Chapter 1:
“My daughter,” spoke Fenrir the Alpha, leader of the Pack, general on the Council of Cerberus and defender of the Overpack. He didn’t speak this in Equestrian, mind you; I’m merely doing you the courtesy of translating the traditional tongue. We still speak the words of the ancients, set down before Ragnarok, even though we are so different from them that we would most likely not even be considered the same species anymore. Of course, that’s probably just what ponies would think; the Diamond Dogs of old are still our ancestors, whether or not the tides of time have changed us into something so different as to be called Hellhounds. “What is best in life?”
Here it was. The ancient question, the first writing of the Old Law, set down by the great god Cerberus himself upon the chiseled bones of his slain prey, carved with sharpened gemstones. I looked out at the Overpack, listening intently to the sounds of the great foyer of the Underhall. Their canine muzzles sniffed the air, their panting tongues hanging out to cool themselves from the mutual body heat so many of us generated in one gathering. Many of them were scratching themselves or whining in agitation; fleas were common among the Overpack, even if true warriors (such as myself) allowed only the scars of battle upon our pelts.
They were all jostling each other for space despite the grand size of the Underhall, sometimes fighting to be nearer to the roaring fires that lit the massive stone cavern. Many had been forced to hang back in the multitude of tunnels branching off from the central chamber, and I could hardly see the cave paintings on the walls for the all the fur and claws that were in the way, writhing like a sea of flesh.
However, the one thing that unified them was that every single pair of ears (or single ear, if they had been in a particularly nasty battle) was perked forward, eagerly awaiting my answer.
Eagerly waiting to see if tonight the Overpack would gain a new princess, or if they would tear their latest potential royalty to shreds like so many others. Many in the back were quite hopeful for such an event, I knew; I could smell it on them. Predictably, though, more overpowering was the scent of their fear. Fear that I would succeed and they would be forced to bow down (and possibly be executed, should I deem it fit) by a pony.
I scoffed at them, bearing my teeth to show that I was not afraid. To show them that, if I wanted, their organs would soon be speared by the very equine molars they so mocked. Not that I had molars any more, that is. I had long ago chiseled them to points. It was easier to tear into meat that way.
But enough about them. They were inconsequential. They were Omegas. I was the daughter of an Alpha. So what if I was adopted? We had exchanged blood upon our first kill, and in our culture, that was as good as being family.
And, if all went according to plan, soon I would be an Alpha as well.
I turned back to my father, relishing the gleam of pride twinkling in his weak eyes. He wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination; it was just that all Hellhounds had weak eyes. That was one of the things that gave me a distinct advantage in the Overpack, among other things.
“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their females,” I responded with a snarl. Aggression was the only form of communication Hellhounds abided by, which was more than fine by me. “That is the Old Law, the oldest law, the rule of the Hellhounds ever since the great god Cerberus baptized us in the balefire of Ragnarok and the ichor of the slain gods of evil.”
“Correct,” my father responded with a rough, approving bark. “Do you abide by the Old Law?”
“May the blood of my enemies be testament that I do,” I answered, dropping into an attack stance as if about to leap at his throat. I would do no such thing, of course. My father meant even more to me than my Packmates, and each one of us would have gladly given our lives for one another. I was merely preparing for the next part of the ceremony.
“Then prove it,” he woofed. “Trial by fire!”
The Overpack howled with approval, their bloodlust brimming to the boiling point. They wanted a show, and I was the one to give it to them.
“Who steps forth to oppose my daughter’s claim to be an Alpha?” my father inquired, sweeping his razor-sharp claws across the Underhall. “Bark now, or forever be a mongrel.”
“I do!” yelped a voice near the back. Near the back? What mangy mutt would dare step up against me, the daughter of Fenrir the God-Eater? Omegas were only allowed at the back of the Underhall, and only Omegas would be caught dead sitting there.
The Overpack began shuffling aside, making an aisle for the offending challenger to meet me.
My blood ran cold.
“...Hati?” I gulped. Had I just been... at a loss for words? I was never at a loss for words! I didn’t always need words. No Hellhound did. Silence was a sign of strength unless you had something to say that would strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. But I had never experienced what being at a loss for words signified. I had never been uncertain.
“Aye, sister dearest,” the Hellhound laughed, loping his way up through the crowd, which seemed to be just as shocked as I was. What the Hell had he been doing in the back with the Omegas? What the Hell was he doing challenging me?! “Are you surprised to see me?”
