A Method in this Madness

Chapters

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Chapter One

MLP FiM: A Method in this Madness
Author: Xeroed_1n (Cameron D)

Picture: a world trapped on the precipice of insanity. Lunacy in every lampshade, madness in every mirror and discord on every doorstep. Now picture: the fate of all of Equestria held in the hooves of three very young ponies....

Chapter I:

They slipped through the cool night air, three little wraiths in the silence of the night, trotting quickly through the shadows. The third one in line spread her wings after a quick nod from their leader and launched herself onto the rooftops, flitting quickly over what was left of the tiling ahead of the other two. It was a frosty winter night tonight with still air that seemed to just slide over their coats as they moved towards their destination.The remains of pony houses around them were warped by the darkness into jagged monsters that leaned out of crevices, gaping doorway mouths wide open. Such memories that lived in their walls...such horrible memories.

The other two continued on through the half shadows, stopping slightly as a ragged and feral cat knocked over a trashcan in front of them, continuing on towards the ruin of Sugarcube Corner.
30 metres away.

They stepped silently like two pools of oily darkness, twisting between debris after debris and taking care not to make any sound at all. 20 metres away and they stopped, the leader throwing up a left hoof to call halt. She peered around the corner with orange iris eyes at the ruin of what had been the most popular candy shop in all of Equestria, looked left, looked right and then quickly touched the small, dark object nestled snugly in her ear.
"This is CMC-01," she whispered, glancing around to see if anything had heard, "Speedfreak, you copy?"
The radio implant crackled as the recipient of the message voiced her own, "Copy that Quickfix, CMC-02 here."
The one called Quickfix looked up at the ruin of Sugarcube Corner, seeking out the silhouette of her comrade in the darkness, the only low illumination coming from the huge, engorged moon that hung above Ponyville like a massive, blind eye.

Motion caught her eyes and she looked to her right, tracking it swiftly. CMC-02, Speedfreak, waved to her from on top of a protruding beam that jutted out from the remains of Sugarcube Corner's roof, bare and broken open like a gigantic ribcage. The pale rays from the moon cast a ghostly shadow on Speedfreak's clothing, a tight fitting black suit with sleek armor plating over her dirty mandarin colored coat. Speedfreak continued talking, her breath whispering into Quickfix's ear, "As you can see, I'm already at Mark Two."
"Ah can see yah Are there any...complications?"
"Uhhhh, yep. I'm seeing three, no wait...five Shocks on the ground. Do I engage?"
"Nnnope," cautioned Quickfix, "Engage as we do."
Quickfix stuck her head around the corner again, searching the shadows that entwined the planks and chunks of broken concrete that filled the floorspace of Sugarcube Corner. She could see the familiar grotesque angles shuffling around and amongst the ruin and she shivered in revulsion and then reached back to touch the familiar and comforting cold steel of the kitchen knife attached to a bullwhip and wrapped around her waist. An ugly and ungainly weapon, but amazingly unique at the same time...and in her hooves a devastating weapon.

Quickfix remembered the horror of a Shock attack all too well, the last one being a ferocious melee that cost her the majority of her left ear, an ugly flap of scar tissue being all that was left of it. She still remembered the real reason she had agreed to accompany her comrades back to town, her sister.Quickfix held back the instinctive tears that came quickly and pushed back the sorrowful memories that floated to the fore of her mind.
A soft shiiiink echoed into the night, barely heard by Quickfix and her companion on the ground, Speedfreak had drawn her sword and now stood still as a statue, clutching the handle in her mouth through clenched teeth.

Quickfix looked over her shoulder and nodded swiftly to the one behind her, the one called CMC-03 Silentsong, and with that command she stepped ahead and trotted ahead, moving from cover to cover as they approached Sugarcube Corner.
High above them Speedfreak tracked the two figures while they slipped towards her, and then she crouched down, almost hugging the beam that she stood on, and turned all her attention to the creatures milling around on the ground below her. She judged each of their position and wiggled her flank in anticipation of the carnage that would ensue, flicking a lock of purple mane out of her eyes. Quickfix's hurried breath huffed in her ear, courtesy of the radio implant that they all wore.

Only 10 metres away and Quickfix unraveled the whip from around her waist, the sharp steel knife zinging off the pavement and trailing through the air with a whisk, whisk. The dual click of hammers behind her heralded that Silentsong had drawn her weapons, two matte-black pistols usually held in twin holsters on her flanks. They had found the pistols once when they raided the Canterlot Archive, broken open in the aftermath of the Attack and the dusty relics inside strewn over the marble floor. After finding out how to operate the strange tools, after a fright as the first shot echoed of the walls around them, they decided that Silentsong should be the one to carry them, due to the fact that she could pick up, load, cock and fire the guns with her unicorn magic, utilizing the telekinetic field like many pairs of ethereal hands.
No argument there.

Speedfreak took a deep breath, wiggled her flank, and then dropped from her perch towards the Shocks below, immediately angling her descent for a clean kill. They came rushing forwards and down, like three blurs of lethal energy, death trailing behind them as the shadows they cast.
Unfortunately, this was at the same time that one of the Shocks looked up, and with a gasp that sounded like a gurgling drain, hissed at the mandarin colored creature that plummeted down at them, a flash of steel filling it's vision.

Chapter Two

Chapter II:

Speedfreak landed with a thump on all fours, bending her knees and flaring her wings to take the brunt of the fall. He sword slashed down and carved through the neck of the Shock closest to her, shearing through the chitinous armor with minimal effort. The Shock didn't even have time to scream as it's head tumbled to the ground. Viscous and luminescent green blood spurted out of the gaping neck hole, splashing over the ground in a pool, as the tottering corpse crashed over onto it's quivering forelegs and then staggered sideways to lay against a wall, the blood painting a macabre display over the brickwork.

The other four Shock's hissed and arched their backs, spine-quills emitting a chilling rattle, a predecessor to them usually mauling something. Speedfreak dropped into a fighter's stance, spreading her hooves and keeping her blade parallel to the ground, the edge pointed menacingly towards the creatures surrounding her.
"Four to One...I like these odds! Come on!" she growled.
The Shocks hissed even louder and closed their circle, eyeballing Speedfreak warily.
"Simmer down Sally! All yah get is Four to Three t'night." yelled a voice, and then Quickfix and Silentsong barreled into the group of Shocks from the rear, Quickfix's weapon whipping around in tight circles and cutting deep into flesh wherever she swung her head.

