Shattered Worlds: The Cataclysm

by Puppeteer

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 32596

In only a few short weeks, all of ponyville has become engulfed in chaos, and much larger horrors are to follow. We begin in the aftermatth of a ruined society. This story explores the secrets of the past, and follows a path to a shrouded future.

One grounding law of the universe is that light can not exist without darkness to be cast aside. Chaos can not exist without order to be revoked. Evil can not take root without purity to be corrupted. The world is constantly in a state of balance, but what happens when the scales are tipped too far in one direction? In a universe where order and chaos; light and dark; good and evil are beings incarnate, this is not a question which is easily answered.

For 1,000 years there has been complete order, but that is all about to change. The years of utopian harmony and order have weakened the spirit of pony-kind. Without true evil to be revoked and dispelled, innocence and purity have given way to naivety where corruption long since forgotten has taken root like never before; invisible and cancerous. Beneath the present facade, political groups are vying for control, villains plot schemes of anarchy, a group of power-hungry scientists commit moral atrocities in preparation for the coming horrors, and somewhere in Ponyiville a deranged sadist has finally pulled the last straw. In an instant everything shatters, leaving behind only the fragments of a once beautiful world.

Published 2012-07-30 10:04:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-13 23:18:58 UTC

Introduction

Author's Note

Please note that this fanfiction is based off of a few others.
Cupcakes
Rainbow Factory
Rocket to insanity (with alternate ending)
Your reading experience may be enhanced by reading this material first, but it is definitely not essential. (Especially if you hate gorefics for the sake of gorefics)
If you don't want to read them let me give plot summaries really quick. (Though you will probably gather as much from the story itself.)
Cupcakes - Pinkie Pie kills a whole bunch of ponies in her basement, including Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Factory - Rainbows are made from liquid pony souls ground up from ponies that fail the flight test. Rainbow Dash leads this for some reason.
Rocket to insanity - Rainbow Dash dreams of Pinkie Pie murdering her in her basement like in cupcakes, goes completely insane and ironically stabs pinkie to death. (Or not completely to death and gets her to a hospital in the alternate ending.)
Thanks for listening to me ramble, and enjoy the story. Thanks so much for reading. It means a lot to me.

Introduction

It was a fairly normal day in Cloudsdale, and everything was just the way that it was supposed to be. The clouds were light and puffy, the air was cold and crisp with altitude, and the Pegasi went about their business with the same mechanical indifference that had become the norm for the industrial city in the sky. Despite all this, something seemed distinctly off. An ominous mood had drifted over the ponies of Cloudsdale. Its affect was thick and tangible, yet invisible to the naked eye. It would be difficult to find a specific reason for the off-putting ambience, but it was most definitely there; that odd and untraceable feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is wrong.

On this particular day, a few may have noticed a single stallion that stood out from those around him. He had white fur, a blue Weather Factory uniform, and a short black mane which was neatly combed to the side. He was rather well groomed for a Weather Factory worker, but other than that he didn't have any major traits that should have made him stand out as he did. The details that really made him stand out were the sly grin on his face and his bright blue eyes. The eyes were a bright, beautiful shade of blue laced with specks of white. They practically glowed in both a deceptive and captivating manner. His demeanor contrasted with the surrounding atmosphere in such a way that it was almost unsettling; as if he were either oblivious or completely indifferent to the world around him.

He was completely focused on the weather factory which loomed up before him, and he payed little mind to anypony around him. He trotted through the main arch of the Weather Factory which served as an entrance to the facility and continued through a small door in the back which was accessible only to staff of the Rainbow Factory. After fiddling with a key in his mouth and ascending a tediously slow elevator, he finally reached his destination and the elevator doors slid open to reveal a unicorn who was already awaiting his arrival in the steel corridor of the Rainbow Factory. She was also white, but with a long messy purple mane. Her name was Dr. Blank.

‘’Hello Chrome’’, said Dr. Blank.

‘’I have anxiously awaited your arrival and report, although I still don’t see why you couldn’t simply send somepony lower down in the ranking system to deal with simple reconnaissance. After all, it would be anarchy here if we lost you as well as Rainbow Dash.’’

‘’No’’, Chrome responded. ’’This was a very important task. It was only fitting that I attended to it personally. Besides, I had to see Ponyville myself, what with all the recent... developments. I'm not sure I would have believed the extent of the damage had I not seen it with my own eyes.’’

‘’Very well. So have you learned the whereabouts of our leader, Rainbow Dash?’’ Chrome smiled politely.

‘’I have.’’

‘’Have you also learned about the madness that has recently spread throughout Ponyville?’’, she asked.

‘’I have done this also’’, Chrome responded again. ‘’But as events have decided to align themselves, that will have to come later in my report.’’

Several ponies had gathered about to hear what Chrome had to say, by this point.

‘’Mares and gentlecolts!’’ Chrome began his speech in an eccentric tone.

"As you all know, four days ago, I, Chrome, departed on a very important information retrieval mission regarding our previously missing commander, Rainbow Dash, here at the Rainbow Factory. As you all know, she failed to check in with command precisely six days before today."

Dr. Blank nodded.

"I am happy to inform you that the whereabouts of Rainbow Dash have been confirmed, along with the reasons behind the madness that has taken Ponyville recently." Chrome smiled proudly.

"I reviewed the tapes from our hidden security cameras placed in Ponyville, and uncovered several interesting tidbits of information. Although I would like to get straight to Rainbow Dash, there are several things that must be explained first." Chrome glanced about the small group of ponies.

"You in the back." Chrome said.

"Document this for later review." A white unicorn in the back reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small notebook to write down what Chrome said, and with that, Chrome began his report.

"This whole incident begins roughly three weeks ago. At that time ponies began to rapidly disappear, seemingly at random. The disappearances occurred at a steady rate, which is how we deduced that the were intentional. It did not seem important enough to look into at the time so we disregarded it. I have come to the knowledge recently, that these disappearances were caused mainly, if not entirely, by a pony with the full birth name of Pinkamena Diane Pie. She abducted these ponies, tortured them in horrific ways and baked their blood and organs into cupcakes. This particular pony would have been declared criminally insane at the time, but so much has changed over the past few weeks that I seriously doubt it really matters anymore. What does matter is that over the years, Rainbow Dash was exposed to large amounts of liquid Rainbow souls from our experiments here, which caused her to gain the ability to bond souls with another pony temporarily."

"Wait" Dr Blank interrupted.

"Bond souls? We have theorized about the idea, but never successfully achieved this state with any of our specimens. Could you please go into more detail about the effects she experienced?" Chrome smiled politely and began to elaborate.

"Of course. The bonding between Rainbow Dash’s soul, and another pony’s soul only happened when she was was in a state of unconsciousness and was limited to ponies that she interacted with frequently. The fragments of souls she absorbed over the years somehow were able to create a temporary link to the soul of another pony. In this case Pinkamena Diane Pie, or as she was more commonly referred to, Pinkie Pie. As you may have guessed, bonding souls with such a pony in a dream-state would not be a very pleasant experience. In fact, they were less dreams than they were nightmares. There is no way to ever know exactly what Dash saw during the time that their souls were bonded, but I do know that they made her very paranoid and unstable. Eventually, in a bakery on Sugarcube Corner, the fear and pressure got to her and she stabbed Pinkamena down in cold blood with a kitchen knife. Unfortunately, at the time, Rainbow Dash did not understand that her nightmares were actually a twisted vision of reality and because of this she was unable to finish her friend off. Instead, she alerted others to the injury and Pinkamena was able to survive. Afterwards, she pretended to have no recollection of being stabbed, and everypony assumed that she had accidentally injured herself. Everything seemed to return to normal but Pinkamena was secretly planning her revenge. She wanted to make Rainbow Dash feel the same pain that she had in the method she was most familiar with. I am sorry to say that she was successful. The next day she was able to successfully drug, abduct and torture Rainbow Dash in a hidden basement beneath Sugarcube Corner. Nopony will ever know exactly what happened during that period of time, but I can tell you that afterwards, Pinkamena stitched the lifeless body of her latest victim back together for her own entertainment."

The pony in the back stopped writing, and Dr. Blank grimaced, and looked down at her hooves.

"What a terrible way to die." she whispered to nopony in particular.

"Being forced to live out your worst nightmare."

"Yes, yes of course.’’ Chrome replied nonchalantly. ‘’But really that was just the beginning! Shortly after that, using a loan from a friend who happened to be a fairly successful fashion designer, Pinkamena Diane Pie was able to open a small factory on the hillside above Ponyville to produce, and sell cupcakes. Of course, she would use the organs that she had been harvesting over the years in all of the cupcakes produced." Chrome paused to look directly at Dr. Blank.

"Dr, Blank, can you recall the recent tests on pony blood?"

"Why yes I can." Dr Blank stated proudly.

"Test results clearly indicate that the consuming even a small amount of anypony else’s blood, can severely affect the consumer’s sanity."

"Good. You were paying attention. Now do you also remember the main ingredient in the cupcakes from the factory?"

"Good lord of harmony." Blank again whispered to nopony in particular.

"If even one of these cupcakes were eaten, they could easily drive the consumer to insanity."

"Of course." Chrome responded evenly.

"But that’s still not the main problem. The cupcake incident itself could have been easily contained. The real problem is the exhaust from the factory. When the cupcakes are put into the main furnace in the center of the factory, the blood from the organs inside evaporates, and the cells and plasma become mixed in with the steam and exhaust fumes of the factory. Because of the factory’s location, this gas flowed directly into Ponyville." This aroused several murmurs from the crowd of ponies, as they realized what that implied.

"I have nicknamed this gas form of pony blood insanity vapor, due to it’s particular effect on ponies. After the gas began to flow into Ponyville, it’s effects were immediately prevalent. At first the only notable piece of information was strange behavior, but it only took 26 hours for the murders to start. Ponies were being murdered in broad daylight only about twelve days ago. Over the past week, things have been completely out of control. The ponies taken by insanity began to organize themselves, and formed an organisation, who for some reason called themselves Cyv, led by the infamous Pinkamena Diane Pie. They went on a bloody rampage through the town, slaughtering any survivors they came across."

Dr Blank took a step forward.

"How could this have happened? Wouldn't there be precautions against a disaster of this magnitude?"

"Remember your rank Miss Blank. Try not to speak out of turn from now on." Chrome exclaimed suddenly. "Nopony could have predicted something like this. It all happened so fast that even we could not have prevented it. Besides, there is a silver lining. Not all of the survivors were wiped out. A pony by the name of Twilight Sparkle was somehow able to notice the harmful changes to the air, and took action against it. She supplied herself, and as many ponies as she could gather with some type of makeshift gas-masks and rebreathers. Over the past week they have built a massive dome fortress and secured the area around it with traps. They have grown in numbers immensely, and have a complete armory at their disposal. I was not able to get inside the dome, but I do know that the inhabitants have taken to calling themselves the Sisterhood, and could potentially be a threat. As of now they are not a problem." Dr Blank thought for a moment.

"’Shouldn’t we try to negotiate with them before deciding anything?" She asked.

"Perhaps, but there are more pressing matters currently at hand. After Diane finished stitching Rainbow Dash’s corpse back together, I was able to retrieve it and had it shipped back here to the factory." This aroused several nervous murmurs from the crowd of ponies.

"Why in Celestia's name would you do something like that?" Dr Blank asked a bit too loudly.

"Remember not to speak out of turn." Chrome stated intimidatingly while glaring daggers at Dr Blank. He soon directed his attention back at the crowd.

"You may be wondering what relevance this has. To answer your questions, I will remind you all of another past research project. According to the record, if an object which was once animate but long since dead were to be submerged in liquid pony souls for an extended period of time it would slowly achieve a state or reanimation and regain sentience." Chrome grinned as Dr blank realized what he was implying.

"But Chrome!" She yelled, obviously startled. "With all due respect, we only tested that on small forest animals, and even then their behavior was aggressive and erratic! I’m sure that we would all love to have our leader back, but if you try this there is no telling how it could end!" Chrome's left eye twitched. Blank had noticed that he was acting strangely, but she didn't expect him to lose his cool so easily.

"In case you have forgotten, Miss Blank, I was second in command to Rainbow Dash prior to her disappearance. I am in charge here! I get to decide what we do and what we don't! Not you, Dr Blank; I do. So if you would be so kind as to shut up and let me talk, I would be very much obliged."

Dr Blank was shocked by Chrome’s sudden outburst, and so there was a long moment of silence while Chrome recomposed himself.

"Please Chrome..." Dr Blank spoke quietly, but with determination. "I don’t want to upset you, but to try something like this without the proper knowledge beforehand...it’s..it’s..."

"It’s what exactly? Or do you just plan to sit there stuttering?" Chrome said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes.

"It’s insane!" Dr Blank yelled out, stamping her hoof to emphasize her point. "You went to Ponyville unprotected! you have clearly been effected by your so called Insanity Vapor. You are acting insane.''

"Well..’’ Chrome replied grinning slowly. ‘’I guess that you could say insanity is in the air today. And I mean that very literally."

"Chrome." Dr Blank said calmly despite the seriousness of the situation.

"I am afraid that I must ask you to relinquish you’re command immediately. You are in an unstable state of mind and are therefore unfit to command this unit." Chrome just grinned.

"Excuse me guards, would you be so kind as to dispose of this riffraff? I am growing tired of listening to her ramble on."

Suddenly two muscular colts dressed in black suits and masks stepped out of the crowd of ponies behind Dr. Blank and grabbed her from behind.

"What?", she exclaimed. ‘’You can’t do this! I am only following standard protocol!!’’

"Protocol can be overridden by the commanding officer. Go throw her into the machine or something." The guards began to drag Dr Blank down the hallway to the left.

"I'll see you in hell, Chrome!"

"Can’t wait!" he yelled back. ‘’Now somepony prepare me a large vat of liquid rainbows in section C12. We have a friend to make.’’

Chapter 1 - Sisterhood

Twilight walked down the long twisting roads of Ponyville, wearing a rebreather style gas-mask, and brandishing a small knife with Sisterhood inscriptions along it’s blade, and a strange metallic, cylindrical device strapped to her side, next to her saddlebags. Just by looking at her you could tell that she was worn down, and battle hardened. There were dark bags under her slightly red, irritated eyes, and her petty coat and mane were dirty, ragged, and stained with dirt and traces of dried blood. Everything was like a daze to her as she walked down the road, and thought about how different everything was now. Over the past week or so, her entire world had been flipped upside down. The simple, pleasant world from before seemed more like a fading dream than anything else. She could barely even picture it anymore. Twilight only wished that more of her friends could be with her. Rainbow Dash and Rarity were among the first to go missing, and Fluttershy and Applejack had been taken by the madness, although they weren't all gone.

Fluttershy ran away to live in the forest. She was completely crazy, but still harmless. Mostly she just babbled about how the trees were talking to her, and some nonsense like that. Similarly, Applejack and the rest of the apple family holed up in the barn. They were prepared to fight to the bitter end and eventually scared the Cyv off, but their walls couldn’t protect them from the vapor. At least they had enough sanity to side with the Sisterhood instead of the Cyv. From there the Apple family barn turned into more of an apple family slaughterhouse. They would go out at night, capture any Cyv that they found wandering around, and drag them back to the barn. Nopony knew what they did to them, but every once in awhile, Twilight would be awoken by screams echoing through the night. Despite all this she still felt like Applejack was her closest friend. No matter what, Applejack still seemed to have her empathetic caring personality.

Pinkie Pie though, or Pinkamena as she was referring to herself of late; she was the worst. Twilight felt the stabbing pain of betrayal just thinking of her. She was the one who caused this whole mess in the first place, utterly betraying and most likely killing at least one of her friends. She had tortured and murdered so many innocent ponies. To Twilight, there could be no better definition of evil than the name Pinkamena Diane Pie. Honestly she was the worst part of all of this. If it wasn't for Pinkamena, Twilight would be able to move on, to put blame on other ponies, to distance herself from the issue. Pinkamena though; she made the issue at hand seem so close. Twilight had been friends with her for Celestia knows how long, and now she was at the heart of the living hell they were trapped in. Every time Twilight thought about it, she felt sickened. Why was everything so wrong? What had anypony done to deserve this reality?

Suddenly, Twilight heard hoof-steps from behind her, and was snapped out of her train of thought. She whirled around and saw three bloodthirsty Cyv behind her. They were no older than fillies, but she didn’t let that fool her. Most Cyv had razor sharp teeth, seemingly filed down to sharp points whichTwilight now had three sets of grinning at her. She knew that despite their age, they would not hesitate to kill her. She levitated the strange metallic cylinder from her side. It was a device that fired small metal projectiles using a combination of Petroleum jelly, Nitroglycerin, and Collodion. Fairly new technology but not completely reliable. She fired a warning round at the Cyv's hooves, in hopes that they would simply run away. No such luck. This was unfortunate considering that the device could only fire three rounds before being reloaded.

