Something Sweet Bites Back

by Knackerman

Rating: mature
Tags: Science Fiction, Sunset Shimmer, Horror, Diamond Tiara, Principal Cinch, Dean Cadance, Gore, Dark, Equestria Girls
Length: 55207

Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they come back AGAIN! The Candy Mare Returns.

Time has passed since the events of The Last Something Sweet to Bite.

After the incident that came to be known as the Canterlot High Halloween Massacre, Sunset Shimmer was blamed for the arson of the school, as well as suspected of other heinous crimes. When she tells the truth about what really happened at CHS it is inevitable that she would find herself committed to a government facility for the criminally insane.

In a bizarre twist, she ends up under the care of one Dr. Lemon Drop, a human that shares the name of the pony who was responsible for the Candy Mare's existence to begin with. But Sunset Shimmer doesn't have time to puzzle over what his presence could possibly mean. Though she succeeded in destroying the corpse of Pumpkin Patch, the Candy Curse still clings to its final victim... Sunset Shimmer herself.

It wants her mind.

Her body.

Her soul.

And it may only be a matter of time until Sunset has no choice but to let something sweet bite back.

Candymare art by kvernikovskiy

Published 2017-10-28 17:50:06 UTC
Last updated 2017-10-28 17:50:06 UTC

It's Coming Down

Wind whipped through the leaves of the Everfree Forest, plucking the fall foliage and sending a shower of scarlet, orange, and vibrant yellow leaves swirling through the evening air.

With the onset of twilight one could be forgiven for expecting a swarm of bats to erupt from the nearby caves, but tonight only the hungriest would dare venture forth with such a powerful gale roaring through the trees.

One such little bat struggled, even so, searching in vain for some small morsel to fill its tummy. A fat moth would be best, but at this point it would be happy to settle for a tiny mosquito. As hungry as it was, the tiny bat was still cautious as it flew, aware of a sense of danger that seemed to encroach from all around.

Instinctively it was aware that it was not just the weather that threatened, but something more that seemed to lurk beyond it. Though flashes of green light strobed forebodingly in the clouds above, there was a more pervasive sense of dread that engulfed the woodland. In its own way, the bat regretted greatly having ever left the warm safety offered by the rest of its colony.

Perhaps the bats hunger would have to wait after all...

Too late, it realized that there were no insects worth putting up with whatever was coming. With a frantic flutter of its wings, it turned homeward as the first fat droplets of a rain that stank of death began to sleet down from a sky that had turned pitch black.

This had all been a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

A spike of pain lanced through the bats body as something hot and sticky scythed down from the sky above. It felt like something was trying to turn it inside out as it plummeted towards the forest floor.

There was a sudden, sharp pain... And then it knew no more.

"Great, that's just what we need..." Gloriosa Daisy muttered as she sat on the steps just outside the door to the main lodge of Camp Everfree. She was watching the storm roll in. The weather was a perfect compliment to her rotten mood.

It had all seemed so simple, once upon a time.

Camp Everfree had been in her family since it was founded by her great grandparents. Gloriosa had spent every summer there that she could remember since she had been just a small child. It had been a second home to her.

Since it had become harder and harder to pay the bills, it had become her first home now. Not just for her, either, but for her brother as well. Both siblings had to live on camp grounds in order to keep the camp afloat with their meager wages and their own labor.

Despite all their hard work, it was obvious that it just wasn’t enough.

The storm coming in was a reminder of that. The autumn storms weren't particularly heavy on rain, but the wind would do plenty of damage. Roofs would need to be re-shingled, fallen limbs would need to be picked up and the heavier ones chopped up so they could be taken away or used for firewood. If they were lucky, none of the branches would punch through any windows first. They were rarely so fortunate.

Gloriosa had thought finding the glowing geodes in the crystal cavern had been some kind of sign. She thought that they had meant that their luck was finally turning around. There was no doubt that they were amazing, granting her powers and abilities that were no less than supernatural... But that wouldn’t matter to the bank. It certainly wouldn’t matter to Filthy Rich, who intended to buy the camp out from under the pair of down-on-their-luck siblings.

She had thought...

No, rather she had hoped that she would have at least one last summer of fun at Camp Everfree. At least Gloriosa had until she got the phone call.

Canterlot High, which had patronized their camp for years, had burned to the ground.

The camp counselor couldn’t even process the details as the authoritative voice on the other end of the line told Gloriosa of what had happened. Apparently it had been all over the news, 'The CHS Halloween Dance Massacre'. Apparently it wasn’t just a fire, but some kind of heinous slaughter that made your run-of-the-mill school shooting look like youthful high spirits.

What it all meant to Gloriosa Daisy was that their last summer at Camp Everfree had been canceled.

Their last shot at turning things around had gone up in smoke.

All the would-be campers were in intensive care or dead.

The Principal and Vice Principal were certainly dead.

And the hopes and dreams of Camp Everfree had died along with them.

These were the thoughts that went through Gloriosa’s mind as she hauled her body, heavy with depression, off the front stoop and started to head towards the nearby forest.

If there was a storm coming in this was no time for her brother to be out chopping wood. The last thing she needed right now was Timber getting caught in the downpour and getting himself sick, or worse, flinging around a sharp metal ax in a thunderstorm.

"Spruce!" She called, not quiet having the energy to search for him and hoping he was within range of the sound of her voice. "Timber Spruce, it's time to head in!" Sometimes she wondered if her brother had sense enough to get in out of the rain. Then again, she was the one who had been moping instead of getting the camp ready for the hard months ahead.

It wasn’t as if their plans for the immediate future had changed. There was still the coming winter to get through. The camp had a rudimentary heating system and gas powered generators for when the cold would really hit, but there was still so many things she needed to do to get the camp ready to weather what was to come. Truthfully, her brother had always been the more practical one. Tending the grounds and taking care of all the minor things that needed to be done.

Gloriosa just couldn’t bring herself to join him at the moment. It all felt so pointless now.

She felt numb.

The camp counselor fidgeted with the few geodes that she wore on the necklace around her neck. Maybe she should use their power to help find her brother?

With a thunderous crack, unnatural orange lightning pierced the dark sky, snapping Gloriosa from her thoughts as the storms display shook the forest. The rumble of thunder was accompanied by a flash of green light that startled her even further. She had never seen anything like it before, despite having withstood many a wild storm over her many years in the untamed wilderness. Even more bizarre, with the oncoming storm came a thick bank of fog that seemed to be rolling in from the woods. There was something wrong about that fog and, as its tendrils crept through the camp grounds, it made Gloriosa shivered.

It was as if a pall had fallen down over the world. A deathly stillness crept over the forest, the exact kind one might expect just before a storm would let all hell break loose.

I should head inside, Gloriosa thought to herself. Yet she couldn’t very well abandon her brother to what was to come. Besides, she couldn't seem to get her legs to move from the spot where she was frozen. What was this sense of dread that washed over and through her? Was she really this frightened of a storm? She had this awful feeling that if she didn't get to Timber Spruce right away, something terrible would happen.

It was a strange sound that drew Gloriosa's attention away from her grim thoughts. At first it just sounded like the wind in the fallen leaves, a rushing and rustling that she should have been used to by now. Even so, as she listened closer, she could tell there was something wrong that had set her senses on alert. The sound was more like crickets sizzling in a pan of hot grease. The hiss of falling rain was accompanied by a sickly sweat stench of decay that was completely out of place in the fresh air of the woods.

Gloriosa’s eyes widened as she gazed at what could only be described as an onrushing nightmare.

A solid wall of rain swept through the forest, but it was completely unnatural! It had a bizarre rainbow sheen, like an oil slick falling from the sky! Stranger still, it seemed to glow in the dark, casting strange shadows and flushing the fog through with a ghastly corpse-light. As it swept over the the trees, the stately pines, maples, and oaks wilted beneath the storm. Dry leaves evaporating in puffs of smoke as tree bark charred black and curled up, peeling off and falling like the flesh of a severe burn victim.

The ghoulish rain swept into the camp grounds and the grassy clearing started to sizzle and smoke.

Entranced as she was by the unwholesome sight, it took a scream of agony to shake Gloriosa from her reverie.

Timber Spruce!

Her brother ran before the storm, just barely outpacing it as he dashed at full tilt towards his sister. His cloths were trailing smoke and holes were clearly opening in the cloth as the strange multicolored rain droplets continued to fall. “Get inside, quick!” he called to her, his eyes full of pain and panic “The rain burns! It burns!”

“Hurry!” was all she could think to shout in reply before turning to run herself.

Orange lightning cracked again, shaking the forest as the storm broke in earnest. The first fat droplets splashed onto the stairs as Gloriosa reached them, sizzling against the smooth stone. She let out a small squeak as a droplet splashed her sandal and ate through the strap.

Gloriosa threw open the double doors to the lodge and jumped inside just as the rain crashed with all the force of a waterfall at her heels. She kicked off her sandal as whatever the corrosive liquid was that had splashed her continued to eat its way through the leather. The camp counselor watched in horror as half of her footwear turned into a bubbling, glowing puddle on the hardwood floor.

Shakily, Gloriosa got to her feet and looked out into the storm, wild eyes searching for any sign of her brother. Amid the roar of the wind and rain she thought she could hear his agonized cries, but it was impossible to tell how near or far he might be.

Why was this happening? How was this happening!? She had heard of acid rain before, but she had never heard of anything like this. It was like toxic waste was being poured from the clouds above.

“Timber!” Gloriosa screamed at the top of her lungs, panicked. She was unable to see even an inch beyond the shimmering wall of candy colored water. “Timber can you hear me!? Follow the sound of my voice Timber! You have to get out of the storm!” a sob burst from her throat. “Please Timber! You’re all I have left...”

There was no reply. She couldn’t even hear her brothers faint screams anymore.

The wooden struts of the lodge groaned in an agony of their own as the rain saturated the old timbers. The roof had always had its leaks, but her brother had always patched them in the fall before the storms would start in earnest. They hadn’t had time yet this year. Oh,how Gloriosa wished that they had time now. Sadly such wishes did nothing to keep out the storm as the sickly sweet rain began to seep in, eating through the wood and widening holes in the roof. Puddles were already starting to form, and the pop and sizzle of the corroding timbers surrounded the camp counselor as a rotting stench flooded her nostrils.

Tears welling up in her eyes, a scream burst from Gloriosa’s throat as something flopped through the double doors out of the storm and collapsed on the floor. She fell backwards and kicked her legs frantically, trying to back away from whatever the thing was that was reaching it's claw like appendage for her.

Naked, shriveled, and smoking, it took a moment for her to realize what exactly it was that she had shrunk from in such terror. The monstrous thing crawling weakly towards her was, in fact, what was left of Timber Spruce!

Timber's hairless, skinless head rose from the floor slowly, painfully. One ruined eye oozed from its socket while the other orb had grown clouded and blood red from burst blood vessels. “Glori...osa...” He croaked in a voice choked with pain. “You have to... run. The caves... get to... the caves. You'll be... safe...” That was all he could muster before the tendons in his face gave way with a snap and his jawbone clattered to the wooden floor, his teeth clattering as they scattered in every direction. A weak, agonized moan wheezed from his throat before his corpse finally collapsed into a sticky glowing mess on the floor.

Gloriosa shrieked and cried, reaching a hand towards her brothers remains, but not daring to touch his corroded form. There was no way any of this could possibly be real! It was like something out of a nightmare! How was she supposed to deal with his?

The lodge shook, and planks of wood began to fall around her. The lodge wasn’t going to last much longer. Thwew was no time to panic.

No time to grieve.

She had to get it together.

“I got this. I got this. I got this,” Gloriosa whispered to herself, in a steady mantra as if she were willing it to be true. She tried to ignore the horror of her brothers demise. She tried to ignore her life’s work melting into puddles all around her. Her brother was right. She had to get to the caves. If she did that, she could collect the rest of the geodes. Maybe then, with their power, she could fix this somehow.

She could rebuild the camp. She might even be able to do something for her brother...

It was possible. The geodes held such tremendous power Gloriosa had been afraid to wear all of them at once. There was no need to fear that any longer.

The truth was, their power was her only chance.

“I’ve got this!” Gloriosa screamed as she ran out into the storm.

At first she thought that she was dead. She didn’t feel any pain, but the roar of the rain was all around her. As she ran, dry stones rose from the ground to keep her out of the bubbling puddles. Overhead, the stones magic caused tree limbs to bend and sway, shielding Gloriosa from the downpour even as they crackled and charred. A few droplets made it through, singeing her hair and eating holes in her clothing, but that didn’t matter! It was working! She could do it! She could make it if she just ran fast enough!

Despite the how her heart was lifted by this realization, it still felt like it took ages to finally reach the caverns. It was terribly difficult to run with only one shoe through the treacherous fog, but Gloriosa had roamed these woods since her childhood. As disoriented as she was, she finally found the cave she was looking for, and ran screaming inside. As soon as she crossed the threshold into the caverns, she tore off her blouse, shorts, and remaining sandal and tossed them into a smoldering heap which quickly melted into a glowing puddle of ooze. Fortunately none of the caustic rain had gotten on her undergarments, but that was little comfort in the chill of the cavern.

Despite her discomfort, Gloriosa paused to catch her breath. Though the storm continued to rumble and roar, and the forest continued to burn under the acrid downpour, Glorisa was safe.

For now at least.

Only now did she allow her emotions from earlier to resurface, and the tears to take her in earnest.

She had loved her brother dearly. Seeing him die like that, gruesomely and in torment, had been bad enough. That his last thoughts had been about her and her safety made his loss all the more painful. Gloriosa shook as sobs wracked her body, and she hugged herself tight as much against the caverns chill as to keep herself from falling to pieces

“I’ve got this,” she lied to herself as hot tears tumbled down her face. “I’ve got this...”

The only sounds were those of the pouring rain and hiccuping sobs. Gloriosa’s knees ached after awhile, and there was still things she had to do. Eventually, she stood and began the trek deeper into the cave. At first her eyes had difficulty adjusting to the gloom. Th at didn't last long, however, as the slightly glowing fog from before had seemed to have drifted deep into the caverns, though thankfully the storm itself seemed to be shut out. Gloriosa was thankful for that at least, since she hadn't had time to grab a flashlight, but she was still disturbed by how strange the luminous mist was. She wondered if it was as toxic as the rain that seemed to cause it. She tried to breathe as little of it as possible, just in case.

As time went on, the thick fog seemed to grow thicker. Thick enough, in fact, that it's illuminating properties became more of a hindrance than a help. What was worse was what the fog seemed to do to sound down here. The caves were usually fairly quiet, but the fog seemed to muffle the shivering camp counselor's own foot steps, making her suddenly aware of other, stranger, sounds which were amplified by contrast.

More than once Gloriosa broke into a run when she heard a strange gurgling moan just behind her. When she looked she couldn't see anything, but her minds eye played the image of her dead half-melted brother, still crawling after her. It was unfair to Timber Spruce that his sister would think of him as an object of fear, even unconsciously, but such was the horribleness of his visage upon his death that Gloriosa couldn't help it. His ruined face would likely haunt her nightmares until the day she died.

But it was't just the noises behind her that frightened Gloriosa. The sounds seemed to come from all around her now. What should've been a short walk had turned into a harrowing descent, as Gloriosa turned this way and that in the fog... Lost in a place that should have been as familiar as her families camp grounds.

The damp chill of the cave was seeping into her bones. She ached, not just in her scraped knees, and tears started to trickle unbidden down her face once more.

She was so exhausted, physically and emotionally.

Gloriosa just wanted to rest. To lie down and sleep forever.

She couldn’t do that yet though. Not until she found a way to escape from this living nightmare.

It took much longer than it should've, but at last she arrived in the chamber of the geodes. The fog didn't seem quiet so thick here. Perhaps it was held at bay by the magic that had dwelled here for so long?

In a shaft of light that inexplicably spilled from the cavern roof, there lay the plinth that had held the magical stones, a truly welcome sight! The remaining geodes called to Gloriosa, as they had when she had first discovered them. They wanted her to pick them up. They wanted to be used. They wanted to be useful. Sudden clarity dispelled her sorrow and fatigue, and it was then that Gloriosa Daisy knew exactly what she had to do.

She would protect Camp Everfree. She would shield it from everything. Everyone. She had been foolish to think this power could be used to help her brother or anyone else. It wasn't for him, or even really for her, but it was for protecting this forest! If these campgrounds were to be her brothers final resting place, then she would guard it from anyone or anything that would dare trespass upon it. She would not let anything harm the Everfree Forest ever again!

Before she could so much as lay a finger on the other stones, however, a droplet of glowing multicolored liquid dripped down on her hand. She cried out, wincing as the caustic fluid ate a hole in her skin.

Gloriosa looked up.

Of course. The light had to come from somewhere.

With an unnatural gurgle, a blob of pinkish goo started to seep down from the ceiling. Malformed and grotesque, Gloriosa could see the carcasses and bones of many woodland creatures floating in the spreading balloon like mass suspended above her head. Tiny wings flapped all over the slime's surface as long pink tendrils plucked unfortunate bats from the cavern roof.

Of course, her brother was somehow a part of it too. She could see him now, his bones exposed beneath his half dissolved flesh. She could swear it looked like he was still breathing in that warm pink balloon. Still reaching one gnarled bony hand towards her.

The whole thing looked and smelled just like a wad of chewed bubblegum.

Gloriosa couldn’t fully process what she was seeing as the shapeless amorphous blob began to ooze down from the ceiling towards her.

She could have sworn that she saw something like a smile spread across the long slimy droplet that loomed over her. She didn’t even have time to scream as the abomination of steaming flesh and corrosive fluid crashed down, engulfing her and the entire room in one unceremonious gulp. Then the sensation of floating and warmth... Gloriosa was even able to open her eyes.

She immediately wished that she hadn't.

The unfortunate young woman was submerged in the vast sea of primordial goop. The animals she had taken for corpses before were still very much alive, just as she was, struggling with flesh-less arms and legs to try to swim to safety. To try and claw their way out Trying desperately to break the pink wobbling surface for even a mouthful of air, but to no avail.

That was when the burning started. Not with Gloriosa's eyes, but with her skin. It spread all over her, and she was alive with fiery pain as the sensation of tiny mouths gnawing every inch of her body washed through her senses. It didn't stop there, but flowed into her every orifice; up her quickly disintegrating nose, down inside her ears, through shredded lips and past bleeding gums. She opened her mouth to scream but that only allowed more of the gelatinous mass to force its way down her throat, from whence it flooded the rest of her body, making her feel hot and cold by turns as she was literally being devoured from the inside out. She had the awful suffocating feeling of drowning, but without any of the eventual release.

For all her agony, Gloriosa couldn't help but notice that the filthy mass tasted bizarrely, cloyingly sweet. It was the last thought she had before the living slime finally, blessedly, oozed its way into her eye sockets and engulfed her still living brain. Even so, she thrashed and struggled instinctively, trying and failing to escape from the mass that was slowly dissolving her without letting her actually die.

In the dim light of the cave, seven motes of different colored light drifted in a sea of soft pink jelly. Two human skeletons drifted together as well, as if they were performing some macabre dance, their skeletal fingers interlaced as they held each other in a grim embrace. Outside the cavern, the storm was spent...

But the night was only just beginning.

Camp Everfree was gone.

Something new rose in its place.

Blood and Tears

Several months later, in the dead of winter...

The lights flickered on with a buzz as the orderly came into the room with a tray of hot, steaming food.

She'd be lying if she were to say she wasn’t hungry, but even so, nothing on that tray was all that appetizing. Not right now. She was about to raise her voice in protest, tell Sam just to eat the food himself or send it back to the cafeteria, but before she could a grinning figure crept up behind the unsuspecting orderly. With one quick flick of a razor sharp claw, his head tumbled from his shoulders and splattered onto the tray, sending food and gore splashing in every direction. Blood poured from the glistening stump and drenched the orderly’s otherwise white uniform as his body slumped forward.

For all that he should have fallen over dead, he continued to walk step by jerky step, the friendly smile on the severed heads face never fading.

“Now, now. There’s no need for that sour look. I know the food here isn’t great, but it’s not like it’s going to kill you,” the head spoke in a reproachful tone.

That got a girlish giggle to escape from the lips of the fiend that had sliced off his head.

As the orderly set the tray down, Sunset Shimmer could see that blood and bile had mixed with the food in a grotesque pink and black slurry. She curled her lips in disgust and glared over his shoulder at the insubstantial figure who also never stopped grinning. “Sorry Sam, I just don't seem to have an appetite for what they serve around here,” her stomach growled loudly, giving the lie to her word, "It all tastes like blood."

"Now I don't want to hear nay of that. There's nothing wrong with the food. It's just your imagination acting up." The headless body dipped a spoon into the muck and brought forth a wad of crimson slush. Despite her growling tummy, she turned her head away.The severed head frowned, “Now Miss, don’t do this to yourself. You know if you refuse to eat, Dr. Lemon Drop will hook you up to the tubes again. I know you don’t want that.” Sunset shuddered just thinking about it. She was pretty sure there was some law about force feeding a patient against their will, but if there was she’d probably lost whatever rights she had to such a laws protection after they decided she was insane.

Whether there were rules or laws against doing something though, that didn't really hold a lot of meaning so long as she was in Lemon Drop's tender care.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, Sunset closed her eyes and opened her mouth. The sensation of the filthy dreck sliding past her lips made her shutter, but she tried not to spit. She liked Sam. Even if he was a decapitated head right now, he didn't deserve her spewing all over him.

To her relief, in her mouth there were just mashed potatoes... Bland, but not bad.

As the teenager opened her eyes Sam’s head was back on his shoulders and the food, while not managing to look anymore appetizing than before, had gone back to normal. It seemed her Curse wasn’t going to go so far as to make her choke down spoonfuls of gore tonight. It had happened often enough before that Sunset was suspicious now. If the Curse wasn’t going to torment her by making her meal as vile as possible, then that could only mean that some other torture awaited her.

“There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Sam smiled his crooked grin. He was almost cute, in a simple kind of way. If it wasn’t for the fact that he worked for her doctor, Sunset might have actually grown to like him. As it was, she could only pity him for what he had to put up with.

Behind his large form, a candy coated version of Sunset pretended not to notice Shimmer’s suspicious gaze as Sam fed her the rapidly cooling dinner. The image occupied itself by making crude gestures behind the mans back.

It was times like these that Sunset wished she could just feed herself, but the straight jacket they had her in rarely came off, if at all. She’d gone months before now without so much as a chance to stretch. She wasn’t about to give them an excuse to keep her bound by struggling against her bonds now though.

Sunset could wait.

Sadly, so could the Candy Mare.

As Sam finished up his duties, he left the padded cell and the lights shut off. In the dark, the candied version of Sunset seemed to grow more substantial. Sunset could smell the sickly sweet scent of candy and decay. Thankfully this was about as close as the Curse could get to being real, for the time being. But the nights were long and getting longer. The more Sunset sat in the dark, the stronger the Curse seemed to become. Worse, the stronger her own hunger began to gnaw at the base of her spine...

The more her stomach growled for things she did not want to eat... But her resolve was weakening.

The Candy Mare knew this, and that was why she smiled so brightly now as she said, ”You seemed to resign yourself to eating poor Samhain’s flesh and blood rather quickly tonight. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to taste the real thing? To stop sucking down spoonfuls of slop and really sink your teeth into something fresh and warm?” she asked with gusto, seeming to relish the idea herself.

“It doesn’t matter to me what kind of tricks you pull,” shot back Sunset, avoiding the subject. “I know by now that none of it is real! Play whatever sick games you want, but that's all you can do!” She growled.

But then, so did her stomach.

For all she had just eaten a rather large meal, Sunset still felt famished. She could hide her fear behind false bravado, but she couldn't hide her hunger.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not, your hunger is real enough,” sneered the phantom of the Candy Mare with the sugary facsimile of Sunset’s face. “You know it’s only a matter of time before you give in.”

“I’d sooner starve to death,” muttered Sunset sullenly. Not that this was something that could actually occur in this place. Lemon Drop would see to that.

The phantoms merely shrugged. “That’s fine by me. As soon as you die I’ll hollow you ought like a ripe pumpkin. I’ll pull your flesh on like an old, damp pair of socks, and march your corpse out of this cell and back out into the world! Everyone will know you then! Everyone will fear you! And I’ll eat both my share and yours of sweet, delicious flesh!”

“You are so fucked up,” Sunset whispered, more to herself than to the Candy Mare. "It's hard to believe Pumpkin Patch was ever any part of you."

Sunset still wasn’t convinced that she didn’t belong here. That her companion wasn’t just a figment of a deranged mind. Her spell should have worked. It should have destroyed every body that the Candy Mare had stolen, every possible host. Even if she had been infected, Sunset should have burned along with the rest.

Sadly, she hadn’t accounted for how different magic was here in the human world. Somehow the fake human flesh that the Candy Mare had made for herself, that she referred to as simply ‘Candy’, had survived the fiery purge. Sunset had fought the homunculus amid the burning ruins of CHS, and she had triumphed. She’d even gone so far as to burn the things twisted remains.

It was over the artificial charred corpse that the authorities had found her... A scene that had solidified her status as the deranged culprit of a heinous mass murder in the public’s mind.

Wrongfully imprisoned or not, it seemed Sunset had lost her mind there for a bit because she had foolishly thought telling the truth would somehow make things better. Surely telling everyone that she was a unicorn from another dimension, and that she had just wiped out a fiendish curse that turned all of her school friends into candy zombies, was the perfect way to prove her sanity.

During all of the hubbub of being frogmarched between cells, to hearings, back to cells she had never thought to ask anyone to check her wounds. She had never thought that they would need to make sure there were no foreign materials lodged in the scrapes and cuts in her flesh. When the infection set up, she should have known there was something wrong, but they just fed her antibiotics and pain killers and told her she should be grateful to have them.

That must have been how the candy curse got in. Some random piece of 'Candy' had found its way into her body. There wasn’t enough magic in the human world for the Candy Mare to convert Sunset’s body into a new host right away, but there was just enough for the fiend to hang on by the skin of her teeth. Now all she could do was manifest as an insubstantial ghost to torment the teenager that had beaten her... to try and drive Sunset either to suicide, or to indulge in the cannibalistic urges that would feed her power and bring her fully back into this world.

Then the nightmare would begin all over again.

At least, that was, if Sunset wasn’t in fact crazy and dreaming the whole thing up.

Sunset shook her head, trying to shake herself from her thoughts. She’d been going around in the same circles more and more often lately. Going from wondering exactly how the Candy Mare could still exist to doubting her own sanity and back again. If she wasn’t already crazy, thinking like this would surely drive her nuts soon.

The drugs didn’t help either. As that thought crossed her mind, she felt a set of eyes on her that didn’t belong to her phantom companion.

Lemon Drop loomed over her in the dark, standing as still and quiet as death.

In spite of herself, Sunset cried out and tried to back into the far corner of her cell. He was always doing stuff like this. He’d enter her cell somehow without making a sound, and he’d never turn on the lights. Not when he brought out the syringes with their dubious contents.

“Is it really necessary for you to struggle every time, subject?” he asked with the regal air of nobility, as if he were a monarch addressing a peasant. “We both know it will do you no good. You will take your medicine, like it or not.” Sunset started to scream then, which only elicited a heavy sigh from Doctor Lemon Drop. “You’ve done that almost every time as well. You know no one is coming. No one ever does... So please, do shut up.”

Without an ounce of gentleness, he rammed the first needle into Sunset’s thigh. The sharp, burning sensation as the solution flooded her veins made her screams come out as a strangled gag. It was like the needle had set fire to her brain. Whatever was in her veins acted on her fast and made her curl into a shivering ball, despite the feeling that she was burning alive.

“Fascinating reaction,” observed the doctor as he made some hasty notes and pulled another needle from his pocket. He leaned down so that his face was only inches from Sunset’s. “Can you describe what you are feeling? The sensation? You look as if you are freezing, but I can tell by your flushed features that the inflammation is spreading like wildfire. Is it harder to think or to breathe? Do you think your throat will clench shut first, or does it feel like your heart will stop beating?”

Sunset could only whimper in reply at first, but then through grit teeth she managed to squeal,”Head... burning...ahhh!”

“Ah, that is unfortunate,” replied Lemon Drop as he jammed the second needle viciously into the side of Sunset’s neck. “That means that the brain would be the first organ to shut down. Not an effective mixture for enhanced interrogation, but perhaps a means by which we could accelerate new contributions to our organ donor programs. Not that we'd want any of such from the likes of you.”

Relief flooded Sunset Shimmer, like the cool touch of an old friend. The pain was still there, but the burning subsided. As she opened her eyes, Lemon Drop had his back to her busily scribbling more notes. He might have lost interest in her, but the phantom of the Candy Mare was staring right into her face. Sunset was about to scream, but a ghostly finger pressed against her lips. It almost tingled, but it wan't quite the sensation of touch. What kept her from crying out, however, were the specters words.

“You don’t have to put up with this, you know," the Candy Mare said, all traces of her grin gone. "One bite is all it would take, and then I would take care of the rest.”

Sunset Shimmer loathed Lemon Drop. If there was one human being that she wouldn’t mind unleashing the Candy Mare on, it was this doctor that seemed more like a psychopath than any of his patients. But to do what the Candy Mare suggested? It wouldn't just be him on the chopping block. ”I can’t. I won’t. I will never take another's life, especially if it means letting you loose!” she hissed through her teeth.

“Then bite through your own tongue!" the phantom roared. "Swallow the lump of useless meat and choke on your own blood!” The illusion of the candy Sunset Shimmer distorting in the Candy Mare’s rage. She became huge. Horrific. A true nightmare to behold that filled the tiny padded cell from end to end with flesh that crawled with maddened eyes and gnashing mouths and lashing tongues. She spoke in the voices of the dead, her fury rising to manic levels “I will be free, one way or another! don’t care how it happens! I will rip out his heart and eat it in front of his face!”

Despite what it would mean for that to happen, Sunset found she actually liked the sound of those words. The phantom wasn’t angry on Sunset’s behalf though. She seemed to bear some personal grudge against the good doctor, thoguh there really was no reason for her to.

There had been a Lemon Drop in the old legends about the Candy Mare, this was true. He’d been a candy maker rather than a doctor though, and there was no way that this human that shared his name could have had anything to do with the pony version that had lived so long ago. In the human world, Lemon Drop shared his namesakes personality and warped disposition, but that was all.

It must have brought back some truly bad memories for the Candy Mare. Sadistic though she was, she was usually a jovial apparition. To see this much rage and fury directed at someone other than Sunset, the person responsible for her current weakened condition, was kind of bizarre.

Maybe Sunset could use that to her advantage? She didn’t know how, but it might be worth a try, “How about we...”

But before she could say anything else, Lemon Drop kicked Sunset so hard in her gut that she was actually lifted into the air and slammed against the padded wall. Sunset choked and sputtered once she landed on the floor, coughing up a mixture of her recently eaten food, blood, and acridly sweet tasting bile. Tears stung the corners of her eyes, but she refused to cry.

Not in front of him.

Never in front of him.

