Cracking the Elements of Harmony

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 4

Chapter 1

“Here you go dearie,” Mrs. Cake said as she handed Fluttershy the basketful of crackers and cookies still warm from the oven. They were covered with an ornate napkin to keep them fresh for the road ahead and the whole basket was prepared with the love and expertise that only the Cakes could provide.

“Thank you!”

Fluttershy pulled a bag of bits from her saddlebags and gently placed it on the counter. She had ordered the pastries in advance and had prepared the exact amount of bits so as not to waste Mrs. Cake’s time by fumbling around for bits. The last thing she wanted was to be a bother to any other ponies that may have come in after her. They would have been forced to wait, which would have taken away their precious time and might have made them angry at her.

Mrs. Cake picked up the bag of bits and dropped them in an open drawer with her eyes closed, content at having a happy customer leave her store. She opened her eyes again after the coins made the familiar sound of hitting the bottom of the drawer and crashing against each other, only to see Fluttershy still standing there, looking at her with wide eyes and a nervous look.

“What’s the matter dearie?”

“Well, it’s… uhm…” Fluttershy didn’t want to sound rude. She lowered her voice to a barely audible level, turned her head to the side and whispered, “The bits… you didn’t…”

“Oh, I’m sorry, my dear,” Mrs. Cake responded upon seeing the timid Pegasus lowering her head to the ground, “I thought you gave me the exact change! I’ll go and take a-”

“No, no, it’s not that,” Fluttershy intervened before the cyan mare had a chance to reach for the bag.

Mrs. Cake was left temporarily frozen in place. “Then what is it?”

“You… you didn’t count them.”

Mrs. Cake let out a deep breath before visibly relaxing. A wide smile grew on her face and she swiped the forehead with her hoof, as if taking off sweat that wasn’t there. She turned to Fluttershy and looked at her as if she was one of her foals.

“Oh my. You had me-“ she cut herself off when she realized how much worry she would cause by finishing that sentence. Instead, she corrected herself with a white lie. “Of course I know how many bits you gave me, I can tell just by the weight; that’s how long I’ve been doing this.”

Fluttershy’s cheeks flushed. She took a step back, scraped one hoof against the other and meekly said, with a gentle smile on her face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about that.” She gave a wide smile with her head turned down.

Mrs. Cake, still slightly unsettled by the whole exchange, rushed from behind the counter, “It’s all right, my dear!” She placed a complimentary chocolate upcake in Fluttershy’s basket, much to the Pegasus’ surprise, put a hoof on her shoulder and sent her on the way. “That’s for me not telling you that sooner. Now go on, have fun at the party with the rest of the girls!”

Fluttershy stood up, embarrassment still visible in her every move, but now much more relaxed.

“Oh, I’m not going to a party with the girls. It’s Angel’s birthday and I’m going to treat him and his friends. I can’t believe how delicious these look; if I didn’t know they weren’t meant for ponies, I would have dug right in!” Mrs. Cake’s eye twitched, but she quickly regained composure as Fluttershy continued. “Thank you so much for everything – I’m sorry – goodbye!”

With that, Fluttershy took the basket into her mouth and trotted away. Mrs. Cake was left standing near the open door from where she followed Fluttershy with her eyes as the pegasus left the shop, but lost her out of sight as soon as Fluttershy turned to the cottage and disappeared behind the corner. Yet Mrs. Cake still looked, unmoving, into the brightness of the day outside, with eyes ever so slightly slanted and head held high.

“With your pets, you say.” She murmured under her breath. Hearing the familiar hoofsteps of Mr. Cake, she finished what she had wanted to say in her thoughts. No, my dear Fluttershy. That won’t do at all.

“Cuppy, are you down there?” came a whisper from above.

Mrs. Cake shivered for a moment and caught her balance by leaning against the counter. She looked up and saw Carrot poking his head down from the top of the stairs, looking intently at her.

“Of course I am,” she said with a smile, “Where else would I be?”

Mr. Cake slowly closed the door that isolated the above floor from the noise downstairs. With careful steps, he descended the staircase and stopped in front of his wife.

“I think they’re finally asleep. Although after a wild night like that,” he shook his head as glimpses of the two foals running around in the middle of the night appeared in his mind, “I guess they have to sleep sometime.” He looked deep into Mrs. Cake’s eyes and said, “Are we expecting any customers?”

Mrs. Cake looked around, then turned her head sideways and returned the look.

“I think it’ll be quiet for – oh, at least twenty minutes.”

With that, Mr. Cake gently took her in his hooves and kissed her. The door of the bakery slammed shut not long after that, with Mrs. Cake looking around the street carefully for any potential pastry-desiring ponies – or Pinkie Pie - coming her way before closing them with a rarely seen sign that said: “Back soon!”

Fluttershy walked to her cottage with a bright smile on her face. She was so happy that she nearly released her grip on the handle every time one of her hooves sank in a small hole in the ground or was pushed up by a rock. She had received a free muffin that she was now going to share with all of her feathery, scaly, furry and shelled friends. She was already busy imagining how finely she was going to have to cut it to get enough pieces for everyone, but the more she did that, the more she realized that the only thing that will remain of the muffin following the extensive cutting would be muffin dust.

She came to a sudden stop, put the basket on the ground and thought about it. Ponies moved all around her, occasionally glancing at her, but she remained in place, hoof to face, thinking. Any way she imagined the outcome wasn’t good. If she were to give everyone there a small slice, they wouldn’t be getting anything at all and might start thinking she didn’t care for them enough to get them all muffins. But getting everyone muffins was far more expensive than she’d planned to spend on Angel’s birthday. The thoughts were slowly swarming her, until it hit her. Literally. Somepony bumped into her, nearly knocking her off her hooves.

“I’m sorry,” a gentle, worried voice said with a hint of sorrow, “I didn’t mean to - are you OK?”

Fluttershy turned to the pony making the unmistakable sound and saw Derpy Hooves hovering inches above the ground behind her. She was dressed in her mailmare uniform, holding one of her saddlebags to the side. A few letters were scattered on the ground.

“It’s okay.” Fluttershy slowly said, smiling at the mailmare. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

Derpy apologetically smiled and started collecting the mail that was thrown from her saddlebag by the impact. Fluttershy joined in and, as she picked up the first two letters closest to her, suddenly remembered an important fact. She couldn’t give the muffin to Angel at all, seeing as how he was a rabbit. And rabbits shouldn’t eat chocolate in the first place – it’s not good for them. It was the same reason why she had had to specially order the treats in her basket; yet in the slight breeze coming from Derpy’s wings, Fluttershy’s dilemma had successfully solved itself. She placed the letters back into Derpy’s saddlebag and, after sighing both in relief and wonder that she hadn’t thought of that before, suddenly knew there was someone whose day she could make brighter with that muffin, in the same way that her day had been made brighter by the unexpected treat.

“Derpy?” She reached into the basket and brought the muffin out with her hoof. “I have something for you.”

“For me?” Derpy’s face transformed into one of pure joy. “Really?”

“Yes.” She handed her the muffin. “I know how much you love them.”

As Derpy dug in to the muffin as it was the most hated and adored thing in Equestria, bystanders be damned, Fluttershy smiled and walked away. The day was turning out perfectly and she arrived at the cottage with a wide smile adorning her shy face. Before crossing the small wooden bridge, she stopped and took in the view. Her home was almost sparkling in the sun. It had been some time since it was quite as clean as it was this day. Not that she would ever allow it to fall into a state of disrepair – that was never an option, especially with countless animals, small and large, aiding her in the upkeep and cleaning – but this was a special day. Before she departed for the baked goods, she had spent the morning tidying up the cottage and every room in it. She would not allow Angel’s birthday to be anything less than perfect!

“I’m back,” she quietly announced when she opened the door.

Inside, the woodland creatures were busy putting up streamers and balloons on the walls and furniture. Ferrets ran about, elegantly jumping from tabletop to chair, mice scurried along the floor, birds flew in perfect synchrony and a lone raccoon was overlooking the whole operation, silently pointing out where the ornaments were needed. Occasionally, he glanced at the giant bear that was gingerly moving about, trying not to make too much noise as it would awake the still-sleeping rabbit whose day it was. When they heard her, the animals stopped in their tracks, looked at her and smiled, and carried on with their work. Fluttershy carried the basket of goodies to the table, removed the napkin, and signaled to the birds for assistance. They swooped down from every direction and perched themselves on the edge of the basket. Then, just as they were trained, the picked up the cookies and flew them, one by one, onto a tray waiting on the table, making a bunny-shaped work of art from the pastry.

“There, now all we need is…”

She looked around for her favorite pet and saw him sleeping on the small couch bed near the corner of her living room. She wasn’t all that surprised that Angel was able to sleep through the entire morning, but she still felt proud at the other animals for decorating in such silence.

“Are we ready?”

The animals nodded and moved to the sides of the living room, encircling the table with enough room to spare for Fluttershy to pass by it to Angel. She leaned in close to the small white body that was pulsing with every breath, until her muzzle nearly touched the long ears and sang in whisper.

“Happy birthday to you…”

Waking up as if he hadn’t slept for days, Angel opened his eyes and rubbed them with his paws, then turned to the source of the gentle sound. At first, the only thing he saw was Fluttershy’s face dominating his field of view, but she slowly moved back and revealed the other animals standing by, party hats on and ready to party. He smiled and excitedly jumped into Fluttershy’s embrace.

“Happy birthday Angel Bunny,” she held him close before putting him on her back and walking to the table, “I know how much you love grass crème cookies, so I went and got you… this!” she removed the napkin from the tray and let out a loud squee.

Angel jumped from her back onto the table and rushed to the tray as Fluttershy observed him expectantly, her head held high and her wings half-extended from anticipation. She couldn’t wait to see the look of happiness that would appear on his face at the first taste of those delicious-looking cookies and crackers. But instead of digging in as she had expected, Angel suddenly stopped at the edge of the tray and sniffed at the pastry. With every moment that he wasn’t stuffing himself with treats, Fluttershy became more and more worried, her wings slowly folding and distress replacing her look of joy. Before she could ask him what’s wrong, Angel turned and looked at her quizzically and gave a gentle shrug, clearly showing her that all was not well with the treats in front of him.

“What’s the matter?”

Fluttershy approached the table and Angel pointed at the pastries before shrugging again. She lowered her head to the tray and carefully took in the warm smell of the pastries. Then jerked her head back.

“Oh my. These aren’t cookies for bunnies, they’re cookies for ponies.”

Angel grew a frown and changed his pose to that of angry disappointment. He was now resting on his hind legs, one of them tapping impatiently at the table, his back straight, with his forelegs crossed over. It was the last sight Fluttershy wanted to see. She gasped and lifted herself clean off the ground with her wings.

“I’m so sorry Angel! I’ll take these right back and explain to Mrs. Cake that there was a mix-up and I’m-”

She noticed Angel staring at her, not expecting an explanation, but rather action.

“Of course, I’ll get right on it!”

She grabbed the tray and quickly dumped the contents into back into the basket before picking it up and carrying it out, but a strange thing happened as soon she closed the door behind her. Instead of galloping back to town, she was overcome by the smell of freshly baked goods in the basket. She hadn’t even noticed it on the way home, but now it overwhelmed any other action she wanted to take. Unexpected thoughts rushed into her head. These smell delicious. And they do look good. I could take one, that wouldn’t hurt anypony… And I did pay for them, so they are mine. I will have one. Just a taste before I take them back.

She put the basket down and looked around to see if Angel was watching, but there was nothing around her but the cool spring air that further increased her appetite. The animals were all in the house and there wasn’t anypony that she could see or hear, so she carefully reached down into the basket and took out a square shaped cookie. She raised it up, keeping it in her teeth then gently nudged her head to allow it to fall into her mouth. Even if she was eating in secret, there was no reason not to be civil. But as she was preparing to take the first bite, the smell of the dissolving treat filled her with an urgent desire to swallow it whole, and she did. She stumbled for a moment and closed her eyes from discomfort as the whole cookie awkwardly slid down her throat. Once she regained composure, she looked at the basket in front of her with pupils nearly as wide as her eyes. Have to. Eat. MORE!

She threw her head into the basket; civility lost to the insatiable desire for more of that smell, of the taste and soon even the feeling of strangely shaped pieces scrubbing against her throat. She didn’t care what she bit at, but she felt the random shapes leaving different traces on the way to the stomach. There were cylindrical and flat, curvy and straight, as if the Mrs. Cake had far too much time on her hooves and had decided to experiment with every shape imaginable. Before long, and gasping for more, Fluttershy found herself half-lying on the ground, her hind legs starched out to the sides and her hooves encircling the empty basket. She was looking at it, her irises now as small as bits. Only crumbs remained. She was physically exhausted, as if she had just flown to Cloudsdale and back. Between the heavy panting, she could only utter one thing.

“Oh, no.”

The awakening was accompanied by shame. It wasn’t like her at all to lose control over her actions; a few temporary moments of anger induced rage notwithstanding. Yet there she was, lying on the floor much like Berry Punch at the opening of cider season. Or after Winter Wrap Up. Or on Hearts Warming Eve. Or on Nightmare Night. Or on any other holiday and event in Equestria. For the first time in a while she was afraid. Not of any outside threats – there were plenty of times when she was afraid of those – but of herself. Something had snapped inside of her and took control of her actions.

Not wanting to be seen by anyone she rose as fast as she could, only to get yet another unpleasant side-effect of having eaten such a large amount of pastry. Her stomach reminded her of its existence with a sharp pain, just as her legs straightened out and she instinctively wrapped one hoof around it and closed her eyes. Her stomach seemed to grow heavier with every moment, but she knew that lying down would only worsen the situation. What have I done? was the only thing going through her head.

The sharp pain only grew with every second she stood there and she started controlling her breathing to ease it. One deep breath in, wait a few seconds, and out - to slow the blood flow and ease the lungs against the stomach itself. The same approach had worked for her every time that she had eaten food that didn’t entirely agree with her. With her abdomen calmer, she looked at the crumbs in the basket, her eyes going wide once more. She wanted to reach for them; to lick the bottom of the basket clean, but at the last minute pulled away.

No, no! She shook her head and forced herself not to think of the crumbs or their delicious taste. A cold chill went down her spine as she realized that the crumbs were drawing her in, their smell trying to gain control over some part of her brain, or shut it down. She didn’t know which, but she suddenly knew why she had stuffed herself full. The crumbs just didn’t have enough of the smell to enchant her again. Without a second’s thought she swiped her hoof across the ground, sending soil and dust flying at the basket to trap the smell. There was only one course of action, to rush to Twilight in the hopes that she would know what to make of the deceptive cookies. With slow movements, she picked up the basket, all the time keeping vary of any warning signs that the smell was escaping, then raised her head back up and-

The feeling of heaviness returned, as did the pain, only in amplified form. Either it was the sheer quantity of them that she had eaten or something was very wrong with those cookies. The jolt held her in her tracks for a second, but she forced herself to move, one leg at a time. With slow steps she crossed the bridge and made her way to the road for the newly-spawned castle in Ponyville. Again, she controlled her breathing, but this time the effect was minimal. With every step the weight in her stomach grew and she felt the individual cookies and crackers rolling around, pressing themselves against the walls with their sharp edges. Twilight will know what to do. Twilight-

On an empty path, in the middle of a small forest between her cottage and Ponyville, Fluttershy froze in place, tears forming in her eyes and shaking with dread. The small pieces of pastry inside her had suddenly changed into something very different. The movement had stirred the pastries around and had forced her stomach to contract, effectively squeezing them. Where she merely felt their presence before, she could feel them now, cutting into her stomach with razor like pain. All it took was a single electrifying surge of pain shooting through her body for her to know that taking another step forward would cause unimaginable pain. So she stood still, cold sweat slowly gathering at the top of her forehead.

She looked around as much as she could, fearing to even move her head, and whimpered through the handle of the basket still in her mouth. This was no longer a tummy ache from overeating, it was a deliberate act of food poisoning. Somepony will come by, somepony has to come by! she shouted in her mind as the pain slowly grew, despite her best efforts to curb it. Every second spent forcing her body into an unnatural tension was like a minute to her. The fact that she had stopped mid-walk was a constant reminder in the form of a dull pain growing unevenly at each of her legs. It wouldn’t take long before a cramp would form. Even the basket was beginning to press down on her jaw, and she felt the pressure of her teeth against the gum. But the dirt road ahead was empty, no sounds coming from anywhere.

A few agonizing minutes later, she realized a fact that would have made her happy on a normal day. Nopony’s going to come by. She had chosen the cottage for the very reason that was now standing between her and the other ponies; it gave her solitude by being far enough from the town to ensure that nopony walked by it unless they wanted to see her or ventured out into the Everfree forest, and nopony but herself and her friends ever did that. A single spark of a thought appeared, but quickly vanished. My friends - no. She had told them about Angel’s birthday party and that he would probably prefer the company of other animals during the day. It was only at night that anypony would show up to congratulate him.

Maybe I can- dozens of blades scraped and tore into her stomach as she tried to move and she let out a short scream, cut short by the gasp for air that immediately followed, releasing the basket to the ground. She stood frozen once again, her eyes closed and head held as high as possible, as if the tension in her neck could somehow reduce the stress on her abdomen. But the cuts were now irritated by the acids in the stomach, leaving Fluttershy gritting her teeth in silence, trying to escape to the sanctuary of her thoughts.

Chapter 2

“I’m telling you, something is wrong!” Pinkie Pie yelled at Twilight, nearly hitting her with a hoof as she pointed all around. “My Pinkie Sense is tingling; I know something bad is going to happen to Fluttershy!”

“She’s having a birthday party for Angel, what could possibly go wrong?” Twilight replied, looking at Pinkie with a mix of disbelief and worry. She hadn’t forgotten how eerily accurate Pinkie’s sense was, but couldn’t quite imagine what could go wrong at a birthday party for a bunny. There was nothing in the Everfree that could come out to get her without a ton of warning signs signaling its approach, the animals could defend her against any ponies wanting to harm her and even if something would go wrong, there were plenty of birds among Fluttershy’s friends; one of them could easily fly to the castle and warn them. But the determined look on Pinkie’s face told her to investigate the matter.

“Okay, calm down Pinkie.” She gently pushed her hoof aside, got up from the ground and walked to the door while talking to her. “Let’s go get the girls and-“

“NO!” Pinkie shouted back, startling Twilight. “Don’t you understand? We have to go there now!” With that, she rushed past Twilight through the door, pushing her aside and galloped as fast as she could to Fluttershy’s, leaving Twilight confused and slightly aggravated. That wasn’t called for, she thought as she brushed herself off and went about her original plan to gather the girls. Pinkie Pie – always overreacting.

Pinkie galloped in uncertain terror through Ponyville, completely ignoring the ponies who were greeting her left and right. Most didn’t take offense. They knew Pinkie well enough to know that she wasn’t angry at them or rude – they saw her determined look, although those close enough to see her expression paused for a second, being taken aback by the unusual sight of fear and worry in her eyes. But even they merely shrugged. Pinkie Pie was far too unpredictable for them to worry about her, so they went on their way, doing whatever it was they were doing before she came by.

Hold on Fluttershy, I’m on my way. Pinkie repeated to herself as if her friend could hear her. She could already see Fluttershy’s cottage in the distance ahead. On the other side of town, Spike had reached Rarity and was busy explaining to her the urgency of the situation which, in his mind, he had ranked somewhere between a cookie jar being discovered as empty and a book being put into the wrong place – but only if Twilight wasn’t there to see it. Not to mention there were other things on his mind as well, as was the norm whenever he was talking to Rarity.

“…so, Twilight asked me to come get you –“ he nervously looked around, as Rarity stared, listening to him and brushing her chin with her hoof, “if you’re not doing anything too important, of course!”

Twilight had taken the matter a tad more seriously, and was already talking to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who were busy one-upping each other in another one of their countless tests of skill, strength and stamina. Had it not been for Applejack’s honesty, Twilight would have long ago assumed that she used these kinds of competitions to set record times in getting chores done on the farm. Alas, the earth pony was far too trustworthy for a scheme like that.

“Ah, that featherbrain,” Rainbow sighed, wiping the face with her foreleg while hovering in the air, then throwing both forelegs up and nearly shouting, “It’s Angel’s birthday and she’s going to crash in there and ruin it!”

Applejack and Twilight looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and shock. Rainbow looked back at them and added the missing parts of information that had made her friends doubt her for a moment.

“Angel wanted to celebrate with his friends, not us – not ponies. Not for now at least. Fluttershy told me yesterday, right before she went on apologizing and asking if I’m okay with that and if I think any of us are going to be angry at her.”

That calmed Twilight and Applejack. They could just imagine Fluttershy being nervous after – probably incidentally – telling that to Rainbow Dash. That girl sure loves her little critters, Applejack thought, while Twilight merely smiled at how Fluttershy-like that was. No other pony in town would have been that sorry for not inviting her friends to a birthday party of someone who didn’t want their company. Not that she resented Angel. The little bunny had his moments, but deep down, he loved Fluttershy as much as she loved him and everypony knew it. But then she remembered Pinkie.

“Rainbow Dash, you have to get there before she does. I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but try to hold her off until we get there!”

Rainbow nodded and gave a half-salute before flying off at full speed toward Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight and Applejack trotted to the castle, minds at peace that Rainbow would prevent the worse and that together, they would solve the mystery of the Pinkie Sense for this occasion. There would be plenty of future cases, no doubt. Spike was hovering by some unknown magic behind Rarity, his eyes having turned to large pink hearts, as they too made their way to the agreed upon meeting point. He tumbled to the ground as Twilight’s voice brought him back to reality. Before he could make sense of his new surroundings, he looked up from the ground to see two familiar ponies looking at him with huge grins on their faces. Rarity was the politest of the bunch, as always, merely forming a well-contained smirk with the corners of her mouth. He shook off the dust and picked himself up, letting out a few quiet laughs of embarrassment.

“Ready everypony?” Twilight asked.

“Ready!” The two ponies and one red-faced dragon replied. Twilight looked at Spike.

“I’m sorry Spike, but I need someone to stay here.” Seeing the inevitable protest forming in his mind, one claw already raised, she quickly approached him and added, “We’ll be right back, I promise. But I need my number one assistant to hold down the fort while I’m gone. Can you do that?”

Spike looked around for a moment with the eyes of a small puppy before shaking his head in determination and answering, “Of course, Twilight! You know you can count on me!” He knew that whenever the Elements of Harmony had to get together, even if it was for a small thing such as today, it was his job to make sure everything at home went smoothly. As the ponies ran to the rescue of their Angel’s birthday, he walked into the castle as if he really was the final guard of a besieged fort.

The trio of ponies walked at a brisk pace on the ever deteriorating road out of Ponyville. They were close to the edge of the forest that hid a part of the path when they suddenly noticed a disturbing sound. Twilight motioned them to stop and they listened. Almost at the same time, the three recognized what it was. Somepony’s crying! Rarity and Applejack glanced at Twilight. Without a moment’s delay they galloped as fast as they could to the source of the sound, only with every second they realized they were wrong. It wasn’t crying, it was outright wailing. The kind you rarely even see at a funeral. Somepony’s heart had been ripped out and stamped to the ground. “Come on!” Twilight shouted.

The end of a gentle corner revealed the entrance to the forest path that lead past Fluttershy’s house. They stopped in surprise and uncertainty of what they were seeing. In the middle of the road stood Rainbow Dash, wings folded back, head held high, as if she was looking at the tops of trees that surrounded her. Beyond her, they could make out a swirling pink body, convulsing in agony and releasing that awful wail that had brought them here so rapidly. Slashes of yellow became visible for moments at a time before being obscured by the two ponies ahead of them. As before, Twilight moved first; slowly, not knowing what to expect. Rarity was secretly terrified of what could possibly have happened, but managed to make her fear seem no more profound that Applejacks, who was more concerned than scared, but for some strange reason didn’t dare to jump ahead of her two friends, Twilight especially.

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight gently asked, almost whispering, as she moved forward. With every step she took, the yellow striped appeared more and more often and remained visible for longer, only now she also noticed something else. The ground ahead of Rainbow Dash, the ground occupied by the twitching and suffering body of Pinkie Pie was muddy from the torrent of tears. She walked to her side, looking at her the whole time. “Rainbow? What’s going-“

Rainbow Dash wasn’t looking at the treetops. Her head was held high, but her gaze was fixed firmly on Pinkie Pie, eyes narrowed in fear and hopelessness, not wanting to comprehend the sight in front of her. She was grinding her teeth with barely noticeable movements, and every so often her head twitched lightly as she inhaled with force to prevent the snot from dripping out her nostrils. With all the willpower she could muster, she forced her body into a statue in a desperate attempt to control her shivering. Twilight turned back to ask Applejack for a helping hoof while she would go on to Pinkie Pie, but was greeted with the stone-slab faces of Applejack and Rarity looking past her. She quickly turned to Pinkie Pie.

Through the shadows of the countless leaves on the trees above them, Twilight finally saw it. Pinkie Pie was still rolling around on the ground in great agony, only the whole time she was facing away from them. Every now and then though, as she uncontrollably threw her legs in spasm away from herself, it showed through. There was blood on them, all the way from the hooves up. Twilight forced her gaze forward, to the yellow creature in front of Pinkie Pie. There was blood on it too. She moved closer to Pinkie, not to talk to her, but to see the sight ahead of her more clearly. She could hear Pinkie’s exhausted voice screaming in front of her, the last effort of her body producing sounds the vocal chords were no longer able to fully create. But that was not what kept her silent or what had made her freeze in place.

