PART 2: MASSACRE

Shadow nervously looked at the three bodies lined up before him, along with his other unicorn companions. Celestia stood by, watching anxiously.

"I don't even know if we'll be able to do this, princess," he said nervously. "As far as I know, nothing like this has ever been attempted in the history of ponykind. This is almost... well, dark magic. Bringing ponies back to life would be considered by many to be... eh... unnatural."

Celestia closed her eyes.

"I do not like this anymore than you do. But it must be done. Our very future depends on it. If the Elements of Harmony are destroyed, we've lost our most important defense."

With those words, she trotted out of the dark room and began heading back up towards the castle. As she did, she spoke to Twilight, and to her dead friends, wherever they were.

"I am so sorry... this never should've happened. I am so sorry, Twilight, my most faithful student. I should've seen this coming... but I didn't... And I'm sorry I am forcing you and your other friends back to life... but it is for the best. If you can hear me, please believe what I am saying... I hope you can forgive me... all three of you."

With that let out, Celestia walked the rest of the way up in silence.

***

"Now, look," Shadow said to his companions after Celestia had left the room. As you know, it is our mission to bring these three ponies back to life. We will start with Princess Twilight. It may prove impossible to, some of you may not even want to. I know I don't. It's just unnatural..."

Realizing he was getting off topic, Shadow quickly continued.

"The fate of Equestria itself could depend on whether we succeed or fail. And don't get any ideas. This will definitely be the hardest thing we've ever attempted, so you better not expect this to be easy. As you can see, the yellow one- Fluttershy- has taken a serious blow to the head, and there is serious brain damage. This may be very hard, or even impossible to fix. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Anyways, we need to get to work on Princess Twilight. There is no time to lose."

While the other unicorns ran around, making settings on the machine in the center of the room and collecting potions, Shadow inspected the body itself. The alicorn had a huge slash in her side, and the eye that had been stabbed was rotting out already. Oh, this was not going to be fun.

Shadow levitated Twilight's body back-first onto the table and grabbed a scalpel. Starting where Twilight had been slashed in the side, he made the cut wider and carefully pulled the two flaps of skin apart, looking at the inside of her body. As he suspected, there was a large amount of internal bleeding, and some of the alicorn's insides had been nicked by the knife that had slashed her in the first place.

"You," Shadow said, motioning to one of his companions. Get me a tube and a bucket. I'll need to clean the blood out from inside her... but I'll need to drain the rest of it from her body first."

The unicorn brought over the tube and bucket without a word. Using the scalpel, Shadow made a slash in Twilight's neck, inserted the tube, and placed the other end in the bucket.

Using his magic, Shadow forced the remaining blood in Twilight's body to pump through it, through the tube, and right into the bucket. It took awhile, but after about fifteen minutes, the flow finally stopped, and the rest of the blood dripped into the bucket.

"Now for the fun part," Shadow murmured to himself. Taking the scalpel again, he sliced down the alicorn's stomach and carefully pulled the skin apart. Then, using the scalpel, he carefully began to cut out Twilight's innards, one by one, placing them in a neat line on the table for cleaning- intestines, heart, lungs, stomach, everything.

Finally, done with that, he began to clean the organs themselves. He started with the stomach, which he first started off by using magic to pump it. Stomach acid, half-digested food, and blood sprayed out, but Shadow continued until the stomach was empty.

Some time later, while Shadow was cleaning Twilight's liver, and a few of the other unicorns were working on the intestines, Celestia entered the room again to check on their progress. Her expression turned a bit sick when she saw what was going on.

"Is... is that necessary?" she asked, looking at Twilight's gutted body.

"This is the first step, princess," Shadow said. "It is essential that all organs be cleaned and repaired before attempting reanimation."

"Well... if you say so," Celestia said.

Behind his mask, Shadow smiled.

"Don't worry, Princess. I'm sure we can get Princess Twilight back in no time." I just hope it works.

***

Back in Ponyville, the unicorn with the golden eyes, his four friends, and several others were headed for Twilight's treehouse after it had finally stopped raining. Along the way, they stopped to get other ponies that they knew.

Going up to one house, the golden-eyed unicorn knocked on the door and waited impatiently for the stallion who lived there to answer, along with his four friends and the seven others they had picked up along the way- four mares and three other stallions.

After a few seconds, the stallion who lived in the house opened his door. Seeing the golden-eyed unicorn and recognizing him, he started to greet him warmly, but the unicorn on the porch held up a hoof to stop.

