Today was Sunday. It was about noon, and not many people were outside with the sun bearing down on the town. There was a mild breeze blowing through, but it wasn't really cool. Ponies were spending their time in their homes, at the lake, or, in the case of two others, at the library. Things were going normally for the average person.

Bon Bon wasn't the average person.

She wasn't at home or in her candy store, passing time one way or another. She was outside and on a mission. As an agent of the Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria, or S.M.I.L.E. — if you wanted the dumber name according to her — she had a duty to protect Equestria from any threats of a magical or non-magical origin, and one of the ways she could protect was by gathering information on any potential threat.

Right now, there was one unaccounted potential threat in her town: a biomancer.

Biomancy was new magic, only properly explored for the first time about fifty years ago, and in that time, it had proved to be a... problematic field. Biomancy might have produced some medical miracles, yes, but most of the time it produced monsters, some shaped like bugs, some shaped like ponies, all of which took innocent lives.

Bon Bon questioned why it wasn't just banned outright, since biomancy would create more trouble by itself and by exposing ponies to the darker sides of magic, most commonly blood magic, and she knew the kinds of things blood magic could do. She shuddered, remembering the time she and a team had to put down a blood cult that had taken the lives of an entire town in the name of some god called 'corn' — if she remembered the name correctly (which she didn't).

Thankfully, one couldn't do such deeds with general biomancy easily. It wasn't easily scalable or hidden like blood magic, and biomancers usually didn't commit mass murder. Instead, they'd worship themselves, killing ponies if they felt like it or if they needed biomass to make monsters much like Frankenstein — and usually, get themselves killed by said monsters, like Frankenstein — which wasn't much better since there'd be a rogue monster and dead innocents, but it was still better than mass murder for blood sacrifice.

She shook her head from the thoughts of blood cults and continued down the path. She had rubber gloves on her hooves, a cloak covering everything but her tail, a ski mask on her head, and a small bag with her equipment slung around her neck.

She had sent a letter yesterday to the agency's headquarters, informing them that there's a biomancer in Ponyville. In response, she had recieved a box that held a dozen chocolates, under which there was a secret compartment, in which were instructions to put up surveillance for now, along with a dozen of the most advanced spy-tech device Equestria had.

The device was simply called 'the eye'. It was small, about the size of a bean, but it could record and transmit visuals and audio back to a computer in HQ forever since it powered itself with the ambient magic in a place. Bon Bon knew that a dozen of them could easily cover a home from when she had put a dozen of them in the home of the lone changeling resident of Ponyville, and so far, Kevin hadn't found a single one of them.

She doubted that Anya would do any better.

She stopped in front of the only house on the wooded path. Just like yesterday, when she had followed Anya's giant bug to the place, the house loomed in front of her. Its two defining features, in Bon Bon's mind, was how ugly it was and how foreboding it looked.

She did not want to go through the trouble of bugging the house and wished that she could have put down Anya, but unfortunately, the law stated that it was 'innocent until proven guilty' i.e. illegal to kill her until they got solid evidence of her using the magic for evil, hence the spying.

Still, Bon Bon disliked that she'd have to go in there, and to express her disapproval, she glared at the house. The house looked back impassively.

She stepped up to the door and pulled out a cylinder shaped object, which she put on the door's lock. Immediately, the device started making clicks and clacks and other mechanical sounds as it unlocked the door. She'd have plenty of time to put the cameras and leave since she knew that Lyra would take a lot of time with Anya at the library.

It was going to be an easy job.

Bon Bon couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong.

Suddenly, the world around her went quiet. All the leaves stopped rustling, all the birds stopped chirping, and even the air seemed to have gone still. The only sound was that of the lockpicking device. It was taking awfully long to open a simple door.

She looked back to the path, her instincts telling her that she was being watched by something. It was to be expected; there were timberwolves and normal wolves and manticores and a lot of other things prowling in the forest. Perhaps, one had spotted her. She didn't fear an attack since the animals knew that attacking a pony would be bad for them, and she could easily fend off anything that came for her, but she still remained tense and watched the forest beyond the path.

Why did all the bad guys have to live in such places? Did they make the places bad when they moved in, or did they move in because of how bad it was?

The house finally decided that it'd be more interesting to see what she did inside.

The lock clicked behind her and the device fell off the lock. Bon Bon turned and put it in her bag before pulling out four black bracelets with red gemstones and putting them on each of her legs. They'd scramble any trace of her hoof-magic, meaning that IF somepony decided to do a thorough magical investigation, they wouldn't find any traces of her. It was overkill but overkill was always better.

