Fallout Equestria: The Ashlands Timeline

Tuesday, 11/1/2287
POV: Crimson Prose
The Everfree Forest

Crimson didn’t like to admit when things got to her, which was far more often than she let ponies believe, and Tranquil leaving rustled her more than usual. Crimson’s wife was out there somewhere getting herself killed and robbing her of the satisfaction. Or was that really it? She was pretty sure that was it.

On the plus side, Crimson’s plan had gone awry in enough ways to make things more interesting.

Crimson tripped right out of the gate by underestimating Chrome Keys. She didn’t expect Chrome trapping the soul recycler in Stable 27 with stun coils. The confusing part was, that would have taken hours to set up, almost like she knew to do it in advance. Sure, Crimson escaped later, but not having the recycler complicated the situation.

Not that Crimson feared permanent death, given how much she knew she deserved it, but the soul recycler was a bargaining chip for Midnight. While Crimson’s past aid to the NLR wouldn’t sway Midnight with all that happened since, such a gift would put Crimson back in good with her. If that wasn’t enough, she could have offered Tranquil as a kill-buck toy.

But now they didn’t matter, because Crimson found a better gift for Midnight.

Crimson heard all about their first encounter with Midnight from their team fleshlight Kamikaze. Midnight wanted Starlight and Kamikaze, so Crimson could slip off and tell Midnight their location.

It was just as well. Crimson knew Starlight; she’d go mad with power and be no better than Midnight. It’d probably happen even faster since she was a bad copy of the original, it seemed unlikely she’d remain stable now that Crimson knew her origin.

If a tyrant ruled the wasteland, Crimson may as well support the one with the most experience. The chance of Starlight denting any of the other contenders was slim, anyway. She’d probably get raped to death by raiders before even making it to Holder.

Maud was the only other one Crimson wanted to keep alive. She figured if she ever got access to another soul recycler, it might be fun to let Maud kill her a few times. Maybe even just once some day if she didn’t find one.

Crimson wondered what Midnight would do regarding Twilight. On one hoof, her existence would be offensive to Midnight. On the other hoof, Twilight saved Kamikaze’s life and gave up her own magic to do so, then acted against all sanity to save that one dragon’s life later. Crimson could suggest cryo-rehab for her; a broken-horned alicorn would make a great masochist if programmed.

But there was one big problem: Limestone. Her psionic sense wasn’t easy to out-maneuver when Crimson was traveling with her. Lucky for Crimson though, the sense had a weakness: Limestone had to know a threat or pony existed to plan around them, and there were ponies in their group that Limestone hadn’t known about until recently, not enough time to think them through.

Crimson chose a sleeping spot next to their pile of saddlebags and supplies, which itself lay next to the exit to Zecora’s hut. The Solar-Pie fun was still going, but everypony else other than Dinky had gone to sleep. Dinky was watching the fun, possibly from boredom given her lack of reaction to it, so it was the perfect time for Crimson to act. She slinked over to that corner and pulled her book out of her own saddlebag. She opened it to the middle.

The frowning figure of Crimson’s character Paper Cut greeted her. The imaginary unicorn had a dark gray coat and eyes with a dark purple mane. Her mane and tail were cropped short and straight, though more ruffled than the straight-edge manecut the Pies favored. Her cutie mark was a quill, not unlike Crimson's, with a letter opener behind it like crossed swords. In her stories, Paper Cut was an Equestrian scout, so the mark fit well enough, though the letter opener opened a lot more than letters in the stories.

She wore a pith helmet and green button-up shirt, looking like she might want to go on a trek through the jungle, an outfit ripped off from Crimson's old friend AK Yearling. AK told Crimson about an idea she had for a character based on her own adventures, but had never gotten around to writing it due to her work at the Ministry.

Hanging around next to her was the other sentient character in the book, Ink Blot. If Paper Cut was Crimson’s evil side, Ink Blot was what little was left of her innocence. Ink looked like Crimson as a foal, so basically smaller, cuter, and without a cutie mark. She was an accidental creation and her existence was very distracting, but Crimson kept her so Paper would have company. That and she had been quite useful to avoid lie-detection at times.

Paper had restrained Ink, suspending her from the ceiling by her tail. As Paper Cut was holding a baseball bat, Crimson assumed that they were about to engage in what Paper affectionately called happy-fun-piñata-time. Regretfully, Crimson didn’t have time to watch or take part.

‘Well look who it is,’ Paper Cut spoke inside Crimson’s head. ‘When do I get to help kill a real pony? You promised we’d have tons of victims in the wasteland, maybe even let me start a new killing game, but here I am, being your bucking strategist!’

‘Save me Crimmy!’ Ink begged.

