The Story

Cold, that was all that it could feel, for the most part everything was blank, it remembered being on its ship, it remembered hitting something, and trying to regain control, then crashing. It looked over at its ship, but all that was there were chunks of metal and fire. There was no way it could fix the ship, all it could do was wait, at some point they were going to send help, right.

It started to move its way across the snow, looking for some way to go home, but there was none, only more snow. It had no idea how long it wandered before it fell into a hole, and it had no idea if others would come back for it. Then it realized something, it could build a new ship if none of them came for it. Not in its current state, it would need help, and there was no sign of life, but in time there could be. And it could wait, it might take day, months, years, maybe even centuries, but it could wait, all it needed to do was sleep.

As it slept it was unaware that the ground raised up and covered it, or that trees grew around it, or of the many changes in the land. But it was right, as life did come, at first it was nothing but a few animals, but then a family of ponies came, they built a house, and overtime a town was set up nearby. And on a very snowy day, much like the one that happened when it crashed, it woke up.

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“So how long is this storm going to last?” A southern orange mare by the name of Applejack asked.

“It will be about a couple of days, and it’s not going to get any lighter before then.” Her friend, the ever prideful Rainbow Dash replied.

The two mares were not alone, there were eight other mare with them, four of them were their closest friends, and the other four were just a group of mares who happened to find themselves outside when the storm happened, and couldn’t find their way back home without running the risk of freezing to death. The storm in question was caused because of the local weather team missing several snow days, and the best way to fix the problem was to have one really big storm. Said storm would have put the town in a lockdown mode, with all businesses shutting down and ponies being told to stay inside until the storm lightens up. The six friends decided to have a sleepover at Sweet Apple Acres until the storm ended as they had nothing else to do until it was over, and at first the day had been going according to plan, until they got a knock at the front door.

Upon opening the door, they found four mares outside, the mares in question were Octavia Melody, Lyra Heartstrings, Bon-Bon, and Vinyl Scratch. According to the mares, they had thought that the storm was going to start on the next day, and when they realized their mistake, the storm had gotten so bad that they couldn’t see where they were going and were barely able to find the farm. They asked for a place to stay, and were more than glad to hear that they were allowed to stay until the storm ended. Applejack didn’t want to admit it, but part of the reason she let the mares stay was because her grandmother, brother, and little sister were at Appleloosa, otherwise the house would have been a little bit too crowded for her liking.

“It sure is snowing down hard out there.” Vinyl Scratch said.

“Yeah. What did the ground ever do to pegasi to get them to do this to it?” Lyra asked, most likely jokingly.

“I would tell you.” Rainbow Dash started, and then squinted her eyes, “But then I’d have to kill you. Fluttershy knows what I’m talking about, right Flutters?”

“Um… No-” Fluttershy said, but was cut off by Rainbow.

“Of course she does!”

“Uh… OK.” Fluttershy said.

“Anyways, we just need to do it. It’s part of the job.” Rainbow explained.

“Yeah, well some of us need to work, too!” Bon-Bon argued, walking into the room, “By the way, I made cookies.” The Mare said, as she took out a tray of chocolate chip cookies, and placed the on the table.

“You’ve barely been here for twenty minutes! Where did you find the time to bake those?” Applejack asked.

“That's all the time I needed.” Bon-Bon said, “And Pinkie helped out.”

A bubbly pink mare jumped out from behind Bon-Bon, “Yep!”

Applejack took a bite of one, “These are pretty good.”

The others took bites, and nodded, “Mmmhmm.” They hummed in unison.

As the mare enjoyed their cookies and talked with each other, Applejack’s dog, Winona, sat not to far away. Normally she would be happy to see that there were guests over, but today she was more happy that it was snowing, Winona was a big fan of the snow, she loved to go outside and run around, most of the time Applebloom and her friends would play with her, however just because they weren’t here didn’t mean she could play by herself.

After she watched the ponies talk around for a good minute or two, she got up, walked over to her doggie door, and went outside. Once she went out she started to run around in the snow, sometimes stopping to roll around in it. While she was feeling the cold, it didn’t bother her, and her thick coat made it possible for her to be outside for a long time.

After running around for sometime, she went to her favorite past time, digging. Most ponies don’t understand how fun it is to dig around, mostly it just a fun thing to do, but sometimes you can find cool things in the ground. Winona was hoping she could find a bone so that she would have something to chew on, but she would be happy to find anything, and after forming a plan on where to dig, she began her quest.

While most dog would have a hard time getting past the snow before they could get to the dirt, Winona didn’t have a problem with it, in fact in about ten minutes she had dug five holes, but found nothing in them, but in the middle of her sixth hole, she found something deep in the dirt, it kind of looked like a tree root, but it was the wrong color, and Winona had seen Apple Tree roots before, and this was a bit bigger then them. Wondering what it was, she did what any dog would, she bit into it and tried to pull it up.

To her credit, she tried her hardest, getting her teeth really into whatever it was, deep enough that some liquid from it dripped into her mouth, which she swallowed so she didn’t have to let go, but it was to deep in the ground to get out, and she had grown bored with this hole, so she went on her way to have even more fun. However, she started to feel a little off, at first it was nothing, but it slowly grew and grew until the poor dog started to feel sick, Winona knew she needed to get back inside, but during her playing around she had gotten far away from the farmhouse. She started to make her way back, but the sickness made it harder to move, she needed to rest, as soon as she was halfway to the house, she threw up, and her legs gave out, she could walk no more, but here, in the middle of a snow storm, was as good of a place to rest as she could get, and with that, she closed her eyes.

However, in less than ten seconds, she was back on her feet, but she didn’t continue on her walk back, instead she started to walk and run around a bit, like she was getting used to something, after she was done with this, she started to bark, the bark sounded nothing like Winona’s, in fact it sounded like a mix of a bunch of animals, but the dog kept backing, and the more it did, the more it sounded like Winona, until it sounded just like her, once this had happened, the dog made its way into the farmhouse.

“So you’re saying the best pancakes you’ve ever had were in Canterlot.” Were the first words the dog heard, said by Rainbow Dash.

“Yes, but I must ask, how did we get from discussing the works of Shakespeare to this?” Was the reply from Octavia.

“Pancakes are far more important.” Rainbow said, “So anyways, how much did these pancakes cost?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Octavia answered, “I don’t think it was that much.”

“Interesting.”

“So…” Lyra started, “Any ideas of how to pass the time?” She asked.

“Maybe play a board game?” Applejack suggested.

“There’s a reason they are called ‘Bored games.” Rainbow said, waiting a bit, “... Because they are boring, I mean... ya see, it’s a play on the word-”

“THANK YOU!” Applejack shouted, cutting Rainbow off, “I get it.”

“I don’t get it…” Vinyl said, and thought about it for a moment, “OH! WAIT! NOW I DO! HA! That’s a good one, Rainbow!”

“Come on, Rainbow. It should be fun.” Rarity said.

“I’ve had a bad experience with playing board games.” Rainbow informed.

Everypony leaned in closer, wanting to hear more.

“I lost once.” Rainbow revealed.

They all gasped, and Pinkie raised her hooves up, shouting, “OH THE HUMANITY!”

“I… I’m sorry. I had no idea.” Applejack said.

“I know. It’s not something I like to talk about.” Rainbow moped, “But I could destroy you all at Checkers.”

“I happen to be the checkers champion in my family, six years running.” Rarity said.

Rainbow smirked, “I only know that I am just really good at it!”

“Bring it on!”

“Gladly!”

Their faces were mere meters away at this point, and they looked determined to defeat each other.

“Soooo…” Applejack interjected, “A Checker tournament it is?”

“YES!” Both Octavia, and Rainbow Dash shouted in unison, turning their heads towards Applejack at the same time.

As the ponies started their game, the dog made its way to them, and as it did it studied the ponies, they appeared to be the more dominant creatures in this world, the dog looked down at its paws, and as it did it realized that it couldn’t do much in this state, it needed to change.

With that, the dog started to bark, it wanted to get the mares attention, once it did that it would lead the pony or ponies away from the rest, and from there it would get the bodies it needed. The plan however, didn’t work.

“Winona, stop messing around, we’re trying to play a game here.” Applejack said.

The dog was at a stand still, it couldn’t get to those mares in this body, and without the mares, it couldn’t go home, it had one option, if it was going to take these mares over at a faster rate, and go home sooner, it would have to do something it hated, going the direct way. It didn’t like this, it was a fan of the stealthier way, but it was not a fan of this body, and it wanted out, so it made its way down to the basement, walking past some hay bales and a pitchfork, and once it made its way to the farthest point, it started to change.

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“Go Dashie!” Pinkie yelled as her friend neared victory.

“I must say Rainbow, you really are good at Checkers.” Twilight committed.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Dash bragged.

This was it, Dash was one move away from winning, she could hear it now, the cheering, the cash, the fame, the glamour……. Ok well maybe not all that, but it would still be awesome. Dash picked up the piece she needed, and was about to set it down.

And then a crashing noise from the basement made everypony look away right as she put it down.

“Yes! I did it!” She cheard, everypony else was too busy wondering what that sound was to really care.

“What was that?” Bon-Bon asked.

“I don’t know.” Twilight replied.

“I’ll go make sure everything is ok.” Applejack said as she made her way to the basement.

Once she got to the stairs leading down, she found that it was completely dark, she tried to turn on the lights, but they didn’t work. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and because of this, the Apple Family had kept flashlights nearby. Grabbing one, she went down into the basement, once inside she looked around to find the source of the noise, and when she did, she wished she hadn’t.

At first she saw nothing but a mass of moving red flesh at the far end of the room, but the more she looked, she could she hook like claws going from the bottom to the top its sides. when she moved the light up, she saw the head of her dog attached to a long neck, but the head started to shake, and soon it literally cracked in half, opening like a mouth, revealing razor sharp teeth lining it, Applejack dropped the flashlight and ran up stairs, slamming the door to the basement behind her.

She ran to the others, who looked a her,confused.

“What happened?” Twilight asked, concerned.

“My dog!” Applejack yelled, “She’s… I don’t know what she is. She became a monster!”

“A monster?” Lyra asked.

Applejack nodded, “We have to get out of here!” Applejack said.

