Herald

Chapters

My handsome little cherub, close your eyes
Mommy's going to give you clear blue skies
So you'll laugh and dance and play in the air
And sing the song of angels everywhere

My handsome little cherub, close your eyes

Pound Cake trembled, clinging to his mother's soft shoulder as thunder rolled beyond the windows to the nursery.

Cup Cake smiled, holding him close in tender-loving forelimbs. Soft orange candlelight danced across her features as she sat with the tiny infant in a wooden rocking chair. As the storm bellowed beyond the shadows of night, she nuzzled his little wings and hummed, producing a soft, soothing melody with her motherly voice. Eventually, Pound Cake relaxed, and his shivers settled as slumber took over.

Standing up, Mrs. Cake carried Pound as she slowly trotted over to the far end of the nursery. She approached the simple wooden crib where Pumpkin Cake already lay, curled up and sleeping.

"My handsome little cherub, close your eyes," Cup Cake breathily sang under the tremors of the storm. "Mommy's going to give you clear blue skies."

She tucked Pound in and pulled a woolen blanket over his diminutive figure. He curled into a fetal position, his infant lips smiling peacefully as she stroked his feather-soft mane with a loving hoof.

"So you’ll laugh and dance and play in the air..." Cup Cake's eyes sparkled with endearment as she gazed at his placid features. "And sing the song of angels everywhere..."

There was a horrible ringing sound in Mrs. Cake's ears, but that's not what woke her up. A loud crashing sound had gone off outside, as if a chunk of Sugarcube Corner had fallen off its foundation and smashed through a line of empty garbage cans. When she sat up in bed, it was with a startled shout, and all that her wide, brimming eyes saw were dark shadows.

It was nearly pitch black inside. No light came through the windows, as if the curtains hanging before them had grown thick as iron. There was a stuffiness about the place, like a dreaded vacuum had consumed the top floor of Sugarcube Corner.

"C-Carrot?!" Cup Cake stammered, looking left and right. Her bedroom was empty, save for her tremorous murmurs. "Carrot, honey bun, what time is it?" She glanced at the bedside table and trembled even more. The alarm clock was dead. She reached over and pulled the switch to her lamp, but no light came on. The power was off. "Carrot, wh-where are you, darling?"

There was no reply. Mrs. Cake was alone. Her ears still rang, but beyond that everything was dead silent. She still couldn't guess what had made the crashing sound from earlier. Was it something outside? Something downstairs?

With nervous shivers, Cup Cake kicked the covers off and limped out of bed. She was surprised at how sore her muscles were, as if she had run some marathon the day before. A wincing expression crossed her features as she spent the next minute and a half trying to stand up straight. While she did so, the room came into greater focus, as well as the reason for why it was so dark.

"What in Celestia's n-name...?"

The windows were boarded up. And from the inside too. She stumbled towards them, feeling the splintery planks of wood with a nervous blue hoof. The boards had been nailed into place, and quite messily too. It was certainly no carpenter's job, and yet, as she attempted in futility to pull and tug on one of the planks, it refused to budge. She squinted curiously at the seams between the wooden slats. Through the thin spaces, she saw muddy gray light, and the vaporous hint of a fog.

The house shook; there was another crash. Cup Cake spun with a yelp, her ears twitching. The sound had come from somewhere beyond the north end, as if rattling off the patio outside.

"Carrot?!" She shivered where she stood. "Carrot, I-I'm scared! Where are you? What's going on?! Why is our house so dark?"

At the tail end of her shouts, deader silence filled the air. She trotted briskly towards the door to the hallway and was surprised when it barely budged. As her heart began beating faster and faster, Cup Cake pushed and shoved against the door. It was like shoving against the entrance to a silo filled with dense flour. At last, she was able to burst her way into the hall. To her shock, she discovered a stack of chairs, tables, and other furniture lying up against the entrance to her bedroom. The hallway was just as dark, with many more windows boarded up and several bits of junk lying on the floor.

The ruby irises in Mrs. Cake's eyes shrank as her confusion was replaced with pallid fear.

"Dear Celestia..." She spun towards the far end of the hallway. "The foals..." She galloped speedily towards the other end, jumping and tripping over fallen piles of refuse. "Pumpkin! Pound!"

With a single bound, she slammed the nursery door open. The ringing intensified here, and a whimper escaped Cup Cake's lips.

"No... oh Goddess, please, n-no..."

She trotted limply forward and slumped down in front of the crib. It had fallen over and was completely empty. She lifted and tossed aside the baby blankets in numb disbelief. All was dust and silence. A cold draft billowed against her coat, even though the windows were all boarded shut.

"Carrot... Oh Carrot, the babies!" Tears sprang from her eyes as she cuddled a blanket to herself, nuzzling it, tasting of the faint scent of her colt and filly. "Carrot, the foals are g-gone!" She sobbed and wailed towards the ceiling. "Oh, my sweet, handsome cherub. My darling girl. Where are our babies?!"

Amidst her hyperventilating heaves, she glanced across the room. All of the toys were scattered in the corner. The changing table had fallen over, forming a pile of discarded hygiene products beneath a pair of boarded windows. The rocking chair she used to sing Pound Cake to sleep in was propped up in the corner besides a table with two completely melted candles. Once more, a cold chill washed over Cup Cake. The ringing in her ears intensified, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Just then, she ceased crying. With a determined breath, Cup Cake dropped the blanket, stood up, and trotted briskly out of the nursery. She stumbled her way downstairs, and it was just as dark there as it was on the top level. The confectionary was completely empty. A fine layer of dust covered the tables where ponies once chatted and laughed over tall glasses of ice cream. The pastries beneath the glass of the front counter had started to gather mold with neglect. All was still, save for a rustling sound, like leaves rattling across the tile floor of the eatery. Cup Cake was confused by this, but a foul stench from the kitchen distracted her. She trotted anxiously through the swinging doors, and instantly felt like vomiting.

The air was pungent with a horrible odor, as if several cartons of milk had rotted over the span of a week. Cup Cake was only half-surprised to hear the splash of her hoof dipping into a cold puddle beneath the double refrigerators positioned at the end of the baking counter. She clenched her nostrils shut as she took her time stepping over the puddle and approached the rear door to Sugarcube Corner. Here, a chair had been propped up against the exit's handle. In the dim beams of light shining in through the thick window boards, she spotted the unmistakable glint of broken glass.

"Carrot," she murmured into the shadows. Her voice had a ghostly echo to it, like piles of paper rustling in a breeze. "Where have you gone...?"

This quiet moment of thought was utterly shattered by yet another crash. It was distant this time, but no less startling. It sounded like a hollow meteor had struck a rooftop on the far end of town.

Cup Cake trembled, her hooves rattling against the tile floor. She wanted to leave that place—to abandon the smell of rotten milk and loosen the ringing in her ears with fresh air. Her husband and foals were missing. By going outside, she might be able to find them, but the echoes of those crashing sounds still lingered in her mind, quickening her heartbeat.

Nevertheless, she thought of Carrot's warm green eyes, Pumpkin's golden coat, and Pound's soft brown mane. Before she knew it, she had pulled the chair out from where it had been propped up against the door. She brought her hoof to the handle, held her breath, and opened the exit to the world outside.

Naturally, she was blinded at first, but all too soon the sights of Ponyville came into focus. Everything was cold, wet, and gray. The first thing she saw was a thick coat of mud covering every inch of the street. She took one step, and her hooves made a squishing sound. The ground was positively saturated with rain water, and even then a fine drizzle was pelting her blue coat with frigid moisture.

Stepping out into the dripping grayness, Cup Cake took several deep breaths. There was nopony to be seen, no movement whatsoever. Every now and then, a cold draft would blow through the muddied street, kicking at her thick pink mane, making her teeth chatter. The village was bathed in a dull, monochromatic haze, and the wind tasted thick and stale like the air inside a sepulcher.

Before long, Cup Cake had trotted down a full block, gazing at every storefront, marveling at how empty and lifeless the neighborhood had become. Each house followed an eerily similar pattern: many windows were boarded up, and even chimneys had thick planks of wood nailed to their openings. Occasionally, Mrs. Cake would spot a house that wasn't sealed in such a fashion, and she would find the windows utterly shattered with curtains and pieces of furniture pouring out like entrails from a gaping wound.

"Hello?!" Cup Cake cried. It came out naturally, like there was nothing else left to do with the utter deadness of the moment. "Is anypony there?!" With each second of silence that followed her exclamations, her heart throbbed harder and harder. "Please, answer me! I-I'm trying to find my husband, Carrot Cake!" She gulped hard. "My f-foals... Pumpkin and Pound..."

The air shook suddenly. She recognized that sound in an instant. For the first time since limping out of Sugarcube Corner minutes ago, Mrs. Cake glanced up at the sky. A cold shudder ran through her. The clouds were miserably gray, churning and bubbling with dense moisture. They looked ready to burst with a monsoon of rain at any moment, and yet they lingered above the rooftops of Ponyville, undulating with tempestuous gusts of cold wind. Mrs. Cake couldn't help but feel as if the stormclouds were bowing startlingly close to the ground. She reckoned that if she stood up on the tallest hill, she could reach up and drag a blue hoof across the vaporous fabric.

"Why h-haven't the weather ponies cleared that?" she muttered. "How long has it been raining—?" Her voice trailed off as her eyes did, caught by a glimmer of color in the distance. Cup Cake's breath left her; a pony was sitting on the rooftop to the post office two blocks away. "Hello... H-hello?!" She broke into a trot which then broke into a gallop. Mud and water splashed in every direction beneath her as she charged the far end of the mist-pelted street. "Hey! You! Yes, you! What's going on here?! Why is Ponyville so empty?! Why is the weather so... ugly?"

She came to a bitter stop, her mouth agape.

The pony wasn't sitting atop the post office; it was draped over the edge of the rooftop, its legs dangling and swaying in the cold wind. Cup Cake couldn't tell if it was a mare or a stallion; her eyes were locked on the calcified spike protruding from its neck: where the pony's vertebrae had torn loose from its loose, mottled flesh.

"Wh-what... in Celestia's n-name...?"

Cup Cake collapsed on her haunches besides an abandoned stagecoach. She held a hoof over her mouth as she stared at the shattered body lying before her. In her peripheral vision, she spotted another flash of color. Against her better judgement, she turned to look. The body of a green-coated stallion lay before a house, his body punctured straight through the chest by a white picket fence. Beyond him, the dull blue body of a mare lay in a flower garden, the mud surrounding her caked with a deep crimson color. Then, off in the distance, Cup Cake saw several rooftops pockmarked with holes, and most of them occupied by a torso, a cluster of limbs, or a scrap of flesh clinging to the impact sites.

"They're all... th-they're all—"

Just then, the stagecoach beside her exploded. Cup Cake shrieked, shielding herself from a violent barrage of glass and wooden splinters. Sprawling in the mud, she rolled aside and hopped up, gazing breathlessly at the vehicle. The thing had collapsed down the center, like butter splitting from a hot knife. A twitching yellow hoof dangled over the side, just beyond view.

Cup Cake trotted around, grimacing. Her eyes twitched as she saw a mangled body occupying the fresh crater made in the heart of the stagecoach. A legbone jutted bloodily out of the pony's flank, leaking blood all over the rest of the mare's waterlogged coat. Then, beyond a mat of orange mane-hair, Cup Cake spotted a hideously familiar face.

"Oh Goddess! Golden Harvest!" She fell down to her knees and brushed the mare's sopping wet mane aside. "Goldie, stay absolutely still! I don't know how this happened, but I-I'm going to go get you some help! You're going to be alright! You're going—"

Cup Cake stopped in mid-speech. Golden Harvest's eyes were rolling back. Her broken body shook in quiet little spasms. At the last moment, though, there was a single, sickly glance cast towards the heavens. Golden's eyes centered on something, and she let loose a cold-hearted whimper before lying still altogether.

Cup Cake gulped. She followed Golden's last glance. Thunder rolled overhead as a pocket of the bubbling gray sky split open. For the briefest of moments, sunlight stabbed its way down, and Mrs. Cake thought she heard something—distant and high pitched—like a hundred tiny, tiny screams that bellowed in desperation and were silenced as soon as the clouds closed up. And when the light died, a single gray body fell—spiraling—from the heavens.

Cup Cake jumped with a shriek as the equine figure plummeted, fluttered with a spastic flapping of wings, and plummeted again, ultimately ricocheting off the edge of a rooftop, bouncing off an opposite wall, and landing with a dull crash through a pile of garbage bags. Everything was silent for a few paralyzed seconds, and then the body burst up out of the refuse, twitching involuntarily before breaking into a numb, limping trot.

Mrs. Cake's eyes narrowed. She leaned forward, squinting into the alley. "Cloud... Kicker...?"

The blonde pegasus didn't reply. She veered left and right in her serpentine strut, colliding with the wall beside her over and over again, jerking with loose spasms. Cloud Kicker shook her head several times, her gray ears twitching as if to ward off invisible mosquitoes. Then, with nostrils flaring, the pegasus looked straight up. Her mane was soaking wet from precipitation, and blood dribbled from skin that had been rubbed raw directly over her wing muscles. With utterly mute resolve, she lumbered towards Cup Cake, her glazed eyes looking past her.

"Cloud Kicker, pl-please, speak to me." Cup Cake gulped, backtrotting nervously. She glanced aside at Golden Harvest. The earth pony was dead-still. "What's going on?" She looked up. "Where were you flying just now—?"

Mrs. Cake's breath left her as Cloud Kicker plowed into her body. The world spun on a horizontal axis. Cup Cake shrieked, her voice forming rivulets in the muddy puddles as she was lifted upside down from the earth in the pegasus' forelimbs. Cloud Kicker's grip was limp, weak, and uncalculated. The two had barely traveled the span of two houses before the pegasus came back down, dropping Cup Cake as they both slammed through a wooden bench on the side of Ponyville's Main Street.

"Unngh!" Cup Cake grunted as she rolled head-over-flank into a lamppost. Wincing, spitting blood, she sat up and shouted towards the sprawling pony beside her. "Cloud Kicker! What in heaven's name has gotten into you—?!"

Her exclamation was cut short as soon as she heard the undeniable sound of a pony screaming. Flashing a look to her left, she saw a stallion slipping on a distant patch of mud in mid-gallop. He fell onto his side, scrambling to get up, whimpering in desperation. Before he could recover, a winged figure landed on top of him. In a flurry of fast limbs, a pegasus grabbed whatever part of the stallion she could afford to and lifted them both up as swiftly as she had landed.

