It All Started at Sugarcube Corner
"Pinkie! You were supposed to bring the cake!" Twilight shouted in frustration, pacing in circles.
"Well I forgot, alright?" Pinkie replied, shrinking back slightly. "I'll go and get one now; is that good enough?"
"You moron, Pinkie," Twilight sighed. "Hang on; I'll come with you. We need to get back to the barn quickly, so I'll teleport us there. We don't want to ruin the surprise for Applejack, after all."
"Okay. Thanks, Twilight!"
Twilight charged a bit of magic and expended it on warping space-time around Pinkie and herself. From the outside, it may have looked instant, but on the inside, it actually took about ten seconds.
"Here we are, Pinkie," said Twilight. "Let's hurry up and get that cake."
"Right!"
The two ponies hurried into Sugarcube Corner. As they approached the counter, Mr. Cake mirrored them from the opposite side of said counter.
"Hello, customers. Would you like a cake?" Mr. Cake asked with an oddly straight face.
"Isn't that why most ponies come here?" Twilight joked.
Mr. Cake remained utterly emotionless. "Yes. Is that why you're here?"
"Uhh..." Twilight droned awkwardly, turning to look at Pinkie, who was happily bouncing up and down without any real thought. "Sure."
"Very well. Here is your cake." Mr. Cake placed a large, heavily iced cake on the counter.
"Thanks. Umm, how much should that cost?" asked Twilight.
"It is free. Do not worry about the payment," Mr. Cake answered, showing no expression of generosity at all — or, in fact, any expression.
"Thank you so much! I'll just pick it up and—" Twilight started, trying to lift the cake up from the table.
It wouldn't budge.
"Excuse me; why isn't the cake—"
A small, grey pipe suddenly protruded from the side of the cake, pointing in Twilight's direction.
"What is that?" Twilight asked. She took a closer look, her head orbiting mere inches from the mysterious object.
Twilight's curiosity suddenly piqued Pinkie's interest. "Ooh, I don't know."
"Twilight, I would advise you to stand still. You too, Pinkie."
"Okay..."
Another pipe appeared from a separate part of the cake, pointing at Pinkie's head.
"Oh, now there's another one. What is it?" Pinkie said, zooming in on the thing. "It's not very pret—"
BANG! BANG!
The wall received a new coat of red.
"Two targets down."
* * *
"Rarity, calm down!" pleaded Rainbow Dash. "Ponies have been late to parties before! This isn't a disaster!"
"But they've been gone for an hour!" Rarity countered. "Who leaves for an hour to buy a cake?"
"Like I said, calm down! Worrying about them isn't going to achieve anything! I'm sure Applejack will understand anyway."
Rarity scrunched her face up in anger. "How can you be so calm about this?! Two of our friends have just disappeared mysteriously and you're saying nothing is wrong?! Besides, what would Applejack know? She's just a stu—"
*creak*
A crack of bright light at the door of the massive barn became visible, letting the ponies inside know that somepony was arriving.
Rarity quickly thought of a plan. "Just say 'surprise!' when they come in. It could be Applejack."
The barn door slowly opened further, revealing a silhoutte. Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash still couldn't tell who it was, but the most likely answer was Applejack.
"SURPRISE!" the three yelled in unison as Fluttershy turned on the lights. Applejack jumped back a couple of feet, losing her breath temporarily.
"Whoa there! You startled me!" she said. "Heh heh. So this party's for me, is it?"
The three ponies exhaled together in relief. "Phew! I'm glad we didn't miss that..." noted Rarity.
"Sure is," notified Fluttershy, who fluttered down for a landing.
"So... where are Twilight and Pinkie? Gettin' ready to surprise me again? That ain't gonna work on me twice, you know!" She twisted her neck to various angles, looking at every conceivable place in the barn.
"No, they're not here," said Rainbow Dash. "Don't worry, though; they'll show up with the cake."
"Aww, that's a shame. Well I hope they show up soon; this wouldn't be much of a party without all of us!" Applejack said, travelling over to the food table.
* * *
Six hours later...
Applejack and her friends had been sitting around for a couple of hours. They had all become worried after several more hours of ignorance of Twilight and Pinkie's situation. Fluttershy had turned the light off, probably to create some sort of dark atmosphere. Applejack was right. It wasn't much of a party.
"Where are they? How could they be missin' for so long?" queried Applejack.
