Best Friends Forever: Between Life and Machine

Chapters

Between a Roc and a High Place
Searching for Hope
Despair
Desperate Gambit
Deal with the Devil
Shock
New Horizon
Awakening

Between a Roc and a High Place

“Do you guys really think this is a good idea?” Sweetie Belle asked. With a hint of trepidation, she glanced down. A surge of regret lurched in her stomach as her gaze fixated on the jagged cliffs extending so far below her that she convinced herself that there was no ground way, way, way down there.

A tether attached to Sweetie’s vest linked her to a similar vest on Scootaloo, who clung to the cliffside just a few feet above her. The link also led up to Applebloom above Scootaloo. Finally, the tether ended on an Earth Pony colt’s vest, who headed the group. “It’s not much further!” the grey colt shouted down. He looked back up, shaking the errant black hair from his vision.

“Come on, Sweetie,” Scootaloo said, tugging on the cord to get Sweetie to look back up. “We’re sure that Hoof Follow’s talent has gotta be mountain climbing!”

“Ain’t’cha excited?” Apple Bloom asked, inching up behind Hoof Follow. “If he gets his mark, it’ll be the tenth cutie mark the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ve helped somepony get.”

The tether reached its limit, forcing Sweetie to follow after the other three. “I think I’d be more excited if, you know, maybe we were a little lower.”

“Oh, come on, our sisters climbed this hill months ago. And back then, there was a dragon at the top!” Apple Bloom said.

“Hill? You call this a hill!” Sweetie retorted.

As Scootaloo continued to follow the other two, her rear hoof loosed a rock, sending it tumbling into Sweetie’s snout. “Wait, why didn’t Rainbow Dash just fly up and take care of that dragon?”

Sweetie flinched, shaking her head. It did little to ease the unpleasant sting in her snout. Then, she sneezed, her hooves slipping from the cliff.

“I dunno. It was probably one of those ‘friendship problem’ things they’re always doin’,” Apple Bloom replied. The tether attached to her vest sped through the loop until it reached its limit. Lurching, Apple Bloom managed to hold onto the cliff.

“Everypony okay?” Hoof Follow asked, looking down. While Apple Bloom and Scootaloo held steadfastly, Sweetie dangled beneath them, holding her snout as she hung by the tether.

“A-okay!” Apple Bloom sounded off.

“I’m fine,” Scootatloo said.

“I’ll be okay,” Sweetie said, a nasal tone to her voice. The rest didn’t even wait for her to recover. She slowly lifted up as the trio climbed the cliff above her.

Hoof Follow reached up. Instead of finding a sheer cliff, his leg looped up onto an outcropping. “Hey! I think we made it!”

“It’s probably just another ledge,” Scootaloo replied, a bit of annoyance lacing her tone.

“I don’t care if it is,” Sweetie said, her hooves again finding the sheer wall of rock. “Can we take a break?”

“It’s the summit!” Hoof Follow shouted down. He hoofed up Apple Bloom, and together the duo helped Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle up to the plateau.

Panting a bit, Scootaloo trotted around the rim. “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been this high. This might even be higher than Cloudsdale!”

Sweetie put on a weak smile. “Did you get your cutie mark?”

Hoof Follow looked back at his flank, only to find it woefully bare.

Apple Bloom placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t give up. I couldn’t tell yah how many times it took us to get our marks.”

“Yeah, but aren’t our marks supposed to be about helping other ponies with their marks?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Come on.” She reached into her pack and pulled out a rod. “Let’s get the flag set up and we can head back down.”

Sweetie pointed to a nearby path, far, far away from the sheer edge they just climbed. “Please tell me we can take the path down this time.”

“That’d be too easy,” Apple Bloom said, pulling another rod from Sweetie’s pack and affixing them to each other.

“Ugh, let’s just get this over with,” Scootaloo said, trotting over with a rod of her own. Without even looking, she tossed it over to Apple Bloom, who merged it with the other two to complete the flagpole.

Hoof Follow chuckled as he pulled out a flag emblazoned with the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ emblem. “You know, they say that climbing down is more dangerous than climbing up.” Accepting the pole from Apple Bloom, he ran over to the nearby cave, and effortlessly scaled to the top.

There, at the highest point on the mountain, he held the flag up to the sky. “I hereby claim this mountain in the name of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” With a surge of force, he sunk the flagpole into the rocks. As he stood triumphant, the Cutie Mark Crusaders stomped in applause.

A flash of brilliant light shone down from the mountaintop. Coalescing on Hoof Follow’s flank, the light faded to reveal a permanent image on his flank. It depicted a snowcapped peak with a nondescript flag protruding from the top.

Gasping, Sweetie pointed up at Hoof Follow’s flank. “Hoof, look! You got your cutie mark!”

“Huh?” Hoof looked back, his hind hoof raising off the ground as he looked at his newly-adorned flank.

“Yes! We did it!” Apple Bloom cheered. Together, the Cutie Mark Crusaders high-hoofed.

“Ha ha! This is so awesome!” Hoof said, sliding down and around the cave. “Thanks, Cutie Mark Crusaders!”

“All in a day’s work,” Scootaloo said with a smug grin.

“See?” Apple Bloom said as she turned to Sweetie Belle. “This was all totally worth it.”

Sweetie smiled and gave a nod. “Yeah.”

Just as Hoof First rejoined the Cutie Mark Crusaders, a violent gust nearly threw the entire group off of their hooves. The group struggled to regain their balance as an otherworldly screech tore through them, emanating from the blackened depths of the cave.

“Anypony else get the feeling that we might’ve woken something big and scary up?” Scootaloo asked as she and her friends backed away from the cave.

“Come on!” Apple Bloom pointed to the path leading down the mountain. “Run for it!”

As the group fled, an eagle nearly too big to fit crawled out from the cave. Spreading its wings, it gave another screech. A mighty burst from its wings propelled it into the sky and sent the fillies and colts tumbling head over hoof.

The heap of ponies quickly got back to their hooves and back to running. They scrambled onto the narrow path cutting through the mountain with a sheer wall to one side and a deep crevice on the other. On the other side of the chasm, another sheer wall reached toward the sky. “What is that thing!” Sweetie Belle screeched.

Apple Bloom shook her head. “I dunno. All I know is that it’s big and scary, and I don’t think it’s happy with us!” A massive, black shadow swept over the group. “Get out of the open! We gotta hide!”

An enormous talon reached for the group. It crashed down, sending Apple Bloom and Hoof Follow careening toward the cliffside as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle dove in the opposite direction. Solid rock gave way like dough under the sheer force of the bird’s talons. Then, the dust, rocks, and boulders rained down, falling from the raptor’s slackened grasp.

Finding shelter under an outcropping, Apple Bloom huddled against Hoof Follow. “Everypony okay?” she shouted, daring to peek out and up.

Scootaloo helped Sweetie Belle up into a tree’s boughs just across the path. The tree grew out over the deep, narrow crevice, a few jutting branches nearly touching the sheer cliff on the other side of the gap. “Yeah. Is it gone?”

An ear-piercing screech answered Scootaloo’s question and sent the groups back into hiding. The ground shook as the great beast landed. The shaking nearly threw Sweetie out of the tree, but Scootaloo managed to grab her and hold her steady near the trunk. Holding a hoof up to her muzzle, Scootaloo urged silence as the bird’s gaze swept back and forth along the path.

Over at the outcropping, Apple Bloom cowered next to Hoof Follow. She dared to glance toward the fearsome beast, and her heart skipped a beat. There, just outside the shelter of the ledge, lay her bow, right out in plain sight for the giant bird to see.

If it saw the bow, it just might realize their hiding spot. Taking a deep breath, she leaned over and outstretched her leg towards the bow. Her hoof found the ribbon, and she slowly drew it back in. Only once she had her bow safely out of sight did she dare to close her eyes and exhale.

She opened her eyes, and her heart stopped. An amber eye larger than her whole body stared back at her. It blinked, then disappeared. A deafening screech shook the mountain.

“Run!” Apple Bloom shouted.

Massive talons ripped through the rock, gouging out the hiding place. In the rubble, Apple Bloom and Hoof Follow managed to slip out on either side of the enormous beast. Hoof Follow spilled over the edge, and into the rift.

“Hoof Follow!” Sweetie shrieked from the boughs of the trees. Acting on instinct, she reached out toward the falling colt. Only a firm hoof from Scootaloo kept her secure in the tree.

Hoof Follow managed to land a hoof on the sheer rock wall, sending out a spray of dust and pebbles. Then another hoof, and another. Finally, his descent stopped as he clung to the cliffside. “I-I’m okay!” he shouted up at the trio of fillies. His eyes narrowed. “Look out!”

The tree holding Sweetie and Scootaloo violently shook as the bird crashed into it. Tipping in a flurry of feathers, the tree leaned out over the crevice, its roots reaching up and releasing their hold on the rock. Only once the tree was nearly horizontal did the deepest of roots keep it from falling in.

Flying back to land on the path, the bird eyed the fillies. Its head turned to the side as it hesitated. It flapped its wings, launching toward the crevice, but it could do little more than hover over the narrow fissure. The walls on either side prevented it from maneuvering much at all with its gargantuan wingspan.

“I-I don’t think it can reach us,” Scootaloo said, desperately clinging to a branch.

“G-g-good birdie,” Sweetie said. “No need to e-eat us. Please go home?”

The bird lunged forward, snapping its enormous beak. Despite its best efforts, it couldn’t reach the girls, though it did manage to nearly bite halfway through the thick tree trunk. Again retreating to the safety of the path, the bird spat out the splintered wood.

Several splintered shards of wood, each one easily the size of a spear, smashed along the path and toward Apple Bloom. The filly jumped away from the cliff wall and back into the middle of the path, barely avoiding becoming an Apple Bloom shishkebab. Her desperate leap left her shoulder to absorb the brunt of the fall and causing her head to pound into the solid stone.

As Apple Bloom lay motionless on the ground, Scootaloo began to tread across the fallen tree’s trunk. “Come on, Sweetie,” she whispered back at the cowering white filly. “We gotta get off this thing before it falls in!”

Sweetie watched as a hunk of bark slipped from under Scootaloo’s hoof and into the abyss. Shaking her head, she redoubled her grip on the branch supporting her. “I-I can’t!”

“Scootaloo! It’s coming back!”

Scootaloo looked up after Hoof’s shout, seeing the tyrannical bird stomping back toward the fallen tree. Each step sent a shockwave through the rock, tugging at the roots that perilously held the tree in place. Taking a fleeting glance back at Hoof Follow, Scootaloo made a snap decision. Crouching down on her haunches, she jumped free from the tree and beat her wings with all her might.

Her legs sent her in the right direction, but for all of her efforts, gravity still won out over her wings. The rock wall and the relative safety it offered seemed to flit away as it became apparent that she wasn’t going to reach. In futile desperation, she extended her hooves toward the rushing wall of rock.

“Got you!”

A grey hoof wrapped around Scootaloo’s. Hoof Follow’s other three hooves dug into the cliff wall as all of Scootaloo’s weight pulled down. A shower of rocks burst from beneath Hoof’s grip as Scootaloo’s weight pulled him down. His hindhooves slipped over the rolling stone, and he swung out, clinging by a single hoof to the rock wall as he still held fast to Scootaloo.

“Don’t let go!” Scootaloo begged as she grasped Follow’s hoof.

Grunting, Hoof looked up to find his hold stable. “Okay,” he said, licking his lips as he looked back down at Scootaloo, “I need you to swing over and get a good hoofhold on the cliff. Can you do that?”

Scootaloo looked down. Gulping, she turned her eyes to the cliff. “I-I think so!” She twisted her body a bit and gave her wings a buzz, swinging her back over. With Hoof holding her, she was able to use her wings to guide her to the sheer rock wall. One hoof at a time, she grabbed on to the rock. “I got it,” she said, her voice exuding relief. “I got it.”

Above them, the enormous raptor extended its beak as far down the crevice, snapping uselessly at the duo. The deadly beak bit at the air several yards above their heads. They were safe.

“Hey! Climb down!” Hoof yelled up at Sweetie and Apple Bloom. “It can’t get us down here, and it looks like we can get all the way down to the ground from here!”

“I-I can’t! It’ll get me!” Sweetie shouted back, clinging tightly to the same branch.

“I think you might be safe. It can’t get you either,” Scootaloo replied. “Can you see Apple Bloom? Is she okay?”

Sweetie Belle looked back over to see Apple Bloom stumbling up to her hooves. “I-I’m okay, I think,” Apple Bloom said. No sooner did the words leave her mouth, did the enormous bird snap its attention straight to her. Her eyes widened as her pupils shrank. “Uh-oh.”

The bird stomped back, rattling the already precarious tree. “Get in the crevice! Climb down, hurry!” Sweetie Belle shouted. As she did, a loud crack sounded. The spot where the bird bit out a chunk cracked through, splinters jutting upward as the tree threatened to split in half. The boughs weighed down, slowly lowering as the crack spread. Finally relinquishing the branch, Sweetie scrambled across the trunk, even as her trek turned uphill. Her hooves scraped along the bark as the wood let out a long, whining crack. Then, the entire top of the tree fell into the abyss.

Hanging perilously to the jutting splinters, Sweetie Belle watched the treetop fall deep into the chasm until it finally disappeared from sight. She tried to pull herself up, her hind legs uselessly kicking air, but for all her efforts, all she succeeded in doing was to further loosen the roots holding up what remained of the tree. An otherworldly screech tore her attention back to the path and her imperiled friend.

Scrambling toward the ledge, Apple Bloom barely managed to duck under the bird’s beak. The beak crashed into the solid rock, splitting it and sending out a shower of stones. Apple Bloom tumbled away, skidding over the ledge. Her forelegs managed to find a hold on the very edge. A powerful wind nearly knocked her off of the cliff entirely.

Apple Bloom peeked over the edge to find… nothing. The bird was gone. Then, a black shadow fell over her. She looked up to see two sets of gigantic talons falling on her. She flinched, expecting to be ripped apart, but instead, the oversized talons fell all around her. They closed in around her, shredding through the solid stone.

The crushing grind of stone-on-stone somehow left Apple Bloom unharmed as she fell free from the raptor’s grasp. Her relief left her almost immediately as she watched the path rise up above her. The sensation of wind whipping by her tore through her with the realization that she was falling into the nearly-bottomless abyss.

Then, the wind stopped. Apple Bloom dared to look, only to find everything tinted a green color. Her descent stopped. Looking up, she found Sweetie Belle, still dangling from the trunk, using her horn to hold her from falling to her doom. Slowly, the cliff wall approached, and Apple Bloom was able to get a solid hold on the rock wall.

A tentative smile spread over Apple Bloom’s face as she realized that, at last, she was safe. “Thanks, Sweetie,” she hollered up, “that was too close!”

“Yeah,” Sweetie replied, tentatively clawing her her way up onto the trunk. “Just gotta—”

“Look out!”

The simultaneous shout spurred Sweetie to look up just in time to see talons big enough to dwarf spears clenching down on her. The razor-sharp claws fell just in front of her, wrapping around the trunk of the tree. With the deafening sound of an explosion, the tree trunk shattered into a million splinters, and the wood beneath Sweetie’s hooves gave way.

Falling backwards, she watched the enormous bird retreat into the sky. Her friends rushed up by her, disappearing in but a moment’s time along with their panicked shouts. Even the light seemed to retreat until nothing remained but her painfully pounding heart, the rushing sound of air, and the spinning splinters that accompanied her. Then, nothing.

Hearing the sound of the entry bell, Rarity stopped her sewing machine and removed her glasses. Plastering on a saccharin smile, she turned around. Instead of finding a client, a dirty, disheveled filly stood before her. The poor thing was panting so hard, Rarity feared she may collapse at any moment.

“Apple Bloom!” Rarity said, a thick concern dominating her voice. “Good heavens, look at you. Are you all right?”

Apple Bloom shook her head. Still panting, she managed to choke out just three words. Three words that sent an icy chill to Rarity’s very core. “Sw-Sweetie Belle… hospital!”

Her heart stopped before painfully constricting in her chest. Another word needn’t be spoken. Taking off at a full gallop, she ducked her nose under Apple Bloom, tossing the filly onto her back as she left the boutique at full speed.

Never before had Rarity truly appreciated how lucky she was to live so close to the hospital. It took her only seconds to get there. But as she burst through the door and let Apple Bloom down, what she saw stoked her fears and crushed what fleeting hope she had that everything would be okay.

There stood Rainbow Dash, the pained, sorrowful look on her face said it all. Perhaps worse than seeing the tears in Dash’s eyes was seeing the crimson smears all over her forelegs and chest. “I-I’m sorry, Rarity,” Rainbow said, her voice cracking as it caught in her throat. “I went as fast as I could, but I-I…” Bowing her head, Dash gave it a shake.

Rarity’s breath left her. Her heart pounded in her chest as her voice refused to yield to her will. The room spun, walls and furniture disappearing from sight as her eyes locked onto the red stains on Dash’s coat. Finally, with a squeak and a hitch, her words escaped her chest. “Sweetie Belle… is she…?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” Dash replied, shaking her head again. “When I got there… she wasn’t breathing, Rarity.”

The color faded from her vision, disappearing into a black void until all that remained was the sickly stain of crimson on blue. Then, that too fell into the black nothing, leaving nothing but a single word reverberating through her last mote of consciousness.

“Rarity!”

Searching for Hope

A pungent, caustic smell burned Rarity’s nose. She pulled back, trying in vain to escape the terrible odor. As she did so, her eyes blinked open to a piercing white light. Squinting, shapes appeared from within the light. It was a mare with a nurse’s hat.

“Miss, are you all right?” she asked, pulling a hoof with a glass vial away from Rarity’s face.

Realizing that she was on the floor, Rarity rolled over and up onto her hooves. “Wh-what…?” Her words failed her as she caught sight of Rainbow Dash using a towel to wipe herself off. It all came rushing back to Rarity as she saw the red stains.

Rarity’s heart pounded painfully in her chest, and she whipped back around to face the nurse. Taking the nurse’s shoulders in her hooves, Rarity pulled her face close to her own. “Sweetie Belle! Please tell me she’s okay!”

The nurse gave her a squeamish smile, wriggling out of Rarity’s grasp. “I, um, the filly that was just brought in was taken into emergency surgery. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s really all we know at the moment.”

“What do you mean, ‘that’s all you know!’” Rarity shouted at her. “How is she? Is she going to be okay?”

She shook her head again. “All I know is that she was in very serious condition when they brought her in, but we can’t know any more until something happens. You have to understand that we can’t just go into the operating theater and bother the doctors. We have to just trust that they’ll do everything they can.”

Rarity stomped a hoof on the smooth tile. “That’s not good enough!” she screamed, her voice straining and her eyes brimming with tears.

Ears folding down, the nurse took a step back. “I understand that you’re upset, but there really isn’t anything I can do. It would only make things worse if we interrupted the surgery.”

A cyan hoof landed on Rarity’s shoulder, pulling her away from the nurse. “Rarity, there’s nothing she can do. J-just take a deep breath.”

Rarity turned her desperate glare on Rainbow Dash. “How could this have happened!” Her rage melting under a flood of hot tears, Rarity latched onto Dash. “How could I let this happen?”

Dash wrapped her forelegs around Rarity, running a hoof down her back. “I don’t… I didn’t get a lot from Scootaloo, but I know this isn’t your fault.”