The phantom Candy Mare roared and swept insubstantial claws through the doctor, but of course he didn’t notice at all. Instead, in a perfectly calm voice that belied the violence of his actions, he said “It is impolite to mumble when someone is trying to think. I asked you politely to hold your tongue. If you can’t even manage that basic level of civility, I will just have to arrange for you to be muzzled before my next visit.” Saying that he withdraw a third and final needle from his coat. This he injected straight into Sunset’s spine.

Sunset’s eyes grew dim, and the world blurred at the edges.

She had no illusions that she would have pleasant dreams, but for now her current nightmare faded to nothing.

She Rides

Diamond Tiara couldn't quite suppress a heavy sigh as she stared out the window.

She glared at the towering trees whizzing by beyond the tinted windows. If one had to take a road trip, then by limo was certainly the way to do it, and it fit Diamond Tiara's personal style well enough. Even in the luxury automotive with all the latest DVD's, videogames, and her cellphone to distract her, however, spending hours just riding in the back of a car was becoming terribly dull.

It didn't help that daddy was giving the impression that he actually intended to spend the entire trip blathering away on his phone. for the last few hours he'd been busy setting up meetings or dealing with contractors. His daughter half considered trying to make small talk with the driver, in some vain attempt to draw his attention without being obvious. if he wasn't several yards away and behind a thick plate of soundproof glass tinted so dark she couldn't even see him. it might have even been a viable plan.

Not that she'd ever stoop to talking to the help, of course.

Then again, maybe she would, after everything that had happened. Diamond Tiara had to admit, at least to herself, she was intensely lonely. Ever since CHS had burned down, daddy had become a little more overprotective than usual, and had insisted that he would have her home-schooled. Spending the bulk of her last school year stuck at home and having to deal with an endless stream of the "finest tutors" money could buy had just about driven her up the walls.

The spoiled rich girl could have anything she wanted but her freedom, it seemed. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone anywhere or done anything with her friends.... Well, friend.

As much as the young teenager liked to pretend she was popular, when she wasn't throwing money around her circle of friends quickly evaporated. In the end, she had only ever really connected with Silver Spoon. Her one and only true friend had been in a coma ever since the incident at CHS. In a weird way, that was fortunate. Most everyone else had died in the fire, and those who hadn't had either succumbed to their wounds shortly after, or slipped into death shortly after. That Silver Spoon still lived, albeit on life support, was in no small part thanks to donations daddy had made to the hospital in Diamond Tiara's name. Even so, the prognosis wasn't good. That reality terrified Diamond Tiara, but she never stopped hoping that Silver Spoon would wake up one day.

The way things were right now, however, she doubted she'd be there to see it. Not if daddy had anything to say about it. He'd kept her under lock and key for so long, now, Diamond Tiara had started to fear she would end up a shut-in for life. She half imagined herself as being like some princess in a fairy-tail kept in a high tower away from the rest of the world...

Locked in a gilded cage.

That was why Diamond Tiara had jumped at the opportunity to go on this road trip with her father. Sure it wasn't a real summer vacation. In fact, you could hardly call it a road trip, as Filthy Rich was making it very clear that this trip was all about business. It was just nice to be out of the mansion and away from all of her stuck-up tutors and dusty books.

She had thought the change of scenery alone would've been enough to cheer her up. Instead the young teenager found herself feeling more alone than she had felt in months.

She even found herself missing those three idiots; Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Sure, she had relished making their school lives a living hell every chance she could. She didn't exactly hate them though. In fact, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had enjoyed their scatterbrained antics. It didn't just give them something to make fun of, but it also had livened up their own comparatively dull lives. Diamond Tiara may have been mean to them, but she hadn't wished them dead. No one ever found out what really happened to Apple Bloom and her big brother... there wasn't enough left of them to put into their coffins. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hadn't fared much better. Maybe it had something to do with the CHS Massacre, and maybe it was just more senseless violence that had seemed to bubble forth that terrifying night.

In a way, not knowing was worse...

It wasn't hard to guess that her guilt from how she had treated the trio before they had died was the reason behind all the nightmares she had been having lately. In her dreams they would come for her, flesh melting off of their bones and fusing together with one another into one mushy melted creature. They'd reached towards her with hands twisted into claws, tears streaming from their eyes, and they would groan about how much pain they were in. How they were suffering. How much they wished they were still alive. How they hungered...

Even in the light of day, it sent a chill up Diamond Tiara's spine.

Unsurprisingly, she hadn't told daddy about that. She didn't want another round with the shrinks. One session with that creepy Dr. Lemon Drop had been more than sufficient for her to figure that out.

Still, she wished she could tell daddy about things like that. There were so many things she wanted to talk to her father about, so many things she wished she could ask him. She just didn't know where to start.

At long last, the car turned off of the paved road and onto a dirt and gravel trail.

Diamond Tiara decided that the next time daddy put down his phone, she was going to try talking with him. Really talking with him She was going to tell him exactly how it felt to be one of the few survivors of what had happened at CHS. She was going to bluntly state that she wanted to enroll in highschool again, even if that meant going to a private school like Crystal Prep. She might even tell him about what she had really been doing last Halloween when her life had suddenly changed out from under her.

Well, that might be a little too much for now... But she could still try.

As the limo lurched to a halt, Diamond Tiara was likewise ripped from her reveries. She'd been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn't even realized that they had arrived at their destination. The driver could've been a little gentler in coming to a stop. , she thought bitterly, taking offense at having her train of thought interrupted. However, as Diamond Tiara glanced out the window, looking away with disinterest only to do a double take and stare wide eyed, she could see could appreciate why the stop had been so sudden after all.

"Daddy," she said in an uncharacteristically meek voice, unable to take her gaze off of the scene spread outside the limo. She reached out and tugged on her fathers sleeve when he didn't respond. "Daddy?"

"Not now pumpkin, this is an important call," was Filthy Rich's automatic reply.

"Daddy get off the phone," Diamond Tiara commanded, sounding a little more like her usual self. "I think you're going to want to see this."

Filthy Rich unconsciously copied his daughters exact reaction. With an annoyed look on his face he disdainfully glanced at their surroundings. The dismissal of everything but himself as unimportant followed this as his eyes went back to his daughter. Then he swiftly turned his head back to the outside world, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open. The only real difference was a brief, "I'm going to have to call you back," before he hung up on whoever he was talking to and let his phone drop unceremoniously on the car seat.

Diamond Tiara wasn't privy to all of her father's business dealings. Indeed, she usually found the topic boring. But she knew that their destination was supposed to be Camp Everfree. Her father had plans to buy them out, bulldoze the camp, and build some kind of resort in its place.

It looked like someone had beaten him to the punch.

Whatever they were seeing looked like no campground they had ever seen before. Every building, every surface, the sidewalks, the grass, and even the trees all seemed to be coated in bright and swirling colors. It was as if everything had been dipped in candy! The entire forest for as far as they could see was a riot of bright, impossible colors that shouldn't exist outside of a box of crayons. Even the lake had an oily rainbow sheen to it and it's gentle waves had the fizz and foam that would be more at home in a soda fountain than a natural body of water.

For Filthy Rich's part, he was already estimating what a transformation like this would cost. Taking a run down old campground and turning it into something like this would have to cost millions. It was clear to him there was no way the original owners could have afforded all this. Whoever they had sold to must have had truly deep pockets, but Gloriosa Daisy had seemed dead set on going it alone and not selling. What had changed?

He had to find out.

"Honey, you stay in the car for now," Filthy Rich said absently, eyes still darting about as his brain did the complex internal arithmetic, "Just until I find out what's going on here."

His daughter was about to protest when certain details of the campground seemed to become more apparent to Diamond Tiara. Everything had a run down, abandoned quality to it. As bright as the candy colors were, everything looked like it was half melted, and slowly falling into decay. The trees sagged, limbs bending down unnaturally, thick strings of candy colored dross dangling down from their tortured limbs. The buildings looked crooked and ill looked-after, as though they might tip over at any moment.

More subtly, it had been a bright summers day on their drive up here, with not a cloud in the sky. That was certainly not the case now, as dull grey slabs of cloud loomed ominously overhead. There was a thick white fog that drifted ghost-like in and out of the trees as well. Everything else was deathly still. For being in the middle of a forest, there were no birds in the sky or the nearby trees, nor any kind of birdsong. The whole, taken together, gave Diamond Tiara the same impression as a closed carnival or an abandoned amusement park.

"Alright, but don't be long," she at last replied.

As soon as Filthy Rich opened the car door, she knew she had made the right call. The smell hit her delicate nostrils like a blowtorch. Peppermint and chocolate mixed with a riot of other sugary and fruit flavored scents, but it couldn't quite cover the intense stench of rot and decay. A cloud of flies rose, buzzing, from where they had been industriously doing those activities that flies do that inevitably resulted in the carpet of maggots Filthy Rich found himself treading upon.

He grimaced as his daughter slammed the car door behind him, but continued towards the front of the vehicle. Diamond Tiara could hear him exchanging a few muffled words with the driver. She couldn't tell what was being said, but she could tell by the tone of voice that the driver was just as taken aback by their surroundings as they had been. After giving whatever instructions he deemed necessary, Filthy Rich then set off towards the building that had formerly been the main lodge. For all the money that had clearly been spent on remodeling, it seemed none had gone into upkeep. That was a puzzle in and of itself that bore investigating.

Diamond Tiara watched her father became a part of the dreamlike landscape. She felt her heart sink into the pit of her stomach for no accountable reason as he disappear into one of the larger buildings.

Then... nothing.

The flies settled back down. The only sound was the rumble of the car engine and the drone of the air conditioning. She tried to distract herself by playing with her phone, but her heart wasn't in it. Instead she turned on her phones built in camera and started taking pictures of the strange resort. She started to think that maybe the run down look was intentional, artificial even. Maybe this was going to be some kind of weird Hansel and Gretel themed Horror Land? If that were the case, they had really pulled out all the stops with that evil smelling gloop everything was covered with. The flies were a nice touch too, in that regard, though if they were real or somehow artificial too she didn't care to speculate.

As the minutes lengthened, Diamond Tiara's heart grew anxious. It was true she was sometimes selfish, and that she had more of a transactional relationship with her father than a loving paternal bond, but she couldn't help but worry when he didn't come back right away.

Was it possible that this weird place that had formerly been Camp Everfree wasn't as abandoned as it seemed? Had Daddy been caught by some security guards or something? Even now, were they calling the police to have them all arrested for trespassing? Or, even worse, this far out in the woods were they planning to administer some rough country justice by their own hands? Those were the kinds of thoughts that set the rich girls heart racing.

So it was with a sigh of relief that she set her phone down and smiled as her father reappeared. Filthy Rich began to make his way back to the car. She felt so much relief, in fact, that at first Diamond Tiara didn't notice how he seemed to have some difficulty walking. Each step meticulously over cautious, as though he had difficulty maintaining his balance.

No, she didn't suspect anything was amiss at all until her father walked to the front of the limo and tapped the window to get the drivers attention. Again there were some muffled words, but as soon as they started they were suddenly cut off.

Was that a garbled scream she heard just then? The limo rocked slightly. The shocks on the vehicle insured its occupants would have a smooth ride even if it were to drive over the rockiest of terrain, so that was somewhat odd in and of itself. For the car to shake so violently, even briefly, something was very wrong indeed!

As Filthy Rich came back towards the rear of the vehicle and placed his hand upon the door handle, Diamond Tiara quickly locked the car door. She didn't really know why she did this, but she followed her instincts all the same. She half expected Filthy Rich to lose his temper, but on the contrary, his face remained perfectly calm as he tried repeatedly to open the door.

In fact, he tried over and over again, his face expressionless, each attempt the same mechanical motion. He should have long ago figured out the door was locked and he wasn't going to get in that way. So why did he keep trying? Instead of giving up, his attempts to open the door became more violent. It wasn't long before the limo was shaking back and forth with his efforts, sending Diamond Tiara tumbling onto the floorboard.

The young teenager shrieked, terrified as she scrambled away from the door. It wasn't just that the expression on his face didn't change at all during this violent outburst that terrified Diamond Tiara, but it was also the look in his eyes. Gone were the frigid blue irises who's ice melted only for his daughter, replaced by eyes that were a perfect uniform pink from lid to lid. There was no way that thing was her father!

She had to get away! Crawling, she reached to open the door on the opposite side of the car, and was about to bolt for it only to come up short when suddenly she looked up into the face of the driver leering down on her! Or at least, that was who she assumed he must have been. It was hard to tell since the upper half of his body, including his face and chauffeurs cap, were completely drenched in blood. He wore the same blank, expressionless look as her father. Whatever color his eyes had been before, they were now the same translucent pink.

He reached for Diamond Tiara through the open door, but she quickly slammed it shut on his fingers. For all it should have been painful, the driver didn't so much as flinch, instead simply pulling back his smashed fingers and slamming his fist into the tinted glass, sending blood splattering across the window. Diamond Tiara fell back, shocked.

As terrifying as that sight might have been, however that couldn't prepare her for the sight she would see when a sound of sudden frenzied movement came from over her shoulder.

Three thick pink tendrils had extended from Filthy Rich's face, one each from what his daughter realized now were empty eye sockets, while the largest extended from his gaping mouth. The noise that had attracted her attention was the sound of the slimy appendages probing the glass. As she looked back to the driver, Diamond Tiara watched in horror as similar tendrils coiled from his ruined face as well. Suddenly, both men slammed their faces into the re-enforced glass. Both did this over and over, leaving smears of blood and slime as the windows began to crack, despite being bullet proof.

Diamond Tiara didn't know what to do. She was trapped! She curled into a fetal position and scrunched her eyes closed as she screamed and screamed.

Then the noises stopped. The limo stopped rocking violently. Daring to peek, the teenager opened one eye and looked around. If it weren't for the smears of blood and cracked glass, she would have almost thought she had imagined the whole thing.

Where had they gone?

Suddenly, the doors power locks unlocked with a heart stopping thunk! With only this for warning, Filthy Rich opened the door to the limo and climbed into the back seat. As if this was a signal of some sort, the doors locked again and the car sped off into the forest at a wild speed. Even if Diamond Tiara were ti unlock one of the doors now, there was no way she could jump out of the moving vehicle and survive unscathed. As the sickly sweet stinking tendrils in her fathers face wiggled towards her, however, she thought she'd be willing to take that chance!

Before she could steel her nerves to try, however, something strange happened. For the first time since his frightening return, Filthy Rich's expression changed. He looked pained... He clutched his stomach with one hand and his head with the other. Suddenly he hunched forward, and a gurgling sound filled the car as vomit erupted from his throat. Diamond Tiara had to pull her legs up on the seat as a pool of thick pink slime quickly spread on the floor of the limo. When he was finally done, Filthy Rich slumped to his side, blood seeping from his empty eye sockets and his liquefied innards drooling from the toothless crimson chasm that had once been his mouth.

Diamond Tiara's throat was raw from all the screaming she had already done, but she somehow reached down deep for several fresh, ear piercing shrieks. To her shock, she heard two screams for every one she belted out. That was enough to quiet her, at least for the moment. Her eyes grew wide as she realized where the sound had come from.

The pile of ooze on the floor began to rise. Three tendrils spread, two dividing into five smaller tendrils while the largest tentacle in the center swelled and split into many hair thin tentacles. The gelatinous creature shifted its form further, its lower body dividing into two stumpy legs with rough feet. The two smaller tentacles became slender arms with delicate hands, and the central tendril roughly took the shape of a head atop slender shoulders with a crop of long messy hair.

It was a little girl. Or rather, the translucent slime had taken on the shape of a little girl. Slime flowed into the shape of a dress with little frilly bows, but there was no nakedness to hide. Indeed, even the face was smooth and featureless, with no eyes, nose, or mouth. That was, of course, until a hole opened approximately where a mouth should be and let out a scream that sounded exactly like Diamond Tiara's, though amplified by several orders of magnitude. The cars windows cracked further and the teenager was forced to cover her ears or risk going deaf.

After that, the slime in the shape of a girl sat quietly, staring eyelessly at the young debutante.

This was too much for Diamond Tiara to take! Despite this, she wasn't going to let a little something like being completely out of her depth stop her from asserting herself.

"What are you!? What do you want!?" she shouted.

"What aRe You!? What do You waNt!?" The slime shouted almost perfectly in sync, though with some difficulty mastering its volume.

"Stop that! How dare you mock me after harming my father!?" she cried.

"StoP tHat! HoW dAre YoU mocK mE AfTer HarminG my fatHER!?" it responded in the same broken language.

Diamond Tiara was already sick of this. It was bad enough she was scared out of her mind but it seemed like this thing, whatever it was, was more interested in humiliating her than harming her. With that in mind, she moved to unlock the limo door and take her chances jumping out after all. She might not be in any immediate danger, but there was no telling what might happen next. Yes the trees were whizzing by alarmingly fast, but she wasn't about to sit here and take being mocked by a pillar of pink snot.

Faster than she could follow, the slime girl blocked her reaching hand. Her finger tips brushed the cool, gelatinous surface and the teenager jerked her hand away as if she had been scalded. Despite the coolness of the creature, it did indeed feel as though Diamond Tiara had burned herself. When she looked down, her fingertips were smoking slightly, and it looked as if she had lost several layers of skin.

Though tears stung her eyes, she wasn't about to give up. Putting on her bossiest voice she said, "You better let me go! If this is about money you've got another thing coming! We don't negotiate with criminals, or terrorists or... or... whatever the heck you are!"

For once, the jelly girl didn't mock the teenager's words. Instead she tilted her translucent head slightly to one side. Without turning away from the teenager, she reached out one tiny hand to the prone form of Filthy Rich. The tiny hand pressed down gently on the side of his face, but the reaction was immediate. Filthy Rich writhed and screamed wordlessly, blood and broken teeth spraying out of the hole where his mouth once was as the stench of scorching flesh filled the cars interior. Diamond Tiara could see where a ragged wound, the perfect shape of a hand print, had opened in the side of her fathers face.

And the hand was pushing deeper, and deeper... Sinking layer by layer through skin, fat, and muscle.

It was down to bone when she finally squeaked, "Alright, alright! I'll cooperate! Just stop! Stop hurting him! Stop hurting my daddy!" She bawled, fat tears spilling from a face made ugly by sadness, pain, and, worst of all, resignation. The slime girl contorted her face similarly and mimicked the sounds of the weeping teen. Thankfully, in doing this, she had stopped tormenting Filthy Rich. As Diamond Tiara draped herself protectively over her fathers form, she didn't see a new expression cross the monsters face.

It was a wide grin made of seven glowing stones, two forming rudimentary eyes and the others the thin mouth, each a different color of the rainbow...

Dirty Black Summer

The morning commute was murder, as always.

Today seemed especially brutal. There was some kind of accident and, although only one lane was blocked, everyone had to slow down and stare. People just loved to gawk at others misery.

Dean Cadance cranked up the air conditioning in her tiny car but the extra power did little to dispel the blazing August heat, and even less to improve her foul mood.

Today was the first day of new classes, and she was already late. As Dean, it was her responsibility to greet the new students and to hold an assembly welcoming them and welcoming back the returning classes for another "exciting year at Crystal Prep". She just knew she was going to break down in tears before she even arrived.

It wasn't just the traffic that was frustrating her. The past winter and spring had been an endless parade of funerals for the victims of the CHS massacre. Principal Cinch had been adamant about Cadance attending each and every one as a representative of Crystal Prep to 'provide comfort' in the families time of need. Though really, when she had said each and every one, she had meant specifically the ones where the victims had younger siblings that were looking for new schools in which to enroll. At least those had been the ones highlighted on her itinerary.

Bearing that particular cross had been no walk in the park for Cadance, who would often find the grieving parents were quick to anger when they realized what she was there for. She didn't blame them, as she wouldn't want some stranger intruding during such a delicate time to try and sell her on an expensive private education. Even so, some of the parents had jumped at the opportunity, and Principal Cinch had practically salivated over the list of new enrollments. Well, all those new tuition checks, in any event.

The whole situation had made Cadance feel dirty.

Indeed, the entire town had felt darker and filthier since Canterlot High had burned down. It was as if the smoke and ash had never really gone away and still clung on, tainting what had previously been a typical suburban sprawl.

Dwelling on one of the causes of her agitation only caused Cadance to think about another: Shining Armor.

The funeral for Twilight Sparkle had been one of the few funerals she had actually been invited to. Twilight's family was wealthy enough that they could've made it an extravagant affair if they had wanted to, but instead opted for a quiet ceremony with only a few close family friends.

Cadance still didn't know all the details about how Crystal Prep's star student had met her tragic fate the same night as the CHS massacre, but she knew it had involved some kind of accident on the families private estate. There wasn't enough left of her body to bury, so an empty coffin had been lowered into the cold, hard ground. It had been one of the hardest days Cadance had ever lived through. Twilight had almost been like a little sister to her. In fact, she would have been if she hadn't....

The Dean of Crystal Prep shook her head furiously, trying not to think about it. But the memories still came, all the same.

That bleak day in November had been the last she had seen of Shining Armor.

They had been engaged. The plan had been for them to marry after Shining Armor had done a tour of duty in the army. Cadance had no idea if that was still the plan or if the whole thing had been called off. It was like Twilight dying had caused a door to slammed shut between the two lovers, and neither seemed capable of opening it again.

There were times she felt like she ought to be the one to call him. She should just get the obvious out of the way and tell him it was over. Then she could release him from any obligations he might still think he had to her. He'd be free to just deal with the burdens he and his family were having to face.

Just the thought of it made her heart ache.

While she desperately wanted to hear her fiance's voice, she didn't have the courage to call him. It would be one thing if she worked up the courage to release him of her own free will but if she had to listen to him say the same thing? Listen to Shining Armor tell Cadance their relationship was over? She thought that experience alone might well destroy her.

So instead Cadance had plunged herself into her work. She made sure all the transferred students from CHS were properly enrolled in their new classes and had offered help and guidance to each of them before the school year had even started. Now though, instead of getting on with that school year and tending to her duties, she was forced to sit here in stop and go traffic thinking about things she'd rather ignore.

Cadance said an unladylike curse beneath her breath for every rubbernecker past, present and future, then leaned in hard on her cars horn. She let it blare longer than was really reasonable, but then she doubted the motorist in front of her with their ear buds in tapping away on the cellphone they thought they had hidden in their lap was really sparing enough attention to notice.

It didn't make the traffic move any faster, but it made her feel a little better anyways.

Principal Cinch gave Cadance a particularly sour look as she rounded the corner of the school from the faculty parking lot. With a nervous smile in return, Cadance joined her as she was already standing on the front steps and greeting students as they walked by.

Without letting the plastic smile she had on her face for the approaching students waver in the slightest, the principal hissed "You're late," through clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry Principal Cinch, I got caught in traffic," replied Cadance, equally adept at keeping up a fake smile even as she made the apology. "All these newly enrolled children have parents dropping them off. It's made for a lot of gridlock on the way here."

"Hello! Welcome to Crystal Prep! I just know we're going to have a wonderful school year!" exclaimed Principal Cinch brightly before she continued under her breath,"Don't let it happen again. I shouldn't be the one greeting these brats and their idiot parents. That's your job. Otherwise what am I paying you for?"

Cadance did not point out that, as Dean, one of her duties was actually handling payroll and thus she was responsible for paying herself along with everyone else at Crystal Prep. Since Principal Cinch was also the headmistress and owner of the school, she could still fire Cadance for pointing out something she should already know, and the quibble wouldn't have made for much of a glowing recommendation on her resume. Instead she said , "Of course Principal Cinch," as she always did, and got on with the smiling and the waving.

She could tell already that this was going to be a long year.

Just as Cadance had resigned herself to that fact, a long black limousine pulled up in front of the school, aggressively forcing its way past other drivers. Cadance had wondered many times if Headmistress Cinch could smell money. The older woman's eyes would dilate and her nostrils would flare in the presence of those whom, Cadance would find out some time later, were well positioned to make particularly large donations to the school. Such a look crossed the principal's face now as the fake smile on her face melted into a very real look of avarice.

Principal Cinch ignored several students as she made a bee line for the stretch limo, leaving Dean Cadance to offer a few rushed apologies as she hurried to keep up with her employer.

As they arrived at the side of the vehicle, the door opened and out stepped two young, very similar looking girls. The only real difference between the two was that one wore an almost disturbingly pleasant grin while the other appeared sullen and morose.

A flash of triumph crossed Miss Cinch's face as she almost gratuitously smiled at the children," Welcome! Welcome to Crystal Preparatory School! You must be miss Diamond Tiara. It is an absolute pleasure to finally meet you. I was just telling Dean Cadance what a pleasure it is to greet each and every student at the start of the school year, but I must say it is a particular thrill to greet your esteemed self." Cinch gushed. Cadance had only ever seen her stern face melt into such a disgusting display when an extremely wealthy investor had graced the school with their presence. Which was why the next question from her was not much of a surprise, "Is your father with you perchance dear? I was wanting to thank him personally for his remarkable generosity!"

"You mean for all the money he sunk into your crumby school?" asked Diamond Tiara, "Yeah, I'm sure Daddy would be absolutely thrilled to have an old battle-axe like you fawning over him."

To Principal Cinch's credit, her submissive toady act slipped only for a moment, her right eye twitching and her smile fading only slightly before she recovered magnificently, "Oh, I'm certain he would be far too busy, being such an important man. How rude of me not to introduce myself first. I am Principal Cinch, Headmistress of this fine school, to which your father has made a rather sizable donation to ensure your enrollment. Do be so kind as to introduce me to your companion. Will she be attending classes here as well?"

A guarded look crossed the young teenagers face before she answered, "Oh, you don't know? This is my cousin. She's from... very far away." The other girl gave Diamond Tiara a sharp nudge, "Yakyakistan, actually. I'm afraid she hasn't really learned the language here yet, but she's very interested in learning. I would've thought you would know all about this already."

Cinch gave Dean Cadance an accusing look, thinking that the Dean had failed to inform her of an important detail, but she honestly didn't have a clue. Whoever had handled Diamond Tiara's enrollment hadn't mentioned anything about a cousin. All she could do was shrug and stare at the other girl. That smile on her face really was the most bizarre thing. It was so open, honest, and friendly, and yet... It didn't exactly seem all that friendly. It felt more like the girl was in on a hilarious joke that was unfortunately at everyone else's expense.

At first glance the girl looked very much like Diamond Tiara, though perhaps a little pudgier. Her pink complexion was paler and her hair didn't seem to have been as expertly coiffed. Her dress was similar to her cousins as well, but it looked somehow shabby, as if her cloths were shiny with grease or had been washed one too many times. The oddest thing though, perhaps, was the dark sunglasses she wore. The tint was so dark and the lenses so large Cadance couldn't even get a glimpse of the girls eyes.

"What exactly did you say your cousins name was?" the Dean asked, perplexed.

"I didn't," was Diamond Tiara's curt reply, "We're not exactly accustomed to talking to the help. If you'll excuse us, we'd like to get settled in before classes start."

The pair of teenagers forced their way past the two adults, and they almost got away before Miss Cinch said,"Of course! We have a busy first day scheduled. But there's just one thing," all traces of fawning faded from her voice in an instant, "We do not allow the wearing of sunglasses on school property. I'm afraid your cousin will have to relinquish her eye-wear until the end of th-"

As the Principal reached one thin hand towards the chubby teenagers face, it suddenly froze in mid-grab.

The teenager had growled at Principal Cinch. It wasn't a soft growl either, but a deep and resonate sound like one might hear from a bear. It was only for a brief moment, but Cadance was absolutely sure that the sound had come from the young woman. Even so, she was still all smiles, though the headmistress had gone pale.

For the first time ever, so far as Cadance could remember, Miss Cinch actually backed down from a student!

"There I go... Being rude again," the Principal murmured, the words barely leaving her lips. "Of course exceptions can be made for... Exceptional students. That's the Crystal Prep way, after all."

"Oh, she's exceptional alright," replied Diamond Tiara, before adding under her breath, "Pray you don't find out just how exceptional."

Tired of Being Alive

Twist wasn't having a very good first day at her new school.

Like many other students she had been caught in traffic and ended up arriving late, but unlike many other students she had also managed to get lost in the new and unfamiliar surroundings. This had led her to completely miss out on the opening ceremonies and student orientation. While other students were checking out their lockers and heading to their home rooms, Twist was still scrambling to figure out where her class, and she herself, even was. All of the other students walking past her ignored her plight, intent on their own conversations with friends or preoccupied with memorizing their own schedules.

That was why, when Twist thought she heard a familiar voice, she gravitated towards it... Despite who she suspected it belonged to.

"I can't believe you did that!" She could here a young girl saying, in what she likely thought was a whisper but was clearly loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. "Why go to all this trouble if you're just going to do whatever you want anyways? Ugh! It's like talking to a three year old!"

There was some soft, bubbling reply. It almost sounded like water going down a drain. Twist wasn't close enough to quite make it out.

"I know, I know, you need your glasses, but that's not going to work for long," the rich girl continued urgently. "That was just a fluke earlier. They won't allow it. Pulling a stunt like that in front of the Dean and Headmistress is just going to make them suspicious, and that's two more problems than we need!"

"Diamond Tiara... Is that you?" Twist asked tentatively. She half hoped the answer would be no. Before everything had gone wrong at CHS, Diamond Tiara had picked on her for her curly red hair and glasses. She'd joked that she didn't have a soul, though Twist privately always thought it was Diamond Tiara and her friend Silver Spoon that must be soulless, to treat others the way they did.

"Who's there!? Oh, it's you," was the dismissive reply. That was Diamond Tiara alright. "What do you want four eyes?"

Twist's instincts told her to say something along the lines of 'nothing' or 'nevermind' and just turn and walk away. That's what she would have done at CHS. But at her old highschool, there would have been other familiar faces, friends, that she could ask for help. Twist could walk away, but if she did she would be starting out at her new school the way she had at her old one. Alone, friendless, and already being bullied by Diamond Tiara.

She'd rather not have to start again from zero. So instead, she said, "I was just wondering if we had any classes together, since we're both from CHS originally. I'm afraid I'm a little lost. If we have the same homeroom, maybe we could go there together?" She smiled weakly as she left the question floating in the air.

Diamond Tiara just stared at her like she'd suddenly grown an extra head. "Do yourself a favor and get lost Twist."

That did it. Tears welled up in Twist's eyes, not from anger, fear, or sadness, but frustration. "Why do you have to be so mean all the time? I was hoping since this was a new school we could start over. After everything that happened last year I... Didn't exactly think we'd be instant friends, but I thought you'd at least be a little nicer!"

For a moment, the spoiled rich girl looked genuinely hurt by Twist's words, but then the other girl she had been arguing with slid forward out of the shadows. The smile on her face gave Twist the creeps. Diamond Tiara's eyes hardened, "Well too bad. What, did you think? Just because some wacko burned down our school that would mean I could suddenly be able to stand your stupid ginger face? Did you think we'd bond over our survivors guilt? Get a clue! Your still the same person you always were and I'm still the same person I've always been, and nothing is going to change that!"

"I was sorry..." Twist mumbled, fighting back hot tears.

"What was that?" Diamond Tiara snapped.

