Hector Silvermane barreled through the darkened streets of Little Hoofington, dependent upon the sparse moonlight to guide his way. He had discarded the last of his armor somewhere in the street simply to gain speed, and he was thus without badge of office. Passing by a store window he caught a glance of himself: a ghostly white stallion, covered in so many patches of mingling blood that he resembled a phantom from the cruelest Nightmare Night stories.

Silvermane had neither destination nor plan in mind - his thoughts were only upon his beloved spouse, and the former life he would never live again.

The captain had tried to defend his fallen companion, but even with all his training, his attempts were in vain. Earthbound, worn, and in an open street he stood no chance at all. The boy was simply too agile and too skilled with his blades - the benefits of obsession taken to the level of mental illness. The best Silvermane could manage was a series of throws and blocks to delay the inevitable. For his trouble he had received fresh wounds all about his neck and flanks. After nearly losing his head when a blade shored away much of his mane, Hector resolved to lead the boy away, in the hopes of distracting him away from Cadabra Smile. It was a gamble, for the last time the boy had been presented with a choice, he had opted to dismember a corpse rather than press the attack.

This time, the feint paid off. Silvermane wasn’t entirely certain where the last Waffle was, but he could feel the presence of two bloodshot eyes in the dark, burning holes in his flank from somewhere astern. ‘Pinkamena’ wasn’t bothering to conceal his steps anymore either, and thus a rhythmic crunching of snow rang in Silvermane’s ears. The boy was definitely on his quarry’s trail, but he had given Silvermane no option but to flee deeper into Little Hoofington. The town was no less built into the side of a mountain than ever it had been, and with no time to conceal himself, every building promised to be a deathtrap. There was but a single direction left to go in.

The Little Hoofington Constabulary had been completely destroyed by fire. Nothing remained but burnt timbers and twisted wooden limbs, but there were no other structures close enough for the flames to spread to, and no wind to fan them. The blaze had died in the snow, and the scaffold that Silvermane had ordered built several days prior still stood tall. Beyond it was the abyss - the cloudy precipice that gave way to the empty miner’s pit the scaffold had been built close to on purpose, to easily dispose of the hanged. Below was a miasma of darkness and fog that no miner of the past would ever have been foolish enough to descend into without proper gear, and no pegasus could ever have navigated without crashing headfirst into jagged, sharp rock walls.

Hector Silvermane, a simple unicorn, peered into the pit. It was to be his grave, but with any luck, it would be his adversary’s too.

In that moment, Hector made peace with himself. A murderer, a disgrace as a guard, and witness to horrors his sensibilities might never recover from, he knew his life could never be the same. The dealings at Little Hoofington had been too much for him, and the only recourse was to ensure that no creature of evil made it out of the little mining community alive. He had already resolved to destroy Kitty Contessa with his own hooves as soon as his business with the boy was concluded, and he hoped that somehow the lame Lorem Ipsum, called Cadabra Smile, might survive to tell the princesses of this place and its horrors.

Silvermane swallowed as he stepped upon the rickety wooden platform. The image of his beloved Chloe, always shiny and bright in his thoughts, had tarnished with age in only a few meager days. He could barely see her anymore, and as he touched his naked neck, he wished only that he had never given up her token of affection.

Silvermane hadn’t long to muse over his circumstances, for from the shadows melted the dark colt who made sport of him. Chocolate Waffle’s shoulders heaved with the effort of galloping through the thick snow, but the wear seemed to have no effect. He stalked blatantly into the open, high on his grisly task, and stood poised to strike. His expression was forever locked in neutral, but the mask he wore coated his prey in the sickening sweetness of Pinkie Pie’s crayon smile.

Silvermane stared down at his opponent from the hangpony’s scaffold. He set his hooves and blew a bit of silvery bangs from his eye, bringing to bear whatever raw strength he had left in lieu of weapons or armor.

“I can’t let you kill me,” he said simply. “I won’t allow it. Equestria is depending on me. The only way you’re killing me is over my dead body.”

As if intrigued, ‘Pinkamena’ tilted his head. Pinkie Pie’s face went kilter, and the killer behind it sheathed one of his blades upon his back to free up a hoof. With this, he stroked a place on his neck, drawing Silvermane’s eye to the spot.

