When Spitfire came to her senses, she was in the bed of a truck. She looked around. She was surrounded by other ponies. She tried to get up, but she could not move. She was tied up tightly in some sort of wire. She tried to speak to a colt beside her, but she realized she was gagged as well. She looked around and noticed that many of these ponies were either old, sick, or badly injured. They were all tied up and gagged like her.
She tried to remember what happened. Last she could remember, she was fighting off a small swarm of changelings that had ambushed her on her morning flight. She was doing well, until one of them stung her. She did not even know changelings had stingers. Must have been one of those mutated changelings that have been popping up.
So the sting knocked her out, and the changelings must have brought her here. Where was here?
She tried to climb atop of the other bodies of ponies to try to look around. It was no easy effort with her legs tied together as closely as they were.
She still could not see over the barbed wire fence that the truck was lined with, but she could see many tall buildings pass them by. She soon realized they were in Manehatten.
She tried to think of a way out. She knew she could do this. She was not captain of the wonderbolts for nothing.
She could not call out for help because of her gag, nor could she communicate with the other ponies. They all seemed to scared anyway to listen to her. She thought of getting a look at the driver, but there was no rearview window that she could peak through. She tried pushing and butting her head against the walls, but it was no use. They would not budge or dent. She could not break free of her bonds no matter how hard she struggled.
The truck suddenly drove under a tunnel, and all light was blocked out. After a few seconds, it emerged into a much larger room with light coming in through the windows near the ceiling. The room must have been as large as a Trot Mart, only much darker.
The screams of horses and the sounds of various machines and snaky, bubbly laughter echoed all throughout the room. On the higher stories, there were catwalks and conveyer belts.
Spitfire was terrified. Now she knew where she was. This was the Gasket des Glue, a shady factory in the less-friendly side of Manehatten that found old or injured ponies to slaughter, to turn their coats into leather and their hooves into glue; a business that somehow gained Celestia's approval.
The changelings have brought her here to be slaughtered, along with every other horse in this truck.
She had to stay calm. She had to think of a way out of this. She knew how to stay composed in even the most frightening situations.
Before she could start thinking though, the truck suddenly stopped, and spun around, and then front of the bed lifted up, and every pony inside was dumped out onto a conveyer belt.
All of them started screaming under their gags, and tried to squirm their way out.
Along the side of the belt were several horrible-looking creatures, all about the size of fillies, walking on two legs, with large bat-like ears, and goat-like faces, horns and bodies, black fur, yellow pupil-less eyes and sharp teeth.
Spitfire had heard of these things. They were imps, low-class demons from Tartarus. Each of them was armed with a hammer in each paw. Spitfire figured they were the factory workers summoned by the supervisor or manager. It made perfect sense to her that such a horrible place would be run by dark magic.
She thought of rolling over the side and off the belt, but then her thoughts were interrupted by a scream that made her very soul jump.
She noticed up ahead that one pink mare was being pounded by one imp with his hammers. Each blow came down heavy and hard. Blood started to splash out. Each sickening bump made Spitfire cringe.
Just then, another hammer lashed out at her. She sensed it in time though, and rolled around out of the way, just in time to evade it.
The imp who had attacked her gave a frustrated look, and reached out further to try and hit her, but she again rolled away.
Another imp came up behind her from the other side and tried to smash her in, but she rolled out of his way. Acting fast and precise, she spun around, whipping the imp in the face with her tail.
"OW! DAMMIT!" He yelped. He dropped his hammers and staggered back clutching his eye as she rolled on past him. "I hope the guys rip you a new one!" He shouted after her.
The belt continued to carry Spitfire across the room. More hammering imps attacked her from the sides, but she kept dodging them. Unfortunately, she could not drown out the screaming of the other ponies in front of her. They were not so lucky. They were getting hammered more. She could hear blood being splattered and the sickening crunches of bones.
In the back of her mind, she was asking "How could Princess Celestia approve of such a horrible practice?" But she had no time worry about that now. Right now, she just had to think about how to get out. She figured she would roll off as soon as she found an opening.
Just then, the hammering stopped, she looked ahead of her. Every pony who had been on the truck with her had been beaten into bloody pulps by the imps; all dead now. It was horrible. Spitfire felt so guilty. These were the very tragedies she was meant to prevent.
Looking ahead, in the distance, she could see a bright orange glow at the bottom of a large steel tank. A furnace. She had to get out before they reached that. She could then see imps with buzz saws on the side up ahead. They started leaping up onto the belt, and started digging their spinning blades into the corpses of all the hammered ponies. Blood was spraying everywhere.
