Sewing them together

by ThatWeatherstormChap

Rating: mature
Tags: Main 6, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 18570

I guess Rarity just has a stressful day...

I guess Rarity just has a stressful day...
Picture does not belong to me.
-TWC

Published 2012-06-23 04:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-06-23 04:24:02 UTC

Sewing them together

                                                         Sewing them together, by Weatherstorm

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. All characters belong to Hasbro.

Warning: This fanfiction contains scenes of graphic violence and gore, and may affect the appreciation of certain My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic characters.

Reader discretion is advised.

‘Oh, Rarity, you have REALLY outshone yourself this time!’ The pure white unicorn thought to herself as she sat alone in her bedroom at the Carousel boutique.  She sat hunched over one of her many mannequins which stood like sentries guarding the room with lifeless eyes, carefully stitching one thread at a time into the beautifully crafted dress that was draped over the plastic ponies’ form. The needle and thread hovering with blue magical aura emanating from her horn, Rarity paused, removed her red working glasses, and took another quick glance at the colourless hoof-drawn sketch of a dress pinned to the notice board on her wall. It depicted a stunning piece of clothing, fit for a queen, encrusted with various rare stones, with several beautiful swirls and frills around the flank. Atop the pony in the picture’s head sat a fabulous crown, and in that crown was a single gleaming purple jewel.

Rarity let out a squeak of delight. She could simply not wait until her gala dress was complete! If it truly turned out as fabulous in real life as it looked in the picture, well...

...She would truly be the fairest of them all!

And who knows what famous fashion representatives would be there at the Grand Galloping Gala? Hoitey Toitey? Photo Finish? Even big name celebrities like Sapphire Shores would be attending! Not to mention two Princesses! If Rarity was to create a truly special, unforgettable gown and wear it in plain view of such giants of fashion and rich royalty, well...

...It could certainly sky-rocket her business, to say the least. And she could look fabulous doing it!

With another content smile, she turned to her pampered Persian cat, Opalescence, whom was lying half asleep on one of the nearby mannequins. “My, my...” Rarity said smugly, adding another stitch to the gown. “If we do this right, Opal, we could be booming with business! People will flock like parasprites from far and wide, from Manehatten to Canterlot, to order one of my dresses.” The white unicorn rubbed her hooves together in excitement as she found herself wandering off into a daydream, practically drooling at the mouth in anticipation. “I could be rich... and famous...” Opal gave her owner a casual glance, rolled her light lime eyes, and turned back to her slumber. She may have only been a cat, but she too knew to ignore Rarity when she went off on some wild fantasy.

Rarity managed to snap herself out of the wonderful, vivid daydream. It certainly wasn’t going to come true with her sitting around all day, doing nothing! The gala was but a few weeks away, and she had deadlines to meet. She flicked back her perfectly styled purple mane, re-applied her glasses, and went back to her task, threading the needle with machine like precision. And as she sat, alone with her thoughts, a small smile crept across her face.

She truly was going to be the fairest of them all.

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

The sound of hooves knocking on wood echoed through the room.  A few seconds later, Applejack burst through the bedroom door, revealing her presence with a loud,

“Howdy, Rarity!”  In her usual southern, country accent.

The orange cowpony trotted into the room, her hooves making dull thumps on the shiny marble flooring as she walked. As always, she had a goofy grin plastered over her face, half hidden underneath the brown leather cow-pony hat that she always wore, without fail. Twilight walked in slightly in front of Applejack, the lavender unicorn silencing her Earth Pony friend with a hushed,

“Shush! Can’t you see Rarity is trying to concentrate?”

Rarity sat in the corner of the room amongst her trademark organised chaos, her back to the newcomers, concentrating on her strenuous needlework.

“Whattia think she’s makin’?” Applejack asked Twilight inquisitively, moving behind the hard-working unicorn who was still hunched over the mannequin, sewing intently.

“It looks like a dress...” replied Twilight, almost in shock.

Rarity rolled her eyes and sighed, her back still to the duo. ‘No, really, Twilight?’ She thought to herself. ‘A dressmaker, making a dress in a dressmakers shop? How could it be?’

Applejack somehow read her thoughts, whispering,

“Well, that makes sense.  Seein’ how this is a dressmakers shop an’ all...”

Rarity furrowed her brow and closed her eyes tightly. How was she supposed to get this dress finished with all these interruptions? She loved seeing her friends of course, more than anything in the world, but right now she needed full concentration. With a sigh, Rarity turned to her friends behind her, a false, beaming smile drawn across her face and greeted the duo.

“Is there something I can help you with?” She asked pleasantly.

Twilight, obviously sensing her fellow unicorn’s tension, apologised.

“Oh, so very sorry to trouble to, Rarity... But I need a quick favour.” The lavender mare pulled a piece of material from her left saddlebag, laying it gently down on the nearby workbench. “Could you please fix a button for me? It’s my dress for the Grand Galloping Gala.”

Rarity gasped, looking down in horror at the disgusting red rag below her. It was a mess! A crime against fashion! She meant no disrespect to Twilight, (after all, was it not for her she would not have been given the opportunity to attend the Gala in the first place) but that mare did not know the first thing about style!

“Oh, no no no!” cried Rarity, still reeling from the appalling excuse for a dress which Twilight was willingly going to apply to her own body. In public! “You can’t wear this...” Rarity tried to find a word to express her distaste in the politest way possible. “...Uugh, ‘old thing!’ You need to a glamorous new outfit for the gala!” The dressmaker paused for a moment: a thought just crossed her mind. “And I’ll make it for you, no problem at all.” She rushed the last part, trying to say it all before her brain could object to the idea. What was she thinking? She couldn’t make any more dresses! The gala was only a few weeks away, and she still had her own garment to complete, never mind her other clients! Her mind continued to voice its objection to the prospect, but Rarity’s mouth was working by itself. “It would be my pleasure!” Rarity finished with a smile.

Twilight seemed taken aback by her generosity. “Oh, that’s really sweet of you to offer, Rarity,” thanked the librarian. “But I can’t let you do that. It would be so much work.” She was already aware of her friend’s situation: Rarity had a lot to do, and precious little time to do it, without making a dress for her as well. Besides, Twilight wasn’t the most fashion conscious pony, anyway. She would make do with what she had, which to her, didn’t even look as bad as Rarity was making it out to be.

“This dress is fine...”

Rarity pouted, giving Twilight her pleading eyes. “Twilight Sparkle,” (she only called her friend by her full name when she wanted to emphasise something.)  She threw back her head, closing her eyes and flicking back her beautiful curled mane. “I insist on making you a new dress.”

Twilight began to protest, “But...”

She was interrupted by Rarity, shaking her hoof vigorously in her face. “Not another word! I won’t take no for an answer.”

Twilight finally gave in. She may have only just moved to Ponyville, but she too knew that once Rarity had an idea, there was no stopping her. “Well, in that case, thank you for your generosity, Rarity!” she thanked her friend cheerfully. “Knowing your handiwork, I’m sure it will be absolutely beautiful!”

Rarity then turned her attention to Applejack, who had been silently watching the scene play out. She looked her cow-pony friend up and down behind red framed spectacles, before finally saying,

“Let me guess, Applejack. You don’t want a new gown, either.”

Applejack held back her laughter. Like Twilight, she wasn’t as big into fashion as her dressmaker friend, often leading to clashes and disagreements between the two. When you have spent your whole life on a farm, practicality beats stylishness any day.

“Gown? Shoot, I was jus’ gonna’ wear my old work duds!” The orange earth pony replied with a smirk.

Rarity threw open her bright blue eyes in shock to the statement, letting out a small gasp. “You cannot possibly be serious, Applejack!” She strained each word as if it were almost painful to think about such a ludicrous idea, one hoof raised in disgust. “You absolutely MUST wear formal attire!”

Applejack thought for a moment, rolling her eyes back and staring at nothing in particular, placing a hoof on her chin in deep thought.

“Hmmmm.... Nah!” she finally made up her mind after a few seconds. What was wrong with wearing something comfortable and familiar? She would rather that than get all dolled up like a city slicker and spend the rest of the night walking around afraid to get a mark on the gosh-darned things.. Besides, she was going to be outside most of the night anyhow, away from most of the festivities and trying to sell as much home-made food as she could. No need for any fancy-pants clothes.

Rarity knew of Applejack’s general dislike of anything, well... ‘civilized’, and instead suggested,

“What if I just spruce up your, eh... ‘duds’, for you a little bit?” The unicorn placed her left hoof to her chest, and gave Applejack her most sincere smile.

Applejack thought for a few more seconds. “Okay, sure. Why not.” She may have just been a simple ‘country dweller,’ as Rarity would sometimes patronisingly call her, but she too knew that Rarity would never let something go, especially when it came to fashion. “Since you’re offerin’ an’ all, just,” she screwed up her nose and squinted her eyes. “Don’t make them too...” she searched her mind for the best word she could find to fit. “...fru-fru-y.”

“Deal!” cried Rarity happily, her hoof outstretched in agreement.

“Look out below!” Was all Rainbowdash had time to say before she came blasting through the roof of the Carousel Boutique, spraying the startled onlookers in the bedroom with splinters of wood. The cyan Pegasus hit the ground flank-first, bouncing a few times off of the cold, marble floor, before crashing head first into the stack of pony mannequins below the window.

Rarity’s first concern was for the roof. How could she afford to fix the large gaping hole in the ceiling, which was also draining the overall fabulousity of the room! Her next concern was that of the safety of the gatecrasher. Was her good friend Rainbowdash alright?

Her question was answered seconds later, as Rainbowdash rose herself from underneath the pile of broken plastic limbs and ripped material, a bucket covering her spectrum mane, ragged cloths draping from her winged form.

The Pegasus laughed nervously at the crowd, who were staring dumbfounded first at her, then at the large hole which moments earlier had been a roof. If Rainbowdash was good at one thing, it was making an entrance.

“Sorry,” she giggled. “New trick.” Rainbowdash laughed again, shifting the metal bucket slightly so that her vision was no longer obscured, letting some of the materials which clothed her fall to the floor. “Didn’t quite work.”

Rarity studied her daredevil friend with a look of curiosity. In her new, let us say, ‘attire’, Rainbowdash gave Rarity an idea.

“Idea!” The seamstress called in a sing-song voice. “I’ll make YOU an outfit for the Gala too, Rainbowdash!”

Rainbowdash, bucket still sitting proudly atop her head like a tramp’s crown, glanced left and then right. “Outfit for the what-now?” she asked inquisitively, her face twisted in an expression of confusion.

Rarity ignored her Pegasus friend’s question. “I’ll make one for you, and you and ALL of you!” Her mouth was a motor which her logically thinking brain was trying to silence. Rarity bounced in delight. “Ooh! And of course Pinkie and Fluttershy, too.”

‘Be quiet, Rarity!’ Her brain was screaming out, falling on deaf ears. ‘Don’t give yourself any more work than you need to!’ She was, of course, the element of generosity, but there was only so much generosity one can give...

“And when I’m done,” she continued, pushing away any objections her brain continued to throw at her, “We can hold our very own fashion show!”

“What a great idea!” responded Twilight Sparkle, with genuine interest. “If you’re sure you can handle it!”

Rarity strode daintily over to her work shelves, nestled neatly in the corner of the room. Upon each shelf sat roll upon roll of different materials, each one a different colour and texture. Her unicorn horn glowing with a magical blue aura, she levitated a few rolls from the different levels, piling them out on the table. “Oh, it will be a little bit of work, but it will be a wonderful boost for my business!” That was true, after all: It could be a little bit tight to meet the deadlines, but she would have a far better chance at impressing the celebrities with not one, but SIX truly fabulous dresses on display! “Plus, fun!”

Even Rainbowdash was excited by the proposal. “I love fun things!” she cried triumphantly, as the bucket slid back over her eyes.