She opened the door, expecting all sorts of nasty things to be hidden in there. She saw nothing out of the ordinary.

The hallway beyond the door looked normal, the living room looked normal, and kitchen looked normal as well, but Bon Bon couldn't help but feel that something was amiss. The things she expected were hidden away, probably in the basement. She stepped inside and closed the door, locking it behind her.

Now that she was inside, the feeling of being watched was replaced by the feeling of being scrutinised, of being studied by something. She looked around and found only the brown walls of the house to be there. She shook her head and chalked up the feelings to nervousness, because after all, she would feel nervous when going into someplace where she might die.

The first order of business was a sweep of the house to find anything suspicious. Bon Bon went up the stairs, noting how all of the steps were of different sizes. She looked at the ceiling and found the entrance to the attic. She pulled down on the string to it, making a ladder come down fast, scraping her right foreleg a bit as it did. Bon Bon ignored the injury and went up the ladder.

The attic was empty, which made sweeping throught it a breeze. She took one of the cameras and put it into one of the corners of the roof, where it stuck to the wall and changed its colour to blend in better. One room down, a bunch more to go. Bon Bon turned and went down the ladder, her earlier nervousness mostly gone. Nothing had gone wrong so far.

Then, she fell down the ladder.

It wasn't a huge fall, nor did it hurt all that much, and honestly, it could have just been a simple error. Bon Bon didn't think so. She swore that one of the steps had moved, but that could not be possible. How would a ladder do that? Just move a step? She inspected it for a minute, finding that it was unchanged from when she climbed it, and eventually, she accepted that she had somehow made an error.

The house's windows rattled a bit, probably due to wind outside, but Bon Bon couldn't help but feel as though the sound was the house was laughing at her for doing such a stupid thing. She huffed and closed the attic entrance.

Next, she placed a camera in the hall, in the upper corner next to window, making sure that it would be able to see down the hallway where there were the two rooms that she'd have to go through next. There was only a bookcase in the hall, and it held some Daring Do books which were nothing of interest.

The first room was Anya's bedroom. She could tell that by how the pillows and blanket on the bed were in a jumbled mess. She ignored what was atop the bed and instead, bent down to see what was under it. Down there, she found nothing, letting her move onto the wardrobe next to the empty desk.

The wardrobe had some clothes, and a drawer. She opened the drawer and found the first interesting thing: documents.

She took them all out and laid them on the desk. Four passports, a birth certificate, and some pictures lay in front of her. She started with the passports. There were two Indian passports, one Pakistani, and one Equestrian. This wasn't related to magic but it was still potentially useful. She pulled out a small camera from her bag to take pictures.

She opened the Pakistani passport and found that it was for some unicorn colt named Aamir Khan. The passport was old and had been expired for almost twenty years. Why did Anya have it? She clicked a picture and moved to the Indian passports, which were also expired but not as old. The first one was of a younger Anya, while the second was of the same colt from before. The fourth was Anya's current passport. One question came to Bon Bon's mind. Why did she have two passports that clearly weren't hers?

Then, a potential answer came to her mind.

She compared the pictures side by side, and found that Aamir and Anya looked very similar. Was Anya trans? Bon Bon couldn't confirm that yet, so, she took pictures of all four passports. Once that was done, she looked over the other documents which weren't particularly interesting, but she took pictures of all just in case. When she was done, she put them all back in the wardrobe as they were.

Just like before, she put up a camera in a corner of the room. The next room was unused, evident by the thin layer of dust on the little furniture it had. She searched it and put a camera in the room regardless.

Now that the attic and first floor were done, she went back down to the ground floor. She sweeped through the living room, the kitchen, the laundry room, and the bathroom, and she found nothing suspicious. In fact, she found nothing much. One could have thought that the house never had somepony living in it with how bare-bones it was. She put a camera in each of the rooms, as well as one above the front door that was facing down the hallway. The house stayed silent as she went about putting the cameras.

Now, there was only one place left: the basement. It was definitely where all the nasty stuff was going to be. She opened the door beneath the stairs and let herself in the basement, and like she had expected, nasty stuff was there but it wasn't as nasty as she had expected.

