To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.

Not all active magic is the same.

The magic of the Unicorns is - mathematical. It brings the churning chaos of mana into a clear and concise pattern that can be easily understood with the right knowledge - it describes the world as variables to be accounted for, everything has to be taken in account and manipulated precisely to achieve your result - your exact result, and nothing less and nothing more.

The magic of the Once Great deer is - musical. It’s melodic, old, primal, crystalline - they sing the very world itself into shape. Their magic lends itself easily to creation, and it was through their songs that they carved the Great Cities of Aezilan.

The magic of the Rams is cruel. Most call it dark magic, in today's age - but it's true name is War Magic. Their spells are meant to destroy and their sole purpose is to destroy: they serve no other purpose, have no other use. They are ugly spells that must be cast with intent to achieve their effect - no Warspell can be cast without the desire to destroy present in the caster's heart. The aura is indicative of the soul - but the magic of the Rams twists the soul of its user, making its magic come out in ugly, gnashing waves of deep red and hungry black.

Warspells rained from the sky. Something powerful was behind them - an old force, one that Discord vaguely remembered. It tickled at the back of his consciousness with a slight twinge of - familiarity. In his cage - he was blind and deaf - but recently, his cage had been - weakened. While before, he had been unable to gather so much as a droplet of chaotic energy from the civil unrest of the world: after the breaking of the moon, he was able to feed on scraps. In a year or so - he might even be able to break out.

He cast his senses out around himself, slowly spreading them - until he felt it.

There were two souls that he did not recognize. One that had brushed up at the edge of his radius before - Kindness, some part of him recognized. Then, there was the Abomination's soul - a burning caldera of lavender energy -, and then there was It's soul.

"N-no, m-monster. I didn't die. You k-killed me." The creature that wore Twilight Velvet's corpse smiled.

There was a lurch in the air as her horn darkened with sickly red energy. "Let me r-repay your ‘gift’."

Red energy tore itself out from her horn - and two separate, bloody halves of Twilight Sparkle fell to the floor.

The spell was efficient and deadly. In a time long past - it was known merely as Cleave. It was an ugly spell - one that ignored unenchanted armor and carved through flesh as easily as butter. The filly didn't stand a chance - a soft gurgle coming from her throat as a spray of white blood tore out of her. Rarity started screaming and Applejack stepped backward - but it was Fluttershy who noticed how strange Twilight's innards were.

There were no organs. It was as if there was a layer of fur around her flesh - and her flesh had tubes around it, curling and coiling around as they connected to something - a small, spherical thing in the center of her chest that had been split down the middle. Her blood wasn't actually blood - it looked more like sap, and smelled the part, too. It was sickeningly sweet and disgustingly viscous - drooping and oozing down to the ground like sludge. Twilight didn't seem - dead, either, even as she gurgled and coughed. She was still twitching, and there were strange, fleshy tendrils beginning to connect her two halves.

Twilight Velvet's horn lit again. This glow was more intense - and you could see the rippling of the air around her horn as aether was forced into a small, compact space.

"Good," Discord thought to himself. "Kill her. Do my job for me."

A rippling bolt of energy tore from her horn. It was a work of art - a spell that hadn't been used since Grogar the Godless had fought against his old rival. It swirled with ultimate lethality, unstoppable by any natural force -

Fluttershy threw herself in the way of the bolt.

As the Warspells struck - there was a rage that Celestia felt. A rage that she had not felt in a very long time. They dare? She thought to herself. They dare to attack my ponies in my city? They dare?

Armor that the world had not seen for centuries formed on her with a flash. The Glaive of the Sun formed by her side - even deep down in the Black Vault below, no wards could keep Her weapon from her. She spun it in a fan experimentally before, with a beat of her wings, she tore from her balcony and surveyed the damage to her city.

Down at the base of the Canterhorn, there was a squadron of - Things. Celestia truly had no word to describe them - they had far too many teeth and mouths, wriggling and snarling - horns that pulsed with red ley that sent warspells flying up towards the city. They were far too dark and far too bright in splotches - they burned with the light of the True Sun...but a twisted mockery, instead of the genuine solar might that Celestia herself channeled.