Fluttershy was lying in a deep pool of blood just beyond Pinkie Pie. She was turned to the side, away from Twilight, the fur on her back stained by specks of dirt and leaves. The sight sent a jolt of energy through Twilight’s body, flooding her with adrenaline. She jumped and flapped her wings, despite the short distance to cover, feeling only the overwhelming need to see to Fluttershy. She landed near her bright pink mane, strands of it intertwined with tiny twigs. Her head was slumped forward, her eyes closed. She had pulled her legs inward, wrapping her belly with her hooves.

“Oh, no. Fluttershy!?” Twilight yelled as she leaned over her friend.

The scream brought Rarity and Applejack out of shock, but only the farm pony rushed to aid, running around Fluttershy and coming to a halt in front of her just as Twilight gently placed her hoof on Fluttershy’s cheek in a desperate hope of feeling her friend respond. Rarity was in a state of quiet panic, the only sign of it showing in her narrowed eyes and short, rapid breaths. A thousand fragmented thoughts and ideas flooded her mind and ephemeral visions flashed before her eyes as her subconscious tried to work out a proper course of action. Her instincts were telling her to help the sobbing Pinkie Pie, to rush to the aid of Fluttershy, to scream for a doctor, even to run away in terror. Each was a valid choice and each came with its own reasons to be put to number one priority. Her jaw twitched involuntarily and her eyes gently jerked around, not looking at anything in particular.

“Go get a doctor!” Applejack screamed at the two ponies left behind. Rainbow remained as still as before, showing no sign of hearing the scream, but Rarity did. She looked nervously at Applejack, as if she had been caught stealing from another pony’s saddlebag. “Go!” With that, Rarity awkwardly spun on her hooves and galloped with all her might to the town. With Rainbow clearly lost in shock, Applejack turned back to Fluttershy and leaned down to her, gently grabbing her foreleg with the same hope to feel a response.

As soon as Twilight’s hoof reached the gentle yellow fur, she felt her blood go cold. In place of the radiant warmth of the yellow Pegasus was a cold, moist fur. “No, no,” she murmured to herself as she gently pulled Fluttershy’s head out from the fetus-like position to see her friend’s face in full. But the head moved too willingly, the only resistance offered by the pebbles and dirt on the ground holding back the head. But it was what she saw a moment later that made her heart stop altogether. Her hoof slid down the back of Fluttershy’s head, nearly stopping on her mane, but an instant later, she hunkered down on all four hooves, closed her eyes and concentrated more than she had ever done before.

Fluttershy’s muzzle was covered in blood, caked at her mouth and nostrils. From there it had sprayed and flown onto her belly, her legs and her mane in violent patterns. Twilight charged up her resuscitation spells and enveloped Fluttershy’s whole body in a gentle purplish-white halo. The cloud began pulsating. “Come on, Fluttershy, come on,” she whispered.

“Twilight.” Applejack said with a heavy voice. She could already see what Twilight had missed, but Twilight was too deeply invested in what she was doing to hear her. “Twilight, stop.” Applejack’s voice was as even and low as she could force herself to make it in order to hide any trace of emotions, but a nervous raspiness at the brake between words would have revealed her true state to anypony close enough that wasn’t desperately trying to revive her friend. She tried once more. “Twilight. Please stop.” The word please brought Twilight out, the painful undertone of the way in which it was said resonating in her head. She looked at Applejack and saw tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t think –“ Applejack could hold it no longer, and a slow stream of tears erupted from her eyes and dripped to the ground. “- I don’t think we can help.” As soon as she said that, she covered her face with her foreleg and wept into it. Twilight released the spell and moved closer to Applejack. Before she could put her leg around her, Applejack pointed at Fluttershy. Only she wasn’t pointing at her head, but her belly.

Twilight shuddered as she saw what looked like several small lacerations on the part of Fluttershy’s belly that was no longer hidden behind her legs. Fearing there were more, she gently pushed aside the right hind leg to see the extent of the damage. The moment the view was clear, her eyes widened and her pupils narrowed. Her jaw fell open a fraction. They weren’t lacerations, they were punctures, and Fluttershy’s belly was full of them. Some even had small jagged pieces sticking out of them. More were mixed in with the blood on the ground.

What are these? She thought as she immediately blocked the thought of Fluttershy’s death before it had a chance to form. The defensive mechanism would allow her to remain optimistic and objective for the time being. She reached out with her hoof and rolled a piece on the ground, trying to get it unstuck from the nearly solid blood, but the piece crumbled into it instead. She furrowed her brow, not quite sure of what she was seeing, then looked for another piece. This time, she used her magic to first warm the blood up before cautiously hovering the piece from the ground. The blood dripped down its side into the pool below as Twilight brought it to eye-height.

It was a strangely shaped rock – no, not a rock, a lump of something. Something she had seen before. She rotated it, but still couldn’t quite put her hoof on what the familiar shape was. There was only one thing left to do. She focused her hold on the lump to two points along the longest axis of the lump and gently bent it. Then bent it some more, until the lump split in two with a barely audible crack. Something fell to the ground from its split center.

Crumbs? Twilight turned the inner sides of the levitating lump toward herself, looking suspiciously at the red-tinted inside of a cookie that had appeared before her. The blood had soaked the baked dough, but the center was unmistakably cookie-like. She looked at the ground around her and stomped at a few other lumps. They all disintegrated under her hooves. She dug at one of the crushed bloody lumps on the ground and, sure enough, through the caked blood came the sight of white and golden crumbs. Did cookies do th- She looked at Fluttershy as she formed that though and in an instant forgot everything about the pastry.

“Fluttershy. Fluttershy, no!” As if a blinder had been taken away from her eyes, the full realization of what she was looking at hit home. She collapsed to her flanks, threw her forelegs over the dead body of Fluttershy and wailed without pause. Applejack, who had already gotten some of the sorrow out of her system, took a step forward and hugged Twilight over the back, quietly sobbing into her mane. The sound of Twilight’s near scream awoke Rainbow Dash from her stupor.

She took a hard look at the sight in front of her, noting her crying friends, huddled over the dead body of Fluttershy, then moved her stare back, onto the convulsing body of Pinkie Pie. Then she began to move. First, one foreleg lifted and placed half a step ahead. Then the same with the hind leg. A whole step followed, then another, each with swifter movement, until she was towering over Pinkie Pie, not letting her out of sight the whole way there. Pinkie Pie looked at her, no more tears left to spill from the bloodshot eyes. She didn’t say anything as Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof over her face. She didn’t move away as the first blow hit her. Before Twilight and Applejack had even raised their heads fully to see what was happening in front of them, Rainbow was already pummeling Pinkie Pie as hard and fast as she could, her mouth showing more disgust and hatred for the pink pony with every blow, her eyes narrowed in anger.

“Dash!”

“Rainbow, what are-“

Both mourning ponies shouted out at the same time and rushed to end the violence. Applejack jumped right over her dead friend, landed between Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie and, the moment her hooves touched the ground, jumped again, directly into Rainbow Dash, knocking her down. Twilight also jumped, taking flight and landing next to Pinkie Pie. She was breathing heavily and covered in blood. There were tears and cuts all over her face, one lucky – or not so lucky – punch from one of Rainbow’s sharp hooves having created a long gash right under her right eye, missing it by a fraction. Her bottom lip was cut nearly in two. As Applejack shouted at Rainbow and Twilight lowered her head to look her in the eyes, Pinkie Pie coughed up a small amount of blood onto the ground. Mixed in it were several of her teeth. She heard Twilight speaking to her and touching her, but she did not grasp what she was saying, the world having been reduced to a blur of hazy shapes and slow sounds. It would take a few seconds for the healing spell to close the wounds enough for the blood to stop flowing, although it could never heal them completely.

“What are you doing!?” Applejack shouted at Rainbow Dash at close range. She had pinned her down the moment they landed, crouching on her hind legs with her own and holding her forelegs down with her hooves. Rainbow Dash had tried to resist at first – an entirely natural instinct – but the moment she saw Twilight leaning over Pinkie Pie and using her magic, she stopped and kept still. She didn’t even hear Applejack’s first shouts, although she knew they must have been about the same as the ones she was forced to listen to now. “Why did you do that?!” Applejack was still looking at her as if she wanted her dead. Before she could spit the next question out, Rainbow Dash spoke up.

“She did it.” She quietly said, almost in contempt of the pony it was referring to. Applejack fluttered her eyelids, trying to understand what she had just herd. “She did it. Ask her.” Rainbow continued in a cold, low voice devoid of any emotion and revealing only that she was glad she had given to Pinkie Pie a small taste of what Fluttershy must have gone through. She looked at Applejack without regret, only a determined stare that said It had to be done. But the look of aggression and hate was long gone and Applejack knew Rainbow wasn’t about to jump on Pinkie again, so she released her. They both stood up without saying a word. As soon as she stood up, Rainbow tensed her muscles and straightened her pose, letting Applejack know she had no intention of moving. Applejack turned, first with her body, then with her head, to the two ponies behind her and looked at Pinkie Pie.

“What did you do?” Applejack’s question was genuine this time, marked only by a note of fear of the answer. She had asked calmly, but when no response came, she took a step forward and was about to raise her voice.

“She can’t hear you right now.” Twilight intervened. She then looked at the statue-like Rainbow before looking back to Applejack with a questioning look. But Applejack had other things on her mind than to explain why Rainbow had attacked Pinkie or – perhaps more importantly – why she was now standing silently behind her, observing what was going on.

“Cut it.” Twilight nudged her head, not quite sure she understood what Applejack wanted her to do. So Applejack looked her straight into the eye and repeated with clenched teeth. “Cut the spell.”

“I can’t do that-“

“Twilight, drop the spell.”

“But she’s hurt! She’ll-“

“She’ll talk.”

The short answer cut through Twilight’s arsenal of logical answers to any debate. She knew now there was nothing she could say to change Applejack’s mind, so she looked at Pinkie and sighed. “Okay.” Her horn stopped glowing and Pinkie Pie was soon free from the wrap of energy she was incased in. As Applejack was about to ask the question, she felt movement from behind. The moment she turned, she saw Rainbow Dash already walking by her and in a first-response move, she threw a foreleg out to the side to at least slow her progress as Twilight looked on in fear. But instead of pushing her leg to the side or tackling her, or even flying over her, Rainbow Dash merely stopped, although once again looking directly at Pinkie Pie.

“Tell them what you told me,” she said in a harsh voice. Pinkie Pie threw her head back, her eyes again trying to tear up, with no success. There still hadn’t been any time for her to feel the pain of the beating she had received. The pain she was again feeling was still the same as the pain she was feeling when the others had found her. “Tell them.” Pinkie Pie began mouthing something as Applejack and Twilight looked at her, but it wasn’t nearly loud enough or distinct enough for her to be understood, her slashed lip made sure of that. “Tell them!” Rainbow stomped at the ground and yelled, sending shivers down Twilight’s spine.

“I… I did it.” Pinkie slowly and quietly said, straining with each word as more blood came out of her mouth. Twilight’s and Applejack’s eyes widened, while Rainbow Dash stood as still as a statue next to Applejack. Pinkie was looking up as she said it again, her voice breaking as her lungs contracted and expanded in spasm from all the crying. “I did it. I killed Fluttershy.” And with that, the floodgates opened. Pinkie Pie started thrashing her head around on the ground while relentlessly screaming with all the breath she could muster. Between the unintelligible garble the watching ponies could only distinguish a few repeating words. “I killed her… so sorry… so sorry Fluttershy… why I did…” After a moment’s hesitation, Twilight stepped forward. Before Applejack could utter the plea, not to harm her, Twilight had already done what she felt was necessary.

When Rarity finally returned from the town, doctor and nurse in tow and panting from exhaustion, she saw a strange sight in front of her. Twilight was lying on the ground next to and partly on Pinkie Pie, holding her firmly and gently stroking her with her hoof, with Pinkie crying with muffled sounds into her fur. Beyond them, Rainbow Dash was standing as stolid as a Royal Guard, looking at an angle to the two ponies in front of her, the only sign of emotion visible being the sharp look with which she was keeping an eye on Pinkie Pie. She didn’t avert her eyes even as Rarity and the doctor came into her field of vision. To her other side was Applejack, hat in hoof, looking down at Fluttershy and quietly crying, but the tears having dried some time ago.

Rarity was nervously pacing around, biting her right hoof whenever she paused as the doctor spoke to Twilight. She was the most in control of herself, with Applejack occasionally interrupting their talk with details of what had happened, but otherwise staying silent and looking at Fluttershy. She didn’t dare looking at Pinkie and was secretly afraid of looking at Rainbow Dash. The former was lying silently on the ground, not far away from the small patch of her own hardened blood. She was staring at it as if it held the power to hurt her in ways nopony could imagine. The doctor had already collected the few knocked out teeth he could find from it and had tried talking to her, to no avail. Rainbow Dash was still standing as a statue, keeping everypony in her sight but focusing on Pinkie Pie, ready to chase her down and kill her if necessary should she attempt an escape. She replied to every question the doctor had asked, after seeing to Fluttershy, in the shortest, most direct way possible, leaving no doubt about who she was blaming for Fluttershy’s death but not wasting a word to describe what had happened in any more detail than strict facts.

As soon as the doctor had declared Fluttershy dead and before he had moved on to Pinkie Pie, he sent the nurse back to town. She was to summon the Royal Guards from Canterlot, as Ponyville’s small size meant it lacked an outpost. And even if it had one, the act of murder was not something that Mayor Mare – the usual judge in resolving local disputes – had the authority to rule over. Only Celestia could do that, and even then it was an act that would only happen once in a few decades in this peaceful land of Equestria; usually as a drunken fight gone horribly wrong. Ponies just didn’t kill other ponies in cold blood. Unless they were deeply insane.

As the rush of desire for action to help the downed ponies wore off, the doctor was also starting to realize the gravity of the situation. With Pinkie Pie wrapped in dressings and Twilight trying to calm her down and with Applejack and Rainbow Dash standing tensely, each keeping an eye on one pony in particular, only not the same one, there wasn’t much for the doctor to do but to tend to the only mare present that showed any real sign of distress.

Rarity was still pacing about nervously. If her behavior wouldn’t change for the better soon, she risked having a nervous breakdown, so the doctor approached. He talked to her, trying to find the right words to calm her down, but struggling to say anything that would pierce her emotional shield. And what would he say if he were to reach Rarity – what explanation could he give her and what would he say to comfort her? Without rationally recognizing it, the failure to get through to her was making him happier by the second. It kept him focused on somepony’s problem, keeping his mind occupied with something other than the murder. All he had to do now was to continue trying to talk to her.

Two Pegasi Guards appeared, mid-flight from Ponyville, towing a sky-chariot with the white nurse in it. They landed on the path, annoyed expressions on their faces. They didn’t even look at the group of ponies in front of them, but slowly unstrapped themselves from the chariot with quite a few unnecessary movements, as the nurse jumped out of the carriage and galloped over to the doctor. The Guards weren’t amused by the whole situation.

They had been dragged out of Canterlot, with its crisp mountain air and with nothing to do but to pose for the local elites, by a report of murder, only to have a nurse in Ponyville blabber incoherently about the death of a bearer of an Element of Harmony, the attacker – also a bearer – and even Princess Twilight. At that point they knew this was a false report, and a poorly thought-out one as well. Only their royal duty, and the fact that their wasted time was going to add to the penalty for the nurse that had made the report, made them follow her lead to the edge of Ponyville. And it was only when they automatically followed the nurse with their eyes as she tore past them, that they realized she might have told them the truth after all.

Chapter 3

“No, no, no, there’s nothing I could have done. Nothing at all.”

Rarity paced about the Carousel Boutique. It had been two days since the Trail Incident, as it had come to be known. The thoughts of what she could have done to prevent it were growing with every hour. When she had first arrived back home on that fateful day, the words she was now repeating were merely bursts of thoughts in her mind. Then they turned to streams; each carried a different line of actions she could have done to save Fluttershy. Then they went silent. And in their place formed a blank feeling of pressure, pushing on her skull as if she was submerged. After medicine failed, she had tried occupying herself with any and all chores she could think of, but the pressure mounted. She had sought help from Twilight, but there was no magic in her arsenal to combat psychological trauma. Without even realizing it, she had started murmuring the words that released the pressure. Their intensity grew with the mounting pressure.

There was a knock on the door.

“Sweetie Belle, could you get that? Sweetie Belle! Oh…”

She remembered Sweetie Belle wasn’t in the Carousel Boutique. She wasn’t even in Ponyville anymore. On the day Fluttershy died, her parents had come to see Rarity and offer a helping hoof, but her refusal to show any negative feelings, or the need for support, had forced them away. She just needs some time alone, they thought, as they took Sweetie Belle away so that at least one of their fillies could remain ignorant about the events of that day for a little while longer. The other two Cutie Mark Crusaders were also brought along to give them the impression that they were going on a quest rather than separating them and feeding each a different lie as to why they had had to leave Ponyville. Applejack had refused to talk to her sister at all that day, even as she learned of the plan. She knew she couldn’t tell a lie of that magnitude, even if the consequences of telling the truth meant pain for Apple Bloom. And as for Scootaloo; she was always ready to follow her friends wherever they went, and she had nopony to ask for permission.

The door opened ever so slowly and Twilight’s muzzle peered through the gap as she took a step in.

“Rarity? I was just-”

“Twilight, why hello!” Rarity jumped to the door, placing herself directly in Twilight path before the door could be opened enough to allow her in. She put on her best masquerade of joy and continued in the most elegant, yet slightly too fast-paced, voice before Twilight could talk. “How are you darling, you know you really need to let me know if you’re coming over for a cup of tea – you were coming over her for some tea, weren’t you? Anyway, I’m afraid I have just so much to do and so little time to do it that I simply can’t make any time for you today. I do hope you won’t mind me asking that we move it to another day?”

Taken aback by the bombardment she had received, Twilight wasn’t sure of how to respond as she stood in the doorway. She knew Rarity was the most visibly afflicted of her friends by Fluttershy’s death. Had it not been for her near nervous breakdown at the scene of the Incident, she would have followed Pinkie Pie and the Guards escorting her. Instead, she had helped Rarity to her home, as Applejack had escorted Rainbow Dash for a similar reason, only with a different possible outcome. Now, she was looking at a nervously excited Rarity, and she knew there was only one reason for her behavior.

She’s working through the pain, Twilight thought. Better not disturb her.

“It’s okay, Rarity,” she said with a reassuring smile on her face, but one that quickly changed along with the seriousness of her tone. “I just came to ask you if you were going to attend the hearing. It starts at noon. Now I know they say Pinkie has already –” she paused for a moment and put a hoof to her chin as she searched for an appropriate expression, “- told them what had happened. So they don’t need us to testify, but Princess Celestia has asked us to come anyway. Maybe shed some light on why she did it?”

It was only now that she noticed Rarity had stayed perfectly still while she was speaking. Her eyes were the only part of her body that had moved, having followed Twilight’s as she spoke. The rest of her body was taut, as if she was merely waiting for an opportunity to shut the door and get on with whatever she was doing. Rarity jerked her head downward, then back up before replying.

“I’m sorry, darling, but I simply haven’t the time for all that business.” She hesitated at the last word and pronounced it as if spitting it out of her mouth to avoid the aftertaste. “I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of it and that those who might have done something are going to be able to explain it even if we don’t understand them right now and that they’re going to come to a sensible solution that’ll explain this whole mess.”

Twilight blinked. Rarity was once again staring directly at her, only now with a hoof on the door’s edge. Her pupils had shrunk slightly, but that was the only other change Twilight could see and at that point Twilight knew that there wasn’t going to be any reasoning with her and she still intended to stop by Rainbow Dash’s before collecting Applejack for the trip to Canterlot. She tried to contain the bitterness in her smile.

“Okay, then I’ll see you later.”

Twilight didn’t even register the door slam as she turned and walked away. Rarity was acting odd, but there was no way she was going to force her to go to Canterlot if she wasn’t ready for it; even if she never would be. Instead, she made her way to Rainbow Dash. Applejack was the next stop, but she had her family close by to support her, while Twilight had a feeling that Rainbow Dash needed the conversations far more than she let on.

While Rarity had secluded herself from the rest and Applejack worked on the farm from dawn to dusk, until she fell exhausted into bed, Rainbow Dash had spent most of her time in her home. Unlike Rarity, though, she never shied away from Twilight, or anypony else for that matter. She merely stayed at home, and if anypony wanted to come, they were welcome to do. Although welcome was probably too strong a strong word.

Twilight entered Rainbow’s cloud house without saying a word. The door was open and Rainbow had already seen her approach through the windows, and by the looks of things, her mood still hadn’t changed. From the Incident onward, Rainbow Dash behaved in the manner of a Royal Guard, with only one exception. She never spoke without being spoken to, she didn’t make a move unless it was absolutely necessary, and she looked as if she was ready to do combat at a moment’s notice. But she did show emotion. At all times, her eyes betrayed a mixture of scorn and pure, unbridled hate, for the one who had caused all of them so much suffering.

“I’ve been talking to Shining. He says Pinkie confessed everything, but didn’t give any details more than that.” Rainbow Dash stood looking at Twilight, showing neither joy nor anger at what she was hearing. Only the same two emotions as always. “They’re trying to figure out why, but they don’t even have any guesses so far.”

Twilight wanted to say that Pinkie Pie had only repeated the same words as the ones she was screaming as she thrashed on the ground on the day of the Incident, only in complete calm this time. She wanted to say that Shining had informed her of Pinkie’s quiet, monotone voice quietly saying “I killed her,”, while looking at the interviewer with sad, self-damning eyes, and saying the same thing regardless of what the question was, but repeating it only once, as if that was the only thing that mattered and the details would forever be known only to her. But she saw that Rainbow wasn’t interested in hearing any of that, so Twilight sighed and walked toward her with a lowered head. She stopped a few steps away from her.

“Why do you hate her?”

For the first time, Rainbow Dash twitched and her eyes widened ever so slightly. She visibly held back as she replied in a low tone, “You don’t?” Twilight didn’t make a sound and Rainbow took a step forward, eying her at an angle. “You don’t hate Pinkie Pie for what she did?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I don’t-”

“You don’t hate Pinkie for killing Fluttershy?” Rainbow was holding back, but the sudden raise in her voice came out as the shout it was meant to be. She was left standing, mouth partially open, looking at Twilight.

“No.” As Rainbow showed the first sign of genuine amazement, Twilight continued. “I don’t think that Pinkie Pie killed her. Not the one we know.”

Rainbow once again lowered her voice, this time to make sure to get the message across. “She. Said. So. Herself.”

“Yes, she did. She was also crying so hard that she didn’t even notice you stomping her teeth out.” Both Twilight and Rainbow twitched at that statement. Twilight had not meant to say it so brutally, but when she saw that Rainbow’s determination hadn’t been softened in the days gone by, she knew she would have to get her attention. Still, her choice of words was an involuntary reaction to Rainbow’s own. “I’m sorry, I-”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Rainbow surprised her, “I did stomp her teeth out. And I did nearly kick her skull in. And I would do it again.”

The blunt statement left Twilight shocked, but she wasn’t about to give up. Now she was growing angry at Rainbow’s blind obsession.

“You don’t understand. Yes, she did what she did but that wasn’t Pinkie Pie! At least I don’t think so.” Seeing that she had Rainbow’s attention, she began slowly walking toward her and around the room and continued. “Think about it. Remember the time we threw a surprise birthday party for her and she though we didn’t care about her? That we didn’t want to come to her party? She changed that day, into somepony else – something uncaring, self-hating and cynical. It lasted until we confronted her with the evidence to the contrary, and then she went back to normal.”

“So?” Twilight stopped walking for a moment and turned to Rainbow, surprised by the question.

“So? Don’t you see Rainbow?” Twilight grew a sad smile that held in it the hope that Rainbow would finally understand and cease her mindless hate. She put a hoof on her shoulder. “It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t kill Fluttershy. It was the hate-fueled Pinkie that did it.”

Seeing that Rainbow Dash wasn’t convinced, she put her hoof down and explained her argument.

“I’ve seen glimpses of it before. Whenever Pinkie Pie was disappointed – and I mean really disappointed – she changed. She never said something was wrong so that she wouldn’t offend anypony, but she changed until things went back to normal. I heard it in her voice. I saw it in her face, but I always thought – hey, that’s just Pinkie Pie!” Twilight looked down, every word she was saying making her feel just a little bit more guilty that the moment before. She looked back to Rainbow. “But it wasn’t. I should have seen it before, but I didn’t. But I’m sure now that there’s something wrong with Pinkie, something that changes her personality until it’s brought back by some kind of cure – I think when the cause for it is resolved.”

“So you’re saying,” Rainbow started, unsure if she was hearing Twilight right, “That Pinkie went insane and killed Fluttershy and that’s why we shouldn’t hold it against her?”

