Midnight Belle (and the Case of the Vanishing Foals!)

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Sweetie Belle woke up, and the day was full of possibilities.

That’s the thought that began every day. Every morning was an opportunity, whether for the new or the familiar, and Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t mind the mornings, or the nights, or the parts in between, because she always had something to look forward to.

She smiled as she hefted her book-bag over her back. Though a normal filly might have something to complain about on their way to school, Sweetie Belle didn’t seem to mind, because the smile didn’t leave her face even as she stepped toward the door to begin her daily walk to somewhere most young ponies don’t want to be.

“Sweetie Belle!”

The voice stopped Sweetie Belle with her hoof on the door-handle. She turned her head to the familiar tone around her name. The voice came from the top of the stairs, but Sweetie could hear its owner descending rapidly, the patter of hooves on staircase sounding like a strange wooden drum rhythm as it grew closer.

Rarity peeked out from the stairwell a second later looking slightly flushed. Her brow was furrowed and her lips were pouting.

“Yes, Rarity?” Sweetie Belle asked. While she normally tried to cherish the moments with her sister as best she could, the expression on Rarity’s face didn’t say she was going to enjoy the next few moments.

After a few seconds of quieted breathing, Rarity’s expression turned into a soft smile.

“You forgot your lunch,” she said. Her horn glowed and a flower-print tin lunchbox hovered towards Sweetie Belle, hidden behind Rarity’s back on her descent.

Sweetie Belle grinned wider and caught the lunchbox in her teeth.

“‘fanks,” she said through the plastic handle with some difficulty.

Rarity smiled warmer and walked to the door where Sweetie’s hoof was frozen.

“I know I don’t need to remind you, Sweetie, but do be careful on your way to school, alright?”

Sweetie Belle nodded, and the lunchbox swung from her teeth.

“There’s still no sign of those poor little fillies that have gone missing, and I’d hate to have you disappear in such a fashion.”

Sweetie nodded again.

“Besides,” Rarity went on with a playful smirk, “what would mother and father think if you vanished? I’d be in quite a spot then.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, sparing Rarity from a sanctimonious chastisement only through virtue of her mouth being full.

Rarity giggled softly and gave her sister a pat on the head, nudging her bouncy curls into place as best she could muster with a light prod of her hoof..

“Alright dear, just trying to make light of a dire situation. You go straight to school, and no talking to strangers, understand?”

Sweetie steeled up her tooth-grip on her lunch box and nodded as curtly as she could manage. Rarity’s mouth narrowed in approval.

“And be sure to come right home after class. We have a great many things to do after you get home, and I expect you to be on time. You did promise, after all.”

Sweetie rolled her eyes, but nodded again.

“Very well. Off you go then.”

Rarity waved her hoof at Sweetie’s backside, but Sweetie threw open the door to quick for it to hit. She spared a glance back at her sister and gave her a wink as she disappeared around the corner on her way to school. Rarity watched her go, leaning against the door-frame and smiling.

The advice fled Sweetie’s head as soon as she was out of her sister’s sight. There were too many ponies on the way to school not to talk to them, even hampered by the verbal impediment of pink plastic between her teeth.

“Mrnwrg Mr. nd Mrs. Crk,” Sweetie said as she passed by the cheerful couple. Both ponies waved their hooves, holding them up from the pair of strollers they were pushing.

Sweetie so desperately wanted to stop and fawn over the still adorable baby foals, but she knew her route didn’t give her much time to spare on the way to school. She could always visit Mr. and Mrs. Cake another time if she really wanted to.

Cutie Mark Crusader Babysitters, she thought to herself, smiling with her teeth occupied.

“Mrng Derpy,” Sweetie said as she passed by a grey pegasus stuffing a robust berth of letters haphazardly into a mailbox. Derpy raised a hind leg and waved it at Sweetie as she went by, too focused on her task to draw her attention away. Sweetie giggled as Derpy managed the final cram of letters into their place, overflowing the tiny mailbox like a balloon bursting with white, papery water.

Sweetie’s walk took her through the most populaced parts of town, giving her chance to say hello to everypony she passed by and then some. Everypony’s smile was one worth seeing, including the ones who didn’t really smile.

There was one part, however, which Sweetie had taken to mentally categorizing as the ‘not-so-fun’ part of the trip—as fun as any trip to school could be, anyway.

An alleyway between Ponyville proper and the outskirts leading to the school path was between Sweetie and her destination, and she always paused right before she reached it, knowing full well what was coming.

Sweetie stared at the open mouth of the alley, half expecting it to open wide and swallow her up, but no such thing happened. The alley was plain and boring—a stone path between two brick walls, make up the edges of the stores on either side of them. One was coated in graffiti and scuffed up tag marks, while the other was simply falling apart in places, the odd errant brick smashed or shorn from its place in the structure. The lighting wasn’t even suspiciously dark—not during the daytime, anyway. At night, Sweetie suspected it was probably darker than the other alleys.

Sweetie took a big swallow of nothing before she stepped forward. Her lunchbox swung in her teeth.

She wasn’t more than a few steps into the alley before a shadowy figure emerged from her right. Just like a movie. Like a script. Like the way Sweetie had imagined it in her head.

“Get away from me, you weirdo!” Sweetie jumped into the air and spun completely around, pausing mid-spin to kick backwards and send the mysterious figure reeling.

Sweetie suddenly felt very tiny.

The figure was a pony, at least, but not one that Sweetie recognized. His face, from what she could tell, was made up of a scruffy brown coat and leering yellow eyes that peeked out from his outfit, a black cloak that trailed on the ground.

His breathing was loud enough to hear as he walked closer. Sweetie shivered.

“Hey, little princess. How are you doing?”

His voice was exactly like Sweetie imagined: slimy and slick and prickly in every part. Sweetie’s legs shook as she steeled herself against the stallion’s approach. She didn’t answer him.

“You look like you’re headed somewhere. Where are you going?”

“School,” Sweetie blurted out. She hadn’t meant to, but it came naturally, and she didn’t want to lie—even more than that, she didn’t want to keep quiet, because it felt like the stallion might take that as a sign to move closer.

Which he did anyway.

“School, huh?” His cape shook as he jostled himself closer. Sweetie noticed one of his hooves was missing, his right foreleg, and the suspicious bulge under his cloak suggested where it might be.

“You know, there’s a lot of stuff you can’t learn in school. Why don’t you come with me, and I can give you a private lesson—”

Sweetie had been through enough nightmares with lecherous, lerring dialogue to know where this was going. She didn’t respond. She simply turned and ran.

She ran as fast as it felt like her legs could be moved. After the first hundred yard sprint Sweetie could feel her legs beginning to ache, but she ignored them, as well as the dull thud of her lunchbox against her chest as it bounced with the force of her movement.

She she darted through town, not sure where she was going. Nothing looked like her normal walk to school anymore.

She had to be sure he wasn’t following her.

Sweetie opened her eyes more than half-way and turned her head over her shoulder, trying to make out the black cloak or dead stare that would identify the pony from the alley.

That pony back and to the right had a big bundle of black on him, maybe he was the—

Sweetie hit a wall. Her lungs emptied themselves of air, and the rest of her body succumbed to gravity’s insistence as a result, pulling her from her collisional backwards topple and straight to the ground, lest she float forever.

The wall made a painful sounding ‘oof’ noise. Sweetie was quite sure walls weren’t supposed to be able to talk.

Sweetie Belle opened her eyes as her brain began to reassert itself, and her vision reluctantly followed. The nature of the wall materialized in front of her as her eyes gained focus.

It was a green one. Green and standing up with a sour look on its face.

“Oh my goodness, Lyra! I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there...” Sweetie held a hoof to her face as her voice dripped with apology. Her lunchbox lay on the ground where it had landed from the collision, momentarily forgotten.

The green pony named Lyra didn’t seem too upset. She tilted her head to either side and held a hoof to her chin as she cracked her neck. After that, she smiled and shrugged.

“No big deal,” she said. “I wasn’t really paying close attention to where I was going anyway.”

Her voice dripped with nonchalance. It was spunky and effusive and colourful and cheerful all at once. Sweetie Belle found herself smiling in spite of her still settling jumble of perceptions. She needed to gather up her lunchbox and get on her way to school..

But Lyra was familiar enough to warrant keeping herself for a minute or two.

“Are you okay?” Sweetie asked. She looked around to see if she’d caused Lyra to drop something in the same stead as her own lunchbox, but found nothing.

“Yeah, I’m alright. I’d let you know if anything was broken. Maybe make you set it yourself.”

Sweetie chuckled, and Lyra did the same.

“Where’s Bonbon? Is she with you? I didn’t knock her over too, did I?” Sweetie asked.

Lyra shook her head.

“Nah. I think she’s at home, making some dumb candy or something.”

“Her candy’s not dumb,” Sweetie protested, screwing up her eyebrows in an arch at Lyra.

Lyra shrugged again with a grin. “It’s alright I guess...”

The two ponies shared an awkward smile, neither of them seeming interested in ending the conversation, but apparently not able to come up with anything further to carry it on.

“Are you on your way to school?” Lyra asked, looking over Sweetie’s book-bag and nearby lunchbox. Sweetie nodded, glad to be free of the metal container that would surely have bonked against her chest if she was holding it.

“Uh-huh. In fact... I should probably get going.”

Lyra nodded again.

“That’s cool. I don’t want you to get in trouble for being late or anything.”

“I think I’ll be on time.”

Lyra turned to watch Sweetie as she walked forward, her eyes squinting small as she tried to reassemble her path through town to bring her to the schoolhouse.

“Hey.” Lyra called out as Sweetie made to round the corner of a nearby house. Sweetie stopped and turned her head with her eyebrows raised, her lunchbox collected from its place on the ground.

“You should stop by the shop sometimes. If you like Bonbon’s candy so much, we could always use a new set of hands to help out.”

Sweetie spit the lunchbox from her mouth, letting it land on the ground with a clink.

“...hands?” She tilted her head quizzically.

Lyra pondered the word for a second, then brought her hoof to her forehead with an exaggerated smack.

“Oh... right. Hooves. We could use an extra pair of hooves. If you wanted to, I mean.”

Sweetie blinked. She nodded slowly after a few seconds, wondering why such an unfamiliar word sounded like one she should know.

“Sure! I can’t today, but I’ll ask Rarity if I can come over after school some time.”

“Sweet. Speaking of which...” Lyra tapped an invisible watch on her left foreleg with her other hoof.

Sweetie Belle nodded again and picked up her lunch box. Her hooves began to move quicker than normal—no matter how sure she was she could find a new path in short enough time, it didn’t pay to be sluggish. Just in case.

Chapter 3

“You sure you can’t make it?”

The sound of the emptying classroom in the background made conversation impractical, but not impossible. Sweetie could still hear the ringing of the end-of-day bell in her ears. Unlike most days, she didn’t feel the burning ‘run home to enjoy the rest of the day’ insistence that usually came with it.

Applebloom joined Scootaloo’s hopeful wide stare towards Sweetie Belle, the two of them looking like sad puppy dogs begging for something unspecified.

Sweetie almost felt her resolve break, but it mended at the last second. She sighed.

“I’m sorry, guys. I really can’t.”

“It’s alright.” Applebloom seemed to take the news better, as opposed to Scootaloo, who frowned and kicked at the dirt. “I know how it is. Big sisters can be a pain sometimes.”

Neither of them looked towards Scootaloo, who was doing her best not to listen.

“Hope you guys have fun. Get some extra candy for me, if you can.”

“We’ll do our best,” Applebloom said. She smiled at Sweetie until Sweetie turned with her lunch-box between her teeth and began the walk home.

Sweetie Belle spared one glance backwards as she left. Scootaloo and Applebloom both looked like spoiled fillies on Hearth’s Warming morning, giddy to open their most fanciful presents.

Sweetie sighed through the plastic handle of her box.

It was going to be a long walk home.

Sweetie tried to recreate her emergency route on the way home as well. It was a bit difficult, as her senses in the morning had been muddied by panic. She’d had enough time to come up with something reasonably straightforward in lieu of her usual alley access being restrictive, but she couldn’t remember exactly where she’d turned. The houses seemed closer together on this side of town, almost like a maze. Sweetie Belle felt like she was getting lost in-between them.

Here, there was the same one she’d just seen a minute ago, bright orange walls and window trimming. But then as she turned the corner, there it was again, but with a slightly different lawn decoration, a pinwheel instead of a pink flamingo. Or, maybe the one she'd passed first had been a flamingo, and the second one was a parasprite gnome. And this house was blue, but it was orange on this side, which meant maybe she had just gone to the right instead of the left. This corner looked familiar, because she remembered that scribble on the wall that somepony had left, and around the corner of tiny vandalism there was—

“Oof!”

Sweetie hit a wall for the second time that day, though this one at considerably less velocity. It was still enough to topple her backwards, and to knock the lunch-box from her teeth. Her book-bag jostled on her shoulder, but luckily remained secure.

To her horror, this time the something she ran into was also carrying something.

It also had a green coat and a spinny-eyed look of confusion from the impact.

An empty crate was on the ground to the right, about Sweetie Belle’s size, or maybe a little bigger.. All around it, its contents fluttered in the soft breeze as they found places in the grass.

Sweetie studied them for a second. White, puffy looking, about the size of a sunflower. With five points, but not in any type of symmetry. All at one side, like a misshapen starfish.

Sweetie Belle shook her head. There was still a pony next to that crate.

“Are you okay...Lyra?!”

For the second time that day, Lyra collected herself, though she seemed more shaken up this time. Being hit by a fast-moving Sweetie-bomb was one thing, but even though this one had been low-impact, the crate toppling and subsequent full-body collapse were evidently more to recover from.

“Uh... I think so. I can’t feel my toes though.”

“Your what?” Sweetie stretched a foreleg out to help Lyra up, which she took with both of hers. Sweetie grunted and began to sweat as she tugged Lyra upright, and then onto all fours.

“My... oh, right. Nevermind.”

Lyra smiled at Sweetie as she found her footing, though she still looked a little out of it.

“I’m so, soooo sorry,” Sweetie said. “I didn’t mean to hit you again... I’m just having a really bad day.”

Lyra dusted off one of her shoulders before she used it to shrug.

“It’s okay. No harm, no foul. Although... did you see what happened to the box I was carrying?”

Sweetie’s eyes went wide like she’d seen a ghost. She didn’t want to have to point Lyra in the direction of her capsized crate’s contents.

But, she didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

With a horrified expression, Sweetie pointed behind Lyra and to the right. Lyra studied Sweetie’s expression for a curious second before turning to see what was causing all the fuss.

“Oh, is that all?”

Sweetie deflated from her panic. She let herself breathe again.

“It’s not that bad?”

An errant white thing floated by in the breeze, sailing off to parts unknown in its five-pocked asymmetry.

Lyra shook her head.

“Nah,” she said.

The bundle of white things on the ground began to glow—and, as Sweetie watch, every one of them, even the one that had almost gotten away, was pressed into a single large, white ball, which itself was smooshed into the crate that Lyra had been carrying. The ball of things disappeared beneath the crate lid, and the crate righted itself, giving a final shimmer of mint before it returned to its normal, non-magical colour.

“What are those things?” Sweetie Belle asked. Now that the initial calamity was averted (and subsequent apology and cleanup avoided), curiosity was the normal state of affairs.

“These? They’re just gloves. I need ‘em for a project.”

“Gloves?” Sweetie felt like Lyra had been slipping words into conversation that didn’t belong. If Sweetie wasn’t interested, it was easy to ignore them, but this word, and the white things it apparently belonged to, needed some explanation. Sweetie was used to ‘mittens’ or ‘hoof-warmers’—she’d even heard ‘gloves’ at one point or another—but these didn’t look like any glove she was familiar with.

Lyra nodded. “Yeah, gloves. You know, you wear them on your... ah. Ahaha... I guess you don’t.” Lyra’s face became suddenly flushed, and she rubbed a hoof on the back of her head awkwardly.

“Huh?”

“Nevermind. They’re just... yeah. It’s cool.”

“Cool?”

Lyra’s eyes darted back and forth to either side.

“Well, anyway, I’ve gotta get goin’. You know how it goes; places to be, and such...”

Sweetie Belle did know how it went sometimes, but not today. No matter what ‘fun’ things Rarity had planned, chores were still chores, and Sweetie was in no hurry to go home and do them.

Still, she understood the feeling. There were plenty of times she’d darted home from school only to pick something up before rushing back outside to spend time with her friends.

‘Gloves’, though? Not that exciting, upon initial examination.

“Okay, Sweetie said. She watched Lyra as she levitated the crate up into the air and held it at chest level before taking it in one hoof, bending her foreleg against her chest to keep it stable.

“Are you going home to help Bonbon with the candy give-out?” Sweetie asked as Lyra began to walk past, holding the crate precariously, and with the help of the occasional nudge of magic.

“Oh? Naw, that stuff’s not really my style. Too many kids. I’m just gonna go do... other stuff.”

Sweetie’s face fell. Lyra couldn’t help but look back as she spoke, and she noticed the sudden droop in Sweetie Belle’s smile.

“Aren’t you going? Bonbon invited every kid in town, didn’t she?”

“I can’t go,” Sweetie Belle said. “I have to go home and help my stupid sister with dumb chores.”

“Hey!” Lyra used her magic to lower the crate for a second, evidently finding it too heavy to keep afloat for too long. “I’ve known your sister for a little while, and she’s not stupid. The chores I can’t account for.”

Sweetie sighed as Lyra picked up her crate again, holding it against her body like an inexperienced furniture mover.

“I know. I just don’t wanna do ‘em.”

“Well,” Lyra said, adjusting her body to make the hard wood digging into her skin less uncomfortable, “try asking her about my offer to help around the shop a bit. I might not like candy, but Bonbon sure does. Heck, maybe you could even make a career out of it. You’re still looking for your cutie mark, right?”

Sweetie Nodded emphatically, her off-cotton-candy curls bouncing with the motion of her head.

