A Scootaloo lies alone, leafing through the worn pages of one of Rainbow Dash's "Daring Do" novels, stopping to look closely at each picture. The filly imagines Dash, her best friend, in these harrowing, death-defying situations that Daring Do encounters, and she smiles to herself.

Many ponies avoided Dash after her return from the forest. Each came up with an excuse for why her incredible survival against Pinkie Pie was a comatose dream, or simply stopped talking to the mare whatsoever. Scootaloo, on the other hoof, couldn't be any more proud of her honorary older sister.

Thus, she was the first and only to volunteer her help in the investigation of Pinkie's lair. The orange pegasus reclines in a small tent pitched in a green clearing of forest, and while vouching for her own fearlessness, elected to remain and 'guard' the campsite while the search party was away. Rainbow Dash, of course, was leading this expedition, with a couple of Luna's royal guards to accompany her.

Quickly and steadily, much to Scootaloo's vexation, the sun meanders lazily towards the west horizon, which she can see as a blur through the thin roof of her tent. The chill of an autumn evening settles like a veil over the slowly dimming scene, and anxiety begins to gnaw at Scootaloo's chest as she continues to read.

They'll be back soon, dummy, she reprimands herself internally, It takes a while to find an underground secret lair.

Darkness covers the forest in less than an hour, without the return of the search brigade. Worried, the small pony worms her way outside, through the zipper of her tent, and steps out into the moonlit grass.

Beyond the trees, the lunar body itself isn't yet visible, but thousands of beautiful stars grace the sky, burning brightly outside the boundaries of artificial luminance. Scootaloo, even in her concern, can't help but stop and gaze up at the glittering sky, whose innumerable eyes seem to look back at her kindly.

Out of the corner of her peripheral vision, a glint of light reflects off the ground, sparking the filly's interest. Trotting over to this strange mirror-like disturbance, a sinking feeling comes over her.

Embedded in the ground, sprinkled with a lone drop of blood, lies Rainbow Dash's gold "lead pony" pin from the Wonderbolt Academy. The pegasus took loads of pride from receiving this pin, and would never have left it lying around. The minuscule smarter of blood on the trinket is what unnerves Scootaloo, and the filly backs away from it slowly, a shudder going down her back.

"Rainbow Dash?" She shouts the mare's name into the forest, eyes darting around rapidly, "Dash! Dash!" No response.

The wind, cooled by the night, glides quietly by Scootaloo's ear, and whispers through the trees in front of her. The young pegasus closes her eyes as the wind rustles through the woods, forming an unusual chorus of percussion, creating an instrumental epitaph. After a moment or two of entrancement, Scootaloo's attention is grabbed yet again by the sound of creaking wood.

Opening her eyes, she catches a glimpse of something truly odd.

The trees, black underneath the rising moon, gnarl upwards and outwards, as if by invisible magic. The wood twists and bends, forming a natural archway that beckons the orange filly deeper into the forest.

Awestruck, she stands at the threshold to this gaping entryway, staring into the black abyss before her. With haste she sprints back to her tent, retrieving a small oil lamp, but realizes she has no way to light it. With the unlit lantern, she returns to the arch.

"I don't know what you are," she says to herself, looking over the intricately woven trellis, "but I've seen weirder, and I'm gonna find my big sister."

Again, an uneasy silence falls over the forest as Scootaloo steps into the black of the shadow-draped land beyond the clearing. Slowly, fearfully, she trots deeper into the woods, and continues straight forward unguided until her face connects with a foreign object.

Startled, the filly jumps back, and looks straight up at the disturbance. From a tall tree hangs a fraying rope, at the end of which is hung one of the guard stallions that accompanied Rainbow Dash. Shaken, the pony coughs violently, not yet dead.

Scootaloo, terrified, lets out a wail of distress, receding away from the unsuccessfully executed guard. A root snags her hoof, tripping her up, sending her to the ground, where she looks up again at the stallion. As the archway before, the tree suspending the guard lowers itself slowly, until the pony falls to ground level, unable to stand.