Ink always pleaded for rescue even if Crimson always helped Paper instead of saving Ink. The ink filly never stopped, as if she were Crimson’s subconscious keeping a way out open for her. Crimson imagined she’d never take that way out though. Even if Crimson deserved such a chance, it would make her life awfully boring.

Not wanting to hear her complaints at the moment, Crimson drew a gag over Ink Blot’s muzzle while she talked to Paper Cut.

‘Oh, stop complaining,’ Crimson replied to Paper with a thought. ‘We have to escape and then we can have fun. So, what did you come up with?’

‘I’m busy,’ Paper Cut sneered.

‘Look,’ Crimson though. ‘Either you came up with something, or I will draw the comfy chair and tie you to it.’ The only way to punish Paper was to deny her both fun and pain.

‘Fine!’ Paper Cut growled, dropping the bat for now. ‘I figured out how to deal with the pipbuck alarm. And sadly the plan doesn’t involve killing everypony.’

‘Okay,’ Crimson said. ‘Tell me one step at a time.’

The solution to making a plan without Limestone sensing it? Don’t make a plan.

Instead, Crimson tasked Paper with coming up with the plan. It wasn’t easy to get Paper’s cooperation in this. It took a while to get her to understand that the plan shouldn't include murder, which might be wasteful. Lucky for Crimson, Paper came around.

At least Crimson assumed. A step at a time required a lot of trust in Paper, but Crimson felt it necessary to decrease the chance of Limestone’s intervention.

‘Okay, the first step; take off your horn restraint,’ Paper said.

Easy enough. Crimson could remove any restraint from Stable 27, similar to the altered pipbucks, though with the restraints they didn’t need to be altered as much as one would think. She suspected Limestone already figured out that they’d be ineffective on her, which was why she’d set the pipbuck alarms.

‘Get a stealth buck from Maud’s bag,’ said Paper.

That made sense too. As interesting as it might be to get eaten by a dragon or some monster, she’d rather get to the castle without that happening. Crimson removed one from Maud’s bag and slipped it into her own.

‘You know that memory vision earlier…’ Paper went momentarily off topic. ‘You mentioned those smart toilets at the Ministry. Always wanted to try one…’

‘Stay on topic,’ Crimson warned. ‘Or I’ll put you and Ink Blot on separate pages so you can’t torment her.’

‘Fine,’ Paper growled, then continued the instructions. ‘Okay, get Spitfire’s head out of Solar’s bag,’

‘Is the next step going to be to buck it?’ asked Crimson, wary that she was already distracted again. ‘It doesn’t exactly move its tongue anymore, and pleasure is not the priority.’

‘Tsk, such distrust,’ Paper shook her head. ‘You wound me. Come on, I used to be an AI, I got computer horse apples figured out.’

Crimson looked to the others to make sure they were still asleep or distracted, then pulled open Solar’s bag and retrieved Spitfire’s head.

‘Unwrap it enough to access the pipbuck port on the side of her head, then plug your pipbuck in to it,’ said Paper.

Crimson unwrapped as little as possible, exposing the port and plugging her own pipbuck into it.

‘Now, transfer the codes between them,’ said Paper.

Of course! Starlight’s alarm was tracking all the pipbucks, but hadn't thought to track the one in Spitfire's head. The alarms would look for if one of those pipbucks was removed or left the area. But Spitfire’s pipbuck would always register as worn. Crimson grinned as she made the switch and unplugged, putting the head back in Solar’s bag.

“Crimson?” Twilight’s tired voice asked as Crimson was closing Solar’s bag. “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

Crimson turned around to see Twilight, head raised, though barely awake. It’d be a wonder if Twilight remembered talking to her the next morning, so hopefully she wouldn’t notice that Crimson’s horn restraint was off either. Luckily the head and book were on the opposite side of Crimson from Twilight.

‘Antagonize her so she won’t want to talk to you,’ Paper suggested.

“I was going to sleep,” Crimson grumbled. “But some wannabe goddess mascot annoyed me. Shouldn’t you curl up with that worthless dragon’s corpse and sob some more like an ass-raped filly guide?”

‘You overdid it,’ commented Paper Cut. ‘She’s going to kill us. I hope she makes it good at least.’

Paper was right; being murdered would be a serious delay. Indeed, Twilight’s face twisted with rage, but she recovered in seconds. To Crimson’s surprise, she reached a hoof and placed it on Crimson’s in a comforting motion.

“I know why you do that,” Twilight said. “You’re hurting inside, and you push ponies away because you feel you don’t deserve friends; maybe you’re even afraid that you’ll harm any friends you gain. But if you take a break from the facade you force onto yourself and need to talk, I’m here for you.”

Twilight rolled over and fell back to sleep quickly, but she’d left Crimson stunned. For a moment, she could only stare. Was that how Crimson felt? Was she chasing away friends in a belief she didn’t deserve them? She had no idea. Crimson typically ignored her own feelings that didn’t involve death, sex, or both.