“...beautiful…” the boy croaked, “...finally beautiful…”

About Chocolate Waffle’s neck was a new ornament. An attractive, if by now slightly threadbare, pink scarf. Silvermane nearly choked when he bore witness to the trophy, but the colt didn’t offer him much time to look upon it. Chocolate Waffle did a perfect pirouette, spinning his cloak about him to show the recently added patchwork. The cutie marks of the recently deceased hadn’t had time to cure into leather, so he had used the cold as sufficient stiffness and sewn them on raw - flaps of meat in the breeze.

Silvermane snapped. It was no longer about saving Equestria. It was about revenge.

“...you dirty son of a nag…” the once-proud guard captain choked, “...I’ll tear you apart with my own four hooves…”

With speed that broke all the rules, Chocolate waffle drew his other propeller-blade and leapt upon the dais to the attack. His first blow was strength beyond strength - Silvermane dodged, but the hammer-strike splintered one of the scaffold’s supports, casting one of the nooses and the spire that supported it into the pit. Thinking his opponent overextended Silvermane responded with a kick to the midsection - it connected and sent the colt back, but with catlike grace he once again came down firmly on every hoof. He had cast his blades into the air just before contact, and these he caught, one by one, with cartoonish precision.

Frustrated, Silvermane let out a bellow and charged his opponent, hurling his mustang strength into the smaller colt’s body. The Waffle boy spun like a dancer, and as Silvermane passed he lanced out with one blade, intent upon separating one of the captain’s hind legs from his body. The amputation failed, but the blade managed to slice across one of the tendons in the target leg, spattering Pinkie Pie’s paper face in fresh blood.

Silvermane screamed, and narrowly avoided flying into the pit himself by hurling his body hard to the platform. The impact hurt, but not so much as the searing fire from behind. His right hind leg still bent for him, but the movements were lame, and as he fought for purchase he found that the hoof would hold no weight. He took entirely too long to right himself and spin around, surprised that his head was still attached after the opening he had given his opponent.

Chocolate Waffle was drawing his blade under the thin mask, licking at the blood he had just drawn. His dire stare suggested he preferred to take the captain piece by piece, and given his history with dismemberment, Hector believed every sentiment in the wordless stare.

Hector’s sweat went cold, coating him in a chill to match his terror. The colt now stood between him and the rest of Little Hoofington, with nothing at his back but the chasm that had claimed the broken body of Chocolate Waffle’s mother days before. Silvermane considered the perverse justice of it all - he had murdered the boy’s mother after all, and in the presence of so many witnesses that his act could hardly be refuted. Nearly all of the assemblage had passed into the void in their own right and taken their accounts with them, but Silvermane had no intention of concealing his crime, for he knew his conscience would not allow it to go unpunished for long. Maybe the boy had a right to kill him. Maybe destroying ‘Pinkamena’ was only a question of allowing the lesser of two evils to survive.

Shifting weight from his useless hind leg, Silvermane tripped and smacked into one of the remaining supports. The noose that hung from it, tangled from a previous day’s breeze, unfurled and dangled before him. Through it he saw the image of his attacker, wreathed in a frame of hempen rope.

An idea lit like a match in Silvermane’s mind. He turned his flank to the boy, waggling it like a Los Pegasus showmare.

“You want my cutie mark, right?” He panted, taking another step back towards the precipice. “If I jump, you’ll never get it.”

Chocolate Waffle tilted his head thoughtfully again. Silvermane saw hesitation in the gaze.

“That’s right...you can’t deal with that, can you…” Silvermane huffed. “...the stallion who killed your mother...that’s one cutie mark you can’t live without. But it’s got nothing to do with preserving her memory, does it...you wanted to kill her yourself, and add her beauty to your own. You wanted the moment to be right, but I took that away from you, and the changelings took away all the chances to kill the rest of your family...that’s why you killed the queen when she didn’t have anything pretty to offer. You’ll never get your mother’s cutie mark now. Not ever.”

