Men and Monsters: Syndication.

“She’s late.” Applejack mumbled, a tinge of frustration in her voice as she spoke.

Applejack lay against the tree she had met Pinkamena at the day prior, wearing her normal school outfit with her arms crossed and her eyes closed, her hat tipped forward covering most of her face.

It was roughly six in the morning, classes would be starting soon and a lot of students were entering the highschool a couple of blocks away for breakfast. Applejack was very worried about Pinkamena, she hadn’t heard from her since last night, and with the way she had to leave things, it just made her more worried.

If there was any truth to what Sunset told them about something that happened yesterday, that just made it more urgent that she needed to talk to her.

Applejack heard something move, she opened her eyes and looked around, but didn’t see anything different.

“Sorry I took so long, got caught up in some stuff.”

Applejack heard from the other side of the tree, recognizing her pink friend’s voice instantly. She didn’t seem to be wearing Blake’s mask this time, which made sense, no need for it now. Though she was more or less hiding behind her hood, making it hard to see more than her eyes and mouth. She felt the corners of her lips rise as a slight smirk came onto her face, letting out a sigh of relief that her friend was alive.

“As long as yuh make it, late’s better than dead.” AJ responded, a bit of her southern accent in her voice as she seemed rather relaxed.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Anyway, I more or less handled the sniper last night, but they aren’t dead. And I figured you should at least know, that was The Silent Killer.”

AJ’s smirk quickly changed to a scowl, if she had known that, she would have stayed there herself to kill them. This “Silent Killer” has killed at least a dozen of her men that she knows of, and now they’ve attacked one of her friends?

This needs to end, she was tired of losing people.

“Dammit Pinkie!” AJ growled, slamming her fist against the tree out of frustration as she turned around to face her. “Did you figure out who they were before you told me to leave?”

“I was pretty sure, yes. But, before you yell at me for making you leave,” She remarked, turning around to face AJ. “If you had stayed, nothing good would have come from it. You can’t move as quickly as me, it would have been too easy for them to shoot you before you could even shoot back. And even if you didn’t, even if they prioritized me, it wouldn’t have mattered. I could easily climb that building, you can’t. By the time you would have gotten into the building and gotten to the roof, the fight would have been over.”

AJ grit her teeth, knowing she was right. She slammed her fist against the tree again, hard enough this time to shake the tree, causing a lot of leaves to fall to the ground. Pinkamena’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, not knowing that Applejack had such borderline inhumane strength.

She’d even give Michael a run for his money, she was beginning to understand why The Syndicate would want to avoid a war with The Apples at all cost if a lot of them were that strong. She could only imagine what Big Macintosh would be capable of.

“Just cuz yer right, don’t make me less pissed off!” She growled, pulling her fist away from the tree, revealing that the wood around the place she hit was broken, leaving a dent in the tree.

Pinkamena noticed this, both impressed and now a bit afraid of Applejack. She knew Applejack was strong, but this was more than she thought, AJ was now on an ever increasing list of people she should not piss off.

“Well, there is good news.” Pinkamena said, putting her hands in her hoodie pockets as she made eye contact with the infuriated farmer. “The contract on me is sort of cancelled, everyone thinks that it was put up. But Discord decided to make sure it wasn’t, so I should be safe from bounty hunters, at least.”

Applejack glared back at her, but seemed to calm down at that. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, standing up straight and rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“I’m glad somebody helped with yuh stupidity. Discord might weird me out, but at least he’s good at his job.” She said as she reached into a pocket in her skirt, pulling out her phone and looking for something on it.

“I need to ask yuh something, please be honest with me.” She said having found what she was looking for on her phone, reading something and then turning it off and putting it back into her pocket. She looked Pinkamena in the eyes, a serious look in her eyes as she furrowed her eyebrows. “Did you...Did you almost kill Sunset?”

Pinkamena felt her heart drop, having completely forgotten about that, so much had happened since then. She should have assumed Sunset would tell them, why wouldn’t she?

“Yeah,” Pinkamena mumbled, turning her eyes downward. “I did. We were arguing about something, I lost my temper...and I nearly slashed her throat open. I ended up coming to my senses before I hurt her, but I came far too close. She knows I’m not entirely human, but that’s it.”

Applejack didn’t say anything, though she looked very tense. She put her hands on her hips and stood there for a few seconds with her eyes closed, thinking deeply about something. Then she let out an exasperated sigh, one that made it hard to tell whether she was disappointed or just tired.

“Why?” She asked, opening her eyes and keeping her gaze on Pinkamena.

Pinkmena looked up at AJ, pursing her lips in slight confusion.

“What?”

“I want to hear why yah got so angry, before ah decide whether ah should hit you. I know you Pinkie, you don’t lose yer temper over nuthin’. And ahm also certain that since you became a chimera, it's been a lot harder for yuh to control yerself. Yuh deserve the benefit of the doubt, so tell me. Why did yuh almost attack her? What were y'all arguing about that almost pushed yuh over the edge like that?”