“Hati, I...” I stammered, then cursed myself for doing so. Stammering, like all forms of action that were not thought-through, is a sign of weakness. Weakness gets you killed in the Overpack. Weakness gets you killed in this world, whether in the safety of the Den or in the Wasteland of the surface world above. Weakness is for those who are destined to face the wrath of Cerberus. Weakness is for Omegas... Which Hati definitely was not. Hati, like myself, was a pup of Fenrir the Alpha. “What were you doing with the Omegas?”
“Waiting to make my entrance,” my younger brother growled. “Waiting where you would never suspect me to lurk. Isn’t that the mark of a true Alpha? Outwitting your enemy?”
“Brother!” I scolded. “We are not enemies! We are Packmates, bound by blood!”
“Anyone who would stand against the ascension of a Hellhound is an enemy to that Hellhound,” he spoke, as if reciting something. “And right now, sister, you are in my way. Stand aside, or be cast into Tartarus.”
My own brother was actually challenging me? But... but this didn’t make any sense! He was but a year younger than me, and in another year he would come of age to participate in the Ceremony himself. There was no need for him to try and ascend now. What in Cerberus’ name was going on?!
I asked him as much.
“You never suspected a thing, did you, sister dearest?” he guffawed. “You, the prize child of Father. You always thought your fellow pups loved you just as much as he did. But why, sister? Why? How could a Hellhound love someone who had taken what was rightfully his?”
“What are you talking about, Hati?” I demanded, stamping a hoof down. The Hellhound claws strapped to my foreleg, taken from slain rogues who had turned against the Overpack, sliced into the earth as I did so. “I have stolen nothing from you! And you have never given me any reason to doubt that you loved me as you loved all your family!”
My mind was racing. Hati had always been there for me, the supportive little brother. Sharing his meat with me, aiding me in fixing my weapons, even vouching for me when I snuck off to explore the deeper regions of the Den without Father’s consent. What could he possibly think I had taken from him, and even if I had stolen from him, how in Cerberus’s name could that have made him hate me? Even if all of this was true, why was he choosing now to make it all known, dragging it out for the whole Overpack to see? Why would he do this during my Ceremony?
“Stolen nothing from me?” he scoffed. “You have stolen everything from me! What is the son of an Alpha if not the rightful heir, the pride of his father? If not for you, who are not even a Hellhound, I would be the eldest of Father’s pups! I would be the prince!”
“Hati, when have you ever shown ambition for becoming the prince?” our father inquired gruffly, raising a dark, furry eyebrow. “You have not slain nearly as many ponies as your sister Cŵn Annwn, and she is indeed your sister. She may have once been a pony herself, but our blood-bond means she is one of us.”
“Don’t you see, Father?!” Hati exclaimed. “She has done nothing but spoil our blood. Only by enacting retribution can we be absolved of her impurity.”
“How dare you speak to your sister in such a way!” Father roared. “I should rip off your foreleg for such insolence!”
“You would deny the laws of the Ceremony, Father?” Hati growled lowly, grinning.
“No Hellhound shall deny the laws of the Ceremony,” our father decreed. “Lest the wrath of Cerberus fall upon him.”
“Then please, Father, with all due respect,” Hati continued darkly. “Let Cŵn speak for herself.”
“I believe Cŵn can speak for herself very well,” Father barked. “It is for you I fear, Hati. I cannot in good conscience watch my eldest pup slaughter my second-eldest. If you accept the challenge of the Ceremony, then you know that is the fate that awaits you.”
“Forgive me for correcting you twice in one day, Father,” Hati snarled. “There will be slaughter here tonight, but it shall not be by Cŵn’s hooves. It shall be by my claws that her blood shall spill.”
“Hati, stand down at once!” Father commanded. “That is an order!”
“No!” my brother howled. “I invoke the right of the Ceremony! You cannot deny me this right, Father!”
The older Hellhound growled furiously, but finally conceded.
“Very well,” he sighed. “If that is what you wish, son, then so be it. I thought I had raised you better than to throw your life away, at your own sister’s claws no less, but clearly you have a death-wish.”
“Clear back!” Hati shouted. “My sister will need room to mark her grave.”
Is this actually happening? I thought frantically as the other Hellhounds cleared back, squeezing against the walls to create a makeshift arena. I can’t fight my own brother!
