It’s a running fight this time. It seems cracked-mask finally got it through her fractured skull that I’m not an enemy she wants to get into a knock-down-drag-out fight with.

She strafes around me like a jackal, aiming for tendons and soft meat to sink her blade into every time she dives for a strike. I have to keep moving and sprinting between the sparse tree cover and displaced boulders to keep her in my line of sight.

Well, I guess Legion had to figure it out eventually. She’s finally cottoned on to the fact that, with her smaller profile, light-weight frame, and physical enhancements, she’s a lot faster than me.

We’re both fighting at a disadvantage now, though. I’ve kneecapped their little shell game now that I’ve identified and crippled Scootaloo. Now it’s just Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, and if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say I’m better than ninety-nine percent certain this one is Sweetie.

I backpedal as she dives in for another swipe at my calf but skips back before I can land more than a grazing scratch. Not enough to really dig into her mind. If I could just sink my claws into her she’d be done for but that’s getting harder and harder with every passing minute.

It’s like she knows what I’m trying to do.

Wait…

Now that’s a thought.

I stop and clash my fingerblades together in challenge as the cracked-mask Killer I’m certain is Sweetie Belle circles frenetically around me. I resist the urge to keep our little sprinting chase going and focus on keeping her in my line of sight instead.

Sure enough, she eventually freezes.

Hot breath mists in front of her mask, and I imagine I can almost see her bright green eyes shining from between the fractures in her plaster face. Every inch of her is trembling with barely restrained violence. She wants to charge me, I can taste it in the air how badly she wants to cut me, but something is keeping her back.

Or someone.

“A gestalt consciousness,” I mutter softly. “You’re in each others’ heads… aren’t you?”

That would explain Sweetie’s sudden shift in tactics. Despite having exchanged no words, she somehow knows what I did to Scootaloo because on some level they must be aware of one another. Maybe it’s not something as sophisticated as communal telepathy, but it’s definitely a powerful awareness.

The instant I speak, something changes in Sweetie’s posture. She jerks and twitches like she’s listening to something in the distance. A moment later, she lets out a wordless snarl that turns into a shrill, ululating howl as she staggers back.

“Shit!”

I start forward but it’s too late. Whoever has a hand on Sweetie’s self-restraint must have heard me realise their secret! Why did I have to open my big mouth?!

Sweetie turns on her heel and pitches away from me, sprinting towards the main lodge of Ormond.

I don’t know for certain if I’ve severed Scootaloo from their strange link—probably not since they’re clearly aware of what I did and how I did it—but I’d put money on that restraining factor being Apple Bloom. Of the three of them, Bloom was always the most calculating, if not the most careful. Something most people never realised, even after those three were outed as Anon-A-Miss, is that Bloom is a planner, even if those plans are bad.

As I light off in pursuit of the much faster Legion, I can’t help but chuckle as I reflect on the fact that, really, Anon-A-Miss wasn’t even that bad of an idea. Juvenile, sure. Poorly evaluated for consequences? Definitely. But it played off the atmosphere of the school so well it’s actually impressive.

Apple Bloom probably knew that she didn’t have to make the profile perfect to make people think my new leaf had turned back over to the rotten side. The kids at CHS were already suspicious. They were already looking for a reason to hate me because no one had actually forgiven me. All she needed to do was give them the barest pretense to reject me and she figured they would latch on, and boy howdy did they ever. Maybe she didn’t mean to kill me but, in the end, she knew enough to make sure her plan would work.

A scream splits the air from the lodge and I curse as I force myself to speed up, burning precious magic to flicker myself forward, bypassing rocks, trees, and bushes to try and make up some of the distance, but she's so. damn. Fast.

My wet boots slip on cheap tile, and I stagger as I barrel out of the snow and into the mostly-covered ruin of what must be Ormond Lodge’s customer entrance from the decaying registration desk. Sweetie is still ahead of me, but barely.

She vaults the desk in a way I can’t hope to emulate, and sprints for the main den of the lodge. I’m forced to go the long way around, but as she hits the threshold of the den itself, something changes again.

The slightest twitch of her head like she’s listening.

Then she drops, folding like an origami crane as she collapses onto her knees and slides the rest of the way into the lodge across the dirty ground, and in that split-second that she falls away, a hatchet whispers over her head with a flash of Fog-forged metal to bury itself in the wall across from her.

A grin etches onto my face as snatches of a hitched lullaby reach my ears. Adagio is trying to keep a lid on her tic, but she can only hold it in so long, and it gets harder and harder the longer she stays in her Huntress aspect.

I come around the other side of the den to see my friends huddled back with Aria in front and Fluttershy in back clutching a ragged wound, likely from Scootaloo’s keyhole saw. Starlight is fussing over her while Sour watches Aria’s back like the good backup she’s always been.