Though her southern accent was stronger, Applejack was very serious. Pinkamena had no doubt that if AJ didn’t think she had a good reason, she’d hit her harder than anyone other than Michael did. Not just that, but she really didn’t want Applejack to be mad at her. She was the only one of her friends she could talk to, as much as she hated that.

Pinkamena felt a bit nervous, gulping slightly before she spoke. “We...at first she tried confronting me, she wanted to know what happened to me and she wanted to help me. Of course, you know I couldn’t tell her anything. I don’t know what The Syndicate would do, but I’m sure it’d be nothing good. I asked her about Rainbow Dash, I hadn’t seen her and was curious to why.

She told me that Rainbow Dash slowly began to distance herself, not just from you guys, but from everything. I asked why her and the others didn’t try to help Rainbow, and she told me that you guys were already so preoccupied with school and searching for me, that you guys didn’t have the time to. And when I heard that, I just…”

Pinkamena bit the inside of her cheek, both of her hands clenching into fist as they shook in anger. She scowled as her head lowered, her eyes focusing on a spot on the ground.

“It sounded like she was abandoned, like you guys just gave up on her. It was only made worse by the fact that I was the reason why, or at least part of it. I don’t blame you guys for not being able to help me, I don’t think there’s anything anyone could have done to save me. But I still felt...abandoned, and hopeless. I wanted anyone to be there, I hated being alone and I had to adapt or I would have died in there. Rainbow had to have started pulling away because of me being gone, which means I was the cause. Everyone was so focused on saving me that no one helped even though she was right there! And I…”

Pinkamena’s voice cracked as she felt the taste of blood enter her mouth, blood began to drip from her hands as her nails dug into her palm.

“I was so...enraged that something like that happened to someone else because of me, even if I had no choice in the matter. Now she could be somewhere dead, and it could have been prevented! I can’t even put into words how pissed I was at both her and myself for that, I was overwhelmed with so many emotions that for a moment I just...lost control. My rage took over and I almost killed her, I’m just really glad I came to my senses before I did. But,”

Pinkamena ground her teeth as she looked up at Applejack, her mouth curved into a snarl as the veins around her eyes pulsated, the edges of her pupils turned red. There was a look of anger on her face, but also deep shame.

“I...have no excuse, I should have more control over my emotions and my actions than that, especially for one of my closest friends. If you want to hit me because you’re angry at me, I’ll understand.”

AJ gave Pinkamena a stern glare, her sap green eyes analysing her. She felt a bit of fear as she saw the claws, being reminded of the monster that killed her parents. But she also felt anger, anger that her friend had almost lost control like that and almost killed one of her friends.

She inhaled deeply, before exhaling and walking forward, resting her hand on Pinkamena’s shoulder, noticing how tense she was. She seemed to tense up more at Applejack’s touch, like she was expecting to be hit. Pinkamena looked up at her, her face relaxing a bit as her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Calm down, your chimera’s showin’.” She said sternly, gesturing down to her hands, which the nails had been extended into claws and blood dripped down from them, small waves of steam emitting from her hands as they tried to heal.

Pinkamena looked down at her hands, her eyes widening when she unclenched her hands and saw her claws, she assumed her eyes were beginning to change color also.

“I’m...sorry,” She said solemnly as she closed her eyes, laying her arms down to her sides as she slowed down her breathing, feeling the familiar numbing cold of The Whispers coming over her, they were annoyingly selective on when they felt like helping her.

“It's just...after a while I stopped noticing it, it feels so natural now. I...really need to get better control of it, and my emotions. What happened with Sunset...can’t happen and I won’t let it happen again, I can promise you that much.”

Pinkamena’s expression hardened, her hands clenched as she looked at Applejack with resolve in her eyes.

Despite this, Applejack couldn’t help but feel a bit of pity as she looked at her old friend. This wasn’t a fate anyone deserved, so much as one of her best friends.

“I...ah won’t try to pretend to understand what you went through in The Syndicate, I’ve heard terrible things, and I’m sure there are things yuv gone through yuh can’t ever tell anyone. They’ve changed yuh, I’m just not sure yet if it’s for the best or worst. Becoming a chimera, losing your kin, and being forced to be the leader would be too sudden and too much for anyone. So,”

AJ had a dour expression on her face, her eyebrows furrowed as her voice got gritter and more serious.

“Maybe ah should be mad at yuh, but ah just can’t, not when you’re making yourself feel worse about it than I ever could.”

The small bit of tension left in Pinkamena left as she felt herself relax at Applejack’s words, Maud and her friends were all she had left. She hated making them feel like this and she hated how much she truly missed them. They were like family for her, which meant a lot to Pinkamena because her family was...dysfunctional to say the least. AJ was the only one who could know the truth, she couldn’t lose her.

“Applejack, th-”

“What were yuh planning to do today?” She said suddenly, crossing her arms as she looked at Pinkamena expectantly.

*Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Applejack isn’t really the touchy feely type, these past three months have made me forget little details like that.*

Pinkamena put her hands in her hoodie, finding it slightly difficult to get comfortable with the stuff in there.

“Well, after school I was going to start looking into what happened with Rainbow Dash, I owe her that much at least. I intend to try to get that done as early as possible, and then I was going to try to narrow down where The Silent Killer stays, assuming they aren’t constantly moving around.”

*That was true, but she didn’t want to tell Applejack that she could almost say for sure that Rainbow was dead. She just...needed to know who killed her and if it was for the reason she feared it was.*

Applejack had a skeptical expression on her face, scoffing slightly as she looked at Pinkamena.”Are yuh sure about that? I didn’t take yuh fer the detective type.”

“Well, before The Syndicate took me I wasn’t. But I’ve had to adapt, I need to always be watching my back and pay attention to everything, or else It’d be too easy for someone to take advantage of me. I think I can figure it out, if not, I do have The Syndicate’s resources. Until I fuck up as the leader, anyway.” She said half-jokingly, though there was a tone of seriousness despite the slight smirk.

AJ’s expression dropped to a disapproving frown, keeping eye contact with her, but also paying attention to her body language, almost like she was trying to read her.

“Nah, ah don’t think yuh will. Even before all this horseshit, ah always thought yuh were smarter than yuh let on. The fact that yuh survived everything and made it to this point proves me right, that or you’re devilishly lucky. Either way, I need to know something.”

Applejack got closer, her arms dropping to her sides as her gaze hardened, an earnest look on her face as her jaw tightened.

“This isn’t like Igneous, he deserved a lot worse than whatever you did to them. Whoever this Silent Killer is, they need to die, for everyone’s sake. Whether you find out who they are or not isn’t important, and I hate to ask this of you. But when you find them, I need to know that you won’t hesitate to kill them.” She said without her accent.

If you had to kill someone, would you hesitate?

Alice’s words echoed in her mind, whether that was the memory or Alice herself repeating it, she wasn’t sure. She had almost forgotten her conversation with Alice about the selective valuing of lives, and what she did to try to get that lesson instilled into her.

She killed Igneous, and there wasn’t a single ounce of guilt in her for that. If anything, she felt bad that she hadn’t made him suffer more. She knew she shouldn’t have killed all those men, but The Silent Killer? She needed to kill them for The Council, for The Apples, and for herself. She had no reason to feel bad if she killed them, they were not innocent and it isn’t like it’d be unprovoked.

But at the same time, it’d be like she was proving Alice right without trying to find a way to save them. She wanted to stick to her ideals, they were basically all that was left of her.

“I…” She closed her eyes for a moment, questioning her willingness to take a life. It was a terrifyingly easy decision to make in the moment, but was this something she could do?

It didn’t matter, she needed to kill them. If left alive, they could make everything she’s had to do now pointless, and even the lives of her friends would be put at risk.

“I will kill them, I have to for everyone.” She said with resolve.

“Good, I was hoping you’d say that. Ah think yuh should skip school today,” She said as she pulled out her phone, beginning to quickly type something. “Sunset told us what happened in the groupchat and is tryn’ to convince us to confront ya. Even if she doesn’t, there’s no doubt in my mind she would do it by herself if she had to, she’s stubborn as hell. Ah know ah can convince her not to, ah just need time. By tomorrow ah think ah can, so how about you take the day off?”

She said this as she was typing on the phone, being better at multitasking than Pinkamena thought she was.

“I can do that, sure. Thanks AJ, I appreciate it. But, before I go, I have a favour to ask.”

Pinkamena felt her hand touch the vial in her hoodie pocket, reminding her of her fight with Michael. It was still vivid in her mind, especially how good she felt while fighting him. She almost killed him without hesitation or even a second thought, even though he might have started it, she took it way too far.

Was she already that far gone?

“I’ve been told by a few people that Igneous...was once a better person.”

At the mention of the murderer of her parents, Applejack’s face hardened, a stern scowl forming as she clenched her fist.

“I don’t...can’t believe it, but the possibility of something like that made me think. The way things are going, as much as I hate to say it, something like that might happen to me. If it does, I need you to promise me that you will take care of me.”

She couldn’t make the implications of what she was saying any more obvious, this was something she’d been thinking about for a bit now. There have been times ever since she became a chimera where she didn’t feel like herself, that she was more animal than human.

If she was being honest, it scared the shit out of her.

“Pinkie...ah don’t know if that’s a promise ah can make. You’re...you’re asking me to kill ah friend.”

“No, I’m asking you to kill the monster I might turn into.”

The look on Applejack’s face relaxed a bit, but she still had a morbid frown. “That ah can do, ah just...won’t know how the others would take it. As much as ah hate it, ah understand why you hav ta distance yuhself from the others. Things are too complicated right now and involving them might just get them killed, or worse. But that wouldn’t make losing you any easier on them, especially after just getting yah back.”