"Maybe Spike knows Twilight's whereabouts," suggested Fluttershy. "Should we just go to the library and ask him?"
"I think so," agreed Rarity. "They could both be in danger, so we definitely need to find them. Also, it probably isn't a good idea to go to Sugarcube Corner, because that is where the danger could be."
"That settles it. I'll go straight to the library now!" claimed Rainbow Dash. "Make sure you catch up soon!"
As Rainbow tried to make her exit, Rarity grabbed her tail in her mouth, as if it was some sort of unicorn bait. "Stop!"
Rainbow let out a sigh of frustration, still trying to pull away. "Why? We need to—"
"—stick together!" finished Rarity. "We don't know what happened to them, if something happened to them. We need to make sure that we are safe. Twilight and Pinkie wouldn't want us getting hurt carelessly, would they?"
Rainbow Dash physically calmed down, but the look of paranoia on her face betrayed her true feelings. "Well, okay then. B-but, we still have to go quickly, right? Come on!"
"Yes! Calm down, Rainbow Dash! If you can't think clearly, you could get hurt!"
Rainbow Dash was so nervous, she felt like her head was going to explode.
Then it did.
Fragments of combined skull, flesh and the dead pegasus' whimsically colourful rainbow mane splattered the interior walls of the large building. As Rainbow's decapitated corpse collapsed to the ground, three shocked pairs of eyes saw another, smoking, silhouette at the enormous barn door. Their eyes readjusted to the dark room, making the assailant more visible every second.
"Three targets down," said Mr. Cake, who stood firmly at the exit. Two large, smoking, glowing metal pipes attached to his side melted into his body as the red glow in his eyes faded away.
Fluttershy and Applejack were catatonic, but Rarity snapped them out of it with a blood-curdling scream.
"RAINBOW!"
They all quickly came to the same logical conclusion: Run straight for the exit. Mr. Cake's response time was slow due to the massive energy output moments prior, so two of them managed to escape. Fluttershy, however, wasn't so lucky. As she tried to circumvent the dangerous obstruction, Mr. Cake stuck his front left hoof out to the side. At the moment she flew past, a plate opened at the bottom of his hoof. Three small barrels popped out, began rotating rapidly and fired a barrage of blood-lusting bullets through Fluttershy's critically important wings, causing her to hurtle directly towards the wall.
*CRASH*
The trauma had disabled Fluttershy's movement completely, and all she could do was watch as that brute approached her.
"Oh no! Fluttershy!" screamed Rarity.
"R-r-r—"
"Fluttershy, hurry and get up! FLUTTERSHY!"
"I-I cant! J-j-just get away!"
"No, Fluttershy—"
Applejack bucked Rarity in the side. "What are you doing, Rarity? Do you wanna die too?!"
"But, Fluttershy!" Rarity protested. Applejack knocked her out with a buck.
Mr. Cake finally reached the poor pegasus and brought his hoof up to her head. Fluttershy swiftly managed to shove one of her rear hooves into one of Mr. Cake's legs, causing him to lose balance and collapse to the ground. She tried to crawl away, but found that she couldn't move.
She was stuck under Mr. Cake. "NOOOOOO!" He brought his hoof up, accelerated the gun's motor and fired a multitude of steel bearings into her pretty face.
"Four targets down." Mr. Cake walked through the exit door and looked around. He couldn't see the other two anywhere. He fired a small metal ball into the center of the building. "Mass detonation in three... two... one..."
BOOOOOM!
Massive amounts of dust exploded from between the planks of wood of which the barn was built, as well as the barn door, as it became indistinguishable from the rest of the entropy. When the dust settled, Mr. Cake scanned the area again.
The other two were long gone. "Recalculating..."
* * *
The only choice Applejack had, as to the direction in which Rarity and herself would travel, was Ponyville. Once they had arrived, Applejack's jaw slowly became more and more agape in horror. Ponyville had never looked anything like this before. The streets were absolutely littered with bodies. Every building was covered with blood spatters and bits of gore. Some had incomplete messages that those ponies had written with their own blood. "Leave don't; now die..."
Applejack fell to the ground, letting Rarity fall too. Rarity hit the ground, causing herself to regain consciousness.
"Fluttershy, n—"
"Rarity, quiet!"
Rarity shut her mouth and looked around herself. She shut her eyes tightly, vomited right onto Applejack's face, then reopened her eyes. "Ew, Applejack! Why did you put vomit all over your face?!"
"That was you, ya blind mare!"