“I-I’m sorry!” a small voice squeaked. Rarity and Dash looked over to find Apple Bloom, rivulets of tears wetting her cheeks. “We n-never thought…” Her words fell into incomprehensible sobs.

Dash and Rarity shared a look, and Rarity gave a nod as she tried her best to quell her own sobs. They stepped away from each other, giving Rainbow the opportunity to sweep Apple Bloom up in a hug. The distraught filly buried her head in Dash’s chest, despite the remaining stains of blood too stubborn to be wiped away by a towel.

From the safety of Rainbow’s embrace, Apple Bloom managed to choke out a single phrase. “Is Sweetie gonna be okay?”

The words, echoing her own fears, brought forth a new sob from Rarity. She quickly joined the embrace, not only to comfort Apple Bloom but to receive her own comfort as well.

That only left Rainbow Dash as the only one that wasn’t a blubbering mess. And so it was up to her to answer the difficult question. Sure, she could just lie and say Sweetie would be fine, but that just wouldn’t be right. No, Apple Bloom deserved the truth, no matter how painful it may have been.

Licking her lips, Rainbow found the truth left a bitter taste. “You… you heard the nurse,” she said, fighting the tightness in her throat, “they’re gonna do everything they can to save Sweetie Belle. But… it’s bad, and I-I don’t know that—if—she’s gonna be okay.”

Her words only served to elicit more sobs from the duo in her hooves. Just as the waves of emotion threatened to take her under, a familiar burst of light and sound tore her attention away. “Twilight?”

“Scootaloo said Sweetie was in the hospital. Is everything okay?” Twilight asked, trotting over.

Rainbow looked at the fillies in her forelegs before looking back at Twilight and shaking her head.

Twilight held a hoof over her mouth. “O-oh, my goodness. She’s not… is she?”

“We don’t know,” Rainbow said, her voice filled with disdain. “They won’t tell us anything.”

“What?” Twilight’s head turned to the side, toward the nurse.

Breathing a measured sigh, the nurse repeated herself, “She is in surgery. We cannot interrupt the doctors to get any kind of update on the situation.”

Twilight turned her attention back to Rainbow and the rest. “Well, how was she when you brought her in? And how did this happen?”

Rainbow shook her head. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details. All I know is she fell off a cliff over at that mountain where we drove off that dragon. I got her here as fast I could but…” Folding her ears down, Dash let her gaze fall away from Twilight. “I mean, I checked her when I got there and… and by then she already wasn’t breathing.”

“Oh, Rarity, are you—”

“No!” Rarity cut Twilight off, her voice drowning in emotion.

Before Twilight could respond, the doors burst open. In marched a trio of ponies: Sweetie Belle’s parents, Hondo and Cookie, with Scootaloo in tow.

“What’s going on?” Hondo demanded.

“Is Sweetie okay?” Cookie asked.

Twilight stepped away from the trio. “I-I got this,” she insisted, walking over and corralling the duo to a nearby corner.

After a couple of hours of explanations, excuses, and emotions, everypony found themselves completely drained, especially Rarity. She and her parents had been moved to what they called Sweetie’s room. The very notion smacked of mockery, given that the only member of Rarity’s immediate family that wasn’t there was Sweetie.

Rainbow Dash had left for a much-needed shower over an hour ago and never returned. After coaxing the events leading up to Sweetie’s accident from them, they sent the fillies home. Even Twilight left, gone in search of the terrible bird that attacked the Crusaders, lest it hurt somepony else.

That just left Rarity and her parents in the room reserved for Sweetie. The tears and emotions had ebbed away, leaving a relatively benign numbness and a terrified silence. Nopony dared to utter a syllable, lest they shatter the numbness that gave precious little comfort.

No, the clock provided the only sound in the form of a maddening metronome. Rarity glared at it for what must have been the hundredth time. The embodiment of time mocked her. How long would the surgery take? Three hours had passed since Rainbow Dash brought Sweetie in.

A darker, more sinister thought haunted the back of her mind. How long would it take them to let her know if the unthinkable happened to Sweetie Belle? In the dramas, the doctors could keep trying to revive a patient for the better part of an hour. If those were true, and that's a big if, then it could very well be more than an hour before anypony came bearing the worst news.

If Rarity had to sit here even one more minute listening to time tick away, she would surely break down. Stumbling to her hooves, she blurted out the first excuse she could think of to run away. “I just… I need to grab a bite to eat.”

Her mother didn’t move. Her head stayed buried in her father’s shoulder. The only response she got from her father was a small nod of recognition. He didn’t even look at her.

And why should he?

“Oh, Rarity, one more thing!” Sweetie Belle practically shouted as she stood in front of the door, adjusting her saddlebags. “After school, we’re gonna go help a classmate a cutie mark in rock climbing, okay?”

Rarity didn’t budge from her workstation. Her eyes stayed locked on the fabrics in front of her. This work had to be done by the end of the week, and she already found herself behind. Having agreed to have Sweetie spend the night certainly didn’t help, either.

“Mmm-hmm, that’s nice,” Rarity replied, barely even acknowledging Sweetie’s question.

Rarity hadn’t uttered a single word about it, but she knew where the blame fell. It wasn’t on an innocent little filly that got hurt. It wasn’t on her friends. Even the monster that attacked them wasn’t responsible. Not entirely. It wasn’t that monster’s job to keep her safe.

Everything around her blurred. Blinking liberated tears, but did little to clear her vision or her conscience. She tried to focus on the barely-touched tray of food before her. Her trip to the cafeteria and even her getting the food hardly even registered. Reigning in her emotions, she gave a ragged sigh.

Clank.

The sound of a tray dropping onto the table stirred Rarity to look at something other than her food. Across from her, a black stallion with a graying yellow mane sat down. This Unicorn bore no dress or white coat like most of the rest of the cafeteria’s patrons. Instead, he wore a green gown. “My goodness, you look like ten—no—fifteen miles of bad road.”

Who walks up to a lady and says something like that? “Please, I’m not in the mood,” Rarity said, barely keeping her voice steady.

“There’s only one reason for a pretty young lady to be here by herself, crying in a hospital cafeteria,” he said. Using his horn, he took a fork and scooped up some unidentifiable muck from his tray, then pointed it at Rarity. “Somepony you care about is suffering, and there’s nothing you can do to ease it. You may not be in the mood, but you need to talk to somepony.”

The tears returned, choking her voice. “And what, you’re that somepony?” Rarity asked.

A sad, knowing smile spread across his muzzle. Stuffing the fork into his maw, he gave a nod. “Hey,” he said after swallowing, “I may not look like it, but I know a thing or two about what you’re going through. Let me guess: your thoughts keep going back and forth to worrying about your loved one, and the regrets you have about what you did, or didn’t do, in the past. How you so desperately wish that you had done so much differently.”

Rarity shut her eyes, driving fresh tears down her cheeks. Maybe this stallion did know what he was talking about. There was no way she could speak with all the emotion drowning her voice. Instead, she settled on an emphatic nod.

The stallion reached across the table, placing his hoof atop Rarity’s. “Why don’t you tell me about it? It might make you feel better if you get some of it off your chest.”

Withdrawing her hoof, Rarity shook her head. “I—I don’t think I can.”

“Well, maybe you could start by telling me your name? I’m Short Circuit. Just don’t call me ‘Shorty,’” Short Circuit said.

Rarity only managed to summon a single word. “Rarity.”

After a moment of silence, Circuit rubbed the back of his neck. “Would it help if I told you about my loss?” he asked. Rarity did nothing to reply, so he continued, “I lost my daughter. She never even got her cutie mark.”

That got Rarity’s attention. She looked up with shimmering eyes, begging him. But did she want him to stop, or to keep going?

Circuit licked his lips. “This was all over a decade ago, now. She drowned, my daughter did. I brought her here and they managed to save her life, but… she never woke up.” Sighing, he shook his head. “She spent over a year in a coma, then she, well she just got sick. An opportunistic infection, they called it. And then, just like that, she was gone forever.”

“A-a year? You went all that time never knowing…?” Rarity asked, her voice trembling.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, breathing out a bitter chuckle. “Sure, they told me she’d never wake up, but all that meant was that they couldn’t help her. I never gave up. I threw myself into finding a way. Had it not been for that infection…” Stopping in the middle of his tirade, he took a deep breath in before letting it out through his nose. “Sorry about that, Rarity. It still gets me worked up, sometimes.”

“It-it’s my little sister,” Rarity said, finally opening up. “She just got her cutie mark not long ago.”

Again, Circuit reached across the table and placed his hoof on Rarity’s. Though, this time, she didn’t pull away. “What happened?”

“Do you remember that mountain where that dragon roosted? She went climbing on it with her friends. They were attacked by a big bird-thing and… and she fell.” Rarity sat up, pulling at her eyelids in a futile attempt to dry her tears before they could spill over. “She’s in surgery now, but they won’t tell us anything. It’s driving me mad. I don’t even know if I want to know. I’m so scared that… what if it’s the worst news?”

Tears poured down her cheeks, and Rarity choked back a sob. She finally uttered the words plaguing the dark corners of her mind. “It’s all my fault. I never should have let her go.”

Just as Rarity submitted to her sorrow, her body convulsing with sobs, Hondo burst into the cafeteria. “Rarity! She’s out of surgery!”

Despair

Inside the Carousel Boutique, not a single mannequin stood intact. Pieces of them were strewn about the show floor, accompanied by countless discarded scraps of cloth and frayed and torn remnants of dresses and accessories. Needles, threads, even entire bolts of cloth suffered the same fate. They suffered Rarity’s vengeful wrath.

Mere minutes ago, they were easy to blame. If it weren’t for the fashion show in Canterlot, featuring her, among others, as a great fashion innovator, then she wouldn’t have been so busy, so distracted, as to let Sweetie Belle go off to her doom. But after ripping apart, throwing, and smashing everything in the parlor, she ran out of inanimate objects to blame. That only left the true culprit, herself.

Had she just paid more attention to Sweetie, this would have never happened. She never did. There was always another show, another important client. They always took precedent. As if they were actually more important than her little sister.

The familiar chime of the entry bell offered Rarity the hope of having something other than herself to hate. As she spun around, her hopes were dashed as she found a familiar face. “O-oh, Twilight,” Rarity croaked, her voice weak and raw. Instead of going over to meet her, Rarity just turned back around to stare at the empty work table before her.

“Rarity, did something happen here?” Twilight asked, carefully stepping around the mess. When Rarity didn't respond, Twilight let it pass, turning instead to a different point of conversation. “I went to the hospital, but they said that visiting hours were over. So I thought that I might find you here.”

Rarity still didn't respond.

“I—the nurse talked like Sweetie Belle was… did something happen?” Twilight asked.

“S-she got out of surgery a while ago, but…” Rarity’s words trailed off into a foreboding silence.

“But what?” Twilight extended a wing, draping it over Rarity. “What happened?”

Rarity pulled Twilight in, burying her face in Twilight’s shoulder. “They said she was hanging by a thread, and if she didn’t start to improve soon, then… they said she wouldn’t survive the week!”

Twilight wrapped her forelegs around Rarity. “I’m so sorry, Rarity. Is there anything I can—”

“Save her!” Rarity shouted. “Isn’t there some magic that can help her?”

Biting her lip, Twilight considered it a moment before shaking her head. “No. Whatever magic exists that can help, I’m sure the doctors are already using it.”

Rarity shoved Twilight away, breaking the embrace. “It’s not enough! There must be something you can do; you’re a princess!”

“This is hard for me, too,” Twilight replied, her voice calm and unwavering even as tears gathered in her eyes. “If there was something more I could do, don’t you think that I would’ve already done it?”

“If you can’t save her, then—then go back in time and stop this from ever happening! Please, Twilight.”

Twilight’s ears folded down, and she gave her head a sluggish shake. “I can’t. After everything that happened with Starlight—”

Slamming her hoof against the polished floor, Rarity cut Twilight off. A fierce storm raging in Rarity’s eyes caught Twilight off guard. “You can’t, or you won’t?”

At first, Twilight’s eyes danced away from Rarity’s accusatory glare. Then, she found her resolve. Ears perking, she locked eyes with Rarity. “I won’t.”

Even before she had asked the question, Rarity knew the answer. That didn’t make the words any easier to bear. Teeth gritting, Rarity lifted a hoof toward the door. “Get. Out.” Her tone left no room for forgiveness, let alone arguments.

Twilight didn’t wither. Her head held high, she curtly turned and started for the door. Halfway there, she paused, looking back over her shoulder to see Rarity still watching, her eyes burning with anger and drowning in unshed tears. “I just stopped by to let you know that the roc that attacked Sweetie Belle has been taken care of.”

Breathing out a sigh, Rarity finally looked away. “Is it dead?”

“No,” Twilight replied. After a moment without a response from Rarity, Twilight again started for the door. The crippling silence gave way as Twilight reached for the door. It was soft and subdued, but Rarity’s quiet sobs reached Twilight’s ears. Biting her lip, she opened the door, but try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to just leave. “I-I really do hope Sweetie Belle pulls through.”

“Leave!” An already-maimed mannequin smashed into the wall next the door to punctuate Rarity’s shout.

Sleepless nights were nothing new to Rarity. Sometimes she would need to work through the night to make her orders in time. Other times, worry and anxiousness over an event would have her too wound up to sleep. However, this time, the anxiety drove her, not only to another sleepless night but to the brink of her sanity.

The quiet hours in the dark left her to drown in her regret. The silence only served to amplify the punishing thoughts in her head. Thoughts of the damned bird that hurt Sweetie, only to be spared. Thoughts of the magically inclined princess and her refusal to save Sweetie. Thoughts of the sister who failed in her inherent duty to keep a little filly safe.

That night, Rarity met hate. Sure, there existed a great many things she disliked, even loathed, but never before had she experienced the visceral anger, and disgust, and repulsion of unbridled hatred. She hated the bird that threatened Sweetie’s very life. She hated that pony so indifferent that she would stand idly by and let Sweetie suffer. Most of all, she hated the pony that made so, so many mistakes. So many times she wasn't there. So many times she had more important things to do. So very many times.

Rarity truly felt hate, and it wasn’t a vicious bird or an aloof friend that bore that hatred. It was herself.

The dawn banished the worst of Rarity’s thoughts with the hopes of something, anything, other than sitting alone in the dark with her thoughts. That hope alone dragged her from her bed sheets. Unfortunately, visiting hours didn’t start with the sun, so Rarity needed to find a way to pass a couple of hours without losing her mind. Fortunately, she just so happened to have a parlor that was completely destroyed. Two hours wouldn’t be enough to even get half of that cleaned up.

And it wasn’t.

All in all, it took Rarity nearly six hours to get everything cleaned up, repaired, and dusted to a sparkling shine. She just needed to finish the task was the lie she kept telling herself. The bitter truth was that she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to hear again that Sweetie was dying. And she certainly didn’t want to look into her parents’ eyes and beg their forgiveness for failing them; for failing Sweetie.

But as the blazing sun drew high in the sky, Rarity found herself bereft of excuses to stay. She even teased the idea of opening the boutique in hopes of distracting herself with a few customers, but then realized it was that very act that threatened Sweetie’s life. The thought left a taste in her mouth more bitter than bile.

Just as she thought to resign herself to her fate, the entry bell chimed, heralding a visitor. She had half a mind to welcome her visitor and the distraction they brought while the other half jumped at the opportunity to take her frustrations out on whatever pony dared to disturb her. That latter half evaporated as Rarity re-entered her parlor to find a yellow Pegasus standing in the doorway.

“Fluttershy,” Rarity croaked, her voice tired and strained.

“Rarity, I was worried about you,” Fluttershy replied, a strained smile on her lips. “Are you okay?”

Clearing her throat, Rarity replied with a simple “no.”

“I went to the hospital. I could hardly believe that you weren’t there with Sweetie Belle,” Fluttershy said, trotting over. Reaching out a wing, she draped it over Rarity’s shoulders. “Why are you still here?”

At first, Rarity started to pull away, but the urge to push Fluttershy away was overshadowed by the trifling comfort the warm wing offered. She settled on a happy medium, keeping a healthy gap between her shoulder and Fluttershy’s. “I… I want to be there for Sweetie Belle. I really do,” Rarity confessed, her eyes finding the floor between her hooves inexplicably entrancing.

Fluttershy allowed a moment of silence pass before coaxing Rarity on. “But…”

“B-but I can’t.” Rarity shook her head, tears spilling anew. Ragged breaths grew into restrained sobs. “I can’t see her like that, and I… I know what they’ll tell me. I can’t hear that news, Fluttershy. I can’t.”

Fluttershy took a deep breath in before letting it out through her nose. “Sweetie Belle is dying. She doesn’t have much time left.”

Recoiling away from Fluttershy, Rarity looked up at her, mouth agape, as fresh, hot tears ran down her cheeks. Her first instinct was to accuse Fluttershy of lying. To beg her that such a thing couldn’t be true. But there was a reason she didn’t dare go to the hospital. Deep in her heart, a dark whisper tore at her. Overnight it had grown into a cacophonous symphony—mocking her failure as a sister—of the bitter truth.

Fluttershy wouldn’t lie. More importantly, she wasn’t lying.

“Why?” Rarity breathed out in little more than a whisper. Squeezing her eyes shut to purge her regretful tears, she shouted, “Why would you tell me that!” Her legs gave out from beneath her, and she surrendered to the insurmountable pain in her chest, descending into wails.

Fluttershy joined Rarity on the floor, again blanketing the Unicorn with a warm, delicate wing. “Sweetie Belle needs you. And you need to be there for her,” she softly spoke. “If those words were what kept you away… you needed to hear them so you can go there and be by her side.”

Shuddering and convulsing, Rarity wept as she buried her face in Fluttershy’s shoulder. The angry, sorrowful wails kept her from articulating any real words. She wanted to yell at Fluttershy, take out her frustration and despair on the Pegasus, for shattering the delusion that somehow, some way, Sweetie Belle might come out of this all right and everything would turn out okay.

Without that comforting, if imaginary, scenario ripped away from her, the only thing left to Rarity was the repugnant truth. Sweetie Belle would leave her forever. And the only one to blame was herself.

“I-I can’t!” Rarity managed to choke out as she clung to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy rubbed Rarity’s back with a gentle, soothing hoof. “I know that you’re afraid, but you not being there won’t stop her from… from leaving us. If you don’t go and say your goodbyes, you may never get the chance.”

“I can’t!” Rarity wailed, shaking her head. “I can’t…”

“Rarity, you need to go be with her. You’ll never forgive yourself if you’re not there when she needs you by her side the most,” Fluttershy replied, never pausing in her ministrations.

With a burst of fury, Rarity shoved Fluttershy away and found herself of steady hooves. “No!” she yelled at Fluttershy, hot tears streaming down her face. “Don’t you get it? This is my fault! I’m the one that let her go there and get hurt!”

Fluttershy bore Rarity’s anger, standing there with ears pinned back. Once Rarity had finished lashing out, Fluttershy stepped forward and swiped the wetness from Rarity’s cheeks. Calmly, she replied, “Then don’t you need to go and tell her that you’re sorry?”

A whine escaped Rarity’s lips. “Yes!” Finally relenting the last of her hesitation, she threw her forelegs around Fluttershy, clinging to her for dear life as she broke down again into a fit of sobs. Only this time, her incoherent mutterings were laced with apologies.