Why was Twilight nice to her? Twilight knew Crimson was a murderer, that she was guilty of high treason, that she killed Hayscartes to take his method and had him branded a filly-fiddler, even murdered her own family. Twilight understood that if she were Crimson's prisoner, she'd wish she were dead, yet still cared for Crimson’s well-being.

It made Crimson feel strange… a weird emotion she didn’t recognize, swelling up in the pit of her stomach. Was that… guilt? Crimson never stopped despising herself, but she hadn’t felt such sincere guilt for as long as she could remember.

‘You don’t have to,’ a voice rang in Crimson’s ears, and she looked down in the book to find Ink Blot having managed to ungag herself.

Or did Crimson’s subconscious free her? It didn’t matter; Crimson redrew it.

‘Oh, rape us with Midnight’s serrated horn,’ groaned Paper Cut. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going soft.’

“Crimson?” Mercury’s voice said from behind her. The distracted Crimson didn’t see her come over. “What are you… wait, your horn?”

“Shhh,” Crimson whispered and put a hoof to Mercury’s mouth. “Don’t tell the others.”

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Mercury asked in a whisper. She looked worried, and like she was thinking of calling over Limestone.

“What? Nah,” Crimson said. “If I was, I wouldn’t have my book open. I was just writing.”

“Oh, what are you writing?” asked Mercury, looking curious. Poor naïve dear.

‘Put her in the book,’ Paper said in Crimson’s head. ‘That’ll keep the alarm from going off. It’s set to check if she registered as moved out of radius or if her vital signs drop, but if she vanishes entirely, the shoddy Stable-Tec programming won’t know what to do.’

‘That’s bananas,’ thought Crimson, unsure if it was a good idea. But then again, bananas were good. Maybe this plan was more plantains.

‘I’m sure it’ll work,’ Paper said. ‘100% chance!... err…95?... I’d say we have well over a 50% chance of surviving this.’

Good enough.

“Say,” Crimson smiled at Mercury, adopting her fake-nice face for the first time since she left Stable 27. “You want to see what I wrote? I want your opinion on it.”

“You mean like put me in the story?” Mercury asked. “That’s what you usually meant when you asked back at Stable 27, but now… I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on,” Crimson whispered. “They know I can put ponies in this book. If you turn up missing, that’s the first place they’ll look, then Starlight will tell Maud to kill-buck me. I won’t leave you there long.” Though Crimson’s definition of ‘not for long’ probably varied from Mercury’s.

“Well okay I guess,” Mercury said. She wasn’t 100% naïve, however, as she put the helmet back on to complete the blinder barding she already had on and picked up her telesyringer. Mercury loaded it with one of the canisters marked as the explosive gas.

‘Tsk,’ complained Paper Cut. ‘I guess she has fewer qualms about killing book characters with exploding canisters than real ponies. Bucking racist.’

Crimson made sure the others weren’t looking and slid herself behind their bags so her horn glow wouldn’t be as apparent. It took a lot of energy to put another living pony in her book. They had to be conscious, and it helped immensely if they were willing. Since Crimson didn’t have the time to tie her up, Mercury had to let Crimson do this.

Mercury’s wish to see her become a good pony was as irrational as Twilight’s, maybe more so since Mercury still trusted her this much. And so, Mercury stayed still while Crimson cast the spell. Crimson’s energy enveloped Mercury, her form shimmering. She gradually became transparent, fading into a mere sketch of herself before her form swirled into the book.

By the time Mercury had adjusted to her surroundings within the book, Crimson had already drawn a gag and horn restraint on her. Paper Cut wrangled the gun away from Mercury and kicked it across the dungeon where they’d been drawn.

‘Don’t maim or kill her without me,’ Crimson thought. ‘Or I’ll put you in the comfy chair for a month. You can go ahead and start breaking her figuratively though.’

Mercury’s eyes were wide with horror as Paper approached her with a psychotic grin. The poor filly looked certain she was about to die.

‘What kind of candy do you have inside?’ asked Paper with a chuckle.

Crimson closed the book, slipping it into her saddlebag. She chucked her blinder barding in favor of only wearing her overmare stable barding, then clicked the stealth buck onto her pipbuck, disappearing from view as it activated. She headed into the forest.

At first, Crimson planned to only use the stealth buck to get through the forest. Once she got to the castle, she’d talk to the gate guards and request an audience with Midnight. If she did that, the worst they’d do is imprison or torture her until Midnight was available.

But as Crimson stared at the gate guards from afar, she got that feeling again. That raw emotion made her sick to her stomach. Damn it to Tartarus; Twilight had damaged her. She’d have to murder at least a dozen innocents to fix this. Where was a filly guide or colt cadet troop when she needed one?