“Then it’s settled. We will have a fashion show, staring... us!” The white unicorn squealed in delight, unravelling a roll of indigo cloth on the workbench.  This caused a collective cheer of excitement from all the ponies in the room, until Applejack questioned,

“So, all you have ta’ do is make a different, stunning,” she paused and turned wide eyed to Rarity, who was busy cutting strips of material with her dressmaker’s scissors, smiling contently. “Original, AMAZIN’ outfit for,” she pointed to Twilight, then to herself, counting each pony off on her hoof. “One, two, three, four, five, plus yourself, SIX PONIES, in lickety- split?”

Rarity stopped cutting and glanced sideways at her friend, batting her perfect eye-lashes.

“Oh, Applejack...

... You make it sound as if it’s going to be hard!”

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

The consistent, gentle ticking of a clock was the only sound emanating from Rarity’s bedroom. Seconds later, the silence was broken by the loud mechanical juttering of a sewing machine, bursting into life. Rarity leaned over the red contraption, carefully feeding a long piece of purple velvet through the needle, and humming softly to herself as she did so. The noise of the rusty old machine was one she not only had grown accustomed to, but also found strangely relaxing and soothing:  she found it strange that such new, beautiful works of art could be created via something so old and outdated. She glanced over at the ever ticking clock, sitting perfectly on the white-ish purple walls. It had been a few hours since her friends had left, giving the seamstress plenty of time before nightfall.

‘You’re keeping a good pace, Rarity!’ she thought happily to herself. Perfect pacing, in fact. Perfect, just like everything else about her. She was going to get three of the dresses done tonight, (Twilight’s, Applejack’s and Rainbowdash’s) and finish the last three tomorrow (Pinkie’s, Fluttershy’s and her own) in time for the fashion show, which had been scheduled to take place in three days time.

At least, that was the plan.

“Thread by thread, stitching it together...” The white unicorn sang quietly to herself, almost drowned out by the melodic ‘Thump! Thump!’ of the sewing machine. She levitated a nearby sketch off of the notice board, her eyes sparkling admiringly at the illustrated dress, continuing with her song.

“Twilight’s dress, cutting of the fabric snip by snip, making sure the fabric folds nicely,” she had, undeniably, a beautiful singing voice, much like her younger sister Sweetie Belle (even if she denied it on a regular basis.) Rarity rarely sang in public, however, always afraid of having her confidence shot. She was quite content to express herself via her art of dressmaking, not by her singing voice.

“It’s the perfect colour, and so hip!” she cheered proudly, holding up the newly altered cloth near the window so as to catch some of the bright afternoon light. She was hoping to create a truly dazzling gown for each of her friends, unique in that they would reflect each of their personalities. So far, she was pleased with her progress. Rarity just hoped that her friends would like them as much as she did!

“Always got to keep in mind my pacing, making sure the cloth’s correctly facing: I’m stitching Twilight’s dress.” Rarity adjusted her glasses, pushing the red frame up to the bridge of her nose. She rose from the machine, levitating the cloth and laying it carefully down on the workbench beside the sketch of Twilight’s gala gown. “Excellent!” The garment was taking shape wonderfully, almost as though the black and white sketch had jumped from the confines of the page and into the real, colourful world. All she had to do now was add the sequenced stars to the trail and neck, and...

...Viola! Simply outstanding!

Rarity complimented herself on another job well done. She took great pride in her work, and always felt a sense of fulfilment after every piece of attire she created.

She glanced back over at the clock, a stark reminder that time does not stand still for any occasion. ‘No time to celebrate,” she thought, placing the finished dress to one side before levitating a roll of light green material from her top shelf. ‘I still need to start on Applejack’s... uugh... ‘old duds’ immediately  if I ever want to get all of these dresses done  before the fashion show.’

She simply could not wait to see their faces when they catch sight of their new dresses. They would be pleased as punch!

At least, that was the plan.

But not all plans work out.

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

Rarity led her five friends down the narrow hallway of the boutique toward her bedroom. She had instructed that each of her friends keep their eyes closed until told otherwise, so as to heighten the suspense and the surprise of seeing their beautiful gala gowns for the first time. However, this made traversing the cluttered ‘inspiration room’ and climbing the winding stairs more of a difficult task than they really ought to have been, but somehow they managed to overcome all obstacles in their path with careful guidance from Rarity.

“That’s it. Keep them closed. Don’t look...” she instructed as she led the train of ponies through the bedroom door. Fluttershy was situated at the front of the line, directly behind Rarity, Pinkie bouncing behind her, Twilight trotting along in the middle, Rainbow dash second last and Applejack bringing up the rear. All five mares had their eyes shut tight, large smiles of anticipation plastered across their faces as they stopped in line.

“Okay, you can look now!” beamed Rarity, awaiting the squeals of delight from her friends which were to surely follow.

Each pony opened their eyes quickly in excitement.

And what they saw made their smiles fade.

Five beautiful gowns stood before them, each dress resting valiantly on the back of a plastic mannequin.

“These are your new outfits!” cried Rarity proudly, gesturing with her hoof. “What do you think of your old duds now, Applejack? Pretty swanky, are they not?” she giggled, pointing to the first of the dresses. They were, indeed Applejack's old work clothes, but with a few major alterations:  apple shaped designs had been hoof-stitched into the embroidered leather hat, apple buckles had been added to the lime green work boots, and a decorative saddle was resting atop the flank.

“Oh, and Twilight!” Rarity turned to her fellow unicorn. “I made this dress for you, and I designed each outfit themed to perfectly reflect each pony’s unique personality!” Twilight’s dress was dark blue in colour, adorned with stars and glitter for that stunning ‘cosmic’ look. The most striking feature was the Silver Star mane accessory, which glinted in the artificial light of the room, giving the impression of a twinkling star in the night sky.

“It took me forever to get the colours right on this one Rainbowdash, but I did it. Oh, and it turned out BEAUTIFUL, don’t you think?” Squealed the dressmaker to her rainbow-maned friend. Rainbowdash’s sweeping gown was a spectacular masterpiece, as far as Rarity was concerned. As she had said, it had taken a long time to get the colours precisely to her liking, but she felt that the finished product was worth the effort. All the colours of the rainbow were there: vibrant reds, blues, yellows and greens would make the Pegasus stand out beautifully amongst the drab blacks and greys which were bound to make up the bulk of attire worn by the other guests attending the gala. What really made it stand out was the solid gold athlon (based on the olive wreath design of the ancient Pegusi of old Equestria) and stunning pearl-grape necklace around the mannequin’s neck, both of which bestowed upon the dress an overall ‘god-like’ vibe.

“Oh, I know you are going to love yours, Fluttershy.” The dress she was referring to was the pure essence of nature:  light green in colour and adorned with flowers, complete with an adorable butterfly headpiece (not unlike the butterflies that made up Fluttershy’s cutie mark) and authentic vine-like hoof wraps. “It just sings ‘spring!’”

The excited seamstress turned to the final dress, Pinkie’s. “And Pinkie Pie, look... PINK! Your favourite!” The dress was indeed pink. Very pink, in fact, much like the bubbly character whom was soon to be wearing it. Ribbons and bows were in plentiful supply on the gown, as well as small decorative candy pieces around the flank. A white baker’s cap, adorned with a pink and yellow coloured bow, completed the ‘confectionary’ look which Rarity had been trying to capture. Finally, like the sweets she would so often consume, Pinkie would be good enough to eat!

Standing directly in front of all five dresses, Rarity gave her friends another beaming grin. Her chest swelled with pride as she flicked her mane and asked,

“Aren’t they all amazing?”

(That was rhetorical, of course, for she already knew the answer.)

The other five mares in the room stood motionless like living statues, mouths agape, eyes wide open, staring silently. Nopony spoke. Nopony moved. Nopony even blinked.

Nopony except Rarity, that is. Slowly, her proud, beaming grin began to fade, instead replaced by a nervous half-smile.

‘Oh, by Celestia.’ She thought. ‘Is this a good silence, or a bad silence?’

Nopony moved at all. Nopony even breathed. The tension in the boutique at that very moment was thick enough to cut with a knife.  Rarity blinked nervously again, behind her spectacles. A thin bead of sweat rolled down the mare’s forehead, plopping unusually loudly onto the marble floor below. Such was the silence in the room.

Twilight broke the silence after what felt like an eternity. “Wow, they’re...” she screwed up her face and looked to the floor, unable to find the words to express herself.

“Yeah, they’re...” Rainbowdash took over from her studious friend. “They’re...”

Everypony in the room squirmed uncomfortably. Even Rarity felt tense, and hadn’t a clue as to why this may be.

Applejack stepped in for the group, finishing for Rainbowdash. She blew a strand of her straw-blonde mane from her eyes and gave Rarity an edgy, unconvincing smile.  “They sure are...” It was at times like these she wished she had a wider range of vocabulary. “Uh... somethin’!”

“YES!” Burst Twilight, waving a hoof in Applejacks face. “Something! Heh.”

Pinkie’s face blushed (not that anypony could tell the difference) as she turned to Twilight and said,

“I LOVE something!” in a rather over expressive manner. “Something is my favourite!” She, and all the others, cringed and turned to Fluttershy, who still hadn’t spoken a word.

“It’s...nice.” Came a soft voice meekly, behind a strand of pink hair.

Rarity was not convinced. She knew her friends well enough to know when something was wrong, and right now something was most definitely wrong. There was something her friends were not telling her; it was written all over their faces, and she was going to find out what.

“But what’s the matter?” The dressmaker asked curiously, her pretty face twisted in confusion. “Don’t you like them?”

Twilight felt herself sweating. Everypony turned their gaze to her, expecting her to be the one to provide a response. How was she going to let one of her best friends know what she was really thinking? How could she tell the truth? “They’re VERY nice!” She cringed, over- emphasising the word ‘very’.

For the second time, Applejack stepped in to relive some of the pressure placed on one of her friends. “We’re... plum-grateful ‘cos you worked so hard on ‘em!”

Everypony in the room nodded anxiously, except Rainbowdash.

“Mine’s just not as COOL as I was imagining.” The rainbow-maned mare burst out, receiving a look of distain from the rest of her friends. “Well, she asked!” she shrugged and rolled her eyes.

This news hit Rarity like a ton of bricks. There she was, sure that her friends were going to LOVE their dresses, and they HATED them! And she had spent so long making them, defining every last detail, making sure everything was truly PERFECT. The white unicorn felt her crystal blue eyes filling up. She felt like a total failure!

Twilight could read her fellow unicorn like a book, and she knew that what Rainbowdash said was sure to upset her. She tried as hard as she could to lessen the blow. “The thing is, they’re just not what we... um, had in mind.”

Everypony agreed to this, trying the best they could to avoid eye contact with their seamstress friend.

Rarity gave a defeated sigh as a single tear rolled down her drooping face. She turned, blinking away more tears, to the dresses she had spent many painstaking hours to prepare for her friends. Were they not the right colour? The right shape? Not, as Rainbowdash stated, ‘cool enough?’ What had she done to upset her friends so? Maybe she wasn’t such a good fashion designer after all? Did she even know what her friends liked? Did she even know herself anymore? These questions and a million more, buzzed through the unicorn’s mind as she fought silently with herself. She was a failure.

Failure.

Failure.

Nothing but a failure.

...No.

She wasn’t a failure.

She wouldn’t become a failure.

She wouldn’t let that happen. Never.

She would make these dresses to absolute PERFECTION, or die trying!

She couldn’t help feeling disheartened and a little hurt at her friends’ reactions, but if they were not happy with the dresses, neither was she. “That’s okay,” she replied sounding unusually cheerily, much to the surprise of the others, all unable to hear the wrenching pain that stabbed at her heart with every word she spoke. “Not a problem.” She shrugged as though it wasn’t even much of an inconvenience.  “There’s plenty more where that came from. They were only a first pass.” She shrugged again and rolled her eyes as if to say ‘no big deal’. “You’re my friends, and I want you to be 110% satisfied.” Rarity puffed out her chest and held her head high with pride. “Not to worry,” she soothed, managing to cheer herself up. A smile began to creep back across her face. “I’ll re-do them!”