"You always steal my fun!" yelled Speedfreak. Quickfix laughed in reply and pranced away from the melee, two Shocks trailing her and pouncing from stone to stone, claws cutting deep gouges into the stone. She spun a complete circle, the blade lacerating her enemies as they tried to leap onto her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Speedfreak battling another Shock, dodging in and out of it's wild swipes and nipping back and forth to slice quick cuts into it's carapace.
She was quite clearly playing with her prey.

Outside of her vision, loud thumps and thwacks were playing out, Silentsong was in combat with the last Shock and was opting to beat at with the butt of her pistols instead and conserve ammo.
Quickfix turned her attention back to the more pressing matter at hoof as her whip wrapped completely around the nearest Shock and entangled it. She stepped in close and grabbed the handle of the knife as it swung in towards her and then slit the Shock's throat with a vicious jerk of her head. She untangled the whip, dropping the corpse to the ground, and spun around to face the remaining Shock. It lunged at her forelegs, swinging it's claws and dragging sparks from the pavement. Quickfix stumbled backwards in, well shock, and in her haste stepped backwards and caught her hoof on a rock and overbalanced. The Shock narrowed it's eyes and lunged forwards, yowling, and caught Quickfix a solid blow in her midriff, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

"Appl-Quickfix!" she heard Speedfreak yell, but it was far too late and they came out of the roll with the Shock's heavy weight pressing down on her from above. It snapped it's jaws down at her, the jagged fangs shearing through the air only millimeters from the tip of her nose. Slimy drool dripped from it's gaping mouth onto her face, the sticky mixture of drool and dirt stinging at her eyes. Sharp synaptic flickers of fear raced through her brain, accelerating her instincts and reaction times so she snapped out a punch and caught the Shock on the jaw but it wasn't enough to gain enough room to get out from under her assailant. She wriggled furiously under the clawed hooves pinning her forelegs to the ground. The Shock's hot breath wafted down on her face, reeking of half masticated rotting flesh and animal musk.

Up close, the Shock's really were the paragons of grotesque vision. A warped and twisted pony body, a reminiscent anatomy of a Changeling coupled with a thick, armored carapace created the most horrible enemy to ever appear in Equestria. But past all the thick green blood, unnatural clawed hooves and the general presence of their nightmarish silhouettes, it was the eyes that Quickfix found the most disturbing aspect of their body.
The eyes weren't overly large, or multi-faceted or demonic in any way. They were but liquid pits of intense sadness, eyes in the agony of transition for indeed, the multitudes of Shocks that roamed Equestria were all that was left of pony-kind, mutated beyond recognition.
Quickfix stared into those eyes in the present, searching for any presence of the pony that this had used to be, wondering if she had known this pony before the Attack. No, probably not.
Those jaws still snapping, the drool still dripping and no possible way to escape her fate, Quickfix closed her eyes and just waited.

SHLUK!

The blazing steel tip of Speedfreak's sword blasted through the Shock's left eye, killing the creature instantly and nearly taking out Quickfix's remaining left ear. The Shock's thick green blood splashed down onto Quickfix's face as the creature collapsed on top of her, the heavy and hard carapace beginning to crush her lungs.
Quickfix scrabbled madly at the sticky mixture as it all but glued her eyelids shut.
"Easy now sugarcube", said a voice while two sets of hooves heaved the corpse off her and helped her sit up, "Take it easy now." the voice repeated. Quickfix stopped struggling as an amount of water was dumped over her head, washing most of the hideous mixture away from her face and softening the rest. She wiped away the remains of viscera smeared on her face, hoicked and spat out a mixture of dirt, saliva and metallic, bitter blood onto the ground. She looked up from the ground into the battered, but smiling, faces of her comrades. Silentsong grunted in recognition and turned away to search the remains of Sugarcube Corner, their original purpose for coming here. Quickfix kicked her hoof against the ground, relieved to be alive, frustrated that she couldn't handle two enemies. Speedfreak spoke again,
"You okay there, sugarcube?"
"Stop sayin' that word." Quickfix spat at her, "And ah'm a big pony now so ah don't need your help."
"Whatever," said Speedfreak and Quickfix was about to rebuttle with a scathing retort, but was cut off as Silentsong yelled at them from over behind a large pile of debris,
"Rein it in girls! I think I found why the Shock's were here in the first place."

Speedfreak and Quickfix trotted quickly over to where Silentsong was motioning to. They rounded the burned out hulk of a carriage that had crashed through the wall, surveyed what lay before them and Speedfreak promptly turned away retching and threw up her breakfast all over the ground behind them. Before them lay the remains of not just one, or two, but at least fifteen different corpses, all of them having been a stockpile of dinner for the Shock's. They must have been seeking refuge in Sugarcube Corner amidst the initial chaos of the Attack when they would have been taken, ambushed in a corner and surrounded by an almost literal wall of death. they were all in various states of decomposition, the oldest being a pile of dusty and pitted bones.

The two corpses closest to Quickfix were the only ones that retained any semblance to pony-kind. The one on the left was tall, a mop of floppy hair stuck to the bleached white cranium by a mess of blood, but there wasn't enough left to be recognizable. The one on the right was shorter and obviously female, enough dry flesh left on the skeleton so that the pale blue coat was unmissable. Quickfix stared down at the remains of Sugarcube Corner's original owners, entwined in what would have been their last embrace as they died.
"Rest in peace, Mr and Mrs Cake" Quickfix murmured.
Speedfreak finished gagging and wiped a hoof across her mouth, "Yeah, rest in pieces."
Quickfix shot her a glare and trotted over to Silentsong, to help, a large piece of sheet metal covering what could well be a stockpile of supplies.
Speedfreak rolled her eyes and sighed, looking at the dull orange sunrise in the distance.
"Rest in pieces world."

