Pandemonium

Cicadas were the loudest in late July. They crept from dens below in the millions, awoken by their 17 year slumber, and with them came a wave of pandemonium. Elation oozed from their cries. They chirped and they covered everything. Every tree, every inch of ground, every stone, stump, every surface. If it stood still they climbed, they covered until there was nothing but the collective. Their call could be heard throughout the Everfree.

Yet the crash of hooves could awaken the dead.

Panic had a scent; sickly sour, sweaty, yet faint. Panic had a look to it as well. The zebra was fast. Hell, she was faster than any horse he’s seen. Her form zipped by, just a cloud of white and black in an already dark forest. It was hypnotizing, the static of a radio, the gaze of a rattlesnake just before it struck. What was hindquarters, what was withers? It was all black and white indiscriminately. She ran for her life—a pack of predators at her dock. If she slowed, for even a moment, they would sink their teeth in the fat of her rump, wrangle her down, eat her alive. The beasts were at her hooves, her tendons, her thighs, but they lacked fangs and claws. Their faces matched her own.

Time Turner—Dr. Hooves as he was now known, was the closest to the target. He could feel her tail flick against his snout, smell that sour fear, taste her sweat. She kicked, and he slowed down to avoid a very sturdy blow. If their first encounter as anything to go by, the mare had powerful hindlegs. His bruised left rib could testify to that. She sprayed him with something, a strange liquid in a bottle. It left a linger in his nostrils and blurred his vision at the edges.

His heart was thudding like mad and he could not decipher if it was the adrenaline or not. He heard something faint, ears rotating to pinpoint where, who. He heard something he swore, behind him, in front, perhaps in his head.

The stallion just behind him ramped up speed until he was teeth-reach of her flank. He made an aggressive whinny, she kicked again. Unlike Hooves, her antics didn’t intimidate him, not at all. Before he could chomp down, she made a sharp turn. Dust and debris shot up from her frogs, getting her assailant in the face. He sneezed, mane whipping along with his long neck, and he pumped his brakes before he would barrel into a tree.

Dr. Hooves thought to check on the lemon stallion when approaching footfall suggested he reconsider and continue forward.

“Whoooohooo!” Not too far away he heard their ringleader holler, and he had to admit it was exuberating to be in the midst of a chase. Ponyville lacked much excitement, well, beyond the return of Nightmare Moon. Tonight was a good contrast to their boring lives; chasing mares like a couple of wild horses, but they weren’t doing this for the fun of it. “She’s really giving us a run for our money, boys! Don’t let her get away! Last thing we need is for this witch to make it into town!”

The fire they set just a few minutes prior exploded above the trees. Embers shot into the night sky like fireworks. Whatever was in the zebra’s treehouse must’ve been flammable, toxic, since an illuminated mushroom now decorated the sea of black. A strong wind knocked their manes over their snouts, yet the ponies kept galloping.

There was no time to observe, no time to stop.

The goal was to burn her out, put the fear of Celestia in her stripped heart, and force her to return to wherever she came. That was still the goal; chase her away before she harmed the town, and now that her home was up in flames it seemed they had accomplished that task. Only the minute Filthy Rich spotted her climbing out of her bedroom window he instructed them to get her.

But she was fast. Very fast. Fast enough to outrun four earth stallions, and that was far from an easy feat. Most pegasi could not do it, not on solid ground. A magicless unicorn definitely had no chance.

She jumped.

Her legs tucked perfectly beneath her barrel, a show horse in the best of the definition. Effortlessly, she leaped over a fallen bristlecone as if she was merely composed of air. In those moments she was a ghost casting a shadow above a valley, as swift as the wind. Her form was whimsical, balanced, and when hoof touched soil she was off in a sprint.

The stallions halted, trapped by the roadblock. Their minds determined they simply wouldn’t make it with the velocity and distance they had to work with. “We’re screwed–” In Hooves’ peripheral vision he spotted the brown Connemara, a sofa shopkeeper, rear up. He hesitated, made a brief consideration before backing up, leaping. With a steep climb, he made it to the top, underbelly landing on the rough wood, before he got to his hooves and stumbled down snout first. It looked far from pleasant, yet the three followed his lead, shinning the bark and tumbling on top . The hollow trunk caved in under their collective weight. They piled on top of each other. “We probably could’ve just pushed this out of the way.” Hooves grumbled under his breath.

“No time! Get up and get her!” Filthy pushed himself up, somehow managing to rest on top of the pile, as he stamped his hooves to hurry them up. They did as commanded.

The zebra should’ve been long gone, yet Davenport was closing in on her. His once slicked hair was now fizzled and drenched with sweat. There was no way he was going to last another minute of this dash, though. He was past his prime and far from a fit steed. She was going to make another turn, Dr. Hooves could see it by the way her body leaned more to the right.
A clearing was highlighted by the light of the moon guiding her towards town. She was pushing her body further, turning once to get them off her tail only to get back on track towards freedom. She zigzagged, ducked under, dived over. She ran despite her burning lungs, and Dr. Hooves could only imagine how much her chest burned. Her tactics were working as she was yards ahead.