"I was sorry when I heard about Silver Spoon," Twist continued, "I figured you'd be heartbroken. I knew she was your only close friend, so I thought that meant you would be lonely. I thought that maybe you would be happy to see a familiar face. That maybe, in some small way, it would make you feel better. I can see I was wrong. You'd need to have a heart for it to break."

"Have a heart," crooned the smiling girl in a voice that mimicked Twist's own. For the first time, the red haired girl took a good, long look at her. She was a mess up close. There was a certain resemblance to Diamond Tiara, but everything about her seemed shabby and fake. Her cloths looked like they had been made by someone who had seen cloths, but had no idea how to make them. Her round belly and hips were actually protruding slightly, while her sleeves were baggy and wrinkled. It was a good thing that they were going to get their uniforms today because it looked like the girl was in dire need of a new outfit.

Then there was her face. A vacant smile, showing too many teeth, beneath a pair of comically large sunglasses. "Who's this? Is this supposed to be your cool new friend?" Asked Twist, more than a little mockingly herself as her frustration gave way to anger. "I'm sure she'll make a great replacement for Silver Spoon."

"Watch it Twist," replied Diamond Tiara, a warning invested in each clipped syllable. "I told you to get lost. Be mad at me if you want, but do it somewhere else... Please!" There was genuine pleading in that last word. If only Twist had noticed that, maybe things would have gone differently.

"You call me ginger and four eyes, and act like your too good to associate with me, but her hairs redder than mine and her glasses are way more goofy looking," the nerdy girl bellowed, years of abuse and quiet indignation bubbling to the surface to fuel her words. "What's so special about her that you can tolerate her existence and not mine!?"

"Four... eyes..." mumbled the pudgy girl in a rough approximation to Diamond Tiara's voice. One hand went up to her sunglasses and removed them. To Twist's horror, her face was perfectly smooth and blank beneath. "That's two more... Than you need," the eyeless monster hissed excitedly.

Maybe if Twist hadn't frozen, staring, trying to work out why the girl had no eye sockets, she might have been able to make a run for it. But as it was, she didn't even have a chance to scream before the strange girls body divided in half from the top of her head down to her crotch, exposing row after row of needle sharp teeth on either side of the divide. The monstrous girl that lunged forward and gobbled the red-haired teen down in a series of hummingbird fast bites.

A couple of Twist's fingers twitched in a shallow pool of blood, but these too were quickly absorbed as the pudgy girl passed one foot over the spot, leaving it sparkling clean. Indeed, anywhere she stepped the floor sparkled and shone as if the surface had been sterilized. For a moment, she looked even pudgier, as bulges distorted her body at random with Twist's struggles inside her swollen gut. Then her skin condensed itself, resuming it's shape much like an elastic band.

without warning, a hand burst out of the front of her face. It was missing much of its flesh, as well as two of its fingers, but still clawed at the air even as it smoked and sizzled. With a loud slurp, it disappeared once more, and it was as if Twist had never been there at all.

"Oh, now you've done it! Now you've really done it! You haven't even been able to get through the first day without eating someone!" The look on Diamond Tiara's face was one of horror mixed with disbelief. Perhaps even denial of what she was seeing. "What are you going to do when her parents come to pick her up, huh? What are we going to do when people realize she's missing!?"

In response, the gelatinous monster opened a cavernous mouth in her stomach. Inside Diamond Tiara could see what was left of Twist. It was a horribly putrid slurry of crushed bone and liquefied flesh, but her face was still recognizable. Her empty eye sockets seemed to look up at her, pleadingly. Despite the horrible state of her body, the teenager was still alive. Twist was trying to scream, but her vocal cords and lungs had long since melted away, leaving her mouth gaping open uselessly.

Diamond Tiara shuddered and looked away, "Stop that. I don't need to see that."

The mouth on the jelly girl twitches up into a grin, not unlike what you might see on the face of a young child having successfully grossed out an adult, before it closed seamlessly with no sign it had ever been there. When Diamond Tiara looked back, two light pink eyes had bobbed to the surface of the creatures 'face'. They floated around for a moment before structures like eyelids set them in place. After a few experimental blinks, they actually looked rather natural. That is, if you didn't realize that they had previously belonged to Peppermint Twist.

"Oh, fantastic," Diamond Tiara moaned, regarding the monsters new look bitterly, "You solved one problem by creating two more!"

"This will only take a moment. Just try to relax." clumsy fingers worked the straps and buckles that held a mesh wire cage in place over her mouth. Lemon Drop hadn't been kidding about muzzling her, and now the contraption only came off when either Sam was giving Sunset her meals.

Sunset took a moment to work her jaw, the bones popping somewhat painfully as she stretched the muscles and gave a huge yawn. "Hey Sam, what's cooking?" she asked, smiling. It felt good to smile.

"You seem like you're in a good mood this evening," the orderly remarked with a chuckle. He secured the muzzle out of the way before bringing forward a tray of, by now, lukewarm food.

"Things have been better recently," Sunset replied. It struck her that she wasn't just saying that either, but it was actually true.

Winter had been long and hard. The Candy Mare had devised more and more twisted ways to torment Sunset, to urge her to kill herself or to drive her mad. At the same time she had to endure that, the frequency and severity of Dr. Lemon Drops experiments had increased dramatically as well. The nights had been long, dark, and cold, but as the frosty months had thawed into spring things had calmed down quite a bit.

Sunset's curse seemed to subside as the sun had climbed into the sky, and as spring had melted into summer she rarely even caught a glimpse of the shade of the Candy Mare outside of her dreams. Lemon Drop too, it seemed, had found himself too busy to grace Sunset with his nocturnal attentions, and while she couldn't say she was comfortable sleeping in a straight jacket and muzzle in a padded room, she was much more at ease than she had been in some time.

As Sam spoon fed her the cafeteria food, Sunset actually found herself enjoying it. Her stomach wasn't growling as much and the food actually seemed to be hitting the spot.

Sadly, she should've known better than to allow herself to grow complacent. Just as Sam was about to move on to her dessert the lights in the cell flickered out with a pop.

"Uh, Doctor is that you? I'm still in here," Sam said in the dark, a hint of nervousness creeping into his voice. "Or Nurse? Janitor maybe?"

Sunset could hear the large man shuffling in the dark, using his big hands to feel along the floor until he found the door. She could sense him standing up, but she had to imagine him peering out of the plastic mesh re-enforced window.

"Gee, it looks like powers out to the whole ward," the undercurrent of fear in the Sam's voice was palpable. Sunset could practically taste his apprehension... and it tasted sweet. "You sit tight miss. It's probably just a blown fuse or a tripped circuit breaker. I'll tend to that and then we'll get back to your meal."

"What's the rush Sam? you know you're safe with me..." Sunset whispered dreamily.

Even though it was dark, Sam could see the teenager was suddenly standing right behind him... Smiling. Her teeth looked longer than usual and her eyes were unnaturally bright. The way she was swaying side to side reminded Sam of a cobra poised to strike. Everything about this situation screamed 'danger'.

The teenager moved closer, and Sam couldn't help but notice how she was squirming beneath her straight-jacket."I'm sure someone else will fix the lights," Sunset hissed, her breath coming out hot and steamy, "And all that's left of my meal is the dessert. You know how much I enjoy having a little something... sweet to bite. You wouldn't want to deprive me of that now, would you?"

That her words were spoken in a sultry tone that Sam had never heard from Sunset before did nothing to allay his fears. If anything it increased his apprehension. that only seemed to make Sunset giggle. Was she enjoying his fear?

The lights came back on with a loud thunk and Same didn't even hesitate. He slipped out of the room as fast as he could and made sure to secure the door behind himself.

There was a sound of uncontrollably laughter as Sam's footsteps retreated down the hall, but then it cut off with a sudden gasp. The frightening aura around Sunset faded away the second a candified Sunset Shimmer stepped out of her body and into the cell. Sunset grimaced up at her and spat, "You've gotten stronger. I shouldn't have let my guard down. You wouldn't have gotten away with that a month ago."

"Mores the pity," replied the Candy Mare with a twisted grin, "it's fun to tease them when they're big and stupid like that."

"You really are such a child. Always playing with your food," Sunset joked grimly, trying to cover how terrified she was with gallows humor. This was the first time in awhile that her curse had been able to influence her words and actions. She hadn't realized what was happening until it was too late.

"Perhaps, but that was just a pleasant diversion. That's not why I've decided to talk with you tonight," replied the shade, the mirth fading from her candy face.

"Why tonight exactly?" asked Sunset before she could stop herself. "You had plenty of opportunities. What made you decide to stop sulking and grace me with your abominable presence? I was kind of hoping you had just shriveled up and died."

"If wishes and hopes were swishes and ropes we'd all hang out to dry," was the Candy Mare's nonsensical reply. " I needed to wait until they took your muzzle off. I'm not a fan of one sided conversations, and that horrid contraption might get in the way of our understanding one another."

"That still doesn't answer my question," pointed out Sunset, sulkily.

The Candy version of Sunset looked at her incredulously,"Don't tell me you can't feel it. The swell of power coming up through your toes. Little by little the nights are getting longer. It won't be long now before Nightmare Night returns. When it does, you and I need to be prepared. That's why I need to speak with you. I want to cut you a deal."

"Oh this will be good," replied Sunset snarkely, "So is this the deal where I kill myself and you vow to destroy my enemies? Or the deal where I eat the next person I see and get to go on a cannibalistic spree as we break out of the asylum?"

The shade ignored her sarcastic words and continued, "I know you've noticed that they aren't treating you like they would a regular inmate. I've figured out why you're here."

"Sure... and why is that?" Asked Sunset, feigning disinterest.

"Someone out there believed you. Someone is desperate to find a way to silence me for good, but the idiots are trying to suppress magic with science." The Candy Mare cast a disdainful glance over her shoulder,"I'll give them that they threw me off for a little while with their 'Dr. Lemon Drop' routine, but I knew I was on the right track when he backed off experimenting on you at the same time I backed off tormenting you. If he were anything like the *real* Lemon Drop, he wouldn't have stopped using you until you were dead."

"So, what? You think there's some plan to break this curse and they just haven't told me?" Sunset wondered aloud, her brow wrinkled in thought, "Why not tell me? Why go through with some weird act?"

"Probably because anything you know, I know... They wouldn't want me knowing how they plan to get rid of me," replied the Candy Sunset with a grimace. "Stupid as their methods may be, they aren't leaving anything to chance."

"Sounds like I ought to just let them carry on then," mused Sunset.

That got the Candy Mare to shake her head furiously, "Only it's not going to work. Eventually they'll figure out that magic doesn't work the way they think it does and they'll give up on trying to alter you chemically. Then they'll figure out they will need to give you the same treatment as the royal sisters gave poor Pumpkin Patch. That's when the knives will come out and they'll start sealing bits of you in concrete all over the country. I'd say give it a few more weeks of trial and error and they'll chop you up and seal away the pieces."

"Trapping me and you together for a thousand years," whispered Sunset in horror.

The candy doppelgänger nodded, "Possibly longer than that. Magic works differently in this world, and it's incredibly thin. In Equestria it took me a thousand years to absorb enough ambient magic to make a new body and escape my imprisonment. Even then I escaped earlier than I should have thanks to those three stupid little fillies. In this world it could take tens of thousands of years. Which would suit the humans just fine."

"W-well fine then. If that's he way it has to be to keep you from wreaking havoc again, then I guess... I guess that's just what will have to happen," Sunset tried to hold back her tears, but it was hard when she was forced to consider what the next several millennia might have in store for her. "I'm fine with it," she lied.

"Are you?" Asked the Candy Mare, a serious look on her disturbing face, "Because make no mistake, I will get out. When I do, you'll be just as stuck as Pumpkin Patch was, unable to pass on. That wasn't a fate I wished on her, but on you? I don't mind if you suffer for all of eternity. Even so, I'd rather not have to go through being imprisoned again just to put you in that position. That's why I'm going to make this one time offer."

As she said this, the Candy Mare extended one deformed hand. In the palm there sat a single piece of candy, vibrantly yellow and dusted with sugar. A lemon drop.

"It was all I could think of," the shade said, almost apologetically.

"So what, you expect me to just kill myself so you can escape?" demanded the teenager, bewildered. "How is that any better!?"

"Don't be daft! You know how weak my powers are in this world," The monster sneered. "This piece of candy is only a temporary thing. You eat it and it will give you some of my power for just long enough to break out of here. After that, you go back to normal. Well... You go back to the way you are now, anyways."

"You could just take me over like you did just now," pointed out Sunset. "Force me to hurt people... Kill people."

"No, I couldn't. I could barely do that parlor trick just now with you fighting me the whole time. As long as you keep resisting me, you'll shake me off in the end," grumbled the Candy Mare. "The real reason you haven't seen me in months is it took all of my energy to bring this one piece of candy into being. With you borrowing my power, it will be the same deal... You won't see me again until the effect of the candy wears of. Your will is going to be entirely your own. Hence why I needed to talk to you like this, to convince you to eat this candy of your own accord and loose your bonds for both of our benefit. I can't escape how we are now, but this way you can!"

"I see how it would benefit you, but I still don't see how it would benefit me," replied Sunset. "Besides, why don't you just slip that candy into someone's coffee outside and leave here yourself?"

"It wouldn't work," frowned the shade. "Whether I like it or not, no one else on this miserable rock has the same kind of connection we do. It's the same reason no one else can see me. For better or worse, you are my current host. But it doesn't have to remain that way. If you get out of here, you can do real research into a magical solution for our mutual problem. You can find a way to break this curse and free the both of us."

"I'm not going to free a monster like you," Sunset declared with a stern look, "First chance I get, I will finish what I started and destroy you!"

Inexplicably, that made the Candy Mare smile. "Likewise. But I'd much rather you find a way to wipe me from existence than spend another thousand years chained to a corpse buried in rock. So how about it? Do we have a deal?"

The unicorn turned teenager had a simple and straightforward answer.

She opened her mouth and closed her eyes.

Devil's Plaything

"What are you doing!?"

The yell caused Sunset's eyes to fly open just in time for her vision to be filled with the image of an incoming fist. The force of the blow sent Sunset flying backwards into the padded wall where she slumped, blood streaming from what was surely a broken nose. Dr. Lemon Drop loomed above her, a wild look in his eyes that Sunset Shimmer had never seen before. It was like his cold as ice personality had flashed violently into hot steam in a single instant.

"NNNOOOO!!!" Screeched the Candy Mare like a banshee as her image twisted and distorted with grief. "I WAS SO CLOSE! SO! CLOSE!!!"

That was when Sunset noticed, for the first time, that Lemon Drop wasn't paying any attention to her but was looking right at the shade of the Candy Mare with a triumphant grin plastered on his sweat slick face.

"Sam! Sam get your useless self in here and put that muzzle back on her," The doctor ordered as he turned his back on the slumped teenager.

But the fact that Sunset was still conscious was not all the good doctor failed to notice. He also didn't see that his violent assault had managed to loosen one of the straps on Sunset's straight jacket. Perhaps more importantly, he didn't see her hide a single piece of candy up her sleeve...

Despite all of Diamond Tiara's worries, their time at Crystal Prep had gone remarkably smoothly. The school fostered an environment of self-involvement so extreme that most students were too invested in themselves and their own achievements to notice one or two students disappearing. It probably helped that it was mostly the survivors from CHS, though when the schools more established alumni started to vanish as well it was met with barely any comment what-so-ever.

That seemed extremely odd to Diamond Tiara. She thought that someone would at least notice that the common denominator in the disappearances was herself and her 'cousin', who had at last settled on a name and asked everyone to refer to her as "Candie". It seemed like a terrible pun to Diamon Tiara, but no one else really seemed ti notice. If anything, the monster posing as a student had become more and more popular as more students had vanished.

Candie had an appetite for knowledge that almost rivaled her more... carnivorous cravings. Once she had learned to read, memorization came naturally to her, and though she would spend hours in lectures and in the school library, she spent tons of time observing and interacting with other students. There was some resistance at first, but if Candie expressed an earnest interest in the activities of these students who were already convinced the world revolved around themselves, it only served to stroke their egos further to have her rapt attention as well.

In short order, Candie was one of the most popular girls in school.

... And Diamond Tiara was furious.

She slammed her locker closed with enough force to shake the entire row. The young teenager was at her wits end. She had thought that it would have been easy to expose the monster and make a get away while everyone was running and screaming, but these Crystal Prep students were so dense they didn't even realize that the interest Candie showed them was the same interest a wolf might show a flock of sheep!

And the teachers! The teachers were the worst! They dismissed any eccentric behavior Candie, or Diamond Tiara herself, demonstrated as if it were just girls being girls!

On the way to class Diamond Tiara couldn't help but muse about how she had once walked all over students and faculty at CHS, but that had been nothing compared to the holy terror she had become at Crystal Prep. Senior students stepped out of the way when they saw her coming and teachers would actively turn and run! Even when someone was brave enough to confornt Diamond Tiara when they finally figure out something was wrong, Candie would be right there waiting. The monster seemed to have some ability to predict these scenarios, so they were always somewhere secluded and ready to jump out, when they occurred.

Like with Twist, Diamond Tiara would try to convince them just to drop it and leave. Maybe she'd try to arrange to meet them later, when she could explain things. She'd even swapped to begging and pleading as time had gone on, dispensing with subtly altogether. Once she had outright screamed at the top of her lungs that her cousin was really a monster and was about to devour them! The student in question had just laughed as if Diamond Tiara had told the most unexpected joke. They'd still been laughing as Candie had crept up behind them and swallowed them whole.

It's this rotten school, Diamond Tiara decided. Everyone is so worried about their own reputations that they don't care about what happens to anyone else.

Principal Cinch was the worst, and Diamond Tiara suspected that the real reason nothing had been done was that she was covering everything up to protect the schools reputation. Whatever line that Principal Cinch was feeding the parents of the missing students seemed to be working so far. No police had arrived to investigate, nor any kind of journalists or private detectives.

If they had Diamond Tiara might have at last had someone she could tell her story to.

Someone who could offer her protection.

Someone who could get her away from "Candie".

Everyday the limo driver, clearly rotting and partially liquefied, would pick the pair up and take them to school. Diamond Tiara would do what she could to ease her tormented father's agony while Candie just watch her go about her activities. All of the servants that Candie hadn't eaten had been dismissed, so Diamond Tiara had gotten used to eating microwave meals every night and having to do things like clean up after herself and change her father's bandages.

With that done, Diamond Tiara would try her best to occupy herself until she was tired enough to sleep. Candie would just look over her the entire time. She knew the creature watched her sleep because she was standing in the exact same spot in the morning as when Diamond Tiara would finally, blissfully, lose consciousness.

Then the day would begin again. Another "wonderful" school day.

The formerly spoiled rich girl had considered simply killing herself to escape the situation. But then she would be leaving her father at Candie's mercy. Worse, seeing what she had become of the limo driver, and what became of the people she had eaten, Diamond Tiara wasn't sure she would stay dead even if she worked up the nerve to commit suicide. The idea of becoming this monsters puppet was about as revolting a fate as the teenager could imagine.

What was worse was that Candie was getting more active the longer the nights grew. As the anniversary of the CHS massacre drew closer, Diamond Tiara just new something horrible was about to happen. Tonight was All Hallows Eve. Though she had no idea what the monster might have planned, it might be her last chance to warn everyone about what Candie really was. Diamond Tiara resigned herself to try one more time, even if everyone laughed at her. Even if they didn't believe her, at least she would have tried.

If only there was a way to get away from Candie. She seemed to stalk Diamond Tiara wherever she went.

As she was pondering this very thing, a fist swung out of her blind spot and connected with a loud 'crack', knocking her out cold.

The world swam back into focus and the first thing Diamond Tiara was aware of was how dry her mouth was. The cloth gag shoved into her mouth didn't just serve to muffle her voice, but had robbed her tongue of all of its moisture while she had been unconscious.

Next, she noticed the feel of cold metal around her wrists. her arms were secured firmly behind her back, wrapped around the back of the chair she was sitting on. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring her arms forward. The rattle of a chain let her know she was handcuffed. Her legs were similarly secured, and must have been for some time if the cramps in her calves were any indication.

It was hard to tell in the darkened room, but it certainly smelled like she was still on school grounds. The scent of chalk dust and pencil shavings was fairly unmistakable. As Diamond Tiara's eyes adjusted to the gloom, she realized that she was in one of the chem labs. A fake skeleton hung grinning in one corner, next to an anatomy doll that had its plastic flesh missing from half of it's body to display the muscles that ran underneath and the system of nerves, veins, and arteries.

Just as the first prickly pins and needles of panic were starting to creep up her spine, Diamond Tiara realized she was not alone. "Oh look, the poor dear woke up!" said a saccharin sweet voice before dropping into a hateful growl, "About damn time." As she stepped out of the gloom, Diamond Tiara recognized the girl as one of the upper-classmen here at Crystal Prep. What was her name? Sour Sweet?

More familiar faces drifted out of the gloom, "Did she piss herself yet? I bet she's peeing herself right now," snickered Indigo Zap cruelly. She was probably the girl that had knocked Diamond Tiara out, given the brass knuckles she was stroking on her right hand like it was some kind of pet.

This only drew a disgusted sigh from another girl, Sunny Flare,"Real nice Indigo. Maybe we should leave you and your knuckle duster alone for a little while, huh?" The short haired upper-classmen leaned down and looked Diamond Tiara in her terrified eyes, "Sorry about her. She gets a little to excited when it comes to the physical side of these little exchanges... I imagine you're wondering why you're here? Just nod"

Uncertain of what to do, Diamond Tiara just shook her head yes.

"Aww, she doesn't know why shes's here," mocked Sour Sweet in baby talk, scrunching up her face and clasping her hands as if she were about to cry. Then, once again, her voice became a lot less friendly and more accusatory, "As if! You know exactly why your here! The 'oh-so-little-miss-innocent' act isn't fooling anyone!"

"She's not wrong," added a girl in pigtails and glasses as she steeped into view. Diamond Tiara hadn't noticed her since she had been standing behind her up until now. Just how many upper classmen were in on this? She hadn't expected Sugarcoat to be involved since she didn't seem to get along with any of her fellow classmates. "Acting like you're frightened after what you've done is pointless. We've figured out what you've been up to. Frankly, it's disgusting."

Serious panic gripped the young teen now. If these girls had figured out what Candie had been doing and thought Diamond Tiara was complicit, covering for her as she'd killed off their class mates one by one, there was no telling what they might do to! No, given the situation she was in, it was obvious that they had already decided to take matters into their own hands. Were they going to torture her to find out what she knew? Would they believe her if she said she was as much a victim as anyone else? She seriously doubted it.

Tears started pricking the edges of Diamond Tiara's eyes.

"Oh my god! She's crying! She's actually crying you guys!" cried Indigo Zap, laughing and pointing. "For someone who acts so tough you're really just a big baby aren't you? Does baby want a bottle, hm?" The older girl brought her fist up to the side of Diamond Tiara's face, the hard metal of the brass knuckles cold against her cheek. "Or maybe you need me to give you a real reason to cry, huh?"

"Knock it off Indigo!" commanded Sunny Flare, clearly under the impression that she was in charge. "That's not how we do things here at Crystal Prep... So long as she cooperates with us, that is."

Diamond Tiara was confused. If they knew what had been going on, what could they possibly expect her to do? It was clear they wanted something from her, but she couldn't imagine what. If there was a way to avoid any more pain she'd be more than glad to accommodate them.

Sugarcoat must've read the look on her face, because she stated mater-of-factly, "Your cooperation wouldn't require you to do anything you haven't done already. You and your cousin have been eliminating any student that gets in your way, driving them to drop out of school while making it look like they have simply 'disappeared'."

Sunny Flare nodded, mistaking the disbelief in Diamond Tiara's eyes for surprise. "It wasn't hard to figure out that you were busy eliminating the competition for the princesses crown at the annual Halloween Hop. While it would be unusual for an underclassmen like you to take the crown, since your cousin is getting so popular she'd be a shoe-in. Since the dance is tonight, I imagine the pair of you thought you were home free."

"We figured out that we were likely to be next on your little list," added Sour Sweet, "Since we're the most popular and accomplished girls in our year. I'd be flattered if I wasn't so ticked-off at the audacity of some little CHS freshman coming in here and thinking she could take the crown from me!"

"From us," corrected Indigo Zap. "The winner shouldn't be a former CHS student or some rich foreign exchange student. It ought to go to a Crystal Preper that's actually put in the time and paid her dues!"

"So here's what we're going to do," said Sunny Flair as she pulled out an electric razor and flipped it on, eliciting a harsh buzz from the tiny device. "We're going to make sure you're not in the running this year by giving you a little make over. Nothing too severe, we're just going to make sure you're following the schools dress code by giving your hair a little trim."

"She's going to shave your head," deadpanned Sugarcoat. "And one of your eyebrows."

Sunny Flare glared at the other girl before she continued. "Someone with your kind of money can probably afford a wig, so after that we'll be taking a few pictures of you."

"In the nude!" laughed Indigo Zap.

"And if you don't want those lovely snap shots getting passed around school," added Sour Sweet. "You'll be sure to stay out of our way tonight."

"Oh, and don't worry about that little cousin of yours," smirked Sunny Flare, waving the electric razor in front of Diamond Tiara's face. "She's going to be getting the exact same treatment you are. Lemon Zest will be bringing her along any minute, and then we can really get this party started."

Diamond Tiara's shoulders shook. It seemed like she was sobbing at first. Who wouldn't be in her position? But then they heard something they didn't expect. The gag muffled Diamond Tiara's voice, but it did a poorer job containing her laughter. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, however it was clear it was from the waves of mirth that were shaking her small frame.

How could these girls be so stupid!?

"I don't get it, is she laughing at us?"

"It would appear so."

"This isn't exactly a laughing situation."

"Her little face is so cute! It's... really creeping me right the hell out..."

With a groan of frustration, Sunny Flare reached up to the duct tape that held the gag in place on the young girls face and, with a merciless jerk, ripped the tape off. "What's so funny, huh!?" Diamond Tiara just kept laughing despite the blood trickling down her face where the tape had torn off a layer of her skin. That only infuriated Sunny Flare more, driving the older girl to lash out, slapping Diamond Tiara hard enough to knock over her chair,"Spit it out!"

The rich girl stopped laugh for a moment to spit out a wad of blood on the floor as she looked up at the four upper-classmen. "You. All of you! You're just so funny!" answered Diamond Tiara. "And completely and utterly screwed!"

"What is she talking about?" asked Sour Sweet, perhaps thinking she'd missed something. This girl was bloody and on the floor, hand-cuffed and at their mercy. So how exactly were they the ones who were screwed.

"For a school with such a grand reputation, all of you "Crystal Prepers" couldn't be any more dense! You think that thing is my cousin!? She's a monster! You're buddy is bringing her to this nice, secluded, dark spot... And then you're all going to threaten her!" Diamond Tiara couldn't suppress another fit of laughter. "You're all going to die!"

The older girls didn't know how to react to that. This wasn't how things were supposed to go at all. When words failed, however, there was always the language of violence... That was a dialect Indigo Zap was fluent in. The young athlete pulled back her leg and kicked Diamond Tiara as hard as she could right in her stomach. The younger teenager thought she felt something burst, and her lunch was quickly disgorged from her throat.

But even that didn't stop her laughing. The truth was she was on the verge of hysteria just thinking about what was about to happen.

There were two short knocks, followed by a pause and three longer knocks.

"That's probably Lemon Zest. Guess that's your bluff called underclassman," smirked Sunny Flare, although the seeds of doubt were sewn in her words. "Stop messing around and go let her in Indigo."

"Fine." Pulling down her goggles, as if they would somehow hide her identity, the blue haired athlete unlocked the door to the chemistry lab and pulled it open just a crack. She might have been something of a muscle head, but she could be discrete when she needed to be. The silhouette of a girl with long yellow and green hair and a pair of headphones perched on her head stood in the doorway. Indigo Zap stepped back and opened the door the rest of the way, "About time Zesty. Come on in."

For a moment the teenager just stood there, stock still. Then her head tumbled forward, splattering blood as it bounced twice on the tiled floor and came to rest inches away from the girls would be victim. The expression of abject horror frozen on the older girls make-up caked face only made Diamond Tiara laugh harder.

As the headless corpse slumped to the floor, another girl stepped over the corpse with a wide grin on her face. Candie's smile contained far more teeth than should be able to fit in a human girls mouth. Her hands were coated up to the elbow in blood, but that didn't stop her from closing and locking the door behind her as she stepped into the dimly lit room.

"I thought we were playing hide and seek, but this looks more like ring around the roses, a pocket full of poses, ashes to ashes..." the 'foreign exchange student' giggled. "We all fall down!"

All pretense of humanity was lost in that moment. Her arms split into several long spiked tentacles as her body swelled and burst out of her dress, hundreds of mouths opening on the gelatinous surface of her pseudo flesh as one huge maw opened wide and bit off the front half of Indigo Zap's body with a horrific crunch. The cross section of the girls body, her innards clearly on display was a sight that would make anyone lose their lunch, as several of the teenagers quickly did.

As the teenagers guts sluiced down to the floor, the girls that weren't doubled over disgorging chunks from their own innards were quickly backing away in horror. Even so, they didn't scream... How could they? The creature that slithered before them, slurping up their classmates entrails like they were spaghetti was too horrible, too unreal for them to accept. This had to be some kind of nightmare.

They were going to wake up soon.

Any moment now, right?

Right?

The teenagers may have hesitated, but "Candie" didn't. As her tendrils lashed out and the screaming finally started, Diamond Tiara closed her eyes tight. She could feel droplets of blood raining down, pattering against her dress and face. Bits of flesh and chips of bone fell like sleet on the tile floor as the girls tried desperately to escape. The horrible sound of gnashing teeth and scraping claws was almost indistinguishable from their bones popping and their fingernails scrabbling on the tiles. The sounds of their struggle for survival were all too brief.

When Diamond Tiara opened her eyes, there wasn't a trace of blood or viscera left. Even Lemon Zest's severed head and slumped body were gone. Candie alone smiled down at Diamond Tiara as she retook her previous form. It was hard to imagine how she could fit the bodies of five teenagers inside her diminutive form, but she managed it somehow.

Candie then leaned down and began to lick the blood off Diamond Tiara's face with a long orange and black tongue. The slimy sensation made her shiver, but she only winced when the snake-like tongue moved down the length of her body effortlessly cut the chains that had bound Diamond Tiara to the chair. "Don't worry," she crooned in Filthy Rich's voice, "As long as I'm around I'll be saving you... for later." The creature laughed darkly as Diamond Tiara curled into the fetal position, hugging herself.

What was she going to do? How could she ever hope to escape?

The door to the chem lab unlocked, and the lights flickered on. "Oh, there you girls are! I've been looking all over for you!" Dean Cadance wore a look of concern on her face. "I don't know what you two were doing in here in the dark, but we can talk about that later. Right now, I need to see you in my office immediately Diamond Tiara!"

Cantspeak

Blinking as if she were coming out of a deep sleep, Diamond Tiara stared at Dean Cadance.

Candie only smiled, of course. Most people found how quick she was to smile endearing, not seeing the expression for the predatory grin that it was. Cadance, for her part, found herself grinning awkwardly back.

