Something Sweet To Bite: Candy Mare Goes to Hell

by Knackerman

Chapters

Prologue - Lalala, It's Off To Hell We Go!
Chapter 1 - Family Reunion
Interlude - A Storm That Took Everything
Chapter 2 - Inferno
Interlude - The Inevitable Pull
Chapter 3 - Pandæmonium
Interlude - Unmade
Chapter 4 - Malebolge
Interlude - The Universe is Indifferent
Chapter 5 - Deal with the Devil
Interlude - A Choir of One
Chapter 6 - Hell on Ice
Interlude - The Balance of Things
Chapter 7 - As Below, So Above
Epilogue - Heaven's All Around

Prologue - Lalala, It's Off To Hell We Go!

It is a perfect frozen moment.

Total sensory failure.

A white noise of the soul.

There is no sound, no smell, and no touch.

There is nothing to see, nor even to think about.

However, there is a taste just on the cusp of awareness.

The bitter tang of defeat.

But the moment doesn't last.

With the suddenness of a diver breaking the surface of an ice covered lake, the stillness is shattered, and time rushes back in as the pony bursts forth into a world of light and suffering.

Now there is the roar of flames and the dolorous screams of torment, the acrid stench of roasting flesh, and a heat so intense that if feels as if every part of the pony's being is exposed directly to live coals without the blessed relief of the nerve endings frying away to cinders. Sights and sounds flood the mare's mind and overwhelms her every sense, flooding her brain with an overload of new impressions.

However, gone is that bitter taste, that tang of defeat. After all, so long as she was free, there was hope for revenge.

Free! Yes! She was free!

The air may taste of ash and soot, but it also carries that ephemeral flavor of freedom! Inside the mare it awakens an all consuming hunger that grows stronger by the second. In truth, the hunger had never truly faded, but it had been stilled in the sea of nothingness that she was now released from. Now that she was loose once more, the hunger made its presence felt with a vengeance. Oh, but for a few sweet morsels of meat...

It was then that she became aware of others in the smoke choked shadows. Shapes that writhed and cried out, cursing and moaning their despair. The groans of fear and pain were like sweet ambrosia to the newly awakened mare - An aperitif, before the slaughter begins! With glee she savors it, not questioning her sudden change in circumstances, only obeying that one universal constant that drives her very existence...

The Candy Mare... Must... FEED!

Grasping tendrils of liquorice spread through the shadows, snaring the nearest prey. Hundreds of hungry mouths yawn cavernously wide all over the Candy Mare's body as they greedily begin to gulp down gobbits of fresh meat from her struggling quarry. The shrieks of the poor souls intensify as her candy corn smile slices and slashes through their substance, masticating them into mush that sprays and splatters the smoldering rocks on which she stands. The hiss of raw fat spitting on a griddle rises from the steaming stones all around the Candy Mare's hooves, as she makes short work of her gluttonous repast.

It's only after she has taken the edge off of her hunger that the murderous mare notices that something is amiss. Her 'victims' seem not to have any substance to them at all. No delicious gore, no scrumptious blood, or even the satisfying crunch of bone to speak of. The things barely have any taste at all. Tear at her prey though she might, devour them piece by piece or swallow them whole, they simply regenerated anew as though no harm had been done to them. The Candy Mare realized what she had been eating were no more than wraiths. Even that isn't entirely accurate as raw soul stuff should be more than enough to sustain her. Instead the substance of these shades just steadily leaks back out of her, leaving her unfulfilled and perhaps even a little weaker than she was before.

When a cold, curt laugh drifted through the swirling smoke, it stiffened the mad mare's spine. The Candy Mare narrowed her lollipop eyes, the insanity and frenzy of a moment ago replaced by a look of equal parts hatred and surprise. It was as if the ominous chuckle had poured ice water in her veins. The candified cadaver knew that terse little titter. It had been accompaniment to the most horrifying, humiliating, and excruciating moments of her existence. Hearing it again filled the murderous mare with a loathing far deeper than her commonplace hatred for the living. Her rage smoldered all the more darkly because she had thought that she had silenced that snide chortle herself, once and for all, long ago.

Even so, there was no surprise in her expression when he stepped out of the smoke.

Bathed in the rudy light that seemed to suffuse the darkness in the color of old blood, the unicorn strode through the smoke and cinders that swirled around them almost casually. Those infuriating little spectacles of his. That insipid waistcoat and brooch. His boorishly coiffed mane that curled about his unblemished features. The Candy Mare recognized them all, and her stomach lurched as if she was going to be sick. If she thought there was any chance of there being a mistake as to who the other pony was, she need only have looked at that face. At that sharp, even facade, those frigid little eyes like chips of glittering ice, and the sneer that almost unconsciously curled his lips into a sour look of permanent disdain.

There was only one pony to whom all those repugnant characteristics could belong. Lemon Drop.

"Welcome to Hell..." greeted the candy maker and child killer, contemptuously. "Daughter."

Chapter 1 - Family Reunion

Words fail to accurately describe the guttural noise that rattled up from the Candy Mare’s throat. It silenced the moaning of the nearest shades as their attention was suddenly arrested from their own torment by that terrible, sepulchral cry. Her every hair stiffened and her body tensed like a coiled spring.

That was all the warning that was given as the candified cannibal launched herself at Lemon Drop like a whirling dervish of gnashing teeth and flashing claws!

As enthusiastically violent as her efforts were, the lemon yellow unicorn remained almost entirely unfazed. It was with a look of boredom that he yawned as fangs and tendrils alike passed through him like the oars of a ship disturbing the surface of calm waters. Though he appeared better defined than the other wraiths that haunted this dismal place, he had about as much substance as they did, his form wavering briefly like heat haze on a hot summer's day. As the Candy Mare realized how ineffective the expression of her rage actually was, her attack subsided, and she settled for merely glaring at her unwelcome company with utter loathing.

“I see you are as impulsive and violent, as ever, dearest daughter” observed the stallion, returning the glare with a frigid stare of his own. “It’s almost comforting to know that after all these years you're still the same petulant, tantrum throwing child.”

“I’m not a child anymore.” growled the Candy Mare, baring her candy corn fangs. “And I’m definitely no daughter of a filthy degenerate like you!”

“Creation then, if you prefer.” conceded Lemon Drop, unfazed by the venom dripping from the Candy Mare’s every word. “As much as you may despise me, and believe me the feeling is mutual, even you can’t be so deluded as to deny my role in your rather unique nativity.”

“If you mean to say that you’re the one to blame for my existence, then sure!” hissed the undead pony, her eyes spiraling with barely contained madness. “I’m more than happy to let you bear that guilt!”

Lemon Drop scoffed. “Guilt? As if I’ve ever felt guilty for anything. Surely you know such trifles are beneath me?”

“Regrettably.” was the Candy Mare's bitter reply as she settled down on her haunches. As satisfying as it might be to hurl venom at her killer-slash-creator, it wasn't really conducive to her learning anything about her present situation. “Enough idle banter. You might be in love with the sound of your own voice, but I’d sooner rip out your throat than exchange any more ‘pleasantries’ with you. Where are we, and why am I burdened with your repugnant presence?”

“Impatient as always. Though at least you’re asking the right questions.” mused the haughty shade. “As I said my dear, welcome to Hell. That is the name of this infernal realm, and this is where we are bound to stay. You are familiar with the prison Tartarus, I'd wager? The prison to which the unicorn kings of old would banish those considered too dangerous to live in polite society? Think of this as that place writ large! The malicious and deceitful of an entire universe funneled down into one miserable pit at the bottom of creation."

“Hah, yes, I’ve been to Tartarus before.” a bark of laughter saying much about what the Candy Mare thought of the dread penitentiary. “Though as its liberator, rather than its prisoner. As I recall it was more an over-glorified zoo than a prison. If security here is anything like it was there, then I doubt I will be ‘bound’ here for very long at all!”

Lemon Drop simply shook his head and gave a long suffering sigh. “I’m afraid that thwarting your incarceration this time won’t be as simple as plundering a penal colony designed by mere ponies. This realm is vast, and there is much about it that you do not know.”

“Is that so? It seems I was able to escape from the last prison I was in without even trying! Speaking of which...” the Candy Mare’s predatory eyes roamed over their surroundings. “You didn’t happen to see any others arrive with me, did you? I should like very much to catch up with my former 'cell mates'. Those responsible for my brief time in limbo would make for excellent travel snacks on my way to freedom.”

“Your stay in limbo was not as brief as you might think.” the ghostly unicorn took a moment to clean a smudge of soot from his glasses with a handkerchief before continuing. “The reason for your egress is simple. The world your private 'limbo' was connected to has long since come to an end and true Limbo was deemed too good for you. This place, Hell, is a holding cell in the lower spheres designed to imprison the damned until their day of judgement. I’m certain anyone who sacrificed themselves to thwart you was probably called to one of the higher spheres, there to abide in one of the more heavenly realms until they might find their eternal home. Good and evil rarely come in contact with one another anywhere but on the mortal plain. More's the pity.”

“Oh please, I’ve seen worlds end before. Hah, in fact I’ve ended several, personally!” The cadaverous grin of the candy covered corpse widened as she remembered better times. “There’s no cosmic sorting bin for good and evil. At the end there is simply a mountain of corpses, rotting under pitiless stars, slowly fading into the ever lasting dark. If you’re trying to tell me there’s some cosmic sense of ‘justice’ out there, next you’ll be trying to convince me the tooth fairy is real.”

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met her. Although, as many children’s teeth as I inadvertently extracted in my time, you would think I would have caught a glimpse of her once or twice." if Lemon Drop's serious reply shocked the Candy Mare, she did not show it. “Never-the-less, doubt it though you may, I’m afraid your circumstances are as you described; Welcome to the celestial dust bin for all that is deemed evil, corrupt, and loathsome. I’m sure you’re not that surprised to find yourself here.”

“More than anything I guess that explains why you're here!” she snarled in reply. “I bet you just couldn’t wait to have the opportunity to torment me again, could you?”

“On the contrary my dear, your memory is confused. I never ‘tormented’ you. You were merely the by-product of my own brilliant experiments and the inevitable expiration of one of my many disposable test subjects. I never bore you any malice.” he paused, before grinning coldly and opening his vest to reveal a gaping hole in his chest. The exposed hollow in his shattered rib-cage extended into a deep cavity that was alive with maggots. “At least not before you ripped my still beating heart from my chest. That was rather rude of you.”

“You had that coming!” the Candy Mare shot back. “For everything you did. For everything you didn’t do! The simple acts of kindness and mercy you withheld that only accelerated the ‘expirations’’ of the children you stole and murdered! Not just them, but their parents too when they got in your way. Or do you forget feeding me pieces of my own father as part of your twisted experiments!?”

“Oh come now. You act as if all those deaths were intentional. You should well know I never cared if my test subjects lived or died, and the trivial lives of their parental units were equally meaningless to me. Besides, if you're so outraged by 'murder' as you call it, then why did you engage in so much of it yourself?” asked the incredulous unicorn with a smirk. “The Candy Mare! The sugar-coated cannibal corpse, scourge of Nightmare Night, feasting on the fat of babes and haunting their nightmares! You were every bit the monster you claim me to be. You tortured and tormented the innocent far more gleefully than one would expect of somepony filled with self-righteous rage at my actions and deeds. It's quite irrational.”

“If the ponies who wrote my legend knew half of the things you did stolidly and sanely to your ‘test subjects’, they wouldn't just call you a monster, Lemon Drop. They would know you for the incompassionate devil that I know you for. Removing your heart was not only just, but poetic given your true nature.” assured the Candy Mare, her words dripping with scorn. “My madness, my hunger, and my every misdeed can be laid at your 'rational' hooves, after all.”

“Unfortunately the powers that be seem to agree with you on that score.” muttered the unicorn, acting in an uncharacteristically morose manner for the dispassionate killer. “It would seem we are inextricably tied to one another, much as I wish it were otherwise. It would seem that just as the sins of the father might be visited on the son, so too may the transgressions of the daughter accumulate upon her father.”

“Would you stop it with the cryptic bullshit?” grumbled the perturbed pony with a curse. “Also, I already told you to knock it off with that ‘father and daughter’ crap.”

Lemon Drop ignored the Candy Mare’s crass recriminations. “In short, I’m responsible for you. Whatever fate might be in store for you, I am bound to share it. Hence why I have come to collect you. Those who rule here have instructed me to lead you into their presence. I'm afraid that we have a date with eternity.”

“...”

For the first time in their conversation the Candy Mare didn’t know what to say.

Lemon Drop was right in that she wasn’t entirely surprised that there was some kind of terrible punishment lined up for her at the end of everything. It was that creeping sense of dread that had always motivated her to snuff out the next life, and the next , and the next, all in an effort to stave of her own eventual dissolution. But that was just it - She’d always thought that it would be oblivion that awaited her. She had imagined her rage and hatred burning down to embers in a quiet, empty world devoid of life and souls to sustain her until all had faded away to nothing. The idea some greater punishment might lay in store for her was something she had no difficulty processing, but it wasn't something she had ever seriously considered. Frankly, a small part of her had been looking forward to an end to everything. To know that she was meant to continue in a state of suffering for ever and ever was a somber thought.

However, the idea that some fate just as terrible lay in store for Lemon Drop, her creator and the origin of all that suffering, well that did give her just a little bit of cold comfort.

Maybe there was something like justice in the cosmos after all.

“Well, as you said, enough idle banter, eh?” concluded Lemon Drop. Turning away, the dead unicorn walked back into the swirling smoke before pausing to look back over his shoulder. “Come along then. The Master says I am to give you a tour before our introductions.”

Interlude - A Storm That Took Everything

The sun rode fat and low on the horizon, orange as a swollen pumpkin ripe for the reaping. As the blazing orb dipped lower against the hazy skyline, the glow deepened to a bloody hue that washed the fields in rays of scarlet.

As the earth pony stood and wiped her brow, she knew the day's work was done. Soon it would be time for supper.

It was normal for her to spend most of her daylight hours helping to bring in the crops at harvest time, but as her mind tried to stretch back and judge just how long she had labored, she found it hard to recall a time she hadn't been working the fields. Had she skipped lunch? Perhaps breakfast too? That might explain the gnawing hollow where her stomach should be. The offending organ grumbled so hard that the vibrations shivered up her spine, snapping and popping in her inner ear.

However long she had been working, the farm pony had certainly worked up a hearty appetite.

The mare was used to going without by now though. She had lived only in 'lean times' as her elders would refer to them. Even at the best of times most of their crops were not theirs to keep, so going hungry was a common occurrence. These past few years certainly had not been the best of times, with the land withering and its usual bounty dwindling along with it.

It was strange though, as the now crimson disc of the sun slipped ever faster behind the hills, that she was the only pony out in the fields for as far as her eyes could see. It wouldn't be a surprise if her mother was already back home, preparing dinner. But where then was her father? It wasn't like him to slack off on his chores... Had he perhaps gone home ahead of her as well?

"Daddy?" Why was there this ache in her chest as she called out to him? "Daddy!? Where are you!?"

There was no reply but the sigh of autumnal winds whispering through the dry stalks as dusk settled in and the onrush of night loomed across the eastern sky. The young mare suddenly felt very alone. There was no sound of birds, not even the familiar caw of thieving crows out to steal their own share of the Earth Pony's bounty. Despite this, there was also a sensation that she was not as alone as she thought she was. The filly felt the pressure of eyes weighing down on her, the same way a hare might feel the gaze of an owl roosting in the trees or a hawk soaring on high, just before the dive and the talons sank in.

The promise of swift and silent death seemed to radiate from all around her.

"Maybe he's in the barn?" the farm pony thought aloud, to try and break the smothering silence and oppressive atmosphere that had settled over her. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to check..."

As she made her way across the field to the old wooden barn the last glimmering rays of sunset slipped away like the last grains of sand in an hourglass and the world entered that soft hour of twilight that you only get just after dusk and just before dawn.

Everything was faded to a soft blue, like her father's old denim overalls. In the gathering gloom, the filly couldn't help but miss the absent chirp of crickets and the shrill calls of tree frogs. How she longed to hear the soft songs of night creatures awakening to the evening. She shivered as the feeling of being watched intensified, and quickened her pace to a trot as she left the fields behind and the barn filled her field of view.

"Daddy, are you there?" she called again, hoping to hear her father's reassuring voice. "I'm sure mum has gotten dinner ready for us by now. Shouldn't we be heading home? It has grown awfully late."

Again there was no reply, only the lonesome sound of the night breeze whistling through the bare, skeletal limbs of nearby trees, picked clean already of their dead and dried leaves. The farm pony was starting to fret in earnest now.

Had her father gone to fetch more firewood? The nights had been bitterly cold lately. They'd taken to keeping the stove burning cherry-red hot to try and compensate, and still they spent the long dark hours shivering beneath piles of dusty old blankets and quilts. Their sleep was haunted by strange dreams of ghostly stallions galloping through the sky, cold as ice and clear as glass...

'Windigoes', her father would whisper to her mother, when he thought their daughter couldn't hear.

'Quiet', her mother would admonish, unafraid of their child overhearing the word, but terrified that speaking the cursed name of such creatures might draw their attention.

The young mare felt a shudder go down her spine that had nothing to do with her aching belly as she went around the side of the barn.

No, the wood pile was high, perhaps higher than it had any right to be. It was silly to think her father would be out gathering wood this close to nightfall anyway. She didn't know what she had been thinking.

Night was settling in for real now, inky black and moonless. Looking up, the filly couldn't see any shimmer of starlight, nor even a single sparkle in the stark sky. From horizon to horizon, there was nothing but a canopy of endless emptiness.

As the increasingly frightened mare made her way back towards the front of the barn, she could just barely make out a thick fog rolling in from the fields. It wasn't unusual to have patches of fog and mist in the morning this time of year, but it was strange for it to roll in at dusk. Perhaps some pegasus was playing a prank on the tiny farm? If the fog was thick enough, that might explain the dearth of animal noises and even the absence of the stars up above. Low and clinging clouds like these had a tendency to obscure and distort sound as well as light.

Why then did the little pony suddenly hear something like a girlish giggle clear as crystal, high and sharp, just on the edge of her hearing?

Why then, if it were just a trick of the fog, did she suddenly feel her heart jump into her throat?

"Easy now. Steady on girl..." the young mare whispered. "You're just agitating yourself, that's all. It's been a long day, you're starving, your suppers probably already cold, and you're more than ready to go home. There's nothing that's here in the dark of night that wasn't here in the light of day. Keep calm, and carry on."

She fervently wanted to trust in those words, but as the fog grew thicker it felt like the walls of the world were crushing in around her. The farm pony hurried to the front of the barn and decided that rather than taking the short walk home she would instead duck into the wooden shelter for a moment, just to make sure her father wasn't inside and somehow hadn't heard her calling for him.

It wasn't that she was running or hiding from anything after all, it would simply be a waste to come all this way and not make sure her father was not here.

As she drew close to the open barn doors she couldn't help but marvel at their size. Indeed, she couldn't help but marvel at just how large the barn seemed to be. It was old and broken down, grey wood clearly showed through peeling paint that might have been red once upon a time, but even so it was much taller and wider than she remembered it being. Since when had their poor farm been able to afford such an outstanding out-building as this enormous thing?

The doorway yawned wide, like the mouth of some gigantic beast awakening from a deep slumber. The mental imagery was almost enough to make the young mare have second thoughts about going inside, until she noticed the soft flicker of lamp light coming from within. This was the first sign that she had seen of any other living creature being around, and she quickly moved towards the light hoping to find somepony - anypony, at this point, that might be able to explain what was going on.

Upon entering the barn, the doors suddenly slammed shut behind her.

Startled, the earth pony whirled at the sound, but saw no one and nothing that might account for the barn doors closing. Perhaps the wind had just blown the old doors closed? As heavy as they looked, it seemed unlikely, but the farm pony decided it was the only explanation she felt like pondering in the sudden gloom of the cavernous barn. Although, it really wasn't that gloomy. Once again, a lantern flickered from further within. In fact it was not just one, but a score of lanterns that blazed into life! Their fitful light illuminated the rusty farm equipment and bales of old hay, casting shadows that shifted and danced across the walls.

The filly had no time to ponder how the lanterns had flared up as their light spilled out over an even more bizarre sight. All around the barn row after row of low benches had been set up with what looked like trays of bright red and green apples dipped in some sticky brown substance. Not only did they not grow apples on their farm, but they certainly were never so blessed with wealth that they might dip any of their produce so wantonly in delicious smelling caramel! The scent reminded her of the vacant space in her stomach, and the odious organ growled its displeasure once more as her mouth watered with the anticipation of biting into one of the still steaming candied fruits.

Outside the wind suddenly picked up, whistling through the gaps in the barn's wooden walls.

There was that giggling noise again, closer now, and the farm pony thought she could also hear a single word whispered low and menacing...

"...hungry..."

As the wind grew more violent the lantern light faded out and, for a moment, died. The musty room was plunged into an even more profound darkness than what had gathered outside.

The filly felt her heart leap again as it pounded in her chest. Her every instinct screamed for her to run! Just to run far and fast and to not under any circumstances look back! But as she panicked she lost track of the door. She risked running into the rows of benches and pitching herself over along with the caramel coated apples. That wouldn't be any help at all in her getting her bearings so, as much as it pained her, she held her instincts in check and slowly made her way towards what she thought was the nearest wall with one hoof out in front of her waving back and forth as she felt along the floor blindly.

As suddenly as it had gone, the light returned, the flames of the lanterns whooshing back even hotter and brighter than before!

The rush of relief that the filly felt was instantly strangled by a wave of horror as disgust and revulsion filled the pony at what the light revealed. The many glistening red 'fruits' lined up steaming on the low tables in the barn weren't apples at all, but rather they were something meaty and pulsing with unnatural life. Thick vermilion liquid throbbed from the quivering tubes that jutted out of the dripping caramel surface, drenching the low tables in red.

'Hearts!' she realized 'Still beating beneath a sugary coating of caramel!'

As the convulsing muscles spurted even more blood from the severed veins and arteries, the puddle of blood began to spread towards the farm pony's hooves, causing her to instinctively back away. The filly screamed, unable to hold back her horror at the gory scene spread before her. The stench of rotting flesh and the coppery tang of foul blood threatened to overwhelm her senses. Bizarrely the putrid stench only made her hunger grow, adding a layer of confusion to the already surreal situation.

"No! Please no!" the mare moaned as the pool of viscera grew closer. She had to get out! She had to go now, now, now!

Scrambling for the door, the little pony screamed afresh as the lanterns began to burst one by one. The glass shattered and exploded outwards in a cloud of shards as the flames erupted from inside and licked hungrily at the old wood and dry straw. If the horrible sound of hundreds of beating disembodied hearts wasn't enough to drive the filly mad with fright, then the roar of the barn suddenly awash in flames certainly did the job! Her hooves pawed at the doors, but she realized far too late that she was locked in!

She was trapped!