“Go on,” Fluttershy urged, pressing a wing to Rarity’s flank to coax her toward the hospital’s front door.

Rarity stumbled forward before turning to look back at Fluttershy with bleary eyes. “Yes, I… thank you, Fluttershy.”

Offering a small, sad smile, Fluttershy nodded back at Rarity. “Of course. Now, you need to go and be there for her.”

Nodding in turn, Rarity steeled her frayed nerves and stepped forward, into the hospital. The warm light of day left for the harsh, artificial light of the hospital just as the scent of antiseptic assailed Rarity’s nose. Even the cold, sterile tile beneath her hooves seemed to scream in unison for her to turn and leave. She wasn’t welcome here.

The only things pushing Rarity forward were her conscience and the kind Pegasus waiting just outside. Those two seemed almost nothing compared to the fear and doubt welling up in her chest and haunting her mind. She feared for Sweetie Belle’s fate, but she also found herself consumed about facing her parents.

They’d spent hours upon hours together in a tiny room yesterday, and they’d barely spoken to her at all. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why: they blamed her for what happened to Sweetie Belle, as well they should have. It was her fault, after all. But all this time the tension had been building up and still nothing. Was this their condemnation? Had they written her off completely? It would be hard to blame them. How could they forgive anypony, even their own daughter, for something like this?

Right now Sweetie Belle was in that room, in that bed, with wires and tubes tethering her to life. And even those wouldn’t save her. Death drew near for the filly, and the only one to blame was herself. Her parents would resent her for it. Who wouldn’t?

Before she knew it, her hooves had brought her to Sweetie’s room. By some miracle, the door remained closed, hiding behind it both her sister’s fate and her parents’ rancor. Everything that Rarity feared only contained from her by a single door. Her stomach churned and protested as her eyes fell on the handle. Could she really remove that shroud? The last barrier between her and the repugnant truth she so desperately hoped to be a lie?

Her hoof rose from the ground, but after only a few inches, shot right back down. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in. And out. Opening her eyes again, she took the latch in her aura but made no move to turn it. After just standing there for several long moments, she dispelled her magic as she looked away.

It was no use. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t cast off that last mote of hope that this nightmare wasn’t real.

“Well now, if it isn’t the pretty mare from yesterday? How did the surgery go?”

Rarity looked up at the familiar voice to find that black stallion from yesterday. Short Circuit. He still wore the same green gown, though this time, he also dragged along a rack with an IV bag dangling from it. It bore a clear fluid that ran down a tube and into the stallion’s foreleg.

“That bad, huh?” Short Circuit said as soon as he got a good look at Rarity. “She had to have at least made it. Why would you be here staring at a door otherwise?”

“She… she doesn’t have much time left,” Rarity croaked, her voice strangled by a sudden absence of air. She admitted it. For the first time, she confessed to that unbearable truth. The reality of the situation crashed down on her. Silent tears streamed down her face.

A hoof gently pressed into Rarity’s shoulder. “It hurts. I know.”

Sniffling in a most unladylike manner, Rarity swiped at her tears. “I can’t. I can’t go in there and—and see her with all those tubes and wires… I can’t.”

“Come on, isn’t seeing her, no matter her condition, better than standing here agonizing about it?” Short Circuit replied, his voice soft and understanding. “Take some advice from an old stallion that knows a thing or two about this sort of thing: you’ll regret every second you didn’t spend with her.” Without bothering to let Rarity reply, his horn flared with a yellow aura, and the door opened wide.

Rarity stood statue-still as her eyes met her parents’. Any hope she had to flee from the situation vanished in that very instant. She would have stood there, frozen, forever if not for an unwelcome nudge on her flank. The next thing she knew, Rarity found herself stumbling into Sweetie’s hospital room. Prying her eyes away from her parents, her vision swept by Sweetie’s bed and landed on the object of her ire. No words came, but her irate glare spoke volumes.

Circuit just smiled in turn. “You can thank me later.”

A few hoofsteps drew their attention to Rarity’s father. “R-Rarity, we, uh, we were starting to worry you might not come.” Behind him, Cookie’s gaze fell away to the side.

“Father… mother,” Rarity greeted in turn, her tone meek as she pawed at the ground. “I just… had a bit of trouble finding the courage.”

Hondo raised a hoof, thrusting it in Circuit’s direction. “I take it this fella helped you to find it?”

“Nah,” Circuit replied. “I’m just a kindred spirit here to do what I can.”

“Kindred spirit?” Rarity’s mother said, finally speaking up.

Rarity found herself feeling absurdly abashed. Here she had been so worried about her parents, but they were acting as normal as anypony could expect. No, the real demon haunting her mind was right next to her. Sweetie Belle looked worse than the night before. Before, she held a serene expression behind the mask of tubes giving her breath. Now, she bore a grimace and pallor that could only bear a terrible suffering. A suffering that was Rarity’s fault.

An apology. That is what Rarity had come to offer Sweetie Belle. And she’d be damned if she allowed tightness in her throat or weakness in her knees would stop her. Swallowing her fears and steeling her eyes, Rarity stepped over to Sweetie’s bedside. Raising a shaking foreleg, Rarity lovingly traced a hoof through Sweetie’s mane. The tangled hairs were slick with grease and sweat, and the radiating heat of fever stung Rarity’s hoof.

Trembling, Rarity’s chin lowered. Her breath carried but two words. Two words that burst the dam holding back all of Rarity’s guilt and sorrow. “I’m sorry.” The words reverberated through her mind as a thousand regrets tore free. So many times had Sweetie botched her efforts to endear herself to Rarity, only to have her earnest attempts met with scorn and derision. So many times had Sweetie hinted, asked, even begged for just a bit of attention, only to be swept aside.

“I’ll just make it up to her,” Rarity always told herself. Later. Tomorrow. Next time.

Now, next time would never come. For Sweetie, even tomorrow might not come. Worse, her anguished apologies couldn’t reach Sweetie Belle’s ears. Sweetie couldn’t hear Rarity’s begging for forgiveness. She couldn’t feel her anguish. She would never know her regret. And it was all Rarity’s fault.

No longer could Rarity hold back the tears or tame the squeezing in her throat. She buried her face in the sheets by Sweetie’s face, too afraid to actually take hold of the frail filly, lest she cause Sweetie any more pain. The empty apologies continued, only to descend into incomprehensible sobs.

The anguished wails finally drew Short Circuit away from Rarity’s parents. The duo warmed to him quite quickly once they had learned he had gone through something similar. From him, they hoped to learn about their own future and the nature of the pain of loss. They wanted to hear that the pain will go away and that things eventually go back to normal. They wanted lies.

Turning around, Short Circuit moved to comfort Rarity. He rounded Sweetie’s bed, though seeing Sweetie at all beneath the sheets and tubes proved difficult. Stepping over by Rarity, he put a hoof on her shoulder. She didn’t recoil, but neither did she throw herself into his forelegs. “I’d take your grief if I could.”

At first, he thought it was just a flashback. A trick of the light. For a moment, Circuit saw his daughter, lying motionless in a hospital bed as the infection ravaged her body. Blinking did little to dissuade the haunting memories. No, it wasn’t a trick of the light. The little filly in the bed was little short of his daughter’s doppelganger. The mane was a little different, but she looked just like her.

Unable to stand it for even another second, Circuit found himself stumbling toward the door. It was only then that he realized that there were shouts, though they sounded little more than murmurs behind the mounting cacophony of his heart and lungs. He made it to the door, and another two or three steps, but that was all his failing body could manage. Leaning against the wall, he slid down until he found himself sitting on the floor. Distance did little to stem the torrent of memories, plunging him into a chasm of black despair.

Hours passed, and Rarity found herself sitting outside Sweetie’s room. Her tears and anger had exhausted her emotions, and so she sat, lamenting her quiet despair. Even the din of a dozen hoofsteps did not stir her, at least not until she heard a familiar voice. “Oh! There she is!” An energetic, shrill voice boomed. Though the voice quickly tempered into a more morose tone. “...and she doesn’t look so good.”

Rarity looked up as all of her friends approached. All but one. Conspicuously absent was one pony princess, and Rarity found that to be perfectly fine.

A tense silence began to dominate as even Pinkie Pie struggled to find words. Finally, it was Applejack who cleared her throat and banished the silence. “Hey, sugarcube. Uh, Fluttershy done told us what all’s goin’ on. We reckoned yah could do with some support about now.”

“We would’ve been here sooner, but we also thought you might need some alone time, too,” Pinkie added, doing well to stifle her usual enthusiasm. “You didn’t need more alone time, did you?”

Rarity shook her head but made no effort to speak. Even just looking up at her friends was nearly impossible. Instead of feeling her friends’ support, all she felt was shame. Here they were, proffering solace to the mare responsible for the tragedy in the first place.

“Um, maybe she needs a bit of space,” Fluttershy said. She pressed a wing to Pinkie’s flank, guiding her into Sweetie’s room.

Even with half the crowd gone, Rarity still just sat there, the weight of her guilt pulling her gaze to the floor.

Removing her hat and holding down at her chest, Applejack did her best to break silence’s reign, “I’m right sorry about what happened to Sweetie. We all are.”

“Not as sorry as me!” Rainbow choked out, her voice wavering in her throat. Swiping at her wet eyes, Dash did all she could to stifle her sobs. “When Scootaloo ran up to me freaking out, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. If I’d understood a little quicker, if I’d flown a little faster, then maybe… I’m so sorry. I-it’s my fault.”

Rarity replied in little more than a whisper, her voice hoarse and raw, “No. It’s my fault. I should never have let her go.”

“Hey, you ain’t the only one kickin’ yourself about lettin’ those fillies up on that mountain,” Applejack said, a stern resentment in her voice. Adjusting the hat atop her head, she glanced over at Dash. “I’m sure Rainbow’s just as torn up about it.”

A bit of Rarity’s self-loathing melted into anger. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, she had something tangible to blame other than herself. But, for her emotion-stricken state and a whole lot of blame still on her shoulders, she didn’t lash out. She just felt a little less disgusted with herself, that maybe she wasn’t the worst sister in Equestria after all.

“I-I can’t take this!” Dash blurted out. With a flap of her wings, she flew off the ground and started down the hall.

Applejack gave chase, catching her as she tried to open a window. “What the hay’s gotten into you?” Applejack said in a hushed shout, pulling Dash back to the floor. “We’re supposed to be here to support Rarity.” A small sigh exited her nose as she added, “Pay our respects.”

“I can’t,” Dash cried, shaking her head. “I can’t… I failed everyone.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Applejack said as she drew a foreleg across the Pegasus’s shoulders. “It… it was probably too late by the time Scootaloo got word to you, and you can’t go and blame the fillies, either.”

Dash pushed Applejack away. “Scootaloo blames herself. And she hates me!”

“What’re you talkin’ about? That filly adores you,” Applejack replied.

“I always told her that it was okay that she couldn’t fly.” Dash said, her voice trembling. “I convinced her it didn’t matter… it mattered.” An angry flick of her tail, and Rainbow continued, “She wanted me to work with her more on her flying. If-if I’d made the time then maybe—”

“Nonsense,” Rarity finally spoke up again. Though still weak with fatigue, her voice remained steady. “She can’t even get herself off the ground. Nothing could’ve helped her catch Sweetie. It’s not her fault.” Rarity’s eyes drifted to the floor and her ears drooped as she drew a ragged breath. “She’s not the one to blame.”

Applejack placed a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder, though she didn’t even seem to register the contact. “You ain’t the one to blame, either, Sugarcube.”

Shrugging off the hoof, Rarity glared up at Applejack. “Lying doesn’t suit you.”

Applejack didn’t wither. “It’s the truth, even if you don’t wanna hear it. Now I don’t know what’s goin’ on in that pretty little head of yours, but you can’t keep on beatin’ yourself up like this.”

“But I—”

“You what?” Applejack snapped at Rarity. “You let her go up on that mountain? Don’t you know Dash and I made that same decision? They’re always goin’ off and gettin’ into trouble. There’s no way any of us could’ve known that… that it would’ve ended up like this.”

“I failed her,” Rarity said. “You and Dash didn’t fail Apple Bloom or Scootaloo. They’re both home safe. But Sweetie… she’s…”

“Rarity!” Pinkie exclaimed as she stuck her head out of Sweetie’s room. A quick glance down the hall, and she took off toward her ailing friend, sliding just a bit at the start on the smooth tile. Pinkie all but tackled Rarity as she wrapped her up in a hug. “Why didn’t you tell us? I’m so sorry!”

“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy muttered as she flew after Pinkie at a much more restrained pace. “We just heard the news.”

Though Rarity barely made a move in Pinkie’s iron grip, both Dash’s and Applejack’s eyes widened. “Y-y-you don’t mean…” Dash squeaked out.

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy said as she landed by her friends. “Not that.” Sighing a dainty sigh, her ears drooped. “Not yet, anyway.”

Applejack found her breath, “Just what do yah mean, ‘not yet?’”

“If I don’t do something. Find some way,” Rarity said as Pinkie finally let go and stepped back. “Sweetie will die by tomorrow morning.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” Applejack said, holding up a hoof. “Maybe the doctors might—” Her words ceased as Fluttershy pressed a hoof into Applejack’s side. A shake of Fluttershy’s head urged Applejack to listen.

“The only thing keeping her alive right now are those machines,” Rarity said, her voice trembling. “Mother and father are taking her off of them first thing in the morning.”

“Oh, Rare,” Applejack said, pulling the brim of her hat low over her face. “Why didn’t yah say anything?”

Rarity’s hind legs buckled as she sat, hanging her head. She spoke, her voice raspy, “What am I to do?” It took all she had to resist the weakness her knees, begging to throw herself on the floor to wallow in her sorrow. “I argued with mother and father for who-knows-how-long to give it more time, and even the doctor said that… that she might not even make it to tomorrow morning.”

Swooping in, Fluttershy draped a wing over Rarity’s shoulders as the Unicorn swayed, threatening to collapse. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Dash swooped in as well, offering their support to keep Rarity upright and stymy her burgeoning tears. “Is there anything at all that we can do?” Fluttershy asked, her voice soft and steady.

Eyes closing, Rarity leaned into the collective embrace. “I’ve just… I’ve been sitting here trying to think of how I could save her,” she replied. “How I could’ve prevented it.” Breathing a ragged breath, she continued, “I just… I want her to be okay. It’s impossible, I know, but I’d give anything for her to be okay. Please, just… just tell me that there is still some way to save her. Tell me it’s a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon. Tell me I’ve gone completely mad and none of this is real. Please…”

The group sent glances to each other, pleading silently for the words to say. As the lingering silence grew painful, Applejack finally spoke, “You’re askin’ us to lie to yah, and we just can’t do that.”

“It’s too late, Rarity,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t think anypony can save Sweetie Belle now.”

“Twilight could!” Rarity barked.

Pinkie patted Rarity’s back. “Hey, I’m sure if Twilight had some super-magic spell that would save Sweetie, she totally would’ve used it by now.” Rarity’s head snapped up and she sent Pinkie a cold glare. Pinkie withered, weakly continuing, “You know… probably, maybe.”

“Um, excuse me,” a new voice sounded, urging the cluster of ponies to separate from their embrace. There, stood a nurse wearing a cautious smile. “Visiting hours will be over soon. I’ll have to ask you to finish up your visits here.”

As the nurse stepped away, all eyes fell on Rarity. Though she refused to budge from her seat on the floor, she still wilted under the collective stare. “I-I don’t… I don’t know if I can,” she said, her gaze flitting to the door to Sweetie’s room.

“You gotta,” Rainbow said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Up you go,” Applejack said, nudging Rarity’s flank with her snout. Although Rarity rose, she didn’t move a single step toward Sweetie’s room.

Fluttershy spread a wing over Rarity’s shoulders, pushing her forward. “You’ll regret it if you don’t spend every second you have left with her, and you know it.”

Rarity said nothing, though her hooves finally trudged forward, bringing her closer to the door. After reaching the door, she paused to look back. All of her friends stood there looking back at her, though not one smile of reassurance could be found. Instead, they all wore sullen, uncertain expressions that surely mirrored her own. “Th-thank you,” she finally said before turning the knob with her magic and disappearing into Sweetie’s room.

“What… what do we do now?” Pinkie said just after the door closed behind Rarity.

“She’s going to need a lot of support,” Fluttershy said, “but do you think she wants space right now?”

Applejack sighed. “All I know right now is that I told Apple Bloom I’d bring her by tomorrow to visit. I ain’t got a clue how I’m supposed to break the news to her.”

“Scootaloo’s never gonna forgive herself now,” Dash muttered.

“Is-is there really nothing we can do?” Pinkie asked, standing up and moving to the center of the group. “I mean, we’ve done tons of amazing things. Isn’t there some way we could save her?” Applejack and Fluttershy looked away, their gazes low. “Anypony?”

Grunting, Rainbow Dash launched herself off the floor and zipped out the window without a word.

“Anypony?”

Desperate Gambit

“I’m so sorry,” Nurse Tenderheart said as she escorted Rarity out of Sweetie’s room. “When you come back tomorrow morning, just let the nurse at the desk know and she’ll escort you back up here, okay?”

“Can’t I stay here with Mother and Father?” Rarity asked, the words burning her parched and strained throat.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse repeated. “They need to stay in case any decisions need to be made before morning, but we can’t let anypony else stay. It’s against protocol.”

Rarity struggled to come up some reason, any reason, to stay, but her sleep-deprived mind and frayed emotions just left her standing there, staring. The nurse nudged her, and Rarity’s hooves began to take her away. Plodding forward Rarity dreaded going home despite the siren call of her bed. Sleep would bring tomorrow, and tomorrow was the most frightening thing in Rarity’s world.

No, not tomorrow. Time.

And the one pony with the power to sway time refused to help. Her so-called friend refused to save Sweetie even as seconds ticked away like years on her life. In the back of her mind, Rarity knew Twilight wouldn’t refuse her so without a good reason. Without a great reason. But still, what reason could possibly exist that outweighed a life? Especially the ebullient life that belonged to Sweetie Belle.

Maybe if Rarity went to the castle, she could beg or bargain for Twilight to twist time and bring Sweetie back from the brink.

Rarity stopped her plodding to sigh. Twilight wouldn’t be swayed. Not in a situation like this. Worse, Twilight was nothing if not thorough. Starlight would’ve already been given strict instructions not to go back in time to save Sweetie, and she wouldn’t so easily disobey Twilight, either.

“Did you stop by to say goodnight to an old man in the twilight of his days?” a voice playfully called out.

Glancing over, Rarity herself standing just outside Short Circuit’s room. The stallion in question lay in his bed, several IVs hooked up to his foreleg. What little of his youth Rarity witnessed earlier vanished before this tired, old stallion. His welcoming smile looked more like a grimace.

Still, going home to wait for tomorrow wasn’t exactly high on Rarity’s to-do list. In fact, she’d do almost anything else, including staying well beyond her welcome in this sterile reminder of death and disease. “Visiting hours are over,” Rarity said as she walked in, head hung low. “They’re kicking me out.”

Short Circuit took the door in his magical aura, closing it behind Rarity. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” He glanced over at his IV rack. “I’d say we’ve got a good fifteen minutes before the nurse comes in to scold us,” he said, turning back to face Rarity with a wink.