The whole uncomfortable situation was balanced on the edge of a knife. Cadance wasn't just some student whose disappearance might be explained away. If the Dean of Crystal Prep suddenly vanished, people would notice and start asking questions. Perhaps that was why Candie didn't attack? Diamond Tiara knew by now that eventually the arithmetic of 'risk verses reward' would eventually fall on the reward side of Candie's insatiable appetite, so she moved quickly to seize the chance to escape.

Diamond Tiara was off the floor, grabbing Dean Cadance's wrist and leading the adult out of the chemistry lab in a flash, "Leave this to me, alright 'cuz'?" she called over her shoulder. She had no idea if Candie really understood her or not. If the monster suspected that Diamond Tiara was just trying to get away or save Cadance, it was likely she'd attack at a moments notice. To her surprise, Candie just watched her go, the grin never leaving her face.

"Whoa, hey, what's the rush?" asked Cadance.

"You said you needed to see me immediately, right? So lets go immediately and get this over with." And if that let them put as much distance between them and the voracious Candie as possible, all the better.

This was a rare opportunity. Dean Cadance wasn't her first choice of authority figure to go to, but maybe if she could convince her of what was going on they might be able to work out a way to... To what exactly?

Stop Candie?

That didn't seem likely. Even if they could think of a way to capture or kill her, they'd be risking not only their lives but every other student's in the school.

Escape?

That was slightly more viable. But Candie had a nasty habit of showing up just when Diamond Tiara was trying to sneak away. The horrid thing seemed to have a sixth sense for that kind of thing.

"Um, could we maybe stop for a moment?" Cadance inquired, out of breath.

"Why? I thought you wanted to see me in your office?"

"I do, it's just that my office is in the other direction."

Diamond Tiara blushed red, but didn't offer an apology or even admit to the mistake. She just continued to march the adult down the hallway, now in the opposite direction, until they arrived at the door with a brass plaque that read "Dean Mi Amore Cadenza".

It didn't take long for Cadance to compose herself once she was behind her desk.

While Diamond Tiara had been her typically impatient and pushy self, Cadance was actually glad she didn't have to struggle with the girl to get her into her office. She'd expected some resistance from the willful rich girl before, but as she settled into the chair in front of Cadance's desk (a much more comfy one than the stool that Principal Cinch offered students) she could tell that there was something the student wanted to get off her chest. Despite this, it was probably best to get her business out of the way first before hearing what was on the girls mind.

"I think you know why your here," began Cadance, dropping a thin file folder on the desk in front of her and opening it, "And how the reason has less to do with you and more to do with your cousin."

The teenagers face was blank, but there was an almost hopeful look around her eyes. Cadance pressed on.

"There's no record of your cousin ever being enrolled at this school. Nor is there any record of her being enrolled anywhere else," the Dean added. "Indeed, while she has become somewhat popular with her teachers, they've all noticed her odd behavior and the strange occurrences since the two of you arrived. Frankly I'm not sure how we managed to let this go on for this long." That wasn't entirely true. Since Cadnace had access to the schools bank accounts, so she knew exactly how much Filthy Rich had 'donated' to Crystal Prep at the start of the school year. The phrase 'hush money' seemed accurate, but that was something she'd take up with Principal Cinch later on.

"I was beginning to think no one would ever figure it out," replied Diamond Tiara with a look of relief. "You have to understand, I wanted to tell someone, but Candie wouldn't let me."

"I can imagine. It must have been hard on you," Cadance said with compassion, and meant it. "Hiding the fact that your cousin is an illegal immigrant to this country must have been fairly nerve-wracking."

Diamond Tiara's mouth dropped open and hung there.

"What I don't understand is that, with your families wealth, why you don't just pay for her to get a green card legally," Cadance paused, thumbing through the paperwork at her fingertips. "It's not my place to ask for the details, but Crystal Prep is a school built on its reputation for excellence. If it was discovered that one of our students was in this country illegally and the school was thought to be complicit in sheltering her, it could severely effect our standing." Not to mention the effect it would have on donations from their more conservative alumni. What little boost they might get from their more progressive donors would hardly make up for it. "I won't go as far as to turn her over to the authorities, but we need to make this right. If that means expelling her, I'd rather avoid that, but since I think you've been acting as her guardian while she's been here I wanted to come to you and ask you if there was any way we could resolve this more delicately."

"I can't believe this!" Diamond Tiara threw her hands up in the air, clearly enraged. "Are you all such morons that you can't figure anything out at all!? Have you even noticed the missing students!?"

Taken aback, Cadance didn't know how to respond to this. She didn't know what bearing the subject of the absent students had on the matter at hand but, not for the first time, she felt her competense was under attack.

"Well of course I know about that! Crystal Prep always has a high turn over of students in the first semester. It's not the students fault if they can't keep up with the challenging curriculum we offer. My duty, however, is to the students that stick with the program," or at least that was how Principal Cinch put it. Truthfully, Cadance had found the alarming number of students vanishing odd, and found it odder still that their parents hadn't called to demand refunds of their tuition. Cinch had made sure Cadance didn't have time to follow up on that, but there was no way a student would know about that. "I don't see what that has to do with your situation."

"IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH MY SITUATION!!!" Diamond Tiara screamed. The teenager was on her feet, shaking with such rage that Cadance actually felt herself instinctively leaning away. As the young woman came around the side of her desk, breathing heavily, Cadance couldn't help but wonder if she ought to call for help. "That thing isn't an illegal alien, she's just an alien flat out! She's a monster! You want to know why so many students are missing? She's eating them! She's chopping them up, ripping them into pieces, and she's EATING THEM!!! I've been trying to tell someone the entire time I've been here, but every time I get close to someone she pops up and swallows them whole! And of course I can't rely on the rest of you to piece things together yourselves, because you're too obsessed with your reputations and on winning awards or attracting donations to realize you're being picked off one by one!"

Cadance was at a complete loss. Student break downs weren't unheard of at Crystal Prep, but she'd never seen a student as agitated as Diamond Tiara. Crystal Prep put a lot of strain on students to produce results, and sometimes even the most talented could crack under that pressure. However, in all her years of having to help pick up the pieces she had never seen a student that had become so utterly detached from reality!

There must have been something else going home, some trauma or some abuse, for this kind of outburst to occur. Cadance was actively cowering, holding up her file folder like a shield between herself and Diamond Tiara. "Now calm down, surely you must be... Mistaken." She had almost said 'crazy', but knew that was a bad idea.

"Mistaken? MISTAKEN!?" roared the teen. "You wanted to know what we were doing in that chem lab where you found us? Well a handful of upperclassmen drug me in there to bully and beat on me. They were going to try and blackmail me with some dirty photos they were going to take after they shaved off all my hair! But you know what my 'cousin' did? She murdered them! All of them! She laughed about it and played with them before she ripped them them apart and skinned them alive! She ate every last piece of them so that when you showed up there wasn't a scrap left! But I guarantee you if you asked their homeroom teachers where they were right now, Sunny Flare, Indigo Zap, Lemon Zest, Sugarcoat, and Sour Sweet are going to be nowhere to be found! And you know why? Because they never will be found again since they're dead and rotting in that monsters stomach!"

It seemed her rage was spent. The tears were coming now, in big ugly sobs. Despite the fear Cadance had of the teen mere moments ago, she felt compelled to wrap Diamond Tiara in a tight hug. Her story was... Well, unbelievable. Clearly some fantasy she had concocted to deal with a hard situation. But that didn't mean she was a bad girl, deep down.

Still... Maybe it would be worth checking in on the upperclassmen she had mentioned after all? Just to prove to her that this was all some kind of terrible misunderstanding.

"This doesn't make sense," Cadance muttered, furrowing her brow as yet another teacher reported one of the students Diamond Tiara had named to be unaccounted for. One or two might be a coincidence, but all of them? That seemed unlikely.

For Diamond Tiara should've been satisfying, seeing the look of bewilderment that was steadily giving rise to panic on Dean Cadance's face. After all, isn't this what she had been trying to do for weeks? Confide in someone the horrors she had been forced to live with on a daily basis? Yet as the knowledge of what she had done sunk in, it only opened a yawning pit in her stomach.

The chances were very good that by telling Cadance about Candie, Diamond Tiara had already signed both of their death warrants.

While she wasn't entirely sure what Candie was up to tonight, it was obvious that secrecy was paramount to her plans despite her reckless behavior. There was no doubt that if she thought her cover was jeopardized that she would kill both her and Cadance without hesitation, regardless of how suspicious it might look.

Worse still, there was a very good chance that she might go all out and just wipe out everyone at the school. Now that she had time to think about it, CHS may have suffered a similar fate last year. Was it possible that this was all connected, and this time Diamond Tiara was just in the middle of another soon to be school massacre?

If Diamond Tiara had unwittingly consigned another school and all of its students to a similar night of horrors, she wasn't sure how she would cope with that kind of guilt.

Then again, she might not live long enough for that to be a problem.

Even as she thought this, the teenager noticed a single drop of pink liquid drip down from the ceiling. As she watched, eyes wide with horror, more pink slime flowed out of the air conditioning vent, but instead of falling from above it spread like water filling a glass. A thin pool of flesh, covered in drooling mouths and glaring eyes, completely covered the offices ceiling. In moments, Candie's head and upper torso slid gently out of the pool, hanging upside down. She grinned as brightly as ever, and raised one finger to her mouth in a shushing motion as what passed for her hair took the form of long hooked spidery limbs.

As the monster dipped lower and lower, it was clear what she intended to do. Her face split down the middle, revealing rows of shark like teeth and tendrils that reached silently towards Cadance's head. The adult was oblivious to this, still busy making phone calls.

It was then that Diamond Tiara realized she had been given a choice.

If she allowed this to happen, she would be off the hook. Candie wouldn't know she had snitched on her, and while Dean Cadance's sudden disappearance might throw more suspicion their way, there was a good chance the monster would keep her alive to keep using her wealth and influence to further whatever dark plans it had. On the other hand, if she interfered now, if she so much as breathed a single word of warning, Candie would gobble her up right along with Cadance.

Her every instinct screamed to just let it happen.

If she'd found someone to confide in once, that meant she could do it again, and next time she'd make sure that they were far away from Candie and traveling at some speed before taking the risk a second time.

Which is why Diamond Tiara surprised even herself when she screamed, "Cadance, look out above you!"

The Dean glanced up reflexively and froze, her eyes growing wide as the telephone receiver dropped from her hand. The dry wheezing sound escaping from her throats was perhaps the closest she could manage to a scream while her mind tried desperately to process what she was seeing.

Fortunately Candie had frozen as well, the only motion from her were droplets of saliva that dropped from her long fangs and hissed as they ate into the wood of Cadance's desk. That didn't last long, however, as Candie's entire body opened like a razor ribbon flower; all teeth, claws, and tendrils spreading wide as the creature detached itself from the ceiling.

Cadance saw her life flash before her eyes as the wall of death fell on top of her. Then she felt a hard shove to her side, and her office chair rolled hard into her office door. Before she knew it, she was tipped over and sprawled out into the hall.

Instead of swallowing Cadance, the gloopy mass engulfed Diamond Tiara. Cadance could see her struggling inside the pink mass that clung to her like a thin skin of bubblegum. She writhed and jerked as she was torn to pieces, but even so Cadance could see her trying to escape.

It hurt worse than Diamond Tiara had imagined. It was like thousands of needles were being scraped all over her body at once. Her cloths offered little protection, and it wasn't long before she could feel questing tendrils slipping into her flesh and whipping through her veins. Worse, she was certain that she should be dead by now, from shock if from nothing else, but oblivion wouldn't come. There was just pain! Pain digging through her flesh and wriggling over her bones. She realized Candie was saving her head, and by extension her brain, for last.

The monster wanted to make sure she was spared none of her suffering.

One tiny arm pushed, reaching for Cadance, stretching beneath the coating of caustic slime. With an act of will that Cadance could only marvel at, Diamond Tiara's arm breached the surface of the monster. It was already melted down to the bone, but still she struggled until a shoulder and then most of her head were free.

Candie wasn't about to let her go though, and slimy tendrils studded with teeth were already wrapping around her, pulling her back into the burning depths from which she had emerged. That was why, with tendrils wrapped around her throat and tugging at her mouth she had some difficulty getting out the words, "RUN! YOU HAVE TO TELL THE OTHERS! YOU HAVE TO WARN EVERYONE!!!" She gagged violently as a tentacle forced its way down her throats and then expanded into a fist covered with long sharp spines that pushed their way outward and made her head resemble a pin cushion. Diamond Tiara's struggling stilled then, and she was swallowed up with a satisfied slurping noise.

Cadance found her voice then and screamed long and loud. She picked up her office chair and hurled it at the formless monstrosity. It didn't really do any damage, but it bought her enough time to make it to run for her life.

Cinch! I Have to get to Principal Cinch! She'll know what to do! was the thought that drove Cadance thundering past classrooms, leaving students and teachers alike peeking out of their doors to try and figure out what all the commotion was about. But there would be no time to warn the classes one by one. The controls for the PA system were in Principal Cinch's office. That was another reason to ignore the curious looks and run as fast as she could up stairs that she cursed with every footfall.

Why did Cinch insist on having her office on the top floor!?

Running harder than she had since her collage days, Cadance arrived at the Principal's door, panting for air. Decorum and professionalism could take a flying leap for all Cadance cared right now. She burst through the door and cried, "Emergency! It's an emergency! We have to evacuate the school immediately!"

But Principal Cinch didn't respond. Instead she sat quietly in her chair, facing away from Cadance.

"Abacus, did you hear what I said?" Cadance asked, exasperated. "There's some kind of monster... Or creature, eating students alive! We have to warn everyone and then call the police! Or maybe the army! We have to do something!"

"Calm yourself Dean. Take a deep breath," replied the headmistress at last. "And explain to me in detail why I shouldn't have your job for this rude and unannounced intrusion into my office."

Maybe it was that same, high and mighty condescending voice Cinch always used that did it. Or perhaps it was just a natural reaction to the shocking situation Cadance found herself in. Regardless of what it was that counted as the last straw, the camels back was thoroughly broken.

"Why you shouldn't have my job!?" Cadance voice shook with fury. "Well, maybe because I'm the only one on your staff that actually does anything! Maybe because I've been single-handedly tending to the needs of the students you ignore, unless you need to manipulate or blackmail them! Or maybe because this place would fall apart in a matter of days if I ever did what I've been wanting to do for years and just quit this thankless job! How dare you sit there and threaten me when the students lives... are... in danger..."

The dean couldn't help but finished weakly, as her eyes came to rest on the thoroughly smashed controls for the Public Announcement system.

"My, my, such wild accusations. Next you'll be spouting some nonsense about the staff at this school having been infiltrated by aliens from another dimension. We simply can't have you spouting such reckless nonsense."

As the head mistresses chair slowly rotated around, Cadance gasped in shock. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses, her eyes were missing! In their place, two long pink tendrils of translucent jelly curved like horns. The 'eye-stalks' for a lack of a better term swiveled in Cadance's direction as Principal Cinch smiled coldly.

"Fortunately, the dead usually can't speak."

Am I Demon

Sam shivered a little as he came to Sunset Shimmer's door.

It wasn't his fault.

She seemed like such a nice girl one moment but the next her voice would change, go higher in pitch like a little girls. It was disturbing enough in and of itself, but not as much as when she'd started having those long conversations with herself in the past few days.

He pretended not to notice, since she seemed to be convinced that he couldn't hear the things her high pitched voice was saying. In fact, he'd been ordered to ignore any kind of behavior like that from her, save when he thought his life was in imminent danger. But last time... last time he could have sworn he heard her speaking with both voices at once. That went out the window from merely unnerving to outright terrifying.

It was bad enough that today was Halloween. He wasn't exactly superstitious, but the things he'd seen here gave him the willies.

Of course they had tried to give him the usual explanations. They tried to convince him that it was just something to do with harmonics and how your vocal cords vibrated. Some people just had a talent for sounding like they were speaking with two voices at once. He didn't buy it for a minute though, since he suspected you'd have to be really talented to say two different words at the same time.

There was something very wrong with that girl... And ever since that night when the lights had gone out, Sam had a difficult time performing his duties. Not that he had a choice in the matter. It was that or end up subject to the end of the month termination.

He was beginning to wonder if that might not be so bad in comparison. Gulping noisily in an attempt to swallow his fear, he swiped his key card and reached for the door handle.

Then several things happened very quickly all at once.

The door exploded off it's hinges. As it did, it slammed into Sam with enough force to knock him off of his feet. As he and the door both sailed across the hall, he had just enough time to think about how nice being terminated might be before his head contacted with the opposite wall. He'd taken nasty blows to the head before, but the speed and brutality with which this one had occurred left him reeling. It didn't help that the thick steel door had left something of an impression on his face as well.

As the door bounced off of Sam and thumped to the floor, he looked up from where he was slumped against the wall with badly blurred vision. Even so, he could see that the thing that came out of the padded room wasn't the girl he knew anymore.

She seemed to be covered from head to toe in what looked like long pieces of red and yellow taffy that twisted and curled like they were alive, shifting and melting across the surface of her skin. No, rather they were her skin. Her hair as well seemed to be a mass of the long taffy tentacles that writhed like a nest of vipers. Her eyes were wide, red, and predatory with smoldering yellow slits where the irises should be, set above a wide lip-less smile that was nothing but a row of sharp crimson teeth.

"Oops. Sorry Sam," he heard two voices say at once, one sounding genuinely remorseful while the other, higher-pitched voice sounded more like it was mocking him. The monster knelt down beside him, and his head swam too much for him to resist as two long sharp looking claws pressed to the side of his neck. Sam was convinced that this was it, this monster girl was going to slice open his throat there and then. But then he heard the two voices again, one sounding relieved and the other disappointed. "He'll live."

Saying that, the creature that had been Sunset Shimmer stood and walked away. Sam, very wisely, chose to stay where he had fallen, and let unconsciousness overtake him.

This was amazing!

It wasn't anything like she had imagined. Her every nerve was on fire with energy! Sunset had only intended to push open the cell door swiftly to surprise whoever was on the other side, not rip it completely off the wall! She ran faster than she ever had before, even on four legs, and didn't feel as if she would ever tire. Sights, sounds, smells; everything was so incredibly vivid! It was as if Sunset had been dead all of her life and had only just now come alive! The candy's cloying sour-sweetness was still in her mouth, but that was barely an afterthought compared to the wealth of sensory information that was flooding her mind.

For one, it was clear she wasn't in a normal asylum as she had thought. The facility she was in was deep underground. More than that though, she seemed to have some kind of extra-sensory perception that let her almost see the life-force of everyone in the building. There were some truly huge fonts of life, as well as many that seemed twisted, distorted, and alien. She didn't know quite what that meant, but when she saw a swarm of tiny lives moving swiftly down the hallway towards her, she had some idea of what was coming.

Guards with riot shields and cattle-prods appeared four abreast with as many guards behind. The way these guys were outfitted let Sunset know immediately that this really wasn't just some ordinary nuthouse.

Part of her, the part that she thought of as the Candy Mare, chuckled evilly. This was going to be fun.

Giving into that feeling, Sunset let loose a terrifying cackle. She jumped onto the walls, her candy-coating turning her feet and hands into claws that gouged into the surface. If anything, she moved even faster crawling along the walls and ceiling. She could sense the guards panic, their fear was delicious as they raised their shields. Launching herself from the ceiling, Sunset slammed into the front row like a cannonball, bowling over the front line like so many bowling pins.

As she crouched on the shattered tile floor, the next nearest guards recovered and tried to bring their cattle-prods to bear..."Too slow!" Sunset roared, as she swept arms that had turned into sharp serrated blades in front of her, slicing through the guards weapons and shields alike. She held back, however, and simply punched the guard directly in front of her in the stomach before leaping onto the ceiling again and flipping over the heads of the remaining orderlies.

One of the guards, who was perhaps a bit more skilled than the others, was able to jam his cattle prod in Sunset's back as she somersaulted over head. There was a crack and pop and the scent of burning hair... but that was the only effect the weapon had as Sunset landed lightly on the ground.

Even so, Sunset turned around slowly, her smile growing wider as her eyes narrowed, "Now that was rude, don't you think?" She laughed as she smashed her fist into the face shield of his helmet, shattering the plastic and visibly knocking out a few of his teeth. She'd struck him hard enough that he rose off his feet and slammed into the guards who still remained upright. Sunset stood over the fallen, panting from excitement rather than exertion. The sheer jubilation of movement after having been cooped up in that tiny cell for a year threatened to overwhelm her. She was almost drunk with the feeling. A long orange and red striped tongue flicked out of her mouth and ran across her fangs.

She wasn't tired, but she was suddenly... hungry. Oh, so very hungry. Wouldn't it be nice to just take a little bite? A little piece... of something sweet?

Sunset turned to the wall and banged her head violently into it. It hurt the sheet-rock more than it hurt her, but it helped her to shake the thought from her head. That had to be the Candy Mare trying to influence her... Or at least that's what Sunset told herself. She didn't really want to eat any of that sweet.... juicy...

MMMmeattt...

Giving an unearthly shriek, Sunset grabbed one of the dropped shields and took a massive bite out of it with a loud crunch. She chewed for a moment before spitting the shards of hardened plexiglas onto the floor. The few guards who were still conscious stared at Sunset, uncertain looks passing between them as they glanced at each other.

"Don't look at me!" Sunset screamed, tossing the half-chewed shield at the nearest guard. She had to struggle to restrain herself from slicing into them as it was. She couldn't trust her claws and teeth, but instead worked out her frustrations with blow after blow from her fists. Pretty soon any of the guards that were still conscious were smart enough, like Sam, to pretend not to be.

"Yeah! Keep fighting!" came a muffled, though encouraging voice. "Make mine mayhem!"

"Who'd be crazy enough to root for me?" Sunset wondered aloud, her curiosity temporarily making her forget her hunger. It sounded like the voice was coming from one of the nearby cell doors. It was identical to the one that had previously confined her, meaning that just beyond the mesh re-enforced glass she could see the face of another confined young woman.

"Aww, are you done already? I think those jackbooted bastards deserve a little more of a pummeling than that, don't you?" the words were cruel, but the voice that delivered them was bright and wholesome. She even smiled, despite Sunset's monstrous visage, "Though I suppose you did work them over fairly well already. Any chance of springing a fellow inmate?"

"I think you might be safer in there," replied Sunset, not quite sure what to make of all this. "Things are likely to get a lot rougher out here."

"Only if you don't let me out, actually," replied the young woman, the friendly smile never leaving her face. "You see, I think you've managed to figure out that this is no ordinary prison, but I've been here a lot longer than you have. Not all of the inmates here are as nice as I am, and judging by the damage you've done so far they'll be sending the big guns after you pretty soon. If you're not careful you'll end up getting yourself killed before you get even a whiff of free air."

"Is that so?" Sunset mused, amused in spite of herself. She felt like she could take on an army the way she was feeling right now. If this was just a fraction of how the Candy Mare felt, Sunset wasn't surprised she'd managed to conquer worlds on her own. But, as unsure as she was about what to make of this grinning girl, Sunset had to admit she didn't know much about this facility she had found herself in. It might be a good idea to have a guide along. Besides, she seemed harmless enough... but then again, looks could be deceiving. "How do I know you're not going to get me killed? They must have locked you up down here with the likes of me for a reason. I bet you're pretty dangerous yourself!"

"Oh, I'm definitely dangerous!" answered the inmate brightly. "But I'm just the kind of danger I bet you're looking for! I can guarantee you I want out of here just as bad as you do. I think we have a better shot if we work together. At the very least, if you let me loose I can serve as a distraction when the heavy hitters arrive... And believe me, they are coming, and they will be packing some much heavier firepower than a few stun batons."

Sunset tapped one claw against her fangs. What could it hurt? She ripped the door off it's hinges. As the girl stepped out of her shadowy cell, Sunset took the liberty of shredding her straight jacket. The prisoner took the opportunity to stretch and run her fingers through her long purple and teal hair. "Oh man does it feel good to be out of there! Thanks for that. Ah, and right on time!"

Sure enough, the thunder of boots and the clatter of military grade hardware rumbled down the hallway. Soldiers in goggles and gas-masks, armed with automatic machine guns were fast approaching. The stink of oil and gunpowder were on them, irritating Sunset's new senses and making the taffy tendrils along her spine stand on end like the fur on a cats arching back. Before she could attack, however, the newly liberated prisoner held a hand in front of her.

"Please, allow me, it's the least I can do." As she said this, her eyes began to glow white, and her hair floated up from her head as if she had suddenly been submerged in water. The guards froze in their tracks. Sunset was convinced she even heard one or two start to whimper "That's right! Remember them! Remember your every sinful thought, your every hurtful deed! You wish you could take it back, don't you? You wish you could be absolved? Forgiven? The only way you will know redemption is if you follow my commands!"

The voice echoed through the hallway, and perhaps through the entire facility. Sunset felt a slight tug at the back of her mind, but it wasn't anything she couldn't ignore. Not so with the soldiers. Some knelt where they stood, heads bowed in supplication. Others prostrated themselves on the floor.

Her eyes still glowing, the girl gave her commands, faster than Sunset could follow. The soldiers stood to attention and saluted before marching off in various directions, most likely to do her bidding.

"Huh, neat trick," Sunset muttered.

"Isn't it?" gushed Sunset's new bestie as her hair settled back down and the glow faded from her eyes. "I really only worked out how to use it on mass recently. Back in my village I could only really use it one on one, but it was more than enough to convince people to see the world my way."

"And how is that?" asked Sunset, intrigued.

"Oh, rife with inequality and injustice. You only have to look around at a place like this, a secret prison for people with powers like ours, to understand just how depraved society has become." She paused for a moment here, biting her lip. "Of course it probably didn't help when I ended up taking over my hometown and declaring it an independent and sovereign nation. Society tends to frown on that sort of thing. Still, you've got to start somewhere! Oh, by the way, I'm Starlight Glimmer, what's your name?"

Starlight held out her hand. sunset wasn't entirely sure what she had just gotten herself into, but shook hands all the same, her claw dwarfing the teenagers hand.

"Er... my name is Sunset Shimmer. Though I don't always look like this." It was her turn for an awkward pause. "It's kind of a long story."

"You can tell me all about it on the way out. Our new friends should be letting the lower risk prisoners out of their cells now, and clearing a way to the stairs for us. They'll be expecting us to try and use the elevators, but the stairwells should be clear for the time being." Starlight grinned manically, "You know, I'm actually a little surprised you were immune to my commands. Either you're an exceptionally good person, or your abilities give you some serious resistance to the power of suggestion."

"I wouldn't say I was necessarily a good person," Sunset muttered, looking down at her claws and her shifting candy flesh. What had she been thinking? Was she just so desperate to escape this place that she didn't care who had gotten hurt in the processes? What if she hadn't bumped into this girl? Surely she would've ended up murder all of those soldiers, or dying herself trying to escape them. "You might say I'm of two minds about things at the moment..."

"What have you done!?" roared a familiar voice from the end of the hallway. Lab coat swirling around him, eyes flashing like lightning behind his spectacles, Dr. Lemon Drop's shadow fell on the pair of teenagers.

"That's odd. The soldiers should've moved any civilians out of this sector even before I took them over," muttered Starlight to herself with a worried look. She didn't loose confidence for long, however, as she flashed Sunset a fresh smile and said, "I can take care of him too though, not to worry."

It was Sunset's turn to put a hand in front of Starlight. "Don't. There's something off about him. Before I thought he was just some sociopath that worked at an asylum, but I think there's more to him than that, just like there's more to this place than it being a simple loony bin. In fact, now that I'm like this, I can smell it on him. Something sour... Something twisted. You should let me handle this."

Starlight simply scoffed, "What's he going to do? He's just a pencil necked geek. I could probably blow him away with a single word. Here, just watch!" Her eyes began to glow again and her hair started to float.

Sunset didn't even see Lemon Drop move.

One moment he was at the end of the hallway, and the next his elbow was buried in Starlight Glimmer's throat. The teenager couldn't even utter a single word before her windpipe collapsed and she fell to the floor, wheezing. A swift kick to her midsection sent her flying back into her cell. Lemon Drop turned to face Sunset so quickly it was as if he hadn't even been facing away from her.

"You have no idea the trouble you're in Sunset," Lemon Drop barked. "Go back to your cell, now, before this gets ugly."

Sunset hesitated, though not out of fear as Lemon Drop likely suspected. She was unsure what to do. Sunset wanted to make sure Starlight was okay, but part of her just wanted to run away. To get as far away from this evil, twisted man as possible. But another, far stronger part, wanted to rip him up like an old damp rag.

Teeth lengthening, claws sharpening, Sunset chuckled, "It's already pretty ugly, don't ya think Doc?"

"I'm not playing around Sunset," Lemon Drop warned, his face serious. "This is your last chance. I won't let what happened to Equestria happen to this world too."

That surprised her.

Up until now everyone in the human world had told her that her stories about Equestria were just 'delusions' brought on by a guilty conscience over all the people who had died at CHS. Deaths that she was under the impression she was still blamed for.

But more than just validation that she wasn't insane, it raised the question further of just who or what Lemon Drop really was... and why if he believed her story he had still tormented her for the last year of her life. Of course, that was all assuming he wasn't just playing along with her supposed "delusions" to try and calm her down. The damage she'd managed to do so far was a pretty solid argument against that though.

There was another possibility, however, and this one didn't sit well with Sunset at all. What if Lemon Drop was talking about what happened to Equestria not because of what Sunset had told everyone, but because he had been there? Not her Equestria, from the sound of it, but the Candy Mare's...

There was no way this was the real Lemon Drop, the unicorn candy maker/murderer. Right?

Right now, did it matter?

"I'm afraid I'm sick and tired of sitting in the dark, wondering when you're going to pop up next to try some experimental drugs on me," Sunset grinned manically as the tendrils all over her body hardened into spikes, blades, and hooks. "I guess things are just going to have to get uglier!"

"Wrong decision," replied the doctor as he removed his glasses and tucked them into his labcoat. Then something strange happened. The coat seemed to grow and expand, turning from sterile white to a iridescent black that spread like chittering wings. There was a flash of green flame, and then long tendrils of black and green taffy coiled and twitched over Lemon Drop's form.

No, in fact his form had changed entirely. Gone was the lanky frame, replaced by a decidedly more feminine body. Muscles swelled beneath the shifting candy surface as the transformation continued, this new form easily dwarfing Sunset in size. A long green tongue, dripping with viridescent venom, curled out from between shark-like rows of long teeth. Blue multifaceted eyes of an insect gaped wide as a half mad chuckle rose from the expanding abomination.

"I can't say I'm not looking forward to the work out!" It's voice was a buzzing growl, echoing off the walls with a sonorous drone.

What was truly surprising was that, despite the hulking monsters appearance, Sunset recognized her immediately.

"Fluttershy!?"

The Hunter

"Status report!"

"We have containment breaches on multiple levels!"

"I thought we had protocols in place for the 31st of this month?"

"They went out the window when subject 22601 took over half of our onsite operatives! They're running all over the place, letting inmates out by the dozens! What operatives we have that haven't been compromised have their hands full just trying to stop them and apprehend the loose prisoners."