She was going to get away and no effort on their part would change that—

Just as the zebra’s front hooves made it out of the Everfree, she was gone—whisked away in a flash. Not gone like vanished from thin air, but gone like out of sight. They saw a line of black swoop down, but it wasn’t until Dr. Hooves grew nearer did he realize she was tackled from above. A dark pegasus had his wings spread, feathers scattered as he flapped to steady his balance. He forced all his weight on her back, pinned her like a vulture on a corpse. A series of panicked yips erupted from beneath him and it was hardly a vocalization a pony was capable of. Loud and sharp, it sounded like a series of hiccups. She squirmed under him, tried to regain her footing, but she would not outweigh a fully grown stallion regardless if his bones were hollow. As if a deadly bird of prey, the pegasus stepped on the back of her neck to shut her up.

“Caught her!” Thunderlane exclaimed with an innocent smile. His eyes shut like crescent moons, his face jovial since this was nothing more than a game to him. More pressure was applied to her throat, enough to crack the hinges of her heavy necklace. Pure gold fell from the chains leaving the soft flesh below exposed.

“Thank buck,” Davenport panted. His usual sleeveless suit was soaked with sweat and his mane was anything but a wet mop. He grabbed the rope that hung from his waist with his teeth. “Probably shouldn’t have her so close to town, you know?”

“Good thinking, son.” Filthy Rich and Carrot Cake trotted from the darkness of the forest. The lanky baker looked less exhausted than his counterpart, yet Rich clearly was enjoying himself, and perhaps a good run only added to the thrill of the situation. “The witch might put a hex on Ponyville if she’s too close, and we can’t risk our foals getting cursed. Got enough unicorn shit to worry about.”

Davenport tied a noose. The struggling zebra’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks when she caught glimpse of the rope. Suddenly she turned her head and chomped down on Thunderlane’s hoof with all her might. He immediately ripped his limb from her jaws. “She bit me!”

The group closed in on her. Rich laughed. “Of course she did. They’re fucking savages! Believe me when I say she comes from a land of cannibals.”

“Cannibals?” Carrot’s brow pinned in suspicion. “Doesn’t look like she can digest meat. How is that possible?”

“Are you going to question me, Cake, when I’m clearly more cultured than the average Ponyvillian? What do I gain from lying?” Rich adjusted his expensive, mud-stained, tie.

Cake snorted. “Sure, but in all my years I’ve never heard of a pony who could eat red meat. We put birds in our pot pies, songbirds occasionally, but mainly chickens, and even our customers can only have so much of that without having just awful tummy aches.”

An opportunity to share some scientific knowledge could never be passed up, so Dr. Hooves decided to cut in. “She isn’t a pony. She’s a zebra, and yes, they belong to the genus Equus, but so do donkeys. I’d hope you wouldn’t compare yourself to an ass.”

The group fell into a lively laughter. Carrot Cake rubbed the back of his neck like the dope that he was. “What’s that gotta do with eating folks—?”

“Anyway!” Rich swiftly cut him off. “We are not them, and they are not us. Point, blank, period. No more of this ‘we are the world,’ inclusivity bullshit. When has it ever done us any good?”

“Help! Anypony out there! It is my life that I fear!” Suddenly she screamed at the top of her lungs before the rope was lassoed around her neck. Davenport pulled taut to cut her off. Her eyes watered as she pawed at her throat. The way she struggled was almost primal; the sounds pushed from her esophagus, her frantic movements, the fear in her sockets.

Thunderlane hovered above her dragging body. “What an ugly accent, and why is she rhyming?”

“Witches rhyme. Like I told you, she is putting hexes on the town,” Rich trotted beside their catch with an uppity strut. He quite literally looked down on her. “The accent is due to the language barrier. She likely learned Equestrian on the boat here, but no fancy books can scrub the mud savage outta her voice.”

“Makes sense.” Thunderlane nodded.

They dragged the mare deeper into the Everfree. Davenport broke out into a light sprint as he pulled her across rocks and debris. Track marks left her stripped coat mangled and dirty. Her gold earrings were caught on stray roots and yanked from her earlobes. Soon the white of her was as dark as the black. She was stripped of her glory, made to roll in the filth of the forest. Lines of blood spilled from tiny cuts, large gashes, oozing bruises, and yet she still put up a futile fight for her life. Years of hauling sofas made Davenport stronger than one would originally assume. He pulled the 500 pound mare like she weighed less than a pitcher of water. Even as she struggled, hardly deadweight, he galloped.

Filthy Rich continued to share his knowledge of zebra culture. “Forget the fact she’s an evil enchantress, you must understand that if one appears soon there will be many. Just like roaches. Imagine the havoc a single zebra stallion could cause. They don’t have any self-control, you know. He’ll rape all our mares, and before you know it Equestria will be overrun with mules and zebra bastards!”