For the moment though, she rationalized. The guards might still kill her if Midnight wasn’t free and they didn’t believe her. She should go in one of the secret entrances and find Midnight herself. Besides, walking in out of nowhere and waving would be hilarity that Midnight might actually appreciate, so long as Crimson arrived with the good news of Kamikaze being alive.

She totally wasn’t rationalizing her actions from a desire not to betray Twilight.

Last Crimson knew, Midnight was ignorant of many secret passages in the castle. Nightmare never told her, probably knowing she might betray her eventually, and Crimson suspected she even enchanted them so scans wouldn’t notice. Granted, Nightmare didn’t tell Crimson either, but there was one that Crimson saw Nightmare use, one that might be discreet enough for Midnight to never have noticed.

It was easy enough to locate. Crimson walked down into the ravine where the tree of harmony was, but out-of-sight from the tree itself. She found the rock wall where she remembered it. It took a few minutes, but she found the loose rock she could pull, the rest of the wall sliding out of place and opening to a tunnel behind it.

Crimson glanced to see if anypony was around to notice, then headed into the passage. She tried to find where the closing lever was inside, but gave up after a few minutes of searching and just left it. Instead she headed through the passage, which led to a flight of stairs up into the castle.

The passage was musty after centuries of disuse. The bricks on the walls were damaged from age, looking more like a cave than a hallway. Crimson pushed the door open on the other end, which slid out of a bookcase in the royal library. She pushed it shut behind her.

The library itself was clean as if it had been in active use. That was no wonder given Midnight’s obsession with books, though nopony was there for now. Crimson couldn’t help but wonder if her older novels were somewhere in the several stories of bookcases, but now was not the time to delay. Stealth bucks only had so much power, and she’d forgotten how much.

It’d been a long time though. Crimson didn’t remember her way around as good as she thought she would, so she ended up wandering the halls for longer than she liked. This place seemed smaller on the outside, and there weren’t any signs designating locations. Perhaps that was by design to confuse intruders like her.

Though one passage certainly hadn’t been there before. They’d opened a hole in the wall which led to a cave beyond. Inside were solid rock walls rather than cut stone. Next to it was one of the few signs in the castle. It stated “Unauthorized Access will be punished with relaxing vacation”. Knowing Midnight, that meant something as lethal as it was lewd.

Crimson figured that must be the Mirror Pool. If she could convince Midnight to let her make a clone of herself, killing her other self could be fun. Or she could go buck herself like so many had told her to do. Or both.

Paintings decorated the walls, and some were fun to glance at. Most of them were Midnight trying to look intimidating, though a good part of them were sexy paintings of Kamikaze, sometimes doing lewd things with Midnight. Midnight obviously still had it bad for Kamikaze to the point of an obsession. It was sweet in a creepy way, which was the best kind of sweet.

But as Crimson stopped to admire a painting that depicted Midnight crushing a fallen pony’s head with one hoof, she heard a quiet beep coming from her pipbuck. A moment later, her stealth field failed, and she blinked into view.

Oh right. Midnight probably had systems to drain the power from stealth bucks, considering that was a favorite tactic of the more advanced super-mutants. Crimson should have thought of that.

Crimson dove behind one statue lining the hall, wondering what type of magic surveillance they had in here. Then again, they didn’t have control of this castle when Crimson turned on them, so if they didn’t think to change it later, Crimson might still register as an ally to the security system. In that case, she wouldn’t set off alarms; it was just a matter of if whatever guard monitored the system noticed her signal.

She wasn’t even sure why she hid. She should have found the nearest guard and told them to take her to their leader. They still probably wouldn’t kill her if she willingly turned herself over. But there it was. That annoying sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

As Crimson hid, she heard hoof steps further up the hall. They were moving at a casual pace, so she doubted they were coming for the intruder. She remained behind the armor for the time being as three bat guards headed down the hall.

“They said the two she disconnected from the Trinity's hive escaped a few days ago,” one stallion said. “They killed one as it fled, but the other got away.”

“Too bad,” a mare said. “It could have turned into anything. Just imagine that!”

“The surgery to disconnect them damages their changing whats-it,” a second stallion said. “Besides, I don’t think it’d turn into what you want if you’re pinning it down.”

“Yeah, it’d turn into the ugliest thing possible to stop you,” said the first.

“But how would it know what your mom looks like?” chuckled the second.

Crimson smirked; she’d try to remember that one.

“Buck off,” growled the first.

“I need a damn pony prisoner that Her Shadow will let me rape too,” the mare said. “I missed a go at that mare that wandered in because I was out scouting.”

“I wouldn't mind a fresher one,” said the first stallion. “She was already pretty broken by the time I got my turn.”

“I really need less bucked up friends,” sighed the second stallion.

“You know you love us,” said the mare.