Paralyzed and on the ground, Scootaloo stares at him with wide eyes as saucers.

"Don't run away," gags the stallion, "You..." He coughs violently, "You have to... find Rainbow Dash. Hng... Come here."

Hesitantly, shaking all over, the filly complies. She expects a plea to untie the guard, but she is met with a much different sentiment.

"There's... An angel... In the forest," he wheezes, his bloodied lips curling into a pained smile, "She's beautiful, look..." Limply, he raises his hoof, and gestures behind Scootaloo, who turns to see nothing but more trees.

"S-Sir, I think y-you're seeing things," whispers the small pegasus, "I-I... I don't know what to..."

"An angel... In the trees..."

The larger pony collapses, his wheezing coming to an abrupt stop as he hits the ground. His eyelids hang limply open, fixed on the same spot behind Scootaloo.

"S-Sir...?"

The young filly suddenly realizes how alone she is- how terrifying this paradigm was becoming. The guard had been hanged, and Rainbow Dash and the other guard are nowhere to be found. Somewhere, in the same vicinity, lurks a pink, cold-blooded murderer.

The woods are lit up suddenly by a warm, welcoming glow, which dances amongst the trees joyously, scaring away the shadows. Scootaloo looks down in disbelief, to see her oil lantern lit and glowing brightly, as if struck with a match. Dumbfounded, she looks around, seeing nothing but trees yet again. She traces the lifeless gaze of the guard to a single tree, and stares into that direction for a minute or two.

"...An angel..." The tree branches rustle slightly, and then cease, "Cool."

Turning back the other way, Scootaloo can see another slightly smaller clearing through the foliage, and the unnatural, petrifying fear that swamped her returns again. This feeling is accompanied by an underlying feeling of uneasy dread, reminding her less of fear, and more of some bad omen. Surreal, this feeling was, simultaneously beckoning her to this fateful clearing, and repelling her viciously from it. Thoughts in the back of her mind fade out, those of her friends and her cutiemark and flying, and her entire conscious focus pinpoints this phantasmagoric scenario.

No fear, she thinks to herself, No fear.

The filly converges on the center of this opening in the trees, regaining her composure, to find herself poised directly over a small trapdoor of rotting wood. In one of the planks, there is a small knot, forming a hole just large enough to see through. Scootaloo presses her face to this hole, and through this crevice, she can make out a smooth stone staircase.

Her forelegs shaking, she slowly lifts the wooden hatch, and throws it back as quietly as possible, opening the dark, foreboding maw before her.

Hesitantly, the young pegasus plunges one hoof onto the top step, then makes her way to the bottom at a breakneck pace, not wanting to be vulnerable for even a second. As she slips into the hallway below, the metallic stench of blood and rebar is barely noticeable. Scootaloo draws her eyes to the floor, where a crimson trail of blood is smattered across the concrete corridor.

Suddenly, from close behind, the loud slam of the trapdoor closing grabs the filly's attention again. Shocked and worried, Scootaloo stares at the hatch for a moment or two, until she is convinced that she is alone. Turning back to face the hallway ahead, she is completely silent, and she listens carefully.
Click, click, click.

Furrowing her brow, she steps farther down the hallway, into an antechamber filled with steel lockers and an array of padlocked doors, furnished with thick chains.

Clack, clack, clack.

Faster, now, comes the noise again, louder, too. Hooves beating against the stone below, accompanied more quietly by the muffled heavy breathing of a running pony. Behind even that, there comes a sound that Scootaloo never expected to bring her such grief.

A drumming, steady noise that hollows her insides, turns her brain to mush, and she isn't sure why.

But as the noise draws closer, along with the running hoofbeats, she knows. This sound is a bad sound.

With haste, she throws herself into an empty locker. The pegasus folds her small wings tightly against her body, closes her eyes tightly with all her will, and focuses all her energy on not looking out, not making a sound. She focuses on being somewhere else.