“We could just fight them off!” Thunderlane batted his hooves together as if he could make a fist. He flew parallel to Rich, wings taking huge strides to keep him airborne at such a slow speed. Determination sat snug on his face like a specialized visor.

“Have you not been listening? They are savages! They’ll use barbaric tactics to kill us all! And likely kill our colts too, force themselves on our fillies– they are just that sick!” Rich swatted Thunderlane away.

“My wife is pregnant. I can’t imagine what would happen to her if…” Carrot Cake hung his head.

“Trust me, Cake. I understand. I have a daughter, and ever since this witch invaded our turf I’ve been having awful nightmares of a dirty zebra laying on top of my Tiara,” the heavy disgust in Rich’s voice wasn’t hard to miss. He looked at the body of the mare they dragged. He spat on her, thick mucus sticking to her cheek. “I bet she eats foals for breakfast.”

“What about magic?” Cake’s head popped up when the question dawned on him. ”We have magic–”

Rich scoffed. “Are you going to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of unicorns?”

Thunderlane landed, stood still, groomed his wings with his teeth. “Why not?” And that was asked casually, so casually his head was buried in feathers. It was a good enough question to cause the earth stallions to look at their ringleader. Even Davenport spared a glance back as he towed his load.

The expression on Rich’s muzzle was not nice. He held his head high to increase his confidence, and thus his persuasion. “Sure, they will help when it affects their lives, but once they realize they have an advantage over the rest of us they will abandon us quicker than the dump you took this morning. Besides, this witch has magic too. What makes you think the entirety of her race doesn’t?”

He had a good point.

All eyes drifted to the mare. She had a hoof beneath the rope to allow her airways a chance to breathe. As if they were a changeling swarm, they collectively drew their gaze down her lean body until all landed between her hind legs. It was completely in sync, not a movement off by a millimeter, and they all gawked.

“We better make her an example then, huh?” Davenport mumbled through clenched teeth. He pulled on the rope one last time. They were now beneath an old sycamore tree. It swayed, ominous, with white limbs that stretched into the black sky. The chestnut stallion threw the tail of the noose over the lowest hanging branch.

“Before we do that…” Rich pursed his lips in thought. “I think it’s only fair that if they wish to rape our mares we show them we won’t hesitate to retaliate.” Then he lowered his snout to the ground to sniff her chest fur. The stripes highlighted her curves, her rump, her exotic shape. From a far she could be mistaken with the average filly, but from up close one could see how voluptuous she was in all the right places. Her hips were ripe for foal rearing, and her very pony privates had a scent to it.

Filthy Rich raised his neck to meet her gaze. He had this lust in his eyes, and the other’s must’ve felt it too. Again, like a hive, a horde, a mass of a single shared thought—zombies out for a meal, they were a collective. None said a word, they only joined in the sniffing.

The zebra tried to speak, and despite being a dumb savage witch from a land of mud and shit, she was clever enough to figure out what they wanted. “I-I know you have a misconception of who I am and why I’ve come…b-but if you spare…if you spare my life, my body, I will go back to where I’m from.”

“Again with the rhyming. I wonder if she can’t help it?” Thunderlane nudged her hind legs. She balled into herself, all limbs scrunched up to hide her body. That wouldn’t change the outcome.

And now Dr. Hooves found himself freed from his trance as a new scent overpowered her own. He smelled the potion—whatever it was she threw at him. He turned to Filthy Rich after he shook his head and stumbled a moment. She said she would leave and that is all they wanted. All they had to do was escort her to the train station, or get her on a boat, and that should be the end of it. That should be the end of it. “Guess we can send her off then—“

“No!” The word was barked. “I said we need to make an example out of her. Ignore the witch begging for her life. Even a Timberwolf would whimper when faced with death. This doesn’t resolving her of evil, and it definitely doesn’t ensure any of her dirty stallions won’t come back to terrorize Ponyville!”

“Sending her back like this won’t do us any good. It might just give them more of an incentive to invade.” Davenport’s sword was unsheathed. It oozed with desire. “You wouldn’t want that, right? Think of the foals. You care about the kids, dontcha?” And he nipped her ear with his teeth, playful in a sense.

Dr. Hooves had no foals of his own, but he supposed he did care about the youth. “But why…uh..” He didn’t want to say the word. “…rape her—?”

Carrot Cake slurped, licked, sucked the side of her face with such vigor that one could assume he was the cannibal. He lapped at her salty tears like it was a treat in his bakery. The guy was a glutton more than his heavy-set wife, but currently he craved more than the typical sweet.

Dr. Hooves stepped back. The aroma in the air and their odd demeanor made sense; she was in estrus. It was a thing that could be easily ignored in normal circumstances, but whether it be from the fear, adrenaline, or a different make up of the races, her scent was strong.