“It’s impossible now.” Rarity interjected, “There’s a snowstorm outside. We can’t just go out there.”

“You might be right…” Applejack gave it some thought, “Don’t care, let’s go!”

“Applejack, are you sure about what you saw?” Rainbow asked.

“My eyes don’t deceive me.” Applejack said.

“We can’t just leave, though. We won’t make it two seconds out in that whether.” Rainbow argued.

“What? You think you know everything about the whether in this town, mrs-” Applejack mocked, and then stopped when she realised she was talking to the Ponyville whether manager, “Ooooh, yeah.”

“Ok, everypony calm down.” Twilight said.

“Calm down?! My dog has become a monster, and you want me to calm down?!” Applejack yelled.

“If you don’t, you’ll rush into a decision, and that could be a very bad thing.”

The argument would have continued on, if it had not for a loud growling sound coming from the basement.

“Don’t you hear that?!” Applejack screamed.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure what it is.” Dash replied.

“It’s the bucking monster!!”

“Ok, I’m finding this whole ‘monster’ thing a little hard to swallow, I’m going to check this out for myself.” Dash said as she made her way to the basement door.

“Dash, wait!” Applejack yelled, trying to get her friend to come back.

Rainbow Dash however failed to do as her friend asked, she grabbed one of the flashlights, wanting to go down into the basement and she this so called monster. Upon turning on the flashlight and pointing it down the stairs, she found out that she didn’t need to go down into the basement to see the monster, as it was at the base of the stairs. Rainbow could see the split face of Winona, as well as the teeth inside it, she could also see it’s flesh like legs with claws made from what looked like bone, needless to say, Dash was very shocked about what she was seeing.

The monster howled at her, then opened its mouth and shot out what looked like a frog’s tongue at her. The tongue knocked the flashlight out of her hooves, Dash jumped back and let out a yelp of fear. The rest of the mare, save for Applejack, came out to see what was causing all of the noise, and as soon as they ran to Dash’s side, they were able to see the thing in the basement from the flashlight’s light.

“Oh buck this!” Viny yelled as soon as she saw the monster, then ran into another room, followed closely by Lyra, Rarity, Bon-Bon, and Pinkie Pie. The reason the rest of the mares stayed was either because they were frozen in fear or were trying to figure out how this was possible.

The monster then shot out its tongue again, this time aiming for Octavia, who was barely able to move her head out of the way.

This was all it took to send the other mares running, all except for Rainbow Dash and Octavia. And before they were able to make their escape, the monster started to make its way up the stairs.

“Um, I don’t think this should get up here with the rest of us.” Octavia said.

“Couldn’t agree with you more, we need to find a way to stop this thing.” Dash replied as she looked around “Ok, you go into the living room and try to find something there, I’ll go check the hall closet and do the same, be fast alright.”

Octavia nodded and ran off into the living room, Dash ran to the closet and started her search. At first all she found were brooms and feather dusters, nothing she could use to kill a monster, but she soon found an air freshener can, and she quickly came up with an idea.

“Hey, Octavia, is there a lighter or something I can use to start a fire in there?” She yelled.

“Ah……. Yes! I’ve got a lighter!” Was the reply she received from Octavia.

“Good, give it to me.” Rainbow said as she ran to the basement door.

Form where she was standing, she could see that the monster was getting close to the door. Octavia then ran out of the living room and threw the lighter to Dash, she grabbed it, stood on her hind hooves, lit the light, and put it close to the air freshener nozzle. Once she had done all of this, the monster had gotten to the basement door, it lunged at her, trying to bite her, but before it could, Rainbow pressed the nozzle down, sending a line of flames at the monster. Once the flames hit it, the monster jumped back in pain, sending it down the stairs, and breaking one of its legs off.

“Yeah, that works.” Dash said.

Rainbow ran down the stairs, and turned the homemade flamethrower towards the beast, laying on the ground, and shot it with the flame, again. However, the one thing she never could have accounted for while holding a flamethrower happened, the floor caught on fire.

“WAGH!” Rainbow screamed, though the fire was very small, she had just set her friend's basement of fire, which was not a good move on her part, and Applejack would probably be, at least a bit angry.

Rainbow frantically looked for something to put out the fire. She saw an old rag, and grabbed it, placing it over the fire, and beating it down, putting out the fire.

“Is everything alright down there?” Octavia called down from upstairs.

“Yeah, everythings great. Pretty sure I killed it.” Rainbow answered.

“Great. I’m going to look for the others.” Octavia said, walking away.

“Alright, be there in a minute.” Rainbow replied, as Octavia walked off. She then sniffed, smelling something. She squinted her eyes, and looked around, until her eyes landed on her tail, “Oh...” Rainbow took in some relief as she figured out where the smell was coming from, in which, it was her tail on fire. She stopped for a minute, nodding, before realization kicked in, “WAAAAAAAGH!!!!!” She screamed, jumping up, and then running around the room, before she tripped, and fell in a way to where she landed on her rump, and her flaming tail was sticking out in front of her. She batted her hoof against the tail, putting the flame out, “Few.” She sighed, in relief.

Rainbow then got up, and grabbed the lighter, and air freshener can from off the ground, and flew back upstairs. She went into the living room, where she saw Applejack slumped over in a chair, breathing heavily, and others trying to calm her down.

“Killed it.” Rainbow said, deadpan.

“Did you?” Rarity asked, “Did you really?”

Rainbow thought about it, “Yyyyyeah, pretty sure. Torched it. It stopped moving. Seemed pretty dead.”

“Should we go down, and check?” Futtershy suggested.

“Thanks for volunteering, Fluttershy, GO ON!” Rainbow exclaimed, patting the shy pegasus on the back.

“Eep!” Fluttershy squeaked, and shrunk down.

“Don’t worry, I was just kidding.”

“We should probably go check, anyways.” Twilight said, “All together.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me.” Bon-Bon replied, “I mean it’s dead right, it can’t hurt us.”

There were no objections to this idea, and the group made their way into the basement, once they made it down, Twilight used her horn to give them some light to see.

“Yeash, it doesn’t look any better dead than it did when it was alive.” Lyra commented.

“I-I don’t understand……. How does a dog you own for years do something like this.” Applejack said, still in shock over everything that had happened.

“No clue, but let’s just be glad it’s dead.” Vinyl replied.

Twilight moved closer to the dead monster, trying to see if there was anyway to figure out what it was without having to cut into it.

“Hey Pinkie, you always know how to brighten up the mood, go on, tell us a joke or something.” Rainbow asked.

“I wish I could Dashie but…….. There’s just nothing funny to say.” Pinkie replied.

“When Pinkie can’t tell a joke, you know things have gotten dark.” Rarity spoke.

Twilight continued to look at the thing to see if there was a logical explanation to what had happened.

“Well Twilight, any news?” Lyra asked.

“No, I know of every single creature the ponykind is aware of, and this doesn’t match any of them.” Twilight replied.

“Great, so you have no idea what it is, now what are we going to do?” Applejack asked.

“If one of you could run upstairs and get my saddle bag, I have some equipment in there, and I might be able to use them to figure out what this monster is.”

“Weren’t all of you doing some kind of sleepover, why would you bring lab equipment?” Lyra asked.

“This is Twilight we’re talking about, I’d be more shocked if she didn’t.” Dash answered.

As the two talked, Fluttershy ran upstairs, got the saddle bag, and went back to the basement, giving Twilight her bag.

“Thanks Fluttershy.” Twilight said, but before she went to work on the creature, she took note that most of the ponies here were a little, uncomfortable here, “I guess I don’t need the rest of you here, you can all head upstairs and try to calm down from this whole ordeal.”

The rest of the group did as they were told, and left the basement, however they weren’t able to calm down, they were still hung up on the question of what that monster was, it wouldn’t be for another half an hour before Twilight made some progress, she was looking at some blood samples of the monster, and saw that there was a high cellular activity even after the monster being dead for so long, she then had an idea, taking a knife, she made a small cut, and let her blood fall into the sample, what she saw, made her heart stop.

“EVERYPONY, I NEED YOU DOWN HERE, RIGHT NOW!” She yelled.

Within seconds, everypony had made it down into the basement.

“What’s going on?” Fluttershy asked.

“I’ve got some really, really big news about the monster.” Twilight would have carried on from there, if she didn’t realise something when she looked back at the monster, “Why is one of its legs missing?”

“Oh yeah, one of them broke off when I hit it with the homemade flamethrower, it’s right over-” Dash stopped herself when she saw that the leg wasn’t where she had last seen it, “Wait, where did it go?”

It was then that the sound of the doggie door opening and closing was heard

“Oh you gotta be kidding.” Dash said as she flew up stairs, to the door that held the doggie door, and opened it.

The cold hit her like a wall, and she felt like closing the door then and there, but she could see fresh tracks in the snow, like spider legs, but dragging something big, Rainbow ran outside, following the trail, until she saw the monster’s leg, now with six spider like legs dragging it, and two eyes coming out of the top. Dash said nothing, she got on her hind legs, brought out her homemade flamethrower, and opened fire on the leg. The leg let out a howl of pain, somehow, and fell down, still on fire.

Rainbow’s job was done, she ran back to the house, got inside, and closed the door. By now, the rest of the mares had come upstairs to see what happened.

“May I ask what you were doing?” Applejack said.

“Looks like the leg wanted to go for a walk, don’t know how it did it, but it’s gone now.” Rainbow replied.

Twilight started to look a little nervous, and started to back away from the other mares as she said “Did all of you happen to stay in the same room after I told you to leave?”

“No, we all went of to do our own things.” Vinyl replied.

“Twilight, are you ok?” Fluttershy asked as she went over to her friend.

“STAY BACK!” Twilight yelled, causing Fluttershy to nearly fall over.

“Twilight, calm down, she just wanted to know if you were ok.” Rainbow said.

“You don’t know what I do, that monster, it starts at the cellular level, and it assimilates itself into you.” Twilight replied.

“Meaning?”

“It take over your cells, and turns you into it, and if that leg monster was walking around for all this time, then it could have taken over anyone of you, and we wouldn’t know until it became like Winona!”

The room went dead silent.

“Soooo…” Applejack started.

“It could be anyone of you!” Twilight finished.

“Or you.” Rainbow said.

