Equestria Girls: Cataclysm

This was not how Twilight imagined her reunion with any of her friends to go.

Rarity was not responsive, laying where she fell when her assailant had dropped her. Her wrist was neatly cut open, her elbow joint sliced in an identical manner, both a carefully measured distance from the broken bones. Her belly was sliced clean open down the center, a long incision stretching all the way from the base of her naval to the bottom of her ribs, like someone had tried to give her an extremely aggressive C-section.

Rarity's right side had all but been completely shed of clothing, huge strips of it peeled away like a wrapper stuck on a piece of candy that had been in the sun too long, all stained with red. The skin there bore countless hair-thin incisions that glistened crimson, occasional streaks marring the alien designs that had been stenciled into her flesh. Some of them looked like runes or glyphs in an unknown tongue, while some resembled dotted lines and marks for further incisions, like the sort that would be on a step-by-step instruction rubric on how to dissect a frog in biology class. There were a few random slashes and stabs here and there, from what must have been a struggle, but everything else looked uncomfortably deliberate, if chaotic. It was like an entire team of surgeons had descended on Rarity all at once, not one of them agreeing on what procedure should be done or how to perform it, and not at all interested in anyone who didn't agree with their plan.

A slice lined all around the length of Rarity's neck where she had been grabbed and, consequently, choked out. It was bruising heavily, even this soon after the trauma had occurred, and at the rate it was going, it looked like her entire neck was about to atrophy and fall off. Now that the pressure of the sharp claws provided was absent, her neck poured blood from the artery that had been opened there; her whole front was painted red from the blood that flowed from it, the stream visibly pulsating with every heartbeat.

There was so much blood. So much blood. Twilight had never seen so much blood pooling like it did beneath Rarity. Twilight had never seen so much blood period.

Twilight's breaths were so short and rapid, innumerable in count but it still felt like she could barely get any air. Her chest pounded so hard it almost hurt. Everything was spinning, but there hadn't been time to panic. There wasn't time to think, either. There wasn't time. Bleeding had to stop. Not just some of it, all of it.

Twilight closed her eyes tightly, and her forehead tightened as energy rushed to her horn. She pictured the entire space that Rarity took up- no, not good enough. She opened her eyes, focusing intently on every inch of Rarity where she lay, every place on her body that was there was to perceive. Her horn surged with pressure; as it lit up with pink energy, so did all of the human form of Rarity.

It wasn't just a normal, loose telekinetic grasp, though. The glow's normally rippling, aura-like field was not apparent, looking more like she was emitting pink light than that she was being telekinetically grasped. Every hair on Rarity's body bent down flat, and every wound squeezed as every inch of her skin compressed firmly. The diaphragm was spared, still allowing a rise and fall of the chest to occur, however shallow it was. The amount of blood that leaked from her body surged for the briefest of moments, and then slowed to a trickle, if it didn't stop completely. The more seconds passed, the more the latter became true than the former.

With steel in her voice, Twilight informed her unconscious friend: "I'm not saying goodbye like this, Rarity. I won't."

Twilight had no idea how long it would take till all these wounds sealed up, but it didn't matter. A dull headache was already creeping up on her from the sustained precision that this was taking, and Twilight grit her teeth, determined to weather it. If magic sputtered out, she'd re-grasp everything all over again, and she'd keep doing it however many times she needed to. Tears still stung her eyes as she unconsciously flared her wings to match the furious defiance that filled her, eyes all but glowing with resolve. No cause was more worthy than this right now. She'd stay like this for days if she had to.

Time passed. Twilight's resolve was unshakeable, her focus laser-intense, but that did not mean she was not aware of her surroundings.

She wasn't sure how long it had been there, but she felt the presence nearby, somewhere just out of her sight. It kept slinking forward, inch by inch, and when Twilight spotted the grasses stirring and shifting, she locked her gaze upon it and waited. After a little while longer, it inched forward more, and Twilight saw it...no, not it. She.

She was small for a human, only a little bit taller than Twilight was if she stood at her fullest...a human filly, probably. Twilight didn't recognize her immediately, as dirty as her face was, but she saw the pale green eyes, and the pink and purple hair that split in shade straight down the middle, and the curiously familiar curls. Upon considering who she was standing over, the recognition clicked.

Twilight took a few steadying breaths. She had to concentrate still, and it was taxing to multitask, but she could spare a little attention for this. Softly, she called out: "Sweetie Belle?"

The human girl did not react. Her eyes were enormous, glassy-looking but alert. Her gaze had a superficial resemblance to a small animal about to bolt for cover, but whatever was behind those eyes, fear wasn't it...well. Not entirely it.

Twilight did her best to smile. "I don't know if you know me here. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I visited your world several months ago, back at your sister's high school."

As before, Sweetie Belle did not react, merely stare. Given everything that she must have seen recently, it was hard to blame her.