“Oh, Rarity. You don’t have to do that,” Fluttershy softly spoke. “They’re fine.”

As usual, Rarity wasn’t taking no for an answer. She levitated Applejack’s gala hat off of its resting place and laid it gently down upon her workbench. “I want them to be BETTER than ‘just fine.’ I want you to think they’re ABSOLUTELY perfect!”

‘No!’ Her better judgement was screaming out, again remaining unheard. ‘You fool! What about the other clients’ dresses? You can’t just ignore PAYING customers! Don’t let your blasted pride ruin you!’

“Are you sure?” asked Applejack sceptically, tilting her hat-adorned head to one side. “We wouldn’t wanna’ impose...”

She was interrupted by a ladylike chuckle from her friend who was busy removing Twilight’s dress from the mannequin upon which it sat. “Oh, it’s no imposition. Really, I INSIST.”

‘No! What are you doing?’

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, in that case,” the librarian called to the dressmaker, “Thank you again, Rarity!” She gave Rarity another warm smile and with that trotted out of the room, followed by the others, all of whom were talking of their friend’s amazing generosity.

Rarity watched with a grin as her friends left the room one by one, squeezing through the wooden lilac doorframe in a sea of excited chatter. She waited until the door slammed shut and could hear the sound of hooves descending wooden stairs before she allowed herself to sigh and fall to the floor, defeated.

“What have I gotten myself into?”

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

The consistent, gentle ticking of a clock was the only sound emanating from Rarity’s bedroom. Seconds later, the silence was broken by the loud mechanical juttering of a sewing machine, bursting into life.

Rarity leaned over the red contraption, carefully yet slightly hurriedly feeding a long piece of purple velvet through the needle, humming nervously to herself as she did so. She glanced over at the ever ticking clock, sitting perfectly on the white-ish purple walls. It had been a few hours since her friends had left, giving the seamstress a little time before nightfall, but not as much as she would have liked.

“It’s okay; you still have time, Rarity. Just don’t panic.” She mumbled to herself. She had already more or less finished adding some major alterations to Fluttershy’s gown in the space of a couple of hours thanks to her quick needlework, and if she could just get Twilight’s dress finished by tonight, she could start on the others’ gowns first thing in the morning. It was a perfectly do-able task, (even if it were to be cutting it a little too close for comfort) so she may as well get some sleep. No point in working through the night unnecessarily.

After all, she needed her beauty sleep.

She spun hastily around to gather more material from the overflowing oak supply cupboard, knocking over a large pile of neatly folded cloths from her bench in the process. The rolls hit the marble floor with a chorus of dull thumps, unravelling along the ground in all directions in a desperate bid for freedom.

“Oh, clumsy me.” Sighed the white unicorn as she bent to pick the rolls off of the ground, receiving a rather annoyed stare from Opalescence, whom had been disturbed from her slumber. Rarity knew she was rushing things along ever so slightly, but she would really rather have at least one dress finished by tonight.

“There.” She strained as she rose from the ground and unloaded the bundle of fabric onto her workbench. She hated leaving such a mess just lying around, or at least outside of her ‘inspiration room’ as she chose to call it, but she could take care of such trivial matters later. More pressing matters were at hand.

Looking up from the smooth wooden tabletop, she glimpsed again at the clock, and then turned toward the window. Celestia’s sun lay low in the sky, giving way for Luna’s moon and signifying the end of another day in Equestria, silently dipping below the horizon. The sky was the most beautiful mixture of reds and oranges bursting through the low lying noctilucent clouds, little rays of sunlight still managing to seep through every so often as the sun crept further and further from sight.

‘Tick, tock, Rarity. No time. Got to get at least one more done tonight. The fashion show is but days away...’

With a sigh, she tore herself from the majestic sight and turned back to her rusty old sewing machine, thumping methodically as the daylight all but melted away.

Thumping, thumping, thumping. Much like her headache.

‘Don’t get stressed, Rarity. You know you take the worst migraines...’

Oh well. Nothing a little relaxation time at the spa couldn’t fix. She would really have to book Fluttershy and herself in for a session again sometime.

But not now. Now was work time.

‘Thump. Thump. Thump,’ sang the sewing machine, strangely louder than usual.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It took Rarity a few moments to realise that somebody was actually knocking on the door to her bedroom, the echoing thump of hoof meeting solid wood.

“Hello?” A timid voice came from behind the wooden door. After another few knocks, the door swung open and a yellow head with a pink mane peeked inside the room. “You wanted to see me Rarity?”

“Fluttershy!” squeaked Rarity, throwing her hooves in the air in anticipation. With all the work that was going on, she had almost forgotten that she had asked her Pegasus friend back to the boutique to give her honest opinion on the finalised dress. Tearing herself from the sewing machine, she galloped over to Fluttershy and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Your NEW new gown is ready! I have completely revised it and I know you’re going to LOVE IT!” With that, the seamstress lead her yellow friend from the doorway and over to a small red curtain which ran across the left hand corner of the room. “Your dress is in here,” Rarity proudly announced. “Now, try it on, darling. I’ve got a mirror out here when you’re finished to show you how WONDERFUL you look!”

“Actually, Rarity, I didn’t know I was going to be trying it on. You see, I have to get back to Angel soon, because...”

Rarity gave her friend a shove from behind, sending her spiralling behind the changing curtain with a crash before she could protest further. “Let me know when you have it on!” She called with a slight smirk.

Minutes passed before Fluttershy re-emerged, fully clothed in her gala dress. Rarity clapped her hooves together and let out another proud squeal. Fluttershy looked absolutely AMAZING!

“Oh, my, you look wonderful!” The unicorn told her slightly awkward companion. “Quick, over here!” With that, she swivelled a large boutique mirror around, and Fluttershy caught sight of her own reflection.

The dress had gone through some serious changes since she had last seen it but a few hours earlier. The long, flowing trail it had previously sported had now been reduced to a shorter, more fashionable design, and gone was the butterfly headpiece, now replaced by a beautiful blue flower head headpiece.

Rarity moved behind Fluttershy, who was still gaping open mouthed in front of the mirror at her reflection. “What do you think?”

Fluttershy didn’t quite know how to respond. She stuttered a little, before her eyes drooped and she managed to choke out,

“I... I love it.”

Rarity was not convinced. She knew her friends well enough to know when something was wrong, and for the second time today, she felt as though something was most definitely wrong. There was something her friend was not telling her; it was clear by the way she hesitated before responding, and she was going to find out what.

“Oh, you’re just saying that.” huffed Rarity as she turned her head away and batted her eyelashes to the ceiling, front hoof raised daintily.

Fluttershy’s cheeks began to blush a bright cerise pink. “No, no. I do. It’s...” Fluttershy paused for a moment, her light blue eyes searching for a suitable reply in the lilac bedroom. “...Nice.” She finally sighed.

Rarity gave Fluttershy a disgusted face, screwing up her nose and wrinkling her forehead. “Nice?” She questioned, drawing out the ‘n’ at the beginning of the word. What did she mean by just ‘nice’?

“Nice,” repeated Fluttershy, quieter than the last time. She lowered her head and avoided any eye contact with her friend. The yellow Pegasus knew what was coming, and it wasn’t going to be all that pretty...

Rarity felt a little anger building up inside of her. She furrowed her brow and gritted her teeth. “If you don’t like it, you should just tell me.”

Fluttershy gave Rarity the most sincere face she could muster, soothing,

“Oh, but I DO like it.” Unfortunately for her, she was a terrible, terrible liar.

If Rarity hated but one thing, it was being lied to, and she expected her friends to respect that. Even if it hurt, Rarity wanted the truth, no matter what. And right now, Rarity was most definitely being lied to. This made her feel very angry indeed.

“Like it or love it?” She questioned through gritted teeth as she stared hard into Fluttershy’s eyes, almost into her very soul. “Hmm?”

“Um...both?” Fluttershy half questioned, half replied. She felt a little under pressure, a feeling she was not at all comfortable with.

Both? What kind of an answer was that? By now, Rarity was really rather angry, and not afraid to show it. She took one slow step toward Fluttershy, then another, still staring hard into her soft, blue eyes without so much as blinking. “Come on, which is it?” She demanded sharply.

Fluttershy took two steps back. Although she trusted her seamstress friend, and had for many years now, she couldn’t help feeling a little... intimidated. She knew Rarity was under a lot of stress making all these gowns in time, and therefore was bound to feel slightly aggravated, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that Rarity was even angrier than she had ever seen her before. That she might, just might, do something unpredictable. That maybe...

Just maybe...

Rarity was dangerous?

That was completely ridiculous. Rarity was her good friend, after all. But that feeling, that minute little flicker of fear remained with Fluttershy, and it would not go away no matter how hard she told herself otherwise.

“Um, please stop asking me this, I...” she whimpered gently, shaking ever so slightly.

Rarity continued to advance on her friend at a steady pace, forcing her backwards. “Well, just tell me what you really think!” She barked roughly, pushing her face directly into Fluttershy’s, who was trying to avoid her gaze.

“No, that’s okay...”

“Tell me...” She backed Fluttershy into the corner of the room, where escape was imposable. Like a Manticore advancing on its prey, she loomed over the cowering pony and gave her a cold, hard, unforgiving stare.

“N-no. It’s fine...” Fluttershy squeaked, barely above a whisper, her eyes glued to the smooth marble floor.

“Tell me!” The white unicorn yelled into the yellow mare’s face, forcing her to look up and back into those merciless eyes.

“I-I like it!” Fluttershy cried; sweat gushing down her forehead like a waterfall, pressing up against the wall as much as she could.

Rarity stomped her hooves in rage, connecting with the cold marble, and whined,

“Tell me tell me tell me tell me TELL ME!”

“All right,” The cowering pony managed to salvage some courage and straighten up to Rarity’s level, looking her directly in the eyes. “Since you really want to know...” Fluttershy cleared her throat and inhaled deeply.

“The armscye’s tight

the middy  collar doesn’t go with the shawl lapel

the hems are CLEARLY machine stitched

the pleats are uneven

the fabric looks like toile

you used a backstitch here when it CLEARLY called for a topstitch or maybe a traditional blanket stitch

and the overall design is reminiscent of prêt-a-porter and NOT true French haute couture.”

Fluttershy finished her rant and looked back at her dumbfounded friend, who stood open mouthed and speechless. Fluttershy lowered her eyes back toward the floor and kicked at the ground with her hoof nervously. “But, um... whatever you want to do is fine...” she trailed off.

Rarity didn’t blink for quite some time. She simply stared silently in shock at her usually shy friend, who was squirming uncomfortably with embarrassment. Rarity felt her face growing redder with every passing second, with every tick of the clock which was the only audible noise in the room.

‘How...how dare she?’ thought the seamstress. ‘How dare she just... criticise every last fibre of my hard work? For a dress I am making her from the goodness of my heart?’

Rarity narrowed her eyes slightly at her nature-loving friend, who had now retreated back against the wall. “Um... whatever you want to do is okay with me Rarity. Really.” Fluttershy repeated, kicking at the ground again with her front hoof.

‘Look at her. Who does she think she is?’ Rarity continued to sulk, ‘Who in all of Equestria does she think she is?’

‘I should hurt her.’

This last thought surprised Rarity. She didn’t even mean to think such a thing. Fluttershy was her good friend, and had been for many years, after all. She would never hurt her! And yet, the idea lingered with her, almost as though someone was whispering it in her ear. A voice which was not her own.

‘Hurt her.’

‘Do it.’

‘Teach her a lesson...’

“No!” Rarity screamed aloud. “I won’t! Leave me alone!”

“Rarity? Rarity? Are you okay?”