"I'm sorry. We can't talk today. We are heading to the princess's house to find out what's really going on in this town."

After explaining everything, the stallion in the house gladly went along with the group. Now thirteen members strong, they began to head over to the treehouse where Twilight lived, visible just down the next street.

***

It had finally stopped raining, and Rainbow Dash cautiously peeked out the door of the shack she was in, making sure that it was safe to go out. The visions earlier had given her an idea.

Where else would Twilight's friends be besides her own house? Yes, Rainbow thought, the alicorn's house would be the very last place they'd expect her to look for them.

But, Rainbow thought, If only i could get there first take them by surprise kill them kill them KILL THEM KIIIILLLL THEM-

Rainbow took off, flying in the direction of Ponyville, laughing.

They think they'll get me but oh no no no no i'll get them first, swear i'll kill them ALL FIRST...

After a few minutes, the pegasus flew down towards Twilight's treehouse which was now visible, and as she looked down, she saw ten or so other ponies approaching the tree house down on the ground.

It's a trap or guards or something but i'll kill them too just gotta be careful, be careful-

Rainbow flew around to the back of the treehouse and entered inside through Twilight's bedroom. As she did this, she drew a long, sharp knife that she had been keeping hidden in her messy mane. Then, grinning crazily, she listened as the group of ponies began knocking on the library door downstairs.

***

After what seemed like forever, Shadow and the other unicorns had finally finished putting Twilight's innards back inside, taking painstaking efforts to make sure they were perfect. Done with that, Shadow began to stitch the two slashes in the alicorn's body back together, using a special type of thread that made the cuts nearly invisible.

After the cuts had been stitched, Shadow looked at Twilight's face, at the two eyes that still stared blankly up, staring at everything but seeing nothing. One of the unicorns had repaired her damaged eye earlier while the others had worked on her organs, and had done a very good job; one would never guessed that just hours earlier, the eye had been rotting, running down her face.

The unicorns took one last look at her body, then, satisfied, they all began to levitate the alicorn over to the machine in the center of the room. The machine had been used for many strange science experiments, nothing like this, though.

"Well... Let's start," Shadow said nervously when the body was in place.

The other unicorns nodded and got to work, taking the bucket of Twilight's blood and another tube to pump it back into her body, along with wires, tubes and strange potions from the shelf. As Twilight's blood was pumped back into her body, Shadow carefully calculated the amount of potions he needed, and used various tubes and needles to inject them into her body.

After what seemed like awhile, Twilight was looking perfect, except for the fact that she was dead.

"Are you ready to try this?" one of Shadow's companions asked him.

"It is now or never," Shadow replied. "Let's do this."

One of the other unicorns pressed several buttons on the machine and pulled a lever, and there was a sharp cracking sound and a puff of smoke, and a tube still in Twilight's body injected a carefully calculated amount of a deep black potion.

With the injection complete, the unicorns all crowded around Twilight's dead body, looking for signs of life. They saw none. The alicorn still remained unmoving.

With a sigh, Shadow used his magic to close Twilight's eyes, which were still open.

"We... we better go tell the princess," he told them.

"She will not be happy, but... we did the best we could."

The unicorns all turned and headed for the door of the room, removing their uniforms before exiting.

As they all left and the door shut behind them, Twilight's eyelids suddenly fluttered open.

***

"I'm telling you, she's not here," one of the stallions told the golden-eyed unicorn. "You've been knocking for five minutes. There is nopony home."

The golded-eyed unicorn turned to the stallion.

"I did not walk all the way across town for this," he said. "I came to get some bucking answers. And I will get some answers."

With those words, the golden-eyed unicorn used his magic to force the front door open, and the thirteen ponies went inside of the library.

"Well," one of the unicorns observed, looking around the front room. "What happened here? This place is a mess."

"You all look around here," the golden-eyed unicorn said. "I'm going to check upstairs."

With that, he ran up the staircase, up to Twilight's bedroom. It was also empty in there, or so he thought. He looked around, disappointed that nothing was there, and turned to leave. As he turned around, Rainbow Dash came out from behind the bed, flew over to him, and stabbed him in the back of the neck before he even realized what was happening.

***

After fifteen minutes of relentless searching throughout the library, the other twelve unicorns were ready to give up, having found nothing.

As they began to prepare to head out, one of the unicorns spoke.

"Didn't Truth Tracker head upstairs earlier?"

"Yeah, I think he did," one of the four mares replied. She called upstairs.

"Truth?"

There was no answer.