“There is no way she wasn’t passed around in her village. Look how wet she is. What a slut!” Thunderlane thought to unravel her legs to get to her goods, when she kicked him in the face. “Ow!” He held his bleeding nose. “Why am I the only one getting all the abuse?”

The older stallions laughed at his misfortune. There seemed to be this unspoken agreement to keep the colt around for entertainment, yet none finding true solidarity with him.

Davenport approached her side. “She is definitely begging to be bred, but too bad she won’t last long enough for any swimmers to make it. I’m going in her ass. The other hole is open to the first bidder.” He circled around her to find a good spot to lift the mare from the ground.

She went wild then. “P-please…this problem I’m sure I can fix..” her voice cracked while she yipped. “… I swear I can prove I am not a witch.” Davenport pulled on the rope which caused her upper body to follow the trajectory of her gullet. She struggled again, fought with the grasp around her neck, tried her hardest not to die. He laid on the ground right where her upper body once inhabited, and he shimmed underneath her until her lower half rested on his stomach. The rope was released and her body fell on top of his with a thud. She still attempted to make herself small by balling in on herself with her short tail between her legs, but she was poked against her tailbone.

“I’m gonna love this. Haven’t gotten any since my divorce.”

Filthy Rich now stood where Thunderlane tumbled. His length slid out like a block of ice on a hot pole. He addressed the mare. “Oh yeah? And how will you prove you aren’t a witch?” Like the top half of a sandwich, he climbed over her. It was clear they were going to get aggressive soon. Dr. Hooves hoped she was smart enough to realize that and stop fighting.

With a dry gulp, the zebra calmed down enough to say, “I heal. I don’t kill. I have potions—medicine, remedies, the like. My intentions are to help, not to strike,” and she pulled a note from under the golden bracelet around her fetlock. She tried to give it to Filthy Rich, but he refused.

“Put your legs down.” He ordered plainly, bored with their conversation already.

“Please, the note is all you need. You will see if you read,” and again she tried to pass him the piece of paper. She was looking at him, up at him and in the pools of his eyes. She recognized that he was the one orchestrating it all, and that if he said the word all would stop. Maybe she thought there would be mercy because that was the impression of Equestrians to the rest of the world; kind, friendly, and merciful.

There would be no mercy for the wicked.

“Put your legs down or I swear we’ll do more than just rape you,” and now he had the tone of a father. Strict, yet it was easy to hear a lingering care—only she wouldn’t be so foolish to believe that. He exerted authority and it seemed to work. Her lower lip quivered, but after a few seconds her legs spread, and her tail fell.

Hooves noted her demeanor, her desperation, and that pit in his gut grew tenfold.

“Forget it. No point in talking to her.” Davenport wasted no time seizing the opportunity to push his way into her intestines. A sharp cry joined the symphony of agony. She was wet, her body seemingly betraying her or perhaps attempting to make this situation easier. The sniffing from the stallions appeared to trigger a reaction. The natural lubricant she produced made the rubbing intrusion more bearable. And he slowly took his time spreading her apart as if to absorb every inch, every moment, of her. She yipped and the group laughed.

“Looks like she’s really enjoying herself,” Rich was impatient. Hooves could see it by the way his hips dipped into her. He was in an awkward stance, hunched over her to try and get inside her marehood as soon as possible, as much as possible. It took a lot of pushing, but the minute Davenport hilted, Rich broke through. “Oh, fuck! I can feel her hymen,”

“No way she’s a virgin,” Thunderlane was hovering around trying to get a good look at the action. The colt was nearly drooling over himself gawking so hard. “Keep going and let’s see if she bleeds,” and a goofy smile spread across his face.

“This kid’s going places.” Rich quipped sarcastically to Davenport.

The other stallion chuckled. “Natural born genius.”

They shoved in both at the same time. The zebra let out a pained moan as a new series of sobs cascaded from her hoarse esophagus. By now her eyes were shut. She mumbled something under her breath. She mumbled jibberish—no it was too structured to just be the mindless ramblings of a fractured mind. She spoke in a foreign language, one Hooves hadn’t heard before, and it was like venom on a viper’s tongue. The cicadas crept closer. They crawled up the sycamore tree by the thousands, louder, so loud, yet the other stallions didn’t hear them.

“Cup hasn’t been very intimate since we found out she was expecting. You think I could get in her mouth?” And it was less like Cake was asking permission and more like he was wondering if he could fit.

“I don’t want your ass in my face.” Rich pushed in again, deeper, he let out a grunt of pleasure. Blood coated his shaft. Thunderlane had the world’s biggest grin as he watched it pool beneath them.

“I’ll turn the other way around.”

“I don’t want your face in my face,” Davenport slowly pulled himself from the ring of her anus, leaving only half of his length inside, and she made another small sound in protest. He nearly orgasmed then. “Or maybe you should. This bitch is driving me crazy with those noises.”