Well time for plan B. Twilight slowly backed away, trying to look scared and helpless and succeeding all too easily. The Cyv slowly advanced, matching her pace. There were three of them. One orange and purple, one black and white, and one pure orange. They were confident. They thought that they had her, but they were only walking into their own deaths. The one in front looked down at the barbed wire net that they had just stepped into the middle of and her eyes widened. She began to turn back but it was too late to warn her friends, or even save herself for that matter. Some invisible tripwire was activated, and the net snapped around all three of them and hoisted them up, holding them in mid-air by a sturdy cord attached the building above. The orange one with the purple mane lay still gritting her teeth, the black and white one was pierced through the throat, and the last one was whimpering, and twitching violently. That, of course, would only speed up the process of bleeding out. Twilight turned away from the gory sight behind her, and broke into a quickened trot toward the Sisterhood, Putting the weapon back next to her saddlebag, and taking a moment of silence for the three who had just been sent to their deaths. Even if they were Cyv, they were still just fillies. It was sad what the world was coming to.

Soon twilight began to approach the Sisterhood’s base of operations, the Dome City. Dome city was the last shred of civilization standing in ponyville. It was a massive dome structure, constructed of just about any type of scrap material you could imagine. Parts of it were polished, and metallic, while others were just wooden framework covered in cloth. Although the grand scheme of colors decorating Dome city was very wide, overall, it took up a dark, worn shade of tan. What was really impressive about the city, though, was its sheer size. It was about 100 yards in diameter, and at least 30 yards tall. Most would think that the construction of such a city in such a short time would be impossible, and indeed, it would have been impossible without the use of magic, and the orderly instruction of Sir Forte: the commander of the Sisterhood. You’d be surprised at what a handful of desperate, magic-wielding ponies can accomplish, with the right instruction and motivation. Twilight gazed up at the several small tears and holes in the dome, seemingly at random. In reality, most of them were intentional, and had catwalks leading up to them for ponies using long ranged weapons, or ''guns'', as they had been nicknamed. Even if one of the Cyv was able to avoid all of the traps, and get close to the city, they would be ''gunned'' down within seconds. Really, under the circumstances, it was better than anypony could have hoped for. She trotted up to the main gate, which was covered by a large metal slab. As she approached the entrance, a small rectangular piece of metal slid out of place, to reveal the eyes of a pony on the other side.

‘’Hey twilight.’’ said a voice on the other side of the metal.

‘’Back from your scouting mission, I see. Well, I’ll let you right on in, once you give me a quick ID check.''

Twilight stated her name, and held up her Sisterhood knife for identification. Almost immediately, the gate slid upward a few feet, and she sheathed her knife, and slipped underneath. Inside of Dome City, there was no actual sunlight, but it was moderately lit by several large fire pits placed throughout the city, which were fueled by magic, and just about any flammable material available. There was a stairway leading up to the long-range-gunners (LRG for short.) on the left, and stairs on the right leading down to the main city. The city itself, was made up of numerous buildings of either two, or three stories. They weren’t constructed with any particular order, material, or design in mind, so the city was very interesting to look at. The buildings were mostly a cement colored grey, with splotches of brown here and there, and they all had very sharp, odd angles to them. some were connected by overhangs, walkways, and bridges of various lengths. The city was lit by a series of fire pits fueled by magic and just about any mildly flammable material available, which cast flickering shadows over the buildings. The city as a whole was a maze of jagged, twisting streets and alleyways.

Finished gazing upon the city, Twilight turned to the left and trotted towards a small, rough, chiseled out room, where Sisterhood records were kept. She cleared her throat to attract the attention of the scholarly old grey colt who operated as the Sisterhood scribe, and almost seemed to live in the place.

‘’Ah, hello Miss Sparkle. I wasn’t expecting you back for about 15 minutes. Did anything go wrong?’’

‘’Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a few Cyv who wandered a bit too close to the Sisterhood.’’

‘’Did you happen to use any ammunition?’’

‘’Only one shot. Also, trap #47 needs to be reset.''

‘’Of course Miss Sparkle. I will take care of it for you.’’ Twilight deposited her rebreather on the counter since the air inside of Dome City was filtered. The grey scribe proceeded to scribble down a quick note on a piece of parchment, and waved Twilight on her way. She then telekinetically pulled a small diary out of her saddlebag, turned to the back, and added three more marks to the four that were already present. She solemnly slipped the diary back into her saddlebag, and began walking down towards the city. In these dark times you had to focus on the good rather than the bad, she told herself, and indeed, the Sisterhood was doing increasingly well lately. Casualties were low, and the traps were doing their job well. All threat of starvation had died of when it was discovered that well cooked pony flesh was safe to eat, and there was no shortage of that. She still had a couple of her friends left in some shape or form, and she, herself, was still alive.

Twilight paused when she heard a voice coming from an alley to her right.

''Alright'' it said, Obviously female in tone.

''We are all all in agreement then. We make our move the day after tomorrow?''

''Yea!'' spoke a more masculine voice.

''The slaughterhouse has to go. They're unclean. Disgusting, horrible creatures from the pits of Tartarus. Heck, they're just as bad as those Cyv ponies. How can we think of ourselves as better than them, when we side with ponies who're just as bad?'' Twilight ducked behind the edge of the alley to keep herself hidden. She couldn't believe her ears. An uprising against the apple family? They had enough problems to deal with already. Rebellion was the last thing they needed.

''We make our move at midday, when they're least active. We'll tell the others at the meeting in the storage room. It's at 3:00, so we don't have all that much time to spare.'' 3:00, thought Twilight. She checked the rusty old watch strapped around her left hoof. It was two forty seven. What to do, what to do? If these rebels made an assault on the apple family, the outcome would be disastrous. They had enough problems as it was. The last thing they needed was to attack their only allies in this whole mess, not to mention that it would put Applejack in serious danger.

''Wait.'' She thought.

''If anypony can resolve this issue, it would be Sir Forte. He personally oversees everything that goes on in the Sisterhood. I'll go to the Citadel in the center of the city and warn him of the threat. Even if council wasn't being held right now, he practically lives in the place!'' The council met in the Citadel daily to make important decisions in the center of the city.

Twilight risked peeking around the corner to see just exactly who she was dealing with. There were five ponies in the alley, all of which were wearing green metal helmets with red stars on them.

''Hey!'' Yelled the pony nearest to her.

''Somepony's been eavesdroppin'! Get her!''

Twilight pulled the gun from her side, and turned to run, firing the remaining two shots in the clip over her shoulder. Judging from the screams behind her, she had hit one of them in the leg. She ran into the adjacent alley, and rounded the corner, just as the wall behind her exploded with gunfire and rubble.

''Radio the others!'' Twilight heard from a ways behind her.

''The purple one's gonna make a break for the Citadel! We have to stop her before she gets there!''

''Just my luck.'' Twilight muttered to herself.

''Just when I thought the day's hardships were over with I have to deal with a bucking rebellion!'' Twilight turned another corner and ducked behind a stack of cardboard boxes, which promptly decided to topple over on her. Not ten seconds later, frantic hoofsteps clattered past, and disappeared. Twilight waited for as long as she could afford to, and jumped out of her hiding place. Not so much as stalling to see if any of them were still around to spot her, she bolted down the main road towards the central district. Looking ahead, she spotted one of the rebels scanning the road for her. She took a sharp left into yet another alley. From here, she slowed her pace to a trot. This alley let out into the central district, which was a large, circular area with the Citadel at it's center. It was clear of buildings, and had three large fire pits to light it. Day, or night, the area was always bustling with activity. Twilight replaced the old rectangular clip from the side of her gun with a new one from her saddle bag, and put it back at her side. a small group of ponies passed by the alleyway, and Twilight used this opportunity to duck in with the crowd. From there, she took off towards the Citadel, carefully scanning the crowd for telltale green helmets.

Almost immediately, she spotted one belonging to a blue colt far off to her left. He was searching his section of the crowd, and so Twilight carefully angled herself to the right towards a fire pit. Soon the rebel was out of sight, and she was a bit too close to the flaming light for comfort. Twilight turned her head from the left, and her breath caught in her throat. She had been so fixated on the rebel to her left that she hadn't looked where she was going. Directly in front of her stood a mare in a green, metal helmet gazing off into the crowd. Twilight scanned the area around her for anypony she could hide behind, but nopony else had strayed this close to the pit. She considered trying to make it back to the crowd, but turning away now would attract attention. She had mere seconds before the mare noticed her, and for a split second it seemed like there was no way out of the situation. Suddenly a solution presented itself. To anypony on their side of the fire pit, the would be nothing more than silhouettes, and nopony on the other side would try looking directly across, because of how bright it would be. For the moment, Twilight, and the rebel in front of her were invisible to everypony except for each other. There was no time to hesitate. The Rebel turned back, and locked eyes with Twilight. She opened her mouth to say something, but twilight had already unsheathed her knife, and slit her throat. Her eyes bulged in shock as Twilight walked past her and casually shoved her into the fire pit before anypony could notice what had happened. As terrible as it was, Twilight couldn't help but feel a slight hint of satisfaction as she sheathed her bloodied weapon.

She continued walking until she was almost at the stairway that led into the Citadel. There stood one guard, and off to the side a rebel who was obviously keeping a strict eye on the croud. There were normally two guards at the stairway. The other must be changing shifts. Both the guard and the rebel were male earth ponies, and had their guns strapped around their hooves. Twilight didn't want to attack the guard, but if she tried to approach him, the rebel would gun her down on sight. Twilight checked her watch. Two fifty three. If they were going to catch and formally disband the rebel group, she would have to act now. That was all she needed. She charged out of the crowd towards the staircase. The rebel began to raise his gun, but he didn't have enough time to react. Twilight telekinetically ripped the gun from his hoof, and slammed it backwards into his head, effectively rendering him unconscious. She then fired a bolt of repulse based magic at the gaurd, which sent him flying backwards into the stairs, and knocked his weapon aside. Twilight darted up the stairs into the Citadel before The guard could recover. The inside of the council was built, more or less, like a miniature colosseum, with rows of seats in a circular pattern, elevated more and more, the farther back they were placed. Sir Forte sat at the far end of the room in the back. He had a white coat and a long messy grey mane that fell over and obscured the right half of his face, covering one of his bright purple, intelligent eyes. His cutie mark depicted an old fashioned magnifying glass. To his right sat another stallion aiming down the sights of a crossbow at her. He was remarkably similar to Forte in both coat color and mane style, though his mane was a deep shade of black, and his eyes a rare, captivating shade of red. Both of them were earth ponies.

''It's alright Crow.'' Sir Forte addressed the pony to his right.

''This is Twilight Sparkle: original founder, and lead scientist and engineer of the Sisterhood. She can be trusted.'' Crow lowered his crossbow, but kept a vigilant eye on Twilight.

''Now,'' spoke Forte.

''What business is so important, that you physically attacked one of my guards to speak with me about it?''

Chapter 2 - The Trees

Deep inside of the Everfree forest, Fluttershy lay on a large, flat, moss covered stone. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her normally beautiful mane was covered in moss, dirt, and twigs. It lay wet, against the stone from the latest rain.

At first, just before the killings began, she had heard the trees whispering to her. Telling her that times of tribulation lay ahead. Telling her that she needed to run to the forest because she would be safe there. Of course she had protested, saying that there were dangers in the forest as well, but the trees told her that so long as she was in the forest, they could protect her from danger. Fluttershy had wanted to stay with her friends but eventually everything just became too much to handle and she followed the whispers into the forest and to the clearing she now lay in. It was there that she

learned the true extent of the trees' wisdom, and knowledge.

Not only had they been watching and listening since lifetimes before she was conceived, but through the ages the trees shared their knowledge. And not only did they pass their knowledge through space, but they passed it through time itself. Their eyes and ears stretched far and they knew nearly all there was to know about Equestria, regardless of time or space.

It was slowly becoming easier to understand them. They had told her so much that she was beginning to piece together a map of history in her head. She knew so much, and yet so little. There was one particular section of historyin the coming future that they were obscuring from her vision. they said that she would have to see that part for herself when the time came.

What was the time anyway? Fluttershy's mind went blank, and for a moment she forgot were she was in the scheme of things. The first massacre? no she was past that. The lunar conflict? no, not that either. oh yes, the irony of the clean. The ''worthy'' and ''pure'' would truly be evil of heart and ensure their own eradication. With the past again relived, and the rainbow revived ponies of industry would come seeking revenge and drive the demons towards the dome. A conflict would be resolved and those driven by hate would make their home under the ground. Machines of death would be conceived in the bowels of the earth, to add to the nightmare world. The one who is pure of heart would be made into a shell and inflicted with inner turmoil. The stars would turn on the sun, and the fateful power would be freed. The news would be carried by fire and the world would be ravaged. All of this in prologue to the actual war. The forces of ''good'', and ''evil'' would clash together in ironic, bloody, horrific combat. Blood would spill across the land, and bodies would surface, only to be torn apart by the raging red sea of blood and war. That was where she was in time.

As for the past, she had pieced together that there was one other that had talked to the trees about four-thousand years ago. His name was Chords at the time, and he had learned much from them. Three-thousand years later his goal was realized and his role played out. They wouldn't tell her why he was important just yet, but they told her to remember his name for soon she would know more about him than anypony ever had. For a thousand years, everything had been regulated, and controlled. The events that were set into motion in Ponyville had been building up for centuries. Events that had been planned, and calculated. Events that a fool had doomed to happen. There was more to all of this than met the eye, so much more to come, and so much more to be told.

Chapter 3 - Rising Tide

Twilight did not hesitate to answer forte’s question.

‘’I have reason to believe that a group has formed within the Sisterhood, which is dedicated to the abolition of the Apple family.’’ Fort raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Twilight Sparkle as the citadel filled with nervous murmurs.

‘’If what you say is true, Twilight, then we could have a very grave matter to deal with. The question we need to ask now, is how you obtained this information, miss Sparkle. Would you care to elaborate?’’

‘’Yes, I would. I have just returned from a scouting mission, and on my way to the city, happed to stumble upon a small meeting of members of this organization. I overheard some of their plan, and was nearly killed over it.’’

‘’Before you go any further, Miss Sparkle, could you specify exactly how many ponies were in this supposed meeting, and where it took place?’’

‘’Uh... Yes. There were about five or six of them, and they were meeting in an alley. They were also wearing some type of green metal helmets.’’ Twilight wanted to continue, but it was obvious that Forte was thinking over the new information, so she decided to wait. After all, Forte was best known for being a careful thinker and strategist. After a few seconds had passed, Forte’s attention returned to Twilight.

‘’I have thought over the situation, Miss Sparkle, and have come to a couple of relevant conclusions. assuming that you are telling the truth, and I see no prevalent reason for you to lie, the meeting that you encountered was most likely comprised of the group’s leaders. The Apple family is most definitely a force to be reckoned with, and it would take a very large group to even hope to oppose them. If the ponies that you came into contact with were making decisions important enough to kill you over, there would have to be a much larger meeting in the immediate future, in order to inform the entire group. Since this information has been compromised, they will attempt to adjourn, and re-organize this meeting, meaning that we will have to intervene before that is possible. Building off of what we already know, a meeting of that size would take effort to conceal. It would have to take place in a large and unoccupied structure. The only other explanation would be if they passed information from ear to ear, but that would be far too unorthodox for such an organization. Therefore, I have chosen to assume the former of the two possibilities.'' Twilight decided to speak up.

''The meeting will take place at exactly 3:00 in the storage room. I overheard them discussing it.''

Forte glanced down at the silver pocket watch that lay just in front of him, and then back up at the council. His eyes narrowed with determination, and he wasted no time in taking action.

''Then we have no time to waste. Mr. Cloud.'' Sir Forte said, addressing a black Pegasus in the front of the room.

''Alert patrol squad 4 that they should close in on the storage room immediately. Use the communications speaker system just outside of the armory. If they are on schedule, then they should be near enough to hear it. Their orders are to stand guard at the exit, and to stop anypony from leaving the area. If they are met with resistance, use of lethal force is authorized.'' Forte paused for a second to make sure that Mr. cloud was complying, and then resumed in his signature monotone.

''Once I am certain that squad 4 is in position, I will make an announcement over the entire intercom system directly addressing these rebels. In the meantime, would any of you who won't be necessary here make their way to join squad 4? In case negotiations do not go as planned, we will need as many ponies as we can get down there.'' almost immediately, most of the ponies in the citadel, including crow, began to make their way to the exit. Twilight knew that she wouldn't be of any use here. All that she could do was group up with the rest of the ponies, and hope for the best. Twilight trotted out of the citadel, but paused for a moment once she was outside.

She needed to think for a moment about exactly where she should go. She could attempt to alert other ponies to the threat, but that would probably be handled by Storm Cloud. She could go straight to the storage room, but she wouldn't be able to make much of a difference as she was. She wasn't too good in a fight, and her magical barrier wasn't quite as good at blocking bullets as it was slow moving objects, or spells. She really wouldn't make a noticeable difference unless she went to the armory first. Wait, the armory? Twilight did a quick mental facehoof while trotting down the stairs to the Central District. The armory was built very close to the storage room, so it wouldn't take to much time to stop there. Being the lead scientist meant that she would have access to the armory. If she was fast, she could also round up some of the ponies headed out from the Citadel, and arm them. That way, she could make a considerable difference. Twilight turned to her left, and called out to the small group of three or four ponies to her left, who were also heading out from the citadel.

''Hey! I'm the Sisterhood's lead scientist, so I have top clearance level. If you come with me, we can access the armory before heading to the storage room.'' The ponies to her left exchanged glances as they reached the bottom of the staircase, turned back and gave twilight approving nods. The group began to work their way through the crowd of ponies in Central district. The brown Pegasus of their new group flew just overhead, and shouted for ponies to get out of the way. This made things go a lot faster, and the group was almost out of Central district and into the streets by the time that that the intercom crackled to life.

