The two surviving mages hunkered down behind the upturned table. The eldest wondered whose bright idea it was to add essence of pony.

For this creature could think.

They cocked ears. Beyond, the alchemical labs were eerily silent. No bubbling acids. No grounding of the pestles. Not even the usual explosion of exciting chemistry. Those had been reliable sounds for years—perhaps decades—and now they were silent.

Both mages were unicorns. Of course they were. Earth ponies were too dumb for anything other than basic slave commands, and a pegasus was about as welcome here as typhoid.

The eldest—Ophthalmalion, whose name alone would have secured his position as Chief Alchemist—peeked over the table.

“Look on the bright side, Master,” said the other one—Hypohippo, whose mother had been cruel once—“It’s exactly what you wanted.”

Ophthalmalion weighed this statement against recent experience. “Tell me in what way, and I’ll revoke my right to call you ‘Idiot Boy’ ever again.”

“Well… the pegasi won’t stand a chance against this one.”

That was an understatement.

But it had been so obviously right at the time. The unicorns fought the pegasi, and the pegasi fought the unicorns, and both had been locked in a millennium-long stalemate over control of the earth pony tribe, and thus the food. Yet the King of the Unicorns and the Commander of the Pegasi were always one step ahead of each other in the Thousand-Year War. Both sides were getting reckless and desperate.

Until now, Ophthalmalion hadn't cared. Business was business. Alchemy was his passion, and war just a distraction.

Now he looked at the latest result.

“It’s raining mead,” he whispered.

“The floor’s still marshland, Master.”

“And… there are chess pieces dancing across the roof.”

“That’s an improvement, Master! A minute ago, they were tap-dancing mice.”

Ophthalmalion swallowed. “We’ve created a sick mind.”

Quickly, he ducked down and tried to remember all the ingredients they’d used. Essence of dragon, essence of pony… and bat? Snake? Eagle? A big cat of some description?

Too many magical creatures. That was all he remembered, because he’d complained to the King about it. But the King had wanted a supremely magical creature. Something that pegasus weather powers could never overcome.

“What went wrong?” he muttered. “I had the manticore wrapped around my hoof from day one. The chimera at least could be whipped into obedience. The cockatrice just needed reflective glasses and a stern voice—”

A door opened.

Both of them, without thinking, huddled together, determined not to let an inch show beyond the table.

A puff of smoke. A flash.

One hoofstep hit the remaining tiles on the floor. There was also the click of claws.

Ophthalmalion swallowed and tried not to think about that terrible, stretched face leering down at him at any second. [i]Make a monster, the King had said. Make it cruel. Make it impossible to reason with. That’ll give those pegasi nightmares unto their dying days, he’d said.[/i]

For the first time in his life, Ophthalmalion felt sorry for the pegasi. He could feel their bloody terror pulsing through him, his heart beating as though determined to get all its beats out before the end—

In the lab, someone whistled a cheery little tune.

He hadn’t really wanted to hurt anyone. He didn’t dare think about much beyond his lab. “Pegasus”, “war”, “eternal enemies”: just so many words to a stallion used to dealing with quicksilver and camphor and gunpowder for cannons. Mixing essence of animal just meant getting a bigger cage and sending for a pooper scooper earth pony slave.

Now, for a terrible moment, his whole mind choked on the image of a serpentine body towering over some helpless pegasus, of the suddenly short future stolen from them, of the last-minute soul-searching while he panicked over what reward—if any—he’d get after making such a waste of his life that seemed far too monotonously foolish—

A snap of talons.

The table turned into a pile of eggs, which smashed on the floor.

Hypohippo screamed.

Determined to get one good mark on the résumé of his life, Ophthalmalion fell onto his knees. “Spare the boy! I’ve perverted Nature, I see that now, but his crimes are ultimately mine! Please spare—”

The world’s first draconequus laughed. “Now what fun would that be, us only playing a game for two?”

It snapped its talons.

Ophthalmalion had just enough time to wonder if it would’ve been better to never have been born. Then he screamed.

His last few hours proved him right.