Before long, Spitfire was brought before another imp with a buzz saw, who swung out at her. She dodged again though, letting the blade hit the belt beside her, sending sparks flying.
The imp gave her a confused look before turning to his side. "Can I get some help?" He called out. "We got a live one over here."
"Ooo! A live one!" Another imp snickered. "My favorite kind!"
Several imps climbed up onto the belt, all armed with buzz saws, and hurried towards Spitfire.
It was now or never. She rolled off to the side, about to slip off the edge, but she was stopped by another imp, who jumped up and blocked her path.
And then they were upon her.
She tried to squirm, but it was no good. They all jumped on her and held her down, buzz saws all spinning and emitting their high-pitched whines. They were poking and prodding at her.
One saw finally came down onto her hind legs, slicing through them in a matter of seconds.
Spitfire screamed under her gag as her meat and bones were sliced through, her blood spraying everywhere, tears now flowing from her eyes. She had never been a crier, but the pain was so incredible. Finally, she could no longer feel her hind legs.
That was when another saw came down on her front legs, slicing through both of them straight down with just as much agony as with the hind legs. Another saw came down on her wings.
Spitfire cringed her eyes and gritted her teeth to try and lessen the pain, but it was still unbearable.
Finally, the imps leapt off of her, taking her four legs with them, and leaving her a bloody vegetable, blood still pooling all around her rather quickly.
These monsters have sliced her legs clean off! When she thought about it, it made sense, but the pain was still so great and she already felt herself becoming dizzy and light-headed from the blood loss.
That was it. There was no hope. She was going to die here. Even if she could move and escape without the imps noticing, she would pass out any second now. She had failed as a wonderbolt. She had failed to protect Equestria.
Her eyelids started to feel heavy, but just then, another team of imps pounced her, armed with knives, scissors, sticks and other sharp objects. They stuck their tools under Spitfire's flesh where her legs have been cut off, and started digging in under them, slicing through the coat.
More agonizing pain shot through her, waking her up a minute longer.
She could feel the sadistic pests slicing up along her legs and around her back, and then peeling the flesh off.
More blood was leaking from her. Finally. She could not form any more complete thoughts. Her eyes were heavier than ever. Despite the incredible pain that still burned on her body, she could not fight it any longer. The captain of the wonderbolts drifted off into a deep sleep, never to wake up again.
In the glue department, one lone earth pony colt stood suspended in the air from a wire attached to his black leather belt. He controlled the wire using a remote in his hoof. He was tall and lanky with a reddish-brown coat, thought it was mostly stained with dried blood, with dark green eyes, wearing a dark brown vest and fedora atop his head. He also had some sharp, metallic, Freddy Krueger-esque figures screwed into his front hooves.
This was Slice N' Dice, the manager of the Gasket des Glue.
He watched below him as another imp walked along a catwalk pushing along a cart full of severed hooves, cleaned up as best as they could do, and brought them to the conveyer belt. The imp dumped his load onto the belt, as the hooves mixed in with many others as they were carried along to the large cylinder-shaped machine at the edge.
This was the glue machine where the hooves were broken down and mixed up into glue. The hooves were dumped off the belt down the chute into the humming machine.
Another high-pitched scream from the blood department filled the factory.
Slicey, as many called him, broke out into laughter. He loved this job. He flicked the lever on his remote and hovered down to under the glue machine. He reached under it with one hoof just as a shot of glue was squirted into a large can. He reached out just enough for a few of his razor-like fingers to touch the glue.
Fresh from the machine, it was hot. He rubbed sticky substance between his fingers before wiping it off on his vest.
"Hey, uh, chief!" One imp's voice called out. Slicey spun around to face one imp wearing a green bowler hat and holding a clipboard, a supervisor.
"Yeah? What?"
"Queen Chrysalis is here to see ya. Blood department." And with that, the imp turned away.
Slicey knew what to do. He had been anticipating the return of the changeling queen.
He guided himself over the blood department, looking down on all the carnage below, and lowered himself down to the bottom floor.
Down there waiting for him were two tall black figures, followed by five or six smaller ones.
Slicey recognized one tall figure as Queen Chrysalis. The other... was a different story. It was taller and more slender, and had the body of a caterpillar, two sets of arms and three sets of stubbier legs. Its head was a light black egg, harboring nothing but a mouth of jagged teeth. What was most disturbing about her though was the fact that there was no flesh covering her lungs, leaving her insides exposed.