Twilight looked away. She knew how absurd that sounded, but the alternative was far too terrifying. At the same time, saying it like that was oversimplifying matters by more than a reasonable margin. She didn’t mean it quite like that, so she couldn’t say yes, but Rainbow’s statement was technically true, so refuting it would mean lying to her. Between the two options was a lengthy explanation that she knew Rainbow wasn’t going to listen through, so she chose the better of the two clear-cut options.

“Yes.” She looked back at Rainbow, more determined than ever. She made a promise to herself to explain it to her in more detail when the time was right. “That is what I’m saying.”

Rainbow’s wings were slowly unfolding, no matter how much she tried to hold them back. With Pinkie Pie in Canterlot, Twilight was now the prime target for her rage. The words that she had said resonated in Rainbow’s mind; they were the words of an accomplice. She saw the look of fear growing in Twilight’s eyes as she noticed Rainbow’s wings and the expression of anger growing on her face. With all the strength she could gather, Rainbow spat out one sentence.

“Get out.”

Twilight didn’t object. She turned around and trotted over to the door, then looked back at Rainbow for a final time before flying off to Sweet Apple Acres to meet up with Applejack. Not far away, Rarity’s mentality took a turn for the worse. Despite the constant reminding that she wasn’t to blame, or perhaps because of it, she felt the pressure returning. Before she started shouting and running around Carousel Boutique, however, she stopped suddenly. A carrot was floating by the window on the side of the building. She ran to the door and threw it open, but by the time she made it around to the window, the carrot was gone. Am I losing my- her thought was stopped by an association to the carrot.

“Angel.”

Those poor animals, she though as she galloped to Fluttershy’s cottage, how long has it been since anypony has fed them? Rarity wasn’t one for taking care of woodland creatures, preferring instead the company of more luxurious pets, such as her prize-winning cat Opalescence, but the sudden realization that there were starving pets at Fluttershy’s cottage had reignited her spirit of generosity. She didn’t even notice the pressure evaporating and her thoughts realigning themselves with the details of the new quest of feeding those animals. Having spent the last few days in near isolation, she also didn’t know that the animals were long gone, and that it was Applejack that had taken them in until a more permanent solution could be found.

The path lead her past the site where Fluttershy had died, and she turned her gaze as far away from it as she could without losing her sight of the path itself. Once she arrived at the yellow ropes that cut-off access to the small bridge to Fluttershy’s cottage, she merely jumped over them and opened the door to the abandoned building. She had expected to find somepony guarding it and had practiced a plea she would use to get inside, but the stigma of death was considered enough of a deterrent and no guards were posted.

The emptiness of the cottage took her by surprise. There were remnants of a wild party all over the walls, floor and even the ceiling, and a mass of ants had descended onto the countless leftovers of food, animal and pony alike. She stood for a moment in gentle disgust at the sight of the living streams of red and black that ran in apparently random, yet perfectly maintained patterns all over the cottage, before she finally realized that the animals weren’t there. I might as well - A creak from the basement startled her. She didn’t know what Fluttershy had in her basement, only that a creak was likely coming from an animal forgotten there. Maybe it had slept through the evacuation or it got stuck there after returning to an empty home and frantically looking for Fluttershy. Either way, she had to investigate.

Moving slowly past the streams of ants, taking care not to trample any – Fluttershy would never have forgiven her for hurting an animal through carelessness – she reached the door to the basement and opened it. Darkness greeted her from below and she instinctively lit up her horn to illuminate the way ahead as she made a few steps down the stairs, only to see them end in a room filled with every imaginable item one would need for a thorough animal care center. There were cages for transport of varying shapes and sizes, locked boxes of medicine, worn-out playtime equipment waiting for refurbishment and some in the process of it, and a large assortment of crates directly in front of her, by the end of the basement. Before the moment of amazement could pass, the sound of the front door shutting snapped her out of it. She turned to look behind, only to see something coming toward her at speed.

Chapter 5

Twilight was walking slowly through the endless corridors of the Canterlot Castle, looking down at her own reflection on the patches of white marble that weren’t covered by an expensive rug or a mosaic. It wouldn’t be long before the hearing would start and each clatter of her hooves against the marble marked a passage of time as accurately as any clock could. Heavy thoughts lingered in her mind and grew stronger with every step she took, with every turn she followed. Something was still missing.

What caused it? Ponies were looking over their shoulders as she passed by without acknowledging them in any way. What was the trigger? Twilight stopped for a moment, her mind spent from making wild guesses as to what could have made Pinkie Pie snap. With a hoof unconsciously stroking her chin, Twilight tried once more to piece together what had happened the last time Pinkie went insane, but the more she thought about how the perceived feeling of being shunned caused the first breakdown, the more she couldn’t understand what could have taken her over the edge this time, especially in such a severe manner. She puffed a burst of air through her nostrils, stomped her hoof to the ground and brought her head up.

She saw that she was now in the middle of a narrow hallway that she didn’t immediately recognize. “Damn it,” she muttered, not quite finishing the sentence to damn herself for getting lost in the castle minutes from the start of the hearing. She looked down the unadorned curve of the hallway, to both sides, trying to see which end had more light going through it – finding the nearest grand hallway with the large stained-glass windows was the easiest way to get your bearings in the castle, and strong light was the first signal to that. Or to the grand halls, which had the same effect.

Might as well go on. She walked on, following the light past the gentle turn until she saw the tall window at the intersection further down. With a gentle trot, and still steaming from having to find her way back in the first place, Twilight reached the end of the hallway and poked her head out. First to the right, No, wrong way, then to the left. So there-

She recognized a small hall in the middle of the larger hallway she had stumbled on. In the middle of it, Shining Armor was saying something to the Guards accompanying him. She hunkered down and watched. Shining waved to the Guards and they went ahead without him, away from Twilight, leaving him to run back to the door in the hall. Twilight took her chance. As soon as the Guards disappeared, she ran toward the room where she had seen Shining go. Without a thought spent second-guessing herself, she burst into the room and closed the door behind her faster than it took Shining Armor to turn around to face her.

“What do you know?!” Twilight nearly shouted. Her lip was twitching from the effort it took to contain the scream she had wanted to let out. The upcoming hearing was the first time she would see Pinkie Pie since the Incident and she suddenly felt the need to know what to expect beyond Pinkie’s confession. And there was only one pony who could give her the information that she could use to fill up the gaps in her theories.

As Commander of the Royal Guards, Shining Armor was leading the investigation. It was the Guards that were going around, searching for clues and questioning everypony that could have held any information on the Incident, and it was his task to present whatever evidence and testimonies that they had collected to the Princesses. Celestia had forbidden him from talking with Twilight, and vice-versa, on the account of their family bond and her relationship with Fluttershy influencing the outcome of the investigation, but no amount of loyalty could stop him from easing his sister’s worries. But now she wanted to know far more than he was willing to reveal..

As soon as the initial shock passed, Shining Armor shook his head in anger toward himself and her request. “I’ve already been telling you too much. We’re not even supposed to be talking about this!”

Twilight wouldn’t be dismayed by the response she knew was coming. She continued in the same tone of voice as before, only calmed down so it didn’t come out as a shout. “You’re the one who knows what’s going on and the next time I see her, she’ll be on the stand, confessing to something she probably didn’t do!”

Shining puffed out his chest and said in the most authoritarian voice he could muster, “I’m sorry, Twiley, but I can’t talk about it – not with you or-”

“Don’t give me that!” Twilight knew her brother well enough to know that he was refusing her plea as a last-ditch effort to reassure himself of his loyalty to Celestia before telling her what she wanted to know. “I may be involved in this, but I’m also your sister! And she’s my friend and I want to know what she’ll be up against.” She stomped her hoof to illustrate her point. Shining Armor was never as clever as Twilight; the furrowed brow and the first signs of stammering were clear signs of his struggle to find a way out of the conversation. Knowing that panic would only lock the knowledge inside him, she forced herself into a calmer state and asked again. “What did the autopsy show?”

Shining shook his head slowly and looked down at the ground. At that moment he knew he had nothing to use against her. He couldn’t defend with an attack – she had been through too much in the last few days; he couldn’t evade her questions by ignoring her, if he hadn’t been able to deny her previous questions. And, at the end of the day, she would know the truth in a few minutes anyway. She’s been through enough, he thought as his mind formed excuses for what he was about to do, Better she hears it from me. Then he looked at Twilight from under his brow and quietly replied.

“There were –“ he paused briefly, hoping that what he was about to say wouldn’t hurt Twilight too deeply; she merely inclined her head forward in expectation. “- small blades and twisted pins in the cookies.” Twilight’s eyes went wide and she slowly moved her head back. “She might have survived that… if it weren’t for the magic.”

Twilight’s mind was firing in all directions. She stared blankly at Shining until it settled down to the most obviously redeeming part of what he had said. She was even quietly confident that by pointing out the obvious, she would get Pinkie a step closer to freedom, even if it meant indirectly questioning her brother’s very competence.

“But Pinkie isn’t a unicorn,” she said, very quietly.

Instead of the look of stupefying clarity that she expected, Shining looked at her with a pitying smile. He knew she was going to say that and now he had to explain everything. The sanctions he would face if anypony were listening in on their conversation were buried deep beneath the knowledge that what he would say would destroy Twilight. But not before she would go through the kind of denial such that she would likely end up blaming him for Pinkie’s inevitable sentence.

“I know Twiley, I know.” He let out a deep sigh as Twilight perked her ears. “We found a book at the Sugarcube Corner, hidden amongst all the cooking books. Something to do with creating spells and potions out of natural materials.” Twilight’s mouth opened slightly and her stare was becoming ever more distant, until it was going straight through Shining. He knew she was struggling to comprehend what he was saying so he continued, rather than giving her the option of creating preemptive theories and excuses. “We think Pinkie used a transformation potion when she made the cookies. Fluttershy never knew what she was eating. And then…”

His strategy worked, but only in returning Twilight back to the room they were standing in. Her mind was letting the words through, but worked overtime on any possible explanation. She was already prepared to object, until he left the last sentence hanging like that. Her breathing slowed down in anticipation of what he had to say and she once again looked at him, rather than through him. He answered, knowing that asking “What?” directly would drain her of too much power.

“They turned back to normal after she ate them, Twiley. And then they –“ he coughed into his hoof to mask the pain in his voice, “- we don’t completely know how she did this but - they heated up. Like steel in a furnace.” He didn’t like the analogy, but the years of military service had narrowed his focus. With a raspy voice, he concluded, “They cut and burned right through her, Twiley,” as the pain of knowing what his words were doing to Twilight gripped his heart. But Twilight showed no signs of pain as she imagined the events unfolding with scientific curiosity. She was left standing, her face expressing nothing but the fact she was lost deep in thoughts. She didn’t hear his later questions. She was no longer listening to anypony. She merely made a step to the door, but by the time she made the second, she had already lunged into a full-on sprint.

“Twiley, stop! Where are you…”

She could barely see where she was going, as tears clouded her vision, but she ran straight past the grand hall where the first hearing of the trial was to be held. She ran through the corridors of the Canterlot Castle, past Guards, past curious ponies who had come to see the first murder trial in decades. The sight of the crying, running princess excited them even more, although every one of them hid it behind a veil of compassion. Finally, Twilight burst through the door of the Royal Chambers.

“WHERE IS HE?!” she shouted at the princess, the thirst for blood in her voice far outweighing the anger. “WHERE’S DISCORD?!”

Princess Celestia calmly lowered her head and motioned for the two Royal Guards that had come for a final briefing before the hearing, to leave. As soon as they carefully rounded Twilight and closed the door behind them, Celestia replied.

“I had assumed this would happen. But I feel your rage is-” She had wanted to say unjustified, but after a moment’s pause, she chose a more fitting word for it, “- misplaced.” She walked closer to Twilight who was angrily staring at her, and said in a motherly voice, “I know how much harm it has done to you, but you are not alone in your suffering.” She gave Twilight a gentle hug and walked past her to the door, then looked back at her as a sign to follow.

They walked through the Canterlot castle and onward to the Statue Garden behind it. The sounds of crying were growing louder with every step and Twilight recognized the voice immediately. A few turns past the labyrinth-like shrubbery of the garden later, and the sight in front of her dispelled most of the anger she was waiting to unleash. Leaning against the pedestal that had once displayed him to the world, Discord was crying his eyes out. He was pale blue, with red and orange colors of aggression occasionally showing through random locations on his strange body. But it was the tears that showed the true extent of his suffering. They weren’t comically large or flowing like a waterfall. They weren’t water at all. Flowing as a thick paste out of his eyes was a yellow-green slime, similar to snot. For once, the draconequus had no intention of masking his true self behind a veil of comedy, unleashing instead his full pain to the world around him. Forming a bubble around him was a familiar pink force field.

“The moment I received the news regarding Fluttershy, I sent for him,” Celestia whispered to Twilight while keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the creature ahead. “He will remain here until we resolve what has happened.”

As the sun was approaching the tops of faraway hills, a disappointed and exhausted Twilight was leaving the grand hall, Applejack walking beside her. The hearing had provided no new answers. Pinkie Pie had maintained her guilt, and everypony else had told their part of the story, the only exception being Mrs. Cake, who had been so shocked by the events that her mind had blotted out most of that day. Pinkie’s fate would be known in a few days, and it was with doubt in her mind and a heavy heart beating to each breath she took that Celestia ordered for Pinkie to return to the dungeon where she had spent the days leading up to the hearing. Celestia, Luna, Shining Armor, Twilight, Applejack, and everyone else who knew even the most basic facts of the Incident knew that there was nothing that could be proven.

They did not have the motive for the attack, or proof of intention. They didn’t have any hard evidence either. The book they had found at Sugarcube Corner had no specific recipe, chant or ritual with which Pinkie could have executed her plan, but it did mention procedures similar enough to be considered a possible instruction manual. To make matters worse, they had no proof that Pinkie could have ever used the book in question in the first place and no reasonable explanation for why she had warned the others and why she had insisted on taking them to see Fluttershy. They didn’t have anything to disprove her guilt, either. In fact, apart from some circumstantial evidence, they only had one thing - her never ending confession, even if she hadn’t provided any details.

In the end, it was the law of Equestria that forced the Princess to send her to the dungeon, at least until more evidence came to light and a true verdict could be formed. For everypony living outside Canterlot that had attended the hearing it was now time to leave. Twilight walked with Applejack to the waiting Royal chariot, two Pegasi Guards waiting to pull it back to Ponyville.

One thing became clear the moment they walked out of the castle and the doors closed behind them - Applejack was no longer able to keep her emotion completely in check, but was now merely maintaining enough control over her body to allow only sporadic tears to form, then wiping them off at regular intervals. She was leaning on Twilight ever so slightly the whole way to the chariot. Twilight was calmly walking next to her, feeling nothing but the tiniest amount of joy for Applejack. As much as she hated herself for it, she was happy to see that Applejack had finally released some of the emotions that she had been bottling up for so long, acting the part of the immovable wall on which others could lean. And now it was her time to lean on somepony else.

They were climbing onto the chariot in complete silence when a Royal Guard slammed his way out of the castle and galloped toward them in long strides while shouting for Princess Twilight. By the time she managed to turned back to look at him, he was already at the chariot, handing her a piece of paper with a strange red smudge on it.

“Her majesty, Princess Celestia, has instructed me to give you this and to tell you to leave for Ponyville urgently. She said you would know where to go and the she will keep an eye on Discord until she hears from you. I am to accompany you.”

In the few seconds it took him to recite the instructions, Twilight had already seen the contents of the paper and had understood their meaning. There was nothing written on the paper. Instead, it was a simple drawing of a butterfly. A drawing made by tracing a line of blood on the paper.

“Come on!” she shouted as she pushed Applejack onto the chariot and jumped in behind her. “To Fluttershy’s cottage!”

The flight to the cottage was the longest flight Twilight had ever experienced. They didn’t approach Ponyville – they swam toward it through the clouds and the heavy air that pressed against her body and squeezed her lungs. Even as the first buildings became distinguishable, they seemed to pull against the chariot with their mere presence, desperately trying to prevent it from reaching its destination. When the cottage appeared, Twilight was already flexing the muscles in her legs to jump off, and even before the chariot landed, she did just that. As soon as they were close enough to the ground, Applejack followed suit and the Royal Guard wasn’t far behind. The three of them were already inside the cottage while the Pegasi were still unstrapping themselves from the harnesses.

“Spike!”

“Spike! We’re here!”

Twilight flew upstairs in search of the dragon that had sent her the message. Applejack first went into the kitchen. The Guards had split up; the Pegasi were searching the outside of the cottage, the other one was going through the ground floor of the house.

“He’s not here!” Twilight shouted as she returned from above. Applejack had come to the same conclusion and was running from the kitchen, when she noticed the door to the basement. She stopped suddenly and jumped to it. Twilight, who had noticed Applejack’s sudden shift in direction, followed her into the only remaining place where Spike could be.

Their combined shadows blocked the light to the basement, but even before Twilight illuminated the space around them, they had already seen a faint outline of a small dragon at the far end of the basement. But it was only now that they heard the faint echoes of whimpers resonating through the air around them. “Spike-“ And it was only now, with the basement fully lit, that they saw the mangled remains of a pony just ahead of Spike. White patches of fur still clung to pieces of flesh, but they were far and few between. Most of the mane had survived though, even though its owner would scoff at its current scruffy state. The one thing they simply hadn’t had the chance to notice, though, were thousands of tiny red dots going in every direction away from the body.

Spike was sitting in a pool of blood, shivering. His pouch with the paper for the Royal Letters was dumped nearby, most of its contents soaking in the blood. Twilight wanted to jump to him. To hold him and protect him against what he was seeing. To shield him from all the evil of the world. But she couldn’t. As Applejack froze at the sight of Rarity, Twilight felt as if each of her hooves was chained to the stairway behind her. She took slow, individual, steps, breaking the chains on each hoof every time she lifted it off the ground, only to have the chain materialize again as soon as it touched the ground. Countless thoughts flashed through her mind. She wanted to scream and kick and cry for Rarity, and she wanted to protect Spike from what he had already seen at the same time. She wanted to thrash the basement in pure rage at whomever – or whatever – was doing this, and merely to hug the baby dragon in front of her until both their worries would go away. Before she could get any closer, though, something happened that overruled any previous thought.

Rarity twitched. And then again. As if the fog had lifted, both Twilight and Applejack rushed to her, taking no note of the blood they were stomping through. “Rarity! Rarity, can you hear me?” “We’re here Rarity, we’re here! Just hold on!” They spoke over each other as they leaned down to her, Twilight already preparing her healing spell. As she concentrated on enveloping Rarity, Applejack shouted out at the top of her lungs, straight through Spike, “Get a doctor! In the basement! Get a doctor!” As the sound of fast-paced hoofsteps echoed in from above, and one of as Guards appeared at the stairway to the basement, wanting to assess situation himself, Applejack finally looked at Spike.

Spike was sitting in the puddle of blood, looking down at it, but his gaze was going well past the reflections in the blood. He was trembling, clutching his claws as if he we grabbing some invisible objects, his head gently rocking back and forth in motions only seen from up close. He was moving his jaw, opening and closing it ever so slightly, and Applejack took a slow step toward him. She wasn’t sure how he would react to her or if he had even recognized their presence.

“Spike?”

He continued his reflexive movements, but the first hints of speech were forming at his mouth. Applejack took another half-step toward him. She wanted to bring him out of his state with the same question as before, but mouthed it instead. In the silence of the basement, broken only by the heavy, panic-induced breathing of Twilight Sparkle behind her, she now finally heard what Spike was saying.

“I was too late. I was too late. I was too late…”

Chapter 6

“This is now a state of crisis.”

Princess Celestia spoke to what remained of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Any illusion that Fluttershy’s death was the result of Pinkie’s madness was now shattered, and Celestia’s first order, after receiving word from Ponyville on what had happened to Rarity, was to call together the Bearers. Despite Twilight’s lifeless gaze, despite Rainbow Dash’s tears of anger and despite Applejack’s noticeable fright, she spoke as if the ponies in front of her were the Royal Guards, and she was sending them off to battle. Only Spike was missing from the picture, but nothing – not even Celestia’s pleas – could get him to leave his post.

“I believe that someone or something has set its sights upon you.” She paced in front of them and looked at them, showing nothing but determination that she would defend them, as she would all her subjects. “Which is why you are now confined to the castle until we can eliminate the threat.”

The force field that had kept Discord isolated was now once again expanded to the whole city of Canterlot. Shining Armor was straining himself to maintain the pink bubble until the threat passed – whatever it was. In light of all that had happened, he had no time to fully discern the stark contrast between the happy occasion that was once the cause for this exact struggle and the brutal circumstances that warranted it now. Patrols were combing all of Equestria for any strange happenings and as the surviving Elements went to visit Rarity, Twilight was talking with Pinkie Pie.

“Don’t you see Pinkie, you had nothing to do with this. Why won’t you understand that?”

Pinkie Pie hadn’t changed her attitude toward what had happened. Twilight had told her what had happened to Rarity; Pinkie Pie shrugged, turned her head back to the wall of the cell in front of her and muttered something, than went back to scraping the floor of the padded cell aimlessly. Both her front hooves were wrapped in dressings, but the scars on her face were healing nicely. She had been placed in a normal cell when she was first brought to Canterlot and the injured hooves were the result of the newly developed habit. The padded cell, they thought, would minimize further injuries.

“As long as you keep saying that you did it, Celestia can’t let you out of here. She can’t.”

When Twilight first broke the news regarding Rarity, she had tears in her eyes and a barely contained sadness in her voice, but Pinkie’s reaction soon turned that sadness to anger, then to disbelief. After shouting had failed, Twilight had all but given up. She was in no state to perform the complex magic required to bring Pinkie Pie back, and even if she were, there was no indication that Pinkie was affected by the same type of condition that Discord had once inflicted upon all of them. She was not visibly different, apart from the deflated mane, and there was no sign of malice, but to herself. There was only one thing that Twilight could now do.

“I brought you something, Pinkie. I had a long argument with Celes-“ Twilight stopped and gently smiled, silently berating herself over the trivial matters she was about to burden Pinkie with. “Actually, never mind. I’m sure you have more important things to think about right now. Here you go. I hope it helps.”

Twilight smiled again, this time hopefully, as she looked at Pinkie. Much to her surprise, Pinkie Pie looked away from the ground and turned her head back to Twilight. Upon seeing the necklace that once held her Element of Harmony lying on the floor, she did something that surprised Twilight. She looked her straight into the eyes, tears forming in her own, and smiled. The she said, with a voice jagged from all the crying, and her missing teeth playing with the acoustics, “Hanh yuu.”

Before Twilight could move, Pinkie lowered her gaze onto the necklace and looked at it intently. The gentle smile was growing, ever so slightly, so that it would have been invisible to any random pony, but Twilight knew Pinkie well enough and she noticed it. She also knew, from the way Pinkie was losing herself in the golden indentation that once held the blue gem, that there was little point in saying anything more.

Everything is going to be all right, she thought to herself as she turned and went out of the cell. The Royal Guard closed the door and escorted her out of the dungeon underneath the castle. I have to get out of here.

“Ah hope you can hear me, Rarity. Ah hope you know we’re here for ya,” Applejack said between heavy breaths that accompanied her tears as she stroked Rarity’s hoof with her own. Rainbow Dash was standing motionlessly by the door, wings tensely outstretched. She had kept the door open as the nearest escape route at what she was expecting to see. She was not expecting this.

Rarity was lying in a hospital bed in the castle’s infirmary. Several tubes were inserted into her body, mouth and nostrils, and more tubes went below the cover, all connected to containers above and below the bed. Fresh blood, plasma, medicine, and others that the two visiting ponies either didn’t know or didn’t wish to name. Next to the bed, gems slowly released the magic that had been placed in them, so that the doctors didn’t have to be present at all times. Her body was wrapped in bandages, from the hooves to her scalp, with only the mane and tail giving any sign of who was sleeping on the bed. At places, a pinkish hue had formed in circles from the blood that would take days to stop flowing even as the magic of the best doctors was constantly working underneath the bandages to repair the damage. There was only one more color – that of a brownish yellow discharge that was seeping to the surface of the bandages that had been placed over her eye sockets. The infection from the loss of her eyes, they said, was severe.

Every now and again, a twitch shook her body and every time it happened, Applejack responded with a twitch of her own as it fiercely ignited any hope that Rarity would wake up. She had been told by the doctors, as they all had been, that Rarity would never wake up. The damage to her brain tissue was too severe for any form of sentience to reappear, the body lying wrapped in bandages in front of her living in a vegetative state, courtesy of the brainstem that was spared any damage. Rarity would display signs of the sleep cycle. Her heart would pump blood. Her lungs would draw air. But she would never wake up. She would never gasp for air and clutch the tubes in shock and defense. She would never hear or speak again. There would be no thoughts forming in her mind, the only sign of activity from the brain being the repetitive, mechanical firings of neurons that maintained the vital functions.