Lyra nodded back with considerably less force.

“Well, there you go then.”

Lyra, seemingly content that the conversation was over, began her walk, holding the crate of gloves at eye-level with magic.

Sweetie watched her go for a bit, but realized as Lyra began to vanish around another suspicious looking corner, that she’d forgotten to say thank you for the offer.

“I’ll ask Rarity and let you know. Thank you!” Sweetie said, waving her foreleg at Lyra’s back and wooden crate.

She thought she could make out the hint of a smile behind the crate as Lyra disappeared.

Chapter 4

No matter how Sweetie had tried to spin it, chores were still chores. Rarity had tried to make a sort of game out of it—’One half hour of mopping, then a game to break things up! Oh, and we can do each others’ hair after, won’t that be fun?’—but it hadn’t done much to distract Sweetie Belle from the monotony of manual labour. Rarity put in a surprising amount of working keeping the boutique in order, and Sweetie Belle had been less than enthused to take part in any of it. What was more was that, after so much work and the added downer of being absent from the after-school candy-party, every ‘sisterly’ activity had seemed like a chore in its own right. Things had finally come to a head when, during a two-pony game of ‘Go Fish’, Sweetie had thrown her cards across the table after Rarity’s third win in a row. Things had eventually settled amicably, but that had been the end of any attempts at fun, and Sweetie had gone to bed wondering if tomorrow would be any better.

It would be hard not to be though.

Another morning meant new possibilities. Sweetie had nodded through Rarity’s lecture about coming right home after school, though the thought of being suddenly ‘detained’ after school had been planted firmly in her mind as a result of what might be waiting for her were she to come home. She’d taken her lunchbox and smiled and nodded and made her way out the door.

That had left the question of which route to take to school in the first place. The encounter with the scraggly bearded stallion with something questionable beneath his cloak had left a sour taste in Sweetie’s mouth over her usual path, but at the same time, there was always the hope that things the day before had simply taken an arbitrary turn to negativity and would return to normal if Sweetie simply let them.

She took her normal route. She ran into no seedy-looking ponies in alleys. She made it to school with ten minutes to spare before class—more than normal.

Sweetie allowed herself a smile as she slid into her seat. Her lunchbox found its way into her desk, holding a delicately arranged sandwich with the crust meticulously removed, or whatever else her big sister had packed for her that day. Sweetie was used to more matter-of-fact lunches from her parents, but had no complaints to level about Rarity’s preparations—occasionally the portions were a little small, but the taste and care to detail more than made up for it. There was usually a chocolate something-or-other for dessert as well.

Sweetie kept her eyes between the wall-clock and the door as the minutes ticked towards the start of class. There was plenty of time to spare before Cheerilee’s lesson began, which meant that she and the other two crusaders could talk uninterrupted for longer than they had yesterday, and this time without nervously avoiding stares that might turn into more vocal reprimands if Cheerilee grew tired of their chatting, as hushed as it may have been. Scootaloo and Applebloom weren’t the type of fillies to show up to class particularly early, but they also weren’t the type to wait until five seconds before the bell rang to show up at school.

But five seconds to the hour came, and neither one walked through the door. The bell rang, and Cheerilee greeted the class.

“Good morning everypony! Welcome to another wonderful day at school. The weather today is quite nice, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes Miss Cheerilee,” the class answered in practiced echo. Cheerilee’s smile was indomitable, as always.

“Now, if everypony is seated, I’d like to begin going over today’s—” Cheerilee stopped mid-sentence, her attention drawn by the hoof waving at her from toward the back of class.

Sweetie Belle lowered her foreleg when it became apparent she had gotten her teacher’s attention.

“Yes, Sweetie Belle?” Cheerilee asked. The class’s heads turned in unison, as they tended to do when somepony other than Cheerilee was to be the focus of attention.

“Not everypony is here,” Sweetie Belle said. “Applebloom and Scootaloo aren’t here yet.”

Cheerilee looked at the seats on either side of Sweetie Belle as though she was just noticing their emptiness.

“I suppose you’re right. Do you happen to know where they are? If they’re running late, I’m certain you can share your notes when they arrive—”

“I was hoping you knew where they were,” Sweetie said. “Didn’t they give you sick notes or something?”

Cheerilee shook her head.

“I’m afraid not. I haven’t seen either Scootaloo or Applebloom since yesterday, nor have I gotten any sick notes.” Cheerilee paused for a moment, her eyes glossing over like gears were turning in her head. Several students shifted noticeably in their seats, acutely aware of how long a discussion with no end was already going on—and that aside, probably one that should have been entered into before class had started regardless.

Cheerilee turned her half-frown suddenly into a smile.

“Sweetie... perhaps we could talk about this a little more after the next bell? We do have a lot to go through today, after all.”

Sweetie nodded, but didn’t speak. She felt a strange lump in her throat, and swallowed to try to make it go away, but it stayed, stuck like a piece of taffy had glued itself to the inside of her esophagus.

Cheerilee nodded back at her and began the day’s lesson. Sweetie didn’t hear what her teacher was saying. She looked to either side of her desk. When her eyes reached Scootaloo’s usual spot, she looked further up, and found Diamond Tiara in her usual desk. Instead of watching Cheerilee’s instruction, Diamond Tiara looked straight at Sweetie Belle.

The usual snark in her expression was gone. She just stared. Her eyes shimmered, but she said nothing.

Sweetie Belle looked away after a few seconds. She focused on the blackboard, and tried to pay attention to what Cheerilee was saying.

Every other minute, she looked to one side or the other, and her frown grew a little deeper.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Sweetie spoke with Cheerilee as directed, right after the first recess bell, but didn’t have much to say. Cheerilee had been as concerned as Sweetie had expected, but allayed Sweetie’s own worry by saying she’d be sure to touch base with Applebloom’s family. She didn’t mention anything about Scootaloo’s, though assumedly the workings were all in place there as well to see what was going on with the other absent filly as well. It wasn’t as though Scootaloo’s family was completely out of the picture—it just wasn’t a subject for discussion.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Cheerilee had said, placing her hoof reassuringly on Sweetie’s shoulder. “Everypony is so busy these days—it’s quite likely that even if they were sick, they wouldn’t have had time to get notes in. I’ll speak to their families and sort things out, don’t you worry.”

Sweetie had felt a little bit better, but the lump in her throat had remained regardless.

The day was already too grey to attempt a fancy trip home. Despite the sun shining overhead, Sweetie felt like there was a cloud following her, hovering over her head and drenching everything she looked at in old film-wash and dreary downpour. Sweetie tried to ignore it, and gave smiles to the few ponies she passed by on the way home—Mr. Breezy, who was setting up his windy display; Twilight, who’d given a smile and a wave on the way by, with Spike in tow, hauling a cartload of books with an unappreciated look on his face—but ultimately, no matter how much she focused on smiling, she couldn’t convince herself to feel right until she found out what had happened to her two friends.

Cheerilee was looking into it though. Surely when Sweetie showed up for school the next day, everything would be in place.

Sweetie threw her lunchbox carelessly onto the floor as she arrived home. She wanted just to leave it there and to let whatever morsels remained inside sour in the heat of the overhead sun, but she convinced herself the better of it after imagining the look on Rarity’s face at finding a spoiled apple-core cooking in a metal coffin on her perfectly cleaned boutique floor. Sweetie dragged the lunchbox to the kitchen like a lead weight and cleaned it out with as much enthusiasm as she could manage, which was likely somewhere in the negatives.

Then she went upstairs to her room, threw herself on the bed, and sighed.

There wasn’t really anything to do when your friends were elsewhere. Having two thirds of the Cutie Mark Crusaders missing at a free-candy extravaganza had been one thing, but having Applebloom and Scootaloo out of commission for unseeable, unknowable reasons, meant that Sweetie couldn’t even lament to the end of a function she was missing. She felt like the evening could only consist of waiting for sleep, so she could wake up the next day and head to school, and find out what Cheerilee had found out.

She considered asking Rarity for permission to be let out wandering, or maybe to just go to Applebloom’s house and ask what had kept her from school that day.

Actually, that didn’t sound like a bad idea at all—

The doorbell drew Sweetie from her sudden revelation. It sounded like a series of ornately arranged chimes, so fancy that only Rarity could have picked them out with any confidence. Normally the doorbell meant customers, but Sweetie suspected it was too late in the day for anypony to be visiting for dress commissioning. And, more than that, Sweetie felt something in her gut that told her the doorbell today was something different. While normally she would have stayed in her room, there wasn’t anything more entertaining about her bedsheets than the tile flooring downstairs, and the pony at the door might be someone she wanted to see. Sweetie dashed down the stairs, arriving at the bottom just as her sister opened the door.

“Oh, hello, Applejack. What brings you to mon château at this time of day? Do you require an extra guest for dinner, perhaps?”

Even though Sweetie couldn’t see Rarity’s face, she knew she was smiling in that over-the-top, self-caricaturish way she always did when she put on such a fancy accent. Well, moderately more fancy than her normal one anyway.

But Applejack wasn’t smiling. The sides of her mouth dipped almost to the bottom of her face, and as Sweetie watched, Applejack took her hat off and held it against her chest.

“‘fraid not, Rarity. Can I come in for a sec?”

Rarity’s posture didn’t flinch, but Sweetie imagined the smile disappearing from her face.

“Why... certainly, of course. Is something the matter? You look horribly out of sorts, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

Applejack walked inside more delicately than she usually did anything, taking particular care to check her hooves for mud before she walked off the indoor welcome-mat. Rarity turned, and Sweetie could see a soft smile as her sister shut the door, evidently grateful at Applejack’s regard for the cleanliness of her boutique.

“Nah, I don’t mind at all, considerin’ I’m pretty much exactly that.” Applejack turned and put her hat back on her head, leaving it at an odd angle. Sweetie could only see half of Applejack’s face as she reoriented herself, but her eyes said more than the rest of her face entirely—they shimmered like a well was sparkling inside them, holding something fearsome behind the grass-green irises.

Rarity could see it too, and her mouth turned down again before she opened it just a tad, as though she meant to let out a sympathetic moan of distress.

“Listen, Rarity’,” Applejack started, her tone as businesslike as Sweetie had ever heard it. “Have you seen any sign of Applebloom in the last... half a day or so?”

Sweetie’s mouth fell open, unseen from the foot of the stairs. The lump in her throat grew, and finally allowed itself to be swallowed, where it settled obtrusively in the pit of her stomach.

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” Rarity said, tilting her head in concern. “Of course, I’ve been working all day, and Carousel Boutique isn’t the type of place Applebloom would normally visit, I don’t believe... has she been playing truant on you?”

“I sure hope so,” Applejack said. “She’s been missin’ all day. She was set to stay home sick from school, on account of not feelin’ well—some kinda stomach flu, I think—but when I went to check up on her an hour or two after school started, she was gone. Been lookin’ for her all day.”

Rarity’s mouth fell open further, while Sweetie’s did the opposite, clamming up in lieu of any further distance to distend.

“I’ve searched everywhere.... all over the farm, every barn, every tree that mighta had a hollowed out stump or some place to hide. I even went to her clubhouse, but she ain’t nowhere to be found.”

“My goodness.” Rarity stood with a hoof just on the corner of her mouth, apparently unable to think of anything more to say. The weight of her two words sunk into the air, forming an awkward silence out of necessity.

“Where on earth do you think she might be?” Rarity finally asked, moving her hoof to lower the brim of the red-glasses she was wearing, apparently left on in absent-mindedness after the doorbell had drawn her from her sewing work.

“I dunno.” Applejack kicked a hoof at the floor, taking care enough not to scuff it, but communicating her frustration regardless. “I’ve looked every place I can think of, and now I’m goin’ around askin’ folk if they’ve seen her, or if they have any idea about where she mighta ended up. I’m thinkin’ that if Rainbow Dash hasn’t seen anythin’, I’m’a go to the Mayor and organize some kinda search party, if I can.”

Rarity nodded solemnly.

“I dare say that might not be a bad idea. Have you spoken to Scootaloo’s... er...”

“Scootaloo’s missing too.”

The voice that chimed in wasn’t Applejack’s. Sweetie stood finally from her place on the stairs, and bounded down the last several to the surprised looks of Applejack and Rarity.

“She wasn’t at school, and Miss Cheerilee hadn’t heard anything about where she was either.”

“Sweetie Belle! Why didn’t you say anything about this when you got home?” Rarity’s eyebrows furrowed behind her glasses, her glare set dead-on at Sweetie Belle.

“Because I didn’t think I needed to! Cheerilee said she was gonna ask about it, and I didn’t wanna make you any more worried than you already were...”

“Well maybe there’s a reason I was so worried. Two fillies vanishing is one thing, but heaven forbid any more should go missing... Applejack, I believe we have an epidemic on our hands.”

Applejack nodded.

“I’m gonna go get over to the mayor’s then. Dash mighta seen somethin’a’ Scootaloo, if she was just playin’ hooky, but I’d rather get somethin’ underway before it’s too dark to see anything.”

Applejack nodded, mostly to herself, and made her way back to the door. She opened and stepped outside without waiting to be seen out, although she paused before walking off completely.

“Thanks anyway, Rarity. I guess I’ll see ya’ if we get some kinda search goin’ on, assumin’ you’ll be there.”

“Of course, of course. Go ahead, and I’ll try to put some kind of ‘search party ensemble’ together. Something with nice, loud colours, perhaps.”

Applejack didn’t even pause to take issue with Rarity’s fashion consciousness in the face of possible life-threatening danger. She gave one last small nod, staring off into the distance, and then bolted off like a shot from a cannon, leaving Sweetie Belle and Rarity alone in the boutique.

“Do you think Applebloom and Scootaloo are okay?” Sweetie could feel the tremble in her voice as tears threatened to escape from the corners of her eyes. Rarity seemed to noticed the same thing, as she walked until she was next to her sister and kneeled, running a hoof through Sweetie’s candy-coloured mane as the tiny filly sniffled.

“I’m sure they’re fine, Sweetie. Disappearances are not a first in Ponyville... goodness knows the rest of the girls and I have put a stop to more than a few nefarious schemes here and there, and I’m sure more than one of them at some point has involved somepony or another disappearing.”

Sweetie sniffled again and let Rarity’s hoof wipe the first trickle of tears from her cheek.

“Come on now. Let’s go into the kitchen and make some hot chocolate. I be that will cheer you up.”

Sweetie let herself be led into the kitchen, where a repository of cocoa and tiny marshmallows were waiting. She wanted to believe her sister—that despite the sour feeling in her stomach, that Applejack’s search party would be the only step necessary to put things in town back into place, and that the next day she’d arrive at school with her friends waiting for her, and Silver Spoon and Twist as well, all of them smiling, and the air thick with relief at no more worrying about what might or might not have happened to the poor young fillies who had gone missing so suddenly.

She wanted to believe it, but she wasn’t sure she could.

Chapter 5

Sweetie’s battle to convince Rarity to let her walk to school the next day had been the stuff historical war books were written on.

After an entire night of townsponies poking through every corner of Ponyville had commenced, still with no sign of any of the missing fillies, Rarity’s paranoia had gone from bad to worse. Sweetie Belle couldn’t blame her—it wasn’t exactly an unwarranted worry at this point—but it had still been an inconvenience enough to be worth convincing her out of.

Nopony, Sweetie reminded Rarity, had been snatched in plain view right off the street. Furthermore, she had gone on, to Rarity’s unsympathetic protests, Sweetie always took a very busy path to school, in plain view of almost the whole rest of town. She could change her route to stay in perfect sight the whole way. If she saw somepony strange, she’d run back home immediately.

Rarity had huffed and put up quite a fuss, but eventually given in. Sweetie Belle didn’t mean to pile any additional stress on her sister, but the prospect of staying trapped in the boutique all day, helping Rarity with customer’s at one end and being doted on in obsessive worry the next had been the most miserable prospect Sweetie could imagine. School was better, even if it still meant a pit of sick worry in her stomach when she thought about Applebloom and Scootaloo’s seats empty next to her.

The search party hadn’t turned up anything. Even Sweetie Belle had almost been convinced by the time the event was fully underway that, of course, with everypony in town searching, something had to turn up. There was no way two (or four) fillies could hide from an entire town’s worth of inquisitive busy-bodies. They had pegasi who could see an overview of all of Ponyville. They had unicorns with scrying spells, and earth ponies who knew every inch of the town’s layout. They even had Pinkie Pie helping, sniffing at the air, bound by an invisible leash, searching for errant limb-twitches or ear-flutters guiding her in the direction of the missing bodies.

The only sign they’d gotten was a tail-twitch as one of the stallions, good-minded but unobservant, had peered into a window and detached the hanging plant above his head. Nurse Redheart had patched him up in no time, of course.

Sweetie Belle spent the day at school trying not to worry. She knew that worrying wouldn’t do any good, and that no matter how many times she looked to her left or her right, fretting over her friends’ disappearances wouldn’t cause them to magically apparate at the schoolhouse door, beaming and offering a simple explanation for their vanishing.

“Oh, we just got stuck in a tree,” Scootaloo would say. “I’m still covered in sap. But look—we found a rare bird-egg! We’ll have our cutie marks in orni...orna...bird-science in no time!”

Sweetie Belle sighed. The lump in her stomach felt bigger every time she imagined her friend’s voices. It didn’t help that she hadn’t been able to see them the day before. She knew there wasn’t any sense in blaming herself either—what could she have done differently?—but the thought gnawed at her regardless.

Occasionally, she let her eyes slip from the front of the class, or her notebook covered in depressing scribbles, to the left of Scootaloo’s spot.

Diamond Tiara was focused on her notes mostly, or staring intently at the front of the class, where Cheerilee took care to intersperse her normal instruction with reminders that of course nopony should be anywhere after school but at home, and that if anypony saw anything suspicious that they should report it to an adult immediately. But sometimes, as Sweetie Belle looked over at the face she’d been unable to muster anything but resent for, on every school day prior, Diamond Tiara looked back at her.

