Something Sweet to Bite: A New Generation

"A perfect monster has no end" - Roky Erickson

Darkness reigned in the halls of Opaline's castle. It had done so for centuries now, ever since the Fire Alicorn had taken up residence within. She preferred it that way, it made it so what little magic remained to her could shine all the brighter when she chose to invoke it. Not that there was much left these days - just the occasional spark where, before there had been a roaring inferno. Opaline possessed just enough power that she could peer inside of Twilight's little bubble and watch the pathetic ponies going about their drab little lives. The Alicorn had grown sick of watching them laugh and play on this Nightmare Night, so now she simply sat upon her throne, one hoof tapping impatiently as she awaited Misty's return.

Truth be told there was really no good reason for Opaline to wait up for her minion. She highly doubted there would be anything new to report and, given how she had blown her chance to get her hooves on that baby dragon earlier, it was also unlikely that Misty would bring her anything she actually wanted - let alone needed - as a gift to mitigate her failure. Of course, it wasn't that Opaline was in any way concerned for the wayward Unicorn. Perish the thought! The once and future Queen of Equestria didn't give a flying feather what happened to one so insignificant pony. But Misty was her one connection to the rest of Equestria at the moment, since Opaline herself was kept out by that infernal barrier Twilight had set up when she had sealed away the magic. If something had happened to Misty that would be a major setback to her plans. Yes, sad as it was, Opaline had to rely on Misty to move forward with her designs to claim all the magic once again and take her rightful place as ruler of all ponydom.

Yes, that was it. There was no simpering sentimentality about her worries that kept Opaline from getting her beauty sleep. She wasn't anxious about why Misty was so late getting home for her own sake! Nor was she distressed about it! No! On the contrary, she was furious! How dare Misty potentially put all her plans at risk and make her fear all that work she had done raising, manipulating, and brainwashing the little foal would have gone to waste! That was why the Alicorn was sitting alone in her dark throne room, staring at the door to her chamber. If... No, when Misty finally deigned to show herself, Opaline would be there ready and waiting to reprimand her for her tardiness. She couldn't wait to give that useless little failure a piece of her mind!

That was assuming Misty did make it home, of course.

Opaline bit her lower lip, her angry demeanor cracking for a moment as a few sweat drops appeared on her brow, betraying her true feelings.

Feelings that evaporated as her chamber door swung open with a whoosh of howling wind, pushing with it a scattering of dry autumn leaves and a billowing cloud of fog that subsumed the throne room. Silhouetted in the doorway by a flash of lightning stood a mare, the storm following in her wake.

"Ah, finally, you've returned Misty," started Opaline putting on her haughtiest facade, "It's about time! Do you have any idea how long you left me waiting for you to..."

The Alicorn's words trailed off as Misty staggered through the door and just barely managed to shut it against the raging tempest. The Unicorn was soaked to the bone and there were leaves and twigs all tangled in her frizzy blue hair. Drenched as she was, she shivered and her entire body shook with a wracking cough that made her frame quake from horn to hoof. After the coughing fit subsided, Misty turned a weak gaze to her mistress, her face pale and stiff with barely suppressed misery. "I'm so... So terribly, sorry, Opaline... please forgi-" Another round of coughing interrupted Misty's apology.

"Why, Misty, whatever's the matter?" asked Opaline, a note of genuine concern creeping into her voice for a split second before she corrected herself. "I hope you haven't brought some sort of disease to my castle from those vile backwards ponies!"

"No, I... Don't think so. I tried to get back as soon as I could, but this fog swallowed Maretime Bay whole. It was so strange. I kept getting turned around..." Misty's voice was hollow and distant, as if she were still lost and trying to find her way. She staggered towards Opaline as she continued haltingly. "It was everywhere! It was like it was following me, wherever I went! At first I thought I was alone - but then I noticed there were other ponies standing around in the fog. They were wearing these strange costumes, like they had been ripped apart and... And half-eaten... But they were also covered in candy? Like the parts of them that were missing had been replaced by sweets. Why were they all wearing the same Nightmare Night costume?"

"Misty, calm down. You're speaking nonsense!" chided Opaline, rising from her throne, meeting Misty half way across the room. She held Misty to keep the pitifully weakling from falling over, not to give her any sort of comfort or support, or anything. "Now tell me slowly, what happened?"

The frail young mare looked up into Opaline's face as fat tears wobbled at the corners of her eyes, "They were following me! I know they were! And they kept singing this weird song all slow and whispery 'Nightmare Night, what a fright, give us something sweet to bite' like that, over and over! So I started to run! But when I did my insides started to hurt. It was like something was clawing me up on the inside. But I knew I couldn't stop! I had to make it back to you! Otherwise... Otherwise I don't know what might have happened!"