Twilight couldn't keep her voice entirely steady as she said, "I'm so sorry about all of this." Her eyes grew damp, though she tried blink it away - not here, not now. Not like this. "But I'm going to do everything I can to help your sister. She means the world to me, and I'm not going to let anything bad happen to her ever again."

Her gaze returned to the form of Rarity in front of her, and Twilight adjusted her stance again, head lowered and gaze intense. "I need to focus now, okay? Stay close, and I'll protect you too. Nopony's going to get hurt anymore."

Sweetie Belle continued to stare on in silence. Tentative, tiny steps were taken forward, practically tip-toed, as the girl pulled herself inch by inch up out of the ditch she had appeared from. Reaching the asphalt border, she crouched down onto her knees to sit.

Minutes passed by, and not once did Sweetie Belle's gaze drift far from Twilight Sparkle. Her lavender wings, like those of a bird's, remained stretched outright, tall and powerful, feathers almost glittering in the morning sun. Her mane moved in a breeze that seemed only to exist for it, flowing like water in beautiful shades of purple and stripes of pink. Her horn glowed a bright but soft magenta, the same that Rarity emitted across her whole body, which bled not one drop more from any wound, regardless of its depth. When she looked closely, Sweetie could see her sister was not touching the road beneath her anymore, hovering a centimeter or two above it.

Something Sweetie Belle had never felt before washed over her in the long silence that followed. She could not grasp it or put a name to it. All Sweetie Belle knew is that it was grander than anything she had ever experienced in her short, young life, and she did not want it to stop. The moment stole her away, and Sweetie let herself be lost to it.

For as long as their winged savior stood there, Sweetie Belle would remain in reverent silence, watching with wide, glittering eyes as this lavender being that had descended from the heavens performed her miracle and saved her sister's life.

Applejack liked to consider herself pretty eco-conscious and pro-environmental, but this electric SUV was really starting to piss her off.

Driving it anywhere at all took a not insignificant chunk of the battery, and while maybe that wouldn’t have been as big of a deal back when there were charging stations that could fill it back up from empty to full over the course of a few minutes, all they had was four small solar cells on its roof to do the work, and one of them was broken. It was bad enough that she had been forced to stop Apple Bloom from using the charging cable to recharge her Gameboy, because that was making the charge meter go down faster than the needle was going up.

“Hunk of junk,” the farmer muttered under her breath, giving the trunk a slightly harder slam than was absolutely necessary. It was at that point that Applejack realized how she was being, and she heaved a haggard sigh. “No…no, that ain’t wholly right. I’m sorry.”

Apple Bloom's head peeked around the other side of it a moment later, smirking. “Did you just apologize to a car?”

“I thought I told you not to sneak up on folk,” came the level response. Applejack gave her bulging bag a jostle to put it more firmly on her shoulder, then started walking. “That’s a good way to end up swallowin’ yer teeth, these days.”

“I didn’t sneak up on nobody.” Apple Bloom fell in step behind her sister. “You knew I was there.”

“Then why didn’t I notice ya comin’ up behind me?”

“Cuz you wasn’t payin’ attention! That’s yer fault, not mine.”

Applejack opened her mouth, decided quickly she was tired of this debate, and closed it again, watching the brush in front of her as she marched through it with an expression that clearly broadcasted no strong desire to speak. Whether deliberately or no, Apple Bloom obliged by it.

They’d been refused asylum in the refugee center, but there was nothing stopping the trio from setting up shop a short distance away. The grounds outside of the structure proved incredibly difficult to do much with, what with it turning out to be as marshy as it was, but the ridge that overlooked the refugee center would work fine. There was a flat spot beyond some trees that proved a good spot to pitch a few tents they’d picked up along the way, and had done just that, view from the road obscured by a little bit of tree cover.

Despite the campsite, they usually ended up retreating back to the SUV at night to sleep anyway, because the car seats were significantly more comfortable than the ground. Applejack still found it ironic; you’d think they were a couple of city slickers, diving so quick for the comforts like that, but these days, any comforts were at a premium, and aches and pains were at an all-time high.

Still didn’t keep her from sleeping in the tent on principle sometimes. Just cuz there weren't any cities left to slick didn't mean she couldn't still prove she wasn't one.

Three dark green tents came into view. Fluttershy sat on a small log that had been dragged this way to serve as a bench, and she looked up as the other girls returned, smiling a greeting past a trickle of smoke leaking from the lit fire ring at her feet. A booklet was in her hands, and a tangle of string and threads sat beside her, where she’d been practicing sewing, or knitting. Given the state of it, more practice was needed.

“Aight, Flutters,” Applejack announced. “We gotta talk.”

Fluttershy’s warm smile faded. She noted with concern the way Apple Bloom stayed beside her sister with purpose, then eyed the holster at Applejack’s hip that wasn't there before. “Are we going scavenging?”

