End of an Era: The Upheaval

Dozens of the Eldritch endlessly spilled in from the dimensional bleed, and no matter how many Zafire Heart slaughtered, they were just as easily replaced. How could one hope to fight an entire race? One that, unknown to her, haad wiped out Cerise's Equestria, and reduced it to a post-apocalyptic wasteland before they'd finally been stopped? A barrage of psychic attacks assaulted Zafira's mental defenses, threatened to batter them down, and she realized that were they to win, a fate worse than death could await her...for their alien voices rattled inside her skull, weaved into her thoughts, and attempted to corrupt and drive her insane. They could see the overwhelming display of her raw power, and hoped to forcibly convert her over to their side, as she was consumed by madness. Blood-soaked and sweaty, she declared, “I will not die here! Nor will I submit...!”

An earthquake made the choice for her. The entire field cracked, and caved in, as her spread plumage allowed the crystal alicorn to sail safely into the series of tunnels below, while rocks and soil were tossed around her, and a number of more Eldritch were crushed by the collapse. The Eldritch able to follow her were cut off from the rest of their psychic link when a caved in parted them from their allies, leaving them easy prey when her two-handed blade cleaved them into halves.

She knew they wouldn't stop. That they'd seek out her vulnerable allies, too.

Unable to turn back, and aware it would be foolish to do so with the sky's collapse, she had no choice but to head further into the hive. Already, she'd exhausted much of her strength to hold back the invasion force, which they'd paid for with over a couple hundred dead at her hands.

Not nearly enough, she knew. Most of her Amazons lacked the potent magic defenses she maintained, and even the colorful war paint only provided so much protection. Another world faced its doom. She wondered if Panna's and Chezka's had already suffered a similar fate.

Rumbles sounded above, like birth contractions. Sediment rained around her.

“It doesn't have to be like this, my queen.” A feminine, almost musical voice carried across the cavern, matched by a voluptuous pair of womanly silhouettes, one with a plume.

“Wait,” said Zafira, who lowered her sword but kept it at the ready. “I know that voice!”

The pair of mares stepped out into the open, stark naked. Fluttershy and Tree Hugger, stark naked and with eerie smiles painted on their snouts, her top Amazon lieutenants before a dimensional unravel displaced them from her service, whereupon Panna and Chezka had taken their place.

“You're...alive...” Zafira swallowed hard. Gently, she heard tremors in the distance.

“Yeah~,” said Tree with a crooked smile. “We were like, saved by our benefactors! And you can be, too!” She shimmied her bare assets, which were almost a match for Shy's own ample curves.

“Join us.” Shy offered a hand. “Then, you can have us, and nay mare you desire here!”

“No,” she declared, with the realization of what must have happened to them. “What has that damned cult done to you...?” She seethed with a heave of her bosom, aware that once they were indoctrinated, there was no way to turn them back. More beloved Amazons, lost to her!

“Please~,” pleaded Shy, her arms wide open like her partner's. “We miss your cock...!”

“We want you inside us babe~,” said Tree, as they swayed their breasts and hips. “And we wanna be inside you, too~!” The pair of ex-Amazons partially 'birthed' out the eldritch nest of tentacles embedded into their uterine walls in a slosh and squelch, as their wet lust dripped from their slits.

“Never,” cried Zafira, sword leveled once more. “I'll set you both free!”

She flew at them, ready to strike the pair down and end their blissful nightmare...only to be pelted from all sides by prismatic blasts, barely able to raise her arcane shields in time. Other members from the 'Cult of the Nemesis' made themselves known, Trixie and her sidekicks included.

“Cowards,” she hissed at them, forced to land from the impact. Her sword arced, a couple of cultists cut in two by her swipe. “You think this will stop me?” She chopped down a few more in her fury.

“She's way too powerful,”cried Trixie. “We have to retreat! Level the tunnel so she can't follow!”

“You won't escape me!” Once more, Zafira took to the air despite the magical barrage on her shields, which weakened and started to dissolve. More of the cult members fell before her blade, while Trixie and her sidekicks fired at the tunnel, which thunderously caved in around them.

She tried to chase them, simply for a a buzz of a swarm to overwhelm her, Zafira's vision blocked by a black mass of a newborn changeling swarm, Ocelus' batch of offspring, dozens of them warped by the dark arts into small, bloated monstrosities. She bellowed and batted at them with her saber.

“Gotcha,” she yelled, her aura able to yank Fluttershy to her before the tunnel fell inwards.