Chapter Three

Chapter III:

Altogether the recon/supply run/ kill Shock's mission had proved quite bountiful for the three young ponies. They had amassed a stockpile of food and bottled water that could last them a few weeks, found a few choice pieces of metal that could be molded by unicorn magic and smelting into armor-plating and found new blankets to replace the tattered ones back at home. They arranged the items into different categorical pile and stepped back to allow Silentsong use her magic to divide the hoard and distribute it evenly amongst them, levitating the items into their saddlebags. Speedfreak went back over to the rubble to check for anything they had missed, steering clear of the disemboweled, decapitated and utterly dead Shocks that lay on the ground at various intervals, the pools of toxic green blood having fast dried on the pavement, a milky film forming on the surface.

Quickfix lay on her back against a pile of rubble and let the last remnants of battle worn adrenaline filter out of her body, lying on a ragged and stained pillow she had found wedged underneath a bed. It smelled slightly. She lay there, gazing up at the sky as it slowly turned from pitch to a lighter blue and purple combination, and chewed a long piece or barley that she had picked up. She let her gaze from the celestial canvas right above her to the dull orange-yellow sunset that was beginning to break the horizon in-between the houses. She sighed, content, as the memory of watching the same sunset with her sister came back to her, except they had been in the roof of a barn and not the smashed open candy shop. Silentsong huffed something unintelligible at her, but Quickfix got the meaning. Come and help you unobservant, lazy, no-good, yellow-bellied- Quickfix tossed a hoof at her in return and then went back to lazily brushing away flies that were being attracted to the newfound corpses.

Still with the mutilated owners of Sugarcube Corner in her sight, tears began to well in Quickfix's eyes, a dam of emotion threatening to break. Mr and Mrs Cake had been so well known in their community, their cakes and sweets the pride of all Ponyville. They hadn't been mean, or strict, and had definitely never done anything to be deserving of this fate. Still, at least there was no one left to properly mourn. The world had changed since childhood, so much violence in everything they did. Everyday was spent in apprehension, every night in coiled anticipation. Every move they took, every bite they ate, every punch they threw, had to be wary of everything around them. She sniffed back her sorrow and stood to allow Silentsong place a loaded saddlebag on her back and tighten the straps until they were at chafing point.

Her bags full, Quickfix wandered over to Speedfreak who was sitting on her flanks and rolling an object between her forehooves. Quickfix observed it's elliptical orbit around her body, rolling a shallow trench through the earth until it bumped against her hooves and she bent down to look at it closer. It held roughly the same dimensions and size as an apple, and it was green as well, but there was a strange metallic ring sticking out from where the stalk would usually protrude. It radiated a strange aura of danger, a subconscious warning of explosive power.
"What is it?" she asked.
"No idea," answered Speedfreak, rolling it back towards her. "What do you think it is?"
"Ah think it's trouble." said Quickfix, edging away from it.
"Maybe trouble is something we might need." said Speedfreak and then stood, calling to Silentsong. "Hey! Chuck this in my bag, will ya?"
The other pony tapped her hooves impatiently against the ground but nevertheless picked up the object with her magic and dropped it into Speedfreak's left saddlebag.
Speedfreak staggered slightly, "Whuff! Whatever this is, it's got some weight!"

"Quit yer whining'" Quickfix helped Speedfreak stand and gave her a quick once-over with her gaze. She dusted Speedfreak's suit down and checked over the armor plating to see if it was still tight. The metal had been strong sheet metal taken from the very houses around them, raided at varying times of the past 8 years. Unable to do anything but survive, the three ponies had taken it upon themselves to 'borrow' anything they needed, seeing as most residents of Ponyville no longer needed their abodes. Speedfreak winced as Quickfix's hoof brushed her back, "Careful back there!" and Quickfix peeled back her suit to expose the wound. The three ragged scratches from a Shock's claw-hoof had taken off the first few layers of skin and coat, leaving three almost parallel cuts running across Speedfreak's back. They were shallow and didn't bleed, but was still serious enough to restrict movement, which was something the three had to be able to do a lot. "Medic!"Quickfix barked in true military fashion and Silentsong stepped over, laying their personal first-aid kit on the ground. She selected a bandage and some anti-septic, which she poured over the wound, causing Speedfreak to hiss and squirm as the anti-bacterial agents stung the exposed flesh. She wrapped the bandage around her midriff once, twice, three times and then stepped back to nod at her handiwork.

Quickfix trotted over past Silentsong, aiming towards the distant sunrise and home. "Come on girls, ah don't want to be out an' about in the day."
Speedfreak grumbled as she stood and came over towards them, then stopped, "Wait! We're forgetting the most important part! Silentsong, if you would?"
Silentsong nodded silently in reply and produced a paint spray-can from her saddlebag and stepped over to the nearest standing brick wall shaking it. She quickly gauged the size of the wall and adjusted her magic to suit.
Shaka-shaka-shaka.
A few telekinetic slashes and she stepped back, throwing a manic grin over her shoulder at her comrades. This was how they knew they existed, how anypony surviving knew they existed. Painted in vivid, almost blood red paint, this was their calling card, a straight up call-out to the malevolent ruler of their new world.
WE WERE HERE. FEAR THE CMCRUSADERS.

Chapter Four

Chapter IV;

Apple Bloom snorted as the first few rays of sunlight invaded her curtains and lightly caressed the soft outlines of her face. She jerked and snuggled deeper into her thick blankets becoming a prisoner in a world of fabric. She sighed contently as the thick syrupy warmth soaked into her very bones, worming it's way to her heart, she decided very quickly that this was the way that she wanted to stay for as long as she could.

'As long as she could' did not last very long because a large hoof reached out and prodded her flank, jerking her into wakefulness. Bleary eyed, she rolled over and stared up into the rugged, but smiling, face of her older brother, Big Macintosh.
She moaned, "What day is it?"
Big Mac stayed silent, but his smile grew even more.
Apple Bloom tried a different approach, "Is it Saturday?"
"Eeyup." came Big Mac's trademark reply and then he was forced to sidestep as he was almost bowled over by the yellow blur that Apple Bloom turned into, shooting across the floor towards the door with an ecstatic "Whoop!"

She took the stairs two at a time, flying down the white and red flight of steps, in her joy. Oh yes! It was Saturday, quite possibly Apple Bloom's favorite day of the week. Belay that, it was her favorite day of the week, not only was her big sister Applejack making apple and cinnamon pancakes (an old family recipe) but also no school, plus she could spend the entire day with her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as they tried yet again to claim their cutie marks. She leaped off the last two steps and ran pell-mell down the corridor that led to the kitchen, already smelling the sweet smell of melting caramel wafting into her face. She ran past Granny Smith once again trying to water jam jars and then past their dog Winona, who yapped at her as she raced past.