“Kinda.” Applejack rested one hand on the handgun at her side - a fair bit more had been traded for this than she cared to discuss, and was glad it hadn’t been questioned yet. “The van ain’t got enough juice in it to get us to Eustis an’ back, but we ain’t got enough food right now to go sittin’ on our laurels.”

The pause was deliberate, in expectation of a question, or input. Neither were provided; Fluttershy just looked at her.

Applejack swallowed, then continued. “We’re goin’ huntin’.”

Again came a pause, and Applejack fully expected…something. She expected protest, certainly, possibly tears, maybe even something explosive. Anything but the nothing she got: just a gaze, bereft of expression.

Once more, Applejack continued, equal parts to say what she had spent the better part of an hour rehearsing, but also to fill up the silence that suddenly seemed very loud to her ears. “I know it ain’t preferable, sugarcube, but it’s necessary. Until summer comes around, foragin’ to fill three bellies just ain’t gonna cut it on its own, and the van don’t got the stayin’ power on the road to keep ferryin’ us back and forth all the time. Maybe we can do somethin’ that works fer everyone later, but we gotta take care of our needs now, and that just leaves huntin’. Ain’t got no choice.”

Fluttershy’s gaze felt so damning to Applejack, even though nothing in the expression read as such. She stared at her a while longer, almost more than Applejack could handle, but then her gaze fell to her lap. Fluttershy’s hands gently lifted the booklet from her thighs, placing it softly on the ground. She then reached, calmly, over to retrieve a handful of sticks and branches, which was then fed into the meager fire that did little more than warm the ankles currently.

Fluttershy’s voice was low in tone and devoid of emotion when she finally spoke up, but she said what she did clearly: “I understand.”

Something about that hurt so much more than the reactions Applejack had been expecting, and she found herself off-balance. Reeling, even. “Are you…uh…”

“Upset?” Fluttershy finished for her, finding her eyes. “Yes. I wish it wasn’t this way, but I know that we don’t have many options, and I know your family doesn’t have the same feelings about meat that I do—“ Applejack started saying something, but Fluttershy pointedly continued talking, giving her no room to cut in, “—and I would never ask someone else to go hungry for the sake of my own comfort. It kills me a little bit to know that living things are going to be harmed so we can get by, but I’ve known this was coming for a while now. It hurts me, and I’m upset, but I’m not going to talk you out of it, Applejack. I understand.”

Applejack’s mouth moved, but the words weren’t coming. Part of her wished - and she had wished it, she realized - that Fluttershy had tried to fight this, so she could…what, exactly? Dig in her heels and feel better about getting to argue about it? Like she should be happy to come to blows with her friend over something? To feel self-righteous?

Applejack swallowed, and she felt the faintest tickle of nausea tease at the back of her throat. “I’m sorry, Flutters.”

Fluttershy shook her head at this, her long pink hair slipping forward and covering her eyes as her head lowered towards the dirt. “You said it yourself,” came the resigned response. “It’s necessary.”

Applejack didn’t want to leave on a note like this, but she couldn’t come up with anything else to say. She put a hand on Apple Bloom’s shoulder, looking down at her and nudging a chin back the way they’d come. “C’mon. Let’s get this over with.”

Apple Bloom frowned a question, but nodded and went along as instructed without saying anything. Applejack sighed preemptively.

The younger Apple waited until they made it back to the road before she turned to her sister and asked the question she’d held in. “What’s she got against eatin’ meat, anyway?”

“She likes animals,” came the flat response. Applejack ignored the girl’s expression and stepped past Apple Bloom to begin walking down the road. When the trees here ended, she broke off from the road entirely and trudged into the open field past the ditch, pulling her sister along as they moved towards a more distant yet slowly approaching tree line.

Apple Bloom did not quit staring at her, however. Not at all. She peered up expectantly the whole way, walking sideways and leaning into her sister's field of view, just so that she couldn't be as easily ignored.

Eventually Applejack rolled her eyes and huffed. "What, ya think I'm pullin' yer leg here? I realize you got some big problems with listenin’ sometimes—“ The annoyed growl went ignored, “—but I figured even you would be able to pick up on how much Fluttershy likes animals.”

“I ain’t a moron!” Apple Bloom snapped, turning to walk straight again. “I know she likes animals, but that’s the thing. I like animals. I reckon most folk like animals, but you don’t see everybody else doin’ that. What’s that about?”

“She really likes animals,” Applejack deadpanned.

Apple Bloom gave her sister another dirty look. Again, Applejack ignored it. “You don’t get it either, do ya?”

“What I don’t get is why it matters,” was Applejack's clipped retort.

“Cuz it’s weird!”

“Is it?

"Yes!"

"And?"

“And- and- th- it’s- it’s weird! It’s weird and I don’t get it! Whattya mean and?!”

Applejack sucked in a long breath, then heaved it loudly back out again past her lips. “Fine. How’s about this, then: say ya had a cat.”