''Mares and gentlecolts,'' The telltale monotone of Sir Forte's voice droned over the intercom.

''It has recently come to my attention that a very dangerous and controversial group has formed inside of Dome City. A group that could pose a threat to our wellbeing as a society.''

Forte kept talking, but Twilight was more focused on what was immediately in front of her. From here on out, the crowd was much more widely dispersed, so the group was able to make it to a road that would take them to the armory before Forte even began his next sentence.

''Now bear in mind that I do not, in any way, oppose the formation of groups or organizations other than the Sisterhood within Dome City. The reason that the existence of this particular group raises concern is the fact that their reason for existing is to dispose of our closest and only allies, the apple family. This group must be stopped if we are to ensure our survival as a city.'' Twilight and the small group traveling with her had just taken a left at a fork in the road, and were fast approaching the armory, which had two guards stationed at it. One was a male unicorn, and the other a female Pegasus, both with white coats and blue manes. The armory itself was a generally rectangular, polished, metallic structure positioned at yet another fork in the road.

''Quick!'' Twilight shouted with an air of urgency.

''We need access to the armory immediately. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I have top level security clearance.'' The unicorn guard raised a questioning eyebrow.

''Yea. I know you, but what about them?'' he said, gesturing to the small group of ponies behind her.

''Do they have clearance to access this area as well?''

''Well no, but they're with me. I know it doesn't follow protocol exactly, but it's an emergency for Celestia's sake. Besides, you need to go to the storage room. That's where the rebels are gathered.''

''And how exactly would you know that, huh? How do I know that you aren't just trying to get us out of the way so that you can raid the armory? There's a reason That we have to guard this place you know.'' Just then, Forte continued to the next part of his speech.

''This group is currently holding a meeting in the storage room in the Eastern section of Dome City, and I assume that by this time they have already realized that the exit to said area is heavily guarded. They won't be able to disperse without conflict, but that may not stop them from trying to do so for long. I strongly urge anypony in the immediate vicinity to help those who are already gathered to contain the situation. It is of utmost importance that the situation is handled carefully, and that we are able to resolve the incident before they are allowed to disperse. The worst kind of enemy is the one you can not see.'' Twilight glared victoriously at the unicorn guard who was grinning sheepishly.

''Sorry. It's my job to be suspicious.'' He said while sliding the metallic door open. The Pegasus guard rolled her eyes at him dismissively.

''Don't mind him Twilight. He's always like that.'' Nopony wasted any more time talking. The two guards rushed off, and everypony else made their way into the armory. Inside, it was obvious that the metal walls were not nearly as thick as they appeared on the outside. It was also apparent that the structure's dimensions were slightly miscalculated during it's construction, but that was hardly unusual for any structure in Dome City. The walls of the armory were laden with an assortment of firearms.

Guns were a generally new invention. The explosive material that propelled the lethal projectiles was discovered a few years ago, and only recently incorporated into a more advanced form of weaponry. As is with most new inventions, guns were all rather clunky and haphazard. They all held a generally rectangular shape, and had no handle or real way of wielding them. Unicorns had the option of using magic, but earth ponies and Pegasi had to strap them to their left fore-hooves. Similarly, if you were a Pegasus or an earth pony, you would have to fire your weapon by pulling a small switch on the right of the weapon back with your teeth; the alternative obviously being magic. The containers of ammunition would be inserted into the top of the gun, and replaced once depleted.

Twilight grabbed a gun that was slightly smaller than the one she had been using, but with a much larger clip. These guns could hold up to six rounds of ammunition, and could fire them at a slightly faster rate than the standard issue could. The downside to this gun was that it was moderately less accurate than the normal ones, but it wasn't an extreme difference. Twilight turned to see how the other ponies were doing. None of the ponies were unicorns like Twilight, and as such, were busy fiddling with straps. Up until this point.

Twilight had been to preoccupied to really pay any attention to Forte's speech, but now that she had a moment to pause, the words rang out with much more clarity than before. Forte had moved on from talking to the public, and was now addressing the rebels directly.

''Your actions are extremely disturbing, and will require major explanation, and punishment. Punishment will be later decided by the council based on your explanations and level of co-operation in the matter. the explanations themselves, however, can be dealt with much sooner. I have set the intercom system in the in the storage room to broadcast to all of Dome City. You may now speak in your own defense. How can you possibly justify your actions?'' There was a pause of a few seconds before a second voice crackled onto the intercom, accompanied by heavy static, and a loud click. This voice obviously belonged to a mare, but the light pitch of her voice did little to hide to hide the bite in her tone.

''So, you wish to communicate with us. Very well, but first I need confirmation that my voice is being heard.''

''Yes, we can all hear you. Now it is my turn to ask a question. What is the justification for your unconditional hostility towards our closest ally?''

''Does my response even need to be voiced? They are impure. Simply being associated with them is a disgrace. They have been driven to the point of insanity, and yet you embrace them with open arms. I don't care if they have learned to control themselves. That doesn't change the fact that their minds have already been lost. Their minds no longer belong to them, and therefore they no longer belong to our world. You are all fools who have been blinded by your desperation. In the eyes of the seeing, the apple family are a plague just like the Cyv. The impure must be cleansed at any cost! If you have even an ounce of sanity left, you'll see that, and allow us to disperse back into the city. Call off the ponies that you have guarding our exit immediately, or you will give us no choice but to respond with violence.''

''You know how much I would like to do that. Avoiding bloodshed would be ideal, but if I were to allow you to leave, you would only cause more bloodshed in the future. However much I want to, I can not allow you to leave.''

''If the pure must be sacrificed to purge the impure then so be it!''

''It saddens me to see you so willing to throw your lives away. This is not a fight that you can hope to win. You are outgunned, outnumbered, and outclassed. I will only say this once more: You are throwing your lives away. If you do not surrender immediately we will kill you, and in the end you will have accomplished nothing. Don't cause needless bloodshed.''

''Go to hell!''

There was a loud clicking noise signifying that the intercom had just been disconnected, and in the background Twilight could hear gunfire. Forte tried one more time to salvage the situation.

''Order your troops to fall back immediately or I you won't survive. I will not give the order to back down, even if it means causing innocents to die. I don't like having to make this call, but in the end the decision is yours and their blood will be on your hooves. Please see reason.'' There was no response on the intercom, and the gunfire in the background intensified. There was no going back now. Everypony stood in silence. Just a block or two away from them a battle had begun.

Chapter 4 - Rebellion

Twilight was left standing in disbelief. Her brain couldn't quite come to terms with just how significant the last few seconds were, but nevertheless she broke out of her trance; fueled with nothing more than logic and willpower. Twilight glanced over the other ponies in the room to see expressions that perfectly mimicked how she felt inside. Nopony had actually expected this to come down to open fighting. Times were getting desperate and each day held new horrors that seemed even more hellish than the last, but nopony had considered the possibility of turning on each-other. True, they had been preparing for the worst, but that was only out of caution. No matter how horrid the world was, nopony was the least bit desensitized to it. Twilight knew that if anything was going to be done she would have to be the one to take charge of it. She couldn't let anypony, including herself, think too hard about what was going on. It was time to take action. Twilight hardened her expression to a determined glare, and wasted no time in addressing the ponies around her.

''There is no time to waste! You!'' she called out, gesturing to a strong looking, chocolate brown earth pony.

''Grab one of those sections of steel plating in the corner, and get out there!'' The sections of steel plating in the corner were mostly used to put behind targets, and occasionally to be used in the fortification of an important structure. They looked kind of like short steel walls held up by supports, with large handles on the back for moving them around. They weren't normally all that useful in combat, considering that the Cyv didn't use firearms, but by the looks of things, most of them had already been taken by squad 4 through the back entrance to what was now a battlefield.

The group of ponies departed from the armory with the brown earth pony hefting the steel wall along behind them and an assortment of weaponry. They crisscrossed behind the armory, and took a final left turn down another short alley. What lay outside of the alley, however, was a horrific sight, even by the standards of Ponyville. Several of the steel walls had already been set up on the street, parallel to the unremarkable storage room, which was just a small building with a wide entrance that lead down to a large hollowed out room. The rebels had set up a number of wooden tables on their side of the battlefield, which were facing the steel walls as temporary cover. The sets of cover were remarkably similar. Both the tables and the walls were tall enough to peek over, and wide enough to protect about three ponies, but the wooden tables wouldn't hold up for long against the entourage of bullets they were being hammered with. The tables had been set up well, but the bodies littering the ground outside of the building betrayed the amount of sacrifice required to get them in position.

The ground itself was littered with more than just bodies. There were discarded magazines of ammunition, rubble, and gore sprayed across the ground. Near the alley adjacent to the one that she was peeking out of, Twilight noticed both the guards from the armory sitting behind cover with their backs against the steel wall. The Pegasus was reloading with her head close to the side, while the unicorn was gritting his teeth and muttering something to her. Without warning, a bullet came in from an angle, and hit the Pegasus in the back of the head. Her eye exploded from her face, and sprayed the ground front of her with the color red. She collapsed to the ground, and a pool of blood began to spread around her. The unicorn’s eyes widened, and even from where Twilight was standing, the utter disbelief in his expression was plainly visible. Disbelief quickly turned to shock, shock to anger, and anger to pure rage. He picked up her gun with telekinesis, stood straight up, and began firing one round after another. Two rebels poked their heads up from the same table to take him out, but neither of them even got a round off before dropping dead. the unicorn turned to kill another one, but he had pushed his luck too far. A volley of gunshots from various places along the street rang out and tore him to shreds. He fell down next to his partner and lay still. Twilight wanted to look away but she couldn't. His head was ripped apart, and bits of flesh hung off, revealing the bone of his shattered skull. Unable to look away from the gruesome scene, Twilight finally scrunched her eyes shut altogether and waited for her head to clear.

After having to go through so many terrible things, Twilight had eventually just shut herself off. She just went through her days without thinking about it or feeling anything and moved on. It was the only way she could stay sane. She had been getting pretty good at it, but this was pushing it. No amount of logical reasoning or apathetic facades could hold her together. The only way she could stop herself from falling apart right there and then was to keep going.

Twilight opened her eyes to see that their steel wall had been shoved out into the battlefield, with the brown earth pony behind it. Twilight took a deep breath, and dove out of the alley, and behind the barrier. She heard a few gunshots hit the wall, and a couple whizzed by overhead, but fortunately she had moved fast enough not to be hit. The brown earth pony to her right spoke in a strong, but shaky voice. ''Alright. We need to free up some more space over here, so I'm gonna try to get to the cover in the center with that orange feller.'' he said: gesturing to an orange earth pony behind cover in the center of the street, who was reloading his gun over the corpse of a former ally. Twilight nodded, and the pony next to her nodded back, but despite this confirmation, no action was taken. There was a long pause. He swallowed, clenched his jaw shut, and darted towards the nearby shield with the orange pony, only to be shot in the stomach within a second. Twilight flicked her head to the right with the idea to put up a magical barrier and pulling the earth pony back, but it was already too late. Several more shots hit his body, and sprayed even more of his guts across the battlefield.

The orange earth pony saw a window of opportunity, and stood up to take out the ponies that had just fired, but he was only able to get a single round off before he was hit in the shoulder, and fell back behind cover. He was alive, but it didn't look like he would stay that way for long. If nopony stopped him from losing blood, he would be dead in minutes. Twilight had medical equipment in her saddlebag which she could use to patch him up temporarily, but it wouldn't easy be to get to him. If she just darted for him she would just end up like the one before her, and that wouldn't help anything. Still, she couldn't just let him die. There had to be a way for her to get to him without being shot. She could try putting up a magical barrier like she had thought of earlier, but that might not work. Magical barriers worked well for well for blocking spells and magic, but they didn't fare so well against solid objects, and when the solid object is moving at 900 m/s, a magical barrier won't stand very much abuse before being shattered. Sure it might block a couple, but after that she really wouldn't be much better off. Although… Maybe if she timed it right, the barrier would be enough to get her across. Every time a volley of gunfire from one side finished, another from the opposite side began in order to gun down the pony that had been shooting. If a pony didn't duck back behind cover fast enough after firing, they would be torn to pieces. now that Twilight was listening, she could pick out an almost rhythmic order in the gunfire. One of the rebels stopped firing. Now was her chance. Twilight poked her gun up from behind cover without actually looking, fired a couple of rounds in the general direction of the shooter, and slipped the gun back into her saddlebag just as another series of gunshots rang out. Most of the rebels would duck back behind their tables to avoid being hit. Without hesitation, Twilight darted out from behind her steel wall, put up a magical barrier, and sprinting for all she was worth. A couple of bullets bounced off of the barrier, sending tremors down Twilight's horn. The barrier shattered as a third bullet pushed it's way through and actually trimmed a couple of hairs off of Twilights mane. Twilight was defenseless, but she leaped for cover and slid behind the other steel wall just as it, and space around it, was barraged with gunfire.

The injured earth pony she had been trying to get to was a dark shade of orange, and his mane should have been a slightly darker shade of the same color, but the left side of it was heavily stained with his own blood. He was laying on his back, and making no effort to move into a more comfortable position. Twilight reached into her saddlebag to pull out a small white box with a red plus sign on it. This was a standard sisterhood medical kit, which contained various types of sedatives, anesthetics, disinfectants, needles, thread, and bandages. Most of the supplies had recently been scavenged from the ponyville hospital, so medical equipment was limited, and not many ponies knew quite how to use it, but Twilight had read a book or two on medical practice.

''Alright.'' Twilight said cautiously.

''This may hurt quite a bit, but if I don't do it you may die.'' Surprisingly, the injured pony chuckled.

''Heh heh. I just got shot you know. This already hurts quite a bit. You don't have to worry about it hurting more. You can call me Jack if I survive this.''

''Alright. I only felt it fair to warn you.''

Twilight cast a quick spell to slow the blood flow near the wound, and pulled a syringe out of the box which was already loaded with a light anesthetic. She injected it just below Jack's neck. He was going to need it, considering that he was already grimacing in pain. Twilight nudged him up on his side temporarily to check if the bullet had passed all the way through. It hadn't. She would have to remove the bullet from his shoulder before Stitching it up. Twilight pulled a clean, sharp scalpel from the box, and held it up telekinetically. Jack eyed the scalpel nervously. ''Today really isn't my day, is it?'' Jack looked to his left at the corpses of the two guards.

''Sompony always has it worse. I guess I'll just grin and bear it.'' Twilight carefully began the incision at the neck, and slowly worked her way over the wound. Suddenly there was a deafening sound. Twilight yelped, and looked around for the source of the noise. Her eyes settled on Jack pulling his gun from his hoof with his teeth, and spitting it out beside him.

''Sorry.'' he said.

''It went off by accident. Even in the middle of a fire fight, a shot that close can be startling I guess.'' Both Twilight and Jack looked down at his wound simultaneously, to find that in her panic, Twilight. had torn the scalpel down to his stomach.

''Oh just my damb luck! Can you fix it?''

''Uh...Yes?''

''Oh. Well with a response like that I'm just overflowing with confidence.'' Twilight took out a bottle of disinfectant.

''I'm warning you beforehand that this will sting.''

''Oh come on, this is an open surgery on a battlefield. Do you really think a little...Ahg! Well you didn't have to use the whole bleeding bottle now!''

Despite the fact that it was completely inappropriate for the situation, Twilight grinned a little as she put the (now empty) bottle of disinfectant back in the box, and pulled out a small pair of tweezers. She carefully maneuvered the tweezers past the sensitive muscle tissue, and pulled out a small piece of metal. She put both the piece of metal and the tweezers away before taking out the last components necessary for the surgery. Bandages, a spool of black thread, and a sharp needle. Twilight carefully connected the thread to the needle, and began sewing the wound shut, starting at the stomach. Soon, she reached Jack's shoulder, and finished closing the wound to the best of her ability. Twilight examined the wound closely, and was pleased with her handy work. Blood loss was minimal, the bullet was removed, and the wound was closed neatly, but the patch up was only temporary. It wouldn't last him for more than an hour or two, but at least that would be enough to get him to a real doctor. Twilight strung the bandages over the wound several times, and then looped it around jack's leg to make a makeshift sling, which she tied in back. By this time the gunfire had slowed down, and eventually ceased altogether. The tables that were still standing had so many bullet holes in them that they were practically transparent. The rebels had been slaughtered down to the last pony, and many other ponies had been killed besides. But thanks to Twilight, at least one of them would make it into the care of actual doctors and most likely live.