At long last, Silvermane saw an emotion flash into the light of the dark colt’s eyes. It was anger, and the boy’s limbs grew stiff with it. He pounced upon his nearly helpless prey with all his strength, but Silvermane could see that the emotion had ruined the calculating perfection that was ‘Pinkamena’.

Silvermane threw himself to the floor and used a resuscitated remnant of his magic to pull the noose wide. The head of the copycat Pinkamena sailed straight into it, and the momentum from his body rent another crack into the scaffold’s supports. Silvermane hurled himself off the platform and opened fire for all he was worth with the last of his horn, until pain that rivaled the spiralling morass in his leg exploded in his head as well. His target was the crack, and it exploded in a mass of splinters, sending the entire scaffold crashing down onto its side.

The heavy scaffold found purchase in the snow and did not chance into the pit. At the tip of the last spire, dangling out over the pit itself, was the twitching form of Chocolate Waffle. His neck thoroughly broken by the noose, he twitched for a full minute before going slack. There he swung, gravity toying with his body like a cat toy, until finally coming to rest.

Chocolate Waffle’s empty eyes, pressed up against the mask by squeezing, became Pinkie Pie’s. They gazed directly at Captain Hector Silvermane, damning him from some place beyond pony understanding.

* * * *

Hearth’s Warming Eve had come and gone. For Hector Silvermane, Hearth’s Warming Day was a morbid affair.

The captain had nopony to speak to, and likewise nothing to say. Numb through the empty halls of his mind, he put his body to automatic tasks, beginning with a bath in frigid water to wash off the blood. He turned an entire tub in some hapless home red with the effort, and left without drying himself nor cleaning up.

In the ashes of the constabulary he found the twisted slag that was once his helmet. In the street were plates of his armor - hidden in one secret compartment was a changeling capture orb, still powered with a spell and ready to use. He tossed the useless helmet into the mining pit, donned what armor sections he could find, and went to Kitty’s Nip with the magic orb ready. There was no feeling inside him anymore, and he went to his goal with every intention of destroying the proprietor of the establishment without a second thought.

In the street lay two bodies - those of Constable Rose and Caveat. Enough blood to seemingly account for twice as many ponies pooled in frozen puddles about them. They were both devoid of their cutie marks, and their hideous wounds lay bare for all to see. Silvermane kicked the door in without trying it and found the hearth cold. As he expected the larders were just about empty, and the stools lay still where they had fallen. A chill not from the outside crept over him, and before he retreated, he found a small note on the counter-

“Y’all come back now, y’hear? See you next time, Captain Silvermane.”

Silvermane lit the taunting note on fire with a spark from his horn and casually dropped it in an archaic spitoon on his way out.

In the wide street that led to the main gates, Silvermane found a severed leg and a trail of blood leading towards the church. With every step came the expectation of encountering the corpse of Cadabra Smile, but the trail led all the way to the cold and quiet Church of the Night. He ignored the frozen corpses of Lora Lore and Stringbean, and passing through the entrance found himself amid pews intended for an absent congregation.

Upon the altar, bathed in colorful light from the stained-glass image of Princess Luna, lay a body. The trail of blood flowed straight up to it, and the wisp of liliac mane jutting out from under the cape told him it was his erstwhile companion. He approached, and though the body neither stirred nor breathed, he was shocked to find it still warm to the touch. He nearly started CPR, until he realized what was going on and instead nodded in understanding, a newfound respect on his face.

Cadabra was in a state of suspended animation. It was a complicated spell that no average unicorn could pull off, and very much considered to be a last resort for any who would use it on themselves. She was pale from blood loss and ought to be dead - if not for the incantation, Silvermane was certain she would be. Even Silvermane wasn’t capable of such sorcery, but he knew something about it, and was certain that it could neither be set in duration nor controlled by the enchanted after the fact. Cadabra had chosen to entomb herself in her own body the moment before her death, in the hopes that someday, somepony would chance by with the means to save her life. It was a gamble, for if Silvermane had not prevailed in his struggle, surely the cultist would have been found and eviscerated alive by now.

“...heh,” Silvermane muttered. “Bigger balls than any stallion I ever met.”

He touched the three-legged, hibernating body in passing and went out, adding the construction of a litter to the tasks he had set for himself.

