Behind the Bleeding Veil

Adagio and Flash sat alone in the emergency room lobby. Apple had just left to get back home to Little Chip and Sandra. So it was them, alone, quiet, lost in their own thoughts and feelings. There was fear as to what would happen to Twilight and Sunset, fear also as to what could have caused this, sadness at having their partners stricken down, and confusion as to what to do next.

Adagio finally looked over at Flash, put her hand on his knee, and said, "It's time to go home. There's nothing more we can do here."

"I'm not going," Flash simply said, leaning forward, looking down at the floor.

"Flash, I understand; but there's nothing left for us to do here. We need to get back home and prepare," Adagio replied sympathetically.

"Prepare for what?" Flash responded with an angry, bitter tone. "What are we preparing for? Who are we preparing for? How do we even prepare? More importantly, how do I prepare? You, Pinkie, Sonata, Apple Jack, all of you had magical powers. Maybe you still do, who knows. I never did. I have nothing to offer; nothing that any other human has to offer. I may not be able to do anything here but there's nothing I can do anywhere else. My place, my only place is here. You can go do what you have to; I'm staying."

Now Adagio was becoming impatient. "Flash we've been over this. You and Twilight have been over this. You are not useless. It doesn't matter if you have magical powers or not. Hell, I don't know if any of us has any more. We have what we have and give what we can give. If nothing else, it beats just sitting here feeling depressed and frightened. This isn't what Twilight would want you to do."

Flash slumped back in his chair and continued to look forward. "Fine, I'll go," he said, defeated.

The two got up, grabbed their jackets, and Adagio grabbed her purse. They walked in silence out the emergency room doors. The night was cool and crisp. The temperature combined with the darkness of night matched their moods perfectly. As they walked, they saw a figure approaching them. At first they were hidden by the night, but as they got closer to one another; they could see who it was.

"Pinkie Pie?" Adagio asked in surprise.

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Apple Jack walked in through her front door and was immediately struck by a feeling that something wasn't right. All the lights were off (which wasn't that big of a red flag), Sandra wasn't down stairs nor had she called out or come down when she Apple had opened the door (once again, not something on it's own that would illicit much concern but given the circumstances seemed to bode unusually ill). The whole house just seemed too quiet, too dead.

She walked upstairs to her and Sandra's bedroom and opened the door. On the bed was Sandra, lying on her back, naked. Her head, arms, and legs were intact but her torso had been ripped open and all her internal organs had been removed and put in a pile beside the bed. Apple Jack wanted to scream but couldn't, there was no time.

She turned around and ran to Chippy's room and opened the door. Inside, he too was lain on his back in his bed; and like Sandra he was also dead. In the moonlight which shown through the window she could see he had a bloody hole in his chest where his heart had once been. Beside the bed stood a twisted, demonic looking Fluttershy, with Chip's heart in her left hand.

"If it makes you feel any better," Fluttershy started saying with genuine sympathy, "he didn't feel a thing. I cast a spell on him to ensure he felt no pain. I was there when he was born, I held him in my arms as a baby. I wasn't going to allow him to suffer. You're girlfriend in there, however, I was not obliged to pay her the same courtesy." The last sentence was mocking and full of menace.

Apple Jack fell back against the door jam, her mind so overloaded with emotion that she became completely numb. It was as if her brain had blown every emotional fuse she had.

Fluttershy laid the heart down on the bed and began to walk over to Apple Jack. "Do you want to know why Apple Jack? Why I did this?"

Apple Jack continued to look at the corpse of her three year old son in stunned silence, barely registering what Fluttershy had said. Then her face went completely dead. She turned to Fluttershy and said emotionlessly, "No."

"No?" Fluttershy hissed angrily. She grabbed Apple Jack and started slamming her against the wall. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO?"

Fluttershy stopped and Apple hunched over in pain, barely able to breathe. As soon as she was able, she stood up and looked Fluttershy in the eyes with that same dead face and said, "It doesn't matter."

Fluttershy back handed Apple to the floor with such force, she almost broke Apple's jaw. "DOESN'T MATTER? WHY IS THE ONLY THING THAT DOES MATTER! WHY WAS I ABUSED/ WHY DID MY FATHER CHOOSE MY BROTHER OVER ME? WHY WAS HE RAPED? WHY WAS SANDAL WOOD, CHIP, AND THE OTHERS KILLED? WHY DID RARITY HAVE TO DIE? WHY DOES ANYONE HAVE TO DIE? WHY DO LIVE AND ROT ON THIS GODFORSAKEN ROCK; SUFFERING AND DYING, FOR WHAT?

Fluttershy grabbed Apple by the collar and lifted her up to look at her in the face. "We live, we love, we lose, we die. Children are sold into slavery as miners, farmers, soldiers, prostitutes; parents torture and abuse their own kids. We kill ourselves over printed pieces of paper and stamped pieces of metal. Floods, fires, earthquakes, disease kill saint and sinner alike. Can you honestly tell me that the reason why things are so horrible, so miserable, so unfair doesn't matter?"

Apple just looked at Fluttershy, unmoved, unfeeling. "And would knowing why change anything? Would knowing why you killed Chip bring him back to me? - his father? - my sister? - my granny? - my parents? If knowing why would bring all them back from the dead, then yes, it would matter; but it can't, so it doesn't.

"Tell me something Fluttershy, do you honestly think that any answer you could give would actually make me feel better? - feel it was ok for you to kill my boy? No; there is none so it don't matter. Now go on and do what yer fixin' on doing. I'm tired of hearin' ya and just want this over with."

Fluttershy screamed in rage. She threw Apple Jack down to the flor and proceeded to smash it against it. Blood flowed from Apple's mouth and nose. The floor boards began to snap and break under the force of the repeated blows. The flesh and muscle was worn away. Finally her skull broke open, her brain failing forward and then being smashed with one final blow with what was left of Apple Jack's head.

Fluttershy got up, grabbed the heart, and flew out the window. She had what she came for; now it was time to finish this.

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"Pinkie, what are you doing here?" Flash asked in dumbfounded confusion.

"Oh, I just came to see Twilight and Sunset," she replied happily.

"I, uh, thank you Pinkie; but nothing's changed. Adagio and I were heading out ourselves now. If anything changes, trust me, we'll let you know."

As Pinkie and Flash spoke, Adagio watched Pinkie with a growing sense of concern. Something was wrong, really wrong.

"Pinkie, dear, where's Sonata?" Adagio asked with careful curiosity.

"Sonata?" Pinkie said as she turned to face Adagio in a voice that was a mixture of confusion and sadness.

In the full light of the overhead parking lights Adagio saw in horror what had happened to Pinkie's eyes. They were a pristine, milky white with small black dots in the center of them. These were cartoon eyes in real life. Adagio gasped and so did Flash when he saw it too.

"Oh, she's dead. Yeah. So are all of you. I was supposed to kill Twilight and Sunset first but I guess I can start with you two."

Pinkie lifted her shirt and pulled out a long butcher knife and was about to come at Adagio and Flash when the wind suddenly started to blow and howl and of no where. The three struggled to stay on their feet as the air crackled and popped with electricity. Suddenly a portal opened up and a figure stepped through. The portal closed behind it and the air died down.

The person who walked through was old, about mid fifties, her face was covered in scars. She wore a militaristic uniform and had a metal hand. Despite all that, there was no denying who it was, especially since the her now short hair had been re-dyed to it's former color pallet. It was Rainbow Dash.