A crucible of poor quality sat in a corner of the room, starting off into space with its many eyes, making Bon Bon imagine that it was suffering even though it wasn't. On it, there was a meat thing that she didn't know the name of. There were also two tables, one of which only had a bowl and a knife on it, while the other held computer parts and books, and there was something hidden underneath it, behind its table cloth.

She noted the distinct lack of any monsters. Not even the giant spider was there, but that was probably because Anya had decided to take it with her, and while Bon Bon disapproved of that, it worked to her advantage.

She started the basement sweep by checking what was under the table. There, she found three boxes and she pulled them out from under the table before opening them. She was surprised to find magically active gemstones in two of them and a dumbbell in the third. Why did she have that many gemstones? Yet another question that she didn't have a proper answer for. She took a picture of the boxes and their contents before closing them and sliding them back under the table.

She moved into the stuff on the table. The computer and its spare parts were interesting, and she tried turning it on. It didn't make any noise as she pressed the power button, making her raise an eyebrow. Was it broken? That would explain all the parts then.

Bon Bon peered behind the computer, finding that it was unplugged. She lifted the table with and looked for an outlet on the wall bring the table but found none. She took a look around the basement and found that there were no outlets in any of the walls. Why did she have it down here then?

The house was much less gory and much more strange than Bon Bon had imagined. It almost looked to be a normal place that belonged to a normal pony.

That changed when she took a look at the books on the table.

She spotted a book on shadowmancy, one on golems, one on block magic, another on carving gemstones, one unmarked book, and a notebook. While she didn't know why Anya had those books, she could imagine that it wasn't for anything good, especially with the book on shadowmancy. She quickly took a picture of the marked books, leaving her with the unmarked book and the notebook.

She flipped through the notebook first and found that it had twenty pages that contained records of experiments, if she assumed based on the headings and dates. She tried reading it but found out first hand just how atrocious Anya's cursive was. She gave up on trying to read it and just took pictures instead. For a minute, the only sound — besides the crucible squelching every now and then — was that of the camera shutter.

Then, there was the sound of a door opening.

Bon Bon froze for a second. She took the picture of the last page in the notebook and quickly closed it and put it back how it was. She heard some muffled words, followed by the basement door opening. She immediately dived under the table, behind the table cloth and the boxes. In her mind, she was shouting, 'Why is she back so soon?!'

Even though she loved Lyra very much, she hated one aspect about her: how much time she wasted for certain things. She had expected Lyra to hold up Anya for a lot longer but no, it seemed today was her unlucky day.

"–and get that bread packet down here once you're done putting away the bags!" she heard Anya say to whoever else was in the house. That was bad. She could have easily handled Anya but a second pony complicated things. She heard the sound of hoof-steps coming down the stairs along with Anya humming some song. The hoof-steps came close to the table and stopped right in front of it.

In her head, Bon Bon was formulating a plan on how she'd get out. Stealth was currently not an option with there being two ponies in the house. She might have been able to handle them but she wasn't sure since she had no information about how strong either of them were, or how fast either could run for help. Alternatively, she definitely could run since all her identifying features were obscured, but she'd have to wait for the right opportunity to do so. She could come back some other day and put up the last camera and she'll make sure very well that nothing like this would happen that time.

There was the sound of skittering and plastic dragging as something came down the stairs, chirping as it did. The sound stopped in front of the table.

"Good, you got the bread," Anya said, recieving a bunch of chirps in response. Bon Bon almost breathed a sigh of relief at that. The wasn't a second pony in the house, just Anya and her bug, who should be a lot easier to deal with. There was the question of how strong Anya was at slinging magic at people, but if Bon Bon was fast, she wouldn't need an answer to that. Now, she just needed her to move away from the table, or, Bon Bon could flip the table over. It'd be a great distrac-

Anya moved away from the table and went to the one next to it and Bon Bon heard the sound of a bread packet being opened. Then, she heard Anya's hoof-steps receding from the table and going towards the corner with the crucible. Now was her chance.

Bon Bon put her hooves underneath her, and with one quick movement she–

She stumbled.

She stumbled and hit her head on the table's leg, making something fall off the table. Anya heard that.

"Huh?" she heard Anya say as the hoof-steps came back to the table. Bon Bon stopped cursing herself as she could see Anya's silhouette bend down against the white table cloth. Slowly the table cloth was lifted by a dark hoof.