"A nightmare! This must be a nightmare!" her hooves chipped and splintered from the force of her blows as she hammered at the thick wooden doors. "Wake up! Wake up, me!"

As she struggled and strained to try and force the old timbers to give in under the pressure of her tiny body, she heard the insane giggle of a little girl bubble up all around her. There were words too, clear as day, though they came in a mocking singsong voice. "Nightmare Night, what a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!"

It sounded like some sort of nursery rhyme, but the words were meaningless nonsense, though the malice behind them came through bright and clear. The filly struggled all the harder against the nightmare she suddenly found herself trapped in, desperate to find some way to escape.

Was it her frenzied terror or the greedy flames that finally made the barn doors give way?

It was impossible to say for sure, but the young mare didn't care which as she shot forth into the night, cracked hooves thundering beneath her as she galloped out of the living nightmare...

And into Hell!

The fields as far as she could see were gone.

There was nothing but smoke that boiled up all around a suddenly vast, fire-lit horizon. The ground beneath her hooves was slick and metallic, black as sin and blazing hot to boot. It too seemed to stretch around the horizon. What truly arrested her attention, however, was not this dramatic change to the landscape but the sea of boiling hot lava that glowed malignantly far below in a caldera, upon the edge of which she suddenly found herself precariously perched. She teetered unsteadily, as the metal 'ground' was steeply sloped on all sides. The little pony's overwhelmed mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing, but it was all so insane she could barely wrap her thoughts around it, until at last her brain spat out the word 'cauldron' as if from thin air.

A cauldron!

That was what it was!

A monumental cauldron, the size of which boggled the young mare's mind.

Boundlessly large, its depths roiled not with liquid hot magma as she first thought, but instead with a thick treacly brown substance that bubbled and hissed as though it were at a rapid boil. The sweet scent of caramel drifted once again to the farm pony's nose and battered through her addled senses, until she finally realized that what she was looking at was a sea of molten sugar! How such a thing had come to replace her warm and familiar fields, she could not say, but there was no denying the evidence of her eyes. Feeling her burnt and bleeding hooves start to slip towards the seething sweets bellow, the earth pony clambered backwards as quick as she dared, trying to push herself back up the slick sides of the massive metal cook pot.

The earth pony turned to try and grab hold of the edge to pull herself free, and she might have succeeded, had she not at that moment looked up into the most terrifying face she had ever seen!

An enormous head loomed out of the billowing smoke, adorned with three horrible faces each more hideous than the last! Its six eyes were wide and wild, swirled with pink and blue madness. The needle thin teeth in each of its three maws were arrayed in predatory grins that displayed a knowing and gleeful cruelty. The rest of the titanic creatures monstrous features were a mad mish-mashed mess of exposed muscle, dripping flesh, and rotted bone that was alive with writhing worms and skittering insects.

"GIVE US SOMETHING SWEET TO BITE!" the hideous face boomed, forcing the filly to cover her ears. As she did, the farm pony lost her grip, and fell backwards and down into the cauldron.

There was a brief moment, as she hung motionless in mid-air before she rapidly receded away from the repulsive visage, that the faces looked almost familiar. But there was no time for the filly to truly process what she had seen, as her body hit the scalding surface of the lake of caramel with a gloopy splash, and slipped with a noisome plop into the burning slimy depths.

The earth pony struggled, kicked and thrashed, even as she felt her skin bubble and slough off in the hot sticky sweetness that stuck to her like glue. The stench of her own broiling flesh assaulted her nostrils, overwhelming the cloying stink of candy that sizzled as she was forced to inhale lungfuls of the syrupy gunk. As her eyelids burned off in the heat and her exposed eyeballs were coated in sweet sludge, the last sight burned into her retinas was that horrid, smiling, face, grinning down at her suffering.

She gasped weakly through the pain. "I'm begging you, please wake me up!" before she finally drowned.

Chapter 2 - Inferno

To the Candy Mare, a tour of Hell with Lemon Drop was about as dreary as things could get.

To be clear, after the she had been spat out of Limbo, she had ended up in a part of the Realm Infernal reserved for those who had been lustful in life. This inadvertently led massive overcrowding as, apparently, there were few creatures alive that had never experienced a lustful thought or engaged in lustful deeds. The punishment was the incorporeality that the Candy Mare had observed early when trying to devour the shades that had been damned here. What it was meant to accomplish wasn't anything protective of course, but rather the wraiths were forbidden to touch or be touched, yet constantly yearned for that sensation. To make matters worse, the sinners were surrounded by constant temptation as the souls of other desperate offenders swirled about in the smoke and heat trying to hold one another.

As The Candy Mare grew familiar with the realm she came to recognize several tornadoes on the horizon for what they truly were, lustful souls spinning around and around one another, in the vain attempt at what amounted to an unsuccessful ghost orgy. She sneered at the storm of desperation that kicked up the dust all around her. Such whiny, pathetic whelps. She was almost glad she hadn't been able to eat them after all. There was no telling where they had been.

“Hell has rules.” intoned Lemon Drop, interrupting her thoughts. Ever the one to show off his superiority, even in Hell, the ghostly unicorn couldn't help but take the opportunity to demonstrate his lofty knowledge of this lowly realm. “We are forced to abide by these rules as we travel. Pay heed to step where I step, for there are many who have wandered off the beaten path, who have become lost to the things that lurk beyond.”

“Don’t try to scare me, Lemon Drop.” the Candy Mare chided. “In case you’ve forgotten, I am the thing that goes ‘bump’ in the night. I doubt there’s anything out there more terrible than me.”

“Perhaps not, under normal circumstances.” agreed the unicorn with a disconcerting gleam in his eyes. “But these are far from normal circumstances.”

As they crossed out of the realm of howling winds and shrieking spirits, a change came over the weather. A thin, putrid rain began to fall, churning the ground into a frigid slurry. The grey rain made the terrain far colder than it should be, especially as the mud slid up the Candy Mare’s legs, thanks in large part to the relatively hotter realm the pair of ponies had just exited. The unnatural downpour didn’t dissolve the Candy Mare’s sugary flesh, as normal water might have, given enough exposure, but there were other significant drawbacks as the stinking liquid plastered her mane and tail against her body and slowed their advance to a crawl.

All around there were shades likewise lodged in the filthy mire. They wallowed in stinking puddles, each sinner clearly rotted and bloated with putrescence that seemed to devour them from the inside. The explanation for their condition was readily apparent, as The Candy Mare watched a few of the wraiths actively shovel the muddy slurry straight into their mouths. That was bad enough, but on closer inspection the muddy slop was alive with maggots, beetles, and other vermin that crept and crawled, and clearly ate the damned from the inside out. The mad mare watched in disgust as their jaws dislocated to swallow more and more of the insect laden slurry. The bellies of the gluttonous spirits distended with all the foulness that they had shoved down their throats, yet as their stomachs engorged, their hunger seemed to only grow greater! Their need becoming sharper as they worked themselves into an feeding frenzy before her eyes!

As the candy ghoul watched, one swollen gut after another burst wide open sending bloated intestines, squirming with parasites, flopping into the mud. More than one shade engaged in a horrible display of auto-cannibalism, stuffing their own intestines into their mouths in an effort to appease their unnatural hunger.

Unbelievably, despite how revolting the sight was, the Candy Mare had to fight hard not to join the sinners in their self destructive feast. It wasn’t that the reeking slurry was at all appetizing, no, as it was a far cry from a hot and juicy morsel of live flesh. Even so, the morbid mare felt her own hunger growing and growing well beyond her barely maintained control. It prowled in the pit of her stomach like a wild animal and shook the cage of candy flesh that contained it so hard that she was visibly vibrating with each ravenous growl.

By now the muddy slush was up to her chest and it took everything she had not to bury her mouth in the putrid slurry and inhale as much as she could swallow.

“Feeling peckish?” was Lemon Drop's arch response to her obviously unstable condition.

For all she hated him in that moment, it was perhaps this comment that saved her. Lemon Drop studied the undead mare like she was a particularly uninteresting bug crawling in the dirt. That hint of a smirk curling his lip as he watched her struggle was absolutely infuriating. Was watching her wade through this foul sewage all it took to crack that false veneer of affected rationalism to reveal the true smug sense of superiority that lurked within him?

As the Candy Mare's eyes chased the phantom of emotion across the cold-blooded child-killers face, she couldn’t help but notice that the pretentious pony wasn’t even sunk into the mud as she was! His hooves seemed to float just about the swampy surface, untouched by even so much as a single speck of dirt!

She would never give in to this place in front of him.

She could not even fathom the idea of giving him that satisfaction.

There was absolutely no way she was going to give in to her hunger if it meant him seeing her wallow in this sty with these pigs!

Gritting her teeth, the Candy Mare defiantly pressed on, resisting the urge to devour everything in sight... barely...

The rain slowly subsided, and the soft earth returned to a more rocky terrain. It should have been easier going here, but now it was Lemon Drop’s turn to slow their progress. His every step grew heavier and heavier as they stomped across the dusty plain. It wasn’t long before the Candy Mare noticed that there were ribbons of shadow trailing behind the unicorn. These shadows coalesced into clanking chains, wrapped tight around Lemon Drop's chest. They trailed down his limbs as well, leading to several boulder sized safes and money boxes that drug great furrows in the dirt behind him. So heavy was this weight on the pony that he was forced to hunker down and crawl through the dust just to move a few inches at a time.

It was laughable how he struggled to maintain an air of dignity while he sweated and strained, and the Candy Mare didn't need much encouragement to laugh at his suffering. Seeing that their roles were now reversed, with Lemon Drop struggling to resist the magical burdens of Hell, the Candy Mare couldn’t help but mock his misfortune.

“Not so high and mighty now, are you?” cackled the ghoulish mare, setting one of her candy hooves on the top of Lemon Drop’s head, ruffling his carefully coiffed mane. He jerked away and gave her an icy look that failed to hide the flash of anger in his eyes. “Aww, what’s the matter? Don’t like being looked down on? I guess it’s hard to maintain that sense of self-satisfied superiority when you go from being an impassive observer to writhing in the dirt like everyone else!"

Free of any such impediment herself, the Candy Mare could see other shades in a similar predicament to Lemon Drop. Some tried to drag their weight behind them while others stubbornly tried to push their burdens before them. What was bizarre was that occasionally two of the shades might meet and squabble among themselves, greedily protective of their burdens, as if the things that drug them down were somehow valuable. Of course all this useless flailing led to was each sinner getting more and more tangled, tightening the chains that bound them about their bodies until they were practically strangling themselves. They were usually left much worse off after such an encounter.

"Maybe I should just leave you here with the rest of the trash?" The Candy Mare mused. Rather than act on the idea, she merely went back to giggling and climbed atop the largest of the iron lockboxes that trailed behind Lemon Drop, adding her own weight to his already prodigious burdens. "I'm sure your so called 'master' would be thrilled if I showed up without you."

If the candified mare was attempting to break Lemon Drop’s spirit, then her jeers had the opposite effect. Despite the additional weight, the unicorn didn’t say a word as he rallied, rising back up from the earth and hauling himself faster across the land. He still was not able to approach much more than walking pace and his chains dug deep into his legs and chest, biting into his flesh so hard he left a trail of bloody droplets in the sand. Still, he persevered. For her part, the Candy Mare simply laughed at his determination and continued to ride behind him, holding the other end of his chains like reins which she occasionally shook as if she were driving him, or would occasional jerk this way or that in an attempt to make him stumble and fall. Even when he did fall, however, the cold blooded killer would simply rise to his hooves and continue trudging on.

At last they came to the edges of an impassable marsh. The first the Candy Mare knew of this, of course, was when her perch suddenly vanished from beneath her. A new part of the realm came with new rules, and Lemon Drop was free to roam once more, unimpeded.

The candified corpse fell heavily to the gravely shore, anger swelling up inside her. Of course she turned her venomous glare Lemon Drop's way, blaming him for this sudden turn of events, but instead of seeing his sardonic smile she discovered he wasn't paying any attention to her at all. The unicorn's back was to her as he seemed to be preoccupied with contemplating the vast wetland that stretched before them.

Forcing herself to stifle her rage, the Candy Mare came to stand beside him. What she had first taken to be a body of water turned out to be something far stranger. The 'marsh' was made up of an endless flowing battle. Shades warred with one another, some with weapons and others without, flowing back and forth like a great tide of violence and wrath. Beneath the surging fighters on top, the defeated could be seen muttering and groaning, biding their time before vindictively rejoining the battle and forcing some other poor soul beneath the tide of limbs.

“What are they all fighting over?” asked the Candy Mare, baffled by the endless tumult.

“Nothing. Or perhaps, everything” replied Lemon Drop enigmatically. “These were those in life who were driven by anger. The amusing part is that most of them were not even necessarily violent, or even aggressive. Many of them were merely sullen wretches who spent their time blaming their woes on everyone around them but themselves. Sound familiar?”

The sugar-coated mare knew better than to rise to his bait. “So what now? Is the tour over?”

“Not quite...” assured the former candy maker, his eyes scanning the horizon. “We have a bit further to go, however we won’t be able to pass beyond here on our own. Ah! It appears our chauffeur has arrived.”

At first the Candy Mare had no idea what Lemon Drop was talking about. Then she spotted an odd shaped boat bobbing along the surface of the warring sinners. It seemed to be forged of bronze, with long pointed spikes jutting into the air from six points around its circumference. There were no sails or oars, so it was hard to see how the raft propelled itself. It was impossible to hear the sound of an engine over the roar of the warring spirits, so perhaps there was some mechanism like that which drove it so smoothly and steadily through the clash of the damned?

However, as the vessel grew nearer it became apparent that there was no conventional means of propulsion driving it at all.

It wasn’t even a boat.

It appeared to, in fact, be an enormous brazen crown!

As it came in closer to the shore, the craft slowly rose on a pillar of flame and molten rock. As the clinging souls of sinners fell away the rising wall of stone resolved itself into the angriest face that the Candy Mare had ever seen. It seemed to be carved from molten rock, veins of magma pulsed through the ferocious visage. A pair of eyes that burned with malice sat beneath a brow of flame, wreathed in a great beard that blazed like a forest fire, the tightening of its otherwise frozen grimace was the only sign that the towering colossus had noticed the pair of ponies at all. As its shoulders, chest, and arms rose from the tide, it appeared the cracks of lava extended down the giants stony body as well. In due course the titan waded ashore, more and more of his frame rising into view. It was not long before they were completely lost in the shadow of the towering colossus.

“I’ve seen bigger.” quipped the Candy Mare.

“Don’t be rude to the help, dear” chided Lemon Drop. “Phlegyas duty is to act as ferryman across the Styx. Don't tempt him into abandoning us part-way in our crossing, unless you fancy trying to swim back to shore on your own.”

The giant extended a massive hand that was as wide as a football field and nearly as long when you took his long claws into account. Despite having what looked like skin made of hot volcanic rock, Lemon Drop clambered aboard without complaint. There was a soft hiss as the Candy Mare followed suit, but the heat was not enough to melt her sugar coated body. As soon as both ponies were aboard the hand slowly rose into the air, placing both high atop the perch that was the bronze crown that set on Phlegyas's titanic head. With his passengers secured, the behemoth spoke not a word but instead turned and started back the way he had come.

As the molten giant slid down, down beneath the waves of battle, there was a brief moment it seemed that the crown they rode on might sink as well, or perhaps be capsized by the angry shades that raged all around. The tall spikes of the crown plowed steadily through the crowd, however, and forced the warring spirits down to either side. They wailed in pain and despair as the hot metal made contact with them, pushing them aside and forcing them underneath the waves that formed in the crown's wake.

Nothing new or notable happened for awhile after this, and with the crown gliding far more smoothly through the crowd than a real boat would have traveled on the open water, it wasn’t long before things actually seemed peaceful.

Or at least as peaceful as one could hope for in Hell.

Interlude - The Inevitable Pull

The farm pony's vision swam as her hooves clattered against the rain slicked cobbles. She shivered, the air around her suddenly cold and clammy against her skin. Where was she?

She couldn't remember, try though she might. There were just snatches of half remembered images, the fields at sunset and the last dying rays of the afternoon. It was certainly dark now, perhaps it was still night?

Steadying herself she looked around. The fields were nowhere to be found. Tall, unfamiliar thatch-roofed houses loomed on every side. Fog billowed up from grates in the road and drifted like smoke along the side streets.

Smoke... Of course!

The filly remembered now. The barn had caught fire and she had run. She must have run all the way to town to get help! Yes, that would explain why she felt so weak and out of breath. As her mind cleared somewhat, a heavy exhaustion settled in her limbs, giving credibility to the idea. Surely there would be some friendly Unicorn here in town who could help her.

Oh! What was that?

A nearby street lamp whooshed to life, its flame flickering up so suddenly it caused her to jump in surprise. As she watched, other lamps up and down the road came alive, lighting the cobblestone street with their sulfuric light. Save for their glow, the town seemed dark and empty.

Every last house stood black as pitch, as though abandoned, devoid of any indication they had ever been inhabited. It wouldn't have seemed out of place in the country for that to be the case given the apparent lateness of the hour, but the Unicorns of the village usually stayed up long into the night studying the stars and reading their thick tomes of magic. Was it perhaps so very late that even those famous night owls had all gone to bed? Or was there was something else at play here?

As the filly trotted down the empty streets, she couldn't help but notice banners and bunting strewn between the homes. The riotous colors were somewhat subdued under the glare of the street-lights, but she could pick out streamers in orange and black, as well as purple and green pennants.

Oh, of course, a festival! Everypony must be out of their homes, celebrating.

When she had been just a little filly she had dreamed about the parties that the Unicorn elite, the high lords and ladies, would attend. The simple farm pony secretly longed to join them in dancing the night away without a care in the world. The idea of celebrating without having to concern herself with rising before dawn to tend to the fields or breaking her back doing chores had been quite appealing. It seemed ever so glamorous to her mind. The memory lifted her spirits somewhat, despite the somewhat creepy atmosphere of the thoroughfare she was walking down.

Of course, the decorations she imagined for such revelries were nothing like the somewhat grotesque trappings hanging about the town. As the farm pony looked closer she could see gaping eyeballs staring out at her from multiple angles, and the cold silhouette of a wicked-looking mare leering from the slash of a crescent moon. Skulls and bones hung among the streamers and ghoulish bat winged effigies of ghosts and goblins seemed to dangle menacingly around every corner.

What sort of morbid festival has decorations such as these?

While pondering this, fairy lights lit up all around her as if by magic! The twinkling orange and purple lights seemed to be strung along a path that led to the center of town. Dazzled and amazed by the adorably tiny lights, she couldn't help but giggle and skip as she trotted down the street towards the town square. There were more lights strewn about here, hanging down from carts and stalls aplenty, each piled high with a wide variety of sweets and pastries the likes of which the young mare had never dreamed! Never before had she beheld so many different confections and baked goods all arrayed in one place! Seeing them here seemingly unguarded out in the street she couldn't help but be tempted to steal something sweet to bite, out of curiosities sake if nothing else.

As if the very idea was a some sort of trigger, the filly's gut gave a ferocious growl, reminding her that she had not yet had her supper. Surely no one would mind if she just had one or two little nibbles from the bounty spread before her?

"No!" she reprimanded herself as her hoof reached out to a delectable looking marshmallow treat.

No, I'm not a thief!

Earth Ponies were always suspected by the other tribes of stealing and hoarding food for themselves. The young mare wasn't about to give any truth to the lie by giving in to temptation when her home may well be awash in flames!

Yes of course, how could she have been distracted from her task? She was here to find help. Surely her loyalty to her hearth and home were stronger than her hunger! The filly's belly would just have to wait.

But where is everypony?

The fairy lights began to fade, their cheery illumination giving way to the lonesome darkness, as whatever powered them seemed to lose its power. The fog grew thicker and began to drift in closer all around the farm pony.

Then she heard it... There was music on the air! It seemed to be coming from from up ahead. She could pick out a few voices too! Laughter and... screams? Screams of delight, perhaps? From this distance, she couldn't tell.

Without pausing to consider what it all might mean, she galloped after the distant sounds. Her hooves took her away from the town square and towards what seemed to be some sort of merchants district. Tall buildings with wide windows for displaying their wares towered on every side. The music seemed to be drifting from one building in particular, a tiered edifice shaped like a circus carousel, complete with intricately carved wooden ponies. It was a strange design, but the filly could see light spilling from its closed windows and from beneath the front door.

Surely that must mean somepony is home?

As she came to the door the young mare didn't hesitate in knocking. Although, after her tiny hoof thundered at the door a moment, she began to wonder what it was that she would say to the pony who lived here. 'Help, I don't know where I am or how I got here, but I'm terribly hungry and scared. Oh, also, my home might be on fire!' It was truthful but as she thought it through she realized it might also sound like something a crazy pony might say. Or worse, some kind of grifter out to prey on another pony's sympathies.

While she was aware some fillies and colts might go a-guising around harvest time to take advantage of the generosity and bounty of their betters, the simple farm filly had never engaged in the practice herself. Her father likened it to begging, and it would have hurt his pride if a daughter of his had gone door to door demanding what he could not provide. The earth pony didn't know much about what the high minded city-folk thought of the practice, but she imagined that the Unicorns wouldn't be terribly forthcoming with aid if they thought she was just some lowly urchin looking for charity.

"Please excuse me, I'm sorry to disturb you." she called through the wooden door, hoping politeness would get her a more favorable response. "I know the hour is late, but there's an emergency! A fire! Can you please help me!?"

She reached to knock again, but froze as she realized that the sounds of music and laughter had faded away to silence.

Off in the distance it was replaced by the tinkling of broken glass. The wary mare turned, not knowing what to expect as she peered down the street into the fog shrouded distance. The harsh yellow glow of the street lamps appeared dimmer than she remembered. As she watched, the sound of breaking glass came again, and this time she could see one of the not too distant lamps had been suddenly snuffed out! That wasn't all, as now there was a sound of hooves in the fog, skipping merrily along to a tuneless whistle.

"Hello?" she called. "Is somepony there?"

The only reply was more tinkling glass as another lamp burst, its light extinguished! From the slowly encroaching darkness a giggle sent a thrill of fear down the filly's spine.

It was all too familiar, and the childish laughter sent memories flooding back in her mind. The barn that was somehow familiar yet so strange at the same time, the caramel 'apples' that were not apples at all, and, of course, that high hideous giggle and the horrific face that it belonged to! These memories were like ghastly visions one might dismiss as nothing more than nightmares, yet they were so crystal clear in her mind she couldn't possibly deny that they had been real!

Panic thrummed through the little pony's body, causing her knees to shake and her lip to quiver as fresh tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

No! This can't be happening! Not again!

The murky fog drew nearer and nearer, one shattered street lamp at a time, as the sound of skipping hooves and girlish giggling came ever closer with each passing moment. A sense of dreadful inevitability opened a yawning pit deep in her stomach. The earth pony turned and frantically pounded on the door behind her. She desperately sought to get inside and away from the madness that marched ever close. Was there no one inside? Could they somehow not hear her? Should she give up? Should she just run?