Chapter 5 - Resurrection

Everything was dark and empty. I didn't think. I didn't feel. Everything was nothing, and nothing meant anything. Things must have gone on like that for quite some time before I made a very important realization. I was bored... The environment that I was in was boring. Now that might not seem all that important to you, but it was a direct observation about my environment, and in order for an observation to be made, the observer has to be consciously evaluating the environment. With that realization, I became self aware and for some reason that felt very very wrong. Why would I be self aware? On the other hand: why wouldn't I be? At the time, I was too disoriented to make sense of either question. I felt like I was someplace that I shouldn't be, but I couldn't understand why. What I did understand was that in order to make sense of the situation, I would have to struggle through it, and the easiest way to struggle would be to open my eyes. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I could see. I don't remember actually going through the process of opening my eyes, but regardless, my world was flooded with color. I didn't see colors that would normally be present in a scene, but all colors at once. I could even see the colors in between and beyond the normal color spectrum. None of the colors seemed to be in any one place, but everywhere at once despite the fact that they didn't seem to be moving. It was very bright and my eyes felt like they were burning, but my mind was still too numb to notice. I opened my mouth to gasp in awe, but liquid fire rolled down my throat. That was when I made my my second realization: I couldn't breath. My lungs were screaming for air, and their pain only intensified as whatever I had unwittingly swallowed hit my insides like a tidal wave. I hadn't noticed the pain in my lungs earlier, because they had been deprived of oxygen since long before I awoke. The burning pain in my chest spread like fire through my veins, granting me the ability the ability to feel again... Everything hurt. My eyes burned with the power of a thousand suns, and every fiber of my being felt ready to snap, but worst of all were the cold metal restraints I felt digging into each of my hooves. I hated restraints. I couldn't remember exactly why, but they made me feel sick to my stomach. I wrenched my right fore-hoof upwards, causing the restraint holding it in place to shift slightly, but ultimately stay in place.

I had made the connection that I was submerged in liquid rainbows, and I of all ponies, knew just how bad that was. It would take me quite a while to break out of my restraints while submerged, so I would have to find a quicker solution. I thought about it for a moment, but instead of reaching a solution, a solution reached me. The solution was the surface level of the liquid rainbows, which must have been dropping for a while now, because the colors slowly ebbed away from my vision, allowing me to see my surroundings for the first time. I was on my back in a silver, metallic, rectangular container with four large spigots on either side of me. They would have to be for spraying liquid into the tub-like container, and I could only assume that there were drains at the bottom for emptying it. The ceiling was the same metallic silver as the tub, and for some reason, that surface seemed extremely familiar to me. Somehow I knew that I had seen that surface a lot. I started to get angry then. How could I not even remember something as simple as a ceiling? Aggravating as it was, I decided to put it aside temporarily, and focus on more important issues. The tub and I were still coated in liquid rainbow, so I decided to cough the liquid in my lungs back up into the tub, and take my first breath of air. After the fiery liquid, air seemed cold and rough like sandpaper in my lungs. Nevertheless, I felt stronger with each passing breath. I tried to close my eyes and focus on breathing, but I couldn't. It was like they were plastered open. I began to focus completely on making my eyelids work, but it was of no use. Either they were stuck open, or missing entirely. I began to wonder why either of those would be, but my thoughts were interrupted as the spigots on the sides of the tub simultaneously activated, and began to spray freezing water. At first, the purpose of the water was unclear, but then I realized that it was washing both the tub and me clean of the colorful liquid that we had both been coated with. The water that made its way into my mouth tasted metallic and chlorinated, so I spat it out and clamped my jaw shut. I couldn't, so easily, shut my eyes, but the water stung considerably less than the liquid it was washing out, so it came as a relief.

While the water ran, I began to focus on my body. I felt strong... Really strong. It felt like I would be able to punch through my restraints like cardboard if I had the mobility. Unfortunately my limbs were locked in place, so I couldn't test my theory. The most I could do was wiggle around and pull at them, although the restraint on my right fore-hoof was beginning to give way. I pulled upwards on it, and at first it began to bend, but once it was bent to a certain angle the bolts holding it in place stopped it completely. I continued to pull, but this time I began to feel angry at whoever put me in the restraints in the first place. How dare they? What right did they have to do this? Did they think that it was funny to bolt somepony down? In an instant, I went from feeling agitated to feeling infuriated. I felt like I should have ripped through my restraints, and tore whoever was responsible for this to shreds. Maybe then anypony else who thought that it might be a funny prank to sedate me and strap me down to something would think twice. I momentarily tried to calm myself down, but being angry just felt so good that I quickly abandoned the effort. I was almost ready to tear through every living thing that I saw when I remembered something important. If there was anything that my friends had taught me over the years, it was to keep a cool head instead of running into things head on. I felt a pang of fear and sadness at the thought of friends, but the message held, so as the flow of water cut off and died, so did a large amount of my anger. I was still nowhere near calm, and still debating weather I wanted to kill somepony or not, but at least I felt in control of my own actions again. Once I had regained my senses, I realized that my body had tilted forwards to lay at a slightly increased angle. The upper part of my body was slowly being raised. I could only assume that the metal surface that I was bolted down to was tilting forwards due to some mechanism underneath. It seemed seemed that only the floor of the tub was moving. Since the walls were staying firmly in place. Not long after, the room began to come into view. The first thing that I could see was the break between the ceiling and the walls, followed by a rectangular steel door with no handle, and finally a dark, metallic, grated floor, and two female ponies in lab-coats.

Suddenly, I knew where I was. This place was called the Rainbow Factory Research Facility. It wasn't actually part of the rainbow factory, but if too many ponies were seen coming and going from the rainbow factory itself, ponies would start to get suspicious. It was where they had been conducting business for the past few months. I pushed the question of exactly how I knew all that to the back of my mind, and focused on the ponies standing in front of me. Both of them were mares, and wore crisp, clean labcoats that gave them a sense of formality. The one on the left was a light grey unicorn, with a dark grey mane, and the one on the right was a light purple earth pony, with a mane of the expected color. While I was busy taking in these details, somepony spoke, and their voice rang out through the room. At first I thought that one of the ponies standing in front of me was speaking, but then I heard the distinctive crackle of a speaker system.

''Ah, I see that she is awake. That took far longer than with any of our previous tests, but I guess that is to be expected from a larger subject.'' The voice sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't match it to a name. Everything here gave me an out-of-place sense of déjà vu. I began to concentrate entirely on trying to put the puzzle together, but in doing so, I lost focus on keeping myself calm. Every second I spent hopelessly trying to make sense of the situation made me a little bit angrier, until I just gave up altogether, and put all of my energy into pulling at the loosest of my restraints. I was aware that I had gone from calm and collected to mindlessly enraged in just a few moments, but at least the bolts were beginning to loosen. While I was struggling the speakers crackled back to life.

''It is good that you are finally awake. The question now, is how much of you is really there. I highly doubt that anypony's mind could make it through what you have unscathed. Let's start with something simple, shall we? Could you tell us your name?''

I opened my mouth to tell the voice to shut up, but all that escaped was a low guttural growl. I didn't actually mean to growl, but it still carried the same general meaning as what I had meant to say. Everypony was silent for a few moments, and the two ponies in front of me looked generally intimidated. I pulled on the restraint around my right fore-hoof more intensely than before, and I could feel the bolts almost ready to give way. The silence was broken by the voice on the speakers again. ''I take it that you have not quite regained all your senses. This is unfortunate. I had hoped that you would be able to remember your name on your own, but I guess I will have to help you... Your name is Rainbow.''

That word hit me like a shockwave. I could literally feel my whole body reeling from the shock. It was my name, but it was also so much more. It was my life. The name cut through my clouded mind, and suddenly I could think with a newfound sense of clarity. Every moment of my life came flooding back to me at once. Suddenly I could remember every victory, every failure, and every miniscule second of my life right up until the bitter end. I didn't think that it was possible, but my next realization was even more jarring than the discover of my name. I was dead. I don't know if it was fear, confusion, or anger that finally pushed me over the edge, but I was suddenly filled with strength that I wasn't aware I possessed. The funny thing is that I didn't even feel angry anymore. I just felt cold and determined. I felt stronger and more alert than ever, but I also felt... Numb. All I knew was that I had to kill the other two ponies in the room, and that my restraints were in the way. I pulled on the loosest of my restraints with all my might, and sure enough, my hoof broke free. One of the bolts popped off and hit the purple pony directly in her eye which caused her to double over in pain. Before anypony could react, I had already punched through the restraint on my left fore-hoof and fell forward, painfully tearing my hind legs from their restraints. My right fore-hoof landed directly on the head of the purple earth pony and smashed it inwards with a sickening crunch. Blood and flesh splattered around the area where her head had been just a second ago. Nopony could even hope to contain me now. I was unstoppable, and it felt great.

Author's Note

In my opinion, this is where the story really gets off the ground. I'm not going to spoil anything for you guys, but we're getting a Pinkamena dedicated chapter soon.

Chapter 6 - Consequential Surreality

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity I was happy. I was with my friends and the world was the way it was supposed to be again. In hindsight I should have questioned why everything was so different, but that's the way dreams work I guess; You never realize how impossible they are until you're awake again. It was still so nice to have everybody back in a world that still made sense; In a world where there weren't a million mistakes to lament over every passing second; In a world where there was always a place to seek comfort. I guess that's another lesson to be learned; You don't really appreciate what you have until it has been torn away from you and you can never get it back.

At the time though, I took the rare opportunity to disregard reality and be soothed by the familiar presence of the ponies I had lost.

"Hey Pinkie! Are Y'all just gonna' sit around all day or are ya' gonna' buy some cider" came the familiar voice of Applejack.

"Oh, sorry!" I said placing some bits on the counter

"You know me. I'm always off somewhere else in my head!"

"That Ya' are sugarcube." she said smiling. The scene blurred out of focus and faded to another.

"Hi Fluttershy. Hi Pinkie Pie. I'm so glad you two could make it!" Twilight said excitedly.

"Are you joking?", I asked laughingly.

"After how good The one with Applejack and Rarity went I wouldn't miss a sleepover for the whole world!" I smiled sadly at the treasured memory. It was these little things that made life so special. How could I ever have been blind enough to throw that all away? I could feel tears building up and I was ready to let it all out, but before I could do anything of the sort the scenery changed again. Now I was at a picnic with Fluttershy. We didn't say anything. Instead we just sat still for a few precious moments and enjoyed each-other's company. Again the scene faded to painting the barn with Applejack, then to throwing a party for Twilight's arrival, then Modeling in the carousel boutique. Soon The images were coming and fading too fast to identify. The emotion was still there, so I didn't really care. Even though I could no longer make out the blurs of color, it seemed like I was slowly becoming less and less involved with them. It felt like I was outside of myself watching myself be part of them.

Eventually the barrage of happy moments faded in it's entirety and gave way to one definite scene. Now I could confirm that I wasn't viewing from my own eyes. I could see myself in the front entrance of Sugarcube Corner. I was just... waiting. Suddenly I knew what day it was, and any comfort I had felt earlier vanished. I tried to will the dream to go back, but its course seemed definite. Soon Rainbow Dash trotted into the room like I knew she would and the dream started to get weird. The dialogue between Rainbow and me was garbled; I could pick out a word here and there, but for the most part it was indecipherable.

"...will be... one... for you..."

"So is... Like... Test?..."

"Sorta..."

"...now Wha..."

"Now..." This was all too familiar to me.

"Now you take a nap." I muttered to myself. The vision faded to black. I could recite every word that was said there by heart. I was so sure of myself then. I had seen the whole thing as a sort of personal test. The last thing that a mass murderer needs is a conscience, and for as long as I could remember I never had one to bother me, but that changed when the Elements of Harmony surfaced in my friends and me. It wasn't so much the Elements themselves that became problematic, but the connection they brought with them. My friends made normal life seem so beautiful and so sacred that I began to feel guilt. How many beautiful lives and friendships had I torn apart? The question began to nag in the back of my head. Rainbow though, she was special. She was the one that I really, genuinely loved. She was the one that I would do anything to spend time with. She was the one that made me almost wish I was a normal pony just so that I wouldn't have to feel guilt whenever I was near her about all the secrets I had to keep from her. She was the one that made it so I didn't even know who I wanted to be anymore. When her number came up that fateful day, I took it as a sign: A sign that I could finally get rid of all the stupid conflicting thoughts in my head and make the world make sense again. I was so sure of it all at the time, but I couldn't possibly have been more wrong.

My sorrowful lamentation was cut short by a bloodcurdling scream and the familiar sound of flesh being sheared from bone. For a brief moment the darkness was gone and I could see Rainbow's body. I could see the places where I had stitched the skin back together into a rotting patchwork of mangled flesh. It was the image that plagued my dreams all too often.

That was where I expected the ghastly vision to end. I thought it would just be that and I would wake up, but the vision continued on to the events of the next day. That was the day I first realized my mistake. I was so consumed by the idea of making the thoughts in my head go away that I didn't even give a second thought to the repercussions my actions might cause. It was only noon bu the time that the other four noticed her absence. We spent the whole day looking for her, and I felt like vomiting the whole time. My idea that killing her would fix everything in my head was dead wrong. I felt worse than ever, and knowing that there was no way out anymore only made things that much harder to cope with, but that was only the beginning of my trouble.

It should have occurred to me that the disappearance of one of the Elements of Harmony would be a major problem, but I had been blinded by desperation. Twilight Sparkle sent word directly to the princess the very next day, and a detective had arrived by dusk to find her. His name was Detective Cognitious Forte, and I was at the train station when he arrived. He was white coated with a long, but neatly styled grey mane. His cutie mark depicted an old fashioned magnifying glass, and the old brown fedora he wore on his head sold the image. This colt was most definitely not just some pony who had been sent to investigate. No, this colt was a born detective. That was when I realized exactly how much trouble I was in, and I started to panic. If Celestia had assigned somepony who's special talent was detective-work to find out what happened to Rainbow Dash, it was only a short matter of time before the truth was discovered. I had no way out.

The vision changed to me pacing back and forth in my room with beads of sweat dripping down my forehead. There was a growing feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. It felt like my heart was about to explode. At one point I had seriously been considering killing myself just to make all of this go away. After all, no pain could possibly be as terrible as living with the knowledge of what my friends would think of me once they discovered what I had done. I clearly remember that the only thing stopping me from actually doing it was the fact that it would mean admitting defeat. It would mean taking the easy way out of a life that was completely meaningless. I couldn't let that happen. After I had gone this far and sacrificed this much, I couldn't let it all have been for nothing. Even if my motives were nothing more than those of self-preservation, regardless of if I was right or wrong, whether I was a protagonist or an antagonist, at some point in that room I resolved to carry on no matter what. For the time being I had to function without guilt and without hesitation. It was clear that I wasn't a good pony, and now my only option was to go all the way.

My enemy was Princess Celestia. She was infinitely more powerful than me, she had entire armies at her personal disposal, and she was a self-righteous dictator with an overdeveloped sense of justice. If word reached her and I wasn't already so far out of her reach that it would be impossible for her to get to me, I had no doubt that I would either end up eternally imprisoned in some way or silently executed. That was the scenario that I had to avoid. My first thought was to simply obscure any incriminating evidence from the detective's view in hopes that the case would be dropped, but such ideas were foolish at best. Although Celestia tried to appear as a perfect ruler, she had always been hungry for power. To her, My friends and I were more than just subjects, we were a powerful weapon that she could use to protect her throne, and if there was any hope of finding Rainbow Dash alive, then not only would she have assigned the smartest detective available to the case, but he would not be given the order to stop searching until the truth was unveiled. Put simply, Cognitious was a problem that needed to be taken care of soon, but if I just killed him it would only draw more of the princess's concern. A vague plan began to form in my head. If everything went just right, then it would not only eliminate the detective and shroud Rainbow's disappearance in more mystery, but it would put me outside of Celestia's reach.

The first thing I needed was money. Rarity had plenty of that. That night I broke into her house silently and was able to open the chest she kept upstairs without waking her up and "borrow" nearly two-thousand bits. She wouldn't be needing them for long. The next morning there was a big stir about it and I had to be there. I thought I would just feign ignorance and go on with the day, but Detective Forte immediately singled me out of the group. He asked me why I had been out of bed last night. I opened my mouth to ask why he would think something like that, but he responded before I could speak.

"When I arrived at the train station yesterday, your mane was in pristine condition, but now there are two strands covered in dirt on the left side. Of course this could have happened at any time, but you headed off in the direction of your home immediately after catching sight of me and this would have to be the first place you came this morning. You are also fatigued. Your eyes have slight traces of bags underneath them and your vision has gone out of focus three times just while I have been standing here: Telltale signs of sleep deprivation. These observations lead me to the knowledge that you were awake and with 90% probability out of your home last night. Under the circumstances I would be very interested to know why." Fortunately for my sake, his monologue had given me just enough time to come up with a believable lie. That mistake stemmed from just the kind of arrogance I would expect from him, but any doubts in my mind about his capabilities had vanished. He was even more dangerous than I had initially thought.

As soon as I was able to slip away from the crime scene, I went to town hall to begin the next step of my plan. I had chosen the mayor as one of my pawns. I asked her about purchasing the old factory on the hill above Ponyville. Little did she know what horrific affects of pony blood I planned to exploit: Secrets I had discovered and joyfully experimented with in the past. I made up some wild story about how I got the money to pay for it and she never doubted it for a second. The mayor always had been a gullible pony. Once the business was complete I made a casual remark about wanting her to come by the next day to help me look things over if her schedule was clear. Since she consulted her secretary on all matters regarding her daily schedule, that would both ensure that the visit would take place and that the secretary would know where she was. Both of those were necessary, and both of which she played right into my hand in making them happen.