Bon Bon stood up, flipping the table onto Anya with her earth pony strength. Anya gave a short yelp as she barely dodged the computer coming down at her. Spider hissed, jumping back from where the computer hit the floor and broke into a hundred pieces with an expensive sound. All the computer parts on the table came down to the floor in a cacophony of metal hitting the stone floor and glass breaking. The table was now upside down, and Bon Bon and Anya saw each other.

Bon Bon made the first move, pushing the flipped table towards Anya. She tried dodging but the table hit her hooves, making her fall down roughly. Seeing that, Bon Bon immediately turned and ran for the exit. Unfortunately, Spider was there, blocking her way out with a fierce display of hissing.

Bon Bon reared up and brought her front hooves down on Spider, crushing him to death instantly and covering her hooves in spider blood. Thankfully, she had gloves on and wouldn't have to go and find somewhere to wash it off.

Behind her, Anya stood back up and froze as she saw Spider's crushed body. Bon Bon took the opportunity to run up the stairs to the door—

She was yanked back by her tail, making her fall on the stairs. She bit the inside of her cheek as her head hit a step and tasted blood. She turned her head and saw that Anya had picked up the knife from the other table with her levitation and was coming to Bon Bon. The look in her eyes told her everything. She wanted to hurt her.

Bon Bon wasn't really scared. In fact, she kinda liked that Anya was coming at her with a knife. Killing in self-defence was alright in the eyes of the agency and it'd be a quick end to the biomancer problem... but then, there could be a solid argument made that it wasn't really self-defence, and the agency explicitly stated that they should avoid killing ponies when there wasn't any solid evidence of magic being used for evil. It would be more trouble than it's worth, according to them.

Bon Bon figured that running was a better option right now. However, Anya would just yank her back if she tried that. She'd have to knock her out.

"Stay where you are and show yourself, harami!" Anya shouted at her as Bon Bon got up. She turned around and saw that Anya was at the bottom of the stairs, glaring at her. Bon Bon had the high ground.

She took the advantage and jumped down at her. Anya was taken by surprise and instead of getting out of the way, she put up her hooves to defend herself. Bon Bon landed on top of her, sending Anya sprawling to the floor. Her knife clattered somewhere by the stairs. There, she held her down on the floor and punched her horn. Anya gave a cry of pain as the punch landed but she didn't get knocked out like Bon Bon had thought she would.

She punched her horn again, and again, and again, and finally, Anya stopped struggling and went still, letting Bon Bon get off her. She might have been tough for a unicorn but Bon Bon was, quite literally, biologically superior in that regard. Anya would be knocked out for some time and Bon Bon could use that time to finish her work. She took a few pictures of the crucible and the meat thing and put up the last camera in the basement, all while the silence in the house became progressively more and more uncomfortable.

She stepped over Anya, making sure that she was still knocked out as she did, and after that, she continued up the stairs.

Behind her, Anya stood up like a puppet on strings without making any sound, her mind still gone but her body under the control of her boss, who happened to know a lot more about fighting than she did, and who also happened to greatly dislike anyone interfering with his work or attacking his workers. He tried her magic and found that it worked despite the hits to the horn, though it'd cause Anya pain when she woke up. That was acceptable to Voth, and he commanded the body to pick up the dropped knife.

Meanwhile, Bon Bon had reached the front door which was locked. She tried turning the deadbolt but it didn't move. She pushed the door a bit and tried it, thinking it was simply stuck. Again, it didn't move. Bon Bon frowned. She wanted to get out of the house now that her work was done but no, there just had to be some stupid problem.

She didn't know that the house didn't want her to escape.

She was going to try the lock one last time but paused. Did her shadow just grow? Her ears swiveled and she heard breathing behind her. She whirled her head around and saw Anya standing there with a knife in her hoof. The knife came down fast but Bon Bon sidestepped the stab, feeling the knife pass mere millimeters by her.

Anya was going in for a second stab but Bon Bon bucked her in the face before she could. The kick hit Anya's eyes, breaking her glasses and then pushing the subsequent broken glass into her face as she barely moved back. Some pieces embedded themselves around her eyes, causing bleeding, but Anya didn't make a sound. Her eyes remained focused and her face remained expressionless.

Bon Bon was a bit taken back by the sight. She was sure that she had knocked Anya out in the basement, but here she was, barely registering a kick to the head or glass in her face. Whatever, she had to focus on fighting off Anya, who seemed to be fighting to kill, or more likely, to maim. She could find out later why Anya was so strong (she wouldn't, Voth would make sure IF it came to that).