Carrot Cake stumbled at first before he caught himself then nodded. He approached both Davenport’s and the zebra’s mane. Both had their eyes closed, both for separate reasons. The stallion was in his head, focusing on the tight squeeze around him, and making the occasional sound of approval. While the witch was likely trying to imagine herself somewhere else, somewhere safe, and maybe that was back home among her own kind.

Carrot Cake lowered his hips towards her snout. It would be uncomfortable to get him inside her mouth, well uncomfortable for her, but uncomfortable wasn’t impossible. He rubbed his tip against her lips to tell her what he wanted, a request for access, but she only continued to mumble.

Rich, with Cake’s freckled chin perched on his shoulder, decided to help the baker out. “Open wide or do we have to choke you again?” He gave her a particularly painful thrust, and immediately she opened her jaws wider. “That’s a good filly,” the words of encouragement were said with such an air of innocence Hooves had to remind himself that it was a rape he witnessed. “Use your tongue to pleasure him.” Surprisingly she did. Slowly her pink appendage stuck out as it lapped at the underside of his erection.

Cake was a gentleman about it at first, giving her the opportunity to take her time, but soon the licking was too much. She was teasing him rather than getting him off. His hips went forward, dick knocking against her lower jaw, and nested beside her uvula. She gagged.

“Breath through your nose.” Rich instructed.

Obediently, the witch obliged. She continued to lick him despite the occasional choke, cough, and threat of vomit. “Ooooh wow,” Carrot melted into a puddle of euphoria. What was once an underbite, was now a squiggle as if he were the workings of a cartoonist and not a living, breathing, pony. “Cupcake never felt like this.” He leaned in closer.

“You’re on my fucking mane!” Davenport barked.

Cake lifted his foot. She choked. He went deeper. She gurgled on his fluids and her throw up. The concoction in her mouth was mixed around like a stir spoon in a small bowl. The contents poured from the sides, clumpy, with a strong scent of acid. And yet the zebra whizzed as she breathed through her nose. “She’s really swallowing me.” Cake nickered as he nuzzled intimately against Rich’s neck.

“Mr. Rich did say something about her eating meat,” Thunderlane landed again. He had his snout shoved between the mess of their stallionhood. Without much thought, the pegasus lapped at the juices and found special interest in her blood. His tongue ran along the wealthy stallion’s balls. Rich made a sort of snort of disapproval, yet made no real effort to stop the colt. He didn’t whip him with his tail, buck him in the face, turn around to lecture him. He simply kept going, and Thunderlane took that as a sign to get a little more adventurous with where and what he licked.

It was suffocating.

Now the cicadas covered the entirety of the tree. Their wings spread, flexed, flashed against the moonlight. Thousands of brown glass bottles, thousands of reflections acknowledging that they bear witness to this grave sin, and they would not be quiet. Dr. Hooves watched the pile of cicadas shift and roll like the rising tide, they formed, balled up tight—only for him to realize they weren’t bugs at all. They were ponies. This thing in front of him, this thing he observed. As the mass rutted in unison, movements like the limbs of a locomotive, they smushed together. One zombie, hive mind, single-thought. They held each other tenderly like two hands interlocked. Between this monster was the ooze of bile, of four singular legs that stuck out in odd locations. Four stripped limbs that did not belong.

It yipped, not the beast, but the poor soul it consumed. She squealed—the long pitched shriek of distress—and it pierced the groans of Frankenstein’s monster, and it overtook the cicadas. It rattled them, it filled his eardrums, and soon it was all Hooves heard.

“Good, little bitch. Scream for papa.” A stream of clumpy white leaked from the rear of the four-headed zombie, thick and sour like pust in a bursted boil. Filthy Rich pulled himself from the pile, out of the mound of moving flesh, and Thunderlane didn’t wait for the older stallion to step away before shoving his muzzle into her snatch. His silver mane pushed up against Rich’s filthy testicles. He was Fido with a ball, wings fluttering, rump in the air, tail as eager as his racing heart, and this Fodo lifted Rich an inch off the ground with the ball of his head. “Woah there. Let’s hold our horses before you launch me into space,”

To deliver gross revenge for Rich’s sake, Davenport pulled out and released himself on Thunderlane’s chin. The sick mixture glued the colt’s lips together. He spread his muzzle apart, gooey, like a living blob reanimated by the Dark Arts. It mixed from white to pink, from pink to an off peach. “Hey! Now how am I supposed to go home covered in your jizz, dude? What do you think my dad’s gonna think if he sees me?”

The stallions, except Carrot Cake—who still attempted to get deeper, and deeper, and even deeper into the pit of her stomach—broke out into a rumbling laugh. Two joined heads whinnying like pleased ponies.

“How old are you, son?” Filthy Rich sat on the pegasus’ neck. He forced his snout against the spraying penis.

“Gahh! Mr. Rich!” His hind hooves sank into the damp mud as he made an attempt to jerk himself from the mold. “Mr. Rich!”

“C’mon, boy. How old are you?”