"What about subject 22639?"

"Still unaccounted for. We lost contact with the team that was sent to subdue her."

"Dammit! What about the hunter? What about Agent Butterfly?"

"The butterfly has left the net. Control Art Restrictions have been lifted for limited engagement."

"That's some good news at least."

"Commander! We have a breach!"

"Tell me something I don't know."

"No, not from within the facility, from outside!"

"WHAT!? Where!?"

"One of the old auxiliary shafts. Sterilization protocols have already been engaged."

"Bring it up on the monitor. I want to see who our uninvited guest is before there's nothing left but ash."

Do You Wear The Mark?

As Principal Cinch slowly rose from her desk, Cadance was already running for the door. There was a sound, like a whip cracking through the air, but Cadance didn't look back to see what it was. She dove into the hall and rolled into a runners crouch before sprinting away as fast as her legs would carry her.

Something caught Cadance's eye as she rounded the corner, the sound of Cinch shrieking behind her ample intensive to keep going, but even so, she paused. It was the fire alarm. Why hadn't she thought of this sooner!? The students didn't necessarily need to know why they were evacuating, just that they needed to. Without hesitating another moment, she smashed the protective glass and yanked the lever down. Immediately emergency bells sounded and the sprinkler system activated.

There was no telling what effect this might have on the already enraged Cinch, but Cadance didn't stick around to find out. She flew down the stairs, leaping them four at a time, before she nearly ran over a wall of students.

As she waded into the student flooded hallway, Cadance risked a glance over her shoulder and was relieved to see the Cinch hadn't pursued her. It seemed that whatever these monsters were planning, they didn't want to reveal themselves to everyone just yet. That was cold comfort to Cadance, especially given the loss of all the students that she suspected had already been devoured. Why did she even doubt it at all anymore after she had seen what had happened to Diamond Tiara?

She couldn't worry about that right now though. For now, the best she could do was save as many students as possible and escape to tell the authorities.

Which she would have done, if it weren't for one problem.

The exits were guarded.

The main entrance had several sets of what looked like concerned parents, helping and guiding students out of the building. They must have just looked like regular volunteers to the students, but Cadance recognized them immediately. These were the parents of students who had 'dropped out', the self same that Cinch had told Cadance not to bother following up with. Each of them wore some kind of eyewear, be it regular glasses, sunglasses, or hats pulled down low so as to obscure their eyes. Cadance couldn't be certain, but she had a pretty good idea of why that might be when one of the parents looked right at her and something squirmed behind her big flashy lenses.

Given what she had seen in Cinch's office, there was only one thing that could mean. The way the adults heads all snapped up at once and followed her movements sealed it for Cadance. She turned, and pushing against the flow of students, headed for another exit.

And another.

And another.

Every last one had one or two guards, and their glares as Cadance approached forced her to retreat back into the school every time.

There had to be some other way out! Maybe she could break a window? Surely they couldn't be everywhere!

But as Cadance tried to find a classroom with a suitably large window on ground level, she discovered that several teachers had remained in their classrooms. Each and everyone wore a knowing smile, and something slithered gently just behind their glassy eyes. How deeply had Crystal Prep been infiltrated!? Was she the only adult who was still human?

There was no time to contemplate this horror, however, as the students had all trickled out of the school now. She could see several adults lined up down the corridor, sweeping the halls and checking any rooms that didn't have a smiling teacher within. It was only a matter of time before they spotted Cadance! As they made their way towards her, the thick pink tendrils that hid inside their heads began to wriggle out. As disgusting and horrible as that was, it was their smiles... Their terrible pumpkin grins!

Panic rose in Cadance's thundering heart, but all she could think to do was run again. It was no use! Every corner she turned, their was a line of grinning madmen and women bearing down upon her! The noose was closing shut around her!

There was no escape!

Hope fading, all Cadance could do now was try to hide. A sudden thought struck her. She barged through an unmarked door, and then another, moving out of the publicly accessible parts of the school and into the service and storage rooms that existed behind the scenes. She knew her destination now and, with luck, even if the creatures followed her they wouldn't be able to get in!

Cadance shouldered her way through another door. She could hear the faint sound of pursuit, but the possessed parents and teachers were taking their time.

If Cadance played this right, she just might survive!

Ducking into a hidden alcove, Cadance finally came to the room that was her goal. She slammed the door behind her, locked it, and struggled to move a pile of heavy machinery in front of it.

That done she turned around... And was struck by a sudden wave of nostalgia.

It was all still here.

She suspected it would be, but she didn't expect seeing everything like this to stir such melancholy emotions inside her at a time like this.

'Twilight Sparkle's secret lab.'

It was amusing to think that was how Crystal Prep's honor student had thought of this broom closet, but there was no denying she had turned the space into her own. Computers, laptops, and other devices both modern and decrepit were piled on tables and in corners of the room. It wasn't that the space was untidy, but it was clear that the controlled chaos of a genus mind was well at work here.

Or had been...

It wrenched Cadance's heart afresh seeing the layer of dust that blanketed all of the half finished experiments. How brittle and yellow the bits of paper looked pinned to the cork-board on the wall. This had once been a space alive with the busy industry of a shy, bookish girl that Cadance thought of as a little sister.

Silent as it was now, Cadance couldn't help but think of the lonely, empty grave where they had buried her memory because there wasn't enough of her body left to bury instead.

Such sobering, morbid thoughts calmed Cadance's heart, even as they broke it. She caught her breath and tried to push away the thoughts and emotions that this room brought back. She could feel sad later. Right now she needed to focus on survival.

Already she could hear the doorknob rattling as someone tried to force the lock. So much for this being a good hiding place. It would suck if all Cadance had managed to do was trap herself. But if this was where she had to make her last stand, so be it. She'd defend herself with everything she had!

"There has to be something here I can use," Cadance muttered, eyes darting over the half finished gizmos and science equipment. Talking to herself when she was under stress was a bad habit, but that was the least of her worries if she didn't find something fast. Already the door was shaking, sending the mound of forgotten devices piled against the door falling in a mini avalanche. "Aha!"

Cadance had found a long metal rod buried beneath a mound of notebooks that had been filled with scrawled diagrams and formulas. She went to pick up the would be bludgeon, but found it seemed to be stuck fast to the floor.

The sounds of someone trying to batter down the door had faded now and, to her horror, Cadance could see a thin pink tendril slithering in from underneath the door.

It might not do her any good, but she frantically tried to lift her chosen weapon. Finally, with a loud clunk, the rod came free.

Cadance had just a moment to realize the bar wasn't a bar at all, but some kind of lever before the floor opened beneath her and swallowed her whole.

Welcome.

The voice was robotic, but female, with a slight hiss and pop as though it was coming from an old set of speakers. Cadance couldn't see any speakers, but then she couldn't see anything. She had landed on something soft, that's all she knew, which was a good thing after how long she had fallen down that metal slide into darkness.

Commencing Bio-metric Scan Now

Lights flickered on now as wide green laser beams moved up and down Cadance's body. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Cadance found herself in a confined space, no larger than a changing room, sitting on a pile of space aged looking cushions in front of what looked like an old fashioned super computer. The machinery looked ancient, with several broken vacuum tubes, but that didn't seem to stop it from functioning.

ERROR

Okay, maybe she had spoken too soon.

Bio-metric Data Does Not Match Parameters

That didn't sound good.

Preparing Pod For Sterilization Of Foreign Biological Matter

That really didn't sound good!

An orange glow rose from below, revealing that the floor was not solid but rather a grate. Tiny gas flames like a million birthday candles had flickered to life. Already the temperature in the enclosure was rising, but Cadance suspected that it was about to get a whole lot hotter in here.

"Help! Help somebody let me out of here!" Cadance screamed. She could be blamed for panicking as she started banging on the bare metal walls. She tried pushing buttons and pulling levers on the rusted computer, but all they did was click and groan uselessly. The flames were licking higher now, some were already high enough that they were flickering up through the grate.

Cadance could no longer take standing on the floor so she hopped back onto the cushions. Sure enough, the soles of her high heels had started to melt, and the smell of singed rubber and burning leather filled her nostrils. The pillows themselves seemed fine... They must be fireproofed for just this purpose, she thought. Which was wonderful for them, but not much help to Cadance right now.

"Can anybody hear me!? I don't want to die!!!" she wailed, tears running down her cheek and evaporating before they reached the floor.

First some alien horror had appeared and devoured one of the students. Then it had turned out Principal Cinch and who else knew how many parents and staff members had been taken over by similar monstrosities. To top it all off, now Cadance was going to fry to a crisp at the bottom of a hole under Twilight Sparkle's old 'secret lab'.

Cadance been pushed well past her breaking point by now and all she could think to do was bury her face in her hands and wait for the end.

She hoped it would be quick.

She doubted it would be painless.

The flames suddenly roared up through the grate, filling her tear blurred vision with white hot fire... Before the flames died down completely and everything was plunged back into darkness.

Manual Override Confirmed. Welcome. Twilight. Sparkle.

The sound of a latch turning was followed by the appearance of a crack of light. The supercomputer facade of the door swung aside, revealing a room so blindingly white that for a moment Cadance wondered if she had died and gone to heaven.

Then she noticed the guns pointed at her.

Men in black uniforms, covered in pouches and belts of ammunition, each outfitted with a bandoleer of grenades and other hardware glared eyelessly down at Cadance. 'Eyeless' because their faces were completely obscured by goggles and gas masks beneath black helmets. A circular emblem with three arrows pointing inward was emblazoned on each soldiers right arm.

Cadance could be excused not noticing this, however, as her immediate attention was occupied by the array of gun barrels that were trained upon her.

There was a sound of static and then one of the soldiers spoke, "Confirmed, intruder appears to be human. We are in position to neutralize." There was a pause as the soldier apparently waited for a reply.

She couldn't quite make out what was said on the radio chatter from where she sat, very still and making no sudden movements, on the floor. However, Cadance was surprised when she thought she heard her name..

"Say again Command? That is not protocol." the radio chatter was louder now, angry. "No Command, I am not questioning orders. We will prep intruder for transfer." The radio chatter died back down, and the soldier who was in command lowered his weapon. "On your feet. Come out slowly."

Cadance rose, wobbling, tears still running down her face. She tottered over the grill, which had already faded from a cherry red back to black, and then fell out of the room and onto the cool tile floor beyond. She had twisted her ankle as one of the heels of her shoes had given out. She looked down at the charred and melted mess that had been her favorite pair of heels and couldn't quite suppress another sob. Carefully she removed the half melted mess and got back up.

Barefoot, she put on the bravest expression she could muster. "I assume I'm under arrest?" she asked.

"No questions. Do not speak," was the soldiers clipped response. Three soldiers closed in behind her while six more took position on either side of her. It was almost funny how cautious they were being. Then again, if this somehow had something to do with what was going on up top, she couldn't blame them. "Seems Command wants to speak with you. You can ask questions then. Lets move."

As they rushed her down hallways and stairs, Cadance noticed that the lighting was not very reliable. Many of the fixtures were flickering or flashing as though there was something wrong with the power. The walls, which had seemed so pristine and white before were scratched and slashed here and there. Cadance was hustled by more than one hallway that was smeared with blood. Her eyes had gone wide as they had come to a corridor that looked like it had been a war zone. Smoke still hung in the air as she had threaded through a blanket of spent shell casings on the floor.

Every now and then the blare of a klaxon siren would echo through the halls and then cut off abruptly.

What exactly was going on?

And where exactly was she?

As the soldiers continued marched her through the halls, over metal scaffolds that hung over bottomless drops into clouds of steam, and up and down concrete stairs, Cadance got the sense that they were in a truly massive complex.

Did the facility just spread beneath Crystal Prep? Or did it perhaps extended out beneath the entire city? There were no windows, so there was no way to estimate the scale of the place.

What had Cadance gotten herself into?

At last, the soldiers brought her to a room at the end of a long corridor. With the swipe of a key card, the leader opened the door and gestured for Cadance to walk through. Her feet were tired and hurting from walking for so long, and without any shoes on top of that. When she saw a plain plastic chair sitting in front of an equally austere table, she sat down immediately, if only for a little bit of relief.

The door slammed shut behind her. She'd half been expecting it, but it still made Cadance jump.

She looked around at her surroundings. The same plain concrete tiles were the only decoration on the walls, ceiling and floor. In one wall was set a long dark mirror. Ah, an interrogation room. Cadance thought to herself, I should've guessed that's where this was going. Given the hardware the soldiers had been packing, it was easy to guess that she was in some kind of government facility. She didn't mean to trespass, and she wasn't exactly sure why Twilight had some kind of express tube into their base to begin with, but she really doubted that they were going to believe anything she had to say.

If they were being this secretive, then that might mean that this was some kind of black ops site, like she'd seen in all those action movies Shining Armor had insisted they watch. That meant there was a very good chance that this all would lead to torture, or worse. If her interrogators decided she didn't know anything of value, or that she was lying, they might just make her disappear to keep this place a secret. She had the feeling from those soldiers that they were used to making people disappear... Permanently.

Everything depended on what happened next.

If she told them everything about how and why she had gotten here, they'd think she was either lying or crazy. If she tried to resist them though, that would only make them more suspicious. Cadance gnawed anxiously on a thumbnail. What was the right move here?

Running was out of the question. Even if she could get out of this room she didn't know the way out. After all the twists and turns they had taken getting here, she wasn't even sure how to get back to where she had come in. Not that she relished the idea of going back into that tiny furnace or climbing all the way back up to what was waiting for her at Crystal Prep. Chances were she'd be gunned down before she managed to make it five steps.

But that didn't change the fact that no matter what she said she was likely only going to get herself into more trouble.

A hidden door on the far side of the room swung open suddenly. Cadance head whipped up in surprise, and her eyes went wide.

"T-Twilight!?"

"Hi," replied the somewhat scruffy looking teenager, waving awkwardly. She still wore her lab-coat as she had always done in the past, though now she wore it over a uniform similar to the soldiers that had escorted Cadance to this interrogation room. "Long time no see Dean Cadance."

"What!? But how! You're dead! I mean, they never found a body of course, but everyone said you were dead!" Cadance shook with agitation and confusion, her chair flying out from underneath her as she suddenly stood. "We mourned you!I mourned you! And you've been down here, where-ever here is, all this time!?"

"Just try to stay calm," Twilight started, raising her hands defensively. "I know this is a lot to take in and I'm sure you've got, well, a million questions. I know I would. But this is actually a pretty bad time."

"A bad time! A bad time, Twilight!?" Cadance threw her hands in the air. "I can tell you all about a bad time! Just ask me about the one I've been having! Now to top it all off, my former fiance's sister isn't dead, but instead involved in some kind of government spook show!" Cadance lowered her hands and put them to either side of her face in horrified realization. "Shining Armor canceled our wedding over this! Did he know? Was this all one big lie!?"

"I know this is hard Cadance, but we'll get to that." A sudden explosion in the distance caused the room to shake, the table and chairs sliding around wildly as both Cadance and Twilight tried to keep their footing. "Like I said, this is a bad time for this. We... Kind of have a situation..." Twilight Sparkle's weak laughter was not reassuring in the least.

Black Candy

A brutal punch smashed into the wall next to Sunset's face. If it had struck, her head would have burst like a pumpkin smashed with a sledgehammer. As it was, she barely dodged the blow. The wall behind her wasn't so luck, and it buckled causing cement bricks to rain down and send up a cloud of dust. The candy coated monster in front of her wasn't messing around. She defiantly not pulling her punches.

Sunset rolled away just in time to avoid being pounded into the floor by two massive fists descending descending from above. This time the entire facility shook like it was being hit by an earthquake. It was hard to believe that, In truth, it had only been hit by Fluttershy.

Fluttershy!

There was no way that Sunset was going to be able to keep dodging. Eventually she was going to have to go on the attack.

She just didn't want to.

Sunset needed answers.

"So, Fluttershy, long time no see, right? I think the last time I saw you there was a lot of cotton candy and melting involved. How did you survive that?"

"Not!" Roared the monster, each word punctuated by a thrown punch or kick,"Your! Fluttershy! Raahhhh!"

As she roared, black tendrils swept out from her body and smashed into Sunset's mid section. The lashing appendages must have been covered in sharpened spines, because the blow stung like being stabbed by a thousand wasp stingers. Sunset back flipped away, putting some distance between herself and the enraged Not-Her-Fluttershy.

"Okay, okay, I thought that might be the case," Sunset replied, scooping up a fistful of pulverized masonry and cement dust. As the hulking monster chased after her, Sunset tossed the dross it into the larger monsters face.

Fluttershy shrieked, blinded, which gave Sunset the opportunity to take her legs out from under her. She landed hard, but Sunset kept her distance. Just because she was down that didn't mean she was out.

"So, what then? You're some Fluttershy from another time? Another dimension?" When the monster didn't answer, Sunset figured she must have hit the mark. "I'd guess you'er from the dimension where the Candy Mare originally came from. Only problem with that theory is I torched that Equestria and ever candy ghoul in it."

That got a harsh chuckle from the fallen creature that didn't sound at all like Fluttershy. "You don't have a clue do you? Just because I look like this you think I'm anything like you?" Sunset been right to keep her distance. In a maelstrom of teeth, claws, and tendrils, Fluttershy went from prone to standing in the blink of an eye. "You're kind are nothing more than prey for me!"

"My kind?" questioned Sunset, "Do you mean Equestrians or teenagers?"

"Puppets! Her puppets!" roared the candied beast as she pointed an angry claw at Sunset Shimmer. "You talk like you think you have some kind of control over her, but the Candy Mare is the one pulling the strings!"

Surprisingly, that sent a chill up Sunset's spine. She'd suspected the same for some time now. In fact, Sunset had been wondering if somehow the set back she had dealt the Candy Mare in her version of Equestria hadn't been somehow calculated. If it was, surely the Candy Mare must have made a mistake to end up in the sorry state she was in now, a phantom of a phantom, stuck with Sunset in this prison.

But she wasn't going to be stuck for much longer, was she?

Still, something didn't add up...

"So what? It's better for me to just be your prey?" sneered Sunset through gnashing teeth. "Better for me to let you kick me around and jab me with needles whenever you want?"

Sunset threw a kick at Fluttershy's head with a leg that had morphed into an ax blade. The larger monster caught her by the self-same leg and grinned wide before smashing Sunset into the ceiling, She did this repeatedly until she seemed to grow bored and hurled Sunset at high speed at the nearest wall where she crumpled into a heap after a bone cracking impact.

The power gap was just too wide. It was clear now that Sunset's strength was flagging, but Fluttershy's was only growing the longer they fought. The black candy fiend just popped her neck as if she was just getting started

"The beatings and the needles are for your own good," Fluttershy said matter-of-factly. "It's all meant to cut the Candy Mare's strings and keep you sane. It hurts, doesn't it? You don't have to tell me, because I know. I went through it all back in Equestria. The hunger gnaws and gnaws at you, until you can't tell what is real and what isn't," Fluttershy was eerily calm. Calmer than she had even been when she was pretending to be Dr. Lemon Drop. "You don't remember trying to eat the first orderly that attended you, but I do. Taking the form of Lemon Drop was the only thing I could think of to shock the Candy Mare without blowing my cover. It worked for awhile, directing the bulk of her rage and attention on me. But now you're loose. you're a threat to every living creature on this planet. You need to be put back in your cage, willingly or not."

Saying this, a long, sharp needle like tendril extended from Fluttershy's wrist. Sunset didn't want to think about what that was for. "Right, right, so I should just be a good little girl and take my medicine, huh? I don't think so!"

Sunset mustered her strength, but instead of attacking she slipped under Fluttershy's legs and into Starlight's cell. Picking up the unconscious teen in one arm and forming a drill with the other, Sunset leaped up to the ceiling and started tunneling to freedom.

Fluttershy cried out in frustration as rocks and soil sprayed out of the hole in the ceiling. "You can run, Sunset! But you can't hide! I will hunt you down no matter where you go!" Her arms turning into mantis-like claws, the beast tunneled after her prey.

Cadance was amazed by the flurry of activity.

Men and women in lab coats much like Twilight's ran to and fro; running calculations, checking monitors, and barking orders into microphones. They were in some kind of monitor room, banks of screens occupying every surface of the walls. Some of the screens were blank, while others showed soldiers running and exchanging fire, both with one another and with... well, some of them looked human but others clearly didn't.

At a glance, all of the people and creatures the soldiers were engaged with seemed dangerous in one way or another. That was pretty obvious given the damage they were doing to the heavily armed men. But at the silent flash of assault rifles barking came to occupy more and more of the screens, Cadance couldn't help feeling bad for whoever was on the other end of all that fire power. Dangerous or not, Cadance couldn't just sit there and feel alright with living creatures being shredded into hamburger meat.

In the middle of the room, the nerve center of the facility, sat Twilight Sparkle.

She was giving orders and commands which were followed promptly. If they weren't followed promptly, whoever had failed to do her bidding was quickly escorted out of the room by armed guards. Twilight was so focused on managing what was clearly a catastrophe that Cadance half thought she might be able to slip away unnoticed. Just because she knew the person who seemed to be in charge, that didn't mean she wasn't still in some serious trouble. Even if she still had unanswered questions, it was obvious that her chances of survival sticking around here were not the best.

Sadly, she knew she wouldn't get far with all these soldiers around, and she was certain it would be just her luck to get caught up in the carnage that seemed to be raging through-out the facility. If she didn't get mowed down by a hail of gun-fire, then one of these escaped inmates would probably take her as a hostage. Probably best to stay by Twilight's side until she had a better grasp of just how deep she was in.

As if reading Cadance's mind, her former student turned towards her with a crestfallen look. "This isn't how I wanted our meeting to go. Despite what you might think, I was going to try to rejoin the world after this crisis was averted. I know I've caused you harm that I can't take back, but you can see that this organization is struggling to keep this kind of chaos at bay. Even with my help, it's a constant struggle."

"With your help?" Cadance asked. "What is it that you do here Twilight?"

"I provide certain devices that aid in securing, containing, and protecting certain... Anomalies," was Twilight's reply. "I'd apparently done so for years, unknowingly, thinking I was just helping out a government research team. I work for the organization directly now... Freely and willingly. Unfortunately that's all I have clearance to share with you right now, but our work is vitally important to the continued survival of humanity and society as we know it."

"These 'anomalies', what are they? I assume your referring to the people and things on these monitors," Cadance grimaced at a splash of red that blurred the video-feed on one of the monitors. "Some of them look like monsters, but others appear like ordinary people..."

"True. Some of them could even pass as, say, an average teenager. A student whom adults would mostly overlook or dismiss," Twilight was obviously alluding to Diamond Tiara's 'cousin'. Suddenly Cadance wondered just how much Twilight knew. "That's what makes them so dangerous. But don't let what you are seeing here overly color your perception of our work. The anomalies I spoke of are not just confined to organic life, but also places and things. Objects that are both animate and inanimate. Even things like concepts, unnatural forms of energy, or dimensions that humans could not normally perceive. Things that our ancestors labeled 'magic' or 'spirits' in ages past still exist in this world today... We're just working to have a better understanding of them."

Twilight picked up a manila folder and spread its contents across her desk. Cadance didn't realize at first what she was looking at, but as she looked closer, certain things started to jump out at her as familiar. "Is that... Camp Everfree...?" Cadance could be excused for her confusion, as Crystal Prep had long since abandoned its yearly trips to the campgrounds by the time she graduated. Even if the memory of the camp had been fresh in her mind, however, the camp grounds looked nothing like they had before. They seemed to be covered in some disgusting patina of rotting candy. Half melted chocolates and other sweets were smeared over every surface and seemed to be dripping off the roofs of the otherwise familiar lodges and cottages.

"We found Camp Everfree like this a few months ago. The site has since been sterilized, but at the time we found it nearly eighty percent of the structures and the surrounding forest had been subsumed and partially converted into a kind of flesh that resembles candy," Here Twilight paused, letting her hand rest on a particular image of a small cavern entrance. "We suspect that the contagion would have spread unchecked, but it lacked a proper energy source to sustain itself. Hence the melting and rotting you see here. The entire area for fifty square miles was deforested and burned to be on the safe side, but unfortunately we suspect the source of the contagion remains at large."

It was not surprising that Cadance barely understood half of that. What was somewhat surprising was that she managed to figure out why Twilight was telling her about this. "You knew," she said, accusingly. "You knew about the monster that infiltrated Crystal Prep! You've known about it for months!"

"I need you to understand something Cadance," replied Twilight with a serious expression on her face. "Civilians that have learned as much as you have are advised to be administered amnesiacs for both secrecy and their own sanity's sake. I'm breaking protocol just having this conversation with you. For you to learn more, to know more than you do already, may lead to orders being handed down from the council for your termination. If you are really unlucky, you might end up designated as a D-Class test subject and end up a prisoner here yourself."

Again, Cadance didn't really know what any of that meant, but her anger wouldn't let her pause to consider the ramifications of Twilights words. Instead she shouted, "Are you threatening me!?"

"NO!" was Twilight's impassioned reply that caused nearby guards to raise their weapons, tears of anger and frustration at the corners of her eyes. There was something more in her voice as she gestured the soldiers to lower their weapons... Remorse. "No, Cadance, that's what I'm trying to make you understand. My disappearance. The cover up of what really happened at CHS last year. The hands-off approach to the situation at Crystal Prep. All of it is meant for your safety. Everything we've done is meant to protect as many people as possible! I know it may not seem like it, but you have to understand that what we do is meant for the good of all humanity. The alternative is what you see here," Twilight gestures to the monitors. "Chaos and destruction."

This was not the first time Cadance had seen Twilight cry. She'd been her babysitter for years for crying out loud, so she had seen Twilight's many ups and downs. She'd seen her heart broken and sad, and she had seen her throw fits and tantrums too. This wasn't like any of those times though. The tears Twilight shed now were those of someone who, despite everything, was trying her best to be a good person despite having to make decisions that were 'acceptable' at best.

"Okay Twilight," Cadance relented. "I understand that you mean well, and that you think this organization you are a part of also means well. But people are still dying. I'm going to need a real explanation as to what is going on."

"Containment breach! We have a containment breach in sector zero!" Came a panicked cry from one of the computer technicians.

"Sector zero!? How did they get that far!?" Twilight cried in surprise.

"We're showing subsurface distortions and heavy damage in a straight line through parts of the facility," reported a female tech. "It looks like they tunneled past our defenses sir."

Twilight slammed a fist onto her desk. "What about Agent Butterfly? She's supposed to be on top of this!"

"Still in pursuit sir, but the anomaly is gaining speed as she reaches the surface," came the report from a rather chubby tech. "At this rate they will hit the city sewer system in less than five minutes."

Putting her head in her hands Twilight groaned, "Every moment they're in that sewer network is one more moment closer to us losing them entirely!" The teenager whipped up her head so fast her glasses nearly flew off. "Lock down the facility. Have all personnel that aren't involved in re-containment report to auditorium B in preparation for surface mobilization!" Twilight turned to Cadance. "Good news, it seems there will be an opportunity for a proper explanation after all."

Bodies

Cadance was surprised by the number of people who had gathered in the auditorium.

She had thought that this was a military installation of some kind, but it seemed that there were just as many staff assigned to research and other work throughout the underground complex. If Cadance hadn't arrived with Twilight, she doubted she would have even had a chair to sit in. As it was, an orderly had brought her some new shoes and a change of cloths. Cadance wasn't about to wear the uniform of some shady government agency she knew nothing about, but the socks and boots were welcome given the loss of her shoes. As she was lacing up her new footwear, the presentation started.

There was a whir and a click as a PowerPoint presentation appeared projected on a large silver screen. The image was a familiar one, and Cadance grimaced as she recognized CHS before it had burned down. It seemed this image was taken from that faithful night, as the presentation continued images of flames, and then students flooding out of the building followed.

But there was something wrong about the students...

" Canterlot High School, nearly one year ago. While this was not the first incursion into this dimension from the alternate plane known as 'Equestria', it was the most damaging, and the one that inspired our organization to act." Twilight spoke as if she were reading a prepared statement, but the only thing in her hands were the controls for the projector. The images clicked past, and Cadance could see now what she could only make out vaguely before. While some of the students were clearly running from the flames, others were attacking them. These children were horribly deformed, and seemed to be coated in the same 'candy flesh' that Camp Everfree had been.

"Code named the "Candy Curse", this plague you see here was brought to our world by an entity that referred to herself as the "Candy Mare", referred from here on as SCP-22639. While 22639 has a physical body, she also exists as a semi-memetic being of unique energy. As near as we can tell she came to our world with the express purpose to corrupt, devour, and destroy it."

The images changed now to a picture taken of six teenaged girls, apparently CHS students. "A small group of students and myself attempted to halt this tragedy before it could spread further. This directly led to the destruction of my parents summer home, the death or prolonged coma of the majority of the CHS student body, and the need to cover up to protect the public at large from potentially spreading the memetic effect of 22639." The slide changed again, this time highlighting a single girl with red and orange hair. "While she may appear human, Sunset Shimmer, from here forward referred to as Patient Zero, is actually an Equestrian. She comes from a realm where 'magic' is common place, and the laws of physics as well as cause and effect are only limitedly enforced. Since 22639 hailed from a similar dimension, Patient Zero crossed over using a machine of my own design in an attempt to destroy the source of energy that fueled 22639."

The slide clicked back to CHS, where the small fires in the building suddenly erupted into a full blown conflagration. "While Patient Zero was successful, her gambit was not without cost. The Candy Curse was burned away. Many students who had been partially converted perished as parts of their bodies were likewise vaporized. Those who had merely been infected by 22639's memetic effect lapsed into an unconscious state... puppets with their strings cut." Here Twilight's voice loses some of its official quality. "We thought that would be the end of it, but the Candy Mare is nothing if not resilient. Sunset... Patient Zero, unfortunately, became the new carrier of the Candy Curse. 22639 had apparently created a hybrid flesh form while in our universe that was able to survive the destruction of the Candy Curse. In the process of eliminating this quasi-human entity, Patient Zero became infected. Though 22639 now lacks a physical presence, the energy that created her in the first place is now bound to Patient Zero. Should she die, or succumb to the memetic effects of the curse, her body will become a new vessel for 22639 and the events at CHS will start over again, reaching a global scale in a matter of days if not contained."

Again the slide changes again to a news article, the headline of which reads 'CHS Halloween Massacre'. "To prevent this, a cover story was fabricated and Patient Zero was taken into custody. As I was the only survivor with contacts with the agency with first hand experience with both Patient Zero and 22639, I was recruited directly by the council and later put in charge of this facility with the purpose of containing Patient Zero and researching a means to neutralize the 'Candy Curse'. With the assistance of Agent Butterfly, a special operative who also crossed over from an Equestrian dimension, we began work on isolating and eliminating the memetic entity based on prior experimentation conducted in her home realm. These measures were thought to be adequate to maintain containment. We were wrong."