"No! N-no!" The stallion's forelimbs clambered over a fire hydrant and the corner of a garden fence. His wet hooves slipped, and soon he was being lifted up, up, up into the boiling gray sky. "Please, Celestia, no! Nnnngh-Gaaaaugh! Nooo!" His screams were silenced by the misty bowels of the stormcloud as the pegasus carried him beyond sight.

Cup Cake's eyes twitched. In a cold sweat, she cast Cloud Kicker a horrified look.

The pegasus was finally standing up. The joints in her neck cracked grotesquely as she pivoted Mrs. Cake's way. Her bloodsoaked wings stood on end.

The world blurred, for Cup Cake was already speeding off in a panicked gallop. She heard the wet air slicing to bits as Cloud Kicker soared after her. Thinking fast, Cup Cake jerked right and sprinted down a thin alleyway. She hopped over puddles and fallen garbage cans. The ringing in her ears was replaced by a shrill whistle, followed by the chilling sound of Cloud Kicker's feathers scraping the walls on either side of them.

Taking a chance, Cup Cake dove straight forward, flattening her body. The world was bathed in splashing mud as Cloud Kicker's gray form soared closely overhead and past her. Cup Cake stumbled up, watching in petrified fear as the pegasus glided up and prepared to come about for a return swoop. Just then, a dumpster to Cup Cake's left thundered with a clattering thud. She felt a hot spray of blood on her coat and gasped, looking to the side.

A death rattle escaped a unicorn's lips from where the pony was draped over the edge of the dumpster, its ribcage exposed from the heavy impact. Barely five seconds passed before a pale blue pegasus landed loosely beside the corpse, drenched in rain water. Twitching involuntarily, the winged pony tilted her head until it glared through a snow-white mat of hair at Cup Cake.

"Wind Whistler, it's me!" Mrs. Cake spoke; she sobbed. She retreated from the pegasus' mindless march. "Please, snap out of it! Don't you see wh-what's happening—?!"

The muddy floor of the alleyway shrank beneath Cup Cake as Cloud Kicker hoisted her up from behind. The winged pony's forelimbs were weak, trembling, and Cup Cake took advantage of it without thinking. She bucked her rear hooves into Cloud Kicker's belly. Grunting, she struck her once... twice... and on the third impact, she was dropped ten feet onto a slick, wet rooftop.

"Ooof!" Mrs. Cake grunted, slid, and bounced roughly off the side of a chimney. When she finally fell off the roof, she tumbled through a muddied flower garden and collapsed against the decaying body of an earth pony, his entrails spilling out into a throng of water-logged dandelions.

Holding in the taste of her own bile, Cup Cake pulled herself to her aching hooves and limped forward. Her left rear hoof was numb from the hard tumble, and she dragged it loosely through the muddy street. Thunder rolled. Through the quivering puddles below, she saw the upside-down reflection of Cloud Kicker and Wind Whistler diving swiftly.

"Hey! Over here!"

Cup Cake gasped and looked to her right.

A mare stood in the open doorframe to a boarded-up house. A stallion was helping two blank flank foals into the building as the mare motioned towards Cup Cake from afar. "In here! Hurry! They're coming!"

Mrs. Cake gnashed her teeth as she limped and hobbled towards the building. Mud splattered on either side of her. The air echoed from distant crashes as more pony bodies fell to their doom amidst the rumbling thunder. Just as she felt the wind splitting from Cloud Kicker's and Wind Whistler's wings—

"Gotcha!" The mare's hoof grabbed Mrs. Cake's outstretched limb. She hoisted her inside while the stallion beside her slammed the door shut. Cup Cake fell onto the wooden floor, panting into sudden darkness as the whole house shook and trembled from heavy thuds.

"For Luna's sake, Ambrosia, h-help me!" the stallion grunted, pushing his entire weight up against the door.

"Nnnngh!" Cup Cake saw the shadow of the mare rushing up against the door and pushing her body against it. She and the stallion quivered as the two pegasi slammed and pummeled the entrance from outside. "Ugh—Goddess! Get a chair or something!"

"Way ahead of you!" The stallion reached out, slid a chair across the shadows, and propped it up against the handle. Once the door was anchored in place, he began propping up several wooden boards from the inside and hammering them back in place with partially bent nails.

Just then, Cup Cake was blinded by a flash of light. She sat up and spun around to see an elder stallion lighting a candle. The tiny orange glow illuminated two foals covered in fresh mud, clinging to each other in the corner of the pitch-black living room. The old pony calmly placed the candle on a table and sighed under the continuous thuds of the pegasi outside.

"That was far too risky, Ambrosia..."

"What would you have me do, Saddle Brown?!" The mare frowned at the elder. "Let them get dragged off into the heavens to Celestia-knows-where?!"

"Still, they could have gotten inside. Then what would have happened to all of us?"

"Cut me some slack, ya old fart!" Ambrosia grunted. "It worked, didn't it?"

"He's right, y'know!" The stallion at the door turned from the freshly-nailed planks and panted. "That was stupid, Ambrosia, and you know it! You almost got us all killed!"

"Darn it, Guilded!" Ambrosia frowned into the candlelight. "Am I the only one who remembers that we're all ponies and we should be caring for each other?!"

"Oh yeah?!" The stallion pointed in frustration towards the shaking doorframe. "Why don't you tell them that?!"

"Shhhh!" Saddle Brown hissed. "Quiet! Everypony!" He raised a hoof. "Listen..."

Everyone was silent as, slowly—thud by thud—the clamoring of the pegasi ended. There was a quiet hush, and soon the air sounded off with the rustling feathers.

The elder sighed. "They're gone." He turned towards the stallion. "Well done, Guilded Cage. Once again, your carpentry skills have saved our hides."

"Hmmph..." The stallion dragged a bucket of nails across the dimly-lit foyer, casting Ambrosia a glare as he passed her. "At least somepony's giving me the thanks I deserve."

"Hey! Don't forget this is my house!" she retorted.

Cup Cake's gaze glanced between the older ponies and the two foals trembling in the corner. She winced and sputtered, "Somepony, anypony... please... will you just tell me what is going on around here?"

"Pfft!" Guilded Cage gawked at her. "What, you've been living under a rock or something these past two weeks, lady?!"

"Hey!" Ambrosia frowned. "Treat her with some respect! Don't you know that this is the mare who runs Sugarcube Corner?"

"H-have we met?" Cup Cake stammered.

"Why, of course!" Ambrosia flashed her a nervous smile. "I used to come by there all the time after my work shifts."

"Please, tell me..." Mrs. Cake leaned forward. "Have you seen my husband?! Have you seen my darling Carrot Cake?" She gulped. "Or my foals, Pound and Pumpkin?"

Ambrosia bore a sad expression as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Cake. I haven't seen your stallion anywhere. I've been hiding out in here ever since the crazy stuff started happening. As for your foals—"

"What do you mean 'since the crazy stuff started happening?'" Cup Cake remarked, still catching her breath. "It's like Tartarus has broken loose outside! There were bodies falling... and th-then Cloud Kicker and Wind Whistler—"

"Ugh... Goddess," Guilded Cage muttered from where he fiddled with a toolbox besides the fireplace. "Will you listen to her? She still calls them by their first name..."

Ambrosia groaned. "For the last time, Guilded, will you knock it off?"

"No, I won't knock it off! I knew something like this would happen for a long time!" The stallion turned and frowned at the group. "It's in their blood, you know. The will to kill? To go to war? Even back in the day, Commander Hurricane was all about terrorizing any equine on the ground."

"You're generalizing, and it's pathetic."

"No, I'll tell you what's pathetic! Walking outside my front door to see my own mother lying in a crumpled heap before the mailbox!" Guiled Cage stamped his hooves. "They're all demons, I'm telling you! Flying demons, and they finally chose a time to wipe us out!"

"They didn't choose anything, Guilded. Have you even seen the looks on their faces?! I don't think they understand what's going on anymore than we do!"

"Quiet, both of you," Saddle Brown muttered. "Arguing isn't going to help anything. This is a mystery to all of us. All we can do is wait it out."

"Wait what out?!" Guilded grumbled. "For them to get bored of playing hoofball with our skulls and lift this very house off its foundation?!"

"Hah!" Ambrosia folded her forelimbs and smirked bitterly. "Oh, that's soooo likely!"

"It's just a matter of time! You'll see! Heartless demons, I'm telling you..."

All this time, Cup Cake was looking carefully at everypony. In the dancing candle-light, she studied Saddle Brown's wrinkled skin, Ambrosia's silver mane, Guilded Cage's iron frown, and the mud-caked coats of the two foals. Not a single wing or feather was to be seen on any one of them.

"The pegasi..." Mrs. Cake murmured. She picked up an afghan from a nearby couch, trotted over, and wrapped it around the two little foals. "What's gotten into all of them? All of this just... just isn't natural..."

"Oh, it's natural, alright!" Guilded cackled.

"Guilded..." Ambrosia grumbled.

Saddle Brown cleared his throat. He trotted over in front of a boarded window and reached a gentlecoltly hoof towards the motherly mare. "Mrs... Cake, was it?"

Cup Cake took his forelimb in two hooves and nodded.

"Mrs. Cake, I'm sorry for how bleak things appear to be, but you must understand..." The elder gazed at her with sad eyes. "But we've been holed up in here for quite some time. Given the circumstances, we were hoping that you would be able to educate us as to what's been going on."

Slowly, Cup Cake shook her head. "I'm so sorry... I... I-I just woke up."

"She just woke up?!" Guilded remarked. Ambrosia silenced him with a wave of her hoof.

Cup Cake's eyes teared. She looked over and tried smiling at the foals. Instead, a tiny sob escaped her lips. "I know it sounds strange, but I... j-just woke up. And my husband is gone and..." She bit her lip. "Pumpkin and Pound... my pr-precious little babies..."

"Shhh..." Saddle Brown caressed her cheek. "Darling, look at me."

The mare sadly glanced over at him.

"I know that this is hard for you to take in..." He took a deep breath. "But, by this point in time, if you haven't seen a sign of your family, it's probably best to accept the fact that they're—"

"What?!" Cup Cake sniffled and frowned. "That they're gone?! My husband's no fool! He wouldn't have let himself and my children get in harm's way!"

"And yet..." Guilded Cage muttered with a bitter scowl. "...he left you on your own, didn't he?"

Cup Cake flashed him a glance. She looked at Ambrosia, and the mare was silent. "He... He loves my children as much as I do," Mrs. Cake murmured. She gulped a lump down her throat and shook her head. "He'd never abandon them... abandon us! It j-just doesn't make sense..."

"Try not to dwell on it, darling," Saddle Brown said with a calming smile. "Soon enough, we will all find an answer to what is—"

Light exploded into the room as the window behind him shattered. The boards split apart as Wind Whistler—bleeding profusely from the splinters scraped across her neck and shoulders—reached in and grabbed the elder from behind.

The two foals gasped. Ambrosia screamed. With a shout, Guilded Cage jumped over a couch and sprang for the old stallion.

But Saddle Brown was hoisted out of the pony's lunging gasp. Cup Cake watched in horror as the elder's hooves dragged across the carpet and fumbled for a grip of something—anything. Then, with a jerk, he was yanked out, his skull colliding hard with the window frame. Blood poured from his ears and mouth as he flew up with the pegasus into the blinding grayness beyond.

"Damn it!" Guilded shouted, pounding against the fresh bed of scattered glass. "You heartless freaks! Damn you all to—"

"Guilded!" Ambrosia yelled, but it was too late. With several well-timed thuds, the front door broke on its hinges. Cloud Kicker and two other pegasi struggled and bumped into each other, clambering blindly to cram their way into the exposed living room.

"Oh Goddess!" Cup Cake backtrotted, slipping on glass and puddles of mud. "We have to get out of—"

She heard a clattering of hooves. Glancing to her left, she saw Guilded Cage leaping out of the window.

"Hey!" She shouted. "Where are you—"

"You'll never get me alive!" Guilded's voice sounded off like a maniacal siren, lost in the rumbling thunder of the gray wetness beyond. “You hear me! Damn you for even trying!”

Another tumult—Cup Cake turned to see Ambrosia scrambling towards the kitchen several trots away.

"Wait!" Mrs. Cake shouted, hoisting the two tiny ponies up onto all fours. "The foals! Somepony think of the foals! We have to—"

The doorframe split open even wider as Cloud Kicker and her fellow wingponies lunged into the room.

"Oh dear goddess!" Cup Cake stammered and broke into a full gallop, tugging the children with her into the next room. "Hurry! Don't look back—!"

Her voice drowned in the sound of crashing furniture. Shadows stretched as the candle behind them was knocked over, casting the silhouettes of flapping feathers everywhere as heavy hoofsteps trampled over the floors, walls, and ceiling. The pegasi stampeded after them like skittering insects.

"Nnngh!" Cup Cake headbutted her way through a bathroom door and squinted into blinding daylight. The window here wasn't boarded up; in fact it was shattered from the outside, offering a space thin enough for a grown pony to squeeze through. "Quick!" Cup Cake flung the two foals in and slammed the bathroom door shut behind, pressing the weight of her own body against it. "Crawl out! Th-through the window frame! Hurry!"

The children didn't need any coaxing. One stood before the other while the second shoved her hooves against the companion's blank flank. With little struggle, she was able to shove him outside.

Cup Cake watched this, all the while the door behind her shook and rattled from the ponies pounding on the other side. She stifled a sob and leaned her whole body against it like a living crowbar. Panting, she watched as the younger foal struggled to climb up. She wasn't going to make it on her own.

Thinking fast, Cup Cake glanced aside at the toilet. She lifted the top off of and braced the ceramic slab between the tile floor and the door handle. At best, it would only last a few seconds—but it was all the time she needed to rush forward, stand on the tub's edge, and hoist the second foal out. Once she was through, Mrs. Cake breathlessly dove forward and squeezed her own plump self through the shattered frame, cutting her writhing flesh in multiple places from the loose shards.

"Nnnghh... Ghhhh—!"

Just then, the bathroom door behind her caved in. She shrieked and tried to wriggle faster. With a flurry of feathers and hooves, the winged ponies rushed across the room. She felt limbs clawing at her flank and tail, grabbing her legs in an attempt to yank her back. Grunting and yelping, she kicked and thrashed at them, her hooves bucking into a writhing mass of feathers, teeth, and more feathers.

Finally, she exhaled, narrowing her ribcage so that she could squeeze through with a bloody pop. She rolled across the mud, throbbing in pain. Cold rain pelted her face, but there was no time to gaze at the gray sky. Hobbling up, she reached for the nearest foal and grabbed the little filly.