“I had a caOW! Hey!” Apple Bloom shot her sister a foul look, adjusting her oversized bow where the smack aside the head had knocked it askew. She scowled, but fell silent.

“Say ya had a cat, an’ that cat meant the world to you. It was yer best friend growin’ up, and even after it passed an’ you got older, ya got more cats, cuz cats always had a special place in yer heart and you wanted ‘em around you, because that felt right. Ya love cats so much, just seein’ one made ya happier. They’d always been there, and you couldn’t imagine life without ‘em.” Applejack spared her sister a glance. ”Ya with me so far?”

Apple Bloom’s look was one of lingering irritation and scrutiny, but she nodded.

“Now let’s say that you moved somewhere that didn’t think quite as much ‘bout cats as you do," Applejack continued. "In this new country or state or...whatever," she rolled her hand dismissively, "they raise up cats and cut em up an’ eat em, an' folk don't think much of it. Every time you go to the store for anythin', there's always cat meat on display. After you spent yer whole life growin’ up with cats, lovin’ cats, and findin’ all yer fondest memories with cats there somewhere, doncha think you would have a little trouble eatin’ cat meat? If you grew up like that and then look at cat meat, and then ya think about how all kinds o' cats were out there somewhere, gettin’ cut up like it's nothin', that'd bother you, wouldn't it?"

Apple Bloom’s brow was furrowed, inspecting her feet while she listened. It was reluctant, but her resistance to the conclusion eroded away, and after some time she finally admitted, “I guess that would bother me.” A pause. "It'd bother me a lot."

“An’ that’s why Fluttershy don’t eat meat.”

“Cuz she loves animals.”

Applejack nodded. "With all 'er heart." She looked down to her hip, and with a tug she retrieved the handgun that was stored there. It was a revolver - the exact specifications were lost on Applejack in the moment, she heard 40-something, but the rest of it was a bit blurry. It didn’t matter much, she reasoned; the weapon wasn’t her idea of a hunting one either way, but it was loaded, it could fire, and there were two full reloads ready in her pocket from the deal she'd struck. The rest was up to them to make it work.

Meanwhile, the weight of understanding was slow to come, for Apple Bloom, but it came faster the more time passed. As memory of the conversation she’d witnessed with Fluttershy and Applejack replayed itself, the weight came down swiftly, and Apple Bloom found herself growing increasingly distressed now that she knew the context, and just how much this meant to their friend back at the campsite. What's worse, they announced they were going to shoot and eat something Fluttershy loved, and for some reason, Fluttershy did not stop them.

“Applejack,” Apple Bloom piped urgently, looking up at her sister with big, slightly glistening bronze eyes. “I get that we need food an' all, but why're we doin' this? Our friend's gonna get hurt like this, we can't just- we can't! It ain't right!"

Applejack let a breath raise her heavy shoulders, then fall again in a quiet sigh, aging years in the process. She opened up the tiny latch that kept the cylinder of the revolver she held in alignment with the barrel; said cylinder flipped to one side. She gave it a small turn, inspecting the back side of all five bullets in their respective spots, ready to do their grim work with a simple command. “Do you know what we call somethin’ that don’t feel right to do, but not doin’ it would be even worse?”

Apple Bloom shook her head.

“We call it ‘necessary.’” The cylinder was pushed back into place, where it locked with a soft click. "That's what Fluttershy did in lettin' us go. It's what we gotta do now, knowin' what it'll do to 'er. If we don't, we got no food and no way to get it in a hurry. Fluttershy don't want no animals gettin' hurt, and I don't wanna hurt one of the kindest girls I ever met, but we wanna starve even less than that. It's an ugly thing, an' I wish I didn't have to no more than you er Fluttershy do, but it's necessary."

The revolver found its way back to its holster, where it would remain until the need arose. Apple Bloom looked away from her sister, instead finding the ground her feet tread on. Nothing that was said was the comfort or assurance she was hoping for, but she also felt like it wasn’t supposed to be. The weight of understanding grew heavier still.

“Someday, sugarcube, good ‘n bad ‘n right ‘n wrong ain’t gonna mean everything they should, and yer gonna have to make a choice ya wish ya never had to make. It's gonna be hard, and yer gonna hate that you had to do what ya did, and you'll know you'd do it a thousand times more if you had to, because at the end of the day, it was necessary."

Apple Bloom was quiet when she finally found her voice. "I don't think I like doin' what's necessary."

Applejack placed one calloused hand on Apple Bloom's shoulder, and she gave it a firm, yet gentle squeeze. "Nobody does."

Neither girl spoke after that.

The day was only halfway over, and Twilight was tired already. Sadly, she was nowhere near done with it, it felt like.

Twilight’s telekinesis strategy, while effective at staunching so much bleeding immediately, had been anything but consistent. Her magic sputtered out no less than four times before she was confident that it wouldn't resume again if she didn't actively attend Rarity. The biggest offender was definitely the vein of her neck, which on its own would have been more than enough bleeding to kill her, but it was also the last to stop bleeding by a wide margin, which meant that at some point she could just walk up to her and put a hoof to a rag on her throat and staunch it that way, which by that point ended up being effective enough that she could spare her magic.