Anya rushed forward, ramming into Bon Bon's side and pushing her up against the door with unnatural strength, knocking the wind out of Bon Bon. She raised the knife and went for Bon Bon's throat. Bon Bon managed to barely dodge it before roughly pushing Anya back. She launched a flurry of punches on Anya before she could recover from the push, and she aimed to get the knife out of Anya's hooves, or out of the fight entirely.

She punched Anya on the horn, this time a lot harder than before. Anya didn't even flinch at that. Instead, she backed up a bit, putting distance between her and Bon Bon, before she reared up and started charging up a spell. Bon Bon charged at her before she could sling the spell, impacting her roughly in her chest and making her shoot the spell up at the ceiling, where it left a burn mark.

Bon Bon used her momentum and pinned Anya to the wall in front of the basement door. She held up Anya with a hoof to her neck and her other hoof to Anya's right hoof which held the knife. Anya tried using her free hoof to remove Bon Bon's ski mask, and in retaliation, Bon Bon was forced to headbutt Anya, who still looked like she could keep fighting despite the hoof at her throat cutting her airflow and the blood all over her face.

Bon Bon finally tore the knife from Anya's hoof and was going to throw it away, but then, Anya charged up a spell and shot it at Bon Bon. The spell hit her shoulder and burned through her cloak like acid, and then it burned on her shoulder like acid, making Bon Bon grit her teeth. Anya charged a second spell and seeing that, Bon Bon did something she did not completely think through.

She stabbed Anya in the stomach.

Anya somehow didn't register it and shot the spell anyway, but she missed Bon Bon and hit the floor next to her. Bon Bon stabbed her once more, again in the stomach.

Anya then surged forward all of a sudden, breaking Bon Bon's grip on her throat. She threw herself onto Bon Bon, sending them sprawling to the floor with Anya on top, and she bit down on her neck. Anya was trying to choke her like a wolf would. Bon Bon stabbed her again, this time in the chest, as she felt something wet on her throat — which she knew was blood but hoped to be spit. Anya didn't have a reaction to the stab and charged up a spell, making Bon Bon grab her horn to stop her. It worked, but Anya was still biting down her neck like a rabid animal and Bon Bon was starting to feel the effects of asphyxiation.

Anya tried taking back the knife from her, making Bon Bon stab her in her right shoulder. She stabbed and cut her again and again on her chest and forelegs as Anya kept trying to get the knife. Anya tried using her other hoof to remove Bon Bon's hoof from her horn but Bon Bon's grip was strong. Bon Bon's lungs started burning, and to add to that, Anya started punching her face once she realised that she couldn't beat Bon Bon's grip on her horn.

Bon Bon finally jammed the knife into Anya's left side, making sure that it went in deep. She left the knife and Anya's horn and used her free hooves to force open Anya's jaw and free her neck. Now that her neck was free, she pushed Anya off and got up to her hooves while taking deep breaths. Anya got up to her hooves as well and reared up and charged her horn, ignoring all the stab wounds she was bleeding from or the knife embedded in her left side.

Bon Bon saw that and for a moment, she was questioning what she could do. She couldn't fight forever, especially with her injured shoulder and neck, while Anya was still fighting hard even with all her wounds, and it looked like they'd fight till one of them dies.

Then, Bon Bon saw that Anya was right in front of the open basement door.

She immediately turned and bucked. Anya, who was still reared up, was pushed back, sending her off balance and stumbling backwards towards the basement stairs. There wasn't enough floor for her to stumble on and she fell down the stairs.

She fell on her left side first. The knife that was still jammed in there was pushed in deeper as she hit her first step. Then, she broke her right foreleg on the second step she hit. She hit her horn on the third step. Finally, she ended up sprawled at the base of the stairs, and she stayed there, unmoving.

Voth, who had been controlling Anya's body, finally realised that he could not win against Bon Bon, not without killing Anya in the process. He decided to cut his losses and accept defeat.

Bon Bon, who had only come into the house to put up cameras and collect information would leave as a pony who defeated an eldritch god in a one on one fight.

She didn't know that, of course, but she probably wouldn't care if someone told her now. Right now, something else was on her mind: checking if Anya was dead or not.

She walked down the stairs to Anya's body, avoiding stepping in the little puddle of blood forming around her. She was still breathing, which was good. She was bleeding though and if left without any medical assistance, she'd end up dying. Unfortunately for her, Bon Bon didn't have any first-aid on her and even if she did, she probably would not help Anya.