It disgusted her. Almost as much as the waves of chaos magic that she felt rolling from the gardens - and immediately, her heart sank. No, she pleaded. He couldn’t have escaped.

Celestia moved fast - the air beginning to burn in her presence, a trail of flame painting her path behind her. Her wings and lungs burned with exertion as she broke the sound barrier from a standstill - and moved faster, faster, faster- until she crashed into thin-air and was sent springing backward by a thin plastic firmament.

"No. No. Twilight - no!" Celestia's horn began to glow as she started pulling every ounce of magic she could into herself -

"Defend your people, Celestia." Discord's sickly voice rang out from within her mind. "I won't kill your daughter. At least not today."

Discord was many things - and one of those things was indeed a liar. But there was a twinge of something in his tone - something that she hadn't heard since he was merely Discord, and not the Betrayer.

Celestia let loose a fraction of the magic within herself - and Sunfire began to rain at the base of the Canterhorn.

The three and a half fillies dropped down in a twisting, gnarling pit. The walls were a dark green of evershifting bramble - and all three and a half of them could feel something wrong. Rarity's horn stung, Applejack couldn't feel the ground like normal, Fluttershy's wings felt frozen - and the half of Twilight Sparkle that Discord had managed to teleport was twitching randomly.

Rarity was still screaming, so Applejack promptly pushed her hoof into her mouth. "Scream later." She growled. "That...thing could still be here."

Rarity stared at Applejack with wide, trembling eyes - before she slowly nodded.

"If I pull m'hoof out, are ye' gonna start screaming?"

Rarity shook her head slowly. Applejack slowly pulled her hoof out of her mouth - and Rarity let out a soft whimper.

"Oh, Twilight-"

"She isn't dead." Fluttershy shook her head. "L-look at her." She pointed at her. The one half of Twilight had fleshy tendrils slowly growing out of it - wrapping around each other and slowly forming the vein-like tubes that ran around the inside of her body. "She's - not -"

"T'aint normal." Applejack shook her head. "W-we can't...leave her."

Two sets of eyes slowly turned to Applejack. The large earth-pony filly rather promptly gulped - before she hefted Twilight over her shoulder and awkwardly saddled her over her back. Applejack blinked a few times. "What in tarnation - she's lighter than a feather!"

Rarity grimaced as she placed a hoof in her own mouth. She pulled it out after a few moments when she was certain she wouldn't scream - but very notably, kept her gaze averted from Twilight's general direction.

"W-w-where a-are w-we?" Rarity stammered out. The trio slowly inspected their surroundings - thick brambles that seemed to be constantly shifting, just the barest amount of light shining through.

"R-rarity." Applejack shifted over and lightly prodded the filly. The filly all but jumped, moving a hoof over her heart. "Can you - light yer' horn?"

Rarity shut her eyes. She took in a deep breath - and pushed her magic out past the stinging chaotic magic that disrupted it. A dim glow came from her tip, faintly illuminating whatever she was looking at.

"Rares. Yer - gonna have to lead the way." She said softly.

"W-what?" She hissed. "No! Absolutely not! I am not wandering head-first into a twisting labyrinth where, since the air is wrong, I can barely use my magic!"

"We don't got much of a choice, Rares." Applejack said with a hint of steel in her voice. "Promise. We'll be right by yer' side."

Rarity turned her head to the side. She shut her eyes. "...could - we hold hooves? I don't - I don't want to be by myself."

"Can't really - walk like that, Rares. But we can be right next to each other. Promise. Right." Applejack shifted over to the side, pressing her shoulder against Rarity's. Fluttershy tenderly extended her wing, brushing it against Rarity's back lightly.

The three slowly began to venture deeper into the shifting hedge maze. Turns and twists seemed to appear randomly - but it seemed centered around them, somehow. The ground underneath them felt strangely stable and firm compared to the rest of the maze. Rarity's horn-light was essential: there was absolutely no visibility without her.

Applejack slowly turned towards Rarity. "Y-yknow, I don't hate you, right?" She said softly.

"That's r-rather sudden, darling."

"Ain't yer' darling." Applejack said reflexively. "Er - sorry. Habit. It's just - I'm thinking." Applejack slowly turned her head to the side.

"...are you both scared?" Fluttershy said softly.

