Armageddon

Applejack took a sip of some freshly-squeezed lemonade. Wiping the dripping sweat off of her face, she sighed an exhausted breath as she reveled in all the sowing she had accomplished so far. The day was far from over, though. Even though it was hardly passed noon, the earth pony had a mountain of chores to finish before supper time, but such was her life. She took one last gulp of her beverage before she had to go back to work, but the minute she looked over in the direction of Ponyville, she saw that a large pillow of smoke was beginning to encompass the town.

"What the--?" she muttered to herself, putting her cowpony hat back onto her head and turning to her brother. "Big Mac, can you take over for a little while?"

Her brother set down a bale of hay by the farm and replied with a confused, "Eeyup."

"Sorry, big brother, but I have a feelin' somethin' ain't quite right back in town."

Meanwhile in town, many of the Ponyvillians had left their homes in an attempt to search for the origin of the smoke, but as the gas began to spread, many had also lost where they were.

"Hello?" Rarity called, illuminating her horn to make navigation easier for her. "Is anypony there? Can somepony please tell me I'm at least walking in the right direction? I don't even care which direction is the right direction; I just want to get--OOF!" As Rarity aimlessly strolled forward, she crashed directly into the pony in front of her. Leaning her illuminated horn down, she said, "Oh, I'm so sor--Applejack!"

"Rarity?" the earth pony said as the unicorn helped her to her hooves again. "Phewee! Boy, am I glad to see you! Now, just what in the hay happened that managed to cover half of Ponyville in this here smoke?"

"I was just trying to figure that out myself. You wouldn't happen to know the direction out of here, would you?"

"Sure I do! It's... uhhh..." Applejack grimaced as she looked behind her, which was now nothing but a puffy black void of gas. "I might have to get back to you on that one."

"Guys!" a voice called as a blue figure pierced through the blinding smoke. "Something's gone wrong! This isn't normal smoke! Normally I could clear smoke in no time, but it just won't budge! It's like a living thing!"

"Rainbow, is that you?" Rarity said, shining her light on the blue pegasus. "What do you mean? Like a dragon?"

"No! That's just it! The smoke isn't coming from anywhere in particular! It's not spreading; it's just condensing. When I was up in the air, the smoke was circling around one big area like a giant bubble!"

"So what yer sayin' is," Applejack began, "somepony is controllin' it?"

"Oh, it's no pony," a low, mysterious voice echoed. The three ponies stood still, looking around for where the voice had come from, but like the smoke, the origin was nowhere to be found. The voice then laughed hysterically, making the three friends shudder silently. Suddenly, the smoke was beginning to spiral as the wind pushed it around like a whirlpool until the ponies could finally see that they were in a large circle of land with dozens of confused ponies... and a familiar face in the middle.

"Discord!" Applejack exclaimed.

The draconequus looked left and right. "Who? Me?" he said sarcastically. "Honestly, Applejack, do you need attention called to yourself all the time? Everypony here already knows who I am."

"Quit the trash talk!" Rainbow Dash yelled, flying into the air until she was face to face with the god of chaos. "Are you telling us that you were the one who created this mess?"

"You know, Rainbow Dash," Discord said, pulling Rainbow Dash's wings off of her back like they were ornaments, "you should really know by now that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Rainbow Dash immediately fell to the ground, hobbling as she found her way back up.

"Hey! What gives?!" Discord then pulled out a jar of honey from behind his back, filled it with a jar of flies and began using one of Rainbow Dash's wing as a spoon. As much as this enraged Rainbow, she realized she had no other options left and bowed her head in humility.

"What's going on?" Rarity said, saving Rainbow Dash from the humility of having to speak.

"Fiiine," Discord murmured, tossing the jar behind him and returning Rainbow Dash's wings to her back. Rainbow fluttered her honey-covered wing in disgust. "I'll tell you, but you're not going to be happy." The other ponies all stared in fear or anger, but remained silent. "I was just in the neighborhood when suddenly I came up with the greatest game ever, but sadly, I didn't know how to attract any ponies to play with."