She slowed through the courtyard of their home, meandering through a large patch of sunlight that warmed her coat. She waltzed through the golden rays that shone down and then craned her neck to gaze at the clear, pale blue sky through which a few cotton-candy clouds drifted. It was...beautiful. This was usual weather for Ponyville, but not many days ever reached a level of perfection such as this, clear and devoid of any foreboding, a day that made everything around them look lighter and happier. All around her, tiny colorful flowers of vivid red and purple bloomed throughout the garden, and the apple trees that touched the edge of Sweet Apple Acres shone with a magnificent and healthy brown sheen, the apples that hung off the already laden branches were a luscious red.
Apple Bloom looked even further beyond the estates and movement caught her eye.

A shadow flickered across the tiny clouds, long and serpentine, curling over itself like a mad snake and she could have sworn that laughter had floated down from the shadow, but it was quickly covered by a light breeze that sprung up. She watched as it rolled over and over in a mockery of dance and then disappeared over the horizon towards Canterlot Castle. It was a shadow that should have been familiar...but...

Apple Bloom snorted and dismissed the sight as a figment of her imagination, still trying to catch up with her still waking brain, "Silly thoughts make a silly pony" she said, knocking herself on the head and then walked through the nearby door way and into the kitchen, the smell of cooked apples warm in her nostrils.
She rounded the door into the kitchen, readying herself to be swept up into a big hug by Applejack, twirled around the room and then dumped onto the table for a big sweet breakfast with her family. But all that greeted her was an empty room, the sink devoid of dishes and the table barren of any cooking or eating utensils. There wasn't even anything in or on top of the oven cooking to produce the smell of apples that clouded the room.

Apple Bloom sniffed again and the smell of apples became bitter.
Curious, she let her gaze travel over the bright red beams and glazing white surfaces in search of her sister, thinking that Applejack was playing a game of hide-and-seek with her, "Applejack? Y'all in here? Hello, Applejack?"
Then her sister's familiar accent drifted out from out of the pantry cupboard that sat across the room from her. "Ah'm over here sis."
Apple Bloom skirted the green plank table in the center of the kitchen and tip-toed up to the double doors that stood slightly ajar. She pressed her eye up to the gap in between the doors and peered in, searching left and right for a glimpse of her sister's familiar orange coat. Nothing but darkness filled the cupboard, shadows that lurked in the shelves and everywhere she looked there was no sight of her hidden sister or anything actually in the cupboard. She looked closer between the gap, her searching eyes flicking left and right and up and down in attempt to find her sister. And then...movement.

Something flashed across the space in front of her eyes for a split second, there was someone in there.
"Applejack!" Apple Bloom threw open the green pantry doors with a whoop, expecting to be fallen upon in a smothering good morning hug, but her happiness soon became a strangled shriek of horror when she saw what was staring back.

A bleached white pony skeleton swung softly from a frayed rope attached to the ceiling of the pantry, vivid against the infinite darkness that replaced the inside of the food cupboard. As much as her mind wanted to refuse it, Apple Bloom knew that this was the carcass of her sister, only confirmed by the battered fedora that sat atop the skeletons shiny white cranium. She stumbled back and fell to her flanks, mouth agape.
"No, no, no...Applejack...this cain't be true, this simply cain't"

The environment around her was beginning to lose it's color, all brilliant greens, reds and white leeching to a chilling gray and the kitchen was suddenly larger, wider, as if the room was attempting to swallow up the young pony. A sibilant whisper hissed out of the clacking jaw of the hanging skeleton, soft like light breeze, as harsh as slander.
"Well all the truth does is make the heart ache, sometimes a lie is easier to take..."
Apple Bloom looked up with tear-dripping eyes at what had become of her sister and sobbed, staring into those dark empty pits with her own orange eyes, "You cain't be Applejack, she wouldn't lie. You're not Applejack, you're not..."

The skeleton clacked it's jaw, almost in agreement, and snarled from where it hung above her,
"You're damn right I'm not!" Then in a terrifying moment that felt as if it where trudging it's way through time, the skeleton ripped free of it's noose and leaped out of the cupboard at Apple Bloom who sat frozen in horror on the floor. Bony claws outstretched, tail lashing madly, it's jaw opened wide, wider than ever possible and then Apple Bloom was falling down between those cavernous walls of jagged teeth, falling into a blackness that was worse than death, a blackness that was the absence of anything.
Down....

Down....

Chapter Five

Chapter V:

Apple Bloom, or CMC-01 Quickfix, jerked awake in bed, screaming her little lungs out as she thrashed in the tatty blankets that covered her, her limbs spasming as she tried to process the transition from dream to reality. Her back arched in silent mental agony and she smacked her forehead against the low top bunk above her, she reeled and feel off the bed to land with a thump on the floor.

She looked up with blurry eyes to see Scootaloo, CMC-02 Speedfreak, sitting on a threadbare carpet across the floor from where Apple Bloom lay, chewing slowly on a sandwich and reading avidly from the Daring Do omnibus that she had picked up in a previous recon mission. They all had ways to escape the horror of after the Attack and Scootaloo's was enveloping herself in a fictional world of paper and ink, a transport of words that could take her far away from the horror of reality.
She looked up from her story, idly flicking a page and swallowing the rest of her sandwich at the same time, "You okay?"

Apple Bloom rolled onto her back and took deep breathes through her nose, feeling the last dregs of the horrible, horrible dream float back into her subconscious and disappear.
"Uh, yeah....jus' the nightmare again."
"You should really get that checked."
Apple Bloom snorted, "By who? If ah remember correctly Nurse Redheart was one of the first to die."
"Oh yeah, I forgot."

Awkward silence followed as both young ponies remembered the horrible memories of the Attack, the silence broken as someone downstairs yelled at them to get up and come down to help make food. Scootaloo was the first to move, standing politely to the side as Apple Bloom trudged past. Even in their younger days before the Attack, Apple Bloom had been the recognized leader of their group, and exuded the need for respect whenever they were together on a latest escapade, but less arrogant as their shared classmates, Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara.