"I guess I'll go up and find him," one of the stallions volunteered. He began to trot upstairs while the others watched. As he reached the top, however, something flew out and knocked into him, and the stallion tumbled back downstairs, and there were crunching sounds as his neck and spine broke. He didn't even have time to scream.

The thing that had knocked the stallion down landed in front of the eleven remaining shocked ponies.

"You thought you all could trick me," Rainbow Dash giggled. "Bet you weren't expecting me to make the first move! I know you were sent to kill me. But I'll kill you all, too!"

Suddenly, the sharp knife was in Rainbow's hoof, and before any of the ponies could react, there was a huge spray of blood as Rainbow flew right through them, the knife finding the neck of one of the ponies. The pony, a mare, gasped and tumbled to the ground, but Rainbow had already stabbed two more to death before the first pony had bled out. By now, the other ponies were in a panic, trying to stop the crazy pegasus, or run away. One of the ponies made it out the front door, which Rainbow didn't notice, but she had clearly seen the other ponies, trying to find a way to escape, running all around the library.

A bolt of energy flew past Rainbow's face, and she flew over to the unicorn that had shot it, and rammed the knife into his eye. Two other ponies ran for the front door, but Rainbow flew in between them, opening up their stomachs as she did so, and they screamed and fell, spilling a ton of innards and blood onto the floor.

The remaining four ponies, all earth ponies, were huddled in a corner of the library, shaking with fear as Rainbow Dash stalked over, grinning madly. One slash, and one of the ponies was quite dead, and Rainbow was sprayed with her blood. One stab, and another pony's insides spilled out as his stomach was unzipped. Two more stabs, and the last two ponies were dead, having each been stabbed through their throats, and blood gushed out in a horizontal curtain from the wounds.

Rainbow Dash wrenched the knife out of the last pony's neck and looked around at the carnage. None of these ponies were Applejack or Pinkie Pie. It had all been a trap set up to kill her.

But it didn't work oh no, it didn't, and now i'll find them and kill them instead-

Rainbow laughed, stuck the knife back in her mane, and flew right out the front door of the library and into the still-cloudy sky.

***

Later that day, all of the ponies in Ponyville, except Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and the Guards who patrolled the town, were all gathered around in the center of Ponyville, listening to Mayor Mare as she finished explaining everything to the ponies, having been told earlier by the lone survivor of Rainbow's slaughter in the library. She had sent her advisors around the town to notify all of the ponies, except the Royal Guard patrols, of the meeting.

"Now, I still don't fully understand the whole situation," the mayor continued, "but you must take caution. We don't know where Rainbow Dash is, or where she might go next. We have reason to believe that she killed Princess Twilight and several others. It is of utmost-"

Before she could finish speaking, a carriage, being flown by four Royal Guards, flew down and landed in front of the crowd of ponies. A Guard inside of the carriage got out and stood in front of Mayor Mare.

"You are telling these ponies classified information," the Guard said sternly. "This information was being held to protect the citizens of this town. I must ask you to stop at once."

The mayor cowered a bit from the icy gaze but kept her composure.

"Y-you were not protecting anyone. You were putting them in even bigger danger-"

"That would be for Celestia to decide," the Guard said. "Step down."

As the mayor stepped away, the crowd of ponies, who had heard everything, started talking amongst themselves. At that moment, the Royal Guards who patrolled Ponyville turned down off of a street, saw the crowd and the other guards, and rushed over to find out what had happened. As the newly-arrived Guards began to explain to the patrol captain, one of the ponies in the crowd called out angrily.

"How could you have not told us about this? Because of you, my friend is dead!"

The Royal Guard turned and spoke out to the crowd.

"We only held this information so we could protect you from-"

"But you didn't protect us, did you?" the voice called. "Because of you, more of us got killed!"

This statement was followed by the whole crowd shouting angrily and booing at the Guards.

The newly-arrived Guard and the patrol captain trotted some distance away, turned towards each other and talked, even as the ponies in the background kept shouting furiously at them.

"This isn't good," the new Guard said. "They all know what's going on now."

"It's going to be a lot harder to protect these ponies now that they know what's going on," the patrol captain agreed.

"We'll just have to be ready, I guess. We must stop Rainbow Dash at all costs. There's a storm coming. And I have a feeling it's going to be a lot worse than the one we had earlier."

The two guards looked away and up into the sky, where the sun was still being blocked by dark clouds.

Author's Note

I'm sorry this took so long. That's all I have to say. Hope you can forgive me.