"So you just thought you'd make the town blind?" Applejack retorted sarcastically. "Oh, I'm SURE they'll play yer game now!"

"You really should learn not to speak out when your elders are speaking. I'd hate for you to lose your voice." Applejack wanted to retort, but the moment she tried speaking, her vocal chords clenched in her throat, almost like she had experienced a sudden immense thirst. She then immediately fell to the ground coughing, trying to hack out this new pain in her throat.

"Now," Discord continued, "as I was saying, I wanted to try out a fun little experiment, because that's what all games are, aren't they? Now, here's where it gets interesting. You see this half sphere where the smoke doesn't touch?" The ponies didn't notice this before, but the smoke was still billowing overhead, almost like they were all in an upside-down fish bowl. "Well, this is the area in which you're allowed to stay."

"Forget that!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "Come on, everypony! Let's go!" The pegasus then tried flying up into the smoke, but the second she would have come in contact with the outside, her face crashed into a clear surface. Falling back down, she could see the smoke being pushed away from the apex, just like how she had been pushed away from the inside. "What? A force field? That's no fair!"

Discord then grabbed Rainbow Dash by the abdomen, squeezed her until she began to lose oxygen, and said in a low, stern voice, "It's my game, I make the rules, and I'll decide what's fair. Would you rather try escaping again? Here let me help you with that." With his free paw, he latched onto Rainbow Dash's tail and swung her into the top of the force field, nearly breaking her nose. "Oh, surely it'll work this time! All you need is a little determination!" Discord pulled Rainbow Dash off of the force field like a stamp off plastic, reared his arm back and swung Rainbow Dash back into the solid, invisible surface. The pegasus was holding back tears, but the draconequus continued his onslaught, pulling Rainbow Dash off and striking her against the force field over and over again. All the other ponies looked up in terror, too shaken up to speak as they silently prayed that Discord would stop before he killed her.

After a half a minute of nonstop violence, and to the fortune of everypony in the circle, Discord eventually stopped, dropping Rainbow Dash onto the ground beside her friends. "Let this be a lesson to everypony," he said. "As you can see, the protective barrier that surrounds you all is absolutely impenetrable, even by magic. If anypony attempts to break through or teleport out of the force field, I'll find out," Discord then lowered his head to Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, "and it'll be game over for some unlucky pony.

"Now, all you have to do to win the game is follow that one simple rule, and you'll be free to go! Sounds simple enough, right?"

"Forgive me if I'm speaking out," Rarity said as politely as she could, trying to spare herself a punishment similar to what Applejack and Rainbow Dash received, "but I'm not quite sure if I follow. You say as long as we don't try to escape, we'll be set free? For how long, exactly?"

"Oh, long enough. You'll find out if you decide to play."

"You... won't... get away... with this..." Rainbow Dash said, trying her best to fight through the pain enough to look Discord in the eye. "I'm sure Twilight's on her way right now to come stop you!"

"Who? OH! You mean--HA! You're hilarious! You think we're still in Ponyville?" Discord snapped his fingers, causing the smoke to disappear instantly. All the ponies looked outside the clear barrier wide-eyed as they saw that rather than their home, they were on a mountain surrounded by volcanoes, all of which were emitting mounds of smoke. "Now, is everypony ready to play?" The crowd of ponies remained silent, unsure of how to answer and timid as to what would happen if they did. "Perfect! I'll see you all in the morning!"

With a snap of his fingers, he vanished, leaving a throng of ponies to silently question to themselves what was going on and what would happen to them. Rarity, seeing her friends in so much physical pain, put her hooves around them, bringing them into a warm hug.

"It'll be OK, girls," she said softly. "It'll just be until morning."

Time passed, and with no manner of telling how long they had been deserted there, they had no idea how close they were to Discord showing up again. They all began to grow a little bit anxious, expecting a visit at any second, just to be left waiting for several more hours. One pony in the crowd began to have serious panic attacks, hyperventilating and crying until she had no energy left to do anything but tremble where she laid. For the duration of the time, most of the ponies didn't speak. It was quiet, unnerving, and the least safe that any of them had ever felt.