Walking down the staircase was set at a meandering pace, the hastily made steps rickety and worn ever more from the trek from bedroom to kitchen/dining/lounge/entrance room. To say that the CMC's lived a cave was an understatement, to say that they lived in a cavern was more like, except that this was a cavern with something that not many other caverns had. Furniture.

Stepping onto the cold stone floor was like stepping onto an ice rink and Apple Bloom cringed as the frosty feeling seeped upwards through her hooves, immediately turning them numb. A similar gasp came from behind her as Scootaloo likewise stepped onto the floor, but she trotted over to where the third member of their party stood slow-cooking homegrown lettuce leaves over a small fire. Sweetie Belle, or CMC-03 Silentsong, was always up early on weekdays, or what they took to be weekdays seeing that the Attack had made them lose all subsequent weekly coherence, cooking or cleaning or generally looking after their abode.
"Got breakfast for me?"
Sweetie Belle shook her head, "Only when you've washed your hooves. I want squeaky clean at the table."

Apple Bloom sighed and shook her head, but nevertheless went over to the trough next to the ghillie style netting that covered the entrance to their home. Taking a deep breath she plunged her head into the icy cold rainwater that filled the tub and shook her head in a burbling scream as the freezing sensation bombarded her face and basically froze every existing nerve. It was bliss, to feel something other than pain. She jerked her head out of the water with a gasp, expecting the surface to ice over in front of her, and blinked water from her eyelashes, looking at the reflection that stared at her from the mirror.

Apple Bloom was taller now, stronger too, like her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle she had developed in the 8 years since the Attack. Her yellow coat was streaked with dirt now, long stripes that refused to be removed. They were part of her now, as were the faint scars that criss-crossed her coat and the ever-present loss of the majority of her left ear. Unlike her friends Apple Bloom had opted to keep her mane long and tied up with the red bow that she wore as a filly, a memoir of the life before, a personification of the red, white and smile filled environment of Sweet Apple Acres, a burning ruin now.
They had all changed in those 8 years. It was necessary for survival.

Apple Bloom trotted back to the huge wooden bench that served as their dining table and sat herself down next to Scootaloo, once again engrossed in her book. Apple Bloom took the time to study just how much her friend had changed over the years that had known each other. Scootaloo was an interesting case. Her shortish purple mane was still there, as was her mandarin colored coat, the only new additions to her visage was the ragged scar that came down from her lip to chin, the result of her attempting to headbutt an assailant, what they now called the "Shock-Kiss". Scootaloo had also developed heterochromia during their years and one of her eyes was now brilliant green in contrast to the other deep purple one. She always wore her armor and kept her sword strapped to her back, within easy reach of a quick jaw reach over her shoulder.
Something nudged Apple Blooms elbow out from underneath her mouth and dropped her jaw down to the table with a clack of teeth, "Ow!".

Sweetie Belle barked a quick laugh, "Hah!" and pushed the sandwich and plate closer to Apple Bloom's face, prompting her to go momentarily cross-eyed at the gaze of the bread and lettuce in front of her. Apple Bloom looked up and took another second to study her other friend. Sweetie Belle had developed in their years together, becoming lithe and just as beautiful as her lost sister, the had-been propetier of Carousel Boutique, the most famous dress shop in all of Equestria. Sweetie Belle's curly purple and pink mane was still there and just as bright as ever, but cut short to be held under a red and black striped bandanna that she preferred to wear over her head.

Whilst Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had transformed the most on the outside, it was Sweetie Belle had changed the most on a mental scale and in such a large way. She had become withdrawn and gruff, a complete contrast to her days as a filly when she had been wide-eyed, energetic and perhaps a little bit hare-brained. Out of all the CMC's Sweetie Belle was by far the best and most ruthless fighter, becoming a lethal whirlwind of lead with her pistols on the battlefield, but most shocking of all their changes is that she had never sung in her beautiful voice again after her sister Rarity disappeared, a voice that could charm birds and rival nature had been lost, hence the name 'Silentsong'.
Yes, they had all changed.

Swirling her hoof-tips in circles around the table top brought Apple Bloom out of her memoric trance and she tore into her sandwich with gusto, due to the fact that this could be her only meal for the rest of the day, depending on how much food was in their store and what majority of it was going off. The chill once again reached her coat, sending a quick shiver down her spine. Or was it? What was the saying? Someone walking over her grave. That alone was enough to chill her with foreboding and she involuntarily shivered again. "Really should get a heater for here. Ah'll find one next time we go into town."
Scootaloo looked up from her pages and laughed, "Make sure you check the price first."

Sweetie Belle took their laughter as a sign that they had finished eating and so picked up Apple Bloom's plate with her magic and began to levitate it towards the sink full of suds that she stood in front of. Apple Bloom yelped and vaulted over the table to grab the remnants of her sandwich, not wishing to go hungry. With the bread and lettuce tightly gripped in her mouth she turned her back to her friends and wandered over to the ghillie-style netting that covered the entrance way to their home, brushing it aside she stepped out onto the 'veranda' outcrop and let the full heat of the noonday sun wash over her. Still chewing her sandwich, she plopped down on her flank and surveyed the surroundings.

The CMC's lived in a mountain, an honest to god mountain. They had found the cave after they fled Ponyville a few days after the Attack, complete with a desecrated dragon skeleton and their first combat with the Shocks. Now their permanent residence, the ghillie netting had been the first to be put in place, giving the illusion of vines swarming over the side of a not-particularly interesting mountain to anyone beyond the 600 meter marker line around their home in a circumference. A rustling preceded Scootaloo walking out of their home to sit down beside her, taking a deep breath through her nostrils, a contented sigh.
"Still takes your breath away, don't it?"
Apple Bloom nodded in agreement, "Ah never, ever will get used to this sight..."

In the eight years that they had lived here the Everfree Forest had overgrown it's boundaries by a few kilometers or so and had begun to merge with Ponyville in a rippling amalgamation of tiles and bark at it's very edge. Massive brown tree trunks rose majestically above the rest of the of the treetops, bursting with vibrant green and purple leaves, some trees bearing ripe fruits lower down their branches. The songs of various noonday birds and jungle creatures rose up from the dense foliage in one big chatter, many of the animals being pets from before the Attack gone feral. In a strange way those animals were a lot like the CMC's, in the way that they had both been lost, forgotten or ejected from normality by the Attack and were now having to adapt to their new world and survive by any means necessary.