“Well, theoretically, yes, but it’s not me!” Twilight defended herself.

“You were down there alone for a while.” Vinyl argued, “Buuut, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“Let’s not also forget…” Twilight started, “Rainbow Dash was alone with the creature, twice. Once when she thought she killed it, and she went to burn the last remaining part of it just a few minutes ago.”

“Let’s not forget, that Applejack also went down there, when she supposedly discovered it.” Rainbow tried to throw the blame off her, “She could have been ambushed, and assassinated-”

“Assimilated.” Twilight corrected her.

“Right, assiminated, when she was down there!” Rainbow finished.

Applejack had enough of Rainbow calling her out, “Well, let’s not forget that Octavia...”

Needless to say, the blame game went on for a while, and nopony got anywhere with it. They went back and forth of it for about an hour, and still nothing. Finally, they all just resorted in looking at each other, eyes squinting, as they slowly backed away.

Pinkie, however, backed into a lamp, almost knocking it over, before quickly catching it. She then went back to squinting, and backing away.

Pinkie then backed up into a corner, and slipped out into a near hallway, entering one of the rooms.

After a while, Pinkie came out of one of the rooms in the hallway, looking around, before leaving the room.

She walked back down the hall, on her best guard, just in case she got it from behind.

She was about to walk into the kitchen, however, she heard something in there. She immediately hid behind the wall outside of the kitchen, obscuring her view of inside it.

Her head slowly turned the corner, only to be inches away from Applejacks. Pinkie, and Applejack both yelped, and jumped back.

Once they came to their senses, they went back to squinting at each other.

“Applejack.” Pinkie greeted.

“Pinkie Pie.” Applejack replied back.

“How’s it going?” The pink mare asked as she moved to the left, keeping her focus on the farm pony. Applejack also moved, keeping a distance in between them.

“Good. How are you?”

“Fine.” Pinkie finished off.

They stood there for a minute, or so, they had both made a 180, and Pinkie was now in the kitchen, and Applejack in the living room.

“Welp!” Pinkie exclaimed, bubbling up, “Have fun with that.”

“Alright.” Applejack said, slowly walking away, only looking away to check for anypony else who might be near.

Pinkie turned around, and jumped back, screaming, as she saw two blue eyes staring at her.

“Oh, hello Pinkie.” Rarity said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Just…” Pinkie started, and then went back to squinting, “A bit on edge, is all.”

“As am I.” Rarity agreed, “Well, good luck.”

Rarity then picked up a whole cabbage with her hoof, and left the room.

Pinkie watched Rarity walk off, and then turned around once she was out of sight, this time coming face to face with a mint green mare, making Pinkie jump back a third time.

Enraged now, Pinkie raised her voice, “SON OF A MOTHER FU-”

“Uuuuh, hi, Pinkie.” Lyra said.

“What is with all of you?! I’m just trying to walk through the kitchen, but every time I turn around, another pony is standing in my way!”

“Oh….. Sorry….. I’ll just be on my way.” Lyra said as she made her way out of the room, not once breaking eye contact.

Pinkie then went over to the sink, grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and took a drink.

As she drank the water, she heard noises coming from the hallway, walking over to the doorway, she peeked around the corner just in time to see the door to the hallway closet shut, revealing the Octavia was causing the noise, she appeared to be holding something, but before Pinkie could get a good look at it, Octavia had run off.

“What is that mare up to.” Pinkie mumbled to herself, “Then again, the same could be said for anypony I met, they’ve all been acting weird……. Which is to be expected if you were told that any of your friends could be a monster.”

Pinkie then went to the living room, where she also found Fluttershy, Twilight, and Rarity, Both Twilight and Fluttershy looked as if they had just walked in the room as well, and Rarity appeared to be sitting there, eating her cabbage.

“Oh…..Hello there.” Fluttershy said.

Twilight didn’t say anything, she just eyed all of the mares in the room.

“Twilight, you really must calm down.” Rarity spoke.

“I’ll be calm when I know this monster is dead.” Was her reply.

“But what if it is already dead, Dash killed the monster in the basement, and then she killed the part that got out, and there’s a chance that it didn’t take over any of us before it did.”

“What if it took over her?!”

“What if it took over Fluttershy, what if it took over Lyra, you can question it all you like, but you’ll just end up scaring yourself.”

“How can you say that in such a calm tone?”

“Because I’m that calm.”

“How, aren’t you even a little shaken up at the thought that your friends could be monsters?” Pinkie asked.

“No.” Rarity replied.

“And why are you eating a whole head of cabbage?”

“I’m really hungry, all of this talk of monster has made me really hungry.”

Pinkie was starting to get a little suspicious, but she could be wrong, so she gave her friend one last test.

Pinkie picked up a nearby potted plant, and said “Rarity, catch!” As she threw it at her friend.

Rarity reached out with her hoof, and caught it, then asked “What was that for?”

“Why didn't you use your magic?” Was Pinkie’s reply

“Because… I didn’t feel like it.”

“I’ve been told that it’s easier to grab things with magic then with a hoof.”

“Well…. I’ll have you know that I have a really bad headache right now.” Rarity said, unaware that some of the water from the plant was dripping on her.

“Um, Rarity, you’re getting water on your coat.” Fluttershy pointed out

“What, it just water, it’s no big deal.” Rarity replied

All of the ponies in the room gasped.

“You hate when your coat gets dirty, even if it’s over something small, like water…… But you’re not Rarity are you.” Twilight said.

The room went silent for a good ten seconds, then Rarity’s body started to shake, dropping the potted plant, Twilight didn’t stay any longer, she ran out of the room. Rarity then let out a horrific scream as she stood up on her back hooves, her back stretching out, her front legs losing all of the skin and flesh on them, revealing blade like bones, and her jaw dislocating, hanging freely from the body.

The monster looked over at Fluttershy, who was trying to hide behind a chair, the monster made it way to her, moving its arm back to stab through the chair and into the pegasus behind. However, just before it could, a glass hit its back, making it lose interest in pegasus, turning around, it saw that Pinkie was the pony who threw the glass.

“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.” Pinkie said before the thing screamed at her. Pinkie then turned herself around and ran as fast as she could away from the monster, however the monster was just barely behind her, and to Pinkie’s credit, she managed to get to the dining room before she fell. Now the monster had her cornered, there was no way for her to get out of this mess, the monster raised both of its blade like limbs. And then the door in front of them was kicked open.

“Stay away from my bucking friend!” Rainbow Dash yelled. Pinkie took the few seconds to roll out of the way, allowing Dash to pull out her pocket flamethrower and burn the beast where it stood. The monster cried out in pain, but Rainbow never took the heat off of it, literally.

Soon, the monster fell, and Dash turned off the flamethrower, and to be honest, she didn’t feel the slightest bit of pride for her deed.

“Good job Dashie! We sure showed it who’s boss!” Pinkie cheered.

“Pinkie, don’t you see, Rarity’s gone…….. She had a little sister….. What the hell are we going to tell her, that her sister became a monster that looked like her and we had to kill it, I don’t even believe it, and I’m looking at it now.” Dash said.

“At least you killed it.” Pinkie shrugged, trying to not look too saddened.

“Yeah, there’s that.” Rainbow nodded.

As she finished that sentence, the other ponies came rushing in to see what happened, they were shocked, and disgusted.

Octavia looked particularly disgusted, “Oh goodness!” She shouted, “What’s that smell?” She then noticed the creature laying on the floor, and corrected her mistake, “Ugh! That smells! It smells.” She plugged her nose with her hoof.

“Just be glad it’s dead, now.” Twilight said.

“Can we really be sure?” Applejack asked.

“Want me to drop an anvil on it’s head to make sure?”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it.” Applejack said.

“Alright, where do you keep your nearest anvil?” Twilight asked.

“The barn.” Applejack answered.

“Curses! Foiled again by the weather!” Twilight yelled.

“We can drop the fridge on it.” Vinyl suggested.

“I’m not going to drop a fridge on it. I like the fridge, we need the fridge.” Twilight said.

“Guys, can we just chuck it outside, or something?” Octavia asked.

“Good idea.” Rainbow said.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“OK, back it up!” Rainbow called to Octavia, who was struggling to drag the dead creature.

“It would be a lot easier if you helped!” Octavia grunted through her teeth.

“I need to open the door.” Rainbow said.

“Still, why am I the only pony dragging this this?”

“First off, this was your idea, and second nopony want to touch it.”

“Then why am I?!”

“Must I repeat reason number one?”

“Just…… Open the door, the faster we get this thing outside, the less time I have to touch it.”

Rainbow didn’t say anything, she just opened the door and watched the grey mare dragged the beast that was once a friend of hers out of the house, she waited a minute or two for the mare to come back inside, and when she did, she was shivering and a some snow in her mane and coat.

“I take it it’s still freezing out there.” Dash said as she shut the door.

“You would know, you made this storm.” Octavia replied.

“Yeah, I had no idea when I made this storm that I would be trapping myself with a monster.”

“And I wish I had double checked when the storm was happening.”

“We all could have done things to have stopped this, or gotten us away from this mess, but here we all are.”

“I just hope that the monster I just dragged outside was the last of it.”

“It likely is.” Rainbow said, “Now come on, let's get you a blanket. You're freezing.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Octavia agreed, and they walked over to the living room, where the rest of the ponies were. Most of them were sitting down, though some were standing.

“So, how did it go?” Twilight asked.

“It’s out of the house, so that’s a plus.” Rainbow shrugged, “Anyway, we need to get this poor thing some blankets.” She motioned to the grey mare next to her.

Rainbow quickly flew out of the room, and went to the closet in the hall, opening it, and grabbing some blankets, and then closing the door, and then flying back to the living room.

“Here you go.” Rainbow gave Octavia the blankets, and then sat down on the floor.

They then sat in silence for a few minutes, not talking, or even moving.

Somepony had to break the silence, and Applejack decided it should be her, “Do we really think it’s over?” She asked.

“Well, I’m not sure.” Twilight answered, “There is a likely possibility that it could have survived. However, it probably did not.”

“That’s still a possibility it’s not gone.” Vinyl spoke.

“Let’s just hope it doesn't come back.”

They, again, sat there for a while, until Pinkie spoke up, “Well, not that this isn’t fun, but I still want my water.”