Coming to a stop, Rarity kept her gaze away from Short Circuit. “What-what did you do when you knew… you knew there wasn’t any time left?”

He sighed. “I was a damned fool. Even though I knew… every fiber of my being knew that I’d never make it in time, I just kept trying to engineer a way to save her. Right up until they came knocking on my door, telling me she had passed.”

Tearing her gaze away from the floor, Rarity finally looked Short Circuit in the eye. “You weren’t even there at her side?”

A small smile on his lips, he shook his head. “Like I said: I was a damned fool.”

“H-how could you…? Did you even care about her at all?” Rarity spat.

Rarity watched as Circuit’s dull, gentle eyes shifted into a hateful glare. A sensation of frozen electricity raced down Rarity’s spine as a wave of abject fear crashed over her. An instinctive step back and the look had already passed, although the unpleasant emotion lingered in Rarity’s heart. “I-I’m sorry,” Rarity finally stated, abashed. Her gaze cast away. “I had no place…”

“It’s all right,” Short Circuit replied with a sigh. Though his gaze softened, the warmth and kindness Rarity once saw didn’t return—just that cold jolt. “I was a lot like you, you know.”

This time, it was Rarity’s turn to send a hateful glare. Though Short Circuit didn’t seem to be phased in the least. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “What’s with that face? You don’t agree, or do you not like the truth?”

“I’ll be there. At her side,” Rarity said with authority and conviction.

Circuit nodded. “As you should be. But that’s not what I was talking about.”

Rarity relaxed, only in that moment realizing that her jaw had been clenched tight. Her tone softened, “T-then what?”

“That bitter anger. The unyielding defiance of fate,” he said, his words piercing Rarity’s shell. “It blinded me, you know. I kept telling myself that if there is even the tiniest mote of a chance to save her, that I should keep going. That nothing else mattered, even when I knew time was running out.”

“Time.” The very word burned Rarity’s lips with all the fire of her searing rancor. “Time is something Sweetie Belle doesn’t have anymore.”

With a grimace, Short Circuit sat up. “What? The way you were talking, I thought… S-she’s not… is she?”

Rarity shook her head. “Not yet. But my parents are taking her off of the machines first thing in the morning.” Tears bit at her eyes as she clenched her teeth. “They never even asked me about it.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Short Circuit said as he relaxed back into his bed.

“I’d give anything to save her,” Rarity said as she sat there at the bedside, resting her weary head against the cool mattress. “If only there were a way…”

Rarity’s eyes fluttered as her fatigue overtook her. As Short Circuit watched Rarity softly doze, he couldn’t help but to remember the sight of that filly that reminded him so of his own daughter. In the end, he couldn’t save her, but Sweetie Belle was still alive, at least for the moment. Hesitating just a moment, he reached out and stroked Rarity’s mane.

Blinking, Rarity straightened back up. “Let me ask you something,” Short Circuit said, staring at her with those cold eyes. “Just how far would you go to save her?”

Rarity didn’t balk. “I told you already: I’d do anything.”

“Would you?” he asked, his gaze never faltering. “If it meant saving her mind, her personality, her very spirit, would you kill her?”

In an instant, Rarity shot to her hooves. “Wha—Sweetie dying is the last thing I want!”

Short Circuit snorted a chuckle, shaking his head just a bit. “Forget I said anything. Just an old fool rambling…” He relaxed back into his bed with a sigh. “Dying isn’t so bad, I guess.”

The initial shock ebbed away from Rarity’s body, leaving a thumping heart and gasping lungs behind. Her thoughts raced back and forth between Sweetie’s imminent fate and the recalcitrant ponies she had little hope of swaying. Surely Twilight would not change her mind, and Starlight wouldn’t dare defy her mentor. Without them, what hope did she have?

Her eyes rested again on the sickly stallion before her. Even if she could take a stand and get her parents to reconsider taking her off the machines, Death would still claim Sweetie in a matter of hours. Even if it were just a small part of Sweetie, shouldn’t she still try to save her?

“Can… can you save her, or not?” Rarity asked, her eyes searing into Short Circuit.

He made no effort to look over at Rarity, instead choosing to continue to stare at the white ceiling. “Fragile things, these bodies of ours,” he said, a small, sad smile gracing his muzzle. “I learned that secondhoof with my daughter. And now… you know, it’s not so bad when it’s yourself. Dying, I mean.”

Those words surprised Rarity. Sure, she knew he was old. She knew he was sick. But she never would have guessed a pony so full of spunk would be dying. Still, the news stirred little empathy from the emotionally-drained mare. “Sweetie Belle isn’t you.”

“I can’t promise you the moon,” Short Circuit said as he finally looked back to Rarity. A smug smile graced his lips. “But together, we just might be able to fool to the Reaper.”

“Tell me, with absolute certainty, that this will work.”

“No guarantees,” he coolly replied. “But it’s a pretty good shot. I’d bet on it.”

Rarity glanced away before turning back with a renewed resolve. “What do I need to do?”

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity shouted, only to start coughing. She’d been standing here in the middle of the night, shouting up at Rainbow’s house for the better part of twenty minutes. Either she was fast asleep, or she wasn’t even there at all. Either way, Rarity found it best to resign. Rainbow Dash might’ve been her first choice, but it certainly wasn’t her only choice.

Turning, she started walking toward Sweet Apple Acres. In the dead of the night, those orchards were more than a little intimidating, but nothing would deter her. Short Circuit said that he could help, but all the equipment was at his house. So they would have to spirit Sweetie Belle away, and that would require at least a little more help. Rainbow Dash was the perfect candidate. She was strong, had a vested interest in saving Sweetie, and she could be trusted not to let word slip to a certain lilac Alicorn. Only one other pony met those requirements, and that was Applejack. Rarity just hoped that Applejack would be willing to go as far as she was.

This was the end of the line. The final resort. Short Circuit said it would be the end for Sweetie’s body, but it could save her mind and spirit. He refused to go into more detail, but he promised it would work. He swore he would save her. And, even if it was merely the word of a virtual stranger, Rarity didn’t have anything else left to believe in. Sweetie would perish by dawn and she was left with nothing else to change that outcome. Nothing but the promise of a dying stallion. To find that fleeting mote of hope, Rarity would stop at nothing. Even if it meant breaking the law. Even if it meant stealing away an ailing filly from a hospital. Even if it meant killing her sister herself… if there was a chance to save any part of her, she had to take it. And that’s what she kept telling herself. Her mantra.

Before long, Rarity had arrived at the Apple Homestead. The full moon’s light reflected off of the darkened windows, casting shadowed reflections of the blackened orchards back at Rarity’s weary eyes. Surely not a soul stirred within, and she needed but one. But which eerily gleaming window hid her? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember a time she’d actually been in Applejack’s room. Worse, she knew at the very least that all the bedrooms were on the upper floor. Peering through windows like some sort of deranged peeping tom would be perfectly pointless.

With little other choice, she grabbed a pebble in her aura and brought it to the nearest second-story window. Worst-case scenario, she would be forced to apologize to somepony other than Applejack and ask which window to rap on next. With a fair bit of force, she bought the stone to the glass to elicit a short series of high-pitched impacts.

A few seconds passed. It was entirely possible that this particular window rested in an empty hallway. A few more seconds, and still no answer came. Could the knocks have been too quiet? They certainly seemed more than loud enough to Rarity’s discerning ears. Again, Rarity bashed the stone on the glass, this time with enough force to sting her ears and bring the window perilously close to shattering.

Before Rarity had finished her series of strikes, the window thrust open with enough force to startle Rarity into dropping the pebble. A stetson-clad head appeared, and after glancing around for a few moments, settled its gaze on Rarity.

“Rare? What the hay are yah doin’ all the way out here this time of night?”

For a moment, Rarity found herself completely speechless. She’d come all this way and gone this far but had completely neglected how she might actually ask Applejack to do something so dire. So she said all she could muster with a terse, honest statement, “I need to speak with you, please.”

Applejack pulled back as her eyes flitted away. Then, she leaned back out and gave Rarity a firm nod before vanishing and shutting the window. The crisp sound of the window closing barely registered with Rarity as she scrambled with how to broach such a difficult conversation.

By the time Applejack emerged, easing the door shut in the quiet of the night, Rarity had only come to one concrete decision. She needed to make sure that, even if Applejack refused to help, that she would not stop her from what needed to be done.

“I need your help,” Rarity blurted out before Applejack could say anything.

“S-sure thing, Sugarcube,” Applejack replied. She pulled on the brim of her hat. “I, uh, I take it this is about Sweetie. She… she’s still on this side of the river Styx, isn’t she?”

Rarity bit her lip, nodding just a bit. “She doesn’t have much time. That’s why I need your help.”

Holding up a hoof, Applejack replied, “I’ll help yah anyway I can, but I just don’t see what all I can really do.”

“Before I ask, I want you to make a promise,” Rarity said before taking a deliberate pause to gauge Applejack’s response. A raised eyebrow was all Rarity got in return. “I want you to promise me that, even if you refuse to help, even if you think what I’m doing is crazy or wrong, you won’t tell anypony what I’m going to do. Especially Twilight. Can you promise me that?”

Applejack hesitated. Her eyes flitted away before she came back with a firm stare. “You have my word.”

Rarity sighed in relief. “Good.”

“S-so what’s this all about?” Applejack asked, her voice betraying her doubts.

“Sweetie is dying,” Rarity said, a burning numbness jolting through her as she spoke the words aloud. “I met a stallion that says… he says that her body is too far gone to save, but he can save her. Her mind, her memories, her very spirit. He can save her.”

Applejack leaned over, placing a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “R-Rare, are yah even listenin’ to yourself? How is it savin’ her if she dies? And how much do you even know about this stallion?”

Rarity swatted the hoof away. “I know that he is the only pony who is both willing and able to help me save Sweetie Belle. And that’s all I need to know.”

Letting out a long sigh, Applejack pawed at the ground. “Look, even out here in the dark I can tell that you’re plumb tired, and I don’t even wanna think about what kind of sufferin’ yer goin’ through.” Tugging her hat, Applejack tugged her bottom lip with her teeth. “Say I agree to help. How exactly is this supposed to work? Why do yah need my help?”

Clearing her throat, Rarity turned her eyes back toward Ponyville. “He says he can save her, but he can’t move his equipment. It’s in his house—not far from the hospital.”

“Rarity, I saw Sweetie Belle earlier. You can’t just move her. She’s too sick.”

“That’s what the hospital would say, and my parents wouldn’t stand for it, either,” Rarity replied as she finally looked back to Applejack. “We… I cannot carry her there on my own. I need help to… to spirit her away from the hospital.”

Applejack’s mouth fell open. “Y-you can’t be serious! She’ll die!”

“Don’t you understand? She’s only got until tomorrow morning if she even makes it that long,” Rarity argued. “She’s going to die either way. At least this way… this way she has a chance.”

“Are yah even hearin’ yourself? You sound like a mad mare.”

“You think that I don’t know how this sounds?” Rarity bit back. “Can’t you understand? What if it were Apple Bloom’s life hanging by a frayed thread? Wouldn’t you do everything you could to save her? Wouldn’t you do anything?”

Applejack stared back at Rarity’s wide, bloodshot eyes. “No.”

“Liar!” Rarity screamed as she stamped a hoof.

Aside from her ears shifting back, Applejack made no move. “In your desperation, have you stopped even once to ask yourself: what would Sweetie Belle want?”

“She would want to live!” Rarity replied, all too quickly.

“Even if that meant you might bring yourself to ruin?” Applejack leaned in, poking Rarity with a hoof. “ What happens if this doesn’t work? What would the hospital say? What would your folks say?” Pulling a curt turn to Rarity, Applejack walked off a few steps before spinning around again. “No way Sweetie would want you to risk all that for her.”

Rarity’s ears drooped for but a moment before the fire returned to her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. This is what I want. I have to do this, Applejack. Surely you can understand.”

Applejack’s jaw sawed back and forth as she ground her teeth. “What if it were you in that bed?” she asked, her voice low, slow, and serious. “What then? Would you really want Sweetie Belle to risk everything for some small chance to save you? Wouldn’t you want for somepony to stop her?”

Rarity’s fierce glare captured Applejack’s eyes. “You promised,” she growled.

Instead of backing down, Applejack squared up to Rarity. “I promised not to tell Twilight, and I won’t.”

Stepping back, Rarity cast a glance to the side. Then, she sharply turned and bolted into the orchards!

It took Applejack a few seconds to register what just occurred. Then it hit her like a fully loaded train. Rarity just ran off to go steal Sweetie Belle from the hospital! Giving chase, it didn’t take long for Applejack to spy the ivory Unicorn galumphing through the darkened trails. While Rarity may have had a head start, she also just happened to be a nervous wreck that hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. Not to mention these orchards were Applejack’s backyard.

In no time, Applejack found herself just behind Rarity as she fled. “Rarity! Stop! Just take a minute and think about you’re tryin’ to do!”

Applejack’s words reached Rarity, as she glanced back over her shoulder. A flash of blue light lit up her face, as she glared back at Applejack. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it!” she spat.

A wave of blue crashed into Applejack from the side, sending her tumbling head over hoof to the ground. She had to chase after Rarity and stop her, so Applejack stumbled to her hooves to try to regain her momentum. Two steps and she found the ground again.

Groaning, Applejack took her eyes off of Rarity to find what had tripped her up. What she found were a sea of empty baskets and an overturned cart. Oh, the words she would have for Big Mac when all was said and done for leaving the wagon out again. But there were more pressing matters at hoof. After clearing all the baskets, Applejack cast her gaze about, trying to find Rarity. There was no sign of her.

“Rarity!” Applejack bellowed, her voice vanishing into the darkened orchards. Breathing out a few, deep breaths, she set her sights on the direction she last saw Rarity. With a newfound focus, she pulled her brim low and galloped into the darkness.

It didn’t take long before Applejack realized her folly. She chased after shadows and shouted to nothingness. Panting, she slowed to a stop as her mind continued to race. Rarity gave her the slip. That much was crystal clear. But Rarity still had to be stopped before she went and made the worst mistake.

Applejack’s eyes widened. While she didn’t have a clue where Rarity disappeared to, she knew exactly where she would go. She just had to beat her there.

Applejack had hoped to run Rarity down long before entering Ponyville, let alone reaching the hospital. But even as she approached the towering building, there was still no sign of Rarity. It didn’t stand to reason that she’d have passed Rarity up. Which meant that Rarity already headed inside, or worse, she’d already absconded with Sweetie Belle. In any case, Applejack had to go inside to check. She just prayed that Sweetie Belle was still inside.

Just as she reached the corner to turn to the front of the hospital, a flash of blue caught the corner of her eye. Applejack stopped dead in her tracks before turning about. Sure enough, a blob of glowing blue floated out of a second story window. “No,” Applejack muttered, as she found herself drawn to the soft glow as if it were a will-o-the-wisp, “no, no, no, no!”

She reached the bundle just as it gingerly touched down on the ground. Just as she feared, Applejack found Sweetie Belle before her. Sickly. Still.

Reaching out a hoof, she gently felt Sweetie’s chest. It was warm and slick with sweat. One second passed. Then two. And three. Still, Applejack felt no motion. No breathing.

“Step aside!”

Applejack recoiled at the sharp, hushed shout. Just as she did, Rarity swooped in, attaching a large, rubber bulb to a tube in Sweetie’s mouth. The blue glow squeezed the bulb, and Sweetie’s chest rose in response.

“Rarity! What have you done!” Applejack hissed.

Rarity glared back at Applejack with those icy blue eyes. “Help me, or step aside,” she said, her voice devoid of compassion. Lifting Sweetie in her aura, Rarity hoisted the filly up on her back, all the while working the bulb that facilitated Sweetie’s breathing. She tried to flee into the night, but the coordination required to keep Sweetie on her back and work the breathing apparatus forced her to step slowly.

A light above preceded a ruckus. What little Applejack could make of the distorted shouts told her that Sweetie’s abduction had already been discovered. Any chance of getting Sweetie back into her hospital bed without anypony knowing just went up in smoke. So too, was any hope of Rarity avoiding the ensuing consequences. In fact, the only way this wouldn’t end horribly for Rarity would be if, by some miracle, this stallion really could save Sweetie Belle.

“Consarnit! You were hoping it would turn out like this!” Applejack hissed as she ducked behind a tree to avoid being seen by the ponies now desperately searching for Sweetie. For her part, Rarity was still slowly working her way away from the hospital. She’d never make a getaway like that.

A quick glance about and Applejack found a cart sitting nearby. Rushing over, she hooked herself up before galloping over to Rarity. “Get in,” she said as she pulled the cart in front of Rarity. After hesitating for but a moment, Rarity levitated Sweetie in before hopping in herself.

Deal with the Devil

Applejack hurried through the front door into a house that seemed long-abandoned. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and a musty smell hung in the air. “Yah sure this is the right place?” Applejack asked as she helped Rarity get Sweetie through the door.

“Yes,” Rarity replied as she motioned with her head to an open door on the right. “He said the equipment was in the basement.”

As the duo worked to carry and breathe for Sweetie, it became apparent that a soft glow irradiated from the basement. “I got a bad feelin’ about this,” Applejack muttered.

Rarity was the first to step into the relatively well-lit basement. It reminded her of Twilight’s basement, only creepier and far more claustrophobic. Stacks of dusty books climbed toward the ceiling in between benches still covered with unidentifiable liquids, colorful powders, and bizarre glassware on either side of the narrow passage leading deeper into the basement. Said passage was lined on either side with huge, box-like machines covered in multicolored lights, various switches and dials, rubber and glass tubes, and frayed crisscrossing wires. Dozens stood side-by-side, offering a path just big enough for the two mares to carry the dying filly through to where a single stallion stood before a pair of giant, glass tubes that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

“Rarity!” Short Circuit said, stepping away from the tubes. Though he seemed excited, he was covered in sweat and his eyes looked sunken. “I was starting to worry.”

“We don’t have time for chit-chat,” Rarity replied. “How do we save Sweetie?”

After pressing a few buttons on the nearest machine, Short Circuit pulled a lever next to the glass tubes. A low rumble accompanied the slow, steady rise of the glass to reveal a pair of platforms. One was empty aside from a few wires dangling from the ceiling. But on the other platform stood what Rarity could only describe as a perverted mannequin. It clearly modeled itself after a filly, having roughly the same size and shape, though it had no mane or tail. Most of it was white and so smooth that it caught and reflected the light, but unlike a mannequin, it bore a rubbery, black band at each joint. Rarity assumed they were flexible bands for the doll to be posed. All of that struck Rarity as minor details. The big thing that Rarity couldn’t shake was just how much this doll looked like Sweetie Belle.

“What… what is this?” Rarity found herself saying.

“I call it an equoid,” Short Circuit said as he helped Applejack to get Sweetie onto the adjacent platform. “It can move, walk, talk, hear, see—everything, just like a real pony.”

“This… this is your solution to save Sweetie!” Rarity shouted as she thrust a hoof at the offending doll.

Unfazed by the outburst, Short Circuit hooked up some sort of helmet to the wires. “Her body is dying,” he said quite plainly. “Nopony can restore her health, but with this — ” he placed the helmet on Sweetie’s head “ — I can put her mind, her soul, her very essence into the equoid so she may still live on.”

“You can’t do this,” Applejack said, staring hard at Rarity. “This is wrong.”