Apple Bloom swallowed the rest of her sandwich and let her gaze wander over to the left of the horizon where one of the more...spectacular parts of the Attack had taken place. The wispy tips of Cloudsdale still floated above the treetops, but they all knew where the rest of the once regal pegasus city was. Cloudsdale had been brought crashing down to the earth only a few weeks after the Attack, in a spectacular explosion of fluff and screaming pegasi.

Apple Bloom hadn't though it possible but Cloudsdale caught fire, a combustible reaction from rainbow juice mixing with deep-iced rainwater. She remembered holding back the screaming and sobbing Scootaloo as they watched horrified as the majority of her race was instantly immolated, screaming pegasi silhouettes fleeing the blazing inferno that their home was transformed into, straight into the first waves of Shocks. It was a night filled with fire, teeth, claws and blood. Horror.

"Ooh, look at that!" Scootaloo nudged Apple Bloom in ribs, pointing avidly off to the right of the horizon. Apple Bloom looked and her vision was instantly filled with a mirage of color, flashing reds, swirling greens, pulsing blues and intricate yellow veins. It was a beautiful sight that they had watched many a time together as friends, both before and after the Attack, a sight that had reminded them constantly of all the good in the world.

It was the sun's dying rays being filtered through the remains of the stained glass frescoes that had lined the marble walls of the Grand Hall in the center of Canterlot Castle, the roof now busted open to expose the dust-filled interior and the decaying tapestries that adorned and now hung limp from the towering walls, one between every second of the iron-bracketed lamps that burned continuously, due to the last traces of Celestia's magic still pervading the site.

Canterlot Castle was an area permanently wreathed in shadow now, an area of Equestria that had been instantly, irrevocably, and irreversibly poisoned in the aftermath of the Attack. It was a place from where the terrors of the night, the Shocks, and....other creatures were spawned, from where they poured forth in an unrelenting wave of grotesque vision. It was an area of all Equestria which was now a centrepoint for chaos, a menagerie of madness, an area from which sibilant, hissing, mocking, jarring, clawing, screeching, giggling, gurgling and utterly insane laughter issued from in all hours of the day and night.

Indeed, Canterlot Castle, and perhaps all of Equestria, belonged to the crown prince of chaos, the draconequus known as Discord.

Chapter Six

Chapter VI:

And what a night he had returned on! The most fitting and fateful night of all the calender year in Equestria. Apple Bloom breathed in the light scent of honey-suckle and mulberries that floated up the mountain side to her, the last few remains of Carrot Top's outskirt orchid, and turned her mind back those 8 years, all the way back to what had become the scariest Nightmare Night of them all.

Nightmare Night. The very word transformed any regular night into one of spine tingling chills and fright. The air was arid and heavy for such a dark night, like a warm blanket hovering over Ponyville, ready to fall. Stars up in the lightly clouded sky danced a merry dance above the populous below them, flickering in and out of sight in moments. The town was festooned in surprisingly festive color, pumpkin orange and velvet purple ordaining every house ringing the crowded town center.

Attractions of all kind were spread out in the night, ponies of all shapes, sizes and colors laughing and having a generally good time trying their luck at spider-toss, pumpkin-launch, pin-the-tail-on-the-Shock, and other distractions such as the like. Younger ponies in fancy dress scurried from house to house in a blaze of sugar-filled excitement collecting candy from grinning mares and stallions, some feigning fright and theatric shrieks of surprise at the chorus of "Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!"

Apple Bloom was currently straining her neck over a large tub of water, reaching, reaching, reaching for the largest, juiciest apple she could, which floated just out of reach in the middle of her sister Applejack's attraction, a bobbing for apples tub. Apple Bloom was dressed up tonight as a devil, her tiny red horns placed in front of the large bow that was always in her hair, her magically twitching horned tail trailing in the air above her.
"Almost....there...."
She made another attempt to catch the apple as it floated around in a bobbing, mocking dance, almost envisioning it's shiny red skin laughing at her. "So....close...." Her teeth clacked together and she grunted in annoyance. Wriggling her flank she propped herself on the tub's rim and prepared for one last daring attempt at her prize. Stretch....

Something nudged her flank and sent her tumbling head over hooves into the tub with an almighty SPLOSH!
Spluttering and gasping for air, Apple Bloom burst from the tub in an explosion of freezing water and began furiously searching for her assailant, blinking water from her eyes at the same time. She didn't need to look far because her two best friends sat side by side in front of the tub, grinning madly and failing at doing their best to look innocent. Apple Bloom rested her forehooves on the rim of the tub and smirked at the two in front of her, Scootaloo dressed as a witch and Sweetie Belle as a rictus-grin skeleton.

"Alright, which one of yah was it?"
Both of the misfits pointed at each other. Apple Bloom nodded sagely and then surged forward out of the tub, grabbing onto the tip of Scootaloo's purple mane with her teeth, letting off a low growl at the same time. Scootaloo reacted in panic and reached back to grab hold of Sweetie Belle, who likewise scrabbled at the air. Perfect.

With a quick jerk of her head, Apple Bloom yanked and pulled the other two into the tub with her, sending a tidal wave of water spilling over the edge. The three surfaced in a fit of giggles, all of them splashing each other in the warm night air and caring for a single thing. Their laughter ceased as a darker than dark shadow fell across them, and they looked up in unison to the snarling face of the terror of the night, Nightmare Moon.

Apple Bloom let out a squeak of terror, and the shadowy mare before them dissolved into a fit of laughter, her guise also dissolving. The armored and fanged form before them slipped away like oil, flowing down the pony beneath and then Luna spat out the fake fangs in her mouth and fixed the three with a mischievous grin.
"Is everypony having fun?" she asked and the so-called Cutie Mark Crusaders nodded in earnest reply and Luna's eyes flashed wickedly. "So be it!" laughed and slipped once again into her Nightmare Moon guise, fixing the fangs into her mouth. She turned to leave but hesitated and instead placed something on top of Apple Bloom's head. It was the apple she had been endeavoring for, but with a bite taken out. Luna laughed through a mouthful of apple mush and trotted away. "Happy Nightmare Night to you all!"