Hector Silvermane spent the rest of the day collecting corpses and dragging them through the streets to the storage shed, where the dead had been accumulating since before he arrived. The building had yet to stink before the preserving cold, but he closed his eyes whenever he tossed another corpse into it, for fear that the sight might cost him the last vestige of his sanity. Even the changeling queen’s hacked up meat was collected, until Silvermane could find no more bodies anywhere in town. He made a final trip to Kitty’s to collect furniture, and this he shoved, pushed, or dragged through the streets as well, only to smash each item apart and ring the building with the pieces like so much kindling.

Captain Silvermane discarded his armor and left it too inside the shed. He wasn’t certain he had the right to wear it anymore - his life as a guard captain had died with these ponies, and as such it seemed fitting to part with the symbols here. Being not a spiritual pony, he muttered some canned language and then opened fire on the smashed furniture with his magic, burning it until the entire structure was ablaze. He stood sentinel until the roof collapsed and then walked somberly away; ashes flitting about his mane and the stench of meat clogging his nostrils.

The only body Silvermane did not place upon the pyre was the one that still swayed in the chill breeze from the capsized scaffold. From his he retrieved the pink scarf his wife had given him, tied it about his neck, and then simply fired upon the rope, severing it. The copycat Pinkamena and his ‘beautiful’ cloak dropped quietly through the fog and out of sight. Silvermane didn’t know how deep the chasm went, but he never heard the corpse come to rest.

Alone with the specters of the fallen, Hector Silvermane found a tree stump to sit upon and make his report. Upon the official letterhead he wrote:

“With regards to the incident at the mining village of Little Hoofington: It is the opinion of this report that the village is a total loss, and is no longer suited for habitation by ponykind. This report therefore recommends that Little Hoofington be condemned indefinitely, off-limits to unauthorized personnel until such time as it can be razed entirely, brick by brick, to ensure it cannot be used as a base of operations for changeling activity.”

Silvermane sat in silence and wrote out as many details as he could think of, speaking on matters of changelings and serial murder. When his report was complete he set about two additional writing projects - his resignation letter, and a formal written plea of guilty that he intended to present at his trial for the voluntary ponyslaughter of Buttermilk Waffle.

He had but one additional document: the book of statistics that Lora Lore had tried to share with him. It was singed but had somehow escaped immolation. Perhaps it was providence that the book would survive, for it was the only remaining record of the deceased of Little Hoofington, who could no longer tell their own tale. He scribbled in it, recording details of the most recent deaths - those ponies he might have called ‘friend’ under other circumstances. He tucked it away in a small satchel for safe keeping.

His duties as complete as he intended to make them, Silvermane slept under the stars. Nowhere was he safe from the tormented souls of Little Hoofington that lived in his mind, but at the very least he found no walls nor dark shadows to give them life. In the morning he fashioned a litter from a vegetable cart, loaded Cadabra Smile’s body into it, hitched up, and made his way to the receding snow drift that blanketed the main gates. It took two hours, but he battered his way through by the power of magic and his bare hooves, until the path to the train station stood before him.

The only other structure between Silvermane and his goal was the tiny guard station that had been his first encounter in this place over a week ago. He unhitched himself and approached the shack. Within he very much expected to find either a dessicated corpse or a dismembered one. What was actually there sent a chill through his spine that rivaled any stare by the villainous Chocolate Waffle.

“Well well!” A familiar voice crooned. “If’n it ain’t the purdy Admiral agin! How’s atcha Admiral?”

Silvermane backpeddled until he nearly fell over. “...B...Beanie…?”

Kicked back in the little room with his hind legs on the tiny desk was the ruddy Earth stallion in the propeller cap that bore his name. Amid the odor of stale turnip rum Beanie cackled.

“Best name I ever did have, don’tcha go takin’ it away!” He offered a bottle. “Care fer a snort?”

Silvermane saw no provisions in the tiny hut beyond several empty bottles of rum, and just as many that were still full. “...h-how...how can you be…”

Beanie frowned and pulled the bottle back. He sniffed it and made a face, tossing it over his shoulder where it shattered against the wall. “Yer right, thahtz gone ‘n spoiled.”