Luckily, the long period of panic was followed by a period of sleep, but as the group finally had some peace, Discord showed up, screaming at them. "OH, THIS IS THE THANKS I GET?!" All the ponies jolted up, hearts beating violently, shaking and praying that they would just be able to make it out of this unscathed. "I DECIDE TO LET THE GAME LAST ONLY ONE DAY, BUT YOU ALL FEEL THAT YOU CAN JUST SLEEP THROUGH IT?!" Discord then snapped his fingers and gas immediately filled the circle. Ponies screamed, fearing that they were about to die. "SHUT UP!"

The circle fell silent, but the gas continued to pour in. "This gas," Discord said in a much more calming tone, "will not kill any of you. Actually, it's here to make sure you all survive. It's made with my own special recipe, and while it's here, you cannot die of hunger, thirst or sleep deprivation."

"Wait..." a timid stallion blurted. "How long are we going to be in here? I have a family to take care of!"

"Oh, you're going to be in here for a long, long time, and just think. If you hadn't tried cheating your sentence, you would have been out of here already, yet you call yourself a father? How could you just let your children and wife alone like that? They're probably in a state of complete panic right now, and all this just because of the decisions you made."

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't know!"

"Well, you're going to have a long time to learn."

And with that, Discord disappeared in the gas.

They were alone again, but for some reason, they almost wished Discord was still there, just so they had an idea of what to expect rather than wait for who knows how long. Hours passed, but there was still no sign of Discord ever showing up again, which made the ponies grow even more anxious. If the gas was supposed to keep them alive, what motivation would Discord have to ever return to them again? He could literally leave them there to die of old age, having everypony forget about them eventually, but then again, he could have also been lying about it.

The group was beginning to grow hungry, which made them wonder if Discord had been lying when he told them he would keep them alive. At this point, some in the group were beginning to hope that he was lying, just so that their hunger and thirst wouldn't last forever. The gas itself wasn't keeping them from breathing normally, but it made breathing much more difficult due to the thinness of the air left in the circle. That was Discord's game, though. He wanted to keep them alive, but just barely.

One pony began holding his breath in a feeble attempt to suffocate himself, but every time he felt like he was about to black out, he took in a deep breath, too scared to allow himself to die. The other ponies didn't even try. Most of them had at least some sliver of hope that they would eventually be able to return to their families again and return to the life they left off, and the few that didn't just saw no point in attempting suicide. They knew that there was nothing they could do. Discord wanted them there, in his prison, and they knew that as long as Discord was having fun with his game, he wouldn't let them cheat.

One day passed, but as far as the ponies knew, they had been there for at least three days. There was no sun they could look to to tell them the time, and with the gas taking away their ability to sleep, the days would last far longer than expected. Most of the individuals in the group had lost all hope at this point, but Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash all had some smidgen of faith left. Not that it mattered much, though. After a few hours, the entire circle fell silent, having little to talk about, and at this point even the most cheerful ponies of the bunch had fallen into a state of depression.

Every hour or so, a pony or two would get up and move around, just to give them something to do to keep themselves from going crazy too early. Rarity, during her walking time, moved to the edge of the barrier, looking outside at the smoke that shielded them from anypony's view. As she looked on, though, she noticed her reflection, which she couldn't remember ever being there before.

"Rarity," her reflection said. Rarity jumped back, afraid that the sleep deprivation was beginning to make her legitimately lose her mind. "You've been through so much lately."

"I... I have..." the white unicorn replied to her matching image. None of the ponies in the circle seemed to notice, though. Some of the ponies had begun talking to themselves or even screaming in despair. "But it's no matter. The others are going through a tough time as well, and I need to keep myself in the best mental condition to help anypony who might need me."

"But you need you," the reflection responded. "Why don't you... take it easy?" The form of the image began to contort into the face of Discord, whose visage was now tearing through the barrier. Rarity stumbled back and screamed, but again, nopony seemed to notice. "I know what you need, Rarity. You're so hungry; I can see it on your face."