Scootaloo is between them and Adagio in a standoff. Adagio can’t advance without leaving at least one of our group, if not more, vulnerable, and if Scootaloo chooses a target, it gives Adagio the freedom to focus.

Except now that Sweetie Belle is here, the dynamic has changed. Good thing I’m here too… but that still leaves—

I jerk to the side and spin on my axis, twisting myself around with my claws out on a wild hunch that follows at the heel of a memory of being jumped by a furious, knife-wielding psychopath in an alley not too long ago.

My instincts always were pretty good.

“Not this time!” I snarl as the third, missing member of Legion’s little troupe drops from the second-floor walk that overlooks the den with her hunting knife out and angled to take me at the skull or spine.

Reflexes or not, she can’t avoid me midair, and I snatch at her leg, gripping hard and bending the full weight of my Fog-fueled physical strength to tear her from the air, spin her around, and bash her bodily against one of the heavy lumber supports of the second floor before throwing her to the ground.

It’s her.

It has to be her.

Apple Bloom. I’m positive it’s her which means all I have to do is shut her down, take her out, and it will be over. Sweetie won’t be able to fight us without Bloom directing her, and Scootaloo isn’t strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a real Killer anymore.

Maybe this kills her for real. Maybe it doesn’t, but I don’t have the luxury of choice anymore, and neither does she. We made our choices already when we took the Fog inside of us.

I lunge at the dazed sister of someone who I had thought, once upon a time, to be among my very best friends, with all claws out and a snarl of rage—or maybe regret—on my lips.

And I miss.

My claws dig knuckle-deep into cold, dirty concrete through a sudden swelter of Fog that boils up from around the Legion that I’m sure is Apple Bloom.

“That’s enough of that…”

A shiver runs down my spine as I tear my fingers free of the concrete to look up. Scootaloo and Sweetie are both frozen in place and, true to form, Aria ignores the husky, chittering voice to take advantage of the sudden gap in Legion’s cordon. She grabs the other three, practically throwing them forward to break free and sprint to the other side of the den between Adagio and I, who quickly move to flank them with our weapons out.

“Shit,” I mutter as I move back until I’m next to Aria and in front of Fluttershy. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Probably,” Aria says dryly. “Just our luck, right?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly, then, “I’m glad you’re safe, Ari’.”

She shoots me that sideways smirk of hers, the one that warms me up a little from the inside only to bring me crashing back down just a tiny bit. I know she loves Redheart. One day, maybe I won’t feel like this about Aria, but until then I grin and bear it.

Aria is worth it.

I look away from her as the Fog congeals in front of us, vomiting out the staggered and dazed form of the Legion in her denim vest and hoodie, with her hunting knife still gripped tightly in her hand.

“Where are you?” I snarl, clashing my fingerblades as I scan the room. “It’s you, isn’t it? The Thief? The one who ripped a hole in the Old Stain’s power supply?”

There’s no answer, but the air has a strange flavor to it, and a tension that wasn’t there a moment ago. Something almost like amusement trilled through the atmosphere, and put my hackles up.

I wait another few beats for the chittering voice to reply or for some hammer of dark will to fall on us and force us to fight and die, or run. There's nothing. No threat. No more echoing words... fine then. I turn my attention back to the Legion.

Surprisingly, the one I thought was Apple Bloom is kneeling at Scootaloo’s side, pestering her over the wounds I’d dealt to her that aren’t healing right now that she's bereft of so much of her Fog.

“HEY!” I shout, and the three of them look up with an eerily synchronized motion. “Let’s talk… no masks.”

Cracked-mask scoffs and titters wildly, but cuts off as Hunting-knife makes a violent, slashing motion with her hand before standing and belting her blade in a leather sheathe. There’s a moment of pregnant silence as, I assume, the three of them commune.

The whole time, Cracked-mask never stops twitching, and as the moment stretches she gets more and more agitated until—“No!” It’s the first word I’ve heard out of her, and it’s a raw, ragged voice that says it, but it’s familiar. I was right.

Sweetie Belle.

Which means…

“Ah said,” Apple Bloom repeats aloud what must have happened internally as she reaches up and draws back her mask, “masks off, girls.”

Leading by example, as always, Apple Bloom grips her mask and pulls it from her face. Red hair billows out, framing a face that’s lined with more strain than anyone so young ought to have. Her cheeks are sunken just enough to highlight her sharp cheekbones, and the bags beneath her eyes only exaggerate the dull, glassy expression that’s settled deep into irises that were once the bright color of rose apples.

Scootaloo follows Bloom’s lead, pulling her own mask away, and if Apple Bloom looked gaunt, Scootaloo looks practically skeletal. Her skin is waxy, her lips are thin, chapped lines, and her hair hangs raggedly over her face like dry moss.