As her eyes whirled towards the opposite end of the street, they bulged with terror as she realized that the lamps were going out in both directions. Indeed, the encroaching fog was even a bit closer on the opposite side, and she could hear the same giggling and clip-clopping of joyously skipping hooves echoing through the dark. The sound was coming in stereo! Whatever was stalking the night, there were two of them, and they were almost right on top of her!

There was nowhere to run!

She beat on the door even more frantically, until with an unexpected click, the portal swung open and she sprawled across the threshold and on to the carpeted floor. Scrambling to her hooves, she didn't pause to thank her savior for their kindness, but slammed the door shut behind her as the last lamp outside broke with a loud pop and a shower of falling sparks.

Chest heaving, her pulse thundering in her ears, the farm pony locked and barred the door, leaning into it for good measure. After a few anxious moments, when nothing more seemed to happen, she at last allowed herself a few shallow breaths to thank the pony who had let her in.

"Thank you so much!" she practically sobbed, so relieved was the terrified pony to have avoided whatever it was that roamed the streets outside. "I thought they were going to get me for sure! You don't know how much I-"

But her words died on her lips. Nopony was there.

She was all alone.

The shop she found herself in was well lit by several decorative candles in sconces along the walls and in small dishes spread throughout the store. Mirrors lined the walls as well, reflecting the candlelight around the shop, illuminating more intricately carved wooden ponies that stood in various artistic poses around the room. They seemed to be used for displaying dresses and other apparel in various stages of construction.

Given the curtained off area in one corner and the sewing supplies strewn over a low table, it seemed that the shop belonged to a seamstress or tailor, perhaps even a dressmaker of some sort given that the cloths the mannequins displayed. The room was shockingly pink where it was not accented with golden filigree and finery, but there was a somewhat shabby and neglected air to everything she laid her eyes upon. Cobwebs festooned the walls and ceiling and a thick coat of dust rested on the carpet. Despite the evidence of the candles to the contrary, it seemed like no pony had been inside the shop for some time.

Before she could think about what this could possibly mean, a short, sharp knock shook the shops front door. The farm pony leapt into the air in fright and quickly hid behind one of the wooden mannequins. She tentatively peeked from behind the half finished skirt that adorned the dressmaker's doll, her eyes locked on the door.

"Wh-Who's there?" she stammered tremulously.

There was no response, except for another few knocks that sounded more impatient than the first. The cowering filly shivered, thinking it might be whatever was breaking the street lamps trying to trick her into opening the door.

But what if there was some other pony out there that needed her help? Could there possibly be somepony else stuck out there in the fog in urgent need of her aid?

Unbidden, as if she were in a dream and had no control of her actions, the mare's hooves began to move towards the door. Her heart pounding and knees shaking, she undid the lock and unbarred the door. Her hoof trembled, not with any effort to move the handle that would open the door, but rather with every muscle in her body straining to resist that motion. The filly desperately struggled internally against the irresistible urge to open the door.

Unfortunately, her will was no match for whatever force was propelling her body. With a low moan of despair, she closed her eyes tights, and threw open the door!

The quiet that followed was deafening. No giggles, nor screams followed. Only an unsettling stillness as the wall of fog beyond the door sent a few questing tendrils snaking into the building.

As the candle-light spilled out onto the front stoop of the shop and partially illuminated the dense fog, it shone upon a single beautifully wrapped piece of candy that shimmered on the door step. Somehow, the tiny treat was even more frightening than if some monster or boogie-mare had been standing there waiting to grab her. The carefully wrapped confection sat innocuous and seemingly harmless, yet it radiated cold waves of dread, like a frigid mist.

Instinctively the farm pony knew there was something unnatural and dangerous about it.

Yet, again, the young mare felt her body move of its own accord. She reached down and picked up the tiny candy and slowly started to unwrap it. As the foil crinkled open it revealed a delightfully swirled sweetie that practically begged to be gobbled up. The shivering young pony felt her stomach tie itself in knots of desire and apprehension as her fear warred with her appetite inside her famished frame.

Before she quite realized what she was doing, she had popped the sweetmeat into her mouth, and chewed it up with gnoisy relish. As she swallowed, a strange chill spread inside her. The frosty numbness coursed through her body, dripping through her veins like ice water. She began to feel fainter and fainter. The entire experience was somehow hauntingly familiar, and the vague dread from before solidified into a pure sense of undeniable impending doom.

She knew in her heart of hearts, she was about to die.

As her body felt more and more insubstantial, the farm pony couldn't help but call out weakly. "Da... Daddy. Where are you? Why can't I see? Why can't I hear?"

Of course, her father wasn't here. He never had been. She wanted him so bad at that moment, even though there was a part of her that knew there was no way he could hear her.

The world faded to nothingness around her and she knew no more.

Chapter 3 - Pandæmonium

The Candy Mare was getting bored.

So far, she had gone along with this journey out of something approaching morbid curiosity. Now that things had settled down, however, the mad mare's mind was turning and she was starting to think that perhaps she should not have agreed so readily to this little 'tour'.

“So where is it, exactly, that we're going?”

"To where and back again, if we are fortunate." replied Lemon Drop dismissively, seemingly unwilling to divulge any further details.

"Yeah, that's not going to cut it." replied the Candy Mare with a predatory smile. "I may not be able to kill you again, but I have a feeling you'll be extremely inconvenienced if I were to say, push you into what passes for water around here. Tell me a story, and make it a good one, before I decide to relieve myself of your company for good."

Lemon Drop sighed heavily, shaking his head, but the candified fiend's threat did seem to have done the trick of loosening his lips. “You are to be granted the honor of an audience with the master of Hell. I believe I may have mentioned something to that effect at the outset of our little journey.”

“Yeah, ya did. It was just as cryptic then as it is now.” replied the sugarcoated pony with a sour scowl. “I get it, this is some plain of eternal suffering where all the most insufferable pricks go to pay for a lifetime of being the assholes they are. Super. Do we really have to compound that with your sad attempts to make yourself seem more important than you clearly are? The only difference I can see between you and the rest of the wretches that have been condemned to this place is that you're acting as an over glorified delivery boy.”

That drew a cynical chuckle from the ghostly unicorn. “Make no mistake my dear, just because the master wishes to see you that does not mean you are of any more import than I. It's purely for the satisfaction of seeing just what the master might do to you that I accepted the role of your chaperone. Having the opportunity to guide you to your 'eternal reward' is just icing on the cake."

“Hmm, yeah, I don’t really buy that.” replied the Candy Mare. “This doesn’t strike me as the kind of place where you have a whole lot of choice in what you get to do. Besides, what happened to that whole bit where you were responsible for me? Where our fates were intertwined?”

The sour expression Lemon Drop gave her then, almost made the trip to Hell worth it.

“Oh, maybe you thought I wasn’t paying attention to that?” giggled the mad mare. “I may still look like a filly from time to time but, make no mistake, I’m not a child. Whatever happens to me is likely going to happen to you too, isn’t it? That’s why you're really here. Out to save your own skin, or soul, as the case may be. What a clever trap.”

“You think you have it all worked out, eh?” replied the unicorn bitterly, turning away to gaze at the horizon.

“Oh, not all.” the Candy Mare admitted. “I’d still like to know precisely where we are going, for example. You've been a pretty lousy tour guide, but from the way you casually name dropped this giant's name as well as how you seem to already be mentally prepared for the various 'rules' we've encountered thus far, I think your lack of explanation is fueled by spite rather than ignorance. instead of your usual nebulous replies of how we’re ‘off to see the wizard’, why don't you try giving me a straight answer for once?”

That seemed to give Lemon Drop pause for thought. At first she still didn't think he would answer, but then he made his way toward what would have been the prow, if it had been a real ship they were sailing on.

“You can see it for yourself by now I think.”

They had been traveling for some time, but the horizon had looked the same smoky black in every direction.

Not anymore.

In the distance buildings suddenly began to resolve themselves out of the haze, occupying the view from one end of the horizon to the other. The towers rose high, piercing the smoke that choked the sky, windows and balconies giving off a sinister glow in the murky gloom. As they drew nearer, however, the skyline began to brighten as though it were lit from below. The effect was caused by the foremost edge of the city, which seemed to be completely engulfed in flames!

As they drew closer, they could see smaller structures caught in the conflagration, though the rest of the buildings seemed untouched by the raging fire.

“Behold the City of Dis!” Lemon Drop grimly intoned, taking on the air of a disinterested lecturer. “Dismay, disappointment, disgust, and discontent. Ultimately, a city of discipline as well, or what passes for it around here.”

“If you don’t stop it with the puns, I’ll disembowl you!” chirped the Candy Mare with a nasty sideways grin. "Is what I would like to say. I might not be able to act on that just yet, but I assure you that as soon as I am able..."

“Promises, promises...” dismissed the former candy maker. “They say once upon a time this was a golden city, whose beauty rivaled that of even the most breathtaking realms of paradise. Pandæmonium it was called then, the home of all demons, though with the many wars that have ravaged this realm, both the city and its denizens have fallen into the ruin you see before you.”

“So this is the home base of the head honcho, huh?” observed the candy corpse with a low whistle.

“Not quite, though we must pass through it to reach the master's abode.” there was something like worry creeping into his voice. “What you need to understand is that the city is not something set apart from Hell. The realms we’ve marched through thus far were just the outer rings of the great pit. In the living world perhaps you heard the saying that Hell is other people? To a degree, that applies mostly to the outer rings. The shades condemned there are largely those of sinners who by their very nature punish themselves and those around them. The rules written in place for those circles are merely there to amplify their natural tendencies. The circles within the city, however, are where true punishment takes place.”

They were near enough now that the low buildings at the shoreline were coming into view. Cries of pain, high and shrieking, rose from behind barred doors in what appeared to be stone mausoleums. Each edifice burned with a fierce and never ending flame from within, but despite this the Candy Mare could see charred limbs reaching through the bars as those trapped within tried desperately to claw their way out of their fiery tombs. They shook and rattled the bars across the doors and windows, but there was no escape for the damned who were consigned within.

“Charming...” muttered the Candy Mare, the heat of the flames even from this distance causing her to take a few steps back.

“What you see is the punishment reserved for no crime other than heretical thought.” explained her companion, seeming to finally warm to the role of tour guide of Hell. “Beliefs that did not fit the norm of the time and place these sorry souls happened to be born in. But as you can see the hatred that our demonic hosts hold for mortals is such that even the slightest misdeed is one due what we might consider unjustly harsh reprisal. Keep in mind that you and I are not immune to being punished thusly if we run afoul of the wrong demon within. The further we travel into the city, the more numerous and deadly dangers there will be to avoid. It’s imperative that you do not stray from my side once we reach port. The city is a dangerous place... Far more dangerous than the castle town you ventured to as a child...”

“You're thinking of Pumpkin Patch.” corrected the Candy Mare, in a moment of clarity. “Not me. I was born in that castle town, if you’ll recall. I think I’ll be just fine here.”

“Think what you like, but heed my warning all the same.” entreated Lemon Drop. “There are worse things that dwell in this city than you or I."

The monstrous mare scoffed. "Ha! And I bet you’d just hate to lose me to one of them before you have the chance to present my head on a silver platter, wouldn’t you? Very well. Lead on MacDuff.”

Once they arrived at their berth, just a few yards away from the wall of flames, the crown began to ascend into the air as the giant demon below rose from the river of struggling souls. As Phlegyas reached the edge of the city he took hold of his charges with one massive hand and placed them on a rooftop that was semi-hidden by the smoke that drifted from below. Without so much as a word of acknowledgment or parting, the colossus turned and immediately began the long journey back the way he had come.

Was he off to collect some other travelers or simply to lose himself in the tide of angry sinners? Who could say?

"He was a nice enough guy, in the end." remarked the Candy Mare. "Kind of chatty though."

Lemon Drop gave a noncommittal grunt of acknowledgement, his attention elsewhere.

As soon as their hooves had touched solid ground the unicorn had grown noticeably tense and watchful. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow as they danced with the shifting light of the flames, and the Candy Mare could see that the fine hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

"Something wrong, sourpuss?" asked the mad mare nonchalantly.

"Perhaps...” remarked the wraith warily.

They weren't alone.

Melting out of the shadows there slithered strange and nightmarish creatures. They came from every corner of the rooftop, surrounding the newcomers in a ring of abominations.

Some were pony-like, though they looked as if their skin had been flayed from their bones and only partially replaced with leather and jagged spikes of twisted metal trimmed with lace. Others were more primal, beast-like, rising up on two legs briefly to sniff the hellish breeze as a bear might before they turned their eyeless, horned heads in the pair of ponies direction. Most of the rest were harder to describe. There were creatures with mouths for eyes and eyes for teeth, strange staticy shapes that crackled and hissed just on the edge of perception, and piles of slithering slimy entrails that whistled and hooted shrilly as long tongues bubbled to the surfaces of their being to dart out and taste the air. It was a chaotic hodgepodge bizarre enough to fascinate even the Candy Mare, and each and every last one of them oozed an air of breath-taking maleficence.

It would seem that this was just a small cross section of the demonic entities that called the outer rim of the City of Dis their home.

One of their number, a tall pale pony-thing, separated itself from the others. It had scraggly black hair that seemed like it was somehow composed of rusty blades knit together with bone and sinew that drug on the ground as it came slowly forward. It glided gracefully, like a knife sliding delicately across the throat of a lover, hips swaying hypnotically back and forth. If it were not so obviously unnatural and full of malice, its movements would have almost been seductive. The pupils of its four crimson eyes dilated wide as it bared its needlepoint teeth in a wide crooked smile.

All of its eyes were focused on Lemon Drop, as she seemed to recognize him.

"Well, well, well... Look who it is!" the demoness hissed in a feminine voice, though it came out as a low wet warble, as if she were speaking through a wad of half-chewed meat. Given the amount of blood that dribbled from the creatures lipless maw, perhaps that was indeed the case? "Did you miss your mistresses ministrations so much little murderer? Perhaps you longed to see our smiling face again? Do you wish to once more feel our tender caress? Have you come to me willingly, so that I might embrace you once more?"

She wrapped her forelimbs around herself and moaned suggestively, causing the dull and pitted blades embedded in her body to slice and snip through the air and over her own raw flesh, illustrating succinctly exactly what being held by her would entail.

"We aren't here to trouble you, daughter of Thrace-" Lemon Drop nervously began.

"Oh it's no trouble handsome, believe me!" tittered the hellspawn as she returned all four hooves to the roof, her laughter like the whine of a rusty bandsaw. "We've kept the vessels of consecrated blood boiling nice and hot, just like you like it! Care for a nostalgic dip in our stew pot? I'm sure the other murderous souls would love to catch up with you!"

The she-demon's words seemed to have a profound impact on the unicorn. Usually so stoic and unshakable, Lemon Drop was now frozen with fear, his pupils shrunk to pinpricks. The Candy Mare had only seen him like this once before, right before she herself had ripped out his still beating heart. Seeing him like this, her one time tormentor quaking like a terrified little colt, should have filled her with delight. Even if it were someone else cracking that frosty exterior to expose the coward within, she should have relished every second of his terror.

It should have made her day.

Instead, for some unaccountable reason, it was incredibly irritating.

"Oh, I see!" the candy coated corpse piped up, with a giggle and grin of her own. "You must be the welcoming committee! Well I must say, it's about time! Here I've been in your shit-stain of a city for all of five seconds and I've yet to be accosted by some low-life, bottom feeding scum like you! I was beginning to feel a little left out considering all of the attention everyone else has been getting. Why, I was even feeling a little insulted that the local skanks and slimeballs weren't crawling out from beneath their rocks to greet me. Good to see that isn't the case anymore."

The hellspawn sniffed, her smile faltering. "Who's your cocky little friend, Lemon Drip? She has quite the mouth on her."

"Lemon Drip! Oh that's funny!" a bark of fake laughter leapt from the Candy Mare's mouth. "I had no idea you demons were supposed to be funny! I guess it must come from failing so miserably at being the least bit intimidating or scary. From the pathetic look of you lot, I have a feeling you're far better at coaxing laughter from your victims than screams. Oh, maybe one or two lost souls will give you poor fools a little pity scream now and then, to keep up appearances. But I seriously doubt you hodgepodge creatures could strike fear into the hearts of much more than a baby bunny rabbit.”

One of the more savage looking demons came forward, snarling. Six horns sprouted from its head and they scraped the ground sending up sparks as its low eyeless face turned in the Candy Mare's direction. In a deep voice that resonated inside the chest cavity of everyone present, it murmured. "Murderess... This one reeks of the blood of innocents, of the guilty, and of everything in-between. She is ripe for the cook pot! This morsel is ours for the claiming."

"Oh Lemon Drop! So you've brought us a new little toy!” chortled the demoness, losing interest in the unicorn as she turned her crimson stare on the Candy Mare. "A gift, maybe, to buy yourself more time in our welcoming arms and away from your well deserved punishment? As a reward, perhaps you can watch us lower her into the blood vats with your old friends, before we relive old times. Maybe we'll even serve you up on the same platter when you're both done parboiling! What a feast that will be for me and mine! Then we can do it all again tomorrow! And the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. Won't that just be scrumptious!?”

"Oh, I don't think so sweetie..." That got a burst of genuine giggles from the Candy Mare. " I know I look like a sugary sweet snack, but this candy bites back! If anypony is going to be eating anypony at the end of the day, it'll be me sampling your sweetmeats, sister.”

For a moment all of the gathered demons fell silent. Then each and everyone burst forth in an avalanche of laughter! Wild gales of mirth exploded all around them; low and guttural, high and piercing, from the most brutal beast to the most ethereal entity, they all doubled over in waves of hilarity.

"A sinner thinks she's going to eat us!" the she-demon cackled loudest of all, her metallic voice rising above all the others as bloody tears of glee drizzled from her eyes. "Oh, that's even better than when that idiotic clown got sent down here and tried to control our minds with his ugly helmets!"

"We can't hurt them!" whispered Lemon Drop urgently through clenched teeth. He slowly backed away to the edge of the roof. "No mortal soul can even touch them unless they allow it!"

"That would have been good to know before you started catching up with your old girlfriend!" the Candy Mare hissed back, joining him in his slow retreat as the demons closed in around them.

"That's enough of that." came a gruff, exasperated voice. "No one is going to be eating anyone today. At least not those two. Not yet, anyways."

The speaker was small compared to all but the littlest demons, hunched over and clothed in a tattered black cloak. Two long black horns curled from beneath the robed figures hood, and a pair of crimson eyes burned deep in their shadowed depths.

As the newcomers hooves scraped across the stone roof, the change in the demons demeanor was immediate. They cleared a path for him, cowering back from his mere presence. The only one of the nightmarish creatures who stood their ground was Lemon Drop's acquaintance, the blood dripping demoness. She whipped around, seemingly ready to defend her claim, but instead her eyes grew wide with shock.

"Lord Grogar!" The hellpsawn stumbled over herself to bow low, dragging her greasy main in the dirt in her haste, all of her grace and put-on seductiveness forgotten. "We had no idea these souls were in your care!"

A black light edged in a sulfurous yellow glow engulfed Grogar's curling horns briefly before a wave of similarly colored magic enveloped the she-demon. As she writhed and howled on the ground, the sorcerers flames eating away at her immortal flesh, the evil goat loomed menacingly over her shriveling form.

"Emperor Grogar!" he boomed, thunder in his voice and lightning in his eyes as his hoof came cracking down on the roof so hard that the entire building shook. "Emperor! I am no lowly Lordling. Perhaps you will remember that the next time you incarnate, mewling cur!"

As he said this, the last remnants of the demoness charred husk crumbled with a puff of greasy smoke. There was not so much as a speck of ash left behind, only scorch marks where she had burned and a few smudges of blood.

Lemon Drop was next to grovel, genuflecting at the hooves of the sorcerous old goat as if before his one true savior. “Thank you, oh magnificent Emperor! Your intervention is welcome and most timely.”

Grogar sneered down at the sniveling stallion. “Don't thank me, cretin! I am only here because the master is tired of waiting for you. I was sent me to make sure you did not tarry, or lose yourself in the wanton embrace of some she-demon here in Pandemonia.” He snorted, turning his back to the pair of ponies, and began to walk away. “The master’s patience can only be stretched so thin. Come, I am to speed your journey to Malebolge.”

“Yes, of course, right away!” croaked the chastised unicorn, quickly rising to his hooves. “Please lead on, mighty Emperor Grogar.”

“Sure, why not...” muttered the Candy Mare, eyeing the faint after image burned into the rooftop where the demoness had so recently expired. Grogar, huh? “We’ve come this far, why not go on a little further.“

Sticking out her long black and orange striped tongue and pulling down the flesh beneath one eye with her hoof , The Candy Mare was wholly unable to resist making the childishly gesture at the cowering demons that now hid in the shadows, cowed by Grogar's mere presence. They glared at her, but none were brave enough, or stupid enough to rise to the bait and attack someone under the Father of Monsters care.

It would be interesting to see how long that would last...

Interlude - Unmade

A pillow muffled shriek pierced the stillness in the night. The young mare's abdominal muscles squeezed and clenched as she curled up into a tight ball of agony, willing the pain to pass as cramps racked her body. The pain seemed to stretch on for an eternity, forcing her to clench her jaw to keep from screaming afresh, though she couldn't quite stifle a sob as her suffering persisted.

At last her muscles relaxed and the tension eased. As her torment relented, the earth pony slowly sat up in bed, pushing back the sweat drenched covers. A rotten taste clung to the back of her throat and coated her tongue. Her mouth was unusually dry, so she looked around groggily for the night stand where she sometimes kept a pitcher of water. It was so dark, however, that she couldn't even see her own hoof in front of her face. She scrambled for a moment, her arms flailing through thin air where her furniture was supposed to be.

What time was it? The farm pony's bleary eyes tried to focus on the closest window. Beyond the glass the night was pitch black, although a few wisps of strangely luminescent fog drifted gently up from below. The odd glow suffused the room, revealing something far stranger to the pony's blurred vision.

This wasn't her room.

"Where am I?" she wondered aloud.

How had she gotten here and exactly how long had she been asleep? From the way her limbs ached she felt like she could have been bedridden for days, but it didn't feel like she had slept for more than a few moments. What fragments of memory she could recall seemed entirely unreal, too strange to believe. A snatch of nightmare skittered through her mind like spiders in a haunted attic. A wave of nausea rolled over her as her stomach roiled, cramping up again, as if her very guts were rebelling against analyzing her memories in any further detail. She held on, riding the wave of queasiness until it subsided. Though her head was light, she had mastered her body for the moment, and forced down her rising gorge.

Wait, no, here it came again!

This time there was no resisting the impulse to hurl. The mare quickly rolled out of bed and fell to the floor. She reached for the bed-side table, but her hooves fumbled weakly and fell away, a sudden wave of vertigo not allowing her to do much more than that. As her eyes lost focus she finally popped, spraying bile mixed with some dark, viscous liquid onto the bedroom floor. She retched a few more times, but nothing much came up, most of the contents of her stomach splattering the floorboards already.