Misty's eyelids began to flutter and she started to go limp against Opaline. This wouldn't do. The Alicorn Queen shook her minion. She wasn't allowed to pass out before she'd finished her report. "Wake up! No sleeping on the job Misty! Tell me how you got away. Or... Were you followed!?"

"No, no! I would never lead them back to you Opaline," assured Misty, her eyes open but the light in them fading fast, her irises turning grey and milky. "I ran despite the pain. I cut through the forest. But then there was suddenly a thunderstorm. Or more like a hurricane, rain falling in sheets and gale force winds lashing at me. It felt like the branches of every tree I passed were reaching out to grab me, clawing at me, all while the pain inside grew worse and worse. It was like a nightmare!" Misty choked back a sob, her tears running down her cheeks. "I don't remember when it finally stopped, but I made it out. I made it through the storm! But when the castle finally came into sight there was this weird flash of red on the horizon and the storm seemed to suddenly surge after me. It was as if something had been holding the storm back but then it was suddenly gone! I don't know what it means, but that horrible green fog was getting pushed in front of it and I swear that I heard laughter and singing on the wind!"

As if to punctuate her words there was an explosion of thunder that shook the entire castle, lightning illuminating the stained glass windows to cast bizarre shadows across the throne room. Opaline's ears pricked up and she sniffed the air, goose flesh rippled over her body as she felt the tell-tale tingle of magic in the air! There was no mistaking it! The question was, was it merely the product of this sudden storm or was it some sort of spell? Had magic somehow spilled through the barrier, carried by the squall? This would require further investigation.

Opaline let Misty fall like a wet sack of potatoes to the floor and turned her attention to the scrying circle in the center of the throne room. A sparkle of magic jumped from her horn and glimmered around the circumference as a hazy image of Maretime Bay shimmered to life. Sure enough, just as Misty had said the town was engulfed in a dense glowing mist that unfortunately obscured most of her vision. The atmosphere above was what caught her attention, as it was swirling with storm clouds which all seemed to be centered around the Crystal Brighthouse. As usual, Opaline's spell sight did not seem to extend within the rebuilt lighthouse itself, but it didn't need to for her to mark the dramatic change to the home of those who had brought magic back to Equestria. The Prisbeam had gone out and in it's place was now a sinister scarlet glow that swept across the land like the searching eye of some eldrich daemon. As she continued to gaze at the image, the beam appeared to focus on her, as if it could somehow see her through her own scrying spell! She quickly dispelled the image, just in case. She didn't want anypony spying on her, after all!

None the less, a fiendish grin spread across Opaline's face. This was marvelous! She didn't know what had happened, but everything that she could see seemed to point to just one thing. Something had gone horribly wrong with the Unity Crystals and Twilight's insipid plans had been dashed to pieces! From the looks of it, magic was running wild in Equestria and the barrier that had kept Opaline apart from her birthright for so long was either gone, or weakened to the point it might as well be!

This was cause for celebration!

"Oh Misty, I've no idea what you've done, but this is glorious!" gloated Opaline, exulting in the moment. "The magic is free once more! Free for the taking! My taking! It will be mine again, and I will take my rightful place as absolute monarch of Equestri-"

A gout of blood burst from Misty's mouth with such force that it sprayed up to the top of the stained glass windows behind Opaline's throne and trickled down their surface, staining them scarlet. The throne itself was likewise drizzled in ichor, ruining its finish as the crimson mist hissed in the torches that blazed on either side of the royal seat. A frightened moan gurgled up through the blood that still steadily seeped through Misty's clenched teeth, her eyes bloodshot and wide with shock.

"Misty!" cried out Opaline aghast, her moment of triumph forgotten. "What's the meaning of this!?"

"I don't know! It hurts," the Unicorn groaned as she clutched her stomach. Misty started to panic. "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,, it hurts!" The young mare clenched her jaw so hard that her teeth started to crack from the pressure. Even so, the steady flow of blood that spilled from between her teeth continued to drip and spread across the floor.

Opaline made to move towards her, but drew up short mid-way. What if Misty really had contracted some sort of illness? What if it was contagious? Or worse, what if it was some sort of curse? One last fail-safe measure which that insufferable Twilight Sparkle had put in place just in case things didn't go her way? Could that selfish little pest really have been so petty? A disease might be cured but a curse could not so easily be thwarted unless one knew its nature and the proper counter spell. Even if Twilight were not the responsible party, there was clearly something very wrong with Misty, Was Opaline willing to risk herself now when victory was finally within her grasp when there might very well be nothing that she could do to save Misty? Now, after all these years when it seemed all her dreams of revenge were on the cusp of finally coming true, why should she risk everything for one middling peon?

