Around a fire on a moonless night to light up the sky, a group of young ponies are captivated by the horrific story told to them by the oldest of the gang:
It's the story of a Pegasus your age, in full personal and professional development. His name is Thunderlane, a pegasus with a black coat and a straight silver mane. Thunderlane has no parents left, he had to run away from home because he was too dangerous to stay with them.
His instinct made him bring his little brother Rumble with him, they went far away from them to a village without history: Ponyville.
Finally, uneventful it was until six mares managed, with the help of Princess Celestia herself, to bring the Selenian mare to her senses, Princess Luna.
These six mares had all become friends with the people of Ponyville over time, and so it was with Thunderlane and Rumble. The big brother was closer to Rainbow Dash than the others, partly because they worked together on the weather team. Rainbow Dash often helped Thunderlane to support herself, taking care of her little brother alone is not always easy.
But in the end, everything went well, the two brothers were inseparable and despite life's difficulties, they could still smile.
As usual, Thunderlane was finally coming home from work, exhausted, but he would make it through the day for his little brother, he had to take him to the park today to play with the cutie markers. And he would also see Rarity and Applejack, it's been a while since he's visited them.
The Pegasus discovered that the door of his house was wide open, which started to worry him, he would never forget to close it normally. He went in and saw the surrounding disorder, everything had fallen to the ground, scattered. The lock seems to have been forced, oh dear. "RUMBLE!" He shouted.
Thunderlane ran into his little brother's room, worried only about him and his condition. When he entered, horror overtook him in an instant. Rumble was there, lying on the floor as well, but he didn't move, and a liquid ran down from his abdomen.
The Pegasus' eyes became horrified at what he saw, but Thunderlane didn't stand still and went to take Rumble in his arms, discovering the horrible truth. Rumble was dead, the liquid that ran down the red carpet was his blood. Tears were beginning to flow from his cheeks.
"RUUMBLEEEEEEEE !!!" he shouted into the room, even the walls didn't block his scream that had to be heard by a Ponyville party.
All he could do was squeeze his dead little brother tighter, his coat stained with the blood of the dead pegasus.
Soon he was no longer alone to cry, for Rainbow Dash had arrived home, wanting to look for him to meet him at the park with the others. But of course, when she saw the state of the house and her friend kneeling, bleeding and crying, she couldn't make a sound, she who is usually so talkative. All she could do was look at the disastrous state of Thunderlane, and the horror of seeing her lifeless little brother in her arms.
Thunderlane's interminable sobs could not be stopped, mixing with the blood on the carpet. Rainbow Dash hated to be so helpless, so she tried something without wanting to rush the stallion, starting with a hug that was meant to be restorative and protective. Thunderlane ended up putting Rumble on his back, looking at him again, not caring about the mare trying to soothe him.
"I'm sorry Thunderlane." she said as she began to cry on his shoulder. "We have to... go forward." she said next, which woke Thunderlane up, but she should never have said that. The stallion then rose abruptly, pushing Rainbow Dash against the wall.
"MAY I GO FORWARD!" he shouted even louder than before, turning to her. "RUMBLE WAS ALL I HAD left, HOW DO YOU WANT ME TO GO FORWARD, HOW DO YOU WANT ME TO SMILE AGAIN ?"
This last word brought a thought into his mind. With an inescapable urge to do so, he ran into the kitchen, leaving Rainbow Dash alone. She quickly joined him, and realized that she would see even more atrocities today.
When she entered, Thunderlane had a knife in each hoof.
"Thunderlane, stop!" She tried to say, trying to hide her rising fear, unsuccessfully, her voice and her wobbly paws.
"I want to... smile again," he said before doing what he had planned. Without asking his friend's opinion and still sobbing. Suddenly, he brought the knives to his lips, cutting them at each other's sides, causing the two pegasuses to lose their balance. Thunderlane fell and let go of his utensils in surprise that the pain was much greater than he had thought, and Rainbow Dash lost the use of her legs again, more and more horrified.
Blood had spurted between them, this time the blood of the older brother. Rainbow Dash couldn't move, as she watched Thunderlane stand up with her fake, bloody smile.
Suddenly, panic gripped her whole body, a rush of adrenaline forced her to jump before she fainted in front of him, flying away with her wings still shaking.
"What's up? Am I smiling again?" Thunderlane asked again in her kitchen, the scars on either side of her lips giving the illusion of a smile, a tragic smile.
"Why are we doing what we're already doing?" A crimson longhorn beetle known as Twilight Sparkle questioned herself.
She and the rest of the band called the Elements of Harmony followed the leader of the movement: Rainbow Dash.
The Pegasus hadn't had the courage to tell what she had seen, but had warned her friends that the situation was frightening even to her. At this revelation, some like Rarity or Fluttershy were very uncertain about coming, they didn't know what had terrified the most fearless mare in Equestria.