"Quick! We have to move!" The house behind her creaked and groaned from the pegasi fighting to crawl out the window behind her. Cup Cake galloped through the muddy street, hyperventilating, looking all around. "Where's your little friend?! Can you see him—?!"

A dead weight plowed into the mud out of nowhere, knocking Cup Cake off her hooves. She rolled through a deep puddle, wincing. Her hooves were empty. She sat up, looking for the foal. The filly sat—trembling—on the other side of the freshly fallen corpse between them. Cup Cake had to stifle a shout, for the twisted face of Guilded Cage stared up at her in a silent scream.

Crawling over the battered stallion, Mrs. Cake scooped the filly up in her forelimbs. Before she could gallop anywhere, she heard a shrill cry. Spinning about, she saw the other foal—the colt—squatting beside a mare's crumpled body. He was crying, wailing, burying his muzzle in the corpse's bloodstained neck as his mouth mewled the word "Momma!" over and over again in rising pitch. Cup Cake grimaced, covering the filly's eyes in her embrace. Right before she could trot over to grab the colt, a yellow mass of feathers blurred down, grabbed the colt, and shot up towards the sky, muting his wails in a heartbeat.

Mortified, Cup Cake gazed skyward. Her heart fell as she saw the flailing body of Ambrosia being fought over by two drifting pegasi. At last, one winged pony kicked away the other, hoisting Ambrosia by his lonesome, carrying her up into the rolling thunderclouds as her screams were devoured by the heights beyond. The other pegasus veered left and right before flying blindly towards a far corner of the rain-drenched village, where more panicked screams awaited his diving figure.

The bathroom window frame shattered behind Mrs. Cake. The air filled with flapping wings and rain-slicked bodies. Hobbling, Cup Cake galloped across the muddied courtyard with the filly in her grasp. The foal was a sobbing mess at this point, stained with dirt and Mrs. Cake's warm blood. By the time they turned the corner leading to a familiar treehouse, it was too late, for the shadows of cold wings were upon them.

The first body plowed into Cup Cake's side like a swinging anvil. She rolled over in the mud and slammed hard against the base of Princess Celestia's statue. Two bodies dove upon her in a blink, their hooves clambering over Cup Cake, slipping, and ultimately grabbing at the foal instead. The filly gasped, her bright eyes reflecting Mrs. Cake's face as she was hoisted from her grasp.

"No!" Cup Cake shrieked, reaching up and yanking back on the helpless child's limbs. "No! Let her go! Curse you! Let h-her go!"

The filly's hooves slipped. Cup Cake lunged forward in desperation. She gripped onto one of the child's forelimbs as two pegasi tugged and tugged at her. A third pony tackled Cup Cake's ribs from the side, trying to lift her as well. Cup Cake snarled and shrieked into the flapping, wings. Thunder cracked. Raindrops fell coldly into her gaping mouth.

Suddenly, a flash of lavender light ripped through the sky. A bubble of energy knocked two of the pegasi away. When the filly fell out of Cup Cake's grip, she was being dragged away—not into the sky—but toward the library. Cup Cake turned to look, but was just then being hoisted by the pegasus who had tackled her. She lifted up into the gray haze, but was rescued by the same bubble of lavender light flinging past her and knocking the winged pony off balance.

Next thing she knew, she was plunging towards the earth. She spun about, decelerating atop a rising cushion of magic. Still, it was too fast, and the last thing she saw before her skull collided with the edge of Celestia's statue was a glint of light, like a candle's aura cascading off of Pound Cake's pale forehead.

Then nothing.

Mommy's going to give you clear blue skies

With consciousness came the same ringing noise. Mrs. Cake murmured past it like a singer chanting out of chorus. "Pound... P-Pound Cake..." She hissed in pain and curled her forelimbs tighter to her chest. "My little cherub, Pound C-Cake..."

"Shhh..." A soothing voice whispered, dabbing a wet washcloth over her bruised forehead. "It's okay. You're safe now, Mrs. Cake."

After a few labored breaths, Cup Cake's eyes fluttered open. An uneven roof loomed above her, and several jagged tree roots came into focus.

With a gasp, Cup Cake sat up. "The pegasi! Winged ponies are after us!"

A pair of hooves eased her. "There there... you're pretty banged up. No sudden movements, okay?" Even in its somber tone, the voice had a pleasant pitch to it. Cup Cake recognized it immediately.

"Cheerilee...?" Cup Cake squinted across the earthen basement in the dim torchlight. "Miss Cheerilee, is that you?"

"In the flesh," Cheerilee said with a calm, calm smile. She leaned forward suddenly with an earnest expression. "Take it easy. Now... carefully... move your limbs. Tell me, does anything feel broken?"

"What... Broken...?" Cup Cake blinked. "No. Not broken." She winced suddenly and raised a hoof to her skull. "But my head... What...?" She felt a tight bandage against her brow, just beneath her mane. "How...?" She blinked. "The statue."

Cheerilee nodded. "You took quite a tumble there. We almost didn't reach you in time."

"Almost... didn't reach...?" Cup Cake twitched, then gasped loudly. "The filly! I h-had her! Where is—?"

"Shhh..." Cheerilee raised a hoof to her lips and moved aside. A tiny, frail body lay in soft slumber on a blanket besides Cup Cake. "She's asleep," the schoolteacher whispered. "She's safe and sound, all thanks to you, Mrs. Cake."

A shuddering breath left Cup Cake's lips. She shuffled over and brushed a hoof gently across the filly's feather-soft mane. "If only I could have done the same for her friend..." She gulped. "Or perhaps it was her brother. I'll never know, now, because... b-because..."

"Her name is Silver Skates," Cheerilee said.

Cup Cake looked up at her with moist eyes. "Silver Skates?"

Cheerilee nodded. "She's the younger sister to a student I teach. Or... that is, used to teach." A shudder ran through Cheerilee's body. Cup Cake became vaguely aware of other pony shapes in the basement beyond their immediate vicinity. "Each member of the family has 'Silver' in the name. They're the latest in a long line of blacksmiths and..." Cheerilee cleared her throat and summoned a tender smile. "At this point, I only want to think about the lives that have been saved. It's best not to dwell on all the tragedy."

"Whose... lives...?" Cup Cake blinked, then turned to look towards the far side of the basement. Four other ponies were huddled across the domain. One by one, Mrs. Cake discerned their shapes amidst the dancing shadows of Twilight Sparkle's torch-lit laboratory. Amethyst Star stood before a table, telekinetically lighting two fresh candles with a matchstick. Caramel was lying on a cot, his left rear leg set in a rough tourniquet. He winced as he glanced over towards a desk cluttered with scrolls where two ponies were tinkering on a tiny, crystal-powered device. From the hourglass on his flank, Cup Cake instantly recognized Time Turner. As for the mare next to him...

"She saved each and every one of us," Cheerilee said in a warm tone. "If it wasn't for Twilight, I would be up in the clouds right now, being carried about by Goddess-knows-who."

"This is... All of this is just..." Cup Cake winced. She turned and looked helplessly at Cheerilee. "What's going on?! What's causing this nightmare?"

"Twilight has a theory behind it all," Cheerilee said in a dull tone. "It's best if you heard her explain it. She's been amazing throughout this entire situation. She's kept us all focused, set goals for us to follow, and... and..." Cheerilee winced, her face scrunching up in pain as she brought a hoof to the side of her face. "She's been so strong. I-I just know she's lost as much as all of us, even m-more... and yet sh-she's just so... so c-courageous. I-I wish I was half as strong as her..."

"Hey..." Cup Cake smiled and drifted over, embracing Cheerilee in a tender hug. "If you've managed to stay in one piece all this time, that means you're pretty strong too, dear." She nuzzled the schoolteacher and said, "I was only out there for a half hour. Ponyville is a mess. It's taken more than Twilight to keep the likes of us alive. Silver Skates is a testimony to that."

"Yes..." Cheerilee sniffled, slowly regaining her smile. "Yes, I suppose she is." A sad breath left her. "I just wanna see my students again. I'm so worried about them."

Cup Cakes whimpered, "And I want to see my precious Carrot again..." She sighed. "And my children. Goddess, I miss my children so much."

Cheerilee gulped. Parting from the hug, she leaned back. "I feel for you, Mrs. Cake. But..." She squinted in sudden confusion. "Your children...?"

Cup Cake's eyes narrowed. "What about them—?"

Just then, Twilight Sparkle and Time Turner trotted up. "Okay," Twilight spoke, her mane showing the signs of several restless hours of study and research. "We've assembled the device and now we should be ready to act out the next phase of our plan. First, we need to split off into two groups and—" She froze just then, blinking at the two mares. "Mrs. Cake! You're... you're up!"

"Yes, I am," Cup Cake said. "And now that I'm awake..." She looked squarely at the group of ponies. "Would somepony please kindly tell me what's going on around here?"

"You suffered a concussion shortly before arriving here, Mrs. Cake," Time Turner said. "Some memory loss is to be expected."

"I think that goes without saying," Cup Cake muttered, glancing aside as Amethyst Star trotted over. Caramel watched the group from afar. "I... I-I woke up in Sugarcube Corner not that long ago."

"What does she mean by that?" Amethyst Star glanced fitfully at Twilight and Time Turner. "How can anypony possibly sleep through this Goddess-forsaken nightmare?"

"You really don't remember, Mrs. Cake?" Twilight Sparkle asked, her brow furrowed below her horn. "You don't remember the day that..." She gulped. "All of the pegasi turned?"

"Is that what this is, then?" Cup Cake remarked, glancing at everypony. "I was with a group of ponies earlier. We were all attacked by winged ponies. Before my group got pulled apart, I heard at least one of them rambling about... about..." She grimaced, but shook it off. "It can't be true! What would make every pony with wings go crazy?! It just doesn't make sense!"

"Well, live and learn, lady!" Caramel grunted. He pointed at his leg in a cast. "I didn't get this by being dropped by a giant turkey!"

"Caramel, please," Cheerilee moaned.

"She really must have been out of it when the craziness started," Amethyst Star murmured.

Twilight took a deep breath. With a sad expression, she brushed her bangs aside and said, "I was just coming back from having tea with Zecora in the Everfree Forest. I heard a screaming noise. Looking up, I saw..." She shuddered, but said, "I-I saw Granny Smith falling from over twenty stories. She landed in the middle of the street, her body a crumpled mess. I instantly knew that most if not all her bones must have shattered. So I ran to her side, yelling for somepony to call for an ambulance. But nopony answered. I soon found that that most if not all of them were holed up in their homes. The streets of Ponyville weren't safe. There were... violent ponies patrolling the skies."

"They grabbed ponies by the dozens," Time Turner continued the story, his eyes stretching with a wave of reminiscent horror. "In swarms, they dove down on us. I-I was in the park at the time, studying a research paper on quantum theory. I... I saw families dragged apart, then lifted up into the clouds. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Every winged pony just... j-just suddenly grabbed an equine and flew up beyond sight. They didn't say anything. There was no expression to be had. It was like basic instinct."

"Then..." Cup Cake blinked, leaning forward. "Every unicorn and earth pony—?"

"None of us appear to be affected," Twilight said. "It's only the pegasi."

Cup Cake gulped. "Affected by what?"

Twilight opened her mouth... but hesitated.

"Tell her!" Amethyst Star said, frowning. "Tell her about what you discovered! About what's gotten into their bird brains!"

"Amethyst, must you?" Time Turner groaned.

"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?" Amethyst snarled. "It's why we're all squatting down here like groundhogs with no place to—"

As if on cue, a dull thud rolled through the walls of earth surrounding them. Every pony froze. Their expressions melting away under a grimace of panic. Even Amethyst's frown had cleared, replaced with pale hyperventilation.

Cup Cake was the first to bravely speak. "How often do they fall?"

"At least one for every hour," Caramel droned, eyeing the ceiling above them. "It's been increasing with each passing day. The pegasi’s arms get tired, so they drop whoever they've been holding onto. They then drift down, find another pony, and fly back up to repeat the whole thing."

Time Turner shuddered. Cheerilee struggled to keep from sobbing.

Cup Cake turned from Caramel and looked squarely at Twilight. "Twilight Sparkle, darling, what is it? What's causing all of this?"

Twilight fidgeted, glancing at the crystal-powered device that hovered in her telekinetic grasp, freshly-assembled. With a sigh, she asked, "Mrs. Cake, have you ever heard of the 'June Jet Effect?'"

Cup Cake slowly shook her head. "I... can't say that I have."

"It was named after a famous Cloudsalian scientist who performed multiple studies on enchanted crystals and their effect on various species of local birds. He had a laboratory located within Cloudsdale's largest aviaries, and from there he did most of his experiments—"

"Just get to the part that matters!" Amethyst Star grunted, glaring into the floor of the place. "I'm sick and tired of hearing this story over and over again."

Twilight sighed. She looked at Mrs. Cake and said, "Anyways, June Jet ultimately discovered that a Sunstone Topaz, when vibrating at a certain high pitch, emitted a sound frequency that had... an effect on birds."

"What kind of an effect?"

"Well, hypnotic, to say the least." Twilight cleared her throat. "He was able to get them to fly in a very specific formation, based on how he was able to adjust the vibrating crystal's pitch. However, he was forced to cut the experimentation short. There was... a crisis happening across Cloudsdale. To be more specific, several ponies who had come home from the snowflake and rainbow factories overnight were starting to fly around in their sleep. What's more, they were showing unnatural strength... and... erm... high levels of aggression."

"So, you're saying..." Cup Cake squinted. "The same crystal that affected the birds was making ponies in Cloudsdale... turn violent?"

"The Sunstone Topaz was shut off before June Jet could find out. However..." Twilight grimaced as she said, "June theorized that—had the crystal not stopped vibrating—it would have affected the ponies who were awake as well."

"I... I never heard of this before," Cup Cake remarked.

"Not many ponies have. It happened over fifty years ago."

"But what does it have to do with what's happening now?!" Cup Cake asked, glancing nervously at the group. "Why are we talking about some 'June Jet Effect' that happened decades ago?"

"Because the key factor of the 'June Jet Effect' is that there's a dormant portion of the average pegasus' brain that, theoretically, is stimulated by a specific vibration of a Sunstone Topaz. It's a flaw in the nervous system of pegasi, so to speak. We’re talking pony biology, stuff that's as old as time." Twilight bit her lip, but ultimately said, "And, hours after retreating to this laboratory, I... uh... I-I detected that very same frequency in the air." She gulped. "I have every reason to believe that what almost transpired in Cloudsdale is actually happening right here... right now... in Ponyville..."