"There's no food here. Of course I'm hungry!"

"Then between you and me, I know a way that everypony can benefit." Discord then reached behind his back and pulled out a platter with a large, red velvet cake with chocolate frosting spread on the top. "I know it's your favorite. Why don't you have a piece?"

"What... Why are you giving me this?"

"Does my answer really matter? I'm giving you food. Remember what happened the last time you weren't grateful?"

"Well, then... Thank you. I'm not sure if Applejack or Rainbow Dash are especially fond of red velvet, but I'm sure they'll be happy that--"

"Oh, what's this? Applejack and Rainbow Dash? Oh, no no no no no. This is for you, my dear. If I catch you sharing even a crumb with anypony else, I'll put you in solitary confinement, keeping you away from those delicate ponies that need you most."

"But... I can't just eat selfishly in front of them!"

"Then you'd better eat quick."

The gas dispersed around Discord, and once it left, Rarity found the cake on a silver platter laying in front of her, waiting to be eaten. Her mouth began to water on the inside. Her stomach began contracting at the sight of the dish in front of her, reminding her of the blistering hunger that she was left to deal with. She wanted nothing more than to dig in, but she couldn't do something so selfishly in front of her friends. Her mind was going through a tailspin. The stress was kicking in, and she didn't know which decision to make.

Finally, though, it happened. Rarity knew that if the cake stayed there, it was going to get eaten, and she knew deep in her mind that she would never have the self-control to keep herself from the greed that would eventually settle in with her growing hunger. Filled with shame, she dug her face into the cake. As she ate, she tried justifying herself, attempting to persuade herself that this way, she'd be able to think more clearly if somepony needed her, but really, she knew that she was just giving into a temptation. With her head hung low and every crumb licked savagely off of her plate, she returned remorsefully to her friends, who luckily didn't see a thing.

"Do you think we'll get out of here soon?" she asked her blonde-maned friend.

"I don't know, Rarity," Applejack said, oblivious of what had just happened. "I just don't know..."

The next day was probably the worst day by far. One pony had finally dealt with so much anxiety that she started running into the force field at full speed, hoping that eventually she would break her neck or her skull. After several attempts, and after trying to run the complete diameter as fast as she could, she finally sat down and began crying to herself, covered in her own sweat and blood. Another pony, while screaming, tried bashing his face into the force field until he either died or passed out from blood loss, but he had the same problem that all the other ponies had. He was too afraid to actually let himself die.

Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were barely holding onto their sanity by a thread, which wasn't being helped at all by the sleep deprivation. They tried talking to each other as much as they could, bringing up any topic that they could to take their mind off of their situation, but eventually, they ran out of things to talk about, leaving themselves to drift away in their thoughts.

"Rarity..."

The white mare did a double take. It didn't seem like anypony else heard anything, but Rarity knew she heard something, she knew who it was, and she knew where to find him. "I'm going to go take a walk for a minute," she told her friends. "Please try and take your mind off of things while I'm gone, alright?" Her two friends didn't even look her way, still too exhausted, hungry and anxious to respond, but Rarity needed to find out what Discord wanted.

She walked towards the edge of the force field, getting close enough to where she could see her reflection, which suddenly started to shape shift until it turned into a familiar figure. "Hello, beautiful," Discord said with an arrogant grin. "How are things treating you?"

"Discord..." Rarity said, choking on her words as her emotions took over her. "Please, can't we go home? I just want to see my parents again. I want to hold my sister and tell her where I've been for the past few days. Can't you please just let us go?"

"Well, you should have thought of that before you tried taking advantage of my generosity. I was going to let you free after a couple of hours, but you thought that you and your friends could just go to bed and pretend you weren't here. I'm afraid you're going to be in here for a long, long time."

Rarity fell to the ground and began to sob quietly to herself, taking in deep breaths and crying them out again. "I... c-can't... do this anymoooore."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Rarity. If you need something to calm you down, have this." Suddenly, a gallon of icecream appeared next to her, a spoon laying on top of the carton. As much as Rarity hated the situation she was in, she knew that there was nothing she could do to get out of it, and she knew that this was the only thing she had to help her calm herself.