As quickly as the sickness had seized her, it seemed to have just as quickly passed. The filly spat out the taste of foulness and the last few chunks to the floor, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof. She felt weak and shaky, but slightly better than before.

What is wrong with me? Was it something I ate?

Slowly, she rose to her hooves, careful to avoid the steaming pile of sick on the floor. As she took a moment to gather her wits, she began to notice little details about the room, little differences that brought home the fact she was indeed in a strangers abode. For one thing, the quilt on the bed looked nearly new and was covered in orange and white butterflies. The farm pony's own quilt was so worn out, and so often mended, that it was mostly a collection of pumpkin shaped patches. Many of the furnishings in the room looked nearly new, and well cared for, where as the filly's own were shabby and held together more by faith than anything else.

Another thing she noticed was that she seemed to be on the second or third story of the building she was in. Her family was too poor to own a home that was taller than one story. So that was that. Not only was this not her room, this was not even her house. So where was she then? Was this some unicorn's abode perhaps? She knew they tended to favor living in tall towers and multi-storied buildings. Did that mean she was still in town?

A fist of fear wrapped around her heart and squeezed. As she looked around, she couldn't see a door out of the room she was in. Her eyes immediately darted to the windows. She didn't favor the prospect of jumping out of one of them into the in fog, but that might be her only choice. Without knowing exactly how high up she was, it seemed like too much of a gamble to just leap to the ground below.

Before panic could take hold she closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath, counting to ten. The farm pony had gotten into this room somehow, so that meant there must be a way out too. She climbed off the bed and began to carefully pace around the room, occasionally feeling for a groove that might denote a hidden door, or knocking and listening for a hollow space.

"I am not trapped." she told herself as her anxiety slowly began to build. Perhaps if she said it again she might actually believe it? "I am not trapped! I just need to stay calm and find the way- out!?"

That last word left her mouth with a squeak as one of her hind legs suddenly plunged out from beneath her. Limbs splaying out in every direction, crying out in surprise, the earth pony tumbled end over end as she fell down a flight of stairs that had led down from the loft to the floor below. She landed in a sprawl on the floor at the base of the stairs, her head spinning as spots danced before her eyes. Though she was now a bit more battered and bruised than before, at least she was no longer trapped, right?

There was something a little... off about the lower floor to which she had arrived. There were bird houses everywhere, hanging from the ceiling and the walls. Tiny baskets lined with pillows littered the floor and seemed to spread down halls and into rooms that were empty save for more animal care paraffinalia. Whatever pony that lived here either had a very eclectic sense of style or kept way more pets than most ponies could usually afford. The young mare herself had never owned a pet of her own. How could they afford to put food in another mouth when their family could barely feed themselves? The idea of a home filled with animals was both exciting and a little troubling. How wealthy, exactly, was the owner of this abode?

Dusting herself off, the earth pony wobbly got to her hooves. For all the place was strange, there was a kind of peace here, a quiet tranquility that the pony felt had been missing from her life for some time. As if to spoil the very idea, the calm was shattered by a sudden knock at the front door.

Unbidden, she felt words suddenly bubbling up from her throat. "GO AWAY! NO CANDY HERE! VISITORS NOT WELCOME ON NIGHTMARE NIGHT!"

She clamped her hooves over her mouth. What was she doing!? She cringed, hunkering down into a tiny ball of fear on the floor. Certain that her cry had doomed her, she strained her every senses towards detecting any sound or movement from outside.Time seemed to stand still, each second stretching into eternity as her own pulse thundered in her ears. Slowly, the sounds of silence settled back in, and the young mare was able to calm herself enough to assess her situation more calmly.

This had not been the first time her body had acted without her control. She recalled now something that she had first dismissed as a dream, about opening a door and eating something, both acts done against her will. These moments when her body seemed to be acting out of her control were getting more frequent. She didn't know what was causing this loss of control, but she needed to find out fast. But first she needed to assess if she were safe or not.

Staying low, she moved with hushed hoof-falls to a curtained window at the front of the house. Twitching back the curtain ever so slightly, she peered out into the night. The fog was thicker at ground level, so it was impossible for her to see anything clearly, but a dark silhouette seemed to be standing perfectly still outside the front door. Still that is, until it suddenly turned its head and looked right at her! She flinched, letting the curtain slip from her hoof and dove behind a nearby couch.

Okay! Okay. There is definitely somepony out there and they do not look at all friendly!

As she cowered among the cushions, a sudden thought crossed her mind. She already knew this wasn't her home. Though she didn't know how she had gotten here. She was basically trespassing. What if the person at the front door was the rightful owner of this place? Was it possible that they had been locked out somehow and they needed her to let them back in? Maybe, but on the other hoof it was possible that they were the reason she was here to begin with. Maybe she had been fillynapped and was being held against her will! But if that were the case, why were they outside, and why were they knocking on their own front door?

Nothing about this made any sense.

Steeling herself, the farm pony firmed up her jaw. No more cowering, no more running and hiding! She was going to get to the bottom of this right now! Taking a deep breath, she strode confidently to the front door, and only hesitated a moment before grabbing the handle and flinging it open!

The night breeze was rich with the scent of wood smoke. The sound of rushing water gurgled gently nearby. The wind in the trees was a soft sigh as it tousled the banks of fog.

Aside from that there was nothing.

More specifically there was no pony, menacing or otherwise, standing on the front stoop anymore. A few wisps of fog like thin ghostly tendrils drifted into the house, but nothing else appeared to stir. The young mare stepped outside and looked around, listening intently.

Had she just imagined the figure at the door? "Hello? Is anypony there?"

Though there was no light to see by save for the faintly glowing fog, the earth pony's eyes swiftly grew accustomed to the gloom. She slowly cantered down the well kept path in front of the house. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see it was in fact a tiny cottage of some sort. There were boards across some of the windows and an oddly abandoned air to the building that lent the otherwise quaint abode an almost haunting aura. There were more birdhouses festooned outside, but they seemed broken down and weather worn compared to the ones inside. Everything spoke of a once well cared for and loved home that had for whatever reason been abandoned.

A cool breeze teased a few crisp leaves off of the nearby trees and sent them dancing across a tiny bridge that spanned a nearby babbling brook, the source of the sound of water she had noticed before. With an almost whimsical turn, the wind twisted the leaves about so that they danced and skipped across the worn wood like a pair of children at play. The thought brought a sad smile to the earth pony's face, and a melancholy feeling settled on her that she could not quite explain. She was still young, but there were times she had the oddest sensation that life had passed her by. She felt that way rather keenly just now. As she tried to puzzle out exactly what that feeling meant, the fog began to clear a little, and the filly could just make out lights flickering across the bridge and further down a long dirt road.

A town!

That's right, she had been in town, looking for help. There was some sort of festival going on and she hadn't been able to find anyone.

As the memory resurfaced, she could hear once again the sounds of distant music drifting on the chill autumn wind. It was accompanied by laughter and screams that chased a sudden chill up her spine. The pony recalled hearing something similar while in the town herself, but had the laughter sounded so manic back then? The screams, so shrill and blood curdling? The music seemed all wrong to her ears as well, a clamorous clangor of clashing and clattering bells punctuated by a wail like a distant siren. The commotion must have been extreme up close for her to be able to make it out so clearly out here in the countryside.

As the wind picked up, there were pale motes drifting on the breeze.

Is it... snowing?

Something soft and feathery suddenly brushed the young mare's cheek. On instinct she reached up and swiped it away with a hoof. She was startled to find that her hoof came away gritty and streaked with some kind of dark powdery substance.

This wasn't snow at all.

These were ashes.

Gazing up into the heavens the farm pony could see cherry red sparks drifting through the night. As the she tried to figure out where they were coming from, her eyes once more settled on the town. Those lights, how merrily they twinkled, how brightly they glowed. Far too brightly, perhaps? It was so strange how the light wavered and danced, not unlike...

"Fire..." she whispered, her mouth going dry.

The town was awash in flames! How had she not noticed until now!? All the wealthy lords and all the fine ladies! Their lives were going up in a shower sparks and puffs of smoke! The horror of what was playing out before her eyes left the earth pony too numb to react.

Or at least, she wasn't reacting the way she thought she ought to have. There were other emotions welling up in her heart she did not quite understand.

It was a feeling almost of elation and... deep satisfaction.

What was that about? What could she possibly find to be happy about with this terrible tragedy?

Casting her confusing feelings aside the filly whirled and turned back to the cottage. She didn't know what she should do in this situation, but standing outside and growing sooty from the towns funeral pyre was giving her strange ideas and sensations she didn't want to confront all alone in the dark. She staggered inside and threw the door closed behind her. Stumbling into the living room she was so overwrought she felt like she might collapse. But that was when she noticed...

She wasn't alone.

Smiling faces lined the room and covered the floor. Some grinned madly, others with cruelty, and still others with a kind of perverse delight that made her stomach turn. A fetid stench filled the room as, one by one, those faces lit up.

It took the filly a moment to process what she was seeing. The faces were not hanging in empty space as they first appeared, but instead had been carved each and everyone into pumpkins of various shapes and sizes. The whole house was filled with them! They were strewn all over the floor, crowded on the window sills, and huddled in the fireplace. Some trailed up the stairs where she could see more pumpkin grins glowing in the loft above. Where had they all come from? Were they conjured up by some sort of magic? And what was with those grotesque, leering smiles?

As the farm pony tentatively reached one hoof out towards the hard orange rind of the nearest pumpkin, she was reminded of old pony-tails her mother had told her. Stories about a lantern an old trickster had stolen from a devil. A lantern in which the mad old pony had kept his wicked soul to keep it from being drug into the underworld. The story was the kind that the old whispered to the young when they wanted to frighten them into being quiet and sitting still, exactly the kind children secretly adored and couldn't get enough of.

These were jack-o-lanterns! Pumpkins carved to mimic the lantern from those old stories. Farm ponies would carve them from time to time to ward off evil spirits or to light their way home. They were meant to be objects of comfort and aid to the living and wards against the restless dead. So why then did she find their silent smiles so disquieting?

As her hoof came in contact with the gourd, there was a shock as a spark leapt from her hoof to the pumpkin shell. She yanked back her hoof and sucked on the smarting appendage. As she glared at the jack-o-lantern in consternation, she noticed that the pumpkin's interior began to glow brighter, and hotter than before. That wasn’t all, the jack-o-lantern began to rock gently back and forth as smoke began to pour from its carved face!

It was not just the one that she had touched either, but every jack-o-lantern began to shake as if they were being caught up in an earthquake. Choking smoke quickly flooded the air and flowed like oil across the ceiling. Sparks and embers spilling from their pumpkin grins set the floor and furniture smoldering.

There was a low groan and a creak of floorboards as the young mare watched in growing alarm as thick roots and vines burst from the floor and lifted the nearest pumpkins on thorn covered stalks. As the plants rapidly grew they swelled into a shape not unlike a pony, save with a pumpkin shell where the head should be. As she watched in horror, the jack-o-lanterns rolled about on their new ‘necks’ and gave wild breathy cries, not unlike childish laughter!

These things were like timberwolves! Those strange, elemental creatures that were more plant than animal that sometimes stalked the deep woods and wild forests. As one, the grinning pumpkin ponies tore free of their roots and began to stalk toward the young mare!

She turned to flee the cottage, however outside the pony could see an entire mob of the same bizarre creatures, gouts of flame leaping from their hollow heads, coming up the dirt path and surrounding the house. A rotten vegetable stench rose on the air as they set fire to everything outside! A particularly vicious looking pumpkin-beast turned a gaping maw, dripping with liquid fire, in her direction. The filly had only moments to back away from the front door before a volcanic burst of flaming death struck where she had been standing only moments before!

All around her the pumpkins were shaking now, forcing their way up through splintering floorboards and roaring with an inner furnace heat that singed her skin by their mere presence!

She had to escape!

The only clear path away seemed to lead upstairs. Not pausing to think how she might make her escape from the second story, the little pony kicked her way free of the grasping vines and barbed tendrils that tried to wrap around her legs and quickly stomped up the stairs and away from the fiery plant monsters. It wasn't long before the pumpkin shells were vomiting flames and cinders behind her, setting fire to the stairs, causing them to wobble beneath her as she reached the top.

Scrabbling her way onto the landing above, the filly kicked out at the banister with her hind legs, shaking the already weakened structure further. With a magnificent crash, the stairs gave way, and collapsed into a pile of kindling atop the plant monsters below. Kindling it was too, as the jack-o-lantern ponies continued to torch the home with their horrible breath, turning the floor below into a sea of flames! The conflagration grew so hot, and the smoke so thick, that the pony found it impossible to breathe.

Hacking and coughing, she made her way to the nearest window, but something on the other side of the room made her stop dead in her tracks. Four fully grown pumpkin-headed pony-creatures looming over the now flaming bed, their grinning faces bent low over something that twitched and thrashed beneath the burning comforter. The thing on the bed shook so hard that it was a blur of motion, rendered featureless and worm-like by its thrashing speed. Even so, there was something familiar about this scene that shook the mare to her core.

The sounds of noisy eating as the pumpkin grins ripped and tore gobbets of stringy flesh from the thing that writhed beneath them sent a thrill of both revulsion and longing that made it impossible to look away. By some silent cue, the monsters one by one moved from the vibrating form tangled in the sheets and turned their fiery gaze instead on the transfixed mare. Wracked with pain as her stomach cramped afresh, the farm pony could not have fled at that moment even had she wanted to.

In high hissing voices, the jack-o-lanterns began to laugh and sing...

Nightmare Night...” They started to move toward her, their tendrils creeping insidiously inch by inch towards her. Their bodies made a strange rustling noise, like dead leaves, as they slid closer. She couldn't help but notice bright autumnal leaves sprouting from their bodies and falling flaming to the floor where they crisped and curled into tiny grey motes of ash. The blurred figure on the bed bucked and wordlessly shrieked with a gaping mouth locked in a silent scream.

“What a fright...” the pain in the earth pony's stomach only worsened as the monstrosities drew closer. She could feel her intestines squirming and throbbing inside like a nest of vipers. It hurt too much to move. There was something wrong with her. Something terribly wrong. Flames began to creep towards her along with the now burning plant ponies, their bodies incandescent in the choking smoke. They were drenched in flames now, engulfed in crackling fire that was as eager to devour as they were.

“Give us something...” She felt herself take one step back, and then another, willing herself to move away from the obvious threat to life and limb. It was getting hard to think but recoiling from their fiery tongues was instinctual. Her vision was red and black around the edges and spots swam before her eyes. The flaming monstrosities were close enough now that she could smell them. Rotting pumpkin guts, dry leaves, charred flesh, and cooking meat. The scent was oddly...

Sweet.

The mare moaned as her stomach roared!

“Sweet...to...bite...” As the nearest pumpkin-head loomed over her, something inside her snapped. With a primal roar of famished fury, the earth pony lunged at the distorted creature and took a massive bite out of its burning face. Her mouth filled with the sensation of hot coals and the taste of flesh, but even so she chewed and swallowed with relish! The creatures head, now missing a sizable chunk, collapsed in on itself as it let out a quiet sigh. The other pumpkin creatures backed away fearfully as a broad smile spread wide on the face of the burned and bloody pony. Their laughter turned to whimpers.

That was when the support beam below, weakened by the fire, finally gave way and the second story fell into the first.

The smile fled the earth pony's face as swiftly as it had come and her eyes grew wide with terror as she felt herself hang in mid-air for a moment before plummeting towards the flames below. She reached out, trying to grab for something, anything, to save herself. However, as shattered pumpkins and scorched leaves rained down around her, there was nothing that wasn't falling with her.

She had one last glimpse of the figure writhing on the bed as she fell. Bloodstained and half eaten though it was, the figure had at last slowed its struggles so she finally had a good look at its face.

At this point, it was almost no surprise at all that the face was a familiar one. It was one the young mare saw in the mirror every day after all.

"Wake up!" the filly screamed at her sleeping self as the fire roared around her. "You have to wake up!"

Chapter 4 - Malebolge

Travel through the bombed out shell of what had once been a city to rival heaven was fairly eventful.

There was blood and fire everywhere, of course, and in the distance there was the sounds of war as one daemonic faction fell on another. It was a ceaseless conflict that had raged for time immemorial, perhaps since the first angel had fallen. Around every corner was some hapless soul being tormented, common street theater, to entertain the burnouts and pain addicted sadists most of the inhabitants of the demonic capital were turning out to be. Down every other back alley and side street there was some abomination or another peddling shriveled up souls or pimping out fresh sinners 'yours at bargain basement prices, and that's cutting my own throat‘ to take home and torture to your black heart's content.

The Candy Mare watched tattered wraiths being led behind dumpsters and into crawl spaces for a quick, sloppy fixes that spoke more to the desperation of the hellspawned 'Johns' than to any sort of ethical or moral judgement against the damned. The mad mare came to realize that most of the devils in this city were little more than junkies looking for their next fix. To them, punishing sinners was drugs, food, and sex all rolled up into one tight little addictive package. It was the only source of entertainment and distraction for them, aside from the constant in-fighting.

Fresh souls ran at a premium, as they would elicit the sharpest screams and the most potent wails, but even the tattered and worn out shades of older sinners had their value. They were passed from freak to freak, each abuser eager to see how the virgin and jaded alike would react to their particular brand of torture. It was no wonder that the demons were at war with each other once you realized this. It was painfully obvious that the more powerful and wealthy devils, who lived in parts of the city that still faintly echoed their former glory, were awash in a glut of souls while the vast majority of hellspawn barely got by trading the same suffering sinners back and forth between themselves. With such a stark class divide it only took one or two of the more opportunistic and vicious among the demons to set off a turf war. An attempt to climb the social ladder by splattering their rival all over the pavement.

On the trio's journey they passed several examples of such ongoing street battles. One was a desperate affair that took place amid a grove of grotesque trees that seemed to have sprouted in the shapes of mortals who had killed themselves. Desperate bystanders futilely fled, trying to escape the violence, while faster and stronger hellspawn wantonly indulged themselves with weapons both conventional and arcane as they weaved among the frightening flora. Thick, blood like sap ran from the trees as errant spells and wild blows from weapons bit deep into their bark. The foul substance trickled like like tears sliding down their silently screaming faces, but as horrid as that appeared it was as nothing compared to the carnage that the devils inflicted on one another.

For all the drama going on around them, the trio were quite safe. Grogar’s pace never once slackened nor quickened, as he walked as if he was above it all. The anguish of the damned and the barbarity of the demons both seemed to be beneath his notice. Besides, any being foolish enough to approach him was vaporized before they could so much as utter a curse. A semi-transparent magic shell moved with the trio, and anyone else that touched it immediately flashed into black sulfurous flames. Crossfire from misfired spells and errant projectiles were likewise rendered harmless by the bubble of magic that surrounded them, deflecting them harmlessly at times, though occasionally they would bounce back to their originator with comically horrifying effect. What should have been a harrowing walk through hell had become a rather droll stroll through a particularly ugly park.

“You’re one useful old goat, Grogar.” remarked the Candy Mare as an old V2 rocket fizzled harmlessly into nothing as its trajectory strayed too close to the small party. “How exactly is it that you seem to have so much power here while the rest of us poor mortals have to make due with harsh words and rude gestures?”

"The answer is simple. I am no poor ‘mortal’.” he scoffed, pausing for a moment to let a flaming tank roll by, a giant two headed fire-breathing hellhound bounding excitedly behind it. “I amassed a great deal of power over the course of my life. So much, in fact, that I became an immortal being from the sheer amount of magic that dwells within me. So great was my power, once upon a time, that if I did not use it there was a very real risk that I would explode trying to contain it. So I set about using my power to build my empire. With my sorcery I crafted every monster of Equestria, giving form to nightmares and horrors that the simple minded pony-folk could scarcely imagine. By sheer will and the darkest sorcery I made myself ruler of all I surveyed, the first and only Emperor of Equestria!”

“Ooh such pride in that billy-goat gruff voice of yours!” teased the Candy Mare, a sly grin twisting her face. “However, I’m sensing there’s a big ‘but’ coming before the fall.”

The Father of Monsters glared back at the candified-corpse, clearly not at all pleased with her amused tone. There was a tense moment that made even Lemon Drop's ethereal form sweat, but the Candy Mare wore her usual half mad expression, refusing to back down or apologize. It was clear that it took some effort, but Grogar must have decided to dismiss her disrespectful comment as the product of a clearly deranged mind. That, and it wasn't in his best interest to destroy her before he had delivered her to the master.

“But, for all my efforts my power would still prove my undoing. I had grown so strong that even creating monsters on a daily basis was not enough to sufficiently drain my magic. I could no longer safely contain all of my sorcerous might within myself. To compensate for this, I created an artifact of enormous potential! An indestructible bauble in the form of a bell, my Bewitching Bell, in which to husband the greater bulk of my energies when they were not in use. Unfortunately, I did not anticipate a lowly pony to be so bold as to steal the artifact away from me like some common thief. ‘Gusty the Great’ they called her. The thieving little trollop didn’t look so great to me as she was fleeing for her life!”

“Then let me guess...” interrupted the Candy Mare, the grin never leaving her face. “She used your own power against you, and sent you here?”

What happened next was entirely unexpected. Grogar’s sour expression melted into laughter. The sound was so disturbing, so unnatural, that even the warring demons seemed put off by the sound. Upon identifying the source of the strange noise that assaulted their hearing, the devils each quietly slunk away into the shadows, mutually abandoning the field of battle. There were some sounds so evil that they were cruel even to demonic ears.

“That coward?” Grogar guffawed. “She didn’t even try to wield my magics. Oh no, she did something far worse. She hid the bell away in a cave on top of one of the harshest mountains in Equestria, Mount Everhoof, behind so many layers of protective spells that there was zero chance of anyone being capable of retrieving it on their own.”

For the first time since Grogar had humbled him, Lemon Drop decided to speak up. “But I thought you were the father of monsters? Couldn’t you have commanded some of your, uh, ‘offspring’ to aid you?”

“Those worthless ingrates!?” the angry goat thundered. “The ones that didn’t run off to retrieve my power for themselves mocked my weakened state and refused to help me! They did not care a wit that they would not have even existed if it were not for me. No, you should well know the kind of gratitude to expect from the ‘offspring’ we create, Lemon Drop. Self-absorbed nitwits, the lot of them!”

“Right, so sayeth the narcissistic old goat...” The Candy Mare muttered under her breath. Louder she said, “So what did you end up doing about it?”

“How exactly did you end up here, in the end?” asked Lemon Drop, genuinely curious.