Crimson assumed the escapees were the changelings that Tranquil had met, and that 'that mare' was Tranquil. It was nice to know that Tranquil got some misery, but Crimson felt her ire rising that at least some of the defilers were ‘real’ stallions.

And now she'd ran off with changelings, so she'd basically been abducted by Trinity instead. What would Trinity do to her? Even if Tranquil rescued a changeling that might only earn her the ‘honor’ of being turned into a super-mutant. While the image of Tranquil as a muscled misshapen alicorn amused Crimson, it would make murdering her significantly less amusing, not to mention more difficult.

As far as Crimson knew, all changelings worked for Trinity. Not that the changelings wanted to, but Trinity’s control over the hive was absolute. It was appalling even to Crimson. She’d torture or program somepony until they broke and obeyed, but she’d never possess them outright. There was neither fun nor challenge in enslaving a pony like that.

‘You’re a slave too, you know,’ Ink Blot voice echoed in Crimson’s head, even with the book being closed, as if Crimson’s misgivings gave her power. ‘You decide what to do based on what you imagine you should, even if it’s against your own self-preservation. Are you really different from a book character?’

‘You can’t go back now,’ echoed Paper from the other corner of her mind. ‘They’ll kill you for sure, and you’ll miss finishing Mercury with me.’

They both made valid points. Then again, the others wouldn’t kill Crimson so long as she had Mercury in the book. She could still make a deal.

‘Figure out an excuse I can use while I’m getting out of here,’ Crimson told them.

‘Why would I do that?’ asked Paper.

‘Because if you don’t, and they kill me, you’ll have nopony real to talk to,’ Crimson said. ‘Or worse. Not-Midnight will take an interest in my book and attempt to reform you.’

Crimson headed out from behind the armor, heading down the hall towards the library again. She kept an eye out for guards, though that wasn’t the only thing to watch out for since she didn’t quite remember where all the traps we-

Click.

The stones beneath Crimson rolled out of place, and a few seconds later she face-planted hard on the stone floor of the chamber that opened. Pain shot through her jaw, but it quickly died down to a pleasant ache. She staggered to her hooves and looked around.

‘Yeah that idea went as well as I thought it would,’ Paper Cut sniped.

Crimson found herself in a stone chamber with no exits, the passage above having closed. She lit her horn, taking a few attempts to get the simple spell right, then looked about. She was surrounded by solid stone walls and floor, with the only sign of an exit a small indent on one wall. It looked like it used to be a hole before it was filled in.

There’d be an alarm to bring guards to pull her out now that she’d done this, and how they handled her would depend on how messed up the guards were. What to do when they arrived though? Should she go through with the original plan? Or fight? How would she even fight? She was horse apples at offensive magic. Perhaps she should just hope for good torture and enjoy her demise.

Either way, rescue wasn’t coming. Her team would leave the forest as fast as possible when they realized Crimson escaped. Unless Solar somehow convinced them for Mercury’s sake. Or Maud rescued her with the sole intention of killing Crimson herself.

She had little time to consider. A few minutes after she fell in, the wall with the filled in hole spun half-way around, revealing a way out, and the same three bat guards she’d seen before looking at her.

“Hey, here’s one we can pin down without Her Shadow caring!” the mare had her priorities straight, or lesbian in this case.

Crimson approved of getting it from the mare via magical intervention, but lacked enthusiasm for being violated by stallions, especially when she might not be able to kill them afterwards. She had a vow to keep.

"May as well," said the first stallion. "If Her Shadow gets her first, there won't be much left. Battles always rile her up."

“Will Her Shadow be okay with that?” asked the second stallion. “How’d she even get this far in without tripping the alarms?”

“Who cares how, and why would Her Shadow care?” the mare said. “The system registers her as someone that shouldn't even be alive, so we’ll just use her up and dump the body with the trash.” She turned to Crimson. “You ready for three-in-one?”

“That’s messed up,” said the second stallion. “I won’t say no to a warm hole though since you’ll kill her regardless. Just don’t finish her off before I’m done; I’m not into that.”

“Prude,” Crimson rolled her eyes, but her lack of panic didn’t seem to register with them yet. Either way, this conversation had given her just enough time to think of a bad plan.

“Three-in-one?” the first stallion asked. “You don’t have a dick and we need permission to use one of the gender-shift potions.”

“I have legs!” the mare said. “This bitch is getting one up to the shoulder!”

“Tsk,” said Crimson. “Pity Solar isn’t here. She’d be all over that offer.”

“You don’t seem too concerned,” the mare smirked. “Perhaps we didn’t make ourselves clear. You. Are. Going. To. Die.”