Cup Cake slumped back on her haunches, blinking wide. "You mean... that the pegasi aren't thinking with their heads like normal?" She winced as she thought aloud, "Th-that some... crazy vibration is causing them to act like beasts?"

"It would explain the weather being as chaotic and unkempt as it has been for nearly two weeks," Time Turner said. "No pegasus has been in enough control of his or her faculties to control the climate."

"Also, it explains why they're flinging ponies around like xenophobic psychopaths!" Caramel grunted, wincing from his injured leg. "They're like sharks of the sky, now! Walking anywhere outside or above ground is an instant death sentence! Nopony’s been able to leave the village alive!"

Cup Cake turned from him to look at Twilight. "And you figured this all out on your own?"

"It's certainly helped that I've been stuck in a library of all places," Twilight said with a nervous smirk. The smile instantly left her as she further stammered, "But the discovery of the vibration didn't come easily."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because..." Twilight squirmed, staring off in thought. "Because when I stumbled in here and hunkered down from the attackers outside, I looked for books on the subject of pegasus behavior and... and m-most of them were missing."

"Missing?"

"The library was robbed," Amethyst Star added in a droning tone. "Somepony beat Twilight to the books she needed in order to learn about this stupid situation."

"Luckily, I was able to remember the story of June Jet from a seminar I had attended in Canterlot two years ago," Twilight said. "From there, I did my research in a generalized almanac of scientific studies and came upon the strange frequency."

"But... what could that possibly mean?" Mrs. Cake stammered.

"What else?" Amethyst paced angrily. "Some freak living amongst us in Ponyville wanted to keep Twilight from learning the truth! He wanted to keep her from figuring out what he was up to!" She sat still and sighed. "He wanted nopony to discover that he's found a Sunstone Topaz and is using it to tear this place apart with those winged murderers."

"They're not murderers, Amethyst," Cheerilee said. "They're as much victims of this situation as we are—"

"Oh yeah?! Tell that to the creeps who attacked me!" Amethyst shrieked. "Tell that to the ponies who dragged me out of my home!" She started to pant and hyperventilate. "Tell th-that to... to the winged monsters who... wh-who t-took my sister away fr-from me..." She dug her face into her hooves and quivered in tiny, heaving sobs.

Quietly, Time Turner trotted over and gave Amethyst Star a gentle embrace.

Cup Cake was staring at the sleeping figure of Silver Skates. With a nervous shudder, she glanced over at Twilight. "Why hasn't anypony tried sending a letter to the Princess about this?" She gulped. "Even if we have stormy weather of Ponyville, surely she could still help—"

Cup Cake stopped upon seeing Twilight's pained expression. The unicorn sighed as she said, "We can't send any letters. Not after..." She fumbled for words, her eyes growing misty. Clearing her throat, she summoned the strength to say, "It was barely past the second day when I found Spike. He had fallen hundreds of feet from the thunderclouds, landing on the edge of my balcony. I... I-I wish I could say he died instantly, but..." She choked up, her face stretching. After a few seconds, however, Twilight composed herself and raised the device in her grasp. "It doesn't matter. We're stuck here and we have to deal with this mess, and I have just the thing that may work."

"I saw you tinkering on something just a moment ago..." Cup Cake gently said, craning her neck to see. "Just what is it...?"

"It's a device I made to detect the vibrational frequencies on a minute scale," Twilight explained, levitating the remote in question. "If Ponyville is indeed suffering from the the June Jet Effect, then this will hopefully help us find the source of it."

"You mean this 'Sunstone Topaz' thing?" Mrs. Cake remarked.

"Or whatever it is." Twilight gulped. "Already, I've used this detector to triangulate the vibrations to an area of one hundred square feet. It appears to be emanating from the downtown area."

"But that could be anyplace!" Caramel exclaimed from his cot. "You seriously can't expect us to believe that every building in downtown's gotta be searched—!"

"Wait, 'searched?!'" Mrs. Cake spun and gasped. "You're going out there?! That's a death sentence!"

"If we don't find a way to stop this crystalline vibration, then tons more ponies are going to die!" Twilight exclaimed. "As we speak, countless numbers of our neighbors are plummeting to their doom as the pegasi carrying them above the clouds lose the strength to keep them aloft! We also owe it to the pegasi to bring them back from this spell!"

"It can't be done abruptly," Time Turner said from where he held a quietly sobbing Amethyst. He looked over with a placid expression. "If your studies are correct, Miss Sparkle, we have to turn down the vibrations gradually once we've found such a crystal. If we just shut the frequency off, like a lightswitch, then the pegasi would lose consciousness and everypony would be as good as dead anyways."

"I'm well aware of that!" Twilight exclaimed. "But the first step is finding such a Sunstone Topaz—"

"In such a large area?!" Caramel barked. "You're insane!"

"Not necessarily," Twilight said, pointing. "If somepony is truly behind all of this, and with such desperation that he would have stolen my books on the matter, then the best way to have broadcasted the signal would have involved placing it somewhere high in altitude."

Cheerilee gasped. With wide eyes, she exclaimed, "Town Hall! That's smack-dab in the middle of downtown!"

Twilight nodded. "Exactly. And remember what Caramel described seeing before fighting off the pegasi that attacked him."

"The thunderclouds were lowest around the Town Hall building," Cheerilee said.

"That could suggest a high concentration of pegasi above the site," Time Turner remarked. "Their massive flight could be disrupting the cloud currents."

"I don't know..." Caramel muttered from where he lay. "It sounds really, really dangerous."

"We're the only ones who know what's going on here," Cheerilee said. "It falls within our hooves to do something about it."

"At the risk of our lives?!" Caramel grumbled. "Wouldn't we be better off waiting it out for Canterlot to send guards and help us?"

"Yeah, and risked their winged soldiers succumbing to... whatever this blasted signal is?!"

"Well, anything's better than rushing out into that nightmare and—"

Another thud echoed through the earth above, silencing the conversation completely. A nervous hush filled the room as everypony's breath lingered in the torch-lit air.

Eventually, Mrs. Cake looked over at Twilight. "What's your plan for when you get to Town Hall?"

Twilight stared off into the distance.

"Miss Sparkle?"

Snapping out of it, the unicorn murmured, "I would... I-I would search the inside and the upper floors for the crystal, using this detector here as a guide to help us get closer to it."

"All by yourself?"

Twilight shook her head. "Time Turner here is willing to help me. But... to be perfectly honest..." Twilight chewed on the corner of her lip as she said, "If a thorough search is to be conducted, we'd need more than just two of us."

Cheerilee took a deep breath, then said, "Count me in. If it means guaranteeing the safety of the children in this town, then I'm all for helping you two."

"Me as well," Amethyst managed to say.

Time Turner gave her a sympathetic glance. "Miss Star, you're in no shape to—"

"I most certainly am in shape to help out," she said, sniffling. She looked emotionlessly at the rest of the group. "At least in a far better shape than my sister likely is right now."

"Well, it's greatly appreciated, Amethyst," Twilight softly said. "The more we have in the search, the better."

Mrs. Cake was staring at Silver Skates, at how the amber light of the torches spun shadows against the foal’s pale skin. She scarcely heard herself when she said, "Count me in too, darlings."

Twilight did a double-take. "What? No! Mrs. Cake, you've been through enough as it is! And there's no telling how much that concussion of your has affected—"

"You said it yourself, Miss Sparkle. The more help you have, the better. Caramel can stay here with the foal." Cup Cake looked over, her blue face firm and sincere. "At this point, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get my family back."

"But—"

"I mean it," Mrs. Cake said, bearing the softest of grins. "Don't pretend that we have any time to argue the matter."

Twilight blinked. She stared up at the earthen roof. After a few seconds, she sighed. "Okay. But we gotta do this carefully. There's no place that's safe so long as we're out in the open. I suggest we wait until night."

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," Caramel grunted.

Amethyst glared over at him. "You wanna come join us too, handsome? You'd look pretty heroic, hobbling away from pegasi in the dark on three legs and a prayer."

"Will you two please knock it off?" Cheerilee grumbled.

"Isn't there a key detail that you're forgetting, Twilight?" Time Turner remarked. "I think Mrs Cake deserves to know."

Cup Cake blinked. "I deserve to know what?"

Twilight winced. "Well... it's... it's about the Sunstone Topaz..." She gulped. "And the magical properties it has in emitting the June Jet Effect."

"Yes? What of it?"

"Well, fifty years ago, when June Jet had to cut his experimentation in Cloudsdale short, he still had time to record one glaringly bizarre phenomenon." Twilight looked straight at Mrs. Cake. "Remember the flock of birds that he was able to control?"

"Yes...?"

"Not all of them were... well... alive."

Mrs. Cake merely gawked at that.

Twilight slowly nodded. "There wasn't enough study to produce a valid explanation, but... at least seven of the birds spotted flying while June Jet’s Sunstone Topaz was vibrating were recorded lying dead on the floor of the Cloudsdale aviary hours before the experiment ever began."

Mrs. Cake blinked at the group, then glanced back at Twilight. "Surely, you can't mean to suggest that—"

"Two weeks ago, when I found Spike's... when I found Spike's body..." Twilight shuddered, her face twisted in pain. She brushed a hoof messily through her mane as she struggled to confess, "I found the pegasus who had dropped him. It was Fluttershy, which m-makes sense. She's easily the weakest pegasus who lives... who had lived in this town, and she dropped the victim that she was carrying early on. But... after dropping him, she had fallen too. And... and the gaping wound that was open in her chest... and the loss of blood..."

Twilight sat back on her haunches, hanging her head as she suffered a dry heave or two. Everypony else was silent, waiting for her to continue.

Eventually she did. "Well, she wasn't the last pegasus I saw with wounds that bad." Twilight muttered. "And, as a matter of fact, I... I saw her just three days ago, when Time Turner and I rescued Caramel just outside the library. She was still wounded, still falling apart, and... yet... sh-she was still flying."

Mrs. Cake was speechless.

"So, as you can see..." Twilight's eyes were firm, determined. "The sooner we stop this frequency, the better. We can't just sit here and wait for the nightmare to end on its own."

With a nervous gulp, Cup Cake nodded. "You'll get no argument from me, darling."

So you'll laugh and dance and play in the air

When lightning strobed across the heavens that night, it illuminated five equine shadows traveling in a straight line across the muddied streets of Ponyville. Thunder rolled, rippling the rain puddles beneath them as they pierced the endless drizzle, approaching the tall shadow of the Town Hall building in the distance.

"By the goddess..." Cup Cake stammered, trudging through steep banks of mud as she struggled to take up the rear of the group. Her pudgy body wasn't used to this kind of prolonged duress, and the fatigue from an entire day of panic was starting to weigh heavily on her. "This storm refuses to end. Wouldn't they be hurt by their own lightning?"

"You're assuming that they still feel," Amethyst Star muttered back in a low breath. “Much less have the capacity to kick clouds.” She frowned as she pierced the night ahead of herself and Mrs. Cake. "Maybe some extra-extra gland in their heads is trying to help them kill themselves and end the madness."

"Stop talking about them like they're animals!" Cheerilee grumbled.

"You're one to talk!" Amethyst hissed back. "Would you sympathize with them anymore if they were dead Cloudsdalian birds? Emphasis on the 'dead' part—"

"Shhh! All of you!" Time Turner whispered sharply. "We can't afford to let them hear us! I don't care how high they might be flying!"

The three mares fell silent. They trotted along briskly under rolling clouds. Lightning strobed once again, highlighting fallen, mangled bodies dotting the buildings of Ponyville all around them, like colored ashes on a charred-black grave yard.

Mrs. Cake bit her lip, glancing aside as another flash of lightning reflected the grim procession in a storefront window. In a blink, Cup Cake saw a frazzled old mare covered in bloodstains and bandages. She thought of the first time one of her foals had stumbled and scraped his knee. He cried and cried in pain, not stopping until she held him close, nuzzling him dear. She winced at the thought, her ears ringing for a brief span. A brisk wind blew at her tattered mane, and she shivered, not knowing when the sky would drop a shadow on her and devour her most precious memories forever.

"Miss Sparkle," Time Turner's voice suddenly murmured ahead in the darkness. "Are we getting any closer?"

"Yes. It appears that we are," Twilight muttered. Her hooves splashed to a stop in the mud, halting the group's movement. She fumbled with the detector in her grasp. "Let me just catch our bearings really quick..."

"Please say we're close..." Cheerilee chanted. "Please say that we're close..."

"The detector's crystal is hot." Twilight's dark figure turned to look back at the group. A flicker of lightning illuminated a serious expression. "With the Town Hall building directly ahead of us, it's as safe a bet as ever that the source of the vibration is in there."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Amethyst muttered. "Let's get this over with!"

"Twilight, after you," Time Turner gestured. Thunder rolled as Twilight and the rest approached the front facing of Town Hall. Time Turner exchanged glances with everypony. "Keep your eyes peeled on the sky. If a pegasus is about to drop down on us, we'd better know about it before they do."

Cup Cake could only nod. She tried looking straight up, but she was helpless to see anything but utter blackness. Even when the lightning flashed, all she could detect were undulating currents of dark, onyx currents. She wondered what the ponies were going through up, ensnared in the heavens, alone with the stars and each other's screams, waiting to be dropped by their mindless captors at a moment's blink.

She thought of Carrot Cake, and immediately wished she hadn't. She was quite certain the winged predators could hear her sobs through the thunder.

"Shhhhh..." Cheerilee nudged her from across the darkness, her voice melodic and soothing as ever. "Relax, Mrs. Cake. We're almost there."

"I think it's unlocked," Twilight said. Cup Cake turned to see her standing before the door with a glowing horn. "We should be able to open it."

"You suppose it's safe inside?" Time Turner asked.

"It oughta be much safer than out here," Twilight said. "Though, between monitoring the storm and monitoring this detector, it's a little hard to tell."

"We've made it this far, which is pretty miraculous," Amethyst said. "I think we'll be even better off underneath a darn rooftop, thank you very much."

"Right." Time Turner rubbed his hooves together. "Here goes." Ever so gently, he turned a knob, then swung the front door open with a creak. He peaked inside, his shuddering breath producing vapors in the dry air. After a few seconds of peering, he motioned towards Twilight and the others.

On soft hooves, the group hurried in. Time Turner shut the door behind them, and they exhaled in one heavy burst of conjoined breaths.

"Alright, now, ladies." Time Turner pointed at the two unicorns in particular. "I think we can finally afford to shed some light on our situation."

Twilight Sparkle and Amethyst Star simultaneously concentrated, each of them producing a faint glow of manalight from the tips of their horns. The room danced with dark shadows against the pale light as their heads turned, taking a survey of the Town Hall's spacious interior.