Pinkamena turned her back to Applejack, preparing to leave. The sooner she got everything done, the better.

“I know, AJ. I miss you guys more than you think, especially now. But until this Silent Killer is handled and things are less tense at The Syndicate, it’s just too risky. I need to leave Applejack, The Silent Killer only seems to strike at night so I need to get as much done during the day as I can. Goodbye, and good luck.”

Pinkamena jumped up into the branches of the tree they were under, jumping off of it onto branches of other trees until she was out of sight. Applejack was watching, somewhat amazed at her abilities.

“That girl...even after everything, she still loves to show off.” Applejack said to herself, hearing the bell ringing in the distance as she cursed under her breath, now she was going to be late to class and she missed breakfast.

Applejack began to walk back to the school, speed walking there as fast as she could, she really didn’t want to go to detention again.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Now for the fun part, trying to remember where Rainbow Dash lived. I have only ever been there once, her memory may have been good, but it’s been a long time since then. Early middle school, right before their falling out.*

It was sometime around seven thirty, Pinkamena was walking around the neighborhood she remembered where Rainbow’s house was. It was around that time of day where most people were driving to or from work, so there was a decent amount of cars on the streets. Though the sidewalks themselves were more or less empty, allowing her to travel without any problem.

Well, by ‘empty’ she meant there were, of course, still the homeless people around that were watchers for The Syndicate. And she was sure Juno was around somewhere watching her, it was actually impressive to her that he didn’t get bored.

Right now, she was trying to make herself as hard to notice as possible. She had her hood up and the majority of her head covered, and was moving through the alleyways as quickly as she could. There were a lot of apartment buildings here, but if she saw the building she’d recognize it instantly.

Suddenly, as Pinkamena was walking through an alleyway for what felt like the umpteenth time, she felt something cold on the back of her neck. Like someone just put an icecube down her shirt, but there wasn’t any weight behind it. It was a bizarre feeling.

“You know, there was never a Mr.Hyde.”

She didn’t have to look behind her now, she knew immediately who it was, she’d recognize that voice anywhere.

Alice sat on Pinkamena’s neck, in a sort of piggyback position. Her legs were dangled over Pinkamena’s shoulders, crossing at the ankles right under her chest. Her thin arms lay on top of one another on Pinkamena’s head, Alice’s chin rested on her arms.

It was a strange feeling, she could feel Alice on her, her cold corpse like body. And yet, she felt no added weight on her body, it was like she basically wasn’t even there.

Well, that was probably because she wasn’t actually there.

“What are you talking about?” Pinkamena asked, a bit confused at what Alice said.

Pinkamena didn’t slow down moving through alleyways, which didn’t seem to affect Alice at all. She’d think with how she was moving it would cause Alice to fall off or something, but she kept forgetting that the laws of physics didn’t apply to them.

“You compared us before to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which I admit isn’t inaccurate. No, what bothers me is that you’re comparing it to the incorrect version of that story. Though I can’t say I blame you, due to people misinterpreting that story, it got adjusted to mean what people thought it did. It’s sad really, the original story's meaning was much better in my opinion.”

“Wait, what do you mean? I thought the whole point of the story was about a guy who had split personality disorder after an experiment gone wrong. His other personality started killing people and he soon began investigating himself, and he found out he was the murderer. He couldn’t handle the guilt and didn’t want anymore people dead, so the only solution he had left was to kill himself.”

Alice let out an audible groan, Pinkamena could feel her face form into a frown.

“The edited version, yeah. When the story was originally written and published, that’s how the majority of people interpreted it, because the majority of people are stupid. But because that’s how people saw it, the story was edited and republished to fit that agenda so it could be made into a play, then a movie, and now everyone knows it as the story where a guy has an evil second personality. What most english teachers don’t talk about is how different the original was, and the message it was trying to send. Actually,”

Pinkamena felt Alice shift around a bit, before she had to stop in the middle of an alleyway when Alice hung upside, her face being flipped so the first thing Pinkamena saw was her dark green eyes. Then saw her sly fox like smirk, like she had an idea that would only make her happy.

“It reminds me a lot of you. Since you don’t have anything better to do until you can find the building, would you like me to give you a synopsis of the story? You might find it interesting, more entertaining than looking for a building in blocks full of buildings anyway.” She said with a dull tone as she raised her head up, going back to the position she was in before.

Pinkamena slowly began to walk through the alleyway, seeing rows of apartment buildings, scanning them as she tried to find Rainbow’s.

*Well, I might as well. I am curious what she meant, but I’m sure it won’t be anything good.*

Pinkamena let out an exasperated sigh, before walking down the sidewalk in another attempt to find the building she was looking for.

“Alright, go ahead. You’ll probably just annoy me into saying yes anyway.”

She could practically feel the corners of Alice’s lips curl up into a devilish smirk, nothing seemed to make Alice happier than getting her way.