“Still?” Rainbow asked, confused.

“The last glass I had I chucked at a beast.” Pinkie said.

“Aaah.” Rainbow nodded.

As Pinkie left to get her water, the others sat in silence.

“Uuuugh!” Lyra grunted, “I can’t stand just sitting here, doing nothing!”

“We’re open to suggestions.” Twilight said, shrugging.

“Uuuh…” Lyra thought, “Twenty Questions?” She suggested.

“Eeeeh, no.” Twilight shook her head.

“Truth or Dare?”

“Not in terms mood.” Rainbow said.

Lyra turned her head towards Applejack, “Do you have Battleship?” She asked.

"Yes, but I don't think anypony is in the mood to play it" Applejack replied .

Pinkie then came back into the room, and sat down.

“Well….. What are we going to do?” Fluttershy asked.

“If I knew, I tell you.” Rainbow replied.

“Let’s just hope that this is all over.” Applejack said.

Pinkie sat in silence, until she remembered something she wanted to ask, “Hey, Octavia, what were you doing in the closet?”

The mare in question was silent for a bit, the answered “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You were at the hall closet, I saw you take something out of it and run off, it was right before the monster attacked.”

“Nope, I have never been in that closet.”

Pinkie glared at Octavia, she knew what she saw, this mare was hiding something, and she wanted to know what.

One by one, each mare left the room, until only Fluttershy remained. The poor pony was still a bit shaken, and who could blame her, she was attacked by a creature that looked like a pony she went to the spa with. For a while, she just sat and looked out the window, watching the snowfall, the whole scene was calming. Until she saw something moving out there, due to the high snowfall and the darkness outside she couldn’t see who the figure was, but she could see the outline of a pony, Fluttershy was trying to find out three things, who was this pony, why were they outside, and was it the monster. It was not impossible for a pony inside the house to get out without being noticed, but that didn’t really explain any of her question.

It was then that Fluttershy realised that the pony was looking in her direction, she ducked down, hoping that she hadn’t been seen, she stayed like that for a few minutes, then looked back up, the pony was gone, and Fluttershy knew she had to tell the others.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“So, you’re saying that you saw a pony walking around out there?” Vinyl asked.

“Yes.” Fluttershy replied

“And you have no idea what they were doing?”

“Yes.”

“And you think it could be the monster?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, now I understand why we’re all here.”

All of the mares had gathered in front of the front door, and all of them wanted to know what Fluttershy saw, or if Fluttershy was telling the truth.

“So….. What are we going to do?” Rainbow asked.

“Hm……. Applejack, do you have any rope here?” Twilight said

“Yeah, we always keep some laying around in case we need it for something, why do you ask?” Applejack replied.

“Well, it’s snowing hard outside, so it’ll be easy for us to get lost if we send some ponies out, but if we tie a rope around one of them, and tie the other end to the doorknob, we could send a few ponies out that way.”

“Good idea.” Lyra said.

“Thank you.” Twilight replied, “Now, we just need to figure out who is going outside.”

“I guess I’ll do it.” Applejack spoke.

“Great, now I’d like to send one more pony outside.” Twilight stated, looking right at Octavia.

“Oh come on, why do you want me to go out there?!” Octavia asked.

“You did a fine job when you went out there last time.”

“........ I hate you so much right now.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I’m going to go get the rope.” Applejack said as she ran off, about a minute later she came back with her saddlebag and some rope.

“Why are you taking a saddlebag with you?” Rainbow asked.

“It might keep me a little warm.” Applejack replied.

“Alright, now who's going first?” Twilight said.

“Not me.” Applejack spoke.

“I’m really, really hate both of you.” Octavia stated as she made her way to Twilight, who then tied one end of the rope around her tail and the other end to the doorknob. Twilight opened the door, and let Octavia walk outside, after she walked a bit ahead, Applejack grabbed the rope and walked outside as well.

The cold was unbearable, to make things worse Applejack was more used to warmer places, not to the snow, still, she followed the path Octavia had taken, and went on the look for the pony that Fluttershy had seen.

Once they had gotten around the spot where Fluttershy had seen the figure, at first Applejack didn’t see anything, but upon taking a look at the snow, she could see something stick out of the snow a bit aways from the rope.

Applejack let go of the rope, and ran over to whatever was sticking out on of the snow, picking it up, she found in her hooves, a pink bowtie.

There was no way Octavia had just dropped the one she was wearing, the rope didn’t go this way, but maybe she had dropped it when Fluttershy saw her, maybe she was the monster, it would explain why she said Pinkie was lying, in fact she was most likely waiting for her to catch up and turn her into a thing, well that wouldn’t happen.

Applejack went back to the rope, reached into her saddlebag, pulled out a knife, and cut the rope, then quickly made her way back inside, and shut the door.

“Whoa, what are you doing, Octavia is still out there?!” Dash yelled.

Applejack didn’t say anything to Rainbow, instead she looked at Vinyl, and asked “Does your friend have any spare bowties?”

“Y-Yeah, she always take some with her in case one gets ruined, now open the door, she’s probably freezing out there!” Vinyl replied.

Applejack held up the bowtie she found outside and said “Your friend isn’t a pony anyone, she’s become that monster, now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to make sure it doesn’t get back inside.”

“Hold on, we don’t know if she is-” Vinyl started, but was cut of when Applejack pointed a knife at her.

“If you don’t want to go out there with your ‘friend’, then you better shut up, I’m just doing what needs to be done.” Applejack then walked of to lock all of the doors leading outside.

For sometime, the house went silent, nopony said anything, they had went on with whatever they wanted to do, save for Vinyl, who was hoping her friend was alright. All of that stopped when the sound of a window breaking open.

“That monster is trying to get in!” Applejack yelled as she ran over to the room where the noise came from, Rainbow following close behind, “You got that flamethrower?” Applejack asked.

“Yeah, got it right here.” Dash replied.

“Good, now get ready.” Applejack said as she neared the door, as she did Rainbow got on her back hooves, and readied her flamethrower, Applejack then kicked the door open, what was one the other side, shocked Dash. There was a very pissed off, very cold Octavia, holding a lighter and a can of air freshener at her.

“AH!” Dash screamed, backing up a bit.

“You should know, in several countries, it is against the law to piss me off!” Octavia shouted, “Reasons being that I get very aggressive.” She turned, and faced Applejack, “And you pissed me off!”

“Where did you get that air freshener can?” Rainbow asked.

“I got it from the closet.”

“You said you never went into the closet!”

“I lied! Sue me!” Octavia yelled, “I didn’t want to risk losing it, I have to defend myself if I’m attacked.”

“Uhhh… Rainbow.” Applejack said, “Flamethrower. Now. Please.”

“Well, she does bring up several very convincing arguments, AJ.” Said Rainbow Dash, “Not the least of which being that she’s pointing the very same weapon that I have, at me. Not to mention, I think we need a jury on this matter.”

“Dash! Do you really wanna take this chance?” Applejack asked.

“I’m just saying, if she is that thing, it’s a pretty dang convincing liar.” Rainbow argued.

“You think i’m that monster?!” Octavia yelled, her mouth going wide.

“I prefer the word…” Applejack thought of the correct word to say, “Know.”

“Octavia,” Dash started, “say something to prove you actually are Octavia!”

Octavia thought for a moment, “You’re a dick.”

“Well, she’s got ya beat, AJ.” Rainbow shrugged, slowly lowering her flamethrower.

“DASH!” Applejack yelled, worried.

“Well, it’s true!” Dash yelled back.

“Here’s an easier solution!” Vinyl yelled, stomping past Rainbow, and Applejack, as she raised her hoof, and slammed it into Octavia, knocking the mare out cold.

Rainbow was shocked by this, “Holy crap, you just grew some balls.”

“I’m not going to let you kill my best friend. But she’s still suspicious.” Vinyl said, “Let’s tie her up, and worry about this later.”

The others nodded.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Octavia started to open her eyes, “Look! She’s waking up!” She heard one of the mares yell.

Octavia started to open her eyes more, and more, however, she realised she was in a unusual position. She was sitting on a wooden chair, with her back against it. Her hooves were tied to her sides, which were, in turn, tied to the back of the chair.

She looked up, and standing there were all the ponies who were stuck in the house with her.

“What in Equestria is going on?!” Octavia shouted, struggling to get free.

Applejack walked up to her. She, however, stopped in front of the table in front of Octavia. This table held a few items. That being a vase with a flower in it, a picture of Applejack, and her family, and presumably Pinkie Pies glass of water. Applejack, however, didn’t care at all about that, as she took her two hooves, and forcefully slid them across the table, knocking down all of those items, breaking them, as an interrogation technique.

“OH COME ON!” Pinkie shouted from across the room.

“What are you doing?” Octavia asked again, this time more direct.

“Cut the crap, Jack!” Applejack demanded.

“Wait, I thought you were Jack.” Pinkie said, confused.

Rainbow Dash followed that with, “Yeah. Who’s the Jack here?”

“It’s just a…” Applejack was going to explain, but decided against it, “Nevermind.” She went back to the mare she was interrogating, “Alright, woman! If that is your real gender! How do you plead?”

“I would suppose not guilty.” Octavia practically guessed.

“A LIKELY STORY!” Applejack yelled.

Confused by this, Octavia then said, “It’s not a story-”

“AN EVEN MORE LIKELY STORY!”

“What is going on, anymore?!”

“YOU! ARE! THE! CREATURE!” Applejack explained.

“NO! I! AM! NOT!” Octavia yelled back.’

“Come on, AJ.” Twilight said, “Cut it out, there isn’t much evidence to prove that she’s the creature.”

“That’s just what a creatures accomplice would say!” Applejack shouted, turning to face Twilight.

Twilight stared at her, weirded out, “Yeah, OK.” She pushed Applejack back with her hoof, “Clearly you aren’t very stable at the moment.”

“Yeah, I have to side with Twi on this one.” Rainbow said.

“NOT YOU TOO, DASH!” Applejack yelled.

Rainbow then turned to Vinyl, “Why didn’t you knock her out, instead?”

“Is it too late to do that now?” Vinyl asked.

Applejack slammed her hoof on the table, “Anyone else gonna side against me?”

Fluttershy raised her hoof in the air.