It was a killer headache she had at that point, but it didn't stop there. There was also not one, but two bones to set, and the sound and feeling of bones clicking and crackling as they were pushed into place was enough to make Twilight's stomach turn. Sweetie Belle even turned out to be a good assistant, demonstrating by retrieving a nice straight stick at her request to serve as the brace for a splint, made out of Twilight’s sheet she'd been using to store her books and radio, and a length of string out of Rarity’s things.

That was unpleasant, but fast. The hardest part came after: getting Rarity to somewhere safe, so that she could recover.

Location mattered here, so while they could technically keep going in the direction that they now knew a refugee center was in, that was still going to take a while, and Twilight still didn't know how she was going to handle this whole 'talk to humans as a pony' thing. She was also tired from all this strenuous concentration, emotionally drained, and kind of just wanted to lay down, and no doubt Rarity would feel much the same, if not worse, whenever she woke up. Shelter now seemed better than shelter later, and having gotten an aerial view coming in, Twilight had seen a farm field out to the north in a massive, currently untamed plot of farmland, and one of those houses would do quite nicely.

Getting her there, however, proved to be the troublesome part.

Rarity, as a human, was a fair bit bigger than Twilight, standing over twice as tall and weighing about twice as much, if not more. Lifting her via telekinesis was trivial, but doing so for long periods of time would mean periodically dropping someone who had a broken arm, had her throat cut, and had multiple injuries that had only just stopped bleeding, which sudden drops to the ground might undo. That left physical carrying, and that wasn't going to be fun.

One of the blankets that the two humans had on them proved helpful, at least. A blanket was placed on the ground, and Rarity atop it, while the blanket itself was tied to Twilight's shoulders and made into a sort of makeshift harness with all the string that they had left, which didn't leave her with as much room as she would have liked; Twilight had to be careful with her steps as she dragged her, as stretching her rear legs out too much would mean potentially kicking her friend in the top of the head. It would have to do, though.

And so Twilight dragged around this one hundred-plus pound human across at least two miles of open field, having already spent the whole morning flying and having just had a strenuous bout of magical application after a high-tension combat encounter.

Sleep will be a little easier tonight, I think, thought a sore Twilight, legs and back aching as a drop of sweat rolled down her face and neck.

Something round and clear suddenly appeared in front of Twilight, who jerked and halted in her march for a moment. She followed the hand that held it, and saw a Sweetie Belle up close, holding this open bottle of water up to her face. She blinked for a moment, and then realized, oh, duh, smiled sheepishly, and then drank, with Sweetie's aid. The girl held it up a bit more than she wanted, though Twilight managed to avoid choking or spitting up any when she did gently put a hoof to the girl's hand and lowered it for her. "Thank you."

Sweetie smiled a little, and quickly put the cap back on the bottle, holding it tight to her chest like a lifeline.

Twilight cast a gaze over the field, one wing raised up over her head to provide some shade from the light. Halfway still...the farmhouse was in plain view, at least. Still taking a while.

"I like your mane."

Twilight turned to look at Sweetie Belle again, blinked once, and stammered clumsily in an effort to respond. It had been the first thing she'd said to her in several hours, and she was not at all prepared for the random compliment. "Oh- uh- thank you."

Sweetie Belle smiled as well, and held up the water bottle to cover her face up as much as she could.

Now that she had a second to catch her breath, Twilight tried to make use of this opportunity to speak in between huffs. "So, uh, how long have you two been traveling together?"

Sweetie didn't seem as inclined to speak up a second time. Much of her expression was blocked by the bottle and now her hands, and as she shifted, Twilight didn't think she'd say anything at all, till she spoke up in a small voice: "Two months...I think."

"That's a long time."

Nod.

"Have you been on hoof th-" Twilight glanced at the ends of the girl's legs. "...um, on foot, this whole time?"

Sweetie stared for a second. Then nodded.

"Ah, okay. Are there others you traveled with?"

Sweetie shook her head.

"So just you two, then?"

Nod.

"I see..." This conversation was extremely one-sided, and Twilight found herself running out of the sorts of simple questions Sweetie could react to like she had been, or without bringing up unpleasant topics. Twilight resigned to a quiet remainder of the rest.

Sweetie Belle surprised Twilight by speaking up on her own again, about a minute later. "I really like your mane."

"Thank you." Twilight smiled again, sensing a pattern here, but not saying it yet, simply returning Sweetie's stare.

...
...
...

"...c...can...um..."

Twilight's wing slowly unfurled, gesturing encouragingly for Sweetie to continue.

"...can I...touch it?"

Twilight's smile widened. There we go. "Sure you can. Just, uh...it's a little bit dirty. I haven't had a bath in three or four days, so..."