“Simple. I could not retrieve the bell on my own. I was too weakened to brow beat my progeny into aiding me and they were too incompetent to work together anyways, so if I were to retrieve the Bewitching Bell I would need an ally from outside. I still had enough dark magic to bridge the gap between worlds. The plan was simple, reach out to a like minded individual on another plain of existence and use them as a conduit to leave Equestria. I would then simply pass through to another world and from there I could cross back to a point that was inside the cave, bypassing the protective spells, and upon regaining my powers I would simply break the barrier from within and once more reign terror upon the land!”

“So... That didn’t happen then.” observed the mad mare with the propensity the insane sometimes possessed for stating the obvious.

“No, it did not!” confirmed Grogar sourly.

As he said this, he blasted a hole in the chest of a rather corpulent demon blocking the road. The spray of viscera and gore was magnificent, leaving a cavity wide enough that you could drive a truck through it without touching the hollowed out hellspawn's sides. The trio casually walked through the gaping wound and back to the street beyond.

“It should come as no surprise to you that the only beings that were willing to aid me were the denizens of darker dimensions." continued the former emperor, not missing a beat. "However, I was not aware at that time of the restrictive rules that some plains of existence operated under. Though I was successful in leaving Equestria, the very nature of this realm prevents me from further travel, no matter how much power I scrimp and save. This realm is a prison that is easy to slip into but nearly impossible to escape. So to return to your original question, why am I so powerful here? Because unlike the rest of you I never died. I am immortal. Unfortunately, I remain as trapped as the rest of you."

“And yet you serve this ‘master’ I keep hearing about.” observed the Candy Mare thoughtfully. “I’d think the first Emperor of Equestria would have busied himself becoming the Emperor of Hell, rather than a delivery boy for one of the beings that tricked him into coming here.”

“Have you perhaps been deliberately ignoring your surroundings?" asked the sorcerous goat incredulously. "This place is a cesspit. Little more than a rotting sewer for the very worst scum, the most black-hearted, back stabbing low-life’s you could ever hope not to meet! Only a fool would want to rule this dung heap!” he concluded, wrinkling his nose as if he smelled something foul.

“I thought the master was the head honcho around here?” asked the ghoulish pony, suddenly confused. “Does that make your master a fool in your eyes?”

“Listen carefully, because what I am about to say is a courtesy that I rarely offer even to the insane. Do not speak ill of my master. Furthermore, never imply that I would speak ill of the master either.” A fiendish yellow glow rimmed his eyes as the robs turned completely jet black from lid to lid. His curling horns suddenly thrummed with power as his voice dropped menacingly. “You have seen what I can do to these worthless demons. Now think how much worse it would be for you to displease my master.”

“Good thing you have orders to deliver us in one piece.” Lemon Drop chimed in nervously.

“Yes...” agreed Grogar, slowly, the power fading from his horns as his eyes returned to normal. Well, as normal as a goats eyes ever get anyways. “Though it was not specified what condition that piece needed to be delivered in.”

“Okay, fine, I get it nanny-goat.” huffed the sugar-coated pony, pouting. “Your master is off limits. Fine! So when do we get to meet the guy?”

“Soon. We’re far enough from the perimeter that I should be able to speed our travels without making ourselves a target for the more opportunistic and desperate denizens of this wretched city.” Saying that, an orb of boiling shadows lined in sulfuric yellow light sprang to life from Grogar’s horns. The sorcerer closed his eyes in concentration, twisting and shaping his magic as the spell took form.

They had come at last to what seemed to be a plain of burning sand. The buildings around them were sinking into a desert of crushed bone. In the distance there were storm clouds, but rather than rain it was smoldering embers and hot coals that swept over the landscape. It was easy to see why it would be a good idea to circumvent these scorched badlands if at all possible. Fortunately that appeared to be just what Grogar had in mind.

A vast darkness took shape before them like as an inky portal took shape in the air. Amber lights swirled within its depths, taking the form of wailing demonic faces. After a few moments the shadowy vortex seemed to settle into a black corridor. With a mocking bow, Grogar gestured that his two charges should step through. The Candy Mare made a face in his direction, but stepped boldly into the liquid shadow, disappearing into its swirling depths. Conversely, Lemon Drop hesitated, clearly not entirely trusting the way the surface of the portal rippled and shifted. However, an impatient cough from the former emperor sent him scampering into the corridor.

The Father of Monsters rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh before following after them.

From the boiling darkness, the Candy Mare emerged and surveyed a vastly different landscape. Gone were the tall buildings and the urban squalor. Here there were several vast canyons, each arraigned one after the other in concentric circles, connected one to the other by long stout metal and stone bridges held aloft on the backs of giant daemons. Rather than the relative chaos of the City of Dis, this place had an air of stringent order, not unlike a maximum security prison. It wasn't long before the candy ghoul's two companions joined her and the three set off across one of the many bridges.

At first the Candy Mare skipped over the stone surface, trippity-tropping along, but as she went her pace slowed. Far below, in the darkness of those yawning chasms, the Candy Mare could sense the busy work of devils as they toiled away tormenting the unfortunate sinners that were relegated to these pits. The cries and grunts were dulled by monotony and despair, but they were constant. The sounds and smells that rose from below told a tale of constant, focused, and unrelenting misery

It shouldn't have been a surprise that once again the very landscape of this place was set up solely as a place of torment, but this was the first time the grim machinery of hell was spread out in such stark and plain detail. The functionality of it, fundamental purpose of this place, aimed specifically at absolutely crushing the souls of sinners beyond any hope for reprieve. Even for a creature like the Candy Mare, that thrived on the suffering of others, the cold mechanical precision of it all was surprisingly unsettling. It reminded her that there were, and always had been, things so much worse than death.

Lemon Drop, by contrast, seemed the most confident and composed he had been since the Candy Mare's arrival. He strode boldly down the center of the bridge ways, clip-clopping along, though it was notable that he kept his eyes locked forward on their destination rather than looking over the side to the dim figures below. Here, high above everyone else, perhaps he finally felt he was where he belonged? If that were the case, the Candy Mare hoped for his confidence to allow him to stray closer to the edge eventually, so she might have the chance to push him off the edge just for the pleasure of seeing the look on his face before he plunged into the abyss.

Unsurprisingly, Grogar didn't seem to care about any of it at all. This was all old hat to him. The sorcerer simply plodded along, stomping the ground beneath his hooves as if he held a grudge against the place itself. Given what they had heard from the old goat about how he had gotten here, perhaps he did? The otherwise inexpressive titanic demons that held the bridges aloft seemed to cringe as Grogar tramp-tromped overhead. That only seemed to confirm the idea that Grogar had perhaps lashed out at the troll-like creatures sometime in the past.

Vast as these canyons were, they were longer than they were wide, and it didn't take them long to cross ten of the pits and reach one final crater at the center of the concentric circles. This last fissure made all that came before seem like tiny ravines by comparison. Its abyssal depths were lightless, soundless, and unlike anything else that the Candy Mare had seen in Hell so far. A freezing cold aura seemed to radiate from its incalculable depths, causing the air temperature around it to plummet, a thick hoarfrost that formed curved icicles on its sides creating the illusion that the crater was rimmed with gigantic teeth. The outer canyons ringed around this central, circular maw, and on the distant horizon the Candy Mare could just make out other bridges leading to it from across the way. It seemed that all roads in hell eventually led to this single point at the very nadir of the underworld.

However, there were no bridges that spanned all the way across. It would seem that they had reached a dead end.

"So, what's the big idea?" asked the Candy Mare, turning back to face Grogar. "You planning to throw us in this hole in the ground and pretend you couldn't find us? Or are you just going to tell your boss some rival faction got to us before you could?"

"Please!" sniffed the first Emperor of Equestria derisively. "If I wanted to dispose of the two of you, I would have burned your souls to ash when we first met. This is our destination." As he said this, he stepped over the edge of the abyss and vanished into thin air.

"Well that was unexpected." admitted the candy coated pony. "Care to follow after him Lemon Drop?"

"I'm no more eager to try than you are" confessed the yellow unicorn, adjusting his glasses. "Perhaps there are some stairs further along?"

"Come on, come on! What's the hold up!? I don't have time for you two to stand around and gawk all day!" Grogar's irritated voice erupted from somewhere over the pit. His head suddenly reappeared, passing through an invisible barrier. It looked rather ridiculous hanging there on its own, though the expression on his face brooked no nonsense.

Once again, the goat's horns were engulfed in magical un-light that spread to engulf the pair of ponies. His magic lifted them off of their hooves and hurled them both unceremoniously over the edge. Just as they felt the grip of the emperor's magic lessen around them, a new bridge seemed to appear out of nowhere beneath their flailing limbs. The two fell, the Candy Mare landing in a cat-like sprawl with a hiss while Lemon Drop nearly tripped over his own hooves but quickly regained his balance as if his ungainly display had never occurred and glared back at Grogar over his shoulder.

"Oh, don't waste your time baring your fangs at me!" chided Grogar. "The master awaits!"

Sure enough, the previously invisible bridge did not span far before it seemed to break off into several branching trails. Indeed, it seemed that there was an entire invisible web of scaffolding and wires strung out over the breadth of the pit. If you didn't know it was there it would have still been easy to fall into the nothingness below, but if you knew where to step there was no real danger. The magic that hid the superstructure was intricate and clever, giving no indication of its presence despite covering an area several miles in diameter.

Not far ahead was what appeared to be some sort of door. It was bizarre in its commonplace appearance. No dread portal or skull engraved portcullis was this, but just a simple red door with a brass knocker and matching doorknob. Even so, there was something absolutely stark and foreboding about it being here in the depths of the underworld. It was out of place, like a cluster of brightly colored balloons at a funeral parlor, the commonplace rendered unnatural by its surroundings.

Once again, It was Grogar that opened the way, though this time he did so with a more sincere bow that was free of any of the mocking courtesy he had displayed before.

Both ponies hesitated this time as the space beyond the door frame opened into a cavernous room whose vast dimensions could in no way be contained by the narrow bridge that the door occupied. High walls of dark oak disappeared into a distant smokey ceiling while a wide crimson carpet rolled across a wide plain of black marble tiles laced through with gold. In the dim distance before them they could just make out a large desk, behind which a tall back chair loomed, lit by a crimson glow that shown down from above.

Through gritted teeth Grogar whispered an impatient "Go in already!"

With a mutual shrug, the ghostly unicorn stallion and the candy coated ghoul stepped through the door.

Immediately their hooves sank into the deep, plush carpet. It was the first comfort either had apparently known since being taken in by hell's hospitality, and both paused a moment to luxuriate in the sumptuous sensation. Their hoof-falls were silenced by the rich material as they began the long trek towards the distant desk. Braziers that lined their path flared to life as they passed, shedding more crimson light over what appeared to be a banquet hall or ballroom. After the chill that rose from the pit, the warmth that the bowls of magical flame gave off was quite welcome and, far from the stench of the smoke found elsewhere in Hell, the heady aroma they gave off was like sweet incense. The air itself tasted like cinnamon and clove mixed with honey. In effect, their every sense felt like it was drowning in opulence.

They drifted along in a haze of pleasurable sensations for but a short while before they at last came to stand before the wide black desk at the center of the room. Slowly the high backed chair turned to reveal...That it was empty.

The pair of ponies saw no one.

"Uh... hello?" called out Lemon Drop tentatively. "Master?"

"Down here, nimrod!" replied a youthful voice. Sure enough, on the seat of the tall chair and just beneath their line of sight, there sat the master. "Golly, it's about time you got here! My name is Cozy Glow, but you can call me 'Master' if you want to."

Interlude - The Universe is Indifferent

Something howled in the distance.

Branches and thorns clawed at the pony as she ran. Roots jutted up from the earth to trip her, sending her tumbling through the under brush, but she managed to keep her hooves beneath her and scramble back onto the path. There was no telling how far she had gone or how long she had been running. Time had lost its meaning. All she knew was that there was something out there that she had to get away from, at all costs. Something that was hunting her, even now.

The earth pony's muscles burned as she desperately tried to suck in lungful after lungful of air through a throat that felt like it had constricted to the diameter of the thinnest of straws.

Gasping, she had to slow for a moment to catch her breath.

Truthfully there was no way for her to tell if there was anything chasing her or not, but the mare's every instinct told her to keep moving. The forest was so tangled and she was so turned around, it was hard to say if she was running away from or toward anything at this point, but the farm pony just had to... Keep. Moving.

Where exactly was that thought coming from?

Are these my thoughts, or someone else's?

What if she was being guided in some way toward, exactly, what she was trying to avoid?

Can I really trust my own senses, my own thoughts anymore, after everything I've seen? After what... After what I've done?

The young mare's gallop slowed to a canter. Her canter subsided to a trot. Then she simply stopped altogether. What was the point in running if horror found you wherever you went? In the end, it would just mean she would die tired.

Everything seemed to close in around her. The woods here were old growth, thick and dense and wild, nothing like the forests she had sometimes explored just beyond the farm. Without quite realizing what she was doing, she hid herself beneath a thorn bush as she strained her ears, listening for the sound of pursuit crashing through the underbrush.

All was quiet.

No birds, no bugs. Not even a sigh of a breeze. The air was stagnant here, stale and undisturbed. Dead trees loomed overhead, their skeletal branches so densely grown together that they blocked out the night sky and plunged the forest floor beneath their canopy into an even deeper darkness. It was almost like she was at the bottom of some Stygian abyss, lost in a bottomless cave, drowning in a lightless ocean trench. The very air seemed to weigh down on her, oppressive and ponderous.

What was that?

At last, she heard something!

A dull roar, like a distant ocean. As she peeked out of her hiding place, the earth pony could just make out a ruddy glow moving swiftly towards her. The faint tang of smoke stole into the lifeless air with all the subtlety of a thief in the night, teasing the young mare's nose. A wildfire was sweeping through these tinder dry woods.

Was this what I've been running from? The fire?

It made a degree of sense. A fire would make short work of these dead trees and dry brush. So long as she was within these woods, she too was in danger, as the indiscriminate flames would devour her just as greedily as the dry twigs and fallen leaves. But was running full tilt in the dark really such a good idea? It just seemed like a fast way to split your skull open, tripping over roots or running headlong into gnarled old trees. It didn't seem like something she would normally do, and besides, she couldn't remember how she had gotten to this forest in the first place.

The earth pony tried to recall everything that had happened up to this point, trying to make some sense from the series of events. There had been the fire at the farm, she had gone to town to find help but found none, the fire had spread to the town but she was able to take shelter in a nearby cottage. In the end, that too had succumbed to the flames, and she had been left running through these woods trying to escape a similar fate. There were other memories, but the details were so strange and horrific, they did not seem like the product of a sane mind. They felt like a nightmare that had happened to someone else rather than real events that had transpired.

Has the blaze grown that far beyond control?

The gaps in her memory were troubling. Whenever the farm pony tried to focus on them she felt a wave of dizziness threaten to overtake her.

No, it's not dizziness...

It was more like... Hunger. A deep and abiding hunger that made her feel nauseous and weak at the same time.

Maybe it's not the fire I'm trying to avoid...

It seemed like every time she was on the verge of doing something about her hunger something would interrupt her. She had a feeling for a long time now that there was something wrong with this place. Nothing felt quite real. Everything had a dream like quality... Or to be more precise, it felt like she was trapped in someone else's nightmare.

It went beyond that, though, didn't it?

It wasn't just this place, it was her. There was something clearly, obviously, and desperately wrong with her. She could feel something writhing around in her guts, famished and foul, just waiting for the chance to get out. The more she tried to escape it, the closer it seemed to come. It terrified her, not just the knowing that there was something wrong, but also realizing that there was some part of her that... actually... liked it. There was something about all this that flooded her with an almost painful joy that just made her want to laugh and smile and dance.

A girlish giggle drifted from her own lips.

Where did that come from?

As if in answer, there was a sudden rustle of fallen leaves and the crunch of dead pine needles drawing closer! The young mare crouched low, trying to make herself as small as possible. Whatever was coming, she could tell that it was quite large from the noise it made as it passed through the underbrush. It wasn't long before she could hear the thunder of hooves and the gasps of labored breath.

Had she been chased after all? Or was this another pony trying to escape the oncoming wildfire? The earth pony dared not risk revealing herself unless she knew which it was. Should she throw caution to the wind and simply flee herself?

She hesitated, and lost her chance to act. Whatever was out in the forest, it was practically on top of her!

A stallion burst into the clearing, snorting dust and dripping sweat. Like her, he had clearly been running for some time. In the light given off by the encroaching inferno, his pelt was a fiery red and his mane a shock of orange that was pleasing to her eye. Though it was dark, his silhouetted frame against the burning horizon revealed him to be both tall and muscularly built. Around his neck he wore a horse collar, the kind of gear an Earth Pony often used to aid in pulling a plow or a wagon as needed.

An Earth Pony! He's an Earth Pony just like me!

At long last, had she found the help she had been so desperately searching for? Her curiosity got the better of her, and she moved from her hiding spot. As the young mare did, her hoof came down on a dry twig that loudly snapped, sounding like a gunshot going off in the comparatively silent woods. The stallion turned, wild eyed and panicked, rearing up on his hind legs and pawing at the air in front of him.

He's afraid!

She could smell fear rolling off him in waves.

Fear is what the filly should have been feeling too. After all, this was a stranger, clearly more than twice her size, and here she was all alone with him in the middle of nowhere. There was no one around to hear her scream if he were to trample her. Yet she was not afraid. Instead, she felt almost excited! There was something intoxicating about inspiring such obvious terror in another's heart, especially one that should have held clear advantage over her. The young mare couldn't help but smile and unconsciously let slip another tiny, childish giggle.

This is so funny! Why hadn't I noticed just how funny it all was before?

The farm pony's smile spread into a wide predatory grin as she crawled out of the gloom, her hair hanging damply from her head. The stallion shied away, as if she were a snake or some terrible beast about to strike.

Though the mare enjoyed inspiring rather than experiencing fear, she wasn't so far gone that she didn't realize that she had made a mistake. This was the only other pony she had seen in a long, long time, yet here she was scaring him off! He was clearly about to bolt. She could see the thick muscles cording beneath his hide, just moments away from launching him back into the forest like a frightened fawn. She couldn't let that happen! She wouldn't! She had to stop him!

Acting on pure instinct, she lunged at the colt, her mouth opening wide as she sunk her teeth into the soft flesh beneath his throat. He neighed in shocked pain and tried to kick her loose, but she quickly drug the larger pony down to the ground with a sudden burst of unnatural strength. Once he was on the ground beneath her, she worried at his windpipe, ripping and tearing his skin to shreds. Thick foam and bloody spittle spilled from his mouth as she tore into his thick meaty throat, turning the stallion's cries of pain into a gurgle of terror.

Barely thinking at this point, she tore a gobbet of meat free from the other pony and swallowed it down with gusto before hungrily going back for more! The stallion thrashed about in the dead leaves, trying to get away, but she was relentless as she continued gouging out his throat until she was gnawing on his neck bones!

It wasn't long before the stallion gave one last rattling moan and, shivering from blood loss, sank into stillness.

The only noise that followed were the sounds of a wild animal devouring its kill. Steaming viscera slid over serrated teeth and down a seemingly bottomless gullet accompanied by grunts and moans of pleasure. The more the pony ate, the hungrier she seemed to grow, causing her to eat in an ever more frenzied manner. If this fact occurred to the mare at all, she didn't show it, lost as she was in the moment. It was only after the stallion was reduced to a tangled mess of bloody bone and tattered sinews that the creature which had been a farm pony displayed anything like self-awareness.

As she had consumed the strangers body, so too had the flames consumed the forest around her.

The heat was blistering, and the stagnant air was dispelled as scorching winds howled through the dead trees. The wildfire grew so intense that fire whirls began to develop, sweeping through the forest like the claws of an angry giant. Thick bolts of lightning struck down from the smoke choked sky as pyrocumulus clouds billowed into life. Burning embers and sparks fell like rain, as the wind grew more violent, causing firenados to break out. The blazing whirlwinds wrapped in black smoke mercilessly uprooted trees and scattered burning leaves to the four corners of the sky. It was as if the entire forest had been swept aside in one mighty sweep of a titanic hand, leaving the mare and the remains of the stallion exposed to the roiling heavens above.

The former earth pony looked up in shock and realization. As the world burned around her, her blood slicked chin began to tremble. For the first time she seemed to see and fully appreciate what she had done as she sat back on her haunches. Tears spilled from her eyes as her hungry moans turned to sobs brought on not from the searing heat but a deeper anguish beyond mere physical torment. As she looked down at the remains in front of her she covered her face with bloodstained hooves, as she wept openly and loudly, not just at what she had done but at what it had cost her.

The ragged body before her was much too small to have belonged to some muscle-bound stallion. No, what was left of that tiny body had clearly belonged to a filly. From beneath a tiny blue bonnet there spilled curly red hair that framed a face flecked with freckles. It was the eyes that truly arrested her attention. Though they were blank and lifeless, they still shone a familiar brilliant green as they looked up at her accusingly.

Of course those eyes were familiar. They were her own.

I remembered everything...

Where she was. Why she was so hungry and, heart-breakingly, who exactly it was she had just devoured. She could hear the distant laughter and screams again. Now she knew exactly who those voices belonged to. She also knew exactly where they were coming from. In her heart of hearts, of course, she had always known. The sick rules of the game, her tormentors were playing with her, had allowed her to forget for a time.

She did not bother to wipe the tears from her eyes or the blood from her mouth as she rose from the burning forest floor and turned toward where she knew she needed to go.

As she walked, the firestorm washed over her, burning away the fake identity that hid who she truly was. She could feel the flames of the infernal crucible change her as it slowly stripped away all artifice. A piece of peppermint here, a chunk of chocolate bar there. Bit by bit her true self was being exposed. As the embers washed through her hair, each strand became a gummy rope of liqourice, black and red strands twisted about one another. As the blistering heat kissed her cheek each little tooth popped out of her gums to clatter down into the ashes, leaving a trail of teeth in her wake, each swiftly replaced by a gleaming candy corn fang. With the roar of hellfire around her, with the screams of the damned as accompaniment, she marched on towards her fate.

She was becoming what she hated and feared the most... Herself.

Chapter 5 - Deal with the Devil

At last, the Candy Mare and Lemon Drop stood before the master.

They could not have been more confused.

'The master' could best be described as a tiny, pink pegasus filly. She actually had to stand on top of the massive chair in order for her diminutive frame to be seen. She had a crimson tower emblazoned on her flank, though it could also have been a red chess piece if you looked at it in the right light, pretty much where one would expect a pony to have a cutie mark. Her curly powder-blue mane, accented with a yellow ribbon, bobbed gently in the scarlet light that spilled from above as she turned her head to one side to regard the pair of ponies from across the desk. She treated her guests to a sinister smile as her ruby red eyes glowed eerily.

"Wait...what? Is this some kind of joke? Am I being punked?" The Candy Mare looked around the room as if she expected to find a hidden camera crew. "You're seriously supposed to be the 'master' these two have been going on and on about?"

"Believe it or not bitch." Cozy Glow replied with a flash of her teeth. "You're looking at the ruler of Hell!"