“So it seems!” Crimson said. “Looks like we’re about to find out how far my holes stretch! Spoiler alert: they can stretch really wide. You should see some of my toys! One’s a life-size replica of a greed-sized dragon… Okay that was a lie. I still haven’t managed to fit that one. Tried my best though, and isn’t that what counts in the end?... hm… my end rather?”

“Um, do you not care?” the first stallion asked. He seemed reluctant to step closer to her, perhaps taken off guard by her demeanor.

“Well of course I don’t,” smirked Crimson. “Just look at me. I’m plantains.”

The guards were so taken aback that they didn’t stop Crimson from opening her saddlebag and pulling out the Crimoire. After all, it was a normal-looking book. What could it do?

It could do a lot, but removing objects from the book was a time-consuming process. However, canceling that part of the spell altogether was instantaneous, which would cause every real item she’d put inside the book to fly out at once. She hated to lose her formidable collection of restraints and toys, but desperate times called for random measures.

Crimson snapped the book open, pummeling the guards with an avalanche of random objects. Bondage furniture, restraints, sharp quills, Twilight’s books Crimson kept, half a dozen corpses she'd forgotten about, parchment, more sharp quills, that giant dragon dildo she mentioned… By the time it finished, objects littered the hallway from end to end.

Of course Mercury fell out too. She’d had her armor removed, as it landed on the floor next to her with her telesyringer. Paper Cut must have been having fun with her because Mercury was screaming the moment she popped out. The thrashing, sobbing mare made another adequate distraction even beyond everything else.

‘Hey put that back in!’ Paper Cut’s voice screamed in Crimson’s head, but she promptly ignored the spiteful book-tulpa.

The guards collapsed from the beat-down they got from all the solid objects shooting out at them, staggering as they attempted to pull themselves off the floor. Their eyes were wide with confusion, which was good since wide-open eyes were bigger targets.

Crimson took hold of a few dozen quills in her magic and sent them right for the eyes; oh how she loved doing that. The three shrieked as they were blinded, blood rolling down their faces as they stumbled back either trying to recover or escape.

“Oh that’s where I left that,” Crimson picked up a dagger from the mess and rammed it into the mare guard’s throat, puncturing deep and ripping across to split her throat open.

Wet gurgling sounds replaced the mare’s screams as she collapsed, blood shooting from her neck in time with her pulse as it fluttered to a halt. The first stallion shrieked as warm blood splattered him before he got the same treatment, collapsing against the wall and leaving a smudge of blood as he slid to the floor. Crimson opened her muzzle wide to catch a mouthful of his blood, not caring if it got in her eyes.

“C-Crimson, stop...” Mercury was still trying to get up. Crimson was honestly impressed she hadn’t run away shrieking by now. Crimson ignored her for the moment.

Besides, Crimson had one more bad idea; she was all about bad ideas. She flipped the second stallion onto his back and pinned him to the ground, straddling his hips. When she held the knife against his throat, he recognized what it was, cold steel covered in warm blood.

“No please!” the stallion begged as he tried to lay still, eyes still weeping blood with several quills rammed into both sockets. “I can tell you where the other exits are! The way you entered will be guarded now! There’s a passage right here in this hall that will get you outside, it’s your only chance to survive!”

“That’s a good point,” Crimson admitted, grinding herself against the stallion’s sheath. “Well-made in fact, I’m proud of you! But did I mention? Plantains!” For a few moments, her laughter echoed through the hall.

“There’s no time for that!” Mercury snapped Crimson back into the current situation as she finally got to her hooves and tugged Crimson from atop the stallion. Even still crying, Mercury took the time to save Crimson from herself.

“If you’re not careful,” Crimson growled, forced to cease her cackling. “You’re going to edge out Twilight for #1 weirdest pony I know.”

All the same, Mercury was right. Crimson rammed the blade into the stallion’s throat, not stopping until the tip clicked against the floor on the other side. She left him thrashing as she separated from him with a lewd slurp, retrieving more sharp quills from the floor as she went after Mercury.

Damn it. She did the plantain speech and everything and it was all wasted. Crimson supposed she could do the speech again next time she came across a helpless stallion. It was bound to happen again if she lived long enough.

Mercury impressed Crimson though. She got her wits back and kept her mind on the moment. The wasteland had already changed her.

“Crimson, where’s the exit?” Mercury grabbed her saddlebags and telesyringer, not taking the time to put her stable suit back on.

“Eh, a few halls this way, probably,” Crimson galloped off, jumping over the various objects with Mercury behind her, recognizing the way to the library from here. “Oh right. I know the way out; that explains why you gave a horse apple about my safety.”

“No, you’re escaping,” Mercury said. “And that means you had second thoughts, Paper was even complaining about it. You can become a good pony, like I said!”

“Are you real?” Crimson blinked. “Seriously. How can you be so perceptive and naïve simultaneously?”