Misty turned pleading, miserable eyes streaming with tears up to her mistress. Hope and fear warred in the young mare's gaze. Opaline had raised her, cared for her, Surely she could save her, right? There was no way that Opaline would just abandon her, was there?

"Opaline... Please! Make it stop!" she screamed, bending double as something began to visibly move beneath her skin, distorting and distending her belly. She fell to floor to roll back and forth in her own blood, more vital fluid leaking from inside her all the while. Her voice rose as her agony increased, "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP!"

A fresh, almost volcanic eruption of bloody vomit silenced Misty's screams as it burst forth from her throat and rained down over the entire throne room. It was a ridiculous amount of blood that no single pony could possibly contain. No doubt about it then, this was a curse! An extremely vicious one at that!

Inside of the writhing young mare's belly a huge lump rose and began to work its way up her body, snapping her bones one by one as it stretched out her rib-cage. Misty's throat began to bulge outward as whatever the mass was moved into her mouth. The Unicorn's teeth went flying in a spray of gory giblets as a pair of slick hooves forcibly split open her lips from the inside! Misty blinked rapidly, her mind clearly overwhelmed with shock and pain as her jaw bones snapped and long candy coated limbs pushed their way out from inside of her. Her jaw dislocated completely, hanging slack as the rest of her head flopped backwards and a new shiny wet skull poked its way out of the ruin that had been her throat like a gleaming wet bubble. The rest of Misty's body split apart then, popping like an overly engorged water balloon stretched far past it's limits. There was a splash as fluids and entrails splattered everything in the room, including Opaline, as a shiny new pony stood where Misty had once been.

"Wish granted!" crowed the Candy Mare as she stretched to her full height, dripping bits and pieces of Misty from her glossy candy shell. "I made it stop!"

"You... You killed Misty!" cried Opaline in disbelief..

"Oh, it was the least I could do!" the reborn candy creature chortled sinisterly, rolling her shoulders and her head around with several loud pops. "Ending her suffering was such a paltry boon to grant after she had done me the huge favor of getting me past that pesky barrier! I've never done well with confinement. I do so detest it, don't you?"

Opaline was still in shock, "I suppose so. I've been locked out here for so long I guess I hadn't really given it much thought."

"Ah, but you can relate, can't you? Being trapped out here on your own, in your little freedom, while everypony else is locked inside?" crooned the Candy Mare, licking the pieces of Unicorn flesh from her hooves, apparently relishing the taste as she swallowed the viscera down. "The solitude alone would have been more than enough to drive most mad. That's why you took Misty in, wasn't it? To alleviate the mind numbing boredom and soul crushing loneliness, and to stave off the insanity they can bring?"

"What? O-of course not!" the Alicorn blustered, her wings ruffling in affront. "Misty was just a tool to be used! She never meant anything more to me! And she was a useless tool at that! Always stumbling and flailing about, always second guessing herself and... And questioning things... Obsessing over cutie marks and getting curious about other ponies..."

"Riiiight - Good then! So she won't be missed!" declared the Candy Mare gleefully. "Then I suppose I don't owe you any apology for ending her. I guess that concludes our business then! I suppose shall be on my way. Lots of world out there still to see and so many lives to devour!"

Opaline stood speechless as the Candy Mare turned away from her and tracked bloody hoof-prints across her floor towards the door. The magic she could sense roiling off of this creature was staggering. If Opaline was a furnace then this creature was a wildfire! Whatever this 'candied mare' truly was, it had clearly been twisted and distorted by layer upon layer of dark magic all coiled together like a tangled spool of razor ribbon. Not exactly the tidiest spell-work, but still not something you'd want to idly bump into. Whatever this pony was made of it was far more than just candy and even if Opaline had wanted to punish her, for the effrontery of killing her minion and defiling her property, she didn't think she was strong enough to do anything about it. Not yet anyway.

However, let her have a little time to absorb the ambient magic in the air... Just a little bit of time and the Fire Alicorn would roast her alive for what she had done!

"Oh, but you know..." the Candy Mare said thoughtfully, casting a casual glance over her shoulder. "It's a poor craftsmare that blames her tools."

"Oh really?" The gall of this impudent thing! How dare she talk down to her! It took every ounce of Opaline's self control to keep from snapping back, but she was too shrewd to be tempted into behaving openly aggressively. Just let her do and say whatever she wanted for the moment and then crush her like an ant when she could.