If that bothered Sweetie at all, she did not show it. The girl stepped up to Twilight, excitedly for a brief moment before her meekness caught up with her, and she timidly, slowly, very slowly, reached out and touched Twilight's mane. She pat it, a few times, and sank her small fingers into it when Twilight did not protest at all, pale green eyes glinting with wonder.

It was strange to see Sweetie acting like this. Her demeanor was so...different now, so much more skittish and fillylike. Twilight had seen her scared, and she'd seen her excited, and acting shy, but never to this degree together, and never towards her. Then again, they were all ponies back home, and here, Twilight was something truly special. There were no alicorns in the human world, only legends of such creatures, and not particularly accurate ones, either. It was a strange experience to see a radically different side of someone she knew in another world, but Twilight found it endearing. Sweetie was never this adorable with her back home... "Kind of oily, huh?" Twilight said.

Sweetie pulled her hand back from the purple mane at this, examining her hand. She rubbed two fingers together, and found it a little more slick than previous.

"Sweaty too?"

Sweetie giggled. “A little.”

Twilight giggled back. Twilight spared a glance at Rarity, who she wished was awake to see this. The sight of her wounded friend as she lay there in her tattered, bloodstained clothing reminded Twilight of the urgency of this task, and she decided this had been a long enough break. “I’m ready to keep going now. Are you?"

Sweetie nodded, and Twilight picked up the pace again, continuing to drag Rarity along the ground on her blanket sled. Sweetie stayed close, but never too close.

The whole trek was quite a workout, and took an hour to complete. Hauling Rarity the latter half of the way seemed to take exceptionally long, and by the time they arrived at the farmhouse, Twilight's fur was soaked with sweat.

It was a nice house, and the family who used to own it clearly put a lot of effort into its condition, which was pristine even months later, like their spirits watched over it. The white of its walls nearly glowed in the sunlight, and it had a black roof free of any leaves or branches, likely helped by the farm field it sat in near the edge of in a large field. It had two stories, and like every other building Twilight had seen so far, its interior was dark.

Twilight stopped a good ten meters away from the front door, ducking her head and stepping carefully back to free herself from the string that had been digging into her shoulders, careful not to step on Rarity’s hair or clip her head with a hoof. She huffed and puffed, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead before it could drip into her eye, and gave the place a careful, long looking over from where she and Sweetie stood.

It was quiet, and extremely still. That in and of itself was not necessarily indicative of anything, as any uninhabited house was bound to be both, but Twilight felt uneasy. Something about this place put her on edge, and it took her a little while to figure out why.

The sound of bugs wasn’t nearly as loud here as it was elsewhere. It was present, but more distant, like the air here stifled it. The pristine rooftop was notably bereft of any indication that birds had nested here in all this time it'd been unattended, either. It was like nature itself had marked this place as somewhere to be avoided.

Twilight frowned.

Her gaze left the house and turned to the area immediately around them now, slowly letting her eyes drift across every little feature of the ground, the spaces between the grass tufts, and its position relative to where the house in front of them was. She spent a minute or so doing this, then her gaze found the small human next to her. “I need your help with something.”

Sweetie Belle snapped to attention, eyes wide and alert.

“I’m going to check this place and make sure it’s safe. I need you to stay here and watch over Rarity. If you see anything coming towards you that might be dangerous, anything at all, I need you to scream as loud as you possibly can, and I’ll be here instantly. Can you do that for me?”

Sweetie nodded so rapidly that it was a wonder she didn’t make herself dizzy.

Twilight gave the girl an appreciative smile, then turned back to the house and stepped towards it. "I'll be right back."

The door was locked; Twilight tried the knob from afar, and the magenta glow of the knob only proceeded to make it wiggle back and forth, so Twilight didn’t get any closer, circling towards one of the many windows to have a peek inside. Her forehead felt tight for a moment before a bead of pink shone through the glass, illuminating what appeared to be a kitchen, which sat empty. She squinted and peered further into the house, but couldn’t see much more than some chairs that sat in what looked to be the dining area, two of which were knocked to the floor.

They attack on sight. If something was in the dark, they’d be moving towards me right now.

Just to be certain, Twilight lowered down from where she was propped on her hind legs to trot over to the other side of the house, leaning up and shining her light in the room here. It seemed like a living room, but Twilight didn’t get a look at much more than a long red sofa before her light sparked once and abruptly went dark.

Twilight took a long, slow breath, and released it softly. Internally she screamed only a tiny bit in frustration at her stupid bucking light not bucking working for five minutes. But only a tiny bit.

A second bead of light replaced the first, and after a brief scan of the room and not seeing any movements, Twilight craned her neck to one side till she could see the other side of the front door, which her light was just barely able to shine on from here. She studied it for several seconds, noting the position of the latch flipped the way it was just above the knob. After about ten seconds spent doing that, Twilight dropped her front hooves to the ground again and trotted back to the front door.