Neither of them said anything, but they always held their gazes together for a few seconds. Sweetie thought she could almost hear Diamond Tiara’s breathing in sync with her own, after the third time, but she didn’t mention it. Neither girl spoke. They just shared a stare for a moment before turning back to their books. This happened a few times, and Sweetie wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The end of the day came quicker than Sweetie expected. She’d imagined that with no friends or fun to occupy her school-breaks, that surely immersion in learning would cause time to drag by—but the pace of school surprised her, and before she knew it, the bell was ringing to send her home for the day.

She had a bit of a walk before she got back to the boutique—but today, she felt like taking a sort of detour.

Sweetie didn’t take an alternate route per say, because that would have meant taking a route in the first place. She was on her way home, in some roundabout fashion, but there was a lot she wanted to do before she got there—or rather, one thing she wanted to do until she got it right.

Something that might take a long time if she didn’t find what she was looking.

“Um, excuse me,” Sweetie said.

The couple that was walking by paused at the verbal interruption. Ponies in Ponyville were normally friendly enough to assume that an erstwhile conversation starter was worth stopping for, or at least that they could stand to do so out of courtesy. In this case, Sweetie’s voice was familiar and innocent sounding enough that it would take a fairly stolid heart to continue walking.

The two ponies looked like they were out of an old painting. The stallion had a black hat with a buckle on it, and an orange mustache and goatee that contrasted his brown coat. His wife had a grey mane and pink coat, and wore her hair up in a bonnet. They both turned to look towards Sweetie, but it was the stallion who spoke.

“Yes?” he said. His tone was non-confrontational, though he sounded in some kind of hurry.

“Sorry to be a bother,” Sweetie said, “but I was just wondering if either of you had seen, um, any ponies about my age wandering through town recently?”

The stallion and mare shared a look, then turned back to Sweetie as one, shaking their heads slightly.

“I’m afraid not,” said the stallion. He sounded a tad put out that he’d been stopped.

“You’re sure?” Sweetie asked. “One of them has a big red bow in her hair, and the other one is really loud and maybe riding a scooter...”

The stallion shook his head more firmly.

“I haven’t seen any such thing,” he said.

Sweetie let her eyes swell extra big and pleading and turned to the mare, but she answered with the same solemn headshake.

“Sorry,” she said.

The couple didn’t wait for further questioning. They turned their heads before Sweetie had time to ask anything more, and trotted off briskly, evidently unconcerned with where Sweetie’s inquiries might be leading.

Sweetie cursed under her breath (a schoolyard jibe, nothing particularly offensive), and swung her hoof at the dirt.

Well, that was only the first attempt. Plenty more where that came from.

A blue-maned stallion with a music note cutie mark ambled by behind Sweetie, looking to be in no particular hurry. Sweetie watched him for a moment before dashing to his side and piping up in the most pleading voice she could muster.

“Um, hello. Sorry to be a bother, but I don’t suppose...”

The sun was beginning to set, and Sweetie felt miserable.

She’d asked everypony she could find on her way home, making several loops around the center of town in the hopes that she’d catch somepony she hadn’t yet harangued with questions. She had run into the same groups three or four times, and given them a nod in the hopes that they might have suddenly recalled more information, but head-shakes had been all that answered her.

She’d asked everyone. Neighbours, vendors, passerby. She’d varied her questioning to seem less focused—’Have you seen anypony wandering around who looked kind of suspicious? No? What about a griffon?’—but had ultimately been unssuccesful. Several of the ponies she asked had pointed out that the town had already conducted a citywide search trying to find her missing schoolmates—but she hadn’t let that deter her. Grown-ups were never particularly good at finding anything, and Sweetie Belle had a hunch that if she could just muster up enough information, she could track down Applebloom and Scootaloo, as well as the other ponies that had gone missing as well.

She had a plan, and it was almost surely foolproof.

It was just the getting started part that was proving unduly difficult.

Sweetie sighed as she trudged home. She knew Rarity would probably be upset with her for dallying so long after school—she’d already cooked up an excuse for her slow walking speed. It had changed in her head since its inception—first a gaggle of kittens that had gone missing, and that Sweetie had needed to help collect—then to an errand she’d been asked to run by Mrs. Cake that morning that she had gotten lost executing—eventually, though, she had settled on Cheerilee asking her to stay after class because she’d needed help with a lesson. She avoided going for a detention, because Rarity was the type who’d probably go speak to her teacher about it, and that would only open up a whole new awkward mess. Sweetie had elected to stay of her own volition, or would say she had. Fractions are hard, she would say.

Sweetie was almost home when she spotted a familiar face she hadn’t questioned. Or, rather, in this case, two familiar faces. She managed to avoid running into either of them at high velocity; it was a habit she was trying to break, lest one of the ponies in town most willing to put up with her youthful exuberance might sour on her forever forward.

Lyra and Bonbon were walking in sync with each other, each sparing a hoof to hold the other’s. The two of them were behind the pulling-harness of a giant wooden cart, and staring into each other’s eyes and smiling as they talked.

The subject of what exactly was between Lyra and Bonbon was always a subject of discussion around town. It wasn’t as though same-sex couples were an oddity—Sweetie suspected several of her sisters friends were ‘friendly’ with each other than they let on, even—but the mint-green unicorn and candy-maned earth pony became the subject of discussion simply because what was between them wasn’t clear. If they were dating, why didn't’ they just come out and say so? Nopony had ever seen them kiss—and when pressed about the subject, they always managed to avoid changing the topic. Sweetie had never bothered to ask: one, because it wasn’t exactly polite, and two, because both ponies were usually happy to see her, and she didn’t need to know whether they were going out or not, as it didn’t have anything to do with her interactions with them in the first place.

“Hi Lyra. Hi Bonbon.”

The cart stopped as both ponies heard their names, and pulled their hooves and gazes apart to find Sweetie Belle waving dejectedly at them from several feet away.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle. What’s haps?” Lyra asked. Bonbon didn’t add her own greeting, but smiled sweetly as Sweetie trudged closer to the cart.

“Nothing,” she said. She stared at the ground in a way that begged the question ‘but?’

Lyra and Bonbon shared a glance.

“Is something the matter, sweetheart?” Bonbon’s voice was motherly sounding despite its youthfulness. While Bonbon didn’t seem to be any older than most of the ‘grown-up’ ponies Sweetie Belle associated with, it always had a certain tone about it; the kind that said, on the off chance that you were sad and needed somepony to talk to, Bonbon would be happy to listen without obligation. It was the kind of voice that had a bowl of fresh-candy to hand out, and hugs to go along with them.

“No,” Sweetie said, still staring at the ground. She kicked a hoof into the dirt, ignoring Lyra and Bonbon’s concerned looks. She huffed up her face into a scrunch and let it go with a sigh. “Yes,” she said, and raised her head.

“What’s up?” Lyra asked. She leaned one hoof on the wooden joinder connecting the pulling bar of the cart to the frame proper, and eyed Sweetie with a sort of nonchalant concern.

“Well, you probably already heard about Applebloom and Scootaloo.”

Lyra and Bonbon shared a look. Bonbon’s eyes widened a little in a way that suggested there might be a shocked gasp hiding behind them, whereas Lyra’s sparkled with more investment than was prone ever to appear on her face in normal circumstance.

“No,” Lyra said. “What’s up with Applebloom and Scootaloo?”

Sweetie lifted her eyes from the ground for the first time since running into the couple.

“You didn’t hear? They went... missing.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow, restraining her investment in the revelation, but Bonbon’s eyes went even wider, and she raised a hoof to her mouth, letting out the gasp that had been held behind her concern a moment ago.

“Missing? Where on earth could they be?” Bonbon sounded just like Rarity. It prompted another sigh from Sweetie.

“I don’t know. Almost everypony in town was out looking last night, and I’ve asked everyone I could find, but nopony seems to have any idea what could have happened to them.”

Bonbon looked imploringly in either direction, as though she expected some kind of explanation to tumble from the sky to fill in the events she’d somehow not been privy to.

“We... we were out all last night. Nopony mentioned anything to us...”

Sweetie gave a sort of despondent shrug, and turned to Lyra.

Lyra scrunched up her eyebrows and put a hoof to her chin in contemplation.

“Huh,” she said.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes swam with sadness.

“I don’t suppose you guys have heard anything? Or seen either of them since the day before last?”

Lyra and Bonbon both shook their heads after a moment.

“Sorry, kiddo. I haven’t seen much of them at all, but not specifically in the last few days.”

Sweetie turned her head to Bonbon, who looked more distressed than Sweetie had seen anypony over her questioning thus far.

“I saw them both at my little giveaway a few days ago, but I haven’t seen them since...” she said. Her voice sounded sunken, like a mother fretting over a missing child.

“Did they seem okay when you saw them then?” Sweetie Belle asked. She hadn’t even thought to remember Bonbon’s candy party, but now that the subject came up, it occurred to her that both ponies had been there. Maybe Bonbon had noticed something that might lead her in the right direction.

Bonbon nodded, eyes still wide in perpetual distress.

“They seemed fine. They were both well-behaved, though Scootaloo was a bit rambunctious at times...”

“Have you heard anything about anypony else going missing since then?” Sweetie Belle asked. This was the closest thing she had to a lead, and she was going to follow it until it burned out or turned up something else to follow.

“No, I haven’t. The only pony I can think of who seemed a bit out of sorts afterwards was Rumble, and that was only because he ate too much and got a tummy ache.”

“Have you seen him since then?” Sweetie asked, staring up at Bonbon.

It was Lyra who piped up, bobbing her head as she spoke.

“Yeah, we’ve seen him. Ever since then he’s been hounding us for some more of Bonbon’s candy.”

Lyra’s horn shone. The back of the cart, covered by a huge blue tarp, began to rustle. After a few seconds, a glowing grey object came from underneath and was tugged into the air overtop of the cart, then to the side.

Rumble dangled there, held up by one leg with Lyra’s magic.

“There’s just wrappers in there, dude,” Lyra said. She plunked Rumble down onto the ground with maybe a little less care than might have been appropriate, but the tiny pegasus didn’t protest. He let himself hit the ground, then picked himself up with a too inoccent to be real look on his face.

“I knew that,” he said. Without waiting for a response, he turned and dashed off in the opposite direction, a single candy-wrapper floating off his hind leg as he ran.

Sweetie watched him vanish into the horizon and sighed.

“Alright,” she said. “I’m sorry for bothering you guys. If you find anything though, could you make sure to let me know?”

Bonbon nodded sympathetically, but Lyra held her head in place with a hoof on her chin, staring off into the distance at nothing in particular, as though she was pondering.

“Actually...” she began to say.

Sweetie perked up immediately, her eyes opening beyond their despondent glare for the first time that evening.

“Yes?” she asked excitedly, her voice bubbling with potential enthusiasm.

“Well, I dunno if it’s what you’re looking for, but I did notice something weird a couple days ago. Not about your friends... but there are those other ponies who have gone missing too, right? Like, two of them?”

Sweetie Belle bounced her head up and down rapidly, and Lyra gave a curt nod.

“I was out on a walk a couple nights ago, and I think I saw—don’t quote me on this—but I think I saw a little kid or two doing something near someplace on the hills at the outside of town.”

Sweetie blinked, and Lyra bit her lip as she tried to find a way to articulate her location.

“You know how at the end of town, all the houses stop and the ground over by that one part gets all kind of hilly?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I was walking there, and I noticed, like, what looked like one or two kids walking around on one of the hills. I wouldn’t have, but it was lit up, like, maybe with a fire or something. It was kind of blinking at me. I didn’t really think to go check it out, but... maybe that was something?”

“What did the kids look like?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Lyra shrugged.

“I dunno. I didn’t really get a good look at them. Though, with the fire there and everything... one of them looked really shiny. With like, a grey coat maybe? Or kind of... silvery?”

Sweetie’s eyes lit up like the sun.

“Are you sure? You saw a silver filly at the edge of town a couple nights ago?”

“Hey, I said don’t quote me. I’m pretty sure I did, but that was a while ago, and it was pretty dark. I wasn’t exactly paying close attention either.”

Sweetie let Lyra’s qualification go in one of her ears and out the other.

Lead. She had a lead. And that meant it was time to put her plan into action.

“Thank you so much Lyra!” Sweetie jumped up from the ground and wrapped her forelegs around Lyra’s neck, which Lyra responded to with an awkward start, as though she’d been glommed onto suddenly by an errant land-bound jellyfish. She didn’t even return the hug before Sweetie let go and fell back to the ground.

Sweetie turned immediately. She looked back toward Lyra and Bonbon, her eyes sparkling.

“Thank you again, both of you! That’s more than anypony’s been able to tell me all day.”

Sweetie readied herself as though preparing to dash off, but Bonbon reached out a hoof to signal her to stay.

“Sweetie, dear,” Bonbon started, her voice cautionary and hesitant, “you aren’t planning to go off to the edge of town all by yourself, are you? It could be very dangerous, especially with ponies disappearing as they have been.”

“Yeah. Don’t take what I said as an invitation to go getting yourself lost or anything. Like I said, I’m pretty sure about it, but it’s not one hundred percent.”

Sweetie Belle nodded to both ponies, smile still on her face.

“Don’t worry, I’m not. I’m just glad I have a little more information.”

“You do promise to tell anything you find out to an adult, don’t you?” Bonbon asked, her eyes narrowing as the possibility of a reprimand lingered on her tongue.

Sweetie nodded again.

“And to not go wandering off in the night to somewhere that could be dangerous?” Lyra asked. Again, Sweetie Belle answered with a nod.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll go home and tell Rarity right away.”

Bonbon relaxed her eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Good. You go ahead then, and do tell your sister we said hello.”

“Speak for yourself, she still owes me for those window sidings I helped her put up.”

“Lyra!”

“What?”

Sweetie Belle smiled at the pair one last time before bounding off in the opposite direction. Both ends of her mouth stayed up, her smile affixed in permanence to her face.

She’d tell Rarity eventually, anyway.

But first, there was investigation to do.

Chapter 6

Sweetie hadn’t told too many other ponies about the costume. She’d found it her sister’s closet originally—more than that, she’d found several of them—and as such had rationalized that nopony would notice if one went missing. One was enough to work with for design purposes, in any case. Sweetie Belle had never imagined herself to be a seamstress on Rarity’s level, or to even aspire to such a thing, but she knew her way around a sewing machine well enough that she’d been able to come up with a passable replicant—after several false starts, anyways. She’d forgotten on the first and second drafts that ponies had four legs, not three.

Of course, as a testament to some universal law, she’d never had a chance to use any of them. She’d mentioned the costumes in passing to the rest of the Crusaders, but neither of them had seemed particularly keen on the idea. There were always plenty of pursuits and things to attempt without having to dress up in fancy costumes, and those always made it to the top of the list first, leaving Sweetie’s ambition buried at the bottom of their future cutie-mark finding ideas. Sweetie seemed to think the idea of costumed crusading was much more appealing than either of her friends did; and so, as a result, the purple and black outfits she’d sewn together herself lied buried at the bottom of her own closet, gathering dust as they sat in unused squalor.

But not anymore.

The idea had come to Sweetie in the middle of class. Between her shared stares with Diamond Tiara, she’d recalled the conversation she, Applebloom, and Scootaloo had shared on the last day before the pair had disappeared. There was speculation about what could be causing the disappearances as they’d happened so far—though, at that point, qualifying two missing ponies as a rash of ‘disappearances’ had been jumping the gun a bit. Now, Sweetie was prepared to call the vanishings an epidemic, in a word she’d heard her sister use long before things had developed properly. She remembered what Scootaloo had theorized was the cause of the missing ponies, aside their leaving of their own free will.

Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure griffons were the answer, but something was definitely up.

And, who better to investigate a case of multiple kidnappings than a superhero?

Sweetie had been swept up in the Mare-Do-Well ruckus as much as everypony else in town had been. She’d stood in awe as the costumed pony performed feats of derring-do and saved the day on more than one occasion. She’d never imagined she’d be capable of any of the things she saw—super fast flight, predictive premonitions or unbelievable strength—but she didn’t need any of those things to be a hero now. All she needed was her costume, and the lead she had secured before arriving home.

The cape was her favorite part.

The limbs of the costume seemed a little tight at first, but after several tugs, Sweetie convinced them to fit, as poorly-sewn as they might have been. She had always liked the black and purple colour scheme—in retrospect, it was obvious her sister had designed the costumes. Design sensibility like that was something she shared with her sister, though perhaps not to a greatly transferable extent.

Sweetie studied herself in her room’s full-length mirror. She got half-way down her head before she started suddenly and dashed back to the closet.

Couldn’t forget the hat.

With the giant purple headpiece on, Sweetie looked almost exactly like the Mare-Do-Well she watched from afar. It was hard to believe it was still just her behind the costume. But of course, that was exactly the way it should be—if she found whatever evil doer was responsible for Ponyville’s fast-developing crimewave, she needed to keep her identity secret at all costs.

The grown ups hadn’t been able to do anything. They’d wandered about and turned up no results. But Sweetie Belle knew she could do better. She knew her friends, and she knew that she’d already collected more information than any of the ponies who had gone looking the day before.

She was the hero that Ponyville needed.

“Cutie Mark Crusader Crime Fight—oops.” Sweetie stopped herself with a hoof on her mouth. The usual chant stung on her lips. It sounded hollow without the other two voices needed to bring it to its full weight.

“Crusader Sweetie Belle Crime Fighter,” she said to herself, nodding at her substitution. Flying solo, it would have to do.

But, she couldn’t just be Sweetie Belle. Not as a costumed hero. And Mare-Do-Well was already taken...

Sweetie Belle looked towards the window. It was late, later than it had been when she got home, and avoided her scolding from Rarity with her carefully crafted alibi. The sun was long since gone, and night was coming in proper, ushering in a wave of blackness that would consume Ponyville wholly, the way it did every night, until the sun peeked out from the horizon and welcomed back the visibility of daylight.

