That

Rainbow Dash bent down to inspect the gravel beneath her feet. She picked up a few stones and spun them before her left eye, rotating them in the sunlight to see if she could spot any clues, anything to point her towards Scootaloo’s location. She couldn’t be far now. She had to be close. Rainbow could almost taste it.

“Uh, Rainbow, what are ya doin’?” Applejack stood behind her, her arms folded and had an unamused look plastered on her face.

“I’m looking for tracks. Duh. What else does it look like I’m doing?” The athlete stood up and brushed her knees.

Earlier, she had gone back to grab her utility belt and dump her schoolbag at home. Her belt contained a flashlight, some spare batteries, mosquito spray, binoculars, a magnifying glass, and a fruity bar. She had made sure she was prepared for anything, though Applejack had suggested otherwise.

The girls had come to what Rainbow called the Muddy Place, which was a small stream just underneath the bridge at Maple Road, leading out to the Canterlot Reservoir. A grassy slope led down from the bridge to the stream, where the floor was covered in gravel. From her current knowledge, the sewers had a massive drain that emptied out here, so there was a chance they might find clues to Scootaloo’s whereabouts here.

Behind them, Pinkie Pie pushed a low branch of leaves out of her face, followed close behind by Fluttershy, who had also volunteered to help look for Scootaloo. Rainbow wondered just how Sunset had managed to divide their friendship when they entered high school. They were always willing to stand by each other until then, like they were doing today. She only had Princess Twilight Sparkle to thank that their friendship had been patched up.

“So why didn’t we search here when we went to look for Scootaloo last year?” Pinkie scratched at her nose and then her hand.

“Because… Who would’ve thought to search the sewers?” Rainbow panned a hand to the stream. “And all the adults gave up. They didn’t look hard enough, but here we are today. It was thanks to my awesome researching skills that led me to believe Scootaloo could’ve been washed out here.”

“Riiiight…” Applejack adjusted her hat and exhaled. “So Ah also wanna know, if she was washed out here last October, then where has she been all this time?”

“Come on, your sister already asked me that question. I’m gonna tell you the same thing. She could’ve taken refuge some place else.”

“For a whole year?”

“Hey, I’m trying to be optimistic here.”

“There’s a line between optimistic and delusional,” Applejack said under her breath. “But alright. Ah got nothin’ else planned today. Ah guess ya have my help for today.”

“Thanks, AJ.”

“Jus’ today.”

“Hey, do you girls think these plants make you itch?” Pinkie began rubbing at her shoulder.

“J-Just try not to touch anything out here, Pinkie.” Fluttershy searched a pack she had brought with her, taking out some kind of spray. “Use this. It should help.”

As Pinkie was busy spraying herself, Rainbow and Applejack scouted out ahead, following the stream to where the sewers were supposed to empty out. She’d never really been here, but it was quite the massive place. The sides of the stream widened out as they went on, eventually leading to grounds that were covered in grass and boulders; it was actually a good spot for some sporting activities.

“Ah got a question, afore we get to searchin’,” Applejack said. “Is this a sewer or a storm water drain? Cuz usually sewers ain’t this open. Ya need a permit to get into those.”

“Psssh, there’s a difference?” Rainbow waved a hand at her. “We’ll be fine. No one will ask for a permit if no one knows we’re here.”

“Well ya can’t blame me for not wanting to spend the night in a police station if we get caught,” Applejack retorted. “Storm water drains, on the other hand, are open to everyone. It’s not as hazardous.”

“Right. I’m guessing we should be fine. I didn’t even know this place was so big. Imagine all the other people who didn’t even know this place existed at all.”

“I didn’t know it existed!” Pinkie splashed in the stream beside them. “Did you, Fluttershy?”

“N-Nope.” The quiet girl shook her head. “But it’s beautiful. I should bring Angel along next time.”

Rainbow led the way on, occasionally pulling out her magnifying glass to inspect the gravel, but she still came up with nothing. Applejack kept giving her weird looks, but she didn’t say anything.

“Your sister didn’t want to come along, AJ?” Rainbow asked after stowing her magnifying glass. “Scootaloo was one of her best friends.”

“Ah didn’t tell her about this,” Applejack replied stoutly. “Didn’t want to do it. Give her hope after all this time.”

“But I know it. I know she’s alive.” Rainbow shook a fist. “We’re going to find her. I have to. It was all my fault she disappeared that day.”

“Rainbow, real talk,” Applejack said wearily. “Ah honestly don’t see how she could still be alive after all this time. If she were still livin’ don’tcha think she would have let us know she was okay? Ah know ya feel bad about losin’ her, but we all made peace with her passin’, went to the funeral, mourned an’ all. And if the cops couldn’t find her, what’re the odds we can?” Applejack picked up a rock and examined it before tossing it aside. “Face it, Dash. She’s gone.”

“If you’re so sure Scootaloo’s dead, why did you even come along?” Rainbow snapped.

“Because you’re my friend, Rainbow Dash. And this is yer way o’ coping. Wouldn’t be right if Ah jus’ left ya when you needed a friend the most.”