Rarity gnawed on her lip as she looked at Sweetie’s still form. Her voice was begging as she spoke, “There must be another way.”

“She dies here,” Circuit replied. “The only thing we have a choice about now is whether or not her mind continues on.” He stared hard at Rarity. “It’s the only choice you have.”

Closing her eyes, Rarity stood still for a long moment. With a sigh, she nodded. “Do it.”

“Rare! You can’t!” Applejack protested.

Rarity turned a heated glare to Applejack. “I can’t just let her die! I have… I have to do this.”

After looking over at the so-called equoid and back to Rarity, Applejack stamped a hoof. “This is beyond the pale! Yer talkin’ about a sin against nature itself!”

Rarity stepped to the side, placing herself between Sweetie Belle and Applejack. “I won’t let you stop us,” she said, her voice low and even.

Shaking her head, Applejack took a step back. “It ain’t my place to try and stop you,” she said, turning her back to Rarity. “But I can’t be a part of this.”

Rarity expected Applejack to put up more of a fuss than that. Instead, Applejack just started walking back toward the stairs. As she walked away, she made no move to sabotage the equipment or further argue against it. She just marched away and up the stairs, never once glancing back.

As a terrible loneliness seized Rarity’s heart, an insistent hoof prodded her from behind. “We haven’t much time,” Short Circuit said. “Take over breathing for her and I’ll do the last of the adjustments. It’ll be just a minute.”

Rarity stepped to Sweetie’s side and took over squeezing the bulb still attached to the filly's mouth. Rarity’s hoof stroked the sweat-soaked, feverish coat as her eyes stayed fixated on the doll. “Why do you even have this?” she found herself asking.

“When my daughter fell into a coma, the doctors couldn’t help her, so I decided to ply my own talents to find a way to save her,” he explained as he stepped from machine to machine, flipping switches, pressing buttons, and turning dials. “A year wasn’t long enough to get it to work. The decade since, though, turned out to be enough to get the basic functions going, at least.”

“You kept working on it, even after she was gone?”

Rarity heard him chuckle from down the corridor. “What else did I have to do with my life? All I had left was my work. Then, I got sick, and I just wrote it all off as an old stallion’s folly, but when I saw your sister… she really does look just like her. I thought, maybe this is what all this has been for. Maybe it wasn’t all for naught.” He turned, catching Rarity’s eye. “Let’s make it count.”

Rarity nodded in turn. “What do I need to do?”

“When you’re ready, pull that lever by you,” Short Circuit instructed.

A long glance at Sweetie and a short, spiteful glare to the dreadful equoid, and Rarity turned her gaze to the lever. She clenched her jaw as Applejack’s words haunted her.

This is beyond the pale!

...a sin against nature itself!

Reaching a hoof out, she grabbed the lever even as the very thought of Sweetie Belle being trapped in that mannequin-esque thing turned her stomach. She’d come this far, there was no way she could back out now. Sweetie had seconds now, not minutes or hours, and it was her fault. She had to try to save her, even if it meant doing something this horrible.

What would Sweetie Belle want?

Wouldn’t you want for somepony to stop her?

Soundless words passed her lips, “Stop me, please.” Her words found no ears. Squeezing her eyes shut, she yanked the lever.

Instead of something fantastic, nothing seemed to happen. Rarity glanced about before finding just what that lever did. The glass tubes were slowly descending from the ceiling. At first, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but as the tubes came down to the pedestals, she realized she wouldn’t be able to pump the bulb for Sweetie’s breathing once it dropped all the way.

“Come to me, quickly now,” Short Circuit called out from the opposite end of the basement.

Rarity took off in a gallop, closing the gap in no time. “She’ll suffocate!” she screeched.

Circuit pointed to a large, Y-shaped switch on the side of one of the giant, boxy machines. “This will start the process. It’s only right that you have the honors.”

This time, Rarity bore no trepidation. Not with Sweetie suffocating. She took the lever in hoof and yanked. As it met the contacts, a shower of yellow sparks shot out. Above, the bright lights flickered and fell into darkness, leaving only the blinking lights on the machines and the occasional electric arc bathing the darkened basement in an eerie glow. The machines roared to life as the electricity passed through. A great rumbling shook the floor and even made the whole room seem to shift and spin with the asynchronous lights.

“Do me a favor? Hit the second, third, and fifth switches from the left on the unit behind you.” Short Circuit called out. “Then, hit the yellow button.”

Rarity could just make out his form in the flashes of light as he raced between the mammoth machines, hitting buttons, flipping switches, and rotating dials. It took a moment for her to realize that she needed to help. She spun around to the towering machine. Squinting, she could just make out a series of little switches. After hitting the three, she looked for a yellow button. The blinking colors flashed one after another until one flashed a brilliant saffron. She quickly pressed the button before looking back.

“Good!” Circuit said. He continued to work the machines as he spoke, “That… just about… does it!”

“Is it… done?” Rarity asked as Short Circuit approached.

Through the dim, blinking lights, appeared the silhouette of Circuit smiling and nodding. “Just flip that first switch again and it’ll finish.”

Rarity turned back to find the switch. With little hesitation, she took it in her aura and gave it a good tug. The next thing she knew, a deafening crash filled her ears as she flew off her hooves and crashed into the machine behind her.

“Ugh, the feedback was a bit nastier than usual,” Short Circuit said as he sat up, rubbing his head.

Scrambling to her hooves, Rarity found the basement again bathed in the bright, fluorescent lights. Her eyes were drawn back toward the tubes housing Sweetie and the equoid. She couldn't see them. One of the towering, box-like machines had fallen into the middle of the corridor and a plume of thick, black smoke spewed from it. The acrid odor reached Rarity’s nose, searing it with a caustic burn.

Coughing, Short Circuit covered his nose. “The mainframe’s caught fire! Don’t breathe it in. It’s toxic!” he shouted a warning. Trotting toward the exit, he urged Rarity to follow, “We have to go!”

“Not without Sweetie!” Rarity refused, marching into the rolling, black smoke.

“It’s fine! Let’s go!”

Short Circuit’s protests fell on deaf ears. Rarity kept pushing against the choking air. Not only did it burn her nose and lungs, it stung her eyes. Between her watery eyes and the thick smoke, she couldn’t see anything at all. But still, she pressed on, determined to somehow save her baby sister. Despite her conviction, she just couldn’t press forward against the wall of heat that threatened to sear her. Turning, she only found more invisible flames, drawing ever nearer to consume her. Even the smoke closed in on her, suffocating her.

Just as she collapsed, she could’ve sworn she felt a strong pair of hooves catch her.

Shock

A fierce burning in her chest woke Rarity from a fitful sleep. Painful coughs wracked her body and left her gasping for air. Her hooves instinctively reached for her muzzle, only to stop short. Forcing herself to stop breathing to cease the coughs if even only for a moment, the burning in her chest intensified. No longer caught in a series of spasms, Rarity found a breathing mask around her muzzle. It was just like the one on Sweetie. It all came back to her along with another fit of agonizing coughs. Sweetie Belle, the fall, that horrid equoid, the fire…

“You’re awake.”

The sound of that voice turned her crushing anguish to a searing fury. “Short Circuit!” Rarity managed to choke out as she struggled to quell her coughing. She turned to find the stallion, again looking ten years older than last time. Instead of dragging around a single IV, he had at least four on a rack running tubes down to his forelegs.

“I know it must be difficult, but try not to make a ruckus,” he said, his voice low and quiet, but not at all apologetic. “Princess Twilight Sparkle’s been here every hour and I’m sure the nurses will let her know the moment they find out you’re awake. She knows you’re responsible for Sweetie Belle’s disappearance.”

Rarity growled despite the fire it drew in her throat. “Where do you get off?” She sat up in her hospital bed, sputtering out a few more coughs. “Because of you, Sweetie… Sweetie she…”

“She’s waiting for us,” he replied.

Gasping, Rarity fell into another coughing fit. “Wha-what do you mean by that?” Despite her lungs crying for more air, Rarity tempered her breaths to prevent another series of coughs.

“I tried to tell you before not to worry,” he replied, sympathy finally seeping into his tone. “Those chambers are air-tight and triple layered. Neither the heat or smoke should penetrate them.”

Rarity’s heart lurched in her chest. “She’s alive?”

Short Circuit nodded. “Should be. We just need to go activate her.” His ears perked up as he stepped away from the door. “Somepony’s coming!” he hissed. Rushing over, he shoved Rarity back into a supine position before throwing the blanket over her.

Just then, the door opened to reveal a nurse followed by the Princess of Friendship herself. “Short Circuit? What are you doing out of bed?” Nurse Redheart asked in an accusatory tone. “You’re in no condition to be up and about!”

Short Circuit put on a convincing smile. “You know I can’t stand to just lay there all day.”

“Why are you in here?” Twilight asked as she stepped in front of the nurse. “This room is supposed to be off-limits.”

“Well that’s… er…”

“I’m so sorry, Princess,” Redheart apologized as she tried to not-so-subtly usher the wayward stallion out of the room. “Short Circuit is always wandering around and getting into trouble.” After seeing Short Circuit out, she hurried back over to Rarity’s bedside.

“How is she?” Twilight asked, craning her neck to observe for herself the readouts on the equipment.

After scribbling a few notes into the chart, Nurse Redheart turned back to Twilight. “Her vitals have really improved. I’m sure she will come around any time now.”

“She’ll make a full recovery?” Twilight pressed.

The nurse turned her gaze away as she ran a hoof through her mane. “Er… the doctor seemed hopeful, but it’s still too early to tell.”

Twilight stared at Rarity’s still form for several seconds before letting out a long sigh. “Let me know as soon as she wakes up, okay?”

“Of course, Princess.”

The nurse led Twilight out of the room. As soon as she waved to Twilight, she noticed that the interloper hadn’t gone far. In fact, Short Circuit sat just outside the door, leaning his back against the wall. “Are you alright? Do I need to get a wheelchair for you to get back to your room?”

Short Circuit put on a convincing smile. “You don’t need to worry about this old geezer. A minute or two of rest and I’ll be good as new.”

Redheart raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”

Nodding, Short Circuit hummed an affirmative. “I’m already feeling better.”

After lingering another moment, the nurse turned to follow after Twilight. “If you need anything, just shout, okay?”

“Oh, I need lots of things,” Circuit replied, winking after the nurse. The nurse’s scoff got a bit of a chuckle out of Short Circuit. He made sure to linger until the nurse was out of sight. Then, he darted back into Rarity’s room.

“It’s clear,” he said in a hushed tone as he closed the door behind him.

No sooner did the words leave Circuit’s lips did Rarity shoot up, coughing. It took her nearly a minute to quell the fit and catch her breath. “What… what do we do now?”

“Well, I can’t say I’m much of the refined type, but even I know not to keep a little lady waiting,” Short Circuit said. “If you can sneak out, I’ll meet you back at my place. Deal?”

Rarity gave a firm nod to spare her burning throat the effort of speaking.

Sneaking out proved to be a rather simple task. A bit of magic turned her bed sheets into a dreadfully plain, but still passable, cloak. A few times she had to stifle her incessant desire to cough to avoid suspicion, but she made it out without being noticed. She even managed to stop for a long drink of water to soothe her burning throat.

By the time she reached the burned out husk that was once Short Circuit’s home, Rarity found him waiting for her. He sat outside a rather large gap in the wall where the fireponies had stormed in. It still surprised her to see that once vivacious stallion looking like a heap leaning on Death’s door, especially considering that only a couple of days had passed.

“I was starting to worry that you wouldn't make it,” Short Circuit said as Rarity approached. Straining, he rose to his hooves. “Let’s go. She’s waiting.”

A firm nod and Rarity followed Circuit into the ruins of his house. The interior wasn’t quite what Rarity had imagined a house after a fire might be. It wasn’t dry and smoky, even if it was covered in a thick layer of grey-black soot. Every inch of everything dripped with moisture from the water used to douse the flames. Even the floor itself squished under her hooves. “How horrible,” she said, the words drawing a couple of painful coughs from her lungs.

Short Circuit didn’t even seem to notice. Without spending so much as a moment lamenting the loss of his house and everything within, he marched straight for the basement. Rarity knew she’d be devastated if anything had happened to the boutique. How could he possibly not care that his home was in ruins?

The water at the bottom of the stairs scattered Rarity’s thoughts. The few rays of light that shone through the ruined floor above revealed a sea of black, still water. Short Circuit didn’t even hesitate. Stepping into the black muck, he marched forward even as the water rose to his barrel.

Rarity stood at the last stair above water, gazing out over the darkened room. The sparse beams of light shining down caught the dust and soot, creating dazzling beams that outshone the black depths. The lighting left the chambers holding Sweetie and the equoid completely shrouded by the darkness. The thoughts of her little sister reminded her just why she was here and banished her trepidation. Following Short Circuit’s lead, Rarity waded into the freezing, black water.

It took quite some time of fumbling around in the chest-high water for the duo to make their way to the back of the basement. There, both tubes still stood intact, though a thick layer of soot prevented seeing inside. Rarity lifted a hoof to wipe away the soot, but the tainted water just made a greasy smear every bit as opaque as before.

“I didn’t think this through enough,” Short Circuit muttered as he banged a hoof on the glass. “We’ll have to break them open.”

Rarity didn’t hesitate. Spinning around, she planted her forehooves as solidly on the submerged floor as she could before bucking the tube with all her might. Her wet hooves slid harmlessly off the curved glass and sent Rarity floundering into the murky water. Shooting back out instantly, Rarity sputtered and did her best to purge the nasty water from her face and mane.

“Aha!”

Rarity turned to find Short Circuit using his magic to pull something free from one of the large, boxy machines. She recognized it as a rather well-cut sapphire. Floating over to one of the tubes, the sapphire pressed against the glass before making a clean streak across at an angle. Circuit brought it again to the glass to etch an X into the tube. He then drew the sapphire back before smashing it against the glass. It shattered with an awful roar.

“Get back!” Short Circuit warned as the glass fell. Not just around where he smashed it. The glass towering into the ceiling fell in waves, sending shards flying in all directions.

After the sounds of glass shards landing on the pedestal and plopping into the water faded, Rarity dared to remove her hooves from around her head. Then she saw it, the equoid that was supposed to be housing Sweetie Belle. It stood there, unmoving, covered in soot. A single cable dangled from the ceiling attached to the back of its head.

“Is… is she really in there?” Rarity asked, daring to take a step toward it. Her throat tightened as she heard her heart in her ears. “Is she okay?”

Short Circuit grunted. “The seal must’ve melted in the heat. This thing was supposed to be airtight.”

Those muttered words made Rarity’s heart drop. “Is she okay!” she repeated, this time her voice exuding desperation.

“I don’t think the heat did any damage. Nothing is distorted or melted,” he said as he checked the equoid over. “Let’s see if everything’s working.” Hopping down, he fired up his horn and wrapped his aura around the cable in the back of the equoid’s head. A good yank and it came free. The moment it did, a small whirring echoed from within the equiod.

“Where… what?” a small voice echoed from the equoid. A voice hauntingly similar to Sweetie’s, though it trembled with an artificial buzz.

“Sweetie!”

“Rarity! Rarity where are you?” Sweetie asked though the equoid made no move. The mouth didn’t even budge as the voice continued to echo from within. “I’m scared. I can’t see. I can’t move!”

“Oh no!” Short Circuit said. “Activate command protocol: it was you who broke my Neighsen plate!” The whirring died. “I think the soot might’ve compromised some of her systems. I’ll have to take her apart for repairs, but after that, she should be fine.”

“Don’t say that in front of her!” Rarity shrieked. Rushing over despite the large shards of glass, some even so big as to jut up from beneath the murk, Rarity hopped up on the pedestal. “It’ll be okay, Sweetie. I promise.”

No reply came.

“Sweetie? Sweetie Belle!” Rarity turned to Short Circuit with a look of abject despair. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I shut her down. Think of it as sleeping,” Short Circuit replied, though his focus seemed to be entirely on Sweetie. “We’re going to have to get her out of here so I can do repairs.”

“Why would you do that?”

Breathing an annoyed sigh, Circuit finally tore his gaze away from Sweetie. “If her systems have been compromised by the soot, continued operations may cause further damage. It’s for her own good that she stay suspended until I can make the proper repairs.”

He sounded so much like Twilight that it made Rarity see red. “How long!” she barked.

“Hopefully, just a few hours, but first we’ve got to get her out of here and someplace clean. I’ll need my tools, too.”

Rarity seethed, although her panting seemed to calm her, at least a little. “She’ll be okay? You’re sure?”

“Let me see,” he replied, urging Rarity to help him up onto the pedestal. Though she pulled him up with all the tenderness of a rabid timber wolf, she still stepped off to let him examine Sweetie.

His horn flashed, casting a light onto the back of Sweetie’s head. There wasn’t a hole there where the cable hooked in. It was sealed up, tight as a drum. The only hint that the cable had been attached was a clear line that showed the outline of the attachment. “Good, it looks like the repository was uncompromised.”

Choking out a few coughs, Rarity shook her head. “I can’t even begin to imagine what that means.”

He cast a smile down at Rarity. “It means her mind is safe; it’s just the body that’s faulty. It should be an easy enough fix. She will be just fine. I give you my word.”

Rarity breathed a slow, ragged breath in and out. What little relief his reassurance offered ebbed away as Rarity glanced over to the other glass tube. Her vision was soon filled with blue. Short Circuit didn’t need to say anything. Taking the gem in her aura, Rarity stepped over to the glass monolith holding Sweetie Belle’s body.

This was her burden. Her decision led to this horrific moment. Behind that glass was what remained of Sweetie Belle. An unpretty corpse abandoned for a full night. Sweetie deserved better.

Choking down the bile rising from the truth of her actions drew, Rarity raised the gem to the glass. Two sweeps of magic and one thrust shattered the holding chamber. Instead of the tube crashing down, a section shattered, sending cracks throughout the structure. Rarity hesitated, but not out of fear that the glass column might fall down on her. The dread of seeing Sweetie Belle—her corpse—paralyzed Rarity.

The sound of straining glass and the high pitched peal of cracks spreading urged Rarity to get Sweetie before a shower of glass crashed down on her. Her horn bathing the darkness in a blue hue, Rarity dared to peer into the fractured tube. What she found were four, tiny legs. Four still legs.

A sharp, ominous creak from above urged Rarity to push her trepidation aside. Wrapping the darkened bundle in her magic, she drew back and clear of the tube. A searing crash above forced Rarity to instinctively spin around and clutch the bundle tight, protecting it from the shower of glass. Though Rarity expected to feel a thousand daggers tear into her back, not one came.

Above her, a lens of yellow sparks and arcs fizzled out. “Are you alright?” Short Circuit asked, panting as the last glow of yellow left his horn. Rarity didn’t answer. She just stood there clutching the corpse, burying her face against the ashen bundle. “It’s all right,” Circuit reminded her as he motioned to his magnificent equoid. “She’s still here with us.” Despite his reassurance, Rarity just shook her head.

Short Circuit sighed. It was clear that he didn’t have the words to console her or the ability to make her see the folly of her grief. Circuit instead turned his attention back to the equoid and his dilemma. The soot compromised her systems, and though the solution demanded very little, it was impossible to fix her here. Between the black muck numbing his legs and the soot permeating every surface of everything, cleaning the components would be impossible here. A clean environment was needed for the repairs, and the hospital wasn’t an option. He could only hope that this stricken mare had a suitable place.