Applejack knew all this, but she refused to acknowledge it. She had already lost one friend to a brutal enemy; two she couldn’t accept. Rainbow Dash was shaking gently, yet rapidly. She had hated Pinkie Pie when Fluttershy died. It wasn’t merely the act itself that filled her with hate and contempt, or the countless questions that appeared in her mind as soon as she saw what had happened. It wasn’t the absurdity of seeing Pinkie Pie confess to it in tears, with sheer truthfulness and self-loathing. Deep down inside her, it was the way in which it was done that had really broken her spirit. The attack had followed no code of honor and no moral justification. She would have understood if a conflict between the two would have gotten out of control and if Pinkie would have killed her out of perceived righteous anger, not that she would have ever had the grounds for that. She would still have hated her, but she would at least understand on some level why she had done it. But to turn on somepony without warning, to do what Pinkie had done and then to merely confess without explaining, that was the complete betrayal of loyalty to any standards of life that Rainbow had ever heard of. And then she discovered she was wrong.

There was simply no way for Pinkie to know that Rarity would visit Fluttershy’s cottage. There was no way to prepare the trap effectively in the short amount of time that Pinkie had before the other arrived on the scene. It wasn’t Pinkie that had so grotesquely hurt Rarity, which meant it probably wasn’t Pinkie that had killed Fluttershy. And she knew by now that it couldn’t have been Discord either, not with Rarity anyway. Somepony or something was targeting them and her first response was to blindly focus on what was in front of her that day when Fluttershy died, to stand up for her dead friend by doing everything in her power to hate the one she thought was responsible. And she was wrong. In her effort to protect Fluttershy, she had betrayed Pinkie Pie. Betrayal. That word hurt her more than any injury she had ever sustained. Any yet, there was one creature in the castle who was hurting more than anypony – or anyone – else.

Spike was sitting on a chair on the other side of the bed, holding Rarity’s hoof. He didn’t cry or shake or twitch, even when she did. He held a constant gaze to meet her eyes, even if they weren’t there, and gently slid his thumb up and down the same spot over and over again. They had tried to keep him out, the doctors and the nurses, but after hours of trying, they gave up. Even Applejack surrendered, when she realized that he had seen Rarity long before anypony else. He had seen her in a state much worse than how she was now and he was the one who sent the message written in her blood to alert them all.

Spike had done his service. And his crying. He had cracked a few teeth from the spasms that accompanied the initial outburst. It had started the moment that what he was seeing, in the cellar, registered in his brain. And after a brief moment of clarity, when he had no energy left to cry, he sent the message and waited. After he was taken out of the cottage, and the shock passed, he spent hours crying and vomiting, Twilight using every grip and trying every magic she knew to subdue him. Now he was just wondering. Wondering about Rarity. Wondering if, had he followed her to the cottage sooner, instead of waiting in blissful ignorence for the few hours that he did, he could have been able to save her.

“But I have to go!”

Dusk was enveloping Canterlot, and Twilight was once again shouting at Shining Armor. He put his hoof to his forehead to stop the headache before it had a chance to spread. He loved his sister, there was no doubt about that, and he was well-versed in dealing with pressure, especially from her, but this time it was different. The force field he was maintaining was in his hooves alone, as Cadence took it upon herself to relieve the misery of Ponyville after such a brutal event and the lack of a known enemy made her presence unnecessary for the time being. A powerful burst of magic that their combined love could create was useful for dispelling enemies, but that was precisely what it was. A single burst. Without Shining’s constant concentration, the field would fluctuate dangerously. At the same time, he was still responsible for everything the Guards were doing. Those two factors alone were causing the headache, and now Twilight, who he knew had just lost two best friends and was bravely coping with the emotions that were going through her, was demanding of him to break his oath to Celestia and disobey the order that had confined the Elements inside the castle walls.

“Twilight, I-“

“NO! You don’t understand!” Twilight shouted back in pure anger. “You have to-“

“No!”

He returned the reply in the same manner in which it had arrived. It was the way she said “You have to,” as if his actions up until now, and the risk that came with them, had meant nothing she , that caused a spike of pain in his head that released his anger. On the inside, he immediately felt a pang of guilt over the harsh tone and the brutal expression he had just used, but with all the other issues occupying his mind, it was beyond his control. That single word held in it the pent-up frustration of the past few days and he had focused it on the one pony who was in need of help more than him. He saw Twilight recoil in fear as she had never seen him in a state like that before, but at the same time he knew that, partially at least, the manner of his response was the only way to break through her emotional barrier and speak to her reasonably. Instead of apologizing, he softened his expression only a fraction, now looking at her as an older brother should look a disobedient little sister, before he spoke again.

“You don’t understand. You cannot leave this castle until we put an end to this… madness.” He finally relented, and his eyes turned sad. “You’ve lost two of your friends and we still don’t know who did it and I can’t allow you to go out looking for danger. I can’t lose you, Twiley.”

“What if ah go?”

Twilight and Shinning turned in fear despite the familiar voice. Applejack was standing in the doorway, leaning gently on it, although that was not the sole sign of fatigue. Dark circles were slowly forming under her eyes, and her fur wasn’t quite as smooth as it usually would have been. It was not her appearance or the fact that she was there that scared Twilight and Shining. It was the fact that they had been discovered.

“How did you-“

Applejack cut Twilight off when she walked into the room and said plainly, without joy or malice, “It’s just like you to sneak into a classroom after hours. Nopony else would ‘ave done that.” She turned around to close the door. “We got mighty worried when you didn’t show up, so ah went t’ look for ya.”

Before the door closed completely, a blue hoof blocked them. Applejack, still looking at the other two ponies in the room and completely immersed in what she had planned for this confrontation, merely jerked her head around to see what was holding up the door. Twilight closed her eyes in anticipation of the battle that was about to commence, and Shining Armor opened his mouth in surprise at how easily the hiding place was discovered. Rainbow Dash firmly pushed the door ajar and walked in. She looked directly at Twilight with an unyielding look in her eyes.

“I should go.”

“You don’t even know what this is about.” Twilight had regained her composure in no time at all, thanks to the sudden need to form coherent arguments and to rationally explain to the intruders that she alone could do what she had wanted to do. She looked at Applejack next. “Neither of you do.”

“No,” Applejack replied first, “Ah don’t. But ah take it yer planning to go out of Canterlot for whatever reason and ah can’t allow you to do that.” Twilight raised a hoof in objection, but Applejack wouldn’t give her the chance to talk. Not for now, anyway. “Yer a princess Twilight. Celestia will know you’ve left the moment you walk out the door. Trust me, she’s keepin’ an eye on ya. But you can just say ah went to sleep. Or that ah want to be left alone. She’ll trust you.”

Twilight stared at Applejack in surprise and awe. For the first time that she had known her, there was nothing she could say to counter any of that. The logic behind it was sound, and Twilight wasn’t used to arguing on emotional grounds. Even if she tried, she knew Applejack would win the debate. So she just stared, as did Shining Armor. As did, much to everypony’s hidden surprise, Rainbow Dash. She was still looking at Twilight with the same stare, despite their eyes not meeting. Even Applejack was prepared for a comment from Rainbow, but when none came, she continued.

“So why don’t y’all tell me what is it yer tryin’ to find, and ah’ll go find it.”

Seeing she was now facing not one, but three ponies, Twilight relented. Momentarily, she looked at the ground to gather her thoughts, then looked back at her friends and explained.

“Pinkie didn’t do it. I know it.” She spoke slowly, with measured, quiet words so as not to be heard and to let the listeners know of the full meaning of what she was saying. “They found a book at the Sugarcube Corner – what was it?” She looked back at Shining.

“Magic for Pegasi and Earth ponies - Transformation enchantments. If I remember correctly.”

“Right. Only I went to the library here, and they still have the same book. And they didn’t lend that one out!” She nervously put a hoof in front of her mouth at the gentle raise in her voice, then continued in a quiet manner. “I know there wasn’t one in the library in Ponyville. So Pinkie couldn’t have gotten it there.” For the first time, she showed a hint of doubt, as her eyes darted to the ground and back up again. “But there is someone we know who does magic but isn’t a unicorn.”

Applejack gasped. Rainbow remained motionless.

“Are you sayin’-“

“No,” Twilight adamantly said. “I’m not saying that. But I would like to talk to her. Whoever brought that book to Sugarcube Corner must have taken it somewhere.”

“And that’s why I’m saying we should let the Guards bring her in,” Shining Armor started, but soon corrected himself. “I will order the Guards to bring her in.”

Twilight looked at him, only this time not in anger or determination, but as if pleading for her life. Her tone of voice reflected that.

“Don’t. If whoever did this sees Royal Guards flying toward her, he’ll know we’re onto him. And if she…” Twilight weighed whether she should say what she intended to say. The words would swing the argument far in her favor, but the implications of her truthfulness and trust would remain forever. She looked Shining in the eyes. “If she did have something to do with this, she’ll run. And then we’ll never find her.” She couldn’t allow him to say anything, so she answered the question before he could ask it. “You know they can’t make a quiet entrance and I can because everypony thinks we’re trapped in Canterlot.”

“And that’s why ah should go.” Twilight turned to Applejack, fearful of another reasonable explanation that would force her to send her friend into danger. “They’ll miss ya. Ah can smuggle myself out of Canterlot, go through the Everfree, and come back in a few days.”

The logic was sound, but there were finally mistakes that Twilight was preparing to use as a doorstop to Applejack’s charge. A few days was a few days too many. The thought that Celestia could be fooled for a few days while Applejack was away was more than wishful thinking. The whole journey didn’t inspire confidence, either. Applejack would have to board a train, somehow got off in Ponyville without being noticed, traverse The Everfree and repeat the journey in reverse. The number of danger zones, where there was a possibility for detection, was simply too great. And seeing as how the train was now the only civilian transport allowed in and out of Canterlot, that was the only way Applejack could travel.

“That’ll take forever.” Rainbow Dash intervened, still looking as determined as before. She pointed at Twilight and banked her head in disapproval of her plan. “You can’t go.” Then she turned to Applejack with a similar expression. “It’ll take you days to get there and back and Celestia’s no idiot.” Then she looked back at Twilight and said in a voice that didn’t leave room for a debate, “I’ll go.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and looked away before she whispered, “And you don’t think anypony will notice you?” She turned to face her. Rainbow Dash was already convinced she was going to be the one sneaking out of Canterlot, but Twilight couldn’t allow that to happen. “I think they’re watching the skies quite a lot more than trains. It’s easier to fly in than to get past the checkpoints.” Behind her, Shining Armor was slowly nodding at that theory. Twilight shook her head to point out the impossibility of what Rainbow was wanting to do. “And you don’t think they’ll see you?”

Rainbow’s proud stature dropped ever so slightly. That was something she hadn’t considered, as her mind had prioritized the act of going over the details of how to go. She looked around in confusion.

“Maybe, if you put an invisibility spell-“

“I can’t do that.” Twilight said with the same tone as Rainbow had so confidently spoken in before. “And even if I could, it would only last to the field.”

As Rainbow’s shoulders and head slumped forward, Applejack took the charge. She stepped forward, and said directly to Twilight, “So it’s settled. Ah’m goin’.”

“We’ve been over this, Applejack, you can’t go,” Twilight plead. “It would take too long.”

“I’ll get her there.”

Shining’s subdued voice resembled a shameful confession, said in a whisper, yet it cut through the room faster than any scream could. The three mares looked at him, and for a moment, the whole room went quiet. Rainbow Dash was wondering and hoping that, perhaps, he had meant her, rather than Applejack. Applejack was taken aback by his willingness to aid her in breaking one of Celestia’s orders. The same thought was going through Twilight’s head, only it wasn’t the only thing on her mind. Faint traces of anger and jealousy over the fact that he had chosen to help Applejack, but had refused to help her, were mixing in with the surprise. Shining kept looking at Applejack.

“There’s a Chariot leaving for Ponyville in two hours. It’s going back at first light tomorrow.” His voice was still revealing how much he was sacrificing by offering this. “I can get you on it. Both times.”

“Can’t you do that for me?!” Rainbow Dash let out a genuine scream and the others were quick to shush her.

“I could, but I won’t.” The rediscovered fortitude took the mares by surprise. He pointed at Rainbow. “How long do you think it would take for you to be seen by somepony? All of Equestria’s crawling with Guards. And even if I get them away, anypony in Ponyville could recognize you at any moment.” That he was saying those word in the tone of a teacher rebuking an audacious student, made him appear even taller and wiser than he really was. “Do you have any idea how much I’m- we’re risking by doing this?” He noticed he had confessed his fear of being caught, but hoped the mares hadn’t. He turned to Twilight. “You can’t go. You have to stay here.” Finally, he looked at Applejack again. “You’re the only one who can hide behind a large hat and some old clothes.”

There was nothing more left to discuss. Twilight looked at Shining without saying a word. She had picked up on the broken word and, for the first time since the wedding, she was genuinely afraid for him. She had wanted him to somehow make her an exit in the force field, that was all. She never wanted to force him into such a sacrifice, both of his oaths; to Celestia and to himself, but she also knew better than to say anything now that he had made his decision. She motioned to Rainbow Dash to leave, and soon Applejack and Shining Armor were left alone in the classroom to work out the details of her escape.

Chapter 7

Applejack was bracing herself against the sides of the crate, wondering how much longer the trip would take. Every judder of turbulence knocked her around, scraping her knees and head against the wood, but it was a small price to pay for what she was doing. She didn’t know the names of the Guards that had showed her to her temporary prison and who had so kindly helped her in before shutting the lid on and nailing it down. The possibility of somepony noticing a loose crate lid on any part of the journey was minimal, but it was necessary to perfectly keep up appearances due to the severe consequences they could face.

She didn’t know exactly what it was that motivated them to obey Shining Armor when he had given them an order of such suspicious nature. Putting a mare in a crate and shipping her down to Ponyville, along with other supplies meant for the Guards on the field, wasn’t something they would choose to ignore. She didn’t even know if they had recognized her in the first place. All she knew was that as soon as the crate was opened, she would have to get away from the chariot as fast as possible and feign ignorance and exhaustion if she would run across anypony. And then she would have to return to the same chariot, parked near the very cottage where her friend had died and another one was maimed, before dawn and in perfect stealth. At least the Guards would take care of opening the crate when nopony was around.

What am ah doin’? she suddenly thought as her mind skipped to another topic. What if Zecora… She braced herself against the crate as if she were trying to push it apart. The thought that Zecora might be the one responsible for everything that had happened suddenly overshadowed any plans she was making for getting from and to the chariot. Fluttershy. Rarity. In the darkness of the crate and the silence it created, she saw their bodies in front of her. She saw Fluttershy lying in a pool of her own blood and Pinkie’s teeth littering it moments later. She saw Rarity in the hospital bed, warm to the touch, but cold to everything else. And she suddenly saw herself in Zecora’s hut, being put into a giant cauldron with boiling stew in it, cooked alive. Such a sight would have seen comical to her even a few days ago, but now it was a very real possibility.

“AAaaah!” She quickly silenced herself with a hoof as the scream brought her back to reality.

There were two light knocks on the crate. “Are you okay in there?” she heard a muffled voice asked.

“Yeah. Ah’m fine! Sorry!”

“Try to keep it down, we’re nearly there,” came the response.

A punch to the side, accompanied by the sound of wood flexing, let her know they landed. Heavy hoofsteps echoed through the crate and she soon felt the crate tilt, first at the side where her head was, than at the lower part, as the two Guards picked it up and lifted it off the chariot. She drew shallow breaths and was forcing herself not to blink, as more hoofsteps sounded all around her. The Guards and, whoever the other ponies were, talked in short sentences, but were far enough away from her that she couldn’t make out what they were saying. And once again she remembered; one this part of the journey, the Guards would take care to let her out when nopony was watching. But on the return path, she would have to find a way to reach them in time, or they would return to Canterlot without her.

She was tightening the muscles in her hind legs, in case the crate suddenly opened and she would have to run, but just as quickly as they appeared, the hoofsteps disappeared, along with any other sounds. After a few seconds of silence, she heard the unmistakable sound of a hoof pressing against the edge of the crate, and that was soon followed by the sound of a crowbar piercing the narrow gap between the sides and the top of the crate. The crunching sound of nails being pulled from their base, and the first ray of light from a torch outside, were the last steps to the real beginning of her journey.

“Quickly, go!” the Guard said quietly, with the proper intonation to make his point. She crawled over the side of the crate, looked around to find the closest path to the Everfree forest and, ignoring any numb pain from the trip, made a run for it. The light brown gown she was wearing to conceal her cutie mark was flapping in the wind, nearly defeating its own purpose. The same colored headscarf hid her mane much more effectively. Not that it mattered. The carriage had landed exactly where she would have to return to it, and the distance from Fluttershy’s cottage to the Everfree was a short gallop away. Even as she saw the first dark, sharp branches hanging from trees and strange flowers and bushes getting in her way, she refused to think about where she was going or who she was meeting. She had to be certain that Zecora wasn’t an enemy and that the enemy wouldn’t be in the forest because she subconsciously knew that her strong bucking legs wouldn’t offer much defense to an enemy that had so maliciously taken the lives of two of her friends.

Strange noises randomly cut through the even sound of her hooves hitting the dirt and leaves underneath her. The sounds of branches snapping somewhere in the distance, and suddenly nearby, before another patch of relative silence returned. Then she started hearing sounds only animals could make; muffled growling, howling, and the echoes of heavy footsteps. She picked up the pace, the first drops of sweat forming below her ears partially from the effort that was needed to gallop and partly from the fear that was now rapidly enveloping her. Before panic could set in, though, she saw it – the light coming from Zecora’s hut. In an instant, she hunkered down and galloped even faster.

A blanket of leaves covered the ground around the tree in which Zecora lived, but Applejack didn’t slow down her approach. This wasn’t her territory, and if whoever was responsible for everything that had happened really was tracking her through the woods, there was nothing she could have done about it, regardless if that someone was Zecora, or someone else. With the hut in sight, she grabbed hold of her belief that Zecora was innocent and galloped straight through the noisy layer of leaves ahead. When she was close enough, she jumped straight on the carved-out steps to the hut, the fear of all the noises finally getting the better of her now that she knew safety was close by. The landing wasn’t difficult, but the wait, when she knocked half a dozen times and no-one answered, was.

Open the door. Open the door, she repeated for a few seconds, but every moment felt longer than the one before. The noises were keeping their distance, and there was nothing to indicate they were getting closer or circling the hut, but she had to snap her head back every few seconds to reaffirm her safety. Still, nothing happened. Ah can’t just go in. That’s trespassin’. She glanced back again and knocked a few more times, although this time, she was really banging on the door, as a pony with a twisted ankle to the village doctor at midnight. This is hopeless. Ah hope Zecora forgives me fer this.

She opened the door, surprised that it wasn’t locked. Inside, Zecora’s hut was as organized and as clean as she had always kept it. Even the candles were burning. Applejack cringed slightly. The hut was never her favorite place to be in. Strange ornaments hung from the ceiling, watched by what seemed to be warrior masks of some kind. The giant cauldron in the middle of the hut was covered with a lid and busy boiling a brownish-green stew, as was evident from what was escaping in bursts from within, throwing the lid up ever so slightly, and flowing down the sides of the cauldron before fizzling away at the base. A strange smell permeated the place; another reminder that zebras’ potion-making was best left to zebras. Even the jars and pitchers on the shelves were like nothing she had ever seen before the day when she had gone out with her friends to confront Zecora over a curse that didn’t exist. The memory brought a faint smile to her face, but only for a second. She quickly descended into the hut and cautiously went about searching for the zebra.

The hut wasn’t very large and had no real hiding places. After circling around it for a few times, looking with ever increasing closeness at the same row of shelves, at the same masks and at the same corners, there was only one conclusion she could make: Zecora wasn’t there. She sighed and dropped her head in defeat and embarrassment. Ah just broke into her hut fer no good reason. Ah have to apologize as soon as ah see ‘er. Shouldn’t be too long, what with the pot goin’. She made a slow step to the door, ready to go outside and wait for Zecora there – as long as the scary sounds wouldn’t get too bad, when she noticed something on the one place she hadn’t looked.

There were no hoofprints on the compacted soil. It was too hardened for that. But there were a few straight scratches going from the first step to the door and onward to the cauldron. They were broken and inconsistent, but their direction was without doubt. She looked at the cauldron and from that moment on, it was the only thing she could see, the hissing sounds of escaping steam and the popping of the boiling mass overflowing the only thing she could hear. She didn’t control the movement of her legs; they took her to it in even, determined steps and the only thing going through her mind was, What if… as images of the scenario she had imagined flashed by her mind.

The heat from the flames underneath the cauldron licked her fur in waves when she stood directly in front of it, gathering the courage to push the lid away. She looked at it as if it held the answer to every question she had ever asked, and opening it would strangle the view on life she had once had. She closed her eyes for a second. Not Zecora. It’s not. She suddenly felt guilty at how she had once condemned Zecora before even meeting her, ashamed by how she had acted. Disappointed in herself that she was even contemplating her guilt at his very moment. And secretly afraid that she was right to do so. She opened her eyes and slid off the lid.

She didn’t hear the heavy gong sound the lid made when it crashed sideways onto the floor. She didn’t see it rolling slowly away from the cauldron before tumbling over to the ground. All she had time to comprehend were the bleached-white bones floating on the surface of the brownish-green stew, rising partially to the surface with the bubbles and submerging again a moment later. She had no time to ponder how the heavier skull of whomever was in there must have been stuck somewhere on the bottom or which pony she had known had unwillingly given away the bones that were now floating in front of her. Before the weight of what she had just discovered came crashing down on her, a single knee-jerk reaction flooded her system and it was a reaction she would seldom allow herself.

Her head moved in a single swift motion to the entrance door of the hut, followed in-sync with the rest of her body. Even before the turn was complete, her knees were already bent and prepared to give her the boost she needed for the gallop back to Ponyville. Without a single thought, she lunged at the opened door, driven not by fear of survival, but by the desire to warn Twilight, Celestia, or even just the Guards in town. Somepony had to know and she no longer cared about being discovered outside the castle walls; the knowledge that it was Zecora who had killed Fluttershy and maimed Rarity had to be shared with somepony and nothing would stop her now.

Galloping through the doorway, she glanced momentarily to the steps she had landed on when running to the hut, only now they were not the sign of safety, but an unnecessary obstacle. She aimed for the leaf-covered ground at the point where they ended, the same patch of ground she had so eagerly jumped over on the way to the hut, and leapt into the air. Her head held level with the ground, she was already plotting the way ahead as she fell to the ground, but then her hooves touched the leaves and she felt something flexing below them. Her eyes were already moving down as the first blip of a realization swept through her mind; the realization that she was sinking into the ground because what she was landing on wasn’t the hard dirt of the Everfree, but a few very thin wooden planks. Before she could so much as form a complete thought or let out a swear, the plank broke entirely, with a crack that played out in slow-motion through her mind.

When her eyes caught up with her fall, she could just make out leaves of all colors slowly flying upwards at her sides, and the ones below her disappearing into a dark square hole below her. She saw the edge of the hole coming toward her and knew that she was about to hit it with her muzzle, but when she made the movement to turn her head aside, she noticed just how long it was taking for her muscles to obey. The speed at which the edge was moving toward her was also unnaturally slow. Her mind, in a state of shock, was working much quicker than usual, stretching out the very perception of time. It gave Applejack all the time in the world to picture the stew inside the cottage and to question as to whether the bone stew really was a stew or a potion in the making.

Her eyelids closed automatically as the edge of the ground got too close and from then on, everything happened as fast as the previous moment was long. A strong punch just below and slightly to the side of her muzzle dazed her and the reddish-black darkness that she was seeing turned completely black as the sides of the hole blocked out what little light there was outside. Then she felt something beneath her. Something prickled her legs, as if sharp, unyielding sticks were coming into contact with her hooves and legs, but the moment they touched her, the sensation went away at that spot and new ones appeared and disappeared in other places. When the last of them stopped, she opened her eyes.

What’s this?

The stars of the sky above, along with the lit branches of the tree that was Zecora’s hut, were now the only source of light and they drew her gaze upward. Some leaves were gently falling down to her and clumps of dirt were rolling past the edges, dragging behind them tails of soil, as if they were comets. She could feel grains of dirt and small rocks in her mouth that had gotten into her mouth somewhere on the way down. She started formulating the first drafts of a plan of how to get out when she suddenly felt something coming from her mouth and flowing onto her neck. She looked directly in front of her, even though the only thing there was complete darkness, but she didn’t turn to see. She turned to focus.

Darn it!

She turned her head down, not even thinking about the darkness all around her, and readied the muscles in her forelegs to swipe a hoof over her mouth, just to be sure that what was coming from her mouth really was blood. But she instantly abandoned that idea. Her hoof wouldn’t budge, and then she saw it, through a small triangle of light that went by her neck and just barely illuminated the hoof and what was next to it. And what she saw didn’t make any sense.

Round wooden sticks were going straight through her hoof and the small part of the leg that she could see. The sticks themselves were mostly short, and even the longest were placed in such a way as to not exceed hock height, but they were scattered in random directions. The ends of the sticks were also sharpened, but it was the thick, nearly paste-like substance slowly dripping off them that was really drawing her attention. It was red, but such a dark shade of red that it appeared black. She followed the ends of the sticks to where they met with her right leg and saw the paste expanding out of where the wound had to have been. It made her think of the rising dough of a pie, even if the texture was becoming more sponge-like with every moment. One part of the paste had a bulge in it, but before she could so much as squint to make out why it appeared to be moving, it burst, releasing a gentle stream of pure, red blood to her hoof.

