From the Shadows

The shrill scream, though not as loud as some of its predecessors, carried through the silence of the night, halting the forward advance of a pair of mares in the streets of the town.

"Was that Rainbow Dash?" asked Rarity, shocked by the possibility of the Pegasus actually displaying fear.

"It sounded like it," responded the princess, "We'd better get to her, fast."

The two began galloping in the direction of the scream but Twilight's concern was less for her friend and more for the inability to contain the prowling king. It seemed that wherever his trail lead, he would show up somewhere else, marking his new location with the screams of his victims' night terrors.

It took less than a couple of minutes for them to reach the earth below the cloud home. Looking up to its fluffy exterior, colored pale blue by the moon's rays.

"Rainbow!" yelled Rarity up towards the home, but she received no response.

"Rainbow, come out! What's wrong!"

Again, silence, only an echoing voice resounding through the night air.

"We need to get up there," said Twilight.

"Well, I can't," explained Rarity, gesturing to her lack of wings, "but you can."

"Oh," said the princess, shaking her head slightly, "Right."

She tensed her wings, and pumped downwards in a fury of unfurled lavender feathers in a way that gave no indication towards grace or experience.

"Be careful," called out Rarity as the alicorn ascended, reaching the cloud home's front door with great effort.

Twilight pushed her way inside, finally able to walk on the surface of clouds with her recent attainment of wings. She pushed into the living room; the door was left askew, as was the bedroom door at the top of the stairs.

"Rainbow?!" she yelled, and heard a slight rummaging on the floor above her in response.

She darted up the stairs, and pushed through the unlocked door into her friend's bedroom.

"Rainbow?!"

The Pegasus was sitting on her haunches in her bed, her sheets underneath her and her forelimbs wrapped around her knees. She was rocking back and forth, her eyes wide and red with tears flowing down her face. She did not sob or whimper; she breathed heavily, snorting as she gritted her teeth in an expression of anger, fear and intense shock.

She cantered to the bedside.

"Rainbow!"

The Pegasus did not even move, save for her continued swaying back and forth.

"Sombra?"

Her multi-colored mane swished slightly as her head bobbed up and down twice.

Twilight, as she'd done to Rarity, took the mare in her forelimbs, and cradled her head against her breast.

"It was only a dream," she said, trying to console the mare, but she knew it was useless; Sombra's nightmares were something more than just dreams.

"I know," said Dash, becoming a bit more like herself as she took in a very deep breath, but the tears still flowed.

Twilight held onto her while she came back to reality methodically. It took the better half of five minutes before either of them spoke again.

"Twilight," began Rainbow Dash, "do the others like me? Do they appreciate who I am?"

"Of course they do, Rainbow. They love you," she whispered.

"Do you?" responded the cyan mare, turning magenta eyes upwards to meet the face of the princess.

Twilight, shocked, blinked away a confused expression, prompted by the question Rainbow undoubtedly knew the answer to; something wasn't right with her.

"What did Sombra show you?"

Sniffing once, the Pegasus quickly blurted, "Nothing."

She got up out of the bed, and shook her head back and forth, stopping when the tears had stopped falling.

"Look, Rainbow, I know its hard, but..."

"He's been doing this to others, hasn't he?"

"Yes," said Twilight, glad to see that at least a part of Rainbow had come back.

"Then let's stop him from doing it to anypony else."

The Pegasus opened a drawer on her dresser, and pulled out a gilded amulet, a blue lightning bolt in its center, and clasped it around her neck. Her eyes were still red, and her cheeks remained moist, but most of her surefire confidence had returned, or at least appeared to have done so.

"Time to get some payback on that asshole."

****************

Pinkie Pie, as she always did when she wasn't out and about with friends, was standing behind the service counter in Sugar Cube Corner. She anxiously awaited a customer in the unusually empty bakery, and the unusually empty town at that, and though her wide smile never left her face, she drummed her hooves on the countertop impatiently in an ever-quickening rhythm. She simply waited; she'd adjust her chef's hat or whistle a bit to break the monotonous silence of the bakery, desperately hoping somepony would come in and at least say hello.

Then, suddenly, the door swung open, and the bell above the threshold chimed a joyful note.

"Welcome to Sugar Cube Corner! Can I interest you in a triple chocolate chip cupcake with sprinkles?!" she shouted, as she normally did, to the pony entering the shop, only she didn't receive the usual 'yes' she normally was answered with.

"No thank you. I'll just take some coffee; I need to wake up a bit."

It was a stallion's voice that had responded; low and a bit raspy with a definite accent, and it was anything but familiar. He was tall and he wore a shadowy hood that concealed his face, but his exposed hooves alluded to a dark obsidian hide.

"Are you sure?" she asked, "They're really yummy."

"I'm sure. I'm just tired, and some coffee would be nice."

She trotted to the back of the kitchen, and fired up the coffee machine, which had actually accumulated dust due to lack of use.