"I confess, I'm a little surprised myself." Lemon Drop looked quite perplexed. He took a moment to remove his glasses and wipe them off on his vest. As he placed them back on the end of his muzzle, however, it seemed that cleaning his glasses didn't improve what he was seeing in the least. "How exactly did a foal come to rule the underworld?"

"Looks can be deceiving." the pint-sized pegasus replied enigmatically. She then raised a hoof to her forehead and pushed back her bangs, revealing a pair of tiny red horns once the curls were out of the way. "When you're the top dog in a place like this, it doesn't pay to advertise. There's always some idiot gorilla stomping around declaring himself the next dark lord, but all that does is paint a target on your back. It's only a matter of time before someone else comes along to steal the crown. That kind of idiotic posturing is what keeps this place mired in the past."

"Hah, I see." laughed the Candy Mare, realization dawning. "No one would ever suspect a cute little filly of running the show. Clever!"

Cozy Glow shrugged off the compliment. "That kind of deception is child's play for me, but you'd be surprised how often it works. You know, I actually went to the mortal world for a little while, and no one there ever figured it out either. Mortals are idiots, no offense."

"Indeed. Yet, I can't help but observe that you're back down here." murmured Lemon Drop, his glasses reflecting the ruddy glow of the master's office.

"Hey, even the strongest demon is at a disadvantage in the physical world." explained the hellspawn with a shrug. "I tried draining Equestria of all its magic to manifest at my full strength, but that plan got ruined. Then I got roped into some stupid Chaos God's moronic plan to test a Princess and things just spiraled out of control from there. Ended up turned into a fucking statue, if you can believe it."

"It happens more often than you might think." nodded the Candy Mare sympathetically. "Fucking Princesses, am I right?"

"Preach." The demonic filly and the candified corpse leaned over the desk and shared a hoof-bump of solidarity.

"While it's lovely that the two of you appear to be bonding, I hope that's not the reason that we've been summoned here." interjected Lemon Drop, like the kill-joy that he was. "I was given to believe that there was a matter of some urgency concerning my shared fate with this abomination?"

"Is he always like this?" asked Cozy Glow, with a tilt of her head.

"Constantly." deadpanned the Candy Mare.

"Yeah, I can see why you murdered him." conceded the devilish filly. "Well Lemony Snicket, you're here broadly as a means to an end. At this moment, you're the only thing that's keeping the Candy Mare tied to this existence."

"Excuse me, what?" The Candy Mare's smile faltered. "Say that again."

"Don't look so shocked. Didn't he already tell you that your fates are linked?" When the explanation didn't seem to have the desired impact, Cozy Glow rolled her eyes and gave a more detailed answer. "One by one, you were separated from your hosts. Bit by bit, the souls you swallowed were freed from their confinement as the various universes you infected either came to an end or were somehow cleansed by your enemies. Oh sure, there are still remnants of your power out there, but there are other Candy Mare's from other realities that are tapped into those magics now. All you've got left is one last, lingering soul. Your original victim, Lemon Drop."

The room fell silent, until the quiet was suddenly broken by an unexpected sound.

Lemon Drop was laughing.

This wasn't the sardonic little chortle or a knowing guffaw, but a full on deep-throated belly laugh. The child killer's mirth was so extreme tears were running down his face. "You mean to tell me... hahahaha! That her very existence... mwahahaha! Is dependent on me!?" he could barely get the words out through his gale of giggles.

"That's right." The devil leaned back in her chair. "Without you she'd just evaporate, poof, right out of existence. Truly this is the worst possible situation for her to find herself in, because she can either stay with you here in Hell or face oblivion. Not a choice I'd like to have to make. Of course, if you agree to my offer we could change all that. Work with me, and I might be able to come up with a few more options for you."

"R-i-i-ight..." hissed the Candy Mare. "This is the part where you say you can just wave a magic wand and make my troubles all go away. What say we skip the sales pitch and get right to the catch."

Cozy shrugged. "Suits me. The catch is, you'll owe me a favor. Just like old man Grogar at the front door."

"A favor? That's it?" asked the cannibal corpse incredulously.

"Isn't that enough? I mean, I am a demon here, what more can I reasonably ask for? You're already in Hell, It's not like you have a soul to sell. At least..." and here Cozy's cutesy demeanor dropped entirely and a truly fiendish look spread across her face. "Not yet."

"What exactly, may I ask, is that supposed to mean?" Lemon Drop asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Exactly what it says on the tin, Lemonhead! We're going to set your 'dearest daughter' up with a soul of her very own! No more having to scour the land for a suitable host or roll around in candy to have a physical form." explained the hellspawned filly with glee. "Frankenstein's monster will be alive! Alive! She'll be a one hundred percent live, loud, and loaded living mortal supercharged with enough magic to poke a hole in this shithole of a prison and blaze a pathway straight through to the higher spheres!"

"Ah, I get it." mumbled the Candy Mare, before saying louder, "The 'favor' is inconsequential. Just a way to control me if I get out of line. What you're really after is a prison break. I'm betting this isn't the first time you've tried either."

"Golly, why would you think that?" asked the devil in filly form, smiling innocently and squishing her chubby cheeks with one hoof, before dropping the act and admitting. "Yeah, we tried this before with the geriatric goat out front. Don't ask me why I thought he'd have enough juice to do it, it's a long story I don't really want to get into. I tracked him down after I got sent back downtown and, sorry to say, he didn't live up to my expectations. Without his bell, he's just not that useful for our purposes. I'm not even sure he would be much use with it at this point, having sampled its power for myself. It had a lot of pizzazz, but not enough to put six pint-sized ponies in their place."

"Sorry to interrupt, but I feel like we're overlooking something here. I understand why the Candy Mare would want to change this lovely state of affairs, but why should I go along with this?" asked Lemon Drop, brusquely. "I'd much rather she continue being unable to harm me."

"Lemonpuss, don't you get it? Her freedom is your freedom too!" Cozy Glow's eyes grew wide and bright, a beatific grin spreading on her face giving her the appearance of a cherub as heavenly rays suddenly shown down from above. "If one of you is reborn, the same goes for the other. Think about it! A second chance. The ability to do it all over again, only better this time. Maybe you could even polish up that soul till it shines bright enough to ascend to the higher spheres all on your own! You'd never have to worry about being sent back down here ever again!" The heavenly light faded back to crimson, and her angelic features were replaced by a jaded glare and a filthy leer that accented her devil horns, "Or maybe you can just kill and abuse a bunch of kids all over again for kicks. Not like it matters to me one way or the other, it's your soul."

"As excited as I am about blowing this pop stand, I'm not so wild about letting the rest of you mooks escape the funny farm." The Candy Mare rubbed her chin thoughtfully with one hoof. "Especially Lemon Drop. I might be better off forging my own path and leaving the rest of you down here to rot."

"I thought you might say that." Cozy clapped her hooves together twice and suddenly Grogar appeared standing beside Lemon Drop, a blade of crackling dark magic extended from one hoof and pressed firmly against the unicorn's throat. The ethereal blade bit ever so slightly into his skin, causing a tiny trickle of spectral blood. At the same time, a similar slit opened on the Candy Mare's own neck, dribbling a bit of greenish-black ichor. "This is a one time offer, take it or leave it, but be careful how you choose. Oblivion may be preferable to eternal suffering, but that doesn't mean I won't take my sweet time sending you both there."

"You little shit!" scoffed the Candy Mare, almost admiringly as she wiped the goo from her throat. "And here I was just starting to like you."

"Watch your tone, cretin!" threatened Grogar, brandishing the glowing blade of dark magic. "It would be wise to show a little more respect to your master!"

"I'll settle with you later goat boy. Until then..." here the Candy Mare turned an uncharacteristically sympathetic smirk in Lemon Drops direction. "Try not to antagonize the help by being your usual asshole-self 'Lemonpuss'."

"I assure you, I will endeavor to be the very picture of civility." a cold smile flitted over the unicorn's face. "No matter how odious my minder may smell."

"Blah blah blah, do you two ever shut up?" cried Cozy, exasperated. "So do we have a deal or what?"

"I don't see where I have much of a choice. It's the Cozy Glow show now." remarked the candy ghoul bitterly. "You name the tune and we'll see how well I can dance."

"Perfect!" The pink pegasus cried out joyfully, before fluttering up from her seat on excited hummingbird wings and over to a door set behind her desk. As she opened it, the web of bridges that spanned the massive pit reappeared on the other side of the door frame.

"Follow me!"

The demon in filly's clothing led the filly clothed in candy to the central terminus of the web of scaffolding and bridges.

It hadn't taken long, though they had a chance to talk in depth about what it was specifically that Cozy wanted the Candy Mare to do along the way. Here at the very middle of the pit, the wind that rose from below went beyond merely freezing to truly arctic. Frost covered every bare surface and monstrously thick icicles hung beneath the iron and stone bridgework. There was what looked like the start of a winding stairway carved into a particularly thick pillar of ice that led down into the crevasse, though it was quickly lost in the gloom below.

"So she's down there then?" asked the Candy Mare, a shade uncertain.

"Yup! What's the matter?" Cozy Glow hovered nonchalantly over the void. "Scared of heights?"

"Depths actually." admitted the mad mare in a moment of lucidity. "Comes from being born at the bottom of a pit like this."

"Oh, I very much doubt it was anything like this!" the hellspawn replied with a demonic grin.

"Then you don't know Lemon Drop very well. I can only hope that bites you in the ass somehow." The Candy Mare shot back with a devilish smirk of her own. "You better watch out. He's got an eye for little fillies with curly hair, just so you know."

"You realize I'm not actually a filly right?' Cozy replied, sounding almost bored "I'm the devil. Ruler of Hell. Ring any bells? I have more important things to worry about than some perverts preferences."

"Golly, I would have never guessed!" replied the Candy Mare innocently, squishing her cheek with one hoof as stars and hearts blossomed in her eyes. "We'll see if that matters in the long run."

"Yeah, right." dismissed the demon.

"Guess this is where we part ways. And don't think it hasn't been a little slice of Heaven... Cause it hasn't!" Without any further warning, the Candy Mare ran to the end of the bridge and leapt into the abyss, performing a perfect swan dive before tucking her limbs around her body and screaming"CANNONBALL!!!"

"Show off." muttered Cozy Glow.

Interlude - A Choir of One

It was as if the fires had burned away all artifice, revealing the rot and corruption that existed just beneath the surface.

The forest now teemed with unnatural life and every horrid and disgusting thing you could imagine. Thick mold and fungus flourished in the undergrowth where not quite dead animals writhed, living nests for maggots, centipedes, and beetles as well as all other manner of scavenging vermin. A rank, fetid stench drifted just beneath the smoke as clouds of methane and noxious spores were released by the decaying matter scattered all around. The still burning trees themselves seemed to move and twist, suffering faces taking shape in the blackened bark as cinders dripped from their burnt out heartwood. Long claw like limbs bent and twisted in agony towards the sky, as soft sighs and screams filled the night.

Like the decomposing filth in the undergrowth, the flames no longer seemed to harm the mare. Where they touched her there was the stink of searing flesh and the sweet scent of burning sugar, but no cry of pain escaped from her lips. The fire had already done its work on her, peeling away her false flesh and revealing the rotten marionette beneath, coated in a blinding array of colorful sweets. The world she found herself in seemed to reflect this, her true nature, but she seemed to be almost blind to the horrors all around her.

From the remnants of the wildfire crept creatures from nightmares, some pallid and blind while others were dark and full of eyes. Some seemed to lack skin while others were nothing but bones. Horns, bat wings, and tentacles sprouted in a profusion of combinations, slithering and scratching through the choking smoke. They dogged her step and seemed to leer from behind every tree, but even so, the unnatural earth pony felt no fear of them. In a way, it almost felt right for her to be among them. She was just as terrible, if not more so, than the things that haunted this wasteland. More over, her mind was already occupied with other, nearer things, that were only as far away as the depth of her own skin.

Her skin.

Her hair.

Her eyes.

Her teeth.

Her bones.

She could feel the rot stretching all the way down to her core.

The change was nearly complete now. Soon there would be nothing left of who she had been. Her skin crinkled and gleamed, gooey and soft in places while brittle and hard in others. Her long untamed mane and tail lashed at the ground, wrapping their long black and red tendrils around fallen branches, unconsciously searching for victims. Her eyes swirled with hints of growing madness as they glowed blue and pink, cutting through the smoke as if it were not there. Her teeth gnashed and ground against one another as one by one new mouths popped open all over her body, singing in half remembered voices that belonged to others who were long dead. Already she could feel them vibrating down deep into her bones, resonating with something ugly that dwelt just beneath her sugar-coated surface.

A choir of one was what she was, striding through the burnt forest, her song a soul searing lament that stung the eyes far more than the smoke and ash. Her dirge echoed through the wilderness, overpowering the crackle of flame and the distant roar of the passing firestorm. As the tiny mouths on her body gave voice to their grief and despair, the earth pony cracked her own candy corn grin to join in. Deep, soulful notes that spoke of loss and madness warbled from her throat, unsteadily at first, but growing stronger with every step towards her goal.

At last the wastes peeled away entirely, leaving the unnatural mare in a wide clearing. The ground here was made of fine white sand like crushed bone. Hung in the trees that surrounded the perimeter were the skins of ponies and humans, some fresh while others were old and dried, the hollow spaces that once stretched around eyes and mouths flapped gently in a sepulcher breeze. In the center of the clearing there stood a tall castle that writhed and squirmed like a living thing, surrounded by a moat of glowing green slime that hissed and fizzed, that could only be crossed by a drawbridge of bone. As the former earth pony looked up through tear blinded eyes, she could see that the masonry for the fortress was somewhat unique as well, though not altogether unexpected.

Skinned bodies twisted, distorted, and stretched out of proportions were knotted around one another and stacked one by one to form the towering edifice. Some had once been ponies, while others were all too human, but each were so warped it was impossible to tell the difference anymore. They screamed and wept or cursed at her approach, seeming to struggle all the harder to escape her presence. Sadly their ability to flee had been robbed of them long ago and all the former filly could do was offer a wordless apology as she climbed the weeping steps that led inside, the touch of her hooves seeming to burn the flayed figures as their twisted backs took her weight. Each step cried out beneath her, whimpering and begging wordlessly for relief that she could no longer give.

At last she came to the entrance of the castle, a wide and dark portal wreathed in teeth and bone, that looked equal parts pained and hungry. Blood dripped, warm and salty from above, stoking a hunger within the former mare that twisted her insides with disgust and longing. Wiping the mixture of blood and tears from her face, the unnatural pony hung her head low as she resigned herself to what came next and stepped inside.

Instantly the way behind her shut with a loud crunch, and she was plunged into complete darkness. Beneath her hooves the soft squelch of raw flesh, and the occasional moan of pain and terror, let her know that the interior of the castle was composed of the same materials that the exterior had been. Not that she had expected otherwise, of course. The heady aroma of fresh meat and warm blood were intoxicating.

Fumbling through the dark, she found her eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, as though the complete absence of light were merely a dull sort of twilight. Not that seeing her surroundings did anything to make her feel any better. What spread before her was nothing less than a scene born from the horrible union between an Escher painting and a slaughterhouse. All around her bodies hung from hooks or were chopped into decorative pieces to pave the floor and ceiling. Others were twisted into charnel approximations of furniture and fixtures that furnished the castle, red muscle stretched, betwixt, bent and bloody bone, held fast by dripping sinew. The walls themselves seemed to contain writhing figures that were laminated together behind a thin membrane of wet, translucent intestines. The rooms, halls, and galleys all trailed and looped through and around one another, up and up into the highest towers and down and around into the dungeons depths.

Like the unfortunate souls that made up this fortress of flesh, the former earth pony was torn. Disoriented by the sights, the smells and the temptation to explore every sloping staircase of muscle and sweeping buttress of bone, she almost lost the focus that had driven her this far. In truth part of her wanted to flee, to forget all this existed, and wrap herself up once more in comforting lies and half truths. Of course she knew that was impossible. There was no going back.

No, she would have to cut her way forward if she wanted out now, though the idea of inflicting even more pain on the souls which she had once used to build this castle made her shudder.

Yes... this was her castle. She'd built it, victim by victim, she was the one that had carefully shaped this place from nothing. This was her home, the castle of her wildest fantasies and her darkest dreams.

Every little girl dreamed of being a princess, even a lowly farm pony from a no name backwater town. A princess needed a castle, a kingdom, and subjects to rule. Her home was one and all at the same time, and each were a part of this horrible place. Everything here was, ultimately, a part of her as well. Its fierce, ugly beauty, a testament to just how truly twisted she had become.

Her momentary bewilderment faded. The unnatural filly knew where she had to go. She knew what awaited her.

Hardening her resolve, she ignored all other paths and the lament of those she had wronged, and headed for the throne room.

Chapter 6 - Hell on Ice

It is a perfect, frozen moment, of total sensory failure.

There is no sense of sight, sound or even motion.

There is nothing to see, nor hear, nor feel.

It is an almost perfect void.

However, there is a sensation that slowly creeps up her spine. A coldness that goes beyond numbing to a perverse kind of burning sensation, as if every single one of her nerve endings were suddenly aflame. With it comes that ever present hunger, sharper and more keenly felt than ever, like a knife to her gut.

The feeling is so familiar that it is almost comforting.

It doesn't last.

Like a diver leaping off the edge of a cliff and plunging into the ocean's surface, the frozen moment is shattered, and the Candy Mare is suddenly aware of the rush of wind whistling through her mane as she plummets through the darkness. There is a chilly glow coming from below, and as she continues to rapidly descend the pit widens around her stretching off limitlessly into the distance. Beneath her, and from her perspective rising fast, lies a vast frozen lake that is the source of the frigid luminescence. The strange corpse light suffuses the underground sea, offering just enough illumination for her to see figures floating beneath the translucent surface.

She had reached it then... The deepest level of Hell.

The Candy Mare slammed hard into the frozen surface, sending up a cloud of frost and cracking the otherwise perfectly smooth ice for miles around in every direction. For a moment she did not move, to all appearances dead to the world. Then the candified corpses suddenly sat up. Slowly crawling to her hooves, she opened her eyes and swept them over her surroundings. Here, in this darkest of pits, they glowed a vivid blue laced with swirls of pink, casting beams of light across the arctic waste.

Though she long ago lost the need to breathe, the temperature here is well beyond freezing, causing steam to drift from her nose and mouth as the heat is leeched from inside her body. Already rime began to form on the surface of the monstrous mare's body, and she had to keep constantly in motion to keep from becoming encased in a shell of her own freezing vapor. It's obvious that this was the fate the poor sinners, who had long since sunk beneath the ice, had suffered. Those who had succumbed to the unique order of this place soon became one with the enormous frozen sea. If the Candy Mare didn't want this to likewise become her eternal resting place then she would need to accomplish what she came here to do and leave swiftly.

Fortunately, she still possessed the ability to change her shape, bending and twisting her body into a more helpful form. She started by growing in size, becoming larger and larger, and then she began extending her liquorice mane and tail in every direction, like long wires crisscrossing overhead. As she did this, her body also sprouted new spider-like appendages that each ended in a twitching eye stalk that themselves sprouted spidery limbs of their own, over and over, until her form resembled a swirling fractal of skittering stalks full of maddened eyes. Now instead of just two beams of blue and pink light there were thousands, perhaps millions, sweeping over the surface of the winter-locked reservoir of souls. It was as if as massive U.F.O. had suddenly appeared in the depths, shining down lights that caused strange shadows to dance across the ice.

The bizarre candy fractal-thing began to slither and slide over the ice, twisting back and forth overhead like a manic hurricane. Here and there a maw or jagged claw would sprout and stretch down to gnaw or chip at the ice to clear away a patch to better view a figure suspended below. Each time the light of an eye-stalk would sweep over the figure and move on. It wasn't that she was entirely disinterested, but there was no time to closely examine each and ever sinner.

As the Candy Mare's search dragged on, her movements became more frantic, more desperate. One by one, the delicate eyes were freezing solid. One or two broke off from the rest of her body, falling to smash into lifeless pieces on the surface of the glacier below. The storm of limbs was losing pieces faster than she could replace them as bit by bit she lost whole chunks of herself to the freezing grip of the unnaturally cold environment. Rather than slow, as one might when subjected to such extreme hardship, the candy creature instead only worked faster. Her limbs clicked and whirred as they stabbed into the glassy surface searching for...

For what exactly? Or maybe a better question would be who?

At last one eye beam swept over a lone, tiny form, suspended deep beneath the frosty surface. All eyes converged at once and the Candy Mare briefly retook her pony form as she shrank back down to a more reasonable size. She didn't remain in her usual form for long, however, as her limbs twisted into living chainsaws, each blade tipped with diamond hard candy corn teeth. With a motion almost like a dancer, the Candy Mare slid across the ice carving into the frozen surface, creating a huge circular hole. She was making swift work at first, but the deeper she got the harder the permafrost grew. Before long the chainsaws had all combined into a single powerful drill, as her main and tail twisted around her limbs and spiraled down into the rigid rime. With a grimace on her face her drill chewed through the surface of the lake as quickly as it could, but already hoarfrost was forming at the edges of the hole she had made, the ice threatening to close in over her. It was as if the Candy Mare was merely a pebble, briefly distorting the underground sea, and soon the surface would heal and she would be swallowed up like all the other sinners who had come before.

As the freezing walls closed in all around her, there was a very real risk of her becoming just as trapped as every other mortal soul imprisoned here at the nadir of existence. Still, the Candy Mare showed no fear, her predicament only lending more frenzy to her efforts.

With one last grinding crunch she was through!

With a cackle of delight, the living tendrils of the Candy Mare's mane wrapped around her cryogenically preserved prize. The very air rippled as the Candy Mare exploded from below, sending up a shower of sleet and snowy crystals all around as she burst back onto the surface.

Now that she had gotten what she had come for, there was only one thing left to do.

Escape!

Only, now that she had turned her attention to her egress did the Candy Mare realize that there was no readily apparent means to get out. The sea of ice stretched forever in every direction, and the entrance of the pit that she had descended from was lost in the darkness of the ceiling high, high above. Her eyes brightened until they shone almost like headlights on a car, but no matter how they swept the frosty clouds above she couldn't find even the suggestion of the vault, let alone the cavern walls. There were just thick snow clouds that rumbled with an occasional growl of thunder. Even if she grew wings to brave the frigid storm, she knew that ice would build up quickly on her body and she would be sent tumbling back down to the lake below. This time she might not be able to rise again.

Panting with the exertion of carrying her parcel and with something akin to panic settling in, the Candy Mare at last came to a stark conclusion - There was nowhere to go.

Paralyzed by this realization, rime and frost quickly engulfed the Candy Mare's form, quick freezing her in place. She tried to move, to struggle, to shift her shape and wiggle free! Sadly there was only so much she could do while still holding on to the prize she had come all this way to collect.

All seemed lost, until another thought struck her. If there was no way out, maybe what the Candy Mare needed instead was to find a way in!