She blinked her eyes nervously a few times as she lifted her head up once again. If I’d crouched a bit more… She didn’t want to finish the thought, though the image of her belly being perforated like a pin-cushion and her slowly bleeding to death in great pain had already flashed by her mind. As soon as she faced upward again, she immediately began estimating how high of a jump she would need to make to get out and where the best place would be to grab onto the sides of the shaft, should she fail to make it all the way up. She didn’t even spare a thought about the fact that she had fallen into a trap, as every second wasted meant more time for Zecora to return and finish the job.

If ah… If…

She yawned. And felt something drip down from the side of her mouth. She looked down at just the right time to catch a glimpse of a few red drops going past the beam of light from above. In the second that she kept her gaze, more followed. And then it hit her. She had hit the side of the shaft – she could no longer think of it as a hole – and she was bleeding from her mouth. She also had tiny spears going through her hooves. Any yet, she felt nothing.

Must be the shock. Ah have to get out b’fore it starts to hurt.

“HEEEEELP! SOMEPONY HEEELP!” she shouted into the skylight above, not really expecting an answer, but just as she readied for another shout, she froze.

Ya stupid filly! Nopony goes here and nopony knows yer here. Only Zecora could hear ya, if she’s nearby!

Her reflexes wanted to put a hoof to her mouth to stop the next shout, but it was then that she felt the first pang of pain, as her leg wanted to move past all the spears going through it. The muscles in her neck tightened and she had to stop herself from gritting her teeth. Nopony was going to save her, which left just one course of action open, at least while there wasn’t too much pain.

Ah ain’t gonna die like this.

Applejack shifted her mind away from the pain she knew was coming, as she was used to doing on the farm when a job needed to be done and there was nopony else to do it. This level of pain, as long as it didn’t increase too much, was tolerable. The time to make something out of it, though, was slipping away, as the pain would only intensify from now on. And there was only one thing Applejack could do. She looked up one more time to reassure herself that the jump was doable, even if her legs were barely usable. It would be a tough jump, especially if any of the bones in her hind legs were broken, but before she could attempt it, she had something else to do.

This is gonna... “AAAAAHHHHH!”

There was no stopping the scream. Or the one after that, as she pulled on her leg, to bend and break off the sticks that tied her down. The pain as the sticks bent within her legs and pulled and pushed on the muscles around them, tearing at them on one side and squishing them on the other, was more than she could handle. She released the pressure on the leg and stopped to catch her breath.

“Why… does it-” She yawned again, “have to…”

She pulled against her leg once again, this time shifting some of her weight to her haunches. The moment she felt spikes poking at them, she stopped again, but something was different this time. She was out of breath, but she didn’t scream. Not once. She also didn’t feel any pain in her hind legs, even though she had leaned back against them. She barely felt any pain in her forelegs, either, now that she thought about it.

“How can-” She slowly blinked as she flailed her head from side to side in a dazed manner. Then she let out another yawn, only this one was much longer than the ones before. She could barely feel her legs any more. Before her vision went completely black, she felt her hind legs give way and what followed a moment later was the unmistakable sensation of spikes going through her flanks.

Chapter 8

A warm, diffused light welcomed Applejack to a brand new day as she opened her eyes. The hours from the fall to now had passed in an instant, without dreams or sensations and she found herself in a strange state. She turned her head to the side with all the full force she could muster, yet her head moved slowly, as if held in place by tar. Her eyes followed the head with a slight delay, smudging shapes and drawing nonexistent lines through the hut, as her brain struggled to process the signals coming to it. Even the sounds from outside were slowed down and garbled beyond recognition.

When her eyes stopped to where the head was pointing, she saw terrifying masks moving around on the curved wooden wall in front of her. They were bobbing in random directions, and for a moment she thought one of them had opened its mouth to devour her. The sight took the air out of her lungs, and she felt it passing her nostrils as a current of water, but she couldn’t scream. She couldn’t even look away. Then she noticed, with the corner of her eye, a candle’s flame dancing on the shelf and with the same delayed response, her eyes followed her head to take a better look. And it really was dancing, but then so was the shelf itself. She struggled to focus her eyes, but she could see it regardless – the entire room was warping. She couldn’t quite form a coherent thought, but she was wondering if she wasn’t drunk, despite feeling that it was impossible.

She turned her head around to the other side, and saw a glowing window right next to her. Unlike the yellow light of the candles in the hut, this light was coming from the white glare of early morning fog outside. She felt the pang of guilt and terror. It lasted only for a moment, and she didn’t immediately understand what had brought it about - a shout from her subconscious about breaking her word and causing trouble for somepony else by missing an appointment.

The chariot had left without her, the Guards having used up all reasonable excuses to delay their trip back to Canterlot. They were under strict orders not to enter Everfree, so as not to cause suspicion and alert the other Guards in Ponyville – and Princess Celestia a moment later – to their secret mission. Shining had said nothing about what to do if Applejack was not to return in time, what she was doing in the Everfree in the first place, or that she was called Applejack in the first place. As far as they were concerned, they had obeyed their commander to the letter, perhaps even slightly beyond, and now it was time to return to Canterlot. As for who the pony in the box was, what her mission was, or why she wasn’t back at the rendezvous – Canterlot was full of secrets regular Guards had no place to ask about. Especially not in times like these.

Wha… What’s th… this… was the first thought she managed. With every tiny move of her head, her vision cleared ever so slightly and she could now see the outlines of shrubs poking through the fog past the window. Even her movement was improving, and she wasted no time in using her improved abilities to look around. She was back at Zecora’s hut, there was no doubt about that, but the fire under the cauldron had been extinguished. The un-burnt pieces of wood under it suggested the fire hadn’t merely died out. But the rest was normal. Or as normal as anything could be after she had fallen asleep so suddenly and awoke on – she looked down and saw Zecora’s bed beneath her. But there was also something else.

Her legs were wrapped up, the hooves hiding below the cover. She suddenly remembered how the previous night had ended, the memory forcing her mouth into a cringe and her heart to pound. How bad the damage to her legs was, she couldn’t know, but one thing was preventing her from biting the bright white gauzes that made up the dressing. There were bloody imprints on the bed below her, the blood long hardened. Yet the cloth was new. The realization that Zecora had taken care of her throughout the night coincided with the memory of what was in the cauldron and she felt the hairs on her back shooting up. But as they did, she realized that she was only now starting to feel that she had legs. Her entire lower body was slowly coming back from a state of numbness she didn’t know she had. She looked around, listening carefully for any approaching hoofsteps, as she regained her body. Then the progress stopped.

At the tips of her forelegs, a squeezing sensation was numbing her hooves, as if they were trapped under large, blunt tweezers. At the hind legs, a strange tingling sensation was growing from her flank all the way to her hooves, where the same numbing sensation appeared. Only here, the tingles of what felt like hundreds of ants walking over the length of her legs took priority over the numbness. She turned back. The wrapping on her hind legs covered up her cutie mark, a few strips of bandages even wrapped around her lower back, just in front of the tail, to help hold it all up. Her legs ended at the dark-yellow bedcover that was haphazardly rolled against the wall at the edge of the bed. She carefully moved her leg in a brushing motion to untangle it from the cover.

Wha…

She stared at her leg for a good minute as every muscle in her body contracted. Her lungs were suddenly squeezed tight and a taste of bile spread over her tongue. She swallowed it back. Then her heart started beating ever faster, forcing her into a state of frozen motion. Powerful trembles traveled from her head to her legs as every fiber of her body wanted her to escape the bed she was laying on while keeping her confined there at the same time. The sound of her teeth chattering was the only thing echoing through her mind as it fought to stop the truth from reaching it. The gauzes ended at the knees, right where the hocks should have started. Only the gauzes tapered down at that point.

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” Applejack could no longer hold back the tears or the scream. At that point, keeping quiet from Zecora was as much of a priority as contemplating her next breakfast. She screamed for as long as she could, already seeing flashes before her eyes of everything that she would miss from now on. No more apple bucking, no more plowing, no more seeding, no more farm work at all – the very work that helped keep her family barely above the line of poverty. It was only when she ran out of breath, when she stopped the scream and forced air into her lungs, that were now being squeezed to the point of crushing pain, that she thought about the simplest thing she would miss – walking, trotting, jumping, running for victory in the Running of the Leaves. And as soon as she thought of that, she let out a new scream, tears blinding her vision.

Hyperventilating and exhausted, Applejack finally stopped screaming after a few minutes. She was still looking at her hind legs, only now the terror and sadness of her loss were slowly being replaced by worry and hate. The thought of how she would now live on the farm was responsible for the first emotion. There was no way for Big Mac to do all the work himself, but the fear went far beyond the lack of her contribution. From the provider, she would now be reduced to a dependant, unable to work but needing to eat and sleep under the same roof nonetheless. The first traces of thought about how the family would secretly look at her were starting to form. The hate was obvious, though. It was meant for Zecora, who was responsible for that turn of events. For the zebra who had taken her legs, who had mauled Rarity and who had killed Fluttershy. Quite what was going to become of Pinkie Pie, nopony knew. When the hate built up to the point of crushing all other emotions, Applejack hissed through clenched teeth, “No.”

The word contained a rebuttal to every scenario of death that had passed before her eyes, for every sight of begging for help and for the question looming in the back of her mind, Will I die here?

With the cold streaks of tears pressing against her face like dull blades of knives, she rose up, putting most of her weight on her flattened-out forelegs. Then, she slowly swung the back of her body around, to the very edge of the bed, making sure to glide her hind legs along the cutie mark on her right side so as to not any pressure at all on the tips where her legs ended. Once in position, she looked down to the floor below. It wasn’t high by any standards, Zecora seemingly happy to sleep closer to the ground than any pony Applejack knew, but in her current state, she felt as if the drop was a cliff face. If she wanted to leave quietly, there was only one way down – to drop her legs sideways on the ground and then climb down from the bed with her forelegs.

The bed creaked ever so slightly as Applejack followed through with her plan, looking at the floor the whole time. It took every muscle in her body to gently and slowly lower herself down, but years of apple bucking had strengthened her back and her legs. She tensed up even more just before her rear touched the ground, as she expected pain at that moment. A gentle breath escaped her as the pain didn’t arrive. She looked back to the bed, where her forelegs were resting, having been freed from under the cover by the motions she was making. Then she stopped moving.

The bandages on her forelegs were as expertly wrapped as the ones on the back were, but that wasn’t the only similarity. They didn’t end as abruptly as the ones at the back, but the bandages wrapped up slightly too soon and slightly too narrowly at the bottom of her legs, right where the hoof would be. The feeling of the blunt pressure returned and she pointed her left leg toward herself. At the bottom of the wrapping, there grew a fresh dark stain, and the first drops of blood soon formed on the surface. And it was only with the stain that she clearly saw the round shape of the bone below the bandage, the blood pooling all around it, creating a dark round circle, before finally covering it as well.

On some subconscious level, she knew that, if she started thinking about it now, she would scream until her voice would disappear. She knew that she most likely wouldn’t make another move, if the episode with her hind legs repeated herself, and that she would collapse to the floor from the overwhelming mix of terror for what had been done to her, and indifference for living on as she was. Fighting to live, her mind blocked out all thoughts and changed her condition into a mere picture, to be looked at, rather than lived. An obstacle to overcome in a dream.

She slowly put her right foreleg on the ground, in the same way as it had been on the bed to avoid any unnecessary stress, and then the other. A part of her wanted to stay on the ground, just like that, for a few moments, to catch her breath, but the drive to escape overwhelmed that. The only way out was to drag herself out of the cottage and the forest, using the whole lower part of her forelegs as hooves, and she wasn’t about to waste a second. She again shifted her weight forward and started crawling to the door, her rear dragging along the ground.

News of Applejack’s disappearance finally reached Shining Armor. Twilight, who had been waiting close by the landing spot, hiding in the shadow of a massive pillar, knew even as the two Guards stepped to the ground that something had gone wrong. By the time the first few words were spoken, before she even made out the distraught expression on Shining’s face as he was told Applejack wasn’t there, she was already galloping to the chariot. The need for secrecy was taking a second seat to the need to save her friend.

“Where is she?!” Twilight shouted mid-gallop, and the three ponies in front of her turned their heads to her, two in wonder, and one in fear. Before any of them could think of an answer, and before Twilight had stopped, they suddenly looked up, toward the castle behind her. Twilight was already slowing down when she caught their gaze, and followed it herself, only to see a colorful shadow fly overhead, followed immediately by the sound of hooves hitting the ground. She wasn’t the only one who was watching Applejack’s arrival.

“What happened?!” Rainbow Dash asked Shining with a threatening voice, as if he was to blame for the empty carriage.

One of the Guards wanted to tell her to move away, that she was interrupting official matters, but Shining responded before he could do that. “I don’t know.” He returned the tone given to him then turned right back to the Guards, ignoring Twilight entirely. “Strap yourselves back in! Take me-” He had wanted to say, “To the tower,” where he would tell Celestia what had happened, but not before giving the Guards orders to call together the platoon in Ponyville to scour the Everfree, trotting one pony wide if need be. He no longer cared about the consequences for his actions, the only thought now going through his mind being that of saving Applejack, if it was still possible. But he never got to say it, as Twilight took to the sky, Rainbow Dash following suit.

“WAIT!” he shouted at them, but the words barely registered in their minds. He wanted to scream from the pain of seeing Twilight fly off into the pink-colored sky around Canterlot. He wanted to scream from the pain of sending Applejack to her death and of every other failure he had had in the last days. He had failed to uphold his pledge to Celestia, he had failed to discover who was hunting down his friends. He had failed to stand up to Twilight, even if it would have meant anger and pain from her side, and he had failed to stop them from leaving at this very moment. An urgent need gripped his heart; the need to followed them right now. The need to land wherever they would land and run alongside them, underneath them, whatever it would take, until they found Applejack. Only one thing was stopping him. If he left Canterlot, the force field would collapse immediately, exposing all inside to whatever was waiting for them outside. And that was the one thing he would not fail at.

The chariot lifted from the ground, Shining shouting orders against all codes of conduct at the closest Pegasi, that weren’t pulling his chariot, to fly down to Ponyville and to the Everfree, before continuing to the tower where the princess slept. In those few seconds, Twilight and Rainbow had just pierced the pink bubble, ripples forming in their wake. Rainbow took the lead as the more experienced flyer. The white shine of fog over the Everfree made a direct route impossible, so she looked at Ponyville in the distance and instantly plotted the fastest route, past all the troublesome air currents she knew were on the way. White clouds, moving rapidly and randomly across the sky in front of her signaled a difficult journey, but she didn’t even have to look back at Twilight to know that the princess would follow behind, copying her every move. Behind them, the Guards were taking flight as well.

“Ugh.” Applejack was crawling through the soggy dirt of the ground beyond Zecora’s hut. She had crawled all the way through the hut, one pull of a foreleg at a time, wondering with each movement if she was going to stumble and strike a hoof or a stump against the hard floor below. She had gone past the stairs, her hind legs bouncing ever so slightly as she descended, pain arriving in rhythmic jolts. She had taken a wide detour around the shaft, for fear that the trap door hadn’t broken completely, and was merely waiting for her to finish the job. And now, here she was, plowing with her legs and muzzle through the leaves on the ground, sinking into the mud just enough to slow her down and force additional effort from her body. Every now and then, she did stumble, as she did just now, her right foreleg slipping, the stump where her hoof used to be hitting a patch of harder ground.

The fog had only intensified since she first saw it at the doorway. It now consumed shrubs, trees, and even sound, the noises of yesterday seemingly silenced by the gentle white blanket. But Applejack knew where to go. She had been to Zecora’s enough times to know the path by heart, and she just kept going, despite the occasional pain, despite the eerie silence around her. For a moment, she thought about the Elements of Harmony, hidden away in the Tree of Harmony somewhere nearby. She thought about how the sounds of yesterday, that drove her to gallop to the hut and jump right past the trap, had probably come from Zecora herself, not some monstrous animal, as their sightings had been decreasing ever since the Tree had been brought back to life. Then she thought about how the fear had delayed the inevitable just long enough for her to see the contents of the cauldron and how empty the hut had been in the morning.

She stopped and listened. Then she rose up to her forelegs, as much as she could, and looked around. There was nothing to see, but the trees disappearing into the fog all around her. There was nothing to hear, but the beating of her heart. And then she realized that she had done exactly what Zecora had wanted her to do. In the hut, she stood a fighting chance and a brisk rescue once Shining would learn of her absence. In the middle of the Everfree, on the other hoof… She looked down. The poorly-formed path was still there. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then the first sound pierced the silence, the sound of a twig snapping. And then another one.

With a slow movement, as if the act would slow down time to give her more time to think, she looked in the direction of the sound, but the only thing she could see was the fog and the outlines of two trees directly in her field of vision, yet far enough to be partially obscured. She kept looking at the space between them, her ears scanning in all directions to hear the approach of any creatures from behind, but the sounds didn’t stop. Instead of the random noises of yesterday, they were coming from between those two trees and only intensifying with each passing second. Without even realizing it, she turned her whole body in that direction, to face the threat head on. Running was a practical impossibility anyway.

The outline appeared first. It was the shape of a large creature she couldn’t immediately recognize; too large for a wolf, too segmented for a bear; the rounded shape sprouting protrusions from its sides and top. The glowing eyes appeared second, a yellow shine so often seen in cats. She widened her eyes in response. She wanted to whisper, Manticore, but the fear of being heard kept the whisper in her mind. Despite the deliberately slow steps of a cat toying with its pray, she maintained hope that the creature hadn’t seen her yet. And then the manticore came out of the fog, eyes glaring directly into her own, and mouth watering at the sight of a fresh meal. She moved her eyes away, and glanced around her for any weapons to use – a well-placed stone to the eye would buy her some time – and that’s when the beast pounced, wings spread and poisonous tail lifted in preparation for attack.

Applejack leaned slightly to the side and crossed her forelegs over her head as much as she could, her mind scrambling to form a more coherent defensive technique, and her body tightening up in expectation of the pain. She knew a single sting could mean paralysis and more, she knew a slash of its claws could go straight through her entrails, and she knew its weight was enough to crush her ribs. But the manticore didn’t use any of those weapons. It lunged straight at her forelegs and tore at them with its blade-like teeth. The lower parts of Applejack’s legs snapped like twigs, before the first scream escaped from her mouth, the manticore’s teeth slicing with ease through the thin layer of hardened muscles around the bones, then continuing through them as well. But the manticore didn’t tear them off. Instead, it released its grip and moved away, leaving the lower parts of her forelegs dangling by the skin it had not sliced.

As stifled scream escaped her lungs as she pressed herself to the ground, desperately trying to move her head away from it. Her heightened state of awareness made sure she received even the tiniest signal from the world around her, and Applejack felt every fiber brake, every muscle tear and every tendon snap. She felt the fires burning under her skin in clusters, as nerves sent out cries for help, blood smearing all over her face. She twisted in agony, trying to make herself as small a target as possible, but the manticore took that to its advantage. Having broken her legs, it moved swiftly around her, swiping its paws at random parts of her body; a swipe across her head, a stab at her back forcing her to twitch about in response. Then it stopped and Applejack peered through her shut eyelids, through the sharp shapes of her broken limbs, for the first time since the first bite. She saw only two things; the jagged edges of the broken bones, covered by a stream of blood, slicing through the muscles, flesh and fur in front of her, and the manticore’s eyes. She saw it slowly moving around her, so as to face her head-on. It was lowering its head as it walked, wanting to see her suffering up close, a row of blood stained teeth showing the smile that told her it was enjoying every moment of it.

The look of victory in its eyes was enough to give her a new dose of energy, albeit one that had a single purpose. There was nothing but numbness in her limbs as she backpedaled as fast as she could, the halved legs slipping on the leaves and mud below her then digging in to slow her down further. The effort on her side was monumental, the effect minimal. The manticore gracefully followed her, knowing that this was one meal that wouldn’t get away. The knowledge allowed it to indulge the lion’s side of its mentality, to playfully kill the damaged pony. Applejack crawled back as far as her legs would take her, her mind racing to find an escape plan, but the loss of blood was proving too much. She stumbled as a drunk to the ground, her body no longer obeying her as it should. Then her muscles refused to lift her back up – a clear sign for the manticore that the fun had ended.

The manticore approached and casually swept a paw at Applejack’s head to force her to the ground and gain easier access to her neck. The force of the strike and the impact of her head against the ground dazed her. By the time she managed to open her eyes, the beast had already placed a paw on the side of her head, just behind her eye and under her ear, pinning her down with just enough force to stabilize her. Applejack had no more resistance to give, her body lying on the ground as a wet rag, but still she opened her eyes, tears flowing from them. Escape was no longer an option, but she at least wanted to see what it was doing. Pain was no longer a concern, but she wanted to know how she would go.

Already flexing its legs for the next step, the manticore suddenly stopped and jerked its head upwards; listening in to sounds Applejack couldn’t hear and releasing some force it was putting on her. She turned her eye to see what the beast was doing and at the same moment, with an urgency she had not seen from it, it looked down at her, determination visible in its face in place of content. Applejack held her breath, knowing that this was where she was going to die and prepared for anything the beast would do, when something happened that halted her surrender. No longer feeling her body and no longer disturbed by the sight in front of her, there was now only one thing keeping her connected to the world, and that sense picked up a faint echo. In a split second, just as the manticore was preparing to swoop down to her neck, Applejack’s ears had registered the distinct sound of hooves hitting the forest floor in rapid succession. The instant left her with just enough time to carry out the only possible act of self-defense.

Drawing from unknown reserves of strength, Applejack turned her head under the loose grip of the manticore’s paw and bit down on one of its claws with all the strength she could find. She felt her teeth dig into its flesh, down to the bone, but no further, and in that instant, the manticore pulled its paw away. Hair and stripes of flesh remained buried behind her teeth, but the victory was short lived. More annoyed than hurt, the manticore swooped down on her in revenge, only not on her neck, but her head. Its teeth caught her muzzle, sinking into the jaw and her tongue from below and down on her nose from above. She didn’t have the time to realize what the beast was doing before it bit down, hard. Her jawbone shattered as the teeth passed through it, as did the upper part of her muzzle. When the two rows of teeth finally met, they held within their grip most of Applejack’s mouth and nose, and a large part of her tongue. The manticore pulled its head back to tear the chunk away and spat it out, but didn’t continue the attack – the echoes of hooves had grown too loud, but it was the occasional flapping of the wings that really scared the beast.

As the manticore took one final look at the meal it was going to lose, before running back to the trees from whence it came, it retracted its tail back - the venom would serve a better purpose another day. Applejack’s vision was colored with a thick layer of red, forcing her eyelashes to twitch in an automatic response to rid the eyes of the intrusion. Blood poured from the gaping wound on her head, down into her throat, to her lungs and outward at the same time, all over her head and the ground below it. As the first stream of blood reached her lungs, her body strained from the violent coughs that followed, spewing blood all around her in sprays, but more blood filled her lungs. She fought to keep her eyes open, pulling against the desire of her body to shut down from the stress, and as she was about to lose the battle, she heard the unmistakable voice of Rainbow Dash scream from somewhere behind.

“There!”

Chapter 9

The Royal Guards arrived at the small clearing in the middle of Everfree minutes after Rainbow and Twilight had gotten there, their hearts pounding as they chased down the last living bearers of the Elements of Harmony, but as soon as they set hoof in the clearing, the lead Guard stopped abruptly. The morning fog, slowly dissipating with the rising temperatures, was shaping the sight in front of him into a scene from a theater play. To the edge of the clearing, glistening from the fog, and wrapped in a layer of magic, was a bloody figure that his brain refused to recognize as a pony. Next to it were the two ponies they had been following; Twilight, creating the life-saving spell while looking at the strange form, jaw shaking and tears in her eyes, and Rainbow Dash, who was just now turning her head toward him. She had a look of anxiety in her tear-filled eyes, as if she had been waiting for the arrival of the Guards to release her of the burden of staying still. The Guards behind him were coming to a stop, and he was about to take a step forward to move out of their way, when Rainbow flew toward him, shouting all the way.

“It’s about time!” She came to a hover in front of him and pointed to Twilight. “Get over there!” She then turned to the two Guards directly behind him. “You two, come with me! We have to catch it!” At that point, she turned and started flying back to Twilight, when a shout from behind stopped her.

“Wait!” There was a sense of urgency and fear in the traditionally heavy tone of the Guard. As Rainbow turned back, she saw the Guards rushing past below her, running in an ever expanding circle to establish a defensive perimeter. Only their leader was standing still, looking at her, pleading. “There’s an entire platoon coming behind us,” he looked at her with fears in his eyes and talked in a calmer voice than before, “but we need to bring you back. Alive.”

He knew that there was no catching Rainbow Dash, should she decide to fly off into the woods by herself. At the same time, he kept seeing the look on Shining’s face when he was shouting orders from the ascending chariot. There was pain there, and despair. There was no doubt in the Guard’s mind that bringing Twilight and Rainbow back to the castle was the single most important mission he had ever received. The brief mention of Applejack’s name at the end of the rapid briefing told him only that she was presumed dead. He had followed the orders to the letter – one Guard flew into Ponyville to gather the platoon stationed there and that platoon was to search every last nook and cranny in the Everfree, as the Pegasi would fly over the tops of trees. One way, or another, both Applejack and Zecora would be found. But here, now, there was only one thing on his mind; to bring the two ponies in front of him home. His mind was still doing everything in its power to divert his thoughts from Applejack.