“YOU TOO FLUTTERSHY?!” Applejack screamed.

Fluttershy jumped back when her friend yelled at her, then said “Y-Yes, you aren’t in the right state of mind, plus, the only thing we have that show Octavia could be the monster is the bowtie you found in the snow, and for all we know, you could have just put it in your saddlebag and said it came from outside.”

“I…..I can’t believe it…….. Fine, if proof is what you want, proof is what you get!” Applejack yelled as she grabbed the nearby lighter and air freshener, readied the flamethrower, and pointed it at Octavia.

“APPLEJACK STOP!” Twilight yelled.

“No! I’m gonna set this monster on fire, and when you hear its demonic howl, you’ll start to thank me!”

“A-Applejack….Please, put it down, I’m not a monster.” Octavia tried to reason.

“THAT’S WHAT A MONSTER WOULD SAY!!!” Applejack yelled.

“I’M NOT THE MONSTER, WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO PROVE IT TO YOU?!”

“THERE’S NO WAY YOU CAN, JUST DIE!!!!” Applejack was about to set the poor mare on fire, had it not been for a frying pan hitting her in the back of the head, knocking her out.

“That shut her up.” Bon-Bon said, holding the frying pan.

“Oh Sweet Celestia, thank you Bon-Bon.” Octavia said, starting to calm down.

“Don’t think this means I trust you, I’m still not sure what you are, but I’m not going to find out this way.”

“I understand, but still, thank you.”

The mares who weren’t tied up went over to Applejack, picked her up, and tied her to a chair as well.

“Ok, we’ve gotten all of the suspicious mares tied down, now what do we do?” Dash asked.

“I’d say we take a break.” Fluttershy said.

“Good idea.” Dash nodded, and plopped down on the floor, tongue sticking out.

“So. How long will this storm last, again?” Octavia asked.

“A day or two.” Dash answered, getting up, “Which reminds me, where did you get the second lighter?”

“Found it around here. Somewhere.” Octavia would have used her hooves to emphasize that, however, she was a bit tied up at the moment.

“Interesting.”

“Do you think this thing will die in the sunlight?” Octavia asked, “That is, let’s assume that I’m not the monster.”

“Probably not.” Dash said, “Why?”

“In case all else fails.”

“Let’s not get our hopes up.” Rainbow shrugged.

“Just hoping.” Octavia sighed.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“B3.” Vinyl said, as her, and Lyra played a game of Battleship.

“Miss.” Lyra said, bored out of her mind, as she picked up a white peg, and placing it on the B3 spot, whereas Vinyl also picked up a white peg, however, placing it on the part of the board that was at a slant.

“Hey, Twi, what time is it?” Vinyl called to Twilight, who was in a different room.

“Around three O’clock.” Twilight called back.

“AAAAUGH!!!!” Lyra groaned, and slammed her face against the wooden floor, “I was really hoping I could get to sleep tonight.”

“Oh,look on the bright side, ya downer!” Vinyl said.

“Which is?”

“This.” Vinyl then picked up a flashlight, and shined it into the green mare's eyes.

“Augh!” Lyra grunted, rolling over, “I am way too tired for you to be doing that to me!”

Vinyl chuckled a bit.

“Anyways, how have I not hit one of your ships, and yet you’ve nearly hit all of mine?” Vinyl asked.

“Wait, what?” Lyra looked confused.

“She didn’t setup any ships on her board.” The still tied up Octavia said.

“WHAT?!” Vinyl yelled.

“I was going to tell you, but I’ve had such an enjoyable time watching you suffer.” Octavia explained.

“Yeah, sure, she’s the one suffering.” Lyra mumbled, rubbing her still sore eye.

“Hey, you’ve just been hit in hit eye by a light, I’ve been tied down here for a long time, this starts to hurt after a few minutes.”

“If this is your way of trying to get us to let you go, it’s not going to work.”

“I know, but in all honesty, if I was the monster, I would be attacking her.” Octavia said as she nodded her head to the tied up Applejack, who because of her non stop yelling, had been gagged, and was glaring at Octavia.

“If you did, I’d give you a medal.” Vinyl replied.

“Same.” Lyra spoke.

“Well I’m glad we can all agree this mare is a jerk.” Octavia said.

“Yes, anyway this has been fun, but I’m going to go, maybe play a game with somepony who isn’t a cheater.” Vinyl spoke.

“You still have to admit it was funny seeing you try to win.” Lyra replied.

“Yeah yeah, see you later.” Vinyl then walked out of the room, not really sure where she was going, wandering around for a bit, she decided to walk into a random room.

The first thing she saw was Fluttershy sitting in the middle of the room, her back facing Vinyl, from what Vinyl could hear and see, the pegasus was shaking and making odd noises. Worried about Fluttershy, Vinyl asked, “Hey, Fluttershy, you ok?”

Fluttershy turned around, Vinyl realised that she had made a big mistake. This was made clear when she saw Fluttershy’s face, half of it was normal, but the other half was just flesh and bone, taking a look at the rest of her body, she saw that one of Fluttershy was no better then her face. Vinyl didn’t get to see anything else, as the monster let out a scream.

“Sorry, wrong room.” Vinyl said quickly, then shut the door. Vinyl then ran into the kitchen, finding a few others, “Soooo, it is official, there is another monster. Kinda debatable whether or not there are more than one by now. Point is, it’s Fluttershy, and we gotta do something.”

The other ponies consisted of Twilight, Bon-Bon, Rainbow, and Pinkie, all of which were staring, eyes wide, and they were probably a bit confused.

“Am I being too upfront about this, oooor?”

“Where is Fluttershy at the moment?” Twilight asked.

“Last I checked, a room, however, I’m pretty sure that thing is smart enough to leave it.” Vinyl answered.

“So, does this mean Octavia isn’t, or are there more than one of these things, and she could also be the thing?” Rainbow asked, “Or, how does that work?”

“Rainbow.” Twilight said.

“Yes?”

“Stop asking questions.” Twilight deadpanned, “I’m the scientists one, you’re the muscle one. You don’t ask the questions.”

“I can ask questions, too.” Rainbow mumbled.

“Let’s find and roast this bitch!” A voice said from behind them. They all looked back, and saw Octavia standing in the doorway, with a can of air freshener, and a lighter.

“You were tied up!” Bon-Bon yelled.

“Yeah, but I got bored.” Octavia explained.

“But…” Bon-Bon fumbled with her words, before Rainbow put a hoof on her back.

“Just let it go.” Rainbow said.

“I… OK.” Bon-Bon let her head fall, sighing.

“Rainbow.” Octavia tried to get the blue pegasus attention, and succeeded, “Get your weapon.”

Rainbow saluted, “Right!” As she went over to the counter where she left the lighter, and air freshener.

“Twilight, pink pony, try your best to alert us if you see, or hear it, and we don’t.” Octavia ordered.

“Already on it.” Twilight said.

“And Bon-Bon.” Octavia turned to her friend, “I love you… But just try your best not to get eaten.”

Bon-Bon sighed, “Yeah, I understand.”

“Let’s go!” Octavia said, smirking, ready to lay waste to the beast.

They left the room, ready to look for the monster. They went into the living room, where Lyra, and a tied up Applejack were. Lyra was reading a book, and then looked confused.

“How do you pronounce this word?” Lyra asked, as she showed Applejack the book, and pointed to the word she was referring to. Applejack couldn’t talk, however, as a gag was in her mouth. She did make muffled sounds, as she appeared to still be trying to scream, “Yeah, I thought so at first, but now I’m not so sure.” She then looked up from her book, “Hey guys. How ya doin?”

“Well, y’know. Searching for the monster, Fluttershy.” Rainbow said.

“Fluttershy is a monster….. Well, she was awfully quiet.”

“That how she always is……. Was.”

“Well, I haven’t seen it anywhere around here, have you Applejack?”

Applejack screamed something, but whatever it was could not be heard.

“Nope, she hasn’t either.” Lyra said.

“Alright, we’ll be on our way, if you see it, scream out, we’ll be there as soon as possible.” Dash replied.

“Will do.”

Rainbow and Octavia left the room, looking and listening for any sign of the beast, and they had to give it credit, the monster knew how to hide.

“I just realized something.” Octavia stated.

“What?” Dash asked.

“Why would the monster show itself as one when it had no reason to? It seems to like to take the stealthy way when given the choice, so why would it reveal itself?”

“If I had to guess, I think it was still trying to take Fluttershy over when Vinyl found it, and now that it has been discovered, it knows that we’re going to try to get rid of it.”

“And it’s hiding now so that it can ready itself.”

“Bingo.”

At this point, a low groaning sound was heard.

“I think we just found it.” Rainbow said.

“Be on guard, we don’t know what this monster could do.” Octavia replied.

“All we have to do is light the thing on fire.”

“By now it know we know that, so it might have readied itself for it.”

The two mares lit their lighters, and opened the door leading to the noises, once they looked inside, they saw the monster, its face hadn’t changed since Vinyl saw it, but it’s chest was point upwards and it’s head was upside down, it also had grown four more legs, and its wings were more like long reaching knives, the moment it saw them, it took of running, breaking down another door as it made its escape.

The mares just watched, until Octavia spoke up, “WELL LET’S GET IT!”

“Oh yeah!” Dash said, as she unfurled her wings, and flew to it, with Octavia trying to follow as close as possible.

The creature went through the twists, and turns of the house, and arrived at the living room, stopping, as it looked where to go next.

However, it was too late, as Dash caught up to it, and blocked its path forward. It turned, and Octavia was there waiting to shoot fire at it.

Right as Rainbow started to push the nozzle, the monster quickly grabbed her, and threw her at Octavia, who didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

“Get off me!” Octavia yelled, before looking up, and quickly closing her eyes.

Rainbow also looked up, and saw the creature was raising its wing up. As established earlier, the wing did not exactly look normal. As in, it had a really pointy tip. The wing was a bit different than it was a few seconds before, as it looked stretched out, and it made a sharp turn halfway through, as the sharp tip reached the things neck. It stood up on it’s hind legs, and then lunged the wing forward, as Rainbow closed her eyes waiting for what was to come.

She heard a stabbing noise, but she didn’t exactly feel one. Rainbow opened her eyes, and saw a pink mare, facing her, standing in the way of her, and the creature, with her arms outstretched.