Shedding size like a snowman in spring time, the Candy Mare turned into a writhing serpentine creature. Without hesitation, she slithered deep inside the soul she had so recently harvested from the ice.

Then the freezing talons of the ninth layer of Hell gripped them both, and pulled them back beneath the arctic surface.

Interlude - The Balance of Things

The closer she drew to the throne room, the quieter the screams of the damned became, until they were nothing more than hushed whispers just on the edge of her hearing.

Of course everything from the floor to the ceiling was still composed of their skinned forms, but this was the core of the castle, the very foundation of this realm, and the souls that occupied it had suffered much longer than those that made up the exterior. Occasionally they wept, or grimaced in silence, but their voices had long since worn away. The event horizon of their existence had dwindled to a single point of unending agony which they had no choice but to endure, awaiting an oblivion that would never come. As the former earth pony made her way down the blood slicked corridor, the broken spirits barely acknowledged her presence.

A thick green fog hovered just above the contorted flesh and bone of the floor, swirling into strange shapes as her legs passed through the unnatural mist. The creeping haze was, of course, an indication of her presence, the one the former farm pony knew was awaiting her just a little further ahead. It had always been an extension of her will, made manifest, muffling and amplifying sounds at her will to confuse her victims. It also hid her deadly presence until it was far too late to escape. The fog wheeled and swirled around her hooves like an affectionate pet welcoming its master home and, although the thought sickened her, she felt herself oddly comforted by its presence. Strange how we take solace from the most awful and terrifying things from out past with just a little bit of nostalgia.

As she continued to trudge down the maddeningly twisted halls, the fog guided her steps. She climbed stairs that let out onto empty balconies, opened doors that led to nowhere, and found herself crossing and recrossing the same room over and over even though she had been walking in a straight line the entire time. Even so, she was confident she was not being led astray. It seemed that the being that lurked at the center of this living nightmare was eager to meet with her as well.

At last she came to a steep set of stairs. The victims here were so old that they had shriveled into mummies, their insubstantial muscle desiccated to the point that they just barely clung to their brittle bones. The occasional twitch and exhalation were the only indication that they, like the rest of the tormented victims here, were still very much aware. A sigh of stale air, putrid and weighted with the passage of long epochs, gusted up from below as a pair of massive doors slowly creaked open at the bottom of the stairs. The scent that swept forth from within threatened to overwhelm her. The wet earthy stench of rotting pumpkin mixed with the acrid reek of decayed flesh long gone to dust assaulted her nostrils, making her cough. A fitful flickering light rose from the doorway, causing the fog to dance with obscene shadows that twisted and warped the rictus grins of the dead.

Inside, something was calling to her - had been calling to her for a long, long time, though she had tried so hard to deny it.

She could always turn back.

This was not her first journey to this castle, nor the first time she had uncovered these truths about herself, yet always before, she had turned away before reaching this final chamber.

Something was different this time though, something had changed.

She needed to know what it was. Why it was.

No more running away.

The unnatural mare clambered down the stairs, taking them in twos, and ran through the open door before she could change her mind. However, what awaited her on the other side instantly made her heart sink.

The throne room was enormous, cavernous, extending as far as the eye could see in almost every direction. Within it was a pile, like unto a mountain, of raw red skulls rising up so that they extended through a massive hole in the ceiling. Though all flesh had long since been stripped away, they still were soaked in blood, and steadily wept the substance from the empty staring eye sockets. Indeed, the floor was covered in a vast lake of blood and viscera, a few errant skulls bobbing in the waist high liquid. As the mare waded through the sticky ichor, she couldn't help but notice that it was still warm as it splashed up her legs and sprayed across her face.

She clambered onto an island of skulls that seemed to be the base of the mountainous pile. High atop the enormous cairn of bone, there sat a twisted throne forged not only in flesh but in confection as well. Pulsing and throbbing organs were laced through with hunks of peppermint, lumps of gingerbread, and glistening bars of chocolate. Faces twisted by pain and horror, leered out, half agonized flesh and half dripping candy, eyes swirled with lunacy at the insanity of their very existence. It wasn't much of surprise that the throne was made from children, not even tiny foals having been spared, but even so the former earth pony was taken aback by the audacity and wrongness of the throne's construction. Of all the horrible things she had seen so far there was something especially perverse about the candified corpses of all the little fillies and colts, mixed in with the tiny squirming foals, softly crying beneath a coating of frosting and sprinkles.

As horrible as the throne itself was, it was nothing compared to the horror of its occupant.

The creature that held court here was one she had not laid eyes on before this moment, yet she recognized it instantly. Its body was a chaotic collection of cacophonous colored candy clashing calamitously with causality itself, radiating waves of corruption that twisted and distorted everything around it on a physical, mental, and spiritual level. A long red and black liquorice whip mane hung limply from its skull, falling like a lifeless waterfall down the mountain of skulls. Eyes that were a kaleidoscopic swirl of madness and malice gazed malignantly down upon the unnatural farm pony as if she were just one more skull waiting to join the pile. The monster's mouth was cracked in a wide and terrible grin that threatened to part the top of its head from the rest of its body, lined with crooked candy corn teeth that only partially held back a cascade of acidic green drool.

Every inch of the beast was alive with crawling, hideous vermin, writhing maggots, and slithering worms. Twitching antenna wiggled from between its teeth and beneath its eyelids, as millions of scuttling little legs clicked and clattered as they swarmed over her wet and glistening form. This thing was a rotting, putrescent, blood soaked abomination that had absolutely no right to exist.

Worst of all, the creature the mare gazed upon was in many ways herself.

It was her twisted mirror image.

Her reflection.

Herself.

In her heart of hearts, this was what she knew, this creature reflected what she had become.

"I've come a long way to see you." the former pony began haltingly. "It has taken a long time for me to... Accept what this place has been trying to tell me. Hunger does strange things to you. Warps your body and your mind. To know true starvation, that sense that drives all living things to destroy in order to survive, to know it in its purest and most absolute form is to touch the very heart of madness. You can hunger for so many things aside from food. You can hunger for freedom. For love, for revenge, for destiny. I thought I could be rid of it finally, but even that was a hunger in and of itself. I betrayed my own kind, trying to satisfy my hunger. Since then, I've just steadily been starving away, trying to will you out of existence. But the things you did, the horrible crimes you committed, they need to be paid for. We need to be punished. That's why we are here."

The figure on the throne remained silent, staring, as if it had not heard anything that the mare had said. Only the vermin that crawled over her body gave the illusion of life in her lifeless form. Even so, A reply drifted from the dark.

"Is that seriously what you've taken away from this creep show? Yeash, If this place reflects how you truly see yourself, how you truly see me, no wonder we had so many problems. I've noticed that this Hell is marvelous at gas-lighting losers. Every last sucker here seems to be convinced that there's some kind of justice in punishment, but really all you're doing is satisfying your own twisted desires. The only reason you think we need to be punished is because it's easier than taking responsibility for our actions and owning up to the desires that drove them."

"That's not true!" shouted the former mare nearly weeping, stamping her hooves on the pile of skulls, making a hollow percussive sound. "Look at this place! This monument to murder! This castle of pain! Every twisted soul here is one of our victims! They exist in a state of perpetual torment because of what we did to them! Accepting punishment is accepting responsibility for what we did! What... what we both did. Because you wouldn't let me go! Your gluttony, your greed, your hunger just wouldn't be satisfied unless you drug me down with you!"

The unseen voice moaned, sounding more exasperated than angry.

"Okay, well first off, these shadows and phantoms you feel so bad for aren’t the real deal. The only soul suffering here is you, and that is precisely what you want. I certainly didn’t send you here, that was a choice you made when you decided to side with that bacon-haired tart and try to destroy me. Secondly, I didn’t have any say in where any of the other souls floated off to once they left my grasp, so any of them that might be down here somewhere are here because of what they did, not thanks to me!"

"I don't understand, what are you talking about?" the teary eyed former pony asked, genuinely confused.

Another groan of agitation drifted down from the ceiling.

"I did not miss this, you know? When are you finally going to wake up and realize that it was never about me and you. It was about us. It was what we wanted. It was what we did. Hell, would you listen to me? I'm stuck in here with you now and you've already got me twisting my words around just to satisfy your ego. You are so maddening! When are you going to realize the truth!?"

"And what truth is that?" asked the unnatural earth pony, her bitter black tears sizzling as they slipped from her candy-coated eyes.

"That there never was a 'Pumpkin Patch' and a 'Candy Mare'. This sad obsession you have with our duality needs to come to an end." replied the voice as something shifted in the darkness on the ceiling. "We have always been one and the same."

"...What?" she had not expected to hear that.

"Yeah, that's enough of this skulking in shadows nonsense." the Candy Mare descended like a spider from above. As she came to rest next to the throne, the bugs and larva squirming on the enthroned effigy of herself squealed and tried to slither away, revealing the monster on the throne to be the exaggerated and lifeless doll it was. "Would you just look at this ugly thing. I mean, I knew you hated me. Yourself. Whatever. But come on, we're not that ugly."

"What!?" she had really not expected to hear that!

"I know, I know, pronouns are such a bitch, right? He, she, they, them, you, me, us; it's all just so much drivel." remarked the real Candy Mare with a shrug, shoving the marionette of herself off of the throne so that it clattered down the slope of skulls and into the pool of blood below. She took a seat, crossing her legs and leaning back into the plush chocolate dipped infant flesh. "Frankly I've always thought it was kind of a waste of time to try and get them right when most of the folks I bump into I end up eating. Just this once, I really wish that the ponish language was a little more precise, ya know?"

"No, not that!" protested the filly, her candy shell cracking as she stomped her hooves angrily once more. "Well, wait, yes that too but... wait, who are you again?"

"Like I said, I'm you." the candied version of herself answered flatly. "Sort of have been all along, although neither one of us has wanted to admit it up until now. I mean clearly you sort of knew, otherwise you wouldn't have conjured up all of this torture you've been putting yourself through. This stupid mountain of skulls, the castle made of murdered souls, the tour of some of my greatest hits, the whole endless gnawing hunger and the guilt you feel from indulging yourself. I mean, the demons here are pretty much all idiots, they could have never come up with such an elaborate meat-grinder to force you through. I like the throne by the way. Making a seat of power out of Lemon Drop's victims makes a lot of sense, but I really hope you don't blame yourself for their deaths. Neither of us had any control over what happened to them.”

"Wait, so none of this..." As realization dawned, the mare's candy shell began to flake away. Just another false identity that was now falling away. "None of this is real?"

"Real? Nah, not even close! Although it's probably as close to real as anything else in this ghastly little realm, I expect. A sad fantasy cooked up by the guilty conscience of trillions of lost souls, exploited by parasites called demons to make you your own personal judge, jury and executioner." the Candy Mare shifted her position to drape herself across the faces of the tormented children that made up her make-believe throne. "Though since you lot are already dead, every time you died it just reset the scenario. It's a good thing I remembered the trick to dream walking I picked up from Princess Luna, otherwise we wouldn't be having this little chat right now."

"So you... You're the real deal?" asked Pumpkin Patch as the last of her candy shell flaked away. Beneath this last false self-image there was the ghost of a little filly with curly red hair and a cutie mark shaped like a pumpkin with a square patch sown into the side. The spirit of Lemon Drop's final victim stared up with bright green eyes that flashed with something between horror and hope. "You are the real Candy Mare!? That's impossible! Sunset Shimmer destroyed you when she burned up what was left of my body!"

"Ah, so you finally remember everything huh? Yeah, that's not exactly what went down, though I guess you've missed out on a lot while you've been trapped down here." mused the Candy Mare, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "I kind of already had a few new bodies cooking in the dimension Sunset called home, new hosts, that sort of thing. Your body might have been destroyed but the curse lived on! Truthfully that little stunt where you stabbed me in the back barely slowed me down. I'm not even mad about it anymore. I mean, how can I stay mad at myself?"

"I'm not you!" roared the filly, her spectral scream sending waves of blood crashing on distant bony shores as it rose to a banshee wail. "We are not the same!"

"Are you kidding? Everything about this nightmare you cooked up absolutely screams ‘You are the Candy Mare! Feel bad about yourself!’ I saw how you looked when I first got in here, it was like looking at a less attractive and weepy version of myself! This is all about you and your own guilt." replied the dream-walker snidely, rolling over on her back so her head and long mane hung upside down from the throne. "That's what you have always harbored since we came to be the way we are, you know? The guilt. You are the part of us that regrets what we've done, what we've become. The part that still has a conscience. You've always been looking for a way to run away even though you know deep down that we had no choice in the path we walked. I can't say I've really missed having you chirping away at the back of my mind but a minute ago, when you were practically weeping at the realization of who you were, I gotta say I felt a little sorry for you. I truly can't stand to see what has become of you since we've been apart. You don't deserve any of this. What you are doing to yourself is just absurd! You've gotten yourself so twisted up there's hardly any difference between us anymore, except you feel bad about it."

"And you don't?"

"Of course I don't! Haven't you been paying attention?" replied the Candy Mare with a bark of laughter. "I'm the part that wants revenge! The bit that embraces the curse! I’m that part of you that wants to live, and live, and live, and live no matter what the cost! I want to burn it all down until there is nothing left! Screw punishing myself, its everyone else that deserves to suffer for what was done to us!"

"Then you're even sadder than I am!" shot back the shade of Pumpkin Patch, defiantly. "Maybe you are right, maybe I don't deserve to be tortured for all of eternity, but neither does everyone else! I... We were not the only innocents that suffered. You know that not everyone you punished deserved it. You should have been punished, at least for that!"

"Nah, that would've just been a colossal waste of time." dismissed the mad mare, languidly.

"Why!? Why after everything you've done do you believe that!?" screamed the spirit, furious at her candied counterparts attitude.

"Because, like I said, I can't feel any remorse for what I've done. Not really. I can think it, and I can act it, but I can't feel it. You are the part that can do all of that." the dream walker sat back up with a shrug. "I kind of have the feeling there are a lot of damned souls in this place that have the same problem. No matter how much they are punished, they will never truly understand what they have done or feel an ounce of remorse for it. We will never get any better. We will never improve. We have to get ourselves together. We have to reintegrate who we are before any of this could hope to have any meaning."

"I don't... I don't understand"

"Well, for us, it boils down to you and me. We have to stop being you and me."

"We're dead right?" asked the shade of Pumpkin Patch thoughtfully. "If we really are the same person then why are we separate?"

"Because I'm not dead. You are the soul. Currently I think I am what passes for the body." The Candy Mare rubbed her face as if she were feeling it for the first time. "What a role reversal, am I right? Worst of all, since I'm not linked to you right now, I'm hooked up with Lemon Drop! Of all the horrible punishments, inflicting him on me again is probably the worst one this afterlife could have cooked up for me! Chances are I could have just joined with him, but could you imagine that sick deviant with my powers at his disposal?"

The very idea made Pumpkin Patch shiver. "Lemon Drop is here too?" asked the spirit, a tremor of deep fear in her voice.

"Yeah. Why, are you surprised? Did you think he was going to go off to 'little pony heaven' after everything he did? As a matter of fact, he's sort of why I'm down here. It's a weird development, but apparently if they destroy him that's it for me, I'm gone for good."

"Hold on. If you are me, and you get wiped out of existence then... what happens to me?"

"Honestly? I don't know."

Suddenly the mountain of skulls was gone, as was the cavern, the pool of warm blood, and even the castle. There were just two lights in the dark now, one a soft orange glow at the center of which was a tiny filly while the other a garish green held her perfect double cast in candy.

A numbing chill was spreading in from all around. The dream was breaking down.

"What is going on? Why is it so cold."

"We're in Hell, Pumpkin. A special part right at the bottom where it's freezing cold. You've been trapped here dreaming for a long, long time, feeding perverted demons who get off on your suffering. I came to get you but, hah, wouldn't ya know there's no way to get out again. Not for an incomplete being like me." the soul light of the Candy Mare pulsed a haunting green as she spoke, like a firefly hovering in the twilight. "The only way out of here is for us to work together."

"Why should I help you?" Pumpkin Patch's soul light flickered back, a warmer glow like a lantern guiding the lost and weary home.

"Easy, you'd be helping yourself. Or does being tortured for the rest of eternity to feed the addiction of pain-junky devils really appeal that much to you?"

"I don't trust you."

"Cool, I don't trust you either. But I guess that's something we'll have to work on. Then again, when we are truly one and the same again, I don't think it will even matter anymore. Instead of thinking of us as one or the other, we will both simply be who we are, for good or ill." The verdant spectral orb flashed dimmer, subsiding. "I'll have to think of us both as myself, I guess."

"You mean I'll have to think of both as myself." beamed the warm glow, drifting closer. "I was here first after all."

"Yeah, I remember. I also remember a time before you though, when I was just a loose collection of spells and souls thanks to Lemon Drop. Reconciling that is going to take some time."

"I... Think I can understand that. We both went through a lot before we were us. I'm a complicated pony, aren't I?"

"I sure am.”

The two lights grew closer, brighter, as they started to finally overlap.

"Candy Mare?"

"Yeah Pumpkin?"

"Let's get the hell out of here.”

Chapter 7 - As Below, So Above

Lemon Drop couldn’t help squirming uncomfortably in Grogar’s grip.

The bristly old goat smelled fouler than Hell's abattoirs, and that was saying something. For that matter, the tickle of the fallen emperor's sorcerous blade at his throat was less than comfortable to say the least. It served as a constant reminder of just how badly the usually far more calculating and in control unicorn had bungled his most recent plans. It wasn't the first time since his untimely demise that he'd ended up in an awkward predicament like this, but it didn't make how this particular misadventure had turned out any less galling.

A part of Lemon Drop just wanted to lash out, no matter how ineffectual and ultimately self defeating such brash actions might be. After all, would being wiped out of existence really be any worse than an eternity of continual failures and embarrassments? He might not be able to harm the master in any significant way, but the same did not necessarily hold true for Grogar. The sour stallion might not be able to put the ruffian in his place as he would like, but he could certainly do something that might make him think twice before he would dared lay his filthy hooves on a noble unicorn again.

But no, Lemon Drop's pride kept him from doing anything quite that drastic, just yet. A core thing that had helped to preserve what past for sanity for the sinful pony had been his absolute conviction of his own superiority, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Lemon Drop would always fall back on looking down on those around him with quiet disdain and patiently await the most opportune to prove them his inferior. Every fiber of his being was convinced that he was better than Grogar and Cozy Glow, and that their eventual downfall was just a matter of time. There was no doubt in his mind that he would find some way to outwit them in the end.

All he truly needed was an appropriate opening. Perhaps a distraction was in order?

“Is it really necessary for you to hold me at knife point like this?” asked the sour stallion, sneering at the blade as though it were something truly distasteful. “I mean, we are in Hell after all, how far do you think I would get if I were to try to escape? For that matter, where exactly is it that I might escape to?”

“Quiet!” growled Grogar, menacingly, his rancid breath hot on the nape of Lemon Drop's neck.

Met with a brick wall, the unicorn instead tried addressing his query to Cozy Glow instead. “Surely you can see how pointless this is. One way or another, soon the link between myself and that abomination will be severed. I’ll lose any and all value as a hostage at that point. Believe me, once the Candy Mare no longer has to rely on me for her continued existence, no amount of threatening my continued well being will dissuade her from wreaking terrible vengeance on the pair of you. Indeed, she'll probably target me herself at that point! We shouldn't be at one another's throats, we should be working together to formulate a plan for how best to channel her wrath upon her return.."

The false filly smiled cruelly at Lemon Drop's carefully worded argument, revealing her true demonic nature as she watched him wriggle uncomfortably like a worm on a hook. “As hostage, or as bait, I'm sure you'll continue to serve me well. Of course, if you are that concerned about your worth to me, perhaps you should consider how you might increase your value? As you say, soon you will be worthless to me, one way or another. To me, you being fed as a tithe to the Candy Mare or being reincarnated or even being snuffed out of existence for good, are all equally acceptable outcomes. Perhaps you should think about a way to convince me to keep you around, rather than leave destiny to decide your fate?”

Lemon Drop knew it was a trap.

Being 'kept around' by a demon like Cozy Glow just meant becoming her slave. Sacrificing his freedom and resigning himself to the special kind of torture that came with serving such a creature, was not Lemon Drop's idea of a preferable alternative. Grogar was a sterling example of the kind of treatment that he could expect, waiting on her beck and call, forced to her dirty work at a moments notice. The sorcerer might have been able to swallow his pride for whatever bargain selling his soul had offered, but Lemon Drop had no intention of supplicating himself to the pint-sized lord of terror if he could avoid it.

Better oblivion than servitude. Of course, he wasn't so foolish as to assert that sentiment aloud.

“It’s a wise suggestion." lied shrewd stallion as he shared a cold smile with Cozy. “But perhaps it is one you should consider yourself? In short order the Candy Mare will be back to her usual, horrific self. Do you really think she will be happy to do your bidding after you threatened her existence? As one who has been on the receiving end of one of her little tantrums, I can assure you that she will not be returning with obedience in mind. As I said, she is likely to wreak a terrible vengeance on all of us. If I were you, I’d be putting as many bodies between myself and her as I possibly could. If you were to call off your goon I'd be more than willing to buy you time to escape."

“I said quiet!” this time Grogar smacked the unicorn on the back of the head for emphasis, knocking Lemon Drop’s spectacles to the ground.

For the briefest moments, Cozy Glow seemed to give the suggestion some genuine consideration. Unfortunately for the former candy maker, an expression that could best be described like a mischievous cherub caught pissing into a fountain instead of concern blossomed on her face. “Golly, you’ll say just about anything to get what you want, won’t you mister? You almost make it sound like you’re more afraid of the Candy Mare than you are of me. You seem to think that I don't have this situation completely under control. Yet everything has gone exactly how I wanted it to so far, hasn't it? ”

Lemon Drop grimaced. “I merely speak from experience. As one who also threw that thing down into a pit and thought he had control over the situation. Believe me when I say that when you think everything is going to plan, that is exactly when she’ll rear her ugly head and bring everything to ruin.”

“Be serious with me for a moment. It’s because of how I look isn't it?" the diminutive devil-pony asked sincerely, sweeping a hoof up and down in front of her to indicate her tiny pink body. "A stuffy old stallion like you sees this little pegasus filly body of mine and you can’t help but underestimate me. You get distracted by the curls and chubby cheeks and don't realize that they are all designed specifically to make you lower your guard. I use my appearance to my advantage, to fool simpletons like you and make them think I am their friend. But considering your predilections, I guess you look at me and just see another potential 'test subject', huh? Here's the thing though, it doesn't matter how bad of a bitch your Candy Mare is, I am more than ready to put her in her place if it comes to that. Maybe a little glimpse of true terror will show you where it is you stand..."

“And where is that, pray tell?” asked the unicorn haughtily.

“Oh, exactly in the wrong place, at the wrong time.” replied Cozy, her face the very picture of demonic delight.