Fluttershy managed to snap Rarity out of whatever horrid daydream she was having, almost like breaking a spell. The yellow mare showed genuine concern on her face as she trotted over to the shaking unicorn, whose eyes were darting wildly about the room. “Are you okay, Rarity?” she asked again, soothingly.

Rarity took a deep breath and looked back up into her friend’s sky-blue eyes. “I-I’m fine dear. Just fine.”

“Do you... would you like me to leave, Rarity?”

“No!” She proclaimed with a wave of her hoof. “Please, Fluttershy... I wasn’t telling you to leave.”

“Oh, I know.” Smiled the Pegasus. “You’re just under a lot of stress at the moment. I can come back later, after you have had a rest and a cup of herbal tea.  And the dress is fine, Rarity. Really.”

Rarity stood wobbling on shaky hooves, trying to find her balance. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, then exhaled. “No, no. I can re-do it. No problem at all.” She managed a small smile. “And this time, it will be PROPER French haute couture.”

Fluttershy giggled. “Oh, that’s okay, Rarity. The dress is fine.” The mare blew a strand of pink hair from her eyes. “Besides, I don’t want to give you any more work...”

Rarity gave Fluttershy her trademark eyelash flutter. “Oh, it shan’t be too much work, Fluttershy. Like I said, I want you to be 110% satisfied.”

“No, I...”

Rarity interrupted. “I shan’t take no for an answer. I will re-do it again, and this time it will be to PERFECTION.”

Fluttershy finally gave in. She may have just been thinking with Rarity’s best interests at heart, but she knew how stubborn she could be. The mare would simply not take no for an answer. “All right, if you say so... but promise me you will take a break, Rarity. You need one. After all, you have been working non-stop for almost two days now.”

“That’s quite alright, Fluttershy. I can cope perfectly fine...”

“Promise me.” She demanded.

“Fine.” Sighed Rarity with a flick of her mane. “I promise.”

“Pinkie swear?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” The dressmaker went through each of the actions, reciting the ‘Pinkie Promise’ as it was known, exactly.

“Good!” Beamed Fluttershy happily. “Like I said, I need to get back to Angel now. I swear I can’t leave him for five minutes without him getting into some sort of trouble.” She stopped in the doorway of the bedroom and turned to face Rarity. “Are you sure you will be okay? I can make you some tea if you want, or perhaps a nice hay sandwich?”

“No thank you, Fluttershy. I’m fine,” Rarity laughed. She seemed to be coming around again to her usual, cheery self.

“In that case, see you later. And, um... thank you!” With that, Fluttershy left the room and closed the door shut tight behind her.

Rarity trotted over to the window and watched her friend walk down the path to the town square, her hooves clopping off of the tarmac outside. She rounded the corner, and then disappeared from sight.

‘Looks like I’ll have to get to work on a NEW NEW new dress for Fluttershy.’ She thought, still looking out the window. ‘I can start work right away.’ She knew she had promised to have a rest, relax for a little while, but Rarity doubted she had any time to spare anymore. It looks like it was a promise she would just have to break. Luckily for her, she wasn’t the element of honesty. Time was a luxury she could simply not afford.

‘Fluttershy must think of me as an idiot. I over reacted.’ Rarity told herself as she looked toward the sky. It was red.

Blood red.

‘I can’t believe I could even think those horrid thoughts. I really do need a good rest...’

‘...but not now. Now is work time.’

With a sigh, she dragged herself back over to the sewing machine and continued where she left off: feeding the velvet through the needle. She glanced quickly up at the ever ticking clock, sitting perfectly on the white-ish purple walls. It was later than she expected. Looks like she would have to work through the night after all...

Oh well. Sleep be darned. She could rest as much as she wanted after the fashion show.

But not now. Now is work time.

Rarity let out another weary sigh, and then got back to work.

She had a long night ahead.

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

Rarity couldn’t remember what sleep felt like anymore. After all, she hadn’t slept in four days. Five? A week? Maybe more? Longer than she could remember, anyway. All she could remember was work. Working. Working. Constantly working. Stitch after stitch after stitch. Her once beautiful eyes were red and bloodshot, her once glamorous mane now tattered and dirty, her once perfectly manicured hooves raw and blistered. Every time she finally finished the dresses, every time she finally thought that she could have a rest, get some sleep, there was something wrong with them and she would have to start over from scratch. The fashion show kept getting postponed. “Just one more try, I’ve nearly perfected them,” Rarity would tell her friends. “Just let me have one more attempt. The fashion show can wait one more day, can’t it?” All of her friends told her to stop being ridiculous, that the dresses were fine, to have a good night’s sleep. But Rarity would have none of it. Call it pride, determination, or lack of sleep, but Rarity refused to stop until the dresses were to PERFECTION. And as time went on, and hours stretched into days, her friends began to get more and more, well, ‘nit-picky,’ as it were. Nothing she could do was good enough for them anymore and there was always a fault. If she tried to give them advice, and good advice at that, they always turned it down on a whim with a remark of “Whose dress is this?” She could defiantly see an attitude change in all of them, and she didn’t like it one bit. She was sure that they were talking gossip about her, slanderous lies behind her back, but she was too exhausted to question them. All she wanted to do was get the dresses done. The dresses themselves were becoming a joke, and a not at all humorous one at that. The once elegant gowns were steadily growing worse and worse in appearance to fit her friends liking (after all, they knew nothing of fashion) and the dressmaker was mortified at what those at the gala would think. If anything, these dresses could end up destroying her business and reputation rather than boost it. Her migraines were getting worse and worse with each passing second, and she had even started hallucinating: Seeing dark shadows scurry across the room out of the corner of her eyes as she worked tirelessly in the middle of the night, voices whispering dreadful messages in her ear.

‘Hurt them,’ they would whisper, ever so softly. ‘They don’t deserve your friendship.’

‘Look at how they repay your kindness. Your hard work. Hurt them...’

Of course, Rarity knew it was all in her mind. The shadows, the shapes, the whispering was all in her mind. And that’s what scared her the most. The fact that her own consciousness was telling her to HURT her friends.

All in all, Rarity was beginning to wish she hadn’t decided to do all of this in the first place. It was far too much work for one pony to do alone. What had she been thinking? It was too late to back out now though. Although the fashion show could be postponed for a little while longer, the gala was almost upon her.

So she would have to make do.

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

Rarity felt Rainbowdash’s gaze burning into the back of her head.  With a grunt of effort, she somehow managed to swivel around from the dress she was threading and ask,

“Aren’t you...” she gasped, exhausted from days of restless labour. “Aren’t you going to tell me to change something too?”  There was a hint of bitterness behind those words. She knew she would end up having to change something.

Rainbowdash rolled her eyes and shrugged, leaning lazily against the side of Rarity’s oak workbench. “No,” the cyan Pegasus replied with a yawn. “I just want my dress to be...cool.”

‘Liar. There’s always something wrong.’

Rarity ignored the inner voice. She squinted slightly as Rainbowdash had developed the inexplicable power to duplicate herself and merge simultaneously.  No, never mind. That was just another hallucination. That was to be expected, after all. She hadn’t slept in four days. Five? A week? She had lost count.

Rarity sighed and turned back to the mannequin. Fluttershy sat over by the window, atop a plush light purple couch and reading a copy of ‘Canterlot Style Weekly’, awaiting her session with Rarity right after Rainbowdash’s. The yellow mare looked up from the smooth pages of the magazine and gave her seamstress friend a small, friendly smile.

‘A false smile. They’re talking about you behind your back, Rarity...’ the raspy voice broke into Rarity’s thoughts. ‘They all do. They think you’re an idiot. Pathetic. You should show them who’s pathetic...’

“No.” Rarity whispered under her breath. “Please, leave me alone...”

“What?” Inquired Rainbowdash, still leaning against the workbench as she flicked back her spectrum mane.

Rarity cringed slightly. “I said; um... do you not like the colour?”

Rainbowdash sighed heavily as though it was too much of an effort to reply. “The colour’s FINE,” she stressed. “Just make it look cooler.”

‘See how little respect they show you? You need to teach them all a lesson!’

Rarity turned again to her daredevil friend. Rainbowdash had a big, goofy smile plastered across her light blue face. She was laughing at her.

“You’re pathetic,” she mouthed silently, still smiling at Rarity. An evil smile. “You’re a joke. We all laugh at you behind your back...”

Gulping, the white unicorn spun around to Fluttershy, who was still sitting by the window. She slowly looked up at Rarity and their eyes met.

Empty sockets. She had no eyes. Nothing but black holes. She lowered the magazine she was reading and stretched her mouth into the same, mocking grin as Rainbowdash’s. “Nothing you do is ever right, Rarity!” She giggled, her voice the same as those who whispered inside Rarity’s head. “You’re a failure, Rarity!”

Rarity took a deep, panicked breath and closed her eyes. When she re-opened them, both Rainbowdash and Fluttershy were back to their normal selves, giving Rarity some very puzzled looks.

Embarrassed, Rarity hastily spun back around and continued working on the dress.

‘What is wrong with me?’ she asked herself, breaking out in a panicked sweat. ‘What is wrong with me?’

‘It isn’t you, Rarity,’ the voice whispered back. ‘You’re perfect. It’s THEM.’

For once, Rarity found herself agreeing. “Yes,” she said aloud. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s them...”

“Huh?” Rainbowdash twisted her head sideways in confusion, straining to hear what Rarity was muttering. “What’cha say there, Rarity?”

‘It’s them. Not you.’

“I said do you not like the shape?” asked the dressmaker through gritted teeth. She felt an unexplainable anger building inside of her. Pure rage.

‘Those liars. They aren’t my friends. They’re using me.’ She thought bitterly.

‘That’s right, Rarity. Show them they can’t use you...’

Rainbowdash flicked back her mane again and repositioned her slouched stance against the tabletop. “The shape’s fine,” the Pegasus sighed impatiently. “Just make the whole thing, you know... cooler.” She paused for a moment. “It needs to be about 20% cooler.”

For some reason, this statement made Rarity’s blood absolutely boil.

‘Show them you won’t be used.’

‘I will.’

‘Hurt them.’

‘H-hurt my friends?’

‘They aren’t your friends, Rarity.’ the voice spoke. And this time it wasn’t the same, whispery, raspy voice it was before. It was Rarity’s voice. ‘Make them pay...’

‘Kill them.’

Rarity, almost as though she was in a trance, reached down for the long pair of sharp edged, stainless steel fabric scissors which rested on a nearby table. The cold steel glinted in the artificial light of the room. Her expression blank, Rarity calmly turned around, clutching the scissors tightly in her hoof, to face Rainbowdash who was still leaning against the back wall.

“Oh, and one more thing. It needs to be...”

That was all the Pegasus had time to say before Rarity launched herself forward, letting loose a blood curdling cry, scissors held high above her head like an improvised dagger. The seamstress landed with a hard thump on top of Rainbowdash, who sprawled to the floor in a heap of tangled body parts. Rainbowdash felt a shot of pain shoot up her spine as she hit the hard marble floor with an echoing crack, accompanied by a startled cry from Fluttershy who threw her magazine down in terror. Rarity managed to pull herself on top of her light blue friend before she could get up, sitting on her chest and using her full body weight to prevent her from rising.

Staring into the psychotic grin of the white unicorn, her scissors poised like a cobra ready to pounce, Rainbowdash cried,

“Rarity? What the hay are you...”

Those were her last words before the scissors came crashing down with a terrible force, stabbing directly into her throat, accompanied by a spray of thick, red blood. Rainbowdash’s eyes opened wide with terror as she realised what had just happened.

Rarity ripped the scissors out of her friend’s throat with a hard tug, blood spraying like a fountain from the fresh wound, splattering onto the unicorns face with a sickening splurge. The white unicorn instinctively licked a little of the blood splatter from her lips. It tasted warm. Coppery.

Fluttershy let out a squeal of horror, throwing herself from the seat she was sitting on and vaulting onto Rarity’s back with newfound courage.

“Rarity, stop!” the yellow mare pleaded. “You’re hurting her! Get off!”