That was a solution that could be worked out later. For now, there were but two pressing matters. While getting the equoid out and through town presented a great challenge, the first thing he needed to address was gathering the tools needed to clean and assess her systems and make necessary repairs. Everything here in the workshop was ruined, submerged under a black soup of ashes. Anything upstairs would be every bit as contaminated as the equoid itself.

So then where? Where to find a set of quality tools? All of his old tools arrived from specialty shops all around Equestria. Surely all the tools needed would not be so easily found in Ponyville. Wait. Yes! The shed! The tools there might be a bit outdated and worn, but they would at least get the job done—barring any catastrophic failures.

“I’m going to go get a few things ready,” he announced to an audience he knew was deaf to his voice. “We will have her good as new in no time.”

New Horizon

It was a blur. After seeing—holding—the cold, stiff body that had so recently belonged to Sweetie, everything just went numb. Rarity’s emotions ebbed away to nothing as her body and mind worked on. Maybe after so much peril and stress, she had simply run out of emotion, but the building dread and clawing despair dispelled the very notion.

Her shock began to wear off, little-by-little as her addled mind teased apart the ghastly truth. She looked over to her fainting couch where an old tarp bundled up something her discerning eye dared not see. The trip back to the boutique barely registered. She'd helped Short Circuit load Sweetie and the equoid into the wagon Applejack had left. She dragged them all the way back here. She and Circuit had both bathed, and even at this moment, he was hard at work restoring the equoid—restoring Sweetie Belle.

A sudden burning in her throat forced Rarity to step away from her work table to release a series of sharp, burning coughs. The physical pain did little else than to bring Rarity back to the morbid task before her. She turned back to her workstation and her task. Before her, the shriveled form of a skin-tight suit.

Though she had already fashioned a wig and tail for Sweetie, which Short Circuit helped her design and install, she still loathed that artificial skin and those black joints. It wasn't as though they were unstylish—they certainly held a modern charm—they just weren't Sweetie Belle. So Rarity decided that the best course of action would be to make a suit to mimic her natural coat. The fact that a task, any task, to keep her mind and eye from wandering back to the heap on her couch aside, this was the least she could do for her baby sister.

Or, perhaps this was just a selfish act. A disguise to hide away the ugly truth of her sins against Sweetie. A distraction to hide away what her tumultuous heart dreaded to see.

Reaching up, Rarity wiped away the tears as they fell down her face. She turned, heading for the kitchen as she struggled to smooth out her frayed emotions. There, a thick layer of grease and ash sullied the once pristine tile. The table stood as the only island of cleanliness, surrounded by heaps of blackened towels and rags.

“How is she?” Rarity asked as she tried to ignore the silty slime she felt with each step.

“Ah! Come, come,” Short Circuit said, scooting a bit to the side and revealing the disassembled body that held Sweetie Belle. “I’m just double-checking everything. So far everything looks good. Only had to repair a few circuits.”

Slowly, Rarity stepped over the rags and took a seat next to Short Circuit, though her eyes never left the objects on the table. Until now, she’d managed to stymie her curiosity and only took passing glances as she asked for updates. At least most of Sweetie was put back together, and she really did look much better with a mane and tail. A large part of her side lay to one side, and several strange things were strewn out in front of Short Circuit.

“Don’t touch,” Short Circuit said as Rarity’s hoof wandered to some strange object. “I’ll put everything back in here in just a minute, but first I wanted to show you something important.”

“S-sure,” Rarity replied, turning her head away from the table to let out a few more bitter coughs.

Taking a screwdriver, he pointed at a rather large cylinder taking up most of Sweetie’s chest. “This is a magic capacitor,” he said, as if that meant anything at all to Rarity.

Stealing a glance at Short Circuit, Rarity turned her attention back to the cylinder. “Um… okay.”

With a sigh, Circuit said, “She doesn’t have a heart or lungs or anything like that. Instead, she’s powered by a capacitor and a battery.”

The nonchalant way he said that she didn’t have a heart tore through Rarity. She bit her tongue to prevent taking more of her frustrations out on the only pony willing to even try to save Sweetie. Not trusting her voice, she just nodded.

“The battery is here,” he said, pointing to a boxy thing taking up the majority of what should have been Sweetie’s stomach. “It can maintain all her physical functions.” Pulling a cord, he showed Rarity a perfectly ordinary plug. “Just plug it in and let it charge. Should take about six hours. At the moment, it looks to be just about completely drained.”

“Okay,” Rarity said, her mood lifted by something she could understand.

He went on to explain, “She can run on the battery alone, but you’ll need to charge the capacitor with your magic for her to maintain complete function. It doesn’t last all day like the battery, so you might need to charge it two or three times a day.”

“Does it have a plug, too?”

Groaning, Short Circuit pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is powered by magic. It will even let her use that magic through her horn. You charge it by pushing your magic into it. Give it a try.”

“I can touch it?”

“Just with your magic,” he replied. “And only the capacitor.”

Taking a deep breath, Rarity fixated on the dull, metal cylinder. While an unexpected relief washed over her to actively take part in helping Sweetie, she also felt a great trepidation about how finicky Short Circuit was about everything—as if the slightest tap on anything would irrevocably damage her. Rarity took the plunge, reaching out with her magic toward the cylinder.

“Good, just try to push your magic inside it,” he said. “You should feel your magic just sort of… disappearing.”

Sure enough, the magic seemed to fall away, and Rarity struggled to keep up as it felt as though the capacitor was sucking the magic right out of her. As the magic left her body, the dull metal began to take on a blue hue, glowing ever-so-slightly. This went on for only a few seconds before Rarity snapped her horn off. She panted and rubbed her aching horn. “What… was that?”

“About 20 percent of the total capacity,” Short Circuit said as he looked at the capacitor. “Just remember how you did it, and make sure you remember where the capacitor is. You should be able to charge her even with this compartment closed.” He then turned his attention back to the strange object before him.

“Was there anything else I could help with?” Rarity asked, begging for a chance to do something more to help Sweetie.

Short Circuit shook his head, though his eyes never left his work. “I just wanted to make sure you knew how to take care of her. I’ll have everything back together in no time.”

A bit of hope bubbled up to the surface, granting Rarity a smile. “Then we can wake her up?”

Again, Short Circuit shook his head. “You’ll want to charge her for at least a couple of hours. I imagine this afternoon will be a long one; don’t want her shutting down in the middle of it.”

And just like that, a new dread crushed her hope. Rarity had been so obsessed with just getting Sweetie Belle back that she didn’t even think about what might happen afterward. Just how would she explain to Sweetie why she’s trapped in this horrific body?

Pushing away from the table, Rarity turned and fled. She didn’t have far to run, given that she couldn’t very well leave the boutique. Not with Sweetie Belle here.

Rarity stopped dead the moment her eyes caught a glimpse of the bundle, still wrapped in the cloak Rarity wore back from that burned out nightmare, sitting on the couch. Part of her wanted to run away. To run away and never return to see the ghastly reminder of her indelible sin. But that still bundle represented only the shadow cast by a shining ray of hope. Sweetie was dead, but not gone. Rarity had made sure of that.

With steady and deliberate steps, Rarity pried her attention from the couch and back to her workstation. Work remained to be done. A few final touches to perfect the hide for Sweetie was the least she could do for imprisoning her innocent soul in that ghastly equoid.

There she sat, Sweetie Belle in that horrid false body, a cord linking her to the wall like a lamp. Short Circuit finished up quickly, true to his word, but then he insisted that Sweetie not be awakened just yet. She needed to be fully charged, he claimed. Worse, he left to return to the hospital, leaving Rarity with sparse few instructions. Try to keep pushing magic into Sweetie’s breast where that cylinder was, and let her charge for a few hours. Nothing more, and he just left.

So now Rarity stood, looking down at the lifeless thing that her sister had become—that Rarity prayed Sweetie had become. Even the costume did little to console Rarity. Sure, Sweetie looked a lot closer to how she should, but all Rarity’s efforts couldn’t hide that cord. And no appearance would hide what Rarity knew lay underneath it all. Not flesh and blood with a beating heart, just tubes and wires and… metal.

Rarity curled up next to the motionless equoid. Just as she suspected, Sweetie was stiff. Stiff and cold. Despite her unrelenting desire to awaken Sweetie and set her anguished mind to even a fitful rest, Rarity didn’t even know how to wake Sweetie. All she could do was to hope that she would awaken on her own when she had, as Short Circuit put it, recharged.

Until then, all Rarity could do was wait. Wait, and hope. As she had already done a few times before, she reached out with her magic to find that it disappeared deep within Sweetie’s chest. After just a few seconds, she found herself at her limit and the glow accenting her horn faded. Rarity barely had a moment to register the ache in her horn before her chest tightened, forcing a few painful coughs from her throat. Following the burning sensation in her throat, a bitter, metallic taste rose in the back of her mouth.

“I feel awful,” she muttered, gasping.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Rarity started from a dead sleep she didn’t remember being in. It took her a few moments to realize that the noise was somepony pounding on the door. At first, a bit of hope rose in her that Short Circuit had returned, but that evaporated when a purple glow appeared on the door chain. The chain slid off, then the deadbolt turned.

Before the door even fully opened, Twilight shouted for Rarity. She burst in, flanked by Rarity’s parents. The best Rarity could do was stand in front of Sweetie and pray that they were all completely blind.

“Oh my goodness, Rarity!” Twilight said as she rushed over to her, cupping Rarity’s face with her hooves. “What were you thinking, running out of the hospital before you were better?” Then, Twilight’s eyes went wide as her hooves fell away. “Is… is that…?” she muttered as she stepped aside.

“No! I-I mean, yes,” Rarity stammered out her reply. “It’s complicated.”

“Is that our little filly?” Cookie asked, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

Twilight shook her head as she looked Sweetie over. “This is just a doll dressed up to look like her.” Then, she turned her gaze on Rarity, a dreadfully somber expression falling over her features. “Rarity, where is Sweetie Belle?”

Rarity felt all eyes on her. “It’s hard to explain,” she said as she thrust a hoof in the direction of the equoid, “but this is Sweetie Belle. There-there was this stallion, you see, and—”

“Yes, Short Circuit. I know,” Twilight said, glaring at Rarity. “I don’t know what he told you, but that—” Twilight nodded in the equoid’s direction “—is not Sweetie Belle.”

“That is Sweetie, and how do you even know about Short Circuit?” Rarity shot back.

Twilight squared up to Rarity. “Applejack pulled you out of his burning house! Then, you leave the hospital before you even have a chance to recover and—” Cutting off her own rant mid-sentence, Twilight took a step back as she took a long breath in and out. “I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through, Rarity. This is a very difficult time for all of us. It’s just I… Where is Sweetie Belle?”

Rarity’s eyes flitted about, trying to remember her rescue from the burning basement. The memories eluded her. “I-I-I, no,” Rarity stammered as she snapped back to the present. A few coughs into her foreleg, and Rarity again pointed to the equoid. “This is Sweetie Belle. I know it sounds daft, but Short Circuit really saved her. She’s… Sweetie’s in there.”

Hondo took a tentative step toward the equoid. “I-is it really possible?”

“Yes!” Rarity quickly replied. “Just… here.” Jumping to close the small gap between her and Sweetie Belle, she reached out to shake Sweetie’s shoulder. “Wake up, Sweetie.”

She did not stir.

“C-come on, Sweetie…” Rarity urged again, this time using both of her forehooves to shake the equoid. “Sweetie Belle! Wake up!”

Using a firm hoof, Twilight pulled Rarity away from her desperate ministrations. “Rarity. Stop this.” Twilight pulled Rarity’s chin, forcing Rarity to lock eyes with her. “What Short Circuit promised you is impossible,” she said, her voice resolute. “There is no technology, no magic, that can even come close to doing what he says he did. Trust me. I would know.”

“But he did it!” Rarity snapped back. “I heard her. I know-I know she’s in there!”

Twilight kept Rarity from turning back to the equoid by grabbing her hoof. “Rarity, look at yourself,” she firmly said. “Really look.”

“I-I-I know that I’m frazzled,” Rarity muttered, again looking over at the equiod. “I haven’t really slept, and I know I must look a sight, and—”

Twilight tugged Rarity’s foreleg, eliciting a yelp of pain from the weary Unicorn. “Rarity! Look at yourself.”

Finally looking down at her leg, she found a pink smear across her fetlock. Before she could puzzle it for too long, another coughing fit forced her to pull it in to cover her mouth. Then, when she again raised it to examine the splotch, she found a bevy of new, red flecks. The room seemed to spin as the realization washed over her. “H-how?”

“You need to go back to the hospital, but we need to know where Sweetie Belle is. Please, Rarity. We want to help you,” Twilight begged.

“Let me,” Cookie said, pushing Twilight aside. Wasting no time, she stared into her daughter’s bleary eyes. “Where is Sweetie…” Stopping momentarily to clear her throat, she continued, “Where is her body?”

Though Rarity stifled her mouth, she couldn’t stop herself from looking over at the bundle on the couch. Her mother darted there, but Rarity made no move to stop her. She just hung her head. At the sound of her mother’s anguished cry, Rarity’s ears pinned back and she knew that her sister’s body had been discovered. In her heart, she knew that she would have to deal with it, but she hoped so much that she would prove Sweetie Belle was okay before then. Why didn’t she stir?

“Mother, you have to understand—” Rarity stopped mid sentence when she looked up to find that her mother wasn’t there. In place of her parlor, Rarity found herself in a hospital room with Twilight.

Twilight fixed her with a hard glare. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice firm. “I know you’re worried about your family, but you need to worry about yourself, first.”

Rarity reared up before stomping both her forehooves on the cold tile. “They don’t understand! You-you don’t understand!”

“You know what, I don’t,” Twilight retorted. “I can’t even imagine. But, what I do understand is that, if you keep up like this, no doctor in Equestria will be able to save you. Just like Sweetie Belle.”

Raising her hoof, Rarity swung at Twilight only to have her hoof stop an inch short, wrapped in purple magic. With an unladylike grunt, she tugged on her leg, but it wouldn’t budge. “Let. Me. Go.”

Twilight stepped closer, bringing her muzzle a hair’s breadth from Rarity. She met Rarity’s icy glare with a firm stare of her own. “No. You are my friend, Rarity. I will never let you go. Not if it means letting you destroy yourself.”

The magic faded, and Rarity withdrew her hoof, ignoring the flitting urge to strike Twilight. “If only you’d have gone so far to save Sweetie,” she retorted, stepping by Twilight and toward the door. Before she could make it more than a step, a nurse and doctor appeared in the doorway, blocking the only exit.

Rarity refused to turn around and face Twilight. Looking down at her foreleg, she felt her breath slip away at the sight of the bloody smear. Unable to help herself, she covered her mouth as another coughing fit overtook her. “You can’t…” Rarity gasped in between her coughs. “You can’t keep me here.”

Twilight stepped back in front of Rarity, her steely glare never leaving Rarity’s eyes. “Rarity, you will stay here until the doctors give you a clean bill of health, or I will find a way to keep you here. Don’t make me do that.”

Too short of breath to argue further, Rarity relented.

With all the speed of a glacier, a menagerie of doctors and nurses spent eternal hours just to tell Rarity she was having lung problems thanks to all the smoke she’d inhaled. Worse, she couldn’t get anypony to tell her when she would be cleared to leave. Every minute here was torture. Her parents had to be heartbroken thinking that Sweetie had perished completely. Twilight refused to listen to reason and she dragged her away before she could explain to her parents that Sweetie had survived.

She couldn’t take much more waiting. When she’d given in to Twilight’s demands, she was certain that they’d release her in a matter of minutes. Minutes turned to hours, and now threatened to keep her overnight if she stayed much longer. If the next doctor or nurse wouldn’t give her the okay to leave, she’d leave on her own.

When the door opened, an unfamiliar face in a white coat stepped in. With a flash of a smile, the black stallion with an icy blue mane walked up and grabbed Rarity’s chart. “So, this is the mare so eager to leave,” he said in way of a greeting as he flipped through the chart. As he set the chart aside, his smile only grew. “Well, have I got some good news for you.”

Rarity sat up. “I can leave?”

“Not yet,” he said. Before Rarity could protest, he held up a hoof to stop her. “You’ll be clear to leave after pharmacy gets you an inhaler and we will need you to fill out your discharge paperwork.” Sliding the chart back into place, he slipped a small notebook from his white coat and took a seat at Rarity’s bedside. “Oh, and I do need to be able to give you a clean bill of health.”

“My breathing is much better now, thank you,” Rarity replied in a rush as she threw her sheets aside.

The stallion shook his head. “I’m not that kind of doctor,” he said, the enigmatic smile never leaving his face. “I’m the psychiatrist here. The name’s Ephemeral Mote, but everypony just calls me Mo.”

A low growl escaped Rarity’s throat despite the burning pain the action caused. “Twilight put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“Anypony who has suffered a great loss needs somepony to talk to. Not just friends of the Princess,” Mo replied, his voice even.

“That’s not what I meant!” Rarity retorted.

Mo wasn’t fazed by the hostile tone. Still smiling, he replied, “What did you mean, then?”

A long breath in and Rarity let out an unladylike sigh. She sat back in her bed. “Fine. If you have something to say, then say it. The sooner I get home, the better.”

“This isn’t a lecture, Rarity,” Mo said with a shake of his head. “It’s a conversation.”

Frowning, Rarity crossed her forelegs over her chest. “I’ve been here for hours. Sweetie could’ve already woken up, all alone, by now. Please, let’s just get this over with.”

“Sweetie?” Grabbing a quill in his aura, he grabbed a pad and scribbled a bit. “You mean Sweetie Belle? Your little sister.”

“Yes, of course.”

Mo flipped back through his notes. “I-I could’ve sworn you knew… That’s…” Clearing his throat, he leaned in. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but—”

“She’s not dead,” Rarity said, purposefully cutting him off.

Mo’s expression faltered ever-so-slightly as he flipped through his notes. Clearing his throat, that saccharine smile reappeared in all its glory. “Why don’t you tell me about Sweetie Belle, then? How is she?”

Rarity’s voice died in her throat. That was one response she did not expect. Did he really believe her, or was this just some sort of mind game? “Sweetie is… If I have any luck at all, Sweetie is still sleeping. Celestia help her if she’s woken up alone.” Rarity buried her face in her hooves. “I’d never forgive myself if she wakes up like that. All alone. I’ll never forgive Twilight!”

“Forgiveness is important,” Moe said, reaching out a hoof to pull Rarity’s legs away from her face. “Is that not what you seek?”

“No,” Rarity replied, swiping away the few tears that escaped her eyes. “I would never hope for Sweetie to forgive me. Not after what I’ve done.”

Mo nodded as he scribbled in his notebook. “You are referring to your abduction of Sweetie from the hospital.”

“No,” Rarity curtly replied. “That was a means to an end.”

“And what end was that?”

“To save Sweetie Belle, of course!” Rarity threw her forehooves into the air. “Nopony here was going to even try to save her.”

A grimace tugged at Mo’s warm smile. “There is only so much that can be done.”

“Hmph.” Rarity again tugged her forelegs against her chest. “Twilight could’ve saved her if she really wanted, and nopony here even wanted to try.” Her teeth ground together as her gaze fell. “Even mother and father…” When Rarity’s gaze again rose to meet Mo’s, he found a wild glare in Rarity’s ice-blue eyes. “I refused.”