These were familiar images now. Camp Everfree, corrupted and rotting under mounds of fetid candy. "We initially thought that the Everfree event was a possible second incursion from an alternate Equestria. Given Agent Butterfly's origins it wasn't as remote a possibility as we might hope. It would seem that while lightning striking in the same place is rare, that's not the case if in the metaphor you happen to be a lightning rod, which unfortunately does seem to be the case with our world. But as I said, we *thought* the Everfree event was a secondary incursion. Now that we've had time to further observe the entity that caused that event, we have instead decided to give it the designation 22639b. We suspect it is in fact the remains of the body that 22639a which we thought was destroyed by Patient Zero. After the vaporization of the candy flesh, the fumes appear to have seeded clouds in the upper atmosphere which in turn became a storm that moved away from the city and into the wilderness. It is unknown what attracted the liquefied flesh to the Everfree Forest, but we do know that it attempted to convert a large swath of biomass in that area."

The slide changed to show the same area, now scoured of all life. A wasteland for as far as the eye could see. "The body is weak without the curse that drives it, and incapable of maintaining the cell division necessary for mass replication. Based on our original theory that this entity might have been a secondary "Candy Mare" we observed it, hoping that since it had difficulty surviving in our world that it might lead us back to its point of origin. During this time of observation, we learned much about the entity: It cannot convert matter to pseudo candy flesh, and instead is reliant on metabolizing large amounts of organic matter to simply subsist. It also seems that it requires a secondary source of nourishment, that of fear and suffering. We were able to observe it attempt on several occasion to try to attach to a host, unsuccessfully, instead creating puppets we have designated 22639c. While a piece of the body is present inside of these individuals, occupying the skull cavity, the individuals are still more or less human. Caution should be taken in dealing with them, but they should prove to be as vulnerable to conventional weapons as any normal human combatant."

With that, the screen goes black. Then a video feed starts to play. This is footage Cadance hasn't seen up till now, but it shows a clearly maniacal creature tearing through a small contingent of guards like they were paper. Despite the cackling laughter, tendrils and claws, she can see that underneath it all is a familiar looking teenager. "As of thirteen hundred hours, Patient Zero escaped her cell. She has since injured or incapacitated at least forty personnel, including those specifically outfitted to subdue her. We suspect that she is not operating completely under her own will, instead succumbing to the memetic effect mentioned previously. Since this effects both judgement, inhibition, and equilibrium, we hope it will prove to be a vulnerability that Agent Butterfly can exploit. She is currently in pursuit of Patient Zero, but as of now she has breached containment and is on route to escape into the cities sewer system."

A new video feed appeared, and this one made Cadance's blood run cold. Crystal Prep, was not burning, but a familiar pink slime seemed to be dripping from every window. In front of the school she could see students fleeing from adults with long pink tendrils whipping out of their gaping mouths and eye sockets. They were dragging the students back into the school. Cadance had a sickening feeling she knew exactly why. "At the same time, 22639b has begun a mass slaughter similar to the one that took place at CHS last Halloween. We have deduced that the outpouring of fear, terror, and suffering from this event is being used directly to fuel the Candy Curse. While it is uncertain what effect this may have on Patient Zero, we can only assume that it is no coincidence that she is heading directly for Crystal Prep at this moment in time."

Cadance was absolutely drowning in information as the rest of the gathered personal murmured and whispered among themselves. Things were much more complicated than she suspected. She had no idea how this creature was connected to the one that had devoured Diamond Tiara, but it seemed that things went much further than a simple monster attack on a school. As fanciful as that notion had seemed previously, it was positively mundane compared to what Twilight would have them believe was really going on. Other dimensional invaders? Candy monsters that survived on flesh as well as the torment and fear of its victims? The destruction of CHS caused by some trans-dimensional backlash that was apparently necessary to defeat this creature the first time? And then the revelation that all it had managed to do was potentially to have split the evil entity in two? It was all too much for her to process.

"So what does this mean for all of you?" asked Twilight, as if she was reading Cadance's mind. "It means we are moving up Operation Wilde Jagd. We must neutralize both the 'body' and 'soul' of the Candy Mare. This will mean that we must eliminate or neutralize all instances of 22639c as well as 22639b to prevent them from coming into contact with 22639a. In the meantime, Agent Butterfly will do what she must to re-acquire 22639a. While this is a containment operation, lethal force has been authorized and specialized weaponry will be provided to each and everyone of you. This is an all hands on deck situation. We do not have time to wait for re-enforcement from central, nor are we currently able to fully deploy this facilities garrison of combat operatives. Should 22639a re-unite with 22639b, it could result in a K class scenario, and may even lead to an XK class end of the world event."

"Again, I can't stress this enough, neutralization of 22639 is our primary goal. However," Twilight pauses to raise a small device. While the crowd had clearly been on the verge of revolt, the sight of it seemed to calm them. Cadance has no idea what it is, but it seems that what Twilight holds in her hand is of great import, and possibly a game changing advantage. "If we must eliminate Patient Zero to neutralize the Candy Mare, then so be it."

With a Girl Like You

Starlight woke with a start and a sputtering cough.

Her surroundings were pitch black.

She was about to scream when a hand clamped over her mouth, "Shhh! Take it easy," whispered Sunset. "You're safe... For now anyways."

The effects of the lemon drop that the Candy Mare had given Sunset had finally worn off. The teen was at one and the same time relieved and upset... She was happy to know that she hadn't screwed up in trusting the entity when she had said the effects would be temporary. She was upset because the powers had faded out just when she needed them the most.

"Where are we?" Starlight asked quietly once Sunset had removed her hand from her mouth. Her nose wrinkled. "And what's that god-awful stench?"

"I think we're in the sewers, so that answers both of those questions," replied Sunset with a wry grin. "Anything else you want to know?"

"The licence plate of that truck that hit me," Starlight replied with a smile of her own as she placed a hand against her forehead. "Who was that guy?"

"Not a guy exactly. Not even human either," replied Sunset darkly. "She is my jailer, and she is far more dangerous than she seems."

As if that wasn't a disturbing enough statement a soft, haunting voice echoed in the dark. "Sunset~! Oh, Sunset~! Come out, come out, where-ever you are!" As quiet as the voice was, it still sent a thrill of terror up the spine of both the young women, and they instinctively clung to one another. "I know you're here~! I can smell you! I will find you! I can play hide and seek if you want, but you won't win!"

The giggle that followed was positively bone chilling, made all the more terrifying as a large dark shape lumbered past Starlight and Sunset's hiding spot. Both girls tensed up, but it wasn't long before the danger passed them by.

"What was that thing!?" Starlight hissed.

"Like I said, my jailer. You might say she is an old friend of mine, or someone very much like her. Her name is Fluttershy. She's... sort of like me," that wasn't entirely true but it was the easiest explanation for the time being. "We're going to have to be careful if we're going to get out of here in one piece."

"That huge thing is a person!?" Starlight nearly shouted, then covered her own mouth with both hands before continuing in a whisper. "You sure it's not a bear or some kind of sewer monster?"

"Sort of," maybe it wasn't a good explanation. Sunset started again, "Where I'm from we have these things called changelings. Ever heard of them?"

"You mean like fairies?" Starlight asked, knitting her brow. "They do chores for a saucer of milk and steal babies and replace them with their own?"

"No to the former. Those are brownies," corrected Sunset. "The latter, maybe. I think there are some differences, but the thing is they can change their shape. Grow or shrink, and look like anyone they want, living or dead. Fluttershy is sort of like them, but she also has similar powers to my own. So we're going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't pay attention to our surroundings. Can you stand?"

Sunset offered Starlight a hand up. Slowly she rose to her feet, still a little wobbily. "I think I can manage," she replied. "So what, this Fluttershy person is a shape shifter? Is that your power?"

"My power..." Sunset started. "My 'power' is a little more complicated than that. So is Fluttershy's, but she's definitely better at disguising herself than I am." Sunset checked around the corner. It was just more pipes and sewer water as far as she could see, but the air was slightly sweeter in one direction as opposed to the others. "I think if we head this way we might find a way out. In the meantime, stay close and stay quiet."

They moved as silently as possible, splashing through raw sewage as quickly as they dared, and moving along dripping passages that reeked of rot and decay. As they neared a section where several tunnels met, something loomed large in the shadows just in front of them. It sniffed the air and gave a dissatisfied snarl as Starlight and Sunset crouched low and hid behind pipes that were protruding from the wall.

There were a few tense moments as the girls held their breath, afraid to even make that much noise, and then the beast lumbered down a side passage and into the dark once more.

"I think she's guarding the way out," murmured Sunset, clenching her fists in frustration. They were so close to freedom, but Fluttershy was determined to block their way. "I don't suppose you'd care to try your powers out on her again?"

"I could try, but I don't think it will work," admitted Starlight.

"I could buy you some time, maybe," offered Sunset, hopefully. "Distract her long enough for you to do what you need to do in order to take control."

"It's probably a bad idea," Starlight replied hesitantly.

"What's the matter?" asked Sunset, putting her hands on her hips. "You faced down a bunch of heavily armed soldiers like they were nothing to you. I know she's scary, but if I had your kind of power and the time to use it, I'd march right up to Fluttershy and flick her on the nose!"

"Well, the soldiers were probably trying to capture us, not kill us... I'm not sure what she's going to..." Starlight hesitated again, floundering for words. "Fine! Look. I'm pretty sure it won't work on her because it didn't work on you, okay!?"

"You tried to take over my mind?" Sunset gasped, horrified.

"Yeah, I did, okay!" replied Starlight defensively. "You were this tough, scary monster person tearing through the guards like wet tissue paper. You were more than a little intimidating so I thought, why take chances? Only there's something different about you from all the other people I've used my powers on. Something blocking me."

"She's talking about me isn't she?" chortled the Candy Mare gleefully. Sunset flinched at the specters sudden appearance from the shadows. She was wearing Starlight Glimmer's form this time, though candified and wearing trendy clothing and accessories instead of the prisoners garb of the real Starlight. Sunset had half been wondering when the candy spook was going to put in an appearance. As was expected, Starlight didn't appear to see the Candy apparition of herself, but even so, she had felt it's presence when she had tried to exercise her power over Sunset.

"I'm pretty sure I know why it doesn't work on me then," said Sunset, crossing her arms. "Fluttershy's situation is different, but you're right that it's probably close enough to mine that it's not worth the risk."

"So then, how do we get past her?" Starlight sounded worried, but she seemed to be happy to move the conversation on from her confessed duplicity.

"I might have some suggestions that could help with that," chimed in the Candy Mare. "After all, I've fought her before. I wouldn't mind taking care of a loose end in the process of obtaining our liberation."

"Would you excuse me for a second?" Sunset held up one finger, her smile brittle. Though Starlight looked puzzled, she nodded her ascent. Gritting her teeth, Sunset stepped off of the small pathway and turned into a nearby alcove before turning her attention to the Candy Mare. "Why exactly should I listen to anything you have to say!?"

The phantom pouted hamily, "Shim-Sham! What's with the hostility? Haven't I gotten you this far?"

"Don't act so innocent," Sunset snapped. "I know you were trying to get me to kill those guards. I know you were trying to tempt me to eat them. You don't care if I escape, you only care if you escape!"

That only made the Candy Mare grin wide enough that it looked like the top of Starlight's head was about to fall off, floppy hipster hat and all. "Well obviously! I've never made any secret about my intentions. I don't see how it reflects poorly on me if you couldn't figure out the risks of borrowing my power. If anything it makes you an idiot for not thinking of it."

Sunset blushed hard, but wasn't having any of it. "What it made me was desperate! Just like I'm desperate now! Which is just how you want me to be, so I'll screw up and you can lead me right into a waiting trap!"

The specters smile dialed down a few notches, but the smug look didn't leave her borrowed face. "Now, now Sunset... We're not free yet. As long as our fates are tied together, your freedom is my freedom. I have every reason to help you, and I'm more than willing to do so! Especially against that filthy bug that's rooting around trying to find you..." A look of horror suddenly crossed the ghouls face. "Look out, behind you!"

Sunset whirled, panicked, eyes open wide and searching for whatever might emerge from the darkness.

As her heart thundered in her chest, however, she instead heard a roar of childish laughter. Sunset's face flushed crimson as she turned a hateful glare back towards her tormentor.

"Hahahahahaha! Jumping at shadows Sunset!? Heeheehee!" The ghoul was doubled over with laughter that twisted her borrowed face into ugly shapes. "You need to calm down! Don't worry! Just do what I say and you'll come out of all this smelling like roses!"

Looking down at the stinking, filthy water that soaked Sunset up to her knees, the teenager couldn't help but snap back the gloomy reply, "I really doubt that."

Cadance was thankfully not part of the first advance into Crystal Prep. As much as she wanted to save her students, she knew that she wasn't much of a fighter. By the time she road the high speed elevator with Twilight up to the surface, the operation to retake the school and eliminate the threat to not just the school, but all of humanity, was already underway.

She didn't know exactly what sight she had expected to see as she emerged from the claustrophobic confines of the packed elevator into the comparatively cool night air, but it wasn't this. Crystal Prep was awash in a strange liquid that glowed an ominous color in the dark. Dozens of dead bodies littered the lawn in front of the school, creating an image that was eerily similar to how CHS had looked on its last night. The stench of burning chemicals was in the air, and hung like a thick fog all around the soldiers.

Cadance looked down at the weapon she had been issued, the same as everyone else around her. It was a compressed and modified heat gun, designed to focus a high amount of heat into a single spot. while it was designed so that the target would be burnt to a crisp, there wasn't supposed to be any actual flame.

A strange warbling scream drew her attention away from her weapon as two soldiers attacked an approaching adult who had been, for lack of a better word, infested. The woman gurgled and moaned around the tendril that thrust out of her mouth, as her cloths turned to ash and her skin blackened and charred. Blood ran in rivulets from cracks in her skin as the jewelry she wore was heated up to cherry red and began to melt through her body like a hot knife through butter. Even so, she continued to advance on the two conscripted soldiers, and their lack of training was made all too apparent as they began to back away.

One of them threw down his rifle and ran. Cadance didn't see what happened to him next, because she was too occupied watching what happened to his compatriot. The woman's body was now a half melted wad of burned and bubbling flesh, but the heat didn't seem to have any effect on the tendrils that twisted from her every orifice. Even as her hair burst into flames, the gooey tentacles weren't even so much as singed. They speared out of the corpse and smashed through the protective visor of the soldier that hadn't run. His muffled scream mixed with the last unearthly shrieks of the woman as the tendrils slithered out of their previous host and into it's new one.

Without skipping a beat the soldier turned and started sweeping his weapon across the front line of the troops Cadance was with. Their protective suits kept them from bursting into flame right away, but that did nothing to stop the dry fall grass beneath their feet from erupting in flames. In short order, a blazing fire cut off their advance on the school.

"We don't have time for this," muttered Twilight. "Flank them! Cut down any instances of 22369c before they have a chance to get close, even if they are former colleagues! Believe me, you'll be doing them a favor!"

The troops only hesitated for a moment before they started marching around the flames. The smoke only seemed to thicken the fog that obscured the schoolyard turned battlefield, but Cadance could still see that there were already many charred bodies laying in the grass. It was impossible to tell how many had been agents of the attacking organization and how many were infested parents. Even so, Cadance didn't see any evidence that the attack had been effective in eliminating the parasitic monsters.

"Twilight this isn't working!" called Cadance over the roar of flames, "The heat guns work fine on the hosts, but the monsters just jump to a new one when their old one dies!"

For her part, Twilight was chewing anxiously on one of her thumbnails. "This doesn't make sense. Flames and high temperatures are their weakness. This method of attack should be effective. Unless..."

The half burned out corpse that lay just beside Twilight's leg suddenly reached out and grabbed her ankle. The teenager shrieked, and several nearby agents turned and aimed their weapons at the creature. But as it's eyeless sockets stared up at Twilight, the director raised one hand to keep them from opening fire. It was hard to make out since the poor wretch had lost its tongue along with most of its teeth, but just audible over the crackle of flames and the screams of soldiers, the thing could be heard saying, "k...ki... kill... m... me... kill... me... please... kill me..." over and over in an agonized voice.

A stern look filled Twilight's eyes as the charred thing that had once been someone's mother or father weakly let go of her leg. "She's adapted. She's keeping the hosts alive so that they will serve as a buffer between her and our attacks." She flipped up the collar on her uniform, exposing a small microphone that could apparently transmit to everyone on the battlefield. "Abort the operation! All we're doing is feeding her fodder! Fall back! I am ordering a full retreat!"

There was a sound of static and only nearby soldiers reacted to her voice. The fog seemed to be growing even thicker and had taken on the same ominous glow as the school. Was it somehow interfering with their electronics?

Before Twilight could repeat her order of retreat, a deafening roar shook the school and forced more than a few soldiers to drop their guns to cover their ears. Cadance couldn't believe her eyes as the facade of Crystal Prep, the entire front of the school, split down the middle and a pinkish ooze began to spill forth like pus from a festering wound. The windows cracked and shattered as pink slime vomited forth from the school.

More quickly than Cadance could account for, the creature she had seen last in her office when Diamond Tiara had died took in front of her eyes. Only now it was truly gigantic, towering over the soldiers with a body covered in eyes, teeth, and razor sharp spines. How had it managed to grow so large in such a short amount of time? Unfortunately, thanks to it's translucent hide, Cadance could see exactly how.Beneath the shimmering see=through surface there swarmed easily a hundred writhing, thrashing people. Some were staff and other adults, but the majority were students, trying to claw their way to the surface for even a single breath of fresh air.

As Cadance watched in horror, the student body of Crystal Prep struggled to break free of the gooey surface, only to be sucked down again as a massive appendage like a head covered in human eyes rotated and scanned the battlefield. A gash opened in the "head" and a high pitched sound drifted over the lawn. It took Cadance some time to realize the noise was the childish laughter of hundreds of voices giggling in unison.

That was more than many of the conscripted soldiers could handle, and while some fruitlessly trained their weapons on the massive abomination, many more panicked and fled. The stench of fear and weak bladders flooded the night air. Saw-toothed tendrils whipped out of the monsters convulsing flesh and scythed those who stood their ground and those who fled just the same. They were, perhaps, the luckier ones as the massive creature lurched forward and began swallowing up the living and the dead. The corpulent creature grew all the fatter as she continued to harvest her grizzle feast.

Twilight struggled against the panicked tide of humanity. She screamed commands, desperate to restore some kind of order, to save what lives she could, but those who had so dutifully followed her orders before were clearly stricken half insane from fear. It seemed like it was time. She took the device that had inspired so much confidence before out of her pocket and held it aloft for all to see! Unfortunately, this didn't have the effect she clearly hoped for, as a flailing rifle clipped Twilight in the side of her head and she fell, bleeding under a mass of soldiers trying to escape.

Though she had been unsure what to do before, Cadance knew what needed to happen now. She threw her weapon aside, un-fired, and quickly went to Twilight's side. Cadance was in much danger of being trampled as Twilight by doing this, but she wasn't about to let her die even if it cost Cadance her own life. Twilight wasn't her student anymore. In fact she wasn't certain what the status of their relationship was... But even so, she was going to save Twilight, even if it was the last thing she did.

Stooping, she hefted the prone teenager onto her shoulder and then, eyes steely and chin firm, the former Dean of Crystal Prep fled with her charge into the night.

I Don't Mind The Pain

Keep it together.

We just have to find her.

Keep it together.

So what if you warned them that this exact situation would arise?

So what if they weren't able to synthesize the magical properties of the sun fruit Zecora had used to help you.

All that mattered right now was finding Sunset and keeping... it... together!

Fluttershy was not keeping it together.

When she'd first snuck through the portal from the ruined and candified Equestria that had been her home, she had been overjoyed. Here was a place untainted by the Candy Curse. Somewhere where the animals still frolicked in the sun and called to one another in the night. So enthralled was Fluttershy by the simple pleasure of once more being in a world with living animals that at first she hardly noticed the changes in her own body.

Gone were her hooves, replaced by hands and feet. Gone was the hard exoskeleton she had developed after eating Queen Chrysalis, though it and her other changeling abilities could still be called forth. Her body still possessed the sickly sweet smell of a candy ghoul, but blissfully she found that her hunger had quieted now that she was out of the presence of the puppets she had been forced to feed on.

Surviving on the sweet flesh of other ghouls for so long, it was astonishing to find that the hunger had left her. She hadn't felt this way since the time she had gorged herself in changeling flesh. There was something about this world. The longer she stayed in it the more her magic faded, but also the more human she became underneath. Sure she still had a craving for horse-flesh from time to time. Fortunately, that wasn't too hard to acquire in this world if you knew the right abattoir to visit.

It had been a pleasant surprise.

But then Fluttershy discovered that she was here as well.

Perhaps because her magic was fading, Fluttershy didn't sense the Candy Mare at first. By the time she had, the damage had been done, and a repeat of the horrors of that unforgettable Nightmare Night in Ponyville played itself out at the high school where the former pegasus had first emerged into this world.

Of course... If Fluttershy had found a way to slip through, so had her tormentor.

Understandably, the pony turned human didn't want this world to suffer the same fate Equestria had. Coming here had been like having a second chance at life. If that candy monster was here, Fluttershy would do everything in her power to stop her.

That's how she had fallen in with the organization that was cleaning up the mess at CHS... And how she met this worlds Twilight Sparkle. She was so different from her worlds Twilight, but in other important ways she was very much the same. It had almost broken Fluttershy's heart when she had first seen her, bringing back a flood of memories that had scarred over in her mind. While she had been living in that twisted parody of her homeland, it was a blessing that she had started to forget the better days...

The kinder days.

Having all of that rush back at once made it easy for her to swear loyalty to this world Twilight, and the Foundation she was currently working for.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, however... That same day was also when she had laid eyes on Sunset Shimmer for the first time. She could sense the curse upon her immediately. It seemed she might have been responsible for putting a temporary stop to the Candy Curse's spread in this world, and perhaps had even put Equestria out of it's misery, but at the cost of becoming infected herself.

Fluttershy would've killed her there and then, to stop all the suffering that was sure to come, were it not for Twilight's intervention. They wanted to save Sunset, she had explained. Magic clearly worked differently in this world than it did in Equestria, and Fluttershy had to admit that seemed to be the case given how much she herself had changed, but this caused Twilight and the organization that she worked with to worry that simply killing Sunset wouldn't stop the curse. It might only free the Candy Mare, and unleash all the horror and pain once again.

So instead, Fluttershy had offered her assistance to the organization. She'd become an operative on the condition she would personally serve as Sunset's jailer, in case she were to be overtaken by the curse before a cure could be found.

A duty that Fluttershy had taken on willingly and that she was now failing.

Why did they have to be in a sewer!? All the fetid organic smells were playing merry hell with her senses. The methane fumes made seeing anything with her insectile eyes nearly impossible as well. All she could really rely on was her hearing, yet even that had failed her in this claustrophobic, echoing place.

Making herself look big and scary wasn't doing anything to tamp down the very real fear welling up inside of her.

It was all going to happen again; The death, the destruction, and the senseless torture.

And she couldn't stop it any more this time than last time.

Fluttershy slammed a frustrated fist into the sewer wall, sending cracks spider-webbing through the already crumbling bricks. Get it together, Fluttershy she thought to herself. They have to get through you to get out of here. Just let them come to you. Sit tight, and keep your cool, and everything will be fine.

"Nightmare Night..." came a sing song voice just on the edge of hearing. Flutterhsy's every sense was suddenly on edge. It couldn't be. Not now!

"What a fright..."

No.

No, no, no, no, no!

Had it finally happened!? Had Sunset fully succumbed!?

From a completely different direction she heard another song song voice answer, "...Give is something sweet to bite..."

Fluttershy flew into action. She tried to follow the voice, but as soon as she thought she had zero'd in on it, it would echo from a different direction. She'd run down one passage only to come to a dead end and hear the giggling song behind her. She'd run down another and hear the voice echoing off into the distance far and away... Much further away than it should have been.

Once, as she splashed to a halt in the center of a flooded cross passage, Fluttershy could've sworn she heard the voice right by her ear.

She turned, all teeth and claws, all Thoughts of subtlety and calm forgotten. That's when she saw her! She was fleeing soundlessly into the shadows! Fluttershy launched herself after her, running on all fours.

With each turn she caught a tantalizing glimpse of orange and red, only for it to slip into the dark again. But she wouldn't escape! Sunset or the Candy Mare, whoever, she wouldn't get away!

Finally the chase ended.

Fluttershy had her cornered at a dead end, a blind wall that had nothing but a grated drain at the bottom of it. Her body language said she was afraid, though her face was still hidden in shadow. She didn't look like the Candy Mare had taken full control, but there was every reason to be cautious, just in case. Fluttershy put on her best, scary voice, "Thought you could trick me with filly songs and echoes, but now you're mine! Why don't you just give up? It'll go easier for you."

Fluttershy tensed. If she was going to attack, it'd be now. She knew all too well that cornered prey tended to bite. Which is why what happened next took her off guard. The girl before her completely relaxed... and stepped forward into the light.

"Why did you let this happen?" asked Rainbow Dash, her eyes gouged out of her head and twin rivulets of blood steadily dropping from the gaping sockets.

"We were your friends," croaked Applejack as she stepped out of the shadows, her exposed muscles glistening on her skinless face, like the ripe flesh of a peeled apple.

"You could have helped us, darling," sighed Rarity heavily, though half her face was missing, and the rest of her body charred beyond recognition. "But instead you ran away."

Fluttershy turned to flee from the apparitions, but stopped as another appeared in her way. "Just like you're running now," bubbled Pinkie Pie sadly, her hair and face melting into the disgusting sewer water as she rose to block her path.

"If only you learned from your mistakes," added a skeletal Twilight as she floated slowly up from the sewer water, eyes glowing darkly as filth dribbled off her long straight hair.

Eyes wild, Fluttershy turned about, but everywhere she looked stood an apparition of a long dead friend. A friend she had let down.

Fluttershy froze.

She closed her eyes.

In a voice that was deadly quiet she whispered, "So you're strong enough that you can do this again, huh?" with only that as a warning she lashed out, claws rending the air and slicing the specters into wisps of fog. In a louder voice she continued, "I remember when you used to torment me like that every night. Showing me visions of my friends suffering, rotting. But you never did manage to break me, Candy Mare."

A peal of childish laughter came from every direction before the fog coalesced into the form of a single entity. The Candy Mare giggled uncontrollably as her eyes rolled in merriment. "Aww, come on! You know I had you going for a minute!" Her voice changed to Rainbow's as she let out a plaintive,"why did you let me die!?" before laughing wildly.

Fluttershy growled softly and raked her claws through the Candy Mare, disturbing her image but otherwise passing through harmlessly.

"Now what did that prove?" asked the ghost disdainfully.

"That you are still just a spirit. Not even that, but a figment of a curse," replied Fluttershy with some measure of triumph in her voice. "Which means you haven't been able to fully take Sunset over yet. There is still time for me to save her, or at least stop her from doing anything else foolish."

"Ooh, clever!" chortled the Candy Mare. "But what makes you so certain Sunset wants you to save her? Besides! Just between us monsters, I don't think you stand a chance. I'm growing stronger by the second. Pretty soon, I won't even need Sunset anymore."

"I'm not falling for your lies," snarled Fluttershy. "I know you need a host to exist, especially in this dimension. A creature of magic like you would just fade away otherwise."

"Perhaps I do," conceded the specter. "But then I have to wonder why you wasted so much time trying to cure Sunset instead of killing her of. Burning her body, or melting her in acid, or freezing her in a block of ice. I'd wither away before too long by that logic."

"Your stubborn is why. Even without a host you managed to come back after a thousand years," the jailer grumbled. "There was no way to prove putting Sunset down would put you out for good."

"Ahh, that's the rub, isn't it! As close as you may have come to being like me, you don't really know how I work. I don't really know how I work!" the Candy Mare's deranged laughter went on for some time. "Figuring out a way to destroy Sunset that would also destroy me would be a task that would take some time and consideration. You'd only have one chance to get it right. In light of that, I suppose that your approach was rather prudent, but I have one more question for you." All merriment drained from the apparitions face. "Why the whole charade? Why the 'Doctor Lemon Drop' disguise? I knew you couldn't really be him."

It was Fluttershy's turn to grin cruelly, "Why, to torment you, of course. I'm sure it was distracting and kept you from focusing on fully taking over Sunset. While I was working with her, I also couldn't afford you finding out who I really was so I needed some kind of disguise. But at the end of the day, maybe I did become a little bit like you. I couldn't pass up a chance at a little revenge of my own. I just wanted to make you suffer the same way you had tortured me. What's the matter? Didn't like a taste of your own medicine?"

Slowly the Candy Mare's grin spread across her face once more. "I'm going to hollow you out like a pumpkin and wear your corpse as my second skin."

"No thanks, we've tried that before, remember?" replied Fluttershy curtly. "If you'll excuse me, I'm done chatting with powerless poltergeists. This has clearly all been a distraction so Sunset and her little friend could slip past me and head for the exit. Clever to get them to stand at different points in the sewers to make it harder to track you down. Not clever enough though, since I know right where they're going. Make no mistake Candy Mare... I'll run down your host and drag her right back to her cell. Then we'll see about taking care of you once and for all."

"Oh, don't run off too quickly Fluttershy," hissed the specter through a monstrous grin, "Sunset might just be closer than you think!"

Fluttershy hadn't heard the scraping of the grate as it had been moved aside. She certainly hadn't headr the teenager as she painfully slowly crept up behind her, disturbing the water as little as possible, as the Candy Mare had laughed her deranged laugh. What Fluttershy did hear, however, was an apologetic Sunset say, "Sorry about this," before the metal grate was brought down with a hard crack on the back of her head, dashing in her skull and sending her spinning off into oblivion.

The monster fell with a splash, unconscious or dead Sunset didn't know.

The Candy Mare gave a little cheer and spun in the air,"Woo-hoo! Nice swing little slugger! You knocked her right out of the park!"

Sunset was breathing hard, not just from the exertion of knocking out Fluttershy, but from having to hold her breath for part of the time she was hidden behind the grate. The adrenaline rush probably wasn't helping matters either, as her heart had been pounding so loudly she was afraid that by itself was going to give her away. One of the bars which she had worked loose to hide in the first place was still clenched tight in her hands. "She could see you."

"Well, yeah," replied the Candy Mare. "Let's not belabor that point. I mean you weren't still entertaining the idea I was just a hallucination, were you?"

"That's not what I mean!" shot back Sunset. "No one was able to see you before but me! If she could see you now, that means you are getting stronger! What are you up to?"

Unsurprisingly, the monster smiled wider. "It's a little late for that revelation. Bottom of the ninth, bases are loaded, and here comes the pitch." The loud thwack of metal bouncing off the back of Sunset's skull echoed through the sewer, even as the teen fell to her hands and knees with a splash. "Strike one!"

Sunset could feel the blood trickling down her neck. She almost reached a hand up to the wound, but thought better of it at the last second, which was probably wise considering where her hands had just been. She looked up blurrily just in time to take another blow from the rusted bar to the face, sending her tumbling back into the septic flood.

"Strike two!" the Candy Mare giggled wildly, her face twisting into a demonic grin of pure joy as Sunset gagged on the putrid, filthy water she was bleeding into.