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"I just thought I'd make life a little bit easier to bare. Seeing you so distraught is just too much for me to handle." Rarity was suspicious, but she had already paid the price for not taking advantage of Discord's generosity once, and she wasn't about to let that happen again. As her crying died down, she used her magic to lift the spoon and slowly feed herself, settling the hunger in her stomach, at least for the moment. "Oh, and by the way," Discord continued, "you might want to watch how much you eat. I think the cake from yesterday is already beginning to set in."

As the image of Discord disappeared, Rarity was face to face with her reflection again, only this time, her jaw dropped to see a visible change in her weight. "No..." she said to herself. "No no no no no no! I can't let myself go! I can't get fat! OK, stay calm, Rarity. You're still young and beautiful. You don't need anything to eat right now. You'll be OK without eating like the others."

Unfortunately for her, the temptation was too much for her to resist. She was in a war with herself. On the one hand, she could keep her beautiful figure, but on the other, she could give into her carnal desire to feed herself in the midst of starvation. She knew she couldn't resist. But she had to! But it looked too irresistible. But everypony else was finding some way to survive without it. But nopony else had a choice, and suddenly, Rarity began crying to herself again, feeling more and more depressed as she let herself give in, eating spoonful after spoonful of the strawberry icecream.

Two weeks had gone by, and the group of ponies in the circle had grown more and more violent as their hunger and fatigue began to reach its peak. For no apparent reason, ponies would walk to another and bite them, beat them, stomp on their flank, anything that could hurt them. Applejack constantly found herself bucking stallions in the rib cage if they got even close to Rarity, who, for a reason unbeknownst to her, was becoming more and more apathetic. The orange mare thought it was just the fatigue and anxiety of being stuck in the dome, but every day, Discord would give her a new desert that Rarity couldn't resist, and each day, Rarity could see herself growing fatter.

Rarity herself wanted to interject with Applejack's actions, hoping that one of the earth pony stallions would come break her jaw, but she had lost her motivation in doing so; she had lost her motivation to do anything. She was praying that at some point, Applejack would be too exhausted to fight anymore, which would leave Rarity as the prime target for some angry, confused pony to take out their anger. They had no sense of logic left anymore. They just wanted to kill... They just wanted to die.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash were the only two left who had any thought in trying to keep each other safe, which was becoming increasingly more difficult as the other ponies' drive to kill was beginning to outmatch their own drive to stay alive. They no longer went on walks alone anymore, afraid of themselves losing what shred of sanity they had left more than anything. Eventually, though, Rarity lost her self-control and tried running away in a panic, leaving Rainbow Dash to go flying after their stray friend.

"It'll be OK," Applejack muttered to herself every time. "Rarity is just losin' it a little faster than we are. She'll be OK, I'll be OK, and we'll all be able to return to our families real soon."

"Are you sure about that?" Applejack jumped backwards, looking down at her shadow to see it acting on its own. "What makes you ever think that you'll get out of here?" the shadow continued.

"Stop it! Git outta my head!"

"This is your home now, Applejack. Your family has already moved on and is doing fine without you."

"I said stop it! My family needs me, and I ain't gonna let 'em down!"

"You won't be letting anypony down, Applejack. Your family doesn't need you at all. They're happy the way they are. You want them to be happy, don't you?"

"Yes... But they can't do all that work without me! I keep the farm alive! I keep our business goin'!"

"Your brother, sister and granny can take of everything by themselves. In fact, they've all grown stronger and more independent thanks to your sudden disappearance. They think you've abandoned them. They think you hate them."

"What? No! I never did that!"

"They loved you, and you betrayed them."

"I didn't betray nopony! I'll be back soon, and things'll be just they way they were before--"

"You can't leave."

Applejack stopped and stared at her shadow, finally realizing that she was talking to a dark blob on the ground, but she still wanted answers. "Why can't I leave?"