“I… uh…” Rainbow raised a finger, then lowered it. “Thanks, AJ. Hey, speaking of friends, where do you think Rarity is? I didn’t get to catch her after school.”

Over along the streets, Rarity steered her car over to the side of the road. Putting her car in park, she got out and walked a few shops over to her boutique. She went in, smelling the fresh scent of new fabric. She never got tired of that smell.

“Work work work, busy busy busy,” she said to herself as she flipped the lights on. She needed to get her ideas on paper before she lost them. With so much going on in her mind, it was a miracle that she still managed to hold on to seven new designs for dresses.

She didn’t manage to talk to her friends when school ended, but she figured she had the whole summer to do so. Penning her ideas down would only take a few hours or so. She went to the backrooms where all her raw materials and notebooks were. She slipped on her red-rimmed glasses and sat down at a table, taking a pen from a cup full of them on the tabletop.

As she began drawing out her ideas, she also began to think of summer. She knew Rainbow Dash was likely going to spend it searching for Scootaloo, that poor girl. Rarity didn’t know what could’ve made her just disappear like that, but it had already been so long. Surely if she were still alive, she would’ve appeared by now. Sweetie Belle had been so broken up over it, especially at the funeral. Rarity’s mouth went taut at the thought of that.

It had been a bright, sunny day when the coffin had been lowered into the ground. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had stood at the edge of the grave, tears streaming down their little faces. To lose a friend at such a young age, for weeks afterwards, Sweetie Belle had been almost comatose, acting on autopilot. She had tried to put up a strong act for everyone, but more than once had Rarity heard her sister cry herself to sleep while looking at photos of the three of them together. According to Applejack, Apple Bloom was more or less the same way.

“Absolutely dreadful. Can’t imagine what I’d do if one of my friends were dead… especially now that I’ve rediscovered how much they all mean to me.”

When she had first learnt of how they had seemingly betrayed her, it had left her broken and angry. Losing a friend must’ve been way worse than that. Rarity had made sure to give more care to Sweetie Belle since Scootaloo’s funeral. It was the least she could do as an older sister, though perhaps allowing them to perform science experiments in the boutique wasn’t the best of her judgments.

“I don’t know why Rainbow Dash insists that Scootaloo is still living,” Rarity said to herself as she outlined a gown on her sketchpad. “Officially, she is deceased. Let the dead rest in peace, I say.”

She sat there drawing and erasing and embellishing her designs for a little over an hour, then she leaned back in her chair and flexed her fingers, making sure she would not get cramps.

“Time for refreshments,” Rarity decided, going over to the boutique’s break room and opening the fridge. She found a cup of fat free yoghurt and opened it, and had a spoon halfway to her mouth when her phone began to ring in her pocket.

Rarity set down the yoghurt and looked to see who was calling. It was Sweetie Belle.

“Hello, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said, putting the phone to her ear. “What can I do for you? Is everything alright?”

“Hey, Rarity,” her younger sister said on the other end. “I’m… okay, I guess. I was wondering if I could spend the night at Apple Bloom’s?”

“Why of course, darling, that would be splendid! Much better than going out there searching with Rainbow Dash, anyway.”

“I still don’t see why I couldn’t go along, but thanks.”

“You know how dirty the sewers are. Dreadful places. Your clothes would get so dirty. And besides, dear, I don’t wish to give you hope where there might be none.”

“I know, I know, it’s been so long… But, I want to believe it, you know? That she’s still out there. Rainbow does.”

“Believing in something doesn’t make it real, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said gently. “But I won’t lecture you. Have fun with Apple Bloom, alright? And be careful.”

“I will. Thanks, sis. Really. For always looking out for me and all that.”

“You’re my sister. Sisters look out for each other. Ta-ta, now.”

After ending the call, Rarity picked up her yoghurt again and went back to the drawing room, where she sat down and slowly ate her snack.

Being an older sibling, she was a little worried about Sweetie Belle, especially since there were all the recent missing person cases. First, it had just been Scootaloo, which had already been devastating enough. Then another kid vanished, then another, then another. But it hadn’t just been the younger kids. Cloudy Kicks had gone missing about three months ago. That just showed that any of them could disappear too.

Now the puzzling question was why the adults didn’t seem to be pursuing the matter with more effort. The police had of course gotten involved, but even Canterlot’s finest had been unable to locate any of the missing children, which Rarity privately thought reflected rather poorly on the police force as a whole.

Being an avid reader of detective fiction, Rarity herself had been secretly keeping tabs on all the disappearances in one of her notebooks. Scootaloo had been the first disappearance, all the way back in October, with the latest being Thunderlane’s younger brother, Rumble. She hadn’t told anyone else about this, not wanting to incite any panic or mass hysteria, but to have so many people go missing with not so much as a dead body popping up, she didn’t even know if this was the work of a killer. No one was that good, right?

Rarity finished her yoghurt and threw the carton away. Then she went into the main display room of the boutique and set about straightening and adjusting the dresses that were for sale, making sure that everything looked perfect.