‘Good.’

With an animal like roar, Rarity thrust the scissors directly behind her, managing to stab Fluttershy directly in the shoulder with the sharp, pointed blade. Fluttershy squeaked in pain, clutching her wound as blood dribbled down her shoulder blade, staining her yellow coat with small splashes of red.

This gave Rarity an opportunity to twist around and bring the elbow of her free arm down firmly onto Fluttershy’s head, meeting her skull with a sickening crack. Reeling in pain, Fluttershy releashed her grip on Rarity and fell to the ground, dazed, blood pooling from the wound on her shoulder.

Her aggressor dealt with, Rarity turned back to her prey below her. Rainbowdash lay clutching at the hole in her throat with her hooves, blood seeping through the gaps and dribbling down her torso in a thin line.

‘Good work,’ Rarity’s voice whispered softly in her ear. ‘Now, show them that you will not be used! Finish her! Do it!’

Rarity smiled as the voice in her head faded away. Slowly, like a Manticore toying with it’s food, the seamstress flicked the pair of scissors into her left hoof and drew it back above her untamed mane, twisting her body sideways so as to generate more power and speed as she thrust downward.

Rainbowdash watched with pure horror as the glinting blade rose higher and higher above her head, held in the hoof of the enraged Rarity. Rainbowdash looked into her friend’s beautiful, light blue eyes. There was no longer any character there anymore. None of the ‘life’ that made Rarity, well, Rarity. Instead, she stared into cold, merciless eyes, those of a killer.

They were like two empty eye sockets.

Rarity felt Rainbowdash’s heartbeat fasten as she drew the makeshift knife higher and higher.

Thumping. Thumping. Thumping.

Faster and faster and faster.

‘Doesn’t that feel good, Rarity? They respect and fear you now.’

‘Yes.’

“Rarity...” gurgled Rainbowdash, blood drooling from her mouth when she talked. “Whatever I did...” she gasped, straining to say each word. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry. Please, don’t do this. You’re my friend.”

She didn’t get a response. The scissors came swooping down, jabbing directly into the side of Rainbowdash’s neck, stabbing through flesh with ease. Arterial spray gushed from the new wound as the scissors jammed into muscle, spraying blood all over Rarity’s once perfect face, now twisted in malevolence and hate. She wiped away the blood which was smeared over the lens of her working glasses, which was making her vision a little blurred. Or maybe it was just lack of sleep. No matter. She wanted to see Rainbowdash’s face clearly as she died.

“W-why?” Rainbowdash coughed up more thick globs of blood, which hit the smooth ground with a sickening splat.

‘They must die.’

‘Kill them, Rarity.’

‘I will.’

Rarity attempted to rip the scissors free for a killing blow, but the long, steel blade was stuck firm into neck gristle, each tug resulting in a strangled scream from Rainbowdash.  Instead, she managed to drag the still- inserted scissors along the length of Rainbowdash’s neck, slicing through the flesh like paper-Mache before meeting the original opening in the front of her throat. Rainbowdash’s pained screams ceased suddenly as her vocal chords were sliced to shreds with the bladed edge of the scissors, spewing more blood out of the Pegasus’ mouth. With a firm twist and tug, the scissors finally ripped free, a long trail of dark red blood spurting behind them and splattering against the purple walls of the bedroom.

Rainbowdash’s eyes were rolling around wildly in her head as she began to fade in and out of consciousness as she lost more and more blood, pooling around her immobile body and smearing the cold, hard, reflective marble floor. Rarity, a permanent snarl her only expression, studied the gore stained scissors with a certain curiosity; lifeless eyes scanning the cold, red steel. Still sitting atop her friend’s chest, she could feel Rainbowdash’s heartbeat begin to slow down as her lifeblood drained away, seeping out of the mortal gashes in her neck.

‘Who’s pathetic now, Rarity?’

Still hypnotised with bloodlust, Rarity shuffled off of Rainbowdash’s chest with a psychotic grin. Eagerly, she placed the tip of the scissor blade at the top of Rainbowdash’s throat, digging into flesh slightly and drawing a small line of blood. The cyan mare was barely conscious, but she still felt the sharp, stabbing cold of the metal as it rested on her form. Her breathing became slower, sharper as she managed to silently mouth, “Rarity...”

‘Let’s see how heartless your so called ‘friends’ really are...’

Rarity kept the scissors firmly in place with her left hoof. She drew back her right hoof and hovered it directly above the scissors, ready to come crashing down at any moment. Rainbowdash managed to focus on Rarity, though her eyesight was fading, black creeping around the edges. She looked up at Rarity’s fuzzy form with fear stricken, tired eyes. Rarity looked back into her pink eyes without any remorse whatsoever. She liked the respect her friend was showing her. That... fear. It felt... good.

She paused for a moment, staring hard at Rainbowdash with pure fury. And Rainbowdash stared back, still grinning mockingly at her. “You’re pathetic!” she teased as her skin began to melt away, revealing nothing but bone underneath, her voice raspy and distorted.  “We all hate you!”

“I’ll show you all!” screamed Rarity as she pounded the handle of the scissors hard with her hoof, driving the point deep into Rainbowdash’s chest. The blood-splattered cyan mare silently yelped in agony as pain exploded through her body, spreading like a wildfire. Rarity heard Fluttershy moan behind her as she began to regain consciousness.

‘No matter,’ Rarity told herself. ‘I’ll deal with her later.’

With expert precision, the dressmaker ripped the blade downward along her body, ending at her navel. The sharp bladed tool cut through the fur and flesh with ease, as though it were just fabric. Blood seeped through the fresh opening, a putrid smell hanging high in the air. Carefully, like a twisted doctor performing a sick operation, the gore-stained white unicorn re-adjusted her glasses and placed one hoof at either side of the incision. Then, with a sharp yank, she ripped open Rainbowdash’s chest, revealing all of her vital organs. Rainbowdash’s mouth twitched slightly, although the pain was fading as she felt the last of her life slipping away. Rarity, rubbing her hooves with anticipation, began to rummage through her good friends chest, looking for her objective.

“Colon? No.” She said with glee, her hooves glistening with thick red blood. “Spleen? No. Liver? No.” She almost sang, ripping out organs with a sharp tug and hurling them behind her, each one squelching as they hit the wall, blood slithering down behind them in a gristly trail. “Aha!” cried Rarity happily as she found what she was looking for. “Just need to move these!” she smiled as she ripped a few ribs away from Rainbowdash’s open ribcage, snapping hideously. She reached her hoof in further, pushing her whole leg inside, before she felt what she was searching for.

Rainbowdash’s heart.

‘Thump. Thump. Thump.’ it sang, sending vibrations up Rarity’s leg with every slowing beat.

“Turns out you DO have a heart, Rainbow!” Rarity leaned closer to the Pegasus’ face, their noses touching. “But a traitor like you doesn’t need one, do you?”

Rainbowdash couldn’t hear what Rarity was saying anymore. She could just make out a blurred, black blob towering over her, mumbling. She felt her eyes closing. She didn’t feel sore anymore. Just tired. So very tired...

Smiling, Rarity grasped Rainbowdash’s still beating heart in her hoof, gripping it tightly. Then, she gave it a humungous tug, straining with all her effort. The heart was ripped free from Rainbowdash’s body, rewarding Rarity with a fresh splash of warm blood across her face. The last thing Rainbowdash felt before she passed away was the feeling of her heart being ripped out of her chest, and then her eyes rolled back into her head...

...and she was gone.

The heart continued to beat slowly in Rarity’s hoof, blood pumping in great gushes from the various veins and arteries, before it finally stopped beating for good.

Rarity threw the heart to the ground and stared triumphantly at her dead friend below her, blood pooling over the shiny marble floor.

‘Good job, Rarity!’ the inner voice whispered to her. ‘Good job!’

Rarity heard another moan behind her as Fluttershy managed to rise up on unsteady hooves, blood dribbling down her shoulder. She shook her head a few times, trying to shake away the dizziness, before she caught sight of the blood-splattered Rarity standing beside Rainbowdash’s mutilated corpse. With a gasp, she stumbled over to her fellow Pegasus, pushing the grinning Rarity aside and collapsing in the ever growing pool of slippery blood.

“Rainbowdash!” Fluttershy gasped, shaking the corpse of her dead friend. “Rainbowdash! Wake... wake up!” Tears rolled down her rosy cheeks as she turned to Rarity, still cradling Rainbowdash’s lifeless body and sobbed,

“Rarity! You... you killed her!”

Rarity didn’t reply. She just gave Fluttershy a cold, steely gaze with merciless, lifeless eyes, blood running down the bridge of her nose and plopping onto the ground below.

Fluttershy let her tears run freely, mixing with the blood seeping from her wound. In between sobs, she managed to rise to her hooves and choke out,

“I have to...I have to get h-help. I need to t-tell somepony.” With that, she hastily turned for the door.

And she found Rarity blocking the entrance, standing directly in front of her, hooves crossed, still clutching the bloody murder weapon. “No, Fluttershy,” she said, solemnly. “Nopony must know.”

“Rarity, I-I have to tell somepony.” Fluttershy stuttered. “Rainbowd-dash is d-dead!”

Rarity, still standing in front of the door, took one slow step forward, then another, leaving a trail of bloody hoof-prints on the floor. “Nopony must know,” she repeated calmly, soothingly. She narrowed her eyes and flicked back her tattered, blood soaked mane. “Nopony.”

Fluttershy took one cautious step back, then another, backing slowly into the corner from an advancing Rarity.

‘She’s dangerous,’ thought Fluttershy. ‘She’s a killer.’

‘She killed Rainbowdash.’

“Rarity,” soothed Fluttershy, still backing away. “You’re just sick. I-I can help you. We all can.” She felt fresh tears running down her cheeks. “Please, I have t-to get help...”

Surprisingly, Rarity laughed; a delicate, womanly laugh. “Oh Fluttershy,” she giggled. “Do you know how PATHETIC you look right now? Oh, how the tables have turned.” She stopped laughing suddenly, advancing another step, forcing Fluttershy back further. “It’s not me that needs help, dear. After all, I’m perfect. No, Fluttershy. The one who needs help...”

Fluttershy backed against the wall and could go no further, cowering as Rarity loomed over her, whimpering softly.

“...Is you.”

With that, Rarity leapt out at Fluttershy, scissors raised and pointed downward, ready to come crashing into the top of the cowering pony’s head. At the last moment, Fluttershy managed to slip under Rarity’s back legs with a squeal as the blade sailed into the wall she was formerly cowering against, and bolt toward the door. Rarity swore as she tried to pull the pair of scissors free from the wall in which it was lodged, but to no avail. With an angry grunt, Rarity whipped her malevolent head around to see Fluttershy scrambling toward the door. Almost tripping over her own hooves, Fluttershy desperately stumbled toward the door in a final bid to escape, tears blinding her vision. She was so close now; she could almost reach out to the handle and touch it.

Just a little further... so close...

She never saw the mannequin coming.  The hunk of hard, cold, pony-shaped plastic smashed into her back with a bone shattering force, a loud crack from Fluttershy’s back proof that the object had caused severe internal damage and crushed the mare’s spine. With a pained yelp not unlike a wounded wild animal, Fluttershy collapsed to the floor mid gallop, sliding across the bloodied boutique floor on her stomach, coming to a halt mere inches from the door. Pain rang through her whole body as she shook her head and tried to stand on all fours, but to no avail. The pain soaring though her spine was unbearable, unlike anything one could ever imagine- pure agonising torture. She tried again to stand, sobbing heavily in pain, almost like a newborn animal trying to walk for the very first time. No luck. She fell to the floor, defeated. Her vision still blurred with tears, she cast a glance up to Rarity, who was standing directly in front of her, towering above like a murderous god, her face a blank canvas of nothing. No emotion whatsoever. The mannequin, the one Rarity had just used to hit her with (as was evident by the dent in the side of its plastic form) was hovering beside her, wrapped in a magical blue aura emanating from the unicorn’s horn, almost as though it had taken on a life of its own.