"Your family loves you, but they're stronger without you. They'll do anything for you, but you just get in the way. You've taken the role of leader in your home, even though nopony asked you to be. Your sister has her cutie mark now, which she would have received sooner if you had just let her grow up on her own. You think you care about them, but you only care about how well your business does. Your family, in its new adversity, has grown closer together than they ever have. Are you really going to ruin things again?"

Applejack stopped breathing for a few moments, too traumatized to even cry at the thought that maybe what her shadow was saying was right. Sadly and quietly, she muttered, "No. I won't." The dome had taken over her ability to reason anymore. The dome... had won.

On the other end of the dome, Rarity was running at as fast as she could to try to get away from her rainbow-maned friend, who was easily catching up to her. "I've got you now!" the pegasus said, but as she was about to close in on the unicorn, the reflection of three pegasi in matching uniforms raced up to the top of the dome. "Huh?" Leaving her friend behind, she darted towards the top of the dome, hoping that maybe somepony had found them and would help them escape.

Once she got to the apex of the dome, she found herself face to face with the three leading members of her idols, the Wonderbolts. "Spitfire!" she shouted. "Am I glad to see you! Discord's gone crazy! He locked us in here without food or water for what I'm guessing is a couple of weeks. I need you to go find Twilight and--"

"Can it, Rainbow chump," Spitfire replied. Rainbow Dash didn't respond. "You think that you can be a Wonderbolt one day when you can't even break out of a tiny glass jar? Let me tell you something. You've been to the academy. You've practiced with our squad. You've even competed with us in the Equestrian games, but I've got news for you. If we were ever going to let you be a Wonderbolt, don't you think it would have happened by now?"

"But... I don't understand!"

"I became a Wonderbolt about five years younger than you are now. Do you really think that we just let anypony become one of the most elite fliers in all of Equestria? You think you're Wonderbolt material because you can fly faster than a couple of pegasi from Ponyville? It's too late for you. You were too lazy."

"But I can change! I can work harder! I'll be the hardest worker you've ever had!"

"Face it, rookie. You've missed your chance. A real Wonderbolt doesn't just change their lifestyle. You're born a Wonderbolt. You work at it from the moment you're born. You, though... You're just egocentric, lazy, and above all, wasting your time. Go back to cloud clearing. You're going to be doing it for a long, long time."

Without another second passing by, the Wonderbolts then shot into the air, completely out of sight with their signature smoke trailing behind them. Rainbow Dash, though, didn't move at all, still keeping herself hovering in that one spot as she said to herself, "I can't go back to cloud clearing... not forever..."

Down below, Rarity had managed to find the edge of the barrier, where she was hoping that Discord would be back to bring her more sweets. Her face turned into disgust at the sight of her own visage, which had gone from beautiful to almost unrecognizable due to her weight change. "Oh, Rarity," she said to her reflection, "I'm so sorry this happened. Remember when we were beautiful? I'm surprised nopony has said anything by now. I guess the gas is just too much for anypony to notice..."

Suddenly, Rarity's heart started racing. "But what will Sweetie Belle do if she finds me like this? What about my customers? No, I can't do that! I can't let them see me like this! They must never know that this ever happened to me! I can change this. I'll make you beautiful again if it kills me!"

Rarity then stuck her hoof down her throat and began to vomit all the food that she had stored in her body, hoping that she would see some visible change to her appearance. When she looked up, though, she saw the same pony as before, only with red, teary eyes and bile on her lips. Again, she put her hoof into her mouth, squeezing her stomach once she hit her gag reflex in a desperate attempt to clear out everything she had eaten over the past few days. The vomit was beginning to burn her throat as it came out, but with tears in her eyes, she stayed determined and pushed herself until she was either skinny or dead.

"Rarity! What are you doing?!" Rainbow Dash suddenly soared to her friend and began pulling her away from the pile of vomit on the ground.

"NO!" she interjected. "Leave me alone!"

"Come on, Rarity! You're going overboard!"

"I said let go of me! I want to be beautiful again!" The white unicorn repeated the process, spilling bile all over herself.