Pinkie looked down, as did Rainbow, at where the wing came out. It was in deep, there.

“Oh look at that…” Pinkie said, “I’ve been impaled.” She then chuckled a bit, before falling limp, dead.

“NO!” Rainbow shouted.

The creature threw Pinkie off it’s wing, and she landed on the floor, rolling. This gave Vinyl enough time to run to Rainbow’s lighter, and air freshener can, which she had dropped, and threw it over to her.

Rainbow caught the items, and in one fell swoop, lit the monster on fire.

The creature let out a screech, and backed away, giving Rainbow the time to get off Octavia, who also got up, and picked up the two pieces of her flamethrower, shooting the creature with fire. It screamed, as it died, and fell to the floor, dead.

The two mares were breathing heavily.

“OK!” Octavia shouted, “THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!”

“More yelling? Really?” Rainbow questioned.

“Anyone else have any secrets they are holding?! Preferably that they are a monster!?” Octavia asked.

The others looked around at each other.

“Nope, we’re good.” Vinyl said.

Octavia took a deep breath, “OK. We need to figure out if we are the monster or not.”

“I may have an idea.” Twilight said.

“Please, tell us.”

“Well, when I examined the first monster, I noted that the cells in its blood were still alive, even after the monster was dead.”

“Yeah, so?” Dash asked.

“I think that all of the monsters cells have a will to live, that would explain why the monster’s leg came off, it didn’t break lose, it let itself go.” Twilight replied.

“And hows that gonna help us?”

“If we can get the blood of a monster, and put a hot wire or a flame on it, it will try to get away from it.”

“Well Twi, it just so happens there a dead monster right there, you can test the idea out for yourself.”

Twilight nodded, then walked out of the room, after a minute, she came back carrying a knife, and some petri dishes. She cut the dead monster just enough to get some blood to come out, then collected some of it into a dish.

“Dash, can I have your lighter?” Twilight asked.

“Sure.” Dash replied as she tossed her lighter to Twilight.

Twilight grabbed the lighter, lit it, and lowered the flame to the blood, the blood let out a scream, somehow, and jumped out of the dish.

“Well done Twilight, now we just might be able to get out of here alive.” Octavia said.

“Let’s gather up everypony, I want to put this to an end.” Rainbow spoke.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It only took a few minutes for most of the ponies to gather into one room, the test that was soon to start was going to find out who could be trusted, and who would be the next to burn, there was just one problem.

“Where the hell is Lyra?” Rainbow asked.

Applejack tried to say something, but her gag prevented her from talking.

“Hold on, I’ll let you talk.” Twilight said as she removed the gag from Applejack.

“Gah…… Feels good to get that off, anyway, Lyra left the room shortly after Rainbow and the monster left, she didn’t say why.” Applejack spoke.

“For the last time, I’m not the monster, and it will soon be proved.” Octavia said.

“Ok, I guess we’ll start without Lyra, I’ll go first.” Twilight spoke, she then placed a dish down, put her hoof over it, and cut her hoof, letting the blood drip onto the dish, once enough was one it, she lit the lighter and put it on the blood.

Nothing happened.

“At least I’m not the only pony here.” Applejack said.

Next up was Rainbow Dash, she was given and new dish, had her hoof cut, let the blood drip onto it, and had a flame placed on the blood.

Nothing.

Then Octavia was up, she followed the steps the last two, but before she put the flame to her blood, she looked at Applejack and said, “Now it’s time to prove to you what I’ve been saying.” She then put the flame to her blood.

Nothing.

“T-That can’t be right….. THE TEST ISN’T WORKING!!” Applejack yelled.

“That’s enough out of you AJ, you’ve been trying to get Octavia killed for the past couple of hours, and now that we know she’s a pony, you’re starting to look like a monster.” Twilight said, “We’ll do you last.”

As Twilight talked, Vinyl had gotten a dish, cut her hoof, had the blood drip into it, and had placed a flame into the blood.

Nothing.

Now it was Bon-Bon’s turn, she grabbed a dish, cut her hoof, let the blood go into the dish, and put the lit lighter on the blood.

The blood screamed and jumped out of the dish.

Rainbow Dash readied her flamethrower, but the monster had grabbed the dish and threw it at her, the dish hit Dash in the face, causing her to drop her flamethrower.

The monster's body started to shake, then the front half bent upwards and a ninety degree angle, showing sharp teeth and a frog lick tongue, the tongue flipped around wildly trying as hard as it could to hit one of the ponies, who were doing their best to avoid that.

Vinyl, seeing the lighter and air freshener can not to far away from her, made a dive for them, grabbing both parts, she lit the lighter, and put it in front of the nozzle, when the monster jumped in front of her, not wanting to see what would happen if she waited, she pressed down on the nozzle, sending flames right to the monster, who let out a painful howl as it fell, but Vinyl kept the fire on it for about a minute before stopping.

“Is everypony ok?” Octavia asked.

Everypony nodded.

“Good, now let’s do this last test.”

Twilight, after calming down a bit, grabbed the last dish, cleaned the knife, took the other lighter, and went over to Applejack, performing the same test that the others had done, she put the flame to Applejack’s blood.

Nothing

“Ok……. I know we’ve all had a really rough day, we’ve seen some of our closest friends become horrible monsters, and we were just attacked by one of them….. But, whenever you get the time, I don’t want to spend the rest of this storm TIED TO THIS BUCKING CHAIR!!!” Applejack said.

“Why should I feel any sympathy for you after what you pulled earlier?” Octavia asked, “And why should we untie you? After all,” Octavia then made a pouty face, and mocked Applejack’s earlier sentence, “the test apparently doesn’t even work.”

“Well clearly I was proven wrong!” Applejack yelled.

“Fine. I will untie you.” Octavia accepted, “Not because you aren’t a monster, but because I’m a decent pony, with- what is Lyra doing out there?” Octavia turned her head towards the window, seeing the green mint unicorn walking around in the storm.

The other ponies looked out the window, confused. But there she was, it was a bit a hard to see through the snow, however the outline was visible, showing Lyra Heartstrings, out in the snow.

“Clearly, somepony, or something, is up to no good.” Vinyl said.

“I’m going out there.” Octavia said, turning away from the window, “You coming, Dash?”

“Well, we can only assume that she’s the last remaining one, since she really doesn't want this test, so yeah. Let’s kill the son of a bitch.” Dash answered, picking up her lighter and air freshener can, with her wings.

Vinyl looked at the two mares, and then back to Twilight, and Applejack who were now on the other side of the room from the two mares. She then kept this up, looking more and more worried,until finally she broke down, and ran to Octavia, and Rainbow, yelling, “WAIT! Octy!”

“What is it, Vinyl?” Octavia asked.

“I can’t let you go out in that terrible weather without me now.” Vinyl said, “It’s even more horrible out there than ever.”

“Vinyl, please, I don’t think-” Octavia was about to say something, however, she was cut short by her white unicorn friend.

“Please. I can’t let my best friend go out there, and get herself killed without me being able to stop it.” Vinyl pleaded.

Octavia thought about it for a bit, “OH! ALRIGHT!” She accepted, “Just don’t get yourself killed over something stupid.”

“Got it.” Vinyl nodded, in agreement.

“So, are we going to do that rope trick again?” Rainbow asked.

“No, I’m not doing that again, not after last time.” Octavia replied.

The unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony left the house, with Twilight, and probably Applejack on guard, that is, if Twilight ever unties her.

The three ponies wandered around in the freezing cold storm, following the barely visible hoofprints. The cold was not helping them in the slightest, but the thought of killing the last monster kept them moving. The journey felt like it took an hour, when it was more like two or three minutes, and it was soon apparent where ‘Lyra’ was heading, the barn.

The three mares went inside the barn, at first they didn’t see anything that wasn’t expected, hay everywhere, tractors, some gas barrels to fill up said tractor. But off all of these things, none of them could find what they came here for, the monster.

“So, where’s the monster, I was expecting it to be here, waiting for us, turning itself into some giant monster form.” Vinyl said.

“I was thinking the same thing.” Dash replied.

“Well, there has to be some reason why it came here.” Vinyl spoke, then started to look around the barn.

“Vinyl, don’t go over there, you don’t know if the monster is around here.” Octavia said.

“Aw, but mom, I’m just looking around.” Vinyl replied with a fake pout.

Octavia didn’t say anything, she just watched the last friend she had look around the barn.

As Vinyl looked around, she went behind a pile of hay, and then said “Um, girls….. I think I found why the monster was coming here.”

The other two walked over to where Vinyl was, and when they got next to her, they found what she was talking about, in front of them was a metal frame in the shape of a saucer, there was a bunch of scrap metal around it, like if whatever was building it wasn’t finished.

“What is this?” Dash asked.

“Don’t know.” Octavia replied.

“Maybe it’s a spaceship.” Vinyl spoke.

“And what makes you think that?”

“Well, Twilight said she had never seen anything like this before, and I’m thinking that’s because it’s not from this world, and that in between it taking over our friends, it’s been coming here to build this to either fly itself out of here, or phone home.”

“....... For once, you’re crazy mind might have just come up with the right idea.”

“Thank you.”

“OK, now that this has been sorted out, we should tell this to Twilight, she might have a better idea on what to do with this.” Dash said.

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” Octavia replied.

“Hold on, this might not be all that’s here, who knows what else it could be hiding in here.” Vinyl spoke.

“Well we can’t just stay here and look around.”

“Maybe you two can’t, but I can.”

“......... Vinyl, in all the years that I’ve known you, this is by far the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because you don’t even have a weapon.”

“Well…… Why don’t you give me yours?”

If Octavia knew one thing about Vinyl, it was that she was a very stubborn pony, and there was no stopping her if she wanted to do something, Octavia had always thought Vinyl was part Donkey because of this.

Octavia gave her friend the lighter and air freshener, then looked her in the eyes and said “Don’t you dare die.”

Vinyl smiled, put a hoof on Octavia shoulder, and replied, “Octy, I promise you, I’ll be fine.”

“I hate to break this sweet scene, but we really need to get going.” Rainbow butted in.

“Right.” Octavia replied as she walked away with Dash, while Vinyl went back to looking around.

