as she considered the horde below her. She could see Grey Hoof sneering at them both, drool pooling in his mouth as he watched them and licked his lips. Come to think of it, she noticed he hadn't been helping the herd so much as directing them, and pointed to him with her body angled in a way that Anna could see her do so.
Anna nodded, and turned her attention to Grey Hoof. "Hey, Sunnytowners! Who's your leader?!" she cried, causing the herd to halt and exchange glances. Up until now, Anna hadn't paid them much heed at all, at least beyond actively shooting them. The infested ones partially halted, but the vines gave them the leniency to share looks as well, along with the two behemoths.
"Grey Hoof!" they called in unison, some deciding to point him out in the crowd—not that Anna and Katie needed them to, with his insufferable smirk marking him out plain as day.
"And what has he done for you, during this whole time I've been here?" Anna asked, pointing at him with one of her wings. "Because all I see him doing is fucking around while you guys do the heavy lifting!"
The Sunnytowners shared glances again, then turned to Grey Hoof. He balked, quickly realizing what Anna had just done. "Now, now," he said somewhat innocently, "let's not be too hasty!"
One of the Sunnytowners pointed at Anna. "She has a curse mark! What else are we supposed to do, let her get away?" he asked.
"I'd have been doing a lot more running if I wanted to leave the party sooner," Anna said from the branch, causing the Sunnytowners to glance among themselves again. If she wasn't running, they considered, then… what was she and Katie doing here?
"Hey, I know how it feels to be eaten; it's happened to me before," Katie cut in, bloodied shoed hooves lifted in front of her face like she was being mugged. "I don't like eating you as much as you'd probably not like eating me."
"Then why are you here?!" the whole lot of Sunnytowners asked in unison, making Katie wince at their volume. Goodness, this was a loud racket. Maybe she should have asked Discord for earmuffs, but then who knows what he would have done with them.
"Well…" Anna shifted to sit on her branch perch, false wings closing at her sides. "None of you guys are gonna like the answer…" She sighed, letting the silence settle for some seconds before breaking it, "We're supposed to send you to the hereafter; repentance, sin, blah-de-blah." At this, the Sunnytowners howled, but stopped when she raised a sanded claw to tell them to hear her out first. "However, it seems to me the whole lot of you are doing a lot of following and not a lot of acting for yourselves."
"But we have to follow the wisest pony and the occasional advice of the elders! Otherwise, we'll be…" a Sunnytowner began, only to trail off as she considered, for perhaps the first time, what she would have been saying otherwise.
"And what if the so-called wisest is just a big dumbass? Do you throw him to the wolves, or let him lead your village to ruin?" Anna countered, false wings rustling. The Sunnytowners muttered amongst themselves, and she noticed a few ghosts of the slain hovering nearby, considering this as well. "Because it's looking like that's exactly what happened here."
The Sunnytowners whinnied, mostly in confusion. The ghosts just looked at each other again, seeming to ask questions between each other. "And why would you let a dumbass lead you to ruin, to be forgotten by the rest of the sister worlds and every creature living therein? Is this what you guys really wanted for your village—or did you want for it to grow?" she challenged, noticing that Grey Hoof started to sweat blackened blood where he stood, and in bullets too.
"Why are you listening to an outsider?! An outsider with a curse mark!?" Grey Hoof barked as the herd turned to him. He gestured rather emphatically at Anna, even rising on his hinds to use both front hooves to do it. "She's been doing nothing but shooting us with arrows, and infesting us with plants! Are you gonna trust somepony who's hostile?!" He then gestured at Katie. "And her! She's feasted on our own! And stabbed! Are you going to trust that… thing too?!"
"I'm a changeling, you dipshit!" Katie snapped, only to have a wooden wing spread in front of her. She turned to Anna and found her shaking her head with a disapproving frown and narrowed eyes that screamed 'let me handle this.'
"Look at him, doing nothing to help you guys!" Anna called, pointing accusingly at Grey Hoof. The digits of her sanded claw curled until only one remained extended, and it was trained on him like a proclamation of damnation. "He's just standing there, trying to defend his inaction! Do you want a leader who does nothing but sit on his ass all day, while you guys do the hard work?"
The Sunnytowners turned to her again and cried out, "But he helped build houses! Planned festivals! Kept us safe from the curse marks!"