"Terrified." Rarity said immediately.

"Yeah." Applejack nodded. "M'dad always told me that if I pretend to be brave, then eventually I'll start feelin' brave. Well - I'm pretending. But I'm still scared."

"...same." Fluttershy nodded. "I - I just want - my mom." She whispered. Tears slowly brimmed in her eyes.

"And you'll see her again." Applejack said resolutely. "Cus we're gonna get ourselves out of here, find the Princess - and everything will be okay. I promise."

The trio walked in silence for a moment - until they heard something. A faint rustling behind them. Applejack quickly jabbed Rarity in the ribs and pointed at her horn - and her horn-light quickly went out. Fluttershy buried her face into Rarity's side as the three went completely still and completely silent.

Applejack glanced over her shoulder. She wished she hadn't.

The thing that was slowly trotting along behind her was - horrifying. It was out of place with the very world itself - too smooth and too rough, too jagged and too clean. It curved and bent in ways that shouldn't have been possible. There were gnashing teeth and pulsating eyes that continued to grow and grow - it was as large as Applejack could comprehend and as small at the same time.

The worst part, though, was the stomach. There was no trace of equinity in any aspect of the creature - but the stomach...

Where before, there had been tears in the flesh - there were gnashing teeth. The constant trail of black pus was still there, but there was something strange - an almost tongue-like, fleshy appendage with sharpened teeth and glowing eyes. It slowly peeked its way out of her stomach, looking side to side -

Its head was shaped like Applejack's dead mother. She screamed.

"I HEAR YOU!" The abomination shrieked, gibbered, and cackled simultaneously with its thousands of mouths and its thousand eyes - and began hurtling after them on all its many limbs. Rarity and Fluttershy let out their own shrieks as they began diving down deeper into the maze, Applejack right behind them - the sight still seared into her brain.

Quite simply though - the Creature was faster. It moved fast, and in moments - the teeth of its stomach and its thousands of faces bit and snapped. It screamed, and the color began to fade out of the world itself as Applejack felt something dig down into her leg - and then-

Her vision blurred. Her ears rang. Blood oozed up underneath her - her own blood, Applejack faintly realized. Her chest burned as she watched in horror as the creature greedily snapped up her leg. Some small part of Applejack spoke out in fear - but the world felt numb, and so colorless - but there was color, wasn't there?

Her mother's eyes flashed and glimmered a thousand colors as black saliva dripped from her gaping maw. Come to me, she spoke - not with words, but with her very mind. Come to me, my darling daughter - my beautiful Applejack. Come to me, and we can dance in the heavens.

Rarity was screaming. She was weeping. Fluttershy was saying something, but Applejack couldn't hear - and so she started crawling closer to her mother. From an external perspective, it was a grisly sight - a filly with one of her limbs messily torn off, crawling towards her captor as her lips echoed mother wordlessly.

She reached up a hoof towards the mouth. The creature that was once Twilight Velvet opened it up -

CEASE THIS LIE, a radiant voice cried out from the heavens, pulled out from Applejack's throat - a brilliant spear of light piercing through the bubble of chaos magic that prevented outside interference...

A flaming sword carved through Velvet's tongue as the Head Judicator dropped down in front of Applejack. It hissed and reeled away from the presence of flames, the gigantic earth pony stallion planting his hooves and snarling.

Ivory Chaser appeared with a pop - grabbing onto Fluttershy and Rarity and disappearing wordlessly. He returned moments later, doing much the same for Applejack. Steelshy came hurtling from the sky - and despite her last name, plunged a spear into Velvet's back.

"Go." Steelshy beat her wings once and sent herself sprawling backward from the reeling, gnashing monster. "Canterlot needs you!"

"But-"

"Chaser!" Steelshy roared as she gripped onto thin air, pulling another blade out of seemingly thin air. She spun it around in her hooves. "Get him out of here!"

Ivory Chaser's hooves curled around the Head Judicator - and the two promptly disappeared again.

"What in Tartarus are you?" Steelshy's eyes narrowed.

DEATH, Velvet gurgled.

"Then call me life." Steelshy snarled as she lunged into the deep.