The same darkness that had given Sweetie her first clue. The darkness that she was about to set out into in search of a discovery that would bring Ponyville to a collective gasp of astonishment.

Not Sweetie Belle.

“Midnight Belle,” she whispered to herself. She grabbed her cape with one hoof and threw it in front of her face with a swish, striking a dramatic pose in the mirror.

That would do.

Midnight Belle was alone in the upstairs of her hideout. The black of night outside her window crept over the houses of Ponyville like a lurking shadow, hiding criminals and miscreants from the illumination of daybreak.

The streets were filled with n’er-do-wells, and there was only one pony in town capable of stopping them—

“Sweetie Belle! Quit playing and come downstairs! Dinner’s ready!”

Shoot.

Sweetie Belle caught herself halfway through her dramatic overlook out her window, almost tumbling to the ground as she struggled to yank her costume off. Dinner had gotten off to a late start thanks to her questioning disguised as dawdling.

After a few minutes with a particularly stubborn leg, Sweetie managed to weasel out of her crime-fighting apparel. She could smell the scent of supper wafting up the stairs: something with hay-fries on the side, by the smell of it.

Cleaning up the streets of Ponyville could wait a little bit, if hay-fries were involved.

“Do you want me to read you a bedtime story, Sweetie Belle?”

Sweetie let herself lie back and be smothered by the decorated quilting that lined the bed of the guest-room. Rarity always insisted on tucking her in, which Sweetie Belle put up with only because she knew a protest would only mean further difficulty. It was better to simply lie limp and let Rarity coo and fuss with the sheets before leaving Sweetie to adjust them to a more proper size and sleep comfortably.

“No, that’s okay Rarity.” While Sweetie had to admit she’d given in to the temptation of a bed-time tale more than once, tonight was not the night. There was clue-hunting to be done.

“Well, if you’re sure. Did you remember to brush your teeth before bed?” Rarity furrowed her eyebrows as she tucked in the corners of the sheet, forming a make-shift cloth prison for her sister.

“Yes, Rarity,” Sweetie said. It was a response she’d rehearsed steadily over the last few days.

“Did you do your homework for tomorrow?”

“Yes, Rarity.”

“And did take your dishes downstairs like I asked?”

“Yes, Rarity.”

“Good. And, did you remember to take down the description of any suspicious looking ponies in town so I can file a police report for their investigation—”

“Rarity!”

Rarity batted her eyes bashfully. Perhaps that was a bit much.

“Alright, alright. I’ll leave you be then, as I can see you’re eager to get to sleep. Have sweet dreams, and make sure you’re bright-eyed and ready for school tomorrow.”

“I will, Rarity.”

Rarity leaned in close and gave Sweetie Belle a kiss on the forehead, which brought a contented giggle from Sweetie in spite of herself. Rarity answered it with a smile, and lingered with her hoof on the nearby desk-lamp before she flicked it off. She made her away across the room in a similarly languid fashion, and held the door for a moment, looking back on Sweetie’s bed, where Sweetie was already lying with her eyes closed, ready to begin snoring peacefully.

Rarity sighed to herself and shut the door delicately as she stepped out into the hallway.

Sweetie counted to ten before she pulled the sheets off her chest as quietly as she could muster. It was dark, but the costume wasn’t far away. Sweetie wasn’t exactly practiced at sneaking out the window, but she imagined it couldn’t be too difficult—at worst, she’d take a tumble down a floor, and she was squishy. She’d certainly hit the ground from greater heights in the past, and come out with not much more than a scrape.

Besides—even a few bruises couldn’t deter Midnight Belle from her true calling—a rescue of her friends, and the defeat of whatever nefarious villain had locked them up in the first place.

The costume came on more easily this time. As Sweetie donned the hat, a flicker of moonlight caught her reflection in the mirror. She stared at it through her mask.

She couldn’t believe how cool she looked.

Time to go crime-fighting.

Midnight Belle pulled open the upstairs window with an almost silent creak. Her hooves moved across the metal bar holding it shut with familiarity—it wasn’t her first time being locked up here. As she pushed the window into place at the height of its opening, she leaned over to get a good view of the descent awaiting her.

It may as well have been fifteen stories, but that didn’t stop her for a second. She barely paused before pulling herself from the window and moving to collect her tools.

The bed-sheet that had been given to her as a means to keep her quiet would make a perfect rope. She chewed her lip as she tied the ends together, then coiled the whole length into a long, slender climbing apparatus. Just like she’d done it a million times before, Midnight Belle fastened one end to the window, tying it around the metal bar that normally held the glass in place. It was firm.

Midnight Belle smiled to herself in the moonlight.

She eyed the ground one last time before propping herself up on the window-ledge. The wind whistled as it blew past, shrieking into the empty night like a devil’s whisper. Midnight Belle didn’t even flinch as she held herself against the side of the house, grasping at the tied-up bed-sheet like she was a practiced rappeller.

After what felt like only a few hops, she reached the ground. The dewy grass bristled under her hooves.

That was step one. It had gone by without so much as a forced breath—but the night was still young, and Midnight Belle wasn’t about to rest until she had it held up by its neck against the wall, spilling whatever secrets it held and letting her finally put an end to this whole ‘kidnapping’ business.

The investigation had to start somewhere, of course. So, without even a glance back, Midnight Belle took off into the night, slipping through the darkness like a shadow, her cape billowing softly in the breeze.

Chapter 7

Sweetie found several false starts on her way to the edge of town. She’d been around Ponyville so many times, it was a wonder she didn’t know where everything was—but the geography seemed unfamiliar at night. As much as she squinted her eyes and told herself that Midnight Belle needed only her instincts in the veil of night to guide her intuition, she’d had to stop several times and get her bearing on a landmark or familiar store before she finally found her way to her destination.

The edge of town. And hills in the distance.

Midnight Belle sniffed at the air. There was a certain scent on the night breeze—an almost earthen tinge that played with the senses, muffling them the same way the black sky muffled eyesight. A normal pony might have let themselves slip into fear, or apprehension—but Midnight Belle was not a normal pony. She was at home in the night, and she welcomed the tinny taste of sightlessness like it was a tender whiskey.

Sweetie Belle shivered as a strong breeze blew past. Her costume wasn’t particularly warm, and she could feel goosebumps on her skin beneath her fur. She hoped her bed was still warm when she got home.

The ground made no move to give itself up at a first glance, but Midnight Belle had expected that. She’d been given a tip that didn’t promise to lead to anything—an off-hoof lead from a flaky dame that she’d already learned not to count on in the best of times. But the lead was something, and if it was even close to being what she was looking for, it’d only take a few minutes of searching before Midnight Belle’s trademark sensibilities came into play and found the rest of the puzzle pieces that made up the nefarious rubik’s cube of kidnapping that she was on the trail of.

Midnight Belle scanned the ground closer, almost pressing her nose to the grass. The scent of empty night-air mixed with the tingle of freshly-forming dew, and the heavily trampled fragrance of dirt. It thinned out as she moved on, knowing full well that there was nothing to turn up in one of the most well-walked parts of town. The dame had said there was something in those hills, and that was where Midnight Belle intended to look. That said, it didn’t do any good to look past the obvious when clues were a scarcity. Anything that pointed in a direction was worth investigating, and Midnight Belle had all the time in the world to investigate—or at least until the sun came up.

Still; there was nothing here. Just grass and old-looking houses that were usually only kept up by ponies hurting for rent and not up to scrounging together the means for a better job to move to a nicer place. The walls had paint that was peeling, and lawns were unmowed, meaning it wouldn’t do much good to poke around in the giant lengths of grass for clues. Midnight Belle kept her nose to the ground closer and closer to the edge of town, following the hardly-there footpath until it disappeared and made way for the outskirts of Ponyville proper.

This is where there was something to see.

Or was there?

As far as Midnight Belle could tell, the whole thing was a wild goose chase. A look into the distance didn’t show a flickering light or pony milling about in the hills. It was as good a guess as any that the dame had simply been seeing things—she was always a bit out of it. Maybe the whole thing had been a setup, and Midnight Belle was wasting valuable time while the perpetrator made off with their goods—in this case, Midnight Belle’s partners, and two other inoccent fillies besides. She didn’t want that to be true, but the more she looked, the more it seemed like there was nothing here to warrant—

Sweetie Belle paused as her hoof touched an unfamiliar texture. The slightly damp grass was the norm at night, but she felt something underneath her hind leg that was considerably softer than any of the grass. Dryer, too, and smoother.

She backed up a few steps to look at whatever it was she had stepped on.

Even in the pale glimmer of the moonlight, the tiny obstruction glimmered.

Silver.

Sweetie Belle poked at the thing with her hoof. It moved together, though pieces of it shifted here and there, separate from the main chunk. The way it fell apart and bristled against her hoof, even through her costume, presented understanding immediately.

Fur. Silver fur.

Sweetie dug under the pile and raised it with her hoof. The moon caught it again, and it shone like a piece of polished silverware.

It was definitely a clue, and a promising one at that.

Sweetie eyed the snippet of hair more closely. The fact that it was here in the first place meant something had put it there, or caused it to be there otherwise. For all Sweetie knew, Silver Spoon had been on a walk this way before she fled town, and gotten her coat caught on something.

But there was nothing to catch on here. Just grass, and far-away houses.

Sweetie studied the fur even closer.

It wasn’t just a patch of fur—it was more like a clump. Sweetie could feel a firmness in it that suggested it wasn’t just gathered or swept up like somepony might after a day at the barber-shop; it was almost solid in parts. It reminded Sweetie of the few times she’d been coerced into helping groom her sister’s cat, Opalescence, and had come away with legs full of scratches and patches of hair that wasn’t her own coating her entire body.

Or clumps of fur, when Opal darted off with a brush in her coat.

A clump. Like it had been torn out.

Not by an obstruction. There was nothing there. It had been torn out by something else. A mouth maybe?

Or a talon.

Midnight Belle turned the clue over in her hoof a few more times, letting the soft silver light overhead illuminate it. That was it. Something in her gut told her she was on the right track now. A clump of fur from the dainty Miss Silver Spoon, heiress to her mother’s fortune and kidnapped in the dark of night. For some reason other than money? Maybe. But Midnight Belle’s hunch said different.

She’d thought about griffons as she mulled over the possibilities and particulars of the kidnappings. At first, things didn’t seem to add up. If griffons, why ponies? Why kidnapping? And why now, of all times? Midnight Belle was no history buff, but what she remembered said that griffons and ponies had been on good terms for ages—longer than she could remember. So why would a bunch of griffons decide to make their way into Ponvyille and start plucking up foals like it was nobody’s business?

Maybe if it wasn’t a bunch of griffons. Maybe if it was just one.

Griffons could be just as sour as ponies. The same way there could be one bad apple in an entire bunch of colts and fillies, it didn’t take a great leap of logic to figure there might be one bad griffon out there with an agenda. One bad griffon who had it out for foals, and wasn’t taking no for an answer. One griffon who’d had strong words and a stronger tussle with Silver Spoon when she’d put up a fight before he dragged her off to his secret hideout.

Midnight Belle tucked the silver fur under the neck of her costume for safe-keeping. She looked up towards the hills again.

On the edge of one, far away, she saw a flicker of light.

Sweetie Belle almost gasped out loud. Just the way Lyra had said, Sweetie could see a flash of something, like a torch or a candle or a tiny light-house, blinking occasionally at her from the hills. Like it was lighting something far away that she wasn’t meant to see.

What a clue this had turned out to be.

Sweetie mulled over the possibility in her head, of turning back and telling her sister what she had found. But that wasn’t a simple prospect—she’d have to explain sneaking out in the first place, as well as how she’d gotten the hint that she did—and if she knew her sister, even giving out information might get Lyra in trouble, and that was the last thing Sweetie wanted.

She was already out. She had a clue in hoof. And there was the conclusion to her investigation. She knew it, she just knew it.

Midnight Belle wouldn’t be the type to give up on the chase this close, she knew.

Sweetie swallowed loudly, grateful that she was the only one there to hear her hint at nervousness.

This crime wasn’t going to solve itself.

Sweetie tucked her chin towards her chest and steeled herself as she began to walk towards the hill.

As she stepped, another flash of something jumped out at her—off to the side this time. Not a light, like the one in the hills, but something caught by the moonlight the way her first clue had been. Leading her in the same direction, but just slightly off the path she was forming in her head. She stopped for a moment before walking over to it. If it was another patch of hair, she had no doubt she was on the right track.

But it wasn’t. Sweetie’s mouth narrowed as she poked at the thing and it crinkled back at her.

Just a piece of junk. A candy-wrapper.

Still. She had one clue already, and that was more than she needed. No need to scan the ground anymore.

With a glimmer of determination in her eyes, Midnight Belle scoffed and set focus once again to the inviting flicker of light in the distance.

She on target, make no mistake—and whether pony or griffon waiting for her, she knew there was no stopping until she had her conclusion.

As Sweetie Belle approached the hill, it occurred to her that the same light she was using to find her way was probably casting itself outward onto whatever was nearby as well.

The shape of the structure revealed itself as she came closer. It was almost like a shack, nestled snuggly on the side of the green earthy protrusion. Like somepony had taken some planks and structuring blueprints and a set of carpenter’s tools and made themselves a wobbly looking house.

It almost looked charming, in a rustic sort of way.

The windows were old glass, and the source of the flickering became apparent as they came into view.

A light behind them. An old candle, or lantern, blinking out into the night.

Sweetie froze as she pondered the logistics of her visibility.

Apart from the candle or lantern, the house looked dark. Even from a distance, Sweetie could tell there was black behind the windows, just the same as outside. Like somepony had left a lone candle-flame, to pretend that there was someone inside.

There was a front door with a round glass window on the top, about the size of a pony’s head.

No matter how inviting, Sweetie knew walking in the front door was probably a bad idea.

About fifty feet away, Sweetie began to veer off course and around the side. She started circling the house, examining it from every angle, trying to discern its origins or purpose. It was where her instinct had led her, and her instinct told her just the same that there was something else there for her; something presenting easier entry than a front door.

There. Around the back. Windows. Windows at the base of the house.

Midnight Belle cast a look to either side as she came upon the portals to the basement. Nopony made themselves seen in either direction, but Midnight Belle knew that might just mean there was someone else as familiar with the night as she was. Nevertheless, the crux of her investigation was at hoof, and there was no sense dallying at it. With one final look behind herself, Midnight Belle walked forward, slinking through the tall wispy grass of the hills, towards the house.

The basement windows were dark. But, as Midnight Belle pressed her nose to the glass, she could see a flicker of something around the corner. Maybe a candle downstairs as well.

Did that mean there was somepony waiting for her, or that somepony had left, with just a candle-flame behind to give the impression they were still there?

Sweetie Belle swallowed again. She became acutely aware of how loud her breathing was, and how sweaty her fur felt underneath her costume.

What if there was somepony downstairs waiting for her? Even if she’d stumbled upon the house of a would-be kidnapper, she didn’t feel equipped to confront them. Even worse, what if it was an ill-tempered griffon, and Sweetie’s prying spurred him to violence, turning a potential kidnapping into a murder?

Sweetie gulped again.

She was beginning to lose her conviction.

But, as she stood with her nose pressed against the basement class, a thought flickered through her mind like the dancing candle-flame that had guided her there.

Scootaloo. Applebloom.

If they were down there, their time might already been passing. What if the griffon or pony who had kidnapped them was planning to take them away someplace awful? What if he already had, and was lining up his next set of kidnappings, preparing to snatch another pair of unsuspecting ponies from town and ferry them off to parts unknown?

What if the kidnapper wasn’t just a kidnapper—what if he was torturing the ponies he had taken, and every second Sweetie Belle delayed was another second off her friend’s lives?

Now was not the time for hesitation. If the worst of the worst happened, Sweetie Belle knew she was a fast mover. If she had to, she could dart away, the same as she had that one day during her inopportune encounter with that questionable looking pony in the alley.

She couldn’t come all this way and not look. At least a peek inside, and then she could leave if what she saw needed somepony besides herself.

Sweetie belle pressed against the glass at the bottom. The metal catch inside gave way, apparently unfastened. It creaked quietly, and Sweetie held her breath.

The entrance to an evil-doer’s lair was always the most unassuming. Of course, they never wanted to be found out—but whether through hubris or evil ignorance, there was always a way inside they never accounted for. The simplest thing—an unlocked door or a broken window that said ‘enter here, crime dead ahead!’

Midnight Belle held back a smirk as she pushed the window further open. It stayed almost silent, due to the certainty of her movement. She felt like her instincts were taking over—at the zeroth hour, the only thing to do was to let her subconscious do the talking, and sort out the consequences later.

Bracing herself with her hind legs on the ground, Midnight Belle pushed forward into the glass and peeked into the basement. The light was dimmer than the night outside, which made seeing anything almost impossible. The only thing she could hope to make out was the dim glimmering of that candle in the corner—

Sweetie felt something on her hind legs. Maybe a sudden jitter of her muscles, maybe a faint breeze from the night, or maybe a shove from something she couldn’t see. But she felt it, and her whole body shook, costume and all, and her grip gave out. The weight of her body sent her tumbling forward, into the darkness of the basement.

The fall was longer than she expected. When the ground came up, she had a split second to make out the fact that it was solid stone before she met it head-first.

While she was used to landing from sometimes great-heights, head plus stone was not an equation she was familiar with.

Sweetie tasted something sour in her mouth, and stars flashed behind her eyes before the darkness took over, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

Chapter 8

Sweetie Belle came to feeling like her head was filled with cotton. She could taste something in her mouth that wasn’t her tongue, and it was bitter. She swished it around in her mouth, but didn’t succeed at spitting or swallowing. No matter what she thought, her body seemed in no hurry to respond.