Thunderlane’s wings worked on instinct. They flapped frantically to batter his assailant and grant him the chance to flee. Rich wasn’t started by his antics. He nipped at the colt’s ear. “I’m 19, sir! Now could you get off me?!”

“19 and still living with your father? By that age I made my first million.” And Rich held his snout in the air. “Perhaps you need your father to believe you are a fairy so he can beat some motivation into you.”

“Kid looks just like the witch,” Davenport cackled. Thunderlane’s dark coat was covered in streaks of white.

“Haha! Buck you—“ The pegasus mocked their laughter, spat in frustration.

Cake let out the dopiest snuffle through his lips. She started to choke again. It wasn’t long until he pulled from her throat with a wet pop and the remainder of his milky stream squirted over the trapped Thunderlane. “That was…wonderful…” Carrot’s body slumped into the pile while he struggled to come down from cloud nine.

Rich finally let up on Thunderlane’s neck, and as a hawk from a snare, he shot to the sky before his front hooves could unfold. Black feathers rained down from the heavens like thick soot. All heads raised to glance into the sea of darkness. They expected him to take off, but he did not. Instead, the pegasus reached far beyond the highest point of the sycamore tree and silently hovered. His wings wrapped around his entire form. He stared down, perhaps at them, perhaps at someone else. They were silent—and the cicadas joined them. The noise was sucked from this vacuum of space. They’ve gone deaf in that moment.

Yet a shadow lumbered, and Hooves heard a heavy bell ring once.

Thunderlane was not permitted to leave.

Rather than disappear beyond the clouds, he came down as instructed—not from Rich, not even from himself, but perhaps he too heard that faint whisper, he too heard the bell. The fallen was on the ground, startled if only for a second, but whatever happened, unhappened, and the actors on this set continued to play their roles.

“Hmph, whatever, jackass.” Like a puppet on strings, the pegasus trotted in a circle, wings spread to add size to his form, as he taunted the flightless stallions with his pace. No one spoke. Maybe their lack of reaction got to him, maybe his heart stopped racing, because Thunderlane snorted in disapproval before he worked to clean his face. “Gahh! There’s like three different gross flavors in my mouth,” he cringed. “I’m going to need to, like, scrub every inch of my insides,” he was gagging, dry heaving if anything. Thick lines of mucus hung from his chin. They were icicles of semen. “You old guys are so fucking gay!”

“This kid was just guzzling my balls and he’s calling us gay?” Another series of laughter erupted out of the group.

“Speaking about balls, yours are on my head, Cake!” Davenport sat up to create a cascade of ponies. They tumbled to the ground. Rich stood quick, and was able to just step back, but the zebra splattered into mud and the lanky Cake along with her. The rope around her neck snagged. That bell rang for the second time, and now the cicadas were just at their feet. Rich crushed dozens under his metal horseshoes yet seemed oblivious of their existence.

The rope snagged.

She choked, her legs kicked out, her eyes bulged from her sockets. The group watched her with those same dead eyes. In those moments they weren’t ponies, there was no soul behind the black of their pupils. Hooves wondered if he was going crazy, if this was a dream, and yet no one once acknowledged him. They played out this show as if on a stag, and each actor played their twisted part. He was the audience, he did not exist, not in the script, but this was real. He knew it was.

The rope snagged. The bell rang for a third time, and something breathed behind the curtain of cicadas.

“She’s going to die.” Dr. Hooves had his flank against rough bark. He’d climb this tree if he could.

As if given a new command by an invisible director, the lead star—Filthy Rich, lit a pipe. “That’s the point, son. What? You want a turn or something? While she’s dying?” White smoke puffed from his pinched lips. “What are you? Some necro freak?” The match he burned lit with an innocent flame. It dances as it ate away at the stick, small, free like a nymph. Rich flicked it, and Hooves watched as that same innocent flame twirl in the air and landed on the zebra. He watched as the nymph spread, as she caught fire quickly.

Carrot Cake jumped from the zebra’s burning body. He threw his soiled apron off. A look of irritation was branded on his mug, yet he didn’t dare say a word. She was coated in the same potions and medicine she claimed to carry. These same remedies now made her a Molotov cocktail, and like that mushroom in the sky, she went up in smoke.

The bell rang.

“Mm—w-we can’t…we can’t kill—” Hooves was told to come closer, not by the group, but by a voice somewhere behind him, in front of him, inside his head. He was told to come closer but she rolled, flailed, screamed as she futilely tried to put out the flame. Her face was a mold of anguish, a melted candle, as the soul beneath fought for release. It knew soon it would be relieved of its earthly body, and perhaps that is what the thing in the shadows craved; a fresh soul to feast on.

Vengeance.

Don’t beg, he heard. You’re a smart pony. Use your words. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “We can’t kill her.”

