Gemstone and Songbird

The only thing that could be heard in the room was the beeping of the ECG, and the soft sobs of everyone sitting around the bed. The sun was setting, and almost everypony was escorted from the room.

“I need to stay, I need to see this.” Scootaloo had argued. Twilight stood silently by her side, Rarity with her parents beside the hospital bed.

Scootaloo’s heart tightened as the beeping of the ECG slowed. It wouldn’t be long now.

Sweetie Belle had been considered officially brain-dead for twelve hours. The neurologist flown in from Canterlot had confirmed.

The respirator had been turned off. Sweetie Belle’s chest no longer rose and fell.

She was gone, and soon the last vestiges of life in her body would join her.

I won’t let her get away with this. I swear, Sweetie Belle. I swear it!

The lines on the ECG were getting weaker now. Scootaloo had seen it before. The attending nurse had turned off the alarm. Scootaloo watched those lines grow weaker, her heart fluttering any time there was a slightly stronger pulse. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe Sweetie Belle would come back.

Seconds passed without another pulse. Sweetie Belle’s heart gave one more push, then beat no more. The nurse turned off the monitor, and it was over.

Sweetie Belle’s life, was over.

Rage burned in Scootaloo’s heart. One of her best friends. Gone. She had her mother taken from her. She had her father effectively taken from her too. Now one of her best friends.

There was no one to blame when her mother died, but that was not the case here. There was somepony responsible. Somepony to blame.

Somepony to hate.

Scootaloo looked away from the bed. She could not bear it. That was when she noticed what was sitting next to her.

Scootaloo slipped out of the room while Twilight, Rarity and her parents were crying.

Scootaloo ran through the streets, the straw doll tucked beneath a wing.

She is going to pay!

The small filly lay on her opulent bed, crying. Crushing guilt weighed down on her. She could do this, she could. She got up from her bed, and and willed herself across the room.

Twilight turned, noticing Scootaloo was missing. Her heart sank for the small filly. She could understand the hurt the foal must have been going through. She moved to leave, to give Rarity and her parents some privacy, when she tripped.

Looking down at her feet, she found the offending object. A lavender saddlebag, a bright pink star in the middle, surrounded by five smaller white ones. Her saddlebag. The one she had left locked up at home with the-

Twilight raced out of the room, Rarity and her family watching her in shock.

The sky was bathed in a deep red of the sunset. It was always sunset here. An eternal sunset.

Scootaloo’s mind raced. She was going to do it. For Sweetie Belle. But Diamond Tiara had to know why. Scootaloo would see the look on her face as she was cast into Tartarus. She would relish that sight for the rest of her life.

Twilight concentrated the spell. She had quickly adapted Rarity’s gem finding spell to track Scootaloo, as she had once tracked her friend Rarity. She could feel a magical tension in the air, like the weight of some malevolent evil had descended upon Ponyville. If Twilight was right, it had.

Twilight put in an extra burst of speed, cursing that she couldn’t fly like Rainbow Dash, or the princesses. What would she have given for wings that minute? In her mind, anything.

Under the dying rays of eternal twilight, a white alicorn emerged from a hot spring.

“Ai?” the voice of an old mare behind her. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Grandmother.” Ai Enma stepped out of the hot spring.

Diamond Tiara and her father were walking down the main street of Ponyville. Filthy Rich had finally convinced his daughter to come out of her room, and was taking her for dinner at the cafe. If he knew one thing, his daughter loved to be spoilt.

He would buy her anything to bring her back from the depression she had been in.

Scootaloo came to a halt. She couldn’t believe her luck. Before her stood Diamond Tiara with a look of horror on her face. Filthy Rich stepped forward, in front of his daughter, when he saw the dangerous grin on the orange filly’s face.

“How nice of you to come back,” Scootaloo sneered.

“Excuse me,” Filthy Rich moved towards Scootaloo. “But leave my daughter alone.”

“Why? She’s a murderer.” Scootaloo turned to Diamond Tiara, a wild look in her eye. “Oh, but you didn’t know that yet, did you?”

Scootaloo laughed, as Diamond Tiara cowered, crying.

“Oh, got a guilty conscience now, do we? A little late for that, isn’t it?”

Twilight rounded the corner, spotting Scootaloo, and to Twilight’s horror: Diamond Tiara. She screamed out to Scootaloo.

“Leave my daughter alone!” Filthy Rich yelled at the mad filly before him. “Hasn’t my daughter suffered enough?”

“No,” Scootaloo grinned. “No, she hasn’t.”

Scootaloo pulled the straw doll out from under her wing. She could hear Twilight screaming behind her. She clamped her teeth down on the red string.

“Leave my friend alone,” sobbed a quiet voice. She pulled.

The filly laid back down on her bed, the straw doll gone. All that remained was the red string.

The street disappeared. The world was black. Scootaloo looked down at the straw doll. It was now white, and the string had gone.

“Why?” she asked, as she dropped it.

A deep voice echoed from the doll on the ground. “Somepony else has entered the contract.”

The doll disappeared, and an old pony stood there, wearing a grey fedora.

Scootaloo backed away from the pony. She had met him before.

“Wan?” Scootaloo asked, nervously.

“Wanyūdō,” the cyan pegasus behind her answered. The cutie mark on his flank, an eye, was open and watching her intently. Next to him stood the tall white doctor who had been watching over Sweetie Belle. Only half her face was covered in flesh, the other half a ghostly visage of a skull.

Scootaloo could feel a presence at her back, somewhere in the darkness. She turned to see the cold, emotionless red eyes of the white alicorn, her mane filled with the pattern of dancing fans.

O pitiful shadow bound in the darkness,

Looking down upon people, and causing them pain

A soul drowned in sinful karma...

Want to try dying this once?

The Alicorn spread her right wing. Scootaloo’s world faded into darkness.

Scootaloo awoke to the gentle sound of water lapping at the side of the boat. The air around was foggy, neither Celestia's sun nor Luna's moon could be seen. Above her, the white Alicorn steered the boat with her magic. Wanyudo sat next to the filly.

“Where am I?”

“You are going to Tartarus,” the old pony next to her answered.

“But what about my revenge? What about Sweetie Belle! It’s not fair!”

“Revenge is not justice.” The old pony nodded. “It is never fair.”

“I will ferry this vengeance to Tartarus.”

The grey filly walked slowly to school. Diamond Tiara was recounting to her the strange events that had happened the night before. Scootaloo had been there screaming at her, then just disappeared.

“One less blank-flank, right?” she chortled.

The grey filly smiled weakly, and looked down at her flank. A black encircled flame brand, where her cutie mark had once been. A silver spoon.

We will take revenge on your behalf