They made it to the library, but only just in time for a pair of twilicorns to step out of the entrance in front of them. Crimson skidded to a halt, Mercury slamming into her from behind before she could stop and toppling Crimson forward to face-plant on the stone floor again.

Ignoring the headache, Crimson sent quills at the twilicorns eyes as she stumbled back up. The quills burned to ash long before contact.

“Huh,” Crimson said, wobbling. “I always wondered why more unicorns didn’t think to do that.”

“Guarding!” the first twilicorn tilted her head. “I see you still haven’t chosen sides, Minister Prose. How interesting that you’re still alive. Could it be that you have access to a soul recycler?”

“Guarding!” the second repeated their designated trigger word. “Her Divine Shadow will wish to speak to this one. Kill the other.”

It looked like she might go through with her original plan after all. Crimson was getting tired of her own back-and-forth.

“You remember me?” asked Crimson. “Huh, weird. Not-You said the clones shouldn’t have the same memories as the original.”

Then again, the other one remembered Kamikaze, so these differed from the ones Twilight knew. Midnight must have added something to the process.

Mercury shrieked as the first one picked her up in the telekinetic grasp. It took hold of her legs and head, grinning as it slowly pulled them apart, like a psychopath foal about to pull the legs off a cricket.

“No, you don’t!” Crimson didn’t know why she cared, but it didn’t matter. The moment she moved towards Mercury, the second twilicorn grasped hold of her right front leg with her magic. Without effort, the magical field twisted, snapping the leg like a twig.

Crimson groaned at the surge of pain as she toppled to the floor. The break was rather impressive, the leg bent the wrong way at the knee with shards of bone poking through her bleeding, swollen flesh. It wasn’t easy to ignore this level of pain or pretend to enjoy it so they'd not inflict more, but Crimson managed, looking over to Mercury.

Mercury’s head and legs hadn’t popped off yet, though it was only because the twilicorn was getting off on making it slow.

“Stop giving that thing head, Mercury,” Crimson snickered.

The two twilicorns giggled in a nearly good-natured manner at the joke. If she played her cards right, she could probably still be okay once Midnight got here.

But then there it was again, that emotional black hole sucking Crimson in. Granted it was hypocritical guilt, since Crimson still wanted to murder Mercury herself, but it was guilt all the same. It was Crimson’s fault Mercury was here having a bad time. As Crimson looked at the terrified mare sobbing and expecting to die, she couldn’t let this happen.

“Oh I hate myself so much right now,” Crimson chuckled, then shouted. “Kamikaze is alive too!”

Both twilicorns froze.

“What?” the one holding Mercury asked, still pulling but not increasing the strain on Mercury’s body. Crimson figured they wouldn’t kill Mercury if they thought she might become a bargaining chip to get Kamikaze.

“Harm that one and I won’t tell you where Kamikaze is,” Crimson said. “And you know I’ve never claimed to have information I didn’t have.”

“If you refuse to tell, then you’ll die,” the twilicorn that broke her leg said. “Her Shadow’s tortures make Tartarus itself jealous.”

“You’re threatening to torture me?” Crimson chuckled. “Are you sure your ‘memories’ of me are accurate?”

To punctuate the statement, she twisted her own broken leg and rolled her eyes back in bliss. Granted it was pretend bliss. Buck that hurt! She really hoped she didn't end up short of a limb due to the agitation.

The twilicorns creased their foreheads, growing silent for a moment.

“Our memories indicate this one does not respond logically to threats and pain,” the second one observed.

The other released Mercury, dropping to the stone floor where she collapsed into a sobbing heap. Mercury was really having a bad time today.

“You didn’t know I knew about Kamikaze though?” Crimson asked. “I was told the one that attacked my stable found out, so I guess that rules out a hive-mind for you fillies. I better kill you before you tell others.”

"We do think as one," corrected the second twilicorn. "But that one left our range before she perished."

“Good luck killing us, though,” smirked the first. “Guarding! I can tell how weak your magic is; there’s nothing you can do other than withhold information.”

“Nothing I can do?” asked Crimson. “That’s a poor choice of words for any villain.”

“You’re more a villain than us,” said the first. “Her Divine Shadow is harsh, but she also fights Trinity to keep the settlements in her territory, her subjects, safe.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Crimson. “Not entirely at least, but I'm also not dumb enough to tell an opponent they can never stop me.”

“Enough of your chatter, Minister,” said the second. “Guarding! Where is Kamikaze?”

“You’ll release both of us?” asked Crimson.

“If you tell us information that leads to us finding her,” said the first. “We will release the two of you without further harm and will not pursue you if you leave this place. We’ll even fix your leg, unless you like it that way.”

“That is assuming that you do nothing further to antagonize us,” added the second.

“Crimson, please don’t,” Mercury sniffled. “If it’s us or them… we’ll be saving more lives if we… let this happen.”