“First off, there was no ‘experiment to control his darker urges’, that was something that was added in because people liked the idea apparently. But the majority of the other parts of the story were correct. He was a doctor who was held in high regard, but with that came a lot of pressure and expectations. To make things worse, the urges were a very real thing, something he had been dealing with since his teens or so. That’s not really talked about or explained as much as I’d like, though there are many many theories.

Anyway, he was able to tolerate his urges for a long time. Up until he was having to deal with all the problems of being a doctor in the 1800’s, it became too much. He needed to find a way to release his urges, but he wouldn’t be able to deal with what that meant. So, in order to cope, he did those things under the guise of Mr. Hyde, which is supposed to be ‘hide’ but spelled differently, because he was hiding who he really was.”

Pinkamena was listening intently as she looked around, it might have been wishful thinking, but the part of the neighborhood she was in looked familiar.

“However, he was hiding from more than others. He was hiding from himself too. If he was aware of what he was doing, he wouldn’t be able to handle the guilt. So whenever he took on his Mr. Hyde persona, he would block out the memory. But then the bodies started showing up and made things all the more difficult when he was investigating himself, and his tower of cards built with tears and blood began to crumble in days.

The rest of the story plays out mostly the same. He eventually found out he was the one doing those horrendous murders, and was eventually overcome with guilt and killed himself. There was no experiment, and there was no evil second personality. Just one man, his demons, and the unrealistic standards set for him.

Now, there is more or less a correct one. But I’d like to hear your interpretation of the story? What do you think is the meaning behind it all?”

Alice reached down to Pinkamena’s face, playing with some of the strands of hair poking out from under the hoodie. Though she seemed to be staring at the strand of hair that was black, with a look that could only be described as...curiosity.

Pinkamena slowed down to speed just below jogging, no longer moving through the alleyways and just sticking to the sidewalks. She knew this was at least the area where Rainbow lived, she just needed to figure out the exact building.

“To me…” Pinkamena closed for eyes for a moment, thinking briefly on how she should answer. “I think it’s about control. He had been trying to keep his urges under control for a good portion of his life, but he tried too hard to control it and everything just went wrong. He soon not only lost control of his urges, but he lost control of his entire life and everything just went downhill.

His urges had always been a part of his life he thought he could control, but eventually, he couldn’t anymore. He inevitably lost control of everything, and his desperate attempts to get everything back under control only made things worse. The message is, no matter how much we think we have something under control, no matter what we think we can handle, everything goes to shit one way or another in the end. Nothing is really in our control, we...just convince ourselves it is and that we can handle it.”

She stopped for a moment, pulling her hand out of her right hoodie pocket, putting it over her chest where her necklace would be. She slightly opened her eyes, her eyes half-lidded with a look that could only be described as remorse.

“Because...we can’t cope with a reality in which we will lose everything. If we are forced to come face to face with that truth, we’d lose our values in life and our motivations, and we’d live in a world full of nihilists.”

There was silence between Pinkamena and Alice for a few seconds, she stood on the sidewalk twirling her necklace through her shirt between her fingers, a morbid expression on her face as she idly thought about the past few weeks.

Then she heard Alice let out a low, muffled chuckle, though it was hard to tell why.

“Has anyone ever told you you have a very...unique way of thinking? Out of the many hosts we’ve had, many of them have heard that story and occasionally come to their own conclusions. But none of them have come to such a...idiosyncratic elucidation.”

Pinkamena snapped out of her daze, closing her eyes and she took a deep breath.

“Yeah, you could say that. Though they usually used adjectives like ‘fanatical’ or ‘overzealous’, the conclusions I came to usually freaked people out, especially if I ended up right, so I stopped voicing them.” She said as she put her hand back in her hoodie pocket, opening her eyes and continuing her search. “They all thought I was weird one way or another, and honestly I can’t blame them. But sometimes, I wanted to be treated like everyone else: normal. Those six did, and were the best friends I’ll probably ever have. But now….”

Pinkamena brushed her tongue across the top of her teeth, they felt like normal teeth. But she remembered just recently how animallike they were, and how she was filled with nothing but the desire to taste blood and flesh again.

“I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

“Ohh, poor baby.” Alice sarcastically cooed, leaning down and putting her pointer fingers in the corners of Pinkamena’s lips, lifting them up into a very forced, cartoon-like smile on her face. “Poor, poor superhuman girl, stronger than any man with the ability to heal from the kinds of injuries that would be fatal to most people, this close to access of basically an entire library of knowledge and experience of more prodigies and geniuses than an honor society from Oxford university.” Alice said as she lowered herself to where Pinkamena’s left ear, emphasizing every other word directly for her to hear. “Not even to mention that you have access to more resources than you would ever need in your life, all because of the family you were born into, a privilege dependent entirely on chance, but you hit the jackpot! But no, you feel lonely and want to be like everyone else! How tragic.”

Alice let go of Pinkamena’s lips, straightening her back as she put her hands behind her back and a frustrated pout formed on her face, like a spoiled child who just got her toy taken away because she played with it too rough and it broke.