Dark. It was dark. Even as her eyes managed to open, Sweetie could barely see in front of herself. She couldn’t see her hoof in front of her face because it was wedged underneath her chest. With considerable difficulty, she managed to pull, it out. She eyed her hoof as it came into view, luckily intact. As whole as it might have been, the rest of her didn’t feel nearly as put together.

The fabric of her costume was sticky against her fur. She wanted to take it off, but couldn’t find the energy to continue moving.

The sound of hoofsteps drew her attention. She had forgotten where she was for a moment. Right now, the revelation that she was not alone was not one she was happy with.

Sweetie’s heart stuck in her chest as she struggled to lift her head, dreading whatever might appear suddenly in front of her.

The sight that came through the dark couldn’t have been more different than what she expected.

“...Bonbon?” she asked. Her tongue felt like pulled taffy in her mouth, and it was a struggle not to slur her syllables as she spoke. Sure enough, there in front of her was Bonbon, candy-coloured mane and cream coat—and the same concerned smile Sweetie Belle was used to, with a head-tilt and eyes wide with motherly affection.

Bonbon nodded. “Are you alright, dear?” she asked.

Regardless of how she might be convinced to answer, Sweetie Belle did not feel alright. But Bonbon was here, and that was something. Wherever she was.

“I hit my head,” Sweetie belle said summarily. Her head hurt too much to say anything else.

“Oh, goodness. Does it hurt?” Bonbon walked closer and kneeled next to Sweetie, running a hoof through her hair sympathetically. Sweetie winced as Bonbon’s hoof touched her head. Her head was bare—somehow, her mask and hat had gone missing.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Oh, you poor thing. Here, let’s get you feeling better.”

From somewhere Sweetie couldn’t see, due mostly to the haze still clouding her vision, and not helped at all by the darkness of the room she was in, Bonbon conjured two things: a glass of water, and a small something with a blue wrapper. She set the glass of water on the floor for a moment, which Sweetie could just make out was stone, and unwrapped the something from its blue garnish. She held it towards Sweetie Belle—a plain, white candy.

Sweetie Belle managed to shake her head, though the jolts of protest her nerves gave back made her stop in short order.

“I don’t want candy right now,” she said. Her voice sounded far away, like she was several years younger by virtue of speaking.

Bonbon patted the back of her head.

“Shhh, I know dear, but it’ll make you feel better. Just open up, okay?”

Sweetie shook her head once more in protest, but Bonbon’s rubbing on the back of her neck and offering of the candy prompted her to open her mouth out of obligation. Her tongue felt thick as the tiny morsel landed on it. She couldn’t taste anything through the mouthful of whatever had pooled after her fall.

“Have some water to wash it down,” Bonbon said. She held up the glass of water, and Sweetie opened her mouth for it as well, more readily than she had for the candy. The cool liquid washed the candy off her tongue and to the back of her throat, where she swallowed it, along with several gulpfuls of water as Bonbon emptied the glass forward. Sweetie was grateful for the chance to clear the awful taste of tin from her mouth, and almost pouted in disappointment when the glass was empty.

“There,” Bonbon said, taking away the glass and standing up. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Sweetie Belle wanted to shake her head, but holding it upright for so long was tiring, so she lowered it back to the floor. The cold, stone floor.

“Now, you just wait here a moment, okay? Try to take slow, calm breaths.”

Bonbon vanished from Sweetie’s vision without another word. Before Sweetie could raise a hoof to ask her to stop, the creak of a door entered Sweetie’s left ear, followed by the shutting of the same door.

Sweetie tried to follow Bonbon’s advice, and breathe.

She also tried to remember where she was.

The last however long was a blur. She remembered it being dark, and before that, why she had put her costume on. But what had happened between then and wherever she was now? Bonbon was here, so it must be somewhere safe... but it was so dark, and cold, and Sweetie’s costume felt uncomfortable. She wanted it off, badly, but couldn’t muster up the strength to move. She wanted more water too.

Though her legs screamed at her in protest, Sweetie tried to stand. She managed to straighten all of her legs without difficulty, but one.

Her right hind leg, as she held it against the floor, jingled.

Something felt extra cold against her ankle.

Sweetie turned her head towards her back. The dark made anything of her costume even harder to make out, but the thing she felt above her hoof was easy to see, or as easy as anything could be.

A thick, metal chain, wrapped around her ankle.

Sweetie’s mouth fell open. She closed it again wordlessly.

Experimentally, she pulled at the chain. It held steady. She yanked at it again, harder.

The force of her tug against the chain’s resistance threw her off balance, and her legs gave out again. She fell back to the floor, and let out a pained ‘oof’ as the air escaped from her lungs. She took several long breaths, trying to do as Bonbon had said. To calm down.

But why had Bonbon left her with that chain around her leg...

The door creaked again. Sweetie could feel a draft against her face as it opened. She opened her eyes and lifted her head off the ground, trying to wish away the stars still in plain view.

A familiar bright green greeted her. Sweetie followed it up, along a set of legs and a torso until she reached a face.

Lyra’s face.

She could talk to Lyra. She needed to, before she left again. She needed to get this chain off, and her costume, and run home and tell Rarity about the clue she had found.

“Lyra,” she said. Her voice was too weak to yell, but she managed to pry herself off the ground again, still acutely aware of the chain around her back leg. “Please, you have to help. I hit my head when I fell, and somepony put this chain on me—”

“—before you woke up. I know. I saw you when you fell in through the window, silly.”

Lyra’s voice was as chipper and cheerful as it had ever been, but now it sounded different. Maybe it was the way it reverberated off the walls, or the way Lyra’s words were short and jumpy, but it felt off.

Sweetie noticed, though she hadn’t been able to see it through the stars in her eyes at first, that Lyra was wearing a mask. A plain one, black, that just covered her eyes.

“Lyra, please,” she said again. She still didn’t know where she was, or what Lyra and Bonbon were doing here, but surely one of them would help her. After all, they were the ones who had told her about... the house... in the first place...

Sweetie’s eyes fell suddenly.

She felt something welling up in her chest.

“That’s a cute costume,” Lyra said. Sweetie looked up at her and saw a smirk and playful eyes behind the small, simple mask.

Sweetie felt like she was still reeling from a blow she’d dealt herself.

Lyra had told her to come here. Lyra had known about the flickering light and the house on the hill. And now Lyra was here, and Sweetie was chained to floor of what must be the basement of that same house.

A soft rattling of metal interrupted Sweetie from her revery. She opened her eyes, which she hadn’t realized were half closed, and looked forward again. Her eyes had begun to adjust to the dim light of the room, so she could see to the far corner now, or at least what she assumed must be the other side of the room.

She could see metal bars. Cages.

Sweetie opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“So,” Lyra said. She walked closer to Sweetie Belle, ignoring the look of shattered hope threatening to cascade from the filly’s eyes. “What’s your superhero name?”

Sweetie didn’t speak. She stared intently at the far wall, trying to make out all the shapes in the nearby distance. She didn’t see any milling about or thrashing against bars. She saw shapes, but they were barely moving.

“Hey,” Lyra said. She stepped suddenly in front of Sweetie’s view, and smiled at her. “What’s your superhero name?” she asked again.

Sweetie sealed her mouth shut. Lyra stared with her head tilted to the side, smiling, but Sweetie Belle clammed up, and turned her head to the wall on her left.

“Hey,” Lyra said.

Sweetie didn’t budge.

And suddenly her head was moving on its own, or guided by an invisible something on either side that she couldn’t make out, and it turned her towards Lyra, fast, so fast Sweetie’s neck hurt and she thought she heard it creak as it threatened to snap.

Lyra’s face was inches from Sweetie’s. Their noses were almost touching.

“What—is your superhero name?” Lyra asked again. Her voice sounded pointed at every edge, sudden razor-sharp serrations emerging from spiky energy and enthusiasm.

Sweetie’s breath caught in her throat. She panicked, and the sensation of the things holding her head in place didn’t help.

She thought she saw Lyra’s grin grow even wider.

“Midnight Belle,” Sweetie said breathlessly, hating the name even as she spoke it, because it could only be embarrassing now.

She felt the pressure on her head release. She let her neck bend as her head fell to her chest.

“Cool,” Lyra said. She stepped back from Sweetie Belle and turned to the side, as if striking a pose.

Sweetie Belle took in a long breath and looked up. Lyra stood there in silhouette, grinning to no one as she held a hoof to her head, right about her eye-cover.

“Lyra, why... what are you doing here? Can you please undo my leg?”

Lyra didn’t move an inch. She held her grin and pose the same.

Sweetie’s eyes moved to the black band across Lyra’s eyes.

“Why... why are you wearing a mask?” she asked.

“Uh, duh.” Lyra spun on her hind legs towards Sweetie and rolled her eyes. “I’m your nemesis.”

Sweetie swallowed. Her throat felt dry.

Lyra rolled her eyes again with as much exasperation as she could manage.

“The Evil Doctor Hand?” she said, with a tone of voice that obnoxiously implied everyone had heard this name and should obviously remember it.

“...hand?” Sweetie asked.

Lyra nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Yep. I got it when my parents were brutally murdered by ancient humans. I took up the cause of their primal manipulation to crusade against Pony justice for the rest of my life.” Lyra’s face soured, and she stared at Sweetie, as though expecting some kind of response.

Sweetie’s legs felt shaky as Lyra stared.

After a few seconds, Lyra’s somewhat solemn deadpan broke into a smile.

“Naw, I’m just messin’ with you. I just think hands are neat.”

“Hands?” Sweetie repeated. Lyra nodded again.

“Yeah. You know, like humans had?”

Sweetie vaguely recalled the word, but she couldn’t remember its origins, given the present circumstance. She tugged softly again at the chain on her leg, but it didn’t give an inch.

“Humans were the coolest thing,” Lyra went on without waiting for an answer. “There aren’t any of them around anymore—I mean, some ponies say they are, but they’re either crazy, or me.” Lyra began to pace as she spoke, turning her head in different directions as though speaking to an invisible audience.

“They could stand upright all the time, and never needed to grow fur, and they fashioned tools and structures and conducted life, all with these things called hands. Pink squishy hooves that had different pointers on them called fingers, that they could bend and move and do whatever they wanted with.”

Sweetie Belle tried not to turn her head toward Lyra’s rambling, but she felt compelled. There was nothing else to occupy her attention but the cold, grey iron she couldn’t reach.

“The really cool t-thing about hands...” Lyra went on, slowing her pace a bit. Sweetie noticed the stutter. She couldn’t place it, but she thought she saw, in a blink of lamplight for a second, a flat trace of patted fur move along Lyra’s body, as though something were stroking her. She saw another small light in the basement—the glow of Lyra’s horn, green, like her fur.

“...is how verssssatile they are,” Lyra continued, slurring her ‘s’s considerably. Sweetie saw Lyra close her eyes when she spoke, and she let her mouth hang in an empty looking ‘O’ before managing to open her eyes and continue.

“You can... you can grab things with them,” Lyra said, and hissed as the last words passed her lips, sucking in air through her teeth. She closed her eyes again and shook slightly to either side. Her horn glowed even brighter, and Sweetie saw the traces of patted down fur move along Lyra’s body.

Sweetie watched Lyra spread her legs. She watched from behind, seeing Lyra’s backside suddenly stroked with invisible attention. She watched, because she couldn’t look away.

“And... and p-poke things with them...” Lyra went on. She began bucking her hips backwards in the air. Sweetie became vaguely aware that she should look elsewhere, or that what she was seeing was wrong—she felt it deep down, somewhere she couldn’t explain—but she couldn’t bear to stop, because Lyra was the only other pony in the room. If nothing else, Sweetie had to begin planning an escape.

Lyra snorted a rough breath through her nose and threw her weight backwards extra hard.

“Aaaaand... and you can... touch... what...whatever you w-want...” Lyra moaned, her body almost spasming as the invisible patches ran over her fur. Sweetie could see a trickle leaking from between Lyra’s legs, like she’d wet herself. But it didn’t smell like urine.

Lyra turned without warning. Her eyes were only barely open, but she turned to face Sweetie Belle, only a half a foot from her face, and still rocking her body back and forth, legs spread in the back.

Sweetie tried to look away, but a lock in her periphery kept her head forward.

Lyra noticed this. She opened her eyes to see Sweetie staring—as cagily as she could manage, but still staring.

Lyra bit her lower lip once, then opened her mouth with a guttural sounding ‘unh.’

“Spit,” she said after a few seconds.

“What?” It was an odd thing to ask, Sweetie thought, and she wasn’t sure she heard right. Somepony does not simply ask another pony to spit.

Lyra shook her head softly from side to side.

“Spit,” she said, still trying to sound understanding and impartial.

Sweetie couldn’t manage a head shake in return, but her eyes settled on going wide, watching the scene in front of her, a desperately thrashing Lyra, grinding onto nothing, asking her to—

Neck. Sweetie felt something on her neck, tight, too tight, and all of a sudden she could barely breath, and her head was yanked forward.

“Spit,” Lyra said. Commanded. Her voice bristled with unbalance.

Sweetie wanted to cry, but she also wanted the grip on her throat to go away, so she steeled up her saliva, including what felt a particularly big loogie, and spit.

Almost the whole of it hit Lyra right on the face. Some hit her in the chest, which seemed to be fine too.

“Ohhhh, ffff... uuunnnhhh...”

Lyra shook with a noise like a dying animal, guttural and low as her body quaked. Sweetie watched in horror at the thing she had caused, cursing her own spit and breath and mouth and brain—especially the part of her brain that had gotten her here in the first place.

“Hunh, hunh, hunh...” Lyra came down from her shaking with a series of dog-like grunts. Sweetie stared on as the trickle between Lyra’s legs intensified suddenly, then dissipated.

“Shiiiit.... fuck that was good.” Lyra untensed her muscles as her profanity was swallowed by the darkness of the room. She turned back to Sweetie Belle with a tiny shake in her step.

“So,” she said.

Sweetie Belle felt like she wanted to scream out everything in her chest.

“Normally I don’t play nice with ponies who break into my house. If you’re bad, you kinda deserve what’s coming to you,” Lyra said.

Sweetie flinched. She hadn’t expected there to be anything as simple as an apology, but having the option left open would have been better than being told ‘no’. Finally. So familiar. No.

“But,” Lyra went on, grinning her horrifying grin,” you’re not just anypony—you’re a superhero. Right, Midnight Belle?” Lyra grinned closer to Sweetie, close enough that protons fought and reconciled in the space between them.

Sweetie Belle wanted to be sick, but she held it in.

Lyra’s eyes burned brighter than the light of the lamp, and Sweetie felt them leering at her. She shook her head, squinting to try to blur away the darkness.

“Aw, c’mon. If you’re not a superhero, then you’re just a bad filly who wandered into my basement, and that would be even worse. I’d have to do bad things to you.”

The way Lyra’s voice was so cheerful and simple made ‘bad things’ sound more horrifying than they had any right to be. Sweetie shut her eyes and tried to wish herself away, back home, out the window, anywhere other than where she was.

She felt Lyra’s hoof on her chin, lifting her head up. She opened her eyes.

“I’ll ask again, kay? You are a superhero, right, Midnight Belle?”

Sweetie tasted tears on the back of her throat.

“...yes” she managed. She knew she wasn’t a superhero. But she was afraid to say anything different.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Lyra pulled her hoof from Sweetie’s face and turned her ear theatrically towards Sweetie Belle, placing a hoof to the side of her head for emphasis.

“Yes,” Sweetie said again after several seconds.

“Yes...?” Lyra goaded.

“Yes... Lyra?”

Lyra shook her head and gestured to her mask.

“‘Yes, Doctor Hand’,” she said in a voice like a schoolteacher giving instruction to one of her slower students.

“...yes, Doctor Hand.”

“Sweet! So now that we’re on the same page—”

Sweetie’s felt a tightness around her neck, suddenly, very tight, and then the breath squeezed from her lungs as her body was lifted off the ground by whatever was around her neck.

“—we can cut right to the chase. I figure I should torture you for information. Makes sense to you, right?”

Sweetie couldn’t speak. The thing around her neck, sight-unseen, was so tight. She managed a choked gurgle through her constricted windpipe. She kicked her legs in the air and thrashed in an attempt to free herself from the choking thing, but couldn’t even feel it budge.

“So, Midnight Belle, at last it is time...” Lyra put on a theatrical accent that sounded like an overblown stage villain of yesteryear, twirling a pointy moustache and cackling nefariously. “Will you tell me how you came to find my secret lair, or will I have to convince you further?”

Sweetie Belle coughed with the last trickle of air she had left. Her legs began to still as her muscles signalled their lack of oxygen, and her eyes fluttered as her brain began to do the same, begging her into unconsciousness.

Lyra placed a hoof to her chin, looking perplexed.

“Hmm,” she said. “Apparently Midnight Belle's famed resilience is well deserved. You sure you don’t want to talk the easy way?”

A final wheeze slept past Sweetie’s lips as she closed her eyes.

“Hmph.”

The grip around Sweetie’s neck vanished. With nothing to hold her, she fell to the floor, grateful only for the hard surface because there was no wind left in her to knock out. It took a few seconds for her brain to register she could breathe again, and then she did, sucking in air with a sound like an opening wind tunnel, clouded with coughing and wheezing and her body’s cries to move again.

Chapter 9

“Well played, Midnight Belle. You’ve forced me to resort to an even more diabolical tactic.”

Sweetie coughed and coughed. No matter how much she breathed, her body didn’t seem content. Her lungs ached like knives in her chest, and she gulped in a few more mouthfuls of air to attempt to satisfy them.

“What... what do you mean...” It was all she could manage before another coughing fit came, followed by panting to try and regain the air she had lost.

Lyra smiled at her.

“So quickly you forget, Midnight Belle—the neurotoxin should be working its way through your system by now. I’ll have my answers out of you in no time—or at least your compliance.”

Sweetie managed to pull herself up from the floor. Her legs shook in protest, but she managed to keep them straight enough to stay upright.