Fluttershy reached out a bloodied hoof to her friend. “Please,” she coughed, teary eyed, her voice wavering. “P-please, Rarity. Let me h-help you.”

The only reply she received was that in the form of the mannequin hurtling downward at an incredible speed, smashing into the top of her head. A sound akin to an egg being cracked over the edge of a bowl echoed through the bedroom as Fluttershy felt the top of her skull caving in under the immense power of the blow. She barely had time to recover before Rarity magically swung the mannequin like a club again, catching Fluttershy on the side of the jaw. The blow connected with a sickening snap as Fluttershy’s jawbone was torn messily from the rest of her skull, hanging on by a few tattered and bloodied threads of yellow fur and muscle. Broken teeth littered the gore-stained floor beneath Fluttershy as her tongue flopped around uselessly in what was left of her mouth, blackened blood running off of the tip like a twisted waterfall. Eyes rolling furiously in their sockets, the yellow Pegasus managed to find the strength to lift her battered and bloodied head toward her assailant.

“Urrgh...” she mumbled incoherently, tongue hanging uselessly. “Urrgh...”

Rarity smiled down at her dying ‘friend’. She was really suffering, and that pleased Rarity greatly. Rarity didn’t want her to die painlessly. She demanded fear, terror, respect before Fluttershy passed.

‘They had their chances,’ the voice cackled. Rarity’s laugh, distorted. ‘They made you a laughing stock. They used you for their own personal gain. Now they will pay...’

‘...With their lives.’

The unicorn levitated the mannequin closer to her face. The heavy club-like weapon was in pretty bad shape after that last blow: the head was hanging loosely to the side, one of the front hooves had broken off, and many deep cracks adorned the once smooth plastic body. With a sigh, Rarity levitated the plastic pony a few meters back from the wall, just near the window. Then, she threw it toward the wall with an incredible force, connecting with the hard wall and smashing the plastic to pieces. Shards of cream plastic showered the room in an explosion, raining down on Fluttershy’s barely conscious body. Rarity thought for a moment on how much her friends really had changed over the last few days; after all, there was once a time when her nature-loving friend would have reacted to such a sudden, loud bang with genuine fear and shock, but now she barely noticed at all. Very strange indeed.

Oh well, no matter. Rarity walked over amongst the plastic junk and moulded wreckage, searching through the pile of plastic body parts with eager eyes. After a few moments of searching, she found it: the thick metal pole upon which the mannequin sat. With a ‘squee’ of excitement, Rarity levitated the pole out of the debris, loose pieces of broken plastic sliding off the slippery metal, and hovered the flat base a good few meters above what now passed as Fluttershy’s head. Had Fluttershy still been able to think for herself, were she not by this stage already brain-dead, she would have been terrified by her imminent doom, perhaps futilely begging Rarity to stop and actually take a look at what she was doing. That this wasn’t actually her doing this,that this wasn’t what she really wanted. But Fluttershy was already gone; her mind reduced to the mental ability of a vegetable, just battered mush inside her fractured skull. Fluttershy was no more; no longer that sweet, caring, shy, kind, nature loving Pegasus she once was. She was just a husk: a braindead body, a cheap imitation. Still, Rarity wanted ‘it’ well and truly dead.

Corrupted by the ever whispering voices that only existed inside her mind, Rarity raised the flat circular surface of the metal pole higher and higher, directly above Fluttershy’s head where the first blow had left a bloody dent in her skull. Fluttershy looked up at Rarity, a flicker of fear in her eyes, almost as though she understood what was about to happen.

The magical aura faded, and the metal pole came crashing down, base first, onto the yellow mare’s head. It connected with a deafening crack, like a tennis ball hitting a coconut at the fair, and Fluttershy’s head exploded like a ripe watermelon, splattering the area with thick, red blood: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the door and even the ever smiling Rarity. Globs of brain matter slithered across the floor, oozing from Fluttershy’s shattered cranium. Pieces of red, muscle covered skull burst through the air upon impact like shards of shrapnel. Her eyeballs burst from their sockets, squirting great gushes of a strange white-ish pink substance, one eye landing directly in Rarity’s purple mane. Fishing through her mane and picking bits of bone marrow from her hair, Rarity pulled the severed eyeball from her mane and popped the puss oozing sphere directly into her open mouth. There was no real reason why she did this, really. She didn’t even think. She just did. The eyeball tasted a little weird, like a rotten egg. It had the same properties as a mouldy old tomato: shrivelled, sour and very, very mushy. Rarity spat it out post-haste, directly into her hoof. There was no need to keep such nasties in her mouth. After all, she had standards, but at least she could say she had tried eyeball. The way she looked at it, it was a learning experience.

Probably the only thing Fluttershy had done for her, anyway.

Rarity laughed manically, her teeth coated with blood. “Are you eyeballing me, Fluttershy?” she cackled as she hurled the eye to the ground. It rolled across the bloody marble, coming to a rest against Fluttershy’s battered corpse, one wing twitching softly.

Rarity took a step back and surveyed her gristly work. Her art. It was... quite beautiful, actually. And rather poetic, she thought. Now she knew her so called ‘friends’ inside and out. And yet there was a part of her, a part tucked away in the back of her consciousness that was screaming out in terror. A part of her that was still RARITY. A part that didn’t want to do this to her friends, KILL HER FRIENDS, but she had lost all control, as though the voices in her mind had possessed her and guided her actions. A part of Rarity...

...was scared of herself.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Rarity’s head swivelled around to the source of the sound. Ears pricked up, she pressed up against the bedroom door and listened intently. She could hear more knocking from downstairs, now joined by voices.

Her friend’s voices.

“Rarity!” she heard Twilight call from downstairs. “Rarity, are you in here? We have some great new ideas for the dresses!”

“Scrap the ol’ designs, Rarity!” Applejack chirped in, the sound of hooves climbing the stairs growing louder and louder.

“We want em’ exactly ta’ these specifications, okay?”

“Oh, and more balloons on mine!” Pinkie Pie cheered from directly behind the bedroom door. “And candy! AND STREAMERS!”

More knocking, this time on the bedroom door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

‘No!’ Rarity’s inner voice was calling out. ‘Get away from here while you can!’

‘SILENCE,’ the demonic Rarity voice replied, rasping. ‘You are weak, Rarity. I have to take matters into my own hooves. ALL of them must pay.’

‘Don’t make me hurt you too.’

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Hey, Rarity? Y’all in there?”

“Come in!” the seamstress called out to her friends in her singsong voice.

The door swung open, the three ponies looking very excited indeed.

And what they saw made their smiles fade.

They had walked right into the scene of a double murder. Two dead bodies lay before them: Rainbowdash and Fluttershy.

Both corpses were severely mutilated: Rainbowdash had several wounds in her neck, and she had been cut open, straight down the middle. Many of her vital organs had been ripped from her body, littering the boutique floor. Blood pooled from around the body, pouring from her neck and open chest. Fluttershy lay dead mere inches from the door. Blood ran from her smashed in head and past the horrified onlookers, dribbling down the stairs. Bits of bone and pink mane stuck to the blood soaked walls, held in place with fresh, sticky brain pieces and shreds of muscle. Rarity stood in the middle of her room, standing directly in front her ‘work.’ She was covered from head to hoof in blood, matting to her snow white coat. It was plastered all over her hooves, in her mane and even in between her teeth. She grinned murderously, staring up each of her friends hungrily as though they were a three course meal.

The three mares in the room stood motionless like living statues, mouths agape, eyes wide open, staring silently. Nopony spoke. Nopony moved. Nopony even blinked.

Pinkie broke the silence with an ear piercing scream. She threw herself to the ground, beside Fluttershy’s dead body.

“THEY’RE DEAD!” She cried loudly. “THEY’RE BOTH DEAD!”

Twilight felt the colour fading from her face. She felt weak at the knees, barely able to stand on all fours. The unicorn tried to speak but found she had lost her voice, staring silently in disbelief at the bawling Pinkie, cradling Fluttershy’s corpse. The pink party pony lifted her hooves away. They were dripping in warm, sticky blood. Her screams ripped through the air like a knife through soft flesh, scream after scream after scream.

“Wha... ha...” Twilight mumbled, almost weak enough to faint. “Wh...”

“What happened? What have ya’ DONE?” Applejack managed to choke out, her face as white as Rarity’s coat (which was now more of a dark red.) “Ya’ll... Ya’ll KILLED EM’!” This provoked another blood curdling scream from Pinkie who sat staring at her gory hooves, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Well, they had it coming,” Rarity sneered. “You all have it coming! What do you think I am? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TRYING TO FOOL, YOU USERS?” She turned to Pinkie, who was still crying out for help. “SHUT UP, PINKIE!” She screamed. “JUST SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”

Twilight knew at once that wasn’t Rarity talking. Her voice, it sounded... wrong. Distorted.

Evil.

‘Rarity has killed them,’ the librarian told herself, again and again, over and over. ‘She killed Rainbowdash. And Fluttershy. She just... murdered them. In cold blood. Two of my best friends in all of Equestria...’

‘Dead.’

“Rarity,” Applejack bravely took one step forward, then another, pushing past the sobbing Pinkie toward Rarity. “Rarity” she said again, her voice wobbling as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She managed to swallow some vomit whilst walking past the corpses of her recently deceased friends, trying not to look directly at the bodies. Instead, she looked straight ahead, directly into Rarity’s eyes. They were just as lifeless. “W-we can get you help, Rarity. Come with us.” She gently placed a hoof on the psychotic pony’s shoulder. “Come with us, Rarity. We... we can...”

She didn’t feel herself levitating at first. It was only when she was about four or five centimetres off of the ground before she realised what was happening. She realised too late.

“No, Rarity! Wait...”

A smile crept across Rarity’s face as she levitated Applejack closer to her face, her dead eyes scanning her cowpony friend with glee. “Oh, I need help, do I? I’m the one with problems?”

Applejack attempted to twist her body free from Rarity’s spell. “Twi’,” she begged, turning to face her unicorn friend, who was still in too much shock to respond. “Help me!”

“No!” growled Rarity, menacingly, snapping Applejack’s head back, forcing her gaze back into her eyes. She levitated the earth pony closer, so that their noses were touching. “As I told the late Fluttershy, I don’t need help. I’m PERFECT. The one who needs help...”

“...Is you.”

Applejack didn’t recall what happened next. She suddenly found herself hurtling through the air at great speed, tumbling head over hooves across the length of the boutique. Everything was flashing by so quick that she didn’t have time to even think, let alone see the mirror. Had she seen the mirror, though, she would have been able to glimpse her terrified features screaming back at her.

She hit the boutique mirror like a freight train, head first, smashing the glass with a terrible crack. Applejack screamed out in pain as shards of sharp glass stabbed into everywhere in her body, like a thousand pins jabbing into a pin cushion. One particularly large shard managed to make its way through Applejack’s left eye, ramming through the eyeball with tremendous force. The cowpony yelled out in pure agony as it drove deeper and deeper into her pupil, blood spraying in all directions. Other shards sliced across her flank, opening deep gashes and tearing skin from her body in great bloody lumps, trails of the red liquid running down her orange fur. She fell with a thump to the ground, not moving, lying amongst the pieces of broken glass. Her tattered cowpony hat fluttered to the ground after her.

Pinkie was still screaming at the top of her lungs. Rarity made a mental note to rip those out of her chest later. But for now, she was having too much fun with Applejack. “Breaking a mirror, Applejack?” she called out malevolently to her motionless friend. “Well, your 7 years bad luck starts right now!” Using her magic, she wrapped her aura around the metal pole which was lying at her hooves, right beside Fluttershy’s corpse. The seamstress spun the heavy pole around 180 degrees in the air, so that the base was facing her, pipe end aimed toward Applejack. Rarity licked her blood splattered lips. When Applejack rose, dazed, Rarity would thrust the pipe forward with her powerful magic, spearing the cowpony through the stomach. It would be beautiful, a little like threading a piece of string through the eye of a needle, except with more lashings of gore.  At least, that was the plan.