A few more notes, and Mo looked back to the torrential storm behind Rarity’s eyes. “So you took her.”

“I saved her,” Rarity replied. After a moment, she looked away as she added, “Most of her.”

“I’m sorry, ‘most of her?’”

Again tugging her lip between her teeth, Rarity relented a nod. “Her… her body was too far gone. But her mind, her soul, they’re okay now.”

Mo couldn’t keep his warm expression. An eyebrow crept up as he sent a puzzled look Rarity’s way. “How?”

Rarity shook her head. “I don’t know. Ask Short Circuit. He’s back in his room, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Mo replied, his pen twirling across the paper at a rapid pace. “What do you know?”

“I know Sweetie is trapped in that awful equoid, and if she has to wake up like that alone…” Rarity trembled as she seethed. “Let me leave already!”

Instead of addressing the last comment, Mo stepped back to Rarity’s previous statement. “‘Equoid?’ What is that?”

Rarity shook her head. “I don’t know!” she snapped. “Go ask Short Circuit.”

Breathing a deliberate breath in and out, Mo replied in a calm manner, “Please, Rarity. I’m just trying to help you.”

The door to the room opened before Rarity could retort. “Hey, uh, am I interruptin’?” Applejack asked as she stepped in.

“Applejack!” Rarity greeted as she sat up higher. “Please tell this-this… him that I’m good to go home!”

Applejack sent Mo a puzzled look, and he just shook his head in turn. “This is a private session—”

“No,” Rarity cut him off. “I’m done with all of this. I won’t wait here another minute. Sweetie’s almost certainly woken up by now.”

“What?” Applejack asked as her eyes widened. “Do you mean it worked? What about the fire?”

“She survived,” Rarity replied as she got up, brushing by Mo. “She’s back at the boutique. All alone.”

Mo quickly rounded Rarity, cutting her off at the door. “Please, Miss Rarity. I implore you to stay for the session.”

Rarity got right up in his face. “Let me assure you, I am quite finished here.”

“Rare, if you gotta stay, you probably should,” Applejack interrupted. “I can go and sit with Sweetie Belle if’n yah need me to.”

“You don’t understand,” Rarity said, turning back to Applejack. “She hasn’t woken up yet. She’s going to awaken in…in that thing! I have to be there for her!”

Biting her lip, Applejack looked back over to Mo, who begged with his eyes for Applejack to convince Rarity to stay. With a sigh, Applejack shook her head. “Rarity seems fine to me. Is she really so sick that she’s gotta stay?”

Mo sent a glance to Rarity before turning back to Applejack. “Physically, she has recovered well, but there are concerns regarding her…emotional wellbeing.”

“She’s just scared about her sister,” Applejack replied. “Anypony would be.”

Inching closer to Applejack, Mo held up a hoof to hide his voice from Rarity. “Sweetie Belle has passed. They brought her body back here to the morgue earlier today.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. Making no effort to hide the volume in her voice, Applejack said, “Didn’t Rarity tell yah? She and that creepy Unicorn fella put Sweetie in that big doll-thing.”

Mo’s head whipped around, looking between Applejack and Rarity several times before settling his gaze on Applejack. “Y-you’re telling me that Sweetie really is in this 'equoid' thing?” While Applejack just nodded, Rarity’s eyes rolled. “Okay, okay.” Mo relented, stepping away from the door. “I’ll let you off the hook, but you have to promise to come back tomorrow for a follow-up, okay?”

Mo barely heard an affirmative from Rarity before she bolted, with Applejack close behind her. Pulling out his notepad, he scribbled a single word. “Who am I supposed to talk to about this?” he wondered aloud, his pen tapping on a single underlined word: Necromancy?

“Finally!” Rarity all-but-shouted as she raced down the hall. “Just wait, Sweetie. I’m coming.”

“Hold your horses, Rarity!” Applejack shouted after her. Rarity slowed to a brisk trot to allow Applejack to catch up. “I get it that you’re rearin’ to get back to Sweetie, but I’m really worried about all this. Just what the hay is goin’ on?”

“First, everypony refuses to help save Sweetie. Now, it’s as if they’re all actually wanting her to be dead,” Rarity replied.

“I just don’t know that I really believe all that,” Applejack replied.

Rarity tried to retort, but she stumbled. Halting from a trot to a walk Rarity spasmed as powerful coughs rocked her body. Finally, she had to stop altogether as she tried to get air into her lungs that wasn’t immediately expelled.

“E-easy now,” Applejack said, rushing to Rarity’s side. Giving her a few well-intentioned whacks on the back, Applejack asked, “Do you need me to get a doctor?”

Giving her head a shake, Rarity managed to quell the fit, if only a bit. Rarity wheezed and gasped between a few, intermittent coughs. “I-I’m okay,” she choked out.

“You gotta take it slow, Rare,” Applejack said as she rubbed Rarity’s back. “You’re not in any shape to be rushin’ about.”

Rarity pushed Applejack away as she stood. “I don’t have time to sit here and rest.” With a few more coughs, she again started off, though this time, she kept her pace restrained to a trot. “Sweetie is waiting for me.”

“I thought you’d be here sooner.”

The familiar voice stopped Rarity in her tracks, causing the trailing Applejack to crash into her flank. “Short Circuit?” she asked, turning her head to find herself outside his room. Inside, the tech-savvy Unicorn lay hooked up a machine and several tubes leading to a menagerie of bags of various colors.

“Something about that guy rubs me the wrong way,” Applejack muttered, her ears falling back as she looked to the gravely ill Unicorn.

Rarity rolled her eyes at the comment. Instead of addressing Applejack, she put on a smile for Short Circuit. “I wish I could stay and chat, but I really must get back to Sweetie as soon as possible.”

Short Circuit raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t here to ask me how to wake her up?”

Her eyes widening, she glanced over at Applejack to find her friend giving her a puzzled expression she was sure matched her own. “Just what are you saying?” Rarity asked, her curiosity compelling her into the room.

Struggling to sit up, Short Circuit gave Rarity a weak, pained smile. “You haven’t tried to rouse her, yet?”

The memory of her trying to wake Sweetie to show everypony that she was okay flashed through her mind. “I… I thought she just needed to, well, charge.”

Short Circuit just breathed out a weak chuckle. “That’s a part of it, I guess.”

“And the other part?” Rarity all-but demanded.

Resting his head back, Short Circuit closed his sunken eyes. “Do you remember when we went back in after the fire? She started up, but the soot would’ve caused a whole mess of problems if she’d stayed like that, so I issued a command to put her in an emergency shutdown state.”

“What the hay is he goin’ on about?” Applejack asked, maintaining a healthy gap between herself and the bedridden Unicorn.

“No idea,” Rarity flatly replied.

With a sigh, Short Circuit opened his eyes. Then he reached over and pulled out a notebook. Flipping through several pages filled with scribbled ink, he found a page and ripped it free. “I designed the equiod with several voice-activated emergency commands. They have a variety of effects on the equoid and, in some cases, the soul sphere itself.” The page floated over in front of Rarity. “This is only a few of the commands, but a few that I think might be useful to you. The first one is the same that I used to put her into an unwakeable sleep. The only way to override it is with that second phrase that forces her to wake.”

“S-so Sweetie Belle will only wake up if I say this out loud?” Rarity asked as she took the sheet in her own aura.

“That command will always rouse her, so long as her battery or capacitor hold a charge,” Short Circuit explained. “After that, she should be able to sleep and wake on her own.”

Rarity gave him a half-hearted nod as she skimmed the scribbles, trying to make out not only what the words said, but what they meant. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

Short Circuit held up the notebook. “I’m getting down everything I can think of when I can,” he said as he idly flipped a few pages with his magic. “I’ll give it to you when I’m finished.”

After breathing a sigh of relief that Sweetie had not awaken all alone, a surge of anger overtook her. “Why didn't you tell me all this before!”

Short Circuit responded with a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. “It didn't strike me that she was locked in suspension until after I got back here.”

Rarity held a hoof to her forehead. Trying to talk to Short Circuit about all this was turning out to be about as productive as talking to Twilight about chemistry or physics. Just thinking about the lavender Alicorn made Rarity’s jaw clench. Blowing out an angry puff of air through her nose, Rarity did her best to excuse herself politely, “Well, thank you for giving me this.” She held up the paper for emphasis. “But I really must be going. I simply cannot wait any longer to start fixing all the damage that’s been done.”

After leaving the hospital, which took her far longer than she would have liked, Rarity started for home with Applejack in tow. Rarity found herself limited to an ambling pace. Even with the inhaler they’d given her before her discharge, she didn’t dare risk another episode that might give Applejack a reason to drag her back to the hospital. At least home wasn’t far, and Sweetie wouldn’t awaken all alone.

Still, even with her house close to the hospital, the slow walk seemed to drag on forever. For the first time since what seemed like an eternity, Rarity’s mind wasn’t screaming with dread and fear. A glance to her likewise silent companion, and Rarity found herself fixated on Applejack’s mane, laying as always, haphazardly over her back secured by a single, red band. The only thing different was the tinge of black at the tips. A light singe was nothing compared the horror of her own mane—it would have to be cropped for sure. It would take weeks for it to regrow to its former glory, if not longer. Rarity slowed to a stop as she tugged her hair to see it with her own eyes. Sure enough, all the ends were burnt and split. Up until now, it hadn’t even registered with her just how awful she must’ve looked.

“You okay, Rare?” Applejack asked, stopping as well.

Again, Rarity’s eyes fixated at the tip of her ponytail. “I… I’m terribly sorry, Applejack.” The orange mare just scratched her head, tilting her Stetson just a bit. “You saved my life, and I never stopped to thank you. I… Thank you.” Rarity reached over, wrapping her hooves around Applejack’s neck. “Thank you.”

Letting out a chuckle, Applejack ran a soothing hoof down Rarity’s back. “Shucks, I wasn’t even sure if yah knew I was the one that went and pulled yah outta there. And hey, it ain't like ya’ll wouldn't’a done the same for me.”

“Without a second thought,” Rarity replied, giving Applejack a good squeeze before letting go. “Still, you saved my life. Honestly, I don't know if Short Circuit would’ve been able to save Sweetie without me. So, in a way, you saved her, too.”

Applejack grabbed her hat, pulling the brim low. “Yah give me too much credit. This whole Sweetie Belle thing… You’re the one that saw it through.”

Rarity shook her head as she got up. “There’s still more to see,” she said, turning her gaze to the boutique down the street. “It’s not through, yet.”

Awakening

Chapter 08: Awakening

“So this is Sweetie, now, huh?” Applejack asked as she stood before the equoid. “She seems… similar, I guess.”

Rarity sighed, tugging the power cord free before stowing it back into the equoid’s body. “You don't have to try to make me feel better about this. I'm not blind.”

“It scares me a little,” Applejack replied with a shake of her head. “Can’t really place it, but it’s kinda creepy.”

With a disapproving hum, Rarity gave a small nod. “I did the best I could to make her look normal. Just don’t mention that when she wakes up.” Grasping the torn page in her magic, Rarity floated it over in front of herself. “Thank you for being here. I know this whole equoid thing makes you uncomfortable.”

Taking a step away from Sweetie, Applejack bit her lip. “Are yah sure you’re ready for this?”

“I need to hear her voice again,” Rarity replied without a moment’s hesitation. Then, she cleared her throat before reading from the paper, “Activate override protocol: breakfast is signaled with a silver spoon!”

“Hrrng?” Sweetie Belle stirred with a petite groan. The voice was absent of the buzzing from before. Her eyes blinked open, revealing emerald-colored irises cut with lines reminiscent of a camera’s shutter. “Rarity?” she asked, raising a hoof to rub the sleep from her eyes. “Why am I in your workroom?”

Smiling through her tears, Rarity shook her head. “Never mind about that!” Without another word, she lunged over, wrapping her hooves around Sweetie. “It’s okay now. It’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re really hot,” Sweetie said, squirming a bit in her sister’s vise-like grip.

“I’m okay,” Rarity said as she dared to let Sweetie go. She did her best to wipe away her tears without Sweetie Belle noticing. “I’m okay.”

“More important, how’re you feeling, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, her eyes glued to the filly.

Sweetie’s head tilted a bit as her face scrunched up. “I’m fine. I mean, I think I had a nightmare, but I hardly remember it.” She held a hoof to her chin and her eyes trailed skyward. “I think I was stuck. I couldn’t move or see, but I could hear Rarity’s voice.”

Stepping between Sweetie and Applejack, Rarity tried to move the conversation away from that avenue. “I think what Applejack means is, does anything feel… different? Does it hurt anywhere?”

“Hurt?” Sweetie repeated the word, raising an eyebrow. Her brow furrowed as her memories came flooding back. “Wait.” Her eyes widened. “I fell!” Rearing up, she patted all over her barrel. “It really hurt, but… I’m okay now?” Continuing to look herself over, she let out a shriek when her eyes wandered to her flank. “My cutie mark! Where’s my cutie mark?” she cried out.

“Sweetie Belle, it’s okay,” Rarity said. “Just take a deep breath and try to calm down.”

Following her sister’s instruction, Sweetie opened her mouth to take a deep breath. None came. In or out, air refused to pass her lips. “I can’t breathe!” Sweetie shrieked. “I can’t breathe!”

Racing to put out the fire she started, Rarity reached out, cupping Sweetie’s face in her forehooves. “It’s okay! It’s okay,” she said, forcing her own voice to be calm, despite the panic in her own heart. “Just look at me. It’s okay.”

Shaking her head as much as Rarity’s hooves would allow, Sweetie’s voice trembled, “I can’t breathe. Am I gonna die?”

“No!” Rarity replied, this time her own fears showing in her voice. “No, Sweetie. You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me?”

Applejack stepped in, separating the panicking unicorns from each other. “Just… everypony calm down.”

“Calm down? I can’t breathe!” Sweetie shouted, her tiny hooves grasping at her throat. “How am I even talking?” A smile formed on her lips. “I’m dreaming! This is just another nightmare!”

“Sweetie, you’re not—” Rarity tried to reason with her, but Sweetie didn’t hear a word of it.

“Wake up! Wake up!” Sweetie screamed as she rapped her hooves against her head. The unnatural thunking sound made Applejack and Rarity wince. The sound didn’t register with Sweetie Belle. Instead, all she felt was the dull pain of hitting herself in the head. “Oww,” she muttered, rubbing her skull. A new panic washed over her. “That hurt.” Dreams don’t hurt.

Trembling, Sweetie Belle turned back to her sister, a pained expression on her face. “What’s wrong with me?” she begged, her voice drowning in desperation.

Rarity embraced her. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she repeated the mantra, even as her voice hitched. Clutching her sister in a forceful embrace, Rarity rocked back and forth a bit. “It’s okay.”

The ministrations did little to soothe Sweetie Belle. “It’s not okay! What’s going on?” She pushed Rarity away, finding it easier than it should have been to shove her sister’s weight. “This isn’t a dream. Why can’t I breathe?”

Rarity only continued to recite her simpering mantra. Instead, Sweetie’s desperate gaze found Applejack. “I, uh…” Applejack started, breaking eye contact. “Yah remember the fall, right?” Though Sweetie didn't say anything, she gave Applejack a nod. A ragged sigh, and Applejack looked back at Sweetie Belle. “Yah didn't survive.”

“What?” Sweetie shrieked.

“Don’t say it like that!” Rarity shouted, stirring out of her desolate trance. “You’re still here with us!” she insisted, turning back to Sweetie. “You’re okay!”

Applejack kept her eyes locked on Sweetie. “Just… look in the mirror,” she replied to Sweetie, pointing over at one of Rarity’s full-body mirrors.

A powerful dread shook Sweetie as she looked toward the mirror. At this point, she didn't even want to look down at her hooves, let alone her reflection. If she were dead, how was she still here with her sister? Why couldn't she breathe? And why didn't her chest ache, begging for air?

Her curiosity burning, she found the drive to walk over to the mirror. She half-expected to see a ghost, or even no reflection at all. Instead, she saw a twisted version of her own reflection. Her facial features struck her as both familiar and alien. Her eyes, though. The reflection’s eyes weren’t her eyes. They weren’t eyes at all.

“Wh-what… I don’t,” she muttered, her head shaking almost imperceptibly. Her tiny hoof reached out, touching the smooth glass. It almost seemed surreal, watching the reflection match her every movement.

Rarity draped a leg over Sweetie’s withers. “Sweetie, it’s okay.”

Sweetie shrugged the hot leg off of herself. “No! It’s not okay!” Spinning around, she squared up to Rarity. “What happened? What am I?”

“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity whispered, her voice trembling and fresh tears spilling from her eyes. “I…”

“Your sister saved you,” Applejack said, patting Rarity on the shoulder. “She did everything she could you help you.”

“This isn’t me!” Sweetie retorted. “I’m not me!”

“Yes! You are!” Rarity put both her forehooves on Sweetie’s shoulders. “You are Sweetie Belle!”

Sweetie shoved Rarity away again, but this time, the unnatural force of her shove caused Rarity to stumble back and fall to the floor. A fleeting pang of regret surged through Sweetie before being drowned in the sea of emotions coursing through her. “That’s not me!” She screamed as she thrust a hoof against the mirror. A high-pitched peal sounded as the hoof met the pane of glass.

Rarity shrieked, “Sweetie Belle!”

Recoiling, Sweetie withdrew her hoof to cover her head as glass shards rained down over her. She could feel it. The razor shards tearing through her skin. Her flesh yielded, splitting in several places.

It didn’t hurt.

Though she felt her skin parting, it didn’t hurt. She raised a foreleg to see not a single drop of blood. It wasn’t even skin. The cuts showed a white, smooth surface beneath a fabric. It wasn’t bone or even a foreleg. It was… something else. She grabbed the fabric with her hoof. Even though it felt like her skin, it wasn’t. The feeling of it stretch and tear made Sweetie flinch, but her driving emotions pushed her to rip the fabric free from her leg.

Neither flesh nor bone showed. Her leg was composed of solid, white material with soft, black stuff covering each joint. Sweetie screamed. Though unable to draw a breath, her screaming went on and on. Her heart didn't pound in her chest. Her eyes wouldn't even cry. So she screamed.

Then, silence. Crying out muffled wails, Rarity let the list of commands slip from her aura. She wasn't sure if it would work with Sweetie screaming like that, but sure enough, as soon as she stammered out the command, Sweetie lowered herself to the ground and was still.

“Is she okay?” Applejack asked.

Rarity shook her head, trying her best to suppress her sobs. “What have I done?”

Rushing over, Applejack snatched up the paper Rarity had dropped. Her eyes skimmed the page. She realized she hadn’t heard what Rarity said over Sweetie Belle’s screaming. “What did you do? What happened?”

“She’s sleeping,” Rarity replied, her voice still choked with regret.

Applejack let out a sigh. “Don’t scare me like that. For a second I thought…” She sighed again. “Thank goodness.”

“Don’t look so relieved!” Rarity snapped at her. The fire in her voice died away as she turned back to Sweetie’s still form. “You saw… You heard her.” Shards of fallen glass crunched beneath Rarity’s hooves as she stepped toward Sweetie Belle. “I knew. I knew this wouldn’t be easy for her.” A curtain of blue magic brushed away the glass shards from Sweetie’s false hide.

