Author's Note

As this chapter is particularly gruesome this time around, I recommend you play these two videos while you read at the same time. I will put them in the story itself for the proper time to use them, but just so you have access to them here as well.

May the darkness grant you peace.

Act 31: Flesh & Soul Shredded To Nothing

The weather raged on outside as the giants walked on the bottom floor of the mob leader's main base of operations in the city, a tall well lit skyscraper that stood above every single other building in the whole city of Manehatten. As they walked back and forth, keeping guard, they couldn’t but notice shadows appearing in the corner of their vision every now and then as the lightning flashed every now and then.

“Hey, did you hear what happened to Dandy Steps? They say that they found him with his body hanging from a traffic light, and his limbs were torn off and sent to the boss…” said one of the mobsters as they tried to ease the tension with some conversation, but the contents of the conversation wasn’t really helping matters. “Yeah, and then there was Switch Blade..he ended up pinned to the wall with the same kind of mark that Slick Sunny ended up with. But Switch also got his eyes removed, and his heart ripped from his chest…”.

The grunts continued pacing back and forth as the storm only seemed to get worse with each passing moment. It was as if what was causing the storm itself was approaching the building. Little did they know that this would have been their last chance to make a mends for anything they had done or said their last words to their families, not that it would have mattered in the end as their bodies and souls were about to be torn to ribbons after being put through unbelievable pain.

There were suddenly heavy knocks upon the door, which made the mobsters tense up in fear as all but the storm raging outside could be heard. The grunts looked at one another before one of them started slowly inching toward the door. Without warning, the doors slammed open as lightning and thunder crashed violently as Kalfu walked in slowly, the shadowy tendrils flailing behind him as his black eyes fell upon his first victims, his right hand clenching around his sword cane as he bore his sharp teeth in anger. The sudden entrance made the approaching stallion fall back and scream in fear before Kalfu used his tendrils to lift up the now screaming stallion by his neck before shoving one of the tendrils down his throat before others wrapped around his body before literally pulling him apart and ripping his heart out from his throat before tossing the leftovers away while grabbing his soul and ripping it to atoms.

“Holy fuck!” shouted one of the other stallions as he tried to run away from the carnage, only to have his leg grabbed by one of the tendrils and repeatedly slammed into the hard marble flooring until he was nothing but a completely bloody pulp to where he looked like nothing but a pile of red mush. Kalfu’s attention then turned to the last grunt before he could also escape. With one sure thrust of one of the tendrils, he impaled the fleeing stallion through the back of his stomach before bringing him right back in front of him. As the stallions screamed in pain, Kalfu grabbed his lower jaw firmly before he began pulling down on it. The stallion dropped his weapon before he started kicking and struggling as his muffled scream got more desperate before there was a sickening tear and pop as Kalfu ripped off the stallion’s lower jaw before tossing it aside and even went as far as to tear out his eyes as well before tearing him in half, blood and viscera splashing sickeningly on the ground in front of him and tossing the remains away like a broken toy.

Kalfu then resumed his ascent up the stairs that led to the next floor. He very well could have taken the elevator, but then that would possibly cause him to miss any of his victims who dared stand against him that night. On the second floor, Kalfu stood in another large room that had several very large mobsters and even attack dogs ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. As if Kalfu wasn’t pissed off enough. Making good animals like dogs do the dirty work for them only fueled his anger even more.

As the dogs charged forward, they suddenly lowered themselves to the ground and began cowering in fear as Kalfu’s glare pinned them to the floor “Stupid mutts!!!” shouted one of the muscle bound mobsters before they charged forward. Kalfu lifted his hand up before chanting in Haitian as he began performing a hex. Suddenly, the one charging him began to bleed from his midsection before he began screaming in pain as his body lifted into the air and began to turn inside out most sickeningly and agonizingly, the sound of flesh tearing and blood pooling on the ground before Kalfu slowly closed his hand into a fist as the sound of bones breaking and cracking sounded throughout the room before the stallions as noting but a bleeding ball of flesh.

The remaining mobsters thought it was a good idea to attack him at the same time, not that it mattered. As they got in close and swung their weapons, Kalfu dodged by leaning to the side with each blow before shoving tendrils through them, letting them snake through their body and taking control of their limbs before having them fight each other like a pair of puppets being put on a show. Once they had beaten each other bloody, Kalfu wiggled and thrashed the tendrils inside them about until they literally fell apart like tender meat off the bone. On to the next floor, it seemed, Even as he left the room, the dogs sniffed at the corpses before beginning to gnaw on and eat the flesh. Seems they didn’t feed their dogs very well either.