"But that was long ago, before you got turned into your present forms," Anna retorted, her scowl deepening. "What has he done since then? What have any of you done since then?" She gestured to the dilapidated town and added, "I don't see this community growing, rising, reaching for the skies if this shit keeps up!"
"But who cares about all of that, when you can have safety?" Anna hissed, eyes burning with a red light that turned accusingly onto Grey Hoof. "For you have sacrificed yourselves, and everything you cared about, for the whims of a mad stallion who shouldn't have been made leader to begin with! You're never going to get out of this rut if you keep following him!"
The Sunnytowners turned to Grey Hoof to see what he would say next. He did not disappoint, "But we have everything we need here! Why would we want to leave?"
"Last I checked, it doesn't do you much good if you're all undead and unable to actually enjoy those things," Anna said bluntly, her voice carrying itself far enough for all the Sunnytowners to hear her loud and clear. "And who was it that decided to murder an innocent filly? Who was it that got you cursed to begin with? Who was the reason for your stagnation and damnation? Do you want to live and see tomorrow, see how much the worlds have changed, or would you rather join that pony in eternal hellfire?"
Grey Hoof tried once more to defend himself, waving his hooves in front of himself frantically. "But I helped you guys to the best of my abilities! I'm just one pony! I can't do everything myself!"
"That may be true, but a leader shouldn't have to sit on their ass all day! Look at you, you're just sitting there making excuse after excuse! The village I hailed from did the same shit, and you wanna know how that turned out?" Anna stomped a claw, false wings bristling. "I ended up burning it to the ground, and now I'm stuck having to teach the remaining villagers that the shit they pulled was not okay!"
"And are you going to encourage them to pursue curse marks?" Grey Hoof asked, sneering.
Anna pursed her lips before nodding. "Because they aren't cursed anymore," she said. "And besides, what's the harm in it? All I'm hearing is bullshit, more bullshit, and every flimsy excuse in the damn book to avoid getting your cutie marks."
The Sunnytowners whinnied, then turned to Grey Hoof to see what would fly out of his mouth next. Once again, something semi-rational to them evicted itself onto his tongue and catapulted off with all the grace of a skipping stone, "But the curse marks could spread, and corrupt ponies with hubris! Did we not hear the alicorn who blessed us say that curse marks would lead to damnation?"
"Oh, a Faustian defence? I was wondering when you'd pull that one out of your festering ass," Anna snarked, lifting a claw and resting her chin on her pastern. "But seriously, that was long ago; could you guys not reject the so-called 'blessing' and resume life as normal, or accept the blessing of another alicorn?"
"No!!" Grey Hoof roared, his voice shaking the canopy. Katie winced and briefly covered her long ears with her hooves. "Rejection of an alicorn's blessings is tantamount to damnation!"
Anna smirked, and quirked a brow. She fanned her false wings again. "Do I not count as an alicorn?" she asked. That caused the Sunnytowners to look at each other, and even Grey Hoof shared the glances, just as perplexed as the rest of them. Katie's orbs widened, seeing what she was doing, and she decided in that moment to sit back and watch the fireworks.
"Did you have real wings at one point?" a random Sunnytowner asked. Anna stood up, lifted one wing up, and willed her magic across the wood to let it fold out and expose the scar on her back. The Sunnytowners gasped, and shared glances again.
"I take it that answers your question?" Anna asked, to which a majority of Sunnytowners gawked, with some jawbones literally falling off of their decayed faces. Some scooped them back up with their hooves, put them on, and shakily nodded. "So I offer unto you now a new blessing: leave your stagnation and curse behind, and head on to far greener pastures, where you can start new lives and soar as high as you wish."
The Sunnytowners collectively balked, and shared glances. Grey Hoof's internal glow intensified, making it so it seemed his eyes had widened. "Oh no…" he muttered to himself, quickly catching on to what Anna was trying to do.
"And in exchange?" a Sunnytowner asked.
Anna didn't need to do much else. She said, "All I require… is for you to atone for your sins."
"There is nothing to atone for!" Grey Hoof shouted, gestring emphatically at Anna once again. "She is nothing but a false alicorn, using your faith against you! There are no greener pastures, for she seeks to sow lies and distrust! Do not take her up on her offer!"
Anna made sure to smirk subtly, keeping it just perceptible enough that Grey Hoof, and only Grey Hoof, could see it. "Wasn't denying an alicorn's blessing tantamount to damnation?" she challenged.