For a moment, Scootaloo is on a boat. A large, sea-conquering fishing vessel, gleaming white against the deep cobalt water. The ship is tossed and batted by towering waves with ivory frothing caps atop them, but the turbulent ocean is showered with no rain. Instead, bright beams of sunshine break through the cloudless sky, glittering across the thrashing field of blue and white.

On the bow of this boat, Scootaloo sits anxiously, waiting for... What?

In the distance, there forms a mass of land, sculpted from brown and green on the horizon. On this island, close to the boat, a lighthouse extends from a cropping of boulders and sand, and from this lighthouse there stretches a wooden dock.

An odd, unwarranted sense of fulfillment greets Scootaloo as the pier draws closer, as though she is being reunited with some old friend whom she has never met. At the end of the dock, a pretty mare sits oddly with her hind legs hanging off the edge of the platform. Her coat is as green as the foam atop the ocean, her forelegs clutch a beautiful golden harp, matching in color with her irises, as well as the magic that plucks the instrument's strings.

As the boat pulls into the pier, Scootaloo dismounts the vessel to inquire about the whereabouts of this strange paradise. Her eyes drift to the island itself, dotted with humble cottages and small businesses, but lacking completely in ponies.

"Where...?" She turns back to the end of the dock, to find both the boat and the mare to have disappeared.

Her mind begins to slip, this dream coming to a close. The smell of blood returns, the drops of sweat regaining their places atop her head, her heart rate accelerating again. The dream, however, remains.

"Welcome," booms a tender voice from everywhere at once, "Welcome to Pax Magna."

Scootaloo is convinced that her drumming heart can be heard from miles away as the lucid daydream dissipates, but her eyes remain glued shut.

Hoofsteps, this time slow and rhythmic, echo through the very same room. With an iron will, Scootaloo lets her eyelids open a sliver, to see the unthinkable; the impossible.

Pinkie Pie, alive, trots methodically through the small storage room, her eyes glued to the trapdoor at the top of the stairs. In an oddly designed saddlebag draped across her back, there hangs a holstered chainsaw, drenched and caked with browned, crimson crust. Pinkie herself has gore staining her forelegs, and, exponentially more disturbing, her jaws. Scootaloo feels tears of paralyzing horror slide down her cheeks as the mare slithers by her, and stares up at the sky through the opened hatch.

She places a hoof on the first step, then waits, then places one on the second, and waits some more. Pinkie blinks, wrinkling her nose, and a shiver passes through her body. Then, like a spring, her entire body pivots around to face the row of lockers, her lips curled into a fiendish smile.

"Ss...Staaaay," her ghastly, monstrous voice gags, and she returns to her ascent with a giggle. The pink pony slams the hatch as she exits the lair, and immediately, summoning otherworldly courage, Scootaloo bursts from the locker, in search of a weapon. However, her frantic search is put on standby as she hears the rev of Pinkie's chainsaw.

"Rainbow Dash, I'm coming!" She gallops up the stairway and bursts into the cascade of moonlight, in perfect synchronization with an ear-piercing wail of agony. There, I'm the middle of the clearing, stands Rainbow Dash on her hind legs. A bleeding 'X' has been lacerated deep into her chest and stomach, roughly cut by what Scootaloo can only infer is a chainsaw.

The mare's mouth is parted slightly, her eyes filled with unbearable, ungodly pain, and her stare locks with Scootaloo's. A trickle of scarlet drips from her chin, and she tries to form words, but they don't come. Instead, a long, serrated blade is cast through her heart from behind, crumpling her to the ground permanently.

Behind her, smiling widely, stands Pinkie Pie. The handle of the knife protrudes from Dash's back, bleeding profusely, and Pinkie clutches the chainsaw between her two front hooves.

"Y-Y-You..." Scootaloo, trembling uncontrollably, mumbles to the murderer, "Y-You killed h-her..." Pinkie's laughter echoes through the forest, a horrid sound that chills the blood of every sleeping pony in Equestria.