Cozy Glow's body turned black as night, fizzling into static as it melted into the ground.

Where the pint-sized pegasus had stood moments before, a complex crimson rune suddenly flared to life with the mark of the rook at its center, rings within rings filled with geometric shapes rotated around one another until they locked into a specific configuration and flared with an explosion of hellish power.

From the center of the sigil exploded four enormous armored, insectile limbs. They arced high overhead before slamming down hard on either side of the bridge. As the limbs dug furrows into the metal and stone, a bulky mass slowly rose from the center of the emblem. A massive throbbing brain that jiggled and pulsed with thick dark veins was the next thing to rise from the rune. It seemed to make up the bulk of the creature's body, as two tiny vestigial limbs dangled from just beneath an angry slit of a mouth that twisted below two ruby red eyes that shone with a vast and evil intelligence.

The beast's pink wings were twisted and distorted into a ring of feathers, flames, and glowing red eyes that rotated in an every spinning circle behind her body. A black halo that smoldered with dark energy sat low around the now massive crimson horns that curled just above the demon's face. As the armored hellspawn's segmented legs flexed, steam hissed out of the seams and scarlet lightning licked over the rest of her body as Lemon Drop looked upon her terrible majesty open mouthed and wide eyed.

"Leaves ya kind of speechless, don't it?" The arachnid creature extended one of her armored limbs and shut the wraith's mouth deceptively gently. Despite her change of appearance, her voice arrived in his mind unchanged, just as cute and saccharine as before.

It was horrifying.

The bizarre mastermind of hell leered down at the tiny shade of Lemon Drop and gave a high pitched, girlish giggle at the look on his face. Of course the ruler of hell wasn't some puny pegasus filly with comical devil horns. In truth she'd never really claimed to be, but Lemon Drop had never the less let himself be taken in by her appearance.

“You would think that I would know better than to judge a filly by her appearance at this point.” Lemon Drop deadpanned, before levitating his fallen spectacles back up to eye level so he could inspect them. Casually, he took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to wipe the glasses clean. “You certainly are huge. I expect that means you have huge guts. All the easier for the Candy Mare to rip and tear.”

“What!?” That was not the response the devil had been expecting, an outrage deepened her voice to a guttural roar that vibrated the very bridge upon which they stood.

Before the demonic overlord could further vent her displeasure, however, an even more terrifying sound suddenly resounded from the pit below. The noise erupting from beneath them sounded like one long, drawn out scream. It went on for what seemed like a lifetime, echoing and rebounding over the umbral plain.

Slowly it became apparent that it was not just one scream, but an entire chorus of voices raised in fright! These were not the usual, dull sounds of sorrow and despair produced by Hell's particularly tender ministrations, but something shriller and far more visceral. In this form, the master was particularly attuned to the psychic vibrations of the screams and could tell that they were not being produced by the souls of sinners, but rather by the demonic jailers that were meant to be in control of the damned below. Grogar, Lemon Drop, and the thing that had been Cozy Glow all watched in awe as demons fled in droves, clambering over one another as they tried to escape whatever it was that had terrified them so.

In their desperation, the devils were clawing and hacking at one another, trying their utmost to get ahead by even a few inches at the expense of their fellow hellspawn. Those with wings, who should have been able to fly above the fray, instead found themselves drug down by the weight of their flightless brethren. It was hard to tell if they expected the winged demons to aid them, or if they simply wanted to make certain that they didn't escape whatever awaited the grounded demons. Either way there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and very little in the way of actual progress as they trampled one another under their cloven hooves.

It didn't take long to identify that which they were trying to escape. Thick red and black tendrils rose up from the pit, dragging demons kicking and screaming back down into the depths below. Billions of similar strands exploded from the abyss, each wrapping themselves around a hapless devil, before vanishing in a tide of green glowing fog. More and more spread beneath the bridges until there was not a square inch below that wasn't a nest of shiny, writhing appendages. It didn't stop with the nearest pits either, but spread outwards, even snaring one or two of the titanic demons that were meant to uphold the bridges that connected the canyons. Soon even those massive hellspawn were drug down, sending their burdens crashing into the ravines after them.

Hell never stood a chance.

As swiftly as it had come, the screams were suddenly cut off. After all the sound and fury that went before, the silence was deafening. Then, just on the edge of hearing, came the sounds of laughter. Glowing green fog exploded from the pit, billowing up to shroud everything in its luminescent mist. As the fog rose, it mixed with the clouds of smoke above, churning the ash laden smog until it swirled like a spiraling mint hurricane.

The temperature swiftly dropped as the cooler air from below mixed with the hot air above and a mournful wind began to howl. The rumble of thunder stretched from horizon to horizon as thick webs of green and orange lightning crackled across the sky. Bolts of the unnatural lightning arched down into the pit, forming a sheet of scintillating energy that leapt almost joyfully from pit to pit, spreading from the center of hell and out in an arching spiderweb design. Indeed, it appeared to be a truly colossal sigil inscribed with eldritch runes and glowing glyphs that twisted and squirmed across reality, warping time and space. A massive undertaking of magical might was playing out across the surface of the pit, and all the trio standing on the bridge could do was watch.

"It's magnificent..." whispered Grogar, awed. "So much raw, untamed power."

“What’s the meaning of this?” thundered the master, not willing to accept what her senses told her was happening. The arachnid skittered across the bridge and out on to the steel webbing that formed a cradle over the pit. “What is happening?”

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize it!” cried Lemon Drop, raising his voice to be heard over the boiling storm as a rain of blood and candy began to fall.

“Recognize what?” shouted back the demonic mastermind, turning to glare fiercely at the fragile little soul that was smiling far too smugly for her liking.

The sour stallion shouted in reply. “Why the feeling of being exactly in the wrong place at the wrong time, of course!”

"Wow, Cozy, you got real ugly, real fast while I was gone!" The Candy Mare snickered, suddenly hovering in the air behind the massive demon. Faster than thought, the lord of the underworld lifted one of her massive limbs and smashed it through the candy coated pony with enough force that the mare's body exploded like a ripe melon, sending candy and wet viscera splattering in every direction.

But that didn't stop the Candy Mare.

"Somebody's jumpy!" laughed the malicious mare derisively as she appeared once again, this time leaning casually against the side of the bridge on the other side of the demonic overlord.

"What in the-" Cozy Glow checked the sticky residue of the candy corpse at the end of her appendage. Sure enough, it was no illusion, she had crushed the Candy Mare... or at least, a Candy Mare. The devil's slit of a mouth turned up in the approximation of a grin as it realized what had happened. "Cute. You made copies of yourself."

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner!" cried out a chorus of voices as dozens of Candy Mare's suddenly jumped up from the fog and landed all around the circumference of the steel web that encircled the pit. Some laughed and capered as if they were having the time of their lives while others grinned hungrily up at the massive meal before them and crept in for the kill.

"Normally I don't invest candy ghouls with my full might. I learned the hard way that there is always a chance that the curse will effect someone with a particularly strong will and then all I've done is made a rival that I'll have to deal with down the line. Didn't have that problem with the souls down here though! No, an eternity of torture does wonders to wear down ones ego and sense of self. They were perfect little blank slates for me to overwrite with my will! Of course I didn't erase everything about them. I kept their pent up feelings for their tormentors intact. I thought letting them have a little fun when I sent them to devour their demonic minders was only fair compensation for their sacrifice!"

"Like I said, cute." replied the daemon, sweeping another spidery limb out, so fast and hard that half a dozen Candy Mare clones exploded in the blink of an eye. As the Candy Mare clones tried to rally and pounce the gigantic devil the arachnid spun and fired searing lasers of heat, that blossomed from the many bloodshot eyes all over her body, which seared them to ash in mid-jump. "Not exactly effective though. Poor little foal, you keep playing the same old tricks and expecting them to work. I suppose that is the definition of insanity though. Why did I ever think you would be of use to me, the ruler of Hell?"

Each remaining Candy Mare clone stopped laughing and dancing and grew deathly quiet. As one, they tilted their heads to one side smiled sweetly as they spoke in unison. "Unless all of this has just been a distraction. These aren't just mortal souls I've taken you know! There are a few immortal ones mixed in here too. In fact, I found one very interesting fellow trapped in the middle of the icecapades down below! I can't say I'm surprised to find out you're a fraud, devils are notorious liars after all, but are you sure you should really be calling yourself ruler of Hell in front of the real boss?"

The demonic monstrosity looked confused for a moment, then her eyes grew wide with understanding and horror. "No. That's impossible! You couldn't have freed him! You lack the power and the authority!"

"YoU LaCk tHe PoWEr AnD AuThOrITy!" mocked the candy clones.

Softly they began to sing as more clones rose up from the fog. These new additions were warped and distorted, baring demonic horns, wings, and hundreds of blinking twitching eyes. These were clearly candy coated amalgamations of the the demons who were taken earlier. Now afflicted with the candy curse, their immortal flesh had a strange reaction that left them still conscious as their bodies were being forced to move by the living candy that encased them. It was obvious that when it came to demonic flesh, the Candy Mare could now bend and twist it as easily to her will as she could the living.

But that was not what seized the attention of the former Cozy Glow. At the center of the pit, there rose a single massively mutated clone, its body so large that it easily dwarfed the demonic mastermind a thousand times over. It rose on titanic candied wings and leered down with three twisted faces, each visage that of the Candy Mare herself. As its triple maws opened wide they displayed millions of needle thin teeth packed into a trinity of wide cavern-like mouths. Impaled on that vast expanse of fangs were the the souls of sinners and demons alike, as the enormous creature had consumed all who it had dragged down into the pit.

Indeed, the massive candified devil seemed to serve as the engine for the Canndy Mare's latest evolution. From its flesh there boiled more and more candy clones in abundance, as its own half-sugar, half-demonic flesh rippled and split apart to birth the fresh abominations upon the umbral plain. The massive candy coated titan closed its three mouths and swallowed before turning its six staring eyes, brimming with stark madness, towards the self-proclaimed 'Master' of Hell. Three insidious grins spread across the monstrosities triads faces, seeming to experience some pleasure as it looked down on the tiny traitor who had dared to assume its mantle of authority.

Stricken with awe, the thing that had been Cozy Glow was frozen beneath the glow of the behemoth's eyes. As the giagantic abomination began to lean forward, the spell was broken, and the spider-like demon tried to scuttle away. Again, the bulky creature moved with deceptive speed, but this time she was not fast enough. Before she could get far, the false master found her limbs hopelessly ensnared by tendrils of liquorice hair twined around her limbs, as the laughing and cavorting Candy Mare clones held the demon in place. All her armor, all her intellect, and she could not pull herself free!

"No! Let me go! I command you!" the devil sent out a psychic order, all traces of the creatures cute filly voice abandoned. But the mastermind was drug down as more and more clones swarmed her body. The hellspawn just managed to reach out a single limb towards her minion, Grogar, the hatred in her beady red eyes replaced by a look of desperate pleading. "Please! Grogar! Help me!"

Lemon Drop and Grogar glanced at one another. The old goat removed the blade of magic from the unicorn's throat. He stepped forward, his horns glowing with sulfurous black and yellow light.

Then the father of monsters spat in the face of his former 'master'.

The look of betrayal and disbelief on the demons face was quickly replaced by pain as the hovering titan leaned down and seized her in its three massive maws. This elicited and unexpectedly a high pitched squeal from the false lord of hell as her juicy brains popped from the pressure of the gigantic jaws. The mouths on either side of the giants face went to work as well, crunching through the thick exoskeleton of the creatures limbs with gusto, slurping up the gore and fluid that gushed from within the armored shell. As the mouths ripped and tore at their succulent prize, the fat demons body burst, spilling the huge guts from her body to dangle down to the Candy Mare clones below. The sugary abominations cavorted and spun about in the dangling organs, as the demons trapped within their candy flesh wept tears that sizzled as they left tracks down their new candy faces.

"At last I'm free of that annoying pest!" crowed Grogar triumphantly. "Now that I'm no longer bound to her, I will be free to... to... why do I suddenly feel so... weak?"

Grogar wheezed painfully as he found it increasingly hard to breathe. He could not even stand anymore as his knees buckled beneath him.

A stream of magic flowed from the first emperor of Equestria, the father of monsters, into the open maw of the unicorn Lemon Drop. As the magic was siphoned from the ancient goat, the sorcerer not only grew weaker but also much, much older. It wasn't long before Grogar was a shriveled carcass of skin and bone, barely held together by parchment thin skin stretched taught over his feeble frame. He was almost completely lost in his voluminous robes which had now grown too large for his diminished form.

As the last spark of magic passed into his mouth, the sour stallion smacked his lips with every sign of satisfaction. Where Grogar had aged and shrank, Lemon Drop had clearly grown younger and stronger than before. A streak of white in his mane was gone and his lithe frame was now covered in healthy muscle. He pulled open his vest, almost in wonder, to see that the cavity in his chest had also finally closed. As his hoof touched his unblemished hide, he felt a strong pulse as fresh blood thundered through his veins for he first time in centuries.

"It seems that was one thing that the master didn't lie about. As soon as the Candy Mare reappeared I felt air in my lungs and my heart start to beat. I live once more, and thanks to you 'Emperor' I'm now stronger than ever!" The evil unicorn stepped forward, placing one hoof on Grogar's throat, pressing down until the wheezing goat gave a last rattling gasp. "I suppose that half finished spell Sendak traded me all those years ago finally came in handy. Helping that craven centaur find subjects for his own experiments had been quiet the chore. I'm glad the compensation was worth it, though I'm sure he'd be furious if he found out a unicorn was able to perfect it. Oh well, one must keep up with ones hobbies over eons in Hell, if one is to maintain their sanity."

There was a dry snap and a crunch as Lemon Drop pressed down with his full weight, and Grogar stilled. After a few moments, the goats desiccated form began to crumble to dust, which mixed with the rain of demonic blood and turned to fetid mush. As the gigantic demon swallowed down the last bits of the master, a fresh surge of Candy Mare clones erupted from its flesh, sending a tidal wave of doppelgangers surging out over the pit and into the rest of the underworld beyond.

The panicked screams of devils as they were devoured by their weeping former brethren and their own giggling former victims filled the realm. Even from here in Malebolgia, Lemon Drop imagined he could hear the demons of far off Pandemonia shrieking in horror. The thought brought a cold smile to the unicorn's face, but then a chorus of billions of voices began to sing. "Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!" dumping cold water on his momentary triumph.

"Ah yes, I believe that's my cue to exit." muttered Lemon Drop, the song bringing back bad memories of his own untimely demise. That was not a scenario he wanted to revisit again. A dark, shadowy portal rimmed in lemon yellow light burst into life behind him. Grogar might not have had enough power to breach the wards of hell, but Lemon Drop suspected it would be far easier now that the Candy Mare was busy disrupting the very fabric of reality with magic that, ultimately, was attuned to Lemon Drop's own. The unicorn stepped through the portal without so much as a backwards glance.

"See you again my dear, when we're on a more level playing field."

Epilogue - Heaven's All Around

The curse spread like wildfire.

It was an apt metaphor as the broken souls of the damned served as the perfect kindling to spread the flames of the Candy Mare's madness all throughout the great pit.

If one were to think of the sinners as vectors for the candy plague, then the legions of hell would have made up the realms pathetic antibodies. Resist though they might, these immortal beings had always been far outnumbered by their mortal victims. It was just now, thanks to their new candy shell bodies, that the shades could finally give their erstwhile tormentors a taste of their own sadistic medicine.

They fell upon them in gleeful slaughter!

Of course, it helped that the demons were just as vulnerable to the candy curse as the damned. Even when stronger devils, dukes and regents of Hell, managed to destroy a few candy clones that swarmed their minions they would invariably end up splattering their sugary remains all over their troops. This would start an inevitable chain reaction of conversion of their own soldiers to the growing horde of candy ghouls. It would spell their own ultimate undoing as their own lackeys and slaves turned, with fear in their eyes as their bodies moved against their will, and devoured their own commanders.

The great and mighty of the citadel of the fly fell screaming as their own loyal servants were forced to rip them to shreds before ingesting their still twitching remains.

As the tidal wave of candy carnage crashed over the capital city of Hell, it subsumed the City of Dis in gingerbread towers and crumbling cookie edifices of sugar and suet. The flames that wreathed the city flashed blue, fed now by the sugar coated flesh of demons rather than the souls of the damned. The sugar dipped devils caramelized slowly in the heart of the fires they themselves had stoked. Where before there had been sounds of warfare and moans of despair there was now bright, mad laughter and snatches of the songs of the demented as the damned gloried in the suffering of their former jailers.

The curse did not stop there however, spreading through the outer-rings of Hell even faster, in a sudden burst of acceleration as it hit the River Styx and the teeming violent souls that had perpetually warred there. Trillions upon trillions were drowned beneath a tsunami of living candy flesh, until the wave of madness smashed against the distant shores that marked the edge of the realm. The vast void that was Limbo stretched beyond the borders of the infernal, spreading out into an infinite darkness devoid of even a glimmer of light. Here at the edge of eternity the Candy Mare, the real Candy Mare who had surfed the riptide of souls to the very brink, stood glaring out into the indifferent cosmos.

It had to be said that she should have been proud of herself. In a short while she had accomplished something that no entity had managed since the days when the Morning Star first fell. By conquering the underworld, down to the very last sinner, the Candy Mare had set herself up as a godlike entity fueled not only by the souls of the damned but also by all the principalities and powers of Hell itself. Oh to be sure, there were likely to be some hellspawn who had hid themselves away or slipped through the cracks between reality to escape her domination, but as she existed now such cowards and weaklings were not worthy of her concern.

Yet, the Candy Mare was disquieted. She had reached the very boundary of the land of the dead and found that there was no more to conquer. No more to punish. No more upon whom she could wreak her revenge. For the first time since her rebirth, she could actually think about the ramifications of her actions and consider the consequences to come. With Pumpkin Patch, her other half, restored to her the Candy Mare was experiencing something dangerously close to rational thought for the first time in hundreds of years.

What did it really matter if she had harnessed the soul of every sinner this revolting dung heap had to offer?

So what if Hell's legions were forced to kneel at her hooves?

None of these beings were truly responsible for what had been done to her, or for her condemnation to this eternal prison. Becoming a dark god or an infernal queen meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. Now, far stronger than she had ever been before, all that power was completely useless as long as she remained trapped here.

Whoever had said it was better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven had no idea what they were talking about.

Though the Candy Mare had managed to destroy the 'master' who had tried to control her, she could sense that Lemon Drop had slipped through her claws shortly after Cozy Glow had been consumed. As she spread her senses across the umbral plain she could tell that the sour child-killer was no longer to be found within Hell's dominion. It galled her to think of that smug stallion laughing at having given her the slip, leaving her behind in this literal hellhole. She would have to hunt him down eventually but for now, perhaps, there were bigger fish to fry.

For you see, aside from her unfinished business with her murderer, there were still other enemies to consider. While they had briefly been plotting together, Cozy had let it slip that it was not by chance that the Candy Mare had been spat from Limbo and arrived on Hell's doorstep. Those who had truly set this horror show in motion were one and the same as those who had set in place the cosmic order that had condemned Pumpkin Patch unjustly to this realm in the first place. They who looked down their noses at those cast off here as though they were nothing but chattel, if they thought of them at all, would need a seeing to.

There would be a reckoning.

"Hmm... Just because Cozy is gone, that doesn't mean I can't still use her plan..." mused the Candy Mare to herself. "By hook or by crook, and if that doesn't work, then why not by rook? Heeheehee..."

One by one, the Candy Mare summoned every clone across the entirety of the realm infernal, willing them to her side.

Then she began to build.

A deep sense of harmony engulfs the cosmos. Anger and dread have no place here.

Fluffy clouds tinged with pinks and gold spread as far as the eye can see, each billowing puff threaded with a silver lining. Though numerous and thick, the soothing fluff balls are suffused with light and warmth. The cause for this peaceful and tranquil state of affairs is readily apparent, as above on high floats the source of the holy radiance that suffuses this realm - A city.

In fact, the city.

The first city ever created.

The Silver City hangs serene against the starry expanse of infinite space, countless stars and galaxies wheeling overhead. Each shining celestial body is but dim facsimile of that magnificent paradise, a pale imitation of its luminous glory. Comfort and grace radiated from every shimmering surface of that great and gleaming city. The music of the spheres swelled into a heartbreakingly blissful sound that drowned out all other cosmic background noise. In the proud spires and steeples of that place an air of contemplative solemnity reigned. Hushed reverence and muted euphoria were the primary moods of the populace. The devotion and zeal of the angels, who administered and protected the greatest city of Heaven, shone bright like the Sun as they went about their duties.

Given all of the existential ecstasy, pious platitudes, and harmonious hymns flying about, it should come as no surprise that it took some time for any of the cities residents to notice that there was something amiss. Something dark, rising from below, that stained the clouds with soot and smoke as it rose heaving from the abyss. One by one the singers fell silent. The scholars and poets turned from their contemplation and the great and the good all were torn from their eternal reverie by the sudden grotesquery that rose to rival the Silver City.

It was a tower, clearly, but it was not made like the spires to which they were accustomed, nor was the material from which it was made any that the eyes of the blessed could readily identify. It was only on closer inspection that the celestial astronomers and astromancers, with their stellar telescopes and other star gazing devices, could glimpse the rising obelisk's composition. What they saw startled and revolted them, leading some of the more virtuous and naive to blind themselves in penance for what they had witnessed. As if purging their divine flesh could ever free them from the memory of what they had seen.

Every brick, slab, and stone of the unholy construction was composed of some bent or twisted soul stripped and lashed together to form the dark masonry of that horrifying edifice. What was worse was that they did not scream or weep at their plight, but instead howled with deranged laughter, the madness and cruelty etched on their faces a rebuke to any who might cast the eye of pity upon them. Candy coated demonic flesh composed the battlements of that blasphemous tower, and the souls of the damned made up the mortar. Though the foreboding tower swayed and shook in the solar winds that streamed through the cosmos, still it thrust up defiantly like a profane gesture directed at the powers that be.

Standing atop the ascendant structure was, of course, the Candy Mare herself. She smiled with such self satisfied insanity that even the faithful were struck with fear as they gazed upon her demented visage.

Such an air of depravity hung about the pony and the sinful structure upon which she stood that the entire hoary host of heaven were dispatched at once. Not since the fall of the first one had the legions of angels been mobilized in full and terrible force. They made an awesome sight as they took wing to defend the Silver City, blazing swords in hand. Even so, the Candy Mare did not flinch as the beatific beings descended to meet her. Instead, she simply grinned all the wider, hunger and madness warring in her eyes.

"Sorry fellas, we seem to be lost. I think we should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque, cause this clearly isn't Pismo Beach!" quipped the impious pony with girlish glee. The Candy Mare ran her long orange and black striped tongue over her candy corn fangs in anticipation of the slaughter to come. "Maybe you could give us some directions? Or better yet... Something sweet to bite?”