"So, uhm..." Cheerilee fidgeted and asked, "Where are we headed, exactly?"

Twilight swung the floating detector around in a slow circle. "Like I postulated earlier, if there's a Sunstone Topaz inside this place, it has to be placed somewhere high up in order to broadcast a signal wide enough to affect all the town's pegasi."

"Meaning...?" Amethyst leaned in.

"Well..." Twilight gulped. "There's an outer hallway on the far end of this room. Past a door, the corridor splits off into two ascending passages that climb up the spiraling height of this building. After several more doors and staircases, there's a single room between the interior and the rooftop."

"So, I guess we should split up, then?" Cheerilee remarked. "Two groups ascending the passages until they meet each other up at the top?"

"Or, goddess-willing, we find the vibrating crystal somewhere along the way," Time Turner said. "The next best thing would be to wait for the others to find them so we could figure out how to deactivate it."

"What if we run into trouble?" Amethyst Star asked, waving her light around.

"You mean like the pony who set the Sunstone Topaz in place to begin with?" Time Turner frowned. "If I was such a diabolical fiend, I would have skipped town long before the pegasi became a danger to me as well."

"No, I'm talking about the pegasi themselves," Amethyst Star muttered. "What are the odds some of them might be inside this place?"

"Given what we've seen of them, acting thoughtlessly under the influence of the frequency?" Twilight Sparkle shook her face and trotted forward. "I find it highly unlikely—"

A gray body swooped down at her.

"Gaaah!" Twilight ducked low, trembling.

Cheerilee, Time Turner, and Mrs. Cake all gasped. Amethyst flung herself to the ground and squeaked, "I told you!"

"Quiet!" Time Turner hissed. He and the ponies looked up, but everything was pure black beyond the penumbra of the unicorns' shimmering horns. Gulping, he crawled over to Twilight and stammered breathily, "Was that a winged pony just now?"

Twilight shivered. "It s-sure felt like it when it br-breezed past me!"

"Where did it go?"

"I've no clue. I can't see."

"Shhh! If it's still here, it can probably hear us!"

"Is it just one of them?"

Everypony huddled in silence, gazing wide-eyed at the shadows above.

"Pssst..." Amethyst hissed. "Twilight!" The other unicorn looked over while Amethyst gestured. "On the count of three, we intensify the light. Okay?"

Twilight mutely nodded.

Amethyst gulped, then murmured, "One... two... three..."

Cup Cake watched, muscles coiled and jaw clenched, as the pale light from the unicorns' horns spread across the slanted wooden rafters of the Town Hall. Everypony's eyes swam across the exposed ceiling. Thunder rolled as more and more stretches of wood were exposed, but still no sign of movement...

Until a gray figure scurried upside down into glistening sight.

"Gaah—Mmmf!" Cheerilee clamped two hooves over her mouth, stifling a whimper.

Twilight blinked, wide-eyed.

The pegasus clung to a ceiling beam like an immense, ashen spider. Long, bloodied gashes swam across its flank, and a chunk of splintery material was lodged in its neck. Still, the pegasus crawled slowly, hooves clinging to the wooden frames as it approached a pane of cracked windows and began bashing its head rhythmically against it, fidgeting.

"Good h-heavens," Cheerilee finally spat out, her eyes wide.

"Does... uh..." Amethyst Star fidgeted. "Does anypony recognize her?"

Time Turner was already squinting. "I think it's Miss Doo, the town's mailmare..."

"Ditzy..." Twilight whimpered, her ears folded back. "No..."

"What was she doing here when the spell began?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Time Turner said.

Cup Cake blinked. She glanced down from the ceiling and looked at the center of the spacious room. Just beyond the unicorns' glow, the body of a unicorn filly laid like a crumpled, bloody blanket. Mrs. Cake clenched her eyes shut, taking a huge breath. "Miss Sparkle..."

Twilight craned her neck. "Yes, Mrs. Cake?" she whispered back.

"The door to those tw-twin passageways..." Mrs. Cake gulped. "It's on the other side of this room, isn't it?"

Twilight shuddered, but nonetheless nodded. "Yes..."

Cup Cake opened her eyes. "Then I think we'd best be going..." She said, starting to crawl forward. "And quietly..."

The other ponies agreed in silence. Slowly, they shuffled forward, all the while eyeing the danger looming above them.

Ditzy Doo's body mindlessly bashed against the window in sporadic bursts. Outside, lightning strobed, illuminating the mare's crushed nose and lacerated muzzle. As the five ponies slithered far beneath her, she lingered in utmost silence, save for the cicada buzz of her fluttering wings at every other interval. She cocked her head to the side, incidentally allowing a trickle of blood and saliva to leak out the gash in the side of her skull.

Amethyst jolted as the crimson droplet landed on her coat. She shuddered, but held her breath in as she crawled further, weathering a few more splashes of the pegasus' cold blood from above. Thunder rolled through the foundation of the place, accompanied by the further buzzing of Ditzy's tight wings. After an interminable creep, the group finally reached the far end. Time Turner and Twilight exchanged glances. After a mutual nod, Time Turner stood up and grabbed the doorknob. He turned the handle, and a loud squeak filled the chamber.

Ditzy's body jerked, her mutilated face tilting towards the ground.

Everypony froze in place. No one dared breathe.

Ditzy jerked... jerked again, and returned to the cracked window.

Exhaling with relief, Time Turner turned the knob the rest of the way and opened the door.

In an outrageously loud clatter, the battered corpse of a mint-green unicorn fell loosely through the doorframe from the other side. The five equines gasped, their voices adding to the echo roaring up the walls of the chamber.

Ditzy kicked off the glass, spun in the air, and plummeted towards the brightly-lit group like a gray comet.

"Go! Darn it, move!" Time Turner shouted, shoving Twilight in first. Amethyst bounded in after her, almost tripping over the unicorn corpse. Cheerilee and Cup Cake galloped, followed by Time Turner, swinging the double-doors shut behind him.

Ditzy's face came bursting through, snarling and hacking up wads of bloodied gums. Her muzzle forced its way further through the thin space between the doors. Her hooves and wings slammed violently against the frame.

Time Turner struggled to squeeze her back out, pulling with all his might on the doorknob. "Nnngh—Miss Sparkle!"

"Let go!" Twilight leaned forward, teeth gritting as she flung a glowing horn forward.

A wave of telekinesis shoved the thrashing pegasus back, but barely. When she was just barely an inch beyond the frame of the door, Time Turner spun and bucked her away with a grunt. Twilight's magic field shattered, and both Cheerilee and Time Turner rushed forward to fling the double doors shut. They gripped the handles, bracing the frame with their bodies in time for the pegasus to fly back and pound against it from the other side.

Amethyst Star was already galloping back, levitating a tall candlestick rod with her. Mrs. Cake and Twilight placed it down, bracing the two handles in place. Breathing easier, Cheerilee and Time Turner stumbled back, watching numbly as the doors wobbled and shook, eventually coming to a stand-still. A minute into waiting, everypony heard the buzzing of wings grow distant as Ditzy abandoned the door, retreating once more to the rafters of the Town Hall's main room beyond.

Mrs. Cake shuddered. She slumped on her haunches, her back to one of several window panes lining the circular, ascending corridors on either side of the group. A light tapping rose behind her, announcing a sudden rain shower that cascaded into a drenching wave of moisture, bathing the windows from top to bottom. When the lightning next flashed, it cast a distorted beam of pale light across the nerve-wracked quintet.

"I know we've seen h-horrible things, everypony..." Twilight turned to look at the rest. Her eyes were moist, but she kept her voice steady. "But we need to put an end to this. My detector's crystal is going off like a Hearth's Warming candle. The Sunstone Topaz should be nearby. Now, let's go and find the source of this vibration."

"And what if it's not here?" Amethyst Star wiped her eyes dry and frowned in the other unicorn's direction. "What then?"

"We'll take things as they come. If we hurry, we'll still have the advantage of night to hide our movements."

"So long as we don't make any more sudden noises," Time Turner said, gesturing beyond the barricaded door. "Like just now..."

"Right..." Twilight took a deep breath. "Now, groups. Uhm..." She fidgeted for a moment, then brightened, "Right. We should do this the obvious way. One unicorn per team, that way none of us will be without a light. Time Turner?"

"I'd be happy to assist you, Miss Sparkle."

"Amethyst? Would you be so kind as to light the path for Mrs. Cake and Miss Cheerilee?"

"Right. I-I can totally do this." Amethyst looked at the other two mares. "You ready, girls?"

Cheerilee nodded. "Come on, Mrs. Cake," she said, motioning with her head as she followed Amethyst up the rightmost stairs. She called out across the way. "Meet you two at the top!"

"Above all else, be cautious!"

"Right. Absolutely."

The group split, though Cup Cake hardly noticed. The air felt as still, as cold as it did all the moments before that night, and her eyes were locked on the dimly-lit steps beneath her. She thought of the near-scrape that had just happened, of the body of the foal that she had seen lying in the center of the room where they previously were. In a blink, she imagined an abandoned nursery in its place, and she felt the cold draft as if she was still standing there on the second floor of her own home.

She didn't know when it was that she collapsed. Her ears rang, and she was vaguely aware of a flash of water-distorted lightning bathing her from a nearby window as she fell to her knees, encumbered in sobs.

Cheerilee instantly heard them. She paused in her ascent, looking back with a concerned expression. "Mrs. Cake?" She grimaced, then turned around. "Amethyst, hold up one second..."

"Huh?" Amethyst turned around, squinting. "Oh, for Celestia's sake, what now?"

"This will only take a minute." Cheerilee trotted over and knelt at Cup Cake's side. "Mrs. Cake..." She nudged her gently. "Please, you have to get up. We have to go find that crystal. For Twilight. For Ponyville." She gulped. "For your family."

"I can't..." Cup Cake shook her head, choking on yet another sob. "I've already lost them! I know it!"

"Shhhh..." Cheerilee smiled. "You can't say that! Not yet! Maybe they're hiding away somewhere! Mr. Cake is resourceful! Plus, he's a good, protective father!"

"Then wh-why did he only pr-protect me?!" Cup Cake looked up, sniffling as a heavy frown crossed her plump blue face. "Why did he lock me up in the bedroom but lose... b-but lose sight of the ch-children...?" She covered her face with her hooves, whimpering with shivering breaths.

Cheerilee blinked. Biting her lip, she spun yet again. "Amethyst, uhm... Could you leave us be for a bit?"

"Huh?!" Amethyst did a double-take, her glowing horn making the shadows of the winding passageway dance. "Leave you be?! What is this, a counseling session?! You heard Twilight! We gotta find that crystal and shut it down or else—"

"This won't take long, I promise," Cheerilee said. "Just go ahead of us and keep looking. Mrs. Cake and I will catch up."

Amethyst opened her mouth to protest. But, upon gazing at Cup Cake's sobbing figure, she let loose a groaning sigh. "Fine, fine. I won't be far ahead. Don't take too darn long, ya hear?" Muttering to herself, she turned and continued trotting up the stairs.

Once alone, Cheerilee clutched Cup Cake's forelimbs and pulled. "Here. Get up, sweetie..."

"Mmmf..." Cup Cake lumbered up to her hooves, sniffling. "Wh-what... why—?"

"You have to pull yourself together, Mrs. Cake. I know you've been through a lot, but this is a time that we have to spend thinking about others and not just about ourselves." Leaning her head aside, Cheerilee gave the mother an imploring look. "Would it help you to get it off your chest?"

"What's to tell? Everything's so hopeless..." Mrs. Cake stammered, shaking her head. She paced in a tight circle before the rain-swept window stretched beside the two of them. "I've been on edge ever since I failed to save Silver Skates' little brother. And then th-there was that foal in the room with Ditzy just now... and... and..." She clenched her eyes shut and shivered.

"Yes...?" Cheerilee leaned forward.

"That's just the thing. I'm not worried about myself, Cheerilee." With tears flowing, Cup Cake gazed fitfully at the schoolteacher. "I'm worried about my children." She gulped. "Pumpkin Cake... Pound Cake..." She shuddered. "I-I'd give anything j-just to hold them in my arms once again..."

Cheerilee stared steadily at her. "Your children," she murmured, slowly nodding.

Cup Cake sniffled and rubbed her cheek dry. "Yes. F-feels like forever since I seen them..."

"Yes..." Cheerilee fidgeted. "You... you mentioned something about that earlier in Twilight's laboratory. I almost said something then, but I thought it was just my imagination..."

"Huh...?" Cup Cake blinked at Cheerilee. "Your... imagination...?"

"I understand that you're concerned about your family, Mrs. Cake, but your children? When you say that, it's almost as if—" Cheerilee froze in place. Like a statue.

Cup Cake gulped. She squinted her eyes awkwardly.

Bearing a deadpan expression, the earth pony pivoted to the side.

"M-Miss Cheerilee...?" Cup Cake stammered.

Without a single word, Cheerilee broke into a gallop, jumped, and plunged straight through the fourth-story window.

Cup Cake stumbled back, shrieking into the sudden spray of sharp glass and pelting rain. "Cheerilee!" Lightning flashed. Under the roll of thunder, Cup Cake rushed to the edge of the shattered window frame, peering straight down. "Miss Cheerilee! Where..." She gasped; her ears rang. Down below her, framed by a bed of glittering shards, lay the limp body of the Ponyville schoolteacher. As lightning flashed, Mrs. Cake could see a ghostly-white shard of bone sticking out of her throat; the mare's neck was bent at a violent angle.

So numb in shock was Cup Cake, she hardly noticed the thumping hooves of Amethyst Star rushing down to join her.

"What in Tartarus' name happened here?!" the unicorn stammered, wide-eyed.

"She..." Mrs. Cake numbly murmured. "She j-just leapt through the window!"

"She what?!"

"We were t-talking, and suddenly Cheerilee froze in place, and she just galloped through like a pony possessed!" Cup Cake exclaimed, her voice cracking. "It h-happened so suddenly! I didn't even realize it until the glass had shattered and... and..." She trembled, nearly falling to her knees. "Oh Goddess, what's happening to this town?!"

"This doesn't make any sense!" Amethyst thought aloud, shining her light down on the distant, fractured body of Cheerilee. "And with a stunt like that, she's liable to have woken up half of—" Lightning strobed, illuminating the sudden, pallid expression on Amethyst's face as she stared skyward. "Oh crap..."

"Huh?!" Cup Cake gave her a double-take. She looked up into the rolling storm beds. "What is...?" She was answered by the shape of darker shadows looming against the perpetual grayness of the storm. The rain parted as several winged figures converged on Town Hall. "Oh dear Celestia..."