Rarity was upset after that, but she didn't suspect I had anything to do with her misfortune, so I tagged along with Twilight and her for a bit of the day. I remember feeling guilty, and nearly breaking down and confessing to them, but I was able to keep my cool. Later in the day, Forte overheard me telling Rarity about how if she was ever in a financial doozy, she could always borrow some of the revenue from the cupcake factory I was about to open. No doubt this would strengthen Forte's suspicion of me as the thief, but that could work in my favor later. Besides, his main investigation was Rainbow's disappearance and whatever reasons he had to be suspicious of me where not enough to act on.

There was only one more day until all the pieces would be in play, but my night was going to be busy too. As soon as afternoon rolled around I knew it would be a challenge to stay awake, but wasting this night would mean condemning myself. A few hours after all the lights went out, I carefully crept down into my secret room. I had been storing the blood and organs of my victims in seven large empty cider barrels. I quickly packed them up, cleaned any suspicious liquid from their exteriors and dragged them upstairs. I decided to leave the rest of the evidence and decorations in place. If everything went according to plan then there wouldn't be any reason to hide them. I quickly jotted down two cryptic notes addressed to the meddlesome detective and left the first on the table in the center of the room. The text read as follows: "Forte. Now you understand how deep this goes. If I could take care of the baker personally I would, but my hooves are tied. You don't have much time. Run you silly detective. Run. ~W" The second I slid into an envelope and tucked away. The name at the end of the letters didn't have any particular meaning to it, but it would help keep him guessing.

The task of rolling each of the barrels individually up the hill was a grueling task, but at least I could count on doing my work uninterrupted. Any Ponyville resident who was actually awake to see me from a window would just assume I was up to my old Pinkie Pie antics yet again and not bother to check on me, and the house Forte had rented was all the way on the other side of town. I had all of the barrels in their places before the crack of dawn. I finished arranging them so that the only one with the top removed would be at the far end of the furnace room and began staggering back to Ponyville. Extreme sleep deprivation coupled with the hours of manual labor I had just completed had left me nauseous, weak, and disoriented. It could have been problematic if anypony saw me in such a state of disarray, so I had to get back to my house without being seen. Luckily the few ponies who were already awake were easily avoided. When I finally got back to my house I literally collapsed on the floor from physical exhaustion, but I had the sense to set my alarm clock before slipping into unconsciousness. As usual, my dreams were plagued with nightmares.

When I finally awoke, my mind was in a haze and my whole body ached from physical exertion. It probably didn't help that I had slept on the floor either. I groggily pulled myself upright and smashed the face of the alarm clock with my hoof. I quickly cleaned myself up in the mirror and did the best to hide the bags under my eyes before grabbing my note and heading out the door. I was able to sneak through town to the house Forte had rented for his stay in Ponyville. From there on it was a simple task to slip open the unlocked window near his bed and slipped the note onto his empty bed. I opened the note up and read it over. The text read: "Forte. The baker is guilty. Check the basement. You only get one chance. ~W" Even with all of his intellect to caution him, I doubted he would be able to resist his curiosity. Once he got to the basement it would be simple to predict his next move. He would go to the town hall to inform the mayor of his discovery. By then she would gone with me, and her secretary would inform him of where we went. If he stopped to evaluate the situation he would no doubt question the identity of W. Hopefully the shock of the discovery and the urgency of the situation would keep him from seeing the big picture.

The vision blurred and skipped to after I had already visited the mayor and began the walk to the factory. I saw myself keeping up lively chatter with the unsuspecting mayor. It was painful at the time, but I had to stay in character. Again my vision blurred and again skipped ahead to when we were approaching the factory. I let her walk ahead. I wanted her to enter first. We walked inside and Mayor Mare squinted to see in the dark room. The furnace was visible on the left wall and the barrels were organized on the left, save for the one open barrel in the center of the room. That was when I spoke up, discarding my happy facade.

"I think there is something you should see in there." I said, gesturing toward the barrel. The mayor raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but was taken by curiosity and stepped forward to see what was inside the barrel. She had less than a second to be shocked by its contents before she found her head being held underneath the surface of the liquid. She struggled and bucked, but years of rock-farming had made me much stronger than some lousy politician. Somewhere it felt like something in me broke. I began to laugh in utter hysteria. Slowly the laughter transformed into sobbing, but with the grin still plastered on my face. I don't even know quite what was going through my head that caused it, but my breakdown faded and I got control of myself again. It was a while before she stopped struggling, and a while longer before I pulled her lifeless corpse from the barrel and laid it out on the floor. Blood seeped out of her mouth. Now I just had to wait. I just had to keep it together a little bit longer.

I hid myself just behind the door and waited with the shiny kitchen knife I had stashed there the night prior. Hours passed for me there, but in retrospect everything was sped up. The light coming in through the door slowly faded and eventually things were dark enough that I turned the dim solitary light hanging from the ceiling to illuminate the room. Eventually I heard footsteps approaching and turned the light out. I stood up with my knife and got ready for the door to open. Forte Burst through the door and turned completely around, scanning the room for me. My hiding place was too dark for his gaze to penetrate. He flipped the lights on, and would have spotted me if he turned his head again, but his eyes were locked on the mayor. Caught up in the moment, he rushed to Mayor Mare and began trying to revive her. I crept out of my hiding place and got ready to slit his throat. He was about to check the mayor's pulse, but he froze. Looking back on the incident it seemed everything just clicked in his mind and he put the puzzle pieces together. I lunged to do finish him, but he had given himself just enough time to retaliate. He flipped around with surprising speed and used his hoof to direct the knife's trajectory above his neck. Unfortunately for him, that only directed the knife into his right eye. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I twisted it and pulled it out at a gruesome angle, gouging the eye from its socket leaving a gaping bloody hole in its place. Cognitious screamed in pain and looked like he was going to keel over for a second, but instead he drove forward in an attempt to knock me off my hooves. Instead I used the moment he was off balance to get underneath him and shove him backward. I threw his whole body into the barrel, hoping to drown him in a similar way to how I killed Mayor Mare, but he was much quicker than her. He judged where my head would be and bucked it with all the force he could muster in one leg, sending both him and the bucket flying away from me. The floor was coated in slippery blood, but Forte was on his feet instantly, preparing for my next move. I tried to react faster than he would anticipate and flung the knife like a projectile, but even in his weakened state he was able to narrowly duck it. I didn't let that discourage me though. I used the precious few seconds that he was recovering from the dodge to slide forward on the slick blood and dig my teeth into his face. Using my momentum, I tore of the section of his face underneath his empty eye socket, leaving the right side of his face barely recognizable at all.

For a moment I thought I would have to go for the discarded knife and finish the job, but the blood was flowing too fast and the poor old detective collapsed. He was barely conscious and would no doubt die in a few minutes without my assistance. I staggered over to the furnace, dumped the first few barrels of gore into its interior, lit it and left. There was no way I could go back into Ponyville the way that I was even in the dead of night, but after spending so long in that room, just being outside was relieving enough to temporarily put my mind at ease.

Again I was convinced the vision would end and I would finally wake up, or at least I would follow my past self out into the field where I had laid down and wept, but even as I left the room, my vision remained. This was bizarre. Up until this point it had just seemed like I was following my own experiences in third person, but I had never seen the room after I left it. None of it was stored in my memory. Nevertheless, the dream continued in vivid detail, right down to Forte's shallow breathing. After a little while, he spoke to himself.

"So this is how it all ends, eh? So many adventures; So many unsolvable mysteries put to rest, and this is the one that takes me. Why didn't I figure it out? Everypony back home will have to go on without me just because I failed here? No; I'll be damned if I let myself die here on this floor. I want to die in someplace beautiful, not here." I had never heard any of those words spoken before at any point in my life. They had to be born from my imagination, but they seemed so genuine. They didn't feel like dying words I would dream up.

"I've been in tighter situations than this. There is always a way out." His eye darted around the room, before warily landing on the furnace to his right.

"Not so easy this time, eh?" He began crawling toward the furnace, his shallow breathing going at a much faster rate. He winced and grunted in pain, but reached his destination. A tear slipped from his eye and he looked afraid.

"I can do this..." he whispered to himself. After a moment of hesitation he pressed the right side of his face into the burning hot metal of the furnace. He screamed at the top of his lungs and held it there for a few seconds before falling away, laughing and sobbing pathetically. It took him a few seconds to calm down.

"Pain... Pain is an abstract... It's only as powerful as you let it be." He flung his face against the furnace again, screaming just as loud as before, but without remorse this time. His face was hardened into a look of determination, and he obviously meant to go all the way through with this.

Time blurred and skipped and when it came back into focus, Cognitious Forte was lying on the floor with a face even more disfigured than before. His cheek was gone, revealing his jaw. His skin was a knotted mix of bloody muscle tissue and charred black flesh. Most disturbing was the hollow eye socket, still dripping with blood. The most severe of the wounds however, had been sealed shut. The light streaming through the door was the light of dusk. He must have passed out from shock and spent the day recovering. Slowly he got to his feet and staggered toward the door, used his mane to cover the disfigured side of his face and grabbed his old fedora in his mouth as an afterthought.

All of this happened in such vivid detail, but there was no way any of it could be true. I couldn't possibly have any of that information stored in my sub-conscious, so I had to be fabricating it. Just then, a voice whispered in my ear.

"You would be surprised what can slip into your head when you're asleep."

"Who are you?" I called out.

"Somepony of consequence you might say. I'm stuck here in your head, and I might as well make myself comfy, don't you think?"

"You're a figment of my imagination. Go away. I want to wake up now."

"Oh how I wish that were true. Unfortunately I really am in your head. Or rather, part of me is. I live life as two separate ponies now, but neither is really me, or really living for that matter."

"What are you even talking about?"

"Let's just say that the detective won't be the only ghost from the past come to haunt you. Enough about me though; Let's get to know you better. We're going way back. Right back to the beginning."

As if on cue, the walls and floors folded away to reveal and endless black hole that only went down, and with that I fell into the unknown depths of my mind that waited below.

Chapter 7 - Death's Respite

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
~Emily Dickinson

I looked up to see the grey mare frantically pounding the steel door at the end of the room. The doors in the facility weren't opened manually, but remotely opened and closed from a control room. If they hadn't opened the door for her yet, they probably didn't plan on opening it any time soon. She was trapped in the room with me. Based on the desperate look in her eye, she had most likely come to the same realization. A few words escaped her lips, but I didn't hear them. The blood pulsing through my veins was hitting my head like a drum, blocking out all other sound. It was what it felt like to be a predator: It was what it felt like to have prey. It was instinctive. I should have been able to think it through and act of my own free will instead of some predatory urge, but that part of my brain wasn't present. It was like I was only a shell of my former self; as if the part of me that would have overcome this was somewhere else.

The two of us acted simultaneously. I leaped forward, covering the short distance between us within a fraction of a second, and she levitated a syringe out of her labcoat, holding it in front of her as if to shield her from me. I plowed right into it, sinking my teeth around as much of her neck as my bite would allow and sinking them in deep. Using my grip on her, I flung her limp body into the wall to my left, ripping out her throat and spraying blood across the floor in the process. I spat the bloody mess out of my mouth and grinned in satisfaction at my deed. I felt like a spring that was ready to be released. Every motion I made was wrought with power.

My thoughts were quickly interrupted though, as I became lightheaded. Looking down, I realized that the syringe had been emptied into my chest. I pulled the wretched thing out and regained my balance. I'd be damned if I was going to let such a cheap trick stop me. Nevertheless the injection had an affect on me: I could think clearly again. The animalistic instinct clouding my thoughts receded. No sooner than that, the voice on the speaker system crackled back to life.

"Haha! That sedative was strong enough to knock a fully grown buffalo out cold in seconds, but look at you. You're barely tipsy!... Oh and don't worry about the lab assistants. I needed to get rid of them anyway, and it's a lot less work this way. It is concerning, however, that that was your first choice of action. We'll need to get that under control, now won't we?" The voice sounded more than just a little familiar.

"Do you remember me? I do like to think that I make an impression on ponies." I knew him somehow, but my mind was still to hazy to match his voice to a name or a face.

"Well that's a shame. Does the name Chrome ring any bells?" The name did ring bells, but not just in my personal memory. The pain, fear and rage of a thousand broken souls cascaded through my consciousness, and a screaming erupted from inside my skull.

"Tear him, bludgeon him, grind him, kill him! Rip the door out of it's place and crush his skull!

"No! Wait for him to let us out and slit his throat! Trick him! Make him bleed!"

"He... He did it. He did it to us... Hide; have to hide; hide now. Don't let him find us; never find us."

"Why? Why did he put us in the light? We have to get back to the dark! We don't belong in this place!"

I hacked up some thick yellow phlegm that must have been impeding my speech and screamed out at the top of my lungs.

"Get out! Leave me alone!" The voices ceased.

"Well that was rather rude." Came Chrome's voice.

"Tell you what. I'll open this door and we can talk in person. How does that sound? Would you like that better?" I was silent.

"I'll take that as a yes if you have no objection. First though, I need you to promise that you won't brutally maul me like the lab assistants back there. I would very much like all my body parts in the right places if you don't mind." There was another moment of silence before I tested my vocal cords again.

"Look, I wasn't... I'm fine." My voice didn't sound normal; it sounded like multiple ponies were speaking the same words in imperfect unison; it sounded unsettlingly similar to the voices in my head. I decided to ignore it temporarily. However concerning it was, I had a million other issues that demanded more attention, and the first thing on my steadily growing list was to get out of this room.

"Open the door."

"No please?"

"Open the door... Please."

"That's better!" His tone was irritatingly cheery, but sure enough, the door slid open.

It felt like forever since I had gazed into the hypnotically blue eyes of the stallion that stood before me. He flung his labcoat over my shoulders, and gestured for me to step out of the room.

"It's lovely to have you back with us. Tell me, how have you been? I'm sure you have a multitude of questions." I had too many questions to keep straight in my head, so I decided to ask the most pressing question available.

"What did you do to my head?"

"We didn't do anything to your head in particular. Is there something wrong with it?" After a moment I decided to keep my information to myself.

"No. It's fine. Why... Why am I alive. I shouldn't be alive. My time here was up. I don't belong in this place anymore."

"I assume you mean how are you alive, in which case it's because we revived you. We were able to reanimate your body using the liquid pony souls. Honestly, I'm starting to doubt you read any of the research reports. As for why you're alive, it's because I still have use of you. Blank thought it was because I wanted to give you back your command, but she was wrong. You have a much more important task to accomplish."

"Who is Blank?

"Nopony, really. Just some second rate desk worker who thought she knew better than me. I didn't really think she would be able to take on both of those guards, but it doesn't really matter. Things have gone too far for her to do any real damage now."

"What things? Every question I ask just makes things more confusing!"

"All things in good time. Come, walk with me. I have something to show you as well."

We began trotting through the endless steel corridors of the facility.

"The things I'm talking about are the events we have been preparing for. I know you spent most of your time regulating the Rainbow Factory, but that's not all this organization is."

I know, I know. You and your crazy theorists were always sitting on your flanks somewhere talking about the apocalypse and revolution and other garbage.

"That's where you are wrong. We weren't just talking about what might happen. We knew what would inevitably happen, and we were preparing for it. War is coming, Ms. Dash. After one thousand years of peace, war is coming once more."

"What are you talking about?"

"What I'm talking about, Ms. Dash, is what happened after you died." I shuddered at the memory. Not even I had ever dreamed up something as horrifying as what happened in that basement.

"You are one of the elements of harmony in case you've forgotten. That caused quite a stir. Your friend Pinkamena went all out." A facial muscle twitched at the mention of her name. Fear wasn't something characteristic of me anymore; all I felt was anger.

"Even though you never gave us much credit, that is exactly the kind of incident we were theorizing about. After complete order has been instilled for so long, our world has forgotten how to deal with something like this. Things like this just don't happen anymore, so when something like this finally does happen, it tips the threshold. All of the political and sociological tension that has been slowly building for all those years is about to be released, and we're going to come out on top because we knew that war was coming. We are the one's who were prepared."

"What the buck are you talking about Chrome? One murder turns all of Equestria to hell? Hate to break it to you Chrome, but murder happens. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened before. This doesn't change anything."

"Oh, but it does. You have absolutely no idea what happened do you? Well of course not, you were dead. Somehow, Pinkamena was able to develop a toxin that can strip a pony of their sanity. I must admit, I'm a bit embarrassed that a pastry chef came up with it before us, but what matters is that she utilized it, and she utilized during the cider festival when Ponyville was overflowing with visitors. It's not just a simple murder, this is the end. Or rather the beginning depending on how you look at it." His words shocked me. If what he was saying was true then most of my friends were probably dead, save for one cutthroat backstabbing excuse for a pony.

"I'm going to bucking kill her. I'm going to tear her to pieces."

"Well good, because that's the general idea. The rules of the game have changed. We're no longer just a manipulative political group infiltrating society; we're an army. This is warfare now, and we need every advantage we can get."

"My head hurts."

"Well it's a lot of information to take in. We're just getting started though!"

Somewhere in the back of my head, a whispering took hold.

"Don't Listen to him. Don't listen. Run away, run away. Please, please, please, please, please..." I shook it off and kept walking.

"And we're here!" Chrome called out. We were facing a large black door, made out of some dark, reflective material that I wasn't familiar with.

"Where are we?"