Sunset had enough presence of mind to try and scramble away from her attacker, but froze when she saw who loomed over her. Starlight, eyes wild with fear, adjusted her grip on the metal bar she held with both hands and took a wide stance. The first two blows had been made in a panicked rush. The second had been a glancing blow to try and finish Sunset off. This swing would have all her strength behind it.

Raising the bar high over her head, Starlight brought the bar down with enough force to split a watermelon in half. "Strike three! You're out!"

Scrape... Scrape...

She drifted in and out of consciousness. In the darkness behind her eyes, the only constant was the rhythmic scraping sound. At least, that was until the voices started to fade in and out of her perception.

"This is so disgusting. Are you sure this is necissary?"

"Of course, Starlight. If we are to proceed as planned, then she must be hollowed so as to become a proper recepticle."

"This would be easier if I had more than a rusty spoon to work with."

"Be thankful I guided you to that "rusty spoon". Otherwise the work would have to be done with your fingernails."

"Like that matters... There's still plenty of it getting under my nails! And on my hands! And up my arm to my elbows! I'm going to need a long soak after this..."

"Stay calm Starlight. The work is almost done. Then, together, we will guide this world to the realization of your vision. Perfect equality, perfect peace."

"I suppose it's worth it for that. Though, can we just pop the eyes out? I'm having a hard time cutting through the optic nerves with just this spoon."

Her Black Wings

Cadance didn't know how long she'd been splashing through the reeking sewers. Her first idea had been to ride the secret elevator back down into the base, but it seemed the facility was on lock down. Even if it hadn't been, she doubted she had the credentials to gain access.

Twilight might have known what to do, but she was still flopping against her back, only semi conscious as Cadance carried her down to the only other place that they might be able to hide...

Of course, the only reason Cadance would even consider the sewers was that it had been part of the original plan. After mopping up at Crystal Prep, they were supposed to come down to the sewers as a group. That part of the mission having failed, Cadance was hoping to find others who fled at the rendezvous point where they were to meet with the Special Agent Butterfly. Cadance hadn't seen any other agents of the organization since she'd climbed down the storm drain.

Well, not any that were in one piece anyways...

It must have truly been chaos topside, because every now and then a few fingers or an arm would float by. Maybe something that had once been someones head. Cadance was trying not to think about it.

"Where are we?" Twilight mumbled. Cadance was half dragging her along as they stumbled down tunnels, ankle deep in sludge that Cadance didn't want to think about. This was the first time she had said anything coherent after the blow to the head she had taken. She stopped and set Twilight down gently on the cleanest ledge she could find.

"We're in the sewers, heading for the rendezvous point," she answered quickly. "Do you think you can walk?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" answered Twilight, still clearly dazed as she put one hand against the spot on her forehead that had been struck. She winced as her fingers brushed the growing knot, but otherwise seemed fine.

"If you need me to carry you, let me know," replied Cadance, wiping some of the dry blood off Twilight's face. "We need to keep moving. There's no telling if those monsters might decide to follow us."

That seemed to get Twilight's attention. "Where are my men? Where is everyone?"

It was Cadance's turn to wince, "Gone. Or still fighting, maybe. It doesn't matter. We were overwhelmed. Our weapons were ineffective. There was no choice but to run."

"I know that," replied Twilight in a whisper. "I was just hoping that maybe my memories were just a bad dream."

"Hah. I think I know exactly how you feel," Cadance's voice cracked with emotion. "It's like a nightmare, or some awful science fiction movie. It'd be nice if it was something we could dismiss like that, but we can't escape the reality we're in. We have to deal with the here and now. So... what's the plan?"

Twilight's eyes flashed behind her cracked glasses. She stood, albeit a little shakily. "This is now a full containment breach. We need to meet up with Agent Butterfly. We'll take any survivors we come across with us, and we will regroup back at base. Hopefully our lines of communication are still open and we can call in backup from our other nearby facilities."

"And if not?" asked Cadance, even though she didn't think she'd like the answer.

"There are protocols in place for this situation," replied Twilight, not meeting her friends eyes. "One way or another, the Candy Mare will be stopped."

They were bold words, but they still had a ways to go.

For a time they walked on without saying anything else to one another. The silence was only punctuated by the steady sounds of dripping filth and their own footsteps sploshing through grey water. The roar of flames and the shouts of battle from above had long since faded away to nothing but a memory.

Exactly how long had they been walking?

Despite what she had said about dealing with reality, this all still felt very much like some bizarre dream to Cadance. Somewhere out there was her normal life. About now she'd normally be arriving home to her studio apartment in the city, checking her voicemail which would invariably be full of nothing but telemarketers, and trying to decide if she wanted to order take out or just cook a simple meal for herself. Wading through raw sewage with monster devouring people left and right really did a lot to make even the most hum-drum of lifestyles seem suddenly appealing.

Lost in such thoughts, Cadance nearly ran into Twilight as the teenager suddenly froze in her tracks. "What is it Twilight? Is something wrong?"

They both stood perfectly still, listening hard. Twilight didn't move a muscle for some time before she replied, "Something's coming."

Cadance strained her ears, trying to catch the tell-tale sound of approaching footsteps, or the regular splashing that would indicate someone else's approach. She heard nothing like that. It was with dawning terror that Cadance realized Twilight had said something not someone. With that realization, she could now hear the steady gurgles, gloops, and plops of something moving through the sewers other than foul water.

Something big...

"I can't tell where it's coming from!" Cadance panicked.

"It's all around us. It must be moving through the pipes as well as the tunnels. We're lucky it hasn't caught up to us yet," muttered Twilight, before abruptly turning down a side tunnel. "We'll never make it to the rendezvous point if we go in a straight line. That slimy thing will get ahead of us. We'll have to take a more indirect route."

Cadance hurried to follow Twilight. Not that she really had a choice in the matter.

Twilight had always been one of the brightest students at Crystal Prep. Though recent revelations might have called her judgement into question, there was no one that Cadance would trust to think her way out of a problem more than Twilight Sparkle. Indeed, as they took a circuitous path full of twists and turns the damp, gurgling sounds of their pursuer slowly fell behind them. Cadance had no idea where they were now, as she was only familiar with the one route to the meet up point that she had glanced at during the mission briefing. She just had to rely on Twilight to know where they were going.

There small party suddenly came to a sudden stop once more. Twilight turned first to one tunnel opening and then to another. She pulled a small device out of her pocket and examined the readout on its compact screen. Finally, she nodded her head confidently and turned to Cadance. "We're lost."

Cadance's face fell. "What!? I thought... well, I assumed you knew where you were going. I mean your base is down here somewhere, right?"

"Yes," the teen affirmed without hesitation. "I've memorized all of these tunnels, the blind turns, dead ends, and various blocked passages are all known to me. That's not the problem. Where we are right now doesn't exist on any maps available to the public, nor the foundation."

"What does that mean?" asked Cadance bewildered. "Are we in some kind of secret chamber?"

"Not exactly. Have you noticed that the tunnels have gotten a little..." Twilight hesitated. "Foggy?"

"Now that you mention it, it is kind of hard to see very far ahead or behind. I'd noticed it was kind of misty when we were above ground earlier," Cadance added, "I sort of just thought it had... Followed us down?"

"Which is abnormal but, in this case, I think is correct. Or at least half correct," mused the teen scientist as she lifted the device so Cadance could see the screens read out. Though she was an educator, she couldn't make heads or tails out of the numbers and graphs gyrating across the tiny screen. "Only it's not fog. It's magic. I think it's warping space around us."

"Uh... Let's just pretend I don;t know anything about 'magic'. What does that mean?" asked Cadance, floundering in unknown territory and on the brink of bursting into frustrated tears.

"It means something doesn't want us to make any progress. Not to worry though," comforted Twilight, "This little device isn't just for picking up magic readings. Not anymore anyways. Exposure to magic has had an interesting effect on some of my devices."

The teenagers glasses gleamed as she held the compact in front of her and it popped open. Suddenly the fog, or 'magic', began to flow into the tiny compartment inside the machine. As the haze cleared, Cadance realized that they had been walking in circles. They had ended up almost exactly right back where they had started. It was so obvious now, and the way forward was readily apparent. It was as if the fog wasn't just clearing from the tunnels, but from her mind as well. Cadance was impressed, "Wow! That's a nifty device! Is there anything else it can do?"

"A few things," was Twilight's rather cryptic reply as she snapped the compact closed. It glowed briefly before falling dormant again. "There's no telling how much time we've lost. We need to hurry."

Cadance was about to protest when she noticed something suddenly loom out of the shadows behind Twilight. "Look out!" she quickly pushed the teenager aside and stood between her and the unknown threat.

"Easy Cadance!" shouted Twilight. "It's just Agent Butterfly."

Sure enough, Fluttershy stepped out of the shadows. Gone was her hulking appearance, and instead she stood before them as a slight teen girl in a form fitting body suit. Her hair was rigid and spiky, especially where it was soaked with a greenish fluid that Cadance instinctively realized was blood, Other than the obvious head trauma, "Agent Butterfly" seemed unharmed.

"What happened to you?" Cadance couldn't help asking in concern.

"I'm afraid Sunset got the drop on me," Fluttershy replied, though her answer was directed at Twilight, not Cadance. "The Candy Mare has gotten stronger than we realized. She was able to manifest to me. It distracted me long enough for the fugitives to get the jump on me."

"So she's escaped," moaned Twilight, crestfallen. "You should've let me go to her when she first got out of her cell! I might've been able to talk her down."

"That was too big a risk and you know it Twilight. Besides, she hasn't escaped," Fluttershy smirked. "It looks like she had a falling out with her accomplice. I've got her secured for now. I was just about to take her back to base when I thought I heard voices. Where is the rest of the team?"

"Neutralized," the way Twilight said the word, Cadance understood that it meant 'dead'. "If there are any survivors it's likely that they have become puppets by now. Even though you were able to apprehend patient zero, I'm afraid we're still going to have to activate the bases onsite contingency protocols."

"Your the boss," Fluttershy replied with a wry smile. "How about we head back and pick up Sunset, and then we'll head down to the base and do just that?"

"Sounds good to me," said Cadance, unprompted. "The sooner we get out of these sewers the better."

As Agent Butterfly began to lead them back the way she had come, Twilight leaned over and whispered something in Cadance's ear. The older womans eyes grew wide, and she stood dumbfounded for a moment. Still, she quickly moved to follow, not saying a single word more.

Moments ago...

Sunset's eyes fluttered open. She half expected to see Starlight hunched over her, ready to gouge out her eyes for unknown nefarious purposes. On the contrary, she didn't see her at all until she slowly tried to sit up. She couldn't move. Her arms and legs had been tied behind her back, and those had been tied together as well. The bindings must have been cutting off her circulation, because she couldn't feel her hands or her feet. But there was no time to worry about that as she desperately tried to find the source of the voices she'd half heard as she had drifted back to conciousness.

Starlight was easy to find.

She was hunched over Fluttershy. Her cloths and arms were slick with greenish gore well up past her elbows. Her hair hung limply with a mixture of sewage and blood, none of it her own. The scraping noise was easy to identify as well. Starlight was methodically using a rusted spoon to clean out the interior of Fluttershy's skull. The top of the former pegasi's head was peeled forward, so it hung limply in front of her face, so the deranged Starlight could do her grizzly work.

That wasn't what surprised Sunset, however. No, what surprised her was Celestia hovering over the pair. She glowed radiantly, and her long hair flowed as though it were water. She was dressed all in white, and bore herself less like a Princess and more like a Goddess. The image was watery, however, and just beneath it Sunset could see the beautiful figures true identity. The Candy Mare was gnawing on her own insubstantial fingers to keep from laughing.

"Don't... Listen to her!" Sunset blurted, and immediately started to moan. The sound over her own voice reverberated inside her head. What had felt like a mild headache swiftly filled Sunset's world with blinding white hot pain. Still, she struggled to warn Starlight, "She's not what... She seems..."

"Poor Sunset," the image of Celestia murmured. "The strain is always most difficult on an imperfect vessel. I fear her mind is deteriorating faster than we feared."

"A few blows of an iron bar to the head couldn't do her any favors there either," added Starlight with a nervous smile. "Are you sure there's no other way? She didn't seem like she wanted to hurt me."

"Alas, it's not a matter of what she wants. I would have restrained her myself if I could. Sadly as my presence strengthens the body it also rots the mind. Hence why you must remove the brain completely from this monster in order for me to have a vessel that can meet our needs."

"Whatever you say goddess," Starlight paused," Will I need to do the same thing to her?"

Sunset tensed up. Even though she could hear the trepidation in Starlight's voice, it was clear that the teen wasn't above performing such atrocious acts if it meant achieving her goals.

"What an excellent idea Starlight!" exclaimed the image of Celestia, "It's always a good idea to have a second vessel on hand, just in case something happens to the first." Sunset struggled against her bonds, but found the knots tied in a way that only made them tighter the more she squirmed. "But no, not yet. Even brainless I fear she would still struggle against me. But the time when all resistance will melt away fast approaches! Hurry and focus on the task at hand. We shall be having company soon and I want to look my best for when they arrive."

Starlight threw down her gore caked scooping implement and started to wash off the layers of brain and viscera on her hands in the only slightly cleaner sewer water. "It's done."

Sunset watched, helpless, as the fake Celestia settled over Fluttershy's body. An imperceptible mist, that Sunset hadn't noticed previously, began to flow swiftly into Fluttershy's hollowed out skull. In mere moments, all traces of the Candy Mare and her false image vanished and the top of the corpse's head slid back into place with a damp squelch.

For a moment, everything was still... and then light began to shine out of Fluttershy's eyes, nose, and mouth. A flickering flame shown out of her empty eye sockets and lit the sewers as Fluttershy's body began to move. The movements were jerky at first, like a marionette with it's strings cut, but they quickly smoothed as she rose to her full height.

"Ahh... It feels so good to have a body again! Nightmare Night, what a fright! Give me something sweet to bite," she hissed in delight.

"Here we are," said Fluttershy as they rounded a bend. Sure enough, there was Sunset, trussed up and ready for transport. It all seemed so easy.

"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Twilight, clearly relieved. Though Sunset was still unconscious, it was clear that Twilight was thankful to find her in one piece. "Cadance, can you carry her? With Agent Butterfly injured it would probably be best if you took charge of Sunset."

"But what if she wakes up? Will those knots be strong enough to hold her?" asked Cadance, worried.

"They'll do the job, no worries there," answered Fluttershy, rather than Twilight. "But I'm fine with carrying her myself, that's no problem. You two just focus on getting us back to the base. I'm afraid I've gotten kind of turned around down here, chasing our parcel."

"Actually, we're lost too," replied Twilight, looking suddenly vulnerable. "I thought I had memorized the map for these tunnels, but we must have gotten turned around. And we've been hearing... something, following us. I'm afraid... Afraid that the monster we fought above may have followed us down here. I think we might be trapped!"

Cadance watched Fluttershy's face carefully. All she did was slowly smile, "Well, I might be able to figure out the way back. You two just stay close to me."

As Fluttershy turned towards a corridor that Twilight knew was a dead end she suddenly shouted, "Now!" before the syllable escaped her lips, Fluttershy had morphed into a horrific demonic creature and wrapped a long liqurice whip like appendage around Twilight's throat. A second liquorice-like appendage snared Cadance halfway to where Sunset lay tied up.

It seemed that what Twilight had whispered to Cadance had been to grab Sunset and run at the first opportunity.

"Now what were you hoping to accomplish?" queried Fluttershy in the Candy Mare's voice. As she did, the illusion melted away, revealing Fluttershy's body to still very much be in its hulking form, though now with hundreds of strands of black and red liquorice tendrils instead of hair, and eye sockets glowing bright with a cool green flame. "She wouldn't be able to get far from me on foot, having to carry a trussed up teenager. You'd long since be dead before she made it twenty yards. So why bother?"

Even though Twilight's face was turning a deeper shade of purple as the monster throttled her, she glared defiantly. The monster relaxed it's grip just enough to allow her victim to speak. "To keep you guessing," gasped Twilight, as she hit a button on the small device and a burst of violet flames broke the creatures grip and sent it reeling back.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" The Candy Mare roared, clearly enraged. Much of her body was charred black, and none of it seemed to be regenerating.

"You wanted to know what else the device could do?" the comment was directed to Cadance rather than the shrieking monster. "Let me show you!"

The aura of violet fire that had engulfed Twilight focused itself on her forehead, where it and her eyes both suddenly blazed white with unleashed magical power. Her lab coat and glasses seemed to change, the coat becoming a lavender and lilac colored suit of armor while the glasses erupted into a bluish-green mask of crackling flames. The power seemed to course up through Twilight, and erupted into a long sharp horn on her forehead. At last, two feathery wings as dark as midnight erupted from her shoulders. Twilight hovered in the air, her very presence driving back the sewer water on all sides, exposing long submerged stones that her feet floated above.

"You've got to be kidding me!" moaned the malevolent candy spirit from inside her corpse shell. "There's no way that much magic exists in this world!"

"You're right, monster," there was a certain cockiness to Twilight's voice as she spoke now. Every last inch of her body thrummed with power, so it was no surprise she might be feeling a little more confident. "My device detects, contains, and releases magic not just of this world, but of Equestria as well. That includes the magic left behind by the portals you destroyed and the Elements of Harmony you consumed! Consider this to be an amalgamation of all your victims vengeance, given form!"

The Candy Mare gnashed Fluttershy's teeth. "Not again. Not when I'm this close!"

"This is for Spike," was all Twilight said as she extended her hand and a pulse of magic obliterated the Candy Mare's stolen flesh.

What remained of Fluttershy fluttered away to ash.

The Candy Mare herself had completely evaporated.

Going Down to Die

"What have you done?" asked Cadance, horrified as she cradled Sunset in her arms protectively.

The teenager might still be possessed by some monster, but at that moment Cadance felt more afraid of Twilight than the red-haired young woman.

"Eliminated a monster," was Twilight's rather chilly reply. Cadance was certain now... She didn't like what this power, this magic, had done to Twilight. The black winged creature's face twisted into a grimace when she saw Cadance's expression "Don't give me that look. Agent Butterfly knew what would happen if she were compromised. If we're lucky, she'll regenerate purified and be her old self again. Unfortunately, I doubt that blast alone would be enough to destroy the Candy Mare. At best, we won't have to deal with her tricks and traps while she's recovering. Now is the best time for us to make our escape"

"Escape to where? What is this contingency plan you mentioned?" Cadance was clearly plagued by uncertainty, "And why didn't you use this power before?"

"Slow down Cadance, I'll answer your questions. Just take a deep breath," As Twilight said this, the aura of power around her began to fade. Her wings and horn shimmered out of existence, and her clothing and glasses returned to normal. The device, which had gone dormant until now, began to flash, and opened on its own.

In mere moments, Twilight went from being a winged avenger back to a regular teenaged girl, albeit still one that had one taken down a shape shifting monster twice her size with one shot.

"The reason I held of using this ability is that it has its limits. I don't have an endless supply of magic I can draw from, that resource is finite in this world. The device needs time to recharge after each use." Twilight hesitated for a moment before she continued. "While I could make the excuse I didn't have the chance to use the device during the operation at Crystal Prep, the truth is that I was hesitant to deploy it when Sunset still remained at large. Aside from it's limitations, my "Midnight" Sparkle form also strips away my inhibitions. There was a real chance that if Sunset had appeared while I was in that form, I might have destroyed her outright."

"You shouldn't have a weapon like that as an option," stated Cadance firmly. "It's too risky... And I don't like what it does to you. How it makes you talk, how it makes you act. The look in your eyes was so alien and inhuman."

"Well what would you have had me do!? Let us be eaten, or worse, by that cannibalistic freak!?" yelled the teen, her calm composure shattering. "I know the risks that come with using the device, okay? I'm the one that invented it! Don't think that I haven't considered the consequences! Haven't considered... what I might do if I ever lost control. That's why it's a last resort."

Even though she was yelling, there were tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes. It was clear that Twilight was hurting. She hadn't killed Agent Butterfly in cold blood, but instead had done what she thought was necessary for their protection. This was the most like a teenager Twilight had been since Cadance had been reunited with her. It went some way to mollifying her, reassuring her that despite all the power, Twilight was still Twilight. Even so... "Promise me you won't use it again unless you absolutely have to."

"That's the idea," replied Twilight with a fragile smile as she knuckled the tears from her eyes. She held up the compact to show a single light slowly but steadily flashing. "Couldn't even if I wanted to until it finishes recharging."

With a heavy sigh, Cadance let herself relax a little. "Okay, so... explain the contingency protocols or whatever they're called."

Twilight looked away as if she couldn't stand to meet Cadance's eyes. "I think it's safe to assume that communications are down. Given how poorly things went top-side and that slime monster encroaching on our base, chances are that the base has already been scuttled. What's left of the staff will be withdrawing with any important artifacts and files they can carry."

"That seems like a lot of trouble to go to. Why abandon your base so quickly?"

"It's protocol," was the terse reply.

"Uh-huh. Now what's the real reason Twilight?" Cadance crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at the director of a secret government facility as if she were back in grade school. "I've been babysitting you since you were in diapers. I know when you are lying. Even if it's a lie by omission."

Twilight threw up her hands in surrender. Instead of losing her temper, she just sighed heavily and her shoulders slumped as if she were suddenly overcome with a great sadness. "In the event a full containment breach goes beyond our control, pretty much the situation we are in now, it's protocol to detonate the facility's on site thermonuclear device."

"Whoa, hold on! You're going to detonate a nuke!? Under the city!?" Cadance was stunned "Won't that cause a massive earthquake!?"

"It will do more than that I'm afraid. The bombs yield is high enough that the city... It's all going to burn." Twilight fidgeted with her glasses. "The people I work for don't take chances. You've seen what we're up against. Creatures that don't obey the laws of physics, let alone the laws of man. The protocol was set up to not only ensure secrecy in case the base was overrun, but also to eliminate any escaped threats to mankind."

"Will... will they at least evacuate the city?" whispered Cadance.

"If there's time... but with the risk of infection from this breach, it's unlikely that they will bother." Twilight didn't look any happier about that than Cadance did. "We'll be lucky if we escape ourselves if we don't start moving soon."

"But all of those people," Cadance's eyes were wide as she calculated the possible loss of human life, not to mention all of those poor souls that the candy monster was using as meat puppets. "Can we stop it?"

The teen didn't answer.

"Twilight, can we stop it!?" Cadance asked more insistently.

"I have the override codes. However, without any way to relay a message to the base I'd have to enter the codes manually." Twilight turned towards her friend and former mentor. "If we leave now we might make it to a bunker before the bomb explodes. There are several sites scattered around the city in case of just such a situation. There's a chance we'd still die, but we have no chance of survival if we head down to the base and end up trapped by that massive jelly monster."

"We have to try," was Cadance's solemn reply

"Are you listening to anything I'm telling you!? This scenario is exactly what the bomb is for! Do you think the Candy Mare's victims will thank you for sparing that disgusting blob their floating in!? Do you think, even if I were able to activate my powers again that I'd be able to completely eradicate a creature that can hide inside innocent peoples bodies and not wrack up just as high of a body count!? We'll be lucky if we just manage to kill ourselves going on a suicide mission like this!" Twilight was panting for breath by the time she was done yelling.

Both women were silent after that. All that could be heard was the steady drip of the sewer pipes.

"We still have to try."

"I know."

After untying Sunset Shimmer, Cadance and Twilight each took an arm over their shoulders and carried her unconscious body further into the darkened depths below.

The descent hadn't been as bad as Cadance had feared. The pathway that Sunset had carved in her escape was fairly steep, but it was also wide and fairly even. It would have been pitch black if not for the flashlights installed in their suits. As they continued downwards in silence, Cadance felt the need to fill the void that seemed to have risen between them.

"I was glad you agreed to deactivate the bomb," she began, nervously. "Given what those weird inter-dimensional candy monsters can do, I can understand why you would want to destroy every last trace of them."

There was no reply at first. Twilight huffed a bit as she helped Sunset's limp body over a pile of loose soil. When she finally answered she sounded more like the director she was again. "While the explosion would take out the bulk of the entity, we've already established that flame and high temperatures are less effective than we previously thought. There's no evidence thus far to suggest that radiation would have any debilitating effect on the creature, so if any part of it survived the initial explosion then it would mean millions of lives lost for nothing. As much as I'd rather follow protocol, I have to admit that even these extreme measures may not be as effective as we previously hoped. That and I'm not any happier than you are about the idea of all those civilians dying."

Nodding solemnly, Cadance contiuned "It would be truly horrific if the people who you rely on to protect you ended up being the ones who killed you instead. Still, I can see where your organization put such a plan in motion. I'm not sure how we're going to get out of this, but there has to be another way."

"Actually... 'Out' might not be the right approach. Maybe we should try 'in'," mused Twilight cryptically. "Listen."

Cadance did as Twilight bid, expecting an explanation as to what she meant. When no more words were forthcoming, however, Cadance wondered if Twilight meant she should just 'listen' to their surroundings. If so, she didn't hear anything they hadn't been hearing for what seemed like hours, "All I hear is the dripping and rushing of water. Is that what you mean?"

"Exactly!" exclaimed Twilight, before continuing in a quieter voice. "We've long left behind the sewers. This is a freshly dug tunnel, not some cave formed by running water over time. We're traveling through layers of bedrock here. It should be dead quiet, but it still sounds like there's rushing liquid all around us which means..."

"It's still following us!" Cadance finished Twilight's comment, alarmed. "That jelly thing is following us to your base! It's going to trap us, just like you feared!"

"Not so loud!" warned Twilight, "If we can hear it then maybe it can hear us too."

"Okay, but I have a question."

"Go on."

"Why hasn't it attacked us?" hissed Cadance as she looked back into the yawning darkness behind them.

"I've been thinking about that. While the spirit of the Candy Mare might have been working with this creature, it doesn't seem like she's actually in control of it directly. I think she's still attached to Sunset somehow. That doesn't mean she wasn't communicating with the jelly creature though," Twilight paused, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "She tried to disorient us and then stall us when we ran into her. It's possible she planned for the jelly to surround us, box us in so we couldn't escape. If so, it may still be trying to accomplish that task, not realizing we've neutralized the Candy Mare for the moment."

"So whatever they were planning was ruined the moment you vaporized her," it was Cadance's turn to look thoughtful. "Even if it did somehow know what had happened, I bet that would come as quite a shock to a creature that's invincible to most weapons. To feel a part of yourself be obliterated in the blink of an eye would be fairly unsettling. So either it doesn't know that it can attack us, or the reason it hasn't is it's afraid of you."

Twilight flashed a savage grin, but what she said next was in far more subdued tones than her expression would imply,"And the reason it's still following us is because we have something it needs."

"What do we have that a giant blob monster could possibly need?" Cadance asked, bewildered. In answer Twilight simply adjusted her grip on Sunset and gave Cadance a meaningful look. "Oh... oh dear."

"I don't think it's a coincidence that thing ended up at Crystal Prep. This is what it has been about all along, liberating the Candy Mare's host body. That blob creature just couldn't figure out how to get down to where we were keeping her," Twilight grit her teeth, "Tormenting your students and taking over their parents may have just been a means of keeping its energy up while it waited for just this opportunity."

"That's not your fault," Cadance tried to reassure Twilight. "Whatever was going on behind the scenes must have been the Candy Mare's doing. It's terrifying to think we've been marching to the beat of some evil ghosts drum, but there was no way you could have prepared for this."

"We could have acted sooner," admitted Twilight. "We should have done something earlier, before she had a chance to make her move."

Cadance didn't know if she meant Sunset, the Candy Mare, or both, but she still shook her head. "Hindsight is twenty twenty. Let's just both be thankful that jelly monster is scared of you now and doesn't know that your device needs to recharge before you can transform again."

Twilight shot her an alarmed look and Cadance's heart sank.

What had been a few drops and gurgles before suddenly sounded disconcertingly like the roar of the sea during a hurricane. Loose stones and dirt began to vibrate beneath their feet as Twilight screamed, "Run!"

Brand New God

Fortunately, not long afterwards they fell blinking into a half lit corridor.

They had made it back to the base but there was no time to congratulate themselves. Hefting Sunset Shimmer between them, the pair ran down the hall to a large metal blast door. The rumbling behind them grew louder as Twilight fumbled with her access card. Just as the door at last started to open, an avalanche of pink slime sloshed into the hallway, spraying droplets of acrid sludge in every direction. The hall was already starting to flood, and everything the amorphous creature touched began to smoke and melt.

Twilight and Cadance hurried through the narrow opening in the metal door. Just before the first questing tendrils of slime were about to come through, Twilight slammed the button on the other side that sealed the blast door shut again.

For the moment, they were safe, but already a hissing noise could be heard as the corridor on the other side of the metal door continued to fill with pink ooze. As the pair watched in horror, the blast door started to show clear dents from the impact of the creature tentacles.

"This blast door won't hold for long. We have to get to the control room!" Twilight did her best to be heard over the sounds of rapid fire impacts reverberating through the thick metal.

"It will be faster if you go on your own. It's not after you anyways, it's after her," Cadance said, indicating Sunset. "Is there somewhere I can take her where we'll be safe until you can help us?"

Twilight's mind raced. "Cold storage. The monster is liquid based right? If high temperature don't bother it, then maybe low ones will. If you follow this corridor and go down the second flight of stairs, you should be able to find it. Lock yourselves inside. Once I have control of the facility I can redirect the creature away from you and contain it."

"And deactivate the bomb?" Cadance couldn't help asking.

A pained look crossed Twilight's face, "Yes... But also no. If the creatures here then detonating the nuke at point blank range might destroy it. I'll do what I can to minimize the blast to protect the city, but we can't let this opportunity slip through our fingers!"

Cadance was at a loss for words for a moment. "That's your plan? Trap us with that monster and then kill ourselves in the hopes it dies with us!?"

Twilight shook her head, "I have a way for us to get out, but I can't tell you. If it hears what it is then it might try to stop us. Just do what I say for now and you should be safe. Please, just trust me!"

The pleading in Twilight's eyes was enough to convince Cadance, but she still had her doubts. "I'll try Twilight... But I swear, once this is all over you're getting a stern talking to!"

That made Twilight smile, but only a little. "I'll get in touch with you via the intercom once I've made it to the control center. Stay by the com and I'll let you know what to do from there, okay?"

There was no time for good-byes. Twilight hastily passed Cadance her spare access card and the pair split up. Both couldn't help thinking it might be the last time they saw one another.

It was cold when Sunset finally came to again. Starlight had really done a whammy on her. Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry, but it was the shivering that shook her out of unconsciousness.

This was bad. She knew instinctively that being passed out in the cold like this could be a death sentence. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was. That was when she came across the first body bag.

There was nothing horrifying about them in and of themselves. They were hung from the ceiling in a very orderly fashion. Sunset only realized what they were when she noticed the sticky black ice that had crusted along the bottom of one or two bags. When she realized the floor she was standing on was slick with a similar shiny black stain she almost threw up.

Okay, freezer. Not a meat locker but maybe a morgue? There were other boxes and things between her and the door. Weren’t deep freezers like this supposed to have some kind of emergency latch you could pull to keep people from accidentally locking themselves inside?

As she made her way carefully towards the door her stiff muscles complained all the way as they rubbed against her frozen, formerly sewer water soaked clothing. Her teeth were starting to chatter and she rubbed herself to try and warm up. Sunset had never done well in the cold.