“I bet no one ever told you that you’re stupidly human.”

Pinkamena brought her hand up to her face, she wasn’t sure if she should even ask how that even happened. She was also glad no one was around to see that, she couldn’t even imagine what that would look like.

“No, that would be a new one.” She mumbled as she began walking down the sidewalk again, trying her best to stay focused.

“Anyway, no, that wasn’t what I meant. The meaning behind the story is much more...philosophical, I suppose. Everyone...is put under certain pressures, fixed with a set of expectations due to things varying from gender to occupation. As you can assume, being a doctor in the same century as The Black Death had its own sets of stress. There are many things to suggest that the ‘urges’ spoken of did not exist before he ever became a doctor, and may have been a byproduct of what I’m sure was immense and near constant pressure.”

Pinkamena listened to Alice’s explanation, trying to figure out how this connects to her, and also internally debating whether this was better than silence or not. She noticed out of the corner of her eyes a tall, dark gray apartment building. Recognizing it almost instantly as the one Rainbow Dash took her to, she remembered thinking that it was an awfully dull home for such a lively person.

“Human nature is as special as it is complicated, and Jekyll was being transformed by what was happening. It awakened something in him, something...primal. the things he wanted to do were terrible, and he knew it, and he tried for years to ignore it. So much so that he even convinced himself they weren’t there, that there wasn’t these animalistic instincts inside him and that there wasn’t anything wrong with him.

He did start drinking as an attempt to keep them suppressed, but it did the opposite. He did drink a potion, yes. But like I said, it did not create a personality, that was never even the intention. He needed a drink that would let him commit these acts without the guilt. He wanted it so badly that it made a placebo effect, not in the way he wanted, but it worked. He had fallen prey to his urges, they had soon broken him, all because of guilt and shame.”

Pinkamena stood in front of the apartment building, feeling a sense of dread at what she may find in there.

“Moral of the story: humans aren’t better than animals, not truly. We have our emotions and our intellect, sure. But take that way, and we can be more feral than any wild animal. Some of us have gotten rid of that part of us, others are born more...susceptible. For most, it is just a matter of time, you were right about that.

Alice said as she jumped off Pinkamena’s back, landing on the ground almost gracefully.

“Very philosophical. I’m still trying to understand how this connects to me.”

Alice turned towards Pinkamena, that usual smug smirk on her face seemed etched on her face like it was never gone.

“Do you think what happened to you was normal?”

Pinkamena let out a hollow chuckle, “No, no I don’t think it fucking was.” She responded with a bit of aggression.

“No, not what I meant. Of course what happened to you wasn’t normal, I thought I made that clear.” Alice said with a nod, walking in front of Pinkamena and looking up at her to make eye contact.

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, but we have access to all of your memories. Every moment of what happened to you in those woods, and everything after.” She said as she brought her hand up to Pinkamena’s stomach, tracing her finger on her body. “Most people when they find the desecrated bodies of their siblings don’t have a complete personality switch and go off to kill the nearest thing they could find in a fit of rage, which, in your case, was those wolves.

Neither does a high school student, who previously had basically a disney princess style life and friends, go through months of torture with the single-minded goal of killing their father. And not only did you do just that, you also killed dozens of men without hesitating. Quite brutally, I might add. Now some of that can be attributed to your first transition to being a Chimera, all that bloodlust and your history of having impulse control issues must have made it particularly easy for you to just give in. But even so, it was all too easy for you. It’s...unusual, to say the least.”

Pinkamena grabbed Alice’s hand by the wrist as she reached her chest, she felt it but it was like it wasn’t there, and yet it was so cold.

“What are you trying to say?”

Alice scoffed as she pulled her wrist out of Pinkamena’s grip, putting her hands behind her back, but keeping eye contact.

“What I’m saying, is you are a very special girl. Starlight said you may have developed a sort of second personality in order to cope, but I believe it is far more complicated than that. I think your hatred for your father began much sooner than you think, in about those times where he was never home. Daddy was never there, mommy didn’t care, and try as they might, your sisters couldn’t replace the love essential to a healthy development, and they couldn’t save you. Even though they were there for you, you couldn’t help but feel isolated, like they didn’t care about you. It ate away at you until it left a hole, and that hole got filled with a sadness and a rage that festered inside of you. It put you through years of nothing but depression and rage that you didn’t know where to direct or what to do with.”

Pinkamena felt a warmth rising in her, anger building up as she felt her fists and her teeth clench. She tried to keep her face composed, but Alice seemed to know the exact words to say and exactly how to say them to get under her skin.

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?”

Alice’s smile only got wider and more smug, not breaking eye contact for a second, not even to blink. Her empty, glasslike eyes staring into Pinkamena’s, like she was looking for something.

“Your desperation to be loved and for people to pay attention to you led you to take up the role of the goody two shoes girl, who’s over eccentric, a little bit weird, but is friends with everyone. Soon it became everything to you, you depended on their approval, their friendship, their love. It couldn’t replace the love you never got, but you still tried.”