"Oh yes, you really should have more respect for your tools. And for the dead," continued the candy construct with a creepy cadaverous smirk. It was made all the more stark by the soft glow of a jack-o-lantern that seemed to have suddenly appeared, cradled in the crook of her forelimb. "Isn't that right, Misty?"

"What? Aghh!" pain shot up through Opaline's body as something bit deep into her hind-leg.

Opaline had been so focused on the Candy Mare that she hadn't noticed the pieces of Misty had started to slither back towards one another, growing and changing as they went. Now the Unicorn's semi-candified corpse had pieced itself back together and risen behind Opaline, reformed with jagged blue lollipop teeth that poked up from her still bleeding gums to bury themselves in her former mistress's flesh! A harsh whiny burst from Opaline's throat as she kicked hard, dislodging her former protege from her body, but the damage had already been done! The Alicorn could sense the curse that the bite had conveyed to her flesh as soon as the shards of candy had punctured her skin!

A wave of nausea surged through Opaline as she realized she was now condemned to suffer the same fate that Misty and, with dawning horror she realized, every other pony in Maretime Bay must have succumbed to! As if called into reality by her epiphany, the chamber door was once more blown open by the storm. In billowed the glowing mist that lay beyond, curling around the Candy Mare and surging towards Opaline. With it came a legion of undead ponies, shuffling and moaning, the pain and hungry gazes of the candy ghouls more than apparent! They surrounded Opaline on all sides, their bodies twisted and deformed by dark magic sweets, transformed into slavering engines of destruction! Opaline's mind cracked as the ponies she had for so long dismissed as beneath her closed in around her in a tightening noose of doom!

The Alicorn could only howl mindlessly as she was swarmed by the hungry dead and dragged down by their weight, teeth snapping and hooves gouging at her regal body. Opaline's skin tore and her bones broke as her flesh was ravaged by the many gnashing fangs of the drooling ghouls. Her screams carried on, echoing over and over as she was slowly eaten alive.

The Candy Mare couldn't help but laugh. The irony was just too delicious. The mare who had dreamed of putting herself above everypony else had ended up being drug down and crushed beneath the heaving masses! To aim so high and to end so low, left writhing helplessly in her own blood before her own desecrated throne! It was just too sublime! The perfect end to the perfect Nightmare Night!

"Nightmare Night, what a fright, give us something sweet to bite!" The Candy Mare sang merrily, twirling around on her hind hooves as she lifted Misty's jack-o-lantern high into the air, Opaline's blood spraying across the orange gourd. "If you don't, better beware, hungry comes the Candy Mare!”

"No! Not like this! This can't be how it ends!" howled Opaline, her mutilated form rising defiantly from the swarming dead. "If these are to be my final moments, then I'm taking you with me!"

Screaming at the top of her lungs, an aura of cerulean flames erupted from the mangled Alicorn. The candle flame inside of the jack-o-lantern the Candy Mare held guttered and went out. The flickering pumpkin light drifted out of the now hollow gourd and towards Opaline. As the fire drew closer it merged with the Alicorn's flames, making them grow hotter and brighter still. The effect was immediate as a wave of fire exploded around Opaline to push back the swarming candy ghouls.

However, that was not to be the end of it. All over the distant town of Maretime Bay other candle flames drifted into the air from other jack-o-lantern's and sleeted through the sky like falling stars towards Opaline's dark castle. The candy ghoul's within both the town and the castle all fell limp and inert, as if the strings that puppeteered them like marionettes had been snapped. Opaline on the other hoof only rose higher into the air as her form bacame enshrouded in a roaring torrent of an orange inferno, the magic pumpkin lights infusing her very being with even more power! In that moment Opaline appeared almost like the mythical phoenix, wings spread wide as the blaze changed hue from orange to an intense purple that seemed to focus on her horn. This, then, was the power of a dying Fire Alicorn, her magic reaching critical mass just as she reached death's door.

"Burn. Burn higher! BURN THE FLAMES HIGHER AND HIGHER!~" roared Opaline as the living conflagration within her consumed her from the inside out, causing her hair and skin to peel away as smoke as heat rippled outwards in unstoppable waves from her core. All her resentment and wrath was at last released in an instant of molten fury! The dark castle was in it's final moments blazing brighter than a pyre on bonfire night. "BURN THE FLAMES NEVER TO EXPIRE!"

"Famous last words..." chuckled the Candy Mare to herself as her candy body bubbled and steamed, flash caramelizing in an instant.