But her skin felt hot. Her fur was slick with freshly emerging sweat, not helped at all by the costume she was still wearing. A thought flickered across her mind to remove it, but it wasn’t the greatest of her concerns at the moment.

She felt extra wet somewhere in particular. She tried to cross her hind legs to blot out the moisture, thinking the reaction had been an involuntary lament of her situation—but it didn’t feel like that. It didn’t feel like the embarrassed soaking of her sheets that Rarity had been forced to clean up on her first sleepover.

When Sweetie’s thighs touched each other, they tingled.

Lyra’s grin went even wider as she watched Sweetie Belle avert her eyes and try to draw her body into a ball to hide her sudden agitation.

“Aha, I see you can feel it already.”

Sweetie turned her head back with a luster of uncomfortable fire in her eyes.

“What did you do? Why do I feel all...”

The same flame in her voice dwindled as she felt another, sharper tingle course through her body. It wasn’t a familiar sensation—in fact, it felt almost worrying. Sweetie could almost piece together different parts of what it meant—things she could compare it to—but overall, it felt wholly alien.

It made her skin feel hot. She could feel sweat against her costume.

Sweetie shook her head. Too much. This was all too much. She was in a basement playing some awful game she never should have played in the first place. She wanted to go home.

“Why are you doing this?” she wailed. She mustered up as much pleading in her voice as she could manage, and looked to Lyra with eyes brimming with tears.

Lyra smiled back at her unflinching.

“Come on, Midnight Belle. You’re not stupid. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Stop calling me that!” Sweetie yelled. She yanked fiercely at her chain, but it only rattled back at her in response, unyielding despite the force she brought with every tug.

Lyra giggled as Sweetie pulled at her restraint.

“Woah, hey, calm down. You don’t wanna hurt yourself there, do you?”

“Let me go!” Sweetie Belle lowered her body closer to the ground, coiling her legs like springs. Whether through time or desperation, her body pushed away the pain of her fall and replaced her misery with fury. Regardless of Lyra’s actions or intent, she was the pony holding Sweetie there now, and she was the pony that could let her go. Sweetie Belle didn't’ want to play anymore.

Lyra held a hoof to her chin, as though considering the offer.

“Hmmm... well gee, I never thought about that. So you’re saying I should just let you go? Can you tell me why that might be a good idea?”

“If you don’t let me go, I’ll get out myself, and tell everypony about what you’ve been doing! That it’s... that it’s you who’s been kidnapping ponies!”

It was, wasn’t it. It couldn’t be anypony else. Not after this.

Lyra grinned even wider. Her pupils narrowed, and Sweetie found a hidden strength inside herself to avoid flinching at the insane looking glare.

“Kidnapping ponies? Me? Why, whatever would make you say such a thing?”

“Because!” Sweetie shouted. “Because you... you told me to come to this stupid place, and you chained me up like this, and you’ve got... cages here, that probably... that have...”

“That are full up with foals like your friends Scootaloo and Applebloom?”

Sweetie didn’t respond in words. She growled, an angry, furious growl, and threw herself forward, yanking at her restraint like a ferocious dog. Her limbs ached, and her head still throbbed, and the heat of her skin remained in the back of her mind, but she lashed at Lyra like a rottweiler, snapping and throwing her hooves forward in an attempt to strike something.

But Lyra simply smiled, and stood just out of reach, not flinching a centimeter at Sweetie Belle’s aggression.

“Jeez, chill out. You’d think I did something to upset you.”

“Let me go right now, and Applebloom and Scootaloo and Silver Spoon and Twist and anypony else you kidnapped, and maybe I’ll give you a head-start before I tell everyone in town what you’ve been doing!”

Lyra rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, okay, that sounds great. I’ll just undo your chain and let you run off into the night so the whole town can storm out here and lynch me. Sounds like a great idea.”

Lyra stepped slightly forward, and Sweetie Belle glowered at her, hunched up like a dog ready to pounce. She stared at Lyra’s hoof as she extended it. A flicker of lamplight caught the green fur, and Lyra’s horn glowed with it.

For the first time, she saw what had been invisible moments ago. Just like the white-starfish things she’d seen Lyra with in town. Four fingers and a thumb stood out from Lyra’s hoof, and she held them against Sweetie’s cheek like a sympathetic hoof. They were cold.

Sweetie thrashed sideways and gnashed at the phantom appendage, but Lyra withdrew it before she could be caught, leaving only the cold air for Sweetie to lash towards.

Lyra’s grin didn’t move. Sweetie stared, and wished she could burn it right off Lyra’s face.

“Why?” she asked. She didn’t ask it the way she had before, with desperation and hurt. She asked it because after all this, she wanted to make sure that when she got out, she could tell everypony in town what she had found, and put an end to the kidnapper she’d hunted down. She tried to ignore another shiver going down her body, but only managed halfway. The second it went between her legs, Sweetie’s whole body shook. Her costume was damp against her fur, particularly between her legs. Sweetie grit her teeth and tried to pretend the dampness wasn’t there. She didn’t know what it meant, and she didn’t want to think about it.

“Is this the part where I tell you my whole evil plan, like the stupidest supervillain in the history of anything, ever?” Lyra tilted her head to the side, and Sweetie Belle glowered at her. “What kind of nemesis do you think I am?”

Sweetie Belle didn’t respond. Another tingle came, and she sucked in a short breath of air as a lightning tingle went between her legs.

“I guess I could tell you a little bit of what’s up. It’ll be more fun that way, at least.” Lyra began to walk sideways, and Sweetie followed her, until her gaze landed on the wall, which Lyra leaned against. Sweetie could see the glow of Lyra’s horn, and the ethereal tendrils she called ‘fingers’ propping her up against the stone.

“So,” Lyra said, “why do you think I’ve been kidnapping ponies? Foals specifically?”

“Because you’re terrible,” Sweetie responded. It wasn’t a well thought out response, but it was the first one that came to mind.

Lyra laughed. A short, punchy laugh, that sounded wholly unnatural. Like, instead of laughing, really and truly, she was saying ‘ha’, over and over again, blending them together just enough to make them a ‘laugh’.

“Good one,” Lyra said as her laughter calmed. “But, really... why do you think?”

Sweetie Belle thought. She tried to think over the uncomfortable feeling in her stomach and the itchy tingliness of her skin.

“Because... because you’re giving them away... to griffons?” Sweetie asked? She didn't’ want to let the anger vanish from her voice, but it did so out of necessity.

Lyra shook her head.

“Not even close. I could just tell you, I guess. It’s not like I’m worried about you letting anyone else know anyway.” Lyra picked herself up from the wall and walked to the opposite side of the basement, then began pacing back and forth. Sweetie’s eyes followed her, but shut for a few seconds as Sweetie felt a jolt of insistence between her legs again. She’d never felt anything there besides the urge to use the bathroom. This was new, and worrying.

“The reason,” Lyra went on, “that I’ve been kidnapping foals—in fact, even more specifically, why I’ve been kidnapping cute little fillies like your friends... is because they’re useful. They sell for a good price, more to the point.”

Sweetie Belle tried to glower, but another, stronger jolt robbed her of her conviction. She settled for an open mouthed soft glare.

“I mean, I guess you want to know more than that. Who’s buying fillies? What are they doing with them? How have I been getting them down here in the first place?” Lyra stopped pacing in front of Sweetie Belle, and leaned closer, head tilted down to the maximum length that Sweetie’s chain would allow her forward.

“Well, the secret to it is... cute little girls like you and your classmates sell like a hot damn because of how fucking sexy you are. There’s a great market for filly-age sex slaves, and I’ve been making a killing on it.”

Sweetie’s jaw dropped fully.

“If that candy’s hitting you around now, you probably have a pretty good idea of how I’ve been kidnapping them. Bonbon’s the best—there’s a lot you can do with candy that you wouldn’t expect, but she’s a natural at it.”

Sweetie’s mind flashed back to the grey pegasus colt she’d seen Lyra and Bonbon pry from the back of their cart.

“But... Rumble...”

“Pfft. You think she gives the candy to boys? Or to more than a couple ponies at a time? How stupid do you think we are? Only a few ponies at a time get the special stuff. It gets in their heads, makes ‘em listen to whatever we say. Then we just have to tell them to play sick and to walk on over halfway through the day, and they find their way into cages without a problem.”

Sweetie felt frozen in place. What was left of her bitter rage festered in her stomach. She didn’t move even as Lyra extended her hoof, fingers splayed out, and ran her pointing digit along Sweetie’s chin until she reached the tip.

“You’re too cute for that though. That’s why I’m glad you made it down here in that adorable little costume. That means you and me can have some fun.”

Sweetie’s brain reasserted itself through the haze of the strange feeling coursing through her. She tried to snap at Lyra’s digits again, but the fire in her wasn’t quite as bright. Lyra easily moved her hand away, and brought it back to Sweetie’s head, where she gave her a placating pat.

“We’re not gonna have any fun,” Sweetie said, trying to sound as confident as possible. “You’re gonna let me go right now or I’m gonna scream and yell until somepony hears, and they’ll come and get me, and then you’ll be in big trouble.”

“Well, okay. If you wanna scream your lungs out in a soundproof basement in the middle of nowhere, be my guest. But I think you’ll have a better time if you cooperate.”

Sweetie felt a chill run up her spine that didn’t feel like it was from the candy.

She really was far away. Out in the hills on the outskirts of town where nopony ever came. The candle flame in the doorway must surely be out by now.

What else could she do?

“Here’s the plan,” Lyra said, standing on her hind legs and walking to the center of the room. “You see the cages back there in the far left corner?”

The light from the lamp was barely enough for Sweetie to see her hoof in front of her face, but she strained forward to try to make out the shape in the nearby distance. As she stared, a green glow from Lyra’s horn shone into the corner, and for the first time, Sweetie could make out the shapes behind the metal bars.

A red bow, and an orange coat with spiky purple hair.

“Scootaloo! Applebloom!” Sweetie yelled as loud as her voice would let her. The shapes in the cage made no sign of recognition.

“Scoots! Applebloom!” she shouted again. She tugged at her chain as hard as she could manage, straining with her eyes closed to yank the fastening from the ground, but it didn’t move an inch, nor did her friends.

“They can’t hear you—or, more accurately, they can, but they probably don’t feel like listening. The candy doesn’t wear off that quick, and we’ve got plenty more where the first batch came from. If you’re willing to cooperate, however, I might be convinced to let them out.”

The chain rattled as it settled on the floor. Sweetie rubbed at her hind leg with one of her hooves, trying to massage away the pressure of the iron on her fur.

“So here’s the deal,” Lyra said. Lyra settled onto all fours and walked to the right wall of the basement, where she picked something up off the floor. The glow of her horn dissipated, and Sweetie Belle lost sight of the corner. She stared as Lyra took the something she had gathered off the floor and threw it forward. It landed in front of Sweetie with a clink, skidding across the stone until it settled against her hooves.

A watch.

“We’re gonna play for ten minutes. Ten minutes of good old fashioned superhero torture. If you can last the whole ten minutes without giving in—and you’ll know what that means—I’ll let you go no problem, and your friends too, and heck, why not your other classmates. And then all of you can run back to town, and tell everypony how awful I am, and come running back here and arrest me or whatever it is ponies in this town do with kidnappers, and everypony will celebrate the great hero Midnight Belle for her amazing feat of bravery and brilliance.”

Sweetie stared at the watch. She watched the tiny second hand tick around in a circle, passing by the numbers on the watch’s face.

“Does that sound like a plan to you?” Lyra asked. She stepped closer as she spoke, and Sweetie could see a green hoof just above the watch.

Sweetie raised her head.

“And what if I say no?” she said, her voice shaking more than she wanted it to.

Lyra shrugged.

“Well, then I’d probably have to kill you.”

Sweetie lowered her head again. She stared at the timepiece.

“...”

No sound passed but the ticking of the second hand on the watch.

Sweetie counted it for a while before she lifted her head again.

“...fine,” she said. She couldn’t tell if her voice sounded firm, or feeble.

Lyra didn’t seem to care either way. She beamed. Her eyes glimmered behind her simple mask.

“Great! Watch the minute hand, and we’ll start when it hits the top.”

Sweetie looked at the hand as it made its way upward. Inching closer, from the eleven to the twelve, with every second that passed marked by the constant, quiet ticking of the watch.

Three. Two. One. And the minute hand pointed upwards.

Chapter 10

Sweetie felt something on her back before she even managed to lift her head. Something familiar, but alien, pressed against her costume, and through that her fur. The tiny points that moved along her spine down to the base of her tail revealed themselves in her head—they were the ones she’d felt when Lyra had touched her cheek, her chin. Sweetie looked to the side, and found Lyra there, rubbing her back with an outstretched foreleg—with her hand.

“You’re really soft,” Lyra said. Sweetie glared at her.

But, as Lyra’s fingers hit the base of Sweetie’s tail, she felt a shiver go down her spine again. Her costume was still sticky. And she could feel the tingle of moisture from her fur even stronger now.

Lyra moved her hand further, running her fingers along Sweetie’s tail underneath her costume, then around until they came to rest on Sweetie’s backside. Sweetie jumped and tried to pull herself away, but the chain on her ankle kept her from moving forward. She tried to shift sideways, but a sudden force on her neck held her in place—another hand, clamped around the back of her neck like a vice.

Sweetie whimpered as Lyra’s hand moved over her bottom, rubbing against her fur through the thin material of her costume. She felt the tingle between her legs strengthen. While she desperately wanted to ignore it, it almost entranced her, because she had never felt anything like it before. It didn’t feel like she needed to go—not that kind of tingle between her legs. She didn’t want to think it, but in a way, it almost felt... good.

“Your butt’s really squishy too,” Lyra said. Sweetie cringed as Lyra’s fingers pressed into her rump, squeezing and kneading it like a ball of dough. Sweetie didn’t want to admit it, but Lyra’s fingers did move like they were softly pressing into a sponge or plyable mass. Again, she tried to move away, but Lyra’s other hand held her there. She couldn’t muster up the force to struggle against it.

“You’d think a superhero would be a little more in shape. Have you been pigging out instead of crimefighting?” Lyra asked with a smirk, squeezing extra hard on Sweetie’s butt.

“Cut it out...” Sweetie said, struggling to pull herself away, but coming up against the firm hold of Lyra’s hand on the back of her neck.

“Aw, c’mon. Don’t tell me the steadfast Midnight Belle is getting bothered already. Aren’t you gonna use your Midnight Ray to blast me into pieces and save the day?”

Sweetie squirmed as Lyra continued to knead her buttcheeks. She thrashed ineffectually, held by hand and chain, but couldn’t move, due in fair part to the foggy heat clouding her brain more by the second.

“I don’t... have a... Midnight Ray...” she grunted, trying to ignore Lyra’s fingers on her rump.

Lyra’s hand froze.

“You don’t? When did that happen? Well, more fun for me I guess...”

Sweetie gasped as Lyra’s hand moved lower, there, between her legs.

No. It couldn’t feel good.

But it did. Sweetie Belle’s legs shuddered as Lyra’s hand—her hand, the word still sounded terrible to her—as Lyra’s hand moved to the place Sweetie had never let anyone touch, that nopony was supposed to touch, on penalty of screaming and yelling and thrashing and unending protest. And yet, as Lyra touched, Sweetie couldn’t imagine why that was, because she’d never felt anything like this before. The jolt that ran through her body was warming, almost intoxicating, and something inside Sweetie’s head urged her to repeat it, again and again.

Instead, she settled for clenching her mouth shut, biting on the inside of her cheek to keep from saying anything. She couldn’t see Lyra’s face, and didn’t want to, so she closed her eyes.

“Oooh,” Lyra said, pressing with her hand into Sweetie’s special spot. Sweetie clenched her hind legs together, but Lyra’s hand remained. “Someone sure is wet,” Lyra said. “Is your new superpower making my basement floor messy with your pussy-juice?”

Sweetie had never heard it called that before. She didn’t know what it meant, or what it meant to be wet, but she knew Lyra was right. She was wet—soaking. Dripping. She could feel the moisture collecting from her special place, drenching her costume, probably dripping onto the floor underneath her, and down her legs as well. Sweetie didn’t know why, but the wetness didn’t feel wrong—not as wrong as if she’d truly wet herself, in any case. It felt sort of right—like the feeling that went along with it was worth having, and that Sweetie didn’t want it to go away. She had to remind herself where she was, and what she was doing, in order to pull herself together. She bit down extra hard on her cheek and tried to think about something else. About cages. About getting out. About getting her friends out.

“How many minutes is that?” Lyra asked conversationally from behind. Her fingers stroked idly against Sweetie’s wetness, and Sweetie cringed. She forced her eyes open and down to the watch.

“Tw-two,” she managed. Her voice shook like she was about to cry, but she couldn’t feel any tears.

“Psh. Only two? Plenty of time still. You hang in there. I still haven’t used half my arsenal of nefarious tricks yet”

Sweetie breathed out slowly in an attempt to slow the rapid beating of her heart in her chest. She could feel every tiny centimeter of sensation as Lyra’s fingers traced along the damp part of her costume—along the lips of her marehood—along somewhere nopony else had ever touched, and never should touch but why when Lyra was touching it did it feel like this did it feel good—

Lyra’s fingers curved, and Sweetie clenched as she felt them hook into the fabric of her costume. Her limbs stayed frozen as a soft tearing filled the darkness, accompanied by the constant ticking of the watch.

Sweetie looked down to it, hoping it had moved closer to her freedom.

Only three minutes. She bit down extra hard on her lip, and tasted tin.

“Ah!”

Sweetie shouted as she felt Lyra’s fingers worm their way inside the hole in her costume. Her whole body froze again. She couldn’t move a muscle. Lyra’s fingers were against her fur now, against her soft, wet, fur, prodding at the dripping hole between her legs, poking at her folds of skin and where she was so wet, and Sweetie’s lip was bleeding and why those fingers why did they feel so goooood—

“Aha, and at last Midnight Belle’s true weakness reveals itself.” Lyra paused the movement of her hand for a moment and grinned.