They were fighting tooth, and nail just to walk through the storm. Trying not to fall over in the freezing cold snow.

“Octavia!” Dash called, since while they were really close to each other, the wind was quite loud.

“What?” Octavia asked.

“You’re going to have to guide me through the snow.” Rainbow answered.

“Why?”

“My eyes are frozen.” Dash said, and Octavia looked back at her, and sure enough, they were frozen solid.

“Yeah, alright.” Octavia accepted, and she led Dash through a few more minutes of cold, harsh snow, before arriving at the house, “You good?” She asked.

“Yeah.” Rainbow answered.

“Trust me, you get used to it.” Octavia said, as she opened the door, and they walked into the warm house.

Octavia decided to put the lighter up to Dash’s face, which melted the ice on her eyes.

“Thanks.” Rainbow nodded her head, at the grey mare.

“No problem.” Octavia said, before turning and calling out, “Twilight! You here?”

No answer.

“Twilight?” She called out once again.

“Where is she?” Rainbow questioned.

“Oh yes, because I clearly know that!” Octavia mocked.

Rainbow shrunk, “Just saying.”

“What do you think happened to Applejack as well?” Octavia asked.

“Am I not allowed to mock you for asking that?”

“No.” Octavia said.

They walked further into the house, looking around, not finding any trace of the purple mare, or the other one.

“Keep on your guard.” Rainbow whispered, looking around.

They passed several more rooms, still no sign of anypony else. They went into a bedroom, possibly Applejacks. They looked around a bit.

They heard a squeaking sound in the floorboards on the other side of the room, which was obscured by the bed.

The two ponies walked around the bed, and saw the purple mare they were looking for, hiding.

“Twilight?” Octavia asked, “Are you OK?”

Twilight looked up, “It… It’s here. The monster. It’s here. It’s alive.”

“It’s in this house, now?” Questioned Rainbow.

“No.” Twilight said, looking down, “In this room.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, as she realized what this meant. She quickly threw her hooves around Octavia’s waist, flapping her wings, forcing the two over the bed. They rolled over, and fell to the floor. Dash caught a brief glimpse, seeing the monster that she realized was right behind her, she couldn’t make out what it looked like, except that it was in Lyra’s body, and it’s forearm was reaching forward at quite the rate, almost hitting, and probably killing them, if Dash hadn’t jumped out of the way in time.

She hit the floor on the other side of the bed, and heard glass shattering, and wood breaking, likely it hit the bedside table instead. Dash picked herself, and Octavia up, before yelling, “RUN!”

The two took off out the door, and they heard a scream from inside the room they were just in.

“Why are we running away?!” Octavia asked, panting, “Can’t we torch the thing?”

“I dropped the Flamethrower!” Dash yelled, as they heard the monster rushing down the hallway after them.

“DAMMIT VINYL!” Octavia then thought for a moment, “Sorry, force of habit, DAMMIT DASH!”

“Yeah, yeah, you can yell at me later, right now we need to find a way to kill the monster.”

“But we can’t just leave Twilight with it.”

Not a moment later, a screaming Twilight ran past them.

“See, she’s fine.” Rainbow said.

“Yes, but if she’s running away from the monster, then would it be following h-.” Octavia cut herself off when she turned around, seeing the monster not to far away.

While it kept the look of Lyra, its head was split down the middle to it’s mouth, the split opened up showing sharp teeth while its dead eyes kept looking at the mares, and its leg had grown a bit, making it slightly taller than the mares, it charged right at them, forcing them to run away from it as fast a they could.

The two mares ran into several rooms, try as best they could to get the monster off of their tails, but the monster never stopped pursuing them, Both Octavia and Dash knew they had to kill this as soon as possible.

“Hey Dash, I got an idea!” Octavia yelled.

“What is it?!” Rainbow replied.

“You distract this monster, and I’ll show you!”

“How do I know you won’t leave me to die?!”

“Come on, after all the things we’ve been through today, you should be able to trust me.”

“...... Fine!” Dash said as she turned to look at the monster and yelled “Hey, freak show, over here!”

The monster took an interest in Rainbow, and followed her, giving Octavia enough time to run off to do whatever she was planing.

“She better not have left me to die.” Dash mumbled to herself.

After running in and out of a bunch of rooms, Dash’s body was starting to tire out, whereas the monster didn’t slow down in the slightest, Dash kept running, the fear of becoming one of them can really give a pony a boost when they need it, thankfully she didn’t have to run for much longer, as a pan hit the monster in the head.

The monster turned around, and saw Octavia, who was smiling at it, the creature was now wanting to kill her more than Rainbow, and started to charge at her.

“That’s right.” Octavia said as she ran away from it, the monster was unaware that she was controlling where it went, she went into the hall, and down a few room, then ran into one of the closest ones.

When the monster got in the room with her, it saw her standing in front of it, as if she was trapped, thinking that this was the case, it lowered itself to her level, and ran straight for her, but Octavia moved out of the way at the last second, and the monster, unable to stop, ran right into what was behind her, which was an oven, with the door open, and the inside was hot.

The monster’s upper half went right into it, and it let out a scream of pain, it tried to back out, but Octavia ran up to in, knocked its legs out from under it, and started to shove it inside, using the oven door to push the monster into the oven.

It took a bit of struggling, but the monster soon stopped screaming, and fell limp, Octavia let the oven hang open, and started to walk away, forgetting that the lower half and never touched the heat, it detached itself from the body, and tried to drag itself away, but Rainbow ran into the room, saw this, and used her flamethrower, which she had gotten back after Octavia took the beast away from her, to set the monster on fire.

“Well… That was fun.” Rainbow joked.

“Yeah. It’s good to get the old blood pumping every once in awhile.” Octavia said.

“I know this question is getting real old, but do you think that’s the last of ‘em?” Rainbow asked.

Octavia laughed, and then planted a stern look on her face, “No. Not at all.”

“Let’s go find Twilight.” Rainbow said, motioning her head to the door of the room.

“I’m in here!” Twilight called from the living room.

The two mares went into the living room, and saw Twilight standing there.

“Good to see you two are alright.” Twilight said.

“Nevermind us, where is Applejack?” Rainbow asked.

“We were attacked. I think she ran out the front.” Twilight explained, “Also, where is Vinyl?”

“She stayed behind at the barn.” Rainbow said.

“You should go get her. I need to stay behind.” Twilight suggested.

Octavia sighed, “Aaaand back out we go. Come on, Dash.” She turned around, and walked down the hall to the door.

“Uuuuh. Yeah, alright.” Rainbow left with Octavia.

This time they ran to the barn, getting past the continuous snow raining down upon them.

They quickly got through the freezing weather, and made it to the old red barn. They opened it up, quietly, just in case, and closed it. Looking around for the mare.

They couldn’t see any sign of her.

“Vinyl.” Octavia whispered, looking around.

“It doesn’t look like she’s here.” Dash said.

“She has to be here!” Octavia yelled as quietly as she could, “She said she would stay here!”

“Well, what if she-” Dash was about to say something, before she was cut off.

“If she what?! DASH!” Octavia yelled, turning around to look at Dash, before a face of horror took her over, “Dash… Don’t turn around.” She mouthed.

“Is it behind me?” Dash asked.

“It’s behind you.” Octavia nodded.

Rainbow slowly moved towards Octavia, turning around ever so slightly in the process. She saw the beast. It had taken over Applejack.

The monster’s legs were more like blades, it’s limbs had stretched out enough that it was a good three feet taller than the mares, its neck was also stretched out, almost like a giraffe, except smaller and more flexible, it had a second mouth on its chest, filled with teeth, and it still had Applejack’s favorite hat on its head.

“Man. You really need to step up your game mister monster thing.” Rainbow mocked, “I mean come on! The Fluttershy version of you was more scary.”

The monster, as if in reply to Dash’s comment, proseed to remove all of the skin on it’s face, remove its eyes, replacing them with the frog like tongue, one for each eye socket, and lower its jaw enough that it could bite a pony’s head off.

“Now that is much better.” Rainbow said, nodding her head, and approving the new look. She then started backing up, “Now then, Octavia, may we run now?”

“I would be delighted.” Octavia replied. The two ponies then turned around as quick as they could, and ran away from the monster, who started to violently slash at the mares while following them.

“What do we do?” Dash asked.

“Don’t you have the lighter, and air freshener can?”

“Well, about that...” Rainbow started, “It’s out!”

“The air freshener can?” Octavia questioned.

“No, the lighter… OF COURSE THE AIR FRESHENER CAN!” Rainbow shouted, “Wait, can lighters even run out?”

“Not sure.” Octavia said, “I always thought they ran on gas or something. And gas can run out, right?”

“Well clearly I wouldn’t know.” Dash yelled.

“We have to think. What do we do?”

“Light the hay on fire?” Dash suggested.

“I don’t think that’ll work.” Octavia said.

“WAIT! I GOT IT!” Dash exclaimed.

“What is it?” Octavia asked.

“You distract it!” Dash said, flying upward.

“Oh come on!” Octavia whined, “I know you’re probably still a bit upset at earlier, but is that really any reason to do this now?”

“Knock over that barrel!” Dash ordered, as she pointed to a barrel of gas.

“Can do!” Octavia yelled, as she passed the barrel, and kicked it over, and gas spilled out.

“HEY SHIT FACE!” Rainbow yelled out to the monster, as she grabbed the scaffolding from high above, “Ignore her! Come here!”

The creature then looked back at Dash, and screeched at her. The creature ran up to below the scaffolding, and Octavia ran out of the barn.

Dash lit the lighter up, looking at her escape route, which was a window, above the entrance of the barn. She hoped she planned this out well.

She then turned back to the creature, who was climbing up the wall to get to her.

Rainbow had to do it now, and that she did, she jumped off the scaffolding, and dropped the lighter down to the spilled gas barrels.

The lighter hit the gas, and dash flew as fast as she could to the open window. She heard a loud boom from behind her. She looked over her shoulder, and saw the barn getting engulfed in flames.

She flew out the window, and the barn completely exploded behind her, sending her flying off, and landing on the snow, face first.

Rainbow’s ear were ringing, and her face was very cold, which was to be expected when your face was in the snow. But she was at peace, she had destroyed the monster that had plagued this whole night. As her hearing returned she could hear Octavia calling out her name.