But not all plans work out.

She saw Applejack stumble to her hooves, battered and bruised, wobbling from side to side amongst the sharp glass. Rarity could hear the glass crunching under the weight of her body as Applejack stumbled around, new cuts opening on the soles of her hooves with every step she took. Of course, Applejack was too stunned to notice. Rarity was just about to throw the pole like a javelin when she heard a scream of “No!” behind her. Rarity felt her control of the pole being wrestled away from her, another magic source interfering and forcing the pipe downwards. Fuelled with rage, the seething seamstress turned to find Twilight standing behind her, her head lowered and horn glowing with purple magic, her face determined.

“Rarity,” she cried, looking through her fringe. “You don’t have to do this. Snap out of it! We’re your friends!” Twilight was obviously straining with effort just to keep the pole from crashing forward, into Applejack’s spine. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, yet Rarity didn’t seem to be straining at all. She just looked angry to be interrupted in such a manner.

Very angry.

‘How can this be?’ she thought, still fighting for control of the pole. ‘Rarity could never match my magical skill, yet she doesn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat.’ Twilight looked pleadingly into Rarity’s bright blue eyes, bright blue yet devoid of any colour. Her face showed no emotion, no mercy, just cold, hard determination. “Please,” The librarian desperately pleaded with her friend. “Don’t do this, Rarity. Put the pole down.” Rarity sneered, managing to swivel the pipe around mid air, so that it was facing Twilight instead. Honestly, how was she supposed to get anything done with all these interruptions?

Both unicorns were locked in a battle of willpower, the pole wrapped in both blue and purple magic, thrusting back and forward toward each pony like a game of tug-of-war. Except in this case, the loser would die, a thick metal pole through the chest their only reward. Twilight kept trying to push the pipe forward, toward Rarity, but it was a battle she was losing. Twilight realised that although she was pushing the pole away in self defence, it would kill Rarity should Twilight triumph. The flat of the stand would splatter her brains all over the walls. Could she really be responsible for the death of one of her friends? Could she bring herself to KILL Rarity? Twilight didn’t really see any other choice. It was either Rarity or her. She tried one last time to talk Rarity out of it before anypony else got hurt. “This doesn’t have to end this way, Rarity. Let us help you! Just drop the pole.” She felt tired, exhausted, and her magic was faltering. However, Rarity seemed completely unchanged, still as concentrated as ever. How could Rarity, a seamstress, keep up such a tiring spell for longer than herself, a student of magic? Twilight felt a single tear form in the corner of her eye. “Nopony else has to die.”

To her surprise, Twilight felt less and less resistance pushing toward her, Rarity’s power depleting, diminishing. Her grip on the pole was starting to fail, the light blue aura blinking as she grew weaker and weaker.

'Thank Celestia!' thought an exhausted Twilight Sparkle. 'Thank Celestia. She’s going to listen to reason.'

Rarity allowed to pole to drop to the floor with a clang, Twilight also releasing her magical grip on the metal bar. “You’re right. You’re right, Twilight. Whatever was I thinking? I killed Rainbowdash. And Fluttershy. Both of them. And I’ve badly injured Applejack. What was I thinking?” The white unicorn turned her gaze to the ground. Her voice still sounded gravelly, rough, but she seemed sincere. Twilight could have sworn that she saw a teardrop fall to the floor.

“It’s okay,” soothed Twilight. “It’s okay, Rarity. It wasn’t you. You weren’t yourself. We- we need to get help.” She took one cautious step toward her snivelling unicorn friend, then another. “Come on. Come with me. We can get you help. Nopony else needs to die.”

Suddenly, Rarity started to laugh. It wasn’t the dainty, delicate laugh that she usually had. This was more like a cackle, the laugh of an evil old crone. Slowly, she raised her head from looking at the ground, meeting Twilight eye to eye. “One thing you should have learned about me now, dearest Twilight...” she growled, as Twilight reeled back in horror.

“...It is that I am a very convincing actress.”

Twilight barely had time to register those words before the metal pole shot off of the floor and through her mouth. She just caught a glimpse of a blur of metal hurtling toward her, then an excruciating pain in her throat. The pole sent the mare flying across the length of the room, the pipe end ramming through her open mouth in a shower of hot blood, slicing her tongue straight out before bursting out the back of her head like a javelin. She hit the back wall with an almighty thump, the pole sticking into the back wall. Twilight’s eyes opened wide with shock as she realised what had happened, but it was too late to do anything now. She let out a mumbled, pained scream, thick fountains of blood poured out of her open mouth and dribbled over the pole, now slick with gore. Her limbs adopted minds of their own, flailing wildly in a futile bid to escape. Pinned to the wall, hovering about a meter from the ground and a pole rammed through her mouth, Twilight was doing a very good impersonation of a pony kebab. Or a sausage impaled on a stick. More blood splashed over the ground as Twilight’s limbs began to fall to her sides, her muffled whimpers dying out. Twilight was dying a very, very painful death. She saw Rarity grin and give her a wave goodbye, and then the light faded from her eyes. The faithful student’s head fell forward, nose resting against the dripping pipe that ran through her mouth, her eyes still open wide in terror, blood seeping out of her nose and mouth like a river.

Rarity sighed contently. Now that that little interference had been permanently dealt with, she could turn her attention back to Applejack. Pinkie was still cradling the dead Fluttershy, wailing at the top of her whiney little annoying voice. Rarity snapped her head around. “I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!” she bellowed to the shivering, terrified earth pony. This only provoked more crying from the pink mare. Enraged, Rarity grabbed the crying pony with both her front hooves, pressing her face right into Pinkie’s. Her pink cheeks were slick with tears, her pink hooves slick with blood. Rarity smiled. She was really enjoying all this fear. “Are you going to shut up, Pinkie?” she asked calmly. “Or will I have to find some way of keeping your mouth shut...”

The shard of glass buried itself deep into Rarity’s shoulder before she had finished her sentence. Rarity looked in shock first at the wound which had opened in her shoulder, blood beginning to ooze from the cut, then to the hoof holding the piece of glass. It was orange, with various cuts and trails of blood decorating the fur. Slowly, she turned behind her, and one green eye locked onto hers with determination and vengeance. The other eye was closed shut, caked blood sealing the lids. Applejack’s shredded leather hat sat atop her bloodsoaked blonde mane, a trail of blood running down her scarred forehead. Bits of jagged, broken glass still stuck out of various places in her body, but she didn’t seem to notice.

The orange cowpony yanked the shard free from Rarity’s shoulder blade and took a limp backwards. “I’m sorry ah have to do this, Rarity. Truly, ah am. You’re in there somewhere, but ah jus’ can’t let ya’ll hurt nopony else...”

She drew back the blade back and spat out a tooth. “Ah’m sorry!” She threw herself forward, sharp shard of glass poised and ready to strike. Rarity watched and waited, almost as though she saw the whole scene in slow motion. Just as Applejack was about to strike, just as Rarity could feel the point of the glass touching her forehead, she fired. The powerful magic blast caught Applejack mid-air, hitting her square in the stomach. The cowpony was hurled backwards by the force of the spell, blue lightning spiralling out of the tip of Rarity’s horn. The blast blew a massive hole in the earth pony’s already battered stomach, smoke sizzling from the areas of scorched flesh around the impact zone. Rarity could see Applejack’s organs spiral out of the gaping hole in her chest as she soared through the air, her intestines spinning and spraying blood across the length of the room like a Catherine wheel. Applejack hit the back wall of the boutique with a wet slap, face first. Her neck snapped instantly, breaking back at an odd angle, teeth shattering upon impact and littering the floor, bloodied pearls in a sea of red tides. The sound of her spine snapping in two was obvious, and her body twisted unnaturally like she had no bones in her body. One of her back hooves snapped forward, bone bursting through flesh, ripping through fur and muscle. She slid down the wall, leaving a bloody trail in her wake, and didn’t move.

Pinkie watched in bewilderment, almost transfixed by the bellowing smoke wafting from Applejack’s lifeless corpse, which was twitching every so often as blood began to seep outwards in a puddle.

And then she screamed. And screamed. And screamed. “Help!” she wailed. “Please! Somepony! Anypony! Help me!”

Her calls were answered with a hoof in the mouth. The punch took her by surprise, pulverising her teeth in a mist of red. Rarity looked down at the cowering pony with evil intent. She slammed her hoof down on the oak workbench in rage. “FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”she bellowed; fume metaphorically steaming out of her ears. The dressmaker snatched Pinkie by her unkempt mane and dragged her, kicking and screaming, over to the workbench. With a sweep of her hoof, she sent all of the clutter lying around on the bench sailing across the marble floor with various thumps and clangs. Then, she smashed Pinkie’s forehead down on the workbench, forcing her head down with her hoof like a criminal on an executioner’s chopping block. Seething, she lowered her face, right beside the sobbing Pinkie. She gave the pink pony another slap across the face, forcing her to look back up. Blood tricked from her toothless gums as she pleaded, “P-please, Rarity. D-don’t hurt m-me.”

“I told you to shut up, Pinkie. Now, what can I do to keep your pretty little mouth shut, hmmm?” Rarity beamed psychotically. Pinkie was silently crying, begging her ex-friend to let her go. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered, her head still forced down onto the table. “Please, Rarity... just let me g-go.” This only resulted in Rarity pulling her head back by her mussed up mane and slamming her face back down upon the hard wooden workbench. Pinkie screamed out in pain as she heard and felt her nose break on impact, her snout crumpling in on itself like a tin can.

Rarity tore open her sewing box with her spare hoof, the other keeping a firm grip around Pinkie’s mane. She searched through the box, merciless eyes scanning the contents within. “No, no,” she sang, pulling out random clutter and hurling it behind her without even a second glance. “No, no, no. Good heavens, I really MUST be more organised.” She turned to Pinkie. “Isn’t it funny, Pinkie, that you never notice all of this clutter build up? How you slowly just let it all build up, push all of it into a little box somewhere, you know, out of sight, and it just builds up and builds up? Do you know what happens? You end up surrounded by filth, Pinkie. By garbage. You associate yourself with garbage. Grow accustomed to it. And it just takes one day to realise it is all junk, and must be thrown away. Cleansed, as it were.” She stared right into Pinkie’s tear stained, bloodshot eyes. “That’s all I’m doing here, Pinkie. Just getting rid of all the garbage I’ve had to be around for so long.” She smiled and turned back to the drawer. “Ah, here it is!” the unicorn sang as she produced a sewing needle from the now empty drawer. A thin piece of Pink thread dangled through the eye of the needle. “Perfect!” she squealed. “Pinkie Pie, look... PINK! Your favourite! Oh, this will suit you so well!”

Pinkie understood was about to happen. “No!” the pink mare sobbed, not at all like the party pony she used to be. “P-please! NO!” she desperately squirmed and struggled to break free from Rarity’s grip, but to no avail. Slowly, the white unicorn levitated the needle closer and closer to Pinkie’s mouth. Her hoof still holding Pinkie firmly in place, Rarity leaned in closer to the panicked earth pony. She gave Pinkie a wink, revelling in the horrified expression of pure terror she received in return.

“Rarity!”