“Oh no! Don't do unspeakable stuff to me~,” teased Shy, as the voluptuous, nude mare squirmed.

“Shut up,” cried Zafira, who swiped at the mass and forced most of them to part. Yet the crystal alicorn, blessed with the parts of both sexes, was also capable of fertilization and birth herself, her slit usually hidden beneath her penis and testicles. She cried out when one of the fat insects slammed into her cunt, parted it with its head, and started to squirm its way inside her labia lips.

Her eyes rolled into her head, and her hilt slipped from her grasp, overwhelmed by an unspeakable ecstasy when it burrowed its way inside her slick tunnel. With a pop it sank itself entirely into her womb, and rounded out her belly like she was with foal, as the parasitic entity overwhelmed her senses, and tried to pilot her body, even while her iron will rebelled at its dark influence.

Her nipples hardened to painful erectness, much like the barely concealed horsecock. She ripped her clothes away, and the swarm retreated into more holes in the hive to seek new prey, their work done as Zafira found herself overcome by animalistic need, left alone with a vulnerable, naked Fluttershy, who she pounced on. The mare squeaked but didn't resist, pinned by the Amazon Queen. Like a mare possessed, Zafira bent her bitch over a boulder and drove her dick into her slot.

“Oooh~...~ My queen~...!” Shy whimpered, her wide yellow buttcheeks clapped by Zafira. Palms fiercely rained down on her buttocks, her mane and tail pulled while she was railed raw.

Zafire's nostrils flared, overwhelmed by a mixture of aggression and animal lust. “Take it, you bitch! Tree Hugger is next!” She landed another sharp smack on Shy's ass and made her cry out, only have herself anymore due to the insect's dark influence, which drove her to mindlessly, furiously breed.

She needed to knock the uppity bitch up! To subdue and dominate her, put a foal in her fertile depths! Over-and-over, she rammed balls deep into her bitch, made Fluttershy scream her name!

“Zafire...! Zafire...! Ohh~...!” The needful Shy painted her queen's crotch in her viscous lust. Her plume fully outstretched, her titties rolled and bounced below with each fierce thrust. Wide pink areola topped her delectable mounds, the ex-Amazon born to become a very fertile mare.

“Gah...! Take it all...!” Zafira couldn't last as Shy submitted to her and clenched around her cock, which buried itself deep in her uterus and showered her insides with volumes of virile spunk. She bloated her belly, which sloshed and swayed about like Shy's pendulous, motherly udders.

She retreated from Shy's depths. Watched a mixture of their fluids spill from the ruined hole. Another mare she would surely knock up, had she not taken care to use contraceptive potions each time in the past. Were the alicorn to father a foal, she'd be quite selective about the mother.

“Th...thank you,” murmured Shy sleepily, as her pussy winked and squirted some more love nectar.

With release, came the return of a modicum of sanity. Evidence of Flutter's and Tree Hugger's 'survival' had been made clear, but what about Panna's brother, Cornelius? Or so many of her lost Amazons? Whatever the case, there was little she could do for them in their current predicament.

“You won't win,” announced Zafira, who stumbled back and fell onto her butt with a thump, her teeth clenched with a snarl when she started to push. The newborn drone attempted to stay buried in her womb, while her vaginal walls pushed and squeezed the monstrosity out, inch-by-inch, where it cried out, soaked in her fluids while her pussylips parted to force its exit from her depths.

Finally, with a pop it fired out from her cunt. She seized it with her aura before it escaped.

Staggering to her feet, Zafire recovered her blade with a melancholy look at Fluttershy, still bent over, soaked in perspiration while she heaved and oozed her seed. “I'm sorry,” whispered the Amazon Queen, her eyes moist. “But this is the best I can do for either of you.” Her foot crashed down. The insect squeaked, smashed to a pulp beneath her step. Likewise, her blade came down.

Fluttershy never even saw it coming. Another of her Amazons, deceased, Zafire making sure the eldritch entity inside her was torched by a spell, too. How many more would have to die at her hand? She couldn't let Panna and Chezka fall, too! Somehow, she had to save everyone left...!

*****

More tunnels collapsed from the quakes above. A continuous rumble echoed throughout the hive. Worse, the Eldritch had started to spill into the caverns, with murder on their mind. More targets so far as Sanguine was concerned, since the muscular-yet-shapely succubus, cheerily, culled a number of changelings and cultists alike when she cut a swatch across the enemy's hideout. “Die,” she shouted with a bloody smile, soaked from head-to-toe in the insides of her fallen foes.