Alice broke eye contact with Pinkamena, turning to her right and beginning to walk counterclockwise around her as she talked. Pinkamena didn’t move, she watched Alice with her eyes, though she realized watching her movements was kind of pointless.

“You became dependent on them, dedicated to your role because it became all you know. You became so obsessed with being the picture of positivity because you thought it was why anyone was your friend, and you just didn’t want to take any risk of losing them. So all those negative feelings you were dealing with before, and all the ones that came after, got shoved into that same hole that was getting deeper and deeper.

Then...well, everything happened. The girl you were pretending to be didn’t matter anymore, you were forced to deal with more trauma and negative feelings than even you could suppress. Everything you were trying so desperately to hide, the part of you you were doing everything you could to ignore just came out.”

Alice came back around, that fox like grin still on her face as she did.

“The monster inside of you, born from hatred and pain, broke free. You killed those wolves because you could not contain yourself anymore, but you have to admit, some part of you liked it. Took pride in it, even. And when Blake tortured you for a month, some part of you liked that too. You had started hating yourself long before you ever went into that cave, but what you saw there turned you full self-destructive. What he did to you made you feel like you were getting punished, an-”

“Shut up!” Pinkamena suddenly shouted, causing the birds around them to fly off whatever they were perched on.

Alice glanced up at Pinkamena, a surprised expression on her face for a moment. Before vanishing just as quickly, being replaced with her usually smug smile.

“What’s wrong? Am I starting to make sense?” She said mockingly, twirling in a circle like a ballerina before facing Pinkamena again, her hands interlocked behind her back.

“I thought you said you were going to try to help me, but all you’re doing is pissing me off!” She growled, giving her a scowl that would terrify anyone it was directed at.

Alice, like usual, remained unfazed.

“Oh Pinkie, I only ever want to help you. But before I can help you with your issues, you have to be aware of them. And oh boy, are there a lot of issues you aren’t aware of.”

Pinkamena closed her eyes as she tried to calm down, whether she believed what Alice was saying or not didn’t matter. She needed to stop letting The Whispers provoke her like this, if not, they were going to end up controlling her more than they even did now.

“Alright, fine, I’ll indulge you.” She said with a frustrated sigh as she unclenched her fists, “So, assuming anything you’re saying is accurate, how does that make me similar to him at all?”

“I’ll make it simple for you.” She said in a snarky tone, “While the traumatic event and how far back it started are vastly different, everything else is strikingly similar. You both had these feelings deep inside you that you knew you shouldn’t have, but you just couldn’t get rid of them, so you buried them. Deeper and deeper, more and more, until you couldn’t take it anymore.”

Alice brought her left hand up and extended it in front of her, opening her palm as if there was something she wanted Pinkamena to see.

“But no one gets pushed over the edge without some kind of outside force, a catalyst. For him, it was a potion that he believed would keep his monster under the bed.”

A small, transparent potion bottle appeared in her hand. It looked almost like a hologram, but had much more color to it. There was a dark green liquid inside the bottle, it seemed to bubble in a way that made it seem like drinking it would be dangerous.

“For you, it was entering those woods and seeing the people who tried their best to love you murdered, left in a cave like worthless trash.”

The bottle disappeared, being replaced with a small, TV like screen. Very similar to the screen she used before to show her a memory, but this one was significantly smaller. It played the memory of her walking through the cave, right before she noticed the bodies.

The moment that changed everything.

“However, while you two are the same species, you are very different breeds.” She emphasized, closing her hand as the screen disappeared.

“I’m starting to think you like being vague.”

“Well,” She giggled childishly, placing her hand back behind her. “Maybe a little. Anyway, for him, his monster killed him. But you needed your monster, or you would have died in those woods. Now you still need it, to be the leader The Syndicate needs, to survive. It’s become a part of you, whether you want to accept it or not.”

“I’m still trying to understand why you’re telling me all this, what’s your point?”

Pinkamena walked past Alice, her attention shifting to the apartment building. It was rather simple, and fit into the buildings around it. Though it was clear this kind of apartment was for people of the lower class, it was evident it wasn’t very well maintained. There was trash of various kinds spread around, streetlights that barely worked at night, and there wasn’t any kind of security to protect the tenants. There wasn’t a buzzer, or cameras, or anything.

This was the perfect kind of place for people who were trying to hide, or do something they knew they shouldn’t. So that begs the question, why would Rainbow Dash be living in a place like this?

“Because, dummy, you’re in a very...conflicting point in your life. You don’t know who you are, Pinkie or Pinkamena? Human or Chimera? Tough decisions on their own, now you’ve promised to keep your humanity. Which I support, fully. But with that humanity comes all the guilt you’ve been fueling, but it's also what stops you from completely losing yourself. Starlight helps you with your emotional issues, she keeps you sane. Your sister and your friends remind you of who you were, they keep you human. Me? I do a little of everything, and you can talk to me about anything without being judged. An asset you’d be surprised how helpful it can be.”