"Yuck!" Rainbow Dash said, flicking away the remnants that fell onto her hooves. "That's it. We're going to go find Applejack!"

"No! I can't let her see me like this! I can't let anypony see me like this!"

Unfortunately for her, though, Rainbow Dash had her out-powered and was already on her way back to the only sane pony left in the circle, but once they got there, Applejack was still staring blankly at her own shadow. "Uhh... Applejack?" Rainbow started. No response. "Hello? Equestria to Applejack. Can you hear me?"

Rainbow Dash had to lean in to hear, but she could barely manage to make out Applejack whispering, "It'll be OK. It'll be OK. It'll be OK."

Just then, as everypony's world had completely fallen apart, thunder roared throughout the dome, the smoke grew thicker, and a deep laughter filled the bubble. As the smoke thinned back into its previous state, a figure appeared in the center of the circle, and for the first time in two weeks, Discord was back.

"Bravo, everypony!" he cheered. Everpony looked up at him, but they were too scared to know how to react. "You've made it to the end of your trial. I've come to let you all know that you've almost made it. You just have one teensy weensy little thing I need you to do." Everypony listened in eagerly, but suddenly, as Discord's next words escaped his lips, all the hope that they had dissipated as quickly as it came.

"You need to kill somepony in this circle."

Silence continued around the dome for a few more moments, but once the message finally sunk in, the silence turned into ear-shattering screaming. The violence had escalated into a bloody massacre. One pony grabbed hold of another and bit into his jugular vein while the stallion behind her reached across her neck and snapped her head all the way around her spinal cord. Some ponies saw that Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack weren't attacking anypony and began their own onslaught, but with one of Applejack's bucks, they were left on the floor, being torn to shreds by another desperate pony. Even after they had managed to kill somepony, they continued to kill, either to keep themselves alive or just because of the carnal adrenaline that rushed through them as they tore the skin off of each other's bones. All Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity could do, however, was look on in complete terror as their friends were beaten, torn and had their very organs chewed out of their body.

Another pony lunged toward Rarity, which she blocked with a blast from her horn. Two more attacked from the side, which were both easily taken care of by Rainbow Dash as she picked them up off the ground and threw them into the crowd of blood-thirsty cannibals. Applejack had hardly any energy left, but with the energy she did have, she kicked away anypony who tried even getting close to her. Soon enough, there were only seven ponies left in the circle, three of which were the mares that hadn't killed even one single pony.

"Well, look at what we have here. Not going to kill anypony?" The three mares didn't respond. "Well, do I have news for you! Anypony who killed anypony else in this circle is actually barred from escaping. You're going to stay in this circle forever."

"But we had a deal!" one stallion shouted.

Suddenly, Discord's amused demeanor dissipated. "Oh, really? I don't remember agreeing to any of that. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to my three winners."

"Winners?" Rarity said quizzically.

"Yes! You three get to leave the circle and go back to Ponyville!" Silence fell again. "Well? What's the matter?"

After several more moments of silence, Rainbow Dash finally looked Discord in the eyes.

"We don't want to be free."

Discord laughed hysterically as the three mares that were the most hopeful throughout the entire ordeal had finally lost all hope in ever having the life they wanted. "You mean none of you want to go back to your families and your dreams and--"

"We can't go back," Applejack said humbly.

"Oh, no no no." Again, the look of laughter disappeared from his face into a stern look as he lifted up his claw. "I insist." Then, with the snap of his fingers, the three mares all landed back in the marketplace where this all began, but almost immediately...

"THE GAS!" Rarity shouted, but the minute those words escaped her lips, her vocal cords began to clench tremendously, her stomach constricting and tangibly shrinking inside her. Then, as her mind completely stopped functioning, she fell to the ground motionless with Rainbow Dash and Applejack tumbling with her. Without the effects of the gas, the toll of 2 weeks without food, water or sleep had finally set in, and now the unicorn, pegasus and earth pony could all sleep in peace, never to be woken again. They no longer needed to worry.