“Dash, are you ok?” Octavia asked.

Dash moved her face out of the snow, looked at Octavia and said, “I’m as fine as a mare can be after blowing up a barn to kill a shapeshifting monster.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Alright, now as fun as it is to stand out here in the freezing cold is, I’d like to get back to the farm.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more.”

The two mares ran back to the farm as fast as they could, and upon getting back to the farm, they were immediately met at the door by Twilight.

“Oh good, you’re both alive, I saw the explosion and I was just about to run out to see if anypony survived…… Wait, where’s Vinyl? I thought you two went to go get her?” Twilight said.

“S-She…… Wasn’t there.” Octavia replied.

“What do you mean?”

“SHE WASN’T THERE!!”

“Whoa….. Calm down, I didn’t know that this was a touchy subject.”

“Well it is, now can we please just go sit down or something and wait out the rest of this storm.”

Twilight nodded, and it was not long before the mares found themselves sitting in the living room, they sat in silent for a minute, until Dash spoke up saying, “Are we just gonna sit here in silence from now until the storm is over?”

“What is there to talk about?” Octavia asked.

“We survived a monster attack, that’s something.”

“I guess…… But there so many unanswered questions, like what this monster was.” Octavia said.

“Or how did Winona become a monster?” Dash replied.

“And what was it building in the barn?” Twilight spoke.

Rainbow and Octavia look right at Twilight at started at her for a bit, before Rainbow said “Twilight, we didn’t tell you anything about what it was building in the barn.”

Twilight just stared back at them, the sighed, and replied, “And I thought I would be in the clear once I assimilated this mare.”

“You’re the monster!”

“No duh.”

“Well, by now I’m sure you know what’s coming.”

“Yeah, the flame shooting thing, you know, it’s not easy being me, I mean sure I can take over beings and copy their look and most of their body. But I can’t copy the brain, well I can copy the look, but the memories and personality, that’s something that can’t be copied”

“But why us? What did we do?” Octavia asked.

“Nothing, but you just so happened to be the first thing I saw after I took over the….. What do you call it?” The monster replied in Twilight’s voice.

“ A dog.”

“Yes, the dog, you seemed to be the more intelligent creature, so I wanted to take over all of you.” The monster then started to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Rainbow asked.

“I just realized that all of your friends died so that I could start to build the ship that would take me home. But now, that ship is destroyed, meaning all of your friends died for nothing…… And it’s all your fault.” The monster then broke out in an uncontrollable laughter.

“That’s enough out of you!” Dash yelled.

“Before you say anything else, you should know something, I am aware of all of my forms, I see what they see, feel what they feel, and I hear what they hear. And from what you said in front of my last form, you don’t have your flame shooter, and Octavia hasn’t used her’s in a while, meaning she doesn’t have it either, so-” The monster blinked its eyes, and when it opened them, its eyes were completely blood red, “You’re both screwed now.”

From there, the monster started to change again, it stood up on its hind legs, its body split in two, remaining attached only by its spine, and still remaining in its upright state, it grew two blades on its shoulders, and four more on its sides, and the teeth in its mouth became like the teeth of a shark.

“I’ve been wanting to do this to you for a long time now.” The monster said, still in Twilight's voice.

“Oh crap.” Rainbow gulped, backing away.

“What do we do?” Octavia asked.

“What? You think I have all the answers? RUN!” Dash yelled.

The two mares turned tail to run out the doorway, but found a sofa smashing into the floor before them, blocking the way out.

“OK, I’m out of ideas.” Dash admitted, then turned around, only to be smacked away by the monster.

Octavia looked around She was backed into a wall here, unsure of what to do. She put her back on the wall, jumping up against it, and then smashing her back hooves into the monster, who fell back, screeching.

Octavia took this opportunity to run over to the table, and grab some pieces of the vase that Applejack broke. The monster got up, and looked at Octavia. The monster started to walk over to Octavia, who threw the shards of clay at it. Some of the shard were sharp enough to pierce it, but that didn’t do much, as it continued to just walk over. As slowly as possible. It had only gone halfway from its original spot, to Octavia by the time she was done throwing the shards of the clay pot at it.

“So, while you are taking your time, might I say that you look ten times better than before.” Octavia said, backing up.

The creature grabbed the table, that Octavia was to the side of, on the short end. It lifted the table up with might, and threw the table at her.

Octavia ducked, and the table hit the wall behind her. It fell to the ground, where Octavia was. She was thankfully laid out like a rug, and the table fell on its legs. One of the legs on the table broke off on the landing, and it wobbled more than Octavia would have liked.

The monster walked up to the table, however Dash ran up, and grabbed it by the neck, and not letting go.

The beast tried its best to get the mare off, but it was to no avail, as she was not letting go.

Octavia grabbed the broken off leg of the table, got up, and took a swung at the monster, hitting it in the face. Or at least what she presumed to be it’s face. She couldn’t tell anymore.

Rainbow put all of her weight into making the creature fall forward, and so it did, as it tumbled to the ground, with Dash flipping forward, finally getting off the thing.

“Quick!” Octavia exclaimed, “The basement! I have a plan!”

“This plan better not get us killed, or I will murder you!” Rainbow yelled, as the two ran out of the room, and down a hallway.

They opened the door to the basement, and quickly closed it, as they ran in.

“KEEP THE DOOR SHUT!” Octavia ordered.

“Way ahead of you!” Rainbow put her hooves on the door, blocking it, as the creature slammed into it, “Sorry! No one’s home! You’ll have to come back later!”

The creature kept banging on the door, and then stopped. Rainbow was breathing heavily at this point. She waited a few moment. However, the doorknob turned, and it opened into the hallway.

“I DID NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT THE DOOR OPENS OUTWARD!” Rainbow yelled, and the creature smacked her, making her fly downward into the basement.

The creature walked down the steps, slowly.

“What’s your plan, Octavia?” Rainbow asked, worriedly.

Octavia popped her head over some hay, “Lure it over to that main breaker.” She whispered.

Rainbow would have questioned this, if she wasn’t smacked by the monster, who finally sped up it’s speed.

Rainbow rolled on the ground. She got right back up, in time to dodge another hit.

“Look.” Rainbow said, as she backed up to the wall with the main generator, “I know we’ve had our differences, but I’d be glad to help you start building your ship again. you could’ve asked beforehand, and it all would have worked out.” Rainbow rump hit the wall behind her. And directly behind her head was the main generator, “We’re not so different, you and I. I mean we both… Y’know what, maybe you should just kill me.”

The creature threw back its arms, ready for a final strike to the pegasus's head, however, Octavia yelled from behind the monster, “RAINBOW DUCK!”

Rainbow legs quickly fell limp, as she ducked and stared in between the creature's legs. She saw a pitchfork flying straight towards the monster. The monster looked behind, and the pitchfork speared it through the stomach, and into the main generator, electrocuting it.

Sparks flew, the lights flashed, and the creature shook, until finally, everything went dark, and the beast stopped making and movements.

Rainbow waited a minute or so, and then asked, “Octavia? You here?”

“Yeah. I’m here.” Octavia answered in the pitch blackness.

“Good… Let’s get out of here.” Rainbow said, crawling out from under the monster, before getting up.

The two surviving mares made their way out of the basement, running into a few walls along the way, they started to look for a way to light their way, and after running into more walls, and hitting a few doors. Rainbow Dash found a lamp, and the two went back to the living room.

“Well…… This has been the worst day in the history of the world.” Octavia stated.

“Come on, don’t be like that.” Rainbow replied.

“Dash, look around you, only a few hours ago there were ten mares in this room, all of them were our friends, and now there are two, in one day, all of our closest friends died.”

“...... Yeah, you’re right, it didn’t really occur to me till now.”

“So, now we wait till the storm ends, and figure out how to explain all of this to the rest of the world.”

“If we just show them one of the bodies I’m sure they’ll believe us, and how do I know you’re not the monster?”

Octavia chuckled, then said, “We’ve hardly been apart from each other since the blood test, we both know that we aren’t the monster.”

After that, the room went silent, nothing was heard but the sound of the wind blowing, this went on for about three minutes, then a sound came that neither mare expected to hear, the sound of the front door opening and closing.

After that, hoofsteps could be heard walking towards the mares, whoever this was, they weren’t the most graceful pony, as the sound of somepony hitting something along with glass breaking was heard more than once.

“Who goes there?” Octavia asked.

“Seriously, who says that anymore?” Rainbow spoke.

“I do.”

After this, the hoofsteps reached the room, and the pony stepped into the much to the surprise of both mares, as they knew who this pony was.

“Vinyl?!” Octavia said, clearly in surprise.

Sure enough, Vinyl stood in front of them, shaking from the cold, and she even had some snow in her mane, she soon spoke “S-So c-c-cold.”

“B-But how….. We didn’t see you in the barn, what happened?”

“I-I s-s-saw a pony walking a-around i-in the s-snow, I thought i-it was you s-so I f-followed i-it, I-I got k-kind of lost.”

“Yeah, a likely story.” Rainbow said.

“What are you talking about Dash?” Octavia asked.

“Isn’t it clear, this is the monster trying to trick us!”

“W-Well, maybe it’s not the monster, maybe it’s the real Vinyl.”

“How do we know?”

“C-Come on Octy, I p-promised y-you I-I’d be o-ok, a-and I a-am ok.” Vinyl said.

“...... We could do the blood test, that would show us if she's the real Vinyl or not.”

“We don’t have a lighter.”

“Maybe we do, Vinyl, do you still have the lighter I gave you.”

Vinyl nodded, pulling the lighter out and handing it to her friend.

“Ok, I’ll be back.” Octavia then ran out of the room, soon coming back with a plate and knife from the kitchen.

“I’m sure you know what to do.” Dash said.

Vinyl nodded, pick up the knife with her magic, putting her hoof over the plate, cutting it, letting the blood drip from her hoof to the plate.

“Give the plate to Octavia.” Rainbow requested.

Vinyl slid the plate over to Octavia, who lit the lighter and was starting to lower the lighter to the blood, but just before the flame touched the blood, Octavia looked up at Vinyl, she was smiling, was it because she was happy to be here with her friend, or was it because it knew it was going to win?

And with that, the flame touched the blood.