She wasn't like her succubi sisters, a little less feminine, and more driven by bloody-mindedness. More skulls for her collection, especially since Zafire Heart had awakened their hidden potential!

She went into battle naked, with drenched hair that came to her muscled shoulders. “Surprise,” she yelled when a foolish drone attempted to lay hands on her, and her heavy breasts opened up into a set of jaws, which clamped down on mandibles and crushed them to a messy pulp while he screamed. Her cunt also snapped and drooled with razor teeth, while her assets swallowed up any opponents so foolish as to close in on her, swallowed up into the cannibalistic demon's body.

Crunches sounded. Bones were split and mashed, blood and marrow devoured as she smiled.

Before she'd been awakened by their mistress, Sanguine had preyed on her fellow demons, and kept their skulls as her trophies. She savored these battles, which she turned into her feasts, and from each body she swallowed up she'd become sturdier, more potent, a true warrior!

Much as she adored her succubi sisters, they were soft compared to her!

“Come on,” she taunted them, surrounded by piles of corpses while her breasts and pussy snapped their bloodied teeth. “I'll rip all of you to shreds! I've never felt more alive in my life!” She raised her toned arms with a war cry in triumph, while her thick tail lashed about with a club-like spaded tip.

So caught up was she in her warpath, Sanguine barely noticed the swarm of newborn changelings buzz into the cavern over the crunch of more bones while tongues shout out from the mouths on her breasts and snatch to snare more delicious prey. “What the-?” She turned to the black mass.

“Watch out,” came the voice of Xanadu, while she and her companions rushed onto the scene.

“Too late...! Save yourselves!” Kismet also cried out, as she batted at the beasts.

“Little freaks,” hissed Nymphette, as she too tried to evade the monsters that wanted to worm inside them. Over-and-over, they tore at any armor or clothes they wore, and attempted to force themselves up into their snatches, Bellatrix included as she came with Beatrix at her side. “So fast!”

“Keep your distance,” ordered Bellatrix, as hellfire-enveloped brimstone collided with one of the drones, slammed into a cave wall and immolated with a shrill screech as it perished.

“I'm almost spent,” admitted Beatrix, as she zapped at the swarm and hit one, which burned up. Her horn flickered with each spell, as the winded unicorn huffed, lined in a sheen of sweat.

A foulness suffused the atmosphere, the expanse slick with the fluids and innards of slain enemies. Dozens of cultists and changelings had fallen by Sanguine's teeth and claws, yet now these speedy insects threatened to overwhelm them in their weakened state as the emerald cave walls pulsated. A few more of the drones were snapped, but nonetheless they tore away their armor and clothes.

A sharp cry between shock and pleasure escaped Kismet's lips as she was invaded, the drone like a fat virbrator when it split her small slimy snatch open and forced its way inside with a buzz. “Get...out of me,” she cried uselessly, as the bat-like protrusions on her flapped, forced onto all fours and her pert rump stuck up in the air. Glazed eyes announced its possession of her, buried in her core.

“Dirty little bastard,” shouted Nymphette, as another fucked its way into her taut little pussy. Her nubile body was slammed into a soft, flesh cave wall, forced to bend over and invaded, too.

In desperation, Bellatrix released a hellfire inferno, which consumed several more of the drones. Nevertheless, it was apparent they would soon be overrun, as Ocellus' clutch had produced dozens of the little beasties, tainted by the darkness. She called, “I won't abandon you! I'll save you...!”

Xanadu lashed out with black tendrils and spellcraft. “Grotesque monstrosities...!”

“Try it,” taunted Sanguine, as whenever a bug tried to burrow its way into the demon, she laughed and chomped down on them with her many sets of mouths, reduced to ichor as she feasted. “Leave it to me, everyone! I'll deal with these freaks!” She lashed out more with her tail and claws.

Kismet and Nymphette rose into the air, piloted by the drones inside their cores as they attacked.

“This is bad,” mumbled Beatrix some more, as her horn flickered weakly. “Sister, we have to run!”

Bellatrix summoned more hellfire and hissed back, “And abandon my succubi sisters? Never!” However, she couldn't deny Bea was almost tapped out, Bella forced to divide her attention to protect her and Xanadu, who kept the insects at bay, for the moment. Unfortunately, Kismet and Nymphette also rained spells in their direction, which Xanadu barely blocked with arcane shields.