Hati stepped forth into the arena, planting his hind legs firmly in the center. My brother had never been the largest or brawniest of Hellhounds, but what he lacked in physical strength he made up for in the speed his wiry frame provided him. That, and his almost excessively long foreclaws that could slice through just about anything, be it earth, rock, steel, or magical shield. He had rarely left the Den, being a digger more than anything, but when he did I’d witnessed him slice through both shield and flesh of the alicorns. This wasn’t so much a feat in itself, as all Hellhound claws are sharp enough to slice through just about anything. However, the fact that he was able to get so close, dodging their magical attacks with his speed and agility, was testament to his lethality.
That, and the fact that even though this was an acceptable part of the Ceremony, I didn’t know if I could fight him. How could I? He was my brother!
But he was also slowly advancing towards me with his claws at the ready, bloodlust and hatred brimming in his eyes.
He really is planning on killing me, I realized. It’s his life or mine.
A Hellhound never backs down from one who would do him harm. A Hellhound does harm to them instead, before the enemy has a chance to hurt the Hellhound.
With shaking legs, I braced myself. I managed my best sneer, bearing my chiseled teeth, snorting. I prayed to Cerberus that I looked more fierce than I felt. Save Father, I could take down any one of the Hellhounds in this room, including someone of my brother’s capabilities… but I really didn’t want to have to find out if that included my brother. I really, really didn’t want to have to enact the Ceremony against him.
Didn’t want to enact the Ceremony against him… Maybe I didn’t have to. No, I knew I didn’t have to. But did I really want to do… that…?
The laws of the Ceremony were simple. Anyone could challenge the chosen ascendant. If no one challenged them, then they were automatically an Alpha. However, any challengers had to defeat the ascendant in a fight to the death. If one of the fighters was left alive by the end as a result of the winner not wanting to slay the loser, the loser would be ripped to shreds by the Overpack regardless. The same would happen to anyone who conceded after a challenge was made.
I could concede, and Hati would become an Alpha tonight instead of me. He would also make it out of this alive instead of me. Maybe that’s what he was counting on happening in the first place, for my love as a sister to win out over my honor as a Hellhound.
If that was so, he was wrong.
I had given everything to the Overpack. I had been raised as one of Fenrir’s own pups. I had been accepted by all but the inconsequential Omegas. I worshipped Cerberus, god of all canines. I had exchanged blood with my father upon my first kill (and there had been many since then). I believed in the doctrines, I practiced the traditions, I followed the Old Laws.
I may have been a pony in appearance. I may have been born a pony. I may even be a pony, at least as far as my biology was concerned. But my spirit was not. My soul was not.
I was a Hellhound.
And Hellhounds do not back down.
“Are you thinking of giving up?” Hati chuckled. “Do I smell the fear of a pony on you?”
“The only fear you smell is your own,” I retorted, my eyes narrowing. I spread my wings, a Hellhound claw strapped to each of the wing bones, and launched myself into the air. He growled, bounding closer before leaping up to meet me.
He swiped his claws towards me as if stretching out for a lethal aerial embrace. His claws were longer than mine, so I would have to evade him for now. I adjusted my wings accordingly, swooping low and zooming under him. The instant I was almost out from under his shadow, I ducked and rolled onto the ground, sending my long tail whipping up. A trio of claws was woven into my long hair, and they sliced up along his stomach.
I heard him whimper as he crashed to the ground, his entrails spilling out of his hide.
The crowd howled with approval, several of them licking their lips as they saw Hati’s blood spreading out in a pool around his heaving form. The winner of any challenge during the Ceremony was required to eat the heart of their slain enemy, but the rest went to the Pack. Soon there would be as much saliva drooling out of their mouths as there was blood pouring out of my brother.
I turned, trotting up to the fallen form.
“I would say I’m sorry, Hati,” I whispered, leaning down to his twitching ear. “But you brought this upon yourself. I pray Cerberus has mercy on so reckless a soul as yours.”
“And I pray…” Hati coughed, scarlet spurting out of his muzzle as he wheezed out his words. “…that when I kill you… you will realize you have been abandoned by both Cerberus… and the forsaken pony gods…”
I spat in his face, turned, and trotted away. The crowd was waiting with baited breath, ready to dive forward the moment I turned back around and tore out his heart. I would, too; I just needed a moment. That was probably another sign of weakness, but damn it, anyone who wanted to argue that with me could taste my claws. I was in no mood right now for taking anyone’s shit when I had to deal with the psychological mind-fuck of slaying my own brother. He had asked for it, and he would get it.