Filthy Rich sucked on his pipe. “And why not?” A warm light flickered against the rim of his silhouette. The black beads of his eyes watched this creature, his pony even if not a pony, wail for its fleeting life. The cicadas approached the flame. They were engulfed quickly, yet they swarmed in the thousands. There was so many and still no one saw them. There was a silence among them. The cicadas crawled, and no one spoke.

Rich let her burn for another few seconds.

“Because somepony will find the body.” Hooves left the safety of the tree to date to get closer to the stage, to the actors on top. “And nopony will believe she’s a witch if all her fur is gone. All they’ll see is the charred remains of an equine.”

Rich kept his eyes on her even when the others made distance, turned heads, shut their minds off so not to live with the stench of murder. The flat expression he wore melted downwards as if this business tycoon was the burning candle. He smoked. He played his role, and thus presented to be in deep thought. He made a calculated decision, he considered the pros and cons, and came up with the most lucrative solution.

The bell rang.

Filthy puffed on his pipe. “Put her out.”

And Davenport tugged on the rope to allow her room to breathe. Cake picked up his ruined apron and used it to smother the fire. He covered her completely, deprived the flame of oxygen, and soon it finished its dance before withering away. Her lower half was badly burned, raw like red meat, and yet it was not blood that oozed from the wound, but oil. She was struggling, taking in long painful breaths, but thankfully she was still alive.

Filthy grinned. “But why don’t we discuss what we’ll do with her while she hangs for a bit.”

Cruelly, the shopkeeper moved on automation, and tugged on the rope. He was a whipped horse, moving forward as instructed, and as he pulled, the noose lifted the warm body in his grasps. The mare dug her hooves in the mud to fight against his strength. She was no match as he was seasoned on hauling deadweight; pounds of quills, tons of sofas, all delivered by rope. The branch croaked yet it didn’t dare break, and as it croaked she groaned along with it, teeth clenched, panting as if she were the living dead.
“Naaa..noo..” She was mumbling at first, her mind far from sane, but soon her frantic cries for mercy had stopped. Dr. Hooves watched in horror as she drew in the mud just before she left the ground. It was a symbol he didn’t recognize, but the cicadas avoided it more than the burning flame. A simple line staked through a triangle. Three dots, all in her own blood. That was it, and he saw it, he saw it as clear as Luna’s moon, yet the others did not.

The bell rang.

“You can’t possibly tell me you didn’t hear that.” Hooves whispered.

Rich stared at him like he was the dark breath in the shadows. “What are you on about? Get your head outta your ass so we can figure this out.” Smoke puffed from the stallion’s nostrils. “I’m thinking about selling her to a couple of griffons. They’ll probably eat the old slut, but we’ll get a good chunk of change for it, plus no evidence to speak of.”

Davenport tied the end of the noose around the base of the tree, keeping her hooves inches from the forest floor. He rested his cheek against her raw thigh. “Nah, I want to fuck her again. Might as well if we’re gonna keep her alive.” She struggled to use his body to take strain off her neck. For a moment he allowed it.

“You want to fuck that? She looks like a meatbag, have you ever seen a meatbag? Because I can assure you it isn’t the least bit sexy.” Rich was dead set on turning a profit.

Good. Dr. Hooves heard. Milk it.

“I-I like her too.” He nervously got closer to her. Davenport watched him suspiciously like a dog with a big bone and no desire to share. He snorted at him.

Dr. Hooves backed up.

“Woah, woah, okay, boys. We can scrap the griffon idea. We’ll just let a few of the town’s degenerates know that for a few dozen bits they can have their way with an exotic zebrian witch.” The pipe was shifted from one side of Rich’s lips to the other. “Just gotta slap on some makeup and she’ll be good to go.”

“Isn’t prostitution illegal?” Cake sounded as tired as the darkening bags under his sockets. We’ll get shipped to a prison up in Mount Everhoof before we find our first John.”

“No, no, no! I can’t get sent there! My uncle served 15 years after he tried to rob the Rainbow Factory, and he’s now like mentally disturbed, and like traumatized from some sick sexual stuff that happened to him, and..and I mean he needs a caregiver now, and I’m telling you this guy used to be the toughest stallion in West Cloudsdale, and—“ Rich gave Thunderlane a kick to his flank which got the colt to stop rambling.

“Nopony’s going to jail. She isn’t even a citizen! She’s a fucking mud mule!”

Cake shook his head. “That won’t change a thing, Rich. You can get fined for maltreatment of bovine, and they aren’t citizens either. She’s a horse—“

“A zebra.”

“A horse like you and I. We get found out and that's it.” Cake sighed and as he did his body slumped. His spine poked beneath his skin. His skeleton wore its flesh suit poorly. “This won’t end well either way, but we definitely can’t risk telling anypony about this.”

It was quiet again, genuinely quiet. No breeze passed through the sycamore tree, and the mare made no sound. Her eyes looked beyond the cicadas, between the trees. She saw it too; the smoke, the glint of a bell, the being just as present as the rest of them. She whispered to it, and Hooves heard. “passus sub..” The words came in and out. It was not Equestrian, yet he understood. “…descendit ad inferos…” The sycamore croaked, the rope pulled taut, and Davenport moved nearer to prevent strangulation. “…inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos…” she said it louder. It was clear what she was doing, chanting, praying, pleading for vengeance.