"There is no blessing from you, just paltry lies!" Grey Hoof shouted. "Nothing you can say or do will convince me otherwise, false one!" Unfortunately, that turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to say, and soon all the zombies turned away from Anna completely.
The Sunnytowners muttered amongst themselves at first, then turned to Grey Hoof with an echoing whinny. "Grey Hoof…" they started to chant, a low groan of that name at first. "Grey Hoof!" they cried, the sound rising higher in volume as they began to march towards him with grim purpose refocused.
"Grey Hoof!!"
The cry climbed in volume still, a deranged echo composed of a myriad of voices all demanding answers. Grey Hoof reverted to all fours, balking at what had happened. He began to back up as the herd matched him step for step, and even the tree-behemoths had moved in tandem with the ghosts. In fact, the roots let themselves be pulled free, allowing the behemoths to stumble forward as the undead making them up channelled their anger and rage as it built.
"Grey Hoof!!!"
Now, that name echoed across all of the Everfree, loud enough to make the rubble shudder and the leaves sway. Grey Hoof could do nothing but turn tail and run, galloping away as the herd called his name over and over, baying for his blood. Unfortunately, Anna teleported in front of him, standing on her hinds with false wings flared to cut him off. "Leaving the party so soon?" she asked, unflinching as he reared on his hinds to try and shove her aside. Her vines moved to root her to the spot, ensuring that he could not make her yield.
He tried ducking under her false wings, but was batted aside by them, knocked onto his backside once again. He got back onto his hooves, but this gave someone else the time to attack as he started to scramble once again. His gallop was halted early once more, for tendrils of ice started to crawl through his decayed veins as he felt cold metal stab at the back of his neck, accompanied by the buzzing of insectoid wings beating right behind his head. He felt his legs stiffen, and his neck halted as frost grew across him to keep him still. His jaws were still mobile, and he tried to speak, but nothing could come out. He could see the hellish red of her orbs out of the corners of his own, burning with the desire to inflict damnation.
"Nu-uh, you aren't leaving until you've had the dessert, tough guy," Katie muttered into his ear, her voice chilling and accusing in equal measure.
Katie slid her claws out of him, but he didn't defrost. She flew away from him, and Anna teleported back to the branch. The herd didn't need a second invitation; they dogpiled the frozen pony, beating and gnawing and screaming as he tried to scream and plead his innocence. His pleas fell on deaf ears; before long, he was drowned out in a sea of fellow undead, each and every one channeling their anger towards him.
Soon, Grey Hoof was reduced to a howling pile of frost and bones, unable to do much else as the zombies whaled on him. As they beat him, bodies that were rotten and patchy regrew muscle and fur and manes and tails, eyeballs reformed, and organs slid back into their proper places. The energy that had cursed them dissipated, forming wisps of black and foul magic that rose into the air and vanished into the night.
The tree-behemoths' wood and vines fell, and the infested ones found their bodies evicting the plant matter even as they were restored to their previous forms. Vibrant color returned to the undead as they were transformed into whole equines again, the curse energy leaving them more and more in droves.
The ghosts, meanwhile, were content to sit back and watch, floating up to where Katie and Anna were. "We're, uh…" one of them began, rubbing the back of his ethereal head.
Katie waved a hoof. "I should be the sorry one; I kinda ate you," she cut them off. "I'm not gonna blame you if you want to hit me now."
"But we wouldn't! We're free thanks to you!" another said, frowning slightly as though she were pouting. "All this time… we should have listened to our hearts instead of him."
"Eh, it happens to the best of us." Katie gestured to herself. "I know the feeling all too well."
The ghosts jumped when Discord materialized from one of the flowers on Anna's false wings, causing it to grow and burst into confetti and rainbows with his entrance. Katie and Anna hadn't so much as batted an eye at him. "I see you've handled this quite well," he noted with some amusement. "A few casualties, but not as many as I was expecting of you two. Maybe Fantasia has hope yet."
Anna side-eyed Discord. "So what do we do with these guys?" she asked, gesturing to the Sunnytowners who were still whaling on the protesting Grey Hoof. Now that they had their whole bodies back, they didn't have the need to bite at him anymore, she noted.
Discord rested his goateed chin on the back of his paw. "Same thing with Greenwood: relocate and reform and nurture," he said with a growing grin.