But he was still my brother.
I turned back around, raising the claws on my hoof and preparing to plunge them into his flesh.
“I claim your life in the name of the Ceremony and the great god Cerberus,” I proclaimed, just loudly enough for the Overpack to hear.
“CEASE!!”
I froze, as did the entirety of the Overpack. My eyes rose to my father, but one look at his equally surprised face confirmed that he had not spoken. But if he hadn’t, then who had? Who else would have dared?
“Cerberus!” Hati cried with more breath than I thought he had left. “I pray to you! Heal me, give me strength, that I may cleanse this Pack of the pony plague!”
“SO IT SHALL BE,” barked the voice. It was like the chorus of a thousand Hellhounds howling at once, but I could clearly see that not a single muzzle among the Overpack was moving. “RISE, MY CHOSEN ONE!!”
That couldn’t be… could it? I wondered, scanning the crowds once more. Had I missed something? Were some of them actually talking and I just hadn’t seen them? What was going on? That couldn’t be Cerberus… right?
Cerberus had never made himself known to us like that. Cerberus made himself known through allowing a successful hunt, through increasing the number of ponies you had slain, through granting you the rush of bloodlust in battle. Cerberus did not interact directly.
At least, he hadn’t before now.
I saw the expressions on the crowd shift from confusion to outright shock, and I whirled around to see—
No, that’s impossible! I thought.
Hati seemed to disagree, as the blood I had spilled had begun seeping back into him. As I watched, his wounds knit themselves shut, and his heaving breaths slowed to a dark chuckle. He rose, slowly and steadily, revealing not even a single scar across his stomach. The life returned to his glazed eyes, and with it, the bloodlust.
“You see, sister?” Hati inquired smugly. “I am the one destined to be heir to Father’s throne.”
He turned and faced the crowds while I looked on in baffled disbelief, shouting “You see? Cerberus has chosen me to cleanse the Overpack of this impurity, this wretch, this pony. I shall show you here today why only a Hellhound should be considered a Hellhound!”
Many of the crowd were beginning to look more than a little nervous, and none of them more than me. This wasn’t possible! This wasn’t how Cerberus did things!
“This is for you, Father,” Hati called out, looking imploringly at the baffled Hellhound sitting high above the others. Then, turning back to me, he sneered “Now, sister, you die.”
Not today, I thought, snarling. Despite myself, I was actually beginning to think I would enjoy ripping out his heart.
Hati bounded towards me again, claws at the ready. There was no time to leap into the air, and I couldn’t evade his extra-long claws. I could, however, block them—the only things that can withstand Hellhound claws are other Hellhound claws.
I reared up on my hind legs and parried his slicing blades with my own, bracing against his greater strength as I flapped my wings—hard—to keep from being knocked over backwards. Hati yipped at me, flinging saliva into my face as he fought to bite at me. I had to keep my eyes open even as the stinging spit flecked my face, lest a single moment of disorientation result in my downfall. A Hellhound is ever alert of her surroundings, and most of all, of her enemy.
My enemy was currently Hell-bent on biting my neck open if he couldn’t force his claws through my defenses, which meant he wasn’t paying attention to any other part of me. Planting my hooves firmly, I swished my tail around as hard as I could.
Hati yelped and leapt back, despite the fact that I had only been able to graze his legs with the claws in my long tail. Again, though, before my amazed eyes his cuts closed and resealed themselves.
Catching my incredulous look, my brother snarled and took advantage of my momentary attention lapse. Copying me slightly, he ducked down and swiped my hind legs out from under me with his own newly healed pair. Riding his momentum, he leapt up into the air and landed with a foot on either side of me. He could have simply landed on top of me and sliced my torso open with his hindclaws, but I could see that Hati wanted to make an example of me. He wanted this to be as dramatic as possible.
Raising his right foreclaw, the Hellhound I had always thought was my brother slashed down towards my neck.
I saw an opening, but I didn’t want to take it. I hadn’t wanted to do any of this, of course, but killing him was one thing. What I could do to escape this current predicament was just… wrong. It was also, however, my only way out.
So I took it.
I coiled up my hind legs, which had their own set of Hellhound claws strapped to them, and bucked Hati’s underside with all my might. He cried out with an unusually high canine scream as he fell over backwards, clutching the place something very vital had once been. Not vital as in a vital organ, mind you, but vital as in it defined him as a male.
I shivered in disgust as I rose to my feet, taking wing and rising back into the air. I’d just gelded my own brother.