"How do you like your coffee?" she called back to the stallion in the dining area, who'd taken a seat at a table and was leaning forward on his elbows.

"Black," came the reply.

As she placed a porcelain mug under the nozzle of the coffee maker, she couldn't help but ask a pressing question.

"So, why are you so zonked?"

"Weren't you at the bonfire last night?" he responded, turning a concealed face in her direction.

"Bonfire?" she asked as she placed the mug within the stallion's reach, and stood at the table's side.

"Yeah, last night. Nearly the whole town was there; they set up a huge party out on the town's outskirts."

"I never heard anything about a bonfire."

"Were you not invited?" the stallion asked as he took the first sip of his coffee, sighing after he'd swallowed.

"Nopony told me anything," she said, her face tensing up as she lost her bright smile.

"Huh," he said, drinking again as a wisp of steam from the coffee faded into the air, "I wonder why. Don't you know anypony in town?"

"I know everypony in town!" she said, raising her tone.

The stallion shrugged and just stayed to his coffee, and refused to display emotion as his company did.

"Did anypony ask about me?"

"No," he said, "nopony said anything about a, umm..."

"Pinkie Pie," she said, a mixture of sorrow, envy and anger in her tone.

"Yeah, I didn't hear much about anypony named Pinkie Pie."

Pinkie's head lowered, and she sniffed once as she began to slink back towards the counter.

"Wait," the stallion mumbled from the table, and Pinkie's eye regained a slight glimmer as she turned around hopefully, "I think I remember somepony talking about a Pinkie...I'd guess that's you."

She zipped back to the tableside, eagerly awaiting justification for her absence to the party.

"She was a Pegasus; she had light blue fur and a short mane. She was talking to a group of four or so. She said something about how she liked how parties were more normal without you. I don't know if that means anything to you."

"Dashie said that?" Pinkie whispered, stepping away from the table as her jaw opened loosely in shock.

"I'm sorry, I never caught her name."

"Did she have lots of colors in her mane?"

"Yeah; looked like a rainbow."

She turned around and ambled to the back of the counter, her hair straightening as she leaned up against the granite countertop as her knees grew weak. Everything about her was immediately depressed, from her deep, heavy breathing to her exasperated speech.

"Why would she say something like that? I thought they all liked my parties. Why wouldn't they invite me. I thought they were my friends."

"Oh," mumbled the stallion to himself as he finished the coffee, and stood up, bringing the empty vessel to the front desk, "seems like you've got yourself a dilemma."

"Is that why they didn't invite me? Do they not want to be my friends anymore?"

She was more speaking to herself that the stallion; her head was lowered and her voice was low and stifled by her breathing.

"What do I do? Everything I've ever known was with them. If they don't want me around anymore..."

"Look," the stallion said, leaning up against the counter, "If you'd care for a word of advice..."

"What is it?"

"You see, most souls in this world are better off alone. Granted, an occasional drink or a companion for a lone night aren't bad things, but, friendship is something that brings pain. By nature, ponies will eventually hurt those they care about. That pain can be avoided in solitude."

He dropped a coin in the tip jar before he added, "You're better off without friends."

Something behind the mare's eyes snapped, and a glare replaced her sad expression, and she stalked out from behind the counter.

"Where are you going?" asked the stallion as she prowled by him.

"To get rid of my friends."

"Ah, you see, that is where you're wrong."

Pinkie pushed through the door as she turned back, saying, "Why not. You said I'm better off without them."

"Where you are wrong is where you rid yourself of them. You seek to make them leave you, more or less."

"Yeah, and isn't that what you just said?"

"Perhaps to a certain kind of mind, but in reality, it is you that will leave them."

Pinkie turned around; the world was an empty void around her. Nothing existed except for the stallion, who now circled around her as he spoke.

She heard a sudden gavel strike against wood, and the darkness around her shifted to a cell. Cold, small, alone, and monotonous grey, the only part of the cell that stood out being the white letters above the door; 'Canterlot Asylum'.

"You see," the hooded stallion said from her side, "this is where ponies like you end up. If you'd never had any friends, you'd have nothing to miss in here, but alas, you'll live the rest of your life knowing the definition of loneliness."

"If only you'd chosen to live without friends; you may have never known pain," he said as he finally pulled back the hood, revealing a toothy smile and a pair of glowing red eyes, "And perhaps, your friends would have never learned to fear those that call themselves 'friends'. You're a danger to them, my little insane friend."

Pinkie was horrified, and she fell to the floor as her legs simply gave out.

"Unfortunately, you cannot win in friendship. Either you, as a twisted mind and a capable body, hurt your friends, bringing pain, guilt and incarceration such as this upon yourself in the process, or they hurt you first, and you learn what an empty heart feels like."

Pinkie began to blank out as she neared her mind's capacity.

"Trust me," crooned the king, and the cell simply faded away.