“It turns out she’s just a slut dying to get fingered,” Lyra said, and pressed down with her hand, her fingers, against Sweetie’s dripping entrance.

“Nnnnnh...” Sweetie tried to quell the cry burbling in her throat, and it came out as a low groan as Lyra’s fingers traced over her tiny slit, poking just the tips inside, but never more than that, dancing in featherlight traces over Sweetie’s unexplored pussy. Sweetie shivered with every stroke, tried to pull herself away, but at the same time felt rooted to the ground. She couldn’t feel the chain, couldn’t feel Lyra’s hand around her neck, couldn’t even feel the sticky grossness of her costume on her skin; just Lyra’s touch, there, there there there, and she didn’t want it to stop.

Sweetie opened her eyes. Four minutes.

“Hnnn...” she groaned as Lyra pushed a finger in a little bit further, maybe an inch or two. Sweetie had never had anything inside her before, but even now, just at the first touch, she wanted more shouldn’t want more she couldn’t.

“Having fun, Midnight Belle? Are you ready to beg for mercy at the cruel touch of Doctor Hand?”

Sweetie shook her head.

“S-stop,” she stammered, trying to convince herself she meant what she was saying. Her whole body shivered by the second, moving with each tick of the watch’s hand as she struggled to keep herself from giving in to Lyra’s ‘torture’.

“Are you calling uncle?” Lyra asked.

Sweetie shook her head again.

“You’re not very good at playing by the rules,” Lyra mused as she continued running her hand over Sweetie’s quivering slit. She traced one finger languidly all the way up, until it was beneath Sweetie’s stomach, just above her hole, right onto something—

“Ahhh! Wh-what... d-don’t...” Sweetie blabbered a protest, but it was swallowed by her muffled moaning, her mouth clenching shut to try to silence the noises she was making as Lyra rubbed at the tiny nub above Sweetie’s entrance.

The watch. Five minutes.

“This whole thing is a bit silly, really, when you think about it,” Lyra said. She stilled her fingers on Sweetie’s button. Though Sweetie couldn’t see with her eyes closed, Lyra grinned when she felt Sweetie’s body moving, rocking against Lyra’s hand, searching for more of whatever she had just felt.

“After all,” Lyra went on, cruelly withdrawing her hand from Sweetie’s clit. “You’re not really a superhero, are you?”

Sweetie shook her head. The giant purple hat she had worn had been long since discarded, lost in her fall. Her face was the only part of her not covered by her outfit.

“You’re just a bad filly who wandered into my basement.”

Sweetie nodded, arching her hips down to search for more of Lyra’s fingers, then pulling herself away just as suddenly, as though she’d remembered she wasn’t supposed to want more.

“A bad, trespassing little filly...”

Lyra’s hands shifted suddenly. The one on Sweetie’s neck pushed, and forced Sweetie to the ground, cold stone a burning contrast against the heat of her skin and leaking pussy. The other hand slid from between Sweetie’s legs and settled on her backside, squeezing softly against the pudgy cheek underneath. Sweetie groaned, and tried to pull herself away. Her chain shook in response.

“D-don’t,” she said. Lyra’s hand squeezed her butt, and she thrashed in an attempt to wriggle away. But her limbs stayed uncooperative, and kept her in place.

“Bad fillies normally get punished when they break the rules,” Lyra said simply. She drew her hand back.

Sweetie felt the slap on her butt, accompanied by the echo of it across the basement.

“Ah!” Sweetie cried out, unable to hold her voice back. The sting of Lyra’s palm against her tush, covered though it was, sent a spasm through her body, and her hips rocked of their own accord, pushing towards the floor in a desperate search for stimulation.

She’d been spanked before, once, and it had been awful. She’d cried, and been consoled afterwards, her father apologizing for such a brash response to something she had done. No part of her ever wanted to be spanked again.

But though Lyra’s hand stung, and she could feel her ass smarting from the force of the blow against her skin, Sweetie couldn’t say the spank had been bad. It had hurt, yes, but that was alright, because it had sent an electric jolt through the rest of her body, especially the part that Lyra had touched. It had been almost as good as Lyra’s hand there, and part of her wanted more.

But she couldn’t want more. She couldn’t want to be spanked.

“S-stop,” Sweetie muttered, wriggling herself on the floor in a feeble attempt to get away. She stayed solidly where she was, and Lyra’s hand rubbed at her tender backside where it had been struck moments ago. After a few caresses, Lyra’s fingers hooked into the fabric of Sweetie’s costume, and another rip sounded through the basement as she tore it apart there, exposing the soft, sweat-soaked white fur of Sweetie’s bum.

“Not until you’ve been punished properly,” Lyra said with an amused tone in her voice. She drew her hand back again, and held it in the air, letting Sweetie tense before she brought it back.

Smack.

Sweetie howled and thrashed atop the stone again. Her legs felt slick with the fluid leaking between them, and she wanted so badly to quiet herself, but she couldn’t. If Lyra’s touch had been one thing, this went even farther, like a lightning strike burning inside her, and she had to make sound, or she’d explode.

Smack. Sweetie cried again, halfway between arousal and pain, and unable to separate herself from either. Her sounds echoed off the walls, presumably reaching the cage in the far corner, where Applebloom and Scootaloo were watching.

Smack. Smack. Smack. Every one made Sweetie’s body writhe. Every one sent a shiver of desperate need and want through her. Every one was joined by an anguished, self-hating moan.

Lyra went to ten before she stopped and let her hand rest against Sweetie’s glowing red rump.

Sweetie’s body rose and fell as she breathed. She sucked in air heavily, long, desperate breaths, like she needed every second of them to stay conscious. With her hand on Sweetie’s butt, Lyra smiled.

“Do you think you learned your lesson?” Lyra asked.

Sweetie shook her head. Because she didn’t want to give in, or admit it, or because she wanted more, she didn’t know. But she shook her head.

“N... no,” she managed, slurring it through her mouth’s urge to clamp shut and hold her moans inside again.

Lyra clicked her tongue against her teeth disapprovingly.

“That’s a shame.”

Her horn glowed, and Sweetie felt a hand on the back of her neck again, picking her up like a frail kitten and standing her on her hind legs. Sweetie struggled to keep herself upright, her limbs shaking as she stood.

“You know what I did to the last bad filly I had who didn’t learn their lesson?” Lyra asked. She slid her hand from Sweetie’s aching butt, down, past her tail, and back between her legs. Her fingers probed at the whole in Sweetie’s costume again, and Sweetie moaned as they touched her tender lips.

“Noooooo...” she cooed, an answer and a half-hearted protest all in one. Her hooves scraped against the floor as she tried in vain to walk herself away, but Lyra’s hand on her neck pulled her back.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” Lyra said. She began to poke at the softness of Sweetie’s folds, and Sweetie let out a tiny, girlish moan, and began pushing herself back against Lyra’s hand in spite of herself. Her head felt dizzy, and hot. Her stomach felt like it was full up with something ready to burst. And she couldn’t help herself, no matter how hard she told herself to hold out.

“It happened the other day,” Lyra went on, poking at Sweetie’s slit as she spoke. “I was down here in my sex-basement—”

Sweetie moaned as Lyra’s thumb flicked against her clit, and her whole body shuddered.

“—getting the next batch of candy ready—”

Lyra brought a finger up to Sweetie’s love button and squeezed it between her two digits, prompting a depraved sounding coo from Sweetie Belle.

“—when a filly stumbled in through the window, just like you did.”

Lyra withdrew her fingers from Sweetie’s clit, and Sweetie’s hips followed as Lyra’s fingers pressed against Sweetie’s dripping, virginal slit.

“So I went over to her—”

Lyra pushed the tips of two fingers inside Sweetie’s pussy, two inches, and moved them back and forth.

“Mmmmmh....” Sweetie moaned through her closed mouth, hating herself for being so loud, but unable to keep silent.

“—and I put on my big gold, human-cock strap-on—”

“Mmmnh, mmmm...” Sweetie moaned repeatedly as Lyra’s fingers plunged in and out of her, a little bit more each time, fucking her in a way she’d never imagined she’d be fucked. She’d never imagined being fucked, but if she’d known it felt anything like this she would have thought of it day and night, she didn’t want to think of anything else—

“—and I lined up, right next to her cute, dripping slit—”

Lyra’s fingers stopped suddenly, three inches inside Sweetie Belle’s hole, touching against the wall of her cunt.

Sweetie froze as she felt Lyra’s fingers do the same.

And then suddenly, forward. All the way in.

“–and I fucked her.” Lyra’s voice, in Sweetie’s ear, so loud, whispering to her, her fingers, there, arched, curving against her walls, pressing down, hard, so hard, all the way in.

“Thirty seven times! Right in her tight little pussy, until she came so hard she couldn’t remember her own name.” Lyra hissed every word right into Sweetie’s ear, snaking her tongue over the words and licking at Sweetie’s ear as she did so. Her fingers curved pressing into something deep inside Sweetie’s pussy, something she never could have imagined, so good, she felt like she was going to die. Her fingers moved, and moved, and kept moving, over and over again, pressing there, that spot, pressing down, there, right there, there there there...

“Ahhhh! Ahhhhh!” Sweetie cried with each press, blurring syllables and sounds deliriously like a dying animal. She felt like she was crying, her face was wet, her fur was wet, her whole body was wet, but there, most of all, she felt like she was going to melt, if Lyra’s fingers didn’t stop, she didn’t want them to stop, couldn’t stop, needed them more harder more there harder please...

“You ready to give up?” Lyra asked playfully, pulling her mouth away from Sweetie’s ear. Sweetie arched her body against Lyra’s hand over and over again as it pressed, pushing into that spot, her spot, again and again and again.

“Yeeeesss,” Sweetie said, almost screamed, cried, she couldn’t just say it, because her voice couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop moaning, couldn’t stop crying, too much, she was going to die like this...

“So say it then. Ask me to end it. Ask me to make you cum. Beg for it.”

“Pleeeeaaaase!” Sweetie yelled. Her eyes were shut so tight, but tears were streaming out of them, her legs wanted to give out forever, but she needed it, needed Lyra to do whatever she was going to do to push her over, to let the bubble inside her burst, please...

Lyra smiled. She removed her other hand from Sweetie’s neck and made her way across Sweetie’s back, down her side, along her stomach, until she reached the whole in Sweetie’s costume. She gripped at it, and pulled, and tore it wider, wide enough that her other hand could find its way to the spot above Sweetie’s pussy, to that spot, that button, right, there.

Sweetie died. She felt like she had died, because nothing, no words, nothing could feel like that, her whole body was on fire, and Lyra’s fingers there and there and on that spot and this one and there was nothing she could do but freeze and unfold and something inside her chest burst and her mind went blank and only black behind her eyes and then everything.

Sweetie’s mouth opened finally. It opened and sounds came out that she could never describe. Her whole body clenched, then unclenched, and then clenched again, so hard she was sure she must be taking off Lyra’s fingers, but she clenched, so hard it felt like a blood-vessel in her brain was going to burst. The wetness between her stopped, and clenched inside her, and doubled, and tripled, and then suddenly like a hose had been unkinked, came out.

“Haaaaaaah!”

She came. She had no word for it but she came. She had never thought it, dreamed it, or imagined it, but she came. She came like internal fireworks, like loathsome, self-hating infinite regret, delicious miserable pleasure, with her stomach swelling with emotion and elation, and her pussy, that word for it, her pussy, spasming and shaking and then spraying, suddenly, like a hose pinched at the nozzle, spurting something onto the ground, wetting her costume, wetting Lyra’s hand, her leg, wetting her own legs and soaking everything around her like a tap had been turned on inside her, squirting and squirting and squirting as she came, she came, she came.

It went on forever. Sweetie’s eyes clenched so hard she thought she could see through them. She came. She bit her lip and tasted more blood, and sweat and through the air she thought she could taste herself. She came. Her legs shook and quivered and finally gave out and she fell to the floor, and brought Lyra’s hands with her, which had stopped, and still she went on. She came.

She stopped cumming. Suddenly, and all at once, the spray and the clenching and the body burning into nothingness stopped, and so did she.

The world reappeared, and Sweetie Belle remembered she had stopped breathing as she came. Lyra’s hands withdrew, and Sweetie’s mouth opened as the went.

Gasp. She gasped in a great mouthful of air, swallowed it, and gasped again.

Lyra grinned as Sweetie choked on the urgency of her own breathing. She breathed like she had been drowning in the sea of her own pleasure, and Lyra raised her hand to her mouth as she watched.

“You’re a squirter too, huh? That’s pretty hot. Your friends just kinda bucked and breathed heavy. You and me though, we know what’s up. Nothing better than cumming so hard you feel dehydrated for a week, am I right?”

Sweetie couldn’t respond. She couldn’t even understand the words coming from Lyra’s mouth. There was nothing outside but air, and she needed it, so much more of it, before she could be real again. Before her body would let her be whole, and think, and move.

Lyra didn’t say anything. She just watched, until at last the heaving of Sweetie’s chest began to subdue, and her breathing became more and more normal, or as normal as it could be through the haze of the tornado that had overtaken her from inside.

Chapter 11

The watch ticked beside Sweetie’s head. Lyra walked to it and picked it up, smiling at the hands as they continued to move.

She threw it back to the ground, where it settled with a clink.

Sweetie opened her eyes to the sound, and stared upwards. Lyra smiled at her.

After a few seconds, Lyra’s horn glowed. Sweetie heard a rattle of chain, and a sudden weight lifted from her hind leg.

“Well,” Lyra said, “you did it. That took me twelve minutes at least, though I kinda lost count near the end. That means you’re free to go.”

Lyra smiled down at Sweetie, who didn’t move an inch.

“Well?” Lyra asked. She gestured to Sweetie Belle, then towards the corner, where a light from her horn showed Scootaloo and Applebloom, both starting mindlessly forward with empty eyes.

“You won,” Lyra said. “Don’t you wanna go rescue your friends?”

In the ache of Sweetie’s chest, she couldn’t hear her heart anymore. Her mind was empty too. The cold stone of the floor and the heat of her skin and the dampness of her fur and the soft rub of the cotton costume against her body all blurred together.

She knew she should get up. She knew she should walk to her friends and take them out of their cage and bring them upstairs and rescue them just like she had planned.

She could feel the wash of her own liquids underneath her, collecting under her body like a pool.

She could still feel the touch. Hands. In. On. The explosion that they had drawn out.

She couldn’t think, but she knew what she wanted.

Sweetie shook her head. Lyra smiled at her.

“You don’t?” she asked, her inflection rising in mock surprise. “Well, if you don’t wanna go rescue your friends... what do you want?”

LIke a child desperate for their mother’s attention, Sweetie Belle feebly raised her left hoof and pawed at the air in Lyra’s direction.

“Aww. Aren’t you just adorable.”

Lyra’s horn glowed. From elsewhere in the basement, a clink of metal rattled against the stone, and the sound of something scraping came from the side until a chair made itself apparent in the dim lamplight. The metal revealed itself as something profane—a hewn phallus that Lyra floated towards her own pelvis. She stuck out her tongue between her teeth as she fastened it, locking it into place and giving herself an absurdly hard, human-looking cock between her legs, and two testicles underneath.

With a further glow of her horn, Lyra picked up Sweetie Belle from the floor. She took a seat on the chair that had made itself available, and sat Sweetie down on her lap, resting her on one leg. She smirked as Sweetie’s wetness trickled onto her fur.

Sweetie Belle mumbled something incoherent and began to rock herself on Lyra’s leg. Her face scrunched up, and her mumbling turned to sniffles and soft whimpers.

“Hey, hey... it’s okay,” Lyra cooed. She raised a hand to Sweetie’s face and used the back of her fingers to stroke the filly’s cheek. Sweetie Belle sniffled, but held back her tears. After a few seconds of Lyra’s whispered ‘shh’s, Sweetie settled her sadness—but a different wetness leaked from her, different even than the wetness that had come from between her legs till now.

It was warm against her legs, and it hissed as it trickled against Lyra’s leg and then onto the floor, leaving a yellow puddle on the stone.

“Aww, Sweetie, It’s okay.” Lyra continued stroking Sweetie’s cheek as she wet herself, the drip of her urine eventually subsiding as she finished emptying herself. Lyra didn’t even flinch as the last drops of yellow liquid ran down her leg and onto the ground.

“All better?” she asked. Sweetie Belle nodded. “I’m glad,” Lyra said.

“Now,” she started, running her hand down Sweetie’s cheek and over her neck until she reached the inside of Sweetie’s leg. “Do you wanna tell Lyra what it is you want?”

Sweetie shook her head. She had no words. But, she scrunched up her mouth and poked awkwardly at Lyra’s cock, shivering slightly as she touched the length of hard metal.

Lyra nodded sympathetically.

“I understand,” she said. “You just relax and let me do the work.”

Sweetie gasped as she felt Lyra’s hands on her sides, lifting her up, holding her in the air and then slowly lowering her down, until she felt the cool metal head of Lyra’s cock pressing against her.

It was thicker than her fingers, but Sweetie wasn’t worried. She tried to relax as Lyra slid her further down, down until the first inch, second, third, sixth, and then all the way in, and Sweetie could feel Lyra’s fur against her, through her costume and the big hole where the dick had slid inside.

“Mmmm...” Sweetie moaned and cooed like she was being fed, or petted, and Lyra did just that, stroking one hand along her head and through her hair as she shifted a bit, finding the right angle to thrust at.

“I can tell you’re really tight,” Lyra said. Sweetie nodded breathlessly, the whisper of her moan still on her lips.

Without another sound, Lyra put her hands on Sweetie’s sides again, sinking her fingers into Sweetie’s softy, slightly pudgy stomach through her costume, and lifted her up. And then back down. One thrust. Bottoming out inside Sweetie’s pussy, which clenched around the rod filling it up.