Scootaloo broke the silence by splashing Sweetie Belle in the face, her squeals echoing through the night and then the water reached Apple Bloom and pretty soon the tub had become a war zone.
"Alright, alright, everpony calm it down. Apple Bloom, you've cost me half a tub!" exclaimed Applejack in mock horror, ushering the three young girls out of the tub and onto the ground where they shook themselves vigorously to rid their coats of any water left.
"Go on, I said git! Don't you ever ruin somepony else's attraction?" Applejack shooed them away and motioned for more water for the tub.
"Don't yah ever change your costume?" retorted Apple Bloom over her shoulder, nodding at Applejack's annual appearance as a scarecrow, although she had to admit that the grinning stitch-mouth mask was a nice touch this year. They walked away snickering and telling jokes, bumping each other generally soaking up the atmosphere of the night.

Heading on past the spider-toss attraction, run by Twilight Sparkle this year, they almost bumped in Mayor Mare who was trotting around the town center yelling, "Five minutes everypony! Five minutes!"
"What happens in five minutes?" asked Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo fixed her with a quizzical raised eyebrow, "Same thing that happens every Nightmare Night, you dummy. You remember, right?"
Sweetie Belle's huge gaze glazed over as her brain went into work. She stood stock still, looking of into the distance as her memory ticked over trying to remember the last Nightmare Night. Apple Bloom rolled her eyes at Scootaloo and lent over to Sweetie Belle's ear. "Midnight."

Sweetie Belle almost shot a full meter of the ground, her little legs blurry in a flurry, "Ooh, ooh,ooh, I remember!" she trilled excitedly. To be fair, everypony should have remembered that midnight was the hour at which Princess Celestia came to visit her subjects, but then again Sweetie Belle wasn't the brightest of all fillies.

The three trotted towards the slowly growing crowd at the town center, the low murmur of conversation beginning to float above their heads, punctuated every now and then by a sharp outburst of laughter as a joke was told, or a cheer as someone got a winning prize at an attraction. They stepped to the side to avoid a a pony striding along on stilts far above their heads, he smiled down at them as he walked past like a huge harvestman spider.
"Maybe, walking on stilts is our cutie mark?" whispered Scootaloo to Apple Bloom.
Apple Bloom shook her head in disagreement. How ridiculous.

The crowd's murmur began to swell as the dark clouds above them began to glow with an unearthly yellowish light and then began to swirl, the wind picking up into a light breeze in the warm air. The clouds split apart to become a circular portal in the air, exposing the very towering marble tips of Canterlot Castle's highest towers, towers from which an object suddenly launched itself from and came rocketing towards the assembled crowd. The crowd burst into ecstatic cheering and applause as their ruler ascended into the sky above them, casting a dark silhouette over the moon. A few mares and stallions laughed, every year was a show, a theatric made to awe the younger ponies of the town.

And it was working. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stood rooted to the spot, star-struck, staring with wide, glistening eyes as their Princess Celestia descended towards the hole in the sky, wreathed in glimmering light and looking for all the world like an angel coming to earth. The crowd oohed and aahed as the light knotting in and out of the clouds changed to become crimson in an instant, to reflect the macabre nature of tonight. No pony suspected anything, too caught up in the moment as their princess came through the halo of blood-red cloud to close the final few hundred metres to the ground, falling gracefully like a feather.

Falling.

More like a stone.

Apple Bloom could see that something was wrong with the princess's descent, her panicked gasp drawing the attention of the nearby ponies. Celestia's wings weren't beating and her body looked....limp as it tumbled through the clouds towards the cold unforgiving cobblestone. Someone in the crowd shrieked and pretty soon frightful gasps were jolting through the crowd like wildfire as they stared fixated at the tumbling figure.

Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna launched into action and sprang forward to surround Celestia in a corona of magenta and deep blue magic, slowing her fall and lowering her twitching form to the ground slowly and carefully like a damaged bird.
Everypony in the center skittered backwards with gasps of horror, to give the princesses room and Apple Bloom heard Twilight Sparkle yell, "Medic! We need a medic! Nurse Redheart!" in hoarse tones that held underlying tones of panic.

A lull descended over the crowd, a silence in which Apple Bloom nudged and jostled her way through a jungle of legs to the fore so she could see what was going on. Pushing her way through the last wall of nervously trotting legs, "Sorry....excuse me" she stepped forward to gaze upon Twilight Sparkle hurriedly directing Nurse Redheart and using magic to assist, Princess Luna sitting nervously to the side chewing on a lock of mane as she watched with worried eyes, the attention given
to....

Oh my God.
Whatever had gotten at Celestia did not want her ever looking the same.
Her usually pristine and gleaming white coat was a mass of burns and scrapes, several large gashes gushing crimson down her flank, a red tide wiping out her cutie mark. Her hooves were charred and her tail was cut, no wait, torn short. Her face was now a mass of bruises, one eyes swollen shut, and blood was steadily leaking from her mouth.
The worst part? Her horn was gone, snapped off a hoof-width from the base of her head, the jagged remains burnt and blackened by soot. Similar mutilation had been subjected to her wings, the feathers crisped and her left seemed to be broken along the main bone junction, hanging limp at a grotesque angle.

Apple Bloom felt queasy, her little stomach tightening with sick helplessness at the sight of this brutality, as the princess stirred, letting out a low moan of agony as the ragged tip of her horn brushed the ground. She coughed and a wave of spasms wracked her body, fresh blood spurting from her mouth to join the growing puddle around her head.
She groaned, "Sister...."

Twilight smoothed the rest of her mane away from the princesses grimacing face, "Sssshhh, my Princess, you need to save your strength." she motioned to Nurse Redheart, who began to hurriedly slaver Celestia's burns with salve, who in turn motioned to her assistants to administer attention to the gashes marring Celestia's back and flank.
Celestia coughed again and reached out her sister with a trembling hoof, "Sister...." she repeated in a whisper that was only barely heard by Apple Bloom. Luna sobbed and took her sister's hoof in her own, her tears dripping onto her white coat.
"Sister....you need to rest....keep awake." she cried.