I had planned on swooping back down and simply slicing off his head while he moaned in pain at what he had lost, but was I ducked into my dive I saw him rear back up in horrible fury. I didn’t look, of course—he was my brother, for crying out loud!—but I knew that the only way he could have recovered that quickly was if he had regenerated again.
If Cerberus had healed him again. What else could it be? How else could he recover from something like that?
Cerberus really was against me, I realized. I hadn’t wanted to accept it. But I couldn’t defeat an enemy that was healed every time I cut him down, and I could think of nothing but divine intervention that would allow such a development.
Cerberus was against me…
That could only mean one thing. If… if the god of all canines had ordained for my death, was actively blessing my brother with the power to kill me… then I really wasn’t a Hellhound.
No! I had to be a Hellhound! Being a Hellhound was my whole life, was everything that made me who I was!
But in that instant, those few heartbreaking seconds, I felt again the one thing a Hellhound should never feel: uncertainty. And uncertainty gets you killed. I felt my wings miss a beat, felt them falter.
Hati saw the doubt in my eyes and leapt up to meet me. I stretched out my own claws in defense, but it was too late. He had seen the flaw in my shoddy plan before I had planned it. Our claws met, and he swung his feet up underneath me and scratched down the length of my torso, flipping my over him as he did so.
I howled out in pain as I was flung through the air, landing with a wet, squishy thud on the ground at Father’s feet. I could feel my guts spilling out, felt the blood pouring out of me like a red river.
“No…” I whispered hoarsely. Horse-ly, like the equine I was. Not the Hellhound I wasn’t. I hadn’t just lost the fight, hadn’t just failed the Ceremony. I’d come face to face with the realization that I never should have been allowed to partake in it in the first place. I should have been killed on sight when Father found me so long ago, back when I was too young to even remember the event.
Hati was right. I had abandoned ponydom, and ponykind’s goddesses had abandoned me in turn. Cerberus hadn’t abandoned me because he had never accepted me in the first place.
I wasn’t a Hellhound, but then again, I guess that meant that I wasn’t a pony either. I was nothing, an unbeing. A nonentity.
I couldn’t bear to look up at the Hellhound who had loved me as his own, mistakenly. At the Hellhound was not my father, but was Fenrir the God-Eater, enemy to anything that wasn’t a Hellhound, and that now included me.
I felt myself being picked up, my guts roughly stuffed back inside me as I cried out in utter agony. Was Father—no, Fenrir—preparing to throw me to the Overpack so that they could devour me? It was what I deserved.
But no, I could hear the difference in breathing. A haggard, battle-worn breathing sounded above me. I was in Hati’s paws, carefully protected from his claws. He wasn’t killing me outright, meaning that he wanted to place me in the middle of the arena, so that all could see him rip my heart out.
He had counted on my being already too far gone to do anything to prevent this. He was right in that regard. I had lost too much blood; I would die soon whether or not he ate my heart. Even if I hadn’t, I’m not sure if I would have had the strength to do anything. I had been abandoned by two species and two divinities in the space of a moment. What more was there left to fight for?
Hati was lying me down now. My heart quickened. This was it. In seconds, he would be rearing up to plunge his claws into my heart. And I deserved it. I deserved it. But… but I couldn’t bring myself to accept that. I did not do what I did next out of honor, or some kind of last courageous fight for survival.
I did it because, in that moment, I felt fear. True, absolute, and overwhelming panic. Just like a pony would feel. I didn’t want to die, and if I had to do something dishonorable to prolong the inevitable, even if I had no chance of winning anymore, I would.
I mustered all that was left of my strength and sliced out with a forehoof, my claws cutting into his flesh. He only chuckled as he laid me down , blood dripping from his faint wound.
“That won’t work anymore, sister,” he whispered as the blood dripped down to mix with mine. His cut was already closing.
He stood up, lifting his right foreclaw towards the ceiling of the Underhall.
No… I thought desperately, even as darkness threatened to drown my consciousness. I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die when I’ve never even truly been a part of something! I fought with all my remaining strength, which definitely wasn’t much, against the tide of darkness.
And… amazingly… it seemed to be working. The blackness ebbed back beyond the corners of my vision, and I was starting to feel more… whole. Unsure of what was happening, I looked down at myself, to see that my own wounds were… closing. Not entirely; there was still an angry red scar running the length of my underside. But I could also feel inside me, feel my organs righting themselves as best they could.