Sweetie gasped and leaned backwards, resting her head against Lyra’s chest. She stared up at Lyra’s face, into her eyes through Lyra’s black mask, and Lyra stared back at her, grinning as Sweetie squirmed on her cock.

Lyra leaned down and licked across Sweetie’s lips, and Sweetie parted them. She made little ‘nnh, nnh’ noises until Lyra complied with her unspoken request, and leaned in again, and kissed her. With spit and tongue and Sweetie moaning into Lyra’s mouth, and Lyra shoved her hips upwards and bumped the head of her dick against the inside of Sweetie’s hole, and Sweetie moaned even louder.

And Lyra began thrusting properly, bouncing Sweetie up and down on her dick, and slobbering into her mouth like she was hungry for more of Sweetie’s taste, and Sweetie let the spit dribble off her mouth, onto her chest where it soaked into the already sweat-covered fabric of her costume. Lyra bounced Sweetie up again, extra hard, and Sweetie broke the kiss and cried out, and turned her head, and stared into the corner of the room that she could make out now, and saw Applebloom and Scootaloo, there, in the darkness, watching her.

Lyra kept one hand on Sweetie’s stomach as she fucked her, and moved the other one to the hole in Sweetie’s costume, right below her stomach, and tore it open further. And Sweetie cooed like a happy pet, and arched her body against Lyra’s, and moved her hips upwards to meet the touch of Lyra’s fingers that she knew she wanted.

Lyra spread her fingers around Sweetie’s clit, and Sweetie Belle moaned and jostled herself from side to side, looking for the touch of Lyra’s magic hands against her nub. Lyra only waited a few seconds before bringing her fingers together.

“Ahhnnnnmmm...” Sweetie’s moan started loud and turned into a hum of enjoyment as Lyra rubbed her clit, swishing back in forth in circles and still thrusting upwards, ramming herself into Sweetie’s tight little cunt. Sweetie squirmed and squirmed, and let herself be filled up with the sensation of Lyra’s hard cock, cold, smooth steel, with a head just slightly bigger, bumping up inside her, against her womb, against the walls of her pussy, hitting that spot, that spot, that spot—

Sweetie didn’t have time for another warning. She came again, and like the first time, when she came, she squirted. A stream of clear liquid sprayed out from her her slit, arcing in the air like a miniature rainbow of girlcum. She didn’t moan as loud this time, and her sounds almost dwindled into whimpers as she came, and Lyra kept rubbing, and fucking her, until Sweetie’s pussy clenched its final clench and her orgasm subsided.

Lyra waited until Sweetie was done, and then picked her up, and stood, and moved forward until she was off the chair and threw Sweetie to the ground with her cock still inside her. Sweetie caught the floor with her forelegs, and then her hindlegs, and Lyra kneeled with her, and started fucking her from behind. She used her right hand to grab Sweetie’s hair, and pulled her back, and Sweetie let her, and her tongue hung out of her mouth as she did, lolling over her chin like a dog’s.

“Good girl,” Lyra said, and Sweetie nodded, and moaned with her mouth open, like a dirty desperate whore’s hole that Lyra was using.

Lyra fucked Sweetie from behind harder than she had fucked underneath her, the metal of her harness jangling with each thrust. Sweetie could feel the slap of Lyra’s cold steel against her ass where her costume was torn, could feel the relative coolness of the cock inside her as her walls wrapped around it and warmed it up. Sweetie could feel another orgasm building inside her, because it felt so good, more than anything in the world ever had or could, and she didn’t want it to stop no matter what. When Lyra thrust extra hard and pulled on her hair like that it hit somewhere and Sweetie came again.

She buried her face into the floor and came, and sprayed like she was pissing herself, all over the ground, wetting herself with her sex juice like a mare in heat, or dripping fluid like a naughty puppy that needed to be punished. Lyra smacked her across the ass as she came, and it sent an extra jolt through her body, and an extra spurt of liquid onto the ground, and Lyra grunted for the first time and buried herself all the way inside Sweetie’s pussy.

She held herself like that for a minute, grinding and grinding and swiveling her hips in circles, the base of her strap-on rubbing up against her body, against her clit. She held Sweetie like that, and moved a hand from her hair to her neck, and pulled her back that way, and choked her. Sweetie’s eyes rolled up into her head quickly, because she was already out of air, couldn’t breath, and Lyra’s hand was choking her into blackness dark and she never wanted to come because this was bliss this was heaven this was blackness dark ending and then—

“Ffffuck, cumming, damn you are a good fuck...” Lyra swore to herself with a gruffer voice than normal as she slammed her hips forward, ramming herself hard inside Sweetie’s cunt, the sound of her pelvis smacking Sweetie right in the ass as she came, jizzing girlcum against the base of her strap-on. Sweetie’s cute little moans turned to squeaks, then to breathless, barely their gurgles as the last of her oxygen left, and then threatened to slip her into unconsciousness, until Lyra let go.

She let go and pulled herself out in the same motion, and Sweetie Belle fell to the ground, not even gasping now, because she didn’t care about breathing anymore. She let the air come in as it pleased, trickling into her lungs like the fluid dripping down her leg. Lyra’s juices were mixing with her own along her hind legs, and the rest of her was coated in sweat, urine, slick, wet arousal. Whatever it was, she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything.

Lyra breathed a heavy sigh as her horn glowed and the clasps behind her ass undid. She floated the strap-on back to its resting place elsewhere in the basement. She did the same with the chair, the legs scraping along the ground as it found its way to the other end of the room. Lyra wiped a hoof across her forehead, swiping away the sweat that had collected from her vigorous fuck-fest.

“There,” she said.” Isn’t that more fun than getting all worked up about your friends going missing?”

Sweetie Belle didn’t answer, but Lyra saw her head move up and down, ever so slightly.

“I’ve got some stuff to do... gotta put some things in place in town, and probably make tracks in a day or two. One or two fillies missing is one thing, but this many is a pretty big deal. Never had anyone notice before, but I guess there comes a time for everything.” Lyra sighed and wiped a hoof across her head again. On the stone, Sweetie twitched slightly, her limbs wiggling like limp noodles.

“Bummer, too. I really liked this place.”

Sweetie burbled something incoherent in a voice too low to make out.

“Anyway. You stay here, and Bonbon’ll be down to look after you in a bit. Be good, okay?”

“Okay,” Sweetie said in a whisper.

Lyra smiled at her, then opened the door. She closed it with a creek, and a rush of air filled the room and washed over Sweetie’s body.

Tired. Sore. She knew she was all of those things, but they didn’t mean anything to her. She knew she was lying on the floor of a basement in a costume she had made, modeled after her sister’s design, for a pony who was supposed to be a hero.

And she was no hero. She had failed. Given up. Lost. She had stared her villain in the face and said ‘please’, and given up in that instant.

As Sweetie Belle lied on the cold stone floor, her eyes turned back to the corner. Metal bars went almost to the roof, and behind them, two familiar faces stared at her—or forward, perhaps into nothing. They were long gone, and Sweetie had come to save them. She was supposed to make everything better.

Sweetie closed her eyes and smiled, the image of orange and yellow faces burned into the backs of her eyes.

She had failed.

And she couldn’t be happier.

Chapter 2

The clock showed five minutes to spare as Sweetie Belle slipped into class. The desks were already mostly occupied by ponies who had shown up with a better measure of time, but Sweetie’s usual seat was still empty, along with the desks on either side. A nice little row of three near the back of the class, where she’d sat every day since the beginning of the school year.

Sweetie Belle hopped into her desk and pulled her textbook from inside. She laid it out on the desk and tried to invest herself in the words on the page. They blurred together in a haze of disinterest, despite her best efforts to read.

It wasn’t as though there was anything better to do before class, though.

The sound of last-minute hoofsteps before the impending bell drew Sweetie’s head up from her book. She turned to the classroom to see a familiar red bow and spiky splotch of purple hair bobbing towards her desk through the crowd. She waved at them excitedly as they came closer, and her wave was met with raised hooves from to the two ponies who took up seats next to her—Scootaloo to the left, Applebloom to the right.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle.” Applebloom scrounged for her own textbook as she took her seat.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle.” Scootaloo did the same on the other side, casting a relieved glance at the clock as she did so. Still a minute to spare.

“Hey guys.” Sweetie wished she and her friends had showed up earlier—now there was a whole first period of class to wait before recess, where they could actually talk. As nice as Cheerilee’s teaching was, it was still learning, and therefore ultimately less interesting than what the three girls wanted to do with their spare time: namely, cutie mark hunting.

The bell rang and the murmurs in the class rose to a peak before beginning to die down. Cheerilee was still nowhere to be seen, which meant a minute or two of extra time for everypony to get back in their seats. Sweetie’s three pony group, of course, took the opportunity for conversation.

“Are you guys both going to Bonbon’s after school?” Applebloom asked, picking up a pencil from her desk and setting it on top of her notebook. Sweetie stared blankly at her, while Scootaloo nodded.

“Bonbon’s?” Sweetie asked. She remembered her earlier conversation with Lyra... did that mean she’d invited everypony to come and help out around the kitchen?

Scootaloo nodded more excitedly. “Uh-huh. Bonbon’s making candy for every schoolpony in town. As kind of a... y’know. Like a cheer-up party for ponies who have kids who have gone... missing.” Scootaloo ambled over her explanation without particulars. Her voice sounded uneasy as it skirted around the subject of her avoidance.

Applebloom dipped her head to Scootaloo, then gestured conspiratorially with her hoof for the other two girls to come closer, which they did, until their heads were in a circle, held around by each others’ hooves.

“Did y’all hear anythin’ else about that? About ponies just... disappearin’?”

“Do you mean like Silver Spoon?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Uh-huh. And Twist too. Both of ‘em have disappeared.”

“Can you blame them?” Scootaloo chimed in. Both Sweetie Belle and Applebloom turned their heads to see what sudden callous insight Scootaloo might have to offer on the situation.

“Beg your pardon?” Applebloom said.

“Well, I mean, come on. Twist didn’t exactly have the nicest place to come home to, what with her mom being out of a job and all.”

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie said, quelling her voice below a proper yell.

“It’s true. And Silver Spoon... I mean, it’s not really a secret that her mom is the biggest bit—”

Scootaloo’s swear died mid-sentence as a kick from Sweetie Belle hit her right in the shins. She scrunched her face up, ready to shout, but Sweetie Belle’s pointed stare forward told her doing so would be unwise. Sure enough, as Scootaloo looked to the front of the class, Cheerilee was smiling at the trio, apparently willing to let the transgression of their tiny conversation go, provided they at least pretended to be ready for class, and to avoid the blatant swearing she’d almost caught wind of.

Scootaloo did exactly that. She crossed her forehooves on her desk and stared forward with a sickening sweetness on her face. Cheerilee spared her a smile, then turned back to blackboard where she was preparing her lesson.

Scootaloo held the pose and expression as she whispered sideways out of the corner of her mouth.

“Still... I do think it’s weird that both of them disappeared all of a sudden.”

Sweetie and Applebloom nodded.

“What do ya’ think happened to ‘em? They’ve been missing for almost two whole days now.”

Sweetie had no opinion to venture on the subject, but Scootaloo scanned the room with her eyes and risked a sideways turn of her head, after apparently figuring she was in the clear enough to look away from the lesson plan.

“I have a theory about that, y’know.”

Sweetie perked up a tad, though the particulars of Scootaloo’s ramblings weren’t always rooted in reality. Applebloom did the same, leaning to the side in her desk to get a better earful.

“I heard...” Scootaloo started, letting her friends crane their necks to hear better. “I heard that they’re getting... kidnapped.”

Applebloom gasped, but Sweetie Belle kept her composure restrained.

“Kidnapped? By who?” Applebloom asked.

“I dunno. No one does.,” Scootaloo said. “But, I have a feeling I know who it is.”

Applebloom leaned closer, her eyes wide. “Who do you think it is then?” she asked.

Sweetie Belle tried to avoid an eyeroll.

“I think...” Scootaloo started, lowering her voice further than was necessary in the already closed-up circle. “I think... it’s... griffons.”

“Why would griffons be kidnapping ponies?” Sweetie’s eyebrows turned downward and her face scrunched up like she’d smelled something unpleasant.

“I don’t know. They’re griffons.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Just... you know....”

“What?”

“They have talons.”

“So?”

The bitter back and forth found its natural conclusion as a set of louder-than-conversation hoofsteps came across the front of the classroom. All three Cutie Mark Crusaders looked up to see Miss Cheerilee smiling at them. They broke up their huddle without reproach, returning to their desks and looking forward with saccharine smiles.

Cheerilee turned her smile onto the whole of the class and waited a few seconds for the last trickles of conversation to fade away.

“Good morning, Class,” she said after satisfactory silence. “I hope everypony is doing well today?”

“Yes, Miss Cheerilee.” The class’s voices came together like an off-pitch chorus, and Cheerilee beamed at them.

“Wonderful. I’d like to draw everypony’s attention to the blackboard for a moment so we can begin discussing today’s subject.”

Like cats trained on a dangling string, the eyes of every filly and colt in the room moved as Cheerilee did, falling onto the blackboard with a single word written on it in faded chalk.

“Safety,” Cheerilee read, “is going to be the subject of today’s lesson.”

Cheerilee picked up a pointer from the tray beneath the blackboard. She held it in her mouth, squinting as though she was thinking. After a few second, she shook her head and put it down.

“I’m sure you’re all aware that in the past few days, several ponies have gone... missing.” Cheerilee trailed over the word the same way Scootaloo had done, nervous to communicate the full extent of what such an unassuming word might mean. “As a result, I feel—along with one or two other concerned citizens who are taking the recent disappearances quite seriously—that it’s important to have a discussion about safety: what’s safe and what isn’t, who we can talk to, and who we can’t. And, what to do if we see or hear anything that an adult pony should know about.”

Eyes began to gloss over immediately, but Cheerilee ignored them as she drew up her pointer properly this time and gestured with it to a point on the board.

“Now,” she said, “who can tell me one of the most important things...”

Cheerilee’s voice faded away into Sweetie’s ears as she looked forward. A quick replacement for her focus came in the form of a nudge in the side, and Sweetie turned to meet it, finding Applebloom shifting her eyes.

“So are yew comin’ to Bonbon’s after school?” Applebloom asked. Sweetie felt another poke and turned towards Scootaloo.

“Yeah, are you coming? There’s gonna be free candy!”

Sweetie thought on the subject for a moment. After school...

No. She’d been very clear to Rarity that she’d come straight home. Rarity sounded like one of the paranoid ponies that had forced Cheerilee into today’s lecture in the first place, and as a result of not wanting Sweetie out of her sight, had come up with a list of activities and chores she and Sweetie would do together after school.

Which meant no party at Bonbon’s, and no free candy.

Sweetie sighed, keeping herself quiet enough to not draw attention from Cheerilee, who was mid-lecture.

“I can’t,” she said, trying to ignore the mildly crestfallen looks on either friend’s face. “I promised Rarity I’d come right home after school and help her with... stuff.”

“Aw, come on! You can’t give up free candy for... doing stuff. Just tell Rarity you got stuck after school.” Scootaloo grinned as she played the devil, doing her best to tempt Sweetie into the after school shindig.

Sweetie shook her head again.

“I can’t,” she said. “Any other time, maybe, but Rarity’d be really mad.”

Scootaloo turned her head from side to side and groaned.

“Ugh. Fine. Applebloom and I will just have to eat enough of Bonbon’s candy to make up for you then,” she said.

A fourth face leaned in to join the conversation.

It wasn’t one that had ever sat at the small row of three, but it was always one that seemed to be nearby almost all of the time. It was a face with a pink coat and a silver mane with white highlights, and a prissy, fake-looking tiara on top.

“Haven’t you dummies been paying attention? You shouldn’t take candy from strangers.” Diamond Tiara whispered her admonition with a sense of smugness, making it clear at once that she’d been paying attention and was delighting in reminding the three slackers in the back of class of the fact.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.

“Bonbon’s not a stranger, dummy. She’s Bonbon. Everypony in town knows her.”

“Oh yeah? And how well do you know her?”

“I know her fine.” Applebloom chimed in with a noticeably less confrontational tone. “She comes by every other month ta’ get apples for makin’ candy apples.”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo added unnecessary punctuation to Applebloom’s rebuttal, which got an exasperated sigh behind her.

“Cut it out, Scoots. Anyway, she’s been in town forever. Always throws parties and gives out tons of great candy on Nightmare Night. Nothin’s ‘strange’ about Bonbon.”

Diamond Tiara glowered the trio. She opened her mouth a fraction as though she had a burning rejoinder on her tongue, but stopped after a second. Her face scrunched up like she’d been stung by something.

“Hmph.”

She turned her head curtly and looked back up at the blackboard, where Cheerilee was drawing a diagram of a questionable looking pony with the word ‘STRANGER’ overtop.

While Scootaloo beamed at her evident victory, Sweetie and Applebloom shared a look behind her back. They both let their eyes wander over to the seat beside Diamond Tiara, which was empty.

Sweetie Belle knew that there was no way what was now a simple discussion would have ended so concisely in the past, even if the Cutie Mark Crusaders were clearly in the right. Diamond Tiara wasn’t the kind to give up so fast.

Sweetie Belle lowered her voice to a whisper as she leaned closer to Applebloom.

“She doesn’t seem the same since Silver Spoon disappeared...”

Applebloom responded with a nod. Whether she was pondering her own response, or if she had more to say at all, remained a mystery—Applebloom’s eyes shifted to the front of the classroom, and the look of partial panic was an indicator enough for Sweetie Belle that she and her two friends were likely in the line of sight of Cheerilee’s teacher-glare. Sweetie snapped herself back to perfect upright posture and stared forward with an oblivious grin on her face.

Cheerilee smiled back at her, then returned to her lecture.

Silver Spoon’s wasn’t the only seat in class that was empty.

Somehow, Sweetie didn’t think griffons were the cause for worry.