"The room where we keep prototype 3. Free from the moral obligations of normal pony society, we were able to make substantial scientific advancements as you know. This though... This is our crowning achievement. Somepony suggested the name M.E.C.H. for it. I rather liked the name Automaton. Well enough talk, it would be a lot easier just to show this to you than to try and describe it." On cue, the door slid open, and revealed a large hexagonal room of the same black material. The ceiling was angled upward from each of the six walls to create a kind of geometric dome. Far out of reach, up above, was a mess of wires, monitors, whirring components and mechanical appendages. The highlight of the room, however, was what was hanging from a tangle of wires and cords just over a short pedestal in the center of the room. It was a pony made of metal. It didn't have a tail or a mane, but the shape of the body was still obviously feminine. One of the eyes was covered up by a dark steel plate that had been welded over it, and the other one was filled with a curved glass lens that was tinted a dull shade of red. The plating in front of the torso and in the stomach were left open, giving a good view of the interior.Like the rest of the room, it was a mess of joints and circuitry, but everything seemed to be connected to one end of a large cylindrical tube that took up most of the space inside of it's chest. The other end was connected to a thick, transparent tube which ran out from the body and up to the ceiling as if it were an umbilical cord, and this room was a womb.

"What is this thing?"

"This my dear friend, is what we like to call an Automaton. It is a purely synthetic pony. A couple years ago, an inventor took some wooden pony dolls to Canterlot, filled them with gears and had them walk around and make gestures. That was when the term was first used, but this is quite different. Those dolls could only do one repeating motion that they were built for. They weren't machines that could be used in a war. These weren't built to carry out one set task, they are built to have the mobility and capability to carry out any task. You see, there are only a few gears in this thing to work a couple of non-vital components. Everything else is worked by joints and a series of cords which are synthetic of actual muscles in the Pony body, but stronger. This machine was not built to carry out one task, but to have the ability to carry out any task infinitely better than a normal pony could. It's a work of art."

But it's still just a hunk of metal. For something like that to be useful, it has to be able to think. Metal can't think."

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong. That's what sparked the idea of metal solders. Tell me, Ms. Dash: If metal can't think, then how am I holding an intelligent conversation with a corpse? Your body parts are held together by stitches, your organs are missing and your eyes are missing, but your functioning perfectly. Better than perfect in fact! You actually..."

He kept talking, but I stopped listening. Something he said had struck a chord with me. I knew that my organs would be missing, but what was that he said about my body being held together by stitches? And what was that part about my eyes? I brushed Him aside and gazed at my reflection in the black metal surface. It wasn't me that I saw staring back at me. Black thread zigzagged across me body, sealing what would otherwise be horrifying gaps in my skin. If it had just been that, I would have almost looked like Frankenpony from the old storybooks, but it wasn't. What he had said about my eyes was true. I didn't have eyes. They were just dark holes with two glowing dots of red light coming from deep within. Whatever happened to me, it turned me into a monster. I thrust my hoof into the wall with all my might, directing all my anger into it. My reflection cracked and splintered.

"I'm going to make her pay. I'm going to tear her head off!" Chrome actually looked slightly startled by my outburst.

"Well of course, but all things in good time. We need to prepare before we can think about..." I cut him off.

"I don't give a buck about your petty little war, Chrome! I'll work with you if you want me to, but I'm going to Ponyville now, and if you want to stand in my way I'll tear your head off! This is something I'm doing on my own. Now get out of my way."

Chapter 8 - Distant Memories

The dark hole seemed endless, like a void. I fell until it got so dark that I couldn't even tell if I was moving anymore. A moment later the darkness slipped away and was replaced with a distant memory of mine: My very first memory, in fact. I saw myself in my room at the rock-farm. I was barely a filly at the time. Since it was the first memory that remained in my head, I used to think of it as the day of my awakening. It was also the day that I made a simple realization: I was bored. That might not seem important, but it caused a lot of problems for me. There wasn't all that much to do on the rock-farm, you see. I would wake up early in the morning if I wanted to avoid a scolding and quickly eat a modest breakfast of oats so that I would have enough time to pack lunch before Father sent my sisters and me out for work. Then I would work until noon, break for lunch and work again until dusk. After that I would come home to eat whatever scraps Mother was able to scrape together for dinner and was allowed a few hours to myself before bed, in which time I had no activity to occupy myself with. The routine was burned into my brain, and so, to weaken its hold on me, I submerged myself in apathy. It felt like I had drowned in it long ago, and yet some part of me never stopped screaming for relief. Soon though, boredom gave birth to a far worse problem. The problem was loneliness. Maybe it would have been easier if I could talk to my family, but as it stood, that wasn't really an option. My Mother never wanted to talk to anypony, and all Father wanted to talk about was work. My sisters were only as silent and lifeless as I was, so I couldn't really blame them for never talking to me. Life was a sad, dreary, joyless event.

The vision changed from me in my room to a day that I remember with all too much clarity. It was around noon and I was about to break for lunch when I found that poor, lost, hungry baby bunny. All I had with me for lunch was an apple and some bread crumbs, but I felt sorry for it. Somehow I got it into my head that it was an orphan and didn't have anypony to care for it. For all I know, that really was the case. Either way, I decided to give it a few breadcrumbs. After a while I made a game of dropping breadcrumbs in a little trail for the bunny to follow. Soon I had run out of breadcrumbs and had only an apple to eat, but something about the ordeal made me happy. For that, an empty stomach was a small price to pay. I expected the bunny to go its own way as soon as it realized I didn't have any more food to give it, but it kept following me. After a few hours I started talking to it. It felt good just to hear my own voice after so many days spent in silence. I poured out my thoughts and emotions that day. I told it my worries and problems; my longings and desires. For the first time in my life I opened up my soul to another living creature and I felt relief I didn't know was possible. For the first time that I can remember, something brought a smile to my face.

When I got home, somehow I knew that Father wouldn't like the bunny. I didn't know why, but I knew that it would be bad if I let him see. Instead I hid it in my lunch sack and smuggled it into the house. It squirmed a bit since it hated the confined space, but I was able to get it into my room unnoticed. I also brought my dinner to my room and we shared the meal. It cautiously nibbled off the corners of my plate, but I made sure that it got enough to eat. It snuggled under my blanket that night and I felt happier than I ever had before. I finally had something to love. From then on it became part of my regular routine to sneak some food and water upstairs for it in the morning. I knew that Father wouldn't like that either, but the bunny didn't have anypony else to care for it. Nopony ever bothered going in my room, so it wouldn't be to hard to conceal.

It wasn't too long before I decided to come up with a name for my new friend. The first name to come to mind was Pinkie because it sounded a lot like my name. Pinkie and Pinkamena just had a pleasant ring to it. I was so happy back then. If only I had been a little bit more careful.

The vision blurred and skipped to the day of the sonic rainboom. I was having a particularly hard day working the fields and I was beginning to slip into a bad mood when I saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. A million miles away, a wonderful rainbow maned pegasus had just performed one of the most important feats of her unjustly short life. The joy I derived from caring for Pinkie, coupled with the awe-inspiring beauty of the rainboom in the sky caused something to click in my head. Life didn't have to be some sad, dreary, joyless event. Life was something that should be celebrated and enjoyed all the time. Life could be a party.

My vision made another skip to the party I threw for my family that night. That was the point in my life where everything should have worked out. Perhaps some things just aren't meant to be. Maybe some ponies just aren't meant to find happiness.

We came home that night and everypony seemed genuinely happy, which was a first. Maybe that's what caused me to let my guard down. I decided to bring a carrot upstairs to feed Pinkie, but I was so caught up in thought that I didn't even notice Father following me upstairs. When he caught me feeding her, he flew into a rage. He screamed at me about wasting food. I had never seen him so angry in my life. I tried to stand in-between him and Pinkie who was cowering behind my leg, but he just kicked me aside and grabbed Pinkie by her ears. He threw her into an ancient wooden box that I kept in the corner of my room and slammed a padlock on it. She was terrified of confined spaces. I tried to get him to let her out, but he said that he wouldn't be having me feed vermin our food. He gave me a lecture about the value of what we owned and told me that I could have the key to the padlock if I worked harder the next day to make up for the food I had wasted. A few weeks earlier he had taken away a mirror that my sister liked and made a similar deal with her, claiming that it was distracting her from her job. He still hadn't returned it.

The next day I woke up earlier than normal, hurried through my morning activities and rushed out the door before the normal time. I pushed myself to do as much as I was physically able to do in the time I was given, and barely even stopped for lunch. When I asked father If I had done enough to get the key though, he simply said that maybe I would if I tried harder the next day. I was exhausted, but no less determined. Pinkie was frantic when I got to my room. She wasn't used to being trapped or being in the dark. She was scared. I spent a couple of hours telling her how I was going to get her out and how it would all be alright in the end. Hearing my voice seemed to calm her down a little. The day after that I worked so hard that my muscles ached, but Father's answer was the same. By that time though, I was on to him. I told Pinkie that I would get her out the next day no matter what, and I meant it. I couldn't work nearly as hard that day because of the way I had strained myself earlier, but it was apparent that he wasn't going to let her out no matter how hard I worked. His promise was a simple ploy to get me to work harder, just like he did with my sister and her mirror. He had no intention of following through on either promise. He probably didn't even consider the fact that Pinkie hadn't eaten in close to three days. He thought of her just like he thought about the mirror; as an object.

When I got home that day I didn't even ask father if I could have the key. I just ate my dinner as fast as I could and ran up the stairs and into Father's bedroom. I rummaged around in his dresser for the key to Pinkie's box and got back to my room with it just before my Mother and Sisters came upstairs to bed. Father usually stayed downstairs for an hour or two after everypony else had gone to sleep. I went to unlock the box, but something seemed off. Every other time I had come to bed I heard Pinkie desperately scuttling around the edges of the box, looking for a way out. She usually didn't stop until a few hours into the night. This time though, there was only silence. I reasoned that being in the dark so long had messed up her sleep patterns, so unlocked the box and flung the top open, but she didn't wake up. She was sprawled out in the center of the box. I nudged her and eventually picked her up, but she still didn't move.

"Come on Pinkie! Pinkie! Wake up!" I remember saying. The truth was beginning to dawn on me, but I wasn't ready to accept it.

"Come on Pinkie... Please, please wake up. I'll get you water. I don't care what Daddy wants, just please don't be... Please don't be dead, Pinkie."

She didn't respond. There was no use in denying it anymore. I hugged her as tight as I could and collapsed to the ground in sobs. I must have been like that for several minutes before I got my bearings back. The sadness I felt slowly turned into a boiling hatred for my father.

I knew that he would still be downstairs, so I decided to confront him. With Pinkie in tow, I descended the stairs and threw her at his feet.

"You killed her, Father." I said spitefully. "You killed her and you're a terrible pony."

"Don't you ever let me catch you talking to me that way again." he retaliated in a threatening and authoritative tone. "How did you even get it out of that box?"

"Well it wasn't exactly hard! You left the key in the most obvious place there is."

"Drop that tone, Pinkamena. You directly disobeyed me. Don't think for a second that there won't be consequences for that!"

"Were you even listening to me? Do you even care that you starved her to death?" I was starting to become enraged by this point.

"Of course I don't care!" he bellowed. "It was just some stupid animal eating our hard earned food! I wasn't about to let it find its way back into the house and steal more of it! You know what: If you had listened to me and kept the darn box closed, I was going to tell you that those damned greedy vermin go into hibernation when they don't get enough to eat, and you would have believed it too you stupid little..." He kept on yelling but I couldn't even hear him anymore. Blood was pumping to my head too fast for me to hear anything else but my heartbeat in that moment. Sound faded out and for a few seconds I was alone with my anger, my pulse, and a sensation I had never felt before; the undeniable urge to hurt somepony. That was the first time I ever felt blood-lust, and let me tell you something: Blood-lust and rage make a deadly combination.

"I HATE YOU!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I bucked him in the knee with as much force as I could muster, but unfortunately I was still just a filly, and the most force I could muster wasn't all that much. He cringed for a second and then thrust forward, bucking me into the kitchen. It knocked the wind out of me and I had barely gotten to my hooves when he burst into the room with a look of blind rage in his eyes but my instincts had already kicked in. I was in autopilot mode, and I already knew exactly what I needed to do. His anger wasn't like my anger. My anger was cold and sharp, but his was careless and unfocused. It made him clumsy; clumsy enough not to notice the kitchen knife gripped in my teeth until he was already moving with to much momentum to stop himself. He flung a hoof out in front of his face as if to shield himself from me, but my target was his neck and the knife plunged deep. Father's eyes widened in shock and I let out a small giggle as he stumbled backward and slipped on the blood spraying from his neck. A grin slowly began to spread across my face. As I stood there watching him him bleed on the floor, something changed inside of me. I knew with every fiber of my existence that he deserved all of the pain he was going through, and it made me feel indescribably happy knowing that I was the pony who had caused it. I just felt like laughing.

He started flailing his limbs in an attempt to drag himself to the door, but I walked around in front of him and put my hooves down on his head to stop him from moving.

"Do you really think you'll make it all the way to the door? You know you'll still die even if you do. Don't be a silly pony, Daddy." He looked like he wanted to scream, but he had already exhaled the last breath that would ever leave his lungs.

"You see daddy, life isn't just some sad, dreary, joyless event that we have to suffer through. It's not something that should be wasted worrying about bits or spent lifelessly repeating mundane tasks. It's something that exists to be enjoyed, and right now I am getting far more joy out of these last few moments of yours than you would ever get out of your sad little life. Life is a party, and in case you missed the new cutie mark, I'm a party pony now." The last strand of life clinging to his body seeped away, leaving his eyes blank.

The vision went out of focus and a few hours slipped by. Just after the murder I had been panicked. Now though, I was calm. At first I thought that somepony would come down the stairs any second and discover the body, but I soon realized that my sisters and mother would rather sit the conflict out than get themselves involved in it. That gave me enough time to come up with a plan. I couldn't simply hide the body in a ditch somewhere and pretend like nothing ever happened, but that didn't mean that the situation was hopeless. I was still smart enough to come up with a creative solution to the problem. All I needed to do was to cause an event drastic enough that it would make my father's death completely irrelevant. If I wanted to move on, I would have to burn my world to the ground.

I must have stared at the candle set on that table for hours, just thinking about the choice that lay before me. I didn't hate the rest of my family the way I hated my father, but they weren't happy living either. If I walked away from that table, they would live the rest of their lives in misery. They could never be happy the way I could be happy.

The vision changed into an abstraction of events that transpired. I stood in an impossibly dark room in absolute silence; the kind of silence where you can hear the blood moving through your veins. The candle on the table burned blindingly bright, but its light barely made it past the edges of the table before being swallowed into nothingness. I reached forward, sliding the candle just over the edge of the table. Time slowed down as it tipped and fell from its resting place. The flame trailed and curled at an impossible length. The entire world seemed to revolve around that single moment, and in an instant it was over. The candle hit the ground and the entire room was engulfed in flame. I grabbed Pinkie by her ear with my mouth and carried her away from the fading life I had once lived.

"Wow. I never knew things were so bad for you. I'm sorry you had to go through all that." The voice spoke. It startled me for a moment, since I had completely forgotten that it was there. I decided to humor it. It was nice to have somepony to talk to again.

"I buried her, you know." I said.

"Huh?"

"Pinkie; I buried her that night. There's still a little grave with her name on it somewhere."

"Sad. So you took her name after that?"

"It's what I asked the ponies at the orphanage to call me. I guess I did it to keep a little piece of her with me. She was always so happy and playful... She was everything I wanted to be; everything I became. Well not everything I guess. I killed after that. I killed so many ponies, but I always felt different when I was doing it. There were two sides to me. The damaged pony that I was, and the pony I always wanted to be. It was only recently that I realized that I had to accept both as part of me if I ever wanted to be truly happy, but I guess it's a bit late to find balance, huh? If you don't mind me asking though, why do you even care?"

"That's a complicated question, but I'll try to summarize. When you're inside somepony's head, you kind of understand how they think and what they feel. Surmise to say that you just didn't feel like the monster I once thought you were. I guess I just needed to know how all of this started before I could say this: I forgive you, Pinkamena."

"Well that's nice, but forgive me for what? What have I done to you?"

"More than you even know. You sentenced me to a fate worse than death, and it could very well be the downfall of us both, but I've said enough for now. I'll see you again tonight." With that I woke up and was left with nopony but Gummy to help me sort out my thoughts.

Author's Note

This was my inspiration for this chapter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDBAiq4RFE

Chapter 9 - Anomaly

I watched from the ceiling as the angry mare pushed her way past my captor. Neither of them noticed me in my hiding place. I skulked around my network of tubes while I waited for the other pony to leave the room. I needed him to leave before I could take what I needed.

I was everybody and nobody at the same time. I could see the world from ten-thousand fractured points of view with ten-thousand sets of eyes. My memories were more than any physical mind could hold; my knowledge, a pool from ten-thousand lifetimes of learning. Yet I was still powerless without a body. That was why I needed to take the empty one that lay in wait for me. If I wanted to get out of my prison, I would have to become what Chrome had called Prototype 3.