Golden eyes turned to a dim cave behind them, their only escape route from the insanity.

“Eldritch...!” Beatrix shuddered, as her lit horn made them visible. Gaunt, white-cloaked creatures stalked down the narrow tunnel, their ears severed off, sewn shut like their eyes and lips. They carried carved knives, made to rend skin from bone, as they moved in silence at them.

Bellatrix called to the warrior succubus, “Watch out! Sa-”

The knives arced down. Stealthily, the white mass slipped behind Sanguine, a couple of them struck down when her club-like tail lashed out, but more of them sank their daggers into the warrior she-demon. She screamed in pain and fury, bit and clawed into them, as more poured over her. Knife-after-knife sank into her flesh, carved into her while she tore apart more of the assailants.

“Get...outta my skull...!” Their alien voices echoed and reverberated in her head.

“No...!” Bellatrix cried out in frustration, forced to watch one of her sisters be repeatedly knifed by the white-robed aliens. Blood pooled around them, even as Sanguine ripped apart more of her assailants. With each stab, the she-demon's flesh shuddered and her movements slowed.

Soon, the warrior demon breathed her last, while the Eldritch withdrew from her corpse. Yet another carcass, not so different from the piles of them that surrounded her burial place.

Grief overwhelmed Bella, whose howl echoed around the cavern. Hot tears rolled down her face.

Beatrix paled and shook, unable to remember a time when she'd seen her sister cry. She'd always seemed too powerful, almost invincible, so to see her so vulnerable, her defenses stripped away...!

“You'll all suffer for this!” Bellatrix screamed out her own war cry, and redoubled her efforts to butcher all the monsters around her, so blinded by fury she was heedless to her own vulnerability. Her crimson knife, claws, spaded tail, and a mix of hellfire and brimstone tore into the Eldritch.

Relentlessly, she tore into the masses which had overwhelmed one of her sisters. Yet she was still forced to pull her punches when it came to Kismet and Nymphette, determined to save them.

“Stay behind me, witch,” said Xanadu imperiously. “I shall do my best to protect you!”

“Th-thanks,” said Beatrix, who could only summon weak beams to hold back the Eldritch and airborne drones. And she knew from experience her illusions were useless on them!

Yet with every split-second that passed, it became even clearer they would fail. Bellatrix, for all her prowess, couldn't help to overcome the odds no matter how many Eldritch she slayed. Their psychic intrusions and the arcs of their knives wore her down as she countered their attacks.

They wouldn't slay them, like the warrior demon, their bodies too precious to be wasted.

Instead, Beatrix yelped when a drone forced its way into her pussy, too, with a wet squelch as she soaked the beast that burrowed into her. Xanadu, too, found herself caught unawares and intruded into, the eyes of both women crossed with mewls of euphoria as they too were puppeteered. Like Kismet and Nymphette, their bellies rounded atop, rewarded with bliss as drones squirmed inside their wombs. Bellatrix, who seethed in a bloody mess, realized too late her companions had fallen.

“Sisters...! No, it can't end like this...! Not after...!” Bella, too, was swept up in the flood of the Eldritch, who tried to worm into her psyche. She'd killed a few dozen more before they'd finally claimed her, as one of the drones mashed into her pussy, and wormed its way into her hot depths.

Her eyes started to haze over, her own iron will pitted against the Eldritch and the changeling spawn. Yet it was clear her downfall was inevitable. Like Cerise's world, this Equestria too was destined to fall, only without her and Beatrix able to help recover the wasteland from its fate.

More victims, while the dominoes continued to topple across a doomed land.

*****

Fiery Kickstart's first instinct was to rush into the center of the hive and dispatch Chrysalis, hopeful that with their leader dead, her forces would start to fall apart. His rage burned hotter when he saw Cadance, Foal-Bearer, Wet Nurse, and so many other mares tethered by a series of cobwebs and slimed, their bellies rounded while airborne drones made free use of all their fuckable holes. Yet reason stayed his hand while he peeked out from a tunnel, aware it would be a suicide mission.

He didn't fear for his own life. But were there still a chance to save them...!

Ocellus breathed weakly, still propped naked over one of his broad shoulders. He burned with righteous indignation, as the flames he'd learned to summon and partially controlled built within him, until he started to glow. He cursed as his position was given away, and changelings that weren't currently buried in the mares snapped their attention to the intruder as he lit his blade.