Pinkamena half-mindedly listened to what Alice was saying, walking up to the entrance of the building. She blinked, and Alice was in front of her. Standing in front of the door looking up at her, almost like she was stopping her.

“You have a lot of people in your life who are trying to help you, either for their own benefit or because they genuinely care about you, something you should be taking advantage of. I can’t make those problems go away, but they can get easier. If you just...accept some things.”

Pinkamena looked down at Alice skeptically, “What kind of things?”

“Your darkness, for one.” Alice extended her hand again, opening her hand as a small, pitch black orb appeared above her hand. Similar to the mist that appeared whenever she was unconscious and was talking to The Whispers, but seemed more...pure somehow. “Everyone has some darkness in them, it's human. But like I’ve explained, yours is quite unique. A gift, in a lot of ways. Always been a part of you, always will be, it's just become more prominent.”

Pinkamena brought her hand forward, reaching for the orb. She tried to grab it, but her hands just went through it, what she should have expected.

“I’m not sure what you mean, I thought the bloodlust came with being a chimera?” Pinkamena asked, withdrawing her hand back into her hoodie pocket.

“It is, yes. A side effect that comes with mixing animal genetics. But it doesn’t make you enjoy killing, it doesn’t make you brutal, and it doesn’t make you so accepting of it. Even with your...strange situation with equestrian magic, you were still all too accepting of everything. And now you feel that this side of you is...evil somehow, just adding onto the already heavy mental weight you’ve been carrying. You sure do seem to have a knack for making things more difficult for yourself than you need to.

You just need to…” She flexed her fingers slightly, in the center of the black orb a small, pink mist appeared in the center of it. Soon the pink mist grew bigger and began to mix with the black, swirling together and combining almost perfectly, like they were completely compatible.

“Embrace it. Accept it as a part of you, instead of rejecting it. You need it, especially now.”

Pinkamena stared at the orb, almost like she was in a trance. She felt the desire to try to touch it again, but she knew there’d be no point.

“So, what? Just let myself become a monster?”

“No, quite the contrary, actually.” She said with a dismissive nod, once again closing her hand and causing the illusion to disappear. “The monster would be becoming you, if anything. You wouldn’t be changing at all, really. Just...wouldn’t be feeling bad about killing people when you need too, a lot less things would make you feel guilty.”

Pinkamena stared at Alice, considering what she was saying.

*I don’t fully understand what she’s saying, but it sounds like she wants me to just...stop caring about killing people. To accept my bloodlust and just...enjoy it? I don’t know if I can do that, but...I might be able to get something out of this.*

“Alright, I’ll think about it. But, under one condition.”

Her etched smile turned into a frown as a dark scowl came onto her face, “Bold of you to demand a deal, especially from us, when very few things are negotiable.”

The corners of Pinkamena’s lips slowly curved into a slight, confident smile, she already thought of this.

“I thought we were friends? Don’t friends do favors for each other? Just consider this a favor to me.”

For a few seconds, there was a pregnant silence between the two. They had a pseudo-staring contest between them, a tension thick enough to cut through.

“What do you want?” Alice broke the silence, a tone that could only be described as bitter.

“I want to be able to talk to Starlight about The Whispers, without experiencing a brain aneurysm, anyway. Or any other attempt to stop me from talking about them, no restrictions or anything. I just want to be able to talk freely about anything I want to with her, even anything we talk about.”

There was another couple of seconds of tense silence, Alice’s scowl only got deeper.

“Just Starlight?” She asked skeptically, bringing her arms in front of her and crossing them.

“Just Starlight.”

Alice let out a quiet, annoyed sigh. “You’re lucky I like her.” She said as she extended her right hand, “I’m feeling particularly munificent today, so I will grant you this favor.”

Pinkamena looked down at Alice’s extended hand, somewhat surprised at how complying she was being. It was...a bit out of character for The Whispers, they usually hated not getting their way with ease.

*I’m sure there are consequences to this, but I’ve got too much going on to be thinking of everything I do. It’s like she said, I should take advantage of everyone who’s trying to help me.*

Hesitantly, Pinkamena reached forward and shook Alice’s hand. Which, in reality, shouldn’t have really meant anything. But something about this interaction felt...weighty, which didn’t help her dread at all.

“Than-”

“Now, I think I’ve kept you occupied for long enough. You still have that thing to do for you know who after this, then if you have any free time life, you’ll want to spend as much as you can hunting down TSK.”

Alice pulled her hand back, sidestepping and no longer standing in front of the door. Pinkamena was a bit surprised, but decided not to question it. She slowly opened the door, not taking her eyes off of Alice until she was inside the building, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Alice’s lips curved into a wide, knowing smile. It looked like the smile of a maniac, and yet, there was still something terrifyingly innocent about it.

“And so, it begins.”