After the first several floors of futile resistance to Kalfu’s onslaught, they started throwing magic his way now, as they had unicorns flinging magical projectiles at him. Of course, he used his tendrils to bat them away as if they were nothing but flies. Since they had decided to abandon using physical force, Kalfu decided he should do the same. The stallion kneels to a knee before placing his hand on the ground. He chants in Haitian once more before hex circles appear under the unicorn before multi tooth rowed mouths open up below them and begins to chew and tear at their flesh as they are devoured and torn apart, screaming and flailing until there was nothing left of them before he moved on like nothing had happened.

Soon enough, the floor before the mafia leader came up, which was holding his right hand pony, who had magical circles surrounding him and several unicorns ready to fling every single spell they had at him. After having slaughtered so many ponies on his way up here, he decided to speak, and it was a very low and monstrous sound to his voice “I have killed everyone else to get this far, ripping you all apart isn’t going to make me feel any less guilty for what I am going to do to your boss…” he said as his tendrils started to flail behind him, hungrily whipping at the air as they craved more blood and gore.

“You go around here killing off all the members that had nothing to do with taking the lives of that asshole and his daughter? What gives you the right to do such a thing?! You are more of a monster than we are all put together!” shouted the second in command as he pointed his weapon at Kalfu, who simply glared at him in return “You are all part of this organization. It's not like you all didn’t have this coming in the first place. All of your souls are worn and tattered… beyond redemption to the point where there is hardly anything left…” he said as he stepped closer, but not enough to walk into the circles.

Kalfu dropped to a knee and slammed both of his hands into the ground before the tendrils followed suit. The shadowy appendages shoot up from the ground on the other side of the circles before dragging the ponies they latch onto into the hard flooring like a noodle press, their bones breaking and their flesh compacting as blood pools out from the holes that they were dragged into, leaving the second in command to be left alone with the angered god. “Mother fucker!!!” he shouted as he staggered back from the sudden and brutal display before him, his legs shaking as fear took over “Oh fuck this< I am out of here!” he said as he turned to run.

However, as he turned to run, Kalfu appeared right in front of him before wrapping his large hand around his throat and lifting him off his hooves while choking him. Kalfu took his sweet time torturing this last one, savoring the struggle before the main course. First, he removed the stallion’s eyes before sewing the lids shut with string, then removed his tongue before sewing up his mouth. He continued to slowly choke him out until he was just about to pass out until he grabbed his shoulder with his now free hand and slowly and painfully began to separate his head from his shoulders, the muffled screams of suffering suddenly stopping once the head had been ripped away from the body.

Kalfu was about to toss the head away before he got an idea for it, he simply impaled it upon one of the tendrils through the neck hole before heading up to the final floor. Don Silvermane, the pony who had single handed brought the wrath of a god upon his organization, paced back and forth as he hadn’t heard a word from his lackeys for quite some time now, just as he was about to head down to check in with his second in command, he noticed his head peeking around the threshold of his office door.

“Well, it's about damn time! What’s the word…on…” as he got closer, he noticed that something was off about the stallion’s face before the head dropped to the ground and rolled forward at his hooves. As the head came to a stop, he slowly lifted his gaze up to see Kalfu walking into the office with the same look of hatred on his face he had entered this whole one sided fight with. The mob leader began to slowly back away while putting his hands out in front of him “H-Hey now…we can work this out diplomatically, can’t we…? I can get you whatever you want! Money, mares, land! Whatever you want, just let me go!” he said as he began to cower, releasing that he really may have fucked up here.

Kalfu continued to step closer toward the leader, even kicking the head of his fallen second in command as hard as he could, sending it out the window, shattering it upon impact “Why should I even consider making a deal with you? You took the life of not only a stallion who was bettering himself. But you took the life of his daughter who didn’t have a FUCKING thing to do with his past. You stole an innocent life who still had so much to live for! All because of your goddamn petty pride!” she shouted as he now stood over the cowering pony, lightning flashing as it showed off Kalfu’s currently more terrifying visage than it normally was.