"And the ghosts?" Katie asked, turning to them.
The ghosts shared glances. "Well, we kinda want to leave the forest…" one muttered.
Anna turned to them. "Wanna head to wherever the other Sunnytowners are going?" she asked, starting to smile. They nodded, and turned to watch the utter decimation of Grey Hoof. "Well, let them have their turn first, and then we can settle that matter when they're done."
~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~
It was several hours after, when Grey Hoof found himself utterly alone. It wasn't a miracle that the curse had allowed him to live, as he had to endure several lifetimes' worth of vicious beatings and righteous fury. The Sunnytowners had left with the visitors, following them into a plaid and lightning portal conjured by a chimerical thing with a stupid grin on his face. He caught a glimpse of a mountain surrounded by a forest, with a ring of steel built around its middle in the portal, but the instant he did it shut behind the Sunnytowners.
But now, he was left to his own thoughts, strewn about in pieces and aching everywhere. The frost that Katie had conjured hadn't numbed him at all, instead only serving to amplify his pain. How had that false alicorn broken the curse on the villagers? That anomaly, he couldn't wrap his head around.
The curse let him pull his body back together, and bones slid across the ground to reform his skeleton. Whatever muscles and sinew and rot that remained did so as well, and before long he was mostly whole again, albeit aching worse when he tried to stand shortly thereafter. He glanced around, seeing if any beasts of the Everfree would move to strike.
Nothing greeted him but silence, the strewn arrows Anna had flung about, and the dead wood and vines that she had casted previously. He double-checked to be sure, and confirmed the nothingness surrounding him.
Well, to call it nothingness was being too harsh on the area. The trees still lingered, and so did the town rubble, but other than that there was nothing but darkness. He trotted around, if only to make sure his legs still worked and that he was really alone. "Mitta? Three Leaf?" he called, his voice echoing into the undergrowth and diminishing after a few seconds. He began to trot around the town parameters, now dull and lifeless with trees clinging to their edges as if to mark them.
"Roneo? Gladstone? Starlet?" Grey Hoof called again, his voice once more skipping between the trees and fading into silence as he trotted about. Something was wrong, that much he could tell. Now that he thought about it, he didn't recall seeing them in the angry mob, despite them having a perfect excuse to kick his ass otherwise. So he detoured a bit, went back to the building near the ruined gate and began pushing aside its rubble in an effort to locate the quintet.
It took him a while to locate any evidence regarding the five, which was a big fat nothing. Not so much as a singular strand of mane nor a hoofprint remained of them. He could've sworn four of them were recently punted here for not wanting to help protect ponies from the curse marks, so where had they gone, and was anypony watching them when the door closed?
He shook his head and went back to exploring the village parameters. It took him half an hour to comb through the area for any trace of the quintet, but alas, he could find very little in regards to their whereabouts. Besides the mass congregation of hoofprints that resulted from Sunnytown's exodus, nothing and nopony but he remained to testify to the existence of the town, unless one counted the useless rubble strewn about.
Just when he made to plop his butt down on the ground near the gate, he saw something from the corner of his eye. He turned that way, and found a congregation of budding energies, glowing in fire and ice, looking as though darkness and light were performing an intricate dance. That was when the chimerical thing came back in a puff of colored smoke, accompanied by a pair of floating felines emerging from the flame and frost, one white with blue eyes and…
Grey Hoof's eyes would have widened if they were still in his head. Nonetheless, his skull rattled as he beheld what he saw. "G-Godcat?" he stammered, feeling another unearthly chill worming its way through his body. His ears would have pinned back against his head if he still had them.
"It seems the Twisted Remnant managed to make the villagers see reason after all," the white half of Godcat said, resting Her chin on the back of one of Her paws. "She might shape up to be a decent village leader yet." Her dark half nodded.
"And the town has moved on from the past just enough to begin their atonement. Except for one…" the dark half of Godcat muttered, Her burning crimson gaze fixed solely on Grey Hoof.
Discord clapped his mismatched hands, grin widening. "Can I join in on the festivities, Your High Fuzziness?" he asked, causing both halves of Godcat to turn to him with raised brows.