As she stepped up the single step to the door, Twilight closed her eyes and visualized the other side of the door as she had observed it, and her horn gently glowed as she saw herself asserting her influence on the place where the latch would be. There was the faint sound of metal tapping from the other side of the door, and then a click. When she tried the knob again, the door opened right up, and Twilight smiled, then stepped slowly inside.

The air inside the house was stale. A faint, barely detectable scent of decay met Twilight's as she took one step inside, and her nostrils flared as she recoiled slightly to an acrid whiff of ammonia. The thinnest bit of dust was visible across the surface of the wooden floor, which stretched out into all three rooms with identical crisscrossing square patterns under a clear laminate.

Some of the dust was disturbed, specifically directly in front of the door, past the mat on the floor. As Twilight went to set another hoof inside, she paused, placing the hoof back down in the door frame as she leaned in to inspect the disturbances - she recoiled again at the stink of ammonia that filled her nose, and she held her breath; this mat was definitely the culprit for that.

It was a little hard to tell under the pink glow, but she could see faint discoloration on the floor. When she turned her light off and allowed the sunlight to reveal the colors better, she saw faint gray spots, like scuff marks. Putting a hoof to one and giving it a small scrape, she identified it as something like oil, or grease. They were mostly just smudges, but in random places Twilight could make out portions of paw marks, roughly the size of what Twilight would associate with a dog of moderate size. Similar markings could be seen all over this area in front of her, where one would walk in to go deeper into the house, as if it had been pacing in anticipation. Curious that it wasn't here, in that case...

The light flashed back on - Twilight winced at the stab of pain it brought, but was too focused to think about it. Tactical mode was on.

Twilight scanned the pink-tinted rooms she could see, ears upright and swiveling very slowly as she listened. She didn’t move a muscle. Nothing showed, and nothing was heard, save for her own muted, repressed breaths she took. There was more beyond what she could see, which extended to about halfway through the living room and just before what she assumed was the end of the kitchen, and then anything past a meter or so beyond the dining table. Past that, to her it was an impenetrable wall of black. Some ponies had a horn glow that lent itself well to seeing details at decent range, but Twilight was not one such pony. In fact, the only shade worse than hers for that was red.

Could go in. Would be exposing myself. There's an upstairs somewhere, I don't see it. Probably should have inspected the rest of the rooms first…doesn’t matter. I know something is here.

She spared a glance at the table, then one of the chairs that had been overturned. Her thoughts went back to those zombies in Longmeadow, and the way their heads snapped around to the sound of a breaking window…

The chair lit up, glowing the pink of Twilight's horn. It raised itself up into the air, going so far up that it nearly touched the ceiling, and the glow suddenly stopped. Gravity kicked in, and the chair fell to the floor with a loud crash.

The result was instantaneous; Twilight heard claws scraping upstairs, and moments later she heard the thudding of something coming fast down stairs she could not see. As her heart kicked into overdrive, she saw the muzzle of a dog come lunging out of the blackness.

Its trajectory came to an abrupt halt as Twilight's horn flashed to life and catch it mid-charge, lifting it gruffly up into the air so its kicking paws could no longer touch the floor, and as it snapped its teeth and thrashed its legs from where it hung helplessly, Twilight gave her would-be assailant a good looking over.

It was a black Labrador in life, and its fur was a little bit unkept, but otherwise looked fine at a glance. Truthfully, were it not for the grease marks on the floor indicating something due to past experiences, Twilight never would have guessed that this was anything but a particularly vicious dog. The only immediate indicators physically were the jet black eyes that did not shine despite the light being cast directly into them, like they were holes with no bottom instead of eyes. Its fangs were eerily visible, the whites of the teeth almost radiant compared to the abyss of its mouth, which was every bit the pit that its eyes were, but under the right circumstances, that could be overlooked as a lighting thing.

The biggest giveaway that something was wrong, and the thing that made Twilight genuinely uncomfortable as she observed it, was the way it moved and acted. It made absolutely no sound - no snarls, no barks, nothing, not a peep, not even with how active it was being. The only noise it made was the continuous and steady clacking and snapping of teeth as it opened and slammed shut its jaw as fast as it was physically able to, biting the air in front of it in a frenzy. Its legs thrashed and kicked against the ground that was not there, the front-most ones occasionally lashing out towards her with malicious intent. Its tail did not wag or move more than was necessary for its attempts at balance in a charge it didn't realize it wasn't making, and its ears were snapped forward and locked solely on the target of its focus instead of being down flat to indicate aggression. Every twitch, thrash, and impulse in this creature was finely tuned, all geared towards one and one thing only: to inflict harm, not as a means to an end, but as an end unto itself.

It looked like an animal, but nothing about it felt like an animal, or even like it was undead. If anything, it felt possessed.