Dr. Hooves frowned. “You don’t hear her?” They did not. Davenport’s ears did not flick, twitch, erect. He was just beneath her and yet it was as if she was mute. “You don’t hear it?”

This zebra was no unicorn, no pony, she had no magic. No magic to be a witch, she was no witch, yet something, someone heard her cries. “..inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos—“

The final bell rang and the sky rumbled in response. A single raindrop on his forehead had the pegasus looking up at the sky. “Who wants a weather forecast? Cause I’m sensing an Everfree storm incoming at 2300.”

Rich also looked up. “Quite the pickle we find ourselves in—“

“The apple orchard will house the mare.” Hooves spoke but the words were not his own. “The stallion present will not alert authorities.”

“You talking about Mcintosh?” Davenport raised a brow at the change in Hoove’s demeanor. “I mean yeah, I see it. The guy doesn’t talk so who could he tell?”

Rich brayed. “The Apples!? I’d rather take my chance with prison!” His eyes were red with fury.

Davenport sighed. “Look at it this way; if they get caught with her it’s Mac that goes down, not us. Without him that farm will go to shit, they won’t be able to keep up with bills, the land gets foreclosed, and you swoop in and buy it from the banks. Isn’t that what you wanted from the start?” He nuzzled into the zebra's sensitive flesh. Oil oozed into his peppered mane.

“C’mon, guys. They are good ponies.” Cake objected, but Davenport was quick to bark back.

“Your wife will suffer without you, Carrot! Expect her and your foals to be begging on the streets while you struggle to survive in the mountains.”

Rich couldn’t contain his smile. “He’s right. It’s him or us, besides there is no guarantee any authorities will get involved. We convince Mcintosh Apple to use his stable, and we will have free range to do as we please to her whenever we please. Nopony of importance knows she’s here, nopony will come looking for her, and nopony will expect a witch in the Apple’s barn. You fearmonger for naught.” He puffed his chest out with a new sense of enthusiasm, wild, energetic like a young colt again. “Smile, boys! The town has been spared and it was thanks to our prowess!” As he reared up for a courageous neigh, the rain fell down.

“…remissionem peccatorum…” she sobbed, broken. She screamed despite the rope around her throat. She screamed loudly, very loudly until she choked on the words, yet she kept going. “..carnis resurrectionem..” The cicadas’ chirp went wild then. They grew aggressive. Hooves looked around himself, at the ground, the tree, yet they were nowhere to be found. All of them, even their shells, were gone. The symbol just the same, the rain had washed them away, swallowed them whole, revealed the delusion for what it was; all in his head. No bugs, no smoke, but a mare still hanging.

And their call still pounding against his eardrums.

“…vitam aeternam.”

Her eyes were no longer forward, but she looked at him directly. Ice cold was her gaze. Ice cold were her pupils, and they were rageful.

Thunderlane spread his wings. “Well, let’s go. My dad gets up early and he’ll bitch at me again if he realizes I missed curfew.”

“He’s 19, right? Not 9?” Rich and Davenport guffawed.

“The kid has a point, we probably should hurry this up so we can get back to our families!” The rain was so loud Cake was screaming over it. He got to his hooves, shook his mane to unglue the strands from his neck, and fought back the urge to gallop to shelter.

“The storm only gets worse from here. Trust me, we literally control these things.” Thunderlane was having a miserable time. The rainwater weighed his wings down. He crouched, not intentionally, but to elevate strain on his knees. Why he simply didn’t shut his wings was a mystery only he could solve.

That silence followed.

That silence they held for the third time, yet this time they were not one, they were not the hive-mind, single-thought, zombie. Right now they moved as separate parts, breathing in at separate times, taking separate steps, but yet they all watched as Davenport bit the end of the noose, and they watched as the body fell on his back. They all choose, separately perhaps, not to say a word until the task was fully complete.

Rich’s smoke was ruined. He put it out. “Right, right. Let’s head out.”

The cicadas were no longer cicadas—bugs, but wrong. Bugs but only in shape. They were the trees, as big as it. Each leg a trunk, each set of six a different cicada. These giants towered over them, their glass eyes watching as they hauled her away; they observed the sin committed. They had no chips, they were simply silent witnesses that only he saw. And it was then that Dr. Hooves saw the symbol again. It was carved into the chest of the thing in the dark. This thing was visible as the dying moonlight and half the size of the sycamore tree.

A black goat—a black thing with horns that twisted wrong and limbs too many, limbs made of chirping cicadas—rang a silent bell. The zebra smiled as she saw him, for she knew he came to answer her cry for vengeance. And Hooves knew he was no longer himself, but the voice he heard in front of, behind, inside his head.