After a few seconds, both halves nodded and turned back to Grey Hoof. Both waved their paws, and Discord waved his paw as well as clashing energies enveloped the hapless zombie. He tried to struggle, but against the might of gods he may as well have been trying to shoot Luna back onto the moon through the gates of Tartarus. Around him, Sunnytown's remains shifted, uprooted themselves from the ground, and coalesced into a shape that reminded Grey Hoof of the poles that once held the town gate up.
Then, the vegetation that had tried overtaking the town surged forth out of the ground, and formed in massive wooden tendrils that crushed the rubble to a fine dust as it clambered into the air. It crushed more and more, until nothing remained of Sunnytown except for a large, barren patch of land where it once stood. Grey Hoof watched, shaking as he beheld the destruction of his former home. "Y-you can't do this!" he protested, kicking his legs to no avail. He noticed his body was reforming to its once, long ago, whole shape—but why it was doing so now, he did not know.
"Oh, but We can… We most definitely can," the white half of Godcat said, faintly purring. "After all, damned soul, you had done the same for a myriad of lives… so it's only fitting that yours be destroyed before your final punishment."
"And for your crimes for which you have not atoned, your sentence will be to linger in multiple layers of Hell, all at the same time!" the dark half of Godcat shrieked, waving Her paws as shadowy, reddish energies coalesced about tendrils that were summoned.
They formed into a tree that had darkened grass budding at its roots, and opened up a hole big enough for a pony to fit through. The arrows lifted themselves out of the ground, and threw themselves into Grey Hoof, digging themselves deep enough that merely moving the limbs they were thrust into was agonizing. With extreme prejudice, Grey Hoof was thrown into the hole, and he tried to scramble back to his hooves before pain overtook him as the hole closed behind him, bathing him in darkness.
"Mind if I take a cue from Greenwood?" Discord asked, his voice echoing everywhere in the shadows. Chaotic energies coalesced, causing the wood to animate. Grey Hoof felt something burrowing into his whole, arrow-riddled flesh, and screamed as more and more of it bore into him from every angle. He kept screaming at the shades, feeling the tendrils forming new holes in his body, but found himself silenced in moments as plant matter grabbed his vocal cords and lungs and crushed them into useless pulp that left him mute.
At the same time, visions flooded his mind, and he felt something odd about this. He looked around, finding himself in a house with a fireplace, hogtied with tiny hooves in place of full-sized hooves. He glanced at his hips, and found a magnifying glass cutie mark and an orange-yellow tail that wasn't his own.
His heart dropped when a shadow fell over him, and he looked up to find none other than himself with a knife in his mouth and a sadistic grin on his face. He screamed, but found the sound muffled as the knife plunged into the flesh surrounding the cutie mark. The rusty blade had been shoved in with force, and did the job in drawing blood excellently well. Grey Hoof thrashed in his new, unfamiliar body as the knife started to carve trails into him.
Soon enough, the cutie mark was extracted, and thrown into the fireplace. Then he was turned over, tears pooling in his eyes at the new wave of pain as he felt the knife strike again. The other cutie mark was cut off after an agonizingly long while, and thrown to the flames as well. Afterwards, he was picked up by himself and chucked into the fire, screaming starting anew as the flames ate away at his flesh and made his body temperature climb to dangerous levels.
He squirmed and choked, trying to escape the blaze that clambered up his sides to consume more of him. The ropes held tightly even now, and reduced him to crawling as if he were a worm. The burning Grey Hoof shifted to the edge of the fireplace, and would have succeeded in escaping if the other him hadn't turned around to buck him solidly in the face, knocking him to the wall with enough force to crack his skull and concuss him. He crumpled in a heap, disoriented and screaming as the inferno filled his vision and became all he knew.
Another vision flooded his mind as he burned. This time, he was a different pony, surrounded by the moans and groans of the undead. He tried to get up, but found another unfamiliar red hoof tangled up in stray tree roots. He panicked, and pulled, managing a little bit of give on the roots, but not enough to dislodge the entangled limb.
He glanced back, the burning reds of the undead horde growing closer and closer. He turned back to his trapped hoof and pulled again. He could hear himself calling in a distant, braying whinny, "Protect him! Protect him at all costs!"
Grey Hoof balked, and pulled again. He could feel the unfamiliar hoof loosening in the roots ever so slightly, and if he put a little more strength into it, he could get loose. He glanced back at the coming herd; they were closer, moaning and groaning and drooling and trotting at a frighteningly fast past that could be barely called a gallop. He pulled once more, feeling the roots giving just that little bit more. One more tug and he could get away…!