“Rare, this ain’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Rarity shouted back, though her eyes never left Sweetie Belle. “Look at how much pain I’ve caused her. Because I put her in there… because of me.”

Glass cracked under Applejack’s hooves as she shuffled over. “You’re not the one that hurt her,” she said, placing a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. The shuddering of silent sobs resonated through her hoof. “Look, Rare, it was that monster bird that hurt her. You saved her.”

Rarity shook her head. “At what cost?” Brushing a fetlock across her eyes, she breathed out a ragged sigh. “I can still hear her screaming.”

A painful constriction seized Applejack’s chest as the sound of Sweetie’s horrified screams echoed in her ears. She made a deliberate effort to pry her eyes off of Sweetie Belle. “She got hurt somethin’ awful, and the worse somepony gets hurt, the more painful it is. You managed to spare her life, but you can’t spare her the pain.”

“What do I do?” Rarity turned her teary eyes to Applejack, begging for an answer.

Applejack’s gaze fell away. “I… I don’t know.”

The only sound that could be heard in the Carousel Boutique was the drone of a sewing machine. Rarity drew the flexible fabric that served as Sweetie’s skin through the machine, mending the various rips and tears left by the falling glass. Applejack had left nearly an hour ago, agreeing to talk to Rarity’s parents about Sweetie Belle. Rarity hoped that with her parents for support, it might be easier for Sweetie Belle to adjust. Either way, her parents needed to know the truth.

Sighing for what had to be the thousandth time since Applejack left, Rarity pulled the repaired fabric free from her sewing machine. It wasn’t that she was unsatisfied with her work. Even under the crushing weight of her anxiety, Rarity managed to seal up the tears with nary a visible seam. No, it was the memory of Sweetie tearing at those holes in a fit of abject horror that plagued her so. Even if her parents were here, how could they help to ease Sweetie’s pain?

Clutching the skinsuit tight to her breast, Rarity dared to peek over at the naked equoid. Sweetie’s screams still echoed in Rarity’s ears. No matter how perfect the disguise, that wretched body now housed her sister’s spirit. How could Sweetie ever come to accept that? Rarity knew that, were it her and not Sweetie, she never could.

A pounding on the door tore Rarity from her anguished thoughts. “Applejack! It’s about time!” she called out as she wiped at her wet cheeks. Her blue aura pulled at the door’s handle, flinging it open with haste. Rarity’s tentative smile vanished, replaced with a malicious scowl. “Twilight Sparkle.”

The alicorn met her with a smile and a wave. “I heard you got released from the hospital. Properly, this time. I just wanted to stop by and make sure everything is okay.”

Rarity matched Twilight’s smile with a flawlessly saccharine one. “Everything is just peachy, darling,” she said in her sweetest tone before grabbing the door with her hoof and slamming it shut in Twilight’s face.

“Okay. I probably deserved that,” Twilight muttered. Silence met Rarity for several seconds before a softer series of knocked echoed from the door. Twilight shouted, “Can you let me in, please? I just… I wanted to apologize to you.”

Rarity lingered behind her door. Her teeth clutched at her lip as the memories of Twilight’s offenses flashed through her mind. Twilight refusing to prevent Sweetie’s injury. Refusing to save Sweetie’s life. Refusing to do anything but watch as her precious baby sister’s body failed her. Angry words burned in her throat, trapped there by a thousand other memories—better memories—filled with happiness and trust.

“I’m sorry, Rarity,” Twilight said through the door. “I know you must be angry with me for the way I handled things. I admit that, perhaps, there might’ve been a better way, but I was just worried about you. All of your friends have been worried about you.”

“Then why haven’t any of you been helping me?” Rarity snapped back, flinging the door open to glare at Twilight. She roughly thrust a hoof into Twilight’s chest, forcing her to back away from the door. “Least of all you!”

The genuine, hurt expression on Twilight’s face dimmed Rarity’s fury, if only a bit. “I’ve been trying to do everything I can, really.”

“You’ve done nothing!” Rarity shouted stepping forward to match Twilight’s retreat. “You, and Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy have done absolutely nothing to help!”

“Rarity, I’ve been talking to doctors and lawyers and doing everything in my power to make sure you stay safe and well,” Twilight said. “And everypony else probably still thinks you’re in the hospital. I’m sure as soon word gets out—”

“Excuses!” Rarity barked.

Twilight’s ears fell back as she looked away. “You’re right. But you have to know that we all care about you. It’s just… it’s like we’re stuck watching you suffer. We all want to help you, but we’re just so afraid that, if we try, it’ll just end up making it worse.”

“At least Applejack tried! Even if it was trying to stop me at first,” Rarity argued. “She and Short Circuit are the only ones to help me at all! The only ones to even try to save Sweetie Belle!”

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. “I know you want to believe him. He even seems to believe it himself, but what he claims is absolutely impossible.”

“It’s not!” Rarity retorted with a stamp of her hoof. “He saved her! She’s alive!”

“She’s dead!” Twilight replied, matching Rarity’s fervor. After a moment, she softened. “She’s dead, Rarity. You need to accept that.”

“No!” Rarity shouted. She raised a hoof, poking Twilight in the chest again. “Talk! That’s all you are! You won’t even give Sweetie Belle a chance!”

“Rarity, Sweetie Belle is dead,” Twilight said, taking a step forward and forcing Rarity to withdraw her hoof. She never broke eye contact. “She died last night.”

“You’re wrong!” Rarity turned, thrusting a hoof through the doorway toward her parlor. “She’s right in there! But you won’t hear a word of it, will you?”

“It’s not her,” Twilight said, putting a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “I know you want to believe that it is, but it really just isn’t possible.” She shook her head. “You need to let it go. You need to let her go.”

Rarity threw Twilight’s hoof away with a shrug. “Since when were you so closed-minded?”

“It is scientifically impossible,” Twilight replied. “I know, I looked into it extensively after talking to Short Circuit. I even checked in with the best scholars in Canterlot. It. Is. Not. Possible.”

“How can you say that when you won’t even see for yourself? Hypocrite!”

Twilight growled. “Rarity, I know you want it to be her. You want her to be alive, but you’re just deluding yourself. You need to come to terms with this.”

“She’s alive! If you’d just—”

“She’s dead! You killed her!” The moment the words left Twilight’s mouth, her eyes went wide. “Rarity, I—”

“Leave!” Rarity roared, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sobbing, she turned and ran inside, kicking the door shut behind her. “Don’t you ever darken my doorstep again!” she shouted through the door.

Rarity raised her hooves to her ears trying in vain to silence the words so haunting her. The vehement apologies coming from the other side of the door failed to register over the echoing torment that first began tearing at her mind ever since she pulled that lever and the glass tube closed over Sweetie Belle, forever stopping her breathing. The fact tormented her every thought, but until now, never spoke itself aloud.

You killed her!

The words resonated through Rarity’s mind, repeating over and over again. “Stop it!” she cried aloud. Her guilt refused to release her. Her memories flashed by, forcing her to relive her failures. Seeing the bloodstained Rainbow Dash. Sweetie Belle, sickly and still in a hospital bed, only kept alive by tubes and wires. Her exhaustive argument with her parents to keep Sweetie tied up to those machines. Rarity didn’t keep her precious little sister safe. She couldn’t even keep her alive.

You killed her!

“No!” Rarity’s eyes shot open. Her gaze fixated on the still equoid. “I didn’t… I didn’t,” she whispered through the sobs choking her lungs and throat. Sucking in a lungful of air, she shouted with all her might, “I saved her!”

A long, deep breath and she quelled her sobs. “I saved her,” she said. “She’s alive.” She wiped at her wet cheeks as she stood. Twilight’s mocking accusation dwindled, and no sound met her from behind the door, either. “She’s alive,” she repeated herself as she set her sights on the equoid. A flick of magic brought the repaired skin before her. The voices in her head quieted, but the feelings and doubts remained.

Stumbling forward, Rarity stopped just before the sleeping equoid. Breathing out a few ragged breaths, she threw the pseudo-skin onto her sister, hiding the bare material and making her look almost like how Rarity remembered her. Before she desecrated her body and forced her soul into this cold, unfeeling machine.

Just one look at that body that now housed her sister’s precious soul spoke of an unforgivable sin. Applejack was right. What Rarity did to save Sweetie could only be described as sacrilege. Could Sweetie ever forgive Rarity’s desperate violation of her body and soul? Would Sweetie hate Rarity for forcing her to forever live in that monstrosity?

Rarity bit her lip until the metallic taste of blood reached her tongue. She shouted, “Activate override protocol: breakfast is signaled with a silver spoon!”

A soft hum emanated from the equoid as Sweetie Belle’s eyes opened. “Hnng,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

Her sister’s voice reached her ears at an uncomfortable volume. “Sweetie Belle!” Before Sweetie could even manage to fully wake up, her sister’s forelegs were around her, wrapping her in a hot, tight embrace. “Sweetie Belle.”

“Rarity?” Sweetie asked, squirming in the uncomfortable hug. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Rarity whispered, her grip slackening. “This is all my fault. I had to! I just… I couldn’t lose you.”

“What are you…” Her words fell away as her memories rushed back to her. A seeping dread spread throughout her as she remembered tearing away her own skin to find that underneath wasn’t a pony at all. “It wasn’t a nightmare?” She raised a foreleg to her face. There, where hair met hoof was a band. A band that was never there before. She fired up her horn and, sure enough, the skin pulled away. It was like an outfit she could feel. Perhaps just as worrisome, her once green aura now shone with the same blue as her sister’s.

“I can’t ask you to forgive me,” Rarity said, her voice wavering. Sweetie could feel Rarity trembling, too. “Just please, please don’t hate me for doing this to you. Please.”

“Rarity, what—I don’t—what happened to me?” Sweetie asked. Her sight fixated on the foreleg she could feel. The foreleg that was hers. The foreleg that wasn’t hers. The sight of her alien eyes in the mirror flashed through her mind. Though a crushing panic burned in her chest, it didn’t beg for air. Air she couldn’t breathe. “I don’t understand!”

Rarity shook her head. “It’s my fault,” she replied, squeezing Sweetie Belle tight. “Because I couldn’t let you go… because I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without you.”

Sweetie pried her sister away from herself with ease. “You’re not making any sense! What’s going on? What happened to me? Why?” she shouted, emphasizing the last demand with a thunderous stomp of her little hoof.

“This—” Rarity extended a foreleg, pressing her hoof gently to Sweetie’s chest “—this is your body now.” Rarity’s hoof fell away along with her bleary eyes. Sweetie watched tears fall from Rarity’s eyes and to the floor. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t save you, Sweetie Belle.” Rarity looked back up and gave her head a little shake. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Sweetie’s eyes struggled to find anything other than her sister’s crying, begging face. A cold, empty feeling spread throughout her as she remembered what Applejack said. The fall. “Applejack, she… she said that I died.” A painful feeling clenched in the back of her throat, begging for release, but no sobs came. “Is that… but how can I?”

“After your fall, the doctors couldn’t save you,” Rarity replied, sending fresh tears down her wet cheeks. “Twilight wouldn’t save you. I had to do something. I had to.” Reaching out, she placed her forehooves on Sweetie’s shoulders. “I was going to lose you, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I don’t understand!” Sweetie shrieked. “How am I still here if I…”

Rarity traced her hooves from Sweetie’s shoulders down to her tiny, trembling hooves. “We… I couldn’t save your body. It was too far gone, and I refused to let it take you along with it.” Letting go of her hooves, Rarity cupped Sweetie’s face to force her to make eye contact. “I put you in this one to save you. This is your body now. And I’m so, so sorry!” Rarity again pulled her into a tight hug.

“I… died,” Sweetie muttered, too numb to move. “I’m dead.”

The hug went from uncomfortable to painful as Rarity redoubled her grip. “No!” she screeched. “You’re right here. You’re not dead!”

Sweetie shook her head. The painful constriction failed to register over her numb realization. Her sister was warm. This close to her, she could feel every shuddering breath in and out. She could even feel the pounding in her sister’s chest. “No… I can feel your heart beating. But inside me… Nothing!” Her arms struggled against Rarity’s grip to wrap around herself. The empty feeling wouldn’t leave her. She opened her mouth to try to suck in air. Nothing. “I’m so scared, Rarity. I can’t… I can’t cry. I can’t breathe. My heart won’t beat!” Closing her eyes, wishing tears might come, she buried her head in her big sister’s chest. “What am I?”

“Alive!” Rarity replied. After a few seconds of silence, she slackened her grip to move a hoof to rub Sweetie’s back. “I… there is a stallion. Short Circuit. He made this body. He called it an equoid.”

Applejack trudged through Ponyville. Off in the distance, her destination waited for her: the Carousel Boutique. The dwindling sunlight shone through the windows, giving a warm, welcoming glow. But the bright, alluring colors failed to speed Applejack’s shuffling hooves. Rarity trusted her to talk to her parents and have them come help support Sweetie, and she had failed. What was she supposed to say to Rarity?

Stopping in her tracks, Applejack tore her gaze away from the boutique, putting her sight skyward. A splash of color from a low, nearby cloud caught her eye. “Rainbow Dash, you catching 40 winks up there?”

The cloud shook. Rainbow Dash leaned over. “What? No, I was just… enjoying the view.”

There wasn’t a lick of confidence in her words. Judging from the bleariness of her eyes and the bits of hair still clumped together with wetness under her eyes, she was up there doing something she’d rather not confess. “You okay, Dash?”

“Well, no. Scootaloo is taking Sweetie’s death really hard. I really tried to help, but I think I just made things worse.” Rainbow Dash dropped from the cloud and landed next to Applejack. “She blames herself and I can’t convince her otherwise.”

“Sounds familiar.” Applejack glanced back over at the boutique. “There seems to be a lot of that goin’ on here recently.”

Dash sucked air through her teeth, making a hissing sound. “I guess Apple Bloom is going through a lot of the same, huh?”

Apple Bloom was having a hard time, though the thought of her hardly passed Applejack by all day. With all of the hullabaloo with Rarity, and the fact that Sweetie had indeed survived the fire, Applejack had been consumed with the matter at hoof. Apple Bloom would be so relieved to learn that Sweetie had survived, at least in some form. It just might put Scootaloo’s mind to ease, too.

Applejack’s eyes went wide. “That’s it!” she exclaimed, causing Dash to jump.

A few lazy flaps kept Rainbow’s hooves above the ground. “Uh, what?” she asked, scratching her head. “You got an idea to help Scoots?”

“Yeah.” Applejack nodded. “Her an’ Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, too. I reckon all they really need is to be together.”

Dash’s eyes shifted from side to side. “Just what are you talking about? They can’t all be together. Sweetie Belle… Sweetie’s gone.”

“Well, not quite,” Applejack replied. “Look, it’s a mite complicated, but Sweetie’s body was the only part of ‘er that went and kicked the bucket. Rarity and a right shady feller by the name of Short Circuit put her in this creepy doll-body thing.”

"You're pulling my leg, right?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I ain't." She pointed a hoof at the Carousel Boutique in the distance. "Sweetie is in there, stuck in that body that ain't hers and she's frettin' about it something awful. It’s downright unnatural, but Rarity insists it was the right thing to do."

"You're serious? She's in there? Alive?" Rainbow Dash asked, wide eyed.

"Yes, yes, and uh..."

Dash performed a midair backflip, coming close to crashing into Applejack. “This is great! Scootaloo will totally feel better when she sees Sweetie Belle alive!”

“Now, just hold yer—”

“Apple Bloom, too! I’ll go get ‘em!”

Applejack clutched her hat as a rush of wind blew over her. “Hold on, Dash!” she shouted at what was now a fading rainbow trail in the darkness. And, just like that, Rainbow had vanished from sight, half-cocked and not having a durn clue just how complicated things had gotten in just a few short hours.

“I really hope this works out,” Applejack muttered as she trudged once more toward the boutique. The welcoming blaze of sunset’s colors had gone, sunken into the long shadows of night. She’d failed in her duty to convince Rarity’s parents to leave the side of Sweetie’s corpse. In Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, she at least had a backup plan, but was it really such a good idea to throw those two innocent fillies into the middle of this atrocity?

Not like there was much of choice in the matter now. Dash wouldn’t wait around for two seconds to think through whether or not they should. Hay, she probably didn’t even hear Applejack when she mentioned that Sweetie wasn’t exactly Sweetie any more.

Arriving at Rarity’s door, she raised a hoof to knock, but hesitated. “Dash?” she muttered, as a shadow zipped by overhead.

“We’re back!” The bright words accompanied a booming landing, sending up plumes of dust as Rainbow Dash skidded to a halt next to Applejack. She pulled a wing back and leaned over, letting two fillies off of her back.

“Is Sweetie Belle really okay?” Apple Bloom asked, running up to Applejack with a big smile and wide eyes.

“She’s alive?” Scootaloo asked, taking only a small step away from Rainbow Dash. While Apple Bloom was looking a little rough around the edges, Scootaloo looked like ten miles of bad road. Her mane stood a frizzled mess, and her bleary, bloodshot eyes refused to look up.

As much as Applejack wanted to give the fillies a reassuring smile, she couldn’t even muster her grimace away. Seeing those two fillies so desperately looking to her for hope tore at her something awful. Applejack sighed, though it did little to ease the turmoil building in her chest.

“Sweetie’s in there,” Applejack said, putting a hoof on her little sister’s shoulder as she looked her in the eye, “but she’s far from okay. She’s gonna need both of ya’ll to be there for her.” Looking over at Scootaloo, she gave a nod. “I can count on the two of yah, right?”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo muttered.

“She’s gonna look different from how ya’ll might remember her,” Applejack said. “Rarity did all she could for Sweetie Belle, but nopony could’ve survived that fall. It was a miracle that Sweetie survived as long as she did.”

“I thought you just said Sweetie Belle was alive?” Apple Bloom asked, her brow furrowing as her eyes glistened.

“Her body couldn’t survive that awful fall. The only way Rarity could find to go and save her was to get her a brand new body.”

“She’s… I don’t understand!” Scootaloo shouted, her wings springing open as she stomped. “Is Sweetie Belle alive or dead?”

“I don’t reckon I know,” Applejack replied, hanging her head a bit. Then, she looked up to meet Scootaloo’s gaze. “Here’s what I do know. Rarity had to put her in a fake body to save her, and now she’s stuck in there. It ain’t her body and she’s scared and it’s gonna take a whole heap of help for her to adjust.” She looked down to Apple Bloom. “She needs you two right now—more than she’s ever needed you before.”

Getting up, she raised a hoof and let it rest on the door handle. “So, can I count on you two to help Sweetie Belle?”

“Yeah!” Apple Bloom replied.

When Scootaloo didn’t respond, Rainbow Dash gave her a nudge with her wing. “You okay, Scoots?”

“Sure,” Scootaloo said, her voice devoid of the energy and enthusiasm embodied by Apple Bloom. She stepped over to stand next to Apple Bloom. “Sure.”

Applejack looked over to Rainbow Dash, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. Dash, looking a mite unsure herself, just shook her head in reply. Sighing, Applejack turned back to the door. “Remember, it’s still Sweetie Belle, and she’s gonna need the two of you for support.” Raising a hoof, she rapped on the door.

Author's Note

Thanks to Mister Hypothetical for proofreading and ibanix for editing!