"What a mess," Bon Bon said as she looked around the basement with a grimace, her eyes going over the flipped table, the stuff littered all over the floor, the crushed giant spider-thing, and finally, Anya's bloodied body. She turned to look at her own injuries and found them to be just as ugly. Her shoulder where she was hit by Anya's spell was burnt badly with magic, bruises were forming around where Anya had punched her, and she could feel blood on her neck. Making excuses for all that to Lyra would be extremely difficult, almost as much as beating Anya.

She looked back down at Anya when she heard a cough. She was already waking up? Just what was she made of? Bon Bon dealt with that quickly by giving her a swift kick in the horn. Now, how would she get medical help here? She thought about it for a minute and finally decided that an anonymous letter to the police would be a good way to deal with that.

She stepped over Anya and made her way back up the stairs, ignoring her pain and thinking about how much Lyra would dote on her when she returned home and after Lyra stopped shouting at her for getting herself hurt.

She thought it was all over.

The house, which had silently watched the fight with slight interest and then horror when it turned bloody, was angry. It did not like Anya much but tolerated her. Now, watching her get beaten to an inch of her life had made it have a change of heart. If it hadn't let her in, Anya would be alright. It hated Bon Bon.

She wouldn't get out just like that.

Bon Bon reached the top of the stairs and froze as a chill ran up her spine. The feeling of being watched came back full force along with another, more primal feeling: the feeling of being hunted. She looked around on instinct, finding only the dull brown walls of the house around her. She shook her head and convinced herself that it was some spell that Anya used on her to scare her or something. She made herself step forward, still thinking it was over.

Then, she turned her head right and saw the laundry room.

The door was gone, the entire wall was gone, and in its place was a mouth, filled with three sets of teeth, dripping with saliva, and smelling like death.

She stared at it for a second, her brain trying to process what she saw. It couldn't have been a mouth. There was no way a giant mouth could have just appeared in the laundry room. Like, where would the washer and dryer go? Where would the teeth come from? Where would the mouth even lead to?

Then, the floorboards erupted from the floor in front of her. She caught a glimpse of a large thing underneath the floor from where they had erupted, and she saw tentacle-like appendages holding up the floorboards, which had now formed into a short wall between her and the main door. Confusion turned to fear very quickly. The house was alive and it was furious.

Behind her, there wasn't any sort of exit, only the bathroom door. It was a good place to hide though. She turned and ran for it, not noticing the basement door had closed itself. She threw open the bathroom door and–

There was a mouth there as well.

She turned back and ran to the basement door, but it didn't open. The floorboards started approaching her, making her run forward and jump over them with ease. She almost ran into the main door but she didn't care about that. She frantically tried to unlock it.

It didn't open.

Behind her, she head more floorboards erupt from the floor.

She had to get out.

The living room didn't look like a mouth, yet, but it had teeth coming out of the ceiling and the floor. Bon Bon ignored them as she ran to the glass door. She threw open the curtains and–

A wall of pulsating flesh stood in front of her, blocking her only exit out.

Her only exit on the ground floor. The bedroom windows weren't barred like all the others, and she could jump down from there without taking any damage.

She ran out of the living room and to the stairs. She ran up the stairs, ignoring how the walls were made out of meat, and to the first bedroom.

She threw the door open and found that the bedroom was replaced with a mouth. She ran to the second bedroom and found it to be like the last.

Every room was a mouth.

She turned to the barred window behind her and threw it open before she started kicking at the bars, hoping to break them off so that she could survive. She didn't want to die.

She felt a thing coil around her back leg, making her turn and see that it was a tongue coming out of the second bedroom. She kicked at it to remove it but it just coiled around her leg tighter. Suddenly, it pulled. Bon Bon was quick to grab the bars and hang on for her life.

Then, like a sick joke, the bars broke.

She kicked and screamed and thrashed as she was dragged into the bedroom-mouth.

The house swallowed her whole.

The forest, which was always alive with all its animals and rivers and trees, stayed eerily silent as the house, which was alive like an animal, swallowed its prey. Once it was done, the floorboards went back to the way they were, the walls turned back to brick, and the rooms became rooms again.

It was as if nothing had ever happened, but the forest knew the truth.

In the basement, Anya woke up, and the first thing she did was try moving.

It was a bad move.

Immediately, she felt the pain of every single wound on her body she had sustained when Voth was fighting using her body. The knife in her side was competing to be the most painful, but was blown out of the water and into space when Anya accidentally moved her broken right foreleg.