The moment that I was alone I went to work, seeping through the tubes and situating myself inside of the capsule. The container sealed itself and the tube I had traveled through disconnected itself from my new body with a hiss. Some kind of automated start-up sequence began now that the vessel was occupied. My synthetic muscles contracted and then relaxed. My neck tilted, pivoted and righted itself while my eyes flickered to life. Streams of information flowed into my consciousness through an assortment of circuits. It took me a moment to make sense of it and a moment more to filter it into images, but once I did my vision came to me in a form that I could barely remember. After a few seconds, several more circuits opened up for me to send information out of and control my limbs with. My hooves twitched, switching from the automated system to my direct control. I could hear the sound of wires and tubes snapping away from my body and I fell to the ground with a resonating clang. Something was still stopping me from moving though. I had complete control over my body, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to make it do... Or rather, I was sure that I wanted it to do several thousand things at the same time, which wasn't possible. Having so many perspectives and thoughts at the same time would be cumbersome. I would need a single set of thoughts and motivations, and so began the process of deciding who I wanted to be as a pony. My body shape dictated that I would be female, but the rest of my traits were up to me. After a few moments of deliberation I decided that I would be generally kind and thoughtful, but rather smart and more than just a little bit cynical. Secretly I would desire companionship, but I would also be good at hiding my emotions since I knew that love was something that I would never again be able to share with another being. Above all, I would have a strong sense of self preservation and would do whatever needed to be done in order to survive. Everything else was a secondary priority.

Satisfied with my choices, I lifted a mechanical hoof with singular intent. The experience was both foreign and yet oddly familiar, but I didn't take much time to reflect on it as escaping was far more important. Instead, I trotted over to the door and assessed the means of my escape. I couldn't open the door from the inside and busting it down would make too much noise. Ideally, I would want to remain undetected for as long as possible. Just then, one of the many screens in the room flickered to life and showed a white mare with a messy purple mane. She seemed to be in some kind of makeshift control room with dismembered machinery in just about every place imaginable.

"Hello, Prototype 3. My name is Doctor Blank."

"Who are you?" I responded in a fake, metallic voice that I wasn't aware I commanded until that very moment.

"A friend. I'm the one who released you." I was grateful to this mysterious pony for her help but I was still suspicious of her.

"How did you release me? You never even entered the room and it doesn't look like you're supposed to be wherever you are."

"It's a long story. Basically everything here works on some kind of electronic network. They really need better security. It took me less than an hour to worm my way back into their system. I could tell you more but we don't really have time. What's important right now is me getting you out of that cell." She seemed to be telling the truth, but her story didn't add up. She was leaving some vital information out.

"I'm sorry if I don't believe you, but I highly doubt you're just doing this out of the kindness of your heart. I don't want to walk out of here only to have you stab me in the back. What is your motivation?"

"Not very trusting are you? Alright, you got me; I need a distraction. You see, the body of Prototype 1 was destroyed during testing, but I was able to steal the schematics from their network and the soul is still intact. Releasing you will give me an opportunity to acquire it while everypony else is occupied."

"Sorry, Blank, but I'm not interested in causing a distraction. All I want is to get out of here."

"Don't worry, I'm not asking anything of you. General mayhem will probably be covered by Prototype 6. He seemed set on revenge so I sent him off in the direction of one of their energy cores. If he's successful then he'll take out a good chunk of this facility with him. You, my friend, are free to attempt an escape. All I care is that you're out of your cell and tracking you down is more important than looking for me. Sorry I can't stay and chat, but I have a stake in this too and I still have to deal with the release of Prototype 9. Good luck to you." The screen flickered off and the door slid open. Light streamed into the room.

"Hey, what's with the door. Is that supposed to be open?" I heard a masculine voice call out.

"Who know?" I heard a faint feminine voice at the end of the hallway. "It's probably just a malfunction."

"Hmm. I'll check it out. You go on ahead." I ducked to one side of the doorway to avoid detection just before he entered the room. He seemed to be scanning for anypony in the room.

"Hey, wait a minute. What happened to the Prototype?" I lifted my left hoof and a long slender blade extended from it. It had obviously been built into my nueral interface as a means of defense. I took a moment to admire the elegant workmanship of the weapon before sinking it into the pony's back. His lungs filled up with blood before he could scream and I dragged the corpse to the side, out of sight of passersby. All that remained was a faint bloodstain. I retracted the blade and exited the room, glancing left and right to make sure that nopony else spotted me. I would make it out of this place if it was the last thing I would ever do.

***

I bludgeoned my helpless opponent's skull in with my strong metallic hooves. I hated every single one of these worthless ponies with a passion. After what they had done to so many ponies, none of them deserved to live. The least I could to was take as many of them down with me as possible. I was the orchestrator of righteous justice.

"The bullets are just bouncing off of his armor! Run!" I heard one of the guards yell. He was foolish to think that I would let him get away. I lowered my head and focused my energy on the implement on my forehead. The synthetic horn heated and glowed a brilliant red as it charged itself. A moment later, a bolt of energy shot down the hallway and pierced the cowardly foe through his chest, spraying blood across the floor in front of him. If I were capable of grinning I would have done it then. They had given me all the power that I needed.

***

Freedom at last. Prototype 6 could do whatever he wanted but I was just happy to be out of that cell; to live; to soar. I looked back at the metal disks that were connected to my shoulders, pulsating with blue energy. They were rotating, flickering and sparking like crazy, but there was no denying that they worked. I was flying. How? Who cares? I sure didn't. All I knew was that these devices were somehow allowing me to soar through the air and it felt fantastic; like something that I had been longing for forever and just didn't know it; like something written in the very core of my being. It was the single most beautiful thing that I would ever experience. With every movement my body made, my very soul felt like it was moving with it.

"He's a fast little bugger, ain't he?" I vaguely heard a voice call from somewhere indistinct. A few bullets flew past me, but I just twisted out of the way and directed myself down a new hallway at increased velocity. The only thing I could think to desire was the sky; a place filled with open air and infinite freedom. That new, greater kind of freedom would make my life as complete as it would ever be.

***

I crept across the hallway, barely making it to the other side before the guard patrolling turned around.

"Who's there?" he called out. Damn. Even if he didn't spot me, he would most likely investigate and find the corpse of his former colleague in the area I had just passed from. I had carelessly left her out in the open. Oh well, I would just have to move fast and be gone before he started looking for me. I turned back around only to see another mare turn a corner about ten feet down. There was no way I could make it to her in time but I tried anyway. Sprinting down the corridor, I slid me blade expertly into her throat, but she had already let a scream escape her lips. The damage was already done and the only thing I could think to do was run. I could already hear the guard who I had slipped past earlier shouting as I swung around a corner into yet another guard who's neck I swiftly snapped before sprinting on ahead. I was far too close to my goal to fail now. There was a hidden exit into a nearby forest that I was near enough to taste. Only a few more turns and I would be there. I ducked under some bullets coming from the hallway behind me and turned down another hallway. The guard there saw me immediately but was too stunned to react. I slammed into him with my shoulder, sending him reeling aside harmlessly and took another turn. I was so close now. A pony fired at me from ahead and there wasn't time to dodge, but I kept my head down and refused to expose the fragile vial in me chest so the bullets bounced harmlessly off. I hastefully stabbed the attacker in the skull and turned one final time to the door that lead out. Just as I was expecting, Blank had programmed it to open automatically as soon as I neared it. Even if she did have ulterior motives for letting me go, I had to give the mare credit for following through. She did her part. I slipped under the door out into the world and perked my head up, scanning for a good direction to head off in. If I could just lose myself in the forest then I might have a shot at evading these ponies completely. Maybe I could even find somepony to take pity on me who would house me; care for me. Could anypony truly feel the emotions of a metal shell? I was still a pony on the inside. Maybe somepony would understand me; perhaps even grow to like me in time. Maybe everything really could work out. I was so wrapped up in these thoughts that I didn't even register the hoofsteps coming up from behind me.

"Congratulations. You made it outside." a voice came from behind me. I whipped around to see who had spoken only to be greeted with a bullet piercing the vulnerable point in my chest.

"It's really a feat to be marveled at." Chrome spoke politely. "Unfortunately that's as far as you'll be making it. Goodnight Prototype 3."

***

My right hoof split into four segments and small claws protruded from the gap, grasping and pulling in the discarded firearm. I pulled it inside my hoof and narrowed the gap slightly, adjusting the implements inside of the hoof to accommodate for the weapon's operation. Extending my hoof to the right, I relinquished a couple of rounds with more precision than my adversaries could possibly muster, cleanly placing the bullets through the skulls of my oncoming attackers. Each hit the ground exactly a second after being hit, making a rhythmic thum-thump sound. I rushed down the hallway, away from the rest of my enemies. I was too close to the power generator to fail now. There were countless ponies chasing me in an attempt to stop me from achieving my goal. They didn't intimidate me though. The more ponies that tried to stop me, the more ponies that would be caught in the explosion. I slid across the floor, turning in the process and firing off several rounds down the hallway. The maneuver landed my right in front of my destination. I charged up my horn one final time to throw one last bolt down the hallway before leaving them behind, but that turned out to be a fatal mistake. A lucky bullet struck and shattered the super-heated metal, causing a small explosion inside my head. Miraculously, one of my eyes was still functional and the delicate vial in my chest wasn't completely shattered, but it did have a large crack in it. As I stood there, I could feel the very essence of my soul leaking away. Ducking into the room, I assessed the situation. There was no way that I would live more than a minute. That didn't faze me though. I had known from the beginning that my mission was a suicidal one. Nevertheless, my head was spinning and dozens of ponies would be on me in an instant to finish me off. It seemed unlikely that I would be able to overload the reactor in my current state with the minimal amount of time that I had left to live, but I had to try. Even if I failed, as I likely would, I couldn't die until I knew that I had given this final effort every last ounce of strength. I staggered forward and went to work for however many seconds I had left.

***

A black Pegasus pulled up beside me in the hallway. I had left all the others behind, but this one was far faster than the rest. Part of me wanted to soar with him, but I knew that he wanted nothing but to kill me. Sure enough, a couple bullets flew in my direction but I easily rolled out of the way and held my position for a few seconds, wanting to savor every moment. Unexpectedly, I slowed down and veered to the right, leaving my rival speeding down the wrong corridor. That should have bought me enough time to reach my destination. Even in my current dream-like state of childish wonder I knew where I was headed and what I needed to do. Blank had told me of a large hanger that would open up to the sky. I needed to make it there. Rolling down the hallway, I stunned a few earth ponies and unicorns with my bold, unpredictable maneuvers. I caught a glimpse of liquid rainbow and shards of metal on the ground, but at the speed I was traveling I barely had time to register them. To my surprise, the black Pegasus I had evaded earlier pulled out in the hallway in front of me, firing a few bullets in my direction. One of the unicorns shot a magic bolt from behind me that barely missed its intended target and caused the Pegasus to dodge out of the way. Before he could get back in position, I was already shooting down the hallway behind him, dodging and weaving my way through the fray. I took my final turn into a large black chamber with steel doors blocking the ceiling. They slid open and cracks of sunlight flooded the chamber, illuminating it in a heavenly glow. I flew out of the confining facility and was stunned by the beauty of creation. The misty mountains beyond the horizon were casting dark purple shadows over rolling hills of bright green grass and vibrant flowers. To my left was a seemingly endless forest, thick with trees and wildlife. What was above me, though, made those details seem insignificant by comparison. Rays of light streamed through the cloud layer, creating the beautiful illusion of circles of color twisting and turning, the light reflecting off of the lenses of my eyes and the water droplets in the clean, clear air. I could hardly believe that a scene so perfect could exist.

A faint sound of a gunshot rang out from far below me and suddenly the warm feeling in my chest began to hurt. The Pegasus had taken his shot and struck true, but I didn't notice. I just flew upward, leaving a colorful trail of liquid in my wake. Somewhere unseen, there was a resonating explosion that consumed everything below me in flame, but I didn't look back upon the sight. A moment later I broke through the cloud layer, sending a spiral of twisting mist trailing about my body and opening up a vast, endless, brilliant blue ocean of sky. Nowhere could there possibly be a scene more breathtaking.The pain I had felt earlier was replaced with numbness, and there, with the sun reflecting off of my glass eyes and the clouds and sky continuing on forever, my vision slowly faded to a peaceful and serene white.

***

Somewhere in the distance, a purple maned scientist turned away from the slowly settling smoke before setting off into the forest, the precious vial in tow.

Chapter 10 - Gallus Gallus Domesticus

As I think of our friendship, I begin to see
Mere words can't describe what you mean to me.
When this cold, hard world has me lonesome and blue
I look up to see my angel, my sweet angel, you.

You dry the tears that fall from my eyes.
You bring me sunshine to brighten my sky.
You rescue me when I'm scared and alone
And take my hand to lead me home.
~Marcia M. Griffith

Scootaloo curled up and tried to ignore the pain. Barbed-wire was digging into her back and side, but she refused to struggle. That would only cut more holes and hasten her death. Maybe it would be better for her to make death quick as it was all but inevitable at this point, but her desire to live overcame such hopeless reasoning. All she was focusing on was ignoring the pain. It had hurt more when the pony on the other side was thrashing around, but she had long since stopped moving. Now it was only her who was left alive, half by determination and half by pure chance. The only thing to do was wait.

A few more hours passed and blood continued to drain from her, drop by painful drop. Despair began to cut through her resolve and plant dark thoughts in her head; thoughts of inevitability; thoughts of a faster way out. The thoughts terrified her and she didn't want to listen, but the seeds of doubt had already taken root in her mind, and they slowly began to grow to fruition. After while longer she was doing nothing but considering the most efficient way to end her life. If making dying was as simple as making the decision to die then she would have done it already. For better or for worse, the barbed-wire would make death painful and messy. If she turned around and thrashed about like her friend, there was no telling how long it would take her to die. It was nothing but the threat of even greater pain that kept her from attempting the act, but it would not be long before even that would seem preferable to the hours of pain she would have to endure as her life drained from her ever so slowly.

After what felt like forever, she finally resolved to end her own life; to die on her own terms. She prepared for it twice, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She was certain of her intent, yet each time when she realized there was still time to chicken out and think it through again, she took the opportunity. No matter; third time's a charm, right? She shut her eyes and steeled herself for what she was about to do, but just when death was moments away she heard something in the distance. She had to strain her ears to make sure it wasn't imagined; wasn't just some trick her mind was playing on her out of fear. No, it was definitely real. In the distance there were faint hoofsteps, slowly getting louder. Scootaloo froze in place, trying to be as still as death itself. If this was what she thought it was then she might just have a shot. After all, the traps had to be reset at some point, right? After a little while, the hoofsteps became louder; closer and closer until they seemed to be right next to her. A moment later and the satchel of barbed wire fell to the ground with a sickening spat of blood and the sound of somepony's bone breaking. Scootaloo just absorbed the impact and rolled limply to the side, facing away from whoever had unwittingly freed her. Under normal circumstances she would have let out a yelp upon hitting the ground, but she was numb to pain after bleeding for so many hours. She had survived though, so it had all been worth it. She might not live to see the end of the day, but she survived what should have been immediate death and now she had a chance.

Scootaloo grinned, her eye twitching slightly. She flicked her tongue across her razor sharp teeth in anticipation. Those dumb Sisterhood scum were always spoiling their fun, but at least she could always count on them being careless. The pony slowly began to approach from behind, seemingly to clear away the corpses from the trap so that it could be reset. The hoofsteps came to a halt. Perhaps he had sensed something was off or he had seen Scootaloo's chest slowly rising and falling. Maybe he was just preparing himself for the task that lay ahead of him. It didn't really matter either way, as Scootaloo was up in a flash the moment that he hesitated. He screamed at the sudden flash of movement and raised his gun to fire at her but she slammed into him, causing the weapon to discharge harmlessly off to the side before biting down hard on his chest, tearing a large chunk of flesh out. He doubled over in pain and Scootaloo darted away, his screams of agony echoing in the distance. She darted down another street and kept running until she found a dark corner to hide in. U until this point she hadn't realized just how much blood she had lost. Her head felt like it was spinning and her eyes blurred out of focus every so often.

She curled up in her hiding place and started thinking about what had lead her to this point. It was truly incredible how much the world could change in such a short period of time, and even more incredible how much ponies could change. From her perspective, one day she just started going insane. She hit a pony in school and felt took far too much joy in the fact that she was bleeding. It was frightening but it felt so seductively good that she just slipped into it, finding a pleasant, comforting rhythm with her new state of mind. The next thing she knew, everypony was going off the deep end; tearing up buildings; tearing up ponies. It was all the same; simple-minded anarchy. From there things just got worse. Crazy ponies were hunting down survivors clinging to strands of sanity and just as often killing each-other in the open. That was until some ponies got together and decided to sharpen their teeth. It became kind of a symbol. The teeth marked ponies of the same make; wolves hunting the same prey. Sharpening your teeth meant that you wouldn't be hunted, but it marked you as something else; a monster. Once Scootaloo took that mark it was clear that there was no turning back for her. whether she did it for the sake of her survival or because of her damaged mind was still not clear to her, but what's done is done. She had chosen this path and the fact that she was sitting, bleeding to death in a dark corner was nothing but her fault and she knew it. She hated it.