The first twilicorn promptly sat down on Mercury’s face, silencing her. “Guarding...from sappiness.”

“So the copies like to do that too, huh,” Crimson chuckled, but suddenly found herself considering Mercury’s words. Why? Why did Crimson not want to betray her friends? It was such a simple means of escape.

Wait, friends? Why did she even think that word?

Paper Cut was right; Crimson had gone soft. These ponies had gotten into her head and damaged her somehow. She needed to commit a proper, drawn-out murder on a complete innocent before it was too late. Those guards before were just a cunt-tease for Crimson’s real needs.

“Her hesitation is strange,” observed the second twilicorn. “It doesn’t match our records.”

“Why hesitate?” the first twilicorn asked. She tilted her head and arched an eyebrow. “You know we will keep our word. You have nothing to lose.”

“I can’t,” Crimson chuckled despite herself.

“Why not?” asked the first twilicorn.

Crimson wasn’t used to taking this route, so it was hard to come up with a properly random response. Lucky for her, she needed nothing smart to say.

She barely had time to register Maud and Pinkie exiting into the hall from the library before they struck. They leaped onto the first twilicorn’s back, and before she had time to raise any defenses, bounced off of her head and rocketed towards the ceiling. They hit the roof like a pair of cannonballs.

One second the roof cracked from the impact, and the next, Pinkie and Maud brought down a large chunk of the stone ceiling onto the first twilicorn. The slab of stone came down onto the twilicorn’s head, Maud and Pinkie now atop it to put all their force into the crushing blow.

Not having expected a sudden directed attack from competent opponents, she had erected no shield to stop them. Her head cracked like a pecan under the weight, blood, bones, and brain splattering across the floor. Her body thrashed about for several long moments, nerves firing off at random, before the body collapsed, and Mercury slipped out, gasping for air.

“Tag, you’re dead!” Maud said with almost Pinkie-levels of emotion behind the words.

The second twilicorn had plenty of time to erect defenses, however. When the Pies launched themselves off the chunk of roof towards the other, they found themselves deflected by the twilicorn’s force shield and sent sprawling on their asses.

“No tag-backs!” the second twilicorn laughed hysterically at the death of her other self. She didn’t seem worried about the two earth ponies now that she had her own shield up and charged her horn ready to attack.

“Pinkie’s favorite sister seems emotional,” said Pinkie, peering at Maud as if concerned.

“Kill-related one-liners do not count,” said Maud, back to her monotone.

“How about you tell me how many of you there are?” said the remaining twilicorn, horn charged and ready to blast them. She probably already knew where they came from if they’d checked the surveillance feeds more closely when they realized Crimson was here. They were probably in the library for just that reason.

“I don’t suppose you have another one-liner to use?” Crimson asked Maud, snickering.

“I have many,” Maud said. “But they are reserved for the proper moment.”

“Am I being ignored?” the twilicorn demanded. “That’s it. I will count to ten, and by the time I finish, I better have an answer. One… two… Guarding!... four…”

“You should skip a few numbers for dramatic effect,” suggested Crimson.

“Why are none of you taking this seriously?” the twilicorn stopped the counting and stared. Clearly she wasn’t used to a lack of terror in her victims.

“Because we know something that you do not,” said Maud. She remained calm and stepped back.

“I don’t,” Crimson clarified, but stepped back with a limp since Maud did. “I’m as confused why they showed up as you are. Probably just to kill me before you could. But I’m okay with that.”

Before the twilicorn could get another full sentence out, she squealed like someone had rammed her from behind with a cattle prod. A burst of very pink energy surged from behind her, sending sparks and arching current through her body, charring the floor beneath her. By itself it wouldn’t have seriously damaged the twilicorn, but it caused her shield to falter.

That was all that was needed, though who made the killing blow surprised Crimson. Mercury fired her telesyringer, loaded with the explosive gas canister from before. The lucky shot hit the twilicorn square on the forehead before she had time to recast the shield.

The canister glowed as it teleported its contents into the target, and a moment later the twilicorn’s eyes and chunks of her brain blasted out her eye-sockets as the gas ignited inside her cranium. It took a few more seconds before the empty-headed body collapsed and shuddered to a stop.

“Mercury!” Crimson grinned. “I feel like a parent watching her filly take her first steps. I’m so proud!”

It was amazing how much easier this was when they knew to go for the brain, and it helped that these two weren’t wearing magitech enhancers on their horns. Though if those were a limited commodity, Midnight must have truly considered Starlight a threat to put one on her attempted assassin.

“Oh Celestia, I’m covered in urine,” sputtered Twilight from behind the second fallen twilicorn, still reeling from the agony of the expended energy.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Mercury added, wiping bits of twilibrain off her face.

“You two need to work on your one-liners,” advised Maud.