As soon as he pulled himself free, he got up to begin galloping again. But just as he started to get away, he felt something clamp his hind pastern and bite with enough force to draw blood. He screamed and kicked with his other hind hoof, but that only got grabbed and bitten on as well. He fell, twisting about to find the horde already upon him, mouths open and ready to receive warm and gooey flesh. They feasted eagerly, drowning out his cries with the sounds of their munching as his stomach was split open and organs were sent spilling out. He felt each stab of pain, each bite of endless agony as some pulled at his intestines and brought them to their waiting mouths.
Even as he wished for death to come, it never ended. His brain was forced to process every ounce of agony as flesh was ripped from bones, as organs were pulled out of his body, as teeth repeatedly clamped down to do it all over again.
The pain never stopped, as his vision kept placing him in different bodies meeting the same grisly end. It kept amplifying instead, building on itself exponentially as death after death flashed before his eyes, each and every time listening to himself stir the herd into braying for blood.
Another vision flashed before his eyes, and this time he tried to close them to no avail, for something prevented him from closing them. This time, he was placed in his own body, but now he was surrounded by dead ponies all glaring at him with soulless and glassy eyes. Each one had a weapon in hoof, and he noticed his hooves were unobstructed this time. He punched the first pony that lunged, managing to disorient the attacker.
But that left his backside open, and another pony seized their chance, stabbing him in the back with a knife. Grey Hoof cried and twisted about to kick that pony, but a third raced to kick him in the face, making him stumble backwards into another pony, who then twisted him around to give him a horseshoe sandwich to the face. Bones broke as more ponies piled on to deliver the beatdown, each strike chipping at Grey Hoof's energy and resolve until he was left weakly taking every strike without even a token effort.
He was tied, dragged into a house, and saw a fireplace. The knife cut into his flesh again, and he was thrown into the inferno to burn once more. He tried screaming into the uncaring nothingness, and silence answered back outside of the visions he was seeing and feeling. Godcat's voice echoed in his head, from both of Her halves simultaneously, "You shall lay here, forgotten by all with time. The suffering you inflicted through cruelty and inaction will be repaid a thousandfold, forever. None but Us shall remember you existed, damned soul. Only when you truly repent will We consider the possibility of letting you walk free again."
Discord's voice then added its two bits, sadistic, quiet and grim in equal measure, "And each time, new forms of chaos will come to ensure that nothing gets boring for you! Cakes falling from the sky… flying pigs… your body reconfiguring into new and inventive shapes… isn't this all exciting?"
The next vision had Grey Hoof's body slowly turning into a giant tree. He could feel every root, every bastardization of sinew as it stretched to obscene proportions slowly, every leaf that started to grow from his scalp. His tail morphed into vines, by forcing the hairs to fall out, take root, and then filled the pores where the follicles were until they had taken root just enough to start growing. His hooves peeled outward and he looked down to find roots spreading out from them, taking hold in the ground.
His veins pulsed and darkened, his flesh split with sickening and wet squelches, and wood crept up his legs in crisscrossing webs that were only nauseating to look at. He turned to where his mark would have been if he had it, and found slow tendrils of blossom stalks growing outwards from them, weaving about in nonexistent sunlight, bulbous heads already ready to bloom and dripping with his blood.
He made to scream, but gargled as he felt something crawling up his throat that scraped at his insides on its way out. His jaws were forcibly parted wide open, and out snaked more of those blossoms, fresh and dripping with his blood, arcing upwards to catch whatever sunlight there was. He felt them worming his way out of his ears, and in some delicate places, and tried to move.
But he was firmly rooted to the spot. He couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't do anything but wallow in agony. Visions flashed by his eyes, making him relive every vile thing he ever ordered or had done with his own two front hooves. Every death, he tried to justify in his mind, but those defenses fell utterly flat in the face of damnation and anguish. Every sin, he tried to rationalize, but anything he could have pulled from the depths of the soul didn't abate the agony.
And he was left to his own devices in that tormented state, and the layers of Hell into which he had been plunged.
Nothing short of genuine atonement could help him now. All he could do was reflect on his life, and the decisions that lead him down his dark path.
It would be years before he would even consider the thought that, just maybe, he had been wrong this whole time. It would be years further still, well after the incident had been buried in the dustbins of history, that he would consider genuine atonement.