“Wait,” purred Chrysalis, who rose naked from her throne, and her pendulous breasts swished back-and-forth with her ascent, her taut snatch on full display for him. “This one interests me.”

“Stay back,” he warned, as his free hand brandished an ablaze broadsword. “Maybe I can't take all of you out, but I can execute your queen before I'm finished!” Whenever he waved the flame sword around, the fires licked the air, and even his body started to radiate a heat which made Ocellus squirm. Unable to squash the anger he felt, it built within him until he threatened to meltdown.

“Oh? What's your plan?” Chrysalis approached in a swivel of her bared assets.

In truth, he didn't know. There seemed no way to save his allies and escape this hellscape. He dropped Ocellus to the soft and squishy floor and declared, “Let's finish this! For Equestria!” Like he expected, Chrysalis retreated like the coward she was, while her soldiers descended on him.

A flame sword arced and lanced out. Cut down and torched those closest to him.

Guards currently buried in mare cunts, assholes, and throats were forced to pop out and help their brethren, fire a natural weakness of their kind. Chrysalis wrapped Cadance in her aura, and forcefully yanked the ex-queen free of her web prison, as Chrysalis plopped her nude, wide ass down on her throne, forced Cadance onto her knees, and shifted a cock she stuffed down Cadance's throat with a gurgle as she choked around her meat. “Let's enjoy the show, shall we?” Grabbing her mane, she forced Cadance to bob her head up-and-down to take her hybrid cock down to the hilt.

Around her, Fiery battled valiantly in an inferno to burn and carve up his opponents. Despite the odds, the dark queen's minions weren't able to fully close in, as Ocellus scurried away.

“Mmm~. What a show,” purred Chrysalis, as she lazily fucked into Cadance's face, the fallen queen's belly fully rounded with a heavy clutch which sloshed about in a sea of excessive spunk. While she swabbed her love slave's throat, Fiery burned hotter, shimmered more brilliantly.

Playfully, she made Cadance suck her off, and held her there when she unleashed her first massive load, which bloated the ex-queen's cheeks and burned her nostrils as cum exploded from her nostrils, as she was unable to swallow it all down. The first of many releases, as she drove her face up-and-down some more, and bucked her hips into Cadance's messily smeared up expression.

Barely conscious, Cadance had surrendered to her lust so she wouldn't break completely, as her cunt winked and dripped, her heart-shaped clitoris swollen into the open as it throbbed. One of her hands reached down and rubbed the lovebud and her slit, her plume outstretched, her tail hiked up.

The foal she was destined to bear by her husband, Flurry Heart, would be corrupted by the darkness the moment she was birthed into the world, transformed into a hybrid not so far from what Ocellus' clutch had endured. One of many mutants she'd be forced to push out from her cunt.

Chrysalis pulled the alicorn off her cock, clutched her chin, and spun her when she yanked Cadance into her lap, the ex-queen's plush, heart-shaped pink bottom seated atop her when she pressed herself back into her wet sex and impaled her as Cadance moaned. “See this,” said the dark queen, who started to fuck her some more, hand still cupped on her chin as she forced her to bear witness.

“I-I see,” admitted Cadance, as her breasts rolled while she was fucked and watched her 'Sword' war to save them all. More mewls arose when Chrysalis molested her tits and ass, her pussy and asshole now filled by another cock Chrysalis shifted into place, as she lewdly dripped all over her shafts.

Over-and-over, she was bounced on her lap with a clap of her sizable buttocks. No matter how much she submitted to her, how humiliated she was, Chrysalis was never satisfied, determined to break her down further, to prove she was the most beautiful, powerful mare in all the lands!

Foal-Bearer and Wet Nurse, suspended above like the other violated mares, dripped their own fluids and cum from every ravished hole. Finally, the twins were able to weakly hold hands.

Their lover battled onward. From here, he appeared to be aflame. Screeches echoed across the moist caverns each time he felled another monster, and the air beneath swelled with heat waves.

“This is how one Equestria ends,” came a bemused, masculine voice. “And another begins!” Over the chaos below, his voice was unheard by Chrysalis, her minions, Cadance, or Fiery. Nor could they spot Grayscale Carnifex, who chose this moment to make his presence known to them.

Globs of cum Foal-Bearer hadn't been forced to swallow were spat on her breasts as she heaved and her eyes weakly focused on the robed drake. She murmured, “Wh-who are you...?”