For a brief moment, Rainbow contemplated what he had said, her eyes twitching ever so slightly as the options of fighting or fleeing fought for dominance. She knew what had mutilated Applejack – Twilight had correctly read the bite marks - but she also knew who was really behind the attack, even if the exact method of controlling the manticore remained a mystery to Twilight herself, let alone Rainbow Dash. She knew that flying off for the manticore meant dragging the Guards into mortal danger, despite that same word having never appeared in a thought about her own well-being, but the Guards would eventually go through the forest anyway, so the battle was unavoidable. Only this time, she could take part in the hunt. And she was already planning precisely what kind of injuries she was going to inflict on the beast, as killing it was out of the question before Zecora would be found. With a clear vision of the battle in her head, she responded to the Guard.

“Did you see Applejack?” The Guard’s mouth barely moved before she continued. “No, right? Well, there she is,” she pointed to Twilight once more, then to the trees further back, “And the thing that did that is out there.”

With a measured flap of her powerful wings, she turned in place and flew toward Twilight, ears already searching out for any sounds beyond the fog that impaired her vision. The shouts of the Guard went by her as if they were intended for somepony else, but a quiet, tear-stained sound from below stopped her again.

“Stop. Please stop.”

Rainbow Dash came to a halt and looked down. Twilight was looking back up at her, tears flowing from her eyes in a gentle, barely noticeable stream. The halo of the magic was endlessly spreading from her horn and onto Applejack, slowly draining the power of one to close the wounds of another. Next to her, Applejack was looking through her eyelids in two thin slits; she was exhausted beyond any measure, the only thing maintaining her will to observe the world around her being the sense of dread that the creature would return and that she would not be awake to see it coming. She was staring at the same two trees, from whence it came, unblinking, and feeling nothing but dread. Yet she was breathing as calmly as if she was going to bed, her heart slowing down with every moment. A small part of her mind knew that she was safe as Twilight’s magic closed the wounds and numbed the pain. But Twilight could only maintain the protective field in near perfect concentration.

“Please. Don’t go,” Twilight added before returning her gaze back to Applejack.

From the few simple words, Rainbow Dash understood what Twilight had gone through. There was no desire for revenge in her voice, only the determination to keep Applejack alive. But there was a clear note of surrender, even if only temporary; a desire to keep any harm at bay by hiding under the nearest rock or, as it was, in the knowledge that at least Rainbow was still unharmed. There was nothing that Rainbow could counter with. While she had been sulking and fighting an imaginary battle in her mind, Twilight had worked to understand what had happened, had stood by the side of their friends, and had seen them reduced to nothing – including me, Rainbow suddenly thought. She landed on the ground and looked at Applejack and Twilight as the Guards finished their formation. The sound of dozens of heavy hooves reached her ear.

The platoon arrived; Royal Guards armed to the teeth and wearing steel armor in place of their usual gold. Streaks of cyan moved over the armor in waves, letting all opponents know that Celestia had had a hoof in enchanting it. They were only the first part of a greater operation that would see the wildlife of Everfree flee, regardless of its own size, from the advancing army. But for now, securing Zecora’s hut and the passage through the forest was the first priority. As part of the platoon continued on, the Pegasi readying to take flight to cover them from above, and the other part stopped to escort the three ponies through the forest, the Pegasus Guard approached for a final time.

“There’s a chariot waiting just outside the forest to take you back to Canterlot.” He spoke to Rainbow and Twilight, not knowing if Applejack could even hear him through the field. The chariot wasn’t able to fly in, as the Pegasi hadn’t been, which left Twilight, Rainbow and the waiting unit of Royal Guards with the difficult task of moving Applejack through the dangerous forest path back to the outskirts of Ponyville. Only this time, it wasn’t dangerous because of the wildlife, but because of its very nature. The uneven terrain, dotted with slippery mud and stones, hidden beneath leaves, would force them to slow down to a crawl, even with the few unicorns using their magic to levitate Applejack as Twilight would continue sealing her wounds. There would be no room for a misstep. But despite the message that revealed the difficult journey ahead, the Guard spoke with a faint tone of hope, his eyes revealing the quiet happiness he felt by knowing that the three ponies would return back to Canterlot safely. Rainbow understood the reasons behind the chariot not arriving here, but Twilight raised her head, so he answered before she could waste her any of her energy, “The fog is too thick and the trees are too wild. They can’t fly through it all to get here.”

With a nod of understanding, Twilight shifted back to Applejack. Rainbow hadn’t moved her eyes away at all. She saw flashes of Applejack’s life, as she had experienced them; of all the contests they had entered, of all the adventures they had been on and even of mundane moments she would never have thought about otherwise - the memory of casually observing a hard-working Applejack high up from a cloud was the most persistent. When the Guards from the platoon came to them, she didn’t hear the words they spoke. She only knew that a rainbow-like halo had formed beneath Applejack, below Twilight’s own, and that Applejack was levitated away, Twilight moving along with her. When Twilight’s voice cut through the stream of thoughts, all Rainbow could do was to reply, “I’m coming – I’ll be right behind!” She barely glanced away from the puddle of blood before her to look at Twilight.

She suddenly heard the flapping of wings from the Pegasi taking off, and the sound of hooves slowly – very slowly – moving away from her. In a slow, uncertain motion, she got back up on her hooves, her eyes planted on the ground in front of her the whole time. Her mind traced out the outline of Applejack’s body, as it lay in the puddle, with darker patches of blood serving as markers as to her exact position; a blood-filed indentation from her knee, a darker smear from the side of her head pressing against the ground. Rainbow Dash took a step to the side, away from Twilight and the rest, away from the blood before her. Then, with only the smallest traces of fear and pain remaining visible in her eyes, her cheeks, and her lips, she lowered her head in line with her back and began vomiting. She didn’t stop until she was ready to drop to the ground, but before she could do that, two of the Guards had already braced her, waiting for her to finish before they carried her away.

Meanwhile, in the padded dungeon cell below the Canterlot Castle, Pinkie Pie had just received her breakfast. The moment the plate slid through the slit at the bottom of the steel door, the Guard closed the lower slit, as well as the square opening at his eye-level. During the night, the upper opening served as the source of light from the hallway, now its job was done as the Sun brought in light from the barred window to the outside, just below the ceiling. As the Guard walked away from the cell, he heard muffled sounds coming from behind the door, but by now he was used to it. Pinkie Pie had had the habit of murmuring to herself before, and after Twilight’s last visit, it had only grown more frequent and eloquent, until she was having outright conversations with the only other thing in the cell – the empty necklace of her Element of Harmony. The Guard turned his right ear back in an automatic response, then brought it back forward, shaking his head ever so slightly at the noises coming from behind.
Ever since she had received the necklace, Pinkie’s mood had been on an upswing. Her mane was still deflated, and there were sparks of sorrow in her eyes, but her demeanor told a different story; her movements were now more rapid, although nowhere near as fast as when she was herself, and there was a heavy dose of excitement in her sad voice.

“Come on Goldie!” She poked the necklace with her hoof. “Stop playing around. Breakfast is here!”

The necklace sat on the floor, unmoving, so Pinkie rolled her eyes sarcastically, muttering “Then be like that,” to herself. She turned to the plate and the three closed containers on it. One was a small pitcher of water, meant to last until lunch, another was the take-away-like paper box with whatever the breakfast of the day was, and the final one was a smaller box with a slice of cake. The last one was Twilight’s way of making sure Pinkie was as comfortable in the prison as she could be, and hoping that things from her past would trigger the buried memories in Pinkie’s mind. There were only two ways out of the dungeon - for Pinkie to normalize and recant her previous confessions, or for the real perpetrator to be found. Until at least the first would happen, Pinkie was far too great a danger to herself alone to be left out, even if Celestia would bypass the very laws she had written centuries ago.

“I’m sorry, Pinkie!” the necklace suddenly said in a clown-like voice, “I must have dozed off for a moment.” A soft chuckle followed.

“It’s all right!” Pinkie replied, turning her head back to the necklace moments before taking a bite out of the dried fruits in the paper box. “Would you like some?” She turned back and dug in, knowing the answer to that question. Goldie was never hungry.

“Now that you mention it,” Goldie said in a voice that held a small amount of uncertainty and shame for requesting it, causing Pinkie to turn back, mouth full and a quizzed look on her face, “I am feeling a tad thirty.” Goldie smacked her lips that were made up of the outer edges of the indentation for the missing Element of Harmony. Pinkie Pie spat some of the food out, a rush of guilt surging through her.

“Of course!” Pinkie stammered around, overturning the box with the fruit and crushing the cake underneath her bandaged hooves. She grabbed the pitcher and brought it to Goldie, then lowered it down and started pouring. “Here you go!” she smiled widely, but the water soon filled the crevice and overflowed. Pinkie stopped and looked in wonder at the necklace, now sitting on a soaked pillow-shaped pad of the soft floor. A lone thought in her mind, buried beneath millions of others, pushed to the surface, telling her the sight below her wasn’t right, but the thought soon got entangled in the web of others and was washed away by the chaos inside Pinkie’s mind. She shook her head and returned to her previous state of illusion-crafted happiness, then leaned down to the necklace. “How silly of me! Let me dry you off.”

“Oh, it’s all right, Pinkie,” Goldie said as Pinkie lifted him up, allowing the water to flow from his mouth and using the bandages on her hooves to dry him off. As soon as he was dried up, Goldie continued with a more serious tone, wanting more. “Thank you Pinkie. But I’m a bit cold; why don’t you put me down where it’s warm?”

There really was only one place in the cell where it was warmer than the rest, and Pinkie knew exactly where Goldie wanted her to put him, even if he didn’t have hooves and eyes to indicate it. She looked at the spot, then back at him with a huge grin on her face, that served both as an apology to what she had done and the sign that she would do anything to make Goldie feel better. With a gentle swing, she brought Goldie around and put him down on the ground where the split beam of the rising sun fell from the barred window. The rays hit the gold of the necklace, making it sparkle violently. It was a sight Pinkie greeted with lifted eyebrows and twinkles of amazement in her eyes. Now in the warm embrace of the sun, Goldie chuckled again and said, as if asking one final favor, “But I am still thirsty. Could you pour a few drops on my dried-up lips?”

Pinkie nodded enthusiastically, then grabbed the pitcher and carefully filled up the mouth of the necklace with water. Most of it dripped out again, but enough remained pooled inside the indentation for her to consider it a success. Then she turned back to fruit, scattered on the ground near the door, and was about to go back to eating her breakfast, when Goldie spoke again.

“Say, Pinkie?” She turned her head, bewildered at the clarity of his sound. How can you talk with your mouth full? was the question in her mind, but before she could swallow her food to ask it, Goldie was already answering her question, quickly saying in a dismissive tone, “Oh, I don’t need my mouth to speak, just as I don’t need eyes to see.” Surprised by the answer, Pinkie raised a single eyebrow and looked at the necklace, but the very next moment, she grew a smile.

“You’re just full of surprises!” she happily said, as soon as she swallowed her food. She pointed her hoof at Goldie. “I bet you could teach Twilight a thing or two!”

“Oh,” came the amused response from Goldie, “I’m sure I could.” There was pride in his voice and pleasure at hearing those words. “Why don’t I show you another trick?”

Pinkie bounced over to the necklace, although the small size of the cell meant it was more a single joyous leap. “Mhm!”

“Why don’t you turn me around a little?” Goldie said. Pinkie looked at him for a second, then moved to pick it up. “No!” The scream was harsher than Goldie had intended, and Pinkie’s reaction to it was to stop mid-move and backtrack slightly. “No,” Goldie said in an apologetic tone, “No, that’s not what I meant. Sorry I shouted. Just twist me around, but do it slowly.”

Pinkie Pie put her hooves to the ornate sides of the necklace and turned it around, as instructed. The light from the sun occasionally reflected from the gold into her eyes, making her blink in response, but for Goldie’s happiness, it was a small price to pay. She didn’t know how far she would have to turn Goldie, and was about to ask him when to stop, when a single beam of light cut through the lesser-lit part of the cell, the sunrays having reflected from the water on the necklace and the ornate shapes of the indentation for the Element of Harmony, converging in a single point on the padded wall of the cell. Goldie’s shout to stop was unnecessary - the bright sight in front of her had already distracted Pinkie enough.

“Wooooo!” she hummed, looking at the beam crossing the room.

“I’m glad you like it. You see, Pinkie Pie, I thought we could have a barbecue.”

“A barbecue?” Pinkie asked, turning back to Goldie. As she did that, a black dot appeared where the beam was striking the fabric on the wall.

“Yes, Pinkie, a barbecue!” Goldie said joyously, before explaining. “I’ve seen the things you eat and I think it’s terribly dull. So let’s bake that fruit into something more tasty!”

Pinkie’s face lit up. “Yeah, the stuff I’ve been eating was so dull!” She briefly stuck her tongue out and cringed, then happily asked, “But where’s the barbecue?” The black dot behind her was growing, and a slim stream of smoke started rising from it.

“It’s right there Pinkie, behind you!”

Pinkie looked at the wall, but she didn’t see the black dot growing in size. What she saw was a bona fide fireplace made from red bricks that curved around the logs inside. There were painted images of balloons on the inner most bricks and plates for cakes sitting near the opening. It struck her as strange that the fireplace should be built into the wall so high from the ground, just below the ceiling, but it was a fireplace, and that was all that mattered. One of the logs grew a red dot that started spreading, and she thought it was strange how quickly the glowing edge moved through the wood; more quickly than any log had ever burned before, only this one was still only smoldering. Goldie made a faint grumbling noise, but she was too enchanted by the glow to look at him. A bright spark suddenly travelled pass her on the beam of light, and when it struck the log, the fire started. Pinkie started jumping up and down from excitement, clapping her hooves.

“There. Now we roast,” was the calm reply from Goldie, and it was only now that she noticed Goldie had lost his clown-like tone. She looked at him.

“Roast? Don’t you mean grill?”

Goldie let out a short, but genuinely hearty laugh. Then, with a voice changing into something very familiar, he answered. “No Pinkie, no. I don’t like to grill. It takes all the fun out of making a meal. Oh, I even tried baking once, but that didn’t turn out so well.” He waited for a second as Pinkie’s mind struggled to form a connection between the sound and a face amidst all the madness still going through it. “Turns out ponies can’t digest blades. Huh. Who knew?”

Pinkie’s thoughts were suddenly clear, and there was only one thing she saw – Fluttershy. Every trace of happiness and hope that she had gained was wiped away, and she once again bore no sign of her normal self, instead looking at Goldie with tearing eyes, waiting for the next words to hurt her. She was ready to accept any punishment for what she had done, her mind having discarded the actual words Goldie had said and leaving only the thought of Fluttershy behind. But the punishment didn’t come, something far more surprising did.

“Oh, yes. You see, Pinkie, it wasn’t you who killed Fluttershy. I don’t really know why you think that.” Pinkie’s eyes focused as the words contradicted her expectations, and now she was focusing to hear more. “What you did was… fairly stupid, but if anything, you merely shortened her suffering. Honestly, Pinkie, did you really think a running hug was any way to make her feel better?” Images began flashing before Pinkie’s eyes, but not before she heard the knowingly ignorant reply that Goldie had given himself. “Hmm, well I guess you did.”

As the day of the Incident played out in individual scenes in Pinkie’s mind, the smoke was starting to whirl through the window. The hallway to the cells remained as calm as ever, though, the airtight fit of the doors and the openings on them ensuring that not even the stench of smoke was noticed by the Guards patrolling the dungeons. The flames spread through the fabric of the walls with a passion only fire can produce, swirling and engulfing every patch of padding that wasn’t yet on fire. Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, was once again running toward Fluttershy, old thoughts playing over old memories. Why is she staring at me like that? She’s shaking! And she’s scared! It’s worse than I thought. But I can help her! It was the moment before she had pushed herself from the ground to embrace Fluttershy in a hug only Pinkie could give. It was a second before she had wrapped her hooves around Fluttershy, as the Pegasus made an awkward move to escape. And it was no more than two seconds before they had both fallen to the ground, Pinkie wondering what the strange sound was the Fluttershy had made – a short whimper, combined with a violent burst of air and the sound of gushing liquid.

The next scene she saw was Fluttershy clutching her belly, blood pouring from it and more spewing through her mouth and nose. Up until this moment, Pinkie had been convinced that the hug she had given to Fluttershy was the reason behind her death. And everything everypony said didn’t matter, because she was the only one there so she must have been the killer. Only now, the words of Goldie combined with what she finally noticed in the scenes playing out in her mind. Fluttershy wasn’t scared of me. She was hurt. For the first time in days, there was clarity in Pinkie’s mind, with a single thought now dominating. I didn’t kill her.

Her mane inflated back to normal the moment she thought that, but now anger replaced self-loathing. “You!” she screamed at the necklace, hoof pointing, “You killed Fluttershy!”

A cough followed the scream, the smoke from the fire growing too large for the small window to evacuate. With her senses restored, Pinkie Pie felt heat for the first time, accompanied by an overwhelming smell of burning wax. As the first drop of sweat fell from her forehead, Goldie started laughing hysterically, the sound bouncing of the padded walls as if they were steel. But Pinkie soon noticed that it wasn’t an echo that moved all around her, but the source of the sound itself. For a brief moment, she looked at the necklace, now lying lifelessly on the floor, and saw strange shapes reflected in its golden skin. Bright, curvy stripes were dancing on it, disappearing and reappearing randomly. A crackling sound was cutting into the manic laughter. She turned around, remembering the promise of a fireplace and suddenly realizing that she was in a small cell, not outside.

The fire had engulfed the wall behind her, flames licking at the ceiling and the walls around her, the fire spreading even downward to the floor. Pinkie moved backward until she hit the soft wall behind her. She stared with wide eyes at the growing inferno, the fires moving toward her, spits of flames poking at the window to her left, a stream of fire forging a path above the door to her right. There was surprisingly little smoke, but the heat was becoming unbearable. She felt it press down on the skin below her fur, and in the air entering her lungs. Sweat was pouring around her muzzle, evaporating before it could fall to the ground, and all of this was accompanied by the never ending laughter. Her throat was going dry, forcing a reflex to swallow her saliva, but there was none. She opened her mouth and mouthed, “Why?” and the response was rapid.

“Now, now, my dear Pinkie, no need to be greedy. I already told you that you didn’t kill Fluttershy, so now you can die happy! What more do you want of me?” The voice was playfully accusing. As the flames spread across the ceiling and the upper parts of walls, Pinkie hunkered down to the ground, pushing herself into the wall behind and the floor below. She could hear the fizzling of hair as her mane came into contact with the ever greater heat. In a final salute to a dying enemy, the voice solemnly said, “I’ll tell you what. So that you don’t burn alive, I’ll allow you to take your own life.” The necklace came flying toward her. The pain, when it hit her nose, wasn’t from the weight, but from the immense heat now contained in the gold. The necklace suddenly snapped in half, revealing sharp, glowing edges on both parts. “Goodbye!”

With a strange noise, a mixture of glass breaking and a bubble popping, the voice disappeared. Pinkie glanced at the makeshift blades, then jerked her head around the room to search for any way to escape. The barred window had long been engulfed, but she had no way of knowing if anypony would notice the flames spitting out of her cell, or how long it would take them to rescue her. Jumping through it was impossible either way; the glowing bars reminded her of that. On the other side, the door was no longer visible behind the wall of fire that slowly spread toward her. She looked again at the necklace and around the room, only now the heat was making it hard to breathe. With shallow breaths she frantically looked around, with the questions of how to escape mixing with the determined thoughts that she would not use the blades. But the heat only increased and there was nowhere to go. She looked at the necklace again.

“No!” she shouted, inadvertently raising her head into the boiling air above. She recoiled from the pain, but when she pressed her head into the ground, she saw her lifeline. Or better yet, she didn’t see it. Glowing bars… went through her head as she realized she couldn’t see the glow of the door. It was a much larger piece of metal than the bars and it had less flames to shine through, since there was less padding around it to burn, yet she saw only flames. It’s enchanted! was the second part of the revelation. She knew now that the Guard patrolling the hallway had no way of knowing what was going on behind the door. To him, everything would remain normal, until somepony would alert the Guards about the flames going through the window. And the path the dungeons was long. Pinkie knew now that she had to get the Guard’s attention and there was only one way to do it. Fortune, at least, was on her side. The ceiling was in flames, as were large parts of the walls, but the floor was catching fire at a much slower rate. A quick dash-and-kick was all that was needed.

Going against every instinct and fear, Pinkie Pie jumped to the center of the cell. Even as she flew through the air before hitting the ground, she felt her body enveloped in a searing hot blanket. The sound and smell of burning hair intensified, but she had no time to stop. She gritted her teeth and, as soon as her front hooves hit the ground, swung her legs toward the door and kicked. Flames licked her hooves from the sides and above, burning away hair and touching the skin below. After just two kicks, Pinkie ran back to the sanctuary at the bottom of the wall. She let out a grateful sigh. Her legs had burn marks on them, and blisters were already forming above her hooves, but now she was back in the coolest part of the cell, even if she would have likened it to a sauna any other day.

She hoped the Guard wasn’t too far away to miss the bangs, but after a few seconds, the only result was a wall of fire that was now much closer than it had been before. Once again, she started feeling the heat, only this time, the flames were nearly above her. She felt her skin going dry beneath the fur, and there were no more tears of sweat moving down her face. Her tongue was like a rolled up strip of sandpaper, and the exposed blisters above her hooves were starting to hurt. Only it wasn’t the pain of the blisters themselves, but of fire being added to the wound. She pulled her legs in and curled up in a ball, but the effect was minimal. Not a second later, she saw a spark flash in her mane, before a whole strip of it ignited, burning rapidly, the hairs turning to ash moments later. She screamed, only to feel patches of her fur following that example. Unlike the mane, when they burned, it hurt, the fire briefly passing over her skin each time. And the parts of fur that didn’t ignite immediately fizzled away, leaving behind skin, exposed to the heat all around.

Pinkie Pie clenched her teeth and tightened her muscles, making herself as small as possible, but the searing pain of fire now reaching her body intensified with each passing moment, countless blisters forming in its wake. She could feel her skin being torn apart at places where there was too much heat, but the pain now went far below the skin, and for the first time ever, she felt every one of her muscles and the bones beneath them. The muscles were starting to seize, the skin above them on the verge of burning, thousands of hot needles piercing her flesh. Pinkie looked at the necklace and swiped at it before she could admit to herself what she was about to do. She burned her hoof on it when she picked it up, but by now, higher priorities had replaced the pain that followed. She could hardly breathe now, but she took one final look at the jagged piece in her hoof, and plunged it toward her throat. Her hoof was the only thing to hit it.

The laugher reappeared, now happier than ever. The voice soon followed. “That was just marvelous! You should have seen yourself…” As the few chuckles went by, Pinkie kept looking at her hoof. It was now bare, covered only in bleeding burns. Yet she felt no pain. “I couldn’t let you do that Pinkie Pie, I couldn’t. But don’t worry, help’s on the way!” The voice disappeared, and with it, the protection from pain. Pinkie suddenly felt every burn and gash on her body, and there was only one response she had for that.

The Guard was slowly walking to the cell, expecting to be asked to remove the chamber pot, or to refill the water, when he heard the scream. He galloped to the door, but the closer he got, the more he was certain that the strange buzzing sound he had been hearing wasn’t coming from a bee, stuck in some strange place in the dungeon. He pressed his hoof to the lever of the upper opening and pulled. The hatch opened, and a burst of flames shot into his muzzle, singing his nose and burning away the ornamental blue plume at the top of his helmet. He fell to the ground from the shock blast, but rose the next moment as another scream came from within. A long, narrow flame was shooting through the hatch, licking the stone ceiling of the hallway. The Guard yelled out for help. But it was too late.

With the flames shooting out onto the hallway, the fire burning inside the cell suddenly found itself with an abundance of oxygen, swamping the last few sources of energy left to consume. Where it had burned at a steady pace before, it now came around, from top, bottom, and the sides, converging at Pinkie Pie. The advancing heat burned away what remained of her skin and she felt the open flames going across her muscles, now no longer needles, but long blades slashing in every direction. Her eyeballs burst as the liquid inside them boiled, and when her lungs drew in air, they drew in fire as well. As the overwhelming pain stiffened her body into a charred statue, Pinkie’s thoughts remained alive for a moment longer. Even in blindness, she saw the fire devouring her.

Chapter 10

Fast-moving shadows passed over the tops of the increasingly thinner treetops as the entourage reached the outskirts of the Everfree forest. Rainbow Dash didn’t need to follow them to know they were not ordinary Pegasi; the air passing over the contours and through the gaps in the golden armor creating a barely audible whooshing sound particular to the Royal Guards. She turned her head regardless, only to see the shapes land with a thud a short distance ahead. By the time their shapes partially blocked out the light, shining through the path ahead from outside, she had already guessed that the horrors of the day had not yet ended.