Hati wasn’t the only one who was healing. What was happening? Cerberus wouldn’t heal me if he was already blessing Hati with the power to kill me. Was this some last chance offered by the pony goddesses?
If so, out of my un-Hellhound-like cowardice, I would take it. I hated myself for it, for not being a Hellhound, but I wasn’t. And if I couldn’t live as one if I truly wasn’t, then I sure as Hell wasn’t going to die pretending to be one.
I rolled to the side—painfully—as Hati plunged his claw down, which sliced into the earth instead of into pony flesh. I sprang to my hooves, spreading my wings, and launched myself into the air.
“See how the pony flees!” Hati cried out. “How she denies the Ceremony as she denies all Hellhounds! Kill her, my brethren! Slay the plague!”
The Hellhounds roared with approval, having finally taken what they had been witnessing for what it really was. They bounded forward, leaping up to claw at me. I flew as high as I could, just barely dodging the ones with the best legs as they sliced through the ceiling of the Underhall instead.
I had to get out of here, had to escape the Den, or the Ceremony would claim me. Not only had I failed, which meant I was dead anyway, I had lost the years of acceptance the Hellhounds had given me. They now saw me as I had been convinced to see myself—as a pony, and Hellhounds kill ponies before ponies can kill Hellhounds.
I searched for an opening in the tunnels, rolling to the side as another former brethren of mine eviscerated a stalactite. There! The Hellhounds had been crowding into the Underhall after my blood with such fervor that they’d packed as many of themselves as they could into the most massive space in the Den, which was still far too overcrowded with them all. That meant that the tunnels would be less crowded, such as the one I was now zooming towards.
I dropped under another Hellhound as he leaped up to tackle me in his claws. I rolled on the ground and then took wing again, or at least as much as I could in the considerably more-cramped tunnel. I sped along, turning around the stony, earthy corners as the bellows of hunting Hellhounds echoed behind me.
I was faster than any Hellhound, but I was also far, far outnumbered. If I was to get out of here alive, I needed to find an exit hole, and fast.
I turned another corner, flapping as hard and fast as I could. There would be just a few more turns before the labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that made up the Den opened up to the Upper Levels and I found an escape route. However, this plan was cut short by me crashing into another Hellhound and sending us both tumbling over each other.
I quickly leapt back to my hooves and prepared to launch myself back into a frantic flight, only to discover with a crack of pain that my left wing had been bent. No! Without my wings, I would never outrun my pursuers, much less the adversary I had just run into!
Cold realization dawned on me. I would have to fight to the death. I couldn’t very well hide in the Den, as Hellhound noses were the best in the Equestrian Wasteland and I would be quickly found with the whole Overpack looking for me. The only way out of this was through death, and that meant going down fighting, as I sure as Hell wasn’t surrendering.
Anger boiled up inside me, burning away the fear my psychological break had given birth to. If that’s the way they wanted it, then so be it! I would have gladly died alongside my Packmates when outnumbered on a hunt against ponies, back when I was a Hellhound. So why shouldn’t I do the same if things were the exact opposite? Maybe I really wasn’t a Hellhound, but I had been accepted as one for years. That had to count as something, right? So what if I was a pony in body. I had been happy to think myself a Hellhound. That had to mean, to me anyway, that I was a Hellhound, at least in spirit.
And Hellhounds, I knew all too well, don’t back down.
I whirled on the mongrel I’d crashed into, preparing to slice her to bits.
But I stopped when I saw that she had no claws of her own to fight me with. The Hellhound before me had only paws, her claws having been regularly worn away to stumps. Only one Pack in the Overpack chiseled their own claws down to that size. Not having claws was like hardly being a Hellhound at all, but it was also the only way any of them could use the majority of stolen pony technology, magic, and other assorted pony paraphernalia.
The Overpack was composed of three cooperative smaller Packs, all led by the council of Cerberus. At the top of the ladder you had the Pack in charge of governing the Overpack, maintaining food supplies, and organizing digging patterns. They were led by Capitoline, head member of the Council of Cerberus and chief Hellhound of the Overpack. Just under her was my father—er, Fenrir—who served as the general of the warrior Pack, which conducted hunts on the surface for meat and defense against the ponies.