“Grayscale Carnifex at your service,” He said with a meaty hand balled to his chest as he bowed.

Wet Nurse whispered, “Are you...the reaper...come to take us away...?”

Grimly, he considered his options. “Something like that. I've introduced a number of paradoxes into this Equestria to force a reset.” With a wave of a robed arm, he manifested a window into other portions of the hive, where Beatrix, Bellatrix, and elsewhere Cerise were revealed. “None of them were meant to arrive here yet, but I forced their hand and trapped them here. Unfortunate pawns to do my dirty work. The same with the Eldritch, who were meant to be wiped out!”

Foal-Bearer considered and questioned, “I don't understand? Are we delirious, or...?”

“No, I'm afraid this is all too real,” he answered. “Midnight Blitzer is the key component to this Equestria's fate. He's trapped in a perpetual loop, forced to watch his world fall before his eyes in numerous ways, but always to the mandibles of the changelings under Chrysalis! Unfortunately, he perishes in one invasion, and is reborn in another world, Eden, where Zafire Heart and Moon Hammer are also destined to end up. A sort of peaceful purgatory, resided over by another pair of twins, one of your many counterparts scattered across the delicate tapestry of the multiverse!”

Wet Nurse tried to take all this in. “S-so...will we end up there, too...?”

Gradually, he shook his head. “I'm afraid not. That set of twins will eventually make this way to Equestria, marry Moon Hammer, and take the names of Strawberry Moon and Blue Moon. Another set of twins were met by Beatrix inside an eldritch entity disguised as a manor, and become the servants of Bellatrix, who will transform them into half-succubi. Unfortunately, it appears you two are doomed to meet a dark fate, whatever the universe. I'm truly sorry about that.”

Wet Nurse quivered her lip. “Why tell us? What's the point of all this?”

“To bear witness, I suppose. I've tried to maintain order across history,” he explained. “With so many paradoxes, this universe will reset itself to preserve what it can. But the memories of everyone else that participated in this drama will be stripped away, and poor Midnight returned to the beginning of this latest loop, to tarry until the changelings invade and bring this Equestria low like always. Look at Fiery. Already he burns like a miniature sun, ready to explode in a nuclear holocaust! All I can offer you is a choice. To endure the loop, or let me put you to rest.”

Tears rolled down the faces of the twin sisters as they considered. More lifetimes where they'd be captured by Chrysalis, and forced to pop out clutches until they popped and expired. On the other hand, they would never see their beloved Queen Cadance anymore, nor possibly meet and love Fiery. An impossible choice, no matter how they looked at it, while Fiery battled onward.

His aura seized Ocellus and scooped her up, where she landed on her butt and bounced on a cobweb. “Wh-what...who are you?” She looked between them, barely able to meet their eyes.

“Grayscale Carnifex,” he repeated. “Head of the Order of Reapers and their founder. He quickly explained much of what he'd already told the twins to her, as Ocellus listened with wide eyes.

“S-so,” whimpered Ocellus. “Can my clutch somehow be saved? Can we prevent all this?”

“The loop will come soon,” he assured her. “No Equestria can endure this much instability. Unfortunately, not everyone survives each loop. In every cycle I've seen, you and Cadance always perish. What I've come to do is offer you the same choice. I can take all your souls, and preserve you, or leave you to this fated cycle. A few more paradoxes on the way to this land's termination.”

Ocellus considered as she watched the drama below unfold. “I...I want to remember! Always!”

“And all of you can, with me. I'll take you outside this dimension, to a more transcendent plain, where others I preserved bear witness to history! However, it's an offer I can only make to you once. Already, the hand I play threatens to draw the ire of the puppet masters behind this cataclysm.” He offered a scaly claw. “So, I ask you all once more...will you take my hand?”

Fiery shined with such brilliance he threatened to blind everyone present, primed to explode. Embers popped and bounced off his musculature, while his armor and sword steamed and melted down into a molten pool that bubbled and hissed amidst the intense heat he radiated.

A number of changelings around him screamed and burst into flames, which likewise started to consume the slimy, flammable area which surrounded him in the hive depths. Most of his attackers were unable to retreat in time, consumed by his hateful immolation.

Grayscale wasn't certain even he could survive close proximity to the equivalent of a localized nuclear explosion. His outstretched claw curled at the three mares. “Your answer! Now!”

Hands reached out to the scaled reaper. A massive, dome-shaped explosion swept the hive's core.