The two Guards that had flown in slowed down abruptly when they saw the group. They joined the slow walk, as if they were supposed to be a part of it, but had arrived late, eyes shifting from one Guard in the group to the next, only briefly glancing at Twilight, Rainbow or Applejack, before hiding their stare on the others. Small beads of sweat were running down their necks, forming lines in the fur before disappearing behind the chest plate. They were out of breath, but were doing their best to hide it, but the one thing that betrayed their game to Rainbow was the way in which the other Guards were looking at them. The new arrivals were not part of this group; neither was their arrival expected. The exchange of cautious glances from the first group to the newcomers revealed that both groups were playing their part in the game – they first just didn’t know what it was yet.

The moment one of the newcomers turned to the squad leader and started speaking, Rainbow sighed and started looking at the ground, quietly preparing herself for anything that would follow. The Guard, knowing everypony there could hear him if they wanted to, started speaking to the leader in a clear and loud voice, deliberately revealing the words he was saying, trying to give the appearance that the conversation was mere routine. He stressed very seemingly important word and used only the most well-known military terms that everypony would know. More revealing than anything else though, was the sheer strangeness of what he was saying. He started by recite a short congratulations to the leader for finding the targets. Then he said, as if repeating something that was well-known to the other Guards, that the targets are, of course, to be brought into the nearby, secondary location, which could only mean Twilight’s castle. Hollow arguments pertaining to its greater defensive and counter-infiltration capabilities, all allowed by its smaller physical size and the natural properties of the crystals from which it’s built followed.

Thanks largely to the experience she had had at the Wonderbolt Academy, Rainbow could already guess how the briefing for the Guard went mere minutes ago, and who had told him what to say. We can’t let them come here now that this happened. The voice of Shining Armor played out in her mind. Go up to the squad, find the leader, and tell him to take them to Twilight’s castle, but don’t show you’re worried… The rest of the story formed, in variations, as they walked out of the forest, but a single thought responded when she finished the first version. Twilight would cringe at the crystal- Rainbow looked at Twilight, a small smile having formed at the thought. But the smile quickly vanished when she saw the dark patches under Twilight’s eyes, and noticed her heavy, uneven steps; both signs of a heavy struggle to maintain the concentration that was keeping Applejack comfortable. Rainbow turned away and looked straight ahead. What happened up there?

More Guards joined the procession on the way to Twilight’s castle. They kept their distance to the main group, their only function at that point being to keep everypony as far away from the three mares as possible while escorting them. Two nurses came galloping to the group as soon as they reached Ponyville and the rest of the journey to the castle was but a haze to Rainbow Dash. Twilight was on the verge of collapsing, her legs were shaking and her eyes twitching from the strain she had endured. Inside the castle, as soon as she saw the doctors rushing to Applejack’s side, she released the protective field and surrendered to her body’s desire. Neither the Guards, the nurses, nor Rainbow Dash could react quickly enough to stop her collapsing to the floor.

A few hours later, Twilight awoke with a startle, flinging her upper body from the bed she had been laid in, her heart pounding and thoughts rushing. The moment when she was ready to jump to the ground, she stopped. With a half-turned head, Rainbow Dash was looking at her, and the smirk on her muzzle let Twilight know that at least something had gone right. But the moment Rainbow turned to her and began approaching with slow steps, she saw the sharp traces of pain on Rainbow’s cheeks, dark patches forming below her eyes and the disheveled mane falling to the side. The echo of Rainbow’s hooves travelled through the otherwise empty bedroom, and with each strike against the floor, Twilight’s heartbeat slowed, until she was calmly sitting upright on the edge of the bed in a pose that would have been uncomfortable on any other day.

“How is she?” Twilight quietly asked when Rainbow came closer.

Rainbow forced her smirk into a smile, but the effort was obvious. There was a hint of hollowness in her eyes; something Twilight hadn’t seen before. Then, in a voice that equally tried to sound content with everything they had done, Rainbow answered.

“She’ll live.” Rainbow made a strange, sideways nod. Her eyes momentarily left Twilight’s to seek the ground, before returning back. “She’s sleeping now. You saved her life.”

There was no change in her facial expression, and the last sentence was said with the saddest tone in the whole answer. Twilight felt her heart being squeezed, although she couldn’t put her hoof on why she should feel that. She’s alive, was the only thing her mind permitted her to know at that moment, leaving behind all the gruesome scenes from before. She got up from her bed and walked slowly through the quiet room, into the even quieter hallway of her new castle. Rainbow Dash was close behind, staying quiet the whole time. There were a few Guards on the hallway, more waiting in the rooms. The sight of the makeshift infirmary didn’t surprise her. Neither did seeing Applejack all wrapped up. Only her closed eyes, mane, and tail were exposed to the world, but a single thought escaped Twilight when she took in what remained of the amputated limbs that was now protruding from the body in front of her. “She looks so small,” was the whisper that came out and Twilight felt a cold sensation wash over her as she realized she had said it out loud. She glanced around, then back. Rainbow was the only one who had heard her.

Rainbow Dash said nothing, but placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder as a sign of understanding, looking at her with a hint of sadness and pity. She turned around and started walking back to the hallway, Twilight following suit, when a flash of light burst out of thin air, a scroll falling to the ground the next second. “How did-” Rainbow’s question was cut short by the thought that Twilight was now a princess, and thus was probably capable of receiving messages in the same way Celestia was, and by Twilight’s knee-jerk reaction. The moment the message hit the floor, Twilight brushed Rainbow aside and leaned down to the side to pick it up. Her eyes barely made contact with what was written when she leaped back up.

“COME ON!” she shouted at Rainbow, who was still standing mildly perplexed at what had just happened, and jumped into a gallop. As she entered the hallway, she looked back, just to make sure Rainbow was following, and shouted the answer in advance, “SPIKE’S IN TROUBLE!” They galloped through the castle, past confused Guards, uncertain of whether they should stop them or follow them, and out to Ponyville. As they took flight, a nurse inside the castle gasped as she picked up the unfurled scroll, the words HELP ME! scrawled across it in large letters. It didn’t take long for the Guards to once again start the chase for Twilight and Rainbow, who were rushing to the castle.

Flapping their wings on the brink of exhaustion, pain travelling through the feathers, to the hollow bones, onto the back and all the way to their skulls, Rainbow and Twilight were approaching the giant bubble around Canterlot. For the whole flight, sheer adrenaline was keeping Twilight at pace with Rainbow, but now the adrenaline was waning – there was only so much Twilight’s body had to give, and it had given nearly all of it. The lack of any obvious threat inside the force field exacerbated the loss of will, no matter how much Twilight wanted to see Spike again. The moment they entered the field, she noticed herself panting, and Rainbow Dash started creeping ahead. She looked at the colorful tail swishing past her, but her eyes turned downward for a moment as she let out a heavy breath. That’s when she saw it.

On the side of the mountain below Canterlot, at the row of tiny openings that served as windows to the dungeon cells, was a black shape of a flame imprinted onto the stone. The source was a single widow in the line, and the pink hue of the force field was just enough to merge it into the wall of the mountain, as a strange shadow that she had merely not noticed before. But now, when it was visible in the crisp air inside the field, it was clear that something terrible had happened to the pony in that cell, and Twilight knew exactly whose cell that was. Her heart stopped for a moment, and her wings wanted to fold, but the moment she felt her body drop, she regained her composure and pulled herself up again.

With the flapping of Twilight’s wings now rapidly quieting down, Rainbow Dash turned around, only to stop mid-air the moment she saw Twilight hovering. She noticed the shock on her face and her tiny pupils, focused on something below, and followed her gaze. It didn’t take long for her to notice Twilight’s target. And so it was, that in the cool, crisp air, with barely a breeze to disturb them, the two winged ponies stood still against the background of the pulsating pink force field and the chasing Guards, the thoughts in their minds going against the wonder of the abstract scene as seen by those observing from the walls. But even that only lasted for a second, as Rainbow Dash dived down without warning. It took Twilight a moment to react, but as soon as she registered Rainbow going for the charred rock, she clenched her teeth and dove after her, pushing herself harder than she ever thought possible.

Nearly falling in a sharp, almost vertical, curve, Rainbow Dash was gaining momentum to reach the windows of the dungeon below as fast as possible, having already calculated the perfect approach to the smoldering window below the royal city. She was to drop just below the height of the window and pull herself up at the last moment, spreading her wings to slow down, in a violent maneuver that only the best flyers could perform. Twilight, the Guards – nopony could match her for sheer speed, only this time, it wasn’t about a competition. The ponies chasing after her had simply ceased existing the moment she realized what Twilight had known before her. She had no illusions of saving Pinkie Pie, if nopony had managed to save her before; her desire to see the inside of the cell being driven only by the drive for confirmation. Between blaming Pinkie Pie for a crime she hadn’t committed to selfishly distancing herself from everypony else, Rainbow Dash wanted to know that at least one thing was as she had understood it, no matter what she would see. At the bottom of the sharp curve she had planned, Rainbow dug her wings into the air as if it was water and the wings were paddles, and cut through the air in a single powerful flap.

Plenty of eyes caught what happened next; only one pony understood it. The moment Rainbow swung her body upward and fully extended her wings to slow her approach, the wings disappeared. A blink later, they reappeared. In the course of those milliseconds, Twilight made the connections. There were still pieces missing, but she suddenly knew who was behind the attacks. The image that had suddenly appeared in her mind was broken as quickly as it had appeared. The moment of winglessness might have lasted for an instant, but in the perfectly calculated maneuver, it was enough. Rainbow felt she sudden jolt of losing her lift, and had just enough time to look along her new trajectory, but not enough for a scream or a shriek. A spine-chilling sound, made up of bones cracking and breaking and flesh splattering, echoed through the air as Rainbow Dash struck the jagged side of the mountain upon which Canterlot was built.

Twilight took in the scene in stages, independently one from another. First, the loss of wings. Then their reappearance, followed immediately by Rainbow smashing against the wall. Finally, she saw the random, yet symmetrical pattern that appeared; a bright red splash on the black canvas, with a smudge of vibrant colors in the middle. She looked away before Rainbow’s crushed body slowly peeled away and slid down the rock face. Rage engulfed Twilight. She didn’t even think about the same happening to her, revenge now the only thing on her mind, but the desire for action far outweighed the capacity for it. With angry swipes, Twilight looked up to the edge of the wall. She broke her path and started climbing higher, more pulling herself upward than actually flying, but her lack flying experience was only matched by her exhaustion. With every swipe, she dropped ever so slightly, the tantalizing proximity of the edge of the wall, where she intended to get into Canterlot, was only thing still keeping her in the air.

No, she thought in surrender as she saw it moving away, her wings on the brink of giving up their purpose. She strained for a flap, powerful enough to at least keep her in the air, when she felt somepony grabbing her below the right wing, and below the left wing before she could turn her head. Then she felt herself being half pulled, half carried upward, as her eye caught the glimmer of the golden armor on the Royal Guards. They were saying something to her, comforting her that she was safe, but that only served to focus her mind. She looked again at the approaching edge and narrowed her eyes. “DISCORD!” She shouted. “IT’S DISCORD!” She knew the Guards weren’t going to fly off to confront him and not only because they could do nothing against him. They would need Celestia’s permission for something like that, and they wouldn’t inform Celestia before getting her safely to the city. She said it merely to let somepony know in case she wouldn’t make it to Celestia.

With seamless strokes, the two Guards carried Twilight across the wall, the only pressure she felt coming from their hooves and even then their strong grip on her made her feel as if she was strapped to a machine rather than being carried by two ponies. The wall came and went, Guards and civilians watching with a mixture of wonder and concern at the princess coming back to Canterlot in such an unusual way. The Guards on the walls that saw what had happened to Rainbow Dash had already galloped away; some to inform their superiors, others to the lower parts of Canterlot, below the wall, where they would aid in the rescue effort in any way they could. They didn’t know or care that there wasn’t going to be any, their drive coming purely from the training they had received, responding to an emergency in the only way they knew how.

Twilight might have been too exhausted to fly, but the moment her hooves touched the ground, she felt a spark of energy reviving her aching muscles and sprang into action. It was so much easier to gallop than it was to fly, but flying was what the two Guards, that had carried her in, were doing as they chased behind her to fend off any attacks. With a trail of dust rising behind her, Twilight rushed to the gates of the castle, panic spreading as an overflowing river amongst the ponies all around Canterlot as distressed Guards passed by, shouting orders and information to one another. Even the Guards at the massive gates to the Canterlot Castle took a few moments longer than usual to open them to the approaching princess, not knowing whether they were about to allow a great danger into the castle or if the danger was hiding behind the very doorway they were there to protect.

“WHERE’S CELESTIA?!” Twilight shouted at them, relieving them of any doubt they had about what had to be done. The doors swung open along with their overlapping response that pointed Twilight to the throne room. The turn she took when she entered the castle, the one that took her away from the infirmary where she knew Spike would be, as he had been for most of the last days, seized her chest and turned her legs to blocks of stone. With every fiber of her body, she wanted to rush to him; to protect him from whatever it was that Discord had planned for him. But the need she felt to rush to his aid was equaled only by the knowledge that she would be unable to help him herself. Despite the urgency of the message, she knew she couldn’t defeat Discord by herself; the last time, she had needed the Elements of Harmony for that. And the pink force field that was now keeping him inside the city was a temporary solution at best; one that would eventually drain Shining of his power. The first thing she had to do now, above anything else, was to reach the princesses, even with a small pang of doubt lurking in her mind as to whether the combined power of all the princesses in Equestria could actually stop Discord.

“OUT OF MY WAY!” she shouted at the ponies blocking her path, and only then did she notice something strange. There were more Guards on the way to the throne room than usual, as there had been since the force field went up, but they were as calm as ever, having not witnessed the growing panic outside. It was only upon seeing her that their muscles tensed and eyes focused; before that, they were merely standing at attention. At the same time, the ponies getting in her way were officials and civilians trotting about the place, albeit in smaller numbers than usual. Everything was as normal as any other recent day in the castle. Twilight hunkered down mid-gallop, trying to gain as much speed as possible, all the while scanning around her for any signs of Discord – floating lamps, unnatural creations, holes in the very fabric of space-time continuum. There was nothing. Clever. Discord had not made his presence known to those inside the castle.

The Guards standing at attention to the side of the gates to the throne room prepared their magic to open the massive doors, but Twilight moved too quickly. At the last moment before crashing into them, she briefly wrapped the doors in a haze of purple magic and swung them open. She rushed inside, the two Guards following her dropping from the sky to the floor in a show of respect. But Twilight did not expect what she was no seeing, and her first reaction was a mix of panic and anxiety. Only the need to carry forth the message that would save Spike’s life prevented her from digging her hooves into the red carpet below to stop and hide from what was around her.

Dozens of eyes had turned to face her; reacting to an intruder to the meeting. The throne room was full of ponies from all corners of Canterlot, each with a plea to Celestia to loosen in some way the iron grip of the force field. Families and friends had been torn apart, businesses were on the verge of failing and tourists were stranded in the city until the martial law that had been imposed in everything but name was lifted. And each one of them wanted an exception to be made for him, leaving Celestia and Luna sitting in the thrones, glaring daggers at the crowd before them. The arrival of Twilight had inconvenienced the others; it had been a stern shock to the princesses, the muscles in their faces relaxing suddenly, as if they were seeing a ghost, a quiet gasp escaping Luna’s mouth. But that only lasted for the first second, when they saw Twilight burst into the room and look around nervously. When the look of panic didn’t subside, and when she didn’t start shouting at them for keeping Pinkie’s death a secret, as they had expected her to, they tensed up again, prepared to help her in any way they could.

Twilight stopped halfway to the princesses and shouted, “It’s-” she started, then stopped, as the looks of everypony in the room rested on her. They’ll panic, came the clear thought through the layers of distress in her mind. What will Discord do if they do? She forced herself to ignore the countless scenarios now playing out in her head, one bloodier that the other, and in a spark of creativity, she found the solution. She reared her head back and said in a stern voice, as if she had been offended and was seeking retribution, “I demand the council of the Elders!”

The empty words ricocheted off the walls and into the ears of everypony in the room. They didn’t understand what the demand was, but the way in which it was said told them it was time to leave the princesses alone. Before Celestia or Lune said as much as a word, disgruntled sounds quietly spread in the crowd, accompanied by the sound of hooves shuffling. Briefly startled, Celestia took the hint, stood up and smiled. With a deliberately calming voice, she said to the gathered ponies, “Thank you all for coming to see me, but I’m afraid we must cut this meeting short. Please leave us, and I will have messages sent to all of you on when we can reconvene.” As the clicking of hooves on the granite first escalated, then quieted down as the ponies reached the plush carpet cutting the throne room in two, Celestia and Luna prepared for the worst. Twilight opened her mouth, but glanced around the emptying room at the last moment. Somepony was missing.

“Where- where is Shining Armor?”

Celestia looked at Twilight with compassion, thinking that that was the sum of her worries and preparing to tell her how sorry she was that they had kept Pinkie’s death a secret. “He’s in the dungeons, Twilight,” she said gently, “He’s overseeing the investigation-” Celestia was surprised to see Twilight lowering her head, almost as if in physical pain.

“Oh no,” Twilight muttered under her breath, the sound of the massive doors finally closing clicking from behind. She turned her attention back to the princesses and, with a tone of urgency and persuasion, shot out the words, “It’s Discord! He’s the one who’s behind it all!” She blindly pointed a hoof at one of the massive stained-glass windows on the wall. It didn’t contain Discord, but it didn’t matter. She had achieved the desired effect with the words alone. The princesses’ ears peaked and they glared at Twilight; not believing what they were hearing, but knowing that she wouldn’t have made a claim like that if it weren’t true.

“Discord?” Celestia spoke up, the word containing fear and betrayal.

“But how?” Luna wondered, “He has been here this whole time, ever since Fluttershy-”

“I don’t know!” Twilight shouted back, much to her own surprise, “I don’t know how he did everything, but he killed Rainbow Dash on the way here and now he’s after Spike!” Her head made a barely noticeable nod as the words she had spoken caught up with her. In near whisper, she added, “And Shining. We have to stop him!” She whirled around without waiting to see if the princesses would follow, a renewed sense of urgency fuelling her actions. She barely made a step to the doorway when the doors burst open, Shining Armor jumping through them even faster than she had managed before.

“What happened?!” His scream revealed what he had witnessed, first as a thud to the outside of the cell wall where he had been, then as smears of blood on colorful strands of mane and tail, the Guards had levitated into the cell on his command, that were dropping down the side of the mountain long after the body had fallen through the shield. The look of dread in his eyes turned to relief when he saw Twilight standing in front of him unharmed. When Twilight saw him, she barely recognized him. His bloodshot eyes were only the start, with the dark patches under his eyes revealing he hadn’t slept much since they had last spoken. His fur was tangled and stained, his mane sticking out in random directions. It was no way for the Captain of the Royal Guards to be seen, yet his disheveled look and panicked voice revealed how much effort the last days had demanded of him.

“We have to get to Spike,” Twilight said, moving closer to Shining to give him a hug he so desperately needed.

It was an almost automatic reaction to seeing him like that, but it also served as a reminder of what she had left. He embraced her in return, allowing the words to slip past him as if she had said nothing. This moment, when he felt her pressing against him, when he knew she was alive and well, was all that mattered. A spark of magic escaped his horn, telling him it would soon be time to add another burst of magic to the force field above. “Twiley,…” he started, then looked down at the ground, and back at her to prepare himself for the news he was about to give, “I didn’t want you to come-” She put a hoof to his mouth.

“I know about Pinkie,” she calmly said before putting her hoof back to the ground. Her face turned grim, and she continued in a quieter voice. “Rainbow is dead, but I guess you know that.” The barely noticeable nod confirmed her theory. What she couldn’t see, though, was the pang of guilt he felt the moment the Guards told him what had happened; the guilt of having once believed that Rainbow was somehow responsible for the first two murders, her strange behavior fuelling his theory. Twilight sighed, but it was a sigh of hope. “At least Applejack’s alive. And I have you and Spike.”

Shining caught a glimpse of Celestia and Luna moving toward them in a hurry and Twilight’s words played out in his mind once again. He moved his head back to look at Twilight and suddenly the moment that had passed seemed like a long lost dream. Instead of the look of safety, there was something else in Twilight’s eyes; a look that told him she didn’t know if she was going to survive what was about to happen, yet having to go through it nonetheless. He looked at Celestia and Luna for any kind of support they could offer, but saw a similar shine in their eyes.

“No,” he said in a low voice and panic in his eyes, “I can’t-”

The doors to the hallway shut close and, before anypony could react, a shadow passed through the giant stained-glass windows, snaking first through the windows on one side of the throne room, then through the ones on the other, making the thin strips of walls between them seem like planks over a river. The ponies’ reaction to this was only natural – they spread their forelegs and turned back-to-back to form a defensive perimeter against the circling snake, preparing for the attack that could come from any direction. Instead, an expected figure appeared in the window depicting the Elements of Harmony on the day they defeated Nightmare Moon. Discord made a short moonwalk to music only he could hear, then turned to the ponies as if they were intruding on his dance.

“Oh my – what do we have here?” he said, mocking them to hide the anxiety of waiting for the result of what he had planned. “If it isn’t the whole royal – ah wait.” He put a claw to his mouth, and studied the scene in front of him as if he had miscalculated. “The princess of love isn’t here, is she? Oh well, I guess the important part of royalty is here.”

“Discord.” Celestia was looking directly at him, only hatred in her eyes. The others followed her example, turning toward Discord to keep him in their sights and to plan, each in his own mind, what kind of revenge to serve him.

“Now now, Celestia, why the long face?” With an overplayed frown on his face, he moved casually over to the image of Fluttershy and gently took her hoof in his claw. “Do you think I had something to do with what happened to Fluttershy? Me?” Discord squinted and raised the inner part of his eyebrows to continue his act. Then he stroked her hoof as if petting a cat. “I loved her, princess, I loved her,” his voice dropped suddenly at the last word, and he looked away, down to the ground at nothing in particular, yet his eyes were as focused as if she was there. With a solemn voice, he continued, “Even though she put chains around my neck.” His shook his head, a smile on his face, and the happy voice returning with it. “Oh, what am I saying – she showed me the power of friendship!” He whirled around and stopped suddenly. “Or was that slavery?”

Twilight had wanted to scream at him the moment he took hold of Fluttershy’s hoof, yet she was now merely standing there, body strained with effort to keep still, and looked at Discord with an ever more questioning look on her face. But the look wasn’t meant for him. A sound had entered her mind, and it was giving her instructions. Shining can’t hold him by himself, Luna’s voice whispered, But with you here, we have enough power to imprison him.

“You see, my dear Celestia, I’m all for chaos!” Discord said in a proud, commanding voice, before becoming dangerously serious again, “But you don’t change another being’s soul. Not without completely crushing it, anyway. Or their soul might struggle under all that weight…” His face suddenly grew to cover the whole background of the glass mosaic behind the Elements and he hissed, in pride and power, “And grow!”

He’s going to attack Shining Armor. As soon as he returns to his real self…

Twilight’s eyes widened in anticipation of an attack. The plan on how to subdue Discord was already firmly planted in her mind, but the danger was all too real. Instead of the attack, though, Discord returned to his normal, small size again, acting out his play as he had imagined it. Only now, as the force field outside began shrinking toward him, he turned his attention to Twilight.

“You know, Twilight,” Discord droned on as if her were talking about the weather, but then mischievously added, “My dear friend; I thought those goodies were for all of you, not just for that pesky rabbit of hers. Can you imagine the look on my face when she told me that?” He let out a laugh and swiped a tear from his eye. “Well, I thought to myself, I’m going to have to get creative!” A longer laugh ensued, with Discord eventually rolling on the ground, clutching his belly. Twilight was struggling to pretend that she was furious – she very well was, but the plan to capture Discord had established itself as the number one priority of the moment, one that allowed no emotions clouding her judgment. She could do no better than to stomp at the ground and an angry whinny to accompany it.

“Oh Twilight,” Discord laughed again, “You’re such a doll.” He whirled to the picture of Rarity. “Kind of like this one, over here.” He contemplated for a moment. “It took some planning, I’ll tell you that, especially since that dear brother of yours was already keeping me in that damn balloon.” With a proud smile, he added, “But I do love a challenge!” With elegant swirls, he danced over to the next one and stopped. He swung his arms around. “Oh, Applejack was a fluke, I will admit that!” he chuckled, “One can never tame the Everfree or any of its inhabitants. Although having her blood smeared on the trees might have had something to do with it.” He looked over at Pinkie Pie and said in a playfully accusing voice, “I think you wanted her dead - trapping her in a flammable room like that. Oh, I know it shouldn't have been flammable, but that wasn't much of a problem.” He looked at Twilight with a blank expression on his face. The pink force field was already dangerously close to the window.

“Now I know what’ll happen if I kill Shining Armor-” the moment he said that, Discord appeared behind Twilight, one claw already in place to wrap around her neck, another gripping her forelegs and a barely noticeable stream of magic incapacitating her horn. He pulled her upright, onto her hind legs, to use her as a shield, should any of the three ponies in the room attempt an attack. “-But you I can kill.”

“No!” Shining shouted and turned back to Twilight, who was standing next to him not a second ago. He stopped the force field contracting, knowing he would lock her in with Discord should he continue blindly with the plan. Celestia teleported behind Discord, wings spread and ready to pounce, but even she would risk too much with an attack of any kind. Twilight struggled for breath, the unnatural pose straining her spine, tears forming in her eyes.