Humming a tune she had just invented to herself, Rarity grew so engrossed in her work that she did not notice the sounds of the people outside grow quiet and fade away, and she most definitely did not see the dark sludge oozing in under the front door until she took a step back and her foot made a squelching noise.

“What the…” Rarity said, looking down. She shrieked.

Rarity tried to pull her foot out of the gunge, but her boot was stuck fast. She faced a difficult choice. Was she to surrender her custom made fashionable boots to whatever this was and attempt to get away, or was she going to stay here and let the ooze flood her entire shop?

With a mournful squeak, Rarity removed her foot from her boot and ran to the wall on the opposite side. The ooze was now approaching her worktable, and to her horror, it began creeping up its legs, something that shouldn’t even be possible.

“My notes, no!” Rarity ran back and grabbed her papers and books off the table.

Stuffing them into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder, she made for the kitchen, returning with a basin of water. Tipping it over the sludge, Rarity watched as it did absolutely nothing.

“No, no! What’s going on? Where is all this coming from?” She panicked and began clutching at her hair, not sure what to do. If this got all over her shop, all her clothing would be ruined. “Not my clothes! Take me instead! Please, anything but my fabrics!”

Almost like the ooze heard her, it stopped about halfway up her table’s legs, then as if it was alive, it balled up for a second and began sliding towards her like a gigantic black snail.

Saying something that could not be repeated here, Rarity backed away, making for the boutique’s back door. She kept her eyes on the ooze, fearfully wondering whether it would return to attacking her shop if she managed to get away.

Without warning, the sludge opened some kind of maw and spat out a glob of slime at her. Rarity raised an arm to cover her face, but as it splattered across her forearm, her skin began to hiss and burn. The girl cried out in pain and shock as she rubbed her shirt over her arm, trying to wipe the slime off, but it had already done its work. Her forearm was now red and blistering, with bits of her skin falling off, and it felt as though she had just stuck her arm in a buzzsaw.

“Aaaah, noooo! Why is this hap-pen-ninggg?” she wailed to herself. She had to grab a couple of paper towels to wipe the sludge from her shirt, which had begun to eat away at the fabric. She was a mess right now, with her makeup being smeared by her tears.

Throwing open the back door between sobs of pain and fear, Rarity had more to worry about now than finding another pair of shoes or a matching outfit. She didn’t know where this ooze was coming from or if it was really even ooze.

There was no reasonable explanation for this, unless one counted Equestrian magic as a reason. But Twilight had taken the crown back to Equestria. There was no more magic left in this world. There was absolutely no logical reason for this at all.

Turning back to look at her boutique, Rarity was horrified to see the ooze sliding out the door behind her, now dragging itself along with skinny human-like arms.

With a very unladylike curse, Rarity turned on her heels and ran as quickly as she could away, a little slower than she would have liked now that she was missing a shoe. The pain in the arm was a brilliant fire searing into her brain, but if she were to stop and tend to it, the ooze might catch up with her.

“Why? What’s going onnn...?” she whined as she ran down the street. She wanted to call out for help, but for some reason, there was no one else around. “This has to be a dream. It has to be!”

Rarity wanted to lie down and shut her eyes, but she dreaded what would happen should she get caught.

Another spat of ooze from the creature made her hurry up, leaping aside as another one splashed onto the pavement where she had been standing. The cement began to hiss and steam as it melted.

At this, two legs sprouted out from the sides of the ooze monster and it stood up, rising higher than Rarity. Its head formed into a more human-shaped one, sprouted two beady eyes from under the sludge.

“No! Leave me alone!” Rarity turned and ran, trying to get as far as she could from the vile monster. “This isn’t happening, it can’t be happening!”

The ooze chased her down a few streets, keeping pace with her now that it had legs. It occasionally spat out globs of sludge at her, but Rarity managed to avoid all of them, though just barely. She didn’t know how she was doing it with just one boot and injuries, but perhaps it was her want to avoid a gruesome death that kept her running.

Unfortunately, that fuel could only keep her going for so long and Rarity stopped at the bridge of Maple Road, leaning on the railing to catch her breath. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up.

Behind her, Rarity picked up the sound of something sailing through the air. She skipped out of the way just in time as a glob of sludge splashed across the railing, melting right through it, with some spilling onto her legs. She frantically wiped them off with her hands, shrieking with pain as the sludge ate away at her skin.

“No use running, Rares…”

She looked up.

The ooze monster had melted away, revealing a strange clown in a silvery suit standing just under at the end of the bridge, carrying a small red ball in his left hand.

“Where are you off to, Rares?” he said, his voice shrill and scrapey. “Why don’t you come join me instead? It’s a lot more fun down there. You’ll bounce too. Just like this ball.”

The clown began laughing as it bounced the ball on the ground. With each bounce, his laughter became more and more maniacal and insane.

It was too much for Rarity and as her eyes rolled back in her head, she plunged back over the hole in the railing and rolled down the grassy slope, all the while with the clown laughing at her.