“...why...why didn’t you go for help…”

Beanie was rooting through his stash of liquor bottles. “Shore I got a better one around here...only the best fer a rear admiral come visit…”

“Why didn’t you...how could you just…” Silvermane sputtered. He felt cracks form anew in his bandaged psyche, and he forced his way into the little hut that was not large enough for two. In a rage, he slammed Beanie against the far wall with his forelegs.

“Y-you damned lush!!” Silvermane shouted. “Why didn’t you go for help!? We were all being murdered in there! You were out here! Why didn’t you act!? Why didn’t you do anything!?”

Beanie, eye to eye with his superior officer, hiccuped and tilted his head. “...cain’t abandon muh post, Admiral. I got friends t’look out fer.”

“Your friends are dead! Everypony is dead!”

“Aw shucks Admiral, it ain’t like that,” Beanie snerked. “We got magical friendship all up an’ down Little Hoofington! Are ya just stoppin’ by or have y’been here before? Y’should stay a spell! We’re gonna have a big ol' Hearth's Warming party tonight! Everypony’s turnin’ out!”

Beanie began to list names of deceased townsponies. Silvermane swore in rage, but eventually let go of the lieutenant, allowing him to slip back into his seat.

“You’re insane…” Silvermane concluded. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you…”

“--oh, an’ y-gotta meet lil’ Miss Kitty, she makes the biggest humdinger of a sunflower salad you ever saw! I’m sure she’ll be bringin’ some roasted chestnuts tonight. Miss Rose don’t like those on accounta them gettin’ stuck in her teeth - she’s an old biddy but don’t tell her I said that. And Whim, oh you gotta meet Whim, he--”

Silvermane saw in Beanie what he may have become himself, had he been exposed to Little Hoofington’s cataclysm from the start. He couldn’t say how the lieutenant had survived in the tiny guard shack alone, but the fact that neither the changelings nor Pinkamena had claimed him made this encounter unnerving. Something about the entire situation felt wrong, and the hairs on the back of Silvermane’s neck were standing on end.

“--an’ Miss Buttermilk, she’s the sweetest sweetheart y’ever met with the luckiest hubby in th’ whole town, you gotta meet their kids--”

“Come with me, Beanie,” Silvermane said halfheartedly. “You...shouldn’t stay in this place.”

“Cain’t do that!” Beanie chorused. “Got a post to man, soldierin’ to do! Y’know how that is!”

“Beanie, the town is--”

“-an’ the churchponies, they’re kinda, yanno, a couple drops of rum short of a cupcake - I like those hard cupcakes they make at the bakery. Gotta make sure you don’t buy those for the fillies by mistake! An--”

“...goodbye, Beanie.”

Hector Silvermane replaced the shack door on the rambling visage of Beanie. Little Hoofington was a black sinkhole - a place with no feeling, where he had played a game of souls and paid with his heart. There was nothing left inside him, and as he hitched himself back up and plodded away, he thought on the psychology of the criminally insane. It often started one a single act of evil, that made subsequent acts that much easier to perform. He was already past the first hurdle, and he wondered what it felt like to approach the second.

One soul slept in the back of a rickety wagon, waiting for a brighter day.

Author's Note

Chocolate Waffle has died. Chocolate Waffle was Pinkamena.

Cadabra Smile (Lorem Ipsum) was the Spellcaster.
Kitty Contessa was the Changeling Consort.
Beanie was the Town Drunk.

Hector Silvermane
Constable Dusky Rose (Veteran)
Deputy Beat Trotter (Jailer)
Whatzit (Changeling Queen)
Cadabra Smile (Status: Death Trance)
Lora Lore (Gumshoe)
Stringbean (Mule)
Kitty Contessa (Status: Escaped)
Whim (Partypony)
Maple Waffle (Changeling Drone)
Buttermilk Waffle (Nurse)
Chocolate Waffle (Pinkamena)
Strawberry Waffle (Changeling Forger)
Scoops (Reporter)
Specs (Watchpony)
Caveat (Bodyguard)
Beanie (Status: Madness)

Thank you for playing Pinkamena: THE GAME!