Scootaloo, losing herself completely, screams unintelligible obscenities, and casts herself at the pink mare as hard as she can. Her forelegs slam into Pinkie's ribcage with a satisfying crunch, and the earth pony drops her chainsaw from the blow. Scootaloo swings her hoof up into Pinkie's chin, snapping her jaw out of place as well.

Falling back, the orange filly breathes heavily, and looks furiously upon the injured mare before her. Pinkie gasps for air for a moment, then reveals her pause to be an act. With the strength of an ox, the older mare pins Scootaloo to the ground with unlikely force, rendering her immobile. She lifts one hoof, drawing the chainsaw closer to her body, then drapes the blade of the improvised weapon over the pinned filly's neck, her hoof pressing Scootaloo's hoof to the trigger.

"I don't want to kill you," seethes Pinkie Pie, "I only wanted her. Only Rainbow Dash. I won't kill you." She presses the chainsaw harder into Scootaloo's trachea, "Only you can do it."

Scootaloo, crying so hard that she blinds herself with tears, struggles against the mare, to no avail. Her head lulls back, letting the well of tears stored in her eyes empty, and restoring her vision to some degree.

A silhouette of gold and white light illuminates the forest above the struggling ponies, and Pinkie Pie is caught off guard momentarily.

"Wh-What...?" She looks up at the beautiful light, her eyes wide, her jaws agape, "N-No! This can't be...!"

Like a rag doll, the psychopathic killer is lifted from the trapped filly, and hoisted into the air by a gnarled tree branch. Another branch of similar size wraps around her again, squeezing her tightly. Scootaloo cringes visibly as the two limbs rotate in opposite directions, snapping Pinkie Pie's spine like a twig. The branches then swiftly retract, blending back into the forest from which they came.

The light behind Scootaloo disappears, leaving no trace of its existence but the second corpse lying in the clearing, dramatically dropped atop the first.

The beating of wings is the next thing the traumatized filly hears, and a comforting hoof is placed around her shoulders as she sits, silently mourning over the dead bodies.

"The worst is over, I believe," Comes the soft voice of Princess Luna, "We had... Better return to Ponyville. I'm afraid that although the death of these two innocent ponies is dealt with, there are many kind souls that must die before this ends."

Scootaloo, lost in her own thoughts, looks up at the Princess, her expression empty.

"Do you believe in angels?"

Rainbow Dash's head aches miserably as she sits up, her eyes fluttering open to face the unexpected sunlight that greets her. Soft, dry grass acts as her bed, rather than cold, wet blades of grass where she had last been conscious. Rather than excruciating pain and sorrow, her spirits feel oddly lifted, her mind fresh and clear.

Beside her, experiencing the same phenomena, lies Pinkie Pie. In silence, the two lift themselves to their hooves, and meet eyes.

"P-Pinkie...?" Murmurs Dash, her eyes softly pleading, "Are... Are you in there...?"

"Dash," The pink mare pauses, looking down, "I'm so, so sorry."

Pinkie wraps her forelegs around Rainbow Dash's neck in an embrace, which Dash gladly returns. The two sit like this for a few minutes, maybe more, before Pinkie speaks again.

"I don't want to hurt any more ponies," she breathes, "I don't want to be a part of whatever game this is. It isn't fun."

Dash, silent, looks up at the ridiculously clear day above. As a weather pony, this lack of clouds is so complete it's unnatural. A small house stands empty nearby, and more vacant buildings stand around it. While comforting, the beautiful place seems all but deserted. The blue mare pulls away from Pinkie Pie, and wrinkles her brow.

"Where are we?"

The two turn towards the sound of churning waves, to face a towering lighthouse, gleaming with a huge light, even in the daytime. At the top, they can barely see two golden eyes peering eerily down at them, which disappear seconds later.

"I have no clue, Dash," Pinkie says, drawing herself closer to her winged friend, "but I don't want to stay long."

Author's Note

Wow, let's see if I can actually get an update schedule going! Maybe every Tuesday night? Who knows?