“I don’t want to.” The last one, who can only be Sweetie, huffs and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Don’t make me wrassle that thing off’a you again, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom says with the long-suffering air of someone who has not only made the threat before, but made good on it.

The two girls glare at one another for a long moment before Sweetie Belle lets out a defeated huff, grips her mask, and pulls it off with obvious reluctance.

Just for a second, I see Sweetie’s face behind that cracked visage; she has her sister’s beauty but it’s buried under a horror. Generous lips are pulled taut into a demented rictus of a grin, eyes that should be a soft shade of green are, instead, sharp and bright with madness, and the bouncing two-tone curls I remember from her Freshman year hang lank and heavy over features that are now more pallid that porcelain.

That expression lasts for all of a heartbeat before relaxing, and it’s like watching a chameleon fade into—or out of—sight, the way she relaxes into something bordering normalcy.

“Sorry,” Sweetie says, her voice now soft if a bit parched and raw.

Apple Bloom blows out a sigh and shakes her head.

“Ain’t nothin’, sugarcube,” she says quietly before looking back up at me, tracing her gaze up and down my Killer’s skin.

“It’s been a long time, Bloom,” I start, and she shrugs.

“Guess so.” The Apple Clan’s youngest daughter flips her hood back to card her fingers through sweat-matted red locks, shaking her head to free some of the worst snarls before looking back at me. “Welcome home, Sunset… Ah always wondered if ya’d make it back someday.”

“Oh, you know me,” I reply dryly. “I never know when to quit.”

Apple Bloom nods thoughtfully. Two years does a lot to a person, even one as young as her, and even aside from her physical appearance there’s something in the manner of her that’s changed on a fundamental level. Something that says she’s more careful… more patient maybe.

“So riddle me this,” I continue, pacing forward a little. “I see you three… and I heard your ‘benefactor’, but where’s your Handler? Why aren’t they here keeping you three in line?”

A palpable silence ripples out from the Legion as they look between themselves until Apple Bloom finally answers.

“Deathslinger’s doin’ their job.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Deathslinger, huh? Guess that fits, but if they’re doing their job and that job isn’t here—”

“You’ve got bigger things to worry about than that, Shimmer,” Scootaloo says in that dull, toneless voice of hers.

Letting out a snort, I nod.

“Guess I do… so I’m gonna maybe waste my breath here, but is there any way I can convince you three to turn-coat and stop murdering random passersby on the say-so of a crazy demonic demigod?” I ask, taking a tentative step forward and lowering my blades a little.

“Ain’t random.” A faint smile tugs at Apple Bloom’s lips. “And y’all really ain’t changed a lick, have ya, Sunset?”

Not random? That confirms one thing, then.

“Can’t change perfection,” I say as I relax back and shrug. “So is that a no? Or can we maybe have peace?”

The three girls share the kind of looks that only three people who have been friends long enough to have stopped needing words to converse can share. Whole sentences pass between them with a flick of a gaze or a minute shift of expression. I can see the question in Apple Bloom’s eyes, along with the knowledge that she already knows its answer, passed between Scootaloo and Sweetie who answer with their own microexpressions; a twitch of a lip, the shift of an eyebrow…

“Reckon we’re too deep at this point,” Apple Bloom says as she looks back to me. “Ah owe’er too much… we all do.”

She gestures out to the girls on either side of her.

“Something went wrong with us, Sunset,” Scootaloo chimes in flatly. “Something eating at us from the inside after we left your Trial… it got worse and worse until the whole world was just grey and empty.”

“I’m not going back to that, I can’t… I can’t be empty again,” Sweetie says, her expression tightening with fear and strain.

Shit, well it was worth a try. I had to do that much at least. A part of me wonders what that emptiness was. If it had something to do with the way they came into the Trials, via my nightmare magic rather than the normal route.

I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore. All of this is already my fault.

“You know I can’t just let you keep killing people, girls,” I say, clashing my fingers together as I take a half-step forward.

“Reckon y’can’t,” Apple Bloom agreed.

“You’re really going to make me do this?!” I snap. “You’re really going to fight me over staying a murderer?!”

Scootaloo and Sweetie both move up to Apple Bloom’s side, pressing up against the middle girl, and Bloom pulls them both in, settling an arm each on their waists to drawn them closer. Sweetie Belle gently lifts Bloom’s hood to settle it back over her head, and at the same moment Scootaloo takes the mask from Apple Bloom’s hands to press it over the farmgirl’s face.

“Ah’ll do whatever Ah gotta,” Apple Bloom rasps from under the mask, “t’stay with the girls Ah love… masks up.”

Well, that’s the end of that conversation, apparently, and I curse as Sweetie and Scootaloo both snap their masks into place, and all around me I can feel more than hear the faint echoes of the Thief’s laughter.

Fine.