Twilight felt a chill ripple up her spine as she looked this monster in the face. This is not a dog, her brain told her, loudly, and the desire to be rid of it in any way possible was suddenly chief among her many concerns.

Outside. Get it outside. We're about to take shelter in this house.

The idea of walking this Not Dog anywhere caused a tickle of panic to scurry out of Twilight's chest, and as she gazed into its aberrant face with its Wrong mannerisms and imagined a scenario where this Thing That Isn't A Dog somehow got out of her grasp, that panic blossomed like a nest of spiders that had been disturbed, and in an impulsive fit to get this thing away from her, Twilight chose the most direct method available to her to accomplish this.

The window to the farmhouse's kitchen abruptly burst outwards, and out flew a black shape of a dog as it thrashed and flailed wildly midair. As it crashed and bounced off the ground, Twilight galloped the short way to the kitchen counter and leaped up, feeling a sharp surge in her forehead manifest as a bright pink laser that found the tumbling shape right in the middle. When the flash of its impact cleared, said shape was in several more pieces than she last saw it. Limbs scattered every which way, and the now remarkably concave shape of a torso spiraled even further away from the house, leaving a massive splatter of red where it left about half of its mass in the dirt.

A few seconds after she had caught her breath, the room got suddenly darker as the light at the end of Twilight's horn sputtered out. Twilight felt her face getting a bit hotter, not out of fury, but from embarrassment as she realized how she'd composed herself just now. At least half the people who could have witnessed this was an unconscious woman, and the other was a filly.

...child. Not filly. Child. Stupid human terms...

She was reasonably sure that was all that was in here, but Twilight checked anyway, for certainty's sake. The ground floor was clear, and she found no basement. The stairs up lead to the floor with all the bedrooms, of which there were 4: three single bedrooms, and one master bedroom, plus a bathroom right at the top of the stairs. As she suspected, nothing but the dog she'd just disposed of was here.

Trotting back down the stairs to retrieve the others, Twilight peered through the open door and saw Sweetie Belle clasping both of her hands around one of Rarity's, crouching down beside her and seemingly speaking. At the thought of Rarity being awake, Twilight's trot became a gallop.

Twilight came to a skidding stop next to Sweetie Belle, and her heart did a backflip when she saw that the girl's ice-blue eyes were open. "Rarity?! Rarity- hey! Hey, can you hear me?"

"Conscious" was perhaps a strong word to describe Rarity. Her eyes were open, and they did indeed eventually slowly slide over in the direction of Twilight, but they did not come into focus. Her gaze was foggy, and from how unresponsive she appeared to be, it was almost certain she could not understand, or if she could, barely so.

"This is not your day, huh?" Twilight said, smiling widely as she blinked through tears she barely noticed slipping from her eyes. "Don't worry, Rarity, I'm here. I'm sorry I got here so late, but I'm here now. Everything's going to be okay."

There was no outward indication of comprehension. As Twilight and Sweetie both watched, Rarity's eyes slowly rolled back into her head, and her eyelids sank shut.

To Sweetie's panicked expression, Twilight hastily said, "It's fine, she's fine- she's awake, she's just really, really out of it. She needs rest, so let's get her some."

Rarity's body picked up a magenta glow, and she rose up into the air. Twilight had been avoiding handling Rarity like this, but she was determined to make this fast, so as to minimize any risk of dropping her, and her pace into the house showed it. Sweetie Belle was right behind her the whole time, so much so that if Twilight did slow, she would have fallen over the alicorn.

In record time, Rarity was levitated up the stairwell, taken right, and then hovered over the master bed, then slowly, gently, placed upon it. The levitation effect stopped, and Twilight winced and threw a hoof to her forehead on impulse. "Ow..."

"Are you okay?" Sweetie squeaked. Every decibel of her barely audible tone was thick with worry.

"Yes," Twilight's response came quickly. A little too quickly, so she added more slowly, "Yes, I'm okay. Just...hurts to use magic too much. This world's magic is all...strange. It doesn't work very well."

It was not clear if that satisfied or even made sense to Sweetie Belle. Regardless, Sweetie Belle was at her sister's side immediately after, and she bounced up onto the bed to be next to her. A smartphone was out of her pocket, and she shone it on Rarity anxiously to better see her face.

For Twilight, this moment was one of catharsis after many stressed, fear-filled days, including this one, right up until this moment. Rarity was safe and could recover in peace. Twilight no longer was alone, and while that was scary in some ways, it was an immense relief in others.

The events of the day finally caught up to Twilight as she started to relax, and the fatigue nearly laid her flat right there and then. She hopped up onto the bed that the three of them now shared, and Twilight found herself flopped down on the mattress, up against her friend, whom she was determined to give her every thought and attention for as long as she needed it. Whatever Rarity needed, the Princess of Friendship would provide. After everything the girl had been through, it was the least Twilight could do for her.

Twilight's eyes closed at one point, and like a switch flipped, all thought stopped.