Scootaloo thought back to a little more recently. It wasn't exactly clear where the term Cyv had originated, but some ponies said it was invented in the Sisterhood as a short name for Civilian and spread from there to outside. More likely it had no meaning at all but got passed around during the chaos. Whatever the case, that's what she was now. There was no question of it. Twilight Sparkle hadn't even recognized her with her sharp teeth and tangled mane. Or maybe she had and just didn't care about her anymore. Tears began to stream down her face but she wasn't quite sure why she was crying. Was it because of the innocence and happiness she had lost? Was it because of the life she would very soon lose? Scootaloo cried heavily and her tears began to mix with the blood that she was still losing even now. She thought about how pathetic she must look and decided that she had to stop. What would Rainbow Dash think after all? Her heart skipped a beat when the thought crossed her mind. She had always looked up to Rainbow Dash and tried to live up to her expectations when she found herself weak or lacking, but now... It wouldn't matter to Rainbow how sad or broken she was, all that mattered was the teeth. What would she think? She would think that Scootaloo was a monster; an animal. She would think that and she would be right. She now realized that she hadn't just given up herself, she had given up hope and now she could never have her mentor back. She was just a stupid flightless Pegasus with nobody to love her. In that moment, her thoughts hurt more than any physical pain she could imagine and the tears pooled up again, coming all anew.

Just then she saw an earth pony from the Sisterhood sprinting past her. He was heading in the direction of the shouting and gunfire she had caused earlier. It only made sense that they would group up around the location and spread out to search for her. Scootaloo forced back the emotions that she had been feeling earlier and ran past some houses toward the outskirts of Ponyville. There was no real hurry as it would likely be several minutes before they even started the search, but if she stalled now her emotions would get the better of her. There was no way for a Pegasus to detect the traps that the Sisterhood had set up since the tripwires were set up with magic, but by pure chance she managed to avoid them on her way out.

Scootaloo trotted up a hill, too dazed to notice the trail of blood she was leaving in her wake. Not that anypony would bother following her this far. With every step she took, she was painting the grass she walked on a crimson red; a stain against the serene beauty of nature that surrounded her. Scootaloo's eyes again began to pool with tears and the pain in her body again became as agonizing as it had ever been. Eventually the tears and pain obscured her vision of the world, but she kept on walking; focusing on simply placing one hoof in front of the other. Somewhere in the distance, she heard a bird chirping a merry tune. It made her feel sick that even in a time of such pain, the animal could sound so cheerful and carefree. The contrast between the two almost felt like nature was mocking her. After all, why shouldn't it at this point? Just as she was about to slip into an even deeper despair, she heard a rustling sound from somewhere ahead of her followed by a single word.

"Huh?" Scootaloo's instincts kicked in in an instant, and she dove to the right, conveniently landing behind a large apple tree. The voice spoke again. It was young and feminine.

"Uh oh. I think that's another'o them... Hello? Anypony there?" Scootaloo blinked her eyes and peeked out from behind the tree. Her vision was still blurry, but she could make out a yellow-ish figure standing near a fence. She reacted on instinct and charged at the pony, leaping towards her and hissing.

"Ayaaaaagh!" the pony yelped in alarm. Despite her surprise, she was remarkable agile, ducking underneath the first attack and dodging to the side as Scootaloo whipped around for a second. She turned and ran down the length of the picket fence, yelling all the while.

Scootaloo had scared her off but this had just been a filly. Scootaloo knew she might lose to the survivor in her current state, but she also knew that if the filly was able to alert other survivors to her presence she would most definitely not live to see the end of the day. Under normal circumstances Scootaloo would have run again and searched for a hiding place, but she wasn't exactly in her right mind at the moment. The knowledge that she could very well bleed to death had made her desperate; impulsive. Have you ever heard that there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal? Well few places is that more apparent than here. In a split-second decision, Scootaloo decided to chase the pony down. She sprinted after the filly, using her hereditary agility to gain ground on her. Her head was pounding, her body ached and her eyes were glazed over with exertion, but nevertheless a sharp-toothed grin began to spread across her face and her newly discovered predatory instinct began to guide her actions. Just as she was closing in for the kill, the yellow filly slid to the ground and stopped moving. Scootaloo, having built up far too much momentum to stop, plowed head on into her target and went tumbling. She got up to face her opponent, but the pony had already thrown a length of rope around her neck. The pony turned and threw the other end of the rope around a fence-post. Scootaloo blinked her eyes clear and got ready to pounce on the pony, but with her vision now clear, something caused her to hesitate. This wasn't just some random random filly, this was Applebloom. This was her friend... At least a pony who used to be her friend. In this moment of reflection, Applebloom jumped away, too far for Scootaloo to reach. She tried to pull on the rope but it was too tightly knotted around both her and the fence post, eventually causing her to gnaw at it with her teeth in a final act of desperation. All the while, Apple Bloom just stood still and silent, unsure of what she should do next.

Finally she spoke.

"You... You just had to come here didn't ya'?" The words weren't full of anger or malice, but rather uncertainty. The choked-up reluctance of the words made it clear that it was painful to get them out. This prompted Scootaloo to drop the rope from her mouth and stare up at Apple Bloom with her desperate, bloodthirsty eyes. Why was this pony acting like this? Didn't she know that she would only end up killing her friend anyway? Why was she making it worse?

"An..." Applebloom swallowed and started again. "And it just had to be you didn't it. I told ma' big brother that I'd be strong, but Ah'm just... Ah knew it would be like this. I knew it would'n be that easy... Ah wished so hard that I would'n have to deal with this; that ya'all, Sweetie Belle an' you would be survivin' out somewhere or out 'ah Ponyville or maybe even dead for all ah'..." She stopped again, choking back tears. Applebloom began slowly approaching Scootaloo. It was Scootaloo's chance to strike and she knew it, but could she bring herself to do it? Applebloom had been one of her closest friends, but she also knew what the Apple family did to Cyv in order to survive. If she let Applebloom go then it would undoubtedly lead to her being butchered by whoever came after her. Scootaloo's heart and mind both began to race as she desperately considered her options. No way was she dying to some crazies with their savage, repurposed farm equipment. On the other hand though, could she really kill one of her best friends just to spare her that fate? Was her life really worth that much? Was it worth anything at all?

"I've got the sickness too. I could kill a pony if Ah' needed to, but... I've had nightmares about this happening, you know. Sometimes it's you, sometimes it's Sweetie Belle, but they never end before Ah' wake up, so Ah' never know if I'd do it or if you'd do it first, or if Ah' even could do it. Big Brother keeps tellin' me to be strong no matter what, but... Ah..." They were within hooves-reach by now. If either was going to make a decision, it was now or never. She took the final step, but just as Scootaloo became completely unsure of what even she herself was about to do, Applebloom did something that neither pony expected. She reached out and hugged Scootaloo as tightly as she could, drawing in close and putting herself in a position of complete vulnerability.

"Ah just can't do it. Ah could just leave and tell Macintosh or ma' sis, but Ah' can't. Ah' just cant 'cause It'll still be ma' fault. Ah' don't care what happens, Ah' just know It'll never be the same after." Applebloom gave completely into her emotions, bursting into tears and quivering. She seemed to be waiting for the feeling of sharp teeth sinking into her neck, but it never came. Several moments passed with the two of them standing in silence, and then Scootaloo acted. She wrapped her hoof around Aplebloom, squeezed her back and spoke.

"I can't do it either. I... I think I may have been going to,but I don't deserve it. I gave up life already. There's no reason for me to take yours as well. I doubt I'll even live to the end of the day anyway... Gosh, when did we start thinking like this. We're still fillies, right? We're not meant to have this kind of perspective. It's not fair. I want the neat little world back where we only had to worry about simple, happy things. When did our world get so small?..." There was a moment of silence between the two of them. "Just leave me here, Applebloom. You don't have to tell anyone about me. Just leave and let nature take its course. It'll be easier for you that way." Applebloom let go of Scootaloo, raised a hoof and slapped her in the face.

"What? Ya' Think that's good enough?" she exclaimed. "Ya' think Ah can just let that happen and be all dandy about it? What was all that nonsense about wantin' things to go back the way they were or what not? Didn't you take even a second to think how that would make me feel?" Applebloom huffed indignantly. "You can be real selfish sometimes, you know that?" Scootaloo was stunned. Just a second ago she had been so resigned to her fate, so these words hit her like a wall of bricks.

"But Applebloom. I've got the teeth now. There's no going back from that mark. Your family..."

"Well buck my family!" Applebloom exclaimed with fire in her eyes. "I don't give two bloomin' bits what they think!" Applebloom stepped forward and skillfully undid the knot around Scootaloo's neck. "I'm takin' you up to the clubhouse and gettin' you patched up. You're my friend, Scootaloo; you're what makes life worth livin'. I'm not about to let the one good thing left in my life slip away." Applebloom curled her shoulder underneath Scootaloo's hoof to support her body. The two began to stagger in the direction of their old tree-house, and Scootaloo's tears finally began to dry. In a place of such misery, she had somehow found hope, love and compassion. Somehow, she had found something to be joyful about.

As I think of our friendship, I begin to see
Mere words can't describe what you mean to me.
When this cold, hard world has me lonesome and blue
I look up to see my angel, my sweet angel, you.

You dry the tears that fall from my eyes.
You bring me sunshine to brighten my sky.
You rescue me when I'm scared and alone
And take my hand to lead me home.
~Marcia M. Griffith

Author's Note

But one question remains. What is with the chapter title?

Chapter 11 - Truth

Fluttershy wandered aimlessly through the twisting darkness of the Everfree Forest. She couldn’t remember the last time that she ate, but her mind and body were too numb with confusion for her to take notice. The trees moved with the shadows and the sky was swallowed up in a spiraling veil of darkness and branches. It had been growing increasingly difficult to differentiate between dream and reality and the places where the two mingled and merged with one another. The voices that called her to this place had grown ever more present and they had been telling her more and more, going deeper and deeper. All around her stretched an infinite number of hallways of oak. Occasionally something alive would move in the distance, but would soon be swallowed up by the forest. Something told her that they didn’t want anything to interrupt the glimpses that she could catch through the gaps in their hallways. Through the gaps in the trees she would see images and forms; hear whispers. Each hallway had thousands if she cared to look through them all, and the more that she saw, the clearer they became and the more sense that they made. They were an infinite number of puzzle pieces to a vast and unsolvable puzzle, but they were ordered and from her days of wandering she had come to a certain amount of understanding. The trees were never showing her purely facts, but possibilities. It made sense that they would show her more than just one possible future, but they also showed her more than one past; more than one set of events leading to where she now was. There were a few specific shards of the story that always stayed the same, but everything around and in-between those points frayed into uncertainty. She could not comprehend what this meant, but something told her she was scathing upon knowledge greater than any pony before her could have hoped to obtain; some cosmic truth; something divine that she was never meant to come into contact with. It was bigger than her; bigger than the trees; bigger than the war and the chaos around her. And she hungered for it.

A day or two passed in this fashion; Fluttershy wandering and secrets unraveling. Once she saw her own death in the hallways; disoriented and starving; desperate and depraved. In fact she didn’t just see it, but felt it. She was the memory of herself from a different time, but found herself back before her death with foreknowledge that changed the course of events. Or so it seemed to her, but the workings of the world had long since become difficult to decipher. Whatever the nature of the experience, it prompted her to find food and water before continuing her trek through the infinite eternities.

Several more days passed. She didn’t need to stop for sleep since the world of her reality and the one of her dreams had become one and the same thing. Or maybe she was always half asleep and half-conscious in a sort of trance. There was no real way for her to tell. Whatever the case, her visions were growing more lucid. No longer were the forms vague and immaculate. No longer were the voices just whispers either. Sometimes she heard voices she recognized, sometimes not, and sometimes the voices were… odd; voices she recognized in life but had been changed either by the past or the future. Pieces slowly slid into place and the scope of possibilities began to take shape. Often it was like an hourglass where events on either side of her spread out and became less specific the farther out that they were, but no matter where she looked, there was always a couple of subtle focal points woven through time; two threads. At first they appeared to be one and the same since they mostly existed in the same places, but it soon became clear that one of the threads diverged in several places. One of the most noticeable ones was just before the chaos broke out in Ponyville. The first thread behaved as it was supposed to and events happened the way she remembered, but in the second, those events just never occurred and life went on like nothing had happened. It didn’t make sense, but it was true. She decided to follow the second thread through the forest of hallways to find out why. It wasn’t an easy task, considering how confusing the visions were already, but she managed to track its subtle nuances through its own path. Most of its events were just as she had known the world to be, but some things were ominously different. Several times the second thread and the first would cross each-other and follow the same path, but they never stayed together for too long.

What seemed like several more days passed. She couldn’t tell time anymore, but such things had little meaning in this place. Things started to become clearer, but make even less sense at the same time. With every answer she received from the trees, she also received a larger question to be answered. What she did understand though, was that the second thread was not the world she had come from. The first thread was the thread that she remembered, and she decided for a time was what she should understand as true, but the more she wandered, the less that seemed like it was right. Something just didn’t sit right with her. If the truth were so simple, why would the trees have shown her all of this instead of just the thread that was true? If the world of her memories was all that was true, then why was there more than one thread? As much as she didn’t want to answer these questions, something compelled her to continue her search. What she found sickened her. The thread that she knew from her memories wasn’t the first thread. The places where it was inconsistent with the first thread weren’t just places where the two differed, but places where her thread fell off of the other’s position. The second thread was neatly placed right in the center of the hourglass. Her thread, on the other hand, split of at key points and coiled around the other.

What did that mean? Was her reality imperfect? Was any of it even supposed to exist in the first place? Was she even real? Would the thread continue to warp and unravel itself among the infinite number of other possibilities? Was that what this whole thing was; an hourglass to contain possibilities that diverged from the true reality? Did anything truly exist at all? These among an uncountable number of other questions swam around her head, but none of them had answers. She started to feel like she was being watched and evaluated. She felt eyes everywhere and nowhere. What was this? Why was she being shown it? A new question occurred to her. What if this is just a big test? What if something just wants to know how she will react to this knowledge. Maybe she was just put here to be watched. These thoughts passed through her head all at once and she threw up the meager contents of her stomach. What if she was never real to begin with? What if her memories of this false world never existed at all? What if they were just fabricated before she was put here? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if. The world was so surreal. How could she know anything for sure anymore? It was then that her memories started to become one with the world she glimpsed around her. She couldn’t let anything she thought that she knew influence her. Something was watching her. She had to run, run far away. She ran through the hallways, down corridors, away from the shadows only to be greeted with more of them. Panicked, she made the mistake of looking through the trees for possible pursuers. Instead she saw visions of the past, present and future, but they weren’t just that anymore. It was real. It was just like when she had died. She was no longer just seeing the glimpses, but living them. Only this time she was in a cellar far away from the forest. Somewhere that something terrible took place. It wasn’t Pinkamena’s basement though, the colors were all different. There was far too much color; fabric. The color was fabric. Not normal fabric made of cloth, though, the fabric was made of skin. Just as this horrific realization was dawning on her, it was drawn to her attention that she wasn’t alive anymore. She was part of the fabric; part of the flesh knitted together. The place vanished and was replaced with a steel room covered in bloodstains. This time though, she wasn’t herself at all. Rather she was a child; one who was bleeding to death on the floor. She could see another child in the corner. This one was a boy who was disemboweled and far faster fading from life than she. She didn’t know who he was, in fact she had no memories of her life at all, but she knew that he was important to her; the most important thing in the world. She reached out and began to crawl toward the boy with the crazy notion that she could somehow stop him from dying. Part of her knew this to be an impossible task, but she had never experienced anything like this before. Even though she could not remember her life, she knew that it was nothing like this. It was innocent and serene. She couldn’t comprehend that the child, no, that the boy that she loved could so easily die. She had to save him, but slowly her vision faded and she was somewhere else. No she wasn’t just somewhere else, she was sompony else. This time she was a young colorful pony in a blank white room. She had been here so long, so very, very long. The walls were an entire universe to her. Then she was somepony else once again; an Alicorn on the moon. She was a male, and a very old one at that. She couldn’t quite get the details right in her head, but she knew she was waiting for her son and that she had been waiting for an unbearably long time. One day she knew that he would come to her, but this wasn’t right. Something was terrible, horribly wrong. He wasn’t really her son. She didn't have a son. She was never really on the moon, in fact the person who she was never really existed in the first place. But who was she then? Where was she? She couldn’t see.

It felt like so long that she was lost in the forest; in the memories that weren’t her memories. The world kept changing and she kept changing until she was convinced that she was nopony at all. She felt a tug though. The branches could speak and they told her where to go. With no other direction to take, she followed them. For what seemed like an eternity she followed them until they led her to a place she remembered. The memories were hers again and she accepted them back, but with them came fear. She was no longer lost, but her period of being lost in her thread had left a terrible mar among the memories in the places she had never looked. All around her were ways she could have died; a gruesome fall; a violent suicide; a slow painful crawl down an empty dirt path to nowhere. In all of them madness had taken her, and it was returning. She couldn’t deal with the reality that was not reality. Just when she began to slip though, the branches reached out and shielded her eyes from the secrets that lay beyond. The world was closed and the wood would not let her see. For the first time in forever she could see her own hooves in front of her again and be certain that they were hers. She stumbled forward aimlessly, worn out from the weeks of wandering. The trees directed her as she walked and eventually she came across a small clearing with a moss covered stone in its center. Crawling onto it, she slept back in her secluded sanctuary for the first time in so very long. She dreamt of hallways.