“So here’s what’s going to happen,” Discord continued. He looked at Shining Armor. “You are going to drop that force field and once you do, I will disappear. I’m never coming back here, but if you ever try to chase me down, I will return. And then she dies.” He put some added pressure into his claws and arms to eke out sounds of pain from his hostage.

Shining Armor looked first at Discord, hiding behind Twilight, then at Twilight, growing red in the face, yet he found no strength to make a decision. His military training, his loyalty to Equestria and the values he had sworn to all said one thing: to collapse the protective bubble until it would once again encompass only Discord. But that would mean death for Twilight. And yet the alternative was a lunatic on the loose in Equestria, with no guarantee that Twilight would survive either way. He started shaking at the prospect of either result being his doing, and he looked at Celestia for support. Every fiber of his body told him that the response he would get would support the first option. Equestria, after all, was above the life of any one of its princesses. He was stunned when he saw Celestia nodding at him in short, slow nods, a serene look in her eyes. There’s been enough death, came Luna’s voice. He turned back to Discord as a different thought went through Twilight’s mind. We can’t have him roam Equestria.

Shining Armor conceded defeat. “Okay.” He closed his eyes and focused to bring the field to a controlled end. As thinning waves of magic spread through the field, signaling its demise to the countless ponies in Canterlot and beyond, Celestia and Luna prepared to unleash a spell of similar quality on a much larger scale. They were shaking ever more from the effort to keep their spellbinding invisible, hoping Discord would attribute it to the stress of the situation. Twilight, on the verge of blacking out from the lack of air, felt something on her back. Shivers went down her spine as the pressure moved to the base of her wings. And then she heard it, the same as Luna before.

Goodbye Twilight. I’ll miss you. Her body wanted to hyperventilate at those words, but there was no air to draw in. But don’t worry. I’ll remember you as you were!

The force field came down and the same instant, Celestia and Luna made their magic known. Their horns lit up in a blinding display of power that forced even Shining Armor to look away, and they formed bubbles of magic of their own, pearl white from Celestia, midnight blue from Luna, the two bubbles growing rapidly and converging at Discord. Yet it was Twilight that was silently screaming from within. Discord was smiling the whole way. He smiled as the sides of the bubbles lifted him from the ground when they hit him. He started laughing when he saw Twilight rising with him, a new set of claws protruding from his stomach holding her wings. He closed his eyes from joy as he pulled the claws apart, feeling joints separate and tendons snapping under his fingers. With blood dripping from them, he held the wings as if they were rudders to guide his course, and prepared for the explosion of the force field below him to carry him away from Canterlot and out of Equestria.

Chapter 11

Twilight Sparkle stood up from the ground, Shining Armor supporting her every move. For the past few minutes, she had experienced the kind of pain she could never have imagined, and it was only the rapid response of her brother that had stopped her from bleeding out as she hit the ground. Now, her hooves were cracked to the bone, she was bruised all over, and in place of her wings were two small bandaged stumps; she could still feel the rotation of the joints below them as she moved the muscles that once gave power to her wings. A healthy dose of painkillers and the resin-like medicine, infused with the doctor’s magic, sealing the cracks in her hooves were the only factors that allowed her to stand up at all.

“I’m so sorry, Twilight,” were the first words that reached her. There had been others before that – Shining calling out to her as she lay on ground shattered, the doctors rushing to her aid, asking all sorts of questions and giving all sorts of orders to help her the best they could – but Celestia’s words were the first to leave a mark, not because of who was saying them but because of the way in which they were said. Twilight turned to follow the sound of the voice and saw Celestia standing close by. She was standing as strong as ever, her head held high and her posture as perfect as ever, but a black stream was flowing behind her muzzle, drops of it forming on strands of fur at the bottom of her jaw, then dropping to the ground. Her lips were parted, stretched back to one side in a painful manner, teeth showing behind them. Celestia was crying.

Dazed by the drugs and the events of the past days, the scene before her looked like something out of a bad dream and Twilight shook her head slowly to regain focus, but the image stayed the same. Then she suddenly felt the heat from Shining’s hoof, wrapped around her lower back, and turned to see him. Shining Armor was just as he was when he first burst into the throne room – mentally and physically exhausted to the point that even an event, as gruesome as the one he had just witnessed, could not change his expression. Instead he stood as solid as a rock, with only the slightest trace of tears in his eyes, offering the only thing he could offer to her now; his undying support. Twilight looked at him, one pair of empty eyes staring into another, both understanding how much the other has gone through and both knowing that words were best left for another time. With a slow twist of her head, Twilight looked back at Celestia, the question of how the force field would be maintained already on her lips, when an image flashed before her eyes. Instead of the question came a mind-clearing gasp.

“Spike.” She looked at Celestia as if her tears were nonexistent and only this one piece of information was of any importance at the moment. With a panicked voice, she asked, “Where’s Spike?!”

The urgency of the question had a sobering effect on Celestia. With a gentle jerk of her head, she forced her lips closed and started retracing the events of the past few minutes. She looked at Twilight with dread in her eyes, realizing she had never ordered the Guards to investigate what had happened to him. Then, as the outline of a flexing muscle appeared on Twilight’s foreleg, Celestia wrapped her in her magic and picked her off the ground, then took to the air as Twilight let out a single scream, “Rarity!” Shining galloped behind, leaving Luna in the throne room to keep a gentle stream of magic attached to the bright blue bubble so high in the sky, it wouldn’t take most ponies long to forget all about it being there. But Luna’s knees were shaking, ever so slightly, from the burden of carrying the new sky on her own. She kept glancing upward, at the ceiling through which the stream of magic flowed, forcing herself still to keep the force field up until somepony would take over the burden.

Celestia slammed open the door to the room where Rarity was and flew in, Twilight in tow. Spike jumped backward and slammed into the wall, shocked senseless by the combined noise of the door and the sight of a giant shape flying toward him. He fell to the ground, then picked himself up and brushed his eyes with his claws as Celestia rapidly scanned the room for any signs of trouble, but apart from the hyperventilating dragon, there was nothing out of the ordinary. “Spike!?” Twilight shouted from behind Celestia, stretching her neck to see past the princess’s outstretched wings. Seeing there was no immediate danger, Celestia folded her wings and hovered Twilight over to her side before gently placing her down. Twilight didn’t waste a moment. In two long jumps, as if she were as healthy as the day before, she jumped over to Spike, the only reminder of her injuries coming in the form of her hooves sagging and rebounding with every landing and push as the concoction struggled to hold them together, but it didn’t matter. Spike, as dumbfounded and scared as he was, was alive and well.

“Spike!” The word was meant as a shout, but came out muffled as she snuggled the dragon before she could fully say it.

“Twilight?” came the response, half scared, half in pain. “What are you doing?” He looked at her as if she had attacked him.

Feeling a heavy chain lifted from her heart, Twilight replied. “Oh, Spike, I-”

“You’re hurting her,” Spike said, the tone of concern overwhelming everything he felt before. He pulled himself back onto the chair next to the bed, where he had been sleeping before she entered.

“What?”

Spike made himself comfortable in his chair and placed a claw on Rarity’s wrapped foreleg. “She doesn’t like loud noises.” He gently brushed the bandages with his claw.

Twilight tilted her head slightly to glance at Rarity in the bed. All of her bandages had been recently replaced, and for the first time, there were no spots of blood visible from below, no stains covering her eyes. Somepony had even taken the time to fix up her mane and tail, even if it wouldn’t have been to Rarity’s standards. Then she looked back and Spike, and the look in his eyes made her heart sink. She saw, by the way he was looking at the empty shell of a pony in front of him, that what he was seeing wasn’t a body, sustained by magic and medication, but Rarity. In a spark of imagination, she saw him talking to her while she was away to investigate. She saw him telling jokes and playing card games, a stack of which she only now noticed on the cupboard next to the bed, all the while increasingly ignoring the fact that Rarity wasn’t talking back. He’s making his own reality, she thought, sadness creeping in, And it’s all my fault. Twilight moved to the other side of the bed and placed a hoof on Rarity’s body, looking first at the white bandages that gently caved in where Rarity’s eyes had once been, then at Spike, a sad smile forming on her face. I won’t leave you now.

With a motherly voice, she asked him, “I guess you sent that message because you were scared, huh?” She was about to turn back to princess Celestia to reassure her that the danger she thought Spike was in was a cry for help of another kind when Spike responded.

“What message?”

Applejack was half lying, half sitting on the hospital bed that had been placed in the temporary infirmary at Twilight’s castle. She had slowly awoken to the sound of a familiar voice speaking to her. She had only caught glimpses of words, but the soothing tone in which they were being said had made her feel safe and secure. As the heavy eyelids struggled to let the light into her eyes, and the fuzzy outlines of ponies appeared before her, Applejack was convinced she had had nothing but a bad dream. But there was a frozen expression of pain on Granny Smith’s face when Applejack had finally recognized her, and it stayed there despite the smile that she had put at her awaking. Big Mac’s eyes had betrayed the rest.

“They’re sayin’ you’ll git a fancy new jaw and a new set of legs! Carved from the best…”

Granny’s voice faded in and out of Applejack’s consciousness. She expounded with great enthusiasm about the prostheses that would be made for Applejack in the coming days, trying to liven her spirits, if only by a fraction. Applejack sat still, looking at the covers below. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel the tight grip of the bandages on her stumps and the remains of her muzzle; a feeling made stranger by the fact she could still feel every one of them. The image of wooden legs and a wooden mask to cover her injuries appeared in her mind, yet she didn’t even shudder or cringe at the thought. Instead, a strange detail became the centerpiece of her struggle – that of all the dirt on Big Mac, who she now knew must have rushed to her side in the middle of cleaning the pigsties. As Granny Smith talked on, Applejack kept her gaze down.

I can’t smell anythin’.

She felt the sting of an acid reflux and instinctively tried to swallow it back down, only to feel what remained of her tongue lifting helplessly up toward the top of her mouth cavity, never fully reaching it to push the saliva down. The images came one by one; from the sight of Big Mac and Apple Bloom feeding her, to Granny Smith wiping her private parts when she would need to use the restroom and everything in between, or – even worse – of somepony else doing that because her family would be too busy fending off starvation by working themselves to the bone. The reflux turned into a burst of vomit that moved unhindered to the only obstacle on its way. It collided with the bandage and shot out at the sides where the gauze was loosest, spilling onto her face and the covers below. As the nurse and her family moved in to clean her up, Applejack, tears now streaming from her eyes, started thinking of ways to end her own life, knowing fully well that the love for her family, the final string of life still keeping her sane, would never permit her to do it.

From beyond the force field, pulsating over the whole of Equestria, Discord looked back. He put his claw to the edge of the field, as an inmate in a prison trying to feel the touch of his loved one, and smiled. He knew the pony his gesture was meant for could not see him, as he could not see her, but the final salute marked the end of their arrangement. He turned away from the field, breathing in the crisp, high-altitude air, as if he had never taken a breath before, and looked over the lands spreading before him. Equestria was now out of reach, but so was he. He took his claw off the field and smiled, knowing that there was now no force in the world that could stop him.

Standing on a small hill overlooking Ponyville, Sunset Shimmer felt the sudden urge to glance at the sky above the Macintosh Hills in the distance, and smiled. The plan had worked to perfection and the sweet taste of victory was the only feeling she had allowed herself to feel. With the Guards returning back to Canterlot now that the threat had passed, she had but one thing to wait for before living out her dreams in Equestria - Twilight Sparkle to take over the endless task of maintaining the force field. And as the first purple pulse shot upward from Canterlot, Sunset Shimmer took the first step down.

Chapter 4

Rarity awoke with a sensation of dizziness blurring her slowly opening eyes. A sharp pain was forming in her right hind leg, growing with every second. Before she could make out any details, she saw a yellow stream of light coming from the stairway. She realized she was on the other side of the basement, though how she got there would remain a mystery and she felt her fur itching with dust. Even though the rest of the basement was dark, she turned around to see what was causing her such pain, and in the fuzzy light that slashed through the basement from the door above, she caught a glimpse of a reflection. She tried stepping to the side to get a better view, dragging her right leg on the ground, but stopped almost instantly as the pain intensified tenfold to the sound of metal scraping against stone.

What?

She twisted her body to allow more light to pass onto the metal and finally saw it. Her right leg was trapped in a bear trap, the device tearing into it just below her cannon. She let out a short shriek at the sight of blood that was gently flowing from the wound. With panic setting in, she nervously looked around the basement for anything she could use to pry the trap open, but with only a single strip of light coming from above, she had no way of seeing what was around her, only the millions of barely visible shadows from the dirt on the floor. If all else fails, she though, I’ll pry it open just like that. But that wasn’t a favorable option. She knew she would have to perfectly grab the jaws of the trap with her magic and pull them apart in a single motion, or she would risk them slipping from her embrace and they would come crashing back against her leg, causing even more pain and damage. But first she had to see what she could grab from the basement, so she lightly focused to illuminate the room with magic and – nothing. She focused again, much too hard given the easiness of the spell, and tried to light up the horn again. And again.

Why. Doesn’t. It. -

She touched her horn with her hoof and felt a rough, jagged protrusion in place where it should have been. Instead of her panic getting worse, she tried to bury what she had just felt deep in her mind, not to think about it or recognize it. As long as she didn’t have to admit what she had felt, everything was manageable. With a deliberately slow motion, she moved her hoof away from her broken-off horn, but as it passed by her eyes on the way to the ground, she saw something glistening on the end of it. She paused and moved the hoof against the light.

Tiny droplets of some green substance, not quite liquid and not quite solid, but with the viscosity of honey, were stuck to the hoof. She quickly patted herself against her horn again to confirm the first thought that went through her mind. When the hoof returned to her eyes with even more droplets on it, she knew she had guessed right. The green substance was some kind of medicine, a localized pain-killer that had prevented her from feeling the excruciating pain a unicorn feels when the horn breaks. Not that she had had any experiences with that, but there were cautionary tales of it happening to others, and as made-up as many of them sounded, they had to be based on something. The only relief of the moment came when she quickly reminded herself that the damage was fully repairable, and that somepony had given her the medicine to ease her pain after what must have been one very nasty fall down the stairs. Now there was only one problem left to solve.

She put her hoof on the ground and looked back at the trap once again. Without magic, she would have to use some kind of a tool to pry it open, and as much as the thought of manual labor would normally cause her to shudder, the situation far outweighed that phobia. With the rest of the basement in darkness, there was only one place left to look, and with a cautious glance, she looked behind. And found herself looking at ripped-apart boxes. There were less of them now than she remembered seeing from the top of the stairway and there was a small pile of sugar at the side of a box closest to her. Her wonder only increased when she noticed a trail of it running from the box and underneath her. Then she realized the dirt on the floor wasn’t dirt. It was sugar, and it was going to the stairway. Without hesitation she licked her foreleg and she suddenly knew something was terribly wrong. Even the dust in her fur wasn’t dust. What she couldn’t see was a pony looking down at her, just far enough away from the door to the basement that the ambient light, that seeped into the darkness, provided the perfect blinding cover. As Rarity grew ever more concerned, to the point that she had almost dismissed the pain from the trap, the door to the basement slammed shut.

“Hello! Help me, I’m trapped down here!” She screamed, thinking that an inattentive Royal Guard, or somepony else involved with protecting the cottage, had wandered in to make sure nothing was stolen and was now back on his way out again. When she didn’t’ hear any hoofsteps, she screamed even louder. “HELP ME! PLEASE, HELP!” But there was no reply.

The only light source was now heavily diminished. Instead of a powerful beam of light striking through the darkness, there was now only a small slit at the bottom of the door. Her eyes strained to catch the bare minimum of light required to make out the surroundings and in a few minutes her eyes had adjusted to the newly formed darkness to the point that she could make out more of the basement than before, with the gentle stream of light evenly casting shadows on all sides, although not nearly as clearly. She squinted and looked to the sides for any nearby tool, all the while screaming for help in case the pony upstairs would suddenly grow a pair of ears. Just as she was giving up on the search for tools, her eyes caught tiny imperfections in the way light reached her, so she turned back to the door.

What is that? She thought as she saw tiny specs appearing at the slit below the door, and disappearing. They appeared, one by one, in perfect intervals, and always in the same place. Then, a new series formed a short distance away, and again, they appeared and disappeared with perfect timing. Then another series formed in the middle of the two. And another one to the side of the slit. Rarity went quiet. Her dilated pupils narrowed ever so slightly, although had she been outside, they would have turned to small dots. And in the perfect silence of the basement, she heard them coming closer. Ants.

It wasn’t long before the first shadows appeared close to her. Even in the darkness, she could see their antennae tapping the ground, searching for the source of the sugar. As some ants progressed forward, seemingly uninterested in the grains on the floor, others were grabbing the sugar as they came to it and carried it back from whence they came. Rarity’s hair stood on edge as the leading wave moved ever closer. She wanted to move out of their way, but the bear trap made sure she couldn’t make a movement larger than a gentle twist to the side. Oh, go away, she repeated in her mind. Her disgust over any dirty insects, as she thought of them, was guiding her thoughts in a specific direction. Icky! If these things get into my mane, I’m going to scream. The thought to scream suddenly awoke her from the obsession with not getting ants on her and she started screaming again.

“Hello! There are ants everywhere, get me out of here! Hello?!”

She again tried to use her magic, but stopped before putting in any real effort, as she remembered why she was still stuck in the bear trap. The only thing that surprised her more than the fact she had forgotten about her horn, was that she felt no pain in her leg, unless she tried to move it. Before she could consider the reasons behind this, she saw the first ants approaching her hooves. A sharp pain shot through her hind leg, through her torso and all the way to her muzzle as she instinctively jerked back. She didn’t even let out a shriek; she only grit her teeth and placed her hooves back on the ground, ants or no ants. And just as she accepted that she would have to brush the ants away until they left her alone, she felt something moving on her fur.

“Aaaaah, no!” She shrieked in a high-pitched voice, as befitting of a damsel in distress. It revealed more her disgust and displeasure at being stepped on by ants than by any pain or danger. At the same time, she snapped with her hoof, sending the ant flying. But as she was about to place the hoof back down, her eyes caught the sight of a dozen ants below it. She nudged her head backward and clenched her teeth together at the ungainly creatures, then went about swatting and brushing them away as fast as she could and for a few minutes her plan appeared to be working, as only a few scouts approached her in nearly perfect intervals. Feeling a sense of victory, and the first signs of exhaustion from the repetitive task, she looked past the few intruders. And stopped swatting.

While she was keeping herself busy with the scouts, more ants had come into the basement, carrying away the sugar from the floor en masse, in the same flowing patterns as she had seen them in the living room. Only those were the worker ants. Between them and her, however, there was now a circular band of much larger ants, rhythmically tapping their antennae against the ground but not moving within striking distance of Rarity’s hoof. She felt cornered, but she only realized the true danger she was in when she noticed the streams of ants beginning to disintegrate. Her lungs suddenly squeezed, trapping a small amount of air inside but preventing her from breathing. Her heart started beating so fast and so hard, she could not only feel it but also hear it. The ants had grown restless, and that could only mean one thing – they had run out of food. There was now only one place in the basement that could provide nourishment, and even that was marked with sugar for easier targeting.
For the first time since she had awoken in the basement, she let out a scream that would have broken glass, if there was any to break. A full, ear-piercing scream that released all of the fear, pain, and anger she had unconsciously bottled up since Fluttershy’s death. The sight of the ants moving toward her had shattered her façade of restrained elegance even in difficult situations. Now, she was allowing herself to feel the unbridled terror of fearing for one’s very existence.

Spurred on by the surge of adrenaline that had released with the scream, she started swiping left and right in front of her with both forelegs to force the danger away. She had put most of her weight on her left hind leg for support, but the need for balance during her wild swinging meant some of her weight had to go to the leg in the trap. Not that she could feel it – the adrenaline made sure of that. It also made sure that the bleeding had intensified under the pummeling load of the heart, but for a few moments, all Rarity could feel was a need to get the ants away from her. When they kept coming back, she started trampling them, then dragging her hoof across the ground to crush as many as possible, but even as layers of crushed exoskeleton slowly accumulated along her hooves, more ants were descending on her. Her breathing was also intensifying and her head was showing the first signs of dizziness from the blood loss and physical effort.

As her motions slowed, the first ants climbed past her hooves and onto her cannon. Then onwards. She combated this by occasionally grinding her legs against one another, but the unyielding wave in front of her meant she soon forgot about the few invaders and focused again on the main group. She twitched when she felt a bite on her left foreleg. Then again at a new one. By now she had slowed down so much that more than just a few ants were climbing up her legs and with every twitch she stopped for long enough to allow a few more to climb up. In a moment of exhaustion she put both her front hooves on the ground and looked at them. Like thin lines of ivy climbing up a tree, the ants were forming orderly rows on her legs. As soon as she saw them, she shook her legs violently to throw them off, but most ants were gripping to her fur with their jagged legs and powerful mandibles and as soon as she stopped, they dug into the fur, pulling the hairs out as they gathered the sugar melted to them. The pricks of pain left Rarity twitching ever so gently, as she tried getting the ants off, but more climbed on her with every second.

For a few minutes, Rarity yelped and shook her entire body as much as she could, but the skin of her forelegs was becoming ever more exposed to the stuffy basement air, the ants forming new blank patches all over her body. The first tears escaped her eyes, partially from the thousands of hairs being pulled out from her skin and partly because of the realization that she was going to walk out of the basement downright ugly, and possibly furless. But as the sugar drenched fur was being taken away from her in front of her very eyes by the endless line of ants, those that had come after them suddenly found themselves with no sugar left, the only thing facing them now being the irritated skin, tiny drops of blood forming in places. With hunger their only motive, the ants that had arrived on her legs now went after the only remaining food source, and began biting almost in unison.

The severity of the sudden attack surprised her. She jumped to the side, only to lose balance as she was pulled back by her hind leg, anchored in the trap. As soon as she hit the ground, she closed her eyes and focused all her energy on flailing around to force the ants off, but the endeavor was fruitless. She screamed as tiny patches of her skin were torn off by one ant, only for the exposed flesh to be attacked by the ant waiting behind. And now more and more were climbing on her, slowly covering her entire body. For every hundred she could crush by moving about, two hundred made it past. The bites, each at first as painful as a pierce by a hot needle, were becoming more painful with every bite the ants took and they grew in number as well. She could now feel them biting and tearing her skin and her flesh all over her body, from her wounded hind leg, to her flank, belly and neck. A few isolated bites had also started popping up on her muzzle and behind her ears.

She screamed even louder as she felt the ants bite at places too intimate to ever mention in public, but nothing could have prepared her for the pain she would soon feel as a group of ants made their way past the protective layer of fat– and Rarity had very little of it - on her left foreleg and dug in to the muscle below. Despite the exhaustion from the constant struggle, the dizziness from the blood loss and the numbness of the overwhelming pain, she lurched up into a seating position, but only for a second as the movement tore open the wounds on her back and legs. This was now no longer the pain of thousands of needles burning through her skin, it was a pain of boiling water being infused into her leg. She swatted against the open wound and for a moment, the impact dulled the pain, but the very next second, the even angrier ants in the wound resumed their work with even greater ferocity.

More such wounds followed in random places and every time one opened up, she tried to stomp on the wound to make it less painful, if only for a moment, even ignoring the pain she was now feeling at her lips and on her muzzle. In the convulsion that followed, she didn’t even register her leg snapping in the bear trap, only finding herself with a greater freedom of movement. But then something happened that she wasn’t ready for, even in this state. She felt ants climbing on her eyelids, taking small bites as they went along. “NO, NO, NOO!” was the only thing she could manage between screams as she covered her eyes with her bleeding legs, but they could not provide enough protection. From the gaps at the side of each leg, the ants tore into her eyelids. Small patches of light, if the darkened basement can even be called that, appeared in her black field of vision, and before her panicked mind could settle for a response, she felt the mandibles pierce the protective cover of the eye and dig into the soft inner structure.

The noises Rarity made from then on were no longer the sounds of ponies, but of wild animals, whose fur is being stripped from their living beings. Her vision didn’t go dark – not immediately anyway. She could see dark shadows borrowing in her eyes as the ants moved in the way of the light coming from beyond, followed by bright explosions as they tore into the retina, destroying the photoreceptors in the process. The world only went black when the ants started work on the optical nerve, but by that time Rarity had gone quiet. The pain was too much and there was too much of it and her body went into complete shock, maintaining only vital functions. Her lungs slowly pulsed to draw in a mixture of air and blood from. The ants were already cutting into her tongue and the inner walls of her mouth, but she was now no longer aware of the thousands of mandibles tearing into her flesh, slowly eating her from outside and in, and her mind took her back to Sweetie Belle and the Carousel Boutique. As the ants tore into her brain through the eye sockets, the idyllic image became warped, discolored and finally disappeared. As the mind went, the convulsions increased; the most primitive part of the brain reclaiming full control of the body and fighting against the pain with the only weapon at its disposal.

Suddenly, the ants stopped tearing at her flesh and raised their heads, touching the air with their antennae. A second later, they began leaving Rarity’s twitching body, only dispersing to every corner of the basement instead of following the gentle trail of light back to the cottage. Two pillars of darkness appeared, reducing the light further before an ever wider ray of light once again lit up the basement as the door opened ever so slowly.