Stepping back, I reach out and grab Fluttershy’s hand, and she jumps slightly as I grip hard enough to keep her from jerking out of my grasp.

“S-Sunset?” Fluttershy meets my gaze as I look at her over my shoulder.

Clenching my eyes shut, I briefly lift the first real prayer I’ve even thought about in ages up to the Scribe. ‘Written Word, strike my name from your book for what I’m about to do.’

“Hey, Flutters.” I say softly, tempering as much of the natural rasp in my voice as I can, and as I do I take a risk and draw back some of the Killer in me.

Just enough to show her my eyes—my human eyes—when I open them again, so she’ll know who she’s talking to.

“What’re you doing?” Aria hisses.

“What I have to,” I mutter back, before focusing on Fluttershy again.

“Look… I just wanted to say this before everything happens, alright?” I start again, and Fluttershy’s expression softens a little at my tone.

“Say what?”

Given how things are about to go, I owe her this much.

“That I forgive you.”

Whatever it was she thought I was about to say, that clearly wasn’t it. Fluttershy’s eyes go wide, and her jaw drops.

“For Anon-A-Miss, for what happened after… all of it…” I continue, “I forgive you for all of it.”

Fluttershy works her jaw soundlessly, and tears track down her dirt-stained face as she lets out a quiet sob. “Sunset, you… I-I don’t know what to say.”

As much as I don’t want to call this a plan, it is. It’s something I suspected ever since the alley. Ever since I realised the six of us were still connected, and what was connecting us. Ever since I asked the question about why Zephyr was targeted, and guessed whose apartment he was probably coming back from out there in the East End, and then found them, and how suddenly the Thief had found enough individuals for a full Trial ritual.

“Just don’t hold this against me, okay?”

“What?”

Written’s Quill, I hope I’m right about why the Thief wanted Rainbow Dash and why they settled happily for Fluttershy. I tighten my grip on her hand, and Fluttershy pales.

“Sunset I... I can hear your heartbeat.”

Everything happens in a single, aching instant.

The Legion pushes off from where they were perched at the far end of the Ormond Lodge den just as Adagio turns, her dark eyes widening under her mask as she hears the tone in my voice. I wonder if she guesses my plan.

“Sunset!” Adagio cries, maybe in warning, maybe to stop me.

I don’t know and I don’t care.

With the barest effort of strength, I let go of Fluttershy’s hand, and at the same time I give her a sudden push away from me, just enough to make her stumble back. The moment she does, I lock onto her mind in the dream world and flicker.

Fluttershy stumbles, and I can feel Starlight reaching out to try and stabilize her, but before any of that can happen I reappear behind my once-friend, tense every muscle in my body, splay the fingers of my right hand, and punch my blades, fist and all, straight through Fluttershy’s chest.

It’s a grotesque sound, like leather tearing and wood splintering all at once, and on the heels of it all, the faintest hiccup and gurgle from the ruined girl hanging limply on my arm.

Even Legion has frozen.

If it were any other situation, it might be comical. Apple Bloom is standing stock-still, mid-charge, her masked face sprayed with gore like the remains of a slapstick spit-take, and the other two are left reeling from their own—and their leader’s—shock tripling over on itself through their communed awareness.

The delay is enough.

Just barely enough.

“Sorry,” I say softly.

And for the first time since the Trials, I do exactly what I was designed to do by the thing that created me; I rip the pure, untrammeled, Fog-laced hope out of Fluttershy’s soul, but instead of sending it into the darkness, I sink my metaphysical teeth into it, and drink.

…

Holy shit.

The heavens crash and thunder, rocking the Lodge and throwing every person in it to the ground as I feel everything; there’s more pain and joy and hope and despair than any single soul is capable of, and it floods me in a heady and utterly unfiltered wave. Pure power spills through my veins, turning ice blue to fiery gold, and I want to hold onto it, to collapse the power into myself and drink and drink and drink until I’m greater than a god.

I could do it.

Here, now, and forevermore, I could do it. I’m surrounded by it!

Starlight, Aria, and Sour Sweet would be more than enough! I even have a Killer! I could scrape everything clean of Adagio’s mind, make her mine. Make her the Huntress she was meant to be! And then I would be free! I would… I…

I could do it, and all it would cost is the last shreds of my humanity and the souls of the only people who have ever loved me.

So I pull back. I pull away from the all-consuming hope, sink my claws into it, and dump all of that power into one of the most graceless, brute force spells I’ll ever admit to casting in my life.

“TIME TO EVEN THE PLAYING FIELD!” I snarl as I rip my arm free of Fluttershy, step back…

…and hammer the sum-total power of the Element of Kindness straight up into the ambient matrix that’s anchoring this Trial realm.

For the second time in my life, I steal from a god.

Author's Note

Self-preservation is paramount - at any cost!