"Come on!" Amethyst Star jumped down a few steps and tugged telekinetically on Cup Cake's shoulder. "We may still have time to make it into a cellar or something! This stupid place has gotta have a shelter!"

"Huh?! Wait—No!" Cup Cake pulled away, pointing up the steps. "Twilight Sparkle and Time Turner!"

"What about them?!"

"They're expecting us up top! They'll be alone on the top floor when the pegasi—"

"You seriously think we now have the time to rush all the way upstairs, warn them, and gallop to safety?!"

"Well it's the sort of thing they would do for us!" Cup Cake retorted.

"It..." Amethyst stammered breathlessly, glancing out the shattered window as the storm raged. "But..." She clenched her eyes and jaw shut. "Nnnnngh..." With bounding steps, she flew up past the mare. "Move your fat flank!"

Cup Cake didn't argue. She followed the unicorn as the two stampeded frantically up the winding, winding steps. Beyond the rumbling thunder, they heard the rustle of wings, followed by weightless hooves clamoring over the wooden exterior of the Town Hall building all around them.

When they reached the top, a glowing light pierced their eyes. Amethyst Star and Cup Cake skidded to a shrieking stop.

Time Turner and Twilight Sparkle jumped in place. Levitating the detector in front of her, Twilight held a hoof over her chest and breathed easier. "Whew! It's just you. Anyways, we've had no luck on our end. How about your group?"

"There's no time!" Cup Cake stammered, wide-eyed. "We have to get out of here! Maybe if we galloped down the way you came—"

"Whoah, whoah, calm down," Time Turner remarked, waving his hooves. He raised an eyebrow. "What's going on? Did you run into more pegasi?"

"No, but they're coming! Th-they're coming fast!" Cup Cake pointed behind her. "We'd better move or—"

"Just one second..." Twilight squinted. "Where's Cheerilee?"

"She's..." Cup Cake grimaced, a tear rolling down her cheek. "I mean, she—"

"Cheerilee's dead," Amethyst grunted.

Twilight gasped, her violet eyes twitching wide. "D-dead...?!"

"What?!" Time Turner leaned forward. "How?!"

"She..." Cup Cake whimpered. "She j-jumped."

"She jumped?!" Twilight stammered, waving her glowing horn towards the opposite stairs across the tiny room. "Like, out the window?!"

"No, through a keyhole—What do you think?!" Amethyst growled. "We came here to warn you because—"

She didn't need to explain it; the hallway behind the two mares was filling with the sound of fluttering, buzzing wings.

"Oh Goddess..." Time Turner stammered, twisting and turning about as the sixth-story walls closed in. "Goddess alive..."

"It's suicide in that direction!" Amethyst said, pointing then behind Twilight. "We'll have better luck running down that—"

Just then, the distant sound of windows shattering lit the air. Time Turner and Twilight spun, shocked to hear the thud of trampling horseshoes coming up the path behind them.

"Oh no..." Cup Cake exhaled.

"Perfect!" Amethyst hissed, tossing her hooves. "Now we're really screwed!"

"Maybe not!" Time Turner thought in fast forward, spinning to gaze breathlessly at the windows immediately surrounding them. "We can get out on the roof!"

"And then what?!" Amethyst squawked.

"There's a line of Equestrian banners on the north side! We can climb it to the nearest building!"

"You can't be serious..."

"I'd rather be anything than dead!" Time Turner grabbed the nearest item—a heavy end table—and flung it towards the nearest window with a grunt. Glass shattered as lightning and rain water poured into the room, drowning out the noise of pegasi charging up the stairs on either side. "Let's go!"

"Hold on a second!" Twilight shrieked, her heart racing. "We haven't even found the Sunstone Topaz yet—"

"Screw the crystal!" Amethyst grumbled. "None of us ran into it! I think we all know by now that it's not inside this blasted building!"

"But... But..."

"Miss Sparkle!" Time Turner tugged on the unicorn's shoulder, pulling her towards the window and the water-soaked rooftop beyond. "There'll be more chances! Let's get out of here!"

Twilight hadn't the strength to protest. Time Turner shoved her out and climbed after her. He leaned back through the frame to give both Amethyst and Cup Cake a helping hoof.

Mrs. Cake soon found herself standing in the pelting rain, with the stormclouds spewing lightning at a distance that felt less than a stone's throw overhead. As the sky churned and bubbled, the herd’s rampage had become deafening inside.

"Stand back!" Time Turner shouted. As the mares scurried aside, he swiveled and kicked the building face above the topmost window with two heavy hooves. "Nnngh!"

Several roof shingles fell loose from the stallion's blow. Twilight assisted with her telekinesis, making the brown plates fall solidly over the shattered window, forming a desperate yet sturdy barricade.

"Wh-where do we go?!" Mrs. Cake shouted above the drenching monsoon.

"Miss Sparkle!" Time Turner exclaimed. "The north side—"

"Over here!" Twilight exclaimed, already galloping towards the edge of the Town Hall building where a waving cord of flapping banners hung in the billowing wind. Across the way, the other end of the cable attached to a third story hotel balcony.

As she ran towards it, Mrs. Cake felt her hooves slipping on the slick rooftop. She shrieked, plunging towards the edge of the building top. A soft hoof held her back from a six-story plunge. Mrs. Cake slumped back against Amethyst Star's chest. She thanked the unicorn with a mute nod. Meanwhile, Time Turner was already crouching besides the cord.

"Everypony!" he hollered, his wet face glinting from the storm's incessant flashes. "Do just like I do! Every hoof clutching the cord, front hooves move first, then the rear hooves follow! Like this!" In a swift dive, he swung himself so that he was suspended upside down from the cord. He proceeded to shimmy himself gradually across the swaying tight-rope. "Slow and steady... we'll be over to the other side in no time!"

"Oh jeez..." Amethyst Star covered her mouth as she shook her head again and again. "Oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez..."

The entire rooftop shook. The mares shrieked and spun to see the barricade of fallen shingles bulging from the inside out.

"They're breaking through!" Twilight shouted. She spun and caught the looks of Amethyst and Cup Cake. "You two go first! I'll follow in case I have to fend them off with my magic!"

"But—" Cup Cake started.

"No arguments!" Twilight pointed a hoof forward through the thundering downpour. "Follow Time Turner, and no looking back!"

"Here goes..." Amethyst Star was already squatting. Holding her breath, she grabbed onto the cable and swung down. She dangled loosely for a bit, stifled a shriek, but ultimately found her rhythm, crawling after the upside-down stallion in a jittery fashion.

The rooftop shook again. Shrieking, bloodied muzzles began piercing through the flimsy layer of shingles.

"Mrs. Cake!" Twilight exclaimed. "Your turn!"

Cup Cake trembled as she knelt down besides the cord dangling from the other two's weight. "I love you, Carrot. I love you, Carrot. I love you." Holding her breath, she flung her rain-drenched body forward and hung limply from the cord. Her lower hooves slipped. But, with a steady breath, she flung them back up and started mimicking the motions that Time Turner had shown. Soon, she was crawling gradually across the tightrope as the wet world throbbed and blasted all around her.

Twilight was becoming a distant, lavender speck. In a flash of lightning, Cup Cake could spot several shingles spraying outward from the shattered window. Twilight spun and fired multiple manabolts at the general vicinity of the breach.

The rope shook. Cup Cake gasped, nearly slipping.

"We're almost there!" Time Turner's voice danced along the whipping winds. "Just a little further!"

Hyperventilating, Cup Cake looked straight down. All she saw was muddied street. The contorted body of Cheerilee lay directly beneath her like a ruby shadow.

The cord shook again, this time from Twilight's weight adding to it. "They're coming!" Twilight exclaimed above the cyclonic tumult. "Don't look back! Just move! Move!"

"Twilight!" Amethyst Star's voice called out ahead of Cup Cake. "The rope! Nnnghh... I-I don't think it can handle all of our—"

Something breezed past all four dangling bodies, something with wings. The wind jostled them, splitting the rain like shattered bullets. Then another pegasus swung by, nipping at Cup Cake's sopping wet mane. She shrieked, not so much because of the figures diving at her, but because of the gale force wind now shaking her and the other three like pendulums. Right at that moment, there was a horrible snapping sound: the tell tale indication at the Town Hall's end of the cord was breaking loose.

"Miss Sparkle—!" Time Turner barked.

"Hold on!" Twilight's voice returned. The air lit up with lavender energy just in time. The cord snapped, but before Cup Cake could experience free-fall, she saw the entire rope glowing with unicorn energy between her limbs. The cord jolted, then jolted again. "Nnngh... I-I can't... c-can't hold it forever!" Twilight grunted, then shrieked. "Watch out!"

The entire cord swayed like a collapsing bridge. While Twilight's telekinesis slowed the fall, the ride was no less perilous. The entire group swung towards the hotel building, colliding with it like a string of pinatas. Time Turner fell first, only to be caught in a lavender field. A similar bubble of energy cocooned Amethyst and Cup Cake, floating them down safely... at least until they were ten feet up, and then Twilight lost her grip.

Cup Cake collapsed to the ground with a sick thud. She saw stars for a brief second, and when the flash of light cleared, all was rain and screaming—Twilight's screaming. The unicorn plunged like an anvil and fell into a cluster of bushes at the base of the hotel.

"Twilight!" Cup Cake shrieked. She got up, slipped on mud, but nevertheless broke into a gallop. Time Turner and Amethyst Star were already crouched by Twilight's side by the time Cup Cake got there. The unicorn was wincing as if giving birth, clutching a huge, throbbing welt in her lower left hoof. "Oh dear Luna, how bad is it?" Cup Cake whimpered. "Is it sprained?! Or... or..."

"Shh!" Amethyst Star held a hoof over Twilight's sobbing mouth, gesturing for the other ponies to keep low. "Stay absolutely still..."

The three ponies huddled around Twilight. Shedding tears, the youngest unicorn of the bunch stared up past the shrubbery's thorny branches, watching as the sky filled with dozens of winged figures pouring out of the Town Hall building. The pegasi spun circles through the rain, their wings slicing like black blades against the strobing storm beds. After several close swoops, they split apart and broke off towards far corners of the village, pursuing other bodies... and other screams.

Time Turner, bruised and soaked all over, was the first to let loose a sigh. Motioning wordlessly, he pulled Twilight up. Mrs. Cake helped out, taking up the other half of the unicorn's weight. With Amethyst Star leading the way, the four hobbled across the muddied downtown district, pausing only when an errant shadow or two darted swiftly overhead.

Soon, they made it to the Ponyville marketplace. The multiple wooden shacks of the bazaar were still open and brimming with wares, abandoned by ponies who found themselves assaulted by their neighbors in broad daylight two agonizing weeks before. Ducking under a wooden shack bearing trays full of rotten fruit, Amethyst Star paused, and the entire group grinded to a halt behind her.

She spun around, her eyes narrowing. "What now, huh?" She swung her forelimbs as the steady downpour dwindled to a flimsy drivel over the marketplace around them. "Some search that was! Did you know that the crystal was going to be in the Town Hall? Were you absolutely sure of it, Miss Sparkle?"

"I..." Twilight gulped. "I-I..."

"Well?!"

Twilight sniffled. "I'm sorry. All of my calculations pointed towards it. I guess... I-I guess it must be in another building..."

"Oh, and just how many ponies are we gonna lose while searching through another one, huh?!" Amethyst grumbled.

"Lay off, Miss Star—" Time Turner began.

"No, you lay off!" Amethyst barked, pointing towards the distant edge of the rainswept village. "What do you really know about this damn Sandstone Triangle thingy anyways?!"

"Sunstone Topaz—"

"Look, shut up!" Amethyst hoarsely grunted. "Thing is, we don't know enough about it! For all of your research and book studies, Twilight, you still don't know jack about the vibrations!" She swung her hoof in the air. "For instance, you couldn't have predicted it would have affected Cheerilee as well!"

"Affected... Cheerilee...?" Twilight spoke aloud.

"I don't understand..." Time Turner narrowed his eyes from where Twilight leaned against him. "Just how did Cheerilee die? She fell out a window?!"

Amethyst spun to frown at Cup Cake. "You tell 'em, Mrs. Cake! You tell them exactly what happened!"

Cup Cake sighed, her head hanging as it dripped with tears and rain water. "She and I were... j-just talking. I was having a nervous breakdown, and Miss Cheerilee was trying to comfort me... as sweet and as l-loving as ever." She gulped, then said, "And Cheerilee just stopped all she was doing, turned, and galloped straight out the fourth-story window."

"That...." Twilight slowly shook her head. "That's..."

"Who's gonna be next, huh, Twilight?!" Amethyst Star cackled. "You?! Me?! Mrs. Cake here?! Your dashing knight, Time Turner?"

Time Turner frowned. "I think you need to calm down—"

"I think I need to get some answers!" Amethyst grumbled. "This vibration crap has to do with more than pegasi, huh?! I need to know if I'm going to go nutso on you guys, cuz—I tell ya—I think I'm starting to feel it coming!"

"Amethyst, listen to me..." Twilight tried standing up, but ultimately stumbled from her bad leg. Mrs. Cake took the weight of her this time as the unicorn struggled to stay upright. "Mmmf... Amethyst, I'm sorry, but I don't have the answers for you..."

"Pfft..." Amethyst folded her forelimbs and rolled her eyes. "Naturally..."

"And I'm sorry for what happened to Cheerilee, I really am." Twilight's face grew long as she sniffled and said, "She was as much my friend as she was yours, and I think I speak for all of us here when I say that the last thing I want is for us to lose any more friends. So, right now, I need you to trust me and stay by my side. We need to go back to my treehouse, back to Caramel and Silver Skates, so that I might be able to do some more studies and figure out if there's... any reason for what happened beyond what I know."

Amethyst took a long breath, gradually calming down. "And what of the crystal thingy?"

"I lost my detector in the fall..." Twilight grimaced. "But... Time Turner and I can make another, and we can do the building search another time, maybe in fewer numbers."

Sighing, Amethyst dragged a hoof over her head.

"I'm sorry, Amethyst, but that's the best I can offer. You're welcome to disagree, but I can't think of any other group you'll be safer with than us. And you know what'll happen to you if you try to trot out of this town on your own!"

Amethyst gulped, then nodded with a sad face. "Right," she muttered. "I'll end up like my sister."

Twilight frowned. "Now, I didn't mean to say—"

"Let's just go, alright?" Amethyst said. She turned towards the far end of the market and began trotting. "I've had my fill of surprises for one evening—"

A large, crimson mass fell—hooves flailing—and crashed bloodily through the fruit vendor in front of them.