But the elements of harmony are a united group, so there they are, all six of them, inside the house of the big brother, their friend at all. They were crouched down, their backs against a wall, in order to find the black pegasus and to reason with him. As much to say at once, Rainbow Dash's still disoriented mind and the little information she had given left no room for a well-thought-out plan.
"So, Rainbow, is he here?" Applejack asked, sitting next to the pegasus but unable to see for herself. As they tried to get up, they heard movement, especially a voice.
"LET GO OF ME, I'LL LET GO !!!" shouted a voice on the verge of deviance, begging for her freedom before she went mad.
They all froze at the call for help, not daring to try anything to understand where they were now. They all stood behind Rainbow Dash, controlling their breaths as they waited for the state of the situation.
Only Rainbow could see the scene, her head barely out of the wall in the hope that she would not be seen for the moment. Thunderlane was on the other side of the wall, still with her knives, carefully placed between her lips, where the skin used to be, a sighing look. On a chair was tied a brown stallion who was the call for help, his eyes were already soaked with tears, Thunderlane frightened him, much more than Rainbow Dash earlier.
With a sharp jerk, the black pegasus withdrew one of its blades and began to gently pass it over the prisoner's coat. The fact that only the point of the weapon was climbing his body little by little gave the illusion of a ferocious animal's fangs, much more than just a bear.
"Shut up!" Thunderlane said quietly, Rainbow Dash could barely hear him. "I know it's you, so shut up!" he repeated a little louder, even the girls behind that wall could hear his warning.
"I swear I didn't do anything." said the stallion in a broken and hesitant voice, his echo mixing with her sobs as the blade pierced her sweaty neck.
Thunderlane gave no further warning, and simply stuck his knife into the stallion's leg, giving him a terrible, shrill scream to hear.
Once again, the elements of harmony were frightened to death, barely daring to breathe at this point.
"Twilight, use your magic, I'm too scared to move a hoof." said the white unicorn named Rarity.
"I wish I could, but even magic cannot fight terror." the princess replied, sadly admitting that she herself could not move. All agreed that this infiltration was the worst of their lives, except for Rainbow, who couldn't look away from her friend.
"I told you to shut up!" the pegasus growled as she pulled her other knife from her jaw and brandished it with her left hoof. Her poor victim didn't even notice, she just kept her mouth shut and bit her lip in pain. So hard that a slight drop of blood began to flow, even though her leg was already quite bloody as well.
The sight of the blood gave Thunderlane another idea, bringing his free hoof to the stallion's mane, grabbing him nonchalantly and bowing his head back.
"If you scream again, I'll take my time." he said aloud this time. Unfortunately, the tied, bleeding and crying land pony had understood the double meaning, resigning himself to his fate. He bit his lips for the last time, before he let himself go and felt a fine, hot metal entering him.
Thunderlane, the admirable big brother and hard worker, had just killed his first pony, in front of his boss's eyes. Indeed, Rainbow had just seen him stick his knife into a probably innocent stallion, who had no reason to die now.
As soon as he removed the blade from his pierced body, the blood flowed, even more than Rumble's, and the room began to look like a sacrificial pact. Said that's what Thunderlane thought of afterwards, because for the first time since seeing his dead little brother, a slight smile appeared, a real one this time.
Rainbow widened her eyes at the sight of this look, her pupils delighting in all the blood that was already on the ground. Thunderlane also pulled the blade from her knee, then replanted it in her neck. Fortunately, the poor stallion was already dead, for the pain was already too much for anyone to bear. He planted his second blade in the same place, and with a short but intense effort, separated the head from the rest of the body, letting it roll a few meters further.
Rainbow realized that she had now lost her friend, that there was no way to save him, and the situation worsened all too quickly.
Thunderlane continued to stick his blades into various parts of the body like a mad scientist, always with that psychopathic smile that was slowly growing. The scene may have lasted a minute, but a millisecond was already too much for the poor mares who had been petrified since their arrival.
Finally, when Thunderlane jerked his victim's left arm to pieces, a trail of blood ran across the room and landed on Rainbow's cheek. The Pegasus hadn't noticed it yet, it seems, but she was so horrified that a heart attack could occur at any moment.
Having seen too much horror for a single pony in just a few minutes, she turned around, revealing her blood trail to her friends, immediately in complete inner panic. They still hadn't understood what Rainbow had seen, but that simple red mark deterred them all from continuing their inspection.
Without a word, Applejack could only point to the exit of his hoof, not wasting a second to get the whole group's permission to get out of here. The room would be a bloodbath in minutes, according to the mental estimate of the cyan pegasus.
It was as they left the wall and stood up on their legs as best they could... that a voice came from the front of the exit.
"Hello, girls." was pronounced in an icy voice...
At least he was smiling again.