After a second of searching his memory, Slicey recognized this monstrosity as Chrysalis's deformed sister, Princess Asphyxia.
At last he reached the bottom. He unhooked himself from his wire, and trotted over to the changelings. "Ah, your majesties," He smiled, "I've been waiting for you. And might I say you both look lovely today."
"Why, thank you," Chysalis nodded. "But enough flattery."
"Ah, yes, down to business."
"Our scouts have reported successfully capturing Spitfire and dropping her off at one of your trucks."
"Yes, I noticed the yellow mare on the belt. She was eviscerated, just as you requested."
"Wonderful!" Chysalis exclaimed with joy. "Now that the real captain of the wonderbolts is dealt with, we can send in one of our changelings to spy on the ponies of Equestria. We'll have a splinter cell who will take down Celestia's kingdom from the inside out!"
"And what better position to hold than captain of the wonderbolts?" Slicey chuckled.
"Precisely!" Chysalis laughed.
It was then that Asphyxia let out a hacking cough.
The reached into her sash around her waist and pulled out a brown sack before levitating it and gently setting it down at Slicey's front hooves.
"Here's your payment for your troubles," She stated.
"Chys, I still don't understand," Asphyxia grumbled, drawing her sister's attention. "Why did we not simply kill Spitfire ourselves? Why go through the trouble and spend our money on this... this worm?"
Slicey gave a disgusted look when she used the word.
"Oh Phyxie, I just thought it would be nice to ally ourselves with at least one division of these ponies," Chrysalis explained. "Besides, I thought this would be a sure-fire way to destroy ANY evidence of this conspiracy."
"Well I'm not complaining," Slicey chuckled. "I just made some decent bits, AND you promised not to take out my business once you take over!"
"Of course!" Chyrsalis smiled.
"Okay, whatever you say," Asphyxia muttered before another hacking cough escaped her mouth. She rose one hoof to her mouth to cover it.
"Are you alright?" Slicey asked her. "Can I get you something? A drink maybe?"
"No, no, I'm fine," She replied as her coughing settled down. "I'm alright. Thank you."
Chrysalis turned back to her changeling entourage.
"Thorax, step forward!" She barked.
One changeling stepped forward infront of Chrysalis and bowed.
"You will assume Spitfire's identity and infiltrate the wonderbolts. This is a very important, very dangerous mission. Do you understand?"
Thorax rose from his spot and engulfed himself in a green flame. When the flame vanished, Spitfire was in its place.
...Well, it was almost the same Spitfire. Her mane was shorter.
"Yes ma'am!" Spitfire barked in a squeakier voice. "I will carry out the mission, ma'am!"
Chrysalis simply stared back, wide-eyed, clearly a little nervous about sending this guy in.
"Uh... work on your voice. Try to be deeper if you can," She said.
"So you're going with the whole drill sergeant routine?" Slicey asked. "I'm not exactly sure that was Spitfire's personality."
"Well, she WAS a military captain," Asphyxia said. "makes sense to me that she would be like this."
"Well, as long as the ponies of Equestria are dumb enough to buy it, I won't complain," Chrysalis stated.
"And if Celestia and Shining Armor were dumb enough to buy YOUR horrible acting," Asphyxia added, "Little Thorax here is bound to pull it off!"
Chrysalis glared at her sister. "Remind me to pound you when we get back to the hive."
"Oh, hey," Slicey interjected. "You ladies wanna see something funny?"
He snaked off to one pole and danced up it, walking up with the agility of a monkey, gripping the pole with his claws.
When he reached the top, he came to a control panel and a bell with a string. He hit one button which stopped all the conveyer belts, and then rang the bell.
"Alright!" He shouted. "Break time!"
The imps all looked back, and put down their tools and started to walk down the catwalks, already gossiping.
Barely a second later, Slicey hit the button again, starting up the machines and belts again. "Alright! Break time's over! Back to work!"
The room was filled with angry groans and curses. Slicey and the changelings all laughed as he slid back down the pole.
"Ah, I needed a good laugh like that," Chyrsalis smiled. "Well, it seems our business is done, Slice N' Dice. You'll have to excuse us now. We have a military branch to take over!"
"And I have more ponies to chop up," Slicey grinned. "If you'll just show yourselves out then. Been a pleasure workin' with you. Good day to you both!"
Author's Note
I do not hate Spitfire. I really liked her before her sudden change. I hate how they changed her so drastically. I mean they could not create a new character to play the drill instructor? Really? I came up with this story as a way of coping with the change.