"No, it wasn't. I would never... vomit. It must have been you!"
"Ugh. Rarity, we need to get to the library, but I don't think we're gonna be able to talk to Spike."
"Hmm... I agree." Rarity stared at the ground despondently. "Of all the terrible things that could happen, this is THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!"
"Alright, no need to make the camera zoom in on your face like that."
"I'm sorry, Applejack," Rarity replied sincerely. "Looks like we're here."
The library looked as it always had. Bright green leaves; a stylised front door; clean windows. Nothing at all looked wrong about it. Applejack pushed the door open and called out for Spike. There was no answer. Rarity switched on the light and found out why.
In the middle of the room, a small purple reptilian body had been brutally smashed into the oak floor.
Rarity covered her mouth with a hoof. "Oh, Spike..."
Suddenly, there was a huge explosion upstairs, and a wave of heat.
"Targets detected," said a voice originating from the upper floor. Mr. Cake appeared at the top of the stairs, walking down to meet them.
"Mr... Cake..." Rarity breathed.
His eyes went from black to bright glowing red again. "Mission completion in three..."
"No!" Rarity yelled.
"... two..."
"Stop it!"
"...one..."
"Why are you hurting us?!" shouted Applejack.
"..."
"You... stopped?" she asked.
"...one..."
"Phew!" Rarity somewhat regained her composure. "Why did you stop? Why are you doing this?"
"Protect... protect..."
"Protect? Protect whom?"
"Protect..."
"Whom is to be protected? All you are doing is killing ponies! That's not protecting!"
"Protect... children..."
"The children?"
"Pound and Pumpkin. They were to be protected..."
Applejack cut in. "Protected? But... you've already protected them for so long! Why start killin' ponies left an' right to achieve exactly what you've been achieving for the last year?"
"I... Mr. Cake... was sick..."
Rarity reentered the discussion. "Sick? Mr. Cake... Is he not you?"
"Mr. Cake suffered from an illness, fifteen years ago..."
"Fifteen? Then why are you here now?"
"To... protect the children... Mr. Cake died in his sleep... I was designed to take his role... Sent back from the future..."
"The... future?" Rarity sharply inhaled and looked at Applejack, who was, in turn, looking back at her with a shocked expression.
"What future? You've destroyed everything! There ain't gonna be no future!" Applejack asked.
"Exactly... The future was destroyed... I was sent back to stop it... To prevent the apocalypse... To protect the children... To prevent their deaths..."
"Their deaths?" asked Rarity. "They died?"
"They died... Mrs. Cake was distraught... She had her father work on a device which could give them a chance to have a full life... That device was me... Targets... detected..."
Rarity noticed that his eyes had become bright red again. "Please... don't do this..."
"Three..."
"Please don't..."
"...two..."
"Please..." Applejack grabbed Rarity from the side.
"...one..."
"...please..." was Rarity's last word as Applejack took her head in for a passionate final kiss.
"Goodbye, Rares," said Applejack, putting on a big, friendly smile.
BANG! BANG!
* * *
At Sugarcube corner, an obliterated mare's corpse and two smaller piles of goo lay on the floor. Mrs. Cake and the children. Mr. Cake stood above them, his eyes fading from red to black.
"Mission... failure..."
He emitted a steel rose from his side and placed it in the middle of the trio.
"Future... destroyed..."
* * *
Mr. Cake stood at the edge of an island in the Arctic Circle. His HUD showed various signs of technical damage; letters were becoming blurred and jumping around.
"Everything is gone..."
A single tear rolled down his cheek.
"Self-destruct sequence initiated..."
The cyborg threw his body into the vast, cold ocean. Immediately, he began to sink. The density of the metal was too high for him to swim.
"Three..."
The letters on his HUD faded...
"...two..."
His vision crackled and went dark...
"...one..."
Finally, all display components became nonfuctional, rendering his eyes useless.
"Goodbye, children."
Overhead, a commercial airship drifted. The passengers all heard a sharp, deep rumble coming from below, startling them.
"No need to panic, anypony! This is just a slight bit o' turbulence. It'll pass in a minute..." said the captain. The ponies returned to going about their own business. Except for one.
He walked to the window and looked down. "Turbulence. Ha! That was no turbulence," he said to himself, turning back around to face the other passengers. "This is turbulence!"
His eyes flashed red. Three barrels emerged from his open mouth, then began spinning.
The End...?