Amethyst shrieked. She and everypony else hopped back, eyes wide.

The body of Big Macintosh lay before them, his body bruised and sun-bloated in over two dozen places. No less than three seconds later, a lithe pegasus landed beside his corpse in a prismatic blur. On wobbly legs she stood, until the sound of the four ponies' panting breaths caused her blue ears to twitch. Slowly, Rainbow Dash lifted her dazed head, a flash of lightning illuminating the chunks of flesh that had fallen loose from the right side of her skull.

Cup Cake's lips trembled. She felt the body of Twilight squirming against her.

"Run..." Twilight stammered, wide-eyed, then shouted, "Run!"

All four spun around and darted across the cluttered marketplace, kicking up mud and fallen fruit.

Rainbow Dash pivoted about. All she needed to do was flap her wings once. A clap of thunder rolled as her battered body shot after them like a bullet, plowing through vendor stands and filling the air with splintery bits of wood and shredded tarp.

Twilight hobbled alongside Mrs. Cake. The two mares' legs dragged deep in the mud, gaining friction as they struggled to duck under and jump over various wooden beams. As the rumbling pegasus swallowed the distance between them, Time Turner paused up ahead, reaching a hoof back with a wide-eyed gaze.

"Here, Mrs. Cake!" He gestured towards Twilight. "I'm faster! Give her to me—"

Rainbow Dash caught up with them, and so did the thunder. A blast wave of epic proportion flung the mares off their hooves, tossing them through the air along with a spray of miscellaneous debris. They fell amidst the lightning strobes, carving ravines into the mud.

Cup Cake struggled to her hooves. She glanced around her, but only saw Twilight. In a burst of lightning, a winged figure descended. Thinking fast, she grabbed two hooves-full of mud and flung them skyward. Rainbow Dash's snapping muzzle missed Cup Cake's jugular by centimeters; the pegasus went sprawling through the middle of the rain-soaked street, rubbing her face raw against the grass like a dog, blinded by the mud.

Panting, Cup Cake next lunged to the side, hoisting Twilight up over her back like a cloak.

"Ungh!" Twilight whimpered, lying reverse on Mrs. Cake's flank. "Where... wh-where are the others?!"

"Don't know!" Cup Cake panted, breaking into a steady gallop. "Can't know!"

"But we're..." Twilight stammered through the crashing lightning as Rainbow finally shook the mud off her possessed face. "We're not heading towards my treehouse—"

"You really want me to turn around?!" Cup Cake's voice cracked.

Rainbow's ears twitched. Twin eyes of glazed ruby shimmered in the night as she turned, spread her wings, and soared after the two.

"You're right!" Twilight shrieked, gripping hard to Mrs. Cake's flank. "Gallop! Just gallop!"

Cup Cake gnashed her teeth, breaking down a straightaway of vegetable and utensil vendors lined up before her like cemetery plots. She dodged and weaved around the flimsy wooden structures, panting for breath beneath the whipping winds caused by Rainbow Dash's beating wings. The pegasus made multiple dives at them, smashing through rooftops, kicking dents in the wooden surfaces. Twilight shrieked, covering her face as waves of debris showered and pelted her. All the while, Rainbow Dash came closer, her white teeth clapping like a barracuda's in pursuit.

Cup Cake flashed a glance to her right. She saw an immense tent flapping in the breeze. Jerking around a corner, she skidded in the dirt, regained her hoofing, and galloped straight into the canvas hut.

"Mrs. Cake!" Twilight stammered. "What are you doing—?!"

"Hold tight!" Cup Cake dove into the tent, galloped past a stack of boxes, and slid towards the flapping border, skidding low. She squeezed herself and Twilight under the flap, struggled for a heart-splitting millisecond or two, and popped out on the other side.

As she continued sprinting, Rainbow Dash flew blindly into the tent behind them, her spectral body shoving hard against the canvas fabric. With much tugging and struggle, she ripped the tent clear off from its pegs and flew blindly into the ground, wrestling numbly with the coarse material.

Cup Cake took one glance back. To her joy, it slowed Rainbow Dash for just a few seconds. To her horror, those few seconds were hardly enough. With a violent thrash, Rainbow tore a hole through the canvas, flapped her wings, and rocketed towards the two mares yet again.

Mrs. Cake rounded another street corner. She approached an intersection, trying to catch her bearings. Her options were running out, as well as street space. At last, she galloped straight towards an apartment building, but was intercepted by a blue missile flying into her side.

"Unngh!" Cup Cake rolled across the ground, wincing from the fresh bruise to her limbs. She looked up in time to see Rainbow Dash descending like a prairie falcon onto Twilight's crippled body.

"Nnngh—Rainbow, st-stop!" Twilight shrieked, unable to fight off the mute pegasus' clambering hooves.

Mrs. Cake threw herself onto her hooves and galloped over to help, but received a firm hoof to the face for her efforts. Rainbow Dash resumed her struggle with Twilight.

"It's me!" Twilight's voice wavered between sobs and shouts. She tried using her horn, but a swift slap to the skull ended such effort. "Aaugh! It's your friend! Don't you kn-know who you're loyal to?!"

Rainbow Dash said nothing. With the quiet grace of a spider, she wrapped her legs around Twilight, flapped her wings, and lifted the two of them towards the heavens above—

A two-by-four slammed over Rainbow's spine.

The pegasus thudded into the earth, splashing and thrashing wildly through the mud.

Cup Cake rushed to Twilight's side. The two looked over.

Time Turner stood, slumped over with the cracked bludgeon held between two forelimbs. "Go!" he spat, his face awash in blood. "Get somewhere safe! Both of you!"

"But—" Cup Cake yelped.

"I'll keep her busy! Don't waste the opportunity!" He spun and charged Rainbow again, swinging the two-by-four with greater zeal. "Nnngh!"

Rainbow took the blow to the face. Like a rabid panther, she recoiled and lunged at Time Turner. She and the stallion rolled and wrestled through the street, exchanging heavy blows and hoof-strikes to the chest.

Cup Cake panted. She heard a creaking sound and looked across the street.

A familiar unicorn figure was forcing the back door open to a stone cottage. In a strobe of lightning, the pony glanced out, and Amethyst Star's face made contact with Cup Cake's.

Without delay, Mrs. Cake hoisted Twilight once more over her flank. She trotted and hobbled as swiftly as she could across the street. Halfway through, she heard a labored yell. She and Twilight glanced up.

Time Turner was being hoisted up towards the boiling heavens. As he dangled from Rainbow Dash's grip, his hooves dragged and scraped at a building face, finally tugging in futility on the ceiling's rusted weathervane. "Nnnngh—Snkkkt!" He spat and vomited blood, flashing the mares one last, petrified glance. "Hrghhhghh—Go!" And, in a bright flash, he was yanked violently heavenward, shattered weathervane and all. In that same blink, a diving flock of winged equines could be seen diving past him, screaming blackly through the lightning like a murder of crows.

Their shadows converged on Cup Cake as she turned and carried herself and Twilight the rest of the way towards the cottage. Her world blurred. All was screams and ice rain. She ended the charge in a slide, collapsing inside a dimly-lit kitchen. Amethyst Star slammed the entrance shut behind them with a rattling clatter of a lowly pet door.

Amethyst slid the deadbolt tightly shut. Once the pet door lid stop squeaking, all was silent for the span of four seconds. Then the house thundered and shook with religious pounding. The nearby windows cracked down the center and several ceiling tiles fell atop the ponies in a dusty heap. The three mares whimpered pathetically, at least until the howling pegasi had their fill of violence, and abandoned the cottage from the outside.

Twilight's panting breaths were the last to settle. She gulped and stood up, leaning against Cup Cake's body for support. She stared into silence for a few seconds, her face grimacing to find an expression worth registering all that had been lost. Then, slowly, she tilted her head to face the others.

"Well..." She gulped. "We're... w-we're safe—"

A violent hoof swung across her face. Twilight slumped to the kitchen floor, spitting blood into the clumps of mud.

Mrs. Cake sat up, gasping. "Miss Star—!"

"Safe?" Amethyst loomed above Twilight, her eyes brimming with terror and fury. "Safe?! We're not safe, we're dead! We're all dead, thanks to you!" She grunted and kicked Twilight in the ribs once... twice...

Cup Cake dove swiftly forward, shoving Amethyst back. "Stop it! Stop it!" she shouted. "You're not helping—"

"Nnngh!" Amethyst knocked Cup Cake on her haunches with a burst of telekinesis. "What's to help! So far, we've relied on her tricks! We relied on her know-how! And what has it gotten us?! We're screwed!"

"Amethyst..." Twilight sputtered, rubbing her cheek as she calmly spoke to the angry unicorn towering above them both. "I know things are bad, but we mustn't do this! We mustn't turn on each other—"

"Why?! Because only the power of friendship can get us out of this mess?! Take a look outside, genius!" Amethyst cackled, pointing towards the kitchen window. "Half of your friends are either possessed, dead, or both! Did you really think finding and stopping some magic crystal would undo all the craziness that’s happened?! Every single one of the pegasi are screwed! All of us know that! And you think they're just gonna gently let down whatever earth pony or unicorn is left out there?"

"We don't know enough to presume the worst—" Twilight began.

"But we know enough to expect it!" Amethyst hyperventilated, backtrotting from the two as if they were the plague. "Face it, I should have stayed away from you! From all of you! I want to see my sister again!" She panted and pulled at her bruised face muscles. "I want... Nnnngh... I-I want to wake up! I just want to wake up from all of this and—"

The cottage rattled. A pale muzzle burst through the pet door, then lunged forth. Rotting teeth clamped over Amethyst Star's tail and yanked straight back. Amethyst fell flat from the pegasus yanking her. Her haunches slammed into the pet door. Hard. She grunted and sputtered in shock as the pegasus pulled and tugged mercilessly from the other side.

Twilight Sparkle and Mrs. Cake gasped.

"Nghhh—Nuh... No..." Amethyst clawed and clawed at the mud-caked tile. The force of three pegasi tugged this time, and half of her flank sank through the tiny partition. A sickening snap filled the air as her legs and pelvis collapsed to fit the crumbling passage. "N-No..." She vomited up blood and bile, her upper body spasming. "I-I d-don't want to d-die. Please, goddess... d-don't... don't wanna—" Her ribs collapsed, followed by her head twisting at a forty-five degree angle. Her body slipped out through the pet frame, pulling a chunk of the door along with her, leaving behind nothing but bloodstreaks and sawdust before the rampaging storm. Following a flap of wings from outside the cottage, everything fell silent.

Twilight and Cup Cake sat side by side against the far wall of the kitchen, serenaded by the sounds of their muted sobs. It was Mrs. Cake who collapsed first, burying her face in her hooves. She sniffled and wiped at her eyelids, failing with each gesture to dry them.

All the while, Twilight gazed blankly into the space that Amethyst had just occupied—alive and healthy—a few naked seconds ago. She gulped, then stammered, "This is... this is all my fault." She bit her lip, then muttered, "She was right. If I hadn't made presumptions about the research I made... if I-I hadn't made us all take this risk... then she would be alive right now. So would Time Turner. And... and so would—"

"It's n-not your fault, Miss Sparkle," Cup Cake whimpered. Sniffling, she looked up at the lightning flashes beyond the cracked windows of the kitchen. "It's mine. If I hadn't stopped Cheerilee in her tracks... if I hadn't forced her to stop and try and console me..." She choked on a sob and murmured, "Then m-maybe she wouldn't have... have... g-gotten possessed and thrown herself through that window in the first place." She wiped her eyes again and shuddered. "The pegasi wouldn't have heard or seen us, and we'd be finding that Topaz crystal by now..."

"It... It just doesn't make any sense!" Twilight Sparkle hissed, thinking aloud as she rubbed the painful welt in her leg. "Cheerilee's always been strong! Resourceful! Full of unbreakable resolve!" She gulped. "Even in a nightmare as bad as this, she'd never resort to something as banal as suicide! She cared about us too much to abandon us!"

"Then why did she?" Cup Cake cried. "What did we do that was so wrong?"

Twilight's lips moved as she focused on a singular thought. Blinking, she turned to look at her lone companion. "Mrs. Cake, tell me, what were you talking to Cheerilee about exactly? What was the discussion you were having with her when she suddenly threw herself out the window?"

"She..." Cup Cake shuddered. "She was asking me to get stuff off my chest. And so I-I did." Wincing, she explained, "I was telling her how much I missed my family... my children. How much I wanted to cuddle my foals once again!"

Twilight stared steadily at her. "Your children..."

Cup Cake nodded.

"You mean Pumpkin..."

"...and Pound Cake..." The mare brought her hooves to her face once again and outright sobbed. "Ohhhhhh Pound. Pound, I've abandoned you, my little cherub. Carrot, please. Please forgive me, darling. I'm such a b-bad mother..."

She sobbed for the space of several seconds, then felt the soft hooves of Twilight pulling her forelimbs down from her face.

"Mrs. Cake, listen to me." Twilight gulped. "I know you've been through a lot as of late, what with trying to find your family and all, but are you... I-I mean... are you sure you're thinking straight?"

Cup Cake shook, trembled. "Thinking st-straight? Why wouldn't I be?" She panted. "I-I love my family. I have every reason to, don't I?"

"Yes, I can understand your worry for Mr. Cake and Pumpkin..." Twilight nodded. "But, Pound Cake?" Twilight stared at Mrs. Cake squarely. "Mrs. Cake, Pound Cake died a year and a half ago..."

Cup Cake's ruby eyes twitched upon hearing that.

Twilight leaned forward. "Don't you remember that?"

"He... d-died...?" Mrs. Cake stammered breathlessly. "A year... y-year and a half..."

"He never reached six months, Mrs. Cake," Twilight said softly. "It was a growth of the wingbone—a cancer. It destroyed his immune system, and he died in his sleep. The... the whole town had a funeral for him. Everypony attended. Don't... don't you recall?"

Mrs. Cake was shaking her head, hyperventilating. "I... I-I just saw him..." She grimaced. "Just l-last night! I sang him to sleep! I tucked him in..." Her gaze trailed off of Twilight's face as she winced even more. "N-not last night... I mean two weeks ago... I mean..." Her blue brow furrowed. "I just... j-just..."

Twilight took a deep breath. She squeezed Mrs. Cake's shoulder. "Mrs. Cake, you said you woke up all of the sudden in your bedroom, right?"

"Yes. Yes I did. J-just yesterday."

"And you were alone in Sugarcube Corner?"