“Let’s keep this mouth closed, shall we?” Laughed Rarity as she jammed the rusty old needle upwards through Pinkie’s bottom lip, bursting up through her bloodied gums and then out the other side. Pinkie let out a tortured scream as the needle swivelled around mid air, pointing downwards, before it thrust back down through her top lip, the pink thread sewing a portion of her mouth shut. Rarity hummed as she worked, accompanied by the melody of Pinkie Pie’s screams. It wasn’t really a tune as such, but Rarity appreciated a little music whilst she worked. Pinkie, on the other hand, was squirming and writhing in pain, her legs slipping and sliding all over the marble floor as she tried to break free of her captor’s grasp. She was having no such luck. With every stroke of the needle that Rarity took, with every stitch, Pinkie’s cries of agony and futile pleas for help were growing fainter and fainter, now replaced with muffled mumbles as her mouth slowly closed up. Very soon, her entire mouth had been sewn shut completely. Pinkie made an attempt to talk, but only succeeded in giving Rarity an incoherent grumble. Rarity took another look at her work. She had done a good job, as always. A very good job, in fact: Pinkie, the most talkative pony in all of Equestria, was now as quiet as a mouse!

Still though, she could be quieter...

Rarity, still holding Pinkie’s head down, rummaged through her sewing box once more. Oh, there were just so many materials to choose from, all of various colours and thicknesses and lengths. However could she pick? There were blues, and yellows, and purples and oranges and pinks. Pinkie deserved something special, though. Something she rarely used... perfect! Rarity pulled the fibre wire like material from her box of wonders, a content smile evident. It was a material she didn’t use all that often in her dresses: thick, strong and white in colour, it would do the job nicely. Rarity wrapped her left hoof around the wire tightly, then proceeded to do the same with her other hoof. Pinkie was too terrified to move at this stage, even though Rarity had released her grip on the back of her head. She still lay slumped with her head resting on the workbench, blood trickling out of the gaps in her sown up mouth. She slowly reached up one bloodied hoof and ran it across the seams, a look of distain and shock evident despite losing her ability to form expressions with her mouth.

“Mmmmgph!” she mumbled, pointing to her sown up snout. “Mmmgahph!”

“Oh, Pinkie,” sighed Rarity wearily, looking down at her struggling friend. “Surely you know Pinkamina, as the element of laughter, how to SMILE, don’t you? Look, it’s easy. Like this!” The unicorn gave Pinkie a huge toothy grin. “See? It’s not that hard!” the unicorn pouted patronisingly, like she were talking to a young child. She walked around to the back of Pinkie, carefully stepping over her wild tail which was swaying wildly, and stopped for a brief moment. “So, smile!” With that, she threw the fibre wire she was still clutching with both hooves over Pinkie’s head, over her bouncy, unkempt mane, and around the pink pony’s neck. Pinkie Pie let out a muffled squeak of surprise as the wire-like material caught her unawares, wrapping around the front of her neck tightly. Rarity cackled loudly, placing her hind leg on Pinkie’s back, and began to tug at the wire like a garrotte, pulling with both hooves, cutting off her air supply. Pinkie fell backwards, her nostrils flaring as she struggled at the wire wound tightly around her windpipe. Her breathing was becoming heavier, more laboured, as was evident by her increasing heartbeat, her heaving chest, and her flaring nostrils. The fact that her mouth had literally been sown shut was certainly not working in the earth pony’s favour, to say the least. Her back legs skidded in place on the marble flooring as her breathing grew fainter and fainter. It did little to aid her in her bid to escape, however, only managing to wrap the wire around her throat and strangle herself further. Short, raspy, laboured wheezes escaped through her smashed nose as her struggling began to die down, her flow of oxygen being cut off. Her face was turning an unhealthy shade of blue, her eyes rolling wildly in her skull. Different coloured dots began to dance around Pinkie’s eyes, which was a good thing because it looked much nicer than the black creeping in around the edges of her vision. There were blues, and yellows and purples and oranges and even... PINK! Pinkie Pie loved pink! The pink dots danced and swayed all over the bedroom, twirling and swirling in the air like little parasprites. Pinkie liked the little circles. They reminded her of streamers. Or balloons. Pinkie loved balloons. Because you got balloons at parties, and, well she loved parties! And then, the colours began to expand. She could see all of her friends faces in the little bubbles. There was Rainbowdash! And Fluttershy! And Twilight and Applejack! All of her friends were there, and they were all okay! Had Pinkie been able to move her mouth, she would have smiled. But right now she felt a little tired. She could always have a party tomorrow.

Rarity looked down at the earth pony. She had stopped struggling, and her eyes were closed tightly. She could hear the faintest breathing. Pinkie wasn’t dead. Just unconscious. She could fix that. Still standing behind her, Rarity yanked the unconscious, barely alive Pinkie up off of the floor by the wire which was still wrapped around her neck. The wire cut into her neck slightly, drawing the smallest amount of blood, which dribbled down her throat and hit the floor with a quiet ‘plop.’

Rarity yanked the wire again. It cut into her throat a little more, widening the small incision she made with the first tug. A few more drops of blood run down her throat in a trail. ‘This is as good a starting point as any.’ thought Rarity cheerfully. With a crack of her hooves, Rarity unravelled the wire from around Pinkie’s neck and placed the makeshift garrotte along the front of her throat. Then, with a quiet laugh of joy, she began to saw the wire into her neck, cutting into the previous wound. The seamstress pulled the wire along the length of her neck, slicing through fur, flesh and gristle. Blood poured down the unconscious pony’s chest as the fibre wire sawed through her windpipe, the organ which had produced so much laughter in the past. Rarity kept her hooves steady during the whole operation, making sure to create the cleanest cut possible. There was no need for scruffyness, after all. Dark red blood tricked everywhere, staining the white wire a ghastly red. Rarity noticed Pinkie’s head teeter slightly, signifying she had reached the halfway point. She had so nearly finished. Just one more big tug ought to do it...

Rarity ravelled both sides of the wire around her hooves and yanked it back as hard as she could. Pinkie’s head gave way with a snap, falling backwards off of the pony’s neck. The severed head hit the ground with a sickening squelch, rolling a little distance before stopping, face down. Blood erupted from the beheaded corpse’s neck hole like a volcano, splashing against the ceiling and the walls in a shower of viscera. The headless body, still spraying blood all over the room, managed to stumble around blindly, limbs stretching out at odd angles, unable to process what in the world had happened. It finally fell to the ground with a thump, landing on top of the equally headless Fluttershy. Fountains of gore pulsed from the bloody stump that Pinkie’s head used to rest on, spraying all over the floor and halfway up the wall. Then, all was quiet.

Rarity surveyed the bedroom. Blood was everywhere, seeping out of the mutilated bodies of five very dead ponies.

‘Good work, Rarity. Good work.’

Rarity smiled at the praise. Of course she did a good job. She IS perfect, after all! She swished back her blood-soaked mane and stared down at the rather dead Rainbowdash. Guts were strewn over her bloody face, shreds of skin hanging loosely from her open chest.  Rarity studied her daredevil friend with a look of curiosity. In her new, let us say, ‘attire’, Rainbowdash gave Rarity an idea.

“Idea!” The seamstress called in a sing-song voice. She staggered out of the bedroom, almost slipping on a river of Flutterhy’s blood which dribbled down the winding staircase. She made a mental note to clean up the mess later: somepony could fall and break their neck!

The formally white unicorn burst through the door to her spic and span kitchen, psychotically giggling. Almost pulling a nearby drawer completely  from the worktop, she grabbed the first knife she saw with eager hooves. It was a steel kitchen knife, long and deadly. Yes. Yes, this would be perfect.

With another giggle, Rarity turned and bolted back up the stairs to her bedroom, waving the knife in anticipation.

She shut the door tightly behind her.

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

The consistent, gentle ticking of a clock was the only sound emanating from Rarity’s bedroom. Seconds later, the silence was broken by the loud mechanical juttering of a sewing machine, bursting into life. Rarity leaned over the red contraption, carefully feeding a long piece of bloodstained purple flesh through the needle, and humming manically to herself as she did so. The noise of the rusty old machine was one she not only had grown accustomed to, but also found strangely relaxing and soothing:  she found it strange that such new, beautiful works of art could be created via something so old and outdated. She glanced over at the ever ticking clock, sitting at an odd angle on the redish- purple walls. It had been a few hours since her friends had ‘left’ her, and already it was very late at night.

Oh well. Sleep be darned. Rarity had learnt over the last few days that she didn’t need sleep.

Sleep was for the weak.

And besides, she had art to create. She could sleep when she finished.

But not now. Now was work time.

“I’m sewing them together,” The blood-drenched unicorn sang quietly to herself, almost drowned out by the melodic

‘Thump! Thump!’ of the sewing machine. She levitated a hastily drawn sketch off of the notice board. It was the design of her old dress for the gala, with some new features added in; drawn using long trails of blood. “I’m sewing them together...” she giggled quietly, a manic giggle.

“I’m sewing them together,” she once had, undeniably, a beautiful singing voice, much like her younger sister Sweetie Belle (even if she denied it on a regular basis.) However, it now sounded... wrong. Distorted.

Evil.

Rarity reached down and picked up a strip of bloody yellow fur, before ramming it through the needle as well. She was hoping to create one truly dazzling gown from each of her friends, so that they could all go to the gala with her! So far, she was pleased with her progress.

“Hmmm,” she hummed cheerily. “I’m sewing them together...”

Rarity adjusted her glasses, pushing the red frame up to the bridge of her nose. She rose from the machine, levitating the skin and laying it carefully down on the bloodstained workbench beside the sketch of her new and improved gala gown.

“Excellent!” The garment was taking shape wonderfully! All she had to do now was stitch on a wing...

And don’t forget the headpiece...

...Viola! Simply outstanding!

Rarity complimented herself on another job well done. She took great pride in her work, and always felt a sense of fulfilment after every piece of attire she created.

She glanced back over at the clock. Although its face was covered in thick, red blood, much like everything else in the room, she could just about make out the time. Levitating the completed dress from the tabletop, Rarity casually strolled over to a small red curtain which ran across the left hand corner of the room. After all, her friends were still in the room, and she would rather they didn’t watch her getting changed.

She turned to the pile of corpses in the centre of the room. All of the bodies had been skinned of any flesh, now only bare, pink muscle underneath. Both Fluttershy and Rainbowdash had their wings hacked off of their bodies, random tangents of bone protruding from their shredded backs. Blood was splattered all over the area where the corpses lay, and a long trail of viscera led to a bloody kitchen knife, lying not far from the macabre scene.

“No peeking!” Rarity called back to her friends in a joyful, playful tone. She pulled both of the changing curtains shut.

After a few minutes, the unicorn re-emerged, sporting her fabulous new dress for the Grand Galloping Gala.  She excitedly trotted over to a cracked boutique mirror, daintily stepping over the remains of her friends.

“ Oh, Rarity, you have REALLY outshone yourself this time!” the seamstress squealed in delight, studying her own blood-drenched reflection. Every one of her friends looked back at her.

The dress was made up of blue, yellow, purple, orange and pink pony flesh, all sewn together into a garment. A cutie mark, one of a purple star, was stitched into the left side of the dress’s long, flowing trail. On the other side, a trio of red apples had been sewn into the pattern. Further up the dress, a bloodied, yellow wing had been stitched onto the skin, flopping uselessly as Rarity admired herself in the mirror. Pinkie’s severed head jiggled to and fro on the other side, attached to the gown by various organs. Her mouth was still sown shut, but Rarity had taken the liberty of scooping out her eyes and brain, and ramming a lit candle inside her recently emptied cranium, giving one the impression of a twisted jack-o-lantern. It was a wonderful effect, light shining out of both of her empty eye sockets, and would defiantly make her stand out from the crowd! A beautiful necklace hung around Rarity’s neck, fashioned out Rainbowdash’s intestines, and atop her head sat a tattered cowpony hat, a purple unicorn horn crudely ripped through a hole in the leather.

Rarity took another step back and praised her work. It was certainly unique! One of a kind! No other dress like this out there!

It was sure to impress the fashion icons, too. Her name would go up in lights!

And how could the handsome Prince Blueblood resist her in THIS?

Rarity rubbed her blood-slick hooves together in anticipation as she found herself wandering off in a wonderful, vivid daydream.

She suddenly couldn’t wait to attend the gala.

After all...

... She truly was going to be the fairest of them all.