The resulting explosion completely leveled the dark castle and the cliff-side it clung to. It could be seen shining like a beacon all the way from Maretime Bay, as a great black mushroom cloud punched a hole through storm and high into the upper atmosphere. As if in response, the storm broke, dissipating entirely in a matter of moments. It was as if it had never truly existed. The softly glowing fog was likewise swept away by a wall of boiling hot wind that singed the ground it swept over, igniting fires wherever it touched something dry enough to burn. The setting moon bore witness to the eruption of a rapidly spreading firestorm which replaced the thunderstorm, sending columns of thick smoke to choke out the first rays of dawn.

The sun rose like a molten ball of lead, its rays barely able to penetrate the thick pall of smoke that hung over the land. The ponies of Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights both couldn't help but notice how dark the morning was, and they would come to investigate the source of the smoke that stretched from horizon to horizon. They would find Maretime Bay a smoldering, charred ruin. The fire that had consumed the town seemed to have spread down from the northwest, but the flames still burned hot in that direction and it would take days for it to burn itself out.

In the meantime they searched for survivors, Unicorn's sifting through the rubble with their magic while Pegasi scouted from above. But of anypony still living there was no sign. It was almost as if the ponies of Maretime Bay had not even tried to escape the blaze, but merely laid down and waited for the conflagration to consume them. Such was the only explanation for the condition of the few charred skeletons found beneath the rubble, as well as those that were simply out in the streets, clenched tightly into fetal positions from what must have been the hellish heat of the inferno. What little consolation the ponies of Equestria could take from that was that it seemed that those who had died this way had at least died quickly, laid low before they could react.

Or at least, that was what the ponies assumed until they found what awaited them in the Crystal Brighthouse. The structure was one of the few to remain un-burned, and so a handful of ponies including Queen Haven and Alphabittle had rushed there first thing to check on the ponies that dwelled there. What they discovered inside would cause a second fire to be lit that day, and no pony was allowed to try and put out the flames out. The fire was allowed to burn on so that it could consume that house and the dark secrets it held. Those few ponies who had bore unfortunate witness to what was within were sworn to secrecy. They would have to silently suffer with those memories and the nightmares it brought them for the rest of their lives, and such knowledge left its mark on one and all who knew the truth. Queen Haven in particular, it was said, had aged dramatically after the experience as if she had suffer ed the effects of several decades in a few moments. No pony was allowed to mention the royal Princess's or speculate about their fate in her presence.

For everypony else, there was the lie that Sunny and her friends had perished in the same fire that had claimed the rest of Maretime Bay. In time, both they and the Unity Crystals would be forgotten. Magic would remain in Equestria, but the bubble that sealed it away from the rest of the world would not. It would not be long before the ponies of Equestria would have new challenges to contend with, and the mystery of what caused the fire that wiped out an entire settlement on one tragic Nightmare Night would become nothing more than a cautionary tale told around campfires. A myth to frighten fillies and colts before they were tucked into their sleeping bags. The subject of disaster films and melodramas.

But had the fires not blazed so hotly that day, then the ponies of Equestria might have found the smoking crater where Opaline's castle once stood and discovered answers to that mystery as well as many others.

Instead its stones, reduced to molten slag and hot ashes, remained untouched under the slate grey sky. At the epicenter of the destruction something that might have been a throne still stood, though it was now leaning crooked and crumbling in the dim light. Surrounding it were several skeletonized ponies, all of which - Unicorn, Pegasi, Earth Pony, and Alicorn alike - had been reduced to blackened bones crackling and popping with hot embers that flaked away from there charred surfaces. Despite this grizzly image there was a lightness to the air, as if something foul and oppressive that had hung about the place had at last been cleared away. Cleansed by the firestorm unleashed by Opaline's final act upon this earth.

There was no one there that day to feel the heat drop as the bronze disc of the sun became obscured by the thickening haze. No one to smell that sweet, sour wind that pushed aside the smoke and stench of charred flesh to flood the blast crater instead with sugary sweet foulness. No one to see a few charred leaves skitter over the blackened stones to reveal a patch of dark earth in the cracks of the broken foundation. No one to taste the cloying tang on the air as a handful of candies, scorched but still shiny, rolled gently from underneath a pile of skeletal remains to fall through the cracks and settle on the loamy soil below. There was no one to hear the fading whisper of a song, "Nightmare Night, what a fright, give us something sweet to bite..." as the pieces of candy started to burrow down into the earth - Seeds sown in expectation of a Nightmare Night yet to come.

Instead there was the cold Autumn wind whistling mournfully, carrying the haunting echo of a child's laughter along with the ashes blown from the scorched bones of Maretime Bay.