But beneath them all was Coyote’s Pack. Coyote was by far the eldest of all the Hellhounds in the Overpack. He was so old, in fact, that he couldn’t even move anymore. I’d never even seen him in person, and he only communicated with the rest of the Overpack through his underlings or to the Council via stolen technology. Coyote’s Pack oversaw the practice of the Hellhound religion, being the high priest to Cerberus and the caretaker of the Old Law, as well as being in charge of repurposing pony technology and magic for Hellhound use.
One of Coyote’s own was now standing before me. It made sense, as only one of the lowest Pack wouldn’t have been present for my Ceremony. Coyote could not have attended himself, and he needed constant attention from his underlings to maintain the magics and technologies that kept him alive. Or so I had heard. As I had said, no one but his underlings ever really saw him.
That meant that this Hellhound knew nothing of what had happened in the Underhall. She was no threat to me even if she wanted to be; she didn’t even have any claws. Just her long priestess robes dyed red in the blood of ponies.
I turned to flee again, having already lost far too much time. The others would be here any moment.
“Wait!” the priestess called after me. I ignored her of course, until I heard the telltale hum of a magical energy weapon charging to fire. I froze and turned back around, seeing her pointing just such a device at my head. It crackled with arcane energies. The magical energy weapons were one of the few pony devices modified to accommodate any Hellhound regardless of claw size, so I had no idea why one of the lowest of the Overpack would have one. Nevertheless, have one she did, and she could vaporize me in an instant should she choose to do so.
But what was she even stopping me for in the first place? She hadn’t been in the Underhall to have known what happened! As far as she was concerned, I was still Fenrir’s daughter and a fellow Hellhound.
“Coyote knows of your predicament, Cŵn Annwn of the Wild Hunt,” the priestess spoke softly. “Coyote wishes to speak with you.”
“I don’t have time to speak with the lowest Pack leader!” I snarled. “I have… an important mission to run for my father! Lower your weapon at once or you shall face his wrath!”
“Coyote knows that you have been marked for death by the Overpack,” she informed me. How could she know that?! As if reading my mind, she added “Coyote has many ways of divining the truth. You will accompany me to speak with him now, or I shall fire.”
Grumbling, I nodded. She pointed with a sawed-off claw into a side tunnel and I galloped inside, followed quickly behind by the priestess, her weapon still charged. After a few turns, I was herded into a low-lying chamber lit only by a few torches. The priestess covered the entryway behind us with a cloth that smelled heavily of some rancid chemical.
The room I had been forced into was not much to look at. It was smaller than my own private room had been, though it was littered with pony weapons and gadgets. Pony drugs, books, and even toys lay scattered across the floor and strewn about wooden shelves crudely bolted to the walls.
What caught my interest above all, though, was a large cloaked figure coughing in the far corner. Various tubes were pumping liquid into the cloak’s folds from what I took to be pony medical machines. I had suspected that the leader of a Pack, even the lowliest one, would have shown a bit more grandeur.
“It is good to see you, Cŵn Annwn of the Wild Hunt,” a stodgy old voice wheezed from within the hood. “Though I do not take it that it is good to see me.”
“What do you want?” I demanded. “And how do you know what happened in the Underhall?”
“Cerberus reveals much to those who listen to him,” he replied with a dry chuckle. “Though I suppose you think you already know that, don’t you?”
“Cerberus has chosen to kill me,” I spat.
“I saw what happened in the Underhall, young pup,” Coyote rasped. “You need not repeat to me what I already know.”
“Then you know I have to get out of here as quickly as possible!” I insisted. “Please, let me go! I know the Ceremony and Cerberus alike call for my death, and you would know that more than anyone as Cerberus’ high priest, but I have never done the Overpack any harm! I have never done anything but help Hellhound-kind!”
“You do not listen very well, do you?” Coyote laughed again with that dry chuckle. “You do not need to repeat to me what I already know. I know all too well that you have done nothing but devote your life to the cause of the Hellhounds. That is why I wished to speak with you.”
“What?” I inquired bluntly, not understanding any of this.
“Why is it that the good ones are always idiots?” the old Hellhound sighed. “I wish to help you, Cŵn Annwn. You are more a Hellhound than most purebloods. Cerberus himself would think so as well.”
“But Cerberus has forsaken me!” I protested.
“What you witnessed in the Underhall were not the miracles of our god,” Coyote rasped. “I don’t know what that was, but it was not him. I should know; as you said, I am the high priest. Therefore, I have decided to employ you as an envoy of Cerberus.”
“An envoy?” I echoed confusedly.