The Thing at the base of the Canterhorn was simultaneously many and one - it felt for every swath of flesh that Celestia burned with Sunfire, double its mass grew back. So Celestia could not unleash her full power - not for fear of leaving more destruction than the Thing could manage. But she could release enough of it for her purposes.

Celestia had not used war magic since she and her sister had done battle over the Everfree, she realized. And yet - it came to her like an old friend. The black-colored war magic bubbled at the tip of her horn before it came bursting out of her - a single bolt, like a ballista, tearing from its tip. Micro-fractures ran along its length - they would heal in time, but the ley contained within Celestia's keratin horn began to sting.

The war spell was an ugly thing. It was one of the many things that Grogar had created from his study of the deer ruins - a spell known as Disintegrate. It struck the bulk of the Thing, fractures of ash running along its length - until the horror at the base of the mountain shattered, more than half of its mass being consumed by the corrosive ash.

Before it could begin regrowth, Celestia dropped down from the sky - sending her glaive hurtling along its length. It spun and twirled in her telekinetic grasp, curling through the air in wide arcs to cause as much damage to the Thing as possible. Celestia poured more and more magic into the Glaive of the Sun, causing it to grow hotter and hotter-

A tendril slapped against her horn.

Pain tore through Celestia's mind as she shrieked - the microfractures becoming deeper, wider until her ley was exposed to the air itself - shining with the light of the sun. Celestia threw herself backward with a beat of her wings, but the pain threw her off-balance - hurtling her to the ground, kicking up a spray of dust and rock in the process.

She glanced up at her horn. Thin trails of pink blood ran down her mane. It would heal - but it would take time. Time that she didn't have. To use magic in such a state would risk a miscast - one that could potentially take out the Canterhorn. Without her weapon, either - her lethality was significantly reduced. So she would only use her earthpony and pegasus magic to stall the Thing and hope that the Judicators managed to get there soon enough.

Celestia spread her stance as she put the pain in the back of her mind. Her eyes began to glow - before she burst from the ground like a bullet, the air turning to plasma in her path as she hurtled into the heart of the Terror.

Rarity sobbed into her father's chest while Fluttershy shook like a leaf. Applejack was on the bed - the wound caustic, corrosive- her blood sickly and black. It was increasingly looking like amputation was going to be the only option - which meant that Applejack wouldn't be able to regain the leg.

Which meant that she would forever be neutered - part of her essential magic, her earthpony magic lost to her.

"T-Twilight. Twilight," Applejack managed to whisper out. She reached towards her back - and it was only then that Ivory Chaser realized that he had only brought three fillies with him.

"Rarity." Ivory placed a hoof on his daughter's cheek. "You must get a nurse. Inform them of the situation immediately. Fluttershy - place pressure on the wound. Do you know what that means?" A nod. "Good. I'll be back momentarily." His horn lit-

NOT AGAIN, UNICORN. A voice tore through his mind.

He was sent flying backward into a wall - and promptly crumpled into an unconscious heap.

Steelshy Blade was the Master-Commander of the Standing Army of Equestria. She had earned this title - while she was not the fastest pegasi, she was by far the most skilled with a blade - and possessed a remarkable ability that even the Princess couldn't fully comprehend. The Mark of Conquest, she had called it.

Steelshy ducked underneath a tendril and jumped underneath the grotesque musculature of a lashing arm. She flung herself backward, throwing her hoof into the air - dozens of blades beginning to form before they were hurtled into Velvet. The abomination hissed and tore itself free from where her blades pinned it down, but more weapons - spears, chains, maces, continued to form and tear into it.

It was a tug-of-war, and the two were almost equally matched. For every blade that Steelshy summoned, Velvet possessed the ability to regrow from anything she could inflict - but she had the advantage. She cared not for pain, while Steelshy could be maimed. Steelshy couldn't afford to get hit once - while Velvet could fight with no regard for her own safety.

"The girl," a voice whispered in the back of her head. Her eyes flitted around - until she saw Twilight. Her body was strange, malformed - twisted and was slowly pulsing as it regrew. Her blood ran cold.