Sunset tried not to think about the circumstances that had led to her being left in a cold box. She tried not to think about what she would do if the door was locked, or couldn’t be opened from the inside. Sunset tried even harder not to think about who or what might have drug her all the way here. The last thing she remembered was that terrifying conversation between Starlight Glimmer and the Candy Mare.

Or had that been some kind of terrible dream? How had Starlight come to see the Candy Mare as a goddess? Aside from her silly disguise, at what point had the Candy Mare had the opportunity to approach the teen. Had she been hiding just how strong she had become all along?

At last Sunset found the door to the freezer and, sure enough, there was a latch on the inside. As her hand dropped onto the cold metal, another hand dropped on her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” questioned an unfamiliar voice. Sunset jumped, startled. She’d never considered that anyone else was in here with her. She turned, and her eyes immediately grew wide.

The Candy Mare leered at her. Gone was any effort to appear like Sunset or anyone else she knew, and instead she looked right into lollipop eyes swirled with madness and candy corn shaped fangs that only barely hid a thrashing orange and black tongue. She didn’t know how she had managed it, but the Candy Curse had found a way to take physical form while Sunset was still alive!

That could only mean one thing... Sunset was dying! It must have been the cold. They were planning on freezing her to death. Making her die peacefully so she'd be less likely to struggle when the Candy Mare wriggled under her skin.

Well that wasn't going to happen!

Unwilling to go quietly, Sunset threw a right cross, and to her surprise the Candy Mare was sent reeling. Maybe the monster was still weak after all? Maybe there was still a chance of escape!

Without wasting another moment, Sunset went to work on the door, quickly finding the latch that had locked it shut and pushing with all her might against the heavy metal slab. The door groaned but wouldn’t budge!

Was it frozen shut?

“No, don’t open that door!” The Candy Mare called from the dark, only causing Sunset to redouble her efforts. There was a sharp cracking noise, and at last the door gave way. It was still a struggle to open, as if she were pushing the door through molasses, but she didn’t give up!

Warmth! Blessed warmth washed over her tired limbs. As Sunset's eyes beheld freedom there was a moment of confusion.

All she saw was pink.

It was a truly bizarre sight. It looked like she was back in the underground facility, but wall to wall and floor to ceiling was filled with a pink translucent slime. She could see trash, and what looked like bodies, drifting by. It was like she was looking into some kind of weird, derelict aquarium. She stood transfixed, unable to process what she was seeing.

Something just beneath the surface shifted, and suddenly several of the floating bodies turned in her direction. Grinning skulls turned to Sunset, and bony arms reached towards her from every angle as a surge of corpses bobbed into view. Their gnarled hands broke the pink surface just long enough to clamp onto all four of Sunset’s limbs and drag her forward into the slime.

Even as Sunset hit the wobbly wall with a wet slap, she felt another pair of limbs wrap around her waist, trying to pull her back into the freezer. “You can’t have her!” someone screamed, though her voice sounded muffled from within the hazy pink liquid.

All around her Sunset could see the dead, who were not truly dead, gathering to pull her deeper into the ruddy coagulating mass. The slime started to freeze around her as the cold from the ice box seeped out into the air. It allowed whoever had her by her waist to tug her back through the freezing slush and almost to the point of breaking the surface. It didn’t matter... the deeper the dead pulled Sunset the warmer she became. She was starting to burn. It felt like tiny mouths were biting her all over her body, even inside her body, as with a choking gag the bubblegum flavored ooze forced its way through her clenched teeth and up her nose.

Sunset struggled, trying to turn away from those grasping skeletal hands, trying to fight her way back. That was when she got a glance of who was trying to tug her back out.

She still wore the Candy Mare’s face, but Sunset could see now that this was just an illusion. Another hallucination brought on by the curse at a pivotal moment. The visage of the monster laughed at Sunset even as the body it was superimposed over desperately tried to safe her.

This was what the Candy Mare had really wanted all along. Not for Sunset to die in some cold underground place, nor for her to escape so the Candy Mare could run wild. No, she wanted what she had always wanted.

To consume Sunset whole.

The Candy Mare lacked the strength to do it herself, but whatever this slime creature was, it could readily do the job for her.

Cadance held on with all her might, but she could see the slime melting her protective suit, patches of it already smoking where it ate away at the material. They had been so close! The plan would all be for nothing if the jelly monster took Sunset now!

But it was no use.

The creature had already found its way in. Gallons of liquefied corpses and candy began to pour inside Sunset, condensing down to a horrible tasting sludge as it flooded her insides. Her skin grew loose in Cadance’s grasp as muscle and bone were dissolved from within. Sunset thrashed, not to try and escape, but in the throes of agony that no living creature should have to endure as she could feel herself being liquefied.

At last, the sack of skin that had been Sunset Shimmer split and burst. Tattered rags of skin clung to Cadance’s fingers as what was left of the teen was rent and torn asunder. As the monster gurgled happily, Cadance shrieked her horror and impotence as the few shreds of Sunset Shimmer spilled through her fingers to fall damply to the frozen floor.

Pink slime slithered and moaned through the facility.

Liquefied candy bubbled up from cracks and drained from broken pipes in the walls and ceiling. Rivers of half submerged corpses flowed together in the thick syrup deep beneath the earth. The dead bobbed to the surface briefly, only to disappear once more. Something was happening. Something was changing. The corpses were melting and becoming one with the candy slurry that had previously preserved them, dying the translucent jelly a crimson so deep it was almost black.

The lights that had not already been broken in this part of the prison flickered out, leaving only the emergency lighting that strobed intermittently. A flash of light and there was the river, skulls and bones suspended in the foul gel that contained them. Another flash, and the the bones were gone, dissolved to nothing. A Third flash, and the river itself was gone, dried up to a tiny trickling stream that looked like a blood stain against the tiles. A final flash showed where all that liquid had gone, as it flowed slowly into a pool around a pair of pale feet.

As even the emergency lights died, orange and green lightning licked out of the darkness, crackling away in every direction.

In the dark, pink and blue eyes swirled with madness glowed brightly as many voices whispered "Finally..."

The giggle that followed was high and girlish, and quickly joined by the laughter of the dead.

The Violet Fire

Thankfully it hadn't taken Twilight long to make it to central control. Finding a working console, on the other hand, was a different story.

When the foundation had abandoned the base they had made sure to smash up as much as they could on their way out. Pretty much anything they didn’t want falling into the wrong hands, which was practically everything. Sure it would all be vaporized the moment the nuke went off, but Twilight knew the organization had enemies to whom a little thing like nuclear fallout would pose no impediment. Protocol was to be overly cautious.

However, it was in that spirit of caution that Twilight knew there would be at least one console still functional, likely stripped any important files, but hopefully still able to issue simple commands. Commands like “abort blowing up the base, plzkthnx”. Now wasn’t really the time for humor, however, as time was short and Twilight could see on the few monitors that were still showing surveillance feeds that the underground facility was rapidly being flooded by the monstrous candy slime creature.

Once Twilight got to a working console, she had spent a lot of time opening and closing blast doors, trying to funnel the creature away from her self and Cadance's hiding spot.

Twilight was a genius, but there was only so much she could do. What she was trying to accomplish would usually be handled by a room full of people working at several terminals at once. Even so, it seemed like her efforts were bearing fruit. She was able to isolate and funnel off parts of the creature.

It was while she was engaged in this that she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Without a moments hesitation, Twilight reached inside her lab coat and withdrew a small cylinder that let loose a puff of reddish foam aimed over her shoulder. Starlight Glimmer fell backwards, choking, smashing into the already smashed computers behind her.

“What... was that!?” the teen managed to gasp, despite choking hard as her eyes streamed crimson tears and she fought for every breath.

“Bear mace. The mace they make for bears," Twilight answered without emotion. "Actually a variant formulated to be effective on up to two hundred and fifty-five different variants of cryptid. I never thought I’d end up using it on a regular person. But then I guess you’re not a regular person, are you?” Twilight kept the canister pointed at Starlight while she continued to work with her free hand. “I was wondering what had happened to you. At first I thought you ran off, but then I realized that someone had to have helped the Candy Mare take over Agent Butterfly. I have to admit, I didn’t expect you to come back here. For someone who tried so hard to escape this place, I wouldn't think you'd be eager to come back.”

Starlight was in no position to reply as she continued to thrash and sob in pain. She rubbed her eyes, but that only smeared the burning chemicals around. She staggered towards a nearby eyewash station and fumbled blindly, trying to find the lever or knob to turn it on.

“I suppose this means you were meant to use your ability on us as part of some kind of plan. Unfortunate for you that you decided to attack me first,” Twilight got tired of watching Starlight flail around, and turned the water on for her. “Cadance would’ve made a much more vulnerable target. So why didn’t you go after her?”

Starlight pushed her face down into the two streams of water, letting the cold stream soak her face and run over her eyes. It still stung horribly and was difficult to talk, but she managed a few words, “Plan... wasn’t to control you...” she huffed.

“Oh? So what was it then?” asked Twilight, the can of mace poised to administer another spray of peppery foam, “And please keep in mind that if I see even a glimmer of light in those eyes of yours, I won’t hesitate to spray you again until this canister is empty and your eyes shrivel up like raisins.”

Starlight coughed and sputtered as she let the water go up her nose. She then looked up at Twilight, red eyed and clearly hurting, but grinning viciously all the same. “The plan was to distract you.”

Twilight’s eyes grew wide as she looked back at the monitors. The first thing she noticed was that the slime had completely disappeared. There was no trace of the monster anywhere that she could see. Worse, she could see that the door to the freezer where Cadance and Sunset should have been hiding was wide open. She couldn't see either of them, despite the camera giving a good view of the freezers contents.

“What have you done!?” Twilight whirled on Starlight, but the escaped inmate was already up and across the room. There was something grasped in her hand as well... Twilight’s key card!

“What have I done?” Starlight echoed mockingly with a smirk, before swiping the card and opening the blast door to the control center. “My job!” She bowed deeply, as if expecting applause.

As the massive iron doors rumbled apart, Twilight didn’t know what to expect. She took out her magic radar and checked its readout. It was going crazy! Whatever was coming, it was off the scale! worse, the compact still needed more time to recharge, the tiny light still flashing rhythmically, though more rapidly in the presence of the sudden swell of magical energy.

When the doors finished opening, there was nothing on the other side but a dense, slightly sweet smelling fog.

Then slowly, one by one, lights began to flicker in the mist.

Countless in number, round, orange shapes rose out of the fog.

They were strewn down the hallway as far as the eye could see.

The eerie lights seemed to float... Taking the form of grimaces of pain, hatred, and sorrow.

Pumpkins Twilight realized as cold dread dripped down her spine like ice water. There had to be hundreds... No, thousands of them! The jack-o-lanterns leered at Twilight, and she knew that their presence could only mean one thing...

Before she could finish that thought, however, a child jumped out from the side of the door and yelled, “Boo!”, throwing her hands up high and grinning triumphantly. She must have been hiding just out of sight, waiting for the right moment to jump out.

The child was small and her cloths were filthy rags. Her body was painfully thin, and her skin was cracked and bloated in several places, mismatched skin tones of pink and white blotted her body. Her eyes swirled with madness and her long red and black hair hung limp and dead from her skull down to the floor.

It was that smile, that razor sharp candy corn grin that told Twilight exactly who she was looking at. Not a clone, or a copy, or an illusion or hallucination... But a nightmare given flesh. The titular 'Nightmare' of Nightmare Night.

The Candy Mare reborn.

“A big round of applause for my lovely assistant Starlight Gliimer everyone!” the child chirped, clapping her tiny hands hummingbird fast as she grinned at the still bowing teenager. “We couldn’t have done all this without her!”

“You are too kind, goddess,” replied Starlight, still bowing.

“Goddess!?” Twilight blurted. “You think that monster is a goddess!?”

Starlight raised her eyes to Twilight. The glare she gave her was all the more menacing for the blood shot through them. “Yes, I call her Goddess,” she replied forcefully. “Hers is an existence that transcends death. She is the ruler of worlds. To her faithful, she offers life everlasting after death. What would you call a being such as that if not a god?”

“A virus! A parasite! A worm that burrows into its host and bleeds it dry until there’s nothing left and it has to move on to its next poor victim!” spat Twilight, “She’s the lowest, most vile, repugnant kind of creature there is, and that includes all of the abominations I’ve seen since I joined the foundation!”

“Stop It you two, you’re making me blush!” The candy girl hid her face with her hands as she fidgeted bashfully. It seemed that she took both Starlight’s praise and Twilight’s rebuke as equal compliments.

“Of course you see her that way,” Starlight barked back. “Pawns of the status quo always see true agents of change as monsters! But after we tear this false paradise down, we will bring true equality to the masses! No more class divide! No more haves and have nots! It will be a true utopia!”

“If by Utopia you mean the literal definition ‘no place’, Then I agree with you,” retorted Twilight. “She’s a being of nothing but wanton destruction and avarice. When she’s done there really won’t be any 'haves' and 'have-nots', because there will be nothing left to have! There will be no class divide because we’ll all be dead! Open your eyes Starlight, and just look at your so called goddess! Madness wafts off of her like the stench from an abattoir!”

“What’s an aba... abat.. a-bat-twar?” asked the child, tilting her head cutely to one side.

“A slaughterhouse,” clarified Twilight.

“Oh. Yeah, that sounds about right,” agreed the Candy Mare.

“Stop agreeing with her,” chastised Starlight.

“Okay, okay,” replied the candy child, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “She’s only stalling anyways. I just thought I’d be a good sport and play along.”

“Stalling?” asked Starlight, perplexed. “For what?”

“For this!” A flash of violet fire erupted in the control room, and a winged avenger stood tall in Twilight’s place.

With only that for warning, 'Midnight' Sparkle launched two blasts of magic, one from each hand. The first smashed into Starlight, hurling her back into a nearby wall where she crumpled to the floor. The second enveloped the Candy Mare, sending her hurtling out of the room and scything through the assembled jack-o-lanterns. Pumpkin shell and guts sprayed into the air as corpse lights explode in flashes of blue and green, reacting to the torrent of Twilight’s magic power.

Without hesitation, Twilight smashed the button that would re-engage the emergency blast doors, sealing herself inside the control room. There was no choice now. The countdown would have to be reactivated. Twilight didn’t harbor any hopes that one blast of her magic would be enough to kill the Candy Mare. In case she couldn’t beat her, she’d have to hope a fifty megaton nuclear blast would do the job.

However, as she turned her back on the blast doors there was a loud noise, as if a freight train had smashed into the metal barricade going at full speed.

“Twilight... Oh, Twilight...” rumbled a guttural voice. “Come out to plaaayyy~!”

Even in her empowered form, Twilight had to cover her ears to keep from being deafened as the massive crash repeated itself several hundred times over again in the space of a few seconds. Doors that were meant to withstand a direct hit from an Abrams’ Tank exploded in a shower of red hot shrapnel. Green and orange lightning licked over every surface, saturating the air with magic as it swept across the room.

Midnight Sparkle dodged, warding off the bulk of the lightning with a well timed shield spell. Even so, she was pushed back before the sheer force of the magical discharge.

As the smoke cleared, Twilight’s eyes went wide as something wholly unexpected strode through the wreckage of the control room.

Something that towered over her with a razor toothed grin...

"Trick or Treat!"

How the Gods Kill

The Candy Mare was a child no longer...

She now stood much taller than Twilight. Her body was still a chaotic jumble of candy, but it was now smooth and sleek with long limbs and longer claws. Inside her exposed ribcage a sickly green flame pulsed with unnatural light, unbearable to look upon. Her eyes were just as wild as before, and her demonic maw dripped acidic green saliva. Her mane streamed out behind her, red and black liquorice wriggling and twitching with a life of its own. A long tale made of the same substance curled into a black and red candy striped, spiked scorpion tail.

The most dramatic change, however, were the addition of several wings and horns. Her wings were long and skeletal, with not a scrap of webbing or flesh but instead what looked like six sharp candy cane striped blades, black and red. Each of the twelve long appendages ended in a cruel hook that scraped the floor. Her horns were no less striking. Seven in total were spaced evenly around her skull, curling straight upwards. They gave the impression that the Candy Mare was wearing a tall, spiky crown. Each horn was candy striped a different color of the rainbow and glowed ominously with barely contained power.

Bringing both hands forward, Twilight sent a blast of plasma hot magic streaming towards this new nightmarish version of the Candy Mare. The torrent of light never met it’s target however, as it slammed instead into a wall of interlaced, transparent diamond shaped shields.

From behind the glowing shield spell, the monster waggled one long claw and giggled, “Uh-uh! Only the first ones free!”

Twilight halted her attack when she realized it was having no effect. She didn’t let down her guard, but still, her scientific mind had to know, “How did you do that?”

In response, the Candy Mare extended her left arm and opened her hand palm upward. Seven jewels, which Twilight had just taken to be pieces of candy, detached themselves from the monsters horns and hovered in a tight circle over her palm. Each jewel was a different color, and as Twilight watched the power that had suffused each horn drained away until they were the same black and red as the creatures wings. “It seems my body picked up a few interesting objects while we were separated. Your world is one where magic is scarce, yet in order to survive without me, my body sought out these magically potent jewels. Without me, my body wasn’t able to fully unlock their potential, but now that we are united again using their power is like second nature to me.” As she said this, she closed her hand into a fist, and the little lights coursed up her arm as the jewels retook their place crowning her head and reigniting the magic flowing through her horns. “I thought I’d give them a little test drive.”

“So that’s why you let me power up,” scowled Twilight, her wings ruffeling. “You wanted a sparring partner.”

“More someone to show off to,” the candied abomination admitted with a twisted grin. “So it seems we have impenetrable magic shields. Some very interesting explosive powers,” she hooked a thumb over her shoulder to the ruined blast door. “Super strength,” she said lifting a thousand pound computer console, desk and all with one claw as if it were a balloon. “And super speed,” she finished, whispering into Twilight’s ear.

Even as powerful as she was, Twilight couldn't suppress a small shriek as a pulse of her dark wings put some distance between herself and the Candy Mare.

She hadn’t even seen her move!

“That’s just what I’ve figured out so far,” laughed the monster, clearly relishing Twilight’s reaction. Then her face grew serious. “You know, you really hurt me when we were in the sewers. More than the pain, it was how powerless you made me feel when you destroyed my borrowed body.” The Candy Mare spread her arms and two jack-o-lanterns appeared floating above the monsters hands as she said this. The corpse flames inside were already glowing bright, but turned from sickly green to a violent, blazing pink. “Feel free to let me know how you like being on the receiving end!”

There was barely any time for Twilight to dodge the first pumpkin bomb before the second slammed into her chest. The explosion was more kinetic than fiery, but the force was enough that she could feel her ribs crack despite being augmented with magic. There was no time to catch her breath, however, as a barrage of grinning pumpkins peppered the room, knocking Twilight back and forth and further like a rag doll.

Twilight wasn’t just going to sit back and take this, however. Lashing out with her own power, the pumpkins exploded harmlessly against a wall of magic. This didn't last long, however as the Candy Mare slammed into the barrier herself and burrowing through it as if it were made of paper. The cackling monstrosity flew at Twilight almost too fast to see, with claws splayed and maw foaming. It was all she could do to get off a defensive blast of magic that, once again, was met by a translucent diamond shield.

The Candy Mare’s momentum carried her forward, and she smashed into Twilight, sending her flying into the opposite bank of computers. Sparks flew and clouds of blue smoke jetted into the air as Twilight dragged herself up from the wreckage. It was her turn to bare her teeth as her eyes flashed with anger. Instead of a blast of magic, however, she brought her wrists together and fanned out her fingers. At first, the gesture seemed to have no effect... Then there was a howling wind that seemed to suck the Candy Mare backwards.

A black hole hung in the air behind the monster. More specifically, Twilight had opened up a portal beyond which lay only twinkling stars and the vacuum of space. If she couldn’t beat the Candy Mare, she could at least send her away.

“Go to hell you monster!” she roared over the sound of all of the air rushing out of the room and into the void.

For her part, the candy coated demoness scrabbled along the floor, trying to find purchase with her claws. However, as strong as she was, as fast as she was, there was no fighting the hungry emptiness that lay beyond the dark portal. As she continued to move towards the ravenous void, she let loose a scream of frustration. Her wing blades spread out, and somehow she managed to hook herself onto the edges of the portal just as she was about to slip through.

Though she struggled mightily, her body was still drug into the abyss, and the sound of her voice was quickly silenced. Twilight closed her hands, and the portal began to iris shut. Summoning portals like this was taxing on her powers, but it seemed like the gamble had payed off.

Or had it?

Just before the portal shut completely, an eruption of violet light flashed from behind the portal. The Candy Mare surged through just as it closed, her body engulfed in a burning aura of purple magic. “Well, that’s interesting,” she said with a smirk. “It seems I’ve got magic similar to yours now!”

The flames that wreathed Twilight’s eyes flared with her anger, and her clenched fists started to glow like twin stars. “Then let’s see who’s better at using it.”

With that, the dark angel and the candied devil clashed, bolts of magic sizzling the air as they flew back and forth. Twilight held nothing back now, opening and closing portals at random that she darted in and out of while her opponent was stuck trying to keep up. While the Candy Mare could match her spell for spell, but this was an ability she did not have, and even with her superior speed she had difficulty keeping up with Twilight’s new mobility. Despite being faster, the monster still had to take time to react, and Twilight’s attacks were becoming more and more unpredictable as they came suddenly from portals placed at odd angles.

A glancing shot sheared off the Candy Mare’s blue striped horn, her speed suddenly dropped dramatically. Another took off her white striped horn, leaving her unable to manifest any shields. The fight grew more savage then, with the Candy Mare lobbing pumpkin bombs at random into open portals, scorching Twilight’s flesh but more worryingly shattering the delicate bones in her wings. Twilight’s left arm and right leg hung limply as well as she tumbled out of a portal and on to the charred control room floor.

Despite Twilight's battered state, the fight had become decidedly one sided. The Candy Mare might have been magically augmented, but she wasn’t as used to her new powers as Twilight was experienced with her own. With the loss of her horns, her attack power dropped dramatically, and it was easy for Twilight to pick off the rest of the jewels with a few well placed blasts of magic. In short order, the candied demon was brought to her knees, all of her horns broken and her magic spent.

Midnight Sparkle loomed over the Candy Mare, and raised her hand to deliver the finishing blow...

Then a commanding voice rang out, “STOP!”

Twilight stood motionless, unable to so much as blink.

Starlight Glimmer, face bloody but eyes glowing brightly, wobbled to her feet. As if that were not bad enough, Twilight's time was up. Her wings evaporated, leaving her to crumple to the ground when her full body weight came to rest on her shattered leg. Such was the hold Starlight had over her, however, that she couldn’t even cry out in pain when this occurred. Nor could she reach for the device that allowed her transformation to begin with as it clattered onto the floor.

Chuckling, the Candy Mare rose to her cloven feet. She approached Twilight slowly, gloatingly, as she stooped to pick up the small compact machine. “It’s hard to believe such a small thing caused so much fuss. Something to keep in mind if I visit another world like this.” saying that, the monster opened her gaping maw wide and swallowed the trinket whole. You could follow the shape of the bulge until it settled into the Candy Mare's burning green core, where violet light flared briefly from her ribcage before the flames settled back to a dull roar. She burped and smiled wickedly. “Pardon me. It was a bit bitter, but not bad. Now, let’s deal with this sweet little morsel that created it...”

The candied demoness looked over Twilight hungrily, running her long candy striped tongue over her sharp candy corn fangs. Her horns were already starting to grow back. Without the constant onslaught from Midnight Sparkle, she was already starting to regenerate. Starlight’s control over Twilight's body might have been absolute, but that didn’t stop the teens eyes from shedding tears as the monster knelt over her like a lion over a fresh kill and she felt its fetid breath wash over her neck.

Instead of the sensation of her throat being ripped open, however, the Candy Mare began to shake and shiver as if she were in the grips of a seizure as soon as her claws touched Twilight's shoulders. When she was finally still again, the monster quickly withdrew her hands. She whirled to Starlight “There’s a bomb! I don’t know why, but when I touched her I had a vision. I felt what she felt and... There’s some kind of countdown! An explosion large enough to wipe out this place and the city above could go off any second!” Panic replaced the madness in the demons eyes, “Make her stop it! Only she can stop it!”

Before Starlight could utter so much as a word, however, a jagged fragment of the blast door burst through the front of her throat. As the mage-light faded from Starlight’s eyes, she clutched at the shrapnel in disbelief. Cadance, blood stained and exhausted, stood behind the teenager as she collapsed to the floor for the final time.

“Nooo!” howled the Candy Mare as she lashed out with her wings.

The cruel barbed hooks dug into Cadance’s limbs, tearing through her flesh, and lifting her high in the air. In a single furious wrenching movement, the enraged Candy Mare tore Cadance's arms, legs, and head free from the woman’s torso. Scarlet blood gushed in every direction, raining down in a hot vermilion shower.

Despite her swift and brutal demise, however, the damage Cadance had wrought had already been done. Visibly shrinking, the Candy Mare went to her fallen accomplice. She carefully removed the twisted metal from Starlight's throat, but blood seeped between her fingers as she tried to hold the wound closed. “You have to do this for me. You have to make her stop the countdown. This world will be lost to us otherwise.”

Starlight Glimmer gurgled, choking on her own blood. The ragged hole in her throat made even breathing difficult, and no matter how much blood she spat up she couldn’t speak. She started to shiver, going into shock.

Despite the horror and the carnage, Twilight Sparkle laughed.

She laughed hysterically, crazily, but her face was one of cherubic glee. She propped herself up with her unbroken arm and smiled madly “We got you! We got you at last! You killed all of my friends. Killed my dog. Killed my solders. You even killed my old babysitter. But in the end, we killed you! WE KILLED YOU!”

At that moment, the floor seemed to rise. White hot light that cast no shadow seeped through the cracks. In a flash, nuclear fire engulfed the room.

The crater left behind by the explosion was several miles wide.

Only the outskirts of the city remained standing when the mushroom cloud at last dissipated. Many of the suburbs around the city were likewise lost.

It would be several months before the site was deemed safe to investigate, but by then the foundation had worked furiously to cover up the incident that had led to the cities destruction.

The catastrophe was, in the end, blamed on a combination of poor city planning, climate change, and solar flares. Interest in the actual disaster faded as all sides of the political spectrum argued over who should shoulder the most blame.

The dead quietly moldered in the earth. Lives tragically ended but deaths, at least, peaceful and undisturbed.

The End...

Not of This World

Starlight tumbled down a grassy slope, rolling end over and over end before finally coming to rest in the shade of a tall tree. Her hands flew to her throat, but where a hole had been moments ago there was only soft flesh.

What had happened?

One moment her world had gone an unbearably blinding white, and the next she found herself here... wherever here was.

She could feel something was wrong. Something to do with her hands. She felt weak and small, but there was more to it than that. There was no one else around as far as the eye could see, and when she tried to call for help, all that came out was a croak. Her throat might not have a visible injury anymore, but it was still sore, and hurt to even swallow.

As her eyes adjusted to the blazing sunlight, Starlight could see that next to the tree was a deep blue pond. She was suddenly seized by a deep thirst and a need to feel that cool looking water going down her raw throat.

She drug herself to the waters edge, her body allowing her to just barely crawl, and quickly cupped the water in her hands and began to drink.

Only, she didn’t have hands. She didn’t even have fingers. That was what had seemed off earlier!

Starlight gagged and sputtered, thinking her fingers had been blown off or something, leaving her with nothing but stubs. Instead she found she was staring at two shiny, if slightly squishy hooves. What in the world was going on?

As the disturbed surface of the waters calmed, Starlight caught her own reflection out of the corner of her eye.

She was a horse!

Or at least, some kind of pony.

What was that weird tattoo on her thigh?

(The horn in the middle of her forehead screamed ‘unicorn’ but she wasn’t ready to process that.)

How had this happened!?

Starlight racked her brain, placing her new hooves on either side of her head. Then the answer dawned upon her like the sun over the horizon.

At the last moment, her Goddess had delivered her.

While there was no longer a place for them in the human world, Starlight had been transported to another realm instead! Here she could continue her good work, and bring about the equality she had always dreamed of!

“Oh, there you are!” came an unfamiliar voice. It was another horse person, or pony (she still wasn’t ready to say ‘unicorn’), though this one wore a flashy star spangled cape and matching pointy hat. “You know Trixie hasn’t mastered teleportation magic yet! No fair hiding in such an out of the way place.”

“Do I... know you?” asked Starlight, splashing water on her face to rinse some of the grass and dirt out of her pink fur.

“Trixie would hope you would know your best friend! Did you hit your head or something? Is that why you're all covered in dirt?" questioned the blue unicorn... yes a unicorn, she must be. "But then maybe you have forgotten Trixie, after all. What other explanation could their be for you being late to help her set up the fireworks display for the Friendship Festival!?” The little pony reached out and somehow grabbed Starlight by the shoulder with one of her hooves. “Come on! We’ll be late if we don’t leave now! The festivities are just about to begin!”

Starlight still wasn't clear on who Trixie was, but a festival sounded like it might be fun after having been locked up in a padded cell for as long as she had been. She might even find something to eat to get this terrible sweet taste out of her mouth. The pond water had done her very little good on that score.

As Starlight followed Trixie, she tried to recall what she might have eaten to leave the cloying taste on her tongue.

She’d just have to find something else to bite...

Trouble

"There has been an incident. You are going to want to see this."

"Has there been a breach?"

"No, the subject is still secured as far as we can tell. Protocol has been followed and there are no signs of emergence as of yet."

"Then what is this about?"

"These images were picked up via a weather satellite tracking a disturbance in the upper atmosphere over the Everfree Forest. The same satellite picked up a sudden change in the topographical features of the area that was struck by the storm. You can compare the two here and if you look closely you can see that the area has been-"

"Candified!"

"Correct. We estimate exposure occurred some months ago. It's a miracle that things didn't escalate sooner... Though if they had, perhaps we could have already cleaned this up."

"How far has it spread?"

"That's just it. It hasn't spread. We were able to establish containment without meeting any resistance. I've dispatched mobile task force Epsilon 4. Once they are on site we can proceed with sterilization of the area."

"Notify the task force that they are not to proceed with sterilization until I give the go ahead."

"Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted."

"Why the hell should we do that!? I've read the documentation on this thing. I know how dangerous it is! Any chance we have to eliminate it has to be taken as soon as possible!"

"Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you, but this emergence went under our radar for months. I don't blame you for not knowing this as the relevant documents are actually above your classification, but this anomalous activity is not only dangerous, its growth should proceed at a geometric rate. That it hasn't is cause for investigation."

"What do you mean?"

I mean that it shouldn't just the Everfree Forest, but probably half the country should have been consumed by now. If we've missed this for this long, then that means either our calculations are wrong, or there is something different about this emergence. We have to analyze the area carefully or we run the risk of letting something bigger slip through our fingers."

"Then you're suggesting that this might be the worst case scenerio?"

"Yes. It's possible we are looking at a second incursion."