“I wish you to discover what being dares impersonate the great god Cerberus,” Coyote explained. “And I want you to end him.”
“What good will that do?” I wondered. “I’ll be killed either way.”
“Why are the good ones always dumb?!” he repeated in exasperation. “By revealing this debacle for the fraud it is, you shall clear your name! Cŵn Annwn, only by revealing your brother’s illusion to the Overpack can you redeem yourself!”
That… made sense.
“But how can I do so?” I inquired, still not entirely sure I believed this old coot. “I’ll be killed by any Hellhound who sees me!”
“Not every Hellhound is loyal to the Old Laws,” Coyote went on. “And for once, that works to our advantage. As much as I hate to admit it, there are those who know far more about the ways of ponies than we. I haven’t the slightest idea how or why, but I suspect that, like everything, the ponies are behind this. I want you to seek the Outcast Pack. If anyone can and will help you, it is them.”
“The Outcast Pack?!” I exclaimed. Why them?! The Outcast Pack were traitors to all of Hellhound-kind. The mongrels were a group of Omegas from across all three Packs who had been inspired by some mutt named Gruthar. He had believed that Hellhounds should live in harmony with ponies rather than hunt them as they hunt us. He had almost been killed like all rogues who ever attempt such treason, but he and several of his number had escaped from the Den some years back and travelled who knew where, well beyond the territory of the Overpack. “Why them?”
“Can you think of anyone else who would be sympathetic to your plight?” Coyote queried. “Like you, they are Hellhounds who are no longer accepted by their own kind. Seek them out, and they will help you. Probably.”
“But no one even knows where the Outcast Pack escaped to!” I retorted.
“I do,” Coyote laughed before coughing fiercely. “I also have a way for you to get out undisturbed.”
He motioned with a covered paw to the priestess who had ushered me in here, and she produced something I had only heard about from the folds of her robe. It was a cylindrical example of pony-made arcane technology, with a hole through either end that a pony could slip a foreleg through.
It was a PipBuck, only ever worn by the ponies who had locked themselves away in metal dens deep under the earth before Ragnarok.
“Where did you get that?” I wondered curiously.
“I have been around far longer than I care to admit,” Coyote answered. “Long before you were born, the Stable ponies were far more common. Now they are almost all gone, but this was taken from one such Stable pony before her death. Before Gruthar and his makeshift Pack left the Den, he told me where he had planned to relocate, and I programmed it—after some trouble—into this device. It will lead you to the Outcast Pack.”
Unsure but hopeful, I held out my left foreleg—I’d heard from the stories that Stable ponies always put them on their left foreleg—and allowed the priestess to fit it onto me. She fiddled with the clasps for a bit, as even her chiseled claws still lacked the fine precision of a unicorn’s magic, but at last it was secure. Even I couldn’t get it off now, unless I wanted to try and slice through it with my claws and risk cutting myself in the process.
“It will take some time to get used to,” Coyote informed me. “But for now, it is already set to the map function. It should tell you where you need to go. Now…”
He motioned to his subordinate again, and she produced a healing potion. I certainly recognized what those were; they were one of the pony items we looked for the most in our hunts. She gave it to me and I drank it greedily, relishing the pain as my bent wing was righted and healed.
Finally, the priestess went over to one of the piles of pony devices and began clearing them away. There was a large rock underneath, which she removed, revealing a narrow tunnel.
“This won’t appear on any of Capitoline’s plans,” Coyote promised. “It should take you to the surface. From there, you will be on your own, though I know you can more than handle yourself up there. Nevertheless, I advise you to be very, very cautious; the place the Outcast Pack escaped to is said to be a place even the alicorns steer clear of.”
Even those ponies modeled after ponykind’s own goddesses avoided this place? Hopefully that meant that the regular ponies were sparse there as well. Even if I was a pony in appearance, they had always fired first when they saw me travelling with my Pack on hunts. I may have Hellhound claws on my side, but they had superior technology and could fell a Hellhound from a great distance. I wasn’t afraid of fights against ponies by any stretch of the imagination, but if I was going to be hiding out and living in their world, at least for a time, then I didn’t want to constantly be watching my back.
“Thank you,” I said, turning my head to Coyote one last time as I trotted over to the hole.
“Do not thank me,” Coyote wheezed. “Thank Cerberus. After all, he is your god too, Hellhound.”
I smiled, and then leapt into the hole. Next stop, the surface. Then, according to my new PipBuck, I would be heading to a place called…
…Point Lookout.