She only managed a few pathetic whimpers as her body pained everywhere. In her mind, it was much the same.

'Voth, help. It hurts,' she whispered in her mind.

"I AM TAKING CONTROL AGAIN THIS WILL HURT."

Voth took control of her body again, and immediately casted a healing spell. It was far out of Anya's range and with how much abuse her horn had taken, it hurt a lot. It did help a little though, as it closed up some of the stab wounds on her chest, somewhat.

Her legs, except the broken one, moved on their own and forced Anya to stand. Tears leaked out of Anya's eyes as she felt all the pain her body was feeling. If she were in control, she would have just stayed at the bottom of the stairs in the puddle of her blood.

Then, her legs gave out from exhaustion. Voth couldn't force her body to keep moving; the fight had drained it too much.

Anya cried out as she hit the floor. The knife in her side hurt the most, until she instinctively moved her right foreleg to the wound. She coughed roughly, each cough sending pain through her entire being and a reminder that she needed her inhaler, and each with cough, some blood came out of her mouth, adding to the blood already on the floor or her fur.

It wouldn't be long till she died of blood loss.

Voth knew that, and so, he continued forcing her body to move. He tried to get her magic to levitate the bowl with the OBs to her, but the healing spell he had made her cast had drained her entirely. Then, he forced her to start dragging herself with her left foreleg, her destination being the table with the bowl on it.

It was a short but agonising trip. Voth made her sit up against the wall next to the table, and let the body rest for a few moments and steady her breathing. He tried the magic again and it failed again, making him force the body to reach over the table and get the bowl. Once she grabbed a hold of the bowl, she pulled it back to her roughly, making it spill some of its paste-water onto her.

In the bowl, there were only two OBs, which wasn't great. The stab wounds on her stomach were where she was losing the majority of her blood from, but the OBs wouldn't be enough to cover them entirely. Still, it was better than nothing, and so, she took them and applied them to the wounds, making her cry some more from the burning sensation.

Voth knew that there were still a number of other problems, such as the cuts and glass around her eyes, the half-healed stab wounds on her chest and shoulder, the broken leg, and the knife in her side, but he also knew that the body was at its limits and that pushing it more would not be good. He made Anya lie down on her side and let her get some well deserved rest.

As far as he knew, no one but the unknown assailant knew that Anya was here, slowly dying. He really shouldn't have tried fighting her and he made a note to himself to check his temper. He couldn't do anything about the current situation... unless...

He forced Anya to go to sleep and start dreaming. The night princess would have to be there for his plan to work, but in case she wasn't, he also started making preparations in case Anya did end up dying here.

It'd be somewhat easy to put her mind into some newborn since he had experience in doing that, but it would be a lot more difficult making her act normal while she grew up, especially with how traumatic her death would be — if she did end up dying here, which was becoming more likely by the minute.

Unbeknownst to either of them, the house looked on with regret.

The night princess was not there in the dream realm. She was busy in court.

However, there was her army of golems which patrolled the dreams of all the eight billion people on the planet because the princess couldn't do it all by herself obviously.

One such golem was combing through a row of doors that led to the dream of someone who was asleep at the moment. The door were all kinds of shapes and colours, reflecting the state of the dream. Generally, weird looking wooden doors that were painted bright colours represented good dreams, while other represented bad dreams.

So, when the golem came across a very normal looking dark brown wooden door with blood on its doorframe, it knew that whoever was one the other side needed help. It opened the door and entered the dream, giving itself the face of princess Luna as it entered.

What it saw was concerning.

It was in a dark room that had a single terrified and badly hurt mare lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.

"Help," she said, not opening her eyes. "I've been attacked and I think I'm dying."

"Where?" the golem asked, looking at her with concern.

"1424 Evergreen Street in Ponyville," she answered. Immediately, the golem left the dream and sent a message to the princess, informing her of the situation.

Princess Luna, who had been stuck in a meeting with her sister and some noble who just couldn't stop talking, immediately excused herself when she got the message. She then sent a message to the Ponyville police department, hoping they'd be quick enough.

Someone's life was on the line.

Author's Note

23s jL

I think this is the first time I've written a fight and I'd like feedback about it, and also some general feedback of the chapter

And so, Anya shows us how she can't fight for shit and gets her ass beat, and the house shows us that it's alive like a pony is. This incident will probably make Anya do something drastic about her and her creations' (RIP Spider😭) protection.