Kalfu reached down and grabbed him by the throat before lifting him in the air, he growled and huffed in rage as his black eyes locked with the now struggling stallion “Your soul is torn and ruined beyond redemption..” he said before he had his tendrils wrap around his arms and legs before slowly twisting and pulling them off his torso, the stallion screaming out in agony as a sickening tear and pop was heard once his limbs were forcibly removed. But Kalfu wasn’t done with him just yet.

“You will be completely obliterated….but first, I am going to make you relive every life you had taken and experience their pain. Every. Single. Life.” he emphasized before his hand squeezed even tighter around his throat before he began to slowly drain the remaining life out of the stallion while the pain of his victims racked through his struggling torso as the memories of his victims' pain and deaths played over and over in his head. After for what felt like an eternity of suffering for the stallion, he finally went limp in Kalfu’s grab before he dropped him to the ground before grabbing the remnants of his soul, wasting no time in ripping it apart with his bare hands until there was absolutely nothing left of it.

Kalfu stood there for a moment as his rage slowly began to die down. He had done what he had set out to do, the tendrils that flailed in rage on his back began to slowly slip back into him before disappearing completely as his eyes went back to their normal green. He slowly made his way over to the large window as he gazed out into the night sky before closing his eyes as tears began to flow freely from them “I am so sorry, Dusk. I know you said it wasn’t my fault. But this…this is going to haunt me for eternity…” he said to himself as he then wiped the tears from his eyes with a sleeve.

Kalfu now stood in front of the graves of both Dusk Beam and her father. A sight that he had wished that he'd never seen as soon as it had happened. The stallion stood in the rain as he looked upon both gravestones, the rain pounding against his form as it dripped from the brim of his hat. He stood there in silence for what felt like hours before putting down a bouquet of black and green flowers in front of each of their graves. He honestly didn’t know what to say at this time. What could he say? He failed in his duty, and he failed to keep his end of the deal.

He lowered his head once more as he balled his fists to the point where his nails dug into his palms, causing them to bleed slightly from the pressure. He was about to just scream in anguish before he saw what appeared to be two lights rising out of the graves before manifesting ethereal images of Dusk and her father. Kalfu got a lump stuck in his throat, seeing the two of them gaze upon him. He expected them to blame him for their deaths, especially Dusk’s death. He was ready to receive whatever blame they were going to throw upon him…but it never came.

“I meant what I said, Kalfu…before I died, this...all this wasn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You did the best you could. And the couple months that you spent with me…I will treasure them forever and ever. And now that I am with my father once more, I won’t ever be lonely anymore. So please, for your own sake, don’t let this haunt you. I am at peace and with my father once more..” she said before reaching up to gently cradle his cheeks so that his eyes met hers. “Others need you now. And you have learned from your mistake. Continue to be the best god one could ever be.” she said as she then wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

Once she stepped away from him, Kalfu’s gaze went toward her father: “I failed to hold up my end of the deal, my friend. I am so, so very sorry for failing you. I know your daughter doesn’t hold it against me. But I am sure that you resent me for not holding up my end. Therefore, you no longer have to serve me at The Crossroads. You're free to remain in paradise with her for eternity. I just… wish there was something I could have done to bring back your daughter, she still had so much time left in this world…”

The stallion was quiet for a moment before stepping forward and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Just as she said, I don’t blame you for what happened either, Kalfu...no, Voodoo King. You did what you could. And you made my daughter happy with your nearly constant company after my passing. And if she doesn’t hold any grudges against you, then I can’t do the same either. The deal may be broken, but I still wish to offer my assistance to you at The Crossroads if you will have me.” he said with a light smile while patting Kalfu’s shoulder.

The stallion blinked a few times before placing a hand atop the spectral figure’s hand. He thought about it before responding, “If only your daughter agrees to help out as well. I don’t want to be the one to keep you two separated. # Will that work for the both of you?” he asked as he looked between the family. They looked toward one another before nodding at the same time. Kalfu nodded in turn before bidding them goodbye for now. He would return to The Crossroads to check in on them from time to time.

The voodoo king stood at their graves for a little while longer before placing down charms next to both their graves. A trinket of protection that would last a while to ward off decay and ruin to keep the stones as if they were brand new for a good while. He then turned away and walked through one of his portals after looking back once more, returning home for now….