Velvet's eyes followed Steelshy's. It let out a hissing snarl as it suddenly lurched towards her, its mouth snapping open and threatening to consume her whole -

Steelshy swooped in and grabbed Twilight in one fluid motion - but the creature reached up and pulled. It's tendril curled around her wing, around the base of her wing - and with a horrible sound like a tree being torn from the ground, a grisly crack and a gruesome feeling of unbalance - Steelshy hurtled to the ground, her head smashing against the stone base of Discord's statue.

The pain only struck once Steelshy saw Velvet begin to consume her wing. Her head tilted up as she dangled the severed appendage over one of her many mouths - and let it drop. She could see chunks of her own meat, her own feathers in all of her mouths in her eyes that had begun to grow - and she mutated, growing larger, and larger-

The scent of blood filled the air, and with it followed a lavender glow.

Celestia was strong. Strong enough that she could shatter a boulder with a single kick - fast enough that she could break the sound barrier from a standstill if so pressured. She was the eldest of the Aspects, the first among equals - and she would not allow some beast to bring harm to her ponies.

"Name yourself, beast!" She roared. Her ethereal mane grew fiery, the grass being scorched underneath her hooves as she struck with her great wings - using them as a weapon, each beat displacing enough air at such speed that it could kill a pony. "Name yourself!" She cried - even as she slowly made her path towards where the Glaive of the Sun had been hurtled to.

I AM DEATH, the great beast cried - and Celestia knew that it lied.

She tore pillars of rock from the ground, shards of the Canterhorn itself to pin down and bisect the horrible creature. "You lie!" She cried, even as a tendril wormed its way past her guard and slashed across her face. Her blood oozed down her cheek.

I AM YOUR DEATH, INDOMITA. Celestia blanched as it used her name given by birth.

"I have fought greater foes than you, Beast!" Celestia slammed her hooves into the ground - the dirt and rock splashing like water as a torrential wave of it formed a divide between the two. She spread her wings and took off the ground, hurtling towards the Glaive of the Sun.

She slammed into a wall of darkness.

NO, the beast spoke. The wall grew curved - shifted, morphed, until it wrapped around her from all directions - until it blotted out the sky above and the ground below.

YOU HAVE NOT, it hissed - and it began to consume.

The smell of blood woke Twilight Sparkle from her daze. The air felt foggy- but some instinctive part of her recognized the blood. Recognized the scent.

There was darkness all around her, save the blood. So Twilight leaned forward - and she lapped at the blood. She lapped hungrily, desperately - until strength filled her bones, and there was nothing but darkness and a soft buzz in the back of her ears.

The darkness blurred, and in came the light. It was fading, even as the darkness grew - but there was a beast. A beast that looked like her mother - and tears ran down Twilight Sparkles' cheeks. She did not make a noise.

"Iampex," a voice that was not hers whispered in the back of her head. "Oh, how you've grown."

Twilight inspected the beast - and decided that she did not like it.

MONSTER, Iampex cried out.
"Yes," Kesmera agreed. "A monster! Be a monster then, Twilight Sparkle! Feast on her flesh, tear at her soul - destroy her!"

There was a faint thought - one that buzzed in the back of the filly's broken mind. Celestia's words - her instructions.

"You worry about her still? I will show you her - I will show you, your Celestia!"

Twilight's senses expanded. She could hear, see - everything. She could see the minutiae on Velvet's maws - the hairs that curled and moved away from the light. She could see magic - the web of the aether itself, threads tangled, gnarled, and curled in such strange patterns - but they made so much sense.

She could hear something. In the back of her head - a faint pounding. Like a drum - but more beautiful. Yet with each beat - it faded.

"You are a monster, Twilight Sparkle! A tamed monster, but a monster nonetheless. So - be a good monster! Feast!" Twilight thought for a moment.

The cobblestones broke underneath her footstep. The grass burned, waves of mana so violent oozing off of her that the air was tinted lavender. The corona of her horn grew deeper, richer - wider, longer, until it was an all-consuming spear of light.

Ethereal wings of mana spread along her back - and for a moment, Twilight Sparkle was lost. The thing that stood in her place was Infinite, Endless - yet finite, small. It was circular and cubic, it was a creature of pure Light in a putrid realm of Darkness, and vice versa. Thousands of eyes and mouths opened up simultaneously -

And the Darkness screamed as it remembered that the light can burn.

-

Author's Note

Behold! A discord server!