"Of course! You know that, Twilight! Why do you ask?"

Twilight gulped. "Can you take me there...?"

And sing the song of angels everywhere

The gray fog of early morning wafted over the downtown area of Ponyville as two lone figures scurried through the muddy streets. They trotted up to the front entrance to Sugarcube Corner, shivering from the cold mist pelting them from all sides.

"Twilight..." Cup Cake gulped. "I don't mean to copy the attitude of the Amethyst Star, but I-I'm starting to think that this isn't such a good idea..."

"Mrs. Cake, I'm not asking you to put all your faith in me," Twilight hushedly said. "All I'm asking is that you just open the door for us."

"But... but what if—"

"Shhhh..." Twilight gazed up at the undulating cloud beds hanging darkly above. "The less time we linger out here, the better. Please..."

Mrs. Cake exhaled long and hard. "Alright, Twilight. Alright..." She raised a shaky hoof to the front door and pushed. "I still think we'd be a great deal safer back at your lab... Nnnngh..." She gritted her teeth, suddenly struggling against a door that refused to budge. She shoved harder and harder, her lower legs scraping against the muddy front steps. "Come on! What in Celestia's name could possibly be—?!"

At last, the door snapped open. Mrs. Cake plunged inside. Instantly, she was assaulted with a wave of rotting scents. After her last excursion through the bottom floor of Sugarcube Corner, she had come to expect that. What she didn't expect, however, was the flurry of paper sheets blowing past her muzzle and landing in the wet puddles outside.

"What... H-huh?!"

"What is it, Mrs. Cake?" Twilight leaned in, hobbling on three limbs. She instantly winced, spitting up some bile. "Ungh! Goddess! What... what is that stench?"

"This is a confectionery, Miss Sparkle. It's rotting milk, along with other spoiled baking ingredients—Where are you going?" She stammered.

"Inside..." Twilight Sparkle said, limping as swiftly as she could through the doorframe and into the dimly-lit eatery. "To investigate..."

"Investigate what?! Nopony was here when I woke up!"

"Shhh... Close the door quietly and come inside, if you can."

Trembling, confused, Mrs. Cake did as she was told. She pulled the door shut and spun around—freezing in sight upon what greeted her in the foyer.

The tables were stacked to the brim with scrolls, written sheets of paper, and clusters of what looked like canvas-bound manuals.

"What... in Tartarus...?!" Mrs. Cake gasped, stumbling forward. "I... I don't understand! What is this?!"

Twilight panted, glancing tiredly back at the mare. "You mean you didn't leave the place like this?"

"Most certainly not!" Mrs. Cake murmured. As Twilight illuminated the room dimly with her horn, she glanced down to see a pile of thick tomes that had acted as a doorstop to the front entrance. "This place was empty when I left it! I can't possibly understand how..." She froze in place, her features paling. "Oh dear. Miss Sparkle..." She looked over, her lips quivering. "What if... what if somepony's been here since I left a day and a half ago?"

"Possible..." Twilight's face scrunched as she hobbled over the books and manuals. The sheets of paper rustled like leaves before them. "Huh... There's a cold draft coming from upstairs..."

"I can't understand why..." Mrs. Cake murmured. "All the windows were closed. Heck, they were even boarded up."

Twilight turned around. She calmly pointed at an exposed sheet of glass lining the front foyer. "You mean like that window?"

Mrs. Cake's mouth hung agape. "That... That's not right..." She trotted briskly over, squinting closely at the wooden finish lining the edges of the window pane. "Why, th-there aren't even any holes for the nails! Miss Sparkle, I have no idea how this could have happened?"

"I'm just as dumbfounded as you, Mrs. Cake," Twilight murmured, hoofing through one of the many sheets of paper atop the middlemost table. "Especially right now..."

"Hmmm?" Mrs. Cake turned around to look at her.

Twilight took a shuddering breath. "These... These books..." The unicorn slapped the papers down and turned to take another survey of the room. "These are the very same books that were stolen from my library."

"St-stolen?" Mrs. Cake murmured. A tremble ran through her body. "You mean... the ones about—"

"—the June Jet Effect and the vibrational frequencies—the whole kit and kaboodle." Twilight turned and looked around slowly. "I don't like this. Not one bit."

Mrs. Cake blinked, then gasped sharply. With one hoof rested over her mouth, she rushed over to Twilight's side and whispered into her ear. "Miss Sparkle, what if... what if the pony responsible is in here?"

"How so?"

"Wh-what if he took up residence overnight?!" Mrs. Cake wrung her hooves, trembling from head to tail. She gazed at the adjacent hallway and the steep stairwell leading to the second level. Every shadow was suddenly fraught with horror and suspense. "He could be here this very second! Watching us trying to undermine his plot! Ready to pounce on us at any second!"

"Maybe..." Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. She turned around, her nose scrunching. "Then again..."

"Twilight...?" Mrs. Cake made a face as the unicorn trotted towards the swinging doors to the kitchen.

"That smell is really, really awful," Twilight muttered. She opened one door and peered in. "Just how much milk did you have sitting in your fridge, anyhow—?" Her voice was cut off. She stood absolutely still.

Mrs. Cake gazed at the many, many imposing books as she replied, "I... I-I can't say for sure. I c-can't be certain of anything anymore. It's been two days since I did anything in this kitchen... and yet it's been two weeks... and I'm just s-so confused..." She ran a hoof through her soaked pink mane. Gulping, she became aware of the silence that had consumed the moment. "Twilight?" Pale-faced, she glanced over. "Miss Sparkle?"

Twilight hung on one of the doors with her back to the mare. "Mrs. Cake..." she spoke in a cold, icy tone. "Just stay where you are..."

"Miss Sparkle..." Cup Cake trotted over, briskly. "What is it that you see?"

"Please, whatever you do, don't look in here—" Twilight reached a hoof out.

Cup Cake brushed her limb away, burst through the doors, and froze. A sharp breath left her. Tears welled up in her eyes as she gazed woefully at the tile floor. "C-Carrot...?" she stammered. "Carrot, darling?"

Twilight was silent as stone.

She wasn't the only one. Cup Cake fell to her knees, her lips quivering. She reached a hoof forward and shook his yellow shoulder. "Honey, move. Say s-something, sweety-bun. Carrot, it's me, your Cup Cake. Carrot...?" She turned her husband's head aside.

"Mrs. Cake, don't—"

"Mmmm!" Cup Cake covered her muzzle with two hooves. Her tearful eyes reflected a deep, deep slit cut across the stallion's throat. The tears obscured the image, falling to the floor with the same gravity as the mare's ensuing sobs. She teetered over, nuzzling him dearly, moaning into his blood-stained coat. "Nnnnnngh—Please! No! Please, Celestiaaaaaa, nooooooo..."

Twilight bit her lip, trotting forward from the swinging doors to lean against one of the refrigerators. The light from her horn shone across the floor, showing where the thick puddles of blood had run into the grooves of the tile and hardened.

"Mmmmmm-Goddessssss..." Cup Cake further wailed, shaking Carrot Cake's body with her constant heaves and sobs. "Mmmmm-Nnngh... Who... I-I mean how... Wh-when?!"

"It... It couldn't have happened that long ago," Twilight uttered in a dull, emotionless tone. Nevertheless, she gulped and steadied her own breath as she said, "I mean, from the way the blood has dried, and what shape the body is still in. I'd venture to guess that he was murdered over the last forty-hours. No more than three days ago, tops..."

"But... b-but that's impossible!" Cup Cake glared up at her, hissing through clenched teeth as tears streamed down her cheeks. "I was just here thirty-six hours ago at the most! And he wasn't here! Nothing was here!"

"You... you sure you were alone in this place when—?"

"Miss Sparkle, I know what I saw and what I didn't see! And this..." She whimpered, brushing the stallion's orange mane as she sniffled. "This travesty must have happened right after I-I left. Maybe the pony responsible for this t-took my beloved hostage! I-I don't know! I'm just so confused..."

"You're right, it doesn't make sense..." Twilight glanced around the lengths of the kitchen, warding off the stench of decay with flaring nostrils. "To be perfectly honest, nothing has made sense as of late. At least not since you joined—" She froze, blinking.

Cup Cake sniffled. She looked squarely up at Twilight. "What is it?"

"This... This is still downtown," Twilight murmured in thought. "It's still within the radius of what the detector told me..."

"Yes, so?"

"Mrs. Cake..." Twilight fidgeted, glancing down at the mare. "Isn't it... I mean..." She gulped. "Didn't Mr. Cake once tell me that you were one-quarter pegasus on your mother's side—?" Twilight suddenly turned her head and slammed it against the refrigerator.

Cup Cake gasped from where she sat. "Twilight! What are you—?"

Twilight rammed the refrigerator again... and again and again. She pummeled her skull against the metal surface at full force. Her body writhed and her neck fought the motions as she coughed and gurgled up blood.

"Miss Sparkle! What on earth?!" Cup Cake shot up, eyes wide. "You're h-hurting yourself! Stop it!"

Twilight answered with a sputtering shriek, then plowed herself into the nearby wall like a ragdoll. Her horn snapped off like a twig. With a spark of mana, her eyes rolled back. She fell down besides Carrot Cake's body, vomiting up teeth and chunks of her own tongue. After two or three fitful spasms, her body laid still, and she did not move again.

Mrs. Cake stared in horror. She slowly shook her head, her teeth chattering in the buildup of a monumental scream. Instead, she whimpered, "Twilight... Twilight, why did you... how...?" She reached towards the dead mare, but froze in place. Blinking, she raised her forelimb in the glow of the gray morning rising outside the windows. Then she raised the other forelimb.

Both of her hooves were covered in blood. Fresh, slick, warm blood.

Cup Cake's jaw quivered. A familiar ringing noise filled her ears, the same tone that greeted her at every waking blink. She looked down at Twilight.

Two bloodstains marked the unicorn's neck just below her ears.

Mrs. Cake stumbled back. She clenched her eyes shut. The ringing in her ears intensified. No matter how hard she clenched her teeth, it would not go away.

Then, at last, like a tiny kitten mewling, a voice cried through the resonating silence.

She gasped, both of her ruby eyes flinging open. She heard the murmur again, this time pleading. Trotting about in a numb lurch, Mrs. Cake left the horrid smell of rotten milk. She pushed through the kitchen doors, gazing silently at the empty lengths of Sugarcube's abandoned foyer. Something rustled in the distance, like dry paper or falling leaves. At the end of it, the ringing tone undulated, then produced the whimper yet again. It was coming from upstairs.

"Hello?" Mrs. Cake trotted towards the bottom of the steps. She froze in place, waiting for the cry. It came, and her heart jumped. "Pumpkin?" She gulped. "P-Pound? My darlings...?"

She trotted up the steps. She galloped up the steps. She blurred past boarded windows and the prevailing shadows of that cold, cold sepulcher of a house. She came upon the upstairs hallway. She glided like a ghost past her bedroom and practically burst through the nursery door.

She skidded to a stop, exhaling in shock. The bright light of morning shone on her squinting eyes, followed by a cold draft of rainy wind. The entire north wall of the nursery was missing, blown away as if from some epic burst of magical power, and in its epicenter there levitated a vibrating orange crystal upon a black dais.

But Cup Cake's eyes weren't fixated on the chunk of reverberating Topaz. Nor was she eyeing the bubbling black clouds above for any signs of pegasi. Instead, she trotted towards a pile of pillows in the center of the room. There was a smell to this place too, but instead of rotten, it was musky, like year old leather being hung out to dry. She glanced in one corner and saw an overturned crib with some unicorn-shaped lump lying inside. Ignoring it, she looked at the other corner and saw a tiny casket, hanging open and spilling loose clumps of dirt.

She approached the throne of cushions, for situated upon it was a tiny figure wrapped in woolen cloth. Slowly, with motherly grace, she parted the blankets. She looked at what lay within. Her face scrunched up. When the next tears came, they were as solid as the rain, falling down and cascading over his dried-up face, his eyeless sockets, his tiny curled forelimbs, his stubby wings. She bowed down low and buried her face in his little belly with more adoration than she had with Carrot. The wails came in waves of hysteria, punctuated by one phrase and one phrase alone.

"My little cherub... my sweet, handsome little cherub..."

She hugged him. She cradled him. She would have devoured him, hadn't a gust of cold, blistering winds blown at her figure, raising the hairs on the back of her neck, ushering the ringing back into her ears. The vibration ran through her teeth, producing a deep-throated snarl from the back of her throat.

"Why did you do this...?" A breathy voice echoed across the walls that were left standing in the room. "Why d-did you let this happen to him...?!"

With a rising growl, she raised her face up and screamed towards the sky.

"I hate you!" the mare shouted, her eyes tiny and inflamed, like a demon's. "I hate you! Do you have any idea what I've lost?! You have no idea! You don't understand pain! You can’t!"

Seething, heaving, Mrs. Cake let her gaze fall, precipitating like cold sleet over the colorful, happy rooftops of Ponyville. The ringing in her ears intensified. Her eyes rolled back in her head, mixing the grayness with the black. She gnashed her teeth and flung a venomous glance at the hovering shard of Topaz.

The glistening crystal reflected a succubus' face, its facial muscles stretching to the breaking point.

Like a viper, she hissed into the deafening ring. The sound was splitting her head, so she split the room instead, crossing over in a single bound and shoving the magical crystal clear off the second story of the burnt, sundered building. All she heard for a few seconds was her panting breaths against the unstoppable bells. Then, there was a scrumptious crack...

And the ringing stopped.

Mrs. Cake fell to her knees, a look of pain ripping across her face. Against the silence she hung, almost as if she was nailed to it. Then, hole by hole, puff by puff, the clouds above parted.

She tilted her head up, gazing bravely into the zenith. Pure sunlight washed over the rooftops of Ponyville, and it was not alone. The blue sky brought with it shadows, and all of them writhing, falling, filling the air with thrashing, flailing limbs.

And slowly, unpeeling like dead skin, the first of many, many screams fell with them. The raindrops clinging to the buildings shook. The air echoed with a melody of terror, a hysterical chorus performed by the plummeting populace of that undeservedly happy landscape.

"Oh, my little cherub," Mrs. Cake murmured into the coalescing shadows of the corpses-to-be. "So beautiful..." A tear rolled down her cheek, stopping only at a wide, wide grin. "Just like Mommy promised you. The song of angels..."

Author's Note

This fanfic ~~shamelessly ripped off~~ was deeply inspired by Junji Ito's "Falling." You can read it here. Be sure to also check out Uzumaki and Gyo while you're at it. I promise that you won't lose interest, but you may lose your lunch.
-SS&E