Choosing to ignore her sister, Celestia carried on talking, dragging herself closer to Luna who crouched lower hear her.
"Sister....It's....it's too late...." Celestia's hoarse voice barely carried to where Apple Bloom was standing, but what she heard was still enough to chill her to the core.
"It's too late....he's back."
Luna visibly froze and her eyes widened, the dark pupils becoming pits of dread. "Who is?" she asked in a voice that was made of steel.

Celestia jerked as more blood burst out of her mouth and her face screwed up in pain as she forced her last words out loud enough for everypony to hear, before a death rattle sounded in her throat and the great Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria for over a thousand years, breathed her last in the arms of her sister and died.

Luna sobbed.
Twilight Sparkle and Nurse Redheart bowed their heads in solemn respect, tears dripping down their cheeks.
Silence reigned over the crowd, everypony frozen in place with terror as Celestia's last word swept over the crowd, trailing panic and fear like waves in a great calm sea.
. . . . .
"Discord."

Chapter Seven

Chapter VII:

Somepony screamed.

Then another.

Then another and another and another until the entire crowd was in panic and ponies began running in all directions in a frenzy of color. Some ponies tripped and were almost trampled underhoof by the rest of the crowd. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were near the front, and so avoided all of this, but were still shell-shocked at the unexpected events of tonight. Mouths agape, their tiny minds struggled to comprehend what had just transgressed in front of them.

Sweetie Belle was the first to realise and so began to hiccup quietly as the soft salty tears set in. Scootaloo next, but her only her Adams apple bobbed up and down as she tried to voice her words. Apple Bloom just stared as the swirling mob of ponies around her as they raced every which-way in panic, their hooves pounding a rat-tat-tat on the pavement. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, and the growling chorus only redoubled the panicked crowds efforts to seek shelter in any abode nearest to them. But to no avail, because a magical pulse from the sky slammed every door, every window, every escape shut. Hideous and maniacal laughter floated from the same portal from which Celestia had emerged from only moments before, laughter that held an edge like a ragged and biting wire.
"SILENCE!" boomed a whisping and sinister voice.
Everypony stopped.

Another form slipped down from the cloud portal, undulating like a snake as it came towards the stunned crowd, insane laughter roiling off the form in waves. The crowd shifted backwards from the still grieving Princess Luna to make room for the newcomer, and Discord let loose a malevolent giggle as he stepped onto the pavement.
"Well," he chuckled, waving the remains of Celestia's torn off tail without care, "seems I couldn't trust her as far as I could throw her."

He stepped through the abscess made by the parted and fearstruck crowd, looking left and right and tut-tutting at every odd pony. Apple Bloom quivered in fear as he stepped past, drew back against the wall of legs around her as his mismatched ones, one a scaly reptilian claw and the other a shaggy cloven hoof, clacked down inches barely a meter from her nose. She couldn't shut her eyes as his bearded and draconic head swung above her. She felt something warm trickle down her hind legs and instantly knew that she had soiled herself.

Last time Discord had arrived in Equestria, he had only caused minor chaos with no malevolent intent, only returned to play with everyponies sense of reality, but this time something was different. He exuded an air of danger this time, of a vicious side ready to snap at the slightest moment.
Reflected in his mad red eyes, hiding in the edge of his toothy grin, was a sense of....ruthlessness.

Princess Luna looked up with red-rimmed eyes as Discord drew closer, absent-mindedly tossing the rainbow remains of Celestia's tail off to the side.
"You...you did this..." she whispered. "You killed her..."
"Mmmm?" Discord asked, "and what if I did?"
"I'll kill you, you bastard!" Luna leapt to her feet and charged past the ranks of wide-eyed ponies, charging with her head down and magic gathering into her horn in a pulsating pitch-blue aura.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!"

Discord crouched down, a manic grin on his face, as Luna drew closer and closer and closer, and then her head dipped and the magic fired in a bolt that streamed past his face, then his hand reached out and grasped Luna by the neck, and she couldn't stop, couldn't turn, couldn't escape and then....
KRAK.

The sickening crunch of breaking vertebrae reverberated throughout the streets, seeming to float further than it actually did, Luna shuddered once, eyes still open in shock. Her mouth opened and closed in disbelief and then she went limp, still hanging from Discord's clawed hand by her broken neck. Somepony was sick, the stench of vomit intermingling with the animal smell of fear that permeated the crowd.

Discord chuckled and then laughed as he tossed Luna's limp body to the side like a discarded rag doll to land near the crowd like a piece of garbage, the loose spinal bones clacking together.
"When I say that I don't like getting blood on my hands, I mean it. Of course, there was no spilled blood in doing that."
Somepony whimpered, but Discord continued, ignoring the abject fear running through the crowd.
"Now listen up everypony. I come in peace. That's right, peace. I don't want any trouble, just to play a game. A game. This is a chasing game. You will run, and my minions will try to catch you. Simple?"

The shadows around Discord's feet began to swirl and with with each word, incandescent claws lashing out from the darkness, low growls and cat-like hisses accompanying them. There were creatures in the pitch, creatures that surely couldn't be of this world.
"Now, now everypony, this is not a game of tag. Tag will kill you. This is a game where you run. So that's it, run.... while you still can."
"No, we won't!"

Silence.

Somepony in the crowd stepped to the fore, to gaze defiantly at the towering draconic figure of Discord. It was Brazen Heart, one of Ponyville's elderly.
"Excuse me?" said Discord, his hands clasped together, a queasy smile breaking across his features, showing glinting canines.
"I said no, you vile and deceitful creature. We ponies aren't going anywhere." said Brazen, puffing his chest out in pride to stand in rebellion in front of such terror.
"Oh...really?" Discord gestured and the clawing shadows around his feet harpooned forwards and fell upon Brazen Heart, who began to wail as all too real claws latched onto his wrinkled old flesh. Blood spurted and he screamed as the shadows dragged him to the ground and swarmed over him like a flood of hungry ants.

Apple Bloom couldn't take her eyes of the slowly squirming corpse as his screams began to be drowned out by loud crunching and chewing noises.
Discord swung back to face the crowd as the shadows began to take shape, seeming to climb out from the ground at his feet and begin to circle the terrified ponies like cats.
"I did say run, everypony..." Discord said, his sentence beginning to lapse into incoherent laughter as lightning once again illuminated the ensuing chaos. "EVERYPONY RUN!"